Evergrace, Part II - Endgame
I knew I'd get back to it someday.
When I last brought up Evergrace three months ago, it was to talk about the pros and cons of female lead Sharline's character. Towards the end of the entry, I mentioned that whatever merits she initially had were overshadowed by developments late in the story. In Part II I'll elaborate on those developments, why they turned me against not only the character but the game itself...and the development afterwards that won me right back.
A quick word of warning before we begin: somehow, this wound up being my longest discussion post yet, even though I really had very little to say.
----
Okay, so. Like I said, my last Evergrace entry was about Sharline's character...or, specifically, the lack thereof. She's pretty much a blank slate, all things considered. But it wasn't all bad. Actually, it was kind of refreshing to play as a girl who wasn't cutesy or sexy or ODing on caffeine. In short, she was a female lead devoid of stereotypes, and that was good enough for me.
I should've known it wouldn't last.
At the end of Sharline's story, the villain Morpheus' tower is about to come tumbling down, suggesting you've won and he's lost (and you're both about to die in a fire, but whatever). As mentioned in Part I, however, you play as two leads in this game. Sharline's story is immediately followed by Darius', in which he goes looking for her. Midway through his story, you find Sharline alive and well - and standing, brainwashed, by Morpheus' side.
He escapes with her, and you don't see her again...until you rescue her from the top of Morpheus' tower.
It's bad enough that this makes no sense whatsoever. Yes, that is the same tower that was about to fall at the end of Sharline's story, and no, there isn't any reason given why. But what really affected me about this was that it ruined Sharline's only selling point. Immediately, she went from a fun-to-play-as, wonderfully-cliche-free female lead to just another Damsel In Distress.
I felt betrayed. I felt like the first six hours of the game were a lie, like the only thing it had going for it was gone. (This was an overreaction - the combat's not bad and the equipment system's top-notch - but that's how I felt at the time.) I was so disappointed, I honestly didn't even want to play the thing anymore. The only reason I went on was I had previously looked up a puzzle solution in an FAQ, so I knew I was less than an hour away from the end.
Once you rescue the Sharline and finish Darius' story, the two join forces to defeat Morpheus and his demonic backup once and for all. Unfortunately, Sienna, Sharline's DiD, doesn't survive the battle. (Incidentally, neither does Sienna's only son, who was first brainwashed by Morpheus and then possessed by the demon. Sucks to be them.) She uses the last of her strength (ugh) to teleport Sharline and Darius out of the tower, which really does fall this time. The ending cinema sees them tying two ribbons to a tree as a makeshift memorial, then walking off into the sunset to a somber tune.
Yes, Evergrace - a game that basically passes itself off as a cartoon - has a downer ending. That's not what I found amazing, though. Actually I didn't care for the ending much...at first. But something seemed off about it, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
I didn't realize what it was until the next day, when I prepared to close the book on the game. I went back through my old save files, revisiting the cutscenes to see if any of them merited bookmark saves. (Am I the only one who still keeps "bookmark saves", btw?) Once I'd confirmed that no, they didn't, I went back into my main file, saved my final equipment setup, and beat the game again, just to hear the credits theme one more time.
It was when Sharline tied the first ribbon to the tree that it hit me.
Everyone you meet in Evergrace dies.
Everyone. Every single person. Every sidekick, every villain, every stinking NPC. And I don't mean they're all wiped out in a single catastrophe, either; that happens in the game's backstory. We're talking individual meetings with individual characters who individually end up dead, or at the very least dying, by their final appearances. Not one of them is spared. They all die. Everyone.
Realizing this as the credits scrolled by was an experience I'll never repeat. The day before, I'd been thinking one of the game's characters was a lie; now I was questioning its entire world. Was it true? Was I forgetting anyone? Was it an accident, on the developers' part? Had they really given such an outwardly lighthearted game this dark undertone on purpose? What did it mean if they had? Hell, what did it mean if they hadn't?
I went online immediately, searching for answers. Of course, I didn't find any; you'd be surprised how little discourse there is about middling games from the turn of the century. Evergrace doesn't have a website, even. The only talk I could find about the story at all was mostly about how bad it was. Which is true, in a way...but, in another way, I'm not so sure.
Games are what you make of them. They don't have to be good to be good. They're all about finding experiences, having fun in your own way. Ever since the NES days, I've seemed to make a habit of getting entertainment out of games most people couldn't care less about. Caveman Games, Plok, Space Griffon VF9...and now, apparently, Evergrace, even though its best characters have no character and its story works because of a theme that may or may not be intentional.
Most people would probably agree that the best stories are the ones that make you think. (Possibly because that's such a vague and obvious sentiment, heh.) Evergrace made me think about what happened to its characters. It made me think about the NPCs, struggling to survive in a world that's clearly doomed. It made me think about the heroes, victorious but now stranded in that same dying land. It made me think about what I'd do in a situation like that...and, eventually, about life itself.
In the end, I never did come up with any conclusions about Evergrace. Which is part of why it took me so long to write about it again. There's just too much I don't know about the game, and I don't like to make blanket statements about authorial intent without all the facts. (So, what the hell am I doing in fandom? *grin*) For me, it's good enough that it raised the questions in the first place, and that I got some fun out of it along the way.
I'm not going to ask what you think about the game. Considering I'm not sure what I think about it four months later, that hardly seems fair. Rather, I want to know about some game experiences you've had. What are some games you've played that really made you think about their stories? Are the most powerful games always the complex ones, or have you found some simpler gems out there as well? Have you played any games with hidden themes like this one? How did you feel when you found them?
...and d'you know of any other games - or any stories at all! - where everybody dies, one by one? I've been wracking my brain and the closest thing I can think of is Hamlet. Perhaps I'm just not very well read...?
When I last brought up Evergrace three months ago, it was to talk about the pros and cons of female lead Sharline's character. Towards the end of the entry, I mentioned that whatever merits she initially had were overshadowed by developments late in the story. In Part II I'll elaborate on those developments, why they turned me against not only the character but the game itself...and the development afterwards that won me right back.
A quick word of warning before we begin: somehow, this wound up being my longest discussion post yet, even though I really had very little to say.
----
Okay, so. Like I said, my last Evergrace entry was about Sharline's character...or, specifically, the lack thereof. She's pretty much a blank slate, all things considered. But it wasn't all bad. Actually, it was kind of refreshing to play as a girl who wasn't cutesy or sexy or ODing on caffeine. In short, she was a female lead devoid of stereotypes, and that was good enough for me.
I should've known it wouldn't last.
At the end of Sharline's story, the villain Morpheus' tower is about to come tumbling down, suggesting you've won and he's lost (and you're both about to die in a fire, but whatever). As mentioned in Part I, however, you play as two leads in this game. Sharline's story is immediately followed by Darius', in which he goes looking for her. Midway through his story, you find Sharline alive and well - and standing, brainwashed, by Morpheus' side.
He escapes with her, and you don't see her again...until you rescue her from the top of Morpheus' tower.
It's bad enough that this makes no sense whatsoever. Yes, that is the same tower that was about to fall at the end of Sharline's story, and no, there isn't any reason given why. But what really affected me about this was that it ruined Sharline's only selling point. Immediately, she went from a fun-to-play-as, wonderfully-cliche-free female lead to just another Damsel In Distress.
I felt betrayed. I felt like the first six hours of the game were a lie, like the only thing it had going for it was gone. (This was an overreaction - the combat's not bad and the equipment system's top-notch - but that's how I felt at the time.) I was so disappointed, I honestly didn't even want to play the thing anymore. The only reason I went on was I had previously looked up a puzzle solution in an FAQ, so I knew I was less than an hour away from the end.
Once you rescue the Sharline and finish Darius' story, the two join forces to defeat Morpheus and his demonic backup once and for all. Unfortunately, Sienna, Sharline's DiD, doesn't survive the battle. (Incidentally, neither does Sienna's only son, who was first brainwashed by Morpheus and then possessed by the demon. Sucks to be them.) She uses the last of her strength (ugh) to teleport Sharline and Darius out of the tower, which really does fall this time. The ending cinema sees them tying two ribbons to a tree as a makeshift memorial, then walking off into the sunset to a somber tune.
Yes, Evergrace - a game that basically passes itself off as a cartoon - has a downer ending. That's not what I found amazing, though. Actually I didn't care for the ending much...at first. But something seemed off about it, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
I didn't realize what it was until the next day, when I prepared to close the book on the game. I went back through my old save files, revisiting the cutscenes to see if any of them merited bookmark saves. (Am I the only one who still keeps "bookmark saves", btw?) Once I'd confirmed that no, they didn't, I went back into my main file, saved my final equipment setup, and beat the game again, just to hear the credits theme one more time.
It was when Sharline tied the first ribbon to the tree that it hit me.
Everyone you meet in Evergrace dies.
Everyone. Every single person. Every sidekick, every villain, every stinking NPC. And I don't mean they're all wiped out in a single catastrophe, either; that happens in the game's backstory. We're talking individual meetings with individual characters who individually end up dead, or at the very least dying, by their final appearances. Not one of them is spared. They all die. Everyone.
Realizing this as the credits scrolled by was an experience I'll never repeat. The day before, I'd been thinking one of the game's characters was a lie; now I was questioning its entire world. Was it true? Was I forgetting anyone? Was it an accident, on the developers' part? Had they really given such an outwardly lighthearted game this dark undertone on purpose? What did it mean if they had? Hell, what did it mean if they hadn't?
I went online immediately, searching for answers. Of course, I didn't find any; you'd be surprised how little discourse there is about middling games from the turn of the century. Evergrace doesn't have a website, even. The only talk I could find about the story at all was mostly about how bad it was. Which is true, in a way...but, in another way, I'm not so sure.
Games are what you make of them. They don't have to be good to be good. They're all about finding experiences, having fun in your own way. Ever since the NES days, I've seemed to make a habit of getting entertainment out of games most people couldn't care less about. Caveman Games, Plok, Space Griffon VF9...and now, apparently, Evergrace, even though its best characters have no character and its story works because of a theme that may or may not be intentional.
Most people would probably agree that the best stories are the ones that make you think. (Possibly because that's such a vague and obvious sentiment, heh.) Evergrace made me think about what happened to its characters. It made me think about the NPCs, struggling to survive in a world that's clearly doomed. It made me think about the heroes, victorious but now stranded in that same dying land. It made me think about what I'd do in a situation like that...and, eventually, about life itself.
In the end, I never did come up with any conclusions about Evergrace. Which is part of why it took me so long to write about it again. There's just too much I don't know about the game, and I don't like to make blanket statements about authorial intent without all the facts. (So, what the hell am I doing in fandom? *grin*) For me, it's good enough that it raised the questions in the first place, and that I got some fun out of it along the way.
I'm not going to ask what you think about the game. Considering I'm not sure what I think about it four months later, that hardly seems fair. Rather, I want to know about some game experiences you've had. What are some games you've played that really made you think about their stories? Are the most powerful games always the complex ones, or have you found some simpler gems out there as well? Have you played any games with hidden themes like this one? How did you feel when you found them?
...and d'you know of any other games - or any stories at all! - where everybody dies, one by one? I've been wracking my brain and the closest thing I can think of is Hamlet. Perhaps I'm just not very well read...?