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Yep, this is the greatest Yuri moment I was talking about a couple updates before. Everyone I was playing with loved it.
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Nov 27, 2013 04:17
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I remember the first time I saw the scene. I was very surprised that Yuri killed Ragou, which is the first time in a JRPG that I had seen the protagonist just straight up murder a disgusting person you wish the heroes would kill. Probably my favorite scene in the game.
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Nov 27, 2013 04:26
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Zenostein posted:Y'know, Yuri's alright and all, but what's a guild made up of him, a pilfered princess, a dragon elf-lady and Karol even going to do? Like, even a clown's guild has a reasonable purpose. All the guilds that are named and featured in the story are specialized in some way (except Altosk it seems like, although it's possible their job is just running the city and the Union) but there are supposed to be a lot of smaller guilds and it seems reasonable to assume they're just general purpose that go on whatever kind of work they can find. I doubt Yuri or Karol have a specific goal in mind aside from helping people and making a living separate from the Empire.
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Nov 27, 2013 04:47
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ShadowFox1001 posted:I remember the first time I saw the scene. I was very surprised that Yuri killed Ragou, which is the first time in a JRPG that I had seen the protagonist just straight up murder a disgusting person you wish the heroes would kill. Probably my favorite scene in the game. It certainly isn't a common thing. The only other game I think of that something like this happens is in Suikoden V, but it's not the main playable character. It's pretty surprising that it happened in a cutscene.
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Nov 27, 2013 04:51
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I tried to mention it during the scene but it didn't come out right, just in case you're worried that cause he just fell into the water sort of vaguely means maybe he's alive, he's not. Yuri stone-cold sliced him up.
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Nov 27, 2013 05:36
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It's more of a gaping wound in the back, though due to trying to get a CERO B rating (bloody cuts is actually okay for T rated games) there's nothing coming from it.
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Nov 27, 2013 05:40
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It was so shocking to see that the people who make these games can, in fact, make a protagonist who isn't a blithering dumbass. And then they never did that again for some loving reason.
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Nov 27, 2013 05:57
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As nice as it is to have a protagonist loving murder a villain for once,I feel like Yuri comes of as kind of sociopath for the next couple hours of game. He seems even more laid back and happy than usual after murdering that dude and it's a little unsettling. Not saying that I don't like that though JRPG's need more protagonists that are quietly psychotic murderers.
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Nov 27, 2013 06:04
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This is the point where I really started liking Yuri. He isn't the happy-go-lucky or emo JRPG archetype who simply lets bad things happen because of animeland laws. How many times did you find yourself playing a game and wishing you could take out characters like nearly all the members of Shinra in FF7 who hide behind political power for instance? It's a very dark, but refreshing character trait when there's usually a kind of black and white morality in a lot of these kinds of games.
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Nov 27, 2013 06:22
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Huh, this really is the less depressing version of Nier, at least for now. It'd be pretty hard for any JRPG to match Nier's destruction of the typical anime protagonist but still, credit where credit is due. That's a pretty ballsy direction to take any protagonist, much less one in a JRPG.
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Nov 27, 2013 07:15
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Yuri cutting through red tape in a most direct way is a breath of fresh air, but the fact that he: 1) never even tries to have Estelle do something about Ragou, even though she should be higher up in the hierarchy than him (it'd probably not work, but it couldn't hurt to ask) 2) interrupted Estelle asking an important question about one bit of information that the Phoenix Dragon left (what did he mean by "insipid poison")even though Duke is an established Enigmatic Character and would not exchange more than a couple of sentences during one meeting - again, it could not work, but what's the harm in letting her ask that makes him not look like a very wise person, but more like a frustrated one, with a streak of him having to be the Person Who Actually Does Things And Does Not Ask For Help. Still a cool scene, though.
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Nov 27, 2013 09:13
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Szurumbur posted:1) never even tries to have Estelle do something about Ragou, even though she should be higher up in the hierarchy than him (it'd probably not work, but it couldn't hurt to ask) Assuming this is supposed to be (loosely) based on the historical Japanese government, the Emperor and imperial family has basically no power compared to the other forces in the government. So Yuri probably knows that Estelle could do jack and poo poo about the council because that's just common knowledge. On the other hand, asking Estelle to help basically creates another hole in his alibi when Ragou goes missing.
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Nov 27, 2013 09:37
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Szurumbur posted:Yuri cutting through red tape in a most direct way is a breath of fresh air, but the fact that he: If the Imperial Knights couldn't prosecute him, what hopes would a princess who isn't even in a position of power hope to do it? If she was, he would of been screwed when he claimed that it wasn't him at his mansion feeding citizens to monsters. She can't do jack, especially when it's the council who is backing her. And I think it's more like he's trying to protect Estelle by veering the conversation away from the reason why the monster was there, especially when they barely know anything about Duke. Roobanguy fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 09:37
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I don't think Estelle has much power, despite being a princess. The council seems to have immense amounts of control. They listed off a bunch of awful things Ragou was now publicly known to have done and he was still able to get out of it. The problem is the kingdom has a pretty baffling system in place and there's no current ruler who might be able to override such abuses of power. That said, Yuri's actions, while pretty interesting, come out of frustration and desperation. It has a lot of ethical baggage. Ragou was scum, but who is Yuri to decide who lives and dies? Flynn is trying his hardest to work his way up the system so he can rightfully punish people who do bad things and Yuri just does it anyway. He thinks the system doesn't work and as of now he seems to be right, but going down that path is potentially very chaotic. It's reasonable to want to side with Yuri but I don't think we're supposed to believe he's a hero.
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Nov 27, 2013 09:41
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LeafyOrb posted:As nice as it is to have a protagonist loving murder a villain for once,I feel like Yuri comes of as kind of sociopath for the next couple hours of game. He seems even more laid back and happy than usual after murdering that dude and it's a little unsettling. Not saying that I don't like that though JRPG's need more protagonists that are quietly psychotic murderers. Don't mean anything rude by this, but are you sure you mean sociopath? Are you saying that Yuri only killed that guy because it would make him feel better or otherwise benefit him on a personal level? Probably want to wait for more updates to talk too much about that point if that's the case (hero complex, etc.), but I do disagree and have to wonder if you aren't just associating 'murder' with 'sociopath' for some reason. The guy he killed was, you know, feeding his citizens to his pets (highly illegal, that). And laughing about it. And gloating about how he didn't get punished for it. Yuri likely feels happier knowing that, thanks to him, Ragou's citizens are no longer glorified animal feed. Either that or the happiness is a mask to hide his guilt, if he feels any. We'll have to wait and see. Adus posted:Ragou was scum, but who is Yuri to decide who lives and dies? You could argue that Yuri's judgement here is more or less in-line with how the legal system would have went down if Ragou were actually found guilty of the crimes Yuri knows that he is guilty of (see: using his own citizens as animal feed while yukking it up, aka murder). Still, if the penalty for murder is death, Yuri is legally no less guilty than Ragou. The last part of your statement is still completely right though, from a legal standpoint, but from a moral standpoint I don't think Yuri sees himself as above the law so much as an instrument of the law as it should operate absent corruption. Or at least we have no reason to think he sees himself as above the law yet, which is probably what makes it easier for people to see his actions as right and him as a hero--he just did what should have legally occurred anyway.
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Nov 27, 2013 10:51
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Yuri doesn't seem that cheerful to me, seemed like he was moping a bit the morning after. Anyways, on the topic, here's an article on the genetic and psychological similarities and differences between psychopaths and heroes: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/03/31/walking-the-line-between-good-and-evil-the-common-thread-of-heroes-and-villains/ Scientific American article posted:Sociopath: Readingaccount fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 12:38
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LeafyOrb posted:As nice as it is to have a protagonist loving murder a villain for once,I feel like Yuri comes of as kind of sociopath for the next couple hours of game. He seems even more laid back and happy than usual after murdering that dude and it's a little unsettling. Not saying that I don't like that though JRPG's need more protagonists that are quietly psychotic murderers. I think you're being a bit unfair to Yuri. In the last 30 episodes Yuri and co. has killed dozens of human npcs with no regret or hesitation, and then many times immediately segued into cheerful/wacky skits, and no one called him a sociopath then. But now that he goes and murders the person arguably most deserving of death, he’s a sociopath? When the bridge cutscene happened, I was happy not so much that Ragu was killed, but more that a JRPG finally address the "protag is a murder machine but has morals!" cognitive dissidence that so many games have. If this was any other JRPG Yuri would have made some dumb speech about Ragu turning himself in because he had blood on his hands blah blah. Then they would have fought, Yuri would have won, but Ragu would have gotten away by some trickery/Deus Ex Machina and Yuri would have been all "boo hoo did I do the right thing?". Instead he straight up murders him then goes to the inn to sleep it off (aka not giving a gently caress), thus keeping in character with how hes portrayed the previous 15 hours.
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Nov 27, 2013 15:44
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Like I said, Estelle's involvement might have not changed much, if at all, but simply asking for a possibility of her help before killing a dude in cold blood would not be amiss. I don't really read too much into the scene or the plot, but since it clearly is Important, some mild pondering can be fun. Yuri interrupting Estelle might have been out of concern to her or it might have been flippancy, but the piece of Information also is Important, and he directly sabotaged her efforts to obtain it. Oh well, it's still a JRPG after all. That being said, Yuri and the party had already killed dozens of people during their past adventures, they have probably gotten used to it. Szurumbur fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 16:03
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I think we're supposed to imagine all those bandits and Blood Alliance members the party defeated were merely beaten into submission/unconsciousness and not actually killed, but these games are never very clear on that.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:08
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Abyss is a exception on this actually. Every time you've fought a human enemy, luke will complain about it during the after battle scene.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:24
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WhiffleballDude posted:I think we're supposed to imagine all those bandits and Blood Alliance members the party defeated were merely beaten into submission/unconsciousness and not actually killed, but these games are never very clear on that. I think it's more that they kill everybody they defeat, it's just that since both sides were trying to do it they can just brush it off.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:27
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WhiffleballDude posted:I think we're supposed to imagine all those bandits and Blood Alliance members the party defeated were merely beaten into submission/unconsciousness and not actually killed, but these games are never very clear on that. They were probably sent to the shadow realm 
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Nov 27, 2013 16:29
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Kuvo posted:I think you're being a bit unfair to Yuri. In the last 30 episodes Yuri and co. has killed dozens of human npcs with no regret or hesitation, and then many times immediately segued into cheerful/wacky skits, and no one called him a sociopath then. But now that he goes and murders the person arguably most deserving of death, he’s a sociopath? Most of those random 'human' monsters where also cursed with Fire Emblem syndrome. None of them really had a face of any kind. But as soon as you kill someone with a name and face and power then it's all 'whoa hold on there, maybe have a little chat with the powerless princess and maybe that dude who looks like he could be Flynn's brother before going all Punisher!' Not to mention all the people with names have to go into this whole big spiel after you beat them. On the other hand I can't say I'm surprised he's so calm about all this. I mean after killing the guy and making sure there's no more kids being thrown into monster dungeons I'd imagine that'd cheer you up a bit.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:50
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WhiffleballDude posted:I think we're supposed to imagine all those bandits and Blood Alliance members the party defeated were merely beaten into submission/unconsciousness and not actually killed, but these games are never very clear on that. Considering what happened here I'm pretty sure they're all dead. That cutscene basically confirms that yes; Yuri is a murder machine. He can and has slaughtered his way through hundreds of enemies, many of them human and all of them deserving it. It is important to remember that the game is set is pseudo-medieval times and human life just wasn't worth as much back then as it is now; the same assumption probably applies to the game. Straight up murdering someone for no reason is ovbiously no go, but death is probably considered a perfectly acceptible punishment for extreme transgressions.
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Nov 27, 2013 19:05
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Games have always had that issue of throwing nameless human enemies at you and pretending you're not some sort of mass murderer after you slice them with swords and set them ablaze with fireballs. You can argue that yeah, maybe you're not killing them but they also went out of their way to include a skit where Estelle mourns over all the monsters they're killing. I guess there is the fact that the nameless bandits are also attacking you and you could reason your party is acting in self defense but you're still killing a load of people. You sometimes just sort of have to accept the plot as being told from a point of view where you have yet to kill any human beings. I'm not entirely sure which way the game wants you to look at it. If you want to look at as you've killed a hundred people already then yeah it does make sense that Yuri killed a guy and doesn't really give a poo poo and it is refreshing they address it in such a way. Decus posted:You could argue that Yuri's judgement here is more or less in-line with how the legal system would have went down if Ragou were actually found guilty of the crimes Yuri knows that he is guilty of (see: using his own citizens as animal feed while yukking it up, aka murder). Still, if the penalty for murder is death, Yuri is legally no less guilty than Ragou. Yeah but he's still acting outside of the system which is the problem. If you were to witness someone commit a crime, regardless of how sure you are of what the culprit's punishment might be, it's not really your place to exact it onto them. If you saw someone steal a car you'd call the cops. Yuri's irritation justifiably comes from a scenario where said cops are powerless or corrupt. Still, even if he is "right" he's opening a pretty big can of worms by taking matters into his own hands that could eventually lead to some pretty grey areas about what is right and wrong. A little later in the story we'll see how this causes some more complicated issues to arise.
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Nov 27, 2013 19:48
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Of course; and how Yuri addresses those grey areas will determine if he is a Hero or a Villain. Grey areas and how characters navigate them are the meat of any good story; a world of black and white is boring, a world of grey is where the possibilities lie.
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Nov 27, 2013 19:51
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If laws are mostly unfair, people may as well vigilante. (If a better justice system comes along, people should stop vigilanteing.) Yuri's actions are satisfying here because the system sucks and nothing better exists. Nothing is more annoying than a wishy-washy hero who won't *do* anything when no one else will either. Clearly he's not temperamentally suited for changing the system from the inside, so his next best option is to hack some motherfuckers up.
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Nov 27, 2013 20:05
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Camel Pimp posted:It was so shocking to see that the people who make these games can, in fact, make a protagonist who isn't a blithering dumbass. Hey now, Asbel (Graces) may be a dumbass, but Jude and Milla (Xillia) are pretty smart and competent. They're naïve and overzealous, respectively, but still.
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Nov 27, 2013 20:10
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Schubalts posted:Hey now, Asbel (Graces) may be a dumbass, but Jude and Milla (Xillia) are pretty smart and competent. They're naïve and overzealous, respectively, but still. Frankly, they trust Alvin long enough for me to justify the dumbass label, but in all fairness they're otherwise not that dumb. In any case, when I played this I knew Yuri sliced up a dude, but I didn't know the specifics. Honestly, I was a little surprised it took as long as it did. Kinda dulled the impact. Camel Pimp fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 20:14
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Neruz posted:Considering what happened here I'm pretty sure they're all dead. Wouldn't the fact that it's such a big deal that he just killed a man mean the exact opposite though? I'm sure it can be argued that Ragou being such an important high ranking individual within the Empire means taking his life is a serious offense and all those random bandits living outside the Empire or guilds just don't matter, but I still don't think the game would go so far as to give you two titles for killing a guy if you'd already been murdering random jerks on the road. I'd say the Don might take offense to guild members getting killed but it was all the Blood Alliance and he wasn't exactly on the greatest of terms with Barbos even before Yuri and the gang showed up so that could be evidence for either side. Adus posted:Games have always had that issue of throwing nameless human enemies at you and pretending you're not some sort of mass murderer after you slice them with swords and set them ablaze with fireballs. I don't know what exactly it proves but animation-wise, most human enemies they don't instantly explode into particle effects like monsters when defeated, they just fall over and disappear after a few seconds. It may signify death but it also might be a way to show that they're not meeting the same fate as the monsters that you are very clearly killing. The fact that it's so ambiguous leads me to believe the designers either didn't think it mattered or assumed the player wouldn't care enough to look too deep into it. Or, considering it's Bamco, it's very possible they just didn't think it through very well. This is still a Tales game after all.
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Nov 27, 2013 20:23
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Camel Pimp posted:Frankly, they trust Alvin long enough for me to justify the dumbass label Milla had him pegged from rather early on, actually, if you do a playthrough from her perspective and I'm remembering correctly.
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Nov 27, 2013 20:28
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Perhaps calling Yuri a psychopath was too much of a hyperbole on my part. That said I don't think it's particularly healthy to kill a dude with no remorse like that especially considering that as far as JRPG antagonists go Ragou is pretty low stakes. Mostly I just find it odd that Yuri can turn antihero/vigilante at the drop of a hat then go straight back to being carefree Yuri immediately afterward. This whole thing adds a lot of depth to Yuri as a character and I really enjoy it, Yuri's the best.
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Nov 27, 2013 20:50
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Maybe they're killing human-shaped monsters.
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Nov 27, 2013 21:03
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Adus posted:You can argue that yeah, maybe you're not killing them but they also went out of their way to include a skit where Estelle mourns over all the monsters they're killing. I guess there is the fact that the nameless bandits are also attacking you and you could reason your party is acting in self defense but you're still killing a load of people. Not all the fights are self defense. Pretty sure at least half those human npcs were rent-a-cops minding their own business in a wack rear end gear tower. As for the "monsters" (most of which seem to be naturally occurring animals?), are we to assume that what Karol said (MONSTERS = EVIL) is true? Can a creature not capable of sapience act with malic? I'm pretty sure most of the fights can be summed up as either animals trying to get a meal or defending their territory, neither of which would work for the self defense argument.
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Nov 27, 2013 21:12
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The only things that point to the human NPCs not being killed is that they have a different animation when defeated (falling over instead of vaporizing) and the fact that none of the human bosses we've defeated have died directly from battle (yet?). Actually I think the only boss we've killed period was Gattuso. Which is good because gently caress that guy.Kuvo posted:As for the "monsters" (most of which seem to be naturally occurring animals?), are we to assume that what Karol said (MONSTERS = EVIL) is true? Can a creature not capable of sapience act with malic? I'm pretty sure most of the fights can be summed up as either animals trying to get a meal or defending their territory, neither of which would work for the self defense argument. Maybe they're hungry and humans taste like
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Nov 27, 2013 21:19
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Kuvo posted:As for the "monsters" (most of which seem to be naturally occurring animals?), are we to assume that what Karol said (MONSTERS = EVIL) is true? Can a creature not capable of sapience act with malic? I'm pretty sure most of the fights can be summed up as either animals trying to get a meal or defending their territory, neither of which would work for the self defense argument. The uniharse that Ragou was telling people to hunt seemed completely peaceful when it wasn't getting attacked by random villagers, too, and ran off when it saw that the party wasn't going to kill it.
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Nov 27, 2013 21:55
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WhiffleballDude posted:Wouldn't the fact that it's such a big deal that he just killed a man mean the exact opposite though? I'm sure it can be argued that Ragou being such an important high ranking individual within the Empire means taking his life is a serious offense and all those random bandits living outside the Empire or guilds just don't matter, but I still don't think the game would go so far as to give you two titles for killing a guy if you'd already been murdering random jerks on the road. The impression I got from the cutscene was that Yuri has totally been killing people this whole time thanks to the casual manner in which he just offed Ragou; I saw all the outcry as being because Ragou was an extremely powerful government official and killing him is going to instantly put Yuri on the radar of all his peers and puts a massive target on all their backs. Again; this makes sense for the context of the 'medievalesque' era the game is set in. The lives of those roaming random bandits don't matter because they're roaming bandits who are literally nothing better than parasites on the rest of society and killing them is perfectly acceptible and justifiable in the context\era. Killing a noble though is srs bsns.
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Nov 27, 2013 22:08
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Ramengank posted:The only things that point to the human NPCs not being killed is that they have a different animation when defeated (falling over instead of vaporizing) and the fact that none of the human bosses we've defeated have died directly from battle (yet?). Actually I think the only boss we've killed period was Gattuso. Which is good because gently caress that guy. I agree that he's probably just repeating what the Hunting Blades told him. That said, it's not really shocking normal people hate monsters since they're definitely aggressive and they have to set up special barriers just to keep them out. Calling them all innately 'evil' is a really weird thing to do when they don't have much intelligence. We've also already seen an example of a monster that isn't evil, though. Judith's dragon buddy. As far as we know, at least. It's not just mindlessly attacking people.
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Nov 27, 2013 22:23
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Neruz posted:The impression I got from the cutscene was that Yuri has totally been killing people this whole time thanks to the casual manner in which he just offed Ragou; Just because he didn't break down on the bridge and mutter "What have I done..!?" before going back to sleep doesn't mean he was completely nonchalant about it. He's a mostly composed guy with a good head on his shoulders who has a particular distaste for abuse of power and the mistreatment of the everyman. The same could just as easily be said about Flynn, though. The only real difference there is Yuri can't just stand by and let it happen. That and he's actually got a sense of humor. I don't want to spoil future plot points but I'll just put it this way: Yuri is most assuredly aware of the severity of his actions.
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Nov 27, 2013 22:36
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Adus posted:We've also already seen an example of a monster that isn't evil, though. Judith's dragon buddy. As far as we know, at least. It's not just mindlessly attacking people. This simultaneously both is and isn't a good example, but it is a good example of why this conversation is best left for later due to spoilers.
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Nov 27, 2013 22:42
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