Customer #1 : [At Marshall Law's restaurant he owns] Man, the food here sucks!

Customer #2 : We have to pay for this?

Marshall Law : [Walks over] What did you just say?

Customer #1 : [Pounds the table] You heard me, I said this food sucks! You expect us to eat this stuff?

Marshall Law : What do you mean it sucks?

Customer #1 : This pepper beef is too damn spicy!

Marshall Law : [Punches the customer and taste tests the beef] What are you talking about? This is good!

[Customer walks up behind Law and smashes a bottle over his head]

Marshall Law: You...

[Fight breaks out]

[Cut to a newspaper clip, with a headline stating "Marshall China Goes Out of Business"]

[Martial arts students yelling in time with punches]

Marshall Law: [Training his students at a dojo] No, no, no. Put more anger into it! [Enthusiastic grunting and punching]

[Students yell in time with punches as before, but more enthusiastically]

Marshall Law: [Panning shot revealing that the dojo is located where his now closed restaurant used to be] Yeah! That's more like it! Now lower your stance a bit more, and...

[Chinese gong]

So, you're God. No work-arounds, you're simply God, and you take care of your people and your creation. People go to the temple to revere you and give you offerings that help you. People's faith strengthens you.

At the end of the game, once you're finished with your work and have defeated evil, people stop visiting temples. Why? Because they don't need you anymore. The game reveals itself as a bitter allegory of people's relationship with religion, a very common theme in Quintet's games in the 90s.

ActRaiser utilizes God simulation mechanics to make the player a direct participant in creation to form a bond to the people that have faith in you and make the finale more resonant.

How do you tell a story about the dilemma of adoptive and biological family? Easy! Just let the player escape from all their problems, and give them a pat in the back. Because everyone will receive you with open arms after you betrayed their love. Everyone will accept your shitty decisions as if nothing had happened, and in fact the game will congratulate you for running away, because doing so is THE ZOMG TRUE GOLDEN ENDING!

But the world doesn't work that way. Your decisions have consequences. People get hurt. It's not the fault of some weird invisible dragon that conspires against your universe.

And the worst part, Intelligent Systems, is that you didn't do it because you believe in neutrality or equality. You did so because you wanted the player to bang everyone. You wanted the player to feel cool.

Intelligent Systems, do you remember when Marth had to put a face to his people to hide the pain he felt for the loss of his family? When Alm cried after he realized what he had done to his father? When Seliph and Leif went through a holy war to restore the tainted name of their families? Do you remember when there were heroes and being responsible to your family mattered?

People have complained about this game, about its garbage level design, about its story worthy of a fanfiction, but never at the contempt of its heart. And people have also defended this game, because "yooo, psycho, story doesn't matter in Fire Emblem". Okay, if you think that what you're watching on screen is acceptable and can be ignored, if you want to be complicit, you do you.

Muchas veces me pasa que cuando disfruto mucho de algo el sentimiento se manifiesta en los sueños.
Este juego es un ejemplo fantástico. Soñé que era un gunslinger como Crow y estaba rodeado de enemigos.
La gravedad y el tiempo funcionaban de una manera extraña. Yo solo interpretaba mi mejor papel.
Eniwei, todo el mundo andaba disparando con acrobacias mientras sonaba algo muy parecido a One Note Blues.
Vivan los sueños.

This story of ‘Ultimates’ falls somewhere between melodrama and allegory, and it mostly works. That is, until it decides to explain every mystery and human motivation in excruciating detail.

Danganronpa just doesn’t know what to do with its narrative extremes. The shocks come so regularly they bore, and the conservative mechanics can’t keep up. Schlepping down hallways, clicking on clues, mini-gaming each trial – the game settles into rhythms that are already stale by the second murder.

And it goes on so very long. A 5-hour story stretched over a 25-hour game. This must be what they mean by ‘Ultimate Despair’.