Welcome back. Today I continue to explain why Sol Trigger is such a stupid game. I covered the problems specific to Part 2 of the story last time, but the rest of the story was plenty bad enough to begin with. Obligatory spoiler warning, but you’re better off being spoiled and avoiding this game for life.

Stupidity 8. Sol Trigger is a sequel to Final Promise Story, set 1000 years later. This was Imageepoch’s chance to answer all those nagging questions (spoilers abound) at the end of that game. However, while they do tell us what happens to Wolf and co. after they escape, what I really wanted to know was stuff like how Sabi Chantier built those machines, what they did with the magic they extracted and where they are now. Especially since Litora (a.k.a. Littler) built her own machines based on those designs — waitaminnit, how did those machines get to where Wolf and co. had settled? Does that mean the new settlement got attacked again? Could they take another onslaught from Sabi Chantier? See, they just added more questions than they answered!

Stupidity 9. Was the “golden soul” ritual really necessary? In Final Promise Story, everyone had a golden soul and the final promise was just to draw out its full power through a bond with a friend – of any sex. In a painful, sordid retcon, Sol Trigger trots out the same idea, holds it down and defecates messily on its head by turning it into a casual sex affair. The last chapter of Part 1 is even titled “Lust.” A sweet, pure promise of love and friendship, one of the few good things about FPS, reduced to a cheap h-game “Bonk this girl or die” gimmick. I wept inside all game long.

Stupidity 10. Why does the team dress and act so conspicuously? And do their boobs have to jiggle quite so much? For a hidden faction, they’re really, really flashy with their streetwalker clothes and purple arms. If people of the light like Fran and Litora can easily pass for ordinary citizens, why don’t they hide their powers so they can 1) avoid persecution in the first place and 2) attract less attention while they carry out their subversive work?

Stupidity 11. It’s a trap. It’s always a trap. And we always have to walk into it anyway. Many JRPGs have a least one such scene, but this time it happens in Every. Single. Chapter for Every. Single. Mission. Sol Trigger takes the prize for stupidest resistance faction of all time. It’s established very early on that their world does have passwords, security keys and central control systems. If the church has all that but makes little attempt to use them and just lets you enter at will, shouldn’t you smell a rat?

Stupidity 12 (I could do this all day). All of Sol Trigger’s plans are senseless and reckless. Every single one can be summed up as follows: “We’ll charge in from the front! They totally know we’re coming, and there’s only 7 of us, but it’ll all work out.” And it does. Except for the one time it doesn’t, then they get wiped out. Of course eventually you realize this is more stupidity on the part of the in-game characters than on that of the writers, i.e. there’s a reason why everything works out 99% of the time and that reason is —

Stupidity 13. You’re doing what the church wants for 99% of the game. They know who you are. They know where you live. They see you come and go. They could stop you at any moment. They just choose not to, because Litora wants a golden soul. When her attempt to get Farel’s fails, she wants Lars’, so same formula again. Heck, Sol Trigger could have hurt her plans a lot more by just sitting on their asses and doing nothing or, worse, by just up and leaving town than by putting up their feeble resistance. Of course they couldn’t have known that… Unless they’d actually, you know, stopped and thought for a  moment about why the church was being so nice.

Stupidity 14. They never considered any other tactics except armed resistance. The few ordinary citizens that do find out what the church is really up to are really shocked and scandalized. The team should have at least tried to capitalize on this. Mount an information offensive. Educate the citizenry. Mount your case in a civilized manner, and then resort to arms only if that fails. Which it probably will. But then you at least have the moral higher ground instead of allowing the church to write you off as terrorists.

It’s especially strange because once the church crumbles at the end of the game, we’re informed that everyone’s happy with that development. That people are cheering and dancing in the street. But why would anyone rejoice over the government being toppled by a “terrorist” movement? And why isn’t anyone worried about what will happen next?

Stupidity 15. Noi was too easily forgiven for being a double agent. More than that, I strongly believe he was a double agent all the way till the end. Think about it: you find out later Litora knew all along about Lars (how?) and about his mother (how?) but never made any attempt to retrieve him in 19 years (why?). That means she must have had ways of keeping tabs on him and making sure he showed up right when she was ready for him – which she could only have done with Noi’s assistance. Noi being a double agent is also the most ready explanation for how Lars grows up free if his mother is either Sophy or Ema. If Sohpy/Ema was captured right after the final battle and put into a cold sleep, how did her baby end up with Noi? Why doesn’t anyone ever ask?!

Stupidity 16. The moral of the story boiled down, as it usually does, to “Mankind doesn’t need gods! We’ll make our own destiny!” Where have I heard this before? Like 200 times before? Hmmm, let me think…

It’s a shame because they had the makings of an interesting story this time. The main villain was monstrous, but she wasn’t entirely wrong, in principle. If you have a country in a serious crisis and there are citizens who can solve that problem at the cost of their lives, is it really so wrong to put them to work? Yyyeeessss, but again, nnnoooo. What’s better, 1,000 people dying or 10 million? I mean, it sucks for the 1,000 but if it’s either they alone die or everyone dies, then, yyeeeahhh, but again, noooo. And eventually the church develops clones so that “real people” don’t have to suffer. And the clones don’t even mind living in facilities. Now Farel and co. can live their lives in peace. That’s great, right? Nooooo, but then again, nnnnnggghhh…. nnn…

Long story short, Litora’s methods were undeniably wrong, but her (his?!) principles were sound. Obviously it was evil of her to capture and kill all those “people of the light.” I’m not supporting genocide, not even for a so-called “greater good.” But the principle of harnessing the abilities of a few to save the many is a valid one. It just should have been done in a more humane way.

It’s a complicated issue. Which is why it’s a shame the writers adulterated it with all that unnecessary A God Am I stuff. In my humble opinion, the ethical issues were enough to carry the game on their own. Instead of presenting the church as a shadowy entity run by only two (2) humans, they could have delved a lot deeper into the organization. Us vs. The Man is always better than Us vs. This One Chick.

So how did the church start? How is it organized? Where did it get its funding? How does it run? How do they keep the citizenry in the dark? And most importantly for our purposes, what plan does Sol Trigger have for governing the country, keeping law and order and powering the nation once they wipe out the ruling system? I’ll give you the answer, as Lars gave at the end: Someone will figure something out somehow. And of course someone does, we’re never told how, and it all ends happily ever after, the end.

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Phew, 3400 words combined for both yesterday’s and today’s posts. I haven’t ranted like this in a while. It’s very therapeutic. I don’t know what it is about Imageepoch and me, but I can never remain indifferent to their games. Overall Sol Trigger was a very technically sound game, but that just allowed me more time to focus on the story and the characters. Oh, how bad they were.

One thing’s for certain: I am never touching one of Imageepoch’s jrpg imprint games again. They usually make good games for other companies, but their own stuff is just terrible. Lesson bitterly, bitterly learned.

And another 1000 stupids for good measure.

What a stupid game.

And what a stupid gamer I am for seeing it through to the end. I hate Imageepoch so much right now, but I hate myself even more.

*deep breath*

Okay. Let’s do this. But first I must warn you that there’ll be pleeeenty of no-holds-barred spoilers below. If I had my way no one would ever play Sol Trigger again, but I’m putting the warning out just in case.

First, what I liked. Oh, there were a few good things in there. There had to be, or I wouldn’t have made it to the end.

1. Character designs were pretty good. Imageepoch usually does well on that front. They look much better in-game than in their portraits as well, which is rare.

2. The music is good. It sounds similar to the Failure Promise Story soundtrack, except this time it actually fits the mood.

3. Dungeons have a bit of variety. You’re still running around dungeons for 28 hours, but at least the decor changes frequently.

4. Occasionally, very occasionally, they’ll let you skip a cut scene.

5. The battle system is very good. I especially liked the little sliding meter that lets you power up or power down your attacks to meet your needs. They also let you speed up battles a tiny little bit by holding R or O. And I always like games where using a skill levels it up. IMO the battles should have been even faster and there should have been a way of reducing the encounter rate. Apart from that it was great.

That said, the Hate system and unrecoverable SP in Saigo no Yakusoku no Mongatari was even better – in theory. It was so poorly executed that every battle felt exactly the same, but I was hoping they’d fix the issues and carry the system forward to this game. You just don’t get the same “I barely survived” feel after battles in Sol Trigger. Instead you win so handily with your overpowered skills it’s a mystery why you’re the underdogs.

6. Good character differentiation in battle. This is another thing Imageepoch is usually good at. Every party member has different skills, different equips and different situations where they’re useful. When you’re using Valter you know you’re using Valter. No one’s entirely useless, although some people will always be better than others.

7. The Awaken system for learning new skills was quite interesting. Weapons and armors have potential skills, but they don’t trigger until conditions in battle are just right. For example if your party gets poisoned, that crisis “sparks” the knowledge in Ema’s mind and she learns to remove status effects. It made sense in a way, and I managed to trigger everything fairly easily. I just wish the skill animations had been skippable. They were way too long.

8. The save point warping system was cheap, but lifesaving. It made it easy, too easy even, to go all out with your skills and just warp home to save. The flip side is that the developers expect you do to this, so most skills cost a fortune in Sol to use.

9. The Sol refilling tank was good. My Lars had around 400 Sol naturally, but I was able to dope him with stockpiled sol until he had 2000 before the final boss. I wish other games let you store MP for a rainy day like that.

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Okay. That’s it for the good stuff. Let it never be said that I wasn’t fair to Sol Trigger. Now, all the stupidity, which is 99% related to the *spit* story. If you’re scared of spoilers, this is your last chance to look away.

Why this game is so stupid

The second generation gimmick was all wrong, wrong, wrong. Normally I don’t have anything against “Avenge me, my son!” kind of stories. In this case, however, the son and his friends are annoying and too much time is wasted going over stuff the player already knows by heart. I’m going to have to explain the story in detail, so this is your final, final, final chance to leave.

Still here? Okay. You start off playing Farel, the head of a resistance group known as Sol Trigger. Farel and his troops are “people of the light,” who have the ability to control Sol. The evil church has been capturing their people and using them as living fuel cells to power the country. Pretty nasty stuff, even for video game villains. Sol Trigger comes up with a 5-phase plan to take down the church and free the people of the light. So far, so good.

Towards the end of the story, Farel find outs he needs to unlock his “golden soul” so he can beat the church. The only way he can do this is by fornicating with one of three girls. Oh sure, they dress it up in all kinds of fancy “special bond” kind of language, but that’s the situation. Make Farel sleep with either Ema, Sophy or Fran before the final battle. Pre-final battle sex is the best fertility drug known to man, so of course the girl gets pregnant and has a son, Lars, sometime in the intermission between generations one and two. Farel, of course, dies in the battle, which ends in failure. Not just Farel, it’s a near Total Party Kill. End of Part 1. Still with me? So far, so good. I was moderately cool with the game up to this point. Not crazy about it, but cool.

Then comes a 19 year timeskip and we open up again with a new cast. The plot, never wonderful to begin with, rapidly begins to fall apart.

Stupidity 1. If you choose Ema or Sophy as Farel’s partner, the girl you choose will die. The girl you don’t choose will die too. Ifyou don’t choose Fran, she will also die. It’s like this:

Choose Ema = Ema, Fran and Sophy die
Choose Sophy = Ema, Fran and Sophy die
Choose Fran = Ema and Sophy die.

None of them immediately, but all of them definitely. Unavoidably. It sucks to be a girl in that world. And it sucks to be the player who develops a liking for them.

Stupidity 2. Lars doesn’t know anything about himself or about his heritage. Thus the first 5 chapters out of 8 can be summed up as “Tell me about my father!” That’s all good and nice, Lars. It’s just that I, the player, KNOW YOUR FATHER REALLY REALLY WELL! A lot better than I know you, that’s for sure! So I don’t need to go over the past and find out things and meet all these people that I know REALLY REALLY WELL again. It completely kills the momentum of the game.

Stupidity 3. It’s not just about his parentage; Lars doesn’t know anything about the world he lives in. I don’t know how it’s possible for him and his friends to live 19 years in the same city that his parents grew up in and not know the most obvious of truths about Sol and the people of the light. But yet again I have to watch him learn everything from scratch. Watch him get upset and indignant about things I knew full well over 20 hours ago. Things that are no longer even relevant by the time he learns about them.WHY?

What should have been done: Skip all that bildungsroman, journey of discovery stuff for Lars. They did it for Farel and it worked out pretty well, but once was enough. Farel and co. have done the groundwork, Lars knows know he needs to do, now do it and end the game. I don’t need to spend 8-10 hours following the wacky adventures of a horny teen who just joined Sol Trigger, the group that fought so hard and died so miserably, just to make time with a girl he just met.

Now, it’s not like Part 1 was perfect. But if it had ended well, I would have been more than okay with the whole experience. And if Imageepoch had to put in a second generation, a short 3-5 hour epilogue would have been passable. Failing that, swap places. Put Lars and his goof troop first and Farel and his team second. Alternative 4: Make Farel’s part 5 hours long and then focus entirely on Lars. There are so many other, better ways they could have done it.

Stupidity 4. Back to the question of Lars’ heritage (oh, you thought we were done?), what the heck is up with his mother? It almost funny, but not quite, how he’s so interested in getting to know Farel but never once asks about the other half of the equation. And when he finds out eventually it’s more like “Oh. Okay,” than any huge display of interest on his part.

It’s not just Lars, either. No one’s surprised or curious about the mother when they hear Farel has a son. At the very least Valter and Cyril should have asked some questions. They were with Farel the whole time, they can’t have known about his night with Fran, as far as they know Ema and Sophy both died in the battle, suddenly “Farel’s kid” shows up. Wouldn’t a normal friend at least have a few questions?

Not that the mother cares either. Yeah, Fran was damaged years ago. Not enough to stop her roaming the world looking for her darling “daddy” Ishtovan, but just enough to stop her doing anything remotely maternal for her child for 19 years. Once they’re reunited, she’s in no hurry to introduce herself. Or make any real excuses for why she’s been gone. From beginning to end her mind is full of Ishtovan, Ishtovan, Ishtovan, and she couldn’t make it any plainer. Lars is like the embarrassing product of a one-night stand she wishes she could forget. Actually, not “like” – that’s exactly what he is, so I don’t even know what I’m complaining about any more.

Stupidity 5. WHY DOESN’T ANYONE AGE IN 19 YEARS?!?! Apart from Cyril. Aged 9 in Part 1 and around 18 in Part 2, 19 years later. Let that math swirl around your brain for a bit. A 10-year time skip I can understand, but 19 years? And everyone still looks exactly the same? And not just looks, but acts the same as they always did. You try to tell me Fran is Lars’ mom when she’s still walking around in panties at age 38? I can’t take this game seriously at all.

It’s the same with the city. Almost nothing has changed in 19 years. The city’s the same, the buildings, the locations. The stuff we destroyed is all back to normal like we never did anything. The characters even comment on it. What’s the point of a large time-skip if everything remains the same?

Stupidity 6. To unlock his “golden soul,” Lars has to have sex with a girl who has the body of an 18 year old and the mind of a 9 year old. In case you didn’t know, this is against the law. And before anyone else tries this, “I was saving the world” is not a valid defense.

Stupidity 7. Lars’ sidekicks Klotho and Wilma don’t belong in this game. They’re generic orphans, they don’t believe in the cause, they don’t like danger and there’s no explanation given as to why they act so much like Gustav/Sophy in battle. They’re just there to sing Lars’ praises morning, afternoon and night. Basically they were just added in a desperate attempt to convince me to give a whoop about Lars. Here’s a shocking suggestion, Imageepoch: instead of telling me how great Lars is, why don’t you just show me? Radical, huh?

And these are just the problems with the characters. It’s not the end of Sol Trigger’s overwhelming stupidity. Fortunately the rest of the explanation will have to wait till tomorrow, because I just crossed the 1900-word line.