I Am Completely Serious

Originally published at SarahPin.com. You can comment here or there.

(I wrote this a few days ago but couldn’t get it to post. I’ve now played enough that I know some of my theorizing isn’t totally accurate, but I’m going to go ahead and post it anyway.)

In the game, the holy sword wielded by the King has been cursed. I’m sure the Universal RPG Protagonists consider this a refreshing change from all those other RPGs where the holy sword has been lost, or the holy sword has been broken, or the holy sword has been transformed into a monster you have to fight.*

The-Hero-With-High-HP Serdic goes to The-Wizard-With-Like-No-HP Arios to try and get it un-cursed, and we are treated to this fabulously subtle piece of humor.

Arios: I’m interested in your body.

Serdic: What!?

Arios: When we have a spare moment, may I perform a thorough examination of your body?

Serdic: E-er, that is… Ah yes! You must see this!

Arios: This is the Holy Blade of Bretwalde, isn’t it? I’ve always wanted a good, long look at this.

Come on, Atlus localization team, get on the ball, here. If you’re going to do this joke, you’ve got to say long, hard look. Do I have to do everything around here?

The game’s humor is mostly like this (and the romance stuff is thus far equally unsubtle), but there’s actually some really interesting meta stuff going on in the story. Basically, you get the story from four sources, and all of them have a slightly different view of what’s going on:

( I think maybe this needs a cut. )

Now, the very serious-sounding narration between stages focuses heavily on the brave Prince Serdic’s attempts to de-curse his sword and get himself properly coronated as King, so he can take back his kingdom from the evil empire. The player, however, learns at the end of the first stage that (spoilers for that, and for the beginning of stage eight)