Plot Analysis
EclecticTastes posted:
Hey, hate to be “that guy”, but when you were walking in the desert, you met a tortoise. You flipped the tortoise over on its back, and it couldn’t recover, not without your help. But you weren’t helping. Why is that?
RealSovietBear posted:
So I was hoping I wouldn’t need to explain this, because it’s spoiler territory, but if I don’t explain it, people are gonna hold it over my head the entire LP and make me out to be some monster. (I’ve already gotten enough DMs on Twitter over it that I needed to set them to mutuals only.) Anyway, be warned, major plot spoilers ahead:
[spoiler]So you have the choice to fight Buddha or run away, but running away locks you into ending E of LSD, which would make us skip a lot of content and also get a major downer ending (remember, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him”). That means we’re meant to fight him and stop him, but our fight will always destroy Wonder City*. As Wonder City spans the entire continent, it actually turns the entire continent into the Great Wasteland (or Wasteland City in the German localization). If you’ve ever played Magic: the Gathering, you probably know of the City of Ravnica. Ravnica was actually inspired by Wonder City, as Wonder City itself is an amalgam of several hundred types of environments. As such, it’s an urban environment with lots of wildlife as well. Ironic, isn’t it? Now, the ecology of Wonder City is such that it has a very rigid food chain and when that food chain is disrupted, chaos ensues. If you take away the rabbits, the wolves will dine on humans and similar weird catastrophes.
Now, Wonder City may have been turned into the Great Wasteland, but it didn’t completely destroy everything. After you’ve destroyed Wonder City, you probably won’t encounter anything in-game for the next several months as you try and reach a new point of intractables. This is generally considered by many to be the low-point of LSD, as it switches from a survival horror into a sandbox survival game, forcing you to learn new mechanics and adding a brutal difficulty. It’s often quoted that this was meant to subvert the arbitrary vehicle sections that were a massive trend back then, by adding a new genre that was even more at odds with the base game. Sadly, as seen by games like Jak and Daxter 3, the lesson didn’t stick. (It actually wouldn’t be until El Shaddai that vehicle sections were put to rest. Ironically, it wasn’t because El Shaddai’s was so bad, but because it was the first good one.) So after you’ve wandered the Great Wasteland and survived it (remember, you have to do this in one life), you finally get to see another actual living thing. That was the tortoise we encountered. This is meant to be a joyous moment for the player, as he realizes that not all life has perished and that there still might be hope for man. However, due to the previously-mentioned messed up ecology, the tortoise is not meant to be alive. The only reason the tortoise is alive was because the falcons that prey on it are now extinct. But the thing that tortoise prey one, which is are pigs, are also gone. If you remember the item description of the Kitsune Shrine ring, you can already see where this is going (like I said, LSD is one of those annoying Souls-like games).
So, if you flip the tortoise, it’ll stay where it is and die. That’s what I’m sure you think. But no, the tortoise survives regardless. What changes is that you get Ending A-2 rather than Ending A-1. They are actually completely the same, except for one extra line of dialog. When you fight the final boss (which is something I won’t spoil), he will use the line “But you yourself are no stranger to true cruelty.” when giving us his speech. That is actually in reference to us hoping to kill the tortoise in the worst imaginable way. So the fight goes the same as in the A-1 path, but it completely changes the frame of it all. The entire struggle of trying to save the World from for hours on end, but in the end, he was the one trying to save the World from YOU. I think it’s a powerful statement and while many online communities like to parrot how A-1 ending is the canon ending, I like A-2 better. It shows the true power games have as a medium to make the player take part in telling the story. No other medium does this. Books are a story by one person preaching events to you. Movies are a story by a bunch of people preaching events to you. Music also preaches to you. But games don’t do that garbage. In games, you take the controller and you decide what happens, but the best-crafted games make you make these choices without even knowing it, and then BAM, they hit you with it in the gut (this is why Nier is the best game of all time by the way). When I played LSD the first time, I actually got so sick of the grinding in the Wasteland section that I just vented on the turtle. After beating the game, that line struck me so hard. I realized that I wasn’t being the kind of person I wanted to be, so I forced myself to do better each day. It took a lot of work, but in the end it was worth it, because I’ve finally become a good enough person to Let’s Play games. There is no movie or book or song that can inspire people to do something like that. That’s why this run is an A-2 run.
Oh and how do we know the turtle survives regardless of what you do? If you look at the audience in the encore credits, you’ll see a silhouette that is obviously the turtle you encountered. I’m sure you’d think that could be any turtle, but no, Flippy (the community name for the turtle) has a forehead made out of 9 polygons, while all other tortoise models in the game have 10.
Anyway, I hope that clears everything up.[/spoiler]
Translator’s Note
EclecticTastes posted:
That said all the video captions were in Japanese, and I’m not good enough at kanji to read them, so maybe RSB could post a translation?
RealSovietBear posted:
Of course, no problem. This is probably the most accurate translation of the script I could find:
Бог се драги на Србе разљути за њихова смртна сагрешења. Наши цари закон погазише, почеше се крвнички гонити, један другом вадит очи живе; забацише владу и државу, за правило лудост изабраше. Невјерне им слуге постадоше и царском се крвљу окупаше. Великаши, проклете им душе, на комате раздробише царство, српске силе грдно сатријеше; великаши, траг им се утро, распре сјеме посијаше грко, те с њим племе српско отроваше; великаши, грдне кукавице, постадоше рода издајице. О проклета косовска вечеро, куд та срећа да грдне главаре све потрова и траг им утрије; сам да Милош оста на сриједи са његова оба побратима, те би Србин данас Србом био! Бранковићу, погано кољено, тако ли се служи отачаству, тако ли се цијени поштење? О Милоше, ко ти не завиди? Ти си жертва благородног чувства, воинствени гениј свемогући, гром стравични те круне раздраба! Величаство витешке ти душе надмашује бесмртне подвиге дивне Спарте и великог Рима; сва витештва њина блистателна твоја горда мишца помрачује. Шта Леонид оће и Сцевола кад Обилић стане на поприште? Ова мишца једнијем ударом престол сруши а тартар уздрма. Паде Милош, чудо витезовах, жертвом на трон бича свијетскога. Гордо лежи велики војвода под кључевма крви благородне, ка малопред што гордо иђаше, страсном мишљу прсих надутијех, кроз дивјачне тмуше азијатске, гутајућ их ватреним очима; ка малопред што гордо иђаше к светом гробу бесмртног живота, презирући људско ништавило и плетење безумне скупштине. Бог се драги на Србе разљути: седмоглава изиде аждаја и сатрије Српство свеколико, клеветнике грдне и клевету. На развале царства јуначкога засја света Милошева правда, окруни се слава вјековјечно Милошева оба побратима и лијепе ките Југовићах. Српској капи свуд име погибе. Постадоше лафи ратарима, истурчи се плахи и лакоми - млијеко их српско разгубало! Што утече испод сабље турске, што на вјеру праву не похули, што се не хће у ланце везати, то се збјежа у ове планине да гинемо и крв проливамо, да јуначки аманет чувамо, дивно име и свету свободу. Све су наше главе изабране! Момци дивни, исто ка звијезде; што су досад ове горе дале, сви падали у крваве борбе, пали за чест, име и свободу. И наше су утирали сузе вјешти звуци дивнијех гусалах. Просте наше жертве свеколике кад је наша тврда постојбина силе турске несита гробница. Што је ово ево неко доба те су наше горе умучале, не разлежу ратнијем клицима? Почину ни рђа на оружје, остаде ни земља без главарах. Некршћу се форе усмрђеше… Уједно су овце и курјаци, здружио се Турчин с Црногорцем, оџа риче на равном Цетињу! Смрад ухвати лафа у кљусама, затрије се име црногорско, не остаде крста од три прста!
I know it’s a bit inconvenient that it’s in Serbian, but it’s really impossible to translate it in English and maintain the spirit of the original. Both Serbian and Japanese have a lot in common, being very melodic and phonetic languages. But since Japanese is actually impossible to learn unless you are from Japan, it’s much easier for everyone to learn Serbian if you want to understand this specific part of the game better (and trust me, it’s worth it).