And with that, it’s over for good. Phew. ’twas a weird, short yet long, satisfying yet frustrating ride. Thanks Tyranicon for the key, really.
Hopefully this LP proved a measure of entertainement for a couple of people. Life is a shitty thing, I often find; so if the game or even one of my stupid jokes managed to snatch a laugh from someone, it’s something at least. Also hopefully, it gave someone or another the desire to play the game for themselves; it is held back by some strangely massive flaws, but it’s well worth it nonetheless.
There wasn’t enough smut for you? Here’s a quick extra: naked Diana. And for those with other penchants: naked Hatsuo!
If any image link becomes broken somewhen down the line, send me a message and I’ll re-upload what’s needed. Everything is saved on my end, in duplicate folders on separate external drives.
Now I’ll take a couple of days off so to speak, or a few even, because for some unknown reason I have a burning desire to play Legend Of Dragoon. Haven’t played that game in over twenty years, and I don’t remember much about the story.
Then, I’ll start a LP of this game:
With a bit of luck it’ll shed some light on the myriad questions I have after playing Memoirs Of a Battle Brothel. God knows I need to make sense of a lot of things.
————-[This section was written earlier]—————–
So I actually went ahead and finished the game. And now I have a little over a thousand screenshots through which to wade for this LP. Yikes. But for a couple of reasons I want to write the following bits.
Concerning the ending(s), it is… something. It is too much, but also not nearly enough. It goes everywhere, but also nowhere. I’m central to it, but also wholly inconsequential. It explains everything, but also explains nothing. It is very satisfying, but also immensely frustrating. Perhaps inevitably, it mirrors the game as a whole.
Throughout the game, and remaining purely on the story side of things, there was magic, technology, techno-zombies, drugs manufacturing, politics on a grand scale, politics on a small scale, sex traficking, tentacled monsters of unknown origin, ancient ineluctable prophecies, mystical assassins, petty personal squabbles, world-ending considerations, sentient magical contraptions, beings from this world, beings from out of this world, beings from a supra-reality whose convoluted machinations span the incomputable lifetimes of universes, etc, etc, etc… I honestly don’t know whether to say the game suffers from some manner of identity crisis, or from an overly ambitious developer. Both, arguably.
And this deluge of everything is ceaseless to the end. Verily, new stuff—new capitalised names and terms, new concepts, new possibilities—are introduced until the penultimate second. In a similar vein, some mysteries are ‘answered’ with a snap of the fingers then they’re done and five others such mysteries immediately pop up; that’s it it’s done it’s over with think about it but don’t dwell just keep it in a corner of your mind let’s move on now turn the page let’s mention in passing the Last Day as a notion but let’s not elaborate on it oh hey! did I tell you about The Shepherd and The Wound and The Final Age and The Rule Of Three and The Herald Of Love and Your Mom In Tight Booty Shorts?
Stop, game. Stop. Breathe. And for fuck’s sake let me breathe. 
Now, consectary to this I’d like to touch on a particular problem permeates the game to great detriment. Imagine that right now—right this very instant—I popped up next to you, in person. In my right hand I hold a book; in my left a sock. Proffering these to you without a hint as to their significance, while peering straight into your eyes and with on my face a weird smile as that might stretch the lineaments of some devil of mischief, I ask you, “Which do you choose? Book? Sock? Think carefully.” It would be ridiculous, right? Well, while exaggerated for effect, it is in essence what this game sometimes does.
An almost literal second before the end, I am given this choice:
Is this meaningless to you, who has not seen the end yet? Be assured it is equally meaningless to me, who has seen it. And—unfortunately, since it is the culmination of a great many things carefully set up—I’d wager it left most players utterly unmoved.
This for the following reasons:
– Firstly, the hand in question belongs to a man who, marionettist manifestly responsible for pretty much every momentous event in MoonFall’s history, has only been more or less properly introduced to me a few minutes ago, so I don’t exactly have the deepest feelings—favorable or unfavorable—towards him. And while in that short amount of time he somehow managed to circummure me with a veritable wall of exposition, as he did so I kinda felt like a bee to which the beekeeper explains what he does for a living. I can’t feel much towards him; the disconnect is simply too big.
– Secondly, this choice pertains to future events will take place after the game. Not in a playable post-game, but in a vague cosmic endeavor whose exact context is removed from almost all the characters I’ve met, removed from the brothel, partially removed even from MoonFall.
– Lastly, even if I cared to make this choice, I don’t have nearly enough information as to what it entails. It is plainly impossible for me to envision the ramifications of this choice, so it’s not a choice proper but rather the chanced flip of a coin.
And that last part is the crux of it all, the missing keystone if you will.
I don’t mind cryptic and ambiguous; indeed the opposite. But when the cryptic and ambiguous are misted about the air in volutes so dense and copious they eventually coalesce into an impenetrable fog, I think it conflicts directly with the idea of agency and choices in a video game (especially in an RPG, of course).
As far as I’m concerned, a choice only is such if sufficient information is provided beforehand; and also if the speculated eventuations of said choice are different enough to be called A and B, or at the very least A and A’.
If you don’t have sufficient information, it’s not a choice, it’s a gamble. And if you can see that your options all lead to A via different paths, then they constitute an illusory choice.
Thus it follows reason the most satisfying ending is brought about by the resolution of the Guild’ civil war. This, indeed, is doubtlessly the most concrete story told by the game, the most palpable if you will, anchored in understandable and malleable reality. It is the only story branch on whose eventuation I felt I had actual, meaningful and mindful agency. Of course the most granular intricacies escaped me, but I had a general sense of what was happening, why it was happening, and how I could try to influence it all.
I understood there were some valid, fundamental reasons for the conflict opposing Progressives and Traditionalists. But I also felt too clearly these reasons were not nearly enough to explain the blackness into which the conflict had festered; felt too clearly someone extraneous to the Guild was, for their own unknown purposes, manufacturing additional strife between the Progressives and the Traditionalists.
So while I was running around MoonFall, doing this and that, alternatively working with or for the Mandate, the Stormbreakers, the Iron Cartel, or the Old Watch, I always had one singular goal in mind: ingratiating myself to the powers of MoonFall, thinking they might eventually owe me, enough so to help me bend Black Saffron and Lady Bathsheva to my will anent the Guild’s future. I would ultimately pursue unification, but would favor the Traditionalists in case said unification proved impossible. And this actually bore fruit; and how juiceful and succulent a fruit.
Here I’ll try to intimate a couple of things, and possibly make a fool of myself (it’s no problem; I like the little bells go with the hat). Tyranicon, you saw the Guild’s civil war as a foundation of sorts, over which to erect everything else; this would explain why the Guild’s problems quickly takes a backseat to the other stories, serving as an excuse to interact with the factions and histories of MoonFall. Also I would guess that players, by and large, mostly care about exactly that which you think less important or less interesting.
It’s like a chef lovingly mistaking the hors d’œuvre for the main course. He’s very excited about the baked brie en croûte with pears—the problem being that people come for the turkey.
Now, I’m certainly not saying you’re wrong to think what you wrote is interesting. Because it is interesting. And so too is it entertaining to read; but less entertaining to actually play.
It circles back to the idea of agency and choice. I appreciate the whole prophecy and determinism angle, but as it is it doesn’t work to the game’s benefit. Deep down, no matter what the game hammers again and again, my character isn’t important; she’s a mere pawn to certain powers, and what little information I’m given only serves to make me realise how little I matter, despite the aforementionned powers insisting I’m central to all this.
Because if I’m central to all this despite myself, despite not understanding what I’m doing, despite not understanding what is happening, despite not understanding what I’m told, despite not even understanding what is inside me… then I am not central to all this. I’m The One so to speak, but only because the ‘visitor’ made me The One upon my birth. In the end, I’m… just a dumb vehicle.
As a side note, for some reason I keep thinking about Breath Of Fire. Save in Dragon Quarter and the very beginning of BoF2, Ryu was always a silent protagonist, and in a weird way I suspect a silent protagonist could have been made to work extremely well for Memoirs Of a Battle Brothel. I also feel there’s a parallel could be drawn between Memoirs on one side, and Ryu, Fou-Lu, and agency over oneself on the other; but it’s morning and having not slept I’m too dead-tired to consider this angle properly.
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