Video games that can mislead your faith

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Well, I’ve only noticed the wrongs of smt and asscreed. But do you know there was this character in assasin’s creed that told the assasin player character that the freedom that they’re fighting for is an illusion. They their version of freedom is quite similar to an anarchist type of freedom. A freedom where everyone can assemble in groups that have common interest together. And these people who believe in the anarchist freedom think it will bring everyone in the world happiness. I laughed at that though ,because it will not bring you happiness ,it will bring you chaos. And let’s imagine this chaos, it will be a hell on earth and the earth will once again become an uncivilized planet.
Just my 2 cents.
 
Dont worry bro, I want to be a video game dev too, and I will adress this kind of issue, but in a more rational way. I will also criticize religion, more specifically the way that how some people implemented it in their life. Don’t worry I will not go against the Church and it’s teaching in it. I will also not attack any religion with it.
I’m wondering why smt didn’t feature Muhammad the Islamic prophet, maybe they’re afraid of something. (Insert smug face here)
 
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I don’t think any reasonable person would believe the storyline of a video game was a serious source of information. However, all the misconceptions I had about Catholicism as a kid all came from Protestants claiming to reveal truth about something they were apparently not even very familiar with. I knew that media like games, comics, and movies were fiction to be taken with a grain of salt. The line has only blurred for me when someone made a movie based on real events, but it’s easy to find facts these days.
 
Facts about what?
If you’re looking for facts to soldify your philosophical belief, that is where things get blurry.
 
There have been anti-religious video games for decades, as with anti-religious albums, films, books… we’re living in an increasingly antireligious culture. How surprising is it?

I seem to remember getting annoyed at the antireligious elements in “God of War” for the Playstation, but then, the relentless casualy inhuman immorality of the ‘hero’ was endlessly offputting anyway.

There was a recent remake of Clash of the Titans that I know annoyed a fellow Catholic… I got as far as the preamble before I realised I couldn’t bring myself to watch any further…
 
Although in game you can battle Arceus, its only possible with cheats (to get the azure flute).
Arceus was only distributed via giveaway.
Also Arceus while is a god in the pokemon universe, it is by definition not an all powerfull god, or I can say ,a lesser god. There is no confirmed lore about who created the egg of which Arceus came from. I don’t really see this thing as something very perverse, but I’ll keep an eye on it.
 
Thanks alot for your support Baguette! I too have thought of subverting the “evil God/corrupt church” kind of plot if I ever do a video game. It’s true that Assassin’s Creed has become much different over time. As Ubisoft has started to milk it and attract more and more fans, the focus of the Assassins shifted from a more “edgy” agressive anarchist group to a more SJW kind of militia. They still hate the Church though, and the recent movie is proof for it.

As for Arceus, I know that, by our Catholic standards, he’s indeed a lesser god (a demiurge-type figure). Yet again, so is “YHWH” in Shin Megami Tensei, and “Creator” in The Final Fantasy Legend, and “Yahweh/Deus” in Xenogears, and “Almighty” Bhunivelze in Final Fantasy XII-3, and Jubileus in Bayonetta, and Zanza in Xenoblade Chronicles. And those are still supposed to represent what they represent, our God. Although they represent Him in a very misguided way.

Perhaps it’s the influence of Shinto mythology? Because there, as in most classical polytheistic myths, gods (even gods involved in creation) aren’t all-powerful, or even fully good or bad. They’re all just angry personifications of natural phenomena, that need to be appeased/tamed via ritual to obtain miracles from them. Some of those do have nevertheless a chief God that is indeed all-powerful and all-good (like in Tengriism, or many African religions). The figure also still exists in the Ainu version of Shinto (as the Kandakoro Kamuy), although it is regarded as a distant, near inaccessible figure, in contrast to the lesser, closer gods (kamuy) of nature. Japanese Shinto seems to have lost that concept under the influence of Buddhism, where the universe is seen as (name removed by moderator)ermanent and free of any sort of creation event.

Anyway, now that I’m awake again (I live in Europe), I’m going to resume my little selfish story. This is the interesting part!
 
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[PART 4]

So I was shifting my focus to Monolith soft. Monolith Soft created Xenogears and Xenosaga as attempts to create a very deep and witty video game RPG series. It would span at least six games, and reference ideas from Gnosticism, Kaballah, Jungian psychology, and Nietzschean phylosophy (not making this up). And of course, with the whole “corrupt church and evil God” kind of plot.

Monolith is now owned by Nintendo, as a fully integrated first-party organ (even more so than Game Freak and the Pokémon Company). Its developpers now assist Nintendo developpers in major games, and in return Nintendo heavily markets Monolith Soft’s own games.

At the same time, Monolith tried once again to start its… well… monolithic attempt of a video game saga. It did so with Xenoblade Chronicles, which repeats the whole “kill God” trope. This time it justifies it as a commentary on God’s omniscience as limiting human free will, and the free will of humans being strong enough to override God’s and choose their own destiny. In the end, Zanza, the God figure, is revealed to be a scientist from our world who tried to become God by altering space time (and kinda succeeded in a way). He’s a lesser god, but during the whole game you’re led to think of him as indeed a monotheistic God figure, as the main characters keep longing for “a world without gods”. The fad was repeating itself again.

Nevertheless, gamers weren’t angry. In fact, they liked this kind of simple plot. It’s what they expected from a JRPG after all. Like how we expect Super Mario to fight Bowser and save Princess Peach, or a Pokémon game to feature the schemes of a Team Rocket equivalent, and end with a confrontation with the region’s Elite Four.

Some of them even aggreed with the premise. After so much time, they had come to think that any concept of God would be tyranical and evil. JRPGs had “opened their eyes” to the “truth” of antitheism.

So, when a few months ago Nintendo announced Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I expected the worst yet again.
 
I couldn’t believe it. Xenoblade 2 was everywhere on Nintendo social media. The marketing was very good, and intelligent. The advertising was as heavy and ubiquitous as if it was a new Mario, or a Zelda, or a Pokémon. As if Xenoblade had become that popular overnight.

I checked the plot. The main character, Rex, was on a quest to reach Elysium, a fabled paradise where humans were said to have once lived with “the Divine Father”, “the Architect”, but were cast out for some reason. His world was dying away, so Rex had to find the Architect and ask him to fix things. Over time, characters and environments were revealed that fitted the usual suspect clichés. A corrupt church, a secret organisation that knew hidden truths, agents of “the Architect” with evil purposes to fulfill. It was obvious how it was going to end. I didn’t want that to happen, but who was I going to convince? The plot, were we told, had already been decided even before the first trailer. How was I going to influence Monolith Soft?

So I did the only thing that I could do. I prayed to the God that I was taught lived outside time. And I prayed for it to stop.

I prayed nine rosaries. No, I prayed ten rosaries, because I was afraid of having missed one. I prayed God that people could see Him as he really was. That they stopped killing him for entertainment. And as I was praying the mysteries, I noticed something. The centerpoint of my religion, the one that, after much research, I was now convinced to be true. It was about men killing God. My God had become human to bear the sins of humanity. And he did so by being executed. He did so willingly, not like a JRPG villain. He didn’t shout a “No! This cannot be! I am eternal!” from His cross, quite the contrary. Instead, it was a gentle “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Yet, as I prayed my rosaries, the deadline for the release was approaching. And as I was finishing the last one, somebody had leaked the final scenes of the game.

In the end, Rex reached Elysium, and met the Architect.

But Rex didn’t kill the Architect.

Because the Architect was a sad scientist, that had tried to become godlike, and ended up, in his own words “paying for his sins”.

He was the same Zanza from Xenoblade 1. In fact, as the cutscene went on, he was being killed by the characters of that game. The two games happened at the same time, yet they showed opposite portrayals of God. In one, he was the tyrannical Gnostic demiurge. In another, he was forgiving the characters that were killing them, and willing to accept his death as the penitence to pay for human hubris. Half Christ figure, half penitent sinner, this “evil God” suddenly looked more like a Christian man. Who would’ve known?

I don’t know if this is the fruit of my prayers, of just Monolith wanting to do something different. But what I know for sure, is that now I’m praying the 54 day rosary novena for the conversion of JRPG developpers.
 
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Really? That’s what you do? Quite interesting… Let’s continue talking in private message then. I think our meeting i this forum is not just an ordinary meeting.
 
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