Jumping on the Criticisms Bandwagon

HR 3. When you say Prodigal deserves your help:

Also was “justifying” it by basically saying “she’s craaaaaazy” really necessary?

And as someone else said elsewhere, the whole deal with the character of Lolli having antlers that are an erogenous zone and how she nearly orgasms when fighting is creepy enough, but that she’s in charge of the crime-rings prostitution branch can easily be read as feeding into the misogynic stereotype that sex workers actually enjoy brutal sex…

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I feel like you’re reading into this more than was intended. HR was a flawed series, no doubt about it, but some mild black humor and a villain that both gets off on causing violence and runs a prostitution ring isn’t that bad.

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She does not run it. A steroid abusing black guy does…
(We should move this bit to the criticism thread i thing)

She “runs” that subbranch.
And Smyther’s been made black in THP…
And afaik Sergi sees no unfortunate implication…

Ah. Well I certainly get what you mean, I don’t think it’s that big a deal. These implications only carry significant weight if they’re made obvious in the story or done so in a way that the average reader wouldn’t miss. Not necessarily disagreeing with you here, just disputing the importance of it in face of HR’s other flaws. The general writing and railroading being the biggest two, imho

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I’d say it’s the grand total of all these things.
And these things especially play into #3 the hypocrisy.

That’s fair. Another problem that Sergei tends to run into is that he can get more than a bit preachy. That wouldn’t be bad in and of itself if it didn’t disrupt the pacing and make it more difficult for the reader to relate to the characters. Unfortunately, he kinda hits and misses there.

Going from game to game it’s gotten more and more misses (YMMV).
The main complain with HR2, iirc was the out-of-nowhere debate about which of these (white iirc) queer characters is more oppressed. In a world where, according to the author and the chars queerphobia is not a thing anymore.
HR3 was a little less preachy, but just in the sense that it didn’t halt the story. The preaching was still there.
To the side there’s versus, which, guess what, get’s criticised for exactly that, just worse.
And then there’s THP… and oh goodness… there’s barely plot, but a lot of preaching and hypocrisy.

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I really wanted to like the new Heroes series. I really did. The original triology was my first introduction to CoG and I’m admittedly somewhat biased in favor of it. But the Redemption Season just left me feeling disappointed. It just felt like Sergei was venting at the audience and trying to make a story out of it.

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Agreed.
And in some cases the ‘flow’ is mindboggling. Why exactly, for example, does he deem it right that we’d blackmail a character just cause we have a high ‘private’ stat. What? How?

And the less said about Jury and how Sergi STILL treats him and the people that like him…

I know right? I prefer to play as a very private and more or less traditionalist hero in RS as that’s the closest to how I would be in that setting. I don’t understand why that would mean I can’t save Miss Boss as a result, given that I could very well be in a romantic relationship with her by then. It just feels arbitrary. And to touch on what you said before, the tone of the story when it addresses characters like Griffin and Miss Boss just feels inconsistent. For the former it makes comments on either his race or his sex, can’t remember which, and for the latter her backstory on her name just seemed like an “Okay?” moment. Anyone who’s read through the whole series would likely be under the impression that society is more or less egalitarian on the more mundane level. Before hearing her backstory, I honestly thought Miss Boss’s name was a reference to a character from Metal Gear. Unfortunately, it was just meh.

It’s like that with so, so many elements:
Miss Boss’ entire spiel is ‘I fight the racist patriarchy’. Which according to narrative and author is not a thing anymore.
What’s worse: One of the instances where Sergi hammers this info in is when you pick your gender in THP: you pick trans for example … and sergi saw the necessity to gush about you having had ‘the surgery’… and then prides himself by saying ‘good thing that’s no big deal anymore, isn’t it?’
sighs

I mean, in many cases I can see/guess what (i hope) he was aiming for but…
He misses the broad side of the barn from 3 feet away and shots the farmer’s dog…

Like, throughout all the first 3 games ani-powereds were, as said, his stand in for a racist stereotype of black people (the violent, not very intelligent gang member) and he never once strayed from that UNLESS the character was beneficial to the MC. (and even then…)
Then THP came and he’s still doing it, now with a cherry on top:
The poor not-like-other-ani-powereds MC vs the vile stand-ins…
And again, the only chars that stray from embodying the stereotype remotely are those beneficial to the MC… Or better: They are forgiven for living up to the stereotype because they are beneficial to the MC and whatever sociopolitical message sergi wants to hammer home…

At the very least, he has good intentions. Sad to say that he’s not very good on delivering on them. I actually kind of liked the scene in THP where everyone’s discussing the LGBT community. It doesn’t have a big presence where I live so it was a bit enlightening. Other than that, the bits on social justice didn’t bother or intrigue me at best and annoyed me at worst. The author is at his best when hooking the reader in with an interesting concept and to his credit he has gotten better at consistent world building as seen in Versus, though that’s a bit ymmv. I feel like that if he toned back the political diatribe and put more effort into letting the reader have a good amount of influence over the kind of person the MC actually is, he’d be much less hit and miss in his writing. I want the man to do better, I’m a fan of his work. That’s why it’s frustrating to see him wasting his potential.

Exactly. As I said in this thread further up:
The thing that is most disappointing is that ALL the elements are there, but Sergi strikes me as not aware what he has there.
As said, with what you already have HR would make for an unsettling dystopia.

So much in THP does form an amazing basis for effective social commentary.

Absolutely. I did honestly enjoy how every character so far seems to have something more to their stories than meets the eye, for example - that could make a great basis for a redraft of this game, along with plenty of other stuff I’m sure went underutilised.

Assuming, of course, that it was handled with the subtlety that THP in particular really does lack. There’s a difference between a game revolving around a central theme and running around on the surface of said theme with hands in the air, screaming - especially when said theme grabs the reader by the hand and either railroads them or punishes them for not going along with its wishes. The latter really isn’t a great experience, and it’s not even that effective in conveying the theme!

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And it’s something that has been criticized already. He writes as if he knows best how oppression works and how to tackle it. (granted, many writers do that and mess up the same).
It’s something he has been criticized for before, but I don’t think he listens to anything but praise.
He’s… cargo culting when it comes to social commentary. He see’s people talk about issues and he copies, but he doesn’t understand.
Him, e.g. gushing over the MC having had ‘THE SURGERY’ when one plays trans in THP, as well as the line ‘to become the man/woman you were always meant to be’ shows that, nope he has no real idea what things are about. (not to mention that the way he often writes them I’m not 100% certain that he’s aware that drag queens and trans woman are not the same.)

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XPost with the main thread

In playing through RS again for a “perfect run” and going trudging through the code, I found something else odd

Choosing not to reveal StarSoar's secret

You won’t compromise your ideals unless you have absolutely no choice—and maybe not even then. You believe there’s always another way, even if you have to invent one out of thin air.
*label provecoding
*set societal %+30
*set rlshp_jk %+30
*set rlshp_starsoar %+30
*set rlshp_shift %-30
*set upa +10
*set lb -10
*if (societal > 70)
*set legended +3
*set respected %+20
*set rlshp_eps %+15
*set rlshp_rookies %+15
*if (public > 50)
*set public %+20
*goto provess

is tied to societal for some reason. I cannot think of a single reason why not revealing the paranoia of your friend is tied to being an activist, if anything that seems like a personal choice to me, or should be tied to public/private

EDIT: Upon revealing SS’s secret (the PERSONAL choice for some reason) you’re given this lovely piece of text

You just fed into the culture of oppression, further stigmatizing Underrepresented Powereds and those with mental health issues as unstable, second-class citizens. You might have had a good reason, but do any ends really justify these kinds of means?

AND THEN if you try to warn him in the bathroom you get punished AGAIN for being personal instead of societal. So essentially what I’m getting from all this is that Zach thinks only activists can be good people

Summary

*if (societal > 50)
*set legended +3
*set lb +5
*set public %-20
*set rlshp_shift %+10
*set rlshp_eps %+15
*set rlshp_rookies %+15
*set respected %+20
*goto sinkit

So basically, to get maximum legend for this section you have to either A) be a terrible person if you’re personal or B) be societal

Now if you’ll all excuse me as I need to restart and run a societal character because I don’t feel like being a terrible person

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The game will always make you feel like a horrible person.

My personal all-time-low is the bit with Miss Boss at the falls. No, not that she falls, but the bit before. Little Miss Tick, because let’s face it, what else are her powers than parasitic, calls a photokinetic multiglot ‘useless’. After she had to betray that exact persons trust for shits and giggles… Why exactly can’t we kick her butt down the cliff again?

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Cos… Feminist icon?

The game rewards you for being societal in the StarSoar turn of events, however if you’re personal you’ll always be penalized, there is absolutely nothing you can do, not a single choice tied to the personal stat that will give you a net positive

I believe I said it before:
The most disheartening and disappointing thing about Sergi’s writing is that he’s not writing CYOA. He’s writing short stories and novellas with a few alternate scenes in the appendix.
He has the potential to do so much greater, if only he’d try.

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