izigame.me

it was easier to uncover the metaphysical foundations of reality itself than to get fucking Galerius elected magistrate. as for the serious review, SPOILER WARNING:
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i really wanted to give this one a good review, because it's SO strong for 80% of its play time, but the endings just faceplanted into the ground and left a bad taste in my mouth. i can only give a pass to ending no.1 (very obviously telegraphed as the "bad ending") because it actually takes seriously the premise of the game, gives you consequences that fall in line with what we've seen so far, and doesn't cheap out in order to make you feel good.

endings 2 and 3 are. fine. you know. you free sentilla and maybe some of her friends, while the "bad guys" all die, and the "good guys" live out their lives. we get no details but that our help "will not go to waste". fine.

ending 4 though, which the devs have the gall to refer to as the "canon ending". good lord. you take the characters you've spent a whole narrative building up, you cram them into a modern setting, and you completely remove any kind of conflict or stakes. the good guys live, the bad guys die (except for comic relief desius) and - the good guys are happy. several of them tell you verbatim, in case you missed it. "i'm happy." "i'm so happy". stepford smiler asses. it's creepy. it feels like they've each been washed out. (there's a joke about bloodless shadows in here somewhere).

let me try to explain what bothers me so much. in the context of rome c. 64AD, each character had a social class. they had a history. they had opinions about life and the world in which they lived, about society, about religion, about the golden rule. they (and we) are encouraged to ask questions about cruelty, ethics, whether or not a utopia is possible, wealth, freedom, and so on.

come to the museum ending and all these questions have simply melted away, don't matter anymore, maybe they never did.

by alien-magic, all the surviving "good guys" (the "bad guys" all got their comeuppance, don't worry) are independently wealthy and don't need to work another day in their lives. why? and why do all of them accept it so readily, even those who in their original time were barely scraping by or had no possessions due to being enslaved? i understand that wealthy, high-class characters like sentia and equitia wouldn't ask questions. but you're telling me iulia, ulpius, octavia, fabia, galerius, none of these guys would stop to think, "well, i may be rich now, but i still see poor people about. why? what's life like for them"???

also, why are none of these guys at all rattled by the idea that the fucking gods they, their fathers, and their 17th great-grandfathers have worshipped - that the gods were only ever advanced aliens who have fucked off forever now? the only one who makes a passing mention is equitia, who "finds life after religion quite enjoyable". that's fine, but none of these guys were disoriented, distressed - none of them grieved? none of them felt abandoned? also, what do rufius and octavia have to say about the fact that their strange little blood cult of christianity has eclipsed paganism and been the dominant religion in europe for some 1500 years? do they still believe? or do they imagine that, since the pagan gods were impostors, the christian god must be, too?

as for horatius, mr. "war?? Crimes???" himself, i think it actually makes perfect sense for him to have joined the military. why not, right. (also interesting that he's considered a "good guy" by the narrative, despite the fact that his uncritical, unthinking loyalty to sentius made him complicit in sentius' nonsense the same way domitius was complicit in malleolus' nonsense). but you're telling me none of the "bad guy" characters managed to find their place in our dubiously utopian modern society? you don't think malleolus could smooth-talk his way into a senatorship (the modern kind) and embezzle money? that domitius couldn't become a soldier or a cop or a fucking NFL player to vent his bloodlust/cruelty?

ironically, desius is the only character whose storyline makes sense/feels earned to me. a good scammer can make his way in any society, whether he's selling shady cars or overcharging you for silphium resin. idk why the game insists on pretending that the rest of the "bad" characters are too rotten and evil to make their way in the 21st century, as if we've somehow evolved past cruelty and shitty people (and what if me and the game disagree on who was a "bad guy" and who was a "good guy"??). it's weak, it's naive, it's BORING.

also, sentius being the last gold statue undercuts the game's whole thing about disproportionate punishment. leave him in there for a couple of years. or kill him. but come on now.