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The Legend of Tianding is about a Taiwanese folk hero from Japanese Colonial period who was popular enough to gather support for Taiwan independence movement but not necessarily a prominent figure in politics. Over the course of the game, Tianding is portrayed as an adventurer and a soldier, not as a leader. This is probably why this game could be successfully developed and published to the market without much controversy, because leaders of independence movements are often highly controversial on international scale, despite being well-respected on local scale. Of course, there is a good reason for it; colonization inevitably establishes laws in direct conflict with culture of colonized lands. So more often than not, independence activists are criminals in technical sense who are at the same time hailed as cultural heroes by indigenous population. In that regard, Tianding is a great choice to make a game about, since he was not as active in politics as he was in indigenous culture and therefore not as controversial as he was popular with Taiwanese people. Even most of his activities in this game are about his adventures which culturally inspire hope in Taiwanese people but have little to no political consequences. Practically speaking, it feels like Tianding joined the independence movement for the sake of new adventures, not vice versa.
That being said, this game does not hesitate to illustrate the lives of Taiwanese people under Japanese rule in amazing details. Typically, when it comes to historically sensitive topics like colonialism, indigenous population tends to be portrayed as absolute good and colonialists as absolute evil. But this game shows here and there that it was not black and white; some Taiwanese people were evil and some Japanese people were good. The life during the colonial period was as complex as it is in modern days. Not all Taiwanese people were heavily invested in the independence movement as well. The vast majority of the population were busy making a living. Even under Japanese rule, people had their own ambitions and families to take care for. I especially liked a nameless Taiwanese young man who was bullied by his fellow Taiwanese brothers for working for a Japanese employer. When Tianding asked him why he worked for a Japanese, the young man answered that he had a dream to start his own business and make money out of the Japanese. This character, while nameless and practically irrelevant to Tianding's adventures, showed that hope and ambition were still driving people's lives even during a historical period commonly expected to be full of political oppression and animosity.
Not only that, this game also does not glorify independence activists as flawless champions of justice. This was especially impressive to me, because both the developers and the target audience are modern Taiwanese people and yet this game readily exposes flaws of independence activists in seemingly innocuous scenes. For example, there is a scene where a local boy asks Tianding what he is going to do if he gets rich. To this question, Tianding immediately answers that he will construct a large building and charge no rent. It's supposed to be a wholesome moment where Tianding inspires hope in the local boy, but from the perspective of modern gamer, in that very moment, Tianding seemed to be way more dangerous to Taiwanese people than greedy pro-Japanese businessmen were. The same goes to his independence activist friends as well. In a few scenes about them, I could smell something fishy about their organizational practices and wondered if all these were really culturally acceptable in Taiwan back then, because from my perspective, their organizational practices were very close to being poorly organized scams.
Of course, the game illustrates problematic behaviors of Japanese colonialists as well, but it does it primarily from the perspective of fellow Japanese colonialists, not from that of Taiwanese people, which undoubtedly impressed me a lot. I could sense the developers' conscious efforts to avoid victim mentality in the game's storytelling. Time and time again, the highly centralized, hierarchical structure of Japanese colonial organizations either actively promotes or condones unethical behaviors of their members and the game shows those behaviors and their implications with controlled emotion, rational doubts, and occasional humor. Whoever was in charge of this game's writing is extraordinarily skilled in handling sensitive topics with grace.
I'd like to talk more about details of this game's worldbuilding and art, but I'm pretty sure I have already talked enough to let you know how impressed I am about this game. Overall, this game is an exceptional work that perfectly captured politics, culture, and history of Taiwan in the form of a video game while compromising nothing about its gameplay value. I wouldn't be surprised if some schools use this game to teach Taiwanese history class. Students might go too wild to control, but this game's educational value is undeniable. Can't recommend this game enough. 10 out of 10. You should be playing it already.