Brace yourselves… I have paragraphs to unload. PARAGRAPHS. There may be spoilers within, so reader beware…

First of all, I am not kidding: Simply playing this game will make the patriarchy your bitch. SquareEnix, you have out-fucking-done yourself.

I really didn’t think they had it in them any more, that FF7 was just a fluke of nature and that no company would ever make anything comparable. This game needs to be studied by any and everyone who claims they give a rats ass about humanity. This game may be the only hope of convincing me to not be a misanthropist. Humans may be generally stupid, but the people who made this game have their fucking thinking caps on.

It’s not just that there’s a female protagonist, although this particular employ of such a hero is mind-boggling in and of itself. Books can be written about how Max subverts every expectation, how she stifles the staunchest chauvinist by sitting down and admiring the scenery, playing guitar, or just laying in bed a few more minutes while encompassed by crappy high school beach guitar music. The goddamn attention to detail, people!

It’s not just how this game does everything that those self-aggrandizing daughters of female dogs, Sarkeesian and Quinn, wish they could do and will never get close to achieving with their hundreds of thousands of raised dollars and myriad youtube videos of their faces. It’s not just the fact that you can be relieved that intelligent people actually exist, and at SquareEnix of all places. It’s not just how taking pictures, making people feel better or worse, and generally altering history is a delightful change of pace to most games out there, and makes you think about other scenarios of tantamount import that are glossed over in modern-day shoot-em-ups…

Oh, no people. It’s not just that… It’s the fact that there is no better actual manifestation of a pro-feminist game than this one. It is the fact that those clowns I mentioned earlier will probably never ever say anything about this game because they don’t actually care about what they are saying. It’s the fact that SquareEnix was the only publisher who wanted to keep female protagonists. It is the fact that some people in this world are not pussies and can actually say what they mean.

I do want to take a moment to mention here one unfortunate thing about this game’s creation… it has come to my attention that most of its creators are not women! What the fuck? When are women going to step up to the fucking plate and not have a guy be the one to make essential suppressed statements like this?

On the subject of Sexual Assault

The portrayal of Kate is one of the most eye-opening and enlightening topics that this game deals with. Don’t be afraid to talk about these things simply because someone is inevitably going to be subjectified. That is a necessary consequence of talking about something, some subjects are going to be dealt with. Kate remembers snippets of what led up to the event that made her feel immense regret. I think we can all guess what the Vortex Club is about… I don’t know why I didn’t save the picture of “Fire Walk With Me” on the bathroom window, but the people who made this game clearly watched Twin Peaks and were intrigued by the sex-and-violence obsessed conspiracy in that story and were clearly commenting on that directly here. If you didn’t try to save Kate’s life, you are a total bastard. Her experience is one where there is no real nuance of the gravity of the event, in that she strongly suspects she was drugged against her will and she does not normally engage in such activity.

What’s the right thing to do?

Good God, man! What do you want from me?? Yes, I told Kate to wait for more proof because we really don’t have much to go on, other than the strongest of suspicions, and I am a Live Free or Diehard with a Vengeance type of empiricist. Trust me, I really really wanted to tell the principal about Nate possibly drugging Kate, but I just wasn’t 100% sure… Had I done so, it would have been all out war at that moment, and I already tried to shoot one of his lieutenants or whatever. In hindsight, if I could really truly go back in time, I think I would have put the fire under Nathan’s feet. I will not hesitate to do so on the next opportunity, and I will be ready.

 

This is just the tip of the iceberg, friends. I’m too excited to utter another thought… but I may come back to add more reactions to Episode 2…. For now, more highlights:

Please respond with your thoughts…