Correction: You don’t just fight the pope. You have a god damned fistfight in the rafters against Pope Alexander 6. Kiryu himself got a chubby just hearing about it.
But I think the more telling example is the DLC for 3 (the 5th traditional game in the series?) which is all about a hallucination that teaches George Washington about how important it is to not be a king and to instead be a heroic leader.
Or… to go way back to the OG. On the surface, it is a pretty good depiction of The Templars as the villains and the (apologies for over simplifying) Middle Easterners as the heroic rebels. Until you play a few missions and it rapidly becomes clear that Richard I is actually a mostly good guy and it is the evil brown people who are manipulating everyone and using the war for their own gains. Also, Richie’s right hand man is actually a woman who is kinda hot and oh shit your viewpoint changed because you fucked a baby into her!
Which is the AssCreed series in a nutshell. Safe historical figures can be villains. The ones people actually care about always need to have “nuance”.
Which is why the semi-recent Sengoku one was so funny. Chuds around the world got angry at the existence of Yasuke and a lot of people gave Ubi credit for including him (said same people never played like ten hours into a Nioh). But, from most accounts, Yasuke is very much a secondary character who is mostly there to give an easy viewpoint to know what that zany Nobunaga is up to with Naoe being the real star of the game. Which… kinda lines up with Ubi’s long time terror at having a female protagonist.
As someone who has spent a lifetime learning a little about a lot of history, I love when games (and movies) go to the “based on a true story” well. And… it is always fun to see what kind of biases come through. Whether it is specifically how Cao Cao is always depicted in a Dynasty Warriors/Romance of the Three Kingdoms or which European figures are “fair game” and so forth.
I recently learned there was a musou/Warriors game called Bladestorm taking place during the hundred years’ war. The game was not great apparently but reading about the crazy anime takes on European historical figures and events is funny.
Apparently it has a sequel where Joan of Arc turns evil (including the stereotypical villainess costume change, of course) and leads an army of sorcerers and monsters to wreck havoc.
Pretty sure China doesn’t care about Abe Lincoln. The regime cares about what the people should see and hear to maintain power, and the people are use.
Didn’t Assassin’s Creed 2 have you fight/kill The Pope as a final boss because he’d been corrupted by an artifact of Eden?
Heck, I was playing a gooner game “Samurai Maiden” where famous warlord Nobunaga becomes corrupted by a demon and has to be put down.
So, China, you’re not the only country whose history gets toyed with in fiction. Wait till they see Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.
Correction: You don’t just fight the pope. You have a god damned fistfight in the rafters against Pope Alexander 6. Kiryu himself got a chubby just hearing about it.
But I think the more telling example is the DLC for 3 (the 5th traditional game in the series?) which is all about a hallucination that teaches George Washington about how important it is to not be a king and to instead be a heroic leader.
Or… to go way back to the OG. On the surface, it is a pretty good depiction of The Templars as the villains and the (apologies for over simplifying) Middle Easterners as the heroic rebels. Until you play a few missions and it rapidly becomes clear that Richard I is actually a mostly good guy and it is the evil brown people who are manipulating everyone and using the war for their own gains. Also, Richie’s right hand man is actually a woman who is kinda hot and oh shit your viewpoint changed because you fucked a baby into her!
Which is the AssCreed series in a nutshell. Safe historical figures can be villains. The ones people actually care about always need to have “nuance”.
Which is why the semi-recent Sengoku one was so funny. Chuds around the world got angry at the existence of Yasuke and a lot of people gave Ubi credit for including him (said same people never played like ten hours into a Nioh). But, from most accounts, Yasuke is very much a secondary character who is mostly there to give an easy viewpoint to know what that zany Nobunaga is up to with Naoe being the real star of the game. Which… kinda lines up with Ubi’s long time terror at having a female protagonist.
As someone who has spent a lifetime learning a little about a lot of history, I love when games (and movies) go to the “based on a true story” well. And… it is always fun to see what kind of biases come through. Whether it is specifically how Cao Cao is always depicted in a Dynasty Warriors/Romance of the Three Kingdoms or which European figures are “fair game” and so forth.
I recently learned there was a musou/Warriors game called Bladestorm taking place during the hundred years’ war. The game was not great apparently but reading about the crazy anime takes on European historical figures and events is funny.
Apparently it has a sequel where Joan of Arc turns evil (including the stereotypical villainess costume change, of course) and leads an army of sorcerers and monsters to wreck havoc.
Pretty sure China doesn’t care about Abe Lincoln. The regime cares about what the people should see and hear to maintain power, and the people are use.