My Skeptical Angel

Every writer is inspired by something, or more likely multiple things. Some sources of inspiration are obvious such as books, movies, and TV shows. That being said, these aren’t the only possibilities. Inspiration can come from many places. In this series, I’ll look at some less common sources of inspiration for My Skeptical Angel.

First up is Xenogears, a video game released in 1998 by SquareSoft, now SquareEnix. But, I know what you’re thinking: Video games stories suck, go read books you lazy bum. I ’ll admit that video game stories leave a lot to be desired, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some quality hidden in there. Does Xenogears buck the trend and offer a literary gem? Well, no, not really, but I’ll get to that.

Xenogears is a Japanese Role Playing Game or JRPG for short. If you don’t know what that is, it’s fine. Suffice to understand JRPGs often put more emphasis on stories than other genres. In fact, for some of them, it’s the highlight.

Whether Xenogears tells a good story is debatable. Many fans would argue that yes. At the very least, it has an impressive scope and interesting ideas. When I first played it as a teen, I thought it was brilliant. Now an adult, I see how flawed and uneven it is. Some moments are great and original. Others feel like a rip off of Evangelion, and since I don’t like Evangelion much that’s not exactly a compliment. There’s a ton of pacing problems and the dialogs quality is mediocre though that might be due to the translation. Characters are also a mixed bag, some I liked, others felt underdeveloped and underutilized. There’s several questionable scenes, like the infamous ChuChufixon. Despite all this, Xenogears will always have a place in my heart and I’d recommend it to any JRPG fans that missed it back in the days. For my money, I’d take it over Final Fantasy VII which is probably the most popular JRPG of all time.

So, how similar is My Skeptical Angel to Xenogears? In all honesty, not very much. As I have said, I recognize many flaws in Xenogears and have no intention of repeating them. In particular, I learned from its mistake in pacing. Besides, Xenogears put a large focus on giant robots, something I have no interest in doing. The biggest influence takes the form of Elly, the lead female character. Elly has a rough start; I didn’t like her at first, especially since she embodied the trope of the supposedly talented female soldier who somehow always ends up being a damsel in distress. However, as the game progresses she grows and develops into something different. Eventually, she becomes a religious icon and is a symbol of hope for an oppressed people without meaning to. Elly doesn’t see herself that way. To her, she’s just a normal woman, but she realizes people need her to be more so she accepts the role she is given. This aspect of her planted a seed in my mind that would grow to become Rose Ricdeau, the most important character of My Skeptical Angel and the reason for the title. Now, I dare say Rose is her own character with plenty of differences when compared to Elly, but I doubt I would’ve had thought of her if I had never played Xenogears. That alone made the 100 hours I put in that game worth it.

That's all for now, but I'll be back next Sunday with a new article. Thank you for reading and have a great rest of your day!

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