people say 3 Houses had a deep story but let’s be honest 95% of its complexity originates in whether you think Rhea is attractive or not
personally I saw the evil milf pope and I immediately found her off-putting and was confused when the game clearly expected me to like her and not be creeped out by her behaviour. I looked online to see if other people were weirded out too and saw most people were just drawing her tits
the thing is that not being invested in Rhea’s character really does deflate the entire plot. every time Rhea told me to do something I just wanted her to go away with her sketchy conspiratorial bullshit. Seteth and Flayn are clearly in on it so they can fuck off too.
I couldn’t give a crap about the Church of Seiros as a whole, they’re just a big evil cult of personality, but for some reason, the game expects you to like being a part of it. 3 out of 4 routes expect you to like them and side with them when war breaks out. even on Edelgard’s route where you fight the church, the conflict feels paper-thin because the issues with the church seem so damn obvious that it’s hard to be invested in the drama. it all just fell flat for me.
i was TOTALLY expecting her to be the villain by like level 3 but they keep treating her in this really weird way as if she’s a sympathetic character despite all the evil shit she keeps doing and eventually i was like. oh. oh the game assumes i LIKE her.
It’s legitimately so weird. They introducer with “Here is the very powerful leader of the church with fingers in politics who is clearly deliberately trying to shape the future of this land to her benefit. She’s in charge of Child Soldier School and she is very fixated on you. She keeps saying cryptic things and has interests likely at different odds with your own. She also probably has something to do with your mom dying and you being a little freak.” And you’re supposed to see all that and go “ah I see. What a noble person. I sure am team popelady. Nothing bad can possibly happen from trusting This Person.”
the main thing I’ve gathered from the Pacific Rim director’s commentary is that, even though a lot more of PacRim was done with CGI than I had realized, it still holds up almost 10 years later because of how intentional Guillermo Del Toro was with building in details, flaws, weathering and environmental factors, and, primarily, love and respect into every single model.
He helped animate every single creature and robot by hand on his tablet, he praised the animators for every single shot and talks about how brilliant they are, how hard they worked on every detail, he treats all of them like human beings, like geniuses, just as integral to the film as himself and the actors. The animators themselves talk about how intentional and detailed his ideas were, how helpful and insightful he was when he spoke to them about changes, when he came to them with new ideas.
There’s also a hell of a lot of practical effects woven in, which add to the believability, but the CGI holds up first and foremost because he saw it as an art form to be cultivated and loved just as fiercely as everything else, not a ‘wow’ effect to be slapped in for budget cuts.
