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FURTHER READING – GENERATIONAL CHANGE RPGS
Ore no Shikabane o Koete Yuke and the Limits of Mortality
The collapse of the Japanese economic bubble in 1991 dealt a major blow to Japan’s top film studios who were forced to scale back production due to financial strain,1 leading to a new wave of directors such as Takeshi Kitano, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and Naomi Kawase seeking alternative means of funding by turning towards global arthouse markets.2 In contrast, the Japanese video game arcade and console markets were still going strong, with companies like Sega profiting from both their emerging large-scale game centers and newly released home-hardware.3 However, this too would begin to sputter out shortly after the advent of the new millennium as larger video game companies, including Bandai and Namco, began to merge and turn away from risk-averse titles.4
The “sixth generation” was perhaps the last time major companies were willing to fund titles that did not carry mass-appeal. Released in December 2000 for the PlayStation 2, Namco’s 7: Molmorth no Kihetai is just such a niche game, having been developed by a smaller internal team led by the relatively unknown Hidetaka Sasaki and Tadahiko Kawaguchi. As Kawaguchi would explain in a retrospective blog post, his own lack of credits at Namco was not incidental.5 Kawaguchi had continuously declined jobs on the company’s established franchises so as to work on original games which were all ultimately cancelled. As a result, working on these cancelled projects endowed Kawaguchi with the experience necessary of seeing 7 to completion. Still, 7 never saw release outside Japan, and while Kawaguchi would go on to direct the game’s sequel, Venus & Braves: Majo to Megami to Horobi no Yogen, shortly thereafter, he would leave Namco and the games industry at large.6
The story of 7 begins in the remote border village of Molmorth where a contingent of royal knights who are part of the Kingdom of Almthera are temporarily waylaid. Players control an apprentice knight (a silent and nameable protagonist), a young boy who finds himself at the butt of his arrogant commander Dalgal’s frequent outbursts. The knights are surprised when a local village boy, Bal, stumbles into their camp and claims that the villagers have heard a strange cry emanating from the nearby forest. Believing the knights to be chivalrous, Bal requests that a search party be assembled to explore the woods. Unwilling to listen to who he believes is a country bumpkin, the commander kicks the request down to the protagonist who inspires no confidence in Bal.
Together, the two set off into woods and stumble upon a sleeping young girl who they rescue back to Molmorth. Upon awakening, she introduces herself as Filia (shortened to “Fil”), an apprentice of the Kaldenin Church who reveals that just as she was beginning her quest, she was attacked by the same monsters who now threaten the village. With no help from the royal knights, the trio band together a posse of locals to journey into the forest and slay the threat.
After saving Molmorth, Filia explains that she must return to the capital to continue her mission. Wishing to see the world outside the village, Bal joins Filia alongside the Protagonist who, becoming disillusioned with the royal knights, finds himself discharged. Ever the optimist, Bal dubs this new crew of unlikely heroes the “Calvary of Molmorth.” Upon arriving at the capital city, Vim, the troop meet Alvera, Filia’s mother and the royal librarian. Alvera confides in them the true purpose of Filia’s mission: to collect the 7 magical stones used by the legendary heroes of yore and in doing so prevent the resurrection of monsters. Thus begins the Molmorth saga.
While 7 ultimately centers on the Calvary of Molmorth attempting to save the world, what begins and continues to motivate the story is a desire to uphold a chivalric duty, to especially help those without the means to help themselves. Bal’s anger towards Dalgal and his contingent of knights results from his own disbelief that representatives of the capital seem to not care for their own subjects—Dalgal disregards the supposed threat of monsters to Molmorth in order to return to the safety and comfort of the city. This indifference extends towards the other two branches of Vim’s government. The leaders of the Kaldenin Church believe Alvera is a fool for believing in a children’s fable, and the king who remains cloistered within his castle chambers, is ignorant of the goings-on of the outside world. There is a contrast between the loud and animated Bal and the dour Dalgal further reflected in the contrast between the capital city—marked by its metropolitan architecture, including paved streets and towering buildings—and the outlying towns and villages. It is a contrast between the urban and rural and between those living within the sheltered confines of the city and those living under the encroaching threat of monsters.
Journeying throughout Almthera, the Calvary encounter a land divided between its people. The first actual town the they visit—Molthagartha—is divided in two, quite literally. The west side is home to witches and wizards whereas the east side houses gladiators (the game’s various ethnic groups are defined by their role-playing classes). The boiling tension between the two groups stems from the ideological difference concerning brains versus brawn. The narrative remains similar elsewhere. Archers and valkyries disagree on whether or not it’s too dangerous to fight the monsters, and a clan of samurai and ninja remain closed off from their priest and maiden neighbors. The crisis plaguing Almthera is as much a social problem as it is an apocalyptic one.
With Sony’s release of the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, developers were taking advantage of new and more powerful hardware to render more realistic and detailed game worlds. Namco’s output at this time included a mix of games that embraced the realism associated with 3D ,and the animation stylings of 2D. Ridge Racer V (2000) may have been a launch title for the PlayStation 2 but 7 followed up only half a year later. Kawaguchi had no interest in developing the realistic titles that Namco would ultimately emphasize. Rather, as also the game’s art director, he sought to combine the aesthetics of Eastern European fairy tales with that of Japanese animation. The game uses 3D characters set against hand-drawn 2D backgrounds. Cutscenes, too, are done in a 2D painterly style with the added touch of being narrated by Maki Nomiya, the lead singer of Pizzicato Five whose voice swaddles the narrative. Kawaguchi’s mix of influences results in the world of 7 appearing as if from a child’s innocent point of view. Monsters in particular are as menacing as they are comical. It is a world of whimsy yet also a world where our three heroes will experience the end of childhood as their ideals of heroism, built by belief and mythology, encounters the contrasting world of adults, a crueler realm of bureaucracy, rules, and ignorance.
7 uses a rotational-based battle system wherein players occupy a 3×4 grid and up to 7 units can be deployed. Like Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen (Quest Corporation, 1993), players do not directly control the action of units. Rather, after both allies and enemies have finished their turns, players must decide whether or not to rotate their troops, sending the frontline unit to the back and moving the rest of the units up one row. The game encourages tactical use of its rotation system. Front-row units will always attack, middle-row units will always cast support spells, and back-row units will always heal. However, support spells will only trigger once every rotation and players will lose the battle if any unit whatsoever dies. While it is possible to blitz weaker enemies in one turn—such as using a 4-3 formation—stronger enemies entail longer battles thus requiring a more efficient spread. Deploying a samurai backed by a wizard may vastly increase the former’s DPS output but without a support unit themselves, the wizard is all but dead once they are rotated onto the first row.
The game’s encounters are all fixed, and the combat menu which appears before the start of battle explains precisely the enemy’s statistics, what actions they will take, and on what turn they will take those actions. Furthermore, victory against certain enemies can only be attained through specific formations, such as 2-2-3 or 3-3-1, which the game will also detail. Surprise has little to no room here meaning that players will know what to expect and when to expect it allowing them to correctly deploy a formation they believe will succeed in battle. The result: combat is more akin to a puzzle game than it is the typical turn-based RPG.
Save for the final boss, players may find 7’s campaign rather easy, a strange sentiment to be felt considering that the game continues introducing new mechanics up until the final dungeon. Yet, the reason for this becomes apparent once the credits have finished rolling. Upon completing the main story, players unlock a new game mode titled “Almthera Chronicle” replete with its own title screen. The story in the Almthera Chronicle is minimal. One-thousand years have passed, monsters have returned and are plaguing the land. As part of the newly established royal cavalry, players must lead troops against the monsters and ensure the kingdom’s survival for as long as possible.
In contrast to the Molmorth mode, this new mode is crushingly difficult. As a lone soldier and leader of the royal cavalry, players begin within their base of operations where they may recruit new soldiers, check which areas are being attacked, their battle history, and perhaps most importantly, check in on their children. Much like Romancing SaGa 2 (Square, 1993) and Ore no Shikibane o Koete Yuke, Alfa System, 1999, the Almthera Chronicle is a “Generational Change” RPG. Characters age and pass away, leaving it to the next generation of soldiers to continue the fight. Finally, all the mechanics that had been introduced in the game’s narrative now begin to matter. Units will now age with each unit having a specific age range where their combat prowess will peak before they start to grow weak from old age. With the passage of every year—represented by the appearance of a rainbow—units will either grow stronger or weaker the closer or farther they get from their potential. Units who fight alongside one another will grow closer. If these units are of the opposite sex, they will have a child who upon turning 15 years old will join the player’s army. Soldiers who grow too old can eventually be retired but retained as martial trainers for children. Units who take too much damage now become fatigued, greatly weakening them. Death is now also permanent but no longer results in an immediate game-over.
As for how the rest of the Almthera Chronicle functions, players now get to freely wander the continent, but with each step taken, time also marches on. As players traverse the land, monsters will appear in certain towns at random. Should these monsters be ignored, they not only grow stronger but eventually destroy the town before moving on to another location. Simultaneously, players must also manage their kingdom’s defense meter. The presence of monsters lowers this meter every year but destroying monsters also increases the meter. Should the meter hit 0, the game ends. Alongside defeating monsters in town, players may also be attacked by creatures possessing their own cavalry while traveling, the game’s only instance of party vs party combat. In addition, they can also visit rumormongers who will unlock new recruits upon returning to the capital.
The Almthera Chronicle centers on the passage of time and the desperate attempts of humanity to survive, a grim contrast to the more playful nature of its Molmorth counterpart. While the game lacks a scripted narrative, its foundation in randomness gives way to emergent storytelling. During an early campaign, I was quite proud of the troops I had managed to initially wrangle together having been fortunate enough to recruit a samurai and holy knight, two of the game’s strongest classes. My kingdom’s defense was capped out at 99, and I had felt confident that so long as I could properly manage my units, taking note of who was growing old and what units were bonding, I would be able to coast through the rest of the campaign. How arrogant I was. Yes, I took glee in watching my cavalry dispatch of the weakest of monsters in only 1 – 2 turns, and I only felt my confidence increase as they eliminated monsters just as quickly as they appeared. But that was where my folly lay. Rather than returning to the capital to refresh and replenish my troops, and perhaps even saying hello to the children, I continued our hunt with the intent of keeping the kingdom safe. Monsters began appearing on opposite ends of the kingdom leading to longer marches. The years toiled away. Before I had realized it, my best troops had grown old and weak. The appearance of a rank 3 monster I could not defeat finally forced me to return. But, my newest recruits were still not strong enough and equally strong monsters began appearing. In my efforts to save the kingdom, I had become a neglectful commander, but above all, a neglectful parent.
In RPGs, such as Final Fantasy VI (Squaresoft, 1994), the implication of defeating a great evil—be it an autocratic kingdom or ancient monster—is that it secures a future. But few games truly ask players to think about the consequences of their own actions in relation to time. It is enough to travel from town to town, event to event, and boss to boss before players have reached the credit sequence and thereby reached utopia. In short, through their mechanics, RPGs typically emphasize what it means to inhabit the present. To play the Almthera Chronicle is to think about the future, not to prioritize the current generation of troops but their children and grandchildren, a point touched upon by tips I had encountered online that advised to keep early campaigns short, marching for only two years before returning to the capital. Such a reading of the Almthera Chronicle may come across as cynical. A land torn asunder by war where the only future guaranteed for children is that of perpetual fighting hoisted onto them by the previous generation. Furthermore, as soldiers, women are as equally capable as men, but the game’s emphasis on establishing and maintaining lineages also weaponizes reproduction. Love may bloom on the battlefield but will the child be strong? It is not without irony that the later merger between Bandai and Namco in 2005 was partially spurred on by Japan’s declining birth rate and the “diversification of customers’ hobbies and interests.”7 Women were integral to Japan’s economic miracle,8 both entering the labor force and performing domestic work at home, ensuring especially that children, particularly sons, were taken care of.9 The resulting collapse of Japan’s economic bubble, alongside declining fertility rates, threw into sharp relief the relationship between Japanese women and the Japanese economy. It is no surprise then that in 1994, the Japanese government would pass the “Angel Plan,” a set of economic polices aimed towards assisting couples in raising children. In 2009, the benefits of the policy were extended, a move which precipitated Shinzo Abe’s own “womenomics” agenda four years later. The future of both Japan and Almthera thereby hinge on female (reproductive) labor, a point which by 7’s release, had already codified as a new genre of video games. This includes not only the aforementioned generational change RPGs, but raising-simulation titles, such as Gainax’s Princess Maker franchise as well as Bandai’s Tamagotchi, games whose appeal emerged from the gamification of domestic labor. That is, the effort of rearing a child. The future is thus defined by normative reproduction rather than its queer potential10—within the royal cavalry, same sex relationships are not possible.
Knowing that Kawaguchi consistently worked on canceled projects and later left Namco, the Almthera Chronicle also seems to suggest that carrying a legacy becomes a burden, one whose weight would only increase as game companies doggedly pursued profit, a similar sentiment Hideo Kojima expressed with Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Konami, 2001). Successfully defending Almthera only delays the inevitable. Monsters will always return and children will once again be called back to the battlefield.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brinton, Mary C. Women and the Economic Miracle : Gender and Work in Postwar Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Carless, Simon. “Namco, Bandai Complete U.S. Merger.” Game Developer, January 4, 2006. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/namco-bandai-complete-u-s-merger.
Hill, M. Anne. “Women in the Japanese Economy.” In Women and Industrialization in Asia, edited by Susan Horton, 134–164. 1st ed. Routledge, 1996.
Kawaguchi, Tadahiko. “Sebun to Vinasu & Bureibusu (Seven and Venus & Braves).” Note, February 18, 2025. https://note.com/kawaguch/n/n22f9b95de710.
Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. 10th anniversary edition. New York: New York University Press, 2019.
Pelletier-Gagnon, Jérémie. Space and Play in Japanese Videogame Arcades. Abingdon,, Oxon ; Routledge, 2024.
Yomota, Inuhiko. What Is Japanese Cinema? : A History. Translated by Phil Kaffen. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
END NOTES
- Inuhiko Yomota, What Is Japanese Cinema? A History, trans. Phil Kaffen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019), 175. ↩︎
- Inuhiko Yomota, What Is Japanese Cinema?, 176. ↩︎
- Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon, Space and Play in Japanese Videogame Arcades (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2024), 49. ↩︎
- Simon Carless, “Namco, Bandai Complete U.S. Merger,” Game Developer, January 4, 2006. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/namco-bandai-complete-u-s-merger. ↩︎
- Tadahiko Kawaguchi, “Sebun to Vinasu & Bureibusu (Seven and Venus & Braves),” Note, February 18, 2025, https://note.com/kawaguch/n/n22f9b95de710. ↩︎
- Kawaguchi would instead turn towards painting, music, and short films, debuting his new work in galleries across Japan. ↩︎
- Simon Carless, Game Developer, “Namco, Bandai Complete U.S. Merger.” ↩︎
- M. Anne Hill, “Women in the Japanese Economy,” in Women and Industrialization in Asia, ed. Susan Horton (London: Routledge, 1996), 134. ↩︎
- Mary C. Brinton, Women and the Economic Miracle: Gender and Work in Postwar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 89. ↩︎
- José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, 10th anniversary ed. (New York: New York University Press, 2019), 28. ↩︎