Religion in video games

The best critique of organised religion in games, to my mind, comes in Final Fantasy X (which I controversially maintain is one of the best in the series) where the religious establishment maintains its social control and the status quo through the process of sacrificing a summoner to the destructive entity known as Sin, who simply absorbs her power and starts the cycle anew, the fear generated in each cycle ensuring the people are loyal to the church. Yet this is still only an allegory. After all the youthful, brash world of videogames doesn’t often concern itself directly with the stuffy traditionalism of religion (games like GTA and Manhunt the medium has enough enemies already), but this month the situation changes considerably with the release of no less than 3 A-list titles which set themselves within specifically Christian apocrypha. They are Bayonetta, Darksiders (both out now) and Dante’s Inferno (released start of Feb), and you might also add to this list Assassins Creed II, which debunks Catholicism through its central antagonist, who works his way up to become pope solely to gain access to the secrets of the Vatican before claiming the Bible to be ‘superstitious nonsense’. Judging from the subversive approach these releases take, it seems there’s going to be a few more spaces reserved for game designers in the fiery furnace. But that’s all good, because after all only the cool people go to hell.

One of the coolest people in the brimstone would undoubtedly be Bayonetta, the eponymous heroine of one of the most gloriously inventive and devilishly fun games released in a long time, and an early contender for game of the year. This sassy vixen, clad in a slinky black cat suit (which disappears each time she powers up a combo) and designer glasses, simply oozes sex appeal. Dispatching her angelic antagonists in a hail of bullets (from guns mounted on her stilettos in a nod to Planet Terror) or a series of electrifyingly fast, flowing combos, Bayonetta punctuates each movement of her lithe body with an erotic wiggle, and sometimes straddles her prey to dish out a literal spanking. In short Bayonetta is the most gloriously sleazy game I’ve ever seen, taking the crudest elements of the medium and elevating them to glorious new depths in cut scenes that quite simply leave you in stitches. Platinum Games seem to have perfectly fused the spirit of 1970s American exploitation flicks with a kooky Japanese hentai anime sensibility and, thanks to the involvement of Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya, presented it all with a breezy confidence and some of the most high octane gameplay so far seen this generation of consoles.

The pitch: In a weirdly distorted vision of our world, Bayonetta is the last witch surviving the persecution of the witch hunts, who is now employed as a kind of angel hunter for Rodin, the shady underworld arms dealer and bartender at The Gates of Hell (spot the fine arts reference). As a witch Bayonetta is able to move between the real world and Purgatorio, where the citizens of heaven (Paradiso) and hell (Inferno) are able to roam, and attempt to influence the human realm (incidentally these terms are all derived from Dante’s The Divine Comedy). Looking to test her abilities, Bayonetta tracks the sale of a precious artefact to the European city of Vigrid, the former base of the now vanished Lumen Sages and Umbra Witches, but finds herself embroiled in an angelic plot to bring back the Creator as well as dealing with unlocking the traumatic memories of her past.


Anyone who has seen the masterful anime Neon Genesis Evangelion will be in familiar territory with regards to the picture this game paints. In Neon Genesis young children had to pilot huge mechs in defence of humanity against the angels, in a weirdly inverted interpretation of the book of Revelation. These ‘angels’ were depicted as vast semi-organic alien ships, constructed in a variety of bizarre shapes and created from a mysterious compound. The devastation they wrought on Neo Tokyo was as shocking as the gruesome end they often came to, violently torn apart by the Evangelion mechs (traumatising their young pilots). Likewise in Bayonetta, despite possessing names like ‘grace’ and ‘harmony’, the angels are ferocious killing machines split into groups according to the mythical hierarchy of the angelic choir. The most memorable of these are colossal, their scale lending the game much of its epic grandeur. For instance one angel, Fortitude, is depicted as a vast upside-down cherubic head grafted disturbingly onto a rotund torso and topped by two huge serpents. They are quite simply some of the most impressive and terrifyingly original character designs ever seen in any art form, demonstrating both the imaginative powers of the medium and its ability to subvert cultural elements in fascinating new ways.

Far less original, but no less sensitive, is Darksiders’ depiction of demons and angels, casting the denezins of hell as clichéd ogres and the armies of heaven as winged marines, who descend to Earth to play out their long awaited final battle. Meanwhile you play as War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, alone and disgraced after you realise the seven seals binding the ancient treaty between heaven and hell haven’t in fact been broken and it is, rather, your very presence that has precipitated Armageddon. The game sees you stalking the destroyed cities of man attempting to redeem yourself by ending the conflict that you have inadvertently started.

Whilst both Bayonetta and Darksiders project the story of biblical apocalypse onto our world, the forth coming Dante’s Inferno depicts a more personal odyssey. One man’s journey through the nine circles of hell in search of his murdered wife Beatrice, Dante’s Inferno promises to act as a diabolic counterpart to Bayonetta’s astounding depiction of the angelic hordes, by offering its own truly epic depictions of demonic beasts. This is apparent from the very start of the game when you defy the grim reaper himself when he turns up for your sinning soul, and instead steal his scythe and give him a taste of his own medicine. Here the literary meaning of epic, the classical style of poetry embodied by the Divine Comedy, is replaced by a more modern meaning of the word: terrifying and impressive in scale and scope.


The protagonist of the source poem, the author himself Dante Alighieri, is a pilgrim wrestling with his faith; a passive observer of hell as he is lead through it by the pagan poet Virgil. Video games, of course, require a more active focus and so Dante is recast as a soldier from the crusades who, having realised the central hypocrisy of the Catholic church, is wracked with sin (he sews his sins literally into his own flesh in the form of a cross) over his actions and physically battles his way through hell. By recasting the protagonist as an absolute badass the game will almost certainly alienate the literati who sneer at the medium of video games, but there’s fundamentally absolutely no reason why the poem as source material should not be played with in this manner. Rather EA should be congratulated for having the ambition to tackle making a game out of an ancient piece of literature, and may even help turn a fresh young audience to the source material (in the same way that film adaptations often renew interest in the source novel). And just as the best film adaptations are those that take liberties with the source text, so that its meaning is better explored in a visual medium, Dante’s Inferno reimagines the elements in the context of a video game, trading in the literary aspects of the poem for a more immediate and visceral experience – in short replicating the kind of experience that poetry strives towards.

Ultimately there may be more of a line of continuity between literature and video games then we are initially seeing. Bayonetta’s inversion of heaven and hell was first put forth by Milton’s masterpiece Paradise Lost (itself inspired by Dante), which in a controversial allegory of the English civil war depicted God as an authoritarian monarch and Satan as a revolutionary who turns hell into a parliamentary democracy by constructing Pandemonium. This heretical tradition was taken up by William Blake in his critique of society A Marriage of Heaven and Hell and by the romantic poets, where Satan was often used as a metaphor for creative potency. Some might consider the medium of video games a highly unlikely place for this age old literary tradition to turn up, but for me it is just another indication of the artistic maturity of the medium.

The legacy of Yasumi Matsuno

I couldn't believe my eyes. When I logged into Playstation Network after being disconnected from the net for 3 weeks what should I find waiting for me but the digital re-release of my favourite ever game, the often sadly overlooked PS One masterpiece Vagrant Story and the game that gives this blog its name (the protagonist, Ashley Riot, is a Riskbreaker knight). It’s the perfect time to talk about one of the great auteurs of video games - Yasumi Matsuno.

Vagrant Story is quite simply exceptional. Released in 2000 when games were just starting to come into their maturity it boasted an orchestral score (by the equally legendary Hitoshi Sakimoto) worthy of the great classical composers and the kind of intricate and deep plotting that was a revelation. Furthermore it was created within a company, Square Enix, known for its serials (Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest) rather than original IP (intellectual property), and yet in many ways it is utterly unique; mixing RPG stat crunching with real-time combat, platforming and puzzle elements.

Set in the long abandoned and mysterious city of Lea Monde, which was architecturally modelled on the medieval vaults of Bordeaux, the plot sees Valendian Knight Ashley Riot descending into the ruins to rescue the Duke’s kidnapped son from a religious cultist. Whilst most RPGs feature villages filled with shops and non-player characters with which to interact, in Vagrant story you are utterly alone; forced to scavenge rare potions from the corpses of the slain and forge your own weapons in abandoned workshops, scattered throughout the city’s echoing, haunted streets. The result is an incredible atmosphere of desolation, which is accentuated by the game’s exceptionally dark and unique art style. A fitting setting given that Ashley discovers his greatest threat is not his enemy but his own past.

Actually Vagrant Story isn’t as isolated a game as it seems, given that it takes place within the larger world of Ivalice, which was created by Matsuno during his time at Square and is still used by them today (their current crop of releases are under the banner ‘Ivalice Alliance’). In this world he set his two other masterpieces: Final Fantasy Tactics (which was just remade as War of the Lions for the PSP), with its jaw-droppingly complex sweeping storyline, and Final Fantasy XII, the game that signalled a massive departure from the staid traditions of the series. In both titles Matsuno completely overhauled every aspect of the Final Fantasy universe, making it completely his own in way that hadn’t been done since Hironobu Sakaguchi loosened his grip on the series. Even though he was removed from the project in its late stages for his perfectionism (the official line was health reasons) the game’s complex world and narrative is still pure Matsuno, despite the last minute addition of the unbelievable wet-blanket protagonist that is Vann.

An interesting aside: After Matsuno left the project the developers of FFXII added an optional boss named Yazmat (formed from the compounded first syllables of his first and second name) into the game. Whether this can be seen as an affectionate homage or a sly dig at the man’s controlling nature isn’t certain, but one thing that is clear is the respect his colleagues had for him, after all Yazmut has entered the Guinness book of records for being the toughest boss in any game – the average time taken to defeat him is 8 hours continuous fighting, a feat only achieved by a handful of the most hardcore gamers (amongst whom I sadly do not count myself).

‘Tis the season to slay beasties

Christmas is all about over-indulgence, and this coupled with the fact that your likely to have a couple of weeks off work and a house-full of noisy relations to avoid, means there’s no better time to embark on an epic multi-stranded RPG, the playing-time of which lurches into the triple digits like a level 30 reanimated corpse. Last years drug of choice was the amazing post apocalyptic Fallout 3, courtesy of Bethesda (of Oblivion fame). This year Bioware has almost certainly stolen the RPG crown with their dark fantasy epic Dragon Age – though unlike Oblivion the acclaim is by no means universal…

The sad truth is I was reluctant to buy Dragon Age after reading a less than glowing review in Edge magazine that claimed the game to have a shoddy, clichéd and poorly scripted story, and ultimately branded it a five out of ten. Fortunately word-of-mouth won the day and I was persuaded by many people that, on the contrary, this was a finely crafted, meticulously scripted game – and guess what? It is.

Now I’m no fan of clichéd run-of-the-mill fantasy so suffice to say I was approaching the game with a sceptical eye when the first thing I was asked to do was to craft a character based on a choice of three rather familiar races and classes (Dwarf, Elf, Human – yawn). Still I reserved judgement and took my human rogue into battle, where it very quickly became clear that the game only uses tradition as a convenient springboard for a new idea or merely to have a little fun. Take the first quest in the human story: you and your faithful Malbari war hound have to clear a few rats from the castle pantry – a familiar set up that leads your partner to announce ‘this sounds like the start of a bad fantasy adventure’. After some crashes and bangs you emerge from the larder dripping in gore to calmly tell the incredulous elderly cook that ‘the problem has been taken care of’. A nice moment of understatement and a good example of the ribald humour that runs throughout. Later, for instance, you can stay at a brothel and for company are given the choice between ‘some girls’, ‘some men’, or ‘surprise me’. If you choose the latter the game cuts to your character standing in the bedroom the next morning in their underwear with two pigs desperately trying not to make eye-contact.

There are also some nice deviations from tradition in the detailed world that the game constructs via hundreds of codex entries. Here elves are former slaves living in ghettoes in human cities, rather than noble lords of the forest, whilst magic is outlawed except for a small circle of mages that the chantry (Ferelden’s rather corrupt religious entity) keeps on a short leash. But the most impressive thing here is the attention to characterisation, which is at times staggering. At any point your frequently antagonistic party members may break into witty banter, trading verbal blows in the down time from fighting. ‘Stop tripping me up dwarf!’ shouts the samurai-esque Qunari warrior Sten to your foul mouthed dwarven berserker Oghren ‘if you were more substantial perhaps I wouldn’t step on you.’ Unable to come up with a response Oghren resorts to responding ‘Your mother!’ The game bristles with tongue-in-cheek, witty banter (and the mind boggles as to how much must have been recorded for every possible party combination) all finely presented with some decent voice acting, and certainly not the ‘staid and limp performances’ Edge accuses. It is this playful tongue-in-cheek quality, poking fun at the conventions of the genre without ever being arrogant enough to do away with them entirely, that makes Dragon Age such a charming game in spite of its admittedly slightly laggy, dull graphics and initially over-familiar setting.