Xenoblade Chronicles
The gods of the game world look a lot like ourselves
We all want to be god.
Humans always seem to create gods who are just like themselves. In the gaming world, this is also true! Sometimes the gods are good, sometimes vicious, sometimes caring, and mostly evil. Perhaps in making gods more like ourselves, we are just trying to make ourselves gods.
In 'Xenoblade Chronicles', the challenge is actually to defeat the god, which in the end, is an even easier way for humans to put ourselves on the throne.
Introducing Xenoblade Chronicles
A moan echoes from the lounge room as my brother once again fails to find a monkey fossil (or fossil monkey?) needed to rebuild colony 6. This is Xenoblade, an RPG (Role Playing Game) epic where game-play and story work harmoniously to create a truly epic game. Expansive worlds, brilliant combat and amazing story telling, RPG at its best. For the first half of the game, quests and adventures ensue as you fight as Shulk, wielder of the Monado, up the ancient titan Bionis. Yet there are many twists and not everything is as it seems.
How the game works
The truly interesting part of this game comes when you leave Bionis and walk upon Mechonis. You find out that Zanza (the creator of Bionis) and his god is evil and can only tolerate himself. He creates life to consume it and destroys whatever he wishes. He created the Monado for destruction and carefully controls Shulk’s path to the place where he wanted it until he then kills him again. We find that the gods need their creation to keep living.
The theme of Xenoblade is the idea of 'fighting fate'. In the game the Monado (your sword) gives Shulk visions of the future - visions which he uses to change the future. Alvis can also see into the future. He argues that the fate of life is to die, so why bother fighting? People could either die now or later on, but the result is still the same. The gods (Zanza mostly) have the right to kill what they create.
The question Alvis puts to Shulk when he is in a state between life and death is ‘who’s will is going to be done? Yours (to stay alive) or Zanza’s (who wants you to die)?’
The entire thrust of the game centres on the question of 'who decides your path?'. With the Monado, Shulk is able to change the future and create his own path. When Shulk laments over those he could not save Alvis replies ‘nothing is perfect’.
Can we control our own fate?
Although I haven’t finished the game one would assume that in the end you kill the evil god Zanza and bring peace and prosperity to the land. In killing their gods, human’s become gods, controlling their own fate. This is what we have tried to do with God, we fight for our right to live our lives however we like, and in the end, we killed our God, we killed Jesus. Yet becoming ‘gods’ has done nothing but bring death and destruction to our world. We need to turn back to the true and worthy God, the only one who we can trust with our future and our lives.
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