[Heavy unmarked spoilers] Valkyria Chronicles 4 made me feel like a monster.

[Sainz 14]

Like, several other games with stuff that's immoral, Spec Ops the Line has a lot of the "What have I done?!" Moments, Danganronpa V3 points the finger directly at you, the player, and tells you that YOU keep the killing games going, but they never hit me like this game did.

When I first finished this game, I felt so sick, what I had just experienced was so beyond immoral that I couldn't justify anything we'd done. While the ending was happy, and I'm glad for that, I still felt like all I'd done was perpetuate the cycle. Fed the machine. Even though I'd chosen peace, I'd left countless dead in my wake.

Then, after the scenes with Ausbruch and the Selvaria DLC in VC1, it hit me. The mooks I'd been killing, most of them probably wasn't bad people. They didn't choose to be born in the Empire. They didn't choose to be enlisted into the military, and to fight a war. They all had names, some of them probably had families. Friends, and I slaughtered them all while thinking I was the "hero," riding in to save the day.

Beneath the masks, the average Imperial soldier probably desires to go home, to live in peace, just like I (and my characters) did, but instead we were pushed into war, the average citizen sent to the meat grinder for the benefit of elites on both sides.

The irony of getting angry at the atrocities of the "enemy" all while bragging about the ability to slaughter millions of innocent people, using an innocent girl as a weapon to do so, it struck me. For the first time, a game made me feel responsible. Even though we don't have an avatar character, I guided those characters.

I made the decisions, so ultimately I felt like I had pulled the trigger, in every single case. Its just as the old adage goes: "The first victim in any war is the humanity of the enemy."

The fact Claude even thought to do it just made me sick to my stomach. If I was in his situation, his exact situation, and they handed me the keys, I don't think I would even put them in the console. Its not her fault that many have died in the war, its not on her to sacrifice her life to "end" the war, which it wouldn't have done, if anything it'd have only escalated imperial fervor, as it would be a great propaganda piece. "The empire must fight to the last, because our enemy plans to slaughter us all" her sacrifice would have been meaningless.

That girl was innocent. When I saw her, what they did to her, what they wanted me to do to her, I just couldn't bring myself to support the Federation. And the fact Claude was dismissed for not doing it, it just... Made me realise how evil we'd been. We weren't "liberators," we didn't bring "freedom," we slaughtered people in cold unfeeling blood because we were told to. I just couldn't justify anything I'd done. Revisiting the scene in the village, a lot of the people seemed really nice, their only resentment was that we were invaders.

Then I thought about how many thousands of innocent people were in the capital and how I was expected to kill an innocent girl to kill them. When Claude was shouting how he could defeat the empire and destroy them all, I lost all my sympathy for him. That thought would never have crossed my mind. I wouldn't even be able to bring myself to touch the lever, let alone think about pulling it.

We were war criminals. Perhaps we was even terrorists. We was no better than the "evil" we were fighting. We were hypocrites. VC4 is the first game I've played where I felt like an absolute bastard for just playing it. Great gameplay, but I can just no longer divorce myself from the immorality of what we were doing, the carnage we were committing in the name of "peace," and how we all celebrated it. I remember I loved seeing the character cut ins after you defeat an enemy, now I realise, I was cheering because I'd killed someone. Even if that person was "evil," how is it my right to say that? And even if they were, that doesn't justify taking their one life away, they can be taught the error of their ways.

Even if its just fiction, I felt guilty. To quote Danganronpa V3, Fiction can indeed change reality. This game made me think a whole lot more about people. How precious a life really is, and how none of us have the right to take it away from another, regardless of the reason.

And in some situation where someone says if I didn't do it they would, thus forcing me, I'd want to go down with her. It's not fair that she die, but I get to live, the one who killed her. Even if the Empire did a lot of messed up shit, I didn't want to destroy them all, I wanted the people there to be free from the tyranny of their government, wiping out thousands, if not millions of them did nothing. Committing an atrocity to stop atrocities is an oxymoron. While I respect what Angie was willing to do, it simply wasn't her place to sacrifice herself for us, especially when she was so innocent and we had so much blood on our hands.

I have a ton of respect for Angie because of what she was willing to do, the fact she was so selfless to consider sacrificing herself, but I'm so glad she didn't have to. She was willing to put her short, painful life to an end to save us, a bunch of horrid people who had fought over dumb shit for centuries. Maybe I'm a sap, but Angie really touched me. Ultimately at the end, while I felt like a monster and that it wasn't worth it, I agreed with Claude, as much as I didn't respect him anymore, I was so happy when he carried Riley and Angie out of the reactor. Chapter 18 was the redemption for Claude. I gained the modicum of respect for him back when he was willing to put himself on the line as Angie had done.

I'm just sad because now Pandora's Box is open, that technology can't be uninevented, and we all know whenever something dumb happens again, the blood of more innocents will be wasted in useless conflict. Once the dust settled and I thought about it more, I did feel like a monster, but I also felt like I had a sense of duty. She was willing to give her life for us, and we have a duty (as Squad E) to protect her. It's the least we could do, I just wanted to end her suffering. I'd have loved to see an epilogue where she's happy. Saving her made it all worth it, even if the war itself was pointless, Raz (and Zaiga) might have died, but I don't think they'd be upset with our choice. As Riley said, we made the right choice to walk away. It reminds me of the quote that basically changed my outlook on the world: "Peace cannot be attained by force, only through understanding."

Edited February 4, 2019 by Hammsuke