For instance, the Civ games are basically Whig History: The Game, presenting liberal capitalism as the ideal end point for all societies. It even includes uncivilized "barbarian tribes" whose sole purpose is to be exterminated so you can take their land for the glory of capitalism.
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Even better, how about an RPG where you're just one of the revolutionary vanguard, inspired by fantasy :JB-shining-aggro: , to overthrow an unjust status quo?
I could see a game inspired by the Cuban revolution being very good, except the only game loosely based on that I've played was terrible.
for "the rebellion" being such a common media trope, it's surprising there isn't more rebel/revolutionary fighter type games.
Rebellions, especially successful ones, especially ones that may change the status quo permanently, scare the ruling class too much. :porky-scared:
Yeah, it's a byproduct of who owns the video game companies. Plus they take so much funding from the Defense ghouls, they could never get too cool.
the classic SNK arcade game?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_War_(video_game)
We. The Revolution lets you be a judge during the French Revolution.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/736850/We_The_Revolution/
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Top-down Contra isn't a terrible take on the idea, though in America the main characters' names were censored lmao.
This is basically the plot of Ogre Battle 64 (though you start off on the wrong side) and it rules
I remember enjoying that game but forgot all of the plot, sounds cool
This is why I like Final Fantasy Tactics. Ramza is born into nobility, but is also a bastard son likely from a peasant mother. His best friend is lower born and much of the early part of the game deals with class warfare and his lower born friend getting the shit end of the stick. I'll not spoil it for anyone but I think it does a really good job of exploring these themes.
It does get more and more fantasy-esque in the latter part of the game and honestly Ive always felt that the endgame feels more tacked on to make it align with the fantasy genre than anything else.
The way that Delita's story
play the game if you haven't dam
starts with him empathizing with a peasant's rebellion, then has him being extremely ruthless in his quest for power, and ends with him completely recuperated by the system and perpetuating it instead of reforming it like he set out to do is just :chefs-kiss:. Ramza escapes a Shakespearean death because he rejects the system and goes his own way, which is a bit individualist idealist but it's fine if you consider that the world as portrayed just wasn't ready for a true liberation movement.
It's unfortunate, seems like square had a brief moment of cool writers and now all they make is anime-derived tropic jrpgs. FF6 had an empire using cutting edge technology to do imperialism in a world on the verge on industrial revolution, FF7 had you play eco terrorists. Xenogears... Was trying to say something and is a good example of letting writers have a bit too much freedom.
Final Fantasy, all the way up through 10, had very strong anti-christian, anti-colonialist, and anti-imperialist themes. Gonna spoil tactics here:
spoiler
Ramza is a crusader who finds concrete proof that Jesus is not the son of god. After dealing with the political fall out of simply having this proof (assassination attempts etc), Ramza finds Jesus to be a parasite on the world literally feasting on the blood of humanity
Based.
ff7 starts you of as a group of eco terrorists and then goes off into more standard jrpg stuff, but that beginning makes it a lot more palatable
For about four years now, I have been off and on writing a text-only RPG in Python that you play directly in your computer's terminal, and you just described the storyline exactly lol
I'm taking this idea in a different direction - what if it was Rimworld but you were building the Tower of Babel to storm heaven
I think Suikoden might be the kind of thing you're looking for, although I haven't finished the game yet so I can't vouch