"Mature" religious content in the RPG world

by Ben Bleything 

There are many issues surrounding the RPG world at the moment. Perhaps the most talked about issue is that of mature content in RPGs. For instance, religious themes in FFT, FF7's sexual themes, like the Honey Bee Inn, and perhaps the biggest issue, Xenogears religious themes. I'm going to discuss these issues.

As has been said before, one of the major themes of FFT is the Church's dealings with society, and the validity of a certain book, which can be paralleled to the bible or similar holy tome. Personally, I find this fascinating. I am not a religious person, in fact, I am aggressively nonreligious. To see a story revolving around spiritual wrongdoing, or misplaced faith, or however you want to classify the circumstances of FFT, adds another level of story immersion. Considering my views, it is a step in the right direction to see companies willing to say things that could potentially offend. In Mark Yohalem's "Mature Content in cRPGs", he states, "If Xenogears simply has an unidentifiable religion, even if it seem [sic] Judeo-Christian, it won't offend." I think this, of course, applies to all games, not just Xenogears, but may or may not be completely true. Thankfully, the majority of people who are playing RPG's are not the ones who take offense to such things. There are people out there who take offense to people writing out the name God. Even those of us who aren't religious realize that this is a stretch. The point is, you can't please all of the people all of the time, but that is not really the issue.

I read somewhere (forgive me, I can't remember where) that a major issue about Xenogears was characters bringing up questions regarding the necessity of religion. I'm really wishing I could find that article, so I could quote it, because I think there was a very important fundamental question posed in the context of the article. Are the actions of a character in a game truly going to convert the great god-fearing masses into some sort of evil neopagan religion? I think not. I think we are living in a time where it may be a good idea to perhaps question the necessity of religion, not only in games, but everywhere. A further discussion of this point is beyond the scope of the article, so I'll just say that some people *need* faith, and others don't.

Perhaps a better question to ask is whether Square, by publishing Xenogears in the US, will be helping to fuel a "Coup de God," as stated in the unknown article mentioned above. Again, I think not. To pose another question: Is the American gaming community mature enough to deal with these kinds of issues?

I think it is fair to say that the Japanese gaming community has a fair amount of contempt for the US gaming community. Take for instance FF: Mystic Quest. I assume most people know that it was called "Final Fantasy USA" in Japan. While FFMQ is definitely geared towards beginner RPG'ers, I also think that FFUSA is a bit of an insult to us. (By the way, I enjoyed FFMQ, even though I beat it in one sitting =P) Also, the re-balancing of enemy strengths and other things that happened as part of the translation of FFVII to US, in my opinion, is unfortunate. FFVII was a great game, but it was _easy_. However, all this is fine and good to a point. What really bothers me is that the Japanese gaming companies/community does not believe we in the US can handle things like the religious themes in Xenogears. The fact that there is any debate about the appropriateness of releasing it in the US is enough for me to be insulted that Japan does not trust us enough to deal with mature content.

I'm beginning to stray from the point. Question: Do religious themes have a place in RPG's? Of course! The point of an RPG is to tell a story. Usually, the story has some fantasy elements. When you get right down to it, isn't wizardry a form of religion? And that is to say nothing of Priests and White Mages. Now that we have established the appropriateness of religious themes, which specific aspects of religion are appropriate? Again, in my opinion, games are another story telling medium, and things that can be said in movies should be able to be said in games. One cannot say there aren't books and movies in existence that challenge religion, and yet, nobody is thinking that there is going to be religious upheaval because of these books and movies. How are RPGs any different? Some will say that they are played by young children, and that is the reason we must be careful. Young children, when playing games, especially games like FFVII, will not understand everything that goes on. For instance, how is a six year old child to understand the subtlety of what is going on in FFT? That the real issue is the corruption and lust for power of the church of Ivalice? They won't get it, and if they do, they are far past the point of having their religious views corrupted.

Unfortunately, and this has been stated before, in various contexts, there is not a whole lot we can do. If Square decides they don't want to publish Xenogears, or any other game with "questionable" religious content, they won't publish it. It isn't like we (the US RPG community) are going to stop buying Square games. And if they do put such a game out, and it does cause massive religious upheaval, we could well see our entire community ostracized and persecuted until some great event sets everyone straight. Agreed, this is rather melodramatic, but I believe it is possible. Not likely, but possible.