Say you’re making a stop in the village before a game’s last dungeon, talk to some kid, and then it turns out that he’s actually the final boss. How would you feel?
“I was hoping there’d be a bit more fanfare before the final fight.”
“If I’d known, I would’ve leveled up more. That’d be way too harsh for people who are going in blind!”
“What a total circle jerk from the developers. Their whole focus should be on what’s best for the players.”
Most people would probably have one of the reactions above, or something close to it.
Surprise is a good spice to add to a game, but you shouldn’t add more than a teaspoonful, and you certainly shouldn’t use it for anything more than adding some aroma. In cooking, spices are used to enhance the delicious flavors that are already there; if you use too much and ruin those flavors, then you shouldn’t have added anything in the first place.
Sticking to the classics is usually the best way forward. The final boss is especially important to get right, because that’s often what players will remember. You need to fine-tune their emotional reaction and give them plenty of time to prepare before that climactic fight.
“Welcome to Tenchido Eternaland! My, my, aren’t you such a sweet little couple? Tee hee!”
And here we see a perfect example of how to completely miss the mark.
CEO of Tenchido, Amachi Otoha. Mother to my friend’s little sister, Kohinata Iroha, and the main reason she wasn’t allowed to be open about her voice acting work. Otoha-san was further along the path I was taking in life, and in some ways my greatest enemy. We had completely different philosophies about how to manage our creative teams, and I was determined to one day get the results that would prove to her that I was in the right.
Otoha-san was someone I needed to best in several ways; she was very much like a final boss. And now here she was. There had been no warning whatsoever. She just stood there, right in front of the Tenchido Eternaland entrance.
The gate was surrounded by statues of characters which, despite being marketed for kids, held a dignity all of their own, thanks to their historical significance. They were grand, cutesy, and gorgeous all at once.
And it didn’t matter at all, because Otoha-san was waiting to greet Mashiro and me in the least satisfying final boss encounter of all time. If you’re ever planning to make a game, take this as an example of what not to do. Don’t be that desperate, please.
So yeah.
“Hey, Mashiro. Can we get outta here and go level up a bit?”
“Wait.” Mashiro grabbed my shoulder while I was in the process of turning around. Her grip was stronger than I expected. Guess she’d bulked up.
“Don’t run; it makes you seem so unkind! You wouldn’t want to make me cry, would you?” Otoha-san said, purposely making her voice wobble, but making no other effort to fake cry.
“At least get some eye drops so you can make it look like you’re actually crying.” I couldn’t muster up an ounce of pity; she was definitely messing with me.
She had the teary intonation down pat. Combined with the rest of her performance, it was really unnerving. I’d prefer she picked just one: be either good or bad at acting, not both.
“What are you doing here, Otoha-san?” I asked.
“Why, I’m Tenchido’s CEO, of course I’d be here! You could say I’m the general manager.”
“I don’t doubt that, but that doesn’t mean you actually have to come here in person, right?”
“You two are my very special guests. It would be rude of me to send a mere representative to come and welcome you now, wouldn’t it?”
“Special guests?” I echoed.
“Otoha-san invited me here,” Mashiro explained. “She’s prepared us a place where we can spend some time, just the two of us.”
“She did, huh? Since when did you two get so close?”
“Remember when we had that party? The one after you announced Koyagi’s hiatus? That’s when.”
“Oh, right.”
Otoha-san and Mizuki-san had both shown up to that, so I guess she and Mashiro got to talking while I wasn’t paying attention.
Why, though?
Mashiro was Otoha-san’s daughter’s friend—I got that. But do moms really form private relationships with their children’s friends like this, without said child’s involvement?
For example, what if my mom formed a friendship of her own with one of my friends? Uh, I guess it’d help if I actually had more than one friend in the first place. Great, now I’m depressed.
I knew paranoia wasn’t a good look, but this was Otoha-san we were dealing with. I couldn’t help but feel she had some ulterior motive for getting in touch with Mashiro. I guess if nothing else, I now knew why Mashiro was so eager to come to Eternaland today.
Unlike when I’d come across her in our apartment building, Otoha-san was dressed up in a suit, and in full-on career mode. It reminded me of Sumire in teacher mode, except Otoha-san’s garb seemed more luxurious. I wasn’t an expert on designer brands, but I couldn’t see anyone else wearing a suit like that except a politician or a CEO like her. But like I said, I couldn’t be sure. That was just the impression I got.