Bay 12 Games Forum

the succubus familiars

Island survival, how does it work?  You need a few things.

An island.  A bunch of characters on an island.  No way to get off said island unless there are certain conditions if present.

Of course series like to add their own spices to the bowl.  The main series I have read and will probably mention are Cage of Eden, Btooom!, and Battle Royale (this is the only one I'm not finished with though but I've read a fair share of chapters).  These all have their own things.  Ancient creatures, bombs, television show.  I think Battle Royale has the best theme out of the three but they could all manage to work if done well.  Unfortunately that's almost never the case.

You need to have a level-headed main character or else it won't seem too realistic at all.  Idiots and guys who charge in and headbutt things (idiots) should be the first ones dead.  That's why if your character is a hot-blooded moron you might want to stick with a more generic battle shounen theme and I'll make sure not to read it.  Sengoku suffers heavily from this in Cage of Eden while Btooom's Sakamoto is at least shown to be a scheming asshole like say Light from Death Note yet he has his share of problems as well (we'll get to that), and Shuya (I think that's his name) is the main character in Battle Royale but it's interesting to note that it doesn't focus on him too much and from what I've read of him so far he's my favorite of the three main characters because he's been Battler crying the entire time which I find enjoyable.  I'm not being sadistic here I enjoy when characters break down because I'm hoping he'll regain his feet and become a cool protagonist.

Anyway, the problems.

Sengoku is a moron who I can't sympathize with.  He attacks all the characters I like and he ends up not killing anybody yet they're horribly murdered sometimes mere seconds later by natural causes.  He should have been one of the first ones dead.  The only thing I enjoy with Sengoku is Akira (or whatever the older friend's name is) screwing with him.

Sakamoto is okay so far.  I enjoy that he's an asshole 20 something year old living with his parents playing video games and even hit one of his parents onto the ground in a childish rampage.  It's the same reason he was sent to the island.  I also enjoy him realizing why he's on the island and what he has to do to get off and trying to solve things like a sane rational being, that's cool.  It's just...he seems incredibly shallow sometimes and it feels like he makes idiotic choices.  Like he'll kill (yes he actually kills people directly unlike the Murder God Sengoku) a character that just became a brainless idiot instead of being a cool lawyer (sorry dude) but let the psychopath kid live just because I'm sure the author himself wants to keep that stupid kid alive instead which I HATE.  Authors shouldn't force characters to do things characters need to do what they would do themselves.  Sakamoto also has one of the worst heroines I have ever seen and that is actually probably what I hate the most about him.

Shuya is an early Battler right now.  He's a passionate and caring individual who cries his guts out over all of his friends killing each other.  It's kind of beautiful to watch.  He also plays guitar and acts like a corny 90's protagonist which I like.  I don't really have anything bad to say except that he suffers from a useless heroine load but we'll get to that...

Heroines.

Suck.

Horribly.

I don't understand.  Why do all of these heroines suck?!  I'm so used to Type-Moon's heroines which were amazing and now we get this?!

Cage of Eden has Rion who is just a fan service load.  Btooom! has I can't even remember her name who is just a fan service load.  Battle Royale has I can't even remember her name who is just a useless load.

Btooom's heroine, let me look this up, Himiko is horrible.  Fucking horrible.  It's...I'd rather have Sengoku or Cobra.  Himiko is one of Sakamoto's gaming partners who he marries in the video game an-fuck this it's stupid.  She also has water balloons for boobs and I hate her.

Rion from Cage of Eden is so much better in comparison.  I hate her too but after talking about Himiko I would want Rion so much more now.  I can't actually say anything because she's a flat as hell character who is just Sengoku's love interest, that's it.

Battle Royale's heroine is basically Nao from Liar Game.  Early Nao.  She gets injured very early on so she actually has a legitimate reason for not being able to do anything and in fact unless Shuya was nice enough to carry her everywhere she would have been sooo dead.  Currently "Nao" and Shuya are with the grizzled 30 year old high school student and are both basically pleading with him to save everybody but it's already too late.  She's probably my favorite of the three but she still doesn't, do, anything.  Why do authors write these characters, it boggles the mind.

Oh here's a good topic, villains.  Bad guys, antagonist, hoodlums, whatever you want to call them.  All three of these series actually spice it up a bit which is nice but what's not nice is that all of the main villains SUCK.

Cage of Eden has no tangible main antagonist right now!  If you could call it anything it would be the island itself.  Otherwise there are a few antagonists running about but the majority are dead.  The rest are just the island itself and the creatures.  The most recent arc looks like it will be introducing a cool antagonist...who will probably die.  I'm reading Deathtoll's scans so sorry if I'm a little behind DragonFly kind of suck.

Btooom has well...the people who brought them there and the contestants themselves.  I can't see how Sakamoto can fight the organization unless he stops killing other people or should I say the author needs to stop introducing psychopaths so that we can get a team going here!  Date-kun is probably my favorite villain right now for being so moe.  :3  I know it's probably unintentional though.

Battle Royale surprising has my least favorite main antagonist.  That fat ugly guy.  What a generic piece of shit.  I hate him.  Definitely one of my least favorite things about Battle Royale.  If it had a cool villain that would have been badass but no we get this lump of crap who is ridiculously unsympathetic and just..completely and flatly evil.  It's disgusting I loathe villains like this to my core.  Soul core.  Most of the antagonist contestants suck too, Battle Royale isn't good with antagonists...unless Shinji becomes one in which case hell yeah.

Hmm yeah I'm done with this.