Well honestly the main issue isn't really Akechi's body count necessarily, it's that he simply isn't a compelling enough character to merit the sympathy the game wants to give him when compared to what he is and how he acts. Toning down his crimes is just a (seemingly) simpler way of making him more sympathetic without the harder work of just having stronger writing in general.
I mean, Akechi was acting unhinged in the real world without putting on the Loki suit from what I recall. I'm pretty sure he's genuinely unstable and violent regardless of the Persona, it's just a side of him we didn't see for most of the game. I definitely didn't get the impression the Persona had anything to do with it.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 11th 2019 at 9:12:38 AM
yeah his behavior while "killing" joker is straight up psychotic, and personas are personality powers anyway so having a persona that makes people go berserk says a lot already.
But no, the game, via ryuji, explicitly states he used loki on himself to make himself go crazy in the case of the last battle ("That bastard ! He made himself go psychotic !" to quote him) , which is what slimcoder is taling about, so you're remembering that one wrong.
Edited by Yumil on Oct 11th 2019 at 3:08:52 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."![]()
If you take issue with the fact that akechi while under litteral berserk status isn't nice enough for you, that kinda undermine your own argument cause that means there's actually very little wrong with the character, if that's the one thing you gotta keep coming back to.
I don't read moonrunes so I'd be hard pressed to find a reliable way to tell you but I don't see why it wouldn't considering it matches up with the rest of the events, such as the fact that even after breaking the facade and going full jerk, he's shown to be much more restrained in his breakdown prior to summoning Loki, and how he reverts to lower levels of jerkass when beaten, as if the psychotic effect wore off.
Edited by Yumil on Oct 11th 2019 at 3:14:21 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."![]()
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I found his portrayal during his grand final battle to be that of a derivative psychopath.
That's not how I wanted the antagonist that's been built up the whole game to go out.
So its a pretty underwhelming fate for the traitor.
Edited by slimcoder on Oct 11th 2019 at 6:14:29 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."![]()
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It could be a case of extremely inconsistent writing and the localization is attempting to justify it.
Wouldn't be the first time.
Edited by LordVatek on Oct 11th 2019 at 9:21:47 AM
This song needs more love.![]()
Again, that's not his portrayal, that's mostly just his own persona. The rest of his portrayal during the battle outside of that parts are in line with what we saw of him - a duality between him having enough self-awareness to know he's a terrible person and regret it, and his personnal hatred for joker for having everything he wanted that prevents him from switching sides, combined with his own idea that he's too far gone, but at the same time liking him for being one of the only person to ever treat him as a human being, culminating in him basically taking the bullet for the rest of the gang when he realizes that it makes no difference which path he pursues, he's dying here and now.
at some point, if you decide to remember him for that one time where he started screaming loudly than teammates are useless and ignoring the rest of the character, that's a bit on you, cause the game isn't exactly subtle about anything I just said.
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."![]()
I mean yes, you could make the assumption the original script made less sense, but I'm not disillusionned with the franchise enough to entertain that idea if there's nothing to suggest it. And even if it was, I'd just accept the localisation as the definitve version over the original, just like I'd much rather take the black knight going I Let You Win than "woops, warp powder spazzed out" in fire emblem.
Edited by Yumil on Oct 11th 2019 at 3:22:40 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."I mean, I admittedly didn't really pick up on the Gameplay and Story Integration being described here when I was playing the game, but like I said, Akechi is shown to be unstable and psychotic even without the effects of Loki. It's not really that implausible or bad writing if what the Phantom Thieves say make him doubt what he's been doing, since he probably didn't expect them to care about him since he implies he was treated like shit most of his life, so being shown actual compassion could certainly have that effect on him.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 11th 2019 at 9:25:01 AM
I just remembered this chart
, so I'm linking it. It's a very interesting way to look at Akechi's character relating to the rest of the Phantom Thieves and I hope these dynamics can be explored more in royal.
Edited by Konkfan7 on Oct 11th 2019 at 9:26:06 AM
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hey, I never thought about it that way but that chart kinda works ! Nice find !
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Yeah, it's just a trust in the storyteller thing - I'm not going to assume the story doesn't know what it's telling me cause I am under the impression they know what they're doing, so if they're telling me that on top of his established craziness, he added a second layer through personas, and that both types of craziness have enough differences in behavior (berserk akechi really is just a raving lunatic, while regular akechi just makes Light yagami faces while remaining moslty calm in his voice), I'm going to believe it. Now if you are under the impression they don't, it's natural to doubt what the story is telling you, but then, it kinda shows the story stopped working for you a long time ago.
Shamus young puts it wonderfully - If the writer has your trust, he can get away with anything (well, aside from the shit that would cause you to lose trust in him). If he doesn't, he won't even get way with the things he do right.
we know he'll be playable in his loki outfit, for once, meaning he'll survive his encounter on the ship or equivalent and will get to stick around for at least a bit more.
Edited by Yumil on Oct 11th 2019 at 3:32:25 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."That's actually a really solid chart, I'd never quite put it all together like that before.
Personally, I think Akechi was a good concept that was executed poorly. Almost all of his actual character development is crammed into just two scenes. They could do a lot to salvage the character by adding in more scenes earlier in the game — particularly, I think they should have developed him as "Akechi, boy genius" and "the mysterious black-masked persona user" simultaneously, so you see both halves of his personality. The big reveal would then be that they're the same person, which would recontextualize everything you've learned about him over the course of the game.
I don't expect Royal to go that far, but they could easily give him more scenes and start them earlier in the game, which would certainly be an improvement.
Edited by NativeJovian on Oct 11th 2019 at 10:01:53 AM
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Having him as a Recurring Boss might have made it harder to buy the thieves only realizing he was suspicious due to Pancakes.
One Strip! One Strip!One-offs you never fought in boss battles until the the very last fifth of the story or so.
They had more shit building up to them prior that, including them murdering shinjiro, and you fight jin and takaya twice overall, but that's still not a very high bar to pass.
I don't really care for building up black mask guy so much as I'd want the crew to think about what it means to have to fight another persona user that they can't just stole their heart. More goro building up to the boat scene however is a thing I'd very much like and would go a long way to solve people's issues with it far better than whitewashing him.
Edited by Yumil on Oct 11th 2019 at 4:21:26 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."That annoys me more because of the queerbaiting than anything with Akechi.
This song needs more love.

You do remember it's literally his own persona doing that as a last ditch effort, right ?
Like, there's tons of things to complain about akechi's personality, but complaining about that one time he inflicted himself with the final fantasy berserk status as a desperate attempt to win and somehow treating this as his normal personality doesn't strike me as very relevant.
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."