![]() ![]() It makes Liu Bei and his whole story feel hollow, because they never bothered to provide it with anything of substance. They tell us “he’s the good guy” and then they never do anything to prove it. DW expects us to already be on Liu Bei’s side when we first pick up the game. He’s the hero of other fictional versions, so of course he’s the protagonist of this one. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know why this is. Sure, he fought the Turbans and Dong Zhuo, but so did Cao Cao and Sun Jian/Ce/Quan, so that doesn’t earn him any extra credit.īut in every situation, we’re expected to side with Liu Bei…because. We’re told that LIu Bei is the good guy and the protagonist, but he doesn’t really do anything to convince players to side with him over someone else. We’re told that restoring the Han is good, but we’re given no reasons to agree. The greater problem here, though, is basically that we’re being told to agree with something, rather than convinced by the narrative. Most of this, they don’t really talk about in the early games (except for maybe in their fancyclopedia, but I really hope no one read that garbage), so it may not be entirely fair of me to judge things based on that, but…well, I’m doing it anyway. With the corrupt officials, the irresponsible emperors, the usurpation of the consort clans, the ignorance of the struggles of the commoners, and the persecution (and often execution) of any officials who pointed these things out… The Han stops sounding all that great. What’s so bad about one of them taking over? The old games treat the “restoration of the Han” thing like it’s inherently a good thing, without giving us any reasons why it’s good.Īnd the more you learn about the Han at that point, the worse the idea of restoring the dynasty sounds. He wants to restore the Han - but why? Why do I want the Han to remain in power? Sure, the Turbans and Dong Zhuo were bad, but guys like Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan seemed to have their stuff together. The big problem I have with early Liu Bei is while his motives and goals are clear and consistent, I never felt like those games gave me any reason to agree with him. It’s actually a pretty solid motivation, and he’s very consistent about it. To that end, he fights against the Turbans, Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao, and a few others, all in the name of the Han. He sees warlords gathering power for themselves, and he wants to put them down and restore the authority of the Han dynasty. He sees that the Han dynasty is crumbling and falling apart, and as a scion of the Han, he wants to restore it. To his credit, early Liu Bei is pretty clear on what he wants. Where these two differ most importantly is their overall goals and motivations. I don’t like either of them, but for different reasons. DW2-5 Liu Bei was very different from the DW6-8 version. ![]() Like some other characters, Liu Bei has had two very distinct incarnations. But, of course, there’s not much point in me sitting here, slamming my fists on the desk and shouting “I DON’T LIKE HIM” without explaining why. ![]() TL DR: I’m pretty sure you all know how I feel about both versions of this guy.Īlright, I think we all know my basic stance here, right? I don’t like DW’s Liu Bei and I never have. ![]()
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