(I know it came out in 2007 but just in case, spoilers for Etrian Odyssey. And Fallout 3 I guess?)
I recently picked up Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection and started playing the first game. I'm apparently a dungeon crawler sicko now and I think it's pretty fun. I like the bright colored anime aesthetics, and mechanically it's lean but satisfying. There's not much story to speak of, at least not until you get a couple dozen hours into the game. Out of nowhere, a particular moment hit me hard.
In my research, many Etrian Odyssey players know it as "that part" of the game. The only thing we know up to this point is you are a group of adventurers asked to explore a massive labyrinth. Each floor is a unique biome with resources to collect and monsters to fight. When you reach the third floor however, a sentient humanoid girl who represents the "forest folk" appears and warns you not to go any further. The solution for this? The chieftain who runs the town asks you to commit genocide. The Forest Folk have to go. You see, the town is economically dependent on going to deeper into the labyrinth and taking it's resources. It's us or them and it's going to be us. They literally say this in-game.
Clearly, this is wrong. You are supposed to pick up the obvious, uncomfortable colonizer vibes. Your quest giver says he would try to find a peaceful solution if it were up to him, but hey, that's what the chief wants, what can you do? When you encounter the forest folk girl again, you are given the choice to question this rather than cut straight to murder. I assumed I wouldn't actually have to commit genocide and we would figure something else out, right?
And so I kept playing, waiting for the plot twist. Nothing changed. I was now actively fighting the forest folk in random "monster" encounters. This didn't sit well with me. I did something I normally try to avoid doing and I looked up what happens. Did I miss something, or is there really no way to get off this path? Turns out, there isn't. Sure, the game reveals the chief was evil in the end and you take him out, but you sure do have to kill those people.
In this moment I flashed back to the time I tried to do an evil run in Fallout 3 and had to stop after blowing up Megaton and feeling physically ill. Or the time I did a renegade run in Mass Effect 2, which admittedly is more being a jerk than outright evil, but still something I had trouble doing. Most recently, I thought of Baldur's Gate 3 trying to tempt you to abandon or even destroy a druid enclave full of innocent refugees. I didn't even consider that an option.
My point is, I've never been comfortable being The Bad Guy when a game presents the opportunity. I don't even understand the appeal and it's not just me. Taking that Baldur's Gate 3 example, originally one of the playable characters could only be recruited by giving up the enclave, and this was eventually changed in part because there were enough people that didn't want to do that. I don't know what a a game could offer to incentivize me to be pure evil, whether it's an exclusive character or weapon or whatever, I just can't do it.
What fascinates me is people who do enjoy this kind of thing. I mean really enjoy it, and not just grind through it to see all the content. I'm sure people who play evil in games aren't all sociopaths, but I also feel like I have to give some side eye to anyone that does. Like any story telling medium, games are meant to make you feel things. Why would you want to feel what it's like to murder innocent people? Or perhaps a better question, how do you emotionally detach enough to where that's fun? I don't get it.
Coming back to Etrian Odyssey, I'm stuck. Unlike those other games, I don't have a choice and must be The Bad Guy. I've seen other people feel the same as me and decide to just quit and move on to Etrian Odyssey 2. I am leaning toward doing that myself, but even so I keep wondering if I'm overthinking this. Why am I so sympathetic to a bunch of pixels that don't even have names or a backstory, at least not that has been presented to me at this point of the game? I don't have an answer, I just know how I feel.
To undo everything I just said, I did play the the Black Eagles route in Fire Emblem: Three Houses and have zero regrets, possibly because Edelgard is a powerful hot lady with an axe. Does that make me a hypocrite? Feel free to call me out in the comments.