VN Talk: Radiant Tale - Part 2: Ion

Since I already had a save set up with Ion's first solo scene complete, it was easy to resume his route, and I already knew his was going to be the darkest of the initial four. How dark? Well, dark for a story where the joy of the common people can cause healing flowers to bloom. But in other games, it could just as well be business as usual.

I want to say that I liked Ion's route, because there's a lot that I did. Tifilia is wonderfully proactive. I love how she's the one who makes the first move and works hard to convince Ion it's worth having a future. His backstory is already covered in the common route, but once on his actual route the story squeezes an exquisite amount of drama from it. His past is never just a bit of color to flesh out the person he is, but actively affects his present. It constrains him throughout his route and the way the details, particularly the hurdles, are parceled out is at an excellent pace so it doesn't feel too heavy-handed or belatedly included.

But the emotional story between Tifilia and Ion, and Ion's personal journey, is about the only thing that's handled well. The rest of the time I felt like the writer(s) were hoping no one would look too closely and not realize that certain things didn't make sense.

This is a relatively recent release so be aware there will be spoilers after the break.

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Though Colivus joins CIRCUS to help him grow as he does on other routes, Jinnea suddenly informs everyone that they've been given a second mission, which is to investigate two rumors that the Intaglio Ring may have been found. Why the king or his advisors would give that assignment to CIRCUS instead of like… the Public Security Forces… I haven't the foggiest idea. And because this ring is one of the important symbols of the kingdom (being an artifact left by one of the four Great Spirits and used in royal coronation ceremonies) Jinnea decides that they'll have to set aside their tour to restore Colivus for now.

Really? I completely understand doing both at the same time would not be efficient, but asking CIRCUS to do this at all makes no sense. They should focus on the prince and the rest of the government on the ring. The only reason it has to be them is because the ring was used to brand Ion's tattoo over his eye that forces him to obey the ring wielder, so we need to investigate the ring in order to resolve Ion's story.

The lore behind the ring is that the great fire spirit knew he could be an overly destructive guy, so he left the ring to the first king to stop him if he got out of control, which is fine and dandy if that's what he wanted as a supernatural entity, but why the spirit gave the ring the ability to control anyone other than himself is just bonkers since it's liable to be misused, which it was by Ferus's underground arena to force reluctant or outright disobedient gladiators to fight.

And that's not the only thing.

The group splits up to investigate both Ferus and Cultura, where two suspicious rings have turned up, and Tifalia's group (consisting of Ion, Zafora, Jinnea, and Colivus) head to Cultura under the suspicion that if the Intaglio Ring has been missing for three years and hasn't been found in Ferus during that time, it probably left.

Unfortunately the ring's new owner turns out to be Balto, Zafora's uncle, which surprised me. I wasn't sure I wanted to see him play main villain again, but I figured it would allow Zafora's story (which is unskippable since it's a major part of Chapter 2 of the common route) to resolve without feeling like it was tacked on or left to be handled entirely in the epilogue.

So when Balto actually died shortly thereafter I was surprised again, but in a different way, as the Labyrinth Necklace should have made him unkillable, which is why Balto had to resort to blackmail to get Zafora's father to give it up. Instead he apparently got knifed by a pre-teen assassin who usually operates as Avi's receptionist for his dueling arena in Ferus. I mean, I wasn't upset that Balto died, or even that it was sudden, but the suddenness and the surprise is what the game wants the player to focus on.

The murderer is Luna the orphan! She now has the same mind-controlling mark as Ion! And here's Ion's old compatriot Avi, who used to be a gladiatorial slave along with him, until building a new life for himself as an arena owner. What's more is Avi has the ring! And he uses it on Ion, even trying to get him to kill Tifilia!

We knew the story was building up to the fact that Ion would eventually get controlled into attacking and possibly trying to kill Tifalia, since his lack of freedom even after being freed is a huge part of his story. Knowing that at any moment he could lose his freedom if someone else used the ring is why he's never thought to ask anything for himself or even considered what he might do with his life after CIRCUS ends. So with all the build-up and foreshadowing, this was an emotionally charged scene, and heartbreaking at its end when Ion is forced to depart with Avi and Luna, leaving Tifilia behind.

But then I took that step back and not only was I wondering how Balto had gotten killed, but I was wondering when Luna got branded. Avi makes it clear that Balto really did have the ring, it's not like Avi already had when he came to Cultura. But the framing of the scene is that we find Luna just after she killed Balto. The blood is fresh, she's standing over the body, Avi is not in sight, but she is already branded.

So when did Avi get the ring? It's not impossible Balto did not have it on his person, but given that he certainly knew what it was, I don't think it's likely he would have left it sitting unguarded on top of his desk. And I don't think it's the case that Luna killed Balto, Avi took the ring from his dead body, branded Luna, and then walked away while Luna remained in the same position just so our heroes can find her a moment later (and then for Avi to walk back in as if he'd just arrived a few seconds after them).

If the player is jarred enough in a story that they stop playing and try to figure out how something happened, and it is not a mystery game, then there's some plot hole around here.

I did like that Avi ended up being the villain for Ion's route, because he's also a victim of the underground arena, so we can see the differing paths they took following their freedom three years prior to the beginning of the story. Ion was the only surviving slave who had been branded by the ring, and by his own volition he remained isolated in the palace where he could be kept under guard and unable to hurt anyone. Avi on the other hand, had not been branded and became a successful businessman, eventually taking ownership of the seventh arena in Ferus.

On the outside, Avi is friendly and well adjusted. When we meet him in Chapter 4 of the common route, he gives CIRCUS an insight into how the population here differs from the rest of Escholtia, and he explains how the gladiatorial arenas work in Ferus (the legal ones as opposed to the underground one). He even offers to arrange CIRCUS's show, though no one likes it because like everything in Ferus, it revolves around two people fighting each other.

But unlike Ion who would just as well leave his past behind if he could, Avi is the one who can't let go. And he is sympathetic to a degree. When the Public Security Forces stormed the underground arena three years ago and freed the enslaved gladiators, he's told that he can now forget everything that happened to him. Since the speaker was Alest, a side character we're already acquainted with, we know that he meant the best when he said it, but Avi was forced to kill his own brother in the arena and that's not something you can tell someone to forget.

So I can understand Avi being upset by the fact that present day Ferus acts as if the underground arena never happened. I can understand he's angry that people wanted to demolish the old arena. Even if the memories were painful, it's not something that should be brushed under the rug.

What I didn't understand was how Avi got from people denying his pain to starting up the underground arena all over again. Does he want more people to end up like him and his brother? Or is this a way of proving he survived the system that created him, by inserting himself at the top? He says some stuff about showing the people in Ferus what a real arena match is, but nothing that really bridges the gap between his pain and what he's doing.

Part of the problem with the original underground arena is that most of the gladiators were slaves, many of them taken as children. Avi's dialogue focuses on the killing and not letting his brother's existence be forgotten, but if he's truly bringing the underground arena back, that would also mean bringing back the slavery, which the game does not have him voice, likely to keep him sympathetic.

And then the game keeps stumbling over itself.

When Tifilia's group chases Avi back to Ferus, they find Ion being mind controlled into an arena match against Paschalia as a teaser show in one of the public arenas, where killing your opponent is against the law. The game makes a big deal out of Ion resisting the ring enough to avoid killing Paschalia once he has him down and Avi even gives him a little crap for that, but unless Avi wanted to get Ion arrested he couldn't force him to kill Paschalia in a public match.

It's like the game just forgot that killing people in the arenas is against the law. Except that it later brings it up again when Ion is forced to fight in the restored underground arena and some random guy in the crowd is like "Oh yeah, they're not supposed to kill each other" as if he just had a brain fart and remembered he was supposed to throw out the trash before he left home.

Avi advertises in the city that the underground arena's inaugural match will be Ion against a dragon (since he's imprisoned the CIRCUS members who were investigating Ferus, and is why Paschalia had to fight Ion in the first place) which sounds like it would be amazing for the average duel enjoyer in Ferus. It's what Avi wanted to do in the common route for CIRCUS. So I could absolutely see him wanting to restart the underground arena with that.

But widely advertising for an illegal arena aside, we soon find out that the underground arena isn't big enough for Vilio's dragon form. The team from CIRCUS makes a big deal out of it when they rescue Paschalia and Vilio offers to stay behind so no one else is coerced into fighting Ion as a replacement. The problem for CIRCUS is that Vilio isn't as strong in his human form so Ion may well kill him.

Which brings me to: "Why would you advertise a fight against a dragon when the audience can't even see the dragon?" Vilio is fae and the game lore is explicitly clear that it's impossible for humans to tell a fae from any other human when they are in their human form. So all these people coming to see Ion fight a dragon would just see him fighting another human who is supposedly a shapeshifted dragon and they would just have to take the arena's word for it. I'd be disappointed.

But as I said, I did like the emotional arc of his route, and at least the story comes together in the climax. CIRCUS turns the Ion vs. Vilio match into an impromptu show, with Jinnea even belting out a "Ladies and gentleman!" opening, and everyone works together to both clear the audience (by flooding the arena with water, with assistance from friendly elemental spirits) and tackling Avi in an attempt to get the ring off him.

They fail, but Tifilia gambles on an impressive bit of information Jinnea brought up earlier, that the ring may have a limitation on the number of people it can bind at once and in a big ass move, grabs on to Avi and brands herself, weakening the ring's hold enough that Ion can break free and beat Avi.

And then to make sure that the ring can't be misused against Ion (and possibly Tifalia) again, everyone else in CIRCUS brands themselves with the ring, diluting its power so much it can't be used against any of them, with the side effect of making it like an in-group tattoo commemorating their friendship. That was a classy way of solving the problem and allowing Ion to fulfill his dream for an ordinary life.

The only smudge on the ending was that I didn't like Ion suddenly becoming a possessive boyfriend. It's cute that he moves into Liber with Tifalia, her aunt Spirea, and Radie, and I loved that Tifalia has made it a ritual for him to say he's home before she'll give him a hug, to reinforce to him that he has a home. But when he finds out Tifalia's getting letters from the other guys about what they've been doing and she says she misses them, he gets possessive in a way that is supposed to be sexy and tells her that even though he's friends with those guys he only wants her to think about him.

As somebody whose friends group is fairly evenly balanced between guys and gals, this tees me off and was the final kick I didn't need. For all its flaws Ion's route could have ended on a high note, but instead stumbled as it crossed the finish line.

I still mostly like Ion as a character, and as a whole his route is greater than the sum of its parts, but a lot of those parts are misshapen and don't fit together quite right, which is a pity. I feel like I'm dogging on his route too much, but I really feel like it could have been much, much better if only the writing had been better thought through.