The website that has the download for AAG, as I'm now gonna call it, has a number of reviews written for it. Most of them are positive. One of them said some things that I agree with.
I think I figured out why I like AAG's story so much; its plot bends to the will of the characters, not the other way around. Not only that, the story emphasizes characterization and world-building more than plot, which . . . sounds a lot like my own writing style, if you think about it.
I have encountered some bugs, though. One of them made the game unwinnable, forcing a reset. Another time, I got a character to perform two actions during a single turn, even though you're not supposed to be able to do that. (Good Bad Bug, everyone!) There are a couple of other niggling programming errors here and there. I suppose it's the nature of the beast; I encountered bugs on Master of the Wind also.
And one last thing; most of the female characters suck. Except for Erin, the girls die a lot faster than the male characters. Now, I know, in real life, women are generally physically weaker than men. (I said generally; there were some girls in middle school and high school who completely kicked my ass at P.E.; I'm just referring to raw physcial strength right now) However, it's to the point that my party only consists of certain characters. Oh well, it's an RPG; you have to fight pragmatically to win.
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I wanna discuss something else, about the art of writing. I wanna talk about crafting dialog. I mention AAG has good dialog; it does. Despite a few grammatical errors, it's fairly realistic diction, with different character voices, a distinct lack of technobabble, (take that again, Xeno games!) lack of cheesiness, (you know, the kind of cheesiness that still gets games and comics stereotyped as "kids' stuff) and despite being in a dark setting, is not excessively vulgar either. All good stuff.
But what makes for good dialog, anyway? Most people aren't sure. Many people can agree that having distinct character voices, or different ways of speaking for different characters, is a must. Notice in my Touhou fanfics that Suika and Suwako have a much more excitable and childish manner of speaking, while in contrast, Youmu is much more calm and elegant in her manner of speaking. That's a given. A common mistake many writers make at first is not knowing this. You can see this in really bad fanfics, where every character talks like the author in real life. I even know a fanfic author (I won't name any names) who is guilty of this. Imagine an epic like Fate/Stay Night, only every character talks like a 20 year old stoner Californian dude. Dude, do you, like, see the problem with that, man, like, totally? Yeah.
However, beyond that, it's hard to judge what is good dialog and what is not. Many writers I know in real life saying crafting good dialog is the hardest thing to do. I personally disagree, for I've been practicing creative writing for nearly 11 years now, and I can tell you that writing dialog is not the hardest thing. However, other people are not so experienced. One challenge I've noticed is this. Take some people who are said to be good dialog writers, like, say Quentin Tarantino. I like Tarantino, and despite how vulgar his movie's dialog is, it's actually really good, and, in truth, there are people in real life that are like that, cursing and all. However, oftentimes, his characters speak in such a "cool" manner; always able to say something witty, make a relatable pop culture reference, have a big speech prepared, and so on, that, at a certain point, you realize that you know you're watching a movie, because nobody sounds that "cool" in real life 24/7. Joss Whedon, as much as I love him, can also lapse into impossibly cool dialog at times, but he is otherwise another master of dialog.
Other times, dialog doesn't try to be "cool", but tries to be mundane, to hopefully simulate real life more closely. Many "serious" films attempt this, as do many serious works of literature. Some people, however, say that this style of dialog is "dry", and "bland", and "lifeless". Sometimes it is, but other times, you don't question it, because you're too engrossed in the story to notice. For a recent example, look at the film Inception. If you haven't seen Inception, do it, because it's a modern classic. Unlike the Tarantino and Whedon stories, the characters in Inception don't speak in snappy one-liners, and usually don't have huge speeches backed up in their heads. Instead, you have expository dialog explaining dream concepts, a line about waiting for a train, the importance of being able to improvise, et cetera. This all works, however, because if there really were people who could jump inside people's dreams like in this movie, and if they were professionals about it, this is how they would do it. For this, Christopher Nolan is to be commended. (Why was he not nominated for Best Director at the Oscars this year!?)
And then, there is what I call over the top dialog. This is like "cool" dialog, except it doesn't pretend to be realistic, and instead just indulges in hamminess. About the only people who talk like this in real life are energetic little kids. This is one reason why many people for the longest time did not take video games, comic books, and children's cartoon shows seriously, for their dialog was often written in this manner. (And sadly, there are some people today who still have this attitude.) Everything is awesome! People shout out names of their abilities! There must be a pun for everything! Lots of people scoff at this manner of writing, but what about franchises like Gurren Lagaan? Devil May Cry? Metal Wolf Chaos? Could you imagine anyone in these series speaking in a subdued manner? No! Of course not! It would be unreasonable! Hence why I love Sgt. Frog so much.
And here is the dilemma, which style is the best? My answer? All of them. However, it depends what kind of story you're writing, what kind of characters you have, and what you intend to achieve with your story. I guess that's why people have such a hard time writing dialog.
