Games I love (and the little questions that drive me bonkers)

We all have things that we love, but with a little thing about them that drives you nuts. Kinda like an otherwise adorable dog with an ugly, distracting rash from licking itself. Here are some games I feel the same way about.

"Why the HELL aren't we using magic?" - Lots and lots of RPGs
Let's get an obvious one out of the way first. It isn't so bad when characters regularly don't use life-saving spells and other skills outside of battle. But it gets annoying that ONE TIME when they do. Because Rydia decided to actually heal your party that one time in FFIV, so of course you'd be able to un-petrify the two kids who got turned to stone, right? Or cast life on Tellah? Or cure Edward?... okay, never mind, screw Edward, but those other guys! C'mon!
Possible explanations:
- Magicians follow a strict code of honor to only cast magic during their turn. If they are not in battle, it is obviously not their turn, so they can't do anything.
- Magicians secretly hate their friends.

"How the HELL did we survive that?" - Yakuza
*SPOILERS*
This is what made me want to write this entry. I recently beat this the other day, and at the very end, one of the characters decides to redeem himself by blowing up himself, the bad guy and 10 billion ill-gotten yen. A very noble act... if his best friend, childhood sweetheart and an innocent nine-year-old girl weren't ten feet away. Seriously, there's this CGI cutscene that shows a huge explosion that engulfs half the width of the skyscraper they're in. And then it cuts back to those three TOTALLY OKAY (except for one character who had already been shot) but about five feet away from a GAPING HOLE in a STEEL TOWER. The hell?!
Possible explanations:
-the bomb's engineer perfectly rigged it so that the bomb would explode in a 180-degree arc in the opposite direction and somehow saw all the plot twists and double-crosses coming so that it would be in that position.
-Kazuma Kiryu shielded them all with sheer force of awesome. Seriously, play these games just because he's like a Japanese Chuck Norris.

while we're on the subject of Yakuza,
"Who the HELL'S body was that that washed up in tokyo bay if it wasn't Mizuki's?"
the obvious answer is a random woman with the same tattoo. BUT, one character admits to his men killing the woman and honestly thinking it was Mizuki. The detective tells them it isn't her a few hours later and it's even discovered that Mizuki is actually Yumi, the woman who's sister she claimed to be. but the dead woman is never brought up again.
Possible explanation:
- The character who saw her dead WAS kind of a dick and working against the main character, maybe he just made it up to throw him off?
- Yumi actually DID have a long lost sister named Mizuki who looked exactly the same. Sucks to be her.

"How the HELL did Maya's fingerprints get on the weapons?"- Ace Attorney: Justice for All (Case #2)
If you're not familiar with the Ace Attorney, shame on you. Also, Maya is the Phoenix Wright's assistant, whose job it is to get accused of murder and/or held hostage. At the beginning of one case, the detective confirms that maya's fingerprints were on both weapons, but, long story short, Phoenix proves she was unconscious for the entire murder... without ever disproving that evidence staring them in the face.
Possible explanation:
- It IS possible that the accomplice placed the weapons in maya's hands to frame her, but this is the kind of thing that the game's story would usually get hung up on and the player would have to resolve. here, they just make it so that there's no obvious way out.

"Why the HELL do the cosmic forces of evil adhere to Japan's timezone?" - Persona 3
In Persona 3, the characters enter an alternate dimension at the stroke of midnight to battle demons (with more demons.) But does that make any sense? The 24-hour clock was invented by mere mortals and precise timezones didn't even exist until well into the 19th century.
- The Shadows DO have a connection to the moon, maybe it has something to do with that?
- The harbinger of the apocalypse is a MASSIVE japanophile. If you ever see a Nyx Avatar cosplay at a con, that's actually him. And goes to sleep each night on a Sailor Moon body pillow.

"What the HELL happened to the other eight dads?" - Heavy Rain
Many articles have been written about Heavy Rain's poor writing and gaping plot holes, (I can write as many articles about other video games not engaging me emotionally at all) but here's one I don't usually see brought up. Ethan isn't the first guy to have his son kidnapped by the Origami Killer, he's the NINTH. The only thing keeping Ethan from going to the cops (or even his estranged wife) is that he suspects that he himself might be the killer. We KNOW that the other fathers went missing because of what the victims' mothers said to Shelby. What was stopping them?
Possible explanations:
- They were all as depressing and stupid as Ethan, accepted the implication their son would be killed if they sought help, couldn't complete the tasks, and killed themselves
- The Origami Killer has a complex procedure to make every dad think he's really the killer!
- The Origami Killer is a superzombie from the internet. He can do anything! (play Fahrenheit/ Indigo Prophecy. You'll see where I'm coming from)

"How the HELL did I just kill a god?" - God of War II & III, among others
Okay, there's atheism where God just doesn't exist, and there's atheism where there is a God, you look him in the face, and then make it so He doesn't exist. Games, when they're atheistic at all, usually take that second route. Hey, you need to fight something big at the end. First off, how and why does an omni-potent being create anything capable of killing him? Sometimes it's not set up that way though, like in God of War where gods created weapons like Pandora's Box to kill other gods, or Bayonetta where she summons a god of darkness to kill a god of light. Those make sense. But what about in GoW II, where Kratos is mortal again, but still kicking deity ass without Pandora's box? One character actually POINTS THAT OUT in GoW III and Kratos just says "the gods underestimate their own mortality" or some crap. How does that work? (And do NOT freaking say "the power of hope!")
Possible explanations:
- The gods aren't immortal and just have a serious fetish for sending mortals on fetch quests before they actually let them do something important
- The gods all just played dead until Kratos offed himself at the end. Athena gave an all clear and they all high-fived each other and mounted his corpse on Zeus's wall. THAT'S where he went after the credits!

"How the HELL do you live with yourself, lady?" - Valkyria Chronicles *SPOILERS*
No, seriously. Stop reading if you haven't played Valkyria Chronicles yet. You owe it to yourself and the world.
You back? Wasn't that awesome?!!
Anyway, if there was one thing I would remove from this game to make it perfect, it would be Alicia. It's like if the writers had some kinda jrpg cliche quota to meet and crammed them all into her. For about a minute though, I was in love with her. She's about to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to stop the empire's greatest weapon single-handedly. But then, your character stops her and tells her that she shouldn't have to sacrifice herself for everyone else's sake (if that sounds like scenes from Final Fantasy X and Tales of Symphonia to you, that's because it does) He even proposes to her then and there, and it's a decent romance subplot throughout. And for the sake of love, they manage to stop the empire's weapon the old-fashioned way... only now after they've reached the city and killed probably thousands of people... yyyyyyeeeeaaaaahhhhh. Kinda puts a damper on things. It's the equivalent of saving a kitten from a burning orphanage that you set on fire while saving the kitten.
Possible explanations:
- They actually managed to evacuate that section of the city in time. And now there's just thousands of homeless. The least Welkin could have done was radio to evacuate afterwards.
- Welkin and Alicia never reported back after the final boss, and tried to convince everyone they're dead so that they're not blamed for this. They seem happy in that cute epilogue, but the guilt tears them apart each day.