most anti-religious game? (spoilers, maybe?)

[pragmatic insanester]

i never did finish xenogears (the memory card the data was on was stolen) nor start the prequel series. however, i found that final fantasy tactics had an incredible theme geared toward the deceptive nature of christianity. you witnessed the involvement of the church (implicating the catholic entity during the crusade era) in murder, heinous politik, and warmongering. the "bible" you aquired during your peril pieced together a conspiracy of the government - taking an influential figure in history and attaching old folklore to it. their making of an infallible crux to cast out the agenda that was, is very similar to several instances in real-life history.

in the end, you may or may not have killed a reiteration of god's physical presence.

[link1110]

How about Shin Megami Tensei 2? The whole point of that game is the villification of christianity.

[E Nice]

Grandia 2 also had a anti-religious stance. While it was one man's corruption they never bothered to distance it from the religion but rather kept the two tied as one and the same.

[Pantechnicon]

EDIT: Off-topic and inflammatory. Sorry everybody.

[AlexKidd]

Maybe devil's crush, lot's of satanic imagery in that one. And that's probably why they changed the name on the inferior genesis version.

As for newer games, there's doom 3, for obvious reasons.

[Slimedog]

I just finished Tecmo's Deception and it was just packed to the gills with Satanic imagery. Heck, the whole point was that you were trying to resurect satan by trapping people and either killing them or removing their souls. For Satan. And it only got a T rating, which I find to be just plain wrong. But it didn't actually mention Christianity so I guess it could be considered pro-religion as long as your religion was Satanism.

For the record, I can't believe nobody has been waving this one in front of congress.

[Muscelli]

whats the game where you strangle jewish people and slit there head with wire? My vote goes to that

[squidblatt]

It's not really anti-religion, but I like how in Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, the priest hints that he changed from being a Christian to being a nature worshiper.

[Haoie]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned either Breath of Fire 2, or Terranigma. They're not exactly 'christian friendly' titles, uh huh.

[UnInformer]

Lunar 2 is a very thinly veiled attack on religion, or at least Christianity. The Chosen are excessively greedy (but you're giving the money to the goddess, so it's different LOL .), they are always banning things, they are oppressive, their current preachings are contrary to the original teachings of Althena, etc.

All the other suggestions are pretty good too.

[Lemmy Kilmister]

I just finished Tecmo's Deception and it was just packed to the gills with Satanic imagery. Heck, the whole point was that you were trying to resurect satan by trapping people and either killing them or removing their souls. For Satan. And it only got a T rating, which I find to be just plain wrong. But it didn't actually mention Christianity so I guess it could be considered pro-religion as long as your religion was Satanism.

For the record, I can't believe nobody has been waving this one in front of congress.

I remember the original game's add contained a warning about the satanic content of the game. Do you have the jewel case? I think that also had the warning label on it.

[Crush Crawfish]

well, maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but wouldn't any game involving evolution (EVO, Cubivore, etc.) be in conflict with most religions that don't consider the theory of evolution to be true?

And yeah, Breath of fire 2 definitely qualifies, as does the third one. The Shadow hearts games as well.

[sisko]

Xenogears. Out of any game I have played, this game takes a [fictional....but believable] religion and smashes it to pieces. Then it takes those pieces, and smashes them into more pieces. Then a third time, and maybe even a fourth.

Concealment, corruption, manipulation, and deception are a few of the keywords.

[Dahne]

Dragon Warrior VII is the only game I can think of that had the actual, clasic old-bearded-man-in-white Christian God. He turns out to be the Demon Lord in disguise, but it's still pretty funny.

Xenogears wins just for having the scene where a bunch of giant robots and a huge fluffy pink thing get crucified. :eek 2:

I always think it's funny when people complain about the satanic imagery in Doom, considering that it's SET IN HELL.

[SoulBlazer]

Good choices so far.

But no one has mentioned Final Fantasy Tactics yet? ;)

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Good choices so far.

But no one has mentioned Final Fantasy Tactics yet? ;)

Maybe because the original posted already listed it. ;)

[SoulBlazer]

Did'nt see that, sorry.

What about Vandal Hearts 1 and 2? I don't recall those games being nice to the church.....

[njiska]

I'm suprised no one has mentioned Deus Ex: IW i mean the game deals very intensely with the whole subject of religoin's involvement in society and the grip of blind faith over it's beleivers. Sort of a whole, culture, counter-culture thing.

It also deals with religous zealot terrorism and many other harshly relative subjects.

[GarrettCRW]

Some would argue that Devil World is quite sacreligious. You know, like Nintendo of America....

[petewhitley]

Games such as Tecmo's Deception aren't anti-religious at all; they merely perpetuate the myths of Christianity (eg: the existence of god/satan, etc.). Truly anti-religious games would be ones that purport to attribute the conception of existence to something other than a diety (something I'm not so sure can be said of the Xenosaga series for instance).

[Nez]

A lot of RPGs that I've played had a bad religious system. In fact I'd bet almost all major clergy men in vd games have an evil secret.

These are the most blatant:
Tales of Symphonia
Xenogears
Grandia 2

[-hellvin-]

Peronsally, I'd say the whole Shin Megami series and spin offs.

[link1110]

Breath of Fire 2

I personally didn't find that game to be that anti-christian considering that I believe the last boss to be the devil. I will quote my college senior thesis section about that game.

S
P
O
I
L
E
R



In Capcom's Breath of Fire 2, the main theme is sacrifice. This is evident multiple places around the storyline. Also, as in other games talked about in this thesis, there is an evil religion.

The heroes need the ability to fly in order to reach the Grand Church of the Church of St. Eva, however a member of the royal family of Windia has to give up their life in order to become thr Great Bird in order to be able to fly. While the heroes are sleeping in Windia castle, one of their own, Nina, decides that she will give up her life and become the Great Bird. However, during the night, Nina's sister, Mina gives up her life, so Nina won't have to sacrifice hers in order to become the great bird.

The whole sacrifice theme comes to a head in the last location the heroes visit, Infinity. In there, the main hero, Ryu is given a test. he must choose which of his companions to sacrifice in order to win the ultimate magic spell, Afini. He is told to go into the room of which person he chooses to sacrifice. The right answer to the test is to go into his own room and sacrifice himself. He doesn't really have to sacrifice himself, however, but the fact that he is willing to proves his worth for the spell, and he gets it.

As mentioned before, there is a twisted religion in this game. The religion is the Church of St. Eva. This religion is run by St. Eva's God, or Death Evan. At the beginning, Ryu has a dream of an evil looking eye saying "I don't have enough strength. Give yourself to God. Pray to God! Praise God! You must become God's strength......" This sinister thing is St. Eva's God. His power is greatened, through a machine, by people praying to him, and he is sealed in the village of Gate. Once his power is greatened enough, he will be able to break the seal that he is under and rule the world completely. However, the symbolism in this game seems to favor him being not God, but Satan.

First of all, infinity is a long cave that goes downward into the underworld, and at the bottom lies Death Evan, St. Eva's God. In Christianity, Hell, the dwelling of Satan, is often thought of as the underworld. Also, he is often thought of as "The God of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4,) which Satan is referred to as in the Bible.

[unbroken]

Yup, I'm definetly going to have to go with Xenogears on this.

[Alucard]

Has anyone heard of thrill kill? It was a fighting game that was not released because at the begining of the game it would have chants and tell about the devil. It even had a thing asking if you were 18 and would not let you play it if you clicked that you were not 18. I played a burn of the game a long time ago and have to admit that the game is pretty wierd. There was this one evil doctor character that had a special that he would slice you. @_@

[SoulBlazer]

There ARE some games have have churches and religion in good light. Zelda comes to mind, of course, but so does Lagoon.

The Mana games don't speak the best about religion, and neither does the Arc the Lad collection, especily II.

[Dire 51]

How about Exile (at least the TG16 CD version)?