Mega Evolution Vs. Z-Moves

So Pokemon Sun and Moon are pretty good, right? General consensus seems to be that the games were pretty fun at worst, and a fantastic experience at best. But there is one thing in particular that has me giggling with glee, because I, along with a minority of people, totally called one thing years ago.

Source

Mega Evolution sucked, didn't it?

Ok, ok, I get it, I was far from the only one and really there were quite a few people who didn't like mega evolution when it was first introduced. But I think it was one key element from Sun and Moon to make people really see what was up with mega evolutions. Z-moves. What was it about Z-moves that made them so much better, and why are they getting compared to mega evolution so much?

Z-moves and mega evolution were both what I call "tacked on" additions. Despite that negative connotation, when I say that I mean a new element to the gameplay that has, in a sense, been stapled onto the side of the game. It's a bit tricky to explain, but you get that sense with a lot of sequels. The coin mechanics in New Super Mario Bros. 2, for example, don't change the core mechanics or add a core mechanic. They can still change a game in positive ways and are a useful tool, but as we can see in comparing X/Y to Sun/Moon, they can also go very wrong.

So what's the big deal with mega evolutions anyway? They're flashy, they're cool, and they provide a neat addition to certain Pokemon. What went wrong was in the overrarching implications of Mega Evolution. I could list a lot of things that I take issue with, like how their stats are too much and how it turns into a "win" button as you play the game, but those aren't issues with the core idea.

The core issue with mega evolution is that it's limited to certain Pokemon. This runs in opposition to one of the best parts of Pokemon, which is the Pokemon themselves. Right back to Red and Blue, the coolest part of the games for many was crafting a team that felt your own. You had 150 choices for your 6 team slots, and most players did not have the same teams or even similar ones. Of course there were optimal teams, but with a little elbow grease, grinding, or strategy almost any team could beat the game. It was truly your own adventure and always has been.

Mega Evolution sadly goes back on this feeling. For one, you get the obvious overpowered argument, and yes, it does mess with the balance of the game. However, Pokemon has always really powerful Pokemon, so to be quite honest that's not the issue here. What is the issue is that the defacto new addition to the series is limited to select Pokemon.

It limits team variety, plain and simple. It runs in opposition to what Pokemon is all about, in that it's always enabled more Pokemon to be viable from generation to generation. Through the simple act of making more Pokemon they could expand team variety. Alongside other things such as refining the battle mechanics to be more balanced and introducing alternative ways to use Pokemon besides battles, the series has generally moved in a direction enabling the usage of most Pokemon in one way or another.

Sadly, mega evolution moves backward. The fact that the cool new feature that's hyped up in all the trailers is limited to Pokemon really puts a damper on team quality. There are a few dozen Pokemon that can mega evolve, and that is it. You need one of these few Pokemon on your team in order to experience the feature, and that just means every team, even yours, is likely to have one of this small group forced upon you in this game.

This just kills team creativity in a huge way, and I don't think I need to explain why that's a problem. The core tenant of the series "gotta catch em' all!" has been undermined in the main quest. You cannot use "all" the Pokemon and still get the full experience. A more accurate motto for X and Y would be "Gotta catch em' all but make sure you use one of these few dozen!"

I do see the intent behind this idea, and why in concept I'm not opposed to having some way to power up weaker Pokemon. Sun and Moon definitely proved why it's not a bad idea.

The gimmick in S&M is super powerful moves, otherwise known as Z-moves. It gives you the ability to charge up and superpower any move once per battle, as long as the Pokemon is holding a Z-crystal. And this is miles better than Mega Evolution.

It should be quite obvious based on what I said earlier. Z-moves take what mega evolution was trying to do and finds a way to apply it to every single Pokemon. Your starter, legendary Pokemon, even a Magikarp can use Z-moves. It takes the idea of powering up a Pokemon and spreads it everywhere, rather than limiting it to a handful. It does the exact opposite of Megas and continues the series tradition of expanding who among the roster you can use.

So, why exactly does this matter? One game messes something up and another sequel gets it right, news at 7. What's cool about this is how closely linked these 2 mechanics are, in their implementation and in their effects, and in this we can clearly see how one went right, and one went wrong. Beyond the basic ideas being miles apart in their quality, it's the little details that make the difference here.

How about the frequency of use? You can use Z-moves once per battle, making it a careful puzzle as to when they're most needed. Mega evolution, on the other hand, lasts the entire battle, meaning the purpose it ends up serving is just a strong new Pokemon.

The held item requirement? Z-moves can be used by every Pokemon, some who really benefit by held items, so you need to consider what you're giving up by letting them use Z-moves. Mega Evolution basically results in legendary Pokemon stats, which, I mean... don't really need held items at that point. It's a no-brainer.

So what about giving weak Pokemon a chance to shine? Z-moves do that inherently, on a broad scale. Mega Evolution, while having the potential to fine tune specific Pokemon, wastes it on legendaries and Pokemon that were already plenty powerful. Why did Mewtwo, Salamence, and Rayquazza need more power?

I think you get the point by now. Obviously I'm ranting a bit, but it is so great to see the Pokemon developers realize that Mega Evolution was a bad idea. They took the core benefits it could provide and reworked it into a system that helps every single Pokemon. If that's not game design iteration in action, I don't know what is. I have high hopes for what comes next in the franchise.

Fire Emblem Awakening, Story, and Context

I never gave Fire Emblem Awakening a fair shake when I first played it, really. I played it, I enjoyed it, I talked about it, and then I moved on to other stuff. I'm fairly certain it's one of the last games I played before I really got into looking at games critically. And that's something I regret. When I played Awakening in 2014, I determined it was a great game. I was so, so wrong.

It's a fucking masterpiece, and I do not say that lightly. Awakening gets everything so, so right, and it goes above and beyond even that. You've got a complex battle system where paring up and relationships factor into it, where the weapons triangle and ranged attacks make for hugely strategic thinking, alongside having to manage levels, gear, and classes outside of combat. The gameplay is amazing, and the story, well, that's what we're here to talk about today. I think it'd be best to show this with the most impact story beat in the entire game, and you already know what I mean if you've played it. Let's talk about chapter 12.

Spoilers if you somehow haven't played this game yet. I'm also going to assume you know what happens, otherwise you'll be very confused.
So I think it's important to preface this by making special note of how this part of the story doesn't really revolve around themes or making the player think or anything like that. While that might seem like an odd thing to note, it's actually quite an anomaly in games writing to have a story purely ride on the quality of its plot. That's something I want to get into at a later date, but suffice to say games often have issues with making a plot that feels good because the player can by the very nature of the medium influence the pacing, thereby making it easier and less risky to ride on themes and making the player think. The point is it's already notable from the start to take a plot approach to it.

Of course, I say chapter 12 but really you can't ignore chapter 11 in this equation. Chapter 11 up to the end is much like any other chapter, with standard gameplay. The standout difference is the hostage situation around it, but hell, you even had a similar situation beforehand in chapter _. And even if you ignore that you've made it through assassination plots and overwhelming odds time and time again before this. The precedent of this game's tone has been set: serious, but not grave, a war story where the nation is at stake but your individual lives are not at the whim of the plot.

And then it all just... breaks. It's business as usual in the 11^th chapter up until you've cleared out all the enemies, and then Gangrel decides to raise the stakes by having arrows drawn at her. This is actually a big deal in the overall narrative, because it's the first time such an action has been taken. There are a lot of firsts to the story in 11, actually, and it's what I consider the big shift in the game. Before this you're presented with scenarios with the ideals of success and victory, and every challenge is meant to be overcome. This is the first time in the game where your agency and success is ripped out of your hands.

Speaking of choice, let's talk about your lack thereof. Right before Emmeryn takes it out of your hands, you're given a menu and 2 choices: hand the Emblem over or Emmeryn dies. Of course it doesn't matter what you chose, as I mentioned, because she takes matters into her own hands and sacrifices herself. Now I wanna be frank here, because I usually despise when games do this false choice stuff, where the devs obviously wanted you to feel like you're having an influence on the story but didn't want to actually change it, as that's just lazy most of the time and a bad use of the medium. Tropes and tools aren't bad, though.

See, I usually get annoyed when games do this because it's a very cheap tool, where you're often given a menu that essentially boils down to "Yes" and "Yes but I'm not happy" or something similar. It's fake choice that's just going to frustrate players when they find out that their choice never mattered. BUT it is possible to do a fake choice correctly, and by golly Awakening sure knows how to.

 Narratively there's really only one clear way to use the fake choice, and that's to have the point of the choice be your lack of choice. The player has no agency in this scene but it's all for a good, sensible story reason. Emmeryn is the type of person who'd sacrifice herself. Chrom can't do anything because the enemy has the upper hand, and he'd never willingly sacrifice his sister. It's important to make sure there are no contrivances when it comes to scenes like these, because when you take agency away you cannot have the player feel cheated in any way. This is really just a complicated way to say the game has good writing, but it really, really does.

How many shooting games have you played where the enemy took a hostage and suddenly you're unable to shoot them, despite shots being instant and in gameplay before your accuracy was perfect? It's stupid and frustrating when gameplay mechanics clash with the story. Now compare to Fire Emblem.

Could you shoot the archers down? No, you don't have enough to kill the dozens of them surrounding Emmeryn.

Flying units? No, the game has already established that those units take increased damage from archer shots, it's far too risky. Your army is mostly ground bound, anyway, so they would have no backup.

It's little details like that that show how thought and care has gone into how the story is presented alongside the gameplay, and that even the smallest things like a binary meaningless choice from a menu is used to great effect. It's a pretty sad and disempowering moment when you realize Emmeryn would have done this no matter what, that despite all your battlefield prowess you were doomed to fail this mission from the start.

And speaking of which, let's touch on Emmeryn's actual sacrifice too. Now obviously the idea of a character sacrificing their life for the sake of the others is nothing new, you've seen it done dozens of times by now, surely. It's all in the execution, however, and the little details are important nowadays to really sell such a scene.

Perhaps not minor, but in this case motivation is important, and it's important precisely because the motivation in universe is smart as all hell. It's not just forcing the power of the Fire Emblem out of Gangrel's hands, but forcing his army against him in the process. This is continuing Emmeryn's characterization, mainly for the player. She's always been presented as a wise and intelligent leader that had a good read on her allies and enemies. The problem with this can often be the fact that the player has to control the game, and qualities like this can get pushed to the sides. Another issue the story thus far has presented is that her kingdom is pretty much at a point where she only ever has one option to take at most times. These 2 are obviously good story and gameplay design, but it leaves her characterization and importance in a fairly awkward spot, since there isn't really a good way to show this that gels well with these practices.

So really it's a great story beat to have her qualities like these emphasized at the moment of her death, and to have that death be a sacrifice. Putting down one's own life is a great way to show wisdom, bravery, leadership, and similar stuff in a single instant. Put simply, it is in many ways the biggest and most dramatic way you can show a lot of serious character traits for a character already well established, and one you want to/need to kill off.

It's not like Fire Emblem is doing anything new with this, but it's doing it very well. With this action we see how much Emmeryn cares for her kingdom. We also see her caring for family, not wanting them to bargain for her life. Her independence and quick thinking is taken from an implied skill to being shown off. And she is also seen as incredibly smart, as her sacrifice motivates her allies, keeps power away from her enemies, and crushes the spirit of their army in one move.

So we've got the game batting a nice score with the story so far, and it's just getting started. Let's move over to gameplay and chapter 12.

Chapter 12 is a bit odd, since it's not very plot focused compared to previous events. It's just one battle, with the only important plot being the framing of said battle. Up until now, Awakening has been riding on the quality of its story. Now, it needs to make its gameplay mean something.

What's most impact about this chapter is how the gameplay doesn't change, or rather, how it cannot change. Everything around you is different. The mood is somber. The setup screen has no music, and the only sound filling your ears is the gentle patter of rain pouring down all upon you. There's nothing heroic here, no smart planning to be made, no tactical enjoyment to be found, no relaxing or tense music. Yet, the physical, gameplay process you go through to begin a battle will not change.

Nothing in the battle changes, either. You guide your units, attack the enemy, and nothing has realistically changed. And yet, everything has changed. Nobody really wants to fight. You're caught behind enemy lines, forced to carve your way out. The enemy is unwilling to fight after such a horrid display by their own leader and such bravery by the enemy, yet they must under threat of death. And you of course have this music playing, which is such a deviation from the heroic music you fought to beforehand. You can't even call it battle music, it's more of a reflective and emotionally out of control piece. It is flat out one of the most brilliant musical pieces I have ever heard.

I can't say how any one player will react to all this. Perhaps you're angry. Maybe you're in tears. You could be trying to avoid a fight. You could resign yourself to it. Maybe you're just numb to the proceedings and aren't even sure what to think. It's not my place to assume how a single person will react to this, but the one thing I can confidently say is that this will not make you feel heroic. It runs in opposition to the grand battles of before, the feeling of overcoming the odds and an evil. Nothing has changed in what you do, but really, everything has changed.

At the end of the day, Fire Emblem Awakening doesn't take any grand strides in video game storytelling, not really. However, the fact of the matter is that good writing by itself is rare in this industry, let alone good writing that interacts with the gameplay well. It's one of the best signs to me that a good story is something that is very important to the fabric of a great game. It doesn't have to be complex (A sad fight in the rain isn't a high level concept). It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't even have to change the gameplay. At the end of the day, what this one chapter from Awakening shows us is that story can make a good game truly great.

Dammit, Komaeda

What the hell. Let's make this a 2 parter.

Source

Spoilers. Obviously.

So previously, I wrote one thousand, four hundred, and fifty-nine words on one single element of the original Danganronpa. Today, I'm gonna examine one character in the game: professional crazy person Nagito Komaeda. Nagito is, in a word, really really interesting. There's a tone and way to his words and actions that really sets him apart from almost every character in the series, a kind of unsettling effect, like he's in the wrong story, reading from an entirely different script, one sort of aware of the story themes, rejecting the ideas of hope and despair yet at the same time embracing them like nobody else does. He almost actively refuses to take any roles in the story or group, up until a point. It's almost impossible to form a coherent picture of this guy, but I'm gonna damn well try to. Let's hope for the best, shall we?

Nagito the Hope

Source

This was a character expressly written for those who have played the first game. The whole game sort of assumes this anyway, but Nagito sticks out as some sort of parody or critique of the first game's themes and ending. If you've played the first game, the first thing you're going to think when you see him is "Makoto". It's written all over him. Similar design besides the hair, same Ultimate talent, trusts in the group wholeheartedly, hell, the same person even voices him.

Nagito is most certainly not Makoto, however, and the way in which the game starts to hint at and reveal this is instrumental to how you view his character. What may be the most vital element to his character, one you'll see reflected in every part and aspect of this analysis, is the disconnect between his ideals and his words and actions. Nagito talks a lot about hope, and I do mean A LOT. It's as if someone took Makoto's speech at the end of the first game about hope, and how it can overcome any despair, and built the foundation for a character on top of that. Nagito's principle motivations will often well and truly be this simple: he genuinely appears to want hope to prevail. The most striking element I can see is that when he tells you about what he wants, there's no bullshit in those words.

What's interesting about this is that the motivation is the first thing you really learn about the guy. There's none of his actions that will occur later in the way, and because it's shown so soon into the game it's easy to forget how benign Nagito appeared at first. It's also important to remember how little conflict or thought had honestly gone into the series about hope and despair. Hope and Despair were basically fancy names for good an evil in the first game, with good being resolved as the eventual victor as is expected. Of course, this worked fine for a murder mystery focus, with the overall themes and plot being more window dressing and backstory than anything else.

So the second game comes into the mix wanting to get more in depth about these themes and the world, wanting to break free of that simplicity. In essence it breaks free by tying the simplicity to Makoto and Junko, positioning them as forces of nature of Hope and Despair. Nagito pretty much exists as a character to mess with the perception the player likely has going into this game. I really do think that his character is "hope and despair", as in that is how he was written. It's what would happen if these 2 very different ideals were forced into coexisting within a character.

With that all in mind, let's look at our first look at him as a character: hope. Nagito is the first person to help you in the game, and he's the first person you can have a frank, proper discussion with. He's positioned as your partner right out the gate, or at the very least somebody you can trust. He's very much in support of the game of hope, as he should be, and appears to be very thoughtful and easygoing. His statements can be a bit grandiose and odd, but he seems to be a good guy.

What's really cool about this part of the game is how consistent his character remains. He's all about that hope, and when the objective is to be friendly and garner trust to gain hope, he's a pretty nice guy. But the circumstances change, and, well...

Nagito the Despair

Source

See, the groundwork for his character is that of hope, but he's not quite so simple as that. Nagito is a character obsessed with hope, and that's led him down some dark paths. He only cares about the result of hope, and believes that testing it and the resolve of people is a fantastic way to unlock true hope. He's cautious, never trusting that those around him are truly the hope, always needing to test that hope against despair first.

Nagito as a character spreads much more despair than hope, really. It's that sharp contrast between what he wants in the end and what he will do in the moment that makes him such a controversial person in-universe (Not out of universe, though. We love the guy).

Nagito is there to tear down all your preconceptions about hope being good and despair being evil. Hope is fine and dandy, but what if you'd induce hopeless despair to get to it? Is it worth pushing through despair? Those sorts of questions are at the forefront of Nagito's character, and it's not my position to say one side or another is wholly right. However, the fact is that Nagito's role in the story is these questions, and changing one's perspective is what he was put in there for.

Finally, I want to discuss Nagito's place in the actual plot. The themes are what I wanted to make up the meat but Nagito as a character serves the purpose of a rogue element. What's notable about this is how it changes the dynamic of suspicion compared to the first game.

The most comparable role in the first game would be Byakuya Togami. The difference between Byakuya and Nagito is that Byakuya never actually takes murderous action. He talks a good game but never acts on it, always planning but never moving. Compare that to Nagito, who tries to kill within the first few days.

This is the slow grind of suspicion versus the heated action of suspicion. It's certainly something I want to talk about in more detail in the future, but for now let's stick to a quick overview. In every other case in both games, there is only one person open in their intent to do harm, but only one of them ever actually acts upon it. There are no other characters in their separate games that kill or attempt to who aren't then immediately executed.

What Nagito does for the game as a whole is make it more frantic. He allows alliances against himself to form. He actually lets the remaining participants feel closer, as they all feel united against his obvious malice. What Nagito does for the game as a whole is subtle, but very important, and the closer you look the more impact he actually has.

...And that's a good place to stop this overview of sorts, I believe. I could go on for a lot longer about this guy's impact, but I'd just be rambling at that point and I need to cut this off somewhere. Nagito's one hell of an interesting character, and I love him to death for what he does. Never stop being crazy, you beautiful, hope obsessed person.

Danganronpa and Misdirection

Writing a good mystery is very hard.

Source

It's commonly said that comedy is the hardest genre to write, and honestly I'd have to agree with that. However, if you asked me what the 2^nd hardest genre to write is, I'd undoubtedly say mystery. This stems from a variety of things, but foremost in this is the sheer number of mystery stories that have been told. A mystery isn't mysterious if the audience knows what is going to happen, of course. It was a heck of a lot easier to write an engaging mystery even 100 years ago simply because less stories had been told and as a result, more new ideas. This is only exacerbated by the era we live in of information, where anyone can write a story and have hundreds of people read it easier than ever.

So what if you do want to write a mystery now? One way to do that is the most obvious: come up with something never done before. With your enemy being thousands of years worth of human thought, though, you're probably fighting a losing battle. So this leaves aspiring writers to pull on a variety of other methods to make their stories effective. My favourite technique out off all the ones I've seen is misdirection.

It's so simple at it's very core. What it entails is basically pulling the audience's attention away from what has truly happened. Now, you can do this in a variety of ways, with a wide range of fairness. You can gloss over all the important details. You could pull the audience in one manner of thinking, when in actuality that mindset was wrong from the start. You could even (rather unfairly) just never show what the important details are. Bur regardless, the common thread, the one that must be followed to successfully pull of this trick, is leaving the true solution out there while making sure the audience pays no mind to it. I love it when a story does this, and the absolute best execution I have ever seen of misdirection comes from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

Spoilers follow, obviously. Seriously, don't spoil this masterwork of a mystery for yourself. I'm also assuming you've played it so it won't make much sense otherwise.

So Danganronpa is the sort of premise that if I was a fiction writer I'd be terrified of. A story where there are 5 separate murder mystery arcs AND an overreaching mystery to solve? A single mystery is already hard enough! Of course, as you know if you've played it (RIGHT?) the game somehow manages this feat, and manages to do it splendidly. I'm not here to gush about this, however. Today I want to take a comprehensive look through the first case of Danganronpa and look at how it plays with player expectations, tropes of the genre, and of course, how it misdirects you.

OK, so first we should look at the relevant elements before this case even begins. First and foremost is the setting, or rather the important part of it: the killing game. For our purposes, we'll hold the game here as the motive. Fairly self explanatory. Next, of course, is the eventual victim of the case, Sayaka Maizono.

Sayaka is an interesting element for many reasons, but let's just stick with her before her eventual death. To the player, Sayaka is initially presented as an ally, but more importantly someone the protagonist has a prior connection to. What she serves as is an element of stability and relief.

Following Sayaka is of course the 13 other students, ones that at this point we know very little about. A glimpse here or there, perhaps, but in the end our knowledge of them this early on is limited at the best. They're rogue elements.

Finally, there are 2 key events I want to examine as well. These are the CD reveals and Makoto and Sayaka swapping rooms. I'll call these the catalysts.

Seriously this is your last chance before major spoilers if you didn't listen to me before

So we'll fast forward to the events right before the investigation. Sayaka and Makoto swapped rooms for the night, and the next day Sayaka shows up in Makoto's room, murdered by the hand of someone in the group.

Now, this basic setup is great for a few reasons. First, it gives the other characters a reason to totally think on the wrong path in-universe. Obviously, if you're not Makoto, the primary suspect is him since the victim showed up in his room. This is the first way the game misdirects you, by having the actual characters be misdirected, giving a believable reason for it, and most most importantly, disallowing you yourself from thinking that line of reasoning is correct.

That last point is the most important because all the discussion around the case is going to be focused on that line of thinking, meaning you know it's wrong but the game isn't letting you develop other lines of thought. It's intentionally steering you away from the truth, and it's not doing it with any obvious roadblocks either. It's also a nice bonus to raise the stakes.

Another thing the game does that I really like is that it takes full advantage of the point of the story it's at. I can very easily see a scenario where a case similar to this happened later on in the game, but there is no way it would work as well because by that point you'd know more about your fellow students. At the start of the game, however, you've got 2 basic relationships in the game: you know nothing about the others, and you likely trust Sayaka. And then Sayaka is murdered. So you're left in a position where you can't trust anyone but the dead person lying on the floor.

Until you can't even do that.

I'm skipping ahead a bit, but eventually it comes to light Sayaka was the initial aggressor, and in all likelihood was just being friendly and open to Makoto to use him for said purpose. This is great, and I was absolutely freaking out at this revelation because it's brilliant storytelling for so many reasons. Primarily because you probably didn't think of this possibility, right? Everything thus far has been presented as fairly straightforward: Sakaya is trustworthy, nobody else is. But as it turns out, that's exactly what you were supposed to think, and as a result you never even thought of the possibility of her being the true aggressor in this situation. It's also brilliant at a few other things like making you trust nobody and letting you know the usual tropes are not in effect, but that's not what this article's about really. The misdirection is so prevalent not only in this case, but throughout the entire game.

That's Danganronpa's M.O. It's so simple but it works so well. You see it crop up with the Sakura's "Locked room" murder and even intentionally invoked with Byakuya's Genocide Jack troll(for lack of a better term). It's most clearly set and seen in this first case, however, which is why I chose to examine how it uses misdirection. The usage of this little trick isn't braindead, either. They carefully develop it each time (See Genocide Jack reveal) or cleverly bury the important details in the evidence (See Sayaka's motives).

It sees use in many ways, but again, the game is essentially at it's core always trying to get you to look and think in the wrong directions. There aren't many cases where the facts are all there and you simply need to piece them together. There is always some active effort to prevent you from doing so on the part of other characters or the plot itself. You'll notice if you look a little deeper how the actual mysteries wouldn't be that mysterious on their own. "Girl tries to kill man but in struggle man kills her" or "Person commits suicide alone in room" aren't exactly original twists nowadays. However, muddling the story with previous relationships or having actual attacks before the suicide contribute to you not going down the right path and getting sidetracked or interpreting things entirely wrong.

So I hope I've helped you see misdirection in action and how it can immensely help a story. Danganronpa makes liberal use of it and the second I finished it I immediately started to use it as an example here, I don't think I've ever seen a story use it quite so much. I could seriously go on and on about how Danganronpa uses storytelling tricks and gameplay elements for a long time, but I'll cut myself off now. I hope you enjoyed reading, and have a great day!

An Overtly Long Analysis of Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton sure is great, huh? When I first heard about people saying it was overrated though, I had to spend like 5 hours straight going at this, because it most certainly is not overrated. Every line, every word spoken is used well and next to nothing is wasted, on top of it just sounding great. So without further adieu, here's every single line from Hamilton's opening put under the microscope.

Source

Burr: How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore...

The first lines we hear in this music immediately establish a negative spin on Hamilton's character. The words bastard, orphan, and whore don't inspire positivity in most, and immediately sets us up to view Hamilton as disadvantaged and coming from a bad spot.

Burr: and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten Spot in the Caribbean by Providence, impoverished, in squalor...

The tone in this same line has now shifted to a descriptive one, where before it was condemning the bad draw Hamilton got earlier in life. This is a song full of exposition, so it makes sense to frame where he is coming from. Of course, it's important to note how secondary the neutral is to the negative.

Burr: Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

The last 4 words we hear in the first line of the musical is “hero and a scholar”, putting a positive twinge into our heads. Hamilton sure as hell isn't great now, but he will be one day, and we know it. This paragraph reminds us how this song is examining Hamilton's past, present, and future all at once, condensed into a single sentence.

Laurens: The ten-dollar Founding Father without a father...

The wordplay is obvious, but this line is important to magnify the jump in status Hamilton achieved. He was the son of a poor family and his father even ran away, but we all know his face eventually ends up on America's 10 dollar bill. The line before says he rose. This line puts in perspective how impressive it truly was.

Laurens: Got a lot farther by workin’ a lot harder, by bein’ a lot smarter, by bein’ a self-starter...

These lines lavishy praise Hamilton's intellect and work ethic, and with this the “how”of his rise slots neatly into place for the audience.

Laurens: By fourteen, they placed him in charge of a trading charter...

Hamilton isn't even an adult yet and he's in charge of something, however small. This line is fairly throwaway actually, one of the few lines merely telling us about a detail of his upbringing.

Jefferson: And every day while slaves were being slaughtered and carted...

Meanwhile, this line is an important reality check for any listener. Until this point we've been focusing on Hamilton, but the setting of the colonial slave trade is an important one, mainly because of how known it actually is. Only one line is needed for today's audience to instantly have a clear mental image of the tone and look of the time. It's a line that might not work a few decades down the line, but it sure does today.

Jefferson: Across the waves, he struggled and kept his guard up, inside he was longing for something to be a part of, the brother was ready to beg, steal, borrow, or barter...

These lyrics are very descriptive of Hamilton's misfortunes before, mainly because we actually pick up on his story when he lands in New York. Mentioning how he “kept his guard up” or how he was ready to “beg, steal, borrow, or barter” are condensed little expository bits to give us context for what's actually about to unfold in front of us.

Madison: Then a hurricane came, and devastation reigned, our man saw his future drip, drippin’ down the drain...

This is the single largest hardship Hamilton has faced before his time in America, used here as a sort of baseline for our understanding of his capabilities. Managing to survive and pull himself out of the wreckage and aftermath of a hurricane takes real effort and capability, and so a baseline for what he can absolutely do has been set.

Madison: Put a pencil to his temple, connected it to his brain, and he wrote his first refrain, a testament to his pain...

Hamilton's extraordinary writing abilities are a key plot point in this musical, and we're first introduced to them here, albeit being told, not shown. How it's framed is a neat little detail, his first true achievement with words comes from “a testament to his pain”. The words are carefully placed to tell us at every turn how disadvantaged he is. His writing came from his pain of growing up, he learned to be able to beg and barter, etc. Everything positive about him is framed as a result of his negative upbringing.

Burr: Well the word got around, they said, “This kid is insane, man!”, took up a collection just to send him to the mainland...

Even in the story, people are thinking “Holy shit, this guy deserves more!” I mean if you really think about it, this song is essentially a 4 minute ego boost for Hamiton at the end of the day.

Burr: “Get your education, don’t forget from whence you came, and the world’s gonna know your name! What’s your name, man?"...

“Don't forget from whence you came”. That is brilliant foreshadowing. Of course, he's not going o forget where he cam from, but neither do his opponents. Hamilton's status as an immigrant is going to follow him and impact him for the rest of his life, and mostly for the negative.

The final words here throws the song over to Hamilton, and if you know anything about his personality there was no way anybody but himself was going to introduce him.

Hamilton: Alexander Hamilton... My name is Alexander Hamilton... And there’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait, just you wait...

The man himself takes careful pains to say his name twice and immediately tells us about all the stuff he is going to do. Hamilton is confident and holds a high opinion of himself from the very first line he speaks. “There's a million things I haven't done, just you wait”. That's a powerful and bold statement, and as a first line? Well, that leaves an impression.

Eliza: When he was ten, his father split, full of it, debt-ridden, two years later, see Alex and his mother, bed-ridden...

After Hamilton introduces himself, the song is finished with grand statements about his past and future. The stage has been set, there's no need for any more exposition, no need to waste any more words.

These lines may seem to state what we already know (He had a hard upbringing) but the next few lines are very important, as the audience needs to know how exactly he got to America. We know by this point that others paid for him, but besides that, nothing. That one word, “debt-ridden”, lets us know exactly why he needed said payment: his family was poor as hell, his father even abandoned him.

Eliza: Half-dead, sittin’ in their own sick, the scent thick...

Company: And Alex got better but his mother went quick...

Hah, you thought Alex just had a lot of issues with his life? Nah, he went through emotional trauma too! The whole package!

But in all seriousness, there hasn't been much emotion in his life story up until now. It's been a bunch of talk about how he worked his way up and what his future holds, but little personal stories. This line garners our sympathies and starts to get us to actually root for him on a more personal level, rather than just reading his biography. It's one thing to pull yourself out of poverty and natural disasters. It's a whole other story when one of your parents dies beside you. I think a better question is how are you not supposed to root for him now?

Washington: Moved in with a cousin, the cousin committed suicide ,left him with nothin’ but ruined pride, somethin’ new inside...

First line is just some quick reinforcement of my point earlier. Hamilton seems to have encountered misery in every part of his life, even with new housing and people. This is the last we hear of his shitty, shitty upbringing mainly because it's the last we need to hear. Missing/dead parents, hurricane, poverty, dead relatives. We've got a fairly complete idea of what he's been through now, and the song now moves away from the negativity and shifts into a breakneck pace, signalling his rise:

Washington: A voice saying "Alex, you gotta fend for yourself", he started retreatin’ and readin’ every treatise on the shelf...

This line isn't so much exposition or information as the shift I mentioned earlier. It's reflecting how Hamilton is thinking now, how he (and by extension the audience) is realizing how he's gonna need to work hard to get out of this, and setting the tone and motivation for the rest of the song.

Burr: There would’ve been nothin’ left to do for someone less astute, he would’ve been dead or destitute without a cent of restitution...

A glimpse into an alternate future in a manner? If he wasn't this intelligent and skilled the song outlines exactly what would have become of him: nothing. Not even a footnote in history. How easily this could have happened is alluded to as well, if he was only slightly “less astute” he may not have made it out, even.

Burr: Started workin’, clerkin’ for his late mother’s landlord, tradin’ sugar cane and rum and other things he can’t afford,
(Scammin’) for every book he can get his hands on, (Plannin’) for the future, see him now as he stands on...

It's funny how 3 words can re contextualize an entire line into something a lot more impressive. He's managing trade of stuff he can't even afford. It's incredible how this musical as a whole is able to use so few words and lines and communicate so much. Just one line, and we know what he has done, how he's gotten there, and gotten context for why it's amazing.

As for the rest of this passage, emphasis is placed on the really important words here, words that absolutely 100% need to stick in the listener's head. The song is going at a breakneck pace now with words and lyrics flying left and right, so when there are words like this that really sum things up and need to be remembered, emphasis is duly given. Scammin' is mainly there to remind us that yes, he continues to use every tactic in the book and a few unscrupulous ones too. Plannin' also serves as emphasis on his mind and how intelligent he is.

Burr: The bow of a ship headed for a new land, in New York you can be a new man...

Aw yeah, here we go! We're now planted firmly in the present, and what better place to start than Hamilton's arrival in New York. This line is mostly just letting us know where we are now, but if you're listening along by now you're likely totally into the swing of things and pumped for this. I know I sure was.

Company: In New York you can be a new man

Hamilton: (Just you wait)
Company: In New York you can be a new man

Hamilton: (Just you wait)
Company: In New York you can be a new man...

Women: In New York...
Men: New York...

Hamilton: Just you wait...!

Just 2 real phrases in this segment, but man is a lot done with them. First, the company repeats Burr's line from before, signalling... some kind of change. It's really up for debate here. Is it a crowd? Hamilton's internal thoughts? Regardless of what this chanting is supposed to be coming from, it's clear to us now that this is no longer a mere sentence, but a powerful idea reverberating throughout the song now. It's an idea motivating Hamilton in full force now, and it cannot be stopped. In between the chants Hamilton is affirming his motivation and getting louder and louder all the while before finally taking over and practically shouting his line.

Company: Alexander Hamilton...

We are waiting in the wings for you...

Theater humour! Although this line has always struck me as a bit odd, seeing as how nobody really knew who Hamilton was when he first came to America. Perhaps a reference to his future greatness, but this is really one of the few lines that seem rather... confused, perhaps?

Company: You could never back down
You never learned to take your time

Foreshadowing....
But seriously this line is a nice little reference to future events, and also places a bit of negativity in Hamilton's future, perhaps? We of course know his future isn't all smiles and roses, and it's nice to get some acknowledgement of that here, seeing how this is a bit of a summary of his entire life.

Company: Oh, Alexander Hamilton, when America sings for you, will they know what you overcame? Will they know you rewrote the game...?

A lot of the last part of this song is just vague emotional lines, which is really fine. We don't need any more about his past, and if they spoiled his future there wouldn't be a show, obviously. It is a bit of more foreshadowing to Hamilton's unpleasant rivals and their attempts to wash records of his importance, however. Always a good idea to put lines that make it clear this isn't a straightforward story!

Company: The world will never be the same, oh...

Oh, and if the rest if the song didn't clue you in this line is basically shouting “HAMILTON WAS IMPORTANT YOU GUYS”.

Burr: The ship is in the harbor now, see if you can spot him, another immigrant comin’ up from the bottom, his enemies destroyed his rep, America forgot him...

These 3 lines accomplish 3 separate tasks very quickly. Line 1 is setting the scene up for the next song. New York City, near a harbour. Simple, but needed.

Line 2 is actually one of the most important lines in the song, at least in my opinion. A lot of grandeur has been sung about Hamilton now, which can really cloud your mind and memory to the historical reality, which is that at this point Hamilton is a nobody. Just another immigrant trying to make his way up. This is the reality, the cold truth, that he is not great, and in fact is the absolute opposite at this moment.

Line 3 is more direct foreshadowing, but it also addresses a question the listener may have. I know a lot of people who have never even heard of Hamilton outside of seeing his face on the 10 dollar bill, and a basic question many probably have is: “Why have I never heard of this guy if he's so great?” Well, here's why. It's not a prominent point in the musical, but evidently this question was anticipated and dressed. Nicely done.

Mulligan/Madison, Lafayette/Jefferson: We fought with him

Laurens/Phillip: Me? I died for him

Washington: Me? I trusted him

Angelica, Eliza, Peggy/Maria: Me? I loved him

Burr: And me? I’m the damn fool that shot him

The preceding lines before the last one are ultimately inconsequential to the overall song, besides the nice nods to how certain actors play more than one character. What I'm really interested in is Burr's line, which catches the listener totally off guard more than likely if you don't know the history here. I'll get more into why this line is so important the next time we see him (AKA the next song) but let's just say it's meant to confuse the audience about Burr, a brilliant move to be sure.

Company: There’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait

Burr: What’s your name, man?

Company and Hamilton: Alexander Hamilton!

A forceful retelling of the earlier idea, a callback to Hamilton's introduction, and Hamilton's very name close off this opener, leaving the stage wide open for what is to come.

Seriously, it's impressive how there's almost nothing to throw away in this opener. Every line is important, and the repeated lines are ones they want to stick in your head. Foreshadowing runs rampant while not being the main focus, and the past and future is juxtaposed to great effect. It's not one of my favourite songs to listen to, but damn if it isn't a great opening to a great musical.