by mento
It seems I've started a Cool RPG Cities themed list series around here. I posted one semi-recently about cities trapped in permanent night, and there's another municipal trope I'm always happy to see in a game I'm playing: that of the city made almost entirely of metal. These generally appear in JRPGs and are treated as a visual shorthand for a place which places technological advancement beyond the spiritual and perhaps even physical well-being of its citizenry. They also tend to include a lot of badass anachronistic steampunk environs with some cool music and quasi-futuristic nonsense going on besides.
It's a safe bet I'm going to like any city made entirely of clangy metal walkways and rusty iron panels for buildings. They have such cool designs.
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Why don't we just get all the Final Fantasy games out of the way with so we can enjoy the rest of this list? Sure, let's do that. Vector is the Empire's capital and seems to be made entirely out of ugly brown metallic panels and ostentatious opulence. Kind of figures that the Empire doesn't care much about nature, given they almost destroy it several times.
Final Fantasy 6 and 7 really begat the Final Fantasy series's fascination with combining the old and new. While their respective worlds are largely medieval-based, both games have one city that seems to have been built centuries before it was supposed to be, and in Midgar's case has profited from drawing from the spiritual strength of the planet itself and is using it to power their neon signs and dirty public transport. Well, at long as they're not being wasteful.
Alistel's the home of many of Radiant Historia's characters, and it's another example of a city state deeply involved with some manner of unethical technological progress. Of course, you know nothing of this when the game starts, and it's only when the bigger picture starts to form regarding the warring nations of Granorg and Alistel that you understand that neither side is truly without sin.
Many of Rogue Galaxy's settings are of the metal and tech persuasion, it being a JRPG set in space and all. Vedan, home of the grizzled mercenary (and dog) Deego isn't the most reputable planet in the galaxy, but it fits Deego's lugubrious and alcoholic nature perfectly.
The frontier town of Esparanza sits just at the cusp of the foreboding Dark Rift, an enormous maelstrom as troubling as it is mysterious. Esparanza, meaning "hope", has something of an ironic name having been long abandoned by the Valuan Empire. Many of its citizens stumble around drunk and unmotivated as its various metal fixtures fall deeper into disrepair and eventually float off to be swallowed by the Dark Rift. It's not a happy place, but the view is incredible.
Lunatic Wisdom Laboratory is one of several locations in the far future that the player must bring back by restoring its origin point as a sleepy fishing village. The labs are an impressive if garishly neon example of an entirely metallic construct, and it has one of the most mellow musical tracks of anywhere in the game. If you figure out a way to grab this link, go give it a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wX_C_YoscM
Chrono Trigger figured we'd all be living in domes by 1999, or at least it figured as much for its own world, but while they might've looked impressive back when they were maintained, years spent in the post-apocalyptic wastes have done them little favor.
Xenoblade's human (or Homs) settlements are all named "Colony", suggesting there might be an origin city for the species. If there is one, it's never encountered in-game. Colonies 6 and 9 are the two that make the biggest impact, and are made up of oddly anachronistic modern technology presumably retrieved from the various corpses of the antagonistic robotic Mechon. There's a lot of discoveries to be made on the Bionis, some of which help shine some light on what's going on with all these Colony cities.
But hey, there are more RPGs than just Japanese ones. It's a given that in a sci-fi setting like Fallout 3's, we're bound to see a few appropriated metal structures built into towns, and Rivet City doesn't disappoint. Crafted from the carcass of a massive beached aircraft carrier, Rivet City holds a lot of survivors who have banded together to protect themselves from the ubiquitous raiders of the Washington DC wastes. As might be expected from a military vessel, there's a lot to defend themselves with.
Grandia's Parm, the starting town and home to Justin and Sue, is an amalgamation of old world technology and new. Many of its streets are paved with stone, while several others contain metal walkways and buildings. As you explore more of the world, you start to comprehend how Parm came by its schizophrenic appearance. It's a port city that trades with new ideas as much as it does with minerals and fish.
