Tree

.. and how it could be better!
Major spoilers ahead for the entirety of Chapter 3. That would be G9 - Alchemist, G10 - Goddess of Light, G11 - Sword of the Gods, and G12 - Return of the Hero.

I've always felt irked by the writing in Chapter 3, but while I was playing it as a child, I couldn't articulate exactly why. After returning to Mabinogi having consumed plenty of other media within the last 10 years, and replaying these Generations, I've finally been able to collect my thoughts and put together my opinion of why I feel Chapter 3 is full of questionable writing choices and quite possibly the worst chapter of them all(debatable), and why it has aged incredibly poorly in our modern times.

Now and then on other social media, I'll see people mentioning that they didn't care for this chapter as well, so perhaps I am not alone in this! I would love to hear your thoughts and if you agree or disagree with some of the points I will bring up here.

I'll put the TL;DR up front here:

1. The Same Things Keep Happening (and thus it feels like no real progress or character development occurs)
2. The Cast of Characters Fell Flat
3. An Obvious Lack of Planning Shows in MacGuffins, Retcons, and Plotholes
4. The Female Characters Are Treated In An Incredibly Misogynistic Manner
(Bonus) 5. The Gameplay and Character Skills Are Now Extremely Outdated

I think to best convey all the thoughts I have, I'm going to go down the cast of characters and their involvement in each Generation, then go over some general points, and finally, end with how I think things could have been done better. This thread is written out of both love and hatred and while I am admittedly screaming to the void about it, I ultimately write this with the wish that it were better.

To quote a boss from the game Chrono Cross, "I love you so much... That is why I sometimes desire to smash you to bits!!!"
(Chrono Cross also had terrible writing btw.)