Project Moon and...Xenogears?
So I've played only Ruina and know some of the plot of Lobcorp, so certified larper here. That said, I've finished Ruina, watched lobcorp stuffs, then played Xenogears after, which made me recognize so many parallels between Xenogears and PM games. Things about the scientists, the mutations/distortions, Id/Ego allusions, abrahamic religion allusions, list goes on.
So I think I wanna know, have anyone else here played both IPs? If so, I wanna know how similar do you think they've been, some cool observations you may have made, etc etc.
(Also is it worth playing Lobcorp/Limbus? Kinda interested in Limbus but scared of the time investment for it being gacha)
As for my own observations (full spoilers for Xenogears and likely larp territory on knowledge of PM stuffs, as well as me just focusing on Ruina stuffs and only surface level knowledge of lobcorp. I have also been playing Xenogears via the perfect works patch, so some names and details may be different)
- Allusions to church and religion: PM have the sephirahs, while Xenogears only have Geburah/Gebler as the reference to the sephirot...I think (insert Red Mist meme). Xenogears has a craaaap ton more religious reference and I'd be curious to see if PM has more.
- Both stories touch on the concept of wanting to be more than what they currently are, Karellen wishing for humanity to merge with god, while Angela wishing to be human. Both seems to involve a lot of human sacrifices.
- Cool protag going sicko mode, Fei turning into Id and Roland revealing to be black silence and...distorting? I think?
- "Guy that actually knows way more betrays you" with Citan and Roland again.
- Exploring Kislev does feel a bit like the city
- The mutations in the second half of Xenogears gives abno/distortion vibes (I will never forgive square for budget cutting this part)
- Angy guy never gives up (Phillip/Ramsus)
- Budget issues in the second half
- The main female antagonist(?) (I'd assume Carmen is), or at the very least the really important female figures with Miang/Myyah and Carmen being a manipulator for their own goals of changing the world in some form, and also messing with the minds of the main female protagonists of Angela and Elly. They are also "dead" in a way but their wills lives on
- Speaking of Angela, female machine created by scientists. Angela by Ayin, Emeralda by Kim and Elly.
- Gears! Turning humans into gears! (This is a stupid joke moving on)
- The church itself being more of an organization to control to thoughts of the populace
- Main female protag being the one that helped brought the male protag back to sanity, and then the reverse by the male protag sort of saving the female protag at the end..sort of in the case of Ruina (with Fei/Elly and Roland/Angela)
- Factory made to experiment on people with mutations/abnos
- And here's what spurned on this thought for me in the first place: Id/Ego. I know Id is the gacha thing in Limbus, but due to my very minimal knowledge of it, I'll hold off on actually talking about it. Instead, the parallels between Id in Xenogears and EGO in Ruina is extremely interesting to me. Id in Xenogears is the protagonist's second personality, while you don't actually play as his first, you play as his third. Id came to be when the first personality, the main one, had to essentially find a person he can dump all his trauma and guilt on, which birthed Id, being the "personality" which, in a way, was created through the abandonment of his own ego, almost like a distortion in PM. Meanwhile, Ego in PM (at least from what I see/know from asking some people) is created through accepting all things you have done as what something "you" have done, thus not averting that truth and in a way is an inverse of how Id was created in Xenogears.
It's also interesting that Xenogears conclude that the ego you have is not simply created by you as a person exerting your will on others, but as the strength one creates through their interactions and relationships with others, in a way pretty similar to what Xiao went through in Ruina.
That's it for this rambling. Feel free, and I heavily encourage anyone with enough knowledge on these IPs, to add on and/or correct me on any points. I definitely am just on the surface level for PM and Xenogears is just....pretty hard to understand at times, but still a really good and provoking story that touches on very similar topics.