This Post Is Not Dolphin Safe.

I have an important announcement that many of you may not be aware of.

While you think that they might be cute little pieces of marine life, dolphins are assholes.

What does this have to do with gaming?  Well, in the limited (but hopefully soon to be increasing..) time I've had to play games, I've been focusing a lot of my attention on Devil Summoner:  Soul Hackers.  A later post (..not too late, I promise) will follow up more on the game, but it earned a special place in my heart when it also acknowledged just how awful these creatures are:

This kid is the Cassandra of his time.

 This is only a snippet of the boy's conversation.  In it, he muses on how if we say that dolphins are smart, then certainly they must be capable of lying.  He also suspects that the dolphin collective is setting some grand scheme in motion, such as assassinating the prime minister.  It sounds laughable, right?  It would be, if only a few minutes later you didn't end up fighting this:

Only MegaTen could come up with something like this.

Don't be fooled by the halo and angelic wings:  Remember, in MegaTen games, all angelic beings are assholes too.   Mind you, his plot was much more vile than attempting to assassinate the prime minister (though it wouldn't be far off for a MegaTen game), but instead luring people into the internet and stealing their souls.  Based on his dialogue, he seems to have already had some success in doing it, and would have likely continued to do so if my party of loyal miscreants hadn't managed to put an end to his nefarious deeds.

Charlie definitely won MVP that battle.

But really, when I think about it, Snappy the dolphin (yes, that's his name) isn't the first incident of dolphins being jerks in RPGs, as illustrated in Breath of Fire III:

Dragon beats Dolphin, bastard.

It was only recently that the horror of dolphins was brought to my attention (I have a certain presentation to thank for that), but I'm glad to know that in their own subtle way, video games are attempting to look out for me, warn me, and teach me many of life's important lessons.

So perhaps I shouldn't be neglecting them (and you all) as much now, thus I return to Soul Hackers.

Until we meet again, keep playing, everyone.

..But not Ecco the Dolphin.