You are hurt, bloodied, but stronger than ever.

Copperright👀 again

well you heard em

*hi. let me tell you

*before we get started, I'd like to state my credibility: I have been a writer since 3rd grade and a henry stickmin fan since the release of the collection. I am also highly interested in analysis and creative fiction. to add onto my analysis point, my mom is a licensed therapist and also a writer, having a degree in counseling and english. she has written books and still writes, including some of creative fiction. and I grew up with this woman. I ALSO asked her in the car if killing off a character just bc they were the fan favorite was a bad writing choice, and she immediately, no hesitation, said yes. we both agree that there needs to be a reason for it. and in valiant hero, there wasn't. I'll get to that in a second

*the character writing was decent. nothing crazy, but it stands up on its own, esp for a character like charles (who is quite frankly a nothingburger character, esp in comparison to the rest of the main cast). we even got some tidbits abt charles: he's protective, determined, and it's proven that he truly cares abt henry in gspi (and potentially rbh) endings. he also has some "personal" beef with the toppats, but we don't know the story behind that. it could just be that the gov't is meant to take down the toppats due to them being a criminal organization, but that's more business than personal. so the motive for his goal is incredibly vague. Great. there arises our first issue

*next up, the pacing. the cutscenes were much too short and not enough happened to build up to charles' death, which made it rlly confusing. his plan finally working was our only signal, which.. is good? I guess? but it doesn't help the story much on its own. he was killed off for no good reason other than emotional value, which, as I mentioned, is a TERRIBLE writing decision; you ALWAYS have to have a reason to kill off an important character like that, otherwise it's just shit writing. I think if the cutscenes were a little longer and/or more detailed, + maybe if we had an extra choice to go through on that route, it would've been good. the story was paced too fast

*to be clear, I think these games were never abt the story. but when you want to take part of these games more seriously, then you need to pay more attention to the writing so it actually pans out how you want it to. it's lame when you kill a character off, particularly the FAN FAVORITE, purely to make your audience sad. that's honestly a bit disrespectful to your character and your audience. you have to do your character justice so that your audience can understand the character's message and motives, giving them a true reason to be sad other than "I liked them." you need to learn smthn from it, whether it be abt the character or just a new perspective on things in general.

I like Valiant Hero as it feels more like a celebration of who Charles is as a character. The mission is something he is passionate about getting right, as his motivations to stop the Toppats is because he’s aligned with the government and they’ve just gotten a huge boost to the point of being unstoppable. He’s basically the main character for the route, while Henry helps him. A reversal of how the rest of the routes play out. But that’s my opinion.

The ending would’ve probably worked better if Charles lived and got celebrated for his achievement with Henry giving him a thumbs up.