Lucky dog 1 and Badegg were initially released as totally unrelated games but as the days pass you can see the game company having second thoughts as they occasionally push both universes together maybe even treat them equally. Undeniably, to Tennenouji, Badegg is an equal, if not, way better game than Lucky dog 1. Put in mind that Badegg came out as an alternative universe in the stead of a sequel to the main story and took approximately +8 years for it to be released. So of course you’d expect its story and quality to be exceeding the original timeline in every aspect possible but in reality it was more like watching a potentially well-written, stand out story and writer that was faithful to the setting to a great extent succumb to the mediocrities of similar works with the same world-building: with the obvious inclination to action over proper depiction, neglect of logic and reason for the sake of drama, and the overdependence on violence and edginess displayed in Badegg.
Characters: Let’s start out with Gian who’s basically the face of the game and was one of the main reasons for the original game’s success.
Badegg Gian was presented to us as the complete opposite of Gian: he is someone grumpy, introverted and according to a lot of fans “He’s the much cooler version of the original Gian” but is that really true? Let’s see. Badegg Gian, at more than one point, was treated within the narrative as a strong loose cannon who has got distinctive leadership and intelligence all of which are the defining aspects of the original Gian’s personality but these traits don’t really make sense when Badegg’s protagonist is said to claim them as well—whereas throughout the story there’s no real definite proofs backing that up other than make-believe attempts which comes across as poorly thought-out pandering. Part of what made the original Gian’s personality so endearing was because he doesn’t leave you bored watching him. He was a naturally clean-cut and sharp individual and that was reflected in nearly every aspect of his character and his appearances yet he still had a great sense of humor and the ability to make fun of himself or others. He was capable of shaping his image in others’ head however he wanted and had natural manipulative skills and tact as well as eminent ability at reading others like an open book or analyzing them. That care-free vibe he presented himself with, along that underlying approachability was what made the original Gian such a great protagonist.
Meanwhile whenever Badegg Gian tries to act cool or do something clever he appears like an overbearing try-hard who’s trying really hard to be cool. The company obviously put a lot of effort into making him appeal to the fans of the original Gian alike, he’s supposed to be cool because of being disengaged and “apathetic” but instead he turns out to be a rather boring character who picked a bad day for a hangover and got throat problems.
If we wanted to summarize Badegg Gian’s whole character arc in one word it’d be edginess: he’s the flashy anti-hero who’s much more cooler than the bright normal hero (ie:Gian) which strikes me as a really weird widely-agreed on take because the original Gian had always been a morally grey character when situations call for it but I’ll elaborate on that later.
Badegg Gian operates mainly depending on sheer hand-twisting tactics and power rather than working his brain, he will not hesitate to kill or fight people (though those fights are mostly just done by Bakshi himself) unlike those goody two shoes normal people who just don’t have what it takes to get things done, unaware that larger systemic problems are better combated by organized teams and legal reform rather than punching people but as the cool protagonist he is, he doesn’t waste time with useless chatter with high authorities when he could just bullshit his way through. Surely, there’d be no consequences and no one would be able to do anything against him even though they exceed him in manpower and have absolute sovereignty, right? And even then he’s unstoppable just by himself for he is a human gifted with supernatural luck otherwise known as plot armor in other works. Badegg Gian, along his gang, will win his fights and manage through any obstacle through sheer grit and massive authorial bias. No need for him to cleverly resolve the dilemmas he faces with guile and underhanded tactics that emphasize his pragmatic nature like the original Gian. For example: when Margo challenges Badegg Gian to a Russian roulette the pistol postpones ever actually firing till Margo checks it to see if it was stuck only when the muzzle is facing his way does the pistol work. Now that was a cool moment. I admit you could buy it as something that happened by chance even if it was a stretch a lil. But then you look at the other two showcases of his luck in Badegg: in one bad-ending Gian’s luck makes the elevators suddenly descend, crushing to death the people inside and manipulates electricity, causing the lights filling the hall to explode for absolutely no reason, other time Gian gets caught up in a literal explosion but miraculously escapes it alive and gets healed by a method still undergoing trial and its chances of working are dimly low. Meanwhile in the original Gian’s case luck was never played as a gateway for lazy writing. Whenever Gian’s life was on the line he would plan out his strategies estimating his advantages and disadvantages after much pondering then lastly leave it up to his luck, sometimes he doesn’t even rely on it altogether and he is self aware enough that even horoscopes have more chance of working than his luck; Nothing extravagant and not within possible realms would usually occur due his exceptional luck like the other way around with Badegg Gian. For instance, when the original Gian found himself set up by his peers he racked his brains to find a way to turn the tables on them and corner them he didn’t just wait for their guns to backfire when they pointed them at him the same way Badegg Gian would have done if he was in his shoes. Badegg Gian hogs the spotlight while overcoming every obstacle with ease and brutality. No doubt his innate coolness will distract the audience from his complete lack of depth.
Badegg Gian’s only motive was revenge, his dialogues were filled with scorn and five-liners of pure threats about his bloody quest for vengeance, which he never managed to uphold much.
Badegg Gian was almost consumed by an overwhelming hatred of CR:5 who supposedly betrayed him. But how did CR:5 betray him? In the prison arc just when CR:5 are about to escape prison and Gian finds Giulio missing he quite literally tells CR:5 to escape without him, when CR:5 regroup with Giulio and actually try to take Gian’s word for it as they can’t wait any longer and their chance of escaping would be lost forever if they stayed any longer, Gian takes it really to heart even though the moment CR:5 escape prison they were confined by the traitors in the organization, and Ivan was sold to their enemies. However all of that doesn’t matter to Badegg Gian who turned to blaming CR:5 for the trauma Bakshi caused him (which varied from raping him for three CGs worth and biting skin off his shoulders) all while boyfriending said Bakshi and living best romantic life with him.
Badegg Gian never paused and asked himself if CR:5 really did betray him? Were the damage they did reversible? Between Bakshi and CR:5 who’s more deserving of scorn? Would his total lack of intelligence and immediate trust in whatever his enemies tell him instead of searching for the truth himself come across as anything but lazy writing? But no. Badegg’s protagonist jumps straight to making it his life goal to take vengeance on CR:5. Funnily enough whenever Gian crossed roads with anyone of CR:5 and they told him the reality that they didn’t betray him, he just breaks down over the fact that could mean he was wrong and his whole plan on destroying the family and Daivan was for naught and he just misunderstood, Badegg Gian was so desperate to not admit that he chose to believe hearsay over doing literally anything logical. I mean who really has time to actually make up a good reason for Badegg Gian’s bitter, edgy nature and fuel drama? Definitely not the writers.
An awful air of protag-bias gnawed over the story right from the very beginning and there was no effort in being even subtle about it. Since the moment Gian leaves prison suddenly every single higher up in CR:5, the BOI, the Chicago mafia, Grave Diggers and even completely unrelated families knew about the infamous Bad dog Giancarlo and were obsessed with getting rid of him like he’s the main ruiner of all of their ‘evil plans’ while CR:5 and Alessandro were a hair away from begging him to return back. You’d think Badegg Gian must be a hella important guy at this rate but in reality, he never bothered to do anything worth of mention besides escaping prison 4 times, he was beyond a low-ranked member in CR:5’s troops who just ran errands occasionally and that was it. At the same time the original Gian–who had been already a promoted 5th cadre–used the public’s ignorance of him in contrast to the capos as a trump card in critical times when the captains were prohibited from being seen in public, Badegg Gian became the talk of the town and all neighboring towns with a crystal clear record of zero achievements. The original Gian only became known as he became the boss, formed relationships with numerous big-wigs in the region, made himself the impetus of the Union’s success and saved the life of the boss of the most influential family in New York along countless leaders of other organizations’ twice in a row, wiped out two whole families in Chicago and was elected as the chairman of the East coast mafias union. On the other hand Badegg Gian was already world-widely famous before he lifted a finger.
The writers made it their sole mission to make Badegg Gian into the most typical Mary Sue of any story, everything comes and leads to him. Badegg Gian is not in the scene? Every other character there is talking about him. Surely corrupted politicians, underworld higher-ups and white supremacists wouldn’t waste time actually bringing their wrecked goals to fruition. But would Instead, worry about what Badegg Gian is doing or plotting against him that definitely makes sense. As for the antagonists in Badegg, they were a 1:1 retell of comic-book villains than anything. I’m not saying LD1 isn’t guilty of having ones like that too but at least it proved that it has the ability to write well-written villains just as much, villains who weren’t needlessly just pure evil and aimlessly chased after the protags just because the writer said so; they had their reasons, motives, morals and stuck to them. Both protagonists and antagonists pursued their own justice through their own methods. There was a thin line setting apart the two parties. The antagonists could have been the protagonists in someone else’s story just as CR:5, mainly the original Gian, would have been the antagonists in another’s.
Tennenouji were so desperate to glorify Badegg Gian that instead of having one character feed into his glorification they made up five new ones and named them DG with the Badegg protagonist himself as their leader. DG’s main role was to worship Gian and agree with him 24/8 without fail and their reward within the story is absolute inclination and favoritism.
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| Gian giving a touching speech only to never bring it up ever again |
Since Badegg decided to take a rather weird turn and remind us that mafias are bad. Badegg Gian as the woke, rebel king he is, gives Daivan citizens an eye-opener speech on how liberal Daivan should be and not settle to be run by the evil-doers, the CR:5 mafia. Badegg Gian yells while standing on a box about his aspirations to destroy that mafia, return to Daivan its freedom and that he’s now recruiting. Despite the out of place heroic goal in a story that revolves around the underworld. Badegg Gian after creating his 30-member gang and getting money from his mother in the church he grew up in, has his gang spend almost 96% of the time killing off the Chicago mafia which invaded Daivan while CR:5 were weakened instead of pulling any real attempt to destroy CR:5 itself.
Back to the point hearing Gian’s ethereal speech, three CR:5 members ranked in the lowest of the low ranks, yet to even have the family’s tattoo, resolve to betray CR:5 and their reasoning is: The captains are missing. From there on the three join Badegg Gian forming together the four-members team traitors who ditched the family for the dumbest reasons possible yet get painted as if they did nothing wrong at all by everyone in the story and the fandom itself, some-how.
All of the DG’s personalities were a mere rip-off of the capos with an additional Badegg Gian worshipping character trait. The writer doesn’t even bother giving them much of a standalone personality. They just exist to give the illusion that Gian’s make-believe gang isn’t a failure, be equal to the capos and fuck up power-balances and later on play as the perfect romance fuel since certainly what other way to spice up your perfect story other than add harems with unrequited crushes who got absouletly no chance at winning the heart of Badegg Gian who’s unfortunately taken by his rapist. Thanks to their solid plot-armor, DG were able to beat all veterans in-spite of having only a fraction of experience. Bernardo admits Walther defeating him in his own field and the telecommunication system he himself created, Luchino is easily overwhelmed by Riccardo, gets his life saved by Riccardo’s good-heartedness and is thrown along his entire racket of numbers of skilled soldiers in the sea when they’re facing two previous CR:5 no-names and a Bakshi.. Etc only Giulio’s power was relatively done justice in this three-ring circus. The writers in Badegg’s motto was that everyone should crumble before the protagonists in the most anticlimactic way possible just like the story’s narrative stakes. No need to spend time carefully developing characters and plot when you could just take shortcuts that give the illusion of the characters being effortlessly extraordinarily skilled or natural born-leaders just like the case with Badegg Gian.
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