I know we have a lot of cheeky pop culture references in the game and flavour texts of troops, but they usually incorporate puns and the like (exceptions do already exist, however â Borealisâ âWinter is comingâ?
).
With regards to âRiff raff, Street Rat!â and âScoundrel, Take that!â (Battles 1 and 2 from the City of Thieves quest line), can we please not directly rip off lines from other published works without a reference to game content other than simply fitting the general theme? It feels cheap.
Donât get me wrong â I love Aladdin (and perhaps thatâs why this strikes such a chord with me?
) â and I get that the City of Thieves rings a few thematic bells, particularly with the release of the new live action movie (which I havenât seen) â but even though âthievingâ the lines fits the theme of the Faction, I donât think this is appropriate.
Moreover, I wonât⌠âdelveâ into the quest lineâs grammar too much, but if we are going to have these lines, can we please at least have consistent capitalisation? There is no âStreet Ratâ proper noun in the game as far as Iâm aware, and âRiff raffâ and âTake that!â obviously buck the trend.
If the reference is to the âStreet Thiefâ troop, I think itâs a weak connection and it would be unnecessary to continue on to the second line (âScoundrel, Take that!â) since that doesnât even have a tenuous link beyond an antagonistic quality to âTake that!â, fitting a battle, and a thematic link in âScoundrelâ. I donât think that justifies what feels like taking advantage of/piggybacking on the popularity and success of Aladdin without adding anything new or giving it additional meaning, however.
I donât know the laws surrounding this, and I think I remember reading somewhere here on the forums that one or two small lines like this is perfectly legal â but it still feels (and seems, ****ytically-speaking) different to many of the other references made in the game, and wrong. Iâd be happy to provide examples of references that I think were made in good taste, by contrast!
Pictures for reference (with complimentary Level 1 troops):
And a YouTube video of your (3rd?) favourite song from Aladdin (~1:06 is what youâre looking for):
A full ranking of the soundtrack to come
.