Chapter 421: Hold the Final Verdict in Your Heart and Roar, President

There is a word called "Compromise."

It refers to giving up on reaching the original quota and simply ending the work at a line where one can at least be satisfied. While the actual meaning apparently relates to when the opinions of two parties clash or whatever, when it comes to creating something, it corresponds to the gap between ideal and reality.

Sometimes, even when the creator truly wanted to make a mecha game where you fly around in 3D maneuvers and fire missiles from your entire body, a finished product hits the market looking like a pixel game where you can only move straight up, down, left, and right, and fire lasers that look like grains of rice (lol).

I sometimes thought to myself, "No way," but as someone who has unearthed a mecha game with literal "blocky" movements, I can't help but feel that the swamp known as trash games has its abyss connected straight to outer space.

Then, what about the opposite? If a game were packed with every single demand the creators envisioned, without any excess or deficiency, would it truly be a God Game?
At the very least, ShanFro would be a successful example. Even if there are rough patches, if it can hammer out a level of satisfaction that exceeds them, it falls into the category of a masterpiece.

Then what about Epic of President Legend? ...You could say that guy is a dish where the combination of ingredients was botched at the preparation stage. Plus, they messed up the measurements for the seasoning.

"World... Sink into the darkness, into the darkness, and vanish...!!"

"Ah, so you're the 'destroy everything' type? You're the fifth final boss I've seen with that trope."

The Demon God Emperor Kyomurus. It seems like he has some sort of grand background lore, but I can just look that stuff up after watching the end credits.
We managed to overcome an unexpected stat-locked boss rush plus alpha just to stand here. I didn't hear a damn thing about the Four Heavenly Kings fusing together, you piece of shit.

Right now, surrounding this final dungeon, the "Demon God Castle Avisuma," the United Army—gathering the power of the entire continent, having become a Great United States—is making a desperate final stand so that I, the President, can fight in perfect condition.
It was a nightmare finding a quest that was actually good for grinding the army's EXP... and they just had to make it a hidden quest of all things.

...Compromise is by no means surrender. Packing everything into a supersized meal will only give you a stomachache; cramming everything in will naturally bring about corresponding demerits.
Having played the game Epic of President Legend, to give my final verdict... I'd say: "The ingredients are a passing grade, the cooking method gets a passing mark, and the cooking utensils are so-so. However, mixing sushi and a parfait using the cooking method for curry doesn't necessarily mean it's going to taste good."

Epic of President Legend is a game that crams strategic planning, Musou-style action, nation-building simulation, and a bit of hack-and-slash into a single title.
The player takes on the role of an entity known as the President—sometimes commanding armies, sometimes standing on the front lines, and sometimes sitting at the negotiation table against various nations.

Conversely, this means the player has to swing their weapon and mow down enemies while simultaneously issuing orders to the army, expand the nation while considering the climate and surrounding environment, and rack their brains over negotiations—even though the Good-Will Command actually works.
ShanFro is, so to speak, a full course imperial banquet where you can pick and choose your favorite dishes from a vast selection. You aren't obligated to finish a whole plate, and you can always reach for a different dish halfway through.
But this game should probably be called a plate with everything piled on top. At the very least, it's hard to imagine that a dish where boiled salmon roe and strawberries pop out from inside a curry would be well-received by the masses.

Furthermore, the difficulty level also highlights the disappointing nature of this game.
When making a game, you could say that difficulty adjustment is an eternal challenge. If your first encounter is the Demon King, you obviously can't win, and if your starting equipment is final dungeon-tier, the catharsis of combat becomes skewed.
Difficulty is fundamentally supposed to ramp up like a hill, but in this game, each of its multiple elements has its own difficulty. And they cannot substitute for one another. No matter how strong the individual player becomes, if the army's level is low, it's a game over with no questions asked. If your national power remains low, you can't form alliances with other countries. Therefore, it demands a high standard for all elements.
Moreover, the difficulty spikes to the level of a completely different game before and after the Empire's invasion in the middle of the story, so being forced into a leveling grind is simply agonizing.

High difficulty and a sense of accomplishment share an inseparable relationship, but you can't just crank it up out of nowhere.

But... yes, but. Even if it ends up categorized as a trash game for various reasons, there is just one point in this game that deserves praise.

"Nothing is impossible for the President, and the President is the leader of the United! The dining table of the United States of Dinner respects a myriad of tastes; I absolutely refuse a bland future dyed only in darkness!!"

It's the story. Probably, the work known as Epic of President Legend was built without any compromise on the system side, all based on the absolute premise of the entire story from the prologue to the epilogue.
That's why you're swamped with the hardships of being a head of state, and why the difficulty spikes because of the Demons appearing as the enemies of humanity.

• The United will not lose!

• We will defeat you!

• We won't hand the world over to you!

Boilerplate-san is really getting into it too. In the second half of the story, it was revealed that the very will of the Goddess tied to the holy relics was guiding the protagonist, so it turned out that it was genuinely a character known as the "Goddess (Bottom-Left Frame)".
It's a bit sad that the joke choices stopped appearing near the end, but forcefully making light of things here would only kill the mood.

And this isn't a line aimed at the final boss. It's directed at Rice-chan, the secretary who is still being held captive and forced to use the power of the miraculous holy relic, the "Flag of Unification."

• That's why...

• That's why...

• That's why...

The choices aren't functioning as choices, but this is the groundwork to connect to what comes next. There's no need to try and be eccentric.

"That's why..."

In an instant, the world comes to a standstill as if it froze. A single window appears before me, and a string of text is spun onto it.

• Please call out to her.

• To take back the very first citizen...

• Who believed in you!

Leave it to me, Goddess-sama.
I swipe the window away as if shattering it, letting my words echo into the world that has resumed moving.

"The President's office desk isn't in a place like that, Rice-chan! Come back!!"

"...Yes!!"

The flag, shaped like a skewered grilled fish, emits a blinding light. The shadows that had captured Rice-chan are blown away by the radiance, and Rice-chan, grasping the Flag of Unification, runs toward me.

"President!!"

"Welcome back, Rice-chan. Now then? Demon God Emperor-kun... if you're going to surrender, now's your only chance."

"Curse you, curse youuuu...!!"

With the Flag of Unification returning to the player's camp, its effects are bestowed upon me and everything belonging to my faction.
The President stands tall through the believing hearts of the citizens, and the citizens move forward guided by the President.
The Goddess's divine protection is now at its absolute peak. Even effects that could only be used in a limited capacity until now are unlocked. From within the light, the Flag of Unification—transformed into a divine design with golden embroidery—activates its true power: a stat buff that digitizes the total combat power of every single citizen belonging to the United States of Dinner.
A massive enhancement represented by light is granted to the player, and the golden aura cloaking my body purges the darkness.

"Its name is Ultimate President Mode... I (The President), as a human, shall strike you (Demon God) down!!"

Final Verdict Conclusion!!
If the production company hadn't gone bankrupt right after release, couldn't this have eventually become a masterpiece with a difficulty adjustment update—!!!

Having his cheeks slapped by a failing grade in game balance, and his back pushed by a perfect-score story, the player now challenges the final battle───!!

Author's Afterword

• The Worldview of Epic of President Legend

Originally, gods lived in the world, but with the appearance of the Demon Gods, a final war broke out. Almost all the gods perished, but the last remaining Goddess succeeded in sealing the Demon Gods. However, the Goddess's body was destroyed as the price of the seal, and the Goddess became an entity of pure spirit, falling into a long slumber.

When the Goddess awoke, humanity had prospered widely, and the Goddess watched over them as well. But because the Demon God tribe repeatedly resurrected, the Goddess, who could not physically interfere, decided to choose a powerful individual from among the humans to seal the Demon Gods in her stead.
However, there was a limit to individual power. In one of the Demon God Wars, although the sealing was successful, records were incinerated, and humanity suffered at a level where civilization itself regressed.

Therefore, the Goddess decided to drop fragments of her own power—items—across the world, choosing not an individual to fight the Demon Gods, but someone to guide the humanity that would fight the Demon Gods.
These are the holy relics, and the protagonist at the start of the story. The reason behind the dialogue frame that only the protagonist can see and the President Beam is the effect of the heart-shaped holy relic "Telepathy." It's a long story to explain, but in short, it flows mystical nanomachines into the bloodstream, acting as a receiver and allowing the use of miracles. She nonchalantly performs human modification, but she really is a good Goddess, it's true.

The protagonist (before player control), right before the start of the story, accepted this holy relic at the cost of all memories except the dream "I want to become the President." In meta terms, it's because it's the start of the story, but this is the reason why the protagonist has no memories from before the prologue.

Well, in short, what makes this game a trash game is that "it made endlessly tedious tasks mandatory" and "the difficulty settings are incredibly loose/unbalanced," but the reason it is treated as a hidden masterpiece by those in the know is because "only the story gets a perfect score."