What Makes an Overman?
Who do you admire? Some look up to self-made wealthy people; others respect those who stay optimistic after enduring hardship. Our heroes vary, yet do they share something in common?
Over a century ago, Friedrich Nietzsche, a fiercely unorthodox philosopher, laid out his doctrine of the Overman. Traces of this “Overman” can be seen in many of the strong figures we admire.
The Overman is the core concept from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This is not a superhero with superpowers. It describes transcendence on a spiritual and value-making plane.
Nietzsche proposed the will to power as the fundamental force of existence. He argued that life’s core drive is not mere survival or pleasure-seeking, but an urge to expand its strength and shape its surroundings. The Overman is the highest expression of this will to power: one who constantly overcomes and creates himself, bringing life to its fullest form.
The Overman stands for an ideal human type. He stares into nihilism, refuses blind obedience, and rejects reliance on God or external authority. He creates values out of his own will and gives meaning to life.
Nietzsche also put forward the idea of eternal recurrence. Imagine every single event in your life and the whole world repeats endlessly. Faced with this thought experiment, the weak fall into despair. The Overman embraces it with amor fati, love of fate. Even suffering becomes an opening for creation. This total affirmation of life is the ultimate test of the Overman spirit.
Nietzsche’s Overman philosophy emerged in the late 19th century. The mid‑20th century marked a period when his ideas reached a crisis: humanity had ceased believing in God, yet new values had not fully taken root.
Paris became a hotbed of competing ideas in this era. At the famous Café de Flore, Jean‑Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus held intense debates. Sartre wrote existentialism’s famous declaration: existence precedes essence. This is an anti‑theological philosophy. Now that God is dead, humans must build their own values.
This exact historical backdrop shapes Version 3.2 of Reverse: 1999. Among the chapters of the game, this one carries the richest philosophical weight. Its narrative carries epic literary texture and depth, wrapping fate, free will and the Overman spirit within supernatural storytelling to illustrate Nietzsche’s thought.
The story unfolds in 20th‑century Paris, where intellectual clashes at Café de Flore still echo. Two characters help us grasp the Overman philosophy.
Adela comes from a family of gem hunters. Her bloodline is cursed: every member spends their life hunting gems, guarding family secrets, and perishing under the curse. Adela refuses to inherit this fate. She chooses to work as an ordinary taxi driver — a random occupation entirely disconnected from her lineage. “I only want what I choose.” This moment marks the birth of her Overman spirit.
Later, she gets pulled into the Storm. Felicien seizes her body and reduces her to a victim of fate. Still, she does not run or beg. She chooses destruction in fire, seizing command of her own life even in ruin.
For Nietzsche, the Overman is no lofty god. He is someone who dares to forge meaning amid nothingness. Adela fits this description. She redefines fate and proves by action: even if life is absurd, will can craft purpose. Standing on fate’s wreckage and before the void of nihilism, one may still choose to move forward.
Adela transcends fate. Fate stops being a chain and becomes proof of her will. What we witness is not death, but freedom itself.
Adela’s Overman spirit touches others. Beryl starts almost like an omniscient god in the traditional sense, yet Adela’s influence transforms her into Nietzsche’s Overman.
Beryl is an all‑seeing diviner. She can foresee everyone’s fate yet cannot alter it. This cursed omniscience traps her in nihilism. Foreseeing her mother’s death taught her fate cannot be escaped, only understood. She withdraws from meddling in other lives and watches the world with quiet detachment.
Then she meets Adela, an ordinary human tearing destiny apart with will. For the first time, she sees free will outrun fate. She chooses to abandon her divine omniscience and step into the Storm, the river of fate. At the cost of self‑sacrifice, she gains true freedom. She sees the golden threads of destiny in the current and accepts them with a smile.
At that instant, she completes her Nietzschean transcendence: she no longer resists fate, but loves it. Beryl falls from omniscient divinity into mortality, then rises again as an Overman. She is no longer ruled by fate; she dances with it through free will.
Nietzsche conceived the Overman to push back against the chains of traditional morality and religion. He urged humanity to move past old value systems and invent meaning for ourselves. His warning to young people: do not let social templates define you. Dare to break molds and grow through failure and hardship. “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
Meaning must be actively assigned by the person living. Against uniform social expectations, Overman philosophy encourages people to create values rather than passively receive them. Choosing an uncommon career or following an unconventional life path can embody this spirit.
The Overman does not flee pain. He practices amor fati: accepting all parts of life, setbacks and losses included, and finding meaning within them.
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