Word to your Mojib - March 25th, 2002 - Nich Maragos
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
Beautiful Mind wins. Return of Ganon.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
I don't know about you, but I think it's an absolute travesty that Monsters, Inc. lost Best Sound Effects Editing.
| Hunt and rap |
|
I'm afraid that even if Mojib crosses the ocean, it's not going to do much for me. I was initially excited by at least having the chance to try something as unique as this, but then I realized it would require typing. And I'm a one-hand-using, can't-find-the-b, slothesque lummox in that regard. Alas and alack.
-SonicPanda
|
Never fear; our initial preview wasn't entirely accurate, and the game will in fact not use a keyboard, as our next correspondent helpfully explains. So as long as you've got your Dual Shock layout down pat, you should do fine.
| News from the front |
|
Hey Nich,
I attended the Parappa 2/Vib Ribbon 2 talk at this year's GDC, and so I got
the priviledge of seeing Mojibribon in action. It's fuggin' INSANE, and
makes Vib Ribbon look mainstream in comparison. You guys have the details
pretty much down pat in your preview, except for one (very unfortunate)
thing. The likelihood of this title coming out in North America is even
LOWER than the original. This one does indeed incorporate a speech
synthisizer to take any Japanese text file and convert it into rap. The
effect is pretty strange (the voice they have is really surreal), but it
seems to work quite well. Matsuura mentioned that he likes the challenge of
trying to move this over to other language (mentioned English, French,
Italian and Spanish in particular), but wasn't sure how possible is was
going to be in the end.
The graphics are VERY cool and unique, with the 'ink renderer' being much
more than simple cel-shading. It actually does give the impression of being
an ink drawing.
The lead character (who still looks kinda like a rabbit) walks along a
stream of clouds, carrying a calligraphy brush. As the words get rapped,
but corresponding calligraphic symbols appear on the cloud, and the player
has to input the correct character to 'paint' it with the brush. One other
thing wrong in the preview is that apparently this will be done straight
through the controller. Matsuura made the comment that typing in Japanese
is really difficult, and that after developing a system for typing with the
Dualshock, it was much faster than typing in with a keyboard. I'm assuming
they'll be doing some sort of SSX-style control, with shoulder button
combinations making up the inputs, and using the face buttons to 'modify'.
When I think about it, it could be REALLY quite fast and almost rhythmic.
Anyways, the presentation was great (Matsuura showed video of his old band
Psy-S, which was a combination of J-pop and Bonnie Tyler-esque female power
vocals :-). Also, he went into great detail about Parappa 2, but
unfortunately (in my opinion) didn't acknowledge the fact that the gameplay
really didn't evolve enough in the sequel to 'grow up' for this generation
of rhythm-action games.
So, while this letter is getting a little long, just have to once again
reiterate that the presentation was really cool, and all in attendance
(almost packed house) gave Matsuura a rousing applause at the end.
Lovin' the industry more everyday,
-Brother SoulJive
PS - Attended the REZ presentation too. Funniest part was the first (very
emphatic) question of the Q&A session: 'How do we free her from the
system??' (people who have finished the game should know what I'm talking
about :-)
|
Hmm. I can understand how Japanese touch typing may be extremely difficult, and so in that respect it makes sense that Matsuura would try to find a workaround. But on the other hand, I'm not sure how he's going to fit about 50 mora (not counting alternate characters like those with the tenten) into 16 DS2 buttons, and that's counting the little-used R3 and L3. And that's not even considering the possibility of kanji in those textfiles. All this means, of course, that Mojib Ribbon will be much less import-friendly than Vib was, so here's hoping that your bad news about the game's English chances proves false.
That said, I agree that an English rendition of the game, should one be produced, would have to be very carefully done to avoid sounding like MC Stephen Hawking. Japanese at least has the advantage, if you take Eleanor Harz Jorden's word on the subject (and I'm not sure that you should) of largely uninflected vocal patterns. It also enjoys regularity of pronunciation; every mora is pronounced the same way, always. Because of this, it's easy to imagine an engine capable of pumping out spoken mora that sounds vaguely natural. English, on the other hand, has all kinds of tricky pronunciation rules and exceptions and would pose a pretty thorny problem for natural-sounding speech, let along rapping.
| Ersatz |
|
I don't know about this whole Mojib Ribbon thing.
On one hand, trying to turn text files into strange rap-levels should
result in some truly hilarious gibberish, and wholesome entertainment for
all involved.
On the other hand, though, how can I possibly respect a rhythm game that
doesn't contain a singing crack rabbit?
Just my $0.02.
-Mathonwy
|
How do you know it doesn't? Mojibri, as I will temporarily dub him, looks enough like a rabbit to me. And rapping is ... sort of singing. You guys are just a bunch of neophobes.
| Trapped in the system |
|
Dear Nich,
I loved Vib-Ribbon, it was cool.
Mojib Ribbon *would* be cool if it didn't sound like it was going to be
an online-only game. Not everybody can afford to hook their PS2 up to an
internet connection, so I guess even if it does come out over here, I'll
sit this one out.
-DMJ
|
See? Neophobes.
But I kid. The userbase split inherent in peripheral-based games is always a problem, so it's not just you. Mojib Ribbon does have the advantage of not requiring the large overhead of dedicated servers, since the actual gameplay is offline, but I'm at a loss as to how non-Internet-enabled people like you would get the text files into the PS2. If you've got the right sort of PC (namely, a Vaio) the Memory Stick might be a viable option, but other than that you might be right to give this one a pass. However, for those of us who would have the ability to play ...
| One of many, I'm sure |
|
NM,
Mojib Ribbon: an amusing use for all that junk porn e-mail.
-Red Raven
|
Spam in general should be ideal. I'd like to fire it up with all these Brussels International Foreign Film Festival press releases I keep receiving for some reason.
Closing Comments:
I didn't get a lot of letters on Mojib Ribbon today. I don't think too many people were interested in it, which is okay. It only means you fell right into my cunning trap for tomorrow's topic.
What makes certain games okay for US release and some not okay? Rez and Vib Ribbon both had music-based gameplay and vector-based graphics, and one got here and one didn't. Grand Theft Auto 3 is okay, but part of Animal Leader's gameplay involves pooping and so that one probably won't make it over. The line seems kind of arbitrary to me, so maybe you guys together with the magnificent Erin can help clear it up.
-Nich Maragos, Future Man
|
