Math is power - June 12th, 1999 - Drew Cosner
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not neccessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. The stories you are about to read are real, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Don't say I didn't warn you. :)
Have you ever been to a large city? Maybe you even live in a city. Let's take New York City as an example, because it has a subway and those cool counterfeit watches with the insignias of companies that don't actually make watches on them. See, there are these bums that live on the benches in Central Park and hang out in the subway tunnels for warmth during the cold winter months. Try talking to them sometime, and you'll find their speech patterns vaguely familiar... as though you've seen similar grammar abuse and complete lack of any flow of logic somewhere before. As they excitedly recount false tales of their past and tell you of their experiences in the war of 1812 in broken english, you'll sudeenly realize where you've heard such butchery of the english language. Yes, from RPGs! You'd think by now some Japanese game designer would have stumbled upon a lonely clue looking for love and attention while commuting to his 5 square foot living space from work and realized that hiring a native speaker of english to aid in the translating of games would probably be a good idea. While a great translation can raise the overall quality of a title, as games like Lunar have shown, the opposite scenario holds true even moreso. Star Ocean 2, an otherwise solid game is constantly dragged down by its poor translation. Marvel at the sheer brilliance of such lines as "You can sell posessions for money". My God, if that line wasn't there in the help menu I may have never realized I could trade my old posessions in for cash! I almost was forced to hang onto my old armor for the full duration of the game, that sure was a close call! But even that's not much compared to the mathematically challenged post-battle exclamation of "Well... that's somewhere around 80 points!" upon receiving your 9 points. That's some pretty nifty rounding there, chief. | Speak of the Devil | How many chracters can you control in Star Ocean: the second story. I know you get to choose one of the main character at the begining but does new characters join your party? And lastly I think Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete is even better. Maybe not the graphics, but the story, the cutscenes, and everything else that makes it a great game. What do you think? -Fat Bastard |
To keep with the theme of Star Ocean 2, I'll answer in the style of its translation. There are characters in this game. You can get some of them in your party. There are 12 possible characters, but you may only have 8 at one time so that means you must chose not to add approximately 36.4 characters to your party. You can sell possesions. As for Lunar, I've been too broke to buy it so far, so I can't really comment on what I think. Everybody else on the GIA crew seems to dig it, but I really can't say for myself yet. | A bunch of unrelated questions | WHERE)Do you think that if Crystalis DX does well SNK may decide to makeanother action RPG? Maybe even a sequel of some sort? Have they doneanything other than fighting games lately? |
Beyond Koudelka, their "horror-themed RPG", which they're currently working on, SNK is too busy working on Japanese-only updates to the King of Fighters series. Crystalis is fine and good, but what gamer doesn't want to get their hands on King of Fighters 99 Ultimate Superemotional Gundam Gaiden Turbo? | WHY)What did Final Fantasy II come with? Did it have anything else otherthan the cart and a booklet. I bought the game used from a friend'sbrother cause he was selling it to me for $50, as oppossed to the $75 thatstores were charging. |
It came with a map and an instruction booklet, and that's it. I think everybody's getting jaded by Lunar. | WHEN)Does Zelda 64 come with a secrets packet like LTTP did? |
No. I love a good monosyllabic answer. | WHO)Do video games have the "any similarity between any people living anddead, blah, blah, blah, is coincedental" disclaimer? I think it's reallyabvious where Barret came from. |
Yeah, it is pretty obvious. Mister T beat the shit out of Barret's designer for creating a character in his image that endorsed the use of violence to settle disputes. And no, that's not required of games yet, although there was a little blip along those lines in Metal Gear Solid's instruction manual. I guess people just haven't caught on to the potential gold mine of legal cases and subpoenas presented by games. | WHAT)Where does Zeboim come from? In Dragonlance it's the Goddess of theSea. In Xenogears it's a city under the sea. It obviously means somethingrelated to the sea, but WHAT? |
Zeboim is a city in the bible that was destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah. What that has to do with a Goddess of the Sea is beyond me. | HOW)Jesse Michaels started a new band. Doesn't that make you HAPPY? |
Who? | BTW, you are the best letters guy there is or was, better than anybody hereor on RPGamer. Better than even(dare I say it) Jay Boor! I should knowthese things, for I am the Buddha! |
Even though this letter was originally sent to Allan before he stuck his hand into a paper cutter, I have no problems accepting misplaced praise. Yes, yes I do rule. | Big in Japan | On the topic of Xenogears and religion, I don't think the game waspro-atheism, anti-atheism, pro-Christian, anti-Christian, or anything ofthe sort. It was simply a cool game idea where a theme of religionhappened to work well, and so Square went with it. Games should not beover analyzed. Just because the game's characters had religions, doesn'tmean it's trying to say anything about religion in our world. It's afictional world, and so it has a fictional culture. Cultures tend todevelop religions, so the fictional cultures got fictional religions.It's as simple as that. -Somebody |
Yeah, I have to agree with your opinion in most respects. Although the Ethos was obviously a knock off on western religion, namely Catholicism, that was only to make it more identifiable as the type of doctorine-based religion it was meant to be. I'm not sure the Ethos was supposed to represent Catholicism so much as it was meant to be similar to it. However, the overtones of finding God within one's self is decidedly Eastern, and not to be missed. Imagine that a game made in the East would support Eastern thinking. Shocking. | Go Go Gadget Attention Span | | Hi. Just found your site a couple of weeks ago, and, late one nightwhilst pondering the new nefarious plot the Pope is cooking up to getrid of Ace and Gary, the Ambiguously Gay Duo, I came across thestatement you made about wanting to see a strong same-sex couple/womanin an RPG. Well, the two of them exist in the same game...too bad thatgame is SaGa Frontier. Yes, I know it sucks. I've played it. I'vefinished all the scenarios, with the exception of Lute's, which would bethe equivilant of throwing rocks into the air and moving under them tolet them fall on me for fun. But I digress. That female character is Asellus, the Half Mystic, theonly DECENTLY developed and cool character in the game (Who should havegotten her own game), who does indeed use a sword (quite well, second toGen in my experience), winds up as the most powerful character in thegame, and wears a full set of clothes and has realistic proportions.Second, she is apparantly a lesbian...as she not only falls in love withanother female character, but proceeds to whup the Evil End-boss Bastardthat "offs" her, with more passion than Cloud does to the silver-hairedpretty-boy. Of course, you get the option for multiple endings withher...3 to be precise, in which she either: Regains her humanity andlives out her days with another female background character, remains ahalf-mystic and visits the aforementioned female background character asshe's an old woman without aging a day, or becomes a full mystic andturns into a total tyrant, promising to have a harem of women largerthan the Charm King that she defeated at the end of the game. So thereyou have it...the female character/"alternative" couple that yourequested are one and the same...and has green hair as a bonus. Woo.Oh, and I managed to formulate a hypothesis on the behaviour of Squarethat has been recently labeled anti-christian...think about this. Whathas Square's primary target audience been? Japanese consumers. And, assomeone else stated, Japanese consumers, as a whole, are not generallyChristian. Now...this suggests that Square may not be crafting theirgames on Christian basis or themes for the reason of mocking them...butbecause they are foreign, exotic, and very different than Japanesereligions and mythology. Many people are fascinated by foreign culturesand religions...this is evident by the number of people that enjoyAnime, want uncensored RPGs that keep cultural references and scriptsintact, and practice martial arts such as Aikido or Tai Chi, which willlikely never get them a gold medal in the Olympics or a starring role inan action movie...but will expand their knowledge and understanding ofEsoteric disciplines and beliefs from the East. Square makes games thisway because, to the Japanese target audience, it truely IS Fantasy.Ergo, they continue to do it this way, because it sells. I personally prefer the original Final Fantasies...I believe thatSquare's managed to reverse it's original pattern of "Medieval settingwith magic and monsters, set against remnants of an ancient, highlyadvanced culture that produced airships and the occasional flyingspaceship, or weapon, or what have you." Now it's the other wayaround...with technology and sci-fi grit available in abundance, and theoccasional rare materia or summon creature, or what have you. Of course,"Final Fantasy *" will sell more in general than "Anything Else *", soSquare will probably keep it that way. Whatever. I've rambled longenough...feel free to edit or chop up or split it into multiple parts,or whatever, and until the evil pokemon disappears from the face of theEarth, I refuse to have anything to do with Nintendo. Damn freaks ofnature. -Deus Ex PSX |
Cleverly hidden in the body of this massive letter is another interesting point to ponder on the Xenogears issue. I'm sure one of the major reasons Square continuously choses to use character names and elements of Wester culture and religion is because of a fascination with another culture than their own. Shagadelic baby. | Flame this, baby | After I read Aaron's letter about religion in Xenogears it got me thinking. But not about Xenogears. More about game writers etc. When they make a game, like Xenogears, do you think that they know every little detail about the story? Like if you presented this theory to the writers would they have a clear answer as to whether it is right or wrong? Or do they leave the details out, so the player can imagine them, like Aaron did? -Matt- Has Spoken |
I'm sure certain aspects were meant to have been left to the imagination, but I'm also willing to bet there's parts that seem a mystery in the translated english version that were resolved in Xenogears' original language of Japanese. Although Xenogears' translation doesn't have the blatant misspellings and grammatical errors present in some other games, it was a bit convoluted and ambiguous at times. A detailed explanation would become so muddled that the original intent was lost, and I was left scratching my head at a few points. Sentences would become so laden with 'apostraphes' and -dashes- referring to abstract concepts such as genetics and nanotechnology, that it just didn't make sense as well as it could and should have. And I like Brave Fencer Musashi. Let the flaming commence. | Somebody else who likes Brave Fencer Musashi so I don't have to look like a complete ass | Hey, I loved BFM. If I'd know that nobody else did I would have made apoint of saying so. It's corny as hell, and that's what makes it fun.Well, that and the fact that the gameplay is just good. It is too short,but...c'est la vie. -Fritz rocks! |
I just wanted to point out that I'm not the only person who digs Brave Fencer Musashi. That game was like all the cool platformers I played back in my childhood wrapped up in a shiny new package. It brought back memories of staying up all night trying to beat Super Mario Brothers, only to get nailed in the face by the same Hammer Brother over and over again, and late night fist fights over who got to play next. Good times, good times. | Under the influence | Not to open the "what genre is Zelda" debate again, but Zelda does infact have some Egyptian references. The whole Spirit Temple is vaguelyEgyptian in many ways, and there are enemies called Anubis, as well as alarge Egyptian-looking statue. Final Fantasy V also has a pyramid with snakes and traps inside, andthere are those little pyramid enemies in Final Fantasy VI. Oh, andBanjo Kazooie had a whole level in Egyptian style, but of course that'snot an RPG... In general, I think RPG makers (Square especially) borrow stuff fromalmost every major culture on the face of the earth. If there is aperceived lack of a certain culture, it's probably just less prominentthan others (for example, there's no Horus or Amon-Ra summons orbosses). Incidentally, if you want to expand your knowledge of mythology, have alook at Encyclopedia Mythica (http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/). It'srather well-suited to looking up RPG references to mythology. -Thorfinn Tait |
Yes, good observations! Great observations! Where did you come from? How did you know I needed you? You sexy thing. | That game was bad, was bad, you know it | Yes, there is a game called Moonwalker. Very seriously. If you hung out in crappy arcades in the early 90's you undoubtedly saw it once or twice. It was also released for the Genesis. Unfortunately, it was nothing like "Mini-Me's" description... no Zulu guards, no Eddie Murphy, no sodomy. Uhm. I don't consider that last thing particularly unfortunate. But it did feature Michael Jackson shooting waves of music (yeah, I'd agree his music can harm people... I'm surprised that didn't occur to the developers, especially considering his screen-clearing special attack is dancing) and occassionallyucking arouin a huge robot suit, so that's okay. -TheO, the cleverly named Spaghetti-O's mascot |
Yes, I remember that game! You laid the smack down on droves of mindless street thugs by doing patented Michael Jackson moves, like the Moonwalk. Unfortunately, you were only allotted so many moonwalks per stage, which didn't make much sense, and making sense in a dancing/fighting game is critical. I can understand coming out en masse to beat Michael Jackson senseless with various trash littering the streets, but what's up with limited moonwalks? | Be realistic | I can sympathize with being worn out by all of Xenogears' seriousness. I really like the game, but it rather fries your brain by the end. Its not the sort of game that "replay value" even really applies to, because then you lose the sense of finality. The ultimate example of something being, perhaps, TOO powerful and evocative is Sandman: A Game of You. It's an incredibly realistic depiction of all the scariest, strangest, weirdest, most unpleasant crap that ever scared you... so realistic that it's actually hard to enjoy reading it. --Matthew Schuele, described by the nicknamer as "a raging homo carpenter flying like a bat out of Texas" |
Sorry to cut your letter a bit short like that, Matt, but you made an interesting point I wanted to bring to light. When does a game become so serious that it loses its value as a form of entertainment? Is that even possible? Closing Comments Well, I've tossed out a few new subjects to ponder for tomorrow in today's column, namely the translation issue. I have a couple theories on the whole translation thing, but my favorite is The Nephew Theory. Japanese game developers are kind of like the boss who hires his nephew who happened to touch a computer once while looking for nude pictures of the Golden Girls on the Internet to do the company web site rather than hiring an actual professional for the mere fact that it's his nephew. The Japanese would rather just have fellow countrymen do the job, especially since in their eyes the translation is just fine. I should also point out that in their eyes referring to giant tools of destruction as "emotional" is perectly ok, and having cartoon shows featuring 14 year old schoolgirls dressed like Playboy cover models levelling Tokyo in 4 story mechanical robots is a great way to display equal rights. Speaking of rights, I think it's right about time for me to be getting some sleep. You are all slaves to my unholy segue powers. - Drew Cosner, International Man of Mystery
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