428 - Chunsoft’s Sound Novel Perfected

428: Shibuya Scramble is an unequivocal, truly Japanese game, and one that nobody ever thought would come out in English--and the doubters were sort of right. The title was a Japan exclusive for many years since its original Wii release in 2008 but after a decade of being out of reach for the English market this cryptically Japanese exclusive was somehow able to be cracked and come September of 2018 made the journey to North American and European markets on PC through Steam and both physically and digitally on the Sony PS4. Honestly I still can’t believe it and I own the darn game! The journey to getting this game out is surely an interesting one, as localization director David Kracker recounted on the Playstation blog that he had to fight hard to get the game pushed forward for a worldwide release outside of Japan, but ultimately was able to do so by showing that appeal for niche games such as these have been increasing steadily since its original Wii release. 

For many people 428: Shibuya Scramble will be their first experience with a Chunsoft sound novel--especially since the localized Kamaitachi no Yoru (Banshee’s Last Cry) is downright almost impossible to play now. Last blog post I discussed in detail what the heck a sound novel even is, and went through a brief history of the visual novel market in general covering where Chunsoft falls in and how much they contributed to the genre. So because of that I won’t go into too much heavy details on sound novels today, but the short and simple answer I gave in my previous entry is that a sound novel is two things. The first of which was a dated term that Chunsoft used regularly (mostly on the Super Famicom and Sega Saturn) and has since fallen out of use in favor of adopting visual novel. The second of which is the more complicated answer that sound novels are both the aforementioned term that was used by Chunsoft for their brand of visual novels and also a certain style of visual novels that would follow years later by other companies that were heavily inspired by the early works of Chunsoft often aping their presentation and narrative style, with 07Expansion’s Higurashi - When They Cry being one of the most popular examples. 

If all that sounds like a bit much, or is just all greek to you, don’t worry--all you have to really take away from my rambling is that the Chunsoft seal of quality with 428 really means something, especially to fans of visual novels. You see, 428: Shibuya Scramble is actually a spiritual successor of sorts to Chunsoft’s earlier Machi sound novel released in 1998 on the Sega Saturn and later Sony Playstation. Machi was a highly well regarded game for its time that was a big hit both critically and with gamers, but despite its constant praise still sold poorly. Over the years people started to discover the game through its solid word of mouth and old fans and new fans alike were always clamoring for a sequel. After many years of begging Chunsoft finally delivered just that, and this is where 428: Shibuya Scramble comes in. By no means a direct sequel (so don’t worry you definitely DO NOT need to play Machi to understand the story) 428 is set in the same city of Machi (aka both take place in the same fictional version of Shibuya), and super fans will be able to spot some references and cameos from Machi sneaking in. 

428: Shibuya Scramble is essentially a dream game to many hardcore fans in Japan that waited anxiously for a return to form from Chunsoft. When it came out the game even famously got a perfect score of 40 in the well known Famitsu gaming magazine--and this was back when you could still count perfect scores they gave out on your fingers, only 8 games prior made that list; nowadays the magazine is known for being far more forgiving with its reviews. So basically, what I am getting at is this is yet another game that was pretty huge back in Japan but sorely skipped over worldwide.

You may be thinking to yourself then, that’s all well and good, but what about the game itself? Well let me get into that. 428: Shibuya Scramble is as its name implies, a game about Shibuya, while you do take control of characters in the game, at large the characters themselves all feel like a part of the city. Shibuya is a living, breathing entity in 428, and you really get to explore the entire city from multiple perspectives in this one long, crazy day. Shibuya’s story is your story. There are multiple characters you get to play as and each one has their own unique, individual story to tell, but each story is interwoven into the others and they begin to overlap in creative and fun ways. This is where a large part of the game play comes from; finding out how decisions you made with one character affects the fate of another character.

Say for example if you are being chased in one character’s story and decide to run into a busy city street to escape your pursuers thus causing a traffic accident, in another story the character you are playing now is stuck in said traffic accident and cannot progress their story leading to a bad end. Everything you decide to do with one character not only affects that character’s fate but may even affect the entire city’s at large and change the outcome for every other character you play as too. Finding out how to best affect the story by jumping around the multiple characters and getting everything to play out just right is a lot of fun and no surprise was also a major feature in Machi prior. 

There are a bevy of characters to interact with in Shibuya but the multiple residents in this major Japanese metropolis you take direct control of are Shinya Kano, a rookie detective trying to make his way in the force and crack a kidnapping case, Achi Endo, an ex-gang leader with a heart of gold trying to make Shibuya a better place, Minoru Minorikawa, an investigative journalist on a mission to save a life, Kenji Osawa, a brooding genius that just wants to be left alone but is trapped inside a corporate scandal that goes beyond anyone’s imagination, and Tama, a poor soul trapped in a big furry cat mascot costume that just wants to be free from the hell that is a terrible part time job. Each character has their own unique flavor they bring to the table and their own individual plots range from comedic to serious, romantic to frightening, and everything else in-between. Kano’s scenario is a pretty straightforward crime drama, while Osawa’s plays like a physiological thriller where you don’t know who to trust, meanwhile Tama and Minorikawa’s scenarios will have you on the floor laughing at the insane hijinks they manage to get into somehow, and Achi is kicking ass beating up thugs and saving a lost girl. 

428 manages to combine all these different kinds of smaller stories into one large story seamlessly and it’s an incredible experience jumping between all these fun characters and seeing how they eventually interact with each other as the plot progresses. It’s hard for me to even pick a favorite character in the game as all of them are so well written, and so different from one each other. If I had to pick though, I would say Osawa is probably the protagonist I relate to the most and a lot of his big story moments left me teary eyed and really moved on a truly genuine personal level (I don’t think I’m a genius like him though). 

I can praise 428 to the high heavens, and really a large part of me writing about it today is to do just that, but there is an elephant in the room I probably should address at some point. Something truly horrendous, something that prevents the game from ever being a true masterpiece, something that scares everyone away, the horror of … real life actors! Yeah, as I am sure it’s obvious by this point 428 uses real life actors and was actually filmed on location in the city of Shibuya. A lot of people are put off by this and honestly that kind of bums me out that so many are so unwilling to even try different things. 

To go off on a bit of a tangent, my own personal opinion is that I freaking love the way 428 looks. I’m someone that quite enjoys campy FMV video games; stuff like Night Trap or any Tex Murphy adventure game is solidly right up my alley. I also enjoy unique mixtures of real life and animation, so I love rotoscoping a whole lot--I’m always ecstatic when I find a cool movie or animated series that is rotoscoped, and that’s a large draw to me for games that use it such as Hotel Dusk. So no, I really think 428 is a beautiful game visually that was made by real pros who had to use guerrilla film making in order to bring their vision to life because of laws that prevent filming on location in Shibuya. What the team was able to do here, while also hiding it from “the man” is incredible work! 

Contextly Chunsoft’s sound novels opted to not use the now established format that predominantly is how visual novel look. Originally with Otogirisō this was because visual novels were still in their infancy and the now ubiquitous presentation where sprites are shown in front of background art had not yet taken off. Nobody really knew what visual novels at the time should look like. Otogirisō is actually commonly attributed as one of the earliest examples where a visual novel had background art to begin with and wasn't just mostly text or sprites presented over a black void. Chunsoft kept their games pretty consistent visually from that point, and characters were often not seen on screen, usually just presented through the use of silhouette if needed. This really helped the “novel” aspect of their visual novels, since you had to imagine the characters’ appearances mostly through the narrative descriptions about them just like in literature. 

Over time this changed with the advent of CD hardware which meant the use of still image photography and Full-Motion-Video could really take off, and Machi ran with this new hardware looking much like how 428 does. You can say these games really have a more broad appeal to them too as they are not just “anime” games but games anyone can enjoy just like a good book. This while true in Japan does get a bit tricky for a localized title as a majority of the actors are Japanese which is off putting to a general public not used to watching Japanese cinema or TV dramas. For better or worse 428 is an unequivocal Japanese game, but I really implore anyone who is even the tiniest bit interested to try it out for themselves (especially since there is a free demo) and stay open minded about the game, because if you do, you will find one of the best written, and best localized games in a generation. 

428: Shibuya Scramble's predecessor; Machi on the
Sega Saturn

428 didn't get a very fair shot when it came out in the English market. The month of September was jam packed with both Triple-A titles such as Marvel’s Spider-man and niche titles that could not be missed such as Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. The release date really was setting the game up to go against some huge competitors and with its enigmatic overly Japanese sensibilities 428 lacked much of the charisma to fight them. I followed the localization process very closely and this was a game I dreamt I could play for many years, but even I had to pass up grabbing the game on its release date and waited about a month or so until I managed to pick up my own copy as I had poured all my attention into Dragon Quest XI at that time which as bad as I feel for 428 I still don’t regret. By the time I wrote my annual favorite games of the year list I had to exempt 428 from it even, only writing a brief honorable mention as I knew I would love it but hadn't actually gotten to play it yet. The end of the year was far too packed with excellent titles vying for my and everyone else’s attention and what a shame, as 428 is now easily neck-and-neck with my then favorite game of the year Dragon Quest XI.

The truth is it will be very unlikely we will ever see a game like 428: Shibuya Scramble come out in English again. This was a very unlikely localization to happen in the first place, and a very risky one, but it sadly was not a runaway success. Anyone interested in the history of visual novels, sound novels, or seeing one of Chunsoft’s greatest titles definitely shouldn't pass this game up though. And anyone willing, I really recommend 428: Shibuya Scramble hard. If you love good storytelling in gaming, there isn't any better than what’s here. The story in 428 is so heart felt, and uplifting that I found myself crying a lot during my playthrough. I laughed, I cried, I found tons of inspiration for my own writing, 428 truly is a game that changes you. I think those are far too rare nowadays. This is a game that should be in any niche gamer’s PS4 or Steam collection.

Chunsoft and Sound Novels

I remember when visual novels weren't quite known as well as they are today. By no means are visual novels a mainstream genre of video games--in fact you won’t be hard pressed to find some “expert” try to argue with you over how they are not games at all--but their notoriety is far more than that of even just ten years prior. For the longest time visual novels were seen as just an anime fandom “thing” that mainstream gamers paid no mind to. Very few titles were discussed outside those that had animes be it a TV series or an erotic OVA, and even some of the earliest visual novels localized into English were done so by anime and manga translation companies and not actual video game publishers. 

If I had to pinpoint a time in my own memory where the genre started to get noticed more it would be when the Nintendo DS took off. With the DS there was an increase amount of western releases for visual novels thanks in large part to its touch screen interface working well with adventure style games. This wasn't just noticed by Japanese developers either as a fair share of American and European made adventure style games were developed for the console as well. It seems everybody was anxious to utilize the system’s unique features when the DS started soaring in popularity. The point ‘n click and visual novel genres really had a home on the DS, and because of that a lot of people outside of just the anime community got a taste of these kinds of games with beginner friendly titles such as Ace Attorney, Trauma Center, and Hotel Dusk. 

However, despite the Nintendo DS (and later to a lesser extent the PSP and PS Vita) giving gamers a finely curated and easily digestible dose of the genre I’d say the sad thing is the push was pretty small and died out quickly. Instead what seems to be the biggest reason why most video game outlets nowadays talk about visual novels are because of the parody dating sims that started to grow in popularity. Hey, do you want to date some monster? Is your girlfriend a llama? Maybe all you need in your life is to date a pigeon. Don’t try to hide it, we all know you secretly wish you could go out with a YouTuber. Not into dorky millennials, well no problem, we got a game for you--that is if dating other people’s dads is a you thing. Yes, this is the era of the wacky, silly dating sims taking over in the English market. It wasn't always like this however, and yes Japan has had a long history of doujin dating sim parodies themselves, but lately it feels like all people know are the parodies that make good YouTube videos to react to instead of what a large amount of the games in the genre can offer.

Don’t get me wrong however, I’m by no means saying parodies do not have a place nor should they stay out of the limelight, and I definitely love that this fad has ushered in a wave of indie made English titles--but simply put this wave lacks so much variety and has been stretched so thin by this point. For every one creative title that pushes boundaries and gets new people interested in visual novels there are ten bland titles spilled all over Steam that feel like they were made by people with barley a grasp on what a visual novel can be outside of either parody dating or “boobies are pretty awesome”. Some of these bland games are even really well made and have a lot of care and attention added to their interfaces and artwork, but when push comes to shove, they are still just a basic joke stretched to its thinnest level. Visual novels don’t have to be that however, and while most mainstream gaming outlets may still be joking about how great it is to date your kitchen appliances, you don’t have to (unless you want to, in which case I recommend dating the toaster for he is the bravest of all kitchen dwellers).

A lot of this misunderstanding can be tied into the nebulous relationship between visual novel and dating sim, two “genres” that many people debate are separate things entirely yet due to the overlapping nature of the two they are often confused for each other. There’s a great article by Brian Crimmins online that actually goes into heavy detail about how visual novels came to be as a genre and how over time both visual novels and dating sims affected and evolved each other. It’s a wonderful read that I really recommend it for anyone curious about games such as these, but either way, whether or not you think visual novels and dating sims are the same thing or should be counted as separate but similar genres of games; it certainly doesn't seem to stop most western gaming outlets reporting solely on gag dating sims as visual novels and taking away a majority of people’s attention from so much more that these games can offer. 

I take back all my complaints

I somewhat lost focus and started rambling today, so let’s move on now and finally discuss what I wanted to talk about--that being, despite there being well known visual novel developers to the tight knit community that follows games such as these--examples including but not limited to: Mages, Type Moon, or Nitroplus--my favorite developer often seems forgotten in the conversation. What company is that you ask? Well, it’s Chunsoft. So today I want to talk about why Chunsoft really should be talked about more in the western fandom and all their contributions to the genre.

Chunsoft is one of the many long standing Japanese developers that have been around for every major home console since the Famicom. Nowadays they are known as Spike Chunsoft after their merger with Spike Co. in April of 2012. For the sake of this blog post however I am mostly going to refer to them as Chunsoft still given everything I really want to talk about predates the merger. Chunsoft’s involvement with Japanese style adventure games and visual novels more or less are tied to the very beginning of the genre. There isn't quite a de facto known “first” visual novel per se, but most fans put the starting line at around 1982 or ‘83 depending on which game they may be talking about and which source they want to use for the release date (remember release dates were not entirely clear back in these early days). 

One of the earliest contenders for this honor is Yuji Horii’s adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case (Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken), a game that was based around Horii’s interest in western style adventure titles, much like Horii’s later known legendary game Dragon Quest was based around his fascination with Wizzardy and Ultima and how to replicate those games in an easier to understand interface for his home nation. It’s here we can see “visual novel” wasn't even a blip on the radar yet, and there was no definitive understanding of what genres for games really were at the time. Portopia proved to be a major hit during its release however and lives on even to this day as a fondly remembered game (and also a Japanese internet meme). Chunsoft handled the porting of the title to the Famicom and this was the beginning of a long business relationship between Chunsoft president Koichi Nakamura and Enix’s own Yuji Horii as in the years to follow Chunsoft would develop the first five entries in the hit Dragon Quest franchise for Enix.

With the birth of the Super Famicom things began to change between both Enix and Chunsoft. Having developed games primarily for the publisher Enix Chunsoft felt they should move into their own publishing, and soon got certification from Nintendo to do so. After slaving away on four Dragon Quest titles on the Famicom, and also working on the fifth title for the Super Famicom, most of the employees at Chunsoft were burned out so they decided their first self published title should be a simple game. Koichi Nakamura wanted to help make gaming more accessible at the time and took both the team’s exhaustion and his desire for a more casual audience into consideration when they moved forward. 

The title Nakamura needed to make had to be simple; a game that anyone could be able to figure out to navigate--even those intimidated by a controller, but despite that also needed to take advantage of the more powerful hardware of the Super Famicom by using Kanji scripts which again would make the experience easier on casual players who had trouble getting into video games because game consoles prior could only display text entirely in Hiragana or Katakana making the reading experience poor and hard to enjoy for Japanese players (see Japanese writing systems for more details). To all these ends the team at Chunsoft decided to create a game entirely around reading to tackle this Hiragana issue and show off the hardware (or at least the hardware’s Kanji capabilities) while also being something anyone of any gaming skill level could enjoy. The game would mostly be text for the player to navigate through and present choices at key moments in the story to advance, cutting out any complicated aspects from western adventure style games that might intimidate the unfamiliar such as solving puzzles or finding hidden items. This is how Otogirisō was born. 

Otogirisō (Japanese for St John Wort) was Chunsoft’s very first sound novel, a nomenclature which has since confused the hell out of everyone. But what exactly is a sound novel you may ask? Well, people get kind of convoluted about it. Looking at the definition currently found on Giant Bomb a sound novel can be defined by its heavy reliance on sound effects and music to create a game's atmosphere. Usually sound novels will use minimalist visuals and choose to emphasize the text over the artwork presented on screen--most commonly covering the entire screen in said text instead of keeping text only contained in a dialogue box. Something among these lines is the definition usually seen online when you look into it. It’s not entirely wrong either, but it’s also missing something to it. The term sound novel is a creation of Chunsoft themselves, and something they own a copyright on, this is also often brought up when you search sound novel, but at the time of its creation sound novel was meant to be something really easily understood and not this tangled mess of “a certain kind of visual novel”. 

When Chunsoft first created Otogirisō the brand sound novel was added to its box in order to help potential customers understand what kind of game it was. At the time it was just a way to let people unfamiliar with adventure style games (more commonly found in the west) to understand that this title will largely feature reading. In fact when Otogirisō was originally shown to the press in a 1991 Nintendo Space World show the game looked radically different from its finished project. Otogirisō was presented mostly as a book that the player would read, pretty much just like modern e-readers are now, with the exception that it included some sound effects and music. The press at the time was underwhelmed by this so Chunsoft took the game back to the drawing board and created unique visual backgrounds to give the game more flair and in doing so set a certain precedence for future visual novels to follow in. 

An important factor to remember here is there was no clear cut way to define games such as these yet. The term visual novel had not yet been coined, and even gamers themselves were not very well aware of genres. As Nakamura admits in a Famitsu interview when asked about the creation of sound novels, “if you look back at the very beginning of video games, for me, the conception of “genre” didn’t exist. Take action games, for example: within that label you had shooting games [note: Shoot ‘em Ups], you had stuff like Pac Man and Dig Dug, and you had more puzzle-y games too. It was very diverse. On the same note, with adventure games, there were Ascii Magazine’s games like Ometesandou Adventure and Minamiseizan Adventure, which were pure text adventures… but you also had things like Mystery House, which had a few pictures, or war simulation games like Fleet Commander. I played all those, and while I recognized there were many different types of games, I never thought about it in terms of genres.” So basically, at the time sound novel was conceived it was just meant to be the most straightforward way to define this Japanese style of adventure gaming that Chunsoft was trying out on the Super Famicom. 

But does it end there? Well no. That’s only the part of the answer. Otogirisō ended up being a modest sleeper hit upon its release and this lead to Chunsoft to making more sound novels, with their next title being a legendary game that has since eclipsed Otogirisō as the de facto sound novel; Kamaitachi no Yoru (Night of the Sickle Weasels). This game was a hit, there’s no easy way for me to describe just how big it really was back during its release--out of the pantheon of legendary Japanese games that people in the US and Europe know jack about Kamaitachi no Yoru is one of the highest. Kamaitachi no Yoru is a fantastic game and I talked about it ad nauseum a few years ago when I payed the localized version called Banshee’s Last Cry, check that out if you’d like to know more, and if you’re still somehow able to play it then you’re definitely in for a darn good time.

With the a string of successes in the visual novel marketplace after both Otogirisō and Kamaitachi no Yoru, Chunsoft kept churning out games over the years, many of which are highly respected by the fandom still such as Machi and 428: Shibuya Scramble. All these releases of theirs had a certain tone and atmosphere, not to mention a distinct presentation that didn’t change much over the years and because of that did not look like what visual novels typically look like now. There’s a certain charm and narrative style between all of Chunsoft’s sound novels that is a really strong defining link in their catalogue despite a lot of these games being stand alone--and because of that people come to expect certain things upon seeing the term sound novel. Many titles would eventually come out not made by Chunsoft that shared similarities to their brand--these games followed in the footsteps of Chunsoft’s tone, structure, style, and presentation--and people began to notice, the most famous of which being 07th Expansion’s Higurashi doujin series. This is where we begin to see that murky kind of convoluted aspect of sound novels, as they start to transcend a basic label put on a box almost three decades ago and turn into their own little sub genre or maybe better described as their own style of visual novel. 

So what the heck is a sound novel then? The simplest answer is a sound novel is a dated term that Chunsoft used regularly and has since fallen out of use for visual novel; the more complicated answer is that sound novels are both a term used by Chunsoft for their brand of visual novels back before the term visual novel existed and also a certain style of visual novel that is mostly inspired by the early Chunsoft games’ presentation and ambiance. 

Top Left to Right:
Otogirisō - Chunsoft '92, Kamaitachi no Yoru - Chunsoft '94, and Machi - Chunsoft '98
Bottom Left to Right:
 Higurashi When They Cry - 07Expansion 2002,  Tsukihime - Type Moon 2000,
and GeGeGe no Kitaro Maboroshi Fuyu Kaikitan - Bandai '96

Over the years Chunsoft has expanded, changed, and moved beyond their sound novel brand. Despite this however, they have never really stopped putting out solid titles in the visual novel market, and it seems like each new generation of gaming is blessed with at least one visual novel of theirs. My personal favorite title out of all their work from this era would definitely have to be 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors on the Nintendo DS. It was because of this game in particular that my love of visual novels in general really started, and Kotaro Uchikoshi’s sharp writing--especially the incredible dialogue and thorough thought narration in protagonist's Junpei’s head still stands at the peak in my mind. Throw in beautiful sprite work based around art from legendary Capcom (and now freelance) artist Kinu Nishimura, and a fantastic soundtrack from the man himself, Shinji Hosoe and you got yourself a meeting of some fantastic minds. I've written about 999 in the past, and you can read about it here, but I still want to write more about it in the future, especially tackling the latest release it got in 2017’s Zero Escape: The Nonary Games. 

Recent years have seen Spike Chunsoft make it big with their Dangan ronpa franchise, admittedly however the first Dangan ronpa title should be more attributed to Spike, as the game was released in 2010 two years before their merger. However the two companies together as one have since released three more Dangan ronpa games, and two (or is it three?) Dangan ronpa anime titles, and many, many rereleases and compilations. My own interest in the franchise isn't nearly as strong as everyone else’s seem to be but I did however absolutely adore the last game, Dangan ronpa V3, with how many times it managed to jump the shark, upping the game, and constant plot twist after more ludicrous plot twist. If there was ever a way to end something like Dangan ronpa it was what that game did, and oh boy did I get a kick out of that. 

Finally moving past Dangan ronpa, 2019 will see Spike Chunsoft develop and publish Kotaro Uchikoshi’s newest game, AI: The Somnium Files, for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Steam which just got its newest trailer and release date announced earlier this week. I am very excited for it personally and love the intricate and complex alternate reality game type marketing the team has been using to build up to its release! This is some next level stuff, and has been tons of fun all on its own.

Then there’s of course one more game I simply cannot pass up mentioning, 428: Shibuya Scramble. Now I briefly spoke this title earlier mentioning later sound novels that have been highly acclaimed, and trust me 428 is definitely beloved; its perfect score in Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu really meant something back in 2008 on the Wii. But why mention this with recent Spike Chunsoft games? Well the answer is easy, 2018 saw the much beloved, super Japanese game finally get an American and European release! And much celebration was had! If anything in this whole blog post remotely sounded interesting to you I really implore you all to go check it out either on the PS4 or Steam, and see what a Chunsoft sound novel is all about. And for the impatient, I will be writing about it next on blog! 

Despite Chunsoft changing over time and no longer using their sound novel brand, they have still put out many classic and fantastic games in the visual novel genre. Their later work may take a radically different presentation from their prior titles, but despite their moving away from that set style there are still other developers out there that keep up that mantle. Overall I think the effect Chunsoft has had on the genre is undeniable and anyone missing out on their catalogue of fantastic titles are really missing on some of the best titles visual novels have to offer. That’s why I really wanted to write this blog post about them and put into words my thoughts about this developer’s library that just seems so often overlooked by many others in the fandom, at least in my experience. I hope through all my grumbling, and “kids today” rant I was able to at least get somebody interested in trying out one of their games.

Nintendo’s Virtual Console: The End of an Era

The Nintendo Wii is more than a decade old now; it’s been a long time since 2006, yet it feels like it all has gone by with a blink of an eye. Sometimes I wonder if today’s gamers still remember what the Wii launch meant. It’s easy nowadays in 2018 to look back at the dark days of the console when Nintendo just left it to wither away with their focus elsewhere, fans had to beg for certain games to even be released for it, and the shovelware. Oh the shovelware! If there was ever any cheap-shot to take in gaming, it would be to mention the sheer amount of shovelware that came with the Wii and dismiss the console as nothing but. However when the Wii first came out everything about it seemed to define what Nintendo would be for a time. The Miis, the new game-play mechanics (or gimmicks depending how jaded you are), great background music for apps/online shops (with awesome fan remixes), and the Virtual Console. All of these things were kept at the forefront of Nintendo’s future consoles since then with the Nintendo 3DS and eventually the failed follow-up: the Nintendo Wii U.

This changed though when Nintendo launched their new Switch console on March 3 last year and ever since then all the old Wii era branding has slowly faded away. Sure Miis are still here, and you can even transfer your old Miis over to the Switch (I know I did), but gone is the day where setting up a Mii is one of the first steps you take when turning on your brand new console straight out of the box. Mii Maker? Not here. For a time if you wanted to make yourself a Mii you would need a smart-phone, but even that has gone on to pass since Miitomo is dead now too. At least Nintendo just recently created an online website for Mii creation but the writing is definitely on the wall for these little guys.

That’s not all either, like what about the background music? There’s none. The Nintendo Switch is as silent and cold as library in the middle of a snowstorm. Where is the fun and exciting music? Where are the themes that were introduced with the Nintendo 3DS? Why are the games silent when you click on them? No longer is there an exciting voice yelling out the title of the game, or a nice little 3 second jingle playing when you select something on the OS. No, instead when I turn on the console I’m just left with cold silence, as I stare into the abyss that is the barren Switch OS until a game finally loads.

The eShop isn’t much better. The Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo Wii U all had fantastic music playing while accessing their digital shops. It felt like an experience—like you just entered a Nintendo super store. Now it’s just another boring app store. Cold, hard to navigate, older stuff easily becomes lost, and so, so, so quiet! Then there is the Virtual Console. Forget not evening getting to swing the bat, the VC never even got a chance to show up to the ballpark. A whole year passed for the Nintendo Switch with nothing and finally as of May 8 we learned why: Nintendo is no longer supporting the Virtual Console. Another old staple of the Wii era dead.

Does it sound like I’m harshing on the Nintendo Switch too much? If so, I really am sorry. I love the Switch, and my excitement for its release was palpable; I even got mine the day it came out at the midnight launch (my first and probably my only considering how awful that experience was but that’s a story for another time). Between the Nintendo Switch and my 3DS I barley played anything else last year. I put nearly 150 hours into XenoBlade Chronicles 2 alone (and I’m scared at how hight the number would be if I added Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild to that too. Needless to say: probably too much). But just because I love it doesn’t mean I can’t start to feel a bit disappointed at some of the console’s shortcomings. And yes, I’m sure there’s better, more reasonable shortcomings to address: like the limited hard-drive space, the short battery life, and game cartridges being so expensive leading to some shady developers only putting half a game on a cartridge and forcing large downloads on their consumers instead of just paying for bigger cartridges, but well, people are talking about that to death already. You know? And maybe it’s just my nostalgia for the simpler and easier time of time of 2006, but seeing all the old Wii stuff finally die has been a real experience for me. I wanted to talk about this.

The death of the Nintendo Wii Shop struck me hard back in March 26 of this year. It’s still around until January 2019, but only as an abandoned ghost-town. You can’t add any more points to buy anything so this is essentially just a grace period for people to redownload old stuff. Before the Wii Shop went the way of K-Marts all across the nation, though, I made sure to buy up all the great Virtual Console games I could as well as a few WiiWare titles to boot. I honestly probably spent an upwards of couple hundred dollars on this like a complete and total idiot. Was it sane to burn away a whole paycheck like that? No, no it was not. But that was just how much nostalgia I had for the console and its digital storefront. I needed the last few VC titles I really wanted and that have yet to resurface on any other digital platform, and all those WiiWare titles that aren’t anywhere but the Wii shop: I had to have them too!

You see, the Wii shop was my first ever experience for digital game purchases, and at the time was mind blowing to me. I couldn’t believe all the great stuff I could get on my Wii through the internet. Back in 2006 the Virtual Console was actually a major selling point of the entire Wii system for me. And the great hits kept coming, and coming, and coming. The support for the Wii’s VC was simply phenomenal, and I experienced some consoles for the first time through it, like the wonderful and often over looked TurboGrafx-16.You see, the Wii shop was my first ever experience for digital game purchases, and at the time was mind blowing to me. I couldn’t believe all the great stuff I could get on my Wii through the internet. Back in 2006 the Virtual Console was actually a major selling point of the entire Wii system for me. And the great hits kept coming, and coming, and coming. The support for the Wii’s VC was simply phenomenal, and I experienced some consoles for the first time through it, like the wonderful and often over looked TurboGrafx-16.

The support sadly is something that got worse and worse through the ages, however. The Nintendo 3DS VC was an exciting prospect for me since I always wanted GB and GBC games to come to the Wii VC (The GCN’s GameBoy Player spoiled me back then), so finally getting Nintendo to dig into their old backlog as well as Sega’s GameGear backlog, not to mention the 3D Classics, had me over the moon. There was a laundry list of classic GB and GBC games I just had to have on my 3DS, and things sounded great near the launch of the console’s eShop. Then sadly it took awhile for the 3DS VC to really get going, and games trickled out a lot slower than back on the Wii. We got some huge games early enough like Link’s Awakening, but some other games that should have been an easy given took years. We had to wait until 2016 to get Pokémon Red, Blue/Green, and Yellow for Arceus’ sake! And Pokémon Crystal (the one retro Pokémon I wanted to revisit the most) didn’t trickle out until 2018! The Nintendo Switch was already a year old by then. If you count all the way back to the Wii when I wanted GB support, I waited 12 years for Crystal, what the heck?!

The Nintendo Wii U’s Virtual Console was another exciting prospect at first that really just fizzled out, probably even worse than the 3DS’. I still have fond memories of coming home from some University summer courses to the Nintendo Direct that revealed Earthbound will finally get a rerelease for the first time in 18 years! Only on the Wii U Virtual Console! “Immediate purchase” I said to myself that day, and sure enough I was there day-1. And a few years later Earthbound Beginnings (aka Mother 1) came out as well for the first time … well ever. What a nice surprise, getting a previously canceled game from 1990 is what stuff like the VC is all about. And then of course Mother 3 finally — ha ha ha … if only. The two Earthbound releases were more the exception and not the norm, sadly, and things soon got pretty stagnant on the Wii U in general, even outside of the eShop and Virtual Console.

Nintendo seemed desperate for a while to give the Wii U something though and the GBA games were a nice surprise even though I have to admit it felt off getting these on a home console instead of the 3DS. Thankfully the wizs at M2 at least had some great emulations for their GBA releases so they didn’t look gross on a modern big screen TVs. Not all of the GBA games would be so lucky on the Wii U VC, though, so it can be kind of awkward every now and again when you stumble on a GBA game that just looks pretty bad on the Wii U. The Nintendo DS came later and was an even weirder add for the Wii U’s VC and honestly I’m not even sure why Nintendo did that. I’m a bit of two minds on it still. On one hand this will probably be the only system to properly emulate these games given the Wii U’s unique two screen set up, but on the other hand, should we really try to stretch out Nintendo DS games on modern big screen TVs? Even GBA games were worrying enough. Sure I wanted the Wii to play GB and GBC games back in the day, but TVs weren’t nearly as big. Nowadays the 25 inch TV I played my Wii on would be considered a child’s play thing. Well, regardless they were here, and Nintedno did manage to release quite a few DS games on the Wii U, even getting both Zelda Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks out there.

But besides some weird portable console pick-ups the Wii U’s VC was super slow and barley had much of anything release for it. Third party support wasn’t absent and there were companies like Natsume who really kept at it for a while but it was once again no where near the level of support the Wii had. I still manged to make the most of it and I’m glad rarer N64 games finally got a rerelease like Harvest Moon 64 and Ogre Battle 64 (Swearing Simulator 64), but overall, I felt I barley got a chance to use the poor thing. What better way to sum up the Wii U though? I barley got a chance to do anything on it.

When it comes to both the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Wii U, they were such a far cry from the Wii’s glory days when you could just cycle through the plethora of retro games for hours trying to decide what to play next. Seeing how much the Virtual Console degraded over the past 12 years is honestly kind of heart breaking, I had so much admiration and really bought into the hype when it was first launched only for it to end up like this more than a decade later. It makes sense why Nintendo decided to finally move on. It’s always sad to lose some sort of branding you really enjoyed, after all you made it a part of your life and have such found memories of it. I would surf the Wii Shop on Friday nights for hours as a teen trying to find what cool looking retro game to try out next. Between that, and Twilight Princess, my high school weekends were all set. So seeing how the VC died with such a quiet and weak whimper instead of a bang, really hits me right in my nostalgia. A part of my youth felt like it would be gone forever when the Wii Shop closure was announced. I knew it wouldn’t last forever but all the same, it was hard to finally admit it will be gone.

But then something really special happened. When it came closer and closer to Nintendo shutting down the Wii Shop I saw so many people share their memories about it. I wasn’t alone in my love! Lots of great stories from Nintendo fans got passed around and of course recommendations on what to get before it was all gone. This really put a smile on my face, 12 years later and we were all talking about the old Wii Shop just like I was a teenager again. So many passionate videos and articles resurfaced with people reminiscing about the glory days of the VC and all the fun and interesting experimental titles that used to be part of digital game stores. If Nintendo themselves would stay silent then it was up to us to be the ones to raise our voices and say the final eulogy. So yeah, maybe Nintendo will never say anything about this 12 year old branding or a digital storefront on a dead system that is two game generations old now, but us fans will keep talking about it, because whether or not anyone realized it at the time, Nintendo created an unique shopping experience we’ll never forget.

While the Wii and many of its fun branding and concepts are gone now, they will never truly be forgotten and live on in a generation of Nintendo fans. Nintendo won’t ever truly ax off the Virtual Console either. The branding is dead now, but rereleasing older game ROMs is too lucrative a business to ignore. Someday soon I’m sure we’ll see Nintendo take another swing at giving us these older games. The Switch’s eShop is already full of classic games from SNK who took it upon themselves to release their backlog, VC or not. Then we have the NES and SNES Classics, which are just such fun little toys that I really can’t get enough of. Even when I’m not playing them I just like looking at these adorable reproductions of childhood consoles. So I guess all that’s left now is to ask what are some of your favorite WiiWare and Wii Virtual Consoles releases? Are you excited for an N64 Classic? I know I am. Even though I’ll never forget the fun times I had with the Virtual Console, I think we should all just keep enjoying the classic games we love, no matter what they are called.

’Tis the season for Yokai

This year on November 30 we lost one of the quintessential founders of the modern manga—one Shigeru Mizuki; the creator of the mega franchise GeGeGe no Kitaro (2 Live Action Movies, 6 television animes, 2 iterations as a manga, its own tourist trap, and still going with rustlings of yet another TV anime to come). The Kitaro series was and still is a huge cultural touchstone in Japan, so much so that Mizuki is actually considered one of the leading experts on traditional Japanese folklore because of it. Besides his work on the supernatural, Mizuki was also a World War II veteran—even losing his arm in the war—and was an established story teller for mature adult comic readers as well because of this—with hit manga such as Shigeru Mizuki's Hitler, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, and Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan. Basically, Mizuki was a rare talent that could balance both young and mature readers alike, all because he wrote what he knew, and he knew the changes Japan went through from war, the horrors of war itself, and of course, he knew Japanese folklore—he knew it better than anyone else. 

To rewind for a moment and help better frame the context of his life, Mizuki lived a long fruitful life and passed away at age 93. Remember, he was a solider during World War II more than 70 years ago now. When he eventually returned to Japan he actually started as a Kamishibai (紙芝居, or "paper theater”), a now antiquated Japanese form of entertainment. The Kamishibai was somewhat akin to a traveling puppet show but done with paper slides instead and had a serialized story, meaning it was done in episodes. The Kamishibai would travel from town to town with their cart, sell treats to the children, and entertain them with their stories. After they leave for the next few towns they would eventually come back to the previous ones with the next episode in their story. Kamishibai were cheap and easily accessible, which helped them during the postwar era of Japan, and can be seen somewhat as a precursor to manga, but when television did become more and more accessible to the Japanese it all but died out. Today Kamishibai is mostly a memory from a simpler time, being at best seen as a forgotten art form, and referenced in entertainment. Most recently a series of animated horror shorts called Yamishibai (or Dark Theater) was created in a similar fashion to the slides used in Kamishibai for the TV Tokyo Network. It has been streamed on Crunchyroll and was just picked up for domestic home video release by Sentai Filmworks.

Mizuki’s early work as a Kamishibai saw him telling the story of Hakaba Kitaro (or Kitaro of the Graveyard), written originally by Masami Itou in 1933. Mizuki was asked by his Kamishibai employers in 1954 to continue this story and so he did. Mizuki rendition of the classic serial was supposedly popular, but the Kamishibai industry itself was quickly on its way out, and Mizuki began work as a Rental Manga creator, at first struggling, until eventually he caught a break with turning Hakaba Kitaro into a manga series in 1960. For the uninitiated, Rental Manga was a concept of its time, since many people in postwar Japan could still not easily afford luxuries; much of their entertainment was actually rented, and not bought, so after paying a very small amount of yen to read a manga you would return it to the store, sort of similar to the library system.It was under a system like this that a lot of famous manga got their early starts. 

GeGeGe no Kitaro circa 1968. The first time Kitaro and friends
made it onto television.

Of course, Rental Manga eventually became an antiquated thing of the past too, and as times changed, Mizuki more or less, kept the serialization going for Kitaro through different publishers and into the more modern concept of manga to be purchased. Throughout those years Hakaba Kitaro would transform into GeGeGe no Kitaro (i.e. Crickity Creak Kitaro or Spooooky~ Kitaro - with GeGeGe (ゲゲゲ) being a Japanese Onomatopoeia meant for scary locations) to better differentiate Mizuki’s rendition of the stories and accent other changes made during that time to the characters and tone of the manga. The name change in 1967 was solidified with the first TV anime in the following year, and the concept of the series from Kitaro being an indifferent observer of yokai and human alike into a full blown hero, and protector of humans from yokai; whose dream is for the peaceful coexistence of the two—made the series more action driven, and children loved it for that. 

But what about Kitaro himself, I’ve written at length about some background info, but some of you may be scratching your head at just what Kitaro is. Well the gist of the story more or less is that it follows a one eyed ghost boy named Kitaro, whom was birthed in a graveyard, and is the sole remaining member of the yurei zoku (or Ghost Tribe). Kitaro is accompanied by Medama-oyaji (or Daddy Eyeball) aka what is left of his father: once a full ghost man (mummy?) himself now all that remains of this spirit is his eyeball, albeit, it is anthropomorphic, at least. 

The two try their best to keep the delicate order of peace between the supernatural yokai (creatures of traditional Japanese folklore) and humans, while making sure the Ghost Tribe doesn't die out. Kitaro is able to fight back when needed through some moderate powers of his own such as shooting his own hair out like projectiles but he mostly gets by through clever gadgets he has. Together they encounter many returning characters such as Kitaro’s best friend and worst enemy Nezumi Otoko (or Rat-man), and others in their large ensemble cast of folklore creatures spanning not just from Japan, but even China, Europe, and America. It becomes a who’s-who of supernatural stories each week, and it’s easy to see how such a simple premise can carry a long way, especially with such rich detail on the folklore and all the creatures present in the series. 

Promotional artwork for the 2008 noitaminA television anime: Hakaba Kitaro. This adaptation
 showed the original, more darker version of the story that had not yet been brought to television.

It’s a bit unsettling, maybe even a bit creepy, but Mizuki’s writing remains a perfect balance of playful yet morbid all at the same time—with a fun sense of humor that never detracted from the overall tone. Perhaps more importantly though, is that Mizuki never shied away from being real in his work. Death obviously plays a huge role in every culture's folklore and Mizuki didn’t try to sugarcoat it, instead he embraced it in his stories. Death was a part of life, and the catchy Kitaro theme song that’s been on TV and in karaoke bars since the late 1960’s joyously boasts about how the characters never have to take tests or quiz, and how they never get sick again. Mizuki's depiction of the undead weren’t in pain, or unhappy, quite the contrary, the afterlife was a never ending party. Even the depictions of the afterlife as well, while true to the classic decor that one might expect out of hell: dark, eerie, otherworldly, and forbidding—wasn't all despair. No, instead the afterlife seemed to stick very close to being just another phase of life; and while we miss those who are separated from us, we all will eventually go there.

I always felt that death wasn’t something Mizuki wanted people to fear—in fact, fear in general seemed oddly missing from his Kitaro series. While it did indeed incorporate horror elements, especially that of American horror comics, and definitely may have spooked younger audiences, the take-away may not be what it seems on the surface, as it was actually the yokai, other supernatural entities, and folklore creatures who were on the end of extinction, not us humans. It was modernity that had weakened them and taken away their homes. Mizuki was the one who famously said that electricity did in the yokai more than anything else, as they can’t stand the bright city lights. This interestingly mirrors real life in a lot of ways as Mizuki watched on to see his country transform to become more western, and more “modern.” The folklore that he loved and grew up with was almost lost entirely to Japan, as it was thought to be more akin to their old, rustic ways of living, maybe even a bit hick-ish, actually. In a very literal sense modernity had all but wiped away the yokai, if not for Mizuki’s love and encyclopedic knowledge of the almost forgotten folklore, and how he brought it back into everyone’s homes with his manga, who knows what culture might have been lost otherwise.

Ushio & Tora, a 1990 manga with a currently (2015) airing anime. One of the many Yokai
anime and manga franchises that follows Mizuki's basic framework.

GeGeGe no Kitaro’s success lead to a boom in horror and yokai related stories in the mainstream media of Japan from then on, and many, many imitators came out riding its coattails in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Some of these imitators were rather good, being fondly remembered even today and have had their own reboots and sequels throughout the years, while others … are probably best left in the past anyways. Even more noticeable however is not the boom in horror/yokai themes that were created back then but the direct effect that Mizuki had left on that genre in total. Even to this day the basic backbone of every modern-day setting yokai story can be traced back to what Mizuki had written. Manga and anime like Kekkaishi, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Ushio & Tora, and Yo-Kai Watch, just to name a few examples—all follow in Mizuki’s footsteps that modernity has taken away the yokai’s strength and their homes, that humans have overpopulated and almost wiped away their presence, and that even worse, we choose to not believe in them anymore.  

It’s hard to cry when the man who taught you not to fear death passes away; especially when he lived a fascinating and full 93 years, and will no doubt be remembered through his work for generations. Yet I was sad all the same when I did learn of his passing, and ever since then it gnaws at me that I haven’t seen any mainstream English anime or manga site really even do anything about it. There exist some great blog posts dedicated to Shigeru Mizuki for those who wish to read them, but sadly it seems his passing was all about ignored the next day by most. This really is what got me to write about him today, even if it’s the middle of December and doesn’t fit well with the Holiday Season. I do promise that next week will see something a bit more chipper and inline with the season, but for today, let's just remember what Mizuki has done, and be thankful for how much he helped to shape anime and manga, and maybe even a bit of Japanese culture, himself by keeping those old rustic stories alive. I know that while I'm playing my Yo-Kai Watch game in the coming weeks that I’ll feel a bit different knowing that they guy who debatably started it all is no longer with us. May he himself now party on for all eternity, in the afterlife he told us so many times before not to fear. 

Broken Sword Playing it for Real this Time

My first encounter with Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars was many, many years ago around Christmas time. However, this isn’t some rose-tinted Christmas tale, no, it’s more like something that just randomly happened. You see, my parents bought both my brother and I random video games that year as presents, and well, bless my parents for trying, but all their choices were strange and kind of bad. Among the many odd choices and C-tier games that we would never play, was the port of Broken Sword for the GBA. This was the GBA game my brother got, while I got some really awkward and poorly controlled Monster Truck GBA game. I remember being kind of jealous of my brother since I figured a game with “Sword” in its title must be some Zelda-like game, or some sweet RPG. Much later I would realize it ….. definitely was not, but before then I remember asking my brother what it was like. His description? Some freaky clown blows people up, and you read a lot. A little bit later, the game would slip through the crack and I never thought about it again. Until now that is.

(Also amazingly after all these years I somehow managed to find the
 game when preparing to write this review — it still works too!)

Fast forward to 2015, and I ended up right in the middle of my point ’n’ click binge. Nowadays, I play through so many of these games on my computer and really love the genre, so of course, I became more familiar with the Broken Sword series and knew I would need to play it, eventually grabbing the entire series for real cheap at GOG.com during the big Summer sales event. The first Broken Sword game was released on a lot of platforms including Windows, Mac, and PSOne, but it also got that GBA port (maybe demake/downgrade might be a better term?), and an enhanced iOS, Android, PC/Mac/Linux, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS release as well. The enhanced version started on the Nintendo consoles and was a Director’s Cut of the game, released somewhat close to the 15th anniversary (a little bit earlier) and most likely meant to cash-in on the resurgence of the adventure game genre that were profitable on those two consoles (Ace Attorney on DS, especially), then later landing on the computer and mobile markets. The Director’s Cut version is what I played on my Mac, which was mostly similar to the original release of the game in 1996, with some things added, a few things taken out, and some small amount of dialogue changed a little. 

So now that I love the genre and actually wanted to play the game, what’s my opinion? Well, for 1996 it’s easy to see that Broken Sword was definitely impressive; it’s full of lots of animation, voice acting, hand drawn backgrounds (by Don Bluth animators, no less!) that were painted-in digitally, and dynamic camera angel shots with a lot of sweeping movement—it’ obvious there was a real sense of direction and storyboarding with the imagery in the game. I even really liked the artwork for the character portraits (an added feature to the Directors’ Cut was the art drawn by comic book artist Dave Gibbons (Watchmen)). The puzzles too, aged really well and followed basic human logic and could be solved without much headaches, which is always appreciated in a genre full of psychotic puzzles (I’m looking at you, Gabriel Knight 3). But besides the presentation and puzzles, I thought the game aged badly. One of the biggest hurdles to get over for the game was definitely the voice acting which was … not good. I don’t want to say straight-out bad per se, since some actors help to outweigh others, with the lead character George Stobbart sounding pretty good, but some of those other, bad actors really drag down the good ones. 

2001's GBA Release

Original 1996 PC Release

2009's Director's Cut Release

The biggest point of contention being the other lead in the game Nicole "Nico" Collard. Nico’s voice actress is terrible! She’s a main character and her voice is absolutely unbearable to listen to. She comes off sounding very old, like a grandmother, and half the time reminds me of the classic Bible Black dub that’s known in infamy for its grandma voice high school girls. While I can understand and empathize with the fact that some of Nico’s wooden nature may come from both the dubbing's age and the fact of her character being French and trying to talk in English (with an accent),

it’s still just so bad that I can’t stand her. No matter the reason for it, Nico just sounds really awful, and brings down the entire atmosphere of the game whenever she is on screen. Playing as her was always the worst part of the game for me that I just wanted to rush through so I didn’t have to listen to her horrible sounding voice.

Nico’s segments in the game felt very awkward to begin with, however. Not only were they obnoxious from her actress’s terrible acting, but they also felt very disconnected from the main plot with George, and ultimately unnecessary. At first I didn’t think much of it, until I got to the ending and realized how little pay-off there really is with her segments. I later learned that these segments were added on for the Director’s Cut, and … yeah that explains so much. The small pay-off—essentially Nico decides she’ll never tell anyone what she was doing, even George—really makes a lot of sense when you realize it was shoved in their retroactively. Some people may like that they got to see more of Nico, and that she was no longer just a love-interest but also had her own story, but it just felt like filler to me, really uneventful filler that messed with the pacing of the overall narrative of the game and gave you nothing of value in the end since Nico decides to never tell anyone about her little misadventures anyways. 

That is not to say there weren’t problems with the narrative proper, either though. George’s quest throughout Europe wasn’t without its own problems. It took a while for it to sink in for me since the game starts with such a serious tone, but then later becomes so goofy. Broken Sword is suppose to be a funny game! Ah-ha! I get it now. The awkward juxtaposition of horrible murders and serious down-to-earth art design with goofy side-characters that are what you would expect out of Capcom’s Ace Attorney games, really gave me whiplash at first. But yes, the story is chuck full of humor, and in its defense once I got over the whiplash I was able to see that a lot of the game’s humor is great. Every NPC and side-character is really well written and interesting to talk to, not to mention rather funny. 

George himself is really likable, with a goofy sense of adventure, snide snark to the characters around him, and a long running joke that he can fit anything into the inside pocket of his jacket (with humorous animation of him shoving large objects in there). These do help get over the fact that the overall story about chasing the treasure of the Knight’s Templar is so average. Templar stories are overdone to death now, and Broken Sword dose get some free-pass since it beat Dan Brown and all the other overdone stories by at least 4 years, but in a post-Da Vinci Code obsessed world, it still hampered the game for me. Plus, the pay-off to the Templar story felt sloppy anyways. I recommend playing this one for the characters who aged a lot better and are still funny 19 years later and not so much the plot that lost a lot of its grit and interest. 

The European development team behind Broken Sword, Revolution, started out in 1990 with a clear goal in mind: to challenge the American ran market of Sierra and LucasArts who controlled the point ’n’ click industry. Between the six years since their start and the creation of Broken Sword they created another well respected game, Beneath the Steel Sky, and the engine they needed to take on the giants, their Virtual Theater engine. Broken Sword had fluid animation and hand-drawn backgrounds, as well as a lot of love put into it, which was something the other guys didn’t really have at the time of Broken Sword’s release (well sans the love part, they had that). 

While I think overall Broken Sword has not aged as well as some of the Sierra games its creators were trying so hard to beat, that it still managed to maintain an unique identity more than 19 years later. Add in the fact that so much of Sierra went into disarray and was side-lined for so many years (we’re just now finally seeing the rebirth of the King’s Quest series) it is quite a feat that Broken Sword was able to maintain a relatively consistent release schedule even landing a PS4 and Xbox One port for their most recent 2013 entry Broken Sword 5. It’s really something to admire that Revolution could keep the series going like it did. So yes, it was a bit of an awkward start for me, and not without my own complaints, but I ended up enjoying the beginning of this series, and am looking forward to trying out the next four games. 

Remembering Satoru Iwata

The link to the artist's work is here. Please credit them for this.

On July 11, 2015, Satoru Iwata, president and CEO of Nintendo, untimely passed away at the tender young age of 55. Iwata, was a man that I always respected, and still days later it's really hard for me to believe that he's actually gone. I said a lot of words to my gaming friends both offline and online in some comment sections as well as on Twitter, but I didn't really know how to express myself about his untimely passing in the long run. This whole time, since July 12 when the news first broke out,  I contemplated if I should write about him on my blog. It wouldn't be easy, and it would be kind of different from what I usually blog about, and more importantly, I wasn't even sure if it would be in good taste or not, either. Ultimately here I am writing a little bit about him, though, and well, that's because this is all I know. I can't draw awesome art tributes like the ones I've seen for him, or start some big online campaign to keep his mii in circulation like some people have. However I know how to write, and have a blog I keep up regularly, so I can do this.

In a lot of ways I'm being selfish and this is just as much for me, if not more, than it is for him, but I hope you all excuse me for this. I put off writing about Iwata for the last few days because there was no doubt in my mind that in the sea of endless tributes (that this man rightfully deserves), mine will go mostly unnoticed and be meaningless. But that was wrong of me. Everyone should say their goodbyes--stupid little things like whether or not anyone cares or sees it don't matter. So I wanted to take time and talk about Iwata, a man that I never even met in person, but somehow find myself respecting more than most people. Next week we will be returning to the piece I originally wrote for this Monday (Lucky July 13th) but put off because of this unfortunate event.

Iwata always loved video games, and he wanted to share that love with everyone. From a young age, he took to programing, and he stayed in the gaming business for the entirety of his professional life quite literally until the day he passed. His earliest work saw him programming games like Balloon Fight, and eventually being able to move up to being a producer, with his first producer credit being Rollerball from HAL Laboratories in 1990. Iwata stuck with HAL through the subsequent years programming and producing a lot of games, even including the original Kirby games with director Masahiro Sakurai (now most well known as the director for Super Smash Brothers). Eventually Iwata's hard work at HAL payed off and he was promoted to President within the company in 1993.

Even though Iwata eventually moved away from HAL as he became a bigger and bigger player at Nintendo as a whole, you could always sense the love and camaraderie that Sakurai had with him, so upon Iwata's passing it was nice to see Sakurai say such warm things about his previous boss and work associate. "He always understood the proper balance of things, between the right amount of effort, and making sure to listen. Even though he is no longer my boss, I think of him as the best leader I ever knew." (very roughly translated)

One of my favorite tribute pieces for Iwata.
Original source for the work can be found here. 

Throughout the years Iwata accomplished a lot for Nintendo, doing great work that often went unknown to most of us (until he became the icon he was today) but was noticed by his fellow Nintendo employees. He brushed shoulders with many of the people who really made the company what it is today, Sakurai was definitely one, but he also helped produce and program EarthBound/Mother 2 alongside Itoi, even fixing the bad programming that almost lead to the game being canceled. Just like Sakurai, Itoi had only great things to say about Iwata upon hearing about his passing. "You always put yourself last, after you'd finished helping everyone else. You were so generous as a friend that this trip* might be your very first selfish act."

*Itoi referred to Iwata's passing as a trip, and that they will one day see each other again. For a full look at the statement's translation please check this link. This is not my translation. All credit belongs to yomuka.

Stories like these are so common for Iwata, no matter what Nintendo brand he touched. For Pokémon fans, Iwata created the way to compress Pokémon Gold and Silver's data in order for Game Freak to be able to add Kanto to the game carts. Iwata also managed to port the battle code and logistics from Red and Blue/Green to Pokémon Stadium in only a week--surprising the main programmer on the project, and really getting the project off the ground and started. For Kirby fans, he not only produced and oversaw many of the games, but also had a hand in the creation of the series. While Sakurai created the pink fluff-ball we all love, it was Iwata who created the original concept for the series. Kirby started out as Iwata's desire for a game that anyone could play all the way through from start to finish, no matter if you were skilled or a beginner; when Sakurai responded to this concept of Iwata's, he created Kirby. Even for Dragon Quest fans, Iwata was there. He reprogrammed the entire first game in order to overhaul it for its North American release as Dragon Warrior. Giving the game a proper battery save function that the Japanese version lacked (the original Japanese version resorted to a password system), and a great visual overhaul to boot.

Iwata helped to make sure many of the games that would become our childhood were created, but he also did a lot more. Of course, there's the obvious, when we talk about his recent work, such as taking the huge risk on the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, and giving us two of the greatest consoles around. As hard as it is to believe nowadays, these were quite the risky strategy and direction to go into, but Iwata steered ahead. It's what he did best, and because of that, most of what we know about Nintendo of today can be attributed to him. So much of its current image, and even motto--Games should be one thing: fun. Fun for everyone--came from him. Iwata took an old, conservative company and opened it up to the world. He created the Iwata Ask column that gave us such great insight into the workings and mind of the company, and he created the Nintendo Directs, where he delivered us all the information we could want about their games, directly to us.

Under Iwata, the once secretive Treehouse Branch of Nintendo opened up a little bit, and we now have the great Treehouse Live segments at E3. Speaking of which, under Iwata, we had some of the most fun E3 presentations ever. Jim Henson puppets, Robot Chicken stop motion dolls, and one incredible bad-ass Dragon Ball Z-esque fight between him and Nintendo of America President Reggie. The company has become something more under his leadership; it's a place of fun, even while watching their advertisements, you just can't not have a smile on your face.

How can you not love this man's sense of humor?

That's what I think I will miss the most about him. Iwata's leadership of Nintendo wasn't without its faults and mistakes, after all I don't mean to make it out to be some perfect empire that could do no wrong, but his tenure at Nintendo was something that was more important than success. It was kind. The countless stories about Iwata that have been coming out now that he is no longer with us will no doubt put tears in anyone's eyes. He was a man who took two pay-cuts as President and CEO in order to make sure none of his employees would have to be fired when the company's finances were rocky. He was a man who would enjoy smalltalk and smile at journalist, even when they were off-camera. Iwata loved gaming, and he wanted it to keep evolving as a medium. He wanted it to bring families and friends together, he wanted it to make people smile, and he wanted it to be fun. Iwata embraced his fans with a unique sense of humor all his own, and ran Nintendo the same way he viewed gaming: everyone should be having fun. In today's crazy world, I can't think of anyone more I could respect for that kind of sentimentality. The gaming world has no doubt lost one of its most gentle giants.

Thank you, Satoru Iwata. These past years were bumpy, and rough, and confusing, not to mention even a little scary, but ultimately, they were fun.

Thank you, sir.