2143: Anticipating Xenoblade

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I’m picking up a brand new game release on Friday. It’s not often I buy a new game the moment it’s released, but in the case of Xenoblade Chronicles X, I feel almost obliged to, given that it’s not only a game that’s been a long time coming, but also a game that’s likely to be one of the most impressive titles for Nintendo’s underappreciated Wii U console — much like its predecessor was for the original Wii.

I don’t know a lot about Xenoblade Chronicles X as yet save for the fact it’s a bit of a departure from the style of the previous game; I’ve been deliberately avoiding too much coverage of it because it’s one of those titles for which I’m keen to go in almost completely blind, much as I did with Xenoblade Chronicles. I can, however, talk a little bit about my memories of Xenoblade Chronicles, and why they lead me to anticipate Xenoblade Chronicles X quite so much.

I’m not massively familiar with the overall Xeno metaseries. I played Xenogears back when it was originally released on PS1 and enjoyed it a lot, despite its rushed second disc. To date, I know nothing at all about the Xenosaga series, and my next contact with the overall Xeno quasi-franchise was Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii. Again, I came to this knowing almost nothing about it save for the fact it was one of three games for the Wii that a pressure group known as “Operation Rainfall” had been encouraging Nintendo to bring to the West, the others being The Last Story from original Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, and the unconventional, wonderful Pandora’s Tower from Ganbarion.

In other words, I picked up Xenoblade Chronicles based entirely on hearsay — people whose opinion I respected said that it was an important release, and that as someone who enjoyed JRPGs, I would do well to check it out. It was also noteworthy in that it actually made it to Europe before North America, which is not something that tends to happen all that often with localisations, and its dub featured English, rather than American, voiceovers — a fact which gave it a considerable degree of charm as well as inadvertently creating a number of memes that persist to this day, including “I’m Really Feeling It” and “Now it’s Reyn Time”, the former of which was helped enormously by protagonist Shulk’s inclusion in the Wii U version of Super Smash Bros.

Anyway. Booting up Xenoblade Chronicles for the first time, I was confronted by a JRPG experience quite unlike any other JRPG I’d played to date. Well, that’s not quite true; it was a bit like Final Fantasy XII in many ways, but it definitely had its own unique identity that combined influences from traditional, story-heavy Japanese role-playing games; open-world, mechanics-centric Western role-playing games; and the sheer, daunting amount of content found in your typical massively multiplayer online RPG.

Of particular note was its combat system, which is the main aspect that Xenoblade Chronicles X carries across from its predecessor. Allowing you to take direct control of any of your current three party members, gameplay changed significantly according to how you chose to play each character. Each party member had a fairly obvious “role” in the party that they were supposed to play, but there was a decent amount of customisation between learning new Arts and Skills for them, as well as the limited number of Arts the characters could have equipped (and, thus, usable) at any given moment.

Combat was much more than simple hack-and-slash; in fact, simply running up to an enemy and hoping to whittle down its health was an invitation to disaster, even early in the game. Instead, you needed to know your characters’ abilities, including positional bonuses, and make appropriate use of them at the right times. This is where MMO influences showed themselves once again; since you were only controlling a single character, you had to trust that your AI-controlled companions were up to the task of doing their job — which, to their credit, they usually were — while you concentrated on doing yours.

I typically played as Shulk for most of the game; Shulk, in party-based MMO terms, would have been a melee DPS class somewhat akin to a rogue, dragoon or monk in Final Fantasy XIV. In other words, his abilities were largely focused on both dealing damage and inflicting debuffs on enemies, and many of them were conditional on him being in a particular position in relation to the enemy. One of his Arts required him to hit an enemy from behind, for example, while another had bonus effects when used from the side. Mechanics such as this kept combat dynamic and interesting rather than simply having two groups hacking away at each other until one or the other’s HP ran out.

Then there was the world. Oh, goodness, the world. Xenoblade Chronicles was running on one of the weakest consoles of that particular generation, but it managed to be one of the most impressive games there was in terms of scope and visual design. Unfolding on the overgrown, long-dormant bodies of two mysterious giant mech-type things known as the Bionis and the Mechonis, Xenoblade Chronicles’ world combined the realistically natural with the fantastic to create an absolutely beautiful, memorable world with some genuine landmarks that were worth seeking out just to admire the visual majesty of. I still remember vividly the first time I came across Makna Falls and had to stop and just admire this beautifully crafted environment for a few moments; it was somewhere I’d want to actually go in reality, such was its beauty.

To reiterate an earlier point, I know very little about Xenoblade Chronicles X, and that includes details about its world. If it’s half as interesting and thrilling to explore as its predecessor, though, I’m excited to jump in and start running around… and later, to start stomping around it in the big mech-like Skells.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is out on Friday. There are online and multiplayer features in the game, so if you’re planning on playing it and would like to do stuff with me, let me know and we can exchange Wii U friend details.

2137: Nintendoes

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I’ve been playing almost exclusively Nintendo games for the past week or two. This wasn’t entirely deliberate, but it’s just sort of happened. And it’s allowing me to rediscover my appreciation of what Nintendo does well.

Nintendo, more than pretty much any other company out there, puts out games that feel satisfyingly complete. They don’t come out of the door half-baked, lacking in content or riddled with bugs; they’re ready to play, bursting with things to do and full of enjoyment waiting to be discovered. And this is how they’ve always been, even since the days of the NES.

The other thing I rather like about Nintendo is that their work has a very distinctive “voice”. This is partly the job of the localisation teams who work on the various properties, but the overall “tone” of most Nintendo works is so very consistent — and has been for many years — that I find it difficult to believe that this is purely a regional thing. Rather, I feel that Nintendo almost certainly makes very careful decisions about how it’s going to localise things and make them accessible and tonally appropriate in territories around the world. This even goes as far as making the British/European English and American English versions of games different to quite a considerable degree in some cases, which always feels like a pleasantly “personal” touch.

Now, Nintendo have attracted the ire of a number of people over the last few years thanks to what these folks see as unnecessarily “butchered” translations of games such as Fire Emblem Awakening and Xenoblade Chronicles X. And, for sure, some notable changes have been made from the original scripts — and, in a number of cases, content has been edited or even cut to be in keeping with the perceived values of a particular territory. Memorable examples in recent memory include the shot of Tharja’s panties-clad bum in Fire Emblem Awakening (which featured a curtain being pulled across it in the English version, inadvertently making it look more lewd by hiding her panties altogether) and the inexplicable removal of the breast size slider from Xenoblade Chronicles X‘s character creation tool.

These sorts of edits are nothing new, however. The Legend of Zelda series, for example, has a somewhat different tone in Japan to in the West, particularly in installments such as A Link to the Past on Super NES. In the Japanese original A Link to the Past, for example, the story touched on religious themes, with one of the main villains being a priest. In the English versions, however, religious references were removed, and the “priest” became a “wizard”.

Why does Nintendo do this? For an attempt at inclusivity, I guess; the company has a carefully curated “family-friendly” image to uphold, after all, and “family-friendly” means different things in different territories. From its localisation decisions, we can interpret that Nintendo believes here in the West that “family-friendly” means something that the whole family can sit down and enjoy together without any material provoking arguments or awkwardness between one another. We’ve seen on all too many occasions that discussions and material relating to both religion and sexuality are very much capable of inducing arguments and awkwardness, so out the window they go. It’s kind of a shame for those who prefer their translations to be more literal and true to the original Japanese texts, but it is, after all, what Nintendo has always done — and, I have to admit, that warm, friendly tone most of their localisations tend to have is rather comforting, and quite unlike anything from other localised Japanese works.

This is even apparent in games such as New Style Boutique 2 and Animal Crossing, where there was unlikely to be any real “offensive” content in the first place; both have been localised in such a way as to be as inclusive and welcoming as possible to a broad audience; they’re games that invite you in to enjoy the experience rather than insist you must be this skilled to ride, or whatever. And that’s rather nice, really. Not something that every game needs, of course — some games are all the better for their laser-sharp focus on a very specific, niche-interest audience — but, to be honest, I find it hard to get too riled up about censorship talk when it comes to Nintendo games, simply because I’ve grown up with that warm, friendly, familiar tone of their localisations, and it would feel kind of strange for that to change now.

Anyway. I’m enjoying my Nintendo period right now: currently playing Zelda 3, Hyrule Warriors and New Style Boutique 2. All are very different games from one another. All are simply marvellous. All are proof that Nintendo doesn’t give a shit what its competitors are doing, because they’re quite happy doing their own thing, even if it ends up causing their sales figures to look dismal in comparison to those of Sony and Microsoft.

I hope this Nintendo never goes away. They’re an important part of gaming, and it would be sad to see them go the way of Sega, becoming just another third-party publisher.

2111: On Censorship, Bikinis and The Cheapening of Real Issues Through Stupid Arguments

Controversy erupted once again recently in the gaming sphere when it seemingly became apparent that, despite saying they wouldn’t, Nintendo of America had made edits to one of the characters’ costumes in the upcoming RPG Xenoblade Chronicles X. (I’m still a little skeptical this has actually happened, but I’m going to work on the assumption that it has for now, since Nintendo has indeed done this before with games like Fire Emblem Awakening.)

The character in question is canonically “underage” (though remember that the age of consent in Japan is different to that in other parts of the world — legally, it’s 13, though in certain areas of the country a higher age is enforced at the discretion of the local government) and one of her outfits was a set of bikini-like armour. Impractical, but not particularly offensive, and indeed nothing unusual for a Japanese role-playing game, which often have swimsuit costumes available either as downloadable content or unlockable extras.

As those of you who follow this particular part of the gaming sector can probably surmise, this quickly escalated into the inevitable clashing between those who are against censorship in any form, preferring an authentic experience true to the creators’ original intentions, and those who believe that Japanese games are inherently “creepy”, whom we’ve had words about before.

The usual argument against vaguely (or indeed explicitly) sexualised outfits in video games is that it is, yes, “creepy” with a garnish of paedophilia. This is a natural escalation of the current trend for feminist “criticism” (and I use that term loosely) of video games and popular media by people like Anita Sarkeesian and her ilk. Said “criticism” already fails to take into account the fact that sex and art have been inextricably intertwined for many hundreds — probably even thousands — of years, but criticism such as that we’ve seen of, in this case, Xenoblade Chronicles X and, at other times, games like Criminal Girls, Omega Labyrinth, Dungeon Travelers 2, Hyperdimension Neptunia and any number of other Japanese-developed games you might care to mention, takes this to a whole new level by cheapening the unfortunately very real, horrendous issue of child abuse.

I am no expert on child abuse, though remember I did once work as a teacher and consequently had the “telltale signs” of abuse drummed into me; I also came into contact with a number of children who had had somewhat difficult home lives, to say the least. Thankfully, I don’t think I ever dealt with anyone who had been outright sexually abused, though there were certainly a few who had “seen some shit”, as it were. This was often reflected in their behaviour in the classroom which, unfortunately, made them somewhat difficult to deal with, and difficult children were, frankly, one of the main reasons I decided not to continue pursuing teaching as a career. I just wasn’t built to stand up to them, particularly when I knew — or at least had an idea — where their anger was coming from.

One thing I do know about child abuse and paedophilia, though, is that it is absolutely abhorrent. The very thought of a child suffering in such a way makes me feel sick to my stomach. And I know that most rational people that I count among my circles of acquaintances and friends would feel the same way too. Which is why it makes us so utterly livid that something as inherently harmless and stupid in the grand scheme of things as liking drawings or polygonal models of titties is equated with such a horrible, disgusting crime.

To put it another way: those who criticise anime-style art, Japanese video games such as Xenoblade Chronicles X — or indeed any form of fictional media that takes a non-literal approach to the representation of characters — are cheapening and devaluing the very real issue of paedophilia in modern society by applying that label to something that is, let’s be clear here, absolutely completely and utterly legal, not to mention completely and utterly harmless, given that there are no “real people” involved at all. Child abuse destroys lives, and often leaves both physical and mental scars that never heal. Dungeon Travelers 2 features bosses who occasionally show you their bum when you beat them. Xenoblade Chronicles X has a character who wears a bikini. That’s it. She’s not even doing anything sexual in it, she’s just wearing it. And yet that, it seems, is enough to bring out the editing scissors in the name of “catering to an audience”.

Guess what, though: the “audience” you should be catering to is the audience that wants to see the work in its original form. That audience are passionate and enthusiastic about being able to enjoy work from another culture in their own native language. That audience wants to feel like they are having the same experience as their Japanese cousins, not being “protected” against things that they don’t feel they need to be protected against. That audience will pay through the nose for the privilege of enjoying these delightful, surprising, wonderful games that, thanks to their laser-sharp focus on a very specific niche audience, feel like they’re tailor-made for each and every individual consumer.

The audience that you are catering to by hacking away at content, though, probably weren’t interested in these games in the first place. Do you really see Her Most Holy Ladyship Twatface Sarkeesian slogging through 100+ hours of Xenoblade Chronicles X? Do you see Jonathan Cuntrag McIntosh slapping down the readies for a copy of Fatal Frame? I certainly don’t, and so no consideration should be given to their opinion whatsoever, and no consideration whatsoever should be given to people who believe that drawings are equatable to fucking child abuse, either.

Don’t get me wrong, if the only choice I have to play and enjoy a game in a way that I understand is to purchase an edited version, I’ll do it, because I believe showing companies that there are people out there hungry for the localisation of these games is more important than anything a “boycott” might imply — if anything, a boycott is more likely to send the mistaken message that there aren’t people who want to buy these games. I’d import if my Japanese was good enough for me to have an enjoyable experience in the original language version, but it isn’t, so that’s not an option for me right now for anything other than games in which spoken or written text isn’t a major part of the experience. (Shoot ’em ups, in other words.) This doesn’t mean that I’m particularly happy with games having the editor’s scissors taken to them in the name of “cultural differences”, though; games are, like it or not, works of art, and to have to deal with an inferior version in my native language because someone, somewhere went “heavens to Betsy, think of the children!” isn’t really acceptable.

Grow up. Deal with the fact not everyone likes everything. And if a polygonal character in a bikini offends your sensibilities or makes you think of child abuse, perhaps you’re the one with the issues here.