Two projects on which I have worked were finally announced this weekend!
See, this is what happens when you put me on Gundam. Everything's out of proper orbit and someone and their Haro need help, and there are monstrosities running rampant everywhere. You should have just put me on a SEED project and be done with it. Safer that way.
Yes. I was chosen to be a script translator on Persona 6! Starting in January, I alluded in my hobby work updates to a incredible professional opportunity for which I had to make accommodations. This is it! I'm incredibly honored to be part of this franchise.
I actually have two major professional projects that have remained unannounced. One is sci-fi action/strategy; the other is a fantasy RPG from one of the premier studios. The latter's an odd case: I haven't heard anything on it for a couple years, and I hope it hasn't been shelved. It was an unexpected remake, and I was really struck by how smart it was in addressing and resolving what I perceived as writing problems in the original. But perhaps I speak too soon; Nintendo's yet to go, after all.
ETA TWO DAYS LATER: Well, I spoke that into existence. I can now announce that I was an editor on Final Fantasy Resonance! (And also did some translation work. "Editor" will likely be my credit, though.) If I sound like a hyperactive kid making up garbage, well, I feel like it. It's all true, though, and I'm stupendously happy and grateful.
Part 2 of the previous article.
Imagine you have this friend who's renowned for throwing really great parties. No one can stop talking about their last party - it was just incredible, amazing, the party of the century, how about that music? - and everyone's looking forward to the next one. So they finally announce their next party, it's gonna be great, everyone's invited, they've got the same DJ, there's this big build-up, and then at the last minute, they announce that: oh, by the way, this is a BDSM party where every guest has to have their genitals stomped.
Now, some people are into this. Some people are! But most people are kinda hesitant. Genital stomping hurts, after all. It's not pleasant! And genital stomping wasn't part of the last party, after all. Do we have to have genital stomping? Can't we just have a great party like the last one?
Finally, your friend announces: OK, you don't have to have your genitals stomped, but if you don't have your genitals stomped, you can't have drinks. Furthermore, if you don't want your genitals stomped, you have to fill out this 200-item inventory of your preferences when it comes to sexual practices.
Responses are mixed. Some object: You're the host; aren't you supposed to be putting together the party? Why do we have to fill out a questionnaire to have a good time? Some leap to the host's defense: If you insist on not having your genitals stomped, you can get just what you want, you big babies, and who cares about drinks, anyway? Some are confused: What is "sounding" anyhow, and how do I respond if I don't have a dick? And some are just wondering: Why does CBT have to be a central part of this experience?
OK, so the popular response to those reluctant to play Mina the Hollower because of its difficulty is, "Well, there are tons of cheats built-in; why are you complaining?" And yes, it has purportedly has over 200 cheats built in, but a) players signed up for a Zelda-like, not Pinball Construction Kit, and b) by disabling achievements when those cheats are triggered, the game's indicating that it doesn't really want you to use the cheats. I mean, obviously. They're cheats. You're cheating.
And going back to a): if I were a writer and gave you 200 dropdowns to customize the protagonist, antagonist, plot, plot twists, etc., at some point, I'm going from "choose your own adventure" to "well, you fuckin' do it, then." I'm abdicating the design job I was hired to do.
Games that ask you to tailor your own gameplay environment are very different from games where you play through a designed experience - Mario Maker vs. Mario, let's say. They call for different skill sets and offer very different types of entertainment - with many not finding the former entertaining at all.If you don't like the tasteful and accessible metaphor I employed above, consider this one instead: say your friend gets everyone together for a game of baseball, but they announce at the last second that instead of standard rules, everyone has to round nine bases instead of four, and the home run wall's gonna be moved back to double the distance, and the ball's gonna be made of lead. Yeah, they say, it'll be tougher, but you'll understand once you finally break through and get that feeling of accomplishment.
When there's pushback, they announce that, OK, instead, every player can choose how many bases there are and what ball they use and how far back the wall is, but their runs won't count. When people ask hey, can't we just play standard baseball?, the response is NO, WHY ARE YOU BEIng so uNREASONAbLE ABOUT THis.
Look: when the pendulum has swung back the other way and the cognoscenti are debating whether Soulslikes should exist at all, as their high level of difficulty is exclusionary, I'm actually on the side of the Soulslikes: I don't think they should be forced to scale down the challenge, because the challenge is integral to the genre's identity. At the same time: These games are deliberately made to be miserable! It should be the least surprising thing in the world that they aren't for everyone.
(NETA: I have my problems with Jeff Gerstmann nowadays, but he gets it in one: "What if instead of solving that problem by saying if you don't like it, you can just remove a big chunk of the game, what if you made it good? I don't know.")
Mina the Hollower isn't for me. I'm certainly open to a great Zelda-like experience, but, as for many folks, the Soulslike elements make it a no-go. I just don’t find it fun or rewarding to bash my head against the same boss 100 times until I finally win the memorization/RNG game. If that's your jam, that's great! It's just not mine.
Mina the Hollower isn't for me, and that's okay. At least by me. Not by some other folks, though!
I came across this article by a Gamespot writer smitten with Mina and trying to convince people like me to give it a try. It's a familiar argument. Everyone who attempts this argument thinks the take is brand-new, that it will surely convince their target audience - no, you don't understand, listen to me - but it's always the same take. Here's a quote from the article:
But if you’re anything like me, you may lament that its combat is very difficult and inspired by the souls-like genre. If you aren’t especially keen on souls-like games, that may feel intimidating, even if you’re otherwise attracted to its Game Boy Zelda aesthetic and general vibe.
Having reviewed the game, I am here to tell you: It is fine; you can do this.
In other words, it's not that you don't like it - that's impossible! It's that you're intimidated by it - you think yourself inadequate, unworthy of this great game. It's a moral failing on your part. But, sister, I am here to tell you that you are not as lowly and unsalvageable as you believe! You can be redeemed! (Just as long as you accept Mina the Hollower as your personal savior.)
It's this weird, almost fanatical response, one that's grounded in this emotional attachment the author is reluctant to acknowledge. It reminds me of the response to Tetris Effect, where reviewers were rating the substances they took during play instead of the game itself and ended up comparing it to a religious experience instead of, you know, Tetris. Which is an excellent game! Perhaps the most excellent! But it's not going to change your life.
We don't see this reaction with other genres. There are initiatives like Woolie Madden's "Get into Fighting Games" series to make certain niche genres more accessible, but there's not this anxiety, this moral judgment re: abstainers that there is from some Souls folk.
I think I know what's behind it, upon reflection. Appeals to open one's heart to Soulslikes are always followed by a belabored explanation (again: the writer is completely convinced their audience has never heard this before) that it is uniquely rewarding to improve your skills after repeated failures and finally overcome an obstacle in your path. (The Gamespot review: "it does feel great to have your skills tested and slowly feel yourself improving. Like any other game in the souls-like genre, you do actually need to get good.") You know - unlike most any other video game. The difference, of course, is the degree of undertaking, with every Souls boss being a multi-hour ordeal. Souls enthusiasts, though, remain convinced that this cycle is completely foreign to their audience - they're convinced of something healing, almost redeeming, in it, almost as if they're getting something out of this, emotionally, that they're not quite articulating or understanding.
Which brings me to my point. We live in a unrewarding world. Things are horrible - with employment, with climate, in the dating scene, politically - and there's little we can do about it. There's very little opportunity to be efficacious. Games offer one of the few outlets in our lives where effort actually translates to effect. I'm reminded of a response from a therapist on a ResetEra thread discussing a phenomenon where some women were refusing to go out with men who were into video games. Many were aghast, obviously, but the therapist related a pattern from their clients that perhaps explained it:
Unfortunately, there are a lot of young men for whom video games have transformed from just a hobby into an all-consuming obsession. As a therapist, I've seen this with several of my young male clients. Many feel that the world has become too competitive or difficult to navigate, so they just give up and escape into games all day every day. Games provide a manufactured sense of hyper-competence that men desire and feel entitled to, without the risk of rejection or failure that comes with building real world skills or trying to navigate human relationships.
I think that's it: Souls games give these fans a feeling of accomplishment that, if society were properly functioning, they'd be getting from work or relationships. The degree of effort that Soulslike challenges require and the time investment only amplify it.
I believe that's the problem here. You're not describing being uninterested in a particular type of game; you're describing being uninterested in a sense of accomplishment. You're not rejecting the game; you're rejecting the sense of growth they got from the game - in essence, their sense of self. That's why many Souls fans, I think, are so irrationally attached to the genre, why they're so passionate and insistent that others try it, and why they take refusal to engage with these games so personally. That's why they find disinterest downright threatening - if you don't feel lesser for not attempting these challenges, then they're not greater for overcoming them.
I've been posting updates about the project on my Tumblr, but as I'm entering the homestretch and am changing the update format somewhat, I thought I'd crosspost this particular entry. I'll be posting subsequent regular updates on that Tumblr, but milestones will be crossposted here.
The numbers: Despite starting in the middle of the month due to other issues, I've managed to finish 10 files this month. I do have more time to devote to the project given the very unfortunate recent closure of other personal business, and working on the project does give me a bit of solace.
I have 39 files done. This leaves me with 56 files to do. HOWEVER: despite this, I am still over the 50% mark materialwise, with a) half-completed files and b) tackling some of the bigger files first, deliberately. The "undone" count also expanded by 20 or so unexpectedly, as a few files (about five) were missing from the original text dump; it turned out that they were missing because they were too large to rip whole and were therefore split into four to five separate files each, upping the total file count.
Work on my end is continuing apace - ahead of apace, actually - but I will note the following potential sources of delays in the coming month:
- Work translation, of course. My time with the first high-profile project seems at an end, but I became involved with another such project immediately afterward. (The first hasn't been announced, so I can't talk about it yet. The second has been announced, actually, but I think I should wait till my involvement's over before announcing.)
- I do need to settle some affairs from my passed family member eventually, though the timetable for that is dependent on some external factors.
- I need to do some things to take care of my mental health. It's nothing dire, but I'm not doin' great, with some things that have happened, and I need to reconnect with the better things in my life. As mentioned, this project is helping with that, but there are some additional steps I need to pursue to get in a better place that might take a little time this month.
The next update will be at the end of June. Barring any catastrophes - which can never be barred, but still - I don't anticipate my end of this lasting to the end of the year. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions about progress.
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