Prompted after happening upon yet another fake "debate" about the shifting meaning of retro, plus a reader email on Jeff Gerstmann's show about how more time has passed from the original Gears of War's release than some milestone or another; I couldn't be bothered to care.
Retro obviously encompasses more than 8/16/32-bit at this point, as time moves forward in a linear fashion and whatnot. Of the relatively-new-not-really proposals, I like the "at least two console generations" definition better simply because it's cleaner and more intuitive; the "ten years old" thing is too finicky, requiring you to hit up GameFAQs or Wikipedia for release dates, and that's before you get the "which region?" question involved. (That said, someone in the first discussion mentioned how stuff from the PS3 era isn't that far removed from modern sensibilities, whereas titles in the traditional "retro" window are of a period where the fundamentals were still evolving and therefore set themselves apart more distinctly in terms of gameplay and presentation - which is the most substantive comment ever to come out of these unfortunate affairs.)
I've found, though, that the substance of the argument really isn't the point with these proposals. The point of casually ("casually") bringing up "games released [x] years ago are retro, right? I mean, no one would care about anything so old, ha ha!", as with all the "Landmark Title was released HOW MANY YEARS AGO!?!?!?!?" posts on social media and all the extremely, extremely tiresome "OMG, WE'RE SO OLD" kabuki that follows (like, fucker, what do you want us to do???? it's not like we can turn back time???? if the conquistadors couldn't find the Fountain of Youth with all the gold in the Spanish empire, you're not gonna do it so you can feel better about Chrono Cross), is for the OP to project their mid-life or quarter-life or whatever-life crisis and invite you to mirror their own grief at their impending mortality and alleviate their suffering through schadenfreude. Like Shiori from Utena or crabs in a bucket, if they cannot transcend, everyone else must suck, and so we're invited to lament and feel guilty that we have survived this long, to atone for our continued existence, to agree that, yes, we all deserve death for daring still to draw breath.
Well, not me, fuckers! I turned 44 last week! I'm happy that I lived this long, and I look forward to living many more years and enjoying many more video games, whether or not they subscribe to your particular definition of retro. The only thing I regret is that we can't commemorate some video game birthdays without some sorry self-absorbed fuckers weaponizing their own Artax-grade self-pity to try drag everyone else down into their misery mire. We've had over 50 years of commercial video game history at this point. Think about how many stone-cold classics are celebrating an anniversary on any given day. I don't have the time to fit that much futile atonement in my schedule, and neither do you. And - here's the kicker! - even if you did, it wouldn't make the games, or you, any younger.
Mad about it? Well, in the venerable words of the GameFAQs scribes of old: Cry. Cry that I've lasted this long without the blessing of your ageist video game god, modeled in the image of your own self-hatred. Cry for me. Let your tears fall directly into my mouth and down my gullet so I may gain strength from your suffering. But if you want me to die, you'll have to get off your whining pansy ass and come shoot me yourself. And you won't, because you're too mired in passive impotence to take any action beyond feeling sorry for yourself.
Have fun with video games! I look forward to yet another post about how you're the very first person to discover Phantasy Star IV.
Gaming & hobby shop The Akihabara Container, which seems to specialize in hosting displays of limited-edition anime & gaming merchanidse, recently announced the pending debut of an installation dedicated to Clock Tower merchandise. It was originally scheduled to run November 3rd to the 23rd, but according to the store's Twitter, that's been delayed. In the meantime, we're left with this flyer:
Going roughly row by row, we have: mini mirrored magnets of the characters; lenticular acrylic keychains of memorable SFAM cutscene deaths; mini acrylic capsule-vended standees of SFAM sprites (well, Suspiria Anne and stumbled Jennifer aren't "standing," but you know; also, good to see Lotte represented appropriately, in an action pose); logo stickers; pins of Bobby's scissors, the demon idol, and Saidou's hannya; more acrylic character standees; an SFAM sprite art sticker sheet with characters, portraits, and items; a larger, metal-loop scissor keyholder; rubber keychains; a mug of the SFAM title screen that shows the SFAM logo when you fill it with a hot beverage; bath salts themed on the SFAM and Ghost Head bathtub scenes, tinted red and yellow and smelling like iron and sulfur respectively; a towel (a hand towel, presumably) of the celestial plate in Barrows Castle; a smartphone case; tote bags of the SFAM guide manga art and...I don't know what that is for the sequel—shears coming out of a TV?; a manga art door plate; a face towel of the SFAM box art; T-shirts (the last one's of guidebook manga art of Chinatsu/Stephanie); a hoodie of SFAM manga art; an alarm clock with the face of the SFAM Barrows Mansion clock tower clock that, despite old-school alarm-bell stylings, allegedly plays "Don't Cry, Jennifer"; a sundial with the Barrows clock tower clock face; and, finally, yet another acrylic standee of First Fear art.
That's a big wall of text that'd actually be even bigger if I made it a bulleted list, but I'd like to highlight the red and yellow iron and sulfur bath salts. They're not as high on the Innovatively Repulsive Merchandise scale as that Inside/RealDoll collaboration, but they're up there.
In other news, we have further confirmation of "Rolla" and "Anne," but "Bobby Ballows" kind of throws taking this as a definitive source out the window. (ETA: Never mind; apparently, they're using "Ballows" in the magnets. And also have Chinatsu's name wrong.) (ETA 2: And I now see they're using "Laura," with her novelization surname "Harrington," on the bath salt packaging. If the bath salt package designer took the English rendition of Laura/Rolla's name from the wiki, which took it from the novelization I translated, then I enjoy the idea that I'm indirectly responsible for the inconsistent nomenclature.)
And speaking of precedent: is Capcom/Sunsoft gearing up to do something with Clock Tower now? You don't set up pop-up shops with this wide an array of merchandise or release even throwaway stuff like that cheap phone "game" from a couple months ago (helpfully subtitled Ready for the Next, though you'd never guess it from this literally two-minute barely-interactive Flash trinket) without a Switch compilation incoming?
What do people do with acrylic standees? I understand their usefulness for in-store promo displays, but the decorative potential of a flat paper acrylic printout of character art seems limited, a very lacking substitute for a 3D figure.
Turning to digital Clock Tower delights: a theatrical gentleman known only as THE BARD recently played through the Super Famicom adventures of Warrior Queen Jennifer Connelly in the inimitable style of an grand, accomplished storyteller. The boundless enthusiasm, curiosity, and relish with which the man approaches every title combined with the voice work in his narration makes every step of the games he plays seem like a grand adventure - and he even took the time to make Phenomena-themed bumpers. He goes in largely blind, save for a trial stream of the game a couple years before the main event, and he discovers every ending, S to H! The videos are available in the Highlights section of his channel, BardicBroadcasts, starting with the end of the video "Warrior Women on the Edge of Victory"; they're a great experience whether you're new to the title or it's one of your favorites. I'd love to see him tackle the PlayStation sequel someday, but I'm grateful for what we have. Hail to Connelly, slayer of the Children of the Great Father!
Before we start: the translations from me here cover the trilogy of interviews/first-person reflections the online magazine Beep21 released for Lunar: The Silver Star—the two-part personal history/reader Q&A from scriptwriter Kei Shigema; the interview with character designer Toshiyuki Kubooka; the article from composer Noriyuki Iwadare. After purchasing the special issue Beep21 released to commemorate the Mega Drive Mini 2, I learned that the Lunar interviews from Beep are far from over. Iwadare and Kubooka both have released another article, this time detailing their work on Eternal Blue, and there should eventually be a piece on EB from Shigema as well. (Evidently, material for each "issue" of Beep21 is posted piecemeal, as it's ready. The Iwadare EB piece is almost a month old, but the Kubooka piece was released last week.) There's also an extremely long two-part interview with former head of Game Arts Yoichi Miyaji, the second half of which is largely dedicated to the technical and system design of both TSS and EB.
However: Translating the three TSS interviews took up most all of the free time I had in an extremely busy October, and we have an obstacle to any further time monopolization in the form of a pressing translation project that I cannot neglect any longer: Jennifer's Clock Tower choose-your-own-adventure book. That translation has gone on way too long, drawn out beyond all reason, and I want to put it behind me and let everyone who's been so very patient finally off the hook. I was going to dedicate October to finishing it, but that didn't work out, due both to the discovery of the TSS interviews and me getting just slammed with work.
I'm going to therefore try to dedicate what time in November I have to getting the Clock Tower novel translation wrapped up. I'm going to try to make some progress on the additional Lunar interviews, but I'm planning on making Clock Tower the priority. Needless to say, the untranslated interviews deserve attention, too. We'll see how things go.
(Update: So far, though I've made progress on Clock Tower, I've also almost translated the Iwadare EB interview. I follow through on my plans so well.)
- Iwadare's bit is a good overview: it tells how he got the job, the tools he used on it, the challenges he faced, and a few vivid, illustrative anecdotes. It doesn't get into track-by-track specifics as the game music fan in me wishes he would, but it's efficient and effective for its relatively-brief length. Shigema speaks as a man who loves this material and still has a lot to tell. Despite the reservations I had toward certain opinions and attitudes Shigema expressed, it's a substantive piece with lots of affection for the franchise that I enjoyed reading. Kubooka, for all he talks, doesn't really say much; while he does go over the same beats as Iwadare about what he did (or didn't do as opposed to Shunji Suzuki, which evidently was substantial), there's shockingly little about the specific ideas he put into the characters. His memory and unfamiliarity with the gaming field detract a fair deal.
- I found Shigema's recounting of how he was able to have a conversation with Ghaleon in the course of trying to understand him genuinely sweet. Ghaleon's this force that's too strong and too much of himself for even his writers to comprehend fully or command. Yes. Excellent.
That Vittorio character they're introducing into Dead by Daylight is pretty obviously a younger Observer, isn't he?
If so, he certainly hasn't gotten wiser over the years. Why on earth did you lose that leather jacket, buddy.
GAILY SKIPPING THROUGH THE FIELDS IN FULL PLATE, TRA LA LA LA LA~
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