Japan's Secret Civil War & The Future of RPGs Hello. I'd first like to say, whoever made this program can suck my nuts. I understand it now, thanks to Foosh, but it's truly quite fucked. The list of people that I must punch upon introduction grows daily.

Ok, so I've noticed, in recent years of playing console video games, that Japan is at war with itself. How, you say? Fine question, wars are serious. But not this one...that is, it is and it isn't. This war threatens the once proud culture that gave us sushi, samurai, and a great language to imitate and joke around with. You see, homosexuality is a significant force in Japan. Well ok it's less of a force and more of an alien bodysnatcher. And unfortunately it seems to be the 'creative' heads of Japan's video game industry that have been possessed entirely. Games like Final Fantasy X, FFX-2, Dragon Quest VIII, and Shining Force Neo all have things in common: the main character is a bitch. This is even literally true for FFX-2, which stars a naive priestess turned singer (what?) on a quest to find her dead boyfriend so she can spread her legs for him. It's a quest to be a whore, and it mimics the struggle of a growing number of Japanese men, trying to express their inner woman (sexually). The trend has been visible for a while, you can tell this war has raged for some time. In FFVIII we find ourselves in control of the manic-depressed Squall, an attempt at a badass that fails completely in that you soon get the feeling he'd rather lie in a bathtub full of ice cubes while listening to Coldplay, than kill the evil force trying to kill the people unfortunate enough to be his friends. Even so, one can find the dark, bi-polar moodiness of our protagonist slightly intriguing. This is not the case for Shining Force Neo, where the main character is irredemable. After two years of military training, he returns home to find it in the greatest of perils. Does he tap the years of training? No, he instead has a tantrum when he visits his father, fails to grasp basic concepts in under five minutes (wait...oh NO! Those fire monsters are going to set the town on fire...the town is in danger!) Holy shit the voice acting for that game is so bad...it physically hurts. It's not funny bad...just really really bad.

Dragon Quest VIII isn't so bad, I guess, though I wish the main character would give a shit on occasion. His people are cursed, his king is an ungrateful midget that verbally abuses him, the priest that just joined the party is hitting on his woman, and in the past hour of play people have threatened to shank and torture him. He stared ahead blankly, with the look of slight concern a person gets when they think someone might have said something to them, but they were totally not listening. The only time he bats a fucking eye is when someone attacks him. Then he'll whip out the sword, get all serious looking (I doubt he ever knows what's going on), and kicks more ass than small pox. The only way I can play the game without losing my mind at the absurdity of it, is by pretending that the main character is really, really stoned. Constantly. Unless Japan gives U.S. gamers narcotics to take with their games, the world of RPGs could be witnessing its first Dark Age.  posted by issek @ 19:22