The more I play and fall in love with old, nonlinear Japanese RPGs like Linda Cube, Oreshika, and Gunparade March over the past decade, the more I've come to realize that the only reason RPGs from Japan have a reputation abroad for just railroading people from one plot point to the next is because so many of these open-ended, systems-first games that did make a genuine splash in Japan among devs there never got localized. And, as with dating sims and so much else with Japanese games, if it didn't get localized, it might as well not be a part of the genre's history and identify as far as mainstream global discourse is concerned. 🤷
Anyway, your weekly reminder that little, if any, of the commercial localization process is rooted purely on a game's creative merits and if you want a complete picture of the breadth and scope of any genre's evolution, you can't count on translated releases alone to be reliable Cliff Notes. Just because the unlocalized stuff might be invisible abroad doesn't mean it was at all to the people making the stuff lucky enough to make the jump, that's for damn sure.
Reminder that when one of these non-linear JRPGs did get localized (SaGa Frontier) it was absolutely savaged by critics (and a lot of players) who hated that it wasn’t linear progression like FF7. Granted, Frontier in its initial release had Problems, but still!
Linkie https://gofund.me/edcced5a
Okay so. In case you didn't know, Outsider has a 100% you need to wear a mask policy, which means we also provide free masks to anyone who comes in.
Last year, Costco was like, hey COVID is Over!!! we're discontinuing masks forever!!! which really fucking sucks but it also means I was able to buy half a pallet of masks for an Extremely Low Price. That half a pallet lasted a LONG time but it is still finite so unfortunately we're running real low. Like, we'll run out by mid-October low.
And with the way The Economy (tm) is going right now spending a week's rent on masks is just... not a thing we can do right now. I mean, okay, yes, we can do it. It just means more debt.
I'd really like to avoid more debt.
So anyway, if you like the fact that our shop is 100% masked and you want to help us keep that going, I would super appreciate your support! <3
"Is Count Von Count A Himbo" - the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after ONE page of heated debate, ah ah ah. TWO pages of heated debate, ah ah ah....