Typical...

(image from Kotaku.com)

And people wonder why Japanese gamers don't play online.

Translation:
"You stupid JAP cheater. I wonder if you're angry because your dick is small? Do you remember HIROSHIMA and NAGASAKI? We can do that again. Sneaky, stupid dickhead..."

Some analysis:
The Japanese in the note itself looks like the product of an introductory college-level Japanese class combined with "butch speak" picked up from watching too many episodes of Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, and Bleach.

There is some discussion going around about whether or not the messages is faked, but I'm fairly certain it is not, judging from both grammatical (early Japanese courses teach 'node' as 'because' - despite its lack of use in non-formal settings like this; interchanging wa and ha, etc.) and content (overuse of penis terms) point of view - it looks like someone has a bit too much time on his hands and wanted to rage. Said person just happened to be a Bleachtard.

Well, here's a news flash. This whole "play together over the Internet" thing? It wasn't always like that. In a lot of ways, multiplayer this generation has deteriorated. As much as I loathe the Wii's friend codes with a passion, it is nice to not receive hateful messages every time a match or game doesn't go in my opponent's favor. I grew up in the arcade renaissance of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat - very competitive games. But I never - EVER - heard people talking trash the way they do now. People would challenge each other to matches, certainly, but that's about it. Even TEAM games have fellow team members yelling into their mics, name-calling, and trash talking their own teammates.

In Japanese arcades, people were too intimidated to play next to the opponent they were challenging in a fighting game. That's why they organize their candy cabs back-to-back, with only one set of controls on each side...this way the winner continues playing and the loser doesn't have to deal with facing the one that beat them.

I suppose the term "GAIJIN SMASH" would apply. Someone from the West thinking he's hot shit by talking down to a Japanese player. I suppose the worst part of the whole thing is the Japanese gamer on the receiving end of this rant probably has no idea how often this type of thing happens when western gamers play online against each other. Honestly, it's rather sickening.

E-CREDDDDDD!!!!

Yoichi Wada has responded to a tweet I made to his account about FF13. ^.^

Apparently my Japanese was semi-readable! YAY!

Abandoning The Hype Train

Final Fantasy XIII released on Tuesday morning at 12:01AM this week. And I was at Gamestop an hour earlier eagerly awaiting the countdown.

After bringing the game home and playing the first few hours - the exact same set of sequences composing the Japanese demo and a lot of the footage used for reviews - I came to a stunning conclusion. For the first time, in years, I'm playing a game where I absolutely, positively, 100% have NO IDEA what's going to happen next. And that, especially for a game as story-based as this one, is a VERY good thing.

I made an effort to avoid internet posts that spoil the game (something I usually don't manage to do with a series that is notorious for long localization periods - I always end up stumbling into SOMETHING). Being careful was absolutely worth the effort.

Stig Asmussen, the God of War III director, made a good point in an interview with Kotaku, in that he said the reason why he doesn't want people feeling like they've played his game before they've actually played his game. And there's some truth to that. In recent years I've gotten so worked up over releases that I'd salivate over any new nugget of information about a game's characters, locales, enemies, and gameplay. In this age - the internet age - it's not difficult to find what you're looking for. Always - without fail - after getting the game home and popping it in, I was fatigued after little more than an hour. I didn't realize at the time that the reason for this fatigue, this desire to NOT play the game I've been looking forward to for so long, was not because I'm simply growing out of games. It was due to overexposure. Hype fatigue. Knowing too much is a BAD thing.

People complain consistently about spoiling things. And I believe there's some truth to it. Major plot points hurt story-based games. Gameplay discussion can hurt action-based games. It's far too easy to get information on the internet, and there's always some dickwad who got it early that would be more than happy to tell you everything in an unassuming forum post (the equivalent to driving by a line outside a bookstore yelling "SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE!!!1!111!"). There is a reason to be careful. And although a victim myself for unrelated reasons, I suppose NeoGAF's itchy trigger finger on the banhammer is itchy for good reason.

Will have a review of the game up soon...