Post by harlock on Jul 25, 2005 4:19:48 GMT -5
I just got the book "Power+Up: how japanese video games gave the world an extra life", and I have to say that I am very disappointed.
It's starts off well enough, providing some very good insight on the visual story-telling aspects of early japanese games. Although Kohler (the author) raves non-stop on Shigeru Miyamoto, the Mario creators works are well contrasted by references to other japanese and american works. Also they provide a clear portrait of how a game series can evolve from one generation of game system to the next.
It's in the section on RPGs about half way through the book that Kohler just totally loses me. Even this chapter starts out promising, mentioning the merger between Enix and Square, and then briefly chronicling the history of Yuji Horii's DragonQuest series.
Then he mentions Final Fantasy and things go completely down hill from there. Now I'm not saying that the Final Fantasy games are "unimportant" or that they are unworthy of mention. I think that they play a very important role in the story of how japanese video games changed gaming around the world... But this guy goes into full on FanBoy mode and doesn't stop for something like 50 pages! He's all Final Fantasy this and Final Fantasy that. I mean, come on FF2 is really not that great of a game, and half these games never even got released outside of asia until they were rereleased on PS1, at which point they were hardly revolutionary! Not only does he go completely overboard on his FF kick, he religates other extremely important japanese RPG makers and series, such as GameArts Lunar games to name just one, to barely more than a footnote.
I had to stop reading at this point, I made it all the way through the chapter on game music and just couldn't stand it anymore. Maybe the book will get better in its final chapters. I'll start reading again tomorrow.
But for now, anybody else have any opinions on this?
*sorry about the long post, just had to vent
*
It's starts off well enough, providing some very good insight on the visual story-telling aspects of early japanese games. Although Kohler (the author) raves non-stop on Shigeru Miyamoto, the Mario creators works are well contrasted by references to other japanese and american works. Also they provide a clear portrait of how a game series can evolve from one generation of game system to the next.
It's in the section on RPGs about half way through the book that Kohler just totally loses me. Even this chapter starts out promising, mentioning the merger between Enix and Square, and then briefly chronicling the history of Yuji Horii's DragonQuest series.
Then he mentions Final Fantasy and things go completely down hill from there. Now I'm not saying that the Final Fantasy games are "unimportant" or that they are unworthy of mention. I think that they play a very important role in the story of how japanese video games changed gaming around the world... But this guy goes into full on FanBoy mode and doesn't stop for something like 50 pages! He's all Final Fantasy this and Final Fantasy that. I mean, come on FF2 is really not that great of a game, and half these games never even got released outside of asia until they were rereleased on PS1, at which point they were hardly revolutionary! Not only does he go completely overboard on his FF kick, he religates other extremely important japanese RPG makers and series, such as GameArts Lunar games to name just one, to barely more than a footnote.
I had to stop reading at this point, I made it all the way through the chapter on game music and just couldn't stand it anymore. Maybe the book will get better in its final chapters. I'll start reading again tomorrow.
But for now, anybody else have any opinions on this?
*sorry about the long post, just had to vent
*
