You Play What You Eat

2009-10-07T00:58:00.000-07:00

It is said sushi chefs must work for 10 years in order to get good enough for all the qualities good sushis must have. Arguing over sushi is a national pastime in Japan. For food so simple to prepare, it has become both the most gourmet and the most snack-like. We literally eat them like chips with our bare hands over here. But sometimes you can argue about an hour about one piece of sushi that costs a hundred dollars. Very simple and yet hopelessly complex.

Similarly, "easy to learn, hard to master" is a rule many employ in games, but i'd argue it's an angle admired by no culture rigidly as theirs. Japan has a reputation for game design where what other people see as snacks, we see as gourmet. Simple mechanics can have deeper gameplay than a complex Civilization-style game or an MMO. In other places, the idea seems hard to swallow, but here, not only is it taken for granted, but its one of the defining traits of Japanese design. Trying and appraising sushi is all about being both open-minded and close-minded with a balance, and so are these games: Virtua Fighter, Pikmin, Super Mario, Dragon Quest, Puyo Puyo and Sonic.

Food helps define a culture, as well as the way Japos think about games. Another example is nabe, a filling snack where people gather around a boiling pot of broth and throw random things inside. From mushrooms to roots, octopus and sugar sweets, clear noodles and spongy cakes, it varies depending on the taste of the people and where they live. Nabe is even often often the basis of sumo diets. Sound odd? The whole point is to have fun with different combinations. Sometimes people even appoint one person as a master of ceremonies to judge what goes and what stays out. Wario Ware, Dark Cloud 2, Disgaea, Katamari Damacy, Harvest Moon and Smash Bros, are great examples of hopelessly random nabe games that aspire to be everywhere at once with the gamer as master of ceremonies. Still, they have a tendency to make your stomach ache burst until you take an extended break.

Add sugar to rice and put it in a large wooden bucket. Now smash it with a hammer as hard as you can. The ultra-sweet Japanese candy known as mochi is violently slaughtered rice made to look cute and colorful. This is a sign the Japanese are willing to combine the hair-raising and the adorable. Mochi is often thrown into meals where it doesn't belong and over powers the taste of other foods. Advance Wars, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter and Viewtiful Joe are examples of mochi-games: demonically twisted violence under a sugary exterior.

Soba noodle shops are one of the most distinctive forms of Japanese fast food. Go in, get served piping hot buckwheat noodles with various garnishes, like fried tofu, egg or tempura, eat standing up in 3-7 minutes, go out. Quickly slurping in vast quantities gets your tongue used to the boiling heat; it's the same tug-of-war developers play with gamers. Gaming is significantly more expensive in Japan. Rentals are outlawed and demos are rare. Much as soba is great when you're pressed in time, so is panic gaming. Shops post re-sell dates by which if you sell the game it will be at its maximum price. Japanese rush to see everything by this date. Many Japanese developers and gamers have an extreme fondness for the concept of speed runs, whether RPG, strategy or patformer. Trying to make a game that thwarts panic-gaming, but accomodates speed runs is one of the most delicate and obvious balancing acts you can see in many kinds of Japanese game, if you pay attention. Past alumni include Ninja Gaiden, Metroid, Contra, Gradius, Zelda and Phantasy Star.

Yaki-imo is basically baked potatoes. A vendor wanders the streets at the turn of the season, yelling "Yakiiiiiii Imooooo!" If it didn't have such a pleasant seasonal association, it would be annoying. Some developers work on this principle, making games to be released at a specific time of the year.

Early springs sees Koei's historical strategy games and Banpresto's Super Robot Wars mech SRPGs. The end of summer sees the annual King of Fighters installment and Konami's baseball-themed big-headed Powerful Pro titles, which might include anything from fighting dragons to snowball fights. And finally, winter brings another train board game based on the Momotaro fairy tale. As with yaki-imo, the timing is everything.

Hyper-Atomik

You Play What You Eat