August 2015 - Page 2 of 5 - Samantha Lienhard

Don’t Boycott Fatal Frame V

Aug 242015

No box for us

This morning, I received an email from Nintendo that confirmed the rumored news–Fatal Frame V: Maiden of Black Water will be released in North America only through the eShop.

It comes out on October 22, with the start of the game available for free. After that, you can decide if you want to purchase the full game. It’s sort of a mixed demo/free-to-start method. It worked for Layton Brothers: Mystery Room, and I like its implementation here.

I expected fans to be displeased with the confirmation that Fatal Frame V is digital-only. What I didn’t expect was so many calls for a boycott of the game.

Four months ago, we rejoiced at the localization announcement. Until that Nintendo Direct, there were serious concerns we wouldn’t get the game at all. We’d sent tweets, letters, and petitions telling Nintendo that #WeWantFatalFrame.

After all that, we’re ready to abandon it just because we don’t get a physical copy?

Back when Dual Destinies, the fifth main-series Ace Attorney game, was released as a digital-only game, some fans wanted to boycott it. Their movement thankfully failed, but they accused those of us who bought and enjoyed Dual Destinies of ruining the future of Ace Attorney in the West. Hardly. If they succeeded, they might have doomed it.

The boycotters seemed to think if no one bought Dual Destinies from the eShop, Capcom would have said, “Hmm, we’re losing money on this game. Let’s spend even more money to release a physical copy!” No, a more realistic reaction would be, “Oh, it looks like there isn’t a market for Ace Attorney in the West after all.”

Fatal Frame hasn’t been released in North America in ten years. (Unless you count Spirit Camera, but that doesn’t help us.) Fatal Frame IV only came out in Japan, the second game’s remake came to Europe, and now Fatal Frame V is coming here.

We won’t get this, either.

Why does Europe get a retail release of Fatal Frame V (albeit a limited run only)? Because someone, whether it’s Koei Tecmo or Nintendo, has confidence in Europe’s Fatal Frame market. It got the Fatal Frame II remake, and it’s getting a physical copy of Fatal Frame V. Maybe it’s Koei Tecmo that’s unsure about the market here. Maybe it’s Nintendo of America.

But whoever it is, if Fatal Frame V sells poorly, they will attribute that failure to a lack of fans.

And then we might not get the next Fatal Frame game at all.

Like Koei Tecmo’s decision to not localize Dead or Alive Xtreme 3, there is no conspiracy theory here. Nintendo of America (or Koei Techmo) isn’t being mean. It’s being a company.

Petitions, letters, and tweets help. I believe companies like Capcom, Koei Tecmo, and Nintendo listen to their fans. You know what they listen to even more, though? Fans’ wallets.

The vote you cast with your wallet speaks louder than all the tweets you could ever send. That’s why some publishers have used Kickstarter as a measure of interest. When we go out there and say we want Dai Gyakuten Saiban or Fatal Frame V, we could be lying. Whether we buy it or not is what game companies really see.

Now, there are legitimate reasons to be upset about Fatal Frame V’s digital-exclusive nature. It’s almost 16 GB in size, which is massive when the Wii U is sold as an 8 GB basic model and a 32 GB deluxe model. So tell Nintendo you want a physical copy. Sign the petition.

But don’t boycott Fatal Frame V because it’s digital-only. You’ll only confirm the company’s decision to not spend money on a retail release, and you may doom the franchise’s future in North America. Agree? Disagree? Let me know your view on Fatal Frame V’s eShop-exclusive release in the comments below.

Enter the World of Yo-Kai Watch on November 6

Video games No Responses » Tagged with: rpg, yokai watch

Aug 212015

As announced back in April, Level-5’s hit 3DS game Yo-kai Watch is coming West. On Wednesday, Nintendo revealed the release date: November 6.

I’m pleased the release date isn’t far off, because I’ve been excited for a while about this one. An RPG with inspiration from Japanese mythology, created by the developer of some of my favorite games? Sign me up!

Yo-kai Watch became huge in Japan (it’s even getting a Just Dance game), and the franchise is coming West:

November 3 – the manga is launched
November 6 – the first game comes out for the 3DS
Fall (uncertain date) – the anime airs on Disney XD
January – toy line is introduced

We were worried Yo-kai Watch wouldn’t be localized, but it’s clear Level-5 hopes to take North America and Europe by storm. Yet despite all these plans, people still seem unclear about what Yo-kai Watch is.

It’s not a Pokémon clone. Here’s a helpful guide from someone who has played the Japanese games. Not all of the features mentioned are in the first game, but it should give you a better idea of the series’ style.

If that isn’t enough, why don’t we re-watch the Nintendo Treehouse footage?

Rather than a variation on Pokémon, it looks like a fun RPG in its own right. I’m looking forward to Yo-kai Watch. Are you? If you share my confidence, you can pre-order it before November.

And don’t forget to check out my horror story “Rokurokubi,” found in Wicked Words Quarterly, if you’d like a darker look at yokai.

The Challenge of Writing Comedy

Writing 19 Responses »

Aug 192015

In addition to horror and fantasy, I like to write humor. My novella The Accidental Zombie is a zombie comedy, I’ve recently begun work on a romantic comedy visual novel, and much of my fanfiction leans toward comedy.

Unless you’re Paul Lynde.
Paul Lynde can be sarcastic without saying a word.

Writing humor comes with unique challenges (as all genres do). Different types of humor are more easily achieved than others. For example, it’s very hard to convey sarcasm if you can’t hear the person’s tone of voice.

Slapstick is also difficult to show through prose. It’s possible, and a couple of the situations I portrayed in The Accidental Zombie veer into slapstick territory, but it just doesn’t achieve the same effect.

As far as I’m concerned, Terry Pratchett is the master of comedic prose. If I can achieve even a fraction of Terry Pratchett’s humor, I’ll be satisfied. Right behind him is Lemony Snicket.

When it comes to video games, Ace Attorney is at the top of my list.

But oddly enough for a writer and gamer who rarely mentions TV, some of my greatest comedy inspirations are TV shows. Old TV comedies, like Hogan’s Heroes and Green Acres. All different types of humor come together, often in truly absurd ways, to inspire me. These inspirations drift throughout my humorous stories as surely as Silent Hill and H.P. Lovecraft haunt my horror.

I hope those samples entertained you and gave you a little more insight into my comedy inspirations. There are many more than these, of course. They help the most, not in showing specific situations or techniques, but in giving me a general sense for how ridiculous situations can spiral into greater absurdity.

The Green Acres clip, for example, could have left the joke at Lisa trying to pronounce pH. Instead, it took it a step further by having Mr. Haney pronounce it the same way, and then had Mr. Kimball claim it as an official technical term. That’s just how Green Acres is. It can achieve heights of surreal absurdity that work just because… it’s Green Acres.

In the Hogan’s Heroes clip, on the other hand, Hogan and his men pull off an elaborate stunt only made possible because neither Schultz nor Klink (and later on, Burkhalter and the supply officer) will admit they don’t know what a “gonculator” is. That layers the humor with irony–it’s funny to watch them talk about this object as though they know what it is, and funnier because the audience knows there’s no such thing at all.

Humor can be handled in a variety of ways, and I’ve tried to incorporate multiple styles into my own writing. What are some of your favorite comedies and styles of humor?

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