so I’m out an about with my friends here in japan and while i was visiting Fukuoka for vacation i came across a copy of arcana heart for (i shit you not) 20 bucks. i grab a copy real quick because i liked the game in the arcade and i always wanted a chance to learn more about it and as soon as my friends see what i got all hell broke lose!
my friends start tearin into me callin me okama (gay) boy, hen na hito (strange guy), skebe (pervert), and askin me if i like little girls or if i have a Lolita complex. pretty much every nasty name you can call a guy. all these guys are fuckin psycho addicted to just about any fighting game they can get their hands on and we play em all, but until that day i had not noticed that there is anyone in japan who hates on cutie girl fighters.
of course they where just teasin me with the taunts but they where quite serious about their negative opinion of arcana heart. i asked them why they hate the game so much and they said that the game is very good and technically outstanding but for them, this kind of art direction doesn’t help the progression of the next group of fighting games out there. one of my friends even said, only american guys like games like arcana and DOA.
according to them when games like arcana become popular then the next group of guys who make a fighting game will follow the popular ones lead. basically they (and many other fighting game fans in japan) don’t want their games to have little kids n shit in them. they also said that japan has a long history of perverted older otaku men who attack young women and offer school girls money for sex. so to them, this kind of game caters to those kinds of fucks. they fear that it also encourages these kinds of assholes too.
i was shocked to hear all of that because i thought the “if its good, then I’m gonna play it” was the attitude of all serious fighting game players. but i was wrong.
in the end i don’t give a flyin fuck what anyone else thinks about any of the choices i make in my life and ma boys know that too. so i told em to fuck off and i got my copy of AH and i enjoy the fuck outta the game. I’m playin it by myself, but it is damn fun anyway.
I’m just shocked to hear an opinion that is different in japan as it is quite rare.
i totally agree with their concerns about the game catering to the wrong kinds of people, that shits got ta stop. but seeing as I’m not feeling the urge to go out and rape little kids, i still love the game.
No wonder I lost all my chest hair and grew some bubz since I touched Arcana last year. It’s the curse! The bubz curse man! I gotta to play some Hokuto no Ken to fix this problem…
i asked them that very question and when i did they asked me how many people do i see playing AH in the arcades nowadays. i was like, ya know what there arnt many people playing them. another friend said that AH and games like it are also not the type he wants to play around his girlfriend or female friends either.
in japan its a big turn off for the ladies when they see their man playing a game with an intro as gay as AHs and maaaaaan, don’t even get me started on the AH arcade stick.
as i said before i don’t care what other people think and also to me, its not important that many or a few people wonder about the negative impact of games like this, but i do hope game makers are thinking about it.
even if AH was pure shit, the Japanese otaku community would have bought it up like hot cakes. that says something.
Thats a good point, and this is an interesting post. The games must be at least some what popular in Japan, because they kinda keep pumping em out.
I would also like to know how broad of an opinion it is, I’ve never touched Arcana and honestly I’m not really into the whole vibe. Though it must still be a pretty technically sound game because a bunch of people seem to play it.
But really, the overall issue is that I really hope that there can be much more diversity in overall artstyles for more fighters. Because, I love games like HnK, KOF and etc, while I also love more “non traditional” stuff like GG, Monster, IaMP and Akatsuki. It’s this kind of variety that I wish we could see more of…hopefully BASARA X can help lead the way.
Ewww… Enjoy Arcana Heart alone… Sounds creepy… What’s next? “attack young women and offer school girls money for sex”!!!
Seriously I can’t even play Arcana alone in the arcade!!! (You can ask someAZdude or Shinto for proves) It just don’t feel right:looney::looney::looney:
Meh, it’s common for any human to like or dislike Arcana Heart…
thats why AH is so strange. usually all girl fighters are not even made to be good. the makers of the games don’t have to worry about how good the game plays cause as long as the girls have big tits and are half naked and represent as many sexual fetishes there are they will sell very well regardless.
they will all sell well because the guys who these type of games (in japan) are made for are only buying them for those sexual things. its like those date Sim games that are popular here, they sell just as good as any other games on the shelves.
so AH is strange to me and my friends because it not only dose the half naked sexy little kid stuff but it is also one of the most awesome games to play in recent memory.
the company that made the game wanted both types of players, i guess it was their back up plan in case one group decided they didn’t like the game.
Arcana is in a wierd position and its probably always going to be there. The little girls turn people off, for a number of reasons, but if you get past that it is a very well designed game and the Arcana system is one of the best new innovations in the fighting game world. What other game has 11 variations of each character.
the game is suffering and not recieving the respect it would/could and should have because of the character design.