she would not fucking say that

Haven’t gotten to Cynthia yet, but I’ve heard concerning things about her. And yeah the “two game versions” thing has been getting more annoying to me as time goes on, cuz why are you selling the same thing twice at full price when the differences between them are mostly just superficial lol

and also Pokemon Pearl was one of the very first games I owned without having to share with my sibling when I was like 6 years old or whatever, so it makes me kinda sad that the remake doesn’t meaningfully improve on it, or do it justice, or even do anything especially interesting in my opinion lol

it’s not that the original Diamond/Pearl were perfect, but much of their charm came from the fundamental fact that they were specifically DS games, if that makes sense. I feel like this remake being on the Switch in particular strips away the game’s core identity and leaves it feeling hollow and odd

been slowly inching through Shining Pearl, and like, I don’t want to sound like one of those people whose only hobby is being a relentless Pokemon hater, but the game really is convincing me even more that not every game needs a remake lol. it’s not a *horrible* game, it just feels… underwhelming?

completely finished with one class for the semester as of today. my power grows. Three more to go before I can evolve into my next form

yeaaaahhgg :)

Brown tabby cat with yellow eyes sitting in an almost-loaf and looking up, with her ears somewhat swiveled back

Cat with her face super close to the camera

Sage birthday, birthday of Sage. does she know that she’s existed for 2 years. she might know

Anyway yeah I’ve run out of words. Thank you again for sharing, I always like learning about different cultures and how other people think and stuff :) I also respect you!! hooray!! 👍👍

maybe that wasn’t fully connected to the previous thought, idk. what I mean to say is I’m sorry about the westerners who have been saying intentionally nasty things, I don’t know what’s wrong with them 💀 People on that site don’t know how to talk like a regular person, it’s just arguing all the time

twitter is where healthy discussion goes to die, too many people there are racist for no reason 💀 For the sake of maintaining faith in humanity I need to believe most people aren’t like that. I don’t use Twitter anymore unless I need to check something, since I hate seeing how much people suck lmao

and I did see a big post that said it’s “Japan vs. the world,” which probably isn’t a very productive way to frame it. Now that I think about it, it might kinda read like “we think you’re Uniquely Wrong about this, so you need to conform and homogenize with the rest of us,” which is… uncomfortable 💀

I did see various people on both ends saying stuff like “wow, guess our cultures are totally incompatible” which does make me sad, cuz I don’t think that’s a helpful conclusion to come to
:,) it’s not like we’re different species… we just gotta talk about it, we got plenty of common ground…

But yeah, from that perspective, our side might come across as lazy and entitled, huh. Maybe it seems like we just don’t care enough, even if we don’t actually feel that way, haha. I get it. I guess at least part of this “conflict” comes down to us tending to prioritize different things sometimes?

I respect your dedication in getting that Shantae game, that’s awesome 🫡 (I also like Shantae, only played two games but they were fun!) I wanted to say something else about this point but the vocabulary has left my brain 😔 uhh I just think fans who care a lot about the games they like are cool

The openness could come from a defiant feeling of “they weren’t making money off of this anyway, so if they take us down for legal reasons, it’d still make them look like villains, since in our view they have no logical justification for it, so everyone will be on our side,” maybe. But idk, shrugs

Yeah, it makes sense that the announcement being too public bothered people. Honestly, our side probably isn’t careful enough about stuff like this. (sometimes, people here are too bold even when it comes to things that aren’t as defensible.) The Japanese side is smarter to keep it quiet, lmao.

(I wanted to give you better replies here but I got weirdly socially anxious about it for no reason (not because of anything you said), which made it difficult to figure out how to word things properly. Still wanted to try to say something though, so I’m sorry if the following posts are messy lol)

こちらこそ、返信してくれてありがとうございます 🙂 (crossing my fingers hoping I didn’t somehow say that wrong. lol)
No worries, I’m not offended at all. I’m actually glad that you explained your side of things. I’ve been kinda confused about where Japanese fans were coming from, so you helped clear up some things for me :)

Sorry if I unnecessarily gave you too much weird stuff to read 💀 I hope I helped somehow though??

I’ve tired myself out and I have other things to do so I have to stop, lol. uhhh. closing note: have you heard about Cookie’s Bustle? It’s not exactly about piracy, but looking into that situation might help give a clearer idea about the feelings surrounding “game preservation” in particular, maybe

Stuff in this vein is so woven into our side of gaming culture that I was genuinely shocked to see so many JP fans react negatively to that mobile game fan revival, haha. I was like… huh??? this must be a mistake?? are we not all in agreement…???? GUYS ☹️????

So yeah, that fanmade private server made to revive that NieR gacha game is not the same thing, but it’s in a related sort of category in my eyes. It’s all just, fans unofficially taking things into their own hands for the sake of accessibility, since it’s not happening any other way

I think most of us generally prefer to own games legitimately though. Many people do still buy official rereleases/remakes even if they emulated the original. Gamers who *exclusively* play games thru piracy and never buy anything are rare (or at least I have never seen anyone like that, lol)

Extreme example, and it’s not always like that, but still. It’s common for popular + well-regarded older games to be priced uncomfortably high. It’s insane, why should anyone spend so much money on a GameCube or Wii or DS game?? 💀 So emulation is often the most logical option. しょうがない(?), kinda

Screenshot of the results that came up when I searched for Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Used versions of the game (and also an art book) are being sold at unreasonably high prices, from $249.99 to $999.99. Like… come on man lol

I wonder, are old and used games typically sold at a reasonable price in Japan? Because over here, uhh… haha. Highly dependent on the game. Want to buy Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the GameCube? That’ll probably cost anywhere from $200 to $1,000+!!! hope you don’t need food lol!!!

Most emulator players privately share their games and/or download game files they don’t own though, so uh. yeah, that’d make it piracy. but you didn’t hear that from me lmao 🧍‍♂️ anyway. Important to mention tho: emulation is *most* common for older games that aren’t sold officially anymore. (I think)

Specifically, using emulators to play console games has always been common—but also, technically it’s not *inherently* piracy? Emulators are legal, and iirc it’s legal to make back-ups(?) of games that you personally own, you just can’t share them around. (but I have no idea how that’s done lol)

In the online video game communities I’ve been around since I was a little kid, piracy (and stuff that’s kinda related to piracy) has been widely accepted as very normal. I almost wanted to call it an “open secret,” but that would imply it’s a secret at all. Nobody’s really subtle about it, lol.

I think people who claim that every instance of piracy is inherently “heroic” or 100% morally good *are* a loud vocal minority though, lol. I think piracy is usually viewed as morally neutral—or rather, many people might not think to articulate it in terms of morality? It’s just a Thing?