emio & nintendo fandom

2024/07/19

in my most recent youtube video about the early SONIC games, i emphasized just how unusual that series is for its identity warping to the whims of its players, mostly based on regional marketing and tie-in material. i briefly compared this to nintendo, who work hard to make sure their brand is consistent and that no non-standard interpretations of their series get past their authority, and the topic has only stuck with me as someone who thinks about these kinds of things a normal amount.

just a couple days ago nintendo revealed EMIO: THE SMILING MAN, a new entry in the FAMICOM DETECTIVE CLUB series, after putting out a mysterious teaser just last week. famicom detective club is possibly the best example of how nintendo, much like sega, are interpreted differently by region as well as how those gaps have shut over time -- if the name didn't give it away this adventure game series was exclusive to the famicom in japan, only being localized once the games were remade in 2021. because of their region exclusivity they're overlooked by international NES fans, and even now the switch releases haven't received much discussion past some "ah! that's neat!"s and "wow! what a deep cut"s that i've seen.

the new game, EMIO, was initially shadowed in mystique, with its teaser revealing no details except the character, tagline and age rating. the teaser was super effective in generating interest for what the game could be, a lot of people guessed it'd be some kind of first-person horror game and an unfortunate rumor circulated that bloober team were involved, but once it was revealed to be a new entry in a visual novel adventure series many folks expressed disappointment with a resounding "oh that's it?"

i won't be fooled by the algorithmically-boosted slop opinions of blue checkmark subscribers on twitter though, there is plenty of enthusiasm going against that sentiment of disappointment, but it seems like the consensus is just divided between visual novel fans, visual novel haters, and those who are willing to try anything nintendo puts out. kinda the usual for nintendo, i suppose, but this reveal is different just for how nintendo has tried to build up excitement through that teaser. if they just put this announcement in a nintendo direct, i bet the general reaction would be indifferent at best, ignorance for a less popular style of game as other news overshadows it.

not that i've played the famicom detective club games (yet) but i can't help but root for it when i see comments disappointed by how it's "just another visual novel" -- this notion that the market simply has TOO MANY visual novels and there's just SO MUCH anime, even though this series is the only one of its kind nintendo has published for the switch. it stems from the same growing hatred for "anime RPGs" and "cosy farming sims" that gets expressed every time a direct happens, and i'm afraid that whether people know it or not, they're perpetuating this arbitrary stigma against traditionally japanese games. the mystique of emio seems constructed by nintendo to combat this dismissive mindset, giving more exposure to the game than there would have been otherwise, and yet it still feels likely that nintendo fans will not play or even pay attention to this revival of a long-dormant intellectual property headed by metroid director yoshio sakamoto because it's a mere anime game.

this typical dismissal of a far-from-negligible part of nintendo's history is sadly common, originating in how the company had to push itself globally. the NES fanbase is significantly different from the famicom fanbase, despite much shared software, due to a large variety of factors. nintendo are good at translating and publishing every single one of their games nowadays on the switch, but historically their tendency to isolate high-quality titles from an international audience has been made obvious from series like MOTHER and fire emblem, japan-only peripherals like the satellaview, the infamous decision to keep super mario bros. 2 exclusive to japan and, of course, entire properties like famicom detective club. companies like nintendo have historically opted to make games for the japanese game market first and localise them later time and time again, but we now live in an age where the whole world gets something like a new famicom detective club simultaneously in a variety of languages.

where this becomes interesting to me is nintendo's online subscription service -- the one where you get access to a library of NES, SNES and gameboy games by default, for which the game selection is limited in a really unusual way. of course there's only so much that can be provided, but this library just gets summed up as being lackluster and weak when it really represents the variety each platform has to offer. there's a range of first-party masterpieces tossed in with unusual picks like ELIMINATOR BOAT DUEL from boutique re-release publisher PIKO INTERACTIVE. it's all a weird soup of stuff you would never think about otherwise, but it undeniably represents the variety of each platform.

where the service begins to make a lot more sense, though, is in its japanese regional variant. you would assume, with how good nintendo is with localising switch games and how they include a sporadic selection of untranslated japanese games on the english service, that every region includes every game, but this somehow isn't the case. upon making a secondary japanese switch account you're able to download the separate region-exclusive versions of each switch online app, all of which have their own unique game catalogs -- gone are the NIGHTSHADEs and JELLY BOYs of the english variant, instead you get region-exclusive heavy hitters like SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI and MOTHER 3. most region-exclusive games are understandably restricted for language reasons, but generally the libraries of the japanese switch online service are more consistent with japanese nintendo fandom.

i mean, i'm no pro on this, it's not like i was there, but i've seen enough GAMECENTER CX to at least realise the NSO famicom selection is consistent with what was popular over there. plenty of the third party games available are recognised as synonymous with the famicom or its era, like tecmo's SOLOMON'S KEY games or NINJA JAJAMARU KUN or even the notorious ATLANTIS NO NAZO, all of which are available on the NES online app too but feel far more consistent in a collection of famicom games. the dissonance of the NES variant is due to the lack of popularity many of these games had outside japan, so when most folks look at the lineup they just think "what? what is this? i've never heard of any of these", a fault of nintendo's for apparently considering the japanese retro game crowd first and foremost. this is sorta made up for by more recently including notable N64 games by rareware, whose work is infectiously popular with american nintendo fans, but that's largely due to the N64 only having like three games in its catalog anyway.

for some of the more close-minded fans of nintendo, the types that were easily disappointed by EMIO, this is a massive issue. i'm a longtime viewer of jabroni mike, who i found through vinesauce, and while i don't Really have a problem with how he streams he frequently says stuff i wholeheartedly disagree with. he often expresses that kind of close-mindedness in regards to the game industry, and in a recent stream where he played some games on the NSO library he only shat on it, complaining about low framerates in hardware-accurate emulation and the fact this service is costing him -- gasp! -- $20 a year. i could accept many of his complaints as valid but he said one thing that's sorta the reason i'm writing this article to begin with, something so weirdly dismissive and pessimistic that it really kinda encapsulates the way a lot of fans think of these games:

"why is nintendo so proud of their failures?"

this was said in reference to THE MYSTERIOUS MURASAME CASTLE, one of the several formerly japan-only famicom games released on english NSO, and whether it's a legitimate expression of distaste or simply an exaggerated form of disinterest, it's a needlessly hateful sentiment that i disagree with on basically every level. i guess i sound kinda petty isolating this one streamer's off-hand comment, but it's so spiteful and for what??

another different mike, of the matei variety, recently complained on a stream about the new zelda being a "baby game for pussies" in a thinly-veiled misogynist rant resulting from his weird blind nostalgia for the NES, expressing how he envisioned the zelda series as something more dark with religious imagery akin to DIABLO(???) and not uh. a fantasy game by a toy company. mike matei worked on the angry video game nerd with james rolfe, a massively influential web show that basically set the template for every youtube game reviewer since, so for someone with this much impact on the fandom it's troubling to hear something so narrow-minded and yet not at all surprising. if you showed die-hard NES fan mike matei a copy of NAKAYAMA MIHO NO TOKIMEKI HIGH SCHOOL, the famicom adventure game directed by yoshio sakamoto in collaboration with square's hironobu sakaguchi, he would turn to dust.

essentially, in summary, i'm sick of this weird hostility towards certain japanese games from people who are literally fans of other japanese games. it's unbelievable how hatefulness can impact entire generations of people into thinking that certain types of game are objectively bad while not even trying to touch them. if you like to play games, just play more games and see how you feel about them, dummy.