Zero Punctuation: Yakuza 4

orangecharger

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Nov 13, 2009
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A1 said:
orangecharger said:
Bwahahahaa -- nice opening loved it! "Japanese are into some crazy shit!" right after a heartfelt balanced statement over the recent tragedy -- ah Yahtzee you cheeky bastard -- Another good quote "sumptuous fruit basket for your fist" -- Milk. Nose. Mess. I wasn't going to buy this game anyways - having watched the earlier Escapist review -- but now I am definitely not. I don't want to read the bottom of my tv for the sake of "realism". Realism where I am a kung fu god single handling kicking the ass off of everyone as long as I am in the right place to do it. Pshhhfft. Meh.
It's not about "realism" as few if any video games are truly realistic, it's about authenticity. When a game takes place in Japan it's only logical that the people actually speak Japanese.

And Kung Fu is Chinese, not Japanese.
Wow thanks for that. So a game that's not realistic (as few games are) needs to be authentic? Well that makes sense, when it's actually a game and I am waggling thumb sticks. Surely the game would have been ruined to have the English option. Don't mistake authenticity for cheaping out on additional voice acting... Technically, if you want the experience to be authentic there shouldn't be subtitles... I don't believe subtitles pop under folks in Tokyo while they are talking. I guess you are taking exception to the my use of the word "realism" and instead prefer authenticity -- for me and for the purpose of what I was saying the two could be interchangeable.

An on the Kung Fu thing being Chinese. You best get on Yahtzee for that -- check out 01:22 of the video. That's what he called it.

Edit: http://thesaurus.com/browse/realism

Main Entry: realism
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: authenticity
Synonyms: naturalness, reality, truth, verisimilitude, verism, verity
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition
Copyright © 2011 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source
 

PixelJunk

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Jun 28, 2010
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Needed more imps but other than that it was a great review. I see why he did the statement in the beginning. It probably saved him a lot of trouble from having to respond to whatever "politically correct" wingbat pops out from under the nearest rock and proceeds to defecate on his jokes. Basically a CMA. It sucks that you had to do it Yahtzee.... You were probably forced to or something.
 

Bureaucromancer

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Jan 28, 2010
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jack583 said:
"constable blimy chips"
hate to say it, but i'd play that.
I was just going to ask if I was the only one who thought that sounded like an awesome game... Something along the lines of an open world game of the Rivers of London books maybe.
 

raankh

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Nov 28, 2007
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redbeta22 said:
Why are Japanese games full of weird reaction noises? Wah? Huh? I've always thought they were there because of the translation from Japanese to English, but if they're in the Japanese VO as well? Could somebody explain?
I think it's both a question of culture and language. In Japanese, you often leave out the subject of a sentence, in particular if you are the subject yourself. Japanese people are encouraged (or stimulated if you prefer a more technical term) to be reserved in public-- in Finland, really in all of northern Scandinavia, they have a very similar cultural stimuli. Northern dialects of Swedish and Finnish, and to some extent Norweigan, also have many empty interjections-- but together with subject omission it actually says alot more than you might think. Japanese is spoken in a very context-sensitive way, as are many dialects in northern Scandinavia. They have in common that they sometimes omit entire sentence structures for a few words, often ended by a single morpheme (a "noise").

However, many of the weird reaction noises are also a matter of style. The style in Japanese games, comics and the weird "live action anime" film genre have some pretty strong stereotypes-- all the empty interjections and incessant "boku wa~~" aren't how most adult Japanese people speak....

But, hey, do YOU speak like a video-game character?
 

SinisterGehe

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May 19, 2009
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zombie711 said:
does anyone get a "God hand" vibe from this game.

PS what is a hostess club?
Cute.
It is a club in to which you go in, pay yourself broke in order to get a girl to sit next to you, drink with you, sing karaoke or what ever you consider as entertainment. Rules are simple, youa re not allowed to touch the girls, they just sit next to you, flirt with you and so on. And they get paid well! Specially if they fit to the clients desires.
 

zombie711

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Aug 17, 2009
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SinisterGehe said:
zombie711 said:
does anyone get a "God hand" vibe from this game.

PS what is a hostess club?
Cute.
It is a club in to which you go in, pay yourself broke in order to get a girl to sit next to you, drink with you, sing karaoke or what ever you consider as entertainment. Rules are simple, youa re not allowed to touch the girls, they just sit next to you, flirt with you and so on. And they get paid well! Specially if they fit to the clients desires.
that sounds Kinda stupid.
 

KingofallCosmos

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Nov 15, 2010
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Everyone wanting to try Yakuza can just start with 3, as it's a lot smoother than the first two. The story there is awesome, but not necessary to follow the events. Hell, part of the fun is half the time you don't know what's going on just look at those cute yakuza's acting all tough.. Ow and there's something immensely hysterical about clapping and yelling to bad kareoke songs.
 

Rainforce

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Apr 20, 2009
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Celtic_Kerr said:
German Yahtzee? I think I died when heard that.

Fantastic episode as always!
Being german myself, I probably missed it, but what part are you reffering to/talking about?
 

solidstatemind

Digital Oracle
Nov 9, 2008
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I can't believe that we've had 93 comments, and not one person mentioned the balls-shaped opening on the Guillotine...

That was the funniest part to me, but then I usually like the visual aspect of ZP as much as his rants.
 

mjc0961

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Nov 30, 2009
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Okay, so, who wants to take bets on how long it takes the Yakuza 4 character noise remixes to start showing up on YouTube?

Nurb said:
I don't see why you had to have a disclaimer when commenting on a culture's seemingly odd interests doesn't imply you want horrible things to happen to them.
Because some people out there are dumb and will go "HEY YOU SHOULDN'T MAKE FUN OF THE JAPANESE THEY JUST WENT THROUGH A TRAGEDY YOU ARE A MONSTER!" or some nonsense if you don't give a disclaimer.
 

powercall

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Jun 21, 2008
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how would that have offended me if that pointless intro hadnt appeared? Its Zero punctuation for gods sake! even then ive almost completely forgotten about the whole earthquake tsunami thing. But if it stops people from complaining I guess it couldnt hurt.
 

A1

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Jul 9, 2009
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orangecharger said:
A1 said:
orangecharger said:
Bwahahahaa -- nice opening loved it! "Japanese are into some crazy shit!" right after a heartfelt balanced statement over the recent tragedy -- ah Yahtzee you cheeky bastard -- Another good quote "sumptuous fruit basket for your fist" -- Milk. Nose. Mess. I wasn't going to buy this game anyways - having watched the earlier Escapist review -- but now I am definitely not. I don't want to read the bottom of my tv for the sake of "realism". Realism where I am a kung fu god single handling kicking the ass off of everyone as long as I am in the right place to do it. Pshhhfft. Meh.
It's not about "realism" as few if any video games are truly realistic, it's about authenticity. When a game takes place in Japan it's only logical that the people actually speak Japanese.

And Kung Fu is Chinese, not Japanese.
Wow thanks for that. So a game that's not realistic (as few games are) needs to be authentic? Well that makes sense, when it's actually a game and I am waggling thumb sticks. Surely the game would have been ruined to have the English option. Don't mistake authenticity for cheaping out on additional voice acting... Technically, if you want the experience to be authentic there shouldn't be subtitles... I don't believe subtitles pop under folks in Tokyo while they are talking. I guess you are taking exception to the my use of the word "realism" and instead prefer authenticity -- for me and for the purpose of what I was saying the two could be interchangeable.

An on the Kung Fu thing being Chinese. You best get on Yahtzee for that -- check out 01:22 of the video. That's what he called it.

Edit: http://thesaurus.com/browse/realism

Main Entry: realism
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: authenticity
Synonyms: naturalness, reality, truth, verisimilitude, verism, verity
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition
Copyright © 2011 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source
About authenticity and realism, well that's fair enough. The two are similar.

But the thing is I never said that the game wasn't realistic, just not truly realistic. As in not 100% realistic. The thing is it's not just a matter of being realistic or not realistic. There are differing degrees of realism and authenticity. And striving for a degree of realism and authenticity in a game is certainly not a shameful thing as it can make the game more relatable and believable, or at the very least more interesting. And the Yakuza series is certainly big on authenticity. Yahtzee after all did comment on the large amount of Japanese culture found in Yakuza 4.

And there doesn't seem to be any way of knowing for sure what the designers intentions were in just including Japanese audio: whether it was for cheapness or authenticity or both. And I do acknowledge that "both" is a distinct possibility. What I do know is that the decision to dub the first game in english made people unhappy because it made the game less believable.

And no matter which way you cut it, it is more logical for a game that takes place in Japan and has a realistic inclusion of elements of Japanese culture (even if the game as a whole is not ENTIRELY realistic) to have actual Japanese audio as opposed to English.

And as for the Kung Fu thing, yes Yahtzee did indeed make that mistake. But with all due respect so did you.
 

Aptspire

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Mar 13, 2008
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Good review (what's wrong with Visual Novels, Yahtzee?) :p
also, I wonder what he'll review next week/in 2 weeks
hmmmmmmmmmmm...
;)