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Author’s Note: I wrote this in thinking that January to March 1998 was the first three months that editorials were available until I found out that August to September 1997 was the first one. I decided to keep this in the original format and will complete August to September 1997 when I read all of them so this is Volume III instead of I.
One of the things that I wanted to do on this site to get the most out of it is try to read all of the editorials and fan fictions that has been submitted to the site since the site has been on the internet. I feel that by reading everything you can get your hands on gains you knowledge and information. I believe any kind of information will be power, and I hope to save the world one day by knowing who University of Nebraska’s leading rusher for a quarterback (Eric Crouch). In all seriousness, how does reading old editorials about game help you gain information or knowledge? I see reading old editorials as reading old newspapers. It gives you insight into what people care about back then and what they deemed worthy to write about in the past. Some of us still play the same games today, and we can remember what we or they knew back then and compare it to what we know now which is the future in essence (Square-Enix anybody?).
1998 may not seem a long time ago, but 6 years does make a difference, but people say that, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." In this period of time, the main issues were basically Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics. These were the first Final Fantasies released on the Playstation and two more would follow for Playstation, three for Playstation 2 with a fourth one coming soon, one for Game Boy Advance, one for Gamecube, and one for DVD along with other Final Fantasy 7 spinoffs coming. That is a lot really for a franchise. By reading the old editorials, I learned more about what people complained about back then or what they noticed. I will sum up what people basically argued about and insert my own 2004 opinion and hopefully in an editorial or a message on the forum, you will insert your own too.
At the beginning of 1998, people talked about Final Fantasy VII and the hot topic being written about was racial portrayal of Barret. Someone seem to brought up the idea that Barret was portrayed stereotypically and viewed in a negative light as he used some slang from ebonic speech. I have played through the game two times, and it has never occurred to me that Squaresoft (at that time) did cast Barret in such light by stereotyping him with the typical black slang and demeanor. Martin Haller makes a great point in his editorial, In Response to "A Defense of Barret", "... what would the Asian reaction to Yuffie have been if she said things like, "Herro, I wourd rike a rorripop." I wonder if a game with a character as Barret has any place in the politically-correct world we live in today. I can’t really claim that 1998 is less politically correct as I was only in 7th grade that time. Also, I wonder about the influence and the image that Barret gets in Japan,. The chances of a person meeting a black person is quite awfully low and if their first encounter is Barret through Final Fantasy VII, what message will they receive or the image of Black people in whole? For some more information, read Martin Haller’s editorial and basically any editorial that deals with Barret. There is a lot and I would think it continues over the year as I haven’t read anything past March.
Also, a mini source of contention is the ending of Final Fantasy. I won’t go into that and another thing is translating Final Fantasy. Some people took some jabs at reasons why companies should translate better. Zach Francks and Lindsay Tarver wrote a story or editorial, whatever you want to call it. They just filled it with examples of bad translation. Worth a read to see maybe that is what you would like to do to spice up the editorials. Final Fantasy Tactics simply sucked in terms of translation as everyone who has played 10 minutes of Final Fantasy Tactics knows. I wonder how much better could have it been if Squaresoft toke the time to translate?
People did have a right to complain about Final Fantasy Tactics, but some people were complaining about Final Fantasy VII such as “Off course” and such. I think you will have to leave a margin of error in a game as big as Final Fantasy VII. Truth be told, from what I see, translation errors still exist and I assume that it will always due to the translation of language. I am taking French right now, and I have come to terms that it won’t always translate perfectly or smoothly into English and vica versa. Now that more games are using voice acting in English, it is more glaring to have grammatical or translation error, I would think. Again, six years ago, very few games had voice acting like Lunar and Xenogears so those issues weren’t in consideration and Xenogears with its dreadfully long story managed to translate very efficiently if not perfect.
There were some issues about role playing, but that is ever a constant struggle. How do you define role playing (not the genre but the act of). There were a lot of rebuttals back then to the two issues I mention afore. On March 28, 1998, there were a lot of new topics and a rebuttal about how Final Fantasy VII became more science fiction like.
So, these are the topics of debate during January 1998 to March 1998. I hope that you learn and maybe be inspired to do some reading of your own or bring back issues from Final Fantasy VII from the dead (Not Aeris though). Maybe using old ideas, you could bring up points that were illustrated in old games and apply them to new games. As for me, August 1997 to September 1997 editorials awaits my viewing.
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