Power Up 122
cafeman writes "This was a really hard review to write. It's been a long time since I've read a book that was so fascinating on the first reading and yet raised so many questions on the second and third. Books on the history of gaming are relatively few -- Joystick Nation, High Score, Game Over, Masters of Doom and The Ultimate History of Video Games, the major works on the topic, all focus on the West. Finding out more about the history of gaming in Japan is harder. Suffice to say that if you're interested in game trivia, Japanese console gaming industry history, or the Eastern cultural drivers behind game design and communication, you owe it to yourself to get Power Up. Why was the book so frustrating? That's an interesting question, one that I've since put a lot of thought into. Much to the annoyance of my wife, I might add." Read on for the rest of cafeman's review.
| Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life | |
| author | Chris Kohler |
| pages | 312 |
| publisher | Brady Games |
| rating | 8 |
| reviewer | Cafeman |
| ISBN | 0744004241 |
| summary | An overview of the influence Japanese video games have had on the global industry. |
This book is packed with information. For a book of only around 300 pages, Chris Kohler does an amazing job of maintaining the information flow without making it too dense. Unfortunately, this is the book's biggest weakness -- he does such a good job of including so much interesting information, his principal thesis gets lost.
The premise of the book appears pretty simple. Chris Kohler believes that Japanese video games have had a greater influence on Western game design, game promotion, and culture than previously recognized. He asks and tries to answer three questions (in his words):
- What makes video games designed in Japan so phenomenally popular all over the world?
- How did the Japanese pioneer cinematic techniques in video games, raising the medium to an art form?
- How have these ideas so completely permeated the gaming world, not to mention our mainstream psyche?
To answer these questions, Chris identifies four key factors that distinguished Japanese game development -- the use of narrative, character abstraction, cinematic sequences, and control. To demonstrate the first three, he draws on specific arcade and console examples from the late '70s and early '80s to contrast Western design against Eastern. From there, he explores the relationship between (and complexities of) control and immersion by examining hardware development and the storytelling to provide context within games. He uses Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto's use of industrial and game design to illustrate the importance of control in the immersive game play experience.
After establishing the core concepts of narrative, character abstraction, cinematic sequences, and control, Chris turns to the use of storytelling to create fully developed characters that stimulate emotional responses within the player. To do so, he examines the development of characters and storylines within some of the most famous Japanese RPGs over time, focusing mainly on the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series. He also examines music as yet another control mechanism, looking specifically at the history and development of Gitaroo-Man, Parappa the Rappa, and Dance Dance Revolution (all games based on rhythm and music).
To complete the story, Chris then turns to the practical experiences of Westerners Dylan Cuthbert and Giles Goddard in developing the hardware and games for a Japanese games company. The hardware in question was the SuperFX chip, the game Star Fox, and the company Nintendo. By drawing on specific challenges and successes within the project, he highlights the Japanese focus on fun game play and control refinement.
From here, Chris branches off into a collection of tangents describing Japanese gaming culture. He spends a chapter touring Akihabara. He also describes the mentality and business behind Japanese games collectors, ranging from government regulation about when particular games can be released through how to Japan handles games and video rentals. He also examines the perennially popular topic of game translation, including (of course) reference to AYBABTU. More interestingly, he also examines the difficulties of translating language within hardware constraints. He describes a number of case studies showing how some cultural concepts couldn't be translated, how some weren't allowed to be translated, and how some were just badly translated (with unintentional hilarity, much in the same vein as Engrish).
Chris then uses Pokémon, one of the most famous / infamous games to have come out of Japan, to revisit how Japanese games have pervaded the Western psyche. He uses Pokémon as a way of tieing together his arguments into a single example, demonstrating quite powerfully the importance the four key factors had in the creation of a game that appeals to multiple cultures. And, by doing so, he illustrates the influence some Japanese games have had on the world as well as their continuing popularity.
His final chapter forms a more speculative foray into what the future holds for Japanese game design, and by proxy, for the world. He discusses ICO, Blood Omen, and Eternal Darkness, and highlights the continued movement toward fully developed, multidimensional narrative through the use of adult subject matter and emotional connection. His epilogue then ties off the book with a recap of his main points and lays out a number of (briefly described) further research directions and thoughts, such as "How much control is too much?", "Is the Japanese games industry due for a shake-out?", and "Are East-West collaborations the answer?". And, with some reflective thoughts, he ends the book.
Enough of the synopsis; Chris Kohler clearly has a passionate interest in the subject matter. There's no doubt that he's spent lots of time researching the material or that he's highly interested in it. His love of the topic clearly shines through - regardless of whether he's talking about an interview he conducted or a random piece of trivia about the industry, his prose remains engaging, light, and most importantly, clear. His background is in writing reviews, articles, and editorial pieces for publications including Nintendo Official Magazine UK and Wired, and it shows -- he's very clearly used to writing to maintain reader interest.
His knowledge of trivia is also strong -- there are some real gems in this book. For example, I often wondered why Nintendo never marketed their Famicom Disk System outside of Japan. In exploring the challenges of extending the Nintendo's hardware lifecycle, Chris points out the importance of being able to upgrade the console through technology embedded in the cartridges. Rather than having to buy a new console, memory and processor upgrades could be packaged into the cartridge itself, effectively bundling the upgrades with the game. Nintendo realized pretty quickly after releasing the Famicom Disk System that it could offer neither, and so discontinued it at approximately the same time Super Mario 3 was released. Also interesting (but possibly controversial) was that the name "Final Fantasy" came not from Square's belief that it was their final chance at success, but because the head developer, Sakaguchi, planned on quitting Square after finishing it and going back to school. It was thus his "Final Fantasy". The book is peppered with interesting insights like this, and even ignoring his analysis, make purchasing the book worthwhile.
However, not all is roses. Chris's writing, while engaging, is also unfocussed. It's taken my writing this review to clarify exactly what I felt was his chain of logic. While that may be a commentary on my own interpretative abilities, other people who have read his book seem to agree with me. It took me three readings and copious notes to work out what the connecting threads were between chapters, and in turn, between his examples and the main elements of his thesis. Bluntly, the dots are there, but he fails to connect them effectively.
Chris also fails to completely prove the questions he asks at the start of his work. He develops a strong case for Japanese innovation during the early period of video games, but he doesn't do nearly as good a job applying that argument to the present. Despite a chapter devoted to Pokémon (and its success in Western culture), he fails to build a general case on how Japanese games have influenced Western game design, development, and psyche outside of a few specific examples. These normally involve Western developers who have moved over to Japan specifically to work with Nintendo, or games from Nintendo itself.
And that, in a nutshell, sums up where Chris appears to be coming from. His experiences and anecdotes focus around Nintendo almost exclusively, even to the extent of ignoring other Japanese gaming developments which could have further supported his thesis. Discussion of Dragon Quest I, one of the first attempts at an RPG for the Nintendo Famicom System, goes on for many pages. However, Final Fantasy VII, a Japanese game that arguably made the fantasy RPG mainstream in the West, gets only a page of high-level discussion. For the uninitiated, Dragon Quest was released on the Nintendo Famicom system, while Final Fantasy VII was released on the Sony PlayStation. The Nintendo offering gets all the focus.
In short, if it doesn't have to do with Nintendo, it apparently isn't important. Game companies such as Konami, Namco, and Sega are given cursory acknowledgements. Despite an entire chapter devoted to Japanese RPGs, Phantasy Star (another enduring Japanese RPG that introduced first person navigation on the Sega Master System) never even rates a mention, despite being released a year after the original Final Fantasy. One could argue that he largely ignored it because it was released by Sega, a company founded by an American in Japan. However, given that he spends an entire chapter devoted to two Gaijin in Japan, this seems a little inconsistent.
More problematically, his argument (as opposed to his book) only works if one ignores the rest of the world. While this isn't the time or place to fully explore this, his focus on Japan (and consoles specifically) has meant ignoring key developments. For example, he goes into great detail about character development and the use of narrative elements within Japanese RPGs, but completely ignores what was happening in the West in the years preceding them. The Bard's Tale, Wizardry, and more importantly, Ultima, are all completely ignored. While he makes quite a strong case for Japanese innovation during the early years of game development through games such as Donkey Kong and Super Mario World, he completely ignores all further development and refinement taking place in the U.S. This is especially strange when one considers that he has recently written about such games as Psychonauts and appears to have a reasonable knowledge of US and PC gaming history. While his position that Japanese game design influenced global design in the late '70s is plausible, there's a great deal of evidence to suggest that by the mid '80s the opposite was true and that the U.S. was exploring new designs in gaming in their own right, including introducing some interesting party management complexities. Strangely, while this position is actually hinted at through his quotes from Japanese developers, it is ignored. This is unfortunate, as from a historical perspective, it arguably attributes too much credit to Japanese design.
The book, overall, reads as the first book publication by a person used to writing articles of under a few thousand words -- it's punchy, interesting, and full of facts, but it wanders. That could be because of his past, or it could be because of editorial input. Chris freely admits that the book stems from the dissertation he wrote as part of his Fulbright Fellowship in Japan. It's quite possible that the first draft may have been too academic, and in trying to appeal to a more general audience, his publisher encouraged him to add additional background and "fun facts" about the industry. Either way, the book lacks focus. From an interpretative perspective, its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness -- the sheer volume of interesting information distracts from the main threads of his argument. This lack of focus is painfully obvious in the second half of the book - it reads as a collection of unrelated essays.
Despite these reservations, I really enjoyed this book. While the main thesis of the book is hard to follow, it's still an interesting read with lots of trivia, history, and context. Chris clearly has a love of Japanese culture, and there's a dearth of books on this subject matter that treat it seriously. As a reader, I'm looking forward to Chris's next literary work -- based on this book, I'm already digging up his previous works, and I'll be first in line to buy his next. Facts are one thing, but passion is another, and he's definitely got both. My wife, despite not being interested in games in the slightest, has been taking his book to read on the train to work. I know it doesn't sound like much, but in my house, that's a major compliment. If I could recommend anything for the next work, it would be to get some other like-minded people with a good sense of gaming history to assist with the editing process. It would also be interesting to focus on game design and enjoyment with the intention of integrating both East and West design developments.
Every review needs a rating, no matter how illogical or unfair. If you're looking for something that provides some history around the Japanese gaming industry, gives a lot of very interesting facts, and entertains while doing so, I'd give this book an eight, possibly even a nine out of ten. As an academic work, looking at defining and developing an argument based on logic, research, and balanced discussion, I'd have to give it four out of ten. His argument is there (regardless of whether you agree with it or not), as are the supporting facts, but they're so lost in the noise as to be hidden. On a more editorial note, his thesis, while starting strong, grows progressively weaker due to a selective focus on Japan exclusively. While I recognize that this selective focus was intentional, I feel that it undermines his arguments due the breadth of his statements about the influence of Japanese design on the West. Even so, I'd highly recommend the book, and I can guarantee I'll be pre-ordering his next when it's published.
You can purchase Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Re:Which is worse? (Score:1)
Re:Which is worse? (Score:1)
Re:Which is worse? (Score:1)
Re:Which is worse? (Score:1)
Re:Which is worse? (Score:2)
6. Posting a message about the dumbness of reading the review about the book about these stupid games.
m-
Mmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
See, there is just time-wasting discussion surrounding video games. That's one thing that is quite arguably not valuable. System advocacy arguments, chatting about some game.
But really trying to analyze the social impact of video games and the mechanisms through which video games function in society is not only relevant and important (video games have had quite an impact on us, and are consuming an increasing amount of human time, eating away from the previously-more-inf
Re:Pokemon? (Score:5, Funny)
"If you don't clean your room, all you're getting for your birthday is pokemon gifts!"
Re:Pokemon? (Score:2)
Or mebby Snow.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Pokemon? (Score:1, Informative)
Pokemon Ripoff of Magic (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pokemon Ripoff of Magic (Score:2)
Yes, the impressive thing about Pokemon was how it managed to combine so many addictive elements into one product: Cute animals, collectable card games, RPG video games, anime, plush dolls.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Pokemon Ripoff of Magic (Score:2)
Evidence? Just because it came shortly before doesn't mean it had any influence. The creators of M:TG may have been entirely unaware of its existence.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Pokemon Ripoff of Magic (Score:2)
When people start arguing about Pokemon ripping off Magic or vice versa, I have to laugh. It's like arguing if one is a "trekkie" or "trekker". Either way, you're still a big geek, and so am I.
I never caught the Magic bug, but I still have boxes of my old D&D stuff, so I guess I have to laugh at myself too. "No! You can't make a saving throw against petrification of the basilisk because of its +5 sneak stare attack!" LOL
Re:Pokemon Ripoff of Magic (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pokemon Ripoff of Magic (Score:1)
Hmm, that may explain the unnatural rise of:
Magic rip-off of TopTrumps? (Score:2)
Sounds like an "I am earlier than thou!" war to me...ank
Re:Magic rip-off of TopTrumps? (Score:2)
Re:Pokemon Ripoff of Magic (Score:2, Insightful)
You're not differentiating. Pokemon the Video Game and Cartoon series has influential marks on America all over, especially on younger children. Pokemon the CARD game was actually developed BY Wizards of the Coast, the same people that did Magic: The Gathering. It was a move to make money. Businesses tend to do that. So really, Pokemon DID influence America (Yu-Gi-Oh games, anyone?).
This doesn't even take into account that Square was originally a company in Japan that started by making a COLLECTIBLE
Re:Pokemon Ripoff of Magic (Score:2)
Pokemon the CARD game was actually developed BY Wizards of the Coast,
No, WotC only translated/distributed the game (created/developed by some Japanese company) for a few years. It is distributed by someone else now.
Pokemon DID influence America (Yu-Gi-Oh games, anyone?).
I don't know what you're trying to say here, but Yu-Gi-Oh is not an American game. It is a CCG that was originally developed in Japan.
Hmmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:1)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:1, Troll)
[mod me Troll]
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Joystick? Bah! (Score:4, Funny)
In my day we had a single left-right knob, and we LIKED it!
The video game industry peaked with Pong. All else since has been over-decorated frippery.
DG
Re:Joystick? Bah! (Score:2)
Re:Joystick? Bah! (Score:2, Funny)
You were lucky to have a knob! When I was a kid, we used to play Pong by havin' our father shine a flashlight in our eyes while our mother whacked us across the forehead with a belt. Then we'd have to hold up our hands and move them up and down, chasing the white spots burned into our retinas.
But try tell that to the kids of today - they won't believe ya.
With apologies to Grampa Simpson (Score:1)
Re:With apologies to Grampa Simpson (Score:1)
-Eric
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Hmmm. Atari and the insistence on a one-button joystick (at least until the Atari 5200 came out). Steve Jobs began his career working at Atari. Jobs has the Macintosh designed with a one-button mouse; a tradition that officially carried on until this week's release of *Mighty Mouse*. Connection? You decide.
Seriously, why does everyone forget about Nolan Bushnell like they do with Dre?
2600? What about the Jaguar (Score:1)
That's when they got it right [computercloset.org]!
Re:Hmmm... (Score:1)
You should check out the rest of the Controller Family Tree [axess.com] (sorry, Mr. Sock Master) it's pretty neat.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
And Atari games sucked compared to Intellivision games.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Narrative is the weakest point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Narrative is the weakest point (Score:1)
The comics were great
Re:Narrative is the weakest point (Score:1)
Re:Narrative is the weakest point (Score:1)
Re:Narrative is the weakest point (Score:2)
The same is true of manga and anime, where nothing is ever definitively resolved nor plotlines clearly delineated
That is just completely untrue of shit tons of anime. It's true that the "edgy" anime (Like Lain or Evangelion) which tends to make an impact amongst the US fanbase is often abstract, but a lot of anime is just straightforward story telling. Given that a lot of anime's are constrained to 13 or 26 episodes, things are "definitively resolved" far more often than in US TV series, which mostly
Re:Narrative is the weakest point (Score:2)
I would strongly disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Japanese film and games focus far more on the situation and the characters than the events and the resolution. They are al
Re:I would strongly disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, Japanese story telling focuses on character development, but it's never from anything to anything. It's all situational. As such it conforms to Japanese ideals like kibun tenkan (submersing the self to fit the situation). It's excellent for a culture that prioritizes conformity, but quite frustrating for people from cultures that stress individuality. Thus, as a person who grew up in the latter, Japanese story telling, by and large, is unsat
Re:I would strongly disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Narrative is the weakest point (Score:1)
A good example of the kind of combination you speak of is the set of western-written Dirty Pair comics, which were excellent.
I've seen some of the Japanese Dirty Pair anime with the same characters, and while the visual and other stylistic aspects are equivalent, considerations of motivation and plot seem to be lacking.
I think one of the reasons the Final Fantasy movie didn't work for Westerners was that the plot and motivational aspects had a Japanese flavor while the rest (visuals, design, etc) leaned
If nothing else (Score:1)
In the immortal word of strong bad email. (Score:1)
All these reviews are always 20 pages long. Reviews tell us if a book is good or bad, then tell us why, not list off the Entire contents of the book in large detail.
Ok now, about the book. If any industry has an interesting history, it's deffinatly the gaming industry. You could make volumes of books like this man. This is probably an interesting read, but the way this review is written i just got tired half way through.
Re:In the immortal word of strong bad email. (Score:1)
Re:In the immortal word of strong bad email. (Score:1)
Your buddy Chris (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Your buddy Chris (Score:2)
Re:Your buddy Chris (Score:1)
Re:Your buddy Chris (Score:2)
Re:Your buddy Chris (Score:2)
Re:Your buddy Chris (Score:2)
Re:Your buddy Chris (Score:1)
You know, I guess you are right. Now that I think about it, I refer to complete strangers by their first names too. Why, just the other day I called up 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and asked to talk to George. Funny thing though, the
Re:Your buddy Chris (Score:2)
Pants on Fire (Score:1, Troll)
"Much to the annoyance of my wife,..."
Is this the wife who is always away on modeling assignments? The one you met at a truth telling contest 3 towns down?
Japanese Gaming Aesthetic (Score:3, Interesting)
Somehow the cultural meme has sprung up in Japan that places relative importance on illustration, and it bears fruit in the gaming, anime, manga, and toy industries. Interesting to contemplate how a society could consciously create other micro-cultures for competitive advantage.
Re:Japanese Gaming Aesthetic (Score:2)
Jack Vance wrote a book about that in 1958, The Languages of Pao [wikipedia.org] in which various parts of a planet's people were changed into great merchants, warriors, technicians and so on simply by being raised in a culture with a language designed to instill the appropriate mindsets. Not one of Vance's best, but still well worth reading.
Re:Japanese Gaming Aesthetic (Score:1)
"Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it." - P.J. O'Rourke
Re:Japanese Gaming Aesthetic (Score:2)
Not really. It's not significantly more prevalent to doodle on things than it is here though what they doodle may be different, and the kids that get really into it are about as socially outcast as the "weird art kids" here. It's actually a bit nerdier of a thing to do all th
Re:Japanese Gaming Aesthetic (Score:2)
Re:Hey cafeman (Score:2)
You said it yourself. Phantasy Star, an inferior game to Final Fantasy in most ways, was released after Final Fantasy was. Whoopee, first-person dungeon crawling - hardly worth the mention.
My point wasn't so much to do with quality of game design, it had more to do with the Nintendo-centric focus of the book. Phantasy Star was no less story driven than most of the other RPGs mentioned in that time-frame in the book, yet it wasn't mentioned (even in passing). I just found it a strange omission.
The fac
be a better writer (Score:2)
Re:be a better writer (Score:1)
Because the part that suffices does so in virtue of being a response to the problem presented before.
Re:be a better writer (Score:2)
I disagree. The "suffice" sentence stands nicely on its own, the preceding sentences add pointless bloat.
-kgj
Re:be a better writer (Score:2)
A front-page post deserves to be nitpicked, when written by a nitwit. Slashdot has editors for this purpose. Not very good editors, perhaps, but editors nonetheless. It's the business of editors to make sure that their flagship publication is free of nits. That's the very definition of good writing in a good publication: it doesn't itch with nits.
Individual posts withing a thread, I don't give a damn. But if a writer is g
Could it be? (Score:1)
Fuzzy little fictional characters targeted at children that re-release themselves under new names every 6 months?
Perhaps.
Power Up? (Score:1)
Physician, heal thyself (Score:2)
The West is more than the US. There's a fine tradition of game design from Scandinavia, for exam
Re:Physician, heal thyself (Score:2)
MIDI Maze on the Atari ST. First 1st-person shooter/networkable game.
Non AtariST-ians might recall its repacked/rebranded name of "Faceball 2000" on the various consoles a few years later.
Dungeon Master was huge on the AtariST.
Re:Physician, heal thyself (Score:2)
Believe it or not, the first cut I did was actually longer and dealt with some of those issues. I didn't refer specifically to Captain Blood, but I did refer to European gaming development. Unfortunately, I somehow dropped that during editing.
Having said that, I don't know how narrative driven European game development was during that time period. For example, Populous was an excellent game technically and innovatively, but I'd argue it didn't do much to advance anything that Chris Kohler was talking ab
Re:Physician, heal thyself (Score:2)
Interesting, thanks for the reply.
Populous wasn't narrative-driven, it's true. However
Re:Physician, heal thyself (Score:2)
However, I could point towards Another World and Flashback on the Amiga.
Very good point - my only rebuttal would be that Another World came out in about 1991, which is a bit too far down the track (relatively speaking) to be used to demonstrate pioneering use of narrative. Captain Blood, on the other hand, is a far better example, having been released in 1988.
I'm sure there's more examples, it's just that like I said, I don't have a good enough recall of specifically European developed games to be able
Re:Physician, heal thyself (Score:1)
If you exclude the GREAT Infocom games, and exclude my Atari 800XL from PC then I agree.
Frankly, after writing BASIC games out of ANTIC & other mags that looked better than the NES crap, I was dissapointed in the graphics on consoles for quite a few years. I do have some fond memories of a Sub Sim on my old 286 that was pretty good. Oh yeah lest we forget CGA
*Game Over* was over rated (Score:4, Informative)
The best parts of "Game Over," IMHO, were cribbed from the earlier work entitled "Zap - the Rise and Fall of Atari" by Scott Cohen. At the time of the release of "Game Over," "Zap" had been out-of-print for several years. To my knowledge, its back in print by a different publisher. Fascinating work.
There's also a great work on the late Steve Ross, chairman of Warner Communications, acquirer of Atari Inc., forerunning champion of multimedia integration, and architect of the Time-Warner merger. Its called *Master of the Game*, by Connie Bruck. It has some great insight into Ross and his views on Atari and the early videogame industry too.
Re:Hi Mom (Score:1)
It sounds like the author's reading into it a little too much and making his own dots to connect. I would say he's an idiot, but the review well written otherwise. I guess he's just fucking crazy.