Excitable Boy
is a metaphor
they have plenty of real-world references in the Japan-based games, you just don't get them
they have plenty of real-world references in the Japan-based games, you just don't get them
It's how obvious they are that annoys me. I would appreciate more subtlety. If I "didn't get them," that's likely because they were much more subtle.
That's the point though; they aren't any more subtle, really. Things like Lumiose Tower/Eiffel Tower stand out a bit more because of how well known the Eiffel Tower is, but it's not really any less subtle than, say, Burned Tower/Kinkaku-ji or Tohjo Falls/Shiraito and Otodome. The region design itself is no more derivative of the real world location it's based on now than it was then, either.
that, and it's also a lot more noticeable when your buildings are all uniquely textured and modeled as opposed to being rearrangements of a few tilesets; if you ported, idk, Unova to the GameBoy, you'd lose a lot of the distinctness of it just from the graphical downgrade because every area looks pretty much the same to the point where it's much harder to pick out analogous landmarks or architecture and you're stuck with just references
That's my point though. Picking something more well-known is a whole lot less subtle than picking something that's more of a locally-known thing. I don't mind the real-world references existing, I just don't want to be blatantly in your face.
Even if that is the case, which I'll admit it is to a certain degree, but not entirely, it's not just the geography/architecture. It's also the culture. For example, in Kalos, every route has a secondary name that's in French, or in Alola everyone greets each other by saying Alola and calls each other cousin. Even Johto didn't have people saying konichiwa to you.
What's well known is a relative thing. To the western audience the references in earlier games felt more subtle, but I'd bet good money that they were pretty in-your-face to people more aware of Japanese culture. In both cases they're taking real world locations and making not very subtle use of them in the games; that one is more known on a multi-national scale and the other more on a national scale is semantics at best. The spirit of making very blatant use of real world locations is the exact same.
Excitable Boy made a really good point about the graphics playing a role in how in-your-face it all is too, though.
Wait... you're going to have to walk me through this part. When did giving a region its own identity (which would be similar to the identity its real world location has, as derivative work is wont to do) become a problem that they had to cut back on?
But there is a difference in how well-known said things are world-wide, and from an objective viewpoint, that's what matter more when judging how obvious it is. You could work in some extremely vague and obscure location into a game, and odds are that someone, somewhere will know exactly what it is. But to the rest of the world, it will be a subtle reference that would require actual research to figure out what it means.
Because that identity is full of annoying stereotypes and is extremely uncreative.
They are not vague or obscure. They might not been know world-wide... but everyone who knows a little bit more about Japan knows them. The point is that Japan is generally not well know compared to Paris for exemple.
And the salient point people are making to you in response is that if the regions based on Japan were not as referential to their real-world counterparts, then it was a close thing, and that you only believe the heavy French influence in Kalos to be "full of annoying stereotypes and is extremely uncreative" (it's not, on either count) because you're less familiar with Japanese geography and regional culture and more familiar with the French versions on both counts.
There are two different factors in play here. There's the geography/architecture, and there's the culture. Even if the less familiar argument works for the geography/architecture, can you really say it applies to the culture side of things? Kalos gave every route a secondary name in French, had numerous NPCs say French words, and more. Can you really say that there is any equivalent in the first four regions?
Route numbers are based on the fact that Japanese streets are numbered on the first place. So the whole thing with the routes is based on Japanese culture.
And remember: The games are designed for a Japanese audience. The original game is in Japanese. They DID use 'Konnichiwa' and 'Sayonara' in the first four regions. It was just the translation which removed this and translated it into English/German/French etc. So you could call it a translation/localization issue because in the Original Japanese version they did talk Japanese. How would you put random Japanese words in a Japanese game?
But yes. The whole culture of the first regions was based on Japanese culture. You just didn't noticed it or it was removed in translation.
Well, yeah. Of course they spoke Japanese in the Japanese version, and they used only French for the French version of X and Y. There's an obvious difference that I shouldn't even have to point out. They translated it out of those games, but not X and Y.
As far as the language goes, that makes perfect sense for the reason Thure already pointed out. When the games were focusing on regions based on Japan, everything was in Japanese, and there was nothing to emphasize; everything was Japanese in one game, and English in the other (except that one time Fantina was English in the Japanese games, and because you can't highlight someone speaking English in an English game, they made her French). But when a Japanese game highlights French/Hawaiian aspects, of course it will be easier for the localization to follow suit.
Because EVERYTHING was in Japanese. And the translators choose to translate everything.
Let's say a English game set in London... Everyone would say 'Hello' or 'Goodbye'. Know how would the Japanese translators translate it? Of course with 'Konnichiwa' and 'Sayonara'. Would this remove English culture? No. Because everything was in English of course the translators translated everything. It's a matter of perspective. The first Games were from a Japanese perspective.