Romance in the air
I talk about game collecting
Hello everyone. A lot has happened lately and I’ve plenty to talk about. Today, I’d like to share a bit about game collecting, and a story with it. I adore art styles, and print design. Aside from gaming, if you’re also interested in east Asian languages, read on. I hope my story doesn’t bore you.
I’ve been doing a bit of research on collecting Switch games lately. I stumbled upon a small YouTube channel that shared information about buying games online, and how to check the game case if it’s a first print run. But what caught my eye was one of the videos showing a spreadsheet listing out games on different platforms, with release dates, genres, publishers, games collected in total, etc. Of course, it’s also for games that want to collect but haven’t yet. That was a great way to organize stuff. I realized I don’t even remember how many games I’ve owned. I’ll be sure to doing similar, and also, it’s time to try using LibreOffice.
But one caveat here is that I don’t want to collect games mindlessly. I want to remind myself: don’t collect games for the sake of collecting. I will have to like it, and play it. I’ll also give myself a little bit of homework by writing a blog post about it. We’ll see.
The Lunar New Year is around the corner, and everywhere I go, I am bombarded with advertisements. While on the metro, ads for Nintendo were playing repeatedly. They started to advertise before Christmas, and it looks like it will never stop. The new game Fire Emblem: Engage is amongst one of the ads. This reminds me of their previous title. I mention this because there was a little story about a game’s logo on the cover art.
When the game Fire Emblem: Three Houses was released, I went to a local store to buy it. While I was about to complete my purchase and leave, I took a look at the cover, it was in English. “How come it’s in English? What about the traditional Chinese (TC) one?”, I asked. “The TC version is out of stock. But it’s the same thing. Only the cover art will be different. You can choose multiple languages in the game, even in Korean if you wish.”, the staff reassured me twice. “No. It’s important to me. It has to be that cover.”, I answered in a very firm tone. They then offered me a refund.
Because of localization, games that are published in the West usually have a different title than in the original language. Fire Emblem: Three Houses, nothing wrong about it, but the “three houses” is just too literal. And its “original” Japanese title, which has a completely different meaning than the English version. It has a poetic name 火焰紋章：風花雪月, and the Kanji characters are identical as in TC.
Wind, Flower, Snow, and Moon
風花雪月
The literal meaning of 風花雪月—“wind, flower, snow, and moon”—doesn’t make sense in English. However, the combination of words creates a scene in the mind—like a phrase in a piece of poetry. Not only its meaning but also the forms and strokes of those characters make it beautiful. It’s an idiom from ancient Chinese, can be interpreted as “talking about trees, flowers, the scenery, romance, and stuff—subjects aren’t that important, but establish a pleasant conversation.” More or less, it can also mean “bullshitting elegantly without anyone noticing and bringing it to another level.” Interpret as you will. Because of the differences in our languages, quite some meaning were Lost in Translation (2003).
I’m a very stubborn person. The logo printed on the cover has to match the game. If it is a western RPG, the cover has to be in English, vice versa. It’s the same as watching a movie; I’ll never watch a dubbed version, only the original voice acting. I’d rather read the subtitles. I refused to buy a game because its cover art was not to my liking. Tell me I’m not a weirdo, am I?
I think I’m being influenced by the people on Mastodon. I’m slowly changing my taste and mindset towards a lot of things, like playing games that set in retro style, and I’m now more concerned about online privacy. I’ve been trying to avoid new and flashy games, but instead, look for some hidden gems that I missed out on.
I recount this because I also want this blog becomes a place where only small topics are discussed except when they’re not. We have a saying “只談風花雪月” which means exactly that.
This post is kind of long, but I still has a lot to say. Maybe in another posts. In the meantime, I’m trying to hunt down some games before the new year. Wish me luck.
This is #Day92 of #100DaysToOffload.
Footnotes
- On the back side of the case, there’s a barcode at the bottom with a series of numbers above it. If the last character is “A”, the print run is the first; if it’s “B”, the second, and so on. Unfortunately, games that are published in Asia are a different story. Not to mention that many online shops only ship to the United States or Canada. I wonder why our government always advertises Hong Kong as a “international“ city. Even on the official Nintendo HK website, where they also have an office set up here, they still do not ship to my area. ↩︎
- I wish to play Japanese-styled games in TC because the Chinese translation is more accurate to the original copy. It is one of the traits that I hardly have: play games in Chinese, English, or even Japanese whenever the mood strikes. ↩︎