Easy Allies

That Twitter back and forth on Zelda is really curious. I have no idea what's going on there. It looks like it's completely bugged out for one person but fine for another?

EDIT: Oh, looks like there's something off with the guy who replied, so original screenshot probably still stands. Hoping Nintendo actually pays attention and fixes that.

I'm not trying to mean this as a dig against anyone, but personally, it's really weird when people say they don't know where to go. You have a map that fills out as you explore. The map rooms mark sections in purple that lead to new regions, and the map does such a good job of marking items, blocks, etc. I feel like except for a few points near the end, finding the path forward is pretty much always as simple as going to places you haven't been yet on the map. Maybe I'm just so entrenched in the language of how these games work, but I did a full 100% run without ever feeling stuck. Whereas with say, Axiom Verge 2, there were a couple things I had to look up, and even when I did, I was like, "well I never would have figured that out on my own."

@dipset I want to say that we judged those games separately, but the only thing I really remember is that Super Mario Galaxy got a unanimous vote. One of the shortest GOTY debates ever.

I joined in 2007 along with Patrick Morales. Damiani and Brooks Huber were 2008.

@demonpirate I know you’re joking, but it isn’t the quickest way to get us to participate, it’s the quickest way to a ban. Only small children misbehave for attention.

@El-Shmiablo @Bigdude1 Ben gave you both a warning, and you kept it going. Giving you a 3-day ban to cool down.

I don't care if you do or don't like Metroid. Obviously that is totally fine, but this agitated bickering is derailing any meaningful conversation and making it harder for others to earnestly participate. This is your warning.

@kibblebits Alexander Zyryanov has continued to do captions on all the reviews. He just has to send me the files to upload rather than editing them directly on YouTube.

I've also purposely limited caption submissions to scripted videos both because they're shorter and because I have the direct scripts to give to whoever's doing them and to compare afterwards. When things are more conversational, it's hard to pick up exactly what everyone's saying, people may be speaking at the same time, and the videos tend to be much longer in general. So even if someone else is doing the subtitles, it becomes a huge time-sink just to review them to make sure they're correct.

Alexander's got the reviews down to a science, doing English and Russian subtitles, but if there's another language you can help with or if you think there are more scripted vids out there that you'd like to do subtitles for, just let me know.

Yea, that was definitely a bad look not acknowledging Min Min's Chinese representation, but don't place any of the blame on the Patron who asked the question. The reason this even happened was partially due to me not reading the Patron question correctly (I subbed their use of "will we see more Black/Brown skin characters from Nintendo" with "will we see more minority characters") as the question was originally asking for a lack of a certain type of representation in Nintendo/Smash. I subbed in "minority" as shorthand for the question on-the-fly without realizing what I had done, and sadly did not catch that I had misrepresented the question and Min Min. I was so focused on making the point about lack of a certain type of representation that I fell into this pitfall of saying something that devalues one type of minority over another. This wasn't the intent, but it still illustrates a problem you and others rightfully called out. More representation in general is a good thing, and we should have praised and addressed the importance of the inclusion of Min Min rather than being so focused on Black/Brown representation.

As for the nuance in how Japan deals with racism for your first point, I get their is a history there as you explained with their position and philosophy. However, I will say ignorance is no excuse, even when it comes to Nintendo/Japan/other countries. Nintendo/Japan is absolutely aware of racism and the specific racism we bring up against Black/Brown skin people, and NCL is ABSOLUTELY made aware of issues by Nintendo of America (and other Nintendo subsidiaries), we have documented instances of them impacting game development as a result of input from them about how games will be viewed outside of Japan. This goes beyond merely localization changes for regional versions in some instances, such as changes that are on the Japanese level, too (see Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore only being based on the original's Western version, for all territories the Switch port released in). Also the recent removal of Mr. Game and Watch's offensive imagery related to racist depictions of Native Americans. The point is that people need to keep holding these companies accountable and educate them. Obviously anyone can be ignorant of something, but once that's brought to light and you are shown why a viewpoint is considered offensive, what you do next matters the most. If you don't change and respect the views of others, it shows your prejudice and unwillingness to change and thus are deserving of the backlash coming your way. If you change for the better and show compassion and understanding, that is deserving of praise.

So my apologies for the poor handling of our discussion on Min Min. I hope the rest of the conversation proved more productive and useful towards arguing for the better representation of marginalized groups, as that was the only true goal I had for the topic.

Edit: Want to also add that it probably was also a big miss to not celebrate Min Min's Chinese heritage from the perspective of an American because it would be a positive counter to the racist rhetoric utilized by idiots in this country when referencing the current coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic which has caused undue backlash and hardship for Chinese-Americans and nationals.