Welcome to Burning Books.
I'm Caleb, and I want to help you love video games even more than you already do.
It's a tall order, I understand. You love video games a lot. I know. but for someone as short as I am, I welcome any challenge
that makes me feel tall.
Today I'm continuing my mission to review all of the Boss Fight Books releases.
There's a link to BossFightBooks.com below in case you are not familiar with this publisher.
The short version: they publish books about video games, with each book being an in-depth
exploration of a single game.
Such a proposition scratches all of my nerdy itches.
Today's book: Chrono Trigger by Michael P. Williams.
I've never played Chrono Trigger.
But I loved this book.
What?
How is that possible?
Awww. Thanks question feeding cam.
You're a great conversationalist.
No. Thank you.
It's true.
I've never played Chrono Trigger outside a few short sessions during my youth.
Then again, all play
sessions that involve me are short...remember, I'm short. I said that earlier.
But those sessions were so short and so long ago that
memories have congealed with every other 16-bit RPG of my youth.
Chrono Trigger may as well be Secret of Mana may as well be Final Fantasy VI may as well
be Illusion of Gaia.
And I actually believe that it's the obligation of the reviewer to be familiar with the source
material when reviewing a piece of criticism.
In other words, I should have played Chrono Trigger before reviewing a book called Chrono
Trigger.
But I also think it's a fun exercise to see what I can get from the criticism while being
willfully ignorant.
So I'm having fun here.
So, knowing that, how was I able to love this book, and possibly the video game, without
much knowledge of the video game?
Aww, thanks again question feeding cam.
On your way back, can you remind the viewer to subscribe to this channel so they
don't miss any future Boss Fight Books reviews?
That was mean.
The short answer to how I can love a game I've never played is that this book is academic.
It's more academic than any of the other three Boss Fight Books I've read and reviewed so
far.
As the author carries us through the plot of the game, he embraces opportunities to
explore things that aren't unique to this particular video game.
For example, during an observation about the characters being homogenous in terms of skin
color, Williams digs into the history of race representation from both a cultural standpoint
and from a technical standpoint.
So, both from the perspective of a single-color monorace representing the "default human"
and from the perspective that maybe mid-90s software limitations simply prevented skin color
variety (the later perspective is one that the author quickly debunks by reminding us
that Earthbound, released one year earlier, contained human characters of different colors,
so software can't be the only limitation here).
This chapter in question, called "Straight? White? Male?"
can actually be read as a stand-alone essay; the context of Chrono Trigger isn't
actually important.
Rather, Chrono Trigger is the catalyst.
And while this sort of commentary could veer into a simple critique on sexism and race--a
critique that's important, of course, don't get me wrong--it doesn't veer that way.
It instead gives us additional context; an aesthetic commonly called "nationalitylessness"
which is an attempt to remove the "cultural odor" of Japan from international products.
I'm not going to attempt to explain this idea here as I will surely misspeak on it.
Michael P. Williams lived and taught in Japan, so just know that he handles this potential
difficult conversation with the appropriate respectfulness.
Throughout the book, the author repeats this technique of using the game as a jumping off
point to discuss larger issues.
Another great example is the chapter titled "Neuga, Ziena, Zieber, Zom" which talks about
the difficulties with translating games.
He also talks a bit about strategy guides not being given enough credit as companions
to the game, at least here in the US.
An entire chapter is dedicated to this.
Again, not something unique to Chrono Trigger, but something very interesting and worth learning
about.
At first, I felt out of place when reading Chrono Trigger.
I was honestly a bit disappointed because I wasn't given the same humor or self reflection
that I'd come to love about the Metal Gear Solid, Shadow of the Colossus, and Earthbound
books that I had previously read and reviewed.
But then I fell into what this book is doing.
Simply put: it's teaching.
I discovered that I like learning something non-game related with video games as the impetus
to that knowledge.
School would have been way more fun if I learned about inertia by way of Sonic the Hedgehog
or if Street Fighter II was used to teach me automotive repair...
that last one didn't make sense.
The first one really didn't make sense either.
Please like, subscribe, and click the Bell icon to make sure you don't miss future videos.
If you are still watching this video, you obviously like it, right?
So, it only makes sense to share it.
Up next in this Boss Fight Books series: ZZT.
A game I've never even heard of.
Hopefully, I'll learn something.
Thank you for watching.
No comments:
Post a Comment