If you are interested in games that get creative with language barriers, "Chants of Sennaar" is a game with exactly this theme. You explore areas with unfamiliar signs and hear unfamiliar languages and through deduction and experimentation you slowly learn different vocabulary, beliefs and even connections betweet the languages while going through the games areas while slowly understanding what happened in the game world and why nobody understands each other anymore, even though they used to. And the art style is gorgeous, the color palettes are very Moebius-like.
@@dmeepinteresting thought, Edutainment games have often tried to teach language through games, though with how Chants of Sennaar is structured, you wouldn't learn the intricacies of an language, just some basic words and language structures. But it would be an enganging and interesting learning tool, at least better than many of the simplified and child-centric games that exist right now.
As an Argentinian, we love our Meruzian neighbors! It's funny to me because I have many friends from Mendoza (where the Aconcagua is) and we joke saying that Mendoza is an independent republic haha
The part when Steve is on the plane taking to ATC. So damn unrealistic, everyone knows English is the international standard for communication, damn I get get behind this😅 Or maybe it was sales numbers that contributed to less sales in South America
Yeah, this needs more attention and it's a shame people downvoted you. I know Ragnar needs the bucks as everybody but I'm sure someone as good at what they do as him can easily find a better sponsor
Ragnar, this is an amazing piece of history and one of the rarest games I've ever heard, thanks! Once I noticed the title I was curious to see if it related to our Argentinean neighbours, but oh boy it had a lot more to do with our historic affairs with geopolitics, cold war regimes, and our indigenous people, game development is wild 😅. Please keep up the good work! ✌🏼
Lets also not forget the CIA's and U.S LOnnnnnggg history of meddling with latin American affairs. U.S History books barely mention it, but man, once you read about it, or know people who lived it (my dad) you can see why Latin America in general is not so friendly to the U.S
they may not be stable, but those tectonic plates are consistent. We can accurately assume there will be one minor shake every month and a big one every year with chances for a very big one every decade.
Oh man, this looks so gorgeous. There's just something about the game's style or texture choices. I am not sure what it is, it looks realistic, but not too much. Also damn, that soundtrack is pretty epic?!
Hey Ragnar! I'm Brazilian and I'm very happy to see a video so well research about Aconcagua like yours. I have a lot to say about the PS2 and the cultural and artistic impact of its legacy in Brazil due to priracy. PS2 still is The Console that people remember or talk about in majority of our country. The impact of bringing access to video games to peripheral communities, the countryside of Brazil and favelas is something that no other home console has been able to repeat here! If for some reason you want to know more about this I myself have a text in portuguese about this relationship between piracy, GTA and videogame culture in Brazil and the Global South in general, and also a great friend of mine called André Alcantara has very good production about popular video game culture in Brazil! If you like to reach any of us let me know!
Those visuals really pushed the ps1 to its limits. It's astounding how much they got out of it. The protest scenes look incredible, almost ps2 territory.
If you're looking for a good translation barrier puzzle game, you should try Chants Of Sennaar! You climb the tower of babel, where every floor speaks its own language and you have to translate it, kind of like the return of obra dinn but instead of linking deaths to people its linking words to meaning and definition!
The presentation being this good on the PS1 is unbelievable -- little but HUGE touches like depicting rope physics and nicely grounded character designs make such a difference
I guess it's hard for people to imagine how awesome that must have looked, back in the days on CRT TVs. The systems did not create such crisp images, they were more washed out and made graphics like these look a lot better than our high definition screens today make you believe.
Yeah, pixel art and pixelated games look a lot different on the CRT screens they were designed for. I have been on the lookout for a decent CRT TV for future episodes to showcase this more accurately. (But it's not easy to come by where I live, thrifting scene here is abysmal, especially in regards to electronics)
Same here, pretty bad thrifting scene unfortunately. I just got the only CRT I could find. It cost me like 15 bucks and I've been using it weekly for over a year now. I'd say just go for whatever you can get.
For real. This looks like an early PS2 game or something created in 2024 to look like a PS1 game. At a time when Gran Turismo 2 “looked like real life” (I specifically remember using those exact words as a kid) a game looking as good as this one is almost unreal to me. Anything that comes close to this has an art style that does a lot of the heavy lifting. I can’t imagine what it would look like on a CRT. The scene when the girl was standing in front of the fire, the protest scene, and the guy repelling down a rope look almost too good to be true as-is. I don’t know how I’ve never heard of it until today.
25:10 And if you consider that during the PS1 and PS2 eras the only way to play games in Spanish was by playing Pal games despite that we used the NTSC format on our TV so we were kinda forced to mod the consoles and get patched games to play the Pal games that didn't have a 60 hz option in colors just to experience the games in spanish. Things got better in the 360/PS3 days with multi language games and even proper Latin American Spanish dubs instead of Spain dubs which was the rule during those days. Cheers from Chile to you and our Meruzian neighbors
19:06 Long Gone Days is a modern indie jrpg exactly about language barriers and more! Since it's about war in our modern world and different countries your party is from all over and speak different languages I can hardly do the game justice but it's pretty good
Something else to add about the LOD of these characters; their mouths MOVED during cutscenes. I don't know about you, but that was the kind of revolutionary shit we only saw in multi-million-dollar, next-gen colossi like Shenmue or some very high-end PC games around that time. To see it executed at this level in a PS1 game is brain-melting. Also, hi from Argentina. It's funny how the developers seemed to fall back on tropes about Latin/South America to develop Meruza (Mendoza?) -- dark-skinned, neutral accent, indigenous. I could, for the life, of me, bet that the actor playing the dying male character was an Argentinian doing his best neutral Spanish impression. Still, there is remarkable attention to detail for 2000, especially for what essentially is a pastiche of non-white Peru and Bolivia (5.9 and 5% white) and Argentina and Chile (97 and 88.9% white). Small edit: I see your grammatically correct "¡Hasta la revolución!" Even hit the accent there!
I would like to give shoutout to UA-camr iconoclast187, who did Let's Plays (and translation via captions) of both Aconcagua and Mizzurna Falls, before they got "official unofficial" translation; as well as several "played before it was cool" PS1 games. If you want to experience those two games and learn a bit extra about them, please give that man some views!
Wow right after you mentioned the game play mechanics are similar to classic point n click adventure games you played one of the best tracks from Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of darkness, didnt think anyone except die hard Sierra fans even knew about QFG cuz its an rpg/adventure game hybrid and people only ever mentioned sucky Kings Quest and sometimes SQ, LSL etc
Famicom Detective Club got a release on Switch E-Shops, finally getting localized. And despite being visual novel like Detective games, both Famicom Detective Club Missing Heir and its prequel The Girl Who Stands Behind are both good games.
¡Saludos desde Argentina! Se cuenta por estos lados que Aconcagua fue un intento de Sony por introducirse en el mercado del país, no solo con la idea de vender más consolas de PS1 antes de la salida de PS2. En la trama, la revolución crea un nuevo país llamado Meruza y se separa de Argentina. Bien, Meruza vendría a ser Mendoza, la provincia donde se encuentra la montaña Aconcagua. ¡Abrazo para todos! Y uno muy especial para ti, RagnarRox, para desearte que tu situación personal y familiar mejore pronto.
I'm not so sure it would have done well in South America... the game's idea of SA is the idea perpetuated by the US, that we are always on the brink of civil war, politically unstable and full of dictators (wich they put in power during the cold war by the way...)
Props to you for putting out such a great video about Aconcagua despite the struggles that you've been trudging through. I'd never heard of it, but now it's fascinating to me. Good luck and take your time with the Fear and Hunger video. If you enjoy the process and find your groove, I'm sure it will turn out great.
"A region that didn't have any appetite for video games." that is an absolute lie, we didn't have teh means to get video games, at least in argentina, things were getting more nad more expensive, and the impending devaluation was not helping. But lord we wanted games, console and pc. It's just that finding legal copies was not too easy, and instead you had a flood of bootlegs and just pirated copies on most stores.
A few days ago I was thinking how games of the 9th generation don't feel like they try to exceed the last generation and push the new systems to the limits. Most of the AAA games you see for the PS5 are just the games you could have played on the ps4 and it wasn't like that with older generations (of course I might be wrong) And now I see this game which is something that you wouldn't believe it was even possible to play on the humble PS1 and it's such a cinematic and beautifully crafted game that truly amazes me Such a shame it didn't get the attention it deserved from it's publishers. P.s: Hope you are feeling and doing well Ragnar
Thank you for informing of this game. Channels like yours have opened my eyes and introduced me to many games i would've missed out on and never known about. I'll definitely be putting in the effort to acquire and play this game
Its very minor in comparison, but in the SOCOM US Navy SEAL games one of your Fireteam acts as Translator and can overhear enemy conversations for your team and translate for them, giving the player more information on their mission. If they go down, the rest of the team can no longer get the information. You mentioned what other games have language barrier and translation as a feature so thought Id mention!
29:05 "In the context and parlance of programming simplified, a “pointer” is a variable in the underlying code that records where certain values are stored in the game’s memory. The devs can then call these pointers as essentially a shortcut to easily retrieve the stored value whenever needed." "The use of this text-pointer system meant that individual text characters and words were not stored contiguously, or in their alphabetical order, but rather in a seemingly random “pool” that needed to be called up via these pointers in order to display text on-screen." Wow! You explained pointers sufficiently and succinctly unlike my professors at college.
I grew up somewhat poor. So I have fond memories of a strange man entering my home with a duffel bag of knock off VHSs, cartridges for various consoles and ripped CD Roms of PS1 titles. He’d turn up ecery couple of month, my bros and I were allowed to select something and then the man would leave. Well one year my oldest bro selected a region locked edition of Parasite Eve. One of the more well known titles that mostly could onky be played in Japan. Well the region lock meant my bros and I only got a black screen. But then, knowing we would ave nothing new to ppay if we did not figure it out, one of the 3 bros randomly put the TV on black and white mode. This somehow bypassed the region lock and I got to play Parasite Eve back in the day as a proper kid. I consider myself lucky to have experienced that and enjoy having this little gaming annecdote about a Japanese game I managed to play back in the late 90s via a silly hack that probably not even the devs could explain.
I love your channel because every video you release is usually about a game I never heard of and by the time I get halfway through the video I end up thinking to myself "I have to play this!"
Always happy to see a new video from you! Take as much time as you need for the funger vid, i know it’ll be fantastic when it’s fully baked and ready to serve!
I absolutely love your channel. I have adhd and struggle to keep focused on tasks, even my art, but listening to your channel really helps me stay in the moment and learn about games I'm incredibly curious of but can't/couldn't play either because of obscurity or because I get scared very easily and struggle to play horror games despite my love of the genre. I'm sure you have a backlog of games you want to cover but if you get the chance I recommend Obscure on the ps2 if you havent already! It was one of the few horror games I managed to beat and got the best ending for!
Obscure has been on my list of "wanna definitely cover one day!" Also happy to hear I can keep you glued to the screen, maybe it's because it's written by a fellow ADHD brain :)
@RagnarRoxShow thanks for the reply and that's awesome to hear! Even in my nerdy friend group I'm the only person I've met who's even heard of, never mind played, Obscure so it's really cool to me that it's already on your list! I also forgot to mention that listening to your videos help me keep focused on my art too. I hope things slow down enough for you to catch your breath and thanks again for all your awesome videos!
As a rare games hunter out there im happy that there's still games like this that i haven't play yet and thanks to you for actually show us this peace of this gem in it's time. Also thanks to legendary Hilltop for patching this in English.
I have played this recently on my PSvita (I converted as a “PS1 Classics” game, if you know-you know!) and as a point-click adventure game, it’s really a well-made game for the PS1. The face animations for its time are quite impressive, and the cheesy and f-bomb littered dialogue certainly made it a very b-movie action thriller flick. And yes, It does suffer in the usual clunk that point-click games in this era are known for; like putting your character in a VERY SPECIFIC spot to interact something with and the “where and what tf do I next?” dilemma can frustrate you at times. But overall, it is a very unique experience to play this obscure gem from the PS1 that has finally been translated and accessible to the a wider global audience. SHOUT OUT to Team Hilltop Translations for this AMAZING English Translation patch! Those guys are really doing God’s work, bringing once-forgotten Japanese only games into a more significant retro resurgence! P.S: The game DOES look so GORGEOUS on a PSVita OLED 😁👌
One small note on the voice acting: I'm fluent in Italian and understand Spanish as well, especially inflections and I gotta say, the voice acting in Spanish is about the same level as the English parts but when we don't understand a language too well we tend to be a lot more forgiving with the acting, maybe because we don't pick up on smaller details. Which is why I presume a lot of people prefer the Japanese voice acting in JRPGs. It's not that it's necessarily better, but not understanding it makes us cringe less. My 2 cents.
25:03 I'm pretty sure most of South American people just pirated their games in the psx-ps2 era, regional pricing and digital distribution are what made the south american videogame market really grow. The ps2 was very popular in LATAM, but I literally know no one that actually bought a legal copy of a ps2 game. Nowadays the latinoamerican market is still pretty underestimated, videogame spanish localization is still led by Spain and some companies such as SEGA dont support a fair regional pricing for the region.
Ragnar, I would definitely look at Kavernackle's recent video mentioning Hello Fresh if I were you. Cause i know how you feel about worker's rights, and might have a few disagreements with them... For one example, workers described it as worse than Amazon.
It’s SO rare to see South America portrayed in videogames, the only example that comes to my mind is Max Payne 3. Thanks for digging up this game. I love the grounded visuals and the attempt of a political commentary from a Japanese perspective. It looks like something from Kojima. I’ll give it a try, although I don’t like point and click games.
The whole thing about pontificating about geopolitics? That's not pontificating, that's just true, based on very real things that have led to decades long tragedies in Latin America. I didn't finish video, left a bad taste in my mouth. Good to know a cool game was translated though.
34:29 And you might be suprised, that we "pirates" even are asked sometimes to share our knowledge in obscure games, believe me, i gave a guy some information and directions on some of those, this one i gave the Assault Suit Valken translation and Terranigma insight of where and in what emulator play them.
With how much of a disaster sony has been since moving their HQ over to California- I really wish Japan stayed as Xenophobic and closed off as it was; their games had much more creativity and uniqueness back then
As an Argentinan. The Spanish voice acting is pretty bad. Like it's not awfully bad, they all sound like they want to make an attempt at an Argentinan sounding voice but stop halfway and give up in the middle of sentences. They also use words that no latin american would ever use, over all it's sloppy to say the least.
Surprisingly at the time of the release south america was actually doing so well that all the cable TV you get even in México you'd expect to see usual north american centric ads you'd get stuff from south america which had food, shows and promotions only applicable there
5:40 it says "military dictatorship", not "authoritarian". Makes want to send Lenins remarks on such anti-bureaucratism stances: "The Russian nihilist is particularly characterized by this lordly anarchism. The party organization seems to him like a monstrous "factory", the subjugation of the part to the whole and the minority to the majority seems to him to be "turning them into serfs"... the division of labor under the leadership of the center causes in him tragicomic cries against pretense people in "dots and bolts"... the reminder of the party's organizational statute causes him to make a contemptuous grimace and a belittling... remark that "it is possible without a statute..." It is clear that the cry against the famous bureaucratism serves only to hid dissatisfaction with the personal composition of the centers, that it was just a fig leaf... "You are a bureaucrat, because the Congress elected you without my will and against it; you are a formalist, because you rely on the formal decisions of the congress and not on my consent; you act grossly mechanically, because you refer to the "mechanical" majority of the party congress and do not take into account my desire to be co-opted; you are a self-righteous person - because you will not hand over power into the hands of an old intimate." - Lenin, "A Step Forward", a passage on bureaucratism
Keep your chin up Ragnar, thanks for the amazing video, I hope the shit show of curveballs life's been throwing at you eases up. Big love from Scotland x
Another great video! I finished Aconcagua just recently, thanks to emulation and the hack comunity. All I can say is I that had a very good time with it!
You have no idea how thrilled I get when you cover a game that I can actually download and play (and which looks so interesting!), as always, love your work buddy PD: That lil bit of spanish you spoke, right on point ✨
Thank you for the great video ! I had never heard of this game but now i am pumped to try it ! And i am sorry you had so much on your plate lately, sending you tons of love and support ! We will wait for Fear and Hunger, don't worry !
I really like the aesthetics of this game. Anyone has a list of translated ps1 games? I have played Racing Lagoon, it is pretty cool. I’m going to try it on my PS Mini
Very cool game. Though add this to the list of "Games that make me sad because they never saw wider release." Seriously, I wonder how the shape of modern gaming would look if certain gems were more mainstream.
A friend of mine was playing this, I have to tell him to continue it some day... 12:41 Being spanish my main language, the voice acting in Spanish *is* a bit weird, but not in a bad way. Asides of the clear problems with the volume of the recording, I think they're actually native spanish speakers. Which is kind of incredible in a japanese game now that I think about it. BUT I have the feeling they didn't have much direction about the context of the scene. Mostly, they don't sound as the guy is actually dying lmao, they're too calm and relaxed Edit: Ragnar you asked for games that play with a language barrier, and I remember one! Is called A Date in the Park. Super short click and point style, so is also quite simple, but it certainly plays with the idea really well.
That’s the game. The dialogue-and particularly the Spanish dialogue-of Aconcagua is mixed way too quiet relative to the music and sound effects. One of my few substantial criticisms when I played it because of this video!
This, like I love ragnarox but I'm here to hear about the game, not political bullshit. If not for the media shoving it in your face every 2 seconds I wouldnt even know who's running, and I really couldn't care less
Take your time with the fear and hunger video it is a heavy and stressful game series and especially after a bad mental health time you defiantly need that break!
If you are interested in games that get creative with language barriers, "Chants of Sennaar" is a game with exactly this theme. You explore areas with unfamiliar signs and hear unfamiliar languages and through deduction and experimentation you slowly learn different vocabulary, beliefs and even connections betweet the languages while going through the games areas while slowly understanding what happened in the game world and why nobody understands each other anymore, even though they used to. And the art style is gorgeous, the color palettes are very Moebius-like.
that would be great if it was actually real languages so people come out of it knowing some portugese, swahili and thai
@@dmeepinteresting thought, Edutainment games have often tried to teach language through games, though with how Chants of Sennaar is structured, you wouldn't learn the intricacies of an language, just some basic words and language structures. But it would be an enganging and interesting learning tool, at least better than many of the simplified and child-centric games that exist right now.
Also check out Heavens Vault if you like this idea; it’s a far better and deeper exploration of a dead written language.
@@dmeep but then you take away part of the experience for the people that speak those languages
As an Argentinian, we love our Meruzian neighbors!
It's funny to me because I have many friends from Mendoza (where the Aconcagua is) and we joke saying that Mendoza is an independent republic haha
Hard to believe this game is from same time as Morrowind, those facial animations are really good
Gotta say that sponsor segway was the chef's kiss 🤌🤌
Chants Of Sennaar. The best game about language and translation
The part when Steve is on the plane taking to ATC. So damn unrealistic, everyone knows English is the international standard for communication, damn I get get behind this😅
Or maybe it was sales numbers that contributed to less sales in South America
You are aware Hello Fresh is a horrible company right? Union busting, terrible working conditions....
Yeah, this needs more attention and it's a shame people downvoted you. I know Ragnar needs the bucks as everybody but I'm sure someone as good at what they do as him can easily find a better sponsor
I didn’t know this!!
I will not use them in future!!
So it's a bog standard American business then?
Unions are trash
I can confirm the voice actors speaking spanish sound as goofy as the english ones.
We love the PS1 generation
It is goofy, but endearing none the less. Sounds like an audio reading of a novela, just cheese.
Yes, I almost laughed at the dying guy because he's just not suffering at all, just sounds tired lmao
Ragnar, this is an amazing piece of history and one of the rarest games I've ever heard, thanks! Once I noticed the title I was curious to see if it related to our Argentinean neighbours, but oh boy it had a lot more to do with our historic affairs with geopolitics, cold war regimes, and our indigenous people, game development is wild 😅. Please keep up the good work! ✌🏼
Lets also not forget the CIA's and U.S LOnnnnnggg history of meddling with latin American affairs. U.S History books barely mention it, but man, once you read about it, or know people who lived it (my dad) you can see why Latin America in general is not so friendly to the U.S
Imagine being Meruzan. Argentina's stable economy, Chile's stable tectonic plates.
they may not be stable, but those tectonic plates are consistent. We can accurately assume there will be one minor shake every month and a big one every year with chances for a very big one every decade.
Mendoza represent! 🇦🇷🇦🇷
Que plaga que somos che, estamos en todos lados! Saludos compañero argentino.
Aguante Mendoza loco!
PACHAMAMA
AGUANTE ARGENTINA CARAJOOOOOOO
"an illegal office above a Chinese food restaurant" was literally Bungie in the 90's
yupp!
Oh man, this looks so gorgeous. There's just something about the game's style or texture choices. I am not sure what it is, it looks realistic, but not too much.
Also damn, that soundtrack is pretty epic?!
The soundtrack is amazing, it feels like a proper John Williams score
Hey Ragnar! I'm Brazilian and I'm very happy to see a video so well research about Aconcagua like yours. I have a lot to say about the PS2 and the cultural and artistic impact of its legacy in Brazil due to priracy. PS2 still is The Console that people remember or talk about in majority of our country. The impact of bringing access to video games to peripheral communities, the countryside of Brazil and favelas is something that no other home console has been able to repeat here! If for some reason you want to know more about this I myself have a text in portuguese about this relationship between piracy, GTA and videogame culture in Brazil and the Global South in general, and also a great friend of mine called André Alcantara has very good production about popular video game culture in Brazil! If you like to reach any of us let me know!
Ps1
@@Kenneth-cn8dxSnes and Mega Drive.
That shows not assume assume anything, specially regarding generations.
@@zanychelly no aconcagua came out on ps1 only
@@Kenneth-cn8dx you missed the point of his entire post friend.
Those visuals really pushed the ps1 to its limits. It's astounding how much they got out of it. The protest scenes look incredible, almost ps2 territory.
Wow, I’ve never heard so many f and s bombs in a PS1 game 😂
Was not expecting a Muppet Treasure Island reference and now I feel old. Again.
Feeling old is ok, better than being one of these young idiots nowadays
At least you saw the rise of the gaming industry yourself and expirienced the golden age of gaming until mobiles and services took hold.
@@Sly2CooperDon't forget mindless micro transactions
If you're looking for a good translation barrier puzzle game, you should try Chants Of Sennaar! You climb the tower of babel, where every floor speaks its own language and you have to translate it, kind of like the return of obra dinn but instead of linking deaths to people its linking words to meaning and definition!
The presentation being this good on the PS1 is unbelievable -- little but HUGE touches like depicting rope physics and nicely grounded character designs make such a difference
I guess it's hard for people to imagine how awesome that must have looked, back in the days on CRT TVs.
The systems did not create such crisp images, they were more washed out and made graphics like these look a lot better than our high definition screens today make you believe.
Yeah, pixel art and pixelated games look a lot different on the CRT screens they were designed for. I have been on the lookout for a decent CRT TV for future episodes to showcase this more accurately. (But it's not easy to come by where I live, thrifting scene here is abysmal, especially in regards to electronics)
Same here, pretty bad thrifting scene unfortunately. I just got the only CRT I could find. It cost me like 15 bucks and I've been using it weekly for over a year now. I'd say just go for whatever you can get.
For real. This looks like an early PS2 game or something created in 2024 to look like a PS1 game. At a time when Gran Turismo 2 “looked like real life” (I specifically remember using those exact words as a kid) a game looking as good as this one is almost unreal to me. Anything that comes close to this has an art style that does a lot of the heavy lifting. I can’t imagine what it would look like on a CRT. The scene when the girl was standing in front of the fire, the protest scene, and the guy repelling down a rope look almost too good to be true as-is. I don’t know how I’ve never heard of it until today.
25:10 And if you consider that during the PS1 and PS2 eras the only way to play games in Spanish was by playing Pal games despite that we used the NTSC format on our TV so we were kinda forced to mod the consoles and get patched games to play the Pal games that didn't have a 60 hz option in colors just to experience the games in spanish.
Things got better in the 360/PS3 days with multi language games and even proper Latin American Spanish dubs instead of Spain dubs which was the rule during those days.
Cheers from Chile to you and our Meruzian neighbors
19:06 Long Gone Days is a modern indie jrpg exactly about language barriers and more! Since it's about war in our modern world and different countries your party is from all over and speak different languages
I can hardly do the game justice but it's pretty good
Is it out now? Started following the project when I was in highschool
@dr.velious5411 yup! Like just last year I think it was. Fairly recently
The moving mouths while talking, is amazing to see on the PS1. Many games didn’t do that over the next 15 years.
Something else to add about the LOD of these characters; their mouths MOVED during cutscenes. I don't know about you, but that was the kind of revolutionary shit we only saw in multi-million-dollar, next-gen colossi like Shenmue or some very high-end PC games around that time.
To see it executed at this level in a PS1 game is brain-melting.
Also, hi from Argentina. It's funny how the developers seemed to fall back on tropes about Latin/South America to develop Meruza (Mendoza?) -- dark-skinned, neutral accent, indigenous. I could, for the life, of me, bet that the actor playing the dying male character was an Argentinian doing his best neutral Spanish impression.
Still, there is remarkable attention to detail for 2000, especially for what essentially is a pastiche of non-white Peru and Bolivia (5.9 and 5% white) and Argentina and Chile (97 and 88.9% white).
Small edit: I see your grammatically correct "¡Hasta la revolución!" Even hit the accent there!
La creatura... la luz extinguido...
seeing mouth movement, voice acting (quite good) AND eyes that move... in a PSX game is mind blowing O_o
seeing a game take place in my country (or atleast a fictionalized version of it) feels truly bizarre lol
Heck yeah, we love to see old games finally getting the translations they deserve! 💜
If I were a betting man, I'd say our dying dude at 13:00 was voiced by an Argentinian.
(Also, that was quite a... *creative* translation. 😅)
I would like to give shoutout to UA-camr iconoclast187, who did Let's Plays (and translation via captions) of both Aconcagua and Mizzurna Falls, before they got "official unofficial" translation; as well as several "played before it was cool" PS1 games.
If you want to experience those two games and learn a bit extra about them, please give that man some views!
Wow right after you mentioned the game play mechanics are similar to classic point n click adventure games you played one of the best tracks from Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of darkness, didnt think anyone except die hard Sierra fans even knew about QFG cuz its an rpg/adventure game hybrid and people only ever mentioned sucky Kings Quest and sometimes SQ, LSL etc
Wack Wack (or however its spelt) reminds me of the end of the Pacman death sound, maybe the inspiration for the name?
Famicom Detective Club got a release on Switch E-Shops, finally getting localized. And despite being visual novel like Detective games, both Famicom Detective Club Missing Heir and its prequel The Girl Who Stands Behind are both good games.
¡Saludos desde Argentina! Se cuenta por estos lados que Aconcagua fue un intento de Sony por introducirse en el mercado del país, no solo con la idea de vender más consolas de PS1 antes de la salida de PS2. En la trama, la revolución crea un nuevo país llamado Meruza y se separa de Argentina. Bien, Meruza vendría a ser Mendoza, la provincia donde se encuentra la montaña Aconcagua. ¡Abrazo para todos! Y uno muy especial para ti, RagnarRox, para desearte que tu situación personal y familiar mejore pronto.
I'm not so sure it would have done well in South America... the game's idea of SA is the idea perpetuated by the US, that we are always on the brink of civil war, politically unstable and full of dictators (wich they put in power during the cold war by the way...)
Props to you for putting out such a great video about Aconcagua despite the struggles that you've been trudging through. I'd never heard of it, but now it's fascinating to me. Good luck and take your time with the Fear and Hunger video. If you enjoy the process and find your groove, I'm sure it will turn out great.
"A region that didn't have any appetite for video games." that is an absolute lie, we didn't have teh means to get video games, at least in argentina, things were getting more nad more expensive, and the impending devaluation was not helping. But lord we wanted games, console and pc. It's just that finding legal copies was not too easy, and instead you had a flood of bootlegs and just pirated copies on most stores.
A few days ago I was thinking how games of the 9th generation don't feel like they try to exceed the last generation and push the new systems to the limits. Most of the AAA games you see for the PS5 are just the games you could have played on the ps4 and it wasn't like that with older generations (of course I might be wrong)
And now I see this game which is something that you wouldn't believe it was even possible to play on the humble PS1 and it's such a cinematic and beautifully crafted game that truly amazes me
Such a shame it didn't get the attention it deserved from it's publishers.
P.s: Hope you are feeling and doing well Ragnar
If piracy is the only way to play a game (retro or access to a game without ownership) then it becomes a duty.
Thank you for informing of this game. Channels like yours have opened my eyes and introduced me to many games i would've missed out on and never known about. I'll definitely be putting in the effort to acquire and play this game
Its very minor in comparison, but in the SOCOM US Navy SEAL games one of your Fireteam acts as Translator and can overhear enemy conversations for your team and translate for them, giving the player more information on their mission. If they go down, the rest of the team can no longer get the information. You mentioned what other games have language barrier and translation as a feature so thought Id mention!
Your content and spoiler warnings are utterly unreadable against the white background.
I love your content and I'm not trying to "cancel" you or whatever, but you should possibly reconsider working with Hello Fresh. They're union busters
29:05
"In the context and parlance of programming simplified, a “pointer” is a variable in the underlying code that records where certain values are stored in the game’s memory. The devs can then call these pointers as essentially a shortcut to easily retrieve the stored value whenever needed."
"The use of this text-pointer system meant that individual text characters and words were not stored contiguously, or in their alphabetical order, but rather in a seemingly random “pool” that needed to be called up via these pointers in order to display text on-screen."
Wow! You explained pointers sufficiently and succinctly unlike my professors at college.
Can’t wait for fear and hunger video!!!!!
I grew up somewhat poor. So I have fond memories of a strange man entering my home with a duffel bag of knock off VHSs, cartridges for various consoles and ripped CD Roms of PS1 titles. He’d turn up ecery couple of month, my bros and I were allowed to select something and then the man would leave.
Well one year my oldest bro selected a region locked edition of Parasite Eve. One of the more well known titles that mostly could onky be played in Japan. Well the region lock meant my bros and I only got a black screen.
But then, knowing we would ave nothing new to ppay if we did not figure it out, one of the 3 bros randomly put the TV on black and white mode. This somehow bypassed the region lock and I got to play Parasite Eve back in the day as a proper kid.
I consider myself lucky to have experienced that and enjoy having this little gaming annecdote about a Japanese game I managed to play back in the late 90s via a silly hack that probably not even the devs could explain.
Wait... do they even have electricity yet in south America?
where the fuck you find this gems, this channel is so good fr
We could totally use a Pachamama right now
I love your channel because every video you release is usually about a game I never heard of and by the time I get halfway through the video I end up thinking to myself "I have to play this!"
This is so cool, Ragnar! I love hearing about this stuff from you - I feel like I'd never get it from anywhere else.
Always happy to see a new video from you! Take as much time as you need for the funger vid, i know it’ll be fantastic when it’s fully baked and ready to serve!
I absolutely love your channel. I have adhd and struggle to keep focused on tasks, even my art, but listening to your channel really helps me stay in the moment and learn about games I'm incredibly curious of but can't/couldn't play either because of obscurity or because I get scared very easily and struggle to play horror games despite my love of the genre. I'm sure you have a backlog of games you want to cover but if you get the chance I recommend Obscure on the ps2 if you havent already! It was one of the few horror games I managed to beat and got the best ending for!
Obscure has been on my list of "wanna definitely cover one day!"
Also happy to hear I can keep you glued to the screen, maybe it's because it's written by a fellow ADHD brain :)
@RagnarRoxShow thanks for the reply and that's awesome to hear! Even in my nerdy friend group I'm the only person I've met who's even heard of, never mind played, Obscure so it's really cool to me that it's already on your list! I also forgot to mention that listening to your videos help me keep focused on my art too. I hope things slow down enough for you to catch your breath and thanks again for all your awesome videos!
As a rare games hunter out there im happy that there's still games like this that i haven't play yet and thanks to you for actually show us this peace of this gem in it's time. Also thanks to legendary Hilltop for patching this in English.
I have played this recently on my PSvita (I converted as a “PS1 Classics” game, if you know-you know!) and as a point-click adventure game, it’s really a well-made game for the PS1. The face animations for its time are quite impressive, and the cheesy and f-bomb littered dialogue certainly made it a very b-movie action thriller flick. And yes, It does suffer in the usual clunk that point-click games in this era are known for; like putting your character in a VERY SPECIFIC spot to interact something with and the “where and what tf do I next?” dilemma can frustrate you at times. But overall, it is a very unique experience to play this obscure gem from the PS1 that has finally been translated and accessible to the a wider global audience. SHOUT OUT to Team Hilltop Translations for this AMAZING English Translation patch! Those guys are really doing God’s work, bringing once-forgotten Japanese only games into a more significant retro resurgence!
P.S: The game DOES look so GORGEOUS on a PSVita OLED 😁👌
Sorry to hear about your struggles. It’s such a joy to see you videos pop up in the feed. ❤
One small note on the voice acting: I'm fluent in Italian and understand Spanish as well, especially inflections and I gotta say, the voice acting in Spanish is about the same level as the English parts but when we don't understand a language too well we tend to be a lot more forgiving with the acting, maybe because we don't pick up on smaller details. Which is why I presume a lot of people prefer the Japanese voice acting in JRPGs. It's not that it's necessarily better, but not understanding it makes us cringe less. My 2 cents.
Just realized the ps2 my parents got me for my birthday back in 2002 was probably bought in the underground market (i’m south american)
25:03 I'm pretty sure most of South American people just pirated their games in the psx-ps2 era, regional pricing and digital distribution are what made the south american videogame market really grow. The ps2 was very popular in LATAM, but I literally know no one that actually bought a legal copy of a ps2 game.
Nowadays the latinoamerican market is still pretty underestimated, videogame spanish localization is still led by Spain and some companies such as SEGA dont support a fair regional pricing for the region.
Ragnar, I would definitely look at Kavernackle's recent video mentioning Hello Fresh if I were you.
Cause i know how you feel about worker's rights, and might have a few disagreements with them...
For one example, workers described it as worse than Amazon.
It’s SO rare to see South America portrayed in videogames, the only example that comes to my mind is Max Payne 3.
Thanks for digging up this game. I love the grounded visuals and the attempt of a political commentary from a Japanese perspective. It looks like something from Kojima.
I’ll give it a try, although I don’t like point and click games.
The whole thing about pontificating about geopolitics? That's not pontificating, that's just true, based on very real things that have led to decades long tragedies in Latin America. I didn't finish video, left a bad taste in my mouth. Good to know a cool game was translated though.
34:29 And you might be suprised, that we "pirates" even are asked sometimes to share our knowledge in obscure games, believe me, i gave a guy some information and directions on some of those, this one i gave the Assault Suit Valken translation and Terranigma insight of where and in what emulator play them.
With how much of a disaster sony has been since moving their HQ over to California- I really wish Japan stayed as Xenophobic and closed off as it was; their games had much more creativity and uniqueness back then
As an Argentinan. The Spanish voice acting is pretty bad. Like it's not awfully bad, they all sound like they want to make an attempt at an Argentinan sounding voice but stop halfway and give up in the middle of sentences. They also use words that no latin american would ever use, over all it's sloppy to say the least.
Surprisingly at the time of the release south america was actually doing so well that all the cable TV you get even in México you'd expect to see usual north american centric ads you'd get stuff from south america which had food, shows and promotions only applicable there
goddamn i love videogame archaeology
5:40 it says "military dictatorship", not "authoritarian". Makes want to send Lenins remarks on such
anti-bureaucratism stances:
"The Russian nihilist is particularly characterized by this lordly anarchism. The party organization seems to him like a monstrous "factory", the subjugation of the part to the whole and the minority to the majority seems to him to be "turning them into serfs"... the division of labor under the leadership of the center causes in him tragicomic cries against pretense people in "dots and bolts"... the reminder of the party's organizational statute causes him to make a contemptuous grimace and a belittling... remark that "it is possible without a statute..." It is clear that the cry against the famous bureaucratism serves only to hid dissatisfaction with the personal composition of the centers, that it was just a fig leaf... "You are a bureaucrat, because the Congress elected you without my will and against it; you are a formalist, because you rely on the formal decisions of the congress and not on my consent; you act grossly mechanically, because you refer to the "mechanical" majority of the party congress and do not take into account my desire to be co-opted; you are a self-righteous person - because you will not hand over power into the hands of an old intimate."
- Lenin, "A Step Forward", a passage on bureaucratism
Keep your chin up Ragnar, thanks for the amazing video, I hope the shit show of curveballs life's been throwing at you eases up. Big love from Scotland x
Another great video! I finished Aconcagua just recently, thanks to emulation and the hack comunity. All I can say is I that had a very good time with it!
You have no idea how thrilled I get when you cover a game that I can actually download and play (and which looks so interesting!), as always, love your work buddy
PD: That lil bit of spanish you spoke, right on point ✨
Thank you for the great video ! I had never heard of this game but now i am pumped to try it !
And i am sorry you had so much on your plate lately, sending you tons of love and support ! We will wait for Fear and Hunger, don't worry !
I really like the aesthetics of this game. Anyone has a list of translated ps1 games? I have played Racing Lagoon, it is pretty cool.
I’m going to try it on my PS Mini
Very cool game. Though add this to the list of "Games that make me sad because they never saw wider release."
Seriously, I wonder how the shape of modern gaming would look if certain gems were more mainstream.
A friend of mine was playing this, I have to tell him to continue it some day...
12:41 Being spanish my main language, the voice acting in Spanish *is* a bit weird, but not in a bad way. Asides of the clear problems with the volume of the recording, I think they're actually native spanish speakers. Which is kind of incredible in a japanese game now that I think about it.
BUT I have the feeling they didn't have much direction about the context of the scene. Mostly, they don't sound as the guy is actually dying lmao, they're too calm and relaxed
Edit: Ragnar you asked for games that play with a language barrier, and I remember one! Is called A Date in the Park. Super short click and point style, so is also quite simple, but it certainly plays with the idea really well.
5:53 wtf? "Meruza" is basically northwest Argentina and I would be EXACTLY a river away from it
I don't know if it's me but it sounds like you messed up the audio mixing, the music is way too loud in parts.
Isn't that pretty common for ps1 games anyway? Lol
It's UA-cam, expect bad mixing
That’s the game. The dialogue-and particularly the Spanish dialogue-of Aconcagua is mixed way too quiet relative to the music and sound effects. One of my few substantial criticisms when I played it because of this video!
Dante from DmC: "I have the dirtiest mouth in videogames!"
Steve: "Hold my fucking beer"
I totally forgot about Chris Vrenna's post-NIN band, Tweaker, until it got sampled in this video.
I'm from Brazil, but I never heard about Aconcagua, despite being playing games since the 8 bit era.
A Japanese game, ambiented on south America and with a English only dub?? It sounds like perfection
Dear Ragnar, hope things will get better sooner for you. Take all the time you need. Wish you the best.
Take your time with Fear and Hunger. It’s a great game, but you need to be in the right state of mind or you’ll start losing limbs.
WHITE!
WHALE!
HOLY!
GRAIL!
Yoooo Ragnar Rox and Mastodon Rocks!
17:40 Please try to avoiding injecting your politics into game reviews/discussions.
This, like I love ragnarox but I'm here to hear about the game, not political bullshit.
If not for the media shoving it in your face every 2 seconds I wouldnt even know who's running, and I really couldn't care less
Everything is politics, if you don't want to hear about it, go live in a cave somewhere.
Exactly, sick of these immature people who cant handle politics.
He doesn't need to. It's his damn video. Grow up if you can't handle hearing about politics like an adult.
@@carlos66965 "Fuck [inster disliked politics here]!" Is what's immature being immature is like.
Take your time with the fear and hunger video it is a heavy and stressful game series and especially after a bad mental health time you defiantly need that break!
I don't understand how a Japanese game studio makes a Japanese only game with all English dialog voice acting.
didnt know you can use a NIN ghost track ithout a copyright claim
Whats wrong with trump/why even bring political stuff into a video about a game that has nothing to do with that stuff but i get it orange man bad
It's not every day that I learn about a truly interesting PS1 game I had never heard of. Great job!
Forced historilcal lobotomy sums up the attitude toward games preservation perfectly
If theres anyone i want to hear do a video essay on Fear and Hunger, its you! Take your time man, quality over quantity 😊
if it wasnt for the debacle for Xenogears we probably wouldnt have had streamlined translations at all.
Once again you bring to our attention a game that we definitely should have known about! As always, loved the video
As a chilean that works on the Aconcagua division at my job, seeing this title was something crazy!
The Spanish voice acting sounds kinda bad tbh, it may sound good if you don’t know Spanish
Man, what's that track you used as background music starting around 0:32? For sure I've heard that before.
That's from Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid 1, First Area: ua-cam.com/video/oXKyMBsvst0/v-deo.htmlsi=fdokNKtvEGmHpScw
@@RagnarRoxShow Thanks for saving me from spending the entire day with a mental itch trying to figure it out! Great stuff.
@@UnarmedExile Thank you too!
Thanks for posting this comment, I was looking for this, it was driving me nuts!
I’d never heard of this one. Sad how many things get wrecked by suits.
funny how sony made A better Lost video game 4 years before the show aired than was ever made after.
FEAR AND HUNGER VIDEO LETS GOOOOO
Come to think of it, Julia looks a bit like she’s covered wars