We don't always like being nonplussed

Saturday, August 14, 2010

The banner says it all.

This is the first time we've given a proper name to it, but we've been doing Flailthroughs of JRPGs for at least fourteen years. It all started with the local comics shop getting in a copy of Final Fantasy Collection, the Japanese PS1 anthology of Final Fantasies IV-VI, some of our favorite games ever. From there we got a copy of FFIX off of eBay that probably counts as a better example of a Flailthrough since we'd never played an English version of the game. There was definitely more flailing.

Playing through a game you don't actually comprehend is fun. It's kind of like watching the TV muted- you can only sort of guess at what's actually going on and, as often happens, it's entirely likely you will like the version that exists only in your head much better than what is ultimately presented to you when the game is (hopefully) translated.

(Incidentally, we managed to blunder our way all the way up to the end of Disc 3 in Final Fantasy IX when we encountered an error mid-cutscene that made the game impossible to finish. Upon closer inspection, the discs all said "Made in USSR." And that's why we stopped buying brand-new import games for suspiciously cheap prices on eBay.)

So the plan for the first official Flailthrough is an import copy of Pokemon Black once it's released in Japan on September 18th. It will not be purchased from eBay. Until then, we'll hopefully keep things moving with tales of Flailthroughs past.