One rarely mentioned moment I appreciate a lot in this is during the Submarine talk with Yomiel - throughout his last few appearances before that point, he blamed *everyone* for what happened to him, no exceptions - even Lynne, who's just as guilty as the rest in his eyes. She was just a little girl, but he's built up such a grudge that what actually happened barely matters anymore. But in the submarine talk... "...but I was just a little girl in the park that day." - "Yeah, I know...". The music cutting out before he says his line makes this feel so poignant, like he's finally come to accept that the blame he places on Lynne, at least, is completely irrational - and it's only now he can come to terms with it. To me it always feels like the combination of the betrayal by "that country" and finally meeting with Lynne and talking to her face-to-face without any kind of plan in mind is what "cracks" his outer shell and evil bravado. Having to actually come to terms with whether to continue his decade-long grudge in the face of the one undeniably innocent person he pulled into it - and whether he still wants to take revenge on Lynne, still get that selfish sense of satisfaction out of a completely senseless act, now that both of their lives are seemingly almost over anyway. A moment of realization that revenge is no longer really what drives him - wanting to "live" is.
Another little clue as to Sissel's real identity - during the prison when you first encounter the guitarist, Sissel says that he probably uses it to communicate primal, primitive sensations like: 'I'm hungry, or I'm thirsty!' - guess Mr. Takumi knew some very loud cats in his time.
I still can't believe I friggin' called it. Sort of. If I had a nickel for every time I made an off-the-wall theory in jest only for it to come true, I'd have two nickels. (Who here remembers the two hookshots incident?)
Of course it was just as I was excited for the big finale that I got buried under work for a few weeks... Anyway, it may be late, but here's my final localization report for this game: 1. Remember how the "Sith" part of "Commander Sith" was a play on an older version of the word for "death" in Japanese? Well, "Sissel" is a play on a conjugated version of that same verb. The original "シセル" (shiseru) sounds like "死せる" (shiseru). Like a present participle in English, this is a way of signaling that a person or thing is in an ongoing state, so the main character's name sounds like an archaic way of saying "currently dead". Considering the in-story significance of the name "Sissel", I can understand not being able to localize it in a way that brings this pun to the fore, but it's one of the funnier aspects of the Japanese for me, since it means when the main character is first deciding they must be Sissel, you could essentially read this as them saying, "Ah, so I'm Currently Dead. Got it!" 2. Jowd's wife's name, "Alma", is written "アルマ" (aruma) in the Japanese. Apparently that's because it's a short version of the word "アルマゲドン" (arumagedon), which means, "Armageddon". Since everything started to really go wrong after her death, this makes sense to me, though again I don't blame the translators for sticking with something that just works better as a person's name. 3. The name of the submarine, "Yonoa", is the "ヨノア号" (yonoa-gou) in Japanese, with "号" (gou) being a character to indicate a vehicle and "ヨノア" (yonoa) being the reverse of the phrase "アノヨ" (anoyo). More recognizably written "あの世" (anoyo), this literally means "that world", but it's commonly used as a euphemism for the world of the dead, kind of like the phrase "the other side" in English. Ideally, this one could have been reworked into something else in translation (maybe the Evrag, if the word needed to be 5 characters or shorter), but I don't see this as a huge loss. 4. Yomiel's name is kind of complex. On a relatively basic level, the original Japanese "ヨミエル" (yomieru) sounds a lot like "蘇る" (yomigaeru), which means "to resurrect/to revive". However, it's also a pun on one of the Japanese words for the land of the dead. Written with the characters "黄泉", which would normally be read "kousen", this particular meaning involves the alternative reading "yomi". Meanwhile, the final "eru" sound is thought to involve an overlap with the "mi" in "yomi" to form the verb "見える" (mieru), which means "to see". In other words, "黄泉" (yomi) plus "見える" (mieru) make "yomieru", which basically means "to see hell". Add in the play on resurrection/revival and there you have a pretty good idea of some of the defining aspects of the manipulator. Also, according to the game's director, this name/character was always intended to form a pair with that of Sissel. Considering how complex and layered this extra context is on the Japanese side of things, though, I don't blame the translators at all for just sticking with "Yomiel". 5. One term that the translators did catch and localize, though, is the word "Temsik". As you noticed, this is the word "kismet" backwards, and "kismet" is a word transmitted from Arabic into Turkish and then into English that means "fate". Incidentally, that Arabic connection is why I suspected the Arabic meaning of "Kamila" was the relevant one back in a comment I left on the first episode in this series. Anyway, the Japanese uses a completely different term in place of Temsik, with the relevant word being "アシタール" (ashita-ru). This was chosen because it sounds like a rushed pronunciation of "明日がある" (ashita ga aru), which literally means something like, "to have/there is a tomorrow", but can be employed as a hopeful phrase about the future. I like that the translators essentially changed the "there'll be a tomorrow rock" into the "rock of fate". Both meanings are slightly obscured, and both also seem highly relevant to the way the story plays out. Thanks as always for sharing these streams! I really enjoyed this one. References: Grammatical breakdown of "死せる" (shiseru): japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/99458/what-is-the-meaning-of-%E6%AD%BB%E3%81%9B%E3%82%8B (The answer to this question on Stack Exchange is one of the clearest explanations I've seen for this grammar point.) JP to EN dictionary entry for "アルマゲドン": jisho.org/word/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E3%83%9E%E3%82%B2%E3%83%89%E3%83%B3 JP to EN dictionary entry for "あの世": jisho.org/word/%E3%81%82%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96 JP to EN dictionary entry for "蘇る": jisho.org/word/%E7%94%A6%E3%82%8B JP to EN dictionary search results for "黄泉": jisho.org/search/%E9%BB%84%E6%B3%89 (While the "yomi" reading for these kanji is listed as an alternative under the first search result, it's the standard reading for subsequent results like 黄泉路 [yomiji] and 黄泉の国 [yomi no kuni].) JP to EN dictionary entry for "見える": jisho.org/word/%E8%A6%8B%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B Etymology of "kismet": www.etymonline.com/word/kismet JP to EN dictionary entry for "明日があるさ" (ashita ga aru sa): jisho.org/word/51868ed9d5dda7b2c600d0c3 (Technically this phrase is a little different from just "明日がある" [ashita ga aru], but it's mostly the same. I'm honestly a little surprised my go-to JP to EN dictionary had an entry for this phrase, but I'm glad it did because I find it illustrative of the way it's used to inspire hope.) Site with confirmed JP wordplay from various online sources (JP): www.ne.jp/asahi/game/gyakusai/gt/k/gt-k-08.html (Now that there are no more spoilers, this link is safe to peruse for anyone who's interested. I've relied on it for basically this entire comment, not to mention a good portion of previous ones, so I'm very grateful to whoever put this together.)
When the music is good and the stresses are high, I like let the music fill me with confidence. When one's confidence surges, the same stresses feel so much smaller. It always interests me how powerful belief really is for us sometimes.
Yeah, Sissel was the cat all along! Who could've seen that coming! Left me shocked for weeks when I first found out! Takumi's just one of many underappreciated geniuses in storytelling. That explains why Sissel couldn't read, at least. What I really find interesting is that by the end of the game, not only the entire story basically undone (Like seriously, the game pretty much never happened at the end. Whoa.), but Sissel is the only one whose death isn't averted. Then again, his fate _did_ ultimately change. And for the better! He might still be dead, but now he can enjoy watching life go by all around him. Seeing Yomiel in his cell like that at the end was kinda uncanny, considering we thought were him for almost the entire game. But Sissel jumping down from his painting into that photo was just the best way to top it all off. So wholesome. I'm glad you played this game. It was an underrated masterpiece, and I was happy to see it get ported. GG, Lauren.
It's a really charming game, with great characters and a fun story. The ending surprised me, but they did set it up along the way so you can see the breadcrumbs and hints when you look back (though I think it would be *really* hard to predict the ending just because it's such an unusual direction!). And Sissel seems pretty happy with his situation, so I hope that he continues to be happy, and that he can find peace later on if he needs to. The final photo with him as part of the family is really a great note to end the story on - I cared a lot about these people and it made me happy to see them together like that!
Hey thanks for playing this! I never get to tune into streams so I really appreciate the youtube uploads. It's really nice to be able to re-experience the games I love through someone who takes their time to smell the flowers as it were. I heard you were playing Chicory and Outer Wilds next. Chicory's one of those I've been thinking about playing since it came out, and Outer Wilds might have crashed into the top of my favorite games ever list, so i can only hope it hits you anywhere close to the same way it hit me.
It would've been so fun to catch this and the previous stream live, unfortunately I'm usually busy on Tuesdays. It was still so much fun getting to relive the story vicariously through your playthrough. I was going to try writing an overview of the story for each chapter as told by the "Horrible" Mino (he actually isn't horrible, just misunderstood) but I'm feeling a little under the weather right now so I am creatively drained.
That sounds like a fun concept for a story! If you ever write it, let me know. But I completely understand feeling creatively drained; I've had that feeling a lot in recent years. I'm glad you came along for the ride! I really enjoyed this game!
Hey Lauren! Have you ever heard about a game Outer Wilds? I think this game would be right up your alley, and the fanbase for does peetty much no spoilers or backseating at all.
I have, actually! And I think it's the next game I'm going to play on Thursdays, once I'm done with Undertale Yellow. I will be playing Chicory next on Tuesdays (starting next week). I'm really looking forward to it because I've heard such good things about both of these games, and everybody has been so extreme about avoiding spoilers for Outer Wilds that I know very little about it (and am excited to finally find out!).
