This is my concern. Games are only an ancillary aspect of this. If you look at what they are doing to the humanities across the board–and logically extend their positions to those things which they have not yet touched–you will readily understand that they pose a Savonarola-like threat to human artistic and philosophical achievement.

In brief, they lack the kind of critical thinking and appreciation necessary to understand anything beyond the superficial; and consequently they want to lay waste to nearly every challenging aspect of human endeavour, so that they can bring about some sort of sanitised, challenge-free utopia. But all meaningful art, all meaningful human activity, challenges the viewer, the reader, the player. And such challenge is vital because if confronted, it forces people to think.

I was reading a BBC article the other day about the difficulties in fighting off radicaliation in some communities. The authors wrote, “These young men do not have the ability to reason through their actions; they cannot work out the logic of the arguments with which they are confronted.” That is the kind of world these people want to leave us: where feelings trump all thinking; and then where thinking itself becomes something that people do not know how to do.

It is worth being afraid.

I personally am a Purist and think that ANY deviation from the Japanese script needs to be critically examined for why and cleared with the writing staff before making any changes. (And even then only if it’s due to some kind of cultural difference or idiom reason why it might not make sense to foreigners.) but this garbage sounds like the level of fan translation. The worst part is that the 3ds still has region locking which prevents us from easily just importing the international versions with the original Japanese script and content but with an English translation/subtitles.

Anyway I don’t think this is nearly as bad as “Gamers are Dead”. That was pretty heinous. This is just the lowering of the tide before the Tsunami washes over us. I see a dark year ahead. I was hopeful once but now it’s getting dark. There was a time when we had the original and the only one of it’s kind; Natural Safe Space. A place called gaming where we could go to get away from the troubles of the world and none of the cultural or political worries would enter. Where it didn’t matter who you were or what you were as long as you had game or were enthusiastic about them at least you were welcome into our community. Now our homes are facing the greatest natural disaster it may ever face and we can either shutter the windows and board up the doors to prepare for it or get swept up into the angry wave that just wants nothing more than to erase everything that we were and build something foreign.

I know who I am.

Gamer isn’t my identity. It isn’t yours either. I enjoy gaming. That is what makes me a gamer. I enjoy talking about games looking at how they sound, play, feel, look, and the story they tell. I enjoy making friends and creating connections with people that enjoy the same games I like.

When I look to the future though… I am genuinely scared. Not so much about gaming. No. I am more worried about every aspect of my life. As I hear more and more things about this wave. I see more and more how they creep into every aspect of society. I see how they operate and how they win victory after victory and how much they are on the ‘right side of history’.

Darker days are yet to come friends. I know not yet what they bring but I can sense them and I am afraid.

Reviews completely dropped the ball on both Fire Emblem Fates and Street Fighter V.