I've been playing a game Justin sent me for review called LUX-PAIN. I'm five hours in, and simply put, so far this is one of the most unintelligible and mind-numbing "games" out there. The instruction manual bills it as a "brand new type of game that combines the stylus-based action and adventure genres" which is really just a euphemism for, "Phoenix Wright did what we're trying to do, and did it infinitely better, so we're trying to spin this." It's basically an interactive novel in which minimal thinking or gameplay is involved. That in and of itself isn't such a bad thing, if you're into exposition moreso than gameplay. In this case, I'd say that you're going to need to have to know Japanese and import the original version in order to actually enjoy Lux-Pain's story. The translation is so incredibly off-kilter that, from line to line, I often have no idea what the hell's going on.
For instance, I'm talking to the operator of an Internet Cafe, and during our conversation, he spits this gem out: "So what do you do to be cute? Oh well then, my customers are pathetic."
What?
Or, I meet for the first time a teacher named Yamato who's incredibly stern with the students. All of a sudden, he blurts something to the effect of, "You know what I hate? I hate people who think everything should be fair and balanced! You'd better not be one of those people! You better work hard in my c|ass if you want to succeed!"
Um, ok, Yamato-san, sir. Yes.
This game's chock-full of oddly-translated gems like that, and it might not even be the translation's fault -- who's to say that the source material wasn't completely unfocused and scattershot in the first place? The basic plot is that this disease called SILENT is spreading around and causing strange incidents to occur, including mass suicides. The main character is sent undercover to investigate a high school and its surrounding town. There's a person of interest who seems to be infected, and there seem to be yet other suspicious kids around who might know a thing or two about a thing or two. Yet, about 75% of the dialog I've read is about eating triple-stack burgers, or why a girl from China is having trouble selling the merchandise in her store, or how the best way to recover from illness is to not take medicine and instead build up your body's strength against it, or a newscaster who ate five pieces of burnt toast... I mean really, what the hell is happening?
Here's why this type of reading "gameplay" works in Phoenix Wright. First, almost everybody you encounter -- if not everybody -- has something important to say or give you. Even if it's the tiniest detail, you will glean some type of useful information from your conversations. Second, despite some gaffes here and there, the dialog in Phoenix Wright is very well localized. People in that game talk in sentences that actually have to do with each other and, more often than not, fit within the context of the story. Yes, there's room for flourish, but at least the fluff lends to character development -- which ultimately amounts to the third reason why the endless reading works in Phoenix Wright. The character development in Phoenix Wright is at least somewhat important in understanding the characters you're dealing with and how to coax information out of them using certain pieces of evidence or lines of questioning in court. Some of it is trial and error, and some of it is superficial, but by god at least everything ties together. In this game, most of the "character development" you get -- through shoddy translations -- is that half the stinking kids in the school are some degree of emo, and the other half are loud, excitable and often CUUUUUTE in that saccharin-induced Japanimation kind of way.
Even then, all of this would be excusable if the gameplay worked. In Phoenix Wright, the gameplay was all based on reading and selecting, which was ok because all the reading was worthwhile. In LUX-PAIN, you're afforded the opportunity to extract "Worms" that help you track down the original SILENT host. What does this involve? Scribbling at the screen to "uncover" the worm, then press down on it with your stylus. Poof -- it's gone. Your reward for this is that the worm turns into a "Term", which can then be "implanted" into the people to stir "emotions" so that you can read their thoughts and garner clues. In these five hours, every "clue" I've gotten from reading peoples' thoughts place them in one of two camps for me: "Dude, that guy totally has a SILENT tapeworm" and "Dude, I really don't care."
If it sounds like I'm being reductive, it's because so far that's all I can really "get" from this game. I STRESS AGAIN: It's only been five hours. These type of novel-ish games sometimes take a while to get going, and Hotel Dusk was a pretty slow burn (even though I wasn't the biggest fan of that game). But the random translation in conjunction with the brain-dead gameplay (poke until you see a red box, scratch until you find the worm) results in one of the most baffling releases I've had the displeasure of playing. I sincerely hope this gets better, but right now, every other line I read leaves me flabbergasted.
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