<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Sometime ago, I showed a Japanese friend Terranigma, and the conversation went like:
Me: "See, this is a really cool game, you go around and resurrect this world, and then you get to interact with the people. It's got a surprisingly good story and blah blah blah..."
Friend: "No offense, but going around and helping birds and stuff is dumb. I stopped at chapter 2 and didn't even bother to resurrect the humans (which is when the story actually begins!)."
Fast forward to when DQ7 came out. I saw him playing.
Me: "What the hell are these jigsaw puzzles you're putting in this temple?"
Friend: "You see, you go around collect these things, and put them in this temple, and recreate the world piece by piece. Just like that game you're talking about, Tenchi Souzou (Terranigma's Japanese name)."
Me: "I thought you said this game (DQ7) has good gameplay."
Friend: "It does."
Me: "And Terranigma doesn't?"
Friend: "Look man, that game just blew. It was boring. The only reason that game sold at all was because it had the Enix tag on it. DQ7, on the other hand, it's all about the gameplay and tradition. You Americans can't possibly understand the greatness of the original Dragon Quests"
Me: "Um... okay... and why does the monsters look like they're from a 8 bit game?"
Friend: "Tradition man! You just won't understand unless you played the first Dragon Quest. Monsters are supposed to look like this!"
Me: "I thought there's a reason they have more powerful consoles..."
Friend: "Tradition is more important than graphics."
Me: "And what's up with the dinky sound effects when you use spells?"
Friend: "That's tradition too. They had these sound effects back in the days of DQ1!"
Me: "Don't you think they could've synthesized something better now?"
Friend: "That'd be destroying the tradition."
Me: "And I suppose keeping obselete commands like the ability to go to a menu and select talk to people instead of just using the generic 'talk' button is tradition too?"
Friend: "You silly Americans gamers just don't understand the tradition!"
And I think he is actually pretty representive of your generic Japanese gamer.</div>
Me: "See, this is a really cool game, you go around and resurrect this world, and then you get to interact with the people. It's got a surprisingly good story and blah blah blah..."
Friend: "No offense, but going around and helping birds and stuff is dumb. I stopped at chapter 2 and didn't even bother to resurrect the humans (which is when the story actually begins!)."
Fast forward to when DQ7 came out. I saw him playing.
Me: "What the hell are these jigsaw puzzles you're putting in this temple?"
Friend: "You see, you go around collect these things, and put them in this temple, and recreate the world piece by piece. Just like that game you're talking about, Tenchi Souzou (Terranigma's Japanese name)."
Me: "I thought you said this game (DQ7) has good gameplay."
Friend: "It does."
Me: "And Terranigma doesn't?"
Friend: "Look man, that game just blew. It was boring. The only reason that game sold at all was because it had the Enix tag on it. DQ7, on the other hand, it's all about the gameplay and tradition. You Americans can't possibly understand the greatness of the original Dragon Quests"
Me: "Um... okay... and why does the monsters look like they're from a 8 bit game?"
Friend: "Tradition man! You just won't understand unless you played the first Dragon Quest. Monsters are supposed to look like this!"
Me: "I thought there's a reason they have more powerful consoles..."
Friend: "Tradition is more important than graphics."
Me: "And what's up with the dinky sound effects when you use spells?"
Friend: "That's tradition too. They had these sound effects back in the days of DQ1!"
Me: "Don't you think they could've synthesized something better now?"
Friend: "That'd be destroying the tradition."
Me: "And I suppose keeping obselete commands like the ability to go to a menu and select talk to people instead of just using the generic 'talk' button is tradition too?"
Friend: "You silly Americans gamers just don't understand the tradition!"
And I think he is actually pretty representive of your generic Japanese gamer.</div>
