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Mother 3
Mother 3 (2006)
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In an interview with Nintendo Dream conducted roughly three months after the release of Mother 3, director and series creator Shigesato Itoi stated that the Magypsies were designed as a deliberate contrast with the game's otherwise "macho" setting. Rather than responding to violence with violence, they intervene through peaceful means and live fully aware of and comfortable with the inevitability of death.

In the same interview, Itoi also stated that he made representation a big part of the game's cast: the Magypsies were inspired by friends of his (though he did not specify if this referred to their philosophies or their depiction as nonbinary figures who take after drag culture), and Duster was given a limp "because there are handicapped people in our world." According to Itoi, the idea behind this was to encourage an anti-discrimination message.
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Development, Inspiration, LGBTQ+, Real Life
person VinchVolt calendar_month March 30, 2024
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Tekken
Tekken (1994)
subdirectory_arrow_right Tekken (Franchise)
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In an interview with Polygon, the series lead Director, Katsuhiro Harada, confirmed that King's motion capture was performed by Japanese pro-wrestling star and MMA pioneer, Minoru Suzuki. The wrestling star made King's fighting style with a mix of Mexican lucha libre and Japanese puroresu. Harada also said that Suzuki also invented original moves for King and Michelle (as well as Julia in future games). Harada also says that Suzuki also offered to choke him out, to which he said "Yeah, of course dude, I want you to choke me out" and that "it felt like taking a refreshing nap."

King's backstory was inspired by Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez, a catholic priest who moonlit as the masked wrestler Fray Tormenta to raise funds for his orphanage, while the character's jaguar mask design was inspired by Tiger Mask, a recurring masked persona first portrayed in real-life by mixed martial artist Satoru Sayama, and a character licensed out to Japanese professional wrestling companies from the 1968 manga of the same name by Ikki Kajiwara.
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Character Design, Development, Inspiration, Motion Capture, Moveset, Real Life
person DrakeVagabond calendar_month January 20, 2024
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Polygon video about Katsuhiro Harada interview snippet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibweoMXd5RI

Kotaku article featuring Tiger Mask:
https://kotaku.com/in-japan-wrestling-masks-arent-just-for-half-naked-dud-5845062

"Cheating Death, Stealing Life: The Eddie Guerrero Story" by Eddie Guerrero (page 91):
https://archive.org/details/cheatingdeathste00guer/page/91
Virtual Lab
Virtual Lab (1995)
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Attachment In an interview with the Bad Game Hall of Fame, Megumi Ayase, who programmed Virtual Lab singlehandedly, stated that the large-breasted woman who appears next to the playing field was based on the idealized image that she wanted to attain as a transgender woman. This is reflected in her name, Megu, a truncation of Ayase's given name. Ayase also stated that the decision to make Megu 13 years old was done without her consultation, and that she didn't find out about this until she read the game's manual, much to her surprise.
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Artwork/Illustration, Character Design, Corporate Affairs, Development, Inspiration, LGBTQ+, Real Life
person VinchVolt calendar_month December 26, 2023
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Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988)
subdirectory_arrow_right Super Mario Maker 2 (Game)
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Attachment Many international Mario fans were confused by the design of the Angry Sun in the New Super Mario Bros. U style of Super Mario Maker 2, noticing how it appeared more stern than angry. This is due to the fact that "angry" is not part of the enemy's name in Japan, just being called "sun", meaning that anger is not an inherent part of the character and giving it a different expression would make more sense without knowledge of its localized name.

The new design of the "Angry" Sun seems to be based on pre-colonial mythology based on the sun, most particularly the Inca sun god Inti, a design inspiration that seems to exist in anthropomoprhic suns from multiple other Nintendo games such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mole Mania, and Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters
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Character Design, Complaint, Inspiration, Name Change, Regional Difference, Release Difference, Religion, Similarities, Theory
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month December 18, 2023
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Tekken 7
Tekken 7 (2015)
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Development, Early Idea, Inspiration, Politics, Real Life, Unused Character
person ZpaceJ0ck0 calendar_month December 14, 2023
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Collection: Ōkami
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According to former Clover CEO Atsushi Inaba, the series' trademark Celestial Brush mechanic was directly inspired by the ukiyo-e art style. In a 2006 interview with GameSpy, Inaba stated "Once we fixed ourselves on a graphical style and got down to the brushwork, we thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow get the player involved and participate in this artwork instead of just watching it?'" These comments also explain why in both games, activating the Celestial Brush renders the current frame as a scroll of washi paper.
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Artwork/Illustration, Controls, Development, Inspiration
person VinchVolt calendar_month January 20, 2024
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Platform: PlayStation 2
subdirectory_arrow_right Nuon (Platform)
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While DVD video playback was a major selling point for the PlayStation 2, Sony didn't plan to support the feature at first, as they were already intending to manufacture standalone DVD players through their home entertainment department. However, after seeing a demonstration for the Nuon, a DVD player by VM Labs with video game support, Sony Computer Entertainment head Ken Kutaragi demanded that a similar level of multimedia functionality be incorporated into the PlayStation 2. The move was met with resistance from Sony's home entertainment wing, who believed that doing so would cause the console to cannibalize sales of their standalone DVD players. However, Kutaragi won out in the end due to the clout that the PlayStation brand had given him.
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Console Wars, Corporate Affairs, Development, Inspiration, Real Life
person VinchVolt calendar_month November 13, 2023
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Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023)
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One scrapped idea for a Wonder Flower transformation was an eight-heads-tall, life-size, live-action version of Mario that hummed to the background music and exclaimed "Boing" when jumping. This idea was pitched by series composer Koji Kondo, but was scrapped due to it being "hard to see the connection between pre-Wonder effect and during Wonder effect. And it's hard to imagine the gameplay changing much by having Mario turn into a live-action, human proportion version of himself." However, this did end up leading to the Sound Off? badge being created to keep the voice sound effects idea in the game. Incidentally, Kondo provided the voice acting for all of the sound effects included while wearing the badge.
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Development, Early Idea, Inspiration, Music, Real Life, Voice Acting
person NintendOtaku calendar_month October 19, 2023
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Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy VIII (1999)
subdirectory_arrow_right SaGa: Scarlet Grace - Ambitions (Game), Hanjuku Hero 4: 7-nin no Hanjuku Hero (Game), The Final Fantasy Legend (Game), Hanjuku Hero Tai 3D (Game), Live A Live (Game), Bahamut Lagoon (Game), Square (Company)
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Among Japanese RPG fans, there is a group of female characters that are generally disliked by the audience, being referred to as "The Three Great She-Devils of Square". The reasons why these characters are disliked varies, but largely revolve around them betraying the main hero(es) in some way. The two generally agreed-upon members are:

• Princess Yoyo from Bahamut Lagoon, the childhood friend of protagonist Byuu and set up as his love interest, only to instead get together with another character, General Palpeleos.
• Alethea from Live a Live, who due to the machinations of the chapter's villain Streibough, came to believe the protagonist Oersted (who she was meant to marry) had abandoned her, and commits suicide after witnessing him murder Streibough. This leads to Oersted becoming the game's overall antagonist, Odio.

There is some debate as to who the third member of the group is, but the list of candidates include:

• Mileille from The Final Fantasy Legend, who was introduced as the leader of a resistance group alongside her twin sister Jeanne, only for it to be revealed that she had been working for Byak-ko the whole time.
• Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII, largely due to her personality and lingering feelings for her ex-boyfriend Seifer, though she ends up with protagonist Squall in the end. Note that this pick might be due in part because of how divisive the game is in general.
• Catholine from the PS2 Hanjuku Hero games, due to her ugly and obnoxious nature, as well as constantly forcing herself onto the hero.

The group term would later be referenced in SaGa: Scarlet Grace - Ambitions, which featured an enemy team named "Lady Power", that consisted of three female demons with names that reference Yoyo, Alethea, and Milielle (though the former two were known as "Jojo" and "Alicia", respectively).
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Complaint, Easter Egg, Inspiration, Real Life, Reference
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month October 10, 2023
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Fallout 2
Fallout 2 (1998)
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Fallout 2 is notable for being the first video game to feature same-sex marriage through opportunities to marry Miria or Davin, a sister and brother working at the slaughterhouse in Modoc. According to game designer Chris Avellone in 2019, nobody at Black Isle Studios working on the game was against the inclusion of same-sex marriage, and noted that "fans didn't seem to care" about it when playing the game. He believed the reason for this reception was because of it only being offered in Modoc, a tight-knit small town "where things can get wild and weird" that was more receptive to it than a more "modern" location like Vault City.
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Backstory/Lore, Development, First, General, Inspiration, LGBTQ+, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month April 11, 2024
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Mother
Mother (1989)
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Attachment In a 2019 interview with Game Center CX host Arino Kacho, director and series creator Shigesato Itoi revealed that Ninten's asthma was inspired by his own experiences with the disease. According to Itoi, he would often play video games late at night while trying to fall asleep sitting up, as lying down would induce severe coughing fits. This resulted in him developing an interest in making a game with Nintendo, to whom he felt "indebted" for keeping him busy during a difficult part of his routine. Once development on Mother started, Ninten's asthma was one of the first traits that Itoi came up with. Itoi stated:

"I wanted a weak hero. The main character in Mother has asthma, and his dad is never around. That was the setup I had in mind when wondering what kind of adventure story I could make."
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Development, Inspiration, Real Life
person VinchVolt calendar_month March 23, 2024
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Regular Show: Mordecai and Rigby in 8-Bit Land
Regular Show: Mordecai and Rigby in 8-Bit Land (2013)
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Attachment The game's main antagonist Garrett Bobby Ferguson Jr., and his father of the same name (both originally characters featured in the series' two-part episode "Exit 9B" which the game is based on), are based on Donkey Kong record-holder Billy Mitchell, who has notably gained controversy for cheating on the Donkey Kong arcade game. At one point in 2015, Mitchell sued Cartoon Network over the characters, claiming that the show infringed on his likeness. The case was later dismissed in court by New Jersey Federal District Judge Anne Thompson, who stated in her final ruling that:

"The television character does not match the plaintiff in appearance: GBF appears as a non-human creature, a giant floating head with no body from outer space, while Plaintiff is a human being, […] And when GBF loses his title, the character literally explodes, unlike Plaintiff."
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Character Design, Complaint, General, Inspiration, Real Life
person Tuli0hWut calendar_month March 2, 2024
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Final boss fight against Garrett Bobby Ferguson Jr. and Sr.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY7SxOXzBeY

Garrett Bobby Ferguson Jr. backstory in the series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDgl3gjFfBA

Article on Billy Mitchell Cartoon Network lawsuit:
https://www.polygon.com/2015/11/24/9792472/billy-mitchell-regular-show-court-case
Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot (1996)
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Dan Arey, a former Crystal Dynamics and Naughty Dog developer who worked on the second and third games in the series, praised the first game in a 1996 Retro Gamer magazine interview. Prior to joining Naughty Dog, he talked about how the game maintained its unique identity in the world of 3D platformers, even when faced with the groundbreaking influence of Super Mario 64. Arey emphasized that while Super Mario 64 embraced open-ended levels, programmer Andy Gavin and director Jason Rubin designed Crash Bandicoot to adhere to a more old-school, level-based structure while adding 3D depth to its platforming challenges by "going down 3D roads with occasional 2D side-wave elements, but everything was very focussed in terms of mechanics". Arey also expressed admiration for the game's technical achievements even before he joined Naughty Dog, which likely soon motivated him to do so:

"We saw some early demos when I was at Crystal Dynamics, and we were asking ourselves how they were getting so many polygons on the PlayStation. What they had done was pre-calculate the polygons you couldn't see from a fixed-camera viewpoint, so it looked like there were many more polygons being pushed on the system than ever before."
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Development, General, Inspiration, Level Design, Magazine, Real Life, Technology
person ProtoSnake calendar_month February 18, 2024
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Darkened Skye
Darkened Skye (2002)
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When a Skittles game was first proposed to eventual Darkened Skye executive producer Elizabeth Braswell by her boss, she responded "well, you have two choices: you can fire me now, and make the next year and a half much easier on me, or you can, like, not make me do this." The following night, she went to a bar and got drunk over the Skittles project, which she deemed "the end of [her] career". While intoxicated, she conceived the idea of using Skittles as a vehicle to do a self-aware high fantasy adventure game she had always wanted to do, but never got the chance.
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Complaint, Corporate Affairs, Development, Inspiration, Real Life
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month January 28, 2024
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Collection: Nintendo Vs. Series
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The Nintendo Vs. Series originated as a way to gauge Nintendo's ability to court the North American market following the Great Video Game Crash of 1983. Because the crash had only affected the region's home console market, Nintendo believed that the still-thriving arcade scene would be a good way to test consumer interest in the Famicom library, porting select games to an arcade format. Despite the collapse of a deal with Atari to distribute the Famicom overseas, and despite the pessimistic results of market research, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi still believed that the company could successfully enter the field.
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Corporate Affairs, Development, Inspiration, Real Life
person VinchVolt calendar_month January 20, 2024
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Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
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The lyrics to Silver's theme, "Dreams of an Absolution", was based on songwriter Bentley Jones' relationship with his ex-boyfriend:

"Originally, I wrote "Dreams" about a bad ex-boyfriend who wanted to get back with me, and I couldn't shake off the past, and I was in this weird grey area that I didn't know if I wanted to move forward together anymore. Scandal! "Dreams" was written about a gay love story!"
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Development, Inspiration, LGBTQ+, Music
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month January 11, 2024
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Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (2007)
subdirectory_arrow_right Ace Attorney (Franchise)
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According to series creator Shu Takumi in a 2017 interview, Capcom executives issued two mandates affecting the writing of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. The first mandate was that the game had to include Phoenix Wright in the story, which went against Takumi's original idea for a reset of the series. The second mandate was to incorporate the Lay Judge system, a real-life judicial system, into the story, resulting in the creation of Spoiler:the MASON System game program and the trial run of a new Jurist System in the game's last case "Turnabout Succession". The Ace Attorney series began as a critique of how Japan's legal system handles criminal offenses, but around this time, that system was changing. While Japan previously suspended an older jurist system in 1943, their legislative body, the National Diet, gradually implemented a new lay judge system (裁判員, or "Saiban-in") from 2004 to 2009. This system, resembling more democratic systems in North American and European countries, calls upon six random common citizens to serve in serious criminal trials as inquisitorial judges sitting alongside three professional judges. Together they make up the judicial panel and actively analyze and investigate evidence presented to them throughout the trial before ruling on guilt and sentencing. Reflecting this, Spoiler:the Jurist System seen at the end of Turnabout Succession is made up of six random jurors guided by Phoenix Wright, where the player from the sixth juror's perspective has to rule the defendant Guilty or Not Guilty.

Takumi revealed that as part of the game’s promotion, Capcom collaborated with the Japanese Ministry of Justice and even gave a presentation of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney at the ministry's head office, implying that the system's mandated inclusion in the game was political propaganda. Despite Capcom cooperating in the Japanese government's push for this new system and despite participation experiences being reported as positive and easy to understand, the reception to other aspects of the system were largely negative. Complaints included gradually more severe sentencing since its implementation, the risk of criminal penalties for lay judges publicly discussing confidential deliberation room details after trials come to an end, and most starkly, calling upon Japanese citizens to put aside time to participate in the system, who have been increasingly unwilling to do so. This decline in interest has been largely attributed to the length of lay judge trials and even the length of pre-trial proceedings increasing significantly over the next decade, and due to aging populations and people simply not being able to make these commitments, more citizens refused to serve or even show up to be vetted for serving in the first place, making it harder to fill out the jury.

As a result of this reception, the Ace Attorney series has not used Spoiler:the MASON System and the Jurist System since, sticking with the series' traditional Initial Trial system in future games.
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Advertisement/Commercial, Backstory/Lore, Complaint, Corporate Affairs, Development, General, Inspiration, Legal Affairs, Politics, Real Life, Retcon, Suggested
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month January 9, 2024
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Star Fox: Assault
Star Fox: Assault (2005)
subdirectory_arrow_right Xevious (Game), Star Luster (Game), Battle City (Game)
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Attachment Star Fox: Assault is notable for including three unlockable Famicom/NES games originally created by Namco:

• Xevious
• Battle City
• Star Luster

As explained by the development team in an issue of Nintendo Dream, this was done to highlight Star Fox: Assault being a collaboration between Nintendo and Namco, with the latter being its primary developer. With the Star Fox franchise being a sci-fi shooter series, Tsuyoshi Kobayashi and Takaya Imamura had carefully decided on which classic Namco games would fit the best with that vibe. There were considerations to also include Nintendo created Famicom/NES games (one person, for example, had suggested including Balloon Fight), but ultimately Imamura and Kobayashi couldn't come up with any games that would have fit the Star Fox world and atmosphere.

Unfortunately, as the Famicom versions of Battle City and Star Luster had never been released in Western territories, they in turn were excluded from all Western versions of Star Fox: Assault, leaving Xevious as the only unlockable Namco game outside of Japan.
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Bonus Content, Bundled/Pack-In Game, Development, Inspiration, Regional Difference
person Dinoman96 calendar_month January 5, 2024
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Star Fox Assault Nintendo Dream interview:
https://shmuplations.com/starfoxassault/

Footage of Xevious, the only unlockable Namco game in the western version of SFAss:
https://youtu.be/BrMv7tKA74A?t=6
Star Fox
Star Fox (1993)
subdirectory_arrow_right Star Fox (Franchise)
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Attachment During the development of the original Star Fox, character designer Takaya Imamura originally wanted to make the characters generic humans and aliens, similar to his character designs from F-Zero. It was Shigeru Miyamoto who convinced him to instead make them anthropomorphic animals, as he wanted the game's aesthetic to stand out from every other science fiction property coming out at the time.

Fox in particular being a fox was inspired by the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine located near Nintendo's offices.
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Character Design, Development, Early Idea, Inspiration
person Dinoman96 calendar_month December 28, 2023
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Iwata Asks - Star Fox 64 3D:
https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/3ds/starfox/0/2/

2002 Nintendo Dream interview with Takaya Imamura on Star Fox Adventures:
https://shmuplations.com/starfoxadventures/

2002 Nintendo Official Magazine interview with Takaya Imamura:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030416023122/https://www.nintendo.co.jp/nom/0210/fox_03/page03.html

English translations of above NOM interview:
https://www.reddit.com/r/starfox/comments/18rek3h/just_throwing_out_a_translation_of_this_old/

Nintendo Classic Mini: SNES developer interview – Volume 1: Star Fox + Star Fox 2:
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2017/September/Nintendo-Classic-Mini-SNES-developer-interview-Volume-1-Star-Fox-Star-Fox-2-1273086.html
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy VI (1994)
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The character Ultros from Final Fantasy VI’s Japanese name is pronounced as “ortorosu” and was intended to be a reference to Orthos from Greek mythology. When the game was localized, the translator was presumably unaware of this reference and transliterated it as Ultros. Later entries in the series would alternate between calling the character Ultros and Orthos.
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Etymology, Inspiration, Mistake, Mistranslation, Regional Difference
person Kirby Inhales Jotaro calendar_month December 18, 2023
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