Trivia Browser


Tagsarrow_right
Filter:
Platformsarrow_right
Filter:
Yearsarrow_right
Filter:

Genresarrow_right
Filter:
Collectionsarrow_right
Filter:
Franchisesarrow_right
Filter:
Companiesarrow_right
Filter:

Assassin's Creed Shadows
1
One of the game's dual protagonists Yasuke, an African samurai, is the first main character in the Assassin's Creed series to be based on a real historical figure, but his real-life identity and status serving under Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga has been the subject of a contentious debate among historians. There are few scholarly/historical resources available describing him and his life and no known resources that refer to him as a samurai, with the most common conclusion being his title was a retainer to Nobunaga.

His reveal as a main character in the game on May 15, 2024 caused polarizing reactions worldwide on social media. Fans critical of the decision claimed Ubisoft misrepresented Japan, which had never been covered in-depth in the globally-spanning game series, by not having both protagonists be Japanese (the other protagonist, Naoe, is Japanese) and claim that Yasuke was not actually a samurai, while those in support of Yasuke's role and claim that he was actually a samurai called these objections racist and based on narrow-minded arguments and inferences, with some going so far as to opine that Asian samurai protagonists in media were oversaturated. This intense fighting lead to Yasuke's English Wikipedia article entering an edit war, with administrators publicly calling the Talk page "a complete dumpster fire". As of May 19, the consensus that was reached on the Talk page appears to be that there is still no historical evidence confirming that Yasuke was a samurai, and the article does not call him one when talking about his documented life.

The lack of clarity on his life allowed popular culture/media to take creative liberties in speculating who he was, often depicting him in adaptations as a high-ranking samurai, and Ubisoft seemed to be going in a similar direction. The advertising for the game at its announcement described Yasuke as a "samurai of historical legend", and a press release stated:

"Ubisoft Quebec wanted to include a Samurai, and Yasuke's story was open-ended enough to allow for creativity; there are still plenty of questions and speculation surrounding him. The fascinating facts, though, were undisputable: of African origin, he arrived in Japan enslaved by the Portuguese; he impressed with size, strength, and wits; he served under the Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga. There must have been something exceptional about Yasuke to succeed in the service of a personality like Nobunaga's, [...] and the goal has been to expound on this in Assassin's Creed Shadows through his curiosity, openness, respect for values and tradition, valor, warmth, and charisma."

While the header for this section is called "Yasuke: A Real-Life Samurai", this description seems to be carefully worded to stop short of directly calling him a samurai, with the use of "historical legend" elsewhere suggesting that they were aware of its unconfirmed status and were fictionalizing Yasuke for the game.

In a set of developer interviews with Famitsu published on May 15, creative director Jonathan Dumont elaborated that they also chose Yasuke to fit with the game's story of a foreigner who fights off oppressing forces, like the Portuguese slave trade's effects on Japan, while exploring a country unknown to him, stating that they were "first looking for "our samurai," someone who could be our non-Japanese eyes". The following day, the Famitsu article was edited to change direct quotes in the interviews where Yasuke was referred to as an "outsider" to being a "foreign-born samurai", and also completely removed the aforementioned quote, for unknown reasons.
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month May 19, 2024
Game website:
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/assassins-creed/shadows

Ubisoft press release:
https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/2LH4Ael4X1TlNJY3B3aYg5/assassins-creed-shadows-launches-november-15-features-dual-protagonists-in-feudal-japan

IGN articles:
https://www.ign.com/articles/when-and-where-is-assassins-creed-shadows-set
https://www.ign.com/articles/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-asian-protagonist

Time article:
https://time.com/6978997/assassins-creed-shadow-yasuke-controversy/

Forbes article:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2024/05/15/japanese-fans-are-puzzled-that-yasuke-is-in-assassins-creed-shadows/

Yasuke English Wikipedia article (Note: while much of this controversy occurred on English language Wikipedia, bear in mind that Wikipedia articles by themselves are not reliable sources for historical research, and the English article is not a uniform representation of the information on Yasuke across the different language versions of Wikipedia that have this article. There are varying primary, secondary, historical and pop culture sources used in all of these articles either backing up verified information about him, or making different claims that may not be accurate.):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yasuke

Wikipedia administrator discussion:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240518220622/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Talk:Yasuke_is_a_complete_dumpster_fire

Earliest archive of original Famitsu interview (in Japanese; English machine translations for all archives of this article compared between Google Translate and DeepL prior to publishing this submission) (May 15):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240515185159/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194

Archived edited interview (May 16):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240516194746/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194

Latest archived edit (May 18):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240518034336/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194
Everything
1
During the climax of the 2022 film "Everything Everywhere All at Once", protagonist Evelyn Wang and antagonist Jobu Tupaki appear in an alternate universe where they are both rocks overlooking a vista. In an interview with the film's directors and writers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the pair revealed that this scene had two major influences: the children's book "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" (about a donkey who turns into a rock and is isolated from his family), and the video game Everything, whose creator David O'Reilly was a friend of the pair. Everything is a game where the player can play as "literally anything", with the pair describing it as follows:

"Kwan: It feels good and that is really beautiful. The whole purpose of the game is you have to look at it and not press anything. It’s a game where the longer you don’t press anything —

Scheinert: — the more you progress."
Deltarune
1
Attachment In an interview that Toby Fox conducted with the Chapter 2 development team, Taxiderby, one of the game's programmers, stated that the Spamton cherub that appears when pressing F1 during the Spamton and Spoiler:Spamton NEO fights was a spur-of-the-moment suggestion. According to them, Spamton's line "[Press F1 For] HELP" was already written, but it was originally a meaningless non-sequitur. After Fox suggested the idea of giving F1 an actual function in the fight, Taxiderby came up with the Final Fantasy-inspired Easter egg, putting it in singlehandedly after Fox gave his approval for the idea. In the same interview, they stated that they were surprised by its popularity, having made it purely as a throwaway gag.
MultiVersus
2
MultiVersus lead writer Eric Stirpē has stated that he writes each fighter as a "Multiversus version" by picking a point in a franchise's history for them to be chosen from by Reindog, in an effort to keep their dialogue in line with the source material. Some fighters from a single franchise are chosen from different time periods within it, but the points when they are chosen are not canon to the source material or the game's plot. It's unknown how every fighter fits into this writing guide, but it creates some inconsistencies with their designs in the game:

• Stripe and Gizmo were chosen just before Stripe's death in the first Gremlins film.
• Finn and Jake were chosen during the events of Adventure Time: Islands, though the lack of Finn's prosthetic arm is not explained, and Fern was chosen before he became a villain in Season 9 of Adventure Time.
• Steven and Garnet were chosen during Season 2 of Steven Universe.
• Bugs Bunny was not chosen, but rather emerged from hiding since the 1940s through a hole in his animation cel or film reel, with him being referred to as a "timeline hopper".
• Taz is from the 1990s (presumably tying him in to Taz-Mania).
• Marvin was chosen during the events of Space Jam: A New Legacy, and LeBron James was chosen two days after the end of the film.
• Tom and Jerry are from the 1960s, but are portrayed with a modern art style that does not resemble either the Gene Deitch or Chuck Jones runs of theatrical shorts from that time.
• Shaggy was chosen one year after the end of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, while Velma was chosen from an unspecified "cancelled 2000s reboot".
• The Iron Giant was chosen while returning to America after he re-assembles himself at the end of the film.
• Arya Stark was chosen during either Season 6 or 7 of the Game of Thrones TV series.
• Stirpē considers the DC Comics heroes and villains to all be original interpretations of the characters created for Multiversus.
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month May 16, 2024
Platform: Neo Geo AES
subdirectory_arrow_right Newgrounds (Company)
2
The American entertainment and browser game website Newgrounds originally started as a fanzine called "New Ground", focusing on SNK's Neo Geo hardware and games, and being named after synonyms for "Neo" (New) and "Geo" (Ground). It was first circulated by founder Tom Fulp in 1991 in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, before being registered as a website in 1995.
Citizens of Earth
1
In regards to the game's visuals, director Ryan Vandendyck opted to avoid using a style that was considered common among indie games, stating:

"Basically we felt that the retro pixilated look and the anime-look in RPGs were way over-done, especially in the realm of indie RPGs. Plus, we felt neither of those two really fit a modern setting that well. So we went with a more cartoony style that we think fits the modern, Westernized setting, as well as being something quite unique. As you may guess by the fact that I made Waveform, I like making things not seen in other games! And as soon as we saw Robin’s character designs and the characters brought to life through animation, everyone on the team was sold."
Deltarune
1
Attachment In 2012, Toby Fox posted several Yume Nikki fan songs to his Tumblr account. One of these, "waltz of seccom masada" (named after a fan nickname for the piano-playing NPC in the spaceship area), bears strong similarities to the Deltarune track "Man" (heard in the hidden rooms where Kris can obtain an egg from an invisible NPC behind a tree), indicating that Fox repurposed and rearranged the song for his own project years later.
person VinchVolt calendar_month May 12, 2024
Deltarune
1
In Volume 5 of his Famitsu column "Toby's Secret Base", creator and director Toby Fox revealed that Ralsei's name came from a period in elementary school where he and his brothers constantly experimented with RPG Maker, having long had a shared interest in game development. Fox's oldest brother spent years working on a game called New Genesis, which featured a protagonist named Ralse; Fox simply appended an "i" to the name when incorporating it into Deltarune years later.

In the same column, Fox stated that the prolonged development of New Genesis discouraged him from making games for a long time. When he finally returned to the field in his teenage years, he sought to temper his expectations from the outset by making smaller-scale titles and preemptively planning out his approach to development to avoid biting off more than he could chew.
Super Monkey Ball Adventure
subdirectory_arrow_right Super Monkey Ball Adventure (Game)
1
In an attempt to make the game more accessible and add more depth to the series, Sega opted to focus more on the game's plot compared to previous titles, which primarily focused on the gameplay, to try and take the series' characters "into the next sort of iconic level".
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month May 3, 2024
Cassette Beasts
1
Cassette Beasts' plot is inspired by isekai, a subgenre of fantasy that revolves around a person being transported to and surviving in another world. However, the game changes normal conventions of the genre by having everyone the player meets in the game also be transported to the island of New Wirral in a similar manner. According to writer Jay Baylis, this was done to allow the team to put focus on the people who are present in the game.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
subdirectory_arrow_right The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Game)
1
The character design of Purlo, who runs the STAR game in the thoroughfare of Castletown, was directly based on Tingle. According to Eiji Aonuma, he is what Tingle would look like if he was made with a realistic design.
person CuriousUserX90 calendar_month April 23, 2024
Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights
1
Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights features many similarities to the Professor Layton franchise by Level-5, namely in regards to the aesthetics and story. Noriaki Okamura, the game's designer, admitted that he was inspired by the series when making the game.
Skullgirls
1
Attachment Finishing the match with any Blockbuster attack will cause the background to change and display a portrait of the defeated character with a pained expression on their face. This is a reference to the Capcom fighting game JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which features similar portraits for when a match is finished with a Super. The shaders that Skullgirls uses for its portraits in-game are also internally labeled as "JojosDeathPortrait" in the game's files.
person ZpaceJ0ck0 calendar_month April 21, 2024
Finishing a match normally in JJBA (no portrait):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IfMOtufRo?t=342

Finishing a match in JJBA using a Super:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IfMOtufRo?t=207

Finishing a match normally in Skullgirls (no portrait):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sem4JFgt0?t=125

Finishing a match in Skullgirls with a Blockbuster move:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sem4JFgt0?t=426

The name found in the game's files:
https://tcrf.net/Skullgirls#Internal_Names
Freddy in Space 3: Chica in Space
This trivia has been marked as "Not Safe for Work".
It may not be appropriate for all visitors and definitely isn't appropriate for work or school environments.
Click here to unhide it.
1
person Violett calendar_month April 21, 2024
Final Fantasy XVI
1
In an April 15th, 2024 interview with the director of the game's DLC "The Rising Tide" Takeo Kujiraoka published on Push Square's website, he revealed the development team believed that they achieved one of their initial goals to successfully attract players of all ages to play Final Fantasy XVI and become fans of the series. He claimed that Final Fantasy games in recent years had "tended to skew towards a higher age range", and they believed they were able to break that trend to a certain extent as evidenced by "survey results" showing that more people in their teens and twenties played the game. Kujiraoka clarified that this did not mean all future Final Fantasy titles would follow in the direction of this game, but that with a younger fanbase on-board it would allow future development teams to explore new possibilities when working on subsequent installments.
MyPopgoes
1
The expanded version of myPOPGOES has a challenge named "Mini-P," which makes pizzas cook faster, but restore less hunger. This is a reference to one of Scott Cawthon's characters from the 2015 troll game FNaF World: Halloween Edition, also named Mini-P, which has the appearance of William Afton's "Purple Guy" sprite, just smaller and with red glowing eyes.
Donkey Kong
subdirectory_arrow_right Mario (Franchise)
2
Attachment While Mario's mustache, red shirt and blue overalls were described by Miyamoto as the result of technical limitations, there's a possibility that they were also inspired by an issue of the Japanese men's fashion magazine Popeye, named after the fictional character that Mario was already partly inspired by. The March 1980 issue of Popeye magazine features cover art of a man with a mustache wearing a red shirt with blue overalls.
HuniePop
1
In an interview with TechRaptor, lead developer Ryan Koons stated that the decision to make HuniePop a gameplay-centric title instead of a story-centric one like other dating sims didn't happen until months into development. The original intention was to make a traditional dating sim, only for Koons – who already had little interest in storytelling in video games – to overhaul the concept due to his growing ennui.

In the same interview, Koons stated that he deliberately sought to avoid many of the cliches associated with dating sims, particularly "the usual innocent waifu style character types." Consequently, the game's cast are based on people from his own life, and the writing is much more irreverent than other dating sims. In particular, Koons described deuteragonist Kyu Sugardust as a raunchy fictionalization of her voice actress, Jaclyn Aimee.
The King of Fighters XV
1
The Art of Fighting ending, which was a continuation from the ending from The King of Fighters XIV, features Khushnood from Garou: Mark of the Wolves. However, his name changed to Marco in this ending, which was his original name in the Japanese version of Garou: Mark of the Wolves. This was likely due to The King of Fighters XIV's director, Yasuyuki Oda, and art director, Nobuyuki Kuroki, asking on a livestream with SNK community manager KrispyKaiser if the fans would like his original name in future games. The chat overwhelmingly preferred the name Marco.
person DrakeVagabond calendar_month April 14, 2024
Spanish for Everyone!
1
Spanish for Everyone!'s plotline has been noted for containing stereotypical characters and seeming to have innuendo alluding to drug smuggling across the Mexican border. According to a developer, this was intentional as a way to have fun making a budget title, and inspired by the double meanings in the Shrek movies.
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month April 13, 2024
Hardcore Gaming 101 article, links to a Starmen.net thread with a developer:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/spanish-for-everyone/

Developer mentioning Shrek inspiration:
https://ocremix.org/community/topic/9164-spanish-for-everyone-ds/page/2/
keyboard_double_arrow_leftFirst keyboard_arrow_leftPrev Page of 85 Nextkeyboard_arrow_right Lastkeyboard_double_arrow_right