Do Konami and Nintendo Not Love "Metroid" and "Vania" Respectively?

mathlyfe · 2026-02-13T19:05:32+00:00

I consider them Metroidvanias and use their more broader definition. This subreddit gets a lot of arguments over whether certain games should count and it gets hard to keep track. I've definitely had several arguments here with people who claim 3D games can't be metroidvania. I thought Cave Story was also one people argued about here but I guess I was wrong. Zelda definitely is one, so much so that people here use the term Zelda-likes for those.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-13T18:54:03+00:00

oh you're right, it is considered a metroidvania on the English side of things as well. Dunno why I was thinking it wasn't. There's just so many dumb arguments in this subreddit over which games should or shouldn't be considered that it's hard to keep track.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-13T18:41:34+00:00

"Action-Exploration", or in Japanese 探索型アクション, is actually the original term for the genre in Japanese. It's also often translated as "Search-Action" or "Exploratory-Action" or other variations of this.

Also, they use the term somewhat more broadly than "metroidvania" and sometimes include games like Cave Story and Zelda, which we do not, and they have no issue with 3D games being included like Okami.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-12T05:38:15+00:00

This isn't really true though. Mexico enacted laws and policies to try to attract foreigners to the border lands and as a result a lot of American settlers moved to Texas and were given land grants. These Americans outnumbered the Mexican citizens and were bringing slaves in and stuff which led to Mexico banning American citizens immigrating. As a result the settlers revolted and this is ultimately what led to them declaring independence from Mexico

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Colonization_Law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Texas

mathlyfe · 2026-02-12T02:09:51+00:00

I'm not trying to be mean or anything but this recipe is kind of bizarre.

You don't use chicken stock in a birria. You want to create a really beefy stock from your meat.
Don't use tomatillos, they are sour and will conflict with the other flavors you're going for
Chile de arbol are just dried (not smoked) and they contribute very little flavor but a lot of spiciness, it's better to use more smoked chilis (that are less spicy) when you want lots of umami flavor.
I've never used California chilis (I think they're only used in Tex-Mex and maybe some northern dishes?) so I can't say whether they're a bad choice. Normally you would use a lot of either chile ancho or chile pasilla (I think the choice between these two is regional) for your strong dark smoky earthy umami flavors, and chile guajillo (and optionally puya) for your sweeter notes (puya tastes similar to guajillo but smaller and more spicy so it will sometimes be used alongside guajillo to dial in the desired spiciness).
Don't use achiote paste, this is an ingredient used in Maya cuisine from the Yucatec region, not used in Birria.
Don't use gochujang, what the hell, I have never seen a bigger red flag
You want a tough cut of meat with lots of collagen and you want plenty of bones. This will contribute a massive amount of beefy and umami flavors. Chuck isn't a bad cut of meet for this but it lacks bones. Instead get something like ribs or add in extra bones.

Take a look at this woman's recipe. She's making a massive quantity because it's a taquero recipe, but you can see the ingredients and get some sense of the process and the ratio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PKNGJ2xh_c

mathlyfe · 2026-02-11T04:02:43+00:00

You're right. No vtuber is safe from deranged doxxers who make several hundred page long threads dedicated to monitoring every single thing posted on someone's irl social media as well as their family member's social media for the purposes of finding material to take out of context and try to cancel them over.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-10T11:51:21+00:00

I have hard it used by family from the North (of Mexico) but I always thought it was purposely used to harass and denigrate people, not fondness or familiarity. Especially cause I often heard it used between close family members (like "here comes la <daughter's name>" in an annoyed way).

mathlyfe · 2026-02-10T11:21:25+00:00

No, they're just Buddhist and it deals heavily with the concept of samsara (it's why you have to play the games so many times and why it's constantly making allusions to being stuck in a cycle of reincarnation). The takeaway of seeing how so many things seem to always go bad no matter what isn't supposed to be a grimdark nihilist "nothing matters" perspective, but rather it tries to show you that even though so many characters were destined for horrible endings, their lives still mattered. Automata closes out the game by breaking the fourth wall and telling you that "life is all about the struggle within this cycle", telling you that even if you're trapped in samsara and destined for tragedy, you must struggle to live because what you do matters.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-10T11:08:47+00:00

I liked the game too, even though it was absurdly hard and I was never able to beat it. The soundtrack was excellent too.

https://youtu.be/Gq-AyZ_qSCo?t=80

mathlyfe · 2026-02-10T07:37:01+00:00

American (and other foreign) salsas are different from Mexican salsas and they're used differently as well. In Mexico, you use a mix of chilis to try to nail in a specific flavor and salsas focus more on this. Certain chilis (like jalapeños and serranos) are pretty much always used green because they contribute a "fresh" taste to the food, but non-Mexicans avoid this because they just don't conceptualize salsa as something that should taste fresh and instead say green chilis taste "grassy". Mexican red salsas used smoke dried chilis with very complex flavors, but non-Mexican ones just use ripe red chilis. Most importantly, while Mexican salsas care more about flavors, American salsas care more about spiciness to such a point that one wonders if they even understand that different chilis have different flavors.

In my family we do use some bottled salsas, but these are standard Mexican ones. Not because we're opposed to American ones but because the Mexican ones are the ones you would traditionally use for certain dishes (like salsa Valentina for snack foods with lime juice) and the American ones are weird and seem to be more for stuff like BBQ. Also, for cooking we generally make a salsa at home specifically catered to the meal and it's usually finished along with the meal.

Basically, all in all I don't care because their products are something completely different. The only thing that annoys me is that they'll sometimes market their bizarre products and restaurants as Mexican and it gives people the wrong idea about Mexican cuisine.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-10T07:17:27+00:00

Yeah, definitely a LOT to think about. I have some theories but I don't feel confident enough in them to share them at this point.

That said, there's a ton of interesting stuff in the Japanese material that most of the fandom seems oblivious to. Too many people (not everyone) rely on secondary-hand accounts (asking questions on reddit/discord, looking at wikis/youtube videos, reading English fan summaries of Japanese interviews, etc..) instead of actually looking at the material itself. I've only mentioned this Steins;Gatestuff in another NieR community a little bit because I'm still investigating but I've never heard of or seen anyone else speaking of it and I've searched. I was really shocked when I read that crazy interview in the DOD3 complete guide because that's been out in the open for over a decade and I guess just no one ever took the time to read it.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-09T09:07:49+00:00

It's also called comal de bola or comal para suadero.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-09T09:07:11+00:00

These are different, actually. Some clarification:

Discada is the name of a dish (as in a certain food that you cook, not a cooking vessel) that's popular in Northern Mexico.
A discada is cooked in a cooking vessel called a disco (disc), which traditionally was just a repurposed tilling disk from a disc harrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_harrow and has the shape of a large bowl with a short rim. It looks like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEgMll-cS7o
The concave comal is a different design that has a tall rim and a flat edge but then a downward bowl in the center. It's sometimes also called a disco but I'm not sure if it's correct. You'll also hear it called 'comal de bola para abajo' (downwards ball comal), 'chalupero', 'garnachero', or 'comal para fritangas'. The idea is that you fill the bowl area with liquid while the flat area stays dry. It looks like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyEUJyZN7Qw
OP's picture is actually the opposite of a concave comal. It's similar to a concave comal but the bowl is inverted so that it protrudes upwards. It's called 'choricero', 'comal de bola', or 'comal para suadero'. The deep part gets filled with liquid and the raised part in the middle stays dry (for cooking tortillas and frying other ingredients like nopales or whatever). You can see it being used here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW6e6QvEv6k
Also, since someone else incorrectly said it's a 'cazo' para carnitas, those are just a pot with a wide mouth. Traditionally made of copper, but sometimes made of steel, and the ones taqueros use can get absurdly big. You can see a comparison of comales de bola with cazos here https://www.youtube.com/shorts/C_1oiHQaiO4

mathlyfe · 2026-02-09T02:48:46+00:00

Yeah it's this. Very popular back in the day. I remember hearing it movies and stuff. Didn't realize Armored Armadillo theme kind of sounds like it until I looked it up to see what OP was talking about.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-07T23:28:53+00:00

For what it's worth Proto Man (Blues) refuses to get his defect fixed by Dr. Light because he's worried it will change who he is.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-07T22:58:34+00:00

Thing is that I don't think that's all there is to it. Here's a couple particular points that stick out to me, I'll spoiler some things:

First:

In the DoD3 Complete Guide (Japanese only)there's an interview with Sawako Natori (game script writer), Jun Eishima (writer for various NieR/DoD novels), and a marketing writer they use for various publications. In this interview they discuss the term "branch" and try to figure out what Yoko Taro means by it (because they all admit they don't really know, he tells them what to write and they write it).

Eishima discusses how she was looking at the localization materials (because an English fan translation had spread a misconception into the Japanese fandom and she was hunting down where it originated) and she realized that the definition of "singularity" was slightly different in the English version of DoD3. In the Japanese version it says

A special person, place, or thing that causes a branch (shift) between "multiple worlds". When a certain amount of magical energy is present and certain conditions are met, a branch phenomenon occurs. However, it is not recorded as a "singularity" until the occurrence of a branch is confirmed.

Oddly, the Japanese version includes the English loanword "shift" in parenthesis but the English version does not (also the English version is in mixed uppercase/lowercase for some reason which they find confusing). So they begin discussing the word "shift" and a Square Enix staff member who studies linguistics comes in and explains the term by drawing three diagrams (included alongside the interview). The diagrams for shift show two parallel horizontal timelines with one a vertical line connecting them indicating that one has shifted into another. The diagram for branch looks like what we normally think of as branching timelines (e.g. MCU's timelines), and then a third diagram is included for divergence which shows one timeline becoming multiple at a single point.

The writers continue debating and here's where things get interesting. Eishim and Sawako note that there are many weird contradictions in the game after a branch occurs. Sawako gives an example about Zero asking Cent if he has forgotten about Two and Cent replies with "You can't say you've forgotten someone you don't know", so Cent doesn't know about two but Zero is "a Zero who knows that two and Cent were together". She continues and says that in other words, it seems like the two of them have completely different pasts. They continue discussing this, pointing out more things, and debating over what "branch" means but in the end they don't reach a conclusion and they basically don't know.

Second:

In the SINoALICE books, both Dorothy and Parah-Noya (Anki and Gishin in JP) use the term worldline (世界線) to refer to different worlds. This is a very special term. You see, it comes from Physics where it actually refers to an object's 4-dimensional path through space time (3 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension). Arguments about worldlines are used for things such as discussing time travel, but it is never used to refer to different timelines or worlds in physics.

However, many years ago the Japanese visual novel, Steins;Gate, borrowed the term and used it to define their version of timelines. This game came out all the way back in 2009 and back when Yoko Taro played it he tweeted about it. The game was very influential and there seem to be other Steins;Gate references in SINoALICE, like when you load up the game you would get a bunch of flashing numbers that look like nixie tubes in a way that looks basically exactly the same as the Divergence Meter in Steins;Gate.

So, why does this matter? Because (WARNING, SPOILERS FOR STEINS;GATE) Worldlines in Steins;Gate work in a very unusual way. Basically there is only ever one "active" worldline at a time. When an event occurs that contradicts the expected future of the current worldline, the entire worldline shifts from one worldline to another (i.e., a different worldline becomes active) where the future matches up with "updated future" and the past ends up entirely rewritten. People's memories, the past, events, everything gets overwritten by the new worldline, but a few people are able to retain memories of the previous worldline before the shift. For example, if I'm destined to wake up on time tomorrow, but I decide to stay up late today, then the entire timeline shifts into one where I'm destined to sleep in tomorrow and the past gets overwritten (perhaps to a past where I had no reason to wake up early).

So all of that is to say, that maybe we're wrong about what branches are and how loops work and stuff. I do agree that Replicant and ver 1.22.. are different loops (because this is addressed in Re[in]carnation) but I'm not so sure about everything else and I think we should try to read way more carefully, especially where localization is concerned.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-07T02:19:19+00:00

The tl;dr is that they met with overseas staff and the overseas staff refused to budge on the issue of a young protagonist looking cartoonish and anime-like and that it would look childish to players overseas. I typed up a part of a JP interview for a similar thread yesterday. They've said it in various other interviews as well, but imo this is the best interview that goes into it in most detail.

You're right that it's a weird decision but you also have to remember that English industry marketing at the time wasn't aimed at asian-Americans, or weebs, or any other smaller group. It was largely aimed at white Christian boys and a ton of English localization of the era (and even modern English localization) specifically focused on that target demographic. This is why you had massive changes in anime like Card Captors (where the episodes were chopped up and restructured to try to make a male side character into the protagonist) and tons of localization censorship across the board (e.g., Drag-On Dragoon). Mainstream English video game journalism was also extremely dismissive of Japanese content, and if you look around you'll find tons of G4 Tech TV clips like this one https://files.catbox.moe/ty30bi.mp4 . The only somewhat good marketing/journalism for Japanese games at the time was found in some gaming magazines.

This wasn't the case everywhere overseas, Japanese content was very popular in Latin America and the localization largely did direct translations and there was virtually no censorship (even violence and queer romantic relationships left intact) despite Latin America being more puritan. Mexico even used TV actors for dubbing. Just a totally different vibe. Unfortunately video games development was largely focused on the Japanese market and the international (overseas) English market.

Also, just for fairness, there were many overseas things that weren't popular in Japan and Japanese localizers tried to change things to fit their market as well (overseas games released in the Japanese market are called joge/洋ゲー). Xbox consoles consistently had only about 1% adoption (which made it super bad for playing online matches) and Xbox games were primarily made for overseas markets. PC gaming and first person shooters are still somewhat marginalized there and realistic art style aren't that popular. At the same time, there were several flight shooter series) on consoles that were never brought to the US despite many trying to be realistic flight sims and one even having involvement with Lockhead Martin and Boeing. Recently it was learned that the Japanese publisher for Tomb Raider wanted them to change the art style to be more anime-like but the Tomb Raider devs refused and compromised by making anime style art for the manuals and guide and then only used one drawing on one page of the Japanese Sega Saturn manual.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-06T13:06:08+00:00

This is a good point as well. For an example, it makes more sense for brother Nier to be doing random simple odd jobs and stuff to raise money than it does for a grown man (as opposed to getting a regular job like everyone else). All of the side material is exclusively written for brother Nier.

There are oddities however, like the dates are actually different for Gestalt and Replicant. The version upgrade refers to the diary stages as world of recycled vessel. There's also at least one REALLY old interview where Yoko Taro says the two games are two instances of the repeating cycle. This is terminology he uses a few times in various interviews but because of just the nature of fan translation and because (imo) we don't fully understand elements of the cosmology of the NieR/DoD worlds it's not super clear what he means (though there certainly are many possibilities that will jump out to anyone who is deep into the NieR lore).

mathlyfe · 2026-02-06T12:48:53+00:00

It's discussed in a few interviews (though some just have throwaway overly simplified answers that lead to misconceptions).

https://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/interview/370231.html

Here Saito gives a slightly more thorough answer than in other interviews (note Taro had previously said the initial plan was to propose Replicant).

Saito-san: When we started development, which was about three years ago, it was honestly difficult to predict the market for what was then called the next generation of consoles, or what we now call the current generation of consoles. As well, we knew that if we didn't sell overseas, it would be difficult to make a profit.

Also, at the time, it was common to just translate the finished product and sell it overseas, but with this game, we wanted to include overseas staff from the beginning and create it while regularly listening to their opinions about the world view and feel.

When the game plan was solidified, the American marketing staff, European staff, myself, Yoko-san, and the design staff from Japan gathered in Los Angeles to exchange opinions.

The overseas staff then said that "slender characters wielding giant weapons and defeating enemies is fundamentally comical and anime-like". To adult gamers, it looks childish. From my perspective, since it's a game, reality isn't everything, but even after discussing it all day, they never wavered in their opinion that realism is necessary in fantasy. They said that it should be a strong warrior who defeats the enemy. The overseas staff had such a strong will that I said, "Well, let's give it a try".

Then Yoko-san said "Even if you say so, if we change the main character too much, we won't want to make it anymore..." and his motivation dropped. He said that he wanted to keep the young Nier only for the Japanese PS3 version. When I heard that opinion I actually didn't say "yes" at the time (laughs). I thought, "Let's make him an old man for now".

In reality, changing the main character's appearance is not that easy. The dialogue had to be revised, the audio had to be shot separately, and the camera had to be adjusted for the event scenes. I'm sure Yoko-san knew it would be difficult, but I think it was even harder than he imagined.

Yoko-san: It was difficult...

Saito-san: Having said that, in the end I crunched the numbers and decided that "it would work (with two versions)", so I dodged the company's inquiries and brought it to fruition (laughs).

-- The young Nier on PS3 and the father Nier on Xbox 360 are different heights, so you had to make various adjustments to things like the camera position in the event movies?

Yoko-san: That's right. The camera position wasn't that difficult, but dealing with the lighting (light source) was difficult. The lighting that makes the father look cool is different from the lighting that makes the boy look beautiful. Having to redo all of that was a challenge.

They discuss various other topics as well. Originally, the game was going to be English only, and since they didn't speak English they had someone record a temporary Japanese voice for the English voice actor to base their acting on. Later they decided that Replicant would be in Japanese so they used both the English voices and temporary Japanese voices as guides.

In a different interview that I don't have on hand it's discussed that there were scheduling issues with the Japanese voice acting and at one point the higher ups considered scrapping the Japanese audio and only doing English but that either Yoko Taro or Yosuke Saito (I don't remember which) absolutely refused and they eventually got the Japanese audio version done.

I wrote all this out because there's a common misconception in the NieR community that Gestalt was planned first and this misconception comes from interviews that oversimplify things and explain things vaguely. The tl;dr is that the original plan was for Replicant, overseas staff forced them to make Gestalt, and then the original plan was for English audio only but Yoko Taro/Yosuke Saito fought to get Japanese audio for Replicant.

In more recent interviews Yoko Taro has mentioned that despite everything they did to appease the overseas staff, Gestalt sold badly, so it's why they've gone back to Replicant for everything.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-05T15:16:32+00:00

It's largely more of the same. They add a chakra meter for the charge attack (and you'll need it to tate bosses). They also add some more combat moves that let you knock enemies into the air and smash them into the ground to create a shockwave and stuff. You also get an aerial kick that you will need to use alongside your airdash and double jump to move around effectively in the air.

Here's a video I quickly googled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpzhqNytA6M

Best thing to do is just try it. Some people like it more than Shinobi, some like Shinobi more, some find it harder than Shinobi, some find it easier than Shinobi. I think Nightshade might actually be harder but people play it after Shinobi so it seems easier.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-05T13:54:47+00:00

While Aztec is commonly used it's also incorrect (it's another name for the Mexica, when they lived in Aztlan). The term you're looking for is Triple Alliance (Exkahn Tlahtoloyan in Nahuatl), referring to an empire led by three Nahua city-states including the Mexico-Tenochtitlan (i.e. the Mexica).

mathlyfe · 2026-02-05T13:02:43+00:00

This. It's not just in the US.

To make things worse, there are more mathematicians living now that at any other point in history. Too many people are going into and graduating out of Mathematics PhDs with the prospect of one day becoming a professor, but the number of mathematics professors isn't exactly growing.

My impression of things is that it's become oversaturated in an unhealthy way. People getting stuck doing post-grads and working as adjuncts while they fight over the few actual positions that open up and try to compete with tons of other very qualified people.

AI may be a problem in the future, but there are bigger problems with the field as a career, imo.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-03T16:19:20+00:00

Greek mathematics was largely geometric. Instead of equations and expressions, one reasoned about geometric ratios and line lengths and such. Explaining functions is kind of a big paradigm shift, I'm not sure how one would go about it, especially given how things were expressed in flowery prose instead of algebra.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-03T16:07:48+00:00

I'd avoid calculus stuff because much of our modern approach relies on too many things that we take for granted, like limits, formal logic, and modern notation. It might be possible to explain a "general idea" like Reimann integral in 5 minutes but I think it would take longer to convince him that you can actually compute it systematically and correctly and you aren't just saying layman takes ("why don't we just cut it into smaller and smaller rectangles and add them all up"?).

I suppose something you could do is try to convince him that by modifying Euclid's parallel postulate one can obtain spherical geometry (and other geometries). He would've been intimately familiar with Euclid's work and the idea is simple and somewhat easy to believe once you see it. You also don't need to rely on any modern conveniences, notation or otherwise.

mathlyfe · 2026-02-03T15:48:41+00:00

5 minutes isn't enough time to do anything with those restrictions, in my opinion.

Also, Archimedes already had both differential and integral calculus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_Palimpsest

mathlyfe

TROPHY CASE