The Queue: Back from the videogame world

Kalcheus

Q4tQ So how was Japan?

It was great! I didn’t want it to end. On most vacation trips, when it’s near the end, I start missing home, and feeling grateful to return to the comfort of my own home. Well, not this time. This time, I was actually quite sad that the trip was over.

The contrast between high-tech cities and ancient temples, between urban chaos and peaceful gardens, between modernity and tradition: it was all exactly as I’d imagined it. I was also amused by just how accurately anime and games depict Japan. So many little things I’d always assumed were just stereotypes turned out to be real, from the way cities function down to something as specific as what a random street vendor might be wearing. I found myself fascinated by those little details pretty much everywhere I went.

High density Waffle

Did you drink soup out of a giant bowl?

So, funny story, one of my main goals in Japan was to be able to enjoy some truly great ramen. But that was actually harder than it sounds.

At first, I was convinced almost any remotely decent-looking ramen shop would do. There was a small gallery with five or six ramen shops right next to my hotel in Tokyo, so I just picked one semi-randomly and went in.

It was not super great. I’ve had better ramen than that outside Japan, multiple times.

Disappointed, I decided some research was in order. I downloaded Tabélog, an app that Japanese people use to rate restaurants and stuff (disclaimer: this is not an advertisement), and tried to find some nearby ramen place with good ratings. By this point, I was in Hiroshima.

There was, in fact, a good place nearby, so I went there. Only to learn that it wasn’t actually “ramen,” with broth: it was Japanese noodles, sure, but it was something called “shirunashi tantanmen,” which has no broth and is extra spicy. Now, it wasn’t bad by any means: it was actually quite delicious! But… it wasn’t the ramen experience I’d been so badly craving.

Third time’s gotta be the charm, right? And it was. As I was making my Akihabara plans, I used Tabélog again and found this place called Mendokoro Honda. I was prepared to face a line, but maybe because it was a bit late for lunch (around 2 PM), to my delight, there wasn’t one. So I was finally able to sit down and enjoy wonderful, authentic Japanese ramen like I imagine a shogun would. 10/10.

Boven Whitehoof

How much natto did you eat there?

Zero. Yuck. But I did eat some stuff I didn’t expect I’d even try. Rice sweets, red bean sweets, tofu in stuff, raw salmon appetizer. Most of it, to be honest, I didn’t care much for, but it wasn’t all “bad” either.

And I did make several other strides into the Japanese culinary world, of course. First, I saw acutal yakisoba pan at a konbini. Yes, it exists, those videogames weren’t lying! And speaking of food I’ve seen on games, I had Hamburg Steak one night; it was indeed called “Hamburg Steak.” And it was delicious!

I tried Japanese dishes like shabu-shabu (didn’t care for it, honestly), sukiyaki (this one was pretty good), and some that I’d already tired before (and knew I liked), like tempura. I wanted to try some takoyaki, and I did have some opportunities, but I honestly wasn’t enthused enough about the idea and I let it pass me by without struggling too hard (seafood and Red don’t often go together).

I tried the fabled wagyu meat a couple of times (one of them in Kobe). It was definitely good, but it wasn’t as spectacular as I had been led to believe it would be (or as the price suggested) — although I should also mention, food in Japan was considerably less expensive than I imagined.

I had matcha Kit Kats (and I brought Kit Kats of a bunch of flavors back home). I quickly started enjoying having miso soup on almost every meal — I’m gonna miss that a bit.

But then, there were also a few instances where I just didn’t want to fight my preestablished sensibilities and brave some unknown Japanese dish, and decided to just have Italian, or a burger, and call it a night.

Xerianne

Q4Red: What was your favorite part of your vacation to Japan?
What about your favorite meal?

Favorite part is hard to pinpoint. A little bit of everything was good, all at the time. Being in Tokyo sometimes felt like I was in the year 2060 while the rest of the world was still in 2026 (I think I’ve gained a better understanding of the thought processes of cyberpunk authors now).

But I guess if I had to pick one aspect to highlight as my favorite, it was probably the hunting for assorted videogame/anime goods in a ton of different shops. Legitimate “kid in a toy store” feeling for me, seeing all of the merch from Final Fantasy and Evangelion and Persona and Fire Emblem and Akira and Ghibli and Nintendo and Ghost in the Shell and everything else all around me, and trying to find my favorite characters, and deciding what to take home and what to skip.

Favorite meal might have been the aforementioned ramen.

ValenceMagi

Have convienence stores been ruined for you, too?
Did you ride the trains?

I’d say toilets have been ruined for me more than conveninece stores! It’s so hard to go back, man. I miss my heated seats. And all the other stuff.

I did ride the trains! From monorail to regular subway to Shinkansen. The trains made me envious.

Eno

QfRed: Were you able to properly converse with somebody in Japanese

lmao no. My Japanese isn’t nearly at that level.

Basic words, saying “hello, good morning, thank you, excuse me,” etc.? That’s easy. But there were often cases where people in stores or cashiers would start talking to me and I’d just nod along and sometimes try switching to English (it was kind of a 50/50 whether they could understand the English or not). Thankfully, 99% of the people were very polite, helpful, and eager to help.

On two different occasions I did use google translate and “talked” to them through that. On a third occasion, the store person herself had an app where she asked me to talk to it and it translated it to her.

So, what was my duolingo-level Japanese good for? Quite a lot, actually. Since I do know hiragana, katakana, and some of the basic kanji, I was able to read much more than I had expected to. Identifying signs, stations, shops, types of establishments, items on a menu, entrances and exits, assorted items like food or color or objects? That was all doable, and quite often, thankfully. I was also able to pick up odd words here and there when hearing people talking. “Oh, they’re talking about their children.” “Oh, they’re wondering about their food.” Some of that stuff I was able to pick up from fragments and known words.

All in all, the experience made me positive that I want to go to Japan again at some point in the future, and that I definitely want to improve my Japanese level a lot until then, so that it’s at least “usable in conversation” next time.

Fallanger

qftq: what you do in videogames that doesn’t matter, but you keep doing?
I was playing D3 and opened the cells of the cult in act 2, it doeskin help, there is no drops but i do it as a way to damage the deckard cain killing cult

Destroying breakable stuff. If the game has things in the environment that I can break, grass I can cut, vases I can smash, barrels or crates I can explode, I will do it, and I will keep doing it even if I no longer need the items in them or anything. Doesn’t matter if it’s Diablo, or Zelda, or Bastion, or Fire Emblem, or whatever.

Arthonos

Q4tQ: With a lot of games asking for so much of your time, how do you juggle multiple releases and stepping away from an unfinished game? Will you be favoring Fortune’s Weave or Forever with your playtime? How far did you get in Fortune’s Weave on the trip home? Which Fortune’s Weave character would you want as your co-adventurer in Forever?

I try to avoid stepping away from one game to start another. I’ll dabble in Forever, and I’ll also probably play a little bit of Retail too, but my main gaming concern will remain Fortune’s Weave for the time being.

I had very limited playtime, of course — pretty much only if there was a long wait at the airport or in a train, or sometimes in the hotel, right before bed. But it was enough for me to finish Cai’s story and start Theodora’s. By the way, while I did enjoy Cai’s story, I’m enjoying Theodora’s considerably more for now. The lore is more interesting, and that early scene with the training dummies was ABSOLUTE CINEMA.

Fortune’s Weave has surprised me with how many great characters it has. For my co-adventurer, I have three strong choices: Anatolia, Orchel, and Tialla. But I think ultimately I’d go with Tialla, because she feels more like “co-adventurer” and less like “should probably become the protagonist instead of me” than either Gun Nun or Cat Priest.