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Is Lurelin Village the first black community in a Japanese game?

Sea lion

Sea lion

Banned
Nov 8, 2017
903
I remember when I stumbled upon it in BotW and was shocked, as previously there hasn't even been one black Hylian in the series history, but now there's a whole town! It was really awesome.

If there's a black character in a Japanese game they're normally a one off and we never truly see their family and culture so this was really surprising. Hopefully we'll see more diverse Hylians in the future too.

Just wanted to give this amazing game more props.
 
Manmademan

Manmademan

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Karaya Clan/Karaya Village in Suikoden III.

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Bonus: One of those people in the above is Hugo, arguably the MC of the game.
 
City 17

City 17

Member
Oct 25, 2017
913
I remember one shop owner who was black, as I visited him a couple of times, but don't recall the other villagers... that's pretty cool.
 
Manmademan

Manmademan

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Sea lion said:
Thats ace.
Never played Suikoden. Is III regarded as good?
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III is a good game, but technical and design issues hold it back from being as good as II or V. It is a very slow paced game compared to those two. There's a lot of backtracking and combat takes a lot longer. Deep cast and engaging narrative is typical of the suikoden games though.
 

Deleted member 5086

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I did not perceive them as being Black. Don't the people there have straight hair? Seemed like they were dark skinned Brown.
 
Str0ngStyle

Str0ngStyle

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Oct 28, 2017
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Yuuber said:
Man, I fucking love this game.
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I backed that spiritual successor Kickstarter specifically because of my love for Suikoden 2 & 3.
On topic, as a black man, I do appreciate that Hugo is clearly a POC even if you wanna make the argument that he's not black. And that it came from a Japanese studio makes it so much better considering that we got there from Mr Popo.
 
Manmademan

Manmademan

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Mist said:
I did not perceive them as being Black. Don't the people there have straight hair? Seemed like they were dark skinned Brown.
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Are we talking about Karaya or Lurelin? I haven't played BoTW so can't comment on Lurelin, but Karaya is CLEARLY meant to be african or african inspired.
Japanese designers giving black people straight hair isn't really a new thing though.


Str0ngStyle said:
I backed that spiritual successor Kickstarter specifically because of my love for Suikoden 2 & 3.
On topic, as a black man, I do appreciate that Hugo is clearly a POC even if you wanna make the argument that he's not black. And that it came from a Japanese studio makes it so much better considering that we got there from Mr Popo.
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The design of the village as well as the african inspired costumes for Karaya makes it pretty obvious it's supposed to be a Black Village. There's also "Jimba" who is a white dude living "among" the Karaya and is visually distinctive from the natives.


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THAT is a tanned white dude that adopted the lifestyle. Everyone else is an african inspired POC.
 
Stopdoor

Stopdoor

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Oct 25, 2017
5,778
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I think you can find diverse NPCs travelling in Hyrule, but I can't recall if the other towns are as diverse. Hope I'm just misremembering with stuff like Hateno, kind of sketchy if it's not as mixed.

Honestly you know playing Age of Calamity it was a little weird how you have the "human" Hylian race that everything centers around with the royal family, and then you have these other races, including Fish people, Rock people, Bird people... and Brown people. Like thinking too hard about the symbolism going on in Zelda is, enhhh. It's one thing to have a group of people of a culture somewhere else, but the way the game constantly lays into you with the "kingdoms" of people and the lightly coded superiority of the royal bloodlines at the center is... pretty cringe worthy, at the least.
 

Deleted member 5086

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Manmademan said:
Are we talking about Karaya or Lurelin? I haven't played BoTW so can't comment on Lurelin, but Karaya is CLEARLY meant to be african or african inspired.
Japanese designers giving black people straight hair isn't really a new thing though.
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Lurelin, sorry. I haven't played Suikoden but going by that picture yes they do look Black!

This is how the folks in Lurelin village look.
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It gave an indigenous or Polynesian kind of vibe to me. / Shrug
 

HockeyBird

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Oct 27, 2017
12,591
Mist said:
I did not perceive them as being Black. Don't the people there have straight hair? Seemed like they were dark skinned Brown.
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It's been a few years since I went there in BoTW, but I figured they were more based on Polynesian/Pacific Islander peoples. That would make sense given the setting of the town.
 
Manmademan

Manmademan

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Mist said:
Lurelin, sorry. I haven't played Suikoden but going by that picture yes they do look Black!

This is how the folks in Lurelin village look.
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It gave an indigenous or Polynesian kind of vibe to me. / Shrug
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Oof. yeah. THAT'S arguable. Tough to say from the screenshot.
 
Efejota

Efejota

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Mar 13, 2018
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The village seemed to be centered around fishing so they gave more of a polinesian vibe to me, while the more african people in the game would be the Gerudo.

I really loved finding more human villages other than Kakariko and Gerudo Town and I really hope we have more on botw2 as well :) I want to explore new lands! Imagine if they did like Zelda 2 and expanded the map by a ton.
 
Parthenios

Parthenios

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Oct 28, 2017
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Mist said:
You're probably thinking of Gerudo village, since Gerudos definitely have been inspired by Middle Eastern / Arabic culture.
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Jaded Alyx said:
South East, near Eventide Island.
Sure you're not thinking of the Gerudo?

Same.
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I was thinking more in how they look, and less the culture of the area. I had some classmates in college from Egypt that looked like the Lurelin villagers, which is probably it.
 

Deleted member 17210

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I'm sure there's some negative stereotype black community game from the '80s (savage villagers in the jungle) but I can't think of any off hand. I checked Jungle Hunt but the people are green skinned in that.
 

NazoNazoXLR

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Dec 20, 2019
290
Lurelin's a coastal fishing village in the only part of the map that can be considered vaguely tropical. The inspiration could be from Okinawa as much as anywhere else.

I still like it, though. Having representation in fantasy games be ambiguous in a way that doesn't necessarily map 1:1 to reality makes more sense to me than the usual "The dwarfs are all Scots" kind of thing.
 
medyej

medyej

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Oct 26, 2017
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BoTW was great about having PoC everywhere as just part of it's world being out and about. And it worked gloriously and is one of the best fantasy open worlds in gaming, so next time some asshole complains about brown people ruining his immersion of a fantasy game it is the ultimate clapback example. Thanks Nintendo.
 
Lobster Roll

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Sea lion said:
Thats ace.
Never played Suikoden. Is III regarded as good?
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It's a solid game, but a little bit of a letdown if you played Suikoden 2. Also the game is a complete disaster from a sound design perspective. There are times when you're reading a long conversation with little to no background music and the only sound you get is that Suikoden 3 confirmation noise and arghhh I can hear it against the silence in my head now.
 
Tochtli79

Tochtli79

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Think it's more accurate to describe Lurelin's inhabitants as POC. I saw them as Caribbean inspired, so a mix of black, indigenous, Asian heritage. But yes I loved the diversity in BotW. Hylians and Gerudo having different skin tones was super cool.
 
Dice

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Oct 25, 2017
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Man it stinks we gotta look so hard for these examples.

BOTW indeed did a great job with its denizens, I hope for more going forward.
 

Deleted member 33533

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Nov 17, 2017
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It always bothers me when you have one black character in a game, like Barrett and Sazh from Final Fantasy and they seem to be the only black people in the world and come with stereotyped personalities. They always feel so out of place in their communities of white/Asian anime people. To me, it shows they wanted to add that black archetype/stereotype before adding an actual character.
 
Antony

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Oct 25, 2017
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This has always irked me about Dragon Quest and brings the whole series down a tad.
They always go to great pains to depict multiple cultures and the localisation leaves you in little doubt what each areas real world equivalent is; Japan, France, Italy, Egypt, England, Australia... and yet never once across 30 years and multiple attempts at depicting the world have they ever had black npcs smh.
 
iksenpets

iksenpets

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Oct 26, 2017
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Mist said:
I did not perceive them as being Black. Don't the people there have straight hair? Seemed like they were dark skinned Brown.
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Yeah I read Lurelin as a sort of Polynesia analog.

SuperiorTrashTalk said:
It always bothers me when you have one black character in a game, like Barrett and Sazh from Final Fantasy and they seem to be the only black people in the world and come with stereotyped personalities. They always feel so out of place in their communities of white/Asian anime people. To me, it shows they wanted to add that black archetype/stereotype before adding an actual character.
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The remake, for any issues with Barrett, did at least resolve this and have a fair number of Black NPCs, both in speaking roles and just as pedestrians.
 
AuthenticM

AuthenticM

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Oct 25, 2017
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I just want to use this opportunity to rep Eiyuden Chronicle in this conversation. The game's producer said that they really want to satisfyingly portray the Black characters in the game. He name-dropped Black Panther as one of the sources of inspiration for the culture of the Black people in the game. He also specificaly said that they want to avoid the racist trope of having the Black characters be portrayed as low-tech, uncultured savages.

Also, the design for the Black girl in the game (one of the three main characters) is absolutely fucking awesome. Her name is Marisa.

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Manmademan

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werezompire said:
3 is really mixed for me. It's very ambitious (multiple storylines converging), but the pacing is really awkward as is the combat system.

The highlights of the Suikoden series IMO are 2, 5, and to a lesser extent, 1.
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I don't disagree with that- but I think I would put 3 firmly over 1. 1 has a LOT of characters that aren't much more than window dressing. The "trinity sight" structure of III isn't just a new way to go about presenting the narrative, it's also a useful answer to the "what do we do with a cast of thousands" problem. The IGN review notes that about 70% of the cast is useful because of that, which is a fair bit higher than was the case in 1, 2, or even 5.

As for plot and narrative of 3 is far past 1 in every way it could be. I do agree the pacing needs work and the combat system is a step back, but as a game it was REALLY well received for 2002.

Checking MC it has an 86 average despite the flaws, and it did win IGN and Gamespot's "RPG of the Year" for 2002. Most of the reviews from that time aren't readable, but the IGN one still is, and it's high praise for the game.

www.ign.com

Suikoden III - IGN

Like many aspiring youngsters out there, I first began my effort to make videogames a career by working on a fansite. A little piece of the web that nobody ever heard of that has since gone away, I penned my first piece for "PlayStation Interactive" covering a certain RPG by the name of...
www.ign.com www.ign.com
 
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werezompire

werezompire

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Manmademan said:
I don't disagree with that- but I think I would put 3 firmly over 1. 1 has a LOT of characters that aren't much more than window dressing. The "trinity sight" structure of III isn't just a new way to go about presenting the narrative, it's also a useful answer to the "what do we do with a cast of thousands" problem. The IGN review notes that about 70% of the cast is useful because of that, which is a fair bit higher than was the case in 1, 2, or even 5.

As for plot and narrative of 3 is far past 1 in every way it could be. I do agree the pacing needs work and the combat system is a step back, but as a game it was REALLY well received for 2002.

Checking MC it has an 86 average despite the flaws- Most of the reviews from that time aren't readable, but the IGN one still is, and it's high praise for the game.

www.ign.com

Suikoden III - IGN

Like many aspiring youngsters out there, I first began my effort to make videogames a career by working on a fansite. A little piece of the web that nobody ever heard of that has since gone away, I penned my first piece for "PlayStation Interactive" covering a certain RPG by the name of...
www.ign.com www.ign.com
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All fair points. I think the main reasons I'd put 1 ahead of 3 is that it's a really light & breezy RPG that does a lot in its 20 hours or so runtime. Having direct connections to Suikoden 2 is also nice. Also, it has more nostalgia value since Suikoden 1 was the best of the first batch of RPGs on the PS1 in English - definitely better than Beyond the Beyond and arguably better than Persona 1 (which suffered from some localization issues that included removing the harder, optional storyline branch) and Wild Arms 1 (which also didn't come out until a few months later).
 
Manmademan

Manmademan

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werezompire said:
All fair points. I think the main reasons I'd put 1 ahead of 3 is that it's a really light & breezy RPG that does a lot in its 20 hours or so runtime. Having direct connections to Suikoden 2 is also nice. Also, it has more nostalgia value since Suikoden 1 was the best of the first batch of RPGs on the PS1 in English - definitely better than Beyond the Beyond and arguably better than Persona 1 (which suffered from some localization issues that included removing the harder, optional storyline branch) and Wild Arms 1 (which also didn't come out until a few months later).
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I can dig that. Cheers.

edit: it's a shame Konami is so bad about properly managing it's IP, because if there's any franchise that could benefit from a remastered "collection" Suikoden is probably it.

1 and 2 are PS1 titles that could use an HD upgrade, 3 and 4 were PS2 titles that aren't playable on anything more recent than a PS3, and Suikoden 5 was not only rare as hell at the time of release, Konami never bothered putting it on PSN either. You're paying $125 for a used disc on Amazon or you aren't playing it.
 
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mael

mael

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Nov 3, 2017
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Certainly would be a 1st for Zelda.
Never really played Suikoden but even the Suikoden III manga was great for how diverse the world felt.
Haven't read it in quite a while but from memory if the game is as the manga, it's a pretty awesome one.
I'm guessing no one ever saw what Harmonia is like in all the Suikoden games?
That's how Harmonia feels to me....again, never played the games.
 
Manmademan

Manmademan

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mael said:
Certainly would be a 1st for Zelda.
Never really played Suikoden but even the Suikoden III manga was great for how diverse the world felt.
Haven't read it in quite a while but from memory if the game is as the manga, it's a pretty awesome one.
I'm guessing no one ever saw what Harmonia is like in all the Suikoden games?
That's how Harmonia feels to me....again, never played the games.
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Correct. The narrative was building up to a huge conflict with Harmonia from 1-5, but never actually got there. Suikoden 3 is the latest in the series chronologically, and even though we never see Harmonia, it's emperor is in a lot of ways the primary off screen antagonist.
 
mael

mael

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Nov 3, 2017
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Manmademan said:
Correct. The narrative was building up to a huge conflict with Harmonia from 1-5, but never actually got there. Suikoden 3 is the latest in the series chronologically, and even though we never see Harmonia, it's emperor is in a lot of ways the primary off screen antagonist.
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WHAT?
Suikoden III is the last one (chronologically)?
I so understand why Suikoden fans are pissed!
For me it's literally just the manga that I read so I know there's no follow up because that's what happens with this kind of stuffs.
But like no one got closure on everything that happens there?
Also Suikoden III was never released in Europe, I'm pissed on behalf of Suikoden fans but you cannot imagine the fury of PAL Suikoden fans.
There's so much potential!
the world is so awesome and the cursed stars and all that!!
We have NOTHING?
And Konami owns the right?
And they fired the guy behind the franchise?
I knew the situation was fucked but to this extent?
I had no idea!
 
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