Characters' surnames

[Annie Blue]

So, when you start up a game, you're treated to a picture of your currently-selected character in a yearbook. Beneath each character is that character's name, albeit in illegible gibberish letters.

Except they're not gibberish. They do appear to represent each character's correct first name, suggesting that the text is real, just presented at an illegible resolution.

And after each character's barely-decipherable first name is a last name, suggesting the devs in fact assigned each character a surname.

So...

Anyone want to take a crack at what those names are?

[DarthEnderX]

「┼LolipΔnzΣr┼」 eredeti hozzászólása:

I always felt like the original river city ransom took place around 1950's-60's

In the US version for sure. Given that pretty much every character looks like a greaser.

The Japanese version was pretty contemporary in it's setting.

[Hikipanzer]

DarthEnderX eredeti hozzászólása:

「┼LolipΔnzΣr┼」 eredeti hozzászólása:

I always felt like the original river city ransom took place around 1950's-60's

In the US version for sure. Given that pretty much every character looks like a greaser.

The Japanese version was pretty contemporary in it's setting.

Yeah so based on the fact that Underground goes by american lore, Underground should take place around mid 80's-early 90's

[Annie Blue]

I'd wager the crappy text is specifically so they don't have to reveal characters' last names, since they'd probably take flak for actually assigning the classic characters' names retrospectively (even if the names were easter eggy), or for using common racial names like Dupree or O'Dougall (Mike's basically a sterotypical jovial Irish brawler), or for ridiculous names like Wesley Snipe, or for outright making a Community joke that's better off pulled up as an awesome easter egg in topics like this than thrown in anybody's face.

It's like, they're a minor enough detail that the authors would rather they be somewhere between easter eggs and headcanon than bother making a stink about them, because nobody really *needs* to know, and people like us who want to know can go figure it out for ourselves.

As for why the original heroes are in the yearbook along with the others, it's not surprising- It's noted toward the end of the game that your chosen character started school in 19XX and expects to graduate in 19XX and doesn't want to think too hard about why that doesn't make sense. Plus, the final boss breaks the fourth wall by outright suggesting they're trapped in a video game anyway, mocking the player for thinking it's really 19XX at all.

Oh, and speaking as a teacher, if you think the school janitor doesn't deserve to be in the yearbook, you are the reason we can't have nice things.

[Professor Fairfield]

「┼LolipΔnzΣr┼」 eredeti hozzászólása:

DarthEnderX eredeti hozzászólása:

In the US version for sure. Given that pretty much every character looks like a greaser.

The Japanese version was pretty contemporary in it's setting.

Yeah so based on the fact that Underground goes by american lore, Underground should take place around mid 80's-early 90's

While that's a nice theory, it wouldn't explain the availability of CDs[www.gamefaqs.com]. While on occasion, a "period piece" needs to eschew authentic dialogue to be comprehensible, like Old English in Medieval-era film, I can't imagine that would be the case here. I can't exactly fathom that people setting a game in the past felt they just had to avoid putting "Records" in a store name, as the word "record" always stuck around as a catch-all name for "something recorded"; music albums included. Terms like "film-strip", "eight-track", "tape-deck" or "laser-disc" might confuse people; but "record" does not.

An alternate explanation is that the 1950s were something of a nostalgic decade for people in the 1980s, so maybe character fashion was immitating that.

[Annie Blue]

Professor Fairfield eredeti hozzászólása:

「┼LolipΔnzΣr┼」 eredeti hozzászólása:

Yeah so based on the fact that Underground goes by american lore, Underground should take place around mid 80's-early 90's

While that's a nice theory, it wouldn't explain the availability of CDs[www.gamefaqs.com]. While on occasion, a "period piece" needs to eschew authentic dialogue to be comprehensible, like Old English in Medieval-era film, I can't imagine that would be the case here. I can't exactly fathom that people setting a game in the past felt they just had to avoid putting "Records" in a store name, as the word "record" always stuck around as a catch-all name for "something recorded"; music albums included. Terms like "film-strip", "eight-track", "tape-deck" or "laser-disc" might confuse people; but "record" does not.

An alternate explanation is that the 1950s were something of a nostalgic decade for people in the 1980s, so maybe character fashion was immitating that.

I'm 99% sure the character "fashion" was the product of American developers electing to either remove the culturally unfamiliar japanese school uniforms or to downplay the school violence aspect and therefore changing the outfits to the easiest basic American general attire they could- a T shirt and jeans, an ensemble so basic and timeless it's still a ubiquitous staple of today's culture. Most of the people I saw today were wearing it.

The notion of a "1950's" aesthetic is the accidental product of the combination of a specifically white T shirt over jeans and upright hairstyle evoking a greaser-style image, when the hair was just contemporary japanese fashion and the white shirt was the color Kunio was already wearing. The design was a path-of-least-resistance affair that accidentally made the kid look like John Travolta. Adding burgers to the mix somehow solidified that psychological motif, since everyone knows you can't have the 1950's without burgers, but advertising free smiles on the menu was a gimmick McDonald's took up in the 1970's.

I don't think any attempt was ever actually made in the English localization to change the time period or associated aesthetic from exactly what it was- the late 80's.

Meanwhile, Underground is specifically stated by in-game text to take place 28 years after the original, and yet the characters still refer to it as 19XX even though it *ought* to be set in the new millenium following those chronological rules, but that isn't a mistake. Rather, it's specifically part of the story- toward the end of the game Dr. D ridicules the player for believing they are really living in 19XX, and the player characters briefly wonder about how little sense it makes that 19XX is both the year they started school and the year they will graduate before shrugging it off, all while Dr. D rants about them being in a video game and proceeds to fight them by using a controller to affect their movement.

Therefore, I posit that River City Ransom is set in the late 80's when it came out, while RCRU is a continuation of the story set specifically in a video game that believes itself to still be in approximately the same time period despite not being so. It's why Alex and Ryan are quick to decide that Slick's gang is up to no good again, just like old times, when most of his gang have moved on and gotten modest jobs as community servants and most of the enemies you beat up are high schoolers while Ryan's hair is turning grey. The game is aware of how ridiculous its own world is, and offers a humorously cynical sort of perspective on the nostalgia of its fanbase.

It's basically saying, "Hey, you want 1989 back? Here, take it, you sad old weirdo."

Personally I think that's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ brilliant.

[Evil Jerk]

Necro posting, but I just started the game this week and, curious myself, made a letter key and deciphered them as:

left side:
Morse Eckleburger, Christine Martin, Moe Grinder, Tex Swanson, Alex Kun
Me, Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes, Daniel Paladin, Roxie Hasabe
Christopher Hardwick, Chaz Beelington, Paul Radsley, Shade Nightfellow, José Gonzonga
Ryan Samejima, Kelly Kruger, Adam Macnamra, Andy Panama, Ether Jones
Ivan Spreckles, Mucho Muchacho, Provie Dupree, David Kile, Suny De Leon

right side:
Sima Hardeep, Micheal O'Douggel, Victor Reyes, Dustin Crenna, Daniel Crenna
Nick Stronson, Derrick Quijano, Otis Myazaki, Rocky Baldwin IV, Thomas Grinder
???, Mortimor Salazar, Rudy Brugger, Andy Razzle, Wesley Snape
Nicole Hendrix, Josh Herman, René Hardy, Bannon Belmont, Andrew & Randall Hattori
Principal Abobo, Jeremy Ferro, Glen Krow, Sophia Santiago, Rodney Stanz

I'm very confident these are right. The only difficulty was "i" and "l" are identical as are "ei", "el", "d" and "ie", "le", "b". There's two casing errors: "Hardwick" is "HArdwick" and "Eckleburger" is "eckleburger" in-game. I also added punctuation to "O'Douggel", "René", and "José". "Roxie Hasabe" is how it is in-game, although it probably should be "Roxy Hasebe".

[Ori-Baba]

the Dragon Twins portrait leads me to believe they might be unlockable secret bosses

[>>>Machine_Legion<<<]

May or may not be necroposting, but there's actually handwritten stuff above some characters. Does anyone know what any of it means?