Hello everyone, today I'm giving you a theory on which I'm working for a long time. It's a pretty serious thing, it may change your vision of the gaming. Please understand what I'm saying.
Since the early days of video games, boats have always been respected and honorable vehicles. In the JRPG, they were the best transport to run through the whole map. Boats were almost always your best friend, but was it really because of their utility, or was it more due to a brainwashing ? Don't worry, I'm gonna explain.
For the first example, let's take a video game almost every big JRPG fans have played : Dragon Quest V. Dragon Quest V is the best entry in the series for a lot of people (include me), some of them even proclaim it as the best JRPG ever done, and I can't argue against this, it's definitely a great game. But, do you know what is the first thing you will see in the game ? The very first place you'll see ? A boat. The game begins on a boat. A lot of game designer says that the opening of a game is the most important part, and on this game, on one of the greatest JRPG, you start on a boat.
But that's only the first example. Pick another legendary serie, the Legend of Zelda. Let's talk about Wind Waker, obviously. You surely know that the public reaction when they saw the first trailer of the game (Spaceworld, 2001) was highly negative. You may think that's because the graphics were cartoon, that they wanted a realistic zelda blah blah blah, but that's not the real reason. The true reason on why the game was bashed by the players is because they weren't boat in the trailer. Yes, the first trailer of Zelda Wind Waker was only on-ground footage. And when Miyamoto finally showed the boat trailer of Wind Waker, everyone was happy. Because boat means happiness.
Let's go outside of the Nintendo world, and let's talk about an Ubisoft series. The Assassin's Creed games is a serie much-critized because almost every entry were the same for the players. They weren't innovative. The third one was the most criticized negatively. But, suddenly, the critics stopped on the fourth entry, and they even claimed it was a good game, for once. I will repeat myself again, but do you know what is the theme of Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag ? Piratery. So boats. Yes, again.
I can give you a ton of others examples : Donkey Kong Country 2 (one of the best, if not the best, plateformer 2D) starts on a boat, they were a huge and important boat in Pokémon Blue & Red, the islands of Skies of Arcadia : Legends, the whole plot of 999 is on a boat ! Do you know why the launch of PS3 failed and the 360's one was a success, at least in Europe ? That's because the Xbox 360 has a boat.
There definitely was a conspiracy. Now, the boats are seen like always good things, even if they are the culprit of a ton of murders. Don't be fooled, I've warned you, but they are everywhere.
