It’s a uniquely Welsh expertise. I’ve by no means been Scottish, or Irish, or Latvian, however people who have inform me if you inform somebody the place you’re from, the response usually isn’t “What’s that?”.
For the Welsh, that primary icebreaker query from anybody outdoors the UK normally prompts a deep breath and, no matter whether or not you’ve bought the time, a short structured lesson on geography, historical past, and the world’s coolest flags. Wales, to many of the world, is a silent enigma. A rustic with out footprint.
As a Welsh individual, I don’t anticipate illustration. I used to be 14 the primary time I felt Wales mirrored in a online game. The second, I used to be 26. To say the medium hasn’t precisely been sort to Cymru is an understatement. In a pre-Gareth Bale world, Wales wasn’t even in FIFA; the one dependable illustration was compulsory appearances in odd rugby video games, most of which skipped Nintendo methods.
But while the historical past of Wales in Nintendo video games is sparse, it runs surprisingly deep, and has had fairly the affect on me in a world the place I’d by no means anticipate to see myself.
Sentinels of the Senghenydd Sky
In 1984, a younger designer by the title of Takashi Tezuka was tasked with devising the story and setting for a brand new sport. An exploration epic impressed by his colleague’s childhood obsession with adventuring by way of the caves round Kyoto, Tezuka determined to delve into his personal childhood.
It was on the best way out of mine, nevertheless, that I first observed Wales in a sport on a Nintendo system. Summer time of 2010, and a slew of puns within the localisation had satisfied me to strive Sq. Enix’s Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies on DS. Sat in my aunt’s spare room, gaudy portray of the 1997 Glamorgan Cricket group on the wall, I arrived at a city known as Porth Llaffan. This week, revisiting for the primary time since, the city’s inhabitants was heat, old style, and spoke with virtually OTT South Wales accents. It’s clearly written by somebody English, their backspace key most likely nonetheless heat after deleting the phrase ‘Boyo’ from the tip of each utterance, but it surely’s loving. ‘Your’ is spelt ‘Youer’, characters name issues they like ‘Tidy’, and the entire city is being terrorised by a monster referred to as Lleviathan.
In Welsh, double L (“Ll”) is a letter. Pronounced “Thl”, it’s written as such as a result of English printing presses had been unequipped to jot down the Welsh character ‘ỻ’, in order that they approximated. Lleviathan is perhaps a easy gag, a primary pun, but it surely’s additionally affectionate. This was the primary time I’d ever seen Welsh in a sport, and right here was a joke that solely made sense to those that understood our language.
Kiki’s Denbigh Service
But solely a mile or two from the place I might in the future slay that beast and in the identical month Tezuka was defining one other journey, one other Japanese artistic was on considered one of his personal. An animator who had simply accomplished his first movie as director, Hayao Miyazaki had arrived in Wales searching for inspiration. Weeks had been spent trekking the attractive Rhonda valley, taking it in, assembly with folks, and probably visiting my aunt. Nonetheless, it was as soon as he reached Rhymney Valley, my household’s dwelling again generations, that he discovered the inspiration he had come for.
Miyazaki witnessed the Miner’s Strike firsthand. Perhaps the defining act in trendy Welsh historical past, the working people of Wales and past stood as much as Margret Thatcher’s authorities, and it desperately moved Miyazaki. The spirit he noticed within the Welsh made the type of tales he wished to inform really feel apparent. The heat, the optimism, all within the face of extraordinary hardships. This journey served as the first inspiration for his subsequent movie, 1986’s Citadel within the Sky, an thought solely devised while in Wales, and the primary movie produced by the newly-founded Studio Ghibli.
Miyazaki would go on to drip Welsh structure into his designs, and turn into fascinated by Cymraeg folklore. In 2004, he tailored Welsh creator Diana Wynne Jones’ novel Howl’s Transferring Citadel. He moved the setting out of Eighties Wales and stripped Howl’s deep love for rugby, but the thematic DNA remained.
What is the Nintendo hyperlink? It is oblique, however Citadel within the Sky would go on to straight encourage the airship ranges in Tremendous Mario Bros. 3, while Miyazaki’s later work would turn into a key reference level for Hearth Emblem, Ultimate Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and maybe Nintendo’s most outwardly Welsh franchise, Xenoblade Chronicles.
The woman with the Gelligaer
I’d by no means performed a Xenoblade sport when the third instalment closed February 2022’s Nintendo Direct. After which, a short burst of Aimee-Ffion Edwards’ vocals was sufficient to make me sit up. I’d by no means seen a sport with a Welsh lead earlier than. It was virtually overwhelming, and sufficient to make me purchase Xenoblade Chronicles 3. While Mio may not be explicitly written as Welsh, there’s a acquainted tragedy to her story. A deep ardour and love for the place she’s from, the household she’s recognized and made, but a data these emotions had been solid by way of a foot on the throat. Irrespective of how far she will get away, she’s at all times trying again from the place she got here.
The sport continues to throw out nods. I genuinely cheered out loud after I arrived at Llyn Nyddwr. ‘Llyn Nadwyr’ in real-world Welsh interprets to ‘Spinner Lake’. The earlier sport had one other Welsh woman with cat ears, even granting her a full household of taffs, however quantity three allowed the scope to be essentially the most nakedly Cymraeg of any Nintendo expertise up to now. Hearth Emblem has used Welsh names for a while now (Three Homes’ central location Garreg Mach is a ‘copy my homework’ tackle Carreg Bach, which suggests ‘Little Stone’), however this was one other stage. Llyn Nyddwr is perhaps tiny, but it surely’s a significant acknowledgement of one thing vital I don’t assume Nintendo itself has ever observed.
A Lampeter Between Worlds
Tezuka, nonetheless trying to find a narrative all these years in the past, determined to lean into the abroad fantasy he liked as a toddler. He went again to the writing of JRR Tolkien, a Welsh speaker who constructed worlds out of Celtic folklore. Lots of the journeys detailed within the books Tezuka grew up studying had been impressed by Tolkien’s personal Miyazaki-style treks by way of West Wales (and Eire, however let’s not let the reality intrude upon a clear narrative).
Tezuka started to learn up on European folklore, historical past, and fable, but by way of sheer coincidence, lots of the tales he pulled got here from one place. The Grasp Sword, which might turn into the sequence’ legendary blade, might be dated again to the Welsh legend Mabinogion, the origin of the Excalibur fable. In later sequels, the protagonist would achieve a trusty, beloved horse known as Epona, a Welsh title taken from the Celtic goddess of fertility.
Because the franchise advanced, Tezuka’s aforementioned colleague Shigeru Miyamoto cited Miyazaki as a key affect on the video games’ visible type. Fittingly, Miyazaki’s personal story got here full circle in 2009 when Studio Ghibli oversaw the animation sequences of DS sport Ni No Kuni Dominion of the Darkish Djinn, which might turn into higher recognized globally in its enhanced Wrath of the White Witch type. Welsh influences on the design had been mirrored within the localisation, with player-aid character Drippy being so Cardiff his first phrase upon bursting to life is “Tidy!”.
These wide-reaching, but coincidentally sourced references got here collectively. Filtered by way of Japanese sensibilities and the utter surprise Miyamoto had felt exploring as a toddler, this grew to become the sport we now know as The Legend of Zelda.
There’s a phrase in Welsh that doesn’t exist in another language: “Hiraeth”. A mournful, nostalgic, melancholy eager for dwelling, it’s a phrase that maybe displays the Welsh like nothing else. Wales is a nation constructed out of magnificence and oppression, not ashamed to cry over the previous however by no means the latter. Hiraeth speaks to a deep satisfaction at the place you’re from, but a data that you just’ll be leaving. The phrase understands the sensation of smallness that bleeds from a stupendous dwelling, quashed for generations, to the purpose no one, in these informal conversations abroad, is aware of it exists.
The worlds of Nintendo are usually not packed to the gills with outward Welshness. But, underneath the hood, one thing sits. Mio in Xenoblade might not be explicitly written as Welsh, but her story is dripping in hiraeth. Miyazaki could also be Japanese, but it was a enterprise away from his homeland that made him perceive his personal life, tradition, and values. And in an journey so grand, Dragon Quest’s Porth Llanaff gave me a way of belonging by way of heat and good humour.
Name it affect, historical past, coincidence, or just cultural similarity, however while the point out of Wales should still immediate folks to ask “What’s that?”, on the earth of video video games, Wales will at all times be a nation with a really huge footprint.
