Et tu, Level-5?

For there to be betrayal, there had to be trust, and it seems silly now to imply the idea that putting trust in any major game development house is even possible without either full consumer blindness or with the knowledge you’ll be wronged eventually. Perhaps a bit of a depressive thought, but not having full blown love for a corporative entity will do nothing but good for you.

But there was trust. Of course there was. How could there not be trust for something that accompanied you during all the recesses.

I don’t think the massive outcry after Level-5’s recent presentation turned into AI horror show is even close to a proper representation of the amount of eyes they managed to captivate since their inception; a small Japanese studio catapulted by Sony’s PS2 exclusive push that found themselves behind the eight numbered entry of the Dragon Quest series, and the following two gens would spell an absolute victory in what respects multicultural recognition and quality for handheld ecosystems. They were never, under no circumstances, ‘’small potatoes’’. They let themselves be known from the moment Dark Cloud hit stores, from Akihiro Hino’s, founder of the whole endeavor, promises he could make a better DQ game than VII, from their absolute resolve to get Studio goddam Ghibli to give life to one of their dream projects . Titans in their homeland, and a name that a lot of folks across the world could immediately recognize.

That was the world-wide panorama… but that feels like generalizing too much. The story I lived, limited to my school and the parks nearby, that would be replicated through thousands of towns across the country, feels grander than the globe itself.

Almost every single kid in Spain during the early 2010s had two things: a Nintendo DS, and a soccer ball. Then, Inazuma Eleven released.

The verbalize the sheer scale of the cultural magnitude that silly 2011 DS (European release date) game had on the backyard and school Spaniard culture would be borderline impossible; it was a paradigm shift in a ecosystem usually dominated by Pokémon, soccer cards of real players, and basically anything and everything that got a kiosk release under the Panini brand. The proverbial new kid that arrived out of nowhere, immediately fit, and changed everyone’s lives forever, a combination of elements that ended up being a match made in heaven for an entire country’s culture.

I obviously doubt Level-5 had any idea of the giant chokehold the soccer industry has in Spanish’s industries, politics and afternoon culture, but they were certainly able to unintentionally capitalize on it for as long as it lasted, and believe me, it wasn’t just a fad.

I live the days of every single one of my friends owning at least one of the games, of seeing the anime airing at prime lunchtime, of hearing kids screaming the names of the player’s techniques. Some of them wanted to be Messi, others wanted to be Mark Evans. I wasn’t even a soccer kid, always hated it, and still, I wanted to be Mark Evans.

Inazuma had an infectious aura, pure uncontrollable energy that spread through every child that heard of it. Even those like me that didn’t jam with football, they all found the magic and passion of a world that fused sport with RPG elements, Inazuma worked not only because it was good, but because it knew how to captivate the minds of a very energetic audience .

Normally the conjunction of the cultural equivalent of hitting a home run and a genuinely inspired and well realized idea would have been enough reasons to justify why it was such a hit, but truly, there was something else: the localization. More than its quality (which is excellent, by the way), it needs to be properly conveyed: few were doing what Inazuma did. Few games showcased full blown animated cutscenes in the best pixelated quality the DS could offer, few released among a series that had everyone seated every single fucking day, few had every text and line fully dubbed into out own tongue. It was an indescribable feeling, the mix of a quality game with the result of fantastic localization work that was given the care and resources to hit as close to home as it did. To kids, it was magical. To me, years later, it’s a showcase of a labor of pure love, trust, and confidence. Something that couldn’t happen just by chance or cultural luck, it happened because there was effort.

Inazuma Eleven hit the hardest, but it wasn’t the only punch Level-5 threw in out direction; almost every household had a Professor Layton, a little game that joined tired parents and children asking them help to solve a puzzle, all, again, all localized and every beautiful cutscene perfectly dubbed. Yo-Kai Watch, the so-called Pokémon killer when it released, prove worthy of its name here; it was impossible to hear its opening at least once or not seeing the game in some trial console at any game or toy store, once again COMPLETELY dubbed, and sales skyrocketed .

I don’t think there was a single human being in the entire country that did not, at the very least, hear of something Level-5 related. Perhaps the entity itself didn’t posses the same backyard status as, say, Nintendo or Playstation, but nevertheless, they were a behemoth here. They left a mark that could have only been filled by them, by their passion and commitment and the ones of which they entrusted to make sure the games arrived in the country in first place.

And then, for a while, they vanished.

Yo-Kai Watch 2 didn’t light the country on fire, but Layton and Inazuma didn’t even have a chance to do it. From the public’s mind, it was as if they just vanished, carrying the spaces they resided in stores and TV channels with them. It was as if Level-5 just ceased to be.

As most would know, thy were just dormant, ceasing their out of Japan activities in a sea of broken promises and chipping away at development hells that would last for years, and some games announced years ago have yet to see the light as of writing this.

Since May of last year, with Fantasy Life I’s releasing, they’ve slowly been returning to public eye more and more. They were back! The same leadership from the very beginning was still there! Level 5 was back!

Level 5 was back.

...

It is not easy to look at the face of something that supposedly has changed so little, when it reality it has completely shifted.

Even before their grand return, it has been hard to ignore the change in priorities at the studio; Akihiro has seemingly shifted to a machinery like philosophy of development, focusing on all interviews on the idea of needing to ship games as fast as possible in a single year, despite failing to meet their own quotas time after time. But more glaringly and clearly, has been his and Level-5’s stances on AI usage , which is a strange mixture of faux justification of tis usage on interviews, a complete veneration for it on the products themselves, and a apparent obfuscation of its use on the different storefront such as Steam, with Victory Road using it despite to warning on its store page being visible .

It becomes more and more soul crushing as it becomes clearer that this is no sudden shift, but a direct and slow result from a chaotic mismanagement and a company whose founder, despite being the same that once allowed for a space that dreamed of every kind of creativity possible, is now sleep at the wheel, living in its fiction as it tries to justify AI by saying they’re using it just for one thing, that thing changing every time he’s asked, and now seems content to present an absolute shitshow of AI generated garbage and say that they only use it ‘’turn drawings into 3D models’’ one of the most important and technical endeavors in the creative game process, and we are supposed to just eat that shit up.

This all seem to stem from an ambition to the retain the kind of cultural grip and presence they had in the past, the belief that if they speed up the game making process they’ll have eyes on them while fundamentally misunderstanding the very reasons that brought them so much attention and still being unable to either have a fixed release schedule or keep their promises.

Victory Road, the same that arrived without a proper dub and a supposed 5-year plan, already got its sequel announced. And people are not happy with the game we already had.

I never wanted those old days of pure Level-5 glory to be eternal, they couldn’t be, but they certainly believe they can, even if it means deluding themselves and try to get them by any means necessary, to have the whole cake and eat it too without putting as much as half of the effort and the trust.

From others, I could almost expect it. From Level-5? From the same leadership? It is a horrible declaration, the kind of statement that shows that, on principle, the days in which they achieved what seemed impossible can never go back. No matter how hard they ask ChatGPT for it to happen.

Maybe they’ll achieve an unprecedented of releases, it’ll be at the cost of every moral and goodwill, but they could achieve it.

I have not doubt, however, that even if it happens, no kid will be wishing to be Mark Evans.

Thank you so much for reaching this point.