DtDust said:
Raiden from MGS2
I dont see why people think he is so bad!
In movies its 8 From 9, i think he was a pretty good character, not quite as good as 6, but a good character
I suspect it's because it was one of the first experiences a lot of gamers had with Japanese racism.
When the whole schtick with replacing Snake with Raiden went down there were some translated periodicals going around explaining that the Japanese just couldn't see a white guy being that awesome of a protaganist, so a new hero was created who was more "appropriatly" Japanese. The idea among the designers being that it would make the Japanese racists happen and increase the growing interest in the series there, and since Westerners would eat up ninja games and such with asian Protaganists (Ninjas and such) we'd be happy with the torch being passed.
As a result the whole Raiden thing went from being a mere situation with people not liking Raiden them pulling a switch with a well liked protaganists, to a scary about of hatred. However by the same token Raiden seemed to go over very well with Japan and the fact that Americans dislike him actually increased the appeal of the character.
At least this is how things seemed to me when the character was introduced. For the record I was never a huge Metal Gear fan, took a wait and see approach, and when they happened I was pretty much "whelps, I'm done with this". Similar to how I have never bought a Silent Hill Game until recently (Homecoming) due to the censorship of Silent Hill 2 when there were protests over the flayed child bludgeoning in the demo. Differant rationale, same thing. Delayed my looking at a few "big" games.
I chalk it up with the whole "Final Fantasy X-2: Final Mission" fiasco and the lack of the "International" version of Final Fantasy X not seeing a US release with gaming occurances that had a lot to do with forming my increasingly anti-Japanese sentiments.
In my case I guess it's not so much Raiden that I hate, but what was going on around the character, and the whole reason he was created to begin with. If it was truely a natural evolution of the series it would be one thing, but it really wasn't, which is why the "switcheroo" was such a WTF moment, which was simply compounded when you looked into it at the time.
I don't follow them too much anymore (if people still do them) since they get me too angry (angry enough where I might get myself in trouble) but you'll notice some very distinct differances between press releases sent to the US, and what the press releases in Japan say in their periodicals. At least in tone.
In some cases (and I verified with multiple translations in some of the worst cases) Japanese game magazines have seemed like what I'd imagine an underground KKK newsletter would be like.