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Gravity Rush |OT| Cest la Vita
- Thread starter Takao
- Start date
Not sure I will finish this game,which is pissing me off because I like it but I suck at it so much...I just have a hard time getting use to the gameplay...for example I have to move garbage from bombs so I can pick them up but it doesn't seem to work,instead I go flying away,get all disoriented and since there is a timer,I keep failing...do I just pick it up with O and throw them? can you throw them without flying away with them?
StarCreator
Member
You're supposed to hold circle to expand your grab radius, then toss things away en masse. How much you can grab at once is determined by how much you've leveled up the skill, of course.
One thing that it doesn't explain is that if you HOLD DOWN O then you can pick up a bunch of stuff around you.
clay_ghost
Member
Great game will buy sequel :-D How long are the doc if they are long I may buy them
I know. I would simply like at least a bronze on most :/. I actually managed this so far, except for the stasis field ones. After a break things went quite a bit easier.
Why are my max power levels not increasing anymore after reputation level ups
?StarCreator
Member
I know. I would simply like at least a bronze on most :/. I actually managed this so far, except for the stasis field ones. After a break things went quite a bit easier.
Why are my max power levels not increasing anymore after reputation level ups
They should be but not everything goes up each time. You also need the reputation boosts from the DLC to get the highest level for some skills.
Tiu Neo
Member
Ignore the challenges for now. They get a bit easier after you beat the game and level up some skills.
Napalm_Frank
Member
Ok so I'll buy a Vita tomorrow (what am I doing...). Let's pretend I like this game. Which of the DLC packs (spy, soldier, maid) is worth looking into, should they be bought after completing the main game? How do you access them ingame and when should they be played?
StarCreator
Member
They're accessed the same as other story/challenges, integrated seamlessly. They'll become available as you get to that point in chronological order if you opt to install them before finishing the game.
Note that completing the DLC chapters before finishing the game does leave you with a slight advantage in terms of power-ups over a straight vanilla run.
Tiu Neo
Member
Also, each DLC comes with the costume, two story chapters and two new challenges. The story chapters have hooks with the game and are, but aren't essential. I say it's worth it, anyway.
Napalm_Frank
Member
This game is pretty gud. Some of the challenges were driving me nuts tho trying to get gold. Graphics look great and the game runs smoothly. Reminds me of the new Batman games :lol.
Wait to go for golds until you're near the end of the game. Leveling up your moves will be a significant help.
This is what happens when every single game that comes out nowadays holds your hand even for the easiest things. I mean, I really don't see how the perfect control system could cause any trouble in the latter missions of the game. I only had an issue a couple times with trees obscuring my camera, but in a game where you can truly move 360° with the most real freedom ever I think that's a totally forgiveable flaw. Flying around the city collecting stuff, fighting monsters, enjoying the views was one of the most satisfying experience in gaming for me.
Btw I just finished the game. I want to point out that Siren is my favourite game ever and that Silent Hill (the first, the one and only tbh) really comes close.
That said, I really feel this game suffered from being rushed, especially story-wise, to be a launch title. So many elements not even mentioned later in the game, it's a pity because Toyama is one of the few storywriter in gaming that I truly respect (Siren is outright MINDBLOWING when you get what really happens in the game). Really looking forward for a sequel where many of those elements will be made clearer.
Oh yeah, what are the DLCs about? Anything story related or just challenges and outfits? Anything worth buying?
EDIT: just read the answer to the last question a couple posts above, I think I'll grab them.
Btw I just finished the game. I want to point out that Siren is my favourite game ever and that Silent Hill (the first, the one and only tbh) really comes close.
That said, I really feel this game suffered from being rushed, especially story-wise, to be a launch title. So many elements not even mentioned later in the game, it's a pity because Toyama is one of the few storywriter in gaming that I truly respect (Siren is outright MINDBLOWING when you get what really happens in the game). Really looking forward for a sequel where many of those elements will be made clearer.
Oh yeah, what are the DLCs about? Anything story related or just challenges and outfits? Anything worth buying?
EDIT: just read the answer to the last question a couple posts above, I think I'll grab them.
Napalm_Frank
Member
Any tips for getting gold in ''rift plane unlimited power attack'' challenge from Maid Pack?
lazybones18
Banned
Don't remember the mission description for that one, but it would be best to keep increasing your attacks/abilities so you'll have a longer gravity gauge
This was one of my favorite missions, personally. You can play here in a way you'll never really get to do anywhere else in the game: Basically, your supers are now your normal attacks. You can throw them out as quickly as the gauge will let you, and you really get to see their strengths and weaknesses.
First Area, the Underground Nevi: Spinning around in the micro black hole works well here. You'll catch them as soon as they pop up, and since you're constantly in close proximity, they'll keep on trying to attack, and thus, getting hit. Get as close as you can to the ground, and watch that slowdown go nuts, as you hit all enemies around you multiple times with a very zoomed in camera.. it's like a System-shattering EDF moment. If you're lucky, you'll kill them all by the time the move ends, and will hear the nice little "time extended!" Jingle.
2nd Area Gunpod Nevi: I wanted to spiral claw through many of these, but it's not always the best idea. If you have solid aim and control, that might work. My favorite tactic actually ended up being the bolder-throw special, which has surprisingly long homing range, and then gravity kicking any that survive, until you kill what's needed in order to make group 3 show up...
3rd Area: Army of Nevi on the "mountain": Ok, with this group, the ones on the ground die to spiral claw well, that the homing on the move makes sure you get the all pretty nicely. For the mountain itself, Mini Black Hole seems to be best, because it kills them the fastest, and has less of a chance at missing any, unlike spiral claw. You COULD stand away, and rock-throw from a distance, but this misses many that are towards the sides, which then makes you close in, and deal with them individually, wasting time.
4th area The Platform and Giants: These guys... I actually really liked Micro Black Hole on the giants and ground enemies, as it just hits ALL their weakpoints, rather than making you move over to one and the other, and do specific moves. When the flying dive-bombers show up, you wanna micro black hole, as they'll knock you out of everything else.
My memories of the rest of the areas aren't as clear, so I'll just tackle each enemey variety with general strats from this point on:
The Walkers: Rock throw from a distance. Does fantastic, can toss the rocks, cancel the move, and fly on, it's basically a guarenteed kill once you get the "feel" for it down.
The floating spike mines: You have to fly into proximity in order for them to shoot out spikes, and let their guard down. Fly through the area, stop, turn around, and rock throw. This keeps you from needing to grav kick from each and every one, and the timing of the move is perfect to wipe out basically everything in once "cast".
Last Area before the stage Loops: A weird downward drop that features an annoying mess of enemies. Mostly rock-threw most of these, though their angles are not as convenient as most of the rest of the run.
You need to overall, make it through more than 1 run of the area, to get the high-scoring enemies to show up.
That's... pretty much everything I can think of, ha. People normally say the air combat in this game is it's weakest, yet, most over-used element by the end, but the broken-instant use of specials made it a lot more fun than normal for me, here. Felt like I was playing a fighter, thinking about invincibility frames, start up, and active frames, lol.
As a note, I did this mission pretty early on, and didn't even have a high enough level to have
Fire!
It's a pun on "Calvary" (aka Golgotha).
Amazing, thank you! Didn't think of simply "reading" it
Platinum'd G.R Earlier this month, and now, right before the year is over, 100% complete on all DLC finally
Those last few challenges (in military pack) were a lot easier than some of the crazy ones in other spots of the game. I actually really enjoyed the sliding challenge (I love it when missions show how well they're made for use of Kat's abilities), and the missions of part 2 of the Military Pack were a nice change of pace.
I still am impressed with the fun I have with missions with "mutators" in this game; yes, even the infamous "Dusty is Sick!" mission. Everything feels, for me, as if it's a pleasant extension of a solid foundation, and I really hope they expand on this element well in the expected sequel.
Now just to await the Gravity Queen showing up in PSASBR... Quite glad I'll get to fight with her again, in that, soon. Especially since GR itself has no combat-only modes, unless you count replaying challenges.
Finally can throw another game into my "Awesome Vita games I just have to complete!" list... maybe Dokuro?
Those last few challenges (in military pack) were a lot easier than some of the crazy ones in other spots of the game. I actually really enjoyed the sliding challenge (I love it when missions show how well they're made for use of Kat's abilities), and the missions of part 2 of the Military Pack were a nice change of pace.
I still am impressed with the fun I have with missions with "mutators" in this game; yes, even the infamous "Dusty is Sick!" mission. Everything feels, for me, as if it's a pleasant extension of a solid foundation, and I really hope they expand on this element well in the expected sequel.
Now just to await the Gravity Queen showing up in PSASBR... Quite glad I'll get to fight with her again, in that, soon. Especially since GR itself has no combat-only modes, unless you count replaying challenges.
Finally can throw another game into my "Awesome Vita games I just have to complete!" list... maybe Dokuro?
Gravity Rush is a wonderful game. Fun to play, the soundtrack is excellent; every Vita owner should play it. And there's a bonus: for those of us who like to go after the really hidden treasures, they even invented a somewhat-French-like language, and a writing system to go with it.
Here's an interview with Keiichiro Toyama in which he talks about this. At one point, when asked about the lettering on the signs, he answers that while the number of letters is consistent with an alphabet, 「解読できないように変換しています」 ("We've changed things around so that (people) can't read it.")
Well, Mr. Toyama, the enjoyment I got from this game and the admiration I have for you, the creators, virtually compel me to answer with two words: Challenge. Accepted.
Now rather than how the value of each letter became clear, I'm instead going to give all of them in advance and then do some of the words seen while playing the game and flying around, and then do the words seen on the map. I'll start with the words that are definite and then, after those, move on to the more uncertain ones where I'm trying to reverse-engineer the language converter that they used when making the game.
I had figured out just about all the letters with the exception of J (turns out it's barely distinguishable from H) and Q, but thanks to the Gravity Rush artbook, we now know those for certain. The book also gives us the numerals, whose values wouldn't have been clear at all. And here are all the letters and numbers:
So let's start: (Photos are hosted on Dropbox; someone tell me if that's a problem.)
This vaguely hotel-looking building in Pleajeune has a sign that says MOTEL:
And the solar power company is called ENE HEX:
And there's an elevator that says ELEVATOR:
Over in the factory district there are some TV screens with plenty of words on them. Here's an ad for MARKET PORK:
Back in Auldnoir, there are some shops with signs. Do you like the Foo Fighters? The proprietor of the FOO FIGHTER sure does:
Those are pretty straightforward. But then they start making things really complicated, and I'm going to show some of those in the next post.
Here's an interview with Keiichiro Toyama in which he talks about this. At one point, when asked about the lettering on the signs, he answers that while the number of letters is consistent with an alphabet, 「解読できないように変換しています」 ("We've changed things around so that (people) can't read it.")
Well, Mr. Toyama, the enjoyment I got from this game and the admiration I have for you, the creators, virtually compel me to answer with two words: Challenge. Accepted.
Now rather than how the value of each letter became clear, I'm instead going to give all of them in advance and then do some of the words seen while playing the game and flying around, and then do the words seen on the map. I'll start with the words that are definite and then, after those, move on to the more uncertain ones where I'm trying to reverse-engineer the language converter that they used when making the game.
I had figured out just about all the letters with the exception of J (turns out it's barely distinguishable from H) and Q, but thanks to the Gravity Rush artbook, we now know those for certain. The book also gives us the numerals, whose values wouldn't have been clear at all. And here are all the letters and numbers:
So let's start: (Photos are hosted on Dropbox; someone tell me if that's a problem.)
This vaguely hotel-looking building in Pleajeune has a sign that says MOTEL:
And the solar power company is called ENE HEX:
And there's an elevator that says ELEVATOR:
Over in the factory district there are some TV screens with plenty of words on them. Here's an ad for MARKET PORK:
Back in Auldnoir, there are some shops with signs. Do you like the Foo Fighters? The proprietor of the FOO FIGHTER sure does:
Those are pretty straightforward. But then they start making things really complicated, and I'm going to show some of those in the next post.
OK, time for the complexity.
Remember how, in some of the comic strips you see between chapters, the exclamation points and question marks are on the left? Let's assume that this language can also go right-to-left. (In fact, it's like that more than half the time.)
And since some of the words seem meaningless, but would make sense if letters were inserted at various positions, let's also imagine that one of the features of Toyama's language-convoluter is that certain letters are removed. In the artbook, they make a comment that in creating the spoken language, they took some of the consonants out, so this is pretty consistent.
You might think this is a stretch, but if we allow it, we can possibly read all kinds of things, including:
The top line is certainly welcome to clock tower and the stuff on the bottom has got to be please enjoy town's gate. (I typed the last, leftmost, word wrong; it should be ETG.)
Right nearby is:
I made a typo in the picture; it says ETGSNWT, which has got to be town's gate.
Back in Pleajeune, we've gor a fruit stand that says ONMAUK:
...and from the right, and inserting letters, we can get kudamono, which is Japanese for "fruit".
And in Auldnoir,
YRNUL NIC is coin laundry, the usual English-derived Japanese word for a laundromat.
And check out this wanted poster:
The first line is IAETEMHS, and if we read right to left and insert some extra letters, we get shimei tehai 指名手配, which is the standard wording at the top of any Japanese "Wanted" poster.
In the next line, I initially thought there was an H in there, but now I think it's UZWO OW OJIE, which, using the same rules, can be ...wo owazu を追わず, meaning, "Do not chase..." or ... wo towazu を問わず "Regardless of...". The OJIE part could be a number of things, including reijō 令状 "warrant for (arrest)".
The next line is NIUOS, which is surely shoukin 賞金, "reward", and then there's a number which looks like 6 million of.. whatever currency Hekseville uses, but it's a Y with a line through it, just like Japan's yen sign. (I thought this number might be a 9, but the artbook says it's a 6.)
Maps are coming next; this is where the real craziness starts!
Remember how, in some of the comic strips you see between chapters, the exclamation points and question marks are on the left? Let's assume that this language can also go right-to-left. (In fact, it's like that more than half the time.)
And since some of the words seem meaningless, but would make sense if letters were inserted at various positions, let's also imagine that one of the features of Toyama's language-convoluter is that certain letters are removed. In the artbook, they make a comment that in creating the spoken language, they took some of the consonants out, so this is pretty consistent.
You might think this is a stretch, but if we allow it, we can possibly read all kinds of things, including:
The top line is certainly welcome to clock tower and the stuff on the bottom has got to be please enjoy town's gate. (I typed the last, leftmost, word wrong; it should be ETG.)
Right nearby is:
I made a typo in the picture; it says ETGSNWT, which has got to be town's gate.
Back in Pleajeune, we've gor a fruit stand that says ONMAUK:
...and from the right, and inserting letters, we can get kudamono, which is Japanese for "fruit".
And in Auldnoir,
YRNUL NIC is coin laundry, the usual English-derived Japanese word for a laundromat.
And check out this wanted poster:
The first line is IAETEMHS, and if we read right to left and insert some extra letters, we get shimei tehai 指名手配, which is the standard wording at the top of any Japanese "Wanted" poster.
In the next line, I initially thought there was an H in there, but now I think it's UZWO OW OJIE, which, using the same rules, can be ...wo owazu を追わず, meaning, "Do not chase..." or ... wo towazu を問わず "Regardless of...". The OJIE part could be a number of things, including reijō 令状 "warrant for (arrest)".
The next line is NIUOS, which is surely shoukin 賞金, "reward", and then there's a number which looks like 6 million of.. whatever currency Hekseville uses, but it's a Y with a line through it, just like Japan's yen sign. (I thought this number might be a 9, but the artbook says it's a 6.)
Maps are coming next; this is where the real craziness starts!
StarCreator
Member
Every last one of your images is 403.
Now for the maps.
These are too busy for me to insert letters right into the screenshots, so I'll describe them in the text here.
Across the top: ELIVSKH, which is Hekseville.
Below that, ENEJEL and NEKAUSBAUR. The one on the left is Pleajeune, for certain, and to the right of that is the school, which is called アレカビス学園 Arekabisu Gakuen in Japanese, which fits but for the UR at the beginning, which should be ER. Maybe the name -- which is Arquebus Academy in English -- was changed during production.
At the bottom left is AITSDN, or Endestria. At far right is IMAGE, which could be an English word read from the left, or could be a Japanese-Heksevillian-abbreviated tegami ("letter") or megami ("goddess").
Bottom half of that map:
AITSDN (Endstria) is visible here too, and on the right is RINTUA, which is really close to Auldnoir; maybe it was "Aultnoir" at one point. The very center, ARSK, I'm drawing a complete blank on. Anybody have any ideas?
And down at the bottom is ERNEEDEV, which is Vendecentre.
Next we'll look at the tiny lettering on the detailed maps, where all kinds of things are concealed.
These are too busy for me to insert letters right into the screenshots, so I'll describe them in the text here.
Across the top: ELIVSKH, which is Hekseville.
Below that, ENEJEL and NEKAUSBAUR. The one on the left is Pleajeune, for certain, and to the right of that is the school, which is called アレカビス学園 Arekabisu Gakuen in Japanese, which fits but for the UR at the beginning, which should be ER. Maybe the name -- which is Arquebus Academy in English -- was changed during production.
At the bottom left is AITSDN, or Endestria. At far right is IMAGE, which could be an English word read from the left, or could be a Japanese-Heksevillian-abbreviated tegami ("letter") or megami ("goddess").
Bottom half of that map:
AITSDN (Endstria) is visible here too, and on the right is RINTUA, which is really close to Auldnoir; maybe it was "Aultnoir" at one point. The very center, ARSK, I'm drawing a complete blank on. Anybody have any ideas?
And down at the bottom is ERNEEDEV, which is Vendecentre.
Next we'll look at the tiny lettering on the detailed maps, where all kinds of things are concealed.
BomberMouse
Member
You can do that in Dropbox, just make sure to create an album then ask for the permalink for each file instead of just copying the url yourself.
I tried doing that, asking for the direct link and taking the 's' out of 'https', and I could see them just fine but I imagine that that's because my computer stays logged in to Dropbox. What a waste it was signing up for that.
As long as people can see them in Photobucket I'll keep that account!
Here's the eastern half of Pleajeune, where the school is:
The legend at the bottom says IAUZ EUAEP on the top and UZT on the bottom. That's probably Pleajeune Zukai (図解; 'Pleajeune Illustrated') on the top, and the bottom could be tizu, which is an irregular romanization of chizu 地図, "map". And on the island where the school is, you can just make out AYOU UOKA (gakkou kousya 学校校舎; school building), but the rest is too small.
To the left of that, Kat has written some notes. Here:
...we see MIZAR! KIR! IWZR!, which, left-to-right, could be an abbreviation for mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru 見ざる、聞かざる、言わざる, meaning "See not, hear not, (and) say not," and refer to the three monkeys at the Tōshōgū in Nikkō who pose so as to not see, hear, or speak evil:
Why Kat would be saying this is something I don't quite get yet, but there are other quotes on this map that make far less sense than that, and I'll introduce them shortly.
The legend at the bottom says IAUZ EUAEP on the top and UZT on the bottom. That's probably Pleajeune Zukai (図解; 'Pleajeune Illustrated') on the top, and the bottom could be tizu, which is an irregular romanization of chizu 地図, "map". And on the island where the school is, you can just make out AYOU UOKA (gakkou kousya 学校校舎; school building), but the rest is too small.
To the left of that, Kat has written some notes. Here:
...we see MIZAR! KIR! IWZR!, which, left-to-right, could be an abbreviation for mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru 見ざる、聞かざる、言わざる, meaning "See not, hear not, (and) say not," and refer to the three monkeys at the Tōshōgū in Nikkō who pose so as to not see, hear, or speak evil:
Why Kat would be saying this is something I don't quite get yet, but there are other quotes on this map that make far less sense than that, and I'll introduce them shortly.
The main island in Auldnoir:
Right in the middle, we can see IRODO, which is ōdōri 大通り, meaning "Main Street". (Note that this word can also be romanized as oodoori, meaning that the whole remove-certain-letters system is intact.)
Below the fountain -- my map has a red icon there -- you can see ABRI hiroba 広場 "public square" in front of the fountain. I can't get much out of the word before it, but southeast of that is SO IBRE, the first word of which could be terebi, "television" (see that outdoor TV screen on the building?) and then southeast of that is UKYK NIUU, which is probably yuubin kyoku 郵便局, "post office".
Probably a few more words on this page can be read; anyone want to try?
Right in the middle, we can see IRODO, which is ōdōri 大通り, meaning "Main Street". (Note that this word can also be romanized as oodoori, meaning that the whole remove-certain-letters system is intact.)
Below the fountain -- my map has a red icon there -- you can see ABRI hiroba 広場 "public square" in front of the fountain. I can't get much out of the word before it, but southeast of that is SO IBRE, the first word of which could be terebi, "television" (see that outdoor TV screen on the building?) and then southeast of that is UKYK NIUU, which is probably yuubin kyoku 郵便局, "post office".
Probably a few more words on this page can be read; anyone want to try?
EatinOlives
Member
So as much as I'm liking this game (seriously, why the fuck didn't anyone inform me that the soundtrack in this game is so goddamned good?) it definitely is NOT a portable game. Shifting gravity like a mothefucker while in a car ride gave me serious motion sickness, and I played the shit out my DS in the same scenario, so I'm plenty used to portable gaming in moving vehicles.
Dunan, this is AMAZING. I was obsessing over the alphabet but didn't dare try to decipher it since I figured you would need knowledge of the original language of the game, which I don't. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Random thought, the writing at the very center of the map, could it be that they made a little error with the last word being a K instead of an A (the symbols are similar)? If that was the case the writing would read ARSA, or in reverse asra => hashira (with the rule of a random missing letter/syllable), that means pillar (I found it via google translate though, so I'm not that certain that's right). Very far fetched but that's all I could thing right now.
I'll grab my Vita right away and start looking for (hopefully) interesting stuff. The map is covered in writings and notes, I love it!
Random thought, the writing at the very center of the map, could it be that they made a little error with the last word being a K instead of an A (the symbols are similar)? If that was the case the writing would read ARSA, or in reverse asra => hashira (with the rule of a random missing letter/syllable), that means pillar (I found it via google translate though, so I'm not that certain that's right). Very far fetched but that's all I could thing right now.
I'll grab my Vita right away and start looking for (hopefully) interesting stuff. The map is covered in writings and notes, I love it!
R_thanatos
Member
very nice findings..this is also why i kinda want a Gravity rush 2 , so they can expand and explain the world more
Tomodachi, you've done it!
That's got to be the right answer. I thought it was a K but it looks so similar to an A that it migth as well be an A. If it's ARSA, then that was formed from (again with the irregular romanization; si is the same as shi) hasira, which is indeed the standard word for "pillar".
I didn't go into this in my last three posts, but it's not exactly random which letters get dropped. Remember, this language was generated procedurally, so we shouldn't be surprised to see a pattern in which letters fall out.
Let's look at some of the words seen so far. I'll highlight the missing letters, and when you look at them together like this, the rule should become clear. (Note that when the original word has two in a row of some letter, I had to choose the correct one to highlight so as to keep this rule intact.)
ELIVSKH -> ELLIVESKEH, Hekseville
ENEJEL -> ENUEJAELP, Pleajeune
NEKAUSBAUR -> NEUKAGUSIBAKURA, Arukabisu Gakuen
AITSDN -> AIRTSEDNE, Endestria
RINTUA -> RIONTLUA, Aultnoir
ERNEEDEV -> ERTNECEDNEV, Vendecentre
ABRI -> ABORIH hiroba
IBRE -> IBERET terebi
UKYK NIUU -> UKOYK NIBUUY yuubin kyoku
IAETEMHS -> IAHETIEMIHS shimei tehai
NIUOS -> NIKUOH shoukin
Now back to the in-game action shots:
REOT KCLC OT EMCLW -> REWOT KCOLC OT EMOCLEW welcome to clock tower
ETG SNWT YONE ESEL -> ETAG S'NWOT YOJNE ESAELP please enjoy town's gate
ONMAUK -> ONOMADUK kudamono
YRNUL NIC -> YRDNUAL NIOC coin laundry
See what's going on? Every third letter, starting from the last, is omitted. Sometimes that means that the first letter of the word falls out, which is almost unimaginable in a real writing system, but there you have it.
So using this rule, ARSA fits perfectly with ARISAH, which is hashira, meaning "pillar"!
Most of the words in the game obey this rule: write from right to left and omit every third letter from the last. If they're not behaving like this, then you've got plain left-to-right writing with no omissions. Kat's handwriting doesn't seem to obey a rule -- the monkey quotes don't, and at another point she writes "check" as CHK -- so I wonder if different artists were involved in creating the assets with different writing schemes.
I'm at work now, and can't go look at my photo collection again, but when I get home I'll post about some of the text you see in the backgrounds on the maps (some of which is totally off the wall; one is a hidden reference to another game company!) and the text on the Boutoume map, which I can only read half of and would really like to suss out, because those kids' artwork is so charming!
Wow, I'm happy to have been useful even though it was only a lucky guess
I'm trying to translate some stuff now but it's really hard, especially because I don't even know if I'll end up with an english word or a japanese one. For example I'm trying to decode this photo (you can see it in the Auldnoir sub-map, it pictures a buinding in the main square with a white dove on it, always wandered what it meant):
There's a huge slash that could be a big I or simply a slash, considering that it ends with a question mark maybe Kat isn't sure about what that building is as well
Also, right under Karuwari Church (in Auldnoir's little island, the one with the Siren reference I posted before) the map says IASOK, so I'm guessing it should be k_os_ai but I don't have a clue what it could mean, looks japanese.
Oh and I thought this could come useful, it's a crappy collage I did with highly magnified screenshots for the main map. If you open it in another window it's fullsize. Sorry for the quality, I suck at photoshop
BTW there's so much of what made Siren my favourite game ever in Gravity Rush. All these children tales, myths, suggestions, hidden alphabets (shibitos had one too, I went back to the game to check the archive where it was explained but the symbols are different), and
really reminds me of some archives from Forbidden Siren 2.
I'm trying to translate some stuff now but it's really hard, especially because I don't even know if I'll end up with an english word or a japanese one. For example I'm trying to decode this photo (you can see it in the Auldnoir sub-map, it pictures a buinding in the main square with a white dove on it, always wandered what it meant):
There's a huge slash that could be a big I or simply a slash, considering that it ends with a question mark maybe Kat isn't sure about what that building is as well
Also, right under Karuwari Church (in Auldnoir's little island, the one with the Siren reference I posted before) the map says IASOK, so I'm guessing it should be k_os_ai but I don't have a clue what it could mean, looks japanese.
Oh and I thought this could come useful, it's a crappy collage I did with highly magnified screenshots for the main map. If you open it in another window it's fullsize. Sorry for the quality, I suck at photoshop
BTW there's so much of what made Siren my favourite game ever in Gravity Rush. All these children tales, myths, suggestions, hidden alphabets (shibitos had one too, I went back to the game to check the archive where it was explained but the symbols are different), and
the hand-drawn map of the world below
I get ?LBOIAUOIAOBTOA for that, and there are so many vowels that it's probably something in Japanese (if it has meaning at all); the only logical way to put in the blanks is so that they fit between the T and B and then the B and L (since those letters can't occur next to each other in Japanese). If we do that, we get (left to right) a_ot_bo_ai_ou_ai_ob_l, which could conceivably be something... but I'm not sure what.
This one you're going to kick yourself for not getting: the S is actually a U, so IAUOK is kyoukai 教会: "church"!
That's a fine collage map; your skills at Photoshop are better than mine! If you've made one for any of the other places, please post it!
I've never played Siren; what's the alphabet like in that game?
Ah, it was easy! I even used google translate for church (I don't speak japanese at all, except the few words everybody into games and a few animes know) but I was using kyookai, not kyoukai. Also that S drove me off the road
The issue with this alphabet is that a lot of words are very similar, graphically speaking.So far that's the only one I've made but I'd like to make others, I'll post definitely them
I don't know if you like survival horror games but I think you'd love at least the extremely complex story. It's amazing, so many layers of depths it makes your head hurt. The alphabet is much easier though because there's an archive in the game (they are random stuff you have to find throughout the levels, with lots of background on the plot) which explains it to you. The symbols are more... "pictographic" there as well, here's a shot I found googling it:
BomberMouse
Member
Great analysis Dunan. Congrats on those findings.
Toyama being an awesome guy, second time he "replies" to me bothering him on twitter
https://twitter.com/K_Toyama/status/288316156383748096
https://twitter.com/K_Toyama/status/288316156383748096
Tomodachi, he should have given you more than just a grin! You spotted a genuine secret!
OK, back to some more alphabet revelations. Here's the utterly charming map drawn by the children of Boutoume:
First, look at the small orange writing at the bottom. IHKBNOODK. Here I'm going to go out on a limb a little and imagine that the B should really be an M -- these two letters look almost identical, and you can easily imagine a child getting them wrong -- and also imagine that the producers wrote a K when they wanted a C. If you do that, you can read this as kodomo no machi 子供の町, which means "town of children".
The yellow writing next to the Ark says ENBOAH, which is hakobune 箱船, the Japanese word for "ark". The big blue slithery Nevi on the left is a Nushi ヌシ, and that's just what IHUN says.
Moving to the middle of the map, next to the waterfall, in blue, we see IKT (taki 滝, "waterfall". Over at Zaza's house, I'm thinking that he might have had a different name during pre-production, because EINVAZ works out to za_v no ie ___の家, "Za_v's house".
Now the red writing on the top and the bottom is leaving me completely flummoxed. At the top we've got PADNOCCENT, with those Cs possibly being Rs; it's driving me crazy. I can't figure out what it says -- but I know it says something because the word PADNO appears elsewhere in the game. What word could be spelled o_nd_ap? Maybe the blanks are in the wrong spots.
Down at the bottom we have INQON OBDO IJAUODK. If the B in the middle word is an M, we can have kodomo ("children") again; the last word could be a strangely-spelled ...no kuni 〜の国 ("...'s country"), and the first word might also contain kodomo since you can get that out of UODK if you allow multiple omitted letters, but we've only seen that once before (Kat's handwriting on the map) so my guess is it's something else.
I still love this map even if portions of it are unreadable!
OK, back to some more alphabet revelations. Here's the utterly charming map drawn by the children of Boutoume:
First, look at the small orange writing at the bottom. IHKBNOODK. Here I'm going to go out on a limb a little and imagine that the B should really be an M -- these two letters look almost identical, and you can easily imagine a child getting them wrong -- and also imagine that the producers wrote a K when they wanted a C. If you do that, you can read this as kodomo no machi 子供の町, which means "town of children".
The yellow writing next to the Ark says ENBOAH, which is hakobune 箱船, the Japanese word for "ark". The big blue slithery Nevi on the left is a Nushi ヌシ, and that's just what IHUN says.
Moving to the middle of the map, next to the waterfall, in blue, we see IKT (taki 滝, "waterfall". Over at Zaza's house, I'm thinking that he might have had a different name during pre-production, because EINVAZ works out to za_v no ie ___の家, "Za_v's house".
Now the red writing on the top and the bottom is leaving me completely flummoxed. At the top we've got PADNOCCENT, with those Cs possibly being Rs; it's driving me crazy. I can't figure out what it says -- but I know it says something because the word PADNO appears elsewhere in the game. What word could be spelled o_nd_ap? Maybe the blanks are in the wrong spots.
Down at the bottom we have INQON OBDO IJAUODK. If the B in the middle word is an M, we can have kodomo ("children") again; the last word could be a strangely-spelled ...no kuni 〜の国 ("...'s country"), and the first word might also contain kodomo since you can get that out of UODK if you allow multiple omitted letters, but we've only seen that once before (Kat's handwriting on the map) so my guess is it's something else.
I still love this map even if portions of it are unreadable!
Let's go back to the surface world now.
Vendecentre has a ton of words to spot:
The title at the bottom left says NWT NOD, or down town. Below that is UZHC, or chizu 地図 ("map").
On the map itself, in small letters, you can make out LEHO, which must be a hotel, and OHUAY, which is yakusho 役所, "city hall".
I can't quite puzzle out the IAURB in the middle, though biru gai ビル街 "street of buildings" is a remote possibility. All the way on the right, obscured in this shot by one of the icons, is REOTCOC, or clock tower.
At the top in Kat's handwriting is IPADNO, which is similar to what's in Boutoume, but I can't figure it out just yet. Also unreadable is the IAU KBUS in the air below the island.
Here's the northeast part of Vendecentre:
That yellow ticket at the top says TIDA EN, which is admit one.
At the train station on the right we've got AZ TXN; could it start with the word next?
I can't make sense of Kat's !OADAAHN at the top left, nor can I puzzle out the AWNUOBNIUOTIKO ETAGARKRODNAAGTI, though that latter one in particular surely means something.
Southeast part of Vendecentre:
In the top right we see KRP DH; not sure about the first word but the last is probably park. At the bottom is EDADN, which I also can't understand.
Vendecentre has a ton of words to spot:
The title at the bottom left says NWT NOD, or down town. Below that is UZHC, or chizu 地図 ("map").
On the map itself, in small letters, you can make out LEHO, which must be a hotel, and OHUAY, which is yakusho 役所, "city hall".
I can't quite puzzle out the IAURB in the middle, though biru gai ビル街 "street of buildings" is a remote possibility. All the way on the right, obscured in this shot by one of the icons, is REOTCOC, or clock tower.
At the top in Kat's handwriting is IPADNO, which is similar to what's in Boutoume, but I can't figure it out just yet. Also unreadable is the IAU KBUS in the air below the island.
Here's the northeast part of Vendecentre:
That yellow ticket at the top says TIDA EN, which is admit one.
At the train station on the right we've got AZ TXN; could it start with the word next?
I can't make sense of Kat's !OADAAHN at the top left, nor can I puzzle out the AWNUOBNIUOTIKO ETAGARKRODNAAGTI, though that latter one in particular surely means something.
Southeast part of Vendecentre:
In the top right we see KRP DH; not sure about the first word but the last is probably park. At the bottom is EDADN, which I also can't understand.
Almost done. Now we're going to get to the totally bizarre stuff that makes absolutely no sense: the small lines of text that appear in the margins of the maps.
Let's start with this one in the middle of Pleajeune.
This looks like GOP ETH SDHTM GNLLTYDT / S YRSUNI EH SA; the top line might be "Storytelling methods hate..." and the bottom could be "has the industry...".
(The text below the big ferris wheel at the left seems to say AYN ANK; not sure what this is.)
East of that we've got:
The bottom word in Kat's notes is uta 歌／詩, Japanese for "song" or "poem", and in the frame above is: SERE NELA RU FO / EMS REMEER EW / SA KOL A EKT. It sounds like a quote from somewhere: "Of our fallen heroes, we remember some. Take a look as..."
In the margins in Auldnoir, we find this conundrum:
URIBS CTSO URBNS / ON IAISUY OBBICRS / SKTNK J NNN50091.
I can't make head or tail of this, but a sign on one of the buildings in the game says yusiai, so this text is probably right to left; maybe it means something in the language they made up for Kat to speak.
Over in the factory district, we have something that looks like Portuguese:
ANHA TAO BONIT / A VIDA UMA / NOVA CANCAO / CANT / ANDO SO TEUS. (The C in CANTANDO is in fact the number 1000, but I'm assuming that the font the developers are using have this character assigned to capital C, as you'll see with the next entry.)
Put an M at the beginning, throw in some tildes, and you get "Manhã, tão bonita. Vida, uma nova canção. Cantando só teus.". I don't know enough Portuguese to say if this sounds natural or not, but Google Translate claims that it means: "Morning, so beautiful. Life, a new song. Singing only yours."
The song Manhã de Carnaval, by Silvio Caldas, contains these lyrics (just about) and would almost fit into this game:
http://letras.mus.br/silvio-caldas/1576667/
(What he sings in the accompanying video is slightly different from the lyrics presented.)
And finally, this, in the western half of Endestria:
You must allow the numeral 10 to be a capital A for this to work, but every other character is certain, so I can only imagine that the producers' font has this character at capital A. The text says:
"Her in orth America, Atlus releases al"
North America? Atlus? They release all of what?
I just sort of sat openmouthed for a few minutes after deciphering this. A shout-out to Atlus? Atlus does indeed release some great translations of games that might otherwise never leave Japan, but this is a Sega game. Did Toyama ever work for Atlus?
I have no idea. But what I do know is that I was delightfully entertained by this easter-egg-laden alphabet, which was, difficulty-wise, a few levels above what most games offer.
Let's start with this one in the middle of Pleajeune.
This looks like GOP ETH SDHTM GNLLTYDT / S YRSUNI EH SA; the top line might be "Storytelling methods hate..." and the bottom could be "has the industry...".
(The text below the big ferris wheel at the left seems to say AYN ANK; not sure what this is.)
East of that we've got:
The bottom word in Kat's notes is uta 歌／詩, Japanese for "song" or "poem", and in the frame above is: SERE NELA RU FO / EMS REMEER EW / SA KOL A EKT. It sounds like a quote from somewhere: "Of our fallen heroes, we remember some. Take a look as..."
In the margins in Auldnoir, we find this conundrum:
URIBS CTSO URBNS / ON IAISUY OBBICRS / SKTNK J NNN50091.
I can't make head or tail of this, but a sign on one of the buildings in the game says yusiai, so this text is probably right to left; maybe it means something in the language they made up for Kat to speak.
Over in the factory district, we have something that looks like Portuguese:
ANHA TAO BONIT / A VIDA UMA / NOVA CANCAO / CANT / ANDO SO TEUS. (The C in CANTANDO is in fact the number 1000, but I'm assuming that the font the developers are using have this character assigned to capital C, as you'll see with the next entry.)
Put an M at the beginning, throw in some tildes, and you get "Manhã, tão bonita. Vida, uma nova canção. Cantando só teus.". I don't know enough Portuguese to say if this sounds natural or not, but Google Translate claims that it means: "Morning, so beautiful. Life, a new song. Singing only yours."
The song Manhã de Carnaval, by Silvio Caldas, contains these lyrics (just about) and would almost fit into this game:
http://letras.mus.br/silvio-caldas/1576667/
(What he sings in the accompanying video is slightly different from the lyrics presented.)
And finally, this, in the western half of Endestria:
You must allow the numeral 10 to be a capital A for this to work, but every other character is certain, so I can only imagine that the producers' font has this character at capital A. The text says:
"Her in orth America, Atlus releases al"
North America? Atlus? They release all of what?
I just sort of sat openmouthed for a few minutes after deciphering this. A shout-out to Atlus? Atlus does indeed release some great translations of games that might otherwise never leave Japan, but this is a Sega game. Did Toyama ever work for Atlus?
I have no idea. But what I do know is that I was delightfully entertained by this easter-egg-laden alphabet, which was, difficulty-wise, a few levels above what most games offer.
! TI DEOJE YLAE I !(EZD YTVAG) HSR YTVAG FO SRTARC UO KNHT
Could it be a wink to PSVita? A new song as in a new game, a new franchise (a totally new experience for him, given he always worked on a completely different genre before) on Vita?
Probably all these side scribblings in maps are Toyama's thoughts and random hidden messages to gamers. I'll go as far as saying that this could also provide a general interpretation (one of the many possible) of the game's plot, as all the talk about (spoilers about the story
protecting the dreamer, being in a dream created by Cyanea etc could mean the dreamer is the developer himself, who created all of the world of the game
Much like all of the original Silent Hill's streets were named after authors, bands and stuff he was a fan of at the time. Like an Italian friend of mine put it in a forum long years ago, "Silent Hill's maze of streets is Toyama's own mind's framework". All of this meta-stuff has always fascinated Toyama I guess, but that is just an interpretation.
Oh, also this: Silent Hill's soundtrack has an hidden track sung in Spanish (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EffJHOuJIU), came to mind when I listened to this Portuguese song since the style is pretty similar.
Woah, that's amazing. I seem to remember there were talks of a possible interest for Atlus to publish Forbidden Siren 2 to the USA (which unfortunately came out only over here in Europe) but I'm not sure, maybe he really hoped for it.
And thank YOU for this wonderful series of post. I think you should post that coded message to him via Twitter (he replies everytime, especially to Japanese tweets, he's not very good at English as he says) to show him you were able to crack the code. I think this is a first!
I must confess -- while I knew about the streets in Silent Hill being named after authors, I never knew that it was the same Toyama designing it! This game was my first exposure to Keiichiro Toyama. I've never been a survival horror fan, and had hardly even heard of Siren. Now I might want to give one of them a try.
I was actually thinking of sending him a postcard. Or do you think a Twitter message in romanized Japanese but abbreviated like Gravity Rush writing would do the trick?
I wish I were a game magazine journalist; I'd love to do an interview with Toyama and ask him all about how he created this stuff. It really would make a great story; he deserves credit for this!