にゃんだにょ！
Hey, I'm Cookie (the guy who did the JP restream). Yes, being able to use 0xwas's FAQ for guidance helped a lot. I know the general FF4/6 glitchless routes pretty well, and was able to use that knowledge to carry over into the any% variances, and between my sometimes improvised explanations and the FAQ, I think I was able to address most of the questions that arose. The bug explanations, timing rules and such were used extensively throughout.
After the operas concluded, I held a quick poll. If I'm tracking time correctly, it would've been around 8am(ish) on a Sunday and there were 19 votes, which means probably 20-25 concurrent viewers at that time (NND doesn't give concurrent viewer data like Twitch does, so one has to estimate). Essentia's plushy opera was a big hit, obviously. Throughout the overnight, several other JP FF speed runners also showed up at various points and we were able to talk briefly about some of the state of the race (or the FF789 race. heh). For comparison, the FF789 race during the same time period had ~12k views if I'm counting right.
To put it in context, 10am EDT is 11pm JST, so many viewers watched FF4 (in part) and then went to sleep and returned towards the tail end of FF6.. but even having said that, viewers/comments overnight were still up compared to last time and there were a few dedicated souls who stayed up the entire time (NEET or otherwise) to watch the entire thing.
If I do another JP mirror, things that I would focus on include:
1) Getting a Japanese co-commentator. English knowledge isn't necessarily too important, but someone who specializes in FF4, say, could go into greater detail about why leveling isn't important until the Giant of Babil, for example, or talk about the boss weaknesses/strategies (I couldn't properly convey why character order matters or why Edge was the level-up target instead of Rosa [which is what JP runners use, owing to the different rules])
2) Memes/In-jokes. Despite being American with ancestral roots scattered across Europe, I'm not terribly familiar with English memes because my usual audience is Japanese. I know a few ("instababy", etc) but it's hard to convey them properly.. On the other hand, if you have to explain the joke, then it's no longer funny.. but I think I could at least make an attempt at bringing some of the jokes across to the other side of the pond. Vice-versa could apply, too (e.g. Kefka's "SEGA" music)
3) More explanation of general FF gameplay techniques (why does the dancing dagger not trigger counter on antlion? why have characters at low HP on Kefka, etc) -- I can explain that well enough in English, but may have difficulty explaining the reasoning off-the-cuff in Japanese. By preparing some more gameplay notes and storyline explanations on my side, I could more easily tie story/plot points to gameplay and the bugs being used. That is certainly within my power to do, I think.
I had approached a Japanese gamer friend for possible tagteam commentary this time around, but the timing didn't jive with his work schedule and I didn't have any backup options. It's hard doing commentary alone for a 14+ hour stream, and it's easy to get worn out, so I had to take breaks at points and discuss over chat alone. It wasn't ideal, but them's the breaks (pun intended?).
I also wrote my own tracker (albeit not as awesome as the one the main stream used) but it crashed at around the 10 hour mark (when I was debugging afterwords, it ran fine for 24 hours straight, so... not sure what happened there!). I've got plans to extend and tweak that and add some functionality to record/reload timers if necessary)
(Also, I won't be mirroring the bonus stream in Japanese; I don't know CT well enough to even consider attempting it, and have server work to do that weekend, but I will update the FF456 results page to include the link at least)
Also also, Essentia, I'm sorry to hear about your loss, and hope that you are able to find solace during this time. Family and friends should always come first and I'm sure the bonus stream will manage just fine. You should know that the Japanese audience loved your plushie opera the most, and I'm sure they'd wish you the best as well.
After the operas concluded, I held a quick poll. If I'm tracking time correctly, it would've been around 8am(ish) on a Sunday and there were 19 votes, which means probably 20-25 concurrent viewers at that time (NND doesn't give concurrent viewer data like Twitch does, so one has to estimate). Essentia's plushy opera was a big hit, obviously. Throughout the overnight, several other JP FF speed runners also showed up at various points and we were able to talk briefly about some of the state of the race (or the FF789 race. heh). For comparison, the FF789 race during the same time period had ~12k views if I'm counting right.
To put it in context, 10am EDT is 11pm JST, so many viewers watched FF4 (in part) and then went to sleep and returned towards the tail end of FF6.. but even having said that, viewers/comments overnight were still up compared to last time and there were a few dedicated souls who stayed up the entire time (NEET or otherwise) to watch the entire thing.
If I do another JP mirror, things that I would focus on include:
1) Getting a Japanese co-commentator. English knowledge isn't necessarily too important, but someone who specializes in FF4, say, could go into greater detail about why leveling isn't important until the Giant of Babil, for example, or talk about the boss weaknesses/strategies (I couldn't properly convey why character order matters or why Edge was the level-up target instead of Rosa [which is what JP runners use, owing to the different rules])
2) Memes/In-jokes. Despite being American with ancestral roots scattered across Europe, I'm not terribly familiar with English memes because my usual audience is Japanese. I know a few ("instababy", etc) but it's hard to convey them properly.. On the other hand, if you have to explain the joke, then it's no longer funny.. but I think I could at least make an attempt at bringing some of the jokes across to the other side of the pond. Vice-versa could apply, too (e.g. Kefka's "SEGA" music)
3) More explanation of general FF gameplay techniques (why does the dancing dagger not trigger counter on antlion? why have characters at low HP on Kefka, etc) -- I can explain that well enough in English, but may have difficulty explaining the reasoning off-the-cuff in Japanese. By preparing some more gameplay notes and storyline explanations on my side, I could more easily tie story/plot points to gameplay and the bugs being used. That is certainly within my power to do, I think.
I had approached a Japanese gamer friend for possible tagteam commentary this time around, but the timing didn't jive with his work schedule and I didn't have any backup options. It's hard doing commentary alone for a 14+ hour stream, and it's easy to get worn out, so I had to take breaks at points and discuss over chat alone. It wasn't ideal, but them's the breaks (pun intended?).
I also wrote my own tracker (albeit not as awesome as the one the main stream used) but it crashed at around the 10 hour mark (when I was debugging afterwords, it ran fine for 24 hours straight, so... not sure what happened there!). I've got plans to extend and tweak that and add some functionality to record/reload timers if necessary)
(Also, I won't be mirroring the bonus stream in Japanese; I don't know CT well enough to even consider attempting it, and have server work to do that weekend, but I will update the FF456 results page to include the link at least)
Also also, Essentia, I'm sorry to hear about your loss, and hope that you are able to find solace during this time. Family and friends should always come first and I'm sure the bonus stream will manage just fine. You should know that the Japanese audience loved your plushie opera the most, and I'm sure they'd wish you the best as well.
