My review for the absurdly named Mega Man Star Force 2: Zerker x Saurian (and Zerker x Ninja) went up on GameSpot last night. One of the things that didn’t make it into the review was a discussion of one of the game’s locales. The Battle Network and Star Force series have never really exerted much effort to come up with original names for their levels. This time around, you’ll search for a violent sea creature in Loch Mess, get lost in the Bermuda Maze, and speak with the denizens of the “Southern” country of… Whazzap. Really, the country is called Whazzap.
Remember that old Budweiser commercial? It’s like that, only even more stupid. All of the citizens in Whazzap are dark-skinned, and the country is primitive in comparison to the rest of the places in Star Force 2. The people pray to a bunch of wall drawings that they think will help them communicate with the gods of an ancient civilization called Mu. If you try talking to any of the people in Whazzap, they won’t speak to you unless you say “Whazzap?!” first.
Maybe the Capcom folks in Japan just weren’t aware of certain things. But you’d think that the localization team might have made more of an effort. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it racist, but it really is in poor taste. Maybe churning out a bajilliondy Mega Man games a year isn’t such a great idea.
Posted by brianfishman 
