Spanish For Everyone: The Saga Concludes with very little Spanish

by JC Fletcher { Nov 8th 2007 at 7:40PM }

While, at this point, it seems like a mistake to invest too much of ourselves in the Spanish For Everyone storyline, we still couldn't help but be a little amazed at the game's ending. Finally arriving at Miguel's house in a cool Jeep, our hero Shawn knocks on the door and asks Miguel for his DS back. Miguel complies and gives Shawn a package that contains his DS, "several puffy dolls," and a plane ticket to France to deliver the dolls to a French friend.

Now, here are the parts that should bother us but don't:

The Jeep leaves after dropping Shawn off, leaving him to walk back home from Mexico (or to the airport.)
The whole "please carry this package for me" thing only adds to the general sketchiness found throughout the game's story, and contributes to the impression that illegal activity is afoot
A bunch of cars pull up to the house afterwards for seemingly no reason

Here's what does bother us:

During the whole trip, guided by his aunt, a talking bull, and then his creepy uncle, and ending at his friend's house, Shawn has no need to speak or understand a word of Spanish, at all. The whole premise of the game is that he needs to learn Spanish! And the bull said that Spanish would thwart evil!

Check this OCRemix thread for discussion of the game's story from one of the designers at developer Humagade (calling himself EEX.) In his words: "Indeed, all the story was intentional :P"

[Via NeoGAF]

Tags: activision, humagade, language, spanish, spanish-for-everyone, training

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mainman @ Nov 8th 2007 9:55PM

The reason all the cars suddenly appear is this; you can hear a gunfight break out soon after the fullscreen text boxes turn up.

Every jeep I see tomorrow shall be "Cool!", and I shall listen intently when walking past bovines for any talk of language teaching and/or prophecy fulfilment.

Mike @ Nov 9th 2007 2:08AM

I can't help but wonder... didn't his parents teach him anything about not talking to strange people.
Granted they were his relatives, but they wern't very good ones.
Even I was taught not to hang around with certain uncles(tios) because they had some deep, deep problems.
I'm not certain if they partisipated in illegal activities, but what the hell is he doing talking to a bull when is grandfater(abuelo) may very well be in the much more comfortable, less depressing front of the truck.

Forget this, I'm gonna go play Phoenix Wright

JM @ Nov 9th 2007 9:27AM

The cars are probably La Policia Mexicana coming to deport Miguel because he's actually Guatemalen.

Chris @ Nov 9th 2007 4:10PM

I smell a sequal... serious wtf I can draw better than that, in fact they can pay me �1 less than the other art developer and ill take his job XD

hdofu @ Nov 30th 2007 5:37PM

thats not a sequel, that the septic tank backing up

ikiryou @ Nov 11th 2007 4:49AM

This game obviously advocates the use of illegal narcotics. The talking bull is practically screaming 420. The cars pulling up into the driveway is a metaphor for the the accompanying paranoia.

Hmmm...I'm suddenly have urge to eat a pizza, a bag of chips, and ten boxes of Twinkies.

Onomah @ Nov 12th 2007 12:44PM

is it me or did the language that they used seem horribly...off

I mean who just says "you're great, amigo"? Random praise? weird. And he has to deliver some puffy dolls to a french contact? that's just...incredibly suggestive of drug trafficing is what it is. This game is terribly badly written.

Spanish For Everyone: The Saga Concludes with very little Spanish

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