The Return Current

This map has said that it draws Japan in heavy lines, not out of favoritism. This current is the proof. Creators overseas name Japanese games, in their own words, as what shaped them. Ari Gibson of Hollow Knight has spoken of trying, as he put it, to "recapture that feeling of playing Metroid, Faxanadu, and Zelda II for the first time." Alx Preston of Hyper Light Drifter places his game at the crossing of the Triforce and Diablo, and adds, as he put it: "It's about the small finishing touches. The stuff Nintendo is so good at — that little cloud of dust, or exactly where a character's foot lands. Details like that add up." Thierry Boulanger of Sea of Stars put it more directly still: "Chrono Trigger is the reason I do this for a living, so it ends up in everything I make" — and he went as far as to bring in Yasunori Mitsuda to compose the score. Not just words, but an invitation. Influence crosses the ocean, grows up, changes its name, and comes back. This current at the far edge of the map is not a dead end but a turning point.