Talk:No One Can Stop the Matiz (series)/@comment-37616906-20190319203353/@comment-26158330-20190903210133

I didn't know that the Matiz wasn't sold in Japan, but I know that the fact that a 1998 car is in a 1989 game doesn't make any sense.

Yes, I believe a VW would be pretty cool. But I actually had a personal reason for choosing the Matiz: I've grown attached to it.

That sounds really weird, but my mom owned a Matiz for about 18 years before replacing it. Thus, I somehow felt sad when she had to sell it. But I think it has to do with its front profile. When you see it from the front, it almost looks like it's a happy car, so much so that you could probably replace the head lights with some cartoony eyes and it wouldn't look that weird. Other cars could look kind of dead as characters, and seem more like cars that are just being driven by people instead of an actual character, since the Matiz kind of looks like a cartoony face when viewed from the front. With the Matiz, I could also modify its headlights to make whatever emotion I wanted out of it... well, more like 4 emotions (happy, sad, angry, dissapointed, I think you can imagine how those would look like) since I wanted I didn't want to change the bumper for more emotions because it just looked weird. And I thought it was actually a pretty cute car, and its quirks, like its huge trunk but tiny passenger space actually made it more charming. Ok, that does sound really weird. But basically, I grew attached to the Matiz and because I thought it was a cute car, I decided that is should be the main character, and not take into consideration the date (1989) and place (Japan) of the game. But I agree that finding another car is a better solution. As for the NES... I thought it was discontinued in August of 1995 in North America? It says so on Wikipedia, correct me If I'm wrong. I don't know about PAL regions, they might have discontinued the NES in 1994 there. And in Japan, it actually says it's been discontinued in 2003!

EDIT: There's actually one more reason I ended up choosing the Matiz: the games are supposed to be parody fantasy games. Cars like the VW Golf were actually best-sellers and were pretty wholesome cars, while the Matiz was just laughed at and is known for being quite troublesome, which is why it's ironically called No One Can Stop the Matiz, despite the fact that the game is insanely difficult and most people can't even get past the first 4 stages. Going back to looks and the fact that I didn't account for timelines, I could've also chosen the Daihatsu Opti with its also happy-looking profile, but I still ended up choosing the Matiz because of personal reasons. But now that I think of it, albeit it wasn't sold in Japan, the MkI Austin-Healey Sprite would've been a great choice, since it also looks very much like it could be a character.

Again, it is also because of its looks. The VW Golf looks quite handsome, with Giugiaro describing it as one of his most important designs. The New Beetle and Beetle could pass as "funny" cars, but they look kind of... dead inside. Again, the Matiz looks pretty happy, yet doesn't step into the uncanny valley. But there's one problem with the Sprite I didn't mention.

...okay, this reason is pretty stupid, but hear me out. The Matiz is supposed to be a kind of witty and jolly character, like a kid, which kind of fits the Matiz with its modern, round look. The Sprite still looks happy, but is more of a grandpa instead of a kid, since it's quite an old car. What do kids relate to? Other kids! The Matiz is also small car, so the Sprite probably wouldn't fit the bill. Yeah, I think you see where I'm- actually no, I think you're just confused.

But I saved the worst for last just for that. There's actually a reason I want to keep the Matiz: it has a plethora of concepts. All of the bosses, as I made them to be (I posted them somewhere else,) are mostly concepts of the Matiz or other models of it (except for the Tico,) which are trying to stop the Matiz because of the fact that they're often overlooked. The Matiz is atleast a laughing stock, but they're just ignored completely. Atleast the Matiz entered production, while they'll rust and be destroyed. Thus why they try to stop the Matiz. Ok, I used non-sequitur humour in the story, because of the fact that obivously the wouldn't just become popular for destroying a single Matiz when the production line was essentially full of Daewoo Matiz cars, but let's just ignore that.

Volkswagen doesn't really have publicly shown concepts of the Golf/Polo (not grouping them together because I think they're the same car but because they're city cars,) but rather more one-off concepts that weren't meant to be trims or prototypes of other VW cars, so they wouldn't have any personal reason to destroy the main character. It is also nice to mention that the M100 Matiz was an entirely new car and not a new generation of an already existing car, so it adds to the effect that a concept of an entirely new and popular car would be jealous of it.

I think I need to puke now.