This Week In Retro: Guacamelee! (Patreon)

April 9, 2013: Juan 3:16 says ¡Que acabo de patear tu trasero!

by Diamond Feit

Few words trigger as much hand-wringing and ire as the phrase "cultural appropriation." The term dates back many decades although it only entered the mainstream in the 21st century, if Google Trends serves as any indication. However, the practice it describes of people who represent the broad majority borrowing or even stealing distinct aspects of a minority identity and utilizing them for their own purpose is as old as colonialism itself.

One reason "cultural appropriation" set off so many alarm bells is our unfortunate habit of applying a broad binary to topics that necessarily deserve more in-depth consideration. For those sensitive to the issue of underrepresented groups having their uniqueness exploited by corporations or transformed into a generic commodity for white people to enjoy, we can be quick to point fingers and identify cultural appropriation as "problematic" and therefore "bad," as if the only two shades in this conversation are black or white. This creates knee-jerk reactions from a broad range of otherwise level-headed people who, when hearing "cultural appropriation," start to circle the wagons and exclaim ridiculous non-sequiturs about why copying foreign cultures is actually "a sign of respect" or the always cringe-worthy defense, "I don't have a racist bone in my body."

Take my own history as an example: Originally born in New York City, I grew up in the suburbs amongst white friends and neighbors. Yet at this point I've lived a full third of my life in Japan, where I married a Japanese woman in a Japanese ceremony where we both wore kimonos. If I had the opportunity to write a novel or film, which aspects of my disparate experiences could I safely imbue into my characters without risking accusations of appropriation? If I opened a restaurant, could I serve "authentic" New York pizza or Osakan takoyaki?

These are big questions that I cannot easily answer, but I promise they are relevant to the topic at hand. 10 years ago, before every indie developer around the world had their own take on the Metroidvania formula, I fell in love with Guacamelee!, an exploration-heavy action game starring a luchador set in a mythical Mexican world of make-believe. Few other games dabbled in such aesthetics, particularly those in my favorite genre, which made the release stand out and convinced me to purchase it on day one. Yet a decade later, I wonder if I overlooked who made Guacamelee! or properly considered why that matters.

As much affection as I have for Metroid, Castlevania, and the games which draw so much inspiration from them, the genre tends to cover a lot of the same ground again and again. Science fiction or fantasy settings are the most common, as heroes fight their way through alien landscapes, crumbling castles, or dark caverns. Combat generally revolves around shooting things with a gun or stabbing things with a blade, and finding new weapons or equipment is key to growing stronger and reaching new areas.

Guacamelee! breaks from all these traditions, beginning with its protagonist, Juan. Juan does not travel the galaxy hunting space pirates or scour the Earth pursuing vampires, he lives in a small Mexican village and grows agave. What he lacks in battle ability or experience, Juan makes up for with bravery, for when he sees his friend Lupita attacked by a skeleton in a sombrero, he rushes to intervene. Unfortunately, the villain snuffs out Juan without a second thought, but fortunately Juan proves harder to kill than a regular human. He awakens in the world of the dead, receives a mythic lucha libre mask, and begins his quest to put a stop to the undead hordes and free Lupita from their clutches.

The majority of Guacamelee! takes place in Juan's village and its neighboring environments, including a forest, a desert, a giant tree, and ancient Mesoamerican temples. These decidedly terrestrial locations, even if they contain magical elements and monsters, help ground Guacamelee!'s levels and make them easier to orient. An in-game map also provides a detailed overview of every area, highlighting unopened doorways and treasure chests, and displays a completion percentage so players instantly know if they've overlooked something.

How Juan navigates the world and takes down enemies is another unconventional aspect of Guacamelee! While he displays an uncanny aptitude for cheating death, Juan has no weapons of any kind, relying only on his fists to crack the invaders' skulls. While on his journey to save Lupita, he meets a talking goat who teaches Juan new skills which aid both his mobility and wrestling prowess. Each color-coded technique also empowers Juan to break similarly-hued obstacles that block his progress, one of many direct nods Guacamelee! makes to Super Metroid.

True to its title, Guacamelee! therefore contains nothing but melee combat, requiring Juan to get in close to pummel his way to victory. A simple three-hit combo will stop basic enemies in their tracks, but as Juan's skill set grows he can chain together more powerful blows into longer-lasting strings of punishment. Later stages introduce foes protected by colored shields which only break when struck by the correct move, forcing players to think fast and not just mash the attack button when surrounded.

Guacamelee! immediately won me over in April of 2013 with its bright colors, grapple-based encounters, and south-of-the-border charms. The game makes a point of never taking itself seriously, as background layers feature loads of faux-wrestling posters and advertisements that openly reference other video games or then-popular internet memes. A few extra-hidden corners of the map even contain Fez-style meta-puzzles like QR codes or a message in that game's made-up alphabet.

Revisiting Guacamelee! for its 10th anniversary, the gameplay sucked me right in as what should have been a brief refresher turned into a multi-hour session starting from a fresh save file. As explained above, Guacamelee! does not offer that much real estate to explore, but since every stage straddles the line between our world and the world of the dead, both planes must be searched thoroughly to pick up every collectible and uncover every secret. A few critics held its brevity against Guacamelee! at the time of its release, but if anything I feel its short length only increases my fondness for the game today.

What hasn't aged so well is Guacamelee!'s aforementioned sense of humor. Many of the jokes scattered throughout the script are little more than quotations of specific moments or situations from classic games. Take Uay Chivo, the talking goat who gives Juan new powers; he only bestows his gifts after Juan smashes the master's precious Choozo statues, near-exact replicas of the Chōzo statues seen in the Metroid series. Chivo's home is likewise adorned with carvings of Metroid-like creatures in case any players didn't get the reference. I'm certain these images gave me a chuckle 10 years ago, but nowadays hey-remember-this citations no longer feel fresh.

However, some of the gags take such a base approach to the source material, it could be seen as mocking rather than honoring Mexico. The "spirit of the mask" Juan finds is called Tostada, a common Mexican dish. Juan's last name is Aguacate, Spanish for avocado. The leader of the undead army is Carlos Calaca, whose last name comes from the Spanish word for skeleton.

This brings us to the more complex matter of who made Guacamelee! and what that says about the game. Drinkbox Studios, the indie team behind this project, operates in Toronto with a staff of mostly white developers. I cannot speak to the authenticity of the Mexican culture on display, but it is evident that much care went into the crafting of Guacamelee!'s characters, backgrounds, and overall spirit. Yet at least one writer took exception to the jokes which "seem to target Americans who find humor in Mexican caricatures with names from a Taco Bell order."

Part of the problem is that so few video games bother to portray Mexico at all, and those that do generally regard it as a dangerous or desolate place. Looking at big-budget titles, game developers treat Central and South America as a lawless zone where armed men might hide in every hut, authority figures cannot be trusted, and shooting first is the safest policy. This checkered legacy only makes Guacamelee! all the more appealing; finally, we get a game about Mexico starring Mexicans with nary a drug cartel in sight, but the team behind it lives north of the border, not south.

In fairness, a diverse blend of people call Toronto their home, including those with roots in Latin America. One such person is artist Augusto Quijano, a native Mexican who joined Drinkbox Studios in 2009 and originally pitched the idea which became Guacamelee! As Quijano later wrote in The Escapist, "When we were making those games, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t think of the representation, or the social implications. I just wanted to draw luchadores. But maybe we should make an effort to start thinking about it."

With Quijano deeply involved in its production and beaming with pride regarding its celebration of his homeland, I'd say Guacamelee! represents a positive example of a creative team doing their diligence in exploring foreign folklore in their work. However, when it comes to the cultural appropriation of Latinx people, I don't really get a vote. For his part, Quijano encourages others to view the challenge of creating diverse characters "as a problem to solve and not as one to be avoided."

Guacamelee! debuted simultaneously on the PlayStation 3 and the Vita with cross-buy, cross-save, and cross-play features, eventually making its way to Xbox 360 and Steam. Guacamelee! 2 followed in 2018; at this point, both the original and sequel are widely available on all modern platforms, so we can safely assume the game moved enough copies to please Drinkbox Studios. Speaking personally, Guacamelee! certainly pleases me as I have to respect a Metroidvania that, while proud of its influences, goes out of its way to play, look, and feel differently than other titles in the genre. And while I wouldn't want Nintendo of Japan to slap a lucha libre mask on Samus Aran, I do think the next Metroid game would be much improved if everyone's favorite bounty hunter could hit Ridley with a piledriver.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts about video games, films, and dessert.