Customer Reviews
Great Read. 
2007-05-13
This book was an excellent read. Kohler does a terrific job of showing the culture links video games have created between Japan and the Western world. It also shows the stark cultural contrasts. It made me reflect on how much Japanese culture I've been exposed to without knowing it.
Great reading, but touches only the mainstream games 2007-02-09
This is a good book about japanese videogames and their impact in the western world. The problem, and I agree with the other reviewers, is that the focus deals only with the mainstream and most popular games like Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy. Sure it talks about Dragon Quest(relatively unknown in America until recently) and ICO, but still left many open holes.
But if you forget this flaw, it's really a great and satisfying reading, and the author constructs the text very well. Worth your time. It's a four star book, but I'll give four and half stars (five in Amazon) because it's a good and very little explored theme.
Gaming History in the eye of the beholder... 
2006-08-20
History in the eye of the beholder
The boot has very useful information for video game collectors and researchers who are looking for information related to mostly Nintendo oriented lore. I stress its for game collectors and researchers vice enthusiasts. Enthusiasts are looking to be entertained as well as informed and this book does very little entertaining. I found my self reading parts of the book over the course of several months. It just wasn't the page-turner that some other visual treats like "High Score" were. All in all it was worth 13 bucks, however I liken it too a History book on the 20th Century, with key events missing like World War II! Sega is not even mentioned as a footnote! Phantasy Star, Shining Force and several other important events in Gaming History never even captured the interest of the author, and it painfully shows here. Three Stars.
narrow scope, but an interesting read. 
2006-04-12
other people have commented thoroughly about the generalities of this book, and i by-and-large agree. i'd like to add, however, that some of the most interesting parts of this book are the omissions.
for example, they author segues straight from talking about Ninja Gaiden to NOJ/NOA's localization process and standards for content. he mentions that religious iconography, drug use, etc, are all prohibited from being portrayed in Nintendo software, and the list of prohibited content includes cigarette smoking.
the author fails to note the irony, however, that in the aforementioned game there's a bad guy leaning against a light post smoking a cigarette he throws aside before dashing at you. i can only assume it slipped past the censors without them catching it, but my friends and i had noticed it years ago and marvelled that it had been made it through the review process intact.
it's these kinds of things that make me feel like this book is a good general source, but anything deeper than a surface look at the topics covered would require some additional reading/sources.
there are quite a few nuggets of interesting trivia in here - more than enough to make a gamer smile (dragon quest being legally prohibited in Japan from selling on any day except Sunday or a holiday, for example). my copy was a gift; i can attest that it makes a fine one.
Too short and too shallow, but basically worthwhile 2005-09-14
I enjoyed this book, mostly. Within its scattershot set of chapters about Japanese games in general, there's a fascinating, albeit sketchy, history of Nintendo that contained many small revelations for me, despite that I've been playing video games incessantly since 1987 or so. But the rest of the material was less compelling for me. The chapter about music games and music in games actively frustrated me--it gave only a brief survey of either topic, and seemed to spend most of its words on a tedious, obsessive examination of Final Fantasy albums. A chapter about Akihabara, Japan's premier consumer electronics marketplace, pushed the trivia-to-insight ratio similarly high. In his effort to treat video games as if they deserve the attention of artists, Kohler concentrates too much on material that is only interesting to fans.
Still, on the whole I'm glad I read this book, and I hope Kohler's stated desire to encourage further such works is satisfied; there is clearly much more to say.
Excellent book--some flaws 2005-04-14
BradyGames' Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life, by Chris Kohler, is a unique book that gives readers an entertaining and authoritative look at the indelible influence the video gaming, particularly, Japanese gaming, has had on the world.Power-Up is the first English-language work of its kind to examine the reasons behind the success of Japanese video games, rather than focusing on the history of video games. Just some of the features readers will find in this book include:
Profiles of some of the most fascinating Japanese video game designers in the industry, along with a critical look at Japanese video games from their earliest beginnings to new, exciting trends that ride the bleeding edge of popular culture.Explanations on why Japanese video games are unique and why they resonate so well with young American players.Fresh insight into classic Japanese video games and the elements that made them so different from American games, the origin of Nintendo, Japan's oldest and largest video game producer, Japanese Role-Playing Games, and much more!In addition, the future of the Japanese gaming industry is also explored.
This product is available for sale worldwide.
Should be titled "An Ode to Nintendo" 
2005-03-26
Frankly, unless you're as enamored with Nintendo as Kohler is, you'll probably find the scope of this book far too narrow to be of any real interest or provide any insight. Kohler has essentially (and I don't begrudge him his good fortune for being able to do so) translated his love of video games and anime into both a successful thesis and a published work. To the uninitiated, "Power-Up" would appear to be an insightful, well-researched treatise; as someone who is approximately Kohler's age and grew up with the same influences of Japanese video games and culture, I found myself time and time again saying, "Yeah, so what?" Save for some of the historical background, the book was largely a collection of geek common knowledge, where "geek" refers to someone whose interests include video games, anime, computers, and the like.
Futhermore, as I mentioned earlier, from the way this book is written, you'd get the impression that the only company that has ever made a video game is Nintendo. References to Atari, Sega and Sony are extremely rare. While I agree that Nintendo has played the largest role in the rise of video games, other major players have established themselves in the last five to ten years, and their contributions are largely glossed over, particularly Sega. These omissions are what give the feeling that Kohler has basically taken his childhood experiences of playing Nintendo, fleshed them out a bit and put them on the shelf.
In short, I wouldn't change the content of the book but I would most certainly change the title to reflect the heavy, one-sided Nintendo bias of the book. If you're in your twenties or early thirties and grew up as a fan of video games and anime, don't bother reading this book - you already know what happens.
Interviews with industry movers and shakers 2005-02-12
Power Up examines video games in general, and Japanese video games in particular, as an interactive storytelling medium. But video games were not always regarded as art - Japanese influence pioneered cinematic techniques that transformed games from primitive, non-story plaything such as the classic Pong to sweeping epic sagas such as the hero's complex journey in role-playing games like Final Fantasy 7. Though non-Japanese games are included in the discussion, Power Up especially examines how storytelling ideas in Japanese videogames have so thoroughly permeated the gaming world, from the first-ever game cutscenes in Donkey Kong onward. Author and dedicated game fan Chris Kohler presents his research of and personal interviews with industry movers and shakers such as Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Mario), Hideo Kojima (designer of Metal Gear Solid), and many more. The impact of classic series on game storytelling and narrative include discussions of specific series such as a Mario games, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, and Grand Theft Auto among others. Black-and-white photographs and screenshots illustrate this fascinating exploration of everything from how videogame music evolved from bleeps and boops to full-symphony orchestras to the adventures that might await any truly hardcore gaming fan who dares to shop in Akihabara. Though Power Up concentrates especially on video game history, references to modern developments up through 2004 keep this survey current. A highly recommended treat for gamers in particular, and a valuable resource for students and researchers seeking to better understand the cultural shifts in video games as a communicative, interactive, expressive artistic medium as vibrant (and popular!) in its own right as books and movies.
Historical correctness isn't enough 2004-10-30
I'm a rather even-tempered kind of guy -- except when I see falsehoods bandied about like truths. I see that all the time in videogame journalism. Not an issue of EGM or Gamepro goes by without me going into a rage at the ignorance of the editors. And the less said about G4techTV, the better.
I stayed calm throughout Power-Up. Chris Kohler certainly knows his stuff. But his writing left me feeling empty -- there's no soul to it nor any brilliant (or even not-so-brilliant) insights. Power-Up is dry to the point of reading like an instruction manual, as another reviewer mentioned, or an assigned class report. When Kohler does digress, he tends to toss in entirely irrelevant and boring trivia (for example, he spends a full page on the installation of FF XI, noting how the PS2 version works with any USB keyboard, not only the overpriced official Sony product).
I've found many of Chris Kohler's articles in Wired (et al) to be both informative and well written, so it's a real pity that Power-Up doesn't make itself deserving of shelf space by Steven L. Kent's The First Quarter. Power-Up's not a bad book, just mediocre.
For fans, by a fan. 2004-10-25
I've read a number of video game books over the years, and while most are well researched and informative, they seem to take a cynical or flat out negative tone most of the time. Possibly because they are more focused on the business side of the industry. Not so with this book. A labor of love by a fan who actually speaks and reads the language in which Japanese video games are created, he takes us on a journey from the beginnings of Nintendo in the late 1800's to the modern era without missing a beat along the way. The author also examines aspects of the industry that have gone unexamined in other texts, such as game music and Akihabara. It also includes a number of interviews with leading members of of various aspects of the Japanese gaming world. All in all, it's a wonderful example of what these inds of books can be, and I truly hope to see moreon this subject, both from this author and others, in the near future.
