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[Eternal Phoenix]

Both make good games but I don't think the west or the east are inherently superior over the other. Also not everyone likes Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Persona and God knows I hate nearly everything turned based. In fact I can only think of Castlevania, Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Dragon's Dogma and Dark Souls as Japanese games/series I like. For the west I can think of Baldur's Gate, NWN, Fallout, Planescape, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, The Witcher, Divinity, Legacy of Kain, Arx Fatalis, Dishonored, Thief, Metro, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex etc the list goes on.

 

Incidentally, the Japanese game/series I like are created partly with western audiences in mind hence their not-to-extreme Japanese artstyles. I like the craziness and wacky ideas of Japanese games (all the stuff you could do in Metal Gear and Dragon's Dogma come to mind) but often hate the ones with that extreme Japanese art-style which I just can't stand.

 

Guess it's all a matter of preference but I still think the west do better RPG's even if Dark Souls is currently my favourite.

 

You keep saying Skyrim has linear questing, I wonder; how is Skyrim linear? You can literally approach any quest whenever you want from whatever angle you want and a lot of quests can be finished in several different ways. 

 

Shame there's next to zero consequences for your actions with many main quests having the same outcome or linear fixed path. Freedom of movement is not freedom of choice. Sure you can sneak through some quest dungeon but you ultimately reach the same place and kill the same people in the end anyway which is completely different from games like The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. Both of which can lead down different paths and open new quests based on your choices. Skyrim didn't have that.

[RobRam10]

This heretical thread again.

[Jalil]

There is too many absolutely wacky Japanese games for me to agree with this statement. 

[Dr.Fumbles]

Who brought this thread back to life?

[the_last_krogan]

japanese games suck

[Monster A-Go Go]

Coming from a childhood dominated by Super Mario, Zelda, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, and Chrono Trigger, I find it odd how rarely a Japanese game makes my radar these days.  Part of it may just be my slow migration away from consoles, another part may be that about 50% of what I play is RPGs and the JRPG genre has become a real non-starter over the past decade, and some of it is probably the art style.

 

There are some games I would be interested in checking out, but I can't really justify investing in a GameBoy or Vita considering I prefer to use my travel time for reading.  As far as console and PC games, the supply of those seems to be drying up.  There are a few things that look interesting - Final Fantasy XV, for instance - but I'm hardly going to rush out and buy a PS4 for it and, even if it comes to PC I'll damn sure be waiting until the reviews are in before checking it out.  In the meantime, my calendar of Western games is full of anticipation and excitement.  So no, I don't really think Japanese games are better than Western games.  Maybe once upon a time, but for me at least, that divide has been narrowed and crossed.

[Seraphim24]

In the meantime, my calendar of Western games is full of anticipation and excitement.  So no, I don't really think Japanese games are better than Western games.  Maybe once upon a time, but for me at least, that divide has been narrowed and crossed.

 

It's funny because for me it's the reverse. Bioware and Blizzard were kind of the two remaining holdouts but now I just go on forums and hope for better news. Now I just wonder if it's ever going to happen.

 

Meanwhile Bayonetta 2, Super Smash, and a handful of 3ds/vita games I haven't gotten to all make me quite excited. For western games, it's just a bazillion more exclamation point fantasy quests to do be done. I think a lot of players don't know much about Japanese games outside of Final Fantasy, etc, and that considerably narrows the range of possibilities. There is so much more to Japan than Final Fantasy.

[bmwcrazy]

I know Japanese are better at making hentai games.

 

You know, like how they can speak better Japanese than anyone else. It just comes naturally. 

[Monster A-Go Go]

Meanwhile Bayonetta 2, Super Smash, and a handful of 3ds/vita games I haven't gotten to all make me quite excited. For western games, it's just a bazillion more exclamation point fantasy quests to do be done. I think a lot of players don't know much about Japanese games outside of Final Fantasy, etc, and that considerably narrows the range of possibilities. There is so much more to Japan than Final Fantasy.

Oh, I understand that.  I live on Shikoku right now, so I can literally go to the store and see the full scope of Japanese games on offer.  Though just as you see exclamation points everywhere when you think of Western games, I think of needless grinding to pad out the game and pointless 100-floor dungeons when I think of their Japanese counterparts.  I played Ni No Kuni recently, which is the kind of game I would have loved and played the bejesus out of back when I was a kid.  And I enjoyed it as an adult, but damn if I wasn't ready for it to end about twenty hours before it did.  All the tropes that wore me out on the genre, but in a gorgeous Ghibli package.  If that couldn't draw me back in, I just don't know what could other than completely revamping the formula.

 

I will grant you, Super Smash is something I'd love to play.  But considering the use I got out of my Wii, I don't think I'll have a chance to do so unless the local gaming bar gets a copy.  (Which is more likely than not!)

[Seraphim24]

I live on Shikoku right now

 

I rest my case. I can't count how many times I've seen people write like 250 page diatribes against Final Fantasy 7 or whatever and yet they happen to live in Japan and have logged like 9000 hours on the thing. It seems to me many Japanese games are worshipped like dieties by western gamers but they don't want to admit to it publicly.

 

I will grant that I haven't been as big a fan of the Disgaea/anime game form that displaced the more hardcore early Final Fantasy/Squaresoft types of games, or the other games you played. The SNES era was pretty amazing, and also there have never been very many FPS games, but more engaged type of games never really went away entirely. Tri-ace has always made some really fun action games. (Star Ocean, etc) There is not one but at least 3 solid action-ish games for the Wii, Xenoblade, the last story, and Pandora's tower. I personally didn't bother with Ni No Kuni for the reasons you mentioned, not much game in there.

 

It's funny though, because the interest in anime seemed to steadily rise in the same period JRPG interest seemed to decline. It suggests to me that most people are intimidated by many JRPGs in some way or another, and settle for the more easily accessible anime format. It's only when JRPGs were sufficiently watered down into easier, anime-esque experiences that they seem to have become more accepted.

[Monster A-Go Go]

That's an awful lot of assumption, right there.  I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many people who find Japanese RPGs intimidating (with the obvious exception of Dark Souls).  By and large, they're no more challenging than their Western counterparts.  They are, however, with some exception, a lot more on-rails and more reliant on content padding. 

 

You also assume that anime's growth in popularity is linked to the decline in JRPG interest because of this nebulous (and frankly silly) intimidation factor.  If we're going to stumble through the correlation-equals-causation fallacy, let's at least acknowledge other possibilities.  Like, maybe JRPGs have decreased in popularity due to the general stagnation of the format coupled with the tendency to stick more to handhelds (which are more prevalent in Japan) and shy away from the last two console generations (which is where most of the Western audience lies).  And maybe anime has increased in popularity because it gradually seeped into the culture through the 90s with localizations of Dragon Ball Z and Sailor moon, the willingness of format-dedicated channels like Cartoon Network to take the cost-effective option of localizing content rather than creating new media, and the incredible multi-generational back catalog that is available through the internet.  Now, is it more likely that people grew intimidated of a gaming genre that has done nothing to grow more intimidating and moved to anime as a safe substitute?  Or is it more likely that anime is more popular because there is an access to it that wasn't available back in the SNES glory days and that JRPGs have declined in popularity because their availability has waned and the same formula no longer holds excitement for a wide western audience?

 

And I'm going to go ahead and take offense at your generalization of expatriates who live in Japan.  It's rather insulting that you would suggest we're a bunch of people who were so enraptured with Japanese anime and gaming culture that we moved to the birthplace of all such things...only to become closeted curmudgeons who love these things as much as you, but who are for some reason unwilling to admit.  I've spend a total of eight years of my life here and I'll openly admit to the great many things I love about Japan's people and culture.  There's no conspiracy amongst us to defame offerings such as, in your example, Final Fantasy VII.  I'll admit to having played the hell out of that game.  VIII sucked pretty hard, though, but IX won it back and X remains one of my favorite non-16 bit JRPGs.  We can totally geek out about that.  But I'm not going to pretend that the recent years of JRPGs are somehow great just because of some must-defend-Japanese-things-at-all-costs illness of the mind.  Maybe they are to some people.  Maybe they genuinely are to you, and if so, that's great!  You should play the s*** out of them!  But don't try to turn the people who don't agree with you into weird closeted Japanophiles, and don't invent conspiracies about intimidation and easy roads.  People are going to think differently than you, and with something as harmless as cartoons and games, that's just fine. 

 

Continue to like what you like.  I used to be right there with you, back when I found the genre interesting and felt it had something to offer.  I've moved on and those things didn't move with me, but you've obviously found them exactly where you want them to be.  More power to you and I hope you enjoy them as much as I once did.  Just kindly don't invent stories about me while you do so.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

What Eccentrick79 said.

 

Casualization of Nintendo, not investing on PC gamers and sticking to highschool anime (artstyle etc.) cliches in most of the Japanese games (including PS games) is a let down for me. Only a few like Dark Souls series do it right. Thanks to porting into PC I know this.

Even FF XIII is porting into PC and FF XV will be there soon.

 

Anime has provided many gems in different sub-genres after 2000 that also are imported to western channels like Cartoon Network. Unlike JRPGs that were finding more distance between these games and western gamers year after year.

[Seraphim24]

And I'm going to go ahead and take offense at your generalization of expatriates who live in Japan. 

 

You have much more balls than most, I agree, and my generalization was not strictly intended to cover you necessarily. I was actually thinking of this indie critic... can't remember his site... as well as some other guy on CAG that lives in Tokyo. One of them appears to just have a love complex with FF7, moved there, proceeded to spend his entire life apparently devoted to finding flaws within JRPGs, such that when he finally reported said flaws I'm more inclined to think of it as romantic persuasion finally finding his pre-destined lover wasn't all he thought it was. That's not remotely interesting criticism, that's one man's madness. There's also the writers of Polygon who gorge themselves on a stream of endless visual novels and JRPGs like Tales or whatever, racing to give them 5s and 6s. Meanwhile, meaningless nothing games such as Titanfail rack up the 9s and game of the years. I agree that the quality of the games isn't as good as it once was, but the disparate treatment is incredibly obvious from my perspective.

 

.Now, is it more likely that people grew intimidated of a gaming genre that has done nothing to grow more intimidating and moved to anime as a safe substitute?  Or is it more likely that anime is more popular because there is an access to it that wasn't available back in the SNES glory days and that JRPGs have declined in popularity because their availability has waned and the same formula no longer holds excitement for a wide western audience?

 

Personally the answer is easy because I'd rather play virtually any JRPG in the universe, even the stuff that was basically kinda crap like Beyond the Beyond or something rather than watch virtually any anime, even the greatest of the greats like Fullmetal Alchemist or whatever. The fact that the hint of an FF7 remake or something engenders whining of overrated and such to this day suggests that many people still struggle with those games on some level. There are maybe like 1-2 anime I'd put as remotely equal to a very, very average and weak JRPG. This suggests to me that anime became more popular at the expense of JRPGs because an increasing number of people had permission from society to accept it. You had permission in 2000 to enjoy FFX, you don't have permission to enjoy FFX13. All the criticisms of FFX13 basically apply to X, a number of weak characters, the excessive linearity, but what changed was what gaming society allowed submissive western gamers to enjoy.

 

That permission has not yet been granted for JRPGs in 2014 except for random things like Xenoblade, and so they languish, unless of course it's a Nintendo JRPG for some reason (Bravely Default). Anime is not as avant garde as JRPGs for the most part, it provides a 'safer' option because you can trace it's inspiration from western TV or films, the longevity of the medium, etc.

 

I already acknowledged right around the FFX/Disgaea era I started to enjoy them less. Still, they've been worth playing, even up until the most recent FFs and the host of random games on Vita etc. People arbitrarily dropped them for reasons I don't understand. Xenogears was this kind of hidden masterpiece but hardly anyone played the Xenosagas it seemed to me, which is unfortunate because all of them have very strong points. Additionally, this was around the same time gamers have arbitrarily moved on to PC gaming and non-JRPGs. The fact that gamers stopped buying the last of those greats is partly why there weren't any more of the really good ones. We could of had more Xenosagas, in fact, 6 were planned, but gamers arbitrarily went for the Personas and the cute Visual Novel stuff, so they never got made.

 

That of course leads to this point

 

Casualization of Nintendo, not investing on PC gamers and sticking to highschool anime (artstyle etc.) cliches in most of the Japanese games (including PS games) is a let down for me. Only a few like Dark Souls series do it right. Thanks to porting into PC I know this.

Even FF XIII is porting into PC and FF XV will be there soon.

 

Anime has provided many gems in different sub-genres after 2000 that also are imported to western channels like Cartoon Network. Unlike JRPGs that were finding more distance between these games and western gamers year after year.

 

The gamecube had a strong library, hardcore gamers abandoned Nintendo and many Japanese games quite arbitrarily, this coincided with the infusion of highschool anime cliches.

 

Turning around and saying Anime, the source of all these high school cliches, has provided many gems is quite contradictory. Anime has simultaneously destroyed Japanese games by infusing anime-like characteristics but empowered anime with the same exact cliches? This makes no sense. I can't think of any anime 'gem' that isn't constructed of at least 51% cliches. Attack on Titan? Sword Art Online? Gurren Lagann? Cowboy Bebop? Madoka Magica? I'd take any Disgaea over all of them, even if it wasn't as great as FF6 or 7. I certainly wouldn't take them over a Xeno.

 

Honestly, I think another issue is many gamers have a strong aversion to buying consoles for some reason... even though they are far cheaper on the whole.

[Gravisanimi]

I want to post in this thread about how this topic in general cannot be viewed in a objective way, and opinions cannot bring the topic to a resolution, so this is a question that cannot be objectively answered no matter the size of your post nor the strength of your words.

 

But I just want to get back to playing Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory during the Destiny loading screens.