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[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Title needs more ">" and less "?" for maximum opinionation.

Japanese Western games >>>>>>>>>>>>>

amidoinitrite

I like some Japanese games, I like some Western games. One thing I'll say is that Japanese games tend to stick more tightly to genre conventions.

A lot of people confuse this for stagnation, but often game to game in a series, you'll find more additions and changes in a Japanese game than a Western one.

That's just my experience.

[N0rke]

Japanese Western games >>>>>>>>>>>>>

amidoinitrite

Nailed it.

[Seraphim24]

No. Hell no. Absolutely not. I feel that most Japanese developers are stuck in the past. They go for tried and proven formulas time and time again. They never innovate (with the exception of Nintendo, and even they are guilty of just rehashing the same sh!t over and over and over again). Japanese people have the certain tendency to do certain things simply because they are expected and part of "tradition". They don't even ask themselves if what they do is still the best way to do it. It worked in the past so it will work now. And it's true, inside Japan that is. But most western gamers who aren't blatant weeaboos or otakus are getting a little bit bored and tired with playing the same (outdated) crap over and over and over again. 

 

Replace "Japanese developers" with "Western developers" and your statement is arguably significantly more accurate. Tried and proven formulas time and time again? Um, Diablo 3? Assassin's Creed 7? Uncharted 9? I'd argue western gamers are pretty much continuously projecting these notions of "formulaic, grindy, etc."

 

I'd say western games are significantly more conservative, it's like pulling teeth to get new developments game wise or especially artistically. More multi-faceted characters like Geralt or Morrigan or whoever are so rare, meanwhile, every other Japanese game often has a decently full range of characters. It's hilarious how much complaining goes on about the lack of a female presence (ahem, I guess I would technically have to throw myself in that category to a degree), and yet FFXIII with a central female character and is reviled, I call snozberries on that.

 

Additionally, actually bothering to play more recent Japanese games yields some interesting results IMO. Skyward Sword was still fairly formulaic, but they introduced a number of weird changes and things that made it feel fresh. I'm told the same is true of A Link Between Worlds. One of the biggest hits recently has been the Souls series, a bunch of games that are almost unidentifiable as Japanese.

[Seraphim24]

The funny and ironic part is, that we all scream we want change and innovation, but really we just want the same old stuff (but better). Us gamers don't know what we want.

 

 

Eh I don't know about that, I want to see certain things, I make note of it, and am promptly ripped and abused into pieces. I put a post about more female characters on the Blizzard forums the other day, was rapidly downvoted and buried into oblivion. There are plenty of people suggesting changes, but there are a lot of people that like things just the way they are AFAIK.

 

Personally, I think it's just the shine wears off earlier for me or something. I play a Burning Crusade, DA Origins, Mass Effect. It's like Assassin's Creed, I was like oh hey, this looks cool, but I'm kind of over it by the FIRST game.

 

One decently original game concept is almost guaranteed to sell something, but usually it takes about 5-8 years for people to exhaust interest in just that one idea.

 

It's the same with characters, you make a Kerrigan, an Alistair, a Luke Skywalker, there is a psychotic attachment that lasts for decades, centuries. They leverage the same character over, and over, and over. Meanwhile, every Tales game has at least 7-8 new characters, the discrepancy in production is pretty remarkable.

 

I would be more excited for Original Sin, for instance, if it wasn't ANOTHER European fantasy setting. I've seen so many at this point, the knights and rogues over and over and over again, meh.

[Mr.House]

 

and yet FFXIII with a central female character and is reviled, I call snozberries on that.

 

 

That has nothing to do with FFXIII having a central female character, it's reviled because it's a pos.

 

Case to the point, 6 is well loved and Terra is considered by many fans to be the main character.

[Ravensword]

That has nothing to do with FFXIII having a central female character, it's reviled because it's a pos.
 
Case to the point, 6 is well loved and Tera is considered by many fans to be the main character.

Pos? Are you saying that FFXIII is HIV positive?

[Seraphim24]

I don't know if the drop-off is as significant though, I can't say the rest of the FFXIII characters feel as interesting but at least there is one I find cool.

 

Meanwhile, every other major western franchise has been degrading at least the same steady but arguably faster rate, and nary a peep, just seems odd.  I wouldn't hold out FFXIII as a pinnacle though or anything, but it certainly deserves better than a bunch of 6 reviews and scathing criticism, especially when garbage like Titanfall (and probably soon, Destiny) is out there. Interesting enough I think it sold more in NA/EU than Japan anyway, so it's not like people were putting their money where their mouth was.

 

Anyway yeah it's not about regions or wars or fair treatment or anything though ultimately, I just increasingly don't care what's coming out by Blizzard or Bioware or whoever, which is especially noteworthy because they're all that remains after not caring about Activision or whatever for some time.

[slimgrin]

Not gonna pull a Phil Fish here, but Japanese games are nowhere near as creative as they used to be and until they recognize PC as a gaming platform, I'll remain skeptical.

[Ravensword]

Not gonna pull a Phil Fish here, but Japanese games are nowhere near as creative as they used to be and until they recognize PC as a gaming platform, I'll remain skeptical.

Or if it was the 90s.

[The Heretic of Time]

Replace "Japanese developers" with "Western developers" and your statement is arguably significantly more accurate. Tried and proven formulas time and time again? Um, Diablo 3? Assassin's Creed 7? Uncharted 9? I'd argue western gamers are pretty much continuously projecting these notions of "formulaic, grindy, etc."

 

I'd say western games are significantly more conservative, it's like pulling teeth to get new developments game wise or especially artistically. More multi-faceted characters like Geralt or Morrigan or whoever are so rare, meanwhile, every other Japanese game often has a decently full range of characters. It's hilarious how much complaining goes on about the lack of a female presence (ahem, I guess I would technically have to throw myself in that category to a degree), and yet FFXIII with a central female character and is reviled, I call snozberries on that.

 

Additionally, actually bothering to play more recent Japanese games yields some interesting results IMO. Skyward Sword was still fairly formulaic, but they introduced a number of weird changes and things that made it feel fresh. I'm told the same is true of A Link Between Worlds. One of the biggest hits recently has been the Souls series, a bunch of games that are almost unidentifiable as Japanese.

Can you seriously say that with a straight face?

Yes, Western games sequels go into the 3s, 5s and 7s. Meanwhile in Japanland it's not unusual for a game series to hit the double digits. Final Fantasy 15? Shin Megami Tenshi 48? Dynasty Warriors 17? The Legend of Zelda 17? Atelier 16?

Not to mention the many remakes that Japan keeps doing. I don't see western developers doing that to such extreme degree. Every RPG series that is a bit succesful in Japan can count at the very least 2 of 3 remakes. Japan is the king of stagnation and rehashing old formulas and tradition. The western industry is not even close to being as stagnant.

And you dare saying Western games are grindy while Japanese games aren't? Are you kidding me? Seriously, you need to take off those weaaboo shades because you aren't seeing straight. Japan is the king of grind. Japanese RPGs are the most grindy RPGs ever. Western RPGs have not been that grindy for a long time. In the west we get games like Skyrim, The Witcher, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc, all RPGs with barely any grind. Meanwhile pieces of crap such as Final Fantasy XIII are still as grindy as ever.

I have played more recent Japanese games. FFXIII was still as grindy as ever and actually worse than older installments. Skyward Sword is one of the worst installments in the Zelda series (seriously, Zelda never used to be grindy, but Skyward Sword is, blergh!). Dark Souls is a grind (in the trail-and-error kind of way) and not my type of game.

[Seraphim24]

And you dare saying Western games are grindy while Japanese games aren't? Are you kidding me? Seriously, you need to take off those weaaboo shades because you aren't seeing straight. Japan is the king of grind. Japanese RPGs are the most grindy RPGs ever. Western RPGs have not been that grindy for a long time. In the west we get games like Skyrim, The Witcher, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc, all RPGs with barely any grind. Meanwhile pieces of crap such as Final Fantasy XIII are still as grindy as ever.

I have played more recent Japanese games. FFXIII was still as grindy as ever and actually worse than older installments. Skyward Sword is one of the worst, most linear and most grindy installments in the Zelda series (seriously, Zelda never used to be grindy, but Skyward Sword is, blergh!). Dark Souls is a grind (in the trail-and-error kind of way) and not my type of game.

 

League of Legends, one of the most popular games on multiple continents, IS a grind. The sole gameplay concept is that you level and grind, that is the entirety of the game design philosophy. The same goes for many Blizzard games these days, Titanfall, CoD games, it's all bout gamerscore and platinums and points, there is very little attention (outside of places like Bioware/CDPR, etc) on anything other than the grind. If FFXIII had 2 boss fights and 80 hours of grinding, that would be less grinding than LoL and such.

 

Sure, you run back a few times in your standard Japanese game, but I don't think like in Skyward Sword that happened very often at all. I've been playing another one recently... Pandora's Tower, there isn't much grind at all tbh (also a Zelda style game). That's not very different from a Tomb Raider or other similarly western SP game, but those just are extremely rare.

 

"And I dare!" Oh my, the force is strong in this one. Also what's a weaboo? I've never heard this defined properly, exactly...

[Mr.House]

SMT only has 6 games. In fact, none of Atlus games or series has hit double digits.

[Seraphim24]

 In the west we get games like Skyrim, The Witcher, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc, all RPGs with barely any grind. Meanwhile pieces of crap such as Final Fantasy XIII are still as grindy as ever.

 

Also I think you could argue Skyrim is pretty grindy, I was following the main story and suddenly was too weak so I had to do a whole bunch of quests and stuff that I didn't really enjoy.

[The Heretic of Time]

I just increasingly don't care what's coming out by Blizzard or Bioware or whoever, which is especially noteworthy because they're all that remains after not caring about Activision or whatever for some time.

I agree on that. I don't care about any of the studios you mentioned either. But the western game industry has far more devs than those 3. My favorite developer right now is CD Projekt RED. I love their Witcher games and I'm really interested to see what they will do with the Cyberpunk franchise. 

Other western developers who still try new stuff and who I still like and support:

- Naughty Dog (gotta love The Last of Us and Uncharted).
- Crystal Dynamics (love the new Tomb Raider reboot and I'm looking forward to see what direction they'll take this).
- Valve (though they have been awefully quiet lately).
- Bungie (Destiny actually looks really cool).
- Irrational Games (R.I.P., BioShock was awesome, too bad they're gone now)
- ArenaNet (Guild Wars 2 brought a breath of fresh air to the MMO genre)
- Deep Silver (I love Saints Row and Metro, heard Risen is pretty good too)


And lets not forget the most creative and innovative sub industry under the game industry: the indie developers. You can say what you want about the indies, but a lot of new, fresh and fun ideas come from them and they in turn help inspire the bigger companies to move in new directions. And as far as I know, the indies are mostly American and European. I haven't seen or heard much from any Japanese indie studios.

[Seraphim24]

I agree on that. I don't care about any of the studios you mentioned either. But the western game industry has far more devs than those 3. My favorite developer right now is CD Projekt RED. I love their Witcher games and I'm really interested to see what they will do with the Cyberpunk franchise. 

Other western developers who still try new stuff and who I still like and support:

- Naughty Dog (gotta love The Last of Us and Uncharted).
- Crystal Dynamics (love the new Tomb Raider reboot and I'm looking forward to see what direction they'll take this).
- Valve (though they have been awefully quiet lately).
- Bungie (Destiny actually looks really cool).
- Irrational Games (R.I.P., BioShock was awesome, too bad they're gone now)
- ArenaNet (Guild Wars 2 brought a breath of fresh air to the MMO genre)
- Deep Silver (I love Saints Row and Metro, heard Risen is pretty good too)


And lets not forget the most creative and innovative sub industry under the game industry: the indie developers.

 

Meh, I guess we agree on something then, it's just that other half, Valve, Bungie, Irrational, GW2, and the indies where you use your nose to navigate a sex sim that features procedurally generated robots and killer dodecahedrons, I'm not optimistic.

 

Metro is the only one that might of been kind of interesting that I haven't played.

 

All those other games have ideas I'm sure, but seriously, the Hollywood mainstream cinematic infection has just festered and debilitated so many franchises. Ah well, hopefully there will be some surprises in the future.

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

I've never been a fan of Japanese games, always found them boring and on the odd side. My one exception is for Dark Souls, but that series seems more aimed towards the western market.

[The Heretic of Time]

League of Legends, one of the most popular games on multiple continents, IS a grind. The sole gameplay concept is that you level and grind, that is the entirety of the game design philosophy. The same goes for many Blizzard games these days, Titanfall, CoD games, it's all bout gamerscore and platinums and points, there is very little attention (outside of places like Bioware/CDPR, etc) on anything other than the grind. If FFXIII had 2 boss fights and 80 hours of grinding, that would be less grinding than LoL and such.

 

Sure, you run back a few times in your standard Japanese game, but I don't think like in Skyward Sword that happened very often at all. I've been playing another one recently... Pandora's Tower, there isn't much grind at all tbh (also a Zelda style game). That's not very different from a Tomb Raider or other similarly western SP game, but those just are extremely rare.

 

"And I dare!" Oh my, the force is strong in this one. Also what's a weaboo? I've never heard this defined properly, exactly...

I don't care about League of Legends, which I find incredibly boring. But to call it a grind is silly. What in that game is exactly a grind? Do you even know what "grind" means? By your logic, every single multiplayer competitive game such as fighters, shooters and racing games should be considered a grind. Of course that is silly. There is no grind in those games, unless you'd say that just playing the game is automatically a grind. Again, that is silly.

It's not your goals that define if your game is grindy, it's how you achieve those goals that define if your game is grindy or not Being forced to kill the same uninteresting monsters over and over again to level up before you can progress in the game is a grind. Simply enjoying different kind of multiplayer matches against other people while leveling up and getting new gear that way isn't a grind. A grind is being sidetracked from your main goal to repeat the same repetitive crap over and over again before you can progress further. That's what happens in FF, that's what happened in Zelda Skyward Sword, and that's not what's happening in Skyrim or any of the other games you mentioned at all.

Saying Skyrim is grindy is laughable. You don't need to level up anything in that game in order to progress. Everything in that game is downscaled or upscaled toward your own level. If you couldn't continue with the main story because it was too hard for you, you probably just suck and need to turn down the difficulty. And even if you choose to do the side missions to level up your skills, it's not a grind at all. The side quests are all rich and entertaining quest lines with interesting stories. Hell, I'd argue that the main quest in Skyrim is the most boring part of the game. The side quests are so much more interesting!

The way you speak about Skyrim makes me doubt you seriously played the game, if you even played it at all.

 

[Jorji Costava]

I don't want to make any blanket judgments about whether or not Western developers make better games than Japanese ones, but I will just say this: One thing that turns me off of a lot of Japanese games is the predilection for child or teenage protagonists. I'm actually not much of a stickler for realism, plot consistency and the like, but one thing I do prefer is for the characters to be believable psychologically.

 

With so many game stories being driven by violent conflict, it just stretches the limits of my disbelief to think that your average hormonal teenager would have the maturity and mental fortitude necessary for dealing with the kind of crazy and awful stuff that game stories throw at them. The real-life prospect of a child or young teen involved in violent conflict is horrifying both in the imagining and the reality of it, and I prefer when a story is able to recognize and appreciate that fact.

[The Heretic of Time]

All those other games have ideas I'm sure, but seriously, the Hollywood mainstream cinematic infection has just festered and debilitated so many franchises. Ah well, hopefully there will be some surprises in the future.

I agree on that. Where in Japan the grind and stagnation is the biggest problem, in the west its the whole "cinematification" that pisses me off. A lot of western games become more and more restricted in the amount of freedom you have as a player, and the amount of gameplay gets systematically reduced and replayed by bigger, longer cutscenes.

It's one of my biggest gripes with the new Tomb Raider. While I still liked Tomb Raider 2013 a lot, I still think it's a huge step back from what Tomb Raider used to be. I love how the old Tomb Raider games didn't bother with stories or cutscenes, and simply just drop you in a big tomb/dungeon and then let you freely explore it. The old Tomb Raider was all about exploration, adventure and puzzle-solving. The new Tomb Raider feels more linear and restricted.

[slimgrin]

I've never been a fan of Japanese games, always found them boring and on the odd side. My one exception is for Dark Souls, but that series seems more aimed towards the western market.

That's because Dark Souls aimed for a universal market and many Japanese devs don't. They don't even try to enter the western market, which baffles me.  

[Ryzaki]

SMT only has 6 games. In fact, none of Atlus games or series has hit double digits.

 

yeesss Persona 5 *hops around like a bunny*

 

I can't waiiiit.

 

Please get vita port. *crosses fingers*

[the_last_krogan]

It doesn't matter what girls you like. The last Krogan will pull them all

not all of them

but most of them

[Seraphim24]

I don't care about League of Legends, which I find incredibly boring. But to call it a grind is silly. What in that game is exactly a grind? Do you even know what "grind" means? By your logic, every single multiplayer competitive game such as fighters, shooters and racing games should be considered a grind. Of course that is silly. There is no grind in those games, unless you'd say that just playing the game is automatically a grind. Again, that is silly.

It's not your goals that define if your game is grindy, it's how you achieve those goals that define if your game is grindy or not Being forced to kill the same uninteresting monsters over and over again to level up before you can progress in the game is a grind. Simply enjoying different kind of multiplayer matches against other people while leveling up and getting new gear that way isn't a grind. A grind is being sidetracked from your main goal to repeat the same repetitive crap over and over again before you can progress further. That's what happens in FF, that's what happened in Zelda Skyward Sword, and that's not what's happening in Skyrim or any of the other games you mentioned at all.

Saying Skyrim is grindy is laughable. You don't need to level up anything in that game in order to progress. Everything in that game is downscaled or upscaled toward your own level. If you couldn't continue with the main story because it was too hard for you, you probably just suck and need to turn down the difficulty. And even if you choose to do the side missions to level up your skills, it's not a grind at all. The side quests are all rich and entertaining quest lines with interesting stories. Hell, I'd argue that the main quest in Skyrim is the most boring part of the game. The side quests are so much more interesting!

The way you speak about Skyrim makes me doubt you seriously played the game, if you even played it at all.

 

Grind is just doing the same thing over and over again, traditionally that meant you would go back to earlier parts of the dungeons to kill the same mobs again and again, in order to reach a high enough level to kill the boss. Maybe more abstractly you could just call it "a feeling of repetition."

 

In League of Legends, or Skyrim, you very frequently do the same thing over and over again. In League of Legends, you are forced to play the exact same map and fight against the same randomly generated group of opposing players. In the case of LoL, it's not "to progress," it's not even to do anything at all except the same thing again, and again.

 

For Skyrim I don't know I was mercilessly slaughtered by some giant dragon at one point, it was lame, I didn't enjoy myself going, oh maybe I should go find some better armor or weapons or stats or something. Maybe it was technically possible to beat him then, but really Skyrim in general had lots of filler, once you conquered one bandit tower you basically conquered them all.