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Did Elden Ring/Botw put Japan back at the top of game design?

Do those games changed how Japanese are viewed?

  • Yes, both of them

    Votes: 48 24.7%
  • Elden Ring did

    Votes: 31 16.0%
  • Zelda Botw did

    Votes: 14 7.2%
  • Changed how Nintendo games are viewed

    Votes: 9 4.6%
  • Changed how from software games are viewed

    Votes: 14 7.2%
  • No, not really

    Votes: 100 51.5%

  • Total voters
    194

GymWolf

Member
yeah returnal totally obliterates all those japanese shooters made in the past 10 years.... all 5 of them
OFC returnals gonna look good when you pair it up against a country that has a genuine aversion to FPS games. Now.... let's see you do the same for platformers.
It is the same for platformers dude, nintendo does the majority of them but you have some nice titles here and there like super meat boy, celeste, the platform parts in the ori series and probably someone else, i don't play platform anymore so i'm not really informed on all the best titles.

At least the titles that i named have some damn challenge, because everytime someone open a topic for mario odissey or the latest yoshi or kirby they always say how good they play and also how fucking easy these games are, so yeah pinnacle of platformers for 10 years old childs, not surprising given their first party output i guess (except smash bros)
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
Yeah all those half naked, oversized breasts and oversexualized underage looking girls. Female-Men with furry shit to top it all off.

Sorry was a huge Anime and JRPG Fan in my youth but nowadays this shit is so fucking tedious. Growing up, having a wife and kids ruined all that for me.

Also never been an huge fan of Mecha stuff.

And this obsession about all sort of crystals is also very boring.

Okay enough rambling. They still do offer good stuff now and then. But some of these aforementioned things can ruin a good anime/game for me immediatly.

In that sense Easter Media never grew out of their disturbingly weird fantasies.
I think I've played mostly japanese games this year and none of those are like that... And BTW, anime has always had all of that, and none too, there are varieties even in the most popular ones.

BTW, From software and Nintendo are japanese devs, they count (just in case)
 

cireza

Banned
That's literally what BOTW did though, and Elden Ring followed. They're the antithesis of the streamlined,
I think that you don't understand what "empty" means. You have things to do and check literally every 10 seconds in both games. Where is the sense of being lost ? It is nowhere to be found. Where is the challenge of finding a place with only cryptic information or rumors ? You barely touch this in these games.
 
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YukiOnna

Member
Japan's always been up there though. No matter the gen, "fun" and at least attempting something new even in their B or C tier titles was always on the map that it is worth trying out. So I don't think Elden Ring or BOTW did anything different and just continued that.

Even if the artstyle of certain titles may be unappealing to those here (not to me) or only fit a certain niche, it never took away from that.
 

JCK75

Member
playing with whips in elden ring makes me want whoever makes the next castlevania to steal heavily from ER
 

22•22

NO PAIN TRANCE CONTINUE
Ironically they both did it by adopting western design philosophy

So did Zelda NES lmao

Let's take a organic expression which works great especially regarding Elden Ring and say it's merely adopting western designs philosophys.

Zelda OG NES into BotW is a result of finaly being caple of realizing it's OG template using current tech.


Nah bro they're adopting western design philosophy.

Star Trek Reaction GIF
 
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So did Zelda NES lmao

Let's take a organic expression which worker great especially regarding Elden Ring and say it's merely adopting western designs philosophys.

Zelda OG NES into BotW is a result of finaly being caple of realizing it's OG template using current tech.


Nah bro they're adopting western design philosophy.

Star Trek Reaction GIF

tv land speak english GIF by YoungerTV


Your try-hard witty retorts look like word soup
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
If only every game could be like Vanquish. That game is a shining example of video games needing to remember they are video games.
This is something I LOVE about japanese game devs, they're not afraid of showing that their games are that: GAMES, I never understand the problems some people have with health bars and other UI elements on screen, nor even in Xenoblade since the game is the definition of "hardcore" considering how invested one have to be on it in order to understand its systems and how the interact each other in the heat of a battle since that information to me is valuable, it's like many western devs are afraid to let their players know they're playing a game (like... isn't it obvious btw?) to make some things not be "landed", "realistic enough" or whatever.

Something I loved about Doom 2016 was how "game-y" it was in some parts like needing to find the colored keys corresponding with their colored door, that sent me right to the 90s in the best sense possible, it just felt "fun" to know the game took itself as a game
 

22•22

NO PAIN TRANCE CONTINUE

Sorry? Ik was redelijk duidelijk.

Enoy your hot take

And I'm not being try hard as much as your hot take. Not being fluent in English doesn't dismiss my point eve if it's not presented in perfect English. To attack the latter is quite something.
 
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22•22

NO PAIN TRANCE CONTINUE
People don’t know history. If OP played Zelda/Zelda 2 on the NES WHEN they came out they would understand that BOTW and Elden Ring are the natural results of a JAPANESE DESIGN.

Obliviously. But they. Hot takes takes the reaction cake.
 
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tommib

Member
Obliviously. But they. Hot takes takes the reaction cake.
I love how the NES Zelda 1986 summary encapsulates the AAA WeSterN DeZign:

Link begins the game equipped only with a small shield, but can enter a cave and receive a sword from an old man who advises, "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this."[16] Throughout the adventure, Link finds and acquires various items that increase his abilities further, including Heart Containers which increase his life meter; magic rings which decrease the amount of damage Link takes from enemy attacks; and stronger swords which allow Link inflict more damage to enemies. These items are mainly found in caves scattered throughout the land. Some are easily accessible, while others are hidden beneath obstacles such as rocks, trees, and waterfalls.[17]Defeated enemies sometimes drop items including hearts, which refill the life meter, and Rupees, the in-game currency. Rupees can also be found in hidden treasure caves and are used to buy equipment, information, and ability upgrades.

Hidden in the overworld are entrances to eight large dungeons housing the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom.[18] Each dungeon has a unique maze-like layout of rooms connected by doors and secret passages, often barred by monsters (which must be defeated) or by blocks (which must be moved to gain entrance).[19] Dungeons also contain useful items Link can add to his inventory, such as a boomerang for stunning enemies and retrieving distant items, and a magical recorder that lets Link teleport to the entrance of any dungeon he has previously cleared.[20] Once Link has collected all eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom from these dungeons, he gains access to a ninth and final dungeon in order to defeat Ganon and rescue Zelda.[21] The game may be completed by traversing any given dungeon on the overworld and is largely flexible to players, although gameplay steadily increases in difficulty, and some rooms can only be passed by using items gained in previous locations. There are dungeons with secret entrances which must be uncovered while freely wandering the overworld after acquiring useful items. This freedom allows many ways of progressing through the game. It is possible to reach the final boss without receiving the normally vital sword at its outset.[22]The game world contains 600 separate scenes,[23]with the overworld consisting of over 97 scenes and the underworld consisting of nine multi-scene labyrinths.[24]
 
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22•22

NO PAIN TRANCE CONTINUE
I love how the NES Zelda 1986 summary encapsulates the AAA WeSterN DeZign:

Link begins the game equipped only with a small shield, but can enter a cave and receive a sword from an old man who advises, "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this."[16] Throughout the adventure, Link finds and acquires various items that increase his abilities further, including Heart Containers which increase his life meter; magic rings which decrease the amount of damage Link takes from enemy attacks; and stronger swords which allow Link inflict more damage to enemies. These items are mainly found in caves scattered throughout the land. Some are easily accessible, while others are hidden beneath obstacles such as rocks, trees, and waterfalls.[17]Defeated enemies sometimes drop items including hearts, which refill the life meter, and Rupees, the in-game currency. Rupees can also be found in hidden treasure caves and are used to buy equipment, information, and ability upgrades.

Hidden in the overworld are entrances to eight large dungeons housing the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom.[18] Each dungeon has a unique maze-like layout of rooms connected by doors and secret passages, often barred by monsters (which must be defeated) or by blocks (which must be moved to gain entrance).[19] Dungeons also contain useful items Link can add to his inventory, such as a boomerang for stunning enemies and retrieving distant items, and a magical recorder that lets Link teleport to the entrance of any dungeon he has previously cleared.[20] Once Link has collected all eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom from these dungeons, he gains access to a ninth and final dungeon in order to defeat Ganon and rescue Zelda.[21] The game may be completed by traversing any given dungeon on the overworld and is largely flexible to players, although gameplay steadily increases in difficulty, and some rooms can only be passed by using items gained in previous locations. There are dungeons with secret entrances which must be uncovered while freely wandering the overworld after acquiring useful items. This freedom allows many ways of progressing through the game. It is possible to reach the final boss without receiving the normally vital sword at its outset.[22]The game world contains 600 separate scenes,[23]with the overworld consisting of over 97 scenes and the underworld consisting of nine multi-scene labyrinths.[24]

Thank your for this..
 
Sorry? Ik was redelijk duidelijk.

Enoy your hot take

And I'm not being try hard as much as your hot take. Not being fluent in English doesn't dismiss my point eve if it's not presented in perfect English. To attack the latter is quite something.

Then take the time and effort to write coherently instead of trying to be sarcastic
 

YukiOnna

Member
This is something I LOVE about japanese game devs, they're not afraid of showing that their games are that: GAMES, I never understand the problems some people have with health bars and other UI elements on screen, nor even in Xenoblade since the game is the definition of "hardcore" considering how invested one have to be on it in order to understand its systems and how the interact each other in the heat of a battle since that information to me is valuable, it's like many western devs are afraid to let their players know they're playing a game (like... isn't it obvious btw?) to make some things not be "landed", "realistic enough" or whatever.

Something I loved about Doom 2016 was how "game-y" it was in some parts like needing to find the colored keys corresponding with their colored door, that sent me right to the 90s in the best sense possible, it just felt "fun" to know the game took itself as a game
Yeah. I think the same applies to narrative design and the storytelling. It's just a lot more fun and interesting to follow on this side than what I get in Western games most of the time unless they really focus on worldbuilding. You do need to throw logic out the window as well and do something out there because you can in the game design. Being game-y is a strength.
 

Killer8

Member
Phil Fish was absolutely correct when he said what he said. In the context of the 7th console generation, Japanese developers had a tremendous fall from grace. It's like nobody remembers gems like "HD towns are hard", Capcom whoring half their IPs out to Western studios, or the endless shovelware crap desperately trying to appeal to Westerners such as Quantum Theory. Even a classic series like Zelda had grown stale and needed reinvention in Breath of the Wild. Granted, a lot of the Japanese devs shifted focus to chase the handheld and mobile dollar during that time, but that only exacerbated them falling behind with HD development.

In the 7th generation, Japanese games had a massive renaissance. The Switch was a huge success - after the casual Wii years and the weak Wii U years, Nintendo was finally back. 2017 saw hits like Yakuza Zero, Nioh, Neir Automata, Gravity Rush 2, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Dragon Quest XI, and Monster Hunter World in early 2018. The Souls series fully broke into the mainstream. Resident Evil's relevance was revived and it's better than ever. Capcom also later made DMC5 in-house. Square Enix took their finger out their ass and finally made the FF7 remake. Many of these games are considered some of the best in their respective genres and franchises.

Sometimes you just need to be told you suck to rekindle the flame and do better.
 
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Woopah

Member
Japanese publishers did try using Western developers / game design for their HD games, but a lot of them were still releasing great titles on portables.

Nowadays Japsnese publishers are putting out quite a bit of good stuff on consoles/hrybrid, not just Nintendo and From.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
They are way better than what comes out of the west.

They aren’t. They dominate at shmups, but nothing else.

Also I’m accounting for everything - not just AAA.

The west makes better racing games, dominates the first and third person shooter market, dominates sports, sim games, CRPGs, ARPGs, VR, and matches Japan easily in action/adventure, rhythm, strategy, and platformers.
 

Filben

Member
No, they are only two games and only one of them I actually think is excellent while the other has significant flaws so I consider it not really extraordinary.

So overall I'm rarely into Japanese games and don't think that Japanese games have inherently good game design. It's like with western games, some are good, some are shit, most stuff is average or slightly above.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Maybe what OP wanted to ask in this thread was: Did those two games made some people that rarely play Japanese games anymore realize there are great Japanese games?

For those that never stopped playing them, they're always in good shape 😎
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
I never understand the problems some people have with health bars and other UI elements on screen
You have to hide everything that makes it look like a game, or something that a casual onlooker can’t understand at a glance.
This is the product of a generation of people who were bullied for liking video games. Even more so for those who played PC games with UIs that filled 3/4s of the screen. Somebody’d throw a glance at the screen and mock them for being hopeless dorks with no life and no sex in their future.

The solution to this, apparently, is to make games look “mature”, like *ahem* movies. No gaming element in sight.
”See, Chad? Tell me this don’t look mature enough, eh? It’s got cool bearded tattooed barbarians cutting each other’s head off, and not a healthbar in sight! I bet even you want to play it!”
”See, Brittany? There’s this cool Indiana Jones dude looking for treasure, shooting hundreds of bad mofos and spouting badass oneliners all the time! It looks just like a superhero from one of those movies you like! Now, how about we fuck?”

yes, I absolutely believe some of the HUD-phobia of modern games definitely comes from this
 

cortadew

Member
They aren’t. They dominate at shmups, but nothing else.

Also I’m accounting for everything - not just AAA.

The west makes better racing games, dominates the first and third person shooter market, dominates sports, sim games, CRPGs, ARPGs, VR, and matches Japan easily in action/adventure, rhythm, strategy, and platformers.

Neither one outclasses Skyrim or RDR2 so no.
Botw outclassed both and skyrim is a mediocre game without mods
 

cortadew

Member
RDR2 absolutely obliterates BotW’s open world of emptiness, sparse wildlife that doesn’t interact, and copy paste temples.

Skyrim the way older “mediocre” rpg as you say, served as influence for BotW. So mediocre indeed.
Botw open world emptiness which has real interactivity like few actual open worlds have which makes it much more alive.

Also every action game ever made was influenced by Oot and Majora's mask.
 

tommib

Member
Two games almost no one plays today has Japan back on top? Doublyou, tee, eff?
What new metric of awesomeness is this? Not enough to have a blast for 2 months and consider these classic experiences - they also need to be endlessly playable? Is this why we ended up with the AAA bloat? Don’t these games combined reached like 60 million people?
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
What new metric of awesomeness is this? Not enough to have a blast for 2 months and consider these classic experiences - they also need to be endlessly playable? Is this why we ended up with the AAA bloat? Don’t these games combined reached like 60 million people?

Multiplayer eclipsed single player as the dominant form of gaming years ago. Japan is 40 years in the desert when it comes the big show. It's like suggesting one of the best players in AAA baseball is the best player on the planet just because you ignore The Major League.

60 million is an impressive number for reach and engagement if you completely ignore The Major League.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
It definitely showed their ability to adapt to and embrace the historically Western open world format in a really successful way, but I don't think think it's put them back in the position of industry leaders.
 

Gun Animal

Member
Yeah totally agree, In fact I’d argue Japanese games in the X360 & PS3 generation weren’t very good due to following the western trends and gameplay philosophy’s. I feel now there’s making games they want to make how they want to make them and they’ve always been the best at doing it.
You've got it 100% correct here, games like Resident Evil 5/6 and Metal Gear Solid 4 represent the worst era of Japanese games, when everyone was trying to be a an OTS third-person shooter.
 

RaduN

Member
the entirety of the 2000s western devs were pumping out their A game and making better games than japan did arguably, both in game design and in budget.
What the hell am i reading?

The 2000s were the years that japanese brought us MGS2, 3, Silent Hill 2, Devil May Cry 1,3, Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy X, XII, Shadow of the colossus, Ninja Gaiden Black, to mention but a few of the best games ever made, in any decade, games that were source of inspiration for a lot of western devs.
I'd argue that 2000s were the best years for the japanese console AAA development in terms of game design/creativity.
 

darrylgorn

Member
I'm sure that there is a segment of the gaming audience that makes this distinction between 'western' and Japanese games, but most people don't.

And it's always been that way, really.

As for the two games in the title, they represent an evolutionary step in their respective genres but that's about it.

They didn't influence the body of gaming development in any profound way and neither brought Japanese gaming development into prominence.
 

Belthazar

Member
How does emulating western open-world level design pit Japan on top of game design again? I mean, I love Japanese games but those aren't great examples of how they can innovate.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
What the hell am i reading?

The 2000s were the years that japanese brought us MGS2, 3, Silent Hill 2, Devil May Cry 1,3, Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy X, XII, Shadow of the colossus, Ninja Gaiden Black, to mention but a few of the best games ever made, in any decade, games that were source of inspiration for a lot of western devs.
I'd argue that 2000s were the best years for the japanese console AAA development in terms of game design/creativity.
Japan had some good stuff too ill admit but that time period from 1998-2011 was the peak of western gaming as a whole. i dont think anyone who lived in that time period or played games since then could deny that, most of the hype was surrounding the western developed games
it was a good decade for both but youd have to be delusional to not see that westerners were at the forefront of gaming for almost the entirety of that decade, that isn't helped by the fact that all of the games you listed came out before or around 2006. Japanese games would have a tough time in the late 2000s in comparison
 
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Fredrik

Member
And that’s just Zelda 1. With Zelda 2… oh boy. Zelda 2 is the 2D From Software template in full action.
Yup. Iirc Miyazaki talked about the Zelda 2 influences in an interview ages ago when Demon’s Souls was out, possibly Dark Souls as well. I’ll do a quick search for it. Edit: can’t find it, only a late Elden Ring focused interview where he say he was inspired by The Elder Scrolls, The Witcher and BOTW.

I’d say the Elden Ring Zelda 2 comparison is spot on. Open world, lack of hand-holding, focus on exploration, tight fighting mechanics and focus on defense and a need to learn attack patterns, losing the collected exp at death, etc.
BOTW is a lot like Zelda 2 as well though and my initial thought has always been that Elden Ring is a perfect mix of Demon’s Soul and BOTW.
 
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