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[EternalGamer]

ahuahuahuahua

And you joke about Japanese games ending in parody when Mass Effect 2 literally ends with you fighting a giant terminator made of human goo.

It's true. In the last 10 minutes, ME2 becomes almost as a stupid as JRPGs are throughout. But that just proves my point. In a JRPG that last fight wouldn't stand out. That guy would just be 3 stories taller and he would be a God of a God who Absorbed the all the chaos ruins in the alternate dimension and turned into his ultra spirit form by merging the geist seeds or something.

Most of the time when I get to the end of a JRPG I don't even know who the fuck I'm fighting or why.

 

[Lindsay]

Is has real towns. The world map is icons based, but you actually explore the locations you go to.

Then thats okay. I've been playing Suikoden III recently and that games world map works the same way. I see its a DS game which shows me another example of DS games being less watered down then PSP ones! Has it been gimped in any way to shoehorn-in local co-op play to ride that MonHun bandwagon? Does it have in engine cutscenes or "comic style" cutscenes? Those are also signs of portablization o.o

Radiant Historia has completely explorable towns, etc. It is a full featured rpg.

Alright thats a good example of a not watered down handheld game then. If I weren't nearly burntout on handheld rpgs and rpgs in general at the moment I'd give it a look.

Bayonetta has comic style cutscenes. Radiant Historia has in engine cutscenes (but it's 2d sprites in a 3d polygonal world). Where is your god now?

I had to skip Bayos cutscenes after just a couple chapters. Thats when I decided there was no gaming god lol

 

[Haunted]

yo-ge kuso-ge
yo-ge kuso-ge
yo-ge kuso-ge

So they are xenophobic lolicon lovers that are embarassed to play once they reach adulthood. Well then...

That is the best summary I've ever seen.

 

[KuroNeeko]

Almost everything from Atlus. Maybe moe or loli isn't always the right term, but rather something like "over-stylized." Character designs that are just ridiculous to look at. Again, kind of like what Rob Liefield is to comic books (I mistakenly said Erik Larsen last time). Like where Liefield puts ridiculously enormous muscles and a hundred pouches on a superhero -- taking some common elements of superheroes and exaggerating them to the extreme -- the same undisciplined and exaggerated pandering seems to have taken over a lot of Japanese anime and game design.

I disagree somewhat. Atlus, while "guilty" of adopting a particular style for their games, doesn't rely on Moe or Lolicon to sell their games. The intended target is different. I would hesitantly classify their work as "underground" or "occult." The look has softened a bit from their first few titles (Persona 1, Persona 2, Persona 3, Devil Summoner 1 & 2, Soul Hackers) but they're not going after your typical moe otaku.

It's probably because of this that Atlus retains a decent amount of popularity in the west. A lot of people want to classify Catherine as "moe" but I think the game defies that definition. Did they fill it to the brim with sex hoping that it would cover the weaker gameplay elements? Sure, and I was very disappointed with that game. I had higher expectations. Sex + anime does not necessarily equal Moe though.

apparently

Wrong.

it's japan's new code word for underage girls.

Wrong again.

About the only thing I can commend you on in this thread is your choice in an appropriate User Name. While you're certainly entitled to your opinion, you continually show how little you know about the subject.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

You're basically describing like the majority of the casual western gaming audience nowadays as well. I see tons of gamers giving crap to Japanese games with the words "animu", "weaboo" and etc. It's no different.

Bull. EVERYONE knows and Loves Mario. Everyone knows Zelda, Metroid....etc. These are CLASSICS and have been welcomed with open arms by decades by the west. Even Final Fantasy went mainstream over here.

Granted, dating sim games for my DS aren't the hotness over here....Japanese gaming has been thoroughly embraced by the west for a very, very long time

 

[icecream]

Sex + anime does not necessarily equal Moe though.

In fact it doesn't. At all.

 

[Emitan]

Then thats okay. I've been playing Suikoden III recently and that games world map works the same way. I see its a DS game which shows me another example of DS games being less watered down then PSP ones! Has it been gimped in any way to shoehorn-in local co-op play to ride that MonHun bandwagon? Does it have in engine cutscenes or "comic style" cutscenes? Those are also signs of portablization o.o

Bayonetta has comic style cutscenes. Radiant Historia has in engine cutscenes (but it's 2d sprites in a 3d polygonal world). Where is your god now?

 

[Geneijin]

You know better than that .
Moe has lost it meaning from what is suppose to be .
Who knows what half this stuff means any more with how things change .

People still confuse the etymology of it as its current meaning.

 

[Castor Krieg]

Moe shit is terrible, and is probably helping to bring down the anime industry, but to argue it claims a majority or even significant amount of Japanese gaming is goddamn nuts.

But it is 100% true. You can see it clearly in Anime, and it's no different in videogames. Hell, just look into Japanese Boxarts Thread. Also, finally someone that gets this:

Japanese culture has developed a reputation for being more accepting of traditionally geeky pursuits than the west. Because so many amazing games came from Japan in the past, many imagine Japan to be a place where being a "gamer' is accepted and considered "normal." In reality it's anything but. The west is far more accepting of adults playing games. While people will often play games on their cell phones, and though the DS made major in-roads into the casual market, particularly with women, admitting to playing games still carries a stronger social stigma in Japan than in Europe or North America. As such, many adults willingly give up games, keeping the market much younger overall than elsewhere.

Gaming is NOT a socially acceptable past time in Japan.

 

[Uriah]

It's true. The last 10 minutse of ME2 becomes almost as a stupid as JRPGs are throughout. But that just proves my point. In a JRPG that last fight wouldn't stand out. That guy would just be 3 stories taller and he would be a God of a God who Absorbed the all the chaos ruins in the alternate dimension and turned into his ultra spirit form or something.

Most of the time when I get to the end of a JRPG I don't even know who the fuck I'm fighting or why.

Except the choices in Mass Effect 2 boil down to "be a baddass" or "be a super good guy". There is no moral ambiguity. It's pathetic compared to The Witcher 2.

 

[Kalnos]

What WRPGs better than those 2? Skyrim? NO. with that janky first person archaic melee combat?

Skyrim and Dark Souls haven't even released, but OK we can speculate. I loved Demon's Souls and I'm really looking forward to Dark Souls (preordered CE

) but I can already tell you a WRPG like Diablo 3 will have vastly superior staying power because the online will be so much more sophisticated (and it will have way more content/support).

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

what does 'moe' mean? can someone explain?

Who even knows anymore? I hate that word. Almost as much as I hate these sorts of threads.

I understand that people may like Japanese aesthetics or whatever, but really, can you name a single Japanese game this generation that you think has a story that doesn't reduce itself to parody by the end?

999
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
The World Ends With You
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trails and Tribulations
Umineko no Naku Koro ni
Last Window

I could go on and also talk about other games which maintain a consistently enjoyable, light-hearted and humorous tone, such as Bowser's Inside Story or Z.H.P., in which case the point is parody from beginning to end. And that's not a bad thing. I could go on to criticize some of the particular examples of these deep, sophisticated Western game stories you selected, such as Red Dead Redemption with a long, terrible middle stretch of filler quests and Marston being a idiot and a pushover (though the ending was strong). I'll just stop by saying that neither good nor bad narratives are exclusive to one corner of the world.

 

[Oemenia]

Well in the previous few generations, the West has been very open to Japanese games but not so much the other way, its simply wrong to say we are just as guilty.

Fortunately, Western games have done a lot better this generation in Japan despite the 360 and PS3 not being the most popular platforms.

 

[KuroNeeko]

In fact it doesn't. At all.

Unfortunately, that's the perception of a lot of people have outside of Japan.

 

[Canova]

Skyrim and Dark Souls haven't even released, but OK we can speculate. I loved Demon's Souls and I'm really looking forward to Dark Souls (preordered CE

) but I can already tell you a WRPG like Diablo 3 will have vastly superior staying power because the online will be so much more sophisticated (and it will have way more content/support).

point-and-click VS 3D real time combat, yeah I'll take Dark Souls over Diablo 3 anytime, anyday

 

[Pirabear]

I can give an example of a whole genre, shmup shooting games...

The moe-fication of shooting games has probably limited the appeal to Western gamers, whereas in SNES/Genesis/TG16 games we had games like Darius, Thunder Force, R-Type, Raiden, etc. The success of games like Einhander and Omega Boost proves they can sell well if they are made appealing to mainstream audiences, but games like that are few and far between these days and since the whole genre has nearly been forgotten by the average gamer when they do come out they are thought of as either too hard or simply not noticed.

P.S.: Make sure to check out Strania on XBLA if any of those names make your spine tingle.

Not to be mean, but the genre was already losing popularity among the Western audience by the end of the PS1 era. I highly doubt Touhou and DeathSmiles "sped up" the process.

 

[Arcblade]

this entire article is fucking garbage.

they're right, it's not that japan's games have changed, that's the root of the problem. they haven't changed and the west continues to evolve and get better and better. at this point, we are so much better, the japanese game industry has no one to blame but themselves.

so let japan to be stubborn and refuse to change, that seems to be the only thing they're good at. and i am especially proud of the fact that western countries refuse to accept this fucking 'moe' or lolishit. call it whatever you want, but it is borderline pedophilia in disguise.

Change != evolution.

I think western games for the most part re: overwhelming majority are hot wet garbage.

And the best games, even this sad gen, are japanese e.g. dark souls.

 

[EternalGamer]

Except the choices in Mass Effect 2 boil down to "be a baddass" or "be a super good guy". There is no moral ambiguity. It's pathetic compared to The Witcher 2.

I agree. The advancements that the Mass Effect series brought was largely in the way they made dialog sequences dynamic and interactive. The cinematic style of the panning camera and the short representative quips have been justifiably copied by many Western developers.

Certainly games like Witcher 2 and more recently Deus Ex do a better job of making the dialog options more nuanced. But again those are Western developers and the advancements just show how far we have come since last generation when we were still largely dealing with text boxes or static screens with bad read voice overs.

Japan is still largely in that last gen.

 

[Riposte]

Some random thoughts, might come off as rambling... trying not to touch anything that has been covered:

Plenty of Japanese game developers(in particular those who came from designing arcade games) want to push their genre forward by making them more or consistently complex and challenging games(with the natural result of making them esoteric). For the most part western developers are way more interested in making their games more accessible first and foremost and will do so to the point of dropping some genres altogether(see: BioWare and co. Almost no one makes WRPGs anymore. They make FPS, TPS, hack 'n slash, and 3D action games with level ups and conversation systems). Times are a changing though. You have companies like Capcom who will go out of their way to add comeback mechanics to their fighting games, and etc.

More companies would be like Capcom if they could secure a western presence OR Japanese culture treated videogames as openly as the US. Eventually they will have to be to survive. I hope they survive on niche audiences rather than wildly changing their games as PC developers did to become the best consoler developers. (Good examples: Atlus, Platinum Games, From Software)

 

[Booshka]

Yea, I just don't get Japan most of the time. How could video games be such a huge part of their culture and economy, but then shunned by most adults.

 

[Riposte]

Yea, I just don't get Japan most of the time. How could video games be such a huge part of their culture and economy, but then shunned by most adults.

Hmmm, I am reminded of porn and America.

 

[CornBurrito]

what does 'moe' mean? can someone explain?

It seems to mean "anything Japanese that I don't like."

 

[cosmicblizzard]

Its not like he's wrong. I like alot of things about the Japanese culture but fuck this loli shit.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=30898265&postcount=200

 

[Haunted]

Honestly, though, if the part about Japan's gaming populace being noticeably younger than EU or NA demographics is true, that's pretty big. That's basically the only thing the article mentions that could actually have influence on a big scale. Forget the xenophobia and moe arguments, they're bogus [if we're talking about the situation at large, undoubtedly there are small niches where these elements are relevant].


Then again, a large part of the developments in NA/EU gaming in recent years have been only partially fuelled by the audience getting older - it's also important that the developers themselves have grown up. It's the same in Japan (hence we still see the occasional great game hitting all the right notes globally) - but if the audience hasn't grown along with the creators, I can see that rift, that disparity. Also, "making games you yourself would like to play" has always been a western approach to game development - Japanese game makers are more prone to look at what their domestic audience wants. Obviously, that only holds true for mid-sized to smaller teams. Larger publishers work by committee/focus group/executive suits and give out orders based on that.


But these are all general observations, and I feel that none of these actually show the whole picture. Lots of factors involved.

 

[Kalnos]

point-and-click VS 3D real time combat, yeah I'll take Dark Souls over Diablo 3 anytime, anyday

If combat is the only argument for why I should think Dark Souls is superior to every recent/upcoming WRPG including.... Diablo 3, Deus Ex HR, Witcher 2, Skyrim, Torchlight 2, ME3, Guild Wars 2, etc. then I think your argument is pretty weak. It's OK though, I will enjoy Dark Souls and all of the games I just listed (and probably for different reasons).

 

[Emitan]

Hmmm, I am reminded of porn and America.

Porn is shunned by adults in America? What America do you live in?

 

[SneakyStephan]

A coherently written and seemingly well researched and sourced article about gaming?
On the interwebs?

Figures that it has to be about that bizarre anime creepy shit of all things that they'd be so knowledgable about.

 

[DUFFMCWALIN]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=30898265&postcount=200

It obviously sells somewhere because it keeps getting made. Doesn't mean that its socially acceptable in Japan.

 

[DanielJr82]

Japan only cares about their own, it's always been that way. You think they seriously care about what we want?

 

[EternalGamer]

Porn is shunned by adults in America? What America do you live in?

Probably the mid-West/Bible Belt?

 

[Canova]

If combat is the only argument for why I should think Dark Souls is superior to every recent/upcoming WRPG including.... Diablo 3, Deus Ex HR, Witcher 2, Skyrim, Torchlight 2, ME3, Guild Wars 2, etc. then I think your argument is pretty weak. It's OK though, I will enjoy Dark Souls and all of the games I just listed (and probably for different reasons).

well combat has to be the primary feature for any so-called action-RPG. if you don't have decent combat, you can forget calling the game action-RPG.

I guess I don't care for other RPG sims-features like romance, making babies, buying houses, etc.

 

[zeelman]

I think this topic kinda proves the guy's point about yo-ge kuso-ge. Nobody can criticize Japanese games without people attacking Western games. Pretending that there is no problem with game sales in Japan is just ridiculous.

 

[Castor Krieg]

Porn is shunned by adults in America? What America do you live in?

Nipplegate, hello?

 

[Daigoro]

good article, thanks for posting.

this thread on the other hand... jesus, people.

this entire article is fucking garbage.

they're right, it's not that japan's games have changed, that's the root of the problem. they haven't changed and the west continues to evolve and get better and better. at this point, we are so much better, the japanese game industry has no one to blame but themselves.

so let japan to be stubborn and refuse to change, that seems to be the only thing they're good at. and i am especially proud of the fact that western countries refuse to accept this fucking 'moe' or lolishit. call it whatever you want, but it is borderline pedophilia in disguise.

lol u mad.

 

[Lindsay]

I think this topic kinda proves the guy's point about yo-ge kuso-ge. Nobody can criticize Japanese games without people attacking Western games. Pretending that there is no problem with game sales in Japan is just ridiculous.

Pff! I'm attacking JP games for going portable and I only own like less then a handful of western games!

 

[Kalnos]

well combat has to be the primary feature for any so-called action-RPG. if you don't have decent combat, you can forget calling the game action-RPG.

Whatever, all of those games I listed will probably have at least 'decent' combat. Deal with it fanboy.

 

[KuroNeeko]

Also, "making games you yourself would like to play" has always been a western approach to game development - Japanese game makers are more prone to look at what their domestic audience wants.

This one is pretty big, to be honest. I've tried to push this approach at both companies I've worked at it doesn't fly.

In the west, if you've grown up playing games, spent some time studying about what makes games fun, and can find enough people who can share a common vision - you can basically make almost any kind of game and expect it to have an audience (to some extent.)

Whether or not you can turn a profit is a different story but a number of famous developers (Jaffe comes to mind) have pushed the idea that they're making games that they themselves love to play. That kind of love and commitment really shine through. I felt that with Bizarre Creations, the console version of Borderlands, the recently released PC game Dungeons of Dredmor, Twisted Metal II / Black, and Capybara's Swords and Sworcery - you can tell they're gamers that love making games.

In my experiences so far, here there is a lot of risk management / target audience / R&D analysis stuff that just gets in the way. I keep telling everyone that we should just make a game that we're crazy about and is fun as shit to play. The rest will fall into place. That's probably why they don't let me anywhere near the money. The best approach is probably somewhere in the middle.

I do agree with what you said there, though.

Nobody can criticize Japanese games without people attacking Western games.

I don't think that's true at all. It only devolves into that when one "side" starts saying how much better they are than the other.

Pretending that there is no problem with game sales in Japan is just ridiculous.

Yeah, that's true, but the decrease in sales in Japan has very little to do with the market in the west. I would even go so far as to say that it's not that sales are decreasing (actually, the decreasing population is probably a bigger factor here) that's the biggest problem, rather that the changing medium (handhelds and iphones / androids) and common attitude towards gaming in general (something to pass the time) are having the biggest effect on home-based consoles.

 

[Booshka]

Hmmm, I am reminded of porn and America.

What? How are these related, most cultures shun porn all over the world.

 

[Red Blaster]

I agree. The advancements that the Mass Effect series brought was largely in the way they made dialog sequences dynamic and interactive. The cinematic style of the panning camera and the short representative quips have been justifiably copied by many Western developers.

Certainly games like Witcher 2 and more recently Deus Ex do a better job of making the dialog options more nuanced. But again those are Western developers and the advancements just show how far we have come since last generation when we were still largely dealing with text boxes or static screens with bad read voice overs.

Japan is still largely in that last gen.

Both Mass Effect and Deus Ex have atrocious dialogue and terrible facial animation. Vampire Bloodlines came out in 2004 and has still yet to be matched in that department by any recent titles. Referring to the other games you listed, Bioshock is a watered down version of System Shock 2, a game released in 1999. Red Dead Redemption has a terrible story, it suffers from the typical Rockstar BS of attempting to create a lead character the player can empathize with only to have him be a sociopathic moron who works for total scumbags and is willing to kill people for 2 bucks.

I've not played The Witcher 2 but everything I've heard about it seems to indicate it's a step in the right direction, however everything else you listed seems to spit right in the face of your assertion that western gaming has "advanced". The games that generally do interesting things (Alpha Protocol, Vampire Bloodlines) are ones that nobody fucking plays.

 

[Canova]

Whatever, all of those games I listed will probably have at least 'decent' combat. Deal with it fanboy.

did I hurt your feeling or something?

 

[TheSeks]

I think we're forgetting that things like:

Battlefield
Fallout Oblivion with Guns 3/3: New Vegas
Oblivion

Are semi-popular in the Japan. The "hardcore" there are into them.

I think the same is true for some of Japans games. Demon's Souls got popular here and it is a pretty Japanese centric game just put in a Western Fantasy package.

I think this whole "East vs West" thing is stupid. Japan just likes certain things that aren't popular in the rest of the world and vice-versa. Do I think the industry there is "dying?" In the "worldwide sense"... sort-of. The themes that make it out of Japan aren't clicking the west too much anymore and this is killing major studios there.

 

[EternalGamer]

Both Mass Effect and Deus Ex have atrocious dialogue and terrible facial animation. Vampire Bloodlines came out in 2004 and has still yet to be matched in that department by any recent titles0 Referring to the other games you listed, Bioshock is a watered down version of System Shock 2, a game released in 1999. Red Dead Redemption has a terrible story, it suffers from the typical Rockstar BS of attempting to create a lead character the player can empathize with only to have him being a sociopathic moron who's works for total scumbags and is willing to kill people for 2 bucks.

I've not played The Witcher 2 but everything I've heard about it seems to indicate it's a step in the right direction, however everything else you listed seem to spit right in the face of your assertion that western gaming has "advanced". The games that generally do interesting things (Alpha Protocol, Vampire Bloodlines) are ones that nobody fucking plays.

Deus Ex has absolutely excellent dialogue sequences where you have read people on the fly and respond. Calling Bioshock a watered down System Shock or comparing Vampire to Mass Effect's facial animation are pretty ridiculous claims. A quick video comparison will demonstrate the later. As for the former, I have played Sytem Shock 2. It doesn't even play the same let alone is the narrative or atmosphere remotely alike. I think the Red Dead psychopath comment is unfair because that basically applies to 99.9% of games that exist. What I was pointing to was the end of Red Dead, which was amazing.

I certainly never said any of those games are perfect, though. In general, yeah, games still have a long way to go. But that doesn't mean they haven't advanced tremendously in the last 6 years in Western development.

 

[zeelman]

Both Mass Effect and Deus Ex have atrocious dialogue and terrible facial animation. Vampire Bloodlines came out in 2004 and has still yet to be matched in that department by any recent titles. .

Have you played Vampire Bloodlines recently? The graphics have aged terribly. The facial animations look extremely cartoony now.

 

[a Master Ninja]

Tell me this, where did all Japanese developers from the 80's and 90's go?I'm talking about the people that gave me games like Alien Soldier, Contra Hard Corps and Thunderforce IV.Did they just leave?I feel zero presence like that in the western industry.The closest I've felt to those games recently would be Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta and Vanquish.

Platinum Games, Valhalla Game Studios, and From Software are our last hopes.

Bayonetta has comic style cutscenes.

This is because they ran out of money, not because that's what they wanted originally. They just prioritized the cutscenes so the important ones would be fully animated.

 

[Riposte]

Platinum Games, Valhalla Game Studios, and From Software are our last hopes.

There are plenty more. Cave, Arc System Works, etc.

 

[zeelman]

Platinum Games, Valhalla Game Studios, and From Software are our last hopes.

Valhalla still has yet to release a game, and the other really need to sell more games to get Japan to really notice them.

 

[B-Genius]

When I read articles like this, I worry less about the industry and more about my gaming life in Japan.

When I read the resulting comments, I worry more about the industry.

It's not only the misunderstanding of 'moe' and other Japanese references; those have been discussed at length before (and yes there are people who research it, because it makes for an interesting psychological study - not just within the world of games).

It's also the fact that we as gamers and fans and enthusiasts over-react and over-exaggerate at every possible opportunity. In this day and age of information and opinion spreading like wildfire, it's no wonder that companies (Western and Japanese alike) try to create products that appeal to a wider audience, many ending up as rough middle-tier games that no one enjoy.

When there's a surge of 'moe' games in Japan, people get upset. When there's a surge of war games in the West, other people get upset. It's just absurd. Some people act like this is all that will be left of games, and that we will all be stuck with a single genre or cultural trend forever.

People simply need to wake up and realise that the video games industry, as a whole, is still very, very young. Considering most of us writing on this message board now grew up with older games, it's much easier to see the changes taking place, but whatever happens, it almost goes without saying:

In 10 years time, if you are still playing games, you will be playing the games that you enjoy, regardless of where they were developed/published.

If right now, you think that your games are getting pervaded by a certain cultural factor (again, East or West), then you are simply playing the wrong games. Step a little outside your comfort zone, and explore what this medium has to offer, because a lot of people posting replies like "I like both JRPGs and Dudebro shooters. Go figure" - while not being too elaborate - are absolutely bang-on the money.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

I do have a legitimate question for Japanese companies? WHY DO YOU NEVER ADVERTISE YOUR GAMES????

Most Japanese games that come out now receive stealth releases almost like the companies just do not care anymore. No commercials or anything that remotely advertises that you have a great new game available that you want gamers to purchase. You might see an ad on Gamefaqs for a few days and that is it. The last commercial I saw was Dynasty Warriors 7 and I only saw that twice. How long ago did that game come out?

Imo, that could be another reason that Japanese games are not performing as well as they should in the West. How are they going to sell when no one except the hardcore knows they are available? Come on guys, isn't that obvious?

 

[a Master Ninja]

Valhalla still has yet to release a game, and the other really need to sell more games to get Japan to really notice them.

I'm not sure Japan cares about the output of these studios. I do, though.

 

[Curufinwe]

What? How are these related, most cultures shun porn all over the world.

Europe is much more accepting of sexually explicit material than America is.