Western vs. Japanese Games

[SavageHedgehog]

I wouldn't (and haven't) excluded Nintendo games from my consideration. They've been among the most prominent exports from Japan over the last 40 years and the character designs and tropes often derive from a classic anime style (especially if we count Pokemon), just to note the most obvious and surface-level cultural tropes. And even if that weren't true they are still games that come from Japan! Anyway, I have gone with Japanese games primarily but not exclusively because of first and second party Nintendo games.

A case where it might be interesting to consider how "Japanese" the games truly are is Sonic. Created in Japan but primarily to boost sales in the West, heavily refined in America during development of the first game and, to my understanding, two of the most popular games (Sonic 2, my favourite, and Sonic Adventure 2) were primarily developed by Sega 's American arm. Supposedly much more popular in the West than in Japan too.

As for Western game auteurs, mega-cancelled Doug Tennapel may have counted at one point.

[madhair60]

Sorry, working my way back through the thread.

Splatoon?
ARMS?
Smash?
Animal Crossing?
Nier: Automata?

You should play Groove Coaster, to be honest.

This is the thing, I'm not trying to be a difficult cunt, I'm really struggling to think of anything that's made me go fuck, yes, this is great, that's come out of Japan this generation and isn't a Dark Souls clone. I'm sure there's something. I really liked Resident Evil Revelations 2, whenever that was. None of the stuff you mentioned did much for me.

I agree with you about shmups though, western ones just do not get it. There's a few I don't mind, a couple of Euroshmups that work for me (Amiga roots) but mostly if I want to play a shmup it's going to be by Konami or Cave or something.

[madhair60]

Which Western games do you really like from the last five years?

That's the thing it's essentially the same deal with the West, I think broadly speaking the AAA stuff is a waste of time. I did like Spider-Man but nostalgia/childhood love for the character fed into that a lot, most of it is just ticking boxes. The Witcher 3 seems really good from what I've played of it but it's not exactly original or lacking in jank.

I remembered a Japanese game I liked; Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Which is a direct ripoff of a retro game. Er.

[peanutbutter]

Japan has auters who are given the freedom to make unique games, for better and for worse. People like Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding), Yoko Taro (Drakengard, NIER), Hideki Kamiya (Bayonetta, Devil May Cry) Tomonobu Itagaki* (Dead Or Alive, Ninja Gaiden), Shu Takumi (Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick), Kotaro Uchikoshi (Zero Escape series).

Who are the equivalents here? The only name that springs to mind is Toby Fox (Undertale) and that's a stretch.

*I forgot his name and found it by googling "oatmeal face japanese game developer"

This is surely a lot down to western individualism as anything else? Resulting in the kind of people who would the more creative guys within the system ditching it very very early on to go the indie route and as a result getting utterly crippled by all the considerations beyond just being the ideas person

[C_Larence]

This is surely a lot down to western individualism as anything else? Resulting in the kind of people who would the more creative guys within the system ditching it very very early on to go the indie route and as a result getting utterly crippled by all the considerations beyond just being the ideas person

Yeah I reckon you're right, hence why Toby Fox stands out as someone who's managed to make the indie route work, albeit only once so far. I'm interested to see where his career goes next outside of composing one song for a pokemon game. Trying to think of more examples I remembered Phil Fish, of Fez fame. There's an example of when it goes wrong.

Also add Suda 51 and SWERY to the japanese list.

[madhair60]

Phil Fish, of Fez fame. There's an example of when it goes wrong.

You mean when he got called a fucking faggot on Twitter by gamers ten times a second for four years then when he finally cracked and told someone to suck his dick everyone started clutching their pearls like WELL you can't say THAT so RUDE

[Abnormal Palm]

Was that the guy who said that the West was schooling Jap at their own game?

[C_Larence]

Was that the guy who said that the West was schooling Jap at their own game?

Yes

You mean when he got called a fucking faggot on Twitter by gamers ten times a second for four years then when he finally cracked and told someone to suck his dick everyone started clutching their pearls like WELL you can't say THAT so RUDE

Also yes

[madhair60]

Was that the guy who said that the West was schooling Jap at their own game?

He said off the cuff that modern Japanese games sucked, which I felt was broadly correct at the time. The absolute worst over-tutorialising joyless by-the-numbers shit. Only Souls was really worth half a fuck and that was heavily Western-influenced. Thankfully things changed at least a little.

[peanutbutter]

Yeah I reckon you're right, hence why Toby Fox stands out as someone who's managed to make the indie route work, albeit only once so far. I'm interested to see where his career goes next outside of composing one song for a pokemon game. Trying to think of more examples I remembered Phil Fish, of Fez fame. There's an example of when it goes wrong.

Also add Suda 51 and SWERY to the japanese list.

Jonathan Blow and Lucas Pope are two examples of where it went right for more than one game and the games were sufficiently different. The sheer amount of work involved in the second games for both seemed absolutely colossal though.

Edmund McMillen might be a more successful example, I think his games are shit though so I find it hard to talk too glowingly about him.

Then you've loads of guys like Stephen Lavelle that are constantly spitting out ideas that could be full games. Just looked up Terry Cavanagh to see if he fit that too but it looks like he never moved his skillset on from Adobe Flash so the death of Flash killed his ability to make new games easily.

[Abnormal Palm]

He said off the cuff that modern Japanese games sucked, which I felt was broadly correct at the time. The absolute worst over-tutorialising joyless by-the-numbers shit. Only Souls was really worth half a fuck and that was heavily Western-influenced. Thankfully things changed at least a little.

I'm the last person to be hold anyone to some glib remark or annihilate them for life for some perceived deviation from the accepted truth, but yeah, sounds like he just got a little bit too excited about some Western 2D platformers about, I dunno, psychosis or getting dumped, etc.

I'd agree though that the Western scene around the turn of the last decade was probably more interesting/progressive than in Japan, with Red Dead, Mass Effect 2, Skyrim, Uncharted 2, Fallout: NV, Heavy Rain, Deus: Ex, Witcher 2, Arkham, Far Cry 2. I don't like all of them, at all, but they were either something new or sequels which made a leap forwards, no matter whether you preferred previous games in the series. Arguably, that was the creative peak of Western AAA. I also appreciate that there was an indie boom with Isaac, Meat Boy, Limbo and Fez and so on, but I don't find them necessarily exciting, besides Isaac, and even that is massively indebted to Japanese games.

That said, besides Galaxy 2 and Skyward Sword, and some other stalwart iterations, mostly on handheld (Pok, MonHun), there wasn't an awful lot happening with single player Japanese games until Demon's Souls and then Dark Souls hooked people back in. I'd have to say that Bayonetta was significant, though, even if you don't enjoy it. Likewise, Deathsmiles was probably the biggest home console shmup since Ikaruga, even if I don't like it. Beyond SP though, SF4 was the biggest fighting game since SF2, and it was incredible. Again, that goes back to my point about the arcades. Phil Fish and the Western indie scene must have been completely divorced from that world because it was the most exciting thing happening in the medium, not some 2D pixel art platformers.

[Abnormal Palm]

Fuckin fell asleep writing that christ never mind readin the cunt

[bgmnts]

Mortal Kombat > Street Fighter

[Abnormal Palm]

Mortal Kombat is a fighting game for 12-year-old boy with a Korn T-shirt.

[bgmnts]

And it's fucking amazing!

[madhair60]

Mortal Kombat 9, X and 11 have all been wonderful.

Also I forgot Danganronpa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Spiteface]

Mortal Kombat > Street Fighter

Honestly, since Capcom massively dropped the ball with Street Fighter 5, this has never been truer than it is now.

Releasing only half a game will do that, though.

[Abnormal Palm]

I'm actually choking here.

Even as shit as SFV is compared to SF4, it's in a completely different league to MK in terms of skill ceiling and depth and variety of play styles and artistic expression - and it's SHIT.

[madhair60]

I find MK11 way more rewarding than SFV, soz. It helps that it's actually fun to play alone with the Towers and the Story mode

[Abnormal Palm]

I can imagine that's the case.

[popcorn]

In the 90s/2000s, Japanese games won easily for me. They were tighter and more responsive - compare Mario and Sonic to, like, any western platform game - and more creative, mysterious and playful - compare Medal of Honour and GTA to the worlds of Jet Set Radio, Ico, Katamari Damacy, Metal Gear Solid. But that's a big fuzzy generalisation and you could come up with a list of rebuttals I suppose.

The worlds don't seem so distinct now. The internet, and the rise of indie development, has allowed for much more cross-pollination of ideas, influences and people. I'm going through the list of games I've played from the last 5 years and I don't think there's a single one I unreservedly adored, western or Japanese.

Hot take: the Japanese invented level design in the 80s with Super Mario Bros, but it wasn't invented in the west until Half-Life in 1998.

[Abnormal Palm]

Hotter take: Breath of the Wild is the best Western game ever made.

[madhair60]

Hot take: the Japanese invented level design in the 80s with Super Mario Bros, but it wasn't invented in the west until Half-Life in 1998.

are you ill?

edit: sorry, that was uncharitable. I feel like we are often at odds. Could you please explain what you mean, because I would hold up a lot of pre-HL first-person shooters as having excellent level design. Doom, Duke, Blood, etc

[Lemming]

Wanted to say that Mortal Kombat is easily the best fighting game series for me but wasn't sure if it'd result in a multi-page roast. I like how it's much more about timing than Street Fighter, which in my somewhat limited experience is entirely about memorising a 20-button combo and then trying to enter it before your opponent does theirs.

Also of course Half-Life didn't invent level design. Half-Life invented linear levels where scripted things happen every 5 steps (tentacles grab at you, floor collapses, everything explodes, nuke goes off) and it was SPECTACULAR until everyone copied it.

[popcorn]

Could you please explain what you mean, because I would hold up a lot of pre-HL first-person shooters as having excellent level design. Doom, Duke, Blood, etc

This was clearly indicated as a hot take, which pre-emptively excuses the poster from any outrage caused.

I think Mario 1 was the first major game with levels that had a true beginning, middle and end, with attention to pacing, and which taught the player concepts intuitively. See the famous 1-1 design. This approach was continued in the later 2D Mario games on NES and SNES. I don't think it was really taken up in the west until Half-Life 1.

The maps of Doom and Duke 3D are - hot take incoming - meandering, haphazard mazes which most players wandered lost until they finally, thank fuck, discovered a room with enemies they hadn't killed yet. The actual mass appeal of early FPS games was not to proceed through a kind of authored experience but to turn the cheats on and blow things up, which was also true of GTA and The Sims (replace "blow things up" with "build dollhouses" and "torture sims").

[madhair60]

Ah, i see you subscribe to the extremely dull Game Maker's Toolkit school of level design and are bad at Doom

[popcorn]

I can't believe you tricked me into trying to have a conversation with you, again.

[Lemming]

I think Mario 1 was the first major game with levels that had a true beginning, middle and end, with attention to pacing, and which taught the player concepts intuitively. See the famous 1-1 design. This approach was continued in the later 2D Mario games on NES and SNES. I don't think it was really taken up in the west until Half-Life 1.

I know it's quite an abstract point, but there's lots of pre-Half-Life games that are good at introducing concepts naturally via tight level design - Lemmings, Another World, Alone in the Dark (sort of)... Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider were both also really good at easing you into new mechanics and concepts before gradually stepping up the challenge, which I think is the big hallmark of Mario and Half-Life's level design.

Personally I think there's a lot to be said for Doom's style of level design. You still get eased into new concepts, weapons and enemies, but the game trusts you to put them into action yourself, as opposed to Mario/Half-Life which teach you mechanics and then challenge you to use them in specific ways predetermined by the devs.

[popcorn]

Personally I think there's a lot to be said for Doom's style of level design. You still get eased into new concepts, weapons and enemies, but the game trusts you to put them into action yourself, as opposed to Mario/Half-Life which teach you mechanics and then challenge you to use them in specific ways predetermined by the devs.

Yeah, I am being slightly facetious when I hot takingly declare that Doom "doesn't have level design". It's a different approach with different results.

What I'm really talking about is a certain kind of control over what you're making and the kind of experience you're building, and a sensitivity to how it's consumed. I stand by my claim about what the mass appeal of games like Doom were in the early 90s, and I think it says something about the disconnect between western gamedevs and players back then - the devs were grasping around and making stuff that was fun and creative sort of at random and which players found entertaining sort of at random too.

I realise I'm talking to the FPS master here, btw.

[Abnormal Palm]

Wanted to say that Mortal Kombat is easily the best fighting game series for me but wasn't sure if it'd result in a multi-page roast. I like how it's much more about timing than Street Fighter, which in my somewhat limited experience is entirely about memorising a 20-button combo and then trying to enter it before your opponent does theirs.

Not at all, mate. You're in safe company here. That said, I think your impression of SF is way off. It's actually one of the least 'combo stringy' fighting games. It's all about footsies and clusters of short combo punishers. There are very few moments where you get caught in a block string and can do nothing about it, unlike Tekken or DBFZ or BlazBlue or Guilty Gear or, dare I say...Mortal Kombat.

Basically, totally respect your opinion on MK, but you're talking total fuck about SF.