I've played my fair share of them, and I've slowly gotten used to the fact that most of them are vibrant and very strange. I'm not just talking about twisted games like Disgaea and Katamari Damacy. I'm talking about these games that will usually intertwine their strangeness into a seemingly normal environment. Take Metal Gear Solid, for example. It's got the whole secret agent feel, and that's normal in a game, but then they throw in military psychics, little plastic frogs in warzones, the La-le-lu-le-lo, and cyborg ninjas. All this makes me wonder if there is some method to this madness, because I'm just not understanding where it all comes from.
How do you feel about Japanese games?
- Thread starter Yerocha
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I remember that far far back in my younghood, I was used to see scifi in only one way, the way of Star Wars.
Then one day, I saw a picture of something totally crazy. A submarine... well, a spaceship looking like a submarine - and that's a weird thing to say, considering that I was already watching Captain Harlock.
Then, in a video game magazine, I saw a sort of WWII tank parked on the edge of a cliff... on Mars.
IIRC, these were from japanese products. They really mix everything. Sometimes it works, sometimes it sucks big times.
The parallel I make is simple. Like their industries post WWII, they have scavenged a lot of technologies. They have learnt a lot, and this kind of Borg-like assimilation really transpires through their culture.
They'll revamp everything, like myths and religions, and fuse them into completely out of bounds metaconcepts.
However, despite this apparent richness due to exceptional creations that really stick out, the vast majority of their products seem to be stuck in genres which make the Japanese look rather close minded.
Then one day, I saw a picture of something totally crazy. A submarine... well, a spaceship looking like a submarine - and that's a weird thing to say, considering that I was already watching Captain Harlock.
Then, in a video game magazine, I saw a sort of WWII tank parked on the edge of a cliff... on Mars.
IIRC, these were from japanese products. They really mix everything. Sometimes it works, sometimes it sucks big times.
The parallel I make is simple. Like their industries post WWII, they have scavenged a lot of technologies. They have learnt a lot, and this kind of Borg-like assimilation really transpires through their culture.
They'll revamp everything, like myths and religions, and fuse them into completely out of bounds metaconcepts.
However, despite this apparent richness due to exceptional creations that really stick out, the vast majority of their products seem to be stuck in genres which make the Japanese look rather close minded.
I'm just not a fan of the Japanese RPG, I don't see them as revolutionary, I don't see them as well written, I just don't see much in them. I could look past turn based combat for a game like KOTOR, but not for Final Fantasy, the plot simply isn't there for me. I apologize if this sounds rude, I've seen so many people join the "I love Japan" or "Anime rocks, American animation sucks" bandwagons and while I have no problem with people liking another culture or another medium of film, I don't like people trying to become something they aren't by abandoning if not insulting where they came from, particularly when where they come from isn't all that bad. It's not as if the Japanese are as interested in American culture, hell despite all that they may buy into like pop rock and american clothing, many still resent Americans. Having spoken with people that immigrated to Japan for jobs, I have a mildly clear perspective as towards how the feel about Westerners, and the general feeling is not a warm one. That isn't to say that they are all the same, but there is still a feeling, one that can be likened to being a hippy in the southeast US during the 60s-70s; you aren't from around here and we don't like you.
For having played both FF7 and KOTOR, in terms of plot, FF7 is just as complex.
When counting everything established about Jenova, the planet, what happened in Nibelheim, the Mako generators, the cannon, the other characters (Rufus, Tifa, Bareth, etc.), the relation between Cloud, Sephiroth and Zack, the role of the Shinra, the Turk, etc.
No, this is definitely consequent.
Now, I'm not saying all FFs were messy like this one.
When counting everything established about Jenova, the planet, what happened in Nibelheim, the Mako generators, the cannon, the other characters (Rufus, Tifa, Bareth, etc.), the relation between Cloud, Sephiroth and Zack, the role of the Shinra, the Turk, etc.
No, this is definitely consequent.
Now, I'm not saying all FFs were messy like this one.
For the most part I find that the Japanese tend to be more creative with their games overall. As far as Anime goes I do think it is indeed better than the things currently coming out of America with a few notable exceptions, in my opinion America needs to bring back shows like exo-squad but shows like Dead Zone and 4400 are definetly a step in the right direction.
Japanese TV is just as filled with trash as American TV. A lot of people just don't notice because 1) a lot of stuff gets filtered, 2) it's a different culture so a lot of it seems new. In the end, though, the vast majority of Japanese television is all the same, and what used to seem new and different becomes insanely trite.
While that was a response to commentary on Japanese television, I do feel it speaks well for a lot of the Japanese gaming industry as well. It is particularly obvious in the field of JRPG's, but even some of their other titles are lacking originality. That, or they are built upon a single gimmick that seems fun, but not worth a full price. Cooking Mama looks like an enjoyable game, but there's no way I'm dropping $50 for it. I like Trauma Center, but if it wasn't a Christmas gift alongside my Wii I would never have dropped the cash for it. The games are fun, but not full price fun. I see that trend a lot in Japanese titles that aren't JRPG.
Currently, Capcom is the only Japanese developer that truly has me hooked to their titles. Nintendo has me interested in a few, but not as much or often as Capcom. Of course, I credit this to Keiji Inafune's own personal perspective on the industry. In his eyes, Japan is not advancing like the Western world is in game development. In order to try and push Japan forward, he figures the best thing is to take ideas that Japanese like and combine them with Western ideas. This is why they've made plenty of third person shooters that were successful in both the East and West, and have been able to market titles such as Pheonix Wright over in the states.
I always look forward to seeing what Capcom has up their sleeve, sometimes more so than Western studios. There isn't any other Japanese studio that keeps my interest, though.
While that was a response to commentary on Japanese television, I do feel it speaks well for a lot of the Japanese gaming industry as well. It is particularly obvious in the field of JRPG's, but even some of their other titles are lacking originality. That, or they are built upon a single gimmick that seems fun, but not worth a full price. Cooking Mama looks like an enjoyable game, but there's no way I'm dropping $50 for it. I like Trauma Center, but if it wasn't a Christmas gift alongside my Wii I would never have dropped the cash for it. The games are fun, but not full price fun. I see that trend a lot in Japanese titles that aren't JRPG.
Currently, Capcom is the only Japanese developer that truly has me hooked to their titles. Nintendo has me interested in a few, but not as much or often as Capcom. Of course, I credit this to Keiji Inafune's own personal perspective on the industry. In his eyes, Japan is not advancing like the Western world is in game development. In order to try and push Japan forward, he figures the best thing is to take ideas that Japanese like and combine them with Western ideas. This is why they've made plenty of third person shooters that were successful in both the East and West, and have been able to market titles such as Pheonix Wright over in the states.
I always look forward to seeing what Capcom has up their sleeve, sometimes more so than Western studios. There isn't any other Japanese studio that keeps my interest, though.
I enjoy Japanese games a great deal, but I make sure not to take them too seriously. The stories are usually interesting, if convoluted. That's just the way it is. I've been living in Japan for almost four years, and have a Japanese wife; I see all kinds of craziness all the time. You'd think that for a country that boasts such excellent math scores, they would have conventional, easy-to-understand logic. But in many of my interactions with Japanese people, where I saw a + b = c, they saw a + b = monkeycandle.
Example: I had been watching a show on TV with my wife. I was a kind of soap opera about being a office worker in a large company. Simple concept, simple execution. You know how it ends? The main character is POSESSED BY A DEMON and his heart stops!
Really? Freakin' REALLY?!
Like I said, if you buy entertainment media from Japan, expect wierdness. That's just how it goes.
Example: I had been watching a show on TV with my wife. I was a kind of soap opera about being a office worker in a large company. Simple concept, simple execution. You know how it ends? The main character is POSESSED BY A DEMON and his heart stops!
Really? Freakin' REALLY?!
Like I said, if you buy entertainment media from Japan, expect wierdness. That's just how it goes.
I think if you go back through Japanese history, especially to the Meiji restoration following the forced end of their isolationism, you'll find that as a country, their cultural tendencies towards assimilating, re-working, and embracing foreign ideas go way back. Either way, you bring up a really interesting point, and I think its very true.Arbre said:
I don't think it's worth generalizing. Someone who knows me knows some of my favorite story-telling games: Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid. American, Japanese. Neither culture is inherently a better story-teller, game-designer, etc. It's just different styles, often.
Japan is just weird in general, but their games sort of bring that to light more so than the rest of their culture.
I mean, really, would you buy, say, having a plumber go to a kingdom of mushrooms to rescue a princess that was kidnapped by an evil turtle, and his only means of attack is to crush his enemies under his body weight, unless he finds a mushroom that makes him double in size, or a flower that grants him the ability to shoot fireballs, or a star that will make him invincible for 10 seconds, all of which he finds by hitting floating "?" blocks that also have coins and beanstalks that rise up into the sky?
And that's just the concept from the FIRST game, the other ones get so much weirder in so many ways...
You try explaining something like Super Mario Bros. to somebody from the 70's, and they will not get it, at all, until you show them the game, and even then...
But the thing is, nobody ever really notices or cares how weird Japanese games are, since they're usually too busy having fun and enjoying the game to bother thinking about how it would all work.
And, really, that's the way it should be.
If you're overanalizing everything in a Japanese game, then stop playing and return it to the store, cause that's a sure sign you're not having fun.
I mean, really, would you buy, say, having a plumber go to a kingdom of mushrooms to rescue a princess that was kidnapped by an evil turtle, and his only means of attack is to crush his enemies under his body weight, unless he finds a mushroom that makes him double in size, or a flower that grants him the ability to shoot fireballs, or a star that will make him invincible for 10 seconds, all of which he finds by hitting floating "?" blocks that also have coins and beanstalks that rise up into the sky?
And that's just the concept from the FIRST game, the other ones get so much weirder in so many ways...
You try explaining something like Super Mario Bros. to somebody from the 70's, and they will not get it, at all, until you show them the game, and even then...
But the thing is, nobody ever really notices or cares how weird Japanese games are, since they're usually too busy having fun and enjoying the game to bother thinking about how it would all work.
And, really, that's the way it should be.
If you're overanalizing everything in a Japanese game, then stop playing and return it to the store, cause that's a sure sign you're not having fun.
See, people will usually gravitate toward either the weird or the familiar, and the majority of Japanese and English games will go towards their respective types. Personally, I go towards whatever is original and innovative, and it may be because the Japanese make so many different games that to go a long amount of time without playing a good one is unlikely. Plus, sometimes I play games and can't tell who made it and don't care (Shadow Hearts was incredibly quirky, but didn't seem Japanese).
How is liking Anime more than western animation an insult to a culture? It's just personal preference. Personally, I enjoy Japanese animation because I just see a lot more diversity in it, both in terms of style and content, than I see with western animation. Recently, it has been changing a bit but, at least in my eyes, western animation still has a pretty long way to go. But anyway, this is really completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, which is games.Jacques 2 said:
I would hope I'm not the only one, but I view Japanese games in the same way I view American games and European games. There's good ones and there's bad ones(usually a whole lot more bad then good, but I guess that's the nature of most mediums), and that's it. They have different predominant styles and frequently different emphasis, but in the end of the day you'd really have to make an amazingly broad generalization to say anything more specific than that. They have as many bad games as we do and the same goes for good games. They just do things differently.
The games I play tend to be Japanese more often than not, mostly due to the fact that most of the games I play happen to be either RPGs or Strategy RPGs and there just aren't that many western games that fit that(nevermind good ones) in comparison to japanese games. That's just how it is though - if you're an FPS or a sports fan, then it's pretty much guaranteed most games you'll be playing will be western games. Likewise, if you like fighting games, it's kinda hard to ignore Japanese games.
In my view, "Do you like Japanese games?" ultimately boils down to "What types of games do you enjoy the most?" than anything else.
I tried to word it in a way that it wouldn't sound that way, but what I'm saying is I know a lot of people who jump on the Anime bandwagon and starting learning Japanese, start wearing anime T-shirts, start throwing away anything western and just trying to become homogeneous with Japan's culture, or the culture that they think they have. I consider that an insult to western culture, not that I think liking anime equates to such abandon, nor do I think it is unique, there are always sheeple of one kind or another.
I like Japanese games. Grew up on the stuff. Not saying I cant enjoy a good western game. When it comes to anything Japanese I find it interesting, not weird (for the most part). I enjoy both cultures(for the most part again). Once you become less ignorant and more open-minded in these things, you'll enjoy more things. Good stuff on both sides.
I remember when FF7 first came out and all the high praise the game received. People everywhere talking about how intense and emotional the story was, how exciting the game was and what an evolution for RPGs everywhere. I played the game, enjoyed it and then moved on to FF8, FF9, FF10 and then recently FF12.
Imagine my shock, to play a game like Kotor, or Baldur's gate and see a well-fleshed out story with convincing characters, emotions and a definitive and understandable beginning and ending. All of this led me to realizing that in many, but not all of the Japanese made RPG games I was playing had these kind of bizarre stories that in the end I sometimes just didn't really get.
FF12 was the first game in the entire series that felt like it had a solid story from start to finish and of course people complained that it was similar to Star Wars or that it wasn't as deep as the previous titles. There was certainly a large group unhappy with the main character, even though I thought he worked fine for showing the story happening around him, if not necessarily to him.
I realize that this rule doesn't apply to all Japanese RPG games, but I have certainly seen my share of vague and convoluted story-telling, which to me is even worse than just a bad story.
Imagine my shock, to play a game like Kotor, or Baldur's gate and see a well-fleshed out story with convincing characters, emotions and a definitive and understandable beginning and ending. All of this led me to realizing that in many, but not all of the Japanese made RPG games I was playing had these kind of bizarre stories that in the end I sometimes just didn't really get.
FF12 was the first game in the entire series that felt like it had a solid story from start to finish and of course people complained that it was similar to Star Wars or that it wasn't as deep as the previous titles. There was certainly a large group unhappy with the main character, even though I thought he worked fine for showing the story happening around him, if not necessarily to him.
I realize that this rule doesn't apply to all Japanese RPG games, but I have certainly seen my share of vague and convoluted story-telling, which to me is even worse than just a bad story.
A little bit of both is the way to go. Sure, japanese games/series can be really, really weird, and not seldom only for the sole purpose of being weird. But sometimes, when there's some real thought behind the madness it can create a unique atmosphere that you just don't get anywhere else.
Can't really put my finger on it in games, because there's generally not that much madness in their mainstream games, but for series I guess I could mention Paranoia Agent. Of course, western culture has the same kind of writers, but they're just not given the same amount of space, probably because publishers and producers don't think there's a target audience. But we do have David Lynch and Tim Schaefer, and who wants to rack on them? : /
Can't really put my finger on it in games, because there's generally not that much madness in their mainstream games, but for series I guess I could mention Paranoia Agent. Of course, western culture has the same kind of writers, but they're just not given the same amount of space, probably because publishers and producers don't think there's a target audience. But we do have David Lynch and Tim Schaefer, and who wants to rack on them? : /
Well certainly David Lynch is a bit out there and there are plenty of crazy/bizarre American directors, but I think Tim Schaefer stills makes strange/creative games that still have solid story lines that have a logic to them that at least allows a complete story to be told.
Okay, I'm going to go out onto a very, very thin and brittle limb here (considering the prevailing opinion about Japanese storylines on this forum) and say this:
SIMILAR PLOT DEVICES DOES NOT EQUAL SAME STORY.
I'm so tired of everyone drawling on about how so many Japanese games are either totally fucked up or identical to every other one. If that were true, then we'd see identical character personalities in the same positions (primary, secondary, tertiary, etc.) doing the exact same thing. Sure, there are some games out there that mimic something to the letter, but don't say there isn't anything in the West that doesn't do that also. Look at a few characters I'm going to list off for whatever reason:
Laharl: evil, wants to rule all existence with an iron fist, main character
Marona: sweet, caring, etc., main character
Adell: honorable, fight-happy, main character
Cloud: emo, liar, savior, main character
(Legend of Mana hero/heroine): silent (save for one line), heroic out of mythology, main character
Kirby: similarly silent, lazy, childish, glutton, hero, main character
Link: honorable, randomly destined hero, sailor(?), etc., main character
I know I did mention a lot of characters there, barely scratched the surface (on some), and even didn't mention a lot of others that I could have, but if there is a stereotype, don't forget that there are A LOT of them, so it doesn't really matter.
To be fair, I will say that (at least in recent years) some western games have been getting good, I mean, look at Half-Life, System Shock, Bioshock, Portal, and whatever else everyone is tooting a horn about all the time. But good god, before you say Japanese games are doing the same thing over and over again, look at your own damned country (or hemisphere, I'm too lazy too actually look up where a lot of these games came from, but I assume it's the U.S.): GTA 1-?, apparently the Medal of Honor series is doing the same thing over and over again, WWII games in general, and (speaking of doing the same thing over and over again, the ultimate) grinding MMO's.
Japanese games have their fair share of problems and repetativeness, but I'll go to hell before I'm told that there aren't a fair share of similarly blighted western games.
SIMILAR PLOT DEVICES DOES NOT EQUAL SAME STORY.
I'm so tired of everyone drawling on about how so many Japanese games are either totally fucked up or identical to every other one. If that were true, then we'd see identical character personalities in the same positions (primary, secondary, tertiary, etc.) doing the exact same thing. Sure, there are some games out there that mimic something to the letter, but don't say there isn't anything in the West that doesn't do that also. Look at a few characters I'm going to list off for whatever reason:
Laharl: evil, wants to rule all existence with an iron fist, main character
Marona: sweet, caring, etc., main character
Adell: honorable, fight-happy, main character
Cloud: emo, liar, savior, main character
(Legend of Mana hero/heroine): silent (save for one line), heroic out of mythology, main character
Kirby: similarly silent, lazy, childish, glutton, hero, main character
Link: honorable, randomly destined hero, sailor(?), etc., main character
I know I did mention a lot of characters there, barely scratched the surface (on some), and even didn't mention a lot of others that I could have, but if there is a stereotype, don't forget that there are A LOT of them, so it doesn't really matter.
To be fair, I will say that (at least in recent years) some western games have been getting good, I mean, look at Half-Life, System Shock, Bioshock, Portal, and whatever else everyone is tooting a horn about all the time. But good god, before you say Japanese games are doing the same thing over and over again, look at your own damned country (or hemisphere, I'm too lazy too actually look up where a lot of these games came from, but I assume it's the U.S.): GTA 1-?, apparently the Medal of Honor series is doing the same thing over and over again, WWII games in general, and (speaking of doing the same thing over and over again, the ultimate) grinding MMO's.
Japanese games have their fair share of problems and repetativeness, but I'll go to hell before I'm told that there aren't a fair share of similarly blighted western games.
Small girls with very little clothing sounding like they're in pain scare me. I'm not saying Japan is filled with perverts or anything but all it takes is one little girl etc etc to scare me. However the rest is just weird because it's different so there is a huge bias in my view that way. Except for the little girl I'll always be creeped out by that even if I were to move to Japan.