Square Enix Devs Offer Perspective on Western Game Making

[freboi]

After reading this post I realize that these two Enix developers *still* don't understand the difference between their games and western rpgs. First thing they reference is macho men in first person shooters? How about the entire grindfest aspect of their games?

And how are japanese rpg characters more believable for that matter? I freely admit I dont play many JPRGs, but I am reminded of Hope from FF13. Every few seconds he pisses himself in fear in the game, then he turns out to be the most irreplaceable character in the game when building alternate parties. How is some 10 year old boy the cornerstone of every decent party I ever made in that game? How is that realism? At least they admit they lack believability.

Regarding certain character types....I have to admit I agree with them partly. I think both sides could do a bit of a shaking up in that department. In the last 5-6 years I think i've played a total of possibly 5 japanese games. Every single one had some underage girl jailbait character who they try to make attractive for the pervy subway train gropers over there. These girls are seemingly ubiquitous in japanese games, nearly as numerous as the macho men in american shooters. It's kind of a shame the direction japanese games have gone in my opinion. As a kid growing up, I was fed a steady diet of japanese games on NES and loved so many of them. Its like as soon as games went 3 dimensional, the japanese (rpgs in particular) went off in their own direction.

 

[1blackone]

People, you're taking that comment out of context. Have you forgotten how Japanese developers are basically white-washing their games to appeal to the West now? The news has been popping up on the Escapist, you know. These devs are basically commenting under the assumption that "you're going to see us doing this, too, whether we like it or not." This was by no means a criticism or attack on Western game aesthetics and I'm baffled as to how you'd interpret otherwise.

I suppose reader bias and laziness has a lot to do with it.

This had better not mean the cookie-cutter badasses will be invading the Japanese gaming industry; I go to them when I can't take it any more and want a bit of fantasy for once -.-

And yep, nice to see the rawr-jRPGs-are-teh-sux crowd rearing once again..

Hear, hear.

Is the Anti-JRPG crowd REALLY out? look at the posts above you. Except for one, they have been nothing but descriptive-not pejorative-of a standard jrpg. I myself love Japanese games and JRPGS and actually OWN all the titles i referenced (im on my growth egg run in FFXIII and im going 2nd playthrough in ToV with all legendary weapons with 2x exp on) . Highlighting a trend and denigrating something are not mutually exclusive: i wasn't saying they are BAD because they keep using the same tropes, only that THEY KEEP USING THEM, just like western games, that's all.

You, sir or madam, assume.

 

[Ericb]

Seems to me like those to guys might have touched a nerve there.

The next posts will probably confirm my suspicions.

 

[Lt. Vinciti]

". They said that trying to make believable characters resulted in a certain character type - rugged, macho soldiers - being fairly common in the West."

So.....ladybois are how it should be done....I mean Japan has so much to offer in the terms of character when 96% of Final Fantasy games consist of "Wait...is that a girl or a dude?"

 

[Snotnarok]

I haven't seen a well made JRPG in ages. Infact the most recent ones would be Persona 3, but even around that time there's nothing. I'm playing Breath of Fire IV and loving it but I can't get into any newer JRPGs they're all just dumb.

Japan seems to have evolved differently than the US, they use little stick figures who look like flat chested girls but are as strong as the terminator. This would be fine in some games but it seems to be nearly ALL their games. In BoF4 you're more of a stocky farmhand who looks able and is so, but that's just something that seems to have faded away after the PS era, even BoF5 has a stickfigure Ryu.

Edit: My other MAJOR hatred spawns from all the new games/animes with those stupid sidekick characters that are like little animal dolls that float around say stupid things and then get punched for it but are mainstays in the game. I hate that it's in EVERYTHING now.

 

[FloodOne]

Wow, Western audiences hating the Japanese aesthetic. How original.

 

[CJ1145]

I have to say, this insight was interesting but not useful at all. If I ever get to talk to these two the first thing I'll tell them is that American gamers are very, VERY aware of all the uber-macho men that are in our games, and enjoy their ludicrous nature. However, Japan's own stereotypes are so downtrodden and gloomy that it's really hard to laugh at the bad ones. Instead, we just wish we were playing something else. That is the fatal flaw of Japanese video game characters: Stupid, but not in the fun way.

 

[Scrythe]

Japanese developers telling Americans to be "more realistic" is like the Crazy Cat Lady telling telling Dr Phil to "get real".

I'll never forget that every time I sit down to play Final Fantasy: Belts and Zippers XXVIII, Super Long Title: Schoolboy Fights Demons or anything by Capcom or Konami, that they strive for realism in games. It's quite inspiring really.

Meanwhile, Americans games that strive on so much realism that every game looks exactly the fucking same (see: The World Is Brown FPS or Space Marine FPS) doesn't fit the Japanese standard of realism.

What we need are more demons in our Halos, more schoolgirls in our Call of Dutys, and everything in between must be filled with overbearingly exaggerated drama.

Real Talk.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

>.>
<.<

is it just me, or am I the only one who likes JRPGs? probably.

let me translate what Enix is saying.

Westerns: better at realistic gameplay but not characters.

Eastern: Vice versa.

I'm gonna get my ass kicked for saying that.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I've had a working theory that the main characters in many American and Japanese games reflect national mindsets in a particular way: American heroes tend to be outwardly powerful (huge muscles, an "I've seen it all and I don't care anymore" attitude, grim determination in the face of any odds) while Japanese heroes tend to be inwardly powerful (amazingly strong/agile despite an ordinary appearance, usually due to some sort of superior training or heightened spiritual power, as well as introverted and emotional).

Of course, the optimum outcome is usually somewhere in between the two.

OT: I don't think believability and macho protagonists are neccessarily causally linked. An important factor is making the protagonist relatable, a fact which all developers, Japanese, western and other, would do well to reflect upon.

This is exactly right. I don't care if I'm playing as a three-foot-tall pink dinosaur with pigtails, so long as there's a convincing reason WHY I'd want to play as this three-foot-tall pink dinosaur with pigtails. Give me a character I want to be, whose story I want to see played out, and you'll hook me a lot faster than photorealistically-bitmapped sweat pores or boob-jiggle physics.

[small]I don't mind if you leave in the boob-jiggle physics, though. But not on the damn three-foot-tall pink dinosaur, please.[/small]

 

[Marik2]

Ohh yeah the androgenous heroes common in the east is very belivable -_-

Oh but it is

 

[twm1709]

The videogame industry seems to try to take inspiration (usually in terms of aesthetics) from that which has proven a success in related media .
For America, its movies.
For Japan, its anime.
Both cultures are hard to mix because they have different rules. Has anyone seen the Wolverine anime teaser? or the Dragon ball movie?

 

[Ancientgamer]

Ohh yeah the androgenous heroes common in the east is very belivable -_-

You'll notice that nowhere in the quote does it say that.

 

[freboi]

is it just me, or am I the only one who likes JRPGs? probably.

let me translate what Enix is saying.

Westerns: better at realistic gameplay but not characters.

Eastern: Vice versa.

I'm gonna get my ass kicked for saying that.

You arent the only one who likes jrpgs. The best gaming experiences of my life were NES/SNES jrpgs. I play some of the later incarnations of those games that have come out recently, just to see if I can stir up a bit of that old nostalgia. I am not alone in this either. For people in my age group, we fondly remember the day when jrpgs were the jewels of an otherwise pretty boring era for gaming. Back then you had 10 terrible games for every 1 game that was halfway decent, and the jrpgs made up a large portion of the "decent" games.

Regarding your translation, its slightly off compared to what they were saying, but I still just feel the need to disagree. If people in real life behaved half as annoying as most characters in modern jrpgs do, people would have backhand slapped them into submission by now. Unless you mean purely physical aspects of the characters? Then yeah, I guess they are physically more realistic for the average person. But lets not forget they tote around ten foot long swords with tiny noodle-thin arms? How is that any more realistic than the bulging arms, strong space marine type character?

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

But lets not forget they tote around ten foot long swords with tiny noodle-thin arms? How is that any more realistic than the bulging arms, strong space marine type character?

I'm going to take the piss and say "slightly more realistic."

Flame shields up.

 

[archvile93]

Ohh yeah the androgenous heroes common in the east is very belivable -_-

Yeah, case in point, pretty much any character in a JRPG, particularly what's-his-face in FF13, the one with the boomerang. In all the cutscenes he's a whiny pussy, but the second your in battle he can single handedly use said boomerang to beat some superpowered god creature to death. At least western characters tend to look like they have the strength and equipment to kill their enemies. And their backrounds usually show them to have the skills as well. They tend not to just pull them out of their ass whenever a monster shows up.

 

[mjc0961]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Who the fuck is Square Enix of all developers to talk about what other devs are doing wrong? This thing is a laugh riot! Western games aren't realistic enough? Right, let me just go to Square Enix town where the girls look like boys and the boys look like girls (that or you can't tell either way; what the fuck is that thing in the article's picture supposed to be for example), everyone has outfits and hairdos that don't fucking exist in reality, and everyone carries swords that are the same size, if not larger, than they are.

God damn SE, just when I thought I had reached the absolutely possible level of disrespect for you, you go and blow a hole in the floor to reach a new low.

 

[inarvan]

Unfortunately, these kinds of debates are ultimately pointless. What people like and don't like is a matter of taste. I, for instance, despise most RTS games. I could tolerate the old turn-based strategy titles. I like RPGs a lot, but I can also enjoy a good hack-n-slash action game or shooter. I don't care for the omnipresent androgynous hero/ine that shows up in nearly every Japanese game these days. I find almost every anime I've been subjected to by friends who swore it was totally awesome to contain overwrought teenage angst and high-school level romance stuffed into purportedly adult character interactions. You could formulate the greatest RTS of all time and I would still not want to play it. You could create the most epic anime in history, and I probably wouldn't like it.

However, those are simply my personal preferences. I have friends, as I just mentioned, who love anime. There are tons of people who adore RTS games. These things are personal tastes. The Japanese should continue to do their thing, as it pleases a lot of people. The Western devs should keep up their work, because it likewise pleases a lot of people. If the two can learn from each other, great - as long as they don't screw up what I like.

 

[archvile93]

Ohh yeah the androgenous heroes common in the east is very belivable -_-

Yeah, case in point, pretty much any character in a JRPG, particularly what's-his-face in FF13, the one with the boomerang. In all the cutscenes he's a whiny pussy, but the second your in battle he can single handedly use said boomerang to beat some superpowered god creature to death. At least western characters tend to look like they have the strength and equipment to kill their enemies. And their backrounds usually show them to have the skills as well. They tend not to just pull them out of their ass whenever a monster shows up.

>.>
<.<

is it just me, or am I the only one who likes JRPGs? probably.

let me translate what Enix is saying.

Westerns: better at realistic gameplay but not characters.

Eastern: Vice versa.

I'm gonna get my ass kicked for saying that.

Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Dragon Age. There, western games with realistic character personalities and development. Yes, I know they all are Bioware games, but they're western and that's what count. Hell, I'd say they're more realistic since their characters tend not to pull skills they didn't have thirty seconds ago out of their ass. Oh Half Life 2 did this pretty well as well, except with Gordon obviously.

Hey, lousy post error

Unfortunately, these kinds of debates are ultimately pointless. What people like and don't like is a matter of taste. I, for instance, despise most RTS games. I could tolerate the old turn-based strategy titles. I like RPGs a lot, but I can also enjoy a good hack-n-slash action game or shooter. I don't care for the omnipresent androgynous hero/ine that shows up in nearly every Japanese game these days. I find almost every anime I've been subjected to by friends who swore it was totally awesome to contain overwrought teenage angst and high-school level romance stuffed into purportedly adult character interactions. You could formulate the greatest RTS of all time and I would still not want to play it. You could create the most epic anime in history, and I probably wouldn't like it.

However, those are simply my personal preferences. I have friends, as I just mentioned, who love anime. There are tons of people who adore RTS games. These things are personal tastes. The Japanese should continue to do their thing, as it pleases a lot of people. The Western devs should keep up their work, because it likewise pleases a lot of people. If the two can learn from each other, great - as long as they don't screw up what I like.

Sorry, but people keep adding things I'd like to comment on after I posted. Anyway, I don't hate the fact that other people like Japanese games, I hate it when someone points out a flaw another has while also having their head so far up their own ass that they fail to notice the obvious fact that they have the same problem and act like they're better because of this. Essentially, they're hypocrites.