Achilles
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2009
- Messages
- 3,425
Ok, so I decided to start a thread to discuss (!!) this issue, mainly because Clockwork Knight dared me too, but also because I see a lot of people setting up strawman arguments like "it's anime therefore it's shit". I think most games of japanese origin are shit for the following reasons:
1. Bad art direction.I was lurking for a long time before finally deciding to register, and one of the things that I had noticed was that a lot of people here value art direction over graphics quality. Well the art direction for 99% of japanese games suck. You cannot tell one game apart from the other, they are so hung up on their anime style that it's like playing the same game over and over again. I will admit that there exceptions to this rule, but in general I find art direction in japanese games to be really bad.
2. Combat is simplistic. It may be turn-based, but it's like a heavily stripped-down version of the turn-based combat present in classic PC games of the West. Limited (if any) movement, lack of options, severely limited choices for engaging the enemy or defending.
3. Bad writing. Most storylines and characters seem like they've leaped out of the worst possible fan fiction. They are TERRIBLE for the most part, making it pretty much impossible for anyone to care about what happens to the characters.
4. Overall silliness. No, not every game has to be about grimdark space marines, but I really appreciate it when there is at least an effort to create a coherent, semi-realistic world. Throwing stuff in just because they're cool is the Bethesda line of thinking and, unless I'm mistaken, we hate that. Right?
5. Tasteless sex stuff. I find that stuff to be juvenile at best. This is also a problem with a lot of western games, but the... disturbing themes that come up in japanese games (incest, rape and pedophilia) make matters considerably worse.
These are my basic points, just to get the ball rolling. Let's see what other people think.
1. Bad art direction.I was lurking for a long time before finally deciding to register, and one of the things that I had noticed was that a lot of people here value art direction over graphics quality. Well the art direction for 99% of japanese games suck. You cannot tell one game apart from the other, they are so hung up on their anime style that it's like playing the same game over and over again. I will admit that there exceptions to this rule, but in general I find art direction in japanese games to be really bad.
2. Combat is simplistic. It may be turn-based, but it's like a heavily stripped-down version of the turn-based combat present in classic PC games of the West. Limited (if any) movement, lack of options, severely limited choices for engaging the enemy or defending.
3. Bad writing. Most storylines and characters seem like they've leaped out of the worst possible fan fiction. They are TERRIBLE for the most part, making it pretty much impossible for anyone to care about what happens to the characters.
4. Overall silliness. No, not every game has to be about grimdark space marines, but I really appreciate it when there is at least an effort to create a coherent, semi-realistic world. Throwing stuff in just because they're cool is the Bethesda line of thinking and, unless I'm mistaken, we hate that. Right?
5. Tasteless sex stuff. I find that stuff to be juvenile at best. This is also a problem with a lot of western games, but the... disturbing themes that come up in japanese games (incest, rape and pedophilia) make matters considerably worse.
These are my basic points, just to get the ball rolling. Let's see what other people think.