1eyedking Japanese games are shit. Here's why.

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. You mean, like most western games?

2. You mean, like most western games?

3. You mean, like most western games?

4. You mean, like most western games?

5. You mean... Wait, no. Not this one. Though, honestly, if you download porn games you can't get bothered because they have tasteless sex stuff on them. If you had instead mentioned their retarded degenerate fetishes and how they slowly corrupt everything that comes into contact with them i'm one hundred percent with you on it. But the tasteless sex stuff it's only on the porn games, so really...

Edit: If anything, i should say i admire they can come up with porn games that actually have gameplay, good writing, and pervasive atmosphere (Saya No Uta being the prime example) that are pleasure to play regardless of the tasteless crap, instead of because of it. Compare that with western porn.

Edit 2: All this talk about atmospheric porn with twisted plots and much perversity gave the inspiration i needed to continue my Enzai LP! The entire Codex thanks you for it, i am sure.

I can apply all of those to most modern western RPGs.

Hobo Elf said:

I can apply all of those to most modern western RPGs.

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This and what BC wrote.

But honestly Japanese games are way more often original and imaginative. Even if coming from twisted and sick imagination. At least thats a plus.

Quick reply: I have no doubt that you can complain about the same stuff for western games too. That is, after all, why we think that gaming is shit nowadays. The japanophile side argued that these games are not just "as shitty as western games", but actually good.

So you can't really get out of the argument by simply claiming that "western games are shit too". I would expect to read some arguments on why these games are good.

The Japanophile side argued that some, and actually a some composed by very few games, is actually good, the same that can be said about the western industry. And, even then, the Japanophile side actually accepted that the games aren't perfect, which goes beyond what many of the non-Japanophiles can accept about their favorites.

The point isn't all Japanese games are good. The point is some japanese games are good, a concept that seems hard to grasp for a not small part of the locals.

the fuck with this japshit

Black Cat said:

The point isn't all Japanese games are good. The point is some japanese games are good, a concept that seems hard to grasp for a not small part of the locals.

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Fair enough, please pick one of your favorite games and explain a) why it's good b) if any of my complaints can be applied to it. If you don't, I won't consider it as any sort of "retreat" or "backing down", so feel free to participate only if you feel like it.

Malakal said:

But honestly Japanese games are way more often original and imaginative. Even if coming from twisted and sick imagination. At least thats a plus.

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Imaginative, how? I don't think that coming up with weird creatures is especially imaginative or hard. Western developers don't do it because the audience prefers grimdark, not silly stuff.

Most games released today are shit, country of origin matters not.

Alexandros said:

Western developers don't do it because the audience prefers grimdark, not silly stuff.

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Which explains exactly why the games they release are shit. The "audience" prefers grimdark, so lets make all the games the same. Doesn't differ a bit from the Jap way of recycling stereotypes and cheap comedic relief.

In before Black Cat getting trolled AGAIN and repeating her argumentation for the n-th time.
Do you really think that Alexandros missed 2-3 recent threads where all this shit was discussed back and forth?

I mean:

• Edgy topic - check
• Shitty arguments - check
• Alexandros - check

Verdict: 1/10, try harder, BRO.

Alexandros said:

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:

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Alexandros said:

Bad

suck

really bad

Bad

worst possible

TERRIBLE

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Writing a dozen paragraphs consisting of "shitsux" isn't any more elite than saying the same thing on an one-liner, you know

If you were gonna present those as "reasons", you could just have posted and be done with it.

I mean, look at that smug motherfucker, tell me you don't wanna jump at him and twist his neck mid-sentence

1. Bad art direction. This is actually the weakest point of your collection. IT's not much as bad art direction as games in one subgenres tend to have similar art direction. For example, the FF style, the anime style, grimdark horror style (Resident Evil anyone?). It's a nation's industry, remember? not just a continent like USA. They influenced each other quite heavily. ANd yet some game goes out of that subgenre's art direction. FF style (and Dragon quest series too), with FF9 change a bit into anime style. Sengoku style (Dynasty Warrior, Samurai Warrior, ShogunTotal War) with Rance Sengoku jump into another different direction.

2. I am not too sure about combat in true turn based. Probably you are right, since I dont find combat in Jgame too hard. But some snickers inside my minds tell me that there may be exception. :/

2a. And if you talk about real time, Hack and Slash actions of the Jap is in a clash of their own, Dynasty Warrior, Samurai Warrior, lotsa other games too. The Jap set their own style in this genre. Anyone remember the Jap-imitated action game Joanne of Arc? That's just bad.

3. bad Writing. This is pretty common in Jap games and yet I cant help but thinking we are talking about English translations here. How about their quality in original Jap? This can only be answerd by some Jap-literate Codexers. I think Kessen 3 got good writing. Samurai warriors 2 also not too bad in term of characters. And fuck you but FF8 got qualities of its own among its various writing faults. Chrono Cross? ROmance of three kingdoms series?
And boyo, if you are talking about their genre of interactive fiction it's another can of goodness altogether: FateStay Night? Type Moon?

4. Overall silliness is actually not a bad thing in my book. Bad excution of that is, but good excution is not. Sengoku Rance anyone?

5. Tasteless sex stuffs? This is guilty as charged. The Japs are frankly bad at sex stuffs. There simply no romance, no pure love, no feelings in the sex.... excuse me what are we talking about? Sex in games by its very nature is tasteless. Do you ever play a game with tasteful sex in it? I want to know.

EDIT: and before some bastards mention that games today are shit I want to mention two :honor: tittles: Unreal World and Academagia. UW is buggy as hell but it's good enough for a few months. Academagia is too new and the devs produce dlc (free), and patches regular and fast like clockwork. of the West.

Ed123 said:

Jesus, it's like setting fire to an ant-hill.

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No, that would be criticizing Arcanum. All such threads end up as 10+ pages long mountains of butthurt.

Let's face it western gaming died just after bloodlines was released and killed troika, because gamers are just that retarded. If i have to delve into snes games to find passable "new" stuff to waste my time, i will.

The real question everybody should be asking themselves is, are there Japanese counterparts to the great western classics?

Lyric Suite said:

The real question everybody should be asking themselves is, are there Japanese counterparts to the great western classics?

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Alexandros said:

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.

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http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic ... t=#1324478

But no matter how many times people type out some equivalent of that post, you're just going to regress to HURR ITZ ALL ATTACK/SPELL/FLEE HURR STUPID JIPJOP BULLSHIT NOT ENOUGH ARYANS. Why the fuck did I decide to start posting sensibly again? I don't even like JRPGs as a whole, I've gotten bored with every SMT I've played by/before the endgame, but I'll give them credit where they're due instead of just throwing out the usual unsubstantiated "banal shit boring" argument. Whereas you cunts are entirely unable to distinguish between "meh, it has its good and its bad points, it's pretty good on the whole" and "NO NO NO ANIME BULLSHIT HOW DARE YOU JAPANOPHILES SUGGEST THIS IS WORTH A MOMENT OF MY PRESTIGIOUS MONOCLED TIME WHEN I COULD BE PERFORMING BRIAN SURGERY I DON'T LIKE IT I DON'T I DON'T I DON'T MY REPUTATION IS INTACT I'M ELITE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BELIEVE I'M ELITE"

Lyric Suite said:

The real question everybody should be asking themselves is, are there Japanese counterparts to the great western classics?

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Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaken Land. It's as good as if not better than most of the PC classics of yore. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne rivals them in a lot of ways, but what many people consider its strengths - having to delve deeply into the system to the point where many tough battles are more like puzzles than fights - I found wearying and made me stop halfway through. But, again, I can give it credit where it's due.

Alexandros said:

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.

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Is it? For example Tales of eternia had a fast, intuitive, 2D combat that looked like fighting game. Characters used skills according theirs AI, aggressivity setting, and skills permitted to be used in the combat by theirs leader. While it was sometimes: No, these are weaklings don't use that extraordinarily SP expensive magic at these wimps when just behind them would be another combat this time with someone harder. That and it also had killer end fight.

Star Ocean. Somehow detailed fast intuitive combat where attack depended not only on skill, but also on guts.

Disgaea depended not only on combat tactic, but also on preparation before combat. (items modification, creation of henchmen, or modifying difficulty of encounter up or down...)

Makai kingdom didn't even bothered with hexes, hexes are outdated, real man use circles and allow units to move freely.

Eternal poison is based on somehow complex combat. It's one of few games where your opponent can say: "It's no fun beating you up when you can't even scratch me. See ya."

Alexandros said:

Fair enough, please pick one of your favorite games and explain a) why it's good b) if any of my complaints can be applied to it. If you don't, I won't consider it as any sort of "retreat" or "backing down", so feel free to participate only if you feel like it.

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Sounds like a fun little exercise. Say, Strange Journey.

Why is it good? Old school, hardcore dungeon crawling completely overloaded with twisted multi level dungeons that throw every trick on the book at you. Awesome party customization options, basicaly you can recruit every single monster in the game, train them, fuse them into new forms that inherit some of the skills the previous forms learned, add the sources of other demons you have befriended to add skills they can't normally learn or inherit. Alignment system that actually matters on the gameplay (the combat, the recruiting, the exploration) instead of just on scripted plot-based checks. A simple combat system with surprising deep: Affinities, elemental weaknesses, elemental resistances, status effects, critical hits, buffs, and debuffs all have a part to play, and to truly play the game as it was intended (read: No grinding) you need to learn to use all those things in tandem. An interesting art style that doesn't has a lot in common with anime, regardless of what one's critical opinion on the art style is, and a pretty unique soundtrack.

On the other hand the writing isn't stellar, the plot is preachy, and you can tell what role is every character going to play on the story from your second or third, at most, dialogue with them, so i guess it has bad writing. However, their roles are all MegaTen ones so it isn't as obvious if you aren't a MegaTenist, and one of the characters (Jimenez) actually goes through more character development than any character i have memory of in a recent western game, and regardless of how weird the situation is the game manages to be atmospheric when it needs to be atmospheric, and silly when it needs to be silly, and epic when it needs to be epic. Those are highly elite operatives fighting with pixies, gnomes, demons straight out of the medieval grimoires, angels, etc and managing to make their radio chatter feel like you are inside Aliens instead.

Some people would say the setting is silly, and it is, but then it's kind of the point:


So the pop culture references and the weird silliness are actually coherent with the setting, though it's up to you if the explanation works or not.

On the other hand, there is some intentional fourth wall breaking silliness, but then any game where you can actually discuss with a random encounter that yes, your character is a guy but you, the player, are a girl and thus you'll prefer if they don't comment on how hot or smexy certain female demons are in your presence and then watch the hilarious reactions of the demons to the revelation gets my vote. The same when you get to discuss videogames with a Knocker (and it actually makes some sense if you know the Knocker's lore), etc.

That last one i guess depends on how much are you bothered by post-modernist narrative techniques and styles on your videogaming.

Lyric Suite said:

The real question everybody should be asking themselves is, are there Japanese counterparts to the great western classics?

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It depends. On horror games? They win. In classic plataformers and Metroidvania type games they are better, on cinematic plataformers the west is better, in cinematic action games they win, and the west wins hands down on first person action games. In dungeon crawlers? They are at least equal to the west classic ones, and are the only ones who are still making them, and those they make are really beautiful games. On Fallout-like games? They don't have an equivalent to the genre, so there's nothing to compare. Just like the west doesn't has a Danmaku equivalent. On fighting games? They win. In strategy games i believe the west wins but they are the only ones still making turn based ones so the point is moot. On action role playing games? I personally prefer the japanese ones, but i feel that's personal preference here.

On weird conceptual artsy games it depends: If you make Rusia and the like part of the west the board is balanced, if you don't make Rusia and the like part of the west they win, hands down.

They also win in electronic choose your own adventure books, interactive porn, and dating sims.

Edit: I forgot, the west wins on Space Combat Simulators too.

Ed123 said:

Jesus, it's like setting fire to an ant-hill.

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Mostly because the people who complain about the lack of quality discussions are usually the same ones who evaluate games like this

fucking retarded in every other field.

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Even the BUMFACE was slowly reverting to normal, and you people want to break him again. Heartless monsters.

Way to miss the point, bro

Way to miss the point, bro²

edit: I'm an attention whore. My job is to ruin threads

Black Cat said:

1. You mean, like most western games?

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Can you please post a list of western rpg's that represent their characters as omghowcute 5 year old kids?

on cinematic plataformers the west is better

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I dont remember a single good "western" platformer outside of DKC maybe.
Does anyone remember shit like Turrican ? God that was crap, with many sequels and ports, and we ate it raw.

And what is a "cinematic platformer" anyway ?

Hamster said:

Black Cat said:

1. You mean, like most western games?

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Can you please post a list of western rpg's that represent their characters as omghowcute 5 year old kids?

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And that has to do with the five points on the original post in which way, exactly? If you want to add a sixth point reading awful character design, though...

6. You mean, like most western games?

And i can also make you a pretty long list of japanese games that doesn't do the thing you just mentioned, so what's your point again? I mean, other than pulling random uninformed criticism out of your ass.

Lightknight said:

I dont remember a single good "western" platformer outside of DKC maybe.

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Indeed, that's why i said Japanese developers win in the classical plataformer genre, no competition.

Lightknight said:

And what is a "cinematic platformer" anyway ?

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The Sands of Time, for example.