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[kennyamr]

Each person will feel different about this.

It's a matter of personal taste.

Having said that, Japanese studios are in way better shape than during the PS3/360 era.
We can see that just by looking at the games.
They are definitely back on track.

 

[djtiesto]

They're the only ones still doing games with a budget behind them, on a regular basis, that:

-embrace the 'gamey' elements, i.e. bosses, combos, i-frames, hitstun, dodge-canceling
-don't adhere completely to trying to recreate a simulation of the real world, i.e. have their own physics and mechanics
-embrace more unique settings and out-there character designs
-place a strong emphasis on great music in varied genres
-not afraid to challenge the player or kill them off, forcing the player to constantly improve and master their systems
-(although we're starting to see more repetitive open-worlds from Japan lately) the environments that feel hand-crafted chock full of little details that really create a sense of place (see: Shenmue, MGS, RE4, Skies of Arcadia)
-more likely to make games in the genres I prefer (turn-based RPG, shmup, 2D platformer, beat-em-up)

 

[N.Domixis]

They feel like games you would play in previous gens. They are about gameplay first graphics when ever. Western games are either open world, corridor shooters, or online shooters with graphics first gameplay if they get to it,

 

[Inuhanyou]

great games, aesthetics and good systems and general things that apply to my tastes.

Can also apply to many parts of Japanese media imo

 

[888eddyx]

Stuff like this.

 

[JustSomeone]

I don't know, the last japanese game i cared about was smt 4 appocalypse. None of those 2017 Q1 japanese games mentioned in the OP does anything to me.
Only zelda is interesting but even that takes a back seat to torment and wildlands

 

[Grim Patron]

Scorpio.

 

[Ascheroth]

What has happened is that the Japanese games we're seeing on consoles and handhelds aren't so driven by western mass market trends like AAA western console games are. Japanese developers tried that for a bit during the early Xbox 360 years and it failed. Even during that era though, while people were complaining about all the trends western devs were following, many Japanese games ignored what the west was doing for better or worse. Today, a few are taking what I would consider the positive aspects of western games that actually have something to contribute to what they're doing, but aren't trying to copy the whole focus-tested approach whole hog.

There are mass market trends that are taking over the Japanese market, but they're different from the ones prevalent in the west. In the west it's console games going more towards online services, open worlds with XP and loot dropped everywhere, etc. In Japan it's the shift towards mobile games and gatcha games in particular. You can see this with what happened to Konami. As a result, the Japanese games that do reach consoles aren't the ones trying to be all things to all players, they're the games that are already targeting a more focused audience, and thus are more able to stick to a more narrow design vision. RE7 is a pretty good example -- Capcom budgeted the game so low compared to RE6 that it was satisfied with selling just 2 million copies. It looked at what western horror games were doing, borrowed what worked, but didn't try to become a carbon copy of Outlast and Amnesia.

Western console games that aren't possessed with ticking all the AAA box points are becoming exceedingly rare. Most of the recent ones I can even think of are being published by Bethesda Softworks, which has been just about the only big western publisher still doing a lot of single player games that can be completely enjoyed offline: Wolfenstein, Dishonored 2, DOOM, and eventually Prey. The last couple Deus Ex game are a good example to look at. Both of them try to nail a balance between tight and focused but also open-ended level design while all the big action games are either COD-style corridors or open worlds filled with busywork. Deus Ex Human Revolution did a lot of things action games just don't do anymore in how it approached its systems and how the player can interact with the environment. Deus Ex Mankind Divided did those same things, but even it couldn't escape from AAA trends, since it had to have that Breach mode and other stuff connecting players to whatever social network Square Enix was trying to set up. I think people love Witcher 3 so much because it applies AAA budget and production value to an experience with a relatively focused design. It's not really concerned with being Skyrim or Call of Duty. It may have learned some lessons from Skyrim but still set out to largely be its own thing. As a result, Witcher 3 does quest design and world design in a way that felt new and interesting to a lot of players.

Most of the western games that aren't falling into these issues with AAA focus-tested design, but aren't tiny indie games, are on PC. A lot of them seem to be kickstarter games too --- the kickstarter CRPGs, Elite Dangerous, etc. Those games depended on enough people displaying their interest in ideas that in today's market are pretty unique.

Great post.

 

[Jimnymebob]

Maybe the music.
I like that a lot of Japanese games tend to have level themes that are designed to be catchy, whereas Western games tend to focus more on an epic score. Take Uncharted for example; everyone know's Nate's theme, but xould you hum any other piece from the soundtrack, and then compare it with Super Mario World, where every song is memorable.

Of course, this can go both ways, but generally I feel that Japanese game soundtracks are stronger.

 

[KodaRuss]

I don't know, the last japanese game i cared about was smt 4 appocalypse. None of those 2017 Q1 japanese games mentioned in the OP does anything to me.
Only zelda is interesting but even that takes a back seat to torment and wildlands

I find this really hard to believe but that is why we are all different I guess.

I am personally loving Nioh so far, cant wait for Nier and Persona soon. Will play Gravity Rush 2 and Yakuza 0 at some point. RE7 at some point as well.

I am loving this strong japanese gaming market right now.

Maybe From Software had something to do with this revitalization because they hit their stride when a lot of the big names were struggling. They created a game no one else dared to make back then and it was just what we needed.

 

[MissDeviling]

I like Japanese art direction a LOT more. Music and gameplay are often very good too.

 

[ar4757]

Playing games that are foreign are interesting and feel unique

Something like that anyway. Like with Persona and Yakuza and TWEWY taking place in Japan itself, it is like tourism

Edit: And their music is almost always waaaay more memorable to me. Pokemon, SMT, etc

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Playing games that are foreign are interesting and feel unique

Something like that anyway. Like with Persona and Yakuza and TWEWY taking place in Japan itself, it is like tourism

Edit: And their music is almost always waaaay more memorable to me. Pokemon, SMT, etc

Hell yeah to your edit. I'm listening to this right now and this exact thought popped into my mind, so I came into this thread to mention it... but you beat me to it.

(It's a remix by a western artist but still)

 

[Nuu]

On average, Japanese game developers not only pay attention to simple things such as control fluidity and neatly packaged presentation, but they also tend to craft a game withon its means. They rarely add unnecessary fluff to their titles that overbite the core game mechanics.

Just compare Japanese platformers vs Western ones. The Japanese ones tend to put a tremendous focus on just controlling your character and jumping. The character may have an attack button or two, but that's it. In contrast Western platformers often have the characters doused with a huge arsenal to choose from, multiple craft systems, etc. This is fine and all, but these focuses often come at the expense of the controls and platforming.

In shorter terms, Western developers tend to focus on pushing the genre for the sake of it, while Japanese ones only add things when necessary. For an extreme example compare Nintendo vs Ubisoft.

That said things are starting to change with more Western developers going indie and emulaing the classic games of old, and notavly sized Japanese developers "Westernizing" their games to get a bigger piece of the global marketshare

 

[RM8]

I love games regardless of regions, but my love for Japanese games comes from gameplay, music, and charm. Japan has lower lows, though (horrible animu art, extreme sexualization, everything was a high school in Tokyo, etc), and the indie scene can't compare to the western indie scene, period.

 

[djtiesto]

Another thing I haven't seen covered in this thread is the approach to iteration taken by both western and Japanese devs:

I notice that many western companies will see a unique feature of a popular game, and then bolt that onto their game regardless of how well it gels with the other mechanics - How many games after Halo had refilling health? How many games after COD had XP and loot boxes? How many games after Gears had waist-high walls and cover mechanics? While there is some merit to this, it results in games quickly feeling samey, even across what-should-be different genres.

While, even though some Japanese companies have become infamous for iterating in direct sequels (Dynasty Warriors, SF, Mega Man), they're also not opposed to doing their own thing instead of borrowing the popular mechanics of their day. Hell, take a look at some of the earliest Famicom sequels and look how different they were (Zelda 1 vs. 2)! Though this means that many times, really great ideas won't get immediately (or ever) ripped off. *sigh* Grandia combat system *sigh* Blue Dragon encounter system *sigh* BOF5 scenario-overlay system *sigh* But it still gives a feeling of uniqueness to games that would be contemporaries of one another - look how vastly different the gameplay of post-SNES RPGs can be and all the hand-wrangling we still have over this.

 

[JCX]

They're usually not afraid of being video games, which is nice.

 

[Snakeyes]

Gameplay-first design principles.

 

[dugdug]

Resident Evil 7 has a big western influence, but it still feels Japanese.

I think the only thing that feels Japanese about Resident Evil 7 is how bad the shooting is.

Spoiler

I keed, I keed.

 

[Dragonslayer_023]

I love games regardless of regions, but my love for Japanese games comes from gameplay, music, and charm. Japan has lower lows, though (horrible animu art, extreme sexualization, everything was a high school in Tokyo, etc), and the indie scene can't compare to the western indie scene, period.

I assume by "sexualization" people mean "attractive female character designs" which is actually a pretty big plus in my book.

 

[mindatlarge]

Japanese culture has always fascinated me. Seeing that blended into their games is always enjoyable for me. Like for instance the Persona series.

 

[Watch Da Birdie]

Charm.

Especially in terms of characters, Japan just has this "oomph!" I find most Western games lack---I think looking at say the classic mascot characters, the big point that sticks out to me is that the West puts all their effort and focus on the central character, and everything else typically suffers as a result.

Take Crash and Spyro, I think their original designs were fairly nice and they were full of personality as well as a design that did a good job at communicating their abilities, but for the most part the rest of the designs lack that cohesion. The enemies in both games do well enough to illustrate their abilities and weaknesses, but they're just so bland---Crash's bosses are alright enough, I'd say Cortex could've stayed a popular villain alongside Bowser and Eggman had his series stayed on track longer, but the enemies are so "blah", it stuck out to me when I played through them recently. The only real "mascot" enemy you have in Crash are those scientists, otherwise the rest of the basic enemies are typically like normal animals. They don't fit the mood of the game---Crash taking down mostly regular animals feels off since he should be representing nature---and have no presence. Which is weird since as I said before the bosses are fairly personable and unique. Mario, Sonic, Kirby, all of those series have a strong starring character and typically the enemies are also memorable and iconic, though Sonic suffered during the 3D days when it went to generic 'bots and such.

Spyro fails even more on this front, the enemies in all the Spyro games are extremely bland to the point after the first game all the Orcs were dropped, and I don't even recall what the enemies in the later games were---basically whatever they could toss together? The original Spyro had a nice sense of cohesion, a fairy-tale world and pitting Orcs vs. Dragons worked, but they didn't give the enemies enough presence so starting with 2 and especially 3 they just tossed in everything and the kitchen sink. As much as people like to bash Sonic's friends, at the very least they typically feel like they make sense alongside Sonic while Spyro's friends were a hodgepodge of weirdos. A cheetah? A penguin that talks like James Bond? A spy-themed monkey that doesn't talk like James Bond? It's weird as fuck.

Japan blows away the West in terms of overall character design each and every time in my opinion.

 

[Gai Murakumo]

I cannot fully pinpoint it but the overall estectic and attention to detail that quite a number of Japanese developers tend to do in comparison to Western developers. Not to say that some Western developers do this as well, it is just the Japanese do it on a more consistent basis.

 

[orochi91]

I'm just there for the plot.

JP games have interesting plots, usually, as well as decent VA and OSTs.

 

[EvB]

Japanese games always take more risks than the Western devs. It's a fact.

Thanks Donald.
Just saying it's a fact does not in fact, make it a fact

 

[Bits N Pieces]

No idea why they are so beloved, on here especially. They're just not my thing.

More power to those that love them though.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

No idea why they are so beloved, on here especially. They're just not my thing.

More power to those that love them though.

GAF's huge lol.

 

[Servbot24]

They know what they are. TLG knows what TLG is, and it doesn't try to be anything else. It goes all in on being itself, and that makes it very focused, unique, and high quality where quality is relevant. Same for games like Nioh, Souls, Persona, Nier, etc.

Western games tend to be a lot less focused. They think they have to do everything. Games like Dragon Age and Assassin's Creed are a jumbled mess. Just playing them makes me feel cynical and icky.

That's a huge generalization of course. Games like Journey and The Witness prove what Western studios are capable of.

 

[Zukkoyaki]

I feel like Japanese games and developers are far more self-aware. By these I mean they know they don't have the biggest budgets in the world and such so they tend to focus on mechanics and appealing to their audience first in foremost. They don't make games with the intention of everything being a blockbuster. They have a vision for their releases and they stick to it without trying to do too much.

They also aren't afraid to throw in laughs, goofiness and jokes into their games. Stuff like Bayonetta knows that it is completely batshit insane so why not roll with it and even have the game acknowledge it at times.

 

[Jeronimo Jones]

I don't actively categorize games by where they're made, but I'm cool with having options and happy that I can appreciate the variety. I embrace the goofiness of MGS and Yakuza, but there are limits to which Japanese games appeal to me.

A few weeks ago, a friend said in voice chat that I'm always playing "weird games" and should to join his COD squad. I laughed because I was playing Titanfall 2.
If that's weird, wtf is Yakuza 0?

 

[Bits N Pieces]

GAF's huge lol.

lol, I know that

But would it be okay to say that for mainstream gamers a lot of Japanese games feel like niche games? Like RTS is a niche genre of games but any announcement related to a game in that genre will see a thread on here get to a couple of pages then fall off the front page. For a lot of Japanese games that get posted here the threads explode with hundreds of comments in an hour.

Im not saying there's anything wrong with that, GAF is huge but Japanese games seem to punch above their weight relative to the market. From my perspective anyway

 

[DMONKUMA]

They how to make great and fun combat systems

 

[Servbot24]

lol, I know that

But would it be okay to smash that for mainstream gamers a lot of Japanese games feel like niche games? Like RTS is a niche genre of games but any announcement related to a game in that genre will see a thread on here get to a couple of pages then fall off the front page. For a lot of Japanese games that get posted here the threads explode with hundreds of comments in an hour.

Im not saying there's anything wrong with that, GAF is huge but Japanese games seem to punch above their weight relative to the market. From my perspective anyway

I would imagine this is because a lot of gaffers grew up playing games back when Japanese developers were dominant, so the themes that carry over today resonate with a lot us still.

 

[A-V-B]

Besides some different principles in craftsmanship?

For me, it's old Japanese entertainment culture + decades of intimate contact with the West, resulting in a mix of the two that's simultaneously weird as hell and incredibly on point. See: Kojima, Katamari Damacy, Resident Evil, Dead Rising, Silent Hill.

 

[gelf]

It's really hard for me to describe why most of my favourite games of all time are Japanese barring having a general preference for melee combat and fun boss fights for which Japanese companies have had a far better track record with. Doesn't explain everything as my favourite racing games and shooters are largely Japanese too.

I actually hate most anime art and all the pandering but am able to avoid the worst offenders of that and still point to a lot of favourites. I don't play many JRPGs though.

 

[tiebreaker]

No idea. I've been playing Nights of Azure recently. Can't really say where this game excels, it's pretty much mediocre across the board, but I actually enjoyed it.

No, it's not the boobies.

 

[traffiktiger]

They are in many cases unique, fun, & imaginative. Also I usually like third person games & jrpgs better than first-person games & western rpgs.

 

[MoonFrog]

Besides some different principles in craftsmanship?

For me, it's old Japanese entertainment culture + decades of intimate contact with the West, resulting in a mix of the two that's simultaneously weird as hell and incredibly on point. See: Kojima, Katamari Damacy, Resident Evil, Dead Rising, Silent Hill.

Yep. Japan's entertainment has been oddly outward looking, if less so in recent years.

Heck, just thinking of the original Zelda art as the way Tezuka saw LotR is so cool.

Surprised I don't see more of us noting this in the thread, because I love how Japan reaches out to us and touches us in ways that are familiar yet foreign.

Helps you look at yourself and your world in new, often strange yet prescient eyes as well as look at another world through how it sees yours.

 

[Bits N Pieces]

I would imagine this is because a lot of gaffers grew up playing games back when Japanese developers were dominant, so the themes that carry over today resonate with a lot us still.

I'm 37 and have been gaming since I was about 8 years old, I've played and loved stuff like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Metal Gear, Devil May Cry etc but those feel like Japanese devs making a western game, its the 'Japanese' Japanese titles that I've never really played but that's on me rather than the games.

 

[PsionBolt]

For quite some time now, I've bee trying to pin down that special quality that makes a game feel masterful. (Not all games with this feeling are Japanese, but many are, so I think it applies here nonetheless.)
For the sake of being able to write about it in a clear, concise manner, I've waded through a whole bunch of terms and buzzwords, trying to find a singularly descriptive word or phrase for what I feel when I play certain games. I haven't found it yet. I've thought about "cohesion", "intentionality", "self-awareness", "resonance", "elegance", and so many others, but nothing quite has the right ring and the right implication. I don't want something vague or hoity-toity; the feeling is tremendously specific and simple, despite being so difficult to articulate. I'm sure you've all felt it yourselves.

Basically, though, it's something like this: the sense that all of the game's discrete elements are working in harmony with one another; that the inclusion of each was decided upon in service of a common goal; that there is a reason or meaning behind each; that these reasons complement one another; that entirely unique players will be reached by the game in similar ways, given similar levels of insight.

...Thinking about it now, maybe one elegant way to say it would be that the game permits and responds to a critical eye, or that the game offers incentive and reward to inquiry.
So many works in this medium do not do these things; if you try to "read" them, you find only the video game equivalent of Kelly Mows the Lawn. There's nothing beneath the surface -- or perhaps more often, what's beneath the surface is significantly less interesting than what's atop it.
But truly masterful games, like all masterworks, can be appreciated more and more the more of your head they occupy.

This still doesn't really explicitly say what the je ne sais quoi of masterful games actually is, but I hope I've at least been able to explain why it's so appealing to me.

 

[Seik]

I personally don't like Japanese games. They feel very outdated. Bad graphics. Bad character animations, usually not realistic and very stiff, especially facial animations.

Sometimes they're too "gamey" I don't know. I like realistic, cinematic experiences.

Spoiler

I wish Yakuza is made by western devs.

To each their own, but the reasons why you hate them are the same for why I love those so much.

I love my games to be gamey, arcadey and non-realistic AKA Suda 51/Platinum/Nintendo/Sega.

 

[lightchris]

I can't really put my finger on it myself. In the end it's just a vague feeling of:

Charm.

Probably resulting of a combination of different factors in both gameplay and presentation (artdesign, sound design, music, story, characters..).

There's one concrete aspect I can think about though: Humor. On average it just feels more.. good-hearted to me, plus at the same time quirky and surprisingly natural. Which in the end is more enjoyable and funny.

 

[Tain]

I like the fact that most of their characters seem to be breathing through their skin. I mean, just guessing based on their character designs

there are a whole lot of bad japanese character designs but

"most of their characters" hm

 

[prudislav]

I just love that they are not afraid to go over the top and embrace the crazyness , western stuff is usuqlly way too based in reality and grounded and thus kinda samey.

For example most of the western fantasy games are prettymuch pretty much all based on just Tolkien-esqe low and high fantasy worlds and tropes. Japan just embrace the wild like Gamiundustri world in Nep series, disgaea world, whackiness of Dragon Quest or the worlds in FFseries to name a few
- even their western-esque worlds are bit crazy compared to western stuff ( dd or souls)

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I'm 37 and have been gaming since I was about 8 years old, I've played and loved stuff like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Metal Gear, Devil May Cry etc but those feel like Japanese devs making a western game, its the 'Japanese' Japanese titles that I've never really played but that's on me rather than the games.

Those are still Japanese games though. When I think of Japanese games, Metal Gear, DMC, and RE are three of the first franchises to come to mind.

I mean, yes, RE and MGS are both basically Japanese takes on western culture, but there's still something inherently different about them, something that carries with it the Japanese appreciation for aesthetic and attention to detail. The character designs, the atmosphere, the dialogue - it all feels distinctly Japanese. All you have to do to see the difference in design philosophy is compare Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. Metal Gear Solid has goofy moments along with its deadly serious moments, and places a large emphasis on its story and characters. (Let's forget about MGSV). Splinter Cell feels more like a gritty spy movie (not that that's a bad thing). You would never find things like MGS2's long codec calls, or MGS1's structured boss fights against FOXHOUND, in Splinter Cell.

When I think of western games, I don't immediately call to mind Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, or Call of Duty. I mean, there's also stuff like Deus Ex, Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, etc. All of these have the "looser" western feel to them. I wish I could find the words to describe it, but wandering around Novigrad and talking to NPCs in The Witcher feels distinctly different than doing the same thing in, say, a Zelda game. In The Witcher it feels more casual. In Zelda it feels more methodical. I think this has to do with the difference in how western and eastern societies view things, which bleeds into their media as well.

Likewise, Japanese games shouldn't immediately call to mind stuff like Atelier, Disgaea, or even Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. There's a spectrum, and those games are further towards the end of it, the same way CoD and GTA and the like are for the western end. But no matter where a game is on the spectrum, it's going to carry the spirit of whoever developed it, and western and eastern games both have a distinct feel to them.

 

[Tarextherex]

Playing games that are foreign are interesting and feel unique

Something like that anyway. Like with Persona and Yakuza and TWEWY taking place in Japan itself, it is like tourism

Edit: And their music is almost always waaaay more memorable to me. Pokemon, SMT, etc

That's a very interesting point, a lot of Western games have settings that feel very superficial and hip, but don't really add anything to the game. Meanwhile most Japanese games, even the ones that aren't in Japan, have a very strong sense of culture attached to them. MGS's story might not be for everyone but you can't deny the creator's passion for history and movies. The way it fits in small details such as codec conversations is what makes MGS so much more memorable than the hundreds of other games taking place in the same era.


This isn't totally exclusive to Japanese games though, a lot of older Ubisoft games definitely have this as well. Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil are both pretty cartoony but feel more like a franco-belgian comic book rather than cartoon/anime. Prince of Persia had a very underused setting, I remember being very surprised to see an Arabic video game hero.



Other than that most replies in this thread nailed it, their focus on game design/embracing the fact that they are videogames really makes better experiences. Too many Western games feel like a jumble of cool-looking mechanics that make for an easily marketable product, but actually playing them feels like a chore

 

[bigjig]

Actual good gameplay.

 

[muteki]

It is what I grew up playing.

 

[opricnik]

They know what they are. TLG knows what TLG is, and it doesn't try to be anything else. It goes all in on being itself, and that makes it very focused, unique, and high quality where quality is relevant. Same for games like Nioh, Souls, Persona, Nier, etc.

Western games tend to be a lot less focused. They think they have to do everything. Games like Dragon Age and Assassin's Creed are a jumbled mess. Just playing them makes me feel cynical and icky.

That's a huge generalization of course. Games like Journey and The Witness prove what Western studios are capable of.

Tlg journey and witness all are very bad games imo. Glorofied walking simulators

 

[InsaneFandom]

I generally prefer western games but japanese games can be awesome too

I just think they're overall weirder
This is not a bad thing.
It seems they're a bit more free to throw in things that are batshit crazy or just plain odd that'll baffle the player, whereas western games tend to avoid that in favour of being realistic / believable

As always there are probably a ton of exceptions but I think it works as a general rule.