K.Exactly.
It's everything: videogames, cinema, mainstream books.
The problem is the same.
and it is a western developed game.Expedition 33 is deep, mature, layered, and unabashedly itself. It wasn't focus tested, Corpo fucked, or cynical. It was passion and art.
It single handily renewed my belief in the medium. But also why I haven't picked up a game since. Im tired of wasting my time with slop.
Would rather have that than the terrible dialogue, politically driven design choices, cringe stories, shitty pacing where awesome moments lead to nothing outside of a display. Weak character building and more.Oh yes, done many times before.
As opposed to Resident Evil 9, or some overly acrobatic samurai sword wielding action game, or maybe a turn based RPG with ridiculously dressed youths in it. Or any of the above but styled with a cartoon aesthetic.
.. Fucking genius.
Same here haven't played anything since I finished it. I honestly thought I was kind of done with gaming, started on the NES and I thought nothing would surprise or grab me anymore.Expedition 33 is deep, mature, layered, and unabashedly itself. It wasn't focus tested, Corpo fucked, or cynical. It was passion and art.
It single handily renewed my belief in the medium. But also why I haven't picked up a game since. Im tired of wasting my time with slop.
This is it exactly. I mean… exactly how I felt.Same here haven't played anything since I finished it. I honestly thought I was kind of done with gaming, started on the NES and I thought nothing would surprise or grab me anymore.
Well the problem is not that I am getting old, stuff really has been subpar for the last 15 years.
Of course there's exceptions, particularly indies, but nothing to really wow me until E33.
I know you know I know that.and it is a western developed game.
The United States is not the entirety of the west.
Am playing Super Mario Wonder currently.Are you saying mario doesn't have great gameplay?
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Speaking of all this insistence on overloading games with excessive systems, sounds like an overcompensation for their lack in the remaining areas. Kinda their way of "stuffing" games with busy work to keep people distracted and preoccupied to question the "fun" they're getting. Same goes for propping up games with super high fidelity graphics. Its become a crutch for a lack of imagination. That crutch is becoming less and less effective as time goes on though.As someone who works in the biz, yes, Western developers (AAAs mostly) are particularly terrible right now and it's fucking exhausting. The games are bad. The art styles are bad, the gameplay is clunky, and there's typically no originality or spark of creativity you need to be an effective twist on a well-trodden idea. The bigger problem is that there's an insane insistence on throwing in more mechanical systems or bigger worlds, or other shit that a focus test might've suggested was a good idea, but that few people in reality actually want. And ironically, that's what's massively amplifying the cost and thus, the risk, of developing said game. This is because the exec teams are typically not gamers and most don't even have a casual interest in or basic knowledge of gaming. This is especially true with big tech, where everyone wants to make a fuss about how they're "all in on gaming" but everyone staffing the project is just some reject from that company's app store or video platform. I'm rarely impressed with the actual dev teams I've met with at the big studios. I'm most definitely not saying there isn't talent there, but "go along to get along" is 10000% the order of the day. If you are really good at what you do, you should probably not be working at one of these farms.
And the Western devs are the ones that get all the airtime. You hear the industry is dying, because you will typically only hear their bullshit message parroted. The sky isn't falling. They're just fucked. But it doesn't matter - you run that line of bullshit enough times, and the whole industry starts to believe it. I think the success of Clair Obscur might have finally driven the message home that you can have a highly profitable game that actually goes all in on a novel concept, especially because that success is arriving on the heels of Helldivers II, Manor Lords, Palworld, and of course, Baldur's Gate 3. These dipshits are finally starting to pause and say "hey wait, you mean I'm a fucking imbecile?"
Anyway, Western indies are a lot better. They've also gotten into a rut of just copying the same roguelike deckbuilder piece of shit we've seen a trillion times, but there's still a genuine creative spark there for a lot of teams, and that's encouraging. I'm glad that Japan figured their shit again out at some point, because my God, somebody has to be able to deliver good games with a decent budget behind them.
The point is, you're completely right, OP.
From European devs so far this gen (that I can recall):Sorry, but no.
There was a time in which Europe delivered banger after banger, from the Batman: Arkham trilogy to Battlefield 3 and 4 or the Bad Company duology, from MotorStorm and DriveClub to Burnout Paradise and Criterion's Need for Speed games, from Mad Max and Dying Light to Hitman and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, from The Witcher 2 and 3 to Mafia II, from Inside to Resogun, from Payday to The Division, from Killzone 2 to Crysis, from Alan Wake to Heavy Rain, from Mirror's Edge to Metro 2033 and Last Light, from Dishonored to Remember Me, from a MediaMolecule that released games to a Lionhead that ran wild under Peter Molyneux's command.
100% this. You can throw in Arrowhead for Helldivers 2 and Housemarque for Returnal too. Europe is entering a bit of a golden age right now. The US though? Seems like the corporate Kool Aid has done a number on them.Depends on what you mean by western. Maybe US/Canada studios like Bioware, Obsidian, Ubisoft Montreal or Bethesda are in a rut, but European studios like Warhorse (Kingdom Come Deliverance 2), CD Projekt (Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty), Larian (BG3), Sandfall (Expedition33), Hazelight (Split Fiction), Remedy (Alan Wake 2), Tindalos (Aliens Dark Descent), MachineGames (Indiana Jones), Starward (Invincible), GSC (Stalker 2), Owlcat (Rogue Trader), Mundfish (Atomic Heart), Asobo (Plague Tale), Bloober (SH2 Remake), Astronauts (Witchfire)....I could go on, are having time of their lives and I am loving their games.
Nothing personal and this isn't directed at youThis wasn't any more clear and apparent to me then when I played Expedition 33.
Expedition 33 is deep, mature, layered, and unabashedly itself. It wasn't focus tested, Corpo fucked, or cynical. It was passion and art.
It single handily renewed my belief in the medium. But also why I haven't picked up a game since. Im tired of wasting my time with slop.
(And it is the same problem across all of media.)
It's all opinions man. Does it borrow heavily from old FF, monolith, atlus, etc? Of course.Nothing personal and this isn't directed at youRaven117 but I can't wait until 6 months or a year from now when everyone stops riding E33's d*ck.
I just don't get it. It was a mediocre game with easily broken combat, cliche story beats, and some glaring flaws (i.e. lack of mini-map, etc...)
I guess it's the turn-based, JRPG-style RPG for people who only play Final Fantasy, because pretty much everything released by Monolith, Atlus, and Falcom in the last decade beats the pants off of E33 in my opinion.
I really just do not get why this game is as popular as it is. It's great that people love it, but it's not for me.
Nothing personal and this isn't directed at youRaven117 but I can't wait until 6 months or a year from now when everyone stops riding E33's d*ck.
I guess it's the turn-based, JRPG-style RPG for people who only play Final Fantasy, because pretty much everything released by Monolith, Atlus, and Falcom in the last decade beats the pants off of E33 in my opinion.
The fuck they are.They are doing much better than Japan.
Only China is better.
Bitter old man hot take (also from a fan of a platform were most top western devs don't publish their games).Are Western Devs the worst they have ever been these days or am I just having a bitter old man hot take?
Both make the same game over and over again.The fuck they are.
Capcom and From alone are dragging their nuts across the West. And I'm not even a massive Capcom fan.
Western character designs and tropes.Both make the same game over and over again.
From games are fucking hideous and only getting uglier with every release.
China >>>>>>
GTA 6 >>> Japan output this gen
By now, can we even consider Square Enix an eastern company? they been trend chasing western games since the merge with Enix.Nah you're right, they're just fucking awful these days. That being said, Eastern games aren't always great either, look at Square's recent string of slop.
Dogma 2 was a wet fart that nobody gives a fuck about anymore and wilds disappointed a shitload of people And from made 2 games that nobody asked for and smell of easy cashgrab (nightreign and the switch stuff).The fuck they are.
Capcom and From alone are dragging their nuts across the West. And I'm not even a massive Capcom fan.
I should have excluded Metaphor from my comments. That's the one recent Atlus game that I did not like at all.Metaphor: ReFantazio is Tropes & Cliches: The Game.
Sure, but you leave out the massive RE success and soon to be Onimusha. I didn't say they were perfect, none are, but averages wise. The major western devs have to climb out of the woke/dei hellhole they put themselves into first.Dogma 2 was a wet fart that nobody gives a fuck about anymore and wilds disappointed a shitload of people And from made 2 games that nobody asked for and smell of easy cashgrab (nightreign and the switch stuff).
If we speak about lately, they haven't exactly scorched earth around them...
Monster Hunter: Wilds | Japan (Capcom) |
Assassin's Creed Shadows | France (Ubisoft) |
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II | Czech Republic (Plaion) |
MLB The Show 25 | USA (Sony San Diego) |
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 | USA (Microsoft/Activision) |
Game Title | Country of Origin |
---|---|
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 | USA (Activision) |
EA Sports College Football 25 | USA (Electronic Arts) |
Helldivers 2 | Sweden (Arrowhead Game Studios) |
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero | Japan (Bandai Namco) |
Elden Ring | Japan (FromSoftware) |
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth | Japan (Square Enix) |
Tekken 8 | Japan (Bandai Namco) |
Dragon's Dogma 2 | Japan (Capcom) |
On average, they are dragging their nuts across the west. Sometimes the nuts just graze the nose, sometimes they're in the mouth, but more than 50% of the time there is some nuts to face action. That's your position?Sure, but you leave out the massive RE success and soon to be Onimusha. I didn't say they were perfect, none are, but averages wise. The major western devs have to climb out of the woke/dei hellhole they put themselves into first.
From has those two smaller projects, and will just drop another bomb and business will be per usual.
About 66% nut action.On average, they are dragging their nuts across the west. Sometimes the nuts just graze the nose, sometimes they're in the mouth, but more than 50% of the time there is some nuts to face action. That's your position?