Honesty, I think the reason Western games media has soured on Japanese games is because the people in western games media are growing older, while Japanese games still mostly aim at teenagers. There's certainly an element of individual taste involved as well, in terms of visuals, how far sexual content goes before being a problem, and gameplay, but stuff like grind and tons of fanservice is way more tolerable as a teenager than as an adult with limited time and after being bombarded with sexual content to the point of apathy. Also, because Japanese games generally target teenagers, they often feature teenage characters, which makes the fanservice elements extremely off-putting.
It doesn't help that due to Japan's lack of long term planning for building the reputation of their media during the anime boom of the late 90s/early 2000s, there's a deeply entrenched public sentiment that Japanese media is fucked up, creepy, etc... And when tons of Japanese games play into those stereotypes, it's not surprising that western games media would get alienated from Japanese games.
Great insight by the way! Didn't think of it that way. Some reviews I have been reading this year and the previous one appear to have some sort of anti-Japanese agenda. I cannot put it down to words but they always try to shoehorn everything into "World of Warcraft or nothing, Call of Duty or nothing, Monster Hunter or nothing"; norm versus everything. A game must be reviewed on its own first, against its prequel second and thirdly against the norm. If we are going to start with the norm first and the norm dictating the review then we might as well write one sentence and get it over with.
Some examples to elaborate my point,
Toukiden: The Age of Demons
Demon Gaze
Soul Sacrifice
Drakengard 3
"Repetitive, Monster Hunter Clone, Nothing new, Nothing innovative, Too much Violence, Too much Sex, Too much swearing".
And here is a great post,
There are things i like about Polygon and things i hate. This review falls under another thing to hate. The game is rated 18 here in Europe. I expect some gore, sex or swearing just like i would any film of this rating and yet this reviewer notes that this puts her off the game to begin with?
Maybe Polygon should give games with any kind of vaguely adult content to someone who doesn’t get offended so easily? The review suffered because of this reviewer’s quite apparent strange ( in my opinion) hang-ups (giggling at dick knights? But getting offended by someone talking about menstruation and erections?)
I’m interested in getting the game and because there is no physical game version of this in Europe and thus i won’t get trade value on it i wanted an in depth review discussing game mechanics, music, game length, replay value, stats and equipment info etc. This reviewer barely touched on most of those points and instead provided paragraphs of needless information about their personal taste and what offends them.
Every time I am trying really hard to justify that most reviews are written from professional reviewers so they know better, but every time I read these types of criticism makes me feel like I am back in kindergarten. In my eyes, a review, a professional review must follow the scientific formula, as close as possible and not come off as opinion-based article to that extend. Clarity and transparency are non-negotiable and that means informing the audience whether you are experienced with the game (let us not go into some Souls ones) or not as well as other common-sense stuff. Being a professional means being an expert and as an expert you are suppose to conduct information and findings in a manner that takes all relevant factors into account and most importantly let the audience decide. In an ideal world I would prefer to have an extended coverage breaking it down to gameplay, soundtrack, combat, ect. I want to be informed as a reader as much as possible and not read something that that predetermines how positive or negative this review will be.
And before I forget, do not put people to review everything and anything. Each reviewer should in theory review the genre he is experienced with.
Anyway, enough off-topic and pointless rambling from me for one day.