Columns What The Hell Is Wrong With Japanese Games?

Film wise I think the best cross genre piece of work which bridges East and west nicely was The matrix. There's alot of eastern influence throughout the film but it's done in a way that it's believeable.
Maybe the presence of a very real and old cultural developement (Martial arts) in the modern world helps the Japanese to suspend their disbelief. Certainly shows in the films where you have masters moving with supernatural speed and elegance.

 

Now you're confusing the issue by comparing games and films, when you just told me that I was...?

Zanbatou. Very big sword used for cutting down horsemen. That's a real sword too - while it's not got the blade length of Sephiroth's sword, it's still really big. Although anyone who wants to stand in the way of a charging horse... be my guest.

Cultural thing again... Westerners can obviously take the idea of someone lugging two guns so big they need to be tripod mounted around without issue, but can't grasp the idea of big choppy swords.

 

I've come to conclusion that living in an island drives people mad. That goes particulary well with Japanese, but also to some extent also works with Britons.. The thing with Japs is that they lived for so long in isolation from the western world and their culture hasn't mixed with other.

My myself, I'm a true J-stuff hater and just can't see any reason why I would be interested in either Japanese gamer or anime/manga in any way. I just don't see anything but similarily drawn characters all over the place.

Maybe I'm culturally limited.

 

There are only two things that I get confused about when it comes to Japanese games, one is the hentai stuff.

How is it that one country has managed to spawn the majority of that genre of games (At least, more that're heard of/known about)?

The other is the characters. Why is it a large portion of them are emotionally crippled narcissistic goons with a strange ability to attract everything under the sun?

 

Hypocritical tangents - I go there!

 

I know what direction you're coming from, and for the most part I agree with everything you said in your article. I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

 

Maybe not very creative, but it was well balanced battleground

Just like bit-tech team?!?

 

What's the deal with combatants in JRPGs declaring their special moves before they perform them? Anyone?

Is it a function of the Japanese notion of honour in battle? Or do the Japanese find it more "bad ass" for a combatant to announce exactly how he'll pummel his opponent before doing just that?

 

You've still missed the point though. Big swords in real life serve very specific purposes: Mainly cutting down horses or breaking up units of polearm wielding soldiers. The very biggest were reserved for ceremonial purposes. All of these types of swords are represented in western film/games with a reasonable degree of realism, it is physically possible to wield a claymore. Looking at the size of swords in the FF series, most of them would weigh close to half a ton if they were made of steel. No human could wield that as a weapon.

Also, carrying around lots of guns in western films isn't as prevalent as you are suggesting. Arnie used a chain gun in predator, but dropped it when it ran out of ammo. Occasionally we see the double AK47 combo, but for the most part the average hero doesn't go for that. More often they are armed with a pair of pistols, which is a far cry from impossible to carry(ignoring the difficulty in aiming such a combo).

You can pick specific examples from either culture to contradict the premise of the article, but that isn't the general trend. Lets be honest here, most western heroes of fantasy use a shield and longsword, not a claymore.

 

I've not heard of that game, is it any good?

 

Its an old school pin ball game, loads of replay-ability but not much plot.

 

j-stuff Cheesecake


but in all seriousness, im just happy there's variations. i get bored easily.

 

Yes they're no-where near the length of Sephiroths sword, and don't get me started on Cloud's sword, that would be actually impossible to lift, let alone use.

And no, I don't like films where people run around with a heavy MG in each hand, but that rarely happens, if it does, it's usually explained like in T3 where he's a ridiculously strong robot.

But then again, western film makers aren't the only ones who do this, it happens in Japanese films/TV (or Japanese inspired films) like the Matrix or Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann where a 12 year old girl with DD boobs jumps around with a .50 cal anti-tank rifle.

 

What was wrong with Hot Shots! Part Deux, all that seemed perfectly sensible to me!?!

Again I agree with a number of people here saying that variety is a good thing, of course it is, however I think it would be nice if we saw more games developers breaking from a region's steriotypical type of game and design.

Some things do bug me about the Japanese styled games, when they try to create a "realistic" type of game, and then a sudden plot twist is justified by something ridiculous like using the 'ancient and mystical power of the black gerbil' or something else completely off the wall.

 

Really funny stuff joesephine! Though it would be equally entertaining from someone in a different country talking about western games.

I've lived in Asia since I was 18, All China, Korea, and Japandering... I mean Japan.

As a nerd these are me findin's!

China-1.WOW 2. cs1.5 3. popokart (mario kart ripoff) 4. Korean dancing game (DDR with a keyboard)

Korea 1. Starcraft (duh) 2. WOW 3. Special force (CS ripoff) 4. Warcraft 3

Japan 1. WOW 2. Source games 3. Warcraft 3, 4. EA FIFA soccer 08 (hacked & free for online play!)

 

wasn't the matrix originally some manga cartoon thingy or have i dreamt this up?

a cultural thing i've noticed is that in anime the characters always have really big eyes, like, half their face big. I think they are compensating for having small eyes there

 

I think Japanese game design is strongly influenced by the need to one-up the previous games. (-Bigger hair, bigger weapons, More boobies!) The same can be said in the erogame industry there, but that's always been freaky.
In America they tend to cater to the people who want 'more of the same.' -Madden # infinity, anyone?
There's also the factor of American games 'based on the movie,' while Japanese have movies and shows based on games. (Not that the same isn't mildly true in the US.) It's just that the money being thrown around to develop games in the US often comes from Hollywood, and you can get it out faster if you drop it into an existing engine.

 

Yeah, it's awesome. Quite old now, but still good.

"Akira" was the anime that influenced The Matrix, as far as I can remember...

...

Anyhow, to continue this debate a little further... Western films come up with justifications for wielding enormous weapons, like Arnie being a robot in the Terminator films. Or him dropping the minigun in Predator when it ran out of bullets - sensible; it's next to useless once out of ammo. Cool.

But was Sephiroth was completely human? No, he wasn't, so there is the justification right there. Cloud wasn't completely human either. I can see where you're coming from when you get a 'normal' person able to lug around huge guns or leap about like they were a kangaroo on speed, but generally there is a justification for that, too... however flimsy it might be (Magical Girl...). Magic, science, whatever... there is normally a justification somewhere in the story.

Be it Western or Japanese.

 

Erm, a character with a somewhat ridiculous sword, diving into a room, dodging and deflecting bullets and then chopping the shooters up .. isn't that just about every star wars RPG/FPS game ever ?

 

I think he means the animatrix, the "prequel" t othe matrix