It's that time again, folks! Yep, it's time to listen to another Japanese developer tell us that Japanese games are terrible. Capcom's Keiji Inafune, a long-term critic of his country's industry, has stated that this year's Tokyo Game Show was dismal, with his fellow countrymen creating "awful" games.
"I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone's making awful games," says Inafune. "Japan is at least five years behind."
Inafune also believes that Capcom is "barely keeping up" with Western rivals, and even wants to start gearing his games to the roundeye market: "I want to study how Westerners live, and make games that appeal to them."
I want to defend the Japanese market, but I'm finding that the country's games are appealing to me less and less, and this is someone who was once a big JRPG nut. Nearly every JRPG that comes out now just makes me feel slightly sick, and that's no way to be.
Aside from a handful of games like Vanquish and Kirby's Epic Yarn, nearly every game I'm excited for this quarter is Western. It's pretty sad, and I really hope Japan manages to find a spark soon.
Japanese Playing a New Video Game: Catch-Up [New York Times]
Contest:
12:00 PM on 09.20.2010 | 
We're naked A LOT.
Now, the best I've seen this gen is still Tales of Vesperia. And that's 2 years old!
Really? I thought he was being kinda generous with five... I'd say ten is more like it.
I don't know about Keiji's constant bashing of the Japanese market. They seem to be doing fine in their native land. I know that it's never great to have a lockdown on only one market, but the Japanese don't dislike games, so I doubt they will ever fail.
Step 2 - make DMC 5 based off an HD DMC3 engine, and have it star Vergil.
Step 3 - profit.
And it's working, right? Quantum theory may be a Japanese stab at stop and pop, and it may not be great, but there's an attempt to branch J-Style 3rd Person Actioners out of the pre-DMC comfort zone that eastern developers mostly hang out in (aside from platinum and grasshopper)
Bayonetta, Persona 3 Portable, Valkyria Chronicles 2, Peace Walker, Mario Galaxy 2, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, No More Heroes 2, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Yakuza 3, Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver.
FFXIII, depending on your tastes and how far you actually got in the game.
Whats the biggest upcoming game coming soon?
Dead Rising 2, Inafune's game.
Vanquish is coming. 3DS is rumoured for Nov 22, Valkyria 3, Catherine, Gran Turismo 5.
It's largely depending on your taste, but Japanese gaming is strong as ever.
Is it wrong that I laughed so hard at this? I can just imagine him walking around shouting "YOUR GAMES ARE BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD".
While I disagree that those games have been the best this year, or that a few of them were good in general, I agree Japan's presence has been really strong as of late.
I mean I can't remember a time when the Eastern gaming crowd was this happy. To see the East pull these BS "Let's be more Western" stunts is really kind of frustrating to watch. And I don't even care for them.
I laughed hard at "Bieber May Cry".
As much as it's good to hear that, it's also part of the problem I think. Up until the mid 00's Japanese developers were making Japanese games, and that's what I love(d) about them. When they start to think like a Western or tailor their games to us, they lose their Japanese "soul". Millions upon millions of people bought Japanese games before they were severely westernized.
I think it's just a misconception of what people think they want, and what the providers of those wants think what is wanted of them, regardless of nationality.
Sorry about that last sentence :)
My taste liked FF13 enough to finish it, and my taste gives it an 9/10, as my tastes loved that combat system. And my taste gives Sazh a "best FF character ever" award.
I do like Japanese games, it's just that they're aren't as many high quality JRPGs. The PS1/PS2 era was a JRPG a month, with few bad ones. Not to say their are none now, I'm adoring VC1 right now. And it's Skies of Arcadia squad members.
That said, the Japanese still know how to make a high-octane action game. Unlike the west, which is loving realism/semi-realism, and getting away from zany, over the top action.
You want to make money? POWER STONE THREE. Do that shit.
Atleier Rorona and Ar tonelico Qoga are on the horizon. I believe Rorona is next week in the US. Even if it turns out below average, there are developers coming out with classic JRPG's still.
When he says he wants to make games for Westerners, it makes me worry. Many of Capcom's most flawed games have been ones that included features for the sake of courting Western audiences (Resident Evil 5 comes to mind, as well as Dark Void and Lost Planet 2). If Capcom were to completely abandon their hometown flavor, they'd cease to be Capcom.
And when I hear him say that all the games of TGS were awful - seriously, he sounds like a blind asshole. There were plenty of great f'ing games shown off.
I'll take these games over the endless streams of GTA and COD entries/clones any day of the week.
What is this? 2003?
I wouldn't argue that GTA clones are abundant, and most are pretty good.
That being said CoD and it's sister franchise Battlefield's increasingly annual entries are nothing to be proud of. They're all the same shit.
THEEEE RIIVER.
Aurain
imagine there are ppl saying the same about every recently released jrpg. they are all the same shit
"But they're not recycling the same era specific weaponry despite the game being set 40 years prior like Black Ops."
JRPGs recycle plenty enough as it is.
What's this about bad games now?
I thought of that too, but theres no definitive timescale for Black Ops.
I own two western games for my PS3 and those are Infamous, which came with the system and Saints Row 2, which I got for $5. I own two western games for my Wii, those being Metroid Prime Trilogy and A Boy & His Blob. My 360 has something like 6 western games but they're also the only games I never really feel like playing for more than a few minutes because the single player to them tends to be extremely boring (Blur, Halo Reach, Skate 3, Transformers actually had good single player but the multiplayer's now segmented and mostly dead, MW2 which is dead to me now and Splinter Cell, which I also bought for $5 and was fairly fun but short).
Compare that to the 55 games I own otherwise that are literally all by Japanese developers, all of which give me a vastly better single player experience.
And for the record, it's not time for "another" person to say Japanese games suck. It's just Inafune. He's literally the only one saying that.
What is this? 2003?
Maybe when things stop looking like they did a decade ago. I look at games like Mafia II, InFamous, Prototype, Red Dead Redemption, and a few others, and all I see are GTA clones. (Some higher quality than others, obviously.) The amount of FPSs out there that have decided to whole-sale rip-off COD are too innumerable to count, although the recent bastardization of Medal of Honor is one that hit me, considering I loved the series on the PS1 and PS2.
Stay you, Japan. We don't need any more FPS shooter factories.
Still there are plenty of good Japanese games coming. However, the great majority of them have Capcom or Nintendo behind them...