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[Joel Was Right]

As someone who is not well-versed into Japanese games or IPs, they have -- from a casual distance -- appeared technically limited when compared to AAA Western titles. I've browsed a few comments about this topic and the opinions tend to be summed up as follows:

• Japanese games struggled to get into the HD era, with budget and production costs.
• Games tend to be AA due to budget constraints.
• The Japanese audience seems more content with gameplay mechanics and art design more than pixels and next-gen engines

I wanted to hear from people who are more familiar on the subject: where are we now with Japanese games in terms of next-gen engines, and will the divide continue, shrink or grow?

 

[Danjin44]

Most Japanese devs other than Capcom, Square and Kojima are not willing spend crazy amount of budget for graphics like western devs do. Their priorities are different than western devs and it also helps them sales their games reasonably well without needing to do COD numbers in order to be successful.

 

[{insert code here}]

The Japanese audience seems more content with gameplay mechanics and art design more than pixels and next-gen engines

It's basically this. From Software has been using the same engine/framework for 15 years and they're one of the most successful companies in the world. Its like instead of running towards the uncanny valley like most western studios have, they realized that PS4 graphics were good enough (they are) and therefore commit most of their time to mechanics, gameplay, and story (thank God).

 

[Joel Was Right]

It's basically this. From Software has been using the same engine/framework for 15 years and they're one of the most successful companies in the world. Its like instead of running towards the uncanny valley like most western studios have, they realized that PS4 graphics were good enough (they are) and therefore commit most of their time to mechanics, gameplay, and story (thank God).

How do these games fair on current gen hardware? Some recent examples e.g. FFRebirth, Metaphor, seem to be heavily CPU constrained, only performing on high-end PCs.

 

[GermanZepp]

 

[LectureMaster]

The Japanese audience seems more content with gameplay mechanics and art design more than pixels and next-gen engines

This is the way to go and I'm loving it. Folks trashed Rise of the Ronins graphics so hard but I didn't mind because the Team Ninja crafted such a addictive combat system. On the contrary, as much as I like Ghost of Tsushima, the combat system wasn't able to entice me from beginning to end for my whole 90+h play time.

 

[Danjin44]

It's basically this. From Software has been using the same engine/framework for 15 years and they're one of the most successful companies in the world. Its like instead of running towards the uncanny valley like most western studios have, they realized that PS4 graphics were good enough (they are) and therefore commit most of their time to mechanics, gameplay, and story (thank God).

Most Japanese devs let their art direction do the talking rather burn money to make high tech graphics....

I mean just look at this....

Star Wars Outlaws Has Sold Just 1 Million Copies In The Month Since It Launched

Star Wars Outlaws has sold just one million units since being released at the tail end of August 2024. Check out the full story here.

insider-gaming.com

We are talking about Star Wars here, the most popular IP in world with biggest mass appeal.


Meanwhile at Atlus...

 

[R6Rider]

Both have pros and cons.

A huge con from many Japanese devs specifically is archaic mechanics when it comes to dialogue, transitions, menus etc.

 

[ozz ex machina]

Sales figures, review scores and profitability have proven Japanese studios won the long term battle. Short term during the 360/ps3 boom they were left behind, but we all realised how much more important art direction and game mechanics (remember gameplay you western AAA studio slophouses?).

The race to graphical polish and fidelity just results in bloated studios full of whiny employees who don't actually like games, where the games cost so much to make they have to appeal to the lowest common denominator of moronic consumer, making the games dull as dishwater for anyone who actually likes games.

Both have pros and cons.

A huge con from many Japanese devs specifically is archaic mechanics when it comes to dialogue, transitions, menus etc.

By archaic mechanics - you mean videogame mechanics? And not boring cutscenes copied from bad TV and movies? What you want is an interactive movie with no menus, gameplay or text. No doubt a big fan of the Sony "winning" formula.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Passion versus cash grab

For the players versus for the stakeholders

Art versus product/service

 

[tkscz]

As someone who is not well-versed into Japanese games or IPs, they have -- from a casual distance -- appeared technically limited when compared to AAA Western titles. I've browsed a few comments about this topic and the opinions tend to be summed up as follows:

• Japanese games struggled to get into the HD era, with budget and production costs.
• Games tend to be AA due to budget constraints.
• The Japanese audience seems more content with gameplay mechanics and art design more than pixels and next-gen engines

I wanted to hear from people who are more familiar on the subject: where are we now with Japanese games in terms of next-gen engines, and will the divide continue, shrink or grow?

It's pretty much that simple, the focus is on how the game plays vs how the game looks. Whether that be for budgetary reasons or artistic ones is up to the developer but it's not because Eastern studios "struggle to get into the HD era". They also like having that extra control using their own engines vs using one from other companies. This way they have an easier time getting what they want out of a console whereas they'd have to put in many extra hours to get the same results from another engine. A Capcom dev could do a lot more in much shorter time with the RE Engine (which stands for Reach for the Moon Engine and not Resident Evil Engine) than take time to get use to UE5 and not get as much out of it without having to put in months of time to dig into it.

Adversely, I believe the focus western devs have on using engines to do everything for them is starting to take it's toll. With newer development teams not really knowing how to code well enough to do as much as Japanese devs. Still can't believe how many western devs were confused at how Nintendo got the physics engine working for TotK on the Switch. With a proprietary engine, they can work around limits much easier than with an engine they didn't make.

 

[Skelterz]

Quality, respect, integrity Japanese games are usually made to be rewarding and fun western games are looking to extract money from the consumer and seen more as a way of spreading a message these days.

 

[Big Baller]

HD town

Capcom has one of the best engines out there. Bandai Namco releasing bangers with Unreal. Konami and Square too. Nintendo games never looked better. From Software still holding it down. Astrobot looks and plays great. What else we got?!

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I don't know but I'm sure it has something to do with honor and shame. As a long standing Japanese culture expert, I can tell you that Japanese games have the nicest save files of all.

 

[{insert code here}]

How do these games fair on current gen hardware? Some recent examples e.g. FFRebirth, Metaphor, seem to be heavily CPU constrained, only performing on high-end PCs.

Can't comment on current gen hardware since I jumped to PC. Not sure where you're getting your info about games only running on high-end PCs, I mean Rebirth hasn't even launched on PC yet so no idea how anyone would know it's CPU constrained. I definitely do not have a high-end PC and I'm playing everything at 60fps.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Their jiggle physics are miles ahead.

 

[Magister]

Good graphics are nice to have, but they don't mean that the game won't be boring or terrible.

My playtime is occupied by Japanese games, indie and AA games. From my experience they tend to have better gameplay or fucus on unique genres and experiences I prefer. I don't give much shit about AAA games these days as most of them are creatively bankrupt.

Isn't it funny how most succesful modern AAA games now are remakes? People really miss the good times.

 

[Danjin44]

Their jiggle physics are miles ahead.

 

[killatopak]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Japanese games more limited in scope, and still skew to anime art. Western studios try for realism much of the time. That's a matter of taste. But its not often you'll see a Japanese studio promoting the latest greatest technological leap. It's more about style.

Western games also dominate lots of genres, since these gamers have a bigger scope of interests. That's why the tech focus is heavy in western studios because they need to cater to different expectations. While Japanese gamers seem to shun these genres like the plague: shooters, sports, racing, RTS, MOBA, big open world GTA or UBI kinds of games. Probably some more genres I missed. These are the kinds of genres that amp up with flashy new game engines and RT or whatever fancy visual thing is next.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

Most Japanese devs let their art direction do the talking

feel like half of it's geared toward horny 12yr olds

girl riding a bike? upskirt
girl completing a math equation? boobs jiggle for some reason
girl picks something off the ground? looks up and its BJ time

but japanese gameplay = best gameplay

 

[Elog]

Animations/combinations/movement variants/hitboxes are so much more tighter than almost any western game on average. I am always baffled by why Western developers (generalization I know) mostly seem to think about this as an afterthought. For me the 100% opposite to most Japanese games are the Ubisoft AC games - often great graphics with combat/weapon variants/ability evolution that is a complete snooze fest (in comparison).

 

[Saturn Dragon]

Japan = fun

West = concord

 

[Rush2112]

Japan = demons souls (ps3)

West : horizon zero dawn remaster

 

[{insert code here}]

Their jiggle physics are miles ahead.

 

[SHA]

There are Japanese games that apeal to western audience and Japanese games that shows it's culture under different parts of the world, I prefer the latter one even if it sounds like Anime cause it's genuine, the former one isn't bad but straight double A cause it puts western face value on their logo, it's not bad but it's not AAA either.

 

[Utamaru1706]

By archaic mechanics - you mean videogame mechanics? And not boring cutscenes copied from bad TV and movies? What you want is an interactive movie with no menus, gameplay or text. No doubt a big fan of the Sony "winning" formula.

It's more than that, IMHO, where there's still many Japanese game devs that stuck in the past in terms of implementing basic features for their game, regardless how big of small their companies are.

Take one of my most played game for example, which is Gundam Battle Operation 2, where this game were made by Bandai Namco + released in 2018, and it's an online PvP game. But even though this is an online game, the online features that it had is absolutely laughable for a game that were released in 2018.

Some examples:

• It doesn't have dedicated servers, and instead it's using peer-to-peer
• You can't reconnect to the match again if you're disconnected
• No in-game voice chat
• No tutorials or whatsoever for new players
• You can't report players
• No spectator mode on custom rooms

The devs adds more features throughout the years, but they also removing stuffs, like:

• Removing text chat from ranked match (you can only use preset chat wheels to communicate with other players)
• They added reporting a player system, but only for reporting your teammates, and you can't report your opponents
• Removing group sortie from ranked matches

Remember, this game is made by Bandai Namco, which is one of the biggest Japanese game companies, but they somehow can't implement basic online features like most western games, and they somehow stuck in early 2000's during BattleNet era.

Hell, you could still see many Japanese games that were released in 2020 and above with laughable online features, where they're still light years behind compared to western games, and they seems don't want to improve it...

 

[NuclearDiarrhea]

Japanese devs want to make video games.

Western devs want to make movies.

 

[R6Rider]

By archaic mechanics - you mean videogame mechanics? And not boring cutscenes copied from bad TV and movies? What you want is an interactive movie with no menus, gameplay or text. No doubt a big fan of the Sony "winning" formula.

I mean things like fading to black for transitions for simple characters moving, disappearing, etc. I mean having the game cut to dialogue camera positioning while characters awkwardly stand there and speech bubbles appear, often times for the most mundane of tasks. Having small "cutscenes" when completing tasks on repeat and not varied is another big one.

Example from Tears of the Kingdom:
You're at a stable and want to get your horse.
You should be able to walk up while a prompt appears dynamically to take your horse or give other options.
But no, instead you have to wait for the NPC to walk over to you, activate the dialogue mode, spam continue through dialogue, press the button to get horse, then more dialogue, and finally your horse will appear.

No doubt a stunningly stupid set of assumptions on your part.

 

[fart town usa]

This is the way to go and I'm loving it. Folks trashed Rise of the Ronins graphics so hard but I didn't mind because the Team Ninja crafted such a addictive combat system. On the contrary, as much as I like Ghost of Tsushima, the combat system wasn't able to entice me from beginning to end for my whole 90+h play time.

Hell yea.

And Ronin is gorgeous too with the lighting and color palette. Absolute dorks acting like the game is some ugly mess. It's shameful how that game was treated.

 

[Joel Was Right]

I mean things like fading to black for transitions for simple characters moving, disappearing, etc. I mean having the game cut to dialogue camera positioning while characters awkwardly stand there and speech bubbles appear, often times for the most mundane of tasks. Having small "cutscenes" when completing tasks on repeat and not varied is another big one.

Example from Tears of the Kingdom:
You're at a stable and want to get your horse.
You should be able to walk up while a prompt appears dynamically to take your horse or give other options.
But no, instead you have to wait for the NPC to walk over to you, activate the dialogue mode, spam continue through dialogue, press the button to get horse, then more dialogue, and finally your horse will appear.

No doubt a stunningly stupid set of assumptions on your part.

It's more than that, IMHO, where there's still many Japanese game devs that stuck in the past in terms of implementing basic features for their game, regardless how big of small their companies are.

Take one of my most played game for example, which is Gundam Battle Operation 2, where this game were made by Bandai Namco + released in 2018, and it's an online PvP game. But even though this is an online game, the online features that it had is absolutely laughable for a game that were released in 2018.

Some examples:

• It doesn't have dedicated servers, and instead it's using peer-to-peer
• You can't reconnect to the match again if you're disconnected
• No in-game voice chat
• No tutorials or whatsoever for new players
• You can't report players
• No spectator mode on custom rooms

The devs adds more features throughout the years, but they also removing stuffs, like:

• Removing text chat from ranked match (you can only use preset chat wheels to communicate with other players)
• They added reporting a player system, but only for reporting your teammates, and you can't report your opponents
• Removing group sortie from ranked matches

Remember, this game is made by Bandai Namco, which is one of the biggest Japanese game companies, but they somehow can't implement basic online features like most western games, and they somehow stuck in early 2000's during BattleNet era.

Hell, you could still see many Japanese games that were released in 2020 and above with laughable online features, where they're still light years behind compared to western games, and they seems don't want to improve it...

It sounds like so far, the argument here is:

• They've not needed to do anything different
• Their games play well
• Their fans are happy
• The pursuit of photorealism is too big of a gamble financially

Would it be an issue, for the same people here, were these games to continue to look the way they do in 2030, 2040, even at the cost of some functionality like these two posters share?

 

[LectureMaster]

Hell yea.

And Ronin is gorgeous too with the lighting and color palette. Absolute dorks acting like the game is some ugly mess. It's shameful how that game was treated.

I am excited to see the PS5 Pro enhancement on the game and start a new playthrough.

 

[Beechos]

The thing i hate most about Japanese games are alot of them have these invisible barriers in their worlds. I can jump around in the world but I can't jump on top/over a random crate, fence, wheelbarrow even though my jump height can clearly clear them.

 

[Saturn Dragon]

I think this was the first time I actually realized and deeply understood the greatness of japanese developers.

Japan :

West :

1992? Sega Megadrive desperately needed its own Street Fighter 2 port, while Nintendo already had the exclusivity of the arcade hit on Snes because they also had Capcom by the balls (or ass, because Capcom was Nintendo's bitch)

Thus, Sega had to wait almost a year to get Street Fighter 2 on its 16 bit cartridge console, during that period lots of things happened like an all Sega team devs made conversion of SF2, which was scrapped because Capcom was doing its own thing and probably more weird stuff that nobody remembers (check hidden palace article for a good read about it)

But Sega of America was doing something else, a brand new game. The ULTIMATE STREET FIGHTER 2 KILLER.

ETERNAL CHAMPIONS.

All magazines and press (both US and EU) were hyping it up like the second coming of Christ or like Mark Cerny babbling about the PSSR with the PS5PRO or some kind of shit like it that nobody cares but it still gonna change gaming.

Images looked cool. Graphics were colorful and stylish. It had some very very cool and complex art, like it was taken from the pages of some colorful Stan Lee comic book. Imho, only Comix Zone (similar dev team designers probably) was the game that could replicate the style of Eternal Champions a bunch of years later.

Anyway, game released, magazines kept hyping up and reviewing like the best fighter ever...

But something was off.

I remember renting it and not feeling it.
Amazing animations, big huge ass characters, top presentation and a lot of text explaining each character's background. Lots of options and new modes.

Thing is, playing against the CPU sucked and with friends sucked even more because they kept yelling at you "turn this shit off and let's go play some ball or ride our boards outside, it's the 90s for fucks sake".

Gameplay was broken, hitboxes were weird and input was non existent you just couldn't throw the equivalent of a hadoken even if you tried 100 times.

I appreciate the effort done in the art design aspect, I really think Eternal Champions looked and still looks very cool. But the gameplay sucked so much ass...

Street Fighter 2? What can I say. That game probably changed my life.

It wasn't just graphics, nor even the super tight gameplay. Or its super catchy masterfully composed music...

It's the whole package. It was the culmination of the 90s arcade era (Along with a bunch of Sega Model classics)

And you know what? After Street Fighter 2, arcades basically died. Capcom and Snk kept releasing more and more fighters, but they were all chasing the Street Fighter 2 craze.

Namco and Sega did their thing but that's another story.

Japan. It's always Japan.

And it seems the american eternal champions weren't winning anything, and we're forgotten quickly.

 

[Fbh]

It's obviously a generalization but at least with higher profile releases I feel like a lot of western games seem to focus more on the technical aspect of games while I get the impression a lot of japanese devs care more about what is fun to play.

A good example IMO is if you look at the climbing mechanics in something like AC vs BotW.
You have a big high budget game like Assassins Creed with highly detailed climbing animations, on highly detailed surfaces where your character will dynamically adjust their hands and posture to realistically adapt to the architecture.
Then you have Breath of the Wild where Link sticks to flat looking surfaces as if he was Spiderman and you get a relatively simple and repetitive climbing animation.

And yet I found the climbing way more fun in BoTW because the fact that almost everything in climbable, the layout of the world and the stamina meter made it so I actually had to think and strategize about how to reach certain locations, or it allowed me to approach challenges and scenarios in ways that made me feel like I came up with a unique solution on my own. Somehing I've never felt in Assassins Creed.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

They suck. I mean I'm sorry like you guys need to get with the times and uh make better interfaces and like update your technology because we're totally kicking your ass. Back then you guys were king of the world but the time has passed. I'm so sorry.

 

[Thief1987]

By archaic mechanics - you mean videogame mechanics? And not boring cutscenes copied from bad TV and movies? What you want is an interactive movie with no menus, gameplay or text. No doubt a big fan of the Sony "winning" formula.

Yeah, fifteen minutes of unvoiced dialogs with static camera and models is better. Much more fun than "interactive movie with no menus, gameplay or text".

 

[ResilientBanana]

Western devs are much better at making sure their game functions on all machines and not just a select few. PC ports are much better than Japanese ones. I feel as though western developers are much better at their craft. Although I will say Japanese developers are a lot better at not being inclusive or forcing political garbage and ideologies down my throat

 

[jakinov]

Most Japanese devs other than Capcom, Square and Kojima are not willing spend crazy amount of budget for graphics like western devs do. Their priorities are different than western devs and it also helps them sales their games reasonably well without needing to do COD numbers in order to be successful.

You are right about them not needing high numbers do to cheaper development costs. But it's not really about spending crazy amount of budget for graphics. There's a big cultural difference in how valuable the jobs are to society. From what I read development jobs whether its gaming or not is not as highly regarded compared to the west. As an individual contributor you can make as much 2-5x being a game developer (coder) in the west compared to Japan. You can make as much as 10-20x doing non-gaming development with job opportunities where you are making much more than (but a lot sparser). It will cost more to try to build the exact same game in Japan vs in the west.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

A good game is a good game regardless of who makes it.

The problem is...

You can either invest in gameplay, mechanics and charm or you can invest in fidelity, splendour and eye candy. The issue is that doing the former, is an artform and akin to catching lightning in a bottle, doing the latter is easier to sell, but very very very expensive.

Very rarely do we have both in one game. This feat is so rare that only Sony has managed to do it repeatedly with a few of its IPs. But just look at the budget of those games.

You don't need to have both in a game for it to succeed, and the eastern devs, either not willing to or not having the funds to do both, focus on the craft part of game design. The Western devs just throw hundreds of millions at the problem and we end up with Star Wars and Concord (which ironically... is also a Sony game)

 

[EDMIX]

It's not even just about graphics btw as I feel that is the clear go to many argue about, it's literally an almost every regard Japanese game seemed to be technically dated in multiple aspects

Dated is an understatement btw lol not only graphically is it dated as clearly that's the first thing most people see but design wise there seems to be very little change in a lot of big properties in terms of design.. Look at final fantasy 16 I need someone to play that game go play the missions and the side quest and you could clearly see the difference between that game and let's say something like assassin's creed or any modern game and it literally looks like you're playing 2 different generations


There's a fucking mission in that game where you have to collect a piece for some airship and the person going to help you do this literally just stands there and does nothing. He will literally make comments about shit he is PHYSICALL NOT DOING

He seems to not be animated to actually do anything that resembles searching or looking for something, when you do find the parts, they are not even physically represented in the world, its just a sparking dot and its like "you collected XYZ", this is a fucking 2023 FULL PRICED video game mind you, So to get away with this they merely have less animations and less functions , And any other modern triple-a game in the West that person clearly would be animated to do something to support their searching for something... we are not going to fucking sit here and act as if that is this wild marvel and deep design, just fucking stop lol

If you look at an example like AC Odyssey or Valhalla, they simply do not have an NPC say something is happening, that character will go with you on that hunt, mission, raid, jump in a ship and actually physically do those things with you, in some Japanese design thing, they will simply say they are doing it, stand still and then a cut scene will fill in the blanks lol


So this is not simply about graphics, this is about design in general

Look at the whole thing with the voice acting we still have a lot of developers selling a game for full price yet the entire thing is not voice acted yet a small team was able to full have their whole game voice acted with BG3

So the west is better at taking risk, better at creating new engaging design and a lot of their games chase that new, innovated, feature rich type concept, even if some fail doing this, its better to attempt it, then trying to keep an old dated design just to save money or something.

I say this as someone that loves Yakuza, Persona, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest etc, i'm ok with the same ole same ole, but I feel this idea is attacked in the west if a developer even slightly does this, yet Japan does this by default and many seem to try to shield or ignore those actual elements in some effort to merely personally attack developers or something they dislike. I even joked about this when we found out that new Yakuza game is literally using the same Hawaii map and adding some additional area, so I feel people make this claim more times about the west, despite one of the few properties in all gaming to do this, happens to be Japanese lol

So I still play games regardless from east or west, but I've rarely found someone can actually prove something in design is deeply superior in the east.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

There appears to be a wide acceptance that graphics are good enough these days, especially with 4k and 60fps modes as a crisp IQ and smooth experience is what many want (along with unique art direction) more than ray tracing and photo realism.

The wider gaming audience also doesn't appear to care as much about visuals given the above. Hence why some of the most played games are old games that look last gen.

So I guess this is advantageous to Japanese/Eastern devs as they can now demphasise chasing high end graphics and focus on making bigger and better games with fun gameplay.

Couple that witht the fact dev costs are lower in East Asia it means they can take more risk, make more games and release them in a timely manner.

 

[Lorianus]

Most japanese dev studios outside of the bigger ones like capcom are at most 50-100 person strong compared to the 500+ people in western game credits, lower budgets, lower manpower ect.

Studios like Compile Heart, Falcom, Furyu and many others have to get really creative with the budget and tools they are given.

 

[simpatico]

Japanese games have a fingerprint on the technical sides just as much as the story side. When I think about games like Elden Souls, MGS V, Death Stranding, R4make they all have a very put-together visual composition. Care for all aesthetics and nothing is too exaggerated in terms of VFX. Look at Kojima engine, the From in-house, Capcom engine etc. They all have a similar sensibility to them. Conservative in scope. Capcom seems to be paying a price for this on the new monster hunter. Puddle Bros were mad about it, but I love the in-house From engine. Elden Ring is the best looking game I've played and it runs great on a wide range of hardware. I think with the performance crisis in the west, it would be wise for western devs to target PS4 spec and let it run like hot melted butter. I think the overall IQ would be better that way. Visual composition is so much more important than tech in the current paradigm. I think some companies use tech to make up for their artistic shortcomings. Tsushima vs AC Shadows is a great example of this comparison. That one wouldn't be west vs east, but it's just a great example of what I'm trying to say. Shadows has a generation ahead on tech (supposedly) but even Ghost 1, a PS4 game, looks a generation ahead because of composition.

 

[Joel Was Right]

It's not even just about graphics btw as I feel that is the clear go to many argue about, it's literally an almost every regard Japanese game seemed to be technically dated in multiple aspects

Dated is an understatement btw lol not only graphically is it dated as clearly that's the first thing most people see but design wise there seems to be very little change in a lot of big properties in terms of design.. Look at final fantasy 16 I need someone to play that game go play the missions and the side quest and you could clearly see the difference between that game and let's say something like assassin's creed or any modern game and it literally looks like you're playing 2 different generations


There's a fucking mission in that game where you have to collect a piece for some airship and the person going to help you do this literally just stands there and does nothing. He will literally make comments about shit he is PHYSICALL NOT DOING

He seems to not be animated to actually do anything that resembles searching or looking for something, when you do find the parts, they are not even physically represented in the world, its just a sparking dot and its like "you collected XYZ", this is a fucking 2023 FULL PRICED video game mind you, So to get away with this they merely have less animations and less functions , And any other modern triple-a game in the West that person clearly would be animated to do something to support their searching for something... we are not going to fucking sit here and act as if that is this wild marvel and deep design, just fucking stop lol

If you look at an example like AC Odyssey or Valhalla, they simply do not have an NPC say something is happening, that character will go with you on that hunt, mission, raid, jump in a ship and actually physically do those things with you, in some Japanese design thing, they will simply say they are doing it, stand still and then a cut scene will fill in the blanks lol


So this is not simply about graphics, this is about design in general

Look at the whole thing with the voice acting we still have a lot of developers selling a game for full price yet the entire thing is not voice acted yet a small team was able to full have their whole game voice acted with BG3

So the west is better at taking risk, better at creating new engaging design and a lot of their games chase that new, innovated, feature rich type concept, even if some fail doing this, its better to attempt it, then trying to keep an old dated design just to save money or something.

I say this as someone that loves Yakuza, Persona, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest etc, i'm ok with the same ole same ole, but I feel this idea is attacked in the west if a developer even slightly does this, yet Japan does this by default and many seem to try to shield or ignore those actual elements in some effort to merely personally attack developers or something they dislike. I even joked about this when we found out that new Yakuza game is literally using the same Hawaii map and adding some additional area, so I feel people make this claim more times about the west, despite one of the few properties in all gaming to do this, happens to be Japanese lol

So I still play games regardless from east or west, but I've rarely found someone can actually prove something in design is deeply superior in the east.

Japanese games have a fingerprint on the technical sides just as much as the story side. When I think about games like Elden Souls, MGS V, Death Stranding, R4make they all have a very put-together visual composition. Care for all aesthetics and nothing is too exaggerated in terms of VFX. Look at Kojima engine, the From in-house, Capcom engine etc. They all have a similar sensibility to them. Conservative in scope. Capcom seems to be paying a price for this on the new monster hunter. Puddle Bros were mad about it, but I love the in-house From engine. Elden Ring is the best looking game I've played and it runs great on a wide range of hardware. I think with the performance crisis in the west, it would be wise for western devs to target PS4 spec and let it run like hot melted butter. I think the overall IQ would be better that way. Visual composition is so much more important than tech in the current paradigm. I think some companies use tech to make up for their artistic shortcomings. Tsushima vs AC Shadows is a great example of this comparison. That one wouldn't be west vs east, but it's just a great example of what I'm trying to say. Shadows has a generation ahead on tech (supposedly) but even Ghost 1, a PS4 game, looks a generation ahead because of composition.

I agree with you both, but strangely, I actually think we need both to appreciate the other. The dated mechanics of FF7, for instance, was a really nice change of pace for me; I enjoyed that.

 

[March Climber]

The graphics don’t matter because most japanese games have technical graphics 1-2 generations behind, but as we keep entering new generations and as dev tools get easier, those same devs will eventually make better looking games.

It’s an inevtitability, it’s just taking a while to get there

There will eventually be a day when a Yakuza/Like a Dragon game looks as good as GTA 7. It’s just going to be a while.

 

[EDMIX]

I agree with you both, but strangely, I actually think we need both to appreciate the other. The dated mechanics of FF7, for instance, was a really nice change of pace for me; I enjoyed that.

True, I'll always be ok with both, I don't mind if a company sticks to an old design as I don't think everything needs to be "new" and I feel many chase that a bit too much, but I do feel that Japan gets away with a lot of lazy, dated design to save money all while charging full price to take less risk. I'd be more ok with that if they had those games priced a bit lessor if they are going to cut so many corners lol


Pass them savings on to us lol

 

[LazyParrot]

Japan tends to be behind technically, especially in terms of programming. Unlike in the West, being a programmer or software engineer isn't considered a particularly lucrative or prestigious career in Japan. The typical image of a programmer in Japan is someone who works long hours under grueling conditions for little pay (by Japanese standards, no less, which is really saying something). And that's for programmers as a whole - as in the West, those in the gaming industry tend to be treated even worse and earn even less.

There's also the problem that historically, a lot of Japanese programmers have grown up without access to a PC, be it at home or at school. In the West it's fairly common for someone studying computer science to have at least some programming experience, often starting when they were children (although this is changing too - it's becoming more common for people to grow up with tablets and phones only, and you can't program on those), whereas in Japan CS students often don't start coding until college.

There are always exceptions, of course, but from what I've been told (by actual Japanese people, no less) that's more or less how it is.

 

[Joel Was Right]

I was just watching a DF video on Metaphor now needing the Pro to run at 60fps. This is shocking to me. Metaphor should not struggle to hit 60 fps on even previous gen consoles. Isn't it too simple to just say 'Japanese devs are behind'? What exactly is causing this? The tech is available, the literature is available.

 

[GymWolf]

Western developers make better graphic and always utilize the last tech, at least during the last 2 gens, even the best looking japanese games are definitely not as good looking as the best western games, re4 remake or re8 are probably the best looking japanese games of this gen and they arguably look sensibly worse than 3 years old crossgen full fledged gigantic open world hfw, let alone stuff like aw2, wukong or cyberpunk or sh2.

Japanese are better with flashy, hectic animations, western devs are better with heavy, realistic animations, you are never gonna see a western dev making more flashy animations than dmc\bayo exactly like you are never gonna see a jap dev making more realistic and heavy feeling animations than tlou2\rdr2.