Is Japan now leading the games industry again?

What about North and South?

Not sure what the Penguins in the South or Eskimos in the north have made to be honest.

Never Alone was made in partnership with an Inuit cultural foundation or something, so they have one over the penguins at least.

Pedz wrote:Not sure what the Penguins in the South or Eskimos in the north have made to be honest.

Not so sure about the penguins, but Never Alone is a decent game.

EDIT

Beaten

I forgot about that game.

NickSCFC · Last edited by NickSCFC on Sat Apr 22, 2017 1:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.

http://www.gq.com/story/japanese-video-game-comeback

Looking at the poll it looks like most agree than Japan have turned things around, impressive for an industry that looked like it was on it's knees last-gen.

Some upcoming games I can't wait for...

Death Stranding
Super Mario Odyssey
Kingdom Hearts III
Dragon Quest XI
Ace Combat 7 VR
NiNoKuni 2
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Resident Evil 2 Remake

I've only bought 3 japanese games this year; Bayonetta on PC, FFXV (was cheap on PSN, haven't tried it yet) and Gravity Rush Remastered (didn't like it at all). I have been emulating loads of weird japanese PS2 stuff though but I guess that doesn't count.

Trelliz wrote:Gravity Rush Remastered (didn't like it at all)

OrangeRakoon wrote:
Trelliz wrote:Gravity Rush Remastered (didn't like it at all)

I wanted to like it but too many things put me off; i couldn't get a hang of the movement, the plot seemed to throw up new elements without resolving any of them. I also find the amnesiac main character trope deeply annoying, all the 'huh?' 'Whats going on?' dialogue for every new thing and location grates on me quickly. I understand thst stuff is there so that the player and character are learning about the world at the same time to avoid ludo-narrative dissonance (Ni No Kuni handled it way better and i'm looking forward to NNK2) but I rapidly lost interest and just checked out of the whole experience.

Combat is absolutely gash in that game.

My experience form Japanese titles is that they can be particularly niche and require an implicit understanding of games and gaming to properly enjoy, whereas wester games tend to go out of their way to make things easy of new players and do a lot more hand holding for the first few hours or so of any game. This might explain why Japanese developers have fallen behind in recent times. They are not really as adept at attracting new players and audiences as western franchises.

This kind of echoes some of my own frustration with these games. I pick one up that is something I have never played before and it seems like the developers are completely unforgiving. "Oh, you didn't play through games like this before? strawberry float you!"

NickSCFC

I remember playing the Gravity Rush 2 demo and couldn't decide whether I wasn't doing it right or that they game was completely on-rails

I don't think they ever stopped, if I'm quite honest.

Apart from a handful of excellent titles, no, they are nowhere near the force they used to be.

Last edited by Delusibeta on Tue Apr 25, 2017 9:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I always found the "Japanese gaming is declining/dead" narrative weird, since it was only vaguely true if you focused exclusively on the absolute biggest developers and totally ignored Nintendo & handhelds. So, it wasn't true at all. Likewise, I find this "Japanese gaming is back on top" narrative weird, since it basically revolves around a few (excellent) games arriving in a cluster on a platform that's not a handheld and therefore games journalists give a gooseberry fool about them. I wouldn't be too surprised if a "Japanese gaming is dead again" narrative appears when more doesn't show up in the next three months.

Looking at the titles I've played for a substantial amount of time (say 30+ hours) over the past few years and apart from the Witcher 3 they are all from Japanese devs. Dark Souls 2 SotFS, MGSV, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Bloodborne, Monster Hunter Generations, Dark Souls 3, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Splatoon, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5, Zelda etc.

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Delusibeta wrote:I always found the "Japanese gaming is declining/dead" narrative weird, since it was only vaguely true if you focused exclusively on the absolute biggest developers and totally ignored Nintendo & handhelds. So, it wasn't true at all. Likewise, I find this "Japanese gaming is back on top" narrative weird, since it basically revolves around a few (excellent) games arriving in a cluster on a platform that's not a handheld and therefore games journalists give a gooseberry fool about them. I wouldn't be too surprised if a "Japanese gaming is dead again" narrative appears when more doesn't show up in the next three months.

I think it was mostly to do with companies like Capcom releasing a few stinkers and Konami getting closer to pulling out of the industry. I agree wth what you're saying though, the latest Yakuza and Persona games have been mentioned as part of the Japanesiance even though they're sequels to very good games, Platinum, From Software and Nintendo are just carrying on from last gen.

TL;DR: Resi 6 was rubbish = Japanese games industry in the toilet. Resi 7 was good = Japan is back on the throne.

NickSCFC

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/30/1589 ... il-e3-2017

Great in-depth look at Japan's comeback, especially off the back of Nintendo and Mario Odyseyy being the highlights of an otherwise dismal E3.

For me I've become tired of Western games and the same boring formulas (particularly "open world"), the innovation of last-gen has dried up while Japanese games just ooze style and freshness.

Is Japan now leading the games industry again?

Who's "winning" this gen for you?

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