Does Japan still make the best games?

Bloodborne, Bayonnetta 2, Persona 5, MGS V, Final Fantasy 15, Gran Turismo, Street Fighter V, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Zelda, Mario, and more. Can we agree Japan is still number 1, SW?

Yes

Rockstar's the only good Western dev left

...why did you list a bunch of games no ones played yet?

vs

Halo, Bioshock, Forza, Project CARS, Uncharted, Mass Efect, Skyrim, GTAV, Little Big Planet, Battlefield, The Witcher, No Mans Sky, Star Citizen, Star Wars Battlefront, The Last of Us, and much more

yes they do.

literally the only Japanese games i like is MGS and the Souls series. The art direction and gameplay is way more western in those games than what you're used to seeing in 'real' Japanese games (Bayonetta is facepalm worthy for example)

Yes.

Did you just list Gran Turismo? In a Forza world? Get out.

From Software, Platinum Games, Nintendo, etc. all still exist (That's not to say there aren't western studios who are also on top of their game).

yes GTA5 is the last good western experience same with skyrim an stuff

all my other western experience were shit

i guess activison blizzard is good too those are it tho right i think i havent played mortal kombat i think that one will be okay for a western game too

Are we talking as an individual country, or against everyone else combined, or what exactly?

Because the West as a whole completely shits on Japan, but as an individual country they probably are doing the best.

I used to almost exclusively play Japanese games, but these days it's about a 50/50 split for me. That said, more often than not my favorite titles are usually from Japanese developers.

It depends on what you like. For me, Japan stopped being the best when Capcom went to hell.

Seeing as s Miyazaki made Bloodborne, I'd say yes until another dev proves me wrong this gen.

Oh hell no.

Collectively, yes.

Japanese games are my most preferred games but they all are way behind the western one. In fact, Japan has been emulating a lot of western elements to evolved they outdated shit.

Western devs have quantity and a better average, but the Japanese developers deliver better highs given the more gameplay centric nature of a lot of their games.

No... I've never been a big fan of Japanese games. Doesn't mean I don't like them but I just prefer Western games.

Its not a competition dude..... they make good games.... just like any other country........

No.

nope, they haven't for a while. outside of nintendo and platinum, i cant think of any good japanese devs.

NOPE

Japan has a few diamonds in the rough. Most of the games made there are pretty crap these days.

@lordlors: Yes.

@mems_1224: Atlus

Only a few Japanese developers (e.g. Nintendo) make the best games.

Ummm, no. But with so many Japanese gamers abandoning consoles for mobile there's good reason for that.

who release on persona game every 7 years. games that are still riddled with archaic gameplay elements? meh

@SolidGame_basic: bullshit , god I hate japenese games. too much drama and full of teenage emo punk characters

Half of those games don't interest me. For me the best devs are in Europe or America.

yes, gameplay over graphics for me, but ofcourse, some western games are still quite enjoyable

The indie games of the West alone crush Japanese quality games. Ori and The Blind Forest, FEZ, The Swapper, Transistor, Divinity, Pillars of Eternity, Telltale adventure games, etc. The indie scene in Japan however is a complete joke.

@lordlors: Still disagree, but hey, you're entitled to your opinion.

The problem is that Japanese devs making games on the level of Platinum, From Software, Kojima Pro, etc, are few and shrinking. I mean, it's not their fault on the whole. Gaming in Japan is moving to mobile so they have to tehre aswell. I hear ATLUS is a great jrpg dev aswell.

But then you realize that there's DICE, Rocksteady, Rockstar, CDPR, Bethesda, Avalanche Studios, etc. And that's not counting the many, many indies and mid level devs. Just recently Obisidan released Pillars of Eternity. last year it was South Park.

Ahem. 2013

2015

I think you don't have a gaming PC. Am I right? Living here in Tokyo has opened my eyes on how really behind Japan is. Been here for 3 years now. I'm currently studying at HAL Tokyo on game development. It's a tech school in Shinjuku. Living here in Japan just made me love America more and appreciate the English language (I have studied Japanese for 2 years and can speak, read, and write the language). Because all of the Japanese I met can't read English, I can't fathom how much they are missing out on.

You betcha.

Nintendo

Atlus

From Software

Platinum Games

Konami

Capcom

Intelligent Systems

Bandai Namco

Grass Hopper

Natsume

Sony Japan Studios

Square Enix

Marvelous

NIS

Sega

Team Ico

I'll take those over the likes of EA and Activision any day.

As a posed to

Creative Assembly

Relic

Cloud Imperium Games

Frontier Games

Bethesda

Obsidian

Rockstar

Rocksteady

CD Project Red

Blizzard

Valve

Gearbox

Avalanche

Bioware

Firaxis

Bungie

343 industries

Turn 10

Naughty Dog

Epic Games

Gorrilla Games

This list could go on for pages and I didn't even need to touch on EA, Activision or Ubisoft. Which means I didn't include CoD or Battlefield.

Japan v the rest of the world, japan loses again. You may notice something else, many of the studios listed are either based in or have studios in the UK.

It's given a lot to gaming over the years and punches well above its weight but no one but a fanboy would put Japan vs the rest of the entire world and have Japan come out on top.

They've been falling behind for years too.

Even Japanese developers have said that they need to catch up to the other developers.

The beauty of seeing game studios diversify is that we don't have to rely on one country to develop fun games.

Some of these are filler as ****

Konami- is Kojima+ scrubs these days

Capcom- is a glorified joke and a mere shell of their former glory. Majority of their talent is either at Platinum Games or with Mikami at Tango.

Namco- They make Tales games, they make the jrpg equivalent of Madden.

Grass Hopper - Suda himself hasn't directed a game since 08, and since then that studio has made some creatively deprived games, or a one off with Mikami (shadows of the damned).

Team Ico - They made 2 excellent games in gen 6, they were a no show in gen 7 as they went into development hell with The last guardian so what are gassing up.

Sony Japan Studios - I'm sorry exactly what did they make worth gassing up?

Platinum, From Software, and Atlus have legs to stand on, but these other cats are like what? On what standard do they even hold their own when measured up against a Blizzard, a Valve, a Relic, A Creative Assembly, A Fireaxis, Obsidian, Ubisoft Montpellier (Michel Ancel's team), Naughty Dog, Retro Studios

Yeah, Japan in general seems to provide some of the strongest titles out there.

Having said that, Retro Studios is basically the strongest dev around right now and they're American. I'd also give attention to Rocksteady. While they've only made one major franchise so far, you can tell they poured all they're love and expertise into what they make.

A couple of talented indies and valve unfortunately does not compensate for the rest of western developers.

If devs like Obsidian Entertainment, Larian Studios and Valve were to be taken out of the equation, what would that leave the west with?

Meanwhile Japanese devs have sequels to their 9/10 animoo games coming out almost every month.

Rocksteady, Retro, Naughty Dog, Blizzard, Valve, BioWare...

Acually when you think Retro, you think Metroid Prime, not DKTF.

They tend to not lead in technical quality but they do seem to have the most "heart" ;)

I don't see the point in restrict games in arbitrary national context which is a concept that is dated in 21st century, especially when you are talking about a global media like video games.

There are games I like and games I don't. There is nothing else.

Strongly disagree with some of your assessments, like Namco, for instance. I'll agree with some things you say, like Team Ico and Konami, and Grass Hopper not doing anything lately worth writing home about, like Valve.

Sony Japan Studios most recently put out Freedom Wars, a very fresh take on the "monster hunter clones".

There are others I left out like Level 5 who put out Ni No Kuni, one of my favorite JRPGs in recent memory.

Still, Japan devs make most of my favorite games and series, personal taste being subjective and all that jazz.

That's not to say I don't enjoy great Western and European developers' works, like Blizzard, Retro, Bioware, Bethesda, Obsidian and Rockstar, some Ubi offerings here and there, oh and I can't forget to mention Moon Studios after playing Ori and the Blind Forest. Very solid imho.

I'm well aware that a lot of J devs I mentioned aren't for everyone, especially the SW crowd.