Japanese developers better at game mechanics then The West

It seems like Japanese developers tend to make games with stronger gameplay mechanics then their western developers..... western developers tend to focus more on presentation.. i mean their isn't a western action game out their that can compete with DMC 3/4, Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden Black/2......these are often touted as being the best action games out their, even DmC which most would probably agree is one of the strongest western character action games.... the fact is Capcom and Itsuno helped out Ninja Theory alot on the gameplay.....

even genres that Japan developers don't really touch like 3rd person shooters, despite the fact that Japan Resident Evil 4 was the game that really created the tps genre, and Vanquish which is arguably the strongest third person shooter out their, mechanically wise

games like Dark Souls/Demon Soul's combat wise....... maybe Mount and Blade can compete, for the western side, but even that game lacks the precision and movement of DS....

i think alot of it has to do with presentation.... Western Developers tend to focus on presentation then gameplay.... bigger budgets then japanese developers.......

Japanese developers, at least in my eyes, tend to be more perfectionists, thats why alot of a JP games take a while to come out, i feel like developers in Japan spend more time making sure the game is ready, then Western counterparts..

this is all my opinion, but it just seems this way to me

Thats all this is - because in my eyes Japanese games are inferior to western games in every way. Presentation, Gameplay, Story, etc.

My main problem with Japanese games are the characters, which are usually more ridiculous and cartoony. Either due to translation or just game design - characters are usually too erratic in their personalities.

@R3FURBISHED: lol no.... name one western action game that can compete with Ninja Gaiden: Black

No.

@Vaasman: yes....

The fact that you're naming a 10 year old game doesn't really speak on your behalf

@rilpas: the fact that their isn't a western action game in existence that can compete with Ninja Gaiden: Black is kind of pathetic on the West side

and also Bayonetta came out in 2009 and blows western action games to shame in the mechanics department....

Vanquish blows 99 percent of Western shooters out of the water...

Dark Souls vs. what???? what western action rpg can compete with Souls?

The God of War series has been one of the best action games since 2005. Ninja Gaiden is a phenominal game, but much of what Ninja Gaiden is stems from its unrelenting difficulty. The God of War mechanics are just as solid while being immensely more approachable.

Not to mention, the God of War series has aged pretty well. Unlike the Ninja Gaiden series.

@R3FURBISHED:

No, im sorry, God of war is good at what it does, and i give it credit, its an adventure game...but it doesn't compete with games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden in depth of combat, not even close

True. Japan gameplay > western gameplay

Now if there was a japanese game based gameplay with western production values, that would be the perfect game

*drolls*

In regards to what?

____

Don't turn into the same thing all low post System War users do: a pretentious douchebag.

1) God of war

2) Vanquish is good-ish, but don't go overboard, it's a short 6 hour campaign with no form of local or online multiplayer be it competitive or co-op. It has a hideous art-style and the plot is pretty bad even by most TPS standards

3) Everything else? TES? Fallout? Diablo? Take your pick anyone of these do at least a slew of things better than Dark Souls (and dark souls does several things better than those games too, but it's hardly a game with no competition.)

God of War is not an Adventure game in any way, shape, or form. Myst is an Adventure game. God of War is an Action game through and through

Am sorry, I love GoW as the next guy but its gameplay isnt even close to Bayonetta or DMC. Its production values and great pacing are what make GoW exceptional as a game... as a pure HnS though... its pretty barebones

I won't argue that Bayonetta is indeed better than GOW, though I'm not sure I'd say it "blows" it out of the water. That goes double for Devil May Cry, especially after a disappointing DMC 4

I'm here only talking about gameplay. As an overall game I actually prefer GoW over Bayonetta but gameplay wise, even the bad designed DMC4 had superb gameplay and definitely above any GoW. GoW is like Uncharted i.e. does its basics pretty well but its better than the sum of its parts. If we would strip down GoW as a pure Hack'n'slash game or Uncharted as a pure TPS game, they would be very mediocre. But their pacing, more varied gameplay and production values makes them stand out from the rest.

Sorry but no, games aren't just third person action games. Can you think of a single Japanese strategy game that touches Starcraft 2, for example?

Fair enough, personally I only really enjoyed Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden 2 this gen (note: 2, not sigma), I always found GOW and DMC boring

I agree that the Japanese did develop the better hack and slash games, but they barely make them anymore and the few that we do get aren't that great anymore if you ask me (Ninja Gaiden 3? No thank you)

It depends on genre. In certain genres Japanese devs are often better, while in other genres Western devs are often better. For example, Japanese devs often excel at fighting games, hack & slash, turn-based RPG/strategy, etc., while Western devs often excel at first-person shooters, real-time strategy, sports, etc.

Have you ever considered that there's a whole bunch of crappy Japanese games with crappy mechanics that don't even come to the US?

Yeah. Didn't think so.

Than* the west

Indeed. I'd say many Japanese games have mechanics down to a fine art. Look at Mario, all he does is run and jump, but it is the deepest most refined running and jumping you'll find out there (so much so that they are still finding new ways to explore the mechanics well over a decade after Mario 64).

If anything I'd say the big difference between Western and Japanese games is that Western games look at many parts of the game and how they contribute to the whole (the whole 'experience' being most important) whereas Japanese games take each individual element, polish it as best they can and then put them together to form a whole (which sometimes doesn't work as many games end up being less than the sum of their parts).

A good example of a western game would be TLOU. That game has weak shooting mechanics when you think about it, but the way they are weak (diluted) is important because of how it forces the player to experience the game (normally though an almost pathological take on violence).

From a more "retro" perspective, this does become pretty damn obvious. Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy on the NES basically leapfrogged what Western developers were doing with the RPG genre. Not that Ultima or Wizardry were bad games, of course, but their mechanics immediately felt cumbersome and fairly dated. The irony being that all those games were trying to recreate the D&D experience, which is, like, the most Western game ever. Commander Keen, if I remember correctly, was the result of Western programmers trying to recreate the smooth sidescrolling feel of Super Mario Bros. 3 on the PC which, in terms of hardware, was much more powerful than the NES.

Matters which genre. H&S it be platinum Games who are Japanese or TPS with games like Vanquish, they define the gen the the best last gen. Then FPS it be something like Activision which are American, sandbox be rockstar or ubisoft.

I agree with the ones who are saying that it depends on the genre.

FPS: West>East (Hands down, also has to with the fact that most FPSs are made in the West anyway)

TPS: West~East (Debatable)

Action: West<East (As mentioned by the OP, Ninja Gaiden and Bayonetta are almost unmatched for their eras)

Platformer: West~East (Debatable, lots of great indie platformers vs the vast amount of godly Mario games)

RTS: West>East (Hands down, also has to do with the fact that most RTSs are made in the West anyway)

RPG: West~East (Debatable, both generally cater to different audiences ie. JRPGs and WRPGs)

Fighters: West<East (Hands down, also has to do with the fact that most Fighters are made in the East anyway)

Sandbox/Open World: West>East (GTA, Sleeping Dogs, Saints Row and most superhero games make it an easy win for the West)

Racing: West>East (While Forza and GT are neck and neck, arcade racing definitely goes to the West with games like PGR, Motorstorm, Wipeout, Blur, etc)

Sports: West>East (EA Sports is a juggernaut, enough said I think)

Horror: West>East (I think the lack of big horror titles this gen for the East makes it easy to lean towards the West who've come out with games like Amnesia and Dead Space)

Stealth: West~East (Debatable)

My two cents.

This is exactly how I feel on the matter. The more complex and action oriented a game gets, the better Japanese developers seem to be at it. Just look at how they completely and utterly dominate Hack n Slashes, Fighters, and shmups. They are the masters of gameplay.

no

You kinda missed the point of the thread. This is about game mechanics. Modes, art style, plot and game length are not a factor here.

In regards strictly to mechanics (which would include feel of control) he may well have a point; there aren't many equals to Dark Souls. I was surprised as anyone else when I saw how accurate the hit detection in that game was.

But I think we are being a bit unfair by only comparing single-player games here. Western games have depth of mechanics but you'd have to look at long standing online communities as the difference between single player favours Japanese games. Case in point, look at a master GoW player play. Sure they are good but they aren't like master DMC or Ninja Gaiden players who have pretty much transcended humanity; the fact that the skill ceiling in these Japanese games is so high is a result of deep mechanics.

I almost guarantee it if Japanese developers has the same backing/funding and resources for their games like the west, Japan will always win. Just look at them when the the field was even on the PS2, PS1, N64, SNES….eras they freaking dominated console gaming on purely perfecting gaming mechanics.

Switching to HD made it so hard to compete in terms of budget/resources. You can't possibly see 400-600 people working on a JP game just like Assassins Creed, GTA, Battlefield or a Call of Duty with a budget of over $100M.

The JP guys competing are those who are able to offer that kind of funding and resources like Konami with PES and MGS, Capcom ( most of their green lit projects these days are crap though ), Square Enix and Sony with Polyphony Digital. the rest are struggling to keep up.

In the west the least amount working these days is at 80-150 people with $20-50M and thats only working on one game, thats a relatively small studio these days. Small studios in Japan just can't compete with that, There are brilliant looking games from Japan but the technology expectations from the gamers are not met because of limited budgets/resources, you look at a great game like Nier for example, it looks like a dreamcast game thats why it doesn't sell as much as lets say a Dead Space.

You mention DMC, Bayonetta and NGB but not MGR? Shame on you.

How many japanese FPS or RTS do you know? exactly... thing is, at the genres made both by japanese and western, the japanese gameplay tend to excel the western gameplay. The only reason western excels at some genres is because they have literally no competition from the japanese devs

Wow.

Wow...

when discussing j-dev vs everyone else it helps to listen to some undisputed experts in japanese devlopment so here are two.

Hideo Kojima has chipped in with his two cents on the nature of Japanese development in the wake of Phil Fish and Keiji Inafune's critical comments regarding the state of Eastern industry at this year's GDC.

In Kojima's eyes, Japan has fallen behind in three key areas: "technology, gameplay and world view." The first is, he suggests , rather easily remedied, but the perspective shifts required to fix the other two could take more time.

http://www.dealspwn.com/kojima-japanese-developers-falling-technology-gameplay-world-view-96850

SAN FRANCISCO — Depending on your perspective, Keiji Inafune is either a singular voice of sanity in the Japanese game industry, or a traitor.

“Man, Japan is over. We’re done. Our game industry is finished,” said Inafune, then a game producer at Capcom, at the Tokyo Game Show in 2009. Shortly after those remarks, the creator of the character Mega Man and producer of hit games like Dead Rising and Lost Planetquit Capcom to start his own game development studios. Free of corporate control, he has continued to raise eyebrows with his cataclysmic comments about Japan

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/04/keiji-inafune-qa/

there you have it, two of the biggest japanese developers calling out j-dev for the horrid state it has found itself in.

Japanese games on average in the genres they do tend to have better mechanics in their games then the west....

however japanese developers tend to only do a few genres, really specific, while the west is more broad

God of War is a poor hack n' slash. It's adequate; nothing more. The gameplay is simple, but it lacks depth. Most of the series' appeal comes from the sheer spectacle the SSM provides with each game. The actual mechanics are average at best.

God of War has actually aged pretty poorly. The original game is borderline unplayable today, while Ninja Gaiden Black remains one of the best hack n' slash titles ever made. Ironic, considering that they came out during the same year.

The games have all been quality, but that has nothing to do with how well the mechanics have aged. Ninja Gaiden 3 is a bad game because it was made by a completely different team that didn't understand what made the first two games so good. It has nothing to do with the strength of its mechanics.

Let's see...Japanese developers have Nintendo...so there is that, also they made Bayonetta, DMC3 and NG Black, you know the best action games ever made, they also have Dark Souls, meanwhile Western developers gave us what? Mass Effect and God of War?...damn, Japanese developers win my a landside, hell is not even funny to compare them.

The issue with Western developers is that they just want to achieve an Epic feeling, that's why God of War looks espectacular for the first 15 minutes but the gameplay is so shallow the rest of the campaing gets incredible boring.

OP may be on to something. Gran Turismo too has the more finely tuned physics and control model. It gets obliterated in every other category to Forza though

im not trying to put western developers and games under the bus..its just my opinion, from what i seen it seems like japanese games vs. a western game in the same genre, the japanese game will generally have the better game mechanics

fair enough

@foxhound_fox said:

@rilpas said:

1) God of war

TES? Fallout? Diablo?

Wow.

Wow...

Ah the replies of the weak minded, so cute!

loljapangames

Such a remarkably dumb statement only requires the bare minimum of reaction and response. The games you listed are BAD, mechanically, when compared to games like DMC or NGB. And when you mention Fallout, I'm assuming you are talking about Bethesda's tragedy of a game.

Again, a weak minded reply, when you feel like creating an actual argument let me know. Until then I'll make sure to giggle at your weak minded replies

This thread is the racism.

Good post.