"state something completely random time!"

[Leynos]

[Blades]

I remember that video from so long ago. Too bad no production game even came close.

The music is hilarious.

[profholt82]

90% of the games in the Nintendo e-shop feature effeminate anime guys with spiky hair. When did the majority of video games take on that douchy 90s Final Fantasy aesthetic? I swear everytime Leynos gushes about a game, I check it out and get met with some pale 90 pound dude with spiky hair. These are the hot games nowadays, I guess. Even when a game is good, you have to play as an Asian boy band member.

[Leynos]

90% of the games in the Nintendo e-shop feature effeminate anime guys with spiky hair. When did the majority of video games take on that douchy 90s Final Fantasy aesthetic? I swear everytime Leynos gushes about a game, I check it out and get met with some pale 90 pound dude with spiky hair. These are the hot games nowadays, I guess. Even when a game is good, you have to play as an Asian boy band member.

lol is this about Shin Megami Tensei V?

[Blades]

I mean, that's pretty much Japan.

[Leynos]

Yeah but only the SMT series can you get Mara!

[Blades]

[Leynos]

[WarmSignal]

The Anime itself isn't my thing, but I can make do with it as long as the concept of the game or the gameplay is compelling enough. Usually, it is not. I have no idea how the weirdness of Japan has found it's footing in the west, but it certainly has. The Tales series is about as weird as I care to get, in terms of direct from Japan lunacy. A lot of this other stuff is just way over my head, to the point I don't pay attention anymore. Remember when the most notable stuff out of Japan was like Megaman, Sonic, Mario, Metal Gear, Castlevania, etc?

[Leynos]

Not a big anime person. Certain not into the modern stuff. Show me some 80s stuff with the insane art and detail. Gory as hell. Sci-fi and horror stuff is great. There is a lot of generic shit out there as much generic western stuff but SMT has a unique style and is a pretty unique series, Atlus in general is. Then stuff like Nier has some of the best stories in games and soundtracks.

Japan is typically better at melee action combat as well. So I love PG games and DMC from Capcom. It's usually much more in-depth whereas western melee is typically simpler, less depth, and more about completing the animation than the action. (aka you can't cancel moves mid-action) As for TRPGs. SMT series is very difficult. Persona is just super fun. They often have fun worlds to explore. Great OSTs. Tales games are largely generic as hell. Arise and Vesperia is great tho. Xenoblade it's about the huge imaginative worlds to explore along with fun characters, stories, and insane OSTs. My personal tastes generally favor more art style as I typically find realism the most boring thing there is in games. It seems far less imaginative to me. Note, the art style doesn't always mean cell-shaded either.

There is good western art design I like but most of it not so much. I'm half and half on a lot of it but that's more than a lot of western takes to me. I also feel like if I see another fucking racing game to show off a new console I will scream. yeah, cars are shiny big fucking whoop. Why when showing off a new console, Octoprath Traveler stood out. A unique look to it. I had to know more. I also like a lot of mecha stuff. Esp jehuty of ZOE. I will stop blabbering after I mention third-person shooters. Not saying western ones are bad at all. I just think VanQuish is the best TPS ever made. The main reason is it's not a cover shooter. Some people play it like one and it's the wrong way. VanQuish is just a Platinum Action game. You can do crazy combos and insanely fast gameplay.
Nothing else like it. West is better at FPS tho. After RPGs for months, I recently started playing Crysis for the first time.


I may play more Japanese games but I don't play weirdo shit in general. Not into shit like Super Dimension Neptune. My tastes are more Angel Cop or something. I don't do anime avatars. I don't have anime girl statues or pillows. Fuck that garbage. I often will buy a game if it looks fun even if not super into the art. aka Crysis or Wings of Darkness. I do like a lot of western games but when it comes to TV and movies. It's pretty standard western comdies,horror and sci fi or whatever. Probably find a lot of western stuff in my collection. I just don't talk about them as much.

[WarmSignal]

I just miss the days when Japan would make stuff that they thought would appeal to a western audience. Some of it was panned, but some of it was great. Somewhere along the line, during the PS2 era, they just the screw it... and companies like Atlus started to import more weird stuff that I guess they thought might be accessible enough in the west, and it did catch on. Nowadays you've got these smaller publishers bringing over the groping simulators and whatnot, and lot of visual novels too. Meanwhile you've got all these small indie upstarts in the west striving to make great "retro" style games that are basically direct inspirations of games that game from Japan in the 80s and 90s. We want that back.

I don't want Senran Kagura, I want the next coming of Contra, or Gradius. Even a new 1080 Snowboarding, or F-Zero game would be great. Alas, we get Senran Kagura, a heap of tactical RPGs featuring spiky hair teens with amnesia, and loads of anime visual novels. It's just largely not for me. I tried to get myself into that sort of thing once, and couldn't do it. I approach any game of that general art style with much caution. I just want an action based game, with decent graphics, a decent enough story line and a decent sized environment to explore. I don't want a largely menu based type of strategy game, with a bunch of fixed images to progress the story. So my options are fairly limited in terms of Japan imports.

[Leynos]

Visual novels are something I can never get into. There is that new R-Type Final tho. As for Gradius well, Konami no longer makes games lol. Japan is still feeling the effects of the disastrous era of the Xbox 360 and PS3. Making shit like DmC and Bionic Commando 2009. The awful western Silent Hill games. Bomberman Act Zero. A lot more where that came from but those failures were Japan trying to appeal to the west. Now games like persona 5 are their biggest seller. Nier Automata sold big numbers. As for shit like Kagura...well yeah I agree we can do without that kinda shit.


I mean we did get a new Contra even tho it was complete garbage lol. At least Shmups are enjoying a resurgence atm. You can find so many on PS4 and Switch that you can fill a vault with them and swim like Scrooge McDuck.

[WarmSignal]

Is Bionic Commando 2009 really that bad? I've never gotten around to it, but looks good enough. A lot of those Capcom games from 7th gen look interesting; Lost Planet, Dark Void, Remember Me, etc. Whatever happened to Dead Rising? That was a success I believe. Never realized the later Silent Hill games were considered bad.

To be fair, by today's standards it's extremely tough to have a successful AAA in this market, it's make or break. We live in an era of constant bombing, and studio shuttering. There's something very broken about the process currently where so many games fail, release broken, or turn into cash grabs. The Japanese are probably smart not to gamble with the supremely fickle market that is the west today.

[Leynos]

Lost Planet was fun. So was 2. EX Troopers is great. Lost Planet 3 was bad and killed the series. So there is Bionic Commando Re-Armed and that was good but Bionic Commando 2009 is Edglord shit. His wife is his arm. It's stupid as hell. Dead Rising 4 is what happened to that series. Killed the franchise and studio. The Silent Hill series after Team Silent broke up and went to make the Siren series. The 360 ones were mediocre games at best but REALLy bad Silent Hill games. Instead of having a unique theme to build around. They just threw some silly-looking monsters and Pyramid head in for no reason. He only made sense in 2. The Wii/PS2 game is decent. Not scary in the least but decent game with fun ideas. Capcoms 2014 Strider was excellent and I maintain that the first Castlevania Lords of Shadow is good. It does wear its inspirations on its sleeve but is a good game. VanQuish and Binary Domain was an attempt to get into that western TPS market. While fans loved the games (I do) they didn't sell.

Tho SEGA is trusting smaller studios more with Streets of Rage 4 and that was def made by fans. Same with Sonic mania. Panzer Dragoon they are def fans. Nintendo trusts Metroid to Mercury Steam. I think it's slightly in favor again but trying to be more faithful to the series spirit.

[Leynos]