Why are modern western games so shit? Boomer here, grew up on Unreal, C&C, Deus Ex, Thief, Icewind Dale, Planescape and similar masterpieces, never really played many Japanese games (never really had a console until 2013) except Silent Hill. Last few years I've been playing more Nip games, starting with Dark Souls and continuing with Persona 3 & 5, Ace Combat (amazing series), Shadow Of Colossus & Last Guardian, Bloodborne, ... Enjoyed all of them, they are amazing games. Plus there's a treasure trove of stuff I haven't even touched yet waiting for me.
Modern western games feel really boring and bland in comparison, with few exceptions like Dishonored. What happened to western studios?
I'm kind of like you, I grew up on Planescape, Morrowind and Fallout, to this day these are some of my favorite games. Then thanks to emulators I played lots of the classics but also enjoyed newer titles like Dark Souls, Nier or Bayonetta.
Can't say I know what happened. Last western games by bigger studios I enjoyed from the west were New Vegas and Portal 2.
I will enjoy some modern indie games though, so I guess that's where it's at for western games now. Hollow Knight, Hyper Light Driger and Return of the Obra Dinn were all pretty great.
Zachary Nelson
I liked Frostpunk and Battlefleet Gothic a lot.
Mason Howard
As for answering the question I would say that after the financial crash investors in general became a bit more cautious. That's why developers just don't try to experiment as much and rely on more safe bets. This is also influenced by the fact that there arised a trend for hyperrealistic graphics and top tier voice acting, which are all really costly. If you have to invest in those, you'll try to be a bit more safe on other fronts as well.
Japan somehow always had more of a knack for stylization instead of realism, which while require more creativity in the end don't cost as much time and money to realize. The market is also more diverse and has overlap with other media like manga, anime and film. In the west those media are kind of strictly divided from each other. So we end up having a bit more of a middle ground between your AAA game and the indie game, while in the west it's one or the other.
Why does Japanese writing always feel so stilted? Is it just because the language has a structure and flow that's so different it cannot be translated in a way that sounds natural? Or is it just simply shit? This doesn't just go for their games, I've never seen a movie or read a novel where the writing, and especially the dialogue didn't feel off.
Brody Long
Because japanese is awkward to translate and an asian language will always not feel "natural" enough due to massive differences in culture.
Jacob Scott
All the good games are not AAA.
Joseph Hernandez
Deus Ex is really good. I like the amount of new stuff you can find each playthrough, from simple stuff like telling Jaime to stick or come with to secrets, hidden in shadows. To craft such a game you need people who genuinely excited people for it to pour in the hours to create such a game from scratch. JRPGs usually follow a more strict formula, when I think about FF I usually remember having a bombastic opening act which ends in some escape afterwards you get a powerspike in enemies and have to grind a bit to not get your teeth kicked in, but that makes their sequels so good because of skilled developers and over the top writing and design they always feel fresh. I think it is about jap mentality, that their life is literally on the line if they deliver a bad product towards the fans, while in the west making games is more of business to make investors earn their share.
>What happened to western studios? they started making games for people that actually like games instead of bioshit western VNs for normalfags >underrail >neo scavenger >grimrock 1/2 >expeditions conquistador >ToME >xenonauts >age of decadence >kotc >atom rpg >ftl >bard's tale trilogy remake >banner saga all of these are good and some of them are even masterpieces that will be remembered for decades
meanwhile there has NEVER been a good jrpg. there isn't a single one. i have played every jrpg Yea Forums has ever recommended me and they were all shit.
wrpgs are crpgs, jrpgs are VNs with braindead combat to pad them out an extra 40 hours
Isaiah Gutierrez
>i have played every jrpg Yea Forums has ever recommended me and they were all shit. Really now? Name some
Caleb Wilson
Oh God, I have flashbacks because I used to be like this. I still feel bad that I used to be so cringy.
Owen Anderson
Right. So if you know one of the Asian languages, have you read anything where the quality of writing was honest to god good? Forget content, style over substance will work just fine. Whatever you say I'll take your word for it, it's not like I can check. Just asking because I'm curious.
Jace Jones
I think its more about the death of AAA gaming rather than a western centric issue, Japan has alot of smaller devs that arent quite indie and I think the few that remain in the west like Firaxis still make good vidya. Also 2018 was a really good year for western indies
Nicholas Perry
I guess it's cultural. To me as someone from eastern europe american writing in films, tv series and games seems kind of cheesy and forced a lot of the time. I only thought it was a film thing but when I got to reading books in english (before I just read translations) I saw it was similar. Japanese writing always seemed a bit more natural, because our cultures and the language might be a bit more similar.
Samuel Murphy
>they started making games for people that actually like games
>Lufia 2 >Nier >Last Remnant >Unlimited Saga >Chrono Trigger >Langrisser 2 >Brigandine >Mother series >Breath of Fire series >SMT 1/2/SJ/Nocturne/DD2 >Suikoden 2 >Secret of Mana >Disgaea >Wild Arms >EO 1/2/3
stuff like DA:O, F:NV, and KOTOR2 are the daytime television of crpgs and that is what most of nu/v/ really grew up with
Asher Adams
Yep, you're not alone OP. I've been getting into retro games as well. having a blast playing Sega games that I never played before.
Kevin Hughes
>So if you know one of the Asian languages, have you read anything where the quality of writing was honest to god good? There will never be a Japanese equivalent of Paradise Lost, Lolita, Moby Dick, etc. Its a subhuman language for insect people.
Nicholas Anderson
nobody on Yea Forums ever recommended Unlimited Saga or Langrisser 2 >not liking Lufia 2 or Last Remnant
Benjamin Ramirez
And what you disliked in these games?
Ayden Reed
ELEX Divinity: Original Sin 2 Avernum remakes Underrail Hollow Knight
There are good games that came out recently if you have good taste.
Jose Garcia
True answer. Games hire from the artistic base. Art curriculum has been overrun by kikes pushing socjus narratives for 20+ years. Your hires end up being pink haired, mustache twirling twinks who unironically believe that having sexualized attractive females makes men into rapists and causes black people to die in the streets to police violence. Not to mention the influx of women who naturally are less prone to art and imaginative fields due to brain structure differences, taking over creative roles and using Jewish tactics to hire more women and only women like Jews hire only Jews in order to take over a company.
Ayden Hill
because the target audience for western games are niggers and obese ADHD addled children whereas jap games expect you to have a brain or be on the spectrum to enjoy them and are developed as such (most of the time)
Parker Harris
>Lufia 2 extremely shit combat, the dungeons and puzzles were baby tier >Last Remnant the only time you are actively engaged with the game is when you are preparing squads, 99% of your time in the game is spent doing braindead activities
Evan Gomez
You can't name Final Fantasy a VN, because there are no choices changing plot.
Grayson Flores
>who unironically believe that having sexualized attractive females makes men into rapists and causes black people to die in the streets to police violence If the only thing they were doing was pushing to have jezebels removed from games I would 100% agree with them. Women should not be seen outside the home, not even in a video game.
Benjamin Gonzalez
>What happened to western studios? The vidya industry started to make more money than the movie industry in the 2000s, so the same kind of scummy businessmen started to work their way into video games. Now, western AAA studios are pretty much just an extension of the Hollywood machine. Plus, budgets for games are through the roof these days, so publishers can’t afford to take big risks.
Capitalism happened. All of the good A-AAA Western studios got absorbed into soulless corporate conglomerates, and all the management cares about is maximizing shareholder profit. That means making games for the lowest common denominator majority gamers, the ones who mostly play on console and only stick with a game for a few weeks before moving on to the next thing. It also means making microtransaction hell games, because the moronic 10-20% of players who will max out their credit cards on loot boxes more than offset the lost profits from normal players who want none of that shit. It also means everything has to be multiplatform, which lowers the quality of all games no matter what they're on, because dev time has to be wasted on porting and testing for multiple platforms and everything has to be limited to the capabilities of the weakest option.
As others have pointed out though, there are still some very good independent or small studio devs in the West.
Aiden Rivera
the passion in American devs just died, Japan keeps it real that's just how things are these days. Same way Egypt is a shithole these days but used to be great.
