Tales producer: Japan going 'back to roots,' avoiding 'westernization' of games
Japanese games are slowly making a resurgence. Hideo Baba, producer of Namco Bandai's Tales of series, said that Japanese designers are returning to what made their games so appealing in the first place.
Japanese games are slowly making a resurgence. Games like Dark Souls and Persona 4 have recaptured our attention, after many developers struggled to make hits that resonated with the American audience. Games like Quantum Theory, which poorly emulated Gears of War, proved to be duds--something that has Japanese developers going back to the drawing board.
Hideo Baba, producer of Namco Bandai's Tales series, said that Japanese designers are returning to what made their games so appealing in the first place. "I feel like a lot of Japanese developers, especially ourselves, we've really taken an effort to go back to our roots," he told us. "We look at what we started with and what we're good at, and we really tried to make an effort to strengthen what our foundations are."
Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino recently echoed those sentiments, saying Ni no Kuni attempts to recreate "the good old days" of JRPGs.
The upcoming Tales of Xillia marks the franchise's 15th US anniversary, and with its big-eyed anime characters, it's clear that this is a game meant for Japanese tastes. "With regards to the Tales franchise, we've never made an effort to 'westernize' it," Baba said. Staying true to its identity is what helps the franchise stay so endearing to its fans. "We feel that Western developers are good at certain things, while Japanese developers are good at other things. Rather than us trying to copy Western developers, we really try to look within ourselves and try to improve ourselves. The Tales franchise has been a personal struggle to better ourselves and the franchise."
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Tales producer: Japan going 'back to roots,' avoiding 'westernization' of games.
Japanese games are slowly making a resurgence. Hideo Baba, producer of Namco Bandai's Tales of series, said that Japanese designers are returning to what made their games so appealing in the first place.-
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Haha, this. I love how they blame the west for their horrible games.
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Haha, I love how you lack reading comprehension, as expected from someone who has "monkey" in his username.
Japan is blaming themselves for trying to copy western games, they realized that.. And you might get ass-devastated by this, but here's the truth: It's not really Japan's fault that the west has horrible game design and are too focused on "WE MUST MAKE CINEMATICS ON PAR WITH HOLLYWOOD MOVIES" which sells so much obviously because they're marketed for the lowest common denominators and casuals.
So yeah, don't be all "WAAAHH WAAAHH JAPAN IS BLAMING WEST FOR THEIR GAMES THAT ARE NOT MY CUP OF TEA BUT I'LL CALL THEM HORRIBLE AS IF MY OPINION IS A FACT" when they're simply just telling the truth.-
Wow, you took that way too seriously friend.
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No offense taken, I understand.
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Dark Souls > Skyrim. Right?
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Other than Skyrim, it's been a bad few years for western RPGs. I just made my point inelegantly.
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the witcher >:(
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eastern europe, but falls into the western rpg genre pretty solidly
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The people who make the game don't consider it a JRPG - there's been a couple interviews where they straight up say "we don't like JRPGs and set out to make something else."
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I agree Dark Souls is way better than Skyrim in my opinion, but i wasn't that big a fan of Skyrim.
Then again while similar theres quite a few differences, so maybe they shouldn't be directly compared.
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I'd be fine with that. I kind of miss the distinct differences. Too much homogeneity these days.
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This is my take. There are plenty of crap Japanese games just like there are plenty of crap Western games. My tastes tend to gravitate towards Japanese design philosophies (their games are just more mechanically interesting than Western games are to me), so to see it extinguished by a mass Westernization would be most saddening.
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I agree with this. As much as I don't give a fuck about JRPGs anymore...that isn't the only genre that comes out of Japan and I really just want to see people making the games they fucking want to make.
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I know they've avoiding Westernizing games, but goddamn Tales team/Namco, you could at least fucking *release* the games over.
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Folks in charge of Tales are idiots. They either never release the games or release them near AAA titles.
Who thought it was a good idea to release around FF13 (before the hate sunk in)? Shit like that doesn't help your sales. Oh let's release it around a sequel to Mass Effect, that's an even better idea!
Idiots. -
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Japan had many right ideas during the middle of Playstation 2's run. They came up with some of the most amazing and creative ideas at the time and ultimately much of them have been forgotten.
Just look at Shadow of the Colossus, Kamatari Damacy, Okami, Viewtiful Joe, Shinobi, and the first Ninja Gaiden. These games were Japanese gaming at their best. Somehow it just didn't translate over to the current generation.
In terms of RPGs, Matrix Software has done some good work on the DS. Their remakes of classic Final Fantasy games were fantastic. Maintaining classic JRPG gameplay with a new layer of some semblance of balanced challenge pacing. -
There actually was a "good ol' days" of JPRGs? Man, I never liked those things. Sometimes I wonder how many gamers just liked 'em because they were from Japan, which was seen as being "cool" back in the old days of videogaming, when we had to climb uphill both ways to buy our games at a Software, Etc...and we liked it.
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Try Anachronox! It's the best JRPG made in Texas!
It's actually pretty solid, and quite hilarious. http://www.gog.com/gamecard/anachronox if you are actually interested. It's not perfect, but it's good. I actually laughed when Square Enix purchased Eidos "to develop their western portfolio," specifically because of this game.
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Well I guess you can't lose if you don't play.
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nothing but good news
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have they?
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/374749/top-selling-console-games-of-2012-revealed-for-europe-us-and-japan/
only in japan have japanese games dominated. even in europe, most of the best-selling titles are western-developed. -
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Sometimes I am embarrassed by the generalized obvious lack of informed comments on this site. But then again i cant blame you when the article takes out of context comments puts a negative spin on japan like persona 4 and dark souls were the ONLY 2 GAMES, and then builds a crappy article.
Japan has been fine this gen. You dont think they made westernized games in the past? really? go read up on game history 101
So let me get this straight, persona 4 and dark souls were the only 2 good japanese games and what? mario galaxy, valkyria chronicles, 7th dragon, ect were all shit? come on
articles like this make me puke-
No, but Dark Souls and Persona 4: [insertwhatever] are the most recent ones. People have short memories and at least for consoles manufacturing for many games stops a year after release making them more difficult to acquire exacerbating the short term memory. I think you might be a little too invested in the topic, reading into the article some slights which are not there.
As for Mario Galaxy... I think it many ways, Nintendo frequently gets separated from "Japanese games" as they are their own powerhouse.
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i agree; however, there are distinct differences in design philosophy that are kind of refreshing. just like how europe is known for hardcore PC games, simulators, sports front office sims - it's their angle and some fantastic games come out of that.
japan shouldn't try to copy american-style gaming because it's not what they know, and it's not necessarily better, just different. we need persona and mario and FF and we also need dead space and skyrim.
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When did Japanese games stop being Japanese? They've always been inscrutable.
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A game series with "Tales of" in the title, avoiding westernization?
Yep, sure.
