Insomnia | Forum

I've noticed a number of worrying trends for a while, and wanted to write them down.

An HG101 podcast spoke about how we're seeing an increasing divide between Japan and the West, the likes of which haven't been seen for a while. I'd agree, since despite a great deal of shrinkage in the gap between the two over the years, with various improvements (more games getting localised, 60Hz options, etc), I feel we're starting to see the tide turning.

This is made worse by people's apathy regarding the content to come from Japan.

Things which have been bothering me:

Backlash against fans of Japan: I seem to recall a time when everyone liked Japanese games, whereas now it seems that to say such a thing is "uncool", and terms like wapanese are thrown around. Now, despite my all-time favourite game (Star Control 2) being American, and my all-time favourite RPG (Shadowrun) coming from Australia of all places, I prefer the output of Japan's to the West. I enjoyed games like Fallout 3 and Mirror's Edge, but I've seldom found anything that excites me quite like games such as Valkyria Chronicles (my GOTY 2008), Senko no Ronde, Yakuza series, Demon's Souls (my GOTY 2009), Badman (PSP), Oreike (PSP), Disaster Report 3 (PSP), Madworld, No More Heroes, Pole's Big Adventure (Wii), or any of the things Atlus are bringing to the DS. Yet openly stating this can bring condemnation on forums.

People ignoring great Japanese titles: Of the above great foreign titles, most seem to have been criminally ignored. Why is this? Have the people who enjoyed Japanese games during the 1990s stopped playing games? or have tastes changed? It's not that Japan has stopped making great games, it's that people aren't taking notice of them.

Publishers ignoring great Japanese games: The side effect of the above is that publishers are also ignoring great Japanese games, like Demon's Souls which seems unlikely to get a western release. The counter-claim to this is Badman, which looks to be getting a great localisation. But there are tons of stuff being left in Japan.

Region-locking: I thought with the PS3 being region free (which I am LOVING at the moment), others would follow. But no. We're still stuck in the past, with a whole river of great Japanese shmups being released on the 360 and their bastard publishers putting region-locking in. They say they do it because they want to release them in the west, and then do nothing. Hasn't anyone found a way top bypass this? I bought my PS2, Xbox and Gamecube all region-modded. Why isn't this happening with the 360? It's nearly the year 2010 and we're still trying to restrict the free-market. This really pisses me off.

Death of import-centric websites: NTSC-uk used to be a Mecca for import fans, but since Marcus left they openly stated they'd be covering everything. Which is what a lot of websites do, and makes them (and their NAME) totally redundant. Their GOTY voting proved quite a point! Insert Credit has progressively slowed and is a shadow of its glory days. And there are others that have gone the same way, with the exception of HG101. I still want to import from America and Japan. I'm thinking of buying an American Wii for instance. And yet the places to go and discuss these things are dying. Why aren't there online articles covering every single decent 360 Japan-exclusive? Or all the cool Japan-only PS2 games that came out recently, like Tori no Hoshi? There is a sickeningly massive amount of quality games being released in Japan and forgotten about, and we don't even know about them because no one is covering them!

Backlash against techno-geeks: Every domestic game that has to run on a CRT should have 60Hz options. No excuses. Sega started it with the Dreamcast, everyone should follow. And yet when they don't, like with Madworld on Wii, and people complain, there is a backlash against people who want to enjoy the true experience. This isn't fair. If PAL Madworld had a shit conversion, it's our right to complain about it. I don't understand this techno-geek backlash. It now seems to be uncool to want a quality experience.

Poor localisations and the backlash: I thought we'd perfected this with Atlus and their work? Yet we still have crap localisations by NIS, and yet not enough people seem to be complaining. Dual-voice tracks should be standard. Artwork should be unaltered. And so on. And yet when people such as myself and Compass complain about the poor work being done, there's a backlash. Why is it now people are happy to accept shoddy work?

Japanese games outsourced to the west: I hate this, since invariably the result is shoddy. I didn't like Metroid Prime, Splatterhouse looked like absolute shit, and I have extremely low expectations for Dead Rising 2. The trend seems to be on the increase - is it to save money? Or are they trying to make these games appeal more to a western audience? As Jeremy Blaustein has said, the Japanese make the best games when they make them to appeal to their own market, not when they're trying to work out what another nation might want and try blindly to appeal to that.


Japan's games industry isn't dying, it's only that everyone seems to be ignoring it in favour of shoddy hardware which breaks down, and generic, cloned games with poor art direction.


There are other things which bug me:
* Someone on RLLMUK said most of the really interesting stuff in Japan is now only being released on mobile phones. Is this true? I knew there were quite a few good games out there, but how many? Why aren't people covering this? Why aren't I being told about it? If this is true, then there is almost no way to import them and the Japan/West divide is bigger than its ever been. Unless someone in Japan buys a phone, downloads a bunch of games, then exports it to the west. Why aren't there articles on this? Why doesn't gamesTM do a 6 page feature and get Tim Rodgers to buy a phone and review 20 mobile phone games, with screens? And then have a competition so one lucky reader can win the phone?

* Crappy magazine coverage, more interested in attracting advertisers than decent copy. I've been reading SuperPlay, and man, those guys really loved the SNES and weren't afraid to do their own thing. And they had loads of ads. Is there no money in pandering to the hardcore?

* Backlash against fan-translators. I have an obsessive love for the fan-translation community, yet when I wrote an online article praising them and encouraging publishers to use them to translate downloadable retro games, my editor said it would upset advertisers so they altered the entire article to make it sound as if fan-translators weren't needed any more. I'd say we need them more than ever! Especially when they're translating games like Mother 3, plus PS2 and PSP games!

* Import shopping websites not posting to Europe.

* The poor state of the European PSN compared to America/Japan.

* About a million other things. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)


Anyone else feel this? There's been a very sad shift in things.