Yes, surely Gamestop is not selling Intellivision Lives! DS because they're evil.
Since, you know, a 7 year old port of a PS2 game that probably sold poorly, developed by a company that has brought us such gems as City Builder, Canada Hunt, and Burger Bot screams blockbuster seller.
Oh my God, is that Nier thing for real? So you can play as a Final Fantasy pretty boy, or a caveman depending on what console you buy for? hahaha
Not in America, you only get to play as middle-aged caveman. In Japan you only got the choice by selecting which console you wanted the game for, PS3 for pretty-boy and 360 for moptop.
Opty on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
The fact that, in Japan, the console dictates how the character looks seems like a really vindictive move.
The fact that, in Japan, the console dictates how the character looks seems like a really vindictive move.
The thing is if I remember correctly from an interview with Cavia, the 360 "gruff" look, is actually the intended canon look. The only reason the pretty boy version exists is because the standard look wouldn't sell in japan.
The fact that, in Japan, the console dictates how the character looks seems like a really vindictive move.
The thing is if I remember correctly from an interview with Cavia, the 360 "gruff" look, is actually the intended canon look. The only reason the pretty boy version exists is because the standard look wouldn't sell in japan.
Basically, if you have a 360 in japan you are probably more open to foreign tastes, even if those tastes aren't accurate.
The fact that, in Japan, the console dictates how the character looks seems like a really vindictive move.
The thing is if I remember correctly from an interview with Cavia, the 360 "gruff" look, is actually the intended canon look. The only reason the pretty boy version exists is because the standard look wouldn't sell in japan.
They did the same with Rygar in the release for the Wii version:
What's up with pretty boy faces and white hair in Japan.
My reason: Frank West was a character in Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, and his character looked the same in both US and Japanese versions. I suppose there still could have been some changes done in the 360 games, but they must have been negligible.
Funny, most WRPGs I've played this generation let me pick whether I play as a guy or gal. They are right on the macho and experienced part. Most games that have a young hero are unrealistic to me. A hero needs to be able to use thier life experiences to help them survive.
Isn't "Young farmboy saves the world" a well-established trope in western media? Where a young man is somehow chosen by fate to be the center of an epic story, despite the possible existence of older, experienced candidates. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, all the way back to Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone.
If anything, the protagonist being a gruff macho dude seems to be something from action movies, which tend to have a smaller scope compared to more epic SF/fantasy stories.
The point is that the characters are supposed to grow in those long epics so we can empathize with the character. In actiony B-movies we're just there to watch explosions, so the characters can come pre-made.
Why is Frank West not in this game? He shows up in Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Capcom has pushed him as a core character to the Capcom name. Why not bring him back for Dead Rising 2?
Actually, Frank as a character is very symbolic of a learning process for us, which is we didn't want to make your specific Anime, nubile, 18-year-old Japanese character. We wanted to make a more rough, tough, gritty character for the Western market and we initially designed this out of Japan so there was a lot of learning we had to go through. Like, in the beginning, some of the directive I gave was "Make Frank ugly, make him fat." You know, we wanted to make him not super attractive as a character.
As we created him and fine-tuned him throughout the development process with Dead Rising 1 we started to realize what sort of characters could work for Western gamers and which characters couldn't, but that only represents one tier along the learning process. So, we didn't want to just stop there and say, "OK, we got this Frank West character that's good enough." We wanted to then try with other characters, try to take that learning to the next step and with Chuck Greene one of the things it allows us to do its ... he's also not super ultra cool looking slick character. He's kinda rugged and worn down father character looking for his daughter.
And that also allows us to, again, change the key motivation of what Chuck is as a character as compared to Frank is as a character. [Chuck] is a character that out of the love of his heart -- out of trying to rescue loved ones -- puts himself at risk and that allows us to take the story in a different direction. So, it's really a collection of us wanting to get better and better at creating characters that we feel aren't just your typical Japanese characters, but are characters that work in the West and aren't just beautiful looking characters and are more rugged. And, on top of that, create a character that would fit in the story and allow us to take the theme in a different direction than, say, the first game.
Are Japanese characters typically more beautiful?
You don't think so?
I'm asking.
Yeah, um, again, this is all seen through the Japanese end-user's eyes. But most of the characters you're looking at: they have to be young, they have to have very little facial hair -- if any. Very smooth shiny skin. All of this ties into the Anime subculture of they don't want to play something that's realistic. They don't want to play a person who has gotten fat, old, starting to bald, etcetera. That's too much reality for them. They want to play in the fantasy world and that's going to be in these beautiful-esque looking characters.
In the West, one of the things that's great is that you guys aren't locked into a certain stereotype or pattern with your characters. You can have young characters, really old characters -- they can all be the lead character and that's fine. I think that comes from the Hollywood movie roots because in movies you see a wide variety of characters, whether they are young children or really old men, you have a smattering of different types of main characters and that filters into your game lead characters as well. Where as in Japan, a lot of our character choices are based in Anime and not in movies.
So maybe it really does take a lot more research and thought than a Westerner like me would think it needs for a Japanese developer to wrap their brains around how to make a character work for foreign audiences. The tone he expressed in the interview made it sound like it was a given that characters created in Japan were naturally going to have those youthful traits attached to them, and that Western characters need to be chiseled, grisled, and maybe out-of-shape-isled. It wouldn't be a surprise if these thoughts permeated into things like storytelling.
V Faction on
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"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
The point is that the characters are supposed to grow in those long epics so we can empathize with the character. In actiony B-movies we're just there to watch explosions, so the characters can come pre-made.
I'll buy that - I just wanted to point out that the young hero is pretty common in western storytelling as well. Not necessarily in games though, but that's more because of which genres are popular in the west.
Does Inafune even play western games? The only really old main character I can think of actually came from Japan, MGS4. Otherwise, they're really not that common. Similarly, females are pretty rarely main characters (Lara Croft and Faith are the only two that really come to mind) and black main characters are near non-existent. This is of course excluding custom characters.
Reminds me of those 2ch threads someone in the forum translated, in which japanese gamers dissed western games for only including old men in power armor.
or even say, Paxton Fettle's (FEAR1's bad guy) generic bad guy qualities, but you don't see those concentrated OPERATION NORA facepalm moments in western games like you do in Japanese games.
Is this real?
Did someone seriously name the villain of their game Paxton Fettle?
You can't take a villain seriously with a name like Paxton Fettle.
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
I like that Inafune interview. It's an interesting perspective on the whole thing. Especially with his comment about the whole psychology of westerners growing up surrounded by Hollywood.
Also:
Does Inafune even play western games? The only really old main character I can think of actually came from Japan, MGS4. Otherwise, they're really not that common. Similarly, females are pretty rarely main characters (Lara Croft and Faith are the only two that really come to mind) and black main characters are near non-existent. This is of course excluding custom characters.
I think by "old" he meant "not a teenager" (like almost every damn Japanese character). Like, he would consider Frank West to be "old." As for actual "old" characters, was there a game based on the movie "Up"? :P haha
I do think there are a decent number of female-lead games though. Or at least, probably more developed here than in Japan. Specific examples are not coming to mind at the moment (other than maybe Oni from Bungie), but I can picture a few examples in my head anyways. They just aren't necessarily all hugely popular franchises like Tomb Raider (and frankly, how many huge franchises were developed in the West to begin with? Outside of the PC market, western game development is still somewhat new, at least compared to Japan).
Edit: Though come to think of it, some of that depends on how you define "western"... as in, is it "America", or "things west of Japan"? Tomb Raider was created by a British developer afterall :P Likewise, Rare created Perfect Dark (another example that just came to me :P)
Makes you wonder how long FFXIII versus will remain PS3 exclusive.
Considering how poorly FFXIII was thought of and even returned at astonishing rates in Japan I really wonder what the fan reaction will be. Even sales wise it didn't light the world on fire.
Does Inafune even play western games? The only really old main character I can think of actually came from Japan, MGS4. Otherwise, they're really not that common. Similarly, females are pretty rarely main characters (Lara Croft and Faith are the only two that really come to mind) and black main characters are near non-existent. This is of course excluding custom characters.
The average age of most characters I can think of in the west generally remains unstated, but is easily about thirty plus - which I grant you isn't 'super old', but it's certainly more so then in Japan. And I actually can name black, and female protagonists. Good luck finding that in Japan.
Leitner on
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BeezelThere was no agreement little morsel..Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
Didn't you hear?
Final Fantasy versus XIII is the -REAL- Final Fantasy XIII
I heard it from the internet.
Beezel on
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"...only mights and maybes."
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
Easy mode FFXIII is actually the same thing as Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence; it comes with a DVD of the game's story that you just sit and watch!
I think by "old" he meant "not a teenager" (like almost every damn Japanese character). Like, he would consider Frank West to be "old." As for actual "old" characters, was there a game based on the movie "Up"? :P haha
I do think there are a decent number of female-lead games though. Or at least, probably more developed here than in Japan. Specific examples are not coming to mind at the moment (other than maybe Oni from Bungie), but I can picture a few examples in my head anyways. They just aren't necessarily all hugely popular franchises like Tomb Raider (and frankly, how many huge franchises were developed in the West to begin with? Outside of the PC market, western game development is still somewhat new, at least compared to Japan).
Edit: Though come to think of it, some of that depends on how you define "western"... as in, is it "America", or "things west of Japan"? Tomb Raider was created by a British developer afterall :P Likewise, Rare created Perfect Dark (another example that just came to me :P)
Read his sentence again:
In the West, one of the things that's great is that you guys aren't locked into a certain stereotype or pattern with your characters. You can have young characters, really old characters -- they can all be the lead character and that's fine.
He's trying to say that western games have a broad array of characters and that there aren't any typical stereotypes that designers use to appeal to their userbase. This leads me to believe he doesn't actually know what he's talking about, since bald (or shaved) ~30 year old, buffed out white guys are pretty bloody common in western games.
Also, 'western' in this context probably does mean 'everywhere but Japan'.
The average age of most characters I can think of in the west generally remains unstated, but is easily about thirty plus - which I grant you isn't 'super old', but it's certainly more so then in Japan. And I actually can name black, and female protagonists. Good luck finding that in Japan.
Good luck finding female protagonists in Japanese games? Samus, Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, Regina (Dino Crisis), Heather (SH3), Aya (PE) and Lightning. Wow, I must be pretty lucky today. There are others too, I just can't remember their names (Valkyrie Profile, Suikoden III and the Fatal Frame's come to mind). And seeing as Japan isn't exactly a multi-cultural country, I hardly expect them to suddenly have black protagonists when the vast majority of western developers can't do it (though I do expect them not to be racist, like RE5).
But regardless, it's not a competition. The point is, western developers are just as bad as the Japanese when it comes to deviating outside their comfort zone with main characters.
The baldness is more of a technical limitation than an actual character design. Rendering decent hair is still a difficult thing to do on consoles.
Though I can think of a ton of different Western developed, big name games, that have pretty big difference in character designs, where as Japanese games tend to be overwhelmingly casted with androgynous characters with spiky hair and whatever latest craze Nomura saw on his last trip to Shibuya.
I haven't played a Bald Space Marine in quite some time. Though I'm far from impartial. I stopped playing many Japanese games years ago. A quick look through my GameFly lists and I have nothing but Western developed games, counting Dead Rising 2.
Though I did get the latest 2D Castlevania game and want to play the new one.
Sheep on
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
I think by "old" he meant "not a teenager" (like almost every damn Japanese character). Like, he would consider Frank West to be "old." As for actual "old" characters, was there a game based on the movie "Up"? :P haha
I do think there are a decent number of female-lead games though. Or at least, probably more developed here than in Japan. Specific examples are not coming to mind at the moment (other than maybe Oni from Bungie), but I can picture a few examples in my head anyways. They just aren't necessarily all hugely popular franchises like Tomb Raider (and frankly, how many huge franchises were developed in the West to begin with? Outside of the PC market, western game development is still somewhat new, at least compared to Japan).
Edit: Though come to think of it, some of that depends on how you define "western"... as in, is it "America", or "things west of Japan"? Tomb Raider was created by a British developer afterall :P Likewise, Rare created Perfect Dark (another example that just came to me :P)
Read his sentence again:
In the West, one of the things that's great is that you guys aren't locked into a certain stereotype or pattern with your characters. You can have young characters, really old characters -- they can all be the lead character and that's fine.
He's trying to say that western games have a broad array of characters and that there aren't any typical stereotypes that designers use to appeal to their userbase. This leads me to believe he doesn't actually know what he's talking about, since bald (or shaved) ~30 year old, buffed out white guys are pretty bloody common in western games.
Also, 'western' in this context probably does mean 'everywhere but Japan'.
I don't really get what you are saying here. Yes, he is talking about diversity. But he's saying that western audiences will accept characters that are not emo 17-year old pretty boys. Regardless of whether western games sometimes have their own stereotypical protagonists, it's not like *all* games do, nor do Japanese games with said pretty boys not also sell well here (whereas western games sell like shit in Japan generally)
Here's something I found pretty damn interesting. We all knew Bioware was going to collect stats on how people played Mass Effect 2. Well, here's what they collected:
Remember, there are six character classes, and soldier is the one that plays most like a traditional FPS.
So here's a game that allows you a fair amount of freedom to play who you want how you want it, and the vast majority picked your generic, male, pew-pew space marine.
We bitch about how publishers don't have enough games featuring female characters and how there's too many damn shooters, but given how most of the audience actually played this game, can you really blame them?
cloudeagle on
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Yes, surely Gamestop is not selling Intellivision Lives! DS because they're evil.
Since, you know, a 7 year old port of a PS2 game that probably sold poorly, developed by a company that has brought us such gems as City Builder, Canada Hunt, and Burger Bot screams blockbuster seller.
Incidentally, however, the Namco Museum collection on the DS sells extremely well (actually it sells really well on every platform it is released on). I remember seeing this info when Namco released some data on its best selling games per platform a while back.
Of course it's not quite the same.. Namco Museum has Pac Man, Galaga, and Xevious which are all pretty well known. Especially Pac Man. Heck Pac Man sells well on any platform.
And as someone who played a biotic/engineer mix, I can tell you that the other classes aren't overly complicated or hard to play, and they've got plenty of pew-pew too.
Meanwhile, I found this out in the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Pretentiousness thread:
And as someone who played a biotic/engineer mix, I can tell you that the other classes aren't overly complicated or hard to play, and they've got plenty of pew-pew too.
Meanwhile, I found this out in the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Pretentiousness thread:
Posts
You joke, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's the actual reason.
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Since, you know, a 7 year old port of a PS2 game that probably sold poorly, developed by a company that has brought us such gems as City Builder, Canada Hunt, and Burger Bot screams blockbuster seller.
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The thing is if I remember correctly from an interview with Cavia, the 360 "gruff" look, is actually the intended canon look. The only reason the pretty boy version exists is because the standard look wouldn't sell in japan.
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Basically, if you have a 360 in japan you are probably more open to foreign tastes, even if those tastes aren't accurate.
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They did the same with Rygar in the release for the Wii version:
What's up with pretty boy faces and white hair in Japan.
My reason: Frank West was a character in Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, and his character looked the same in both US and Japanese versions. I suppose there still could have been some changes done in the 360 games, but they must have been negligible.
Really? Good writing in a game that involves a girl getting a demon cock?
Futanari grows on him.
Pretty quick.
:winky:
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Isn't "Young farmboy saves the world" a well-established trope in western media? Where a young man is somehow chosen by fate to be the center of an epic story, despite the possible existence of older, experienced candidates. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, all the way back to Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone.
If anything, the protagonist being a gruff macho dude seems to be something from action movies, which tend to have a smaller scope compared to more epic SF/fantasy stories.
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That actually reminds me of a small interview with Keiji Inafune.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/21/interview-keiji-inafune-on-dead-rising-2/
So maybe it really does take a lot more research and thought than a Westerner like me would think it needs for a Japanese developer to wrap their brains around how to make a character work for foreign audiences. The tone he expressed in the interview made it sound like it was a given that characters created in Japan were naturally going to have those youthful traits attached to them, and that Western characters need to be chiseled, grisled, and maybe out-of-shape-isled. It wouldn't be a surprise if these thoughts permeated into things like storytelling.
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"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
I'll buy that - I just wanted to point out that the young hero is pretty common in western storytelling as well. Not necessarily in games though, but that's more because of which genres are popular in the west.
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You've obviously never played FEAR.
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Also:
I think by "old" he meant "not a teenager" (like almost every damn Japanese character). Like, he would consider Frank West to be "old." As for actual "old" characters, was there a game based on the movie "Up"? :P haha
I do think there are a decent number of female-lead games though. Or at least, probably more developed here than in Japan. Specific examples are not coming to mind at the moment (other than maybe Oni from Bungie), but I can picture a few examples in my head anyways. They just aren't necessarily all hugely popular franchises like Tomb Raider (and frankly, how many huge franchises were developed in the West to begin with? Outside of the PC market, western game development is still somewhat new, at least compared to Japan).
Edit: Though come to think of it, some of that depends on how you define "western"... as in, is it "America", or "things west of Japan"? Tomb Raider was created by a British developer afterall :P Likewise, Rare created Perfect Dark (another example that just came to me :P)
The circle is now complete.
Makes you wonder how long FFXIII versus will remain PS3 exclusive.
Considering how poorly FFXIII was thought of and even returned at astonishing rates in Japan I really wonder what the fan reaction will be. Even sales wise it didn't light the world on fire.
The average age of most characters I can think of in the west generally remains unstated, but is easily about thirty plus - which I grant you isn't 'super old', but it's certainly more so then in Japan. And I actually can name black, and female protagonists. Good luck finding that in Japan.
Final Fantasy versus XIII is the -REAL- Final Fantasy XIII
I heard it from the internet.
"...only mights and maybes."
Any sort of plot can be executed good or bad. Dismissing a story by stating one element and saying it has to be bad is sill.
Note that I have never played Nier and am merely stating a point
Read his sentence again: He's trying to say that western games have a broad array of characters and that there aren't any typical stereotypes that designers use to appeal to their userbase. This leads me to believe he doesn't actually know what he's talking about, since bald (or shaved) ~30 year old, buffed out white guys are pretty bloody common in western games.
Also, 'western' in this context probably does mean 'everywhere but Japan'.
Good luck finding female protagonists in Japanese games? Samus, Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, Regina (Dino Crisis), Heather (SH3), Aya (PE) and Lightning. Wow, I must be pretty lucky today. There are others too, I just can't remember their names (Valkyrie Profile, Suikoden III and the Fatal Frame's come to mind). And seeing as Japan isn't exactly a multi-cultural country, I hardly expect them to suddenly have black protagonists when the vast majority of western developers can't do it (though I do expect them not to be racist, like RE5).
But regardless, it's not a competition. The point is, western developers are just as bad as the Japanese when it comes to deviating outside their comfort zone with main characters.
Though I can think of a ton of different Western developed, big name games, that have pretty big difference in character designs, where as Japanese games tend to be overwhelmingly casted with androgynous characters with spiky hair and whatever latest craze Nomura saw on his last trip to Shibuya.
I haven't played a Bald Space Marine in quite some time. Though I'm far from impartial. I stopped playing many Japanese games years ago. A quick look through my GameFly lists and I have nothing but Western developed games, counting Dead Rising 2.
Though I did get the latest 2D Castlevania game and want to play the new one.
I don't really get what you are saying here. Yes, he is talking about diversity. But he's saying that western audiences will accept characters that are not emo 17-year old pretty boys. Regardless of whether western games sometimes have their own stereotypical protagonists, it's not like *all* games do, nor do Japanese games with said pretty boys not also sell well here (whereas western games sell like shit in Japan generally)
http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1118657p1.html
Remember, there are six character classes, and soldier is the one that plays most like a traditional FPS.
So here's a game that allows you a fair amount of freedom to play who you want how you want it, and the vast majority picked your generic, male, pew-pew space marine.
We bitch about how publishers don't have enough games featuring female characters and how there's too many damn shooters, but given how most of the audience actually played this game, can you really blame them?
Engineers are the best class.
Incidentally, however, the Namco Museum collection on the DS sells extremely well (actually it sells really well on every platform it is released on). I remember seeing this info when Namco released some data on its best selling games per platform a while back.
Of course it's not quite the same.. Namco Museum has Pac Man, Galaga, and Xevious which are all pretty well known. Especially Pac Man. Heck Pac Man sells well on any platform.
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80% customised their character. So that isn't the case.
Meanwhile, I found this out in the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Pretentiousness thread:
...wow. I mean, Gamestop never gives you a great deal on hardware, but GODDAMN.
The system that gives the finger to GameStop doesn't sell back to GameStop for a lot of money?