Japanese Games - What draws you in?

[Serega81]

Currently, I'm re-playing BABEL a 1992 Telenet RPG for the Cd-Rom2.  Babel is notorious for having humongous towns, in which you have to talk to a specific character/characters to progress.  For someone who only knows basic hiragana/katakana, no kanji whatsoever, this game is a nightmare.  Of course I rely on all things interwebs, Google Translate, and NicoFox, to help me in a spot, but still it can be a hassle.

Way back when, before NicoFox, Google Translate, or even Google itself, I found myself being drawn to Japanese games: the Anime character designs, modding your console to play something different, the first kid on the block to try it appeal, all these things made import games especially attractive.  It didn't help that my favorite game shop carrying said imports, was only a couple of blocks away.  Game Hunter, anyone?

I have played through multitudes of imports (at least 45-50), mostly RPGs on the PCE, PC-FX Sega CD, Saturn, Dreamcast, PSX, PS2, PS3, Nintendo, SNES, NDS.

One of the things that drew me to these games was what I call the 'riddle' factor.  This applies to RPG's more than any other genre.  The riddle in this case, is figuring out what action to take after you accomplish a quest and don't know where to go.  Do you go to this village, and talk to this person, or maybe you have an item to unlock the gate ahead if you don't have said item how do you obtain it? 

With moonrunes as your guide (Thank you Necromancer I love that word) you are left to figure out the exact details on your own, and make logical conclusions based on what happened in the game before you got stuck.  You have to solve the riddle to progress further, and with RPG's you level up while solving said riddle so it's a win-win.

This puts me in a dilemma, I know some hiragana/katakana, no kanji, and would love to learn more Japanese, signing up for a class as we speak.  However, wore I fluent in Japanese, the magic that attracted me to these games in the first place would be diminished.  Just another retro-RPG to wade through.

So what draws you into playing imports? 

PS - I know NEC had a lackluster performance in the US, so we all played imports to get the most out of the system but is there more to the story?

[Psycho Punch]

Most of western games lack imagination and fun, this applies even today. I could write a long ass rant but I'll just post images of two landmark last gen games, a US and a Japanese one.

[esadajr]

I like how creative and colorful some Japanese tities can be. There's this mystic about experiencing something from far far away, something so different. I welcome the opportunity of learning about references.

[ccovell]

A little bit less of the adolescent obsession with graphic violence.

...which was fine when I was an adolescent, but beauty, grace, and playfulness are more timeless.

I don't really care for turn-based RPGs, so what's left of classic Japanese games are adventures, action-puzzlers, space shoot-em-ups with no life bars, etc. 

[Serega81]

A little bit less of the adolescent obsession with graphic violence.

...which was fine when I was an adolescent, but beauty, grace, and playfulness are more timeless.

I don't really care for turn-based RPGs, so what's left of classic Japanese games are adventures, action-puzzlers, space shoot-em-ups with no life bars, etc. 

Any good Japanese adventures you can think of I.e something a keen to Silent Hill, Shenmue, Yakuza, etc.. but with no us release .. For me most Japanese adventure games would have to be playable on 32 bit systems to get the most out of them, older systems  couldn't handle the graphical output..

[SignOfZeta]

This is an interesting topic to me. I've been playing the Super Robot Wars games in Japanese for over 20 years. I learned most of the Japanese I know from this series. Recently it was announced that the Asia territory version of SRW V was to be English from day one. I should be excited, right? But I decided to pay more for the Japanese version I can barely read. That sounds nuts, but I'm positive I make the right choice.

[Gypsy]

This is an interesting topic to me. I've been playing the Super Robot Wars games in Japanese for over 20 years. I learned most of the Japanese I know from this series. Recently it was announced that the Asia territory version of SRW V was to be English from day one. I should be excited, right? But I decided to pay more for the Japanese version I can barely read. That sounds nuts, but I'm positive I make the right choice.

You can make up the plot that way, probably for the best. I'm going to buy the English version, should be a hoot.

As for this thread in general idk, I think I mostly just like games. Japanese, US, European, if it's a fun experience, I'll play it.

[MisterCrash]

I feel the same way about J-pop. If I could understand what they are saying, it might not be as enjoyable. I can treat the voice as another instrument and appreciate it that way.

For me, the appeal of Japanese games comes down to anime scenes, professional voice acting (which is almost non-existent in US translations), and game selection. The games that I like tend to be the ones that either never brought over or have a long delay because "Americans wouldn't like this". RPGs on 8 and 16 bit consoles are a good example of this, as are rhythm games in general. I've been playing IIDX for 15 years, and a grand total of 1 IIDX game has come over to the US in that time. Sometimes the developer takes a chance and brings over a niche game (like Katamari Damashii), but usually it just lingers in Japan. There are also a few excellent games that are developed by small developers that never get a chance to come over.

Having said that, I also can't pretend that all Japanese games are good. If I'm choosing a Japanese game, it is usually because I have a strong preference for the genre, or want to try something kooky. There is a lot of shovelware out there as well.

[NecroPhile]

Loli tits and tentacle rape. 

As for this thread in general idk, I think I mostly just like games. Japanese, US, European, if it's a fun experience, I'll play it.

This is my real answer.  There's well made, good looking, and fun games made everywhere; and there's shit games made everywhere.  The only reason I'm drawn to Japanese developed games is because there's a lot more talented and well funded studios there, making the types of games I like (rpgs).

[Gypsy]

Yeah no doubt if turn based combat rpgs is your main jam, then you will gravitate towards Japanese games, especially since that has been one of their main genres for so long. It used to be my favourite genre. I will still play them from time to time, when they really grab me. For some reason Trails of Cold Steel did and I ripped through that one. At this point for RPGs I really prefer stuff like Ys, Divinity Original Sin, Witcher series etc... Tides of Numenera was very disappointing for me, too much to dig into in this thread which is about Japanese games though. At least I still have Pillars to go back to.

Japanese stuff I still love: shooties, platformers, puzzle games (puyo, puzzle bobble etc...Japan is great at this genre), fighters/brawlers, well made adventure games (Snatcher and Policenauts come to mind immediately) and sometimes when I'm feeling really spicy I'll play some silly mahjong game.

[esadajr]

Shooties especially colorful ones aka cuties. Fighting games with the original names (Gouki, Sodom, Gallon, etc). Everything is more flashy, no censorhip. Like it was mentioned, voice acting, simply the way it was intended. As per being juvenile, that's a cultural thing.

[GoldenWheels]

1. playing unique games without a US release
2. playing the JP version of games that did get a US release because they are way cheaper.

God bless you guys that wade through RPGs in Japanese. Man.

[Serega81]

well made adventure games (Snatcher and Policenauts come to mind immediately)

Man, I bought Policenauts for the Sega Saturn when it first came out 1994? and beat it sans faq/guide etc.. that was a trip, and given Kojima's love for convoluted plot lines, I, of course missed half the game's storyline, until I actually got to play it in English.  Thanks to the awesome translation team that took on that project, that must have been a doozy to translate, what do you think NighWolve?

[Psycho Punch]

doo doo doo dododoo

The only contact I've ever had with policenauts was the intro tune in MGS. I need to try it out someday, especially with the translation patch floating around now.

[SignOfZeta]

While I played a lot of non-Japanese stuff in the arcade back in the day, as well as for computers and 2600, I'm %90 sure that if "Japanese video games" (Space Invaders, Mario Bros, Dragon Quest, Street Fighter) had never come about that I would have just lost interest in video games and stuck with my other hobbies.

The current state of things, with Japanese development being depressed in more ways than one, has me playing almost nothing new. If all I can play is Mortal Kombat or Arab killing simulators or whatever the hell Mass Effect is then I'm just not going to play video games. I'd rather play pick up sticks or dice. I can't even imagine how much shittier western games would be without the comp from Japan. We certainly wouldn't have even had anything like Mortal Kombat, fucking terrible as it is, since that was designed to earn Street Fighter money on consoles made in Japan. We might have had Karate Champ by then...but of course karate *itself* was invented in Japan so...

[cr8zykuban0]

Lot of great games that were never released here especially in the shmups department! Much better packaging, usually a cheaper price. What's not to love about that?

[SignOfZeta]

Cheaper on the used market, sure. At retail JP prices are historically much higher.

[Pokun]

Not higher than Swedish retail prices though. But price is probably the least of my concerns.


A few reasons I play import:

1) To play games without a western release.

2) To play japanese version of games as not to miss out on things lost in the localization process.

3) Better voice acting. Western games that was designed with English voice acting in mind are usually good, the problem is when Japanese games are localized and dubbed, the quality of the dub is usually nowhere close to the Japanese version with professional seiyuu. Notable exceptions are Snatcher for Mega CD and the Metal Gear Solid series. These localizations were really well done in English.

4) More genre variation. Western PC gamers nowdays only seems to play about 3 types of games (FPS, RTS and western RPGs), if even that. Console gaming in the west has also historically been really narrow. RPGs, SRPGs and adventure games used to be almost unknown to European console gamers (and not that popular among Americans either), although Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Tactics and lately Fire Emblem have changed that for the RPG and SRPG genres. Good Japanese adventure games (that the PC Engine has a lot of) seems to still be quite obscure though.
On the other hand, genres like RTS is quite unknown among main stream gamers in Japan.

5) More focus on characters and themes. Especially American game designers thinks it's OK to reuse the same featureless characters for all games, and only focus on game mechanics. European game designers do think characters and music are important, however they usually have a really strange taste in character design (music is usually good though).
On the other hand Japanese game designers sometimes focus too much on characters, sometimes leaving mechanics a bit too simple.

6) Not so much black humour in Japanese games. Seriously, what happened with classic slapstick? Western game designers has a very strange sense of humour, while the Japanese, ironically enough, has a very light-hearted and universal humour that is very easy to understand.


In modern games nowdays, voice acting is so common that I can hardly play the English versions of games anymore, unless they have either good voice acting or dual audio. Ever since learning more Japanese I have more or less migrated to only play the original (Japanese) version of games though. I always makes sure to buy the Japanese version of region locked consoles like the 3DS.

[Gypsy]

There are a lot of older US adventure games. I know this because I've played many of them.

[Groover]

I don't play import RPGs. I don't read Japanese. I import for price and many games didn't get a US release and do not have a huge language barrier to playing the game. Shooters are great to import. Hell I have Contra on the NES and I'm thinking of importing the Famicom version because the extra detail that went into that version. I imported Final Fight CD for Mega CD because it is not censored like the Sega CD version that I already had.

[Michirin9801]

I'll play a game from any region so long as I find it to be fun, but I do gravitate towards the Japanese games because of their aesthetic sensibilities, they tend to appeal to me more than western games...
If I were to pick out the games I enjoy by region it would be: JP > EU > US
However what's more important to me than where the game came from is when (or for what system) it came out, I mean, modern games are alright, but 16 bit games appeal to me so much more, I have a lot more fun playing 2D low-res games than 3D hi-res ones, it's no wonder the most interesting games coming out nowadays are indie games, and half of those are retro-throwbacks...

[TheClash603]

I don't play import RPGs. I don't read Japanese. I import for price and many games didn't get a US release and do not have a huge language barrier to playing the game. Shooters are great to import. Hell I have Contra on the NES and I'm thinking of importing the Famicom version because the extra detail that went into that version. I imported Final Fight CD for Mega CD because it is not censored like the Sega CD version that I already had.

I am with you.  I import quite a few shooters, fighting games, puzzle games, platformers, etc., but I don't venture into the RPG genre.  My main reason for import is if a game never got a U.S. release, typically I prefer U.S. releases...  cause I can read them.

Every time I play a Japanese game, I dread the initial making it through a menu or if there is a pop-up where I have to decide between two things.  I had a few friends over that love golf and it took us about 30 minutes to set up a 4 player game of golf on the 64DD, followed by some trial and error causing missed shots for a few holes.

[esteban]

As others have said already:

(0) shootemups

(1) bigger catalog of games, richer variety *within* genres (Rabio Lepus lets me punch, for example...)

(2) I love comparing JP vs NA/EU versions of games

(3) larger catalog of hybrid games (Gomola Speed, Mesopotamia, etc

[TR0N]

I'll play a game from any region so long as I find it to be fun, but I do gravitate towards the Japanese games because of their aesthetic sensibilities, they tend to appeal to me more than western games...
If I were to pick out the games I enjoy by region it would be: JP > EU > US
However what's more important to me than where the game came from is when (or for what system) it came out,

Ditto far as the video games go i'm not to region specific.Most of the time for me on importing a game is ones that don't have a u.s release.

[Serega81]

for computers and 2600, I'm %90 sure that if "Japanese video games" (Space Invaders, Mario Bros, Dragon Quest, Street Fighter)

Don't forget Pac Man ;)