• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Things that piss you off in Japanese games.

Pyrrhus said:
Let's see.

Lolicon and moe characters and themes.
The related incursion of ecchi and hentai tropes into what would have been all ages material in the past.
Androgynous teenage heroes.
The near mandatory presence of idols, maids, hostesses, yamato nadeishiko, and other weird sexual baggage.
Ruminations on the importance of friendship or having a dream.
Virtuous kids fighting evil adults with the power of said friendship and dreams and winning.
The Japanese habit of constantly parroting a statement back as a question in conversation.
Ludicrous names for characters, places, and story concepts that are obviously the result of someone picking up a Japanese to English or Japanese to Latin dictionary and going at it.
Animal mascots.
Weapons, costumes, fighting styles, and so on with no basis in realism or regard for the laws of physics.
The way nearly all of the localization teams are staffed today with ascended neckbeards who think they're writers in their own right rather than conduits and like to "punch up" the script with coarse or sexual language, jokes and puns that weren't there in the original, shout outs to their friends, anachronistic references to other nerd media and Internet memes, and otherwise alter the tone of the work for no valid reason.
The way most Japanese games are dubbed by the same cabal of a dozen or so people.
The way most Japanese games are still built like it's 1995 with static rooms loaded one by one rather than employing streaming, open worlds, and other modern techniques and the way that limits the scope and ambition of both the games and their storytelling.
The wooden, static animations such games use over more modern blending systems.
The use of an anime art style in such games as a crutch because the developers don't want to learn how to use shaders, caustics, and other modern lighting techniques. (Anime style is not inherently a crutch, however.)
Click to expand...

All that and the amount of "glam" the characters are designed with. I don't need fashion rejects.
 
Gameplay that feels like a PS1 game circa-1997

"Badasses" that play with their bangs (probably while a gun/sword rests across their shoulder), wearing something that looks completely retarded

Final boss fights that are just exponentially harder than anything that has come before. Nothing like grinding for 10 hours to experience the last .1% of a game.

Also, grinding period

Dumb and overly obtuse combat/stat raising/item creation/whatever systems with non sequitur names.

13 year old kids kicking the living shit out of everyone and everything

Extremely long game length for the sake of long game length. Does anyone really need 80 hours of Record of the Agarest War?

The description of The World Ends With You. I mean Jesus Christ, it's supposed to be great, and I'm sure I'd have a good time with it... but... fashion? Only the Japanese.
 
-Mostly awful character designs
-Unattractive art styles
-Stories that often make no sense or are too convoluted
-Games titles that make no sense
-Strong use of anime/anime themes
-Large number of androgynous male characters
-Attempts at portraying western characters/themes falling flat
-Over reliance on certain genres (RPG, turn-based, etc)
-Very bad dubs
 
Lame guns outside Resident Evil. It's like Japan is the inverse of the West when it comes to melee and ranged combat, scrolling shooters exempted.
 
shinobi602 said:
-Mostly awful character designs
-Unattractive art styles
-Stories that often make no sense or are too convoluted
-Games titles that make no sense
-Strong use of anime/anime themes
-Large number of androgynous male characters
-Attempts at portraying western characters/themes falling flat
-Over reliance on certain genres (RPG, turn-based, etc)
-Very bad dubs
Click to expand...

I agree about the lame attempts at pandering to western gamers. I wish they would just leave that shit alone.

I dont agree about the lame artstyles. When it comes to visual design, japan cant really be beat. You have series like Shin Megami, Rockman, FF, DQ, KoF, Street Fighter, katamari damacy. Those have pretty varied but solid visual styles. Im the west we have generic realistic bald man with gun and angry face.
 
- Odd localisation choices e.g. not localising stuff like PSO2 or Yakuza 5 (well the latter is understandable from a business perspective)

- The fact that in the majority of discussions about them people use "anime" and "manga" as genre descriptiors which are as meaningless as "animated material created in america" and "comics created in america"

Also are we just supposed to pretend that the majority of these issues arent unique to Japanese games?
 
lack very complex mechanics, PC game mechanics

super streamlined rpg elements outside of combat

Actually funny writers that can translate the jokes properly (yes this is my fault, ethnocentrism ahoy)
 
Endless cod-philosophy contained in poorly constructed stories that mistakenly thinks it's profound.

Overuse of anime/manga design tropes that create characters just as bland as Generic Tough White Guy.
 
Glass Rebel said:
I'd love for someone to give me a definition of what "anime style" is.
Click to expand...

It's code for "it looks too Japanese to my personal liking".

It doesn't follow any sort of universal logic (see fighting games, where Street Fighter IV is exempted from the derogatory "anime game" label, despite having actual anime cutscenes and all).
 
"………………."
This. If someone is pausing, show it visually — not in dialogue.
Once or twice is fine, granted, but when games use it endlessly, eh.

And in general story-telling, when ether games go into philosophical naval-gazing. I think that's a reason why Paper Mario was so refreshing at the time — it's an RPG that never looked into human behaviour, the struggles of life, why we're a flawed species, etc. At least not on a serious level.
 
- Anime / art style in general

Japanese games have some of the worst art styles I have ever seen. The character design is just awful. What's with all the fucked up hair and giant ass swords?

- Turn based combat.

It's so boring. I have never seen the appeal of Pokemon because of this, fighting in the game is just dull.
 
Everyone looks the same in most of the Japanese games/media, but it might just be me (unable to recognize their differences as I am not from Japan).
 
Pyrrhus said:
Let's see.

Lolicon and moe characters and themes.
The related incursion of ecchi and hentai tropes into what would have been all ages material in the past.
Androgynous teenage heroes.
The near mandatory presence of idols, maids, hostesses, yamato nadeishiko, and other weird sexual baggage.
Ruminations on the importance of friendship or having a dream.
Virtuous kids fighting evil adults with the power of said friendship and dreams and winning.
The Japanese habit of constantly parroting a statement back as a question in conversation.
Ludicrous names for characters, places, and story concepts that are obviously the result of someone picking up a Japanese to English or Japanese to Latin dictionary and going at it.
Animal mascots.
Weapons, costumes, fighting styles, and so on with no basis in realism or regard for the laws of physics.
The way nearly all of the localization teams are staffed today with ascended neckbeards who think they're writers in their own right rather than conduits and like to "punch up" the script with coarse or sexual language, jokes and puns that weren't there in the original, shout outs to their friends, anachronistic references to other nerd media and Internet memes, and otherwise alter the tone of the work for no valid reason.
The way most Japanese games are dubbed by the same cabal of a dozen or so people.
The way most Japanese games are still built like it's 1995 with static rooms loaded one by one rather than employing streaming, open worlds, and other modern techniques and the way that limits the scope and ambition of both the games and their storytelling.
The wooden, static animations such games use over more modern blending systems.
The use of an anime art style in such games as a crutch because the developers don't want to learn how to use shaders, caustics, and other modern lighting techniques. (Anime style is not inherently a crutch, however.)
Click to expand...

Words couldnt have been sad truer my god!

And I thought something was wrong with me when I started to dislike/hate JRPGS
 
Pyrrhus said:
Let's see.

Lolicon and moe characters and themes.

The related incursion of ecchi and hentai tropes into what would have been all ages material in the past.

Androgynous teenage heroes.

The near mandatory presence of idols, maids, hostesses, yamato nadeishiko, and other weird sexual baggage.

Ruminations on the importance of friendship or having a dream.

Virtuous kids fighting evil adults with the power of said friendship and dreams and winning.

The Japanese habit of constantly parroting a statement back as a question in conversation.

Ludicrous names for characters, places, and story concepts that are obviously the result of someone picking up a Japanese to English or Japanese to Latin dictionary and going at it.

Animal mascots.

Weapons, costumes, fighting styles, and so on with no basis in realism or regard for the laws of physics.

The way nearly all of the localization teams are staffed today with ascended neckbeards who think they're writers in their own right rather than conduits and like to "punch up" the script with coarse or sexual language, jokes and puns that weren't there in the original, shout outs to their friends, anachronistic references to other nerd media and Internet memes, and otherwise alter the tone of the work for no valid reason.

The way most Japanese games are dubbed by the same cabal of a dozen or so people.

The way most Japanese games are still built like it's 1995 with static rooms loaded one by one rather than employing streaming, open worlds, and other modern techniques and the way that limits the scope and ambition of both the games and their storytelling.

The wooden, static animations such games use over more modern blending systems.

The use of an anime art style in such games as a crutch because the developers don't want to learn how to use shaders, caustics, and other modern lighting techniques. (Anime style is not inherently a crutch, however.)
Click to expand...
All that but especially the bolded stuff.

Nothing is going to change, though. They're an otaku-focused industry now.
 
jem0208 said:
- Anime / art style in general

Japanese games have some of the worst art styles I have ever seen. The character design is just awful. What's with all the fucked up hair and giant ass swords?

- Turn based combat.

It's so boring. I have never seen the appeal of Pokemon because of this, fighting in the game is just dull.
Click to expand...

this game > your favorite game with the fucked up muscles and giant ass guns.
BXqdcgh
 
GalacticAE said:
this game > your favorite game with the fucked up muscles and giant ass guns.
BXqdcgh
Click to expand...

This game > Your game. Really?

Funny people getting defensive because others dislike Japanese tropes.

I hate the over sexualization of all female characters and kids in Japanese games.
 
Jito said:
This game > Your game. Really?

Funny people getting defensive because others dislike Japanese tropes.

I hate the over sexualization of all female characters and kids in Japanese games.
Click to expand...

For reals. It just beats his favorite games. Its one of the greatest.
 
GalacticAE said:
For reals. It just beats his favorite games. Its one of the greatest.
Click to expand...

He didn't even say anything about what his favourite game was? Your response was pretty unprompted.

But really, my favourite game is well better than your favourite game. Plus my dad could beat up your dad.
 
I hate how every male protagonist has to look like a teenage girl.
Click to expand...

Especially this, there is really not even one J-RPG protagonist who has some kind of beard, even if he is older than 18.

Aside from that:

- characters who are 30 years old are treated as grandfathers
- too much Loli and Moe
- friendship and love will always win
 
Some of these posts, damn, some of the worst generalizations I've ever seen in this forum, all together in just one thread.

jem0208 said:
- Turn based combat.

It's so boring. I have never seen the appeal of Pokemon because of this, fighting in the game is just dull.
Click to expand...

I've never gotten how someone gets pissed off by something someone else enjoys. It's not like turn based combat was objectively a flaw, it's a genre design, and it's popularity sustains it.

RVinP said:
Everyone looks the same in most of the Japanese games/media, but it might just be me (unable to recognize their differences as I am not from Japan).
Click to expand...
What does one thing have to do with the other? What you said doesn't even make sense.
 
Here is the Problem i have with Japanese games

When you are in the game u r a 3d character... then just to say a comment or a line a 2d more beautiful image of the same character comes on the screen... i mean y... y would u do that in the first place??

its like they wanted it to appear as the 2d designed character but they dont have the skills to do it so here is the more fked up version of the same while u control it.

I dont understand it at all
 
Mindless fetch-quests. They drive me nuts, especially when they have really specific, arbitrary requirements or a time-limit or something.

Mindless filler. There are so many great jRPGs that still feel the need to extend their time with stupid/pointless/breathless/difficult filler content that should have just been cut out even at the reduction of 20 hours of gameplay.

Sexist armor. This seems to be most prevalent in MMOs, but oh man, this one gets me. It just looks so incredibly dumb to run around a battlefield where all the male characters are giant behemoth scrap metal gods carrying mammoth swords, and all of the females are extremely thin, practically naked, and also carrying mammoth swords. Mind you, this is in no way unique to Japanese games, or even to games from China, Korea, America, etc. It's always dumb.

Repetitive environmental design and unimaginative world building. This is also in no way unique to Japanese games, but there are definitely patterns to environmental design that plague many Japanese games that could be fixed with slightly more creative artistic direction. I don't think good environments have anything to do with budget at all (and this is why environments are often still boring as hell in many AAA games). I think many developers just take the easy way out, which is okay, but it definitely detracts from my enjoyment.

One-dimensional characters. One-dimensionality can be okay if there's a unique vibe or style, but you just see the same exact flat personalities pop up over and over again. Honestly, I think most characters in most stories in videogames are pretty poorly realized, but there are once again set patterns that have been repeated into oblivion in Japanese games that make me cringe.

It's funny, none of these things ever really make me stop playing the games, but once I sit down and think about it, there are tons of theoretically annoying elements. And what's really weird is that you end up relying on some of these things, and even if they are stupid they can provide a sense of comfort as well. Go figure.
 
Can someone explain why they always have characters repeat back things as questions?

I'm honestly curious because i feel it is as if they do not trust that i am listening.
 
Toxi said:
Poorly-done exposition. It's not a flaw in all Japanese games and a few non-Japanese games have it, but Jesus Christ the exposition is so bad in the offenders. Almost every single JRPG I've ever played had an exposition problem where characters would just stop acting or emoting and summarize the game's plot. The exposition isn't used for characterization like in Shakespeare, it's just used to explain a plot in a lazy manner. And because the plot is explained to you instead of you figuring it out, it treats the gamer like a child. It also makes for boring games with long cutscenes of characters just standing around talking.
Click to expand...

Gosh, so much this. Over-exposition of everything in story heavy games, also including but not limited to:

- Stating the really, really obvious with nothing to add. "Wow, this castle is so big!". All Tales games I played has this.
- Repeating information over and over. I just finished Virtue's Last Reward, and it's particularly bad about this.
- The complete breakdown of character story and motivation, leaving nothing to imagination. The main offender being the Metal Gear Solid series.
 
ViewtifulJC said:
Heh this is like the opposite of the Why Manga readers hate Western comics thread

Shoes on the other food, anime avatar people
Click to expand...
I like (some) manga/anime and I like (some) western comics.
It's not a feud.

Lyriell said:
Can someone explain why they always have characters repeat back things as questions?

I'm honestly curious because i feel it is as if they do not trust that i am listening.
Click to expand...
It's rooted on how our different languages work and how japanese culture is. "Lost in translation" stuff.
 
Jinko said:
Well that's probably better than having the art style all over the place tbf.
Click to expand...


Hmm. Sort of. But I think it's more how you can make people different. Some people have longer noses, , some have different shaped eyes, some have different shaped body proportions. It's the little things, so when each character has like 90% same-face to the character beside them, then those artists can get somewhat...repetitive (and as much as I like the artists, the two I posted for examples are somewhat often guilty of that).

An individual's style is different than being able to create different looking people.
 
I'm gonna be lazy and take the easy route and say pretty much what most people have already been saying. The loli's, the melodrama, the devs that are frustrated fashion designers playing Buckaroo with mannequins, the fact that 30 is over the hill. Western games have plenty of tropes too, but I can stomach those.
 
Ratrat said:
Trying to attract a female audience is worse than pedophila and Dynasty Warriors. okay.
Click to expand...

Herpes is worse than gonorrhea but that doesn't mean either is desirable. But yes, the fact that they were willing to stick a rent boy in an Aladdin costume and his gal pal Pippi Bodystocking into the middle of Matsuno's epic Elizabethan power struggle speaks to some real problems with priorities. Sex appeal always, always trumps tone and plausibility in modern Japanese stuff.
 
Not all of japanese games, but most of them, have a too much "anime" look to it. And many of them with kiddy characters and sexualized scenes mixed all around. That is what I hate the most on japanese games.

But some games just knows how to do it right. Final Fantasy for example, was never like that... indeed FFXIII had some really irritating characters such as Hope and his mom, but Lighting is nice!
 
- Always uses a school theme, sick and tired of high school protagonists

- Uni-dimensional characters

- Androgynous males

- All girls must have huge boobs

- Annoying anime voices

- Moe characters

- Bad graphics

- All share the same, save-the-world setting

- Way too much swords

- Exaggerated acting (on the original Japanese), and boring dubbing.

- Zero or extremely simple story (nintendo games)

- Over-reliance on kawaii animals (like pokemon, pet games)
 
It seems like many Japanese games lack editors. Games like Metal Gear Solid and Zero Escape in particular feature characters who just DO. NOT. STOP. TALKING. It takes them five minutes to make a point that could be made in 30 seconds.

Also, the excessive use of ellipses.

Character 1: ...
Character 2: ...
Character 1: ... ...
Character 2: ... ... ... ... ...
 
Pyrrhus said:
Herpes is worse than gonorrhea but that doesn't mean either is desirable. But yes, the fact that they were willing to stick a rent boy in an Aladdin costume and his gal pal Pippi Bodystocking into the middle of Matsuno's epic Elizabethan power struggle speaks to some real problems with priorities. Sex appeal always, always trumps tone and plausibility in modern Japanese stuff.
Click to expand...
I thought it was just a remake of Star Wars with a stripper Chewbacca. His appearance was in line with the population, vest and all anyway. >:(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

What do you consider "easy mode" in games you play that have no difficulty option?
34
434
Sethbacca replied
I'll bet that Fred Tatasciore voice acted in at least one game that you love
19
224
MagnetoWasRight replied
Games that ruined an entire genre for you?
2
59
1K
DarkShadowXI replied
Did you know that the Japanese version of the infamous Zero Wing (Genesis) has 35 crazy endings?
16
320
Rentahamster replied
Interpreter is an open-source tool that uses AI to translate Japanese retro games on the fly
Platform 
3
593
StereoVsn replied
Top Bottom