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[Mael]

I would say it looks markedly more Japanese than anything from DaS or DeS because of how ornamental and unpractical it all looks, but that's my opinion. And if they were trying to be like Wizardry how exactly does that say anything about my argument?

They were trying to do something similar 30 years ago.
If you look at the portfolio of Squaresoft games from the 80's to now, they weren't that big on markedly Japanese monsters that's for sure.
If anything the Saga series is more Japanese in its approach than FF.
FF is all about medieval knights fighting griffins and dragons.
Even more so for DQ that only look Japanese because of Akira toriyama, if you played the games you'd see what I mean.
Impractical designs is not Japanese, that's for sure.
Do I need to post all the examples of boob plates from western devs or something?
There's nothing inherently Japanese in the designs of a game like Final Fantasy till we reached the Xth opus.
heck look up FFXII, it's in Ivalice a world that's pretty much Matsuno trying to make a western europe continent.
I could talk about Ogre Battle too...or the old Fire Emblem games before they went full fanservice.

 

[GekigangerV]

Japanese developer Yuke's has been making rushed/buggy WWE games for YEARS. Of course this is a yearly franchise.

This is from the latest game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUOtprD3CQs&feature=youtu.be

 

[Phocks]

Because Japanese people are smarter so they code their games properly.

suck up all you want silly gaijin wwwwww

 

[Pokemaniac]

There are a bunch of trends in western developed games which generally make them more likely to have issues. Things like focusing a focus on simulation and high levels of interactivity, as well as having generally larger scopes. Also, personally, I think there seems to be more of a PC centric mentality which leads to the limitations of console hardware not really being respected when it comes to console games.

 

[Eidan]

Japanese developer Yuke's has been making rushed/buggy WWE games for YEARS. Of course this is a yearly franchise.

This is from the latest game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUOtprD3CQs&feature=youtu.be

Wow, I had no clue Yuke's was Japanese.

 

[KratosEnergyDrink]

You are talking about some of the biggest, behemoth-sized, triple-A productions in the gaming world that involve multiple moving parts. Does Japan have many equivalents to that?

Xenoblade X seems to be as ambitious and behemoth sized (already out in japan, in a few weeks in US/EU). And it seems completely bug free, but it is a first party game.

All the bugfest western games seems to be third party.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

Xenoblade is larger in terms of scope than all of those games. It's a massive game - huge massive world (larger than Witcher 3, Skyrim etc) - hundreds of hours of gameplay.


Also the Resident Evil, Gran Turismo and Metal Gear games are very massive games in terms of production.

Um, no. Lol

 

[Alucrid]

Japanese developer Yuke's has been making rushed/buggy WWE games for YEARS. Of course this is a yearly franchise.

This is from the latest game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUOtprD3CQs&feature=youtu.be

i hate wrestling

but sometimes things like this give it a glimmer of hope

 

[Mael]

Xenoblade X seems to be as ambitious and behemoth sized (already out in japan, in a few weeks in US/EU). And it seems completely bug free, but it is a first party game.

All the bugfest western games seems to be third party.

I can assure you, they're not bugfree.
However Nintendo usually delays games that aren't in a fit state so that may be why.
That's why I wouldn't use Nintendo as an example of what Japanese companies do.
We'll see when FFXV is released if it's as jank as the others.

 

[utena]

In fairness, it seems to me like "Western games" is a bit too broad a group to stereotype as "buggy."

It might be more accurate to say "Ubisoft, EA, Bethesda games are buggy." The fact that they're western companies is essentially irrelevant.

Beyond that, I think games produced in both regions are generally equal on a technical level. People seem to forget what Dark Souls 1.0 was like, buggier than many western games. Square's FF ports on PC weren't exactly gravy either.

 

[IvorB]

It would seem that Japanese game developers have a sense of pride and workmanship in their products. I commend them for it.

 

[dracula_x]

Probably because a PC oriented development philosophy – release sooner, fix later.

 

[akilshohen]

Just like you mention open world as the crutch for Western development, fighting has to be the crutch for eastern development.
All of the Marvel vs game have infinite combos and glitches still being discovered.

Resident Evil 6 had quite a few glitches too.

 

[Sutanreyu]

Japanese games are like zen gardens that they tend to; everything is where it needs to be when it's needed, as it's needed. They're simpler, and more focused (unless we're talking about RPGs).

"Western" games are made in an environment where, although the devs would like it to be like the former, the investors (publishers, usually), need to get it out the door and make money asap. Not that some Japanese studios need to do this; but it seems they are more about the art aspect more than the entertainment when it comes to their end products.

That and western games tend to be much more technologically ambitious. Often time, this means added complexity, which makes it harder to manage.

Of course, these are wide generalizations. The lines are blurring between the two, but culturally, these are the things I've identified across the geographical hemispheres when regarding games.

 

[Hypron]

These Western vs Eastern threads are always mostly based in fantasy.

The mud slinging is just ridiculous. "Japanese developers are proud of their craft [which is basically the video game equivalent of that "japanese katana blade folded 1000 times" meme], western devs aren't". "Half of Japan's output is pandering to pedos!".

Just look at the games you listed on a case by case basis and you will get the answer why some are buggier than others. Of course a platformer is going to be less buggy than an extensive open world comprising tons of gameplay systems interacting with each other - why does that even require an explanation? Tight linear Western games are also pretty bug-free in general.

You have more of a point if you compare stuff like Metal Gear Solid V or Xenoblade X. But even then, there is a clear difference in complexity between those games and stuff like Bethesda games and other huge high budget open world games (and MGSV, while pretty polished, isn't bug free either).

Also, saying that somehow the difference in buggyness comes from the attitude of the developer and therefore implying western devs somehow care less and half-ass things is simply insulting to those people.

 

[thetrin]

Japanese development at this point is essentially boiled down to either being a AAA established franchise like MGS, Final Fantasy or Pandering to Otakus.

Shit. As someone whose job is to expose the diverse world of Japanese indie gaming to the rest of the world, it depresses me greatly that people think this.

 

[Shaanyboi]

More ambitious? I havent heard of any crazy bugs in xenoblade chronicles X

The level of interaction in Xenoblade is pretty damn minimal. It's MMO combat, fairly simple on an animation level (aside from the transforming mechs), and very little to actually interact with. Compare it to something like Fallout where you have persistence in the thousands of items that populate any area, AI behavior reacting to what you do and eachother... Keeping track of a million goddamn variables alongside physics simulations etc..

It's not even remotely comparable.

 

[Shadoken]

Japanese developer Yuke's has been making rushed/buggy WWE games for YEARS. Of course this is a yearly franchise.

This is from the latest game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUOtprD3CQs&feature=youtu.be

And here is the answer again. Rushed development,Deadlines lead to tons of unresolved bugs.

Not every AAA studio is going to let people make games for 7 years like Kojima did with MGSV.

 

[Zombegoast]

Because they both have a different style in making games. When trying to fix bugs that I ran into during my final project using Unity 5, it took us weeks trying to fix a game breaking bug plus having to use Perforce that screwed up our meshes, level layout and unplugging scripts as well as having to turn in something by the end of the week. Shits not easy.

 

[Aeana]

A lot of it comes down to work hours. Both Japanese developers and testers tend to work many more hours per week than the average western developer.

I think one of the more interesting things is that you'll find that even when western devs work with Japanese QA teams, as in cases like Tomb Raider 2013, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Dungeon Siege 3, you also get less buggy games from devs with a history of bugs.

 

[Sayad]

It's not just about more ambitious projects. MGSV had more complex open world gameplay than most western developed games, it's development was cut short, lots of missing content, yet the game seemed more polished than any western open world game I played in the past 5 years.

Japanese devs seem to go through the polishing and bug fixing process much earlier than western devs, where they try to stuff in as much content as possible through most of the development and leave polishing for the tail end of the development cycle, which can be a nightmare if you're making something as big as the Witcher or Fallout. GTA is the least offender of this, while Ubisoft seem to be reaching for Bethesda's crown lately.

 

[galvenize]

Off the top of my head, Compile hearts games can be janky as hell, Akiba's trip is almost unplayable on vita. EDF on ps3 is a technical mess. Lots of niche games that aren't open world but sill perform badly.

Souls games aren't always flawless either.

 

[Elfforkusu]

Two things:

1. are they? We can cite common examples, but across the board?
2. bugs are simply an attention to detail thing. They crop up during development no matter what the scope of your game is. Either fixing them is a priority (read: time == money), or it's not. So, in so far as a game, any game, is buggy, bug fixing was simply not a huge priority compared to getting the game out the door.

I would suggest that perhaps it's not all Western-developed games, but merely certain AAA publishers which pressure devs to ship extra content (features) rather than fixing bugs (technical debt).

 

[Crossing Eden]

It's not just about more ambitious projects. MGSV had more complex open world gameplay than most western developed games, it's development was cut short, lots of missing content, yet the game seemed more polished than any western open world game I played in the past 5 years.

Japanese devs seem to go through the polishing and bug fixing process much earlier than western devs, where they try to stuff in as much content as possible through most of the development and leave polishing for the tail end of the development cycle, which can be a nightmare if you're making something as big as the Witcher or Fallout. GTA is the least offender of this, while Ubisoft seem to be reaching for Bethesda's crown lately.

Because it didn't have more complex open world systems. It doesn't have a shit ton of wild life/npc AI interacting with each other for instance. Or civilians npcs, or crowd systems. The world complexity also, so YES, it is about ambition since it isn't anywhere near as ambitious as what you see in open world games like Witcher 3. And it still launched with multiple game breaking glitches, general glitches like Huey and Quiet turning invisible during cutscenes, as well as AI glitches. Different devs also go into the polishing phase at different points of development, not every dev is the same, ACS for instance had a shit ton of QA testing early in development. Also what's with the revisionist history, all of Rockstar's games launch with a number of bugs and issues yet people on this forum try to paint the picture that all their games are launched in a polished state.

 

[JaeCryo]

Different approach to design.

West tends to be more ambitious (at least in terms of what they BELIEVE they can do) and places emphasis (at least nowadays) on changing things up in order to keep the medium moving. It's what the masses want (or don't want) and they let them know with their wallets. People here place emphasis on constant satisfaction in their entertainment.

East tends to stay more true to tradition on basic principle. Japanese culture is apparently indicative of this. Nintendo has more or less been doing the same thing for over twenty years in their fundamental designs. But hey, it works, and no one can do Nintendo better than Nintendo... for better and for worse.

Of course... like everything... there are a multitude of exceptions.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

probably more priority to checking bugs and releasing a game in a good state by Japanese devs.

Also, Japanese games are more focused than western ones usually so I guess there's less stuff to tests.

 

[Sneaky Gato]

A lot of it comes down to work hours. Both Japanese developers and testers tend to work many more hours per week than the average western developer.

I think one of the more interesting things is that you'll find that even when western devs work with Japanese QA teams, as in cases like Tomb Raider 2013, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Dungeon Siege 3, you also get less buggy games from devs with a history of bugs.

Something I remember reading years ago on Penny Arcades QA horror stories archive was an example from an American QA tester talking about working with a Japanese studio. He talked about how despite the fact that they were an outside independent entity and that the bug forms had to be faxed instead of emailed and translated into Japanese through an arduous process, that the company always took them seriously, promptly communicated, and made sure that everything mentioned was fixed by the next build. When compared to the deluge of stories of QA teams being mishandled, ignored, belittled, abused, which surrounded that anecdote I have to wonder if there isn't a serious difference in how QA is viewed.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

It's funny that OP listed CDPR as an example for europe when there's even a term coined Eurojank that has long preceded The Witcher series

 

[Resident4t.]

It's not just about more ambitious projects. MGSV had more complex open world gameplay than most western developed games

I refuse to believe that this is a serious statement. Of all the things that MGS V does well, an open world is not one of them.

 

[silvermember]

Quality control is not something western developers care about, since patching is cheaper.

 

[HK-47]

There's two major differences I'd say.

One is that most Western developers were PC devs and have the philosophies that followed from that era whereas console games could not be patched.

Two is that there are very few leading edge Japanese games either scope or technologically speaking, which makes it easier to QA everything.

If we look at games that are closer, we either see bugs (think From Software) or games that took 7+ years to make like MGS5, and they ended up axing a lot of content to make sure what was there worked.

You'll shatter their misconceptions, Niro. Thats not nice.

 

[texhnolyze]

Huh, I don't get the "western games are way bigger" comments.
How about those many indie or mid-tier games? Despite the "Director's Cut", Wasteland 2 is still a buggy mess. Divinity Original Sin also have similar fate, even though not too gamebreaking. I can still go on with those Euro jank RPGs...

 

[HK-47]

There's a lot more than 1 japanese open world game series. For an example not yet mentioned: Yakuza.

edit:



What the hell are Dragon's Dogma and Yakuza then? I mean, Yakuza is literally a japanese GTA.

DD is a technical mess and comparing Yakuza to GTA or any of its copycats like Sleeping Dogs or Saints Row is just laughable.

 

[Sayad]

Because it didn't have more complex open world systems. It doesn't have a shit ton of wild life/npc AI interacting with each other for instance. Or civilians npcs, or crowd systems. The world complexity also, so YES, it is about ambition since it isn't anywhere near as ambitious as what you see in open world games like Witcher 3. And it still launched with multiple game breaking glitches, general glitches like Huey and Quiet turning invisible during cutscenes, as well as AI glitches.

It has more wildlife and AI interactions than most western open world games actually. GTA has excellent AI but in most other open world games interactions with npcs are very basic. And no one said it lacked bugs, it just had less than what you'd see in western games, that and it's overall technical performance too is much better. Only western open world game with similar performance quality at launch is Arkham Knight on PS4, and look at that game's PC version...

Also what's with the revisionist history, all of Rockstar's games launch with a number of bugs and issues yet people on this forum try to paint the picture that all their games are launched in a polished state.

That might be because people take the game's "ambition" into consideration. GTAV bugs at launch were nothing compared to what you'd see in Bethesda's games or the shit Ubisoft put out regularly, while still haveing a much more complex open world. ;p

 

[HK-47]

It has more wildlife and AI interactions than most western open world games actually. GTA has excellent AI but in most other open world games interactions with npcs are very basic. And no one said it lacked bugs, it just had less than what you'd see in western games, that and it's overall technical performance too is much better. Only western open world game with similar performance quality at launch is Arkham Knight on PS4, and look at that game's PC version...


That might be because people take the game's "ambition" into consideration. GTAV bugs at launch were nothing compared to what you'd see in Bethesda's games or the shit Ubisoft put out regularly, while still haveing a much more complex open world. ;p

GTA locks down missions in a way the open world rpgs often dont. That certainly helps.

 

[Crossing Eden]

It has more wildlife and AI interactions than most western open world games actually. GTA has excellent AI but in most other open world games interactions with npcs are very basic. And no one said it lacked bugs, it just had less than what you'd see in western games, that and it's overall technical performance too is much better. Only western open world game with similar performance quality at launch is Arkham Knight on PS4, and look at that game's PC version...


That might be because people take the game's "ambition" into consideration. GTAV bugs at launch were nothing compared to what you'd see in Bethesda's games or the shit Ubisoft put out regularly, while still haveing a much more complex open world. ;p

No it doesn't, for example, you never see things like eagles picking up animals. There is also not a lot of variety in the amount of wildlife and I haven't seen them interacting with each other, for instance, in FC an entire base can randomly get attacked by a tiger while you're in the middle of silently sniping them. GTAV is also one of the more impressive open world games in terms of AI reactions, especially for wild life. Then there's also AC4, FC4, WD, Infamous SS, the crew, ACS, GTAV, all had great performance at launch during general play. Also Ubisoft doesn't "regularly" release games with tons of bugs, their bugs are quite typical of open world games compared to the launch of ACU. There's nothing I can't stand more than revisionist history.

 

[Yellowflashdude]

C'mon. Its only ubisoft.

 

[Blood Diamonds]

Xenoblade Chronicles X? MGSV?

wow!!! TWO games!!!! you sure proved them wrong lol!!

 

[Crossing Eden]

C'mon. Its only ubisoft.

Yes, literally no other open world games have bugs, only ubisoft games have bugs.

People certainly aren't having any issues with Bethesda's latest game either. It's almost like open world games are more prone to glitches. Especially ones that are running a lot of different things under the hood and are really ambitious, and it's almost like that's been a consistent theme since it's common for western devs to build games bigger than they've ever been with more complex systems underneath as well.

 

[Sayad]

No it doesn't, for example, you never see things like eagles picking up animals. There is also not a lot of variety in the amount of wildlife and I haven't seen them interacting with each other, for instance, in FC an entire base can randomly get attacked by a tiger while you're in the middle of silently sniping them.

I said more wildlife compared to "most" western games. And the AI interactions is about AI in general, outside GTA, the only other western open world game I can think of that had good AI is Crysis.

Also Ubisoft doesn't "regularly" release games with tons of bugs, their bugs are quite typical of open world games compared to the launch of ACU. There's nothing I can't stand more than revisionist history.

Nah, not regularly, it's just that every FC game they released on last gen consoles was a technical mess, AC fairs much better though, only AC1, AC3 and Unity had major issues from what I remember, with most others just having performance issues. Watch Dog runs nicely on PS4, but last gen versions were garbage.

It could totally be just revisionist history here, but I can sleep well at night knowing I'm not the only one thinking this. From ACS video you linked:

In terms of stability, Ubisoft has also upped its game in terms of Syndicate QA and as a result, the multitude of glitches, bugs and overall strangeness we saw in Unity is substantially reduced. This is not to suggest that you're in for an entirely clean run though - in one area, we clipped through some scenery and got stuck in the water, necessitating a checkpoint restart. Elsewhere, characters disappeared in a cut-scene - an unwelcome oddity, but hardly game-breaking. Not completely ideal then, but more along the lines of a standard Assassin's Creed title as opposed to last year's nightmare.

The praise the game get for how much polished it is is that it only have the standard amount of bugs you'd expect from an AC game, that's the standard people expect from Ubi's open world games.

 

[Amalthea]

Maybe it's the same as with electronics and cars.

 

[KORNdoggy]

i'd imagine it's because they don't push tech as hard. and don't have as many dynamic systems in place. i mean, games like assassins creed are blending between thousands of unique animations, with cloth physics collision to deal with, rag-doll bodies (or euphoria in the case of GTA) with thousands of NPC's in the world, volumetric lights, global illumination... etc. things are bound to go wrong every now and then.

japanese games seem to not be as focused on those dynamics. cloth is animated, animations are simple loops that offer greater control and responsiveness. and worlds, even hubs withing RPG's are often quite empty.

basically it's harder for things to go wrong when you don't push things as far visually.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

Japanese publishers eat the cost of polishing until it drives them to mobile and pachislots because it's too damn expensive.

 

[Sayad]

Japanese publishers eat the cost of polishing until it drives them to mobile and pachislots because it's too damn expensive.

Western devs cut polishing budget and put it into marketing. Which ended up being the smarter move.

 

[bomma_man]

Super mario sunshine? Did we play the same game?

 

[HK-47]

Western devs cut polishing budget and put it into marketing. Which ended up being the smarter move.

Or they evolved in an environment where patching and bug fixes and modding have been around far longer.

 

[casiopao]

Japanese development at this point is essentially boiled down to either being a AAA established franchise like MGS, Final Fantasy or Pandering to Otakus.

Mannnnn. I never knew nintendo is part of west here.

 

[sometimes i game]

Also, saying that somehow the difference in buggyness comes from the attitude of the developer and therefore implying western devs somehow care less and half-ass things is simply insulting to those people.

I mean, when a game is released with a terrible framerate and bugs in the first five minutes that there's no way the dev didn't know about - and these issues are magically fixed with a patch a month or two later when they can get around to it and have taken lots of money from people - I think it's fair to say some western devs/pubs care less and half-ass things to make launch and see if people complain enough to fix it. This is the gift downloadable console patches have bestowed upon us.

 

[JayWood2010]

Western games tend to be more ambitious. The bigger the game, the more chances it has for bugs. Even then i dont think there is a lot of big bugs that are common

For the most part, western games sell better too, so it pays off.

 

[Atwa]

Japanese developer Yuke's has been making rushed/buggy WWE games for YEARS. Of course this is a yearly franchise.

This is from the latest game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUOtprD3CQs&feature=youtu.be

Which is exactly what shows why this difference exists.

Japanese games tend to take longer time, while western publishers have much more strict time schedules. Meaning Japanese developers work on games until they are more polished, while western games often ignore that to get them out quickly.

WWE 2K games prove that, even when Japanese developers need a stricter schedule, they do the same. Its not about the developers, its about their approach to game making.