Spedfrom on 27 December 2011
The japanese aesthetic had a fall from grace and went out of fashion. When they realized this, the japanese tried to adhere to western formulas with mostly unsatisfying results because it's out of their comfort zone and they didn't manage to translate their concepts well.
That's where we still stand at the moment I believe, although Demon's/Dark Souls was an excellent example of a japanese concept properly "westernized". Let's see how Capcom fares with Dragon's Dogma.
However I do fear that this tsunami of fantasy based games might be crashing down on us soon. It's just a pity that the same isn't going to happen to the FPS genre anytime soon it seems (Bioshock excepted).
