Silent Hill 2,3 producer says America ahead of Japan in terms of game dev

[rocketpig]

naznatips said:

rocketpig said:

You say no real advancement has been made in 5 years... I disagree. The complete openness of Oblivion (to a fault IMO) and the cinematic nature & dialogue trees of Mass Effect added very different twists to the genre. Besides, you can't expect radical changes a la KOTOR to happen every year. It may be five years since KOTOR released, but when was the last time a JRPG radically altered gameplay style that much? 10 years? 15? Longer?

And you can pick on the storylines of WRPGs; I won't disagree with you. But stories don't greatly alter the overall gameplay. It's just a different story but the rest of the game progresses as it always has. Differing worlds and art styles are nice and all but when it comes to core gameplay mechanics, they really don't matter at all. I'm talking about real progression of the genre, not a few new shiny bells and whistles with a different style slapped on the top of it. And in that regard, JRPGs have been horribly stagnant since the transition to 3D. I still like many of the games and play them but I'm not expecting anything radically new when I purchase a JRPG nowadays. I expect it to be extremely formulaic and linear, just as those games were 12 years ago.

Now see, I don't consider an open world a "real progression of the genre" if that open world adds nothing to the enjoyment of the game. Hell, if you consider Zelda an RPG like some do, open world was done in 1986 in Japan. That said, it's great that Western devs are doing open world in their RPGs... no what else are they gonna do? Seriously, Oblivion added nothing to the actual gameplay of the franchise. Mass Effect evolved gameplay some but it was really just the next logical step from KOTOR's gameplay.

I need diversity in my games. I need a variety of gameplay styles, plots, settings, characters. I can't play the game game over and over. While Western Devs are remaking Lord of the Rings for the 500 billionth time I'll be playing unique games like Persona. The stagnation of the WRPG genre has really pushed me away, and although I have every intention of buying Mass Effect in its PC incarnation, I'm extremely disappointed with most Western Devs and their lack of diversity on the RPG genre.

I'm not saying that every RPG needs an open world but in the true definition of "RPG", some elements of choice are required. That's one of my biggest beefs with Japanese developers. Everyone throws around the term "role-playing", but how are you playing a role? You're doing exactly what the developer wanted you to do and moving through the game just how they want you to. You're just following along with a pre-determined outcome.

What I like best about WRPGs is that they are the true descendants of the pen-and-paper RPGs in varying degrees of control and choice. I miss that style of game and it's cool to see some developers keep it alive, though some are more successful than others (eyeing up you, Bethesda).

Now that devs are used to open-world settings, what are they going to do? Dunno. That's a good question. If the genre stalls at this point, that's their fault. But up to this point, the genre has been anything but stagnant since the BG2/Fallout days. It's been evolving on a consistent basis which is more than you can say for JRPGs. How different will FFXIII be from FFVII? In comparison, how different is Baldur's Gate 2 when compared to Mass Effect?

I understand your frustration with game worlds in WRPGs. I completely agree. Which brings me back to Fallout 3....

*stomps feet and gets mad again*

Okay, just gonna stop there.