Hello everyone,
'Suspension of Disbelief" is one of the main reasons why most Americans find JRPG's stories convoluted or unappealing. If you want to become immerse into a game you would like it to have plausibility. Let's take the example of 'Kingdom Hearts." Why does Sora has spiky hair or how can there are doppelgängers for every character? At some point one loses the sense of suspension of disbelief. It comes down to an issue of relevancy vs style(the stylistic features are not relevant to the overall game but are just an expression of Japanese culture). On the other hand, I can see why Japanese people would not find a game like Gears of Wars appealing. I think that if you have a weak sense of agency you would want something more exciting as you view GOW not as an immersive experience but rather as a video game. Therefore, why would I play a game if I could experience real-life? I guess that is why games would be seen as an escapist hobby in the eyes of the media because you are actually trying to immerse yourself into the experience.
Finally, I think it comes to the concept of "justification". Let's take "The World Ends With You" as an example, notice how the pins have no justification. How can pins give the characters powers? Or what are the creatures such as 'noise'? If you play any WRPG such as Mass Effect they always give their aliens a background story and a real world grounding. At the same time, doing this would make the story boring for someone who does not want a real-world grounding-but rather wants an exciting experience. I think they are different angles towards approaching storytelling. Japanese stories are concern with how do we use the tools(power/weapons/creatures) we have in the story while Western stories want to explain the nature and origin of the tools themselves.
