Suspension of Disbelief(Why western fans dislike JRPG's)

[ReimTime]

artur-fernand said:

spemanig said:

"Japanese games have quite a... 'distinct' way of telling their stories, ..."

No, they have a distinct way of localizing them. Most game localizations just suck, especially Square Enix, to be honest. They are really, really bad at localizing. And there's a charm to that that a lot of JRPG fans like, but it's definitely not because it's high quality.

And when I say localization, I'm specifically talking about quality of the translations, not the voice acting, which has become pretty good now. That's why Pokemon is so successful. Those guys nail localization. Same with Earthbound, Xenoblade, and honestly all Nintendo games. They are wizards at localization. (which is why the Mother 3 fan localization felt so sub-par to me)

I agree, in parts. I'm not necessarily talking about the script itself (though it is a factor, and that's why I mentioned KH), but rather the... "tone" of the dialogues, I can't explain. But I get the same vibe by watching anime or undub games - those weird pauses mid-sentences I talked about, and the unrealistic dialogue (which means it's not JUST the localization's fault).

And just adding to my point, japanese stories use a lot of tropes that western games really don't like. Such as the "power of friendship", followed by some speech about how "while I have my friend, I won't lose" or something. Most western players would probably cringe at stuff like this.

You can drop the facade. It's all about light versus darkness, baby!!!