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

[ctk495]

Scoobes said:

ctk495 said:

Hey everyone-thank's for you replies so far. Here are a couple of extra thoughts:

A couple of thoughts here:

Definitiveness
Definitiveness rests on the idea of binaries. I think that Westerners prefer definitive products like men or women over androgynous character- a man looking like a woman dressed like a man. For Japanese people this would be fine but for Westerners it would be better for it to be a woman or a men altogether. I don’t know where this preference comes from. But I see it everywhere if a concept is very similar to another then it’s the same but with an added adjective. Like saying effeminate(adjective) man(type) as opposed to creating a new word. I heard that many androgynous characters in Sailor moon where changed to women when they were localized. I think that that’s tipping the bar towards a more defined product than to one more ambiguous.

Dialogue and emotions
I have problem here. I am not a Westerner but from Latin America(indigenous mix with west)-so I find the dialogue appealing. The pauses add dramatic weight to the exchange between characters. But I guess you would have to have a degree of cultural background to understand.Going deeper into the pauses I think that at the core of western culture there is a rejection of emotions. “Grace” coming from Christianity or Stoicism seems primordial in the west. Where display of emotions make people uncomfortable. Therefore, in a lot of anime where the main protagonist goes to fight a battle like in Reborn(Kyoko tells Tsuna “ Don’t go!” I bet it sounds melodramatic to most people. However, I read a lot of Ultimate Spiderman and I find the display of emotions there ‘vulgar’ What I mean is that when Kitty pride gets angry she would just say “OMG you are racist’ or ‘OMG you are a misogynist’ to another character. The realistic visuals mixed with the blunt stating makes for a ‘vulgar’ display. I think that because Westerners are not used to expressing emotions when they do it just comes off as crass.

Causality
I think that generally most western gamers need to have a strong correlation of causality. Everything needs to have a purpose Neku’s haircut has no purpose, or Tetsuya Nomura’s belt’s have no purpose. Western culture highly values design with a purpose- as opposed to fashionable but impractical choices.

You might be onto something with the definitive gender issue. Don't agree with the other two though.

The problem with dialogue is that the translations are generally done quite badly. Playing in Japanese with subtitles often works better than in English and does a far better job of conveying emotions and cultural nuances. When translated into English the dialogue is often translated too literally. That combined with the long dramatic pauses (which culturally don't occur so much in modern English) come off as over the top and cheesy.

I don't agree with the causality either. Plenty of Western developed characters have pointless clothing that simply appeal to Western audiences. The original Deus Ex had characters with over-sized coats and flashy sunglasses when the entire game was set at night. Female characters in both wRPGs and jRPGs have the most impractical (non-protective ) armour ever conceived.

There is either  cultural misunderstanding or poor localization. First, people might find the pauses annoying since they have expectations of how emotions should be conveyed-therefore, if the chararacters  don't act display emotions that way they want to they find it cringe worthy. Or like you suggest, the localizators do a poor job of capturing the essence of the game and instead do a cheap translation. Although I've  played Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XII and found the dialogue just fine. Is this problem mainly with indie JRPG's developers that lack the budget for a proper localization?

Could it be about customization(player freedom) trumping practicality? Maybe the staple characters have a more pratical wardrobe like the main male characters in most games having short hair and being buffed-Mass effect. This are pratically is inherited in context of the adventure- fighting aliens. In the case of the female characters, the developers might want to give the player agency- thereby it becomes the player's vision and not the developer's. The player breaks the rules and throws out the window the praticality aspect. In  "The World Ends with You" its Tetsuya's complete vision, therefore, he adds lots of belts and spiky hair and the player can only accept this as it is not customizable. In IGN a lot of people are constatly complaining about this. Finally, maybe Deus Ex is a exception to the western norm given that Square Enix now publishes the game maybe they found the work appealing because it have a similar aesthetic to their game.