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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Suspension of Disbelief(Why western fans dislike JRPG's)

 

What is the main reason Westerns dislike JRPGs?

Aesthetics 66 26.83%
 
Suspension of Disbelief 16 6.50%
 
Convoluted Stories 43 17.48%
 
Linearity 24 9.76%
 
They are simple not open minded.... 97 39.43%
 
Total:246
youarebadatgames on 02 July 2015

Nobody wants to be associated with jrpg autists and neckbeards.



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Scary4Eva on 03 July 2015

I think it is probably differences in culture and the styles of JRPGs are different than WRPGs. Also, it seems to me that western audiences like characters that are tough and realistic looking.

I'm American, but I love JRPGs. Some of the games I'm looking forward to are Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, The Legend of Legacy and Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon.



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Scoobes on 03 July 2015
ctk495 said:
Scoobes said:

I think its a mixture of both misunderstanding and localization. Dialogue that often sounds perfectly natural in its native language (including mannersims), often sound very odd in English. Part of this is to do with the localization as they often have a quick translation with little thought put to the English equivalent. The question of "How would this be said in an English way that incorporates the mannersisms of the character?" doesn't seem to come up often enough. 

You might be onto something with the customisation point. In a lot of wRPGs I give my main characters blue hair, violet eyes and weird facial tatoos so the player gets a higher degree of input. That said, I still think wRPG devs don't necessarily think of practicality when designing their characters. That may be part of their design process but it certainly isn't the only thing they think of. I also wouldn't be surprised if many of the Japanese character designs are simply there to cater to younger Japanese audiences (the core jRPG consumers). FFXII for instance had two younger characters added into the game so it would appeal more to the younger Japanese demographic, even though they had little relevance to the overall story.

As for Deus Ex, I was actually talking about the original that came out in 2000 when Eidos were still a publisher and Ion Storm were still a developer. I think the point still stands for Human Revolution though as it was in development for a long time before the SE takeover, and the art-style and character profiles were already well established.


Japanese gamers are mostly young otaku's and women. I read on an article that young men no longer game at the ages of 17+ because they need to prepare for college entrance exams. Could this be the answer for the aesthetics? Gundam Wing(anime) featured an extensive cast of pretty boys to cater the female audience. 

I knew you were talking about the first game before SE bought Eidos. However, don't you think one of the reason SE bought Eidos- in the first place- because they use an art style that they like? I heard many french people like manga and that Naruto is very big over there. Maybe, they Eidos have adopted some Eastern sensibilities to their work. 

Err, no. If anything it was the opposite; SE bought Eidos to help expand their Western portfolio. Eidos helped SE in the past by publishing the PC versions of FFVII and FFVIII so they had some history of business. The events were:

1. Eidos were struggling and were about to go under.

2. SE were looking to make a bigger push into the Western market and to have a greater understanding of the Western markets.

3. Because of their history, SE bought Eidos, saving them, Tomb Raider and Deus Ex.

4. SE now have a strong range of well known Western IPs.

Also, not sure why you're mentioning the French. Naruto is big over there, but Eidos were British.




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ctk495 on 05 July 2015
Scoobes said:
ctk495 said:
Scoobes said:

I think its a mixture of both misunderstanding and localization. Dialogue that often sounds perfectly natural in its native language (including mannersims), often sound very odd in English. Part of this is to do with the localization as they often have a quick translation with little thought put to the English equivalent. The question of "How would this be said in an English way that incorporates the mannersisms of the character?" doesn't seem to come up often enough. 

You might be onto something with the customisation point. In a lot of wRPGs I give my main characters blue hair, violet eyes and weird facial tatoos so the player gets a higher degree of input. That said, I still think wRPG devs don't necessarily think of practicality when designing their characters. That may be part of their design process but it certainly isn't the only thing they think of. I also wouldn't be surprised if many of the Japanese character designs are simply there to cater to younger Japanese audiences (the core jRPG consumers). FFXII for instance had two younger characters added into the game so it would appeal more to the younger Japanese demographic, even though they had little relevance to the overall story.

As for Deus Ex, I was actually talking about the original that came out in 2000 when Eidos were still a publisher and Ion Storm were still a developer. I think the point still stands for Human Revolution though as it was in development for a long time before the SE takeover, and the art-style and character profiles were already well established.


Japanese gamers are mostly young otaku's and women. I read on an article that young men no longer game at the ages of 17+ because they need to prepare for college entrance exams. Could this be the answer for the aesthetics? Gundam Wing(anime) featured an extensive cast of pretty boys to cater the female audience. 

I knew you were talking about the first game before SE bought Eidos. However, don't you think one of the reason SE bought Eidos- in the first place- because they use an art style that they like? I heard many french people like manga and that Naruto is very big over there. Maybe, they Eidos have adopted some Eastern sensibilities to their work. 

Err, no. If anything it was the opposite; SE bought Eidos to help expand their Western portfolio. Eidos helped SE in the past by publishing the PC versions of FFVII and FFVIII so they had some history of business. The events were:

1. Eidos were struggling and were about to go under.

2. SE were looking to make a bigger push into the Western market and to have a greater understanding of the Western markets.

3. Because of their history, SE bought Eidos, saving them, Tomb Raider and Deus Ex.

4. SE now have a strong range of well known Western IPs.

Also, not sure why you're mentioning the French. Naruto is big over there, but Eidos were British.

I mixed it up since Eidos Montreal has a french website. Thank's for the historical background though.

@Everyone else

I have come to the conclusion that it's mostly a cultural problem-western gamers not being used to foreign material. Localizators not doing a good enough job. I was talking to a good friend and she told me that she knows some people working on localization, I think that would be an ideal job for me.



bowserthedog on 05 July 2015

I think that there have been few stellar JPRG's to come out lately. Big budget and top review score.  Xenoblade had that but it also sold better in the west than the east.



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