Better luck next time, Itagaki.

Well, at least the multiplayer is worth a try :)

I had a little hope this would turn out good, but all that is down the drain. I never expected it to be amazing, but I had at least thought it would be worth a purchase.

You know what, I hate this fucking notion. Do you wanna hear the reason why japanese games that are poorly rated by the western press are rated that way? It's because those games are deeply flawed and simply not good. I am so sick of this misguided sucking up to the japanese games industry by some people.

Japanese devs don't make more creative games than the west. They are just reusing a different set of tired old tropes and gameplay mechanisms than western devs are. They are milking their franchises in a way that would make people weep if it happened in the west. You complain about a yearly CoD or AC? How about half a dozen Warrior games a year? Or Yokai Watch which now has 11 games/apps either released or announced (counting the games with 2 different versions as 1 btw.) since its first release in 2013. Monster Hunter is annual as well and some years it's just a presumably fullprice expansion to last years model. You can go on with this, but my point is made I think. What's worse is that japanese games are mostly developed for as little money as possible, which shows in graphically and mechanically (gameplay) outdated games that have poor stories as well.

You complain about japanese reviews not being represented but what japanese review outlets even exist outside of Famitsu (which is widely known to be a complete joke in terms of reviews)? I certainly can't think of any relevant sites.

Stop blaming reviewers on japanese game devs just being too conservative, scared and stuck in their old ways to actually make good games to compete in todays market. The japanese devs that do actually still make good games, your Nintendos, From Softwares, Platinums etc. do actually get good, damn good scores from the western gaming media so the problem most certainly isn't bias when Japan shits out something like Godzilla, Onechanbara or Devil's Third and it isn't heaped with praise by the west.

Obvious pun is obvious. Though I think an actual game about the devil's poop might be a bit more interesting.

Bloodborne (the souls series in general) is a Japanese game...just sayin'.

Is there actually any real evidence for this bias? There are a great many Japanese games that get well reviewed. And there are plenty of western games that get bad reviews. Do some analysis and present some facts if you're going to make this sort of claim.

Excited for the accolades trailer on Nintendo's Youtube channel!!

Seriously though, I just cannot fathom how a game so (supposedly) terrible can even be released. When I make or do something and it is of terrible quality, I can almost always realize how bad it really is. If i were to make a public game, seen by many many people, I would be so aware and conscious of the quality of my product.

Perhaps, this developer just does not care? Maybe, they are in a figurative bubble and are unaware of other games? Nevertheless, it is sad.

Between itagaki and 16 random guys, I believe itagaki. Guess the reviewers just aren't skilled enough.
Or maybe the game is too misogynistic for the SJW media.

I think the perceptions of bias comes in with smaller Japanese games like Disgaea, Atelier, Dangan Ronpa, non-Persona SMT, and Hyperdimension Neptunia which don't score particularly phenomenally, despite them having fairly dedicated fanbases in the west. The larger games like MGS, Final Fantasy, and mainstay Nintendo get reviewed much the same way major Western games would.

Really, of the smaller Japanese games, only Soulsborne, Persona, and Xenoblade (off the top of my head. I am sure there are others) have gotten extremely strong critical reception in the west.

Ultimately, I am not sure if there is or isn't a bias against Japanese games. I would have to do a fairly extensive statistical analysis. And I am kind of unsure how I would test it. Perhaps comparing Metacritic critical scores to user scores? But even that seems extremely problematic.

There were probably Romero fans saying the same thing before Daikatana came out.  No developer is going to say their game is bad in the lead up to release.