Edit: I just rolled out of bed. Need my coffee before posting.

Heck, the best game of 2009 is Demon's Souls, a Japanese game.

Even if we use Metacritic as a metric for greatness -- which I don't recommend -- 2009 had high scoring games from Japan from Capcom, From Software, Arc System Works, NIS, and Nintendo.

I don't really think there's been a sea change in favor of any region over the last decade.

You should have added under the tombstone cartoon the fact that Phil Fish is pretty much nonexistent in the industry today. Basically, that the people who talked the most shit are now nowhere to be found (unless he's back and I just haven't heard about it).

Replicant said: hunter_alien said: Yupp... it was obvious that sooner or later the Japanese industry will come surfacing up again. The west is done. Sorry but its true, western games are crap For the record, my favorite developer is Naughty Dog There are exceptions of course but roughly speaking I agree with you. And my biggest complaint about them isn't even the microtransactions and season passes. It seems like the majority of Western AAA games nowadays are built around MMO-like structures and I really find them boring and soulless. If we make Western developers know how much quality decline we think their games have seen, maybe that'll motivate them to improve just like the Japanese developers were motivated by the criticism   OT: Shout-out to Capcom as well. Like Sega, they still struggle a bit but I really enjoyed Resident Evil 7. RESIDENT EVIL 7: BIOHAZARD 86 Metascore 98 critics 7.8 User Score 1523 Ratings

What I wrote it was mostly sarcasm :)) But yeah, that is something that I hate nowadays aboutwestern games. The approach that a game is a content platform before being simply.... well a game. I much rather choose a well made single-player campaign that lasts 10 hours, than a 5 year long project akin to Destiny or Battlefield any day

Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna spend $4 million on a mediocre pepperoni pizza, while convincing myself that it is better than nothing.

Thank you. I was going to post much the same thing. I just posted about Phil Fish's tactless behavior from 2012 in a NieR Automata thread, but didn't engage those who responded to me due to laziness. Although I do feel that Japanese development has improved in the last few years, and has seen 2017 as one of it's best years ever, citing the 7th gen as a time when Japanese games were "dead" or that they all "sucked", is hyperbolic nonsense.

hunter_alien said: Replicant said: There are exceptions of course but roughly speaking I agree with you. And my biggest complaint about them isn't even the microtransactions and season passes. It seems like the majority of Western AAA games nowadays are built around MMO-like structures and I really find them boring and soulless. If we make Western developers know how much quality decline we think their games have seen, maybe that'll motivate them to improve just like the Japanese developers were motivated by the criticism   OT: Shout-out to Capcom as well. Like Sega, they still struggle a bit but I really enjoyed Resident Evil 7. RESIDENT EVIL 7: BIOHAZARD 86 Metascore 98 critics 7.8 User Score 1523 Ratings What I wrote it was mostly sarcasm :)) But yeah, that is something that I hate nowadays aboutwestern games. The approach that a game is a content platform before being simply.... well a game. I much rather choose a well made single-player campaign that lasts 10 hours, than a 5 year long project akin to Destiny or Battlefield any day

Haha. Glad I'm not alone with my criticism even though you were initially being sarcastic.

Bold: Naughty Dog is one of my favorite Western developers as well and even though some of their games are close to being too cinematic, I'm just glad that there are still story-focused games. They provide some variation among the many shallow open world games built as MMO's and "services".

yes(^_^)v    wwwwwwwwww

They were right for the time, but that same criticism allowed them to self reflect and turn it around, so i'm glad people were critical, as it allowed jap devs to get back in the right path.

Yeah, it's a thesis that's difficult to defend. I guess if you only looked at so-called AAA games, maybe you could make a case? But even then a game like Street Fighter 4, a game that came out in 2009, got a 94 on Metacritic and sold 7 million copies. Resident Evil 5, a game that came out in 2009, sold almost nine million and scored an 84 on Metacritic (again I wouldn't usually use aggregate scores as metrics for greatness, but these are the rules of the thread).

Then there are dozens of critically acclaimed smaller-profile games like BlazBlue, Bayonetta, Vanquish, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Gravity Rush, Persona 4 Golden, Muramasa, etc.

Then you add all of Nintendo's offerings between 2008 and 2012, a collection of games Inafune and Fish seem to have overlooked: Super Mario Galaxy 2, Xenoblade Chronicles, Skyward Sword, Pokemon, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, New Super Mario Bros., Pushmo, Mario & Luigi, Wii Sports Resort, Sprit Tracks, Donkey Kong Country Returns, etc.

Thanks for motivating me! Now I'll get to studying some more Japanese so I can play all of those games that never left good 'ol 日本!