Obviously, there's countless good and bad games from both the global east and west, but if you had to choose one over the other, which would it be, and why?

That's not really an even comparison. As big a gaming giant as Japan is, it's almost alone against whole Europe and US.
Still, surprisingly close, but that's because of my quarter century of emulator gaming. Then again, it is because I'm a PC gamer that there's no question of me picking West.

East. Too many western game series become stale or get monetized into the earth. Sure there's eastern series like Poke'mon that lose their luster but there's a literal graveyard of western game series that are garbage or dead.

Elder Scrolls
Halo
Mass Effect
Assassin's Creed (Monetized into the earth)
Madden
CoD
Fable
Banjo Kazooie
Perfect Dark
Command and Conquer
Need for Speed
Star Wars Battlefront
Fable
Diablo
Fortnite
Minecraft (Boring and nothing to do. The most basic of building and exploring.)
PUBG
GTA (A new release every 15 years followed by heavy monetization)
Cyberpunk 2077

Japanesw games by a landslide.
LOVE the art designs(anime)
Love the music
Lots of times amazing stories.


However i played mass effect 1,2,3 this year and those games blew me away

There was a certainly a time when this was a difficult question to answer, but in 2026 I feel like it's fairly easy. East wins.

The two best, most consistent developers on the planet are Nintendo and Capcom, both Japanese giants. Square Enix, for all its inconsistency, still turns out a masterpiece now and then. From Software seems to make nothing but GOTY contenders. Then there are all the important "AA" publishers and developers: Atlus, Nihon Falcom, Vanillaware, Koei Tecmo, Marvelous, etc.

Meanwhile, in the western part of the world, "AAA" gaming has never been worse. Xbox has never been worse. Apart from Astro Bot (a Japanese game), PlayStation has never been worse. There are some highlights, to be fair: Ubisoft Montpellier, Larian, CD Projekt, etc. And, of course, the indie scene. This is where the western part of the world makes up the most ground. Chained Echoes, Sea of Stars, Freedom Planet 2, Balatro, Mina the Hollower, the list goes on and on. Japan can't compete in terms of indies.

East vs West? Eastern games wins overall imo.

Yeah, eastern games have always been great, but these days they win easily. Most of the great western games are indies atm.

I really like this question! Definitely east IMO. As somebody who almost exclusively plays Nintendo (and if not Nintendo, then Sega, SquEnix, Team Asobu… all of which are JP lol), I find it very jarring booting up a game made by a western studio. It feels a lot more “cinematic” when it comes from the west (e.g. the opening to MP4:Beyond, anything Naughty Dog post-2007), whereas gameplay feels like the bigger focus and story feels more authentic and less “pander-y” when it comes from the east.

Mostly western.
I only play Eastern games if they are related to anime that i like or if they are named Final Fantasy.
Western games usually have better gameplay and they look much better then 95% of eastern games, even A and AA western games.
If you played one game from any dev team from Asia then it feels like you played all of them. They have same story, same type of characters, same mission structure, everything.

Overall I like Japanese games the most, but there are some exceptions.

I tend to think of Japanese games having these aspects: bottom up design (moment to moment), linear, Japanese/Eastern culture including Anime tropes.  Western games have these aspects: top down design (big picture), nonlinear, Western culture.  I think "bottom up" design makes for better gameplay.  I.e. Japanese games tend to have tight, responsive controls and there is a focus on making simple actions in their games enjoyable.  On the other hand I think Western culture is more interesting as a whole than Japanese culture is, and games that draw from Western stories/mythologies/worlds are more interesting.

The best games often find a way to take the best parts of both philosophies and combine them together.  Zelda 1 and Breath of the Wild are both extremely nonlinear.  Zelda 1 is basically Ultima 1 turned into an action game, while BotW was inspired by both Zelda 1 and open world Western games that were popular about 10 years ago.  Both of those Zeldas use the open-world nonlinear philosophy, but they have tighter gameplay than the Western games they are emulating.  On the other hand Undertale is clearly inspired by JRPGs, but it has branching story paths, because Toby Fox is American.  In either case, I think it makes the game better to take the best parts of both philosophies.