Console Gaming
My daily routine has me checking Kotaku (who I like) and WoW Insider (who I dislike, they're writing style sucks and most of the writers are WoW noobs). Both of them tend to keep me abreast on what's going on in the Game sphere and WoW sphere fairly well. Kotaku has some pretty good articles from time to time and WoW Insider .. well - they list patch notes and rumors and links to good articles on other sites.
Today on Kotaku there was an article about why the Xbox 360 is doing so poorly in Japan - a few Japanese devs were quoted and two struck me as interesting -
"Japanese players don't want challenging, stressful, difficult games. Japanese players would rather have role-playing games with a slow tempo, where they are led and shown what to do. So, maybe games like Blue Dragon will start to change things. When more of those kind of games come on to the market, then I think more Japanese players will accept the 360."
and
"People think [foreign games] are difficult and there's no guidance on how to clear the objectives. Now that has changed, and they are much easier to play, but this bias remains among Japanese gamers."
They seem to be mainly talking about FPS type games - where objectives are run around and shoot people. I mean, some JRPGs are so linear that it hurts but others are actually rather annoying - it can take an hour to figure out what you're doing sometimes - while yes most of the time they are still painfully linear. Now is this because the games themselves lead you by the hand or because they have a well structured (if not old and tired) story?
I don't think I've ever gotten 'lost' in a JRPG, just misled - but I do know I've gotten lost in Halo 3. I don't think this is really relevent - JRPGs bore me to death, I used to love them but now I can barely stand to play most of them unless they have a *really* interesting system or a great story. For instance, Persona 3 or Disgaea 1 and 2. I loved those games (still playing Persona 3 and Disgaea 2), but Blue Dragon? God, what a bore. Hell, I couldn't even finish Final Fantasy 12. And I love Final Fantasy games.
And even if it's a somewhat tired system, like the Action-RPG Castlevania games - I love those! They're full of grinding but they're still fun. I don't know where I stand with games anymore - I'm just not a huge FPS fan, I suck at RTS games but buy them anyway, stealth games I don't have the patience for and turn-based RPGs are starting to bore me.
All I have are small stars (Twilight Princess, Final Fantasy remakes on the PSP and DS, Castlevania replays) and Massivly Multiplayer Online RPGS..
Today on Kotaku there was an article about why the Xbox 360 is doing so poorly in Japan - a few Japanese devs were quoted and two struck me as interesting -
"Japanese players don't want challenging, stressful, difficult games. Japanese players would rather have role-playing games with a slow tempo, where they are led and shown what to do. So, maybe games like Blue Dragon will start to change things. When more of those kind of games come on to the market, then I think more Japanese players will accept the 360."
and
"People think [foreign games] are difficult and there's no guidance on how to clear the objectives. Now that has changed, and they are much easier to play, but this bias remains among Japanese gamers."
They seem to be mainly talking about FPS type games - where objectives are run around and shoot people. I mean, some JRPGs are so linear that it hurts but others are actually rather annoying - it can take an hour to figure out what you're doing sometimes - while yes most of the time they are still painfully linear. Now is this because the games themselves lead you by the hand or because they have a well structured (if not old and tired) story?
I don't think I've ever gotten 'lost' in a JRPG, just misled - but I do know I've gotten lost in Halo 3. I don't think this is really relevent - JRPGs bore me to death, I used to love them but now I can barely stand to play most of them unless they have a *really* interesting system or a great story. For instance, Persona 3 or Disgaea 1 and 2. I loved those games (still playing Persona 3 and Disgaea 2), but Blue Dragon? God, what a bore. Hell, I couldn't even finish Final Fantasy 12. And I love Final Fantasy games.
And even if it's a somewhat tired system, like the Action-RPG Castlevania games - I love those! They're full of grinding but they're still fun. I don't know where I stand with games anymore - I'm just not a huge FPS fan, I suck at RTS games but buy them anyway, stealth games I don't have the patience for and turn-based RPGs are starting to bore me.
All I have are small stars (Twilight Princess, Final Fantasy remakes on the PSP and DS, Castlevania replays) and Massivly Multiplayer Online RPGS..