Yesterday we discussed the reasons why reviews of major titles can turn out unhelpful -- as I said, I rarely read them, for various reasons. However, I do often read reviews of strictly genre-formatted titles, particularly Japanese RPGs. So many of them are exactly like the others, and the genre's bounded by several laws that identify it, so it ends up useful for me to read a traditional, GameSpot-style product rundown. I can check up on the latest implementation of those familiar laws and weigh them to see whether or not I'd like it. It works because I'm not looking to be told whether a game is "good" -- even a positive review may ward me off of a title, if the game mechanics themselves don't appeal to me.You can't really overhaul a JRPG. Change too much about the formula, and it wanders away from its genre. There are a limited number of ways its signature elements can be matched and remixed to create a new product, and so you can define ahead of time what you need to know -- where does the battle system fall on the continuum between active and menu-based? What's the difficulty curve, the leveling curve? Where does it fall on the spectrum between high fantasy and modern setting? How evolved is the character development? Does it focus on the linear story of a few, or does it diffuse its story across a large number of potential party members? A review can answer these questions pretty easily, and the reviewer doesn't have to be particularly good at his job to do it.
Now, think of the questions you need to ask yourself when you play a Western RPG. Lately, the first question I ask is, "how are they defining 'RPG' this time?" It's so much more difficult to define genre in Western games in general, these days -- for example, if Resident Evil 5 and Dead Space are "survival horror," what's BioShock? What's an FPS, then? Does the gameplay really change much if you're in first-person versus over the shoulder? Do we even have genre anymore?
My colleague Brandon Sheffield recently interviewed PlatinumGames head Atsushi Inaba, who said he feels Japan no longer dominates the game space, and it seems he attributes this essentially to Western development being more willing to decimate genre boundaries and try radically new things. Japanese development, Inaba says, has languished somewhat under a "lack of creativity."
Let's just go with that for a sec -- let's say it's true that Japanese design has seen less creative evolution. Most of us who review games were trained up as consumers in an era dominated by Japanese game design sensibilities and aesthetics. And if Inaba's right about Japanese unwillingness to challenge traditional boundaries, then that means we were raised in an era where, like me today with the JRPGs, we knew, loosely, what to expect going into something. It was easy to identify what was new and what was tried-and-true. Reviewers could compartmentalize a game's systems and features and evaluate them separately. And they wrote reviews for consumers who were also familiar with those systems and features.
But as the West's made inroads in the creative arena, each new major title usually contains some avenue of that genre-defying experimentation; most new games are not really comparable, apples to apples, to one another. We can generally lump together games that are alike -- but whether we call them alike because of something vague like "look and feel" or because of the design implementation usually varies wildly.
I wonder if part of the problem with the usefulness of some kinds of reviews is that reviewers are still approaching titles from that old perspective, suitable for analyzing the old ways of more predictable, systematic Japanese-led design trends that are becoming recessive? Do we still go in with expectations that a game of a certain sort will adhere to its traditional rules, even though games have long since broadened the systems in which they were founded? And are reviewers still assuming they write for an audience who's also intimately familiar with those systems?
By the way, I also think Western dominance in the creative arena is not going to last very long. Inaba also says that while the West is bolder at paving new territory, its quality also suffers, and precision is an area in which Japan has tended to excel. So if Japan can close this assumed creativity gap as well, we may find ourselves in a new arena.
And we've actually got plenty to look forward to, if we're to anticipate a Japanese renaissance in games -- the key, I think, lies in Japan's creative muscle being more willing to consider partnerships with Western publishers, who conversely are finally understanding that talent from the East is something we can marry, not something to be competed with. You've seen the Madworld trailers, and you know the creative muscle behind Platinum alone. The problem with games like Okami and God Hand is they didn't have the marketing and distribution power behind them to drive strong sales -- which, to all-powerful investors, means those games "weren't good," even though we all know better. Sega of America president Simon Jeffrey, talking about the PlatinumGames partnership, has said he wants these developers' next projects to get the sales performance they deserve.
And while the news that Suda51 and Mikami are hitching their star to Electronic Arts will probably go down as one of the biggest surprises of the year -- though nobody was sure whether to be more surprised at EA's decision or at Suda and Mikami's -- maybe it shouldn't be surprising. Those devs deserve a strong force to advocate their efforts, and if an empire like EA can't drive worldwide sales, no one can. It's fairly safe to anticipate some measure of success for that project -- which means that other companies here in the U.S. are likely to follow suit. You can bet some of the other big guns are courting major-name Japanese talent already.
This is great news for gamers, but for reviewers, it probably signifies the further necrosis of the predictable systems on which we've always relied to evaluate games. Not being able to be systematic about anything is a good thing.
Granted, generalizing that Japanese design is "less creative" than the West is not a simple matter -- there are plenty of examples that would produce the opposite conclusion. But there's some merit to the argument; more on that tomorrow.
Screenshot above is Tales of Vesperia. I haven't played it yet, because even I am a bit sick of the JRPG formula -- although, curious to see the game that completely sold out the Xbox 360 in Japan, I yet might.
[PS: Just in case it isn't clear from the post, this is indeed a discussion of console games, not PC games.]
