The Westernization of Japanese Games

"It's very...Japanese." This used to be a lazy way of saying something was weird. Now it speaks volumes about what to expect from an experience, whether you're American, European, Antarctican, whatever. To the gaming literate, each game carries a distinct cultural stamp that identifies it in numerous ways; as time goes on the line differentiating what's "western" and what's "Japanese" is getting blurrier.

While many eastern studios retain their unique design heritages, we're seeing plenty of others adopt ideas often associated with American developers. The resulting games feel far more familiar to western hands. What does this shift mean for us as players? We wondered the same thing, which is why we sat down, chin on fist, and started analyzing the new trend's influence on the industry.

Defining what is and isn't absolutely American or Japanese is...difficult. What once started as a Japanese ideal may have been adopted and become more American, or vice versa, leaving us to loosely interpret various aspects of a game's design. Of course, the over-the-shoulder shooter was born (or, at the very least, popularized) in Japan with Resident Evil 4, but it's long since become a staple of American action games. This is why Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots marked such a significant turning point for the franchise.

When it came time to close the Solid Snake story, Hideo Kojima recruited Ryan Payton, an American producer, to broaden the western appeal. Payton is widely credited with having improved the controls and camera in Metal Gear Solid 4. His input made it easier to maneuver Snake, tuck against walls, and get a lay of the land than it was past games. Sure, it still had giant robots, tentacle villains, and oodles oodles of other anime tropes, but the multiplayer, gun customization, and Gears of War influences had stars and stripes painted all over it.

What makes Metal Gear Solid 4 an important example of western-Japanese hybrids is its balance. Heated action wasn't a last resort anymore, it was a viable and exciting alternative to an even stronger realization of the series' signature stealth. For western players, Metal Gear Solid 4 was (story notwithstanding) the most approachable entry yet; its fantastic financial success was proof positive Payton played his cards right. He also may have set off a chain reaction. Whether or not Guns of the Patriots specifically kicked off a trend is debatable, but new and upcoming Japanese games are taking similar steps to open themselves up to American audiences.

Shadows of the Damned is a great example of a recent cultural fusion. With Shinji Mikami and Goichi Suda on the design side, and Akira Yamaoka creating the music, Shadows of the Damned had an all-star team of Japanese talent behind it. It's interesting then, that despite its debut appearance at the Tokyo Game Show, the game released in North America a full three months ahead of Japan. The deliberately wacky, crude game with a wicked sense of humor played like something a US studio might have made, and the developers cited American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino for the aesthetic influence. Shadows of the Damned used the tried-and-true over-the-shoulder shooting, and had plenty of cinematics dotting its directed, linear structure. Unfortunately, the blend didn't resonate with Japanese or American audiences -- the game tanked worldwide, which developer Grasshopper Manufacture credited to the too-long development cycle and lack of marketing.

Maybe so, but we're left to wonder: Would something with such an identity crisis have caught on if it had a big ad budget? Capcom may yet answer this question.


More so than any studio, Capcom is messing about with North America in hugely important ways. It handed Dead Rising 2 off to a Canadian developer, which replicated the original's oddball properties perfectly, for better or worse. Slant Six, another Canadian company, is developing Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, an atypical, action-heavy entry to the series, and rumors circulated recently that a North American team was working on Resident Evil 6. Even Capcom's Japanese games are feeling the western pressure. While Resident Evil Revelations is a return to form (in numerous ways), Dragon's Dogma is a new Japanese IP you'd swear came from our landmass.

A detailed mini-map, explicit text instructions, and moral choices aren't what we've come to expect from Japanese RPGs, which usually emphasize exploration, discovery, and, well, no moral choices. The entire look of Dragon's Dogma has an air of Gygaxian lore to it, and you wouldn't be alone in mistaking it for a Lord of the Rings spinoff. This has European and American ideas all over it. By comparison, we adored Dark Souls for sticking to its distinct, unforgiving guns, even though it came at our expense. The Japanese action RPG modernized what we loved about genre classics, with the added "bonus" of excruciating difficulty -- something sadists revere certain Japanese games for.

Ninja Gaiden used to be the poster child for these difficult skill-based games, but its signature is fading away as Team Ninja tries catering to the west. The original game, and more so the Ninja Gaiden Black redux, demanded players play smart or suffer. It punished poor technique with brutal failure, and rarely stopped to tell you what to do. Ninja Gaiden 3 is easy, and we don't like that. This isn't to say we're sissies as North Americans, but many of its new designs resemble those ubiquitous in western action games, such as recharging health and some strong auto-aim. This makes the simplified encounters even easier. In becoming a more accessible, Americanized game, Ninja Gaiden 3 loses what made the series great.

What's worth noting isn't whether or not the "Americanization" of Japanese games is a good thing. With so many games in this new category on their way, the answer to this remains to be seen -- for the record, though, we think it's a pretty cool change and worth looking forward to. The importance of this new movement is that it's happening at all. Japanese developers are reaching out to western gamers in a way that makes the most sense -- appealing to their interests. This is a bold new step in game development, but striking a balance between east and west is the only way something like Dragon's Dogma can not only survive, but thrive as well.

Stateside studios remain firmly rooted in what's been successful west of Japanese shores, as is evident by the Xbox 360's failure in Japan. The westernization of Japanese games is far clearer than any east-minded movement over here, and perhaps that's telling about what lengths Japanese developers are willing to go to get our attention. These craftsmen are creating a new identity for Japanese games, and might, in due time, reclaim old associations as their own. It's because of these efforts that "very Japanese" carries positive connotations rather than negative.

Maybe now that we've grown out of calling something Japanese because it's weird, we'll start saying something is western because it's unchanging.



Mitch Dyer is an Associate Editor for IGN's Xbox 360 team. He's also quite Canadian. Read his ramblings on Twitter and MyIGN.

• More Xbox 360 Features
• Latest Xbox 360 News, Reviews, and Videos