Why are Japanese Developers so much better than Western developers at combat?

[Eternally Jaded]

Western developers are more focused on keeping the game simple to understand, depth is usually seen as unintuitive, a Western game developer likes to automatically assume the gamer is as dumb as a box of rocks, as evidenced by their philosophy on tutorials. It makes sense, if I was a game developer I'd probably develop the same way.

Japan kind of assumes that you know what you are getting into and are willing to give in to the craziness of that particular game, even if it's unlike anything you ever played before, and will put in mechanics that some may see as too niche or unique.



Arkham when it dropped was widely considered to be just an extension of what Assassin's Creed already started with it's combat engine, and I tend to agree with that notion. Don't see it as revolutionary at all.

Yup to basically everything you've said here.

The west largely prioritizes standardization of inputs and cues, while the east comes at it from a tinker touch pov.

 

[DPresidential]

Name Western games with better combat than Devil May Cry, Ys or Sekiro.

If For Honor's combat system was in Sekiro... it would be infinitely better.

 

[-DMP-]

Yep. Prince Of Persia is another major example of this. It was hugely inspired by indiana jones iirc. Someone actually commented this to me as to why games feel more by the numbers now. They mentioned that game designers have been phased out and effectively replaced with programmers and managers. You can actually see this curve in several genres and how much evolution they;ve gone through (or not). Compared Street Fighter 3 to Street Fighter IV for example.

Or ANY, i repeat. ANY Ubisoft game after Far Cry 3.

Nintendo are the only real consistent exceptions to this.

This why we gotta protect Kojima at all cost

 

[Don Mack]

If For Honor's combat system was in Sekiro... it would be infinitely better.

Hell nah the combat in For Honor sucks

 

[MisterMajesty]

This why we gotta protect Kojima at all cost

hahahaha. For all of his faults. Yeah, we do. But thing with Kojima is, he needs people to reign him in. He's not the one man army people think he is

 

[D1renegade]

This narrative is played out. GOW 2018, SIFU, the Batman Arkham series are just as good as anything from the east.

 

[MisterMajesty]

This narrative is played out. GOW 2018, SIFU, the Batman Arkham series are just as good as anything from the east.

Not quite. Stellar games for sure. But on average? Japanese/eastern games (im including Korea here) have a level of polish to their game feel that most developers don't ever achieve. take NG Black, Razors edge, an DMC5 for example (named sequentially deliberately btw).

Note that I said game feel, how a character feels to move around the screen. The east tends to favour responsiveness a lot more. You see this in the korean MMO's as well. Actually, controlling Mario in mario 64 beats most games today, period.

Now where the west do completely dominate, is FPS games (like Doom Eternal)

 

[Jaguar93]

Brehs talking bout GOW & Arkham combat. Is on the same level as, combat in Japanese character action games.

• DMC 3-5
• Bayo
• Ninja Gaiden Black
• God Hand

shyts on most western combat. The west is only winning at shooters.

 

[Canon]

Depends on the genre

 

[MisterMajesty]

Brehs talking bout GOW & Arkham combat. Is on the same level as, combat in Japanese character action games.

• DMC 3-5
• Bayo
• Ninja Gaiden Black
• God Hand

shyts on most western combat. The west is only winning at shooters.

I already explained why. and tbh. GOW (original 3) is more consistent than both DMC and NG. (haven't played bayo 2, but i loved the first hand)

 

[NZA]

a wild guess: the west's love of guns is at the expense of martial arts. the west's expertise at hollywood movies translates to narrative focus

 

[Black Magisterialness]

Rocksteady kind of revolutionized gameplay with the Arkham titles even if its old news now

Naughty Dog did something really special with TLOU2

But I agree with the general premise. Alot of WRPGs have stale combat because the focus is on everything other than gameplay first

And ethos in the development. Besides Squeenix, there's never been a heavy emphasis on graphical fidelity or photorealism. Not having that taking up processor space means more room for paricle effects, combat animations, and enemy variation. Also, they applaud people mastering their systems.

Souls games are a perfect examples of this.

 

[Master Teacher]

compare anime fight scenes to american animated fight scenes, I'm not even talking about dbz type of shyt, just normal hand to hand fighting like cowboy bebop

compare the animations of street fighter to mortal kombat, it's not even close, there's nothing remotely natural about the movements of any of those charatcers in NRS games, they just better at animation, better at math so the physics of an attack are just better in their games, that's all it is

 

[Fanservice]

Rocksteady kind of revolutionized gameplay with the Arkham titles even if its old news now

That ain’t nothing but ultraperm Assassin’s creed

 

[MischievousMonkey]

Souls games are hugely HUGELY influenced by literature, pacing wise. The list goes on.

What do you mean by that? That sounds interesting.