Japanese developers art and tech choices *transmogrified thread

[Silent_Buddha]

There's only one Japanese art style and it's called anime and all their games look a like. You see, in the West, we know Mass Effect looks nothing like Uncharted 2, which looks nothing like Oblivion. I can never tell in most Japanese games if i'm playing in a fantasy setting or science fiction. FF13 is a perfect example of this trend.

That's a quite obviously regional bias. There's a great deal of variety in how Japanese games look with regards to each other. I'm sure in some Japanese forum over there some Japanese guy is making a comment that unlike Japanese games which are all distinctly different looking, all Western games have the same art style.

It goes along with the whole, all <input race of choice> look alike.

Regards,
SB

 

[Ghostz]

That's a quite obviously regional bias. There's a great deal of variety in how Japanese games look with regards to each other. I'm sure in some Japanese forum over there some Japanese guy is making a comment that unlike Japanese games which are all distinctly different looking, all Western games have the same art style.

It goes along with the whole, all <input race of choice> look alike.

Regards,
SB

It really has nothing to do with bias. That's a limp argument and a red herring. I can't see how anybody with objective sense can say Mass Effect and Oblivion has the same art style: One is Science Fiction and the other is Fantasy, to distinct art directions, from two distinct genres. FF13, like most the shonen anime it's inspired after, poorly tries to blend them together making it all look samey.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It really has nothing to do with bias. That's a limp argument and a red herring. I can't see how anybody with objective sense can say Mass Effect and Oblivion has the same art style: One is Science Fiction and the other is Fantasy, to distinct art directions, from two distinct genres. FF13, like most the shonen anime it's inspired after, poorly tries to blend them together making it all look samey.

As well I don't see how anyone in the world could possibly see how anyone would mistake the art style of something like the latest Dynasty Warriors game for something like Lost Planet 2.

Or mistake the art style of the latest Metal Gear Solid for Blue Dragon. Or Resident Evil games with Mario games.

Likewise with western games you can certainly pick games that look an awful lot like each other. Gothic series -> Witcher series -> Two Worlds series -> Oblivion -> etc. all look extremely similar but obviously have their differences. From an untrained eye, most Western fantasy themed games all look alike and all Western Sci-Fi themed games all look alike.

Hell, when you get to shooters it gets even more similar. COD: MW, MW2, BO is very similar looking to Battlefield BC 1 and 2 which looks very similar to the newest Medal of Honor game. And all those could easily be mistaken for artwork from Fallout 3 and Fallout NV (soldiers and whatnot and even landscape to an extent).

Hell there is more diversity in the looks of Japanese designed Plate armor wearing Knights than there is with Western designed Plate armor wearing Knights (which all invariably look almost exactly alike).

You're point is basically just a regional bias. You are very familiar with art from your area of the world and thus slight differences appear huge due to familiarity. While those subtleties are non-obvious with artwork from a region you are less familiar with. It's not at all a rare phenomenon. And does indeed fit in with the common theme of all people of X race look a like if you aren't extremely familiar with X race.

Regards,
SB

 

[TrungGap]

I agree with SB here...There was an experiment where they have a group of white people witnessed a crime where a black man was committing the crime, and ask the group of white individuals to identify the criminal. Of course, they not only mis-identify, but also had a strong belief they were right. Then they had a white criminal do it, and yet the the group of white witnesses were able to correctly identified the person from the line up correctly and did not mis-identified the person. The researchers did this for other ethnic groups.

Now, unless everyone is racist/bias or something else is at play. The reason is any group of individual living in the norm of their environment will be able to identify subtle differences where other group will not. So asians can easily tell the differences between two "similar" asians, but can't tell one white man from another.

Anyway, i'm rambling on...time to put down the beer.

 

[liolio]

Actually I read a study that "trait recognition" for people which are not from your ethny is decided pretty young. If a child before 3years is in contact with various ethnic traits he won't have problem as an adult.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Although there's definitely going to be a perception sensitivity where a person is exposed to small variations enough that they can become senstive to them, there's no denying that 'white' people have a far wider and more easily recognised set of traits than other groups. The genetic mixing of western european races results in hair colour from blonde, through red and brown, to black; straight and curly and various types inbetween. Eye colour varies similarly. As do skin tones, from Scandinavian white to Mediterranean olive. In contrast, negroids vary in skill shade, but all have black, curly hair, flatish noses (no variation like the Roman hook noses), dark eyes, etc. So anyone not used to having to identify people from a less varied group will have trouble as there are fewer obvious identifying traits and differentiating requires observation of small variances.

Regards games, I'm not sure Ghostz is being racially shortsighted, but just not looking at the wider picture of Japanese games. Taking the mainstream JPRGs, they do tend to look vary similar a lot of the time, just as Western Space Marine games all look the same. That's more a matter of genre stereotypes. Clearly Mario looks nothing like FF looks nothing like Blue Dragon looks nothing like Professor Layton, etc., so the idea that all Japanese game art looks the same seems pretty unfounded, and I think Ghostz should just look a little wider than his very limited sample set.

 

[Ghostz]

As well I don't see how anyone in the world could possibly see how anyone would mistake the art style of something like the latest Dynasty Warriors game for something like Lost Planet 2.

Or mistake the art style of the latest Metal Gear Solid for Blue Dragon. Or Resident Evil games with Mario games.

Likewise with western games you can certainly pick games that look an awful lot like each other. Gothic series -> Witcher series -> Two Worlds series -> Oblivion -> etc. all look extremely similar but obviously have their differences. From an untrained eye, most Western fantasy themed games all look alike and all Western Sci-Fi themed games all look alike.

Hell, when you get to shooters it gets even more similar. COD: MW, MW2, BO is very similar looking to Battlefield BC 1 and 2 which looks very similar to the newest Medal of Honor game. And all those could easily be mistaken for artwork from Fallout 3 and Fallout NV (soldiers and whatnot and even landscape to an extent).

Hell there is more diversity in the looks of Japanese designed Plate armor wearing Knights than there is with Western designed Plate armor wearing Knights (which all invariably look almost exactly alike).

You're point is basically just a regional bias. You are very familiar with art from your area of the world and thus slight differences appear huge due to familiarity. While those subtleties are non-obvious with artwork from a region you are less familiar with. It's not at all a rare phenomenon. And does indeed fit in with the common theme of all people of X race look a like if you aren't extremely familiar with X race.

Regards,
SB

Now, you are off on a tangent and categorically miss-informed about my "race" and region of origin. In fact, your tone is oft accusatory and down right insulting. The reality is when you pair it down, to the most popular genre in Japan, the JRPG, Final Fantasy being the biggest influence on the whole genre, where its inspiration is not from western tropes unlike Metal Gear or Resident Evil, what you have is anime that looks samey. It has nill all to with with regional bias or race; the race card HAS nothing to do with.

Secondly, if you bothered to understand my position, it's about genre specification, not how different looking science fiction or fantasy is within each their respective genres. That's not my point of contention. I made a case example of where genre specification simply doesn't exist in anime, which the JRPG is inspired after. Of course, you simply side-stepped that argument and pulled the race card but I digress, since you obviously really have nothing else to say but indirectly call me a racist.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Now, you are off on a tangent and categorically miss-informed about my "race" and region of origin. In fact, your tone is oft accusatory and down right insulting. The reality is when you pair it down, to the most popular genre in Japan, the JRPG...

Except you didn't do that. You cast a sweeping generalisation saying there is only one art style in Japan:

There's only one Japanese art style and it's called anime and all their games look a like

"All their games look alike", not "all their JRPGs look alike." Any misunderstanding is rooted in your inital communication, and I for one didn't read any hint of racist accusations in Silent_Buddha's response. Human behaviour is human behaviour, and people from different community have different perceptions, including recognising people from within those communities versus from without. There's no cause for anyone to take offense at such an observation.

Finally, if your point is about Japan's main genre all looking the same, one can hardly claim the West's favourite genre of shooters is an enlightened mix of differing art-style. Bald, armoured space marines all look the same, and you can take any from such a game and it in a similar game and it won't look out of place. But then you follow-up posts talk about a wide range of Western game styles, so why limit your evaluation of Japanese game design to a single genre?

All in all, you're not offering a consistent argument. You either need to rephrase your argument, or reevaluate in the light of a lots of examples of diverse Japanese games all looking very dissimilar.

 

[Ghostz]

Except you didn't do that. You cast a sweeping generalisation saying there is only one art style in Japan:
"All their games look alike", not "all their JRPGs look alike." Any misunderstanding is rooted in your inital communication, and I for one didn't read any hint of racist accusations in Silent_Buddha's response. Human behaviour is human behaviour, and people from different community have different perceptions, including recognising people from within those communities versus from without. There's no cause for anyone to take offense at such an observation.

Finally, if your point is about Japan's main genre all looking the same, one can hardly claim the West's favourite genre of shooters is an enlightened mix of differing art-style. Bald, armoured space marines all look the same, and you can take any from such a game and it in a similar game and it won't look out of place. But then you follow-up posts talk about a wide range of Western game styles, so why limit your evaluation of Japanese game design to a single genre?

All in all, you're not offering a consistent argument. You either need to rephrase your argument, or reevaluate in the light of a lots of examples of diverse Japanese games all looking very dissimilar.

Now that just semantics and quote mining without context. You took a figure of speech and ripped out the context. That's simply intellectually dishonest. You can't quote mine stuff you don't like simply because you don't agree with it without full context. Yes, I believe I used FF13 as a pretext in my example to point out case that preceded in my very first post didn't I? It's been consistent from the very beginning, perhaps, you and thereto other of the same mind, should re-examine your reading comprehension?

Secondly, you erred on the comparison; FPSs may cast the largest amount of sale volume but it's hardly represents nearly all of the output of Western studios. Aside from Metal Gear and Resident Evil I can't even name a popular title with similar sales volume that isn't JRPG anime.

In all, if you are looking for simple "diversity" you likely won't find it coming from a studio in Japan unless they get inspired by Western tropes. That's just simply mathematics, numerical truth as it were.

 

[joker454]

So games like Viewtiful Joe, Okame, Ico and FF are all the same art style?

 

[Ghostz]

So games like Viewtiful Joe, Okame, Ico and FF are all the same art style?

Viewtiful joe and Okami are both anime, yes.

 

[Xenus]

So is Dragonball and Ergo Proxy but you will never confuse the two. Anime is a genre not really a style of art other then drawn on comp or by hand.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Now that just semantics and quote mining without context. You took a figure of speech and ripped out the context. That's simply intellectually dishonest. You can't quote mine stuff you don't like simply because you don't agree with it without full context.

Ha ha ha! Quote mining my arse! You explicitly classified all games as looking the same. Nothing about the context of the conversation can add alternative interpretation to your choice of words. You certainly didn't quote any previous post as a direct precursor to your remark. If you didn't mean Japanese developers only have one art style, anime derviatives, then why the hell did you say exactly that?!

 

[Ghostz]

Ha ha ha! Quote mining my arse! You explicitly classified all games as looking the same. Nothing about the context of the conversation can add alternative interpretation to your choice of words. You certainly didn't quote any previous post as a direct precursor to your remark. If you didn't mean Japanese developers only have one art style, anime derviatives, then why the hell did you say exactly that?!

You did quote mine, as you just did again and never intended to use the full statement in view. It gives you something else to "argue" about since you realized that my position is...well...truthful. Yet, I provided FF13, probably the biggest in terms of money investment out of any Japanese studio as an example to illustrate my point. The position is clearly defined.

 

[Nesh]

Viewtiful joe and Okami are both anime, yes.

Animes can have unique art direction. Those two examples arent following the same art direction.

And to make the point even more understandable, both FF7 and Okami can be called anime inspired but they are too different in art.

More examples?

Dragon Ball? My neighbor Totoro? Karas? Ergo Proxy? New Honeybee Hutch? Transformers?

All these follow different art styles but the common thing they all have is that they have the japanese feel. Similarly many western movies and animations have the western feel and looks but follow different art styles.

The word anime is a much more generic term and does not apply just to anything with large eyed characters and cool hair

Also check the Animatrix stories that takes influences from various types of anime art

 

[Ghostz]

So is Dragonball and Ergo Proxy but you will never confuse the two. Anime is a genre not really a style of art other then drawn on comp or by hand.

So Anime is NOT an art style? That news to me.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So Anime is NOT an art style? That news to me.

Anime is just Japanese animation. Howl's moving Castle and Pokemon are both anime. They both look alike too, huh?

 

[Ghostz]

This is really getting childish now....

...the larger point remains the same. FF13, a JRPG, representing a lighting rod for some Japan's best output in the gaming sector is inspired by anime, which thus has a limited scope in appeal and diversity.

So I understand it that people feel there's lots of diversity within the scope of its limited genre tropes but alas, this is irrelevant to my point.

 

[Arwin]

Awesome how one person can drag down a discussion. Final Fantasy XIII looks like a Japanese RPG! Except perhaps in the levels where it seems to be inspired by Avatar, or perhaps that was cross-pollination. Anyway, pointless case closed.

I don't think there is a meaningful discussion to be had other than that which has been discussed plenty of times before, and that is that the Japanese are struggling with HD consoles perhaps even more than Western developers because their struggles with the new technology seems to be inhibiting them (with a few exceptions) from developing their artistic vision. They seem to be more comfortable with more confined (mobile) hardware, and since that is currently also where most of the money is to be made in Japan, us poor HD consolers are just not getting their A-game.

That at least is my theory, and I'm sticking with it, and it is pointless to discuss it because I'll just set the rules of the discussion so that I am always right.

 

[Ghostz]

Awesome how one person can drag down a discussion. Final Fantasy XIII looks like a Japanese RPG! Except perhaps in the levels where it seems to be inspired by Avatar, or perhaps that was cross-pollination. Anyway, pointless case closed.

I don't think there is a meaningful discussion to be had other than that which has been discussed plenty of times before, and that is that the Japanese are struggling with HD consoles perhaps even more than Western developers because their struggles with the new technology seems to be inhibiting them (with a few exceptions) from developing their artistic vision. They seem to be more comfortable with more confined (mobile) hardware, and since that is currently also where most of the money is to be made in Japan, us poor HD consolers are just not getting their A-game.

That at least is my theory, and I'm sticking with it, and it is pointless to discuss it because I'll just set the rules of the discussion so that I am always right.

...or it could be just their insistence of keeping development philosophies which are no longer relevant. It's pretty obvious that the developers in Japan who call out Japan's own conservatism the most tend have an easier time adapting to the new market conditions. It's simply easier to adapt to an IOS type device than manage art teams that consist of 60-200 people but at least Capcom, at some degree, gets it, as they are about the healthiest Japanese Publisher I've seen thus far.