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Strangest Japanese Videogame Genres Discussed
Thanks to GameSpy for their column discussing a number of videogame genres that are popular in Japan, but not in the West. Picks include the more obvious such as dating sims ("Players look through the eyes of a young man and try to woo a variety of girls by making the proper dialogue choices"), pet raising sims ("where you raise and, uh, feed an everyday hamster... or a rhinoceros beetle"), and even voyeurism-based titles such as Primal Image, where "...poorly constructed 3D women with frightening facial features played brief animated sequences while you took pictures before the time limit ran out." Have Japanese-only genres such as dating got the capacity to take off in the States?
I'm almost surprised that dating sims haven't caught on yet... perhaps all they need is better Americanization before they become appealing (ie, make it so the girls don't get insanely embarrassed every 2 seconds by your social faux pas). But then again, perhaps North American children don't have the attention span for something like this...
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
...titles will find their niche market in the US. Two titles that Fresh Games released on the PS2 in the US (Mister Mosquito and Mad Maestro) are VERY Japanese, but can also find appeal in the US. The same could be said of a PSX game like Incredible Crisis.
However, I don't think too many people would be interested in the typical Japanese dating game (hentai or otherwise) in this country (remember, a nice majority of the casual gamers in the US prefer stuff like Madden or Super Trucks Racing over your average Eastern-developed game as it is). Games with that type of design seen (Disgaea being a recent example) usually end up being little more than "that title next to Def Jam Vendetta," which ends up being their loss.
Personally, I'd love to play some of the games that haven't made their way over here. As silly as I'd look playing something like Donkey Konga, it would still be a fun escape from most of the cookie-cutter games that dominate the market. But until more people feel this way, we'll probably never see a lot of "really Japanese" games over here.
When I was in Asia over a year ago I bought a couple of them... Guess what? Turned out that more than one of them had very adult material in them. However, it was interesting nevertheless to see how they differ from us when it comes to taste in gaming. The biggest hits in '99 such as Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 might just've been as popular as a certain tentacle rape games in Japan (sorry, I just had to cram in "tentacle rape" somewhere in this post...)
I've only played a couple of English translated dating games, and they were also adult oriented. Kind of sad since I'd like to see these type of weird genres become more popular here for the sake of stirring things up in the market. We're too stuck in the moment where everybody wants bullet time, realistic physics and graphics with heavy guns and big, powerful explotions.
The Sims is a fresh breath of air, very revolutionary too. But... There's just too little experimentation these days in the market. Which is really sad. Oh well.... Maybe some day we'll see a company spawn a growing market of translated japanese dating sims. For once I'd like to play one without it ending up having sex with the girl in the end (and no tentacles!).
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
You may have missed the daughter raising sim Princess Maker 2
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other disgusting hentai games also reviewed
http://www.somethingawful.com/hentai/
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Pity Gamespy chose to take cheap shots at "those wacky Japanese" instead of actually taking an in-depth look at an interesting genre.
I quote: let there be no mistake that Japanese gamers are a sad, lonesome bunch. Taking advantage of their sheer desperation, the Japanese game market is full of dating simulations.
You might as well say, "let there be no mistake that American moviegoers are a sad, lonesome bunch. Taking full advantage of their sheer desperation, Hollywood regularly releases romantic comedies, and some adult movies even contain pornography!"
Or maybe we should try assuming that American gamers are sad and pathetic because they feel a need to play games involving guns and, in some cases (Postal anyone?) mindless killing sprees? I reckon they're compensating, if you know what I mean?
Well, actually no I don't reckon that. I reckon that people playing violent games can be directly compared with people watching violent movies, and likewise that people playing romantic games can be directly compared with people watching romantic movies.
I'm willing to bet dating sims will take off in America sooner than later. Despite what GameSpy authors would have you believe, they aren't all lame games.
..." articles linked here on Slashdot, I'm tempted to never click a GameSpy link again. Am I the only one?
On a somewhat unrelated note, can someone who knows how to write good articles go work for GameSpy for us? Quote from article: "I didn't like this game, and you won't either. So, there, I'm done." Wow, thanks chief. Honestly between crap like that and their previous 3 or 4 "Top 25
-Rabbit
My other post here says why I think Gamespy's assessment of dating sims is [censored], so here are some links for anyone who wants to find out about them from people who don't think they're only for the terminally weird:
The ren'ai games mailing list.
You already read Megatokyo, right? Check the forums: the "dating sims" forum there includes plenty of information, as well as a FAQ which covers the subject in some depth.
Hey, it looks like the hamster on that hamster sim is actually Hamtaro, the little cartoon rodent that annoys adults everywhere. Feh, why do I recognize such stuff? -jh
For dating sims to be popular in North America, they have to be produced from the ground up in English and have competent voice actors. Most dating sims actually have very low production values, which is redeemed by a good story. I imagine translating a game for the western market is actually more expensive then producing it from the ground up. This is the main reasons dating sims are not going to be translated over to the US, however, cultural/linguistic differences in the game itself make it difficult to accurately translate anyway.
I'm willing to bet dating sims will take off in America sooner than later.
Perhaps - but, as your parent suggests, they'll need to be Americanised first.
The problem is that these games are written by Japanese, in Japanese, for Japanese. Let's be frank - most Americans would be hard pressed to point to Tokyo on a map of Japan. How are they going to react to a game which relies on them knowing about, oh, Japanese Valentine conventions, to pick an example which crops up in a lot of dating sims? You can get some way by providing notes - explain what all the foods are, what the national holidays are, and so on. But that will only help for those Americans who want to learn about Japan.
So you Americanise your games. You set them in small-town America; you replace the clothes with American school uniforms, the chopsticks with knives and forks, the shrines with churches or whatever. You don't even bother to translate the tens of thousands of words of text, because it's easier and cheaper to write your own script from scratch. And you end up with a game that fans of the genre will hate, because it isn't Japanese, but American gamers will also hate, because it doesn't have guns and state-of-the-art 3D.
Hang about: How are dating sims any different from sims who date, like in The Sims: Hot Date?
And besides, many Japanese games which made it in the States contained dating sim elements, such as in Thousand Arms, Final Fantasy VII & VIII, and even the always successful Harvest Moon series.
Why don't they focus on the truly unusual games, like Boon-Ga Boon-Ga! (violate the buttocks of your least favorite people, like politicians), or the Densha de Go series (you can drive a train. You know, trains? The only vehicle with no steering?). They should at least have given a nod to the truly Japanese and truly odd games which did make it over here, like Stretch Panic.
"Shoddy Journalism" barely scratches the surface on this article.
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I remember years ago (c. 15) playing a game called 'Pick Up Artist' on the C64 or Amiga. Fairly primitive, but fun for about 4 seconds, or slightly longer if you were playing it with some mates. Might have been this one. Was released in the UK at least.
I can't imagine a game like that becoming really popular, though it might attract some interest as a coin-op or a web based game.
Talking about tentacle games, I thought it was kind of interesting that some of these games actually let you "play" the monster! Take a look at this page about 3/4 down the page where it talks about the Eden game. Most hentai games feature you trying to save women from monsters or at least being an innocent bystander. But in the Eden game you are playing "the bad guy" and are really required to perform the act. I don't know exactly how much control over what the monster does (e.g., where you put your tentacles) but this seems to be a radically different area of fantasy/role-playing then most videogames.
GMD
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Also, I'd be interested in a REAL perspective on who actually plays dating sims in Japan, as opposed to some blatantly offensive GameSpy article. Is it a publicly accepted genre? Or do people get mocked for playing them over there as they would inevitably be if they played them over here?
The last reason I don't think we should Americanize dating sims just yet is that the people who create mainstream entertainment in our culture still have yet to learn how to tell a good story. I mean, take a look at Hollywood for example, every now and then they turn out something decent, but for the most part its crap. Same with video games. And of all the types of games out there, dating sims require some of the BEST storytelling. You simply can't compensate in a dating sim with better graphics.
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A possible remedy is to choose one that doesn't take place in Japan. For instance, just about the only game with dating-sim elements that's made it to the US- Atlus' "Thousand Arms"- is first a fantasy role-playing game. It has somewhat less cultural dependance then the modern settings that most dating sims prefer, and it's also a possibility that console RPG fans are used to such things.
What the hell are saying? Karaoke Revolution was the FIRST game on TIME's game list thingy...
America is nowhere near ready for most of these games yet, mostly because they just aren't used to anime, which contains lots of whacky things (to the americans, of course).
I've played my fair share of hgames (hentai games), and I've found some of them to actually contain a decent storyline, even without the H, (Dividead) and some of them have been ported to console without the H (Private Nurse).
Sometimes the translations are just absolutely hillarious. There's a choice in X-Change 2 that goes something like: You're having sex with your girlfriend in the morning. You have two choices. You either continue having sex, or go to school.
Seriously, what kind of stupid question is that? I chose go to school, of course. But those decsions are part of getting all of the girls... as most games have multiple girls and you have to try to score with them all. Like, there's a graphic completition percentage, you have to try to get all of the pictures that are in the game, H, or not. Of course, some of the l33ter people can just hex the savegame, but what's the fun in that?
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Dating Sims? You have GOT to be kidding me.
If you're that compelled to interact with females in a digital enviroment, play an MMORPG where at least they can communicate back.
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I believe games like this have the potential of taking off in North America. Just look at the closest thing we have to it... the sims. The sims involves aspects of dating and romance and it has become an extremely popular title.
The real market for these games, I believe, is women. Games such as the sims were you design a house and decorate it while having your characters involed in romance seems to appeal to girls, who are social creatures. Men seem to prefer more action-oriented games such 3d shooters or complex strategy games such as RTS games.
I believe we have the market for men well taken care of, with action and stretegy games. However, there is a huge market for romance and "creature raising" games for women.
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Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors (which AFAIK was only released for the Genesis, but maybe there's a PC version out there somewhere). Which, as you pointed out, was just a collection of mini-games, although most of them weren't really "games" in any traditional sense of the word (my favorite was the one that made your TV screen hot to the touch; they claimed it didn't damage your TV in any way and I guess they were telling the truth because otherwise Sega probably wouldn't have allowed them to release it).
Saving Private Ryan : When people talked about that movie, they talked about the Omaha Beach scene. No, they didn't talk about how they went through the dog tags or how the sniping scene ended with the German sniper getting shot through his scope.
Titanic : What guy went to see the love story? Guys went to see the boat sink. Girls went to see Leonardo DiCaprio.
The Two/Twin Towers : The huge battle for Helm's Deep. Nuff said.
That said, how many Japanese games do you see trying to replicate a Doom/Serious Sam-style of gameplay? We get slow action paced/FMV action scenes in the Final Fantasy series, we get small simple battles in Zelda which end up being a bore, and hack-and-slash FPS/3rd-person shooters like Kingdom Hearts.
By parents.
After seeing one too many episodes of girls getting stalked by "creepy" guys on Dateline, CSI, Law and Order, etc... a dating sim, which teaches kids how to virtually bag girls would go over as well as Doom ]|[ will be to a resident of Columbine.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Most of them are destined to be big rentals, for girls to watch by themselves or with friends. ...
Sitting alone, with a bucket of Orville Reddenbocker.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I had submitted a story some time ago (mirrored in my journal) about a rather strange stand-up game in Japan called "BOONG-GA BOONG-GA". The idea is to "spank" an animated character on-screen. This "spanking" is done with controller shaped like a hand with the index finger outstreched.
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Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but there is not an anal poking game in Japan called "Boonga Boonga". A Korean company developed it, and apparently showed it at the Tokyo Game Show in April, but I have yet to see it in a single arcade (including the ones in Akihabara), nor have my coworkers (who, believe me, are quite the gamer types). My guess is that the Korean company pitched it at the game show but couldn't find any buyers.
Speaking of odd games, however, is the stand-up-comic-duo game Nice Tsukkomi. Japanese stand up comics in Japan tend to work in pairs (think of the Smothers Brothers and you are right on the money). One guy is the straight guy, the other the comedian. In the game, you stand next to a big mockup of a person and you have to either hit the footpedal to agree/go along with him, or slap his chest, head, or forehead when he's being goofy. Onscreen indicators tell you when to hit what, but getting the right comedic timing is pretty darn hard. The comedy routines are provided by 9 young comedy duos (at least one of which is now pretty famous), and vary from blah to pretty damn funny.
But, just to give you perspective, even Japanese think this game is weird. Good, but weird.
Besides which, as incredibly stupid as "Inu no Sampo" looks (most Japanese are embarrassed to even try it), it's actually a somewhat fun, somewhat difficult, and somewhat tiring game.
Speaking of Japanese games, does America have the surfing or skateboarding games where you stand on a surf/skateboard shaped controller and kick/slide/balance to do tricks? (Been over here too long to know what's gotten back home)
Yeah, but American Girls will love it when those American Geeks become more response to their needs by practising on the dating sims.. :)
Damn straight there's a market here for that shite... but stores wouldn't want to carry that stuff. For the same reasons you don't find porn at Walmart.
You know it's probably just a matter of time before the EYE TOY has a "fondling game" developed for it. Imagine the possibilities there, eh! Combine that with REZ's Vibrator and you'll finally be able to take your relationship with your PS2 to "the next level".
Come on, in a discussion of dating sims, why has noone mentioned Leisuresuit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards? Best Dating Game Ever.
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Except that Thousand Arms wasn't a very good game.
The only point to dating or giving gifts to the girls was so you could raise their "heart level" (how much they like you) so you could forge a more powerful sword that combined the girl's ability with yours. For example, if you use a certain girl to forge a sword when her heart level was at 3, you'd gain the ability to cast "heal".
An interesting concept, but the spells you gained just weren't worth the hassle.
In addition, the whole dating session was a series of multiple choice questions in which you had to choose the right answer for the girl you were dating - even if it went against what your character was really like. Yes, the game rewarded you for lying to women so you could "take them to the forge" (your character was supposed to be a novice blacksmith. Freud would have had a field day.)
If that's what the dating sim genre is really like, Japanese gamers can keep it.
It has been my observation that geeks tend to be VERY responsive to their SO's needs.
The problem is getting SO-type invdividuals to consider geeks as partner-type material to begin with.
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? Good, because my adopted asian daughter grew up to be pretty hot.
If it were a Hamtaro game it would be called Hamutaro -something instead of Hamusuta- -something, and Hamtaro/Hamutaro is anime not a cartoon.