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Japan's Top 100 Games
Next Generation has a piece with the Top 100 Games of All Time, as voted by the nation of Japan. From the article: "1. Final Fantasy X (2001) 2. Final Fantasy VII (1997) 3. Dragon Quest III (1988) 4. Dragon Quest VIII (2004) 5. Machi (1998) 6. Final Fantasy IV (1991) 7. Tactics Ogre (1995) 8. Final Fantasy III (1990) 9. Dragon Quest VII (2000) 10. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)"
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
* my favorite isn't on the list, so it can't be "right"!
* the list is biased toward older / newer / console / PC / handheld / RPG / arcade / puzzle games!
* the list doesn't mean anything, lists like this never do (of course they don't)
* oh man, I completely forgot that game, that was fun.
Lists like that are compiled regularly. It's hardly news, but hey, if it reminds you of a game you haven't played in years or lets you know of a gem you'd never have known about otherwise...
No Katamari listed in the top 100 Japanese games? Outrageous! We are most displeased!
Where was cousin Ace? Playing Animal Crossing (#43)?
We have no idea what you are talking about.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
While we played Doom I & II, Quake, Heretic, Wolfenstein, Unreal
they played Final Fantasy, Zelda, Dragon Quest
its a culture thing.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
The real winners here are Roman Numerals.
This list is yet another good example of east-west differences in gaming. If you look at the list, the biggest group are games that are heavily story-driven, but which don't give the player too much freedom. In fact, I found only one typical Western game on the list, Wizardry, which placed 66th. This doesn't mean that eastern gaming culture is bad; it's just different. However, with the proliferation of Japanese consoles in the US, resulting in larger numbers of Japanese games here, the eastern culture seems to take over the western one in gaming, at least on store shelves. It is no wonder then that whenever a western-style RPG is released (Arx Fatalis, Gothic, Morrowind), it creates a very fierce following of people who are starved for more freedom in their games.
I don't know that it's an age problem necessarily, but I'm sure Famitsu's market is a fairly limited demographic.
If the readers of say, PC Gamer (in the US) were to be polled with the same question, their list would likely be dominated by FPSes and strategy games, probably ignoring less "hardcore" games like The Sims. Likewise, if you were to survey the readers of a European Nintendo mag, they'd probably favor Nintendo games over any others.
This isn't a case of ballot stuffing; it's just a matter of demographics... the people who read Famitsu tend to favor traditional, Japanese RPGs. In reality, there are Yu-Gi-Oh games that have outsold some of those top-ranking FF titles, so clearly this list isn't a very accurate representation of game popularity.
I think this list gets better recognition and merit than the typical lists compiled by 1Up, Gamespy, or GameSpot due to the fact that this is data is a reflection of a market that isn't the English-speaking Western market that we're a part of.
Just take a look at that list. Most of the games listed are role-playing games and/or games developed by Japanese developers. This data tells us numerous things about the electronic gaming market in Japan and certainly reflects attudinal differences between us and them. They don't like action games as much as we do, they certainly don't like first person shooters as much as we do, a market loyalty or dynasty appears to exist with Japanese developers as they do with foreign developers, and they really seem to like their RPGs.
It certainly explains why the X-Box 360 or PC gaming, both having strong Western predilections, isn't doing as well in Japan as they are across the Pacific...
Hentai RPGs have zero gameplay. Most of them don't even care if you can't read Japanese, just keep clicking until you see the scene you want. If they'd put more work into it, they could easily sell an English version.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.