Japan Vs. Rest of the World: Who has created the best games?

[IntelliMission]

I will vote against Japan here because of all the classic graphic adventures, all the 90s FPS, some great English and American games for the 8 bit computers, the GTA games and platform games such as Abe's Oddysee, Another World, Spyro or Tomb Raider. Also, the second generation of consoles was 100% American it was hugely influential.

 

I played a lot of Japanese games with my Game Boy, PS1 and PS2 and I think Japanese programmers create the best soccer, fighting, survival horror, espionage and party games, as well as some of the best platformers and unique games such as Ico or Katamari Damacy, so it was a close call.

[DragonGrafx-16]

I'm primarily a shoot 'em up fan... and without a doubt the best ones are made in Japan.

[boxpressed]

This is going to reveal my own ignorance, but I'm trying to think of truly world-beating games that were not from Japan and the US, and the only one I can think of is Tetris.

 

I'm thinking about games that even non-gamers would recognize and have played, but that's a little different from the OP's criteria, I think. 

[Magmavision2000]

If this was Japan VS. U.S., then Japan would win. But this is VS. the world, so I goota chose option 2. 

 

Let's think about this, the world has under it's belt:

 

Doom 1 and 2

 

Joust 

 

Ms. Pac-man (was created by an american company)

 

Grand Theft Auto series

 

Tetris

 

Pong

 

Choplifter

 

Karateka 

 

Prince of Persia

 

Battlezone

 

and much more

 

 

Japan does make really great games, but in comparison to the world, their catalog is very lacking.

[Serguei2]

Japan.

 

Because japanese games are memorable.

 

Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Qix, the legend of Zelda, Metroid, Sonic, Dig Dug, ...

[boxpressed]

The British have a pretty good catalog too, including Elite, Golden Eye, and Tomb Raider.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/03/30-greatest-british-video-games

[+Black_Tiger]

For the games I like, Japan.

 

The last current gen console I played very much was Xbox 360 and most of my interest is <16-bit gen.

[mr_me]

6 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

I'm primarily a shoot 'em up fan... and without a doubt the best ones are made in Japan.

My favourite shooters are all made by Williams and Atari.

 

4 hours ago, boxpressed said:

This is going to reveal my own ignorance, but I'm trying to think of truly world-beating games that were not from Japan and the US, and the only one I can think of is Tetris.

 

I'm thinking about games that even non-gamers would recognize and have played, but that's a little different from the OP's criteria, I think. 

Not sure about world-beaters or non gamers but from Canada we have Baldur's Gate, Assassin's Creed, NHL 94, FIFA, Need for Speed, and classics like Boulder Dash, Stunts, 4D-Boxing, to name a few.

 

4 hours ago, Magmavision2000 said:

 

Ms. Pac-man (was created by an american company)

Ms Pacman is a hack of a Japanese game.

Edited July 27, 2020 by mr_me

[DragonGrafx-16]

20 minutes ago, mr_me said:

My favourite shooters are all made by Williams and Atari.

 

Not sure about world-beaters or non gamers but from Canada we have Baldur's Gate, Assassin's Creed, NHL 94, FIFA, Need for Speed, and classics like Boulder Dash, Stunts, 4D-Boxing, to name a few.

 

Ms Pacman is a hack of a Japanese game.

I don't mean the early shooters... I'm talking about stuff like Star Soldier and Thunder Force.

[godslabrat]

"Who makes the best pasta, Italy, or everyone else?"

[IntelliMission]

Games from the USA are a huge deal, but from the UK and other non-Japan countries we have...

 

- UK:

     > Lots of 8 bit classics: Saboteur 1 and 2, Matchday 2, Skool Daze, Manic Miner, Head over Heels, Elite...

     > A few 16 bit classics: Donkey Kong Country, Speedball 2, Xenon 2, Cannon Fodder, Lemmings...

     > Lots of 32/64 bit classics: Tomb Raider, Goldeneye, Wipeout 2097, Destruction Derby 2, GTA 2, Colin McRae, Medievil...

 

- France:

     > Lots of 16 bit graphic adventures: Goblins and Inca series, Lost in Time, Ween, Fascination, Future Wars, Eternam...

     > Other 16 bit classics: Another World, the Alone in the Dark series...

 

- Canada:

     > Everything by Electronic Arts, including 8 bit classics such as Archon or Kings of the Beach, the Need for Speed series and all sports games.

[mr_me]

Most of Electronic Arts and most of their early developers are/were in the US.

 

6 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

I don't mean the early shooters... I'm talking about stuff like Star Soldier and Thunder Force.

Don't like forced scrolling games; would rather play Defender.

Edited July 27, 2020 by mr_me

[digdugnate]

i just like games in general regardless of where they come from- as mentioned, UK had good ones, US had good ones, France had good ones, Japan had good ones, the list goes on.

 

i'd daresay the consensus will be 'everyone likes games from anywhere that aren't garbage bargain-bin shovelware'.

[carlsson]

It made me wonder: how is the video game development business going in Africa? According to some articles from 2015-16, the Cameroon based studio Kiro'o Games supposedly was the first known African games developer with their opening title, the role-playing game Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan. It seems remarkable if it is true, even if it is limited to Central Africa.

 

Also regarding Japanese games, I think up until the mid 80's, most people would not pay attention to which nationality or location of the company publishing games. The typical Japanese cultural content in those games seem to have blossomed with the Famicom/Sega/MSX/PC Engine generations.

 

Besides, I don't know if e.g. Donkey Kong Country should be considered an UK game because the development studio was British, or if it is a Japanese game because the IP and license is from Nintendo. Nowadays when publishers assign games to studios across the world, it gets even harder to tell which "nationality" a game has. Is a Star Wars game American because the IP is owned by an US company, or does it depend on if it was made by a studio in Sweden or Canada?

[Steven Pendleton]

36 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Besides, I don't know if e.g. Donkey Kong Country should be considered an UK game because the development studio was British, or if it is a Japanese game because the IP and license is from Nintendo. Nowadays when publishers assign games to studios across the world, it gets even harder to tell which "nationality" a game has. Is a Star Wars game American because the IP is owned by an US company, or does it depend on if it was made by a studio in Sweden or Canada?

Yes, I was wondering about this same thing but with Sonic 2 and Sonic 3.

[Magmavision2000]

39 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yes, I was wondering about this same thing but with Sonic 2 and Sonic 3.

Sonic 2 and 3 were made by Japanese Devs who were apart of an American development branch of Sega (STI). So they're technically American.

[Steven Pendleton]

58 minutes ago, Magmavision2000 said:

Sonic 2 and 3 were made by Japanese Devs who were apart of an American development branch of Sega (STI). So they're technically American.

Yeah, that's why I mentioned it. Sonic 2 was made by a mostly but not entirely Japanese team working at the US branch of a Japanese company that was originally an American company. I don't remember the details, but when they started working on Sonic 3, I think they replaced a lot of the non-Japanese members of the team with Japanese people. I do specifically remember that Mark Cerny left after Sonic 2, but I forget the rest of the details.

Edited July 27, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[carlsson]

Were Sega so crowded for office space in Japan that they had to ship off an entire development team to the USA to work from there? Low wage country, so it'd be cheaper to have people live there for a while?

[zetastrike]

I'd say if we're talking pre-PS1/Saturn/N64 then Japan and US were light-years ahead of Europe.  Euro 8 and 16 bit computer games were not made to the same standard as their console counterparts.  Even in the best cases, there was always something fundamentally wrong with Amiga games that wouldn't occur on a console game.  The Mister has given me the opportunity to dive into the libraries and many of the games seem built around being obtuse, bad or complicated controls and/or physics, poor hazard placement, thoughtless level layouts, music or sound effects, never both.  European devs seemed very unambitious.  It was make a game for the lowest common denominator, port it to everything under the sun no matter how inappropriate, don't waste time taking advantage of stronger hardware, just get it out the door asap and make sure the screenshots on the back of the box look good.  

[Bakasama]

On 7/26/2020 at 4:02 PM, Magmavision2000 said:

Japan does make really great games, but in comparison to the world, their catalog is very lacking.

They are lacking in the quantity of PC games.  I can't blame them too much, their video game culture is almost revolves around consoles and arcades.

[Steven Pendleton]

7 hours ago, carlsson said:

Were Sega so crowded for office space in Japan that they had to ship off an entire development team to the USA to work from there? Low wage country, so it'd be cheaper to have people live there for a while?

I don't remember the exact details of why they decided to do this, but these are really interesting and well done little documentaries about the development of Sonic 2 and 3 (& Knuckles). It's been a while since I watched these, but they are quite good.

 

 

 

[roots.genoa]

7 hours ago, Bakasama said:

They are lacking in the quantity of PC games.  I can't blame them too much, their video game culture is almost revolves around consoles and arcades.

That's not true. Japanese developers released countless games on Japanese computers (MSX, PC-88, PC-98, X1, X68000, FM-Towns, etc.) that were never ported on consoles and/or released in the West.

[Steven Pendleton]

3 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

That's not true. Japanese developers released countless games on Japanese computers (MSX, PC-88, PC-98, X1, X68000, FM-Towns, etc.) that were never ported on consoles and/or released in the West.

Yeah, Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 come to mind, and the X68000 is absolutely amazing. The original version of Thunder Force II has never been rereleased at all, as far as I know.

 

Recently there has been huge PC support from Japanese developers, as well.

[youxia]

10 hours ago, zetastrike said:

I'd say if we're talking pre-PS1/Saturn/N64 then Japan and US were light-years ahead of Europe.  Euro 8 and 16 bit computer games were not made to the same standard as their console counterparts.  Even in the best cases, there was always something fundamentally wrong with Amiga games that wouldn't occur on a console game.  The Mister has given me the opportunity to dive into the libraries and many of the games seem built around being obtuse, bad or complicated controls and/or physics, poor hazard placement, thoughtless level layouts, music or sound effects, never both.  European devs seemed very unambitious.  It was make a game for the lowest common denominator, port it to everything under the sun no matter how inappropriate, don't waste time taking advantage of stronger hardware, just get it out the door asap and make sure the screenshots on the back of the box look good.  

There's so much wrong with this opinion I wouldn't even know where to start to unpick it. Unfortunately, this sort of ignorant, console/geo-centric view is actually quite often encountered on US boards.

 

It couldn't be farther from the truth of course, because Europe was a hotbed of gaming innovation in the Eighties, both in regard to 8 and 16 bit micros, with forays into consoles as well of course (Rare wasn't always Rare, y'know). There are countless examples of bedroom and company coded classics from this era. The fact that console versions of some games were superior is a no-$hit-Sherlock moment, since their bare-metal dedicated hardware could outdo microcomputers (unlike modern times). Obviously that does not cancel a zillion other examples of brilliant games unavailable on consoles.

 

Sure, Amiga did suffer from some terrible ports - for variety of reasons, and of course, like every other platform, had its share of turds. That doesn't mean it did not have some amazing action games too. And the more important angle is the fact that for several years it was the undisputed queen of the more "serious" gaming genres such as sims, strategy, adventure, RPGs, hybrid, etc.

[CatPix]

On 7/27/2020 at 12:39 AM, boxpressed said:

This is going to reveal my own ignorance, but I'm trying to think of truly world-beating games that were not from Japan and the US, and the only one I can think of is Tetris.

 

I'm thinking about games that even non-gamers would recognize and have played, but that's a little different from the OP's criteria, I think. 

Rayman (French game), is probably one of those "everybody knows it" game. Angry Birds is a Finnish game. For gamres with a bit of knowledge, Alone in the Dark ,and Another World (two French games)

 

10 hours ago, Bakasama said:

They are lacking in the quantity of PC games.  I can't blame them too much, their video game culture is almost revolves around consoles and arcades.

That's absolutely untrue. In fact, gaming in Japan is mostly on computers, even in this day of smartphones. The thing is that easily 90% of those games never leave Japan and are absolutely unknow in the West.