I disagree with some of your points. Games already offered vast worlds with remarkable mechanical depth before the PS2. Despite technical limitations, many oldschool RPGs, for example, had enormous worlds to explore and dense systems with complex dungeon designs.
But I agree that games used to be treated more like "games" before, and that after the transition to 3D, the industry increasingly prioritized cinematic presentation. This shift favored the West, which already had a rich film industry with experience and traditions in delivering realistic and immersive experiences, and also altered design priorities in general. Both Western and Japanese games became more linear and narrative-driven, leading the Japanese to abandon some of what they were experts in favor of something the West was much stronger at.
This becomes crystal clear if you compare A Link to the Past, which had an open world full of optional secrets, alternate routes, and discoveries that existed purely for exploration, with Twilight Princess, which, although much larger in 3D scale, is comparatively emptier and more linear, with exploration rigidly controlled by narrative progression. The same applies to The Elder Scrolls: the early games featured more complex and labyrinthine dungeons, while Skyrim simplified them into largely linear paths to prioritize pacing and accessibility.
And I think this is already changing back, with realistic graphics becoming more accessible and the graphical leap getting smaller with each generation; consumers are becoming saturated with the same game format over and over again, only changing the story and characters.
In fact, and interestingly enough, service games like Fortnite, Overwatch, Marvel Rivals, and the like are among the most played today. They are basically an evolution of the arcade business model of the 70s ~ 90s, with eye-catching character designs and replayable gameplay loops, rewards that can be earned through continuous play, and new content that keep you coming back from time to time.
Incidentally, the name Sega literally means Service Games.
It should be illegal to mutilate historical works in this way; it's essentially vandalism. It's no different from how Europe destroyed Greco-Roman works that didn't follow their ethical and moral principles during the Enlightenment, giving us a romanticized and idealized version of how things were in the past.
A trigger warning at the beginning, stating that the work is a product of its time and that the company and its partners do not approve or support it, should be sufficient.
Imagine the Italian government or tourism companies painting over pornographic drawings of sex slaves in Pompeii because slavery and sexual exploitation are wrong.
The story was designed to shock straight male audiences by claiming they were attracted to a guy's face, as if the origin of the face mattered. She's a fictional character; the design is a suggestion; most of her exists in our imagination.
That's why people found her attractive, despite her primitive low-poly appearance. It's not as if we're not used to seeing real people in our everyday lives for comparison.
@Quick_Man The rape thing isn't exclusive to PC98, the plot involves characters being mind-controlled by a virus and you curing the characters with your sperm. This exists in the PCEngine version and I think in the Saturn version too, the rape just isn't explicit, but at least in the PCEngine it's pretty clear what's happening because of the dubbing.
@Norsaken
Torturing, mutilating, violently and painfully killing innocent people is okay, but touching the private parts of criminals without their consent to rid the world of a deadly virus is where we draw the line, right?
There is no logic whatsoever that justifies banning one and not the other; this is just moral panic. Making a topic disappear from our culture does not make it cease to exist.
On the contrary, it is by approaching it in different ways, experiencing the positive and negative feelings it brings through fiction, talking about it, interacting with it that we digest and work through it and develop as a society.
Morbid curiosity is part of being human, and while we do it for entertainment, we still learn a lot from it.
@-wc- This is a matter of semantics. A private company licensing and altering the content of a Japanese game to sell to a different audience in another country could be called cultural appropriation or some specific type of cultural vandalism.
It may not be censorship in political context, but it is perfectly valid to use the term colloquially.
Comments 8
Re: "Part Of Me Looked Down On America" - Sakura Wars Creator On Japanese Gaming's Rise And Fall
@sdelfin
I disagree with some of your points. Games already offered vast worlds with remarkable mechanical depth before the PS2. Despite technical limitations, many oldschool RPGs, for example, had enormous worlds to explore and dense systems with complex dungeon designs.
But I agree that games used to be treated more like "games" before, and that after the transition to 3D, the industry increasingly prioritized cinematic presentation. This shift favored the West, which already had a rich film industry with experience and traditions in delivering realistic and immersive experiences, and also altered design priorities in general. Both Western and Japanese games became more linear and narrative-driven, leading the Japanese to abandon some of what they were experts in favor of something the West was much stronger at.
This becomes crystal clear if you compare A Link to the Past, which had an open world full of optional secrets, alternate routes, and discoveries that existed purely for exploration, with Twilight Princess, which, although much larger in 3D scale, is comparatively emptier and more linear, with exploration rigidly controlled by narrative progression. The same applies to The Elder Scrolls: the early games featured more complex and labyrinthine dungeons, while Skyrim simplified them into largely linear paths to prioritize pacing and accessibility.
And I think this is already changing back, with realistic graphics becoming more accessible and the graphical leap getting smaller with each generation; consumers are becoming saturated with the same game format over and over again, only changing the story and characters.
In fact, and interestingly enough, service games like Fortnite, Overwatch, Marvel Rivals, and the like are among the most played today. They are basically an evolution of the arcade business model of the 70s ~ 90s, with eye-catching character designs and replayable gameplay loops, rewards that can be earned through continuous play, and new content that keep you coming back from time to time.
Incidentally, the name Sega literally means Service Games.
Re: "Nintendo Has Made Serious Objections" - Last Ninja Collection Delayed On Consoles
It should be illegal to mutilate historical works in this way; it's essentially vandalism. It's no different from how Europe destroyed Greco-Roman works that didn't follow their ethical and moral principles during the Enlightenment, giving us a romanticized and idealized version of how things were in the past.
A trigger warning at the beginning, stating that the work is a product of its time and that the company and its partners do not approve or support it, should be sufficient.
Imagine the Italian government or tourism companies painting over pornographic drawings of sex slaves in Pompeii because slavery and sexual exploitation are wrong.
Re: Random: No, Ridge Racer's Reiko Nagase Isn't Based On The Man Who Created Her
The story was designed to shock straight male audiences by claiming they were attracted to a guy's face, as if the origin of the face mattered. She's a fictional character; the design is a suggestion; most of her exists in our imagination.
That's why people found her attractive, despite her primitive low-poly appearance. It's not as if we're not used to seeing real people in our everyday lives for comparison.
It was all the power of imagination.
Re: Developer Of Saturn FPGA Core Refutes Claim It's 100% Hardware Accurate
@gingerbeardman The Mega Drive one
https://github.com/nukeykt/Nuked-MD-FPGA
Re: "Men Want To Give Their Opinions On Female Characters" - Samba De Amigo Artist On The Toughest Character To Design
I wish I could see the 40 rejected designs, if Amiga's was the more orthodox design, the others must have been very interesting and creative.
Re: Upcoming Saturn Tribute Reissue To Skip Xbox Due To "Provocative Expressions"
@Quick_Man The rape thing isn't exclusive to PC98, the plot involves characters being mind-controlled by a virus and you curing the characters with your sperm. This exists in the PCEngine version and I think in the Saturn version too, the rape just isn't explicit, but at least in the PCEngine it's pretty clear what's happening because of the dubbing.
Re: Upcoming Saturn Tribute Reissue To Skip Xbox Due To "Provocative Expressions"
@Norsaken
Torturing, mutilating, violently and painfully killing innocent people is okay, but touching the private parts of criminals without their consent to rid the world of a deadly virus is where we draw the line, right?
There is no logic whatsoever that justifies banning one and not the other; this is just moral panic. Making a topic disappear from our culture does not make it cease to exist.
On the contrary, it is by approaching it in different ways, experiencing the positive and negative feelings it brings through fiction, talking about it, interacting with it that we digest and work through it and develop as a society.
Morbid curiosity is part of being human, and while we do it for entertainment, we still learn a lot from it.
Re: Upcoming Saturn Tribute Reissue To Skip Xbox Due To "Provocative Expressions"
@-wc- This is a matter of semantics. A private company licensing and altering the content of a Japanese game to sell to a different audience in another country could be called cultural appropriation or some specific type of cultural vandalism.
It may not be censorship in political context, but it is perfectly valid to use the term colloquially.