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Japanese-style western games, any favorites?

Jubenhimer

Member
You know it when you see it. It looks like a Japanese game, it kind of plays like a Japanese game, and it even sounds like one. Yet, it wasn't developed in Japan. There are many western developed games that take heavy inspiration from Japanese developed games, whether it be Va-11 Hall-a, Ghost of Tsushima, basically anything developed by WayForward or Galaxy Trail.

What do you feel is your favorite game in this category/
 
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Tschumi

Member
Golden Sun, i think? That's not Japanese, right? That was a technical tour de force on GBA, long and epic too...

Japanese, poop.

God of War 1 seemed to draw, among others, on things like Dragonball Z and stuff?
 
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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Remove the obnoxious fanbase from the equation, Undertale is great at what it does.
 

Ezquimacore

Banned
eTHE6Gc.jpg
 

Myths

Member
Genuinely trying to understand what a Japanese style game is? Like DQ, FF, Tales of kind of games? Or just anything out of Japan? I think the labeling can get nebulous and sometimes deceptive.
 
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Teslerum

Member
Genuinely trying to understand what a Japanese style game is? Like DQ, FF, Tales of kind of games? Or just anything out of Japan? I think the labeling can get nebulous and sometimes deceptive.
Yes. Games that have charachteristics that are majorly found in japanese games. The same way you could look at Dark Souls or Dragon's Dogma and recognize their western influences.

There's no need to go any deeper on that thought train. Just surface level stuff.
 
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ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
In an alternate reality this game blew up rather than Halo and the modern games industry is in a much better place....

You'll want to look for the PC/MAC version so that you can take advantage
of the awesome patches and mods. Avoid the PS2 version
oni.jpg
 

Guilty_AI

Member
The already mentioned VA-11 Hall A is one of my favorite games (Venezuelan):
2017-11-08-140026.jpg



Most recently, Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk (Russian):
header.jpg

Fairly short and actually a sequel to Milk inside a bag of milk inside.....


Crosscode, another personal favorite (German):
capsule_616x353.jpg



Momodora: Reverie under the moonlight (Brazilian):
momodora-switch-capa.jpg

They also went on to make Minoria, a game following a similar style


Katawa Shoujo, made by 4chan users and autism:
rmsi3d1wo9-nbspnbsp-Katawa-Shoujo-xgames-poster.jpg



There's also Little Witch Nobeta which isn't western but is Taiwanese rather than japanese:
nobeta.jpg
 
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Fbh

Member
going to cheat and post something that's not out yet.
But Sea of Stars is in my top 5 most anticipated games of this year:

sea-stars-1897173.jpg


This looks like the sort of retro inspired JRPG I've wanted instead of generic uninspired stuff like Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler.
 
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The_hunter

Member
The already mentioned VA-11 Hall A is one of my favorite games (Venezuelan):
2017-11-08-140026.jpg



Most recently, Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk (Russian):
header.jpg

Fairly short and actually a sequel to Milk inside a bag of milk inside.....


Crosscode, another personal favorite (German):
capsule_616x353.jpg



Momodora: Reverie under the moonlight (Brazilian):
momodora-switch-capa.jpg

They also went on to make Minoria, a game following a similar style


Katawa Shoujo, made by 4chan users and autism:
rmsi3d1wo9-nbspnbsp-Katawa-Shoujo-xgames-poster.jpg



There's also Little Witch Nobeta which isn't western but is Taiwanese rather than japanese:
nobeta.jpg
Katawa shoujo is incredible, actually feels like it has realistic romance writing.
 
Child of Light

This is why we need to replace the terms JRPG and WRPG. A genre isn't defined by where a game is made. Yet, people still take the term literally when it really means "the type of RPG similar to RPGs that originated out of Japan".
 
Does this count? It's not even out yet, and it's a spiritual succesor of a franchise that's bassically the opposite, western-style japanese game, but Oddity is a very underlooked WIP. it started of as a MOTHER/Earthbound fangame, before turning into it's own thing. The development is paused I believe, as I haven't heard much about it in years, but it still looks hype as hell.
 
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Doom85

Member
Battle Chasers: Nightwar.

oP9kUfo.jpg


Will likely appeal to turn-based JRPG fans while also having some unique gameplay elements. The same team recently did Ruined King: A League of Legends Story which apparently plays similarly, I definitely want to play that one as well.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Oldie but goodie,

Anachronox


Is a heavily influenced turned based RPG party by FF games.



I wouldn’t say it looks like one, doesn’t sound like one, but I would say it’s even cooler that way.
 
Eternal Darkness is a fantastic western take on survival horror, you'd never mistake it for a Japanese game given the art style, writing and overall tone, but it still borrowed a lot of mechanics from survival horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

Of course survival horror technically started with a western game, Alone In The Dark, but most of them were Japanese.
 

Bridges

Member
If Dead Rising 2 counts then that is my pick, but it being a western sequel to a Japanese game might go against the spirit of the thread.

Undertale?
 

stranno

Member
Red Steel is my all time favorite. It had an amazing style, very cool Wiimote implementation (to be the first Wii FPS, along with Far Cry Vengeance, also from Ubisoft) and satisfactory gunplay.

My only complain are, of course, the dull katana combats, that break completely the game's pace and shows clearly the big limitations of the Wiimote "gestures". They should have been removed completely from the game. I guess it was more a Nintendo decision to shoehorn the accelerometer gimmick than a decision from the Red Steel team.

I read the title as Japanese games that feel like Western Games.

This is the first thing that came to mind

iu
Quantum Theory was a mediocre (not terrible) Gears of War clone, but the rest of the Team Tachyon's games were good, especially Undead Knights, which is one of the best Playstation Portable games.
 
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Jubenhimer

Member
guess it was more a Nintendo decision to shoehorn the accelerometer gimmick than a decision from the Red Steel team.
It was Ubisoft's decision., and it was simply a case of not understanding how the Wii Remote worked at launch. There are game that made good use out of the simple tech of the standard Wii Remote such as No More Heroes, MadWorld, WarioWare.
 
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Sophist

Member
Typical clone of 90's jrpg. it has the rpgmaker tag but the enhanced edition was made with Unity3d. Also available on Switch, Android, xbox one,...

 

fart town usa

Gold Member
Red Steel is my all time favorite. It had an amazing style, very cool Wiimote implementation (to be the first Wii FPS, along with Far Cry Vengeance, also from Ubisoft) and satisfactory gunplay.

My only complain are, of course, the dull katana combats, that break completely the game's pace and shows clearly the big limitations of the Wiimote "gestures". They should have been removed completely from the game. I guess it was more a Nintendo decision to shoehorn the accelerometer gimmick than a decision from the Red Steel team.


Quantum Theory was a mediocre (not terrible) Gears of War clone, but the rest of the Team Tachyon's games were good, especially Undead Knights, which is one of the best Playstation Portable games.
Yea, I still have my copy of QT, it's not terrible, just a dumb action game. I didn't realize they did Undead Knights. I remember playing the demo for that, it was pretty neat but seemed like it'd be super repetitive, that's why I didn't get it.
 
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