Japan and the mysteries of the FPS format - A 1UP classic from February 17, 2010

On the gaming front, I was wondering why the Japanese and USA gaming aesthetics were so different. Let's take a quick look at the FPS genre. It sells millions of games across many different titles in the USA. Yet there aren't that many, if any, great FPS games coming from Japan. What gives? Why does the west seem to appreciate the genre more than Japan? In the arcade the frenetic "bullet hell" games are a popular genre but the "bullet time" games don't get a second glance.

In trying to get the average Japanese gamer interested in the genre, publisher Taito has taken to translating the popular game engine to the arcade. In Japan Half Life 2 has an arcade counterpart with its own control system, using a left and right controller for aiming and shooting and foot pedals for running, jumping and strafing. Plus the arcade game is not an adventure as much as the focus is on multiplayer maps. The control and approach are something that you would find on a robot combat game, it's not quite the FPS format that we are used to.

Taito is about a year into the release of the newest update for the game. This time the entire experience is being redone and all of the look and feel of Half Life 2 are gone. Instead there are decidedly anime-inspired archetypes in the game. Titled Cyber Diver, there are gothic lolita schoolgirls, cyborgs and ninjas all with their own special weapons and abilities going at it in decidedly Japanese aesthetic locals.

We might not make heads or tails of the characters they are putting into a FPS title, the control scheme they are going with, or even that these games belong in the arcade. What we cannot deny is the approach that they have for the genre and their own artistic cadences. They might not get the look and feel of the Team Fortress 2 characters but they should be able to recognize that our sense of humor in shooting games can be just as surreal.

Perhaps identifying our similarities is the first step in bridging the universal game challenge. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!