Assassin's Creed III game director Alex Hutchinson has accused western game journalists of "subtle racism" in giving Japanese games an easy critical ride.
In a wide-ranging interview with CVG, conversation turned to suggestions that the Assassin's Creed series was on the wane following comparatively low review scores for last year's Revelations, and he was asked how Nintendo get away with issuing "new edition[s] of the same franchise every year."
"You want my real answer?" Hutchinson replied. "I think there's a subtle racism in the business, especially on the journalists' side, where Japanese developers are forgiven for doing what they do. I think it's condescending to do this."
He went on to focus on stories: "Just think about how many Japanese games are released where their stories are literally gibberish. Literally gibberish. There's no way you could write it with a straight face, and the journalists say, 'Oh it is brilliant'.
"Then Gears Of War comes out and apparently it's the worst written narrative in a game ever. I'll take Gears Of War over Bayonetta any time.
"It's patronising to say, 'Oh those Japanese stories, they don't really mean what they're doing'."
It's a surprising outburst that reveals a level of frustration at large, western studios producing big, story-driven games, though many Japanese games are often widely criticised for the very things Hutchinson claims are ignored. Bayonetta isn't the best example, either - its story is wallpaper, mere set dressing for the true spectacle in its combat system, and we don't remember Platinum or Sega, the game's publisher, making a big deal about Bayonetta's narrative in the run-up to release.
And perhaps that's the crux of it: Japanese games are rarely marketed on the strength of their stories, but as western games continue to lean on the language of cinema and are made and released in English, it's understandable that more attention is given to the quality of the script. Hutchinson may well have a point, then, but it's likely to be obscured by his poor choice of words.
Comments
7Well, that's easily one of the dumbest and most condescending things I've ever read. So Bayonetta's storytelling is "wrong" because it doesn't follow the tropes of Hollywood screenwriting that dominates in the Western games?
Is any Japanese cultural expression that doesn't adhere to the "standards" set by Western creatives then invalid and should be criticized for it? Does that mean, say, Balkan folk music is "wrong" for not following the same structure as that imposed by the western-European classical composers?
In "Understanding Comics", Scott McCloud does an interesting analysis in the subtle and overt ways visual storytelling and information presentation in manga differs from European and Western comic book traditions. Scott, being an astute and up-standing critic, notes that this may reflect a cultural difference in aesthetic ideals and that while it may appear odd to someone used to Western aesthetics, it is -- of course -- entirely valid.
In fact, any critic who suggests that "those Japanese stories, they don't really mean what they're doing" would be guilty of monoculturalism and as such quite despicable.
How I wish I could take half an hour out of my workday to write a treatise on how Japanese games in general present more honest, flexibly structured systems of play and improvisation than practically any Western game I can mention (outside the 4X genre) since Western games typically rely on surface metaphor to vary theme and motif, while Japanese games often have rules and systems reflecting and reinforcing the desired theme.
Think you could take half an hour out of your lunch break, Slaktus, or your weekend? It sounds like something we'd like published on the site.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll stoke my furnace of righteous indignation over the weekend, commit a word-spew and get in touch.
That'd be very interesting, Slaktus! To be honest, I can think of many Western games that "have rules and systems reflecting and reinforcing the desired theme", and many Japanese games that rely solely "on surface metaphor to vary theme and motif", but I'll wait for your more detailed article to start that discussion.
EDIT: I do hope you're not seriously going to defend Bayonetta's storytelling, though.
I agree with Alex Hutchinson.
How can Assassin's Creed get accused of being stale after 4 games when Nintendo have made about a 100 Mario games without the same criticism.
For the record, I feel AC and Mario/Zelda etc... are all incredibly stale. That's why I don't them. I can pull out my NES/SNES/N64/Gamecube/Wii to play any number of Mario games. Do I really need to buy New Super Mario Bros, on Wii U?
Journalists should pan Nintendo for rehashing the same games. Are those games good? Yes. But they are hardly innovative or original.
AC Revelations added a few new gameplay mechanics, it got panned, Nintendo does the same thing, they get 9&10 review scores.
AC Revelations was a good game. But it was stale. Same for Mario.
You could have posted this any time and I would have agreed with you, but you had to post it on the exact day that Edge published a review of NSMB2 in which they criticised the game for being, you guessed it, stale. In fact, if you compare the Metacritic scores of AC: Revelations and New Super Mario Bros. 2, you'll find that the former actually scored higher than the latter (80 vs. 78), and in any case wasn't "panned" by any stretch of the imagination.
Yeah, hyperbole's are getting you nowhere in this argument. Please show me the back to back game series that Nintendo is pushing out that are all stale and close to no different than it's predecessor.