An Oral History of Japanese Games from 1UP.com

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 17 | RETHINKING JAPAN

An Oral History of Japanese Games

Cover Story: A celebration of Japanese video games by the people who love them.

ll this week, you've had the chance to read several stories by 1UP staff and contributors about Japanese games and game designers. But for the end of this Japan-focused cover story, we've decided to cap things off by asking our community (and a few notable friends) for the various reasons they treasure Japanese games. Thanks again to everyone who submitted their thoughts, and if you didn't get a chance, please contribute via the comments section! As usual, your input is always welcome.

A Window into a Different Culture

As a kid, I was an obsessive reader of manuals and packaging -- and I quickly figured out that NES games, which I deeply cared about, came from across the Pacific. For some reason, reading the name of the "yashichi" power-up in the Mega Man manual at 10 years old has stuck with me as an early moment when I actually thought about this.

But I think the moment when I realized that I was really dealing with a truly different and vibrant culture was when the TurboGrafx CD hit, and games started having cinematics. Valis II's story was violent and complicated, and that struck me hard -- the game was dark, moody, and clearly not aimed at kids.

With its energizing soundtrack and voiced melodrama, Ys Book I & II was simply, as far as I was concerned, ideal. I'll never forget the full-screen image of its heroine, Feena, and her huge, dazzling blue anime eyes. Readers who grew up with Pokemon cartoons probably don't realize how strikingly different those visual cues were from what I was used to -- how much that image screamed "Japan!" to me.

I'd always been interested in Japan, but soon after that (thanks also to Akira) I became obsessed -- and by 1992, I imported my first game, Final Fantasy V. I started to learn kana so I could read its menus. Japan still wasn't a real place to me, but I began to appreciate its pop culture as something distinct and special from around then, and I still do.

- Christian Nutt, Gamasutra

I remember there was an entire unit on Japanese culture when I was in 3rd grade and I found it pretty interesting. We even went downtown to a Japanese restaurant complete with tatami mats and it was a memorable experience, but nothing piqued my interest in Japanese culture they way Japanese video games did. The first game that really turned me on to Japanese culture was my favorite game of all time; Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon for Nintendo 64. The first time I played it I felt put-off, confused, shocked and yet somehow completely enamored, all in the same sitting. From the moment the game started I was confronted with Kanji and a WTF Japanese music video intro that left me wondering if this game had even been localized at all. Heck, it took me like 5 minutes to get out of the very first room because I couldn't find the shoji-screen door.

Of course Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is a distinctly Japanese game that overwhelms the player with Japanese-ness from start to finish, but there are many more subtle cultural influences found in common games. In Super Mario Bros. 3 for example, a player can wear the Tanuki suit without ever realizing its mythical Japanese racoon-dog origin.

It may sound ridiculous, but Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon not only gave me a window into Japanese culture, but it actually changed my life! After falling in love with Mystical Ninja, I couldn't help but fall in love with Japanese culture and I began learning the language and took a trip to Japan to explore the culture that I was introduced to by Japanese video games. I would like to say to Japanese video games, "Arigatou! Totemo benkyou ni narimashita!" (Thank you! I learned a lot!).

- Eric Lappe, Let's Get, Retroware TV

It began with the fighting-game craze of the 1990s. I'd known for a while that most of my favorite video games were created in Japan, but their unique cultural aspects were often changed or removed entirely during the NES era. As fighting games became popular, however, less and less was altered for the sake of North American sensibilities.

Publishers were less meddlesome when it came to a fighter, and looking into the details and backstories brought all sorts of things to my attention, from the history of the Ainu people to the meaning of "Hadouken."

That led me to more and more discoveries, particularly when it came to video games thickly steeped in Japanese heritage. The warped alternate histories of Tengai Makyo and Sakura Wars set me to research just what parts of their stories were remotely true, and looking up the development of certain games taught me a number of things about Japanese corporate life. I soon branched out and studied Japanese culture without the help of video games, but I have to thank those games for getting me started.

- Todd Ciolek, 1UP Contributor

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Comments (12)

japanese games was/are too good
Posted: userComment.createdDate by ashii_colossus

i love japanese games...........they take me to a different, inspiring and awesome world.
just can't ignore the influence of japanese games and style.

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Doumo Arigatou Gozaimasu!
Posted: userComment.createdDate by krazykakashiii

Thanks very much for featuring my contribution! :) It's very much appreciated!

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I Cut My Teeth on Japnanese Games
Posted: userComment.createdDate by vinci

But now they are trash. The End.

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- That, my friend...
  Posted: 09/25/2012 by MikkiSaturn
  
  is the very definition of an over simplification. I have to go to school or I would post a really long comment (as I am wont to do), but I definitely think that there are some really good Japanese games this gen. The main thing that's different, I think, is the attitude of the players.
  
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This article = Al Bundy
Posted: userComment.createdDate by GalvatronType_R

I love Japanese games and can wax poetic about them all night but does anyone else find it sad that there's a nostalgia piece about Nippon games instead of a discussion about their great current games?
This piece is sort of like Married with Children where Al Bundy constantly reminisces about his high school football career instead of his sad present working in a women's shoe store having to put up with a ball and chain wife (which is a good metaphor for the sad state of Japanese games today).

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Oh, hey, I'm in this.
Posted: userComment.createdDate by GaijinD

Very cool. Thanks for using my response, Bob.

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Japanese Games Are Universal
Posted: userComment.createdDate by Hellomancer

First, two beautiful quotes:
"In fact, for someone like me, who grew up with the NES, it is almost impossible to separate Japanese game design from game design itself. So many of the genres of today were invented by Japanese companies all those years ago. Nintendo, Konami, Capcom and Treasure - they weren't trying to express uniquely "Japanese" design, they were just striving for good design in general."
-Michael P., 1UP Community Member

"All these games make me feel like I've lived multiple lives, and that's what I believe video games should do. Thanks to Japanese developers, I am the Hero of Time, the savior of Hyrule, the slayer of Sephiroth, the key to Kingdom Hearts, and a Pokemon master. Most of all, though, because of the great games of all genres that Japanese developers make, I'm proud to call myself a gamer."
-Ke'von Leggette-Campbell, 1UP Community Member

And NOW, my rant:

When did people begin to fight about differences between Western games and Japanese games?
When did the term J-RPG come into play? I cannot remember exactly when and to this day I hate the term "JRPG" being used to superficially discriminate games amongst the RPG genre.

Japanese games are universal.

When I was little I played the NES, the Sega Master System, the SNES, and the Sega Genesis without ever thinking about the country of origin of many of these games. At some point (perhaps with Pokémon for Game Boy in early middle school?) did I begin to realize that the wonderful worlds of the console video games that I came to cherish were all created by Japanese game developers (though I may have realized this earlier when seeing the ending credits for games like Mega Man 2 or Sonic the Hedgehog after using debug mode to jump to the last level). Even so, when I first finished Final Fantasy VII I did not think about how the entire game was made by Japanese developers or that the world within it represented an inherently Japanese world view -HELL NO! I thought about it being one of the greatest games that I had ever played to which I could relate virtually every subject I could think about. It was a JRPG --the first 3D Final Fantasy with beautiful cinematics and clumsy-yet-emotional and artsy polygonal character models-- that made me decide what I wanted to do with my life: MAKE VIDEO GAMES. Yet at the time, the term "JRPG" had not even been in my vocabulary! To my retrospective humor, someone had to try and define the term "JRPG" to me the first time I had heard it (and this was even when I had experience playing enjoyable western clones of D&D in elementary school such as "Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World" for-the-Apple-II-computer-thank-you-very-much).

I think it was with the reintroduction of a Western console (the XBox) into the market that I began to realize that most of the console games I had ever played were of Japanese origin and that the only way to get into game development (or so I had thought) was to be on a Japanese game development team. It was this reasoning that brought me to study Computer Science and Japanese in college. Even in despite of the discreditable and supposed 'downfall' of the Japanese game industry and the welcome-yet-overhyped 'rise' of Western games, I still believe in Japan's ability to make wonderful games (after all, Nihon has always pulled through in the past!).

For me video games were (and still are) my sources of entertainment, relief, escape, and challenge, and they even remain a major means for socializing (how many times in my life have I gone to sleep-overs with friends to just play video games like Golden Eye 007 or Zelda 64 all night long?). In fact, I think one of the biggest things a great majority of my friends have all had in common is a fondness for video games. I want to say that video games did not just indirectly teach me about morals, camaraderie, physics and mathematics, and (sub)cultural anthropology but they also made me who I am today. I am a gamer!! =) And to me, "Japanese video games" will always be synonymous with "video games".

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- Right on dude.
  Posted: 09/22/2012 by MikkiSaturn
  
  I remember many nights at friend's houses where we didn't go to sleep until 4am, thanks to gaming! Mario Kart 64 was a prime offender for a while, but we would also just take turns at difficult single player games, like Mega Man.
  
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- well
  Posted: 09/24/2012 by OmegaDez
  
  You're right about the XBOX changing the industry forever. Before that, in North America, consoles were inherently Japanese while PC Gaming was a haven for western developers. Mostly.
  But the XBOX blurred the lines, and the Japanese game industry started to suffer.
  Although unlike you, I was always aware than the games I liked were Japanese from the Nintendo era and on...
  
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- Enjoyed the rant
  Posted: 09/24/2012 by postmita
  
  I have to say that I feel much the same as you do. I enjoyed games and had tons of sleep overs and gatherings related to video games. Even Dragon Warrior taught me to read and know the difference between words like "Healmore" and "Heal". They have always been in my life.
  Sadly it's only been this year that I have begun to take serious steps towards becoming a game developer, long after college and life has happened to me. Despite the challenges related to this I have been so happy. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the long comment. It's nice to see others out there who feel similar to what I do.
  
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Thank you
Posted: userComment.createdDate by ShadowLink44

It means a lot for me to have been included in this and be able to share my love of Japanese games with everyone. (Ke'von Leggette-Campbell)

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- I concur
  Posted: 09/22/2012 by MikkiSaturn
  I am flattered to be included. My original answer was too long, and I've been thinking of taking that and expanding it into a blog post, because I could just go on and on about this.
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