What's the consensus as far as which region does storytelling better?

This is such a dumb question to ask. It pits things against each other when they have no reason to be, for the sake of what, exactly? How is this question productive? What purpose does it achieve? It just gets people arguing. It's as dumb as "what produces better music?" or "who has better mechanics?" Like, you won't find a game more perfect than Tetris or Doom, in my opinion, both "western" games, but as you said in your thing, you think it's a common opinion that the opposite is true. It's a fruitless question with no productive answers.

DocSeuss said:

This is such a dumb question to ask. It pits things against each other when they have no reason to be, for the sake of what, exactly? How is this question productive? What purpose does it achieve? It just gets people arguing. It's as dumb as "what produces better music?" or "who has better mechanics?" Like, you won't find a game more perfect than Tetris or Doom, in my opinion, both "western" games, but as you said in your thing, you think it's a common opinion that the opposite is true. It's a fruitless question with no productive answers.

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don't really have anything more to say than this

Really impossible to compare I think. I thought about it for a few minutes and really couldn't come up with anything.

"Good storytelling" is a hopeless debate once you start to release that the very foundations of good storytelling are sometimes cultural or horrifically misleading.

Did you know that "show, don't tell" was invented in an effort to thwart communism? It's a CIA creation.

I would say, however, that regardless of region some popular developers or genres are prone to using really, really cheap cliches. People tend to notice these from Japanese developers, but most genres do have their own variations.

KrigareN- said:

I think it's a common opinion in ERA and in the old Gaf that Japanese games tend to have better gameplay mechanics and systems than western titles.

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I usually say the exact opposite, except for Nintendo. Western triple-As are mechanically fantastic usually, it's the rest that is often hit and miss. I yet have to play an FPS, a TPS or a non-Mario Kart racing game from Japan that feels better than Doom, Gears Of War, Need For Speed Underground, etc.. There's often a lot of jank even in major franchises like Dynasty Warriors and such.

But not to derail the thread, as far as storytelling goes, Europe created some of my favourite stories in gaming. Dontnod with the great Remember Me and Life Is Strange? French company. FunCom who made the incredible The Longest Journey/Dreamfall series? Norwegian. Spec Ops: The Line's incredible anti-war war game message? From Germany's Yager Development. There's great stories everywhere, but those are some I am particularly fond of. To go back to Japanese stuff, I often find their stories to be way too nonsensical over the top madness (again, besides Nintendo pretty much), often too busy building visually pleasing characters doing memorable stuff instead of delivering coherent storylines. But I'll admit that I play far more Western games than Japanese ones, so don't take my words as gospel.

Which is better, cake or ice cream? There must be a definitive answer!

high-fidelity storytelling is mostly about budget, so western devs tend to peak higher because there are a few studios which can throw infinite money at creating specialized content

'japan has better gameplay' is a weird stance though. there's more to gameplay than 3rd person character movement and combat encounters.

Japan oft has really terrible writing with great presentation while I love the writing in some CRPGs, its largely just text dialogue. This is of course a generalization and not always true.

There are good and bad examples of storytelling in every region.

This is a misguided question that has no answer. Different cultures tell stories differently. Any qualitative evaluation thereof is subjective. The more interesting and less problematic question is perhaps how different places in the world tell stories, because those questions lead you to a better understanding of the cultures they reflect.

What is the consensus of how many of the "What is the consensus of"-threads actually revealed a consensus?

Story/storytelling quality is an extremely subjective matter; trying to compare the enormous aggregates of storytelling quality by overall "region" is...unproductive, to say the least.

Besides that, this is the internet. With few exceptions, virtually all videogame narratives are judged solely by their worst-written (and/or most meme-able) moment, which turns into a lazy bandwagon response any time the game's story is mentioned. (If you don't believe me, try discussing literally any aspect of Final Fantasy X's story and see how long it takes for the "laughing scene" to be posted...)

What's the aim of this discussion? What is reaching a consensus going to accomplish here? Besides further perpetuating this nonsensical division and borderline othering of Japan?

Linear stories, US

Non linear stories, toss up between Japan and Europe really.

...I don't get it, how does it have anything to do region?

I don't think there is a consensus.

Different regions have different styles of storytelling, and their audiences have different expectations.

Generalisations alert:

For me Japanese plots and worlds are so much better. Western ones tend to follow basic Hollywood type stories, whereas Japanese stories have a lot of depth. Some end up overly complicated, but at least they're not 2 dimensional like most western plots.

But Western games have better writing. I don't know if it's a translation issue or just bad writing, but Japanese games hardly ever effectively tell the stories they are trying to. Western stories may be simpler, but at least they are told well.

We can have both good and bad example from the US, EU and Japan.

There's no "X region is better at storytelling".

For my own experience, I don't think there's actually a clear cut answer for it. My gut feeling say it's the western games that does story telling better? But then again you have high-profile games like Assassin's Creed Origins that is an ass in its story telling. Also, western games have Fallout 4 on its side, clearly a major blow, hahaha.

DocSeuss said:

This is such a dumb question to ask. It pits things against each other when they have no reason to be, for the sake of what, exactly? How is this question productive? What purpose does it achieve? It just gets people arguing. It's as dumb as "what produces better music?" or "who has better mechanics?" Like, you won't find a game more perfect than Tetris or Doom, in my opinion, both "western" games, but as you said in your thing, you think it's a common opinion that the opposite is true. It's a fruitless question with no productive answers.

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Damn, you're ruthless, hahaha.

There is no consensus.

Western games tend to have clearer and more succinct storytelling. They tell complicated and simple stories better than Japanese developers do. That might have to do with translation since what works with Japanese audiences doesn't necessarily translate well to Western audiences.

One of the issues I have is with JRPGs and some other Japanese games is their tendency to use 100 words when 10 words would suffice. I'm playing through Trails in the Sky right now and it's a delightful game full of charming characters that would ultimately benefit from a massive edit. Persona 5 is another game where characters are constantly repeating information among themselves in a highly unnatural way that takes away from the broader themes and storytelling. Metal Gear Solid is perhaps the most egregious example: MGS4 used excessively long cutscenes, some longer than most television shows, to tell us very little. NieR; Automata does a tonne of cool things but ultimately drags down its narrative through unnecessary repetition.

There is really no Japanese equivalent of games such as God of War or The Last of Us - that tell relatively simple stories well. There is no equivalent to Life is Strange or The Witcher. Or what Telltale has achieved through The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us. The ability to tell a coherent story is either not there among Japanese developers or simply not something that is valued by their customer base.

If Western games and Japanese games were books, Western games would be the type of book that is pretty ordinary but you might finish and Japanese games would be the type of books you might stomach a chapter or two but would never bother finishing.

There is as much of a consensus as there is for gameplay.

Which is to say, none at all.

Always just depends on the individual talent.

No consensus here.

In terms of style or soundtracks it would be an easy pick, though.

Borowski said:

No consensus here.

In terms of style or soundtracks it would be an easy pick, though.

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would it? that's really tough on both accounts if you're including independent developers