Lurkero

I too have the opinion that the reason why Japanese games faltered in the PS3/X360 generation is because Japanese developers INTENTIONALLY tried to please Western audiences instead of just doing what Japanese developers do best. It also did not help that Japanese development was stagnant for most of the generation (usually because of developers waiting for Square Enix to do something first).

Notice that most of the games that survived that generation are the ones that did not specifically aim to please Western audiences.

Japanese developers should do what their creativity is influencing them to do and not what they think certain audiences want. The Dark Souls series is proof that the audience will find the product if they want it.

Devil's Third doesn't seem 'terrible' but it doesn't seem 'good'.

Somebody at Nintendo must have owed Itagaki a big favor. I am curious to see what direction his studio takes after this.

I'm disappointed with the lack of Austin in a fedora as a header image.

My experiences were greatly improved when I decided to shift my video gaming focus from big budget, graphically impressive games to smaller and less grandiose indie games.

This resulted in me discovering many impressive indie games that offered much more satisfying experiences than the mass market appeal retail releases that were regular fare during the time (Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Madden, etc.). If I didn't shift my focus, I would have never encountered Toki Tori 2 and fell in love.

After reading more of these comments I am getting nostalgic for the days when I was happy just because a game had a lot of content rather than high-quality content.

Now that I've grown and experienced a variety of videogames, I prefer games with a greater focus on fewer mechanics. For that reason I have enjoyed the simplicity of Mario and Luigi RPGs from Nintendo.

Xenoblade looks like an interesting world, but I really don't want to spend hours walking through a virtual world. The battle system seems too complex, the enemies seem diverse at first (like many games they eventually turn to recolors), and the friendly party system is something I just don't care about managing. I've increasingly recognized that expansive RPGs are not my interest.

That alien crab at 9:00 in was quite helpful. I wish more RPGs had characters like that to occasionally appear and help when players look lost.

I don't understand how successive entries of a game become so much worse. The good parts that people enjoyed are already laid out for the developers, just make that better.

I'm definitely on Alex's side on the issue of press leaks. No press outlet is entitled to access, but if a publisher has problems with a press outlet, the 'silent treatment' is quite immature.

A simple message indicating a refusal to provide content to that press outlet due to a history of leaked information would suffice. Some maturity is appreciated.

The only excuse I can think of is that the publishers didn't want to look like 'bad guys' for being on the record denying access to a popular website.

I don't think I could have constructed a better version of Brad as a Megaman boss.

I wasn't as offput by the premium advertisement as some of the other commenters seem to be, but I think it would have been better to just provide a friendly reminder (10-15 seconds) rather than a long advertisement.

How the hell can Austin make Giantbomb better by talkin' about practice?

Oh, a blog? Yeah, that kinda works.