Capcom Tells Us What The Difference In Combat In Japanese and Western Games Is

Things we will never let die: are games art? Is Final Fantasy 7 the end all-be-all to games? Is the ultimate thing a game can do make us cry? And finally, pray tell, world: what's the difference between Japanese and western games?

In an interview with Gamasutra, Devil May Cry producer Motohide Eshiro explained what he saw as the fundamental difference between eastern and western games when it came to combat. He states:

The main difference, if we were to really simplify things, is it seems that Western games tend to focus a lot on realism in animation, so that, if you're walking along and you stop, you should go through a natural and proper stop animation, which tends to look very good. But, when we're talking about something like Devil May Cry, the concept has always been letting the user do what they want when they want — cancel things in mid-motion and suddenly turn on a dime, this sort of thing. We had to spend a lot of time getting this concept across, and bringing their way of thinking over to the mind space that we were in, and finding that balance between realism and ease of use.

So there you have it: the difference is, uh, animation? And having choice? Maybe I'm not paying attention enough to notice these things when I play games. But then again there's apparently an eternal chasm of difference between eastern and western games that we must spend so much time trying to figure out what those differences are. Kind of stupid if you ask me.