Yo, what if Nintendo bought SEGA?

[Ben]

And we all know how big Atari was in the Arcades in the years that followed. My point is, the Japanese may have embraced and helped evolve arcade games, but in no way are "arcade-style games are by their very nature Japanese". If anything, arcade-style games are by their very nature are a western invention.

But that's sort of beside the point. The point is that Arcade gaming had become a major aspect of Japanese game design, regardless of its Western origins. That this was different 40 years ago doesn't make much of a difference today. It's no longer a major staple of Western gaming and hasn't been in decades.

As for JSR, while it is very much a product of Japan, I disagree that it is 100% of Japan. Eric Haze, NYC graffiti artist, was called upon to assist in the art design of the game (graffiti, logo, etc) and some of the music tracks were from artists outside Japan (Richard Jaques, The Reps, JSRF had even more non-JP artists). One could also argue that the Japanese youth culture that the game was influenced by was in turn influenced by music styles from outside Japan (rock, rap, hip-hop, house).

If anything, JSR is a patchwork of cultural influences.

In some respects yes but the style and atmosphere, not to mention the time-based gameplay, is all very Japanese. Western gamers would look at the game as strange. (That's of course the game's charm).

The focus on art direction is also done by plenty of American developers. Do not tell me games like Halo, Monkey Island, Psychonauts or Grim Fandango did not have good art direction.

It may be good art direction but it isn't "Japanese" art direction.

Hey n-Sega, do you think Katana's are superior to European swords as well?

0.o wha? I know almost anothing about swords, so your question's lost on me. 

[MadeManG74]

I'm just breaking your balls over the Japan argument. You're alright 

[Radrappy]

HA! You think only the Japanese had a say in the creation of these characters? Check out Sonic's history, he had a mom and she was American.

No where did I even imply that the west was not involved or did not contribute.  But it doesn't change the fact that these are characters from japanese developed games, primarily worked on and designed by japanese artists.  My claim is that Sega is at its foundation a very Japanese company in style and in execution.  Most if not all of its memorable franchises are Japanese.  Sure, there were western contributions here and there as you've mentioned. 

I'll say it again, Total War is as much a Sega franchise as Tomb Raider is a Square Enix franchise.  That is to say, they are in name only.  Tomb Raider and Total War are still very much considered Eidos and Creative Assembly games by most gamers.   

Sega does have a distinct visual style and gameplay flavor (why else would there be Sega fans?  It's not simply that we enjoy high quality games because if that were the case we would be all but gone by now).  The closest we have ever come to pinning it down is Sega's iconic "blue blue skies."  They also have an edge that is somewhere between Nintendo's family friendly brand and modern "MATURE GAMING."  Sega games typically have the quirk and color of Nintendo games while maintaining a tasteful sharpness to them.  Again, things have changed and the brand name has somewhat lost its meaning as of late, hence this debate.   

[Aki-at]

no, but the titles you have listed have a distinctly western art direction.  Sega games have for the most part work within a specific Japanese aesthetic(obviously that is changing, which is why we are even having this discussion).  Even Binary Domain and Vanquish fall in this category.  Not only visually, but gameplay wise as well.  This is not a difficult concept to accept.

Sonic the Hedgehog, Shining Force, Panzer Dragoon, Binary Domain, Space Channel 5, Golden Axe and a whole host of other titles were influenced by American and European media. Regardless that was not my point, I was merely pointing out to nSEGA's point that a focus on art direction with a combination of high graphical output is not a Japanese trait.

It may be good art direction but it isn't "Japanese" art direction.

Neither is SEGA's most of the time. There is a reason why they are consistent failures in Japan and that is due to them aiming for an art direction that appealed to a much larger audience back in the day.

Sega does have a distinct visual style and gameplay flavor (why else would there be Sega fans?  It's not simply that we enjoy high quality games because if that were the case we would be all but gone by now).  The closest we have ever come to pinning it down is Sega's iconic "blue blue skies."  They also have an edge that is somewhere between Nintendo's family friendly brand and modern "MATURE GAMING."  Sega games typically have the quirk and color of Nintendo games while maintaining a tasteful sharpness to them.  Again, things have changed and the brand name has somewhat lost its meaning as of late, hence this debate.   

Because of the following;

1. SEGA has a long and rich history that people would like to talk about
2. SEGAbits is built on a community
3. SEGA still make quality games
4. Their arcade scene, which is how I became a SEGA fan, is still going strong

And not because of a mystical style that people say exists that would exclude various games. Because you can say a lot of developers share the SEGA style then, therefore it is not really SEGA's style.

But as I have said, the game can have the greatest art direction in the world, if it is pants I am not playing it. I am not ignoring a title or not considering it part of a company because of some personal beliefs. Total War to me looks like a much much better game than Sangoku Taisen, I'd rather play it if I had a stronger computer than SEGA Japan's own series. And that is why I am a SEGA fan, they make fun games and they have a good variety of them too.

[Nameless 24]

That's why I love SEGA. You could only play SEGA games for the rest of your life and you'd get such a great amount of variety, and it never would feel samey or stale.

Exactly why I love SEGA.

I'd say the same for Nintendo...but they rarely utilise all of their franchises these days.

[ROJM]

No where did I even imply that the west was not involved or did not contribute.  But it doesn't change the fact that these are characters from japanese developed games, primarily worked on and designed by japanese artists.  My claim is that Sega is at its foundation a very Japanese company in style and in execution.  Most if not all of its memorable franchises are Japanese.  Sure, there were western contributions here and there as you've mentioned. 

Here and there? Make it sound like it wasn't important...
Apart from the fact that the name SEGA dates back to 1940s hawaii which last i checked wasn't part of japan,
Apart from the fact that the founder of Sega was american who designed many of the first Sega titles himself with other american designers
apart from the fact that without Sega of America and the contributions of Tom Kalinske and his predecessor, Sega would never been able to go toe to toe with Nintendo, let alone become a household name across the states(and the world)
Yeah those contributions from the west are really minimal compared to what the japanese have done.And before people say its all about the games, you have to let people know and get excited about the games in the first place.

[Ben]

Sega does have a distinct visual style and gameplay flavor (why else would there be Sega fans?  It's not simply that we enjoy high quality games because if that were the case we would be all but gone by now).  The closest we have ever come to pinning it down is Sega's iconic "blue blue skies."  They also have an edge that is somewhere between Nintendo's family friendly brand and modern "MATURE GAMING."  Sega games typically have the quirk and color of Nintendo games while maintaining a tasteful sharpness to them.  Again, things have changed and the brand name has somewhat lost its meaning as of late, hence this debate.   

This. This basically sums it all up. Makes perfect sense.

Aki; The fact that you (and others on here) feel that Binary Domain is an A+ game despite its various broken gameplay systems (including dialogue trees that at times make literally no sense and hit or miss voice commands) is, I feel, in part because you're huge fans of Nagoshi and his "Sega feel" and that was what enabled you to love what was (in my opinion, lol) a good but fairly deriative game. Had it come from a different publisher/developer I doubt you and some others on here would have even played it, and if you did happen to play it, wouldn't have liked it as much as you did.

Obviously I don't expect you to agree AT ALL with what I just typed, lol, but that's my take on it. 

Regardless that was not my point, I was merely pointing out to nSEGA's point that a focus on art direction with a combination of high graphical output is not a Japanese trait.

I wasn't really arguing against that, I was arguing that there's a distinct style and traits present in Japanese art direction that varies from Western art direction and makes it stand out from it.

Neither is SEGA's most of the time. There is a reason why they are consistent failures in Japan and that is due to them aiming for an art direction that appealed to a much larger audience back in the day.

Well, that's debatable.

[Barry the Nomad]

I'm no Nagoshi fan in that I've played very little of his recent titles (have only played a bit of Yakuza 1, all of Yakuza 2, and don't equate Binary Domain with it), yet I loved Binary Domain. Was it this mystical "SEGA feel"? Nope! In fact I can explain why I liked it: I loved the gameplay, especially the boss fights and the enemy combat. I loved my team members (Faye, Cain and Bog Bo). I liked the story and character interactions. I loved Cain (mentioning him twice).

Maybe I wouldn't have been so quick to TRY the game had it not been a SEGA title, but if I played it without the knowledge of it being SEGA, or if it were from Capcom or Konami, I would have loved it just as much.

So, in my opinion, is it merely a "good" game that is pushed to A+ due to some "SEGA feel" and cult of Nagoshi? Nope! It's just an honest to god awesome game. The only downsides were: speech recognition & online multiplayer. However, for speech recognition, even if it worked perfectly I wouldn't have used it because I play the game late at night and don't like yelling at the TV. I use the controller and on-screen text. As for online multi-player, I think it's unnecessary given the awesome single player.

---

I still don't get this "distinct visual style". Sonic looked like nothing I had seen before, and with each SEGA franchise I encountered from there on out I was continually impressed by new games with their own unique visual style. I didn't look at stuff like PSO, Samba de Amigo, JSR, Shenmue, SC5, Panzer Dragoon and see a familiar style from a past SEGA title, I saw something new and fresh and unlike any of the past SEGA games I've played.

The only way I'd say SEGA has a "distinct visual style" is that each franchise has its own distinct visual style, feeling like something very different from the games that came before. But I'm not sure if thats what you are arguing. And if it is, "distinct visual style" isn't the right term. It's more of a lack of distinct visual style and an openness to a number of styles.

[Trippled]

How about games that weren't made or published that had a Sega "feel"?

I could list a couple really.

Like:
Wave Race (particulary Blue Storm)
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Excite Truck/Bots

And many more I can't think of right now.

[ROJM]

I'm no Nagoshi fan in that I've played very little of his recent titles (have only played a bit of Yakuza 1, all of Yakuza 2, and don't equate Binary Domain with it), yet I loved Binary Domain. Was it this mystical "SEGA feel"? Nope! In fact I can explain why I liked it: I loved the gameplay, especially the boss fights and the enemy combat. I loved my team members (Faye, Cain and Bog Bo). I liked the story and character interactions. I loved Cain (mentioning him twice).

Maybe I wouldn't have been so quick to TRY the game had it not been a SEGA title, but if I played it without the knowledge of it being SEGA, or if it were from Capcom or Konami, I would have loved it just as much.

So, in my opinion, is it merely a "good" game that is pushed to A+ due to some "SEGA feel" and cult of Nagoshi? Nope! It's just an honest to god awesome game. The only downsides were: speech recognition & online multiplayer. However, for speech recognition, even if it worked perfectly I wouldn't have used it because I play the game late at night and don't like yelling at the TV. I use the controller and on-screen text. As for online multi-player, I think it's unnecessary given the awesome single player.

---

I still don't get this "distinct visual style". Sonic looked like nothing I had seen before, and with each SEGA franchise I encountered from there on out I was continually impressed by new games with their own unique visual style. I didn't look at stuff like PSO, Samba de Amigo, JSR, Shenmue, SC5, Panzer Dragoon and see a familiar style from a past SEGA title, I saw something new and fresh and unlike any of the past SEGA games I've played.

The only way I'd say SEGA has a "distinct visual style" is that each franchise has its own distinct visual style, feeling like something very different from the games that came before. But I'm not sure if thats what you are arguing. And if it is, "distinct visual style" isn't the right term. It's more of a lack of distinct visual style and an openness to a number of styles.

There use to be a Sega visual style which was present from titles as OUTRUN, SPACE HARRIER and other AM2 or Sega arcade games.Due to the tech that the Sega hardware created. But that kinda changed with the megadrive when the consumer teams like Sonic Team and later on Team Andromeda got going with Saturn because they used their own particular styles visually. If you look at a game like DICK TRACY for example that had the visual Sega style that was dominant in many Sega games during the eighties and mid nineties despite it being a console title and being soley made in america. By the time of the DC era each Sega team had created their own particular visual style. Yakuza Studio style is noticable but different to what the style was used with a game like VC. Which to me spells the problem of the current approch. Sega has never really been a one man company like Konami or capcom, its always been a team effort and whoever made the better games got the plaudits. When you see the strengh of games in the nineties from Yu Suzuki and Yuji Naka during the nineties and then delve underneath the surface with the games from the other teams, Sega as a company never relied on just one superstar talent but encouraged and relied on them all. Which was what is great about the DC/post DC era as the different teams not only got to shine but get the deserved plaudits from the gaming public of their talents. That's why to me it isn't good when Sega is seemingly relying on just Nagoshi  to deliver the goods. Sega's success weith the sega gamers and the gaming public in genral was when they were able to port their latest arcade titles to consoles to give the home console consumer a taste of their arcade greatness. With a lack of a proper port of a game like BORDERBREAK and other arcade games from Sega which would help them in this instance, they are doomed to failure. Its cool they managed to get the likes of Platinum games and Gearbox to create tiles for them but without the main or core Sega titles or even encouraging other talented people within the company to create IP for you, they are losing what they indeed were kinown to be best for, delivering great arcade and console content to a generation of gamers.

[Ben]

How about games that weren't made or published that had a Sega "feel"?

I could list a couple really.

Like:
Wave Race (particulary Blue Storm)
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Excite Truck/Bots

And many more I can't think of right now.

Sin and Punishment 2's another one. The "Sega feel" isn't as mystical as some of you are making it seem, lol. It's rather difficult to explain but if you're a die-hard fan of a publisher simply because they make "good games," then you would be die-hard fans of almost every major publisher!

The fact is, there is something ABOUT the games that you like and that makes them appeal to and stand out to you to the point where you'd (in Barry's case) contribute to a website devoted to them. I'm a fan of Sega's internal studios, I think they're a very talented group of people and their work and what they bring to the table just can't be duplicated by outsourcing. In my opinion. Even to a talented studio (Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood with Bioware and the DIMPS Sonic games) and you wind up with a game that feels nothing like Sonic nor is really that good.

I'm no Nagoshi fan in that I've played very little of his recent titles (have only played a bit of Yakuza 1, all of Yakuza 2, and don't equate Binary Domain with it), yet I loved Binary Domain. Was it this mystical "SEGA feel"? Nope! In fact I can explain why I liked it: I loved the gameplay, especially the boss fights and the enemy combat. I loved my team members (Faye, Cain and Bog Bo). I liked the story and character interactions. I loved Cain (mentioning him twice).

But the gameplay can be found in basically every other 3rd person shooter ever made in the post 2005 era, lol......the only distinctive features (like the relationships with your teammates) had such a small impact on the gameplay that it was almost pointless. But anyway, lol. We probably shouldn't get started on that. To me Vanquish actually felt more like a Sega game than Binary Domain did, probably because Binary Domain seemed to be be going out of its way in trying to be anything BUT a Sega game....

I did like Cain, though, lol. And I liked the game. ( http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbox360/614203-binary-domain/reviews/review-151337 )

[Nameless 24]

I think most devs in Japan have a similar style, it's just that SEGA pulls it off better then others.

I like S&P2 also, and I am not really into Treasure's games (not that they are bad games, they make awesome action games, the genre isn't really my thing), most games that try to be experimental and different do come off as "SEGA" games, simply because SEGA is an experimental Japanese publisher/developer but they influence other companies to be like this also. Nintendo have some of it despite relying on franchises that work...to me Pikmin would appear a very SEGA-esque move...and I love Nintendo's Pikmin for that!

I play games purely for what they are, but I do tend to favour experimental games like Viewtiful Joe, Paper Mario (it was unique for it's time), Tombi and will even try Digital Devil Saga for this, but it's all from my experience with SEGA games because despite everything, they are one of a few companies that try something different most of the time. (Even Sonic for better, for worse)

[Barry the Nomad]

But the gameplay can be found in basically every other 3rd person shooter ever made in the post 2005 era, lol......the only distinctive features (like the relationships with your teammates) had such a small impact on the gameplay that it was almost pointless. But anyway, lol. We probably shouldn't get started on that. To me Vanquish actually felt more like a Sega game than Binary Domain did, probably because Binary Domain seemed to be be going out of its way in trying to be anything BUT a Sega game....

I did like Cain, though, lol. And I liked the game. ( http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbox360/614203-binary-domain/reviews/review-151337 )

To be honest, I was drawn to the game because it reminded me of Snatcher (a Konami game! O_0). As for "the gameplay can be found in basically every other 3rd person shooter ever made in the post 2005"... I don't get that. I played the game for the complete package (the story, the teamwork mechanic, the gameplay, the boss fights) and I ended up loving the game for the boss fights, the teamwork mechanic, the story (love a good robot story) and some gameplay elements that do NOT exist in most other TPS games: the strategy of shooting robots in very specific areas to take them down or to make them turn against their own, the boss fights (as mentioned) and selecting the ideal team (with the ideal trust levels) to complete a mission. I also loved that it was very much a one player game.

Its not as simple as saying one could simply play another TPS, what made Binary Domain so special was the setting, the mix of characters, the unique gameplay elements that I noted and the story (like I said, it reminded me of Snatcher and I freakin' love Snatcher).

[Nameless 24]

It helps that Binary Domain looks and plays as a Terminator game...but as a pretend Terminator game it's 1000x better then those adaptions!  ;D

I admit I played Binary Domain just because it had SEGA making it, but it didn't interest me at all at first....I tried the demo since I didn't want to be fooled again (Vanquish was awesome at first glance, but I didn't like it as time went on), and made sure that I wanted it, since first impressions can be misleading.

Binary Domain manages to have a good story and great mechanics in general....no other F/TPS lets you dismember robots or humans quite like this one.

Would you kill me if I said that this is my shooters version of Streets of Rage?

[Chaosmaster8753]

Does anyone think Platinum's games have more of a Capcom or SEGA feel to them or do Capcom and SEGA's styles blend in fairly well? Metal Gear Rising seems to feel like something Platinum would do despite things like the story and characters and the original ideas before Platinum's arrival being from Konami/Kojima Productions.