Video gaming is a massive business in Japan and it remains a key industry for the nation. The Japanese have had a massive impact and influence on video games almost right from the start. Some of the most famous and culturally impactful video games of all time are Japanese.
Of course, today the video games industry is a multi-billion dollar international juggernaut and there are few countries that don’t have some sort of game development going on. Despite this, Japan still stands out as a distinct and important player in the industry.
Apart from distinct visuals, Japanese game design differs significantly from that of games made in the West. In fact, many beloved genres are either a Japanese invention or have Japanese versions so distinct that they’re a sub-genre by themselves. So let’s look at some game genres that are inextricably linked to Japan.
JRPGs
I’ve written a separate article dedicated to Japan’s #1 game genre, but it has to be included here for obvious reasons. JRPGs or “Japanese Role Playing Games” are so Japanese they have to let you know in the title.
Games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Breath of Fire, and a bajillion more all exhibit some seriously unique tropes and designs. While WRPGs or “Western Role Playing Games” tend to be much less linear and more focused on creating your own characters and letting you shape stories, JRPGs are grand adventures that more or less run on rails.
That’s not to say that you aren’t going to have lots of exploring to do. They tend to be massive games that take hundreds of hours to finish, if you are a completionist. Outside of Japan the popularity of JRPGs has waned somewhat over the years, but the Western fanbase for these games remains as hardcore as ever.
Fighting Games
Fighting games are basically just what their name implies: characters whomping on each other. Games like Street Fighter II ruled the arcades in the 80s. With the advent of 90s home consoles, 3D fighters such as Tekken and Dead or Alive ruled the roost. Today there’s a whole host of fighting games that are both traditional 2D fighter (despite having 3D graphics) and fully-rotating 3D games.
What do these games have in common? They are almost all made in Japan. With the exception of titles like Mortal Kombat, almost all the big fighting game franchises are Japanese in origin. Perhaps it’s the thriving arcade scene in Japan that helps them fine-tune these games, but people have voted with their feet and it seems games like Street Fighter V and Tekken 7 remain darlings of the competitive scene.
Visual Novels
Visual Novels aren’t really games in the strictest sense; instead they are branching narratives in the same vein as those old Choose Your Own Adventure games. Propped up by anime-styled graphics and sometimes with game mechanics bolted on to them, these game are pretty popular in Japan and some do well in the West after being translated. Popular visual novels often get adapted to anime. Many are adult-themed, but that’s not universal. Even those that do have adult elements offer a smut-free version these days.
Dating Sims
These games often get confused with visual novels and some visual novels are ALSO dating sims. However, this is a distinct genre of game where the object is to woo and then date a virtual girl. There may be a heavy reliance on story, but it might also be largely absent. Games like Love Plus for the Nintendo DS essentially simulate having a girlfriend who needs interaction from you – sort of like a even weirder take on a Tamagotchi.
Whatever variation of dating sim you can think of, the core of the gameplay is to get the digital ladies and (to a much lesser extent) digital dudes.
“Raising” Games
These are also a pretty unique genre of games that are strongly Japanese. Long before games like the Sims there were games like Princess Maker. I have to admit that I’ve spent more hours than can be healthy playing Princess Maker 2, a game released in 1988.
Today I still dabble in playing a new game titled Long Live the Queen, by Hanako games, a studio that is not Japanese but has made a game that’s a tribute to the genre. That is, until I discovered that Princess Maker 2 had been remastered and is now on Steam. Ahem.
In any case, in these raising games you are tasked with guiding the development of a character, usually a child. You have to decide how they spend their time and what skills and personality they develop. This will help (or hinder) them with the various challenges life presents.
There are usually multiple endings that show you how the character turns out. It’s like raising your own children, but you get to hit the reset button if things don’t work out.
Bullet Hell Games
“Bullet Hell” games are also known as shoot ‘em ups and shmups. The original shmup from Japan was Space Invaders, which of course is one of the most famous games in all history. Since then Japan has refined these games into the rather ultra-niche bullet hell games Japanese players know and love. The basic premise is quite simple. You have a ship (or a plane, or a dragon, or whatever, really) that can shoot stuff. It moves along the screen vertically or horizontally. Enemies appear in droves and fire hundreds of projectiles at you. The goal is to evade all the enemy fire while also killing everything.
At the highest level of play the screen is more than half full of projectiles at times. It requires extreme hand-eye coordination and supreme memorization abilities. There are plenty of shmups for casual players, but bullet hell games are a breed apart.
Quiz Games
As I mentioned above, arcades are still thriving in Japan and there is an incredible breadth of arcade games that you’ll hardly ever see in the West. Quiz games are one genre that you’d probably expect at the counter of a seedy bar, but not in the middle of shiny family arcade. Yet arcade quiz games are quite popular in Japan and if you aren’t good enough at Street Fighter to hold your own, perhaps a bit of brainpower can get you a high score.
Japanese quiz games usually have quite an elaborate theme. The one title I have personally played is Quiz and Dragons from Capcom, which got a pretty serviceable PSP port. It looks like a nice pixel art RPG at first, but soon you’ll be trying to answer quiz questions to make it through the hazards of the game. It’s more fun than it sounds.
Survival Horror
There have been plenty of horror-themed games, but the Japanese put their own stamp on horror gaming from the start. Nostromo by Taito employee Akira Takiguchi is the earliest example I could find. The game is, of course, based on the first Alien film and its ship the Nostromo. Unlike action horror games where the player has the power to fight the monsters, in Nostromo you have to survive by evading the alien and you have limited items to help you. The Japanese prefer psychological horror and it shows in their games. Nothing is more terrifying than when your only real defense is to flee a much more powerful enemy.
That being said, it was the Western game Alone in the Dark that laid the template for modern survival horror. It’s just that the Japanese ran with it and gave us games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dino Crisis, Parasite Eve, Fatal Frame, and more. There are also plenty of excellent Western survival horror games such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Outlast, and Dead Space. However, Japanese survival horror, like Japanese horror film, has a distinctly different flavor.
Gacha Games
I have a personal dislike for the “Gacha” genre, mostly because it feels like gambling, but many people are addicted to these cute collecting games. It started with arcade machines, but now most Gacha games are on mobile devices.
Basically these games are about collecting cards, characters, or some other humongous set of things. You have to play for gacha tokens and then spend them on spinning what amounts to a slot machine. You then win a randomized prize.
We are starting to see more and more of these games in the West. The Gacha component is usually tied to a more traditional game mechanic. For example, Fire Emblem Heroes has a dumbed-down version of the classic SRPG at its core, but you play with characters you get through the Gacha system. The Transformers card came and most other free-to-play card battlers also use this mechanic to give the players cards.
They make money in a very obvious way. It’s much faster to simply buy credits to spin the slot machine than it is to wait for the trickle of free tries.
Monster Battlers
Monster battler games are basically like digital dogfights. Players collect creatures in the game and then use them to fight another creature collector. If that sounds like Pokemon to you, then congratulations on being familiar with the most famous example. Pokemon is still a massive global phenomenon worth billions, but that also means others have tried to muscle in on the pocket monster action.
Digimon is the Pepsi to Pokemon’s Coke, and it has plenty of fans too. However, lately there has been a super-popular addition to this genre called Yokai Watch.
I’ve also seen some games integrate elements of monster battle games into their gameplay. The best example of this is definitely the amazing Ni No Kuni on the PS3, where you also collect monsters and can use them as allies. I don’t think this is a genre that will die quickly.
Monster Hunter and its Clones
I’m not really sure what to call this genre of games, but in Japan it is definitely a thing. Strictly-speaking, the Monster Hunter games are action RPGs, but they are so different from ARPGs in general that I think they should have their own genre. So until something better comes along this is what I will go with.
In Monster Hunter you, er, hunt monsters. It’s not as simple as that though. To hunt this prey you must prepare very carefully and the biggest game cannot be taken down alone. This is a game genre that requires strategy, intelligence, and quick reflexes. This game is one of the reasons the Sony PSP sold so many units in Japan. It is almost certainly the reason why the PS Vita is still actively sold in Japan.
Notable games in this genre include Freedom Wars and Soul Sacrifice – both also on the Vita. The latest Monster Hunter games have come out of the Nintendo 3DS, however, so that’s not a good sign for Sony.
Souls-like Games
This is a pretty new genre to be honest, but it’s clear that it’s going to be a thing going forward so it needs to be on your radar. A few years ago a developer called From Software (no really) created a game called Demon’s Souls. In this game you played a typical RPG character who ventures out into a monster-filled world. However, instead of triumphantly mashing your way through mobs of animated skeletons, the first enemy you encounter hands you your ass. Yep, this was not your typical action RPG. Brutal difficulty and seemingly unfair rules appealed to a very particular type of gamer.
Demon’s Souls was a cult hit, but not a mainstream one. The release of Dark Souls changed all of that and now this rock-hard genre of games has four incarnations (including Bloodborne) as well as several clones.
Japan-Only
There are more niche genres that, well, are probably better left to your own curiosity. These listed genres, however, should give you a good overall perspective. They also happen to be the the ones with the broadest appeal.