Games from Japan's DARK AGE 

i like how all of these games have horrible screen tearing,the true ps3 experience

You need to hand it to Gears of War though, they basically sold a console by themselves and convinced an entire country to make third person shooters.

"gears of wars but you play as guts" at least give him a giant slab of iron

Glad you mentioned Binary Domain at the end. It definitely got lost among some of these games despite being a significant step up

20:05 "I don't know what is happen! The whole world is explode." 10/10 Game of the Year.

You should check out El Shaddai, Puppeteer and Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, both on the good spectrum of lower budget japanese games that came out at the tail end of the last generation, but fantastic in their own way.

7th gen was basically Sega being the king of japan, primarily with Yakuza lol

I just played Bulletstorm and the way you described Mindjack basically matches up perfectly with it, except the actual combat is unironicaly really fun. It feels like a balls to the wall arcade game written by a 2000s Newgrounds flash animator, not just the combo scoring and the "get extra points for shotgunning people into cactuses and/or sniping people in the nuts" stuff but the pacing of the whole thing feels like a 90s Sega/Namco lightgun shooter.

There is also a shitload of great Japanse games from this era: Xenoblade, demon/dark souls, bayonetta, deadly premonition, monster hunter tri, dmc, nier, metal Gear 3 4 and 5,and even more, in my opinion this era was kinda shit for western games, they all looked and played alike

Vanquish is like Gears of War hopped up on cocaine with a heavy dose of Japanese stylishness, and my god is it a fun game. Lost Planet was pretty fun too, but I don't know how the sequels fared. Also I picked up Front Mission 3 for my Vita because of your last video, and goddamn is the game fun.

That era of Japan's game industry will forever be a dark, but fascinating time. Seeing them trying desperately to keep their head above water lead to some pretty trash tier game, but it was interesting seeing falling giants like Konami try their hand at God of War style gameplay or Techmo with Gears of War. Great video by the way, also, what were the songs used at 6:31 - 6:43?

The era when CGR still made reviews and had the record scratch evil squirrel intro. Good times. I remember Mark reviewing all of the games you mentioned except for Quantam Theory. The main guy looks like an ugly Guts. That kiddie pool joke was Rebel Taxi-esque dark humor lol

Yeah, that period of Japanese games was weird. Those Front Mission mechs look pretty cool, especially the one with four legs.

So many great character action games came out of Japan around this era- not just Platinum's work but my favorite example being Drakengard 3. Yoko Taro was and still is an absolute madman.

I'll say this. The 6th gen truly was a golden age for Japanese developers.

For a while I thought Quantum Theory was a game I had dreamed up instead of being an actual thing.

Man, I almost forgot about this. "Japanese games have not been good these days" was such a common narrative for several years. Remember when the developer of Fez told a Japanese reporter that "his" games suck? It was just accepted that the Japanese game industry was in the pits.

Love how you’ve been switching the format around on your reviews/analysis. I’m always learning something new from your videos.

+++ add another vote for VANQUISH and BINARY DOMAIN +++ ... These games are fantastic 3rd person shooters that are still super cheap and easily found 'in the wild' and online.

Id like to thank RGG studios for making Yakuza, some of the only super japanese games on the ps3 lmao

Binary Domain is awesome!

Yeah this was pretty dark era. Some good stuff came out of it tho, like TTT2. 5:41 Dude I miss arcade racers. I remember blur (RIP Bizarre) and Split/Second (RIP Black Rock) coming out around the time and also Driver San Francisco, which is like Mindjack but with cars, go play it. Also, Yahtzee, that guy. fedora head ass run on sentence ass skipping Gravity Rush 2's endgame out of spite ass.

I really consider Persona 4 Golden and Xenoblade Chronicles the start of the reinesannce of Japanese games.

Really though, Lost Planet 2 was the best anomaly to come out of this mess.

I was about to ask for the second intro song but decided to check the description first and found your music. Goddamn this is nice. Got some relaxing stuff and some bangers. Your creative video editing transfers over to your music quuuuuuite well. Almost inspires me to give the DAW another go. Just almost though. Keep the music coming!

I agree! Japan was going in a bit of a originality crisis and it's one of the reasons why most Japanese gamers was so stuck to retro stuff with their modern stuff having nothing new brought to the table.

I love your content so much, my dude

Interesting continuance of gaming Japan's Lost Decade, where the economic shrinkage of the 1990s was reflected by the aesthetic of urban ruin in titles of that time, but in a different direction. I think that earlier time led to a recognisable and enduring style, whereas yeah, here they didn't really know what they were doing. What I find interesting are the wonky Japanese games only on the Xbox, like Breakdown and Dino Crisis 3, and on the 360, like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, which indicate early templates for games the American market might favour. You sure do love that smooth MGS2 Jazz, as quite frequently does it feature in your vids. Also, I think you're my favourite channel on the youtubes.

Quantum Theory was one of those games I saw in a magazine and occasionally recall but can't remember the name of and start questioning if it even existed or if it was just a bad fever dream.

DRAGON'S DOGMA!!!! People are just now learning how wonderful that game is.

Just japanese game? The 7th gen had a disproportionate amount of trash from western devs too.

I would have to say that the PS3 era made me push away from gaming purely because of how the entire industry was in a crisis of some kind. The games coming out were unoriginal and boring and usually a carbon copy of each other. The PS4/PC era has made a comeback and I've found myself excited again and often playing games multiple times a week when before I was playing maybe a few times a month.

I remember wanting to like Quantum Theory so badly but the game felt like trying to play Gears of War 2 on an old refurbished Toshiba Satellite laptop that you bought on sale at Office Max.

THAT INTRO THEME IS SO FUCKING COOOOOOOOOL

Another lovely video. That mech game looks neato And have you played any Lost Planet games?

whats the name of that sample pack you used around 7 min? :)

Will always fucking love that game over lmfaooooo, literally had it as my notification tone for a long ass time

what is the music that starts at 11:03? I'm sure I know it but I can't place it and I am going banana splits

1:44 what game is this? I can only understand something like "interception 4"

where'd you get those Akira Yamaoka samples at 7:08?

2:30 - What OST is playing on the background? I would like the name to be able to find it. It's really good. EDIT: found it - JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven OST - Part 5: Naples Station

Yo can anyone help me find that sample pack at 7:10? :)

7:09 👀 how do i get this sample pack? or is it just extracted from a game he worked on?

On the sensitivity of mind jack and binary domain, i find it helps if you make adjustments in the option and get them how you like

Finally someone who gets it! Subbed! MindJack is like Gears of War, but actually good. Hell, it's one of the best third person shooters of the generation. No boring walk & talks to showcase Unreal Engine 3 gray, no pretentious heart of darkness rip offs that just say "war is bad m'kay". It's just 100% non-stop action featuring mechs, gorillas, drones, all tied together with drop-in/drop-out co-op and versus in a truly unique blend of multiplayer with single player. The AI is bad sure, but the game is designed for human players to control both friendly and enemy AI across the game, and thus an empty shell when you're not being jacked on by other players. The dynamically evolving difficulty of the campaign depending on who's in your game is the most unique part of it all.

Dammit Thor. How can you make videos about anything so interesting?

Ok at 1:26 I don’t get it? Why does the screen go blank there?

Oh, I got a review copy for Mind Hunter. I had to play it. I had forgotten about it. I am now TRIGGERED.

What was the intro theme called?

Third birthday was the biggest slap in the face to hardcore Parasite Eve fans who wanted a legitimate sequel or anything other than what Third Birthday was going for.

Anyone know the song playing in the back at 2:30 ?

5:15 music?

i literally thought it was guts in the thumbnail and thats why i clicked the video

So very many games of this type came out around that time, it's just depressing. They're quite simply a flaccid lot, mere shadows of the past. FFXIII is dull and lifeless, Resident Evil 6 is a frustrating mess, and Front Mission Evolved really does just make you think of Armored Core and weep bitter tears. Bomberman Act Zero though, that game actually has some TIGHT multiplayer which I will not hear slandered, despite the rest of the game. :)

I like a lot of the Japanese games from this era especially the jrpgs and th then game like project diva f and f2nd, yakuza 3 and 4 plus this is the era that Japanese audio option became normal

Though in Japan's defense, Demon's Souls was created during this dark age. And it was totally worth it.

What two games are those at 5:29 and 5:31?

19:40 - End What is this song?

I actually remember playing a demo for Quantum Theory. This was many years ago so I don’t remember much about the game, but I clearly remember a boss having a very prominent dick-like protrusion. The actual tower had a nice design, tho.

I just wanna know what sample packs Akira Yamaoka uses T-T

Ahhh dirge of cerberus, nice memories, lovely aesthetic, fun gameplay, amazing ost, i had a lot of fun with that one

What is the "intro theme" at 6:32? Fucking tune!

Damn you Thor, I was really trying to forget Front Mission Evolved. Back to therapy, I suppose.

You were not kidding about Mindjack, I am digging this Time crisis aesthetic

6:32 Is that a sample of "Radar Detector" by Darwin Deez?

5:31 what game is that?

PS3 times were pretty swell for midtier hyperkinetic brawler games, though. Heavenly Sword, Lollypop Chainsaw, DmC got some good ones, and all the Platinum games... Though the genre's largely disappeared again in mainstream, so maybe none of those made the moneys back.

i used to play front mission evolved on my 360 holy shit nostalgia bomb

Double Helix tried to be Gun Hazard in HD, not Front mission 3 though it failed just the same seeing as Gun Hazard had a lot of cool systems like the buddy NPCs that helped you, the whole RPG and proficiency system and was open ended so you could decide what you wanted to do.

The worst thing about all these games is the screen tearing... Oh god my eyes

After some reflection, seventh gen consoles seem rather dated now. I mean, that generation started 13 years ago, but it wasn't until recently that I noticed how badly some AAA games from that generation have aged. Personally, I still think the sixth generation of consoles is my favorite due to it's wider acceptance of middle market games and lack of major streamlining to appeal to mass markets, but that's just me and my biased opinion. While the current generation isn't super amazing, there is definitely more variety out there now than there has been in a long time.

Does anyone know what game is at 5:40??

I'm glad I found your channel.

which game is on screen at 5:25 ? looks like horror

The dude in the thumbnail is like "kill me, please"

so have you heard of Gundam Operation Troy? it was like gundam meets battlefield 2 (the good one). Ive never played it though, but the gameplay looks fun.

There needs to be more videos on this subject. The 7th gen was interesting for a lot of reasons. One of them was the supposed decline of the Japanese gaming industry, which convinced them to become more "westernized"

Great video as always.

I hope you get around to making that Binary Domain video. It was such a strangely bad-good game.

Another game from this age worth a mention: Knight's Contract. A stiffy-controlled DMC-like hack-and-slash with a twist(that fails to deliver).

Binary domain & Vanquish are actually in my steam wishlist...

i remember i used to play the binary domain free downloadable demo on xbox 360 on repeat and i loved it. i loved shooting the robots and watching them fall apart. never ended up buying the game though and i highly doubt i would enjoy it now.

yeah, about Front Mission... ...they did make a new one, but not called Front Mission...

*"the way of the bald man"* had me dying lmao

Mindjack was a gem.

After about 5 videos watched, it's the kiddie pool joke that earned my sub ;)

Koei should put the Main Character of Quantum Theory in Warriors All Stars 2.

Silent Hill died, final fantasy made a trilogy of mental retardation, devil May cry got a edgelord reboot perfectly around the edgelord 2012 Spider-Man reboot, and resident evil turned into a genuinely fantastic comedy with RE6. A great time to love Japanese games indeed

The Front Mission games have the same setup ever since the first game, not only FM3.

Could you do a "I've been playing: Illusion software" video, kind sir? Great videos, btw!

I chopped a chunk of my finger off on my disc brake in my bike and got 3 stitches and my nail is eventually going to fall off. Just thought you should know.

👌 19:35 mfw so much Nostalgia rite now from that soundtrack 😣so good ~

Great video! This dark age of japanese games was, or maybe still is..hard to say if its over, something very sad. Japonese game developers were most of the time being praised for the interesting things that their minds was able to bring to the market, very unique ideas, concepts and stuff. Looking at the entire video game market, its not that hard to see that this "dark age" its kind affecting most of the devs, people are not trying to do great stuff, only stuff that sell a lot, and i belive that this is a bad way of doing basically anything. Some may argue that games are very expensive things do develop, and for that reason they has to be lucrative etc, but i would say that with the high tech from today, we should at least be doing things as good as ps1 age with a pretty decent graphic capacity (not because we need graphics, but because it can be made better, its easier with the modern tools), and they would certainly be cheaper. Games doesn't need photorealistic graphics, just something well done, there are far more important things in a game development, art direction for example, most of the time matter more than the graphic itself... lets wait for the next generation of games to come.

Oh my god somebody finally said BARCUS BENIX

The Angry Fedora Neck Beard Man! XD I also hate that guy. That's the perfect name for him.

My favorite video of THH!

No, but really though Don't fucking listen to either Yahtzee or angry Joe. I trust their critical opinion about as far as I could throw them, which in angry Joe's case, probably wouldn't be very far at all

7th gen was really great for japanese games, not sure what you're talking about tbh. demon's souls/dark souls/dark souls2 armored core iv/fa/v/vd tenchu z catherine bayonetta vanquish ninja gaiden 2/3re metal gear rising metal gear solid iv deadly premonition valkyria chronicles wizardry labyrinth of lost souls dragon's crown 3d dot game heroes deception iv earth defense force 2025 sin and punishment star successor muramasa xenoblade chronicles nier yakuza 3/4/5 folklore cave shmups (deathsmiles, akai katana, dodonpachi daifukkatsu, muchi muchi pork) g rev shmups (strania, mamoru-kun, under defeat hd, senko no ronde) that's a really healthy list imiho and i'm sure i'm forgetting loads.

Yahtzee doesn't wear a fedora. He wears a trilby.

IMO not all of these games are bad they can be fun. But It did hurt japanese game company and thnakfully many are getting back on their feet and giving us games we like. Big and small in the west and hopefully we xb1 BC many older japanese games that were on the 360 could get a second life.