Square Enix: “Americans Need Believable (Macho) Heroes”

Why can't we all just GET THE FUCK ALONG? Japan, please start bringing the games we want to America. Like the Tales series. America, stop bashing on "feminine" male characters, and "linear" RPG gameplay. Don't like it, don't fucking play it, don't look at it, whatever. People like different things, and until you all realize that, you're just going to be pumping out crap releases that no one cares about.

Also, if America likes "manly men," and "realistic" games, why isn't Monster Hunter more popular?

Japanese heroes are the best, like Kamen Riders!

Why is Japan so bothered with our heroes?
They're probably jealous because they can't grow facial hair.

Hell when im playing a game about the best soldiers fighting aliens like on Crisis I do expect the guys to be strong and "macho", what's the problem with that? Check out some elite forces around the world and see how many metrosexuals you can find on them.
I have no problem with female characters but stop trying to shove down our throats your faggy characters Japan.

Refer to me as "Devil" if you respopnd to this.

Listen, the JRPG as we know it has been on life support for a decade now. Final Fantasy XII was a step in the right direction, at appealing to both sides, but Square backtracked and did the wrong thing with XIII.

I'm not saying everygame needs a bald hero, but we need less JRPGS with the following

- Childhood friend MOE looking love interests
- Guys with gigantic swords who look weak and feeble
- Turn-based battles in the traditional sense
- Talking animals that are meant to be "cute"
- Teens saving the world against some stupid threat
- Relationships that are actually handled like real relationships. Sex, actually saying "i love you", stuff like that. Too many JRPGs have implied love.

- More choices that effect the game world. Japanese storytelling has been pretty awful as of late.

I grewup with Japanese games, and much prefer Japanese art to Western art, but I'll be lying if I didn't say the genre has become incredibly stale and hasn't advanced with the rest of the industry.

"In other remarks, they were heard to tell the audience that any joint development with foreign developers “is best avoided” because of the potential for communication problems – it appears Square Enix did not have a happy time attempting to work with non-Japanese developers."

In other words, "waaaah western developers won't bow to our every whim and word because we are great Square Enix, maker of the same game 14 times."

Funny how two of their most popular games don't have macho protagonists
Kingdom Hearts has kids and Final Fantasy X has a scrawny boy and girl
It's about personality and correct choice in vocals, I don't care if they're "macho" in fact I'd rather they not be if it's gonna end up like NIER

This kinda reminds me the comparison between American football and European football, One favors brute force while other is about agility etc. Also american music is trying to be so aggressive and manly, I think its laughable at times, this is seriously an interesting cultural thing even though Squares comment sounds rather rasict but I really dont care.

LIES!! Shepard is a Hot Lesbian Woman!

Seriously, these comments make me want to kill myself.
Japan, just keep making the games I love, fuck everybody else.

More lolis, womens, handsome main characters, interesting stories, worlds where I can escape reality, and great gameplay, instead of the most crap we get here in West/Europe.

That way, I can still play those games I like.

Gee...... I didn't know Americans were so gay...... well...it explains why football is so popular.....

Do American's need Macho Muscle bound hero's? Not really. Who is one of the best fictional hero's of all time in American Entertainment? Luke Skywalker. This character is not muscle bound or anything but a young man. It has only been in recent films that they use more muscle bound hero's. But people like Captain Jake sparrow and Neo are not muscle bound. Harry potter anyone? Where is the age and muscles on that guy. I think that Square Enix has a hard time relating a story arc to Americans because of the Cultural differences in society. Every Society has a different set of cultural inflections making it difficult for other cultures to understand if they don't know the meaning behind the reference. A simplistic reference would be language and its many accents and slangs. A person in Texas talks different then a person in New York or in England just as the English Language would have different slangs in it from those from India and the Asian Countries who speak it. Just because people live in a different area of the world and are affected by different influences.

Agree with Square, as 30yrs old gamer I absolutely HATE and want to Puke when I see teenage or kiddie like character.
Im not a pedophile and I want to play with character that close to my age or at least 20yrs old, it makes the game much more be livable for me.
Kids and children are not heroes, they pedo traps and have to be totally erased from every game.

I can probably agree that we have a more need for realism in the background. As in some of those games, Fisher is an former soldier and now a spy. Shepard from ME could be quite young but still in his 30's. Most of these heroes have a more real-life realistic background with education and such. Not like Gundam series where they give out top secret, super advanced, top notch military equipment to boys who just had their sweet 16. But i still watch and play those things if i find them good enough. Hell, if I can i will always play as a female char in a game.

But one thing that the most of you is missing is that SE in this says to avoid working with "foreign" (at least in their case) developers. Probably they have a real problem with understanding "our" developers work-process. So if more game developers in Japan heeds SE suggestion the games from japanese developers will probably get even more bad, due to not looking for new influence and try and develop new cool games.

In my own humble opinion i think that most japanese developers try and talk to non-japanese developers, steal their ideas and remake them to something more japanese, instead of catering to an ultra-coservative market that only want to play the same game in different itterations.

wtf thay have franches from left for dead but thay forget that there are seven other sevivers none of which look that macho rilly. (exepition maby for bill but hes old)

Hmm... I guess it comes down to personal preference. Play as an aged, buff, bald man or a whiney 15 year old boy.

The reason y americans have macho looking men is cause of the idea of heroic epic poems. The idea of having big, strong men dates back to the Anglo-Saxons.
so to say that it is only an american thing is false cause the idea has been used in literature for years.

As long as the characters are interesting and likable, I don't really care about their age, sex, or race.

Square-Enix just isn't very good at creating likable characters in their recent titles.

The title should have been "Bad developers make up creative excuses." Notice that Nintendo doesn't seem to have problem selling their games in the US, and they do it without an abundance of burly men.

Ayayaya! The Japs are making stupid comments again and america is too jock to deny it!

All hail the idiots!

"I wanna be a macho macho man."

ok, so what about nier? was that a joke or what?

Obviously Americans need believable things, like an Italian plumber that gets high on mushrooms, and a mute elf in a green tunic with a sword and shield killing monsters all the time, and enormous badass monsters that evolve when you force them to slaughter other monsters that twelve year olds capture in balls which defy physics all the time. Square Enix should stop blaming whatever they feel they're failing at on their audience and just start making good games.

Ha! "Communication problems"!
That's just your typical xenophobic drivel. Whenever there's a situation that goes beyond the boundaries set by the restrictive japanese society, the working ants begin to lose their mental integrity.

Of course, it's not like all japanese are xenophobic by nature but there's a definite underlying tendency to reject almost anything from the "outside" at first. Japanese people who have lived a certain time abroad are usually WAY more friendly (and i mean really friendly, not the fake politeness in Japan itself).
Of course, japanese who have lived in foreign countries are no longer considered countrymen and women by their own people. Talk about being morons, eh?

This whole stereotype business is also the reason why it's such a butthurt to get certain games published in other countries. In case of Squenix, they were even surprised that fans wanted their games with an option for the japanese voice track. Yet another display of how uninformed they truly are about their fans. That includes their japanese fans as well.

I wonder where they're getting their information. I wonder if this has anything to do with younger gamers. The ones that grew up with the PSX and X-Box. I find they're usually the ones with narrower views of what a video game hero should look like.

I'd like to point something out.

Why the hell is the idiot from Too Human on there, but Snake isn't?

I don't care if Snake is from a Japanese company, he screams American hero so freaking much he should be on this list anyways.

Also, no old school Turok male? Sigh

Most of Them Baldie.

Look at all these limp dick weeaboos bitching about masculine characters. What's the matter, is the brainwashing you received in public school setting off red flags in your stupid little head?

Fuck your participation trophy generation.

We prefer our anime to be more believable too.
Eg: Cowboy Bebop, Berserk

Oh but they sure are happy to slap their brand on anything Eidos makes now, aren't they?

Maybe if JRPG characters were more than shallow archetypes they'd be believable too.

they should've just tried making a 'macho character' game themselves instead of whining about it in front of the projector. i thought the japs were good at innovating stuff not originally their own?

If the game is good, it doesn't matter. Mario and Link have been getting away with being unmuscular for years. All of this is just a flimsy excuse from panels that have nothing better than to do than exploit racism for a buck.

Weak, Japan. Weak.

Examples where this isn't true:

-Any Pokemon trainer
-Link (starts as a kid in OOT, and he's not all that beefy, especially the Windwaker version)
-Super Mario
-Megaman
-Lara Croft
-Jill Valentine (she was the favorite Resident Evil character for a long time)
-Samus (it was actually awesome when you found out she was a woman)
-Ness (Americans have been wanting the Mother series forever)
-Not to mention all the cutesy characters like Kirby and Diddy Kong that Americans love.

And with "believability" where do some of those characters in the picture factor in?

the problem with americans as a whole is that they LACK imagination and thus only focus on "believability" because they want to "believe" if the events of the games they play are even feasible and wish it were real. this in-turn stems from the fact that MANY american parents are too lazy to teach their children the difference between fantasy and reality thus we hear reports of kids getting hurt and/or killed for re enacting scenes they see in said games/other media. also the american gamer (and americans as a whole) have this "insecurity complex" about themselves so when they play a game they want to feel some kind of empowerment over the world that felling of "invincibility" if you will as well as having the game lead having an appearance to match. the main reason why they need said matching appearance comes from the fact that american society is one that DOES judge a book by its cover despite futile attempts made WITHIN THIS SAME society to reverse this logic.

as Einstein once said: "imagination is more important than knowledge"

my opinion is if the U.S. lacks imagination they therefor lack intellect (and parental skills) and thus leading to the pretentious puritanical "follow the leader" society that continues to exist to this day that embraces ignorance and "realism" over intellect and fantasy.

also for the record I'm an american myself and im just stating what I'm seeing in my country for a quite while now and i don't see any sign of it improving for the better anytime soon.

...or...as the old saying goes "ignorance is bliss" i suppose....

Here's an idea, why don't they set up some polls and actually ASK us what kind of heroes we like instead of making these assumptions? I'm sure they'll find that American is a big place with a lot more diverse tastes than they seem to believe.

How come Metroid has always been more popular in America if Americans only love the muscle-men?

Stereotypes are on good terms with Squenix, in both their games and their marketing tactics.

Stupid morons are stupid.

The funny thing is... Hitman isn't American neither is Crysis :O

I want macho heroes!!!!
Please square enix no more pussys!!!11!1!shiftone!

Actually I thought the women in the upcoming Gears of War 3 looked pretty hot, even if they have an extraordinary amount of armor on them to fit the style.

I wonder what western developer Squeenix had such a bad time with. Could they be referring to Disney and the Kingdom Heart's partnership, or whoever the jackhole was that pointlessly screwed up Nier?

We have issues with masculinity and Japan doesn't? This is bias logic.

Fuck you Square Enix. I hope Sega successfully dethrones your withering franchise with Valkyria Chronicles.

“Americans Need Believable (Macho) Heroes”

No, we need less. Believe us...

It's worth noting that real-worlf SpecFor tend to be in their early thirties...

This long time American gamer is as tired of huge, grunting roid addicts as he is of girly boys who dress themselves out of garbage bins.

A something in between would be nice. I don't care if it comes from Japan or the states.

"Top-down production" --> entrusting cigar-smoking, crack-snorting executives to "do" game design, rather than, y'know, people actually employed at the company as game designers.

"Top-down production" --> cigar-smoking, crack-snorting executives "at the helm" issuing commands such as, "I don't care what the hell it looks like on the PS/3, just meet the (arbitrary) coding deadline I gave you!"

didn't Japan make Neir?

Squaresoft is just complaining, because they are so out of touch with anyone except FF fanboys, and otakus alike.
Square enix, you guys are done, Bioware has your number.
Like they wasted their time "researching" this,
while it's clear that the Shooting genre is king in America,
Japan has its fair share of Macho badasses,
from Ryu, Solid Snake, any Belmont, the Tekken crew,
If you're having trouble relating to the "elusive" American market, look at what Konami, Capcom, Sega, and Namco are doing... making great cutting edge games.
Somehow, Square Enix has dropped off the radar,
good riddance, Jap-crybabies!!!

What is "believable" and what is "real" are two entirely different concepts. The general american public is very adverse to anything that deviates from their beliefs, even if its reality thats in opposition with their beliefs. Square fails to understand that.

Funny how I haven't felt inclined to play any of those games used in the example chart. I bought my PS3 hoping to be able to avoid this kind of bullshit.

Hopefully this mindset doesn't bleed over to other developers that have actually delivered a good game in the last ten years.

Gordon Freeman FTW!

Square needs to stop saying stupid shit and make a decent game.

Thats rich comming from the people who have made a clown god,the gunblade,The intire kingdom hearts series.and moogles.
Or what about the unrealistic character designs.
Or the fact that sence FFx the seem to be confussed as to who the real hero is.

If you ask me realism in a Square game is just a vien attempt atbest and they should focus on clear cut fantasy.Having Elements of realism isnt the same as being realistic.And square enix needs to know that their past few protagonists could of been left out of their stories completely without changing much.
Vann and penelo espeacaly.Id rather see more of that bart dude.He looked like a rock starwith those sun glasses.

*sigh*...

Quit overgeneralizing, Squeenix. I can only barely hear the cries of your future employees when you inevitably crash into the dirt and fail.

Squeenix's games have been a continual downturn of fail ever since Final Fantasy 12 came out, and it's almost like they're trying to find excuses as of why their games are failing outside of Japan. Why don't they look at what Team Persona was doing--you know, making the old JRPG formula fun, accessible, and even, dare I say it...fresh? There are a lot of Japanese-made games with Japanese conventions that do well outside of Japan...the problem is that in their deluded minds, they're not even going to consider acknowledging that. It's just easier to say every game that's good outside Japan is about a bunch of space marines killing aliens, have a whiny bitch fit, and then move on to continue on their steady decline like nothing happened.

Instead of just crying that Americans/Ukranians/Spaniards/EVERYONE WHO ISN'T JAPANESE likes beefy macho men with huge guns who jizz testosterone, overly realistic games that are LOL SO HARD, why don't they just reassess their current formula and try to think outside the proverbial box for a change? Instead of making the same boring RPG over and over (LOL Infinite Undiscovery, anyone?), try to breathe some life in the medium that they did best. I don't see the spark that Squaresoft used to bring into their games anymore. I just see something dead, lying there on the ground and waiting for the final stake to be driven in it.

TL;DR Squeenix, don't use your own generalization (The day I consider characters like Nico Bellic, Cole McGrath, and Alex Mercer as ultra-macho men is the day I go blind. Unless their definition of beefy and macho is 'not a girly man', I don't think these guys fit the bill. Badasses, yes. Beefcakes? Fuck no) to make excuses why you've been failing miserably in the West (or rather, the Japanese perception of 'the West') for the past few years. It's not going to work.

Well if you replace any of the above characters with the 16 year old school boy, who is the star of every J-game, you would have an believably, short game.

I wish they had made a collage of all the main characters of Eastern games that sold well over here in the West. It would probably still be a manly, if a bit short, list

Find it funny how Solid Snake is missing.

Aww boohoo, sounds like the weeaboos aren't going to get their pedophilac, effeminate main character with the obligatory 12 year old girl with breasts that would make a grown woman feel insecure in their vidya gaemz anymore.

Such a terrible shame. How will the industry survive, what with Japan's 16% of worldwide game sales no longer happy. Its called business, fuckwads.

As an American, I loathe the super-macho manset (primarily Gears of War sort), yet also dislike the wimpy underdeveloped hero also. Unless there's, as they say, believability. If my wimpy dude suddenly is performing these awesome combos with a huge ass weapon, I'm going to either be laughing going "THIS IS AWESOME" (if done comedically) or going "what the crap is this?" (if done seriously).

Even during FFXIII, I was watching Lightning going "She has scrawny legs, how is she so tough?"

I like how they highlighted Francis in L4D though. They omitted the average black guy, the chick, and the old man. Not to mention, L4D2 also has some pretty different characters - and I love playing as Coach or Nick for the fun factor.

It's not that Americans want the macho badass, I don't think, but we want the BELIEVABILITY as they claim. It sucks they keep presenting us with the same old grizzled man-face-dude, but I'd take that over doe-eyed man-child any day.

Although! FF12 did it right for me in a way. Balthier and Basch were extremely likeable and relatable on a visual basis. They were good looking, slightly older, and seemingly had experience. Vaan, I couldn't relate to at all - a girlish man-child. I dunno, just my two cents.

I actually prefer feminine male characters myself. What can you say.. American loves their homophobic meatheads.

where the fuck is Duke Nukem?

THE EXPENDABLES

WHERES GORDAN FREEMAN?!

Um, Agent 47 is basically Golgo 13.

But anyway we need more protagonists like Caim from Drakengard. How many mute bloodthirsty child killing psychopaths do you see in JRPG games today? Instead we get this Persona 3 faggotry.

Isnt Assasins Creed European anyways>?

I personally hate the term "macho" because of the mindframe and behavior set that go along with it. Macho is not where its at for me.

I think that jrpgs work for Japanese and western ones work for the west. Leave it at that. I would compare it to say, western artists trying to to draw manga. Its not manga, it's manga-style and although different from japanese manga, it works for whoever likes it.

The point is that there are many different views on what is "macho" and what works for one may not work for another. SE should concentrate more on developing a great game regardless of the appearance of the protags. Afterall, if a game is fucking awesome, who cares what the main char. looks like?

Macho does not always = greatness.

i prefer my heroes looking like heroes ....you know people that look experienced in their field and have instincts created by years in the fray. people who can understand that situations are dire enough not to waddle off to rescue chickens and or farm gold as a side job while the princess/goddess/priestess is hanging by a thread to her desperate and sad life.

not a 12 year old who gets a wooden sword and suddenly learns how to control mystical powers that let him take on things that go from cannon fodder slimes to god of war ish generals in a time frame of months even weeks.

is that so wrong?