So after playing a demo of Mini Ninjas, I was dying to buy it. I didn't have money for a long time so fast forward 6 months later, I bought it.

I was really disappointed in the fact that they mixed Japanese and Chinese culture into one game. I thought the word "Ninjas" implied Japanese culture.

The Chinese elements in the game that I'm talking about are:

1.) When anyone talks in the game (especially the old man who trains you in the beginning of the game) they speak with a Chinese accent.

2.) They call certain elements in the game by Chinese concepts. An example being "The Jadestone Forest". Isn't Jade, as a stone, more important to Chinese culture rather than Japanese?

3.)I also think the Master actually has a Chinese look with the way they designed his mustache and clothing.

There are probably a bunch of other random Chinese references in this game, but I don't know them or haven't come across them yet.

For a game that has a bunch of Japanese language references such as the sign posts which say jouhou in kanji to the techniques you can use such as "kawari no jutsu". They even go as far as to speak most of the Japanese you see in the game. Even in the cut scenes the enemies speak Japanese. So you can imagine my disappointment when the visuals and certain other culture elements didn't match up with the language.

Anyhow, this in part was a mini rant but it also has a question attached too. Are there any American made games that actually reflect/portray Japanese culture correctly? I'm just curious if we as a nation can do it right. Even still, I guess I would be interested in hearing about some new titles to play from Japanese companies like Konami that you would hope did portray their own culture accurately.

Can anyone make some recommendations?

Is that a full game? I remember playing the demo too but I recalled it as an arcade one.

Anyway, stereotyping Asian culture to get that Asian feeling is probably better marketing value for American companies than trying to get a proper cultural reflection. Why even bother with American made Japanese style games anyhow?

I don't particularly care for upcoming Japanese game releases for the 360 as it's region locked and you can't play the Japanese versions on our systems (I need the exposure). If you set your system's language to Japanese there are a lot of games that will have their in-game text switch over to the Japanese translation, but you don't get entire single player voice casts and stuff (unless there are some special cases I don't know about, we have a thread for this somewhere).

There was one Japanese ninja game I played the demo of way long ago that I think had all the dialogue left in Japanese (and your precious cultural reflection too then, I guess) called Tenchu Z. I think I've looked for that demo since, but couldn't find it in the marketplace though.

forgottenmems Wrote:Are there any American made games that actually reflect/portray Japanese culture correctly?

Actually, the game was developed by IO Interactive which is a Danish company. I remember reading an interview where they said that they specifically wanted to remain true to Japanese culture and have Japanese spoken everywhere. I guess they failed in the culture department.

forgottenmems Wrote:1.) When anyone talks in the game (especially the old man who trains you in the beginning of the game) they speak with a Chinese accent.

2.) They call certain elements in the game by Chinese concepts. An example being "The Jadestone Forest". Isn't Jade, as a stone, more important to Chinese culture rather than Japanese?

3.)I also think the Master actually has a Chinese look with the way they designed his mustache and clothing.

I don't know, I think that these points are pretty subjective and don't necessarily indicate conflation of cultures.