Tales producer on avoiding westernization with the series, Japanese devs going back to their roots
Posted on January 21, 2013 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News
Some Japanese developers have unsuccessfully produced video in order to appeal to western gamers. The staff behind Namco Bandai’s Tales franchise, however, has avoided this path.
Series producer Hideo Baba told Shacknews that he and his team “really try to look within ourselves and try to improve ourselves” instead of “trying to copy Western developers”:
Baba said:
“With regards to the Tales franchise, we’ve never made an effort to ‘westernize’ it. We feel that Western developers are good at certain things, while Japanese developers are good at other things. Rather than us trying to copy Western developers, we really try to look within ourselves and try to improve ourselves. The Tales franchise has been a personal struggle to better ourselves and the franchise.”
Baba also spoke a bit about Japanese game development overall:
“I feel like a lot of Japanese developers, especially ourselves, we’ve really taken an effort to go back to our roots. We look at what we started with and what we’re good at, and we really tried to make an effort to strengthen what our foundations are.”
