Does anyone remember how dull the Japanese videogame landscape was in the early-to-mid 2010s?
It’s probably a bit too far in the rear-view mirror to feel relevant now, but trust me, dear reader; it sucked. Defined by rapidly-expanding game budgets, western triple-A evolution, explosive online storefront growth, and smartphone panic heralding the apparent death of console gaming, the traditional powerhouses of Japanese development looked a tad stranded.
Square Enix struggled to revive their flagging former-flagship Final Fantasy franchise, started buying up western studios, then needed a Sony loan; Bandai Namco scrambled to release just one all-new entry in their lucrative “Tales of” and Tekken series, getting into bed with Nintendo to keep their teams working; Atlus imploded until the also-meandering Sega bought them out; Koei Tecmo was still fairly small-scale (and technically didn’t exist in its current form); and Konami finished off the rough patch by firing Hideo Kojima and then peaced out of console gaming altogether.
Of the traditional Japanese third-party powerhouses, only Capcom seemed capable of releasing new videogames in a halfway-timely fashion. But with some notable exceptions, uh, let’s just say their output during this period didn’t thrill many loyal fans.
But then, just as the 2010s were entering their latter stages, something changed.
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Vagrant Rant 