Chair Co-Founder Compares The Best Of Japan And The West

Author: by Staff

In Gamasutra's latest feature interview, Chair Entertainment co-founder Donald Mustard argued that while Japan has produced fewer leading games this generation, the region's top developers still demonstrate a mastery of game design unparalleled in the West. Mustard specifically pointed to Nintendo, praising the company for so effectively utilizing its established franchises and gameplay tropes. "While they're still similar formulas that they're playing with... Like, man, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 blew me away! There are some unbelievably amazing designs in those games that are just stomping what we're doing here in America, from a design standpoint." Mustard compared Japanese game design to that of the West, and agreed that many Western developers tend to gravitate toward open-ended, systems-driven design -- a style very unlike Nintendo's focus on moment-to-moment gameplay. If he could have his way, Mustard says he would find a way to blend these two disparate styles. "If you look at some of the stuff Skyrim is pulling off, it's flabbergastingly amazing. I guess to me, my problem is that I want it all. I want that big, open-ended Skyrim game with the tightness of a Zelda or a Mario, you know? I want it to be that, but also when I swing the sword it just feels smooth, and feels like I hit that guy, and it connected." "And maybe this is too much. I totally get why that's hard to do. I'm playing through Uncharted 3 right now and there's stuff in Uncharted that I am like, "Oh my gosh!" Naughty Dog, and Amy [Hennig], and those guys, they're at least five years ahead of the rest of us from a narrative, storytelling kind of standpoint -- at least. And I get because that was so much the focus, that maybe when I'm playing with the gunplay, or going into cover, that's not going to be as tight and polished as in Gears 3. But I wish it was. I wish I could have it all." The full interview, which covers Mustard's own development style and his approach to creating Infinity Blade II, is live now at Gamasutra.