I know what you're thinking: Oh, great, another article dedicated to the - ahem - finer points of Japanese gaming culture. I know because I felt the same way when researching the crazy, odd, bizarre, and just plain downright weird games that have been released solely for the Japanese market. There's a lot of head scratching reviewers out there primarily from America and Great Britain, who can barely utter a response to the sheer eccentricity that is displayed in this market. Most of these games have never made it to America for a good reason. However, what I wish to focus on here is not how strange these video games are, but just how completely ridiculous they appear to the Western mind. While a few of them do make it overseas and even fewer of them experience success, for the most part Western gamers play them for the sole purpose of experiencing something totally different that will make them die laughing. Not a game to be taken seriously at all. This is not to say that all Japanese games are weird and the culture gap cannot be bridged. On the contrary take a look at Nintendo, Sony, Square Enix, and Capcom. No, this article is dedicated to those other games that probably appear just as weird to the average Japanese gamer as they do to the Western gamer with one distinction: These games would have never been made
overhere. I would also like to mention that I have purposely stayed away from adding the handful of games you've probably already read about a hundred times. Just so we're on the same page: LSD Dream Emulator (huh), Mister Mosquito (want it), Love Death (yikes), and Boong-ga Boong-ga (?) may belong on this list, though I've omitted them because they're fairly overexposed as it is...
15. The Katamari Damacy
Well received and the winner of several awards, the concept for Namco's 2004 puzzle actioner Katamari Damacy is totally ludicrous in all the right ways. When the King of the Cosmos drinks too much he destroys all the stars. Now it's up to his tiny (5 cm tall) son to create new stars for the galaxy. He does this with the help of a katamari, a tiny, sticky ball that grabs things as it rolls around. So for the rest of the game you literally roll around collecting objects until you are big enough to create a star. I guess that's one way to do it. "Nevermind the giant rolling ball of stickiness people. It may destroy your homes, cities, and lives, but by the king of cosmos you shall have stars again tonight... until, of course, his next Friday off."