Best Japanese-developed video games in the past 5 years

[cheesesteak]

Thanks for the replies, all! Some nice lists.

Ys VIII
Trials of Mana (even the original version having been released in the US *for the first time* only very recently)
Touhou 15: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom

and if they count

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir
FF XII: The Zodiac Age

for the additions and changes they brought to their original counterparts.

A shmup/bullethell! I was actually looking for someone to list games that stray away from the more common genres. Also, I didn't even realize Leifthrasir was a thing (PC player here)! I was just thinking of how much I liked Vanillaware the other day lol. And I need to get into the Ys series...just too many games to play

Bloodborne
Code Vein
The Last Guardian
And if Bloodborne doesn't count then I guess Resident Evil 7 or Dragon Quest Builders

One good thing about my weird tastes is that I'm actually enjoying European western games a lot more this generation

I was thinking of getting Code Vein. I'm picky about my Soulslike games, but I definitely like the anime aesthetic.

And yeah, part of the conversation w/ my friend was how Western (Euro or otherwise) studios are making a higher % of games on the market it seems, AAA, indie or otherwise. Even Japanese publishers are jumping in on Western studios. All of Sony's development studios are Western, save Polyphony (but does Gran Turismo even exist anymore?). Square has its Euro teams and the indie games from Square Enix Collective. Bandai Namco is outsourcing some of its games to Western studios, etc.

But yeah, Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red, Crystal Dynamics/Eidos, Bigben, Techland, Dontnod, Team17, THQ Nordic... a lot of good games being developed or published by Euro companies in the past few years! Which leads me to your first point...

This one's hard for me, I had a falling out with Japanese style for some reason. It's like the things they've grown to put emphasis on are the things I don't want them to emphasize in gaming.

Care to elaborate? I've honestly been feeling the same thing recently, at least in regards to my desire to play JP games. The thing I've come to realize is they either have amazing storytelling or just super bland/generic storytelling. And the English VA even reflects that at times, which takes away from the experience for me (even if games have JP VA available, I prefer English VA for video games). Luckily, even if the storytelling is generic, it can still have some of that JP humor/charm mixed in. Regardless, I feel like sometimes its a crapshoot on some JP games if I feel the storytelling/VA'ing will "ruin" the experience for me. Imo, JRPGs are the biggest culprit of this (and VNs, but I sorta expect cheese from VNs). So part of me just wants to play it safe and possibly avoid the genre entirely. So I've been thinking of other genres JP excels at (shmups, action-adventure, horror, etc) and considering just focusing on those.

But what are these things they are emphasizing that you dislike?