I haven't playing video games (at least not on the consoles, which the Wii is the only one I have both owned and is both recent) since the Fall of 2012, and the only games I play (or have played) are either just old PC DOS games (like Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem 3D) or my SNES/NES emulator on my pc. Essentially, I'm more of a classic/retro-gamer and whenever I'm in Taiwan (or Japan) or at a place like Dave & Buster's, I tend to dig arcade games the most as they still addict me, no matter what era we are in.
I don't actively follow much on contemporary gaming, except for things like Mario or Nintendo. And speaking of which, a considerably significant part of my childhood in was shaped by Mario, Pokemon (well primarily via anime, toys, and a few trading cards rather than games), and Nintendo. And I guess when i'm not looking into Mario or anything from Nintendo, I often tend to look at Japanese games and game characters like from Namco (Pac-Man and Galaxian), Capcom (Okami and a bunch of old games), Konami (Parodius and TMNT: Turtles in Time and Sunset Riders), etc. and nothing but them when it comes to gaming of any era.
As far as characters and aesthetics go, I've always found myself to be FAR FAR FAR more inclined to prefer and center my gaming life (if it is still even active) around the Japanese more than non-Japanese games. And every time I think of iconic and popular video games, I mainly think of the Japanese stuff like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, Mega Man, Castlevania, Gradius, Ninja Gaiden, etc and the Gameboys, GBA's, and DS's (gosh I sorta miss the old days when kids had Gameboys and GBA's in their hands rather than those smartphones with a bunch of randomly created games on it). The only american or western games I prefer are stuff from the old Atari classics, the arcades, or the old DOS games. And Doomguy is one of my only 'favorite' western/non-japanese game characters I guess, if I HAD to pick SOMEONE from my memory and experience of playing any of their games.
However if I had to be more specific, my rant would boil down to just which characters/settings/art style I prefer more from rather than which games are more fun/addictive to play and the reason I prefer Japanese-created game characters over US/Western-created game characters is because the former seems to be more cute and cartoony and with more attractive color and style added to it and they seem more creative, while Western game characters these days seem too "realistic"-like and always too bloody and violent (i'm not against blood and violence but just not when people pick a character or work over others for ONLY those reasons alone) and too much of the whole "gritty" and "hardcore" attitude going on. And they seem pretty dull to me.
I just want to make sure I'm not alone on this. Anyone else who's into japanese games/characters more than the american/western ones like I do?