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Crash 4's Japan levels look awful
(hexbear.net)
In the sense that nothing about the architecture or art really evokes Japan at all other than that it looks vaguely Asian. (Some bits feel more Chinese than anything.) This is a big budget 2020 game with art done by contracted artists from all over the world, you'd think they'd be able to get a little closer than this, especially with how overexposed Japanese culture has been for a long while now
Orientalism. That's the word you're looking for. The game was made by orientalists.
It's just wild to me that a game this modern would fall back on generic vaguely Asian slurry. I'd expect this from a game from the 90s but even the China levels in Crash 3 felt more like China than this does Japan
With the rise of LLMs and assorted treat printer gimmicks, I expect this problem to get even worse, especially for background and filler imagery but eventually entire games at this rate.
Ironically, an LLM would probably make something that would look more convincingly Japanese at a glance
You may be right, though from what I tried to get out of them for cover pictures, the first few attempts would have unprompted waifu tits on buildings.