It was bullshit and I even called that sorta BS out back then. Everybody was all, like, "West be the BEST!!!" and ragging on how effeminate all Japanese characters were. Remember that, how that was a huge negative thing? Man, I'm glad those days are over. Fuck that period!
Yeah, and it didn't help when you had guys like Inafune or even Kojima going on about the greatness of Western devs which of course the Japanophobes grabbed onto in order to validate their racist opinions. Karmic now that it's the West that seems to be having trouble.
Something kind of funny I noticed is how years ending in 7 seem to be turning points in the games industry. In 1997 we got FFVII and Symphony of the Night, two game that earned their place in gaming history, what with FFVII making RPGs the blockbusters of a generation and ushered an unprecedented golden age for Squaresoft while SOTN completely changed Castlevania and has inspired legions of imitators. Then 2007 is when we had a shift from Japanese dominance to Western what with titles like Bioshock and Mass Effect bringing PC devs to consoles and Nintendo having the Wii sell like mad. And now we have 2017 wherein there tons of Western dev stumbles but then Japanese studios picked up the slack with releasing titles that were not only far better than their Western counterparts, but also uniquely Japanese. And then of course you have the Switch going on a rampage to hot sales and critical acclaim (coincidence: one year anniversary).