Jimquisition: Dragon's Frown

[mike1921]

So... the game scored 6.5/10, or 65%, in one review. It scored more than half marks. And this is a *bad* thing?

This is why numerical quantification of a subjective opinion is useless.

Because you have high tolerance for mediocrity? I see little distinction between mediocre and bad, neither is worth playing or watching if you have alternatives.

That doesn't necessarily imply "mediocre". Take Deadpool for example. The combat is a bit repetitive and the dialogue in combat even more so. But it's not entirely boring action-wise, the writing is fun it's pretty creative so I'd give it no more than 7/10. It's still enjoyable. Hell I loved The Last of Us but the puzzles are repetitive, one hit kills by clickers sucks, the stealth isn't the best and the AI is silly. A game can do a particular thing well enough to make it worth checking out without needing a 9 or a 10.

I should have clarified that I think 6.5 is a very borderline score between 'mediocre' and 'good'.

Deadpool always looked like a 7 to me too, which is why I am unlikely to buy it unless it's on a ridiculous sale. It's not beyond the realm of reason that a game I'd rate a 6.5 is one I wouldn't want to play even if it were free.

 

[wulf3n]

I think it all boils down to the overall quality of review. See, first and foremost it's a 2D RPG/beat-em-up. In case of that review reviewer but a lot of stock into particular art style quirks which are highly, highly subjective. See, all reviews are subjective but what differentiates a good reviewer is ability to determine which parts are most important. That depiction of women ties very neatly into medieval fantasy theme. A good reviewer would evaluate gameplay, RPG elements, story and such first and stuff like huge boobs second. That review reads like a whiny blog and that's the issue.
It would be all fine and good if they scored the game low based on core elements like leveling system. But on basis on some highly subjective and arguably stupid elements of art?
See Jim, the point being it's not a professional review. It's a whiny blog. If we don't stomp such "reviewers" now next thing will be Dynasty Warriors getting 1 and 2 scores because of lack of proper beard on certain characters.

This got tweeted on Jims twitter, and will/was probably showed around in the comments here already, but fuck it, because you more then anyone needs to see it: http://i.imgur.com/6GXBC96.jpg

Am I the only one who see's the irony of forcing the opinion of not forcing your opinion?

 

[Candidus]

OKAY!

Stopped the video at an early point to say; I'd never heard of Polygon, let alone the reviewer before and had no idea that anyone had scored Dragon's Crown badly.

Prediction: Female is upset/disturbed/distracted/annoyed by presentation of females- either PC or NPC- in Dragon's Crown, and concludes that it detracts so much from the experience that 6.5 was the result. AKA, person with chip on shoulder goes out of way to provoke their chip, is predictably offended or disappointed and strikes the blow they decided weeks ago to strike for a movement that people increasingly resent. Guaranteed publicity.

Going to watch the rest of the video now.

Edit: Pretty much on the money. It should have been totally ignored, but I can't control my fellow Vanillaware fans. Shame that.

 

[Roman Monaghan]

I think it all boils down to the overall quality of review. See, first and foremost it's a 2D RPG/beat-em-up. In case of that review reviewer but a lot of stock into particular art style quirks which are highly, highly subjective. See, all reviews are subjective but what differentiates a good reviewer is ability to determine which parts are most important. That depiction of women ties very neatly into medieval fantasy theme. A good reviewer would evaluate gameplay, RPG elements, story and such first and stuff like huge boobs second. That review reads like a whiny blog and that's the issue.
It would be all fine and good if they scored the game low based on core elements like leveling system. But on basis on some highly subjective and arguably stupid elements of art?
See Jim, the point being it's not a professional review. It's a whiny blog. If we don't stomp such "reviewers" now next thing will be Dynasty Warriors getting 1 and 2 scores because of lack of proper beard on certain characters.

This got tweeted on Jims twitter, and will/was probably showed around in the comments here already, but fuck it, because you more then anyone needs to see it: http://i.imgur.com/6GXBC96.jpg

Am I the only one who see's the irony of forcing the opinion of not forcing your opinion?

A: that's not irony, and B: not even remotely the same thing.

I skimmed through 5 pages just to make sure no one else has made this point.
Anyone complaining about the rediculous chest sizes of two out of three women in Dragon's Crown is oversexualising, must remember that an equal proportion of male characters has chests bigger than their heads.

No one else mentioned it because Jim already did an episode about why it's a stupid thing to say http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7290-Objectification-And-Men?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=videos

You can say the oversexualising issue is equal for both genders when this http://fucknovideogames.tumblr.com/post/57454571665/coelasquid-hokuto-ju-no-ken is in the game as well.

People are calling out sensetionalist or over-biased hacks and are doing it rightfully so.

You need to watch the episode again, cuz if you're honestly saying this with no self awareness whatsoever, you didn't understand the point of it.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I'm so excited about this game, I just drew this!

Spoiler

Having said that, yeah, some designs aren't to my taste...but to simply ignore the good cause there's a thing or two your tastes don't agree with is ignorant.


The reviewer ignores a lot of good art design, a whole lot of it, if she uses one the games' BEST features to justify her score of 65. (which is a D, if we go by exams, this game isn't a D)

First off: I am very jealous that I can't draw that well.

Second: As I said, there isn't a "right way" to do scoring so just going off the score can't mean much. Especially with the 10/10 system. Some use it like the school system(in that a 6 is a failing grade, and anything lower is just a more pungent turd), but some like Angry Joe have 6/10 as there average mark, so a 6.5 would mean somewhat above average.

So I'd go more by what the reviewer said, rather than just the score they gave. For example, even in the positive reviews I've seen of the game(like here on the escapist) the reviewer did mention the issue with the titillation. One even commented on how he was surprised the narrator was able to say all his lines without laughing.

That said, there are a few other miner issues I've heard about Dragon's Crown. Repetitiveness being one, but that's to be somewhat expected with a brawler, and it wasn't a major issue. The others were that the quests are sometimes had to follow, and that the upgraded gear didn't look all that different from the lower level gear. Those ones are a bit more important, at least to me.

What I'm trying to get at is the game does have some flaws, and perhaps that adds to the issues with the titillation problems. Because the game isn't doing as good as it could, you notice the smaller problems more. It doesn't help that it sounds like the game shoves the problem in your face.

That said, I can't make a final call until I've played the game myself. Which will be soon.

Right, I'm not saying the game is perfect and I have no issue with the numerous other reviews which scored it an 80 based on the other issues. This one though seemed to use those issues more as an excuse rather than take real offense to them. She focused so much on a small segment of the overal awesome art style and ignored the rest and tried her hardest to make the game sound as bad as possible and minimized the positivity of every nice thing about it simply cause of a seeming grudge she bore against it, one which apparently stems from her bias against the art style, a bias allowed to infect other areas of the game it should have no contact with.



I think a key factor here is that nobody, NOBODY complained about the multiple 80/100 reviews. Those are hardly "perfect". To compare this with the Uncharted 3 situation is a travesty. People are calling out sensetionalist or over-biased hacks and are doing it rightfully so. They're not badgering people who gave 85s and 80s and saying they should have given 100s, they're badgering the one person who docked 15 points cause they don't like a few drawings that have no effect in gameplay whatsoever which stay on the screen for less than a minute each. That's, what, 15 minutes? Out of a 100+ hour game?

You're gonna dock an extra 15 points out of how much those 15 minutes bothered you? A point for a minute?! That's quite unreasonable lol.

 

[wulf3n]

A: that's not irony, and B: not even remotely the same thing.

A: that is irony, and B: it is the same thing.

 

[Roman Monaghan]

A: that's not irony, and B: not even remotely the same thing.

A: that is irony, and B: it is the same thing.

Maybe if you're getting your definition from the Alanis Morissette song, which you must be, which means I have to point you towards this: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/5806921/actually-ironic

And again, no it isn't. That's like if someone was lobbying for the right to kill babies, and then someone else lobbied against that person lobbying for the right to kill babies, you'd say "well they're both lobbying, so there is clearly no difference."

 

[wulf3n]

Maybe if you're getting your definition from the Alanis Morissette song, which you must be, which means I have to point you towards this: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/5806921/actually-ironic

I'm certainly not getting it from collegehumor.

And again, no it isn't. That's like if someone was lobbying for the right to kill babies, and then someone else lobbied against that person lobbying for the right to kill babies, you'd say "well they're both lobbying, so there is clearly no difference."

Are they not both trying to alter the opinion of those they're lobbying against?

edit: Besides, you're either using a strawman or completely missing the point.

The irony comes from the fact that statement is telling people to not do exactly what it is currently doing.

To use your baby killing example it would be like someone lobbying against the killing of babies by killing babies.

 

[wulf3n]

Maybe if you're getting your definition from the Alanis Morissette song, which you must be, which means I have to point you towards this: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/5806921/actually-ironic

I'm certainly not getting it from collegehumor.

And again, no it isn't. That's like if someone was lobbying for the right to kill babies, and then someone else lobbied against that person lobbying for the right to kill babies, you'd say "well they're both lobbying, so there is clearly no difference."

Are they not both trying to alter the opinion of those they're lobbying against?

edit: Besides, you're either using a strawman or completely missing the point.

The irony comes from the fact that statement is telling people to not do exactly what it is currently doing.

To use your baby killing example it would be like someone lobbying against the killing of babies by killing babies.

Oh wow, I'm arguing with an idiot. How.... ironic.

Says the one who instantly resorts to insults. That is ironic.

 

[kazriko]

But that's a 3/5, whereas on a 1-10 scale, normally 6-10 is the equivalent to 1-5. A 6.5 is closer to a 1.5/5 stars.

Here's an example of a 1-10 or 1-100 grading scale. http://www.rpgfan.com/graphics/gradingscale_lg.jpg Polygon's policy is similar, stated at the bottom of this, but a bit more technical. http://www.polygon.com/pages/about-reviews You can see that 6.0-6.9 matches up with the "subpar" rating on RPGFan pretty well, which means it's probably in the 1 to 1.5 star rating on a site that uses a smaller scale like that.

Umm, what? A 3/5 is the exact same thing as a 6/10 or a 60/100 (though less exact since they can only go down to half stars really). If the system is from 0-5, you don't decide that it's really from 5-10, because, not only is that a really crappy system for rating things, it's also your weird interpretation of it, unless it's actually explained somewhere that that is the case, in which case I apologize.

It comes from lining up the text descriptions of various sites that explain their grading systems. Escapist doesn't have a page describing their ratings, so you have to go with a stand-in somewhere else. RPGamer's one such site with a 1-5, here's their page. On theirs, a 6-6.9 rating matches up closest to a 2.0, but there's variations with different sites. http://www.rpgamer.com/pointsofview/info/reviewratings.html Other sites are less specific on what their star ratings mean, like Joystiq. http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/11/welcome-to-the-latest-joystiq-we-call-it-futurestiq/#4
But the general gist is still that a 5 or 50 in the 10/100 point scale is somewhere around a 1 in the 1-5 scale, and that generally matches the US grading scale in schools... Anything below a 60 is considered a "failing" grade, and it goes up from there, whereas 5 star systems a 1 is a failing, and it goes up from there.

Lets just put it this way.
In US grading, A - 90-100, B - 80-89, C - 70-79 D - 60-69 F < 60
If you line that up to stars, A - 4.5-5, B - 3.5-4, C - 2.5-3, D - 1.5-2, F - 1.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

I'm so excited about this game, I just drew this!

Spoiler

Having said that, yeah, some designs aren't to my taste...but to simply ignore the good cause there's a thing or two your tastes don't agree with is ignorant.


The reviewer ignores a lot of good art design, a whole lot of it, if she uses one the games' BEST features to justify her score of 65. (which is a D, if we go by exams, this game isn't a D)

First off: I am very jealous that I can't draw that well.

Second: As I said, there isn't a "right way" to do scoring so just going off the score can't mean much. Especially with the 10/10 system. Some use it like the school system(in that a 6 is a failing grade, and anything lower is just a more pungent turd), but some like Angry Joe have 6/10 as there average mark, so a 6.5 would mean somewhat above average.

So I'd go more by what the reviewer said, rather than just the score they gave. For example, even in the positive reviews I've seen of the game(like here on the escapist) the reviewer did mention the issue with the titillation. One even commented on how he was surprised the narrator was able to say all his lines without laughing.

That said, there are a few other miner issues I've heard about Dragon's Crown. Repetitiveness being one, but that's to be somewhat expected with a brawler, and it wasn't a major issue. The others were that the quests are sometimes had to follow, and that the upgraded gear didn't look all that different from the lower level gear. Those ones are a bit more important, at least to me.

What I'm trying to get at is the game does have some flaws, and perhaps that adds to the issues with the titillation problems. Because the game isn't doing as good as it could, you notice the smaller problems more. It doesn't help that it sounds like the game shoves the problem in your face.

That said, I can't make a final call until I've played the game myself. Which will be soon.

Right, I'm not saying the game is perfect and I have no issue with the numerous other reviews which scored it an 80 based on the other issues. This one though seemed to use those issues more as an excuse rather than take real offense to them. She focused so much on a small segment of the overal awesome art style and ignored the rest and tried her hardest to make the game sound as bad as possible and minimized the positivity of every nice thing about it simply cause of a seeming grudge she bore against it, one which apparently stems from her bias against the art style, a bias allowed to infect other areas of the game it should have no contact with.



I think a key factor here is that nobody, NOBODY complained about the multiple 80/100 reviews. Those are hardly "perfect". To compare this with the Uncharted 3 situation is a travesty. People are calling out sensetionalist or over-biased hacks and are doing it rightfully so. They're not badgering people who gave 85s and 80s and saying they should have given 100s, they're badgering the one person who docked 15 points cause they don't like a few drawings that have no effect in gameplay whatsoever which stay on the screen for less than a minute each. That's, what, 15 minutes? Out of a 100+ hour game?

You're gonna dock an extra 15 points out of how much those 15 minutes bothered you? A point for a minute?! That's quite unreasonable lol.

Well, like Jim said, the art is a big part of the games selling point, and if the reviewer doesn't like the art that would hurt it's overall score.(Plus, if you don't like any of the art, then the really bad parts are far more likely to stand out.)

That all said, it's just ONE review. Plus I've seen far more critical "reviews"(more like critiques I guess) of games I've liked. Such as the Errant Signal episodes about Bioshock Infinite, and The Last of Us(Waring: Lots of spoilers in them). I actually found myself agreeing with a lot of the criticisms, but I still really love both games.

The review had an experience with Dragon's Crown, and made a review about it. You can't be bias about what you experienced. In this instance it just happened to be a bad one for various reasons. One of them being the stupid big emphasis on titillation(joke/parody that it may in part be). As I said, even in the positive reviews I've see/heard mention of the issue.

That said, I've seem more people dwelling on people complaining about everyone hating on people hating on Dragon's Crown for the tits, than I've seen reviews dwelling on the tits in their reviews. All the ones I've seen have mentioned it, but have also moved past it.

The Escapist review is(numerically) about the same as the one from Polygon, but was scored such not JUST because of over sexually characters.

Side Note: There were still some people who complained about the more positive reviews of Dragon's Crown. Like the one on the Escapist. Then again, they did seem to focus more on the score, rather than the actual review.

Repeating Side Note: That drawing is pretty cool. =w= b

 

[Imp_Emissary]

I didn't even read any of the scores (I never do), but I'm very mad at every reviewer who looked at Dragon's Crown, including the one at Polygon. I'm mad at them because they write like shit and spend all their time talking about the art, but don't know enough about art or art criticism to notice, let alone comment on all the amazing things going on in that game's art design (hint: not much to do with breasts, more to do with elaborate homages to classic works of art).

Funny that you mention that. The review on the Escapist did talk a lot about the art, and mentioned a few of the cool things they do with it in the game.

"The outside world is revealed to you as series of sequential two-dimensional levels, each one its own hyperbolic variation of a magical trope like the mad scientist's laboratory or the castle of the dead. Sometimes it'll feel cliché, but the scenery is absolutely stunning anyway. It's particularly striking watching the picturesque landscape rotate around the mage's tower as you run up it. Even the mounts look legendary. Like the best kind of 80's power metal song, this game will have you riding velociraptors around and spitting a hail of fireballs into the faces of your foes."

That said, a lot of people focused more on this;(or rather, some of this quote)
"If the game's questionable portrayal of women and lackluster storyline aren't enough to put you off, though, there's still plenty left to enjoy about it."

Even though Lashani did say this first;

"Where the notable exaggeration remains appropriate to the subject it does really work. The genie's muscular arms and the old beggar's wrinkled skin bring out their essential qualities of strength and weakness respectively. It even makes sense for the Sorceress, a class that's traditionally charismatic, to have sexually suggestive garb. However, in the case of the nun with her legs spread it feels at best lazy and at worst downright regressive."

The review overall was very positive, but still admitted that the game has some flaws. Seems fair to me.

 

[kazriko]

I should have clarified that I think 6.5 is a very borderline score between 'mediocre' and 'good'.

Lets look at what Polygon considers a 6.5. Here's the text of their review policy page for 6 and 7.

http://www.polygon.com/pages/about-reviews

Sevens are good games that may even have some great parts, but they also have some big "buts." They often don't do much with their concepts, or they have interesting concepts but don't do much with their mechanics. They can be recommended with several caveats.

Games with a score of six have good parts, but uneven overall execution. Prospective players should know what they?re getting into before they dedicate time and commitment.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

I think it all boils down to the overall quality of review. See, first and foremost it's a 2D RPG/beat-em-up. In case of that review reviewer but a lot of stock into particular art style quirks which are highly, highly subjective. See, all reviews are subjective but what differentiates a good reviewer is ability to determine which parts are most important. That depiction of women ties very neatly into medieval fantasy theme. A good reviewer would evaluate gameplay, RPG elements, story and such first and stuff like huge boobs second. That review reads like a whiny blog and that's the issue.
It would be all fine and good if they scored the game low based on core elements like leveling system. But on basis on some highly subjective and arguably stupid elements of art?
See Jim, the point being it's not a professional review. It's a whiny blog. If we don't stomp such "reviewers" now next thing will be Dynasty Warriors getting 1 and 2 scores because of lack of proper beard on certain characters.

This got tweeted on Jims twitter, and will/was probably showed around in the comments here already, but fuck it, because you more then anyone needs to see it: http://i.imgur.com/6GXBC96.jpg

Am I the only one who see's the irony of forcing the opinion of not forcing your opinion?

:/ Asking someone nicely to do something is forcing them?

0_0 Crap! I've been quite the abusive a-hole all my life.

 

[Erttheking]

I don't see what the big deal is. Dragon's Crown never really interested me, even before I was put off by the character models it was just a side scrolling 2D beat em up and I already have Scott Pilgrim. I respect that a lot of people like it but this never did seem like a game that was going to get universal acclaim.

 

[wulf3n]

:/ Asking someone nicely to do something is forcing them?

0_0 Crap! I've been quite the abusive a-hole all my life.

I don't really see any form of argument to be forcing, however AtlusPRime seemed to be under the impression that the vocal opposition were trying to do just that.

Now there are over 1300 comments to the original review, and I make no claim to have read all of them, but I haven't seen anything that would constitute forcing an opinion.

So I can only assume that AtlusPRime consider expressing an opinion, however [in]eloquently, with the goal of changing someone opinion to be considered "force"

 

[RaikuFA]

Which explains their TLoU review.

Or maybe they just didn't like it? I know I didn't. But nah, better to assume the game was perfect any anyone who doesn't think so is taking teh bribes.

OT: People freaking out over review scores is nothing new, whether its "whhhaaa score to high, must be paid for" or "whhhaaaaa score to low, reviewer is scum/biased/has no taste"
As for Dragon's Crown, I never cared about the overblown controversy, in part because it jumped to front page news after the Kotaku article, and (IMO) Kotaku can not go away fast enough.

They actually are funded by Microsoft. Dunno if it really did affect both reviews but that's what I hear when this arises. Could be true, could not be true.

The problem with the review is the fact that the reviewer insults the reader calling them juvenile. That should have never passed the editors desk.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

:/ Asking someone nicely to do something is forcing them?

0_0 Crap! I've been quite the abusive a-hole all my life.

I don't really see any form of argument to be forcing, however AtlusPRime seemed to be under the impression that the vocal opposition were trying to do just that.

Now there are over 1300 comments to the original review, and I make no claim to have read all of them, but I haven't seen anything that would constitute forcing an opinion.

So I can only assume that AtlusPRime consider expressing an opinion, however [in]eloquently, with the goal of changing someone opinion to be considered "force"

Hmmm.... I can agree with the idea that talking about your opinion is NOT trying to force your opinion on someone. Even if you share your opinion with another to try and change theirs.

However, I'm am still confused as to what you meant with the first thing you said.
It was about the tweet right? Because it seemed to be just asking people to relax, listen to someone's opinion, and then form/change/keep their own. And, ya know, try not to force yours on others(by which I assume they mean don't yell at anyone to change their opinion, just because they don't share yours).

Even if there aren't people saying the review should be changed, I don't see how what AtlusPRime said is saying that we should force people, to not force their opinions on others.

 

[seditary]

I'm going to focus on the most important part of this video.

I love Dynasty Warriors too Jim.