Shamanic Rhythm said:
Show me a review that doesn't try to do this.
The fact that there are more reviewers that think they are the messiah of the masses than those that actually strive to inform doesn't make the first way right, or professional. I'd bring you mine, but that'd be boastful, and I refrain from that kind of behavior.
The more actual "information" you see in a review, the more that review is good, because, you know, it's actually useful to the reader, not to inflate the reviewer's ego. Gaming reviews are there to help customers become informed, what other purpose should they have?
To make an example, the IGN UK's review of Final Fantasy XIII is pretty good http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/107/1075772p2.html The reviewer gives quite a lot of detailed information, before moving to his personal gripes, making sure to distinguish between fact and opinion. He's no drooling fanboy nor drooling hater. Yathzee, in comparison, is not a reviewer. he's a drooling hater.
The big problem is that reviewing videogames has become mainstream. People have taken it from journalism to a way to become "the little star", and Ego has started to play an exaggerated role in the industry.
Seneschal said:
You know, you don't have to justify yourself. We get it, you liked FF XIII. That's fine, you yourself say it's a matter of personal taste. I understand if something clicked and you liked every aspect of the game. However, you shouldn't be surprised at all that the same doesn't hold true for many people.
I don't have to justify myself, thank you, after 130+ hours of fun (and I'm not done yet), I'd say my purchase is much more than Justified. And mind you, the game is not perfect (like what I ran in yesterday, If you don't use a character for a while and the accumulated CP go over 999999, they're wasted, what the hell? Is this a 1970 arcade with the counter that only has 6 digits?), nor my absolute favourite of this year, but it doesn't deserve for sure the drooling mass of hate Yatzhee spew at it.
When a game manages to hold back the other 8 games you got more or less at the same time (I'm in a damn gaming bottleneck), it requires pretty much no justification.
It's not a matter of clicking. It's a matter of recognizing factual quality, and Final Fantasy XIII has a lot of it. Reviewers with which the game didn't click still recognized it, and the fact that it can definitely click with a lot of people, and gave the game a decent to good review, while stating their gripes. A good example of this is the Escapist's review, for instance.
Ego tripping maniacs, like the reviewer of The Edge, or that blight upong gaming journalism named Jim Sterling decided that since the game didn't appeal their personal taste, and as such it deserved a scathing review full of hate and almost no information and a 5 (or even 4).
Funny though. You tell me I'm here to justify my purchase, then what about you, are you here to justify your love for yathzee? This is a discussion forum, people are here to discuss, because it helps pass time. It's that simple.
The FF series has always been mainstream, and many people had their first encounter with JRPGs largely and sometimes exclusively through FF VI or VII, especially western audiences.
Not my case, I played every single final fantasy (minus some juvenile spinoffs).
I claim that FFs have lately been depicting everything that ISN'T right with JRPGs. They take away control, freedom and interaction from the player, focus exclusively on their story without the effort to make it the player's. It's like listening to someone else's music with him repeating: "Hey check this out, this is awesome."
This is a matter of taste. The more control you get, the less deep the story will be. The less detailed the characters' background will be, the less complex that intraction will be. Some people prefer ot one way, some the other, I can enjoy both. They're different genres, just as Modern Warfare and Grand Theft auto are. You shoot in both, but they're different animals with different storytelling.
Another thing that people fail to analyze is that JRPG tropes and conventions were born out of hardware limitations. Random encounters and battle screens were there because doing real-time battlefields wasn't an option with SNES or even Playstation later.
Random encounters are mostly a thing of the past. Battle screens sometimes are still there for a very simple reason. Tactical combat. Not everyone enjoy button mashing combat, and turn-based allows for a level of tactical depth that real time combat lacks.
The Final Fantasy XIII system is way deeper than any other final fantasy so far, including XII, that had real time combat. Lots of people are enjoying this battle system, so what does it matter if it was originally born of hardware limitations? it works very well, and it's enjoyable by many.
Seneschal said:
In fact, I really think the genre has made practically no structural step forward in the last 10 years. It's the equivalent of publishing Quake 2 today, only with shiny graphics. The entire framework of the thing is just OLD, refurbishing with new textures means nothing if the core gameplay mechanics are from the 90s. Some genres are arguably already polished and stuck (arcades, RTSs), but RPGs?! They've been breaking boundaries for the last decade, and they were getting bigger, more immersive and more complex. But seriously, FFXIII is structurally a blast from the past
Actually the Final Fantasy system has evolved a ton, and experimented a lot between I and XIII. Expecially the last few ones. The fact that some thing have remained similar (the cutscenes for instance) and that *you* happen not to enjoy those, doesn't mean that the series hasn't evolved. It has evolved in directions you're not interested in, and that's fair, but it has.
in what way did it evolve from the seventh?
The battle system is much, much more deep, complex and tactical. The fact that it's turn based in both games doesn't mean that it's the same. It may look the same in the eyes of an hater like Yathzee, that probably spammed auto battle all the time during his meager 5 hours of gameplay, but it changed radically.
Also, there are no more random encounters and the storytelling is much more intensive, characters are on screen all the time (as opposed to only the leader on screen), and actually talk during normal gameplay. The inventory system has been overhauled, with evolving weapons instead of a buy & replace system, and so forth.
but RPGs?! They've been breaking boundaries for the last decade, and they were getting bigger, more immersive and more complex. But seriously, FFXIII is structurally a blast from the past - in what way did it evolve from the seventh?
Oh yeah? That's why lots of people (me included) love Dragon Age, that's basically a re-enactment of western RPG mechanics from more than 12 years ago?
But of course, western developers are plenty entitled to stick to their tradition, but God forbid if Japanese developers do!
Ah, the lovely western-centric bias
You know what made me laugh a TON about a lot of Final Fantasy XIII reviews? A lot of reviews of western RPGs go to big lenghts to praise the data storage system in games like Dragon Age or Mass Effect, telling you how much it gives you insight on the world, and how it makes the setting deeper.
I agree wholeheadtedly, that's a great innovation to RPGs.
Too bad that basically NO ONE between the ones that whined like spoiled kids that Final Fantasy XIII doesn't give you insight on the world and characters at the beginning, actually pointed out that Final Fantasy XIII has exactly the same system, and that datalog system (that's actually more extensive than most of it's equivalents), gives you plenty of that information the lack of with they're complaining about. Way to go champs!
And mind you, the datalog system is another difference from previous FF games. Take VII (since you made the similarity), even that one at the beginning didn't give you much information about the world, Midgar, who the hell Soldier and Avalanche were, but left you in the dark, and you discovered that little by little. No one whined.
Today players are too used to be spoon-fed, I guess.
