Zero Punctuation: Valkyria Chronicles
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Oh, I'm compassionate, Ben. I'm so compassionate that I hand-pick the people I'm charitable towards by personal evaluation INSTEAD OF FORCING people to give up money to an anonymous government agency that distributes it to special interest groups.
Go sit on a cock.
Go sit on a cock.
Still, what's usually missing from a real review is some way to judge the subjective comments. For example, a lot of reviewers write as if they have no opinions at all, and are just explaining how good or bad the game objectively is. And then you buy the game, and find out it has three slides sketched with a pen ten minutes before deadline as a story, that the characters have no personality of any kind, that the direction is abysmal and there are simply nothing in the game that was very noteworthy for how good it was.Fraser.J.A said:
But no review out there would actually say so.
A brilliant example of that is Star Wars: the Farce unleashed. Any kind of reading of the plot, or look at the game- mechanics, or the game- engine, or the skill- progression, the game- balance, or how the story develops, or how the characters develop, or on how it fits in the canon, etc, etc. Any of those done seriously will simply not give a good grade. But no review in any official magazine dependent on ratings and good will from publishers would tell you that.
So what ZP does best, usually(..not this time), is at least pick up on one annoying crappy thing that all gamers will notice, and wish game- developers would just stop doing, but all the serious reviewers forgot to mention. Whether it's a good game or a bad game, or you like it or not, that's completely irrelevant here, imo.
But.. if he's just bashing games for the sake of bashing a game, then you're of course right. I'm just hoping we'll see more of the really good comments about games. Instead of something like this, that seems to be some sort of... compensation for the HAWXzZ review (..where actually whacking the story is legitimate, when the actual story, that we're seeing in the game, is exactly as bad as it is integral to the missions and so on. I.e., you can't get around that you'll be spoon- fed the plot down your throat no matter how much you like an arcade flight- sim. And there's just no way to.. imagine it as a fantasy land, because you have current political issues, locations and characters jumping at you at you. If VC was the same way, and it really was some sort of "Evil Empire conquers the world and cause the Bolocaust"- story, where, like in HAWZ, the parallels to the real world really are that thin - then it would have been a really good comment. Because, again, that's the kind of thing reviewers loathe to even begin with).
Yeah, but I like talking about politics and no one ever insults Democrats so I need to find some way to discuss politics. And usually in your recent comments you've started some argument I'd like to join, that's why.Barry93 said:
Onmi said:Uh, Rosie and Alicia are the only two girls to wear skirts. Everyone else wears pants.Terrik said:Onmi said:
From what I've seen the women wear skirts in combat, that IS silly. Especially when it's called "Universal Millitary Uniform".
Great review as always. Funny that pretty much everyone with an anime style avatar that's commented seems to hate this review.
EVERYONE ELSE.
I hate the review cause he's blatantly wrong, not cause I like anime. What do I expect though you will just catagorize me as someone who see's no wrong in what I like.
The only other character to wear a skirt is Selvaria. and she's a Valkyrie so it's sorta the dress code.
Besides any fighting game or shooting game where the girl hasn't bound her breasts is ridiculous as the bouncing around would get in the way.
I don't see any girls prancing around a combat zone in Bikini's.
EDIT: Also THIS is a fair review http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/5530-Review-Valkyria-Chronicles
When have I said I'm all for girls wearing bikini's in combat? It makes as much sense as wearing a skirt, it's silly because we know they put it in there to make the girls look hawt. Making it a dress code makes it even sillier.
[link]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3274/2966771643_896a266fa1.jpg?v=0[/link] Would this look silly to wear in combat? I say hell yes.
Ah well, I agree with your general comments, though I still don't think Yahtzee gives a more accurate description of a game than any halfway decent serious reviewer. When you describe "a lot of reviewers", to me it only sounds like the ones from Official Xbox Magazine or Official Nintendo Magazine; hardly unbiased sources. The reviewers I read (e.g. Eurogamer and Tom Chick) don't seem like that at all. To take your example, The Force Unleashed got pretty mediocre reviews [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/wii/starwarstheforceunleashed?q=star%20wars%20the%20force%20unleashed] from most sources; a lot of them said something like "if you're a Star Wars fan you'll probably enjoy this game, but it's nothing special and it has a lot of flaws."nipsen said:
Sure. But you know.. they didn't say why. And you can tell Yathzee read the reviews about the wii controller, for example. I.e., that wiggling the controller back and forth tries to attempt something we all would like to see: fighting on the screen with a light- saber - but it still fails abysmally. So in that review/rant you had three things: clearing a hallway with a sneeze, etc., or gameplay balance, story, and controls. All of which really does fail..Fraser.J.A said:
...Here's the eurogamer review:
7/10.. He doesn't go into details about the way the narrative is told, there's something about game- balance, somehow admonishing the game for taking away your force- powers. It's also apparently too easy - while the actual problem with the game is that you're invincible as long as you can get off the combos. Which is also true in the boss- fights, where you will win as long as you don't actually use any of those combos and expose yourself.
So yeah, I sort of will maintain that ZP has more credibility as a reviewer than even "serious" and professional reviewers.
For the most part.
I am no historian wannabe. I just read more about WWII than most people can fit in their head.WW said:
And please... don't try to flame-war-fight me. It won't turn out well for you. Also the fact of your trying to defend a JRPG tells me much about you and your so called "superior gamer intelect" or how you ever might call it, I don't really care. You might get credibility from most people(as most people are stupid follower-sheep-humans with no sense for individuality, real freedom and no own opinion). Also I as an RTS, an RPG and an FPS fan will not tolerate such attempts of mixing those genres like the developers of "Valkyria Chronicles" intended and did it. THIS is raping 3 genres at one time.
Since I like to argue genre, let me interject on this flabby debate in as concise a way as possible:
1. JRPG. The genre is so named because it is the result of Japanese interpretation of the RPG (a Western genre). The main difference between a JRPG and an RPG is that in an RPG you create your own role and play the game as a result of that decision. In a JRPG you are given a predefined character and play through his/her eyes.
(And yes, many Western RPGs now have prefab characters and plots. That's because JRPGs have now influenced Western RPGs).
2. Turn based combat is actually a crucial part of most RPGs, Western and Japanese. Only recently have we seen real-time RPGs, beginning with the likes of System Shock. These games are often dubbed "action-RPGs", almost as if an RPG is impure if it is in real time.
3. So what seperates an RPG from a TBS? Simple. In your classic "strategy" game, you do not have an in-game avatar. You are God, floating above the world and directing all your units. In a RPG, no matter how large your party and how total your control over each member, you have an in-game avatar.
4. While that technically makes it an RPG, VC includes a lot of TBS features alongside a lot of JRPG features, as do games such as Fire Emblem. I would suggest these JRPG/TBS hybrids comprise a genre in their own right: the Japanese Role Playing Strategy, if you will. Invent your own cute name.
To summarise: VC can justifiably be called a JRPG, but also a TBS. Neither side is going to win that debate. I suggest you think of VC and its ilk as part of a seperate genre, or at least too inextricably hybridised to neatly pigeonhole in existing categories.
1. JRPG. The genre is so named because it is the result of Japanese interpretation of the RPG (a Western genre). The main difference between a JRPG and an RPG is that in an RPG you create your own role and play the game as a result of that decision. In a JRPG you are given a predefined character and play through his/her eyes.
(And yes, many Western RPGs now have prefab characters and plots. That's because JRPGs have now influenced Western RPGs).
2. Turn based combat is actually a crucial part of most RPGs, Western and Japanese. Only recently have we seen real-time RPGs, beginning with the likes of System Shock. These games are often dubbed "action-RPGs", almost as if an RPG is impure if it is in real time.
3. So what seperates an RPG from a TBS? Simple. In your classic "strategy" game, you do not have an in-game avatar. You are God, floating above the world and directing all your units. In a RPG, no matter how large your party and how total your control over each member, you have an in-game avatar.
4. While that technically makes it an RPG, VC includes a lot of TBS features alongside a lot of JRPG features, as do games such as Fire Emblem. I would suggest these JRPG/TBS hybrids comprise a genre in their own right: the Japanese Role Playing Strategy, if you will. Invent your own cute name.
To summarise: VC can justifiably be called a JRPG, but also a TBS. Neither side is going to win that debate. I suggest you think of VC and its ilk as part of a seperate genre, or at least too inextricably hybridised to neatly pigeonhole in existing categories.
Ok, I really didn't want to show what my real thoughs are but if you insist, I will tell you why I called you a "historian wannabe". This was the mildest term I could find for someone who wrote this:Triple G said:
What I really think is that you are a "troll"... or an "utter moron" who read some book but didn't have the needed brain processing power to analize what he read, simple as that. "80%", where did you get that? Form a book? Was it some Russian history book from the '70 titled "Вторая мировая война"? Come on, you really believe that stuff you wrote?
You know what people like GGG, Autocracy and co. want to do? They actual want to convince people that a genre like TRPG/SRPG/Turn-Base Tactics ( take note: three different names for one and the same genre - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRPG ) does not exist, that it's only a hybrid of other genres (why does a hybrid have to be bad, hey, don't ask me).Triple G said:
Actually I want to take the topic a little bit further - theoretically - let's say we meet a girl that is partly Caucasian, partly Asian and partly Hispanic, shall we. Is that girl an abomination because she is a "half-bread"? Of corse not, you would have to be a Rasist Fuck to think so... would you hit here, hey, if shes hot, fuck yeah! See where I'm going with this?
One more thing, SYSTEM-J, you sound like you know what you're talking about. Could you write a little bit more about this:
What are those JRPG features if I may ask?
The presence of a player avatar (which is absent in strategy games) and the centrality of that avatar to a highly developed linear narrative. It's quite rare in strategy games for the plot to be a crucial aspect of the game experience. Even in games such as C&C which employ cinematic narrative devices, the plot is largely a framework to the action. Most of the classics of TBS like X-Com and Civilisation have no plot at all.WW said:
By contrast, it's very rare in JRPGs for the plot not to be central to the game experience. That's why many JRPG franchises run for many iterations with minimal or no alterations to gameplay: the story is a huge selling point. If VC had been made by a Western developer by TBS conventions it wouldn't have nearly so much emphasis on plot. The fact the game borrows a large amount stylistically from JRPGs and anime is secondary, but still worth noting.