2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

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Retro STrife
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby Retro STrife » May 28th, 2018, 7:25 pm

jon wrote:This is ridiculous. Come on, let's stop ignoring the giant elephant in the room, which is that there's fanboys that want every RPG to get an A+. I think DaHeck's review is one of the most I learnt reviews on the site and by far the most important for the RPG crew. I wasn't looking forward to the newly formed RPG crew reviewing every RPG that they love and give out A+ after A+.


I think the RPG crew shares the same concern about high grades. And they also agree that you have to play very deep into RPGs before reviewing them. The problem is...who wants to play a D-level RPG for 50+ hours?? No one. So you are seeing mostly A and B grades for RPGs because those are the games that you can find someone to volunteer to play and review. It's impossible to find someone to throw away 50 hours of their life to play a terrible game. I agree with you, though, that it's nice to get a change of pace with a C- review, like the one DaHeck provided here.

Alucard1191
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby Alucard1191 » May 28th, 2018, 8:42 pm

Alright... so I finally reset my password to post again to post in this.


Those of you taking a guy with a family who runs a review site as seriously as you are really need to chill the **** out. Seriously, as you get older you spend less time on games and those fun side projects and more time on wife, kids, house, business, etc. These are a quick letter grade and a basic synopsis. Playing all the way through a game seems completely extraneous. You can tell that for example Blaster Master on the PS1 is going to suck within the first 5 minutes. You can also tell that Super Mario RPG is going to be fantastic really early on. Playing all the way through on some RPGs is a genuinely large endeavor. There are countless RPGs that require 60+ hours of gameplay to complete, and that is really, really difficult to do as you age. I'm 34, married, and while I don't have kids I have a lot of animals and we own a business together that we work at literally 7 days a week. (We haven't had a day off in ages.) Could I finish Skyrim or Fallout 4 playing an hour or 2 once or twice a week? It would take close to a year to complete at my play rate.

Anyway, long rant aside, those of you that take this as seriously as you do clearly don't have enough going on in your lives. Your expectations are unrealistic.

bluenote
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby bluenote » May 29th, 2018, 9:30 am

Alucard1191 wrote:Alright... so I finally reset my password to post again to post in this.


Those of you taking a guy with a family who runs a review site as seriously as you are really need to chill the **** out. Seriously, as you get older you spend less time on games and those fun side projects and more time on wife, kids, house, business, etc. These are a quick letter grade and a basic synopsis. Playing all the way through a game seems completely extraneous. You can tell that for example Blaster Master on the PS1 is going to suck within the first 5 minutes. You can also tell that Super Mario RPG is going to be fantastic really early on. Playing all the way through on some RPGs is a genuinely large endeavor. There are countless RPGs that require 60+ hours of gameplay to complete, and that is really, really difficult to do as you age. I'm 34, married, and while I don't have kids I have a lot of animals and we own a business together that we work at literally 7 days a week. (We haven't had a day off in ages.) Could I finish Skyrim or Fallout 4 playing an hour or 2 once or twice a week? It would take close to a year to complete at my play rate.

Anyway, long rant aside, those of you that take this as seriously as you do clearly don't have enough going on in your lives. Your expectations are unrealistic.


Well said!

As others have said, this is not IGN or Gamespot, etc, where they have 5 page reviews. I love this site because the reviews are straight to the point. I don't care if the Critic doesn't finish the game or not. He gives his opinion on whether it's fun or not, and what's good and bad about it.

Keep doing what you're doing Critic!

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scotland
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby scotland » May 29th, 2018, 10:31 am

When I first found this site, I was using Gamefaqs a lot. Its got long walkthroughts, cheats, various length reviews, etc. Yet when I wanted to start building a TG-16 collection ( I did not have the TG-16 during its retail life, but came to as a retro console) I really appreciated how this site did its reviews. I still go other places too, especially to see videos, but this place does something pretty great.

The forums also have a 'reader review' place to add your own review, and there are some really excellent longer form reviews in there. Or just start a conversation about any game you want, and you'll get some takers for a conversation most of the time.

I am amazed how long this site has been going on, and how often new reviews come along. I also think the Critic has a wide palette of gaming tastes, so he can toggle across games from decades and find things he enjoys or does not enjoy in each generation. How many other reviewers look at games from the late 70s to today in any given month?

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pacman000
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby pacman000 » May 29th, 2018, 11:43 am

Kajicat wrote:Regardless of whether a review is ten pages or two paragraphs, I think the reviewer should finish the game they're reviewing.

Is it okay for a film critic to still write a review for a film they didn't finish? I'd say not. Same goes for a music album review.

Just my opinion.


Did Roger Ebert have to see all of Jonathan Livingston Seagull to realize it's "got to be the biggest pseudocultural, would-be metaphysical ripoff of the year?"

And games are much longer than movies; I think of them more like TV shows. I don't need to watch all 200+ extant episodes of Dark Shadows to tell you that it's cheap & slow but pretty entertaining if you like Gothic horror, do I?

In the past I've seen merit in reviewers playing an entire game, but I've changed my mind. If the 1st few levels are a pain to slog through, why recommend it? Just tell your audience starting isn't worth the effort & move on. There are better games where you don't have to wait ten hours to get to the good parts, assuming the good parts exist at all.

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scotland
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby scotland » May 29th, 2018, 1:32 pm

pacman000 wrote: And games are much longer than movies; I think of them more like TV shows. I don't need to watch all 200+ extant episodes of Dark Shadows to tell you that it's cheap & slow but pretty entertaining if you like Gothic horror, do I?


That's a really good point. I guess it comes down to how much content do you need to experience before making a judgement about a video game, considering their duration and that you have to play through to get to content further down stream?

DaHeckIzDat
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby DaHeckIzDat » May 29th, 2018, 1:53 pm

scotland wrote:
pacman000 wrote: And games are much longer than movies; I think of them more like TV shows. I don't need to watch all 200+ extant episodes of Dark Shadows to tell you that it's cheap & slow but pretty entertaining if you like Gothic horror, do I?


That's a really good point. I guess it comes down to how much content do you need to experience before making a judgement about a video game, considering their duration and that you have to play through to get to content further down stream?


That's the point I've been trying to get across to him. If a game is fifty hours long, and only the last three hours are any fun, that's not going to change my opinion of it. If anything, it'll piss me off even more because the developers made me slog through forty seven hours of crap before they decided to give me something worth playing.

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Stalvern
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby Stalvern » May 29th, 2018, 3:18 pm

pacman000 wrote:Did Roger Ebert have to see all of Jonathan Livingston Seagull to realize it's "got to be the biggest pseudocultural, would-be metaphysical ripoff of the year?"

Probably not, but he did have to see the whole movie to confirm it and have a reasonable basis for his review.

DaHeckIzDat wrote:That's the point I've been trying to get across to him.

I wouldn't assume that Kajicat is male.

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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby Kajicat » May 29th, 2018, 11:33 pm

Stalvern wrote:
Kajicat wrote:By the way, I decided to go check out the Aquaman review for Xbox. As far as I can tell, The Video Game Critic is the one who reviewed it (I'm not seeing it say anybody else did, but please point it out if I'm wrong). You alluded that you were the one who reviewed it. I'm a tad confused.

Uh, he said that the Critic reviewed it. Not sure how you managed to pull this bizarre idea out of his post.

I got mixed up. I didn't realize DaHeckIzDat reviewed Ni No Kuni... I thought when he said to check who wrote the review we were already onto Aquaman conversation. Like I said, please correct me if I'm wrong... but next time maybe don't act like it was such a "bizarre idea." :lol: There's a lot of ideas I would consider "bizarre" out there but mistaking who wrote a video game review isn't one of them. ;)

Stalvern wrote:And regardless of the quip's taste, what about it would mark the review as untrustworthy? Is anyone with prejudices also a liar automatically?

Why would the "looks totally gay" comment make me mentally mark the review as untrustworthy? Because such a juvenile mindset would lead me to believe the author isn't emotionally secure enough to provide a fair and balanced review. I also wouldn't quite trust my doctor going over next weeks surgery if they made a remark like that during conversation. It's out of left field and just odd.

Stalvern wrote:I'm not sure why you're here when you clearly don't have a lot of appreciation or respect for the site and its owner. That's fine, but then what are you trying to accomplish by posting? To expose the dark side of this place you know hardly anything about to the people who have been coming here for years and years? Just let the rest of us blindly read our useless, half-informed reviews of games we'll never play ourselves in peace.

What am I trying to accomplish? Really, I'm just voicing my opinion. It's simple: I think someone setting out to review a video game should actually finish it. Imagine if all other review outlets all of a sudden announced that they never finished the games they reviewed. That would be weird indeed and probably cause an outroar. But am I really disrupting you so much? How about simply don't read/reply and carry on with your life? I just gave my opinion and have done so in a very respectful manner; completely well behaved about it. Pitchforks aren't needed.

Retro STrife wrote:But Kajicat- let's take a moment to reimagine this website as one where the VGC plays every game to completion. Here's how it would look:
1. The VGC probably would be completely burnt out from playing games like Aquaman to conclusion, and this site might have shut down years ago.
2. Sure, he could steer clear of bad games, but who trusts a critic who only posts reviews for A and B grade games?
3. And if he did manage to keep the site going for almost 20 years (like he has under his current method), there would be closer to 500 reviews, rather than 5000...far less appealing to visitors. And we would wait weeks for new reviews; also far less appealing to visitors. The Critic might have to enlist more volunteers, for all genres, which means far more inconsistency in the reviews. Under that terrible system, far less of us would be here right now, including Kajicat.

Then so be it. At least we'd be reading reviews of games that were actually thoroughly played from start to finish instead of, "Eh, the first 3 levels were pretty cool... I guess the game is overall pretty cool." Seems like quite the lazy review process and it also leads me to believe the only reason games are being reviewed so quickly is to hold the title of "Most Games Reviewed on the Interwebs!" or such.

Retro STrife wrote:If you want to get an in-depth review of the latest Call of Duty game -- played 100% to completion -- you can find over 100 websites that do that. If you want to read over 100 quick-hit reviews for Turbografx-16 games so that you can buy the perfect games for your collection, there are few other places in the world to get that information than here.

Don't worry - I definitely don't want to read any in-depth reviews of Call of Duty games (never played a game in that series and don't plan to). PC Engine/Turbo reviews though? Now we're talking! But I'll admit reading any of two paragraph blurbs about each game isn't exactly going to sway me into buying or not buying a game. Hell, I find many times reader scores are much more useful and hit the nail on the head compared to the Critic's wildly off outlook that has me scratching my head:

Examples:

Contra Hard Corps
VGC: C-
Readers: A

Guardian Heroes
VGC: D
Readers: A-

Incredible Crisis
VGC: F
Readers: B

Silhouette Mirage
VGC: D-
Readers: B

Rayman
VGC: C-
Readers: A-

Snowboard Kids 2
VGC: D
Readers: B

Ecco the Dophin: Defender of the Future
VGC: F
Readers: B

Gradius V
VGC: C-
Readers: A

...and so on. Point is, not only does it raise an eyebrow when a score is so much of an outlier, but then we throw in the factor that the reviewer may have only played a fraction of the game. Ooops.

Alucard1191 wrote:Those of you taking a guy with a family who runs a review site as seriously as you are really need to chill the **** out. Seriously, as you get older you spend less time on games and those fun side projects and more time on wife, kids, house, business, etc. These are a quick letter grade and a basic synopsis. Playing all the way through a game seems completely extraneous. You can tell that for example Blaster Master on the PS1 is going to suck within the first 5 minutes. You can also tell that Super Mario RPG is going to be fantastic really early on. Playing all the way through on some RPGs is a genuinely large endeavor. There are countless RPGs that require 60+ hours of gameplay to complete, and that is really, really difficult to do as you age. I'm 34, married, and while I don't have kids I have a lot of animals and we own a business together that we work at literally 7 days a week. (We haven't had a day off in ages.) Could I finish Skyrim or Fallout 4 playing an hour or 2 once or twice a week? It would take close to a year to complete at my play rate.

Anyway, long rant aside, those of you that take this as seriously as you do clearly don't have enough going on in your lives. Your expectations are unrealistic.

Well, I'm 35 with a wife and two kids (and two cats!). I work a 9 to 5 at a tech company. All I'm saying is that it's hard to take a review seriously when the game wasn't finished. That's my opinion. No need for anyone to "chill the **** out" considering I'm totally in my right to voice my opinion. Whoever doesn't like it... that's fine too. I think we can all be adults and have a conversation.

Honestly, this conversation is basically over. I've voiced my opinion and others can disagree.

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Stalvern
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby Stalvern » May 30th, 2018, 9:53 am

Kajicat wrote:Hell, I find many times reader scores are much more useful and hit the nail on the head compared to the Critic's wildly off outlook that has me scratching my head:

Examples:

Contra Hard Corps
VGC: C-
Readers: A

Guardian Heroes
VGC: D
Readers: A-

Incredible Crisis
VGC: F
Readers: B

Silhouette Mirage
VGC: D-
Readers: B

Rayman
VGC: C-
Readers: A-

Snowboard Kids 2
VGC: D
Readers: B

Ecco the Dophin: Defender of the Future
VGC: F
Readers: B

Gradius V
VGC: C-
Readers: A

...and so on. Point is, not only does it raise an eyebrow when a score is so much of an outlier, but then we throw in the factor that the reviewer may have only played a fraction of the game. Ooops.

Did you even read the reviews? He actually did play Hard Corps all the way through, but he needed a Game Genie because the American release is unplayably hard compared to the original Japanese (this was done on purpose to inflate rentals). His grade is for the awful version of the game that he played, not for the ideal original. In Rayman's case, you'll find that he rates the Jaguar version B+ - the difference is that the levels were substantially reworked for the Saturn port, and both reviews point the level design out as the problem with that version. The Snowboard Kids 2 review mentions both the space and haunted house courses, which appear extremely late in the game; I think it's safe to assume that he beat it. Silhouette Mirage gets a low score because he hates its fundamental mechanics (and lays out a pretty reasonable case for why), so no matter how much of it he played, it would get the same review.

But all of this is beside the point, which is that you shouldn't be surprised when a sample size of one differs from the average. Of course he's sometimes an outlier - literally everybody is from time to time. What did you expect? He doesn't speak for anyone but himself, and to demand anything else is unreasonable. I don't take his reviews as gospel, not because I don't trust him but because I'm not him.


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