Recently, however, I have noticed a disturbing trend with modern video game reviews. Specifically, I have a problem with 'JRPG's getting noticeably lower scores than their western counterparts, for no genuine reason. People often say that JRPGs are stagnating, that they don't provide the innovation that WRPGs apparently provide (which simply isn't true, more on that some other time). However, there seems to be something uglier than that afoot- a simple refusal by so-called 'game journalists' to give these games a fair shot at all, only begrudgingly giving a good game a decent score (see Gametrailer's review of Disgaea 4 for an example), and jumping on the smallest possible flaw. These games are criticised unfairly, plain and simple. A recent example I found was Game Informer's review of White Knight Chronicles II, a PS3 exclusive RPG that came out last month. Now, the original White Knight Chronicles was an average-at-best affair, which was dissapointing coming from the great developer Level 5. I can safely say that White Knight II is a vast improvement on it's predecessor, and in a gaming generation that lacks too many great JRPGs, you can't go wrong with a game featuring a giant midieval robot. Game Informer isn't known for particularly great reviews, but their review of White Knight Chronicles 2 is such an unfair piece of writing, I feel it is worth discussing. I'm going to pick out some lines from the review, and say why I feel they are wrong.
Showing posts with label phil kollar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label phil kollar. Show all posts
Monday, October 10, 2011
Game Informer WKC2 Review
I'm not the kind of person to get hung up over review scores. At least, not for the reasons most people would. If I'm looking forward to a game, no amount of bad press or word of mouth will prevent me from trying the game out for myself.
Recently, however, I have noticed a disturbing trend with modern video game reviews. Specifically, I have a problem with 'JRPG's getting noticeably lower scores than their western counterparts, for no genuine reason. People often say that JRPGs are stagnating, that they don't provide the innovation that WRPGs apparently provide (which simply isn't true, more on that some other time). However, there seems to be something uglier than that afoot- a simple refusal by so-called 'game journalists' to give these games a fair shot at all, only begrudgingly giving a good game a decent score (see Gametrailer's review of Disgaea 4 for an example), and jumping on the smallest possible flaw. These games are criticised unfairly, plain and simple. A recent example I found was Game Informer's review of White Knight Chronicles II, a PS3 exclusive RPG that came out last month. Now, the original White Knight Chronicles was an average-at-best affair, which was dissapointing coming from the great developer Level 5. I can safely say that White Knight II is a vast improvement on it's predecessor, and in a gaming generation that lacks too many great JRPGs, you can't go wrong with a game featuring a giant midieval robot. Game Informer isn't known for particularly great reviews, but their review of White Knight Chronicles 2 is such an unfair piece of writing, I feel it is worth discussing. I'm going to pick out some lines from the review, and say why I feel they are wrong.
Recently, however, I have noticed a disturbing trend with modern video game reviews. Specifically, I have a problem with 'JRPG's getting noticeably lower scores than their western counterparts, for no genuine reason. People often say that JRPGs are stagnating, that they don't provide the innovation that WRPGs apparently provide (which simply isn't true, more on that some other time). However, there seems to be something uglier than that afoot- a simple refusal by so-called 'game journalists' to give these games a fair shot at all, only begrudgingly giving a good game a decent score (see Gametrailer's review of Disgaea 4 for an example), and jumping on the smallest possible flaw. These games are criticised unfairly, plain and simple. A recent example I found was Game Informer's review of White Knight Chronicles II, a PS3 exclusive RPG that came out last month. Now, the original White Knight Chronicles was an average-at-best affair, which was dissapointing coming from the great developer Level 5. I can safely say that White Knight II is a vast improvement on it's predecessor, and in a gaming generation that lacks too many great JRPGs, you can't go wrong with a game featuring a giant midieval robot. Game Informer isn't known for particularly great reviews, but their review of White Knight Chronicles 2 is such an unfair piece of writing, I feel it is worth discussing. I'm going to pick out some lines from the review, and say why I feel they are wrong.
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