Wright said:
There's no true objectiveness. A game is not "bad", nor "good", but rather, the opinion you get from the game is what defines how that game is for you. Some people consider The Last of Us to be the greatest game ever made. I think that's a big overstatement. There's far better games out there than that one, yet they can argue why they do consider it to be, and that's okay. People can say Vampire Rain is a bad game, but I can argue why it is not. Like in Ancient Greek, the power was granted for those who could defend their point beyond any argument, nor whether they were wright or wrong. Think of that Greek guy who said that it was the Earth - not the Sun - the one that moved in orbit. People effectively argued against that point, so he couldn't defend it anymore. Was he wrong? He wasn't.
I'm familiar enough with RPGs...I've played my share of them. Regarding XIII, the same tactic does NOT work for everyone. The Guard Mistress may have low HP, but try COM COM COM despite your characters being overpowered and you might eat dust. You can't stagger all enemies. You can't stagger Vercingetorix, for example, which makes it for a long, intense battle. Healing sometimes isn't the answer; it wasn't certainly with Long Gui. Heal a lot and it just castle Doom on you, so you die.
There's a lot of status to be worried about; especially on those enemies who are inmune to everything yet they can dispel yours. TP played a critical role sometimes (yet the Summons were painfully horrible, so let's obviate that), but not in all cases. There's items to be thrown. There's paradigms to be changed. There's useless formations in one combat that may grace with the victory on another one. And the story and characters may not be the greatest, but I liked Sazh and ultimately was interested in seeing how his character developed throughout the game. So the motivation for me to keep playing was there, in the form of Sazh and Dahj (and Snow and Serah too). I also wanted to see if Barthandeus could trump and defeat the characters, given that I started playing and XIII-2 had already released (dunno how that game fits into the story, though). It wouldn't be the first time an evil guy effectively surpasses the main cast. FF VI. So this objectively isn't a bad game. It is a game, a game people can or can't like. I did like it. I enjoyed it. |
Again, the same issue rears it's head. People are unwilling to accept objective quality. I'm sorry, but there IS objective quality in video games. We all know that Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing is bad, and we also all know that The Last Of Us is good... is it the best game ever? Well, that's a distinction that is hard to measure especially as games aren't all judged on the same criteria. You cannot judge Super Mario 3D World on it's story and you can't judge Minecraft on it's level design... The fact is though, we can judge works of art, in fact it's a recognised field of study. Auteur Theory, (though admittedly this is more recognised when discussing film, though it's still relevent).
Gamers like to think they know their games better than anyone, but just like how you can study film at multiple levels, you can study game design in much the same way. There are mechanical issues, ie. does the physics engine work as intended, do the graphics pop-in or tear, are there glitches etc. as well as design issues. Do the characters convey the meaning they're intended to convey, do they express themselves properly? Does the atmosphere achieve the intended reaction? Does the story succeed in transcribing it's narrative? Is it understood and comprehended, felt and considered in the manner intended? These are important questions to ask, and they have right and wrong answers.
Objective quality exists. It's why I know that Bioshock is a good game despite personally not enjoying it, I'm bias against it but still able to admit it's quality. It's why I know that TV shows like Primeval are rather mediocre but I enjoy them because it plays to my biases so I'm willing to overlook it's flaws. This is something people seem to have trouble doing, seperating their biases from objective quality. Objectively FFXIII is a bad game; functional and playable sure, but bland and unachieving to a fault with no true artistic value. Personally however, I consider it one of the worst game ever made and would put it along side Ride To Hell, Superman 64, and Big Rigs as games that are utterly worthless.
