I'm not so sure about Famitsu, they give a lot of games brownie points for just being JRPGs it seems. For example Blue Dragon was not horrificly bad, but it was no more then the 6 or 7 most non Famitsu reviews gave it. Even a poorly executed JRPG is given points just for trying. I mean Does anyone who has played both REALLY think that Oblivion was only one point better then Blue Dragon? I think the differential of Oblivion getting mid 9s and Blue Dragon getting a bunch of high 6s was much closer to reality.
I am inclined to believe the OXM review more then this one as a result. This isn't because its on 360 first or anything, after all its coming to PS3 and PC so if anything it would be a feather in the cap of the increasingly good PS3 library as well. There are two reasons I expect it to be bad.
A) Every next gen Square Enix has gone between bad (Infinate Undiscovery) and awful (project Slipheed) so I don't exactly expect great things from Wada and co. Whatever magic they had back 5+ years ago when they pushed out A list RPGs like there was no tomorrow is long gone in my mind until they prove otherwise, which they haven't managed in 5 years.
B) I find western reviewers to be much more in line with my tastes to be honest, and also much more honest about game quality. Some people talk about a Western Reviewer tax where Western Reviewers are more harsh on JRPGs then shooters, but I don't think that is the case. Look at the review for Haze for instance, it was a half decent game and got butchered, ditto for a lot of other 2nd tier FPSes. It isn't that shooters are given an easier time, its that shooters are more profitable and thus bigger companies with bigger budgets and more QA make them. Hundreds of people worked to make 9+ shooters like Bioshock, COD4 and Resistance 2 as good as they are. It's not some bias, those games REALLY are that good.
Also Western reviewers are perfectly happy to give high 9s and even 10s to games that live up to the high bar set by other genres. Oblivion got high 9s, ditto for Fallout 3; even on the JRPG side I didn't see any calls of bias when FFX got a slew of 10s as did FF XII in some places. Valk Chronicles had no problem pulling in low to mid 9s from a ton of Western reviewers as did Persona 3.
It isn't that Western reviewers are unwilling to give credit where credit is due, the discrepancy between Famitsu and Western reviewers comes from Famitsu being willing to give credit where it is certainly NOT due ala Blue Dragon. I mean seriously, does anyone in their right mind think its better then Tales? Come on.
As to Zen saying that the FF series is the pinacle of RPGs I would say the best PS2 RPG was Shadow Hearts Covenant and the best PS1 RPG was Xenogears (yes I liked that even more then FFVII, it was not just the best RPG, it was EASILY the best RPG). I know Shadow Hearts Covenant is kind of a dark horse, but it was a REALLY REALLY good game with terrific characters and a very unique setting (pre WW1 Europe). It was a low 9s rated game, but I think it really deserved far better then even FFX's 9.3ish avg.
Another contender for best PS2 game is Dark Cloud 2 and another equal to the FF games in my mind is the vastly underrated Legend of Dragoon which was doing active battle engagement long before it was trendy. Anyway there are at least 10 games that I think are on par or better then the FF series (even as far back as the SNES I would argue Breath of Fire 2 or Super Mario RPG were the best RPGs, yes even better then 6). I mean I love the FF series, and in total it IS still the best RPG series out there, but individually the games are not always the best available vs other one off games or shorter series.
I would agree that MOST FF games are AA. 2, 3, 5, and 9 were really not in my mind, 8 probably was but I couldn't get past how much I hated the main character and his Emo attitude. That still puts FF above 50% though which is better then any other 4+ game RPG series I can think of.
PSN ID: ChosenOne feel free to add me
