"What's your problem with the IGN scores? Do you really need a justification of what you like from Matt and the boys? Like someone else already posted above: IGN has been terrible lately."
Just because they give better review scores to games you don't like and worse review scores to ones you do, doesn't make them terrible. It just makes them honest. I think in many ways they are following in Dave Halverson and co.'s footsteps and they've been the best in this industry since Diehard Gamefan over fifteen years ago.
"Have you actually seen the graphics for Muramasa? It's one of the best looking games for this gen. Besides it's the spiritual successor to Odin Sphere, that alone should be enough."
I've seen them. They are not that much better than Odin Sphere's and they don't hold a candle to what I've seen of FFXIII or Star Ocean 4.
"Tales: Dawn of the New World is a spin-off. The new Tales will be mothership, and according to Namco it will be close to Vesperia"
Vesperia didn't fare that well in the reviews either did it? It's not an 8.5 at either IGN or Game Rankings.
"Arc Rise Fantasia: Looks very promising old school fantasy JRPG. What's wrong with decidedly last gen? You also hate DS RPGs for being decidedly SNES/PS1 quality (which is still the golden era for RPGs)?"
It is the fact that it isn't that much better graphically than Persona 4. I like my new gen games to look like new gen games and I prefer the art style in PS2 games like FFX and FFXII.
"I'm glad that there's variation in the RPG line-up, so if one is a hardcore grinder that's a good thing, yes?"
Yes, it would be a good thing.
"FF13 won't come in 2009, but even if FF is not automatically the best RPG around, let alone make the HD line-up better than the 7 or so RPGs on Wii as a whole. XII wasn't that good"
I'm looking for a 10 from IGN for FFXIII. Also, FFXII was great. It received a 10 from Play magazine and a 9.5 out of 10 from IGN. IGN named it their Playstation 2 game of the year for 2006 over Okami and Guitar Hero.
"anyway and we haven't seen ANYTHING from XIII that suggests it will be great. FF is not the holy gospel of RPGs."
FF Origins 9.0 -- the originals.
FF Chronicles 9.4 -- IV and Chrono Trigger
FF Anthology 9.0 -- V and VI
FFVII -- 9.5 from IGN the only two rpgs of the 32 bit era that scored higher were Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story both from Square. And Xenogears yet another Square game scored as high.
Final Fantasy Tactics 8.5 (Reader average -- 9.3)
FFVIII -- 9.0 (sure Grandia and Suikoden II in the same time period scored just as high, but then again how many jrpgs have ever been as good as Suikoden II and Grandia anyway?)
FFIX -- 9.2
FFX -- 9.5
FFX-2 --9.5
FFXI -- 8.7
FFXII -- 9.5
Show me another series that has had a track record like that across multiple consoles and in so many installments.
(In the PS1 era out of the 13 PS1 rpgs to score 9.0 or higher at IGN 7 of them were FF games and three more of the ones that received this score were also Square games. There were 3 Dreamcast rpgs that received 9.0 or higher -- though none was a 9.5, and here were no N64 rpgs in the 9.0 range. In the PS2 era out of the 6 rpgs and 1 strategy rpg to receive 9 or higher scores on PS2 3 of them were FF games; only 4 xbox rpgs received 9 or higher, and no Gamecube rpgs received 9 or higher during that gen.)
"And I really don't get how you seem to be able to find negatives about every Wii RPG that's announced, yet think that the sequel to Blue Dragon is one of the games that will cary the HD RPG line-up."
I was actually being complementary. You're the one that it seems to me thinks that if they're only 8 to 9 range games that they're bad.
"If you really like JRPGs as you say, you wouldn't be complaining about what's coming to Wii, you would be extremely happy that next year looks like an awesome JRPG year."
It looks pretty good. It might not look like 1997, 1999, or 2000; but it looks pretty good. And if FFXIII is released next December it will be much better.
"Oh and BTW: another awesome looking Wii RPG: Fragile."
I guess that I'll have to check it out.
Heavens to Murgatoids.
