I noticed a trickle of Pokemon Black & White 2 reviews coming in lately and - as a point we've seen before with a 3DS version of a long-running franchise - there seems to be a really mixed bag of reviews. On the one hand, we have a particularly gushing review by Audrey from IGN:
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/10/04/pokemon-black-version-2-review
"Look no further - the perfect realization of Pokemon on the DS has arrived" - 9.6 / 10
And on the other hand, we've got a particularly scathing review from Gamespot:
http://uk.gamespot.com/pokemon-black-version-2/reviews/pokemon-black-version-2-review-6397588/?page=1
"Despite being plenty of fun and sporting a few new tweaks, Pokemon Black 2 fails to outshine its predecessors" - 6.5 / 10
Basically, the reviews seem to be falling into two camps - either that it is the perfect refinement of the Pokemon formula, adding just enough tweaks to make it the best Pokemon game ever; or that it is simply a tweaked version of a game we played just over a year ago and not worth getting unless you're a diehard fan.
I'm sure this is going to have absolutely 0 effect on sales - as we saw from New Super Mario Bros. 2 recently, a wild range of reviews (using IGN & GS as examples, we have 8.5 from IGN and 7.0 from Gamespot)
Comparing this to the well-worn example of Call of Duty games - which have been similarly criticized for sticking to a formula, the reviews don't seem as polarising:
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2011/11/08/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3-review?page=2
"Another year... and an even better Call of Duty" - 9 / 10
http://uk.gamespot.com/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3/reviews/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3-review-6344474/
"Modern Warfare 3 sticks to its competitive, co-operative and single player guns and reminds you why the series is the best in the business" - 8.5 / 10
The consensus seems to be yes, they are more of the same - but they were good last year and they're still good this year. What there doesn't seem to be is such an extreme degree of reviews - neither is as high as the IGN review for Pokemon B&W 2 which praised the game for being a refinement of the formula; but neither is as low as the Gamespot review which criticized the familiarity of everything.
I know this is a topic that tends to get discussed a lot around here - at least, there were a lot of articles discussing the polarising reviews for NSMB2, but I thought it was at least worth a try at bringing up again. The questions I guess I'm posing are:
Do Nintendo get too extremely judged for sticking to a formula with their franchises?
And if so:
Why do you think they get so extremely judged for sticking to a formula when other franchises do not?
I expect there to probably be a few cries of 'internet hates Nintendo' and so on - and clearly it's not reflected by consumers who buy these games no matter how small the tweaks are, but do you think reviewers have a point by marking down games like B&W2?
For example, do you think that because Nintendo have demonstrated that they can be incredibly inventive with their games (i.e. Super Mario Galaxy), that they're held up to a higher standard for everything - and where they stagnate, they're kind of encouraged (by less-than-stellar reviews) to improve?
Compare this to Capcom, who recently evolved their Resident Evil formula well beyond the original game's design, and proved - at least to many reviewers - that they don't really have what it takes to change things up. Does this difference mean people expect more of Nintendo?
Or is there even any point Nintendo changing anything too drastically, when their consumers are happy with small tweaks to the formula?
Idk, just thought I'd share my... thoughts, in a thread. Let me know your ... ... thoughts ... below :)
