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Nuvendil on 26 August 2015
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patronmacabre said:

If I am going to be totally serious for a second, I think the reviews to this game is yet more evidence that you should pay attention to previews as indicators of how a game will be reviewed. You can't pay attention to the static, like Famitsu's review -- you have to look for the general trend.

Previewers thought The Order: 1886 was incredibly bland and mediocre before it was released. Its scores indicated that, despite people thinking it would score much higher.
Previewers found Until Dawn to be endearing and enjoyable, despite it being demonstrably flawed before it was released. Its scores indicated that, despite people thinking reviewers would eviscerate it.
Previewers described Devil's Third as an absolute abomination before it was released. Its scores indicated that, despite some people thinking it would still be good.

Now, if I'm going to make a prediction following these guidelines, I'm probably going to go with (and I am going to get a hell of a lot of flak for this) Xenoblade Chronicles X. Almost every indicator suggests that, while it is still good, it is significantly less good than the original. So, we should expect that it will score significantly lower than the original (85-ish should be expected).

If it turns out that it's amazing, and light years better than the original, I will happily back down from my argument.

Actually, most previews and reviews I have seen for Xenoblade Chronicles X - there aren't many, mind - have been quite positive.  IGNs was positive, the Nintendo World Report (or it might have been Insider) preview/review thing was postive, the Famitsu reviews were positive, Dualshocker's  preview was positive.  The only *not* positive one from anyone "major" that comes to mind is the Famitsu preview.  Which is hardly shocking as they gave the original a considerable ammount of crap too (while openly admiting they played less than half the core content of the game and next to none of the side content).  So if the general trend is to be believed, 85 to low 90s would be expected, with 90 being a safe bet.  Not saying this will be the case, there are other factors at play such as who is chosen to review it (it is clasified as a JRPG but has a lot of WRPG design to it, moreso than the first, so the score could be effected by whether or not it's a JRPG or WRPG focused reviewer who reviews the game).

But previews aren't always indicators of the final reception.  I remember back when Two Worlds was first being talked about and shown, the previews were quite hopeful.  Then the game released and was panned because the "rough beta build" they had played turned out to be the *final* build that was released.

But barring that, shouldn't previews be tied to final scores?  I mean, if you aren't previewing a rough beta build but rather something as close to the finished product as you can get it, shouldn't the reception of that preview be similar in some regard to the final product?  I don't see the issue here.  I would find a much more serious problem if glowing previews turned into crappy reviews at the last minute or vice versa.