| RolStoppable said: I don't think length is a valid criticism when shoot'em ups which got good review scores commonly clocked in at one hour or less for the first playthrough. Such games quickly reach the point where less is more, because there are only so many enemy formations and patterns before things start to get repetitive and feel like padding. When it comes to value in shoot'em ups, it's really all about how replayable the content is. Star Fox Zero has 12 main levels and 8 shorter ones. A playthrough goes through 8-12 levels. If the high score table in the arcade mode is complete, then there are 19 possible routes to play through the game, and the top 5 scores are saved for each individual route. While medals can be collected in arcade mode, story mode is a lot more suited for it because you can choose the individual levels once you've unlocked them. There are 70 medals and the objectives aren't always obvious. There is also a training mode with 9 stages; you can go for gold trophies there, but I don't think they will do anything and the stages aren't really interesting to play. I have no idea if there is a hard mode to unlock. I guess it's possible if you collect all 70 medals, but that's going to take a while. |
I mean, it's more about what you're willing to put into the game. Some people might feel that beating the 12 levels and unlocking the new ones is not enough to pay the price of the game. I know that it's enough for me because I'm going to get the medals and the trophies, and I'm going to unlock all the secret paths that's what I liked about SF64 (medal hunting), and I'm sure I'll put a lot of time into Zero. But some people might fell that it's not very compelling. So... I can understand it, though I don't share the criticism. The obvious thing to do would be to compare the game to similar games of the genre, and it's not short in content, but I don't expect some reviewers to do that. I understand that they might be dissapointed. Maybe "valid" was not the right word to use :P.
Have you played the game? I know that you can't possibly have all the 70 medals, but how do you feel about the controls? It's hard to get used to them? That's maybe what worries me the most. It looks like the game is fun, but it will take some time to be good at it. I've read your previous impression, but I want to know if in the end they've got better.
