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Forums - Gaming - Forget 7 - EDGE given FFXIII a 5!

Wagram on 05 March 2010

Seraphic is sexist - confirmed? *Kefka Laugh*

...Just messin.



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Carl on 05 March 2010

Meh, they DID give Dragon Age a 5, and it was an awesome... Awesome game.

So a 5 from Edge doesn't bother me



                            

Alic0004 on 05 March 2010
lestatdark said:
Wagram said:
lestatdark said:
Well, it was kinda expected, plus their review isn't that bad, just that the linearity let them down big time.

Plus, they gave Dragon Age a 5 too, so FFXIII = DA:O is really awesome in my book :P

Though I didn't like DA all that much. I still say it deserves an 8.

It was my favourite WRPG last year, took me back to the Baldur's Gate days :) 

And now, with all the mods and DLC that the game has gotten, it's really huge.

There will always be different opinions about games. No sense in only glossing over the ones that give good scores to the games that you like and dismissing the ones that give them low scores. FFXIII is one of my most awaited games this year and no review, good or bad, could deny me that XD

I guess that's the same for everyone who is waiting for this game ;) 

Yeah, Dragon Age is my favorite RPG in years (otherwise I wouldn't be working on a mod for it all by myself).  A 5 for that game doesn't convince me I'm going to agree with their taste in RPGs... we'll see if it extends to FFXIII.



 

Cougarman on 05 March 2010

that is some harsh review, i can understand why they gave it a 5 though



Wii/Mario Kart Wii Code:2793-0686-5434
solidpumar on 05 March 2010

I am more excited for Tales of Vesperia Ps3 version... especially since I don't have a 360.



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richardhutnik on 05 March 2010
Scoobes said:
Not that suprised to be honest given the history of Edge and Final Fantasy reviews. Everything we heard after the Japanese release suggested this was the sort of game Edge would score poorly. Linear, lacking originality, lots of cut-scenes etc.

And if this is going to be dragging a game now, I am curious what the heck is the future of the traditional JRPG.  Are there any basic JRPGs that are getting high scores at this point?  Are any capable of doing scores like Mass Effect 2 has, or Fable or Fallout 3?

Has time passed the JRPG format by?  By the way, outside of coming out of Japan, what makes Demon's Souls a JRPG?



aragod on 05 March 2010
numonex said:
Edge is the leading European reviewer. Their opinion counts. I expected a 6 but a 5 it means the game must have some serious issues.

*Runs and cancels pre-order of FFXIII. Waiting for it to be in bargain bins.

They are only famous for their harsh reviews and fan's acusation of beeing Xbox biased.

They are known in britain, pretty much noone else know they exist, if it weren't for these "controversial" reviews.

Giving ODST 9 and FFXIII 5 is typical. (This isn't console based, just quality, full release against datadisc)



MY HYPE LIST: 1) Gran Turismo 5; 2) Civilization V; 3) Starcraft II; 4) The Last Guardian; 5) Metal Gear Solid: Rising

Wagram on 05 March 2010

It's funny how Edge is so strong on games that have a lack of originality but then give FPS games 9+ scores. Hypocrites.



Pristine20 on 05 March 2010

lol, gotta love EDGE reviews. I'd like to play a game developed by EDGE, I'm sure it will be perfect!



"Dr. Tenma, according to you, lives are equal. That's why I live today. But you must have realised it by now...the only thing people are equal in is death"---Johann Liebert (MONSTER)

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It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives"---Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler

Alic0004 on 05 March 2010
r505Matt said:
Alic0004 said:
r505Matt said:
Alic0004 said:
r505Matt said:
Alic0004 said:
I know that Edge grades on a wider scale in general. I also haven't played the game, so I can't really offer any judgment. However, I will say this:

A game being polished is different from a game simply not having glaring or game-breaking bugs. The number of really polished video games we get every year is actually very small, and I do think that a highly polished game (say one that offers a smoother experience than 99% of the other games released every year) should indeed get above a mediocre or average score, whether or not the reviewer agrees with the design philosophies of the game. You don't give Starcraft a mediocre review just because you've never liked an RTS -- you grade it mainly based on its execution.

Second, it seems to me JRPGs are getting the stuffing beaten out of them by reviewers this generation. Again, I don't know whether FFXIII is an incredibly polished game (it may just be the graphics) but reviewing something based on the direction you think games should go in or based on the type of games you prefer and want to see more of is not something that video game reviews have done very much in the past. If it becomes more standard to do so, reviews may behave very differently in the future. For example, if I were to honestly review first person shooters on consoles, based on the amount of enjoyment I get out of them, most would average around a four or five, with a few going up as high as seven. Again, I'm not saying that's what's going on with FFXIII, but if it is a very polished and well-executed game I think there will be a pretty clear trend of extremely polished JRPGs getting review scores that rank them next to cheap movie game tie-ins and shovelware, and if that's the case, the fanbase for JRPGs needs to start making some (fucking) noise.

But there's a difference between polished and fun, and that distinction seems to be forgotten. A game can be very very polished and still at it's core lack a high level of entertainment or enjoyment.

The review seems to center on the reviewer's belief that essentially, the first half of the game is BORING. And he needs to review based on what people as a whole, not just JRPG fans, would like and believe. Just because a few million people would not find it boring, doesn't mean the other ~50 million gamers won't, and that's important to think about to when reviewing. He can't just cater to the JRPG fans, he has to review it as a gamer. After reading the review, it looks like he does that.

It's my hope that he isn't reviewing it for all the people who aren't going to play the game, just as people didn't review Halo and Call of Duty for all the Moms who bought Wii Fit.

 

If that is the case, all I can say to those who think this is a good idea is, enjoy the day when your favorite kind of video game becomes the special project of reviewers to tell people stay away from, and the zeitgeist in the video game world turns so against what you enjoy that you worry about whether or not you'll still be playing games at all in a few years.

 

    I'm actually not reading the review because I want to avoid spoilers and having to think about a bunch of other people's opinions when I'm playing the game, so take my worries with a grain of salt.  I'm just voicing what I think I may be talking about after I play the game, assuming I like it.

That's a good point, and I didn't mean to suggest a reviewer should review for every gamer in mind, but I guess I did suggest that -.-

But, I think he looked at it from the perspective of ALL gamers that would even think of trying it, so it might not include the Wii Fit moms, but it could include the ME2 fans. And he seems to comment on the pacing of the game with that in mind.

There are no spoilers really, but essentially, the main thing I read and disliked was a mention of a SLOW progression curve for the battle system. He mentioned that the game would introduce a gameplay mechanic, and then you would need to spam it for a bunch of fights, then a new mechanic, spam that, etc. I personally prefer, give me everything or mostly everything at once, and maybe make some things more relevant at certain times, but don't baby me into it. It's kind of condescending and patronizing like the game would be telling me "No really, you can't handle this, take it slow".

Again, I really have no idea -- the slow progression and endless tutorials do really bother me in games nowadays, unless they're done well.  JRPGs actually have a tradition of building really carefully by introducing new abilities to the player level by level and occasionally through the story's progression, but doing it in a way where the game just seems like it's getting more and more fun.  FFXIII could have dropped the ball on this.  FFXII certainly did to some extent, with gambits.

 

   As far as what perspective he's reviewing it from, I really hope he's not doing a review from the perspective of someone who loves Mass Effect 2.  Imagine a world in which Mass Effect 2 got half its reviews from the perspective of anime-loving fourteen year olds hungry for bright colors and highly unlikely leaps in the narrative.  Critical opinion would be mixed, people wouldn't know what a homerun it is for most WRPG fans.

 

Well to give a number, the reviewer said it takes about 20 or 25 hours to get through all the tutorial-ish stuff and get to "the real game". For his credit, he said he was good after you get to that point (to a degree, still some faults).

To the reviewing thing again, I wouldn't want someone to review from the perspective of a FF-lover, just like I wouldn't want Uncharted reviewed from the perspective an Uncharted lover. I'd want FF reviewed by an RPG fan, and Uncharted by an action game fan. Fans of the overal genre, not sub-genres, or specific series. ME2, being another RPG (and a great one), I think it's great if that's part of the perspective, as well as any other good (and bad I guess) RPG. That should all go into reviewing an RPG whether it's action, strategy, or anything. I think that's the fairest way to review something.

Yeah, but it's quite possible that you've got a problem when you define an RPG fan as "someone who thought Mass Effect 2 was a great game."  Let me give you an example.  My girlfriend is sitting here next to me -- she's not a gamer at all, but she's played through four of the Final Fantasies, Fable II, The Longest Journey, and a few other games.  She saw a TV commercial for Mass Effect 2 during a Viking's game a while ago and it made her laugh at how cheesy it looked.  I know this is impossible to understand to people like us, who read all the latest opinions about which games are great and which deserve to die, but the fact is, there are people who would never play video games if they were all like Mass Effect 2.  Her opinion probably shouldn't matter about ME2 -- it doesn't affect my ability to enjoy the game that she scoffs at the somewhat generic sci-fi character designs whenever she sees me playing it and asks "when is Final Fantasy coming out?"  But it makes it clear to me at least that many Final Fantasy games have strengths that ME2 doesn't even attempt to have, such as a Fantasy/Science Fiction world which is hard to define, a beauty which catches the eye of people who think most video games look horribly generic, and a type of gameplay which is fun even for people who almost never pick up a controller.

 

In the same way that Wii Fit fans should be discounted from most RPG reviews, because it can safely be assumed they won't like them, any subset of players who can be depended upon to universally hate a game probably shouldn't be considered its target audience by a reviewer.  I know sometimes reviewers just want to voice their own opinion, audience be damned -- and personally I think that's fine.  My worry is that it may be becoming a whole movement of "we like WRPGs, so JRPGs that aren't imitating them, no matter how polished and well executed they are, have to be taken to task."