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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Reviews by The Walrus: Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze

 

Would you like me to keep reviewing with my style?

Yes 24 31.58%
 
No 50 65.79%
 
Total:74
BraveNewWorld said:
supernihilist said:
my DKCR TF review

Graphics 10/10
Sound 10/10
Gameplay 8/10
Value 7/10
Peanuts 0/60

since peanuts are the most important part of my gaming sessions i give a overall score of 35/100

but the game is pretty good, if only they would put some of those delicious peanuts on it, its not that much effort is it?


This is great, I laughed so hard.

This made me laugh because Diddy actually has a PEANUT POPGUN.

Peanuts 70/60



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Pavolink said:
Sounds like it's not a good game!


More like its a not good review. 



Blinker said:
Pavolink said:
Sounds like it's not a good game!


More like its a not good review. 


It is an excellent game and I would recommend anyone buying it! I had a blast with it and it's my favorite side scrolling platformer of all time. Still though, I stand by my score.



impertinence said:
MTZehvor said:
impertinence said:
Dulfite said:
bouzane said:
"Story: The most important part of a game for me. /30"

No offense but video games have terrible stories and playing games for this reason is beyond my comprehension.


Some video games have great stories. Ever played The Last Story for Wii? Or Thousand Year door for Gamecube? The story of the Halo games was my favorite part of them! If you don't like the stories that's fine, but I'm kind of tired of people in this thread belitting me (not saying you're doing that specifically) for appreciating stories in games more than anything else.

I am sorry to have to inform you that no videogame has a great story. Most likely you have come to the opposite conclusion because you mistake the immersion that is gained from interactivity for a great story. In reality however, a good story and a good videogame are mutually exclusive entities and any 'story driven' game to date is a medicore compromise between two incompatible forms of expression.

I contest this statement. The Ace Attorney titles, Okami, Spec Ops: The Line, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Fire Emblem: Awakening, to name a few, all contained incredible stories and were quite fun to play too. With the exception of Spec Ops, I'd probably consider every single one of those "great" games from a pure gameplay perspective as well. A great story is easily compatible with great gameplay, and a narrative can often take a merely good experience and make it an overall great one. Immersion is just one part of it; some of the stories in these games are ones that I've watched others play through first and found myself engrossed by on the sole merits of the narrative quality. Story is certainly not all there is to a game, but you definitely need to expand your gaming horizons if you seriously believe that there has never been a video game with a great story.

As for the review, I'll simply echo what most people have been saying, but perhaps do so a bit less harshly. If story really means that much to you in a game, then more power to you. Play story driven games, and have fun with them. But you might want to hold off reviewing games that are outside of your enjoyment spectrum, especially if you plan on docking this many points for something they don't even try to do. In the same way that it would be unfair to criticize the Halo games for not having enough 2D platforming segments, it's unfair to criticize the Donkey Kong Country series for not trying to implement a story when it's never tried to.

Contest it all you want. It still remains a fact. 100% of the time people say that there are videogames with great stories they acts as if there are no objective standards for good story telling. When they say "This story is great" they mean: "I really enjoyed this story". In the real world however, there are standards both for story telling, and for game design. Furthemore, these standards are in direct conflict on many fronts. Most easily seen in the linear structure of stories vs the interactivity of a videogame. This chasm can not be crossed, and any attempt to do so will necessarily mean that one or the other has to compromise it's structure, or as is most often the case when people try to make a story driven videogame: they are both compromised.

You lost the majority of your credibility when you equated story quality to an objective measurement. How good a story is is by and large subjective, an opinion. There is no definitive right and wrong where opinions are concerned.

There certainly are some ground rules for storytelling that are applicable to all stories, and many video games follow these rules. Many games have underlying themes, subtle commentaries, expertly developed characters, twists and turns in plots. Regardless, not every single one of these rules needs to be kept for a story to be good. For example, stories do not need to linear in order to succeed; a story does not have to progress single mindedly from point A to point B, with no room for deviations, in order to be quality. The Deus Ex series is a perfect example of that.

But regardless, this assumes that all stories must follow a checklist of items in order to qualify as "good." I will grant that there are some areas in which the design of video games makes it more difficult to tell a standard story (i.e, it's hard to switch back and forth between developing various characters is harder to do in a game than a novel or movie), but that merely restricts what video games can do; it does not prohibit them from telling good stories. The interactivity of video games also opens up a whole new realm of storytelling possibilities as well via interactiveness. I'll bring up Deus Ex again, a story that would have been nowhere near as good as it was were it not for the player's ability to make decisions and watch how the world around them changes. That is a type of excellent storytelling that is exclusive to interactive entertainment.

And before you bring up the "no, you just enjoy it because it's immersive" argument, let me keep within your shallow expectations of what a story is allowed to be by saying that the immersion is only one part of how good the story is. The character reactions are all expertly written, and the way events shift and play out in response are expertly crafted and told as well. If nothing else, it does an expert job of communicating how one single person can change events simply by speaking a few words differently here and there.

Or I could reference the Ace Attorney titles. I watched the first two games on Youtube before finally purchasing the third and getting into the series that way, and found myself incredibly engrossed in the story without even playing the game. I can also easily list reasons as to why I enjoyed the story as well besides "I enjoyed it." The narrative balances humor and seriousness very well, keeping tongue in cheek references going while continuously pushing forward a highly engrossing and captivating plot; the characters are all expertly developed, and the main characters in particular all have well fleshed out motivations that make it easy to care about them. The pacing is done incredibly well, the various twists and turns of the narrative are all expertly laid out, and the resolution of each case is incredibly satisfying. If that doesn't prove that a game can have a good story, when I can enjoy the story without even playing the game, I'm not sure what possibly could.

To summarize, traditional movie/novel methods of storytelling and video games don't perfectly go together, certainly. However, narratives do not have to abide by the "by the book" (pun intended) method of storytelling to be good. Saying that no video game can have a good story, when a good story is in and of itself nearly entirely subjective, is incredibly pretentious for one, and quite arguably ignorant for two. The interactive element of video games doesn't exclude them from telling a good story, it just means that they have to adjust their method of story telling, and rely on certain things less and other things more. In the same way that good stories cannot be told exactly the same way through a movie and a novel, so to do stories have to adjust their methods of communication when they move to an interactive medium.



Dulfite said:
Blinker said:
Pavolink said:
Sounds like it's not a good game!


More like its a not good review. 


It is an excellent game and I would recommend anyone buying it! I had a blast with it and it's my favorite side scrolling platformer of all time. Still though, I stand by my score.

Okay, okay! I just think its a weird way of ranking it, especially since I care about more about gameplay than story. 



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wow it's hard to respect you as a reviewer when you put 30% on story. Every Puzzle games, pinball games, etc. would get 0/30 ..... this just doesn't make any sense.

The rating at the end of review is supposed to reflects the reviewers opinion on the game and give us a idea on if we should pick up the game. Take away all of your rating and just write up a review. If I ignore all of the worthless rating then I can say that I actually enjoyed your review and liked your point of view.



Graphics, art style, story, controls...

So, in your system, a game's score is not affected whatsoever by the quality of its level design. The actual hand-crafted design of stages, enemy placement, boss patterns, and so on holds no sway over your analysis. If you reviewed a Zelda game, the story would affect 30% of your score, the dungeons and overworld, 0%. Well, maybe that's not fair. If the dungeons and overworld are fun, maybe they can be half as important as the story.

...



Well, removing the story part, in my eyes you gave this game a 61/70, which is a very good score.



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Never liked the category reviews like these. DKC:TF is a platformer, story is not important because the game is not story focused. With that considered though, the game is probably right around your final score, 7 or 6 out of 10. That would not be because of the story, or lack there·of though.



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Dulfite said:
spurgeonryan said:
So because there is no story you rate it 68/100? It is not an RPG man!


It's not difficult to put at least some story in a game and again, that is my most important review category across any game. I still loved this game and Im close to naming it my favorite side scroller of all time bit the story stunk. They intentionally withheld one imo.


If you nag about a story in a platformer: please please please just stop reviewing.