LordTheNightKnight said:
facher83 said:
Oh... http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/review/R103253.html
"I'm not going to compare the two. I'm going to explain to you, straight up, why Chrono Cross deserves to be my most hated video game of all time. Not role playing game, not Squaresoft game, BUT VIDEO GAME."
"...the horrible music ..." - This impressed me, CC has one of the best Square OST's ever and is usually recognized that way.
"The rest of the game seriously does look wonderful, unless you look really closely at the screen and see all those pixels and crap like that. But if you look at it from a normal distance it'll look pretty good!" - As I recall, during its release, it was one of the best looking PS1 games out there, graphically. Funny.
It's as if the guy ignored everything about the game and somehow got a 'featured review' on gamefaqs. How does that kind of ignorant review even get 'featured'. lol |
It seems you ignored the review. First of all, the music he referred to was just the battle music. He states near the end that he like the rest of the soundtrack. It's just that the battles being frequent make the battle music prevalent. Second, he did say that the game looked good. Just don't look at it too close. However, the texelation* is not a fault of the game, as much as the PS1's lack of trilinear mapping (since games like FFVIII, FFIX, MGS1, and Vagrant Story have texelation as well). As for the whole review, I say this guy put up most of the complaints of those of us who were disappointed with the game, even if we don't downright hate it. *Some confuse that for pixelation, but pixels are a fixed dot on the screen, and a texel is a dot in 3D graphics. Basically, if it moves, it's made of texels. |
You have avoided the topic at hand, or at least distorted it.
And I quote and add a paraphrase to the review:
"Psycho Penguin runs across screen. An enemy darts in the way! And an ugly looking one, at that. Good, he says! He likes to fight! Battling for experience points is good! So, he approaches the beast and the most god awful song he's ever heard plays. Eh, alright, he'll play with the sound off. So, he does so, and he continues through the weird battle that has him do different kinds of attacks. After the battle, he doesn't even get experience points! Some stats just randomly leveled up! Dejected, he figured he could use the gold for weapons and armor, but alas, SQUARE IS STUPID." - Reviewer came in expecting to play Final Fantasy and decided since he wasn't playing Final Fantasy, he didn't like to play a different game.
Gameplay: 1/10 due to not being a generic cookie-cut progression system.
In the same fashion, FFVII should be reviewed a 1/10 gameplay due to not employing any new system of progression, using the same similar experience system as the previous Final Fantasy game... except the reviewer has assumed if it's not the exact same as every other game, he hates it. Just like the designers of Chrono Cross can be quoted somewhere in saying the American audience mostly missed the objectivity of the game, which is not mainstream; for the same reason Mario 2 in Japan never hit American shelves, because of a bias against Americans not liking challenge, but easy reward.
Easy reward and satisfaction.
"I just named to you several of the flaws the game has to offer. If you want bad gameplay in a role playing game, this is the place to be. I at least liked the basic battle setup, to be fair. This game is Xenogears-like in that you get a certain amount of stamina each round. You can do attacks which lower your stamina. The more powerful the attack, the more stamina it takes away. Once you run out of stamina, it's the next person's turn."
Due to actually liking the battle system, the previous stated 1/10 gameplay rating will still not change. Reviewer gives 1/10 and is sticking with guns, even though contradicting self.
"To continue along the theme of Elements, Chrono Cross's magic system is ultimately disappointing, although not as horrible as the rest of the game. This is the weirdest magic system I've ever seen. Not necessarily bad, just weird."
Still, the most horrid video game ever, reviewer will stick to 1/10 gameplay.
"You will spend more time fooling around with your Elements than you will at actually, you know, fighting battles and saving the world and all that jazz. The elements are set up automatically for you if you wish, but good luck getting through any key battles. So, you'll need to check up on your elements all the time just to make sure you can survive battles, and it gets annoying quickly." - About as much time as fooling around with generic RPG armor, weapons, and other investments. For dissing a generic RPG concept it sure is a bit hypocritical.
"I'm going to explain to you, straight up, why Chrono Cross deserves to be my most hated video game of all time. Not role playing game, not Squaresoft game, BUT VIDEO GAME." -Roleplaying, acting a particular role. This definition to a lot of American audiences has been the idea that leveling up means RPG. This is silly. AD&D is an RPG. "American RPG" (although rooted in Japanese ideology) means to most people literally "Modified Action/Adventure/Progressive Story Game". Except when a game such as Chrono Cross leans away from Action a bit, leans away from the detailed character physical Progression, and leans more toward Progressive Story, the expectations should have changed but continued to admit to a biased expectation. This is not Final Fantasy or AD&D. True game reviews are based on the games themselves, not against other games unless 'originality' is being observed. Is it new? In this case, it's as if a new trick can't be taught to old dogs.
For the record, Xenogears had a lot of the same development team as Chrono Trigger/Cross.
"I didn't even get to the part that truly makes me hate Chrono Cross yet, so stay tuned, because here comes MR. RANTER!" -Admitting that this review is a rant basically explains why the review is bad. It's a rant, because the reviewer went in with an expectation and was surprised to the point the reviewer just feels obligated to state they wanted to use the 50 bucks on a more generic "RPG".
"It's like Square wanted to sacrifice fun in terms of originality. Remember when games could do both? Hell, I just played a new game by Capcom (cough cough) where it's both unique AND fun. Chrono Cross is unique and very BAD. You can make a game unique and still manage to keep in some elements that actually make it worth playing. Not so in Chrono Cross." - A question arises about whether or not the game was actually played through from various objectivities, including the massive story and modifications that can result, such as the many different endings. With the reviewer's expectations already set in stone before turning the console on you can not possibly start to review a game based on originality and uniqueness. Pre-conceived expectations are one of the most blatant red flags for low quality opinions.
"Let's say you actually survive a battle in the game without turning it off due to the horrible music or the fact that the enemies seem to take unusual amounts of punishment before dying. You will notice that you don't get experience points. Instead of leveling up by EARNING it, stats are RANDOMLY leveled up. That's right, randomly. I asked the board several months ago and they told me that stats are just chosen randomly to be selected, and that after several battles you won't even get any more level ups until you find another star." - Actually surviving a battle? Unusual amounts of punishment? Since when are generic "RPG"s realistic in terms of punishment? How many sword thrusts does it take to actually pierce the protagonist's abdommen? 200 times? 500 times? This is where we are fed some more bias, which sounds similar to "BS". Fed with a spoon.
As far as the "randomly" leveling up, if I recall correctly (I'd have to pull out my CD collection and play it a bit with different files to remember), but the leveling system actually does reward those that go out and train - there is a large gain with start-levels, where a 'level up' actually occurs. However, if you do nothing but star-level, you will not be as strong stat-wise as if you went out and trained until your 'star-level' maxes out. You may still go train against enemies and get random stat gains until your limit is reached. Without attaining the limit for each level you will indeed be less strong than those who do. Someone, mainly the reviewer, wasn't paying attention very well.
Still, gameplay is a 1/10.
Originality is 1/10, due to lacking of "quality".
"This means that basically those who take the time to level up will find themselves just as strong as those who don't by the end of the game. And all I have to say to this is, that's way too bad. Square should know better. I know they're probably mad at the people that spent 300 hours mastering FF7 and then complaining that they could beat Ultima Weapon with 1 hit. I'm sure I'd be mad too. Hell, I'm mad at them too for expecting for a challenge after spending 300 hours. However, they should be REWARDED for their hard work, not punished." -Coming in with an expectation, a drone similarity to other games previously played, once again bias. This is where an artful production has been discredited because of what would seem to be a selfish review... first we're inserting opinions on others who have not been quoted in having the opinion. Square made lots of money on Chrono Cross, as it made best seller lists and had a number of extremely high reviews - Square was better off as a result of Cross, but the idea of the review stating Square was/is better off without is a sad misconception of reality.
"However, every RPG should either follow a ''This game will be easy or hard because you will determine it'' type of game, or a ''You can still level up, but the enemies level up with you, but other than that, we won't punish you for it'' type of game. Why can't Square figure that out already?" - The reviewer never really comes to detail what exactly the punishment is. I'm guessing the punishment is not having satisfaction of an 'ultimate warrior' by training, but honestly, there are other forms of training, such as your mind, the actual story, or perhaps even the meaning of a game, the impact.
"However, every RPG should either follow..." - No comment merits the amount of bias this states. Pre-conceived expectations of any game has a degrading impact on any game in general. It's what makes a lot of games stale when cookie-cut impressions are made.
"But you can get gold and items to make weapons and armor! Too bad it sucked just as bad as it did in FF8. Here's an idea: steal Legaia 2's idea. Make weapon combining and modifying items easy to come by, except for the truly rare ones, which you earn by doing insane side quests. Don't make me go to some rat tat island and fight for a while so I can steal six bolts." - Did the reviewer's comments of having to work for something go out the door? I could have sworn working for something was not present in Chrono Cross, according to the reviewer, but I now get the impression that laziness is actually the issue. Exploration is one of Chrono Cross' concepts. Exploration and Progression may not be the same as Brute Force Growth, but it's the same umbrella topic.
Replay Value - 1/10 due to feeling unrewarded and wasting money.
"OH BUT GOOD NEWS! You can see the enemies. But you can't avoid them! Because they can see you, and they'll run after you. Sometimes. Most just stand there. You know, I hated how Lunar just put enemies in front of all the doors and stuff, but at least those enemies actually pretended you were there..." - Seeing the enemies is not as realistic as having invisible 'appearing' enemies? This is like stating that having a black and white bull is not as good as having an invisible bull, because at least the latter doesn't have a color problem. Hehe. Technologically better than invisible enemies, but discredited still. Therefore....
Graphics - 1/10
"Sure, the game looks nice. However, graphics have never made much of a difference to me and the prettiness of the game can't hide its flaws. Battle graphics are beautiful, some of the best I have seen on the Playstation, by far. The enemies are well designed and the backgrounds are well detailed and colorful for the most part. Some of the scenery is a tad too bright and colorful, but I'll take what I can get, as I ALWAYS TRY TO FIND GOOD POINTS IN GAMES!"
- Still, even though graphics mean nothing to me, I'm going to hold it against a game. I will state that the graphics are some of the best on the Playstation from personal experience, but, to support the 1/10 rating, I will rate the graphics score as stated above.
Graphics - Still 1/10
"The rest of the game seriously does look wonderful, unless you look really closely at the screen and see all those pixels and crap like that. But if you look at it from a normal distance it'll look pretty good!"
Graphics - Still 1/10
"I'd like to comment big time on the music now! Haha. The battle system sounds like my dog farted into a tuba where a fat man was eating a tuna fish sandwich, and the funa fish came alive and started playing guitar. The fat man then exploded, and the sound he makes while exploding are the sound effects. Thank god they made the Lucca theme from CT the victory theme, but it's not like you'll last long enough to actually hear it." - So, the reviewer does not explain any real reasonings behind disliking the music, except that somehow a fiddle sounds like a tuna fish, and a bass beat sounds like a dog fart in a tuba. I find this quite inaccurate. Readers may find this on YouTube at...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxPdz6jpDPc
Sound - 1/10 based on one track, dismissing the entire soundtrack. One of the few Square titles with such a variety and large library of -quality-, and different sounding music, an OST (Original Sound Track) was released. Evidently the reviewer knows something Square does not.
"Oh, and the rest of the music is pretty good. I liked that opening song a lot, I got it on a burned CD. It was pretty damn impressive. I still hum to it. I wish it would have gone in a better game, but it's THE FIRST SONG. I liked the boss battle theme a lot, as well as the town theme and the overworld theme. The victory theme, like I stated, is awesome because it is one of Chrono Trigger's best songs, Lucca's theme." - Wait... the music -IS- good?
Sound - still 1/10
"The game is also pretty linear, so you won't have too much of a challenge figuring out what to do next." - Linear like an epic novel, I suppose. I'm just confused as to why this is an issue. Linear must mean to the reviewer that if a battle outside of purpose exists, like a side-plot, it must not be linear. Something 'else' to do. The only contradiction is that "RPG", or even "Video Game", is implied a stereotype that all RPG's and Video Games should not be linear. The reviewer really just states that you know your objective and where to go all the time. Why is this bad?
Story - 1/10
"At least the storyline is somewhat marginable, sadly I can't tell you any of the good parts because they're all spoilers, but some parts of the game will make you wonder what Square was thinking, and others will generally interest you, especially when the main character starts going through some weird changes. The storyline wasn't all that great, and it certainly didn't do its job of holding this shoddy game together." - Didn't play the game while reading, I don't think. Skipping dialog is not recommended. I'm assuming the reviewer didn't pay attention to much, but what do I know? There are good parts, interesting parts, events that catch you really well, but...
Story - still 1/10
Worst. Story. Ever. 1/10
Worst. Graphics. Ever. 1/10
Worst. Control and design. Ever. 1/10
Worst. Music. Ever. 1/10
Therefore,
Worst. Game. Ever. 1/10
You tell me, honest review?
