Not so long ago, the behemoth that is Final Fantasy XIII was released. Around the same time the floods of reviews came crashing in. Most were positive and some were not so much. There was, however, some that were really bad. Three in particular were written by
TeamXbox,
Edge online and
Destructoid to which each I felt were nothing positive and only written that way in order to get hits, a lot would be unhappy fans complaining but a hit is a hit, right?
I’m not saying that I write the best reviews in the world but I can recognise quality in a game, regardless of how much I hate it. The style of review I generally write is one that includes all the facts and my opinion on the game too. There are some games that I haven’t found to be that good (in my opinion) but I can recognise that even a bad games good points.
As I am usually logged on twitter I decided to post my dislike for the reviews I had read on Final Fantasy XIII as I was writing my review at the same time.
My initial post was: looked at @TeamXbox review of FFXIII, how the hell was it given a 5? think the reviewer was rating it low regardless. It was a witch hunt.
There were a couple of reasons that made me come to that conclusion. The first was because I felt the text in the review was just one sided, the second was because they scored the game at a massive 5 out of 10. Its not that scores are something I generally look at, but when I calculated the average according to their score structure, it showed the score as 6.9 which to me was a giant difference.
Not so long after I tweeted I received a reply: @zerocool3397 FFXIII is polarizing, for sure. The reviewer stated why he scored it, and you’re free to disagree. Have you played it yet?
This is where I decided that I could successfully pull apart their review and offer a different opinion than that of the reviewer, so with the help of twitlonger I replied.
@TeamXbox been playing it for 32hrs and I have had a lot of fun. First thing I did was change the settings so that the cursor wasn’t defaulted to the auto-battle button, then I sat back and had a lot of fun. Yeah the game teaches you how to to fight but it does also let you fight and the battle system evolves over time, becoming more complicated. The Paradigm Shift adds tactics to the battling, switching between roles to get the best results.
I do agree that towns and villages would have been a good idea (more NPC interaction) it’s not necessary, don’t forget, the game is set in a futuristic setting, to have towns probably wouldn’t suit the setting. Also the game concentrates on action more than wandering around talking to NPC characters for 3hrs while you decide if you’re gonna take on the boss that’s waiting around the corner for you.
The game is very linear more so at the beginning but so was Final Fantasy VII at the beginning while you wandered Midgar. So was Final Fantasy X too which was probably the most linear, both rated extremely high. Complaints about the story are dumbfounding, its like the reviewer wasn’t even watching the screen, it’s not hard to work out what it going on and if attention is paid then not knowing the story would have been clear.
The game does change which characters you play but allows you to experience a portion of their stories and shows you how they all come together and the decisions they make along the way before all finding each other once again to battle it out till the end. You could even say that the story is told like a lot of good books if you don’t find it clear as day then you really want watching it. So what’s wrong with the flashbacks?! They happen in a lot of games but does the fact that its a Final Fantasy game not allow it to do that? A stupid statement and the flashbacks allow depth to the characters. Talking them away would be like watching a TV series two thirds of the way through.
Complaining about the character design, saying the characters look like they have fallen out of a cosplay, hello! its a fantasy game what did you want? To dress them up in suits? Your review goes back to the 35hr tutorial, what tutorial? you mean the one that barely appears. The game makes you follow the story in a less convoluted form before removing the shackles for a while and giving you freedom then you continue the story when you are ready, that wasn’t too hard to work out.
The battle system is genius and apart from the auto-battle button, one of the best combat systems in a JRPG let alone a Final Fantasy game. It starts off basic then evolves over time, yeah I agree that the level caps are annoying but only if you grind for load of hours, you can however not grind and once you hit the level cap, you technically are grinding even if you don’t realise it, its actually clever. The level caps keep you from getting too far ahead and not being presented with a challenge but also allow you to store up exp to use when the cap is lifted. You also forgot to mention the lack of money you get in the game which I personally find annoying as I like to attain 99 of everything, just in case.
The whole review that you presented seemed nothing more than a witch hunt. The reviewer seems to have compared it to every Final Fantasy game or JRPG ever made. In reality, if he wanted it to be like Final Fantasy VII (maybe?!) then he should have just played that game and stopped complaining. FFXIII should be reviewed on its own merits not on the merits of every other JRPG. In the end it just looks like nothing more than a fanboy rant with no real justification to his reasoning. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it’s the best game ever made but at least I can praise it on its own merits not complaining because it wasn’t what I wanted it to be.
After my long rant at picking apart their review I decided to wait to see if I got a reply. After a couple of days I decide that I had done enough waiting so I asked them once again via twitter if they were just ignoring me (I was poite, seriously I was).
I got a reply from someone and then set about retweeting all that had happened with whomever it was that decided not to reply (it was probably the reviewer). What was more amusing was even though I had pulled apart their review and heavily criticised it for its flamebait approach, they still tried to justify the score. I don’t generally make a habit to criticise other sites but I had to see the justification behind it; to be honest there was none. The review editor (whom I was chatting to) felt that the reviewer had justified himself throughout the review. To give some backstory, this particular review caused a bit of an uproar as the reviewer originally hadn’t finished the game. There was an issue with disk two which didn’t allow the reviewer to progress, so he based his review on the first 20 hours of play. After a lot of complaints from angry readers who could tell that the reviewer hadn’t played the full game, they had to pull the review and finish the game before reposting it again. Again the review was submitted with the same opinion and score.
I’m not sure they were expecting the above response from myself initially, but it’s clear to me that the reviewer had no interest in reviewing it properly and the editor seemed to feel that he had justified himself to publish the article, what review was he looking at?! Justification is when you say bad or good things about something, and then you say why you have formed that conclusion.
In relation to the Edge Online review I did message them but received no response, and my friend and fellow writer Giuseppe Nelva had an amusing conversation with Jim Sterling (of destructoid) about his review which also received the same criticism.
I think it’s a safe assumption that I won’t compromise my principles to make my reviews stand out by flamebaiting a game to gain recognition. I agree that there should be some opinion but to me the whole idea of reviewing a game is to provide all the information possible , and allow the reader to form their own opinion.
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