I just recently breezed over RPGFan’s new Lost Odyssey review written by one of their staff. If you’re curious as to what I’ll be basing today’s entry off of, feel free to visit their home site and check it out. After breezing over it and making my first impressions from the review, I decided to actually read it and see what the reviewer had to say – and the entire process of that review expresses what I believe to be wrong with Gaming Journalism – Reviews these days. Not only do I find his opening paragraph extremely influential in allowing me to completely succumb to apathy regarding his credibility, but it also reminds me of my personal issues regarding RPG reviews specifically.
As a gamer of….many years (I’m 20, so 16..?14..?) I don’t like being fed generalized bull.
RPG reviews these days have become an archetype, per se. Typically, there’s some standardized flow that reviewers are entitled to write in for conciseness and clarity to readers of all demographics. First they tackle the intro to the game – some historical information regarding either the history of the company involved in primary influence in the game, or anything else such as the advancement of particular features. Then comes the storyline, then comes a mixture between battle system, gameplay, music, graphics and some moral-imposing summary from one reviewer’s prognosis. Now, nothing particularly is defunct with that process besides the concluding paragraphs, but in order to retain or gain more readers to any particular publishing individualism for online niche review sites, where is that individualism?
I perpetuated the process also when I worked at ALLRPG for some time, and in my months prior to leaving, I attempted to skew my writing process a bit differently because I was never exposed to any other format for an RPG review with depth that I personally loved to read at an RPG niche site; besides the horrible multi-genre media site such as IGN. Mind you, “perpetuated” is a non-neutral term that can reflect in my writing response a specific bias against the hackneyed (Oh, there we go again) review process, and I intend for that ambiguity to be there. But attempt to prevent yourself from assuming “perpetuated” as bad, in my case, and rather a modal term used to criticize an institutionalized format that can result in overt biasness which doesn’t hold over for particular gamers, specifically me. But please let me digress.
What exactly is a review? What is the purpose of a review? What separates the difference between a “review” modernly identified, and a response? A well known assumption of a review is a document that provides the facts with the individual reviewer’s — individualism. Another is that a review should be that – a review in the author’s voice with as little subjective remarks as possible – clear, concise, and a facilitator. The purpose is to rate a game or any other form of media. But how exactly can that layout of a review differentiate itself source-wise while disregarding a sheer response – let’s say, an elongated post on a message board? There really is no way to identify that considering the way gaming journalism has resulted in writing procedures similar to movie critics using target words or personal bias to moralize or force the reader to accept that reviewer’s argument as true to understand the entire review. Essentially, reviews have become arguments, but due to the inaccessibility of responses to reviews on-page or non-requiring a membership, their argument is allowed to stand unfaltering. So there we have it. Reviews have not historically, in the gaming industry, been neutral or significantly objective.
So what’s necessarily the problem that I have? I normally dislike any intentional berating review, be it for an RPG, for a movie, for how the Bear’s played in 2006 and so forth. Berating RPGs, such as the one on RPGFan regarding Lost Odyssey for the 360, tend to fit in a conundrum of argumentative fallacies, and if you pay close attention depending on your frequency to any particular site, contradictions. And being on a quite professional website allows those tendencies to echo as a conductor, or rather a source for others to base their resulting review or belief on. Through my experience reading reviews, berating ones tend to acknowledge one specific quality that’s positive, and then in some perverse intervention within game development, the game falls short of everything.
Let me clarify. Whenever anyone introduces their overall opinion over the developer of said game, and has had an unhappy experience with consistently, even a chance for some objective observations is instantly lost, not to mention to lack of interest in points given by readers because of the assertion. So if a review is to facilitate information, what benefit do readers get from polarized biasness different than what they would get from someone who hasn’t faceted a past history with a company/person? He is given points by me, whether it matters or not, that he actually engages the reader by putting up an unstated “Warning” rather than doing what many RPG reviews end up in – absolutes with no individualism. But he does tend to delve in to some absolutes, ambiguously, by acknowledging that his first opinions necessarily were the right opinions. This paragraph is a good example:
Honestly, throughout the game I found the plot to be the weakest point next to the gameplay, and for the same reason: both are so overused, uninspired, and stilted, that I as a gamer felt insulted. Plots in RPGs no more have to be about one-dimensional madmen trying to take over the world than they have to be about rescuing the princess from the evil wizard. Can we please move beyond this?
R: An issue with many reviews in any media is degrading it due to cliches, assuming that the authors are uninspired and lacking interest in developing progressive or “unique” differing mechanisms that create a breath of fresh air. This is a slippery slope – considering the many RPGs released with just that – “uniqueness” (Shadow Hearts, Vandal Hearts, Final Fantasy Tactics, Persona 2, Shin Megami Tensei, Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean Til the End of Time, the Xeno series, Enchanted aRMs, Suikoden III, Atelier Iris, Mana Khemia*, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Wild aRMS series, Taisen series, Magna Carta, Folklore, Mass Effect, and the list goes on . . .) – it’s hard to invest definitely in the phrase reflecting on the entire RPG industry.
* I have not played the game, thus I base my inclusion of the game from previews.
I have no issues with his opinions. Hell, you should see some of my reviews where I generalize casts by saying, “Just the redunant femme PC; storyline lacks interesting qualities,” etc. without delving into every quality I believed it lacked. And this entire process is ironic. If a game is lacking qualities, if it’s inefficient in presenting some piece of the game effectively to you, what qualities should have been implemented and what qualities should have been focused on? This is why RPG Gaming Journalism, Review-intensive at least, is broken.
And into conclusions.
To say that Lost Odyssey is a bad game is to do it an injustice. It’s not a fun game, though, and maybe that’s the same thing. A mixture of uninteresting gameplay, story, and voice acting, and sometimes frustrating controls combine to make a game that should only appeal to JRPG fanboys who can’t get enough of the uninspired mishmash of pseudo-philosophical drivel that passes for a deep story and characters that Japan spews out nowadays. Fortunately, said fanboys are legion, so LO should sell well, though at least those who play it will be exposed to some really excellent writing in the form of Kaim’s memories, and in the above average musical score. Still, I’d rather have read a Kiyoshi Shigematsu novel. Lost Odyssey, I dub thee a 75%.
Very unprofessionally handled, and I never expected to see that from RPGFan in reviews. Not only does it insult the mass amounts of possible readers because of their differing opinions that the reviewer apparently disqualifies, but it also lists everything the reviewer found wrong – and if you read throughout his review, he leaves little to no evidence or examples to back up his opinions which ultimately leaves it opening as a screamingly weak review. Apparently the reviewer dislikes turn-based menu battles, which is perfectly fine – to each his own. However, based on his dislike of those categories, the potential for conveying those opinions is stifled.
Which leads me to my last conclusion using his review as a basis for what upsets me regarding RPG reviews. The scoring. I have no clue why scoring was initially implemented, because games sell regardless of a person’s review. But depending on the articulation of the writer, the scores that are subjective, almost always are never depicted in conjunction with the review. Based on putting his gaming controller in my hand, I’d assume that he would rate the game much lower. But the game gets, on an American scaling system, Cs, Ds and low Bs. By quoting his wording, “uninspired mishmash of pseudo-philosophical drivel that passes for a deep story and characters that Japan spews out nowadays/and in the above average musical score [when he rates then 80% because of the voice acting, since voice acting+soundtrack=sound]/and yet manages to present only a mediocre showing in all of them. I found there to be one or two good performances in each language, but no language option, not even Japanese, had above-average voice acting across the board. That’s not to say that the VA was bad, just that, like the gameplay and story, it was nothing you haven’t heard before. ["you haven't heard before" as if the reviewer identifies with all of the readers . . . and mediocre when he doesn't define mediocre or place an example for understanding comparison]/and oddly inappropriate battle music, as usual ["as usual?"]” and his entire gameplay paragraph full of assertions and no supports. You’d assume that, through paying attention to his words, the game would be receiving a failing grade from his opinions. But not so. Why are scores implemented in reviews at all, when scores are inherently the essential bias of the reviewer and a way that they feel that game weighs normally not reflected in their words? Scoring for RPGs should be disenfranchised and tossed out of the computer monitor. But you may be wondering what my idea is in order to respond to those uninterested in critically understanding the reviewer than having a generalized idea about the game based on someone who is a niche gamer, or has “adequate” (which depends on the individual reader) judgment.
I read reviews from RPGFan, ALLRPG, RPGamer and GameSpot user reviews, and I find it particularly inconsistent or simply weird that the same reviewer at RPGFan that reviewed Lost Odyssey, emphasizing its traditional “lame” nature, gave SMT:N an 85, Persona 3 a 96, HARVEST MOON a 90, Suikoden Tactics a 90, and Rogue Galaxy (which is far from traditional), an 80. Just, weird.
I assume that the most effective for that target group would be possibly letter grades, with no ambiguous pluses or minuses because the grades themselves will be ambiguous. A, B, C, D, F. And the reasoning for no pluses or minuses is that everyone in any culture has their own individual beliefs or connotations regarding those letters, or symbols of synonymous importance. By allowing for the grade to be ambiguous, the reader is able to formulate or identify the rating of the game in consideration of the reviewer’s opinions and read what they want into them. Ultimately, they are all arbitrary, but numerical and star scoring has been implemented apparently in permanence and those numbers have come to mean some ironic and cluttered predispositions.
The best way to read a review, is to read it. Duh. And be as little influenced by the words in creating your individual opinion about the game as possible. Play the game for yourself, identify or disagree. Gaming shouldn’t be a chore. It’s supposed to be fun and escapist, dammit. Don’t create any presuppositions about the game before you play it. Just play it. Don’t think about the creator’s previous works, in so much that it makes you close-minded going into the game. If you’re weary about popping out the moola for the game, read more than one review. Acknowledge that reviews are opinionated and skewed regardless of how many hits a day a site may get. In order to submerge yourself in the gaming industry again, or newly, you need those unadulterated thoughts that you had as a kid newly introduced, or someone introduced to a new genre, to push you through to full enjoyment. This won’t mean that some games simply won’t be bad to you, or collectively bad determined by a units, but it prevents from the disappointment factor ratings, and a sour outlook if you end up encountering a similar game. I use “you” loosely as “I,” reflectively and to anyone who may identify with me. The RPG reviewing process for gaming journalism is broken, so watch out!
This is coming from a used-to-be Sony-addicted, Final Fantasy badge-wearing whore who childishly categorized what I viewed as dissenters as “silly fanboys” who never thought that I would be owning an Xbox 360 first, a Nintendo DS, a PSP, a PS3 and a PS2 (No Wii, simply uninterested in it) and enjoying many RPGs on all systems now, with my gaming style and personality influenced strongly by my younger years. Now I’m all tRPG, sRPG baby. If anyone thinks I purposely chose this review, I didn’t. I actually finally found another Lost Odyssey review, and reading through it reminded me of the issues I’ve been having with reviews, and I decided to voice it then.
Gaming journalists these days are just too damned interested in whether new games are innovative, untraditional or groundbreaking these days that it takes up too much attention in the wrong places.
