1UP reports that Final Fantasy XIII, set for release in Japan on December 17, has gotten its very first review from Weekly Famitsu, one of the most widely-read periodicals in the biz.
And they FUCKING TRASHED IT, giving the release an unbelievable 39 out of a possible 40 points. It’s an epic fail! Gamers everywhere are gathering their torches and pitchforks, preparing to storm Famitsu offices. As Kevin Gifford of 1UP says,
Well, they like it – but not quite enough to give it the perfect score everyone expected.
What the hell? Why does everyone expect a perfect score? No one’s seen the god damned game except in tightly controlled junket settings. And now Japanese gamers are all hot and bothered because FFXIII is one point off from a perfect score. I think the real question is who would use an out-of-forty scoring rate.
“Steerpike,” you say, “you’ve always had a strange crush on Final Fantasy XIII, despite having never played any of the others and being an avowed chocobo-hating Phantasy Star man. Explain yourself.”
Well, I can’t, really. I’ve been intrigued by this game since it was announced in 1902 due in part to the story mentioned in the above link, in which I translated the Latin subtitle Fabula Nova Crystalis for literally every person in the games industry over the course of two days. For some reason that experience just sort of left a hook in my mind about this game.
I do think it’s funny that people are berating Famitsu for handing out a 39/40 score; I guess everyone expected that since it’s a Final Fantasy game and Japanese gaming press is even more unreliable and lacking in credibility than western, they’d just roll over and hand out the 40. So maybe this is Famitsu’s little rebellion against the powers that are.
On the other hand, the true problem with the gaming press is the years-long buildup that AAA titles receive, this one no exception. By the time the game comes out most outlets feel compelled to give great scores even to mediocrities like Borderlands and Grand Theft Auto IV, deserving or not. This is, of course, because the chief advertisers in gaming press are in fact part of the very industry that press covers, which is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention that most big publishers, Square Enix included, throw lavish press events and bombard attendees with gifts, booze, really hot PR agents, and (often) straight up bribes or threats in order to get cover stories and high scores.
Final Fantasy XIII might well deserve a 39. We won’t know until March. It hardly matters, since the game will sell a bazillion copies in Japan and a hozillion elsewhere, which does beg the question: why does anyone read reviews at all?
Of course, you should read our reviews, because we are awesome. All the others you can take or leave.
Don’t worry, dude. I will hate this game for you. I have done it before and I am willing to do it again.
In fact, I will hate on this game so much that I would give it a 36.5 out of 40, which pretty much means the game is like the second coming of Daikatana.
According to IGN (too lazy to posta a link), the 39/40 is due to four people reviewing the game (as usual) and one of them giving it 9 out of ten. Apparently his reasons for it were that in combat a lot of the information can be unclear due to cluttered screen, which, frankly, is something you can accuse a lot of modern RPGs of (Dragon Age Origins included, especially on consoles, but also SE stuff like The Last Remnant). But that same person anyway said that the game is mad fun and perfect in almost any other way.
What DID surprise me though is that Famitsu gave Bayonetta 40 out of 40. I mean, I played the Xbox 360 demo and for me, the game seems to be absolute blast, but this is still just a pretified Devil may Cry and much as I love, LOVE I SAY, that series, its design constraints are much more visible in 2009/2010 than they were eight years ago.
I doubt that’s it’s a 0-40 rating scale. Probably more like a 35-40 rating scale, just like most sites use a 70-100 rating scale. Not us, though, because were are, in fact, awesome.
I know review ratings and grades are like crack to devs but they are also pretty pointless. Empty calories. They also teach people to just look at the stupid numbers instead of reading for real information, gaming experiences, etc. You know, knowledge as opposed to data.
My general take on Famitsu is that they’re scale really starts at 35 and goes up to 40. They seem to love everything, or maybe they think it would be impolite to actually say anything bad. Essentially, they serve the role of the “Easy A” college professor that students use to pull their GPA up. They essentially gave it a 97.5% on their scale.
Shoot, sorry for the double comment. Thought of more after I hit submit.
The flipside is why don’t more people hold reviewers accountable for ridiculous review scores? Really, with most Final Fantasy games given a free pass in the reviewing press, consumers should be questioning perfect or near perfect scores, not demanding they be higher!
It’s like this weird Bizarro world where people aren’t happy until they’re sufficiently lied to. Aren’t we paying for these products? I consider myself a Call of Duty fan but I’d still like to know about some of the failings of the game
I can’t answer that question, Jason O. Offhand I’d say it’s because games were originally “for kids,” and the early print stuff was also “for kids” – anyone remember the Nintendo Fun Club? So over time maybe the Toys R Us catalog attitude of periodicals was just swept under the rug. Today, most gamers know to ignore review scores, while newcomers to the medium seem to do it instinctively.
Except our reviews, because we are awesome.
As Scout suggests, the best bet in my experience is to seek out a stable of reviewers you really trust, ignore the score or number they hand out, and look for their actual feelings in the text.
I don’t pay much attention to reviews myself. I have actually found that I relly like a lot of the games that do poorly in reviews, and by contrast hate a lot that get perfect (or near perfect) scores. Final Fantasy series included.
Actually when I by a game it is because I can, and I’m not that picky. I’ll pick up my paycheck, and if I have enough extra money to get some beer, a game, and placate my wife when I walk in the door with beer and a game, I’m off to the store. I’ll buy whatever looks best on the racks at Wal-Mart, because tomorrow I won’t have said extra money anymore. If I can’t find anything that looks really good, I’ll go for a combination of “the best of the worst” and “cheapest”. If the game sucks… at least I have a new one to keep the collection growing. Who knows.. after I drink enough of the beer I may feel like playing it anyway… as long as I have a paper bag over my head.
I suppose I pay attention to reviews in the abstract. I rarely buy a game that’s not highly reviewed. That said, I also rarely buy games when they first come out, so by the time I end up getting them they’ve been well vetted by much more trusted sources than game mags or websites (Tap-Repeatedly is the exception of course). I buy a game based on a combination of the type of game and the overall impressions. So far, I haven’t played too many duds.
It’s funny this should come up because I’ve been talking about how reviews that aren’t accredited to individuals make it far more difficult to gauge a kind of affinity with the reviewer. For instance, I enjoy films and generally agree with a lot of things said by Mark Kermode so he’s a good point of reference before I spend my time and money on something that might not be worth it. Thankfully with music there’re things like Spotify that give me the chance to make my own mind up. However with games, unless there’s a demo, it’s never easy to know whether you’ll enjoy a certain title. Time is a harsh mistress and she doesn’t allow me to play everything I’m interested in so I need to know whether a game is worth me having a crack at. The problem is that opinions are like arseholes; everybody’s got one, and as long as most people keep raving about your Halos, Final Fantasys, GTAs, Metal Gears, Marios and Zeldas I’m going to have to do a lot of searching to find some sense.
When I sunk 45+ hours into GTA IV recently based on The World’s Opinion I was seething and sought to find a negative review that didn’t just say it had lost the sense of fun it’s predecessors had. I found it here at Tap as well as a number of other reviews that aligned with my own views. Result! What’s more the reviews are credited to their respective reviewers meaning I can take recommendations more personally than say UK Edge magazine.