Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW // 16th December – 22nd December // Season’s Beatings

THIRD Capcom vs. SNK Pro [PSX] CptRetroBlue

Blue’s review is short, but it still manages to make some very potent points, mostly in the comparison between the Playstation and Dreamcast releases. Some kind of downgrade is to be expected but with the PSX version being the later strain, it’s interesting to note that it got a slightly expanded roster.

There’s some awkward phrasing; not sure you meant “shot” in the opening paragraph, but it’s a tidy little comparison review. I like the reviews you keep bringing to site, and I’ve enjoyed watching you steadily improve.

SECOND Hexen: Beyond Heretic (PC) Nightfire

A lot of the opening intro for this feels a little clunky. But I found it was necessary to lead into the third paragraph which works very well. That being Hexen struggles when you’re forced to fall back on the basics, damning it as a game that struggles to set its foundations right. And, actually, I agree; I didn’t spend a lot of time with Hexen because, frankly, I felt my time was probably better spent with Doom .wads, but a lot of this critique hits home. HOWEVER! I’m not sure I agree with the interchangeable character classes having little differences between them. I’m not sure you do either, after bringing up the melle incompetence of the mage class!

Still, though you start on a suitably dour note, you noticable give the game a chance to shine on its own merits. It’s quite fun to read you going back and forth on these aspects as pros and cons. Pro: the game does things that Doom could only dream of, such as puzz;es involving melting and refreezing pools of magic ice. Con: iD go a little mad with the new power they have, connecting the entire world which seems cool on paper but, in reality, leads to a slew of endless backtracking while you try and find switched in far flung corners you may (or may not) have missed the first time around.

I think this is a really good retro review, letting the reader know where it stood upon release but not excusing mistakes on its venerable status. Hexen is an interesting game and not an awful way to spend a few evenings, but I agree with your stance against labelling it a classic.

Much more of this in 2020, please.

OVERDRIVE PLACE God of War (PS2) Overdrive

There’s a lot in here that I think is written very well to an interesting thesis, even if some of your argument is “Everyone else is wrong about this game because Sony is paying them off,'' I mean, I always suspected Zig purchased his expensive pile of imports with Sony blood money, but it’s still a little Gamefaqs 2005 of you…

There’s some bits that work very well, like overloading your sentences when talking about the Pandora trials. This is a good way to get across how the game throws a rapid fire progression of unfair obstacles. Actually the entire closing stretch is really well done with the log falls and the new weapon forced upon you to close out the game. It’s strong example work that kinda makes up for earlier, where your attempts to sell Kratos as an antihero feel bungled. I don’t know if it’s perhaps due to a lack of context or if you’ve point blank chosen a poor example, but the whole Hydra thing is clumsy and unclear.

Your ending note is interesting to me because it brings me full circle back to good old ZigFEIND. We’d bicker about a lot of things, but the most popular takeaway was always our polar opposite takes on Drakengard. His main argument was that I always managed to overlook all the repetitive mash-heavy battles because I was too excited to write about all the grimdark diet-Berserk stuff going on in the background. My main argument was no one liked Drakengard 2 but him, so his opinion was worthless. But the fact is, I think you’re both right. I think sometimes, reviewers can be so happy to have something exciting to write about that legitimate complaints get left in the wayside or glossed over. I can absolutely see a game like God of War benefiting from that.

But the main takeaway here is that Drakengard 2 was an abomination. No wonder they struck it from canon with Neir’s final ending.

For us. For them. For you.

Thanks for the win and comments, EmP!

I think some of what you said about what didn't work may have come from how this is one of those reviews that I got halfway into and then basically scrapped it all and started over, combined with how it could have fallen short because I'm saying this perceived great game is just a good game, instead of something stronger like "Everyone loves this game, but it's crap!!!" Where I'm making points that I think are good and they make sense to me, but it can easily come off as me acting like it's a horrible breach of ethics that some game I thought was a 7/10 got a bunch of 9s and 10s. But, yeah, seemed that all the parts you really liked were the new things I was saying after re-starting the review and the parts you less liked were the stuff I was struggling through and rewriting.

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

Thanks for second placement. As soon as I read Rob's God of War review I knew I'd get bumped down. Still, it was fun to contribute.

Regarding the class differences... I used the cleric as the primary example in my review, but it really doesn't matter what class you pick, the early game is always a slog. The cleric's club takes 6 hits to kill an ettin, but so does the mage's crystal wand. The warrior has a slightly better time of it, as he can kill them with 3 of his punches, but he gets the frustration of struggling against long-range enemies and snipers throughout the first half of the game instead. No class was really "better" than the others (which is good, from a balance perspective) but it just meant they were all dealing with tedium equally.

Thanks again for the feedback.

placid like acid