Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, 2020 -- Another one of these has been done!

Have five reviews to get through this week, not counting my review for Super Mega Baseball, which will be eligible next week, allowing me to find out just how I rose to the challenge in doing my first sports game review in years (not counting the Trials games, which are more physics-based platformers that happen to take place on motorcycles). I know it felt awkward to write, so that's something!

To briefly touch on the two non-placers (or honorable mentions, depending on how gently you wish to break the 'not quite in top 3' news):

Brian has a pretty in-depth review on aspects of RE7: Biohazard. The reason I say "aspects" is because it feels more like a response to various things said about some things pertaining to the game and really comes across as an essay about your views on those things more than a review. And so there is a lot of discussion on how some of the praise this game has received may not be warranted, while minor details such as the name of your character and what he's doing are either mentioned in passing or merely alluded to. It ends up a bit weird, as a LOT of this review is being critical of one aspect or another of the game, but then you give it a GREAT GAME score of 4.5/5. This wound up as something I found to be an interesting read, but if I was looking to see if this game was something I'd want to play, I think I'd wind up being more confused than anything else. I do now understand why others have told me that it can be a bit disconcerting when I'm reviewing a game and go into "I review other reviewers!" mode like I tend to do when reviewing a critically acclaimed game that I didn't think was all that amazing, as I did get a lot of that from your review, as a lot of it was basically moving from one bit of review praise you disagreed with to another (or, in the case of the Madhouse difficulty paragraph, moving to a criticism you didn't see in other reviews).

vgc2000 had the "great" fortune to play The Castlevania Adventure -- a game that I can definitely agree with your stance that it mostly stinks. Overall, I thought you did a good job with it and I thought you brought up a lot of good points, but the review could use a bit of cleaning up as far as run-on sentences and stuff like that goes. For one example, after your first group of pictures: "The game would actually work and be a great game if not for one flaw, you move like an 80 year old man, he’s so sluggish, can’t jump well and constantly misses jumps and dies cheap deaths because of that." That should easily be two sentences. Correct a few things along those lines and this is easily a placement-worthy review.

THIRD PLACE

Pyro's Koudelka (PlayStation)

If there's one thing I like about the whole Horror October reviewing, it's that you never know who'll show up. In this case, a person who (according to clicking on your name) did one review in 2007, one two years later and then returned to pen a 2020 review. UTTERLY RANDOM!!! Anyway, I liked this review a good bit. You gave yourself a tough task by, after the intro stuff, immediately going into a "the battle system is kind of slow and rubbish" paragraph and then trying to be convincing in saying this is a good game anyway, but you did a good job of pulling that off by pointing out a number of positive traits such as the graphics, presentation and overall brevity. I never played this or any of the Shadow Hearts games, but occasionally do wish I'd have picked them up at some point. This review did its job, as I did feel a bit of an urge to snag it before slapping myself upside the head with a stern "No, you dolt; you have enough stuff to play and can't stop getting more modern stuff and don't have the time to play all the stuff you're trying to get to anyway!!!!!" lecture.

SECOND PLACE

EmP's Ogre Tale (PC)

A couple sloppy moments: In the "Ogre Tales wants you to grind" paragraph (between the two pictures), you have "enterally" instead of I'd presume "entirely". And in the big paragraph below the second picture, you have "maddingly" (maddeningly) and "expelled" (probably explained, or a case of thesaurus-driven insanity). Aside from that stuff, this was a fun, breezy review for yet another of the bizarre little titles you seem to pick by some sort of random selection of all the titles in existence that no one else ever has heard of, let alone considered playing. The explanation of the folk tale the game is based upon (and the darker version used as source material) was welcome, especially with how you tied that into how folk tales provide the inspiration for a lot of the game's boss fights. This was a really enjoyable review that covered a lot of ground without running on for too long.

REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

Mariner'ss Cosmic Star Heroine (Switch)

This was one of those reviews that just did a great job of resonating with me. And not just because you opened with the whole reference to all my Kemco reviews, summing them all up as succinctly as possible (soulless and devoid of meaning!). You took a modern RPG that's trying to ape classic titles of old and did a great job of comparing and contrasting it to those titles. It seems like Chrono Trigger is one of the ones I hear referenced most in comparison to this game and that is one of the most well-known RPGs of all time, so it was logical for you to use that game as a comparison point and I thought you did a great job of pointing out how the game's mechanics work as part of that comparing. I mean, I could have the qualm that your more average rating and the line "unless you are really in love with simplistic Chrono Trigger-esque RPGs" line is you trying to subtlety say that Chrono Trigger is NOT one of the greatest games of all time, which is just an unforgivable move…but to each their own and I'm not going to let that bit of foolishness detract from the fact you wrote a very strong review that told me all I need to know about this game.


And now, try to salvage enough of this week to crank out another review, so I can get caught up on writing them before I start finishing my next round of games. As I have to do Knack and Mars: War Logs soon, as I'm getting near the end of Dishonored, Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures and New Super Mario Bros.

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

Appreciate the catches. In case anyone wondered if I was pulling a Golding through September when I fell of the 'net a little, my PC blew up, and my only access back in was a 13 year old laptop with four keys that didn't work and no office programs to speak of. I wrote Ogre Battle in HGMail and sent it to myself in an attempt to save it. I wrote Samurai Jack and Iron Harvest the same way! It was not idea, but Ogre seems to have taken the worst of it. Thanks for powering through the errors; I've fixed them up now.

Props to Mariner. See you in 2034, Pyro!

For us. For them. For you.