PAJ89's Puzzle Quest 2 (XLA) review

Hope this critique is not too editorial.

This is a good review--though there are a few things I'd figure could be patched up, if you want. Maybe parentheses are used a bit much, and sentences like "The premise is exactly the same as before with a different story: pick a class, and get questing." just don't say much. I'd be curious to see what sort of matching--in a row? Clumps? Diagonal? What works best?

adopt a strategy -> adapt

"from the get-go" should get going. Maybe "The world map of discrete locations is replaced with a first-person view of..."

"It has all the same positives and problems that it used to" has sort of already been said, e.g. that the presentation is the only real upgrade.

Maybe too many parentheses, too. In my own writing I often find they're put there as idea placeholders. For instance, the new look creating problems with the game feeling less as it should is a great observation. It might be better to say at the start. "PQ2's main difference is it looks better. But it may play worse."

"It sounds like I’m nit-picking because these are all small issues, but they all add up and take away the sharp pace that the original Puzzle Quest had." I think you don't have enough confidence in this observation. It's a good one. I also think the paragraph about minigames may be better stated as something like "Unfortunately, mini-games make looting a treasure chest, bashing a door, or searching for a hidden object all feel the same. These mini-games occur more than in the original PQ and just aren't as fun, and they belie the new graphic variety." Sometimes we dwell on stuff because we guess we need to and I think that happens a bit.

I also really like your conclusion except for "returning to my original point." You've established that PQ2 tweaks the formula the wrong way and your final sentence feels a bit forced. Your point was already made. I guess we've all oversold our points of view before, though.

Cheers for the critiques guys.

aschultz: regarding the "premise is the same" sentence, it's something I try to keep purposely brief as I've gotten over technical in the past. I can see where you're coming from in that it might be a little vague, but my reasoning (and perhaps its lazy, not sure :P) is info/video/images on games is easily available. I can't assume everyone reads/looks up on a game they're going to get, but if the reader has seen an image/video, they'll know what kind of a match game this is (or they can quickly find out). Maybe it's a trade-off, but I'm wary of over-complicating things when it comes to explaining mechanics. And I completely agree that the time consumption nit-pick was lacking a bit of conviction: I know it bothered me and probably has soured the experience for others too, but on this occassion I didn't feel I could word it well.

Ben: As I said above, totally agree on the time consumption issue. If I was explaining that to someone in person, it'd be something I'd have difficulty with too as I couldn't find the words, would have to say "here, play it for an hour" to get my point across.

There's a lot of little things that could be better, I put that down to lack of practise and sharpness. There's a glut of XBLA games I'm interested in that have just/on-the-way out, and hopefully some bigger releases at the end of the year, so maybe opportunities to get some more out later.

Hi PAJ89--thanks for considering my critique--I know how a lot of that can be subjective, and perhaps I'd give a different one a second time around.

It's tough to know what you should take for granted that people know and what you shouldn't. I agree that there's a good chunk you should. And you need to trust your own intuition on that--combined with the feedback you get. Hopefully finding a happy medium of stating enough to make the overall point and not leaving too much out there or saying more than we need to know. This is where just one critiquer's opinion has to fall short--you can't get a general view from the audience you hope to reach.

This brings up a few side points that maybe it might be useful for a person to make a blog post saying "did I do too much/little of x/y in my review, or did I get it right?" That might help people give immediate feedback without the need to feel like heavy duty critiquers.