psychopenguin's Koudelka review

You asked for it:

Don’t start your review Ah yes. Please. Stop reading the feedback right now and go and edit it away. The feedback will still be here when you return.

A much better start would be to simply state how Koudelka is a game you’d heard a lot about. You could do without a lot of the details here as, unless the information on how you came to play a game is either interesting or relevant, I, the disconcerting reader, do not care.

The comparing scenes lines are a little odd. I’m all for making fun of the balls bustlingly bad FFX laughing scene, but I’m more for trying to forget it exits at all.

Kill of the ‘in my book’, line, too. We know that this review is your opinion: it goes without saying so don’t say it!

You do get a lot of your information over well. Your frustration in the game’s battle system comes across clearly, and you break it down cleverly enough to show people why. I had a look to see if it was my review you quoted as being awesomely well written, but it’s not. Shame on you.

Things start to fall apart more from here on. You seem to jump haphazardly from subjects and seem more interested in getting in certain lines than talking about the game. The end is the expected second-half cosmetics rundown of graphics and soundtracks and conclusion. It would have been braver to try and communicate these elements without needed to park the review up and do so stand alone.

It’s a good review in that it gets your feelings on the game over, but it comes across as trying too hard to be casual and irrelevant at places. Still, a solid effort.

Well, my style IS casual which I guess can be a problem sometimes. I just don't really think video game reviews should be taken seriously and therefore I try not to type them in an analytical or professional style. I mean, I have to think of the average audience. (Also: YES, I absolutely have to stress that the review is my opinion. Have you given a bad score to a well liked game lately? I'm tempted to start every paragraph with "The following paragraph is my opinion." in the future.)

"The comparing scenes lines are a little odd. I’m all for making fun of the balls bustlingly bad FFX laughing scene, but I’m more for trying to forget it exits at all."

It's a pretty famous scene and people will get the comparison usually. Koudelka has a laughing scene so saying "It has a laughing scene" will scare those who saw the offending scene off if I don't tell them it's a lot better and funnier.

"Things start to fall apart more from here on. You seem to jump haphazardly from subjects and seem more interested in getting in certain lines than talking about the game."

I don't know what you mean here? I talked about the battles, then the leveling up, then the controls and how they affected the puzzles. How can I structure all this to make it "flow" better? I tried my best, heh.

Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it greatly. It's my first review in a while.

I'd actually forgotten about that laughing scene... and even now can't recall how it went in FFX.

Anway, this review was alright, especially for it being the first you've written in a while. I agree with a lot of what EmP said, though. Especially where you think you're being casual... well, sometimes that just comes off as bad writing, at lest the way you do it here, no offense. Now you do want to be casual in your reviews to some extent - that's why almost every review on here uses contractions like it's, you're, he'll, etc., and even use own personal narrative examples. But when using things like "Ah, yes" are cringe worthy, and since you do things like this a lot in between paragraphs, it makes transitions read badly.

I also didn't like the "Man, I hate these battles" at the end of each paragraph midway through the review; it just got kind of annoying after a while... but... I know you put those in for emphasis. It's just that... we gt the impression you hate them from the outset, why're you still telling us? Still, I know you had a purpose for it and everything. It's just my preference.

Good review aside from what me and EmP said, though; it's descriptions are pretty well thought-out, I think, or at least where the battles are concerned, and that really seems to be the main drawback to the game.

I hope what I'm describing to you is accurate.... or at least makes sense, since I haven't read the review in a few days. I should probably do that before giving feedback like this (sorry). I'll do that if I turn out wrong or ou want clarification on something.

I'm not going to make any excuses but I was really hyped up on my new pain medicine at the time, and I tend to talk in a more silly casual tone when I do that. You guys are right in that it probably needs some editing work and I have already started on that :)

I just did the "Man, I really hate these battles." or whatever thing as a joke. I can see how it got annoying. At least I didn't put it at the end of the graphics paragraph like I was originally thinking of doing, huh? ;) Plus, I figured it would lead to the last line of the review better. I see what you mean, though, so I'll fix that up.

Thanks for the feedback also, this has been really helpful since I am considering a "return" to reviewing :)

Even though I only played up to a bit after the Lightning Plains before essentially saying "FUK DIS!1!!1" and abandoning that game, that accursed laughing scene is forever etched into my brain, filling me with hate.

And, PP, to add to what was said, I did read your review and like you mentioned, the "hate the fighting" bit did get overused. Overall, I liked the review, but thought a couple things like that got over the top. You mentioning the "goofed up on medicine" thing and being more goofy in your style makes sense. Sometimes, I go for a more whimsical style and it's hard to find the fine line between awesome and overdone. I've done more than one review that I thought was funny and entertaining, if nothing else, only to get comments/critiques less than flattering about said humor.

Heheh. Well, I'm glad you're taking such a productive approach to this, and I'm also glad to hear you're planning on coming back to us. It'll be good to have you around again (or in my case, just around because I wasn't around when you were here the first time).

You keep ending paragraphs with 'man, I hated those battles'. Who'd do that, getting back to the same sentence over and over?

*goes off to play Mighty Beanz*

I think we've all learned one valuable lesson from this: I am not funny and any attempts as me being funny are not funny and will be noted as such. :D