How I Judge Games

So, it's been over two weeks since the last time I posted anything. Completely my bad there. I swear to God, I have finished Superstar Saga, I just haven't gotten around to finishing the review yet. And, honestly, given what's happened, I'm just going to come out and say it: I will no longer be putting out reviews on a weekly basis. I'll still do it, but doing it every single week is just too much alongside school and the like. I'll still be reviewing games, just not as often. I still plan on having weekly content, just not always reviews. The basic plan I have right now is going to be talking about video game news, maybe occasionally given commentary on recurring ideas in video games (escort missions, stealth sections, that kind of thing), the basic gist is, I'll still have stuff every week. Just not reviews.

Honestly, I don't why I'm doing this apology when I don't even have any readers, but there you go.

Anyway, on to the point of this post. A little bit of backstory first: About a week ago, I had an... argument, I suppose you could say, about what makes a game good. Okay, it was actually about whether or not Square Enix's remake of Final Fantasy III for the DS was a good game, but how games are judged was definitely brought into it. So, it got me thinking: How do I judge a game? I spent some thinking about it, and came up with the following guidelines. Generally speaking, they will be listed in order of importance to me, though not always. A game doesn't have to do well in all of these categories, but it shouldn't fail at many either.

Just as a note: Yes, there are my opinions, but I don't think they're that unusual. Some people might put more emphasis on an area that I don't consider as much, but I feel like if you ask most people, they'll give more or less the same categories as I have.

A second note: Just to demonstrate what I'm referring to with these categories, I'm going to be talking about Final Fantasy III, again for the DS. This isn't going to be a full-on review, as I've never played enough of it to feel comfortable reviewing it, just to give my first impressions of it. Now, when I had this... argument, the person with whom I was arguing tried to make the case that you can't judge it against modern games, since the original came out in 1990. I have the following to say to that: No. No, you can indeed judge a remake against games that came out alongside it. Square Enix released the DS remake in 2006, which means they must have felt that it would be a comparable gaming experience to games that came out that year. So, since I am talking about the DS remake, I will be judging it based on the standards of 2006, not 1990.

Gameplay

This category should be pretty obvious: How well does the game play? Of course, if the game doesn't play well, it isn't a very good game. Playing the game should be easy to learn, but still difficult to master, thus making the game accessible yet still challenging. As an aside, I'm not putting this one first because it's the most important to me. I just recognize that it is a very important part of any game.

Final Fantasy III plays perfectly well enough. It's a Final Fantasy game, and, in my experience, those have all played perfectly well*. I'm not particularly fond of having to buy and equip spells, but it doesn't ruin the game for me. And I genuinely did like the Job System. I wish that they'd included that in some of the other games which I've played. I've heard that it was done better in Final Fantasy V, so I might have to give that one a shot at some point.

Story

This category is much more important to me than gameplay. I view gaming first and foremost as a story-telling medium. Generally, it's important to me that, in addition to being fun to play, it also tells an interesting story. Mind you, I don't expect this of all games I play (Mario in particular comes to mind), but I am genuinely pleased when I get a good story out of it (Mario & Luigi in particular comes to mind).

Unless the game took a very drastic change after I stopped playing it, Final Fantasy III does not have much when it comes to a compelling story. It's a very standard "This guy is trying to destroy the world, you have to stop him" thing, and it's just not very interesting to play. It sort of frustrates me, because I saw this basic concept used much more successfully in Final Fantasy IV, though I think that part of what made me like the story in that game more lies in the next category.

Characters

Even if a story is not compelling, good characters can very easily redeem it. These can range from characters with whom you sympathize, badasses that get you excited every time they show up or open their mouths, or comic-relief that can always bring a smile every time they do something silly. One of my favorite examples of this is in the Baldur's Gate series, particularly Minsc. For those of you who haven't played the game, first off, stop reading this. I want you to go to Beamdog (www.beamdog.com) and pre-order the Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate. It's coming out November 30th, and it's going to be awesome. Secondly, Minsc was easily my favorite character in that game, and probably one of my favorite fictional characters period. He managed to fit into the last two of those categories I mentioned earlier. He was both ready to jump into battle at a moment's notice, and, even more importantly, was completely insane. In a funny way, of course. He had a pet hamster named Boo who gave him advice. Seriously, go get Baldur's Gate. The only reason I'm stopping talking about Minsc is because I need to move, since this isn't about him**.

On the other hand, Final Fantasy III didn't really have any characters. I am aware that Final Fantasy I, II, and III share this flaw, as they all let you name and basically insert yourself into the characters, but I'm not sure that's necessarily for the best. I mean, memory serving, the reason Link never speaks is so the player can insert himself into the role of the hero, and yet you still get a good idea of what Link is like as a character through his actions. The characters in Final Fantasy III do speak, but they don't really have any personality. And I feel like that is a real detriment to this game.

Music

As you could probably infer from my Bastion review, I enjoy good game music. Really, good music in general, but since we're talking about video games, I'll just be talking about video game music here. Firstly, good music will not make a bad game good. If I really want to listen to the music so badly, I have Youtube. However, it will make a good game great. One of my favorite parts of playing Chrono Trigger is hearing Yasunori Mitsuda's (and Nobou Uematsu's) score. It has some phenomenal themes, and if I could ever manage to find a reasonably priced copy of the soundtrack, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Now, the music in Final Fantasy III is NOT bad. It's Nobou Uematsu, he's a great composer, blah blah blah. But, like I said earlier, good music does not redeem a bad game. So, moving on to the final category.

Something Special

Like with Gameplay, this is not going at the end because it's the least important, but rather because it's a miscellaneous category. It's basically just anything that makes a game memorable. For example, the Portal Gun in Portal, or the time-rewinding mechanic in Braid, or the narration in Bastion. Unlike music, this can redeem an otherwise bad game good, if only for the novelty of whatever the something special is.

Final Fantasy III... doesn't have anything special. I know I said earlier that I really liked the Job System, but I then pointed out that it was used in other Final Fantasy games, just not ones which I've played. And from what I've heard, these other games, V in particular, do it better, so even not having played them, I'd recommend them over III. 

So, these are the standards by which I judge games. And I really don't like having to say this, but Final Fantasy III does not generally live up to these standards. The gameplay is solid, and the music is good, so if that's all you care about it games, go ahead and play it. But if you like a game with soul, I cannot bring myself to recommend you play it.

Again, all of these judgments are based off of my first impressions of the game. For all I know, the game could become worlds better after the point at which I stopped playing, but I just can't see that happening. 

Well, I think that's about all I have to say for this entry. I think from now on I'm going to stick with Saturdays for posting new material, so if I happen to get readers, expect new entries on Saturdays now. I'm not sure what I'm going to have up just yet, but I'll try my best to have something.

Until then, later!

*Note: My experience with Final Fantasy games includes III, IV, IV: The After Years, VI, and VII. Any comments about gameplay in other Final Fantasy titles will therefore mean nothing to me.

**But seriously, Minsc is awesome. And he's voiced by Jim Cummings! What, you don't know who Jim Cummings is? Go look him up on IMDB. He's done a ridiculous number of voice acting roles, I'm sure you'll find something you recognize.

Pokemon Conquest

So, here's my next review. I suppose I should say this up front: I'm pretty sure I'm some kind of Pokemon fanboy. I have owned just about every game since Crystal, even some that I really regret (Long story short, since I'll probably never review it: Don't buy Pokemon Dash. Ever. It's not good). I'm also a fan of Turn-Based Strategy games, particularly the Fire Emblem series (I'll probably end up reviewing a couple of these at some point in the future. They are good). So, when I found out that there was going to be a Pokemon-based TBS game, I was pretty excited. So, with that out of the way, let's get started with Pokemon Conquest.

Pokemon Conquest, known as Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition in Japan, is something like the 20th Pokemon spin-off game, and also something like the 26th game in the Nobunaga's Ambition franchise. It is a crossover between the Pokemon and Nobunaga's Ambition series, or, rather, a game in the Nobunaga's Ambition franchise with Pokemon. It's the first Nobunaga's Ambition game released in America, and if it sells half as well as most Pokemon games, it will likely not be the last.

In Conquest, you play as the Warlord of the Aurora kingdom in the Ransei region. A warlord from the far North, Nobunaga, has begun conquering the other kingdoms, in hopes of fulfilling a legend that whosoever rules all 17 kingdoms will gain the power of the creator of the region. You decide to try to conquer the region yourself, in order to stop whatever Nobunaga might be planning.

Gameplay wise, Conquest is pretty standard for Turn-Based Strategy games, at least standard for the ones I've played. You control various warlords and warrior, each bonded to a Pokemon, and fight off wild Pokemon and other warlords. If you defeat a warlord, and fulfill a few other requirements, the warlord can join your team. Your warlords can also form bonds with wild Pokemon, having them join that particular warlord, though each warlord can only have so many Pokemon at a time. In battle, all of your warlords make their moves, and then all of your opponents make their moves. This repeats until somebody wins the battle.

Story wise, this game is nothing special. Basically, it's a standard Pokemon game. You have to get through the 17 kingdoms/gyms, defeating the warlords/gym leaders, adding new Pokemon to your team as time goes on. Honestly, nothing more to say here. The characters that join your team, even discounting the generic warriors, don't really have anything that distinguishes them. Honestly, this game kind of falls flat here. I really enjoyed the story in Black/White, with its examination of whether or not it's right to train Pokemon. And then this is just... blah. It's not bad, it's not good, it barely even is.

At about this point in the last two reviews, I went over something that really stuck out to me in the game, for good or bad, like the Drop mechanic and Flick Rush in Kingdom Hearts 3D, or the narration and soundtrack in Bastion. This time, though... there's nothing. Nothing in this game really stuck out to me. As a Pokemon game, it doesn't do anything new besides be a Turn-Based Strategy game, and as a Turn-Based Strategy game, it doesn't doesn't do anything new besides have Pokemon. I suppose the simple combination of these two does enough to justify the game, but at the same time, there's nothing that gets an emotional response from me. It feels like it should be something that I should like, and yet, I don't really feel anything for it. I don't hate it, but at the same time, I didn't really like it either.

So, do I recommend this game? No. No I don't. It's not that it's bad, it's just boring. If you're a huge enough fan of Pokemon, you'll probably get this game anything, so I hope you enjoy it. But I can't suggest someone get this game otherwise. It's a nice enough time-waster, but that's about it.

So, when I first started this whole review thing, I said that I was going to mostly review older games. But here we are at review three, and all of my reviews thus far have been games released in the last year. But now, we finally come to something just a little bit older. So, be sure to come back next week for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.