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Fates Review Roundup Thread


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Welcome to the Four Point Scale.

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As I said, I was hopeful that the industry had started to avert this; the past few years, Assassin's Creed, CoD, Madden, and other major releases hadn't been sweeping things critically like they used to.

(And as a bit of a reference point; I personally think of 5 as average/"meh", 6 as above average, 7 as good, 8 as great, 9 as amazing, and 10 as perfection)

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Just to add to that, this is exactly why we made the score distribution graph... So you can see where an average score lands against ALL review scores.

The average review score across all reviews on OpenCritic is 74, not 50. Giving a game a 50 (or 2.5 stars) would put it in the bottom 10% of all games.

A 9 or higher is a very impressive score, regardless of publication.

Even an 85 or higher means you're in the top 10% of all games reviewed.

An even better stat that OpenCritic reports on: 95% of critics recommend Fire Emblem Fates

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Edited by MattEnth
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Or maybe (a) the localizers did a bit of improvement on it and (b) the reviewer's don't have high standards for writing and didn't think about the story too much and © some of the complainers are those who really didn't like RD for it's story?

Or maybe the story is better than what it's being given credit for, the complainers are grossly overexaggerating and the reviewers standards for writing is just typical for what's expected.

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I can't be too excited for so many 9s after Awakening got universal praise but was underwhelming to me.

I appreciate reading their comments more than seeing the scores. Gameplay looks solid as expected. I'm glad most of the reviewers can appreciate the challenge and structure of Nohr and didn't lower the score just because it's harder. *looks at Gamespot* Most of the comments on the writing are just throwaway "it's great" so I don't think they've really looked at it too closely. I'll have to wait to see for myself.

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So like Destructoid then?

Basically, yeah.

And speaking of them, I think the OP needs to update: I'm not sure where the 8/10 came from, but that's not correct. Looking at the actual reviews (not the bar on the side), Birthright got 8.5, Revelations got 9, and Conquest got 9.5.

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I haven't read up on Fates' story much, but I refuse to believe it's THAT bad. Seriously, people make Conquest seem like it's the low point in the franchise for storytelling. I refuse to believe anything can hold my attention less than Binding Blade and Shadow Dragon.

It will hold your attention, I do not think there is any question there. What gets most people are some constant frustrations on certain aspects (in story) along the way, as well as some things that remain unresolved for you to figure out or play the other paths and such. xD

Note that for Gamespot, Birthright and Revelation were reviewed by Alexa Ray Corriea. Conquest was reviewed by Peter Brown.

Make of that what you will.

I guess most of the reviewers are ignorant then, because the story has been mostly praised so far.

I don't think it's a matter of low standards as so much as when you play so many games, the one that actually was built around a story and featured lengthy dialogue and such would stand out as having a better story. : ) That's just what I think though. xD

Maybe localization really fixed some errors with the story. For as boring as Corrin was in the original, he is getting quite a bit of praise for being a very interesting character in the English version.

Or maybe the story is better than what it's being given credit for, the complainers are grossly overexaggerating and the reviewers standards for writing is just typical for what's expected.

I always wonder how far localization can actually go in "fixing" a story. After all they can only change so much in the main story without changing the story itself (though I suppose some may welcome that). It makes sense to hope for better (or worse) support conversations as those can be more easily altered without having to change things in the long run for consistency, but I imagine it's an undertaking localization is neither paid for nor will do beyond the small tweaks. They are there to localize the game, not re-write the basic content on a macro scale. xD

Of course, those small tweaks may make a difference, so we will see when the game comes out. xD I would rather not increase expectations, and, again, some may enjoy the story as it is.

The important part is how you enjoy it, and not how others do. Please try not to demean either side!

Edited by Kirokan
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I'm glad most people seems to really enjoy the game(s).

Tho I think numerical scores should stop being used, you see... for me games, and other kind of media like movies, books and so, are experiences and reviews are opinions. I don't think one can truly summarize an experience and an opinion with just a number, for example:
The Last of Us has a global score of 95 of metacritic and the Marios Galaxy games have a score of 97, does that mean they offer the same thing? That Galaxy es superior to TLoU? I don´t think so.

Look, the video game industry has mediocre journalism, that's true and usually people don't expect much about the story in games but I do believe that some of these reviews are genuine and that the story is not as terrible as everyone is saying it is.

Anyway, as someone who truly loved Awakening and thinks it deserves the praise it got, I'm really pleased to see that the quality of the Fates is good. (Of course this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree)

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GameSpot baffles me with their Conquest review. It's designed to be like older Fire Emblem games...

The 1 minute video review has a dislike ratio of 3-1 on youtube. I don't think we're the only ones baffled by it.

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The gamespot conquest review is stupid. It would be like me reviewing a turtle and saying "7/10 - not a giraffe." He misses the entire point.

Yeah. they made it very clear from the start that Conquest was made with fans of the older games in mind. I don't know if this reviewer has played any of them but it doesn't sound like it. They shouldn't let someone who has only played awakening to review the game considering that it being like the older games is a selling point..

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Also, regarding the whole standard of story that people keep bringing up, that's all a matter of opinion. What could be my high standard of a game's story, could easily be another person's low standard of story. There is no concrete scale of story standards among people. Even with the most complex and thought provoking games that get praised sometimes fall flat and bore the hell out of me, but I can thoroughly enjoy a game that's basic in story, but the gameplay is great. Does that mean I have low standards for story? To someone, possibly, but to me and some others, not really. It's a matter of interest and personal opinion. Therefore, claiming a reviewer or anyone else has low standards for a game's story is just rude.

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Regarding Gamespot Conquest review,

Criticizing a feature that was heavily advertised as core to the experience of the game feels to me like if a food critic went to a vegan restaurant and removed points on his review because there was no meat on the menu while the restaurant across the street had some.

They could have mentioned that the game lacked grinding to warn people who read their review. But if we look at all their reviews for the 3 versions, it seems like Revelations is their 'definitive' versions and they removed 1 points off Birthright for lacking variety in map objectives and 2 points off Conquest for lacking grinding.

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I asked Alexa Ray from GameSpot about the context behind the reviews (which games they played at which difficulty mode for how long), whether they're accounted with previous games in the series, and if so how it stacks up with previous titles in the FE franchise. Here's the response I got.

I've played all three and Peter played Conquest and Birthright. I can't give you an exact amount of hours on my end (Peter's review says he finished Conquest in 20), but all told, including the time spent figuring things out for another feature going up later today or tomorrow (!) I think I clocked in around 70 hours. Both of us played a significant chunk of time on each difficulty level. I can't speak for Peter, but for me, I played up to Chapter 14 on each mode (those games are LOONNNGGGG) and then completed the game on casual. Again, speaking only for myself, I've been with Fire Emblem since the beginning and Fates definitely feels like a "new age" Fire Emblem, closer to Awakening than it is to all the games that came prior. I hope that helps!

On what she identified as the most important changes in the gameplay mechanics for Fates and her opinions of them, here's what I got:

I'm a big fan to the switch-up of the weapons triangle and I like the broader, more complex class upgrade system. I'm also super keen on the relationship stuff, because every time a support conversation was available I learned something about a character. There's a lot of small subplots to be found in the bonding portion of Fates, and it made me feel close to my people. Some of them are downright funny, others are sad, but all of them were boons to Fates' world-building.

Edited by Aggro Incarnate
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In case you have any questions for the GameSpot reviewers (particularly Alexa Ray who reviewed Birthright and Revelations), here's a link where you can ask here questions: http://www.gamespot.com/forums/games-discussion-1000000/ask-the-reviewer-fire-emblem-fates-with-alexa-ray-32964258/

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Regarding Gamespot Conquest review,

Criticizing a feature that was heavily advertised as core to the experience of the game feels to me like if a food critic went to a vegan restaurant and removed points on his review because there was no meat on the menu while the restaurant across the street had some.

They could have mentioned that the game lacked grinding to warn people who read their review. But if we look at all their reviews for the 3 versions, it seems like Revelations is their 'definitive' versions and they removed 1 points off Birthright for lacking variety in map objectives and 2 points off Conquest for lacking grinding.

Which is exactly why Peter Brown's review is ignorant garbage.

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The gamespot review of conquest was kinda ridiculous

i cant grind so its too hard so 7. OMG an strategy game forcing you to actually have an strategy in order to advance each chapter and the future, god forbid this being done.Truly ridiculous, i would have respected the review if he gave some points about the story, gameplay or such but all he said was that he wanted to grind lol

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Nines haven't meant anything for years. There's such an inflation of high ratings for games that are more or less expected to be good. Skyward Sword got 10's all around but is now considered by the very same reviewers to be an inferior Zelda title.

Most review sites do not do group reviews they have individual reviewers give individual scores. ie. The Person who reviewed Skyward for IGN was Richard George he does not work for IGN anymore (He was hired by Nintendo a couple years back) and even when he did work there he was pretty much the only person on the staff that thought Skyward Sword deserved a 10....

Edit: Also Gamespot's Coquest review equals complete garbage.

Edited by Locke087
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Gamespot gave it a 7? I am absolutely not surprised, since the stream with the reviewer has to be the worst person I've ever seen playing this game.

The streamer for GameSpot (one that died constantly on the child paralogues) was Alexa Ray Corriea, who reviewed Birthright (8) and Revelations (9). It was Peter Brown reviewed Conquest for GameSpot, and that was where the 7 came from.

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Gamespot gave it a 7? I am absolutely not surprised, since the stream with the reviewer has to be the worst person I've ever seen playing this game.

It's idiotic. The reviewer is being a whiny ***** all over the comments and twitter also.

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