Topic: What Makes A Game A 10/10 For You?

@Kermit1doesmath I would have liked to pick Minecraft for a 10, but I played on the switch and technically it was a mess. And the most annoying was that the more you built a world the worse it got.

Most importantly good and enjoyable gameplay. This is determined by:

-Controls
It must feel like I'm in charge of what's happening on screen (mostly old games
have issues with this).

-Challenge
If a game is braindead easy, it's not fun. The game must challenge me. It could be difficulty settings or the opportunity to skip certain powerups (for example the heart containers in Zelda). I think modern Nintendo games lack proper challenge. Fire Emblem and Metroid Dread being exceptions to this rule.

Second thing is atmosphere which is determined by:

-Music
You just cannot underestimate the power of music. Good soundtrack enhances the experience to another level. I usually find it hard to remember the story, characters and the level desing with games with a bad/ forgettable soundtrack.

-Graphics/ style
I don't care too much about the grapichs but if a game is too ugly to look at (countless Ps1/N64 games, a lot of games on Nes) or too generic (a soulless anime rpg or realistic graphics) it bothers me. We need more games like Cuphead, Snipperclips,
Viewtiful joe etc. Also I need colours. If everything is grey or dark it doesn't click with me. That's the reason I've never made it far in Hollow Knight.

-Level desing
Areas/ levels should be different (enough) from each other. If all the levels blend into one big mush in your mind then the level desing is not good.

A good combination of these qualities forms an evergreen title that I revisit all the time

Here's some of these games

Super mario bros 3
Zelda a Link to the past
Mega Man X
Super Metroid
Donkey Kong Country 2
Fire emblem path of radiance
Lufia 2
Castlevania Rondo of blood
Crash Bandicoot 3

Some newer games

The Messenger
Zelda a link between worlds
Shovelknight
Mario kart 8
Metroid Dread
Zelda breath of the wild & tears of the kingdom

I'd need to have a think about it, but I'd be hard pressed to really call any game a 10/10.

Many of the games I love most have some glaring flaws in them, hence why I couldn't possibly give them a 10/10, as much as I would otherwise want to.

Games that make me keep playing for more than 20 years, the reason I gave the score 10/10.
And the game is... Dance Dance Revolution.

This is a really great thread. For anyone who enjoys a podcast, I'd encourage you listen to the latest offering from "WhatCulture Gaming" - Friday's pod 'Untitled Banter Podcast'.... in which the 2 leads (Scott and Josh) spend the initial segment discussing this very topic.

Really insightful discussion, and they touch on 'objectivity vs subjectivity' alongside what makes a game a "10/10" from a technical standpoint.

I rarely shill any podcasts, but I've followed these guys since the pandemic - and it is the only podcast I rarely miss an episode. Worth a listen

length, story, characters. graphics are nice sometimes but not needed at all honestly

When I'm reviewing a movie on Letterboxd and giving out the maximum 5 stars its generally only in two scenarios - one, the film is effectively perfect. Because nothing is truly perfect, I may let a few minor issues that don't have any real tangible impact on anything go by. Or two, the film had some sort of deep impact on me in some way. I would apply this exact logic to games I play, too.

As you can imagine, that doesn't happen very often, its my lowest given score with only 10 percent of the things I ever logged on there being given the maximum five stars. But I think a max score should be special thing, I hate that for a lot of review publications now we've lost all scores it seems except 1, 10 or 7. It dilutes the importance of these scores and dilutes the conversation.

All of this is pretty much by definition subjective but I do feel like this is a common sentiment that kinda misses the point a bit. A 10/10 isn't really saying that the game is "perfect", if it was you could always find something to point at and say that thing isn't "perfect" and deduct a point. A 10 is more a statement of "you won't find anything better than this one"

The way I look at it a review score is a scale. 0 being for when the content is so unenjoyable that you feel ill at the mere existence of it having experienced it. Like for me in the gaming space that'd be something like one of those micro-transaction heavy mobile games that for some reason also jam sketchy looking ads in your face. Or similar kinds of stuff

Then on the other end of the scale a 10 is the "nothing does better than this" end of the scale. Technically perfect? No. Personally I'd class NES Tetris as a 10 in spite of it having known bugs and flaws. More modern versions of it have improved the visuals, have better soundtracks, add new modes and so forth. But, for what it is, nothing beats it. Even more modern versions of the same game at best equal it.

A 10 isn't "perfection". It's a bit more along the lines of one of those "desert island, pick 5" kind of deals. Like if you were to put together an hour long documentary about the greatest games of all time, the 10s would be the games you just immediately put on that shortlist without thought

In simplest terms, a 10/10 for me is a game that totally captures my imagination and sonething you don't have enough words to describe how good it is. Usually, if you can sum a game up with "It's like <insert game>" then I doubt I would give it a 10. Mario 64. Peerless. Revolutionary. Inspirational. Joyous. I mean, I could keep gushing and feel blessed I played it day one. It's easy to play it for the first time today and wonder what everyone is talking about. But they miss the crucial element of contemporary context (obvs because it's not contemporary anymore lol.) and some folk don't appreciate that. They just want to count frame rates.

@GrailUK
Retrospective reviews are a bit trickier I think. In terms of Super Mario 64.... I didn't have an N64 as a kid. My Nintendo trajectory was SNES/GB(C) to Wii/DS. I knew the N64 existed and played it at friends' houses and shopping centre demo stations. I do remember the first time I saw Mario Kart 64 I was blown away by slopes. Wow! Slopes! In Mario Kart! So I know how low the bar was at that time and, in that context, I can understand how Mario 64 would have been a 10 back then. It's certainly a class above stuff like Rayman 2 which I did play during that era and do have nostalgia goggles for

But when I first sat down and played Mario 64 it would've been on the Wii VC. After I had finished Super Mario Galaxy. And in that context it was no contest, Galaxy was miles ahead. With its spherical platforming and soaring orchestral score. And in the years since I don't think that trajectory has improved much. I'm not convinced that Odyssey beats out Galaxy and I'm not exactly sure where 3D World sits in all of this but I do know that in my mind both of those are also above Mario 64

And that stance isn't just me counting frames. The graphical advances over time? I mean they don't help its cause, Mario 64 is nowhere near Galaxy and certainly nowhere near Odyssey. But it's not a case of graphics here. I also didn't play Ocarina of Time until the Wii VC either and I didn't play Wind Waker until the HD remaster on Wii U. But I feel both of those games still hold up in a way that Mario 64 does not. Both of them are 10s, without question

I'm not sure how to pin all of that down into one short thought. Maybe it's a case of the window moving on for some games and not others? Not sure. But I think it's fair to say that 10 today isn't necessarily a 10 a decade from now. At least in terms of the way that I would class a "10". Some of that's because of technical advances I guess but... I think it's mostly just that some games just "hold up" better over time. Which is a fuzzy and subjective thing that's kinda hard to pin down

In gaming at least (movies may be different) I feel like 1 is almost unheard of and 10 is relatively rare, although 7 is definitely super common. Just for fun, let's look at the Nintendo Life 2024 review scores:

10 - 3
9 - 16
8 - 23
7 - 26
6 - 10
5 - 9
4 - 6
3 - 0
2 - 0
1 - 0

Those are skewed high but... NL mostly only bothers reviewing games which they think people will have interest in, including well known publishers plus some variety, but mostly including games which might actually be good.

They have 'only' reviewed 93 games out of around 1,109 games which have come out on Switch this year ( so less than 10%). I suspect if you somehow reviewed all of them professionally the median would be 5 or 6 rather than 7 and there would be plenty of 2s and 3s though not necessarily many if any more 10s.

Obviously Nintendo Life has good reviewers but if you look at e.g. metacritic, the trends are similar. Because they only list 163 games out of thousands of games scattered over pc and every platform and because they only list games several professional publications have reviewed, they tend to be biased even higher, with the median score being in the high 70s. The overall range of those 163 games goes from 4.4/10 to 9.2/10 with both the 4s and above 9s being very rare. Again, if the community reviewed every single game, the metacritic average would be much lower and somewhat more spread.

That is a fair point @FishyS which I have to be honest, I never really thought about and that is why these conversations are so fun. You're right, there is a huge amount of shovelware coming out every year, that will never get a single world written about it by any major sites, so that will naturally limit the range of outcomes you'll get in terms of review scores.

I would assume most releases that come out that have any audience to make it worth reviewing for sites like this probably are in the 6 - 8 range, because you are really only pulling out of top ten percent all the time. Those 4s and belows really are I suppose exclusively saved for exactly the kinds of titles they intentionally aren't reviewing.

I suppose then does that mean context for review scores needs reframing with that in mind? Is a 7 out of 10 game in a sample of 10 percent of the best releases that year really a 9 out of 10 if you reviewed all the chaff you were skipping?

Interesting question what the distribution would be if you included every single game. In my own experience grabbing semi-random (mostly platformer) eShop games, there are a ton of 4-6 (poor to not bad) but those stretch all the way from 2 to occasionally 10 (e.g. Balatro). Granted, I avoid the ones which look like potential 2-3s and I would hope most 1s don't even make it to the eShop despite the eShop's low standards. But, yeah, those 7-10s which most current reviews get might be off in the tail — I don't know if the biggest score peak would be 4 or 5 or 6 though it wouldn't shock me if it was 5, meaning the current system is doing what it is supposed to; despite all the chaff, most eShop games want to sell and be fun to someone which means most devs aiming for at least a 5.

For me, it sort of needs to take over my life for a while.
A 10/10 game is one I can't get out of my head. One I think about all the time while doing other things.
But equally important is replayability for me. A game can be fantastic on a first experience but not nearly as fun on repeated visits. Those can only get as high as a 9 for me.

The amount of games I'd give a 10 is probably between 20 and 30. Which is definitely more than other things I'm interested. For example, barring a couple of movies, I have exactly 7 10/10 anime, and at least one of them only in the context of one particular season of that show. Even then, its all generally rounding up from like a 9.5.

But those 20-30 are sincerely 10/10 with that in mind, almost no doubt for any of them (and to be fair a couple of them are collections which is arguably cheating).

@skywake Again, your perspective betrays your lack of contextual perspective. What you pervieve as a low bar was actually at the time very high. It's the very nature of progress and to think it was a series of low bars undermines the effort getting games to where they are today. (And also an arrogance as to where games are today! Which is fuel for Jeff Keightkley lmao!)

It is a definite argument whether new people playing old games should rate those games from a modern perspective or from the context of when it came out. I can totally acknowledge Mario 64 may have deserved a 10/10 at the time but I personally wouldn't rate it that high — partially (inevitably) because I didn't play it as a kid so don't have that nostalgia and partially because I think certain aspects of the art and gameplay (e.g. camera) didn't age as well as e.g. Super Mario World.

That said, I try to mix in both perspectives and give bonus points in my scoring for a game if it was, for example, groundbreaking for it's time. So I might rate Mario 64 9/10 because of bonus points even though I think it is ugly and I hate the camera (but it does otherwise have good level design). Would I have rated it 10/10 if I had played it as a child? Who knows.

The score distribution thing, I think that's a more interesting question. As @FishyS said the actual reviews are skewed high because reviewers are only going to put time into reviewing stuff that's noteworthy. Why waste time and money on something that's not worth it? But I think that even if you were to review ALL of the things I'm not sure that you should end up with a scale where 5 is right in the middle

I kinda feel like the scale is something like
0 - The game is openly hostile, literally a scam or in some other way irredeemable
1 - It's not actively hostile but it's barely a game at all
2 - Not quite a game, more like demo of a game that if you saw it on DYKG you'd go "I see why they didn't greenlight this"
3 - It seems the studio execs inexplicably greenlit this one but they then cut the budget short and the final product is not only fundamentally not a good idea but it's also broken
4 - A potentially good game exists here but it is broken in some way that makes it impossible to recommend
5 - The game passes the minimum threshold for recommendation
6 - The game is passable but not great, only pick up if you're a fan of the series
7 - The game is good and fans will be happy with it. Solid library filler
8 - Strong recommend, fans of the genre and series should pick it up
9 - Universal recommend, a system defining release. Anyone who can get this should get this
10 - Museum recommend, a media defining release. When the credits roll you will not be able to look at other games in the same way again.

Again, I don't subscribe to the idea that we should consider the context of the release when reviewing stuff. Whether it's in terms of being a retrospective review of something or even just reviewing something for a specific platform. The scale I'm jamming this reply bellow, that's my perspective. And while Super Mario 64 definitely reached the "media defining release" tier when it came out I don't feel as though it reaches those highs now. It's museum worthy sure, but it's museum worthy as a historical piece not a contemporary piece

In comparison Super Mario Galaxy, I feel, still clears that higher bar in today's context. Doesn't matter what order you play any of the platformers that exist you will still get to the credits of Galaxy and go "I need to re-evaluate what games can be". I guess technically if you play 2 before 1 that changes a bit but I guess 2 is a bit more like DLC for one. I don't think you can say the same for Super Mario 64. IMO. It's a system defining game sure, but that makes it a 9 not a 10

And again, that's not a statement about graphics or anything else. It's just where these things sit now. I would still confidently give Link's Awakening a 10 in spite of it being a GB(C) release for example. And from my perspective Link's Awakening I came across more or less the same as I did Super Mario 64. I had a GB as a kid, I didn't have Link's Awakening. I first played it on the 3DS VC. When the end credits rolled I put my 3DS down and re-evaluated what it meant to be a great game. Is it perfect? Well no. And the HD remaster added a lot of modern creature comforts it was missing. But it's still functionally a 10 on the GB(C)

@FishyS But then, aren't you altering the criteria for judging if a game is a 10/10 in hindsight? It's revolutionary and an industry game changer. 10 outta 10. Then, a few years later when everyone else is doing it you look at it and think it's not revolutionary anymore? 7 outta 10? It doesn't scan in my book. Kinda almost like it's being downgraded because of how influential it was...when in fact that is the very thing that contributes it to being a 10 outta 10 hahaha! What a conundrum!

Would you rather me rate Mario 64 lower? 😝

No matter whether a game is new or old, they can get bonus points for being groundbreaking. I would also give bonus points to BotW for example. Mario 64 and BotW were both groundbreaking and culturally relevant so they get bonus points. That doesn't mean either were my favorite game, but I rate them both higher than I would otherwise. Sounds like you have a different definition of a 10 which is fine; for me I try to put in a lot of factors but one of those factors is how much I enjoy the game. I want some objectivity, but the scores aren't useful to me personally if I don't add some subjectivity too.