scully1888

Hey everyone

Just a quick message explaining my 9. For me, when it comes down to it, the score is decided by a single question: "how much fun did I have with it?"

The reality is that since I got the review code I've been up to the wee hours of every morning obsessing over all three games again, and loving every minute.

Do I wish it had more bonus features? Absolutely: I say that in the review. But the reality is that I've still had an absolute blast playing them again, and I'm not going to give it some sort of 6/10 protest score just because Mario 64 isn't widescreen and Sunshine isn't 60fps.

If these are deal-breakers for you, then that's fine: don't buy it. But the fact remains that these are three of the best platformers ever made and above all else have to be judged on how much fun they are, in my eyes.

Ultimately, it's all about opinions, and the fact that there are just as many people saying it should have been a 10 as there are saying it should have been a 7 shows that this is an impossible game to score in a way that pleases everyone. I can only state how much fun I had playing them, and the answer is "a hell of a lot".

Hope that clarifies things!

Chris

@JimmySpades To be fair, exactly where did Darren mock it?

@nintendope64 I'm sorry, but I don't go along with any of that at all. Just saying "hey, forget about that, let's just focus on the games" is a massive insult to the people affected.

@Y2JayRome To be fair, there is "pleasing anyone". They could have apologised properly instead of tweeting a video right before a livestream that works result in a load of tweets pushing it down the feed while everyone spoke about their new game announcements. That was designed to be buried.

@Old-Red I guess so. I can definitely live with that.

@BionicDodo I was harsh on FIFA because it literally was the same game as last year's with just the squads updated. That isn't the case with this one: MyPlayer and MyTeam, the two main modes, are completely different. Hope that helps clarify it!

@Old-Red With respect, it sounds like you're trying to convince me that I said something I didn't. I never mentioned anything about a "tedious grind" - I said you either take time playing the thing and earn your stats that way or pay up to speed things up, and I think it's fairly clear by the language used in the review that I don't approve of the latter.

I never said the grind was "tedious", only that it takes a while. You're still playing what I firmly believe is an excellent basketball game to get there and you're still making progress through the leagues while you do it, it's not like an RPG where you're just running back and forth over the same bit of land to level up.

You're accusing me of "cherry picking the positives and ignoring the negatives", when the reality is you're doing the exact opposite: you're completely ignoring that I think the game itself is great fun to play because you're focusing 100% of your attention on an element of the game that, while certainly a negative, is absolutely not necessary to play it.

If you don't like the fact that microtransactions are in the game and you want to take a principled stance against them then fine, don't play it. But other people understand that these things, while toxic, affect different games in different ways, and the reality is that they can absolutely be avoided here. It's not a case of "ignoring the negatives": as stated above, I mention them numerous times in the article. I just don't think they 'weigh' as much as the positives because they can be ignored in the game. If the thing was practically broken unless you paid extra then you'd see a much lower score.

@Old-Red @LaytonPuzzle27 Right. Listen.

I have no issue with people disagreeing with a score but I draw the line at "how much money did 2K bribe you" and accusations that I "sacrificed my integrity" to get "more free games in the future". That's just absolute nonsense.

Reviews are supposed to break down in detail the elements of a game so that the reader can take them all into account and decide for themselves whether it sounds like the sort of thing they'd like. It isn't just about the number at the end.

I address the microtransactions in detail in the review. I refer to them in the conclusion as an "unwanted ogre" and say elsewhere that they create a "grimy" feeling. I mention them in seven separate paragraphs. Nothing is being hidden here.

However, I also make it clear that, whether you want to hear it or not, it's perfectly playable to play the game without them. I've been playing this series since the Dreamcast days (mostly paying for them, thanks very much) and I haven't spent a single penny on microtransactions at any point, yet still come back every year because it simply plays a fun game of basketball. In a way, they're so ridiculously overpriced in this particular series that it's very easy to ignore them, because there's nothing really 'micro' about them: these aren't impulse purchases like they would be in mobile games.

Ultimately, reviews are supposed to be consumer advice for people trying to decide whether to make a purchase. The issue here is that the people protesting and asking for scores of 3 and 4 because of the microtransactions were never going to buy the game in the first place, so why should I be providing a 'protest' score that doesn't actually help people interested in the game?

On the court is where it mainly counts, and on the court this is a brilliant game (now that the shooting has been fixed). It's an 8. You should be capable of reading the review and reading about the microtransactions: if you decide that's too much for you then just don't buy the thing. The score isn't a contract, it's advice you – taking into account the information in the 1300 words above it – can either take or leave. Other people, however, will accept that it's perfectly possible to play the game without playing 2K's 'game' and without paying extra. Those people will buy the game, keep their wallet away and still have a good time with it.

Hope that explains things better. Please give it a rest with the bribe nonsense.

@TheFox To be fair, I was pretty specific about how the microtransactions are used in the actual review.

@OorWullie They're pretty different. Horizon Chase Turbo handles more like Out Run whereas this feels more like Ridge Racer or a karting game. If you're more into the Grand Prix format of racing games where you get a few races and are given points depending on your position this is the one for you.

@nessisonett Novo probably deserved it

@SpaceboyScreams Being kicked in the groin is painful but the pain subsides after a while. If you're punched in the face hard enough you could end up with a broken nose or black eye and the pain could last longer.

Don't worry about it, in other words, haha!

@ClassSonicSatAm To be fair, 14 of the 19 Sega Ages releases included arcade games, so the implication that this has been a series mostly dominated by Mega Drive ROMs is a little unfair.

I agree that some more uncommon stuff would have been nice, but the likes of Virtua Racing, Puzzle & Action: Ichidant-R and G-LOC have been big wins in my eyes.

@Papichulo No, but for some people it might be.

@EmirParkreiner The reason I include the borders in screenshots when I review these sorts of retro compilations is because some people want to know what the borders look like. Everyone knows what no border looks like, after all.

@COVIDberry I'm sorry but I think you've misconstrued the article: at no point did I say game creators should be forced to include an Easy mode. The point of the article was simply that there's no shame in playing on Easy even if you're a veteran gamer. There should be no conflict in anything I've said: the whole point of it was living and letting live.

@nintendope64 Mmm-hmm. I think people can decide for themselves. It would be unprofessional for me to discuss it further on here, so find me on Twitter if you want to continue the discussion.

@TG16_IS_BAE No problem at all with you asking for clarification since you were so respectful about it, so don't worry! Basically, if the games had never offered online in the first place it would still have been an 8 because there are seven brilliant fighting games in here, among the best in the genre.

It's important to note that the online isn't actually broken as far as I'm aware: I simply couldn't find a match at all. That isn't necessarily the fault of the game, it could just be that hardly anyone is interested in playing it online.

I do see other people reporting that the online is broken, but I literally couldn't find a match to see if that's the case, and I'm not comfortable with stating something I haven't tried for myself, so I have to assume it works until I see that isn't the case.

Since I'm not punishing it for having broken online, then, it would be harsh to punish it for simply including a mode that nobody cares about, so instead I've pointed out that nobody's using it and that you might as well assume it isn't a viable option.

To clarify, then, I'm not saying the online isn't broken (because I literally couldn't test it). It's just a ghost town. Hope that clears it up a bit!

@nintendope64 Well those insults all sound nice and personal. I appreciate you paying so much attention to my words ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

@Yorumi Citing just Etrian Odyssey, a vague statement about MMOs and briefly mentioning Mario games isn't enough to prove without question that easy modes hurt normal modes.

Take the Psikyo games: those shoot 'em ups are about as hardcore as you can get. Their difficulty levels go all the way down to Easy, then Child, then Monkey. Doesn't make the harder difficulties any easier: they're absolute nails.

Call of Duty games are about as mainstream as you can get. However, as I mentioned in the article, they also have difficulty levels, ranging from Recruit (which my dad plays on and thoroughly enjoys) to Veteran (where you basically just die over and over again because it's so stacked against you).

My wife loved playing Guitar Hero on Easy or Normal (depending on the song) whereas I loved playing it on Expert. We could actually play the same songs at the same time together, with different difficulty settings, and her difficulty level didn't affect how much I was enjoying it on my level.

You can cite one or two examples of sequels that are a little easier than their predecessors if you like, but there are infinitely more examples of games which have multiple difficulty levels and can still provide a serious challenge on the highest ones. Practically any one-on-one fighting game from the 16-bit era to today, for example.

Yup, this is about how I expected this to go.

@Yorumi Why would they "suffer" with an easy mode though? The default difficulty would stay exactly the same. It would make literally no difference to you if there was an optional second mode where, say, you took a little less damage and dealt a little more, just to make boss fights less frustrating for some people.

@zool We've discussed this before: Paper Mario got an 8 because I really enjoyed it despite the bits I disliked. If I felt it deserved a 7 instead, I'd have given it a 7 instead. I've written 104 reviews for this site so far: in 19 of them I gave a 6, but in 26 of them I gave a 7.

This idea that 6 and 8 are "safe scores" just isn't true, I'm sorry: I have no issues using the full scoring scale available to me. I've given 2, 3 and 4 on here, and also given 9 and 10 at times.

@sixrings Fun fact: I legitimately did beat TMNT on the NES back in the day. Took me bloody months to master it but I did it. But that was when I had months to spare, because I was a kid. This may alarm you, but I never got a medal in the mail for it or anything. If you want to pat yourself on the back for beating Super Mario Bros 3 in a day when you were a kid, go for it. I rented the Master System version of Ghouls n Ghosts and beat that in a day too. It doesn't have any bearing on the point I'm making in this article, though.

@nintendope64 Trust me, I never put stock in abusive responses I'll sometimes have a bit of fun with them but don't worry: as the article states, I'm comfortable enough with where I'm at in my career and my gaming that I don't worry about people having a go.

@nintendope64 @sixrings Because I take a pride in my work and an interest in my articles and always read the responses to them.

@sixrings My wife and I bought our own house through our own hard work, but I appreciate your concern regardless ❤

It's almost like the 1000 or so words above the score are a better way of summing up the game than the one or two words next to the score

@martynstuff It's a shame my name isn't Fred Zero

@Razer I'm sorry, but he is being rude. I have no issue with someone interpreting the review differently, but when someone starts going down the "you and I both know it's not right" and the "it hurts when you're wrong, doesn't it" route, that's crossing the line from respectful debate into either accusations of wrongdoing (in the case of the former) or belittling "we've already established you're wrong and now I bet you feel stupid" rhetoric (the latter). There are hundreds of comments under this review and a number of them disagree with the score: that's completely understandable with such a divisive game, so I've let the vast majority go without reply. But I'm proud of my work and draw a line at someone not simply disagreeing with me, but attempting to explain that I've objectively made a mistake and doing so in such a patronising tone. Manners cost nothing.

@SeerCoot Given your tone, I can safely say that will never happen.

@SeerCoot I prefer to rely on my own 35 years of experience, thanks. I rate games based on how much fun I had with them: I had a lot of fun with this one. You may wish I'd given it a 7 but I'm perfectly happy with my score. I don't know what you're alluding to when it comes to "my colleagues" but it doesn't matter regardless: my score is my opinion, nobody else's. I feel it's rather patronising to have someone try to lecture me on how to do this job, so I'm going to respectfully stop debating this with you.

@SeerCoot With respect, I've been doing this gig for a while. If I thought a 7 was fair, I'd have given it a 7. But I didn't. I think it's an 8.

You're perfectly within your rights to tell me you disagree (once you've played through it, of course). But telling me you disagree and telling me I'm wrong are two very different things, and the latter isn't appropriate by definition.

@SeerCoot I gave it 8. That's the score I think is fair. If I didn't think it was worth as much as that I'd have given it a 7.

@SeerCoot There's no difference. A score out of five is just a score out of 10 halved. This is an 8/10 so it would be a 4/5. It would still get the same reaction.

@RainbowGazelle The manual just calls them "goo-shooters" but doesn't reveal what the goo actually is.

@FargusPelagius I'm sorry but a lot of that just isn't true. Nintendo has nothing to do with it when it comes to third-party publishers securing licences.

EA had the Bond licence then it went to Activision (hence the GoldenEye remake on Wii): if the N64 GoldenEye was to come back Activision would have had to sort it out with Rare (i.e. Microsoft).

Meanwhile, THQ had the WWE licence, and that then moved on to 2K. If they wanted to bring back No Mercy, it would be up to 2K to figure out how to make that happen.

Nintendo doesn't really have a say in making third-party licences happen: publishers bring their games to Nintendo and Nintendo helps release them physically or digitally, that's about it.

@RainbowGazelle They are water pistols though! Sure, they don't fire water, but even so 😉

@RustedHero Ah, Tommy Hilfiger, that well-known snack

@Grot I enjoyed War Zone at the time (and especially loved its sequel WWF Attitude) but in hindsight they didn't really hold up: entering different multi-button commands to do special moves was a bit too Mortal Kombat.

@Grot I think it's more the fact that there's no chance in hell that the WWE would allow the release of a new product with him in it. He'd need to be removed or replaced, or this idea would be a non-starter right away.

@burninmylight The Def Jam and GameCube WWE games certainly tried to recreate the formula, like you say, but I think the Def Jam games were too fast and the GameCube ones, while brilliant, just felt ever so slightly off. Totally entitled to your opinion, but I still reckon No Mercy was the most fun to play.

@FargusPelagius To be fair, being "idiots" has nothing to do with it: when you're dealing with something like Bond or the WWE there are licensing issues you have to sort out.

@GonzSolo The new battle system isn't "dumbing down" though. If anything it's over-complicating things by adding puzzles that are often pretty difficult to solve.

If you're unhappy that there aren't standard turn-based battles, I get that: I am too. But if your argument is that it's too easy as a result, that really isn't the case here.

Hello everyone, just want to address a few points here that will hopefully clear some things up.

First and foremost, I obviously stand by the review and the score. Without wishing to toot my own horn, I've been doing this professionally for over 14 years now and have reviewed thousands of games (including over 100 on Nintendo Life): with the greatest respect in the world, I'm not going to listen to anyone who tells me how I should have scored it or what it "reads like". You're completely within your rights to disagree with me (once you've played it), but that's my stance and it won't change.

Secondly, any sort of suggestions that there's either some sort of bias or that these scores are a group decision are complete nonsense and frankly offensive: after all, since reviews are pretty much the main part of this gig, it's essentially telling us that we aren't doing our jobs properly.

I have never and would never write for a publication that tells me what score to give games. The management at Nintendo Life trust me to review games to the best of my ability, and I trust them to publish my reviews without editing their message and compromising their integrity. The day I'm told what score to give a game here is the day I stop writing reviews for this site: that day shows no signs of ever coming.

As for the game itself: no, I didn't get along with the battle system. But please note that nowhere did I say it's absolutely terrible. When I got in a battle, I sighed: that's about as strongly as I felt about them.

The point is that these games mainly live or die by their story and their sense of humour, and in that sense I think this is one of the best games in the series. When the credits rolled, I still sat back satisfied that I'd enjoyed a brilliant adventure, with some hilarious set-pieces. I even came close to shedding a tear at one point.

It's very frustrating, then, to see people looking at a score of 8 and saying "ugh, I suppose I'll have to wait for a GOOD Paper Mario game, then". This is one: you don't have to wait.

It appears that what many of them mean is that they wanted a turn-based battle system as in The Thousand-Year Door, and because this isn't one they aren't interested. That's up to them, and they're perfectly entitled to feel that way: I don't personally believe that makes this a bad game as a result, but there you go.

For the people asking: "Why are you criticising it for not being an RPG when they never said it was?" - firstly, some people wanted to know if it was like The Thousand-Year Door. Secondly, the thing still has random, turn-based battles, items, summons and the like. People can claim it isn't trying to be RPG all they like, but it certainly feels like one, except for the lack of an XP system (which is pretty crucial). If it isn't trying to be an RPG, it should ditch turn-based battling altogether and go back down the Super Paper Mario route. Until then, people are still going to see turn-based battling and expect an RPG.

Think I'll stop there - sorry for the enormous post, but I'm not the sort to post a review and run away, I'm always happy to clarify any points. What I'm not always happy to do, though, is deal with anyone who accuses me (or any other reviewer) of bias or anything underhanded, or try to tell us how reviews are supposed to work.

I don't want to hijack this any more, so feel free to chuck me a message on Twitter if you want to continue debating it! ❤

@ShinEon Please don't go down the "well, of course you like it, you got it for free" route. I've been doing this for a long, long time and fully appreciate the value of a game based on its price.

The simple reality is that my score is based on how much fun I had with the game. If the combat was better it would have probably been a 9. It's been a long time since I've smiled so much playing a game, and the annoying combat wasn't enough to remove that smile from my face. You can call it apologetic, but I call it realistic: the game has its negatives but the positives stuck with me a hell of a lot more, and if someone on the street asked me if I recommend it I would absolutely say yes.

I return to my original point, though: please don't imply that the circumstances in which I receive games to review in any way affect my ability to analyse them critically. That's one of the fundamental principles of this job.

@nintendope64 Different publications just have a different 'house style': I've written for plenty over the years that use 'we' and plenty others that use 'I'. There's really no difference when it comes to how reviews are handled: it would be a bit rich of us to say to people "hey, you haven't played the game so how do you know" if at the same time we were agreeing the score as a committee based on one review code. I can promise you that the process went like this: I was asked to review it, I got the game, I played the game, I wrote the review, I gave it a score, the text was proof-read by a second person (for spelling, grammar etc) and it was published. Nintendo Life asks folk like me to review games because they trust our judgement: I wouldn't write for a publication that tried to change my scores to suit an overall message.

@Josh2396 I think you're reading far too much into this. I review games purely based on how much fun I had playing them: I don't take its status into account and I don't take any other game's score into account. I had fun playing this one despite the battle system, so I'd still recommend it, hence the score.

@Josh2396 Just a reminder that the site is made up of different reviewers, so the score one game got isn't necessarily a reflection on another game's score unless both were reviewed by the same person!

Thanks for the early comments guys, now please read the thing There's 2000 words in there, fill your boots ❤