@Mgene15 It's almost as if I'm a human being with my own opinion, and not a Metacritic hivemind.
Look closer at those Metacritic scores instead of just looking at the number. There were still plenty of sites giving it an 8 even back then, and those who weren't complained about the camera as its main issue.
As I say in my review, the camera has now been fixed, making it a better game. Look at the Metacritic for the Switch version and you'll find it's much closer to our score, with numerous other sites giving it a similar or higher score.
This over-reliance on Metacritic is just silly, frankly. A Metacritic score is not the be-all and end-all: it's just an average, which means some will score it higher and some will score it lower. Please actually read the words I wrote to see why I consider it a good game.
@ChompyMage Rio 2016 had something like 400 different pieces of clothing you could unlock for your Mii character, which gave players an incentive to keep playing. Tokyo 2020 doesn't have anything like that: once the story's finished, you're pretty much done.
@KoekiieWoekiie The review's complete. You can tell how it looks by the screenshot and the frame rate isn't really an issue in a game like this: I only tend to mention things like that in reviews when they're remarkably good or bad.
@MajorasLapdog It really just comes down to the publication's 'house style' (the agreed style of writing they use). Some sites let you write in first-person, others want you to write as the 'voice' of the publication. Some have review scores, others don't. Some have a sense of humour, others don't allow heading puns or anything like that. There's no right or wrong way of doing it and while I have my own personal tastes (first-person, humorous, no review score), part of the job is still respecting the publication's house style and adapting your work to it.
@Seananigans I want to stress something that I see in a lot of comments: the pluses and minuses don't necessarily mean points added or removed. The score is a standalone thing that takes everything into account and weighs all the points up differently. The lack of proper accessibility options haven't stopped this game from getting a 9, but I would be doing those with physical disabilities a disservice by not mentioning it anyway, because I wouldn't want to give the impression that they'd be able to spend £65 on it and get the full experience.
@Franklin This is a game about physical fitness so yes, I obviously meant physical disabilities.
@SBandy I think it's extremely irresponsible to suggest that Nintendo "wants people to develop gambling problems". There's a difference between wanting to make money and actively hoping people develop a condition.
@SBandy Mario Kart Tour is the big free-to-play game at the moment, and it's a Nintendo game: that's why it's getting more articles this week. Any time Fortnite does something new, it gets covered too: there are loads of Fortnite articles on the site.
As for reporting on how much money they've made, if anything to me they show how little impact they've made: it may have made $12.7 million in its first week, but it's been downloaded 90.1 million times, meaning the average spent per player is $0.14.
On top of that, the article reports that Super Mario Run made $16m in its first week and Fire Emblem Heroes made $28.2m, each of which were downloaded far fewer times. That to me suggests that Mario Kart Tour relies far less on microtransactions than the others.
@SBandy And people could get addicted playing Fortnite too, or FIFA, or Super Kirby Clash, or Warframe, or Paladins, or Pokemon Quest, or Fallout Shelter, or any of the other free-to-play games on Switch. The site will do its bit by calling out microtransactions in the game's review (as I did in my Mario Kart Tour review for this site), but not reporting on any of them after that and pretending they don't exist is doing a disservice to the people who enjoy these games and can do so without issue.
@SBandy Maybe it's because, if you look at the comments, there are plenty of other people who are having fun with it and doing so without spending a penny on it. You may not like the practice – I don't either – but it's not entirely accurate to imply that by covering it Nintendo Life is somehow enabling gambling, since plenty of readers are playing it perfectly well without bothering with the microtransactions.
@Alucard83 The list of cons is just a summary. It's not like 3 cons = 7/10 or anything. Some cons are more important that others (and one was just a joke).
@Effortless-gamer It could be argued that Tropical Freeze isn't a spiritual successor, it's just a straightforward sequel.
@ChompyMage Hold on. One minute you "did a few of the daily challenges every other day and easily finished the entire Nitro Bar", the next you're talking about Pro and Themed challenges and having to do the Daily Challenges every day for the entire month.
You're massively underselling how much work is involved to unlock everything, and – like I already said – I've already tried to do it, so just telling me it's no big deal doesn't fly when I already know from experience that it is.
@ChompyMage For the first Grand Prix you needed 42,000 Nitro Points to get everything, and you only got 75-150 for each Daily Challenge. That isn't a minor amount of work.
@earthb0und Got to disagree with this. You've got to play the absolute hell out of it every day to unlock everything before a Grand Prix runs out. It isn't as simple as "just play it and you'll unlock it", it's more like "dedicate your life to it and you'll unlock it". Activision is relying on people not being able to get everything in time and buying the extra coins at the end to get what's left.
@derdennis It's nothing to do with "wanting all the clicks". If reviewers just pretended this game doesn't exist, it would still exist anyway. Some people might take a chance on it. We need to call out garbage like this so people know to stay away from it, instead of just burying our heads in the sand and being arrogant enough to assume that readers won't buy it if we haven't acknowledged it.
@YeshaYahu5417 People say that a lot but it isn't true. EA does at least usually put some effort into its yearly games, be that through new modes or what have you.
@SBandy I don't accept the insinuation that by reviewing this game I'm somehow responsible for kicking off someone's descent into addiction. I was asked to review the game, I have done so while pointing out that the monetisation is a waste of time.
I fully accept that addiction is a real issue with loot boxes and completely agree that it has to be urgently addressed.
However, the reality is that there are also other gamers who happily play free-to-play games without spending a penny on them. These people know that there are many different types of f2p game and they want to know whether a game offers enough for non-payers and lets them get on with it without providing too many blockers or intrusive demands that they pay up to keep playing. Having played the game for two days solid I'm confident that non-payers can enjoy it without feeling pressured.
I absolutely get that some people have the ability to get addicted to loot boxes. However, I also feel that simply dismissing a game and saying "it has loot boxes, you'll get addicted, avoid this evil" is unfair (and a little patronising) to those who were never intending to spend any money on it and want to know whether it's worth downloading from a non-paying perspective.
@SBandy As I already explained in comment 100 above, the 7 is based on the free version of the game without spending any money on it. The heading says to avoid the gacha system and the end part says the subscription is a massive waste of money, so I don't agree with your suggestion that the monetisation is just glossed over without any criticism.
@jarvismp - no worries mate. Always hard to tell who's joking in a comments thread 😉
@sanderev Mate, with the greatest of respect, you're making massive assumptions and they're incorrect. I downloaded the game from the iOS and Google Play stores as soon as it was released, just like everyone else. I played through it just like everyone else, and I subscribed to the free two-week Gold trial so I could judge its value for the review (where I subsequently said it's a waste of money).
As for "a review written by someone who got the game for free is not a review, it's an advertisement" – absolute nonsense. You could spin that around and say that anyone who buys a game is more likely to give it a better score because they're reassuring themselves that they didn't waste their money. We are professionals, and we judge each game on their individual merits, not on whether we got them for free (which is a daft point to bring up in a review of a free-to-play game anyway).
Please don't assume that I was handed some shiny special journalist-friendly version of the game with every character unlocked and regular motivational compliments. I'm playing the exact same version everyone else is playing, and haven't put a single penny into it yet.
Evening all! Well, this went as expected (which is why I predicted what the comments would be like in the review).
Look, this was always going to be a divisive game no matter what, but I felt it was important to actually play through the game (at least as much as possible given what's available so far) and judge it fairly, rather than go down the slightly knee-jerk reaction of "what?! They want MONEY?! 2/10".
The reality is that nothing is free, and it should have been clear from the day that Nintendo announced this game was coming that it was going to have some sort of monetisation in it. The point of the review wasn't therefore to destroy the game for having microtransactions – that's just how mobile gaming works – but to judge how intrusive they are and whether they ruin the game as a result.
The conclusion I came to, then, was that because it's perfectly possible to play through the game without spending a single penny on it – and to do so all night if you want, without being told "sorry, you've run out of energy, pay up" – it's nowhere near one of the worst examples of a free-to-play game (and just to clarify, it isn't pay-to-win as someone suggested, because you aren't competing against anyone and you can still get five stars with any character).
Everyone has different feelings about microtransactions – I personally have no time for them – so the best I could do in this situation is describe in detail what you get for your money should you go down that route. However, the review was aimed at people who don't want to spend money on the game: indeed, the heading specifically says you should ignore the gacha system and the pros and cons at the end state that the subscription is "a huge waste of money". It should be clear from this that the review is based on what you get for free.
That said, I completely accept that some people (including me!) have never been keen on the idea of Nintendo getting in mobile gaming in the first place, and so I absolutely get that this one was going to have some backlash.
And, naturally, I completely get that some of those who actually bothered to try playing the game (because let's face it, a lot of people haven't) aren't a fan of the controls. Like I say in the review, they took some getting used to for me too, but I'm now happy enough with them. They were never going to replace an analogue stick and shoulder buttons, but my opinion – and that's all it is – is that it's the best we could have expected on mobile.
What I won't accept, however, is some people – and I'm specifically looking at @hakjie11 @sanderev @jarvismp @suikoden and @SBandy so far – suggesting that this was a paid review, and asking if we're enjoying our 'Nintendo money' for it.
Putting aside the fact that nobody would actually pay money for a 7/10 (which most people usually wrongly moan is a bad score in every other review), to suggest that we are – and that I specifically am – being paid to give a dishonest review is a complete insult and I don't appreciate it.
I've been doing this professionally for 13½ years now (a number of readers here remember me from my six years at the UK Official Nintendo Magazine from 2016 to 2012) and probably reviewed well over a thousand games in my time. Writing about games is the one thing I'm good at, and to have people suggest that I would compromise that for a payoff is frankly pathetic and defamatory.
There are plenty of other people in the comments (and, as pointed out, on the iOS store reviews) who are having perfectly good fun playing the game too. This is a divisive game that some people seem to hate and others seem to be enjoying: I fall in the latter camp, it's perfectly fine if you fall in the former.
By all means disagree with the review: that's the whole point of opinions. But don't ever suggest that my reviews are anything but an honest critique of what I've played, because that's a huge insult to the nearly decade and a half I've put into providing reliable buying advice to readers.
@60frames-please Mate, you're missing out on plenty of good games if you insist on only playing 60fps ones. Frame rate really isn't the most important aspect of a game.
Just to clear this up a bit: no, I wasn't aware of the upcoming multiplayer patch, because generally we go on what information is provided to us by the publisher.
When I received the code for the game I received with it the usual information you get from the PR and publisher making you aware of things that are in the process of being corrected: bugs and the like. The info we were given for GRID said (direct quote):
"The retail game will support an additional free "High Res Car Textures" pack, which will be available to download on the game's release day (19/09/19). However, it won't be available to download before then due to Switch eShop restrictions. Please be aware that when you load the game prior to release, you will be asked whether you wish to download this pack, but you won't be available to do so until release. Users who purchase the game after it's released will have access to the DLC straight away.
We will also be releasing a day zero patch for the game. This update will improve the loading times on a few specific levels, and improve the texture for the Pagani Huayra car."
That's all we were told: nothing about any future multiplayer options. Now, if it's since been confirmed by the developers that multiplayer is coming that's great, but given that I'd have expected something as major as that to have been brought to our attention when we were given the code, I don't think it was too unfair for me to have assumed it wasn't on the radar.
That said, even if I was aware of it, I can only review what's in front of me. I'm not going to rate a game based on modes I haven't played. For all I know, the split-screen could drop to 15fps and the online could be laggy as hell: I'd hope not, but you never know until you're actually playing it. If we'd been told in advance that multiplayer was coming, the review would still pretty much be the same at this point.
I'm reminded of PES 2019, which I bought on day one because it was heavily promoted as having Celtic as a partner team, alongside screens of Celtic players with real faces, playing at Celtic Park. Turns out that content wasn't added until five MONTHS after launch, by which point the thing was on Xbox Game Pass and I'd essentially spent £50 on something I could've waited for instead.
My roundabout point is that, while it's good to now know multiplayer is coming, I still don't think we can change the review yet: mainly for the reason given above (I haven't played it) but also because we don't know if it's coming next week, next month, early 2020, etc. When it is eventually added it'll be up to the guys at NL to decide what to do at that point.
@Dang69 In fairness, when a game goes 'radio silent' that's usually down to the publisher rather than the press. If there's no new version or demo of the game to play we can't exactly write an article just saying "remember this exists, by the way". When there is an opportunity it's often covered: there was a hands-on for this very game earlier this month https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/09/hands_on_sayonara_wild_hearts_is_pop_perfection_in_video_game_form
@Dang69 Please don't go down the "this is a Nintendo site, so what do you expect" route. I've been reviewing games professionally for more than 13 years, and it's a little unfair to suggest that I'd score a game higher because it's a Nintendo site. I'm more than happy with the score I gave the game, and it would have been given the same score regardless of what format it was on or what publication I'd written it for.
@Dang69 To be fair, it isn't hype: I did actually play it. I'm happy with the 9 I gave it. Yes, it's short, but I've already played through it three times and it'll permanently stay on my Switch for any long journeys. I love it.
@60frames-please It's 30. It doesn't matter. It's a slow-paced platformer, it doesn't need 60. Not every game needs 60. The NES, SNES and Mega Drive were a different era and games were made completely differently back then: and besides, they didn't all run at what we'd now call 60fps either.
@PlusFan I don't know what to tell you, I always make a point of noting how long I take to beat a game so I'm confident my estimate of 2-3 hours is accurate. Took me around three.
Should just stress that contrary to popular belief a 6 is still 'not bad', as the site states. There's still some fun to be had in this one, it just doesn't do anything massively novel or fantastic.
@Nomad It's a teaser. It's designed to get you to watch on the 12th. They did the same when they revealed the Wii Remote (then known as the Revolution controller) - they didn't show any game footage then either.
@MagnaRoader The issues are minor in the grand scheme of things. The reality is that after beating it I fully intend to keep playing it in New Game+ mode, and given how many games I review and how little free time I have it takes a hell of a lot for a game to manage that. So it's a 9 for me because I loved it and want to keep playing it beyond the review period.
@impurekind At the end of the day, the review itself explains why I ended up at the score I did. All this convoluted explaining of how they used to do it in the old days (which I'm well versed in: it was Mean Machines etc that encouraged me to be a games journalist in the first pace) and suggesting we do it their way is frankly undermining the actual written review.
The aim of a review isn't to come up with a number that makes people happy: it's to have them coming away from it, having read it fully, knowing whether it sounds like the sort of game they want to buy. In that respect, I'm happy with what I wrote.
@impurekind The problem is that, as magazines like Mean Machines even went to great pains to point out back then, the overall score there isn't an average. If you take the example review you linked to, the game was given an 'overall' score of 48% but the actual average was 63%.
The reason for this is simple: the elements of a game are not all as important as each other. The example review you linked to gave the game 92% for presentation and 70% for graphics, but gave it 45% for 'lastability' because "it shouldn't take more than a day or two to complete". As a result the final score was much lower than the actual average would have been because it doesn't matter how good the game looks if it's too easy to beat.
Long story short, by linking to an old '90s article and saying "this is how it should be done" you've unwittingly proved that this is exactly how I do it.
@AndrewJ Mate, with respect, the game's about a boy who's been turned into a blob and wants to turn into a human and get back home. I don't think it takes the Wachowskis to figure out how it ends.
@AndrewJ You've already answered your own question. I didn't review Minit, and have never played it, so it would be ridiculous of me to try to compare the game I'm reviewing with one I haven't played: that's just asking for mistakes.
Regardless, the Minit review actually states that it's 2-4 hours, not "under 2 hours". If it was 4 hours, that means it's more than five times longer than Whipseey, so even if I did compare the two Minit clearly offers more.
@Mechageo It's also 27 years old. I don't think it's unfair to expect more from something released in 2019. Plenty of other retro-style games are a decent size.
@Xelha The difference is that Fire Emblem isn't a game that necessarily benefits greatly from 60fps, whereas this is clearly based on 8-bit and 16-bit platformers, the vast majority of which were 60fps (and those that weren't were due to a lack of power, something that shouldn't be an issue here).
@Alucard83 The plus and minus points are just little summaries to point out notable aspects of the game. The actual review itself is the bit that explains why the game got the score it did. When the game takes 45 minutes to complete, I worry that focusing on the fact I mentioned its frame rate is perhaps like criticising someone's choice of shoes while they're mugging you.
@Xelha It wasn't marked down for that. The pluses and minuses are just that: they sum up the game's good and bad points. As the review itself makes clear, it was marked down for being shorter than Donald Duck's temper. If it was 60 it would've still been a 4.
@sanderev Not to get into it too much because it's a bit of a nothing conversation, but the original point made was that Nintendo mobile games lead to Nintendo console/handheld games. I'm just saying that almost always isn't the case.
Comments 352
Re: Review: Garfield Kart Furious Racing - A Rancid, Regurgitated Hairball Of A Racer
@Woomy_NNYes funny you should say that, we had the same thought. There's a Hello Kitty review on the way from yours truly.
Re: Review: New Super Lucky's Tale - The Perfect Tonic For Jaded Modern Gamers
@Mgene15 It's almost as if I'm a human being with my own opinion, and not a Metacritic hivemind.
Look closer at those Metacritic scores instead of just looking at the number. There were still plenty of sites giving it an 8 even back then, and those who weren't complained about the camera as its main issue.
As I say in my review, the camera has now been fixed, making it a better game. Look at the Metacritic for the Switch version and you'll find it's much closer to our score, with numerous other sites giving it a similar or higher score.
This over-reliance on Metacritic is just silly, frankly. A Metacritic score is not the be-all and end-all: it's just an average, which means some will score it higher and some will score it lower. Please actually read the words I wrote to see why I consider it a good game.
Re: Review: New Super Lucky's Tale - The Perfect Tonic For Jaded Modern Gamers
@Mgene15 Look just above the number 8 - there's around 1200 words or so there that explain why it got that score x
Re: Review: New Super Lucky's Tale - The Perfect Tonic For Jaded Modern Gamers
@Kanahu Not sure if you're agreeing with me or not, but just in case you aren't, that only works when you're talking about 'it'.
It is - it's
Belonging to it - its
Belonging to Lucky - Lucky's
Re: Review: New Super Lucky's Tale - The Perfect Tonic For Jaded Modern Gamers
@60frames-please Mate, you have Katamari Forever and WipeOut 2097 for Mac in your avatar. Those both ran at 30.
Re: Review: Race With Ryan - A Thoroughly Average Racer Tied To The Most Annoying Licence Imaginable
@Silly_G I promise you Crazy Frog Racer is worse than this. That one's borderline unplayable, this one's just boring.
Re: Review: Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Great Multiplayer, But A Step Backwards For Solo Athletes
@ChompyMage Rio 2016 had something like 400 different pieces of clothing you could unlock for your Mii character, which gave players an incentive to keep playing. Tokyo 2020 doesn't have anything like that: once the story's finished, you're pretty much done.
Re: Review: Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Great Multiplayer, But A Step Backwards For Solo Athletes
@KoekiieWoekiie The review's complete. You can tell how it looks by the screenshot and the frame rate isn't really an issue in a game like this: I only tend to mention things like that in reviews when they're remarkably good or bad.
@MajorasLapdog It really just comes down to the publication's 'house style' (the agreed style of writing they use). Some sites let you write in first-person, others want you to write as the 'voice' of the publication. Some have review scores, others don't. Some have a sense of humour, others don't allow heading puns or anything like that. There's no right or wrong way of doing it and while I have my own personal tastes (first-person, humorous, no review score), part of the job is still respecting the publication's house style and adapting your work to it.
Re: Review: Ring Fit Adventure - Fitness Fun For Everyone
@Seananigans I want to stress something that I see in a lot of comments: the pluses and minuses don't necessarily mean points added or removed. The score is a standalone thing that takes everything into account and weighs all the points up differently. The lack of proper accessibility options haven't stopped this game from getting a 9, but I would be doing those with physical disabilities a disservice by not mentioning it anyway, because I wouldn't want to give the impression that they'd be able to spend £65 on it and get the full experience.
@Franklin This is a game about physical fitness so yes, I obviously meant physical disabilities.
Re: Review: BurgerTime Party! - Too Many Cooks Spoil The Burger
@Mario500 What, 'baps'?
Re: Mario Kart Tour Heads To Tokyo This Week With New Courses And Characters On The Way
@SBandy I think it's extremely irresponsible to suggest that Nintendo "wants people to develop gambling problems". There's a difference between wanting to make money and actively hoping people develop a condition.
Re: Mario Kart Tour Heads To Tokyo This Week With New Courses And Characters On The Way
@SBandy Mario Kart Tour is the big free-to-play game at the moment, and it's a Nintendo game: that's why it's getting more articles this week. Any time Fortnite does something new, it gets covered too: there are loads of Fortnite articles on the site.
As for reporting on how much money they've made, if anything to me they show how little impact they've made: it may have made $12.7 million in its first week, but it's been downloaded 90.1 million times, meaning the average spent per player is $0.14.
On top of that, the article reports that Super Mario Run made $16m in its first week and Fire Emblem Heroes made $28.2m, each of which were downloaded far fewer times. That to me suggests that Mario Kart Tour relies far less on microtransactions than the others.
Re: Mario Kart Tour Heads To Tokyo This Week With New Courses And Characters On The Way
@SBandy And people could get addicted playing Fortnite too, or FIFA, or Super Kirby Clash, or Warframe, or Paladins, or Pokemon Quest, or Fallout Shelter, or any of the other free-to-play games on Switch. The site will do its bit by calling out microtransactions in the game's review (as I did in my Mario Kart Tour review for this site), but not reporting on any of them after that and pretending they don't exist is doing a disservice to the people who enjoy these games and can do so without issue.
Re: Mario Kart Tour Heads To Tokyo This Week With New Courses And Characters On The Way
@SBandy Maybe it's because, if you look at the comments, there are plenty of other people who are having fun with it and doing so without spending a penny on it. You may not like the practice – I don't either – but it's not entirely accurate to imply that by covering it Nintendo Life is somehow enabling gambling, since plenty of readers are playing it perfectly well without bothering with the microtransactions.
Re: Review: Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair - A Delicious Mix Of Donkey Kong And Zelda
@Alucard83 The list of cons is just a summary. It's not like 3 cons = 7/10 or anything. Some cons are more important that others (and one was just a joke).
@Effortless-gamer It could be argued that Tropical Freeze isn't a spiritual successor, it's just a straightforward sequel.
Re: Review: Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair - A Delicious Mix Of Donkey Kong And Zelda
@Wazeddie22 No need to play the original game first, this is a standalone story.
Re: Bonus Seasonal Content Is On The Way To Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
@ChompyMage Hold on. One minute you "did a few of the daily challenges every other day and easily finished the entire Nitro Bar", the next you're talking about Pro and Themed challenges and having to do the Daily Challenges every day for the entire month.
You're massively underselling how much work is involved to unlock everything, and – like I already said – I've already tried to do it, so just telling me it's no big deal doesn't fly when I already know from experience that it is.
Re: Bonus Seasonal Content Is On The Way To Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
@ChompyMage For the first Grand Prix you needed 42,000 Nitro Points to get everything, and you only got 75-150 for each Daily Challenge. That isn't a minor amount of work.
Re: Bonus Seasonal Content Is On The Way To Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
@earthb0und Got to disagree with this. You've got to play the absolute hell out of it every day to unlock everything before a Grand Prix runs out. It isn't as simple as "just play it and you'll unlock it", it's more like "dedicate your life to it and you'll unlock it". Activision is relying on people not being able to get everything in time and buying the extra coins at the end to get what's left.
Re: Review: FIFA 20 - A Shamelessly Cynical Attempt To Swindle Switch-Owning Footy Fans
@derdennis It's nothing to do with "wanting all the clicks". If reviewers just pretended this game doesn't exist, it would still exist anyway. Some people might take a chance on it. We need to call out garbage like this so people know to stay away from it, instead of just burying our heads in the sand and being arrogant enough to assume that readers won't buy it if we haven't acknowledged it.
Re: Review: FIFA 20 - A Shamelessly Cynical Attempt To Swindle Switch-Owning Footy Fans
@YeshaYahu5417 People say that a lot but it isn't true. EA does at least usually put some effort into its yearly games, be that through new modes or what have you.
Re: Review: Mario Kart Tour - Steer Around The Gacha For A Fun, Free Take On The Series
@SBandy I don't accept the insinuation that by reviewing this game I'm somehow responsible for kicking off someone's descent into addiction. I was asked to review the game, I have done so while pointing out that the monetisation is a waste of time.
I fully accept that addiction is a real issue with loot boxes and completely agree that it has to be urgently addressed.
However, the reality is that there are also other gamers who happily play free-to-play games without spending a penny on them. These people know that there are many different types of f2p game and they want to know whether a game offers enough for non-payers and lets them get on with it without providing too many blockers or intrusive demands that they pay up to keep playing. Having played the game for two days solid I'm confident that non-payers can enjoy it without feeling pressured.
I absolutely get that some people have the ability to get addicted to loot boxes. However, I also feel that simply dismissing a game and saying "it has loot boxes, you'll get addicted, avoid this evil" is unfair (and a little patronising) to those who were never intending to spend any money on it and want to know whether it's worth downloading from a non-paying perspective.
Re: Review: Mario Kart Tour - Steer Around The Gacha For A Fun, Free Take On The Series
@SBandy As I already explained in comment 100 above, the 7 is based on the free version of the game without spending any money on it. The heading says to avoid the gacha system and the end part says the subscription is a massive waste of money, so I don't agree with your suggestion that the monetisation is just glossed over without any criticism.
@jarvismp - no worries mate. Always hard to tell who's joking in a comments thread 😉
Re: Review: Mario Kart Tour - Steer Around The Gacha For A Fun, Free Take On The Series
@sanderev Mate, with the greatest of respect, you're making massive assumptions and they're incorrect. I downloaded the game from the iOS and Google Play stores as soon as it was released, just like everyone else. I played through it just like everyone else, and I subscribed to the free two-week Gold trial so I could judge its value for the review (where I subsequently said it's a waste of money).
As for "a review written by someone who got the game for free is not a review, it's an advertisement" – absolute nonsense. You could spin that around and say that anyone who buys a game is more likely to give it a better score because they're reassuring themselves that they didn't waste their money. We are professionals, and we judge each game on their individual merits, not on whether we got them for free (which is a daft point to bring up in a review of a free-to-play game anyway).
Please don't assume that I was handed some shiny special journalist-friendly version of the game with every character unlocked and regular motivational compliments. I'm playing the exact same version everyone else is playing, and haven't put a single penny into it yet.
Re: Review: Mario Kart Tour - Steer Around The Gacha For A Fun, Free Take On The Series
Evening all! Well, this went as expected (which is why I predicted what the comments would be like in the review).
Look, this was always going to be a divisive game no matter what, but I felt it was important to actually play through the game (at least as much as possible given what's available so far) and judge it fairly, rather than go down the slightly knee-jerk reaction of "what?! They want MONEY?! 2/10".
The reality is that nothing is free, and it should have been clear from the day that Nintendo announced this game was coming that it was going to have some sort of monetisation in it. The point of the review wasn't therefore to destroy the game for having microtransactions – that's just how mobile gaming works – but to judge how intrusive they are and whether they ruin the game as a result.
The conclusion I came to, then, was that because it's perfectly possible to play through the game without spending a single penny on it – and to do so all night if you want, without being told "sorry, you've run out of energy, pay up" – it's nowhere near one of the worst examples of a free-to-play game (and just to clarify, it isn't pay-to-win as someone suggested, because you aren't competing against anyone and you can still get five stars with any character).
Everyone has different feelings about microtransactions – I personally have no time for them – so the best I could do in this situation is describe in detail what you get for your money should you go down that route. However, the review was aimed at people who don't want to spend money on the game: indeed, the heading specifically says you should ignore the gacha system and the pros and cons at the end state that the subscription is "a huge waste of money". It should be clear from this that the review is based on what you get for free.
That said, I completely accept that some people (including me!) have never been keen on the idea of Nintendo getting in mobile gaming in the first place, and so I absolutely get that this one was going to have some backlash.
And, naturally, I completely get that some of those who actually bothered to try playing the game (because let's face it, a lot of people haven't) aren't a fan of the controls. Like I say in the review, they took some getting used to for me too, but I'm now happy enough with them. They were never going to replace an analogue stick and shoulder buttons, but my opinion – and that's all it is – is that it's the best we could have expected on mobile.
What I won't accept, however, is some people – and I'm specifically looking at @hakjie11 @sanderev @jarvismp @suikoden and @SBandy so far – suggesting that this was a paid review, and asking if we're enjoying our 'Nintendo money' for it.
Putting aside the fact that nobody would actually pay money for a 7/10 (which most people usually wrongly moan is a bad score in every other review), to suggest that we are – and that I specifically am – being paid to give a dishonest review is a complete insult and I don't appreciate it.
I've been doing this professionally for 13½ years now (a number of readers here remember me from my six years at the UK Official Nintendo Magazine from 2016 to 2012) and probably reviewed well over a thousand games in my time. Writing about games is the one thing I'm good at, and to have people suggest that I would compromise that for a payoff is frankly pathetic and defamatory.
There are plenty of other people in the comments (and, as pointed out, on the iOS store reviews) who are having perfectly good fun playing the game too. This is a divisive game that some people seem to hate and others seem to be enjoying: I fall in the latter camp, it's perfectly fine if you fall in the former.
By all means disagree with the review: that's the whole point of opinions. But don't ever suggest that my reviews are anything but an honest critique of what I've played, because that's a huge insult to the nearly decade and a half I've put into providing reliable buying advice to readers.
Keep it civil, guys.
Chris x
Re: Feature: 10 Strangest Moments In Captain N: The Game Master
@HeIIRider Nah, Danger Zone was the Mega Man episode:
https://youtu.be/CD6mgICg_rk
Samus was only in the Captain N comic.
Re: Review: Golazo! - Knockabout Soccer Action Straight Outta The 1990s
@60frames-please Mate, you're missing out on plenty of good games if you insist on only playing 60fps ones. Frame rate really isn't the most important aspect of a game.
Re: Review: Sayonara Wild Hearts - A Marvellous, Music-Driven Masterpiece
@nintendolie As an Android owner, I've "done the math" and it would cost me significantly more than $12.99 to play it on iOS.
Re: Review: GRID Autosport - Finally, Switch Gets The Serious Racing Game It Deserves
Hi all
Just to clear this up a bit: no, I wasn't aware of the upcoming multiplayer patch, because generally we go on what information is provided to us by the publisher.
When I received the code for the game I received with it the usual information you get from the PR and publisher making you aware of things that are in the process of being corrected: bugs and the like. The info we were given for GRID said (direct quote):
"The retail game will support an additional free "High Res Car Textures" pack, which will be available to download on the game's release day (19/09/19). However, it won't be available to download before then due to Switch eShop restrictions. Please be aware that when you load the game prior to release, you will be asked whether you wish to download this pack, but you won't be available to do so until release. Users who purchase the game after it's released will have access to the DLC straight away.
We will also be releasing a day zero patch for the game. This update will improve the loading times on a few specific levels, and improve the texture for the Pagani Huayra car."
That's all we were told: nothing about any future multiplayer options. Now, if it's since been confirmed by the developers that multiplayer is coming that's great, but given that I'd have expected something as major as that to have been brought to our attention when we were given the code, I don't think it was too unfair for me to have assumed it wasn't on the radar.
That said, even if I was aware of it, I can only review what's in front of me. I'm not going to rate a game based on modes I haven't played. For all I know, the split-screen could drop to 15fps and the online could be laggy as hell: I'd hope not, but you never know until you're actually playing it. If we'd been told in advance that multiplayer was coming, the review would still pretty much be the same at this point.
I'm reminded of PES 2019, which I bought on day one because it was heavily promoted as having Celtic as a partner team, alongside screens of Celtic players with real faces, playing at Celtic Park. Turns out that content wasn't added until five MONTHS after launch, by which point the thing was on Xbox Game Pass and I'd essentially spent £50 on something I could've waited for instead.
My roundabout point is that, while it's good to now know multiplayer is coming, I still don't think we can change the review yet: mainly for the reason given above (I haven't played it) but also because we don't know if it's coming next week, next month, early 2020, etc. When it is eventually added it'll be up to the guys at NL to decide what to do at that point.
Hope that clears things up!
Chris
Re: Review: Sayonara Wild Hearts - A Marvellous, Music-Driven Masterpiece
@Dang69 In fairness, when a game goes 'radio silent' that's usually down to the publisher rather than the press. If there's no new version or demo of the game to play we can't exactly write an article just saying "remember this exists, by the way". When there is an opportunity it's often covered: there was a hands-on for this very game earlier this month https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/09/hands_on_sayonara_wild_hearts_is_pop_perfection_in_video_game_form
Re: Review: Sayonara Wild Hearts - A Marvellous, Music-Driven Masterpiece
@Dang69 Please don't go down the "this is a Nintendo site, so what do you expect" route. I've been reviewing games professionally for more than 13 years, and it's a little unfair to suggest that I'd score a game higher because it's a Nintendo site. I'm more than happy with the score I gave the game, and it would have been given the same score regardless of what format it was on or what publication I'd written it for.
Re: Review: Sayonara Wild Hearts - A Marvellous, Music-Driven Masterpiece
@Dang69 So the whole bit about the ranking system in this review didn't tick that box for you?
Re: Review: Sayonara Wild Hearts - A Marvellous, Music-Driven Masterpiece
@Dang69 To be fair, it isn't hype: I did actually play it. I'm happy with the 9 I gave it. Yes, it's short, but I've already played through it three times and it'll permanently stay on my Switch for any long journeys. I love it.
Re: Review: Jet Kave Adventure - A 2.5D Platformer That Doesn't Reinvent The Wheel, More's The Pity
@60frames-please It's 30. It doesn't matter. It's a slow-paced platformer, it doesn't need 60. Not every game needs 60. The NES, SNES and Mega Drive were a different era and games were made completely differently back then: and besides, they didn't all run at what we'd now call 60fps either.
Re: Review: Jet Kave Adventure - A 2.5D Platformer That Doesn't Reinvent The Wheel, More's The Pity
@PlusFan I don't know what to tell you, I always make a point of noting how long I take to beat a game so I'm confident my estimate of 2-3 hours is accurate. Took me around three.
Re: Review: Jet Kave Adventure - A 2.5D Platformer That Doesn't Reinvent The Wheel, More's The Pity
Should just stress that contrary to popular belief a 6 is still 'not bad', as the site states. There's still some fun to be had in this one, it just doesn't do anything massively novel or fantastic.
Re: Nintendo Just Teased A Brand New Fitness Experience For The Switch
@Nomad It's a teaser. It's designed to get you to watch on the 12th. They did the same when they revealed the Wii Remote (then known as the Revolution controller) - they didn't show any game footage then either.
Re: Review: River City Girls - Streets Of Rage 4 Has Some Real Competition
@MagnaRoader The issues are minor in the grand scheme of things. The reality is that after beating it I fully intend to keep playing it in New Game+ mode, and given how many games I review and how little free time I have it takes a hell of a lot for a game to manage that. So it's a 9 for me because I loved it and want to keep playing it beyond the review period.
Re: Review: Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
@impurekind At the end of the day, the review itself explains why I ended up at the score I did. All this convoluted explaining of how they used to do it in the old days (which I'm well versed in: it was Mean Machines etc that encouraged me to be a games journalist in the first pace) and suggesting we do it their way is frankly undermining the actual written review.
The aim of a review isn't to come up with a number that makes people happy: it's to have them coming away from it, having read it fully, knowing whether it sounds like the sort of game they want to buy. In that respect, I'm happy with what I wrote.
Re: Review: Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
@impurekind The problem is that, as magazines like Mean Machines even went to great pains to point out back then, the overall score there isn't an average. If you take the example review you linked to, the game was given an 'overall' score of 48% but the actual average was 63%.
The reason for this is simple: the elements of a game are not all as important as each other. The example review you linked to gave the game 92% for presentation and 70% for graphics, but gave it 45% for 'lastability' because "it shouldn't take more than a day or two to complete". As a result the final score was much lower than the actual average would have been because it doesn't matter how good the game looks if it's too easy to beat.
Long story short, by linking to an old '90s article and saying "this is how it should be done" you've unwittingly proved that this is exactly how I do it.
Re: Review: Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
@AndrewJ Mate, with respect, the game's about a boy who's been turned into a blob and wants to turn into a human and get back home. I don't think it takes the Wachowskis to figure out how it ends.
Re: Review: Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
@AndrewJ You've already answered your own question. I didn't review Minit, and have never played it, so it would be ridiculous of me to try to compare the game I'm reviewing with one I haven't played: that's just asking for mistakes.
Regardless, the Minit review actually states that it's 2-4 hours, not "under 2 hours". If it was 4 hours, that means it's more than five times longer than Whipseey, so even if I did compare the two Minit clearly offers more.
Re: Review: Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
@GrailUK Yup. Put my daughter down for her nap, decided to get started on it, ended up finishing it before she woke up.
Re: Review: Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
@Mechageo It's also 27 years old. I don't think it's unfair to expect more from something released in 2019. Plenty of other retro-style games are a decent size.
Re: Review: Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
@Xelha The difference is that Fire Emblem isn't a game that necessarily benefits greatly from 60fps, whereas this is clearly based on 8-bit and 16-bit platformers, the vast majority of which were 60fps (and those that weren't were due to a lack of power, something that shouldn't be an issue here).
Re: Review: Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
@Alucard83 The plus and minus points are just little summaries to point out notable aspects of the game. The actual review itself is the bit that explains why the game got the score it did. When the game takes 45 minutes to complete, I worry that focusing on the fact I mentioned its frame rate is perhaps like criticising someone's choice of shoes while they're mugging you.
Re: Review: Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
@Xelha It wasn't marked down for that. The pluses and minuses are just that: they sum up the game's good and bad points. As the review itself makes clear, it was marked down for being shorter than Donald Duck's temper. If it was 60 it would've still been a 4.
Re: Diddy Kong's Racing Once Again With A Return To Mario Kart After 11 Years Away
@sanderev Not to get into it too much because it's a bit of a nothing conversation, but the original point made was that Nintendo mobile games lead to Nintendo console/handheld games. I'm just saying that almost always isn't the case.
Re: Diddy Kong's Racing Once Again With A Return To Mario Kart After 11 Years Away
@sanderev Tomodachi Life came out two years before Miitomo, not after it.
Re: Diddy Kong's Racing Once Again With A Return To Mario Kart After 11 Years Away
@nintendolie Looking forward to Switch versions of Miitomo, Dragalia Lost and Dr Mario then
Just because there's a mobile game doesn't always mean there's a Switch game coming.