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Predict the score.

  • 100

    Votes: 37 2.0%
  • 95-99

    Votes: 141 7.5%
  • 90-94

    Votes: 727 38.4%
  • 85-89

    Votes: 767 40.6%
  • 80-84

    Votes: 175 9.3%
  • 75-79

    Votes: 27 1.4%
  • <74

    Votes: 17 0.9%

  • Total voters
    1,891
  • Poll closed .

Deleted member 5596

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,747
I take issue with a lot of inconsistencies and inconsistent characterization in Shadowbringers. Sorry.

I still think Heavensward is the most solid story out of all the expansions.

Interesting, would like to hear more about these issue you had with the story, but I won't derail the thread more.

There's definetly problems, but overall I think it's the strongest writing job SE has done in years (HS is great too) and at least we can agree it doesn't go full KH because 'Everybody knows you never go full Kingdom Hearts'
 

Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,395
More like people ignored a ton of bugs. I was literally told in the rdr 2 thread that the molly/character interaction camp bug(it was very common too and it took ~6 weeks to fix) I had with character moments not triggering isn't a biggie. I'm just missing out on a core part of the game which is camp interaction. *eye roll*
People had huge blinders for that game. There was for sure a way to acknowledge what it achieved without being so obnoxiously in denial about the actual blatant flaws in that game.
Insanely polished=/=zero bugs.
 

Zelas

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,020
Stretching 40 hours of main storyline out of a chunk of story that barely lasted five hours would be almost impossible. The sheer amount of filler they'd need to include in the story would break the entire game's back.
I was assuming their would be more fleshed out, narrative filler. I just didnt want "side quest" filler. In my experience side quests in jrpgs have never been good unless we're talking Yakuza.
 

Bit_Reactor

Banned
Apr 9, 2019
4,413
Interesting, would like to hear more about these issue you had with the story, but I won't derail the thread more.

There's definetly problems, but overall I think it's the strongest writing job SE has done (HS is great too) and at least we can agree it doesn't go full KH because 'Everybody knows you never go full Kingdom Hearts'
The funny part is, the "ideas" behind the "new" story twists in FF7R are used to some degrees with Shadowbringers that I won't spoil, but are handled more evenly and more maturely imo.

Stop talking about the fucking ending is this thread.
Reviewers mentioned it, quite a few actually, and unless we outright spoiled it are you also going to attack every reviewer who mentioned it?
 

srtrestre

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,972
The demo actually unsold me on the game at launch. I think I might just wait for a sale now.
 

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,837
I was assuming their would be more fleshed out, narrative filler. I just didnt want "side quest" filler. In my experience side quests in jrpgs have never been good unless we're talking Yakuza.

I don't really think you could DO that much more with the Midgar chapter as far as "narrative filler" goes without completely straining the plot. It's kind of constant forward motion.
 

chanman

Member
Nov 9, 2017
1,605
I still don't feel it. I am uninterested in this playable prologue even after watching some positive reviews, but that's okay. I am much more interested in how they will go on from Midgar. Making Midgar into some corridor- and hub-levels is one thing. But bringing the whole world beyond that to digital life will be a huge task and I don't fully trust SE in pulling it off.

Talking about corridor- and hub-levels. It seems like SE still is struggling to make interesting worlds and level design. While this seems better than FF13 and maybe FF15 it still doesn't look great. I always said it and I stick to it: FF12 had the perfect game world, it was a joy to explore and it never felt linear but it never went out of place with clutter and empty feeling open areas. They should have stuck to that.

But maybe it isn't all that bad when I play it. But it's criticized in quite a few reviews and it's a shame that this is the third mainline Final Fantasy in a row that has problems with level- and world-design.

Well said, this is something that is definitely an issue I have been having with all games in this series after FF XII and knowing that it is an issues means I can't see myself playing this without a heavy discount.
 

Holundrian

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,163
I was assuming their would be more fleshed out, narrative filler. I just didnt want "side quest" filler. In my experience side quests in jrpgs have never been good unless we're talking Yakuza.
This is largely true. Still a shame japan hasn't taken just a little bit from witcher in that department but in the end I don't think sidequests matter all too much.
Persona 5 has pretty bad sidequest as well like I wouldn't bat an eye if someone sad Persona 5 sidequest are like ff15 tier bad. But the rest of the game just makes that less of an issue.
 

Euler007

Member
Jan 10, 2018
5,045
User banned (3 days): ignoring staff post
These metacritic score should automatically ignore scores past 3-4 standard deviations. It would mostly drive score higher (which isn't a bad thing per se), but would disincentive clickbait reviews.
 

Richietto

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,005
North Carolina
So the ending is classic Nomura? How does a character artist end up with so much control over it all lmao. Dude can't write and shouldn't write. Can't wait to play!
 

Philippo

Developer
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
7,920
Man I am both terrified and morbidly curious to see what the ruckus about the ending is.
Is it only different, or is it bad different?
 
OP
OP
BZL8
Can we NOT plaster the review scores on the thread title?

While I'm glad its reviewing well, I was actually trying to avoid entering the review thread and go into it with as little influence as possible. So I find it pretty obnoxious that the OP (and the mod who approved) to just have it on the thread title itself.

And dont tell me I should've ignored the thread because this hasn't happened before, afaik
You're the first person I've seen complain about putting scores on the title. I never personally saw an issue with posting review aggregator scores on my thread titles and I've done this before on several review threads I've made.

The fact I have never gotten complaints about putting scores on review thread titles until now is intriguing. I don't think I (and many others) really consider scores to fall under the same scope as story spoilers.
 

ultima786

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,711
The funny part is, the "ideas" behind the "new" story twists in FF7R are used to some degrees with Shadowbringers that I won't spoil, but are handled more evenly and more maturely imo.


Reviewers mentioned it, quite a few actually, and unless we outright spoiled it are you also going to attack every reviewer who mentioned it?
Did you end up playing the game? You were very skeptical before but it kinda sounds like you've turned around?
 

Mit-

Member
Oct 26, 2017
519
Anyone found reviews from people who tried playing with Japanese voice acting? I'm still trying to determine how I'd like to play this.
 

meadowdrone

Member
Oct 27, 2017
296
UK
First of all, 87 is fantastic. I mean it gets a 3 point curve due to this generation having a 97 as the highest score. So the game is a "90".

big_1496148706_image.jpg
 

Plumpman

Member
Jan 24, 2018
1,022
I have no attachment to FF7, I just want a good, modern JRPG to play. It seems like this delivers. :)
 

PshycoNinja

Game Developer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
3,224
Los Angeles
Interesting, would like to hear more about these issue you had with the story, but I won't derail the thread more.

There's definetly problems, but overall I think it's the strongest writing job SE has done in years (HS is great too) and at least we can agree it doesn't go full KH because 'Everybody knows you never go full Kingdom Hearts'

If I can give but one example to inconsistencies that bothered me, that really encapsulated my problems with inconsistencies in general it would be from this scene and its following scene:



As we are told in Heavensward and Stormblood, Y'shtola is blind. She can only see and sense aether. They even reinforce this point earlier in the story where she doesn't recognize you because your aether is fucked.

Then we have this scene. While Emet's delivery is really good, the inconsistency of Y'shtola seeing the mural describing the pigmentation of the paint and describing what is happening in them completely took me out of the scene, because as we've been told and shown over and over again, Y'stola is blind and can only see aether. Now if Y'shtola was able to suddenly see at this point because of some miracle that happened in a previous scene that would be one thing. But after this very scene, she goes out and asks Urianger what the night sky looks like. Its wildly inconsistent. Its inconsistent to her character. She is able to see when the writers need her to see, and isnt able to see when the writers need her not to be able to see so they can have a touching moment. Its wild.
 

The Last One

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,585
They are fetch quests, but a lot of them have proper mini storylines that help flesh out the world, beyond the 'I need frogs, go get frogs' and similar silly, fluff premises that serves as merely excuses.

I am pretty sure that the impressions from people who played are that the sidequests have good characters interections, so I'm really not sure if all of them are just mindless fetch quests either.
 

Bit_Reactor

Banned
Apr 9, 2019
4,413
Did you end up playing the game? You were very skeptical before but it kinda sounds like you've turned around?
Oh I was going to play it regardless.

The ending basically makes any effort for me to appreciate its take on the story completely moot where I could have at least just "dealt with it" before.

My biggest point of skepticism will always be its story, and Nomura and Nojima are all over the story in this game. After I've accepted that, all that's left is a seemingly high production value JRPG that I can sink my teeth into and enjoy while acknowledging that it will do nothing with the original's story that is of any meaningful depth beyond meta commentary and compilation shenanigans.

Now that the bandaid is ripped off, I can just keep playing and engage with the fight systems and see what happens next. To me the story has already been rendered inferior/worse than the original, for both newcomers and old fans, but people will write essays and comment on the "meta narrative" for years to come I imagine in an attempt to make it seem better than it is. -shrug-
 

Coi

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,808
Very underwhelming to be honest. I'm not a review guy, but I was expecting a masterpiece lol.
 

TiduzOmni

Member
Oct 25, 2017
465
I love this game so much from what ive played (quite a bit)

I hope it becomes 4 or more discs, i want it to be as big as possible. i would kill for a FFX remake of this quality btw.
 

PshycoNinja

Game Developer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
3,224
Los Angeles
In terms of gameplay or in terms of plot like 'go get frogs'?

Both because both use something commonly referred as "Quest Chains" where story is told over several quests. For example, Sania is having you collect frogs for her because she is studying the effects the miasma from daemons are affecting wildlife, she finds more discoveries and shares them with you as you approach the end of her quests and she informs you what she is finding. Or Dave's quests with the dog tags and how that ties into his own family and how they've shunned his family for practicing "witchcraft", and it leads him to going into a dangerous dungeon to retrieve one of his "brothers" tags to give family peace, because his own family isn't at peace in that moment. Now for the quest chains, the second and third in the chain typically dont add a whole lot to their stories as they're still dealing with what they're dealing with. But each one has a beginning, middle, and end. Much like the quest chains in FF7 Remake.
 

Lobster Roll

signature-less, now and forever
Member
Sep 24, 2019
34,387
These metacritic score should automatically ignore scores past 3-4 standard deviations. It would mostly drive score higher (which isn't a bad thing per se), but would disincentive clickbait reviews.
Why don't you just do this in your head? If you want to view the game as an 89, 93, 97, or 100 or whatever, just hold that opinion yourself instead of trying to concoct some ass-backwards scoring schemes that give you the confirmation bias you're seeking.
 

Deleted member 5596

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,747
Both because both use something commonly referred as "Quest Chains" where story is told over several quests. For example, Sania is having you collect frogs for her because she is studying the effects the miasma from daemons are affecting wildlife, she finds more discoveries and shares them with you as you approach the end of her quests and she informs you what she is finding. Or Dave's quests with the dog tags and how that ties into his own family and how they've shunned his family for practicing "witchcraft", and it leads him to going into a dangerous dungeon to retrieve one of his "brothers" tags to give family peace, because his own family isn't at peace in that moment. Now for the quest chains, the second and third in the chain typically dont add a whole lot to their stories as they're still dealing with what they're dealing with. But each one has a beginning, middle, and end. Much like the quest chains in FF7 Remake.

I understand that they might have a very loosely, boring plot to chain them together, just like XV, but that's the issue I have with it, how boring, soulless those plots are.