Fungi Forums
Video Games => Mario Chat => Topic started by: Forest Guy on October 02, 2009, 12:41:36 PM
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After universal acclaim from the game critique industry, tracking sites such as Gamestats and Metacritic currently show Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story the highest review/rating average of any handheld game made in history. Or at least since reviews began to be tracked.
Regardless, I was surprised at how fantastic the game is. I wasn't keeping track of it at all until about a week before it came out since like a lot of people the story concept put me off a little. When people were telling me it was the best in the series, I flat out denied the possibility and refused to bellieve it could be true. But I was pleasantly wrong. Let us discuss how amazing the game is.
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Yeah, uh, I'm seeing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Chrono Trigger DS rated equally or higher on Metacritic - not that metascores for DS games are really worth anything, considering that DSiWare titles are lumped in with full retail games.
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No. Temptation. Please!
I didn't finish the prequels and I'm afraid if I get this it will have the same fate, thus $50 wasted.
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I'll admit it was good, but by no means the greatest handheld game ever. I'm currently rallying my fellow Pokemon fans to get on your ass over this just as we speak.
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Well, being better than Partners in Time shouldn't be that hard, but better than Superstar Saga?
I might just have to get this game before I planned to.
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Using review scores as a basis for whether or not to purchase a game is moronic.
Using review scores as a basis to validate your possibly-biased opinion of something is moronic.
Using review scores as a basis to declare that a game is arbitrarily better than another game is moronic.
Making up review scores as a basis to try to make a point and get people to agree with your opinion is unethical.
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Superstar Saga was good, but nowhere near that high tier of greatness everyone seems to bestow upon it. And Pokemon definitely doesn't get even that high.
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Kingdom Hearts: CoM is my favorite handheld title, followed closely by Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission. But I suppose I can't fairly say they're better than BIS, as I've yet to play it.
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Your criterion for "best" is highly skewed anyway, man.
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You say this as if your criterion for "best" isn't highly skewed.
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Wow, really? ...Well, it's definitely good, but I wouldn't say it's my favorite handheld game ever... then again, I can't think of too many competitors--except for the original M&L, maybe.
Granted, WR's totally right.
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I'm wagering Kingdom Hearts 258/2 Days will beat it... eventually.
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What? From what I've heard, that one's getting a pretty lukewarm reception.
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358/2 Days is really pretty for a DS game, from what I've seen. So at least something is right with it.
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It is an overall awesome game. I was very happy with it from the first ? block I hit to the end of the game. There's plenty of extra content to keep you going for another 5-15 hours depending on how you approach M&L's version of the "Pit of 100 trials" and special attack challenges.
The music is extremely well done, the dialog and actions of the characters are awesomely hilarious and clever... and they didn't make Bowser a complete idiot. He's actually a very competent Koopa in this game and intelligent, as well.
The main point is: go buy it. It's worth your $34.99 or whatever it is.
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In my humble-ish opinion,
M&L:SS > M&L:BiS > dog excrement > M&L:PiT.
While numbers one and three of the series are nearly neck-and-neck in for first my books, Partners in Time pales in comparison. As for why Superstar Saga is my favourite, it seems as though everything I like most about Bowser's inside Story are the elements retained from the first game.
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I haven't beaten Bowser's Inside Story yet, but I'm a good way through it, and I do think it's up there with Superstar Saga. Partners in Time is my least favorite in the series (as well as my least favorite of all the Mario RPGs)...but I don't dislike it. Can someone tell me why it's so hated?
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It's the only Mario RPG that's just pretty good instead of awesome, and so it seems to suck in comparison.
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You couldn't have said it better. While SMRPG, PM, PM:TTYD, M&L:SS and M&L:BiS all received 8.5's and 9's from most reviewers, M&L:PiT lingered in the 6.5's and 7's, which, in my moronic and unethical opinion, it deserved.
Take that, Warp.
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But I think that PiT, like Sunshine, would have been considered a significantly better game if it hadn't been a Mario game. Mario games come with much higher expectations than games in general.
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My mistake, when I checked Metacritic a few days ago it was scoring higher than GTA, but I didn't check when I made this topic. It's still higher on Gamestats however, which takes user review scores from other sites into its tally as well. My bad, I should've checked.
And WarpRattler, my point wasn't "Go out and buy this game immediately now that you know it's scored highly on a couple of reviews." I was trying to show that I found it remarkable that it's scoring highly from virtually everyone, and that on Gamestats, it's the highest handheld game ever rated. See, I can agree with you on the idea that it's dumb to base a purchase off one review. However, when a game gets universal acclaim like that, it's a big deal.
P.S.CrossEyed put it well. Partners in Time is by no means a bad game. It's just not a fantastic game like every other Mario RPG game.
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M&L:PiT lingered in the 6.5's and 7's
Making up numbers will make you no friends. (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ds/marioandluigipartnersintime)
Meowrik: Taking user reviews into account only serves to defeat the purpose of aggregating the opinions of professional critics. When you aren't getting paid to play video games and write about them, you can say whatever you want - even to the point of making up stuff about games you've never played, or giving high ratings to awful games (see: Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing). GameStats, therefore, sounds like it's worse than Metacritic simply because it allows for trolls to influence aggregated scores.
You can't just act like a game being universally acclaimed is a big deal and a reason to buy a game, either, and to show why, I don't need to go any further than Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/gba/castlevaniaharmony). I wish I could say it wasn't an accident that the US serial for the game is AGB-ACHE-USA.
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But as I repeat, I didn't say to buy the game simply because it's scoring highly.
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No. You said it's a big deal when a game is universally acclaimed, when it definitely isn't (both because a lot of games are "universally acclaimed" and because sometimes the critics are wrong).
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This seems like an argument people would be having about some quirky sleeper hit. Does anyone here really need review scores to tell them a Mario RPG is going to be, at the very least, pretty good?
As for why I dislike PiT, I'm sure I've said this before, but it was too linear, formulaic, and short--I think they were trying to cram the game so the maps for areas could all fit on the top screen--hence those blue pipes every now and then. Bros. Items were overly necessary, too.
However, PiT (and SS) did have something that I think was lacking in BiS: A reasonable amount of interesting areas. I figure that the overworld areas in BiS skimped on uniqueness (the generic and generically named Blubble Lake and Dimble Wood come to mind. Also, what is up with Plack Beach? Since when has poor dental health had anything to do with Mario?) because Bowser's body was the main focus, but that wasn't all that mindblowing, either.
Also, I've noticed that Wigglers living in forests, theaters, and being inside something else's body are parts of all three M&L games.
And finally:
--M&L: Bean-related enemies
--PiT: Shroob-related enemies
--BiS: Fawful-related enemies
Oh, and the BiS final battle music kicks ass.
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Also, I've noticed that Wigglers living in forests, theaters, and being inside something else's body are parts of all three M&L games.
If you count the Koopaseum as a theater, at any rate...
I'm very surprised at how high the scores given for PiT were, it certainly didn't deserve a 10 (and probably a 9, for that matter) from anyone, IMO. "In the 6.5's and 7's" is more where I would've expected it to be.
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No. You said it's a big deal when a game is universally acclaimed, when it definitely isn't (both because a lot of games are "universally acclaimed" and because sometimes the critics are wrong).
It definitely is. Because contrary to what you said, there isn't a plethora of games that scores highly everywhere it gets reviewed. More often than not, there's always a handful of reviews out there who will not like a game. Games that score highly everywhere are the ones that become instant classics like Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina of Time, and Mario Galaxy.
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Those one or two that score a game much lower than everyone else (or score a bad game highly) are called "outliers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier)." When aggregating game reviews, they can't be ignored, but when deciding whether or not something is "universally acclaimed," they can. Many games, therefore, could be considered "universally acclaimed" despite one or two reviewers who didn't like them (or even didn't like them as much as everyone else).
Another reason why to not base things on review scores: there are entire genres where the average score is going to be skewed down or up simply because of the genre. You can basically ignore half of the reviews when looking at games like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and Shiren the Wanderer, because with Roguelikes, you're going to get a large number of reviews by people who can't handle the difficulty of a Roguelike and therefore give it a low score without actually rating the game. (Don't believe me? Every single low-scoring review for Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team on Metacritic complains only about the Roguelike aspects, and maybe the graphics and dialogue - and Roguelikes aren't known for excelling in either of those.) Similarly, look at 2D Metroidvania games - regardless of the reviewer's opinion, these games get scored highly almost every time. Many reviewers disliked Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia's comparatively-ridiculous difficulty and stated that they wouldn't recommend it to anyone except die-hard fans because of it - but that didn't stop them from rating it as highly as they did.
While shmups usually fall into the favorable or average ranges, there are some common complaints from reviewers about those as well, all of which seem to miss the point. Look at the (generally favorable) reviews for the GameCube version of Ikaruga. Every one of them in Metacritic's yellow range complains about the difficulty and/or the length ("only" five levels that are so hard they'll throw even shmup veterans for a loop). The PS2 compilation Gradius III & IV? Complaints abound that the difficulty is far too high (they're basically arcade-perfect ports, and the arcade version of Gradius III is considered one of the hardest games ever made in a genre known for its difficulty) and that "it doesn't push the limits of the PS2," as if that has anything to do with whether or not a game is good. (You'll notice this complaint is mysteriously absent with games like Odin Sphere and Disgaea, which isn't pushing the limits of the PS3 either.)
Also, God Hand (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/godhand). My point is, professional critics are definitely not something you and I should be listening to when trying to decide whether or not a game that could go either way is good. (Do listen to them when looking at, say, The Orange Box, or something else that's obviously good.) Listen to someone you know who's reputable, who had time to play through the whole game (including sidequests, if need be) and who can give you an honest review of it, not someone who had review code for it and five other games they had to play within a week, or an aggregate of many of those reviewers.
(By the way, looking at Metacritic's top DS games, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is now lower than Chrono Trigger and tied with Mario Kart DS and Flipnote Studio at 91. If more reviews come in, unless they're 100s by Metacritic's system, it'll likely be knocked down even further - I wouldn't be surprised to see it end up tied with the four absolutely excellent games that currently hold scores of 89.)
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Another reason why to not base things on review scores.......
Just...... go buy the game if you haven't already. It's a good game.... I'm not saying that because of review scores... but because I've played it and it's a very good game just like any Mario game should be. I know that your opinion might differ from mine, but regardless, you'd find the game to be very good for your own reasons.
I think that's what Forest Guy was mentioning. I believe he's saying it's a big deal because no one's really found anything to ***** about in the game unless it was super trivial kinda like "Oh dang, that could've been cool if it were in the game... but it's still just fine regardless."
The only complaint I've heard so far is: "BAWW teh mushrom kindgom is too small1 in this game" which isn't true. I guess checking out the aerial view map (when it shows you where you are in relation to the whole kingdom) does give the illusion of it looking small, but jeez, the game is by no means small.
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Hey, uh, I haven't been talking about whether or not M&L3 is a good game. I was talking about why Meowrik is wrong and why review scores ultimately matter less than the opinions of regular gamers. I don't have $35 to go spend on the third game in a series when I haven't gotten around to finishing the first.
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With the exception of dog excrement I agree with Weegee. I think I need to play SS again to make sure my nostalgia glasses aren't clouding my vision.
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...the generic and generically named Blubble Lake and Dimble Wood come to mind. Also, what is up with Plack Beach? Since when has poor dental health had anything to do with Mario?
Yeah, adding random decaying teeth to a generic beach doesn't make it not generic, it just makes it weird on top of generic. Aside from the rotting teeth, though, I think Plack Beach is a pretty good area. I like the music both outside and the version inside Bowser.
Despite their genericness, I like a lot of the game's areas. Dimble Wood is pretty huge, and it's fun to explore with Mario and Luigi once you're outside Bowser. I'd say my favorite area in the game so far (I'm just short of collecting the third you-know-what-if-you've-gotten-there in Plack Beach) is Cavi Cape; there's just something about the general environment that I like, and the music is incredible. I actually thought the areas might be based on body parts for a little after seeing Plack Beach, just to go further along with the inside Bower theme, since "Cavi" sounds like "Cavity", but none of the other areas have that kind of theme.
Speaking of exploring, I spent the majority of my spare time yesterday exploring the map with Mario and Luigi. It was pretty incredible and really gave me a Superstar Saga vibe.
...And of dog excrement, since Weegee says that PiT deserves a 6.5 to 7 score, I guess dog excrement would be an 8 or something? XP
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I imagine the reviewers thought the game was awesome for the same reasons "regular gamers" thought it was awesome and that's why it scored high. Not because Nintendo fans, or Mario fans, or whoever fans reviewed it and skewed their rating in favor of their personal tastes, but because the game features such a good execution of what makes a good game a good game. No biased or skewed opinions, or reviewers saying "OMFG I LOVE MEHR-EE-OH AND RPGS SO JUST FOR THAT FACT IM GIVIN THIS GAME AN ELEVEN!!!!!"
The score it has received all around is truly the score it deserves, all BS and bias aside. Maybe that's why Forest Guy is basing it off the reviews.
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But you can't say anything about "the score it has received all around." 83 will never equal 100 no matter how hard you try to make it so. Why are you trying to back up Meowrik thinking invoking review scores to back up his opinion was a good idea?
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I actually thought the areas might be based on body parts for a little after seeing Plack Beach, just to go further along with the inside Bower theme, since "Cavi" sounds like "Cavity", but none of the other areas have that kind of theme.
Yeah, my brother was speculating about the same thing. It would make sense, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
Also, yes, I did kind of like Cavi Cape as well.
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The more I play it, the more apparent the game's apalling lack of musical variety becomes. In particular, the lone cave/castle/underground passageway theme becomes pretty tiresome after a point. And not only does Peach's Castle sound exactly the same as it did in PiT, but the layout is uncannily similar to boot. While that may be for the sake of continuity, the designers could've been somewhat more creative.
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But you can't say anything about "the score it has received all around." 83 will never equal 100 no matter how hard you try to make it so. Why are you trying to back up Meowrik thinking invoking review scores to back up his opinion was a good idea?
I never said good game = 100/100
Also, I'm "backing up" Forest Guy because every single post he's made...... it's like you're just waiting for him to post so you can try your [darn]edest to tell him how wrong he is. I believe that the debate over the "rights and wrongs" of basing opinions on reviews should be done with. Nobody wins.
Let's leave it at: He likes M&L3, I like M&L3, a lot of other people like M&L3, and you'll like M&L3 once you come around to it regardless of what any reviewer has to say.
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And now you're trying to tell me that based solely on the fact that everyone else likes a game I'll like it too. I can't decide whether or not peer pressure is more or less unethical than making up data, but it's close either way.
I don't care about whether or not the game is good. AlphaDream makes some pretty good games and M&L3 is using a tried-and-true formula, so there wasn't really anything to worry about. I'm just opposed to people not checking facts ("it was like that when I checked a few days earlier" is not a good foundation for a thread) and a few other things I've already expounded upon in other posts in this thread.
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And not only does Peach's Castle sound exactly the same as it did in PiT, but the layout is uncannily similar to boot. While that may be for the sake of continuity, the designers could've been somewhat more creative.
I can't recall the PiT music, but neither the laout nor the tune there seemed all that similar to me in BiS. Still, it's funny you should mention continuity, because one of the things in the games that irked me was the pretty generous disregard for the Mushroom Kingdom's geography. What I mean is, let's look at all the Mario games that have taken place in the Mushroom Kingdom with an honest-to-goodness "map":
--SMRPG
--Paper Mario
--PiT
--BiS
All RPGs, of course, and all with fairly different overworld layouts. Why it bugged me most in BiS, I'm actually not sure, but I think part of it has to do with--as I kind of mentioned earlier--the curiously un-Mario names of areas. Would I have cared less if Blubble Lake was "Blooper Lake", and so on? Who knows, but I think another factor is that the last Mario RPG took place in the same world, but with pretty different layout.
Of course, if I may dip into Mariology a bit, the difference could be attributed to the questionable canonicity of SMRPG, the "storybook" that is Paper Mario, and that the "present" in PiT is probably actually different from the past, but they kept to the same so as to not tantalize. And even in BiS, maybe all that ocean is really just the equivalent of clouds covering the rest of the Kingdom. That, and since Toad Town/the castle (which are a fixture in most all Mario RPGs, of course) are in the top-left of the map, as opposed to the lower middle as usual, maybe the rest of the Kingdom is to the north.
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Questionable canonicity?
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I would just like to say that my best post of yesterday was posted here and it got deleted overnight.
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Multiple SMRPG locations are visited in Tracey West's masterpiece Mario and the Incredible Rescue, penned in 2006. If there is a Mario canon, SMRPG is definitely in it.
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What I'm wondering is where exactly Bowser's Castle is in relation to Toad Town and the Mushroom Kingdom. Is it on the island of Dark Land as displayed in the SMA4 map? Is it closer to Peach's castle like in RPG and Bowser's Inside Story and the one in Dark Land is just a "main base" of some kind he doesn't spend very much time at? The first part of BIS was basically Bowser trying to get to his castle from Cavi Cape, so Cavi Cape, Plack Beach, Dimble Wood, Bumpsy Plains, and Blubble Lake must all be nearby.
Incidentally, while I can't say I'm fond of the aforementioned un-Mario areas in BIS, they do hold a particular liking for me. I just like looking at the different styles of all the new areas they come up with in each new game.
About the Partners in Time locations, the PiT map is really cramped with the images of the locations taking up the majority of the space, so I think it's safe to assume that's not an actual map of the kingdom as it is, just a general indicator of the directions the areas are in. Mario and Luigi are just warped to them through time holes, anyway.
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And now you're trying to tell me that based solely on the fact that everyone else likes a game I'll like it too. I can't decide whether or not peer pressure is more or less unethical than making up data, but it's close either way.
I don't care about whether or not the game is good. AlphaDream makes some pretty good games and M&L3 is using a tried-and-true formula, so there wasn't really anything to worry about. I'm just opposed to people not checking facts ("it was like that when I checked a few days earlier" is not a good foundation for a thread) and a few other things I've already expounded upon in other posts in this thread.
Please, tell me where exactly did I tell you to buy this game because it has high reviews. Go on. Show me. Because if that's the case, you win.
WarpRattler, first off, the original purpose of this topic had nothing to do with whether or not review scores factored into whether a game is good or not and whether to buy it. YOU my good sir were the one who started that argument, and with nobody I might add, since nobody was talking about it prior to that. The only reason I started trying to debate that was because you were making it sound as if Mario & Luigi 3 is a bad game, which it most certainly is not.
Now I already acknowledged I made a mistake when posting, and should've checked my sources further before commenting on it in my original post, so why are you still bickering with people? The only reason I commented on the 'highest' score it had gotten on some sites, was simply because I was acknowledging that I thought it was impressive. What am I not allowed to be impressed? I never said everyone should buy it, I never said it's automatically good and everyone will like it because it has good reviews, I was simply commenting on how I thought it was very deserving of its praise.
There was absolutely no reason for you to come in here and invent a conflict simply because you disagreed with something I never implied, just as an excuse to be elitist. It's counterproductive and accomplishes nothing. If you want to debate the validity of reviews, make your own topic, because as it is, you're doing more harm here by preaching your arbitrary gospel. Because if you read what I originally said, I stated REGARDLESS of the review scores, I bought it and decided it was a fantastic game, and wanted to discuss that. I purposely put that in because I had a feeling this argument would rise up and cause a [dukar] storm, when all I wanted to do was talk about the game's quality. I never once suggested that the reviews were the "foundation" of my thread. You told yourself, me, and everyone else that it was. And you used the fact I made a mistake on something that doesn't actually pertain to the original topic in here, as a means for you to come in and try to be some sort of divine conqueror of falseness, and all for some misguided sense of self-righteousness.
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Forest Guy, you wouldn't be vainly defending yourself right now if your topic post had asked what we thought of BiS being the highest rated handheld game instead of bluntly stating,
Let us discuss how amazing the game is.
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I dunno, didn't the argument originally occur because people thought I was implying I thought the game was amazing simply because of its high reviews.
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Well, since you hadn't played it at the time, the juxtaposition of the two statements is certainly suspect.
But hey, it's no substitute for actually playing the game, but aggregate reviews certainly can be a fairly accurate indicator of a game's quality.
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Really? Says who? I beat the game prior to making the thread. Where did I say I didn't play it?
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Oh, wait, you played it? It's just... you went straight from
When people were telling me it was the best in the series, I flat out denied the possibility and refused to bellieve it could be true.
to
But I was pleasantly wrong. Let us discuss how amazing the game is.
Since you never explicitly stated buying it, considering the thread's title, it made it sound like the only reason you considered it amazing was because of the new reviews.
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Well, he didn't.
The End.
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Nice job quoting out of context, ShadowBrain. What the hell happened, did everyone on earth suddenly forget what the world "regardless" means?
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Still, it's funny you should mention continuity, because one of the things in the games that irked me was the pretty generous disregard for the Mushroom Kingdom's geography. What I mean is, let's look at all the Mario games that have taken place in the Mushroom Kingdom with an honest-to-goodness "map":
--SMRPG
--Paper Mario
--PiT
--BiS
Actually, I was quite fond of how accurate the PiT map was to the Paper Mario map, just done in SS style.
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages3.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fmario%2Fimages%2Fthumb%2F6%2F67%2FMushroom_Kingdom.jpg%2F300px-Mushroom_Kingdom.jpg&hash=48d12ca394089ce7e4c76409b135ada4)
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lemmykoopa.com%2Flk19%2F1900.jpg&hash=d77ff472a3343f1c41bb02b381ba422b)
You've got the Mushroom Castle in the center with Toad Toad directly below it, a star-falling region behind the castle, some vegetation areas to the west, the dry/desert areas on the east, and the snow areas on the northeast. But I don't think these maps are ever meant to be a comprehensive layout on the whole Mushroom Kingdom--they're more like outlines of the main areas you explore in each specific game. Just because Thwomp Volcano doesn't appear on the BIS map doesn't mean it doesn't exist; it's just not a place you visit in that game. Imagine if the developers put it in the map for the sake of making a comprehensive map--I think people would have been disappointed to discover that you actually don't visit that area.
On a side note, this may be a bit of fanonizing, but seeing as how Blubble Lake appears to be off the mainland of Mushroom Castle and around the area where Kero Sewers would be on the SMRPG map, I like to think that Blubble Lake is actually connected to or on the same mainland where Midus River and Tadpole Pond intertwine.
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I always considered the maps completely separate from each other, and don't really bother comparing them. For all we know, each game could feature a totally different part of the Mushroom Kingdom, with Peach briefly visiting each of her separate castles (?)
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Another aspect that's always irked me about PiT: Unlike the vast majority of Mario RPGs, one can only traverse the map by means of underground pipes. Really, why couldn't the game's areas have been linked either directly or with transitional sections?
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Exactly, that's just another of numerous things that Paper Mario and Superstar Saga definitely did right, that PiT didn't. I'm pleased to see that it appears that BiS has a non-linear map as well, but I wouldn't know, as I've yet to actually buy it.
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Some good points, there, Fawful Fan/jdaster64. And yeah, like I said, the whole pipes-connecting-everything thing in PiT was annoying.
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Indeed, it just made the whole game feel like... instead of exploration and fun, it felt more like a point and click adventure in which you happen to control the character.
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Seemed more puzzler-esque than P&C to me.