SAILERIUS'S PROFILE

author=Lennon
I definitely support making something for your enjoyment. I said that it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it does to some other people, and people obviously do like it, and that's cool.

It's perfectly fine to make something because you enjoy making it. But that doesn't mean it's good.

author=KisarethStudios
Such a bad review...interestingly enough though version 5.0 features so much more than what you played. However, not only do I thank you for your review I am glad to see it. After receiving so much praise for my game I was beginning to wonder if there was going to be a dissenting opinion. Ironically, your writing style and rather biased review remind me of another fellow on another forum who sought only to show how awful a game is rather than show what it is or could be worth. Another...odd...commonality I find with your review with that of this individual I spoke of earlier is that you reviewed my game without completing it. As a matter of fact, I think you barely got more than perhaps a half hour or so into a game of over 20+ hours.

I find this odd, if a reviewer is going to rate a game for what it truly is..should he or she not complete it first? Perhaps not...perhaps I am simply old-fashioned in that area. If so, my apologies. Hmmmm....and indeed your writing style is very familiar. I am suspicious of the nature and motive of your review, however I will wish you a Happy Thanksgiving in any event. With so many having enjoyed my game, there will always be others about who will not.

If a game isn't good enough to inspire a would-be reviewer to complete it, then that alone speaks volumes about the game's quality.

post=212929
I still think the best thing someone who disagrees with a review can do is write their own review.

Although that's true in theory, posting a less-than-shining review of a popular title will all but guarantee "revenge reviews" which will doubtlessly be 4.5-5 stars. Sure, the game gets more reviews, and everyone has the right to express their opinion, but I feel that behavior like that is a distortion of the system. People who otherwise might not have reviewed the game will because they feel a title they like a lot has had its score "smeared" and want to bring its score back up to what they feel it should be.

EDIT: Sorry if I come across as abrasive. I think your review is very well-written, FG (as are all of your reviews), even if I strongly disagree with your scoring philosophy.

post=212881

But the engine is a choice of the developer, too. By choosing a limited engine, you're accepting that your game will be limited by the constraints of that engine. By that logic, if AAG were to be released as, say, an XNA game, and be otherwise exactly the same game, it should have a greatly diminished score for not meeting the boundaries of the engine's limitations. What should matter is the final product, the game, and not the development environment.

No, by my logic AAG couldn't be the exact same if it were an XNA game because "Enterbrain's lazy coding come into effect". However, this is irrelevant.

As far as I am concerned, what you're saying is akin to saying that all the games on RMN have terrible graphics because we choose to go with 16-bit graphics (cf. RPGMaker) when we could've chosen to have HD graphics (cf. coded from scratch) instead. You're being very unrealistic.

post=212881

But the engine is a choice of the developer, too. By choosing a limited engine, you're accepting that your game will be limited by the constraints of that engine. By that logic, if AAG were to be released as, say, an XNA game, and be otherwise exactly the same game, it should have a greatly diminished score for not meeting the boundaries of the engine's limitations. What should matter is the final product, the game, and not the development environment.

No, by my logic AAG couldn't be the exact same if it were an XNA game because "Enterbrain's lazy coding come into effect". However, this is irrelevant.

As far as I am concerned, what you're saying is akin to saying that all the games on RMN have terrible graphics because we choose to go with 16-bit graphics (cf. RPGMaker) when we could've chosen to have HD graphics (cf. coded from scratch) instead. You're being very unrealistic.

16-bit graphics can look good if done well. There's a difference between graphics and gameplay mechanics. Let me adjust my example, then. If a game was made for XNA with the exact same battle system as AAG, the reaction would be "oh, that's cool" rather than "wow, that's the best you can do with RM2k3." Even if we were to say that expecting professionalism in game development here is unrealistic, AAG could have been far, far better had it been made in XP or VX because of the new avenues the scripting system would be open to it. So the game isn't as good as it could be because there were other, comparable engines it could have been made in without much effort (in fact, probably with far less effort). We give lower scores if a game suffers from poor graphic or sound choice, so why is it unrealistic to insist the same be done of engine choice?

The game wasn't half bad, but it wasn't half good either. I suppose you're entitled to your opinion, but it seems we've all lowered our standards if "Wow, this game isn't very bad!" equates to 4.5 and 5 star reviews. What do you do when a genuinely good game comes around and the highest score you can give it puts it on the same level as games which were "surprisingly not bad"?

EDIT: For clarification, I hold RM games to the same standards I hold commercial games. Thus, when I write a 2.5/5, I'm not saying a game is "bad" but that it's unremarkable. To hold RM games to a lower standard is to never aspire to go beyond mediocrity.

For a RM game to include rampant fanboyism is an achievement all onto itself. I wholeheartedly agree with every thing FG says; this is most likely the best RM out there, by a couple of miles. As he has mentioned, it is hard to criticize something that has so few flaws and so many things that just click and work together, not to mention the absurd amount of polish that went into this game.

Other RM games have attracted rampant fanboyism and been pretty terrible. Popularity is not a measure of quality. To say that this is by far the best RM game out there is to claim that you've played every RM game out there.