Let's Look At Famitsu's "Perfect" Scores
As one of the biggest and longest running magazines devoted to gaming, Famitsu has earned a reputation for running games through the ringing during reviews. Universally classics like Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, Final Fantasy X, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence may be lauded as works of perfection by fans, but at Famitsu they don't quite cut it. However, astute followers of the magazine have noticed a sharp increase in the scores handed out recently. In light of the last week's news that the oh so saucy Bayonetta received a perfect 40 out of 40 score from Famitsu, I figured that now was a good time to take a look back at all the games that have received the prestigious honor from the renowned Japanese publication, and talk about whether these titles deserve the scores they were given...
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Publisher : Nintendo
Platform : Nintendo 64
Released : 1998
Worth a 40? : Without a doubt!
Even though they had been reviewing games for over a decade, Famitsu's first perfectly rated game didn't come until 1998. Ocarina of Time is often referred to as series creator and gaming icon Shigeru Miyamoto's magnum opus. At the time it offered the biggest, deepest adventure on consoles. In addition to wowing audiences with its visuals, it brought Link into 3D for the first time with gaming mechanics that are still mimicked by designers around the world. It's difficult to imagine where the Zelda series, Nintendo, and gaming as a whole would be without this revolutionary title.
Soul Calibur
Publisher : Namco
Platform : Dreamcast
Worth a 40? : Probably
I know what you're thinking: "What do you mean 'probably?'" Hear me out for a minute. While the game is my favorite fighting game of all time, we have to face some facts here. This isn't the first 3D fighter, it wasn't the best balanced 3D of the era, and, while it did have a good amount of depth to it, Soul Calibur didn't offer much in terms of advanced play. However, what it did bring us was an early Dreamcrast title (a US launch title) with astounding visuals, fluid animation, extremely accessible gameplay, and the most notable single player content seen in a 1v1 fighter yet. Yes, Mitsurugi is totally over powered, and some characters don't carry the punch that their weapon infers they should have, but this was one of the earliest 3D fighters just about anyone could pick up and play with ease (something that today's Soul Calibur installments could learn from).
Vagrant Story
Publisher ; Square
Platform : PlayStation
Released : 2000
Worth a 40? : More than you can admit
I get hate mail every time I say this, but Final Fantasy 8 is not the best PS1 JRPG and this game totally is! This opinion didn't make me any friends back in the day, but over time it has been justified. While most people ignored this title in favor of Squall's emo whining, Vagrant Story told a suspenseful tale of murder, mystery, and "keys." Even though it's way past its spoiler expiration date, it is criminal to potentially ruin this game. All that needs to be said is that Square took more chances here with its approach to combat, storytelling, and art direction then it would with any other JRPG at the time. Anyone considering themselves a fan of the genre needs to play this game.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Publisher : Nintendo
Platform : Gamecube
Released : 2003
Worth a 40? : three quarters yes, one quarter no
Expanding on Ocarina of Time's fundamentals, this nautically themed adventure surprised a lot of fans. It had all the signatures of a great Zelda title and a lovely not art style to go with it, but also contained one of the most offensive fetch quests in recorded history. I may have loved seeing the castle frozen in time, but if you think I'm ever going to collect that many ruprees, you got another thing coming.
Nintendogs
Publisher : Nintendo
Platform : Nintendo DS
Released : 2005
Worth a 40? : Woof!
This is actually the game that inspired me to put this list together. On the last GayGamer podcast I heard Fruit Brute and Tiny Dancer saying some less than favorable remarks about Nintendo's puppy simulator, and as a dedicated defender of the non-game, I knew I had to say something. Nintendogs represents the Nintendo's first of many casual-driven experiences. It may not exactly jive with players and most certainly isn't the first pet sim out there, but the title demonstrated impact of touch screen controls with intuitive motions, lifelike animations, and a level of polish that I have yet to see replicated in any other handheld. Years from now, people will look back on how/why Nintendo made the drastic shift from "hardcore favorite" to "gaming for everyone" and they'll point to this groundbreaking title that introduced players to new forms of interaction and brought a mob of newly fanged "non-gamers" along for the ride as well.
Final Fantasy XII
Publisher : Square Enix
Platform : PlayStation 2
Released : 2006
Worth a 40? : Not really
Remember that thing I said in the Vagrant Story section about Square taking chances being good thing? Yeah... The chances the team took here didn't please everyone and even brought up unflattering comparisons to "playing excel spreadsheets." An equally oddly structured and needlessly complicated narrative didn't make things any better. Is the title horrible? Not at all, but the flaws seen in the title keep it from really earning the honor.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Publisher : Nintendo
Platform : Wii
Released : 2008
Worth a 40? : Absolutely Not
I'm going to make this one short and sweet because no one is going to fight me on this one. I have the sneaking suspicion that Famitsu gave this entry a 40 as a way of apologizing for underrating the gamecube's Melee installment. Now that game is a real 40!
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots
Publisher : Konami
Platform : PlayStation 3
Released : 2008
Worth a 40? : Can love bloom on a battlefield?
This one is open to the widest amount of personal interpretation, but I think that whether or not this game is really the perfect title that some claim it to be is completely determined by Otacon's trademark question. I found the series' fourth installment to every bit of the captivating experience I expected to me, but that came with knowledge that I would be sitting through one of the longest cutscenes in the history of gaming. The title did give Snake (and many other characters) closure, but the journey there is one that can only be made and understood by the most dedicated of fans. Any MGS newbie jumping in at this point is doing themself a disservice and will pause the game to look up what a "Darpa Chief" is on Wikipedia.
428: Fūsa Sareta Shibuya de
Publisher : Sega
Platform : Wii
Released : 2008
Worth a 40? : Only if the term "visual novel" gets you excited
Speaking of Wikipedia, I feel asleep reading the description of this game, but it sold enough to get ported to the PS3 and PSP a year after its Wii release. I guess that counts for something, but this game is never getting a release over here. Ever.
Dragon Quest IX
Publisher : Square Enix
Platform : Nintendo DS
Released : 2009
Worth a 40? : A Slime approaches...
Fans bitched about it being on the "wrong" platform, but that didn't stop them from buying the game in massive droves. While I haven't been able to play the game myself, the title was positively received by fans in Japan. With developer Level 5 at the helm, it's not difficult to imagine this game meeting a "perfect" expectation as long as you have a thing for old school JRPG design.
Monster Hunter Tri
Publisher : Capcom
Platform : Nintendo Wii
Released : 2009
Worth a 40? : Probably Not
Sure it looks pretty, but have you actually played any Monster Hunter game? It's a step above anything Sega is doing with Phantasy Star Universe, but that's not saying much. I don't know what magic Capcom has seemingly put the entire nation of Japan under, but this not-quite-WoW, pseudo-MMORPG's spell hasn't enchanted that many over here yet. I'd love to be surprised by this, but I can't say what we've seen so far is worth the 40 bestowed on it be Famitsu.
Bayonetta
Publisher : Sega
Platform : PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360
Released : 2009
Worth a 40? : I really want it to be
Bayonetta is not just historic for being one of the few games to receive the 40 honor, but it is also the only multiplatform (on initial release) title on the list. Only time will tell if this game deserves all the hubbub, but it's shown all the signs to be a very memorable sexy action-adventure title.
That's all they've wrote...for now. Did Famitsu miss any games that should have been given perfect scores? Am I totally wrong for calling shenanigans on that totally artificial fetch quest at the end of Wind Waker (hint: I'm not)? Hit the comments and give us a piece of your mind.
Game-Boy
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 29 October 2009
· Comments (19)
Other stuff like this: arbitrary, famitsu, list, magazine, perfect games, rankings, reviews
I'm going to have to disagree with you about Smash Bros Brawl. Brawl took the already amazing Melee and built on it. New characters, a stage editor, a full single-player mode, and a great unlockable system. It seems to me that saying Melee is amazing and Brawl sucks is like saying Half-Life 2 is an amazing FPS but The Orange Box is garbage.
To help you with vagrant story ... just need to remeber that ff12, all the fftatics and other ivalice FFs that were inpired by the looks and the world of vagrant
I also have to disagree with the brawl one .. the only thing i have some complaint is that unlocking sonic is a pain ...but hey .. you are UNLOCKING SONIC in a game with mario =P
I loved Vagrant Story, but there were huge problems with the battle system. Well, not huge. They could have easily been worked out.
I remember fighting that wyvern at the end of the maze-like forest and after a while my hits hardly did any damage. That fight took forever.
Luckily most of it wasn't like that and I greatly enjoyed the game.
That being said, FF8 was the best PSX JRPG (IMO). But then VS was an action RPG. You can't really compare the two.
I think that FFXII has gotten a bad rap. It is by far and away the best of the post-SNES Final Fantasies, IMHO. Just because there aren't alot of angsty, emo characters and overly complicated love triangles and interpersonal relationships, doesn't make it a bad narrative. And I can't believe you thought the narrative was needlessly complicated. Most complaints I had heard from friends on the subject were focused the lack of complication. If this game had been a Final Fantasy offshoot, it would have been looked at in a completely different light. The problem was that the changes were too radical for the main series. Had it been allowed to stand alone as its own entity as Vagrant Story had, we wouldn't be coming at it with our prejudices of what we expect from Final Fantasy.
I'm not saying it was perfect by any means. I'm sure a few things could have used some tweaking. For instance, Quickenings using up all your mist, rendering them unusable at times, or how conservative they were in their allotment of new gambits. The ADB and Gambit systems were truly revolutionary as far as I'm concerned. Despite the fact that I thought I wouldn't like it at first, I found it to be so much more immersive than the more traditional turn based battle systems. I actually enjoyed grinding again. Can you believe it? I have trouble moving backward in the series now, because they feel old. I also think its hands down one of the best looking games on the PS2. It may not be a 40, but its damned close as far as I'm concerned. But that's just my 2 cents.
Not saying that Brawl is garbage, but it lacked the balance that gave Melee staying power.
I understand that it brought a mixed bag of new bells and whistles that try to make the game better (level editor: good, online: not so much), but the title relies too much on old content/character/levels while it's new content arguably sets the series back. I mean, is there a character as blatantly unbalanced as Meta Knight in SMB64 or Melee?
Brawl definitely absolutely deserves the 40!
When it was released, the hardcore SSB crowd cried that the gameplay was dumbed down and it catered too much to casual players. Now a years and a half since the game's release we have learned the game has a rich, deep competitive experience that continues to flourish and evolve. It easily equals or exceeds the depth and balance of Melee's gameplay which has had much longer to develop. (I could go on about how things like Metaknight have proven to be less detrimental than originally thought, but such musings are for another post.)
Add all the extras, all the characters, all the fun casual items, smash balls, single players modes, stage editor, online play... Even though some of these could have been implemented better, they are only embellishments to the most solid game the series.
Brawl and LoZ:OoT are the only games I can fully endorse being 40s up there. (I haven't played all of 'em)
Brawl definitely absolutely deserves the 40!
When it was released, the hardcore SSB crowd cried that the gameplay was dumbed down and it catered too much to casual players. Now a years and a half since the game's release we have learned the game has a rich, deep competitive experience that continues to flourish and evolve. It easily equals or exceeds the depth and balance of Melee's gameplay which has had much longer to develop. (I could go on about how things like Metaknight have proven to be less detrimental than originally thought, but such musings are for another post.)
Add all the extras, all the characters, all the fun casual items, smash balls, single players modes, stage editor, online play... Even though some of these could have been implemented better, they are only embellishments to the most solid game the series.
Brawl and LoZ:OoT are the only games I can fully endorse being 40s up there. (I haven't played all of 'em)
I'm ampd for Bayonetta its gunna be awesome! It deserves the 40 just for the character design!
@ Gameboy
Ness was pretty unbalanced in Smash Bros 64, as well as how easy it was to exploit Donkey Kong's "carry someone off the level" move. In Melee Zelda/Shiek (and to a lesser degree, Falco) took the crown. I've actually never had balance issues with Meta Knight in Brawl, though I would point to Wario or Snake as unbalanced Brawl characters. In any case, 1 or 2 unbalanced characters never seemed like an issue to me since it's easy enough to set rules among whatever group you're playing in that those characters are off-limits. You're still left with quality new characters like Diddy Kong, Olimar, Pokemon Trainer, Ike, Dedede, Sonic, Pit, and R.O.B. I'd say the good outweighs the bad.
@WonderBreadUSA
Ugh, to be perfectly honest I hated FFXII. Well, actually, I've never gotten around to finishing it (I stopped after I got to the Phon Coast). The story seemed interesting enough, but the combat system was terrible. You set the character gambits, walk near an enemy, then put the controller down and wait for your party to automatically fight the battle for you. With the exception of boss battles I never had to interfere with the combat decisions that the AI was making. It's interesting that it made you enjoy grinding, because for me it made grinding an even more boring experience than it normally is. To me, non-interactive game = not fun. Although, I'm the kind of person who would say that the best post-SNES Final Fantasy game was IX, so what do I know?
@Platy:
"just need to remeber that ff12, all the fftatics and other ivalice FFs that were inpired by the looks and the world of vagrant"
They weren't inspired by VS, they all had the same designer, Matsuno! That's why they all look and feel so similar.
@NaviFairy
The reason I enjoyed grinding is because of expedience. All you have to do is walk around and your team will automatically kill everything in sight. I dunno about you, but to me, it was alot better than repeatedly mashing the action button over and over again to get a fight over with. Lets face it, when it comes to grinding in a FF game, there really isn't much of a need for deep thought or strategy. Your thoughts about FFIX, however, I would agree with. It's next on my best of list.
@ Navi: Good points, but I still think that Famistu gave Brawl and apology 40. I guess I just expected the jump in quality in Melee to Brawl that was seen going from 64 to Melee.
@ WonderbreadUSA: Like Navi I dropped out of the game before finishing (about 15-20 hours in?), but one of the things that FF12 did right was how the designers choose to deal with "the grind." I thought the concept of the battle system was clever, but it's execution was lacking. Though, I hope they revisit this system sometime.
I was about to ask who's ever considered FF8 the best jRPG on the PS1, but then Nexus made the comment, so there's at least one person who's thought that.
I think a bigger question with FFXII, as well as RPGs on the list like Dragon Quest IX and Monster Hunter Tri, would be: should something like grinding even be included in a game that receives a perfect score? I mean, when other RPGs, like Grandia II for example, are able to have the game run at a consistent pace without any need for grinding whatsoever(though it is still an option if you want to make your characters overpowered), why should a game that requires grinding even be considered for a perfect score? Other RPGs that require little or no grinding also come to mind, like Tales of the Abyss and Lost Odyssey, which only really required grinding if you were going after the optional bosses.
There are plenty of grinding RPGs that I love. I already mentioned FFIX, but my absolute favorite RPG is Skies of Arcadia, which definitely has more than it's fair share of grinding. But grinding is a pretty archaic game mechanic, and I'm not sure that a game that is so poorly balanced between enemy encounter rates and experience received should be given a perfect score. They can be very good games, but not perfect.
@NaviFairy
It could also be argued that no game deserves a perfect score, but I don't want to debate the ins and outs of review scores. I agree that grinding is an annoyance, and developers could do us a great debt by getting rid of it forever. I doubt it will happen any time soon though. Grinding has been one of the most pervasive element of video game RPGs since there were video game RPGs. While you and I might be tired of the grind, I'm sure there are plenty of people that not only expect it to be there, but enjoy it. It's all very subjective. Look how popular Dragon Quest still is in Japan. It is in alot of ways a very old school RPG. One of the reasons I just can't get into it anymore. We should also keep in mind the fact that we are debating the worth of a score in a Japanese gaming magazine, intended for Japanese gamers, through a non-Japanese cultural lens. I don't think it comes as news to any of us that Japan and America, or Europe have very different tastes in games. You could say, none of us are qualified to debate the subject at all. I personally just wanted to share my thoughts about the game, because I feel it has continually been underrated by most people because it deviated too far from the FF formula. I didn't say it deserved a perfect score, in fact, I had criticisms of my own, some of which I listed.
as far as I am concerned, Wonderbread hit the nail on the head when it comes to FFXII. I loved the narrative for its complexity and, much as I am loathe to admit it, the Gambit system turned out OK. things like the Hunts, which were COMPLETELY optional save for the first one gave you something else to do if you so chose, and didn't interfere with the overall pacing of the game at all. I think that XII is head and shoulders above every main series FF title since VI, even IX which I thoroughly enjoyed.
lol @ Final Fantasy 8.
OMG GUYS, IT'S THE MOONCRY! THIS WAS COMPLETELY NOT FORESHADOWED AND OUT OF NOWHERE. IT'S A COMET OF MONSTERS THAT COMES EVERY THOUSAND YEARS. WHAT A COINCIDENCE!
Looking at that list, the Japanese really do like to give Japanese games top marks. I am surprised not to see a single western title.
The only game on that list i think is a 40 would be Ocarina Of time. To this day i do not believe anyone has made a better action rpg, even the Zelda titles since have all just been a rinse and repeat of the same formula.
I am not touching final fantasy wit a 40 foot pole. The appeal of JRPG's eludes me. You hear that people play it for the "story", well i think overly melodramatic, soap operas are not really worth the 80 hour investment some people seem to think.
Ocarina of Time is a terrible game. It leads you on a long trek through a thin, generic storyline via fetch quests, trivial "puzzles", and lots and lots of running from point A to point B while pressing the roll button over and over. Then it tries to trick you into thinking you've accomplished something by playing epic music and handing you variously colored icons that you can look at on the start screen. Forget the fact that it blatantly re-used all its ideas from A Link to the Past; that would be okay if it were a good game. But it isn't.
For an example of what I think is a good Zelda-esque game, play Dwarf Complete. It's free! http://www.eyezmaze.com/eyezblog_en/blog/2007/03/dwarf_complete.html