What you will see, 99% of the time, is an incorrect way of playing a shooting game--often, with two players simply messing around--and demonstrates nothing of scoring systems or survival. I remember ZUN's demo of Mountain of Faith, which taught a lot of people how to deal with early Stage 4 on Lunatic. The rolling demos are never anything to go by.toaplan_shmupfan wrote:Turn on the game--don't play it yet. Watch the attract modes a few times first. Rationale: this allows seeing of details in the game that may not be able to be seen or appreciated when actually playing the game for survival.
Have you played Shadow of the Colossus? The music is part of the game. I thoroughly enjoyed the music to the point of importing the OST. But then I was thoroughly disappointed because the music isn't something which holds any meaning by itself. This isn't true of all games, but people who dumb enough to read a review before purchasing a game; those who think $60 USD on a game is "overly expensive and lacks content", are not capable of appreciating video game music as a single element. This is perfectly fine though, since the tracks were designed for the game, not the other way around. Nobody's going to read a review and go "man, can't wait to get into that game and listen to the background music".toaplan_shmupfan wrote:Now, go to the options menu, if there is a sound test, listen to the soundtracks individually to fully appreciate them, since a lot of in-game action and sound effects may prevent fully appreciating the music. If the game does not have a sound test, then it will be necessary just to hear the soundtrack while also playing the game.
This is dependent entirely on the player, not the game. Only a reviewer who has spent considerable time with other shooting games can compare it to other shooters.toaplan_shmupfan wrote:Now, play the game the first time through, default difficulty, no continues no matter what, how far did one get? What is that player's skill level compared to other games of the same genre? This may be a good way to accurately measure whether the game is too easy or too hard from the start, and whether other players will like the game vs. for dedicated fans of the genre only.
Turning down the difficulty below anything but what Original is meant to be played on would alter the levels. That would be like reviewing Daioujou on the easiest setting: it wouldn't make any sense. Credit feeding would be fine.toaplan_shmupfan wrote:Play again, and for the purposes of reviewing, sure go ahead and credit feed to the end. Or, it might be better to just turn down the difficulty (but then say so in the review that it was necessary to turn down the difficulty in order not to credit feed to the end). That said, don't judge the overall game experience on how "short" it may be due to credit feeding or an easier difficulty, but do that to be able to see the later levels without having to start over each time so that the overall game experience has been reviewed.
How is this going to help? Judging a game based on how far the reviewer himself can get is retarded.toaplan_shmupfan wrote:Before finalizing the review, give the game one more playthrough, no credit feeding, at the default difficulty once again. Doesn't matter if the game is finished or not, just give it an honest one-credit playthrough.
Credit feeding through Ultra would be annoying as hell, and definitely different from playing Original. I dare say that people reading the review would brush Ultra, or even Maniac off because "dude that shit is impossible".toaplan_shmupfan wrote:For multimode games, do the same for any other game modes. IIRC Mushihimesama Futari has an Original mode, a Manic mode, and an Ultra mode. This way each mode got a fair playthrough.
80 hours isn't necessary to review a game, but reviewing the music by itself and demo play isn't going to help a reader grasp what the actual game plays like.toaplan_shmupfan wrote:IMHO, this is a good balance between not playing the game enough, and not spending 80 to 100 hours on the same game.
No, if you're going to review Futari, talk about the scoring and how Original and Maniac's scoring systems differ. Talk about how it borrows elements from Ketsui. Talk about how Original's mode rank becomes very punishing from Stage 4 onwards. Talk about Reko A, B, Palm A, B, and what advantages and disadvantages each of them have. Mention the top players and mention what they use (monkey see, monkey do; after all, they're reading your review).
Things like:
- The 360 port will come in 3 editions: limited edition with pre-order bonus (only from the online cave shop; two faceplate stickers and a collectable telephone card), limited edition (comes with game, case and soundtrack) and the regular edition which is just the standard game by itself.
- Black Label is going to be additional content in the future, and includes Original, Maniac and God Mode with completely different scoring systems.
- 1.01 will be available from the DLC card which is included in the first print (?) of the game.
- This is going to be the first region-free Japan-only Xbox 360 game.
And don't play this on a fucking 360 pad while you're reviewing. Mention that it's going to be awkward to play with a 360 pad (this is globally known, but still). The HRAP EX-SE arcade stick would be the easiest to access for your readers, since it's full Seimitsu and requires no modding. There's also this converter which people can import, which gives access to anything that uses a PS2 end (all HRAPs, PS2 Saturn pads, Hori PS2 pads, SNK PS2 pads, etc).
