Chacranajxy Reviews: Rogue Galaxy (PS2)

[Chacrana]

It's on HonestGamers now:

http://www.honestgamers.com/systems/content.php?game_id=&console_id=4&review_id=5884

It's a good'un. And y'know, if you have questions, ask.

[Calamityuponthee]

Good review, not sure what you're looking for.. grammar or just how accurate it is?

I only got to chapter 6 or 7 (i forgot), but the games story sucked so bad, I stopped playing it completely.

I realized a game with top notch gameplay cannot save it without an engrossing story. Either way, I loved the combat and gameplay from what I played.

I had huge expectations for this game, but it just didn't deliver. I play RPG's for great stories.

Good review though, you covered the parts I would have said.

[Chacrana]

Looking for critiques as far as things like organization, content, is it boring, etc.

Edit: Oh, and most importantly, I wanna know if the review is helpful. I can't even tell you how many times I've walked away from reading a review with no fucking clue what the game is like. Thanks for nothing, Gamespot's Greg Mueller... you're still an idiot and still look like one.

[zionoverfire]

Looking for critiques as far as things like organization, content, is it boring, etc.

Edit: Oh, and most importantly, I wanna know if the review is helpful. I can't even tell you how many times I've walked away from reading a review with no fucking clue what the game is like. Thanks for nothing, Gamespot's Greg Mueller... you're still an idiot and still look like one.

I think you should pay a bit more attention to the difficulty of combat, some of the boss battles are just a total pain and random encounters can range from easy to quite difficult depending on the number of enemies encountered.

[Apossum]

returning the favor for the critique you gave me. i can't get to all the minute grammar nazi stuff, since I'm a slow ass reader, but I'll get the big stuff the best I can. it also might be a bit out of order since I check out grammar then the continuity (just an editing habit I can't kick thanks to taking too many writing intensive courses with overly anal profs.) I probably won't check out continuity as much since it seems to be ordered like a review usually is, but as you make grammatical changes, pay attention to the context of each sentence.
It takes some time, but if you take a long time giving it a good once over, that'll save you a shitload of time when you go through it again.

and I usually demand beer for this service :lol:

--"If the story is merely "okay," can't an RPG just be written off altogether?" You might want to get rid of this sentence or phrase it as a statement.
if not, then change "the" to "its" since you're making a general point about RPG stories. I wouldn't normally correct this as it's kind of debatable, but if it's a stand alone sentence, its grammar should be undebatable. Flow wise, it could be a stronger lead in sentence to the gameplay section. you should probably take it out since it looks like a sub-section title, but isn't, and you don't have titles for the other sections. it might go better at the beginning of the paragraph it precedes.

--then the first sentence of the gameplay section needs to lose the "sure" and change it to make it more obvious that you're saying most RPGs can't compete with RG. the reader will get it as it is, but the arrangement is a bit awkward. you could probably split it into two shorter sentences for a stronger point.

--take out the words "actually," "pretty," "pretty much," "definitely," "just," "at least," and "really," all variations of those, and fix the grammar accordingly. those words are strictly conversational, imo, since they're often used to give a quick, general idea about something or as a generic way to convey the intensity of something. since you've got the advantage of writing this out, take the opportunity to make the sentences with those words stronger. or just delete the words for better flow.

examples:
-"the ensuing plot is pretty mundane and never really takes off" -- taking out "pretty" and "really" makes it more succinct and emphasizes your point.

-"the story just suffers from a lack of ambition and never really attempts to go anywhere." This needs to be split into two sentences and needs to lose those words i mentioned. The second clause has the opportunity to really say something nice and critical about how the story doesn't take off. So "the story suffers from a lack of ambition" for the first part, then something like "The plot line plays it safe by sticking to a fairly standard RPG formula" or whatever you want to make out of it.

--consider the sentences where you have an "and" to join two clauses. you might be able to split those into two shorter sentences, or even better, condense them into 1 better sentence with a more urgent point.
examples:
"This treasure is hidden all over the game's locales and it takes quite a bit of dedication to find most of them." -- that's fine (except take out "this" and change "them" to "it.")

"Level 5's games have always emphasized customization quite a bit and Rogue Galaxy follows suite and actually goes a step further than past games have." -- that needs to be changed.

--overall, this is a great draft and you've convinced me to get around to this game, which I had previously written off as typical rpg crap (like I do with all RPGs before someone tells me they're good :lol: ) I know all I need to know about the game and then some. It's very wordy though and there's much condensing to be done.

for example: "Graphically, Rogue Galaxy is absolutely stunning, especially given that it's a Playstation 2 game." could be "Graphically, Rogue Galaxy is stunning, especially for a PS2 game." It's not much, but several fixes like that in every paragraph will make it much more readable overall.


I didn't read it as in depth since it's 1:30 and I still want to play some DDS before I go to bed, but if you want me to keep on going later, let me know. and yeah, I'm a total hypocrite and rarely check for any of this stuff in my own writing :)

sorry if this seems anal or whatever, but you should shoot for a "featured" review on honestgamer--you've got the info and insight to impress the "review of the week" mod.

[Chacrana]

Hehheh, appreciate the long-ish post. Yeah, it seems like you're looking at the informality of the review as being the issue... which is really the one thing I changed between this and the TR Anniversary review to see which works better. I think I'll make it a bit more formal though since informal writing = nubs.

[Apossum]

Hehheh, appreciate the long-ish post. Yeah, it seems like you're looking at the informality of the review as being the issue... which is really the one thing I changed between this and the TR Anniversary review to see which works better. I think I'll make it a bit more formal though since informal writing = nubs.


yeah, it's tough to get that balance. you could do what most game publications do and crack fucking stupid jokes every 3 sentences :lol: jk. to tell you the truth, I don't know how to do that at all. when you make yourself use proper grammar, then you have to write more creatively to make it informal. The one time I tried, the review seemed kinda weird (for Killer 7.) I'm going to try again with Super Stardust though.

[Chacrana]

yeah, it's tough to get that balance. you could do what most game publications do and crack fucking stupid jokes every 3 sentences :lol: jk. to tell you the truth, I don't know how to do that at all. when you make yourself use proper grammar, then you have to write more creatively to make it informal. The one time I tried, the review seemed kinda weird (for Killer 7.) I'm going to try again with Super Stardust though.

I think if I just take out some of the words that are useless it'll be fine. It's interesting enough this time around and yeah.

And magazine critics are fucking idiots.

[Chacrana]

Okay, made revisions. I feel better about this review now and I think it's finished. Thanks again for the tips, Possum. Think I'll submit this ish pretty soon.

Next review should either be REmake or The Darkness. Depending on whether I actually open the Darkness today.

[Chacrana]

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/thegrimadventuresofbillymandy/player_review.html?id=468668