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| Grahf 345th Post
 
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|  "X-Play vs. Shining Tears" , posted Mon 21 Feb 15:58
I had heard some mediocre impressions of Shining Tears, but I was still considering getting the game because it looked interesting and because I'm a fan of most other games from the "Shining" series.
To my surprise, X-Play gave the game a 1 out of 5 rating and labeled it the worst RPG they had ever reviewed on the show. During the on-air review, almost no explanation is given for why the game is so bad. Instead, the entire review is taken up by joking about how awful the game is.
The full online review is, at least, a little more thorough. You can read it here. However, based on what I've seen of the game, I am inclined to disagree with a lot of what is said.
They complain that the graphics are dated and look like something from the PS1, but the pictures and videos that I have seen look great. It seems to me that the reviewer mainly thought it looked old and crappy just because it's in 2D.
There are also compaints about loading time, a cliched storyline, annoying menus, and repetitive gameplay. Until now, the only thing I had heard about was slightly repetitive combat, but I had thought that the co-op and spell system sounded interesting and fun.
What I would like to know is how accurate the review is. Like I said, I haven't played the game, but I was looking forward to it. Can anyone who has played it comment on the game in comparison to this review? It just all seems like some sort of mistake. I haven't seen X-Play rip into a game like this since they reviewed Aquaman.
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| Holiday 2471th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
    
    
    
  
| "Re(1):X-Play vs. Shining Tears" , posted Mon 21 Feb 17:13
Characters look generic? They're designed by Taka Tony? Taka Tony! (warning! not so worksafe website), so you get moe moe and sexy in the same package. And I enjoyed this game together with Sora no Iro, Mizu no Iro, another game he designed the characters for.
It's an eroge, so it seemed like Shining Tears: Sex Side Story at times. Banzai!
The environments and the art are very pretty as well. No problems there.
And the 3d graphics aren't realy bad at all. It's true that they're not up to the level of ... something like Summon Knight 3 but I never thought that it was bad.
And the characters are lovable. The G4 reviewer must have been dummped the day he reviewed the game? It seemed a bit like a dating sim at times because your character changes depending on which partner you choose for him in the game. And multiple partners = multiple endings, and multiple endings are always welcome. Game replayability is high because of this, and there is always an advance more to play once you've beaten the game. It's like a Game+ but with much much stronger enemies.
The user interface isn't bad at all. It takes some getting used to and is slightly complicated, but monkeys can be trained to learn the UI.
The music isn't great, but there are some nice tracks.
Battles are fun, but can get a bit tedious. Nothing terribly challenging though - the ai is dumb. Even more fun with a (good) 2nd player helping you out. And healing items overpriced? Seriously, money is no problem in this game.
Story is alright I think? It sounds cliched at the very beginning but it does get better towards the end.
I agree with the terrible, terrible load times though. They're really bad, even if you're just going from one part of the town to another. Think 20~30 second load times? This alone would totally kill a lot of people's enjoyment of the game. but I'm a patient sort of person and was more interested in enjoying the game.
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| DarkZero 1120th Post
Red Carpet Premium Member+
| "Re(3):X-Play vs. Shining Tears" , posted Mon 21 Feb 20:05
Even before G4, X-Play always kind of sucked. It was nice to actually see a game in action without jumping through the usual hoops to see the videos on game sites, but the actual content of the show was always kind of crappy. They never explain why they have their opinions of certain games and they constantly give poor reviews to certain genres instead of finding the right reviewer for the right game. And Judgement Day has always been even worse, because the hosts are vapid fools who can't even pronounce the name of a game correctly. I caught a little bit of their latest episode tonight and as soon as I heard them mispronounce every single syllable of the name "Baten Kaitos", I was pretty sure the review was going to suck.
Unless you only care about graphics, gore, and "no boring cut scenes", nothing on G4, even X-Play, is really for you. It's like getting your game reviews from Maxim magazine ("ZOMG BLOODRAYNE TITTIES 5 OUT OF 5!!!11"), but with a little bit of pandering thrown in to get their gamer "street cred" ("Games with stories and cut scenes suck, but Ico is moving and beautiful! I know, 'cause I read it in every gaming magazine on Earth before this review!").
I haven't played Shining Tears, but you can't judge its quality from a G4 review any more than you could from a coin toss or a ouija board.
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| Mosquiton 1523th Post
Red Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Member
| "Re(1):X-Play vs. Shining Tears" , posted Tue 22 Feb 01:36:
quote:
What I would like to know is how accurate the review is. Like I said, I haven't played the game, but I was looking forward to it. Can anyone who has played it comment on the game in comparison to this review? It just all seems like some sort of mistake. I haven't seen X-Play rip into a game like this since they reviewed Aquaman.
I don't agree with the one star rating, and the graphics certainly aren't crap, but I can tell you honestly that the game isn't very good.
My biggest gripe is that you have to use the main character (totally generic and kind of a weenie) in every story mission. Guy is always seeing action and has abusable moves, so he gets very overpowered and very boring to use. Whoever has the second controller in story missions is basically clean-up tagalong sidekick.
If you want to put together a two-person team that doesn't involve the guy you have to go to alternate reality mirror world to replay old stages. Even there multi-hit physical techniques totally dominate. Magic and projectiles are only really good for cheaping enemies through gaps. You can get more mileage out of the team techniques in mirror world-- a few of them are actually useful-- but there are other problems too.
The enemies are dumb as fence posts. Hell, their AI seems to be largely modeled on fence posts. They're from the 'I won't acknowledge your precense until you pass within six feet of me' school of AI, where they must have graduated with fucking honors. You can attack a group in the middle of the screen and the guys on the right and left will stand there like statues. I imagine one of the individual soldiers must be thinking "Sarge, they're slaughtering Blue Squad! We have to stop them... my brother is in that unit!". To which the sargeant replies "Show some goddamn discipline soldier! The rules of engagement clearly state that we cannot attack until we feel their warm breath on the napes of our necks."
So basically you have an entire military formation, hundreds strong, which is supposedly trying to attack your giant castle town or burn down elf forest standing around doing nothing while they wait for two warriors to murder every last one of them. The battle AI sucks too, melee guys charge brainlessly and projectile guys shoot and run away to maintain distance. There are enemy captains that give special bonuses (health regeneration or attack up, for example), but they sure don't make any attempt at coordinated maneuvers.
And yeah, the load times are barely acceptable. Worse, you can never walk from one place to another, not even from one area of town to the next. When you hit an exit that would logically connect two areas, you simply select any destination from the world map and bam! You're there... after a good long load screen.
The evil-empire/legendary heroes story is pretty weak and the good hero/bad hero system is really just a cheap gimmick that barely affects gameplay at all. And no matter who designed the characters, they're not terribly original. I like the underage ice-chick sorceress, but Elf-chick is painfully plain and there are some obvious clones among the designs. Elf-leader looks like Link in overalls and the Hero's rival Keiner is a dead ringer for K' from KOF. If he had red gloves there could be a lawsuit over it.
I guess I'm only mentioing the bad parts, but this is more a response to the question of 'are these bad things in the X-Play review accurate' than it is a review. But for being a working, coop hack and slash I'd give it at least two stars. EDIT: Oh, and it's cool that you can control the second character with the right analog stick in single player.
I'd recommend it to people who like the aesthetic and really need some coop action, at least.
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[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Tue 22 Feb 01:39] |
| Sano 1507th Post
Red Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Member
| "Re(4):X-Play vs. Shining Tears" , posted Tue 22 Feb 13:20
Me myself, it's hard for me to really hate on X-Play. Adam Sessler's favorite video game is Super Ghouls & Ghosts! He actually knows how to pronounce Samus Aran(psalm us a ron), Ryu (Ree-you, but you should try to pronounce it as one syllable, watch subtitles of the SF Animes and you'll get it, like the Ryu in Shoryuken. Either way, Rye-you is UNACCEPTABLE!) Gradius (Grodius), and Raiden (Rye-den, not Ray-den) as opposed to all the other bone heads on the network. I never agreed with every single review they dished out, they've trashed games I've went out bought anyway and enjoyed several times, but I don't listen to reviews much anyways, just gather info on said game and see if it's right for me.
Judgement Day sucks. At least Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb try to be funny and entertaining. Judgement day is all good cop bad cop, with the tanned one always being the bad cop.
But I haven't watched G4 Tech TV all year since they canceled Pulse and Unscrewed with Martin Sargeant. Those were my favorite shows on the network.
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