In the shadow of Star Ocean: The Last Hope being released and getting pretty good reviews, I started thinking about the other RPGs Square Enix has released on the 360 this generation. Sure, PS3 early adopters were more than aliitle upset with the defection of Square’s flagship game, Final Fantasy 13 to the competition, Mircosoft’s Xbox360. And more still at the sight of SE throwing more and more support behind the 360, while leaving the PS3 out in the cold has fans worried. But after reviewing the reviews and opinions about the RPGs released so far, I wonder why people are so up in arms about the move.
It started with Infinite Undiscovery. And the results were not as pretty as SE and MS would have liked. The mighty Metacritic has it sitting at a interesting 68 out of 100. Most gaming outlet panned it, saying mostly that the presentation was flawed and full of all the clichés of most JRPGs. While some, like X-Play, praised the combat. Others like Gameradar, called the system “unsatisfying.” The game did well for the 360, selling about 400,000 copies. Making the new marriage seem, at the time, like peas and carrots.
Up next was The Last Remnant. And things seemed to go south. The game, again, was relatively met with mediocre reviews. And again, the Metacritic score lingers around 65 out of 100. Reviewers sited the game’s “repetitive battles, cluttered screens, and annoying 'quests'” (Gamepro) and “abysmal frame-rate problems and awful texture pop-in as well as obtuse combat mechanics” (Gamespot) as major problems. Gametrailer put at an 8.0, citing “The Last Remnant is a hard game to judge. A person's enjoyment of it will be directly related to how much they can tolerate the persistent graphical issues.” X-Play and IGN shared the sentiment, saying that the presentation was not up to par. X-Play went so far as to criticizing “the load screens, long cutscenes, and the battle system, saying the game played itself.” It didn’t seem to set the world on fire, but sold well at about 550,000 copies.
So, this leads us to the next in the line of SE RPGs only for 360, Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Reviews are filtering in and they are sounding good. IGN’s review is good for the game and will sell well regardless of reviews or Metacritic scores. But where does that leave the Sony brand? A console that doesn’t have a lot of JRPGs? Nothing. Fallout 3 was the game of the year and is a blast to play. The over-looked Folklore was very good, albeit different kind of role playing. The CRIMINALLY over-looked Valkyrie Chronicles is an awesome game that people who complain about the PS3 not having games need shoved in their asshole. On top of the other non RPG, PS3-only games that you know about already and the gems on PSN like PJ Monsters, Burnout Paradise, Super Stardust HD and Warhawk and I say “Why worry about games you aren’t going to play anyway?” (well, The Last Remnant is coming soon, but whatever)
The perception that Sony has no games is almost taken as a painstaking fact by the general public, even though it’s an outdated claim only used by partisan console owners and well…..fanboys. With Sony getting great reviews on the exclusives that are out (Flower; Pixel Junk Monsters) and that are coming out, (Killzone 2) Sony fans shouldn’t worry about what’s going on the other side. Sure, 360 folks have been riding high in the quality games department for awhile, but the PS3 is coming along alot better then people think. Stop worrying about what other people have and you don't .You should buy games that are out (and are rated great to awesome) before bitching about betrayals and whatnot.
And buy Valkyrie Chronicles already, lugnuts……….
J.
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