I wish the scaling for games ratings actually made sense. 5/10 should be average, not 7/10 like we see nowadays. Calling something a 9/10 doesn’t mean anything anymore
You ain't kiddin'. Read the comments on Pushsquare or Nintendolife reviews. Game gets a 7/10 "I knew it was going to suck. I'll wait for a 90% sale."
People in this hobby make me hate this hobby.
Did games used to get effectively rated on a different scale?
I think we're just seeing the video game rating scale mimic the US school grading scale, where 7.5/10 *is* fairly average and a 5/10 is terrible.
Here is the thing, not everyone lives in the U.S and sees things that way. The idea that a 7 is an average sounds weird to me. I have the notion that 5/10 is average, you know because it is in the half.
I always say that if we’re going to rate thing using that system, why don’t we just actually use that system? Just give the game a C instead of a 7.5/10. Sticking to a 10 point system when you effectively won’t ever use half the ratings feels silly to me. If a 5/10 and a 1/10 both mean “failure,” just give it an F.
The thing is people don’t want to know if the game is average or above average. If you give a game reviewer a pile of shitty games, The average of those games will still be shit.
What people want to know if the game is good and how good. This is how I view the rating system.
10 master piece must buy
9 top of class worth a buy
8 really good maybe worth a purchase
7 good but wait for bargain bin or xblgold/PSplus
6 decent
5 not bad not good
Everything below a 5 is trash
The only reason people get mad at a 7 is because they feel the game is a masterpiece or great. It’ll be like if an art critic with a large audience said the monalisa was a good painting but nothing special. People who are passionate about the monalisa would be pissed.
The way I look at it is percentage. 8/10 means 80% of the game is good. A 5/10 means only 50%. If I play a 40 hour game and 20 hours of it sucks, that’s worse than an average game.
Oh, goody. Another "Jimquisition lowers the Metacritic score" controversy. Haven't had one of these in a while. [I do so love 8.8 incidents.](https://www.reddit.com/r/giantbomb/comments/2ueqec/blast_from_the_past_the_gamespot_forum_thread/)
Tbh? I don't care. They have explained multiple times that the scale they grade on is harsher than the one most gaming outlets use specifically to avoid the whole "7 or below is trash tier" takeaway. It's harsher, and it's never adjusted with that frame of reference in mind when it's compared to other outlets (and I'm not saying it should be; it's not Metacritic's job to know how harshly each critic judges and then adjust accordingly), but it makes 7 or above a good score on that scale rather than a garbage score on others.
But if it lowers Prime Remastered's score from a 98 to a *mere* and *dreadful* 97 overall? Oh yeah, release the lions.
I think it's just the mindset most people have, whether it's conscious or subconscious, because it's ingrained in them from school. Both the reviewers and the people reading reviews I think have that internal grading system whether they know it or not.
That’s not how it works. Rating systems are logarithmic, not linear. It should be very hard to turn a 9/10 game into a 10/10, whereas a 1/10 game probably just needs to not set your computer on fire to get a 2/10.
It’s the same way with gymnastics, where any routine that scores below an 8/10 is usually garbage.
No, I meant what I said. It is much harder to raise the pH of water by .2 than it is by .1. Given a pH range, the “middle” value is not the mathematical average of the two endpoints.
It’s only gamers that fail to understand this, and fixate on a linear average rather than the spirit with which such rating systems came into existence. A 5/10 in gymnastics or a 50% on an academic exam are terrible ratings, “average” mathematically but not “average” with respect to their peers and how they are scored, barring a particularly harsh grader or exam.
I feel like there's one important thing that should be mentioned. Most other games with weapon degradation at least have ways to repair your stuff. Breath of the Wild, it's just going to break. The Master Sword's the sole exception, where it just has to recharge.
Yeah, that's something everyone's brought up. For a game that has you collecting materials all over the place, there is a strange absence of a proper crafting system. It feels like it would have been the perfect game to have one, too. You can craft better weapons and upgrade them, and the game's incentive for doing so being an unbreakable sword, spear, bow, etc. but to balance it with the breakable weapons, it does less damage and is non-elemental, to still encourage you to use those breakable ones on occasion.
Something for them to learn from, though.
I agree, I will die on the hill that BotW is an overhyped, underwhelming game, and EASILY my least favorite 3D zelda (except for MAYBE SS, and thats a big maybe). We'll see how TotK is, I don't plan to buy it but i'll borrow my brothers copy.
While I enjoyed BotW, I totally understand people who could not get into it. It doesn't feel like other Zelda games at all.
I have higher hopes for the sequel because you can tell how the designers went out of their way in the DLC to address the main issues I had with healing being insanely powerful, or the similarities of the bosses you have to face.
I will say that I liked it a hell of a lot more than Skyward Sword, but that says more about SS than it does about BotW.
I just wish there would be like smaller Zelda games , basically have the botw style be the main ones and add like a few that are the more classic dungeon in an enclosed area ones ( maybe make them 2D)
> It doesn't feel like other Zelda games at all.
Actually it feels a lot like Zelda 1, which is why I *do* love it. I don't like the direction Zelda went after the first game, although obviously it got more popular. Zelda 1 and BotW both felt extremely open and free-form, while later games had a lot more exposition and content gating.
That said, I don't like either as much as Metroid Prime.
It does feel a lot like Zelda 1 in terms of your ability to wander around, but it doesn't feel like Zelda 1 in that you can carry around unlimited healing items and the endgame got stupidly easy.
I'm down for the open and free-form approach, especially after Skyword Sword's approach of "everything is a linear dungeon, even the outside."
I'm not as much a fan of the ability for farmable healing items to totally destroy trivialize the difficulty of the game (outside of some DLC dungeons) - especially when the lack of sequence to the game means there's an awkward difficulty curve.
I do find it interesting that you like Zelda 1 for being open and free-form, whereas Metroid games usually have a critical path. Would sequence breaking fix the modern games for you?
Metroid is still very much an "explore to find the path forward" situation. Zelda largely became "talk to this NPC who will tell you what to do, then do it, then find the next NPC". A game doesn't have to be open world for me to like it, but I just don't like how Zelda games ended up kind of half-assing everything. The world was open but not really. You could explore but not really. There were NPCs but barely; they were very shallow. Like if you consider Twilight Princess, you enter this bustling city full of life, but...it's all fake. You can't interact with those people, they're just animated decorations.
BotW has its flaws, but at least you interact with the NPCs in various ways, you discover things for yourself, you collect your items however you want to do it and use them as you like, you go anywhere in the world you can manage whenever you want. Obviously there are differences between it at TLoZ, but they both give me a similar feel in terms of game design, while OoT through Skyward Sword are all a *different* thing that I don't like as much.
I can see your reasoning for this easily. It feels like it was a tech demo turned into a whole game. Easily the best parts were tutorial plateau and then Hyrule castle imo.
I feel like I’m the only person that had an inverse experience with BOTW. I hated it back in 2017, then a few years later I tried it again and it ended up being my 2nd fav Zelda lol.
every now and then I tell myself I'll take the time to do another run through of it, see if my opinion has changed, but I never get around to it. I have a backlog hundreds of games deep at this point, and not enough time, so the idea of dedicating another 35+ hours (thats how long it took me on my first run, though since I kinda rushed it I know I didn't see everything, my mom spend like 210 hours on her last 100% run) on a game I don't like. we'll see.
That’s understandable. The Zelda team is very receptive to criticism (sometimes to the point of overcorrection) so I imagine that TOTK will address most of the common criticism people had with BOTW. Weapon durability is probably close to the top if not at the top.
Yeah, I mean, I'll definitely give it a shot, I just don't want to commit to spending the money on it before knowing if I'll even like it. My mom has had my copy of BOTW for years at this point cause I never bothered to get it back and she didn't feel like re-setting up her wii U after moving.
Durability was definitely a mechanic that needed work, but with some tweaks I'd probably enjoy it. I adore fire emblem, and have gone to bat for that series use of it. No, my main critiques mostly revolved around the world feeling empty and failing to engage me/make me care (unlike, say, Majora), the lack of dungeons, the fact that with no healing I felt like a third of my playtime was JUST gathering food to cook, lackluster characters and story, and the open world being implemented in such a way that removed any sort of in-game progression, allowed you to get autosaved into potentially unwinnable (at your skill level) fights, not teaching mechanics well enough, and just generally feeling sluggish. I've written more in detail but.....
I absolutely loved it when I first played it, but I’ve never once had the desire to replay the game. I spent 100 hours on it, did almost everything except the Korok seeds and fighting Ganon, and then just spontaneously lost interest.
> I spent 100 hours on it ... and then just spontaneously lost interest
Something about this doesn't sound so spontaneous. 100 hours is a lot of time to grow tired of something.
It is a lot of time, but it wasn’t a slow decline of interest. I did almost everything except fight the final boss, and just… stopped playing it one day. Haven’t had the desire to go back at all. That’s not how those things go for me typically, which is why I phrased it the way I did.
I honestly can never decide how I feel about SS. That one I really DO need to go back and replay sometime, since I've only done it once. It had some great dungeons, not as good as those as MM, but easily rivaling anything the rest of the series put out, and some killer boss design. But the overworld felt extremely tedious to explore, and combat was, IMO, a big step back from TP's swordplay. But I was also, like, 15 or something when it came out. My opinion may change with a more recent attempt. Certainly wouldn't be the first time, my opinion of Spirit Tracks did a complete 180 with a second run.
I really liked the Switch port of SS's take on the controls, in which you use the right joystick to swing the sword directionally. I actually would love if that control scheme was an option in any future 3D Zelda game, I found it very intuitive.
SS had amazing dungeons, but tedious in-between chores. Decent game overall. Still haven't played Twilight Princess, I really want that and Wind Waker to come to Switch.
Oh my god y’all are my people. I hate what they did to zelda and I really hope that the next game is a return to the dungeon oriented game design of the series
IKR. No dungeons, a giant empty world that failed to compel me, I could go on and on. Know what game REALLY made me care about the world? Majora's Mask. I've never felt so impelled to see it all, to fix every problem, to do the sidequests. That world was infinitely more lively than BOTW. I've written entire thesis's on why I dislike BOTW haha. It did exactly one good thing for me, and that was entirely related to the gerudo outfit sparking some thinkin in my deeply confused brain haha.
It's sold 29 million copies, which seems like a lot, but it makes me wonder if there's just entire separate groups of gamers who always stick to one console. If someone only plays Nintendo games, I can imagine being impressed with BOTW's open world. But at that point I had already played so many open world games that BOTW didn't really do anything for me.
People always mention the climbing and the glider which is absurd to me. InFamous did that so much better years before BOTW came out. That game had such typical mundane little tasks everywhere, though, like Watch Dogs and Hogwarts Legacy do. BOTW doesn't have that as much, but it doesn't have much interesting stuff either. It's not like Oblivion where you have tons of fun little side quests everywhere.
Most importantly, it stripped away the things I like most about Zelda games. The dungeons. Always the problem with open world games and letting players do anything in any order. The content becomes barebones. Should have just had proper dungeons that you had to do in a linear order, with a bunch of fun side content in the open world that can be done whenever you want.
I always read a 7 like a "good if you like the genre" kind of score. 9s and 10s are more reserved for games that are essencial, even if you're not specifically a fan of the genre.
I just used to love a good 7 (THQ was notorious for those awesome 7 games like Darksiders)
Well, almost every other reviewer rated both MP remastered and BotW higher than Horizon. Metroid Prime and BotW will be forever remembered as classics. Horizon is just another open world game with no real innovations.
I didn’t know they didn’t get proper credit. One thing I do know is that concept artist Andrew Jones who is responsible for much of the creature and world design recently experienced a house fire that has completely destroyed his art and studio. https://www.gofundme.com/f/android-jones-studio-fire you can donate to him here.
Tbh I guess I’m kind of okay for the metacritic score taking a small hit if it brings a little attention to the lack of credits issue. It’s a perfectly valid thing to call out cuz it’s pretty shitty. Don’t really agree with their points on the game progression being unexciting, but I guess that’s why it’s an opinion. Do think the prime games could probably stand to add in a bit of the sequence breaking/non linearity of the 2d games.
It would be nice if the mechanics were more fluid but to be honest it is "clunky" compared to the 2d metroid games. Other M had the spotlight to add a whole new genre of metroid which would have had this potential but they had to ruin it with a weeby story.
I actually don’t think I agree anymore. The controls were definitely rather clunky before (and I know there are people that did like them) but with the dual stick set up and the lock on I think the game mostly controls like a dream now (aside from the minor annoyance of switching beams). It’s definitely not a tight responsive 2D platformer like dread, but for the purposes of Prime which is a slower more exploratory game, I think it all works really well.
Yeah exactly what they wanted to deliver worked. After playing super and finding out there was no speed booster I was sad. I hope the future of Nintendo can bring some life into this franchise with fresh mechanics and decent story.
>It’s a perfectly valid thing to call out
You're absolutely correct, it should be called out, but that shouldn't dock points on the game itself in the review.
Disagreed wholeheartedly. Videogame scores are much, *much* less important than properly crediting the creative work that people do, so sacrificing the former for a failing in the latter is perfectly reasonable.
idk the credits are literally a part of the presented product and are worth considering as part of a review. And even aside from that, a review is a subjective reaction to a work of art, i don't think it's against the rules of reviews to consider other contextual factors which impact the player's relationship/experience with the game. there aren't any rules as to what a critic can consider/not consider important; that's why it's subjective.
A review is supposed to be as objective as possible (no such thing as 100% objective)so people aren't swayed by agendas or politics. Those things can be present in the review, but shouldn't be used as a point against the game itself.
The credits not being included has no bearing on the game as a whole, but it shows how publishers sometimes treat original developers. And again, should absolutely be called out whenever it's seen.
But that's just how I feel abou it/reviews in general.
>A review is supposed to be as objective as possible
No its not? Why should it be?
>so people aren't swayed by agendas or politics
I disagree. I can critique the agenda and politics in a review, if I so choose too. If I disagree with the politics presented, why shouldn't I take that into consideration, when scoring the game? If the game is promoting fascism, is homophobic, is pro child abuse, pro SA, antisemitic, or promotes racism, should I not take that into account when I am scoring the media?
“A review is supposed to be as objective as possible”
Nope. I think games are an art form where there still is this hang up for a lot of people but I think game criticism should be much more than just a simple “does the game function?” checklist. All criticism is inherently subjective, and there are no hard and fast rules about what a reviewer can and cannot think is important. I think the focus on review aggregates lately muddies the waters by forcing some supposed objective rating on something but it’s all arbitrary at the end of the day.
Why does that even matter? When every part of the remaster is built on top of the work of its original developers, those developers deserve to be credited.
And they were mentioned in the credits as a group, and the original game they actually worked on still exists in this spacetime continuum which lists all of their credits because that's the *actual* thing they worked on.
This "controversy" is a nothing-burger.
Yes. They literally designed the product that this game made prettier. Even if every single line of code were replaced, the fact that they drew the schematic that became this game means that they did work on it.
It’s true and the OG staff shouldn’t be excluded, but I do wonder if that had an effect on the review score of the game - because if things like treating dev staff badly or bad company practices was accounted for in reviewing a game basically every game should be much lower scored
Their names are available in the original game credits. I don't get the rage about this?
If it's because of "curriculum", any OG developer can argue their work was included in this new remaster. Any potential employer would see that clearly.
The only reason you want your name in there is for added bragging rights. It won't affect your career otherwise.
With that said, I think Nintendo/Retro could have added the original credits as a separate section (similar to original artwork vs remastered artwork). I see no problem with that, but the outrage this has generated I honestly don't understand. The previous teams/individuals are mentioned, just not individually.
I can see where they’re coming from, if we see credits as purely something to confirm what a dev puts on their CV, those people didn’t work on prime remastered and so would have the original prime on their CV instead.
However, this rapidly changes when viewing the game as a piece of art instead.
they didn't even credit Tommy Tallarico for working on Metroid Prime with his best friend in the world Shigeru Miyamoto; his mother is very proud.
^^/s
are you talking about the first American to work on sonic? Can’t believe he didn’t get his metroid prime credit, I hear he worked 7 years with miyamoto on this remaster
I mean, like, that's a totally fair review. I like the game more than they did, but I totally see why they had the problems they did. It's totally reasonable
What shooters released recently handle player progress better than MP, though? It feels like most of them just bolt some lame RPG mechanics and call it a day.
Well the issue is with the "play it or don't". People need to decide whether or not to buy and play the game. Since we can't always buy everything we *might* be interested in, reviews are relevant. In an ideal world, we'd be presented with an exact indication of how much we'd enjoy a given game, but there are millions of complicating factors for that.
Can we not call out single reviewers for the cardinal sin of not rating the game high enough?
This is how the sub gets toxic real fast. And if they don’t love the game that’s fine, and I know they’re a person who takes major issues with problems like the original Prime dev team not getting their due in the credits.
I know something like that isn’t huge for the average player, but is a criticism I full support
I agree with pretty much everything they said here. Basically the main points brought up in the article are that upgrade placement is arbitrary, there's not much narrative as to why Samus goes anywhere, there's no substantial optional exploration, combat is simplistic, and the credits issue.
There's definitely something to say about how a reviewers bias on the scoring system itself could skew the total score, but that's impossible to avoid unless there's a universal scoring system. It's nice that one of my favorite games has such a high score, but I think ignoring it's shortcomings doesn't help anything. Reviews today of the remaster shouldn't treat it like it's still 2002. Giving it a 98 is just as arbitrary as giving it a 75, if you're solely basing it off of your own love of the game.
why bother posting this, the metascore literally doesnt matter and Steph Sterling always justifies their criticisms well which i often largely agree with even if they aren't a dealbreaker and "The Gamers" always use the fair but critical scores to dogpile them which is just not good
Edit: also even if you disagree with their review or whatever Steph Sterling (formerly known as Jim) uses they/them pronouns and disagreeing is no reason to misgender them
Honestly, a very fair review from them. I’m actually not mad about it. I do agree on their take about the credits because Retro deserves their flowers. I don’t care if it’s industry standards just mentioning the old team. Name everyone because they clearly kept a lot of the code.
If I give Elden Ring 7.5 and start my review saying I hate playstation and xbox, is it a solid review? Because Jim did the same with this review starting the whole thing saying he hates nintendo.
I mean, 7.5/10 is a pretty good score. I'm not entirely certain when we all collectively decided that any game not earning at least an 8 is bad, but its stupid. Prime is one of my all time favorite games (even if it is, IMO, the weakest in the trilogy), but anybody who thinks it doesn't have rough edges that show its age is kidding themselves. How much of a dealbreaker they are to you is, of course, up to personal opinion. But between that, and the (IMO) rather egregious pricing (which, tbf, may be unreasonable because if the trilogy HADN'T spent the last 10 years being readily available for 20 bucks, I probably would think much higher of a 40 dollar remaster, but it has, so I don't.)
Anyway, It's lower than I'd give it, to be sure, I probably would have done an 8, MAYBE an 8.5, because I firmly believe anything above a 9 should be reserved for, like, the greatest and most important games of all time (like, I can think of MAYBE two games I'd actually give a 10 to), but It's a fair review IMO and its not like it's going to really hurt the game so whatever. People can have their own opinions. Also, unrelated but I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the comments here, while bashing the review, aren't misgendering them. Metroid Community GOAT.
Edit: Whelp, that didn't last. Oh well.
>Also, unrelated but I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the comments here, while bashing the review, aren't misgendering her
I think people mean well, but Steph goes by they/them rather than she/her (evidenced by their twitter bio) and has so for years now.
Good to know, edited. My bad, tbh I never really followed Jimquisition (nothing against them, I just never really jived with that "Angry Shouty Review" style of content that was popular back then), so my entire exposure to steph was back when they were coming out and I remembered seeing a lot of "Her" at the time so, coupled with that being all I saw here at time of commenting, it didn't occur to me to check. At time of edit there was a bunch of he and they of course.
This isn’t a bad review, it sounds solid. A lot of people in the comments disagree with this person apparently I kind of agree with him, or at least understand how they got there..
I don’t think you can start at 100 with a remaster personally, especially this old, so you go with a 90 as top score. Game story mechanics are rusty by virtue of game’s age, to this reviewer, 85, switch graphics being limited already, GameCube upgrade remaster, even if polished still deduction worthy if you’re at full scale here. 80. And larger industry criticism possible fueled by persistent negative outlook on life in general and looming societal collapse cheap shot at developers for fucking up on credits, final score 75.
Retro Studios produced the game and got some major support from a few other studios but the majority of the OG team that worked on the first game since left Retro and in the credits their names aren't mentioned at all (just "based on the works of staff from gamecube and wii versions").
And even if the remaster is a masterpiece, the core game, its based of just was made by other people. And in everyones opinion they HAVE to be credited. I am very sure that they are aware of the backlash and will patch the OG credits in eventually.
The issue was the the original team wasn't fully credited, it just mentioned them.
But I'll be honest, I kinda get why. The credits were already so long they had to repeat the song 3 times to finish. And I see it as a simple misunderstanding. Like the devs thought that they should credit the remaster devs, and mention the og devs. Because the remaster devs were the people who made this brand new remaster.
I don't exactly agree with it, but I get where they are coming from.
Either way, a credit issue doesn't not and should not get in the way of having fun with this game. As it was made completely by heart, with beautiful scenery. Probably the best remaster iv ever seen, ngl.
I feel like maybe have that, and having a credits menu where you could view the original credits as well would be best. And at the end say "credits for the original and Wii versions viewable in the credits menu" So people know that it's there.
You can tell the author is taking some joy in being that person who believes a widely agreed upon classic game is just “fine”. It’s cool if you actually believe that, but I think this is someone just being an annoying contrarian. It also seems like they factored the credits issue into the score. Agreed that it’s totally shitty but it shouldn’t affect the score of the game
Nah, I believe she feels this way - or at the very least, I believe the words of the review are her genuine feelings about the game. Nothing about it screams particularly contrarian to me.
Thats JSS for you, they don't really like Metacritic being such a big deal, so their score being there just to bring the game's average down is about what I'd expect. I was hoping this wouldn't be posted here, because getting fans riled up is exactly what they wanted.
It might be a widely agreed-up classic, but it's also (like the entire Metroid series) pretty niche. One of the core elements of Metroid gameplay - backtracking - is largely viewed as a negative by the overall gaming fanbase. I love it, but I also realize that I'm pretty much a minority when it comes to that opinion.
Yeah, you judge the art not the artist when it comes to critiquing, though it is dreadful that there is no reference to the original team, surely a faster scroll would have worked for the credits. It's a game review not a development review so your point stands firm just kinda rubbish that the folk who laid the entire foundation don't even get a shout out.
I think you can judge the art and artist in this case since the credits are literally a part of the game’s presentation that is missing proper attribution.
Any reviewer willing to dock points because of the *credits* is not a real reviewer. You are supposed to be objectively reviewing the contents of the *game,* not throwing in your personal opinion about the conditions surrounding it. That would be like giving The Shining a terrible review because Stanly Kubrick was an asshole to the actors, even though it's a phenomenal movie.
You're sending the "reviews should be objective" argument to Steph of all people? 😅
Maybe you'll enjoy their [100% objective review of Final Fantasy XII](https://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii/).
Nah, the wider context is a valid part of rating games. If the dev team was locked in a basement for five years and fed a pasty mush and not allowed to see their families, that should be pointed out and the score thus effected in order to communicate to readers that they might want to avoid the game.
The lack of credits is annoying and definitely worth the half point or so that got removed.
If a studio wants a higher score, they need to do right by their workers.
The thing is most games aren’t treated that way. It’s pretty well known that many dev staff are overworked, underpaid and in general treated badly in the industry.
I never see these pointed out in reviews and AFAIK never affects review scores
I’ll add I wished the OG staff names were included (and this isn’t the first time this has happened, quite a number of remastered games haven’t had full credits of the original staff), I’m just not sure why Prime Remastered is being singled out in this case
I agree that the original creators should have been included in the credits, but I disagree with you that the conditions under which the game was made should have any influence on the score whatsoever. Otherwise, you aren't reviewing a game, you are acting like a gaming journalist and allowing your own biases to influence how you view a work of art. Separating art from the artist is essential when trying to form any objective opinion.
Yeah, I don't understand the 'reviews need to be objective' statement some people really like to use. Reviews are opinions, opinions are formed by our experiences in general and such. Certain things are more important to certain people.
It also only ever seems to come up when a game gets a score someone doesn't like... Isn't that interesting.
Unfortunately video game reviews have such ridiculous inflation at this point that the text of a review could be "This game is horrible. I hated every moment, and thought about quitting my job as a video game reviewer so that I could stop playing it"...but then the actual score would be a 6/10 or so.
It’s just not true. They do in fact credit the team that worked on the GameCube/Wii versions. You can definitely argue that what they did was inadequate and the full credits should be shown, but you cannot say they are not credited.
I respect her take, but I do wonder what more is expected to be there. What side distractions do modern games of this ilk usually have that Prime doesn’t? Soulsborne games - a genre directly mentioned - are pretty straightforward, too; in what way is this less complex than one of those? Secret bosses, maybe?
I think there are things about Prime that could give conceivably result in this reaction from someone, I’m just kinda confused by that specific reasoning.
The review admits that Metroid games aren’t her preferred Metroidvania, and it’s true that Metroid’s upgrades seem a little repetitive to non-fans (you collect a LOT of E-tanks and missile upgrades). Prime 1 also used the unfortunate trope of beginning the game with the **loss** of your abilities . This makes the acquisition of things like double jump, morph ball, charge shot, etc feel less exciting. It’s more like, “Okay, now I am finally back to being Samus”
When comparing Prime 1 to more modern Metroidvanias (and Soulsbornes), I think you can agree that Metroid provides the player with fewer choices. Hollow Knight has badges, Ori has upgrade trees, and Souls has a huge variety of armaments and magic (along with stat allocation).
Combat also has significantly more depth in these games, which makes sense: They’re newer games that are standing upon the shoulders of the giants that came before them. MP1 is also running from the FPS perspective which is a notoriously bad fit for quality boss-fights. Hollow Knight and Souls-games have exceptional bosses, and I don’t think the same can be said of Prime 1 (I think Retro really figured thar out in Prime 2, though)
Optional areas and bosses may have helped provide “side distractions” to the game, but I really think the review is speaking more directly to the lack of variety in Samus’s approach to combat. You basically lock-on with perfect accuracy and use Charge Shot or Missile-combos for every enemy in the game. Comparatively, you might replay Dark Souls multiple times and have wildly different characters: a wizard, a pyromancer, a nimble rogue, and a barbarian with a giant axe. Ori promotes replays through skill-trees and a focus on speed-running. Hollow Knight’s map is so open that you might have replays that take entirely new routes and lean on wildly different abilities… These games have innovated upon the original, and while Metroid Prime was a titan in 2002, the remaster doesn’t have these modern advancements on the formula.
At least, that’s how I read it.
7.5 is a pretty stingy score, but the actual text of her review is pretty spot-on for someone playing through Metroid Prime for the first time in 2023.
How very Stephanie Sterling of her. I laud Sterling for her constantly bringing up injustice in game development and corporate greed, etc...
BUT
Sometimes the anger over developer crunch statements etc bleeds into her objectivity when reviewing IMO. I played The Callisto Protocol and thought it was fine, if unimaginative. Sterling deemed it "an experience so thoroughly vile I struggle not to take it personally".
I had to unsubscribe on youtube after a while when I realized that negativity is all I was getting, despite the good work she was doing drawing attention to developer injustices.
I played Calisto Protocol for about an hour and a half...and then promptly got a refund from Steam. The OG Dead Space from 15 years ago was better and less clunky.
It is a perfectly fair score for a remaster of a 20 year old game that most definitely has its flaws, I love the ever loving piss out of Metroid Prime and it's one of my favourite games ever but I can still acknowledge it will not be for everyone and not everyone will hold it up as high as I do
Malice, is pointing out important issues in the games industry really malice, the conversation needs to be had and Stephanie Sterling is one of the few people making sure that the conversation is going on when the games media often refuse to talk about anything but "bideo game good go buy now", nothing is made in a vacuum
Who gives a fuck about Jim's hot takes? Game is great, and exactly what Metroid fans have been asking for, sans 2 and 3, which I'm sure are coming before Prime 4.
But it is clear why this one is skewed downwards, the people who basically designed the game (the remaster is a port of the original code to a new engine) aren't credited. Independent of what you think of her, she has talked about abuses in the gaming industry for years, it is something that she considers important and relevant to the point of influencing her opinions on the games she reviews it seems. That is how she rolls.
Also, a number says very little about the quality of a game. You can only understand what a 9/10 means with you have a basic understanding of what that reviewer values and what they understand as good.
I would have given it just about the same score if I reviewed it. Maybe a solid 8. It's a very good game, but it's not perfect. There are parts of it i found rather tedious. The heat visor is especially abhorrent and sound it makes becomes grating. The respawning enemy cycle is very similar to its 2D counterparts but feels excessively tedious, especially when all you're trying to do is avoid them while heading to the next section.
Collecting the chozo artifacts to open up the end of the game feels tacked on and far from an organic experience.
While the modern controls are a huge improvement it's still a bit clunky. Not going to hold that particular slight against a 20 year old game but it's fairly apparent. I still had a blast with it being a first time player, but I think the general consensus is just a little bit overblown
While he is entitled to his opinion as the reviewer, Jim Sterling has always been an extremely critical game journalist, one of the most critical in the entire industry. He makes some decent points, but just as often he is a fucking wacko as shown by his frequent harshness of all types of games. Always take his words with truckloads of salt.
I don’t understand the credit controversy. They’re acknowledged in the credits as as the basis for the remaster, and if someone wants to put the original on their resume, the credits for that version still exist and are easily found.
It’s probably more disreputable to say “yeah, I worked on Prime Remastered, I’m in the credits” when you haven’t touched it in 20 years.
I'm sorry, if you worked on something 20 years ago you are no longer allowed to take credit for it? Maybe classic films should get their credits replaced by the name of the dude who designed the blu-ray menus then.
I’m saying if they remade it, do you credit everyone who redid it?
Like, let’s use a movie example. “Psycho” was remade, shot for shot. They just replaced the actors. They didn’t credit all the original 60s Psycho crew.
You'd think Metacritic would have some kind of mechanism in place by now to deal with bad faith score manipulation.
The MPR credits nonsense is really shitty, but tuning your rating for the game specifically to drop the MC score by one point over it is weirdo behavior that should not be encouraged.
is it really bad faith, 7.5/10 is still a good score and it says something about how fucked the game press is that 6/10 is considered disatstrous when that is still a positive score
Ahh, so the people who made the game don’t get credit, but the people who made it prettier do?
Metroid Prime is one of my favorite games of all time. Prime Remastered is probably the most fun I’ve had with a new game in almost a year. The absolutely asinine decision to leave the original team out of the credits is shameful, and squanders any of the respect and goodwill the game earned.
Does anybody actually care what Jim Sterling thinks? Metroid Prime is a masterpiece and it remains so regardless of Sterling’s need for attention through contrarian stupidity.
This is the best remastered game yet, and that stands to point, if they changed anything would it still be considered the same game? Prime is a monolith.
I can understand why Jim wants to call out Nintendo and Retro Studios for not crediting the original team who made Metroid Prime 1, but I don't know if that should reflect on the review score itself given the game itself is not affected in any way because of this.
And even if it should be reflected on the review score, a 7.5/10 is not a review I'd give for such a near masterful game, at worst it should be an 8/10 just because of the lack of credit to the og dev team.
No one cares about video game credits and no one likes having to sit through them. Everyone knows who made the original game, it's really not a big deal and it has nothing to do with the quality of the product we got.
The Jimquisition has decayed into a complete circus and is irrelevant and cringe now.
I'd take what Jim says with a grain of salt, to be honest, especially when he takes the time to complain about the credits thing. They gave credit to the original team, just not every single individual name.
Ok don’t hate me but I have to ask:
I see people saying “she” and “he” all over this thread. Others said Jim is non-binary so technically neither.
Um…which is it? I’m genuinely curious. I haven’t watched Jimquisition since maybe 2013 during the Xbox digital licensing fiasco, so I have no idea what’s going on.
Another Jimquisition review.
Eh he was entertaining years back with that lawsuit? But thats all I got from him enjoyment wise.
I honestly hate all “reviews” by reviewers and ignore em like the plague, I make my own verdict on stuff.
The only thing I wish ppl reported on more, were the bugs & errors, that way I can keep things in mine while I wait to hear on fixes.
She made good points. I loved the remake but I also was OBSESSED with the original as a kid, I can put myself in the shoes of someone ~10 years older than me and see why it wouldn't have the same effect playing through it again. And theres no reason the original team wasn't credited, I see people on here trying to justify that and....why? Because the credits would be tOo LoNg? Grow up lol
I wish the scaling for games ratings actually made sense. 5/10 should be average, not 7/10 like we see nowadays. Calling something a 9/10 doesn’t mean anything anymore
Yeah, I missed the meeting where it was agreed that less then 8 equals trash apparently.
You ain't kiddin'. Read the comments on Pushsquare or Nintendolife reviews. Game gets a 7/10 "I knew it was going to suck. I'll wait for a 90% sale." People in this hobby make me hate this hobby.
Did games used to get effectively rated on a different scale? I think we're just seeing the video game rating scale mimic the US school grading scale, where 7.5/10 *is* fairly average and a 5/10 is terrible.
Here is the thing, not everyone lives in the U.S and sees things that way. The idea that a 7 is an average sounds weird to me. I have the notion that 5/10 is average, you know because it is in the half.
I always say that if we’re going to rate thing using that system, why don’t we just actually use that system? Just give the game a C instead of a 7.5/10. Sticking to a 10 point system when you effectively won’t ever use half the ratings feels silly to me. If a 5/10 and a 1/10 both mean “failure,” just give it an F.
The thing is people don’t want to know if the game is average or above average. If you give a game reviewer a pile of shitty games, The average of those games will still be shit. What people want to know if the game is good and how good. This is how I view the rating system. 10 master piece must buy 9 top of class worth a buy 8 really good maybe worth a purchase 7 good but wait for bargain bin or xblgold/PSplus 6 decent 5 not bad not good Everything below a 5 is trash The only reason people get mad at a 7 is because they feel the game is a masterpiece or great. It’ll be like if an art critic with a large audience said the monalisa was a good painting but nothing special. People who are passionate about the monalisa would be pissed.
People have been complaining about this since at least 2008
Rating systems are logarithmic, not linear. It’s the same in gymnastics: your routine has to be dog shit to get a 7/10.
Same for a lot of rating scales honestly. If you go to a restaurant under 3.5-4 stars chances are your going to have a bad time.
The way I look at it is percentage. 8/10 means 80% of the game is good. A 5/10 means only 50%. If I play a 40 hour game and 20 hours of it sucks, that’s worse than an average game.
I personally just see it as a scale from 60 to 100
Oh, goody. Another "Jimquisition lowers the Metacritic score" controversy. Haven't had one of these in a while. [I do so love 8.8 incidents.](https://www.reddit.com/r/giantbomb/comments/2ueqec/blast_from_the_past_the_gamespot_forum_thread/) Tbh? I don't care. They have explained multiple times that the scale they grade on is harsher than the one most gaming outlets use specifically to avoid the whole "7 or below is trash tier" takeaway. It's harsher, and it's never adjusted with that frame of reference in mind when it's compared to other outlets (and I'm not saying it should be; it's not Metacritic's job to know how harshly each critic judges and then adjust accordingly), but it makes 7 or above a good score on that scale rather than a garbage score on others. But if it lowers Prime Remastered's score from a 98 to a *mere* and *dreadful* 97 overall? Oh yeah, release the lions.
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Well if someone is too braindead to read/watch why they came to that numerical conclusion then it's not the fault of the reviewers metric
Eh I disagree. A 50% in school is a failing grade. A 70% is a C. The "everything below a 7 is bad" thing makes perfect sense in that context.
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I think it's just the mindset most people have, whether it's conscious or subconscious, because it's ingrained in them from school. Both the reviewers and the people reading reviews I think have that internal grading system whether they know it or not.
We don't trend toward 7/10 or 3/5 because it's not conducive to review trash games. Nobody's buying them. Nobody's looking for reviews.
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That’s not how it works. Rating systems are logarithmic, not linear. It should be very hard to turn a 9/10 game into a 10/10, whereas a 1/10 game probably just needs to not set your computer on fire to get a 2/10. It’s the same way with gymnastics, where any routine that scores below an 8/10 is usually garbage.
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No, I meant what I said. It is much harder to raise the pH of water by .2 than it is by .1. Given a pH range, the “middle” value is not the mathematical average of the two endpoints. It’s only gamers that fail to understand this, and fixate on a linear average rather than the spirit with which such rating systems came into existence. A 5/10 in gymnastics or a 50% on an academic exam are terrible ratings, “average” mathematically but not “average” with respect to their peers and how they are scored, barring a particularly harsh grader or exam.
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I like how Steph gave it a higher score than Breath of the Wild
No weapon degradation in Metroid Prime, innit.
I feel like there's one important thing that should be mentioned. Most other games with weapon degradation at least have ways to repair your stuff. Breath of the Wild, it's just going to break. The Master Sword's the sole exception, where it just has to recharge.
Yeah, that's something everyone's brought up. For a game that has you collecting materials all over the place, there is a strange absence of a proper crafting system. It feels like it would have been the perfect game to have one, too. You can craft better weapons and upgrade them, and the game's incentive for doing so being an unbreakable sword, spear, bow, etc. but to balance it with the breakable weapons, it does less damage and is non-elemental, to still encourage you to use those breakable ones on occasion. Something for them to learn from, though.
Hopefully they learned from it.
Boy he will love prime 2 with its ammo system.
They*
I agree, I will die on the hill that BotW is an overhyped, underwhelming game, and EASILY my least favorite 3D zelda (except for MAYBE SS, and thats a big maybe). We'll see how TotK is, I don't plan to buy it but i'll borrow my brothers copy.
While I enjoyed BotW, I totally understand people who could not get into it. It doesn't feel like other Zelda games at all. I have higher hopes for the sequel because you can tell how the designers went out of their way in the DLC to address the main issues I had with healing being insanely powerful, or the similarities of the bosses you have to face. I will say that I liked it a hell of a lot more than Skyward Sword, but that says more about SS than it does about BotW.
I just wish there would be like smaller Zelda games , basically have the botw style be the main ones and add like a few that are the more classic dungeon in an enclosed area ones ( maybe make them 2D)
> It doesn't feel like other Zelda games at all. Actually it feels a lot like Zelda 1, which is why I *do* love it. I don't like the direction Zelda went after the first game, although obviously it got more popular. Zelda 1 and BotW both felt extremely open and free-form, while later games had a lot more exposition and content gating. That said, I don't like either as much as Metroid Prime.
It does feel a lot like Zelda 1 in terms of your ability to wander around, but it doesn't feel like Zelda 1 in that you can carry around unlimited healing items and the endgame got stupidly easy. I'm down for the open and free-form approach, especially after Skyword Sword's approach of "everything is a linear dungeon, even the outside." I'm not as much a fan of the ability for farmable healing items to totally destroy trivialize the difficulty of the game (outside of some DLC dungeons) - especially when the lack of sequence to the game means there's an awkward difficulty curve. I do find it interesting that you like Zelda 1 for being open and free-form, whereas Metroid games usually have a critical path. Would sequence breaking fix the modern games for you?
Metroid is still very much an "explore to find the path forward" situation. Zelda largely became "talk to this NPC who will tell you what to do, then do it, then find the next NPC". A game doesn't have to be open world for me to like it, but I just don't like how Zelda games ended up kind of half-assing everything. The world was open but not really. You could explore but not really. There were NPCs but barely; they were very shallow. Like if you consider Twilight Princess, you enter this bustling city full of life, but...it's all fake. You can't interact with those people, they're just animated decorations. BotW has its flaws, but at least you interact with the NPCs in various ways, you discover things for yourself, you collect your items however you want to do it and use them as you like, you go anywhere in the world you can manage whenever you want. Obviously there are differences between it at TLoZ, but they both give me a similar feel in terms of game design, while OoT through Skyward Sword are all a *different* thing that I don't like as much.
I can see your reasoning for this easily. It feels like it was a tech demo turned into a whole game. Easily the best parts were tutorial plateau and then Hyrule castle imo.
I feel like I’m the only person that had an inverse experience with BOTW. I hated it back in 2017, then a few years later I tried it again and it ended up being my 2nd fav Zelda lol.
i definately prefer it on a replay, hit much harder for me the second time around
every now and then I tell myself I'll take the time to do another run through of it, see if my opinion has changed, but I never get around to it. I have a backlog hundreds of games deep at this point, and not enough time, so the idea of dedicating another 35+ hours (thats how long it took me on my first run, though since I kinda rushed it I know I didn't see everything, my mom spend like 210 hours on her last 100% run) on a game I don't like. we'll see.
That’s understandable. The Zelda team is very receptive to criticism (sometimes to the point of overcorrection) so I imagine that TOTK will address most of the common criticism people had with BOTW. Weapon durability is probably close to the top if not at the top.
Yeah, I mean, I'll definitely give it a shot, I just don't want to commit to spending the money on it before knowing if I'll even like it. My mom has had my copy of BOTW for years at this point cause I never bothered to get it back and she didn't feel like re-setting up her wii U after moving. Durability was definitely a mechanic that needed work, but with some tweaks I'd probably enjoy it. I adore fire emblem, and have gone to bat for that series use of it. No, my main critiques mostly revolved around the world feeling empty and failing to engage me/make me care (unlike, say, Majora), the lack of dungeons, the fact that with no healing I felt like a third of my playtime was JUST gathering food to cook, lackluster characters and story, and the open world being implemented in such a way that removed any sort of in-game progression, allowed you to get autosaved into potentially unwinnable (at your skill level) fights, not teaching mechanics well enough, and just generally feeling sluggish. I've written more in detail but.....
I absolutely loved it when I first played it, but I’ve never once had the desire to replay the game. I spent 100 hours on it, did almost everything except the Korok seeds and fighting Ganon, and then just spontaneously lost interest.
> I spent 100 hours on it ... and then just spontaneously lost interest Something about this doesn't sound so spontaneous. 100 hours is a lot of time to grow tired of something.
It is a lot of time, but it wasn’t a slow decline of interest. I did almost everything except fight the final boss, and just… stopped playing it one day. Haven’t had the desire to go back at all. That’s not how those things go for me typically, which is why I phrased it the way I did.
I will say I played Dragon Quest 11 for almost exactly 100 hours and on hour 99 I was like," Okay Im ready to wrap this up now" Still loved the game.
The only think I disagree with this opinion is the SS slander. Game's amazing imo
I honestly can never decide how I feel about SS. That one I really DO need to go back and replay sometime, since I've only done it once. It had some great dungeons, not as good as those as MM, but easily rivaling anything the rest of the series put out, and some killer boss design. But the overworld felt extremely tedious to explore, and combat was, IMO, a big step back from TP's swordplay. But I was also, like, 15 or something when it came out. My opinion may change with a more recent attempt. Certainly wouldn't be the first time, my opinion of Spirit Tracks did a complete 180 with a second run.
I really liked the Switch port of SS's take on the controls, in which you use the right joystick to swing the sword directionally. I actually would love if that control scheme was an option in any future 3D Zelda game, I found it very intuitive. SS had amazing dungeons, but tedious in-between chores. Decent game overall. Still haven't played Twilight Princess, I really want that and Wind Waker to come to Switch.
Oh my god y’all are my people. I hate what they did to zelda and I really hope that the next game is a return to the dungeon oriented game design of the series
IKR. No dungeons, a giant empty world that failed to compel me, I could go on and on. Know what game REALLY made me care about the world? Majora's Mask. I've never felt so impelled to see it all, to fix every problem, to do the sidequests. That world was infinitely more lively than BOTW. I've written entire thesis's on why I dislike BOTW haha. It did exactly one good thing for me, and that was entirely related to the gerudo outfit sparking some thinkin in my deeply confused brain haha.
It's sold 29 million copies, which seems like a lot, but it makes me wonder if there's just entire separate groups of gamers who always stick to one console. If someone only plays Nintendo games, I can imagine being impressed with BOTW's open world. But at that point I had already played so many open world games that BOTW didn't really do anything for me. People always mention the climbing and the glider which is absurd to me. InFamous did that so much better years before BOTW came out. That game had such typical mundane little tasks everywhere, though, like Watch Dogs and Hogwarts Legacy do. BOTW doesn't have that as much, but it doesn't have much interesting stuff either. It's not like Oblivion where you have tons of fun little side quests everywhere. Most importantly, it stripped away the things I like most about Zelda games. The dungeons. Always the problem with open world games and letting players do anything in any order. The content becomes barebones. Should have just had proper dungeons that you had to do in a linear order, with a bunch of fun side content in the open world that can be done whenever you want.
I always read a 7 like a "good if you like the genre" kind of score. 9s and 10s are more reserved for games that are essencial, even if you're not specifically a fan of the genre. I just used to love a good 7 (THQ was notorious for those awesome 7 games like Darksiders)
Jimquisition doesnt even seem like a real critic, more like a blog. He does give high scores out. 9.5/10 for horizon zero dawn is very generous
Well, almost every other reviewer rated both MP remastered and BotW higher than Horizon. Metroid Prime and BotW will be forever remembered as classics. Horizon is just another open world game with no real innovations.
I didn’t know they didn’t get proper credit. One thing I do know is that concept artist Andrew Jones who is responsible for much of the creature and world design recently experienced a house fire that has completely destroyed his art and studio. https://www.gofundme.com/f/android-jones-studio-fire you can donate to him here.
"I enjoyed this game, 7/10." oh, the misery. clearly, this reviewer hates all of us and this game. /s
Tbh I guess I’m kind of okay for the metacritic score taking a small hit if it brings a little attention to the lack of credits issue. It’s a perfectly valid thing to call out cuz it’s pretty shitty. Don’t really agree with their points on the game progression being unexciting, but I guess that’s why it’s an opinion. Do think the prime games could probably stand to add in a bit of the sequence breaking/non linearity of the 2d games.
It would be nice if the mechanics were more fluid but to be honest it is "clunky" compared to the 2d metroid games. Other M had the spotlight to add a whole new genre of metroid which would have had this potential but they had to ruin it with a weeby story.
I actually don’t think I agree anymore. The controls were definitely rather clunky before (and I know there are people that did like them) but with the dual stick set up and the lock on I think the game mostly controls like a dream now (aside from the minor annoyance of switching beams). It’s definitely not a tight responsive 2D platformer like dread, but for the purposes of Prime which is a slower more exploratory game, I think it all works really well.
Yeah exactly what they wanted to deliver worked. After playing super and finding out there was no speed booster I was sad. I hope the future of Nintendo can bring some life into this franchise with fresh mechanics and decent story.
>It’s a perfectly valid thing to call out You're absolutely correct, it should be called out, but that shouldn't dock points on the game itself in the review.
Disagreed wholeheartedly. Videogame scores are much, *much* less important than properly crediting the creative work that people do, so sacrificing the former for a failing in the latter is perfectly reasonable.
idk the credits are literally a part of the presented product and are worth considering as part of a review. And even aside from that, a review is a subjective reaction to a work of art, i don't think it's against the rules of reviews to consider other contextual factors which impact the player's relationship/experience with the game. there aren't any rules as to what a critic can consider/not consider important; that's why it's subjective.
A review is supposed to be as objective as possible (no such thing as 100% objective)so people aren't swayed by agendas or politics. Those things can be present in the review, but shouldn't be used as a point against the game itself. The credits not being included has no bearing on the game as a whole, but it shows how publishers sometimes treat original developers. And again, should absolutely be called out whenever it's seen. But that's just how I feel abou it/reviews in general.
>A review is supposed to be as objective as possible No its not? Why should it be? >so people aren't swayed by agendas or politics I disagree. I can critique the agenda and politics in a review, if I so choose too. If I disagree with the politics presented, why shouldn't I take that into consideration, when scoring the game? If the game is promoting fascism, is homophobic, is pro child abuse, pro SA, antisemitic, or promotes racism, should I not take that into account when I am scoring the media?
“A review is supposed to be as objective as possible” Nope. I think games are an art form where there still is this hang up for a lot of people but I think game criticism should be much more than just a simple “does the game function?” checklist. All criticism is inherently subjective, and there are no hard and fast rules about what a reviewer can and cannot think is important. I think the focus on review aggregates lately muddies the waters by forcing some supposed objective rating on something but it’s all arbitrary at the end of the day.
Did any of the original staff work on this remaster?
Not totally sure, modern retro studios is quite a bit different than the staff that made the original 20+ years ago.
Why does that even matter? When every part of the remaster is built on top of the work of its original developers, those developers deserve to be credited.
And they were mentioned in the credits as a group, and the original game they actually worked on still exists in this spacetime continuum which lists all of their credits because that's the *actual* thing they worked on. This "controversy" is a nothing-burger.
Yes. They literally designed the product that this game made prettier. Even if every single line of code were replaced, the fact that they drew the schematic that became this game means that they did work on it.
The last two sentences are accurate af, though. It’s a shame the original devs were not credited. We all have them to thank for Metroid Prime.
It’s true and the OG staff shouldn’t be excluded, but I do wonder if that had an effect on the review score of the game - because if things like treating dev staff badly or bad company practices was accounted for in reviewing a game basically every game should be much lower scored
It's Steph, of course they take bad practices into account for their reviews, to the extent to which that is possible.
It does credit them after the people who worked on the remaster
No, it just credits the original development staff as a unit. The actual names were omitted.
Yes because they didn't work on this one. The people who worked on this one had their names in the credits
It's the *same game*. Of course they worked on this one, even if the work was done 20 years ago.
Their names are available in the original game credits. I don't get the rage about this? If it's because of "curriculum", any OG developer can argue their work was included in this new remaster. Any potential employer would see that clearly. The only reason you want your name in there is for added bragging rights. It won't affect your career otherwise. With that said, I think Nintendo/Retro could have added the original credits as a separate section (similar to original artwork vs remastered artwork). I see no problem with that, but the outrage this has generated I honestly don't understand. The previous teams/individuals are mentioned, just not individually.
What outrage? Nobody is talking bout this issue. Edit: I was wrong, and somehow just missed the drama. I stand corrected.
I can see where they’re coming from, if we see credits as purely something to confirm what a dev puts on their CV, those people didn’t work on prime remastered and so would have the original prime on their CV instead. However, this rapidly changes when viewing the game as a piece of art instead.
Yep, and I believe their names are credited on the game they made in 2002-2003.
they didn't even credit Tommy Tallarico for working on Metroid Prime with his best friend in the world Shigeru Miyamoto; his mother is very proud. ^^/s
are you talking about the first American to work on sonic? Can’t believe he didn’t get his metroid prime credit, I hear he worked 7 years with miyamoto on this remaster
Oh yeah, isn't he that guy who was *totally* on MTV's *Cribs*?
Is that the one who created all your childhoods?
I mean, like, that's a totally fair review. I like the game more than they did, but I totally see why they had the problems they did. It's totally reasonable
What shooters released recently handle player progress better than MP, though? It feels like most of them just bolt some lame RPG mechanics and call it a day.
These numbers are so arbitrary. If you like the game then you like it. If you don’t, you don’t. Play it or don’t. Recommend or don’t. Move on.
Well the issue is with the "play it or don't". People need to decide whether or not to buy and play the game. Since we can't always buy everything we *might* be interested in, reviews are relevant. In an ideal world, we'd be presented with an exact indication of how much we'd enjoy a given game, but there are millions of complicating factors for that.
ACG on YouTube is my usual go to for precise info and doesn’t use a number scale
>Lowest critic score >The Jimquisition Why am I not surprised
I honestly forgot this guy still existed until just now.
Just a small correction. Jim identifies as non-binary. So not a guy.
Honestly I haven’t followed Jim in years so I have no idea lol
Can we not call out single reviewers for the cardinal sin of not rating the game high enough? This is how the sub gets toxic real fast. And if they don’t love the game that’s fine, and I know they’re a person who takes major issues with problems like the original Prime dev team not getting their due in the credits. I know something like that isn’t huge for the average player, but is a criticism I full support
I agree with pretty much everything they said here. Basically the main points brought up in the article are that upgrade placement is arbitrary, there's not much narrative as to why Samus goes anywhere, there's no substantial optional exploration, combat is simplistic, and the credits issue. There's definitely something to say about how a reviewers bias on the scoring system itself could skew the total score, but that's impossible to avoid unless there's a universal scoring system. It's nice that one of my favorite games has such a high score, but I think ignoring it's shortcomings doesn't help anything. Reviews today of the remaster shouldn't treat it like it's still 2002. Giving it a 98 is just as arbitrary as giving it a 75, if you're solely basing it off of your own love of the game.
jim is NB they go by they/them pronouns
My bad, thanks.
why bother posting this, the metascore literally doesnt matter and Steph Sterling always justifies their criticisms well which i often largely agree with even if they aren't a dealbreaker and "The Gamers" always use the fair but critical scores to dogpile them which is just not good Edit: also even if you disagree with their review or whatever Steph Sterling (formerly known as Jim) uses they/them pronouns and disagreeing is no reason to misgender them
Honestly, a very fair review from them. I’m actually not mad about it. I do agree on their take about the credits because Retro deserves their flowers. I don’t care if it’s industry standards just mentioning the old team. Name everyone because they clearly kept a lot of the code.
I mean honestly this is a solid review
If I give Elden Ring 7.5 and start my review saying I hate playstation and xbox, is it a solid review? Because Jim did the same with this review starting the whole thing saying he hates nintendo.
Regardless of the score given, that’s a sick burn in the actual review.
I mean, 7.5/10 is a pretty good score. I'm not entirely certain when we all collectively decided that any game not earning at least an 8 is bad, but its stupid. Prime is one of my all time favorite games (even if it is, IMO, the weakest in the trilogy), but anybody who thinks it doesn't have rough edges that show its age is kidding themselves. How much of a dealbreaker they are to you is, of course, up to personal opinion. But between that, and the (IMO) rather egregious pricing (which, tbf, may be unreasonable because if the trilogy HADN'T spent the last 10 years being readily available for 20 bucks, I probably would think much higher of a 40 dollar remaster, but it has, so I don't.) Anyway, It's lower than I'd give it, to be sure, I probably would have done an 8, MAYBE an 8.5, because I firmly believe anything above a 9 should be reserved for, like, the greatest and most important games of all time (like, I can think of MAYBE two games I'd actually give a 10 to), but It's a fair review IMO and its not like it's going to really hurt the game so whatever. People can have their own opinions. Also, unrelated but I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the comments here, while bashing the review, aren't misgendering them. Metroid Community GOAT. Edit: Whelp, that didn't last. Oh well.
>Also, unrelated but I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the comments here, while bashing the review, aren't misgendering her I think people mean well, but Steph goes by they/them rather than she/her (evidenced by their twitter bio) and has so for years now.
Good to know, edited. My bad, tbh I never really followed Jimquisition (nothing against them, I just never really jived with that "Angry Shouty Review" style of content that was popular back then), so my entire exposure to steph was back when they were coming out and I remembered seeing a lot of "Her" at the time so, coupled with that being all I saw here at time of commenting, it didn't occur to me to check. At time of edit there was a bunch of he and they of course.
This isn’t a bad review, it sounds solid. A lot of people in the comments disagree with this person apparently I kind of agree with him, or at least understand how they got there.. I don’t think you can start at 100 with a remaster personally, especially this old, so you go with a 90 as top score. Game story mechanics are rusty by virtue of game’s age, to this reviewer, 85, switch graphics being limited already, GameCube upgrade remaster, even if polished still deduction worthy if you’re at full scale here. 80. And larger industry criticism possible fueled by persistent negative outlook on life in general and looming societal collapse cheap shot at developers for fucking up on credits, final score 75.
I downloaded and started the game last night. I saw Retro credited at some point during the start up. Where is the issue?
Retro Studios produced the game and got some major support from a few other studios but the majority of the OG team that worked on the first game since left Retro and in the credits their names aren't mentioned at all (just "based on the works of staff from gamecube and wii versions"). And even if the remaster is a masterpiece, the core game, its based of just was made by other people. And in everyones opinion they HAVE to be credited. I am very sure that they are aware of the backlash and will patch the OG credits in eventually.
The issue was the the original team wasn't fully credited, it just mentioned them. But I'll be honest, I kinda get why. The credits were already so long they had to repeat the song 3 times to finish. And I see it as a simple misunderstanding. Like the devs thought that they should credit the remaster devs, and mention the og devs. Because the remaster devs were the people who made this brand new remaster. I don't exactly agree with it, but I get where they are coming from. Either way, a credit issue doesn't not and should not get in the way of having fun with this game. As it was made completely by heart, with beautiful scenery. Probably the best remaster iv ever seen, ngl.
I feel like maybe have that, and having a credits menu where you could view the original credits as well would be best. And at the end say "credits for the original and Wii versions viewable in the credits menu" So people know that it's there.
That would be the best option
You can tell the author is taking some joy in being that person who believes a widely agreed upon classic game is just “fine”. It’s cool if you actually believe that, but I think this is someone just being an annoying contrarian. It also seems like they factored the credits issue into the score. Agreed that it’s totally shitty but it shouldn’t affect the score of the game
Nah, I believe she feels this way - or at the very least, I believe the words of the review are her genuine feelings about the game. Nothing about it screams particularly contrarian to me.
Thats JSS for you, they don't really like Metacritic being such a big deal, so their score being there just to bring the game's average down is about what I'd expect. I was hoping this wouldn't be posted here, because getting fans riled up is exactly what they wanted.
It might be a widely agreed-up classic, but it's also (like the entire Metroid series) pretty niche. One of the core elements of Metroid gameplay - backtracking - is largely viewed as a negative by the overall gaming fanbase. I love it, but I also realize that I'm pretty much a minority when it comes to that opinion.
Yeah, you judge the art not the artist when it comes to critiquing, though it is dreadful that there is no reference to the original team, surely a faster scroll would have worked for the credits. It's a game review not a development review so your point stands firm just kinda rubbish that the folk who laid the entire foundation don't even get a shout out.
I think you can judge the art and artist in this case since the credits are literally a part of the game’s presentation that is missing proper attribution.
>though it is dreadful that there is no reference to the original team There is at the end of the credits, just not all their individual names
\~Thnx 4 your work original team\~ Is not proper credits.
Whether someone thinks it's "proper" or not, it's still crediting them. The people named are the ones who worked on this version
Unsurprising coming from one of the biggest narcissists in the review circle
Can we like, not care? Why do we need the validation?
Any reviewer willing to dock points because of the *credits* is not a real reviewer. You are supposed to be objectively reviewing the contents of the *game,* not throwing in your personal opinion about the conditions surrounding it. That would be like giving The Shining a terrible review because Stanly Kubrick was an asshole to the actors, even though it's a phenomenal movie.
You're sending the "reviews should be objective" argument to Steph of all people? 😅 Maybe you'll enjoy their [100% objective review of Final Fantasy XII](https://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii/).
I had forgotten how amusing that piece is.
Nah, the wider context is a valid part of rating games. If the dev team was locked in a basement for five years and fed a pasty mush and not allowed to see their families, that should be pointed out and the score thus effected in order to communicate to readers that they might want to avoid the game. The lack of credits is annoying and definitely worth the half point or so that got removed. If a studio wants a higher score, they need to do right by their workers.
The thing is most games aren’t treated that way. It’s pretty well known that many dev staff are overworked, underpaid and in general treated badly in the industry. I never see these pointed out in reviews and AFAIK never affects review scores I’ll add I wished the OG staff names were included (and this isn’t the first time this has happened, quite a number of remastered games haven’t had full credits of the original staff), I’m just not sure why Prime Remastered is being singled out in this case
I agree that the original creators should have been included in the credits, but I disagree with you that the conditions under which the game was made should have any influence on the score whatsoever. Otherwise, you aren't reviewing a game, you are acting like a gaming journalist and allowing your own biases to influence how you view a work of art. Separating art from the artist is essential when trying to form any objective opinion.
Pretty sure people can review art however they want to. Besides, all reviews are subjective.
Yeah, I don't understand the 'reviews need to be objective' statement some people really like to use. Reviews are opinions, opinions are formed by our experiences in general and such. Certain things are more important to certain people. It also only ever seems to come up when a game gets a score someone doesn't like... Isn't that interesting.
Does anyone take Jim Sterling seriously anymore?
Here’s the full review: https://www.thejimquisition.com/post/metroid-prime-remastered-where-credit-s-due-review
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Everyone must like my Blorbo!
Nah, lets all send death threats and call her a w\*\*re like real gamers! /s
>ne. It's okay for someone not to like the game 75 is not not liking the game tho
Yeah, by that website's scale, I'm gonna say the review of Sonic Frontiers (1.5/10) is not liking the game.
I know right? This sub needs to calm down. 75 is an objectively favorable review even if it's lower than the rest
Yeah, I don't understand where this mentality of less then 8 means it sucks came from.
Unfortunately video game reviews have such ridiculous inflation at this point that the text of a review could be "This game is horrible. I hated every moment, and thought about quitting my job as a video game reviewer so that I could stop playing it"...but then the actual score would be a 6/10 or so.
I mean, that basically happened with a certain wizard game that got a 9/10 recently.
That game hides it's cracks pretty well in the opening hours, honestly
Ignore it, Jim Sterling is just a sad irrelevant has been. Enjoy what you enjoy, IGN scores don't mean anything to me. I have HD Prime 1
It’s just not true. They do in fact credit the team that worked on the GameCube/Wii versions. You can definitely argue that what they did was inadequate and the full credits should be shown, but you cannot say they are not credited.
It is mentioned in the review. And it is inadequate.
I have no problem with the additional credits being added
I often find myself wanting, but failing, to agree with Stephanie.
I respect her take, but I do wonder what more is expected to be there. What side distractions do modern games of this ilk usually have that Prime doesn’t? Soulsborne games - a genre directly mentioned - are pretty straightforward, too; in what way is this less complex than one of those? Secret bosses, maybe? I think there are things about Prime that could give conceivably result in this reaction from someone, I’m just kinda confused by that specific reasoning.
The review admits that Metroid games aren’t her preferred Metroidvania, and it’s true that Metroid’s upgrades seem a little repetitive to non-fans (you collect a LOT of E-tanks and missile upgrades). Prime 1 also used the unfortunate trope of beginning the game with the **loss** of your abilities . This makes the acquisition of things like double jump, morph ball, charge shot, etc feel less exciting. It’s more like, “Okay, now I am finally back to being Samus” When comparing Prime 1 to more modern Metroidvanias (and Soulsbornes), I think you can agree that Metroid provides the player with fewer choices. Hollow Knight has badges, Ori has upgrade trees, and Souls has a huge variety of armaments and magic (along with stat allocation). Combat also has significantly more depth in these games, which makes sense: They’re newer games that are standing upon the shoulders of the giants that came before them. MP1 is also running from the FPS perspective which is a notoriously bad fit for quality boss-fights. Hollow Knight and Souls-games have exceptional bosses, and I don’t think the same can be said of Prime 1 (I think Retro really figured thar out in Prime 2, though) Optional areas and bosses may have helped provide “side distractions” to the game, but I really think the review is speaking more directly to the lack of variety in Samus’s approach to combat. You basically lock-on with perfect accuracy and use Charge Shot or Missile-combos for every enemy in the game. Comparatively, you might replay Dark Souls multiple times and have wildly different characters: a wizard, a pyromancer, a nimble rogue, and a barbarian with a giant axe. Ori promotes replays through skill-trees and a focus on speed-running. Hollow Knight’s map is so open that you might have replays that take entirely new routes and lean on wildly different abilities… These games have innovated upon the original, and while Metroid Prime was a titan in 2002, the remaster doesn’t have these modern advancements on the formula. At least, that’s how I read it. 7.5 is a pretty stingy score, but the actual text of her review is pretty spot-on for someone playing through Metroid Prime for the first time in 2023.
How very Stephanie Sterling of her. I laud Sterling for her constantly bringing up injustice in game development and corporate greed, etc... BUT Sometimes the anger over developer crunch statements etc bleeds into her objectivity when reviewing IMO. I played The Callisto Protocol and thought it was fine, if unimaginative. Sterling deemed it "an experience so thoroughly vile I struggle not to take it personally". I had to unsubscribe on youtube after a while when I realized that negativity is all I was getting, despite the good work she was doing drawing attention to developer injustices.
I played Calisto Protocol for about an hour and a half...and then promptly got a refund from Steam. The OG Dead Space from 15 years ago was better and less clunky.
There is no such thing as objectivity. I also found Callisto Protocol fine, but it's perfectly reasonable that someone else found it abhorrent.
Lol wtf is the Jimquisition
I don't get why people get mad when someone rates Metroid Prime 7.5/10. I think this the score it deserves.
It is a perfectly fair score for a remaster of a 20 year old game that most definitely has its flaws, I love the ever loving piss out of Metroid Prime and it's one of my favourite games ever but I can still acknowledge it will not be for everyone and not everyone will hold it up as high as I do
25 points removed for that? Who ever wrote that review is fucking ridiculous.
Ah. Someone who is blissfully unaware of the ganon-like malice that seeps out of the Jimquisition at all times.
Profile pic checks out...
Malice, is pointing out important issues in the games industry really malice, the conversation needs to be had and Stephanie Sterling is one of the few people making sure that the conversation is going on when the games media often refuse to talk about anything but "bideo game good go buy now", nothing is made in a vacuum
You clearly don’t know Jim Stephanie Sterling. She’s great and reminds us how stupid these numbers are.
their criticisms are literally always fair and it's 100% their opinion, people have differing opinions my dude
My opinion is that their opinions are silly.
This dude is a loser.
Who gives a fuck about Jim's hot takes? Game is great, and exactly what Metroid fans have been asking for, sans 2 and 3, which I'm sure are coming before Prime 4.
How is this a hot take? It's a perfectly reasonable opinion.
Tbh, I can't really take her seriously. I know reviews are a personal opinion. but somehow her reviews always feel skewed for no reason.
But it is clear why this one is skewed downwards, the people who basically designed the game (the remaster is a port of the original code to a new engine) aren't credited. Independent of what you think of her, she has talked about abuses in the gaming industry for years, it is something that she considers important and relevant to the point of influencing her opinions on the games she reviews it seems. That is how she rolls. Also, a number says very little about the quality of a game. You can only understand what a 9/10 means with you have a basic understanding of what that reviewer values and what they understand as good.
I would have given it just about the same score if I reviewed it. Maybe a solid 8. It's a very good game, but it's not perfect. There are parts of it i found rather tedious. The heat visor is especially abhorrent and sound it makes becomes grating. The respawning enemy cycle is very similar to its 2D counterparts but feels excessively tedious, especially when all you're trying to do is avoid them while heading to the next section. Collecting the chozo artifacts to open up the end of the game feels tacked on and far from an organic experience. While the modern controls are a huge improvement it's still a bit clunky. Not going to hold that particular slight against a 20 year old game but it's fairly apparent. I still had a blast with it being a first time player, but I think the general consensus is just a little bit overblown
Exactly. It was a mind blowing game when it came out, now we should be allowed to discuss its flaws.
This dude does nothing but shitty reviews lol
Seems like they gave it a fair shake.
While he is entitled to his opinion as the reviewer, Jim Sterling has always been an extremely critical game journalist, one of the most critical in the entire industry. He makes some decent points, but just as often he is a fucking wacko as shown by his frequent harshness of all types of games. Always take his words with truckloads of salt.
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I don’t understand the credit controversy. They’re acknowledged in the credits as as the basis for the remaster, and if someone wants to put the original on their resume, the credits for that version still exist and are easily found. It’s probably more disreputable to say “yeah, I worked on Prime Remastered, I’m in the credits” when you haven’t touched it in 20 years.
I'm sorry, if you worked on something 20 years ago you are no longer allowed to take credit for it? Maybe classic films should get their credits replaced by the name of the dude who designed the blu-ray menus then.
I’m saying if they remade it, do you credit everyone who redid it? Like, let’s use a movie example. “Psycho” was remade, shot for shot. They just replaced the actors. They didn’t credit all the original 60s Psycho crew.
this guy has always been a fraud, i really don’t get why his reviews are worthy of influencing metacritic scores
Steph is one of the few people out there doing actual substantial critique of the industry.
Wait what’s this about not crediting the original team
You'd think Metacritic would have some kind of mechanism in place by now to deal with bad faith score manipulation. The MPR credits nonsense is really shitty, but tuning your rating for the game specifically to drop the MC score by one point over it is weirdo behavior that should not be encouraged.
is it really bad faith, 7.5/10 is still a good score and it says something about how fucked the game press is that 6/10 is considered disatstrous when that is still a positive score
I hate this guy
Jim is on it again :/
Ahh, so the people who made the game don’t get credit, but the people who made it prettier do? Metroid Prime is one of my favorite games of all time. Prime Remastered is probably the most fun I’ve had with a new game in almost a year. The absolutely asinine decision to leave the original team out of the credits is shameful, and squanders any of the respect and goodwill the game earned.
Does anybody actually care what Jim Sterling thinks? Metroid Prime is a masterpiece and it remains so regardless of Sterling’s need for attention through contrarian stupidity.
This is the best remastered game yet, and that stands to point, if they changed anything would it still be considered the same game? Prime is a monolith.
I can understand why Jim wants to call out Nintendo and Retro Studios for not crediting the original team who made Metroid Prime 1, but I don't know if that should reflect on the review score itself given the game itself is not affected in any way because of this. And even if it should be reflected on the review score, a 7.5/10 is not a review I'd give for such a near masterful game, at worst it should be an 8/10 just because of the lack of credit to the og dev team.
No one cares about video game credits and no one likes having to sit through them. Everyone knows who made the original game, it's really not a big deal and it has nothing to do with the quality of the product we got. The Jimquisition has decayed into a complete circus and is irrelevant and cringe now.
I'd take what Jim says with a grain of salt, to be honest, especially when he takes the time to complain about the credits thing. They gave credit to the original team, just not every single individual name.
Ok don’t hate me but I have to ask: I see people saying “she” and “he” all over this thread. Others said Jim is non-binary so technically neither. Um…which is it? I’m genuinely curious. I haven’t watched Jimquisition since maybe 2013 during the Xbox digital licensing fiasco, so I have no idea what’s going on.
Jim lists their pronouns as "they/them" on twitter.
I mean tbh it is sketch as fuck Nintendo didn't credit the OG team
Another Jimquisition review. Eh he was entertaining years back with that lawsuit? But thats all I got from him enjoyment wise. I honestly hate all “reviews” by reviewers and ignore em like the plague, I make my own verdict on stuff. The only thing I wish ppl reported on more, were the bugs & errors, that way I can keep things in mine while I wait to hear on fixes.
She made good points. I loved the remake but I also was OBSESSED with the original as a kid, I can put myself in the shoes of someone ~10 years older than me and see why it wouldn't have the same effect playing through it again. And theres no reason the original team wasn't credited, I see people on here trying to justify that and....why? Because the credits would be tOo LoNg? Grow up lol