Here is my review of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory. Like its name, the game is is rambling and incoherent, if colourful.
It also reinforced my dislike of having to summarise a 2,000 review with a mark out of ten. I gave it a six which, due to video game review score inflation, is effectively total damnation, but I would actually recommend it to "people who like that sort of thing".
"That sort of thing", of course, being incredibly detailed, slightly pervy 2D-novel style anime JRPGs with mechanics that focus on collectibles and customisation. It's a niche genre, but one with a large fanbase, and Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory's publishers NIS America cater to it admirably, putting a huge amount of effort into good quality localisation.
That fanbase contains the people who are actually going to search for a review of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory because they want to know the details, so the review and the score is for them. It's not really for GodisaGeek's more mainstream readers. That group might stumble across the review and (I hope) find it interesting, but all they really need take away from it in a practical sense is it that it's not for them.
A comparable demographic in the film world is the audience for low-budget horror films. There is plenty of specialist criticism of the genre for its fans. Kim Newman, for example, writes a video nasty column in Empire entitled "Kim Newman's Video Dungeon" in which he reviews low-budget, straight-to-DVD releases. He's an educated connoisseur of the genre and his reviews are generally as scathing as their subjects deserve, but the point is that when he does recommend something, it's on the understanding that it's only a recommendation if you're in the market for gratuitous gore and nudity.
Like video nasties, I think niche games should be awarded review scores based on their relative appeal to their audience rather than their overall appeal to gamers, otherwise what's the point? I didn't really enjoy Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, but I understand what it's trying to do and I've read enough fan commentary on it to know what the hardcore fans want out of it. So I'm not going to give it a two out of ten simply on the basis that a BioShock fan will hate it.
This is an approach I take to all video game reviews that I write. As a consequence, they tend to be fairly utilitarian; I know people come to them wanting to know whether to drop £40 on a game and I aim to help them make that decision. I try and make them fun to read and maintain a consistent thread throughout, but when a publisher gives me a game in good faith, I feel I must put fair analysis ahead of my desire to write something entertaining.
It's possible to do both of course, which is where the film critic Roger Ebert, who died this week, comes in. He argued for reviewing films on their relative, rather than absolute merits, on the basis that different genres serve different audiences and purposes. His review of Shaolin Soccer contains a quote that illuminates his approach:
It's on this basis that he refused to conclude his review of the nastiest of video nasties, The Human Centipede with a score at all ("it is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine," he remarked), and said of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider:
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A churl like me!
A long time ago I wrote an article about why I disliked the Tomb Raider movies. The main reason was that Angelina Jolie didn't really play the games. I took great offence to this because at the time I thought Tomb Raider was the most important thing in the world, and that even speaking its name without having played all the games at least four times was tantamount to blasphemy. While I still think Tomb Raider is the most important thing in the world, I now realise that nothing is actually particularly important, so it doesn't matter whether Angelina Jolie played the games or not.
My other grievance, that the character in the film doesn't have much in common with the character in the games, contradicts my general opinion that a film adaptation of something should be first and foremost a good film, not a worthy or faithful adaptation.
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For example, mockumentary A Cock and Bull Story is an adaptation of sprawling eighteenth-century metanovel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman that stars Steve Coogan as himself. It is altogether a better film than the bland, plodding Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which is basically just a moving version of, erm, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and arguably a more effective adaptation in that it continues a dialogue with its source material using a set of tools that only films have.
I could have namechecked all manner of adaptations there, but I chose that one because I want the internet to know that I have actually read The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Yeah.
Anyway, in the Tomb Raider article I brought up Roger Ebert and his famously ill-advised condemnation of video games. Like most gamers who got incredibly angry about his comments, I didn't know the first thing about Ebert or his approach to film criticism. If I had, I probably wouldn't have called him a "dinosaur".
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Ebert later admitted that while he stood by his comments about games on principle, he should never have aired them without taking the time to play them. Although the original article is worth a read (though not if you're easily angered), the second is wonderful, even if you don't agree with it. It concludes as follows:
Yes. If you want to argue for or against something, go out there and educate yourself. If you consider the research process to be a waste of your time (because you have books to read and movies to see), count yourself out of the debate. That's fine, you won't be missed.
This hopefully just means that you'll be all the better at doing what you do best, which in Ebert's case was reviewing all manner of films with sincerity, diplomacy and humour.
 |
| Is that smutty or just incoherent? |
It also reinforced my dislike of having to summarise a 2,000 review with a mark out of ten. I gave it a six which, due to video game review score inflation, is effectively total damnation, but I would actually recommend it to "people who like that sort of thing".
"That sort of thing", of course, being incredibly detailed, slightly pervy 2D-novel style anime JRPGs with mechanics that focus on collectibles and customisation. It's a niche genre, but one with a large fanbase, and Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory's publishers NIS America cater to it admirably, putting a huge amount of effort into good quality localisation.
That fanbase contains the people who are actually going to search for a review of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory because they want to know the details, so the review and the score is for them. It's not really for GodisaGeek's more mainstream readers. That group might stumble across the review and (I hope) find it interesting, but all they really need take away from it in a practical sense is it that it's not for them.
 |
| Plutia gains some XP. |
A comparable demographic in the film world is the audience for low-budget horror films. There is plenty of specialist criticism of the genre for its fans. Kim Newman, for example, writes a video nasty column in Empire entitled "Kim Newman's Video Dungeon" in which he reviews low-budget, straight-to-DVD releases. He's an educated connoisseur of the genre and his reviews are generally as scathing as their subjects deserve, but the point is that when he does recommend something, it's on the understanding that it's only a recommendation if you're in the market for gratuitous gore and nudity.
Like video nasties, I think niche games should be awarded review scores based on their relative appeal to their audience rather than their overall appeal to gamers, otherwise what's the point? I didn't really enjoy Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, but I understand what it's trying to do and I've read enough fan commentary on it to know what the hardcore fans want out of it. So I'm not going to give it a two out of ten simply on the basis that a BioShock fan will hate it.
 |
| Neptune and Noire have a serious discussion. |
It's possible to do both of course, which is where the film critic Roger Ebert, who died this week, comes in. He argued for reviewing films on their relative, rather than absolute merits, on the basis that different genres serve different audiences and purposes. His review of Shaolin Soccer contains a quote that illuminates his approach:
"When you ask a friend if Hellboy is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to Mystic River, you're asking if it's any good compared to The Punisher. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if Superman is four, then Hellboy is three and The Punisher is two. In the same way, if American Beauty gets four stars, then The United States of Leland clocks in at about two."
It's on this basis that he refused to conclude his review of the nastiest of video nasties, The Human Centipede with a score at all ("it is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine," he remarked), and said of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider:
"Lara Croft: Tomb Raider elevates goofiness to an art form. Here is a movie so monumentally silly, yet so wondrous to look at, that only a churl could find fault."
A churl like me!
A long time ago I wrote an article about why I disliked the Tomb Raider movies. The main reason was that Angelina Jolie didn't really play the games. I took great offence to this because at the time I thought Tomb Raider was the most important thing in the world, and that even speaking its name without having played all the games at least four times was tantamount to blasphemy. While I still think Tomb Raider is the most important thing in the world, I now realise that nothing is actually particularly important, so it doesn't matter whether Angelina Jolie played the games or not.
My other grievance, that the character in the film doesn't have much in common with the character in the games, contradicts my general opinion that a film adaptation of something should be first and foremost a good film, not a worthy or faithful adaptation.
For example, mockumentary A Cock and Bull Story is an adaptation of sprawling eighteenth-century metanovel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman that stars Steve Coogan as himself. It is altogether a better film than the bland, plodding Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which is basically just a moving version of, erm, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and arguably a more effective adaptation in that it continues a dialogue with its source material using a set of tools that only films have.
I could have namechecked all manner of adaptations there, but I chose that one because I want the internet to know that I have actually read The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Yeah.
Anyway, in the Tomb Raider article I brought up Roger Ebert and his famously ill-advised condemnation of video games. Like most gamers who got incredibly angry about his comments, I didn't know the first thing about Ebert or his approach to film criticism. If I had, I probably wouldn't have called him a "dinosaur".
Ebert later admitted that while he stood by his comments about games on principle, he should never have aired them without taking the time to play them. Although the original article is worth a read (though not if you're easily angered), the second is wonderful, even if you don't agree with it. It concludes as follows:
"I had to be prepared to agree that gamers can have an experience that, for them, is Art. I don't know what they can learn about another human being that way, no matter how much they learn about Human Nature. I don't know if they can be inspired to transcend themselves. Perhaps they can. How can I say? I may be wrong, but if I'm not willing to play a video game to find that out, I should say so. I have books to read and movies to see. I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place."
Yes. If you want to argue for or against something, go out there and educate yourself. If you consider the research process to be a waste of your time (because you have books to read and movies to see), count yourself out of the debate. That's fine, you won't be missed.
This hopefully just means that you'll be all the better at doing what you do best, which in Ebert's case was reviewing all manner of films with sincerity, diplomacy and humour.