commodore swift: read your post and Saijee's. Compare and contrast.
No, that's not what I said at all. If you think I said that then please find a quotation of me doing so. All three quotes you provided were statements made by myself about very obvious faults of Iji, and the reason I'm frustrated is because die-hard lovers of Iji refuse to recognize them.
Oh, I don't know, but calling zarley11 'clearly unqualified to review' or saying that the game's 'serious flaws' are 'obvious to thinking people' sounds a bit like you think your opinion is in some way 'right'.
For example, after I listed about a dozen very major faults in Iji, you dismissed them as "part of the engine" or something like that, which of course just means the engine is faulty.
And that's the main part of the disagreement. For the points that were factually accurate (i.e. not 'secret areas by kicking level 15 doors'), I for one don't really think they were necessarily faults. Things like shooting and jumping or double-jumping completely change the game.
Use double jumping as an example: you can't just add it in there, because the level designs wouldn't work, since they assume you can jump a certain height. Could the game have been written from the beginning with double-jumping? Yes. Would that have made it a better game? Not necessarily.
If I was building a platform engine, I probably would add the ability to shoot while jumping - most platformers do have that. But does the lack of it harm the gameplay? No, because the levels are designed around that inability.
Moving on. If any of you actually saw makerofthegames' posts before they got removed, you wouldn't be calling me a troll. The guy was flat-out calling me an "idiot" and "stupid", and if I seem trollish in any way then he's the one who incited that. A welcome addition to anyone's ignore list at any rate, and if people really think my headstrong statement of opinion is "trollish" then I can lighten up (and I will for this post).
I did see said post. I don't think he was trolling - he was pointing out your *facepalm*-worthy screenshot trying to prove that secret areas were accessed by kicking down level 15 doors.
However, when I say that Iji has objective faults, I mean it. One way to measure an objective fault is simply to pit a game against other games, which I did in my comparison to S. Metroid. Examining both Iji's and S. Metroid's levels, the latter is clearly superior in terms of design and variation - and yes, there are objective, mathematical means of measuring variation.
Wrong. Adding a comparison does not automatically make a judgement objective. You say Super Metroid is better in 'design' and 'variation'. Variation in a mathematical sense means very little to level design. Iji's levels do vary - not that you've played them, of course. And what's your objective criteria for design?
Does that make Iji a bad game? Well that is subjective, but perhaps I didn't make it clear that that is my opinion. It should be obvious, at any rate, but I guess some people don't read between the lines. That's especially the problem with people like mcoot who argue with the cogency of a child rather than an adult, in effect muddling the issue with their confusion.
Oooh.... he said I was arguing like a child. Very mature. You have a strange definition of confusion - at least my knowledge of Iji is factually accurate.
Speaking of opinions, it's actually been found in studies that people tend to like what they're exposed to most, regardless of quality. For example, if people listen to nothing but mp3's then people will prefer that format, despite .flac and .wav being objectively higher quality. So that might explain why, in an age of flash games and soulless FPS games, people might like a game like Iji. Let's face it, most Iji fanatics have probably not played Super Metroid on a real console, unfortunately.
Your analogy fails. Do people prefer mp3 format to loss-less formats in spite of loss-less audio's quality advantage, or do they prefer mp3 to loss-less because it has quality that is generally indistinguishable from loss-less except in fringe situations, with a much smaller file size.
Let's face it, most people on the GMC probably haven't played Super Metroid on a real console. And it is a pity - nobody's arguing that Super Metroid isn't a great game. But what is it that makes you think that people who have played Super Metroid will see the error of their ways and renounce their like of Iji?
To conclude, my problem is with blind devotion to Iji, and I have no problem with people enjoying the game. An example of blind devotion is zarley11, the original review writer of this topic, who gave Iji almost perfect scores across the board. It's okay that he likes the game, but it's not okay that he gave such a lopsided review when Iji has so many obvious shortcomings (the fact that he knows nothing about game design is why I believe he's unqualified to be reviewing. It wasn't a personal attack as much as a necessary discreditation, like how you would want to discredit a surgeon who practices without having gone to medical school).
Let me say it again for emphasis:
the 'flaws' you see are not objective fact. No, it isn't like a surgeon not going to medical school: it was a subjective judgement to begin with. Most reviewers made the judgement that Iji was a good game, and they recommend it. And many people will agree with that recommendation. Some won't, that's a fact of life: different people like different things. That doesn't make reviewers 'wrong'. The only way for a reviewer to be objectively wrong would be for them to have factual inaccuracies in their review.
As for why I haven't played the entire game, well it's just that there are plenty of other games out there that can capture my attention within the first moments of playing them.
So go and play them and stop whining about how horrible it is that other people like Iji.
Anyway, on a more relevant note:
That's not all there is to the controls, that's just the input. When we complain about the controls it's because they feel clunky and irresponcive due to being highly restrictive. Overall it just feels like "Iji is not listening to you, and not doing what you want her to do." And just seems that the game could have played a lot smoother if she was more responsive.
That's the thing. I didn't find that to be the case. I suppose the engine's quirks took a bit of getting used to (you do tend to notice things like the lack of jump-and-shoot at first), but for me after a couple of sectors the controls felt natural.
Also, the amount of terminals are ridiculous...Metroid Prime had a lot of them but still...Metroid's were either there for comedic effect, to immerse the player or just to inform the player what something was. This is just like...every single one seems the same and there's no point in reading them (although there are a lot of funny ones.)
I liked the terminals and logbooks. Admittedly, in earlier versions it was problematic because enemies could attack you while you read, but they seem to have been moved in later versions to prevent that, and I haven't seen any instances of that in 1.6. But then, it's a matter of personal taste: I like to have backstory. To me it makes the game more immersive. Of course, for some, textboxes break the immersion, but I never found that a problem.
