Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

[DarkUnderlord]

Infinitron is changing all the reviews to suit Mossad's agenda of upsetting foreign language individuals via passive aggressive editing on the Codex.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

When I (and Lurker King who helped me, thx bro) rewrote Konjad's Quickies - and I mean not only correcting grammar and typos but literally translating it from potato inglese into something that at least somewhat resembles actual English, as good as a non-native speaker like myself can do that anyway - I wasn't even aware we had an editorial policy here and that I would have had to ask for Konjad's approval. You learn something new every day, men.

 

[Prime Junta]

Sure, but if no agreement is reached, the author should be able to call it off before it's posted.

In the revision phase, yes: it's perfectly OK for the writer to withdraw the story or the editor to refuse it at that time. Once it's been accepted for publication this isn't kosher anymore: it wouldn't be fair to the people who put in the work to copyedit it. Asking the writer to sign off on the final version is a courtesy, not a requirement, and the writer should only request changes at that point for extremely good reasons.

 

[Cadmus]

This took me by surprise, I think Commandos 2 was one of the best games ever made. And now there's another game in the genre and it even seems great? Wow!

Prime cunta is amazing in how he says he's been writing semi-professionally for years yet everything he writes reads like the most boring thing on the planet. I can literally feel the life being sucked out of me when readin that crap.

Ludo mang what is the problem, you can't stop the drama at the appetizer! Was it the Jews? Was it the Niggers? Who dun it?
I think the review is pretty good. The cell shading is really my only problem with the game.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Ludo mang what is the problem, you can't stop the drama at the appetizer! Was it the Jews? Was it the Niggers? Who dun it?

also lol @ cunta

 

[Prime Junta]

I love you too my fanclub <3

 

[felipepepe]

So, I guess this was the neutral-positive review, edgelord version when?

 

[ZagorTeNej]

So, I guess this was the neutral-positive review, edgelord version when?

Genuinely good games don't need one.

 

[Tigranes]

How will we know it is genuinely good without an edgelord verison

 

[Lyre Mors]

Well, Roxor actually liked this game, and no one is edgier than him, so.....

 

[Blaine]

Infinitranny only made a small handful of corrections to my much longer Underrail Re-Preview. No matter how good you think your elite English grammar and vocabulary skills are, it's always best to have someone else check your work.

Glancing through the diff-checker comparison of the before and after of Ludo's review, I suspect the butthurt stems mainly from rephrasings done during copy-editing... some of these rephrasings seem unnecessary for the sake of either flow or clarity, but none of them change the essence of what's being said.

In any case, you can only expect so much when a Jewish golem is the RPG Codex editor-in-chief.

 

[Archibald]

By the way, Ludo never said he wanted his name taken off because they edited his grammar. I'm inclined to think this has nothing to do with the edits at all. There is a deeper drama here, I just know it.

It's about the edits, and I suppose, the way we handle edits. For both this review and the Hard West review a year ago.

Tough cookies, the way the Codex works isn't for everybody. Like DU says, we're not professionals here.

It probably would be better if you stopped using that phrase. At this point it looks like a get out of jail card that is used in any context regarding front-page material.

 

[Infinitron]

*shrug* It's been used twice and both in appropriate contexts. That both happened so close to each other is just another one of 2016-2017's unusual events. Take it up with DU!

 

[Blaine]

The Codex doesn't have any specific prerequisites for writing a game review other than being at least halfway-competent at communication and composition, nor do they dictate the style and tone of what is written.

The thread linking to my Re-Preview of Underrail received about 11,000 views. Even if only a few thousand people actually read the review (with perhaps a few hundred reading the entire article), you're afforded the opportunity to have your opinions of incline (or decline) read by potentially thousands of people, with what is realistically minimal interference from the staff and no particular requirements or deadlines for you to deal with.

It's a pretty good deal. The ultimate goal should be to bring incline to those who don't even realize there's such a thing as the decline, or to inform those who are already of a game's status as either incline or decline. Your artistic integrity as a gaming journalist (kek) isn't really that important.

Granted, there have been some apparent shenanigans involving reviews of Codex darling games such as Pillars of Eternity, but fanboys rushing to pen positive shill reviews in the wake of a Roxxoring isn't exactly against any set of rules or moral code. They're entitled to their own shitty opinions.

 

[MicoSelva]

Split water will not return to the tray

I think it should say "spilt". This is where autocorrect fails you.

Thanks for the review, btw.

 

[twincast]

The game's voice acting will play a huge role in how you interpret this grimness. The developers managed to snag some Japanese voice actors for a Japanese dub that comes packaged with the game, and there is a world of difference stylistically between it and the English one. I would describe the English dub as stereotypical, with every actor having a tinge of Asian accent while Bruce Lee-ing it up with lines such as “Move like watah”. The Japanese voices are much more subdued and even borderline historically accurate, which is pretty weird given how fast and loose the rest of the game plays with this notion. The two dubs are so different that the choice between them even determines characters' personalities. Mugen the samurai has a very serious “Sensei” voice in the English dub - it wouldn’t be out of place to hear him say “Shamefur Dispray” - but the Japanese dub has him as a much more loutish brawler-type fellow, which is indicative of his peasant origins. Obviously some people will enjoy the cheese, but personally I consider the Japanese dub to be the superior one and definitely how the game should be experienced.

This can hardly be overstated. Normally I stick to the original language version whenever possible to experience what comes closest to the creators' vision and because it's a simple fact that there's always stuff lost in translation - sometimes unavoidably so, yet often for no good reason. Plus, 99% of the time a dub's voice-acting is inferior to the original on every level - sometimes extremely so, sometimes merely slightly so, usually somewhere in the middle, but practically always inferior. However in this case the translation actually adds to it for once, elevating it from a Western B-movie to about an average Japanese period drama (jidaigeki), i.e. far from historically accurate but feeling passably authentic. Whoever's responsible for this deserves some serious extra cash. In fact the contrast between the two versions is so stark, I quickly simply could no longer stand reading the English texts while listening to the far superior Japanese dub which makes the "A-san, B-san, everyone's a San-san" version read like a bad pre-WWW sub. Hence I've been playing a game created in English by Germans completely in Japanese. Heh.

Anyway, it's a really neat specimen of a genre I'd thought I'd never see again (to this extent). And the collectors' edition had some sweet physical goodies.

 

[MicoSelva]

Infinitron

I found one more typo:

Shurikenjustu

I am not an expert in Japanese, but surviving 45873465873465 episodes of Naruto tells me that this should be "Shurikenjutsu".

The developers added a loading screen hint to explain that the game isn't frozen, which amuses me to no end since console certification QA specifically says that you are not allowed to do this.

WHOA! Seriously? That is pretty dumb.