Review criticisms

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What can we do to improve on the original Oni?
from the mouths of the critics


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I've been trying to think of what we really can do at this point to truly improve Oni. IE: If Oni was rated a 7 in some gaming magazine, [how] we['d raise] it to an 8.

—Gumby


The above thought really put things into perspective for me. Right now, our main focus for the AE is adding BGI. That's a good idea, because it was originally part of the game before cuts were made... but overall, the approach to the AE has been one of adding new content, instead of stepping back and asking what made the Oni of 2001 get the middling scores that it did. Loving what we love about the game, it can be hard to see the game objectively. We usually come up with ideas that make Oni more complex or that tweak it minorly, but rarely are we able to get to the heart of what prevented Oni from getting the highest marks. So I decided to poll the reviews that Oni was given, and use their words. It's not that we aren't capable of criticizing Oni... but it is harder for us than it is for them; they're paid to criticize!

Following are some quotes that I thought offered "food for thought". I haven't bothered to attribute them; I'm not writing a research paper here; besides, I want us to focus on what was said, not who said it. All quotes come from either reviews listed on the Reviews page, or from the list that Metacritic used to determine Oni's average score of 7.3/10. You might find it difficult to read this all at once, as it's a lot of criticism for our beloved game. I suggest you take it in doses or you will get bitter or overwhelmed, and possibly mad at me for collecting all these critical quotes ^_^;

This page is titled rather informally because I want it to be viewed as only that, "food for thought", not as some task or burden that someone has to deal with; these are just things to talk about, nothing more :-). You may feel that some of the criticisms made here can't be fixed without tons of work or the source code for the game. That may be the case, but I felt it was important to be thorough, not to filter my findings for "practicality". Other things listed here you may not think to be a problem at all. If enough people feel that way, we can strike the item off the page, but I wanted to put as many critical points out there as I could find (minus a few comments that were just totally out of touch with what Oni is supposed to be). I've also left out what might be complaint #1 -- "no multiplayer" -- since that is already being worked on, and the dead horse needn't be beaten any more than it already has over the last seven years.

Long-term, my hope is that this page may provide a vision that goes beyond the current approach we're taking to the AE. After all, if we can actually, gradually, improve on the elements of Oni that non-dedicated fans thought were lacking, that gives us the best chance of bringing new people into the fandom and demonstrating to those who have rights to Oni what the game's potential is.

Finally, keeping in mind a certain complaint made about the last brainstorming page I made, I don't think there is such a thing as "too many ideas", or that making suggestions takes focus away from other work. True, reading through these quotes and talking about them takes time, but far less time than actually working on them. The idea here is to offer notions for future work. But anyone who's signed up for the AE Team is working on what they are assigned to/volunteered for, from a set list of tasks. So the ones who shouldn't be distracted by this won't be. The most important phase of any project is the part where ideas are generated, and the best are selected out of the rest, and worked on. Without all possible ideas on the table, we can't make the best use of our time and energy. Okay, enough rambling, on with the quotes! -- User:Iritscen">