- a tumblelog project by Bruno de Figueiredo -
COREGAMERS | COREGAMING: DIEUBUSSY | PIXELS AT AN EXHIBITION
BACKGROUND ART BY OSAMU SATO, 1995

One lesson I’ve learned from my considerable experience in the field was never to judge the game from the experience obtained with its respective demo. Countless times I have been tricked into believing that a game could be worthy of my time when in fact it wasn’t; yet only as many as those occasions I’ve felt unimpressed by the contents of a playable demo relating to a title I came to take extensive pleasure from. The case with Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom demo, released today on the Japanese PlayStation store, appears to insult this lesson I thought I had learned long ago. After some months building a generous amount of expectation, based on the striking trailers put together by Namco Bandai, I find that the actual game - should it be anything like I’ve found, firsthand, in this free sample - is of a rare degree of vulgarity. The exact sort of vulgarity I find intolerable at this stage, to a point where I am unable to detect any particular quality above or beyond the lowness that defines modern videogame design. Though I will deliberately conceal the (agonizing) details of my disenchantment, I feel compelled to state that a few seconds of this sour tasting were sufficient to shatter my good prospects. And after the few interactive minutes offered by Game Republic, I was ready to conclude that this game, good or bad, successful or disastrous, could never match that assisted vision of a greater object I once had. Regretfully, this is all so very true.


One lesson I’ve learned from my considerable experience in the field was never to judge the game from the experience obtained with its respective demo. Countless times I have been tricked into believing that a game could be worthy of my time when in fact it wasn’t; yet only as many as those occasions I’ve felt unimpressed by the contents of a playable demo relating to a title I came to take extensive pleasure from. The case with Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom demo, released today on the Japanese PlayStation store, appears to insult this lesson I thought I had learned long ago. After some months building a generous amount of expectation, based on the striking trailers put together by Namco Bandai, I find that the actual game - should it be anything like I’ve found, firsthand, in this free sample - is of a rare degree of vulgarity. The exact sort of vulgarity I find intolerable at this stage, to a point where I am unable to detect any particular quality above or beyond the lowness that defines modern videogame design.

Though I will deliberately conceal the (agonizing) details of my disenchantment, I feel compelled to state that a few seconds of this sour tasting were sufficient to shatter my good prospects. And after the few interactive minutes offered by Game Republic, I was ready to conclude that this game, good or bad, successful or disastrous, could never match that assisted vision of a greater object I once had. Regretfully, this is all so very true.