newtmonkey
Arcane
I read a bit more of this and my opinion has changed a bit.
There's a section toward the front of the book that lists the contributors and what they contributed. However, there are no bylines on individual articles themselves so it's a bit annoying to have to flip back and forth to figure out who wrote what. Having said that, it's clear from the contributors list that most of the book outside of the Japanese PC game articles was written by Kurt Kalata. There's 600+ games covered here, and there is no way he has played all of these games to completion (or in any depth), so a lot of the "reviews" just cover surface level stuff like setting/plot summaries or dry descriptions of the battle system.
Having said that, when he writes about a game he has actually played in-depth/completed, he often makes some insightful comments. For example, he praises the PSX remake of Final Fantasy I for retaining the game's original system/difficulty while offering an alternate easy mode, and criticizes later remakes (that do not even bother to offer the original difficulty/system as an option) as missing the entire point of the game. He also makes some good points on industry trends in general, such as criticizing the industry for wasting the potential of the CDROM format on voice acting and cinemas at the expense of, well, everything else. It's not amazing insightful commentary, but it's a step above your typical HG101 stuff.
I think overall he would have been better served by taking the approach used for The CRPG Book. He should have focused mainly on writing about games he's actually completed, and left the rest to other contributors.
There's a section toward the front of the book that lists the contributors and what they contributed. However, there are no bylines on individual articles themselves so it's a bit annoying to have to flip back and forth to figure out who wrote what. Having said that, it's clear from the contributors list that most of the book outside of the Japanese PC game articles was written by Kurt Kalata. There's 600+ games covered here, and there is no way he has played all of these games to completion (or in any depth), so a lot of the "reviews" just cover surface level stuff like setting/plot summaries or dry descriptions of the battle system.
Having said that, when he writes about a game he has actually played in-depth/completed, he often makes some insightful comments. For example, he praises the PSX remake of Final Fantasy I for retaining the game's original system/difficulty while offering an alternate easy mode, and criticizes later remakes (that do not even bother to offer the original difficulty/system as an option) as missing the entire point of the game. He also makes some good points on industry trends in general, such as criticizing the industry for wasting the potential of the CDROM format on voice acting and cinemas at the expense of, well, everything else. It's not amazing insightful commentary, but it's a step above your typical HG101 stuff.
I think overall he would have been better served by taking the approach used for The CRPG Book. He should have focused mainly on writing about games he's actually completed, and left the rest to other contributors.