Metacritic (comparing same-series aggregate reviews)

[Hive]

NOTE: each game must have at least 2 months old and have 10 journalist reviews before making comparisons!!
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[75] Etrian Odyssey
[82] Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard
[77] Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City

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[80] Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen
[84] Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride
[78] Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation

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[85] Professor Layton and the Curious Village
[84] Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
[86] Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
[86] Professor Layton and the Last Specter

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[81] Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
[76] Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All
[81] Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trials and Tribulations
[78] Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

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[89] Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
[85] Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
[85] Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

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[85] Pokemon Diamond and Pearl
[83] Pokemon Platinum
[87] Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver
[87] Pokemon Black and White

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[68] SimCity DS
[68] SimCity Creator

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[81] Trauma Center: Under the Knife
[79] Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2

[Jiggy]

Advance Wars [92]
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising [89]
Advance Wars: Dual Strike [90]
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin [86]

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Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones [85]
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance [85]
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn [78]
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon [81]

***The Fire Emblem 7 page is currently unavailable, so I don't know if it has ten critics. It got an 88, though.

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Pokemon Diamond and Pearl [85]
Pokemon Platinum [83]
Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver [87]
Pokemon Black and White [87]

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Tales of Legendia [72]
Tales of the Abyss [78]
Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology [66]
Tales of Vesperia [79]
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World [68]

*The Tales of Symphonia page is currently unavailable, so I don't know if it has ten critics. It got an 84, though.

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Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King [89]
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies [87]

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Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards [77]
Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland [81]
Kirby and the Amazing Mirror [80]
Kirby Squeak Squad [71]
Kirby Super Star Ultra [76]

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...I have to stop there. Reading aggregate game scores is like reading aggregate opinions in the news--you just wind up hating everyone because nobody makes any sense. It's odd, though, because the scores Hive posted are at least understandable. Everything I looked up except Advance Wars is beyond my comprehension.

[Hive]

The Pokemon Platinum score is hard to swallow..

but that's why it's interesting to see these reviews, I think.
They offer a window into what people thought the game deserved at that moment in time.

I'm going to add links to each game, and also format it a bit, later.

[Jiggy]

It's scary enough just seeing the scores, but the number of irrelevant complaints critics can sometimes manage to find in the actual text of their reviews is insane. In particular, I'm remembering IGN's Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn review complaining about no Mii support.

But (and I think I said this before) I don't want to bash on critics too much because I think it's more valuable to try and understand them. If we can figure out why there's such a disconnect between gamers and game critics, we can try to fix it--or, at very least, we can filter their reviews through a lens of understanding their perspective. It's like how learning a second language ultimately helps a person understand their first language; we'll try to understand Critic and the key differences it has compared to Fan. I'll go into more detail in the Random Thoughts thread, but there are so many extremely unfortunate elements to being a professional (paid) game reviewer that except in the worst cases, I don't blame the individuals so much as the environments around them.