For many many years, before MetaCritic was ever a thing, Famitsu
scores were the gold standard of game ratings. The Japanese magazine,
which started print in 1986, had a stringent review system, which was
notoriously picky in handing out perfect scores. It took five years of
weekly publication before they even handed out a near-perfect, and it
would be another seven before a game finally got the coveted title.
But things have changed. Perfect scores are now doled out at a rate
which makes Famitsu seem like cheap punchline, a group of fanboys who
are easily bought by huge corporations willing to dump piles of cash on
decidedly imperfect games. Still, I grew up with mythos of the perfect
score, and I wanted to learn more about how and when that all changed.
To that end, I've taken a look at the list of perfect scores over at
Wikipedia, and crunched some numbers. While I can't say I can make any
conclusions, the data was interesting, and I thought I'd share it.
(Note that contrary to many people's belief, Famitsu scores are not
actually a cumulative value. The scores are actually given by a group of
four reviewers, like old GameFan magazines. So when a "perfect score"
is given, what it actually means is their four reviewers agreed the game
was a 10. That means a 39 is nothing to scoff at, three reviewers gave
it a 10 and the other thought it was near perfect)
No perfect scores were awarded in the first decade of publication.
Five were given out in their second decade. Fourteen have been awarded
in the past seven and half years. Perfect inflation really took off in
2008, when they awared three perfect scores (to Super Smash Bros. Brawl,
Metal Gear Solid 4, and Chunsoft's Japan-only Wii visual novel 428).
The following year they awarded another four. To put that in
perspective: in those two years, they awarded more perfects than their
22 year history up to this point. Inflation of near-perfect 39's also
began around this time.
Of
the 19 perfects awarded, 2 are for third gen (PS1, N64), 3 are for
fourth gen (PS2, GC, DC), and 10 are for fifth gen (PS3, 360, Wii).
Portable games (NDS, PSP, 3DS) took 6 of the awards. The most perfects
go to Nintendo systems, scoring 11 perfects over 5 different systems.
Sony systems is a runner up with 8 perfects, and Microsoft has 3 (two of
the games are multiplatform and were counted both under Sony and
Microsoft. The remaining perfect went to 1999's Soulcalibur on
Dreamcast. The Wii and PS3 are currently tied with 5 perfects each.
The first perfect went to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It's predecessor, A Link to the Past, had received the magazine's first 39. Every core Zelda game since Ocarina (Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword) has received a perfect score.
While a big deal has been made about Skyrim being the first western
developed perfect in 2011, there are a lot of western 39's as well,
starting with 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV. Eight western games have been
given a 39 so far, including two Call of Duties and a Gears of War.
No Final Fantasy game received a 39 or 40 until FFX received a 39 in
2001. Since then, FFXII, FFXIII, FFXIII-2, and FFType-0 have all
received some distinction.
Leo Tao was raised in the wild by video games. He can be found
spouting about games, art, Toronto politics, and good times on twitter at @chaicube
Harold's comments: Fascinating facts. I actually don't have much to add, outside of pointing out at the scoring system: Leo is right in that the Famitsu score is done by a combination of 4 reviewers, each with a 10 point scale, but one thing to note is that the mix of reviewers are meant to be random and not guaranteed to be unbiased for or against the game/genre. You may also take note that this scoring system is the exact one used Game Dev Stories, which took quite a bit of inspiration from how Famitsu operates.
