famitsu logo Has Famitsu Relaxed Their Grading Scale?Recently, Famitsu gave out its third perfect score of 2009, which got me thinking… just what changed with Famitsu that they’re starting to throw around perfect scores far more often? In the interest of full disclosure, when it comes to reviews, it is nearly impossible to get me to give a game a perfect score. Even most of  my favorite games of all time probably wouldn’t get perfect scores from me, and that’s why I liked Famitsu’s reviews so much in the past; you really had to earn a perfect score.

For those not familiar with the name Famitsu, it’s a Japanese gaming magazine that began in June 1986. It circulates somewhere around a half-million copies with its weekly release Shuukan Famitsu as well as four spinoff magazines, and has become the go-to magazine for Japanese gaming reviews. The grading system consists of a panel of four reviewers each giving a zero to ten score, for a maximum total score of 40. For most of its existence, Famitsu was very stingy with giving a perfect 40, but in the last couple years they seem more ready to give out 40s instead of 39s.

From the inception of the four person panel through 2006, they gave away 6 perfect scores: Ocarina of Time, Soulcaliber, Vagrant Story, The Wind Waker, Nintendogs, Final Fantasy XII. After a year with no perfects, there were three perfect scores each in 2008 and 2009: Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Metal Gear Solid 4, 428: Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de (a Japan-only Visual Novel for Wii), Dragon Quest IX, Monster Hunter Tri, and most recently, the 360 version of Bayonetta. On the flip side, there were 15 near-miss 39s through 2006 and only two since: Phantom Hourglass and Grand Theft Auto IV. Here’s the problem, are they really trying to tell us that the last two years of gaming have given us as many opportunities at perfection as the previous twenty, or have they just lowered the bar?

The first indication that their system was slipping was when they gave Nintendogs a perfect score. My first thought was that they put a fish-eye lens in front of the DS and gave all the reviewers tons of Robitussin. Then again, considering the fact that Japan is the home of quite a few pet cafes, I’m willing to chalk that up to a complete difference of what gamers might enjoy. In all seriousness, though, a major byproduct of the Internet Age is that you have to catch people’s eye, and a perfect score will do that a lot better than a 39. Famitsu may have felt that they need to give out more perfects in recent years in order to keep their readership interested, but in reality, it just dilutes the potency of seeing a perfect score. This is not to say that the reviewers from Famitsu are the be-all and end-all of games, and even their own readers disagree with what games are the best. A reader poll run in 2006 resulted in only one of the (at the time) 5 perfects, Ocarina of Time, being in the top 20.

It’s really hard to say for certain without seeing all the numbers, but it does seem Famitsu is starting to grade on a curve. I wish I could do a full analysis of Famitsu scores over the years, but my old source for Famitsu archives is no longer up, and the Wayback Machine doesn’t have most of the pages either. If someone has a link to another Famitsu archive, I’d greatly appreciate it, and I would gladly credit you in the followup article.

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One Response to “Has Famitsu Relaxed Their Grading Scale?”

  1. Famitsu Gives Pokémon Black and White Perfect Score | G.A.M.E.S. on 08 Sep 2010 at 10:52 am #

    [...] Pokémon Black and Pokémon White. While a perfect 40 out of 40 from Famitsu don’t mean as much as they used to, it’s still high praise to be scored so well. Presumably, this means that the judges took [...]

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