Quidditch versus Blitzball

Ijust got Harry Potter's Quidditch World Cup for PS and the game is basicaly a 3D soccer similar to Blitzball in FFX, except that it's played flying, not swimming.

IMHO even though the 2005 Quidditch engine is excellent and much more advanced than Blitzball, the game is not nearly as fun and as cool. Mostly because of 3 factors:



Blitzball Stadium x Quidditch Stadium

three goals to defend in Quidditch, one in Blitzball

Graphics in Blitzball are infinetely better and Blitz players R hotter!

What is bad about Quidditch

The coolness factor Quidditch has an ugly, kiddie look and feel
Blitzball water sphere is super cool, the players look good and look at least old enough to drive. The music is great. Not so for Quidditch.

In Quidditch the stadiums look reasonable but not great. Each team's special attack rocks but all players look like 12-14 year olds with weird, blocky, out of proportion faces. And the hair of most players looks like a cheesy wig. The use of 12 year old instead of using cool 17 year old would be a matter of taste if it wasn't for the terrible execution by EA.


There is nothing wrong with a kiddie look when done right, as Kingdom Hearts, a SE / Disney game showing blitzball player Tidus when he was 12 proves.

Quidditch


Kingdom Hearts


Perhaps comparing the Quidditch game to the excellence of FFX or Kingdom Hearts graphics is unfair, after all RPG games are usually a lot more sophisticated than the fight and sports games. But even compared to other "button mashing" games Quidditch looses.
Soulcalibur and Mortal Combat had good looking characters and very good graphics for the fighting arenas. As an example, in Soucalibur there were lovely pink cherry trees blossoming near one of the arenas and you could even see the petals falling behind the players during a fight. On Qudditch's Japan Stadium the cherry trees are blossoming too but all you see is a blurry pink mass


A Bad rule in Quidditch takes most of the fun out of it
Unlike Blitzballl which is timed, a Quidditch game only ends when someone catches a very fast small winged ball called snitch, which is worth 150 points (or 15 goals). Catching the snitch is a lot of fun and a good change of pace from the rest of the game, but waiting to find it is not. You can be winning 1,000 to zero and still you can not end the game because the darn snitch ball refuses to show up. Extremely irritating!!! I was enjoying the game a lot but after the 3rd time I had to wait for what felt like hours to end a game where my score was over 300 points all the fun turned into impatience and frustration.

IMHO the rules should be changed to make games end when one of the teams achieves 150 points (or 200 to make it more fun) so if you are just pawning the other team you can move on instead of having to play for hours on end waiting for the cursed little winged ball


The snitch (BTW, tell me if the Quidditch designers didn't get some inspiration from FFX's blitzball. Doesn't she look Al Bhed ?)

It is hard to choose attacks and defense on Quidditch - not turn based
This is more a matter of taste. Quidditch is built for those action game whiz guys: All the combo moves are there but you need to have 18 fingers on each hand and the agility of a monkey to be able to play them in any deliberate fashion. Otherwise just mash the controls and pray for the best! Blitzball wasn't exactly turn based but it did give you time to think on which attack to use for each pass or tackle and for the whole team for each game interval

No scouting or trading in Quidditch. Teams are fixed
You can pick which team you will be but not individual players. This makes the game get extremely boring after one or two World Cups are played. On Blitzball OTOH each player stats improve over time, yours and of your opponents. Blitzball also lets you recruit players from other teams, allowing you to have a lot of variety and challenge. Blitzball in FFX is so cool that some people spend more time on it (just a side quest) than on the game itself!


What is good about Quidditch

What I liked in Quidditch and would like to see in a Blitzball standalone game
- Fast paced and exciting game play (except waiting for the snitch to end a game, that s*cks)
- It makes it easy to learn and play complicated moves and a complicated game
- Very varied playing positions and score options. 3 Chasers play just like soccer and blitz, dribbling and passing a ball towards the goal, but there are also 2 "beaters" that try to knock you off with another ball, 1 seeker that chases the snitch and 1 goalie that has to defend THREE goals
- Great use of the PS2 controls it uses all 4 buttons and each one lets you do different things: dribble, pass, tackle, "beat" the player with the ball with another ball, ...
- World Cup / Olympics feel with different special attacks for each team, different spectators cheering, etc..
- Sports commentators on all games. Blitzball only had it on the first game and what he said was always the same. On Quidditch the commentators react to the way you play, i.e. they talk about your great defense or tackle, they chastise you for fumbling and loosing the ball to the other team...
- Cool team pictures and stadium details

In Conclusion
Blitzball rules!!!

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