It's not really fair to compare 14 year old reviews to current reviews of a 14 year old game. Reviewing an older game is always a balancing act, since on the one hand we try to acknowledge a game's historical context, while on the other still being obliged to critique how it has stood the test of time.
Now, this is NOT to say that the criticisms here are nothing but the product of hindsight. They definitely aren't. But it's hard to say how things like the character clichés would have fared BEFORE they became so dreadfully overused, or how the clunky dialogue system would have seemed BEFORE more streamlined approaches became the norm. These are just random examples to make a general point, of course.
In preparation for running this review, I went seeking out other reviews, since I knew that our score was significantly lower than most. What I found were a lot of high scores, and very little to support them. They largely had the same kind of feel as the ones in Eriq's link: "It's Laura! It's Sierra! It's fun!" Like Johann has asked for here, I looked for any that even
addressed the valid criticisms he's made, and came away empty handed. And that made me comfortable in thinking a lot of slack had been cut this game, and that a little closer scrutiny was not unwarranted.
