Let’s talk about reviews. Or rather, how I review things. I tihnk reviews in general should not be taken too seriously because oftentimes (maybe most of the time?), it comes down to a question of taste. Let’s be real. There are a glut of games out there. So many games. All the games! In the RKG Discord I’m in, we constantly joke about our backlogs and how we can never whittle them down to zero. I mean, hell, I can’t whittle mine down to a hundred, let alone zero.
Side note: The raging discourse about whether Shadow of the Erdtree should be able to win the Game of the Year or not is amusing to me. Despite it being my GOTY (obviously), I don’t really have strong feelings about it. That is, until I hear the majority of the arguments about why it shouldn’t be considered. The fact that you have to play a fair chunk of the base game to get there? Fair. But the ‘it’s just more of the same?’ Uh, look at all the remakes and remasters that are not being debated in the same way. Final Fantasy VII Re…birth? I think? The second one. It’s up for GOTY as well, and–ok, maybe that wasn’t the best example because it has innovated in significant ways. But it’s builtl on something that was there before.
I think the part that annoys me is that if FromSoft had said this was the sequel or Part 1.5, sold it for the same price (forty bucks) and called it a day, no one would even question it. But because they called it a DLC of the first game, then it’s suddenly not up for consideration? Again, taking into consideration how you access the DLC because I think that’s a fair point. But I was watching the IGN discussion about how the base game won the award so why should the DLC? Why not let someone else have that spot? And someone else on the panel said that the DLC ‘only’ got 4 other nominations as opposed, to say Silent Hill 2, which got 5. Is this really how we want to do this?
I’m with Kinda Funny in that whoever hosts the awards show gets to decide. The Golden Joysticks were earlier, and they had a category for DLC so that’s where Shadow of the Erdtree was placed. Therefore, they did not put it in the GOTY category. I’m actually more in the camp of it doesn’t matter, but I’m just astounded how adamant people are against it. Especially the “they already won GOTY! for Elden Ring!” So?
It also amuses me because if we want to have the conversation about whether DLC should be allowed, then I want to talk about exclusives being able to be nominated. That is way more gatekeepy! But you never hear shit about that. Astrobot was nominated and everyone was more than happy with that even though it’s a PS5 exclusive. Whether or not people play Shadow of the Erdtree, it’s at least available on all major platforms.
Any-hoo!
Back to how I review games. I fully admit that I review them based on whether I like them or not. I’m not pretending to be neutral or objective. I will note that I won’t give a low rating just because I don’t like a game, but I have never tried to say that I was reviewing a game on anything other than how much I enjoyed it.
Another thing right off the bat–I tend to review FromSoft games with a different mindset than other games. The action adventure ones, I mean. I’m exempting Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon is what I’m trying to say. I could not play the games because it was past my abilities, but from what I’ve seen, I can absolutely say it’s a great game. Just because I can’t play it, I’m not going to tear it down and says it sucks.
Side note II: This reminds me of a video from a gaming channel (can’t remember which) that was naming their worst game of 2019. There were four or five of them, and they each named their worst game of the year. A red-headed woman said that Sekiro was her worst game of the year, and I immediately knew not to take the channel seriously. That told me that they cared more about gettnig clicks than anything else. Or that the woman was trying too hard to be edgy, the cool girl, or whatever. She went on to say some bullshit about no one actually likes it and are fooling themselves if they think they actually do.
The whole time she was talknig, she was smirking in a way that let me know she knew what she was doing. She did not say that it was her least-favorite game of the year (which I would have easily accepted); she siad it was the worst game of the year.
In 2019, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Die was released. Anyone who knows that both these games were released in the same year and still insists that Sekiro was the worst game of the year is to be strudiously ignored.
I am a visual person to an extent. By that I mean that I am influenced by graphics. Not to the extent that I will refuse to play a game with graphics that aren’t my style, but I will give a few extra bonus points to a game that has a lovely hand-drawn style. Northernlion used to say that he never understood people who were turned off games becaause of art direction, but to me, that’s an integral aspect to a video game and whether i will enjoy it.
I don’t care about fidelity and 4000K if the game is ugly to me. FromSoft is never on the cutting edge of graphics, but their art design is striking. Well, gruesome and ugly, but exquisite, nonetheless. And all the indie games I love have memorable art design, ranging from lovely to vivid to disturbing. To me, it adds to the atmosphere in a way that is hard to quantify.
That’s all for today. More tomorrow.