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?