4 ms·

The Modern Zelda reviews are a prime example of this. The non-industry people reviewing Zelda have 4 options, 7/10, 8/10, 9/10, 10/10. A 7/10 means the game w

The Modern Zelda reviews are a prime example of this. The non-industry people reviewing Zelda have 4 options, 7/10, 8/10, 9/10, 10/10. A 7/10 means the game was bad and you had a hard time finishing it, and won't be playing again. 8/10 means the game was also bad, but you had fun for a few minutes/hours. 9/10 means the game meet minimum expectations. 10/10 means you enjoyed the game, but there were countless flaws that took away from enjoying the game. 10/10 Greatest game of all time means, the game was above average. Now, this same system applied outside Nintendo's curve, you knock these numbers down 2. Its incredibly hard to figure out if a Nintendo game is good, if you treat them like other companies. Even Nintendo believes this and will yank early access/ads/etc... from gaming websites if you don't comply with the Nintendo curve.

yurishimo 3y ago
Devils advocate; Is it not possible that Nintendo just makes good games? They spend a lot of time on development, don't rush things, the trailers are honest about gameplay and what to expect. I can understand it's not your cup of tea or arguments that their online service is shit (it is) but reviewing a video game in isolation, many of them seem to be good games objectively. Games that don't appeal to the average CoD fan sure, but that doesn't mean they are bad games.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Nah, you can see it on subreddits as people discuss the game. Complaining about a few enemies, copypaste world, etc... Its not a 10/10, but it will still be reviewed like this. Imagine you got rid of the Zelda skins and Zelda name, released it on Xbox. What would it get then? Don't get me wrong, I religiously play all the zelda's and find ways to enjoy them. I am under Nintendo's spell, but I also know these are the corporate mascots I grew up with. Nintendo markets to children, we basically need therapy if we want to be free from their grip.
  - yurishimo 3y ago
    That’s fair. I would take a minor issue with your framing (someone who didn’t play BotW wouldn’t find the map a cop out and I’m glad they put the effort in for the 2 other layers of the map) but you could make those same arguments against COD or Destiny. I do think it’s worth noting how many of the ideas from BotW have been copied in the past 6 years in other games. I guess my point is, I can understand the 10/10s but I also find it entirely reasonable to view it closer to a 7 or 8. We’re also not thinking about things in a vacuum in this discussion. Is the Xbox game released as if BotW never happened? Nintendo certainly uses its brand to buy marketing influence but importantly, I don’t think the company is pissed when games fail. Skyward Sword was a good example of that actually. It’s failure literally led to BotW. Nintendo got off their laurels and reinvented their “tried and true” formula and now it’s paying off. I am closer your position for games like 2D Mario. Zero innovation and I’ll be eagerly watching the reviews for the new game later this year.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    > Imagine you got rid of the Zelda skins and Zelda name, released it on Xbox. What would it get then? You're right, but to be fair sort of 'reskin and re-rate' test would decimate the reviews of most sequels, remakes, adaptations, etc. Not just in video games, but movies, books, etc. Would Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy have been half as culturally relevant if it weren't standing on the shoulders of a very popular series of books?
  - mcphage 3y ago
    > Complaining about a few enemies, copypaste world, etc. It's important to review a game as it exists, and not a game that you imagined in your head that would be better. > Imagine you got rid of the Zelda skins and Zelda name, released it on Xbox. What would it get then? Well, in the case of Genshin Impact: lots and lots of money. Seriously, though. If Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom had been released by a company other than Nintendo, people would be singing its praises to the high heavens. You'd see a lot of "Why can't Nintendo come up with this" type articles about it.
afterburner 3y ago
> The non-industry people reviewing Zelda have 4 options, 7/10, 8/10, 9/10, 10/10. Did you mean the industry people? Plenty of user reviews are 1/10. It's the industry guys that are always rating stuff 7+
delecti 3y ago
A simple point that address a lot of that is just that bad games usually get fewer reviews. There are still plenty of 6/10 and below games getting reviewed, but (contrary to the idiom) you can often accurately get a decent gauge of media ahead of time. People want to experience good media, and so better media tends to have a gravity of critic and audience attention. Most reviews don't go below 7 because reviewers are people who, just like the rest of us, want to enjoy good media. A couple examples: Lord of the Rings Gollum (a recent, high-profile, but poorly received game) has 36 critic reviews on metacritic for an average of 39, Forspoken (another similarly high-profile and poorly-received game) has 7 for an average of 63, and Tears of the Kingdom has 139 for an average of 96. Someone with more free time and motivation could pull a better spread of data to really show how the two data points relate, but I'd be shocked if there weren't a strong correlation between score and review count almost across the board.

yurishimo 3y ago

Devils advocate; Is it not possible that Nintendo just makes good games? They spend a lot of time on development, don't rush things, the trailers are honest about gameplay and what to expect. I can understand it's not your cup of tea or arguments that their online service is shit (it is) but reviewing a video game in isolation, many of them seem to be good games objectively. Games that don't appeal to the average CoD fan sure, but that doesn't mean they are bad games.

hospitalJail 3y ago
Nah, you can see it on subreddits as people discuss the game. Complaining about a few enemies, copypaste world, etc... Its not a 10/10, but it will still be reviewed like this. Imagine you got rid of the Zelda skins and Zelda name, released it on Xbox. What would it get then? Don't get me wrong, I religiously play all the zelda's and find ways to enjoy them. I am under Nintendo's spell, but I also know these are the corporate mascots I grew up with. Nintendo markets to children, we basically need therapy if we want to be free from their grip.
- yurishimo 3y ago
  That’s fair. I would take a minor issue with your framing (someone who didn’t play BotW wouldn’t find the map a cop out and I’m glad they put the effort in for the 2 other layers of the map) but you could make those same arguments against COD or Destiny. I do think it’s worth noting how many of the ideas from BotW have been copied in the past 6 years in other games. I guess my point is, I can understand the 10/10s but I also find it entirely reasonable to view it closer to a 7 or 8. We’re also not thinking about things in a vacuum in this discussion. Is the Xbox game released as if BotW never happened? Nintendo certainly uses its brand to buy marketing influence but importantly, I don’t think the company is pissed when games fail. Skyward Sword was a good example of that actually. It’s failure literally led to BotW. Nintendo got off their laurels and reinvented their “tried and true” formula and now it’s paying off. I am closer your position for games like 2D Mario. Zero innovation and I’ll be eagerly watching the reviews for the new game later this year.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  > Imagine you got rid of the Zelda skins and Zelda name, released it on Xbox. What would it get then? You're right, but to be fair sort of 'reskin and re-rate' test would decimate the reviews of most sequels, remakes, adaptations, etc. Not just in video games, but movies, books, etc. Would Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy have been half as culturally relevant if it weren't standing on the shoulders of a very popular series of books?
- mcphage 3y ago
  > Complaining about a few enemies, copypaste world, etc. It's important to review a game as it exists, and not a game that you imagined in your head that would be better. > Imagine you got rid of the Zelda skins and Zelda name, released it on Xbox. What would it get then? Well, in the case of Genshin Impact: lots and lots of money. Seriously, though. If Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom had been released by a company other than Nintendo, people would be singing its praises to the high heavens. You'd see a lot of "Why can't Nintendo come up with this" type articles about it.

afterburner 3y ago

> The non-industry people reviewing Zelda have 4 options, 7/10, 8/10, 9/10, 10/10. Did you mean the industry people? Plenty of user reviews are 1/10. It's the industry guys that are always rating stuff 7+

delecti 3y ago

A simple point that address a lot of that is just that bad games usually get fewer reviews. There are still plenty of 6/10 and below games getting reviewed, but (contrary to the idiom) you can often accurately get a decent gauge of media ahead of time. People want to experience good media, and so better media tends to have a gravity of critic and audience attention. Most reviews don't go below 7 because reviewers are people who, just like the rest of us, want to enjoy good media. A couple examples: Lord of the Rings Gollum (a recent, high-profile, but poorly received game) has 36 critic reviews on metacritic for an average of 39, Forspoken (another similarly high-profile and poorly-received game) has 7 for an average of 63, and Tears of the Kingdom has 139 for an average of 96. Someone with more free time and motivation could pull a better spread of data to really show how the two data points relate, but I'd be shocked if there weren't a strong correlation between score and review count almost across the board.