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[kpopSuperstar]

But not a goat status. It's a good game, yes and enjoyable, decent story, but i hope that placing it to level of legends like ff7 og ps1, chrono trigger, zelda ocarina, or xenogears has too stop. Its just a lucky year. No big game type of a game like gta6 or wolverine to compete against. Death stranding 2 is great for me but its considered niche, badly judge and not commercial success, while GOY or KCD2 are just good games. I doubt if the sequel will have same success.

Wolverine would stand no chance against E33.

But E33 would stand no chance against Baldur's Gate, Elden Ring or BOTW.

Clair Obscure is great, but it still has the classic turn-based RPG pitfalls of going in and out of battle 6000 times, repeating the same actions over and over. I also think people ignore how some of the levels feel almost identical in design. Final Fantasy X did that better back in the day.

 

[FalconPunch]

So you dislike turn based games, that's ok. I dislike strategy games for example.

I also hate BG3 gameplay, can't get into it at all, but at the same time I can see and respect that this game is among the best games in CRPG genre. Same is true with E33 and JRPG games.

I don't dislike turn based games at all. I've played lots of them from Persona to Bravely Default to Final Fantasy. That being said, I don't get hooked on the gameplay loop of every turn based game.

Baldur's gate 3 was my first CRPG that I played. I only played it due to the hype and loved it.

 

[Danjin44]

What's wrong with E33 gameplay? Moving around is standard stuff but fights are A tier turn based RPG with action elements (that innovate the formula).

That part I dont fully agree the combat was fun but I also felt like I was playing turn based action game rather than RPG because I felt parry and dodging overshadowed most RPG element in that game.

No matter what enemy or boss you face there is only one solution for all their attacks and it parry/dodge.

 

[FalconPunch]

Wolverine would stand no chance against E33.

But E33 would stand no chance against Baldur's Gate, Elden Ring or BOTW.

Clair Obscure is great, but it still has the classic turn-based RPG pitfalls of going in and out of battle 6000 times, repeating the same actions over and over. I also think people ignore how some of the levels feel almost identical in design. Final Fantasy X did that better back in the day.

I mean, if Arc raiders was tossed in the lot of GOTY contenders, I'm not even sure Claire Obscure wins at all. Like Arc raiders is so so good. The players absolutely love it, it's polished, innovative and has the best AI in it's genre.

Like I said, Claire Obscure is fine but when I compare it to past winners, it just doesn't belong. There's just this thing that TGA does by not allowing multiplayer/coop games to be considered. It essentially rules out a large amount of the players.

As it stands, TGA GOTY award does not even represent the vast majority of players at all.

 

[RafterXL]

What's next year's equivalent of TLOU? Maybe I've missed it but there's no game even close to that caliber scheduled for next year barring GTA.

Who knows? This time last year most people didn't know E33 existed, much less that it would sweep TGA.

Not that it matters. GTA 6 could sell 100 million copies in a week and it's never going to win "best rpg". It also cannot win the two indie categories. 99% chance it doesn't win best narrative or art direction, either.

It has literally zero chance of winning 9 awards…none. I don't care how hyped it is.

 

[adamsapple]

I mean, if Arc raiders was tossed in the lot of GOTY contenders, I'm not even sure Claire Obscure wins at all.

Odd thing to say, why would Arc Raiders have beaten Expedition 33 when it didn't even get on the nominations list.

You can't say that it was out of contention for the nominee list, it did win one award on the show elsewhere.

 

[FalconPunch]

Who knows? This time last year most people didn't know E33 existed, much less that it would sweep TGA.

Not that it matters. GTA 6 could sell 100 million copies in a week and it's never going to win "best rpg". It also cannot win the two indie categories. 99% chance it doesn't win best narrative or art direction, either.

It has literally zero chance of winning 9 awards…none. I don't care how hyped it is.

Everything you've said can be applied to E33 prior to release. Nobody believed it was even going to be a contender.

As far as I'm concerned, the only awards E33 won on merit are Best Actor/Actress, Best Narrative, and Best Soundtrack. The rest are a complete joke despite the weak releases we've seen this year.

The nominees for many categories also ended up being the same nominees as the the GOTY category which is absolutely stupid and lazy. There were many games that deserved to be nominated for different categories that were far superior.

 

[FalconPunch]

Odd thing to say, why would Arc Raiders have beaten Expedition 33 when it didn't even get on the nominations list.

You can't say that it was out of contention for the nominee list, it did win one award on the show elsewhere.

You should ask TGA why one of the most popular, most revered, most played games of the year is not on GOTY nominee list.

Again like I said, TGA doesn't operate based on merit... That's how South of Midnight won the award for "Biggest Impact". I mean, can't you feel all that impact?

 

[adamsapple]

You should ask TGA why one of the most popular, most revered, most played games of the year is not on GOTY nominee list.

Again like I said, TGA doesn't operate based on merit... That's how South of Midnight won the award for "Biggest Impact". I mean, can't you feel all that impact?

It didn't win "biggest impact", it won Games for Impact.

And CCU has nothing to do with award nominations.

Otherwise Call of Duty would be sweeping these awards since they started.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

Their mediocre gameplay is still better than whatever you want to call Claire Obscure's "gameplay". I don't think this is the thread to criticize GTA's gameplay. Can't throw stones if you live in a glass house.

You came here to shit on this game because you prefer GTA?
GTA6 isn't even fucking out, yet. Comment when that shit comes out. 200+ million budget(I am guessing) versus less than 10mil and you want to lambaste gameplay on a genre where gameplay is not very fantastic in it's own right.

Also it's GOTY, I wouldn't take that shit very seriously, if even at all. It's subjective.

 

[FalconPunch]

It didn't win "biggest impact", it won Games for Impact.

And CCU has nothing to do with award nominations.

Otherwise Call of Duty would be sweeping these awards since they started.

So what you're saying is what players are playing shouldn't have a role in determining what should even qualify for a nomination?

Outside of minor indie awards, if a game doesn't have the backing of fans, it shouldn't even be in consideration for the major awards.

In the case of South of Midnight, it didn't even sell enough or reach enough players for it's message to have a chance to be impactful.

As a result, it shouldn't even be nominated. TGA just wanted to give their sponsors an award. No more, no less. We've seen them do it with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Finally, Call of Duty wouldn't sweep at all. I don't know if you've taken a look at the player reviews over the last few years. Pretty terrible and downhill since 2019.

 

[Sleepwalker]

But not a goat status. It's a good game, yes and enjoyable, decent story, but i hope that placing it to level of legends like ff7 og ps1, chrono trigger, zelda ocarina, or xenogears has too stop. Its just a lucky year. No big game type of a game like gta6 or wolverine to compete against. Death stranding 2 is great for me but its considered niche, badly judge and not commercial success, while GOY or KCD2 are just good games. I doubt if the sequel will have same success.

This you rn

 

[yogaflame]

This you rn

Funny, but if you look at it right now, Taylor swift is now considered overrated. Same thing will be happen to ex33 a few years from now, just like Last of us 2.

 

[FalconPunch]

Funny, but if you look at it right now, Taylor swift is now considered overrated. Same thing will be happen to ex33 a few years from now, just like Last of us 2.

TLOU2 was overrated from day 1. It was inferior in story, pacing, etc. I mean, I remember at launch, 50% of the people on GAF didn't like it at all.

I managed to avoid the leaks but, after the first 5 hours, I knew the ratings it received from the press were a joke.

 

[ProtoByte]

Funny, but if you look at it right now, Taylor swift is now considered overrated. Same thing will be happen to ex33 a few years from now, just like Last of us 2.

If Kanye hadn't done that shit, maybe, just maybe the music industry wouldn't have prostrated itself to Swift for more than a decade.

 

[Gonzito]

KCD2 was a better game. Shame

 

[Hero_Select]

There's so much salt in here lmao

 

[ZehDon]

Despite the horrible disadvantage of being French, they did alright.

 

[adamsapple]

So what you're saying is what players are playing shouldn't have a role in determining what should even qualify for a nomination?

Outside of minor indie awards, if a game doesn't have the backing of fans, it shouldn't even be in consideration for the major awards.

In the case of South of Midnight, it didn't even sell enough or reach enough players for it's message to have a chance to be impactful.

As a result, it shouldn't even be nominated. TGA just wanted to give their sponsors an award. No more, no less. We've seen them do it with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Finally, Call of Duty wouldn't sweep at all. I don't know if you've taken a look at the player reviews over the last few years. Pretty terrible and downhill since 2019.

The fuck are you talking about ..

Movies that do the most box office don't get an automatic nomination for Oscars in the Best Pictures category either. Why should Arc get a nomination just because it's got a high CCU.

The jury pool decided it was worth nominating in the best MP category only and that's that.

If you want to use the CCU argument, you could at least use BF6 which had a higher peak, I'm not able to figure out why you're so salty over Arc's lack of GoTY category nomination.

Also, South of Midnight won what is essentially a DEI category which had similar 4, 5 other games in it. Not sure what else you would have put there, maybe Arc Raiders ? lol.

 

[Windom Earle]

It's a good game. Maybe I liked Silksong a bit more but can't feel bad about this!

 

[calico]

Expect E33DS to reach new heights

 

[FalconPunch]

The fuck are you talking about ..

Movies that do the most box office don't get an automatic nomination for Oscars in the Best Pictures category either. Why should Arc get a nomination just because it's got a high CCU.

Well, if you can quote me saying those exact words, I'll be happy to respond to that point. My statement was having a strong active player base should be a prerequisite for getting nominated. It does not mean it should be an automatic nomination.

The jury pool decided it was worth nominating in the best MP category only and that's that.

That's exactly my point. Go look at the GOTY nominees, not one multiplayer only game. Why are single player only games nominated for GOTY? Are single player games inherently better than multiplayer games? Absolutely not. In fact, GOTY is supposed to be representative of all the possible nominees. The category should be composed of different sorts of games. Realistically, it should be even possible for a mobile game to win GOTY. However, it's only single player games completely alienating players who play multiplayer games.

They found it convenient to create a Multiplayer category but not a single player category.

If you want to use the CCU argument, you could at least use BF6 which had a higher peak, I'm not able to figure out why you're so salty over Arc's lack of GoTY category nomination.

Go ahead and read my first point, CCU is a prerequisite to be nominated not a guarantee of automatic nomination.

 

[Alan Wake]

Incredible how Troy Baker didn't win.

 

[adamsapple]

Well, if you can quote me saying those exact words, I'll be happy to respond to that point. My statement was having a strong active player base should be a prerequisite for getting nominated. It does not mean it should be an automatic nomination.

These are your posts from this page, they're not "those exact words" but anyone reading them can see the point you're trying to make.

So what you're saying is what players are playing shouldn't have a role in determining what should even qualify for a nomination?
You should ask TGA why one of the most popular, most revered, most played games of the year is not on GOTY nominee list.


Games with far more active player-bases didn't get nominated, Fortnite didn't get nominated for continued support, it has around 10m active players. Roblox even more.

Arc Raiders isn't even top of your own arbitrary criteria.

That's exactly my point. Go look at the GOTY nominees, not one multiplayer only game. Why are single player only games nominated for GOTY? Are single player games inherently better than multiplayer games? Absolutely not. In fact, GOTY is supposed to be representative of all the possible nominees. The category should be composed of different sorts of games. However, it's only single player games completely alienating players who play multiplayer games.

The one thing I will agree is that the criteria for genres can be broader. Forza Horizon 5 wasn't nominated for its year either despite being one of the best critically reviewed games and also one of the most played ones.

But even if were nominated in the main GoTY category, it wouldn't have won. The critics have been pretty unanimous even outside of TGA as well and Expedition 33 is seemingly winning almost every website's individual award as well.

 

[Robb]

Expected and seems very well deserved from everything I've heard.

 

[FalconPunch]

These are your posts from this page, they're not "those exact words" but anyone reading them can see the point you're trying to make.

So what you're saying is what players are playing shouldn't have a role in determining what should even qualify for a nomination?
You should ask TGA why one of the most popular, most revered, most played games of the year is not on GOTY nominee list.

From the get go, the reason I brought up CCU is due to how shocking the lack of longevity that the supposed GOTY has... The game released on April 24th and is about to fall out of the top 100 played games on steam.

The witcher 3 won GOTY in 2015 and is still in the top 100 a decade later. The new dlc might give E33 a much needed bump but, that's a bad look for a game that's supposed to be the goty. A very bad showing.

Based on the data we have, we can see that even at it's peak, it wasn't anywhere former game of the years in terms of player engagement. So questions need to be asked. How can we give GOTY to something a large amount of players are not engaging with?

However, when I brought CCU up, it wasn't meant to be used as a sole metric of nomination. It's merely there to serve as a prerequisite. After all, we want the GOTY to be at least somewhat representative of what players are doing or the award is essentially pointless.

Games with far more active player-bases didn't get nominated, Fortnite didn't get nominated for continued support, it has around 10m active players. Roblox even more.

Arc Raiders isn't even top of your own arbitrary criteria.

Like I said, TGA is not based on merit. I'm not remotely surprised.

The one thing I will agree is that the criteria for genres can be broader. Forza Horizon 5 wasn't nominated for its year either despite being one of the best critically reviewed games and also one of the most played ones.

When the people who make the decisions only select cinematic style games or Nntendo releases, that's what happens.

But even if were nominated in the main GoTY category, it wouldn't have won. The critics have been pretty unanimous even outside of TGA as well and Expedition 33 is seemingly winning almost every website's individual award as well.

TGA should firstly fix the way it nominates games. The second is that it should have players votes have more of an influence in the results of the awards. We will never know if it could have won because it was never nominated in the first place.

It should be a combination of critic votes + developer votes + fan votes for every single award. They should be weighted differently for each category. For example, if you had a best graphics category, it would make sense to give more weight to developer votes as they're analyzing each other's work.

 

[Robb]

How can we give GOTY to something a large amount of players are not engaging with?

Why should that matter at all? The best game should win regardless what people are playing.

Something like The Lord of the Rings: Gollum should never be able to make a GOTY list (outside of "worst game of the year") even if everyone single person in the world is playing and all other games released that year have 0 players.

 

[PlayofSparta]

I'm glad. Great game.

 

[Effigenius]

No way. Couldn't have seen this coming!!!!!

Yep. It's unusual to see a game so clearly going to win that we've known most of the year. Hell of a game.

 

[adamsapple]

It should be a combination of critic votes + developer votes + fan votes for every single award. They should be weighted differently for each category. For example, if you had a best graphics category, it would make sense to give more weight to developer votes as they're analyzing each other's work.

If you want developers weighted votes, wait for the DICE awards. That's exactly what those are.

Keighlty's are 90% critic and 10% fan voted going by their website, so these are always going to be a mish-mash of the IGN's, the Gamespot's, the Eurogamer's, the Game Informers etc.

But don't be surprised if the developers also give it to Expedition 33 for the most part, it is one in a generation kind of success story.

 

[Effigenius]

Have you ever considered a different hobby?

Because he enjoyed the best game of the year? No, I think he's in the right hobby.

 

[Cao Cao]

In a year of mediocre games, I guess it is the best mediocre one.

 

[GateofD]

That's exactly my point. Go look at the GOTY nominees, not one multiplayer only game. Why are single player only games nominated for GOTY? Are single player games inherently better than multiplayer games?

Yes.

 

[Cakeboxer]

In a year of mediocre games, I guess it is the best mediocre one.

It's 2025, not 2021 or 2024.

 

[DenchDeckard]

One of the best games I've ever played.

 

[TwiztidElf]

A JRPG finally wins "game of anything", and it's a JRPG lite for people who don't like JRPGs (and it wins everything).
Sigh.

Atlus should sneak from behind and steal their trophies.

 

[Arsic]

Well deserved.

Game of the generation.

 

[mèx]

Congrats to the team.

Sandfall was really smart in selling the fake small indie team narrative before the release of E33, which means the failings of the game were critiqued much more leniently or wholly ignored.

Give whoever came up with and pushed the idea a big fat check.

 

[Sophist]

(Hironobu Sakaguchi)

 

[Luipadre]

Well deserved

 

[Luipadre]

In a year of mediocre games, I guess it is the best mediocre one.

Lmao this was one of the strongest year in a decade.

 

[Danjin44]

Lmao this was one of the strongest year in a decade.

If people say this year was crap then I genuinely think they don't like video games.

 

[vodka-bull]

Why were they dressed as baguettes' sellers.

To bring some culture to murica!

Well deserved, but it wasn't even close. There wasn't any competition.

 

[Demption]

I get bored with turm based games and didnt play much of BG3 because of combat. Should i try this?

 

[Danjin44]

I get bored with turm based games and didnt play much of BG3 because of combat. Should i try this?

I personally describe the combat as turn based action game because it's much more about rewarding your reflexes compare to other turn based RPGs.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Everything you've said can be applied to E33 prior to release. Nobody believed it was even going to be a contender.

As far as I'm concerned, the only awards E33 won on merit are Best Actor/Actress, Best Narrative, and Best Soundtrack. The rest are a complete joke despite the weak releases we've seen this year.

The nominees for many categories also ended up being the same nominees as the the GOTY category which is absolutely stupid and lazy. There were many games that deserved to be nominated for different categories that were far superior.

Your opinion is valid, but I am telling you straight up. In my opinion you are talking pure shite. E33 is a classic. Like all time classic.In every single way. Completely original vibe, soundtrack, story is mature as FUCK / topics it covers. Characters are effing BRILLIANT. incredible acting. Combat system is incredible. Its literally top ten of all time imo.

edit, then add it was built in a cave with scraps and literally makes a mockery of every single over budget slop of a game we are getting.....

Game is legitimately a masterpiece. Not the shit fake masterpiece people throw around for the new release that is forgotten in two months.

The fact that E33 launched in the first half of the year but has been at the forefront of the convo for the entire year shows how good it is. Normally early year games are forgotten unless you are a MASS EFFECT 2 level of game.

 

[calico]

I get bored with turm based games and didnt play much of BG3 because of combat. Should i try this?

Probably yes.

 

[calico]

Metaphor won some awards and BG3 won a lot of awards.

I think the relative freshness of the hybrid system probably helped E33, but even pure turn based it would have been in the mix for GOTY.

 

[CentralScrutinizer]

Deserved. Easily my favorite JRPG in the last 20 years.

You must not play many JRPGs then.

 

[Danjin44]

You must not play many JRPGs then.

That's exactly what I'm talking about….as much as I like this game some of these praise for this game is hyperbolic as fuck.