Jimquisition: Dragon's Frown

If it's okay to raise a game's score because it looks good, it's okay to lower the game's score because it looks bad.

Why is this so hard to understand?

Because people typically hate people who disagree with something they believe in. Human nature.
 
No, no guys. It's totally okay to say "one of the reasons you should play this game is because of the amazing art style", but it's not at all okay to say "one reason you should not play this game is because the art style is hideous."
 
Except, that's not true. And that's part of the problem in that so many people feel this way, while the reviewers don't.



No, it's not:

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DC factually has no negative reviews on Meta Critic.



Again this is part of the problem. People read review scores in a way that the reviewer doesn't intend. This is why review scores are worthless and should just be done away with. Readers can't handle them, as cases like this prove.

Reader: You said you didn't like the game!

Reviewer: No I didn't, I said it was okay. Gave it a 6.5.

Reader: Yeah, 6.5 that's like a D!

Reviewer: This isn't school.

Reader: ...

Metacritic is huge. Review scores will never be done away with.

Are people more upset over the score or the criticizing over the art style? I haven't played the game so I can't comment on either.

Also people mentioning The Last Of Us' review thread as a 'debacle' need to tone down the hyperbole to say the least. Polygon is well within their rights to give whatever game they want, whatever score they want. And I'm well within my rights to tell them they have a shit opinion because of x y z. If you think that's a 'debacle' you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

No, no guys. It's totally okay to say "one of the reasons you should play this game is because of the amazing art style", but it's not at all okay to say "one reason you should not play this game is because the art style is hideous."

Strawman strawman whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
 
I agree, if there's no way to have a unified game review scoring scale, then there should be no game review scores.

Yep. The world would be a battter place without them. That review as is could exist without a score and people would have discussed it for five minutes and moved on. Shit, that review as is could have existed but given it a 9 and people wouldn't have cared. But, people care about that score whether they'll admit it or not.

People will argue that the content of the review doesn't match the score, like that infamous Gears of War review. They're not really arguing the content is wrong, they're arguing the score is wrong.

Also, sidenote. I've never been to Polygon before. Holy fuck this is an atrociously designed website. My fucking eyes.
 
That's the Moral of the story, the "outrage" wasn't even as bad as the Last of Us or Uncharted 3, it was all kinda Polygon gonna polygon..I just wondered if this was the reviewers first review on polygon's site outside of that, whatever. glad they closed the review thread, all it was doing was giving that lame site exposure.

I was pretty surprised at the way the editors on the site responded to the vitriol in some of the comments. I don't even know what they could have possibly expected. A low score on a highly anticipated controversial game is troll-bait, even if unintentionally so. I find the whole thing kind of silly, and the only thing that bothers me is that I feel like often times the press tends to lump gamers into this category of misanthropes that's defined by a very vocal minority of ass hats. It's untrue, and the press's righteous indignation when stuff like this happens is so often obviously disingenuous.
 
How are the character designs and art style not a part of the game? Games are much more than what the player, and a reviewer should be discussing the visuals, score, story, and aesthetics. Dragon Crown's character designs are very much a part of "the game itself" and if a reviewer's experience his hampered by these designs then he or she is allowed to say that they detracted from the experience. If they don't bother you, then go enjoy the game. No one is stopping you.

Is not the character designs itself, only with female designs (both females and males have exaggerated designs, but she only pays attention to the anatomy of females). And is not about asthetics (there's much more that a few females in sensual poses), is not about the story (barely a few lines about the premise of the game). Is just a very biased look to some of the aspects of the game that have zero influence in their gameplay.

Fanservice is often an integral part of the gameplay, it is not in this case and barely any of her remarks don't take into consideration the whole aspect she's complainint about. Here's an article about the art of the game, as you see there a lot more than she says: http://www.realsg.com/2013/08/theres-more-to-dragonscrown-than-boobs.html
 
No, no guys. It's totally okay to say "one of the reasons you should play this game is because of the amazing art style", but it's not at all okay to say "one reason you should not play this game is because the art style is hideous."
Saying you think the game is better because the Sorceress has huge breasts IS just as bad as saying you think the game is worse because the Sorceress has huge breasts.

But it has nothing to do with the overall quality of the product and thus should not affect the score meant to describe the quality of the product.
 
Yep. The world would be a battter place without them. That review as is could exist without a score and people would have discussed it for five minutes and moved on. Shit, that review as is could have existed but given it a 9 and people wouldn't have cared. But, people care about that score whether the'll admit it or not.

People will argue that the content of the review doesn't match the score, like that infamous Gears of War review. They're not really arguing the content is wrong, they're arguing the score is wrong.

Also, sidenote. I've never been to Polygon before. Holy fuck this is an atrociously designed website. My fucking eyes.

I feel like most do not even read the review, but solely look at the score and decide the game's worth. I like Kotaku's simple yes/no system. I would also like to see the game reviewed by multiple people too, like some sort of collective crew review.
 
I was pretty surprised at the way the editors on the site responded to the vitriol in some of the comments. I don't even know what they could have possibly expected. A low score on a highly anticipated controversial game is troll-bait, even if unintentionally so. I find the whole thing kind of silly, and the only thing that bothers me is that I feel like often times the press tends to lump gamers into this category of misanthropes that's defined by a very vocal minority of ass hats. It's untrue, and the press's righteous indignation when stuff like this happens is so often obviously disingenuous.

As long as users attack their opinion, resorting to personal attacks as a counterargument is pretty petty and juvenile to say the least. Twitter is cool for a lot of reasons, but editorial folk should probably stop being so vocally antagonistic on there. Especially Polygon with some of their staff.
 
As long as users attack their opinion, resorting to personal attacks as a counterargument is pretty petty and juvenile to say the least. Twitter is cool for a lot of reasons, but editorial folk should probably stop being so vocally antagonistic on there. Especially Polygon with some of their staff.

I agree. I just don't know what else they could have expected. It seems like a room full of industry professionals with years of experience could have predicted this outcome and preempted it somehow. I'm not saying they did it wrong, I just hope a lesson comes out of this for everyone, not just the juvenile users, because this isn't the last time we're going to see this sort of thing.
 
I thought we already agreed that numbers were bullshit and just a way to satisfy metacritic eager publishers and simple minded readers. But apparently people here do still take them seriously. I think thats the thing that irritates me the most.
 
honestly, the polygon review felt like "i'll remove 2 points from this game because sexism, so 6.5" to me
 
I agree. I just don't know what else they could have expected. It seems like a room full of industry professionals with years of experience could have predicted this outcome and preempted it somehow. I'm not saying they did it wrong, I just hope a lesson comes out of this for everyone, not just the juvenile users, because this isn't the last time we're going to see this sort of thing.

I got the chance to be at a panel at PAX East in March where Justin McElroy really delved deep into this topic (along with Jason Schreier). They came off incredibly genuine and transparent in the panel and I just have to wonder if the Internet and how you communicate on it has a lot to do with it. It really is okay to defend your opinion or acknowledge that you're wrong. But it's not okay to do GAF-detective on them to insult them personally. Their job is to interact with their readers to a certain extent, and you do need to have a thick skin and be well-meaning and articulate. With EVERY interaction. And if that's not possible, you're not in the right business.

I thought we already agreed that numbers were bullshit and just a way to satisfy metacritic eager publishers and simple minded readers. But apparently people here do still take them seriously. I think thats the thing that irritates me the most.

Who agreed to this? Maybe the majority? Because the people who agreed are perhaps not the same people participating here. Just a thought.

I think the biggest thing to do is to have an alternative to Metacritic that comes up with a different way to catalog reviews. It isn't based on numbers, it actually goes into the content of the review. How would that work? I don't know. But I really dislike Metacritic and gamerankings for that matter. It's not like Metacritic technically is all that difficult, it's just the sheer organization factor that's the problem.
 
I agree with Sterling. I'll never understand why some choose to obsess over a single dissenting opinion of a video game. You don't really see that kind of thing in movies or books.

I think part of the reason is that with movies and books, most people find ONE reviewer who shares similar individual tastes to theirs and listen to that reviewer exclusively. There's a mutual trust involved there that is earned between the reviewer and the reader. Movies and books are also not a market segmented by ownership of a device to enjoy them.

Whereas with games, we have to worry about reviewers coloring themselves with console biases, paid review scores (which, while it does happen in other industries, it's not NEARLY on the same level) and all sorts of other nefarious shit that can get in the way of an honest critique.
Gamers have a hard time finding a single individual reviewer they can trust because of this, so they rely on and trust the only thing they can: every review score as a whole via the median average of Metacritic.
And when something works against the consensual opinion and thereby drags the average down, people get worked into a lather about it unnecessarily.

I know it's been said before, but I will say it again: this industry needs its Lester Bangs, someone who will take critique of this medium to its next stage of evolution. But a lot of them aren't stepping up to the plate.
 
Having just read the review and being entirely new to this whole debacle, I fail to see the issue. The reviewer said the game was okay, but the repetitive nature of the combat and exploration along with the sexualized portrayals of women got in the way of her enjoyment. I fail to see how this is an unfair assessment in any way.

I agree with Jim here. Nothing wrong with disagreeing with a review (although, in this case, the game isn't out in NA or Europe, so I'm not sure how some are disagreeing when they haven't even played it yet) but having this expectation that every review give roughly the same score regardless of the writers personal views is crazy. And flying off the handle and getting angry is just dumb.
 
I was initially excited for DC when it was released because I like Vanillaware games, but then I forgot about it until the Kotaku flap. Then I was like, "well now I'll make sure I buy it, because I don't want American sexual hangups to overshadow a (potentially) great game.

Now, while I enjoy the game and think I'll like it even better once my friends and I can do multiplayer, I am honestly tired of looking at the Assmazon, and as for the game itself I would give it around a 7. It looks and sounds great, and now that I've earned some skills combat is more involved, but it's definitely not a 10. A good game, but with flaws. Some people, however, can't accept something they like not being considered perfect by others.
 
Saying you think the game is better because the Sorceress has huge breasts IS just as bad as saying you think the game is worse because the Sorceress has huge breasts.

Again I'll ask, what is wrong with knocking a game you view as sexist?

Also, I'll assume the review didn't actually say "too big of tits: 6.5" Though I didn't actually read it, so maybe it did.

If a game has a 6.5 on metacritic as average people will think is a bad game, thus a 6.5 means a bad game on the minds of people. Negative reviews are mostly dedicated to very bad games.

So, what is a reviewer supposed to do to give a game an "okay" score? I'm sure if you asked the writer if she gave the game a negative review, she would say no. But, the problem is people perceived it as a bad review because our minds are all warped to somehow think a 6.5/10 is low.

The answer: do away with scores.
 
I was initially excited for DC when it was released because I like Vanillaware games, but then I forgot about it until the Kotaku flap. Then I was like, "well now I'll make sure I buy it, because I don't want American sexual hangups to overshadow a (potentially) great game.

Now, while I enjoy the game and think I'll like it even better once my friends and I can do multiplayer, I am honestly tired of looking at the Assmazon, and as for the game itself I would give it around a 7. It looks and sounds great, and now that I've earned some skills combat is more involved, but it's definitely not a 10. A good game, but with flaws. Some people, however, can't accept something they like not being considered perfect by others.

I'm really deciding between it and Murasama Rebirth at this point, would you recommend Murasama over DC?
 
It was her central point in the entire review, it would be naive to think that the artstyle (the portrayal of women in this artstyle) was not THE reason the game got a bad score.

It wasn't necessarily her main point of contention, she had to spend longer on explaining herself when it came to artstyle because it's a more divisive subject than most things.

edit: though if it were her main point of contention, that would be fine too, because it's how she felt and she wrote the review, and her readers care about what she thinks.
 
I read some of the comments in here, then went to polygon and read the review. I don't usually care about numbers, but this seems harsh. I mean, as I read the review, I kept asking the same question, "yeah, but is the game FUN?" and I don't know that I got an answer from it.

The closest I got is that this isn't a game you should buy if the art would make you uncomfortable to play it around other people, or in public. I guess that's a fair-ish statement to make, but that doesn't answer the question of "is it fun", or in other words "is it worth buying?" I mean, I'm not going to say the art direction of the sorceress and the amazon isn't cringeworthy, as beautiful as the art style is. But I've seen some videos and the game looks ridiculously fun to play.

The other big complaint that was raised was that the game got repetitive because it made you retread levels without answering the question "are the levels fun and/or worth replaying", because let me tell you, Streets of Rage 2 came out a loooong time ago, and I played it yesterday with a buddy of mine and it was still fun as shit.
 
Who agreed to this? Maybe the majority? Because the people who agreed are perhaps not the same people participating here. Just a thought.

Yeah, I guess you're right. It's just frustrating that people still attach such importance to it. I don't mind people complaining about the text of a review but when it's about the score I can't help but roll my eyes.
 
Again I'll ask, what is wrong with knocking a game you view as sexist?

Also, I'll assume the review didn't actually say "too big of tits: 6.5" Though I didn't actually read it, so maybe it did.
I think she should have refused to review the game and wrote a blog post about how she feels about the art style, instead.
 
I was pretty surprised at the way the editors on the site responded to the vitriol in some of the comments. I don't even know what they could have possibly expected. A low score on a highly anticipated controversial game is troll-bait, even if unintentionally so. I find the whole thing kind of silly, and the only thing that bothers me is that I feel like often times the press tends to lump gamers into this category of misanthropes that's defined by a very vocal minority of ass hats. It's untrue, and the press's righteous indignation when stuff like this happens is so often obviously disingenuous.
It truly is, it keeps the wheel turning, controversy is "edgy", any one disagree's gets the full brunt of their indignation.. ego's ahoy over there.
 
I'm really deciding between it and Murasama Rebirth at this point, would you recommend Murasama over DC?

I haven't played as much of Muramasa, so I really can't say. The multiplayer D&D style combat (and cooking minigame) in Dragon's Crown are much more of a draw for me than Muramasa's system, though.
 
Jim is facepalming on Twitter over folks who misinterpreted the entire point of this video. I haven't gotten my hands on the game yet, but reviewers are more than entitled to their opinions. A female gamer has every right to be appalled by the hyper-sexualization and objectification of female characters. Just like I'm getting sick and tired of the machismo-fueled sarcastic "lady killer" male protagonist most movies and tv dramas throw my way. (Not directly comparing the two, I'm just saying there's plenty of misrepresentation to go around.)
 
I think she should have refused to review the game and write a blog post about how she feels about the art style, instead.

This certainly makes sense, however I think it would have much less impact. Plus Polygon makes money on page views, and this probably generated a crapload compared to a review that was less controversial. But perhaps I'm just being pessimistic.

Jim is facepalming on Twitter over folks who misinterpreted the entire point of this video. I haven't gotten my hands on the game yet, but reviewers are more than entitled to their opinions. A female gamer has every right to be appalled by the hyper-sexualization and objectification of female characters. Just like I'm getting sick and tired of the machismo-fueled sarcastic "lady killer" male protagonist most movies and tv dramas throw my way. (Not directly comparing the two, I'm just saying there's plenty of misrepresentation to go around.)

I think because of the differences in male vs. female in our society it certainly generate different reactions. For instance, I'm a guy, and I liked the latest Wolverine movie. But that doesn't mean I thought that Hugh Jackman being shirtless for half of the movie was anything but ridiculous (dude is jacked though!).
 
This reminds me of a friend I have who completely ignores reviewers altogether because he believes they all have horrible taste. Although I think it's silly to ignore all those people, I think it's a far healthier outlook on how you think of a game rather than seeking validation from others because you pick your game collection based on its metacritic score and when a new game you love gets a bad review it's tainted your 'taste' socially and you have to discredit them.

I agree with Jim, by the way. Warriors Orochi 3 is a really, really good game.

I admit that I would like to see more actual opinions being expressed in game reviews. There are so many that just say 'the mechanics were good, the game was fun 9/10' and read like some sort of bland press release from the publisher. For example, I think Mario Galaxy 1 is a soulless husk of a game, devoid of charm and life and a blight upon the Mario series, but if a reviewer said that these days they'd get torn to pieces.
 
This certainly makes sense, however I think it would have much less impact. Plus Polygon makes money on page views, and this probably generated a crapload compared to a review that was less controversial. But perhaps I'm just being pessimistic.

Has she ever reviewed a game for Polygon before? If so which?
 
I think she should have refused to review the game and write a blog post about how she feels about the art style, instead.

Having every review being written by someone who knows and/or likes what they're getting into is not painting an accurate picture of who these reviews are supposed to be for: undecided/unknowledgeable consumers. Perhaps she saw the character depictions and said "well, it might not be so bad" and got more than she bargained for and therefore couldn't defend such depictions.

Selective reviewing for the sake of positivity alone is a revolting idea.
 
So, what is a reviewer supposed to do to give a game an "okay" score?

I don't know, I'm just saying a 6.5 is a bad score for every people that will look at it without reading further (lots probably). But out of the last 25 reviews of Polygon only four scored lower (and two of them are universally bad games like Dark and Time and Eternity), it's clearly a game that scored way less that most game reviewed by Polygon.

So polygon readers will look at that and think:"This is not a good game". I'll admit reviwe grades and perception of those been an universal problem for years and years.
 
While reviews are inherently subjective there's no reason that we cant' debate subjectivity because much of what is behind that experience is shared. It's unfortunate that people on the internet treat it as an invitation to personal attacks but when some opinions are elevated there will naturally be discussion of merits of those opinions. Polygon has a specific editorial stance and philosophy behind their review scores - and the games they are playing are the same games everyone else is playing. So if people want to say their opinions are shitty then there's nothing invalid about that. Opinions still compete in the market of ideas

I remember back when Crysis 1 came out there was a reviewer who had a bit of a meltdown because of the negativity heaped on him for giving it a negative rating.and some civility and charity can go a long way to avoiding that but the thing about the review was he obviously didn't understand how to use the suit powers. There needs to be debate around reviews like that because it has implications for how games are designed if the game always gets blamed. There needs to be a discussion of differences in experience.

This isn't just about the games themselves. There is also a political dimension to it. Much of the debate regarding Dragon's Crown has been about the lack of political correctness of its art and there's push back because there is a sense that there is a overshooting of politically correct ideas into all aspects of games (escalating sensitivity to anything that could be considered offensive as a harm to right) similar to the attacks over the years from family values voices outside games. I personally find the fetishism in Dragon's Crown a bit distasteful but it's only one example of recent moralism in criticism that should be discussed.
 
I agree with Sterling. I'll never understand why some choose to obsess over a single dissenting opinion of a video game. You don't really see that kind of thing in movies or books.

I see it all the time for other mediums. I remember when Armond White gave an unfavorable review for The Dark Knight and the shit storm was so much that comments are now disabled for individual reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

It's a fact of life that some people are going to feel like negative scores for something they enjoy are personal attacks against them.
 
Her review read like a 7.5-8 and then she docked it a full point more for her problems with the art style.

There is no way that read like a 9, even without the art style problems.

Yeah even without the art style complaints, it didn't read like she enjoyed the game all that much.

And even the game was docked a point for art, so what? Graphics are an important part of the game experience, and if the art in this game interfered with her enjoyment of it, then it's valid to note that in the review and score it appropriately.
 
I see it all the time for other mediums. I remember when Armond White gave an unfavorable review for The Dark Knight and the shit storm was so much that comments are now disabled for individual reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

It's a fact of life that some people are going to feel like negative scores for something they enjoy as a personal attack against them.

Is there some psychology subject about this? Seems pretty alien to me.
 
I see it all the time for other mediums. I remember when Armond White gave an unfavorable review for The Dark Knight and the shit storm was so much that comments are now disabled for individual reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

It's a fact of life that some people are going to feel like negative scores for something they enjoy are personal attacks against them.

Rookies must not have known how White rolls.
 
Saying you think the game is better because the Sorceress has huge breasts IS just as bad as saying you think the game is worse because the Sorceress has huge breasts.

Well, that's a lot of fans of the game and its defenders you're including there. Also, presumably, the developers think the game is better with the huge breasts, as evidenced by them deliberately designing it that way. So if neither the people who like the art style nor the people who dislike it have a valid opinion about it, who does?

But it has nothing to do with the overall quality of the product and thus should not affect the score meant to describe the quality of the product.

Art style and character design are part of the overall product.

Pretty weird to see someone on a video game forum arguing that aesthetics and visuals shouldn't be taken into account. (Of course, you're not quite saying that. You're saying that the aesthetics and visuals of this specific part of the game shouldn't be taken into account. Which is just as incoherent.)
 
Having every review being written by someone who knows and/or likes what they're getting into is not painting an accurate picture of who these reviews are supposed to be for: undecided/unknowledgeable consumers. Perhaps she saw the character depictions and said "well, it might not be so bad" and got more than she bargained for and therefore couldn't defend such depictions.

Selective reviewing for the sake of positivity alone is a revolting idea.

Exactly. It's like people can't accept that different perspectives might exist and just want the game reviewed for them. There should be room for different views otherwise you're just looking for validation of what you already think. Which is actually how I think a lot of people here treat them whether they admit it or not.
 
Is there some psychology subject about this? Seems pretty alien to me.

Yup, there has been lots of research about how people with low self esteem tend to strongly associate their identity with sports teams, social cliques, etc.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20605547

Edit: Better link: http://www.biomedsearch.com/article/Self-Presentation-Sport-Fans-Investigating/62990409.html

Edit 2X: All of those links are bad, actually. You're just going to have to take my word for it.
 
Is there some psychology subject about this? Seems pretty alien to me.

The way I see it is that it goes like this.

Someone(A) likes a game/anything.

Someone else doesn't.

A wants to know why.

The reason given is that they think it's boring, has shit graphics or whatever.

A doesn't but that's fine.

HOWEVER, if the reason is because this thing is sexist/racist/ for morons/ childisj/ whatever. A takes this as meaning he likes sexist or whatever stuff and thus is in fact sexist.

Basically no one really cares about liking stuff that is boring or not pretty as that to them comes down to simple tastes and is obviously objective. Any loaded word with an ist on the end is often hard for people to take the same way. So while they may not get that by liking boring shit they too are boring, they might get that liking sexist shit makes them sexist.

It's merely the word choice that probably sends dudes/dudettes over the edge.

Or at least that's how I see it.
 
Too bad more people are not like Jim Sterling. He uses a good amount of logic when discussing his opinion. You have to respect that, yeah respect.
 
I think she should have refused to review the game and wrote a blog post about how she feels about the art style, instead.

I don't get how you decide what things should and shouldn't be critcized when reviewing a game. If the reviewer thought the game was sexist, she shouldn't review it?

My point is I just think a reviewer should be able to review a game any way they want. And I can choose to write off any review I want for any reason.

If her main complaint is "I don't like the sexist art style" and your response is "I don't have a problem with the art style" neither of you are wrong. Just walk away knowing that her perspective on the matter didn't relate to yours, and therefore her review meant nothing to you.

That makes more sense than saying "I don't have a problem with the aspect of the game the reviewer did, so something must be wrong with the review!"

I think Jim's point is just that nothing is really gained by trying to defend the game from these "bad" reviews. If you want to promote a positive image of the game, keep focusing on the positive reviews, which are the majority. Don't let the narrative be driven by the negative reviews, or you're potentially hurting the game.
 
Oh, Jim. You've stalled towards the end of the video so we could pay attention to more Dynasty Warriors 8 gameplay, didn't ya? You clever fox. =P

And yep, I do agree with the video. Never really understood why everyone starts bitching about that one review which got the lowest score of the bunch. The "you're the EA of ppl" was my favorite line from the video.
 
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