So, did anyone find the Dragon's Crown review by polygon actually useful?

[piinyouri]

Exactly. ^
The review was pretty worthless as a review for a game, as far as I'm concerned.
I was actually interested in knowing the finer points of the games mechanics to decide if it's something we'll pick up, but I got an almost personal rant instead.

And they get paid for this? Yeah, not good in my book.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Huh.. I can't ever remember really caring about what critics thought about anything. I judge for myself. Many critics have disliked what I liked, or liked what I disliked. It's all relative to one's tastes. I chose not to play Dragon's Crown because it doesn't appear to have gameplay that I'd like. Looks a bit spammy and cluster effed.

Complaining about another person's interpretation of something is an utterly pointless waste of time. Take it in, weigh it, compare it to your own thoughts and disregard after you make your own conclusion. Nothing else should come of it regardless of the outcome.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

As much as I hate to say it, I learned to stay away from polygon's reviews as they tell me very little about the game OR the issues in a decent perspective.

A) Feminist approach is fine, but completely ignoring the male side is just completely biased/sexist.

And what would that "male side" be? Are you implying that all males find this style attractive? That would be a statement that many men - me included - would find quite offensive, to be honest. And quite sexist too, since we're already throwing around this term.


I just don't get why people complain so much about this review, or others like it. Kotaku, for example, is often critized for similar reasons, and ironically, the Escapist might well qualify for that category as well. You know, if you're more interested in "hard facts" about gameplay mechanics and such, there are many sites who do reviews just like that. Why don't you folks just go there, and stop complaining?
People have different preferences. And for many people, issues like (what they perceive as) sexism, racial stereotypes, dumb character design or questionable depiction of violence matter for their enjoyment of a game, maybe even more than some not-so-good gameplay mechanics. Some of those people posted in this very thread.
And for those people, these kind of reviews are useful, and if they just read the technical, "objective" reviews, they would miss out on information that very much matters to them.
I know I'm repeating myself here, but some people don't seem to be able to grasp this basic notion.

I have an issue with this reasoning.


There's not just 2 options. Just cause you're not agreeing with the 100% one way option of just despising the art style, it does NOT mean you by default are of the 100% opinion that is the opposite of this one and that you just love the huge breasts and whatnot. There's a whole 200% worth of option and views that reside between those two limits and to assume that the other person just adores the overdone sexuality is just...dumb!


No, peolpe just don't see it as a huge destructive PROBLEM, that's all! They just brush it aside, neither loving nor hating it, then, they focus on the other elements of the game and come to a conclusion about it from them.


I played for 5 hours yesterday, I saw maybe 5 sexually suggestive STILL images which stayed in my screen for about 10 seconds tops each. This is not even a minute out of those 5 hours of gameplay. If you do the math, that's less than 0.2% of your time with the game. To decry the game based on what happens for less than 0.2% of your time playing it, to decry it THIS much, I'm sorry, is blatantly rediculous and you do not need to be a fanatic of the events in that 0.2% to hold this opinion. About all you need it common sense.

 

[WhyWasThat]

Polygon... Polygon... The name sounds familiar- OH YEAH! They're the guys that gave... The Last of Us... 7.5/10...
*Leaves thread*

 

[WhyWasThat]

I played for 5 hours yesterday, I saw maybe 5 sexually suggestive STILL images which stayed in my screen for about 10 seconds tops each. This is not even a minute out of those 5 hours of gameplay. If you do the math, that's less than 0.2% of your time with the game. To decry the game based on what happens for less than 0.2% of your time playing it, to decry it THIS much, I'm sorry, is blatantly rediculous and you do not need to be a fanatic of the events in that 0.2% to hold this opinion. About all you need it common sense.

What if 0.2% of the game was child pornography?

 

[5ilver]

Yeah, I found their review both informative and entertaining. I would say it was far more useful to me than say, the Escapist's Dragon Age 2 review.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I played for 5 hours yesterday, I saw maybe 5 sexually suggestive STILL images which stayed in my screen for about 10 seconds tops each. This is not even a minute out of those 5 hours of gameplay. If you do the math, that's less than 0.2% of your time with the game. To decry the game based on what happens for less than 0.2% of your time playing it, to decry it THIS much, I'm sorry, is blatantly rediculous and you do not need to be a fanatic of the events in that 0.2% to hold this opinion. About all you need it common sense.

What if 0.2% of the game was child pornography?

Then it'd be bad child pornography cause nobody would have enough time to get off to it...?



(That's about as rediculous as arguments can be. To claim that sexy fully clothed women inspired by DnD books of old done in a satyrical overblown style is comparable to child porn is the definition of over-reacting and insane thought patterns.)

 

[CloudAtlas]

I have an issue with this reasoning.


There's not just 2 options. Just cause you're not agreeing with the 100% one way option of just despising the art style, it does NOT mean you by default are of the 100% opinion that is the opposite of this one and that you just love the huge breasts and whatnot. There's a whole 200% worth of option and views that reside between those two limits and to assume that the other person just adores the overdone sexuality is just...dumb!

You must have misunderstood me. I was criticizing a pretty binary statement myself: I took offense with the implication that, somehow, disliking the art style is the "female side", and liking it the "male side", as if every man would like it, and being critical of the style would would be ignoring all men, and even being sexist against men. I'm a man, I don't like it, and I don't feel ignored at all.

No, peolpe just don't see it as a huge destructive PROBLEM, that's all! They just brush it aside, neither loving nor hating it, then, they focus on the other elements of the game and come to a conclusion about it from them.

And neither did the reviewer see it as "huge destructive problem"! That's why she still gave it a 6.5/10! Keep in mind that this was not the only thing she criticized.

I played for 5 hours yesterday, I saw maybe 5 sexually suggestive STILL images which stayed in my screen for about 10 seconds tops each. This is not even a minute out of those 5 hours of gameplay. If you do the math, that's less than 0.2% of your time with the game. To decry the game based on what happens for less than 0.2% of your time playing it, to decry it THIS much, I'm sorry, is blatantly rediculous and you do not need to be a fanatic of the events in that 0.2% to hold this opinion. About all you need it common sense.

I don't play Dragon's Crown myself, nor do I intend to, so all I say is judging from watching some gameplay footage. Now I don't know what's qualifying as "sexually suggestive" for you, but let me put it like this: if you really dislike like the comically large breasts of the sorceress bouncing around, every second with the sorceress running on screen is off-putting. And the "idle" pose of the barbarian is pretty much a (naked) butt pose, so... it's not just 0.2% of the time - it's all the time. And if stuff like that really bothers you, it's totally fair to lower the score substantially. And it's totally understandable for people to say, I'm not going to buy this game because I won't be able to enjoy it.

And even if this did only occur rarely, that wouldn't disqualify any critique. If there's just one instance of blatant racism, misogyny or whatever in a game or a movie, that can already tarnish the whole experience significantly. That's just how it is - not for everyone, but for many. And there are games that generally really do well on that front, like, say, Mass Effect (and I could still write a long post about all its blunders with its female characters), but really, Dragon's Crown certainly does not belong into that category.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I don't play Dragon's Crown myself, nor do I intend to, so all I say is judging from watching some gameplay footage. Now I don't know what's qualifying as "sexually suggestive" for you, but let me put it like this: if you really dislike like the comically large breasts of the sorceress bouncing around, every second with the sorceress running on screen is off-putting. And the "idle" pose of the barbarian is pretty much a (naked) butt pose, so... it's not just 0.2% of the time - it's all the time. And if stuff like that really bothers you, it's totally fair to lower the score substantially. And it's totally understandable for people to say, I'm not going to buy this game because I won't be able to enjoy it.

And even if this did only occur rarely, that wouldn't disqualify any critique. If there's just one instance of blatant racism, misogyny or whatever in a game or a movie, that can already tarnish the whole experience significantly. That's just how it is - not for everyone, but for many. And there are games that generally really do well on that front, like, say, Mass Effect (and I could still write a long post about all its blunders with its female characters), but really, Dragon's Crown certainly does not belong into that category.

But you just said you didn't play the game! Come on, how can you go on and just assume stuff like this.



The game has 6 characters and you can have multiples in your 4-person-party. I did not have a sorceress in my party as I played, I had 2 fighters an elf and a wizard. There was literally no bouncing breasts or ass or anything to be seen AT ALL during those 5 hours.


If it's something that bothers you, you can work around it. It didn't even bother me, I just happened to get the randomized party that I got. I didn't even try to avoid it and I managed it by playing the game normally as intended. To claim therefore that the game forces you to be exposed to bouncing breasts against your will is plainly false.

 

[Cat Cloud]

Exactly. ^
The review was pretty worthless as a review for a game, as far as I'm concerned.
I was actually interested in knowing the finer points of the games mechanics to decide if it's something we'll pick up, but I got an almost personal rant instead.

And they get paid for this? Yeah, not good in my book.

You didn't read the review. While her views on the art style were included, it literally took up 1/6th of the review. Most of it was about the game itself. Personally I thought the most offensive part of the review was it's layout. I could barely stand to read it, and even the video review's presentation was painful.

OT: Does the game deserve the review? I don't know I haven't played the game. Was the review helpful? Honestly I love Atlus and the other games Vanillaware has made. I find it really disappointing that it's so repetitive. If I had a system it was on I would probably get it anyways, but I do find the depiction of women awkward.

Kind of reminds me of when I was playing Ayakashi: Ghost Guild and the main NPC started hitting on me. I was sure up until this point that I was playing as myself, not some random guy (or random lesbian/bi-person). Wasn't that the point of making the game first person, without a voice, and letting you name it? Similarly, having half naked women twist around the screen suggestively is awkward for me because it feels like the game is making assumptions about who I am and what I find attractive. But that's just my opinion.