The laziest professional video game review I've ever read

[Steamflogger Boss]

Dear god, it's horrifying. Persona with actual gameplay? With moral choices that matter and characters who represent archetypal conflicts as old as time? With real difficulty and bosses who can slap your shit in if you fuck around? Get that shit outta here! We need more vapid high school drama!

I hope V is that awesome.

I can't say for certain since I haven't played it yet, but SMT III, Strange Journey (Redux), Soul Hackers, SMT IV (to a lesser extent), Devil Survivors and Digital Devil Saga were all that awesome. The only mainline SMT game I disliked was 4: Apocalypse. Ironically, for having more vapid high school cliche characters and anime tropes.

I haven't found a reliable review source I trust to review SMT V. So I'll probably just buy it when the price reaches an acceptable level (in my opinion) and judge for myself. It looks good though, by which I mean that it looks like SMT. Seems heavily inspired by Nocturne (SMTIII), which is no bad thing.

It might not be obvious, but I really, really love SMT.

Yeah Digital Devil Saga and Nocturne are among my favorites, I never much got into the 3DS but I'm definitely going to check out V.

[Blinge]

Fair points Durandal

Although I think one reviewer being alright doesn't signal an overall departure from 2012-2017 attitude in the game journo world.

Also in her case it's not without some passive aggression..

[Vanguard]

It's impossible for these people to own up to being wrong about something and leave it at that.

[Steamflogger Boss]

So a new game popped up across my radar because of some gem reviews.

Hit me goofy.

[BIL]

As shown in a behind-the-scenes video, it's clear that Sloclap had the best of intentions when it came to representing the culture of Sifu's setting respectfully. Benjamin is clearly extremely knowledgeable and holds what he does in the highest regard with credit to the people he learned from. Still, it can't be ignored that even when the goal is to positively represent a foreign culture, studios still fail to get the very basic aspects right: actually hiring members of that culture and community to work on the game. Over at TheGamer, Khee Hoon Chan goes into more detail in a very well-written piece you should take a look at.

A pair of pasty-white cunts, one of whom is also a fat neckbeard requesting even more food, linking to a whinepiece by an Asian nerd on muh cultural appropriations. That's one way to #stopasianhate I guess

[Sengoku Strider]

So a new game popped up across my radar because of some gem reviews.

Hit me goofy.

Review A: No Asian people made this game, you really need to read this article by Khee Hoon Chan.

Review B: No Asian people made this game, you really need to read this article by Khee Hoon Chan.

Khee Hoon Chan: Nothing offensive happened, nothing was disrespected, words were spelled right, no cultural elements were improperly portrayed, but no Asian people (ethnicity unspecified) made this game. This is a purely white representation of Asian culture, institutional racism.

Meanwhile, in China:

Spoiler

BTW if you're wondering, I checked first - the developer is a French company with 12 employees. The Chinese demographic in France is 0.009% of the population.

[Sengoku Strider]

In fairness this Legendary Axe review is not professional, but a lazy classic all the same. Choice quote:

Although this game continues to receive praise to this day, this is one I am not the biggest fan of. I think the biggest hindrance for me is that this game is brutally difficult.

Runs past power ups.



Tries to face-tank entire game without stopping to beat anything.



He says he spent about 30 minutes on each of the games he was reviewing for those videos, but I'm pretty sure he's rounding up.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Lol.

If I can beat a game it's not difficult and that was one I cleared on my PC engine binge awhile back.

[Sengoku Strider]

I don't think the game's easy by any stretch, at least in the latter part, but that guy's not even trying to learn how to play it. He's trying to Contra a game in the Rastan/ early Castlevania mould.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Nothing new for reviewers. Remember Mass Effect is impossible.

[Marc]

I had the misfortune to watch the Game Sack review of the Egret Mini last night. I get that a video needs to be concise, and I get that there are a lot of games yo cover, but the way Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands and Raimais in particular were spoken of..... won't be watching any more.

[cfx]

The Game Sack reviews, if you can even call them that, are very superficial and uniformly awful. The review of Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX+ sounded like one of those old IGN shooter reviews about how you can beat it in 20 minutes and it's boring because it has unlimited continues so there is no challenge. And they say there's no justifcation for the aspect ratio. The Streets of Rage 4 review goes on about how Sega wasn't the developer so it isn't legit or something, but had no such issue with no Konami involvement with TMNT: Shredder's Revenge.

I'd never watched them before but someone suggested one of their videos to me so I tried a couple. They're a waste of time, and the guy even sounds like he's bored just talking.

[Sengoku Strider]

Lol you guys are harsh. I like Joe's channel. He's not asking people to take him seriously as some kind of authority, because he's clearly not taking himself seriously in his videos. He's talked about Bubble Bobble a ton of times over the years, that channel has reviewed seemingly everything by now. But even if you have little use for his game impressions, stuff like the AV test info he shared in the Egret video is still of value to people. I know he works in video production or something in real life.

[Steven]

lol at calling Game Sack superficial when he tests audio frequency response. Game Sack is basically the only video game thing I watch on Youtube because Youtube itself is trash and I don't like giving money to Google and neither should you (yes, you who are reading this right now!), but even though I started watching after Dave left, I think Dave leaving really hurt the show. He still shows up on rare occasions, but I definitely liked it more when he was around all the time.

[Marc]

I'd certainly say that anyone that writes off Raimais as 'Taito really thought people needed another dot-eater in 1988' simply hasn't bothered to play it for more than two minutes.

[Steven]

Or maybe he played the game for 15 hours and thought it was complete shit. The only way to know is to ask Joe. I'd never even heard of it until it was on the Egret II Mini and I've never played it, so I can't say.

[Sengoku Strider]

even though I started watching after Dave left, I think Dave leaving really hurt the show.

It's funny, because when they were together Dave was the "personality" guy. I really thought the channel was going to wither & vanish when he left, but once Joe got in his groove it actually got better.

I'd certainly say that anyone that writes off Raimais as 'Taito really thought people needed another dot-eater in 1988' simply hasn't bothered to play it for more than two minutes.

TBH he probably didn't. I mean, look at how much editing work he puts into those shows on a weekly basis. If you've ever done editing it takes forever because you have to:

watch all the recorded footage
choose the best bits
edit those bits
watch them again to make sure you did it right
process the video
watch the whole thing to make sure nothing weird happened, audio stayed in sync, etc.

20-30 minutes of footage with a lot of scene shifts takes hours, because of how many times you have to watch & review it all. That doesn't excuse content that's not of value, but I can understand how doing deep dives in a video with so much to cover on both software & hardware sides wasn't going to be a focus.

[BIL]

As someone who struggles to muster enthusiasm for the subgenre, calling the uniquely speedy and violent RayMaze "another dot-eater" is pretty dumb, and I'd probably call the author a great big fanny, if it was a game I had a proper raging HOT NERDBONRE for.

OTOH, if I wanted to know about a game, I wouldn't be consulting Youtube or any other mainstream source, at least not as my primary go-to. I'd go to IAN'S RAYMAZE DUNGEON (<333 Zerochan), or hard-bitten places like this and MARP.

It'd be like going *PSHAW* and *HARUMPH* overhearing 12y/os at the record store call Sab and Zep lame \(O_O)/ I thought that too when I was twelve!

[cfx]

lol at calling Game Sack superficial when he tests audio frequency response.

It can be both.

Frequency reponse testing has nothing to do with his reviews of gameplay, which are shallow and superficial in every one I saw.

I'm sure this is my own failure to understand something, but what is the relevance of frequency response testing for games anyway? There also weren't any such tests in what I watched.

[Marc]

As someone who struggles to muster enthusiasm for the subgenre, calling the uniquely speedy and violent RayMaze "another dot-eater" is pretty dumb, and I'd probably call the author a great big fanny, if it was a game I had a proper raging HOT NERDBONRE for.

OTOH, if I wanted to know about a game, I wouldn't be consulting Youtube or any other mainstream source, at least not as my primary go-to. I'd go to IAN'S RAYMAZE DUNGEON (<333 Zerochan), or hard-bitten places like this and MARP.

It'd be like going *PSHAW* and *HARUMPH* overhearing 12y/os at the record store call Sab and Zep lame \(O_O)/ I thought that too when I was twelve!

Was more of a flicking through video-game related shit while drinking beer thing. Just thought it'd be interesting to see someone else's opinion, but the whole thing just came across a bit rushed and pointless to me, personally.

[BIL]

Oh no, understood. I still put YT on in the background occasionally too while doing other things. Admittedly more FromSoft-etc stuff, that the mainstream's marginally less oblivious on. Don't wanna get me blood pressure aka RAGE METER up.

[Sengoku Strider]

In fairness this Legendary Axe review is not professional, but a lazy classic all the same.

I was playing the game the other day, and I realized that footage isn't even him playing, he literally just recorded the attract screen. I should've known there was no way someone who plays like that could reach zone 3.

Please allow me to upgrade this from lazy classic to lazy masterpiece.

Speaking of which, this John Riggs guy is next fucking level:



It's like watching the Olympics of lazy.

[cfx]

Haha, that laziness reminded me of another one I watched. Unfortunately I don't remember the channel or even the specific game. It was an action JRPG, one with the somewhat typical battle mechanics where melee attacks are required to charge a meter so you can do magic or long range attacks.

"Reviewer" explains he doesn't like this because he doesn't want to have to learn the systems of a game or how to really play it, he just wants to button mash and do hack and slash. I immediately thought to myself "Then why should anyone watch your so-called reviews?" and immediately closed the video.

[Sengoku Strider]

Hilariously, he's also the same kind of collector-YouTuber who'll bemoan the loss of colour manuals included with games.

Despite all that though, he's so harmless and affable that I watched a bunch of his ranking videos in a row just to see the b-roll of random late-era ROMSTAR & Electrobrain games I've never heard of. I would've felt dirty hitting subscribe though, I think he's already got more subscribers than every meaningful shmup channel put together. The algorithm doesn't need the encouragement.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Haha, that laziness reminded me of another one I watched. Unfortunately I don't remember the channel or even the specific game. It was an action JRPG, one with the somewhat typical battle mechanics where melee attacks are required to charge a meter so you can do magic or long range attacks.

"Reviewer" explains he doesn't like this because he doesn't want to have to learn the systems of a game or how to really play it, he just wants to button mash and do hack and slash. I immediately thought to myself "Then why should anyone watch your so-called reviews?" and immediately closed the video.

Amazing, wish you knew the vid. Might try to find it later.

This thread always delivers.

[Sengoku Strider]

My man never rests, digging deep for only the most hidden of hidden gems.



Not to mention proof editing his video titles like a BEAST.

[Steamflogger Boss]

My man never rests, digging deep for only the most hidden of hidden gems.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

There's a recent channel on Youtube that's come across my suggestions that feature some guy credit feeding through arcade games while calling them world record speedruns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eixdrn8HjFs

I was prepared to accept these were joke uploads or something, until I realized the dude probably spent more effort uploading all of his "records" to speedrun.com than actually learning any of the games themselves. There's a chance he genuinely thinks they're noteworthy records.

It's not all a hopeless waste of everyone's time though! In addition to delegitimizing and showcasing how silly "speedruns" of shmups are, check out these comedic gems masquerading as insightful reviews in his descriptions:

on Mushihimesama Futari Black Label

"Honestly this game was like almost every other Cave game we have played, a very tired formula at this point. There is apparently more to the ending in God Mode, but we didnt really enjoy this game and chose to only do the Original category. Maybe will do the other two later, but for right now this was just too samey for us to enjoy."

on Under Defeat, which is not a bullet hell game:

The 3D models and destructibility of the environment added a lot to the bullet hell genre, and this game has both.

on Salamander 2, which is also definitely not bullet hell and normally ends after 2 loops despite the video cutting it short after loop 1 and calling itself a WR

This was easily one of the best bullet hells we have ever played. It has awesome sprites, class and style in the boss fights, cool camera transitions, and more! Every bullet hell after 1996 has no excuse for not being better.

on Raiden Fighters Jet:

Also the game name is really stupid, but the gameplay is solid. Not sure why there are so many ships when they seem to be very samey in how they play.

on Ketsui, which is too gosh darn easy when you're bombspamming while credit feeding:

A very late entrant to the arcade world, it seems suspiciously easy but you really feel like a bullet hell God playing this game.

on Akai Katana, while probably not being aware it's a current game on the Exa platform:

This is one of the only MAME games that has ever been removed from the MAME project due to a copyright holder request. There is only one other game (some bootleg where the bootleggers threatened the MAME engineer who did the dump), which makes the owner of the Akai Katana license a huge douche.

[Steven]

lol a "speedrun" of SegaSonic Popcorn Shop. That's not even a real game! It's just a thing you do while you wait for your popcorn to finish! I hate Youtube so much.

I made the mistake of watching the Twin Cobra video and it's horrible. Don't waste your time with this. Go do something better instead, like playing Desert Bus.

[Sima Tuna]

*reads the part about Black Label Futari*

"Honestly this game was like almost every other Cave game we have played, a very tired formula at this point. There is apparently more to the ending in God Mode, but we didnt really enjoy this game and chose to only do the Original category. Maybe will do the other two later, but for right now this was just too samey for us to enjoy."

*reads the part about Ketsui*

A very late entrant to the arcade world, it seems suspiciously easy but you really feel like a bullet hell God playing this game.

>dude thinks credit feeding an arcade game makes it a world record speedrun
>judges the difficulty of the game by how easy or hard it is to credit feed



I was going to ask how he can call Futari "the same" as other cave games when Futari doesn't even play like the one other Mushihimesama game, but you know what? Fuggedaboutit.