Dan was sadly the only guy left on this site that seemed to genuinely have fun at doing what he did. But good thing that I already canceled my subscription after the terrible GOTY "content", so loosing access to premium will not be that much of bummer.
While I do think Abby has brought some enthusiasm to the table, Dan definitely was what basically saved the site after Ryan passed away. With things already being on a downward trajectory for quite some time (albeit with definite high points during that), I really do feel like this is something that will be impossible to recover from.
@s5n8k3: Oh yeah, from that perspective it's absolutely fair criticism. Japanese writers (at least in pop culture) tend to use/reference a lot of western philosophical/scientific ideas without really fully understanding their meaning (look at almost any VN and you'll see this in spades). I'm able to love them in many cases for their broken representations, but I can absolutely understand being frustrated by it when you're well studied/invested in these concepts.
@s5n8k3: Assuming you played in english, I think it's unfair to judge the writers of a game when you're not reading their actual writing. Game localizations in particular are often drastically different from the original, even (or, perhaps, especially) when they get the intention across.
I do agree with you overall on the quality of Disco's writing, even though the writers have pretty clear political leanings, they did an incredible job of fleshing out different ideologies the player can have as individual studies of those ideologies, rather than just making "good guy" options and "bad guy" options. The fact that there are far left people who love this game for its handling of politics, far right people who love this game for its handling of politics, far left people who hate this game for its handling of politics, and far right people who hate this game for its handling of politics, is extremely telling, and probably the only game I can think of that has had such a stark divide for political reasons amongst people with very similar political beliefs.
I think my main issue with this format is that it's not exclusive enough to give very in depth discussions on each game, but not exhaustive enough to give more niche games the shine they deserve. Especially with the "negative" categories removed, its frustrating to have 10 minutes talking about WWE 2K20 sucking while not talking at all about Pathologic 2, for example. Obviously with such a small team you can't cover every game (especially in depth), which is why (if this format were to continue), I feel it would be a lot better if everyone put in a shortlist of like, the top 20-30 games for them and just covering those games with more detailed discussion. I'd be sad not to have Dragon Quest Builders 2 discussed in such a format (assuming nobody would've submitted it), but I don't feel like 2 minutes about a game no one really cared about is worth diluting the discussion of games they do.
Abby's thoughts on Nancy Drew were very interesting. I'm a bit more sympathetic about it, as going from a prerendered FMV-style presentation to real time graphics is a big change (on the other hand, this did take like 4 years, so you could argue that they should've had enough time to adapt). I wouldn't say the look of the game is objectively worse per say, but moreso that the prerendered graphics of the previous games had a certain charm to them that wasn't seen in many modern games, whereas their real time graphics are just bad real time graphics. I'd liken it to the difference between Fallout 1/2's Clay model based Talking Heads to Fallout 3/NV/4's facegen-based heads. Even if the former doesn't have the fidelity a modern game has, they still hold up due to their unique look and animation, whereas 3/NV/4 just have an ugly version of the same shit you see in almost every modern game. Curious to see where the series goes from here. Also, talking about the accessibility stuff, the game seems fairly poorly optimized, which I imagine with the target audience could be a major roadblock. The prerendered approach makes it a lot more accessible for a little girl with a crummy laptop.
As a sidenote, Vinny and Alex chime in to say Crusader Kings doesn't have the same "community problem" as Mordhau, but it totally does, just like every other Paradox game. Which is too bad, because these games are amazing, but the reality of making a game with a focus on European history is that you'll attract attention from ultra-nationalists and the far-right in general. It's not the majority of the fanbase, and it's not the devs' fault, but it's still there.
I think a big differentiating factor is that with Mordhau you're talking about direct interaction in the game servers during normal gameplay, whereas Paradox games you're talking (primarily) about modding and forums, which are things you have to seek out. As an analogy, the issues they have with Mordhau would be like talking about Overwatch's chat and voice and reporting system, whereas Crusader Kings and such would be more like talking about Overwatch SFM porn.
Really sad DQ Builders 2 didn't get more love. Was pretty much the only game that came out this year (in English at least) that I really cared about (excluding DQXIS since that was an enhanced port).
Also MK11 isn't even the best fighting game to come out this year :/
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