silversaint

This. Its the only thing I can think of that just was a "omg" moment.

I feel game length is highly relevant when thinking of costs. In an ideal world where all games are free quality > quantity, but when you have a game like say RE3 thats of decent quality, but only like 6 hrs long for a playthrough, its hard to justify $60, but if the game were $10 its pretty justifiable.

Overall I think when paying for a game at full price its hard to justify shorter games, no matter their quality.

For me a 10/10 game has to suck me in and it needs have no obvious large flaws. Generally speaking it needs to have excellent, expansive, thought out lore, though this isn't necessarily a requirement. A game such as A Link to the Past has minimal text to establish lore, but the world design changing back and forth, is a form of thought out lore within itself as you are seeing the differences between two events through the world. A game such as Dark Souls has tons of both text and world lore, every zone makes you wonder.

I also think a 10/10 needs some appeal to a large audience, in that it needs to be recommendable without specific caveats. As an example take Battletech, while in my top 20 of all time, Battletech wouldn't be a 10/10 because the audience is fairly specific as its a hardcore strategy-centric game. Fire Emblem Three Houses is also a strategy game like Battletech, but I would say is a 10/10 and has broad appeal thanks to its cast of characters and lack of hardcore requirements. FE3H is something I would recommend to anyone with a Switch unlike the previous Fire Emblem games.

Minimal flaws and multidimensional appeal are key to a 10/10.

@csl316: While there are def people where those are negatives (obv you as an example) as a whole the vast vast majority of reviewers find Long Games and Open World (which are inherently long games) as negatives. Whereas I would say its much the opposite for consumers or at the very least the vast majority of consumers are positive and/or ambivalent vs the purely negative connotations from reviewers.

This reminds me of Days Gone reviews, but since the game wasn't just openly shit on for months before release less reviewers were willing to give it a super low 5 or 6. Meanwhile once consumers play it they will probably enjoy the game considerably more then reviewers since the game being long and open world aren't inherent negatives for consumers unlike reviewers.

I think its at least worth starting. The thing is, as bad as the game was on launch, its still a triple A open world sci-fi RPG which is itself a rarity. Yeah the game has issues, but its not like the market is flooded with all these open world sci-fi fantasy RPGs.

There is definitely a lot of violence, but in a world with games like Resident Evil, Dead Space, Outlast, Dishonored, Prey, need I go on?, I don't think its a real consideration. This even ignores that the vast vast majority of video games are predicated purely on violence and killing, but society ignores the mass killing in most games as violence. Like Halo is a super violent game, but because there is minimal blood most don't even consider.

I do think its a pretty big cop out when I saw reviews discuss, "Is this game too violent" when the vast vast majority of other games (many of which are even more violent) aren't discussed in such a manner.

Nioh 2 for sure.... if only it wasn't omitted from this list. P5 Royal close 2nd, but its basically P5.

@onemanarmyy: It makes sense to just call it the Souls Style or Souls Games since in every game involving collecting stuff that you lose on death you refer to the resource as Souls.

Bloodborne > Nioh 2 > Dark Souls 3 > Dark Souls 1 > Sekiro > Nioh 1> Demon Souls > Dark Souls 2 > Surge 2 > rest.

Sekiro is quite good, but the lack of diversity (1 weapon, 1 build) hurts replay value and also the general player options. If you generally use weapons of Sekiros style its like they designed a game for you with no replay value, if not its a bit frustrating.

Bloodborne has the best aesthetic and world of any of these games, while also having some sort of variety and options (Realistically just Physical or Dex, Magic and Blood aren't really a primary). Its playstyle both involves and encourages no shields, which is one of the best / most effective styles in the Soulsborne games.

Dark Souls 3 is just the pinnacle of the series in combat, its incredibly fluid compared to the older series with some pretty brutal bosses, easily the hardest of the 3 mainline games. The world is worse to explore then say Dark Souls 1, but the combat improvements really push it a notch above.

Nioh 2 is like a combination of Dark Souls and Sekiro. You have the speed of Sekiro, while having the variety of Dark Souls with a large number of highly differing builds. The weapons are so much more indepth then a Dark Souls that the build variety is pretty unparalleled. The random loot allows for a large post-game and changes the minute details of how you handle each region. Its just a better Nioh 1 in every way, which has the best endgame of any of these games thanks to its Loot and Abyss systems.

Surge 2 has the best weapon designs of any Soulsborne game and maybe any game ever, the world is pretty small, repetitive, and the bosses are quite lacking though.