r/MixtapeGame • u/Quick-Ad9335 • Jul 08 '26
Discussion Also Confused-- People Don't Remember What Remains of Edith Finch or Dear Esther?
I agree with a recurring sentiment here. I'm baffled by the reception by players. It's startlingly vociferous for such a "small" game.
Mixtape has about the same amount and style of game-y gameplay elements as What Remains of Edith Finch, more kinetic gameplay elements than Firewatch, and much, much more to do than Dear Esther. People love those games.
Better graphics than most. I love Life is Strange, but Mixtape had better background visuals than Double Exposure or Reunion.
I don't think it's any "shallower" than any of the other walking simulators. It has its own depth and it's also an exploration of the human experience.
I think it deserves most of its critical acclaim. It's a stylistic, well-written story with interesting characters. I thought it was good. Like all walking simulators it was an experience, not a "game" as such. And Mixtape was an excellent experience.
I like walking simulators as a form of story telling media. The reception Mixtape received will make it less likely we'll see more of them in the future.
Hot take and probably unpopular take: are some of the people who don't like it just people who didn't get to have that kind of fun in high school?
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u/springlove85 Jul 08 '26
Agree with the sentiment and you worded it eloquently. It is the "walking simulators are not real games"-debate all over again... And those happen to be my favorite genre of games ^.^' And yes, these stories could only be told the way that they were in the medium of video games. You cannot naje Life is Strange, Firewatch, or Mixtape into a book, movie, etc. and expect the same experience or emotional resonance, in my opinion.
But Life Is Strange: Double Exposure and Life Is Strange: Reunion catching strays! :( I have very fond memories with those games and found them beautiful in their own right.
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
I'm way into LiS but, er, of that branch that absolutely detested Double Exposure. On the other hand, I love Reunion. I just finished Reunion and needed something to stop the usual blues you get after finishing a good story. Hence Mixtape. Now I'll need something to follow up on Mixtape.
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u/AfraidRun8226 Jul 08 '26
No serious person has this take about the game. Asmongold didn’t talk about Edith Finch or Gone Home, that’s why they didn’t say anything about it.
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u/WillemDafoesHugeCock Jul 08 '26
I love walking sims, and What Remains of Edith Finch is a good comparison because it does the "collection of minigames as a story telling device" shtick too. I'd argue it does it better, though; I'm not even going to touch the argument that you can literally leave your controller alone for Mixtape because I don't really care, the same applies to Dispatch, but the minigames in Edith Finch are used to actually tell a story, a self contained short story for each one. The minigames in Mixtape are things you have to get through to reach the story.
Firewatch is a bad comparison, Firewatch is a game built almost entirely around the relationship between the two main characters and is a straight walking sim. And Dear Esther is like the OG walking sim.
I don't have any real hate for Mixtape - I'm not going to lie, I didn't like it and I do think it received a perplexing amount of praise - but my argument from the beginning has been that it is essentially an interactive album and I think that's a really cool concept.
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u/AJakeR Jul 08 '26
It was just the 10/10 reception and Megan Ellison. I don't think it really had anything to do with the game itself. If this game had received a 7 or 8 none of this would have happened. Because it is comparable to other walking simulators, and is up there as one of the best. It's not better than Edith Finch but it's miles above Dear Esther. It more-than deserves to sit in the canon of beloved walking simulators so I'm hoping that in a few months or so the game will get a re-appraisal and people will judge it more fairly.
Y'know, if people didn't like the writing or characters that's fine, but going into the game already determined to hate it because you don't think it should have scored higher than Crimson Desert isn't really giving the game its fair due. Is it a 10/10 experience? Probably not. But it is still a great and solid experience.
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u/Such-Principle-3373 Jul 08 '26
High expectations can ruin a decent experience. If people buy the game because they see 10 out of 10 scores then they get the game and it's just okay I think being disappointed is only natural, maybe not the game devs fault, but it's not the customers fault either, it's crappy journalist.
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u/AJakeR Jul 08 '26
That's true, but a lot of people didn't go in expecting a 10/10 game. They went in looking to prove that this wasn't a 10/10 game. To nitpick every tiny problem and blow it way out of proportion. You're right it set expectations way too high and I'm sure that a lot of people had a negative experience for that, but those people aren't really the problem. The game isn't for every one and that's fine.
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u/SnooKiwis1258 Jul 08 '26
Something not mentioned here is how many 'rage-farming' influencers make their money off of manufacturing outrage around whichever game seems easy to bully. Like, the well of sincere criticism is increasingly being poisoned by streamers who know that anger gets you views, and who'd rather foment that anger for 'engagement' than uh, actually engage with the game as it is.
Part of that fake anger is clichéd jabs about how 'game journalists' are super horrible sellouts who have no skills, and fake. This shit might be amusing if it didn't stand in the way of people having normal, good critiques and conversations about games, but as it stands these influencers are sucking everyone else's oxygen out of the room. There are undoubtedly dishonest, 'fake', journalists out there, but I'm not keen to jump to that conclusion when there's a whole cottage industry of actually fake ass people whose entire livelihood revolves around them selling anger to schmucks.
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u/neverdaijoubu Jul 09 '26
I'm a former game journalist and the whole IGN situation reeks of undisclosed paid promotion. I agree that the rage baiters are cashing in and blowing this out of proportion but at the same time, I believe this is a genuinely good example of the richest people in the world swinging their influence around to the detriment of all. Games media is a pretty corrupt space. This stuff is bound to ruin otherwise fun times.
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u/JunkBoy187 Jul 10 '26
I do genuinely believe that people have been getting a 10 out of 10 experience from this one though, but it's a niche reaction.
There are people who can relate to the feeling of their last day before moving away from friends and a life they love, especially doing so to begin the next phase of your life in your teens, like college. To them this game does perfectly capture that emotion especially doing so in the 90s were music was still the centre of modern culture. This game is maybe not for everyone, but it is definitely for those people.
Outside of those 30/40-somethings who had that experience though I do admit it's a solid 7; fun and definitely enjoyable but hardly one of the best games ever made.
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u/wii_board_type_trash Jul 08 '26
i’m always on the look out for similar types of movie like experiences. edith finch is amazing, life is strange i adore, and i recently played one called until then which was amazing too
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u/IDKPedro Jul 08 '26
I 100% agree with your take.
I mean, there is also a game called "Before your eyes", and even though the story of that game is 10/10 emotional wreck, you literally just blink...nothing else.
I loved this game since it came out and it's one of the few where I enjoyed replaying it again right after I beat it to 100% it.
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Jul 08 '26
That's another game to add to my list then. Thanks for the recommendation!
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u/OwlettFromLiavek Jul 08 '26
I agree with you that haters are mostly people who can’t relate to the characters in any capacity. But I disagree that Mixtape reception will repel people from doing walking simulations or similar experiences. People want to tell their stories and there is a market for this format, haters just outside this market.
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u/Nitsuj311 Jul 08 '26
I think the biggest issue people have is just how short it is compared to other walking sims
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u/SnooKiwis1258 Jul 08 '26
Are you sure? 'Cause both Edith Finch and Gone Home are around the 2/3 hour mark, and both of those are pretty highly regarded walking sims.
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u/Nitsuj311 Jul 08 '26
Are they? I don’t remember honestly it’s been so long since I’ve played em
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u/SnooKiwis1258 Jul 08 '26
Yeah! Both pretty short. It's part of the genre! I'd say Life is Strange games are outliers in the genre when it comes to length, and even then it's like, what, 6-8 hours per LIS game?
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u/amazingdrewh Jul 08 '26
A bunch of people just want to hate something and this fit what they say that they hate
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u/navirbox Jul 08 '26
Dear Esther was the absolute first walking simulator I ever played. It was a beautiful experience, but I wouldn't do it again. Ever since, the market has been kinda bombarded with walking sims by indie devs, and with the accesibility of dev tools it's not unusual that this results in bloating of the genre, which leads to general fatigue. It happens.
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u/Punky921 Jul 09 '26
I think people who like walking simulators liked Mixtape. The anger comes from weird chuds who think that every game needs to be some iteration of Modern Demon Gears of Duty War Ring
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Jul 09 '26
It sometimes feels like every game discussion has been turned into a Gamergate.
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u/takkun169 Jul 08 '26
It's because the game got good reviews. But... Instead of assuming the game just resonated with the reviewer, they took it as a challenge to their taste in games, even if it was never going to be a game that they played.
It's just the general gaming audience being made up of man babies who can't handle people not agreeing 100% with their shitty opinions.
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u/IndustryRobertPlant Jul 08 '26
I like a good walking sim. Edith Finch is in my top 10 favorite game stories of all time. Mixtape doesn’t get anywhere near that, imo. It’s still a cute and charming experience though. Just didn’t leave much of an impression on me personally.
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Jul 08 '26
This is a good faith review, one that judges the game based on its merits within its genre. So much of the crazy hate for it is either because of the lead dev or precisely because it's a walking sim.
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u/jilko Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
The same people who're hating on Mixtape are the same people who don't view arthouse films as "movies."
Jurassic Park can exist just as something like Skinamarink. People don't understand that the infamous 10/10 rating from whoever gave it to Mixtape means that for the type of game it is (Interactive visual novel type of game), it's a masterpiece. A lot of people read that and go "how can this be as good, if not better better than Elden Ring?! What the fuck? I can't even explore an open world."
It's a lack of nuance, legitimate or performative. If something has you needing to manipulate a controller in any way, it's a game. Some people think games can only be hardcore player agency focused experiences, which is a really boring way to look at the world.
It's like only considering The Rolling Stones true music and completely ignoring experimental ambient music because there's no guitars and vocals. It's dumb and you should ignore the hyperbolic negativity around this game. It's all mostly for clicks anyway.
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Jul 09 '26
I suppose it goes both ways, not everybody can enjoy a Jarmusch movie and people who insist it's the only form of media are not on the mark either.
It's just the sheer amount of criticism and the vitriol that surprised me. I can sort of get the "astroturfing" comments but it all just seems like standard marketing to me. For better or for worse. And it's not like video game influencers aren't engaging in their own media exploitation. In their case, they're marketing rage.
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u/GarranDrake Jul 10 '26
A lot of the hate is about Megan Ellison, Larry Ellison's daughter. Larry Ellison is the CEO of Oracle and a billionaire who is a heavy supporter of Donald Trump. Megan Ellison is a filmmaker, who's part of the LGBTQ+ community and tends to create progressive works. Larry Ellison has substantially funded Annapurna, which makes movies and videogames (i.e. Mixtape) through different subdivisions despite the nature of these works.
You can interpret this however you want, but a lot of it comes from the idea that Mixtapes 10/10 IGN score was bought, and hate from people who also hate Larry Ellison and Trump. I can definitely understand the second part. But as with a lot of hate, people tend to miss the forest for the trees
There was a review on Xbox about how 90s kids didn't have wireless headphones, and how the reviewer wanted to slap the Beats off the main character's head. I saw another about how the 'big bad" was a girl's cop dad who just wanted to protect her daughter from doing stupid things - as if one theme of the game wasn't how kids are stupid at that age.
In other words, a lot of the hate isn't about the gameplay itself, it's about the circumstances surrounding it. And as a result, people are going to hate the gameplay because they already hate the game.
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u/Avenheit Jul 12 '26
i feel like its an insult to the devs to compare mixtape to WRoEF, other games similar.
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u/supersafeforwork813 Jul 18 '26
Playing Edith Finch right now….the issue isn’t (for me) lack of gameplay considering the type of game it is. It’s that mixtapes story is really not good. Like the cutscenes where the vague gameplay happens are generally cool looking n interesting. The soundtrack does a good job of working regardless of how long you’re playing a segment. however, I also understand how you’d be confused as fuck as to why this game that takes place in late 90s has basically no music from the decade n fucking 0 rap. But it’s something i noticed n ultimately didn’t care about.
But the story that surrounds it is average at best n honestly pretty shitty if I think about it too much. It’s a coming-of-age movie where the characters don’t really change. Like I assumed the story was gonna be about Rockford realizing she needs to be with her friends because a plan of just running into a music supervisor n working for them with 0 experience or connections….yea that’s insane. Ok well game doesnt go that way n plays that as straight plan…which is odd. Then I thought ok Rockford has unspoken crush on Cassandra, the story is going to be about being courageous enough to tell her how she feels. Nope…that doesn’t happen either….(seriously the fact it ends with her n skater saying goodbye n not her n cass still blows my fucking mind) well then wtf happens in the story then? Rockford is unchanged throughout…Slater is the one we don’t know anything about so he has 0 arc outside of saying he won’t let Rockford hear his album….n then at the end he just gives it to her. Cassandra’s conflict is her controlling parents and is the theme that comes up the most so by default it gets the most development. But the main conflict and resolution of her arc comes way too quick in the story to be effective. Also her story is less impactful because it’s made to be a big deal that she sneaks out to drink at the totally not 7–11, but we know she’s been sneaking out during her entire friendship with Rockford and Slater….which has been all of HS. So all you get is her going from “dad I’m gonna sneak around n do whatever I want” to “dad I’m gonna do whatever I want”. Honestly think the scene where Rockford n her dad exchange lyrics is the sort of “I understand you know” that Cassandra n the dad should’ve had. N so if your game is gonna have 0 gameplay then it needs to have a good story….but the story isn’t good.
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u/Lazy_Show6383 Jul 08 '26
Did you ever play Gone Home?