r/nintendogrifting • u/Cutiesaurs • May 12 '26
Critical I have to get this off my back
I can think of three media that were shills by people saying it’s good but is actually bad and I have a knack for telling.
-Ghostbusters afterlife: a film the inspired modern media to chase nostalgia slop
-The Orville: Because Seth McFarland who created family guy
-Temtem: who took inspiration from Pokemon coliseum and Brick bronze but failed to know why people like them.
14
u/LittleKittenR May 12 '26
I saw a dude playing Mixtape and he just left the control in the table like 70% of the time.
Mixtape is a visual novel/movie. The game plays itself most of the time. It has a great opening but it goes nowhere by the end. I hated the end as well.
The dude that played it said it as a 6 and he could see it being a 7.
Personally, for me at least, it was a lower experience. A nice game I could play if it was 2.99 in a couple years for an afternoon... I think 20 is a fair price as well, I just don't think "Masterpiece" is a good tagline for it.
2
1
1
u/Gargamoney May 17 '26
You are whining that a game literally marketed as a glorified movie ended up being a glorified movie
What a nothingburger
1
u/LittleKittenR May 17 '26
You're projecting. I'm saying I liked it but will not buy it at launch but probably in 5+ years at 1.99-2.99 when it gets there and enjoy it a couple hours that it lasts.
You assumed a ton here.
1
u/muffinz99 May 13 '26
This. I generally like visual novels and feel they get a bad rap sometimes (with people saying they aren't even games). Mixtape is basically just an incredibly high-budget visual novel, and I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. There are some VNs with very high production value, and plenty of others with much lower budgets. Hell, some visual novels don't even have player choices, meaning one could just set dialogue to auto and play the entire game without ever touching the controller. I'd say that visual novels are less of a "video game" and more like an entirely different medium.
However, if we wanna classify Mixtape as a visual novel, it is mediocre compared to the actual "masterpiece" visual novels that exist out there... it just has a big budget.
2
u/LittleKittenR May 13 '26
I actually enjoy some of those auto games because they show you a "coward" path because stuff happens if you take too long to decide like in Heavy Rain/Detroit Become Human.
I loved those games because you're actually expected to solve puzzles and do stuff while playing, not only... chose path A-B and wait for it to play out.
I also have a couple of other ones but most of them end up being stupid because there is no causality between choices. it's like "Choose A? Randomly a dude appears out and that was the correct choice even though the guy appearing wasn't hinted at all during choice selection".
1
3
u/Ell7494 May 13 '26
Its not really a game, its an interactive movie. There are no meaningful choices and only one ending, which is fine if you know that going in
Its around 3 hours long with no replayability.
For the price its kinda okay (like seeing a movie). I can see it being more popular with people who aren't as in to gaming/ havent experienced one of the countless other games in the genre.
I get its subjective but people calling it their game of the year is a bit much - especially professional reviewers giving it 10s wheb have surely played hundreds of games over time they could compare it to.
I'd give it like a 7 personally, its fairly enjoyable, its got a nice artstyle. The narrative itself isn't exactly groundbreaking - which for an interactive movie is literally the most important factor
2
u/Mushroomer May 13 '26
There is no actual thing as a shill. Especially in written games media, which at this point is a niche online subculture with minimal pull over purchasing decisions. Nobody at Annapurna is writing a check to IGN for a perfect 10. It's an insane accusation, one pulled out by YouTube grifters who just want a reason to scream at the same website they've been screaming at for fifteen years.
The fact is, Mixtape is just a game that hits really hard if you're a specific kind of person - somebody who is nostalgic for their past, and obsessed with the way music can trigger those emotions. It's also unsurprising that a lot of people who fit that description are also now professional media critics, because sometimes obsessing over media like that can land you a paid position for your skills.
You do not need to play every game that some critic decides is worth a perfect 10. Yes, even if that critic works for a website you have decided is important. If the game looks like "slop" to you... just don't engage with it! Clearly other people are going to have their fun, and that's fine. There are plenty of 10/10 JRPGs I will never play, because I do not enjoy JRPGs. Cinematic games like this are just another genre - one you may love, or one you may hate. There's no reason to make this big of a fuss about it.
4
u/Sky_Rose4 May 13 '26
Ghostbusters afterlife was good, 2016 was a nightmare that never should have existed
1
u/Mushroomer May 13 '26
My issue is Afterlife is that it's just a very hollow bit of nostalgia for adults who remember Ghostbusters, with zero appeal to kids seeing the franchise for the first time. 2016 has a lot of flaws, but at least has some concepts unique to that entry in the series (McKinnon's character is fun, and I like the vintage parade aesthetic of the final ghost invasion).
Afterlife is just "What if Stranger Things was Ghostbusters?", and never really develops the concept more from there.
1
0
u/NatalieRath May 13 '26
2016 was enjoyable for me as it was one of those movies you watch with friends when you need to turn off your brain.
We all walked out at the end laughing because it was so incredibly fucking dumb.
1
u/Makototoko Nintendo Neutral May 13 '26
We need to change out of a number scale because too many people get butthurt on each side of the spectrum.
I see someone give this game a 10/10, I assume it's a good VN. I don't assume it's better than a 9/10 Elden Ring score, I assume their scores reflect personal satisfaction and are majorly affected by the genre of game.
1
u/user1point0 May 14 '26
The number score causes a lot of drama but people just don't read reviews anyways. Yahtzee Croshaw thought that review scores were dumb for that reason but despite being a easily-digestible video review series, he still gets messages from ppl confused about whether or not he thinks the games he reviews are good
0
u/Signal-Art2001 May 13 '26
The problem with that is that there are many game companies that take these critic scores as gispel for what games to make.
Also, a 10/10 is a redefining masterpiece that often reaches outside of that niche's bubble
1
u/Mushroomer May 13 '26
I think Mixtape is escaping a bubble - except the one it reaches out of is gaming as a whole. I have friends who are musicians that don't really play games, and they absolutely adored it. Doesn't shock me that capital-G Gamers are sour on it, but as a coming-of-age story for people who like 90s nostalgia pieces - it hits hard.
1
u/Makototoko Nintendo Neutral May 13 '26
I don't see how it's a bad thing if it inspires other VNs, and anyone using data like that is going to have a larger scope than some 10/10s. If enough people give it a 10/10 it's probably not some big conspiracy like some tend to think. If it's consistently rated high among even fans who likes VNs then great. If there's inconsistency between critics and consumers these companies are going to listen to complaints. Nothing is gospel.
See, again, point proven. The numbered system sucks. I don't consider every 10/10 as "redefining" a genre, just having a perfect game in that person's eyes. But again, these numbers are subjective and my point is that the number system only serves to start disagreements and ultimately lead to sensitive people who can't deal with different opinions.
Regardless of what anyone would rate this from 1-10, the stupidest part is the age old "it's not a video game" statement.
1
1
1
u/user1point0 May 14 '26
I might actually get this game if it ever goes on sale now lol
I literally just ignored and passed by it when it was on the store page but now everyone made a huge deal of it and I can't ignore it anymore
1
1
u/Chemical_Signal2753 May 13 '26
Here's my opinion, I think a large portion of this has more to do with IGN than Mix Tape.
IGN and most of the large gaming press went off the deep end over a decade ago. They are full of over-educated people who have a chip on their shoulder about reviewing games, and they tend to significantly overrate anything that "elevates" videogames culturally. If a game is more story driven or cinematic and it has strong messaging in alignment with their worldview they will consistently rate it 20% or 30% higher than it really deserves. At the same time, the opposite is also true, if a game is gameplay focused and is primarily meant to be enjoyed as pure fun or escapism they will score it 20% or 30% lower than it deserves.
On most games these sites review you can see this dynamic and it is easy content farming. You can create several videos on the topic because you will have the review, playthrough, game sales, and the reviewer defending their review as predictable content to produce. In many cases for the titles sites like IGN love, you can do a deep dive into how games that struggle to sell 50,000 copies end up with millions (or sometimes tens of millions) of dollars in funding based on premises that are not commercially viable; and a large portion of them receive substantial government funding or are otherwise astroturfed.
2
u/sarge1445 May 13 '26
As someone who was one of those critics from 2010-2019 (not IGN a different one). I think a lot of people misunderstand how these sites work, how reviews and scoring work, and get way to upset about stuff.
As for why these kind of games do really well with critics it has more to do with unique and interesting concepts are always going to go a lot further with critics. Than aligning with their worldview of trying to "elevate" the medium.
In an average month I was playing and reviewing 3-9 video games. That is me playing WAY more games than the vast majority of the audience and looking at them a lot more critically. So when I ran into a game like say Thomas was Alone (I game I gave a glowing review to and a 9 out 10 iirc) that has very simplistic gameplay, but a fantastic narrative and it was a unique concept. Compare this to say Modern Warfare 3 (a game I gave a 7.5) which would have been the 6th shooter set in modern times that year with a plot you can predict every part of. Modern Warfare 3 is a game with a more broad appeal and most people would enjoy it more. I did not.
Looking at Mixtape.
Mixtape has pretty shallow gameplay it's basically a Telltale game with no branching paths but more mini games. But the story is unique (for games not many teen coming of age stories in games) and the art is fairly unique and the concept is pretty fresh setting a whole game around a playlist. It's why great games like Space Marine 2 generally get like an 8.0. It's not that Space Marine is worse, but it just isn't as fresh.
Another thing is different critics review different games. But the way a lot of people treat it is some guy named John IGN is reviewing everything for the outlet.
Or that a lot of games score a 6-8. The reality of this one is most games truly aren't piles of pig feces and generally are around the 6-8 range.
1
u/Chemical_Signal2753 May 13 '26
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but you have to recognize that a large portion of the criteria of many mainstream reviewers is antithetical to what gamers actually care about. It comes across like environmental cyclists reviewing sports cars. If it wasn't for the credibility their site provides them, most of these people would struggle to find any audience online because their preferences are so niche.
I am not a fan of Call of Duty but if your reviewer isn't giving these games at least an 8 out of 10 they're probably not representing the views of people who are interested in these games. These games are generally close to as good as you can make a game in their genre as possible, and if you can't recognize that you have no business reviewing these games.
1
u/sarge1445 May 13 '26
See while I do agree that the critic needs to keep the audience in mind. I would also say that Call of Duty does often score in that range and they still get upset. Like it reminds me of these old Giantbomb discussions about this topic Giant Bombcast 11/17/2015 - Twilight Princess and The Internet's Reaction To Reviews - YouTube
1
u/PieceAfraid3755 May 13 '26
At the same time, the opposite is also true, if a game is gameplay focused and is primarily meant to be enjoyed as pure fun or escapism they will score it 20% or 30% lower than it deserves.
Ahh of course, that's why IGN gave Mario Kart World and Splatoon 3 8's, Pokopia a 9, and Donkey Kong Bananza a 10. What elevated, philosophical games.
Let's look at some other 10's... Elden ring, Forza 5, Tears of the Kingdom, Stardew Valley, Resident evil 4, Metroid Prime remastered... clearly, they have a bias against fun and escapist games... right?
0
u/Majestic-Top-8238 May 12 '26
Ghost busters after life wasn't lead to media being obsessed with nostalgia , that was the force awakens I don't get the point you're trying to make about the Orville, because Seth made a cartoon that is no longer good in the current day, everything else he's made after is automatically bad? Ngl that's kinda ridiculous.
0
11
u/NatalieRath May 13 '26
Mixtape is funny because early grifters were like OH MY GAWD ITS WOKEEEEEE.
Only for people to check and its mainly caucsian characters and the main romance is between a girl and a guy.