Topic: Most Controversial NintendoLife review?

I don’t think the website responded well to the Mario movies 6/10

I think the funniest case was Sonic Frontiers because the NintendoLife website rated it 4/10 and then the NintendoLife YouTube channel put out a video extolling the virtues and saying it was an amazing game. Personally I didn't play the full game but the demo was one of the worst demos I've ever played; they only give you a few minutes to play so the only way you can see anything at all is to skip the cut scenes and background information and then you have zero context for anything and still almost no time to look around. The game may or not be good (apparently it is wildly controversial even amongst NintendoLife staff) , but truly awfully designed demo.

@FawfulsFury I think the Mario Movie review was off-base. Generally I tend to respect movie reviews least of any professional reviews because they are traditionally a weird combination of snobby but also giving a free-pass to certain specific types of movies (for example Disney). Comparatively, game reviews are much more about how enjoyable the game is rather than some archaic sense of what a good movie should mean according to graduate film courses. I feel like NintendoLife got a little bit pulled into the same trap that professional movie reviewers seem to revel in. Either that or I am over-thinking and they were just in the small minority of viewers who didn't like the I movie as much. Either way, great movie. I may be a gamer (sort of) but pretty much everyone I know in real life isn't but they and their children also really enjoyed the movie.

I'll throw in Gone Home. It's a pretty controversial game, largely because there's not much to it other than walking around and solving a few simple puzzles, with the main thing going for it being the story it tells in the process. You can also finish the game in under a couple of hours without even needing to rush, making it very short even by indie standards.

That said, the text of the review makes all this very clear, before rating it 9/10.

The main point I'm getting to in all this is that you shouldn't just go by the score.

When Nintendolife reviewed Go Vacation as a bad game, I really disagree.

They gave the second wave of MK8 booster course pack a 6/10 when it was arguably better than the first.
There's got to be more controversial ones though...

Untitled Goose Game didn't get a 10/10

@OwlHighway1Revisited
It's only 2 hours long, 8/10 is high enough

@sForzan I've played a bit of Yooka-Laylee and it's a 6-7 at best tbh.

@BingleyBongley it should have been 11!!!

Because it's a good game! Personally I think it deserves 7/10, but 8 is pretty close to 7.

I rated Pokemon Brilliant Diamond 9/10 but NintendoLife rated it 6/10. 😛 Can never get everyone to agree. Even reviewers are randomly biased by their personal preferences even though they try not to be.

@FishyS You know I honestly thought worse of that game, probably because of the negatively around it, thinking back, I really did enjoy that game! Not sure if I ever finished it though lol.

@FishyS
I kinda feel like Movie reviews are a bit of an odd thing. I think it's because movies are this very specific kind of media so reviews inevitably become very formulaic. Think about it, a movie is generally around 2 hours with some actors playing characters. There's pretty much always a plot where you setup some conflict, show that conflict and then have some kind of resolution. There's some bounds to it

While with games I mean, what boundaries are there? It could be a traditional story arc where the main enjoyment comes out of the story itself and the development of characters. But it could also be blocks coming from the top of the screen. It might be enjoyable for its difficulty or it could just be something you can zone out to. It could be all of these things, some of these things or none of these things

@skywake I get what you’re saying and I’d also add there are games like Minecraft or Animal Crossing with no “end” or maybe that’s more playing rather than gaming?

I think you’re a bit off with movies though. Mainstream stuff sure, but you’ve got short films and documentaries which even have their own Oscar categories (which get ignored as most folk just look at the best pictures nods so they can complain their favourite heavily branded cartoon/superhero film isn’t winning) as well as a ton of indie/arthouse films with no real narrative like A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence which won a few awards at the time.

I was surprised to see Bayonetta 3 get a 10 on here even though it’s by far the most poorly received entry in the series, at least among fans. I personally enjoyed my time with it but it does have plenty of flaws which go beyond just preference, particularly when it comes to the story and whackier gameplay sequences.

I still remember Crash Trilogy getting 7/10, and it immediately reminded me of a magazine I read that I need to add +2 to every score given to Nintendo title for it to make sense

Although there are many exceptions for specific games, on average I tend to think NintendoLife (and most professional game site reviewers) tend to score a little bit too high — 5 means average, 7 means good, 9 means excellent. There are plenty of games that are good without being one of the best most amazing games which was ever made.

Note that user scores, although a bit random because they include people scoring both way too high and way too low, tend to average lower than NintendoLife reviews and also lower than e.g. metacritic professional-reviews average.

That said, Crash trilogy is an exception to the rule where the user score is 7.8, higher than NintendoLife's score of 7. So their score may have been a bit low in this particular case.

As an aside, the gaming magazine I read as a kid had multiple reviewers and scores for the main games of the month, with a (I think) agreed score given overall.
Of course, some games are universally praised or buried, but it did give rise to some opposing views, which made for more considered reading. Of course that magazine was published with a monthly deadline, which is very different to the way reviews are conducted now

There was a period a couple of years ago where a number of games with heavy amounts of what is often referred to as 'fan service' were given negative reviews by Nintendo Life. The die-hard fans of this type of game would regularly appear in the comments criticising the reviewers for their 'prudish' / 'woke' / 'ignorant' (delete as appropriate) attitudes and how they were not qualified to review such titles. The staff would often respond saying that their low scores were based primarily on the gameplay rather than the 'fan service'. Thankfully this situation seems to have calmed down a bit recently.

@FishyS yeah, what I meant is that it was a very symbolical thing for NL as Crash was a direct competitor to Mario, and in certain instances the Bandicoot outperformed the Plumber. I'm not for/against Nintendo nor Sony, (maybe I prefer Nintendo now since Sony decided to kill off all of their best game franchises) but giving 7 to a trilogy of one of the best platformers of all times was downright ridiculous. It was the only time I felt cringed out by the NL score.

@TheRealKyleHyde now that's interesting, I haven't heard about that. What games was it about? Also, on a complete sidenote, Hotel Dusk is an absolute masterpiece of a game, easily one of the best storytelling games of all time

@Princess_Lilly If I remember correctly, it was things like the more recent Senran Kagura games and various visual novels. And yes, Hotel Dusk is brilliant!