JohnQuixote

@Gwynbleidd Being able to download before release is overwhelmingly the most important reason that I pre-order. Australian internet is often patchy, slow and unreliable. Without a pre-download that day 1 release I've been looking forward to becomes a day 2 play. Not the end of the world, but unnecessarily inconvenient.

@MrBlacky Pre-ordering works for me, but I realise it may not for everyone. My rationale is:
1. I've often sat down to purchase and play a game I've been looking forward to, only to discover the download time is 4-6 hours. I like the pre-download option which allows me to play that day one release whenever my schedule allows.
2. I almost always know in advance which AAA games I'm going to buy, so pre-purchasing doesn't really make any difference to the product I end up with.
3. I'm not a fancy-pants investment type, and paying for the product a few days in advance makes no difference to my overall finances - I wouldn't be able to turn that $79.95 into more $$$ anyway.
4. I don't return or refund games. Ever. I do research games before purchase, but if dislike the title I just take it on the chin.

@Dezzy This halfwit does.

The "estimated street value" sounds wildly inflated.

Enjoy your posterior cervical intervertebral disc herniations, users!

I’m not usually a frame rate tracker but the repeated motion stuttering did detract quite a bit from my experience of the game while playing in docked mode. In handheld the situation was much improved, and I think this is the best way to play the game. I’d be interested to know whether those who didn’t notice/weren’t bothered by performance issues were playing exclusively in handheld. It’s hard to believe people didn’t notice it in docked, it’s quite bad.

You guys should occasionally do your own interviews rather than just re-writing other people's work. "Cheap success" indeed.

@Joker13z

NL comment section's been getting pretty hot recently.

Having never heard of this game before my plan was to avoid it simply on the basis of a generic sounding name and the fact it was a sequel. Seems I may have been hasty.

I will buy this and play it. Wonder how many hours of adventure mode play.

@NEStalgia I agree with your objection. Terrible people are everywhere - they might build monuments, become political leaders or discover diseases. We should call these people out and hold them accountable. What we shouldn't do is retrospectively erase their work. There's nothing wrong with saying: "Hey, you know that guy who voiced Byleth? Apparently was a terrible person", or "Hey, nice car. Did you know Henry Ford was a raging anti-Semite?", or "I see you're born in July. Julius Caesar was a brutal dictator, wasn't he?". We should keep the work and learn from it. The only caveat I could accept here was if the planned FE3H DLC required more voice acting and mixing the voice-work within game was undesirable.

I've tried to enjoy Platinum hack-and-slash games numerous times before on both the Switch and WiiU, but I think the genre just isn't for me. Incidentally I do find it mildly amusing that questioning the integrity of a publication which so regularly releases obvious click-bait is generating so much controversy. Lots of articles on this site present fast-food journalism, even though this particular review appears well-considered. People questioning the integrity of the publication is a predictable result of these standards.

Three Houses. Great game, but all the decisions-with-consequences are generating mild anxiety in my completionist soul.

This idea of retrospective erasure of a person's work just because we might not like them is interesting. It's like a modern-day equivalent of the ancient Roman damnatio memoriae. He has done the work and presumably did it well, they should just keep it and if they don't like the individual maybe don't hire him again. The other apparent learning point from this is that you should never admit to any personal failure or make an apology to anyone, particularly on the internet.

Nuts. I bought Trine 1 and 2 just last week.

“Four key vectors”. Nice “surfacing”, I really love it when suits allow quantifiable fun in an easterly direction. Please also tell me about your company’s “DNA” and other nonsensical weasel words.

@60frames-please You remain impressively true to your namesake.

In the scientific community to be included on a publication individuals are required to contribute to all components of the study: planning, data collection, interpretation, writing and revision. If you don't stick around for the whole thing you don't meet author's criteria. The aim is to prevent people who have contributed very little work to demand equal acknowledgement, and also to prevent political or quid pro quo inclusions.

Requiring people to be present for the entire body of work prevents the summer vacation kid from getting an equal acknowledgement to those who've spent years of their lives working on something. Clearly that's not what happened in this situation, but it makes sense to have a policy/requirement in place such as what XSEED has.

It may also help with staff retention during a project, and I imagine a mass exodus during a difficult or stressful project might have long-term implications for a company.

Also, what happens if a game doesn't pan out but some assets are used a decade down the track for a new game - do they need to credit everyone who used to work for them on a project that didn't work out?

One way to get around this might be to have a general "acknowledgement" section at the end of the credits, without specific roles, so they can throw in the names of everyone who helped out but didn't meet criteria for the full credit.

BTW I'm a big advocate for unionisation, but I hear there are bigger and more systemic problems in the game design industry (payment, work hours) than a particular former employee feeling unappreciated. Despite what people may think she can still put this work on her CV. You can put whatever you want on your CV.

@Crono1973 "I am sure there are things that people say that make you roll your eyes too."

For my part there are several turns of phrase and written mechanics that I find mildly grating. Examples used by you in the past few months include "it's all good", "if I remember correctly", the regular need to add "/s" to obviously sarcastic comments and the anti-(insert grievance) defence force cliche.

The difference I suppose is that I'm not obnoxious enough to presume to inform others how they should express themselves, especially when the comment in question is widely used in the english lexicon, grammatically correct and written in an informal internet post rather than a PhD thesis.

The major frustration for me when playing this game was my dodgy pro controller D pad, which regularly mistook a clear diagonal input for a horizontal or vertical one. I'm not sure if my particular controller is buggy or if others experienced the same problem, but it really detracted from my enjoyment of the game. I switched to the thumbstick, but I don't think it's the best way to play this kind of game.

What about poor Bowser?

Lovely game. I was thinking about it just recently as I played through the new Steam World - lots of similarities between the two. More pathos in Child of Light, plus you can fly around as a cute little red-head girl barely able to lift her sword. For a while.

@PhilKenSebben Although it’s not important, are you sure that’s not an American thing? A very lazy internet search informs me that the phrase "stop the press" has been used over the past couple of hundred years by notable scholars such as Isaac D'Israeli and Thomas Hearne. And if you're not interested in notable intellectuals I instead refer you to the Joker meets Vicki Vale in the 1989 classic Batman.
Although I now wonder whether your comment might be an exceptionally clever ruse - tempting me to embark upon a trite grammatical debate even while I attempt to point out the banality of the article I originally commented on. If so, I'm very impressed. And, apparently, triggered. 😛

@PhilKenSebben Huh?

Stop. The. Press.

Helix earring, over-ear red headphones, superfluous leather jacket zips. I get it, he's a cool dude.

My 2019 list of games to play is spiralling out of control and now contains 21 items, including several (presumably) massive RPGs. Advanced apologies to my wife, career and cat.

@antonio2244 I second your polite request for more DKC.

@maruse From the man himself: "...a medieval setting? How is that possible? Even the robots know there were no robots in those times. But we’ve got it worked out."

Complaining about the "price of cardboard" is tantamount to suggesting digital games should be essentially free due to the negligible distribution costs. Human beings only have a few dollars worth of salts and minerals in them - clearly it's about how things are put together. I also wonder whether people claiming the product is fragile have actually used it, or whether they just have rampaging kids/pets tearing everything apart. It's actually very sturdy and well designed. I had a lot of fun making my Labo set, and some short-term fun playing the software (particularly the fishing game). If they improved the software experience I'd be keen for more.

I'm shocked. Just imagine the type of person who would write something on the Internet with the purposeful intent to mislead others, Liam.

@JaxonH Interesting, thanks.

@JaxonH Can you explain that graph to me? Is it suggesting the review scores follow a random distribution?

I remember being told once that in statistics the only thing worse than one pie chart, is two pie charts 😉

I bought Dead Cells yesterday. I'm not usually into retro style games, but couldn't ignore the acclaim.

Digital code in physical boxes would work for me. I prefer digital, but would rather buy new releases from outlets such as Target - they are usually cheaper than e-shop purchases. The only thing preventing me from buying in-store now is that I don't want the game cards.

Not sure how valuing a recreational product at a price which people are willing to pay is a "scam" or "gouging" - it's not like they're selling life-saving drugs or clean water. In any event this is a pretty good game. I completed it when it first came out, but now that I have a family might purchase this version for the multiplayer aspect. Also I've not played Super Luigi U, which I've heard is great.

Everyone knows that the sexiest character in XC2 is the tight leathered, bare chested swarthy pirate-looking Prince Zeke with his massive two-handed sword and “eye of shining justice”.

@belfastgonzo Ha! Also of note on that site, if you'd followed Pachter's buy/sell stock recommendations since 2009 you could've made an average profit of... negative 3%. I suppose that means you'd make a small profit by doing the opposite of everything he had said.

Risk!
... While I wait for Diablo III to download.

@HobbitGamer Tricksy hobbitses.

@AlexOlney Well said. You should write more articles

Nice review, thank you.

@Rika_Yoshitake
Agreed. All this unfounded hysteria was drummed up by NL, who more than ever appear to be moving toward the "try this one weird trick" substitute for journalism. It's a pretty sweet deal: after obtaining all your clicks with junk journalism, you can then just write another article with the real story (investigated by different site) and get some more. Maybe they should reconsider whether simply transcribing a single FAQ question and doing some speculation is worthy of their "team of expert writers".

@DrJiggle
You jest, but I'm feeling you.

@HobbitGamer "Am I the only one using the articles' comment sections to fill up my ignore list for folks that are getting particularly ridiculous?"

The silver lining amongst all this nonsense.

@thedanslator
@mallow

How DARE the two of you just wade into this hysteria with reasoned debate and sensible arguments. Who do you both think you are?!

More junk journalism. Oh dear.

Nice review, thanks Dom.

Tiny Metal taught me not to blindly trust high reviewer scores, and for that education at least I am thankful for the purchase of this title.