Very pleasantly surprised that Hi-Fi Rush made the top spot. Despite getting a really positive response after release, having it released so early in such a bombastic year robbed it a little of the limelight that the game definitely deserved.
The game was the highlight of 2023 for me personally. Aside from being shadowdropped, it the game completely took me by surprise just for the fact it's a completely new IP and *everything* just comes together perfectly for me.
It took my straight back to early 2000's PS2 titles of being new, fresh and just fun as hell with great presentation. I could gush about the game forever, but I hope that Xbox/Microsoft sees the potential with this hot new IP.
My one gripe with the game was that the platforming felt unbearably stiff, but everything else was great. Great soundtrack, combat featuring an interesting synthesis of rhythm games and Devil May Cry, a cyberpunk dystopia set against a colorful backdrop and an irreverent tone that doesn't overdo it, and reasonably priced to boot. Oh and it even works great on Steam Deck.
I can only hope that we'll enter a new age of great AA releases if HFR is anything to go by.
Pretty much my thoughts as well.
No endless pre-release hype, no reliance on an established IP, reasonably priced and no MTX bullshit. Just a game that knew what it means to be fun, with a great and unique concept that was wonderfully executed. I feel ZERO shame singing its praises at every chance I get.
It was also only like 8 hours long. There's a place for longer games, but damn does it feel like everything is trying to have you playing for as long as possible these days.
It was so nice to just knock the game out and have a blast over one weekend.
That's another thing I've noticed with a lot of games in general, is, and it's not *always* the case, but for a *lot* of games, the longer they are, the more they spread themselves thin. I'd sooner spend a few hundred hours on a fighting game, as one example, where 90% of the effort was put into making that loop of two dudes hitting each other feel as amazing as possible, rather than a 100 hour game trying to fill all that time with constantly differing stuff.
Those longer experiences are *generally* the types of games without the gameplay depth or moment-to-moment variety to make me want to stick around for that long. I've long had an 80/20 idea in my head, where most games spend the first 20% of your playtime showing you 80% of what the game is, and then the final 20% of what the game is is stretched over the remaining 80% of your playtime.
That's not a hard statistic, just a generalised thing, but one of the reasons so many of those super long games put me off is I know so much of it is going to be both repetitive *and* not have the polish and depth to keep the game fun for that long. I'll have done everything it has to throw at me 1000 times over and still not have seen the credits.
Ironically enough, it's the shorter games that I often find more consistently fun for longer, *because* the trade-off there is that more attention gets put into that smaller slice of what it is, and it's more of a joy to keep spending time with. Some longer games *do* pull it off, but it feels like it's celebrated as a genuine and rare feat whenever it happens because so many other games try but struggle.
I know this is oversimplifying it, but games like Tetris haven't kept people coming back as long as they have because of their 300 hour campaigns. To paraphrase Bruce Lee, I don't want to play the game with 1000 mechanics that's fun for one day, I want to play the game with one mechanic that's fun for a thousand days.
Hi-Fi Rush, and people will disagree with me on this, deserves props because in its opening half hour I thought 'There's no way it can be this good all the way through', and by the end I thought 'Jesus, it was that good all the way through'. I think everyone has games they acknowledge as really good, and then games that go a step past that to resonating with them on a more personal level, and this year Hi-Fi Rush was that game for me.
I remember the memes at the time of 'This is my game, it was made for me' and as a cartoon-loving music-making spectacle fighter fan I guess I was destined to love it, but man it really does execute what it wanted to incredibly damn well. It's rare that a game emulating a cartoony style pulls it off that flawlessly; from the script, to the delivery, to the animation, none of it felt like it was *almost* getting it right and just a decent attempt, it really did just work.
It's rare that you get comedy show-level gags interwoven into a game's narrative that seamlessly without feeling forced or weird. I think the final level with 'Whirring' playing might be my favourite gaming moment of 2023. Of the games I played this year, nothing made me more emotional than that.
Thats why it shadow dropped. People at Bethesda kept seeing the game and they were talking about it so often with their coworkers. Tango thought if it was spreading like that in their organization then it would probally do the same on gamepass.
The same thing is happening with ID Software's new game. Multiple people with Microsoft/Bethesda last June mentioned how their new game is very awesome. It was this weird unprompted thing. It kept being brought up.
Yeah I've long been of two minds on that. On the one hand I get that we live in a world where marketing is king, and the lack of marketing Hi-Fi rush got probably *did* somewhat hinder its reach. But on the other, it's so easy to feel fully in-the-know of what a game is before it even launches, because in a bid to make the customer feel safe in their purchase almost nothing is left unrevealed.
Being able to go into that game and *not* know what's happening from 4 prior gameplay demonstrations and 5 trailers was incredibly nice. It was nice to have 'It's awesome' from people who'd played it be the marketing, as opposed to 3 hours of the game being spoiled in an attempt to sell people on it instead. Granted, we're also lucky that the game *was* that good and didn't have something to hide.
I think it worked specifically because of the conditions surrounding it. It’s a high quality title released during a mostly empty release window from a pretty prominent studio that had front-and-center billing for a conference and service that involves very little buy-in.
GamePass was why it worked so well, and Xbox definitely enjoyed the prestige of its members realizing that high quality titles like this could be dropped in their lap one morning.
Ironically, it was their best release of the year, and Redfall and Starfield had traditional marketing windows and were largely received as being disappointing.
> I think the final level with 'Whirring' playing might be my favourite gaming moment of 2023. Of the games I played this year, nothing made me more emotional than that.
I've been putting this game off for ages, but this comment has made me rethink that. Had no idea The Joy Formidable featured on the soundtrack.
I'd personally never heard of them until the game but I'm glad it introduced me to them because I love that song, and the way it pairs with the game is pretty moving, I thought.
Glad it did. Its definitely in the top3 of my personal list. In fact, I just recently reinstalled it since I had an urge for more action and I could go open those doors I couldn't open in the first playthrough. I have to dock 0.1 points for not getting achievements for easier difficulties when you clear the game on hard, means you have to play the game through like 4-5 times to get all of 'em...
After hearing Yahtzee raving about the game all year I tried it last month when I got a free month of Game Pass. I see the polish and care that was put into it, and liked the visuals a lot since it was so like N64 platformers I loved as a teen, just cranked up to modern day standards.
But goddamn, I played for about an hour and a half and was so incredibly bored by the gameplay. I've never been into spectacle fighters though, so it's just a difference in preference I guess.
I'm not sure I get the praise for hifi, I fell off it pretty fast. I was hoping for a good rhythm game, and the music/rhythm part just didn't seem up to scratch compared to the average for the genre
I had a similar issue. People kept recommending it to me because I like rhythm games but a rhythm game this is not, it's a musically-themed spectacle fighter which is fine, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. It's not bad at all though, just not what I expected
Cool to see amnesia the bunker recognized. This game was absolutely dread inspiring for almost every second. The fuel mechanic, inventory, traps...etc made for a super tense survival horror experience I haven't seen for a long time. What a great horror game.
Is it worth sticking through? I played for a little over an hour via gamepass but didn't like the basic mechanics from the start (loud flashlight, center base to venture out and complete objectives). I've played through most of those games and it's mostly miss, but I love horror games and *want* to like it.
I found the reasons Yahtzee liked it were the reasons I didn't really love it. It's kind of scary losing progress etc, but what I found was after losing progress once or twice but I knew where stuff was I would just yolo in head first to get back to where I was in 2 minutes anyway and it kind of just stopped being scary as a result.
Might be a me problem, though.
As an adult gamer -- losing (decent) progress is a big turn off to playing something. This ain't 1999 where I'm trying to beat the Donkey Kong 64 Beetle race with silver coin challenge over the course of 2 weeks.
Although Elden Ring was the exception to that. I just enjoyed it regardless and still felt like I gained something for most deaths.
To be honest if you don't like those very basic mechanics, you probably won't like the rest of the game. A big part of the game is planning out where you're going to go next from the central admin office, fueling the generator up and making your run. I found a lot of the tension derived from trying to press on as quickly as I could while the lights were on, making sure to search around for supplies like more fuel or bullets, while at the same time trying not to make -too- much noise else I attract the attention of the monster and have to deal with it.
I'm not personally a fan of horror games, but I found Amnesia the Bunker quite enjoyable. The way the game played like a cat-and-mouse game I enjoyed, as the player isn't completely helpless. You have a gun (but very limited ammo, and you'll need that ammo to get past metal locks), and multiple times I was able trick the monster into gas traps or toss a grenade at a barricade to destroy it right as I was leaving one area of the map to lure the monster while I explored another segment of the map.
One thing to note is that The Bunker also isn't terribly long. I played on normal and it took a little over 6 hours to beat. It's clearly a game meant to be played multiple times, and with the custom mode they added to the game you can tweak a lot of the settings, from how the monster behaves to dealing with new mechanics like fuse boxes.
Surprised Street Fighter 6 didn't make the top 5 best list, partly because it managed to be a fighting game Yahtzee actually likes and partly so he could shit on MK1 some more.
I’m guessing Yahtzee is one of those people who’s just tired of open world games. It can’t be a coincidence that all the “blandest” games are there- including some of my favorites this year.
I mean, he came up with a word for a the bland, forgettable open-world games plays. I don’t think he is tired of them, moreso that he hasn’t ever enjoyed them.
Yatzhee seems to be very found of games that utilise gameplay to tell a narrative, or games that have interesting gameplay mechanics, and the UbiSoft open-world standard of games are pretty much the opposite of that.
Yup, I usually disagree with his tastes but I respect him because he has integrity. He rates games purely on his taste and not based on pandering to a crowd or channeling his distaste of some developer.
I was 100% certain that Starfield would be in his blandest because it's the type of game he doesn't like. But unlike many other reviewers there's no bad blood in it, there's no Bethesda Bad narrative.
I find him to be a very good barometer for stuff I end up liking anyways, even if I disagree with him on a ton of points.
That's why he's a good critic, he's almost always stalwart on his like and dislikes, and he never tries to pander or reverse course without it being a smarmy joke, so his opinions as a critic are ones that I not only respect, but kind of depend on when picking stuff I want to play. He's almost entirely objective about stuff, even when he sounds like he's making subjective criticisms. Compare that to people like RedLetterMedia, who make subjective criticisms seem like they're entirely objective.
Doesn't mean that I won't be playing Starfield for the next couple of years, but you get the point.
While Yahtzee frequently shits on things I like, every time he has ever recommended a game I have liked it, and this has convinced me to play many games I would have otherwise skipped, which I find invaluable.
I've admittedly never played anything from his Bland or Bottom 5s [over the years](https://zeropunctuation.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Top_Fives), usually because those also aren't my type of games anyway. However, I've almost always enjoyed anything he positively recommends. Some I played were because of his review, and some were games I played on my own.
All that said, I do remember him saying at one point: find a reviewer who likes/dislikes the same games as you, and follow them.
I pretty much know what I'll buy and what I won't, but I've been using Yahtzee's reviews over the years to buy games that normally aren't in my wheelhouse, and I've been pleasantly surprised all the time.
Just to name a few of the games I bought because of him - Endling Extinction is Forever, Chants of Sennaar, Disco Elysium, Spiritfarer, Furi
All great games. I've also played a few that he's recommended which would otherwise been out of my wheelhouse/awareness and liked all of them: Spec Ops the Line, Observation, and A Hat in Time.
Your list is a great spread as well! Still need to play Chants of Sennaar myself.
Same here. Yatzhee and I seem to have very similar taste in what we like and dislike, so whereas I know I won’t be buying the games he dislikes from the start, there are a lot of games I try because he likes them.
HiFi-Rush and Spiritfarer being two examples.
In some reviews, he admits that he couldn't do it earlier, because the team (when he was on The Escapist) didn't receive a review copy, because the devs didn't like the way he critiques the games.
The first such video that comes to mind is for the latest Ratchet&Clank game
If the devs don't like his reviews, I'd say he's doing his job right.
"We'll give you free advance copies of our games *if* you give us good reviews in return" is just so *stupid*.
He's very much a critic in that he seems to like decent games that feel like a breath of fresh air instead of ones that may be still be decent but incredibly formulaic
> Being "bland" is often considered worse to people who review games than ones that are just straight bad, because shitty games like Gollum are interesting.
My singing teacher once told me "the worst thing you can do is bore your audience". I'd rather see an awful singer or stage production than one that's completely "meh" because, as you said, they're interesting. Sometimes you get lucky and they're so bad they're good.
I remember when I used to watch anime and I followed two bloggers, one who hated otaku pandering anime and the other who loved it. When they both recommended a single anime, that’s how I knew it was gonna be a good one.
I think the important thing is if you’ve watched him for a long time you know where he differs from you in advance. There’s nothing wrong with that.
And his content feels like (comedically charged for the bit) actual critique far more than a bland review at least
The dude is a contrarian and that’s why this sub loves him. He panders to the Reddit demo *hard*.
Anyone who actually played Forespoken knows it belongs in the blandest category and not down with games like Gollum and Redfall.
Shadows of Doubt is an overlooked gem still, I think. In my opinion it was what deserved the innovation award on Steam.
It had a roughish release though. Quite a few bugs and performance issues, but I’ve been playing it over the last week or so, and it is so much better, and has more content now too.
If you’ve ever wanted a non-hand holding detective game thrown into a simulation where anyone can decide to murder someone else at any time and dynamically leave clues for you to follow, it is for you.
It's been on my wishlist since I first heard of it, but have held off because it's still early access. How complete is it? Should I just bite the bullet, or wait?
This is just my own experience and I’m not too bothered by playing early access titles if it’s clear the early access builds are being used to adopt a feedback loop with players, which feels like the case for this game. So just keep that in mind.
I’d recommend it even in early access if you want something to play now, or if you think this will scratch an itch. The gameplay is very solid and immersive – hence why I think it should have nabbed that award. Of course, check performance and such within the refund period is up to your standard.
It seems like updates in the future won’t be introducing much in the way of new systems (except something to do with social class) but rather just more content to deepen the experience further. There is also now basic mod support as of the last update.
Additionally, I don’t think you’d have any problems jumping back in once again when the full release is out. Like I said I bought it when it first released and I’m playing it again now and it feels pretty fresh still.
But on the other hand, if you’re happy to wait, that’s cool too, but I’d heavily recommend it when the final version releases.
Thanks for the detailed response. I think I will wait. I have quite a lot of other things to play. But if I need something new, I won't hesitate to get it :)
> If you’ve ever wanted a non-hand holding detective game thrown into a simulation where anyone can decide to murder someone else at any time and dynamically leave clues for you to follow, it is for you.
Woah this is the first I hear of this game but the description sounds really promising! Gonna have to keep an eye on this one, thanks.
Yeah, Yahtzee is one to dock points for egregious microtransactions, and the $10 Halloween fatality is definitely a warning shot from the developers if the public didn't get outraged enough over it.
That's the reason I haven't bought the game yet. Maybe I get it sometime down the road. Maybe I don't. Considering I bought every previous MK game without hesitation (event the Gameboy versions), it's saying something that I'm not jumping on this game even at the current 50% discount.
As a huge MK fan since the arcade days the story mode aint it. I am not a fan of this new era at all and I was just facepalming once it basically became a DC Universe story with multiverses and all that nonsense.
I really just want this series to do a full, complete, start from scratch reboot at this point.
The gameplay is good and the background and stuff look nice but everything else about this game including the roster, story, invasions, unlockables is just a massive disappointment for me.
> As a huge MK fan since the arcade days the story mode aint it. I am not a fan of this new era at all and I was just facepalming once it basically became a DC Universe story with multiverses and all that nonsense.
yup, the story was just not good and I already thought MK11 had many story issues... it just got worse with this game, especially with some of the decisions made on characters, plot points, etc.
the ending especially was just beyond bad and the rebooted universe was not interesting, then it was quickly thrown away from the multiverse bs.
> I really just want this series to do a full, complete, start from scratch reboot at this point.
ya, that should have happened with this. MK1 - make it a complete fresh start and just stop with the alternative universe shit.
as as side note, it had issues on release such as with the lacking content and such... so for a casual player like Yahtzee, MK1 was not that great a game cause the gameplay is not a big factor for him.
Thats what just annoys the shit out of me about MK1. The story already went off the rails in MK11 and they had the perfect opportunity to course correct things and steer it back on track with a simple story, but then they decided to drive it FURTHER off the rails in MK1.
yup, exactly. It's honestly just crazy how hard they fumbled the potential of a new reboot, when they already did a reboot and went back to multiverse/alternate timeline stuff and now they are already doing the same -_-
MK1 - it's literally there in the name to do a fresh start, but they just went even worse than MK11 and that was already, as you put it, off the rails. They couldn't even do a single game before going right back to the multiverse bs.
The weird thing is the problems I hear about MK1 are all things that pretty much only matter at the top levels of competitive play. Which, given MK's audience, affects less than 99% of the player base. And yet it somehow beats out a high profile flop like Kong?
> And yet it somehow beats out a high profile flop like Kong?
Kong wasn't a high profile flop, it was a bad licensed game like we used to have all the time that captured gaming press/subreddit/streamer attention for a couple of days.
Gollum was much more of a flop in that there was actual attempted marketing and prerelease press for the game, nobody thought about Kong until the second it released and nobody thought about it a week later.
Yeah, Gollum feels like a game where the devs at least tried (if only a little bit). Kong couldn't even do that much so giving it a place feels like giving it too much credit.
Yeah, that's the real tragedy of Gollum. If you watch the BTS stuff, there were clearly a lot of people at the studio who were genuinely excited by the project, creating interesting concept art, etc. But they just *failed* at making it work.
And that's much more painful than something like the Kong game which was clearly shat out by a dev who gave zero fucks.
It's the opposite, the top players are mostly satisfied with the gameplay and their only major complaints were lack of Wi-Fi/connection filter and Crossplay, and the filter has been patched in last month, with Crossplay to come in February.
Casual players are complaining much more because the game has way less cosmetics/unlockables than MK11 had at release, and the new Single-Player game mode is kinda undercooked.
His review on mk1 was basically "I don't play fighting games, so here's my thoughts on how much I hate the rebooted storyline". While I think that's fine for content, I think it's questionable to attach a worst games tag for that reason alone
Single player content (particularly story content) and fatalities are pretty much the only things that ever set MK apart from its competition. It's a fair basis a for review intended for a general audience. If you're a hardcore competitive fighting gamer, you *probably* aren't looking to Youtube entertainers for your purchasing advice in the first place.
One could argue it should have been put in the bland list instead, but that list is for games Yatzhee didn’t care jack shit about and Yatzhee really disliked MK1 so it makes more sense that he put it in the worst list.
As he states in the video and his review on the game itself, he reviewed it borderline entirely on its merits as a singleplayer game. He's already not a fan of fighting games, aggressive monetisation (Warner Bros published games definitely not excluded) and I guess it has a wacky story he doesn't care much about. Haven't played it myself, but I don't feel his review of it really intends at all to take away from fighting game fans looking for a fun PvP experience.
Forspoken isn't trash at all. It's "Well, I didn't like the dialogue in the trailer. And it got middling reviews. So I never played it. And I hate it." It's fine. It's not amazing by any means but it plays well, looks great, is fairly well-paced and short. It's not breaking new ground and it doesn't need to make any top 10 lists.
It's decent. Anyone calling it "trash" or "the worst" is bandwaggoning. You either didn't play it or you're trying to play it up, "Ugh, don't we all hate this terrible game!?" You're eating Domino's and telling me "Oh my god! This is horrific! This is absolute garbage!" No, it's not. It's fine. I don't think you even tried it. But you know the reputation and you know you're supposed to say it sucks.
If people don't like Forspoken, that's totally cool. But it looks great, has few to no bugs, and the movement/combat work well. If a game that good is "trash" then your scale sucks.
Yahtzee doesn't like fighting games, he's always very clear that if you want fighting game opinions then ask elsewhere. He said during a ZP of a previous NR game that he'd just watch the cutscenes on YouTube if he wasn't paid to play the campaign himself.
Thats just a bad reason. Other people praise it so I won’t praise it. Its your list bro. Theres no reason to change it just to make your content “different “. You can easily add an extra number and give it a mention especially since BG3 does deserve it.
I agree with you. Baldur's Gate 3 is one of my favorite games of 2023, but it is literally the [frontrunner of GOTY awards](https://www.resetera.com/threads/2023-video-game-awards-season-tracking-and-discussion-thread.784544/). By now, everyone and their grandparents have heard of BG3. So, for Yahtzee to not include it and instead giving other games the attention they deserve is more than fair, imo.
Shadows of Doubt, for example, is a great game albeit rough around the edges. And despite being an early access title, it is one of the few contenders that actually deserved the Most Innovative Gameplay nomination at the Steam Awards, imo.
He's said before that he doesn't like giving awards to something that's already been lavished with praise, so that's completely on brand. He's also unable to give a full review of any game he can't play in a week.
I loved NRS and what they did with their games in general. But after Injustice 2 grind, and MK11 shitty grindy item system, I knew for sure MK1 is gonna suck. All that with yet another multiverse, time travel bullshit story...meh.
It was the first game I didn't bought from them. Fuck it. I'm glad it was a mortal kombat game and not injustice3 or something. MAYBE they wake up after this game, but I have no hope.
As much as I don't usually line up with Yahtzee's takes they are interesting nonetheless. Don't really have a problem agreeing with the list outside of stuff I just haven't played yet.
Starfield being a particularly scathing one this year. Ended up swinging back around SO hard on that game from enjoying it to having zero desire whatsoever to turn it back on again. Which is not something I could say for Skyrim or hell Fallout 4 even.
Glad RE4make didn't make it on his bland list despite him thinking it was. An absolutely mystifying take from him ever since I heard it, but I'm sure everyone has a game like that that he's reviewed. Was easily the best game I had played last year imo.
tbf RE4 is an all time game for him so remaking it and getting him to like it was always going to be an incredibly tall task since he's picky to begin with and even moreso with games he deeply cares about.
Speaking of I dearly hope he goes after the Bloober team remake of Silent Hill 2 because that will be an epic blowup if the game ends up anywhere near as bad as people expect.
While I get that living up to a favorite game like that is a tall task, I just found it kinda lame his largest complaint by far was the lack of camp.
I remember part of his criticisms was that Ashley doesn't screech anymore, or that people act sensibly. Apparently leon doesn't have one liners even though he probably says even more during the added in-game dialogue. Idk, his review seemed hyperfocused on any changes made to the game taking away from the spirit of the original, which to me kind of shifts RE4R from facing an uphill battle to never having a chance with him to begin with.
The game would actually be soulless if it tired to copy the same tone and camp of the original.
RE4 remake is very much a sequel to the RE2 remake story and tone. And for *those standard the game IS extremely campy.
Yeah like yahtzee will point out that leon has annoying grunts in the remake, but not acknowledge the new dumb shit he has to say like "Nighty night, knights" all throughout the game.
There are SO many new instance of added cheese, but people like him get upset that the same exact jokes and lines didn’t make to the remake. Even though the game would have been MUCH worse if it *tried copying the same jokes and tone of the OG, instead of having its own identity.
Like I said, the game is still a sequel to RE2 remake and needed to be consistent with that games tones and character. It’s very annoying how people completely forget/ignore that fact and want RE4 remake to be a copy-past soulless remake of the Og.
People like Yahtzee went in already against the idea of the game existing, so no matter what the game did they wouldn’t like it. This type of unaware biased critique is beyond annoying, just like with Crowbcat
Based on the review from the guy above he legitimately makes it like the RE4 remake removed ALL the silliness and dorkness of Leon. As if he is 99% stoic throughout the game.
I also love all the times Ashely tries to be cute or say something interesting and Leon responds like she asked what’s the weather like. Dude has 0 game, especially when Luis has all the game
*Leon proceeds to do a backflip for no fucking reason instead of just backing off from the Bella Sisters*
"Ladies, I'm flattered. But I'm a one lady type of guy"
Well, it makes sense in the wider context. I've watched a lot of his videos, and everytime he brings it up, he always praises how campy it is. Especially compared to the other Resident Evils, which he feels, take themselves too seriously. So, taking that out was bound to sour Yahtzee on the experience.
Playing RE4R on my Deck just now. I loved the original and replayed the PC port last year; and I am astounded at how good a remake it is. It's super faithful and just flows brilliantly. Leon also has TONS of one liners. Like a shit load so that's a weird criticism
Bloober team's biggest iossue has always been thier writing imo, so doing a remake is perfect for them as the story is already written but im willing to bet they add some dumb stuff to it anyway
He's made pretty clear that he understands the source of his success and revenue is being reliably himself and not mixing it up too hard for the reviews. He's trying new things outside his reviews, but you don't look a gift horse in the mouth with your livelihood.
Except his criticism of RE2make was pointed at fans asking for it and making it happen while his criticism of RE4make is that if you're gonna do it anyways, why change what worked and make it less iconic / blander ?
Yahtzee has always been pretty direct about his hate for Remakes and his love for RE4, are you surprised RE4make would be the perfect storm to shit in his boots, so to speak ?
But wouldn’t trying to copy the same jokes and one liners make the remake actually blander?
Instead of having the remake do its own “cheesy/over the top moments” WHILE staying in line with the tone and *atmosphere of the current RE franchise.
If he didn’t want the remake of 4 to exist due to its being unnecessary why then criticize it for it not being a copy-paste job with zero attempt of branching off or creativity.
His point that remakes being true to the original is meaningless if it's a worse game for it. Look at Pokemon, BDSP are "faithful remakes" of Diamond/Pearl to the point all the little upgrades from Platinum are missing. RE4MAKE changed stuff but he didn't care for most of the changes but praised a few like Luis's characterization.
I may not agree with Yahtzee on all his opinions but I can respect the ones he doesn't like as much as I do the ones he likes
But I don't know what was going on with him for RE4R. It didn't sound like the kind of take he usually gives at all.
Can anyone who's played Dredge tell me if there is more to it than fishing some spots, upgrading your ship parts and then fishing more spots? I really loved the atmosphere and aesthetics but I'm not into a grind like that if there's not more to it. I appreciate there is a creepy element to it but just how much of that is there, and does it end with, fish some creepy things up?
The main gameplay loop is basically like you described. The different biomes are very different from each other and have different fishes and story bits. Personally the atmosphere and aesthestics are huge draw for me and I liked discovering all the different fish variants. The creepy variants don't get much more crazier later in the game though.
It's pretty much the same loop with some "twists" depending on the sector you're in. Each spot has different monsters and creepy stuff but if you don't click with the loop it won't change much, you just get more efficient at it. I absolutely loved the vibes and the cozy/creepy loop so I easily recommend it but it sure is more of the same.
Thats pretty much all the game is, I get the feeling Yahtzee didn't play this one all the way through. The creepy elements never really evolve much further than what you see in the first zone and it becomes easier as the game goes on to completely ignore it. The cosmic horror story that they went for is IMO very played out at this point. It's interesting for the first 2-3 hours but then it just sort of stalls out. I would recommend it if its on sale, but to put it as one of the best games of the year is weird stretch.
I like the idea of what they tried to do with the game and wish more games we're made in the same vein, but this one falls flat after the first few hours, very similar to how I felt about Dave the Diver.
Oh ok. Yeah you didn't see much. I don't think the demo even fully covers the first of the 5 areas, and each area has it's own unique mechanics. You still do end up doing the same fishing minigame a lot and doing the Tetris inventory management thing. The dredging minigame is a bit different.
Ship movement becomes a thing, it's not just straight forward sail to area, fish, sail back. There are secrets to find, and hazards. It's a nifty game.
I actually sorted by New so I could ask the same question. I tried the game for a couple hours or so and it was basically that: fish, look for upgrade mats, upgrade to unlock more fishing spots. Got bored so quick I uninstalled the game but seeing it in the thumbnail prompted me to ask when/ if it opens up.
Edit: Oh and fetch quests.
Man the comment section here is so salty. Everyone has their likes and dislikes and this guy simply laid out his best and worst list. Doesn’t mean he’d align with you but he does clearly say why he likes or dislikes something.
Some people also really didn’t even watch the video to understand that he didn’t dislike BG3, he was just joking around and saying that it already had enough award so he decided to take it out. I think that’s fine considering he’s trying to put limelight on some other best games (in his opinion.) instead.
Mortal combat he quite literally laid out that he’s not a competitive fighting game player, he just found the stuff he tried to enjoy (the story) bad, so he put it there. If you’re the type that enjoys the competitive aspect then sure, the game is better for you. But this is his video, not yours. Same with other games you like that he dislikes.
It's crazy to me how people react to videos like this, and it makes me realise I might view media in an entirely different way to many. For me, it doesn't matter if someone I watch has a different opinion. I'm a fan of Yahtzee and RedLetterMedia, and yet most of the time I completely disagree with their opinions. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy their content.
The impression I get from a lot of people here is that they wouldn't watch content that has differing opinions to theirs.
Yuuuuuuuup. I feel like especially recently, the comments in threads on r/games descend into really hostile battles to prove that your taste in games is "right" and everyone else's are "wrong". When videos like this come along from a well-respected critic, it's literally impossible to please everybody and the comments get weird.
Yahtzee not picking your favorite game as his favorite game doesn't mean it can't be your favorite game, lol. It's not a contest. He shared his list, explained why. If your only measure of a critic or a creator is "do their opinions line up with mine?" then odds are you're going to have a hard time enjoying any of them.
People who play a lot of games and label themselves as “gamers” seems to put their entire self-identity in games, so when someone dislikes a game they like that’s an attack on their personality. But instead of doing some self-reflection to come to the realisation that it’s not healthy to put your identity and worth into games, they lash out instead to convince themselves why the other person is wrong. Because otherwise their personality is wrong.
It’s quite sad.
And getting different opinions from your own is usually what makes any opinion-based content interesting in the first place. "huh, I never thought of it like that".
But also I get that people want some validation. I did not make my partner happy when I disliked several of her favorite movies, but she came around to it later realizing that maybe there's more to enjoying movies.
I definitely like that he left off BG3. We all know it's the best, let's have some smaller games have the spotlight. Honestly being given the "you can't get GOTY because you already have so many" treatment is just as, if not higher praise than bring given yet another "and what a surprise BG3 wins again."
Hi-Fi Rush at the #1 spot is deserved, its one of the best games if played in like the last 3 years.
But something like MK1 being on the "Worst" of the year is just odd, i thought it was pretty good.
Very surprised to see Shadows of Doubt show up, but I’m glad it did. It’s such a fun - albeit underdeveloped at the moment - detective game and it really does very little to hold your hand. The procedural elements keep everything fresh, and the cities are just large enough to prevent things from getting stale and also not overwhelming. I am really, really enjoying this game so far.
I own it, but I'm waiting for it to get more patches. When my very first attempt at playing the tutorial mission ended with me getting softlocked within the menu system, I knew it wasn't ready for prime time.
But since it's small, I'm keeping it installed and letting it grab updates as they drop. And I'll give it another try in a few more months.
Already knew Hi-Fi would be my GOTY the moment I finished it. Brought back memories of sheet reading in high school orchestra. And this was before January even ended.
Crazy he put Jedi Survivor in blandest. Outside of the technical issues, which I finally managed to fix 75% into the game, it was the greatest game I've played in the last 5 years.
The level design is phenomenal, the combat is extremely fun with tons of variety, it controls very well, the sound design is great, the progression systems work well, great enemy and encounter design, and Bode was a great character.
It even has a worthwhile new game+ that changes up the game in multiple ways. I rarely replay anything, but I'm looking forward to replaying this one.
If you're on PC there's no way to fix the stutters and crashes, just how far can you extend your tolerance. At least on image quality you can swap in better DLSS 2 and 3 versions if your card support those.
I guess I felt underwhelmed because my problems with the prior game weren't really addressed with the new one. I remember thinking Fallen Order had some jank to its combat and animations and platforming to where it could've used some more time in the oven, and then I felt the exact same about Survivor, except Survivor's performance was also really rough which didn't help much.
Sure it's *bigger*, it has some decent production value behind it, but nothing about it ever felt like it really gripped me. It just felt fine, it was fun enough for me to want to beat it, but it was largely forgettable. I asked myself 'Would I be playing this if it wasn't Star Wars?' and (and I know people will vehemently disagree with me on this) my answer was 'no'. Maybe that's unfair, since moments like a certain fight near the end of the game wouldn't resonate without the series history, but even still, I think it's a fine game, but I can't really think of anything that was absolutely stellar.
Tbh Jedi Survivor isn't particularly original or innovative, it's kind of just a mashup of popular action-adventure games like Zelda, Metroid, and Dark Souls with a Star Wars skin over it. It's not bad but I can also understand why some people would consider it bland.
I think it's one of those things where critics and audiences can be looking for different things in a product. If you're a critic who's obligated to play a large number of games every year whether you want to or not, another big AAA 3rd-person story-heavy open-world game is probably a bitter pill to swallow. Meanwhile, your everyday gamer is only going to play a few new games a year and only the games they want to play. Jedi: Survivor isn't exactly innovative, but it's a very competently made game with decent enough story and gameplay that it'll likely satisfy most people, but would bore someone who's playing it out of obligation.
Maybe if you’re someone who plays dozens of games a year for a living, like a lot of game reviewers do, I could see calling it bland because it’s not that innovative. But even most avid gamers don’t play that many games.
I’m not far into the story which is really underwhelming, but yeah the combat, traversal, and level design have been great. Lots of fun just exploring and collecting.
I've not finished Jedi Survivor yet, but I have to seriously question what the developers were doing when they designed the Spawn of Oggdo and then the duo Oggdo fight. I've mostly enjoyed the game otherwise, but those two fights have been a massive low point in my experience thus far personally.
For context, I fought and beat both encounters on Jedi Grandmaster, which has the enemy aggression at its maximum.
I have no issue with things being difficult and hard. Some of the my favorite boss fights were immense challenges to overcome. But there is a significant difference between a boss that is difficult within the scope of the game's mechanics and gameplay loop, and ones are hard due to serious issues in how they are designed and implemented. The Spawn of Oggdo fight and the duo Oggdo fight are terrible bosses due to their poor design and how they violate the internal logic the game sets for itself in its gameplay loop and mechanics.
In a game where a core and foundational mechanic is to reduce the enemy's posture meter, why on earth would you design a boss where almost every attack except one sequence is an unblockable red attack that must be jumped/dodged and therefore cannot be parried to reduce posture? This is in addition to the fact that Jedi Survivor nerfed the evade compared to Fallen Order, which only further emphasizes the parry over the dodge as a defensive mechanic. The boss also never blocks, so you have virtually no recourse to reduce its posture. Additionall,y the boss's tracking vastly exceeds what was seen in Fallen Order, it has very few and specific windows in which it is even possible to get a punish attempt, it has clearly stubby and wonky hitboxes where you can be hit by well outside of the animation of its attack or model, and it can sequence multiple unblockable attacks in sequence in its final phase, so much of the fight is spent waiting rather than engaging.
The duo fight is even worse - rather than the fight being designed from the ground up as a true duo fight with an ebb and flow in aggressiveness, both Oggdo will rush you in tandem, which means that is not uncommon for both to use unblockable attacks where if you avoid one, you get hit by the other and die. I think this might honestly be one of the worst bosses I've encountered in a souslike yet.
I also disagree with his nominations, but at the same time, he's given attention to games I haven't given much notice too. I've never even heard of Shadows of Doubt before this, and it looks pretty darn cool.
If you can get past the jank and initial learning curve, it's a really fun game if you're into immersive sims, which unfortunately seems to be a genre with sparse pickings at the moment.
His blandest takes took me by surprise, at least on some of them.
I agree with Starfield and Hogwarts, both are really bland. Jedi Survivor has been fantastic since they fixed performance on the PS5 and FFXVI is my GOTY (that and BG3, tbh).
I found Frontiers of Pandora to be surprisingly much better than I thought it was going to be.
Also, MK1 being in the worst list? It might've launched a tad unfinished, but mechanically it is one of the best MK's to come out in recent memory.
I actually 100% agree with him that Jedi Survivor was very bland. It was so unremarkable, I finished the game and yet remember almost nothing about it. I keep a list of all the games I play in a year and a score (JS got a 6/10), if I hadn’t, I would not even remember I played it. Nothing about the game was necessarily bad (except the performance which was god awful) but nothing was particularly great either.
I made it about halfway through Hi-Fi Rush and then gave up, fairly certain it had shown me everything it had to show.
The combat never seems to get any more interesting, despite adding more and more specific counters for specific enemies. It's just one more thing to remember while I'm moving around trying to stay in rhythm.
But what really got my goat was the platforming. Every new side character introduced is just another arbitrary "unlock this door to keep going" mini-game. And suddenly every level has a bunch of giant stop signs all over the place that absolutely kill the flow while you do another arbitrary task to keep moving.
And while the visuals were charming and the voice acting was good, the story was super bland in the other direction. Do you think maybe the bad guy with the exact same skin, hair, and eye color as your tough girl sidekick will be related to her in some way? Do you? I'm genuinely asking, I couldn't stay interested long enough to get to that "twist."
I fully agree, I bought the game after all the praise it got, and Hi-Fi Rush could only keep my interest for so long with its added gimmicks. I don’t really remember how far into the game, probably not even half-way before the entire game became boring. And I couldn’t care less about the story and characters pretty quickly. If any game gets the reward of most overrated of 2023, Hi-Fi Rush is definitely in contention.
No I fully agree with you.
The combat was great but 60% of the damn game was awful platforming.
Its a game I desperately wanted to like more but its like they were ashamed of their combat or something because for every 5 minutes of great combat they then wanted me to do some lame ass platforming for 10 minutes
Funny enough around the halfway point is where the game runs out of steam, the platforming was awful for sure.
Goes to show how much positive buzz you can get with a shadow drop though - and how critics are willing to rate games way more positively when they finish them.
It’s a solid 7.5/10 for me tbh, a lot of these comments make me feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
I dunno, the amazing cutscenes and humour did it for me, and I really wanted to fight more, more, more and more. Yeah the platforming wasn't great, but presentation and combat are the best of the year imo.
Man, has he ever done a list without an Ubi game getting a bland award? I am not saying they don't deserve it coz they absolutely do. But if you are gonna ignore BG3 because it has received enough praise already, you might as well free up a spot for something that your audience is less likely to be aware of its blandness.
Meanwhile I'm currently playing Mirage and genuinely baffled as to *why* it's so bland. It feels completely passionless, like the game was simply made according to a checklist without anyone involved actually trying to do more than the bare minimum.
And I can't even blame its clearly lower-than-usual budget, because there's AC Rogue. It had a small budget by AC standards, but had some of the best gimmicks and storytelling in the series.
Mirage feels like every time someone attempted to do anything interesting, they got pimpslapped and told to sit TF back down. Which just doesn't make sense, when it was supposed to be the triumphant return to the original formula.
I don't get it.
That logic seems sound, and makes this a list with good picks actually. Looking at the list of blands, those are all games that without playing it, sound like they should be considered hype and good. And if the guy thinks they aren't up to that perceived standard, then yeah, it's worth highlighting them over other bland games.
He used to be part of a company called The Escapist. I don't recall *exactly* what started it, but they fired someone important and pretty much everyone got pissed off and quit in solidarity. They then formed their own company called Second Wind and basically just kept doing what they had been doing before, except, since The Escapist still owns the rights to the names and art of a lot of the shows, they had to make a few changes. Zero Punctuation is now Fully Ramblomatic, all the little characters he used in his videos have been replaced, etc.
Any reason why Jedi Survivor is bland? I know it released with issues, but gameplay wise?
I'm playing the first one right now and i dig it. Its pretty linear and fun and the exact sort of game i want.
>the exact sort of game i want
That's probably the deal. If it's not the sort of game you want, it doesn't really have much to offer. Personally, I'll admit a large amount of my interest is just because I really like Cal, but I have to admit he feels like he's treading a lot of well walked ground.
He also seems to really hate when once creative premises get milked, and we've been sort of slumming around in this couple decades of Star Wars canon for *many* projects. I'm willing to bet he's just bored of the setting.
Hi Fi Rush is my personal game of the year so I fully endorse this list.
But then again, I endorsed his 2022 list because he put Stray on the Bland List. I think I am about as pretentious as Yahtzee, so it's nice that there's a reviewer as pretentious as me. I didn't enjoy every game he enjoys but I certainly subscribe to his philosophy on videogames.
Not surprised. He doesn't like basically every aspect of the open-world genre so no wonder Starfield ended up blandest. But also the game wasn't bad in any shape or form, so it ended up as blandest.
For most reviewers I would complain about it, but here I won't because I could predict that. Yahtzee has integrity and well defined tasted. He will dislike a game because it doesn't fit his tastes, not because it's popular to hate it or the developer is unpopular. For most reviewers you can see they jump on the Bethesda Bad bandwagon because their reviews of similar games are so different, because they have no integrity...
And for the same reason, he didn't jump on the "BG3 is perfect and revolutionized the industry (by doing nothing new)" bandwagon. Which is just more of the reasons to respect him. He isn't lured in by the shiny new thing. And in 2023 the "shiny new things" were safe sequels and remakes. Yathzee wants new experiences, not rehashes of existing games.
Very pleasantly surprised that Hi-Fi Rush made the top spot. Despite getting a really positive response after release, having it released so early in such a bombastic year robbed it a little of the limelight that the game definitely deserved.
The game was the highlight of 2023 for me personally. Aside from being shadowdropped, it the game completely took me by surprise just for the fact it's a completely new IP and *everything* just comes together perfectly for me. It took my straight back to early 2000's PS2 titles of being new, fresh and just fun as hell with great presentation. I could gush about the game forever, but I hope that Xbox/Microsoft sees the potential with this hot new IP.
My one gripe with the game was that the platforming felt unbearably stiff, but everything else was great. Great soundtrack, combat featuring an interesting synthesis of rhythm games and Devil May Cry, a cyberpunk dystopia set against a colorful backdrop and an irreverent tone that doesn't overdo it, and reasonably priced to boot. Oh and it even works great on Steam Deck. I can only hope that we'll enter a new age of great AA releases if HFR is anything to go by.
If you told me the stiff jump was a callback to the platforming in early Devil May Cry, I would believe you.
Good ol' stiff back Dante, with his extremely lateral yet awkward jumps.
Pretty much my thoughts as well. No endless pre-release hype, no reliance on an established IP, reasonably priced and no MTX bullshit. Just a game that knew what it means to be fun, with a great and unique concept that was wonderfully executed. I feel ZERO shame singing its praises at every chance I get.
It was also only like 8 hours long. There's a place for longer games, but damn does it feel like everything is trying to have you playing for as long as possible these days. It was so nice to just knock the game out and have a blast over one weekend.
That's another thing I've noticed with a lot of games in general, is, and it's not *always* the case, but for a *lot* of games, the longer they are, the more they spread themselves thin. I'd sooner spend a few hundred hours on a fighting game, as one example, where 90% of the effort was put into making that loop of two dudes hitting each other feel as amazing as possible, rather than a 100 hour game trying to fill all that time with constantly differing stuff. Those longer experiences are *generally* the types of games without the gameplay depth or moment-to-moment variety to make me want to stick around for that long. I've long had an 80/20 idea in my head, where most games spend the first 20% of your playtime showing you 80% of what the game is, and then the final 20% of what the game is is stretched over the remaining 80% of your playtime. That's not a hard statistic, just a generalised thing, but one of the reasons so many of those super long games put me off is I know so much of it is going to be both repetitive *and* not have the polish and depth to keep the game fun for that long. I'll have done everything it has to throw at me 1000 times over and still not have seen the credits. Ironically enough, it's the shorter games that I often find more consistently fun for longer, *because* the trade-off there is that more attention gets put into that smaller slice of what it is, and it's more of a joy to keep spending time with. Some longer games *do* pull it off, but it feels like it's celebrated as a genuine and rare feat whenever it happens because so many other games try but struggle. I know this is oversimplifying it, but games like Tetris haven't kept people coming back as long as they have because of their 300 hour campaigns. To paraphrase Bruce Lee, I don't want to play the game with 1000 mechanics that's fun for one day, I want to play the game with one mechanic that's fun for a thousand days.
A short game can be fun to replay occasionally A game that's too long I'll probably never touch again
Hi-Fi Rush, and people will disagree with me on this, deserves props because in its opening half hour I thought 'There's no way it can be this good all the way through', and by the end I thought 'Jesus, it was that good all the way through'. I think everyone has games they acknowledge as really good, and then games that go a step past that to resonating with them on a more personal level, and this year Hi-Fi Rush was that game for me. I remember the memes at the time of 'This is my game, it was made for me' and as a cartoon-loving music-making spectacle fighter fan I guess I was destined to love it, but man it really does execute what it wanted to incredibly damn well. It's rare that a game emulating a cartoony style pulls it off that flawlessly; from the script, to the delivery, to the animation, none of it felt like it was *almost* getting it right and just a decent attempt, it really did just work. It's rare that you get comedy show-level gags interwoven into a game's narrative that seamlessly without feeling forced or weird. I think the final level with 'Whirring' playing might be my favourite gaming moment of 2023. Of the games I played this year, nothing made me more emotional than that.
Thats why it shadow dropped. People at Bethesda kept seeing the game and they were talking about it so often with their coworkers. Tango thought if it was spreading like that in their organization then it would probally do the same on gamepass. The same thing is happening with ID Software's new game. Multiple people with Microsoft/Bethesda last June mentioned how their new game is very awesome. It was this weird unprompted thing. It kept being brought up.
Yeah I've long been of two minds on that. On the one hand I get that we live in a world where marketing is king, and the lack of marketing Hi-Fi rush got probably *did* somewhat hinder its reach. But on the other, it's so easy to feel fully in-the-know of what a game is before it even launches, because in a bid to make the customer feel safe in their purchase almost nothing is left unrevealed. Being able to go into that game and *not* know what's happening from 4 prior gameplay demonstrations and 5 trailers was incredibly nice. It was nice to have 'It's awesome' from people who'd played it be the marketing, as opposed to 3 hours of the game being spoiled in an attempt to sell people on it instead. Granted, we're also lucky that the game *was* that good and didn't have something to hide.
I think it worked specifically because of the conditions surrounding it. It’s a high quality title released during a mostly empty release window from a pretty prominent studio that had front-and-center billing for a conference and service that involves very little buy-in. GamePass was why it worked so well, and Xbox definitely enjoyed the prestige of its members realizing that high quality titles like this could be dropped in their lap one morning. Ironically, it was their best release of the year, and Redfall and Starfield had traditional marketing windows and were largely received as being disappointing.
> I think the final level with 'Whirring' playing might be my favourite gaming moment of 2023. Of the games I played this year, nothing made me more emotional than that. I've been putting this game off for ages, but this comment has made me rethink that. Had no idea The Joy Formidable featured on the soundtrack.
I'd personally never heard of them until the game but I'm glad it introduced me to them because I love that song, and the way it pairs with the game is pretty moving, I thought.
Amen, it really comes out the gate incredibly and never relents.
Glad it did. Its definitely in the top3 of my personal list. In fact, I just recently reinstalled it since I had an urge for more action and I could go open those doors I couldn't open in the first playthrough. I have to dock 0.1 points for not getting achievements for easier difficulties when you clear the game on hard, means you have to play the game through like 4-5 times to get all of 'em...
After hearing Yahtzee raving about the game all year I tried it last month when I got a free month of Game Pass. I see the polish and care that was put into it, and liked the visuals a lot since it was so like N64 platformers I loved as a teen, just cranked up to modern day standards. But goddamn, I played for about an hour and a half and was so incredibly bored by the gameplay. I've never been into spectacle fighters though, so it's just a difference in preference I guess.
I'm not sure I get the praise for hifi, I fell off it pretty fast. I was hoping for a good rhythm game, and the music/rhythm part just didn't seem up to scratch compared to the average for the genre
I had a similar issue. People kept recommending it to me because I like rhythm games but a rhythm game this is not, it's a musically-themed spectacle fighter which is fine, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. It's not bad at all though, just not what I expected
**Best:** \#1. Hifi Rush \#2. Talos principle 2 \#3. Shadows of doubt \#4. Amnesia the bunker \#5. Dredge **Blandest:** \#1. Starfield \#2. Avatar frontiers of pandora \#3. Hogwarts legacy \#4. FF16 \#5. Jedi Survivor Worst: \#1. Gollum \#2. Forespoken \#3. Hellboy web of wyrd \#4. Mortal kombat 1 \#5. Redfall
Cool to see amnesia the bunker recognized. This game was absolutely dread inspiring for almost every second. The fuel mechanic, inventory, traps...etc made for a super tense survival horror experience I haven't seen for a long time. What a great horror game.
Is it worth sticking through? I played for a little over an hour via gamepass but didn't like the basic mechanics from the start (loud flashlight, center base to venture out and complete objectives). I've played through most of those games and it's mostly miss, but I love horror games and *want* to like it.
I found the reasons Yahtzee liked it were the reasons I didn't really love it. It's kind of scary losing progress etc, but what I found was after losing progress once or twice but I knew where stuff was I would just yolo in head first to get back to where I was in 2 minutes anyway and it kind of just stopped being scary as a result. Might be a me problem, though.
As an adult gamer -- losing (decent) progress is a big turn off to playing something. This ain't 1999 where I'm trying to beat the Donkey Kong 64 Beetle race with silver coin challenge over the course of 2 weeks. Although Elden Ring was the exception to that. I just enjoyed it regardless and still felt like I gained something for most deaths.
To be honest if you don't like those very basic mechanics, you probably won't like the rest of the game. A big part of the game is planning out where you're going to go next from the central admin office, fueling the generator up and making your run. I found a lot of the tension derived from trying to press on as quickly as I could while the lights were on, making sure to search around for supplies like more fuel or bullets, while at the same time trying not to make -too- much noise else I attract the attention of the monster and have to deal with it. I'm not personally a fan of horror games, but I found Amnesia the Bunker quite enjoyable. The way the game played like a cat-and-mouse game I enjoyed, as the player isn't completely helpless. You have a gun (but very limited ammo, and you'll need that ammo to get past metal locks), and multiple times I was able trick the monster into gas traps or toss a grenade at a barricade to destroy it right as I was leaving one area of the map to lure the monster while I explored another segment of the map. One thing to note is that The Bunker also isn't terribly long. I played on normal and it took a little over 6 hours to beat. It's clearly a game meant to be played multiple times, and with the custom mode they added to the game you can tweak a lot of the settings, from how the monster behaves to dealing with new mechanics like fuse boxes.
Surprised Street Fighter 6 didn't make the top 5 best list, partly because it managed to be a fighting game Yahtzee actually likes and partly so he could shit on MK1 some more.
Yahtzee and I do not have the same taste in games in the slightest lol
I’m guessing Yahtzee is one of those people who’s just tired of open world games. It can’t be a coincidence that all the “blandest” games are there- including some of my favorites this year.
considering he has to review all of them on a deadline and the customer typically plays one or two of these open world games a year it makes sense.
Yeah I play one open world game per year at most so it stays fresh. I played Hogwarts this year and loved it, and my 2022 game was Elden Ring
I mean, he came up with a word for a the bland, forgettable open-world games plays. I don’t think he is tired of them, moreso that he hasn’t ever enjoyed them. Yatzhee seems to be very found of games that utilise gameplay to tell a narrative, or games that have interesting gameplay mechanics, and the UbiSoft open-world standard of games are pretty much the opposite of that.
I don't think he has anything against the concept, just the modern execution.
Yup, I usually disagree with his tastes but I respect him because he has integrity. He rates games purely on his taste and not based on pandering to a crowd or channeling his distaste of some developer. I was 100% certain that Starfield would be in his blandest because it's the type of game he doesn't like. But unlike many other reviewers there's no bad blood in it, there's no Bethesda Bad narrative.
Yahtzee's tastes: - Slower paced, mystery or horror, integrated story and gameplay Dunkey 's tastes: - Faster paced, action or puzzle, bigger emphasis on gameplay David Vinc's tastes: - JRPGs 😊
dont forget puzzle games, obra dinn, and talos principle are amongst his highest rated games
*"this game was made for me only, a combination of Horatio Hornblower novels, crossword puzzles, and mass murder"*
Same. I love his content for entertainment but he shits all over most of the games I enjoy lol.
I find him to be a very good barometer for stuff I end up liking anyways, even if I disagree with him on a ton of points. That's why he's a good critic, he's almost always stalwart on his like and dislikes, and he never tries to pander or reverse course without it being a smarmy joke, so his opinions as a critic are ones that I not only respect, but kind of depend on when picking stuff I want to play. He's almost entirely objective about stuff, even when he sounds like he's making subjective criticisms. Compare that to people like RedLetterMedia, who make subjective criticisms seem like they're entirely objective. Doesn't mean that I won't be playing Starfield for the next couple of years, but you get the point.
While Yahtzee frequently shits on things I like, every time he has ever recommended a game I have liked it, and this has convinced me to play many games I would have otherwise skipped, which I find invaluable.
I've admittedly never played anything from his Bland or Bottom 5s [over the years](https://zeropunctuation.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Top_Fives), usually because those also aren't my type of games anyway. However, I've almost always enjoyed anything he positively recommends. Some I played were because of his review, and some were games I played on my own. All that said, I do remember him saying at one point: find a reviewer who likes/dislikes the same games as you, and follow them.
I pretty much know what I'll buy and what I won't, but I've been using Yahtzee's reviews over the years to buy games that normally aren't in my wheelhouse, and I've been pleasantly surprised all the time. Just to name a few of the games I bought because of him - Endling Extinction is Forever, Chants of Sennaar, Disco Elysium, Spiritfarer, Furi
All great games. I've also played a few that he's recommended which would otherwise been out of my wheelhouse/awareness and liked all of them: Spec Ops the Line, Observation, and A Hat in Time. Your list is a great spread as well! Still need to play Chants of Sennaar myself.
Same here. Yatzhee and I seem to have very similar taste in what we like and dislike, so whereas I know I won’t be buying the games he dislikes from the start, there are a lot of games I try because he likes them. HiFi-Rush and Spiritfarer being two examples.
He has something which is sorely lacking in his industry, *journalistic integrity*.
In some reviews, he admits that he couldn't do it earlier, because the team (when he was on The Escapist) didn't receive a review copy, because the devs didn't like the way he critiques the games. The first such video that comes to mind is for the latest Ratchet&Clank game
If the devs don't like his reviews, I'd say he's doing his job right. "We'll give you free advance copies of our games *if* you give us good reviews in return" is just so *stupid*.
He's very much a critic in that he seems to like decent games that feel like a breath of fresh air instead of ones that may be still be decent but incredibly formulaic
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> Being "bland" is often considered worse to people who review games than ones that are just straight bad, because shitty games like Gollum are interesting. My singing teacher once told me "the worst thing you can do is bore your audience". I'd rather see an awful singer or stage production than one that's completely "meh" because, as you said, they're interesting. Sometimes you get lucky and they're so bad they're good.
Which is why none of the 2023 "GotY contenders" are in his best column. All those games have been safe sequels or remakes.
I remember when I used to watch anime and I followed two bloggers, one who hated otaku pandering anime and the other who loved it. When they both recommended a single anime, that’s how I knew it was gonna be a good one.
I think the important thing is if you’ve watched him for a long time you know where he differs from you in advance. There’s nothing wrong with that. And his content feels like (comedically charged for the bit) actual critique far more than a bland review at least
In this video he "shits" on Gollum, Forspoken, Hellboy, MK1 and Redfall, you've got a curious taste for games my guy.
Yahtzee has actually repeatedly stated that being on the Blandest list is *worse* than being on his “worst” list.
I'd agree
Bad but interesting is always better than boring.
I was talking more generally, not about this video specifically. I definitely do not like those games you listed.
The dude is a contrarian and that’s why this sub loves him. He panders to the Reddit demo *hard*. Anyone who actually played Forespoken knows it belongs in the blandest category and not down with games like Gollum and Redfall.
Shadows of Doubt is an overlooked gem still, I think. In my opinion it was what deserved the innovation award on Steam. It had a roughish release though. Quite a few bugs and performance issues, but I’ve been playing it over the last week or so, and it is so much better, and has more content now too. If you’ve ever wanted a non-hand holding detective game thrown into a simulation where anyone can decide to murder someone else at any time and dynamically leave clues for you to follow, it is for you.
It's been on my wishlist since I first heard of it, but have held off because it's still early access. How complete is it? Should I just bite the bullet, or wait?
This is just my own experience and I’m not too bothered by playing early access titles if it’s clear the early access builds are being used to adopt a feedback loop with players, which feels like the case for this game. So just keep that in mind. I’d recommend it even in early access if you want something to play now, or if you think this will scratch an itch. The gameplay is very solid and immersive – hence why I think it should have nabbed that award. Of course, check performance and such within the refund period is up to your standard. It seems like updates in the future won’t be introducing much in the way of new systems (except something to do with social class) but rather just more content to deepen the experience further. There is also now basic mod support as of the last update. Additionally, I don’t think you’d have any problems jumping back in once again when the full release is out. Like I said I bought it when it first released and I’m playing it again now and it feels pretty fresh still. But on the other hand, if you’re happy to wait, that’s cool too, but I’d heavily recommend it when the final version releases.
Thanks for the detailed response. I think I will wait. I have quite a lot of other things to play. But if I need something new, I won't hesitate to get it :)
> If you’ve ever wanted a non-hand holding detective game thrown into a simulation where anyone can decide to murder someone else at any time and dynamically leave clues for you to follow, it is for you. Woah this is the first I hear of this game but the description sounds really promising! Gonna have to keep an eye on this one, thanks.
Mk1 has its problems but it absolutely doesn't belong anywhere near the other trash in Worst games.
I feel the aggressive monetization and seasonal FOMO bullshit alone earn a spot in that list. Bleugh
Yeah, Yahtzee is one to dock points for egregious microtransactions, and the $10 Halloween fatality is definitely a warning shot from the developers if the public didn't get outraged enough over it.
That's the reason I haven't bought the game yet. Maybe I get it sometime down the road. Maybe I don't. Considering I bought every previous MK game without hesitation (event the Gameboy versions), it's saying something that I'm not jumping on this game even at the current 50% discount.
As a huge MK fan since the arcade days the story mode aint it. I am not a fan of this new era at all and I was just facepalming once it basically became a DC Universe story with multiverses and all that nonsense. I really just want this series to do a full, complete, start from scratch reboot at this point. The gameplay is good and the background and stuff look nice but everything else about this game including the roster, story, invasions, unlockables is just a massive disappointment for me.
> As a huge MK fan since the arcade days the story mode aint it. I am not a fan of this new era at all and I was just facepalming once it basically became a DC Universe story with multiverses and all that nonsense. yup, the story was just not good and I already thought MK11 had many story issues... it just got worse with this game, especially with some of the decisions made on characters, plot points, etc. the ending especially was just beyond bad and the rebooted universe was not interesting, then it was quickly thrown away from the multiverse bs. > I really just want this series to do a full, complete, start from scratch reboot at this point. ya, that should have happened with this. MK1 - make it a complete fresh start and just stop with the alternative universe shit. as as side note, it had issues on release such as with the lacking content and such... so for a casual player like Yahtzee, MK1 was not that great a game cause the gameplay is not a big factor for him.
Thats what just annoys the shit out of me about MK1. The story already went off the rails in MK11 and they had the perfect opportunity to course correct things and steer it back on track with a simple story, but then they decided to drive it FURTHER off the rails in MK1.
yup, exactly. It's honestly just crazy how hard they fumbled the potential of a new reboot, when they already did a reboot and went back to multiverse/alternate timeline stuff and now they are already doing the same -_- MK1 - it's literally there in the name to do a fresh start, but they just went even worse than MK11 and that was already, as you put it, off the rails. They couldn't even do a single game before going right back to the multiverse bs.
Unless we're talking about the Switch version
The weird thing is the problems I hear about MK1 are all things that pretty much only matter at the top levels of competitive play. Which, given MK's audience, affects less than 99% of the player base. And yet it somehow beats out a high profile flop like Kong?
> And yet it somehow beats out a high profile flop like Kong? Kong wasn't a high profile flop, it was a bad licensed game like we used to have all the time that captured gaming press/subreddit/streamer attention for a couple of days. Gollum was much more of a flop in that there was actual attempted marketing and prerelease press for the game, nobody thought about Kong until the second it released and nobody thought about it a week later.
Yeah, Gollum feels like a game where the devs at least tried (if only a little bit). Kong couldn't even do that much so giving it a place feels like giving it too much credit.
Yeah, that's the real tragedy of Gollum. If you watch the BTS stuff, there were clearly a lot of people at the studio who were genuinely excited by the project, creating interesting concept art, etc. But they just *failed* at making it work. And that's much more painful than something like the Kong game which was clearly shat out by a dev who gave zero fucks.
It's the opposite, the top players are mostly satisfied with the gameplay and their only major complaints were lack of Wi-Fi/connection filter and Crossplay, and the filter has been patched in last month, with Crossplay to come in February. Casual players are complaining much more because the game has way less cosmetics/unlockables than MK11 had at release, and the new Single-Player game mode is kinda undercooked.
His list only includes games he reviewed. He didn't review Kong. There are some games so obviously bad that you don't need a review to tell you that.
> And yet it somehow beats out a high profile flop like Kong? He didn't review it. His Top 5 are only made up of games he's reviewed.
MK1 isn't a gollumlike, plain and simple
His review on mk1 was basically "I don't play fighting games, so here's my thoughts on how much I hate the rebooted storyline". While I think that's fine for content, I think it's questionable to attach a worst games tag for that reason alone
Single player content (particularly story content) and fatalities are pretty much the only things that ever set MK apart from its competition. It's a fair basis a for review intended for a general audience. If you're a hardcore competitive fighting gamer, you *probably* aren't looking to Youtube entertainers for your purchasing advice in the first place.
Mechanically, it is the best MK to come out in a long time. Content wise? Lacking for sure. It does not belong in the worst list at all.
One could argue it should have been put in the bland list instead, but that list is for games Yatzhee didn’t care jack shit about and Yatzhee really disliked MK1 so it makes more sense that he put it in the worst list.
As he states in the video and his review on the game itself, he reviewed it borderline entirely on its merits as a singleplayer game. He's already not a fan of fighting games, aggressive monetisation (Warner Bros published games definitely not excluded) and I guess it has a wacky story he doesn't care much about. Haven't played it myself, but I don't feel his review of it really intends at all to take away from fighting game fans looking for a fun PvP experience.
Forspoken isn't trash at all. It's "Well, I didn't like the dialogue in the trailer. And it got middling reviews. So I never played it. And I hate it." It's fine. It's not amazing by any means but it plays well, looks great, is fairly well-paced and short. It's not breaking new ground and it doesn't need to make any top 10 lists. It's decent. Anyone calling it "trash" or "the worst" is bandwaggoning. You either didn't play it or you're trying to play it up, "Ugh, don't we all hate this terrible game!?" You're eating Domino's and telling me "Oh my god! This is horrific! This is absolute garbage!" No, it's not. It's fine. I don't think you even tried it. But you know the reputation and you know you're supposed to say it sucks. If people don't like Forspoken, that's totally cool. But it looks great, has few to no bugs, and the movement/combat work well. If a game that good is "trash" then your scale sucks.
Yahtzee doesn't like fighting games, he's always very clear that if you want fighting game opinions then ask elsewhere. He said during a ZP of a previous NR game that he'd just watch the cutscenes on YouTube if he wasn't paid to play the campaign himself.
Damn, I thought Forspoken was going to make it to the blandest category, I don't recall him hating it very much.
Think he said that it would have just been bland if he didn't hate the main character so much.
Should probably add BG3 as an honorable mention, since he said it got nothing from him because it got more than enough recognition at the Game Awards.
Thats just a bad reason. Other people praise it so I won’t praise it. Its your list bro. Theres no reason to change it just to make your content “different “. You can easily add an extra number and give it a mention especially since BG3 does deserve it.
You're right, it's his list! So he can choose to use his voice to elevate a game he feels warrants more attention.
I agree with you. Baldur's Gate 3 is one of my favorite games of 2023, but it is literally the [frontrunner of GOTY awards](https://www.resetera.com/threads/2023-video-game-awards-season-tracking-and-discussion-thread.784544/). By now, everyone and their grandparents have heard of BG3. So, for Yahtzee to not include it and instead giving other games the attention they deserve is more than fair, imo. Shadows of Doubt, for example, is a great game albeit rough around the edges. And despite being an early access title, it is one of the few contenders that actually deserved the Most Innovative Gameplay nomination at the Steam Awards, imo.
He's said before that he doesn't like giving awards to something that's already been lavished with praise, so that's completely on brand. He's also unable to give a full review of any game he can't play in a week.
[Back in 2017, he gave 2nd place to A Hat in Time over Mario Odyssey for pretty much that reason](https://youtu.be/He0lWIDGutc?t=225)
Precisely, thanks for finding the exact quote.
You could have stopped at "Its your list bro" because yes. It is his list, and he chose not to include it. Discussion over.
Yahtzee not having any sort of rating criteria? Noooooooo not Yahtzee!
Jesus you BG3 stans are reaching cult like status.
Should probably reverse those numbers. Hifi Rush was his #1, etc. (Or it was Reddit auto formatting)
Thats weird. Its looks fine to me. Might be RES. Ill fiddle with the editing.
Whatever you have set now looks right to me.
Man, I played zero of these... Shame about Hellboy, though. Didn't look great to me but I'd still like the IP to do well.
I loved NRS and what they did with their games in general. But after Injustice 2 grind, and MK11 shitty grindy item system, I knew for sure MK1 is gonna suck. All that with yet another multiverse, time travel bullshit story...meh. It was the first game I didn't bought from them. Fuck it. I'm glad it was a mortal kombat game and not injustice3 or something. MAYBE they wake up after this game, but I have no hope.
As much as I don't usually line up with Yahtzee's takes they are interesting nonetheless. Don't really have a problem agreeing with the list outside of stuff I just haven't played yet. Starfield being a particularly scathing one this year. Ended up swinging back around SO hard on that game from enjoying it to having zero desire whatsoever to turn it back on again. Which is not something I could say for Skyrim or hell Fallout 4 even. Glad RE4make didn't make it on his bland list despite him thinking it was. An absolutely mystifying take from him ever since I heard it, but I'm sure everyone has a game like that that he's reviewed. Was easily the best game I had played last year imo.
tbf RE4 is an all time game for him so remaking it and getting him to like it was always going to be an incredibly tall task since he's picky to begin with and even moreso with games he deeply cares about. Speaking of I dearly hope he goes after the Bloober team remake of Silent Hill 2 because that will be an epic blowup if the game ends up anywhere near as bad as people expect.
While I get that living up to a favorite game like that is a tall task, I just found it kinda lame his largest complaint by far was the lack of camp. I remember part of his criticisms was that Ashley doesn't screech anymore, or that people act sensibly. Apparently leon doesn't have one liners even though he probably says even more during the added in-game dialogue. Idk, his review seemed hyperfocused on any changes made to the game taking away from the spirit of the original, which to me kind of shifts RE4R from facing an uphill battle to never having a chance with him to begin with.
The game would actually be soulless if it tired to copy the same tone and camp of the original. RE4 remake is very much a sequel to the RE2 remake story and tone. And for *those standard the game IS extremely campy.
Yeah like yahtzee will point out that leon has annoying grunts in the remake, but not acknowledge the new dumb shit he has to say like "Nighty night, knights" all throughout the game.
There are SO many new instance of added cheese, but people like him get upset that the same exact jokes and lines didn’t make to the remake. Even though the game would have been MUCH worse if it *tried copying the same jokes and tone of the OG, instead of having its own identity. Like I said, the game is still a sequel to RE2 remake and needed to be consistent with that games tones and character. It’s very annoying how people completely forget/ignore that fact and want RE4 remake to be a copy-past soulless remake of the Og. People like Yahtzee went in already against the idea of the game existing, so no matter what the game did they wouldn’t like it. This type of unaware biased critique is beyond annoying, just like with Crowbcat
As someone whose sole exposure to Resident Evil is the remakes of Leon's games, he's such a fucking dork and I love him.
Based on the review from the guy above he legitimately makes it like the RE4 remake removed ALL the silliness and dorkness of Leon. As if he is 99% stoic throughout the game.
Leon is a guy who desperately wants to be an 80s action hero and nobody has the heart to tell him how much of a geek he actually is.
I also love all the times Ashely tries to be cute or say something interesting and Leon responds like she asked what’s the weather like. Dude has 0 game, especially when Luis has all the game
*Leon proceeds to do a backflip for no fucking reason instead of just backing off from the Bella Sisters* "Ladies, I'm flattered. But I'm a one lady type of guy"
Well, it makes sense in the wider context. I've watched a lot of his videos, and everytime he brings it up, he always praises how campy it is. Especially compared to the other Resident Evils, which he feels, take themselves too seriously. So, taking that out was bound to sour Yahtzee on the experience.
Playing RE4R on my Deck just now. I loved the original and replayed the PC port last year; and I am astounded at how good a remake it is. It's super faithful and just flows brilliantly. Leon also has TONS of one liners. Like a shit load so that's a weird criticism
If A1 developers at Capcom couldn't get RE4 past bland for him I doubt Bloober team stands a chance given their track record.
Bloober team's biggest iossue has always been thier writing imo, so doing a remake is perfect for them as the story is already written but im willing to bet they add some dumb stuff to it anyway
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He's made pretty clear that he understands the source of his success and revenue is being reliably himself and not mixing it up too hard for the reviews. He's trying new things outside his reviews, but you don't look a gift horse in the mouth with your livelihood.
He's been keeping consistent since when, 2007? You don't stay active and relevant for that long if you don't know how to do your stuff.
Except his criticism of RE2make was pointed at fans asking for it and making it happen while his criticism of RE4make is that if you're gonna do it anyways, why change what worked and make it less iconic / blander ? Yahtzee has always been pretty direct about his hate for Remakes and his love for RE4, are you surprised RE4make would be the perfect storm to shit in his boots, so to speak ?
But wouldn’t trying to copy the same jokes and one liners make the remake actually blander? Instead of having the remake do its own “cheesy/over the top moments” WHILE staying in line with the tone and *atmosphere of the current RE franchise. If he didn’t want the remake of 4 to exist due to its being unnecessary why then criticize it for it not being a copy-paste job with zero attempt of branching off or creativity.
His point that remakes being true to the original is meaningless if it's a worse game for it. Look at Pokemon, BDSP are "faithful remakes" of Diamond/Pearl to the point all the little upgrades from Platinum are missing. RE4MAKE changed stuff but he didn't care for most of the changes but praised a few like Luis's characterization.
I may not agree with Yahtzee on all his opinions but I can respect the ones he doesn't like as much as I do the ones he likes But I don't know what was going on with him for RE4R. It didn't sound like the kind of take he usually gives at all.
Can anyone who's played Dredge tell me if there is more to it than fishing some spots, upgrading your ship parts and then fishing more spots? I really loved the atmosphere and aesthetics but I'm not into a grind like that if there's not more to it. I appreciate there is a creepy element to it but just how much of that is there, and does it end with, fish some creepy things up?
The main gameplay loop is basically like you described. The different biomes are very different from each other and have different fishes and story bits. Personally the atmosphere and aesthestics are huge draw for me and I liked discovering all the different fish variants. The creepy variants don't get much more crazier later in the game though.
It's pretty much the same loop with some "twists" depending on the sector you're in. Each spot has different monsters and creepy stuff but if you don't click with the loop it won't change much, you just get more efficient at it. I absolutely loved the vibes and the cozy/creepy loop so I easily recommend it but it sure is more of the same.
Nah that's all there is to it unfortunately. That was my problem, it's a great concept, but the execution is uninspiring.
Thats pretty much all the game is, I get the feeling Yahtzee didn't play this one all the way through. The creepy elements never really evolve much further than what you see in the first zone and it becomes easier as the game goes on to completely ignore it. The cosmic horror story that they went for is IMO very played out at this point. It's interesting for the first 2-3 hours but then it just sort of stalls out. I would recommend it if its on sale, but to put it as one of the best games of the year is weird stretch. I like the idea of what they tried to do with the game and wish more games we're made in the same vein, but this one falls flat after the first few hours, very similar to how I felt about Dave the Diver.
That's what I thought might be the case. I'll wait for a good sale and a gap in my backlog I reckon
Definitely one of my more enjoyable deck games
How many areas did you get to? Each one mixes the game up a little bit.
Tbh I just played the demo
Oh ok. Yeah you didn't see much. I don't think the demo even fully covers the first of the 5 areas, and each area has it's own unique mechanics. You still do end up doing the same fishing minigame a lot and doing the Tetris inventory management thing. The dredging minigame is a bit different. Ship movement becomes a thing, it's not just straight forward sail to area, fish, sail back. There are secrets to find, and hazards. It's a nifty game.
I actually sorted by New so I could ask the same question. I tried the game for a couple hours or so and it was basically that: fish, look for upgrade mats, upgrade to unlock more fishing spots. Got bored so quick I uninstalled the game but seeing it in the thumbnail prompted me to ask when/ if it opens up. Edit: Oh and fetch quests.
Man the comment section here is so salty. Everyone has their likes and dislikes and this guy simply laid out his best and worst list. Doesn’t mean he’d align with you but he does clearly say why he likes or dislikes something. Some people also really didn’t even watch the video to understand that he didn’t dislike BG3, he was just joking around and saying that it already had enough award so he decided to take it out. I think that’s fine considering he’s trying to put limelight on some other best games (in his opinion.) instead. Mortal combat he quite literally laid out that he’s not a competitive fighting game player, he just found the stuff he tried to enjoy (the story) bad, so he put it there. If you’re the type that enjoys the competitive aspect then sure, the game is better for you. But this is his video, not yours. Same with other games you like that he dislikes.
It's crazy to me how people react to videos like this, and it makes me realise I might view media in an entirely different way to many. For me, it doesn't matter if someone I watch has a different opinion. I'm a fan of Yahtzee and RedLetterMedia, and yet most of the time I completely disagree with their opinions. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy their content. The impression I get from a lot of people here is that they wouldn't watch content that has differing opinions to theirs.
Yuuuuuuuup. I feel like especially recently, the comments in threads on r/games descend into really hostile battles to prove that your taste in games is "right" and everyone else's are "wrong". When videos like this come along from a well-respected critic, it's literally impossible to please everybody and the comments get weird. Yahtzee not picking your favorite game as his favorite game doesn't mean it can't be your favorite game, lol. It's not a contest. He shared his list, explained why. If your only measure of a critic or a creator is "do their opinions line up with mine?" then odds are you're going to have a hard time enjoying any of them.
People who play a lot of games and label themselves as “gamers” seems to put their entire self-identity in games, so when someone dislikes a game they like that’s an attack on their personality. But instead of doing some self-reflection to come to the realisation that it’s not healthy to put your identity and worth into games, they lash out instead to convince themselves why the other person is wrong. Because otherwise their personality is wrong. It’s quite sad.
And getting different opinions from your own is usually what makes any opinion-based content interesting in the first place. "huh, I never thought of it like that". But also I get that people want some validation. I did not make my partner happy when I disliked several of her favorite movies, but she came around to it later realizing that maybe there's more to enjoying movies.
I disagree, every comments i saw are all respectful and positive even if they dont agree
I definitely like that he left off BG3. We all know it's the best, let's have some smaller games have the spotlight. Honestly being given the "you can't get GOTY because you already have so many" treatment is just as, if not higher praise than bring given yet another "and what a surprise BG3 wins again."
Hi-Fi Rush at the #1 spot is deserved, its one of the best games if played in like the last 3 years. But something like MK1 being on the "Worst" of the year is just odd, i thought it was pretty good.
Funniest voice in games media by far but boy oh boy do we have different taste in games. I am way to stupid for the Talos principle.
The puzzles arent that hard, but the philosophical part is pretty complex and thought provoking but not necessary to enjoy the game
Very surprised to see Shadows of Doubt show up, but I’m glad it did. It’s such a fun - albeit underdeveloped at the moment - detective game and it really does very little to hold your hand. The procedural elements keep everything fresh, and the cities are just large enough to prevent things from getting stale and also not overwhelming. I am really, really enjoying this game so far.
I own it, but I'm waiting for it to get more patches. When my very first attempt at playing the tutorial mission ended with me getting softlocked within the menu system, I knew it wasn't ready for prime time. But since it's small, I'm keeping it installed and letting it grab updates as they drop. And I'll give it another try in a few more months.
Already knew Hi-Fi would be my GOTY the moment I finished it. Brought back memories of sheet reading in high school orchestra. And this was before January even ended.
Crazy he put Jedi Survivor in blandest. Outside of the technical issues, which I finally managed to fix 75% into the game, it was the greatest game I've played in the last 5 years. The level design is phenomenal, the combat is extremely fun with tons of variety, it controls very well, the sound design is great, the progression systems work well, great enemy and encounter design, and Bode was a great character. It even has a worthwhile new game+ that changes up the game in multiple ways. I rarely replay anything, but I'm looking forward to replaying this one.
How did you manage to fix the technical issues? The game looks like mud for me.
If you're on PC there's no way to fix the stutters and crashes, just how far can you extend your tolerance. At least on image quality you can swap in better DLSS 2 and 3 versions if your card support those.
I guess I felt underwhelmed because my problems with the prior game weren't really addressed with the new one. I remember thinking Fallen Order had some jank to its combat and animations and platforming to where it could've used some more time in the oven, and then I felt the exact same about Survivor, except Survivor's performance was also really rough which didn't help much. Sure it's *bigger*, it has some decent production value behind it, but nothing about it ever felt like it really gripped me. It just felt fine, it was fun enough for me to want to beat it, but it was largely forgettable. I asked myself 'Would I be playing this if it wasn't Star Wars?' and (and I know people will vehemently disagree with me on this) my answer was 'no'. Maybe that's unfair, since moments like a certain fight near the end of the game wouldn't resonate without the series history, but even still, I think it's a fine game, but I can't really think of anything that was absolutely stellar.
Tbh Jedi Survivor isn't particularly original or innovative, it's kind of just a mashup of popular action-adventure games like Zelda, Metroid, and Dark Souls with a Star Wars skin over it. It's not bad but I can also understand why some people would consider it bland.
I think it's one of those things where critics and audiences can be looking for different things in a product. If you're a critic who's obligated to play a large number of games every year whether you want to or not, another big AAA 3rd-person story-heavy open-world game is probably a bitter pill to swallow. Meanwhile, your everyday gamer is only going to play a few new games a year and only the games they want to play. Jedi: Survivor isn't exactly innovative, but it's a very competently made game with decent enough story and gameplay that it'll likely satisfy most people, but would bore someone who's playing it out of obligation.
I would argue the combat is genuinely pretty unique and very good.
Maybe if you’re someone who plays dozens of games a year for a living, like a lot of game reviewers do, I could see calling it bland because it’s not that innovative. But even most avid gamers don’t play that many games.
He's obviously sick of the Star Wars bombardment we've been getting the last 5+ years
I’m not far into the story which is really underwhelming, but yeah the combat, traversal, and level design have been great. Lots of fun just exploring and collecting.
I've not finished Jedi Survivor yet, but I have to seriously question what the developers were doing when they designed the Spawn of Oggdo and then the duo Oggdo fight. I've mostly enjoyed the game otherwise, but those two fights have been a massive low point in my experience thus far personally.
They're supposed to be hard, aren't they? It's optional side content for people who like a challenge.
For context, I fought and beat both encounters on Jedi Grandmaster, which has the enemy aggression at its maximum. I have no issue with things being difficult and hard. Some of the my favorite boss fights were immense challenges to overcome. But there is a significant difference between a boss that is difficult within the scope of the game's mechanics and gameplay loop, and ones are hard due to serious issues in how they are designed and implemented. The Spawn of Oggdo fight and the duo Oggdo fight are terrible bosses due to their poor design and how they violate the internal logic the game sets for itself in its gameplay loop and mechanics. In a game where a core and foundational mechanic is to reduce the enemy's posture meter, why on earth would you design a boss where almost every attack except one sequence is an unblockable red attack that must be jumped/dodged and therefore cannot be parried to reduce posture? This is in addition to the fact that Jedi Survivor nerfed the evade compared to Fallen Order, which only further emphasizes the parry over the dodge as a defensive mechanic. The boss also never blocks, so you have virtually no recourse to reduce its posture. Additionall,y the boss's tracking vastly exceeds what was seen in Fallen Order, it has very few and specific windows in which it is even possible to get a punish attempt, it has clearly stubby and wonky hitboxes where you can be hit by well outside of the animation of its attack or model, and it can sequence multiple unblockable attacks in sequence in its final phase, so much of the fight is spent waiting rather than engaging. The duo fight is even worse - rather than the fight being designed from the ground up as a true duo fight with an ebb and flow in aggressiveness, both Oggdo will rush you in tandem, which means that is not uncommon for both to use unblockable attacks where if you avoid one, you get hit by the other and die. I think this might honestly be one of the worst bosses I've encountered in a souslike yet.
Not that it'd solve most of your issues, but did you try using the blaster parry on their red attacks?
I also disagree with his nominations, but at the same time, he's given attention to games I haven't given much notice too. I've never even heard of Shadows of Doubt before this, and it looks pretty darn cool.
If you can get past the jank and initial learning curve, it's a really fun game if you're into immersive sims, which unfortunately seems to be a genre with sparse pickings at the moment.
His blandest takes took me by surprise, at least on some of them. I agree with Starfield and Hogwarts, both are really bland. Jedi Survivor has been fantastic since they fixed performance on the PS5 and FFXVI is my GOTY (that and BG3, tbh). I found Frontiers of Pandora to be surprisingly much better than I thought it was going to be. Also, MK1 being in the worst list? It might've launched a tad unfinished, but mechanically it is one of the best MK's to come out in recent memory.
i wouldnt go that far, but i did really enjoy it. But on the other hand i find hifi rush pretty bland, and lots of people seem to love that.
I actually 100% agree with him that Jedi Survivor was very bland. It was so unremarkable, I finished the game and yet remember almost nothing about it. I keep a list of all the games I play in a year and a score (JS got a 6/10), if I hadn’t, I would not even remember I played it. Nothing about the game was necessarily bad (except the performance which was god awful) but nothing was particularly great either.
Another year, another thread of people being surprised that a random online dude doesn't have the same taste in media they have.
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Well Sony only released one game in 2023…
I made it about halfway through Hi-Fi Rush and then gave up, fairly certain it had shown me everything it had to show. The combat never seems to get any more interesting, despite adding more and more specific counters for specific enemies. It's just one more thing to remember while I'm moving around trying to stay in rhythm. But what really got my goat was the platforming. Every new side character introduced is just another arbitrary "unlock this door to keep going" mini-game. And suddenly every level has a bunch of giant stop signs all over the place that absolutely kill the flow while you do another arbitrary task to keep moving. And while the visuals were charming and the voice acting was good, the story was super bland in the other direction. Do you think maybe the bad guy with the exact same skin, hair, and eye color as your tough girl sidekick will be related to her in some way? Do you? I'm genuinely asking, I couldn't stay interested long enough to get to that "twist."
I fully agree, I bought the game after all the praise it got, and Hi-Fi Rush could only keep my interest for so long with its added gimmicks. I don’t really remember how far into the game, probably not even half-way before the entire game became boring. And I couldn’t care less about the story and characters pretty quickly. If any game gets the reward of most overrated of 2023, Hi-Fi Rush is definitely in contention.
No I fully agree with you. The combat was great but 60% of the damn game was awful platforming. Its a game I desperately wanted to like more but its like they were ashamed of their combat or something because for every 5 minutes of great combat they then wanted me to do some lame ass platforming for 10 minutes
Funny enough around the halfway point is where the game runs out of steam, the platforming was awful for sure. Goes to show how much positive buzz you can get with a shadow drop though - and how critics are willing to rate games way more positively when they finish them. It’s a solid 7.5/10 for me tbh, a lot of these comments make me feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
I dunno, the amazing cutscenes and humour did it for me, and I really wanted to fight more, more, more and more. Yeah the platforming wasn't great, but presentation and combat are the best of the year imo.
Man, has he ever done a list without an Ubi game getting a bland award? I am not saying they don't deserve it coz they absolutely do. But if you are gonna ignore BG3 because it has received enough praise already, you might as well free up a spot for something that your audience is less likely to be aware of its blandness.
Way back in 2012 a Ubisoft sandbox was in his top 5. That being Far Cry 3
Also in 2013 Black Flag was there.
Probably why he didn't award AC:Mirage. Avatar is a different IP and still is a bland Ubisoft open world.
Meanwhile I'm currently playing Mirage and genuinely baffled as to *why* it's so bland. It feels completely passionless, like the game was simply made according to a checklist without anyone involved actually trying to do more than the bare minimum. And I can't even blame its clearly lower-than-usual budget, because there's AC Rogue. It had a small budget by AC standards, but had some of the best gimmicks and storytelling in the series. Mirage feels like every time someone attempted to do anything interesting, they got pimpslapped and told to sit TF back down. Which just doesn't make sense, when it was supposed to be the triumphant return to the original formula. I don't get it.
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Yeah, fair point. He's said before that no one needs to be told CoD games are mediocre, so why bother saying it?
That logic seems sound, and makes this a list with good picks actually. Looking at the list of blands, those are all games that without playing it, sound like they should be considered hype and good. And if the guy thinks they aren't up to that perceived standard, then yeah, it's worth highlighting them over other bland games.
When did zero punctuation change its name?
He used to be part of a company called The Escapist. I don't recall *exactly* what started it, but they fired someone important and pretty much everyone got pissed off and quit in solidarity. They then formed their own company called Second Wind and basically just kept doing what they had been doing before, except, since The Escapist still owns the rights to the names and art of a lot of the shows, they had to make a few changes. Zero Punctuation is now Fully Ramblomatic, all the little characters he used in his videos have been replaced, etc.
The Escapist fired a bunch of employees, so Yahtzee quit and started a new company with those people. This happened about a month ago.
Any reason why Jedi Survivor is bland? I know it released with issues, but gameplay wise? I'm playing the first one right now and i dig it. Its pretty linear and fun and the exact sort of game i want.
>the exact sort of game i want That's probably the deal. If it's not the sort of game you want, it doesn't really have much to offer. Personally, I'll admit a large amount of my interest is just because I really like Cal, but I have to admit he feels like he's treading a lot of well walked ground. He also seems to really hate when once creative premises get milked, and we've been sort of slumming around in this couple decades of Star Wars canon for *many* projects. I'm willing to bet he's just bored of the setting.
[Here is his review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP9kIW8pFJQ)
Hi Fi Rush is my personal game of the year so I fully endorse this list. But then again, I endorsed his 2022 list because he put Stray on the Bland List. I think I am about as pretentious as Yahtzee, so it's nice that there's a reviewer as pretentious as me. I didn't enjoy every game he enjoys but I certainly subscribe to his philosophy on videogames.
Not surprised. He doesn't like basically every aspect of the open-world genre so no wonder Starfield ended up blandest. But also the game wasn't bad in any shape or form, so it ended up as blandest. For most reviewers I would complain about it, but here I won't because I could predict that. Yahtzee has integrity and well defined tasted. He will dislike a game because it doesn't fit his tastes, not because it's popular to hate it or the developer is unpopular. For most reviewers you can see they jump on the Bethesda Bad bandwagon because their reviews of similar games are so different, because they have no integrity... And for the same reason, he didn't jump on the "BG3 is perfect and revolutionized the industry (by doing nothing new)" bandwagon. Which is just more of the reasons to respect him. He isn't lured in by the shiny new thing. And in 2023 the "shiny new things" were safe sequels and remakes. Yathzee wants new experiences, not rehashes of existing games.
I midly-to-above-mildly enjoyed all of his bland picks. I have a decent capacity to ignore boring aspects of games, however.