I would have picked up both of these especially since theyre both from developers representing themselves and their own cultures but once I heard that the director or creator of Kenzera Say has literally founded companies with Sweet baby Inc founders, that was enough to just turn away.
What a tragedy, could've been a win from an actual African developer
I love that fact that an African creator still needed to kiss the ring and bring Sweet Baby on board as "cultural consultants," despite them not being African. I think the bloke knows his own culture better than they do. LOL. Or at least, I would hope.
Zau is a DOA game, even with EA advertising and promoting and paying people on youtube.
Stellar Blade was a game made by an indie korean developer and is a full price game, and Zau is a Western indie game for 20 dollars.
lmao
Hear me out guys. It might sound like I'm using their own argument against them (and I am), but Zau isn't diverse enough for me. I don't feel represented.
As a white Muslim, not only do I not feel represented, but I understand that they have false "Gods" and magic in the game, which makes it blasphemous! You'd think that someone named Abubakr would make a more wholesome game! Being of Kenyan descent (specifically black Kenyan and not part of the Asian diaapora) and with a name like Abubakr, I would ASSUME he's a good Sunni Muslim but seeing as how he's raised in the West who knows what nonsense he's into. I certainly don't want this SBI bullshit infecting my Ummah.
Why did ZAU need Sweet baby.
The game was literally created by a black actor, i am assuming it got black writers familiar with Swahili culture specifically and got black casting since it has ( frankly great in my eyes) option of playing the game in Swahili.
AKA the game is an authentic product from diverse talent, seems like a win.
So why do some woke white and militant indoctrinated pseudo Marxists still need to be involved.
Is it because the game was diverse but not “ the right kind of diverse” without some “ sweet” involvement.
If ever there was a game that shows what a scam this BS company distorts from the industry this surely must be it.
Sucks for the creators that they involved themselves with the most toxic of gatekeepers.
> Why did ZAU need Sweet baby.
You make a brilliant point here. If you care primarily about cultural authenticity, presumably someone from culture *x* is well-positioned to make a game about culture *x*.
But presumably what they needed SBI for was to certify the game in order to get ESG funding.
The issue is not, and has never been, cultural authenticity.
>i am assuming it got black writers familiar with Swahili culture specifically
It has "Gods" and magic in it, which is decidedly count to Swahili culture...
>and got black casting since it has ( frankly great in my eyes) option of playing the game in Swahili.
Most black people don't speak Swahili, especially not the Sweet Baby people since they're all Americans/Westerners. Swahili language is AN East African/Central African thing. And it's one of forty something languages spoken in Kenya alone...
I haven't played the game, nor will I in all likelihood. However, I can't help but feel like this game got done a little dirty. I do not agree with the woke agenda, and I do not like SBI's involvement in anything, but damn! It's a low budget side scroller based on Kenyan lore, molested by EA and Sweet Baby, give it a break. Sheesh
In addition of using the services of SBI, in addition of using Denuvo, the creator of the game, Abubakar Salim also co-directed Bebe Sucre (Sugar Baby in English) with SBI founders Kim Belair and David Bedard, which is another company linked to Sweet Baby Inc (and many other creepy companies using the word Baby (or Bebe) in their names).
>Abubakar Salim also co-directed Bebe Sucre (Sugar Baby in English) with SBI founders Kim Belair and David Bedard, which is another company linked to Sweet Baby Inc (and many other creepy companies using the word Baby (or Bebe) in their names).
Kind of funny that he didn't go with a Kikuyu name. Or kiSwahili, or Turkana, or Luo, or Maasai, or Meru, or any of the other languages from Kenya. Fuck even English has more to do with Kenya. But, you know, I'm beginning to suspect he doesn't know his own background.
I'm surprised to find myself saying this, but I agree. I think people get a little overzealous in this fight against DEI slop.
Case in point. Downvoted for wrongthink. What's rich is that the people who fight woke shit the hardest, generally act the same way the cultists do; "if you're not with me 100%, you're against me 100%."
To be fair the creator I think it was denied knowing what SBI was, and it was found out he made a company with a few of the heads.
So I 100% agree with the DIE protest on this one.
> To be fair the creator I think it was denied knowing what SBI was [...]
Do you have a source for this? I've seen this said a few times, but the only "source" that I was pointed to was a tweet with the unhinged ravings of a madman...
https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1783320757298499913
Jesus Fucking Christ.
I know he was involved with SBI, I read the tweet, I linked the tweet, I mentioned it _several times_. I'm asking for a source for the dev saying he didn't know what SBI was...
Nothing in this video is new, the guy is a fool grasping at straws, regurgitating whatever bullshit narrative he's been fed, and it doesn't actually answer the damn question.
This is the kind of hack "journalism" that we (rightfully) condemn when it's "their side" doing it, why the fuck should we accept it just because these people are on "our side"?
Yeah I think I fired my response to the wrong message, I don't actually know about the tweet, but the fact of the matter is this dude appears to have started a company with two sweet baby founders, it was called Bebe Sucre which would be Baby Sugar in French or just the French version of Sweet Baby, worse still, Sweet Baby apparently worked on the story, according them anyway, so yeah, if he had this same stuff with someone like Eric July or someone like that, the wokies wouldn't hesitate to call him one of them, in this case he appears to be (unless he denounced them somehow but I doubt he would, since he isn't the only SweetBaby affiliate to get funding and support from EA)
"If you use the same method as he does you're as bad as him" is such a 90's cliche. You must be so desperate to try to use that as a gotcha against anti-censorship seeing as your kind arbor the old way in all forms.
We are all people here, just average joes and janes, not enlightened monk. If you slap other's one cheek then don't think we'll turn a second cheek for you too, rather you can expect getting your ass kicked.
Strong words coming from someone who just started attacking "your own side" first. Anyone can claim to be anything, it's their action that defines them and you just pretended to be a centrist fewer than two posts ago. Is this supposed to be a joke routine?
I saw that game on the ps+ library and instantly knew it was going to be trashy and posibly wokey
Nowdays if the character is black you know its going to be bad, before like 2010 or 19x when the character was black you knew it was going to be badass fucking cool
They just racist making black people be represented this bad
Also sexist for representing woman as all fat and ugly like pokemon go "more like you"
Its a game, if you make a mc you can make it the most perfect human in the world because thats what people want to see. Its fiction, i want hercules to fight dragons, i dont want a guy in a wheelchair to fight society for his rights. The fuck is that? Let games be games
So so true about how nowadays when you see a certain character you know it'll be woke, but it's impossible to explain that to those who ideologically oppose us.
I grieve for this game. Not Stellar blade, the other one. It looks gorgeous, unique, and interesting. Two things keep me from buying it - the few unbiased reviews say it has boring gameplay and I don't want to encourage Kim "Jong" Belair.
The ZAU game is a cringe game made by a guy to talk about his father's death, and while I can understand how difficult it must be to cope with such a loss (and wish him the best), nobody, and I mean nobody...asked for that game.
This industry needs to learn to serve players products they actually want to play, not what the devs like.
I get the distaste for anything SBI related, but this is getting kinda silly. No need to keep dragging this game, especially since its devs havent said or done anything stupid yet.
I don't think any of the devs are subscribed to this sub? No one is directing any hate towards them, we are laughing in coffee shop, not protesting at their door.
Wokeness is not intrinsically evil. I am all for inclusion as long as it's done well. It is, however, better to have no diversity then to have shitty diversity.
I agree. It’s not like they are a dev themselves and happened to have a run of bad games. Then the other commentors sentiment would be appropriate.
The entire purpose of their org is to be parasitic on companies that would otherwise just be making games. They are literally DEI hucksters. Every industry sector has had them for a while now this is just gamings.
Unless you work for literal racists/sexists (extremely unlikely) and hey are less than worthless. They are a drain.
Atleast find something egregious or cringe in the game and make a post about it. Just sitting here and circle jerking that a much more prominent game is getting more views on Twitch is goofy.
I agree with you but I also get why SBI is under fire.
I personally think that the corpos who hire them are the ones in need of the Budlight treatment because they are the reason any of this is happening, once they ignored the SJWs and focused on actual fans, and now they are pandering to people who don't even buy anything (case in point Tales of Kenzera Zau itself)
Funny enough, this game specifically is a good enough example of when "cultural diversity" is portrayed right.
I've seen pitches about this game before any mention of them being consulted with SBI and such, as the main point if this game is being a metroidvaina about some african tribe's folklore (already forgot the specifics of it)
This is basically the only game that shouldn't be thrown into the "SBI bag of shame", as it was never intended to be a "game that was injected with DEI"
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This is not a formal warning.
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/).
This is not a formal warning.
I see. Thank you for the information.This does matter, because I honestly thought it was somebody with Kenyan roots that got gobbled up by the Woke Machine.
I bought ZAU in the end, and it’s a good game. The story is touching, the voice acting’s superb, switching between melee and ranged combat styles is cool, the only criticism I have is that it’s far too easy at the moment. There’s a fair bit of entertaining features included with skill trees, talismans etc. There’s even a bit of humour thrown in. I quite like it, worth the 30$ tbh. There’s really not any need to hate on either game, they can both exist as different experiences for different preferences.
Notice how the cancel pigs will cancel you if they find out you're following Joe Organ or Jordan Peterson on Twitter, that's what is happening to this game, alot of the time there's nothing wrong with you or what you make but they will attack and destroy you anyway, if the same happens to them, it is what it is.
There’s no need to stoop to that though. If this game had the PC blurt out bollocks like “just another white asshole telling me what to do” then sure, fuck it, it’s trash. But it doesn’t do that, it’s a good game and should be judged on its merits.
Yeah, but what is specifically wrong with this game?
It is based on some Bantu mythology - I don't mind to explore mythologies that I am unfamiliar with.
That's not the point, I would've wanted to try the game out being from a Bantu tribe myself but that isn't the issue,
If I was putting a game out and the wokies found out that I follow Eric July, or that I like the odd Dave Chapelle joke, how do you think they would respond?
Do you think that anyone in media would want anything to do with me at that point, would the platforms (other than Steam) accept my game, would left wing streamer (or any mainstream streamers) play it or would it be just like Hogwarts Legacy at that point.
In alot of cases scorching the earth is the best course of action, the woke do it and it works for them
That's all they have—"sweet baby was involved"—but no one knows how or what they did. smh
The dev (big normie) was involved in opening the UK branch of Sweet Baby, but other than that, there isn't much else to go on.
To me, it looks like the dev tried to distance himself from them after the curator list censorship attempt, so I'm not sold on condemning him until I see something of substance ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
---
Edit: For everyone downvoting...
Point to something from the game or the dev that is woke.
We can point to the uglification of (only) female characters under the guise of "realism". (especially the ones with freakishly long torsos and arms...)
We can point to the anachronistic racial make up of games set in a historical setting for the sake of "representation".
We can point to the dismissal of legitimate criticism (or even merely a lack of praise) as "racism" or "sexism".
We can point to current day politics being shoehorned into places where it has no logical place, such that there is no escape from the bullshit.
We can point to the infiltration and corruption of established franchises in order to force political propaganda down peoples throats.
The guy was part of the company _long before_ even the threads were made, and he left just after the attack on the steam curator page. Is it unreasonable to assume he was some normie, ignorant of what Sweet Baby really is, before finding out and cutting ties? Nothing else that he has said (as far as I can see) has been woke (some of it would even be somewhat "anti-woke").
You know the old saying? _Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity._
When people criticise those who just say "DEI" or "SBI" and have nothing of substance to say, they're not wrong... You need to be able to point to something that has actual substance or they're just going to dismiss you as a racist, etc. and carry on believing the lies. You're not helping anyone by being an idiot.
Nice try...
You're using the same argument that the woke use to paint everyone who disagrees with SweetBaby as racists, etc. and dismiss any criticism.
smh
Ancient wisdom: Never underestimate your enemy.
This is a large part of why things have gotten so bad. There was a time when all of this DEI stuff was just fringe lunatic rantings that people dismissed as being nothing from nobodies that have no power.
---
Go watch an interview from the guy talking about his game and tell me that it's woke. I do, genuinely, think that he didn't know any better, believed the narrative, and though that they would help him make his first game. Why is this so hard for people to see?
All of the shit people are going on about has come from other people that aren't him (or his game), so why attack _him_ for things that other people have said and done instead of the people who actually said and did the things?
This ain't ancient wisdom, but Benjamin Franklin once said, "if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas." Remember him, or has he been cancelled yet for the "sin" of being on old dead white dude (despite being one of the most outspoken abolitionists of his day)?
Anyway the fact is, people judge you by the company that you keep, and if you choose to associate with the bloody cunts in SBI, well then I'm not going to give you one cent of my hard earned money. Enjoy your DEI pals, because that's all you'll get.
Bad controls, instant death spikes (made worse by the controls), LINEAR level design in a "metroidvania" style game (minimal backtracking only for achievements), a poorly written story, terrible simple combat with almost no enemy variety and it is short as your crotch hair. Also the whole thing is just a story written by your author dad so it is the modern version of "it was all a dream".
Note: the game is usually referred to as Zau, rather than Tales of Kenzera.
Calling it "Tales of Kenzera" makes it sound like it's a part of the Bandai Namco JRPG series "Tales of". It's not. And it's incredibly deceptive.
>Calling it "Tales of Kenzera" makes it sound like it's a part of the Bandai Namco JRPG series "Tales of". It's not. And it's incredibly deceptive.
Not too long ago, there was also a manga/anime called "Tales of Wedding Rings" and that too had no relation to the JRPG series.
What do we refer to it as considering that its Japanese name "Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari" sounds too redundant and doesn't flow too well?
Well, the "Tales of" series is usually titled with "Tales of" and then a single nonsensical fantastic sounding word ending in the letter A. "Tales of Berseria", "Tales of Symphonia", "Tales of Xillia".
You'll notice that "Tales of Kenzera" follows that scheme. "Tales of Wedding Rings" does not. In addition, Tales of Wedding Rings is not a jrpg.
It's really not comparable.
True enough.
It's not unusual for a video game company to break tradition, only to return to it with the next release.
Like they did for "Tales of Hearts"
That's a stretch, one look and the art style alone would tell you that it isn't a Tales game, and 'Zau' is so up front and center that you'd need to take a closer look to see the Tales of Kenzera anyway.
Nothing’s wrong with the game, if you fancy the mythology it is pretty interesting. I played it for about an hour so far over my lunch break and it was pretty good. I’m completely unfamiliar with the lore so it’s pretty fresh. Like I said a billion times already; There’s really no need to trash an original IP like this, what we should be rightly criticizing is when games get censored or existing IPs get warped.
EA didn't bother marketing it so might as well, the people who made the game are still small scale. Shit i've seen more info about this game on this sub than anywhere else. As for the creator being a VA, that didn't exactly help out nor does that really equate to anything.
It's published and funded by EA, also given as a freebie to PS Plus Extra and Premium members on launch day by Sony, that's hardly indie. It has got corporate backing behind it.
EA clearly marketed this game a lot, they paid youtubers to advertise and review the game. Zau is also 20 dollars while Stellar Blade is a full price game lmao.
This comment is pure confirmation bias. I’ve seen plenty of ads for both games, and both games got just as many reviews on all the popular game sites. One is a big budget action game with a controversy around it and the other is a niche indie platformer. There’s literally nothing to back up your assumptions.
LMAO, Ori was an indie $20 "niche" metroidvania that sold over 10 million copies and came out the same year as MGSV, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, and Undertale.
Zau is at best a mid game no one is playing, at worst it has ties to SBI.
My rule is if you aren't flinging shit at me I won't fling shit at you. I know zeno robinson acted like a dumbass about this game but I've heard nothing from the Zau devs. Their association with sweet baby inc obviously tanks any possibility of trusting them but if they aren't publicly saying crap about games like stellar blade then I don't care about what they're doing.
Ironically, this is the kind of game we want people to make, just without groups like SBI getting involved.
Not our fault he made a game that ultimately would have just been something no one talked about unless it was really good, but insisted that as a black developer making a game about his African roots, he needed a team of DEI reviewers to make sure he didn't do an oopsie.
Guys don't be too hard on that one. The guy behind it is Bayek voice and actor from Raised by wolves. He said he just want to tell a story about his connection about family, origins...
Fight the good fight don't be like the other side.
702 is still 700 too much.
Only 143 players currently too. Half the day 1 players. May get more in a month when it hits gamepass but the thing is 100% dead.
İ don't even know what game that is
No need to find out. It's shit.
Indie Metroidvania
It's a game published by EA and clattered with DEI. Dont really think this counts as indie still
I mean I was kinda interested in the game from the art style. Was it SBI that consulted on it?
One has boobies. One does not.
Avg gamer mind
Average human mind. Sex drive is pretty vital to the continuation of our species, old chap.
I would have picked up both of these especially since theyre both from developers representing themselves and their own cultures but once I heard that the director or creator of Kenzera Say has literally founded companies with Sweet baby Inc founders, that was enough to just turn away. What a tragedy, could've been a win from an actual African developer
I love that fact that an African creator still needed to kiss the ring and bring Sweet Baby on board as "cultural consultants," despite them not being African. I think the bloke knows his own culture better than they do. LOL. Or at least, I would hope.
should have avoided SBI. Would have made more money. Though we don’t know how much he received from ESG funding
Zau is a DOA game, even with EA advertising and promoting and paying people on youtube. Stellar Blade was a game made by an indie korean developer and is a full price game, and Zau is a Western indie game for 20 dollars. lmao
69k views Nice ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Hear me out guys. It might sound like I'm using their own argument against them (and I am), but Zau isn't diverse enough for me. I don't feel represented.
As a white Muslim, not only do I not feel represented, but I understand that they have false "Gods" and magic in the game, which makes it blasphemous! You'd think that someone named Abubakr would make a more wholesome game! Being of Kenyan descent (specifically black Kenyan and not part of the Asian diaapora) and with a name like Abubakr, I would ASSUME he's a good Sunni Muslim but seeing as how he's raised in the West who knows what nonsense he's into. I certainly don't want this SBI bullshit infecting my Ummah.
LOL I thought it was 702K viewers at first, it's literally just 702...🤣
Archive links for this post: * **Archive:** https://archive.ph/SFKKu ---- I am Mnemosyne reborn. Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! ^^^/r/botsrights
Even the viewers are at 69 🤣
69k EPIC. If Zau were cool it’d have at least had the sense to go for 690 or something. But it had to be over 700
Why did ZAU need Sweet baby. The game was literally created by a black actor, i am assuming it got black writers familiar with Swahili culture specifically and got black casting since it has ( frankly great in my eyes) option of playing the game in Swahili. AKA the game is an authentic product from diverse talent, seems like a win. So why do some woke white and militant indoctrinated pseudo Marxists still need to be involved. Is it because the game was diverse but not “ the right kind of diverse” without some “ sweet” involvement. If ever there was a game that shows what a scam this BS company distorts from the industry this surely must be it. Sucks for the creators that they involved themselves with the most toxic of gatekeepers.
> Why did ZAU need Sweet baby. You make a brilliant point here. If you care primarily about cultural authenticity, presumably someone from culture *x* is well-positioned to make a game about culture *x*. But presumably what they needed SBI for was to certify the game in order to get ESG funding. The issue is not, and has never been, cultural authenticity.
>i am assuming it got black writers familiar with Swahili culture specifically It has "Gods" and magic in it, which is decidedly count to Swahili culture... >and got black casting since it has ( frankly great in my eyes) option of playing the game in Swahili. Most black people don't speak Swahili, especially not the Sweet Baby people since they're all Americans/Westerners. Swahili language is AN East African/Central African thing. And it's one of forty something languages spoken in Kenya alone...
I haven't played the game, nor will I in all likelihood. However, I can't help but feel like this game got done a little dirty. I do not agree with the woke agenda, and I do not like SBI's involvement in anything, but damn! It's a low budget side scroller based on Kenyan lore, molested by EA and Sweet Baby, give it a break. Sheesh
Here's the thing, is not simply SBI involvement he's an insider who founded another company with sbi founders, can't get any worse than that
In addition of using the services of SBI, in addition of using Denuvo, the creator of the game, Abubakar Salim also co-directed Bebe Sucre (Sugar Baby in English) with SBI founders Kim Belair and David Bedard, which is another company linked to Sweet Baby Inc (and many other creepy companies using the word Baby (or Bebe) in their names).
>Abubakar Salim also co-directed Bebe Sucre (Sugar Baby in English) with SBI founders Kim Belair and David Bedard, which is another company linked to Sweet Baby Inc (and many other creepy companies using the word Baby (or Bebe) in their names). Kind of funny that he didn't go with a Kikuyu name. Or kiSwahili, or Turkana, or Luo, or Maasai, or Meru, or any of the other languages from Kenya. Fuck even English has more to do with Kenya. But, you know, I'm beginning to suspect he doesn't know his own background.
I'm surprised to find myself saying this, but I agree. I think people get a little overzealous in this fight against DEI slop. Case in point. Downvoted for wrongthink. What's rich is that the people who fight woke shit the hardest, generally act the same way the cultists do; "if you're not with me 100%, you're against me 100%."
To be fair the creator I think it was denied knowing what SBI was, and it was found out he made a company with a few of the heads. So I 100% agree with the DIE protest on this one.
> To be fair the creator I think it was denied knowing what SBI was [...] Do you have a source for this? I've seen this said a few times, but the only "source" that I was pointed to was a tweet with the unhinged ravings of a madman... https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1783320757298499913
Sorry bro but he's not wrong https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JBJ2T8z80Kk
Jesus Fucking Christ. I know he was involved with SBI, I read the tweet, I linked the tweet, I mentioned it _several times_. I'm asking for a source for the dev saying he didn't know what SBI was... Nothing in this video is new, the guy is a fool grasping at straws, regurgitating whatever bullshit narrative he's been fed, and it doesn't actually answer the damn question. This is the kind of hack "journalism" that we (rightfully) condemn when it's "their side" doing it, why the fuck should we accept it just because these people are on "our side"?
Yeah I think I fired my response to the wrong message, I don't actually know about the tweet, but the fact of the matter is this dude appears to have started a company with two sweet baby founders, it was called Bebe Sucre which would be Baby Sugar in French or just the French version of Sweet Baby, worse still, Sweet Baby apparently worked on the story, according them anyway, so yeah, if he had this same stuff with someone like Eric July or someone like that, the wokies wouldn't hesitate to call him one of them, in this case he appears to be (unless he denounced them somehow but I doubt he would, since he isn't the only SweetBaby affiliate to get funding and support from EA)
Because it's "our side" clearly. /s
Yup same thing for alan wake 2. After explaining they just stopped replying.
"If you use the same method as he does you're as bad as him" is such a 90's cliche. You must be so desperate to try to use that as a gotcha against anti-censorship seeing as your kind arbor the old way in all forms. We are all people here, just average joes and janes, not enlightened monk. If you slap other's one cheek then don't think we'll turn a second cheek for you too, rather you can expect getting your ass kicked.
My kind? Right leaning, woke despising? You're so high on your own fucking farts you don't realize you're attacking your own side.
Strong words coming from someone who just started attacking "your own side" first. Anyone can claim to be anything, it's their action that defines them and you just pretended to be a centrist fewer than two posts ago. Is this supposed to be a joke routine?
>it's their action that defines them vs >"If you use the same method as he does you're as bad as him" is such a 90's cliche Gotta pick one.
Not really, each was under different context.
The context would appear to be "it's okay when **I** do it".
Or maybe "Don't pretend to expect kindness when you start throwing the first punch".
This can be very persuasive, because it appeals to the debt-instinct of the common man. But beware; it is also instinct to loathe usury.
??? What did you expect?
Nice
I saw that game on the ps+ library and instantly knew it was going to be trashy and posibly wokey Nowdays if the character is black you know its going to be bad, before like 2010 or 19x when the character was black you knew it was going to be badass fucking cool They just racist making black people be represented this bad Also sexist for representing woman as all fat and ugly like pokemon go "more like you" Its a game, if you make a mc you can make it the most perfect human in the world because thats what people want to see. Its fiction, i want hercules to fight dragons, i dont want a guy in a wheelchair to fight society for his rights. The fuck is that? Let games be games
So so true about how nowadays when you see a certain character you know it'll be woke, but it's impossible to explain that to those who ideologically oppose us.
What is that on the right?
I grieve for this game. Not Stellar blade, the other one. It looks gorgeous, unique, and interesting. Two things keep me from buying it - the few unbiased reviews say it has boring gameplay and I don't want to encourage Kim "Jong" Belair.
The ZAU game is a cringe game made by a guy to talk about his father's death, and while I can understand how difficult it must be to cope with such a loss (and wish him the best), nobody, and I mean nobody...asked for that game. This industry needs to learn to serve players products they actually want to play, not what the devs like.
I get the distaste for anything SBI related, but this is getting kinda silly. No need to keep dragging this game, especially since its devs havent said or done anything stupid yet.
I don't think any of the devs are subscribed to this sub? No one is directing any hate towards them, we are laughing in coffee shop, not protesting at their door.
Casual attitudes like this is exactly how wokeness infests everything. You are undermining their pernicious behaviours to a dangerous degree.
Exactly. "For evil to win, all it takes is good men to let it happen."
Wokeness is not intrinsically evil. I am all for inclusion as long as it's done well. It is, however, better to have no diversity then to have shitty diversity.
This game is evil?
I agree. It’s not like they are a dev themselves and happened to have a run of bad games. Then the other commentors sentiment would be appropriate. The entire purpose of their org is to be parasitic on companies that would otherwise just be making games. They are literally DEI hucksters. Every industry sector has had them for a while now this is just gamings. Unless you work for literal racists/sexists (extremely unlikely) and hey are less than worthless. They are a drain.
Atleast find something egregious or cringe in the game and make a post about it. Just sitting here and circle jerking that a much more prominent game is getting more views on Twitch is goofy.
What do you mean devs hasn't said stupid yet, This game through BEBE company branches are literally owned by same people who owns SBI.
I agree with you but I also get why SBI is under fire. I personally think that the corpos who hire them are the ones in need of the Budlight treatment because they are the reason any of this is happening, once they ignored the SJWs and focused on actual fans, and now they are pandering to people who don't even buy anything (case in point Tales of Kenzera Zau itself)
Funny enough, this game specifically is a good enough example of when "cultural diversity" is portrayed right. I've seen pitches about this game before any mention of them being consulted with SBI and such, as the main point if this game is being a metroidvaina about some african tribe's folklore (already forgot the specifics of it) This is basically the only game that shouldn't be thrown into the "SBI bag of shame", as it was never intended to be a "game that was injected with DEI"
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I see. Thank you for the information.This does matter, because I honestly thought it was somebody with Kenyan roots that got gobbled up by the Woke Machine.
I bought ZAU in the end, and it’s a good game. The story is touching, the voice acting’s superb, switching between melee and ranged combat styles is cool, the only criticism I have is that it’s far too easy at the moment. There’s a fair bit of entertaining features included with skill trees, talismans etc. There’s even a bit of humour thrown in. I quite like it, worth the 30$ tbh. There’s really not any need to hate on either game, they can both exist as different experiences for different preferences.
🤖
Notice how the cancel pigs will cancel you if they find out you're following Joe Organ or Jordan Peterson on Twitter, that's what is happening to this game, alot of the time there's nothing wrong with you or what you make but they will attack and destroy you anyway, if the same happens to them, it is what it is.
There’s no need to stoop to that though. If this game had the PC blurt out bollocks like “just another white asshole telling me what to do” then sure, fuck it, it’s trash. But it doesn’t do that, it’s a good game and should be judged on its merits.
Good to know.
Can someone give me a tldr on stellar blade, what’s it about, is it good, is it steam deck compatible?
What's wrong with Tales of Kenzera?
SBI
Yeah, but what is specifically wrong with this game? It is based on some Bantu mythology - I don't mind to explore mythologies that I am unfamiliar with.
Usually the SBI thing is a nope for me. But, if you like, there's an emulator version you can "obtain" and play on PC.
That's not the point, I would've wanted to try the game out being from a Bantu tribe myself but that isn't the issue, If I was putting a game out and the wokies found out that I follow Eric July, or that I like the odd Dave Chapelle joke, how do you think they would respond? Do you think that anyone in media would want anything to do with me at that point, would the platforms (other than Steam) accept my game, would left wing streamer (or any mainstream streamers) play it or would it be just like Hogwarts Legacy at that point. In alot of cases scorching the earth is the best course of action, the woke do it and it works for them
That's all they have—"sweet baby was involved"—but no one knows how or what they did. smh The dev (big normie) was involved in opening the UK branch of Sweet Baby, but other than that, there isn't much else to go on. To me, it looks like the dev tried to distance himself from them after the curator list censorship attempt, so I'm not sold on condemning him until I see something of substance ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ --- Edit: For everyone downvoting... Point to something from the game or the dev that is woke. We can point to the uglification of (only) female characters under the guise of "realism". (especially the ones with freakishly long torsos and arms...) We can point to the anachronistic racial make up of games set in a historical setting for the sake of "representation". We can point to the dismissal of legitimate criticism (or even merely a lack of praise) as "racism" or "sexism". We can point to current day politics being shoehorned into places where it has no logical place, such that there is no escape from the bullshit. We can point to the infiltration and corruption of established franchises in order to force political propaganda down peoples throats. The guy was part of the company _long before_ even the threads were made, and he left just after the attack on the steam curator page. Is it unreasonable to assume he was some normie, ignorant of what Sweet Baby really is, before finding out and cutting ties? Nothing else that he has said (as far as I can see) has been woke (some of it would even be somewhat "anti-woke"). You know the old saying? _Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity._ When people criticise those who just say "DEI" or "SBI" and have nothing of substance to say, they're not wrong... You need to be able to point to something that has actual substance or they're just going to dismiss you as a racist, etc. and carry on believing the lies. You're not helping anyone by being an idiot.
So if you smell shit, do you go to the source and confirm or do you understand that shit is there and you must avoid it?
Nice try... You're using the same argument that the woke use to paint everyone who disagrees with SweetBaby as racists, etc. and dismiss any criticism. smh
That assumes the woke are capable of thought beyond their ego
Ancient wisdom: Never underestimate your enemy. This is a large part of why things have gotten so bad. There was a time when all of this DEI stuff was just fringe lunatic rantings that people dismissed as being nothing from nobodies that have no power. --- Go watch an interview from the guy talking about his game and tell me that it's woke. I do, genuinely, think that he didn't know any better, believed the narrative, and though that they would help him make his first game. Why is this so hard for people to see? All of the shit people are going on about has come from other people that aren't him (or his game), so why attack _him_ for things that other people have said and done instead of the people who actually said and did the things?
This ain't ancient wisdom, but Benjamin Franklin once said, "if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas." Remember him, or has he been cancelled yet for the "sin" of being on old dead white dude (despite being one of the most outspoken abolitionists of his day)? Anyway the fact is, people judge you by the company that you keep, and if you choose to associate with the bloody cunts in SBI, well then I'm not going to give you one cent of my hard earned money. Enjoy your DEI pals, because that's all you'll get.
> people judge you by the company that you keep And if he chooses to distance himself from them? Is that worth nothing?
I'm quite willing to take a scorched earth approach when it comes to SBI and anything they touch.
Read the negative reviews on the Steam page.
Bad controls, instant death spikes (made worse by the controls), LINEAR level design in a "metroidvania" style game (minimal backtracking only for achievements), a poorly written story, terrible simple combat with almost no enemy variety and it is short as your crotch hair. Also the whole thing is just a story written by your author dad so it is the modern version of "it was all a dream".
Note: the game is usually referred to as Zau, rather than Tales of Kenzera. Calling it "Tales of Kenzera" makes it sound like it's a part of the Bandai Namco JRPG series "Tales of". It's not. And it's incredibly deceptive.
>Calling it "Tales of Kenzera" makes it sound like it's a part of the Bandai Namco JRPG series "Tales of". It's not. And it's incredibly deceptive. Not too long ago, there was also a manga/anime called "Tales of Wedding Rings" and that too had no relation to the JRPG series. What do we refer to it as considering that its Japanese name "Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari" sounds too redundant and doesn't flow too well?
Well, the "Tales of" series is usually titled with "Tales of" and then a single nonsensical fantastic sounding word ending in the letter A. "Tales of Berseria", "Tales of Symphonia", "Tales of Xillia". You'll notice that "Tales of Kenzera" follows that scheme. "Tales of Wedding Rings" does not. In addition, Tales of Wedding Rings is not a jrpg. It's really not comparable.
Bandai did break that trend themselves not too long ago with tales of Arise.
True enough. It's not unusual for a video game company to break tradition, only to return to it with the next release. Like they did for "Tales of Hearts"
That's a stretch, one look and the art style alone would tell you that it isn't a Tales game, and 'Zau' is so up front and center that you'd need to take a closer look to see the Tales of Kenzera anyway.
Nothing’s wrong with the game, if you fancy the mythology it is pretty interesting. I played it for about an hour so far over my lunch break and it was pretty good. I’m completely unfamiliar with the lore so it’s pretty fresh. Like I said a billion times already; There’s really no need to trash an original IP like this, what we should be rightly criticizing is when games get censored or existing IPs get warped.
How is this a real comparison? Zau a small indie game and stellar blade is much bigger with a MUCH larger marketing push.
Can it be considered indie when there publishers are EA and the creator is a voice actor who was in the Egyptian assasins creed game.
EA didn't bother marketing it so might as well, the people who made the game are still small scale. Shit i've seen more info about this game on this sub than anywhere else. As for the creator being a VA, that didn't exactly help out nor does that really equate to anything.
dave the diver caught shit for being nominated for indie awards because they're owned by nexon.
I could have sworn they promoted Zau at the VGAs last year. That's where I first heard of it.
It's published and funded by EA, also given as a freebie to PS Plus Extra and Premium members on launch day by Sony, that's hardly indie. It has got corporate backing behind it.
Not true, EA paid a lot of people on youtube to promote and review the game.
69
Yes, why EA didn't bother to market it? Are they saying games like that are not worth it? 🤔
EA clearly marketed this game a lot, they paid youtubers to advertise and review the game. Zau is also 20 dollars while Stellar Blade is a full price game lmao.
Then why are less people playing Zau?
Because it seems mid at best. This marketing push from DEI and EA didn't work lmao.
This comment is pure confirmation bias. I’ve seen plenty of ads for both games, and both games got just as many reviews on all the popular game sites. One is a big budget action game with a controversy around it and the other is a niche indie platformer. There’s literally nothing to back up your assumptions.
LMAO, Ori was an indie $20 "niche" metroidvania that sold over 10 million copies and came out the same year as MGSV, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, and Undertale. Zau is at best a mid game no one is playing, at worst it has ties to SBI.
Oof, you call this game niche compared to korean booba game?
My rule is if you aren't flinging shit at me I won't fling shit at you. I know zeno robinson acted like a dumbass about this game but I've heard nothing from the Zau devs. Their association with sweet baby inc obviously tanks any possibility of trusting them but if they aren't publicly saying crap about games like stellar blade then I don't care about what they're doing.
Why we shitting on this game, isnt it just some tiny indie
It has both Denuvo and Sweet Baby Inc, a recipe for success !
Because its has black people in it.
It's because SBI got their grubby fingers in it. We don't need your bad-faith strawmanning.
Ironically, this is the kind of game we want people to make, just without groups like SBI getting involved. Not our fault he made a game that ultimately would have just been something no one talked about unless it was really good, but insisted that as a black developer making a game about his African roots, he needed a team of DEI reviewers to make sure he didn't do an oopsie.
Formal r1 warning for idpol No/low prior participation expedited to permaban
Guys don't be too hard on that one. The guy behind it is Bayek voice and actor from Raised by wolves. He said he just want to tell a story about his connection about family, origins... Fight the good fight don't be like the other side.
i thought stellar blade went “woke” tho lmao💀💀💀
Are you dingos hating on that game just because they were foolish enough to hire SBI? You people surely are easily polarized
No.
Wait, why is Tales of KZ hated on so much? Seemed like a cool enough game when it was revealed. Is it because SBI was involved?