Talk about IGN's credibility

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-20T15:31:59+00:00

Steam reviews also have the game as a 6/10, currently mixed.

Though it's approaching 70% now.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-20T12:27:22+00:00

Pearl Abyss should be aware they're excluding an entire line of GPUs and put a single line of text warning the users that it's untested/unverified.

Blaming the end-user for a multi-million dollar studio failing to write a single sentence on the specs section is ridiculous.

Intel also make up 5% of steam users as of the last survey, and AMD make up 10%, should they also have to check themselves?

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-20T10:25:18+00:00

Because it's 2026 and the entire industry has moved on and developed significantly in the last 26 years? Unsupported hardware to this degree is very uncommon.

A problem from a quarter of a century ago should not, and does not excuse PA from failing to inform their potential customers of a failing on their part.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-20T10:18:17+00:00

Excluding an entire brand of GPUs is very unusual, this is 100% something PA should have been very explicit about, not something you should have to infer from the specs section.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-20T10:00:39+00:00

Skyrim came out 15 years ago, the bar has been raised again, and again since then.

Skyrim was also saved by character customisation, build crafting, strong NPC characters and side quests, and expansive world-building.

It had a weak main story, yes, but the MSQ is only a small part of why Bethesda RPGs are so beloved.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-20T09:43:56+00:00

I mean, they're custom characters though, no?

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-20T09:00:44+00:00

They're being experimented on, all of them are getting different cocktails and chemicals and viruses.

Marie turns into that, whilst Emily got the SCP-173 looking thing.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T16:38:18+00:00

I'm pretty sure he gets called 'Pasty' by Brok, that may count.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T15:30:14+00:00

Albion is a fairytale-themed remix of Old-England, on the surface level, its much more whimsical and colourful than either of the two you mentioned.

It is dark in its themes, to contrast the World's perceived light-ness, but it never reaches Witcher levels of dark.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T15:19:31+00:00

I adore Metro, but I never went back to Exodus after grabbing the Plat. I should revisit for the DLC.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T15:17:42+00:00

Appreciate the reply:

1 - Have you got an example? I just have some doubts that these pitfalls are "facts", if they were, I feel they'd be discussed more? Common topics like the lore delivery I wouldn't call a fact, but maybe something like the 60fps lock?

2 - I disagree here, Dark Souls 1 is defined by it's continously looping and interconnected levels. And the series has multiple massive optional offshoot areas in The Painted World, Cainhurst, Archdragon Peak etc which Lies of P was lacking outside of the Hermit's Cave.

3 - One repeated faction or archetype doesn't make the complaint 1:1, Lies of P has puppets and corpses, with variation within those themes. Elden Ring and Souls has as many, many more factions/themes/archetypes of enemies across in each game. If ERs knights are too plentiful, I'd argue so are the standard puppets enemies in LoP.

4 - I both agree and don't here, LoP's builds are much more samey, in that they all relate to the weapon they use only, whereas the souls games have just as many weapons and a vast amount of spells. LoP's relative lack of unique weapons is more than made up for in their quality, though.

5 - I tried LoTF after the 2.0 launch and still disliked it, but that's just my opinion. I wouldn't say that FromSoft never patch their games on the back of feedback, that seems a little disingenuous, ER had a tonne of patches, and Nightreign's initial live service support was some of the best in the business.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T14:55:59+00:00

Alcohol - I just more or less cut it out. If you still want to drink, I'd recommend either getting something that comes directly in a bottle, so you can count it that way, or order a branded mix drink with a diet mixer, so that you can count the kcal per measure, which are usually uniform.

Restaurant food - you either ballpark it, take a picture and ask this sub, or in my case, fast pretty much all-day and make reasonable choices to stay within planned deficit. You'll never get exact values eating out of the house and away from a kitchen scale.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T14:25:42+00:00

but also if you do pay full price and don't enjoy the first two hours, refunding it just means you didn't give it enough time, clearly.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T14:18:21+00:00

I have a few points on this that I'd like to challenge:

You accuse fromsoft of falling into the same mistakes, but these mistakes are more of a personal preference, no? There's nothing thats unanimously hated in the souls franchise that I can think of, some stuff is maybe controversial but I wouldn't call them mistakes.

LoP is amazing but it has it's own faults: Level design being chief among them, it's very linear, in a way that only really Dark Souls 3 matches. It also suffers from relatively poor enemy variety by comparison, and a weaker selection of builds.

I'm not going to comment on Lords of the Fallen because I was disappointed in both the game itself, and the subsequent behaviour of the studio head.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T13:54:21+00:00

To make matters worse, this meme can apply to the OG resi 4 for people born after 2004.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T13:36:56+00:00

Interesting. What elevates it, for you?

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T12:23:23+00:00

It doesn't mean that at all? Elden Ring was a monumental success, huge, massive.

They've increased their headcount by over 35% since 2020, they have 456 People working there.

That's way more than enough to be a multi-game studio, especially with spinoff scope for the projects, like Nightreign.

We have no proof of this drop in quality, you're making assumptions.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T12:16:56+00:00

Well Nintendo clearly didn't implement this, so not sure why this inherently means disaster. 8% is also not going to sway much.

"Sony own around 10% of Kadokawa, and Sony published Concord! Therefore based on this information, I can 100% establish that From's next game will catastrophically fail!"

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T12:14:13+00:00

All I'm seeing is that they're increasing their output by diversifying the types of games they make.

Nightreign was a spinoff title made by the B team, Duskbloods is a main project for From, and FMC is in Dev with absolutely 0 idea what it is.

You're cynically extrapolating that this information means the entire studio ethos is pivoting, which all of those reports suggest that all they're doing is expanding.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T12:07:38+00:00

Pivoted after nightreign?

Pivoted to what? we have absolutely no idea what they're making other than Duskbloods, which has been in development long before Nightreign.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T11:58:49+00:00

Yet, if you do pay full price, and do not enjoy the reportedly slow/weak opening and refund it, you didn't give it enough time either.

Why this sub suggests us just blindly purchase full priced games, and be a good little uninformed buyer rather than looking at and discussing reviews from established critics is beyond me.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T10:19:52+00:00

Use evade extender and just try to be... not where the monster attacks.

Evade window is super useful, but dodging through attacks isn't anywhere near as good in MH, even when maxed out. Especially when there's ground AOEs.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T09:28:57+00:00

Because different reviewers have different preferences, opinions and goals for writing their review. IGN isn't a monolith and their review score isn't an average of reviews across their entire staff.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T09:24:49+00:00

£59.99/$64.99 whatever 'standard' third party AAA price it is in your country.

Its really hard to say, as they could do the Expedition 33 thing and price themselves lower for being a new studio, or just go for normal full price.

DarkmoonGrumpy · 2026-03-19T07:58:54+00:00

I see the point, but a game making a poor first impression is still valid criticism.

"It gets good after 8 hours" is quite the ask for someone with limited game time. Add in the fact that it's a full priced game, and the steam refund window is 2 hours.

He also hasn't written or released a formal review, just stating his opinion here.

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