Astral Chain reviews: Meta: 87, OC: 87

[AngryLittleAlchemist]

mZuzek said:

AngryLittleAlchemist said:

Don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I feel like a lot of 87-89 titles are probably games that are as quality as 90+ titles, but simply are much more niche. It certainly feels like review scores are generally tailored towards popular titles, with a lot of 90+ games perfectly capturing both acclaim and popularity. Or maybe they're just titles with slightly less polish in some areas, that overall are fun enough to be as good as games of higher review averages.

That's true without being a conspiracy theory. It's not that reviewers rate games lower because they're not as popular, it's that they think of games lower because of it. It's not exactly down to popularity as much as it is about reputation, though - and new IPs don't have any reputation, hence why they usually never get a 90+. Take a look at Horizon: Zero Dawn for example, considered by many one of the games of the generation, but it has the same metascore as Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Nothing against Fire Emblem, that game looks pretty good, but I mean, yeah, you get what I'm saying.

Yeah and I basically agree, which is why I hope this game does well sales-wise even though it likely will do OK at best.