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Kyuu on 16 January 2026
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firebush03 said:
Kyuu said:

I'm going to sound like a true hater lol (I swear I'm not!). But its "relevant" compeition wasn't nearly as fierce as Baldur's Gate 3's or Elden Ring's.

The game probably deserves it, but it's a little annoying how many people hype it up like it's another TLoU1, BotW, God of War 2018 (which I don't like but it beat RDR2's ass), Elden Ring, or Baldur's Gate 3 moment. It's just not. The game scored in the low 90's and is being treated an objective 97 just because it dominated a strong year in gaming. Hades 2 is the better received game, but it's penalized by its indie 2Dness. Hades and Hollow Knight just aren't the type of games to win in these events. And Bananza, while solid, obviously wasn't on the same tier as Nintendo's best platformers reception-wise.

Silksong? Bananza? Hades II? MarioKart? Ghost of Yotei?? Death Stranding?? Split Fiction?? And so on.

This year was stacked with heavy hitters! It’s not even comparable to 2022, which saw only a handful of a games win more than a couple of awards. And in spite of the more aggressive competition, ER won 69% of all awards whereas E33 swept >70%.

Also: “The game scored in the low 90’s” ignores the fact that it scored around where GoW’18 and TLoU:Pt1+2 scored. It sits as the 32nd most acclaimed game of all time on OC.

TLoU and GoW scored 94-95 originally and beat 97 GTA5 and RDR2.

The only game that scored notably higher than Clair Obscur last year was Hades 2 at 95. But Hades is a 2D indie, everyone and their grandmas knew it had no chance winning most GOTY's, everyone was right.

Clair Obscur is among the lowest scoring games to have won most GOTY's. And yet afaik it didn't beat a single AA/AAA game scoring a point higher. It was in fact the highest scoring game in the category that could win.

Acting like scores don't matter at all is no different from acting GOTY dominance is completely pointless. No AA/AAA competitor last year was on the same level critically as several games releasing in the few years before it. Losers like FF7 Rebirth, Metaphor, not to mention God of War Ragnarok and Tears of the Kingdom scored higher than Clair Obscur's competition inclduing Bananza. And Mario Kart World?... that game is also in a category that can't win most GOTY's. And, unlike Hades, it wasn't particularly well received. Not worth a mention in a GOTY/reception discussion.

Clair Obscur would definitely not have won this if it faced any of the winners I mentioned.

Show me a single year where a 92 scoring game coming close to a 97+. You can't, because the gap too large for something like this to occur. A game can "punch above its weight" if the weight difference is reasonably small. A 92 game isn't beating GTA5 or RDR2 which scored 97, let alone the games that beat them lol.

Comparisons to previous years are just pointless without checking the competitors' scores, genres, etc.