I agree with your comment, except for the part where you say, reviews are trivial... Maybe a lot of people have already decided which games and which not are going to buy, way before the Meta arrives, but theres a large gamer population who waits for the reviews in order to decide if they want to buy or not a game that they know little about.

From people I both know and follow in the industry, the story that a publisher is trying to buy scores would be a far more valuable thing to publish than whatever the publishers would offer, so I really don't think this happens with publications ever, and is total foil-hat crack-pot conspiracy nonsense.

Youtubers and "tastemakers" on the other hand, that shit is the wild goddamn west, and I'm sad that public opinion of established sources for cirtique is so low these days that people would rather get their opinions from them instead, and consider them "purer" voices.

I think people put too much stock into reviews and forget that its just someones opinion. For me the general consensus is more important when i look at a review.

I still personally think the NS isn't a console I will be willing to spend $299 on. And probably not even $199. And for reasons that matter to me. I still think (as expected) Zelda is one of the best games of the year and I look forward to playing it eventually.