haha I found a window when the wallet bleeding had stopped a month or so ago to preorder. Couldn't trust myself to be ready come launch day :p

Amazing scores! Definitely an amazing week with so many great games released

Not bad. Even 7.5/10 is good.

97 is stellar. 2017 has been quite a ride, and it's not over yet!

Well this an interesting phenomenon that speaks to the human psyche and is perfectly observable in all sorts of fields: Later reviews are more likely to be negative on an acclaimed game, as they begin reviewing the reviews as much as they are the game itself.

Basically, when someone tells you something is perfect, you don't look at a normal game/book/movie etc and give it a grade; instead, you instinctively look for the flaws to show that it's not perfect. Thus, when people wait a few weeks to turn in their reviews (all the while having the words "masterpiece" and "perfect" thrown in their face), their reviews will devote an inordinate amount of time to any negatives they can find.

This has been observed time after time with focus groups where a product will receive higher praise if they're given no indication of how it has been previously received when compared to the lower praise if they're told it did exceptionally well with previous focus groups. In fact, simply being told of a previous opinion completely changes the way they respond to questions and view the product.

It's why I personally wish there was a 48 hours window for those reviews that will actually count towards the metacritic score. Once enough time has passed, the reviewer is no longer reviewing in a vacuum and is instead reviewing the mainstream claim of it being a "masterpiece".

If you're referring to Xenoblade 2, I'm just praying it comes reasonably close to the first. If that were to also be as good or even better than Xenoblade, I might just faint.

I'm trying not to get too hopeful, but can you imagine?

2017 would probably become the best publishing year for Nintendo, ever.

And this since 2002, which saw 3 major groundbreaking games launch

That is the score I get in my classes with very little studying... A company that puts a ton of hardwork and effort into a project deserves much higher praise from a community. I'm not saying they deserve money because they don't, but they should be praised for pushing the video game medium in the right direction. From what I've heard this game has the perfect balance of ease and difficult later in the game.

congrats to the game, but there is no way that 97 will hold when Slant Magazine exists.