The Independent Reviews Astral Chain on lowest difficulty, ends up leveling inaccurate criticisms at the game; "worst action game on Switch"

[Deleted member 249]

Astral Chain has on general earned rave acclaim from critics and players alike, but there have been some negative reviews, too. A lot of said reviews have very valid criticisms and concerns with the title. This thread does not talk about that. Rather, it talks about the game's review from The Independent:

There is just one slight problem: the game does have grades at the end of each mission, as long as you are not playing on Casual difficulty.



A few caveats:

• The game is on Casual mode by default, and
• The game actively asks you if you want to change the difficulty before each mission starts

Regardless, this review appears as though not only does the reviewer not have any appreciation for action games (which is fine, reviews should tackle multiple perspectives, after all), but that they also played the game at the easiest possible level, and then ended up unfairly criticizing it for a flaw that it does not actually have.

So, I posit this question to you: should reviewers play and critique games on Easy difficulty? Is this review misrepresentative? I don't think most people would have taken umbrage with what The Independent says, except they make a general statement about the entire game, rather than noting that it is limited only to Casual, which is the mode they played on.

Thoughts?

 

[Sander VF]

I know I'm thread whining, but why can't this be discussed in the review thread?

 

[PixelatedDonut]

I'm angry
Edit: I think there's better ways to frame this then an attack thread.

 

[jdstorm]

Sounds like they played on unchained rather then casual

 

[DrDeckard]

Oh dear....reviewer fail

 

[Deleted member 249]

I know I'm thread whining, but why can't this be discussed in the review thread?

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Because I intend to use Astral Chain as the jumping off point for a larger discussion about reviewing games, and how difficulty levels should factor into that.

 

[P-MAC]

I mean, it's The Independent. It would be newsworthy if they posted something about gaming that made sense

 

[-shadow-]

But the game constantly asks you if you want to change to another difficulty after the introduction... Constantly after each Case... How the hell do people miss this?!

 

[Deleted member 249]

But the game constantly asks you if you want to change to another difficulty after the introduction... Constantly after each Case... How the hell do people miss this?!

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It's possible they didn't miss that, but just didn't realize the game does grade you on higher difficulties

 

[Waaghals]

Playing a game on the easiest difficulity can sometimes encourage boring gameplay stategies. You might play the whole game suboptimally because it does not force you to change up your tactics.

I frequently play on easy if I just want to experience the story of a game, and some games are even better on the lower setting if they are inherently frustrating to play, but nobody should be fooled into thinking that you will experience the full depth of gameply in a "casual" mode.

Reviewers should play on "Normal" and developers should ensure that this mode is balanced to give a good impression of the game.
(I am not opposed to reviewers playing on higher difficulities if they are very familiar with the genre/series).

 

[Tricky I Shadow]

LOL, what a worthless review.

 

[Deleted member 249]

Playing a game on the easiest difficulity can sometimes encourage boring gameplay stategies. You might play the whole game suboptimally because it does not force you to change up your tactics.

I frequently play on easy if I just want to experience the story of a game, and some games are even better on the lower setting if they are inherently frustrating to play, but nobody should be fooled into thinking that you will experience the full depth of gameply in a "casual" mode.

Reviewers should play on "Normal" and developers should ensure that this mode is balanced to give a good impression of the game.
(I am not opposed to reviewers playing on higher difficulities if they are very familiar with the genre/series).

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That's my take as well. Generally if you are playing on Easy, it should be evident to you that you are not getting an experience optimized around the full range of the game's mechanics; it's more for people who don't care much for that, and just want to get through the title, whether for the story or something else.

I don't even mind making a note of easy difficulty in games being too easy, but you can't use those criticisms as the basis of your assessment for the entire game, imo

 

[@dedmunk]

If Casual mode is the "default" setting then they were right to judge it entirely on that experience.

 

[Acquiescence]

I think The Independent should do the right thing and bump their score of 1 out of 5 to 2 out of 5.

 

[Keldroc]

It's possible they didn't miss that, but just didn't realize the game does grade you on higher difficulties

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Even though it flat out tells you that in the difficulty selection screen. Which, if you're reviewing the game, you should at least look at once.

 

[jaymzi]

Miyazaki redeemed.

 

[BoxManLocke]

Nothing wrong with reviewers playing on easy. A significant part of the audience does that too.

However claiming features are absent from the game when they aren't is just a bad look, he should have checked to make sure.

Those are two separate issues though. He didn't misrepresent features because he was playing on easy, he did it because he wasn't thorough enough.

 

[AgentLampshade]

Did they just say DMC suffers from lack of combat variety? Haha, move on people, no worthwhile opinion to be found here.

 

[Odesu]

Because I intend to use Astral Chain as the jumping off point for a larger discussion about reviewing games, and how difficulty levels should factor into that.

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Instead, you will simply feed into the completely disproportianete harassment leveled against the writer that is already going on.

Time and place.

 

[HorseFD]

I think it makes sense for a reviewer to judge a game based on its default difficulty setting.

 

[Zlug]

Edit: Totally misread the topic woops.

 

[Deleted member 249]

Even though it flat out tells you that in the difficulty selection screen. Which, if you're reviewing the game, you should at least look at once.

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However claiming features are absent from the game when they aren't is just a bad look, he should have checked to make sure.

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Right, that's the thing. If you are reviewing, you want to make sure that what forms the crux of your complaints is already accounted for byh the game. In a sense, this reminds me of the Borderlands 2 VR review on IGN, which criticized the game for things the Options and Settings menus already addressed.

 

[gdt]

Seems like this person missed that cause he played on easy the whole time.


It's not a big deal and I struggle to care.

 

[nib95]

Why is casual difficulty the default difficulty, and does a description detail these changes? I don't know if I could necessarily berate the journalist for playing on casual, because many gamers out there will also play this game on that difficulty, and this experience may speak to them. That said, I do think the journalist should mention the difficulty they played the game at, since that difficulty can dramatically change the experience and enjoyment factor.

Also on a side note, this is one of the reasons I prefer these modes to be labelled Easy or Very Easy instead of Casual. It just further emphasises how lacking in challenge these modes will be. The casual descriptor I think in a way sounds a tad more appealing, which isn't necessarily a good thing, especially for a game like this.

 

[Kazooie]

I think if it is the default, it is fair to base the critique of the game on that setting. Of course it would have been preferrable for them to take a look at other difficulty settings to make sure, that they miss nothing, but what is default is the responsibility of the developers.

 

[nbnt]

The game is on Casual mode by default

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Then that's on the devs. You don't default your game to a difficulty you don't want the majority of players to play on. I see nothing wrong here.

 

[Deleted member 249]

Why is Casual difficulty the default difficulty, and does a description detail these changes? I don't know if I could necessarily berate the journalist for playing on casual, because many gamers out there will also play this game on that difficulty, and this experience may speak to them. That said, I do think the journalist should mention the difficulty they played the game at, since that difficulty can dramatically change the experience and enjoyment factor.

And also on a side note, this is one of the reasons I prefer these modes to be labelled Easy or Very Easy instead of Casual. It just further emphasises how lacking in challenge these modes will be.

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The game starts in media res, but the minute you first reach an in-game mission selection, it asks you to change the difficulty. It asks you to change the difficulty from then on before every single mission. The changes are detailed on the difficulty selection screen.

 

[AM_LIGHT]

Glad I read the comments before glancing over the review. On top of being biased & inaccurate it's apparently filled with important spoilers without warning.

 

[Zedark]

It's possible they didn't miss that, but just didn't realize the game does grade you on higher difficulties

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The game explicitly tells you that, though. They ought to have known that.

 

[Eumi]

Reviewers really need to swallow their ego at times.

I know you want your review to look like it's thorough so people will take it seriously, but you shouldn't be reviewing games if you can't even be bothered to look at all the different options it gives you.

You know what would have been an interesting review? One which focused on how neither of the two difficulties were right for him. I've actually played games like that, where easy is too easy but normal is too hard, or where features I wanted to use were locked to difficulties I didn't want to play on. That would be a worthwhile review, but here they instead just picked a difficulty and that was it. No care was put into engaging the game, just trundle along through it and then pump out a review on that.

 

[Kapryov]

Casual is the default difficulty setting?
That's an odd choice.

 

[TheInfinityGauntlet]

I mean, it's The Independent. It would be newsworthy if they posted something about gaming that made sense

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Honestly, it's not a gaming outlet I don't know why you expect high quality product from them (re: this form of media)

It's like being mad The Sun is only good for wiping dogshit off your shoes and not having good articles

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Playing a game on the easiest difficulity can sometimes encourage boring gameplay stategies. You might play the whole game suboptimally because it does not force you to change up your tactics.

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Yep. It's not terribly responsible to claim a game lacks nuance when you more or less deliberately avoid it.

Instead, you will simply feed into the completely disproportianete harassment leveled against the writer that is already going on.

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I'd like to think that we're allowed to level some critique at hyperbolic "worst action game" hot takes backed by inaccurate details.

 

[Tibarn]

Well this makes me remember the AlbW review that said that items couldn't be bought...

So yeah, reviewers being wrong about a game they have "completed" and spreading lies about the game, news at 11...

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

Playing a game on easy is just as valid as playing it on hard. And if "casual" is the default setting, it's 100% legitimate to review it on that seeing

 

[NotLiquid]

Casual is the default difficulty setting?
That's an odd choice.

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It's a bit odd for Platinum but the game has a really unconventional combat system to get a handle of, and I reckon they wanted to be accommodating to complete newcomers.

 

[Jawbreaker]

The game is set to casual by default, and there aren't any descriptions that detail the lack of grading on said mode (at least, I don't recall seeing it when I changed my game to standard after the tutorial). I'd say this falls more on the devs for failing to be clear; furthermore, it's OK to grade the game based on an easier mode (especially since it's the default).

 

[Eumi]

Playing a game on easy is just as valid as playing it on hard. And if "casual" is the default setting, it's 100% legitimate to review it on that seeing

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But that doesn't legitimise the actual issue, which is the inaccuracies in the review.

 

[Uthred]

Honestly, it's not a gaming outlet I don't know why you expect high quality product from them (re: this form of media)

It's like being mad The Sun is only good for wiping dogshit off your shoes and not having good articles

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Not getting basic things wrong about the thing you're covering is not "high quality product". It's the bare fucking minimum.

 

[sheaaaa]

Then that's on the devs. You don't default your game to a difficulty you don't want the majority of players to play on. I see nothing wrong here.

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It starts in casual but after the intro mission, there's an unmissable difficulty select screen which lays out the differences between each mode, including the grading system.

 

[MillionIII]

Never heard of them

 

[Brotherhood93]

Sounds like the review is a fair criticism of the mode they played on but I think this is why it is always important to be clear about what difficulty the game was played on for review. I also think it is poor from the reviewer not to have at least looked into what changes with different difficulties, especially if, as it seems, the game is pretty clear about those things being in the higher difficulties.

The point of a review is to inform consumers and it doesn't appear to have done a particularly good job so I'd consider it a poor review but not because of the difficulty the reviewer used.

 

[daninthemix]

Because I intend to use Astral Chain as the jumping off point for a larger discussion about reviewing games, and how difficulty levels should factor into that.

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I do think it's impossible for reviewers to assess games across all available difficulty levels. Considering how long it takes to even play a long game, let alone review, and considering how underwhelming game reviewer pay is, I'm suprised professional reviews are even viable at this point.

 

[Deleted member 249]

The game is set to casual by default, and there aren't any descriptions that detail the lack of grading on said mode (at least, I don't recall seeing it when I changed my game to standard after the tutorial). I'd say this falls more on the devs for failing to be clear; furthermore, it's OK to grade the game based on an easier mode (especially since it's the default).

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But that's the thing, the game outlines the absence of grading on Casual versus higher difficulties on a mandatory difficulty selection screen.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

But that doesn't legitimise the actual issue, which is the inaccuracies in the review.

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OP asked if games can be reviewed on the lowest difficulty level, that's what I responded to

 

[nib95]

The game starts in media res, but the minute you first reach an in-game mission selection, it asks you to change the difficulty. It asks you to change the difficulty from then on before every single mission. The changes are detailed on the difficulty selection screen.

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I have no idea what media res means, but when the game asks you if you want to change difficulty, are the descriptions for difficulty listed on that page, or is there some other menu or page you have to go back to, to see what those changes entail? Because the way you're describing things, I can see why the journalist may have just stuck with casual.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

you made a thread to call out a game review from the independent, my dude

 

[Jawbreaker]

But that's the thing, the game outlines the absence of grading on Casual versus higher difficulties on a mandatory difficulty selection screen.

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Weird. I don't recall seeing that screen. I must have mentally blocked it out since I knew I was going to switch to standard anyway.

 

[regenhuber]

But the game constantly asks you if you want to change to another difficulty after the introduction... Constantly after each Case... How the hell do people miss this?!

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Default difficulty is default.
Game never tells you that grades are added by upping the difficulty.

Not sure how the reviewer is lying tbh
He played the game on the default difficulty and stuck with it. It's not like he turned the game to easy on purpose.

I also don't see how the Astral grades add much incentive compared to DMC were they pop up all over the place.

Don't agree with the verdict (I liked Astral so far/ file 05 atm) but there's nothing wrong with the review.

 

[Deleted member 249]

I have no idea what media res means, but when the game asks you if you want to change difficulty, are the descriptions for difficulty listed on that page, or is there some other menu or page you have to go back to, to see what those changes entail? Because the way you're describing things, I can see why the journalist may have just stuck with casual.

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Basically in the middle of an ongoing scene. But yes, the changes are described pretty explicitly. The game also asks you about the difficulty before every mission.