Alright, that's a fair point. Still, I'd argue that despite having a much lower budget, there's actually a lot of REALLY good character work in Lost Planet 3 that went completely ignored.
But I actually have a whole thing about last-gen games that weren't treated right. Like Kane & Lynch 2, might actually be the best video game I played in 2018? Fucking love that game? I think when it released for $60... like, yeah, that shouldn't be a $60 game, it's too short. But devoid of that context, just as a Creative Work, holy shit, people slept on Kane & Lynch 2, you know?
I wrote it in one draft and it's my blog so I don't have an editor because I can't afford to pay anyone for th at, lol. I just paid the doctor $225, ain't got the cash for an editor. My Kotaku/IGN/USgamer stuff has editors, obviously.
My article was never going "every game has to be wholly original." It was going "man, a lot of people kinda just copy other people's homework without getting why it works."
When I play Resident Evil 2 Remake, it's like, wow, those guys get horror. They get survival mechanics. Their level design is on. fuckin. point. Resident Evil 2 is a near perfect video game. Every single element of that game comes together to form this perfect whole of a thing, just an absolute, juicy delight of a game.
When I play a game like God of War, I have the Generic Loot System, the Generic Crafting System, the Generic Skill Tree System. The consideration for its design just isn't there; it's just cribbing from other games with no real understanding as to why those mechanics needed to be in its game.
Neither game is 'original,' but one game knows why it's doing what it does. The other just throws in what's popular. RE2 has the 'it factor.'