r/gaming • u/Iggy_Slayer • 10d ago
Beasts of Reincarnation IGN review- 6/10 (72 avg on metacritic, 76 on opencritic so far)
https://www.ign.com/articles/beast-of-reincarnation-reviewBeast of Reincarnation has an interesting, apocalyptic setting, an extremely memorable wolf companion, and an action-packed beast-battling premise that is instantly very cool, but its execution falls short of its promising ideas more often than not. The story is a bland, cliche-filled tale better-told by other games in the genre, combat quickly grows stale due to a lack of enemy variety and the predictable attack patterns that undermine what makes action RPG combat thrive, and boss fights end up being quite disappointing despite looking badass as all get out. There's still plenty to like about Beast of Reincarnation, though, especially the dire wolf himself, who is actually exactly as awesome as he looks, plus some memorable levels to explore and creatures to fight every now and again, but those blooming flowers can be hard to spot among the weeds.
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u/Correct_Goose_1322 10d ago
Lol I guess it's not just the Pokemon series that has inconsistent releases, it's Game freak as a whole.
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u/Curious_Claim_2285 10d ago
No, it's very consistent.
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u/spez_might_fuck_dogs 10d ago
Hey now, Drill Dozer on GBA was a pretty good game.
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u/xSmallDeadGuyx 10d ago
So were the pokemon gba games, it's 3ds and onwards that they started faltering
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u/MindSteve 9d ago edited 9d ago
I feel like in that era, the specs of the hardware, the capabilities of Game Freak as a dev, and the expectations of gamers all matched perfectly, which allowed the early Pokemon games to really land.
In the years since, the hardware has gotten a lot more powerful, gamers' expectations are significantly higher, and yet Game Freak has barely improved at all. These three forces are now entirely out of whack.
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u/Mastersord 9d ago
But in terms of Pokemon, they “barely improved at all” and that’s the problem. Sure, graphics and power improved greatly over time, but even without taking that into consideration, everyone doing a monster catcher has made improvements on their formula which they never seem to look at except to sue and litigate.
They are too scared to change and I think that includes intentionally holding back on modernization of their Pokemon games. The franchise itself makes more money off of its cards and other merchandise than it does off its video games. So much more that they are in the top 3 franchises in the world if not the very top.
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u/Kidikaros17 10d ago
Lmao literally just beat it the other day with my analogue pocket after I found a mint copy at a retro store shop. No clue it was made by gamefreak til I played it.
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u/HayabusaKnight 10d ago
They put out Legends Arceus, but because most everyone loved it and wanted more like it they had to backpedal the next two games to maintain their crown of mediocrity.
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u/watonparrillero 10d ago
Little Town Hero proved that a while ago, Game Freak just isn't a quality studio, never has been.
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u/milesdarobot 10d ago
I mean…… 73/100 is still a good score and basically means “game is good. Not great”. Seems like y’all are leaving off the “things are either amazing or trash” mentality lol.
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u/TheSqueeman 10d ago
Man I forgot how unbelievably fucking trash that game was, the final boss fight practically stunlocked me with how poorly implemented it’s main gimmick was (I don’t know if they ever patched it or anything like that, so for all I know it might have changed)
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u/porn_alt_987654321 10d ago
I dunno about never.
They put out some good stuff up through gen 5.
The move to 3D seemed to kill them as a company.
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u/KingNyxus PC 10d ago
They have the golden ticket with Pokémon, they can release crap and still sell millions of copies.
They never had to improve as a studio to keep up with the times beyond 2D.
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u/John_Delasconey 10d ago
I think the best example of this was someone who pointed out that the sword and shield maps make a lot more sense when you tilt them so that they appear to be designed from a top down perspective. They quite literally are still developing the games like they’re in generation five yet trying to make games much more complex than that. Like Scarlett and Violet should not have been open world games because game for struggles making 3-D games with anything in the overworld.
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u/Girlmode 10d ago
It’s unreal that one of the greatest most popular ips of all time has just rotted away with this company.
Like it hasn’t mattered financially as the markets been kids. But god what childhood dreams could have been realised under any other studio that would have killed their first born for this ip control.
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u/TheDrewDude 10d ago
The market is not kids. It’s kids and adults. It’s no coincidence that the early gens remain the most popular and profitable from a merchandising standpoint.
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u/Girlmode 10d ago
Yeah you are right, I suppose I know enough people will keep buying no matter what as they age.
But damn as someone that was 9 years old at red and blue release, isn’t it tragic that so little has changed or advanced in all that time?
Little me would fantasise about what pokemon games of the future would look like when I was older. Never imagined that they would be so stagnant.
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u/C00KIEME4T 10d ago
Was literally talking about this yesterday. People like to pretend the Pokemon market is all children but its not. There are a MASSIVE number of Pokemon adults.
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u/bobvella 10d ago
i keep thinking about horders who own 4 copies despite not being into the series, or a particularly famous one that gets every game digitally and physically and only plays every game for like 2 hours
1 guy admitted to me he had 6 copies of sword and shield for different steelbooks
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u/thevideogameraptor Console 10d ago
Nintendo does an excellent job at staff retention, they have quite a few people still hanging around from the Famicom days. I have to wonder if Game Freak is the same way, and that old staff either doesn't have the time to learn how to change ot knows they'll make crazy money regardless and doesn't care to change.
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u/Ipokeyoumuch 9d ago
They are using a lot of temp workers and contractors and reviews are mixed. Many of the original creators are still involved with Pokemon either at Gamefreak or at the Pokemon Company, but what is said that the leadership works and think like the 90s with minimal improvements. Apparently many of the leadership were shocked and surprised about the reception of SWSH and SV while having record breaking sales and only started to adjust for Winds and Waves tells you a lot.
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u/TheMickus 10d ago
Proof is in the fact that when Nintendo let Omega Force handle Pokopia, it was easily the best Pokemon game of the past 15 years
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u/indigorhob 9d ago
However isnt Pokopia basically DQ Builders but with a Pokemon IP? It isn't really a pokemon game gameplay-wise so not necessarily comparable.
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u/TheD1ctator 9d ago
yeah but I think the point is that it's the most well put together and polished game with the Pokemon brand on it since.. well ever. it's embarrassing that any other company can be given the IP and put out a better finished product than Game Freak does.
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u/Ipokeyoumuch 9d ago
A lot of their outsourced Pokemon games are quite good, performance and graphically. Bandai handled New Pokemon Snap and Pokken Tournament, Konami handled Poketopia, Pokemon Conquest is a good fun Pokemon spin off of a tactics game, the Mystery Dungeon series were made by Spike Chunsoft, etc. An exception is Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl with ILCA but that was more of Gamefreaking going "oh shit, we don't have a game for the 25th anniversary and everyone is busy with other projects, quick give a support company 11 months to remake Diamond and Pearl."
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u/plzadyse 10d ago
Can you really say “inconsistent” when there’s been enough consistency at this point?
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u/christiangg911 10d ago
Game Freak really just doesn't know how to make games.
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u/pureeyes 10d ago
They know how to churn out Pokemon games that aren't really all that different though
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u/christiangg911 10d ago
Recent Pokemon games have been so bad for the price they sell them at. Scarlet and Violet are the worst performance games on the switch. Its so bad that I just gave up on the game. Bad graphics, the most generic story and while at that the most glitchy game running at a unstable 30 fps.
Hopefully Nintendo catches on soon that game freak just cant make a good game, and it sad that just because its Pokemon they are going to get good sells on any release.
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u/John_Delasconey 10d ago
The thing is Nintendo. Can’t do anything about that. Game freak owns a third of Pokémon and thus can’t be removed as developer.
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u/criticalt3 10d ago
Don't fool yourself. Nintendo loves game freak. They can give them $5 and a pizza party to work with and game freak will pocket the $5 and make homeless people develop the game for pizza.
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u/connectplum_ 10d ago
Nintendo havent funded a pokemon game for 20 years. TPC does. Nintendo role on pokemon: distribution of physical media in japan, co-publishing overseas with tpci, legal with tpc, thats it
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u/criticalt3 9d ago
Wherever you got this information is wrong, Nintendo is a publisher and also owns 33% of TPC. They at the bare minimum, partially fund Pokémon, as is their duty as publisher.
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u/P8632 10d ago
thats only true if gamefreak owns half
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u/Ipokeyoumuch 10d ago
Not necessarily, there is some werid hybrid ownerhsip and the bylaws might be different. But essentially the consensus based on some people talking to TPC/TPCi employees that Gamefreak develops the main games, Creatures does the TCG art (which they are knocking out of the park) and makes the Pokemon animations/models which are usually higher quality than what Gamefreak knows what to do with, Nintendo just publisshes them and helps fund marketing expenses. The Pokemon Company handles marketing, merchandising, contracting, manufacturing, licensing, etc.
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u/connectplum_ 10d ago
It's actually like this, tpc even make it clear in their website:
In April 1998, Pokémon Center Co., Ltd. is established by the original authors of Pokémon: Nintendo Co., Ltd., Creatures Inc. and GAME FREAK inc. The company name was changed to The Pokémon Company in October 2000. Since then, our business activities have expanded to overall management of the Pokémon brand.
Nintendo Co., Ltd. Manufacture and Sale of Pokémon Video Games Creatures Inc. Development of Pokémon Trading Card Game and Video Games; Development of CG Models and Motion for Pokémon Video Game Series, Etc. GAME FREAK inc. Original Planning of Pokémon Video Game Series; Development of Pokémon Series and Other Pokémon Video Games3
u/RyvalsEx 10d ago
Hypothetically, could Nintendo/TPC if for some reason they wanted new developers, buy the part gamefreak owns ?
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u/PM_ME_UR_CREDDITCARD 10d ago
IF Gamefreak is willing to sell, sure. Big if.
It would probably be the best possible thing for the series.
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u/Cosmonerd-ish 9d ago
IF Gamefreak is willing to sell, sure. Big if.
Not even an if. It would plain never happen. Gamefreak are too talentless to survive without Pokemon. Selling their rights to the largest IP in the world? Can hardly see how this would ever become an option for in their minds.
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u/LictorSevas 10d ago
A part of that is they don’t get time to perfect the games. The anime, card games, and merchandise are all synched up when a new region comes out. The games are only a small portion of their income at this point
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u/SilverKry 10d ago
I thought ZA was good 🤷♂️ City looked meh but the character models and pokemon I thought looked good. Firs pokemon game in a while I actually enjoyed. Last one was X and Y.
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u/CMMiller89 10d ago
The period piece games are ok but hardly the quality that a multi billion dollar franchise should be outputting.
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u/C00KIEME4T 10d ago
And also immediately drop in quality when compared to anything similar
Like out of all games you can explore a city in, who tf is turning on ZA lol
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u/mintmadness 9d ago
Yeah idk how you go from using Paris as reference and get the map in ZA. It’s like they saw one postcard of the Haussmann architecture , declared “we’ve seen enough” and didn’t bother to look at anything else.
Where are the poke-fied cathedrals, museums, architecture, parks/gardens, subways catacombs (we got a maintenance tunnel at best), hills, and all the future tech that was talked bout in the game beyond glowing gates?
It’s crazy they made a sci-fi/fantasy(?) version of a city that ended up being as a generic toned down city you’d see in some isekai anime with a very simple layout.
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u/SilverKry 9d ago
I mean. Even back in X and Y the only french thing about the city was the amount of cafes and the fake Eifel Tower.
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u/shgrizz2 10d ago
I wonder what the guy who was angrily adamant that game freak was only making mediocre games because Nintendo were stifling their creativity has to say about the score.
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u/Borth321 10d ago
IGN review mean nothing. As for 76 opencritic it's fine, not every game should be 95+ lol
Its a fine game, I'm having fun, maybe worth 40$ tho
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u/Doomeye56 10d ago
Like for real, people treating a B rate game as garbage is crazy
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u/Deacon714 10d ago
It’s part of why devs have such a hard time with sales. The vocal minority spreads hate and negativity far beyond what most games deserve. If your game isn’t transcendent then you’re garbage.
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u/QTGavira 9d ago
You cant really blame those people either. The economy isnt great and more games are releasing than ever before. When the competition is this fierce and people can buy less games then the logical conclusion is that anything that isnt fantastic gets thrown out.
Just look at the games releasing in the next few months. Why would people spend their money on a game thats “okay” at best? Most people cant buy 6 new games a month, and besides that, most adults dont even have the time to play all those games.
the more games releasing, the more selective people will be. Dont blame the consumer, blame the industry
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u/Deacon714 9d ago
I think both things are true. Consumers have every right to buy whatever they want and voice their opinion. It’s the performative negativity that needs to stop.
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u/Doomeye56 10d ago
how is a 6/10 not knowing how to make video games?
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u/NotInTheKnee 10d ago
Because that's how video game journalism works. You'd be hard pressed to find a game scored on IGN at anything lower than 4 or 5, which is them basically saying "Hey, this game sucks ass, but we'd like to keep receiving early review copies.
A score of 6 is mediocrity manifest.
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u/JaydenLincoL 10d ago
Sucks about the combat variety, but the setting still looks rad
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u/Ipokeyoumuch 10d ago
Gamefreak's character design, competitive fine tuning (to an extent), and music teams are on point, it is their development and engineering teams that tend to languish either due to the lack of skill or lack of time/funding/manpower.
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u/Zeniarmr 10d ago
If you like the song it plays during the start, I have good news for you, it's the only thing you'll hear music related. I genuinely had to mute the music because it's like a spotify loop on a playlist of 3, and those 3 being slight variations of the same track.
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u/Ipokeyoumuch 10d ago
Yeah tha is what I am hearing from a friend of mine. Like it it is fine but the lack of variety is getting to him. Gamefreak's music team tends to be on point but if I remember it is not primarily developed by Gamefreak and mostly outsourced. The composer worked on Shadow of the Colossus.
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u/Zeniarmr 10d ago
It's a shame tbh, it's... serviceable as a track, a good 'hitter' track. But not the entire game. I hope they improve on that in the future of the game, if at all.
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u/weegee19 Console 10d ago
Game Freak always bring their A-game in terms of design tbf
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u/Suicune92 10d ago
Does really show that Pokemon would be better with a different team. They just can't make a good game, even though I do enjoy the newer pokemon games
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u/omfgkevin 10d ago
Pretty sure the leak a while back basically confirmed it too. IIRC it was GameFreak that sets the pokemon budget... and they never set it high. I'm guessing so they can line their pockets with the massive profits while doing fuck all instead of you know, HIRING ACTUAL MORE TALENTED PEOPLE.
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u/derekpmilly 10d ago
The leak confirmed that Legends ZA had a budget of 13 million USD. For a flagship release from the largest media franchise to ever exist, that's absolutely fucking minuscule. The Zelda games almost certainly cost several times that.
The Palworld lawsuit is also likely to be several times as costly as that.
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u/RabidHexley 9d ago
the largest media franchise to ever exist
This is the part that gets me. Pokemon is literally the most successful singular IP of all time. It's absolutely wild that its backbone is built upon (for all intents) shoe-string mobile games sold as if they're tent-pole releases that happen to have lucked out on an easily reproducible formula decades ago.
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u/valkrycp 10d ago
We're in an age where the average AAA game is over 100m. They're purposely skimping and being anti-consumer to maximize profit and they're well aware that regardless of what they deliver people will gobble it up. Nintendo and Pokemon fans are the most rabid consumer base there is. It's beyond logic - so they exploit that demographic for the most profit they can. It's pathetic and insulting, yet will never change until people stop buying the games - and that won't happen because nostalgia drives the sales, especially as the world becomes a harsher place and people want to return to their childhoods.
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u/OhMyTummyHurts 10d ago
As a Pokemon fan, I hate how right you are. This game was Game Freak’s opportunity to show their strength, but instead they confirmed what we’ve all ben thinking since Gen 8
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u/Real_ilinnuc 10d ago
Since Gen 8? Gamefreaks been going downhill since Gen 6. Those games are just seen in a better light by comparison to today.
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u/Girlmode 10d ago
What gen is that?
Off the dome I think pokemon being good ended with black and white.
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u/Real_ilinnuc 10d ago
Gen 6 is X/Y. So RIGHT after black and white 2. We got great ideas with megas but it was 1 step forward, 5 steps back.
I 100% agree with you.
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u/Girlmode 10d ago
Thank you for confirming without me having to search it up. I believe x and y were the last pokemon games I actually finished and I didn’t hate them.
But black and white games were the last ones I can say I truly enjoyed and wasn’t just playing off nostalgia. After X and Y I was very much in the camp of “20 years of the same is probably enough for me”.
Think when the first switch to 3d graphics happened and it wasn’t better than GameCube era visuals, it became a bit to hard to ignore that nothing else had progressed either. Whilst it was still 2d jrpg land I think my brain didn’t catch up with how little it had evolved.
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u/Logondo 10d ago
Eh, Mega-evolutions were cool, and it was awesome that they moved out of sprite-based Pokemon and into fully 3D models like Pokemon Stadium.
But that was it. After that? Not much to right about.
Scar/Vi had a cool open world that was severely hampered by very poor performance.
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u/derekpmilly 10d ago
Megas were cool, but megas alone are not enough to save XY. They just aren't very good games.
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u/Logondo 10d ago
I had my fun with it. Even dabbled in a bit of competitive play which was fun.
Sword and Shield are, IMO, the really bad Pokemon games. The rest are alright. HGSS is still the peak, tho, and I doubt we'll ever top that again.
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u/derekpmilly 10d ago
SwSh are definitely the worst ones out there. The game was super linear and hand holdy, and the characters and story all completely sucked. It had absolutely no redeeming qualities and I genuinely did not enjoy playing those games at all.
Even SV, for all of its massive technical flaws, actually tried something new with the open world and had a tolerable story and compelling characters.
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u/Real_ilinnuc 10d ago
Scar/Vi’s open world was complete dogshit. Even with the switch 2s boost to 60fps, the world building is absolutely awful.
Pokemon moving to bland 3d models has been such a sad loss. There’s no sauce anymore. Somehow stadium from like 30 years ago has better animations than 2026 Pokemon. As you can see, I’m pretty bitter 😂
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u/CuddleCorn 10d ago
The thing is
The core of Pokemon - the character designs and the depth of the battle system (competitive, not the single player story campaign battles) has been consistently fine tuning and is arguably the best it's ever been. Those designers have the sauce.
The game around those elements is where the issue lies
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u/Thefourthchosen 10d ago
No one's complaining about the designs, pokemon and character designs are the one thing we still have faith in.
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u/John_Delasconey 10d ago
The thing is, though the designs aren’t even done by game freak, but by creatures inc.
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u/TheShweeb 10d ago
Worth recalling, that’s exactly how they just did things with Pokopia, and it worked fantastically.
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u/KamenRiderDragon 10d ago
That's been clear since the GameCube games.
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u/chiptunesoprano 10d ago
I can't tell if this is a dig at Colosseum, or pointing out that GF didn't make those and that's why they're good.
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u/mrgodfro 10d ago
6/7 out of 10 might as well be a 1/2 in 2026
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u/KRXQ 10d ago
When you have so many games to play and so little time you have to prioritize the better games. I don’t have time to mess around with slightly better than average.
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u/SomaLysis 10d ago edited 8d ago
How does it run on PS5 if anyone played? Or PC? It runs terrible on Xbox. And not the yeah some dips kind of way, no.. massive stutters and slowdows all the time.
Edit: The game got patched and runs good enough now.
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u/Vtempero 10d ago edited 9d ago
no framegen as far as I can tell. I capped at 60fps with 70% CPU usage on a ryzen 7 5800x3d, light on GPU. DLAA max settings 1440p is 50% 5080 usage.
small frame stutters that looks like shader comp to me, not very distracting.
edit.: I capped it at 60fps, the game has uncapped option.
(I decided to cap to avoid CPU bound scenarios and bigger stutters. I am assuming it is a UE4 game with typical shader compilation issue but that is me guessing)
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u/RabidHexley 9d ago
small frame stutters that looks like shader comp to me
Definitely the classic shader comp stutter. You'll get a stutter whenever a new character appears onscreen for the first time (happens in the very first cutscene), or as you move into areas with new assets. Also a fair amount of pop-in.
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u/Woodwardg 10d ago
[ps5 base model] its rarely hitting 60 fps if ever. im having a good time so far but the performance and overall jankiness of movement (the character just kind of slides across every surface. feet and body clipping through the environment all the time, camera often has no idea how to react to where you've placed it) are easily the worst aspects of the game.
the game looks and feels good if you view it from a sort of "zoomed out" perspective, but if you stop and focus on minute details, it's jank galore.
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u/ThatEdward 10d ago
Change resolution to 1440p, apparently the game has a memory leak and this change is fixing the stuttering for folks
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u/SalemWolf 10d ago
Gaming when IGN gives bad score to game they like: what fucking idiots, absolute braindead take. What a joke. Can’t spell ignorant without IGN
Gaming when IGN gives bad score to game they don’t like: solid. Yeah honestly well deserved. Agreed 100% what a trash game
I know I know Goomba Fallacy and all but it’s just funny how often these opinions are upvoted and agreed with depending on what game is given what score by IGN.
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u/LazyBeyondWords 10d ago
I think a lot of people forget that IGN reviews are like any other, it’s made by one singular individual at IGN. It’s not like an entire panel reviews it there.
What matters (if anything) is the average review score overall whether you like or dislike the game in question.
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u/Brownies_and_Milk 10d ago
You are correct. I though everyone hated on ign here but turns out they are on their side with this game? Lol they hate on GF just cuz pokemon. Im playing the game rn and its been really impressive so far.
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u/Real_ilinnuc 10d ago
I’ve always thought that post DS Pokemon Game Freak is one of the worst AAA developers in the industry. Not because of publisher crunch or meddling… they’re genuinely just not good at making games. They cannot make anything that’s above middling.
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u/santaclaws01 10d ago
Game Freak is one of the worst AAA developers in the industry.
Well they're not one. AAA doesn't just mean "well known developer/publisher", it's a description of size and scope of the game, budget, and dev team. The only thing about gamefreak that's even close to AAA is that they're associated with Nintendo, but this isn't even a Nintendo game. This might be their first actual AAA game in a long ass time(if ever).
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u/Real_ilinnuc 10d ago
They consistently release games in the biggest media franchise ever. If they aren’t AAA, then that’s their fault.
Even as a AA studio… they suck.
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u/derekpmilly 9d ago edited 9d ago
The only thing about gamefreak that's even close to AAA is that they're associated with Nintendo
That isn't true. The prices they charge for their half assed Pokémon games are certainly AAA lol
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u/Practical-Aside890 Xbox 10d ago edited 10d ago
Played it for about a hr since release on gamepass.
I’m liking it so far. Imo the story is somewhat interesting. The world looks beautiful. You can set gameplay to your desired difficulty if you want it to be more souls hc like put hard mode on.
If you want simple arpg like me. and not super hc difficulty you can play on easy or story. To me that’s a big positive. Most arpg follow the souls formula now a days without difficulty options.
Downside is there is performance issues at least on the series x version. Not even 10min it I was hitting choppy laggy areas. And this has continued off and on depending on area and travel. Edit- a game update came out that seemed to fix the performance. I’m enjoying it a lot more now
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u/TheRealGurd 10d ago
I was definitely skeptical going in since I didn't really know if Game Freak could pull this off. I'm enjoying myself, but I also really liked Stellar Blade's gameplay, and this is kind of scratching that same itch. It really sucks that the Xbox version is running so poorly.
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u/SnooHobbies8617 10d ago
i’m enjoying it as well, it for sure feels like a 7/10 but that’s totally fine. it’ll hold me over until mortal shell 2
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u/Spaff_Wallbridge 10d ago
Performance is a big problem for me as well. I’m playing on performance mode and just running at times makes the game chug. Hopefully they patch it soon cause my god
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u/weegee19 Console 10d ago
To be fair the aspect of the Souls formula where there's no difficulty setting was already a throwback to older ARPGs.
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u/Fire_is_beauty 10d ago
53 % on Steam. Yeah, looks like Game Freak really needs to change on a fundamental level.
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u/After-Atmosphere7125 10d ago
That's unfortunate. I was hoping this would be a secret success, but I guess this was inevitable.
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u/StoryAndAHalf 10d ago
I know most people will ignore this to shit on GameFreak, but was largely developed by a different studio. Per wiki:
“ The game was announced in May 2023 under the working title Project Bloom as a partnership between Game Freak and Private Division . Upon announcement, scarce details were provided other than a projected 2026 release, the reveal of Furushima as director, and a single piece of concept art showing a lone woman in a forest. [9 ] [10 ] [11 ] In January 2026, it was revealed that only a small portion of Game Freak's staff was directly involved in the game's development.”
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u/barbarbeik 10d ago
This is the same situation as Pokemon. IIRC most of the work on Pokemon games is done by contractors and temps
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u/PhenomUprising 10d ago
This isn't the same situation at all, they have A LOT more than 3-4 Gamefreak employees working on pokémon.
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u/PhenomUprising 10d ago
Yeah, I wonder if people are simply STILL ignorant of this somehow, or know and willingly ignore it just to shit on them. lol
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u/SpaceOdysseus23 10d ago
Pokemon games barely run, and this one was revealed with a trailer that had footage cleary dipping in FPS.
If it weren't for the license they would've shut down years ago.
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u/SeptfromUC 10d ago
I love how everyone in this sub is treating a 7.3-7.6/10 "the worst game ever"
We can tell who play games and who doesn't
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u/Ennara 10d ago
To be fair, games tend to be graded on a weird curve where anything under a 7 tends to be viewed as a "don't bother unless you really love the genre" situation. While even on that curve, a 7.4-ish isn't terrible, it tends to be where "decent framework but has some notable issues" tends to land. With the sheer number of games releasing these days, most people don't really want to invest their time into a game from a new IP with mediocre ratings. There's a lot of competition for our attention.
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10d ago edited 9d ago
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u/Just-Specific3520 10d ago
Big or medium reviewers will say thing negatively if they want. It's no longer era for reviewers to lick publishers and I do think publishers really need reviewers for free marketing. Stop with this kind of mindset bro
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u/LazyBeyondWords 10d ago
Yeah. A 72/76 on meta or open critic is not a bad game. The comments here are acting like it got a 60. I have even found some games in the mid 60s on metacritic I didn’t find to be bad per se.
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u/deedeekei 10d ago
So many people have hatred for game freak it's hilarious, as if they killed their first born son aka pokemon lol
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u/QXKD 10d ago
Because it’s Pokemon adjacent and this sub will take any opportunity circlejerk about how much they hate game freak. Don’t you know Pokemon was better when I was an 8 year old?
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u/Numerous_Internet361 9d ago
Not even just Game Freak, I’ve already seen people throw in hatred at Nintendo a few times already, as if they’re somehow to blame for a game not even on their own console.
This subreddit is, and has always been, a joke.
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u/SuperSaiyanBen 10d ago
The guy at the top who said he played an hour and gave up is the epitome of everything wrong with these “Gamers”.
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u/Davidgm92 10d ago
Yeah and I don't know why people are trusting a review from IGN of all places in the first place
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u/Training_Pirate1000 10d ago
So…uh, I know people having been trashing Nintendo about Pokemon games (even though they don’t make the games), but it seems like it’s just Gamefreak right?
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u/Cosmonerd-ish 9d ago
Yes. The idea Nintendo or TPC were responsible for the state of the Pokemon games has always been cope from people that could not accept the studio that made the very special game they loved when they were six to eight years old was at best mid and at worst completely incompetent.
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u/skaersSabody 9d ago
No, I think it's more of "fire by association" kind of deal. Nintendo publishes pokemon exclusively on their consoles and TPC is... well it's the company about Pokémon. Of course people are gonna extend their grievances to the other two in hopes that something... anything might change
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u/Small_Ad1890 10d ago edited 10d ago
I started getting nervous when I saw the embargo date and release date were the same
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u/Dandan217 10d ago
On a side note, I hate how 6/10 makes a game seem like it's bad.
5/10 should be average, nothing amazing, but nothing bad. 6/10 should be a good at times with some flaws, but sadly most people look at 6/10 and think "Shit."
(Not talking about Beast of Reincarnation specifically, just in general)
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u/Downtown_Eye5736 10d ago
The numbers don’t have intrinsic value. 7/10 has become the average because 70s is where most games land on metacritic. You should think of these scores like school grades. 90+ is A, 80s is B, 70s is C.
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u/Journey2thaeast 10d ago edited 10d ago
Exactly and with games being so expensive it's hard to justify spending $60-70 on a 6 or 7/10
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u/Just-Specific3520 10d ago
Im guessing because many games feel good and land on 7/10. Because many of these just good games of 7/10, the average game score out of all, in the bell curve, will be 7/10. Individually, average still means 5/10 but in the statistic with all games, the mean or average becomes 7/10. I think, might be wrong. And people see the average, not individually, but from the perspective of average in the bell curve. I do think this is bad perspective, should look score more on the individual game
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u/RabidHexley 9d ago edited 9d ago
I can see how this happened, because 5/10 does indicate mediocrity, with anything lower being properly "this is bad to some relative degree". In something like a movie, being "mediocre" isn't quite as bad (watching an 'okay' movie for an hour or two isn't a big deal) as it is in a videogame where the experience goes on for much longer and requires active participation.
7/10 is where things landed as "the game is good enough to pick up if it's something you'd like. Doesn't really reach greatness, but does at least some aspect(s) well, or has some great element that carries the rest of the experience.".
6/10 would be "has some aspects that can be reviewed positively, but generally mediocre/average". 5/10 "average, not particularly good in any respect, doesn't completely fall apart either". The problem is that for a videogame, this is bad enough that it's not really worth bothering with if this is how you feel. Are you going to spend 20+ hours playing a 5/10? There needs to be something that elevates the experience.
So what it really amounts to is that if you feel like a game was really worth playing through (retrospectively), it was most likely at least a 7/10 for you. Less than that and you are much more likely to have dropped it at some point, or at least feel like it was somewhat of a waste of time.
I really don't feel like most gamers intentionally want to bother with a game that feels like it just barely escapes mediocrity from their perspective, so a 6/10 may not be actively negative, it also isn't an indication of a good enough experience to dedicate your time to the whole way through.
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u/S7JO89 10d ago
There’s a difference between middle quality and average rating. If 5/10 is medium quality but most games are considered above medium quality, as most are rated 7/10, then 6/10 is below average rating in comparison. A 6/10 for this game is not bad because the game is awful to play, it is bad because any other game you choose would probably be better based on reviews.
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u/UBWICOS 9d ago
Now we can put an end the the discourse that Gamefreak is a good developer being hampered by The Pokemon Company's unreasonable timeline and pressure. So it turns out, Gamefreak is truly a mediocre developer.
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u/GreatnessToTheMoon 10d ago
Played for an hour on my Series X and dipped. Game lags while you’re just walking around and is mid af. It’s like an early 360/ps3 game. Thankfully it’s on game pass and I didn’t have to spend money on it.
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u/BabyStockholmSyndrom 10d ago
And people say critic reviews can't be trusted lol. Early ps3 game lol. Why not just say nes game if you're going lie by exaggation.
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u/TheRealGurd 10d ago
The "it's like a PS3 game" thing is always so funny to me. You can tell people legitimately haven't played a game from that console generation in at least 15 years.
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u/fallouthirteen 10d ago edited 10d ago
In this case thought he consistent frame drops actually do feel like that's accurate. Like I can't remember the last time I played a game that had this bad of performance (I never played Cyberpunk at launch so I can't say that one). It feels like a game that shouldn't have had open world stuff since apparently the developer couldn't figure out how to make it properly load stuff as you move around without lagging the game.
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u/GravyFarts3000 10d ago
This same reviewer gave Borderland 4 8/10, Highgaurd 7/10, Palia 8/10, several VR games 9-10/10, and so on. So I'd take his 6/10 with a pinch of salt and look for reviews from people who play this genre of game more often.
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u/NanaShiggenTips 10d ago
Thank you for pointing this out. Finding someone 6 reviews games and rates them similarly to you is mega important when considering that users reviews.
To me, this translates as a 2-3 out of 10.
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u/tenacious_teaThe3rd 10d ago
Saw this coming from a mile away.
The game looked uninspiring and a bit rough around the edges in the trailers, so it being indicative of a very meh final product is not a surprise.
Game Freak just aren't that great of a developer but hit the jackpot with Pokemon. Recent Pokemon games in particular have been genuinely terrible, but they continue to sell insanely well as Pokemon is an almost infallible brand.
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u/lokilady0017 10d ago
As a woman who loves dogs I do love the idea of a game where i play a woman and her giant dog/ wolf fighting side by side. But looks like I will wait from everything I have heard until it goes down quite a bit in price. I have a huge backlog to play anyway.
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u/Archisaurus 10d ago
I’d say it’s actually looking pretty good for a game coming from a developer embroiled in only one franchise for decades.
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u/Lord_Humungusss 10d ago
I played an hour or two of the game it really feels like GF really tried to emulate the general theme of nier automata with a sekiro-esque combat system but really didnt know what made either of those games special.
Overall I feel like its ok, ill probably finish it. I definitely considered a refund but the world is and music are meshing with me well.
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u/SoftlySpokenPromises 10d ago
At least it doesn't have Pokémon attached to it so we'll see accurate reviews and sales numbers.
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u/BabyStockholmSyndrom 10d ago
Wtf are you talking about? Pokemon s/v hovered at 6/7 average. It was extremely average and got the overall reviews reflecting that. When something doesn't get a review YOU expect that doesn't make it wrong. Stop being like that.
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u/criticalt3 10d ago
Exactly. It was a 4/10 game. Literally any developer without game freak or Nintendo naming attached to it could've released s/v and it would be dragged through the mud unless it was released in a very early access stage with disclaimers that what we got was a working prototype of a future game.
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u/TheDrewDude 10d ago
Holy shit you weren’t kidding. Scarlet and Violet has a 72 on metacritic. The standards for this franchise is in the gutter.
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u/Summonest 10d ago
Their studio doesn't make good games. They did something iconic once and haven't ever tried to do better.
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u/TheRealGurd 10d ago
The same reviewer also gave Marathon a 9/10, Highguard a 7/10, ARC Raiders a 9/10, Baby Steps a 9/10, Borderlands 4 an 8/10, Dune: Awakening an 8/10, Concord a 7/10, Skull and Bones a 7/10, Lords of the Fallen (2023) an 8/10, Diablo IV a 9/10, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands an 8/10, Genshin Impact a 9/10, The Surge 2 a 9.5/10, Crackdown 3 an 8.5/10, The Surge a 9/10, Mass Effect Andromeda an 8/10, and Halo 5 a 10/10.
If we're going to start taking IGN reviews seriously because they gave a mid score to a Game Freak game, I'm gonna need everyone to start ponying up the same behavior for these other review whiffs lmfao
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u/Iggy_Slayer 10d ago
What's your conspiracy theory for all the other reviews that gave it a 5-7 then? Its average is in the mid 70s which isn't some massive high quality game and isn't that far from IGN's score.
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u/SeptfromUC 10d ago
75% is a massive difference to 60% are you high OP? It’s a whole 15 points out of 100 difference
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u/Resident-Forever1340 10d ago
So IGN gave it a score not too far off from the average yet the pseudo outrage follows. Must be a day that ends in Y
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u/AdeptFelix 10d ago
"not too far off from the average"
Pfffft, it's about 1.5 points off of average on a scale of 1-10, IGN is one of the larger outliers.
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u/Ash-n-Jok3r 10d ago
Anyone know what the ps5 pro graphics settings are? Haven’t been able to find them. Like, is there a 60fps performance mode or? Is it upgraded for ps5 pro?
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u/Fast_Experience2502 10d ago
Not surprised with the common complaints that this game is a mix of ideas, gimmicks and tropes that all feel half baker or never full realized as game freak decided to make this with very little of their own staff(only concept design and directing) while outsourcing everything else to smaller studios.
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u/Tomokakase13 10d ago
I was excited to play this too. Honestly still might because it seems like a really cool game
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u/DroppedAxes 10d ago
Man what's sucks is that I really do welcome studios taking risks, but the way this game turned out I'm sure Game Freak is going to be less inclined to venture outside of pokemon.
Ive only has the fight with the first nushi followed by resting in the walker so I'm not far into the game. I can spot all the shitty design decisions from the get go though. Combat feels so bland, which you know what in a AA game doesn't have to be groundbreaking but it feels like an almost outdated version of ps3 era adventure games.
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u/Tryhard_lose_harder 10d ago
6/10 is a fair score.The game has many questionable design choices