Monxeroth said:
Its really only neutering in some cases in the sense that: Oh, we dont get to have a G-cupped playable character in this game, OH NOES MY CREATIVITY.
Then again on the other hand in some cases it does have a fair point to dismiss the criticism when its not relevant in any way to the actual game.
For example: Does the sorceress breasts somehow lower the quality of the game? No, no it does not. Only mechanics and actual faults with the game can lower a games overrall quality in my opinion, not subjective personal nonsense like the artstyle not being appealing or the music not being received well by some. Whether you like something or not, its not a valid reason to critique a game for.
"How dare someone make a game with an artstyle that i dont find personally appealing, this game sucks"
You've brought up this point a number of times in similar episodes, and while I agree that mechanics are probably the most important part of a game, art style is important to the overall engagement of a game, and therefore worth mentioning when it enhances or degrades a player's engagement.
It is very much worth noting that "Dragon's Crown", while an objectively well-crafted game, if judged solely on its gameplay mechanics, is fairly unremarkable. Side-scrolling beat-em-ups with RPG elements have been popular in downloadable titles since "Castle Crashers" came out in 2008. This genre is relatively easy to develop for under a small budget, it is accessible to a large number of players thanks to the cultural ubiquity of beat-em-ups from arcades, and it can cater to both local and online multiplayer without much difficulty. As a genre, it is both well-established and pretty safe, but it can be difficult to separate yourself from the herd.
What separates "Dragon's Crown" from other games like "Castle Crashers" or "Scott Pilgrim" or "Dungeon Fighter Online" is purely in terms of its execution, story, and art style. Why should I play this game if it doesn't really attempt to do anything differently, instead opting to do the same old things really well? Well, because of the story and art style. If I find the story interesting and the art style appealing and I know I like these sorts of mechanics, I can probably maintain a decent level of engagement with the game and have an overall positive experience with it.
However, if I don't like the art style or the story, it will break my level of engagement, leaving me with mechanics that, on their own, don't really stand out from the pack or engage over long periods of time. These sorts of games can get repetitive if this is all you have.
So is it unfair for the reviewer from Polygon to give this game a 6.5, primarily citing the art style as her reasoning? In this case, I don't think so. If the art style truly bothered her and disrupted her engagement with the game, the game mechanics aren't unique or engaging enough on their own to warrant a particularly remarkable score.
Do I personally think that 6.5 is a low score to objectively give the game considering those circumstances? Maybe a bit. I think I might have gone with a 7 or 7.5, something that said "average" rather than "close to failing". However, critics are not supposed to give an unbiased or objective opinion. One could argue that it's next to impossible to do that and that even trying is disingenuous. It's far more useful for a critic to say precisely why something didn't work for them on a subjective level so that the person reading their review can determine whether or not those particular reasons would bother them.
Do you find the art style of "Dragon's Crown" offensive or distracting? Then the reviewer at Polygon was probably right on the money with her score. I imagine people with her similar tastes would feel similarly. If she had not cited her distaste with the art style, then her score might be disingenuous or next to useless, but since she did, it's easy for people who disagree with her on her points to disregard her review and purchase the game anyway. It's only a problem for people who purchase games solely on numbers rather than actually reading the review, and people like that are useless anyway.
The question we should ask isn't whether or not scoring something based on certain criteria is valid universally, but rather we should ask whether or not a score based on those criteria is particularly relevant to us on an individual level. If it isn't, then that review is meaningless to us and we can find a different one from someone whose tastes are more in line with ours. But it is pointless for a reviewer to approach a piece of art from an "objective" perspective because we as consumers don't do that. If I don't like the art style for "Dragon's Crown" or side-scroller beat-em-ups, I'm not going to buy it and play it anyway just because it's objectively a well-crafted game in its genre and most people seem to like it. As such, it is silly for a reviewer to evaluate a game in that manner. He's not grading it so it can graduate from college. He's scoring it so that consumers can decide whether or not this game is for them. If a reviewer doesn't enjoy something but they can IMAGINE that someone else with different tastes might enjoy it, that's all well and good, but they can't evaluate a game on those terms. Only someone with those tastes can do that. And thankfully, there are plenty of people out there who have done so.
And let's be real here. The main reason "Dragon's Crown" has attracted so much attention and popularity is largely because of its art style. A large number of gamers find it aesthetically appealing and that's what initially attracts them to it. Once they find out the game itself is good too, they will probably also enjoy it for those reasons, but the aesthetic appeal is what draws them in and engages them. If it fails to do that for some, which it clearly does, then it will fail to engage that audience and so it is fair enough for reviewers who share those tastes to review it on those terms.
So no, I don't think its invalid to incorporate a game's art direction in its overall appraisal if that art direction aided or detracted a significant amount from the reviewer's overall experience with the game.