Axikal, you Sir, are a prat.
Satire, as you carefully copied from your dictionary, is the use of wit to 'deride vice, folly, etc'
To criticise aspects of a game in a way which is not true, which a lot of those criticisms are not, is not, in any way, satire. It is at best, idiocy.
Seriously, the 'oh it's meant to be funny' defense is simply not good enough. Regardless of whether or not it's intended for comic effect, ZP has an effect on how people perceive games, and I for one am getting sick of seeing some truly well-crafted, innovative games getting badmouthed for things they don't in fact do.
To reiterate a few points- dodging works fine, and is skill-based, ditto blocking. By watching the ghosts of other players and/or touching the bloodstains left when they die, you can see dangers coming. I avoided many nasty fates on the first go simply by seeing a bloodstain and watching the last moments of a predecessor. The message system works brilliantly and is an entirely new idea. Combat is based on skill and tactics, not mere pattern recognition. Whilst you can't pause the game, you can quit back to the title screen at any time and when you reload, you'll be at the last point where you gained Souls, picked up or dropped an item, gained or lost health, or a myriad of other things.
In almost three full playthroughs of the game I encountered a grand total of 0 bugs.
Seriously, DS is easily the best action-RPG I've ever played. It's genuine action, not the 'click mob till it's dead and occasionally press a button' style of Diablo or Titan Quest. It's genuinely satisfying to beat, allows you to approach situations in many different ways and even lets you pick what levels to play next and in what order.
Frankly, there are only two things you can take away from this review: Yes, DS is hard if you don't have the time or patience to learn to play it, and basing any decision on whether a game is worth playing on a ZP review is folly of the highest order.
I understand that ZP is more for fun than for information, but the problem is that it's just not presented that way. Yahtzee writes columns that purport to be informed commentary, and he rates games against each other- after all, if it's all just meant to be comedy game-baiting, why do some games get praised? It's at times like this that I feel ZP needs to decide which way to jump- either just try to be funny and slam everything for the most random reasons that'll raise a laugh, or use wit to raise serious points about what makes a game good or bad. I used to feel that the latter was the case, but the former is looking increasingly common.
