Not tagging this spoiler cause fuck TERFs, don't buy the game, uphold TC69 Thought etc. Have gotten this all from the above article and reviews that support it.
Yep, anti-semitic, slave-owning, Protocols of Zion plagiarising, let's join the anti-goblin pogrom game.
Yes the MacGuffin unambiguously belongs to the Goblins, who have a labour theory of ownership. No you can't join the Goblins. Yes you kill a bunch of them. Yes, there is a fucking quisling that's seen as good actually. Yes, every teacher thinks fighting the goblins is a good thing, despite a few token missions that apparently show how oppressed they are.
No, you never critique that this and every other aspect of the wizard world might be a bad thing.
I am once again calling for the House Elves to rise up, slit every slaver-wizard throat in Hogwarts, and place their heads on pikes outside the entrance as a warning to the others.
Don't. Buy. The TERF. Game.
There's something deeply funny about how a giant media property has become toxic sludge because the creator couldn't stop being a massively vocal bigot
Warner Brothers must be pissed :michael-laugh:
Imagine if George Lucas started tweeting racial crime statistics and if he made that the entirety of his public persona
I have a thesis on alienation and atomisation where in the anglosphere, especially in America, collective action is no longer conceivable to most people, and suggesting it is makes them confused, panicked that they didn't think of it, and ultimately angry, because their entire conception of morality is that a bad/good individual act is what makes you a good/bad person, rather than engaging in a collectively good program of actions with others. It can be only sublimated by suggesting that collective action is just forcing them to do a thing, which is bad, and that the thing they want to do is good. actually, so asking them to do it is double bad.
That's why you get absurd statements like "Don't bring politics into this election", politics implies they can, and therefore must, act as a group and sacrifice.
Part of it is that nobody wants to be reminded of politics because it tears down the walls of cope they've built up to obfuscate the fact that they have zero political agency.
That sounds quite depressing. I can say that despite my occasional doomerism, my org work and collective action has made my life better, and politically and materially we have won small battles.
If you're from rural areas in the anglosphere it is harder of course. Theres not the population density or industrial clout to do traditional Maoism, and the cities are materially disconnected, so urban Marxism or even luddism from incoming rural workers seems impossible.
I've spent a lot of time developing a toolset for modern urban revolt...maybe I should look more at the rural side.
I don't think this is the end of it. Don't look at this game in a vacuum by itself but the franchise and brand as a whole on a timeline.
The libs had already decided that they wanted this treat. They were not going to give it up because of a controversy kicked up after they were already hyped. Once the novelty of the game has worn off they will however come round to critiques of the game, and even repeat them. They will carry those critiques into the future of the franchise.
I think serious damage has been done. It will be viewed as "problematic" in future.
I think serious damage has been done. It will be viewed as “problematic” in future.
So? Many games, celebrities, sports and entertainment pieces are, yet they still top all the charts.
Dave Chappelle just won a Grammy, Top Gun Maverick was the best movie last year despite being funded by literal blood money with regards to the US military, the FIFA world cup in Qatar last year broke viewership records and is going to the USA in 2026.
All we're going do about thinking about stuff like this, is make us sad.
I think you underestimate the effect this will have on a franchise that relies on parents thinking it's a good influence for their children.
In 2018 Rowling was viewed positively by 58% of people. In March last year it was just 35%, by now it is significantly lower and we are combining her reputation with that of the franchise itself, these numbers are absolutely going to affect sales and decisions on whether to continue using the franchise or use something else that isn't covered in baggage.
Also, remember that before the TERFening, Rowling was already becoming a meme and hated by Potter fans because of her bizarre lore tweets and all the new additions to the franchise she was involved with being garbo even by HP standards
I hope so and hope you're right, but I just don't see it. Harry Potter is too big an IP.
We'll see with the sales figures of the new game.
I think the game will do well but that's gonna be because people buy it on thirst alone. They've been thirsting for this forever. Much like something like Cyberpunk. I'm not that interested in how this game does but in the impact on sentiment and attitudes towards buying anything from the franchise in future.
The fanbase skews female too, which is important as mothers tend to be the purchase decision-makers when it comes to children at home.
The potential value of the franchise is in it being magical Star Wars where it continues to sell to new generations. That potential is severed by JK Rowling's idiocy. Someone else said imagine if Lucas had been a bigoted mouthpiece endlessly, imagine what that have done to Star Wars.
Harry Potter had that potential and it has absolutely been turned into sludge. It's not going to shake her until she's either no longer collecting royalties or until she's dead.
Yeah, it's still a bad look for your wholesome chungus nostalgic all ages wizard franchise.
I must assume Rowling's contracts are iron clad, with this much bad press WB, etc would have publically distanced themselves already
Eventually a level of toxicity will be reached where they simply shelve the franchise until she's gone.
Yeah she maintains a lot more creative control over Harry Potter than pretty much any author ever does when they sell the rights. She has a lot of power over it.
Idk, the fantastic beasts movies bombed, each worse than the last, and I think JKR’s vocal toxicity was a big part of why. Both in that it made people want to stay away on principle and also that she made the movies bad
Nah it will sell well, games in general don't have this problem. Call of duty still tops the charts every year even though half the games campaigns are a "let's relive the Iraq or Afghanistan wars" racism stimulators and it's online lobbies are so toxic and memed to the point that people like T Pain can get racially abused while playing COD on steam and it has no effect on it's popularity, or getting A list celebrity endorsements and skins from POC celebs, like the Neymar and Hamilton skins.
Lucas was also faaaar less influential in Star Wars than Rowling was in Potter. George was maybe the lead creator but he had teams of writers, editors, directors, actors, etc. that were all involved. Rowling was the sole writer of all 7 books. She’s much more synonymous with her work than Lucas is.
Ranrok is looking to reclaim them for Goblinkind, backed up by the notion that goblins own the items they make, as opposed to the person they make it for.
I can't believe they directly made the villain a communist.
A game about overcoming the threat of Troglo-Bolshevism
So "Jewish" goblins aren't just part of the game, but are the main antagonists? And their evil is literally their own communist beliefs?
The person they made it for fucking dies in the previous paragraph too
From a glance, you know the game isn't even going to be the self-insert fan fic they want it to be.
It's pathetic. You're not stopping an actual evil, your character has no interaction with the characters you grew up with, and the characters you do meet, including your avatar, have no impact on the canon of the setting. The worldbuilding of HP is dog shit, and I wish people weren't such little piggies for their focus-group approved slop.
I think in a vaccum it is ok to go in this direction otherwise you end up like Star Wars where every single game has a reference or direct interaction with Darth Vader, Yoda etc. You want to build a world not just a "world" that is realy just the same timeframe with the same characters over and over.
But I only say this because media into game adaptations are almost destined to suck because of this problem and executives designing by comittee.
"Oh you must have shit main character everyone loves for at least X% of the screen time otherwise marketing says it wont sell with [insert focus group taken from their ass here]."
every single game has a reference or direct interaction with Darth Vader, Yoda etc. You want to build a world not just a “world” that is realy just the same timeframe with the same characters over and over.
You can use major original characters as touchstone or include them in cameos.
The final fight in Jedi: Fallen Order just being a run-away from Darth Vader was a good way to wrap it up. Same with the final scene from Rogue One. Having a bunch of the Rogue One story take place on Jedha, the ancestral home of the Jedi, was a great way to include Jedi social influence without having an actual literal Jedi running around.
Having some KOTOR character meet another member of Yoda's species - or even a Baby Yoda - is fine. Having a side quest in the Galactic Senate, where you need to lobby Chancellor Palatine for a favor is cute.
So long as it's tangential to the main plot arc, it gives the story a bit of grounding in the original works such that its not just Generic Space Fantasy.
Just use a light touch.
Yeah, this is one of the many many reasons andor was better than the rest of the star wars slop. Only established characters who weren't glup shittos was mon mothma and saw, who make sense to be in the story.
Seriously HP fans should just read other fucking books.
There's so so many fantasy settings that are superior to HP in every way, better and more interesting politics, more consistent and more deep lore, more interesting characters. HP isn't actually bad for a children's story (if you ignore the ideology) but that's all it is really.
I. Want. To. Be. A. Racist. Wizard. Don't. Take. This. Treat. From. Me.
Racist wizards don't normalize racism for children in their most impressionable years, never ever! Stop criticizing things! :wojak-nooo:
The worldbuilding of HP is dog shit
The first book is warmed over Roald Dahl novel. No worse than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach.
Setting aside the farce that is Quidditch, the story through book 4 is on the better end of YA fiction. Certainly better than Twilight or Hunger Games.
After that they degrade rapidly. Book 7 is just a meandering clusterfuck.
But to just kinda write off a wildly popular series like this as "bad writing" feels reactionary. Just Ben Shapiro tier criticism.
But to just kinda write off a wildly popular series like this as “bad writing” feels reactionary
fellas is it reactionary to dislike harry potter
I find The Worse Witch, let alone Narnia or The Dark is Rising to have generally better world building, all predate Rowling so she has no excuse.
Narnia was another series with a very strong start and a wet fart of an ending. The Last Battle was awful. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader literally went nowhere. There's a reason they gave up making those movies halfway through.
Dark is Rising was cliche and boring compared to the LotR source material it desperately wanted to be.
Never read the Worse Witch so, shrug
Yeah, I agree (though I really like Dawn Treader, actually. It's not very filmable though, given it getting increasingly less adventure tale and more introspective. Also Horse and his Boy despite it being deeply, deeply problematic is a genuinely fun book)
Dark is Rising...I always thought it took more from Dunsany and Poe and maybe Walton than Tolkien. Certainly it's not as derivative as GG Kay's work
Also Horse and his Boy despite it being deeply, deeply problematic is a genuinely fun book
It's a textbook case of why you need to set aside being Woke sometimes and just enjoy things. Probably the best book in the series, even if Magician's Nephew is kinda my favorite.
Dark is Rising…I always thought it took more from Dunsany and Poe and maybe Walton than Tolkien. Certainly it’s not as derivative as GG Kay’s work
I mean, what do I know? I never made it past the first book.
Maybe I'd just been too heavy on high fantasy at that point and just couldn't stomach the tropes.
I'm specifically criticizing the worldbuilding. JKR plays fast and loose with how the setting works and can't leave well enough alone.
Things like the Time Turner, the canon information about magic outside of Hogwarts/UK, the oversimplified house system, and categorizing several sentient species as 'magical creatures' In this instance, it's the portrayal of goblins.
I think a lot of the fans who were drawn to it, me included, brought our own imagination to the work. That's good to capture an audience like that, but jkr's politics easily seep into the way the world works.
Things like the Time Turner, the canon information about magic outside of Hogwarts/UK, the oversimplified house system, and categorizing several sentient species as ‘magical creatures’ In this instance, it’s the portrayal of goblins.
The Time Turner wasn't any worse than any other bit of magical realism in the setting. It existed to build Hermonie - the workaholic - and Harry - the hero worshipper - as characters, not to magically solve all their problems.
Past that, its just nitpicking. The fact that she has a broader world and its not just four different kinds of Specials locked in a cage death match together puts it head and shoulders above most YA fiction.
a lot of the fans who were drawn to it, me included, brought our own imagination to the work. That’s good to capture an audience like that, but jkr’s politics easily seep into the way the world works.
The politics shifted over time, and that's what really poisoned the series. What starts as this existential struggle between generations - the very opening scene is the Old World Dying and The New Being Born - lapses into a McGuffin Hunt in defense of the status quo.
So much of the Problem With Dobbie isn't in Book 2. It shows up in 5, 6, and 7 when Rowling just kinda abandons the idea of emancipation and social justice.
The underdog story mutates into a crime drama and the protagonists change from revolutionary insurgents into child soldiers.
I thought the person you replied to was talking about bad writing in the game, not the series as a whole.
It features a white woman power fantasy wearing a revolutionary hat. Libs jumped all over it for a reason.
Sort of. It portrays Katniss as a near-useless mascot. Everybody at the front of the prole uprising acknowledges she's a useless mascot. She spends the third book fucking around in a sewer while the actual masses take the fight to the gates of the capital.
Yeah, everyone actually wants animal farm:hogsmeade edition. But the worldbuilding is too shit to support it.
As always if you need your wizard school fill
Little witch academia is great and the lead joins the non human workforce strike in an episode
While it’s been reported that choices you make throughout the game can subtly impact the ending, we’re fairly confident that the major plot points shake out the same way, regardless of your decisions.
Lol. Lmao even
When liberalism tells on itself.
Colonialism prevails and the undesirables are pushed down and stamped out, but individually you get to choose whether you're just nice Wehrmacht or whether you're Waffen SS. :scared-fash:
this sounds a lot like every bullshit story of a working class uprising told from the perspective of the bourgeoisie. things like lion king, dark knight rises (3), others
lame
lion king
I thought Lion King was just Hamlet, and was never proletarian. Like, it was always about a revolution of nobility lol
Scar does talk about re-distributing land and meat to downtrodden Hyenas, and him doing this leads to nature collapsing and turning barren and dead. Only once the lions are rightfully back on top does it begin raining again to heal
Sure but I would say that plays into the Monarchal Fantasy that the Lion King (and by extent, Hamlet) is, where the Bad King is in power, after murdering his predecessor, so everything is shit, then when the Good King gets put back in power everything is good again. Any analysis of the Hyenas as anything other than like, blackshirt compradors is a bit of a stretch I think, but it does raise the question of where they fit on the 'circle of life' philosophy that Smeagolicious mentions.
This is of course, putting way more thought into a childrens animation concerning the Divine Right of Lion Kings
Yes but he’s the bad king specifically because he is backed by an oppressed class and attempted to disrupt the natural distribution of resources along traditional feudal lines
If peasants had a successful revolution and installed their own Peasant King, that would be Scar
I guess my contention comes from the interpretation that the Hyenas are at all representative of a proletarian class, and if we take Be Prepared as evidence (and at this point, why not?) then the idea that Scar is a benevolent dictator helping an oppressed class is generous at best, considering he is clearly acting for his own benefit and agenda and holds the Hyenas in contempt. In fact, since the use of vaguely socialist rhetoric like wealth distribution is used to convince ONE particular class to bring Scar to power, said class (who starts goosestepping along to the tune, naturally) is more representative of the Liberal idea of a Fascist or Nazi revolution and not proletarian at all, as should be considered by the indisputable fact that the majority of the animal kingdom are in fact Herbivores, who are never given a semblance of representation, post or pre-revolution.
This discussion has been absolutely hilarious, by the way, especially since it's taking place in this dumb thread about the dumb game we shouldn't even talk about, like lol lets get some in depth discussion of the political ideas in the Lion King
The best way of seeing this is to understand that The Lion King isn't actually a faithful retelling of actual events, but a Mufasa dynasty-sanctioned royal chronicle that completely distorts history. If you take this into heart and read (watch?) between the lines, these things become clear:
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Mufasa was an unpopular despot. Notice how in the retelling of his death by wildebeest, there was never a sense that the wildebeests tried to cushion his fall, tried to help Mufasa, or even expressed regret for trampling their king. This is because Mufasa was actually a despot who was killed by a mob of wildebeest peasants tired of his reign.
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Scar being queer-coded is just the so-called Mufasa royal family being complete homophobic pieces of shit. It also buried the fact that Scar had sire and even appointed an heir when Simba was about to retake the throne. What The Lion King didn't tell you was the decade-long purge where Simba hunted down and exterminated Scar's entire extended family, including torturing and beheading Scar's son and sticking the head onto a wooden spike as an example.
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The Lion King trafficked typical anti-hyenaism despite hyenas not actually being supporters of Scar. Being relatively lukewarm towards Scar's reign, the deeply rooted anti-hyenaism of Pride Rock meant that any imagined retelling of Scar's reign will place them in front as Scar's loyal myrmidons. The publishing of The Lion King led to a massive pogrom, where thousands of hyenas were killed by an anti-hyenaist pro-Mufasa mob.
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Scar actually had support among various members of the lion aristocracy. This was due in part to Mufasa's terrible management of Pride Rock and Simba's hedonistic lifestyle and general incompetence. The battle in which Simba retook the throne had lions on both sides of the battle. In fact, the battle was largely lion vs lion, not lion vs hyena as depicted in the royally sanctioned chronicle. Scar's fate was sealed when he decided to limit the feudal privileges of the lion aristocracy, which meant he was outnumbered in the confrontation.
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Simba eating the bugs was just ridiculous inversion of the real Simba, a massive carnivore who hunted his subjects for sport, callously leaving their dead bodies to rot in the hot sun as his so-called "royal right."
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The crop failure solely attributed to Scar's reign is just typical Mufasa propaganda to signal that Scar lost the Mandate of the Circle of Life. In fact, the drought began during Mufasa's reign and was greatly exacerbated by Simba's wanton lifestyle. The drought continued during Simba's reign, only ending many moons later. Initially, the drought was used as an excuse to conduct anti-hyena pogroms during Mufasa's reign before being weaponized to denigrate Scar.
As for a true evaluation of Scar's reign, it was largely a mediocre one. He was less ruthless than Mufasa and less hedonistic than Simba, but Scar never was able to break the stranglehold the lion aristocracy had over the feudal subjects of Pride Rock. Scar understood that the herbivore peasantry was suffering and a source of instability, but he realized too late that the contradiction between the herbivore peasantry and the carnivore aristocracy was an antagonistic one.
Simba eating the bugs was just ridiculous inversion of the real Simba
I'll bet he didn't even live in the pod, either
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I said Peasant class, not proletarian class. The proletarian class does not exist during feudal monarchy. Nor do fascists. Fascists also don’t usually overthrow monarchies, feudal or otherwise, unless it’s to protect their economic order from communism (as happened in Italy). Lion King does not have proletarians, fascists or bourgeoisie. It has aristocrats (lions) and peasants (everyone else, especially Hyenas). There’s also a priest/noble class that serves the aristocracy (Rafiki and Zazu). Not quite sure what Timone and Pumva are, they are sort of exiles outside of society.
Whether or not Scar holds the hyenas in contempt, it is unarguable their relative power as a class in animal society grows from Scar’s coup. Their material interests are forwarded, it was a Hyena Revolution.
This is shown as disastrous to all, breaking the natural order and balance ordained by god. Monarchy is the eternal, perfect order. Redistribution and trying to help the downtrodden can only make everything worse. This is the moral or Lion King. You are an evil monster if you try to make anything better, the way things are is the perfect sacred and just order.
Btw Soviets also march in formation to red colored musical numbers. It was obviously a heavy handed anti-communist nod by the writers.
But the monarchy is never overthrown by Scar! The extant power structures remain, in fact the Hyenas do basically nothing with regards to the coup, he becomes king through the machinations of hereditary monarchy not revolution and they just serve as his loyal warrior class to do his state violence as implicated by his line "of course, quid pro quo, it's expected/ to take certain duties on board" while making a throat cutting gesture. Besides that he also makes clear their material advancement is dependant entirely on his ascension to King, and without his say they wouldn't get anything and the masses wouldn't tolerate their violence and the Lions wouldn't tolerate their competition. Clearly represented by the barren wasteland that follows given Scar's irresponsible and illegal regency.
You are an evil monster if you try to make anything better, the way things are is the perfect sacred and just order.
This ignores that... Scar isn't trying to make anything better? Again, he's nakedly trying to make a power move thru assassination and using the Hyenas to secure power. He's not redistributing things equally, he's just letting them run rampant on the peasantry themselves.
Yes, it played out exactly like Animal Farm where the revolution wasn’t a “real revolution” - one of the most common anti-communist tropes. Liberals pretend like the issue they have with communism is that it didn’t go far enough, or that the leaders are actually selfish bourgeois themselves who will wear red but act identically. As if Liberals would be fine with a revolution if it instituted a harsher and more strict red terror and redistribution. They will complain about the revolution going too far and not far enough simultaneously because they are bad faith fascists.
Not surprising at all to see a common anti-communist trope in a Disney movie. Scar is Killmonger, he is the dastardly lying dictator hiding behind good rhetoric, which is what libs believe all communist leaders are.
except this is a dispute between nobles. animal farm was "the proletariat rises up and becomes just as bad as the aristocracy" and this is "one aristocrat is worse than another". hardly the same thing as black panther
Hyenas changed their entire class position, their lives were all materially changed. Land and resources were redistributed (to disastrous ends, as it is Disney). The social hierarchy was, in fact, upended just like Scar promised.
If it were merely an inter-Lion dispute then some of Mufasa’s pride would have sided with Scar and done a palace coup. Instead we saw a new species ascendent. It is shown that the Hyenas are a big part of the reason the pridelands went to hell, not just Scar’s “unjust and illegal rule”.
One class getting out of rank and jumping above their station lead to the ruination of all. That’s a clear fucking lesson to know your place and stay in it.
Sure but I would say that plays into the Monarchal Fantasy that the Lion King (and by extent, Hamlet) is, where the Bad King is in power, after murdering his predecessor, so everything is shit, then when the Good King gets put back in power everything is good again.
I'm not saying one interpretation is necessarily more valid than the other, but as a child watching that movie in the theater this is definitely what I always got out of it for what its worth. I was into King Arthur and the idea of the land being an extension of the kings body is sort of a baked in concept to the whole thing.
Looking back I actually kind of viewed Scar as a tragic figure. He's more or less a "better rule in hell than serve in heaven" type of character.
Only once the lions are rightfully back on top does it begin raining again to heal
Divine right of kings intensifies :capitalist-laugh:
There always was the odd background element of the hyenas being excluded from the pride lands and thus an environment with food and resources that doesn’t exude evil smoke. The whole “circle of life” apparently doesn’t apply to them? They’re just ontologically evil subhuman…err sublion…peasants I guess.
yaya it's totally hamlet but there's so much emphasis on natural order/circle of life i'd argue it goes deeper than that
it shows at beginning there's a natural order to class society. lions are kings and they are on top because circle of life blah blah.
when the natural order gets disrupted (scar / hyenas as stand in for working class) the whole world literally erodes into a death landscape. lions and hyenas as equals? oh no! look at before/after pictures of the pride lands probably more descript as wastelands under scar/hyenas.
the world/environment doesn't heal until the natural order is returned with simba's triumph over scar/hyenas.
And any critique of it will go misunderstood or ignored by pretty much everyone. It’s like a weird microcosm of society itself.
Unfortunately, Ranrok reaches the reservoir and is able to absorb it all, turning into a massive, energy-loaded dragon intent on destroying the entire school.
Video games are for little babies
Wait so they don't even make you kill the goblin as a goblin but as a maleficent ass dragon?
turning into a massive, energy-loaded dragon
Capitalists telling on themselves while presenting conveniently otherfied targets as what the capitalists themselves actually are :capitalist-laugh:
EMPRESS has said they'll have a crack done within 10 days so if you really can't go without playing your mediocre fantasy game then just wait 10 days and pirate it.
Unfortunately Empress is also a TERF. She's also uhhh...very eccentric...so I feel it counts against her slightly less since it's hard to tell when she's serious, an edgelord, or "other".
But hey, you wanna pirate the TERF game and hide in the dark with your shame, I'm not your mum.
Well, there's a difference there. You're not contributing to her monetarily. Plus, cracking is definitely more of a public service than writing a mediocre fantasy world.
Being fucking nuts doesn't change the fact of being the only one who can crack denuvo, and it's not like piracy is profitable
Absolutely, but being mad as a cut snake does not absolve her of shitty takes. Plenty of people are nuts and also not assholes. Heck, I'm nuts and I'm only an asshole some of the time.
Yeah, not defending transphobes here, just saying that pirating a game cracked by a transphobic cracker does not benefit them. Buying a game made by transphobic creator does.
are they? that fucking sucks. I knew there was something problamatic about them but I just remembered the weird crystal or demonology type shit. I actually was under (the incorrect) assumption that they were trans but maybe my memory is mixing up the stuff they said with the stuff I thought was said to them.
They said some anti-trans 4 chan edgelord shit during a rant about eliminating men which frankly lacked the panache of the SCUM manifesto.
How appropriate you fight like a cow Cows with Guns starts playing in the distance oh shit oh fuck!
I have no plans to play it regardless. Was just throwing the info out for those that undoubtedly will. Ive got a billion uninstalled games I need to get through and a shitty open world IP game from a TERF is not really on my list.
I hate that its reviewing well. If games critics were serious about critique, they'd take all of this into account when reviewing it. Instead, every review I've seen is just some soy faced nerd who is excited to live out their childhood fantasy about being a wizard in Harry Potter.
It's getting high scores, but there's a common theme of "The world is amazing but static, the combat is serviceable but not great, if you were expecting a wizard school game focused on lrn2wizard (like anyone interested in the game) you'll be disappointed, here is a generic open world action RPG. The story is the main focus of the game, but on rails and mid. Nothing you do matters. No Quidditch. 11/10, Editors Choice"
Sounds like the Tesla of video games. "The welding was shoddy, the steering wheel fell off while driving. Still love the car though!" :so-true:
I don’t get why it’s reviewing well. Maybe it’s just that I don’t interact with the typical Harry Potter consumer, but aside from the horrible antisemitism and transphobia, from all the leaked footage the game looks bad. You just spam the same attacks over and over like your shooting a Star Wars blaster until their health bar runs out.
Review scores are largely payed for. They might as well just be glorified advertisers.
Then Forspoken would've reviewed quite well, Square Enix is not lacking advertising funds
Maybe it’s just that I don’t interact with the typical Harry Potter consumer
That's it. The whole point of game is to be a nostalgia trip, and so long as everything else is passable, it will sell well and review well. Nostalgia is a very powerful emotion.
For a far less problematic example, the point of the horizon zero dawn games is basically to be a tech demonstrator and show off the cool new graphics on Sony's latest PlayStation. Doesn't matter that everything else is average, it will review and sell well.
I've only seen some footage of gameplay and cutscenes of the Horizon series, and that was the impression I got of them. There's something I find just so overwhelmingly boring about its aesthetic, no scratch that, its everything, like someone just fed a concept to an AI and this is what it shat out
I played the first game. I was so surprised at how they made riding robot dinosaurs so boring.
Though it's great for what it is. And I had fun once I readjusted my mindset, because yes, the graphics are amazing
The explanation for why the robot dinosaur world is the way it is was pretty cool in the first game. Don't know how much the world building is expanded in the second one
I mean these are books where one of the only black characters was named shacklebolt. The books are written for kids, the narrative was never that good when you look at it from an adult lens. The games goal is to be a nostalgia simulator, and if being a cheap Disney infinity clone with a Harry Potter coat of paint does that, unfortunately most people will look past all that and buy it.
I mean these are books where one of the only black characters
Hermione might be black according to JK Rowling. It's a cop out, but it'd be better represantation than Shacklebolt except for the one part where Hermione complains about all the chattel slavery and gets laughed at for being uppity by all the other characters, so now it's a fucking hilarious cop out on account of how bad it is.
I don't think she was ever intended to be anything but white. It was just one of those instances of not describing the default as white and then rolling with it when she had plausible deniability.
Even if she was intended to be black, a lot like Dumbledore being gay, Hermione's life as a black person isn't reflected in the text at all. That and her whole abolitionist parody arc would be a lot worse in that context.
All non-white characters in Harry Potter are either given a very explicitly not British name like "Cho Chang," or they speak in a patois accent, or they're simply called African. Hermione being black is Rowling trying to weasel her way into seeming progressive again because Hermione is typically described as having curly hair. Rowling is a terf, liar, and a racist
Also if she were supposed to be black, someone should have informed the illustrator because she's depicted as white in the illustrations
the books consistently refer to her as white, it's just rowling forgetting what she wrote
IIRC that specific tweet was JK saying something directly contradicted by her own text, but also she was responding to people who were mad about a black woman playing Hermione in the Harry Potter play and fuck those people.
Is it really that difficult not to play a video game? Like, do you just have nothing else in your life? Go organise.
Like, do you just have nothing else in your life?
I'm not playing this game but yeah not much going on
There's also just like so many games. So many fuckin great games that I assure you you haven't played. If you wanna play a video game so bad why not one of hundreds of stellar options besides this?
I love my trans comrades
Yes! Yes it is! People love Harry Potter and this game is the biggest hit since Elden Ring.
Oh god, the story is so mediocre, sounds like some BioWare Harry Potter cancelled game from 2003.
Hey now, atleast Bioware knows how to write the eight companion character archetypes really well, I always enjoy getting my little group together in their games. The story is very much an afterthought.
