I have no idea what this is about, as “Dragon Rider” could refer to an abundant number of popular fantasy series, so I am curious to see a real answer about it.
I would have to imagine if it is anything like most other “drama” these days, it’s entirely meaningless and effectively just translates to a rage bait mine that one could try to exploit for ad revenue or imaginary internet points or something. Something people will completely forget about in a week.
Plenty of early reviews for were positive for Concord and Dragon Age Veilguard, but those ended up being pretty worthless reviews. Access media has ruined critic credibility. It would be stupid to trust a reviewer that knows their media outlet won’t get review copies of the next game from a publisher if they review the game badly, because that will absolutely change the review to be more favorable.
If Star Wars Outlaws, a game connected to an IP that absolutely has a way bigger market than Assassin’s Creed, did that badly, I can almost guarantee that Shadows will not do better than Outlaws.
I think it’s really hilarious thay they think it will sell enough to have multiple games, considering how bad this game is being received. Thats not even to mention how dysmal the sales were for Star Wars Outlaws, Skull and Bones, and Avatar Frontiers of Pandora.
This game will be a colossal flop, and Ubisoft absolutely deserves it. That is what you get when you ignore feedback from literally everyone.
Super Metroid for 2D, Metroid Prime 1 for 3D.
Both games absolutely blasted it out of the water. Perfect masterpieces that no other game managed to live up to.
Metroid Prime Pinball is an untouchable god-tier masterpiece of a spin-off.
I think Zero Mission was a pretty good remake of NEStroid, and Samus Returns was an okay remake of Return of Samus. Prime Hunters, Prime 2, and Prime 3 were just okay, nothing bad but nothing special either. Hunters online was fun until the Action Replay users took over. IMO Fusion, Dread, and Other M were too linear. Federation Force was not great either, probably the weakest game to have Metroid in the title.
I appreciated Fusion’s story, it was interesting. I also appreciate the vision of Other M, it was certainly a game that, when it worked, the gameplay was pretty fun to look at. Finisher moves and quick dodging was cool to see, even if it made the game pretty easy. The first person switching was a really cool idea that I think should have borrowed a little from Metroid Prime’s Scan Visor, where the suit automatically highlights objects of importance, to lower frustration of “pixel hunts.” Its certainly got very good graphics for a Wii game, even if the environments are bland. But IMO Dread had some equally bland level design, and was too linear for my liking. I also did not really like the ending that much. Dread’s soundtrack is equally as forgettable as Other M’s soundtrack, except there are some songs I actually remember from Other M that were unique to the game and not a remix from an older Metroid title (for example, the piano theme from Other M, great song). I completed Metroid Dread in about 9 hours the week it launched and I haven’t played it since.
I fundamentally dissagree with the term “metroidvania” because Metroid and Castlevania are different. Both are what I call a “side-scrolling action platformer,” but Metroid gives the player powerups to encourage them to explore their environment, while Castlevanias powerups focus almost entirely on combat. Therefore Metroid includes “adventure” in its genre, but Castlevania does not.
I never got lost in a Metroid game, but I also have a pretty good ability to remember how I got somewhere. Metroid does a generally pretty good job making nearly every room memorable and unique to help players not get lost, and Metroid has mostly included a map to help players as well. If players are still getting lost, IMO that’s just a skill issue.
But I understand what the author is trying to say, and they are right. Actually getting lost is not what they mean, they mean level and game design that lends itself to encouraging exploration by trial and error. Level design and game design that shows the player some impassable wall early and then when they get the ability to pass it later on, leaving it entirely up to the player to remember. Backtracking is a mandatory staple, if a Metroid game has no backtracking, especially for item expansions, then it is not a real Metroid game. Making the player be the one to do the exploring and not holding their hand is crucial to a good Metroid experience. This is why I consider Metroid Fusion, Other M, and Dread to be among the weaker Metroid titles. All three have an obvious, forced always on hand-holding mechanic that you don’t find in other Metroid games. Like the developers don’t trust the player to actually be smart enough to figure the game out.
Most jobs provide some value, but I guarantee you the Chinese team already had double the amount of Chinese workers doing everything these 6 people did already. NetEase operates that way, its not unusual for them to have Chinese employees doing the same job as any of their small foreign offices, as it is cheaper for them to do so when they inevitably cut the more expensive, probably less productive team (be that due to language barriers or timezone differences, whatever the reason).
Though I will likely not be playing the game, I have seen a lot of people running into performance problems, crashing, and just bugs in general. You aren’t the only one.
No no, Kotaku.
6 people. 6 people were laid off, and the game’s real director, who is Chinese and is in the update videos, is still working on the game. Thaddeus Sasser, who is the director that was let go from the Seattle office, said that the Chinese director was in charge of everything relating to the game itself, and that Thaddeus was basically only in charge of budget and hiring.
He’s not wrong though. He won’t cheat in Fortnite again.
This has big “Big things are coming, watch this space” vibes.
Whether they mean it or not, saying this makes me feel like they are massively overhyping whatever they ar etalking about.
Didn’t IGN give Dragon Age Veilgard a 9/10?
GameCube was good, but I say the SEGA Dreamcast definitely takes the Underrated and Underutilized Console award.
Burying one’s head in the sand is an awful reaction to just about anything. If I had done what you said, I would have remained uninformed on this topic because it is about a Lemmy user, and no other place would have provided the answer to this information.
I am glad someone else responded with a basic summary of their assessment of the situation. There is, of course, more to the story, but from the summary I can see that it is as I thought, something that is completely meaningless to me and has zero influence on anything I currently do or plan to do. I didn’t even know this question was about a Lemmy user, I thought it was about like Dragon Riders of Pern’s author, or perhaps a FATE character’s design or voice actor or something because I have very minimal knowledge of FATE but that sounds like it could be a character from FATE. Not that any of that is all that important to me either, but those topics are still far more important to me than personal social-political bickering in an online forum.
Upon learning this information, I can now drop interest in the topic and not wonder what the question was asking about.