Astral Chain is hit with review bombings, and gets resistance

Review bombed for what exactly?

Politics? No.

Is there a game breaker? No.

Always online? NO!

Is it exclusive? YEP!

GoNintendo

There's a bit of a battle going on over at Astral Chain's Metacritic page. It seems the trouble started when a few people went over to the page to hit the game with zeros. Why are they doing this? It seems people are upset the game is a Switch-exclusive, leading to the bombing.

In response, other users are going in there and rating the game a 10 out of 10. As of right now, the positive user reviews are winning out, as there are 157 positive and 75 negative. Not sure why people feel the need to do this, but the internet can't be told what to do!

As of this typing, it's 7.5 user score. Still, there is a reason Rotten Tomatoes went with stricter user review rules when Captain Marvel came out, so I think Metacritic should consider something similar.

People are morons en masse. No two ways about it... They fold into the group mentality, which often makes no sense.

As for Captain Marvel... It was a decent movie, but Larson is/was a moron. You're an actor getting a paycheck... Don't try to ride the popularity to push personal beliefs.

I’m not interested in this game. Didn’t like Bayonetta. Didnt like Nier Automata. Platinum Games is just not my thing.

Who the hell pays attention to user reviews? Nobody.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

@nintendoboy16: Better yet people should just ignore sites like Metashitic altogether, that way there's nothing to get upset about.

This happens all the time.

Hmm, borderlands rings a bell. People are stupid and ruin it for everyone else.

Lol, some people are so pathetic.

Anyway, I just hope the game sells well. Platinum and Nintendo deserve it for creating a great new IP.

This doesn't seem like a good reason to review bomb a game at all...

Critics review bomb things as well.

Pff, and people say gamers are toxic entitled cr-

Oh.

So that's why that stereotype exists. There really should be some kind of a "I'm not with these people" disclaimer.

@madrocketeer: Well I agree that it's not great but let's not exaggerate, right? Gamers are held to higher standards than normal people: Is it a million gamers doing this? Not even. That sounded like an unfair question, right?

Last year there were about 2.2 billion gamers, 1.2 billion PC gamers. That is probably an inflated number (people who just touched a game for a few seconds once in their life) so let's say it's somewhere closer to the number of PC gamers and then cut it in half to be safe. That's still 600 million gamers.

So not even 1 out of 600 is doing this. If you look at the magnitudes, it's not really something we should attribute to gamers in general. I wouldn't say it's a significant portion of gamers doing this thing. I think it's just a sign that there is an increasing amount of gamers who dislike the idea of exclusive games. Which is an interesting position to be in, given that this game would likely not have been made in the first place if it weren't exclusive.

Are we witnessing the end of exclusive games for a platform? Is it because they didn't grow up with exclusivity being a thing? (Phone gaming?) I wonder what would be the best way to deal with this, if this anti-exclusive mentality turns out to be an ever-growing trend. It's also interesting that not every exclusive game gets this treatment. Bayonetta did... A similar type of game. I wonder what is behind this extra dislike for exclusivity in this particular niche.

This is a great move by the consumer, by default the game is degraded on the Switch.

232 user reviews is story worthy now? Gaming journalism is in a real bad place right now.

Perfect example of why fanboys are the dingle berries to gaming period.

This is such a unique occurrence. ?

@Pedro: Not a unique occurrence at all. Movie sites have already paid the price over review-bombing trolls. Sites like IMDB took away their forums and Rottentomatoes shackled their review systems.

Next thing you know you will have these gaming websites taking away privileges as well and then the same trolls will start bitching and making a controversy how their "free speech" rights are being taken away on private domains.

It's at a 1,000 now. I've read a few of the negative comments, and you can tell they haven't actually played the game. Pretty sad.

Gaming Journalism has always been in a very bad place since they early 2000's TBQH

Metacritic plays absolutely ZERO bearing on whether or not to buy a game. TBH I'm content listening to the opinions of people who have played a game and offer objectivity rather than subjective views. Even professional reviewers are taken with a grain of salt.

About like this forum is degraded by having you on it.

Abit*

100xp+

A bit*

We both fail. I was just typing fast and had multiple thoughts in my head, your thought was just missing a little something :)

Just a bunch of butthurt gamers, nothing new.

If by degraded you mean supported and would not exist otherwise, then yes that is true. Odd that you don't get how this works. If you do a bit a research you would find that the direction of the game itself was influenced by Nintendo. Without Nintendo it would not be Astral Chain at all. It would have been a game with magic users as was the original vision.

Same with Bayonetta 3. Without Nintendo it simply would not be made. I get that consumers are ignorant by default so yay be mad at Nintendo for Helping to make the game possible! Wahoo!

Ahhhhhh Nintendo fanboys are so annoying. They get a high scoring exlusive and start with "Omg omg everybody must get a Switch now!!!". ?

Good for you. Stop spamming Astral Chain threads.

Regarding the topic: review bombings happened always and to better games. Nothing new here.

@ivangrozny: Huh? This is one of the dumbest posts I've seen on here in a while. Congrats.

Exactly, the entire experience is intrinsically downgraded by being limited to a Nintendo platform as well as more expensive.

The "vision" afforded by Nintendo is limited compared to what other platforms offer, where limits and constrictions are comparatively non-existent.

Had they abandoned this product, seeking crowdfunding, which they would undoubtedly get, aside from respectable sales, a liberating creative freedom, more people could play an objectively superior product, at a better price.

As it stands, we have another self-hobbled game, with weak sales, on a weak platform.

Talent completely wasted.

@uninspiredcup: I agree, console games should always be review bombed.

Out of all games to review bomb, they bombed a very irrelevant game. Did they review bombed other platinum exclusives like wonderful 101 or Bayonetta 2 then?

This just raises the awareness of the game from being just yet another under appreciated clover/platinum dev created title. Well done all parties involved.

If you use userscores to determine what to buy you deserve to miss out on this game.

I know the new thing that this entitled generation does is review bomb everything they don't like, but I really think this is a new low. Getting angry over an exclusive is about as dumb as it gets, and review bombing because you are mad is completely bratty and immature.

If you want to play the game that badly then buy a switch, if you can't afford a switch then play another one of the hundreds of games available for whatever it is you game on.

I can't believe this is even a thing, can you imagine if in the 90's people started protesting Super Mario World not being on Sega Genesis or Sonic not being on SNES, how stupid does that sound, but we have actually come to a point where the equivalent thing is happening.

Whoa. I've never seen anyone this salty over that they can't play Astral Chain before.

Sure is dumb.

Though sometimes devs promise to release a game on certain platforms. Not long before release, they change plans and release it exclusively for only one platform and basically tells the fans who were waiting for other platforms "**** you, we like money". That's an example where I think the hate towards exclusivity is warranted.

But yeah, review bombing Astral Chain for being exclusive is just sad.

That was never the case for Astral Chain, though.. The game was never once hinted or teased as being a multiplat game. Since the very first announcement trailer we see Nintendo's logo backing up the production - it was a very clear indication it's a new Nintendo IP being created with Platinum Games.

I think part of the reason why Astral Chain is getting review bombed is actually because of Bayonetta 2. Now I know people actually were pissed off when they learned the game would be a Nintendo exclusive, and some started petitions to get it over on other platforms.

The bitterness over Astral Chain must be coming after Bayonetta 2 being a Nintendo exclusive, and some people really resent buying a Nintendo console that bad, they must trash whatever great things the console is getting.

Salty Sony fanboys upset that one of the best games released this year is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch.

Not sure which is sadder. The people giving 0s or the people giving 10s.

Doubt it's because someone read reviews, bought it, then didn't like it. PC gamers are used to not getting games like this, Xbox gamers are used to not getting all kinds of stuff. Sony fans would seem the most obvious, after all they are by far the most obnoxious gaming fanboy base, but even this feels out of place for them this far in the generation.

My prime suspect is the gaming journalist who first reported it. For no other reason than to get something in on deadline.

A very irrelevant game, but managed to take #1 on the UK sales charts of the week? Continue to be a hater, lol

Fucken bitter nerds

@FireEmblem_Man: congrats on charting #1. Hopefully dev, specifically hideki kamiya dont bitch game didnt sell like many of its products again ???

@Ant_17: The game is a lot closer to a 10 than a 0.

To be fair, it's not a stretch to say that this game deserves a 10.

Sure, but not cause someone else gave it a 0.

I tend to, especially on a platform like Steam or GOG where there is a written element.

Anyone getting paid to write a review for a game they didn't pay for isn't trustworthy. As a consumer, I value when a customer takes time to write a review about a game with details regarding certain elements. It helps me decide whether I want to buy it or not.

It also is a good way for users to list faults with the game so that other consumers can see if those issues might effect them as well (hardware compatibility, etc).

There are 9 pages sorted from highest to lowest, the first 7 are all 10's, 8th page starts to have 9s and continue onto the last page (9th), where there is less than 20 negative reviews.

Meaning, 1000 people clicked negative for score and didn't leave reviews, but roughly the same amount of people click positive. Yet people assume its cause not exclusive, yet not a single review mentions this. Sounds like Switch purists who sniff their own farts are starting to act like Sony Fanboys and can't comprehend that people don't love their precious exclusives and only plausible reason for negative score is trolls/haters.

The only reviews that mention fake people, are those spamming 10 reviews, and I believe the negative marks are coming cause way too many people spammed 10's on it. I thought Nintendo fans were humbled but now they are likely becoming even worst snobs than Sony Pony hoof suckers.

Wow. The salt from the haters of this game is very real.

Excited to play it, 2 of my favorite games this gen were nier and bayonetta 2. Got a huge back log tho, I can wait, but from what ive seen of it, looks really good.