Hmm… sure, but I feel like “reviews are subjective” gets used as an excuse to give low-effort reviews a pass too often.
Like, I understand if a Steam reviewer writes whatever because they’re just a user, but I cannot justify using the same scale to judge a professional reviewer.
I understand a game may not be a reviewer’s cup of tea, but if this stops them from engaging with the game’s systems and attempting to provide insight through their review then I think it’s fair to judge they haven’t done their job well.
Like, if someone hires me to do a job, and I accept, I cannot go “Oh, I’m gonna do half of it because the rest isn’t my cup of tea. Sorry.” No, I’ll do the job and maybe complain about it afterwards, which IMO, is exactly what reviewers should do—example: “I beat the boss, but the fight sucked because X, Y, and Z.”
I think there should be standards, otherwise you get reviewers unfairly judging games they barely played like in the infamous God Hand review.
Odd take in this context. The last game in this trilogy was released almost 20 years ago—if they’re not gonna remaster this, what are remasters for exactly?