-Zelda fans aren't really ones to read the reviews, and will get butthurt at anything below a 9, usually. Hell, IGN even gave the OoT remake a 9.5 and people were rustled that it wasn't a 10 (granted, IGN's reasoning for the detraction was weak and not very well supported).Xylitol wrote:The word next to the review score still reads "Good", and the review says that the good points outweigh the bad ones.
I don't see the problem here, other than numeric game review scores being full of shit.
-Gamespot has a bad reputation with Zelda games. Their review of Twilight Princess is the reason TVTropes calls what happens in this situation an "8.8 event".
-Gamespot has the unique situation of having a bad past with reviewing games. It's already been revealed in the past that they've beefed up scores with some palm greasing, and even if they weren't doing so currently, it's easy to see why people would be nervous about it. Couple this with their other bad habit of writing reviews without checking facts, or even BLINDLY (Their Pokemon Black and White review claimed that the first Gym Leader was a triple battle, which means they either very badly misremembered the events of the game, or they were talking out of their booty). This doesn't warrant confidence in a score given by them.
-When comparing the score to previous Zelda games or to other current games, it makes the game seem subpar. For a game that's "very formulaic" for Zelda, it seems strange that the score would be less than that of Twilight Princess, a game that they cited more issues with of playing it safe than they did with Skyward Sword. Plus, a big bugbear in this, MW3 got an 8.5 and wasn't nearly as harshly judged on rehashing old concepts as Zelda, which means scores are inconsistent and incompatable to be compared.
-One of the issues the reviewer had was controls, something that's been nearly unanimously lauded by the rest of the gaming community (except EGM, but their argument was "I have to stand up to play"). People are going to be a bit skeptical about whether the reviewer wasn't doing it right (swinging too fast (which apparently is a thing), using faulty equipment, or even something as simple as being too close to the TV/sensor bar).
-Video game fans care too much about metacritic. Bad reviews = worse metacritic, so they'll target the lower end scores while celebrating the 100s, even if the 100 were made to please the fans and are nothing but talking out of their booty.
So while I personally liked most of the review (still perplexed by the control issue, and even more perplexed by the accompanying Super Mario 3D Land review), I can see Gamespot getting massive loads of shit over this, whether the score was deserved or not.
