Where have all the good reviews gone?
When I first read IGN’s relatively harsh review of Ace Attorney 6: Spirit of Justice, my heart sank a little. As a game I have been looking forward to since it was announced, and as an avid series fan, I wanted the score to be higher. I don’t know–maybe in my narcissistic bubble I just want everyone to love the game as much as me.
When I went to Metacritic, however, my disappointment shifted to relief….and then something more akin to rage. Turns out that Spirit of Justice is sitting pretty at a high 82 rating, and IGN’s review of the game was the lowest out there.
I took some time to meditate on my rage. Really let it percolate. Because as a fan, I know how I am. When I recommend something to someone, and they hate it, my first emotion is intense, world-burning hatred. But when I let it subside, I fall back down to the rationale human emotion of it’s their opinion, and they’re perfectly entitled to that, and not everything is for everyone.
So I gave it some time, and the anger did sort of melt away. But what was left was confusion. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had some legitimate gripes with the review, and by extension, reviews as a whole.
I know the joke for years is that IGN has been horrible at….well, it would be faster to list what they do well. I think a third of that is troll fodder, another third is the expectations that come with being one of the largest entertainment websites out there, and the final third is IGN could handle a lot of their content better. My beef isn’t elusively with IGN; with that said, they really flubbed this review. Like “Too much water” 2.0.
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