#and i am more than a little bit tired of how 3D beat-em-ups haven't really changed much since batman: arkham asylum

[nextlevelwaterpanic]

I saw discourse recently about Baldur's Gate 3 winning the game awards over Marvel's Spiderman 2--some of it almost certainly engagement bait (by the way, did you know that only other blue checks count towards the ad revenue for tweets?), one example showcasing a literal cutscene from Spiderman as a demonstration of how it's been robbed of its deserved accolades--but some people agreeing with it, because when you pitch a circus tent it's only right to expect clowns.

Naoki Yoshida (producer of Final Fantasy 14 and 16) has more or less said "western gamers treat the term 'JRPG' like it's some kind of slur" and at this point I think that level of brain poisoning has taken hold even in views towards western RPGs now: treating turn-based gameplay as a problem that needs to be solved for health of the genre, rather than just...a way games can be made. As if under the impression that if these games just "evolve past" turn-based systems they'll "reach a wider audience."

But, like, they're clearly successful enough and reaching enough players to win fucking game of the year, right?

Anyway, a video game is a piece of software whose main goal is to get you to press square. The more it rewards you for pressing square, the better the video game is.