What Metacritic Review Scores Do You Not Agree With - Too Low Edition

[SilverspoonGaming | 331]

If a Metacritic score is so high that I just have to buy the game to see what its all about, thats one thing, but I have played a few games that have relatively low scores and I think they should be a 90+.  What games do you think got surprisingly low scores across the board giving it a Metacritic score of 79 or under?

Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition - PS4 - 77

This game blew my mind!  It was so good!  The gameplay, the vast world to explore, and definitely the story!  The only thing that I didnt like were the driving mechanics, but thats not enough to keep this game out of the high 80s in my book.

Fortune Street - Wii - 68

I dont even know what to say about this game.  Its just the best puzzle game I have ever played, and has tons of replay value.  My #1 Wii game for sure, and I havent taken it out of my Wii U kiosk in many years because I always go back to play it.  Im amazed that this game didnt get atleast an 80.

Edited February 2, 2021 by SilverspoonGaming

[elprincipe | 142]

Was looking for my favorite game of all time (rated by Gamespot back in the day as 4.5/10 I think, LOL) and found this:

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (69) - Goemon's Great Adventure is a better game, but this is an awesome game. It should be at least 80-85.

[OptOut | 8,881]

1 hour ago, elprincipe said:

Was looking for my favorite game of all time (rated by Gamespot back in the day as 4.5/10 I think, LOL) and found this:

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (69) - Goemon's Great Adventure is a better game, but this is an awesome game. It should be at least 80-85.

Eh... It's a good game, sure, and there's a great deal of creativity and humor which elevate it as well. However, it's pretty rudimentary in terms of overall game structure and design, even by the standards of adventure games at the time. Compare the game to Ocarina of time and the difference in complexity and refinement of the game design is obvious. This MAY not seem like a fair comparison, as Goemon was slightly earlier, but they are equivalent titles in the grand scheme of things. I'd say 70 is a fair score.

[Sumez | 2,931]

This is a tough one. I don't really keep up to date on Metacritic scores, and it's honestly hard to find a game that I really like that didn't also get a high score on Meta. For the truly underappreciated gems in the rough, you usually have to go further back than when Metacritic was a thing.
But I guess I can also point out some high scores that still demonstrate some unreliable inconsistencies in the system.

The "too high edition" of this topic is going to be a riot.

King's Field IV (60) - This is definitely not a game for everyone, so I can honestly understand the mixed reception. Outside of the straight up negative reviews, I can't fault the reviewers for this one, but it does paint a very unfair picture of one of the most fascinating and intriguing games I have played on the PS2. This is definitely a game to experience, even if it means mustering up the patience to do so.

Paper Mario: The Origami King (80) - While I do think 8/10 sounds appropriate for this game, in terms of Metacritic standards, it's a lot lower than a game of this immense quality would normally get. It's only barely above the much hated Sticker Star.
The take-away here is that the game was met with a lot of unreasonable criticism right from the outset, comparing it to things that it never was and never tried to be. Criticising it for "issues" beyond the game itself (ie. how Nintendo treats their IPs, etc.) despite the fact that they had no impact on the enjoyment of the game. The first three Paper Mario games got nearly 90 or more, and there's no way Origami King doesn't deserve at least as much as those. It's a fantastic game.

Lost Odyssey (78) - How is Lost Odyssey a 78, if Final Fantasy IX is 94, and FFX is 92? I love those games too, but Lost Odyssey has all of the same qualities, and more. It just lacks the hype and bias surrounding the Final Fantasy brand.

[MagusSmurf | 577]

Most of the games I really like that are new enough to have metacritic scores did well enough.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/ys-the-oath-in-felghana seems a bit low but in that case it's because of a low number of reviews enabling one silly one to tank the score.

[Sumez | 2,931]

Lol yeah, that's way too low for that game.

The PSP one got 80. The game still deserves higher, but that one is a lot more understandable!

[croagunk | 798]

Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak for GBA deserves more than a 72. It’s still a pretty good score, but I get so much enjoyment out of that game that I feel it should at least get an 80. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,509]

I mean, the go to is Deadly Premonition which is extremely polarizing.  But I wouldn't say that means its metacritic score is too low.  It just means some people really like it and some people really don't.  Which is understandable.

Kinda like how recently someone claimed that some movie's rotten tomatoes score was "too low.". Which is silly, because that's just an aggregate of what percentage of people liked it.  Some do, some don't.

People are looking for scores to represent some sort of objective truth, when really they're just indicators for what you might possibly think based on populations of game players.

*shrug*

[DefaultGen | 5,397]

Non-fighting arcade games often get reviewed by people who don't want to play arcade games. The PSN/XBLA Daytona USA has a 71 or 77 (which on the 7-10 scale is like an F). It's by far the best home version of the game. After 20 years, and like 4 messed up ports, finally fans got exactly what they wanted and half the reviews are like "It's short, so outdated, what a lazy port!".

[Splain | 2,560]

I had a Best Buy gift card last year when Mario Maker 2 and New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe were newish. I couldn't decide between the two, so I decided to look up the Metacritic score for each, and buy the one with the higher score. Standing in the aisle, I looked it up and found a higher score for Mario Maker. So I bought it and had a mediocre time with it. A month or two later I grabbed NSMBUD and couldn't put it down until I had 100% in  both the Mario and Luigi modes.

I should have known, I guess. The video game community at large is a little tired of New Super Mario games, even if I'm not.

[fox | 1,665]

54 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Which is silly, because that's just an aggregate of what percentage of people liked it.  Some do, some don't.

Yeah saying that just a small percentage like I dunno only 80% of people like a certain game is “too low” and it should universally be loved seems silly.

You are just using the the site to validate your own opinions and bias at that point.

Edited February 3, 2021 by fox

[DefaultGen | 5,397]

6 minutes ago, Splain said:

I had a Best Buy gift card last year when Mario Maker 2 and New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe were newish. I couldn't decide between the two, so I decided to look up the Metacritic score for each, and buy the one with the higher score. Standing in the aisle, I looked it up and found a higher score for Mario Maker. So I bought it and had a mediocre time with it. A month or two later I grabbed NSMBUD and couldn't put it down until I had 100% in  both the Mario and Luigi modes.

I should have known, I guess. The video game community at large is a little tired of New Super Mario games, even if I'm not.

Ha, I was going to say the same thing, but it feels silly to complain about review scores in the 8s being too low. My only complaint remains NSMBUD should absolutely have been a sequel. There are 2 years between SMG and SMG2, and in 7 years we couldn't get a 2D Mario sequel, now fans have to make levels on their own!

[Brickman | 3,980]

I don’t really follow metacritic too much but one game that rated low on there is dark Devotion. I’m playing that for my backlog challenge and it’s a fantastic game but scored a 65%. But it only has 4 reviews and it sounds like the reviewers might not play many dungeon crawlers, so that is skewed.

I also agree with Sumez on Lost Odyssey, way too low for that game. Easily a 9 for me. If it said Final Fantasy: Lost Odyssey on the cover it would probably have gotten a 10 from reviews.

[Webhead123 | 675]

I put no real stock in Metacritic (sometimes, I actually forget they exist). But one example did jump out at me.

TMNT: Out of the Shadows scored an average of 38. That's incredibly harsh, especially considering crap like Lost: Via Domus and The Deadliest Warrior averaged in the mid-50's.

OotS isn't a great game by any stretch but there was clearly some effort behind it and it was enjoyable as a budget Live Arcade title. The graphics and sound were actually pretty good and it has a surprisingly detailed combat system, where each turtle plays VERY differently. It certainly belongs somewhere in the 50's at least and ranking it a "38" just seems a little silly. I mean, that's the same aggregate as the Pimp My Ride game. What the hell?

[MegaMan52 | 2,439]

Kirby Air Ride got a score of 61 Metacritic. And I haven't forgotten the harsh mediocre rating GameSpot gave it. It deserves an 8/10, IMO, for its variety of modes, orchestrated music, LAN mode, huge of number of unlockables, and having almost as much customization as Super Smash Bros. Melee.