But as I pointed out in my first posts, you can enjoy the everliving fuck out of a 7/10 game because DnD with friends in videogame form is your shit, but that is giving awards based on what it is, rather than how well it's made. It's the equivalent of giving Forza 5 a 10/10 because it is definitely a racing game. If it was the first racing game on the planet, does it automatically get an advantage on review scores rather than it being a reason the reviewer recommends the game if you are a fan of Fast and Furious?
I personally think scores of 10 are inherently dumb and never rate anything on that scale. I only rate things on a scale of five:
1 - I hated it 2 - I disliked 3 - mixed or no impressions 4 - I liked it 5 - I loved it
For me, BG3 is a 5/5, and I’m not interested in trying to award it an objective score. Nobody is paying me to do that so why bother? I understand why other woolen don’t enjoy it or enjoyed it less, that’s fine. But I’m not going to feign objectivity. I don’t need to convince anybody to charge their minds about the game so their objections similarly don’t matter to me.
What does exceptionally incoherent mean? The main narrative has a lot of plot holes and with all due respect, this is a video game that marketed itself as a sequel to Baldur's Gate. I should hope Larian with years and multiple writers does better than your DM that has five minutes to come up with a new plotline after the players got (un)lucky exploding the goblin camp. You can handwave it, but just so you are aware that you are excusing something subpar.
You can still enjoy it and that's honestly great for you, unfortunately the thread is about the critical reception, including scoring and how it might affect the genre moving forward. I am certainly not going to tell anyone they can't like BG3 or that they are wrong for liking it. Where I draw the line is 'Game of the Decade' or it being 'deserving of GOTY' because of a 'message' to the industry or it being 'genre defining' or what have you as it usually comes in three flavors: Praising BG3 for what it actually isn't, general ignorance of CRPGs or shitting on other games to prop it up. My examples include some very toxic positivity and the wrong lessons readily available for learning.
You don’t get to tell me what is subpar. I think Dragon Age and Mass Effect are complete garbage, but that’s just my subjective opinion, and the millions of fans of those series aren’t wrong because I think those games are subpar.
And toxic positivity? This forum has been a swamp of people shitting on the game since the forum went live. Toxic positivity is not this place’s issue.
I do, actually, because subjectivity of 'Do I like this' is different from objective quality and I specifically pointed out why it was subpar, eg plotholes and not whether or not I find the stakes silly or don't like the characters or didn't find it personally compelling. Those are subjective reasons. Whether or not the story contradicts itself is not subjective. Millions of people enjoy McDonald's food. They are not wrong for enjoying it. Enjoying it does not make it fine dining. There will be dishes of 'fine dining' that you will not like. That doesn't retroactively degrade the quality of the ingredients.
I also included my example of toxic positivity. The Eurogamer reviewer. I was not talking about these forums in specific and it is not my issue if you are not keeping my posts in context with my other posts.
