This shit at full price
Fucking fell for the hype
I'm playing soul hackers 2 right now and enjoying it more

I'm glad Japanese gamers shun games like E33 and Final Fantasy XVI. And the fact that these games are complete opposites is even more meaningful: one is a turn based game, the other is entirely an action game. And yet the Japanese refused to buy either game. For one simple reason: neither game is fun or actually prioritizes good game mechanics above all else. Instead they are all fighting amongst one another and rushing to buy Switch 2s and Donkey Kong Bananza to the point where they can't even manufacture enough of the console in Japan. Japanese gamers are always right: in video games, fun gameplay is the single most important thing in the medium.

Just like Astro Bot, a GotY win is entirely meaningless. At the end of the day Nintendo will outsell these games by more than 10x over. Because Nintendo's games are actually designed to be fun above all else.

As usual, the Japanese are vastly more patrician than Westoids. Just like how they shunned Final Fantasy XVI, they have also shunned E33 which they simply refer to as "なんとか33" ("Something or other 33") because the title of the game is too confusing for them. Game barely sold anything and basically made no impact at all in Japan.

Remarks online from Japanese users are things like "The characters look so generic and ugly" and "the gameplay doesn't look so exciting". For them I imagine it's like going to a sushi restaurant in France filled with white people preparing the food and serving it. They instinctively know nothing being served is "real sushi" and so they are disinterested and leave the restaurant to find another restaurant run by one of their countrymen. Who can blame them?

Why is Japan always right about everything? While Westerners are obsessed with astroturfing E33 to win the Keighley Awards, Japanese are literally fighting in the streets trying to procure the Switch 2 and rushing to buy Bananza. They barely even remember E33 exists. Extremely high probability E33 will also win no major awards in Japan.

>>715610592
As already stated, I do not give a shit about The Westoid Awards. Maybe many years ago I mildly cared, now I just don't. I already expect some western slop to win, and I don't care because I won't have played it. 2026 they will just give it to GTA6 by default and not give a shit about any other game that comes out.

These are the real games that actually deserve GotY 2025: Death Stranding 2, Metal Gear Solid Delta, DK Bananza, Metroid Prime 4. Every now and then there's maybe one or two Western games that deserve a GotY nom or to actually win. Maybe the only time the win was actually earned was 2018 with God of War, Jap studios were slacking a little bit that year.