>>720022624
Shinobi might be one of the most consistently non-story-focused franchises that still have a story. That said you can just skip every cutscene in AoV, my actual issue is when the game pans to what the switch you just hit activated even on replays and Arcade Mode.

Shinobi III, Shinobi 2002, Nightshade, and Shinobi 3DS are all better games than AoV (and Revenge/Shadow Dancer are probably about as good or slightly better), but AoV is still fun to play, just devoid of difficulty. It's very, very obvious that LizardCube is mostly a bunch of artists trying to make games; before this their only work was a remake of a Wonder Boy game and SoR4 which had GuardCrush handle the gameplay stuff. If anything this just makes me less sad that their old pitch to SNK for make a Mark of the Wolves 2 years before CotW got made wasn't picked up.

>>719127570
3DS has more melee but it has very limited and defined strings that you can't always fit into combat and a greater focus on kunai than AoV. The platforming is also designed MUCH closer to III's. The multiplier meter is also a really great mechanical addition since it increases your speed and damage when you have it up.

>>717713691
People forget review scores are recommendations, not test scores, and some of those who forgot are among the people making the reviews. A 10/10 is not a flawless game, but a game so well-made and enjoyable that it can be recommended to anybody regardless of genre preference and they should have a good time with it (maybe not the best time, but the hitrate of enjoyment is near 100%). Many 9/10s are considered 10s to the people who play them, because they fit perfectly into their tastes, but maybe it doesn't have the universal appeal of a true 10/10. This obviously means that review scores from any given reviewer could skew one point in either direction if you're not perfectly in-tune with them, which is why you need to self-curate a selection of reviewers that align with you instead of taking one person's opinion as gospel or believing that a huge aggregate like Metacritic is worth a damn besides gauging broad sentiment.

>>717091436
Most of my personal GOTYCs for any given year never even get nominated at awards. Last year Astro Bot winning was the closest when I'd at best have it in my Top 10 (Kunitsu-Gami, Magenta Horizon, UFO50, Shadow of the Ninja Reborn, Tetrachroma, SXS Generations, and maybe a couple other indies were better). This year will absolutely be going to one out of E33, DS2, or Bananza in terms of awards with some Euro awards going to KCD2, and the only one of those I'm even interested in is DK but I'm not buying a Switch 2 for one game (didn't buy a PS5 for one game either, I borrowed a friend's for Astro Bot).

>>715405031
XV is the most cringe aspect by far but most of the rest is fine.
>>715405054
>I'm a woman
>I grew up on handhelds
Ah, pretty much the entire chart makes a lot more sense.