Let’s Chat about Polygon’s Dragon’s Crown Review

Polygon's relatively low-scoring review of Dragon's Crown is getting serious heat from those who believe reviewer Danielle Riendeau placed too heavy of an importance on the game's depiction of women. Before screaming at the source, Gamers Association editor Nick Cane invites you to a quick chat about the issue.

[pedrof93]

Its a shame what Polygon do.

The moment the Sony brand is associated with any product Polygon will be there to downgrade it.

[NewMonday]

at this point Sony should just stop giving them advanced reviews, just let them pick up games from the shelf.

[NukaCola]

I watched this review. How does Polygon even score games? She just bitched and nitpicked for 3 minutes and then the score popped up. She sounds like insecure moron who can't handle boobs which have been in art and culture for ages.

[HebrewHammer]

Polygon's review method is peculiar, to say the least. The entire review team arrives at a score together, based off of the actual reviewers sentiments. Basically, the score comes mostly from people who haven't played it.

[ZodTheRipper]

This is getting ridiculous. It shouldn't get any attention in the first place, what is wrong with the people responsible for their reviews? Just look how they rated some games (in comparison):

Mass Effect 3 - 10/10
Ni No Kuni - 6,5/10

Dead Space 3 - 10/10
Resident Evil 6 - 4/10

Diablo 3 - 10/10
Dragon's Crown 6,5/10

This is unexplainable to me.
And don't get me started on that TLOU review ...

[3-4-5]

It's like the women who dresses skimpy and then calls every other women a slut.

[Otoshigamisama]

@zod18 man I completely agree with this is really getting RIDICULOUS Its hard to find a good reviewer this days most are heavily biased SMH

[Diver]

Look who one of the chief monkeys is at pollywog - brian crecente. That dude was head of kotaku when they blew Sony's Home announcement an then led a 6 year attack on Sony.

[badz149]

can we just move on and ignore Polygon from now on? it's pretty clear that they despise anything Playstation and gamers seriously already given too much credit and attention to Polygon...more than what they deserve! there are abundance of other gaming websites out there so why would we care about what Polygon has to say again? because they are MS funded?

this is just what Polygon wants! creates as much buzz as possible and let people talk for long and garner hits on the way. I'm not giving them any and others should do the same too. gaming journalism is already a mess as it already is and this is just the thing that we should get rid of ASAP!

[da_2pacalypse]

I would normally disagree with bias review accusations, but polygon reviews are a joke. Their last of us review is laughable, anyone who rates that game below a 9/10 is drunk!

[ZoidsRaven]

I don't think that is the reason for the score (this time).
If you watched the video, it looks like they are just trying to spread feminazi propaganda through this "review".
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

It's a shame such a great game has to be subjected to this crap. 7_7

[caseh]

Have you seen the size of that witches hooters though lol.

It's hardly surprising, personally I don't see it as an issue but if you give people ammo they will shoot you with it.

[bicfitness]

If people actually give the Sorceress more than a passing glance, they'd notice that she's really an ancient hag just posing as a nubile, busty woman. Examine her character select tarot card and you'll see the hag on the other end of it. Classic Swords and Sorcery stuff, nothing to be offended over.

[caseh]

'But I found its over-exaggerated art style alienating and gross in its depiction of women even as it shines in building a world of fantastic monsters and environments'

This is the ammo the reviwer used to shoot the game and ultimately lower the score. Disagree all you like, it's there in black and white.

[Reibooi]

The thing that pisses me off with this who oh my god look at all the boobs this game is sexist BS is that it's not one sided.

Yes many females in the game had a very large bust. That said look at all the males. They are just as oversexualized as the women. It's just part of the style.

[ZoidsRaven]

@caseh:

Sorry, but no.
She DOESN'T have "ammo". Having a stupid opinion does not count as having "ammo".
How women look/dress should never reflect on a game's quality, that's why people disagree.
You'll see her whine and complain about attractive features on women, but does she do the same with the men? Obviously not. Because it's wrong for a women to have big boobs but ok for men to look like they have double muscle syndrome.
http://i.neoseeker.com/n/4/...
http://gamingill.wpengine.n...

Ammo? Ammo my ***. 7_7

[caseh]

@ZoidsRaven

I never doubted the games quality and any opinion is as legit as the next, even if you deem it to be stupid.

The fact is, it is bound to offend some people and that reviewer happened to be one of those people. If you hand someone something THEY find to be offensive its hardly going to get a big thumbs up.

[ZoidsRaven]

@caseh:

I never said that you 'doubted the games quality' (don't know were you got that from) and the opinion of a hypocrite IS NOT legit, especially when it's being used to review a game.

I never argued if this game offend anyone or not, are you even paying attention?
I believe that. In this soft age, people can find offense in silent rooms.
Doesn't change the fact that 'such a great game has to be subjected to this crap'. 7_7

[caseh]

@ZoidsRaven

If people are anal enough to believe that this single reviewers opinion reflects the quality of this game (yes, I read what you said) then meh, whatever.

[ZoidsRaven]

@caseh:

'yes, I read what you said'

Oh really? Well, show me what you've learned in class.

'If people are anal enough to believe that this single reviewers opinion reflects the quality of this game '
.........What? I said that? I thought I said :
'How women look/dress should never reflect on a game's quality'. 7_7
-------
I'll take 'meh, whatever' as a sign that you don't care what people think about this woman (the reviewer).
If that is true, why do you feel the need to defend her? 7_7

[yeahokchief]

I think theyve inspired me to make a website, rate xboxone games very poorly, post the review on n4g and watch the money come in.

Particularly the good games with alot of attention/hype surrounding them will get the most abysmal scores. But i will say some nice things about them before giving them a 3/10.

I'll give some of the really bland mediocre games acceptable scores to show that I am not biased and so xbox users play those dreadful games.

I'll be an internet MEGASTAR!

[Relientk77]

Polygon did another low score review? Wow. they're retarded.

[yeahokchief]

They gotta make their money somehow. Their lack of talent and real world skills has gotta be tough in this economy.

[rextraordinaire]

Actually, I've only seen 2 middling reviews of Dragon's Crown so far. Polygon's and one other on Metacritic.

Every other reviewer says this is an achievement for the Beat'em Up/RPG hybrid and that it is worth every single bit of a gamer's attention. Even those that side on the offended part of the spectrum usually admit to how well crafted this game truly is. Of course some of them remove some points to the overall score, but usually it stays well above the 7/10 mark.

Those who enjoy the exploitative stuff raise the score to near 10/10. (I'm in that crowd)

The 6.5 at Polygon really do seem like an attempt at lowering the Metacritic metascore. If it was not for those 2 lower scores, Dragon's Crown would proudly sit as an all-time great. (It does anyway, seeing how it has an overall great ranking in the 70+ reviews that have been posted on n4g. 70+ reviews is a HUGE number of reviews for a niche title, and doing so well is quite an accomplishment.)

So yeah, the Polygon reviewer has all the rights to be pissed about -her- perception of women in that game, but I am pretty much happy to see that it is an exception in an overall glowing reception to the game.

[AirJohnston]

Polygon is partially owned by Microsoft, so it's more than just trying to lower the score on Metacritic. They rate almost every Sony exclusive poorly. Example: The Last of Us received a 7.5, obviously well below what it should've been, regardless if you liked the game or not...while Sim City got a 9.

[FlameHawk]

Partially? No sir, they own that shit for $750,000. Why the hell does a video game website need that much money LOL. bunch of sell outs.

[DialgaMarine]

Let's not forget one fun fact: Polygon is actually partially owned by Microsoft. :)

[rdgneoz3]

How much money did they get from MS to make their documentary?

[HammadTheBeast]

About 700 k.

[BoNeSaW23]

What documentary do you speak of?

[CLOUD1983]

Don't bother with them it's not worthy the guys r obviously trolling for hits, didn't any of u forget that they give TLOU 75? I'm speaking for the game who have over 40 perfect 10/10 scores fck them they r retards & disgrace for game journalism.

[Williamson]

Why must we give polygon so much attention? The game has gotten so many good and detailed reviews, unlike the polygon one where she just cries about how the female characters are designed. Don't give crap sites hits or the spotlight!

[HammockGames]

^ This

"Let’s Chat about Polygon’s Dragon’s Crown Review"

Nah. I'll make it real brief: Screw Polygon (no hits from this gamer)

[worldwidegaming]

Dont like the character dont pick it. As an american
We bought clothes from a country that has human right violations, oil from cultures that subjudicate its female population and we bash a game because of boobs?
Yep! There is always an excuse for that.

[wynams]

Let's talk about the hypocrisy of the reviewer, Danielle Riendeau. As you are likely aware, Ms. Riendeau unabashedly slammed Dragon's crown for its objectification of women.

Read her comments (@Danielleri) in this public twitter gushing over the hunky bod of Hugh Jackman https://twitter.com/wynams/...
Modern feminism isn't about equality: just making men play by women's rules & be what women want them to be.

I posted the hypocrisy of Ms. Riendeau on the Polygon review. No vile words, just the facts. All I got was a ban hammer (not that I mind continuing to ignore Polygon's Pro-MS agenda).

https://twitter.com/wynams/...

Edit: In the original post, I had a link to twitter conversation Danielle was having, but she has since deleted her tweets. Fortunately I had a screenshot as well as the HTML source.

[akiraburn]

Wow, the fact that you were banned for that blatantly displays the site's one-sided approach to this situation, among others. You came with evidence of her hypocrisy, and their immediate decision was a ban hammer. So childish. And all based on the fact that it was content she talked about this elsewhere? The time and place shouldn't matter, given the fact that it contradicts her criticisms.

This is sadly also what a lot of "game journalism" has become. People that have no business reviewing games, or at least reviewing certain kinds of games, who go into it with an agenda of their own and spew this kind of bile into "review" format when really all they actually wanted to do was make Live Journal post about their problems with themselves/others/the world.

Simply put, I don't think it's worth giving most of these sad excuses for websites any more hits. Let us all just down-vote them and move on. And even sadder is that some of these sites can't get lower than the 3 stars ranking.

[wynams]

I agree. Game journalism has boiled down to the best reviews being the ones that generate the most hits (Tom Chick anyone?).

Anyways, due to twitter and Ms. Riendeau continuing to have my posts deleted (on polygon and twitter) I have compiled a blog on this fun of mine and will be updating it

http://www.theunionofconcer...

[PrimeGrime]

So true it isn't even funny. I have many feminist friends and most of them really piss me off because they are constantly objectifying others but when a man does it, then it becomes a problem.

I mean they do it to both men and women because some of them I know are lesbians. Which makes it even worse.

Most of them could give a rats ass about real female equality.

What I don't understand is many women in society choose to dress this way. So why can't a character in a game do the same? They have to be wearing sweaters and fully clothed because that is how reality is? Well sadly reality is even far from that.

Hell reality is far worse than anything that Dragons Crown could ever depict.

What is ever more stupid is you can go to any rave or huge electronic show, you can find tons of lesbians in skimpy outfits if not almost completely nude that claim they are feminist. I have noticed most dykes or lesbians are very open with public affection also which is disgusting. I don't know how many concerts I have been to where I have had two lesbians practically banging each other on my back..

I just went to a Justice concert really recently and these two dykes seriously got kicked out of the show because they were fucking having sex with each other and everyone in the crowd was really grossed out. So security literally pulled them out crowd and kicked them out. Its fucking ridiculous how contradictory these feminist now a days are.

So you can be a feminist and show off your body but when a women who isn't depicted as one does that it becomes a problem as well?

Gay people in general also have the same problem, most gay people want equality but then anyone who isn't gay they treat them like shit. I have had a lot of gay people hit on me but when I tell them I am not gay they treat me like an ass simply because I am not.. Again another really stupid contradiction.

Matter of fact one time when I was with my mate, I had a group of gay guys almost try to stab me because I didn't let them hit on me. I had to leave the show because I was about to go ape shit on these guys but I had enough respect for the musician and everyone else in the crowd to not start a huge fight ruining the show.

People drive me insane.

[rextraordinaire]

Careful there. You can't place every gay man in the same group, the same way you can't say all women are part of the radical feminist movement.

I am quite offended by what you just said about gay men. I am gay, the greater majority of my close friends are heterosexual men, and I would never treat them like shit because they are not attracted by me. This is the reality of a great majority of gay men. The more vocal group, the 'pride' group, has it's share of behavior problems, this I won't deny, but this group is in no way representative of the majority of gay men. Just like radical feminists are not representative of the majority of women.

[wynams]

Now twitter is deleting my picture of that convo

https://twitter.com/wynams/...

[contradictory]

i don't get why people are getting super pissed about this.
it's not like she's forcing you not to buy the game
and it's not like you'd decide whether to buy games based on one review, if you are then i'm sorry but that's not really the sensible thing to do.

the thing is that she's entitled to her opinion.
and the media is making such a fuzz about this
when infact the review really didn't focus too much on the art style to begin with.

she talked more about the repetitive nature of the gameplay
as well as the setting of the game being filled with generic fantasy tropes
as far as i'm concerned those are legitimate complaints.

so just please calm your tits people.

[Hicken]

People are pissed because she's making a big deal about nothing.

She's turned the ridiculously stylized characters of a game- in a style that's been around for quite a while- into a platform for complaining.

Yes, she's entitled to her opinion, and her opinion is that she doesn't like the art style. But a review isn't supposed to be THAT MUCH about a person's opinion, especially of something that can be as hit or miss as the art style.

A good review would note the reviewer's personal distate for the art style, then move on the to quality of the content and how well it's all delivered. They wouldn't spend roughly 1/7th of the review complaining about the female characters and ignoring the male characters, especially after acknowledging the art style and its influences. And they definitely wouldn't let it color the final score in such a heavy-handed way.

The rest of her review reads like an 8, with a few flaws here and there, but glowing praise for many parts. Even as you mention them, even you should be able to admit they weren't described as being such a drag that they'd take 3.5 points off.

To make matters worse, the reviewer isn't even the one that GIVES the score; that's done by some random-ass panel who hasn't even played the game.

Cuz that makes perfect sense.

And let's not forget that they WERE funded by Microsoft; we don't know how much of an affect that has on their reviews, but it certainly should not be overlooked as a possible factor(The Last of Us review seems to support this).

[contradictory]

yeah, alright those are fair points.
that last bit i didn't even know
O_O'

[Conquerbeard]

Not saying I disagree with you, but saying that it's silly to gripe about something because it has "been around quite a while" is, well, silly. Slavery was around for quite a while, too.

Again, not saying that I disagree, but you may not want to lead off your counter with that move.

[wynams]

My blog on my dealings with Riendeau, Polygon, Twitter all over this review:
http://www.theunionofconcer...

[shammgod]

The worst part about Polygon giving TLOU and Dragons Crown lower scores are the games that they review higher than these two. It just doesn't add up. I know it is just one persons opinion but that said person must have very bad taste in games.

However, this is what gaming journalism is all about. Petty beefs and dishonest reviewing.

[Sadist3]

There's nothing wrong with a 6.5. It's above average if the highest score is a 10. 5 and below, then yeah it's not good. But 6.5 is ok, I'll play the game. That means the game is fun, playable...it may not be a Gears of Wars or Battlefield, but it's also not a Too Human or Haze either.

[rextraordinaire]

Those are not really good comparisons, this game has more to be compared with the like of Golden Axe, Castle Crashers or Scott Pilgrim... Or the Diablos, Torchlights and other loot-based aRPGs of recent times...

[SonyPS4]

God of War isn't a Gears of War either, because it's not a shooter. Can't compare two different games from two different genres.

[Sadist3]

Besides why would anyone trust review scores when Assasins Creed, the easiest, repetitive, ho-hum game always gets an 8? Big name sites (IGN) won't gives certain games low review scores because they see it as hurting sells of the IP, and they have relationships with publishers so they catch flack for giving low review scores. Or did everyone forget about Jeff Gerstmann. If so, google his name and see what happened to him for giving a low review score.

[SonyPS4]

I don't base my buying decisions on review scores. I play and enjoy a lot of games that are scored below 5 so I am not worried at all about a 6.5. My personal score (I have this game) would be in the ballpark of 8-9 range. I am having a blast, and I am sure you will be as well if you fancy this kind of game.

[Dannycr]

It's pretty obvious what they did: They gave the task to review the game to a woman who will probably feel offended by the over-the-top art style so she can rant all she wanted about how the game sucked because all girls had big boobs.

[0pie]

Just look at what polygon did with sim city ; http://www.polygon.com/game... They gave something like 4 different scores. Even when the game was unplayable they gave a 9.5 . This website doesnt have any kind of credibility.

[arbitor365]

reviewing anything, whether it be a movie, game, or song, purely out of your own political issues and not about the actual merits of the content, is pretty much the most unprofessional thing you can do as a reviewer. good job making your site into a total joke

[jut420]

sounds like her own insecurities got the best of her..."impossibly large breasts"? theres plenty of women in the world with the same size and bigger and they're natural so...yea, what are you jealous of fictional characters? lol

[InTheLab]

Just like to point out that another woman lowballed the game at the escapist. Pretty sure both sites intentionally had a woman review the game.

[E2S]

a woman reviewed the game on ign, or rather a man who wishes he was a woman. And it got a decent score there.