Astral Chain being review-bombed on Metacritic with zeros, fans fire back with perfect 10 scores

There's a bit of a battle going on over at Astral Chain's Metacritic page. It seems the trouble started when a few people went over to the page to hit the game with zeros. Why are they doing this? It seems people are upset the game is a Switch-exclusive, leading to the bombing.

[lptmg]

they got a LOT of free time on their hands, don't they

[mikeslemonade]

DMC5 > Astral

[Question_Mark]

And here we have one of those petty, sad people.

[Brave_Losers_Unite]

Mike = 10iq

[lptmg]

and?

[killswitch80]

maybe but I enjoy AC far more

[mikeslemonade]

Looking to play Luigi Mansion instead of this overrated game. Switch has inflated scores per usual.

[Sirk7x]

And I could say Bayo 2 > DMC5. Shit, I could say I'd prefer the original DMC over 5. Who cares if a game is subjectively better than another? I'm enjoying Astral Chain, the action feels great. Bought DMC5 as well. Both good games.

[Shiken]

Never played Astral Chain, claims it is overrated...

This is why haters can never be taken seriously in a real discussion. The only thing worse than being clueless, is limiting lying to yourself.

[jznrpg]

If mike likes DMC5 better that’s his taste . Doesn’t make him wrong or 10iq. I bought Astral chain but I’m still playing Three Houses . Maybe I’ll pop it when I Take a break

[ShockUltraslash]

YEAH
DMC5> Crap chains.

[Brave_Losers_Unite]

@mike

I think you're a retard

[CDbiggen]

lol, what are we, 10 years old? I bet most of us here are adults and we're saying this sad ass shit.

[mikeslemonade]

^
Lol at the people who say I haven’t played SW-7872-6775-0007

First level is motorcycle rail shooter, then you fight basic baddies with baton or a gun. Some flying enemies. Then you get an auto bot that you can call upon. Then you fight a boss.

Bayonetta > Bayonetta 2. Atleast Astral Chain seems to be better than overrated Bayonetta 2. DMC5 is better than B2 and AC.

Platinum needs to make a real current gen game on Xbox, PlayStation, or PC. Weak switch hardware is holding this game back. It only makes me want to play DMC5.

[Neonridr]

@mikeslemonade - not to put any claims against you, but you could have easily watched a youtube video of the game.

[mikeslemonade]

^
I can upload the pic on twitch. People didn’t believe I had a WiiU either.

[Jin_Sakai]

So it seems they’re review bombing the game for being a “30fps” action game.

[Sono421]

"It seems people are upset the game is a Switch-exclusive, leading to the bombing." \

Is this what gaming journalism has stooped down to? There is literally only one negative user review on metacritic that even complains that the game is only on a Nintendo console, the rest are complaining about the graphics, or 30 FPS, or boring combat, seriously how pathetic is this? Not to mention all of the people on this site just EATING up the narrative, go look for yourself ffs, it's not hard, this article is very clearly lying trying to defend the game.

Sure there are like 3 negative reviews in spanish which I can't read, but i'll even give them that, let's say all those 3 reviews are bashing it just because it's exclusive to nintendo (Doubtful as they wrote paragraphs but let's give it to them) that would make 4 reviews in total.... is that really a "bombing"?!

Pathetic click-bait garbage is all this is, and it looks like 90% of this site fell for it.... sad, this article should be reported for flat out lying, and the site should be blacklisted.

[Rynxie]

Good, Nintendo deserves it. Nintendo is right there with the epic game store. These companies have to go extinct. Come on guys, let's vote down all Nintendo games.

[RedDevils]

Are you retard?

[Shiken]

Yep, they sure do deserve fans firing back with 10s, the 88 score for the game, and the fact that the game is flying off store shelves.

[xVOLTx]

This right here is what is wrong with gamers today.

[rainslacker]

No game product deserves to be unfairly criticized. There is nothing overtly wrong with the game, and while I could understand some subjective variance to scores, or even a few people hating it, actively review bombing a game is just lame. It undermines that validity of reviews as a whole, and that validity is already on thin ice.

[Ratchet75]

Let's not. 😂😅🤣

[King_Noctis]

There are some sad and pathetic people who would say stupid things just because they are anonymous on the internet.

[Neonridr]

uhhh.. this isn't Epic paying for the distribution rights to a game. This is Nintendo funding a game that wouldn't have been made otherwise.

[trooper_]

That's a really, stupid and petty things to do.

[wolf581]

Not only that there is some sites that do this in metacritic too.if y check games like uncharted 4 or zelda bow..and other major titles you will see sites score these games under 5.just to bring down the overall score.metacritic must do something with these trollosites

[rainslacker]

I don't think they do it to bring the score down. I really dont believe they care about more than themselves, and those stand out scores tend to drive hits to their page so they can get paid. It's rare where I read a exceptionally low score on an otherwise high rated game, where the author can substantiate their score with something that makes sense to mark down for, and for the ones that can manage to do a proper review, they more often than not say that its subjective, and still give the good, along with enough info for the reader to decide if the criticisms matter or not

[Mithan]

Stupid people.

[addictedtochaos]

This happens all the time with exclusive games. Nintendo exclusives do seem to get it worse than others though.

[Babadook7]

It happens way too much with user reviews for absolutely anything. Scores are either 10 or 0. Which is why user reviews aren’t worth anything.

[Sono421]

You seriously need to just go read the user reviews for yourself, there aren't that many negative ones, you can read them in literally a minute, this site is flat out lying, and someone with the ability to do so should report this article and get this site blacklisted, it's a flat out lie that is EASILY debunked by just going to metacritic.

[killswitch80]

I mean I am not a rich man but just buy a PS4 and a Switch people and you dont have to worry about it

[Rynxie]

How about you sell your switch and become a rich man investing in better ps4 games?

[RedDevils]

@Rynxie why should he, or are too stupid to sell your second options when your first choice console don't have that certain games?

[Tapani]

Why did this happen? It was 9.3 among 35 reviewers and then I refresh the page 3hrs later and it was 6.8. Where did that rush come from suddenly???

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

Must be some of the more arrogant fanboys doing this....

[King_Noctis]

“It seems people are upset the game is a Switch-exclusive, leading to the bombing.”

And that is what wrong with some people nowadays.

[lptmg]

a game published by Nintendo being a Switch exclusive is CLEARLY AN OUTRAGE!

[TK-66]

On a more serious note where are the people saying the user reviews are reliable? Only a few months back we had people saying "don't trust the critic score, the user score is what matters".

For as long as there is no need for the user to prove they even own the game, (let alone finish it) user scores on sites like metacritic will never be a reliable measurement of what users actually think.

[RedDevils]

Those site should only allow the people who owned the games, unfortunately they allow people who doesn't even have the switch to review the games

[rainslacker]

Reviews tend to average out closer to reality the longer time goes on. Some exceptions exist of course. I feel the same with the pro reviews on meta. More often than not they line up fairly close to what I'd rate a game. That's why if something is a 6, i would still be apt to try it, because I might think it's a 7. Granted, reviews are pointless to me nowadays, but they're handy for discussion sometimes

[Sono421]

No... whats wrong nowadays is a site can just spread lies and people just eat it up and go along with the narrative. Go look at all of the negative reviews, only one single review complains about it being a Nintendo exclusive, the rest complain about: Boring combat, 30 FPS, and bad graphics.

This article is flat out lying and should be black listed. It's a shame so many people on this site fell for this when literally all you have to do is go on metacritic yourself... absolutely disappointing.

[King_Noctis]

Boring combat? You control a legion in addition to controlling your own character. You basically control two fighter at once. It is not a straight forward action game, so how is that boring?

30fps? That is a valid complain, however those who actually played the game know it does not affect combat in anyway. Also, bad graphic? Have you missed an IGN article which literally said this might be the best looking game on the Switch?

I believe you should play the game first before trusting any of those user reviews over all of the critics’ reviews. Also, in what way does this game deserve 0 score? Is this game an unplayable broken mess?

[TK-66]

"only one single review complains about it being a Nintendo exclusive, the rest complain about: Boring combat, 30 FPS, and bad graphics."

Yeah it's just super coincidental that the game started getting bombarded with 0/10 scores from fresh accounts with no other reviews. It's not like Metacritics user scores across just about every single game are completely unreliable, and in no way accurately display what the opinion is of actual players of the games.

Choose a different hill to die on. Defending Metacritics user reviews isn't one worth fighting on.

[Sono421]

These are not my complaints, i'm not even far enough into the game to have a solid review of it yet, although my first impressions are that it is pretty good.

However, this article is attributing motive to people who may just have different opinions than the person who wrote the article, which is not journalism at all. They are lying, it is fact that only one user review complains about it being exclusive to the switch, so this article claiming it is getting "review bombed" for that reason cannot only be proven false by actually reading the reviews written about this game, but goes to show they simply can't comprehend different opinions and label them "review bombs".

The fact that so many people are disagreeing with these facts shows that you can't handle differing opinions either. This site IS lying, or at the very least giving motive which they cannot actually provide evidence to prove this is their motive. In A LOT of the positive reviews however, you can see people saying they are giving it 10's to counter the low reviews... how is that not a bigger deal than an alleged "review bomb"?

Both of those are the exact same thing, except one is PROVEN and the other is a fabrication based on ONE review. One swings the pendulum in one way, and the other swings it the other way, if they were truly concerned about what is right and wrong they would call out the ones giving it 10's just to counter, but that is clearly not the case.

It's pure insanity as now there are people giving it 10's just to counter this "review bombing" that never even happened..... what they are doing should be known as "review boosting" and should be seen as just as bad, but clearly this article doesn't think so because they are clearly biased, at this point I would call that a fact I mean they even have Nintendo in the name, you would think they would at least try to be objective here, although I also didn't expect the N4G community to just eat up this easily provably false lie so easily either. Just pathetic.

[TK-66]

@Sono421

You're assertion is that the game is not being review bombed. So can you explain why accounts exist with only 1 review all of which being in the red make up a sizable chunk of the reviews? It's very odd to think that this game is so bad that it's moved people to sign up to Metacritic just to give it a negative review. How do you determine the difference between those accounts and say if I make 20 accounts right now and give a game a 0 score 20 times? If you can't tell the difference between them, then these "facts" of yours are bull.

Your evaluation of the facts can currently be summarized as "ARTICLE IS LYING". Let's look at whats currently fishy about these reviews. There's currently 647 positive reviews, and 246 of them have written something explaining their score. But when we look at the negative reviews we have 300 altogether and a measly 16 have written something. You think that's not odd? What you're basically saying is people are angry about something bad in this game, but out of 300 only 15 are able to tell us!?!??!? Gamers aren't the sort to keep quiet when something pisses them off.

So show us how these "facts" that suggest the scores were made by legitimate players. How you can tell the difference between a legitimate 0/10, and me giving a fake 0/10? If you can't provide a reliable method of doing so then what you call facts is questionable.

[Question_Mark]

You really have no idea how Metacritic works, do you? You don’t have to leave a written review to score games.
And do you honestly believe that the people bombing the game would come out and say they’re doing it because it’s an exclusive? They know it would invalidate their entire review, so they try to make it seem like they’re people who have actually played the game. All they have to do is copy the complaints that other negative reviews have said.

[Knushwood Butt]

Coming from Noctis, who continuously trolls GT Sport threads.

[King_Noctis]

And coming from you, who continuously have nothing good to say for anything beside your most favourite piece of plastic. Unlike you, I criticize games that need to be criticized and praise games that are actually good. You need to learn the different between criticism and straightout trolling.

And what does GT Sport have anything to do with Astral Chain?

[Knushwood Butt]

'I believe you should play the game first before trusting any of those user reviews.'

[DaDrunkenJester]

Why is anyone upset by this game being exclusive? Nintendo funded the development... it's not like they money hatted a timed exclusive or anything.

[Sono421]

Literally only one negative user review on metacritic complained about this, the rest complained about boring combat, 30 fps and bad graphics. This article is flat out lying, go ahead, go look for yourself.

This site needs to be blacklisted for flat out lying.

[Shiken]

So people cannot review bomb a game and just say those reasons despite having never played it?

[Sono421]

The point is they are giving a motive based on ONE review, how could you possibly attribute that motive to all negative reviews? That isn't journalism, not even a little bit.

Could those people be lying? Yes of course, but why do they assume they are lying? Simply because they have a different opinion than the person writing the article? That is the opposite of professionalism, that's blog writing garbage, not to mention the clear hypocrisy of it all, if the negative reviews are seen as "review bombing" why aren't all of those positive reviews saying "I'm giving it a 10 to counter the negative reviews" considered review boosting? Why is that not just as bad? This site basically applauds them for doing so even though it is the exact same thing they are criticizing others for supposedly doing, just in the other direction. It's blatant hypocrisy and just makes this site look like a joke.

[Shiken]

No I agree on that front, the article is garbage.

The fact is, there are a lot of people hating on the game though, albeit not enough to even drag the score below a 7. I thought you were implying that other reviews must be true and jumped the gun based on the aforementioned trend.

My mistake, and I agree, garbage writing.

[DaDrunkenJester]

I'll go check this out then, but I also have a friend who I trust in taste who is loving it despite it being 30fps.

[Sirk7x]

The same thing is going to happen with Bayo 3.

[King_Noctis]

I believe Bayonetta 3 is gonna have an even bigger problem, since it is the sequel to a well-known and well-recieved franchise.

This is why I’ve been saying, get all consoles if you are a true fan of gaming.

[CobraKai]

Must be a hell of a game if they’re that pissed it ain’t on anything other than Switch. I’ll take one please.

[Seraphim]

I didn't get a chance to play it for long today but out the gate they kicked things off with a bang. I love Platinum but I wasn't sure what I'd think of Astral Chain. After playing it for just that little I'm looking forward to digging into this after the weekend & have a good feeling I'm going to thoroughly enjoy it. Just wish it would've dropped Tuesday because I play online with friends Fri-Sat and with it being a holiday weekend possibly Sunday as well this week.

I know it's not many dropping bunk scores but it's unfortunate people feel they have the time to waste or enough hatred for whatever reason to dump on any game or product. It's clear some of those reviews are just bs or they literally thought they were getting a game like DMC/Bayonetta; shame on them not the game if that is truly the case. I understand to each their own and not everyone is going to think it's worth a score of 8-10 but to hand out 5 and under scores along with zeros on a fundamentally sound game. These people need to go back to PS-PS2 era games that were utterly broken to see what a bad game deserving of such low scores is. Maybe there's still being made that are that bad but boy were there some broken gems back through those eras on all consoles.

[XxSPIDEYxX]

Fanboys are sad, sad beings. Their tune immediately changes as soon as Platinum announces a game for their preferred platform.

[Godmars290]

So we now - officially - have platform/exclusive extremists.

F**k this world.

Edit:
What gets me is that Metacritic is likely still a measure companies use to hand out bonuses. If they still hand out bonuses...

[DaDrunkenJester]

Not so much the user scores. They usually measure based off the critic scores.

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

Still dodgey that people livelihood is tied to system that can be exploited.

[DaDrunkenJester]

@oldboy

I agree, especially with some reviewers on meta who are looking for the clicks with controversial scores.

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

DaDrunken - that's it mate, always a site thirsty for clicks. We all see through them though.

[rainslacker]

I don't know of any publisher that pays bonuses on meta score anymore. Usually it's just sales driven bonuses. Reviews have become too unreliable, both on the good and bad side, so it wasnt a good way to determine if the dev did their job. Sales are easily measurable. On the down side, game could be a perfect 10, and if the publisher screws up the marketing and it just doesn't sell.

Any other bonuses are usually milestone related.

[FlyingFoxy]

IMDB in a nutshell there are groups out there who purposely upvote/downvote films on that site, in other words go with your own thoughts and don't be a sheep.

[Sgt_Slaughter]

You know people are pathetically insecure when they resort to review bombing a game that's knocking it out of the park with great reviews and will sell excellently just because it's an exclusive. That's just sad.

Probably some crossover with the crowd that still to this day think Bayonetta 2 and 3 will appear on PS4/Xbox even when you explain that Bayonetta 2 and 3 wouldn't exist without Nintendo.

[TheHateTheyGive]

The graphics look like an early ps3 game, so many jaggies.

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

Maybe the gameplay is amazing, PLATINUM is known for their gameplay mechanics.

[DaDrunkenJester]

Gameplay > graphics any day of the week

[Sgt_Slaughter]

I would love to know what PS3 you played on so I can transport to the land of make believe.

[MetroidFREAK21]

Imagine being a gamer like you... Must be a miserable life

[MetroidFREAK21]

People need to grow the hell up man...

[scoot_n_loot]

Yeah, especially kids. It's like, gee wiz, grow up already, would ya?

[ZeekQuattro]

Stay salty my friends. Lmao

[TheGoodestBoi]

This is the same story with just about anuly other exclusive, hardly newsworthy.

[HeisenbergX]

Pfff who cares about this ? xD

i hate metacritic

[TheColbertinator]

Some people are bored

[Neonridr]

of course they are getting zeros. The hurt fanboys of other consoles who want to play the game would rather tarnish its reputation than admit it's a good game.

[killswitch80]

isnt this what happens on everything on Metacritic its why review average systems like rotten tomatoes are broke

[Kostche]

so who is right? the fanbois or the haters?... .. lmao

[rainslacker]

Just play the game and decide for yourself. Ita a platinum game, chances are it's not going to be a zero

[Germaximus]

I'd give it a 6

[Servbot41]

Mad sonyfans

[Persian_Immortal]

That's one thing i have never understand with the whole 0 rating on Meta. I mean only way is justifiable to give any game a 0 if you cant launch the game or basic interaction with the main menu and the game literally being broken lines of code.

[DefaultComment]

So many pathetic people... So just because it's a Nintendo exclusive without even playing the game.... There goes the zeros... This happened before with Zelda breath of the wild vs horizon zero dawn.... Both sides are pathetic.

[8bitRey]

This level of petty is absolutely embarrassing. We gotta be better than this ya'll.

[NiteX]

I think Astral Chain could be my game of the year.

[Hedstrom]

As with most exclusive games!

[Ikenda]

This is what a do: I only read the bad user reviews on metacritic. If those are very stupid like trolls usually do, means the game is great, if those have reasonable arguments but still 0 scores game is mediocre, if they have reasonable arguments and scores from 3 to 5 the game is bad. Works like a charm too. I bought Astral Chain and played it 10 hours straight which i only do if the game is amazing. Sometimes it works with critics reviews too especially for movies. You see, trolls can be very useful when it's so obvious that they are trolls. And they really can't hide it, m i right?

[conanlifts]

This is why metacritic is a joke. They should have verified reviews allowing people to prove they have played the game. Though that in itself wouldn't help. I read a review for crytecs hunt: showdown. The user gave it 2/10 and stated they had 500 hours playtime but it had poor content. If you play a game for 500 hours and think it is a 2/10 you need to re-evaluate your choice. For me any game that would score less than 5 or 6 gets abandoned early on. If you can play it for 500 hours surely it is pretty fantastic. User reviews are deeply flawed.

[bluefox755]

How is this different than any other game?

[Juusterey]

It's almost like the user score is completely meaningless

[rivaldoo777]

Didnt even know this game existed.

[drizzom]

Hmm... At the time of the article posting were there even many negative reviews?

[Knushwood Butt]

Does this game have voice acting, or text only?

[Outlawzz]

Lmao !!! "Gamers" are some funny people

[Smokehouse]

Precisely why reviews are worthless. It’s either journalists that barely play games or butthurt fans reviewing something other than the game.

[esherwood]

Game looks like fun, crazy how people are praying this but crapping on cyberpunk though. Cyberpunk looks like it took a ton of more resources to make. I think people are just looking to criticize it because it’s got a lot of hype

[xVOLTx]

This proves my point that reviews are a joke. Form your own opinion about a game and don't rely on others.

[maximumspidey]

I mean I think the switch is a trash console so I won't get to play it but it doesn't make me want to review bomb it

[XiNatsuDragnel]

That is sad ppl need to grow up

[jznrpg]

Review bombing is lame no matter who makes the game. Just give your honest opinion stop with the agenda crap

[lio_convoy]

Who cares? Look at game reviews yourself and make up your big boy (or big girl) mind and play it yourself if it sounds good to you. Seriously, I don't get why anyone cares what other people think. If you like a game, what's it matter? *eyeroll*

[Thundercat77]

I don't own/not interested in a Switch and I wouldn't do that. If the game is good, then is good. No need to do this garbage.

[BadElf]

Go buy a Switch, dweebs

[Enigma_2099]

Because god forbid another console gets an exclusive game. Spider-Man been announced for Switch yet?

[xX1NORM1Xx]

How you could play Astral Chain and give it a 0 is beyond me but i guess thats just it people aren't even playing it. If anyone cares its actually really really good, the controls can be a bit fiddley due to how many things you can do but i suspect that will fade the more you play it. I accidentally played 6 hours straight and im not really a big spectacle fighter player other than bayonetta.

[Imortus_san]

Just goes to show that User reviews are worth shit.

[Cmoney007]

This is when user reviews become a problem. These fans were hoping this game was on other consoles and PC, but they are acting entitled by doing this.

[tagzskie]

Astral Chain is something special and it's on par w/ nier. Playedllll it about an hour when going to work and it blew me away. Damn platinum games u nailed it again.

[Surt]

Never even heard of the game till today. Article seems confused at how high the switch plays on majority of gamers radar.

What? People older than 12yr old play the switch? Like the DS? Thats sad.

[Question_Mark]

You’re trying too hard.

[Question_Mark]

If they don’t like that it’s exclusive, just get a Switch. If they can’t afford one, the least they could do is be mature about it.