SAN FRANCISCO — A video game journalist tasked with spending roughly 11 hours a day playing a game in order to review it reportedly found the title “tedious and repetitive at times.”
“If you’re looking for varied gameplay in your dusk-to-dawn gaming sessions, steer clear of this uninspired amalgamation of everything that’s inspired it,” said Charles Pelton’s review of Mana Realm: Visions of Pestilence, the highly awaited open world RPG from critical darling developer Dual Handed Games. “Playing through most of the story mode in a single session really shines a light on how uninspired a lot of the later game design choices are. By the time you get to the fourth alchemy cave about 50 hours in, you’ll be like, ‘Uhh, didn’t I just do one of these YESTERDAY?’ Therefore, I cannot recommend this utterly repetitive game.”
Despite the negative feedback, many readers of the review said it wouldn’t discourage them from purchasing it themselves.
“Okay, but those alchemy caves sound amazing,” said Michael Yarvey, who has been anxiously awaiting the game’s release. “I don’t know, maybe I’m not much of a gamer, but I haven’t powered through every AAA release that’s come out for the last two years, I just sorta think this one looks fun. I think we’re coming at this from different angles, you know? For example, the review said this game is stuck in the Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla era of open world games. I am still playing Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.”
The Editor-in-Chief of the website that published Pelton’s review defended their methodology and practices.
“Look, these guys are getting five hours of sleep a night, living off of microwaved bullshit, trying to beat immersive games while worrying about a deadline the entire time,” said Chris Barrington, Editor-in-Chief of Take This Games. “To think they’re going to have a good time reviewing these games is a little naive. Let’s be honest. if you’re wondering how fun a game is, you should see if there’s a demo, or maybe watch a stream or something. These bastards wouldn’t know fun if it came in and let them go outside for a minute.”
As of press time, Pelton’s review of Mana Realm: Visions of Pestilence was one of 147 that had been aggregated on the Metacritic website.
