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GAME: Neptunia Riders VS Dogoos Game Review

Just make another main entry in the universe, for God's sake. With all the stuff that's been happening in the console wars since the last one, there are literal dozens of new things you could add to the world. Phone games becoming more and more mainstream. Micro-transactions. Always online single player games. Freaking DENUVO. The material should be writing itself at this point.

Just a legitimate question is there any reviewer here at ANN left that has any passion about anything anymore, or at least borderline knowledge of franchises they're tasked to cover or cares to do anything, or has any journalist standard higher than that of someone writing a tweet or a blog post out of boredom about things they clearly don't care about very much?

Because lately I get more information or insight googling up a Reddit post or a GameFAQ's forum post about most anime, manga or video games in question that I actually get around here for the past 5 months. And when more successful and interesting competition for topic discussions comes from googling Reddit and GameFAQ's compared to Anime News Network, I can't be the only one sensing a very real problem emerging around here.

On topic to this game review but incidentally unrelated to the quality of the game itself...

I continue to be utterly baffled by ANN's incredibly bizarre obsession and insistence on constantly getting reviewers to write articles about a new installment in some previously established series or franchise who know or care little to nothing, or have virtually no experience with the franchise in question, and always come off as half-awake, entirely uninterested, bemusedly unenthusiastic, and sleepwalkingly blase about having to cover said franchise in question, while spending half a sentence to shrug and go "I don't know anything about any of this franchise or whatever so I dunno if anyone else who does gets anything out of it whatever I guess."

Then this just barely cares about spending the rest of the vapid and short review rambling out a bored-sounding, breif and entirely unengaging review about something they clearly didn't care about in the first place, and expecting this is the perfect way to show their professionalism and informed critique that offers such opinions of value to the kind of person that WOULD question the worthiness of a watch or a purchase of tjhe material. And not just "i unno, whatever I guess i don't know nothin' bout no Neptunia, uh, bikes go burr, doggos have weird bodies sometimes, fun I guess, or maybe not? eh."

I feel like maybe on one hand ANN's incredibly botched attempt with doing this as often as they do with this and so many other recent reviews is to offer "fresh takes" on franchises from the perspective of an "unbiased newcomer", but none of them seem to have any of the analytical or professional critiquing skill or way with words or feelings or care for what they're writing enough to be able to handle that.

More or less the same with so many reviews here, adjusted slightly based on the individual or however that applies to a game review that someone who knows nothing about the series cared about or wanted to write, or an anime reviewer who has no experience with the franchise or the characters in a long running series and sleepwalks through the article, or manga reviews from someone who feels like they were just flipping through art in a series they're not familiar with, got bored, turned in a few jotted down notes on what they looked at and called it a day.

Like, this is just another one in a a long line of pithy, bored uninterested ANN reviews from people who aren't qualified whatsoever to properly critique anything, and have no professionalism or standards to what they're reviewing, They read like lazily extended first impression twitter threads from half-interested jaded teenagers, or short livejournal personal blog posts from bored kids from back in 2004, rather than even attempting to approach anything resembling a professional review or a critique.

For as much as people complain about sites like IGN and their low standards or reviewing or competency, at least their writers and editors put in substantially more legwork than this, or more effort than so many of ANN's recently lazy half-awake thoughts from a jaded individual who couldn't care less about having to waste their free time writing something to fill a quota that someone else in charge asked them to get around to, just to have a new block of content to go up on the site.

But honestly, I'm just well past sick of reading things like this from people who just write reviews as if it was a pain in the ass just to have to do, and the entire thing is so uninformed, un-caring, unenthusiastic, and offers nothing compelling to properly explain what something like Neptunia Riders vs Dogoos offers to fans, i.e the ones most curious about picking it up other than "I don't know these characters, I don't really get what this is meant to be but whatever, here's a screenshot, here's a couple of sentences about what you do in a general sense, here's some ramble about it being ok whatever I was half awake during it, I don't really care that much, I don't know if anyone else will, D- whatever there I wrote it, the end."

Just a legitimate question is there any reviewer here at ANN left that has any passion about anything anymore, or at least borderline knowledge of franchises they're tasked to cover or cares to do anything, or has any journalist standard higher than that of someone writing a tweet or a blog post out of boredom about things they clearly don't care about very much?

Because lately I get more information or insight googling up a Reddit post or a GameFAQ's forum post about most anime, manga or video games in question that I actually get around here for the past 5 months. And when more successful and interesting competition for topic discussions comes from googling Reddit and GameFAQ's compared to Anime News Network, I can't be the only one sensing a very real problem emerging around here.