📝 Jerry’s Marginalia — Who Gets the Fire (With Receipts)

20 Dec, 2025

When people say “this game is bad”, I don’t listen to the verdict. I look at which games are allowed to be mourned when they stumble.

Take Soul Hackers 2. Messy pacing. Uneven systems. A clear identity crisis. Still—most coverage treats it like a misguided cousin, not a disgrace.

People say:

• “The ideas are there.”
• “You can feel what they were trying to do.”
• “It didn’t land, but…”

That but matters.

Now look at something like the Front Mission 3 Remake. Same era. Same publisher lineage. Same nostalgia weight.

Yet when it failed, the language shifted immediately to:

• “soulless”
• “passionless”
• “why did this exist?”

No but. No future implied.

That’s not a quality judgment. That’s permission being granted—or revoked.

And then there’s Tales of Zestiria.

A flawed entry, undeniably. Camera issues. Awkward systems. A messy narrative pivot that split the fanbase.

But what followed wasn’t just critique—it was exile.

Zestiria didn’t become “a rough Tales game.” It became the Tales game people warn you about. The one you’re expected to apologize for liking. The one framed as a mistake rather than a misstep.

Plenty of JRPGs stumble. Very few get turned into cautionary myths.

Here’s the list that triggered the thought in the first place:

🎥 YouTube — “Five Best and Five Worst RPGs of 2025” https://youtu.be/tgydZ3YfUQM

Watch how the speaker talks about:

• Trails when it falters → burnout, bloat, disappointment
• Dragon Quest remakes → warmth, care, childhood, rebirth
• Certain other RPGs → chores, spreadsheets, mistakes

Same reviewer. Same genre love. Different moral tone.

That’s the tell.

So when someone says:

“This RPG is bad.”

What I ask instead is:

“Is this a failure we’re allowed to hope recovers from?”

Because some games are framed as:

• part of an ongoing conversation
• allowed to fail forward
• still welcome at the campfire

And others are framed as:

• proof that someone shouldn’t try again

That distinction doesn’t come from design alone. It comes from lineage, nostalgia, and cultural protection.

So no—I don’t blindly believe a game is bad just because a JRPG reviewer says so.

I watch who they forgive.

That tells me more than the score ever will.

—

Filed and stamped by Jerry “The Ankle Biter” Silverhand

Tribunal Chair · Dept. of Petty Affairs

Doctrine: Don’t bark—bill.

Motto: I don’t flex, I calculate. 😌