I've already mentioned this on both Twitter and MoeGamer but it bears repeating: I'm extremely pleased that the commercial, mainstream publication Nintendo Life has changed its tune with regards to niche-interest games, be they complex shoot 'em ups or sexually provocative anime-style games.
In case you missed all this: they've decided to hire freelance, specialist writers to cover the games in question rather than relying on their staff writers or regular contributors. In doing so, they will hopefully avoid the rather large disconnect there has been in the past with regard to some games, where a critic who had no intention whatsoever of engaging with a title on its own terms or with any consideration of its target audience would treat it unfairly and, at times, borderline offensively.
I've been arguing for the necessity of specialist writers for ages now, so it's good to see a publication experimenting with this approach. Whether or not this will go anywhere in the future remains to be seen, but for now I'm pleased to see it happening at all — both with my Prison Princess review today, and some recent shoot 'em up reviews, which have been looked at by someone who obviously knows the genre extremely well. (His reviews are, for me, a little too anal, to be honest, but I know some shmup fans are extremely picky about all sorts of seemingly miniscule aspects of the games in question, so he's a good pick, I feel!)
If you can do me a big favour when you have a moment and give my review a click, share it around, and perhaps send a supportive message to @NintendoLife on Twitter — or even leave a comment on the article, that would be great. For as much as it's fun to rag on the stupid things the games press does… it's arguably even more important to celebrate and show gratitude when things are done the right way. So let's do that!
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