There being a Fantasy Critic League post at all this week was in some doubt.  With no releases slated for weeks thirty-three or thirty-four, it felt like there might possibly be naught about which to write.

Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games

Not that having nothing to write about has ever stopped me from writing something.  But I also have a few drafts hanging around looking for a lazy weekend time slot to arrive so I can finish them up and finally press publish.

And then stuff happened and… here we are.  My post titled No Second Hand Clocks will just have to wait for another time.

Since things happened, we do need to review the scoreboard, so here is where we left off.

Week 33 Scores

The title of the post gave away the big news for the week, but to go in chronological order, we first got a score update for Pokemon Pokopia: Bubbly Basin based on additional reviews coming in.

Pokemon Pokopia: Bubbly Basin

Last week’s score for it was based on just four reviews, so any new entries had the potential to move the needle.  And the update on Monday afternoon proved that.

  • Pokemon Pokopia: Bubbly Basin
    • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 90.0 to 88.4

Not the worst hit.  88 is still an enviable score.  And, as I write this, there are now 17 reviews for it on Open Critic, so it is a bit more immune from the inevitable 4 out of 5 review from that site that doesn’t give half points.

That change left Shintar still in 4th place on the board and still projected for 1st place in the end.

Then Wednesday rolled around and Deltarune Chapter 5 finally got its third topic critic review with a score.

Deltarune Chapter 5

That allowed Open Critic to finally give it an overall rating, which wasn’t quite what I expected.

  • Deltarune Chapter 5
    • [Picked by Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)]
    • Now has a score of 82.7

A solid score, and better than no score at all by a country mile.  But part of the desire for that last top critic review was that all four of the scored reviews up to that point (only two of which were from top critics) had been between 92 and 96.  That had the potential to be a top result.

Then the site Cubed3 rolled in with a 6/10 review, calling chapter 5 something of a filler episode that showed a dip in quality relative to past chapters.  I have absolutely no insight into the game, so maybe this is actually the true review from somebody deep into the game, or maybe they just want to take the piss.  I can’t tell.  But there it is.

Still, that was more than enough to boost Corr on the board.

  • Publisher Score Updates
    • Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
      • Score has gone UP from 70.3 to 83.0
      • Moved from 5th place to 3rd place
    • Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)
      • Moved from 3rd place to 4th place
    • Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)
      • Moved from 4th place to 5th place

It did not, however, change his estimated 2nd place finish because the league predictions always assume all your titles will get a score.  So the score update merely confirmed what the league already assumed.

As with Bubbly Basin, the Deltarune Chapter 5 score is based on small number of reviews, so should another review come in that score might change noticeably.  The chance of that seems small… but so did getting that last review nearly two months after the game launched.

That leaves us with Ghost of Yotei: Legends, released back in March, and Beastro, which launched in June, as the league titles still missing a score.

All of which was the story for the week on the board, which ended up looking like this.

Week 34 Scores

We did have two bids this week, so there was some activity going on outside of the scoreboard.  Both Bhagpuss and Arhanta grabbed new titles, dropping previous picks in search of better fortune.

  • Bids in TAGN League
    • Nighthawks
      • Won by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss) with a bid of $5
      • Dropped game ‘Coven of the Chicken Foot’ conditionally
    • Aniimo
      • Won by Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta) with a bid of $5
      • Dropped game ‘Tides of Annihilation’ conditionally

That left the next ten upcoming titles as follows.

Week 35 Coming Up

After a two week dry spell we are back in the game with two titles landing, Star Wars Zero Company, which is both a pick and a counter pick, so double the damage so long as it gets enough reviews, and Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy.

Related:

  • TAGN Fantasy Critic League
  • TAGN Discord Server
  • Fantasy Critic Site
  • Fantasy Critic How to Play
  • Fantasy Critic FAQ
  • Fantasy Critic Most Desired Reviews
  • Open Critic Review Site