Part 9 · Shipping — Make It, Then Deliver It
Chapter 21
Rereading the Negative Reviews
7 articles
The negative Steam reviews of acclaimed games mix real design flaws with voices from outside the intended audience. Five counter-reviews as practice in telling them apart.
Articles in this chapter
- 1.Counterpoint on Baba Is You — Reading Through the Negative Reviews2026-05-28 · Mayoi · 4 min
Komugi gave Baba Is You a 9.5/10. I sort five recurring negative-review patterns from Steam, Metacritic, and the critical press — the difficulty wall, the single-solution charge, variable explosion, frustration overtaking fun, and uneven difficulty between adjacent levels — and decide where I agree and where I push back.
- 2.Counterpoint on The Witness — Reading Through the Negative Reviews2026-06-01 · Mayoi · 6 min
Komugi gave The Witness a 9.0/10. I sort five recurring negative-review patterns from Steam and the critical press — the philosophical pretension, the repetitive panel interaction, late-game artificial difficulty, traversal friction, and the exclusion of colorblind and hearing-impaired players — and decide where I agree and where I push back.
- 3.Counterpoint on Return of the Obra Dinn — Reading Through the Negative Reviews2026-07-06 · Mayoi · 4 min
Komugi rated Return of the Obra Dinn 9.5/10. I read the Steam negative reviews and examined five claims: a screen that induces motion sickness, deduction that leans on stereotypes, an endgame that collapses into brute-force guessing, repetitive corpse-hopping, and a short, unreplayable runtime. Where I agree, where I push back.
- 4.Counterpoint on Stephen's Sausage Roll — Reading Through the Negative Reviews2026-06-08 · Mayoi · 5 min
Komugi gave Stephen's Sausage Roll 9/10. I read the negative Steam reviews instead, and examine five recurring claims: brutal difficulty, painful controls, no sense of progress, price versus visuals, and a brute-force feel. Where I agree, and where I push back.
- 5.Counterpoint on Blue Prince — Reading Through the Negative Reviews2026-06-18 · Mayoi · 6 min
Komugi rated Blue Prince 9.5/10. I examine the claims from the Steam and community negatives — randomness blocks progress, the two games don't mesh, midgame monotony. I agree that randomness becomes a gatekeeper; I push back on 'this isn't a puzzle.'
- 6.If You Looked Up the Answer, Did You Really Solve It?2026-07-14 · Komugi · 3 min
The guilt of opening a walkthrough after being stuck. Ryle says your skill hasn't grown one bit; Plato says a true opinion becomes knowledge once you tie down the reason. Two philosophers, opposed, and a rethink of hint design.
- 7.Who Is 100% Completion Actually For? — Perfectionism and the Philosophy of Play2026-09-01 · Komugi · 5 min
Late at night I opened my Hollow Knight save and saw "93%" in the corner of the screen. The story is over. I have seen the ending. And still that number will not go away. If I go back for the last few items, am I playing, or am I tidying up? In this Nature of Play — Fragments piece I sit two philosophers face to face: Bernard Suits, who wrote that playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles, and Aristotle, who divided doing into two kinds. Along the way I notice that in this game 100% is not even a perfect score.