From our other sites
The story
The Metacritic user score for Fire Emblem: Myriad Blossoms became a hot topic on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (“Geha”) board after it briefly sank to 8.0 amid a wave of negative reviews right after launch, then recovered to 9.2 once posts judged to be fake reviews were removed. Posters noted this echoes a past pattern where Nintendo titles’ scores rise once fake reviews are purged, while Sony titles’ scores tend to fall in the same situation, and the thread debated why. At the same time, some questioned whether the removal criteria are applied evenly across all games, or whether only famous titles get this kind of preferential treatment.
What people said
↓
Posts judged to be fake reviews get deleted, score recovers to 9.2 ←WE ARE HERE
・Score drops when fake reviews get removed
■Nintendo titles
・Score rises when fake reviews get removed
Seriously, it's always like this.
Without exception, every single time. Sooo mysterious (sarcasm).
Or are people just that salty?
Either way wouldn't be surprising. With Sony it's messed up top to bottom — company and fanbase alike.
Funny how it's the opposite for Sony.
Well, they're probably working the Metascore side too.
When fake reviews get deleted, Sony games' scores go down.
So what exactly explains this gap…
Total coincidence, I swear!
It's pretty obvious who's behind it.
Can't decide which to play first.
What a luxurious problem to have lol
Foreigner: "Which game fanbase do you hate the most?"
https://krsw.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/ghard/1781747131/
1 Anonymous (working hard as always) 2026/06/18 (Thu) 10:45:31.59 ID:bHh7AHY20
https://x.com/rgt_85/status/2067293383379263745?s=61
Guess it's the same overseas too 😅
It's insanely fun. You won't regret buying it.
Probably the same crowd giving Wolverine a 10 while dropping a 0 on FE for good measure?
Just checked and yep, they're really doing it lol. Talk about wasted effort.
And then they take that and push it on YouTube as "genuine user reactions" — that's the truly toxic part.
Kiseki II (Trails II) has plenty of obvious 0-bombers too, but there's zero sign of those getting removed.
Might not be about fame — maybe there's just some threshold that triggers action once it's crossed.
What about Wolverine?
Meanwhile he was gushing over whatever-33 lol.
And remember how he trashed Crimson Desert at first but flip-flopped partway through lol.
Ah, you mean that harshly-critical review channel.
They were making SO much noise before launch lol.
Now they're nowhere to be seen, lmao.
Background and key points of this discussion
Metacritic user scores are prone to “review bombing,” where users flood a newly released game with a wave of 0s or 10s; when the site’s moderation detects an unnatural posting pattern, it may remove those reviews after the fact. Whether a score rises or falls after such a purge simply depends on which direction the deleted reviews had skewed it — there’s no fixed rule that Nintendo titles go up while Sony titles go down. In the thread, many posters pointed to past examples involving Sony titles and suspected organized manipulation by a specific fanbase, but this is speculation based on the board’s own observations, not confirmation of any official Metacritic policy that treats different fan communities differently. Some also questioned whether cleanup only happens for famous titles, but since Metacritic doesn’t publish its removal thresholds or operating criteria, that point remains unverified.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) board thread “[Good News] ‘Fire Emblem: Myriad Blossoms’ User Score Climbs to 9.2 After Fake Reviews Removed 🥰.”
Leave a Reply