I'm not who he's talking about at all because I wouldn't consider myself anything close to being a hardcore Elder Scrolls fan. I agree that if people call themselves hardcore fans, it's a bit silly to have an opinion without having played all the games.
The only reason I'm comfortable saying that after only having played 3/5 of the series is because I've listened to a lot of people who are into the series and almost never have I heard anyone say Arena or Daggerfall are the best. It seems to usually be Morrowind.
But my larger complaint is that I don't think this narrative he's stitched together actually describes reality (a pretty typical indicator is when someone has to base their theory on a personal anecdote rather than on some data we can check). It might roughly describe how the business side tries to operate but it doesn't describe people's opinions. If you to any of the fanbases for the long running game series, you almost never find that people just all love the latest game the most. The Final Fantasy fanbases usually like 6 or 7 the most. The Zelda fanbases usually like A Link to the Past or Ocarina the most. The Mario fanbases usually like Super Mario World or Mario 64 the most. What he's called a "normative force" absolutely exists.
Did you just seriously use historic japanese games in an example of how western industry marketing is curating its gaming history for indoctrination? Seriously? That doesnt even make sense! You didnt notice how not A SINGLE ONE OF YOUR EXAMPLES was a western game? How they were ALL Japanese?
You can NOT compare fans of Japanese games to fans of Western games, the problems being talked about here are EXCLUSIVE to how the western side of the industry curates its history by crapping all over it, and how their audience is joyfully brainwashed by it. The vast majority of the Japanese studios DO NOT engage in the same AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Marketing scheme tactics being described here, in fact, the only one who does successfully OWNS several of the biggest western studios around. Nintendo DOES NOT do this AT ALL. And the fact you even TRIED to insinuate this about a company thats CONSTANTLY bringing up and celebrating its history really shows me you are not tracking at all.
The Japanese companies that do this, have by and large destroyed themselves (See Capcom, square Eeenix) Because that audience HATES that AAAAAAAAAAA Marketing BS the Western audience waits for, mouths gaping gulping it by the gallon. You can NOT tell them that a game thats crap is better than the ones that came before it with marketing. You CANT tell them 'DmC is better than DMC because it has the FEEL of 60fps, even though its only 30 FPS'. You CANT tell them that the reason they didnt like DmC was simply because 'We changed Dante's hair' when they know DAMN well the games been watered down so that it can be played by a moron whos only capable of slapping his balls across the controller ie the average western 'gamer'.
Japanese game fans, KNOW their history, and they are NOT afraid to state some new game in the series is nothing more than flashy crap compared to an old one. In fact they are so paranoid, that for a lot of them thats basically the default response whether they played the game or not. The same can NOT be said about the western AAAAAAAAA audience. COMPLETELY incomparable.
Arena was amazing for its time, but its combat and functions have not held up well (Neither has the entirety of the series as far as combat was concerned, even skyrim has outdated 90's combat). But the series was never about the combat... Until the latest entries, that forgot that the combat sucked and was just something people put up with, because the sense of journey and exploration was so immense.
Daggerfall plays exactly like a modern elder scrolls title, minus the god awful enemy and loot scaling (Stupid STUPID decision), and is 2,000 times bigger than skyrim. People are STILL finding new places and dungeons never seen before by anyone else. The reason you never see anyone bring it up, is because most of them dont know it even EXISTS.
