Daily Archives: November 16, 2025

TAGN Fantasy Critic League 2025 – Week Forty-Five and Bhagpuss is Set

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Here we are at the end of week forty-five, well into the final stretch and this week saw some additional items resolved.

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

While we only had two titles slated to launch this past week, one was pretty key.  In addition, two other previously launched titles were still in play for review scores.  But let’s start where we usually do and check out where the scores stood when we left off last week.

Week 44 Scores

First up was ARC Raiders, which had a score as high as 94 last week.  However, more reviews coming in did not help it.  After an initial blush with acclamation, it started dropping.

In particular, the game faced some review backlash over accusations that it used AI for some of its voice work, with Eurogamer giving it a paltry 2 out of 5 review based on this accusation.

This was not helped by Tim Sweeney, among other gaming execs, coming to the defense of using AI in game development.  The stink of a rich guy hoping to cut jobs to make himself incrementally richer is no longer a good look, and Tim Sweeney is delusional if he thinks anybody sees him as a good guy in the industry.

All of which saw the game’s score sink.

  • ARC Raiders
    • [Picked by TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 91.5 to 88.3

That isn’t a BAD score, but I needed a great score to be in contention for anything over seventh place in the final accounting.

Then there was Dispatch, which dropped the final episodes of its first season over the course of the week.

Dispatch – In the little heroes room?

That turned out to be enough to get a few more reviewers to assign it a score.

  • Dispatch
    • [Picked by Hare Brained Schemes (p0tsh0t)]
    • Now has a score of 87.3

A good score as well, but Potshot probably wanted more in order to challenge Bhagpuss for first place.

  • Publisher Score Updates
    • Hare Brained Schemes (p0tsh0t)
    • Score has gone UP from 99.4 to 116.7

This was emphasized by the first title of the week to launch, Lumines Arise.

Lumines Arise

That ended up being another solid showing.

  • Lumines Arise
    • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
    • Now has a score of 87

That score opened up Bhagpuss’s lead on the board.

  • Publisher Score Updates
    • Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)
    • Score has gone UP from 118.5 to 135.5

That was also the ninth and final title for Bhagpuss, the first player in the league to be “done” for the season.  Now it is left to be seen if anybody can catch him.

The other title due out this week, Anno 117: Pax Romana, also landed with a decent score.

Anno 117: Pax Romana

Still, it was not as good as the previous three titles mentioned and not enough to bring Arhanta out of 10th position, even if it narrowed the gap to 9th to about 4 points

  • Anno 117: Pax Romana
    • [Picked by Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)]
    • Now has a score of 83.8

Finally, out of the blue Shadow Labyrinth showed up to smack Shintar with a small point drop.

  • Shadow Labyrinth
    • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 69.4 to 68.2

And NONE of these updates changed the rankings, so everybody was still in the same spots as the start of the week.

Dispatch actually saw a number of score updates over the course of the week, up and down, but the net result was Potshot ending up two points ahead of the initial score, and while I like to build some drama around scores from time to time, I would be reaching to make much out of that.  So the scores at the end of the week ended up as below.

Week 45 Scores

In the end Bhagpuss has ended up with a pretty solid lead.  As recently as last week’s scores the league estimate for him had been around 126 final points, so ringing in at 135… well, 134.9, but close enough… was pretty big.

Potshot, in second place with 118 points, needs his final title, Skate Story, to deliver a score of 88 or more in order to have a solid shot at taking over first place.  That is certainly doable… we have a more than a few titles that have score that high… but I don’t have any feeling for how likely Skate Story is to get that sort of review response.

Everybody else is likely out of the running to win it.  Shawn, Shintar, and Cyanbane all have a title left to go as well, but are far enough behind that they would need a 98 or better to be in the hunt.  And while we briefly had a title with a score of 100 back in week thirty-six, that seems highly unlikely.

A brief 40 point entry back in week 36

To get that one would probably need an excellent game on a single platform (to limit the number of reviews) and be riding on some sort of upcoming industry trend.

Will Kirby Air Riders, Octopath Traveler 0, or Marvel Cosmic Invasion be able to deliver that kind of score?  It seems doubtful and those three are probably in the running for third place, unless Skate Story bombs and puts them in contention for second position.

And this whole thing seems setup for the maximum last minute drama, as Skate Story, with a launch slated for December 8th, is the last title on the list with a confirmed release date.

So the coming up has those four titles with dates, plus Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and then things that are not yet committed or which have been pushed out until next year but remain on the list due to being counter picked.  There are still a few opportunities left for people to make picks.  Kluwes has three empty slots and Arhanta has a free drop available for Darwin’s Paradox.

The only other person who is “done” for the season is Archey.  His remaining pick, Fable, was counter picked, so when it was pushed out of 2025 he was stuck with it.  Everybody besides him and Bhagpuss have some change in situation possible.

However nothing was done on the change front as there were no picks put up this week, so the list of titles upcoming looks like this.

Coming up for Week 46

All we’re getting next week is Kirby Air Riders… plus whatever score changes show up to alter titles already on the scoreboard.

Then there is the week of US Thanksgiving, during which there are no releases on the board.  That is probably fine as the last day of the month is a Sunday, so unless there is a big score update I’ll probably just skip that for the usual month in review post.

Then the three titles that will decide third place will land in the first week of December, followed by the make or break title for Potshot which will likely decide the winner… at least until we get the surprise Christmas release of Half Life 3.

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