Adam_Savage posted...
that's entirely your fault that you can't enjoy a cool game about robots due to some weird phycological issue you have where you don't understand that most games are allegorical for something
Yes. I can't stomp on a goomba without seeing it as an allegory for the value of minority groups in squashing invading forces and preserving our form of government.
While it is true that most stories will have overriding themes, that applies for, well, pretty much every story. Be it the power of true love or the rise against tyranny, or something else. That's just how stories work. The problem is that DBH is a game ENTIRELY about story and it's focus is entirely on one specific aspect of it and it's about as subtle as having your brain smashed out by a lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. If the only reason to play your game is for the story and I can figure out pretty much all the details about your story in the first ten or so minutes because your story is so ham-fisted then you don't have a good story. You MIGHT be able to say it's more about the characters and their journey, and I might NORMALLY agree, but it's clear to me the developers cared more about the 'racism is bad' narrative more than that sort of thing. I don't see the point in even trying to enjoy a story that can be summarized in a three word sentence and then having to read that same sentence over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for several hours.
Let's look at another game that plays up the 'Racism is Bad' angle; Tales of Symphonia. This angle is pretty blatant right from the get-go and it's, arguably, even LESS subtle about it. However the game also makes it clear from the get-go that the focus is on the characters and their interactions with each other and it even explored the topic from MULTIPLE angles. This was a JRPG from 2003 on the gamecube. Meanwhile this modern game picked up a mace of 'ANDROIDS ARE BLACK PEOPLE AND THIS IS ABOUT RACISM' and proceeded to start beating me with it and I see no reason at all to believe it will change from that for a second.
The problem isn't that it's about racism. There's a lot of good games that have that as the central part of their story. The problem is that it's a game that's effectively nothing but story that can have it's story figured out in the first ten or so minutes because it's bad at story-telling.