Ratings are probably worse at DLsite. Here you can find pretty much everything, but there they tend to gravitate in between 4 and 5. Though if you learn to read that, like looking only at games above 4.4-4.5, and consider a game to be good if it breaks into >4.7-4.8 territory...
The game scores on Dlsite are definitely not reliable, since 90% of the games are rated above 4
But I wasn't talking about the scores, I was talking about the content within the reviews. Instead of just expressing personal feelings, they actually give you information—information that, just today, helped me quickly realize a few games weren't for me before I even had to test them
Depends on the game tbf. I would agree that for "huge" game, Dlsite reviews are more helpful, but for smaller games, reviews are pretty much the same quality as of reviews here where it's pretty much "I like this because...". I would even say it's worse on Dlsite because many reviews are literally just a description of the game that the author already gave.
In my eyes, F95 only problem in reviews/rating is it's pretty skewed toward new game/game in development. Like 90% reviews are 4-5* which have "very promising/ can become the best game in this genre / slow burn but excellent beggining" reviews for these games. So you can't really compare a completed game that is say 3.5 rating compared to a game that is in 0.03 update with a 4.7 rating.
At the end of the day, I think you would enjoy much more to just go blind and see if it's for you because sometimes you might enjoy a game even though most people ( at least the vocal one ) trash on it. That's how I began to ignore anime rating a long time ago.
Like you, I haven't read reviews or paid any attention to ratings at all for years. Today I was looking for a specific piece of information about a game that I couldn't find, which is why I checked the review section on Dlsite. Then I saw it had some really good info on that game, which made me decide to pass on it entirely
But It seems you've read a lot more reviews on Dlsite and have come to the conclusion that they have a high margin for error there, too
So, I'll go back to my old method: the 20-minute game test. It's the method I've been using for years. I play for 20 minutes; if it manages to grab my interest, I keep playing. If it doesn't, I delete it