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[bmaxwell]

The World of Oath

Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile bills itself as "A game that remembers."

It's best experienced with the same group of players rolling from game to game with the locations and denizens changing over time. There is no provided lore in the game. There is no flavor text anywhere. No backstory. "The lore book" says designer Cole Wehrle "is your first 5 plays of Oath."

Like so many works of art, you get out of Oath what you put into it. I was the chancellor in our first game, and my wife and daughter immediately named their factions. Kat played as The Seekers, the blue faction represented by a mysterious cloaked figure of whom only a single eye is visible. Our daughter chose black and coined them The Shadow Clan immediately. "I took this name from something I read" she sheepishly admitted. "That's okay" I replied. "So did they"

When my initial run as chancellor ended after a single game, I took the yellow player pieces and declared that The Empire of the Sun would reclaim their rightful position upon the throne of power, which we did. Eventually. We've played a whopping 15 games in a little over 3 weeks. We have plenty of stories of betrayals and triumphs, clever gambits and colossal blunders.

What I've been thinking about lately, though, is the world of Oath. It's as much a character as any of the players at the table. There are 23 site cards in the game box, 9 of which will make up the available world in a given game of Oath. Players play cards onto those sites, representing the denizens and buildings that make up the societies in those parts of the kingdom. At the end of each game, the sites (and their societies) ruled by the winner are carried over into the next game, and the rest are removed. Each site can hold from 0-3 cards, and typically has a special rule concerning travel or, if the site is the homeland of one of the game's 6 factions, a bonus for playing a card of that faction there.

At the beginning of your first game, the 6 factions are fairly balanced. At the end of each play 3 cards of the winner's advisor faction are added to the card pool, and some cards from the discard piles and the losers' advisers are removed sight unseen. This means that, over time, your world naturally starts to tip toward some factions and away from others.

For example, our first few games saw the winner using advisers of the Arcane faction. This meant that Arcane cards were added to our card pool (and to a lesser extent, Order and Hearth faction cards were added as well). More Arcane cards means those are more likely to be drawn and used, so they're more likely to be used as advisers for the winner and thus more Arcane cards will be added, and so on.

What this means for us that our world is essentially a magocracy with a strong authoritarian bent. We regularly see Arcane cards like Fire Talkers (+/- 3 attack dice if you control the Darkest Secret), Portal (spend a secret to travel to or from this Site without spending supply) and the Dream Thief (Pay 2 favor to swap any 2 face down advisers). If you think of magocracy like a technocracy, it becomes relatable.

We're also very strong in the Order faction's cards. Things like Curfew (You have to pay the ruler 1 favor before you can trade with denizens), Toll Roads (You have to pay a favor to a Site's ruler when you travel there), and Tome Guardians (Enemies cannot target or take the Darkest Secret in any way) make frequent appearances as well, eliciting sly smirks or exasperated sighs depending on your game state. We're heavily tilted toward these 2 factions, we have a fair amount of Hearth and Discord cards, very little in the way of Nomad cards. and almost no cards from the Beast faction - and yet, one in particular has been a mainstay in our kingdom. The Roving Terror comes up quite a bit. It allows you to spend a secret to discard a card from any site then move the Roving Terror there.

Since the winner isn't always tied to ruling the most sites, sometimes the kingdom changes very little from one game to the next, sometimes is changes wildly. As I write this, we've had a stable regime for the last several games and our game looks familiar from play to play. Our world feels both fantastic and dangerous. There's a lot of neat, mystical shit going on, but you maybe don't want to leave the house.

The site cards themselves are also key in informing the story of our campaign. One site card in particular has been a thorn in our side: The Narrow Pass.

The Narrow Pass says that, when a player is traveling to its region, they MUST travel to the narrow pass. Oath is a game where players will only get 5-8 turns in total, and you never have enough supply to do all the actions you want to do. In that environment, a card that forces you to spend precious supply traveling somewhere you DON'T want to go...well, it's prompted more groans and eye rolls than anything else in the game. My wife will say "Okay, I travel here then I muster, then I'm going to campaign against..." only for me to hold up a finger, pick up her pawn, and set it on the Narrow Pass. Cue the slumping shoulders as she winds back and reconsiders all of her plans.

I love this.

When I say that our Oath world is oppressive, the Narrow Pass is an ever-present part of that world. It feels like a wasteland where the citizens are doing their damndest to enact change while the chancellor, looking down at all of the lands they rule and their pile of money and insists that no, life is actually very good.

My wife has snatched victory by playing the Vision of Faith while holding the Darkest Secret alone at The Hidden Place. I've Blackmailed the chancellor to steal the Grand Scepter, granting myself citizenship then using the imperial army to seize relics for myself. We've had negotiations for citizenship fall through and lead directly to a change of power for the next game.

Every card and site in the game is influential under the right circumstances, and it all lends itself to weaving an emergent narrative. In a game with zero lore and zero flavor text, this is an incredible achievement. Oath is a real bear to teach, at the end of your first game you might know how to play. Sort of. You'll understand the actions, but not when and why to take them. It's the old "it gets good after you've played for 10 hours, trust me" thing that I've said and heard dozens of times.

Some people will never like it. I'm surprised that I like it. The game can - and will - end on a die roll after 2-3 hours. There's king-making aplenty. There are fiddly rules and, after 15 games within a relatively short span of time, I still need to consult the rules and FAQ's when someone takes the Campaign action more often than I'd like. The winner will not always be the player who played the best. When I made a conscious effort to see the game as a shared story we were telling together rather than a competition, I fell deeply in love with this game.

I've bumped my rating from an 8 to a 9, and finally a 10. I'm currently at the "I need some time to decide where this ranks in my top 10" stage. It winds my clock in a way that very few games have.* * A Study in Emerald comes to mind.

[bmaxwell]

Oath Chapter 5: An Inglorious End

At last!

The Empire of the Sun rules over the land once more. I have sworn an Oath of Supremacy to my people, to bring the glory of the empire far and wide.

I unearthed a relic while visiting an Ancient City; it is said that bandits all across the land will swear allegiance to the one who dons the Bandit Crown. Suddenly every land across the empire was peopled by ruffians raising their blades in my name!

Once again, the Empire of the Sun was thwarted by the Seekers. This time they plotted and schemed in their Hidden Place, ruminating on dark secrets and leveraging their power for blackmail and skullduggery.

Their twisted machinations have paid off for them once more. I write this from my holding cell, cruelly situated atop the tower in the castle I once called home, overlooking the city that looked to me as its leader. I held everything in the palm of my hand.

There is nothing for it now.

[bmaxwell]

Oath Chapter 4: The Virtuous Rise

It is said that patience is a virtue. Indeed, the Empire of the Sun has been virtuous of late. The glory days of our House have been long relegated to the annals of time. The chancellor holds sway over the populace. Indeed, the people adore them. And why shouldn't they? Most folks live a life of relative ease and stability. There are forums where communities can gather for open debate and discussion of ideas.

The chancellor has treated our family well, and we have returned that generosity. My father kept the Shadow Clan in power (even if he wanted that power for himself). Similarly, I have worked to keep the status quo. I have done so with an eye toward the future and a vigilant watch on The Seekers.

I did everything in my power to show my worth not only to the Chancellor, but to the populace as well. The people love the Chancellor and when their reign is ended it will be me who takes the Grand Scepter and sits upon the throne, for I have secured my role as the leader of the high council, and my knowledge of the inner workings of the kingdom (and its highest-ranking officials) is vast.

Indeed, it is with great pride that I ascend to the throne at last. So begins a golden age of peace and prosperity!

[bmaxwell]

Chapter 3: The Setting Sun

The Empire of the Sun put that fool Chancellor upon her throne! It was nothing more than an act of spite against the Seeker, but she offered us citizenship nonetheless.

We were exiles no more.

We could have lived a life of excess, grown fat off the taxes of the populace. But I had ambition.

I offered her advice. Showed admiration and gratitude. I smiled and bowed, swearing fealty all the while plotting our return to the seat of power that is rightfully ours. I needed only to secure the Grand Scepter for myself.

Symbols hold great power and meaning, none more so than the Grand Scepter. The one who wields it wields divine authority. I just needed her to let her guard down at the right moment.

Ever a thorn in my side, the Seeker made a play for the Chancellor's Dark Secret. The Chancellor panicked - rightfully so. After all, this was all starting to mirror the very events that put the Chancellor on the throne.

I saw my opportunity and I took it. I seized the Banner of the Darkest Secret not for myself, but for The Empire! Surely this would elevate me to the Chancellor's most trusted advisor! How could she doubt my loyalty after I'd intervened to preserve her rule?

That question will haunt me for all my days, for she seemed to know of my intentions. Indeed, the Grand Scepter became even more unattainable than before. Perhaps the surprise loss of her Banner of the Dark Secret - the object that inspired the populace to follow her in the first place - shook her. Perhaps one of my own trusted advisors betrayed me.

It matters not. If I had the power to rule, I would be sat upon the throne.

I am not.

Would it have been better to live out my years in comfort and excess rather than plotting and scheming? I would have been saved the bitterness I carry with me now. In the eyes of the people I am the Chancellor's lapdog, a loyal servant to the Empire. I have brought shame to my ancestors.

A simple life is no bad thing. I only pray that my progeny chooses the path that I avoided.

[bmaxwell]

Oath Chapter 2: The Kingmaker

The sun rises and sets on another era. The Seeker failed to uphold their sworn Oath of Protection. The people feel safe when their ruler can show strength. A glorious kingdom must have an equally glorious reliquary. I moved in Secret to Usurp the chancellor, showing the people that I could do what she could not.

I was warned against the treachery of the Shadow Clan and, indeed, they made a move to steal our most precious, Darkest secret. So desperate was their need for it that they would not be stopped.

I anticipated this. My plan to reclaim the throne was undeterred, but the Seeker proved more resilient and less pliable than I'd hoped. I advised her that the Shadow Clan held a dark secret that would undo her claim to the throne. If she would but welcome the Empire of the Sun into her kingdom, I had the knowledge to thwart her foes.

She would not listen to reason.

She waged a campaign against me, stealing my precious relics and inspiring her citizenry. She was a worthy leader! She would uphold her oath! Her victory was short-lived, however.

I knew the Shadow Clan's secret. I knew their leader had a vision for the future that would appeal to the populace. As the Shadow Clan's dark fervor swept through the lands like a plague, I hope the Chancellor's last thoughts were of me - the ally she denied.

[bmaxwell]

Oath Chapter 1

The past is lost to me. Lost to all of us.

Rather, it dies with me for I will not speak of it.

My citizens need only know that I, Chancellor of the Empire of the Sun, am the rightful ruler of this land.

I counted on resistance from the Shadow Clan from the far east, but my fatal error was underestimating The Seeker. The Shadow Clan has never been a trustworthy people. You can count on a dishonest man to be dishonest and, indeed, they bear some dark and terrible secret whose details never reached my ears. I am equal parts grateful and desperate in this knowledge.

The Seeker, on the other hand, led a nomadic tribe and never seemed to have a drive for power. I see now that they hid their machinations well. They rose up and drove us from our lands. Power and cunning take many shapes.

Remember it well.

My time in the world is short, and my last breaths are bitter. A usurper sits upon the throne. My only solace is in the knowledge that my child will find success where I found failure. The Empire of the Sun will fly our banner over the capitol once more.

Reclaim your birthright, my child.

Note: This is what I wanted to write in the journal I have for my copy of Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile. However, that journal is way too small for this much text. Also, I thought writing in cursive would be a nice touch. I haven't written in cursive in a very long time, and it's much harder than I expected.

[bmaxwell]

Game of the Year 2023: The Top 10

2023 was a great year for the videogames industry. A lot of great videogames were released in 2023. It was a fucking lousy year for the industry if you had a career there. It has been deeply disappointing to see record sales and critical acclaim alongside frequent layoff announcements. It feels like the pursuit of endless profit, whatever the cost. It's not sustainable and, as someone who has loved this hobby for my entire life, seeing the people who create games treated as disposable is disgusting. So, as much as this post and this blog are about YAY GAMES, there's also an undercurrent of filth that we have to keep in mind.

Apart from that, 2023 had its usual ups and downs for me. I played non-mobile games on my phone more than ever, thanks to two things: I got a Razr Kishi adapter to clamp onto my phone, turning it into a tiny Switch. Oh, and I got a pretty decent new phone. And Honkai Star Rail hooked me. That's three things.

Speaking of HSR, the ability to access cloud saves from my phone and my desktop PC was a godsend. This is true for Game Pass as well. Frequently I'd pull out my phone in the breakroom at work and pickup whichever game I'd been playing on Xbox, and it worked surprisingly well. I played a lot of Dead Cells this way, and finished Fuga 2 and Dordogne there.

If you'd told me at the start of the year that my best experiences of the year would include Baldur's Gate, a Harry Potter title, and an ALAN WAKE game, I'd have been pretty skeptical. But here we are. Also, if you're a theater kid I feel like this year had a couple of really special moments for you.

2023 also marked a return - at least somewhat - to the hobby of boardgaming. I was neck deep in the hobby from 2008 - 2015. I recently picked up Wingspan and it became a Sunday afternoon staple for myself, my wife, and our youngest child. I've missed the tactile non-digital experience of boardgames. It's nice to be back.

10. Honkai Star Rail

Well. You win universe. A gross free to play mobile game chock full of microtransactions and gacha mechanics is one of my favorite games of the year. The Genshin Impact people made a turn based RPG, see. And it's stylish as hell, and music is great, and when you get a new character from the loot boxes you get this little dopamine hit, and...

The game's events have been really surprising and well done. There's one involving staffing and stocking a museum, one involves shipping logistics, one's themed around ghost hunting. I wish I could have the $70 version of this game that isn't compromised by trying to squeeze players for money. The problem with that, of course, is that this game would not exist without all the bullshit.

But it feels good to play, it looks incredible, and I can swap between playing on my PC and my phone pretty effortlessly. So, despite the predatory MTX bullshit, I have really enjoyed my time with Honkai Star Rail this year.

I think my second biggest issue with live service games is that I don't get a sense of closure. I can't Finish Honkai Star Rail. And I'm not going to play it forever. So I get really into it for awhile (most of the year in this case) and just kind of...stop.

9. Goodbye Volcano High

This one is reminiscent of Night in the Woods; it's a coming-of-age story about anthropomorphic dinosaurs graduating high school, with all the fears and doubts that come with that. Some folks seem to have their entire future mapped out, some are just gonna work an hourly wage job and play D&D, and your character is serious about making a career in music. More serious than her bandmates are. Also, there's a meteor coming and it looks like it might hit Earth.

This game resonated with me on a few levels. The writing is great, the characters are well written and, unlike Stray Gods, the music landed for me. It does a great job of showing us different attitudes and values clashing into one another while making each of them relatable. The hope, resentment, and willful blindness of "My friends aren't invested in this thing we're doing together as much as I am" really blindsided me. It dredged up some feelings I haven't examined in years, both for better and worse. I didn't have much in the way of expectations for this game, but Goodbye Volcano High wormed its way into my heart. Goodbye Volcano High is the game mostly likely to be the game where I look back in the future and regret putting it outside of my top 10 for the year.

Hah! Suck it, me! Top 10 babyyyyy!

8. Pikmin 4

I've never really engaged with Pikmin, but this one was a blast. It does the Honey I Shrunk the Kids thing of "tiny dudes in a normal environment so it looks all big" thing that I love. Solve lots of puzzles by throwing little plant being at them. I love that the inspiration for the series was Miyamoto watching ants carrying leaves in his yard. It still has that feeling all these years later.

It feels odd to call Pikmin a relaxing experience, as you can and will lose Pikmin. Sometimes due to the natural attrition that comes with war, sometimes when the wrong little doofuses wander into water or fire, etc. There's also a timer, which is usually a dealbreaker for me. And the story revolves around rescuing fellow space travelers who have been transforming into mute plant people on this hostile planet. In fact the whole thing sounds like a pitch for a horror game. Despite all that, there's an easy charm to Pikmin. Your little astronaut dorks keep their spirits high, and there's playful music as you explore this huge, colorful world. I found it to be a great way to unwind at the end of the day for a couple of months this year.

7. Persona 5 Tactica

Persona 5 achieved mainstream success that the games before it never reached. Atlus has been milking it for all it's worth too - Persona 5 Dancing in the Moonlight, Persona 5 Royal, Persona 5 Strikers, and an upcoming Persona 5 mobile game. Some folks are feeling understandably burned out - I didn't get into dancing or strikers, and didn't play Royal (after putting 120 hours into Persona 5) so I was geeked when they announced a Persona 5 tactics game. On paper it's a strong pitch for me.

And in execution it's every bit as good as I'd hoped. My only complaint is the chibi art style. It isn't bad, just not to my taste. Beyond that? It's got the Persona charm, the banging music, and good solid tactical gameplay with just enough of a twist to not feel dull.

The "one more" mechanic from the series is key here, allowing the members of your 3-person team extra movement and actions. This is especially important because of the game's version of the all-out attack, which forms a triangle between your 3 party members and deals heavy damage to enemies caught inside. This makes combat an experience that rewards putting thought into. The game even has some side battles that are basically puzzles, giving you one turn to finish.

The game's new characters - Toshiro and Erina - are a welcome addition to the Phantom Thieves crew as well. I came around on Toshiro in a big way and was immediately in love with Erina. The game is about fighting against oppression and finding your courage to resist. Your friends are there for you when times are tough. It's hammy and melodramatic in the way that Persona is, and I love it. I love the game's revolutionary aesthetic, even if it's largely window dressing.

The DLC has been great so far too, starring Akechi and Kasumi in gameplay I can only describe if "What if Persona and Splatoon had a tactics baby?"

6. Diablo IV

The Diablo series has been the most consistently great video game series for me. I love the first 3 games and spent a TON of time with each. Diablo IV has the worst longevity of the series, but the best campaign. Now, I have to add a bunch of qualifiers here. The "best campaign" is a pretty low bar to clear. Diablo has always been - and continues to be - find new gear/numbers go up. The cutscenes are, as usual, top notch. While the story wasn't necessarily riveting, it was nice to have an antagonist with a personality and some ideas beyond RAWR I AM VERY EVIL RAWR. In fact, I was half-expecting the game to ask if I wanted to side with Lilith near the end, and I just might have done so. And the cinematic of the human army marching into hell while Lilith and Imperius have a philosophical discussion was incredible.

As for the replay value, maybe they'll find their way much like Diablo III did. My main issue with Diablo IV is the way new content is handcuffed to new seasons, how seasonal characters are siloed off from the rest of your characters, and how the game feels like it was built around microtransactions and milking money out of the player.

The game feels good to play. Abilities feel powerful and interesting, the loot grind is fun, and exploring the variety between the classes is a joy. Diablo IV is one of the best games released this year, it's just a shame that, like a lot of modern games, Diablo IV feels compromised, it feels like a Product in a gross way. Still, every previous game in the series has had a long tail for me, so I'm not counting Diablo IV out yet.

5. Darkest Dungeon II

Darkest Dungeon is my favorite game. I have a tattoo of it on my arm. It's impossible to expect a sequel to improve on that or even meet it. Subsequent journeys into a fiction can never be special in the same way that first one is, and Darkest Dungeon II is no exception.

The game is immediately recognizable - you'll see some familiar faces lined up in a tug-of-war formation against a group of enemies. A row of skills at the bottom of the screen, a torch at the top. Artwork with thick, dark lines and plenty of shading. The moment-to-moment gameplay IS a lot like the first game, but the trappings around it are not.

Gone is the persistent campaign of the first game, replaced by a more familiar roguelike structure. You embark on runs that either end in victory or failure, unlocking new things between runs. This makes the game more approachable and forgiving, but it means the lows are less low and the highs are not quite as high. In the original title losing your veteran Crusader you've sunk hours and hours into feels like a real gut punch, but by the same token finally - FINALLY - conquering the darkest dungeon feels incredible. Those extremes are lost in the sequel, and that probably makes for an objectively better game.

It's not just the same run every time; there are 5 chapters to conquer, each themed with a personal failing: Denial, Resentment, Obsession, Ambition, and Cowardice. The game's personality is still here in full force thanks to Wayne June's narration, Stuart Chatwood's music, that incredible artwork and gallows humor that I love so much. Each of the characters is treated as an individual with their own dark backstory this time around, each crafted in loving detail and unfolding by way of cutscenes and/or interactive gameplay moments. The stress mechanism is still here but takes a bit of a backseat, while relationships between characters are brought to the forefront.

Darkest Dungeon II is just what I wanted from a sequel to my favorite game. I'm glad they didn't just make the same again but prettier, but still kept the game's bones intact.

4. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

Yakuza has become one of my favorite game series over the past few years. I'm down for whatever they throw at us. Bringing Kiryu back yet again? Sure. New protagonist? I'm down. A period piece starring the cast as historical figures? Fucking bring it on.

I love the series. The melodrama that hits me in my feels, the never-ending parade of lovable weirdoes and freaks in Kamurocho, the deep well of fleshed-out side games like bowling, pocket circuit racing, and karaoke - it's all here. I'm not tired of it. I thought I would be, but I'm not.

Kiryu is a lovable, stoic doofus with a strict moral code and penchant for helping out anyone who needs a hand. This time they gave him a Clark Kent disguise after faking his death, and also a bunch of James Bond Spider-Man gadgets. Let's go.

I will never get tired of my big hearted himbo beating people with bicycles and helping out folks in need. And I got misty-eyed at the ending. I was not prepared for my stoic boy to full on ugly cry. Still waters run deep.

3. Hogwarts Legacy

In the years since JK Rowling outed herself as a human shaped pile of garbage, I've distanced myself from the Harry Potter universe. And when Hogwarts Legacy released, the game was a lightning rod for controversy. I decided to see for myself, and was treated to a wonderful, smartly written game that managed to capture the magic of the world without constantly referencing the movies and books that everyone knows. It's the same trick that Jedi Fallen Order pulled a few years ago, and it works every bit as well here.

The school feels massive and detailed, and it was a joy to explore or just get lost in. The game world outside the school was unexpectedly huge as well, and the broomstick flight felt so good and natural that I rarely bothered to travel by floo. Optional side activities like growing your own plants for your potion brewing, decorating your Room of Requirement, and breeding creatures were all pleasant distractions that served to flesh out the world of Hogwarts.

The game's cast is fairly diverse, and most students felt like real people rather than caricatures of their Hogwarts houses. Most students do have their house traits, but they're not constantly front and center. The side stories and main story kept me engaged throughout my time with Hogwarts Legacy, and I was a little sad to see it end. It's a shame the IP has JK Rowling's stench on it, and that a lot of people will miss this game because of that.

2. Alan Wake II

Alan Wake and Control are both posterchildren for games with incredible world building and lousy game play. I've started both multiple times only to end up walking away in frustration. Alan Wake 2 largely fixes my complaint with those previous games by letting me explore and become immersed in the world without throwing frequent contextless fights in my way.

Alan Wake 2's combat isn't necessarily more engaging, but there's far less of it. What you're left with is the good stuff, a Twin Peaks-like horror mystery in a small town where everything and everyone feels a little bit off. Sometimes a lot off. It's a game where the characters play everything straight, but there are plenty of winks and nods in the margins. The game is full of wonderful freaks and weirdoes, many of whom had me frequently grinning like a fool. Alex Casey. Warlin Door. The Koskela brothers. Rose. Odin and Tor. Alan and Saga. Ahti. Thomas Zane. All hamming it up in a story that gets entirely up its own ass in the best way.

The Herald of Darkness scene is one of the best things I've ever seen. Ditto for the late game scene on the lakeshore. Hell, the game had me sitting and watching a short Finnish art house film at one point. It's a game full of glee and confidence from a studio with the belief in itself and its fans that allow it to swing for the fences. Not every part of it works for me, but the parts that do are so effective that the whole experience is lifted up on high. I wish Remedy's gameplay worked for me, which is never has. But this is a terrific work of art, and the good stuff far outweighs the bad.

Baldur's Gate III

My love of Baldur's Gate and the CRPG genre was something I'd left long in the past. Despite playing excellent modern entries like Divinity Original Sin, and Pillars of Eternity I hadn't been captivated by one of these in some 20 years.

It's hard to put into words what a triumph Baldur's Gate 3 is. I can't name a single thing it really does to revolutionize the genre but Larian executed on every single element of the game. Starting with the story, they make the stakes incredibly personal on top of the usual "Oh shit the world is in danger!" thing we always see. A mindflayer puts a parasite in your brain at the beginning of the game. World saving aside, getting that out of you feels pretty important.

Or not! You can decide to lean into it, and the writers did a great job of mixing viewpoints into the story. Mindflayers are horrible monsters but wait. Are they really though? Your party members will have their own opinions on the matter, as well as their own traumas and baggage and backstories. The writing and voicework for these party members are the best part of one of the best games ever made.

The game's ensemble cast might be the best of any game. By the game's end my party was my Tav, Karlach, Jaheira, and Astarion/Gale depending on the situation. There are party members I missed, and one I may or may not have killed (I regret nothing). Baldur's Gate III's story branches in so many ways, it all feels like it's a hair away from collapsing in on itself but it never does. My friends and I were exchanging stories about what we'd seen and done in the game as we played, and the variance is impressive. Baldur's Gate III is like a dude spinning plates while juggling chainsaws, and people keep tossing stuff into the mix and you think "Well no WAY can he keep all this going!" but goddammit, it all keeps going.

The way the game rolls with whatever choices you make (or dumb shit you want to try) whether in or out of combat, is truly incredible. It feels closer to having a DM than anything I've ever played. If you want to do something weird or dumb, the game does an incredible job of yes and-ing you. And it's not without consequences, the game reacts to the wide array of shit you can do within the D&D ruleset. The game sets up storylines both big and small early on, and manages to pay them off in interesting ways before it wraps up.

The combat was a sticking point for me in Divinity Original Sin 2. It's not that it was bad, but it was overwhelming. Combat could be long and difficult, and losing after an hour only to reload a save was incredibly deflating. Baldur's Gate 3 threaded this needle almost perfectly for me. Most combats were challenging but not crushing, and did not overstay their welcome.

I kept waiting for the game to drag and lose its momentum, but it never happened. I was glued to it for the entire 100+ hours it took me to roll credits. I fully plan on replaying it one day.

[bmaxwell]

Game of the Year 2023: Honorable Mentions

It's an honor just to be nominated.

Octopath Traveler II

Octopath Traveler II landed better for me than its predecessor. The visuals are lovely, the soundtrack is awesome again, and the writing is better this time around. I put around 50 hours into this game, and I hit up against a boss fight that took me ~45 minutes to lose. Tried a couple of times and lost the drive to come back. Excellent RPG with some pacing problems and spongey boss fights. Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical

More of a visual novel musical than a roleplaying one, the game's story and aesthetic immediately hooked me. Everything about the game hits except - crucially - the music. I cared about the characters and was invested in the story, and the way you make choices that affect the story and the current song is a really neat hook. The songs just don't have the juice though.

Dredge

In Dredge you play as a fishing boat captain (or, if you prefer, you play as a boat). You go out for the day, make your catch, and come back to port to sell. If you find yourself out at night you might encounter some weird sights and sounds, your light might flicker and die, and the vibes are generally Off. There's a lot of weird shit happening and odd characters sending you out for fishes. It's a wonderfully foreboding world full of mystery and intrigue. It's a game that is somehow chill and disturbing at the same time.

Wildfrost

Wildfrost is the best card game I played this year with some neat mechanics and lovely artwork. I had it on my second screen quite a bit. My biggest issue with it is that it's too easy to overlook something and blow the game unless you really pay close attention (a Me Problem). Each character on the screen has its own timer, stats, and text. And that's normally not a problem at all for me, but when your champion dies the game is over. Too many of my plays ended when my champion died unexpectedly. Again, a great card game but not a good passive second screen game.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

Deckbuilding tarot visual novel game. Writing, music, and overall vibes are just wonderful here. Reminiscent of The Red Strings Club. My only real complaint is that everything surrounding the main conflict of the story is more interesting than the political posturing and campaigning for the new leader of the coven which much of the game centers on.

Sea of Stars

Similar to last year's Chained Echoes, I can tell that there's a really good game here but it just never completely clicked for me. I played quite a bit of it and enjoyed my time with it, but didn't feel compelled to keep coming back.

Lamplighter’s League

The elevator pitch for this game is XCOM but with an Indiana Jones theme. I somehow managed to enjoy it more than either of its inspirations. It feels a bit like a fancy version of Pathway. It's a little rough around the edges, but I had a blast assembling a team of weirdoes to battle cultists and steal relics.

Fire Emblem Engage

I have to stop playing Fire Emblem games. Like Pokemon, the combat is passable but ultimately disappointing for me. It's too quick, too wham-bam rock-paper-scissors for me. Engage brings back characters from the series' past, which is unfortunately lost on me. I enjoyed the game's visuals and goofy Saturday morning cartoon aesthetics, but the combat never hit for me.

Dave the Diver

This one was not on my radar at all when it released, but Dave the Diver really impressed me with its writing, visual style and charm, and variety of minigames. The cast of characters and story are great, particularly the sushi restaurant portion of the game. The storyline with the underwater kingdom hurt the pacing for me a bit, but this game is still a banger.

Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line

I've never gotten into a rhythm game that didn't involve a plastic instrument before now, but pressing buttons in time to all the Final Fantasy music while little chibi Final Fantasy characters fight little chibi Final Fantasy monsters is somehow very compelling to me. I played this game on and off all year long as a nice way to unwind with a song or twelve.

Dead Space Remake

I missed this game the first time around, glad to have caught the remake here. It's been a great year for survival horror games, and Dead Space is a good one. "Alone and terrified on a crashed space station in a part of the universe humanity really shouldn't be" is well-worn territory and for good reason. It's compelling when done well, and Dead Space does it well.

Super Mario Bros Wonder

Time and nostalgia, man. I have no idea how to rank this game or even how to verbalize my thoughts and feelings on it. It's a callback to the games I played growing up. Most sidescrolling platformers these days are metroidvanias, indie titles, or both. Getting a game from Nintendo that feels like a true successor to Super Mario World some thirty years later is wild.

It's not that they haven't done Mario sidescrollers between now and then, it's just that they have felt rote and joyless, like they ticked the boxes and released it. They felt uninspired. Super Mario Bros Wonder is not guilty of that. It is bursting at the seams with life and joy and creativity and (forgive me) wonder. They're not afraid to get weird with it, to introduce new elements and new enemies without going overboard with them. Every new stage is full of potential because you have no idea what they might throw at you.

A lot of this comes from the new Wonder Flower, a powerup you can find somewhere in each level that feels like an acid trip. Warp pipes come to life, the hills bounce, the walls bleed, and you can see sounds and taste colors. The game also adds equippable badges that let you float when you jump, jump straight up when clinging to a wall, swim faster, or any number of things.

Listing off new features doesn't mean much without execution, and it hits on all cylinders here. They've also added a strand element that the player can opt into, where you can see ghost outlines of other players and help them out or get help from them. It's especially useful in finding secrets (Oh, someone's way up there? How do I get up there?). It's a neat take on co-op, akin to getting helpful notes from other players in souls games.

The Nintendo of the past 5 years or so feels confident in a way that had been missing for a long while. Mario Odyssey, Bowser's Fury, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and now Mario Wonder all feel like they've grown beyond the shackles of their series' past and are bold in a way that's wonderful to see.

Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2

The sequel to one of 2021's best games did not disappoint. It largely brought more of the same: orphans, tragedies of war, furries, and tank on tank battle. I don't see any of those things much, so this was a welcome entry for me this year.

Dordogne

This is a perfect game pass game. An indie title I'd never heard of and doesn't immediately appeal to me, but it's on a service I already pay for so why not? It's about a young woman going back to her recently deceased grandmother's home in France, where she'd spent a summer as a young child.

She is recovering memories and unearthing the source of family trauma - the kind that often bubbles up with the passing of a matriarch. The game really takes its time lingering on small details - every step of making tea in grandma's kitchen, the dusty old photos in the living room, the old train set in the attic. These little details can surprise us with how strongly they hang on. I found myself thinking about the time I spent with my own grandmother (the only grandparent I ever knew). Remembering the worn deck of Authors cards we played with, the way her hands looked as she washed green beans we picked together.

I brought my own experiences to the game, and I think that's the point.

Endless Dungeon

Games don't always have to reinvent the wheel to leave an impression and provide enjoyment. Endless Dungeon was a fun co-op twin stick dungeon crawler that my wife and I played. The moving and shooting felt good and it provided plenty of challenges to overcome together. In a year that didn't include Diablo 4, this might have hit harder for us.

Like a Dragon Ishin

Give me my Yakuza in whichever form you like. Turn-based, real time, Modern day, 80's, feudal Japan, zombies. Fuckin' whatever. I'll clean my plate every time. This one's ending smelled pretty funny from an historical/nationalism point of view, but the rest of the game felt like historical Yakuza tourism and I am here for it.

The Last Spell

This game is an early access success story. I played a lot of it before it went 1.0, and I kept enjoying it after. You're managing a small base that is being invaded by hordes of enemies every night. You control a small band (3-6) of heroes tasked with mowing down wave after wave of monsters, backed up by traps, ballistae, and catapults if you choose to build them.

After the night passes you level up your heroes, build up your little base, outfit your crew with new gear, and do it again. It does one of my favorite things in games: it makes you feel stupidly overpowered then pushes you to your limit. My victories usually end with my town almost in ruins, which is the perfect difficulty. Lastly - and definitely not least -the soundtrack is a prog rock cornucopia.

Final Fantasy XVI

Final Fantasy XVI has been a polarizing release, with some fans put off by the clear Game of Thrones inspiration. The gameplay is 3rd person action where you're only playing as Clive. As someone uninterested in Game of Thrones and not especially precious about the sanctity of the Final Fantasy series, this is a fantastic game.

It does spectacle and bombast in a way no other game did this year. The game revolves around eikons - the game's pantheon of summons like Bahamut, Ifrit, etc - and the battles between them are filled with button mashing and quick time events.

Unfortunately the button mashy combat was hard on my hands because I am old now, and the maybe the PS5 controller is uncomfortable for that? I enjoyed the game every time I picked it and played it, but I didn't find myself drawn back to it frequently.

It's in good company with 90% of 3rd person action games I've played. I had fun with it and didn't finish it.

Resident Evil 4 Remake

I never played more than an hour of this game before the remake. It follows the path of every Resident Evil game I've ever played, starting off very strong before ending with a sort of wet fart in the back third of the game. That said, it's a great game and I understand the love it gets. That opening section of the game in the village is top tier, and there are some great characters along the way. This probably would be in my top 10, but I don't like lining remakes (even excellent ones) up alongside new releases when it comes time to hand out awards.

Super Mario RPG Remake

Similar to the RE4 remake, this would be 100% in my top 10 if it was a new title and not a remake. I played this in 1996 when it originally came out. The notion of Square making a Mario RPG was bonkers, and they pulled it off incredibly well. That novelty is gone in 2023 after we've seen Mario in all kinds of genres, but the execution still holds up beautifully.

[bmaxwell]

Alan Wake II

2010's Alan Wake would be high in the running for my most disappointing game ever. The open world tale of a frustrated writer whose stories start bleeding into reality released five years after it was announced (considered a VERY long development period at the time). The setup, vibes, and look of the game landed for me, but the gameplay killed it. It felt like the devs kept throwing combat encounters at me so I wouldn't get bored. I came back to the game several times over the years and bounced off each time.

This process was repeated with Remedy's 2019 release Control. Fascinating fiction, writing, style, and world building with rotten combat and an obtuse map. So any sane person would not fall for it yet again with Alan Wake II. Certainly not as a full price release. Thankfully this time it was different.

Well, different enough.

The way Remedy designs action and traversal in their games just fundamentally does not mesh with me. It's the inverse of the old Blizzard secret sauce. I don't think they are Bad at it since I'm in a minority with that opinion, but as much as I am drawn into the world, the part where I am pressing buttons often yanks me back out. Thankfully Alan Wake II is heavy on the story and aesthetics and lighter on the action.

Remedy's worldbuilding is second to none. I immediately fell in love with the cast and the "every person in this town is just a little bit off" presentation. Saga Anderson and her partner Max Payne Sam Lake Alex Casey as FBI agents investigating a disappearance in this fucked up little Twin Peaks town is just what my wife and I needed for a few weeks in November.

The game opens on a grizzly murder in the woods followed by a weird interaction in the local diner and it just spirals out from there. There's a cult of people in deer masks, dead naked dudes walking out of Cauldron Lake, a defunct coffee-themed amusement park, and the Koskela Brothers with their wonderful commercials. And good old Ahti. It's a rich tapestry of weirdness and I love it.

Like with 2019's excellent 13 Sentinels, early on I decided to just go along for the ride wherever the writers wanted to take me rather than try to hyper analyze it all. Alan Wake is trapped in the lake and he has to write himself out but there's a bad version of him named Mr Scratch who is already out causing trouble and wait now the real Alan is out too? Also Alan made his fame writing a fictional detective named Alex Casey and one of the agents investigating him is also named Alex Casey? And Thomas Zane and Barbara Jagger and and and...

Alan has written Saga Anderson into his story as the hero in an attempt to free himself from the Dark Place* and in the process has endangered her and those close to her. Maybe? Everything that happens has to be filtered through your "This might not be real" filter. Eventually Alan escapes the Dark Place and the game has you switch between playing as Alan and Saga in an attempt to unravel all the strange happenings in the town of Bright Falls.

Along your journey you will encounter a murderer's row of memorable weirdoes:

Saga's FBI partner Alex Casey. Alex Casey is also the name of the protagonist in Alan Wake's bestselling series of books. Total coincidence.

Rose. She works in the Oh Deer! diner in town. The first time you meet her, she addresses you by name as if she's known you for years and gives her condolences for the passing of your daughter last year. The one you just talked to on the phone.

Jaarko and Illmo Koskela. These guys run a wildlife tour in the area as well as the Coffee World amusement park. Their live action commercials are a highlight of the game.

Tor and Odin Anderson. These two old guys live in the local retirement home, but they used to be in a band called The Old Gods of Asgard.

Thomas Zane. He apparently disappeared into the lake decades ago much like Alan. He made a short little arthouse film that I watched in the game.

Ahti. The cryptic janitor from Control appears in this game as well. I love him.

Warlin Door. He's the late-night talk show host frequently interviewing a confused Alan Wake. He's definitely a key player in the story and I still am not 100% sure how.

The confidence they show in wedging live action sequences and frequent references to their past work into their video game is the work of a development team at the height of its power. Two musical numbers stand out in the game: "Herald of Darkness" which everyone knows and was performed live at the 2023 game awards, and "Dark Ocean Summoning" which was less acclaimed but awfully damn cool.

A lot of the videogame-y parts didn't land for me. I didn't enjoy the combat, I found much of the Alan gameplay tedious, and the Mind Place / Storyboard elements are better on paper than in practice. No matter, the game's highs are so high, and the things it gets right work so well that I can overlook its shortcomings. I'll take ambitious and flawed over safe and rote any day.

I'm invested in this story and this world now. I'm onboard for the ongoing mysteries surrounding Saga's origins and her daughter, Alan's madness and Alice's...well, Alice's whole deal. Alan Wake 3, the inevitable Alan Wake 2 DLC, Control 2...I'm in for whatever's next.

*Alan is not an especially strong writer.

[bmaxwell]

Game of the Year 2023: Not the Top 10

Some best-of categories, with every bit as much pomp and fanfare as The Game Awards!

Best Music:

The Last Spell

Some other games had some truly memorable moments with their music this year, but none had a soundtrack as consistently great as The Last Spell. Admittedly prog metal is right in my wheelhouse, but god DAMN this game where you move the little guys around the map and blow up little monsters did not need its music to go this hard.

Also great music: Dredge, Diablo IV, Honkai Star Rail, Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

It’s Not You, it’s Me:

Book of Hours

Sometimes a game seems perfect for me, but for whatever reason I just can't hit my stride with it. Other times I can tell a game is wonderful, but it either asks too much of me or just isn't my style.

This year had quite a few of these, but the honor goes to Book of Hours. It's the follow up to 2018's obtuse-but-cool-vibes game Cultist Simulator. I couldn't get my head around that one. I tried. I read guides. I watched videos. I started over again and again. I put 7 hours into it and finally accepted that whatever seems to be there - and I can tell that there IS something there - I just don't get to savor it. It's like those magic eye pictures. I believe you that there's a sailboat there if you unfocus your eyes the right way, but I've stared at it for 30 minutes and I'm sweaty and irritated and have a slight headache.

Books of Hours played out exactly the same as its predecessor, except this time I refunded the game before it hit two hours played.

Fuck your sailboat.

Runners up: Chants of Sennaar, A Space for the Unbound, Shadow Gambit, Lies of P, Aliens Dark Descent

Old Game of the Year:

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

Kiryu gets out of prison to find his adopted daughter Haruka is in a coma and she has a TINY BABY named Haruto so Kiryu's gonna just chill and do his own thing HAHA JUST KIDDING he's gonna protect Haruka and protect that baby and find out who attacked her and who Haruto's father is and is Haruka gonna come out of her coma stay tuned and find out in Yakuza 6: The Song of Life!

Runners up: Soul Hackers 2, Tiny Tina’s Wonderland, Tales of Arise

Best Moment or Sequence:

Alan Wake II: The Herald of Darkness

--- SPOILERS AHEAD ---

2023 had some great moments, none more memorable than this live action sequence in Alan Wake II. The game blends full motion video sequences with gameplay and in-engine cutscenes beautifully. None stands out more than the bizarre section where Alan is again drawn into the television and onto the set of a late night talk show. "This time" the host says "we're going to do what we always do, but instead of talking we'll sing it!" What followed is the best kind of ridiculous, tongue planted firmly in cheek.

--- END SPOILERS ---

Raphael's Final Act in Baldur's Gate III was an impossibly close second on this list. Runners up: Baldur's Gate III: Raphael's Final Act, Diablo IV: Storming the Gates of Hell, Hogwarts Legacy: Sebastian's story arc, Resident Evil 4 Remake: Ringing of the Church bell, The Man who Erased his Name: Kiryu's Ending Best Remake:

Super Mario RPG

I'm a cranky old man about the endless reboots and remakes in TV and film. I hate them. They're money grabs, cashing in our nostalgia and desire for comfort food. With the medium of videogames however, remakes generally make a lot more sense unless you're Naughty Dog. This year had a lot of great remakes. My brain says Resident Evil 4 was the best, but my heart says Super Mario RPG. I played it when it released in 1996 and I remember loving it, but I had lost all details of it. This gave me an excuse to replay it, and it's as magical as I remember. The game's writing and humor are incredibly charming. Mario as the silent protagonist in a world where everyone else can speak is great as he is forced to pantomime everything. The combat is snappy and the timed button presses help spice it up. The play time is short for an RPG, with some fat trimmed off the original release to come in at a dozen hours. All the goodness Nintendo fans know from Paper Mario and the Mario & Luigi RPG's started right here with Square.

Runners up: Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, Like a Dragon: Ishin, We Love Katamari: Reroll, Star Ocean Second Story R, Baiten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster

Looking Forward to It:

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Holy shit there are a lot of great RPG's coming out next year. But a new Like a Dragon game is at the top of my list. Ryu ga Gotoku has Yakuza 8 to build upon for their second turn based RPG. This one takes place in America and it gives us Ichiban and Kiryu. I can think of nothing I'd rather play.

Runners up: Final Fantasy Rebirth, Granblue Fantasy: Relink, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, Unicorn Overlord, Metaphor ReFantazio

[bmaxwell]

Life is Strange: True Colors

I have a weird history with DONTNOD and the Life is Strange series. It's the first major "Choices Matter" game I played. A group of friends and I played through it concurrently and discussed spoilers and choices, with "Why did you do THAT?" and "Oh so wait, this didn't happen in your game?"" and so on. It's a great way to play one of these. And I really love the game despite its flaws.

The follow up game - aptly named Life is Strange 2 - didn't land for me in the same way. I have a pretty low misery threshold, and LiS 2 exceeded my limit. Tell Me Why (a similar kind of game from DONTNOD) landed better for me, but the story's ending left me wanting. True Colors was being developed Deck Nine (the developer behind Life is Strange: Before the Storm which I didn't play) instead of DONTNOD, so my expectations for True Colors weren't especially high.

As with the previous 2 games on the list, I played this one with my wife and firstborn. We pass the controller around, offer advice, and generally make choices by committee. It's a great way to get some insight into how our brains work differently, how we interpret various mannerisms and speech patterns of characters, and where our moral compasses guide us.

True Colors has heart. It has a strong emotional core. New protagonist Alex Chen is relatable and likable, easily the best lead the series has had. The series always has revolved around a character who has supernatural powers; Max had the power to rewind time, and Daniel has telekinetic abilities. Alex, on the other hand has the power of Empathy. Did you roll your eyes or suck in air through your teeth and slightly shake your head after reading that? Because I definitely did when I first learned about it.

Thankfully it is executed very well and works on a different level from the previous two titles. Even though it's supernatural, it has its roots firmly in the human experience. Most of us have some form of empathy; whether we nurture it or try to suffocate it, it's there. You've seen someone crying and felt for them, or felt uplifted in a room full of laughter? Alex has that but it's coming in at high voltage with zero filter.

Alex Chen takes on any powerful emotions nearby. If someone is shocked, sad, or enraged in her vicinity, she feels that too. She can try to fight it or try to take it onto herself to defuse a situation. It's bewildering and hard to wade through. In one scene she attacks someone in a fit of rage that she's taking on for someone else. And you end up in scenarios where you want to help someone, but taking on their pain can be harmful to you and not always ultimately beneficial to the person. Anger, sorrow, elation, shame, ecstasy, guilt...these are all valid, human emotions that serve a purpose. There aren't too many black and white choices, and shades of grey are where life gets interesting.

Of course Alex has her own story and her own intrigue outside of this ability. She's the new girl in town, a stranger who quickly loses her only connection. From there we get into the sort of local lore, cover-ups, and secrets I want from a small town drama.

I found myself rooting for Alex, worrying for her, and getting to know and love the characters in the small Colorado town of Haven Springs. The cast of characters who are all endearing, slightly weird, and maaaaybe hiding something is wonderful.

Alex befriends a local DJ who runs a record shop. There's a nice lady who runs a flower shop in town. Alex lives in an apartment above the town bar down the street from the dispensary. There's a section of the game that involves the characters getting into cosplay and going around the town LARPing. It's a lovely, homey little place; the writers and artists did a great job of making Haven Springs feel like another character in their story. The cast and the setting are important because I need to have the sense that there is something worth caring about and fighting for. I've experienced plenty of games, movies, and TV shows where I don't have anyone to latch onto.

I love these characters and I want to hang out in Haven Springs. The game isn't perfect of course, as the way the story wraps up asks the player to accept one coincidence too many. No matter though, I find myself agonizing over choices that don't have a clear right/wrong split, and that couldn't happen if I wasn't invested in the cast. For me the journey was great regardless of the destination.

[bmaxwell]

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was a near-miss for me. It was immediately on my radar for three reasons:

It's a tactics game and I often love those.

It's a non-Nintendo developer putting out a Mario game

Mario has a fucking GUN.

That last one isn't typically a plus in my book, but Nintendo is pretty protective over their mascot, and the idea of Nintendo allowing Mario to be out there capping fools (albeit with guns that look like toy ray guns) was wild. Kingdom Battle was okay. It's a game that I wanted to enjoy a little more than I did. The most memorable part of the game was the Mario diss track that the game's opera singer boss lays down.

It's-a-me and Let's-a-go are the only words you know

5 years later Ubisoft released Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope to a reception of resounding indifference. There are a few reasons for this I think:

There was little marketing for the game. It came and went pretty quietly

Rabbids are dumb.

Tactics games just don't hit in a mainstream way.

What are the biggest tactics games in terms of revenue and widespread success? XCOM? Three of the best games released in 2022 were tactics games; Midnight Suns and Sparks of Hope both went over like a lead balloon, and I would bet that Square Enix is disappointed with the sales of Tactics Ogre Reborn.*

But I'm not here to mourn the lost bonuses of studio executives, I'm here to talk about videogames, and Sparks of Hope is a damn good one. A strange one, but good. It's exactly what you want out of a sequel to an almost great game: they took all the little details that were not quite there with Kingdom Battle and tightened them up in Sparks of Hope. The overworld is no longer a slog you have deal with in order to get to the combat. There are little optional goodies everywhere, and the puzzles are generally pretty inoffensive.

Gone are the weapon upgrades, replaced with the game's titular sparks. These goofy little star guys can be equipped like gear, and each grants both an active ability and a passive one. Some are simply "Do wind/electricity/fire/ice damage in an area and also you are immune to that same damage type." You get into stuff like "Lure all enemies in range toward you" or "Become invisible" or "Summon a big Donkey Kong rabbid to knock all the bad guys away from you."

Each member of your group can equip 2 sparks and, paired with each character's unique abilities and skill trees, this lends the game a real "roll your own" feel. You have a good assortment of snipers, support, bruisers, and a whole mess of stuff between. The sparks let you either specialize your characters, or cover weak spots if need be. Bowser isn't a healer, but I can make it so he is able to put shields on his team, and rez them in a pinch.

Each character has skills trees, and the game lets you refund and reassign skill points freely outside of combat. This is another key part of the freedom in Sparks of Hope. The developers did so much so make all the details surrounding the core gameplay as frictionless as possible. You can swap Sparks, refund skill points, and your entire roster levels up at the same rate whether they're in combat or not.

That freedom extends to the combat as well. Each character has a movement range and 2 action points. They can also do one dash (slam into an enemy to deal a little damage and briefly knock them off their feet) and one air jump (one teammate can launch another into the air like setting in volleyball). There are no hexes or grids here, the movement is open and fluid. You can keep moving around until your turn ends or you use an attack, and you can swap freely between your team members until you decide to end your turn.

This leads to an ocean of possibilities that could be overwhelming depending on how you are wired as a player. There's a lot of "I'm going team jump Mario off Rabbid Peach, then have him return the favor so she can reach that enemy way over there. I'll use her AOE heal while she's close to both Mario and Luigi, then I'll put them both into overwatch so that when she runs up and dashes into that baddie and pops him up in the air, they'll both get an overwatch shot and take him out this turn." I could have handled that a dozen different ways, but I came up with a plan and went with it.

It often feels like you COULD stare at the board for 5 minutes and deduce the most optimal course of action. But I was able to get by on making quick plans and gut calls, and the game is designed in such a way that I never felt like I was being punished for not finding the One Optimal Way to Play. It feels like you can mostly get by with whatever team comp you roll in with if you play smartly. There have been times where I realize I shouldn't have done that, but there are usually enough options in the toolbox that I can course correct.

The biggest bummer about Sparks of Hope is that it feels like it could have been even better. The game gives you a handful of Mario characters, and handful of rabbid versions of them - so you have Mario and Rabbid Mario, Luigi and Rabbid Luigi, and so on. The rabbid characters are actually charming and well written. They're goofy and dumb, but in a way that makes me roll my eyes, sigh, and say "Okay, you got me." Rabbid Mario cracks me up every time he quips in his borderline-offensive Italian accent. They're not fantastic, but they're Good Enough. They're fun.

Which is more than I can say for the Nintendo characters in the game. We get little more than a Mario waHOO, a Bowser growl, or a Luigi Oh no! They're flat, nothing characters. I'm sure this was Nintendo being extremely strict about how their IP is represented, but if the writers made me like rabbids characters even a little bit, I bet they could have done a bang up job if they were turned loose with the whole cast.

Lastly, I'm still baffled by the character Edge. It feels like they tried to make a Cloud Strife rabbid. She's brooding and serious and just lame as hell. Do the developers know? Am I supposed to be like "This rabbid is cool as fuck?" or am I supposed to groan and make a jerkoff motion every time she speaks?

Leave a comment down below with your thoughts on EDGE and be sure to hit the notification bell and like and subscribe and check out my Patreon for more turbo bitchin' content.

*They are disappointed in the sales of literally every game that isn't Final Fantasy XIV.

[bmaxwell]

Top Some Number of Games

Wondering what my Top 25 games list looks like these days? So am I! It’s easy to play a game and go “Wowee! Elden Ring is the bestest thing ever! It is the best game out of all of the games!” 

But the long view is much more interesting to me. There are enough games out there being made with enough competency that I can have a decent time with most of them. My measuring stick for quality is the innocuous “Is it on my mind at all when I’m not playing it?”

Similarly, most years there is a game or two that makes it onto my top 10, and I look back later and feel no connection to it. For example, looking back I find both Gris and Immortals: Fenyx Rising in my top 10 lists. Neither occupies any real estate in my brain. Dead Cells though? Loop Hero? Florence? These have been rolling around my mind somewhere in back since I played them, and all missed my top 10 lists.

My long term feelings on a game mean much more to me than the short term. I don’t know why this is the case, but it is. 

Legend of Zelda Tecmo Super Bowl A Link to the Past NHL 94 Final Fantasy Tactics Planescape Torment Diablo II The Sims Dragon Quest VIII Guitar Hero II Persona 3 Okami Portal Dungeons of Dredmor Journey Heroes of the Storm Stardew Valley Darkest Dungeon Hollow Knight Nier Automata Yakuza 0 Night in the Woods Astro Bot Rescue Mission Disco Elysium Hades Yakuza Like a Dragon Spiritfarer Monster Train Elden Ring Baldur’s Gate 3

[bmaxwell]

Baldur's Gate 3

Baldur's Gate was my first-ever PC game. I came home with a shiny new PC a coworker built for me, and stopped at Best Buy to pick up the MicroProse Magic the Gathering game and Baldur's Gate. The game was positively mind blowing. It used AD&D rules (my first tabletop system) it had gorgeous isometric graphics, and FIVE (5) discs. Console gaming had nothing like it.

5 years later I was burned out on the genre* and maybe the rest of the world was too, because that style of game stopped being made. Years later when Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, and Divinity Original Sin came along, I spent time with each but was never truly enamored with them. I figured that, like RTS games, Metallica, and kart racers, CRPG's were something I used to like.

So when Baldur's Gate 3 released in early access, I largely ignored it. I'm not going to spend time playing an unfinished story-centric game, and even if I did? I haven't finished One of These in some 20 years. It's a bad bet.

However.

I'm like an alcoholic that drives past every bar in town every day. I listen to video game podcasts, and I talk games with friends. A couple of friends' enthusiasm for the game was infectious and, near release, Larian Studios announced that they were upgrading standard preorders to the Deluxe Edition for free. Well, if I ever do want the game I'll want the deluxe edition, and I can get that upgrade for FREE now? I'm basically losing money if I don't buy it. Right?

Buy it I did, and I was immediately hooked. I even spent an eternity in the character creator,** mostly debating my race and class. I get major FOMO with games like this. I want to see everything there is, and that's just not possible. I can't pick every lock AND smooth talk every conversation AND be a follower of every god, and so on. I finally settled on a Tiefling Warlock, a patron of The Great Old Ones.

Oh Aremon. I have so much I need to warn you about. But alas, I cannot.

It turns out there's a lot more than your character and class keeping you from seeing everything Baldur's Gate 3 has to offer. The game gives you an incredible amount of freedom. The studio touted the game's "17,000 endings" which seems nonsensical. After putting a hundred hours into the game I can believe it now. There are choices and events - big and small - whose outcomes ripple out into what feels like an ocean of possibilities.

The game reacts to everything you do. I've played a few saves and have friends playing their own campaigns, and the way we swap Baldur's Gate 3 stories feels like the old days on the playground. "Oh, you saved the druid grove? Well I heard you can assassinate the leader and there's a war and the whole GROVE is basically destroyed! Billy says he went and saved their missing leader and Susie says she helped an evil Drow elf raid the grove and burn it down!"

Susie that bitch.

And that's all true. Every action you take, every quest you follow through on or ignore, every area you miss altogether - these all have tendrils that spread out and touch every other thing in the game. It feels like there's a DM with a folders full of wrinkled papers of hastily scrawled notes alongside their binder of carefully written world lore that the players may never see.

The story revolves around mindflayers, opening with your character being restrained and infected with a gruesome parasite. It's a pretty good impetus to set you off on a quest to get that teethy little tadpole out of your head. No one needs to tell you that the kingdom is in danger, you have your own personal stakes in the form of unwelcome parasite in your brain. You can just watch that opening cutscene again if you need reminding of the situation's urgency. *shudder*

Or, perhaps not. Maybe this tadpole gives you cool powers. If one tadpole is good, more must be better!

Right?

As of now I am into chapter 3, exploring the titular city of Baldur's Gate, and I have no idea how this is all going to play out.*** The shades of grey and the way the game subverts expectations speaks to the quality of its writing. Dungeons and Dragons is some 50 years old now. Creative works carry the world view of their makers - hopes, fears, sense of justice, and prejudices are all along for the ride. They HAVE to be.

It's a black and white world where the monsters are evil and the heroes are heroic. The black skinned Drow are born evil and cruel, orcs are wild, savage, dumb, and violent. Mind flayers are cruel, thriving on enslaving others for their own ends. Thankfully the writers have gone outside the tired stereotypes pretty often with Baldur's Gate 3.

It makes me happy that I have a female Tielfing demonic barbarian who is somehow big hearted and vulnerable while also being powerful and kickass. My cleric is worships Shar, goddess of darkness. She's not necessarily evil per se, but she's definitely not about holy water and rays of holy light shining down from above.

And those mind flayers? Maybe they're not so bad. Not all of them. Some of my best friends are mind flayers! Or maybe that's my tadpole parasite thing speaking. I've met monsters who were not monsters at all. It's a lot of shades of grey and I DIG that.

The game gives you some weighty choices. I've had a handful of moments where I had to sit back and ponder for a few minutes, and these usually involve my party members. Each party member I've recruited (I have missed a few that I know of also) has been wonderfully written and voice acted. They each carry their own baggage and their own backstory that they will eventually share with you. We're all in the same parasitic boat together, but we each have our own demons.****

I have a vampiric theater kid, a spunky demon lady, a melancholy mage, a heroic warlock, an emo cleric, and a fearsome warrior traveling with me. Well, had. I ended up killing one of them when their morals went too far off the rails for me. It's not a choice I made lightly and I do not regret it. My friends have had their stories play out differently. The world reacts to your decisions and so do your party members. They're not just blank ciphers to blindly follow in whatever you do. They'll make their opinions known up to the point of leaving or even attacking you. I've seen their stories play out in very different ways based on who was in my active party at the time of a key story event.

Video game stories are very hit or miss for me. With RPG's I'm usually there for the combat and systems as much as the story. Baldur's Gate 3's main story is engaging and kept me invested from start to finish. Every party companion felt like a fully fleshed out character who I wanted to learn more about and hear more from. Even some of the game's side plots were engaging - one involving a hag comes to front of mind. There's just so damn much DETAIL here, and none of it feels extraneous. The developers have clearly played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, they know the sorts of things players want to do, and they made a game that says "Yes, actually you CAN do that" surprisingly often.

That freedom extends to the game's combat as well. You can throw objects, ignite pools of oil or alcohol, electrify water, push people off ledges, and on and on. My concern was that I'd get overwhelmed like I did with Larian's previous game Divinity Original Sin 2, but the combat threads the needle of being challenging without typically being overly long (spending an hour plus in combat only to lose and have to start over feels bad).

I can't close this review without mentioning that Larian did a great job replicating the act of rolling a die, a key component of tabletop games. The die clatters about and settles on its number in a satisfying way, and the excitement of a natural 20 on a long shot or the deflation of a crummy roll are intact here in this digital translation. The game handles luck streaks too - there's an option called Karmic Dice that you can toggle in the system menu, which prevents long runs of bad die rolls. After all, the dice add some welcome randomness but they should never play a huge role in determining how things play out.

The inspiration system is also wonderful - the game grants characters an "inspiration point" that can be spent on a reroll either in combat or in a skill check. These points are earned by essentially roleplaying your characters; smooth-talking Astarion will get inspiration points whenever you lie, persuade, or otherwise bullshit your way through a situation while no-nonsense bruiser Lae'zel is inspired whenever you mop the floor with foes in battle. The game is full of these thoughtful little touches.

The game writes a LOT of checks in the opening act, and somehow manages to cash them all. Choices you've made, people you've helped or hurt or ignored will come back around to you in the final act. Major events will play out wildly differently based on who is in your adventuring party. When it came down to the end, I made choices that felt right for the people in my party. It felt more like an ensemble cast rather than my character being the star of the show and everyone else supporting him. I'm writing this the morning after finishing the game, and I'm debating whether to reload my final save to see how other options play out. On one hand, I'm curious; on the other, it feels like the ending I got was my canonical ending, and playing tourist with it would feel dishonest.

As someone who hasn't seriously played D&D since 3rd edition (and not at all with the 5th edition ruleset used in Baldur's Gate 3) I'm not sure which elements are from the tabletop and which are unique to the video game. All I know is that, while no videogame can wholly replicate the experience of spending a Saturday afternoon at a table rolling dice, talking in bad accents, and poring over rulebooks and character sheets with friends, Baldur's Gate 3 does a better job than any game before it. *After Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale II, Planescape: Torment, and Baldur's Gate 2 **At least 15 minutes! ***I've since finished the game ****Figurative and otherwise

[bmaxwell]

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

I had a love-hate relationship with Final Fantasy for a long time. Outside of Final Fantasy Tactics, I’ve never connected with a game in the series despite being a self-proclaimed JRPG fan. I just never managed to find the fun with them. That includes Final Fantasy VII. I remember playing it. I think I made it a little bit into disc 2 before moving onto something else. 

So, unlike a lot of folks, I was not anxiously awaiting the remake. Nor was I precious about preserving the sanctity of the original release. For me, it was just a major JRPG release. I usually play those. And so I plunged into my Final Fantasy 7 Remake experience.**

Right off the rip, I love the new combat system. You’re running around and attacking in real time, but when you go into a menu to use an ability or an item, the game slows to down to a crawl that might as well be a pause. This would have saved Final Fantasy X-2 for me. Please, please, PLEASE do not batter me about while I’m digging through menus. 

You start off playing as just mopey, grumpy, emo-ass bitch boy Cloud Strife but soon you’ll have a small gang of outlaws and attractive young ladies joining you in combat. Swapping between characters is painless and makes combat feel more interactive than most in the genre.

The game gets into a lot of currently relevant topics such as class disparity, climate change, and the harm inflicted by unchecked, powerful corporations. Even if the game doesn’t always handle these things with the most serious tone* it feels more real and relatable than “The Big Evil is taking over and going to destroy the entire planet.” The story mostly takes place in a poor, working-class community living quite literally beneath the wealthy elites up above them who are killing to planet for their own gains.

Sound familiar?

Anyhoo, Square Enix some way, somehow, announced this game too early, made everyone wait and wait for it, made considerable STORY changes to a beloved classic game...and pulled it off. They could have played it safe with this remake and stuck to the original script, but they bet on themselves and it paid off. It lets players old and new play a game with fresh eyes. Veterans don’t know with certainty where the story is going. Would I feel the same if I had the original release up on a pedestal? I’d like to think so.

I had some concerns with how some aspects of the story would hold up some 20 years later. Like a lot of 90′s media, there’s some casual homophobia going on with Final Fantasy 7. And Cloud’s whole brooding “I’m an asshole because I have a tortured past” along with Aerith and Tifa fawning over him because they can fix him...it all feels a little tired now. Still, the optimism of Tifa and Aerith are a refreshing counter to Cloud’s darkness, and the “Who is best girl?” debate is still alive and well. Tifa? Aerith? Maybe Jessie, who just wants to be Cloud’s fuck buddy? No wrong answers here.

And the whole Honeybee Inn section with Cloud crossdressing was absolutely terrific. Less terrific was the whole Don Corneo section. Some pretty gross implications with Tifa and Aerith being gassed, then left to be gang raped by the dudes that work for Corneo. That made his whole over the top, bumbling persona play pretty poorly for me. Then again, maybe the developers wanted me to feel uncomfortable and to really hate that dude. Mission accomplished. 

The DLC centered around Yuffie was a blast as well. She’s fun to play, the Fort Condor minigame was more engaging than it had any right to be, and it got me ready to go for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth which should be out within the year. I do wish Yuffie would button her shorts all way up considering her age, but that’s a me problem. Playing Crisis Core sold me on Zack as a great foil to Cloud personality-wise. I’ll take oblivious and optimistic over mopey and brooding any day of the week. 

I’m all in on whatever Square Enix wants to do with the franchise. Nomura take the wheel. 

*Nor is it trying to, and I don’t need my Final Fantasy games to be gravely serious **Final Fantasy 7 Remake will forever be entrenched in my mind as last game I played pre-pandemic.

[bmaxwell]

Marvel’s Midnight Suns

The modern XCOM games have always been near-misses for me. I like my tactical combat games, but the “elite military versus aliens” theme does nothing for me at all, and I find the XCOM brand of challenge more frustrating than delightful. When I heard that the longtime series lead Jake Solomon was making a new tactical game based on a Marvel property, I didn’t pay much mind. The news that the game would have card-based gameplay piqued my interest a little, though it seemed to have the opposite effect on most people. 

It was Solomon’s interview on Waypoint Radio* that convinced me to get the game. His passion for the source material - Marvel’s Midnight SONS, a superhero team that appeared mostly in a crossover capacity in the nineties - was infectious. He talked openly about the challenges of making a Marvel XCOM game, namely how having superheroes with a % chance to hit and miss doesn’t feel good. He wanted a fun way to bring some randomness to the combat that somehow felt in line with the superhero power fantasy. He’d also been playing a lot of Slay the Spire lately...

Fast forward to December of 2022, and I’m mulling over whether my top game of the year is Elden Ring, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, or Midnight Suns. It was pretty close. My hope was that the card-based tactical battles would be fun, and that the rest of it would be passable, or at least easily ignored. What I got was a game where, like Hades, the play switches between 2 experiences that I find equally engaging. And, like Hades, this often resulted in me sitting down to play for a little bit, then spending many hours with the game. 

You play as a hero created for this game called The Hunter. You are the offspring of Lilith, waking after a long coma, to deal with your dear old mom and the impending return of Cthon.*** You are living in a monastery with Lilith’s sister The Caretaker, and a ragtag team of superheroes called The Midnight Suns - consisting of Blaze, Nico, Magik, and Ghost Rider. You’ll eventually get mixed up with Spider-Man, Wolverine, Captain America, Dr Strange, the Hulk, and more. 

It didn’t take long for the abbey to feel like home to me. You’ll spend half of your time there, as you upgrade your cards, explore the grounds, and build social bonds with your superhero buddies. I did not expect to find this as engaging as I do. The writing is fun and fits the style I expect from a comic book series. After a mission I looked forward to swinging by the forge to see which upgrades Tony Stark had for me, training with Blade, and maybe attending a book club which may or may not be a way for Blade to try to get to know Captain Marvel better. Who could say?

When you’ve exhausted your activities in the abbey, you choose a mission, select a crew, and head out. You’re generally choosing 3-4 heroes to take along on a given mission, and the opportunity to find synergies between them was a constant joy for me. They each start with a small pool of cards that you can improve and expand upon, but the deckbuilding never gets overwhelming. There’s a lot of freedom and room for creative play here. Like 2022′s excellent Sparks of Hope, you can generally spend as much time as you like each round swapping between your characters until you are ready to pass the turn to your enemy. 

The combat missions feel like playgrounds. You’ll be leaping off of things onto bad guys, knocking them across the map into one another, slamming into streetlamps, and other stuff you’d expect from a comic book brawl. There are henchmen who die in a single hit, standard enemies that take a little more effort, and then tough bosses. The cardplay is a joy. You are building combos by taking out bunches of weaker henchmen, and making the occasional huge flashy attack, as well as everything between. Use the environment to your advantage, knock dudes into your allies for a combo, or smack them into an electric fence to stun them. These attacks always feel weighty and satisfying, and between choosing your team composition and building their decks there is a ton of room for customization. The pool of cards for each hero is small, so the deckbuilding element never takes center stage. 

I was always looking forward to the next thing. The next hero to be added to the team, the next new card to unlock or upgrade, the next mission, the next hangout session with a teammate. Lord help me, I even found the story engaging. I don’t generally care for superhero stuff, and videogame stories are pretty hit and miss for me. There I was though, tweaking the deck for Captain Marvel, debating whether to spend time hanging out with Nico or Wolverine,** and worrying about whether Scarlet Witch would be okay.

Before I knew it, the game had its hooks fully in me. For a few weeks, this game was constantly at the back of my mind. If I wasn’t playing it, it was rattling around some part of my brain. The game failed to meet sales expectations which isn’t surprising to me (card games usually don’t have huge mainstream appeal) but it’s still disappointing. I heard a lot of complaints about the writing too, which surprises me. Marvel’s Midnight Suns might just be one of those games that hits me just right but misses for most other people. I’ll put it on the shelf alongside Days Gone I guess. More cards for me. 

* Fuck capitalism. Go home.  **Nico is the right answer here.  ***Legally distinct from Cthulhu.

[bmaxwell]

Hogwarts Legacy

Any discussion of this game has to address the transphobic elephant in the room. I’ve moved this bit to the end of this post.*

Much like Respawn with 2019′s Jedi Fallen Order, Portkey Games did the impossible with Hogwarts Legacy. They took an IP I was fatigued with and made a wonderful game in that universe. Both managed to be successful by being confident enough to tell a story in their world without going overboard referencing the movies and books we know. 

The game is what you’d expect: you are a new student at Hogwarts, you get sorted into your house,*** you attend classes, befriend fellow students, and there is something special about you. You spend a lot of time exploring Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And the scope and detail of the school are dazzling. The school feels massive, with clever little secrets and details around every corner. There are no empty, lifeless corridors to pad out the space. I wasn’t surprised at the level of polish and detail with the school, but I was still impressed by it.

What DID surprise me is how much time I spent away from the school grounds. I figured they’d include Hogsmeade, but I didn’t expect a huge, sprawling countryside. There are some cool things hidden out there, and some checklist-y, videogame-y stuff (Hello, Merlin trials). But that doesn’t matter, because you get a broom. And flying feels so good that the traversal never feels like a chore. I probably spent 50% of my time away from the school.

All of that world building doesn’t mean anything without fun gameplay and good writing, and this game has both in spades. The main story isn’t anything unexpected, but it’s well written and kept me engaged throughout my time with the game. The plot summary of “You are quelling a goblin uprising” definitely raised an eyebrow, given the parallels between goblins and Jewish people in the books. Goblins are greedy, hunched little hook-nosed guys that run the Gringott’s Bank. The wizarding world doesn’t allow them to have wands because they don’t trust them, but they’re forced to have an uneasy alliance with them because, well, they control all the money.

...yeah.

Thankfully the game’s writers did a great job with this story. The writing is thoughtful, and the game treats any LGBTQ characters as a normal part of the world, nothing more. The goblins aren’t all painted as inherently evil monsters, and there are plenty of human witches and wizards casting their lot with the baddies here. On top of that, the game doesn’t treat the students from each house as caricatures. You interact with plenty of classmates from each house, and they all feel like regular people. You see some shades of the traits we associate with the houses, but they’re not being shouted through a bullhorn.

There are a few ways Hogwarts Legacy falls short of bringing the fantasy of attending Hogwarts to life. First, there are no familiars in the game; my guess is that this was cut in the interest of time. It would have been a nice touch. Second, there is no curfew in the world of Hogwarts Legacy. A big part of the fiction is the tension of being out of bed after hours, getting up to no good and the looming terror of being caught. The last, and most jarring one to me, is the handling of the world’s “Unforgivable Curses.” In the fiction, these are portrayed as being cruel, torturous, and well...unforgivable. Using one is a BIG DEAL. In Hogwarts Legacy they are sitting in your spellbook alongside spells that set fire to your enemies, freeze them, slash them, slam them repeatedly into the ground, and more. It feels like distinction without difference.

That said, the game does make getting these (optional)** spells an ordeal where you must inflict some pain (or be the victim of said pain). I’m not sure there’s a better way to go with it. In fact, the game is better for not having a curfew. As much as it would fit the flavor of the game world, the game would be decidedly worse if you had to watch a clock and worry about getting back to your dorm before curfew. The compromises the team made with the fiction was in service of making a fantastic video game that is still evocative of the book series I once loved.

There is so much in the game that you can engage with at your leisure, as much or as little as you like. There are hidden nick-nacks around the school you can collect to get a baller set of robes. You can take part in broom races to upgrade your brooms. You get your own room of requirement where you can grow plants, brew potions, and even breed animals. You can learn new spells by attending classes. There’s a dueling club. 

In a delightful mash of good stuff, the game’s side stories are the highlight. Amit, Poppy, Natsai, and Sebastian all felt like real, fleshed out characters. I loved pursuing their side stories. Sebastian Sallow’s story was particularly moving for me. Sometimes you can see the heartbreak coming a mile away, but that doesn’t do much to diminish it.

And while combat isn’t amazing, it remains fun, challenging, and manageable throughout. They even implemented a parry system that a slug like me can work with. There’s a fair bit of freedom in the spells you choose to handle yourself with in battle. Again, not the highlight, but it doesn’t drag the experience down either. 

Every aspect of Hogwarts Legacy hits. It’s a shame that it has Rowling’s stink on it, and that the entire discourse around game boiled down to jumping to conclusions and then picking a side for so many people. It’s a special, memorable game that I won’t soon forget. 

*I believe JK Rowling has been actively harmful to the transgender community. I think this comes from a place of damage and pain from her past experiences. I can sympathize with that, but it does not excuse it. The “I don’t hate trans people, I just really really love CIS women” thing rings hollow to me; it’s similar to the tired excuse of every racist-in-denial I’ve ever heard from. She is a rallying point for hateful people who want to eradicate a marginalized community of people who just want to be free to live their lives. 

How do I square my feelings toward Rowling with financially supporting her by purchasing this game? First, she was not involved in writing it. Second, JK Rowling is going to die fabulously wealthy regardless of the success or failure of any future Harry Potter projects. I’m glad I played Hogwarts Legacy, it’s a smart, thoughtfully written game. Also JK Rowling can shit and fall in it.

**Optional? I think the unforgivable curses are optional...

***The game suggests one, but ultimately just lets you choose. #Ravenclaw