#so technically the last time i played new content at release in an mmo that WASN'T ffxiv was................. *thonk emoji*

[echthr0s]

ok I may have been a teensy bit spoiled by FFXIV. in my excitement about ESO: Necrom dropping tomorrow I had entirely forgot about one important thing -- most MMOs become straight up fuckin unplayable the day an expansion drops

[celepeace]

A monster-taming game recommendation list for fans of Pokemon

Whether you're a pokemon fanatic obsessed with all things pokemon past and present, or a veteran fan disillusioned with GameFreak's recent adoption of monetary philosophies and strategies reminiscent of other major game publishers, or looking for a monster-taming fix as you await new Pokemon content...

I'm compiling here a post of little-known games in the genre that Pokemon fans are likely to enjoy!

Under readmore cause long, but some of these games really don’t get the attention they deserve, so if you have the time, please read!

(I am also likely to keep updating and editing this post)

First up is Temtem!

Temtem is a game made by and for Pokemon fans, from the spanish indie developer Crema. Temtem is currently in early access on Steam and PS5, and is likely to remain in early access until sometime late next year. Full launch will include a Nintendo Switch release, too. Despite this, it has plenty of content to explore before full release. The developers are active, release new content on a semi-regular basis, and are responsive to the community as a whole and individuals if you happen to come across a bug you want to report.

Temtem boasts a wide variety of monsters to collect and train. It takes place in the Airborne Archipelago, a system of floating islands that orbit their star, the Pansun. The monsters inhabiting the archipelago are called Temtem, or tem(s), for short.

As far as game mechanics go, it has many similarities to Pokemon, but also many important distinctions. The biggest one, in my opinion, is that the element of chance has been removed from battle entirely. Moves cannot miss, have the same power constantly, and status afflictions have an obviously displayed countdown to when they will wear off (for instance, sleep lasts as long as it says it will last. Not 2-4 turns). PP does not exist, either. Your tems can battle for as long as their HP holds out. In place of PP, a new system called Stamina exists. Stamina is an individual stat, like HP and Attack. Each move costs a certain amount of stamina. If you go over the amount of stamina your tem has, the deficit is detracted from your health instead, and that tem cannot move next turn. Stamina passively regenerates a certain amount each turn, and items and moves exist that can heal stamina. All battles are also double-battles, you and your opponent will typically have two tems on the field at a time. This is just a few of the differences Temtem has from Pokemon, but they're some of the biggest ones.

Temtem is also a massively multiplayer game. You complete the storyline independently (or with a friend through co-op!), but in the overworld you can see other, real players moving around and interacting with the world. There is also public and area-specific chat you can talk to other players through. Despite this, all multiplayer functions are (currently) completely optional. You do not need to interact with others to complete the game.

Overall, Temtem is suitable for the Pokemon fan who is looking for a more challenging experience. Temtem is not a walk in the park you can blaze through with a single super-strong monster. For one, individual tem strength is more well-balanced than it is in Pokemon. There are very few (if any!) completely useless tems. Even some unevolved tems have their niche in the competitive scene! Aside from that, enemy tamers are scaled quite high, and you typically cannot beat them just from the exp you get from other enemy tamers. You have to do some wild-encounter grinding if you want to progress.

Temtem is a very fun game and I've already gotten over 100 hours out of it, despite only 3/5-ish of the planned content being released!

However, I do feel obligated to warn any prospective players of one thing: the current endgame is quite inaccessible. After you complete what is currently implemented of the main storyline, there is still quite a lot left to explore and do, but much of it is locked behind putting a lot of hours into the game. You kind of have to get perfect temtem to do the current PVE (and this is also somewhat true for the PVP too). By perfect I mean you have to breed a good tem and then train it to get the preferable EVs (called TVs in temtem). This takes... well, for a whole team... tens of hours. Of boring grinding. Some people enjoy it! But I don't. Regardless, the game was still worth buying because the non-endgame content is expansive and fun.

So overall, pros & cons:

Pros

Battle system is more friendly towards a competitive scene

Cute monsters

Lots of gay characters, also you can choose pronouns (including they/them) independently from body type and voice

Less difference between the objectively bad tems and good tems than there is in Pokemon

Lots of stuff to do even in early access

Most conversations with dialog choices have the option to be a complete ass for no reason other than it’s fun

Having less type variety in your team is less punishing than in Pokemon due to the synergy system and types overall having less weaknesses and resistances

At least one major character is nonbinary

Cons

Falls prey to the issue of MMOs having in-game economies that are only accessible to diehard no-life players

Related to the above point, cosmetics are prohibitively expensive

Endgame CURRENTLY is inaccessible to most players unless you buy good monsters from other players or spend tens of hours making your own. However I must add that the grind is great if you like that kind of thing and is quite easy and painless to do while watching a show or something.

Here is their Steam page and here is their official website.

Next is Monster Hunter: Stories!

This is a spinoff game of the Monster Hunter franchise released for the 3DS in 2018. If you're anything like me, and you've played the core Monster Hunter games, you've often thought "Man, I wish I could befriend and ride these cool dragon creatures instead of killing or maiming them!"

Well now you can! In Stories, as I will be calling it, you play as a rider rather than a hunter. Riders steal monster eggs from wild nests to raise them among humans as companions and guardians. And yes, egg stealing is a whole mechanic in of itself in this game.

This game works pretty differently from most monster-collecting games. You do battle (usually) against one or two wild monsters using your own, except you fight alongside your monsters too. With swords and stuff. There's armor and weapons you can smelt to make yourself stronger. Type match-ups also kind of don't exist in this game? Except they do? But not in a way you'd expect?

The vast majority of attacking moves you and your monster use fall into categories reminiscent of rock-paper-scissors. Moves can be categorized as power, speed, or technical. Speed beats power, technical beats speed, and power beats technical. The matchup of your move vs your opponent's determines how a turn will go down. If one move beats the other in matchup, then the winner's move will get to go and the loser doesn't get to do anything. If you tie, you both get hit, but for reduced damage. There's also abilities and basic attacks, with abilities basically being the same as pokemon moves, and basic attacks just being "I hit you for normal damage within this category". Also, you don't control what your monster does all the time in battle. You can tell it to use abilities, but what kind basic attacks it carries out is determined by its species' preference. Velicidrome, for instance, prefers speed attacks, but Yian Garuga prefers technical. Stamina also exists in this game in a very similar manner to Temtem.

Overall this game carries over a lot of mechanics Monster Hunter fans will find familiar (how items and statuses work for instance). You don't have to have played a core Monster Hunter game to enjoy Stories though! It's fine and is easy to understand as a stand-alone.

The story has some likable characters and is rather long (it was actually adapted into an anime!), for those of you who enjoy a good story.

I'd really recommend this one especially. If it sounds fun to you and you can drop $30, just do it. I bought it on a whim and I got a few weeks' worth of playing almost nonstop out of it, and I didn't even get to do everything! (I got distracted by Hades, oops)

Stories is also getting a sequel later next year on the nintendo switch! How exciting!

And yes, you do ride the monsters.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Large variety of cool monsters to befriend and raise

Pretty lengthy story

Every tamable monster is also rideable

Deceptively simple combat mechanics, easy to be okay at, hard to master

Incorporates some mechanics from early turn-based party rpgs like Final Fantasy for a nice twist on the monster collecting genre

Cons

Many monsters are objectively outclassed by other ones, making what can be in an actually good team more limited than you’d expect

3DS graphics inherently means the game looks like it was made 7 years before its time

Here is the Monster Hunter Stories official 3DS product page.

And here is Monster Sanctuary!

Monster sanctuary is a game that just had its 1.0 launch- meaning it was in early access and no longer is! Although the devs say they still plan to implement a few more things into the game in future updates. It is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4.

Monster sanctuary is a metroidvania twist on the typical monster collecting game, meaning it is also a sidescrolling platformer in which you use abilities you gain throughout the game to explore the world around you. The abilities in this case are the monsters you get! Every monster has an ability that helps you traverse the sanctuary.

Speaking of the sanctuary, the game is set in one. The monster sanctuary is a magically shielded area, cut off from the rest of the world, created by an order of monster keepers, people who befriend and protect the mystical monsters inhabiting the world. Humankind encroached too far on the natural habitat of monsters and were hostile to the native wildlife, so the keepers created an area of varied environments to safely protect and preserve the remaining monsters of the world.

Unlike many other monster collecting games, this game only has 5 types: fire, water, earth, air, and neutral. However, the types themselves do not possess resistances and weaknesses. Instead, each monster has its own assigned weaknesses and resistances. And yes, this can include things like debuffs, physical vs special attacks, and the typical elemental types.

All battles are also 3 vs 3! And unlike in pokemon, where you can only hit the enemies nearest, all monsters have the ability to hit any opponent they want. Turns also work a little differently in that speed doesn't exist, you just use 1 move per monster in your turn and then it goes to your opponent's turn. Your monsters hit in whatever order you want them to.

There is also a quite important combo system in this game, where every hit builds a damage multiplier for the next. Moves often hit multiple times per turn. Healing and buffing actions also build this combo counter. So what monsters you have move in what order really counts!

But the main mechanical difference between this and other games in the genre is how it handles levels and skills. Instead of learning a set move at a certain level, this game incorporates a skill tree, and you get to allocate points into different skills as you grow stronger. And jeez, these skill trees are really extensive. Monster sanctuary is a theorycrafter's dream. Each monster has a unique, specially tailored skill tree, making every monster truly able to have its own niche. You can make use of whatever monster you want if you just put thought into it!

And like Temtem, this game is not made to be beatable by children. I'm sure a child could beat it, but it's not made to be inherently child-friendly like pokemon. It's honestly quite difficult.

On top of that, you are actively encouraged to not just be scraping by each battle. Your performance in battle is rated by an automated system that scores your usage of various mechanics like buffs and debuffs applied, type matchups, and effective usage of combos. The rating system directly influences the rewards you get from each battle, including your likelihood of obtaining an egg from one of the wild monsters you battled (no, you don't catch wild monsters in this game, you get eggs and hatch them). If you're not paying attention to how the game works and making good, effective use of your monsters, you'll have a hard time expanding your team!

The music is also really good, it's made by nature to be able to play over and over and not get old as you explore each area, and the composer(s) really did a good job with this. Some area songs, namely the beach one, I especially enjoy, so much so I've actually played it in the background while I do work.

This is a game I would really recommend. If I made it sound intimidating, it is by no means unbeatable, you're just gonna have to put some thought into how you play. At no point did I actually feel frustrated or like something was impossible. When I hit a wall, I was able to recognize what I did wrong and how I could improve, or I could at least realize something wasn't working and experiment until I found a solution. It's challenging in a genuinely fun, rewarding way.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Extremely in-depth combat system

I genuinely don’t know if there’s an objectively bad monster in this game

Evolution exists but is completely optional, as even un-evolved monsters can be great

Entire soundtrack is full of bangers

Large and diverse variety of monsters to tame

Cons

Story is a little lackluster, but passable

That’s the only con I can think of

Here’s a link to their Steam page and the game’s website.

A kind of unorthodox recommendation is the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series!

Likelihood is that everyone reading this has heard of this series already, but just in case anyone hasn't, I thought I'd include it! I would categorize this as a hybrid between the mystery dungeon genre and the monster collecting genre, because you recruit pokemon as you play and can use those pokemon on your team!

If you're unaware, the mystery dungeon genre is a small subset of dungeon crawler games where you progress through randomly generated levels called mystery dungeons. Throughout the dungeons, there will be enemies to fight and items to collect. The challenge of these games is mostly due to the stamina aspect of them, in that you have to manage your resources as you progress through the level. If you go all out in each fight, you will inevitably lose quite quickly. You have to learn to win against enemies while balancing your use of items and PP, so you have enough for the next fight, and the fight after that.

Pokemon mystery dungeon in particular is famous for its stories, the likes of which isn't seen often in Pokemon games. They are hugely story-driven games and are notable for the emotional depth they possess. It's pretty normal for the average player to cry at least once in the span of the game. There's lots of memes about that specifically.

This entry in my list is also unique for being a series. So, which one should you play first? It actually doesn't matter! Each storyline is entirely self-contained and requires no knowledge of prior entries. The quality of each entry varies and is a point of contention among fans. I say you should play all of them, because they all have their merits (though some more than others.... coughgatestoinfinitycough). They're mostly distinct for the generation of Pokemon they take place in. Rescue team is gen 3, Explorers is gen 4, Gates to Infinity is gen 5, Super Mystery Dungeon is gen 6, and Rescue Team DX is a remake of a gen 3 game but has the mechanics and moves of a gen 8 game.

My only real caution is that you play Explorers of Sky, not Darkness or Time. Sky is basically a combination of the two games with added items and content. It's an objective upgrade over its predecessors, and I honestly wouldn't waste money on the other two. 

I’m not going to include a pros and cons list for the PMD series because I’m incredibly biased and it wouldn’t be an honest review.

Next is Monster Crown!

Monster Crown is a monster collecting game that seems to take heavy inspiration from early-gen Pokemon games in particular. It is currently in early access on Steam and is not expensive. I learned about it through the developers of Monster Sanctuary, when they recommended it on their official Discord.

The game has lots of charm and interesting creature designs, and an entirely new take on monster typings as well. Instead of monster types being based off of natural elements like fire, water, electricity, etc. Monster Crown uses typings that seem to be influenced by the personalities of the monsters. For instance, Brutal, Relentless, and Will are all monster types!

It also captures a lot of the charm many of us look fondly upon in early GameBoy-era games. The music is mostly chiptune, with some more modern backing instruments at times, and the visuals are very reminiscent of games like Pokemon Crystal in particular. Monster Crown is definitely the monster collecting game for fans of the 8-bit era!

The thing that stands out the most to me about this game is the breeding system. Instead of one parent monster passing down its species to its offspring, you can create true hybrids in this game.

However, it is very early access. I would consider the current build as an alpha, not even a beta yet! So temper your expectations here. I have not encountered any major bugs, but visual glitches here and there are quite common. The game also could definitely use some polish and streamlining, and is quite limited in content currently. But the dev(s) seem quite active, so I fully expect these kinks to be worked out in time!

The reviews are rather positive, especially for being in early access. I'm all for expanding the monster collecting genre, so if you're looking to expand your horizons in that sense, I would recommend you at least give this one a look! I personally had quite a bit of fun playing Monster Crown and am going to keep an eye out for updates.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Charming artstyle, appealing monster designs

Faithful callback to a bygone era of gaming

Controls are fairly simple and easy to get the hang of (and are completely customizable!)

Cool breeding and hybridization mechanics

There's a starter for each monster type!

You can choose your pronouns, including they/them!

Cons

Inherent nature of being very early access means can be clunky and unpolished at times

Also not much content as of right now, see above

User interface could use some redesign in places

Here’s their Steam page and the official website!

Here’s an oldie but a goodie, Azure Dreams!

This is one I actually haven’t played, mostly because it’s really old and therefore only practically accessible if you play it on an emulator, unless you're one of those old game collectors. Azure Dreams was developed by Konami and released for the PS1 in 1997. My impression of it was that it either didn’t sell well or only took off in Japan, because it’s actually really hard to find any comprehensive information about it on the internet.

Azure Dreams is a monster collecting - dating sim hybrid. You can build relationships with various characters and can pursue some of them romantically, although that isn’t the main draw of the game. There is also a stripped-down version that exists for the GameBoy Color, which forgoes the dating portion of the game entirely.

Azure Dreams is kind of like a mystery dungeon game in that you progress through a randomly generated, ever-changing tower using the help of the familiars you have accrued throughout your adventure. Similarly to Monster Hunter: Stories, you yourself also take part in the fighting alongside your monsters. Each time you enter the tower, your character’s level is lowered to 1, but your familiars keep their experience. Thus, progression is made through strengthening your monsters. To obtain monsters, you collect their eggs, just like in Monster Sanctuary (which, turns out, was at least partially inspired by this game!)

Due to this game being very old and on the PS1, the visuals leave a lot to be desired... but if you can get past that, Azure Dreams has lots of replayability and customization to how you play the game. To this day, it appears it has a somewhat active speedrunning community!

If you don’t mind the effort of using an emulator, and like old games, Azure Dreams just might be that timesink you were looking for in quarantine.

Honorable mentions:

Pokemon Insurgence (or any Pokemon fangame/ROMhack, really!) is a Pokemon fangame that introduces Delta Pokemon, which are really cool type-swapped versions of existing Pokemon. It’s sufficiently challenging and has a lot of variety in what you can catch in the wild, so you can pretty much add whatever you want to your team! The story is quite good, and the main campaign is multiple times longer than a typical Pokemon game’s campaign. Download it here!

ARK: Survival Evolved is NOT a monster collecting game BUT you do get to tame and fight alongside a lot of really cool extinct species, including but not limited to the dinosaurs we all know and love. This game is genuinely fun as hell, especially with friends, but I must warn you: never play on official servers. I highly recommend singleplayer, playing on a casual private server, or making your own server. Here’s the Steam page.

[writingonjorvik]

Can We Discuss Game Hiatuses?

I want to preface this enter post with the comment that I am absolutely not saying "Oh, if you're not enjoying SSO, you should just leave the community." That's a bad argument used against criticism that I do not promote. However, I am going to talk about how if you're not enjoying SSO, why you should take a pause from playing.

I'm going to generally credit @centeris2 on this topic, because while I'm not using direct quotes (because private convos aren't exactly the style I want to use for Can We Discuss), we had a long conversation about this topic and she made a lot of good points for this that I wanted to discuss. Some of these points are based on her opinions, a lot of out thoughts blurred together so it's hard to directly credit, and she gave me the ok to talk about it and use her thoughts.

In any case, let's start with the fact that it is perfectly normally to like something and still drop it for years at a time, or to not directly engage with it. For instance, I adore the Legend of Zelda franchise (were it not obvious from my recent to be rescheduled event), but I haven't personally picked up a LOZ game for a year-ish now when I replayed Minish Cap. That doesn't revoke my LOZ fan card, that's a perfectly normal thing to do. Most of you will have done this throughout your life, more and more recognizably as you get older.

This however can get blurred by fandom. It is very often that folks with hyperfixations on a thing, who may or may not engage with something more regularly than other media, will get involved in fandom and make a lot of content for that fandom. These people can produce loads of content on a piece of media and this can fuel a community, even if the rest of the community isn't actively engaging with that media. It also doesn't specifically mean that people with hyperfixations are constantly engaging with that media. Going back to that LOZ example, I wrote LOZ fanfic for years without actively playing more than one LOZ game maybe a year or two. Content can be queued, be entirely original outside of the media, and still last a long time and engage with the fandom at large.

The point is to say, even if you make content and enjoy a piece of media, you don't have to actually be playing/reading/listening/watching it constantly. In fact, normally modern fandom culture makes that pretty easy to do, though it can sometimes make us feel like we're still engaging directly with the media even if we're technically not. But it's good to take a step back and acknowledge that. A lot of younger fans in fandom have a hard time with this, which is why I'm taking the time to point it out. A lot of young fans will hyperengage in a fandom because they want to be involved in this fandom they love, only to burn themselves out and be turned away by their frustration. It's important then to acknowledge this scenario to encourage better, healthier involvement with fandom. Still, in this situation, you can easily bow out of a fandom if you need to take a break and then come back when something new happens in it, like a new release or update. This may feel like a fandom "dies" when a piece of media ends, but for active media, it's a normal and healthy thing to do.

SSO on the other hand does not encourage the ability for people to take a break, or at least it does it at the detriment of the player. Because of the weekly updates, players are constantly checking for the chance that there is something interesting coming out. This is somewhat addressed by the monthly roadmaps the team has been putting out, but that also just extends the period of time people are waiting for news and they're still staying in the release cycle for more clarification. For instance, we know Silverglade Village is getting an update at the end of the month, but knowing SSO's release cycle, are they going to tease some more of the changes? Are they going to reveal how wide the area of update is going to be? Will any NPCs get updates with it? This is still in the weekly cycle and it keeps players from building up actual suspense for updates if we know when content is coming out. It also takes away a lot of suspense when the content isn't main content, like new areas or story. While the suspense for the Fripp quests I would say were quite large, I wouldn't say that any of the other updates have shared the same attention. This is why most companies will release roadmaps for quarters or for a year.

And this isn't to say that SSE as a company shouldn't be releasing media content weekly, they should. That's good social media. But there are ways to engage with fans that don't drag out a reliance to engage weekly, things like community contests, highlighting fans, or promoting fanmade content. But when every update is super in the eyes of social media, fatigue and apathy are going to start to kill actual excitement unless it's something major.

I don't think it's a secret that I think the weekly updates aren't good for the game on the development side. I think it creates a pseudo-crunch culture on the developers so that they can't work on larger projects that players are asking for, like an engine overhaul (it took FFXIV two years to do theirs, when are the devs supposed to have time on SSO to switch now). But, I also don't think it's good for the players. Yes, there's something every week, but how are players actually engaging each week and how much time can we build up anticipation or get excited when each week that gets diffused by something that's not super exciting the majority of other weeks? Which doesn't mean that that content is bad, but it clearly builds frustration in the community to have "filler" content. When's the next story quests, when's the next map expansion, when's the next major mechanic being added, etc. We're constantly discussing the next big thing and then finding reasons to be excited in the meantime. This does not spark joy.

But in order to take a break, either you need to be on top of your Stable Care (likely to pull you back in), or just stop caring about your horses while you're away (unlikely considering the horse girl is strong in this community). The first requires Star Coins, which is arguably saying "You have to pay real money to take a break," and the second is actively punishing you mechanically for not being committed to playing. Neither of those allow the player to take healthy, normal breaks from the community to engage in other things. And that's an issue.

Yes, MMOs need regular engagement. Active servers and participation are a part of what makes them more marketable. But there are ways to do that without penalizing players. And I'm not suggesting that the care system needs to be entirely removed, but it does need to be entirely reworked so players can leave the game without coming back penalized. Things like the care system not affecting stats, but increasing your RNG for finding doubles of crafting items, or doubling your shilling rewards from dailies. WoW's inn system rewards players for taking breaks by double your exp gain longer depending on how long you were away. Others like Guild Wars 2 will give you log in rewards that build up to bigger prizes over time. There are ways to do this.

And I understand that a lot of folks like the current care system because it's realistic. But there has to be a line in game development where enjoyment in a game is prioritized over the realism of the game, not to mention the health of the player. Yes, the daily care system is more realistic, but if it is developing an obsessive habit of play to enjoy content that is, realistically, months to years down the line, that's not good for the player and should be changed so players can break from the game without coming back to punished controls. There are better systems that can still be realistic, things like crafting feed schedules to recover health boosts faster instead of having to see the vet, increasing how often the mood goes up so it doesn't take a whole week, changing it so when taking a horse for a ride the mood will increase every 10 or so minutes by engaging with a horse you like. Rewarding players for getting on and playing the game instead of making them dread missing when they should be coming back with excitement for the game.

All of that said, I want to encourage all of you to play more games where you can. I know there are system limitations, restricted budgets, and sometimes regional limits because of limited languages or just straight regionlocks. But in the same way reading makes you a better reader and writer, gaming makes you a better gamer (and developer/designer if you go that route). It helps you identify what you like in games and in the same way that reading other things makes coming back to your favorite all that much better, so does playing other games. I'm going to reblog this in a bit with some games I'd recommend with links to Steam and Epic and I'd encourage you all to do the same.

The takeaway I hope to give is that it's normal and healthy to take a break from games. You can still engage with media without directly engaging with it through fandom. SSE can do more to not penalize players for wanting to take a break, and should. And where you can, you should play more games and break for the health of your relationship with a piece of media you like.

[macgyvertape]

I find my self deeply frustrated by Bungie Vaulting Forsaken and the Tangled Shore. I had a lot of reservations when Bungie announced they were vaulting about half the game last summer, and I did talk about my mixed feelings about the trade off on other sites. That yes it improved the health of the game from a technical perspective, it set a precedent I don’t like.

With announcement of continued vaulting, with the implication Bungie will vault an old expansion ever new release, I’m feeling extremely Bungie critical. No other MMO vaults old expansions like this, and I hate this trend of building an “evolving world” by trashing old content I paid for and still enjoy. Maybe if more things came out of the content vault I would have better opinions but Bungie’s statements have led me to expect to never see Vaulted locations like Io or a Titan again.

Side note: why announce that Forsaken will be vaulted in 4 months, but keep charging for it for about half that time? I’m sure they want to tie in to celebrate the 30th anniversary but sucks for some people I know who just bought that DLC recently.

A lot of people are arguing that: 1) 3 years is a long time to have content it’s expected to get your money’s worth by then, 2) it isn’t story relevant and no one goes there anymore.

1) this is the biggest Your Milage May Vary point. If I buy an expansion I expect to be able to play that expansion storyline maybe with some minor changes until the game shuts down. Otherwise expansions are just extra long season passes. I enjoy replaying old games even if I’ve already sent hundred of hours into, and it’s such a matter of taste of “get your money’s worth” that it can’t really be argued well.

2) I don’t care if something isn’t currently story relevant in Destiny, it still has worth. Bungie takes literal years to circle back around to plot points. I could write a lore essay about a lot of currently relevant characters besides Crow are still heavily influenced by Forsaken and I could make a compelling argument about how chunks of Shadowkeep and even Beyond Light aren’t current story relevant. I enjoy going to the Tangled Shore just to run around: I think it’s a unique space hulk inspired area with great music, I like the strikes (even The Fanatic despite the bugs), I like The Spider as a character and his bounties, and I love the lost sectors. People said a lot of the same things about old zones like Titan and Mars that no one went there and once the new content comes out no one will miss them, but funny how for the past year there’s always been a number of high engagement posts across twitter/Reddit/tumblr talking about things that are missed and should return.

Wonder if this time next year when following the trend and Shadowkeep is announced to be vaulted that there will suddenly be a lot of posts talking about how no one goes to the moon, it’s dead content, Alter of sorrows is annoying, etc…

Personally a lot of my dislike for expected future vaulting comes from how I would not have returned to play several other online games if they cut content like D2 does, and how I would not have returned to D2 if I missed that window in Season of Arrivals to binge on soon to be cut content. I already pre-ordered WQ but I’ll spend next year evaluating does my enjoyment of playing this game outweigh the knowledge that the content will be gone in 3 years.

I know software development is hard, as is communicating with clients/customers (my job is both), but It’s not like Destiny isn’t making Bungie enough money that they can’t put effort into developing other options than continuing to vault things every year. Much like how after initially doubling down on sunsetting weapons/guns in Dec 2020 the developers reversed course and sunsetted sunsetting, if the Developers announced that Forsaken would be the last DLC to be Vaulted I would still be frustrated but a lot less so. Especially if they were as transparent of how it would improve the game besides file size, as they were with explaining how fixing bugs improved after the original Content Vault.

[sodapaladin]

Top 10 Games of 2021

As usual, here are my favorite games that I played over the year, not necessarily ones that came out in 2021.

I’ve decided not to include Deltarune chapter 2, because it’s technically part of the same game I already awarded last time, but know that it’s incredible. Now, the annual list!

10. Mario Party Superstars

After half a dozen disappointing Mario Parties, we finally got what fans have been begging for. While there are still some glaring issues, such as the completely busted coin economy and some puzzling minigame choices, I’ve been having a blast with my friends.

9. New Pokemon Snap

At last, a fantastic sequel to the original fun novelty. It’s so charming to see Pokemon living their normal lives in the world. From many of my favorites to some surprising, often forgotten pokes, I enjoyed discovering the many secrets in this relaxing game.

8. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX

While BDSP disappointed many with its faithfulness taken to a fault, the Mystery Dungeon remake had the perfect mix of new and old. While it stuck to the original three generations of Pokemon like the original game did, it also added all evolutions of those Pokemon that appeared later, such as Mamoswine and Sylveon. As a result, the roster felt totally natural. The QoL additions are much appreciated, and there’s so much content to explore. I loved the music, too; the remixed medley of songs from Gates to Infinity is absolutely lovely, even though I hadn’t played that one. I could easily see myself pouring dozens more hours into this.

7. GameCenter CX 2

AKA Retro Game Challenge 2. Such a shame the original was the only to get officially localized. The experience of playing games with your friend, looking up tips in magazines, and waiting for new game releases as a kid is done so well in this charming nostalgia trip. They could have easily made all of these simple minigames, but they’re all legitimately fun games in their own right. I haven’t even touched the RPG yet, but it’s apparently a full thing with legitimately interesting mechanics.

6. Yooka-Laylee

You heard me right! As a huge fan of Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie, I was looking forward to this, but then put it off for a long time in fear of disappointment. But despite hearing all the complaints, I gave it a fair shot at last, and you know what? I loved it. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be! I honestly don’t understand the hate it gets. If anything, I wish it had more levels. The space one was so cool, and I even loved the casino level. It’s a proper Banjo game in my books, and I’m bummed that the sequel wasn’t also a 3D platformer.

5. Pokemon Card GB2

Another game that tragically didn’t get an English release. The Pokemon TCG was already done well on GBC, and the sequel continues it by including the entire original game’s island, plus a whole new one. The addition of even a single new expansion adds a lot of variety to the game. And that soundtrack! Wow! The normal Team GR battle theme is one of the best Pokemon songs, forever trapped on a Japan-exclusive spinoff game. More people need to hear it.

4. A Short Hike

The definition of “charming.” True to its title, you can see just about everything in the game in an hour or two, but what a lovely hour or two you’ll have. What else to say other than it makes me feel warm inside?

3. Lisa: The Painful

The complete opposite of my last pick. Equal parts depressing and hilarious, this bizarre game gave me an unforgettable ride. On top of the dark humor, the game’s also a lot of fun, with many unique party members. I can’t get the Shenmue grunt sound effect song out of my head.

2. Final Fantasy XIV

Hoo boy. It was really difficult to decide between this and my #1 pick. I had never played an MMO before, and never thought it would appeal to me. But when a friend started the free trial over the summer, I figured eh, I’ll give it a shot. And boom, now it’s half a year later and I’m going to themed cafes with guildmates. My idea of MMOs had always been grinding to fight difficult bosses with minimal story. I didn’t expect to fall in love with a fascinating world. I’ve joined a wonderful free company (read: guild) and made many great friends through it. I’m having the time of my life, and I can’t wait to start Shadowbringers soon.

1. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

This is the kind of game you wish you could experience for the first time again. Not since 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors have I had my mind blown to such a degree. There are many mystery games that make less sense the more you think about them, but 13 Sentinels is a game that rewards you for connecting the dots. I love how many times I looked into the timeline and realized how everything fit together. Rather than just outright lying to the player, which makes mysteries feel cheap, the game gives you multiple perspectives. What seems like the obvious truth to one character then plays out entirely differently when you see it from another angle. All of this on top of a kaiju-fighting mecha RTS game that’s surprisingly fun once you get the hang of it, which has tons of postgame levels. If you’re not into visual novels, you may become bored from the tons and tons of story. It’s definitely a VN at heart. But if you’re into mysteries involving sci-fi tropes like giant robots and time travel, this love letter to them is an incredible experience.

[repentantsky]

5 Companies That Have Too Much Hype Around Them

Look, we all love our favorite games with a passion, and to an extent that’s fine, but when that passion becomes obsession and that obsession becomes forgetting our own moral compass for the sake of entertainment, it does feel like it’s gone too far. It’s one thing to love what a company releases, it’s completely another to ignore every problem they’ve ever had. Not all of the companies on this list have done horribly un-ethical things, but they’ve at least been anti-consumer, and the fact that people don’t question that enough has led to them sometimes, making horrible mistakes. I am RepentantSky, I love making lists that trash on things that are popular, and these are 5 companies, that have too much hype around them.

5. Nintendo

Already I can hear people getting angry, and in a way I get it. Nintendo is for many people the place where they either begin to play games, or the place they go to keep on playing them when everything else let’s them down, and of course, they put an end to the flipping video game crash of 1983, and no one else will ever be able to claim that from them. That’s all wonderful, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be critical of them. I’ve talked about a number of things they’ve done wrong before, so let me quickly run down the list of some of their anti-consumer practices. They, charge too much for remasters and ports, they don’t drop prices in games, they used to charge for fixing Joy-Cons and now completely deny it’s a problem for legal reasons, despite everyone pretty much having experienced drift, they haven’t been good at getting stock for their items in at least 20 years, and oh yeah, they sell all the content for a remake for $115 on the 3DS, the system and the fans that helped them get by while the Wii U was massively underperforming, all while handing owners of the, at the time, unproven Switch, free content. Nintendo has a tendency to still think like a toy company, and they even used that idea to present the Nintendo Entertainment System as a toy instead of a console when they first game to the West with it, but they aren’t a toy company, their a gaming company that also sells toys, just like everyone else. I get they’ve done amazing things, I own over 150 physical handheld games from them, and a ton of digital games besides, but when they start charging twice what they are worth for SD cards, while releasing games that absolutely won’t fit on the limited space of the Switch, and they simply don’t care when costumers complain, it’s time to at least question their motives.  

4. Bethesda

Boy I used to really rip on this company back when I posted lists on Facebook, but I haven’t done it in a while, so let’s do it again. Bethesda has absolutely spent at least the last 10 years lying to people, Todd Howard, has become famous for it, but I think I might have been the only person who wasn’t shocked when Fallout 76 was the disaster that it was. There were so many things wrong with that game, that I don’t even have time to go over every little thing, but lying, you know the thing that will get another company on this list very soon, was a big thing they did with the game. They promised at one point that they weren’t ever going to charge for items in the game that gave in-game benefits, and they did, allowing ammo and other items to be bought with real money for a time, they promised new, specialized servers if you paid for a yearly service that was way too expensive, and that wasn’t true because people found proof of things missing from what would have been a freshly made, private server, and there’s no excuse for that, games in early access do that correctly, and they aren’t, at least supposedly, even finished yet. I wish I could say that’s all they’ve done, but they also bullied an indie developer over their game Prey, a game they may have bullied the original developer for so they could get cheaper, but we’ll never know because they refused to comment on that when asked, they also refused to update their outdated game engine for years, which caused something they spent over a decade fixing, games releasing with glitches, some of them game breaking. Yet somehow, they have such a fan base that those who love their games will claim the glitches are just part of the charm. That kind of fierce loyalty led to Fallout 76, and even though we make jokes about it even now, the horse DLC from way back in the day, was an indication of everything they’ve done, including trying to charge for mods made for free, meant to be consumed for free, twice. Bethesda is a bad company and they do not care. 

3. Activision/Blizzard

You know one of the worst things Nintendo does that I didn’t really mention directly in the first entry, is limit the amount of time a product is available, instead of just letting it be there for consumption as long as it’s selling (that was what the toy company reference was about if it wasn’t clear). However, Activision/Blizzard are the Kings of doing this, as they not only limited things while they were in control of Destiny 2 to the point where you pretty much had to use real money to get everything, and never mind everything else they did to it, because we’d be here all day going through it all, but they also don’t support games as a service titles long enough for dedicated fans. Crash Team Racing Nitro fueled, is a prime example of this. People weren’t done with that game, and when fans thought for even a split second that an update was going to come to fix an issue, their hype (mine to) was so explosive, it was almost like we were getting a new game, but then nothing happened, because they didn’t care. A lot of companies that do yearly release titles as a service have this problem and nothing exemplified that more for Activision, than Skylanders, a series originally made off the back of Spyro, who didn’t even wait for a year to release new games, as technically between October 21st and November 20th of the year the first game came out, they released three of them, and I’m not even kidding. Two of them, were mobile games! You might have thought I was going to go after Call of Duty, for this, but that horse has been beaten to ground, somehow, more than Skylanders was. They also, for whatever reason, released each expansion on different generations console generations, at different months throughout Fall, like somehow the season of Fall, they needed a release every month, if not two, and so off they went. I didn’t even get into Blizzard, but all I need to say is “Blitzchung” and all the memories will likely come flooding back. There’s also the fact that in two separate years, after gaining massive profits, they dropped hundreds of employees, and hired more than they’d let go, but I guess that doesn’t really matter to some of you, because when they did it this year, with so little warning, most employees found out via the news articles about it, but we all made such a little stink this time around, it didn’t create any media buzz, so I guess that doesn’t matter, you’d all rather play flipping World of Warcraft, like better MMO’s don’t exist. 

2. CD Projekt Red

I know this one comes off a little more fresh in the mind, and they technically only lied about one game, but man, what a series of lies it was. Also, let’s be honest, one major game, does not a great developer always make. CDPR’s previous two Witcher games did exactly what the author of the books thought they would, and that was almost nothing in terms of making a serious impact, and the reason is, they are kind of bad. They aren’t the worst games out there, but there is a good reason why The Witcher 1 and 2 haven’t been ported and/or remastered, despite how important they are to the story of Witcher 3, and that’s because they both suck. Cyperpunk 2077, was in a lot of ways, them just going back to being the developer they were before, the BIG ONE happened. They lied about nearly everything in regards to the game, including how the main platforms where consumers were going to buy it, were actually running well. I made those references to Witcher 1 and  2 for a reason, although if I’m being honest, they actually look better than Cyberpunk did on day 0, and that’s completely unacceptable. The budget for CDPR was basically nothing for Witcher 1 and 2 combined to what Cyberpunk got, but they were so focused on the PC versions because PC ran the game better, somehow (like maybe because they didn’t try with consoles) and they missed glitches that were so bad, the game felt like it was still in beta, if not alpha upon release. The fact that they’ve only released eleven games in twenty-three years, and only two of them didn’t have The Witcher on them, should have told us all we need to know, and yet the game, even after returns, which was another massive screw-job that led to Cyberpunk being removed from the PlayStation store, still sold Sixteen million units, all because of hype, and because apparently, some people don’t care if they’re lied to. Do you want to know what the other game they released is besides a Witcher title? It was flipping Saints Row 2, a fun game, but also one that’s too goofy for it’s own good, and yet suddenly makes Cyberpunk’s release, make sense, because it was all a massive joke, and a parody of good, well running, open world games. CDPR needs to seriously do something, anything different, and never release a game in this poor of a state ever again.

1. Ubisoft

I put Ubisoft at number one for a damn good reason, and that reason is, that everyone seems to hate the company, but loves their games, and I don’t know why. They haven’t been the overall worst company on this list, although they are pretty bad, but the major problem they have, and have had for at least a decade is that none of their games have any identity, they are literally all the same game, with different coats of paint. Sure, an occasional gem sneaks through like Assassin’s Creed IV, but all of the rest of their games have the same visual style (although ACII does seem to be the base for which they create their art let’s be honest), the shooting mechanics they have in all the games that have guns, all feel exactly the same, which is something even Call of Duty manages to avoid most years (guess I took a shot at them anyways) and yet somehow, someway, I keep seeing people getting excited for their releases, and it doesn’t make any sense. Sure, they throw a celebrity actor in from time to time, and the artistic style they use does look pretty cool, but everything is always the same with them, every single time, no matter what it is, and they still keep making money. It doesn’t really make sense either, because a lot of developers do make games that are very similar feeling, see the Life is Strange team or much as well all loved them, Telltale Games, but at least those titles told extremely interesting stories, and developed their mechanics at least a little, which is something most companies do just on principal, but not Ubisoft. They throw out a few Tom Clancy games every time they talk about what their releasing, the Trials and AC games are still mostly a yearly experience, and I’ll say it again, their entire list of releases since at least 2013, the year the previous generation kicked off, have pretty much all been the same. It would be nice if they made more games like Child of Light, but despite the fact that their games will likely never be as popular as Call of Duty, they keep churning out same-y shooters hoping that one day, maybe just one day, they’ll create their own CoD, and it’s just not gonna happen. The saddest part of all is that when they announce something different, something fans have wanted for years, we get The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, which was literally delayed because fans said they wouldn’t buy it unless some actual effort was put into making it, why is this company so popular that it can keep doing this, someone please explain it to me. 

And that’s my list, can you think of any other companies that are too hyped? Let me know in the notes below, hit me up with a follow if you like my content, and give me a reblog, I’d really appreciate it. Have a wonderful life!  

[ravenwolfie97]

2020 Art Summary

Yep, it’s 2021 already. 2020 is finally over. It felt like it lasted forever, and it felt like the end would never come, but here we are. Crazy how the time flew by.

I felt like I didn’t get much art done this year because of Current World Event, but I made a lot more than I thought I did. Even some of my new favorite pieces came out of this year, so I think that’s worth celebrating and looking back upon!

I was insanely productive during the first month of 2020, and looking back I was surprised at all the stuff I did, but then I remembered that that winter season was actually one of the best times of my life! I started being more socially involved, and I think my newfound drive at the time translated into all the art I pumped out this month. This is just a small fraction of what I made in January, but I only have so much space. Quite a few complex pieces in both style exploration and polishing my own style.

Apparently February was a rather intimate month. Things began to slow down in terms of my own art here, with me spending more time in social settings and school work ramping up, I didn’t have as much time to coop up in my room to draw. I did wanna do something for a friend’s Valentine’s Day OC art challenge, so I drew my lovey-dovey couple from Dance of 1000 Words havin’ a dance. Nothing actually came of that challenge, but it was fun to do regardless.

One of the things I was most proud of in the winter season was making more friends, and one of the closest friends I made was completely coincidental. I met a person named Kiri on the bus one night I decided to volunteer somewhere by myself, and we ended up chatting and getting along. They quickly told me their tumblr username, and I shot them a message immediately after they left. A couple days later, we met up for brunch, and we started becoming really close friends and creative partners!

Not much else happened in March cuz that’s when Current World Event started becoming an issue, but Kiri and I still kept in close touch and we randomly started developing a concept for a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Galar Edition. These are a handful of characters we thought up, with Skipper the Scorbunny and Dross the Dreepy as the main characters, Morgrem as the main antagonist, and some shopkeepers such as those of the Greedent Bank and the Indeedee General Store. This was also my first time drawing all of these Galar Pokemon (except Scorbunny, but I also made Skipper a bit more unique than a regular Scorbunny).

Lots of events happened this month. First of all, Steven Universe Future ended, one of my favorite and most influential shows was no longer continuing. I had to do something as tribute, both as a send-off to one of the greatest cartoons in the world and as a cathartic release for my feelings towards it.

A while later, I got the opportunity to start playing an MMO in beta called Fer.al, by the same people who made Animal Jam, which coincidentally I had also beta tested for back in the day. I ended up getting really attached to my first character, a Senri I named Sasha, and though I’ve made more characters than them since, they’re still my absolute favorite. Though I haven’t touched the game in a few months, I was really engrossed for a long time and enjoyed playing through the beta and early access phases.

At the end of the month, some friends of mine invited to a roleplay group with some mutuals, and we all played characters in a crime syndicate. Just a bunch of ragtag thieves and criminals who ended up together in order to protect an artifact called the Crown of Thieves, which was essentially a flag to be taken by other groups to prove that they are the best thieves in the land. My character was based heavily on my sona (if it wasn’t obvious) and was also influenced by Cloud Strife, since the FFVII Remake had just come out and I was super into watching the cutscenes at the time. My character’s (code)name is Valkyrie, and they are a mercenary, going between multiple different employers to carry out whatever duties they need to do. They have a more complicated backstory, but presently they were recently hired by recommendation of their friend Shark (played by @shmoots-universe​ who is also My friend now ily maya) who works with a group called the Court Cards who are currently in possession of the Crown of Thieves. Valk never really had a place to call home, but staying with this group of people had to be the closest they could get to that feeling. They still sleep with a knife under their pillow because of trust issue but that’s okay.

Okay, so technically these examples started in April, but I continued making content with them in May, and the month was just pretty void of art in general, so here I am addressing them.

There were two main things I worked on this month: a Steven Universe AU of my own and the whole #sixfanarts thing that kicked off around then. Let’s start with the fanart bits. I did two and a half of them (six in April and nine in May), and it was so much fun to be able to draw stuff I don’t normally do! My personal favorites are shown here: Blake Belladonna from RWBY, Roll from Megaman, Yuki Konno from Sword Art Online, and Link from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The other thing I’d been planning for a while was a Steven Universe AU, probably to cope with the show being over but also because I was inspired by a lot of those SU AU artists I started following at the time. I won’t share the details here because it’s gonna have its own blog at some point, but the example I’ve shown here is of a comic I made loosely in order to introduce a divergence in the plot of the story as well as introduce a character unique to my AU. It was a lot of fun figuring out how to draw the characters and get a feel for the style.

As the year progressed, my amount of art I made per month began to dwindle, this time mostly because school was kicking my ass especially hard with finals. However, I took what time I had to get some backburner pieces finished, like the Tigerlily picture which I sketched out a couple months back, and the Gunvolt picture which I started working on SIX YEARS AGO. I don’t quite know why I got the urge to work on it again after so long, but it was nice to finally realize. The other drawing for DOTS was done in the dead of night but I was really happy with how it came out.

Despite only having two summer classes left of school, this month was really rough because they demanded a lot of my time and attention. I did not have the gumption to do anything digital, so I stuck to my sketchbook to get out what I felt like getting out.

My friends and I did a stream of the game Helltaker, and I really enjoyed the concept, so in following my friends I made my own Helltaker demon OC named Raksha the Ravenous Demon (it’s a pun but also got mythical insp). I also got super into Hazbin Hotel at this point, mostly because the Addict music video dropped and I couldn’t get enough of it, so I doodled Angel Dust cuz I felt like it. The other drawing I did was actually a free commission I gave a friend of mine as a prize for a trivia game show I ran back in June. He along with a couple other friends got some free drawings from me for getting the top three scores, and this one in particular was fun because of how interesting it was. He wanted me to draw a video game reviewer called the Irate Gamer from a specific moment, and I decided to go ham and just make it as dramatic as possible.

University classes finally wrapped up and right after that I was in the process of moving out of my apartment and getting adjusted to living with my parents again. I did a couple of agg.io drawing sessions with my friends from the Court Cards group as well as a new Dungeons and Dragons homebrew group I had joined. I drew some more of Valkyrie and came up with a design for my DND character Qakuqtuq (or Kai for short). He is monkey grandpa and I love him.

My main focus was on finishing a polished piece for my friend Cake, whose birthday was in the upcoming month. I wanted it to be as amazing as possible, so I put a lot of time into getting more detailed and making them look good. In addition to that, I did a few TOME doodles just for fun. The creature on the bottom was for this month’s art challenge on my Discord server where we made original TOMERPG monsters, and I created Hundylow, a Crystal-element monster based on the Grindylow from English folklore.

This month was a lot more productive than the past few had been. I tried to do a 31-day art challenge called Creatober but failed to get past the third prompt because I was still swamped with other work. I’m still happy with what little I did, including the piece with my characters Kyle and Guarudan from DSWD.

I don’t remember how, but I also suddenly rediscovered an old Flipnote Hatena series called Tales of LostClan, a Warriors fan series that I would say was the most obscure thing I’ve ever been super invested in. It was what got me into the actual Warriors books, and I liked it so much I redrew the animations into a comic... twice. Didn’t get nearly as far the second time but clearly my love for this little fanfiction had not waned after nearly a decade. I felt like drawing a book cover/movie poster for the series, just to get it out there and see how much I’ve improved over all that time.

Also I felt like making a vampiresona just before Halloween because I never dress up for Halloween in art (or real life anymore, for that matter), and I wanted to do something like that for once. It was short-lived but I really liked the design!

The focus of this month was definitely on Pokemon stuff. As per usual I contributed to the current Gotta Draw ‘Em All collab, and I was tasked to draw Regieleki. It was really fun to figure out how to make it stand out and look like it was made of electricity.

I also committed a lot of my spare time to my Fakemon Gym Leaders, as I had been working on bringing them to life in the past year or so now. As of this post, I’ve finished rendering their full body poses and gym badges, but I’m still working on completing all eight VS portraits, the first half of which are shown here.

I... didn’t draw anything this month, actually. What I’m showing here was worked on in the last few days but has actually been in progress for a couple of months, and I just finished it earlier today, in 2021. But I needed to show something off, and it’s also about time I mentioned it.

Back in October, I kept seeing people rave about this game called Genshin Impact, and I was interested but not so much as to start playing it... until my friends started playing and I was like “fuck it, let’s download it”. Since that day, I have been super immersed and in love with this game, to the point I came up with my own canon based on my gameplay experiences. This also included the creation of an original player character: Astra, the non-binary Traveller. And now, I’ve finally drawn them and brought them to life.

It has been one hell of a year. I had some of the highest highs and lowest lows in 2020, lots of changes, and I have now officially moved onto the next chapter of my life now that my time at university is finally over. I’m very excited for what 2021 has to offer, and I’m going to go forward with great ambition.

[nissakii]

"You can be a hero!" - The Strongest Hero BNHA Game Review

We’re so used to watching our favorite characters fight their battles and anime as we cheer them on relentlessly. We are always on the sidelines and hope they succeed in their endeavors, but we are never in the stories ourselves.

That has now changed with the new mobile game that came out recently based on the popular anime Boku no Hero Academia by Kohei Horiskoshi.

Welcome to: Boku no Hero Academia - The Strongest Hero.

Today, a week after the global release of the game, having played a little and explored some of its features, we will dive into what the game brings to the table, the mechanics of it and what you can expect!

Makii and I worked together on this, especially since we are both fans of BNHA and love to delve deep into these kinds of reviews.

So to start off, this game has had its global release on the 19th of May 2021 and was published by Sony Pictures Television for the US and by A PLUS JAPAN for the EU already on the 18th of the same month.

Many people have pre-registered for the game release beforehand in hopes of snagging rewards, and only quickly enough the first million downloads were established in a matter of days. No wonder at all, since BNHA is one of the most popular new generation anime. There is a huge fan base surrounding it who are eager to play the game.

Before the global release was initiated, it was released by the chinese studio Xin Yuan on December 3rd 2020, which resulted in many people using VPNs and emulators to experience the charm of ‘The Strongest Hero’. No wonder the game downloads skyrocketed when it was released globally in english (more languages such as german and french coming soon), it was recorded that the players had problems getting into overloaded servers, but those problems were quickly managed.

If you have no idea what the anime or manga of BNHA is about but are still interested, let me give you a quick synopsis.

In a world where 80% of the population are born with mutant abilities called “Quirks”, the job of the superhero became more than just a fantasy in comics. Now, the police are second rate as everyone looks up to the heroes who support and save the world.

Izuku Midoriya, also known by his nickname ‘Deku’, is one of the few Quirkless humans but still admires hero-work like nobody else.

Until one day the tables turn and he ends up with his own new power, now ready to go to renowned U.A. highschool for heroes to become what he always wanted to be: someone who saved lives with a smile on his face.

Now in this game, you are the one who steps into the shoes of a young aspiring hero who wants to climb up the ladder of success and defeat all villains in your way while protecting your people.

Are you stoked now? Let’s find out more!

The Game:

Advertised as an action MMO-RPG, The Strongest Hero brings not only one but multiple different player modes that you can enjoy alone or with friends online!

Firstly, it’s an immersive story-telling game that lets you relive the actual plot of the anime Boku no Hero Academia so spoiler alert for the ones who haven’t watched it yet, this game will be dealing with the Deku’s story throughout it all.

It starts off with the first episode of the anime, showing us recaps and recreations of the anime but in the game-animation with small bits of interaction to refresh our memory on the fateful incidents that made Deku a true hero. With this retelling of the story, avid watchers of the anime can enjoy everything again from a new perspective, and new people with no knowledge of BNHA can still enjoy the game just as much.

It was even mentioned that the story campaign will be dealing with the contents of season one to three so far, with more already in planning.

So the developers made sure that the game is not only catered to its original fanbase, but to everybody out there!

Now with Deku as the first person you play as, we fast forward to Izuku who is more advanced in his skill set, as he already uses his original ‘shoot-style’ and One for All Full Cowling. You’re now a provisional Hero who just got his license, working for your own agency and completing missions all around town, meaning there is a little skip between the beginning of the game and where you actually start in Honei City.

The open-world is huge and leaves all sorts of possibilities to explore as you not only defeat villains, but also talk to the citizens and maybe even collect trash to fulfill your duty as a hero. Not only Deku is at your disposal, but currently a lot of other class 1-A students will soon fall into your hands! As Toshinori was released as a hero in the last update on May 26th we can assume that there are more to come.

Game modes:

Single player: As previously mentioned, the game will immediately lead you through the single player story campaign, as you try to keep the city safe and sound by defeating villains and completing missions.

There are next to the main-story missions the daily missions in which you ensure the city’s prosperity to get more rewards daily.

With this mode you can play with a multitude of skills and combos and the handling on the phone is very pleasant. With a left joystick on the touchscreen and skill buttons on the right you can activate the swift and powerful attacks that we already know from the anime.

There are also multiple things to do as a single-player as you can collect your daily supplies in several missions which you will need for training your hero, enhancing your gear and more limited to 20 runs for each supply with several difficulties.

Hero trials, commissions and even more features are all available despite being alone keeping you busy for a while, as some don’t even need stamina to fulfill since stamina limits the player in the missions they can do.

And if that is all too much action you can simply explore the city on your own and search for special items on your way.

This is extremely interesting for the ones who like to play at their own pace and alone to enjoy a mix of story-telling and hack n slash combat.

PvP: Contrary to the first mode, if you’re more interested in actually playing against others, ‘The Strongest Hero’ won’t disappoint in its Player vs. Player mode.

Even here we have multiple ways to play, as the Arena takes on a more classic 1 vs 1 feel in which you can defeat other players similar to other fighting-games, or the Super Co-Op battle which allows you to play 3 vs 3.

Soon we will also know what the mysterious War Zone Co-Op entails, as that feature is still to be launched.

Other Co-Op features are also the Agency assessment, the joint operation and Emergency.

Emergency shows us more of the work of a hero, in which you suddenly trigger an event that is of urgent matter and has to be completed with a team of other players quickly. Time runs out, and it is all about the true work of a hero where you have to act quick!

There is truly something for everyone in here

Not just an MMO:

Truly, this game is a lot more than just an MMO, even though its open-world is a huge part of it all.

To get your preferred heroes and play them, the game has a gacha system in place for you to pull for your luck!

Deku is in the player’s repertoire from the start, and his skill-set is very dynamic and swift with less damage but a lot more speed. His comments are just as loud as in the anime, and if that doesn’t give you any satisfaction do not worry! Every hero has his own fighting style and can be explored by playing the missions in which you will quickly deploy Denki Kaminari and Kirishima Eijiro.

The game differs between three types of heroes: Speed, Power and Technical as the three examples Deku, Kirishima and Denki already represent each respectively.

There is also knowledge that there will be Pro-heroes and even some villain characters in the mix.

The skills range extremely from heavy handed to swift or long to short range attacks. Just as varied as the fighting style is, we have beautiful animations that display the Quirks and many possibilities to use them.

Done with all the fighting? Look at the adorable dorm feature in which you can earn more stamina and organize a dorm room for your heroes. You can even make their chibi-versions run around in that room and catch a break from all the hero work.

Although the story might pester you with it’s orange glowing button in the upper right corner, you can just ignore everything and explore the gorgeously crafted open world environment(in most cases).

Yes, you can even walk up buildings!

Of course there is an autofinding feature to briskly get you to where your missions lead you, but if you so desire you can look at the urban starting world and walk around.

Since everyone else will have Deku as their first hero as well, it is incredibly amusing to see all the other Deku's running about.

The starting setting is true to the anime and shows us urban and modern Japan, with a strong hint of technological advancement.

The preset graphics on SD will give you the ability to walk around smoothly, but if your phone can take it, I urge you to at least try to up the graphics to a better resolution. The scenery is truly mesmerizing, and the art style as well as the visual effects have a huge appeal.

It’s even nicer to look at for the ones who haven’t seen enough of the BNHA universe in the anime, because now there are an abundance of regions to explore and the developers have made sure to give us a lot of eye candy.

“You” can be a Hero!:

After all this technical talk, why should you play this game?

First of all, from what I have witnessed as an excited anime watcher and manga reader, the story is catered to include the player.

It’s a lot more different than just watching Deku go through the world, you are actually responsible for how the mission turns out. It’s exhilarating to see characters from the anime like Kamui Woods and Mt.Lady talk to you and ask for help, as they are characters we didn’t see all that much in the anime. It gives the impression to be needed and included which is a great asset!

A hero doesn’t stray away from any work, so yes you will have to pick up trash from time to time or just talk to people to assess situations! Still, there are a lot of cameos of other characters like Hatsume Mei who takes care of your support gear.

Second of all, there is a lot of freedom for you.

From all the different game modes and mechanics to the story and even the split up Co-Op modes, you will have a lot of possibilities to explore and find why you want to play the game.

One thing is for certain, the gameplay has something for everyone and gives adequate rewards to you for every mission or task you clear. Features get unlocked gradually through playing the story and leveling up, which keeps the player on their toes.

One mission quickly leads to another, and it seems there is no end to what you can do, especially in the beginning of the game.

Sadly, that is also one of the drawbacks I will have to mention.

Due to the immense freedom and possibilities, the game bombards you with a lot of information. As a first time player, it’s probably that you will get overwhelmed by the forceful approach of the tutorial, but after a while it definitely gets a lot better in my opinion.

My personal highlights are the gacha system as I love to collect and work to pull my favorite characters, the story as a fan of the franchise and the co-op because I love to play the game with friends. So far I haven’t had the ability to actually play with others, but from what I’ve seen it all has a lot of potential.

Even though we’re talking about a free-to-play game, since stamina is one of the necessities to play missions etc, it is very scarce and often drives one to want to buy it, which is why the game leans towards a pay-to-win game. Still, with a bit more patience and some hard work everything is playable for free.

All in all, I shall conclude that The Strongest Hero is an honest and great attempt at making an anime based game which held a lot of expectations from the fanbase.

The immersive factors are amazing, the animations are top tier and the possibilities seem endless. At the end of the day it’s a game that is playable regardless of how much time you have due to the auto-play-function in many features and can be enjoyed in your personal way.

I hope you enjoyed our take on reviewing the game and give it a shot! If you have played it already or are planning to, please leave your personal impressions in the comments!

What a Co-Op teatime! Hope to see you again!

SUUMASHU!!

-Nissa & Makii

[thesteadydietofeverything]

Top 10 Games of 2019

This was an extremely good year for games. I don’t know if I played as many that will stick with me as I did last year, but the ones on the bottom half of this list in particular constitute some of my favorite games of the decade, and probably all-time. If I’ve got a gaming-related resolution for next year, it’s to put my playtime into supporting even smaller indie devs. My absolute favorite experiences in games this year came from seemingly out of nowhere games from teams I’ve previously never heard of before. That said, there are some big games coming up in spring I doubt I’ll be able to keep myself away from. Some quick notes/shoutouts before I get started:

-The game I put maybe the most time into this year was Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. I finally made the plunge into neverending FF MMO content, and I’m as happy as I am overwhelmed. This was a big year for the game, between the release of the Shadowbringers expansion and the Nier: Automata raid, and it very well may have made it onto my list if I had managed to actually get to any of it. At the time of this writing, though, I’ve only just finished 2015’s Heavensward, so I’ve got...a long way to go. 

-One quick shoutout to the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy that came out on Switch this year, a remaster of some DS classics I never played. An absolutely delightful visual novel series that I fell in love with throughout this year.

-I originally included a couple games currently in early access that I’ve enjoyed immensely. I removed them not because of arbitrary rules about what technically “came out” this year, but just to make room for some other games I liked, out of the assumption that I’ll still love these games in their 1.0 formats when they’re released next year to include them on my 2020 list. So shoutout to Hades, probably the best rogue-like/lite/whatever I’ve ever played, and Spin Rhythm XD, which reignited my love for rhythm games.

-Disco Elysium isn’t on this list, because I’ve played about an hour of it and haven’t yet been hooked by it. But I’ve heard enough about it to be convinced that it is 1000% a game for me and something I need to get to immediately. They shouted out Marx and Engels at the Game Awards! They look so cool! I want to be their friend! And hopefully, a few weeks from now, I’ll desperately want to redact this list to squeeze this game somewhere in here.

Alright, he’s the actual list:

10. Amid Evil

The 90’s FPS renaissance continues! As opposed to last year’s Dusk, a game I adored, this one takes its cues less from Quake and more from Heretic/Hexen, placing a greater emphasis on melee combat and magic-fuelled projectiles than more traditional weapons. Also, rather than that game’s intentionally ugly aesthetic, this one opts for graphics that at times feel lush, detailed, and pretty, while still probably mostly fitting the description of lo-fi. In fact, they just added RTX to the game, something I’m extremely curious to check out. This game continued to fuel my excitement about the possibilities of embracing out-of-style gameplay mechanics to discover new and fresh possibilities from a genre I’ve never been able to stop yearning for more of.

9. Ape Out

If this were a “coolest games” list, Ape Out would win it, easily. It’s a simple game whose mechanics don’t particularly evolve throughout the course of its handful of hours, but it leaves a hell of an impression with its minimalist cut-out graphics, stylish title cards, and percussive soundtrack. Smashing guards into each other and walls and causing them to shoot each other in a mad-dash for the exit is a fun as hell take on Hotline Miami-esque top down hyper violence, even if it’s a thin enough concept that it starts to feel a bit old before the end of the game.

8. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I had a lot of problems with this game, probably most stemming from just how damn long it is - I still haven’t finished my first, and likely only, playthrough. This length seems to have motivated the developers to make battles more simple and easy, and to be fair, I would get frustrated if I were getting stuck on individual battles if I couldn’t stop thinking about how much longer I have to go, but as it is, I’ve just found them to be mostly boring. This is particularly problematic for a game that seems to require you to play through it at least...three times to really get the full picture? I couldn’t help but admire everything this game got right, though, and that mostly comes down to building a massive cast of extremely well realized and likable characters whose complex relationships with each other and with the structures they pledge loyalty to fuels harrowing drama once the plot really sets into motion. There’s a reason no other game inspired such a deluge of memes and fan fiction and art into my Twitter feed this year. It’s an impressive feat to convince every player they’ve unquestionably picked the right house and defend their problem children till the bitter end. After the success of this game, I’d love to see what this team can do next with a narrower focus and a bigger budget.

7. Resident Evil 2

It’s been a long time since I played the original Resident Evil 2, but I still consider it to be one of my favorite games of all time. I was highly skeptical of this remake at first, holding my stubborn ground that changing the fixed camera to a RE4-style behind the back perspective would turn this game more into an action game and less of a survival horror game where feeling a lack of control is part of the experience. I was pleasantly surprised to find how much they were able to modernize this game while maintaining its original feel and atmosphere. The fumbly, drifting aim-down sights effectively sell the feeling of being a rookie scared out of your wits. Being chased by Mr. X is wildly anxiety-inducing. But even more surprisingly, perhaps the greatest upgrade this game received was its map, which does you the generous service of actually marking down automatically where puzzles and items are, which rooms you’ve yet to enter, which ones you’ve searched entirely, and which ones still have more to discover. Arguably, this disrupts the feeling of being lost in a labyrinthine space that the original inspired, but in practice, it’s a remarkably satisfying and addicting video game system to engage with.

6. Judgment

No big surprise here - Ryu ga Gotoku put out another Yakuza-style game set in Kamurocho, and once again, it’s sitting somewhere on my top 10. This time, they finally put Kazuma Kiryu’s story to bed and focused on a new protagonist, down on his luck lawyer-turned-detective Takayuki Yagami. The new direction doesn’t always pay off - the added mechanics of following and chasing suspects gets a bit tedious. The game makes up for it, though, by absolutely nailing a fun, engrossing J-Drama of a plot entirely divorced from the Yakuza lore. The narrative takes several head-spinning turns through its several dozen hours, and they all feel earned, with a fresh sense of focus. The side stories in this one do even more to make you feel connected to the community of Kamurocho by befriending people from across the neighborhood. I’d love to see this team take even bigger swings in the future - and from what I’ve seen from Yakuza 7, that seems exactly like what they’re doing - but even if this game shares maybe a bit too much DNA with its predecessors, it’s hard to complain when the writing and acting are this enjoyable.

5. Control

Control feels like the kind of game that almost never gets made anymore. It’s a AAA game that isn’t connected to any larger franchises and doesn’t demand your attention for longer than a dozen hours. It doesn’t shoehorn needless RPG or MMO mechanics into its third-person action game formula to hold your attention. It introduces a wildly clever idea, tells a concise story with it, and then its over. And there’s something so refreshing about all of that. The setting of The Oldest House has a lot to do with it. I think it stands toe-to-toe with Rapture or Black Mesa as an instantly iconic game world. Its aesthetic blend of paranormal horror and banal government bureaucracy gripped my inner X-Files fan instantly, and kept him satisfied not only with its central characters and mystery but with a generous bounty of redacted documents full of worldbuilding both spine-tingling and hilarious. More will undoubtedly come from this game, in the form of DLC and possibly even more, with the way it ties itself into other Remedy universes, and as much as I expect I will love it, the refreshing experience this base game offered me likely can’t be beat.

4. Anodyne 2

I awaited Sean Han Tani and Marina Kittaka’s new game more anxiously than almost any game that came out this year, despite never having played the first one, exclusively on my love for last year’s singular All Our Asias and the promise that this game would greatly expand on that one’s Saturn/PS1-esque early 3D graphics and personal, heartfelt storytelling. Not only was I not disappointed, I was regularly pleasantly surprised by the depth of narrative and themes the game navigates. This game takes the ‘legendary hero’ tropes of a Zelda game and flips them to tell a story about the importance of community and taking care of loved ones over duty to governments or organizations. The dungeons that similarly reflect a Link to the Past-era Zelda game reduce the maps to bite-sized, funny, clever designs that ask you to internalize unique mechanics that result in affecting conclusions. Plus, it’s gorgeously idiosyncratic in its blend of 3D and 2D environments and its pretty but off-kilter score. It’s hard to believe something this full and well realized came from two people. 

3. Eliza

Eliza is a work of dystopian fiction so closely resembling the state of the world in 2019 it’s hard to even want to call it sci-fi. As a proxy for the Eliza app, you speak the words of an AI therapist that offers meager, generic suggestions as a catch-all for desperate people facing any number of the nightmares of our time. The first session you get is a man reckoning with the state the world is in - we’ve only got a few more years left to save ourselves from impending climate crisis, destructive development is rendering cities unlivable for anyone but the super-rich, and the people who hold all the power are just making it all worse. The only thing you offer to him is to use a meditation app and take some medication. It doesn’t take long for you to realize that this whole structure is much less about helping struggling people and more about mining personal data.

There’s much more to this story than the grim state of mental health under late capitalism, though. It’s revealed that Evelyn, the character you play as, has a much closer history with Eliza than initially evident. Throughout the game, she’ll reacquaint herself with old coworkers, including her two former bosses who have recently split and run different companies over their differing frightening visions for the future. The game offers a biting critique of the kind of tech company optimism that brings rich, eccentric men to believe they can solve the world’s problems within the hyper-capitalist structure they’ve thrived under, and how quickly this mindset gives way to techno-fascism. There’s also Evelyn’s former team member, Nora, who has quit the tech world in favor of being a DJ “activist,” and her current lead Rae, a compassionate person who genuinely believes in the power of Eliza to better people’s lives. The writing does an excellent job of justifying everyone’s points of view and highlighting the limits of their ideology without simplifying their sense of morality.

Why this game works so well isn’t just its willingness to stare in the face of uncomfortably relevant subject matter, but its ultimately empathetic message. It offers no simple solutions to the world’s problems, but also avoids falling into utter despair. Instead, it places measured but inspiring faith in the power of making small, meaningful impacts on the people around you, and simply trying to put some good into your world. It’s a game both terrifying and comforting in its frank conclusions.

2. Death Stranding

For a game as willfully dumb as this one often is - that, for example, insists on giving all of its characters with self-explanatory names long monologues about how they got that name - Death Stranding was one of the most thought provoking games I’ve played in a while. Outside of its indulgent, awkwardly paced narrative, the game offers plenty of reflection on the impact the internet has had on our lives. As Sam Porter Bridges, you’re hiking across a post-apocalyptic America, reconnecting isolated cities by delivering supplies, building infrastructure, and, probably most importantly, connecting them to the Chiral Network, an internet of sorts constructed of supernatural material of nebulous origin. Through this structure, the game offers surprisingly insightful commentary about the necessity for communication, cooperation, and genuine love and care within a community.

The lonely world you’re tasked to explore, and the way you’re given blips of encouragement within the solitude through the structures and “likes” you give and receive through the game’s asynchronous multiplayer system, offers some striking parallels for those of us particularly “online” people who feel simultaneous desperation for human contact and aversion to social pressures. I’ve heard the themes of this game described as “incoherent” due to the way it seems to view the internet both as a powerful tool to connect people and a means by which people become isolated and alienated, but are both of these statements not completely true to reality? The game simplifies some of its conclusions - Kojima seems particularly ignorant of America’s deep structural inequities and abuses that lead to a culture of isolation and alienation. And yet, the questions it asks are provocative enough that they compelled me to keep thinking about them far longer than the answers it offers.

Beyond the surprisingly rich thematic content, this game is mostly just a joy to play. Death Stranding builds kinetic drama out of the typically rote parts of games. Moving from point A to point B has become an increasingly tedious chore in the majority of AAA open world games, but this is a game built almost entirely out of moving from point A to point B, and it makes it thrilling. The simple act of walking down a hill while trying to balance a heavy load on your back and avoiding rocks and other obstacles fulfills the promise of the term ‘walking simulator’ in a far more interesting way than most games given that descriptor. The game consistently doles out new ways to navigate terrain, which peaked for me about two thirds of the way through the game when, after spending hours setting up a network of zip lines, a delivery offered me the opportunity to utilize the entire thing in a wildly satisfying journey from one end of the map to another. It was the gaming moment of the year.

1. Outer Wilds

The first time the sun exploded in my Outer Wilds playthrough, I was probably about to die anyway. I had fallen through a black hole, and had yet to figure out how to recover from that, so I was drifting listlessly through space with diminishing oxygen as the synths started to pick up and I watched the sun fall in on itself and then expand throughout the solar system as my vision went went. The moment gave me chills, not because I wasn’t already doomed anyway, but because I couldn’t help but think about my neighbors that I had left behind to explore space. I hadn’t known that mere minutes after I left the atmosphere the solar system would be obliterated, but I was at least able to watch as it happened. They probably had no idea what happened. Suddenly their lives and their planet and everything they had known were just...gone. And then I woke up, with the campfire burning in front of me, and everyone looking just as I had left it. And I became obsessed with figuring out how to stop that from happening again. 

What surprised me is that every time the sun exploded, it never failed to produce those chills I felt the first time. This game is masterful in its art, sound, and music design that manages to produce feelings so intense from an aesthetic so quaint. Tracking down fellow explorers by following the sound of their harmonica or acoustic guitar. Exploring space in a rickety vessel held together by wood and tape. Translating logs of conversations of an ancient alien race and finding the subject matter of discussion to be about small interpersonal drama as often as it is revelatory secrets of the universe. All of the potentially twee aspects of the game are balanced out by an innate sense of danger and terror that comes from exploring space and strange worlds alone. At times, the game dips into pure horror, making other aspects of the presentation all the more charming by comparison. And then there’s the clockwork machinations of the 22-minute loop you explore within, rewarding exploration and experimentation with reveals that make you feel like a genius for figuring out the puzzle at the same time that you’re stunned by the divulgence of a new piece of information.

The last few hours of the game contained a couple puzzles so obfuscated that I had to consult a guide, which admittedly lessened the impact of those reveals, but it all led to one of the most equally devastating and satisfying endings I’ve experienced in a video game recently. I really can’t say enough good things about this game. It’s not only my favorite game this year, but easily one of my favorite games of the decade, and really, of all-time, when it comes down to it.

[princesscas]

mandy do u know any good xbox games? i just went for it and got one and since everythings on sale now i figure just load up on games

Nice!! I’m assuming you got a Xbox One? Cause 360 is last gen lol. Heck, I have no idea if 360 games are even sold much in retail stores anymore. Some you might have played or already own but here’s my list! It got a little long :P 

Also I don’t own a Xbox One since I’m a PC player. (also a huge nintendo fan) But since its Microsoft most games are also on PC.

Xbox One: 

RED READ REDEMPTION 2. GET IT! …If that’s your thing! (Meanwhile PC peeps have to wait up to 2 years or so for a PC port and that’s IF a PC port happens. Waiting for GTA 5 was well worth it though.) 

GTA 5. Online is 9/10 pure chaos when it comes to playing in Public Lobby’s. Story mode is amazing though IMO. I did complete through the entire story 3 times after all. 

Skyrim Special Edition. TODD HOWARD SAYS BUY SKYRIM AGAIN 

Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy. Whether you played it as a kid or never picked it up, its still well worth it. This is a remaster done correctly. 

Farcry 4 & 5. I love the Farcry series a lot but do note that for me personally, I just play through the story mode like once and then don’t look back on it until months/year(s) later to replay it. I haven’t played 5 yet but I hope it’ll go on sale soon. (Its been on sale on Steam countless times yet I’m too cheap to buy it even at 30% off lol) 

DOOM. Doom guy isn’t stuck in hell, the demons are stuck in hell with doom guy! Metal music, in hell, slaying demons. 10/10 if you like FPS games. 

STARDEW VALLEY!!! Say goodbye to every other game cause you will sink hours into this game. Its like a combo of Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing. 

Terraria. Terraria is better than Minecraft, change my mind. I discovered this game through Total Biscuit & Jesse Cox back in the day and I’ve played it since 2011, a little after release. I’ve got almost 300 hours on it lol. Its a survival game but its nothing like Minecraft. There is sooo much to do. The bosses, NPCs and hardmode difficulty really makes the game for me.

Witcher 3.1000/10 RPG. I don’t care if you have/haven’t played the first or second, this game alone is god worthy. 

Boarderlands Handson Jack Edition. Boarderlands is jam packed with content and is incredibly fun. The art style is incredible too. 

Cities Skylines. Hate the shit show EA made that is called Sim City 2013? Well then this game does it 1000x better and is made of half the people it took to make that game! Its a really good city builder, would recommend if that’s your thing. I still kinda suck at city builders lol 

Fallout 4. Its Fallout my dude, get it

Arkham Knight. All 3 Batman games (Asylum, City, Knight) developed by Rocksteady are really good, I love them so much. 

Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Legacy (Or Storm 3 or 4). If you love Naruto this is a must. The Storm games are the best Naruto games (second best was the clash of ninja series IMO) Even if you aren’t an anime or naruto fan, its a great fighting game. Online is complete garbage and has always been garbage with connectivity issues. 

Games I haven’t played but know are really good: 

Just Cause 3 & 4 (I’ve played 2 and need to get the others lol) 

Overwatch. If FPS MMO’s are your thing, go for it! Its Blizzard after all. 

Assassins Creed Series. I’ve legit lost count how many new Assassins Creed games there are. I haven’t touched one since Black Flag lol. 

SPIDERMAN. I’ve heard this game is extraordinarily good. 

Sea of Thieves. I wanted to get into this game earlier in the year but never did thanks to World of Warcraft. 

I also don’t really recommenced it at the moment but if you want to, go right ahead. Fallout 76. I’ve seen countless bugs and issues with it on Youtube/Twitch. Its technically Fallout 4 online and IMO I was never a huge fan of ESO. In my eye, Bethesda haven’t done MMOs very well. (Granted, I’m a WoW & Runescape player of 8+ years lol) 

Somebody ask me to recommend Nintendo games, I’m on a roll here! Lol I can go on for days when it comes to Nintendo. 

[zydrateacademy]

Review: Dauntless (Open Beta)

I denote that it is in fact, in it’s open beta but I’ve played betas before and typically games don’t change too much upon release. There are a few changes in the works including fixing up the rather wacky UI and some weapon buffs. I’ll elaborate more on that shortly.

Dauntless is, as many are calling, a Monster Hunter clone. This is not an insult, in the same way many ARPG’s are called Diablo clones or passable MMO’s sometimes get called WoW clones. They’re simply the codifiers of a very specific kind of game, and there is no shame in riding their coattails to a degree. I have little to no experience with the Monster Hunter franchise except for a brief stint on the PSP during a road trip with a friend. I have little memory of it, but now I have what I guesstimate to be 40 to 50 hours and have reached the current endgame. Whatever the lore is, it’s minimal. You start as a recruit (naturally) on some magically inclined airship (as they do) which crashes on a floating island where you face a single behemoth called the Gnasher. What follows is several minutes of frantic slashing as the game does very little to tell you how to play. I didn’t learn that “TAB” brought up a combo menu until well after the fact, which tells you how to use the varied weapons in the game.

It’s not necessarily as complicated as it might look. Weapons don’t typically have more than three or four combos and there’s typically one or two go-to’s that you find works for you and just stick with. With the sword, I find that three basic attacks and a dodge is enough to get some hits in and then avoid the very inevitable spin attack most behemoths do. Each weapon functions a bit differently. Chain blades are noteworthy of being part-destroyers which is vital if you want to get any crafting done. However as of the beta they are considered underpowered and not often seen in higher tiers of play. Swords are solid all around and hammers are built for staggering enemies. Axes hit hard but are slow. War Pikes are mostly support, creating wounds that let the team do extra damage to certain parts. Most weapons are capable of staggering or interrupting a behemoth which is important, and it can only happen during certain windows in their attack patterns. I’d love to say every behemoth is unique but some are very easily seen to be reskins of others. The Pangar and Hellion for example are basically just Gnashers with extra armor plating and maybe a slightly different face. However they all have a very similar tail slam attack and they’ll even roll around the same way. Drask, Nayzaga, and Charrogg all look like they share the same skeleton but still manage to function a little differently in terms of how they fight. That’s fair enough, but on a visual standpoint I wish they stood out more.

The gameplay is largely comprised of “hunts”. There are different forms of hunts but it’s all the same thing but with varied rewards depending on what you are trying to focus on. Are you suffering from a plant shortage to craft helpful potions? Go on an Expedition, where you’ll get a small boost of materials regardless if you pick them out of the ground yourself or not. You go on a Patrol when you need a boost in weapon and armor upgrades, and you can go on a direct Pursuit if you need a behemoth’s very specific part (for me it’s almost always those damn tails) but at the cost of lower resource gains. Chiefly, the gameplay is mostly just learning behemoth attack patterns and dodging the right ones or ideally, all of them. The idea is that behemoths will have certain attacks based around how they’re being hit. For example, the Pangar will kick its feet around if two or more players are slicing at its heels. If some people are hitting its tail, it will do a tail slap on the ground. Most behemoth’s attacks are random but they do follow a pattern and learning them is highly necessary, as they all have openings to exploit. I say that, with the utmost frustration when trying to fight the Kharabak, a flying insectoid type thing with openings that only last a couple seconds at a time.

He and his higher level “Razorwing” variant are easily my least favorite bosses. Attacks fast, moves quickly, rarely lands, and when he does I’m usually a mile away from all the running and strafing away from his high damage attacks. Yet his equipment boosts my stamina functionalities as well as part damage. I will not enjoy farming them. For those wondering; No, this is not an MMO. Every hunt is instanced for parties of one to four. The city will have a handful of players but they are not typically very chatty. Despite however many thousands of players actively playing right now, I never see more than a dozen running around the hub town (of which there’s only one, and could benefit from being just a touch smaller so the crafting vendors are closer together). Some may be concerned about the level of grind that may be involved and I can tell you, it’s not too bad. The game gives you quests to progress through each island and a lot of the earlier behemoths you may only face a time or two. Really, the most important part of the game is understanding the behemoths is the most vital part of playing the game well and there are a couple of learning curves that spike more than others. There’s the Hellion in the fourth island that you discover who acts as a test for players and I can tell you from personal experience, queuing with random players rarely ended in a success. Beyond a couple of walls, you only need to hunt the same behemoth a handful of times in order to get a full set of armor. This changes in the fifth island (or “tier” as they’re called) when you need more and more parts and upgrade tokens in order to maximize your equipment. In the endgame the upgrades needed become a bit more elaborate, so you will be facing the same behemoths a couple dozen times but you’ll very likely fetch some upgrades regardless.

Those upgrades come in the form of perks that can be added and removed, and consistently acquired through Slayer, Weaponmaster, and Alchemist ranks which function as the game’s “daily” system, always giving you something to focus on. In theory, you will never not progress. In practice, I find that randomly queuing with strangers in the higher tiers of play rarely ends in success, and you get nothing when you fail a hunt. Like many party-based multiplayer games, you’ll have a higher chance at progressing if you join a discord community, guild, or just gather your friends for behemoth ass-kicking. There are micro-transactions but good news, it’s all cosmetic. Well, most of it. You can actually purchase resource packs that give you chunks of useful potions which might help smooth out certain hunts. I bought one that had a whole fifteen “Bulwark” potions which reduce incoming damage by 45% for three whole hits, not even in a time window. Just three hits, whenever they may occur. I find this incredibly useful and they’re vital for keeping me in the fight.  However not one of those supply packs will give you any boost to your armor and weapon and you won’t have any technical edge otherwise, just pure utility. 

The game, as it stands, is very playable. There’s some difficulty spikes here and there, and plenty left to do once you hit the gear ceiling. It’s still an open beta so I’m not sure what their content plan is. Obviously I expect more behemoths in the future but I do hope they add some in-between tiers and not just an ever increasing top ceiling of powerfully annoying behemoths that some of the player base may never see. I hope they add more content in the downtime of hunts. I feel it could use some minor monsters to kill while looking for the behemoth, to charge up weapon meters for their special attacks and maybe gain some extra resource types to fuel some potion-like utilities. There’s much more for them to do and I’ll be happy to review it again when the time comes, where I may reiterate some of these points but time will tell if the experience improves overall. 

Happy hunting, slayers!

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

False Death in Games

Specifically, in the games industry.

This kind of thing happens in games all the time. Guild Wars, City of Heroes, and Heroes of the Storm are all games I’ve loved which are now broadly considered “dead” when as of this writing they have a current player base numbering in the thousands or tens of thousands.

Of the three, City of Heroes is the most legitimately “dead” - let’s take a second to look at what that means.

The true meaning of the word, in this context, is more like “unsupported.” CoH is, at this point, being run on servers owned and operated by fans, and no new canon content is being produced for it. While it technically has a sort of mod engine, this is very limited and only functions within a specific space, and (because CoH is/was an MMO) can’t include a sense of rewards that works the same way as the game proper.

In other words, it is a work abandoned by its original authors and its parent company, and not officially handed off to new ones.

HotS is on the opposite end - It’s appeared on an episode of “Death of a Game” but even that show admits that it’s not so much properly “dead” as... ”Diminished relative to expectations.”

What’s interesting to me is that this term - dead - is at once true and false, because of how people categorize and set their goals relative to these games.

If you think of an RPG that isn’t an MMO, is the game “dead” when the designers stop writing it? Grandia III isn’t “dead,” it’s just Complete. They finished making it. It’s present, and available. It’s no longer enormously popular, sure. It’s probably only going to be played by 100 or fewer people this year, while Heroes of the Storm will be played by 100 people by the end of the day. Yet HotS gets called “dead.” Why?

Because Heroes of the Storm is a game designed from the start with constant updates in mind. It’s also operated on servers belonging to its parent company - The other reason City of Heroes is reasonably considered “dead” is that the servers where it operated were taken offline about a decade ago. It’s been revived on fan servers, but there were some 8 years where it was literally entirely unplayable by anybody.

And the way this happens in the industry is probably the other reason the “dead” status gets prematurely tossed around. See, City of Heroes wasn’t unpopular when it got pulled. It had an avid, devoted player base. They just weren’t spending as much money as the company that owned the IP at the time wanted. So they shut the game down, and transferred the programmers and artists who’d been working on it to other projects.

This kind of thing happens all the time, and as a result when a game starts underperforming financially it’s easy to see it as “dying” or “on the way out.” Because it’s basically at the mercy of the crushing mechanism of business and mercy is something that business is pretty short on.

Meanwhile Grandia III doesn’t need support from its parent company to get played as much as before. The true death of a game like that only comes when the console it’s played on no longer exists and isn’t emulated, or when the last copies of the software are lost.

An MMO or MOBA is like a party, where most games are more like a movie or book. The experience of a book is fine if you’re the only one there - indeed, that’s the standard, expected experience. But a party without its crowd? Well, it’s kind of dead.

[EDIT!]

Wait, I never got to my point! The bit about how players set their goals for games like these! In a solo RPG game like Disgaea, the goal is completion. Now, that goal may be a long way off - I picked Disgaea because it’s expressly designed with the option to sink like a billion hours into it to complete everything, if that’s what you want. The distance, or likelihood of completion, isn’t the point. The point is that it exists and the player can see it out there. You can get enough levels on your dudes that you can win the fights that let you get through all the story bits to the end. If you want to collect, you can also try to have all the classes, with the weird requirements to earn them adding on a bit of achievement hunting.

But in a game like Heroes of the Storm, while it’s supported by its developers “completion” literally can’t be the goal. It doesn’t work as a goal in the player’s head because you can see the goalposts being moved away from you. New heroes and maps are being released all the time, and if all you care about is “get all the stuff” you’re literally allowed to just buy it, with cash. So from both ends the shape of the game’s design tells you that’s not the aspiration you’re expected to aim for.

Thus the goal for players is instead tied directly into the ongoing community - for MOBAs and similar competitive games this is the ranked ladder system.

With this in mind it’s clear why declining community numbers can make the game feel “dead.” The core of the play experience is sullied, and the goal of the game isn’t just “impossible” but broken. It’s still possible to reach the top of the ladder but you’re playing against the same people all the time, and there aren’t new characters to try out anymore so the process of expanding your knowledge base that was part of why you came to the game is just gone.

[all-time-rian-dawson-blog]

Albion Online Robot

This previous year, we could not seem to go a week without running across information of some new mobile MMO or a tablet spin-off of some existing franchise business. Albion Online is a middle ages fantasy MMORPG created by Sandbox Interactive a German company, the game is still at the beta right now as well as currently has over compared to 250.000 energetic gamers which is amazing for a game that still at the beta as well as hasn't been launched yet.

So with all this content you must be well-informed about Albion Online greater than previously, all the information and the devices released on this internet site is solely on Albion Online Hacks, i really hope that i did provide you what you looking for and the last point i must talk about is that the devices need a confirmation step prior to completely hack your data source since we obtained bankrupt before just by Robots that creep our devices and also simply send lots of resources to resellers to offer it on below ground discussion forums, the only weapon we have is a simple verification action that will be required to inject the last code.

On the First2Play site you could download this Albion Online Cheat by filling up a quick survey. By this Albion Online Cheat Tool you can produce endless lots of Albion Olnine GOLD free of charge. Last tool in Albion Online Hack Which we included is Zoom Hack Which could boost the range of sight about 3 times thanks to that, we could quickly see the target or risk.

Whatever you have to do is to download this device from this sure you will not be penalized since this tool is making use of the current modern technology of the programist. Albion Online Hack is the MMORPG game which have a large world. As we have currently mentioned Albion Online Hack is geared up in Generator, Speed Hack as well as Zoom Hack.

Albion Online rate is around 4-5 points with this tool you will be able to raise the worth to 70-80 which the optimum you can have. Gold can likewise be gained by referring brand-new players that invest real loan on founder packs. The game being in beta isn't really a reason, The game remains in beta as well as has actually not officially introduced yet, Which suggests there are alot of things that occur and by DIRECTING them out will aid getting rid of them.

The second most needed Albion Online Hack is collecting as well as mining, below we return with a very negative evaluate option that will make harvesting and also farming any kind of resources very quickly you i'll have an instant farming at a click so there's no requirement for searching throughout the web for a farming robot that does not work in the top place so we made a great looking infusing script that will certainly infuse the code directly much like the rate hack tool.

On the First2Play website you can download this Albion Online Cheat by filling up a quick study. By this Albion Online Cheat Tool you can create limitless lots of Albion Olnine GOLD for free. Last device in Albion Online Hack Which we added is Zoom Hack Which can boost the range of sight about 3 times thanks to that, we could quickly see the victim or hazard.

It is technically feasible to play on a phone, yet please keep in mind that Albion Online is not a common mobile title. . For those unknowning what I am speaking about: There are bots, there is a zoomhack that permits you to zoom out rather much simply google, i am not linking anything in here.

Grateful to see you here, so you have been hearing a great deal concerning Albion Online video game that still in beta and also already get vast array of gamers and more people are falling for it if you currently played the game you have to be one of them, with no more talking we gon na begin this journey with understanding the game itself first.

[yogpetshame]

Top Games of 2016

I thought I’d clarify my point about the sense of taste among the Yogs being a little weak and how their ethos as YouTubers is lacking due to how little variety there is in the games they play. Kim’s top games of the year was the place I noticed it first, a few years ago, and this (possibly final) run is no exception.

The first few videos pass just fine. Kim, Rythian, and Zoey are fine. I think the fact that there’s so much overlap means they should have just been making content together all along rather than competing with one another, but... it’s too late now, so I’ll continue with this post-mortem attitude.

Without further ado:

Decides that she can’t cut her list down to 5, because unlike other participants she has many games from this year she wants to name and lists:

(Honorable Mentions, Pokemon Sun and Moon and World of Final Fantasy)

10. Oxenfree (soundtrack, style, story) 9. Abzoo (relaxing, pleasant game for unwinding) 8. Stardew Valley (addicting game, relaxing, Harvest Moon-esque) 7. No Man’s Sky (was not put off by pre-release rumors, expectations of exploration were met) 6. The Turing Test (moral intrigue, strong sci-fi story, good for discussion) 5. Yo-Kai Watch (interesting monster stories, humor for all ages, a game she actually finished) 4. Paper Mario Color Splash (black comedy, good story) 3. Dragon Quest Builders (fun gameplay, good sense of humor, fusion of the lively world and Minecraft gameplay was satisfying) 2. Final Fantasy 15 (silly, but a good return to the spirit of the series) 1. Overwatch (approachable pvp/shooter for newbies with a diverse cast)

All in all a fairly diverse list, no major faults, maybe shows a bit of insulation into Nintendo games and mainstream indies but nothing more than personal taste allows. She offers a good explanation of each and maybe lacks somewhat in technical explanation, but it’s more than passable.

(Honorable Mentions: Overwatch, Stardew Valley, Deus Ex Makind Divided)

5. Warcraft Legion (revised leveling process to better involve the character) 4. Dark Souls 3 (similar reasons to prior Dark Souls games - satisfaction of victory, story delivery) 3. XCom 2 (character customization, gameplay) 2. Hitman (despite technical issues and delivery, beautiful game with lots to do) 1. Dishonored 2 (sequel to his favorite game ever... kind of hard to summarize because he goes on for about ten minutes)

Again, very passable. He manages to get fairly technical here and there and goes beyond vague explanations of what factors in the game are good and into what about them was especially good, even in comparison to other games.

5. Dishonored 2/Hitman (fun for streams, lots of approaches and things to do) 4. Pokemon Go (encouraged her to go outside and be active - a summary doesn’t really do the explanation justice but there you go) 3. Warcraft Legion (a return to form, better than Draenor) 2. Overwatch (character diversity) 1. Star Wars: Force and Destiny (2015) (bit by the Critical Roll/D&D bug)

Our first strike, but otherwise a solid B. Zoey’s list is based mainly on personal experiences she had with each game - she played Dishonored while streaming, she had a personal breakthrough with Go, she played Legion, Overwatch, and Star Wars with friends - and skips pretty completely any analysis. Which is fine, I guess that’s what she meant to do, but it’s not the strongest.

Okay, now that the generally passable videos are out of the way:

Kim calls Duncan out at the start of the video for, in previous years, listing games that didn't come out in the year in question.

5. Titan Brawl (A F2P mobile game where you can actually play against another person in real time and... dump out a ton of money on microtransactions. And that’s all he has to say.) 4. Pokemon Sun and Moon (graphically pretty, customization options are good, misses Gyms, likes rideable Pokemon) 3. Civilization 6 (first thing he mentions is problems... likes playing with friends) 2. XCom 2 (finished it. liked being strong.) 1. Warcraft Legion (adds more to the story, likes to play with friends)

His commentary is... really bad. It’s like what I said the last time he reviewed a mobile game, he doesn’t know the terminology or have the palate to evaluate games.

Maybe he’s just not good at expressing what he likes. But I always found this lack of competence seriously concerning, especially when they make claims that there’s “nothing to play” or that they would have the sense not to take a sponsorship for a garbage product.

Zylus did one but as far as I’m concerned he’s not really a YouTuber, so his palate doesn’t really matter. 

Anyway. We’ll go to Lewis from last year, because he couldn’t be assed this year.

Complains at the start that he’s just going to pick games he played this year because he’s confused by release dates..?

10. Dota 2 (2013) 9. Hearthstone (2014) (says he doesn’t actually enjoy either Dota 2 or Hearthstone but just plays them because he’s addicted) 8. Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns (Watched TV while playing it, felt MMO nostalgia. Doesn’t really explain how or any positives.) 7. Darkest Dungeon (2016) (...played it? no real commentary) 6. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (innovative.) 5. Pillars of Eternity (likes the genre) 4. The Room 3 (clever) 3. Dreamquest (2014) (it’s good..? it’s a roguelike... and addictive. although he didn’t explain why. and then he read someone else’s review off.) 2. Fallout 4 1. The Witcher 3 (liked the story and exploration more than Fallout 4, but explains neither)

I don’t think I could have imagined a more dire example. When people ask why they’re so stuck in Minecraft, I honestly believe this is why. All Western devs, he picks out games he hasn’t finished or has barely tried, a handful of the games he enjoys most are ones he actually states that he doesn’t like or intentionally ignores.

I think it’s really valuable to watch a channel that you can get good recommendations from. If you just watch gaming videos to see games you’ve already played, you do you, but I always saw it as an opportunity to sample another person’s gaming playlist and learn about something new.

It does come down to the individual’s personal taste and their own reasons for watching YouTube. It’s just something I brought up before and wanted to illustrate a bit.

[entergamingxp]

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition review

How much to read into the newly appended title of a re-release like this? In the case of Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, a splendorous revisit of Monolith Soft’s 2012 Wii RPG for Nintendo’s Switch, it could mean so very much. By his own admission, creator Tetsuya Takahashi has always struggled to finish off the job with his own games, his Xenosaga series petering out halfway through its intended run, while Xenoblade Chronicles only saw it through to completion upon partner Nintendo’s insistence it be done properly.

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition review

Developer: Monolith Soft

Publisher: Nintendo

Platform: Reviewed on Nintendo Switch

Availability: Out May 29th on Nintendo Switch

Even then, subsequent games have seen ambition often outstrip circumstance: Xenoblade Chronicles X’s ambition was served rough, while Xenoblade Chronicles 2 creaked under the weight of its elaborate systems and some anime excess. A Takahashi game that’s refined and one he’s happy to call definitive? Now that’s some prospect.

In many of the ways that really matter, Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition delivers. It takes an incredible RPG – one that could lay claim to being among the best of the last decade – and makes small, considered tweaks in all the right places. It serves the mad, magical majesty of Xenoblade Chronicles’ world, staying entirely faithful to the original while gently polishing it for its HD debut – a little too gently in some places, you might argue.

And what a world it is! Xenoblade Chronicles’ grand concept, and its execution, remains an all-time great. The story it serves is just fine, weaving in Takahashi’s recurring themes; gods will fall and fates will be altered, all at the blade of a blonde-haired hero who sounds like a junior estate agent from Swindon (I’m afraid I’m not a fan of the localised voice work in Xenoblade Chronicles, but at least you can switch to the Japanese voice track at any point in this Definitive Edition, and fans will be delighted that Jenna Coleman reprises her role as Melia for the additional content offered in this Definitive Edition).

The redone faces make the world of difference, though don’t expect the rest of Xenoblade Chronicle’s world to have had the same attention here.

It’s not about the story, though, and more about the places it takes you. In the most wide-eyed, excitable terms possible – and I don’t know how else you talk about something as fantastic as this – it’s a world set on the back of two warring, country-sized titans, the pair trapped in stony stasis for many years. So you begin on the wide-open grassy plains on the calf of a god’s outstretched leg then slowly work your way up. Size is everything here – the maps you explore are vast, open-ended spaces drawn with the verve and imagination of pulpy sci-fi’s best cover artists. From the sun-scorched grass of Gaur Plain to the frosted starlight of Valak Mountain by night, Xenoblade Chronicles is a heady delight to explore and discover.

What’s special about this Definitive Edition is how it’s made that much easier to discover, for newcomers and veterans alike. The UI has been stripped back, quest markers and locations made more explicit while the path to your next objective is neatly marked on your mini-map. Exploration of a world as rich as this is its own reward, but it’s certainly been helped along by the more generous XP bonuses that are granted upon coming across a new location or completing one of the countless side quests.

Which brings me to perhaps the best addition made in this Definitive Edition, though it might not be for you. A casual mode’s been introduced that reduces even the toughest of boss fights to a mere inconvenience, while normal encounters are rushed through in the blink of an eye. For new players who wouldn’t mind condensing Xenoblade Chronicles’ sizeable length, it’s an agreeable way to cut the run time without impacting the scope and scale – and for returning players like myself, it makes what could be a slog into a pleasant stroll. Golf is a good walk spoiled, so the well-worn saying goes, and I often think you could say the same for a fair few RPGs.

Future Connected gets some new music, and a new battle theme that, as the kids might say, *slaps*.

Not that Xenoblade Chronicles’ combat is bad, and it’s had a few of its own tweaks here. The same MMO-sequel mesh of specials on timers, situational attacks and buffs and debuffs there to be stacked as you please. There’s a sweet music to be found in the battle system’s rhythm, and one that’s a touch easier to get into step with thanks to a cleaned up UI that makes it perfectly clear what situational attacks are best employed at any given time. For those who want to up the intensity, an expert mode lets you tinker with your levels to bring some more challenge,

Then of course there’s Future Connected, an expansion that’s as sizable as the Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s own Torna – The Golden Country. It’s a generous post-game adventure that sits entirely on its own, handing players a group of level 60 characters and a handsome new area to explore. Given how it takes place after the events of Xenoblade Chronicles, I’ll be light on details to avoid spoilers, though of course it’s recommended you see through the main adventure first.

Once you’re good and ready for Future Connected, you’re treated to a self-contained Xenoblade Chronicles adventure that could happily consume a dozen hours or more, and that comes with a few novel ideas of its own. Combat has its own wrinkles, with Shulk’s ability to predict incoming enemy attacks removed while chain attacks have also been replaced with a new system. Oh, and if you’re not a fan of Nopon then you’re bang out of luck, as Xenoblade’s moogle-like cutesy race feature prominently both in your party and the new systems.

It’s fitting, though, that the real star of Future Connected is the world itself. The Bionis Shoulder was left on the cutting room floor from the original Xenoblade Chronicles, and I’m grateful we’ve been given the chance to experience it as it contains all that’s great about Monolith Soft’s series; impossible stone archways line the sky, while you can look out upon rolling plains to see wide lakes that dip into nothingness at the Bionis’ edge. There’s so much to see, and so much to do, with a phenomenal number of side quests squeezed alongside the main throughline.

To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings

It looks glorious, and Xenoblade Chronicles’ grand concept, and its grand open spaces, haven’t aged a jot in the intervening years – though be warned that, as graphical upgrades go, this is slight. The bulk of the work’s been carried out on character models – which, given the gormless horror of the originals, is arguably where it should be – but everything else has been given only the lightest of touches. It is, for the most part, the Wii game as you remember it with some gently reworked textures, running at the same resolution as Xenoblade Chronicles 2 when running both docked and undocked (to these eyes this is by far the better looking game, though maybe that’s down to a personal preference for the art-style – rest assured Digital Foundry will be along with a more detailed technical analysis in due course).

This is a Definitive Edition, then, that falls just shy of what you might expect of a full remaster or remake, and instead feels like a re-release with a few very welcome extras. Perhaps that’s always going to be the way with Tetsuya Takahashi and his maximalist approach. Corners will be cut, but maybe that’s the price of such towering ambition.

And I don’t want to sound ungrateful at all – I only want more because I’m so enamoured by what’s already there, for all its minor faults. Like so many of Takahashi and Monolith Soft’s games, there are signs of compromise, but conversely there’s so much more besides. The original Xenoblade Chronicles, with its scope, size and superlative world, still stands as the best in the series yet, and there’s been no better way to play it yet. Rest assured if you love the original as much as I do, there are plenty of reasons to return. And if this is your first time playing Xenoblade Chronicles? I envy you, because this truly is one of the greats.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/05/xenoblade-chronicles-definitive-edition-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xenoblade-chronicles-definitive-edition-review

[cellerityweb]

World of Tanks: Tuning the Engine – Power Under The Hood

With World of Tanks growing bigger and bigger over more than seven years, at some point tuning the game engine to fit today’s requirements was inevitable – Bronislav Sviglo will tell you all about it.

World of Tanks inherited its engine – Australian-made »BigWorld« – from the fantasy MMO project canceled by Wargaming in 2008. The BigWorld server provides a lot of benefits and has stood the test of time. The client part of the engine was heavily customized – to the degree it may be called a completely new, in-house product. In 2017, the game looks and feels very different from the old vanilla version, having modern visual effects, HD tank models and complex physics.

Bronislav Sviglo, World of Tanks Render Team Lead, speaks about the evolution of the game’s engine and explains why the new HD maps matter so much.

Big World: The Right Choice

I came to Wargaming after graduating from university in 2008. At first, I worked in a team of three that was prototyping an MMO about orcs and elves. We had two engine options: one was BigWorld, the other was the HeroEngine now used by EA’s »Star Wars: The Old Republic«. We went with BigWorld: it had robust server tech, used Python scripting language and was very scalable. The HeroEngine server side wasn’t polished yet; also that engine used visual scripting, which was a bit constraining for programmers. Simply put, if you were to make an MMO that did not feature humanoid characters, with HeroEngine it would be complicated. BigWorld on the other hand, was probably the best suitable solution for a game about military warfare.

All new maps are being built from scratch and will make use of all the advanced features of DirectX 11, including HDR and tessellation.

BigWorld allows tens of thousands of players on one shard and lets you group the shards into clusters. Initially, it did not support any real-time interaction between multiple clusters but we expanded its functionality. We were able to do this really quickly when the concurrent player number started to get climb rapidly and it became clear that one cluster wouldn’t be enough. Now the server tech allows millions of people to play against anyone in their region.

Another great thing about BigWorld is that it lets the majority of battle-related calculations in World of Tanks be made server side. This lowers lag and prevents certain forms of cheating completely. There are games, where you can extract some info from the client and receive an unfair advantage, but with World of Tanks, the most crucial data is generated on the server side – unlike some online shooters where it is created on the client side and sent to the server. Due to BigWorld’s structure, in World of Tanks you simply cannot trick the server into believing that you’ve just fired two shells with a single shot.

The BigWorld server core, developed and supported in Sydney, is pretty much the same for PC, console and mobile World of Tanks, which saves us time and effort and lets us apply tried and tested solutions. The game clients are different, so the respective teams work on those.

Customizing the Client

Initially we intended to keep the BigWorld client core intact and make all modifications to World of Tanks’ client »sidewise« so they wouldn’t mess with updating to a new version of the core delivered by the Big World team, but by 2012, we realized that only significant rewriting of the client would let us greatly improve the graphics.

Update 8.0 was our first large step towards this goal. We made the game look modern, by that time’s standards. We applied deferred shading and decals and heightened texture resolution to make the terrain and objects look better. For the first time, we utilized post-processing effects like high dynamic resolution, color grading and bloom. Bump mapping was applied to terrain, not just to objects; that allowed for flare effects and reflections. The picture you were seeing while in game became way more attractive. We also added new custom physics: you could push allies, ram enemies and cross bodies of water – or get sunk there. Optimization work had also been done: we divided the shadows into static and dynamic categories and used lots of instancing (drawing the map objects in groups), easing the load on graphic processors.

Graphics changes made the maps look better, so we went for the tanks next. They didn’t have much detail back then: there were no rivets and no specular effects. It was impossible to tell if their metal was polished or rough. So we improved the look of tanks with physically-based rendering. With it, the shaders can be assigned physically-based parameters like albedo (an object’s color in uniform lighting), roughness,and metallicity (how shiny an object is). We also applied high definition textures, so the new models came to be called ‘HD’. There’s more to them: the constructive materials of the vehicles are complex and realistic and that contributes to their good looks. Upgrading a tank model to this quality requires time and effort, especially by the art team. In April 2014, we only introduced about 40 HD models with the 9.0 update. We kept releasing HD tanks in later updates.

Although the battlefields themselves will of course be limited, players will be able to see way beyond the ‘red line’.

The client part of the engine underwent so many modifications that at certain point we began to doubt the efficiency of the »complete rewrite« approach. We wanted to measure the custom graphical engine’s performance against licensed suites and also see if the game looked better in these. In 2015, we held a study: one of the maps was recreated using Unreal, CryEngine, Unity and others. Our in-house engine turned to be more efficient at rendering than any other. At the same time, its performance scaled much better across all the hardware ranges. There were reasons for that. The World of Tanks engine was so good at drawing armored vehicles and battlegrounds because it was specialized and not universal like the licensed ones. Also, throughout the development it was always being optimized for low-end rigs.

We drew two conclusions from the engines’ race. First, we had a solid tech that we could improve even further. Second, switching to another engine and importing our current assets wouldn’t give us a better picture. We had to add a few bells and whistles to our tech – and to significantly improve the assets. So we decided to remake the maps completely.

Redrawing the Maps

Over the last couple of years we made a few technical advances with the engine. Some of these will truly shine once the remade maps are released. We built in DirectX 11 support, laying the groundwork for further upscaling. We introduced multi-threading, which lets you move parts of the graphics-related calculations to other CPU cores. We also enhanced movement physics. Now tanks can flip over, and they have momentum so you can feel their weight better when braking or climbing up a hill. Gearboxes are simulated – you can perceive the shift from low to high gears.

Currently, the largest chunk of work is the HD maps and everything that’s on them. They will bring the graphical fidelity of the entire game up to the level of HD tank models. We don’t want to release the HD maps in batches like HD tanks. It will be a one-time large upgrade with about 30 maps.

The new maps are being built from the ground up: no converters, only modern tech and complete reworking. They will make use of all the advanced features of DirectX 11, including HDR and tessellation. All subsystems are being remade – water, terrain, grass, trees, lighting, clouds, houses, shading. Not a single old object will be left. While on the map, you’ll be able to see kilometers beyond the red line limiting the battlefield – no more of that »aquarium« feel. We’ve been preparing the technology for years; soon it will be time to reap the fruits of our labour.

We are going to introduce Havok physics engine

While remodelled vehicles were released in batches, Wargaming plans to introduce all of the nearly 30 HD maps at once.

support together with HD maps. We will start with small destructible props like stone hedges and wooden poles and eventually move to larger ones like houses. Now we possess a solid base for improving physics – like the graphics – for years ahead.

The new tech is already working: we let the tankers have a go on an HD map at WG Fest late last year. We only need to put some finishing touches on the content. It’ll take some time, but the result should be worth the wait.

About the Author:

Bronislav Sviglo

is World of Tanks Render Team Leader at Wargaming

Bronislav has been with the company for more than 9 years. For most of that time he has been developing and optimizing the World of Tanks graphical engine. His hobbies include checking out how other games’ graphics work, swimming and watching movies. Bronislav’s life motto is »never stop learning«.

The post World of Tanks: Tuning the Engine – Power Under The Hood appeared first on Making Games.

World of Tanks: Tuning the Engine – Power Under The Hood published first on https://thetruthspypage.tumblr.com/