Leif Johnson's Reviews
Full of emotion and high adventure, Final Fantasy XIV's Shadowbringers expansion brings MMORPG storytelling out of the shadows. Two great new combat classes, two cool new races, and a nifty system for running dungeons solo round out the experience of FFXIV's best expansion to date.
Murkmire may look bland in comparison to a wonderland like Summerset, but that's only when you're drinking in the big picture.
As the millions of people still streaming into the game show, if Blizzard sees Battle for Azeroth as a struggle to keep our hearts and interest, it's clearly already won.
The Elder Scrolls Online will never feel like a proper Elder Scrolls game for many people who flock to it, but while we wait for whatever comes after Skyrim, it's a damn fine way of passing the time.
Bland and unambitious save for its combat, Lost Sphear draws so heavily from the traditions of past JPRGs that it fails to build a personality of its own.
Dreadnought in many ways successfully brings the World of Tanks formula to outer space with sci-fi flair, and the vertical movements of the ships add some depth. It's often fun, but if you want to advance at a reasonable pace you'll have to deal with an unreliably active PS4 player population and an XP system that requires a lot of grinding to unlock new ships.
SpellForce 3 competently blends RPG and RTS games into a generally enjoyable package, but there's not enough creative force to create a lasting spell.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a standout RPG that manages to keep its story, combat, and exploration interesting over the course of at least 70 hours of adventure through an impressively varied and rich world. Getting from place to place can be confusing, but outside of that and a multi-hour progression roadblock near the end this is an excellent game full of tough, memorable battles and a positive message.
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 doesn't deviate much from the established LEGO template, but its wide variety of settings, heroes, and abilities make it constantly fun to play, especially in co-op. The combat is still quite simple and it's sometimes difficult to tell what you should do next, but the story is lighthearted and fun enough that mild annoyances like these fade into the background.
Hand of Fate 2 doesn't change much of the concept that made the first game so appealing, but everything here – whether it's challenges, smarter deck building, companion characters, and better combat – marks a major improvement over what we saw in 2015. Repetitiveness can still be a problem, but it takes much longer for it to show up. This time around, this is definitely a hand worth playing.