It’s never easy to be overshadowed. Growing up, I was an enormous fan of PS1 racing royalty Crash Team Racing, and was thrilled to see it return in 2019 as Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. For many gamers, though, Mario Kart has an iron grip on the kart racer genre.
Over the years, the same has been applied to the hero shooter genre and Overwatch. Tracer, Widowmaker, Roadhog my beloved, and the rest of the crew reigned supreme. By contrast, Evil Mojo’s Paladins: Champions of the Realm never really got the same kind of broad attention.
Paladins launched in 2016, not long after Overwatch. The former has become known for embracing the free-to-play model, which Blizzard’s effort shied away from until the arrival of the sequel.
This model, of course, can lead to all kinds of parasitic shenanigans from developers and publishers. It is very effective, however, at luring in curious players who just want to try an experience out without the risk of making a full purchase.
That was just what I did when Paladins arrived on Nintendo Switch in mid-2018.
My understanding at the time was that the game was super derivative of Overwatch,...
