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Where a lot of other competitive games use melee combat as a secondary means, For Honor shows a respect and admiration for the art of combat that’s as compelling and thrilling as any gunfight in a first-person shooter or battle in a strategy game. For the most part, For Honor is a competitive game with a unique, sharply-honed combat system that’s easy enough to pick up, but filled with depth and challenge to truly master. While the game’s fairly high skill ceiling and emphasis on micro-transactions might be off-putting to some players, For Honor is an experience that’s truly fit for those that are warriors at heart.
How Night in the Woods manages to capture the anxieties of being stuck in the gap between adult and childhood, how it tackles serious topics like depression, and how it brilliantly understands and recreates the hardships of rural America, is worthy of admiration. Put more simply, Night in the Woods is a unique breath of fresh air, and an experience I’m likely to not forget for a long time.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is no mere Zelda game — it is a return to form for the decades-old series, showing that Nintendo still very much understands how to handle their property. Breath of the Wild may not only be the best Zelda game ever produced, but it rivals Super Mario 64 and Halo: Combat Evolved for the best launch game ever shipped with any console. With no exception, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a masterclass in game design and creativity, unprecedented from even Nintendo.
Yet, it’s a fantastic and well balanced mix between sleek PlatinumGames action and JRPG gameplay, resulting bigger than the sum of its parts. It brings forth an absolutely fascinating setting, and charming, likable and memorable characters that will both make you smile and tug at your heart strings. 2B, 9S and the rest of the cast already cut themselves a well deserved corner in my heart, and I’m positive they will do the same for many of you as well.
The game removes the stress of time limits and boss battles and instead presents itself as an easy going simulator that can be played at the pace of the player. I am happy to say that Trio of Towns is a game that I plan to continue to return to over time and become the best farmer I can be.
Guerrilla Games has broken free from the claustrophobic limits of linear shooters and has spread its wings with a gorgeous open world RPG that sets itself as a strong contender for game of the year… and it’s only February.
At the end of the day, Halo Wars 2 is still a highly recommendable title — in fact, likely one of the best RTS games that can be found on the current generation. However, accessibility on consoles came with a price to both controls and gameplay in both campaign and multiplayer modes. But don’t let that stop fans of the series or newcoming gamers to the genre enjoy the game — you are assured to have a blast.
I enjoyed my time with Berserk and the end game content offers hours and hours of replayability for fans who just can’t get enough. The gameplay would definitely stand toe-to-toe with other licensed musou games like One Piece: Pirate Warriors and Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, but maybe this game could have strayed further away from the typical musou formula like what fans saw with Attack on Titan. Instead, it seems Omega Force played it a little too safe.
I appreciate what DotEmu has done with the console port of Ys Origin. A story localized this good deserves to be easily accessed by gamers on as many ports as possible. Besides the strange rending issues on screen in the beginning of the game, I would say this is a great port of ten year old PC game that serves a preface to the beloved Ys series.
Joe said ‘Never settle’ in his message and I hope he takes this advice to heart. For players, I can dispense the same advice. There’s more that can be offered in GunWorld and I do think that M07 Games is on the right track to create an even better version if they ever make a third installment.
Throughout my 35 hours of playing Digimon World: Next Order I began to feel like I did the first time a discovered the series. Every Digimon that joined my team made an impact on me and I wanted them all to be the best they can be. The game can be frustrating, but in the end there’s nothing like raising two healthy Digimon. The old mechanics of the Digimon World franchise prove to stand the test of time and can now be experienced by a new generation of gamers to discover and immerse themselves for hours in the digital world.
In single, isolated moments, Sniper Elite 4 is a great game. However, mediocre AI, a throw away story, and a lack of polish in some key places, prevent it, as an entire package, from being a great game.
When it comes to gameplay, Brut@l may not be very innovative to the rougelike genre at its core; it’s actually pretty standard as those kind of games go. This game has its artstyle and inspiration to thank for adding tons of charm to what would have been a pretty by-the-numbers entry into the genre. If you love roguelikes, or have fond memories of the old ASCII games, you will absolutely enjoy Brut@l. Even if it lacks the depth of some of its competitors, it makes it up in spades in old-school retro charm, and will hook you for hours.
The Tales series has always found a way to satisfy my itch for a story rich JRPG with deep character development and exciting combat. In that regard, Tales of Berseria does not disappoint. The story is gripping from the very beginning and keeps hold throughout the entire game. When it comes to the new battle system, I felt that Tales of Bersaria proved to be easily accessible to newcomers as well as offer extra benefits to those who’d like to master it. Even though the environments lacked any big steps forward for series, I felt myself constantly exploring and enjoying every moment. Berseria has quickly become not only one of my favorite games in the series, but also one of my favorite RPGs of all time.
I do hope Arc System Works continues to develop this IP though, because if the same creative minds that worked on this game came together to try to advance the series as a whole like Double Dragon Neon did, I believe they could make something really special. Sadly, I would only recommend Double Dragon IV to you if you are a Double Dragon fanatic or very die hard beat 'em up fan, and if that's the case, you probably already own it. It is fairly cheap, but even then, I have played much more enjoyable games for the same price.
The ultimate frustration is that I was left wanting to play more of the game and get wrapped up in the story again, but the choices around skipping text and saving made that an unexciting experience. That coupled with the voice audio issues and narrative still being on a mostly locked path means that I probably will never unlock all the mysteries of Cypress Knee.
Divide has the potential to be a decent game, but it’s over ambitiousness in the face of its low-budget ultimately nets a forgettable, half-baked sci-fi game. If Exploding Tuba Studios dumped the twin stick gameplay, and instead fully-embraced the adventure genre, I would be interested in seeing it take another stab with a new game. But more Divide? No thanks.
If you approach NiOh with the right mindset, all the frustration due to the ruthless level of challenge will turn into satisfaction when you overcome each obstacle. If you want to feel like a true samurai mastering the complex ways of or Japanese warfare, and you’re willing to pay the blood price for it, this is your game. Don’t call it Bloodborne 2. NiOh certainly deserves its own spotlight.
Whether you’re a hardcore fan of the show, someone who watched the original series as a kid, or someone who’s excited for the new movie, I’d stay away from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle. The Rangers deserve something that’s more than a cheap cash-in, but I doubt we’ll see anything like that anytime soon.
Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers is a great attempt by developer Omega Force at merging classic Warriors style gameplay with SRPG mechanics. However, the game might be a bit too easy when compared to more hardcore tactics games like those found in the Fire Emblem series or Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together. Even so, Godseekers provides a great entry point for fans to be introduced to a new genre while keeping that over the top action gameplay. In the future, I hope to see Omega Force return to the SRPG genre with more entries in order to expand on this deep and intriguing universe — perhaps one starring Daqiao?