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When I wrote about it back in 2018, I had hope it would end up as one of the great final games for my beloved Nintendo 3DS. But after a month of struggling to get through it, that hope is dead.
Coffee Talk is very much a mismatched brew.
Journey to the Savage Planet was such a fun way to kick off the decade, and I'm going to bring it up at the end of the year when people inevitably begin asking about the overlooked gems of 2020. If you want something light and breezy with an intoxicating collectible-based feedback loop, here you go.
Despite some technical misgivings, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners honors the Walking Dead name: a rarity in the current climate. It's also cemented itself as one of the leading "full" VR experiences to date. It might not sell headsets, but it'll be a hell of a pickup for current VR-heads.
Like every incarnation of the game, even the Re Mind DLC is going to both confuse and excite people en masse. But now that there's "An Oath to Return" (with a future Kingdom Hearts entry), this is all we have until the next one comes along. It'll do.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is not the anime game to end all anime games. It's not going to convert any non-believers or onboard them into this decades-old classic universe. Even as someone who still re-watches DBZ, it can be grating at times — but the juice is mostly worth the squeeze.
At the end of the day, Cross Rays still has room to improve for both presentation and gameplay elements, but the new changes result in a better game. In an era where many Gundam games are failing to improve over their predecessor, seeing Cross Rays try and succeed to be a better game is a much-needed sight. Hopefully the team at Tom Create keeps the trend going with the next one, because they have the foundation needed to create something special, especially if they make it a crossover entry.
Earlier this year Team Ninja and Nintendo spoke about "story scenario" content. Where is it? The new characters are great for the most part, but we need more zones to actually use them in. Having an extended campaign with some really out-there storylines would have been a fantastic use of paid DLC, but for now you're stuck just doing the same errands over and over or restarting once again.
Borderlands 3's first DLC is quirky and action-packed, but I was decidedly left wanting more. Hopefully the other campaigns will take more risks, but in the meantime Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot is more Borderlands, which is typically a good thing.
I'm not sure if Takahashi will ever be able to top Katamari Damacy – for my money, it's one of the greatest video games ever made – but Wattam captures that sense of whimsy and magic in its own way. The care-free music and gosh-darn-huggable character designs make this a must-play for fans.
Unfortunately, SuperMash is a game where the concept is better than the execution. While the spritework and chiptunes are nice, the gameplay holds the whole thing back; a big problem when the gameplay is supposed to be the main feature. Ironically, the mashed-up games usually end up being less than the sum of their parts.
It takes time to really get into MechWarrior 5, which is to be expected. At first, things go by at a plodding pace and your customization options are slim. But once you assemble your crew, jump into mechs you want to play as, and the story picks up, it starts to feel like old MechWarrior again. Mercenaries still might not satisfy everyone, but I enjoyed my reintroduction to the action-oriented BattleTech world.
This is a historic moment for Shovel Knight: half a decade later, I can recommend picking up anything and everything Shovel Knight related, which is easy to do with the Treasure Trove compilation. Yacht Club Games has a lot to be proud of and has accomplished a lot in their short run, and I can't wait to see what they come up with next.
Tools Up doesn't make the most of its clever co-op gaming concept, but I still had a decent enough time. I'll be there day one if a sequel ever takes this home-renovation hook and runs wild with it.
All in all, The Case of the Invisible Wizard is a fantastic way to spend an evening, and it improves and builds on the strengths of the original in iterative but meaningful ways. Whatever happens next, I'm fully invested in this series. The price is more than fair, and it's a unique passion project that's so dang wholesome and smile-inducing. It'll montage dance its way into your heart and prove that ground pies, picked up and cleaned off, can still be delicious, perfectly sanitary sources of nourishment.
Ancestors is a large, fussy, and at times uneven survival experience, but it's also deeply gratifying once you sink your teeth in. Make it through the wringer, and you'll come out wanting to share stories about your run-of-the-mill open-world exploits to anyone who will listen – no small feat in 2019. The console versions are smoother than their original PC counterpart, so if you've been curious, now's the time.
I came into Darksiders Genesis expecting nothing and got a fun little co-op dungeon crawler in return. Although the concept of a "Diablo spinoff for the Darksiders series" had the potential to just be a big bowl of wrong, the mad men and women at Airship Syndicate pulled it off. Long live Darksiders.
Life is Strange 2 represents a sophistication of Dontnod's storytelling capabilities because it effectively adds up and weighs moral decisions to truly influence the narrative outcome. Every ending comes with some degree of complication -- that much was to be expected -- but it's satisfying because they're all befitting of the characters you molded. Whichever direction you took Sean and Daniel's lives, chances are you'll feel responsible for their fates. It's personal. Because it's personal, it's memorable. That's about the utmost positive quality for this style of story.
But even when it's not sounding like an improv group at a Bernie Sanders rally, Heroland is a gem. It's incredibly funny, the characters are some of the most charming I met all year, and its unique take on turn-based battles made a strategist out of me. I just wish I didn't need to do so much grinding to see the game through to the end.
Arise: A Simple Story is true to its name and offers both function and form, which is why I'm so anxious to see what Piccolo Studio has next in the pipeline. It's a pleasant surprise to help cap off a great year.