-
OpinionImpressionsSakura Wars’ Dramatic Intro Makes The Mech Battles Better
It took me an hour and a half to get to the first mech combat portion of Sakura Wars, the soft reboot of Sega’s long-running role-playing game series coming to PlayStation 4 on April 28. The first 90 minutes of the game is all about getting to know the characters and circumstances of this unique…
By Mike Fahey Published April 27, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsNew GTA Online Missions Are All About Preparing For A Recession
Grand Theft Auto Online received a new update a few days ago that added six new missions. These missions are all about an old-time GTA Online character, Gerald, and his attempts to get ready for an upcoming recession. Five of them are good and one of them is the worst mission I’ve played in GTA…
By Zack Zwiezen Published April 25, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsThe Trials Of Mana Remake Proves Square Enix Can Faithfully Redo A Classic ’90s RPG
The second high-definition remake of a 90s-era Square Enix role-playing game coming out this month is much more faithful to the original than Final Fantasy VII. Beneath Trials of Mana’s cartoonish 3D makeover and questionable voice acting, it’s the same simple, satisfying action RPG it’s always been. This piece was first published on April 22,…
By Mike Fahey Published April 24, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsXCOM: Chimera Squad Adds Personality To The Series, But Feels Less Personal
Chimera Squad is a fitting subtitle for the new XCOM game, because it’s a chimera of a game. Sure, it’s got XCOM’s turn-based tactical head on its shoulders, but it’s being ferried about on Overwatch’s body by Divinity: Original Sin 2‘s legs. 12 hours in, I’m still having trouble deciding if this monster of a…
By Nathan Grayson Published April 23, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsA Sci-Fi SimCity Is Exactly What I’ve Needed
A lot of people’s response to the pressures of all of this has been to retreat to the sunny skies and green pastures of Animal Crossing. Which is fine to a point, but after too long I find myself getting a little tired of the idealism, and start craving something a little dirtier, a little…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 22, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsTrials Of Mana‘s Healer Talks Like A Baby And Pwease, No
There are six playable characters in the Trials of Mana HD remake that comes out this week. The only dedicated healer among them is Charlotte, the diminutive granddaughter of the Priest of Light. I’d rather my party die a thousand deaths than be subjected to her insipidly cutesy baby-talk. It’s a widdle too uwu. When…
By Mike Fahey Published April 22, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsMario Maker 2‘s Final Update Would Be Better If It Weren’t The Last One
Super Mario Maker 2 received its big version 3.0 update today, adding a bunch of new items, characters, and a whole new mode for building entire worlds. There’s a ton of great stuff to play around with in it. But as a final update, it leaves a lot on the table. First the big stuff:…
By Ethan Gach Published April 22, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsDestiny 2’s Guardian Games Is Another Boring Bounty Fest So Far
Destiny 2’s latest event is a generous but all-too-familiar bounty grind, and I’m not sure I have it in me to stick with it. Revealed last week, Guardian Games is Destiny 2’s spin on the Olympics. Instead of individual players competing to see who’s the best, players of a particular class—Warlock, Titan, or Hunter—pool their…
By Ethan Gach Published April 21, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsI Need Much More Of Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s Dancing Mini-Game
Don’t leave a rhythm game fan hanging here, Square Enix. The Final Fantasy VII Remake dancing mini-game is too good to be limited to a practice round and one spectacular sequence. Cloud needs to move his body right. As I played through Final Fantasy VII Remake, former (sniff) co-worker Jason Schreier kept asking me where…
By Mike Fahey Published April 21, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsThe New Animated Mortal Kombat Movie Is Just As Brutal As The Games
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge, the new film from Warner Bros. Animation, begins with dozens of ninja being torn limb from limb. Hanzo “Scorpion” Hasashi’s young son is viciously slayed while the titular ninja helplessly watches. Fans of the fighting game’s over-the-top violence will be… pleased? This might get a little gross, folks. The first…
By Mike Fahey Published April 20, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsFallout 76‘s Wastelanders Expansion Is Underwhelming So Far
Running down the hill from Vault 76 where I emerged a year and a half ago, I spot a couple hiking up a stone path. They are the first people I’ve ever seen in Fallout 76 in my over 100 hours with it. They ask me if the vault’s still open and if I’ve heard…
By Ethan Gach Published April 14, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsCloud Can’t Close Doors
Final Fantasy VII Remake looks so damn good, and it’s full of tiny graphical flourishes. You can even see which color materia Cloud has equipped in his sword. That might be why it’s so much more noticeable to me that Cloud can’t close doors. I’m only eight hours into playing the game, so maybe Cloud…
By Maddy Myers Published April 13, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsThe Difference Between Final Fantasy VII’s Easy And Normal Modes Is Too Drastic
Combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake, especially when facing powerful boss battles, involves juggling normal and special attacks, destructive and healing magics, and strategically exploiting enemy weaknesses. Unless you’re playing in easy mode. Then it’s just button-mashing bullshit. I spent 40 hours playing through Final Fantasy VII Remake, mostly on normal mode, the highest difficulty…
By Mike Fahey Published April 10, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsMinecraft Dungeons Is Like Family-Friendly Diablo
Minecraft’s transformation from an open-world crafting game into a linear dungeon crawler is an odd one, but Minecraft Dungeons is still shaping up to be a serenely welcoming loot-based hack n’ slash. Mojang demoed the game for me remotely last week due to the new work-from-home constraints imposed by the ongoing covid-19 crisis. These constraints…
By Ethan Gach Published April 9, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsThe Division 2‘s First Season Is Pretty Good, So Far
With the release of Warlords of New York last month, The Division 2 added a big new playable area to the game. But this large update also added seasons, complete with special events and battle passes. We are now a few weeks into the first season and so far, so good. For the most part.…
By Zack Zwiezen Published April 1, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsAnimal Crossing‘s Bunny Day Mascot Is A Lot To Deal With Right Now
The passage of time is a big deal in the Animal Crossing series. New Horizons players were today treated to a ton of changes as their islands transition into spring, which brought with it new critters to catch and cherry blossom trees to diversify the landscape. But with the game’s first holiday right around the…
By Ian Walker Published April 1, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsPaper Beast Is My New Favorite PSVR Game
Sorry, Astrobot Rescue Mission, but you’ve been dethroned. I, a tough customer when it comes to PSVR, have found a new PSVR game to incessantly rave about. It’s called Paper Beast, and it’s a virtual safari of some very strange animals. I should have expected to be amazed by this game. Paper Beast was made…
By Stephen Totilo Published April 1, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsMount & Blade II: Bannerlord Is Blowing Up On Steam And I Can’t Stop Playing It
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is an open world third-person strategy game that overwhelms you with options and choices and helps calm you back down by letting you rampage across giant medieval battlefields. Even though it’s a janky early access game, all I want to do right now is keep playing it. Clearly I’m not…
By Ethan Gach Published April 1, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsOh No I’m Playing All Of Persona 5 Again
Two weeks ago, I jumped into an early copy of Persona 5 Royal, expecting to maybe play a few hours to check out some of the new stuff. Now I’ve finished the game’s second dungeon and have begun to accept a new reality: I am, somehow, going to replay all of Persona 5 This piece…
By Jason Schreier Published March 31, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsIn Moons Of Madness, Outer Space Is Just As Scary As Alien Monsters
I’ve never had any grand aspirations of being an astronaut, even as a kid. But in playing Moons of Madness, the latest first-person adventure from Norwegian studio Rock Pocket Games, I was given definitive proof that I just couldn’t hack it in outer space, long before the eldritch abominations started showing up. Moons of Madness…
By Ian Walker Published March 30, 2020