The Essential Companion of Heroic Adventurers
Ever since I threw my first snowball in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, I fell in love with the world of strategy games. Moving characters on a grid and fighting bad guys, building your units by choosing their classes and weapons, and stories on the scale of the JRPGs I grew up on drew me to... Continue Reading →
I am writing this article at 7:20 AM EDT on Saturday, June 12th. In other words, it is roughly 7.5 hours until the Ubisoft Forward conference for E3 2021. It's a conference I normally wouldn't be that excited for, but over the last couple of days the rumor weed has been working overtime in regards... Continue Reading →
This year, I find myself fascinated with a different sort of question: what could Nintendo announce at E3 that would make me shut off my computer and think about my life choices?
When I first saw advertisements for the original Bravely Default, I was so excited to get my hands on a traditional JRPG from the company behind the classic Final Fantasy titles. Final Fantasy had lost its way in my mind and Squeenix's last attempt at something more traditional (Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light)... Continue Reading →
Mastering systems is a major piece of the appeal of video games for me. I love it when I can dig into the mechanics of a title and develop a deep understanding for the possibilities, experimenting with different ideas to discover the most effective combinations of tools to succeed at the game. In games like... Continue Reading →
Final Fantasy VII is a game that for many was a genre-defining experience. So many people were awakened to the possibilities of JRPGs when it was released. The scale of the story combined with the series' first foray into 3D, the love that people felt for the cast, and the spite for the game's villain... Continue Reading →
Fire Emblem is one of my favorite all-time video game series. I have played almost every title with a western release and for many of them, my playtime exceeds hundreds of hours. I'll happily dive into Fire Emblem time and again to discover the varied support relationships of the characters, play through each story path,... Continue Reading →
I've grown to love this cast a lot over the last few years and I am delighted to have had the opportunity to spend another game with them.
There's a saying about first impressions: we rarely move past them. Your initial impression of a thing colors every interaction with it, establishes a bias for which your mind seeks confirmation and little else. It's something that became very evident to me when I started regularly writing first impression articles for Adventure Rules - often... Continue Reading →
In November the crossover title Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity released on the Nintendo Switch. It was a game which blended the lore and characters of Breath of the Wild with the 1-vs-1000 gameplay of the Dynasty Warriors franchise. While I wasn't impressed with the storytelling in Age of Calamity, the mechanics redefined my expectations... Continue Reading →
