The Essential Companion of Heroic Adventurers
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 →
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 →
There isn't necessarily anything new or groundbreaking about the combat but all of the elements from familiar titles come together to make a complex system with lots of factors to weigh together that really get you thinking.
When I wrote that article and described my ideal farming sim as "Harvest Moon but Depressed," I never imagined that a day would come when I would play the game that scratched that itch. Yet in 2020's (after)life sim Spiritfarer, I found the melancholy I sought - plus a little hope to go along with it.
Spiritfarer is not just a life sim or farming sim - it is a platformer, and the satisfaction of movement that comes from that genre adds so much to what Spiritfarer accomplishes.
Age of Calamity fails to deliver on its promise of telling the story of the events that lead up to Breath of the Wild, but if you know that going in there's still a pretty fun game to be found underneath.
The custom modes reinvigorated my interest in the game when I hit the point where the only interesting thing left to do was to make the game harder for myself.
