Living her life in a beautiful little town, Crisbell is an orphan with not a care in the world, until two things occur to shake up her idyllic life. Firstly, the rose she picked that very morning was stolen by a frog in a top hat, leading to her having to trek all over her town to retrieve it. Secondly, a bunch of monsters attack the town, setting the crops alight, and resulting in a battle for Crisbell and awakening her new powers as a Time Mage.
When you think about it, stumbling across, and piloting, a monstrous tank is the best way to deal with most of your problems. That’s especially true when said problems include your quiet little village being invaded by a powerful army and all the villagers being abducted. That’s why it’s so easy to empathise with the children of Petit Mona taking up arms (or should that be cannons?) against the Burman army in the gigantic Taranis.
After more than a decade, we are tantalisingly close to the end of a saga that was put into motion all the way back in Final Fantasy XIV Online back in 2010. The story of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, and the culmination of 11 years of world building, character development, and more will end with the upcoming Endwalker expansion on 23rd November.
Quick note before diving into thoughts from hands on time with the expansion, we need to remind you that this article is based on play of an in-development build of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, and content in the final version is subject to change. Also, there will be mild spoilers for an early game dungeon and for the new Jobs; Sage and Reaper.
Anyone who knows even a little bit about me knows that I’m pretty fierce in my anti-capitalist stance on the world. A view like this, however, is often not reflected in video games with the medium rarely even loosely mentioning the topic for fear of upsetting “The Gamers” with their politics. So when I head about an anti-capitalist rogue lite from Laura Kate Dale and Conrad Zimmerman, I absolutely had to give it a try.
Do you remember the scene from the opening of The Incredibles where Mr. Incredible says that he feels like the maid and just wants the world to stay saved for a little while? That’s how I feel about the Crystals in the world of the Bravely franchise, and Bravely Default II doesn’t buck the trend. Beginning with throwing together your rag tag band of misfits, led by Seth, you venture into the world to save the Crystals.
Just over a decade ago, we were blessed with a movie based on the excellent graphic novel series, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. This was followed by an equally great (if not greater) video game. Then, due to licensing issues the game disappeared from all storefronts… until now. That’s right folks, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is back on consoles and PC!
The game follows the titular character and terrible person Scott Pilgrim and/or some of his friends as they fight their way through Ramona’s Seven Evil Exes so that Scott can continue dating her. Whether or not Scott actually deserves Ramona (because she is too cool for him anyway and he’s as much of a manipulative abuser as an ousted Ubisoft executive) is up to you.
Have you ever wanted to visit the memories of a woman’s relationship with a man with an owl’s head? Well, do I have the utterly perfect niche title for you. When the Past was Around follows Eda, a young woman who lost someone important to her at a point in the past and is trying to come to terms with the life that remains without them.
The first, and lasting, impression that SWORD ART ONLINE: Alicization Lycoris gives is anime, and plenty of it. All of the well-trodden tropes are present here. Blue-haired swordsman protagonist? Check. Fast-paced and heavily over-cut intro? Check. Inexplicable amnesia? Check. Anime waifu goodness? Check, check and check.
This also means, however, it suffers a couple of the pitfalls too.
As divisive as the Paper Mario series has been, it’s undeniable that the brightly coloured and playful likes of our truly 2D plumber are welcome in all the current doom and gloom. Revealed only a couple of months ago, and promising a whole load of fun around origami, it was honestly hard not to look forward to another instalment of ‘Nintendo messing around’ in 2020.
I am bad at rhythm action games, however, I will happily gorge myself on any one I come across simply because I find them so fun. From playing Dance Dance Revolution in the arcades to tapping away with Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy, I genuinely adore the genre. So, when I heard that the legendary Taiko No Tatsujin series was coming to Switch, I simply had to play it, even if I was going to be terrible at it.
Reu The Gamer 