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Quantum Leap - Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time - Part 3

2021-01-03T19:11:00.000-08:00

Our adventures have proceeded apace and we've already found ourselves in possession of three of the four quantum masks. With one more left, our oldest enemy, Dr. Neo Cortex, has chosen to show himself.

Though our power has yet to reach its peak, we must nonetheless confront that would-be tyrant and stop his plans for world domination. Once he's taken care of, surely there will be no twists. No other threats will appear and space-time will be free to mend itself.

Right?

RIGHT!?

This is the part towards the end of the game where the story begins to start playing the cards in its hand. Thankfully, because Toys for Bob made a number of intelligent choices in their cast and storytelling, it's also one of the most joyous for an old Crash fan like myself to run through. Every character was handled with love and care, both for their backstories and how they might be brought to a modern audience.

In particular, I want to talk about Cortex's characterization, especially after we defeat him once more. In this canon, where nothing beyond the PS1 games has happened, this is the fourth time he has lost to Crash Bandicoot. At this point, he's not so much out to take over the world as he is to salvage what might yet remain of his pride. Once N Tropy reveals his own betrayal, that just tips him over the edge.

It's fun to watch a villain join the good guys, and try to wrestle with what it means to "switch teams". Even moreso when there are multiple axes to explore that position from. One could interpret this as merely an act of self-preservation, since N Tropy has outright stated he intends to erase Cortex from existence. Another might say it's simple revenge for being slighted by his so-called partner. Still one more explanation is that he's concluded that evil can't win, so the only way to achieve that long-sought victory is by switching sides. Any one, or any combination, of those theories has enough evidence in the text to support it.

Praise should also go to Lex Lang for clearly having the time of his life reprising the role. Cortex is exactly the kind of over-the-top, completely absurd villain that completely steals the stage whenever he's on screen. That larger-than-life (and certainly taller-than-its-owner) personality is so accurately captured in his performance. We haven't gotten to see the best of Cortex yet, but what we have seen is truly delightful.

This is the work of a team who knows these characters and how they tick, and I hope they'll get the chance to continue their work after this game. They've certainly earned it.

Non-2020 Gaming in 2020

2020-12-29T05:42:00.012-08:00

I have been writing the Highlights and Disappointments features as annual projects since 2015, and for the past 2 or 3 years I have been grappling with a weakness of the format I’ve chosen: That I have only ever counted full retail releases that have occurred in the year of a given piece. Occasionally, I’ll fudge it with justifications like a new Yakuza or Ace Attorney game hooking me into the rest of the games in the franchise, but I’ve always stuck to that general rule.

And thus, I decided after writing up the pieces last year that I would do something more this time. Often, people who play the sheer volume of games that I do will go back to titles that came out in prior years, but either came out at a bad time or otherwise got lost in the shuffle at the time of release. Or maybe there was an update that added a cool new feature. Hell, maybe it just had a positive impact on us still after the discourse™ had settled down.

I wanted a space to talk about those games, and so I decided to create one. Here’s to the games that I played in 2020, but weren’t released in 2020.

Starting with:

Final Fantasy XIV (And All Expansions)

For what feels like years now, I have had numerous people in several different friend groups tell me that Final Fantasy XIV had some of the best writing and world-building in the entire Final Fantasy franchise. Unfortunately for my friends, there is no earthly way they could ever convince me any story in all of video games outclasses Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions...

...but Final Fantasy XIV gets closer than any other game in the franchise has, and I truly mean that. It delves into the kind of deep political intrigue that would be right at home in my beloved Ivalice. No matter how straightforward a situation might seem, there is always another side to it that might add color to the black and white. Having fully caught up with current content, I can safely say that the fanbase is attached to Eorzea and the people who live there with good reason.

Yet, none of that would have been worth a damn if the community was toxic or the game itself wasn’t fun. And while I must say that I do have the occasional annoying party member, the vast majority of the time I’ve paired with people who are either completely silent or fun to chat with for the brief 15-30 minute span our paths intersect. That said, it probably also helps that the moment I announced I was playing, at least 2 dozen people on my friends list were immediately eager to help me get started and comfortable.

I can think of no more ringing endorsement other than the fact that I started in August and continue to login almost daily because I genuinely enjoy running the Duty Roulette. If you knew me, and specifically how much I despise “lifestyle games,” then you’d understand exactly how big a deal that is.

Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath // SoulCalibur VI DLC

I’m giving these both a slot here because they did roughly the same thing for their respective games: Gave me an excuse to re-engage with them.

As one of the six people on Earth with an almost encyclopedic understanding of the SoulCalibur lore, I am ever eager to learn more about the backstories of the various cast members and how they intersect. Since SoulCalibur VI is a rough retelling of the events of the first two SoulCalibur games, each of the DLC characters come with a storyline that explains what they were doing during this time. For characters like Hilde and Setsuka, who were introduced in “future” games, this gave the development team a chance to better fill out how they got involved in the fight over Soul Edge. It might seem small, but that's more than enough reason to dive back into a tale eternally retold.

And the Aftermath expansion to Mortal Kombat 11’s campaign did an even better version of that, by creating a much-appreciated epilogue chapter that seamlessly incorporated all of the characters that had been introduced as DLC up until that point. Netherrealm continues to put more thought and care behind what was once seen as a flimsy excuse for buff people to beat the crap out of each other is reasonably, and it shows.

It used to be a truism that nobody played fighting games for their story, but thankfully both of these prove otherwise.

Tekken 7 // Dragonball FighterZ

If the past couple of years represent a growing interest in fighting games for me, 2020 might mark how I’ve begun to grow disinterested. And since both of these games were the ones I had fallen most for, they were the ones hardest hit by that.

In hindsight, this was probably inevitable. I have a good chunk of my friend group who gets together to play both of these games, but particularly Dragonball FighterZ, regularly. Because I have so many diverse interests, not just in gaming but in my real life, it feels bad to dedicate so much time to practice any one game. I started to fall behind as everyone else’s skill grew and mine began to stagnate and eventually recede. With that, a vicious cycle kicked off that only further alienated me from games that I otherwise still liked.

I hope that I can someday bounce back, take my lumps, and dive back into both of these games whole-heartedly. But for now, I think whatever is keeping me from them still needs to run its course.

Ring Fit Adventure

In the middle of lockdown, many people around the world had difficulty finding ways to keep active. For me, I was more than happy that I snagged Ring Fit Adventure well before then. It feels good to see the numbers go up in response to your exercising. That extrinsic motivation can be extremely valuable to people like me because it gives us a material reason to keep pushing.

Beyond that though, something about my relationship with the game changed as the months wore on, for the better. Minor spoilers: Once I beat the main campaign the first time, I unlocked New Game+ mode, where the main villain Dragaux was freed of the dark influence and took it upon himself to be my personal trainer. The Four Masters, who serve as his lieutenants, were also on hand to help him assist in my training.

While the actual campaign was more or less the same in terms of what each level was and what exercises I was doing, I found myself looking forward to each interaction with these characters on the path. It was fun to watch Dragaux and Ring go back and forth like old friends and massive dorks, or watching Dragaux deal with the fact that he has a crush on the Leg Master, Allegra. Eventually, the vignettes became my primary motivation for coming back to the game four times a week. It felt like working out with friends that I had slowly grown to know over the past year.

And I’m not going to lie, another driving factor was that Dragaux is hot. There is pretty much a 100% chance that whatever team worked on his design was horny-on-main.

Life is Strange 2

Life is Strange 2 hit me so much harder than the first game did, in a way I was not expecting it too. A large part of that is due to the era into which it was spawned and which I played.

Without spoiling too much, Life is Strange 2 is a tale about people who live on the fringes of society, though no fault of their own. As a game with a Latino-American teenage protagonist in the Trump era, difficult and painful subjects like racism, police violence, parental abandonment, and religious cults. Many of the characters we get to know throughout the game are people who are genuinely just trying to do the best they can but have been failed by the systems that make up American society. While I’ve never personally had to deal with circumstances that intense in my own life, I couldn’t help but feel for the two lead characters as they struggled to pick up the pieces of their broken lives in a cruel and unforgiving world.

I’ve also had the pleasure of watching my friend Novra stream this game immediately after playing through the first Life is Strange, and when played side by side the improvements in writing and animation are stark. Where a lot of the conversations in the first game fall flat in the way that one might expect of adults writing dialogue for teenagers, this script feels much more natural: Voice actors creating believable performances with the material given.

More than that though, while attending Novra’s streams, all of us started to use the game as a jumping-off point to have serious and earnest conversations about the topics being brought up and how they touched our lives in personal ways, or the lives of people we cared about. I have no idea if Dontnod ever intended to serve as a facilitator of discourse, but that’s exactly what they were.

Even if it was just a brief moment of catharsis, that was an invaluable outlet for me.

Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves served as an excellent excuse for my friends and I to casually chill together in the same virtual space for a few hours. It’s the perfect combination of exciting activities to do as a team, like raiding a zombie pirate ship or uncovering a box of buried treasure, and minimal stakes to lower the severity of losses.

Credit should also go to Rare for continuing to love and care for this game well after its initial release. Features like fishing, cooking, and bringing pets onto the ship add just that extra sense of life to an already entertaining pirate fantasy. And that’s before we get to the new Tall Tales, which serve as a form of campaign that players can tackle together to uncover the myths and legends of the high seas.

When I needed something to do with a small group, this was almost always on hand to give us a reason to get together.

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishment // Sherlock Holmes and the Devil’s Daughter

As someone who adores detective fiction, particularly the Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie stories, I’m shocked it took me so long to play these games from developer Frogware.

The thing both of these games excel at more than anything else is selling the fantasy of being the world’s most famous fictional detective. As the player, we’re the ones using his sense of perception and analysis to soak in details like the stained cufflink or old watch on a suspect, to draw conclusions about the kind of person they are before we’ve even asked a single question.

Once we’re established the facts relevant to our mystery, the deduction board, which would be later brought into The Sinking City as the “Mind Palace” mechanic, is where most of the big choices are made. Basically, by looking at what we know, we’re able to form deductions about what could have happened during the commission of a crime. And when a series of deductions are linked together, they form one possible conclusion to explain the circumstances at hand.

The trick here is that it is up to us, and our interpretation of the data, to decide which possible conclusion is the correct one. In most cases, I spent a good chunk of time on this menu agonizing over the many choices at my disposal, second-guessing myself over and over until I eventually arrived at a case I was willing to stand behind.

But of course, we’re not the police. We’re Sherlock Holmes. And the tale doesn’t necessarily end just because we’ve found a culprit. Perhaps our killer only acted in self-defense, or they otherwise had no choice in the matter. We can certainly turn them over to the authorities, or we can absolve them of their guilt, and give the police an alternate satisfactory conclusion to let them live out their life in peace. It makes us question whether or not the case “should” be solved in the first place, and I like that the game asked me to look inward to see if I believed that justice was being served by “solving” the case.

Not many detective games give you that choice, and it added so much more to what could’ve been just another adventure game in a sea full of them.

No More Heroes

Friends have recommended this game to me so many times over the years that I couldn’t help but be curious about it, especially since it was released on the Switch at a time where I needed something to play.

I’m told that in playing with a Pro Controller, I did so “incorrectly”, but despite that I had a blast. The protagonist, Travis Touchdown, is an idiot loser who thinks he’s tough shit, and it’s fun to watch the world around him treat him like the scumbag he is. Normally, I’d be stone-faced for a game with a “wacky” sense of humor, but I found myself genuinely laughing at many of the gags and jokes present throughout the story. Moreover, there was an honest good-nature to the game’s sense of humor. It never felt like it was punching down.

And while I’m reluctant to read too much into it beyond that, I’m fascinated by some of the readings and analysis that people have made on No More Heroes.

“Trust your force, and head to the garden of madness” (but not the sequel. That game sucks.)

No Man's Sky

This one has been on my wishlist ever since the game was released back in 2016. I’m no stranger to the many controversies of No Man’s Sky, but I figured it would be worth trying if it ever went on sale for a deep enough discount. Thanks to a friend who bought it for me as a Christmas present I no longer had to wait. When the Covid crisis started to break in March, and I found myself in need of ways to pass the time, this was the game that kept me company.

I don’t have a frame of reference for what No Man’s Sky was like at the time it launched, so I can only judge it by the state it was in when I played it. From that perspective, it’s exactly what I needed it to be at the time. More than anything, NMS captures the idea of learning about other people, cultures, histories, and how they shape the world we occupy.

It’s the combination of interactions that together form a tapestry of experiences. I would relish landing at a new space station in an unknown solar system because I knew it afforded me a chance to talk to the locals. Every new person met was an opportunity to further my understanding of their language, and the more I explored the easier it became to communicate with those who I encountered on the path.

And tempering my curiosity were the dangers that lurked on my way. On an oceanic planet with few solid landmasses protruding above sea level, my mining laser accidentally awoke a horror that had been disguised itself as a valuable treasure for the taking. It’s one thing for that to be an expected story beat in the campaign, but this was a wholly organic encounter. As I realized what I had done, a combination of panic and thrill permeated my being as I frantically ordered my avatar to swim as far and fast as they could, shooting their weaponry back at the monster before it was able to kill us. I failed, costing us hours of valuable progress as the materials we scavenged were lost and I had forgotten to save for some time, but that too was a learning experience.

Topping it off with a story that kept enticing me with the promise of intrigue and mystery in the throws of deep space; Whatever problems that might have been around at the time of release appear to be naught but a distant memory.

Halo 1 + 2

As you might know, I’ve been streaming my blind playthroughs of the Halo campaigns. So far, we’ve only done Halo 1 and Halo 2, but the experience has been a nostalgic one for me.

I might not have played the campaigns, but I have vivid memories of going to my elementary school friend’s house and spending hours playing splitscreen Halo 2 on their Xbox. We would often compete over the Energy Sword because that was the favorite among all of the weapons on offer. And once it got into my hands, that forward charge as I rammed into the back of my unsuspecting opponents never grew old.

More than that mechanical nostalgia, these Halo remakes, courtesy of the Master Chief Collection, brought me back to that era of video games; The early 2000s first-person shooter design that experimented with all sorts of different weapons, vehicles, and enemy types. The kind of game that offered large rooms with varied terrain that players could use to their advantage, never truly staying in one spot for very long.

Even, and maybe especially today, these games feel great in my hands. And at least as far as Halo 2 goes, there’s some nuance and intrigue to the campaign that kept my attention throughout. If anything, I’m looking forward to continuing onward to Halo 3.

-----------------------------------------------

And that’s about it for 2020. It may have been a terrible year for the world at large, but that gave me plenty of time to dive into games and projects that I otherwise would have kept putting off.

May the next year afford me this same amount of free time without prolonging the pandemic that’s affected so many of us.

Quantum Leap - Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time - Part 2

2020-12-27T19:38:00.001-08:00

Dr. Cortex and Dr. N Trophy are still ripping space-time apart as they work tirelessly to achieve their plans and enact revenge. With two of the quantum masks accounted for, and two more to acquire before we can mend the rifts, our journey continues.

It's About Time.

While I'm certainly not the first person to make the point, it's worth repeating how much work players would need to put in to achieve full completion: 106%. In his excellent video on the topic, Caddicarus outlines in detail what the requirements are, but that it took 68 hours to achieve them. For reference, my own complete runs of Crash 2 and Crash 3 took about 5-7 hours each.

I don't wish to regurgitate the contents of his video to you, so instead I'll add on to his point. Judging by both what I'm seeing for myself and what I'm hearing from people who have tried for full completion, it is even more difficult here than it was back in Crash 1. The Crash fan community has mostly gathered in support of this new game from Toys for Bob, but this is the most consistent criticism of their efforts.

At the same time, it's important to remember that Crash 1 was also lambasted for it's unreasonable difficult as well. That was why the second and third games toned down what it took to perfectly beat the game. I hate that Toys for Bob had to learn this lesson the hard way, but this can be a valuable learning experience. If they take the franchise forward, which they absolutely should be given the opportunity here because they've more than proved themselves, I have no doubt that they'll keep our feedback in mind.

It would have been easy to rest on the laurels of just doing everything the old games did without thinking about how they could be brought into a modern era, but that's not what happened here. Toys for Bob made the bold choice to experiment with ways to update the formula or otherwise change it around to keep things fresh and exciting. While this particular attempt to re-imagine what full completion is didn't succeed, there are many other innovations that did.

I'm happy this game exists.

In League with the Legends - Nox Ezreal

2020-12-17T18:04:00.000-08:00

It's been some time since we've played some Constructed in Runeterra on stream, so I figured it would be good to dive back and play some of the newer decks that have been making the rounds since we last give it a whirl.

We seem to have picked a good time too. Since new champions have just been released into the wild, people will probably be experimenting with new decks and brews.

For now though, let's return with a new take on an old favorite: Ezreal, courtesy of Mobalytics.

Deck code: CECAOAIEAENR6JBGGQ5ACAQDBEBQCAYUFY3QCAYECEAQEAIDCYZQA

They made some changes to Ezreal which should be an overall buff to how he plays. Before, he would level up after his owner had targeted enemies 8 times. Now, that number has been reduced to 6, meaning he's obtain his win condition faster than before.

To compensate, his level-up has been made slightly weaker. Where he once did 2 damage every time we cast a spell, it's now 1. However, it goes back up to 2 if the spell targeted an enemy. While this is a reduction, the lower level-up threshold and the fact that most of our spells are targeted means this is mostly a non-issue.

We're light on non-Champion units, but each one them does something useful for us like create a chump blocker, slowdown our enemy by targeting them, or generate cheap spells we can discard or cast cheaply.

Unlike the old Ezreal strategies we used to run, this is a much more aggressive variant. We use removal mostly to clear the way for our attacks, and when we're ready Ezreal comes in to dish out that final bit of damage we need to clear out the game. If our foe is also aggressive, we can keep them off balance until we're ready to strike ourselves.

It's a powerful deck, and one that's really fun to wield.

The Highlights and Disappointments of 2020

2020-12-15T04:30:00.003-08:00

It’s that time once more, for us to reflect on the year and think about how we can do better in the year to come. Obviously, I don’t need to tell anyone reading this that 2020 hasn’t been great, but that doesn’t mean good games didn’t come out. Pickings are slightly slimmer than they would be in a normal year. And yet, what did come out was generally strong on its own merits.

As a reminder, just because a game doesn’t show up on this list doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s possible that either I missed it or that it didn’t leave a strong enough impression on me to talk about. So without further ado, and presented in a random order, my highlights of 2020 are:

Hades

Although I go out of my way to list these in a random order, I am grateful the RNG put this at the top of the list because it would absolutely be my Game of the Year if I did such a thing. I’ve played on stream a few times now and I would be happy to do it more.

I’ve mentioned it in last year’s highlights piece, but since this was the year the game was both completed and brought to the masses with a full release, it’s more than appropriate to bring it up again here. It’s been a treat to see all of the memes and fan art as people fall in love with these characters I’ve adored for over a year now.

In terms of roguelikes, Hades has done a lot to improve both the on-boarding process, with God Mode and the way it chooses to account for the inherent randomness to the genre, meaning the players who ordinarily wouldn’t take to it have a good chance of still having a fun time. Additionally, the developers go out of their way to make it so that players look forward to their next death because they’ll advance either the main story or some side plot afterward.

So if you haven’t already, go play Hades.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

It is almost impossible to discuss the new Animal Crossing game, and my first AC ever, without going into the environment it was released. The experience of going into lockdown could not have been better for its odds of success.

For better and for worse, New Horizons defined the early quarantine period for myself and almost every other person who owned a Switch. While the world was going to hell around us, and we all had to discover our new “normals”, or what it meant to exist amidst a pandemic, we could take about an hour everyday checking in with our friends at our island home. I fondly remember talking to Coach about his fitness routine or asking Wolfgang about the book he was reading on the bench next to my flower beds.

And later in the game, I had a blast connecting with my friends using it in a moment where physical connection was no longer possible. Just visiting their islands, seeing how they’ve adorned their spaces, and chilling with them virtually was good enough for me. Then, we started sharing decorating tips, giving each other our spare crafting recipes, and compared the ever-present turnip prices to try to maximize profits.

It was exactly what I personally needed to help deal with the encroaching anxiety during these difficult times. I may not have returned to my island home since the end of the summer months, but I still think fondly of the succor my fellow villagers provided for me back then.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2

This was another comfort food game for me in 2020. As a child, the neighborhood kids and I would get together and, using the cheat codes to turn off bailing and gain unlimited balance, play around in the levels to see what we could discover. Then, we would spend hours creating our own skate parks to see what we could pull together.

The remake of 1 and 2 brought me back to those childhood memories. It was smart of the development team to bring in a lot of the additions from later games, like reverts and manuals, into this updated version because Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 doesn’t feel the way it's PlayStation brethren did, but rather the way my friends and I remembered it. And for me specifically, having all of those old codes available from the first as training/accessibility option allowed me to play the way I wanted to, exactly as I did with my friends in the day. In a year defined by misery and uncertainty, there was value in going back to those nostalgic memories of a bygone era.

Spider-man: Miles Morales

It’s safe to say at this point that Miles Morales is the best thing to happen to Spider-man canon in the past decade. While I have nothing against Peter Parker, it feels great to follow a character who isn’t a white guy in his 20s. Even better is seeing how those differences inform Miles and his ability to don the Spider-man persona. Those who watched Into the Spiderverse will be familiar with the idea, but it’s still a tale worth telling all the same.

I also have a fondness for a particular scene where a character looks at Miles and says “For the longest time, I’ve had a Spider-man looking out for New Your City, but this is the first time I’ve had a Spider-man looking out for me”. I remember getting choked up as I listened to that because it’s easy to forget the importance of representation. Miles is a good kid and as I kept going I couldn’t help but root for him, and the family and friends who stand beside him.

There was also something refreshing about having a GTA-style open-world game that only took 20-25 hours to fully complete. As my time grows more in-demand with every passing day, even in quarantimes, I’ve grown to appreciate games that don’t overstay their welcome.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Having spent the last two years getting fully caught up on the story of the Yakuza franchise, it was only natural that I took interest in the latest installment of Sega’s long-running “out Shenmue-ing Shenmue” series.

The twist this time around is that rather than stick to the tried-and-true brawler gameplay that the franchise has been using since its inception, this time around the format is a good ol’-fashioned turn-based JRPG. Even stranger is that it’s a surprisingly good one of those, especially if you happen to be a fan of Dragon Quest or older Final Fantasy games.

It also helps that the main cast are some of the most relatable protagonists I’ve ever seen in the genre. Ichiban Kasuga and his merry band all struggle to keep afloat in a cold and uncaring world, but never lose their passion and joy for life. Especially this time of year, I felt my heart bleed for this man who had to pick himself up after being left homeless and abandoned by everyone he knew.

I’m also endlessly amused by the wordplay inherent to the English version of the game’s title. For those in the know, it’s a well-constructed double entendre referencing both the franchise’s Japanese game and the fact that the main character is a huge Dragon Quest fan. It’s honestly amazing that what started as an April Fool’s Joke evolved into this fully fleshed out and endearing RPG adventure.

Legends of Runeterra

People who have followed me for a while know that I began playing Legends of Runeterra as it came out in open beta, and later full release, this year. To that end, the game succeeds on two very crucial axes.

First, the act of playing an individual match, either against another player or the AI. Mechanically, it combines some of the strongest aspects of Hearthstone, including the consistent build-up of mana as rounds pass and the use of effects that could only be accomplished in a digital card game, with some of the strongest aspects of Magic: The Gathering, specifically the flexibility in deck building and combat which forces the defender to make tough decisions and weigh their options carefully lest they’re taken by surprise with enemy assaults.

More importantly than that, is the economy surrounding it. I do not believe I have ever seen a more generous collectible card game, digital or otherwise, than this. Without exaggeration, just by completing daily quests and collecting the rewards for them, most players can build to a top tier competitive deck in less than 2 weeks of semi-regular play. Currently, I’m swimming in so many spare shards and wildcards despite taking a few weeks off to play other games, that every time I have the inkling to test out a new deck I can just build it with in-game currency, not spending a single time of my real money.

Not to say it doesn’t have ways to make money, because I’ve certainly purchased emotes, card backs and boards to play on, but that seems to be the way they intend players to invest: In the cosmetics aspects rather than the actual game pieces. And to be honest, I think that’s the more consumer-friendly way to go when it comes to this genre.

Riot may have had its share of controversies, but I can’t deny that they did right by the player base when they set up Legends of Runeterra.

Final Fantasy 7: Remake

This was another nostalgia game for me. Though I waited until the early 2000s to play Final Fantasy 7, it remains a very formative experience for my gaming canon. Even after the announcement of this game on the Sony stage back in E3 2015, I didn’t actually believe I would live to see this game get remade on modern technology. There are few times I am happy to be wrong, and this is one of them.

I knew that the team responsible for heading up the project were the right people for the job right after I got my hands on the playable demo for the game a month before it was released. This wasn’t the brooding, perpetually depressed Cloud that had become disastrously commonplace in supplemental media and cameo appearances. This was the Cloud I remembered: An idiot tryhard who wants so badly to convince everyone around him that he’s tough shit.

Nor was this the demure, pure maiden Aerith that other writers insisted on. This was the worldly version of Aerith that, though one of the kindest people you’ll ever know, had sass and personality. This was the Aerith who reacted to a ladder crumbling as she hurried to climb up by exclaiming “Shit!” while Cloud rushed to catch her. The Aerith who took a folding chair to a mafia goon’s head like a pro wrestler, smiling as it made contact and knocked him out cold. These were the characters I grew up with.

To top it off, out of all the attempts Square-Enix has ever made to blend turn-based ATB systems with real-time action-oriented combat, this was by far its most successful iteration. No matter how many battles I fought, I was always eager to enter the fray just one more time against another group of enemies. There’s a high degree of skill in the systems at play such that mastering can bring what was once a 30-minute boss fight down to a short 5-minute encounter.

And with the additions made to the story, I am eager to see what they’ll do in the next part of this new FF7 remake series.

Ghost of Tsushima

I wasn’t sure whether or not I would play Ghosts of Tsushima right up until reviews had come out for it, mostly because up until then I wasn’t sure what kind of game it was. As it turns out, it was an Ubisoft-style open would game that came out at a time when I was looking for a good one of those that wasn’t made by Ubisoft.

And were that everything, that might have honestly been enough, but there’s a solid story about one samurai’s ultimatum to stay true to his moral code and die, or otherwise adapt to a changing battlefield and thrive. It’s neither a historically accurate or original concept, but the performances are solid and the executive of it left me satisfied as credits rolled.

It’s a junk food game, but it’s a tasty junk food game that I was glad to consume.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope

After streaming Man of Medan with Acharky last year, it was only natural that we would do the same with the next feature of The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope.

We were not disappointed. Little Hope improves upon the core gameplay of its predecessors, including Until Dawn, by giving players a warning before a QTE comes up so that they aren’t ambushed by a random event while they’re watching the story unfold. That extra couple of seconds is crucial, especially for players who have poor reaction times.

Additionally, both Chris and I were blindsided by the plot twist at the end. Fortunately, it wasn’t one of the bad ones like in Heavy Rain. If we were paying close attention, we would have seen the foreshadowing and been able to figure it out, we just didn’t because we were otherwise too engrossed in the experience of making sure our crew survived the night to make the connections.

If you need a good horror game, especially to play with friends, I would gladly recommend this.

Resident Evil 3

After playing the Resident Evil 2 remake on stream last year, how could I possibly ignore the follow-up?

I don’t know if there was ever a moment where I felt truly scared playing Resident Evil 3, but I nonetheless had a spectacular time with the game. Jill is an excellent protagonist because even when the odds are against her, you as a player always feel like she has the ability to fend for herself. She’s far from powerless, and her improvisational skills are second-to-none. Carlos was also a lovable meathead that I couldn’t help but root for as he did his best to support the girl he was obviously crushing on.

While the story won’t win any awards anytime soon, I’m still awestruck by how capable the RE Engine proves itself to be time and time again. Not only are the character models and environments packed with detail, but I never had any major technical issues and it ran well on my PS4.

Capcom has been producing a lot of great games lately, and they deserve to be applauded for it.

Murder by Numbers

This game takes the award for “cheeriest way to say ‘murder’s never far away’” thanks to its opening theme song.

In all seriousness, I’m always looking for a good mystery game, and when I saw this game randomly pop up in the Nintendo eShop I was intrigued enough to give it a shot. What I found was a quirky little gem about protagonist Honor Mizrahi’s journey from professional actress to amateur sleuth by way of hilariously implausible circumstances and a robot friend with a penchant for finding clues.

While the story takes the form of a visual novel, most of the gameplay involves solving puzzles to identify new items and evidence that the cast will use to solve problems and draw conclusions about the murder cases they’ve been unceremoniously thrust into.

It also came out at a good time for me, since lockdown had only just begun and I was in dire need of something to do while I waited for bigger tentpole titles to come out and occupy my time.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

I can’t seem to get enough of Vanillaware’s hand-drawn sprite art or their bizarre obsession with food and dining, and 13 Sentinels certainly has both of those in spades. And if you’re a fan of their previous work, you know they also have a tendency to use multiple protagonists to explore the same story from different perspectives, culminating in a total picture stronger than the sum of its parts.

In order to avoid spoilers, I’ll not go into too many details here. Yet where The Dark Picture Anthology: Little Hope blew my mind a single time towards the end, this game serves up twist after twist, each time completely recontextualizing everything I thought I knew about the world and the people inside of it. Despite this, every detail remains internally consistent, and each world-shattering revelation brought the gears in my head closer and closer to perfect alignment until I began to understand the true extent of the mysteries at play.

The RTS mode, where the cast of 13 characters teams up to defeat kaiju in giant mech battles is surprisingly fun. Admittedly, it’s on the easier side, but it is immensely satisfying to see a whole swarm of killer robots felled by a railgun or anti-aircraft fire. The total package here feels like it shouldn’t work, but it does and I’m glad I made time to pour the 35 hours or so necessary to see it through to its conclusion.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time

After playing through all of the games in the original Crash trilogy, and Crash Team Racing, for your amusement on my streams, and what feels like hundreds of times over the years, nobody should be surprised to discover I loved the first new Crash game since…

*checks note*

...2010!? Seriously!? It’s been a decade since we’ve had a fully-original Crash Bandicoot title!? Well, thank god it’s good.

Toys for Bob ought to be proud of the work they put in with this one. This is far from a cheap knock-off. Crash 4 is the real deal, down to the hyper lethal platforming that defined the original games. I’ve seen many Crash games, especially in the PS2-era, get bogged down by gimmicks and mechanics that ultimately detract from the core platforming the series is known for. The Quantum Masks that serve as our power-ups and special twists avoid that trap because they’re powerful supplements that augment the game while still keeping the focus on that strong core Crash is known for.

The same can also be said for the addition of other playable characters like Tawna (complete with an incredible new design that I instantly fell in love with), Dingodile, and Dr. Cortex himself. Each of them has their own skill-sets and toolkits, bringing in a variety of new playstyles, and yet they all feel as though they belong, adding to what was already there.

As a long time fan of the games and the characters, I can happily say that I fully support the direction they chose to take them with this story. Crash Bandicoot always took its inspiration from the cartoons all of us used to watch every Saturday morning in the 90s. That feeling is perfectly captured, and other fans no doubt had as much fun searching for all the continuity nods and easter eggs as I did. I’ll never 100% this game because I practice self-care and a lot of the levels are hard when attempting to beat them in 3 lives or less, but seeing credits roll left me smiling with a sense of satisfaction.

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Normally, this would be where I leave off with a positive sendoff and leave you with a teaser for the Disappointments article. However, I have something different planned this year. So instead, since the list of disappointments is so small compared to previous years, I think it’s appropriate to just add them here to make room for my new concept next week.

Once again presented in a random order, the Disappointments of 2020 are:

Doom: Eternal

If I had to summarize my problems with Doom: Eternal, it’s that it learned all of the wrong lessons from its superior 2016 counterpart.

Part of the charm of that game was that it didn’t take itself or its story too seriously. DoomGuy just wanted to find a gun and slaughter an army of demons... and did not care about anyone else’s thoughts and opinion on the situation at hand outside of that. The whole was that the lore didn’t matter. This makes it strange that Doom: Eternal decided to make that one of such a large focus.

Beyond that, it also doesn’t play as smoothly as I remember from Doom 2016. The best way I can think of to describe it is that I could almost see the game design document in every aspect of play. Each of the weapons at the Doom Slayer’s disposal has certain enemies and enemy types that it is particularly efficient at cleaning up. The cacodemon, for example, can be instantly defeated with a glory kill after it has swallowed a grenade. Because of the number of foes the player has to fight at any one time, failure to take advantage of these weaknesses will likely result in swift and ignoble defeat.

And I couldn’t complete this segment without talking about both the infamous Marauder enemy, who is the only foe in the entire game that is somehow immune to the instant kill weapons players can otherwise use to “Nope” out of tight situations. That might not be a problem except that he is the one enemy that I would absolutely love to take out instantly if I could. The same could be said of the final boss, which doesn’t feel like it comes together the way it should.

Doom: Eternal wasn’t a bad game, but it pales in comparison to that which came before.

The Last of Us: Part 2

People way smarter than I have already gone into laborious detail as to where The Last of Us 2 went wrong, and I see no reason to retread all of that since I don’t have anything further to add. The writing itself is poorly paced, telling a story that is woefully misguided at best, and actively malicious at worst.

It’s also personally hard for me to reconcile the fact that this game represents some of the worst and most harmful business practices in the industry. These are working conditions that are disturbing even by game industry standards. I won’t deny that Naughty Dog’s work is impressive, it’s not worth the human cost.

I have a very clear memory of two major camps setting up in response to The Last of Us: Part 2. On one side were those who were literally comparing it to Schindler’s List. On the other were those calling it one of the worst games they ever played. Meanwhile, I found myself unimpressed by what I was seeing. In fact, a lot of the “detail” that the dev team was proud of, like the way Ellie and Abby painstaking install each modification to their weapons by hand in animations that last 30 seconds, actively detract from the experience.

It’s disappointing to see such mediocrity in both management and, frankly, in gameplay, get lauded as the best gaming has to offer.

Magic the Gathering: Arena

Those of you who have been following me will know that I haven’t logged into Magic the Gathering: Arena in the past 2-3 months. Part of that is my time being occupied by other long-term “lifestyle” games now, but that’s not the core problem keeping me away.

There are two primary issues with the game as a whole. The first is that the Standard format for Magic, which uses only the sets from the past 2 years, has had a really bad showing for a while now. Out of the 5 sets that are currently legal in the format, 3 of them had a card that was so powerful that it was being used in over half of the most competitive decks in the format. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a big deal, because players could instead play one of the myriad other formats available.

Except, Arena has a problem where there are only so many formats available to that specific client: Standard and Brawl being the two premier ones that use the exact same pool of cards. One could play the new Historic format, which was created to give Arena players a way to use their old cards when they rotated out, but then they would run into the other issue: The economy.

Content creator Saffron Olive already made an excellent video and article talking about Arena’s economy. To summarize the point, getting the cards required to keep up the latest formats can often be more expensive than it would be in paper Magic, and there’s no ability to cash out on your current collection, either via trading or, as many other digital card games allow, dusting cards to for currency to buy new ones. On top of all the cosmetic options like special card art, player avatars, and pets, which can often only be purchased with real-world money, it feels like I’m being gouged at every turn in unhealthy and coercive ways. I’m embarrassed by the amount of money I spent on Arena, even more than I was by the amount I spent on Overwatch, or at least I imagine I would be if I had any idea, and I just can’t take it anymore.

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And that’s a hell of a way to end this reflection of the games that came out in 2020, but not the end of our talk about gaming in 2020. Next week, I’ll have an experimental piece that I think you’ll enjoy. Until then, remember to take care and stay safe.

Quantum Leap - Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time - Part 1

2020-12-14T14:53:00.005-08:00

I can't think of a more appropriate subtitle for this game than "It's About Time". Discounting the recent remake via the N Sane Trilogy, and the Nitro-Fueled version of Crash Team Racing, the last Crash Bandicoot game to come out was Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2 for mobile phones in 2010. If we further remove mobile games from the equation, that would be Mind Over Mutant back in 2008.

Either way, it's been over a decade since the orange marsupial has had his time in the limelight. I and many other fans, for the longest time, assumed that the franchise had been fully abandoned by Bobby Kotick and our Activision overlords. While the N Sane Trilogy rekindled the hope of seeing the symbol of our childhood once more, it wasn't until this game was announced back in June that we were able to truly celebrate his triumphant return.

And frankly, I've waited long enough to talk about it on stream.

Bringing back a classic franchise is never an easy task, even more so when that task involves making new content for it rather than remaster that which has already been released. Even though Toys for Bob had people on staff who were familiar with the old games, it was still necessary for them to do extensive research into what would work best.

While I enjoyed both The Wrath of Cortex and Twinsanity, it only makes senses, when creating a new Crash game, to set it immediately after the end of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. The original trilogy is the only set of games that most, if not all, fans consider core to the franchise. So when making a new game, it would only make sense to focus primarily on those games, both PS1 and modern versions, as the object of inspiration.

And it shows. This is the exact type of platforming that one would expect from a Crash game, with a few modern design sensibilities throw in to keep gameplay fresh and exiting. We've already seen two of the four quantum masks, and one of the three new playable characters, but already they're making their effects known. Praise should also be allocated to the new Modern mode, which ditches the archaic system of lives since they always a holdover of arcade game design than a truly necessary aspect of the experience.

There's smart game design a foot, and It's About Time I gave it its due.

A Quick Run - Plague Inc: Evolved

2020-12-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

Obviously, this year has been defined by the outbreak of a deadly disease which keeps many of us quarantined and many more terrified that we're going to kill our loved ones by going to work and contracting something that'll spread to them.

So what better way to deal with our fears than by facing them head on, playing as a contagion aiming to eliminate the human population. That's right: We're playing Plague Inc.: Evolved.

The most clever aspect to this game is that it's less of a game of more of a system that players can work in and play with. At the end of day, Plague Inc is a simulation of what might happen in the world today if a disease was spread under specific, player driven criteria. The goal, of course, being to manipulate that criteria to create a scenario where the pathogen they have built managed to infect and kill every living person on the planet.

But just because the simulation was designed purely to model real-life diseases, does not mean that it can't be engineered to perform other, similar experiments. There's a strong modding community building their own custom scenarios with it's toolkit, and way back in the college days I remember using them to blow off steam. In particular, I was fond of the alien symbiote-related scenarios, creating situations where everyone on Earth was bonded to and merged with an alien creature.

I'm also impressed with how much love the game still receives from the development team. Some of what we experienced, like the Fake News scenario, had to have been recently brought into the game. Not to mention some of the random situations that are ripped straight from the headlines: The Olympic outbreak comes to mind.

It's simple to understand, even if the algorithms at work may not be, but that simplicity allows for it to be built upon in ways that one wouldn't necessarily see coming.

Halo 2 - Fall, to Rise - A Blind Playthrough - Finale

2020-12-07T08:21:00.002-08:00

That's right, everyone. We've reached the legendary cliffhanger that took 3 years and an entire console generation to resolve. Even people like me, who didn't play the Halo campaigns growing up, knew about "finishing this fight".

But of course, the journey is more important than the destination. So join us as we try to stop the Covenant from making a terrible mistake.

Something I made note of in the stream, but feel the need to repeat here, is that it was a bold, but appropriate, choice on Bungie's part to end the game with the Arbiter instead of the Master Chief. For the most part, the Arbiter's story is, by far, the more important one of the two. He is the one that gives us an insight into Covenant culture and how it's formed by a fundamental misconception about the nature of Halo.

More important, he's the one that goes through an entire character arc, from start to finish, as he is forced to accept than everything he has ever been led to believe is false, eventually siding with the humans he once believed were savages out to destroy his people. Watching him stand side-by-side with Johnston and Miranda at the end of game marks a strong capstone in that story.

Giving that character the room to develop couldn't have been an easy call, even if it was the correct one ultimately. Since Master Chief is the poster boy for the series, especially at the time, it would have made sense from a marketing perspective to bookend the game with him.

It's no where near on the same level as pulling a Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2, but it's definitely brave in it's own way.

While we certainly won't be waiting 3 years like people did in real time to "finish the fight", we won't be diving right into Halo 3 just yet. Next week, we return to our favorite Bandicoot to celebrate his triumphant return.

It's.
About.
Time.

In League with the Legends - Expeditions

2020-12-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

When it comes to card games, I tend to latch heavily onto Constructed formats, where players can build decks out of a specific pool of cards designated by the format in question. It suits my style better, allowing me to take the time to do research on what the most popular decks are and either netdeck or use them as inspiration to create my own recipes. It brings me a certain joy to analyze the trends and see how decks new and old fair as cards are brought in or removed from legal play.

But any card game player knows that Constructed formats are only one way to engage, the other being Limited formats. Rather than come into a game with a deck build ahead of time, Limited formats require players to improvise and built decks based on what they pick from a random or semi-random selection of cards. Drafting is one of the most common variants, opening a pack, picking one card from it, and passing it to the next player in rotation so that they can make their own pick.

So instead of coming at you with another set of decks to try, this time I thought it might be fun to check out Legends of Runeterra's equivalent of a booster draft, called Expeditions. Let's build our own deck and see how well it holds up.

While I've drafted in other card games like Magic, and participated in Sealed Pre-Release Events before Covid put an end to any such large gatherings for the time being, I've never had any luck with those formats before. So when I did my first Expedition early on, just to see what it was about, and managed to make it to the very end and win my final match the first time, it came as quite a surprise.

A large contributing factor, if I had to make an educated guess, on my improved success here compared to other limited events, is that Expeditions does just make players select from a single card at a time. Rather, we select individual "kits" of cards that belong to a common theme. Since our first choice also comes with a Champion appropriate to that theme, we start off with a solid framework from which to build the rest of the deck.

And to smooth out any rough edges, we're also able to trade out cards and make further modifications to the deck as we play matches with it. While there's still a large degree of randomness inherent to any Limited format, these slight changes allow players to better control for it for the sake of a stronger, more synergistic deck than would be otherwise possible.

This way, even someone as unlucky as me can create a decent deck, making up for any deficiencies by playing it to the best of my abilities.

Halo 2 - Fall, to Rise - A Blind Playthrough - Part 3

2020-11-30T16:31:00.000-08:00

The race for the Index/Icon has officially begun, as Humanity and the Covenant compete over the fate of the next Halo ring. Both factions understand that the fate of what is likely the entire universe is at stake, but only one of them has full knowledge of the situation.

Let's find out what happens when their champions meet for the first time, real life sickness be damned.

So first off, as of the time of writing, my condition is improving. By the time this goes live, I will most likely be fully recovered. That being said...

I couldn't help but suffer flashbacks to that massive section with the Flood in Halo 1 when playing through the first part of this episode with The Arbiter. Thankfully, it doesn't last nearly as long before being broken up by more fights between The Flood and 343's robot drones. In both cases, there's a core root problem of going through many cycles of the same-looking rooms against the same enemy groups and formations, which makes it difficult to gauge whether or not any tangible progress is being made.

In addition to that, the Flood aren't terribly fun to fight. Their major gimmick is that they're easy to kill, but make up for that weakness by being swarm fodder. Unfortunately, Halo 2 is already lethal in terms of combat, so their reduced stamina doesn't make an appreciable difference when fighting them here. The increased numbers also make it hard to find good spots for cover, and while cloaking helps it doesn't stop a single lucky hit from stray fire from deactivating it and making us vulnerable again.

Once that was done, I was glad to go back to fighting the Covenant again.

Halo 2 - Fall, to Rise - A Blind Playthrough - Part 2

2020-11-23T13:25:00.001-08:00

Our fight continues, as the Master Chief and the Arbiter both continue their respective campaigns, each doing what they believe to be best from their perspective. The war between Humanity and the Covenant rages around them.

With a new Halo ring in play, how will both champions of their people react to the efforts of the other.

See, I told you I would hijack that damn Wraith, and how.

We spoke a little bit about it in the last update, but I like getting this glimpse of Covenant culture through the lens of a secondary protagonist. Additionally, it's a smart move to avoid framing them as if they are evil, seeking to destroy humanity just because it would be fun. They have their own reasons, goals, and purpose, and as far as they're concerned we're the monsters and the aggressors out for their blood.

I don't intend to say "It makes me think" because:

I'm super late to this party and that's probably an ice cold take even by my standards.
By this point in my life, I've already played Spec Ops: The Line, Undertale, and so many other games the lampshade the senseless violence in video games to death. I've heard it all before.
It wasn't exactly genius or highbrow even back at the time.

Despite all that, it is still refreshing to acknowledge that our enemies aren't mindless monsters. Even if we still need to stop them, and ultimately kill them, they are not acting with malicious intent. Seeing Master Chief being called "The Demon" by the rank and file who only know him through the carnage visited upon them at his hand is a welcome touch. Likewise, seeing the Covenant's religious fanaticism being manipulated by forces outside their control adds that extra level of sympathy that humanizes them, especially since I accidentally did a genocide at 343 Guilty Spark's behest and got a non-standard game over in the process last game.

For someone like me, who only knows Halo lore in the abstract, it was quite a pleasant surprise.

A Quick Run - Armello

2020-11-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

One of the simple pleasures that has been denied by the Covid-19 pandemic has been that of getting a group of friends together to play a board game. Obviously, there is no proper substitute for in-person play with friends and family. That said, apps like Tabletop Simulator do a good job satisfying that itch as best as can be.

Another potential salve are virtual board games that invoke the feeling of tabletop, while still leveraging the medium to do things that are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pull off in a pure tabletop setting. Alongside my old friend Chris, we play one such board game: Armello.

The king has fallen to rot and corruption, and his days are numbered. We can't save him, nor would we want to. Instead, it's time to see who will fill the vacuum of power, ascending to the throne.

To be honest, it was oddly relaxing to just sit with Chris and a couple of randos and just play a board game for a while. I've been looking for an excuse to launch and play this game for a while now, and when our initial plan fell though, this became an excellent backup.

For those not aware, this game was a Kickstarter-supported project back in 2014, when there the likes of Pillars of Eternity and what would go on to become Broken Age started the trend of independent developers turning to crowd funding as a way to avoid groveling at the feet of large AAA publishing houses.

And while that's an interesting backstory in its own right, the other fascinating aspect of it is that become they made significant headway on the version we played, there was a physical prototype that served as a proof of concept for the underlying structure and gameplay systems. I remember when I played this game for the first time. My immediate thought was that I liked the way it felt like playing a good old fashioned board game, and it would be easy to translate these systems to tabletop.

But the devil in the details. Keeping track of perils, modifiers, stats, quests & quest progress, and all of the many things we can take for granted because a computer is handling the heavy lifting is difficult work. To do all of it real time required two human game masters, separate from all the other players, to handle that workload, according to the dev team.

This complexity is part of why there's just a high layer of strategy to the game. There are many paths to success, and while luck does play a significant factor, players who know what they're doing and tip the odds in their favor with skilled play and careful consideration of the board state.

At the same time, the big criticism I have of the game is that there is often, but not always the "Monopoly Moment". As I pointed out in that same with the random other players, Barnaby had pretty much closed locked down the board. If he just sat there, there nothing the rest of us could have done to win...

...except we still have to keep playing because there's still a chance he makes a crucial mistake, which he did, allowing the Zosha player to snipe victory from him at the last possible second. Most of the time, such grand mistakes won't happen, but we all have to keep playing despite the fact the winner is obvious because that slim hope that he can be disposed as surely as The King himself exists. In that moment, Zosha knew exactly what she needed to do in order to secure her victory.

It's a fun game that I wish I had more people to play with.

Halo 2 - Fall, to Rise - A Blind Playthrough - Part 1

2020-11-16T11:58:00.000-08:00

After a hard fought campaign against the forces of the Covenant, the Flood that our conflict had unwittingly unleashed, and the mechanical guardians created to genocide all organic life, we managed to escape alongside the Master Chief.

Now, our brief reprieve in the small, scenic town of Little Hope has come to end, and it's time we returned to the frontlines of battle. Earth, and humanity, are once again under attack, and once again the Master Chief stands as a bulwark again the incoming threat.

Welcome to Halo 2.

Both in terms of Bungie's original jump from Halo: Combat Evolved and in 343's ability to remaster games, judging by the leap in quality from their remaster of that game, Halo 2 is a triumph. The sheer amount of work both teams must have put in during their respective dev cycles cannot be overstated.

Something that was sorely lacking in the original Halo: Combat Evolved, was anything resembling lore and world-building, to give players something to sink their teeth into. The plot was bare-bones, giving us just enough to justify gunning down a bunch of mooks. Here, we begin to learn a lot about the Covenant, their culture and what drives them. And for that reason, the role of the Arbiter is a crucial one.

The updated cut scenes provided by 343 also go a long way to improving the presentation of these details. I'm thankful that the ability to hotswap between the old and new graphics style extend to the cutscenes in Halo 2, because otherwise I would never be able to appreciate just the amount of work that must have gone into this complete recreation. Rather than just upscale the graphics and call it a day, they put in the extra effort to create all new, high resolution models and texture work, and restage everything with a more cinematic flare, incorporating shot composition and re-scripting entire scenes for improved legibility. I don't say this to disparage Bungie's work, because they did an excellent job with the resources they were given. Rather, this is intended to acknowledge and respect the extra effort put in by the mastering team.

And it's equally impressive how much better the game plays compared to its contemporaries. The game may be more lethal, but that just makes duel-wielding SMGs or Needlers that much more gratifying. Sure, I can't melee or grenade anybody unless I'm willing to ditch the weapon in my left hand, but that's okay because more bullets is better for me. That's all before we even get into the changes made to make driving vehicles in this game a lot more bearable than it was in Halo 1. We can even steal them from out enemies now.

On that subject: I promise you, I will jack the Wraith if it's the last thing I do.

A Quick Run - Pumpkin Jack

2020-11-13T08:45:00.001-08:00

It is often lamented that the state of the game industry at large tends to crowd out the kind of low-budget, mid-tier platformers that were commonplace in the PlayStation 1 era. For every Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon, there was a Jersey Devil or some other such game that, while not the pinnacle of its genre, was entertaining enough to hold its own in the annals of gaming history.

As it so happens, I was in the mood for one such game when my good friend Chris, of the Marvelous/Dark Duo fame, gave me a copy of Pumpkin Jack. I was intrigued enough by it that I wanted to show it off for a bit on my Wednesday stream.

It's exactly what I was hoping for. Not perfect, but good enough to satisfy the itching I had for a mid-tier platforming game.

From what I gather, Pumpkin Jack was mostly the pet project of a single man: Nicolas Meyssonnier, with some aid in the OST and UI departments. And as a product of a small team, I must say I'm impressed with what I've seen.

All of the bones of a solid platformer are here. Movement is fluid and the controller are smooth enough that I never feel like the game is fighting me. Even the gimmick sections have very responsive controls that do exactly what I want them to do. Part of that may be due to the simplicity of said controls, but I can hardly complain if the game doesn't feel the need to bog itself down in overly complex mechanics.

The art style is charming and in way that harkens back to my beloved Medievil. It plays in the classic tropes of horror and Halloween while being delightfully approachable for players of all ages. And it's back by an OST that doesn't exactly what it needs to do in setting the tone without standing out. That might sound like a complaint, but sometimes the best soundtracks are the ones that fade in into the background to compliment the work that they're being used in. There's also enough personality in the characters that they get to play off of each other in lovably affable ways.

Most of the complaints I could level at Pumpkin Jack feel petty. The game feels easy, even for a platformer meant for kids. As you can see in the VOD, I came close to being defeated in combat a number of times, but that's mostly because I wasn't focusing on it and taking more hits than I realistically should have if I was more seriously playing it. Even the platforming feels like it could stand to be less forgiving than it is in order to impose more challenge. There's some escalation later on, but I have died significantly less than I have in most other games in the genre.

Additionally, it feels like the different weapons are mostly cosmetic, not adding a whole lot of meaningful change to the gameplay structure. It would have been nice to see new mechanics added to the kit as our inventory expands. I am largely doing the same thing at the point of the game I'm playing now that I did when I was streaming this as of the time of writing, and while level design can certainly alleviate a lot of that (which it has in fairness), there could be a Metroid-esque accumulation of abilities.

But overall, this is a fun game that I'm hope gets a few more eyeballs on it as a result of I and other people spreading the word. There's solid work put into this game that I would like to be rewarded.

The Dark Duo - Little Hope - Part 2

2020-11-09T10:55:00.001-08:00

Like moths to the flame, Acharky and I return to the horrors of Little Hope to unravel the mysteries at the heart of a town seeped in tragedy and sin. Are we doomed to forever live and relive the haunted past, or can we finally let the dearly departed rest in peace?

We all have our demons. And if we don't confront them, we risk losing ourselves to them.

I'll be honest. I did not expect that plot twist coming, even if I should have. It doesn't come out of nowhere, and the seeds were all established in the story beforehand. If anything, knowing what I know now makes a repeat playthrough all the more appealing. It would interesting to see how scenes change with the added context, and what other possible endings there could be.

I also wonder if this signals a trend we can expect to see in the rest of The Dark Pictures Anthology. In both Man of Medan and Little Hope, the monsters and horrors our protagonists go up against all have rational, logical explanations for their existence. Part of both games is uncovering the truth and using that to dispel or otherwise neutralize them, conquering them in turn.

If that through line continues, then is it natural to suspect that even the Curator/Grim Reaper himself also has a logical explanation? As unlikely as it seems, he himself is the one who keeps insisting that "things are not always as they appear to be".

Either way, I had a blast playing this, and I eagerly look forward to seeing what they do next year.

A Quick Run - Griftlands

2020-11-05T17:36:00.000-08:00

Though I don't purchase, or even necessarily like, all of their games, I always have my eye on Klei Entertainment. They have a unique affinity for looking at a genre, taking the core aspects of it, and refining it to something that is both extremely approachable and mechanically deep. From the excellent stealth game Mark of the Ninja to the survival-based Don't Starve (Together), and turn-based Invisible Inc, all of them are completely distinct from one another, but they all carved their niches out in their respective genres.

So when I heard they were making a deck-building roguelike... Well, I was intrigued.

What intrigues me most about Griftlands is that there appears to be two completely separate modes of combat, with their own separate resources and decks to wield in that aspect of the game. There is the obvious physical combat, and the negotiation game, trading barbs instead of blades. It's a good solution to the problem many RPGs that play like this have, where speech checks can completely negate player engagement by letting them completely bypass a section of the game. Players have to choose their approach, weighing the consequences both short and long-term.

That aside, I like seeing the dev team take from other genre contemporaries to further refine their own mechanics. Most obviously, there's a lot of DNA from Slay the Spire in Griftlands, from the intent system to the way each encounter gives players a card to add to their deck. Even the fact that it's a card-based deck-building game where cards can be upgraded lends some credit to that game. And yet, the differences are significant here. For one, all it takes to upgrade a card is frequent use, so any pet cards that we use religiously are bound to be upgraded once after enough time passes. Additionally, the choice in how they grow stronger gives us yet another layer of customization and decision making.

I'm also curious as to what impact the roguelike elements will have for Griftlands. Most runs I have in typical roguelikes last about an hour or less, so if I die I don't lose so much progress that it feels like I wasted my time. While I've not played more than what I did on stream as of the time of writing, the impression I have is that I was just getting started with Sal's campaign. In the event I get 5 or more hours in and die to some random bandit, having to start all over from the very beginning is going to be brutal, to the point where it would be very discouraging. I can only hope Klei took that into account when designed the overall flow of the game.

It feels like they're intention is to have an entire 8-10 hour campaign. If that's the case, then I don't know if this is a game I can stay with for the long haul, especially if the choices I make 3-4 hours ago are what do me in way later on. But I'm willing to give it a try, my curiosity demands that much.

In League with the Legends - Lee Targon's Warmother

2020-11-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

Eventually, after so long without streaming any card games, the itch eventually needs to be scratched, at least for someone like me. And there's no better time than now to return to the world of Runeterra, which the latest update providing new cards, champions, and strategies to experiment with.

On top of that, there appears to be a new event on offer with regards to a pop stars in the League of Legends lore that I have absolutely no familiarity with whatsoever. I've sure someone will explain it to me at some point.

As always, the deck lists I play with come courtesy of Mobalytics. The decklist import codes are:

Warmother:

CICACAYFAIBAGAICAYBQCBIBDUUAKAIBBQLSCJZJAEBQCBIPDE3ACAIBAE2A

Lee Targon:

CIBQEAICBEYQGAQCAMDASBQDBENSGKJTLRRAGAICAIEACAYCCQAQGCKVAEAQEAQF

Warmother's Call has been around since I first started playing the game. While it's a powerful effect, it's very seen much use because it's high cost means players would need to have at least 9 normal mana (and an additional 3 spell mana) to play it. Ramp never had the tools to succeed, which prevented it from seeing any major play. The card that finally solved that problem was, oddly enough, Trundle.

Since the two big ramp pieces, Wyrding Stones and Catalyst of Aeons, can both be played on turn three, it is common for this deck to have five mana available on turn four, allowing Trundle to sequence nicely after ramping. With both above average stats and regeneration, he can both a strong attacker and blocker to keep pressure on the opponent while we continue to expand our mana pool. And if that wasn't enough, his signature spell is a strong board clear that can debilitate boards that have over-committed to the board in the meantime. He has everything that the archetype was missing, slotting nicely into the build.

The Lee Targon deck, on the other hand, involves setting up a combo that can quickly obliterate an opponent once it's been established. First order of business is to draw into one of our copies of Lee Sin, and cast enough spells to level him up. This is why most of the spells in this deck draw a card once we've cast them, and most of the minions in our deck create cheap Gems that we can use to pad out our spell count and protect Lee Sin with the barriers he creates for himself.

Once we have achieved these conditions, we use Zenith Blade on him to grant him overwhelm. If leveled up, Lee Sin will use Dragon's Rage on any unit he challenges. This will slam them into the enemy nexus to inflict damage and kill them. Normally, this would mean we don't get to attack in because Lee Sin was blocked. However, because Zenith Blade gives him overwhelm, he can then swing in for full damage. To protect our combo, we have a couple of disruption spells in the form of Nopeify! and Deny to keep our enemy away from their removal.

It's fun to come back and see a whole new meta working it's magic. Thanks to Runeterra's economy, it didn't take long for me to catch up with everyone else since I already had enough shards and wildcards to construct the decks I wanted to try out.

If only more digital card games were so generous.

The Dark Duo - Little Hope - Part 1

2020-11-02T10:25:00.001-08:00

The spooky times are upon us once more, and there's no better time for a big frighten than now. Supermassive Games, creators of both Until Dawn and last year's The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan have taken it upon themselves to release a new chapter in their ongoing series. The Curator has returned with a new story that we are to conduct.

Welcome to Little Hope. Joining me as he did in our last outing at the Man of Medan is my old friend Acharky. The Dark Duo is back, and this time it appears that the mystery is not as cut and dry our seafaring adventure prior.

While Little Hope plays largely the same as Man of Medan did, they are definitely areas of improvement in the way the game presents itself. The one that immediately comes to mind for me is that prompts overtly signal when they lead to progress, so that players know what to avoid doing if they want to take the time to explore the area for secrets or extra dialogue, solving the problem where we would painstakingly try to guess with choice is the "right one" so we could put it off for last before missing out on something we wanted to see.

Another noticeable UI change is that there's a visual indicator before we're expected to perform a QTE like tossing a rock or navigating down a precarious path, or keeping quiet. It's a nice touch to avoid blindsiding players who are otherwise engrossed in the story, buying them that extra second to scramble for the controls before they're asked to use them. There is the odd side effect of me failing pretty much every "keep quiet" scene because I'm so used to immediately having to react, but this is an impulse that can be unlearned in time, after enough exposure.

There's also the changes to character stats. In contrast to Man of Medan, where there was a single bar denoting how two character mutually feel about each other, each character's opinion of the others are tracked separately in Little Hope. Just because John has a favorable opinion of Taylor does not mean that the reverse is true. And with certain personality traits being locked, the cast is more strongly defined on a mechanic level than that of Man of Medan, and even Until Dawn. While the writing has always been good, this allows the calculations under the hood to better keep up with it. All of these are small changes, but together they significantly refine the formula Supermassive has been working with for all of these games.

Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give Little Hope is that I barely even noticed the time ticking by as Chris and I played it together. And in the first two hours, it made us go from completely hating several of the character based on first impressions, to being solidly in their camp. And that, above all else, is the sign of a good video game.

Running Through Hell - Hades - Run 3

2020-10-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

What can I say? This game has been on my mind a lot lately, and my Wednesday stream seemed to be the perfect excuse to go for another run.

Prince Zagreus is ever eager to break out of his lord father's domain, and I'm ever eager to aid with on the way.

(A warning: As I had beaten the game prior to playing this session, there may be spoilers.)

Watching so many people come into the game, playing for the first time now that it's fully released, the thing I can't help but notice is how approachable it is compared to contemporaries in it's genre. People I know who ordinarily don't get into roguelikes are having fun with Hades in a way they just haven't before.

I'm hardly the first to remark upon this, and I doubt I will be the last, but there are many common pressure points that are inherent to the genre, and Supergiant intelligent worked to alleviate many, if not all, of them to make the experience less painful.

Death is not something to be feared. Though players will lose all of their boons and be sent to the start, they'll always gain something permanent from their trouble. Whether that's some Darkness to upgrade Zagreus, knowledge of the enemy that killed them, they made some progress. Additionally, returning to the House means they have an opportunity to see what the rest of the cast has to say (and they always have something interesting on their minds).
God Mode gives those who normally struggle to come to grips with roguelikes another tool to onboard themselves. It doesn't make the game easier at first, but it grants them bonuses every time them die, a cushion that otherwise wouldn't be there to help catch them when the fall.
The game is not anywhere near as randomized as one may suspect at first glance. In truth, an expert player has the capability to control for their luck through the choices they make in a run. While it is certainly possible to have a poor seed, it's unlikely given all of the following:

The trinkets, companions, and the choice of weapon combine to give players a static load out upon which they build on and around, rather than starting purely from scratch each time they make an escape attempt. Even without getting any boons or hammers, they have that baseline ability to carve out a play style before entering Tartarus.
There are many branching paths on the way to the surface, and while all of them eventually reach the top, Supergiant politely informs the player what rewards they will get if they go along a specific path. This allows them to make an informed choice about which path they take and which boons, upgrades, or benefits they want to go for in order to improve the odds that they'll make it to the end.
When they obtain a god's blessing, players have a choice over which benefit they extract from it, giving them another method with which that can make choices over how they want Zagreus to play.
No matter what, the very first area will always start players off with either a god's boon or a Daedalus Hammer, so there is never a run that will be completely devoid of any power ups.

While many of these choices are hard to parse out at first, overtime most players, consciously or not, will start to pick up on what decisions lead to easier runs and naturally improve over their experience with Hades. This is especially true later on, when players unlock the ability to re-roll either chamber rewards or boon choices, given them an even finer degree of control over the preceding.

It's a truly impressive feat that Supergiant performed in the development of Hades, making one of the most accessible games of its ilk. I can only hope more roguelikes start to learn from its example.

Halo: Combat Evolved - First Drop - A Blind Playthrough - Finale

2020-10-26T17:32:00.001-07:00

It is difficult to describe how irrationally excited I was to stream this, not just because it was time for me to finish up my first playthrough of Halo: Combat Evolved. As many of you may know, my job requires me to spend about a week every month acting as the on-call support, meaning that I can't stream on those weeks since I may have to end the stream at any moment.

Recently, we got some hires that log in at around 8-8:30 PM EST, which means that I now have these Sunday nights to myself. And though I can't stream at the usual time, I can start an hour late and still do the thing I love doing on my Sunday nights.

I cannot express how happy I am to no longer have to cancel streams on weeks I'm on-call, but I can absolutely give the Covenant, the Flood, and that evil little robot a thrashing they won't soon forget.

Thumbnail, as always, is from Sam Callahan.

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If I am being brutally honest, the last level of this game is bad, which is such a shame because it's otherwise such a solid opening salvo for the franchise.

That final fight sequence would have been a good one, except its map betrays it. In theory, this should be a simple fight, where we have to climb to the third floor, open up the cooling arrays and blow them up with explosive, but several minor complications combine to make this a bigger headache that it had to be.

There is, as far as I can tell, a single access point to the third floor, so if we ever fall off we have to make our way back to that stairway and climb back up no matter how far away we might be. This section could benefit from more ladders or ramps that would offer ways to more quickly make our way back up there.
The vents we need to destroy are located directly underneath the platform we have to climb up to in order to open them. This means that we have to jump off the platform in order to find a good angle to fire or lob grenades from. Things would be smoother if the exposed vents could be seen from the place where we press the button.

And then we get to escape scene in the Warthog, which is everything wrong with early 2000s vehicle sections distilled into a single stage. Terrible controls, combined with unwieldy terrain and floaty physics generate a breeding ground for frustration and contempt. Even worse, there isn't a single checkpoint at any point in the section. I'll take the blame for some of my deaths, but a lot of them were the result of physics-related mishaps I had next to no control over. To have the game invalidate six whole minutes of my time because their collision detection randomly decided to kill me is not a way to engender good feelings. I was surprised when stream chat called this an iconic moment, because I would never want this to be the thing people thought of when they think of a game I'm fond of.

I'm just glad the rest of the game more than makes up for it, because if this was my first impression I'm not sure I would've gone on to finish the Halo: Combat Evolved as I have.

Halo: Combat Evolved - First Drop - A Blind Playthrough - Part 3

2020-10-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

We continue our fight against the Covenant alongside the Master Chief. As it turns out, Halo isn't a superweapon that we can use to wipe them out. Rather, it appears to be the prison for a race of parasitic monsters known as The Flood.

Military Commanders... Always leaping before they look.

Now we've got to clean up their mess.

Thumbnail, as always, provided by Sam Callahan.

But perhaps it's best to find a way to fix this whole situation without doing a genocide of world-ending proportions. Everyone please ignore the fact that I hit the "extinguish all life" button because it looked shiny.

While this game has a bare bones story, something I appreciate about it is that it avoids bogging itself down in unnecessarily complex jargon. The faction of fanatical aliens are simply called "the Covenant", to emphasize the religious undertones of the organization. Parasitic swarms without end go by "The Flood," to underscore their numerous and aggressive nature. Even out faceless protagonist is referred to as "The Master Chief," their military rank being their most notable character trait. Using those types of Proper Nouns reduces the cognitive load on the player, allowing them to quickly and easily memorize the high level concepts they need to know to understand the overall plot.

On top of that, I like the choice to have the player walk back through the earlier levels and see how they've changed in response to the Flood. It shows us through gameplay how the Covenant and the world around us is dealing with the ongoing threat. There's also the thematic aspect of going backwards, and losing the progress that we fought for in the beginning because we now need to deal with The Flood.

Next time, it appears that we'll be wrapping up our campaign through the first Halo game. Hopefully, we can avoid ending all of existence along the way.

Halo: Combat Evolved - First Drop - A Blind Playthrough - Part 2

2020-10-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

The plot thickens on our first mission with the Master Chief. Where we saw a simple weapon with the potential to terrify and/or eliminate the Covenant, the truth was so much more sinister. Our military leaders, such is their wont in their endless hubris, unleashed and awakened sinister forces that threaten all life.

Thankfully, we're here to see if we can clean up the mess and stop The Flood from spiraling out of control.

And as always, thanks go to Sam Callahan for the thumbnail.

One of the things I can always appreciate in a game is a huge shakeup in the pacing and flow, and this is a pretty good example of that. At the end of the day, Halo is a power fantasy where the player inhabits the role of an unstoppable badass, so this section never really crosses over into true horror. Nonetheless, I did have moments of being unsettled when The Flood was first introduced, until I understood that I was supposed to fight, rather than flee.

And at the risk of repeating myself from the last time, it is honestly shocking how much the new lighting detracts from the experience. The original game conveyed a darker, both literally and metaphorically, atmosphere which helps sell the cosmic horror of The Flood all the more. Yet they translated this brooding palate into this bright, almost vibrant and varied color scheme that betrays the tone the old style establishes. It's genuinely shocking to me.

My other real criticism stems from the game itself. Maybe it's just me and the way I consume video games in 2020, but I cannot help but feel that several of the levels in this game overstay their welcome by about 15-20 minutes. By the time the introduction to The Flood was over, I had more had my fill of fighting them off, and I was ready to most onto the next set piece.

While that feeling was particularly noticeable here, I felt similarly in earlier stages as well. There's an odd pacing to this game that didn't survive the test of time the way the rest of it did, and that's understandable since it's almost 20 years old at this point. I must remember that this is the game that codified how one can make first-person shooters, and make them well, on controllers and game consoles. It is inevitable that it wouldn't be perfect, as this was something of an experiment.

Minor gripes aside, the experiment was largely successful. I'm still having a mostly good time playing it, even all of these years later and without the benefit of nostalgia beyond my nostalgia for the genre as a whole. It's impressive in its own right.

A Quick Run - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2

2020-10-15T17:15:00.002-07:00

So here I am, doin' everythin' I can.
Holdin' onto what I am.
Pretendin' I'mma Superman.

That's right. We're going back to a old classic. Pretty much every person in my age bracket grew up with the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games, and I am no exception. That franchise almost single-handedly created a boom for the skateboarding community, and it's easy to see why that would be the case.

What this stream impressed upon me most was just how important the soundtrack was to the overall tone and experience of playing these games. Without it, some of the levels are a little eerie and unsettling, especially in their emptiness. If I wasn't afraid of getting copyright strikes, I would gladly turn the music on, but sadly practicality wins out this day.

That aside, I'm impressed by how great this remaster is. It feels so good to play a Tony Hawk game that isn't awful again. My skills have rusted over completely in the time since, but even then it plays exactly as I remember. I look forward to doing the rest, though it will be on my own time.

Halo: Combat Evolved - First Drop - A Blind Playthrough - Part 1

2020-10-11T16:11:00.002-07:00

With the closure of one series, it's time to start another. And just like before, this one harkens back to a by-gone age in video game history. Though I have no experience with the Halo campaigns, I've obviously played my fair share of their multiplayer modes at the houses of various friends from my childhood. Additionally, I've played many console shooters, all of whom trace their DNA, in some way, back to Halo.

This is a series that's been on my list for a long-time now, and I can think of no better way to run these games than on stream for everyone to watch. Naturally, since I'm running this campaign for the first time, I'm going so blind.

Join me on the new adventure with the Master Chef.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

I want to preface this by saying that 343 did an incredible job with this remaster. Early technical issues aside, the game runs extremely well, and it felt good in my hands. Credit is also due to both them and Bungie for the sound design, music, and the remaster work. And the ability to switch between old and new graphics on the fly is such a cool feature than must have taken ages to implement.

That said, I have two major critiques about the HD release overall, particularly the new graphical style. Firstly, the new style is difficult to read in comparison to the original. The Elites are what brought this into focus for me. In the old style, their shields light up in response to gunfire, so I knew when I was connecting. This wasn't the case in the HD version, where their model was so busy that I had to focus to perceive their shields responding to my gunfire. When in a tense fire fight, it is difficult to summon that level of attention to detail, making the theater of combat difficult to read.

On top of that, there is a noticeable brightness to the HD treatment, one that I found unpleasant to my eyes. The most obvious example is early on in the stream, where a dark corridor in the original style turns into a dimly, but visibly lit corridor in the up-res. In other locations, I noticed that there was a slight, but noticeable strain on my eyeballs when I switched to the updated look. No matter how beautiful a game is, there's no excuse for that kind of discomfort.

With regards to the game itself, my only real complaint thus far is that I find myself getting lost a lot, since it doesn't do a very good job signaling where we're supposed to go to proceed. At many times, I found myself either wandering aimlessly, or petitioning my stream chat for aid in figuring out what I was supposed to do.

But such complaints are ultimately minor, and this promises to be a fun series for the rest of our experience.

In League with the Legends - Journey to the Peaks

2020-10-08T10:20:00.003-07:00

Welcome back to the lands of Runeterra, where it's time to conduct another experiment in The Lab. This one is unique, in that it is an entirely single player experience. Two of our newest champions, Leona and Diana, are looking to reach the peak of Targon to face Aurelion Sol. Along the way, they'll each face obstacles and enemies barring their path.

Let us help these champions complete their journey.

I like the decision to use both Leona and Diana as the champions for this event, because they are complete opposites from a mechanical perspective, doubly so when their special abilities for this event are factored in.

Leona has an aggressive play pattern. She wants to play about one, maybe two units per turn and use their powerful Daybreak triggers to gain the advantage. Because her units are powerful, but only if they're the first one played each round, she folds if her opponent is allowed the chance to recover. Therefore, her objective is to quickly close the game so that her enemies can't out-value her in the long game. Her ability to give the weakest unit on her board a power boost and a barrier also allows her to more safely attack into strong board states.

Diana, meanwhile, favors a more deliberate style. Unlike Leona, she can gain multiple Nightfall triggers in a single turn, many of which allow her to either create or draw additional cards. The net effect is that her hand is constantly filled with tools that her can use to get out of any bind and accrue value over the long game. And if she is out, her combination of Challenger and Quick Attack should allow her to take out any foe in her way, clearing the path for her other forces to finish off her adversaries.

Of course, we had no trouble either way because it's still a single-player mini-campaign against Runeterra's AI. No matter what abilities or cheats they bring to bear, they're still easy to manipulate. That said, I hope they produce more of these because it's a good way to just relax for an hour or so and play a low-stakes card game.

I can even feel good about it because Runeterra doesn't utilize predatory business practices to keep the profits flowing. This is much unlike a certain magical card game that I've played a lot of on here, but I suppose it's weird of me to point that out here.