Yes, 2004, one of the best years in gaming history is nearly legally old enough to drink. That means we're even older, yes, but it's also cause for celebration.

Let's use this opportunity not to count our gray h??airs, but to celebrate so many games that most players don't even realize came out in such a sho??rt span of time, so long ago.

11. Burnout 3: Takedown

If you miss the Burnout series, that's likely because of its highest point: Burnout 3: Takedown. Gone are the realistic physics of Gran Turismo,?? in are the most ridiculousl??y fun car crashing mechanics ever put into a game.

No game before or since has made simply driving as fast as you can, and toppling your opponents in the most spectacular ways as fun as Takedown. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how such a seemingly simple yet multifaceted party series has been dormant f??or so long.

10. Fable

The original Fable remains one of the best answers to the turn-based RPGs that dominated the gaming landscape back then, as well as the best game in the franchise. There's just no beating Fable when it come??s to embarking on a journey to become a hero �or a villain.

There's no denying that, in true Peter Molyneux fashion, Fable un??derdelivered regarding its original promise, but what we ended up getting was good enough to birth a classic. Also, Molyneux can totally defend himself by claiming it wouldn't be much of a f?able if all of his promises were based on hard facts.

9. Ninja Gaiden

This was the original "hard game with good graphics" before Dark Souls claimed that distinction.

You could even argue Ninja Gaiden was harder than Dark Souls because it didn't curse you with limited stamina and was still difficult as all hell. And it was much more than that. Ninja Gaiden remains one of the most thrilling and overall best action games ever made. It's sad to see the series lose its mojo with Ninja Gaiden 3 and see Team Ninja pivoting to difficult games that straight-up mirrored the Souls series.

I love Nioh, but I miss Ninja Gaiden's high-octane type of challenge.

8. Doom 3

Upon release, many were let down by DOOM 3. It wasn't as fun as classic Doom, and it just didn't feature anywhere near the variety of fresh gameplay options available in its contemporary shooters. The people who didn't like it back then now even have the hindsight of saying it paled in comparison with the newer Doom titles, but I think they're ??just looking at it wrong.

If you're into slow-burn horror, Doom 3 is actually one hell of a game??, capable of scaring the crap out of modern players even today?.

7. Far Cry

I usually accuse the Far Cry series of being all downhill after the first game, but that's not me being mean. Far Cry 2, Far Cry 3, and Far Cry Instincts are all good games, but the original was just better. Remember the awful "Ubisoft tower" mechanic that plagues all Far Cry titles post-3? Remember the incredibly low enemy variety in most of these games? Well, you can ?forget all of that here.

The original Far Cry might not feature the open world game design you see in the other entries, but it's such a finely crafted (albeit more linear) gameplay experience that you likely won't even notice you're not as free as in other games. If you have never tried it because i??t's "?old", give it a shot. It's totally worth it.

6. Sid Meier’s Pirates

Do you love Sea Of Thieves, Assassin's Creed Black Flag's best moments, and/or were you hyped by the reveal of Skull and Bones? They all exist because of Sid Meier's Pirates, t?he first �and still best �pirate life simulator.

If you want to have a lot of fun conquering the?? high seas, this somewhat un??derplayed masterpiece is something you should try out, because it feels like it hasn't aged a day.

5. World Of Warcraft

Accuse me of cheating all you want because yeah, World Of Warcraft has never really stopped coming out, but '04 was its first year on thi?s land.

It remains the most successful MMO ever since its release and more than earns it th??is spot on this list. The fact that it will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future more than earns you? the right to complain about me not ranking it even higher.

4. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Yes, it's no surprise that Konami is releasing Metal Gear Solid Delta by early 2025. They know MGS3 is likely the most beloved entry in the franchise, and that big 20-year-old mark is the perfect time to cash in on a ??masterpiece.

The original MGS pretty much turned the entire video game industry on its head when it came out. MGS3 could've easily surfed on the tsunami it had created and still managed to sell millions and get high critical praise, but that was not enough. MGS3 dared to change the setting completely to t??ell a new story, and ??it worked beautifully.

While I'd argue the Subsistence version that came out a short while later is the definitive version of the game because of the superior camera, Snake Eater remains one of?? the most epic and gut-wrenchingly awesome prequels of all time.

3. Halo 2

We knew Halo 2 was special as soon as '03s E3 showed one of the best gameplay demos of all time.

We knew Halo 2 was special as soon as we began playing it, even though?? we quickly learned the E3? demo wasn't part of it �because it was never meant to be more than a cool tech demo.

Courtesy of having to follow up on one of the best debuts of all time, Halo 2's devs at Bungie had to go through hell to clear the high bar set by Halo: Combat Evolved, in record time. Still, the result was not just one of the most memorable (even if disjointed) campaigns of all time, but also what was by far the console generation's best online exp??erience.

2. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was the best-selling game of the best-selli?ng ??console of all time, and it was no fluke.

It came out after GTA 3 and Vice City, two titles that would've deserved that spot had SA not materialized, but San Andreas was the rare sequel to go even bigger than its already humungous predecessors, and still not feel bloated because of it. Getting to wreak havoc not in one, but three different GTA-fied spoofs of real america, the countryside, and finally even getting to swim made SA feel less like a game, and more like an entir??e saga in o?ne box.

1. Half-Life 2

Naturally, picking the best game out of such an eclectic list will always come down to personal taste �but not this time. I kid, but I honestly do think Half-Life 2 was and, at least until the arrival of Dark Souls, remained the most serious contender for the ??game of the cen??tury.

Half-Life 2 not only amped all the stakes introduced by its stellar predecessor, but it also introduced a wide array of mechanics that feel fresh even so many years later. One of the reasons Half-Life 3 might never materialize is Valve's possible inability to come up with any?thing even better, and that's ok.

The post Best games that turned 20 in 2024, ranked. appeared first on Destructoid.

Back in �3, Valve hit the unsuspecting E3 audience with what I believe remains the greatest presentation in the history of video games. Yes, the '03 E3 also featured the magnificent Halo 2 presentation, but I am talking about the gameplay and tech reveal of Half-Life 2.

If you know what I’m talking about, you’re likely getting goosebumps right now. I??f you don’t, that’s fine �you’re still in time to get blown away by this ma?rvel.

And, if you don't have the 20 minutes needed to witness some of the most revolutionary
gameplay reveals ever, then I only ask you to focus on the very first seconds of th?e presentation above.

It begins by showing the G-Man’s model from the original Half-Life, which gets someone in the audience to blurt, “he looks like hell.�The poor fool fell to one of the classic blunders, as the video swaps the G-Man’s original model for the one that would be used in Half-Life 2.

At that time, the G-Man wasn’t the spookiest entity in gaming just because his model featured the most lifeli??ke looks in the biz, but also because of what made him work. Behind those alienating blue eyes, t?here was the most complex facial animation system ever put into a game.

Though the model’s graphics don’t remain as visually impressive in this day, the facial expressions of the characters in Half-Life 2 do remain a thing of beauty. That would be the highlight of any presentation, but the remaining 19 minutes of the presentation is a crescendo of never-before-seen gameplay topping never-before-seen gameplay. Even those fake E3 presentations of the PS3 era that tried to pass incredible?? pre-rendered cutscenes as actual gameplay had little on this.

With what had been shown alone, you could already expect Half-Life 2 to immediately earn a barrage of Game Of The Year awards by the time of its intended release date. But, the history of Half-Life 2's d??evelopment ??ended up proving as eventful as the game itself.

In a completely unexpected turn of events �by early '00s standards, at least �a hacker got his hands on Half-Life 2's source code and laid the still unfinished game bare for everyone to see. Valve went dark on the game f??or a year to come back with something even cooler than ?the coolest thing in the world they'd previously shown to us.

It was one hell of a tall order, but they more than cleared the task when they finally released Half-Life 2 on November 16, 2024. The final product was even be??tter than everyone had anticipated, much better than it needed to be t??o make everyone forget about the delay.

I mean it wholeheartedly when I recommend you go play Half-Life 2 today, whether you're a fan or a newcomer, as it still features one of the best single-player campaigns in the history of gaming. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is pretty damn fun as well.

Half-Life 2 expands far beyond the game itself, as with it, we got the Source engine. It graced us with beloved titles such as Portal 2, Team Fortress 2, Garry's Mod, and Counter-Strike: Source. If none of that means anything to you, that's probably because you're too young to remember, so I'll just point out that Half-Life 2 is also responsible for Skibidi Toilet.

What's next for Half-Life 2?

The future of this classic looks bright, as Valve has just announced a bunch of awesome updates to preserve the game and commemorate it's anniversary.

From today on, you'll be able to experience the original Half-Life 2 campaign with improved graphics, fixes for very resilient? bugs, developer commentary, in-game Steam workshop support, and in-game recording.

And, if you're a true fan, you can finally watch the first pre-beta test footage of what Half-Life 2 would come to be.

Absolutely worth waiting over 20 years for, ri?ght?

You can now play Half-Life 2 in its original and still glorious format through Steam, and if that's somehow not good enough, you'll soon be able to experience it in RTX mode as well.

The post Half-Life 2 is now 20 years old appeared first on Destructoid.

The first season of Stranger Things was released back in 2018, and it quickly became something of a phenomenon. You could barely move without encountering some kind of Stranger Things merchan?dise, book, or even a musical that’s still ??being performed now. 

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly nine years since we were first introduced to Mike, Dustin, Will, Lucas, Eleven, and the rest of the now iconic characters that are the center of the Stranger Things universe. But it has, and we haven’t yet had the final fifth season, so has Netflix dropped the ball an?d lef??t it too long? 

Now hear me out, I’m not saying that the final season is going to flop, and I’m also not saying this out of a dislike of the show. I’ve got merchandise and books dotted around the house, I’ve binged every season on release day, and I even went to the Stranger Things Experience w??hile visiting Las Vegas in 2023. 

But thanks to COVID paused production of season four and delayed release, and the WGA Writers Strikes in 2023 that effectively did the same thing to season five, by the time the final season comes out, there will have been two s?easons in six years. With a year confirmed canonically between each season, this causes an issue for the c?haracters and their actors. 

When the first season ??came out, the main cast was all approximately the same age as the characters they portrayed. Take Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike. During filming f?or season one, he was 12 years old and playing an equally 12-year-old character. While filming season five, he’s 21 years old and playing a 16-year-old. 

Maybe we need a better example. It happens all the time in Hollywood, with older actors playing characters much younger than themselves. Hell, in Bridgerton, Penelope is played by an actress a whopping 20 years older than the cha?racter. But it gets more questionable when you take characters like Steve or Erica. 

Where Stranger Things left off in season four, with the Upside Down seeping into Hawkins, Steve was 19 and Erica was 11. Even taking into account the no?w confirmed one-year jump between seasons four and five, Joe Keery (who plays Steve) will be 32 playi??ng a 20-year-old, while Priah Ferguson (who plays Erica) will be 19 and playing a 12-year-old. 

The actors have aged by three years for each of the last two one-year time jum?ps, leaving them wildly ahead in terms of age compared to their characters in the show. What makes this so noticeable is the fact that we aren’t being introduced to them at thi??s stage, we were introduced to their much younger faces and are now expected to believe that they have somehow come out of the other side of puberty while still in the midst of their teen years. 

Perhaps I’m looking too much into the details, but with a show that reportedly has a budget of around $30 million per episode, the details deserve to be looked into. 

Any show that has been ongoing for almost a decade will have built up an absolutely rabid community of die-hard fans, and despite what I’ve already said, I count myself among those fans when it comes to Stranger Things. We’ve all been waiting for the conclusion of the gang's story since season four ended on such a cliffhanger back in 2022, and even if we’ve grown tired of the wait, we’ll still sit down on release day and cement Stranger Things as the most watched show on Netfl?ix?? for a time. 

On the plus side, we do have a window for when to expect Stranger Things season five, if you can call it that. On November 6, as part of �em>Stranger Things Day� Netflix released a teaser trailer ?which provided all eight episode names,?? which also confirmed that season five will be coming at some point in 2025:

Previous seasons have been released at any point between May and October, so there’s really no telling when season five will finally be available to watch on Netflix. Whenever Netflix posts about Stranger Things on Twitter or other social media, there is an ever-grow??ing number of people venting their frustration at the delay. While it’s not the fault of the sho?w's writers or producers, it is getting tiresome. 

There’s go??ing to need to be some serious story-telling in season? five to explain why this group of troubled sixteen-year-olds have five o’clock shadows, or why Jonathan suddenly looks more like Will’s father than his brother. Or perhaps we’ll just be expected to overlook these small details, and appreciate the fact that we finally get to see how it ends. 

I guess you could put the character’s rapid?? aging down to the stress they’ve been through over the last five years of their lives, and expl?ain it away that way. I’m sure any of us would have more than our fair share of wrinkles if we’d encountered the horrors that these guys have seen. If that’s the lore I have to tell myself in order to get through the final season and see how everything ends, then that’s precisely what I’ll do. 

Regardless, I’ll still be watching with everyone else when Stranger Things season five comes to Netflix in 2025, probably completely forgetting my current concerns. Stranger Things is like that, I s?uppose. Disbelief and immersion breaking details go out of the window when you’re embedded in the story of teenagers destined to save the world from the demon spawn of the Upside Down.

The post Has Netflix left it too long for the fin??al season of Stranger Things? appeared first on Destructoid.

Via a new Metal Gear Solid Delta promotional video, Konami just laid bare one of Metal Gear Solid's greatest mysteries for all fans to see. After two decades of speculation, Metal Gear Solid fans all around the world recently received confirmation that the actress who played Eva in Metal Gear Solid 3 wasn't really the actress Suzetta Miñet. Why? Well, because that person doesn't even exist and w?as likely made up by the patriots (citation needed).

The real credit actually Jodi Benson, the same actress who'd voiced Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid over 35 years ago. The explanation is rather simple. Benson built most of her career around family-friendly properties, so playing a highly sexualized role in a very violen??t game could je??opardize that.

That’s cool, especially as this piece of news comes just a little after we learned the identity of the actress who'd played Jill Valentine in the original Resident Evil �an even longer-standing mystery for fans. Still, there??’s another really cool mystery few people even know about.

If you enjoy ??the series but don't consider yourself a true fan, ?it's possible you've witnessed the spectacular performances of James Flinders, Carren Learning, Mae Zadler, and wondered why they never did anything else after that game.

Well, that's because even though the original Metal Gear Solid comple??tely changed what voice acting meant for games, its actors originally forfeited real credit.

The original Metal Gear Solid was really cool for showing the voice actor’s name when introducing a character on screen, too bad those names were fake. Aside from David Hayter �who was mainly a screenwriter and not a voice actor before the game �few (if any) voice actor is given credit for their work in the game. That's because all the real actors such as Cam Clarke and Debbie Mae West are union actors who feared the dangers of entering the then still-legally grey area of video game voice acting. Things had already changed by the time Metal Gear Solid 2 came out, and all of its actors are properly credited. Good, but I like to reminisce of a time when actor?s in a spy thriller ?went method to the point of even using silly-sounding fake identities.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater will release on February? 27th, 2025, for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

The post Explaining the bonkers m??ystery o??f Metal Gear Solid voice acting appeared first on Destructoid.

Even if recent history might fool you into dis?agreeing, BioWare is one of the greatest RPG-makers in the video game scene. For a very long time, nobody di??d better than BioWare, and only time will tell whether the company is currently in the process of regaining its mojo.

Let's look at the studio's best games, best attempts, and biggest missed opportunities, and find out where the recently-released Dragon Age: The Veilguard lands in the midst of it all, shall we?

17. Mass Effect: Andromeda

We all know this couldn't be anywhere else. While I don't doubt Andromeda looked good on paper, at some point, at least, the end result felt no better than ??an actual paper cut. Bland plot, unmemorable characters, sometimes downright terrible writing, and that's when you weren't prevented from experiencing those things by some wacky game-breaking bug.

Executive meddling made Andromeda the poster boy of mismanagement in games.

If there's one thing Andromeda really had going for it, it was the looks. Andromeda r?eally did produce alien vistas capable of absolutely taking your breath away �so long as your character didn't clip through the gr??ound and fall into an endless void.

16. Mass Effect 3

I'm going to start off by saying something nice as to avoid too harsh of a reaction from fans: Mass Effect 3 has great gameplay and ran fantastically well even on my?? old Xbox 360.

With that out of the way, I was always bummed at how people complained so much about the ending of Mass Effect 3 - because they should've complained about the whole game. Sure, the gameplay was good, but we'??re talking about BioWare, a company ?known for proving games can be so much more than cool pew-pew action.

The plot is just rubbish, likely courtesy of having one of the co-main writers leaving as a response to the studio becoming "too corporate" to fulfill the original vision. The dialogue, the missions, and the entire culmination of the fantastic setup done by the stellar two previous games in the series all went out of the window for inexplicable reasons. You'll never play the game Mass Effect 3 as it should have been, but you might always learn what it could've played out like.

15. Anthem

After the massive failure of Andromeda, Anthem's reveal re-ignited the hopes of a comeback for BioWare. The studio had previously wowed everyone with Mass Effect, so they could totally come up with yet another incredible Sci-Fi IP. The first previews got everyone hyped as Anthem looked gorgeous, but it was all downhill from there. Anthem turned out to be very repetitive, not all that much fun, and surprisingly empty and light on story �a deadly sin when it com??es to a BioWare game.

Anthem wasn't as bad as Andromeda, and it wasn't as much of a let down because it was the first game in its series, but we all wanted it to be so much ??more than it turned out to be.

14. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Yes, feel free to confirm for yourself, BioWare did make a Sonic game for the Nintendo DS. It's an RPG, a type of game where you naturally can't make great use of Sonic's ability to go fast. That, by itself, feels like a hindrance, but I know damn well the good people at BioWare had the capacity to come up with alternative mechanics to make this work, but Sonic Chronicles is no more than a blan??d RPG wearing the face of?? a popular character.

The most memorable aspect of Sonic Chronicles is Cent??ral City, the incredibly awful ??song you can hurt yourself with above.

13. Dragon Age 2

The most divisive title in the Dragon Age series, or at least the one most deserving of that distinction. After the massive commercial and critical success of Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 disappointed players by introducing repetitive combat, removing customization options, reusing the same areas again and again, and limiting the scope of the adventure to a very small patch of land. Everything about Dragon Age 2 felt inexplicably rushed.

Dragon Age 2 isn't terrible, but it's one?? of the most disapp??ointing sequels in relatively recent history.

12. Shattered Steel

Few are aware of it, but BioWare began life with a badass mech game. Shattered Steel's action-oriented robot gameplay is the opposite of what you'd expect from a company famous for its talkative and lore-heavy RPGs, but Shattered Steel wasn't bad at all.

Unfortunately, Shattered Steel didn't age all that well, and, without an HD remaster in sight, it's hard to recommend right now. Still, Shattered Steel remains a very curious artifact.

11. Star Wars: The Old Republic

You ought to commend BioWare for challenging World Of Warcraft during the later years of its prime, but The Old Republic proved little more than a courageous attempt.

While it didn't feature any terrible glitches �besides the dance emote that made you invincible, of course �the gameplay amounted to a grindier version of Knights Of The Old Republic. The story didn't fare much better, as it went down such an uninspired route that the game at some point ??opted?? for a soft lore reboot �that also didn't result in anything particularly memorable.

10. MDK2

Though the MDK series (short for Murder Death Kill, so??????????????????????????me say) didn't begin ??its life via the hands of BioWare, they certainly improved it.

Shiny's peculiar and very original '90s shooter got even better on the PS2, and felt even more complete with the addition of a few more equally-quirky characters to our team. This series has been dead for too long, so maybe i??t's time BioWare picks it back up for a well-deserved refresher.

9. Dragon Age Inquisition

If you ignore the massive tone-deafness of naming the hero's job after one of the vilest institutions in the history of humankind, Inquisition is a pretty good game.

Inquisition fixed the most annoying and disappointing elements of Dragon Age 2's maps, and provided a great early showcase for the power of the 8th generation of consoles. Inquisition was a step in the right direction for the series, and it's also responsible for one of the most hilarious ripoff-related blunders in Hollywood's recent history

8. Dragon Age: The Veilguard

A lot has been said about Dragon Age:The Veilguard, and I'm pretty sure a lot is still to be said. It's one of those games to get caught ??in the vortex of the grifter sphere, meaning that all matter of relevant criticism will likely be drowned in a sea of com??plaints about vapid crap that YouTubers have carefully engineered to generate outrage-fueled clips.

The truth about Veilguard is that it plays great, features awesome new combat mechanics, and a cool new cast of characters. I definitely don't like the we?ird mid-series shift into a more cutesy art style, but, even then, I must admit that it doesn't look all that bad. The only thing that really bummed me about this one is the dialogue, which as a whole, is among the most uninspired in the history of BioWare games. Then again, it's going up against some of the all-time g??reats, so there's that.

7. Jade Empire

BioWare's attempt at a more action-y RPG was a huge success. The seldom-ex?plored Chinese Mythology setting, the gameplay, and the engaging tale of revenge make this one of BioWare's best games to date.

Sadly, Jade Empire gets overlooked among BioWare's greats, likely because it spent too long as an original Xbox exclusive. That time is past, though, so you have no excuse not to give it a shot, especially if you're into Dragon Age: The Veilguard's modernized combat style.

6. Baldur’s Gate and Baldur's Gate 2

Many of the people comparing The Veilguard negatively to Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 might be unaware that Baldur's Gate only even exists ??because BioWare brought it to life.

Yes, both Baldur's Gate 1 and Baldur's Gate 2 were BioWare titles, and also the games that put the studio on the map. If you're into Baldur's Gate 3, you'll still find a lot to love about BioWare's first big classic. Some of its gameplay elements are dated, sure, though not any more dated than a nice D&D session, and you can totally get the more modernized Enhanced Editions of both BG1 and BG2, so consider giving it a shot!

5. Neverwinter Nights

For the? longest time, BioWare made great use of the D&D gameplay mechanics to create fantastic video game experiences. Still, most of BioWare's best games don't take place in the actual D&D setting.

If you're looking for a game in the style of Baldur's Gate, a game filled with the modernity seen in later titles like Knights Of The Old Republic, but still in the D&D setting, then you should absolutely give the original Neverwinter Nights a ??try, as it's the game you can easily blame for unleashing BioWare's golden age.

4. Dragon Age: Origins

Though it's titled as if it were the tired prequel a studio would make after the main plot of a once-successful series goes too far off the rails, Dragon Age: Origins remains the best and the most endearing Dragon Age game to date.

You'd think that just making Knig?hts Of The Old Republic in a medieval setting with dragons wouldn't be enough to make one of the most beloved games of all time, but you'd be wrong. That's because solid gameplay, good art direction, and interesting characters are more than enough to create something special when you already have a great foundation.

3. Mass Effect 2

The first Mass Effect sequel brought in a more interesting cast and did a great job of telling a more emotional tale via some of, if not the best, writing in BioWare history. It also came out in a very playable state, which is only true for 50% of the games with Mass Effect in their title.

Mass Effect 2 proved a step up over its predecessor in all the ways you'd expect out of a BioWare sequel. Still, in a possibly unpopular opinion, I believe it failed to reach the heights of the original by featuring a less epic plot. I believe it also suffers from having go??ne with a more streamlined mission-bas?ed structure that hurts the immersion and the feeling of freedom we got from the original. Still, these should be seen as no more than nitpicks aimed at an all-time classic.

2. Knights Of The Old Republic

You'd be hard-pressed to find three games based on a popular movie IP that don't suck, let alone three spectacular ones. KOTOR counts as those three, as it perfectly merges BioWare's excellent D&D combat with one of the best cast of characters and plot ever seen in the Star Wars universe.

If you've grown tired of Star Wars and of modern Star Wars discourse, then you should probably kick back and give Knights of The Old Republic a shot. It's over 20 yea??rs old now, but, true to the original trilogy, remain??s as engrossing as ever.

1. Mass Effect

Ok, this one comes with a very important disclaimer. I do not, in any way, believe the original Xbox 360 exclusive version of Mass Effect to be BioWare's greatest game. I loved all the promise on display, but the original Mass Effect was a very rough diamond due to its interminable load times and poor performance issues. The honor of being BioWare's best title belongs to the m??????????????????????????uch improved-upon version that came out on PC.

Mass Effect, though heavily inspired by other great works of Sci-Fi, never failed to feel like its own thing. It also features the quality characters, plot, and writing you'd expect from a BioWare endeavor. And, after finally being optimized, felt fantastic to play, courtesy of all the new and inspired gameplay mechanics worthy of a groundbreaking work of Science Fiction. Mass Effect isn't just an RPG, a shooter, a ?spicy alien dating sim, or even a fun driving and exploration game. It's an experience way cooler than actual space exploration can ever hope to be.

The post BioWare games ranked from worst to best appeared first on Destructoid.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered recently launched on PC and consoles, which let players experience (or re-experience) this bizarre third-person shooter made by Suda51 (The creator of No More Heroes, Lollipop Chainsaw and more) and Shinji Mikami (The "father" of the Resident Evil franchise).

Players who may have already beaten this remaster may already want more, so where's the sequel to Shadows of the Damned, exactly? The thing is, it already exists inside another Suda51 game, as a parody of Shadows of the Damned's troubled development history which, of course, has something to do with i?ts original publisher: Electronic Arts.

Shadows of the Damned fans can try out its sequel in Travis Strikes Again

In case you forgot, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is a 2019 video game by Suda51 that served as a stepping point between No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle and No More Heroes 3, which he eventually released in 2021. In his first adventure in over 9 years, series' protagonist Travis Touchdown forcefully teams up with Badman and gets inside the digital world of the Death Drive MK-I??I, a mysterious video game console that will grant them a wish if they complete every single one of its games.

So, Travis has to acquire different spherical cartridges called "Death Balls" that hold a different fictional video game inside, and the same character actually developed all of them: Dr. Juvenile. At one point, Travis is looking for the only copy of Serious Moonlight, an ambitious RPG that J??uvenile never released. He eventually locates the Death Ball that one of Juvenile's former colleagues, Damon Riccitiello, took many years in the past.

Travis beats Damon up, gets the Death Ball and when he pops up Serious Moonlight on the Death Drive MK-II both he and the player encounter a huge surprise: an HD cutscene that shows Garcia Hotspur, the protagonist of Shadows of the Damned, escaping from demons and an unknown character, ?who eventually captures and manages to kill him. In his last moments, he gives all his power to his comedic gun sidekick, Johnson, who transforms into a bizarre superhero figure named Eight Hearts.

Introducing: Damned: Dark Knight!

In one of the most unexpected yet brilliant moments ever put in a No More Heroes game, players find out that Dr. Juvenile completely scrapped Serious Moonlight because the technology of the time couldn't realize a game of such a big scope. Instead, she decided to make an unofficial sequel to one of her favorite games, Shadows of the Damned, simply titled Damned: Dark Knight.

Travis and Badman have to complete it in order to continue their adventure through the Death Drive MK-II's catalog. Needless to say, Suda51 and his team filled the entire level with references to the original Shadows of the Damned, as the characters have to explore and fight enemies in locations from the game, while the player reads dialogue that references its many bosses and events. This is an absolute tr??eat for fans of this third-person shooter, and it?? proves that Suda51 still has some appreciation for the project.

Naturally, Eight Hearts is the final boss of the Damned: Dark Knight, and Travis immediately recognizes him because he's a self-proclaimed big Shadows of the Damned fan who even played through the original game more than 3 times. After he kills Eight Hearts, Johnson talks with Garcia again, goes throu??gh a circled portal to the "?4th Dimension" and promises to save his friend from that Hell.

Travis even concludes this exciting level with the phrase, "So, Garcia Hotspur is coming back. One more thing to look for...", which seems to have foreshadowed Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered, years before Grasshopper Manufacture an??nounced it.

So, why did Suda51 did all of this?

For more context, it's important that we remember the messy development history that Shadows of the Damned went through. This was a joint venture between Suda51 and Shinji Mikami (Both had previously worked together on 2005's Killer7) and their original concept was simply titled Kurayami. This was going to be a psychological horror game with little-to-no combat and no guns at all, and with art inspired by The Castle, by Franz Kafka.

All this sounded very different from what Shadows of the Damned is and this is because everything changed when Electronic Arts entered the frame. At one point, Suda51 and Mikami managed to get in touch with EA in order to get funding for their new project, since it was much more ambitious than anything they had done before. They pitched the idea to EA and, according to Mikami in a?n interview with th??e YouTube channel Archipel, the executives "lied" when they said they liked it and the pr?oject began ?slowly "fading away".

Electronic Arts' frustrating changes to Suda and Mikami's vision

It didn't take long for the upper management at EA to begin interfering with the production of Kurayami and forced Suda51 and Mikami to change things. In the book The Art of Grasshopper Manufacture, Suda51 revealed that EA insisted on including guns in the game because "Westerners are about guns� which forced them to turn it into a third-person shooter. He also shared another story in the same book, detailing how Garcia was originally going to have a small fairy named Paula ??that came out of his gun, but EA didn't like his concept and preferred a classic "damsel in distress" love story, so Suda51 turned her in the main love interest ??in the final game.

According to Mikami, EA twisted their original concept around several times, and it resulted in a completely different game that what they originally thought of, since they had to write the script over and over until the company green light it. Not even their main character was safe, as Suda51 revealed in an interview with Gamespot that he came up with 3 or?? 4 different ideas for a protagonist until he finally landed on Garcia Hotspur, who EA apparently liked.

Something that most fans miss is that neither Suda51 nor Mikami directed Shadows of the Damned, as its main director was actually Massimo Guarini, a western developer who had years of e??xperience working with Ubisoft, so he could more efficiently comply with EA's demands. When the company completely overhauled the project, it was immediately evident that Suda51 was not enjoying its development anymore. He became hesitant to disclose details of the game on interviews and events, as IGN noted in not one but two different interviews with him.

Shadows of the Damned broke Suda51's heart

When EA and Grasshopper Manufacture finally released Shadows of the Damned on June 21, 2011, it received generally positive reviews, but it unfortunately didn't sell very well in neither North America nor Japan. As ??for Suda51 and Shinji Mikami, they both have come out and stated how disappointed they were by EA's interference on multiple occasions.

In an interview with PSX Extreme, Mikami stated, "I think Suda was unable to create the scenario he'd originally had in his head, and he rewrote the scenario several times. I think his heart was broken. He's such a unique creator, so it seems to me that he was not quite comfortable making this game". As for Suda himself, in the aforementioned Gamespot video he sa??id: "If I ever happen to work with EA again, I'd really appreciate it if they just... okay'd the first version of the script next time".

But Suda got his revenge... in an unconventional form

Let's go back to Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes for a moment. This odd title is not just another entry in the No More Heroes series, but it's also a deep look at Suda51's car?eer as game development, with re??ferences to both his highest highs and his lowest lows. At many points during the game, it's quite obvious that he created Dr. Juvenile as a stand-in for himself, and the same is true for her longtime rival, Damon Riccitiello.

Damon developed Serious Moonlight alongside Juvenile, and he later beat her up in order to steal the Death Ball that had Damned: Dark Knight inside, that's why Travis eventually had to hunt him down. But that's not all, because Damon would later appear in No More Heroes 3 as the main antagonist of the game. In the final battle, Travis finally kills Damon in a bizarre yet amusing parody of the Super Smash Bros series.

In case you didn't know, John Riccitiello was the CEO of Electronic Arts between 2007 and 2013, meaning that he was most likely around the time Shadows of the Damned entered development. Now, Suda never explicitly stated that Damon is based off of him, but the unique last name of Riccitiello, coupled with the villain's status as a former game developer who became CEO of a gigantic corrupt company clearly indicates that Damon is a parody of John Riccitiello and that Suda51 was trying to get even with the CEO that? interfere??d with the development of one his beloved projects.

Despite everything, Suda51 clearly appreciates Shadows of the Damned

At one point, Suda also revealed that No More Heroes 3 was originally going to have an entire sequence that would feature Shadows of the Damned characters, which would have made the reference to its ??tumultuous development even more obvious.

At the end of the day, Suda51 has clearly made his peace with Shadows of the Damned, and he likely holds some level of appreciation for this tragic project. This is evident not only in the references he included in Travis Strikes Again and No More Heroes 3 but, also in his active participation in the marketing for Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered.

Considering that Electronic Arts has nothing to do with the remaster and that Grasshopper Manufacture is currently listed as it's sole publisher, it seems that EA finally sold the rights back to Suda and his company. Fun fact: Grasshoper included Eight Hearts as an alternate costume for Garcia in Hella Remastered, which is a fun nod to one of the most bizarre yet clever things Suda51 ever did in one of his games. Maybe this means that soon we'll finally get to see a full fledged version of Damned: Dark Knight, but only time will tell...

The post Shadows of the Damned already got a sequel, and it’s not what you think appeared first on Destructoid.

I wouldn’t have predicted that Nintendo would release a music streaming service, but more surprisingly is that it’s actually good. Their pre-configured playlists, the abili?ty to extend music to allow it to loop repeatedly for an hour, and the ease of the experience is�Well, look at the eShop. Nintendo has not? always been the best at this sort of UX.

I listen to video game music quite a bit, and Nintendo has worked with some of the best composers in the industry. Most importantly, however, Nintendo hasn’t fallen into the trap of having all their game music sound like movie scoring. Big-budget games these days almost invariabl??y fall to the orchestral side of things with their stings and swells, but Nintendo music still so??unds distinctly video game-y.

If there’s one big downside, it’s that I can only play it off of my phone. But there’s another big downside, and that’s the fact that the music choices are extremely limited right now. It’s also a bit of a weird collection. How is it that we have Metroid Prime, the original Metroid, and the Famicom Disk System version of Metroid, but no Super Metroid? In fact, where are lots of other games? More specifically, where are the followi??ng games?

As a note, this list will only include games that Nintendo could co??nceivably host on their service. That is to say, game properties that they own. It would be great to see music from Nintendo-adjacent properties ?on here from other publishers, and that could happen, but let's stick with the easy stuff. Hopefully, Nintendo will add these games soon.

Super Mario Bros. 2

I was nearly going to say Dr. Mario, but the Game Boy version of the music is already on that. And, okay, while not completely ideal, I can listen to 60 minutes of extended Chill. It’s good enough for science. So, okay, failing that, how about Super Mario Bros. 2?

Of course, I’m talking about the North American version of Mario 2, and not what we know as The Lost Levels.  I feel the soundtrack of what was originally Yume Kōjō DokiDoki Panic is appreciated but underrated. It’s easily one of Kōji Kondō’s best works, especially on the NES. It has a bouncy, jazzy quality, but for some reason (possibly because its original association wasn’t Mario), it doesn’t get remixed into modern Mario soundtracks as often as tracks from Mario 1 and Mario 3 do.

I would imagine that we won’t have to wait too long for this one. Since Super Mario Bros. ??is Nintendo’s bread and butter and the music is so iconic, I expect getting all the soundtracks up will be a priority for them.

Pilotwings

Speaking of appreciated but underrated, here’s a soundtrack by Soyo Oka. I mean, all of her soundtracks should be on here: SimCity, Super Mario Kart, Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally. ?Jump Soyo knows how to spin a track. In the early days of the SNES, she created these songs that are paradoxically both haunting and intense. They often include a buzzy brass sound that just feels so emblematic of the console itself.

But while all her work belongs on the service, Pilotwings should be a priority. There’s something relaxing about the mix of slap bass and sweeping synth. It?? feels like calmly plummeting to Earth from 10,000 feet. A good match for so many moods.

Star Fox

Star Fox 64 is already on here, and that’s a reasonable pick. However, as good as it is, the soundtrack attached to its predecessor is much more memorable. Star Fox 64 was aiming for space opera a??nd managed to hit it with pretty decent accuracy. I don’t know what Hajime Hirasawa was going for. Uncomfortable arousal in space?

The original Star Fox h??as an incredibly varied mix of songs ranging from mysterious to exciting to weirdly dancy?. I’m not sure I even know of another video game soundtrack as loudly expressive as this one. The depth of tracks like Fortuna and Titania are just completely uncalled for, and it’s easy to get Corneria’s theme burned into your brain. I’m afraid that it might take a while for Nintendo to get around to adding this one, which is practically criminal. There oughta be a law.

F-Zero

It feels like Nintendo is just rediscovering the F-Zero series themselves, working to add all the games to their NSO services and releasing the well-received F-Zero 99. Now, if only they’d get around to re-releasing F-Zero GX or, y’know, giving us a new one.

Until then, it would sure be nice to get some of the series�music on the service. Well, wait, remixes of Mute City and Big Blue �arguably the most well-known of the series �are available through the Mario Kart 8 soundtrack, so that’s something. However, those tracks, in all their modern glory, don’t hold a candle to how well the first game nailed its tunes out of the gate. After all, it’s where we got Mute City and Big Blue in the first place.

I’m not sure how to even describe F-Zero’s music. Excessive? If you play it while driving in your car, I can almost guarantee you’re going to find yourself unexpectedly speeding. I bet if you took your pulse before and after listening to a few of F-Zero’s tracks, you’d find a marked increase in? your heart rate. It’s borderline offensive how hig?h-energy this music is.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

The Zelda series has a history of great soundtracks, so it’s hard to mark one for priority. Personally, I could listen to the Song of Healing from Majora’s Mask on loop all day and just get super depressed. But instead of doing that, maybe Wind Waker would be a better choice.

Wind Waker is a stark departure from the tunes featured previously in the series. While it still plays off some of the themes, it mixes in a nautical theme that gives each of the major islands a very distinct feel. Not only that, but the Great Sea traversal music is relaxing in a way that you don’t really find outside of, say, Breath of the Wild. It still feels very?? adventuresome, but at the same time, kin??d of peaceful.

The downside is that a lot of the individual tracks are reserved for boss battles, which are fine if you’re in the mood, but I don’t find them to be as interesting. On the other hand, I think Farewell Hyrule Kingdom, which is a melancholy remix of the Hyrule Castle theme from Link to the Past, is just too good. It can alm??os??t bring a tear to my eye.

Splatoon 2

Splatoon 3 is already on Nintendo Music, which seems appropriate since it’s the most recent. However, the playlist is pretty much just the songs that appear on the game itself rather than ones ?that were brought over from previous g??ames (aside from remixes). That’s still pretty cool.

The problem I have is that I don’t really like the central band in Splatoon 3, Deep Cuts. I don’t hate them, either, but they don’t hit me the same way that Splatoon’s Squid Sisters, or especially Splatoon 2’s Off the Hook, ??does. Some of their songs are available in the song. So, an itch is being scratched, b?ut just not as thoroughly as I would hope.

It’s a good bet that Splatoon and Splatoon 2’s soundtracks will make it to the service, I just hope it’s sooner rather than later. I love the seriesâ€?OST’s and being able to filter and ?sort by the in-game bands will be so rad??.

Golden Sun

Back when Golden Sun first came out, every time I started up the game, I’d sit?? on the opening screen to soak in the overture. There’s a stunning amount of grandeur in e?very bit of the game’s music. By JRPG standards, the game itself isn’t terribly special (though it was impressive for a handheld game at the time), but the soundtrack itself feels huge. By itself, it made it feel like you were playing something important.

It’s a very unified soundtrack, so while you’ll get everything from relaxing villages to fights against powerful foes, it a??ll feels thematically linked. You won’t suddenly get power rock out of nowhere like a lot of other games of its genre. Not that variation is a problem (it’s often preferred), but consistency can make it easier to listen through an entire soundtrack.

Super Mario RPG

I’m a bit surprised this soundtrack isn’t already included since the remake is still pretty fresh in memory, having been released just last year. However, by the choices made on the service, it’s obvious that recency isn’t really an indicator of whether or not a game’s soundtrack will be available. So, I hope they get Super Mario RPG’s soundtrack on there soon.

Kōji Kondō is a tough act to follow, and it was probably very tempting to play off of his iconic themes, but Yoko Shimomura went completely off in her own direction. The soundtrack is rather bizarre b?ut incredibly appealing. A lot of it is a bouncy, brass-heavy, percussive sound. Sometimes, it aims for whimsy, while other times, it’s just exciting and fun. Every so often, it gets surprisingly emotional. I’m not crying. I was just cutting onions. I’m making a lasagna.

It would be great to see the remake’s OST on Nintendo Music, especially since the game also included the original score. When it was first released, I kept the game on my desk, liste?ning?? to its songs while writing guides about balls.

Advance Wars

Speaking of recent remakes, Advance Wars recently got a gloss-up by Wayforward. If you weren’t familiar with the soundtrack of the classic GBA title, hopefully you are now. Advance Wars is a game that makes war ??uncomfortably cheerful. Like, cities are being occupied and fought over, bombs are being dropped, military hardware is being wrecked, and people are (assumedly) dying, but it’s treated more like a sport. It’s no more serious than if the COs were going out to play frisbee golf in the park.

And t?he soundtrack just completely underscores that. It’s largely just a collection of infectious pop-rock tunes with buzzy, distorted guitars and jaunty basslines. But what makes it stand out is the fact that so many hooks and riffs in the songs are as unique as they are catchy. A lot of these songs play on loop for half-hour-or-more long missions, so it’s probably important that they don’t get? old very quickly.

There are also a lot of songs on the soundtrack. Every CO has its own theme, so even if you exclude the variations of tunes that play under different situations, you still have a long runtime. But there’s also a lot of variation in there. Beyo??nd the pop-rock songs, there are more traditional marches mixed in alongside even heavier sounds. ??It’s a joy to listen to.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

This one feels kind of like cheating, since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate doesn’t strictly have much of an OST, rather it takes in songs from all the differe?nt series that get represented in the game and more beyond that. Sometimes, the songs are presented as they were in other games, and other times, the songs are completely remixed in interesting ways.

It’s maybe the least likely soundtrack on this list to make its way to the service. If it does, I’d expect it to arrive after a lot of other games are added to make overlapping tracks a lot simpler. But beyond that, SSBU contains a lot of songs that don’t belong to Nintendo. They would probably have to get permission from p??ublishers like Capcom and Konami to put the whole soundtrack up. Otherwise, I guess they could exclude those songs. I guess what I’m saying is that it??????????????????????????’s possible. I’m just not counting on it being anytime soon. I can’t predict the future, though, so who knows?

The post 10 G?ame soundtracks that need to be added to Nint??endo Music appeared first on Destructoid.

Paradox Arc has published some absolute bangers as of late including Nexus 5X, Mechabellum, and Space Trash Scavenger. It has now entered the isometric city-builder genre with developers Bellwood Studios and Perspective Games' ancient Aztec-themed colony sim Tlatoani: Aztec Cities which has been released in Early Access.

Tlatoani: Aztec Cities (PC)
Developer: Bellwood Studios and Perspective Games
Publisher: Paradox Arc
Released: October 31, 2024
MSRP: $19.99, $15.99 with launch discount through November 10

I have fond memories of playing Egyptian-themed isometric city-builder Pharaoh and its expansion Cleopatra as well as the Roman-themed isometric city-builder Caesar III. Both of the games were released when I ?was about ten years old, and while I didn't understand all the intricacies of properly managing and overseeing the cities I built, simply building them and watching them grow was enough to keep me engaged for many hours in striving to build up my city.

Tlatoani aims to rekindle that nostalgic feeling by tasking players with building ?an entire ancient Aztec empire one city at a time. You'll still focus on one city at a time, building it into a thriving metropolis in Mesoamerica, but you can eventually expand to have multiple city-states that trade and continue to grow your empire as a whole. It's a very unique addition to this old-school style of city-building that fixes one of the major problems in the genre. In Early Access, ??the foundation for this is laid but that's about it. Most of the focus is still on building a single city which can be done via the Campaign or through six different Scenario missions.

In most entries into the genre, including the classics like Caesar III and Pharaoh, you build up your city, complete your tasks for that mission, and then move onto the next where you're once again building your city from scratch. In Tlatoani, you'll i??nstead start a new city perhaps with a separate production focus, before intertwining it into your entire Aztec civilization.

The gameplay itself when it comes to building your city in Tlatoani is for the ?most part similar to other entries in the genre. You build up you??r city by adding housing for your citizens while also setting up production lines for goods they require such as access to food, water, and entertainment. As your city grows, your inhabitants will require more—and better-quality—goods.

A huge staple of Ancient Aztec life was religion and so that's understandably a big part of the needs of your citizens as their ruler in Tlatoani. When building religious buildings you have the freedom to choose ?which gods to dedicate them to, each with their own unique b?uffs as well as traditions that must be satisfied to appease them. You can throw festivals and engage in other historic Aztec traditions like animal and human sacrifice.

The best change up to the classic city-builder formula in Tlatoani in my opinion is the symmetry system. In Ancient Aztec history, symmetrical building layouts were a huge part of the tradition. As Tlatoa?ni, it's up to you to put your architectural prowess to good use and attempt to mirror and maintain symmetry in the layout of your city. This will not only make it easier to satisfy the needs of your citizens but it will also appease the gods and your citizens simply for being better to look at. It's a fun element when planning out your cities to keep in mind the symmetry of everything.

In its Early Access state, Tlatoani: Aztec Cities is pretty much exactly what I hoped it would be: a spiritual successor to Pharaoh and Caesar III with its city-building elements. What will really make Tlatoani stand out in my opinion is how much they continue to flesh out and build upon the system of building an entire Aztec civilization comprised of many city-states working together. If the developers can figure out how to eliminate the normal burnout of having to start a city from scratch with no real benefit for creating the previous city other than reaching a milestone to unlock the next mission, I think Tlatoani could be a standout title in the genre. But even in its current form, Tlatoani still scratches that classic city-builder itch.

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It’s been a real “Will they, won’t they?�dynamic between Vampire Survivors and Castlevania. It’s the crossover that makes the most sense, but it’s because? it makes the most sense that I believed it wouldn’t happ?en. Time makes fools of us all.

Ode to Castlevania is funny because Vampire Survivors is already an ode to Castlevania. Nowhere is this more evident than with the new weapons that don’t have a lot to do with Castlevania. That’s because all the weapons most associated with the game were alre??ady in it originally, from throwing crosses to ho??ly water.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. By default, a Castlevania crossover is going to be the best expansion for the game because I love Castlevania. However, it’s also the best expansion so far for other reasons.

Ode to Castlevania can be summed up as a lot of whips, a lot of music, a lot of Belmonts, and one big map. Unlike the previous two expansions, there is no new Adventure mode here; that one big map is the central focus. And it is big. It’s dominantly Dracula’s castle, filled with bosses and broken into sections via locked doors. It’s not exactly Vampire Survivors metroidvania, but that sounds like it ?would be a hassle anyway.

The castle is laid out in a more-or-less linear fashion. You kick down the door and march your way up to Dracula’s bedroom to put him back to sleep. Is he actually there? Does Vampire Survivors actually have? ??a vampire in it now? I’m not telling because that would be lame.

Much like the last two crossover expansions, this is still Vampire Survivors, but it’s wearing Castlevania’s clothes. But unlike those games, Castlevania fits Vampire Survivors a lot better. The enemies, all torn from various games in the series, look as though they belong here, and the castle could easily be compiled from various stages already i??n the game. Unsur?prisingly, it isn’t much of a stretch.

The one big level is easily the best that the game has seen. It’s large enough that it’s extremely difficult to make your way through it, from start to finish, in a single round. Instead, after beating specific bosses, a nearby teleporter will be activated that you can transport? yourself to from the start. This allows you to essentially continue from close to where you left off without having to wade through everything again.

There are a tonne of bosses torn from the series�history, and while many of them are just the sort that you keep your distance from while bashing on them, a few have some unique attacks that make them interesting. There are also moments within the castle where things turn?? into a sidescroller, which can be disorienting but feels appropriate.

If there’s one place that the Castlevania conformity actually hurts the game, it’s with the whips. Most of the Belmonts come packing one, and while they’re all different, most of t??hem kind of suck. They’re often short-range and only attack in specific directions. The whips that were ??already in the game are far better; it’s just sort of a drag that you can spend time turning yourself into a whip machine for less reward than you’d usually find from holding a whip.

Sonia Belmont has the Sonic Whip, however, which absolutely wrecks house. It’s not all bad, but when you’re shoveling more junk weapons on an already threatening pile of them, it can become difficult to effectively create your desired build. There are other much more useful weapons that were added, fortunately. Although, as I mentioned before, some of them don't have much to do with Castlevania and feel like t??hey were added because they needed to add something aside from whips and spellbooks.

This is all backed by an extremely impressive list of songs and remixes from the Castlevania series. The composers working with Poncle did a great job with Contra in Operation Guns, and the same is true here with tracks torn from all over the series. There are even ??some tunes that I wouldn’t have thought to include that are made irresistible through their loving remixes. Easily, one of the best parts of this expansion is the soundtrack.

Overall, It’s a loving tribute from a developer who is a clear fan of the Castlevania series. So much of a fan that there isn’t a Gabriel Belmont in sight, but there is a Sonia. That’s how you really know.

It’s also only $3.99, which is a buck-and-a-half more expensive than something like Operation Guns??, but I think the remix soundtrack is worth the value alone. In a world with horse armor, itâ€??™s a great value.

As a fan myself, this is easily the most fun I’ve had with the game since diving into the base version. The big map adds a lot more playtime than you might expect, and being able to unleash hell on various foes from the series while a frantic remix of Bloody Tears plays is, as one would expect, rather arousing. The way that Vampire Survivors has matured over the years almost feels like it was preparing to wear the Castlevania dress. And it fits so well.? It’s almost like it was made for?? it. 

The post Vam?pire Survivors is b??etter value than a street hot dog appeared first on Destructoid.

Sony’s inaugural console had a pretty deep library, so it’s no wonder the list of standout titles is so long. It's also a well-loved console, so the PS1 is well-trodd??en territory now. What would go on a "best of" list is generally well-solidified for most people.

So, this isn't a ranked list, and it isn't a list of the best, but rather games you might have overlooked. I don't particularly like ranked list, since I don't think they're that useful. I say this as someone who's written a few. There's no accounting for taste and comparing something like Metal Gear Solid to Twisted Metal 2 isn't very insightful. Also, I don't really like Metal Gear Solid, and you probably already know?? how you feel about it. Me throwing it at a low rank isn't going to change your mind.

I prefer to just talk about games and make recommendations. So, rather than being insincere, I’m just going to list X games you should ?play on your PS1 if you haven’t already. Maybe you haven't heard of them, maybe you have. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but let’s start with these, and then you can get back to me.

Um Jammer Lammy

Parappa the Rapper is a staple of the PS1 library. When I think of its most prominent titles, it sticks out. We eventually got a direct sequel in 2001's Parappa the Rapper 2 on PS2, but before that, the formula was revisited in Um Jammer Lammy Instead of following the lyric-spewing dog(?), you play as Lammy, the riff-rocking lamb. That is to say, she plays a guitar rather t?han rap.

It’s quirkier than the original, and while there’s nothing quite as good as Cheep Cheap’s rap, the soundtrack is overall a bit better. Parappa also focused and pretty normal teenager problems like taking a drivers test and having to poop really bad. The only problem here is that the North American version of Um Jammer Lammy changed the part where Lammy is sent to Hell. Rock &??; Roll is the ??devil’s music, after all.

Bloody Roar

Or Bloody Roar 2, honestly. I like fighting games, but it's hard for me to get invested these days without a rival. Also, when I play them online, I get really jittery from nervous adrenaline that it makes me physically uncomfortable and I need to stop. However, I still try them out when I can. Bloody Roar is the first 3??D fighting game in a long time to really get its hooks into me.

Bloody Roar sort of follows the Virtua Fighter formula, but has walls around the ring like Fighting Vipers. That's the only real distinction. Oh, no, wait, the cha??racters can also transform into furries. That is to say, anthropomorphic animals. You have a bar that fills up over time, and whenever you've got it full, you can transform in a blastwave of energy and immediately be given a whole new repertoire of dangerous moves. It's a surprisingly?? effective twist that adds an unexpected layer of strategy to the fighting.

Rogue Trip Vacation 2012

After a confusing series of contracts and acquisitions, Singletrac, the original creators of Twisted Metal were unceremoniously ripped away from the series following Twisted Metal 2. They went to make a range of games before they were closed down. One of these was a similar vehicular combat game titled Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012.

While the premise still involves cars flinging missiles at each other, it also includes a monetary system that allows you to trade cash earned from shuttling around tourists for upgrades. Was it better than Twisted Metal 2? No. Vigilante 8? Not really. But is it a better option than Twisted Metal 3? Most definitely.

Incredible Crisis

I have a personal grudge against Titus. Most of the games the publisher released are terrible, such as Carmageddon 64 and Superman (also N64, but that's not actually in the title). I always say, "Ain't no fun if there's a fox on the box" when picking up one of those game. But one of the best things they ever did as a publisher was localizing Incredible Crisis.

Incredible Crisis is actually a bakage (stupid/weird game) from Japanese arcades. It follows a family of four as they try to make it home to celebrate their wrathful matriarch's birthday. Unfortuna??tely, nothing goes as planned as they get involved in explosions, bank robberies, and an alien invasion. Gameplay is actually just a series? of mini-games, which may give you whiplash as you try to figure out new styles of play on the fly.

Germs: Nerawareta Machi

I was originally going to keep this list specifically focused on North American releases, but I don't want to. There's some bizarre stuff that never made it out of its home country. Take Germs: Nerawareta Machi for example, which plays like the basis of Deadly Premonition. You're let loose on a desolate but fully expl?orable city that is having trou??ble with a strange virus. This virus is possibly being spread by aliens. I don't know, you're the reporter, you figure it out.

It's an ambitious game. There's a full day/night cycle. To find your way forward you often need to return to your office to take calls from people and check your email for where to go next. You can get there by driving (or walking, if you're determined) or you can catch a ride on the subway. When you get to certain scenes, you need to pull out a gun and engage in some very Morrowind-esque real-time RPG combat.

But what makes Germs so memorable is its ?strange atmosphere. The city is pretty empty aside from some key people. There is no color to most of the buildings, just slight splashes every so often. You're given very little information to work off of a lot of the time, which leaves you free to just exist in this world sometimes. As I mentioned, it never made it out of Japan. However, a preliminary fan translation can help you figure things out.

Mad Panic Coaster

Speaking of bakage, I'm not even sure where to begin with introducing Mad Panic Coaster. Do you remember when 3D clones of Roller Coaster Tycoon sta?rted happening? One o??f the big selling points was often that you could ride on the roller coaster. Okay, now make the entire game that.

That's sort of Mad Panic Coaster. You ride on a?? roller coaster, but rather than being strapped into your seat and sent down the rails, you have to do laps around the tr??ack while avoiding various hazards and not falling off the track. It's not as easy as it sounds, especially since your cart moves at Mach 10. It can be difficult to the point of frustration, and it's by no means a short game.

But what really mak?es it worth recommending is its outstanding soundtrack and expressive art style. It was created by a development studio not really known for making games, and by people who seemingly weren't in the industry for long. Yet, despite that, it carries an immense amount of personality. There's not much like it. It's just unfortunate that it was never released outside of Japan and, even there, is extremely rare.

Parasite Eve

This one is a bit more high-profile, but I feel like a lot of people still missed it. It’s a Squaresoft title, but while they would normally lean into fantasy, Parasite Eve is more contemporary. It’s still an RPG, but while it uses an active-time system,? it allows you to move in real time. It’s also stylish as hell, full of melty people and flesh monsters. The audience at an opera is set on fire, helicopters e??xplode, and a dude jumps from a helicopter and is set on fire. Doesn't get much better than that.

It goes in a few batshit directions when it comes to narrative, but works as a disaster plot. It absolutely hammers on the word mitochondria. A lot of what it spouts is accurate, but the whole plot hinges on your ability to believe a portion of your cells are able to gain sentience. Absolute batshit. It gets a little Kojima-esqu??e with its exposition at times, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.

Unfortunately, the sequel drops the unique combat system and becomes a lot more like Resident Evil. But that just makes the original Parasite Eve a lot more unique.

Road Rash

I really don’t know why EA chose to just call this one Road Rash, as it’s not a remake of the original, and it came out on the 3DO before Road Rash 3 hit the Genesis. There's also a sort-of downport on the Sega CD which isn't the same as either the original or this version. It's confusing, so a lot of the time, this one is called Road Rash 32-Bit.

Regardless, it’s probably one of the best titles in the series if you don’t find Road Rash 64 side-splittingly hilarious. While the gameplay follows the same formula of motorcycle racing mixed with bashing your rivals with crowbars, it plays a bit smoother on 32-bit consoles and features much more detailed 3D graphics rather than the old raster trick of the origi??nal. It feels pretty great and has a lot more personality. It also had some really tacky cutscenes, which is a good taste of how tasteless that era of gaming was.

Army Men Air Attack 2

I talk about the Army Men series often, and whenever I do, someone usually says, “Oh yeah, I liked the helicopter one.�There wasn’t a single helicopter one. If you only count original titles and exclude some markedly different ports, there were three of them: Air Tactics, Air Attack, and most importantly, Air Attack 2. Yes, a lot of (some) people talk about Air Attack and don’t even realize there was?? a direct sequel.

There was, and it's fine. The gameplay is the same action-heavy helicopter action lifted from the Strike series (Desert Strike, Jungle Strike, etc.), and it still works. It doesn't come close to the inventiveness of the first game and, to be honest, there are a lot of cut corners here, probably owing to 3DO's very tight development deadlines. The series was already speeding downhill fast when Air Attack 2 came out. But, in general, Air Attack 2 still contains a lot of the same shooty winchy action. Plus, there's co?-op if you have someone in your presence. If you liked “the helicopter one�you may consider checking this out.

On second thought, I'm not sure why this is here. I guess because I wanted to include an Army Men game given my history with the series. PS1 was where it was most prolific. There were 10 Army Men games released on the console, and Air Attack was easily the best. Although, I do have a soft spot for the World War games (not Land, Sea, Air).

Moon

Okay, so we didn’t exactly get Moon over here in North America until 2020, but it’s one of the first examples of Love-de-Licâ€??™s formula of helping people for the good feels. It’s technically a parody of the typical RPG, containing no real combat and the simple goal of spreading altruism about. You wande?r a strange world, talking to strange people, and helping them with their strange problems.

Moon just feels meaningful. While the gameplay is simple, it feels deep and profound. You get insight into the lives of the game's inhabitants and experience a new perspective on things. It helps t?hat there is a fantastic soundtrack (largely by one of my favorite composers, the legendary Hirofumi Taniguchi) that you actually have to collect and compile in a playlist and an art style that continues to influence developers to this day.

While Love-de-Lic would only release three games (none of which were released in the West) before disbanding, the feel-good formula would be carried on by its star players who broke off into their own studios and made games like Chibi-Robo and Chulip. Unfortunately, for a long while, the genre was doomed to frequently overlook a North American release with later games like Endonesia and Giftpia staying exclusively in Japan.

Medal of Honor Underground

If there’s one area that the N64 trounced the PS1, it is in first-person shooters. While Goldeneye 007 and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter haven’t aged the greatest, what did the Playstation have? Not none, but while I can list off quite a few decent N64 games in the genre, with the PS1 it’s a bit more difficult without adding the caveat “I guess.�Medal of Honor, however, is easy to appreciate since it helped launch the WW??II shoote??r sub-category that dominated the shooter space after.

Medal of Honor: Underground is one you might have missed, however. A big score for me was its female prot?agonist, Manon Baptiste, but it also added enemy tanks and friendly soldiers to the mix. It isn’t necessarily better than the original, but it is more ??of the same that you might not have already experienced.

Vagrant Story

Another one of Squaresoft’s often-overlooked PS1 titles, Vagrant Story is a ridiculously deep RPG with a number of intricate systems all mashed together. It’s something that shouldn’t work, almost doesn’t, but somehow does. At the very least, it requires you to develop a great deal of familiarity in it?s systems t?o truly make the most of it. You play as Ashley Riot, with the task of investigating a cult in the city of Leá Monde and the ruins beneath it.

Like Parasite Eve, Vagrant Story stands out because of its unique style. It actually won a bunch of awards from various publications, but unfortunately released alongside games like Final Fantasy IX and Chrono Cross. Because of that, Vagrant Story is often left out of many discussions o?f Squaresoft’s glory days. We’re l??ong overdue for a remaster.

King’s Field

In the wake of Dark Souls�success, the often-overlooked King’s Field series has been re-examined. That's because Hidetaka Miyazaki has stated that Demon's Souls is something of a spiritual successor to that series. Don't go in expecting too many similarities, however. Bot?h games are distinct from one another, essentially just sharing their dark fantasy leanings. It shares more with early PC dungeon crawlers than it does with later ?FromSoftware titles.

The localized King’s Field for PS1 is technically the Japanese King’s Field 2. It’s a shame we never got the first one, but the second title presents the same dungeon-crawling goodness. Beyond just being a nicely stiff and enjoyable action adventure, it also feels distin?ctly PS1 in its l?evel geometry and texture work. It's a look that defined the console.

Tecmo's Deception

Speaking of looking distinctly PS1, Tecmo's Deception was the progenitor to the long-running series (last seen in 2014 with Deception IV). Despite that, this plays almost nothing like later games. Oh, sure, the gameplay based around setting traps for your enemies is still there, but it's very rudimentary compared to what would come back. While later games would have you set up Rube Goldberg-style combinations of traps, that wasn't even possible in this ga?me. Instead, traps work more ??like RPG spells; you lead an enemy into them, then trigger it at the right moment.

However, it had charm that later games lacked. You could customize your evil mansion in a lot of ways. This was largely a useless feature, but there's something satisfying about creating the backdrop to your murders. It also has a pretty unusual plot where you more or less play as the villain in the story. It's packed full of bad de??sign choices to the fact to the point where I'd have a tough time describing it as a quantifiably good game, but, at the very least, it is one worth seeing.

Ghost in the Shell

I've never actually watched the Ghost in the Shell movie, which is maybe okay since this game is based more on the manga. But, like, I'm not familiar enough to know what the difference is. Anyway, you play as a member of Public Security Section 9, and the action takes place with you firmly planted insid?e of a spider-like tank. It's maybe not?? what you'd really expect from the license. Yet, despite that, it's actually a really great tie-in.

It has extremely interesting combat with your tank being able to climb on walls. However, it's most fondly remembered for it's era-defyingly terrific controls and strikingly well-executed art style. It has its flaws and can be a bit frustrating, but it's so strong that it counts the most that it's practically timeless. It's apparently even better if you're already a fan of Ghost in the Shell, but I wouldn't know anything about that.

Brave Fencer Musashi

Not my favorite game on this list, but I do think it's an extremely memorable one. Brave Fencer Musashi is an often-overlooked game from Square that falls outside the JRPG ??format that the company was renowned for at the time. It's a strange game where you play as a diminutive samurai who is sucked into another wor??ld to fix its problems. And he's not happy about it.

While the gameplay maybe didn't click with me entirely, it's hard to forget its attitude. Musashi was roped into this adventure against his will, and he's not shy about telling people that. His catchphrase is practically "Not my problem, pal." In a way, it feels like a parody of the usual action-adventure game where the protagonist will allow themselves to get wrapped into petty sidequests that don't really concern them. With a day/night cycle and plenty of exploration to do, Brave Fencer Musashi is incredibly memorable, if nothing else.

Tail Concerto

The progenitor to the “Little Tail Bronx�series by Cyberconnect, Tail Concerto technically shares the same floating universe as Solatorobo: Hunter the Red and Fuga: Melodies of Steel. Each game is a little labor of love which makes it all the more confusing that you can only really download Fuga these days. The second-hand market has Tail Concerto, in particular, pegged at a ridiculous price.

Is it worth it? I’d probably argue that no game is worth as much as a North American copy of Tail Concerto, but it’s still one you should check out if you can. The story involves, erm, the oppressi??on of cats. Dogs and cats are living together on islands that float in the sky, but the dogs are the majority and use that position to oppress the cats?. It's a bit like the leadup to World War 2, which is a bit distressing. You play as a dog, just to make sure you feel more uncomfortable.

Despite that allegory, Tail Concerto has bright, charming?? graphics, a simple but unique narrative, and inventive gameplay that harkens back to a simpler time. It's easy to forget that it's about an underclass trying to get out from beneath the boots of their oppressors. Or rather, you might not notice at all. It’s just unfortunate that it’s so short.

Street Fighter Alpha 3

This might seem like a strange inclusion because Street Fighter Alpha 3 is an arcade ??game, and that version is available in at least three collections on dig?ital storefronts right now. But the reason it's here is because there are a lot of added features that make it more at home on consoles. Specifically, I'm talking about World Tour mode.

World Tour mode has you traveling the world with your chosen character and gradually making them more powerful along the wa??y. Not only that, you unlock cha??racters as you progress, with more fighters on the roster in this version than there was in arcade. The added bit of progression makes the game more fun to play when you're on your own without a rival to take on. Or you could just grab one of the online-enabled ports available today and play against others all over the world if you prefer, but there's still value in World Tour if you think you've seen it all.

Colony Wars

The space combat genre (or 6DOF, there's no name for this genre I'm happy with) has been stagnant for quite some time now, but it really shone during the early 3D era because of the fact that it was easy to render large environments when most of it is an empty vacuum. During that time, we got some cherished games like Star Wars: X-Wing and Wing Commander, but some excellent titles were lost in the cracks, such as Colony Wars.

Colony Wars isn't too far removed from other games in the genre, but it impressively features a branching storyline and?? multiple endings. For the time, the graphics were impressive to see on PS1. Its depictions?? of large space battles was more spectacular than most at the time, helped by a rather striking lighting system.

Colony Wars was very well received at the time of its release, garnering awards from publications at the time. It spawned ?two sequels on the console. So, it's kind of weird that it fell into obscurity. After the PS1 trilogy, it tumbled off the face of the planet, which is kind o??f ironic, since it takes place in space.

I.Q.: Intelligent Qube

If I had to choose a favorite on this list of outside-the-norm games, it would be this one, I.Q.: Intelligent Qube. If you were alive and gaming during the PS1's lifespan, there's a decent chance that you played it on a demo disc, but did you ever? actually own it? I'm not sure if I had seen one in person until far later in life. It was hard to get attention in those days unless something was exploding, gushing blo??od, or getting wrecked.

I.Q. is just such a game. It's almost like a puzzle game; that's probably the closest genre you can relate it to. You play as a simple dude on top of a very cube-centric playing field while cubes roll toward you, threatening to chase you over the edge or ?crush you. Or both. Your job is to set bombs on the ground and wait for the right moment to detonate them to remove some of the enemy cubes. Some of them cause bigger explosions, others you need to avoid taking out at all. It's hard to describe, really, but it takes a lot of concentration and can be almost zen to play.

What adds to the experience is a soundtrack that sounds like an orchestra scoring a bar fight and a reverb-soaked announcer who will give you a verbal pat on the back every time you flawlessly clear a set of cubes with a satisfying "Perrrrrrfect!" There's a sequel, but unfortunately, the announcer isn't as amazin??g, so that's a shame.

The post Try These 20 PS1 Games – A Few Of The Best Playstation 1 Games Of All Time appeared first on Destructoid.

The nearly decade-long Dragon Age drought has officially come to an end with the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. In the time since Dragon Age: Inquisition's release, developer BioWare has released Mass Effect: Andromeda and most recently, Anthem. Depending on who you ask, both of these titles are typically seen as alright at best, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who feel??s as though either lived up to the typical high-quality standards that BioWare had been known for in the past.

For a quick comparison, The Veilguard gives me serious Dragon Age II vibes, mostly in terms of its combat and gameplay. I'm just over 30 hours into The Veilguard and while I feel confident that I've got a firm grasp on what the RPG is all about, we have to keep in mind that like most BioWare games, The Veilguard is very story-driven. As such, I feel it's important ?to point out that my impressions in this review in progress are based on having not reached the finale of this story-driven RPG.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard (PC, PS5 [reviewed], Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Released: October 31, 2024
MSRP: $59.99 on PC, $69.99 on Consoles

The Veilguard drops you into the action quickly. The story takes place ten years after the events in Dragon Age: Inquisition. One of the optional companions in Inquisition, the elven mage Solas, has seemingly gone ??rogue and is carrying out a ritual to tear down The Veil, a barrier that exists between the physical world of Thedas and The Fade, also known as the Beyond. After some interference at the behest of the player and his group of companions put together by none other than charismatic series regular Varr??ic, the ritual is stopped but at a cost. Two ancient Elven Gods, Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain have pierced the The Veil and are now free in the physical world.

Tasked with creating a team to hunt down the Elven Gods and prevent the full destruction of The Veil—hence the name Veilguard—the player is thrust into the role of Rook, the protagonist. Despite being in the final act of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about Rook as a whole. The character has grown on me over the course of the Veilguard's journey, especially more recently. But I've?? had a really tough time feeling Rook actually belongs.

It's a tough task to navigate for BioWare, for sure. Rook is a brand-new character in Dragon Age who is essentially tasked with saving the world. For all intents and purposes, it makes complete sense, this is the best way to in the end create a meaningful connection to the main character for both new and returning players to the series. But it resulted in much of the game trying to tell m??e that Rook is important and the right person for the job, even though it never feels like they really are.

Important characters from the series' entire timeline �all the way from 2009's Dragon Age: Origins through the most recent Dragon Age: Inquisition �make an appearance in Veilguard, including franchise favorites like Morrigan and Varric. Even Inquisition's protagonist that you play as, The Inquisitor, makes an appearance in Veilguard. But the whole time the cha?racters are constantly trying to sell you on the importance ??of Rook. "Oh you're Rook, I've heard of your mighty important deeds, you're perfect for this!"

By extension, I have found most of the new companions in Veilguard to be very solid additions to the evergrowing list of important characters in Dragon Age lore. I've grown fond of Neve, an early companion who is a part-time private detective, a member of the rebellious Shadow Dragons faction, and a badass ice mage. As you progress through Veilguard you'll learn more about all of the new companions as you continu??e to grow and expand t?he Veilguard.

In terms of actual combat companions though, I wish there was a little more substance to them. They essentially serve to give you access to additional skills that you can call upon in combat as opposed to opting to use your own character's (Rook's) s?kills. While you can choose where to put points in their respective skill trees and even equip them with gear, it feels quite meaningless as they don't actually do much in combat outside of you choosing to use their skills. They have no health bars, and the damage they do on their own is minuscule. In a single standard attack, yo??u do multitudes more damage to enemies than the basic attacks of your companions that only shave off a sliver from the health bar with each hit.

It's a real shame because the actual core gameplay of Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a rather satisfying feeling. It's reminiscent of Dragon Age II opting for fast-paced Action RPG-style combat as opposed to the more tactical and strategic combat of Dragon Age: Origins and even Inquisition. You choose from three starting classes: warrior, rogue, and mage. Each class eventually branches into one of three speci??alizations, allowing you to further cater the playstyle around exactly what you enjoy. I opted to go Warrior eventually specializing in Slayer, which focuses on wielding massive two-handed weapons.

I enjoy the combat of the Slayer, charging directly into combat and dealing insane amounts of damage while dodge-rolling around to avoid attacks. The combat also reminds me of one of my favorite action RPGs, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The fast-paced combat makes boss fights particularly fun, although a bit difficult at times. Despite my grip?es on how limited the com?panions actually are in combat, the core combat for you as the protagonist feels extremely polished and could very well be the best in the series.

Ultimately, I think the final act of Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be a major factor for me in ranking how Veilguard holds up to the rest of the series. There are constant choices to be made throughout Veilguard, with the game constantly telling me that the choices matter. But outside of one major choice in the early game, mo??st of the choices haven't actually changed much. However, it wouldn't be out of character for a BioWare game to be keeping track of all my choices throughout my journey to dictate which ending I receive, or which endings I have access to.

If you're looking for a solid RPG in a beautifully built world, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is certainly that. The combat is fluid and satisfying, and the world of Thedas is well-designed and fun to explore. The story has its drawbacks, but overall it's still better than most. Whether it will live up to the prestigious storytelling of the previous Dragon Age games will very much? depend on the RPG's curtain cal?l.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review in Progress: Dragon Age: The Veilguard appeared first on Destructoid.

While the first console I technically had in my household was an NES, the Super Nintendo came around when I was finally old enough to really appreciate them. So, the console is a familiar and dear friend. However, I??’m more passionate about exploring places that I haven’t been before.

Thankfully, the SNES has a large enough library tha?t I’m still coming across worthwhile titles that I’ve missed. There are over 700 games in the SNES library, and that’s just in North America and excluding Super Famicom exclusives. It’s hard to play all of them, and sometimes you kick over a rock and find something worth eating. I’ve kicked over a lot of rocks, so I’m here to point you at some of the juiciest grubs.

This list is not ranked. I’m just giving recommendations. I’m also only pulling from the North American library, so we’re excluding Super Famicom and PAL-only games. It’s also difficult to define what, exactly, is overlooked. Zombies Ate My Neighbors might be a staple to me, but others may say otherwise. So, take it for wh?at it is. If you haven’t played these games before, consider checking them out.

Demon’s Crest

Demon’s Crest is one of my favorite games on the SNES, but I only found out about it a few years ago while following the Gargoyle’s Quest trail. But while Demon’s Crest retains quite a bit from the previous Gargoyle’s Quest games, it’s in a league of its own.

The Gargoyle’s Quest series is a spin-off of Ghost n�Ghouls starring one of the most vexing enemies in those games, Red Arremer (or Firebrand). It started out on Game Boy with its sequel on NES, but those games had more of an adorable cartoon style laced with horror. Demon’s Crest is all horror. It looks more similar to Super Castlevania IV than anything else in its own series.

You also get to?? play as a certifiable badass. You start with most of the skills from the previous games and then build upon that foundation. That doesn’t make the game easy, but it does make the character feel incredibly powerful. It helps that other demons you run into react with either respect or straight-up fear.

S.O.S.

The absolute opposite of a power fantasy, you’d think S.O.S. (Septentrion in Japan) came out in the wake of the film Titanic rather than four years before it. You pla?y as one of a few characters who are on board the luxury liner “Lady Crithania�when it gets caught in a storm and capsized. Your goal is to make it off the ship while saving as many?? people as possible.

The problem is, the characters you play aren’t action heroes. They’re regular people, so the game controls a lot closer to Prince of Persia t?han a standard platformer. The characters are slow and cumbersome, and I??f you fall too far, you might lose consciousness or outright die. The game proceeds on a progressive clock, and as the minutes tick by, the ship begins to roll and tilt, completely changing how you navigate the ship. 

It’s not something you’ll complete on your first try; it’s going to take many failures before you figure out the best way to get around. Even then, your next challenge is getting as many of the daft passengers to the exit with you, and they are hardly reliable on their own. This can make S.O.S. very uncomfortable to play. Frustrating even. Especially since the music? is like the soundtrack to a panic attack. However, you won’t find anything quite like it, e?ither on the SNES or beyond.

Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen

While Tactics Ogre still loves on through occasional remasters, the classic Ogre Battle style of strategy games hasn’t seen much action in a long time. It all started here on the SNES with Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen.

These games are a strange mix of strategy and RPG. Essentially, you build your party, then send them out to var??ious strategic locations to either attack or defend against the enemies. You work to recruit new, more powerful units into your army while building and upgrading the ones you have. All this is presented against vibrant Mode-7 landscapes with a terrific s?oundtrack.

The main downside is that it’s extremely easy to cheese your way through most leve??ls. There’s ??also an extremely obtuse alignment system for characters that is very poorly explained but has a massive impact on what ending you get.

Uniracers

Aside from, say, Super Mario Kart, the SNES isn’t exactly known for its racing games. Uniracers took a pretty distinct direction by being a completely sidescrolling racer. But holding a direction until you reach the finish line would be pretty boring, so it throws in half-loops and half-pipes that force you to adjust your one-wheeled mode of transportation for a safe landing. On top of that, ?stunts are how you gain speed, so you need to be always flipping and twisting if you wa?nt to win.

It’s an intense game, featuring crazy-fast abstract graphics and a pretty kicking soundtrack. There’s two-player split-screen if you want to see who’s better at keeping their wheel under them. I just want? to know how my mo??ther set such a record time on the first course. That shouldn’t be possible.

Metal Warriors

I feel like Cybernator/Assault Suits Valken deserves a mention in this list, so there it is. I’ve talked so much about it at this point that I need a breather. Instead, I’ll give it to Metal Warriors, which isn’t a sequel to Cybernator and isn’t even by the same developer, but you’d swear it?? was. It features the same stompy robot action and careful aiming. It’s a real “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery�situation. Only this time, the robots are hot rod red, and you can get out of them.

Metal Warriors comes from many of the devs who worked on Zombies Ate My Neighbors. The two games are in completely different ballparks, but they both feature interesting and detailed art design. Ther?e’s also no HUD, which is a unique thing to see in an SNES game.

Unfortunately, this one either didn’t sell well,? or just wasn’t marketed very hard by Konami. Cartridges are pretty scarce to come by and command a ridiculously high price. I have?? high hopes that a port comes to modern consoles.

Shadowrun

Based on the tabletop RPG of the same name, there are actually two versions of Shadowrun: One on the SNES and another on Genesis/Mega Drive. They’re completely different, with the Genesis version sticking closer to the rules of the TTRPG and the SNES taking a page from the novel Never Deal with a Dragon.

You play as Jake Armitage, who kicks out of his own morgue slab to figure out what’s going down in the cyberpunk future of Seattle. Shadowrun’s big hook is that it’s essentially Bladerunner mixed with The Lord of the Rings. So, it’s a grim, corporate-dominated future??, but there are also elves, dwarves??, magic, and dragons.

What I absolutely love about the SNES Shadowrun is its atmosphere. It doesn’t entirely get the cyberpunk feel across, but it does capture the isolated feeling of walking the streets on a summer night. This is helped through the terrific use of its color palette and an incredible soundtrack by Marshall Parker. It’s wor??th checking out, even if its mouse interface is pretty cumbersome.

Batman Returns

Batman Returns got a game on many different platforms, and most of them are different. The SNES version is a pretty incredible beat-’em-up by Konam??i. It’s (mostly) a conveyor belt brawler where y??ou walk the festive streets of Gotham, beating the cotton candy out of clowns. You can pick them up and smash them against the scenery or even each other.

It does a great job of capturing the feel of the movie. It even features the score by Dan Elfman. But it’s the amazing physicality of Batman Returns that makes it worth playing.

Nosferatu

I often forget that Nosferatu was even released in North America. Forget that the name makes it sound like a clone of Castlevania, Nosferatu plays more like a cross between Prince of Persia and a bra?wler. You play as a guy trying to rescue his girlfriend from a vampire. To do so, he doesn’t come equipped with crosses, stakes, or garlic. His only tools in the fight against evil are his two friends: Left? fist and right fist. That joke would be funnier if I could just say “left and right�while raising my fists to illustrate, but since this is text, I had to make do.

Anyway, Nosferatu will really test you. Not just your ability to throw hands but also your reflexes and puzzle-solving skills. Like Prince of Persia, there’s a whole lot of instant death around, so if y??ou want to make it to the big bad guy and feed him his teeth, you’ll need some skills to pay the bills.

Pocky & Rocky

Technically, Pocky & Rocky is a sequel to Taito’s 1986 arcade game, Kiki Kaikai, but Natsume took the core idea of it and went its own way. It’s a top-down run-and-gun, not unlike Ikari Warriors. Here, however, you play as a Shinto shrine maiden, Pocky, a?nd h??er tanuki (not actually a raccoon) friend, Rocky. Pocky slings ofuda cards while Rocky throws leaves at terrifying velocity. 

Beyond just dealing death with projectiles, both characters can do a sweep in f??ront of them that deflects projectiles and can also dive to get out of the way of danger. The art style is cute, with squat characters, amazing bosses, and detailed environments. But while the graphics are cute �and even occasionally serene �the action can get very intense. It is extremely fast-paced and gets pretty difficult toward the end.

A sequel by Natsume came out not long after. However, while a lot of the strengths of the first game are retained, slight changes �especially to the co-op multiplayer �make it a bit weaker overall.?? Still worth checking out if you get the chance.

Wild Guns

Speaking of Natsume, another one of their absolute bangers on the SNES is Wild Guns. It’s also a shooter, but this time, it’s a Cabal-styled gallery shooter. You move your character in the foreground to dodge incoming shots while shoot??ing into the background. However, Natsume hit on an incredible concept for i?ts take on the sub-genre: Cowboys in space.

Yeah, you choose from a pair of rootin� tootin� and also shootin�cowfolk and unleash death on various hired thugs and robots. There’s some sort of True Grit-style re??venge plot mixed in there, but it’s not important. You just have to keep blasting.

Like Pocky & Rocky, this sugar-powered gameplay is captured with vibrant, detailed art. The backgrounds get wrecked by every shot that you miss, and the animations are packed with personality. Also, like Pocky & Rocky, you can take it on?? with a friend, which just adds to the fun.

The post The 10 most overlooked SNES games appeared first on Destructoid.

Writing guides for a living, you usually leave the menu on while you work on each article. However, for this instance with the Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero menus, I furiously? turn off the game and go to the PS5 home scr??een.

That's because the Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero menus are so irritating that they spiral my brain out of focus. The most agonizing thing about these menus is that you'll hear the same voicelines over and over again, sometimes repeating straight after they've said them. You'll either hear the interviewer agonizingly asking questions to Tien and Android 17 over and over, or have Goku ask Dende what he's up to. Hercule is also a pain as he constantly gets sp?ooked by Goku appearing at his house by instant transmission.

The odd thing about the Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero menus, however, is how the characters speak and then get no response. For example, Dende says nothing when Goku asks what he spends his time doin??g. It's very offputting. If you're going to have them speak the same lines over and over, at least make it a conversa?tion. It's better than Goku saying, "Hmm, what do I want?" 8 times in two minutes.

Unfortunately, that's not the most annoying element of the Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero menus. When you head to the Shop in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, Bulma harasses you with the same voice lines over and over and over again, wishing that Vegeta would take her on a shopping spree. The s?ame annoying tone of voice makes me stop writing about unlocking a character and turning the game off.

They also picked the most annoying character for a part of the main menu, Zen-Oh. In his frustratingly high-pitched voice, he constantly asks Goku to play with him. When you're com?pleting Zen-Oh's Orders, he says the same line again and asks, "Hey, hey, what you?? gonna play today?" and says "I've got a favor for ya!" He says that second line five times in a minute sometimes. AHHHH! This is my nightmare.

It's not just the voices that are annoying, however. The way the menu is structured also grinds my teeth. You see, Goku transitions between each scene that acts as a menu location. The problem is that this makes the menu feel sluggish and if the left analog? stick detects the input going a little to the left or the right, it immediately goes to another menu section. Admittedly, it's a mild inconveni?ence, but it happens so often that it becomes agonizing to deal with. At one moment, I even saw Master Roshi T-Pose.

Hopefully, Bandai Namco and Spike Chunsoft bring a patch that gives players the option to mute the characters. I immediately dre?ad booting the game up because of how annoying the menus are. Thankfully, this fighting game is particularly awesome to play, so the gameplay makes up for it.

The post Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero may have the most annoying menus?? ever appeared first on Destructoid.

I’ve always valued the rich variety of activities available in World of Warcraft, from raiding and PvP to Mythic+. However, my feelings about Mythic+, particularly in The War Within, are somewhat mixed these days. On the one hand, it offers an exciting way to stay engaged with the game, presenting numerous opportuniti??es for progression.

On the other hand, it brings along some significant pitfalls and challenges that are getting harder to overlook. Mythic+ often feels like a double-edged sword: while it provides endless chances for improvement, the accompanying issues make me question whether the rewar??ds are truly worth the effort.

The upside of Mythic+ in The War Within

For many players, myself included, Mythic+ is a cornerstone of WoW’s endgame. I’ve sunk countless hours into Mythic+ dungeons over the years because, when everything goes right, it’s a thrilling experience that is easy to enjoy for extended periods of time. There’s nothing quite like pulling off a clean run on a high-level key with your group. It’s challenging, rewarding, and keeps the game interesting week after week. It's such a positive addition to WoW that it's practic??ally become the main event... for better or ??worse.

Constantly relevant content

One of the biggest perks of Mythic+ is that it’s never really "done." No matter how many keys you complete, there’s always a higher level to push for, new strategies to figure out, and fresh affixes to tackle. This is perfect if, like me, you enjoy the? grind. Every week feels like a chance to prove yourself agai?n, and that’s a big part of the appeal. The way difficulty scales means there’s always something to challenge you, no matter how geared or experienced you are.

A great source of Gear

Mythic+ is also hands down the best way to get gear in The War Within. I’v?e been able to gear up quickly just by focusing on these dungeons. The Great Vault rewards? you for doing multiple dungeons each week, and the gear you get from it is often just as good, if not better than what you’d earn from raiding. For someone who likes mixing up endgame content, Mythic+ has become an essential part of my weekly routine.

But here’s the catch�/h2>

As much as I enjoy Mythic+, it’s got some major downsides that weigh on me more and more. First up is the pressure it puts on Raiders. If you’re part of a raid group, especially one aiming for Heroic or Mythic difficulties, running Mythic+ is basically a requirement to keep up in terms of gear. Unfortunately, this is where the grind starts to become... grindy, and that's not a good thing.

Mandatory for Raiders

In The War Within, the pressure to run Mythic+ is heavier than ever. If ??you’re serious at all about raiding beyond Normal difficulty, there’s genuinely no way to avoid Mythic+. It is a requirement. I find myself logging in not because I’m excited to play but because if I skip Mythic+ for a week, I’ll fall behind my guildmates.? What used to be a fun challenge has become something I have to do just to stay competitive in raids. This shift—from raiding being the primary source of gear to Mythic+ taking over—is highly exhausting.

You’re punished if you don’t like It

Even if you’re not into Mythic+, you’re kind of forced into it. I know plenty of people in my guild who aren’t fans of the Mythic+ grind, but they have no choice if they want to keep pace. It sucks to feel stuck running content you don’t enjoy just to stay relevant. If you’re a?? good raider but don’t run Mythic+, you’ll still end up behind in terms of gear progression, and that creates this weird dynamic where players are punished for not liking a certain part of the game, or at least not wanting to grind it all the time. But, if you don't, you will absolutely suffer in the gearing department, and that just sucks.

Pugging Mythic+ is the worst

Then there’s the nightmare that is pugging (joining a random group of players). Some of my worst experiences in WoW have come from trying to pug Mythic+ runs. The random nature of pugging makes it super stressful, and when things go wrong (which they often do), it’s just a mess. The timer adds unnecessary pressure, and if it becomes clear that you won’t meet the timer, players tend to leave early. Who doesn't love that? I now avoid pugging unless I absolutely have no choice, which limits how much Mythic+ I can realistically do each week. Historically, pugs have never been 'the best' way to run anything in World of Warcraft, but current?? Mythic+ puts a bright spotlight on the aging problem.

Affixes feel like unnecessary difficulty

More often than not, Affixes add a level of difficulty that can feel more frustrating than fun to play against. Instead of making you come up with creative strategies, they often just punish you for things outside your control. While The War Within managed to fix a lot of these problems, especially by adding buffs to the affix list as well, I feel the main issue remains. While I get that affixes are supposed to keep dungeons fresh, and they do, sometimes they end up feelin??g like they’re adding spitefu?l artificial difficulty for the sake of it, rather than improving the gameplay experience with something interesting.

The problem with Raid Loot vs. Mythic+ Loot

One of my biggest gripes with Mythic+ in The War Within, beyond what I've already mentioned, is how it overshadows raiding when it comes to loot. The amount of gear you can get from Mythic+ is ridiculous compared to what you get from raiding. You can run multiple Mythic+ dungeons a week and get top-tier gear from the Great Vault, while raids feel incredibly stingy by comparison. This insane loot disparity is a seriou??s issue that cannot be ignored.

Mythic+ Loot overshadows Raiding

Currently, there's no limit to the amount of loot you can get from Mythic+. Between Raids and Mythic+, there is simply no contest. Raid loot, especially from Normal and Heroic, just doesn’t keep up in terms of power or number of drops. After a few high-level Mythic+ runs, the gear you get from raiding starts to feel underwhelming. It’s a shame because raiding used to be a core part of WoW’s endgame, but when Mythic+ is so much more efficient for gear, it’s hard not to prioritize it over r?aids. I genuinely don't blame anyone t?hat does.

Fix the Loot Disparity

Blizzard has addressed this before, but it remains a big problem regardless. Raid loot should be more competitive with Mythic+ gear, especially at higher difficulties. They could increase the item level of raid gear or add special bonuses that make it stand out. Another option would be to limit drop frequency or how powerful Mythic+ ??gear is so it doesn’t completely overshadow raid rewards. I am not a fan of this option though, because I like that Mythic+ is a great source of additional loot. However, loot from Raiding currently serves only a niche purpose, and that makes the whole effort of putting a group together for a raid feel meaningless.

The current disparity in loot between raiding and Mythic+ is pushing more players, myself included, to favor Mythic+ over traditional raiding. While I don’t dislike Mythic+ overall, it’s hard to ignore that raids take significantly longer to complete yet yield far less loot compared to a mode that not only offers better rewards but also an endless supply of them. This creates a serious imbalance that isn't being adequately addressed, leading to frustration for players like me who value the raid experience but aren't being properly rewa?rded for it.

What needs to change in Mythic+

While I do enjoy certain aspects of Mythic+, it's clear that the system is in need of significant adjustments, and I’m confident I’m not alone in feeling this way. The current setup is unnecessarily punishing and stressful, especially if you’re not running it with a consistent group. If Blizzard wants to m?ake Mythic+ more enjoyable and less of a chore, here’s what I think they should do:

Get rid of the Timer

Since the dawn of Mythic+, the timer has been a source of artificial difficulty for the game mode. For many players, it's one of the most stressful aspects of the system, and honestly, I think it should go. It discourages people from pugging and adds unnecessary pressure to every run. Removing the timer would let players focus more on learning the mechanics and working toget?her without the constant fear of failure via the clock hanging over them.

Instead, Mythic+ should emphasize minimizing dea?ths, rewarding teams with greater end rewards for fewer deaths. The challenge should lie in the difficulty of the encounters themselves, rather than in racing against a timer, which often shifts the focus to route optimization and speed rather than skillful play and overcoming tough content.

Rework Affixes

Affixes need a complete rework. Instead of adding frustration, they should add a challenge that encourages teamwork and creative thinking. Blizzard should experiment w?ith affixes that don’t just ramp up the difficulty but make the dungeons more dynamic and interesting.

Introduce a Loot Goblin affix that adds a chance for one to spawn in your dungeon. If your team can kill it before it escapes, you'll earn an extra piece of loot. Another potential affix could make enemies explode a few seconds after death, adding a tactical layer to positioning and timing. The key is to move away from affixes that rely on random effects tied to timers: everyone ??uses addons to manage these anyway. Also, eliminate the flat stat increases to enemies based on affixe?s, as they add nothing but dull, artificial difficulty.

End Key degradation

Failing a Mythic+ run is already enough of a punishment in terms of wasted time. The extra penalty of key degradat??ion feels totally unnecessary. Removing this would encourage? players to push themselves to try higher keys without the fear of losing progress.

In conclusion...

Mythic+ is one of the most engaging parts of WoW’s endgame, but it’s about as far from perfect as it can get right now. The pressure it puts on raiders, the frustrations of pugging, the disparity in loot between Raids and Mythic+, and the stress caused by affixes and the timer all contribute to a system that is overwhelmingly problematic toward the player base. The proof of this statement is everywhere, even on the official WoW forums. With meaningful changes, Mythic+ could evolve into a truly balanced and enjoyable aspect of The War Within. As it stands, though, it remains a blessing rotting in a growing sea of de??cay, marred by frust?ration.

The post Mythic+ is both a ??blessing and a curse in WoW: The War Within’s endgame appeared first on Destructoid.

Wizards of the Coast recently debuted the newest version of Dungeons & Dragons, which has left a lot of players uncertain about their current characters. Dungeons & Dragons 5e 2024 Revision (D&D2024) has been presented as an update to the D&D people have been playing since 2014, but the new rules and smaller changes are significant enough ??to invalidate older ??content.

Even though we've received the new Player's Handbook, there are a lot of options from the last ten years of sourcebooks that weren't crossed over, with no indication of when, or if, it will be brought into line with the new vision for D&D. Most important in this question is which subclasses are going to be updated, and how long will it take. An intrepid squad of professional game designers, though, decided to take the question into their own hands and give us Subclasses Revivified.

Subclasses are the primary form of player-focused design for D&D. It's how every Bard, Paladin, Wizard, etc are made to be truly different from one another, in design and play style. D&D5e had ten years worth of subclasses divided across its numerous classes, so it only makes sense that not all of them were going to be updated into the new book. The demand for people to see their subclass ??of choice updated would be immense.

Adam Hancock, the editor and project manager for Subclasses Revivified, explained the overwhelming response when putting out an open call for writers, “I think I got four times as many applicants as I had writer positions to fill.�In the end, it was fourteen designers spread across sixty-nine subclasses who were brought together to learn D&D2024's quirks and create something worth playing. Everyone on the project is an accomplished designer, all of whom have done a lot of work on DMsGuild, the Wizards of the Coast-sanctioned design space, including designing their own subclasses. Ashton Duncan, who designed the Paladins for the project, explained, "the team is full of bestsellers and ENNIE-winners."

The designers who spoke to me for this article shared a lot about their design processes. There are about 2,000 words worth of minute design principles I learned about from th?e team on this project, far more than I feel I could summarize here. Sebastian Yūe, who redesigned several of the Wizard subclasses (including those originally from the Critical Role sourcebook), detailed one objective for the project, “Adam encouraged us to innovate and to take th??e opportunity to address pain points with existing subclasses.�

At every turn, Subclasses Revivified announces how much of a labor of love it is, as well as a design challenge. Part of the editing process involved assembling a design document filled with all of the minor changes D&D2024 introduced, while making sure these subclasses matched up to the new subclass design ideals. "I think I read the classes section of the 2024 Player's Handbook doz?ens of times over the course of the project to learn all the new capitalizations, phrasings, and game terms," Adam explained, also describing, "I slowly assembled an unofficial style guide? that became my 'bible' for all things [D&D]2024."

One universal constant from the team was the intention to continuously update the project. Most of this design work was done referencing the 2024 Player's Handbook, which is only one of three essential books Wizards of the Coast expects players to eventually own. Adam says that Subclasses Revivified is being treated as a "living document" and that "w?riters can and have made changes to their subclasses and probably will continue to do so in light of new information. And anyone who has already bought the PDF can simply download the latest file version to see those changes." Everyo??ne I spoke to explained their readiness to make changes, but several expressed their confidence that their subclasses would stand up to scrutiny when the rest of the books were released.

To me, the project is the kind of beacon most people expect out of the D&D tradition for homebrewing, grabbing the game, and making it give you want you really want to play. Homebrew like this feels somewhat essential while we wait to see what Wizards is going to revise or not. Every writer that reached out had varying levels of concern regarding what Wizards would be picking and choosing for updates. Bee, brought on to give us some Bards, expressed his worries, saying “My greater concern is length of time. I wonder how many books WOTC will ask of 2024 DMs to purchase before they catch up to the last decade of materials... In any case, the investment of money and time is infeasible for many, so hopefully, this book remedies that." There remains a lot of uncertainty about what will happen with D&D2024. This project, though, feels like exactly the kind of thing you'd want to see come from a game like this. A fresh, new example of people inventing their own fun in this little game of make-believe we play with shiny math rocks. Expressing a similar thought, Bee told me, “I feel like this is very much the kind of project the DM’s Guild was made for.�/p>

Subclasses Revivified is available on DMsGuild. The main page for the book has a 40-page preview in case you want to browse before you bu?y. Also, in case yo?u were wondering, my favorite subclass is the Arcane Archer, and I'd absolutely use the version they've given me here.

The post Indie designers finished revising D&D’s subclasses so you don’t have to wait appeared first on Destructoid.

Every month or so, I embark on a quest to find my next slice-of-life anime obsession. There's something inherently captivating about the everyday experiences of an Average Joe, a welcome escape from the ups and downs of my real life. Fortunately, my search for a new anime binge was short-lived when I stumbled upon You Are Ms. Servant, a c?aptivating story about a former assassin turned?? maid and a wealthy, amiable teenage boy.

The concept of a cold-blooded killer attempting to change their ways immediately piqued my interest. This was largely due to my fondness for Yor Forger from Spy x Family, another anime character who navigates a world of violence while mainta?ining a cozy family life. Initially, I couldn't help but draw comparisons between the two, but I soon realized that Ms. Servant, also known as Yuki, is a character with her own unique set of attributes and a compelling origin story.

You Are Ms. Servant begins with Yuki showing up at the doorsteps of Hitoyoshi Yokoya, a high school student left alone in a big house. She asks Hitoyoshi to employ her as a servant after her previous master recommended that she go there. The reason for this career change isn't too apparent, but that just adds to her mystery. However, Yuki's idea of "serving" deviates from the typical house cleaning standards, as she only knows the ways of a murderous executioner. Essentially, all she did was take ou?t the human trash before, bringing a new definition of what it means to be a maid. 

At first, Hitoyoshi hesitates to employ such a person (and rightfully so) until he eventually decides to just go with it??. Even though they are complete strangers, the two create memories together that can either pull at your heartstrings or make you roll on the floor with laughter. The beginning plays more into the comedic approach, as Yokoya explains to Yuki how cleaning doesn't mean?? flushing out human scum. This leads to a bunch of hilarious scenes where she makes a sad attempt to tidy the house.

It's hilarious to watch a merciless killer clumsily mop a floor as if it's one of the hardest things she can do. But the part that really got me laughing out loud was when Yuki discovered the delicious wonders of tonkatsu sauce. She becomes so obsessed that a living embodiment of the sauce talks to her in her dreams. As someone who also loves tonkatsu, I completely understand. Plus, Yuki never really had a decent meal before, so e?verything tastes like a five-star meal to her. 

Yokoya's reactions to this, and pretty much anything she does for that matter, make it even more whimsical. Almost every scene?? has him lo??oking dumbfounded at all the wild things she does around the house. 

Then, sometimes, their dynamics completely change to a more serio?us tone. Considering that both characters lived a pretty isolating life prior, they often go to a dark place in thei??r minds. Even though I love to have a good laugh, I did appreciate this aspect of the anime. It adds a sense of realism that not everything is chipper, and it helped me understand who they are as characters as a whole.

It also brings a sense of mystery to the story, gradually uncovering the truth about their past. There are brief snipp??ets here and there regarding Yuki's violent upbringing and Hitoyoshi's peculiar family life. Each episode seems to add more pieces to the puzzle, leaving me wanting more to decipher the tangles of their past.

The blending of comedy and drama was a concept I didn't expect from You Are Ms. Servant. I know that mixing the two together can be challenging to do since they're utterly opposite from each other. Yet, this anime has just the right balance of these elements. When the two characters are alone, it leans more on the drama scope through their loneliness. On the other hand, when they're together, it's more of a comedy anime to ease the tension. This balance creates a unique viewing ??experience, bringing out some of the most wholesome and emotional moments between the characters.

Despite only meeting not too long ago, Yuki and Hitoyoshi already have the maki?ngs of being a Found Family. This concept, often seen in anime, refers to a group of individuals who are not related by blood but form a close-knit, supportive unit. I like that it separates from the standard romantic-based anime, as the two learn to live and help each other regardless of their differences. They also establish a pr?etty good teamwork system, in which Yokoya shows Yuki the ropes of maintaining a clean house. I admire that they equally put in the work, rather than having the maid just do everything. Honestly, I was worried that it would turn out that way at first, but I'm happy that the anime took a different direction by having them slogging away together. 

I've noticed that more and more anime have centered around the idea of a Found Family, including Spy x Family and Buddy Daddies. This further diversifies relationships, where not every familial bond is blood-related. Thankfully, You Are Ms. Servant adds to this uniqueness more with Yuki and Yokoya's distinct companion?ship.

All in all, you should definitely check out You Are Ms. Servant if you're looking for a cozy anime. The show has everything for a slice-of-life, from humor to wholesomeness to drama. You can expect episodes every Saturday on Crunchyroll. 

The post ??You Are Ms. Servant blends comedy and drama into a whimsical s??lice-of-life anime appeared first on Destructoid.

Unlike a traditional timeline for video games where games come out in chronological order, The Legend of Zelda franchise is notorious for having a different approach. Instead of following Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf in order, each game takes place in a different era, with different incarnations of the characters. This has created one of the greatest mysteries in gaming �the official Zelda timeline.

Since the games only drop hints at where in the timeline they take place, historically, it’s been up to fans to figure out where they go. However, Nintendo has released an official timeline for the Tears of the Kingdom Master Works. But where does the latest addition, Echoes of Wisdom fit? That’s what we’re here to speculate.

Where is Echoes of Wisdom in the Zelda Timeline?

While nothing is official from Nintendo, it’s most likely that Echoes of Wisdom takes place in the downfall timeline, after A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening, but before the original Legend of Zelda from 1986. This is mostly evident from the map, because Echoes of Wisdom features nearly the same one as Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds, from the rivers to the caves. Hyrule’s land hasn’t changed much, aside from expansion, meaning they are re??latively close together.

In the official lore, during the events of Ocarina of Time, Hyrule is split into three separate timelines �the child timeline, where Link is sent back?? in time; the adult timeline, wh??ere the adult Princess Zelda remains; and the downfall timeline, where Link died before defeating Ganon. 

The downfall timeline contains most of the 2D style Zelda games, which includes all the Zelda games released before Ocarina of Time, as well as A Link Between Worlds and Triforce Heroes. 

Another identifier is the fact that Ganon is in his blue monstrous appearance. In the child and adult timelines, he appears as a man instead before transforming i?nto a beast. The downfall timeline is the only one where he has no human form at all.

Spoilers Ahead!

If you haven’t beaten the game yet, be aware that the ??rest of this speculation contains spoilers! 

Echoes of Wisdom also features the Triforce as a whole, with all three pieces together. In the child and adult timelines, the Triforce remains split between its three bearers: Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf. The royal family also has no knowledge of the Triforce or Ganon. It seems enough time has passed for both to be forgotten. This means the game could take place hundreds of years after its ??last appearance.

However, it’s still up for debate. Echoes of Wisdom features many callbacks to Zelda games from other timelines, such as Lord Jabu Jabu from Ocarina of Time being around (although it could be different fish with the same name) and Yetis existing, which had only been seen in Twilight Princess. 

Nothing is definitive from Nintendo, though, which means it’s still up to our imaginations where the game lies. I think it’s important to note that it doesn’t seem like Nintendo themselves are too invested in the official timeline anyway. After all, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were seemingly put onto an entirely separate timeline, detached from the rest of the games. There are also q??uestions that have no clear answer about the official timeline, such as the layout of Hyrule changing drastically between games??.

Overall, it’s highly likely that Nintendo doesn’t keep the timeline in mind when it comes to making the Zelda franchise other than a vague guideline. Instead, they just make?? the game they want, with callbacks to previous ones scattered in as they wish. While speculating on the timeline and each game’s placement can be fun, players are not required to know it to enjoy ?the game. 

The post Where is Echoes of Wisdom on the?? Legend of Zelda timeline? appeared first on Destructoid.

The NES version of Maniac Mansion was censored in North America. One of the few Game Over screens you could get required you to microwave a guy’s hamster and then show him the results. The ability to microwave a hamster ??was taken out. Had I not been told that, I would never have found out. Why? Because I’m not a fucking monster.

Anyway, Creature Packets is a game about microwaving small creatures. Not only that, you also put them in a blender together. It was developed in three days by KenForest as part of the Ludum Dare 56 game jam. The prompt was “tiny creatures,�s??o I’m not entirely sure how we wound up locked in a dirty room with small appliances a?nd a vending machine.

Creature Packets is available on Itch for the pri?ce of “name your own price.�It took me less than 20 minutes to complete. You may wonder what you can? do in such a short time, and the answer is not a whole lot.

You play as someone arriving for their first day on a creepy job. You’re given a list of tiny creatures (insects to start out with), and that’s about it in terms of instruction. However, there’s a vending machine in the corner that dispenses packets marked “Microworm,�which sounds delicious. If you look around, you will find various m??emos telling you that if you combine some of these creatures, you wind up with different creatures. Two worms make a scutigera. Ew! Ew!

Scutigera are house centipedes, and they give me the willies. Weird-ass monsters. Few insects can get such a visceral response from me. Gosh, I feel twitchy?? just thinking about them. Thankfully, you don’t have to touch them. Creating a new creature magically adds them to the vending machine, so you don’t need to concoct new ones each time. The packets are simply full of some sort of fluid, and they don’t actually come to life until you microwave them. It’s like a digital Creepy Crawlers oven. Those were so cool.

Wait, there is one moment where you need to touch house centipedes. Fulfilling an order requires you to microwave each of the listed creatures, which then dumps the living thing into a terrarium. Once you have them all, you press a button, and the terrarium gets sucked out to be delivered. A ?new one comes back, and it often has errant creatures still in it, which you need to squash before continuing. Screw the sanctity of life, it comes in packets now.

You might expect that Creature Packets would require a lot of experimentation,? but it doesn’t. Each recipe required for the jobs can be found on post-its around ?the room. This is probably a good thing since there are only so many possible recipes and far more possible combinations.

However, it does make Creature Packets seem rat??her sparse. It was created in three days, so it’s hard to expect much more. It has a horro??r vibe but never really tries to scare. It is very literally about the job put in front of you. Once you’ve made every creature and completed every job, it just ends.

I know that is entirely a limitation created by its brief development deadline, but I’m somew?hat grateful for it. I generally like working a job while sca??ry stuff happens around me, but it can get predictable. Just once, I’d like to do a creepy job where I clock in and then clock out, and here it is. There are no sudden sounds of doors slamming. No one is staring at me through the window. There aren’t any windows. It’s that kind of establishment.

But while it’s brief and not a whole lot happens, Creature Packets is worth experiencing, if only because the job is really satisfying. The environment is pleasingly cluttered, and the experience of punch?ing a series of two-digit codes into the vending machine and then stuffing the results into the microwave one by one has a great feel to it. It’s not exciting, but it is enjoyable, and there’s nothing to get in the way of that.

More importantly, it’s a unique approach. Tiny creatures coming disassembled in packets? Blending them together to make new ones? It’s an interesting way to wear God’s dress. It could conceivably be extrapolated into a longer experience like Happy’s Humble Burger Farm did, but for now, it’s a nice tactile experience. It’s a lot more sanitary than that sick filth Maniac Mansion.

The post Creature Packets makes putting small creatures in small appliances co?mparatively wholesome appeared first on Destructoid.

I've been highly skeptical of Arrowhead Games' ability to "fix" Helldivers 2 in just two months' time. Seeing how the game's balancing was handled early on put me off of the game and I was not expecting the 60-day patch to do much.

Imagine my surprise, then, upon seeing not one but two incredible balancing updates pushed out to re-develop the meta to an enjoyable level. And, honestly, there are no two ways to describe the state Helldivers 2 is currently in: the game is gosh darn fun. There's no telling what might be the next step for Arrowhead Games' flagship shooter, an?d there are some caveats, but the game is now in?? a renaissance, and I'm thrilled to have regained some trust in the developers.

Helldivers 2 is now more fun than ever before, but can it stay that way?

I don't play Helldivers 2 the way it's meant to be played. There's a small sub-community of people playing Helldivers 2 solo, but we do so with the full expectation that we ?won't be taking on the highest difficulties or progressing efficiently.

It's fine, really.

What wasn't fine was how egregiously punishing the game got, even at low difficulties, if you took a slightly suboptimal loadout into a mission. Certain enemies, such as the Charger, essentially mandated that your fireteam had to take dedicated anti-armor weapons, no matter what. This, in turn, defined your primary and secondary kit as well. Remember: there's a long history of nerfs to Helldivers 2, and though not all were unwarranted, players were still left in a situation where the vast ma?jority of?? gear was wholly unviable.

All of this was before Arrowhead substantially powered up both the Automatons and the Bugs via the Escalation of Freedom, on top of lock??ing the cool new content behind the new, highest difficult??y mode.

None of this was necessarily rolled back. Instead, Arrowhead delivered an incredible roster of buffs to player weapons and armor, making more kit viable than the game had even on launch day. As it stands, the odds are good that you could take anything into a mission and still be a force to be reckoned with. This is a huge shift in how matches play out, both in solo and in fireteam modes.

What has actually changed in Helldivers 2 after the 60-day patches?

In the broadest sense possible, Arrowhead Games has done three things with the last couple of balancing patches for Helldivers 2:

• Retrofitted the vast majority of the game's arsenal into relevance via buffs.
• Made enemy resistances, AI behavior, and spawning setups far more reasonable and sensible.
• Stopped leaving inflammatory comments willy-nilly.

Balancing a game isn't a zero-sum consideration, and while you might expect Helldivers 2 ??to be exceedingly easy now, that's not quite the case. Helldiver troops still get cut down at a moment's notice. Bad positioning will result in mission losses and unnecess?ary deaths, and though enemy forces did get some nerfs, they are no pushovers unless you're playing on the lowest possible difficulty.

The key thing that's changed is that you're no longer beholden to one or two specific loadouts for every single use case. As long as you keep a balanced arsenal where one of your weapons deals with chaff, one takes on heavy enemies, and one serves a gadget-like niche (i.e. the Stim Pis??tol), you'll be able to do some seri?ous damage.

Loadout variety is a huge consideration in a game where we regularly get awesome guns and gadgets. Having new flamethrowers only for them to feel like spruced-up matchsticks was a bad look, and I'm thrilled that ??Arrowhead ?managed to come back from that.

Honestly, Helldivers 2 is now fun, not because it's easy, but because it lets you interact with its sandbox in more ways than ever before. The "experience shift" that Arrowhead?? promised? worked, almost ridiculously well.

Can Arrowhead maintain the balance that's now been struck?

This truly is the ultimate question we need to keep asking over and over again as we proceed into Helldivers 2's hopefully years-long live-service setup. Helldivers 2 wa??s released to immediate acclaim, only to then be ground into something less interesting and exciting by subsequent balancin?g attempts.

These balancing attempts came from a good place, but they showed the community that Arrowhead doesn't necessarily know how to m?ake players happy and the game fun. Even after two massive buff-oriented patches, I can't shake off the feeling that we're just riding a high that won't last lo?ng.

Potential hidden nerfs aside for a bit, there's another big consideration: can there be too much of a good thing in this context? And the answer is yes, certainly. The original Helldivers was balanced on a knife's edge (not always perfectly, mind), where both the enemies and?? the players were extremely powerful and capable. The challenge was knowing?? how to best use these powerful tools you had at your disposal and how to avoid the enemies' strongest weapons.

I dare say that we're in a similarly precarious golden era for Helldivers 2, too. The enemies are challenging, but the players have the potential of being every bit as punishing as the full brunt of the?? Automaton and/or Bug forces. How long will Arrowhead Ga??mes be able to maintain this balance? Are we just one Warbond away from completely dismantling everything the 60-day patch(es) delivered?

Given Arrowhead's track record, I'm not yet convinced this isn't a fluke. I want to believe Helldivers 2 will no??w keep up its balancing act to stay the game it is now. But it will take a handful of other balancing updates before I can be sure that I'm happy with what Arrowhead's offering. And I know I'm not the only one who's still on the fence.

The post Helldivers 2 has managed to pull itself back from a?? balancing disaster, against all odds appeared first on Destructoid.

Horror games are a staple of the Fall season. As Halloween approaches, millions of players, both old and new, dive in to get spooked. With that in ??mind, it should come as no surprise that?? October’s Steam Next Fest offers a huge number of horror demos to try. 

Whether you’re after something that? will keep you up at night or simply want an unsettling dive into a new gaming world, I’ve downloaded and played all the horror or horror-re??lated demos I could find. Here’s my top 10, and you should definitely pay attention to these.

Babette

If you ever had a Tamagotchi as a child, then you’ll either love or hate Babette, de??pending on how good your memories are. Essentially, you’re tasked with looking after a virtual cat on a pixelated Tamagotchi, except this cat is either a demon, or possessed by one. 

Things get progressively creepier as you progress the game, and despite the simple art style, there’s definitely something unsettling about Babette. 

Brokenlore: DON’T WATCH

In this deeply unsettling and paranoia-inducing title, you play as Shinji. After receiving bi??zarre messages from a friend and your parents cutting you off financially, you seem to undergo what can only be des??cribed as a psychotic break. 

Within your very messy apartment, which, for some unfathomable reason, appears to have no working lights, eyeballs start to appear in the walls, and Shinji must remove them with his knife. It’s creepy, and I found myself looking away on multiple occasions. Brokenlore: DON’T WATCH is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Fear the Timeloop

Fear the Timeloop is, as it sounds, a game based on the concept of a timeloop. You play as Sheriff Ja?mes Cooper who, while on the hunt for a serial killer, finds himself in a location that he has no memory of and worse, he only has 15 minutes to live. If you’re feeling brave, you can play in Standard Mode, which constantly decreases your health over those 15 minutes, and you will eventually die and end up right back at the beginning all over again. 

If you want to explore the surprisingly creep??y-yet-beautiful setting filled with corpses and eerie music instead, and shadows that move out of the corner of your eye, you can play on a simplified mode where your health doesn’t decrease unless you’re attacked. Oh, and you can’t save your progress unless you find a videotape, and put it in a VCR. ??;

Final Outcry

A first-person horror game played through the medium of found? footage from an urban exploration of an abandoned prison, except you’re in control of the camera and things are incredibly creepy right from the offset. You know that something i??s going to go horribly wrong, because why else would this footage be classified?

The demo of Final Outcry features the unenviable ta?sk of having to hunt down, collect, and then provide body par?ts to progress. Things just keep getting creepier, and the noises and darkness combine to leave you feeling distinctly unnerved. 

Ghost Frequency

If you’re a fan of jump scares, then may I recommend Ghost Frequency? Of all the games on this list, this is the one that literally made me scream and gave me that all-too-familiar adre??naline-fuelled anxiety spike that only comes with a ?good horror movie or game. 

You start off as a paranormal investigator, except you only have five minutes to do what you think you’re supposed to be doing, and then you’re thrown into? what can only be described as an introductory pit of Hell. Armed with only a lighter, you’re forced to explore a maze of walls covered in the most creepy children’s drawings I’ve ever seen while distorted voices speak to you. 

Kelder

There are a few staple things that make a horror game truly, well, horrible (in the best way): Darkness, a flashlight with limited battery life, and unsettling sounds. Kelder h??as all of these by the bucket load, and to top it all off, there are some things that are a little too familiar to life outside of the game as well. 

Take, for instance, The Man. You’ve probably heard of him or at least seen his face because we’ve all apparently dreamt of him. There are also moments when music comes from nowhere before quickly fading away again, l?eaving you trying to figure out what the hell just happened before quickly running off in search of the next light source before your flashligh??t dies. 

Nav

Nav is the demo that sparked my desire to write this list, because something about it really appealed to me and then I l?ost an hour playing just the demo. The game begins in an abandoned Russian town, and as you explore, you realize that you’re going to have ?to dig up graves to progress. 

However, things get really spooky after a visit to your dead Babushka’s house when a well opens up and leads you down into caves and caverns that are home to things unseen. There’s a touch of Alan Wake to proceedings, with enemies dissolving when you aim your?? lantern at them, and a whole lot of creep factor. 

Liminalcore

There’s something deeply upsetting about being lost, although sometimes it can be fun in small doses. Liminalcore will be familiar to anyone who has ??ever? seen or played a Backrooms game, and it’s filled with stark white, tiled rooms that are all interconnected and incredibly difficult to navigate. 

The only sounds are the buzzing of the fluorescent ligh??ts and the water sloshing around in whatever rooms you find it. There are no jump scares, at least none that I was unlucky enough to encounter, and nobody is chasing you. The horror comes from the feeling of uncertainty and not knowing what’s around each corner. 

Lidar Exploration Programme

This one could be considered an odd one out on this list, but if you want something mildly horror-adjacent, then I cannot recommend Lidar Exploration Programme enough. Th??e demo tasks you with using a Lidar scanner to scan objects in a forest, and your only view of the world is through the Lidar points.

Nothing scary happened, and you could even describe this one as weirdly pretty, but the fear of the unknown and inability to see very far in front of you will put you on edge at least a little. This one is safe if y??ou want spooky but not gives-you-nightmare??s level scares. 

Tenebris Somnia

Of all the games I tried while writing up this list, Tenebris Somnia ended up being my favorite. It’s in?credibly nostalgic with its pixel art style, but that’s combined with live-action cutscenes that wouldn’t be out of place in an actual horror movie. The effects are great, and part of me felt like I was reliving the joy of playing low-res games on my old Ata??ri. 

Your ex-boyfriend has gone MIA, and you still have a key to his apa??rtment. When you arrive to check up on him, you find demonic goings-on and, after combining a few found items, you end up getting attacked by a demon woman who attacks with her tongue. While the gameplay itself might not be the scariest on this list, the cutscenes add the necessary creep factor, and the story will definitely gra??b you. 

The post The best horror game demos you should try during October’s Steam Next Fest appeared first on Destructoid.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that there is a sequel on the way for Tron: Identity, the 2023 visual novel by Bithell Games (Thomas Was Alone). However, when Mike Bithell started his presentation on its follow-up, he excitedly pointed out that they had everyone fooled into thinking they were going to make a series of visual novels. Disney Tron: Catalyst is not that.

I’ll be honest, when he said that, I was hoping for a new FPS. I still have a huge fondness for Monolith Productions 2003, Tron 2.0 �as does Mike Bithell. Disney Tron: Catalyst (the PR person stressed the “Disney�party, but this is the last time I’m including it) isn’t that either, but it is an isometric action game. Yet, despite keeping your fingers busier, it seems that the new title in the Tron universe will still be narrative-focused.

Tron: Catalyst is still a sequel to Identity, even if it dropped the visual novel format. While you don’t play as former protagonist Query, they do play a role in the new plot. It again takes place within the Arq Grid, an isolated s?erver that has been left on its own and has continued to develop without user intervention. In fact, at this point, the existence of a user is just hearsay, and some have begun to believe that they don’t exist.

The sentence may not have made sense to you if you aren’t familiar with Tron. Personally, I only know most of the basics, having watched the original movie and played Tron 2.0 and Tron: Identity. There’s more beyond that I’m not familiar with, but Mike Bithell is clearly a huge fan, and working on games within the universe is something of a dream project for him. It’s hard not to find that enthusiasm infectious. Bithell’s games aren’t driven by corporate avarice but are instead labors of love, and I could totally feel that in Tron: Identity. In fact, while writing this paragraph, I looked back at my review of the game and I mention that very same thing in the opening. I’m getting good ?at this.

But if you don’t know anything about Tron, I doubt you’ll be completely left in the dark. It involves a world inside a computer, and everyone depicted is some sort of program. References will likely be made, but (assumedly) none of the characters existed during the events of the movies, so they don’t have any knowledge beyond what you need. I’m sure Tron: Identity will be required reading, but you should play it anyway. It’s three hours long and fantastic.

Rather than just being a mystery, there’s combat in Tron: Catalyst. It’s perhaps what you’d expect from an isometric game in a post-Hades world. You can fling your disc, roll, and parry. After demonstrating the combat, the demonstration moved out into the streets to show off the light-cycle and semi-open-ish world. It’s not a true open world, Bithell stressed. The team calls them “big levels,�but they remain chunks of a fully explorable city. They tried to capture the verticality of Tron cities by in??cluding verticality wherever they could, pushing you up to the rooftops.

The big twist to Tron: Catalyst is a Groundhog Day-esque looping system where you reset everything back to the initial event. The goal of each loop is to obtain things that you can take back with you to the start of the loop that will enable you to change the events of the game. The one demonstrated was having Query (the protagonist of Identity) r?ewrite your identity disc so you can get into the city without the guards hating you.

Bithell also acknowledged that, with looping, there’s the risk that players will have to play through the same thing repeatedly. In order to cut down on this, a shortcut?? code can be obta??ined throughout the big levels, which can enable you to get where you’re going without taking the scenic route every time.

Speaking of which, despite how Tron: Identity was, despite the open-ish (not really) world, and despite the time loops, there isn’t “an enormous amount�of branching planned for Tron Catalyst. You can be “expressive�in conversation, but the action is largely “straight ahea??????????????????????????d�according to Bithell.

In all honesty, I probably would have overlooked Tron: Catalyst. Isometric action games just don’t grab me these days. In fact, I don’t remember how I ended up playing Tron: Identity. But I’m glad I did, because that gives me all the reason I need to get excited. As much as I don’t have much of a stake in the Tron series, but because Bithell Games wants every??one to s??ee it the way they do, I know that it will be a meaningful experience.

The post The follow-up to Bithell Games’ Tron: Identity isn’t a visual novel appeared first on Destructoid.

Alright, I'll admit it, I've never used a compact keyboard. I'm quite particular when it comes to the precise space I expect to have when maneuvering my hands across a keyboard,?? and the thought of having to muscle memory learn to deal with smaller real estate—even if it is just a Numpad or some extra function keys being lost—has always terrified me.

Razer just dropped its Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75%, a wireless hot-swappable pro version of BlackWidow V4 featuring the latest Razer technology: HyperSpeed and 4K Hz HyperPolling. With all the tech in this Pro version, I figured this was as good a time as an??y to take the plunge into the world of compact keyboards, and boy have I been missing out.

I've always preferred wired peripherals, but if all peripherals came with the HyperSpeed and HyperPolling technology that the BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% has, I think I'd make the switch to wireless. With a 4,000 Hz polling rate, there was never a delay. I've used wireless keyboards in the past where even the most minimal delay has been enough to make me switch back to wired. I've used the Black?Widow V4 Pro ??75% now in a variety of ways; gaming, working, even just chilling and surfing the internet. And if I hadn't known, I'd assume it was wired. It looks like delays with wireless could finally be a thing of the past.

If you have other hardware that could make use of they keyboard, you can actually add up to three devices at a time and instantaneously toggle between them. I tried it out with my nearby PS5, and s??ure enough, I was able to quickly toggle bet??ween it and my PC without the need to go in and re-configured it each time.

The original BlackWidow V4 75% was all about customization, and that mantra continues with the Pro. The hot-swappable design is back, with the versatility for both 3 and 5-pin mechanical switches. The pre-loaded default for the Pro includes Razer's Orange Tactile Switches, a classic set of Razer switches that was surely a safe option overall. Most seem?? to prefer either the orange or green, and for me, the green is just a tad bit too loud, so I feel like pre-loaded with the orange was a solid albeit safe choice. Of course, hot-swappable means you have the freedom to change that if you disagree.

Of course, we can't talk about a Razer peripheral without talking about the RGB. As I expected, both the RGB quality and versatility via the Razer Chroma app continue to be the best in the industry. I'm rather simple in my creativity when it comes to this sort of thing but even still I've made some pretty cool profiles. The lighting is ?bright, making the light show vibrant and concise no matter the profile. I hadn't messed around with the Razer Chroma app in a little while, so these may not all be new, but some of the pre-existing profiles that you can apply based on specific gaming scenarios are pretty sick. Like I said, best in the industry for a reason.

With the BlackWidow V4 Pro 75%, the scrollable wheel in the top right of the keyboard has been replaced with a grayscale OLED display. You can cycle through lots of pre-set options to display on the OLED such as crucial PC information including temps and speeds, detailed info about the keyboard, an audio meter, and even custom animations such a?s animated gifs. On the side to the right of the OLED is a scrollable wheel knob to cycle through pre-set profiles on the keyboard as well as change things like polling rate and RBG pro?files on the fly. The OLED is a nice touch, but I have to wonder why the choice to go with grayscale of color. I assume it's a cost-cutting measure, which is fair given the $299.99 price point of this BlackWidow V4 Pro 75%, which is already considered a premium price.

Speaking of premium, l??et's talk about the wrist rest. I know I know, not typically a focal point when deciding on a keyboard. But the Magnetic Plush Leatherette wrist rest that comes with the BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% is exceptionally well made. It's the perfect blend of soft and cushiony, without feeling indentable or like a pillow. When I think of the right middle ground, this is what I envision.

After using the Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% over the last couple of weeks, there is only one real issues I have with it: the battery life. I understand there's a lot of potential battery draw with RGB lighting, an OLED, and Hyp?erPolling, but even with all of that dialed down a minimum the keyboard struggles to get through a normal work day without needing a bit more juice. It's quite possible that turning all of that off will boost the battery life—in fact, I'm certain it will—but all the cool bells and whistles are part of the draw for the keyboard, so they should be used.

According to Razer, the built-in Power Saving Mode deactivates the OLED and keyboard backlighting while also pausing communication with Razer Synapse, allowing the keyboard to achieve up to 2100 hours of battery life. That's quite a formidable battery, but i?t seems just having any of those features enabled really r??amps up on that drain.

My issue with the battery life aside, the BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% has been an abso?lute joy to use. I'm pretty particular when it comes to keyboards, which is part of the reason I've yet to try a compact keyboard before now. But the BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% has converted me. It's officially replaced my previous keyboard and became my mainstay gaming keyboard. Who knows, I might even get creative and see how I like the green switches when this keyboard after all.

The Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% is? available now for $299.99.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the hardware provided by the manufacturer.]}

The post Razer’s BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% has converted me to a compact keyboard enjoyer appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm pretty hyped for the recently-announced Tomb Raider IV-VI? remasters by Aspyr, but maybe not for the healthiest of reasons.

Many years of surviving disappointing video game releases forced me to evolve into a state where I enjoy masterpieces and absolute train wrecks all the same. To me, the only bad game is a formulaic and uneventful one. In case you're wondering, I loved the original batch of remasters from Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Trilogy because they provide competent and surprisingly soulful ways to play amazing classics. The second trilogy, however, will require more than just goo??d polishing.

I know Aspyr will pull off IV and V, The Last Revelations and Chronicles, respectively. Tough task, as that's where the series began to falter. IV was the first entry to tinker a bit with the formula, which was good for the most part, but it also began introducing a few areas too large to allow for fun exploration. V was but a collection of levels not good enough to fit in the other entries. Still, fans will likely enjoy just getting to re-play these two in higher res for nos???talgia's sake, if nothing else.

What I cannot fathom is how you'd polish such a broken and straight-up unfinished game as Angel of Darkness into something unir??onically enjoya??ble - and I'm all here for it.

If you're new to the series, you must know that The Angel Of Darkness was, sadly, the last game in the series Core Design ever got to work on. It came out in a very poor state after years-on-end of increasingly egregious studio demands and poor design choices began taking a toll on the Tomb Raider dev team.

The Angel Of Darkness begins in a small alley where you're supposed to learn some of the game's all-new ropes. This alley features a dog chained to a wall. Coming in contact with the dog will cause Lara to immediately die. This is the worst dog ??in video game history, but also one of the best ways?? of preparing players for what's to come.

In the alley, you'll learn Lara has the same moves, but we now have a hybrid alternative to the original tank controls. Lara now moves in whatever direction you move your analog stick to??, but in an extremely clunky and unpredictable way. Among the game's many problems, this is by far the most disrupting one and will inevitably result in a ragequit-worthy amount of missed jumps. Luckily, it's likely the easiest one to fix. I'm pretty sure Aspyr will pass this challenge with flying colors just by looking at how well the studio dealt with the new optional control type introduced in the first remaster.

Most other problems, however, come from terrible design choices. The game features incredibly dull dialogue sequences where Lara will have to talk, not shoot, characters into doing her bidding, awful stealth, a baf??fling lack of tombs, and even light RPG elements still heavy enough to cripple the entire experience. Yes; if you don't know or don't recall, this is the game where Lara, who'd been a world-class athlete for her past decade, will sometimes requ?ire players to perform three more jumps and two pull ups just so she gets strong enough to clear one humiliatingly simple climbing section in the game.

The remaining problems stem from the game just not being finished. Aspyr cannot fix code that doesn't exist, and it's unfair to expect the studio to fill in the gaps in a remaster. Angel Of Darkness features unfinished mechanics, bug-riddled gameplay, and is missing not only entire levels but even story?-relevant cutscenes.

Any fan who picked up Angel Of Darkness would be up to a rough start as the game begins without providing any explanation as to why Lara is alive after having been crushed to death at the end of The Last Revelation. Players will likely feel even more puzzled by the end of the game,?? as they come to the realization that no explanation will ever be given.

We only got to learn via a del??eted cutscene that it turns out Lara was revived by a Shaman in Egypt:

But that was pretty dumb, s?o it's almost better it go??t left out.

This one would likely be best suited for a remake, ironically a treatment only games that already came out in a decent state and sold a bunch of copies ever get. Still, I don't know how deep into its cursed code Aspyr bravely dove to try and fix AOD, so it might turn out to be the most surprisingly awesome remaster of all time. I'm sure to enjoy it eithe??r way.

The post How do you even remaster To??mb Raider: T?he Angel Of Darkness? appeared first on Destructoid.

Long gone are the days when almost every game development? studio came up with its own proprietary game engine. It's been a long time coming, but we're finally at the stage where Unreal Engine 5 truly dominat??es the industry, and I feel this isn't a good thing at all.

One could argue about the ubiquity of Unreal Engine all day long, granted. The engine's claim to fame began way, way back in the days of Unreal Engine 2, only for it to develop into one of the go-??to third-party development solutions as Epic Games moved to release Unreal Engine 3. It's difficult to overstate the importance of UE, as we've had close to a thousand games produced on UE3 and UE4 in the past. UE5, in comparison, is even?? more monumental.

Having access t??o a comprehensive one-size-fits-most set of game production tools effectively democratized the production pipeline for small teams that couldn't afford to make their own development kit. From that point of view, UE is a phenomenal choice. Is it perfect, though?

The pros and cons of using a third-party game engine

B?efore moving on to the crux of the matter??, I've got to set the stage for my qualms about Unreal. For someone who isn't familiar with the verbiage of the what, why, and how of a "game engine," it's easy to lose track of the argument.

A game engine is essentially the framework within which games are made. Generic game engines such as Unreal and Unity can be modified to accommodate virtually any type of game, while stuff such as RPGMaker is obviously tailored towards role-playing games, specifically. There's no hard line to be drawn between the two, however: most game engines can be used to build most game types. It'?s just a matter ?of how easy or difficult it is to adapt them.

Now, the thing about UE and Unity, specifically, is that they're extremely popular due to having a lot of general-purpose software already embedded. On one side, this means game develop??ers can rapidly deploy gameplay solutions (physics, rendering, features, assets, etc.) with??out spending time on developing them from the ground up. On the other hand, it also means you may inherit some of an engine's quirks and problems that won't be easy to fix.

The pro of using a third-party game engine is that you're essentially relegating the very baseline of your produc?tion pipeline to someone else. This frees you up to work on the bits that make sense for your particular project! Tech debt becomes effectively a non-issue with Un??real, as Epic Games works tirelessly to stay at the cutting edge of game dev.

Why is Unreal, specifically, problematic?

Had I worked on this article just a few years ago, it wouldn't have been all about Unreal to begin with. Notably, Unreal and Unity walked in effective lock-step until Unity nuked its own goodwill by attempting to implement a runtime fee policy. This was a phenomenally ?terrible business decision that not only diminished Unity's market share, but elevated the appeal of Unreal Engine 5. It also led to a situation where everyone and their mum was using UE5 for game dev.

Now, if you're even remotely sensitive to shoddy performance and questionable optimization, you're not going to like where I'm going with this. We only really need to look at Digital Foundry's coverage of Unreal Engine games on YouTube to get a sense of where the issues lie. Take the recent (phenomenal) Silent Hill 2 Remake, for example:

And let's not forget the unexpected darling of this year's gaming landscape, Black Myth: Wukong:

Notice a pattern? Unreal Engine 5 struggles a whole lot with stuttering. Partially due to shoddy shader compilation setups and partially due to strange traversal load-ins, it seems like the majority of game developers working with Epic's engine have a problem delivering a stutter-free gaming experience. And even though some would ?claim they're "not experiencing these problems" on their rigs, this is factually impossible due to the nature of UE5's performance issues.

Granted, it's not that the previous versions of Unreal were immune to these problems, as shown with the UE4 build used for Respawn Entertainment's Jedi: Survivor titles.

This is the bit I mentioned about inherited problems: Unreal Engine 5 is infamous for its seemingly unfixable stuttering. To say nothing of just how heavy it is, performance-wise. From Remnant 2 to Lords of the Fallen, th??ere's not a single UE5 game I'd classify as viable for ?low-spec rigs.

The problem isn't the current-day situation, but the state of things 10 years down the line

Now, to be perfectly fair, I'm a pretty big fan of Unreal Engine 5 as a software kit. I'm a proponent of tech such as Lumen and Nanite, and I think we'd probably be better off with Epic's standardized rendering solutions rather than with something Nvidia might?? cook up. Tech exclusivity is not something I'm keen on.

My biggest concern isn't with the fact that everyone's trying to build something on top of UE5 as such,? but the fact that we've got huge, tenured studios leaving behind their legacy tech stacks to move on to someone else's third-party solution.

Just off the top of my head, we already know that all of the following projects are or will be ?running on U??nreal 5:

• STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl
• Cyberpunk 2077 sequel
• The Witcher remake
• new Halo titles
• Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

On this short list, we're losing some really interesting, bespoke tech. Sure, much of it had been left to rot several generations behind, but still. Between the loss of X-Ray, REDEngine, Slipspace, Fox Engine, and countless others, I cannot imagine that relying purely on Unreal for everything will be a good idea in the long run. But hey, maybe I'm just being annoying for no good reason, right? Surely t?here's no value in losing unique, purpose-built game engines? Makes you wonder, though.

Unreal has a choke-hold on the gaming industry, and that's not going to change anytime soon

I'll concede that all o?f this might just be fear-mongering and I may very well be wrong in being skeptical over Unreal Engine's domination of the modern game devel?opment scene.

The fact of the matter is that Epic didn't just win over developers by now, but the wider "gamer" communities as well. People are already calling for anyth??ing and everything to be remade or moved over? to new builds of Unreal, and it's not even hard to see why:

• AAAs running on Unreal look great (and run awfully, but that's less important).
• Indie studios and solo developers can slap together rapid-fire UE5 demos that look photo-realistic.
• "Fan-remakes" of beloved titles are being developed left and right.

There's an awful lot of grassroots marketing mojo that's gone into UE5 by now, and much of that is well-warranted. Whether the pros truly outweigh the cons in the long run, though, we'll just have to wait and see. Unreal is way too entrenched by now to be done away with, and the competition is unfortunately questionable at? bes?t. And so it goes.

The post Soon enough, the world will run on Unreal Engine 5, and that’s a problem appeared first on Destructoid.

If you have spent a few dozen hours playing competitive?? games online, chances are you've had one of your matches ruined by opponents wielding the equivalent of a lightsaber on a medieval game.

Cheaters suck because they remove the uncertainty that should always accompany video games. You just know you're going to lose, likely in a humiliating manner. Luckily, game develo?pers and players sometimes fight back and c?ome up with hilarious anti-cheating mechanisms. Let's look at some of the best.

Call Of Duty giving non-cheaters awesome perks to fight off cheaters

One of the most deservedly loathed cheats in?? gaming is the wallhack. It allows cheaters to see all matter of important stuff, be it drops or enemies, even when they should be safely hiding behind walls.

The makers of Call Of Duty brilliantly reversed this by coming up with an anti-cheat countermeasure that rendered all regular players completely invisible in the eyes of cheaters. Ta??lk about the literal P?redator becoming the prey, huh?

Call Of Duty also has cheaters shooting blanks

The other classic cheater that any honest player who's ever indu?lged in some online gameplay is the aimbot. Even if you have the weakest weapon in the game, never missing a headshot will likely grant you a serious advantage against any well-equipped player.

Call Of Duty solved that by making every bullet shot out of a caught cheater's gun dealing exactly 0 damage. This resulted in various YouTube videos of cheaters complaining that their weapons weren't working even though they weren't miss?ing a single shot. How the turns have tabled.

Deadlock turns cheaters into frogs

Deadlock somehow already has a cheater issue, but this time Valve was ready for the war. It's anti-cheating system will detect and ask non-cheaters if they want the cheaters to be banned right away, or turned into frogs for the remainder of the match - then banned. It's a hilarious form of justice, and not even a new one. Turns out it began life as a mechanism that would've turned cheaters into chickens in Counter-Strike but it ended up never seeing the light of day. I'm guessing that all ??the years of cheater abuse in Valve games finally made the company go full on evil wiza??rd.

Runescape’s botany bay

Similarly to Deadlock's frog-ification, Runescape also allows players to judge cheaters. Unlike Deadlock, however, Runescape's penaltie??s ar??e a bit harsher than just being turned into a cute lil green critter.

To allow players to arrive at the best-possible comeuppance, the makers of Runescape created Botany Bay. This is a very "special" place where players can judge and �more im??portantly �execute cheaters in the most gruesome of ways.

Tomb Raider 2’s trap code

Not all cheaters thrive in the online landscape. Back in the early days of the Tomb Raider series, the rumor that you could totally get Lara Croft to take off their clothes in the original game took the relatively tiny Internet by storm. By the release of Tomb Raider 2,?? many saw the surfacin??g of a cheat code that promised players could get the now even more detailed Lara Croft model naked. You could not.

performing the moves that would? supposedly allow you to play "Nude Raider" would actually culminate in Lara exploding and sending dozens of body parts (still with their clothes on) flying across the screen.

Be warned that it still works in the remasters.

Fall Guys' cheater island

Honestly, I believe justice should always be rehabilitative, not punitive. The good people at Mediatonic seems to agree as they developed not a bunch of contraptions even viler than those seen in a regular match of Fall Guys, but a resort just to accommodate cheaters.

On the cheater island, you could learn that chea?ting is wrong as you're pitted agai??nst dozens of other cheaters, many of which who will possibly sport cheats capable of making yours feel puny.

Cheats that are too good to be true

Sometimes you just get to take matters into your own hands. That's what Reddit user receiven did as he marketed a hot and revolutionary n???ew Counter-Strike multi-cheat and got a lot of people to try it out.

This cheat, however, wasn't just useless but even made users play worse as it got their POV stuck at a crooked angle. Cheaters wouldn't have to worry much about this,?? though, as Steam wouldn't take long to detect this software as something that could've only resulted from meddling with the code, and thus got thousands of would-be ch?eaters banned.

Rigged parachutes

Few things are more thrilling than coming to a game after having learned a new skill that no-one could anticipate. I'm assuming cheaters in Battle Royale games get one hell of ??a thrill as they witness their character descending from the plane into whatever BR isl??and they're about to make unfun for everyone else.

Call Of Duty made sure the thrill ends in an absolute anti climax, as the cheaters detected by Warzone would have their parachutes intentionally rigged to have them crater and die upon landing.

The Witcher 3's biblically accurate cow angel

Witchers work for coin. Their code doesn't much care for cruelty, but The Witcher 3's game code sure does. Chances are you've played Witcher 3 without ever noticing this, and that's great.

If you're evil, however, a??nd even if you haven't used any sort of cheating software, you may already know what I'm talking about. Upon committing random - but certainly serious - high number of crimes against cows, the game will spawn the toughest monster in existence, a god-like cow protector capable and willing toy obliterate anyone trying to abuse the game's economy via cow-murder.

Animal Crossing's Resetti or "Mr Reset"

Savescumming isn't even cheating software, but the practice of reloading until you have the desired outcome is frowned upon by many, including the people at Nintendo behind Animal Crossing.

Abusing the game's save functionality by resetting too often will unleash the ire of Resett?i, who will not kill you, nor rig your parachute, not summon a huge cow demon, but do the worst thing imaginable: continuousl?y berate players for their behavior.

The post 10 funniest anti-cheat measures in games appeared first on Destructoid.

This year, two shĹŤnen action series of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine reached their long-awaited conclusions: Kohei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia and Gege Akutami's Jujutsu Kaisen.

These were, without a doubt, two of the biggest titans of its genre and demographic, and their absence will certainly leave a huge empty hole in the entire anime and manga industry. However, their respective fan bases reacted to each ending with a lot of controversy and mixed opinions.

As someone who has been reading weekly chapters of both My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen for several years, witnessing these series flesh out their stories until the very end has been mind-blowing.?? While their finales had a lot of issues, one of them excelled, whereas the other failed, and vice versa. So the only remaining question is: Which one of them had the strongest ending?

A brief recap of the two divisive final chapters

To recap: In the final chapter of My Hero Academia, we see series' protagonist Izuku Midoriya after eight years have passed since the final battle. He is now Quirkless because he transferred One For All to Tomura Shigaraki, bu??t he became a renowned hero for not only having defeated All For One and Shigaraki but also for inspiring the Hero Society of Japan to improve and be more prone to saving innocent people. While Deku laments that his friends are still active heroes, he still enjoys his job as a teacher at U.A. High School and realizes that he has made an important impact on other people. However, at the very last minute, All Might gives him a special armored suit that lets him become a hero once again.

On the other hand, Jujutsu Kaisen's ending is much more simple. After the deadly battle with Ryomen Sukuna, Yuji Itad?ori, Megumi Fushiguro and Nobara Kugisaki go back to their usual lives and stop a corrupt sorcerer who was stalking a woman during one of their missions. However, after they detain the enemy, Itadori assures him that he won't be executed, echoing the late Satoru Gojo's dream of inspiring a new generation of sorcerers to be kinder and more empathetic. After a brief interaction between Sukuna and Mahito in the afterlife, we see the final finger of Sukuna resting while hidden away, as it no longer has a curse sealed within it.

Despite their flaws, both endings did many things right

There's no denying that both My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen had exciting final bat?tles that not only made their respective antagonists seem intimidating and dangerous but also? made good use of almost every relevant character who had appeared throughout the series. Both Horikoshi and Akutami's illustrations were incredibly detailed during these final confrontations, and they will definitely look amazing whenever they get animated by their respective studios.

My Hero Academia did a solid job at closing off almost every single plot beat that it est??ablished throughout the series, and most of the characte??rs had satisfying conclusions: From the inspiring and heroic main characters, like Deku himself, Bakugo, Todoroki or Uraraka, to the tragic villains, like Shigaraki, Spinner, Toga or Dabi. Even minor characters like Gentle and La Brava got endearing conclusions to their stories. The time skip during the final chapter was certainly a bold move, but getting to see grown-up versions of Deku and his friends finally become famous Pro Heroes was as satisfying as it was emotional.

The ending of Jujutsu Kaisen was much simpler, as it instead focused on showing how the main three characters were able?? to not only return to their regular lives but also how ?their experiences during the Culling Game Arc and the Shinjuku Showdown Arc affected them, especially considering that Nobara Kugisaki was absent from the story for a very long time. Akutami also took his time to explain a few loose ends from the final battle and briefly showed what was going on with other characters like Yuta Okkotsu or Kinji Hakari.

However, My Hero Academia failed in some important areas...

Despite all their positives, both My Hero Academia's and Jujutsu Kaisen's endings left much to be desired. Even though My Hero Academia managed to close off the stories of most of its important characters, it still left a lot of open plot threads that could have easily been resolved before the finale: What happened to Re-Destro? Is the Quirk Singularity Theory ever going to become a reality? Did Uraraka and Deku g??et together during the timeskip?

The idea of the eight-year time skip was quite brilliant, but it could have been executed better. Many fans felt it was disappointing that Deku became a teacher and couldn'??t fulfil?? his dream of becoming the #1 Pro Hero, something that the series had established since the very first chapter. Other fans would have also preferred a Naruto/Boruto approach, where they could have seen which members of Class 1-A got together and had children. Lastly, while many fans understand that Deku giving up his powers for the sake of Hero Society fits perfectly within the themes of the entire series, they also criticized the fact that he received a special suit at the very last minute ??because it ultimately undermines his difficult decision.

And Jujutsu Kaisen's conclusion felt rushed...

Jujutsu Kaisen is a much different story, though, since fans were already having issues with its final story arcs before Shueisha even announced its finale. Most of them criticized the manga for some of its odd writing choices, like the omission of classic characters like Toge Inumaki or Nobara Kugisaki and the abrupt death of popular character Satoru Gojo at the hands of Ryomen Sukuna. After the critically acclaimed Shibuya Incident Arc, Jujutsu Kaisen went in an entirely different direction that a huge part of the fan base didn't enjoy. It also left many unanswered questions that left most fans fr?ustrated: What happened during the Heian Era? What did they do with the bodies ??????????????????????????of Geto and Gojo? Why did Uraume follow Sukuna with so much loyalty?

But the main criticism regarding the ending of Jujutsu Kaisen is related to its abrupt nature. While Akutami had revealed that he intended to end the manga in the near future, many fans believed he could have ??kept it going for a few more months. The final battle against Ryomen Sukuna felt too drawn out, and by the time the good guys finally came out victorious, the series came to a close before getting the opportunity to properly show how this conflict changed the world and its main players. Personally, the final chapter feels more like the ending of a major story arc instead of feeling like t?he ending of a manga series that had been in serialization for more than six years.

At the end of the day, it's all about timing

When Shueisha announced that My Hero Academia was going to end in 5 chapters, the final battle was already over, and the final Epilogue Arc had already begun. So Horikoshi cleverly used these final five chapters to close off most of the big plot threads that still remained open. By the time My Hero Academia ended, ?Horikoshi had made 430 chapters in total over the course of 10 years. This was quite a lot of time for him to flesh out his world and characters. Although to be fair, some fans argue that this extensive duration made the lack of answers in some areas all the more disappointing.

On the other hand, Shueisha announced that Jujutsu Kaisen only had 5 chapters left right in the middle of Itadori's final clash against Sukuna, which immediately made fans worry and question if Akutami was going to have enough time to write proper conclusions for every single one of his characters. While he did get the chance to answer many remaining questions, the eventual conclusion of the story felt uneventful and mundane. Jujutsu Kaisen ended at 271 chapters, which is a lot less than My Hero Academia in length. Of course, not all shĹŤnen manga series have to be equally extensive, but Jujutsu Kaisen felt as big and ambitio?us as some of its contemporaries. Unfortunately, it compromised this ambition by telling its story in half of the time and with fewer chapters.

So, which ending is better? My Hero Academia? Or Jujutsu Kaisen?

While I certainly appreciate that Jujutsu Kaisen took a lot fewer risks and gave us a more concise and predictable ending, it just can't beat the finale of My Hero Academia for me. It is not without its flaws, but both the Final War Arc and the Epilogue Arc did a way better job at using all the relevant players of the series and closing off almost every single big plot thread than any of Jujutsu Kaisen's final arcs.

While it's perfectly understandable why some fans may find Deku's final fate to be disappointing, it fits perfectly with the themes of the series that were proposed from the very beginning, and the final panel with him in his iron suit was a little treat for those who still wanted to see him and all of his friends working as Pro Heroes. When compared to the ending of Jujutsu Kaisen, it certainly left more fans satisfied. My Hero Academia just had the more fulfilling ending? of the two, even if it was far from perfect.

Nevertheless, regardless of which series had the superior conclusion, there's no denying that both My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen changed the world of anime and manga forever, and fans of the genre will miss them. It's important to point out that Horikoshi and Akutami's unfortunate health issues indirectly caused some of the flaws in their series' endings, so fans of both are hoping that ??they will now get a chance to properly rest for a few years. At the end of the day, these two talented authors expressed their desire to keep working in the manga industry, so hopefully, we'll get to see more amazing stories from them in the near future.

The post My Hero Academia vs. Jujutsu Kaisen: Which had the better end??ing? appeared first on Destructoid.

The excellent Silent Hill 2 remake hasn't even ??been out for long, but it already has a bunch of stellar mods.

If you think the remake looks too similar to th?e original classic, then this is where you might find the extra spice that'll make it original enough for you.

Silent Hill 2 First Person Mode mod

The main evolution seen in the horror genre during Silent Hill's dormancy was the shift to first-person perspective introduced in Amnesia: The Dark Descent and later seen in the doomed P.T.

The remake opts for a more mode?rn approach in third person, but JessicaNatalia at NexusMods quickly found a way to remove the character that always stood between the danger and the player.

With First Person Mode, you really do feel like you're visitin??g the town yourself, and I don't need to explain just how scary that will turn out to be.

Silent Hill 2 PS2 Demake

Maybe your gripe is with the remake's too-modern looks. If you're not into insanely amazing graphics, you ??can instead try to experience the entire thing as a PS2 game or just play a few chapters in lo-fi for a while to make the transition less shocking.

In all seriousness, this mod provides a way to get the game to run on less powerful machines. It's a cool option for fan??s of the s??eries who, sadly, don't have the rig that this monster needs to run smoothly.

Lastly, it's hilarious that this is called the "PS2" mod. We all know damn well that Silent Hill 3 looked way better than this.

Original James model

A lot of people seemed to forget that this is a remake �not a remaster �and took issue with the redesign of some of the characters. I don't know if this mod was made for those people, but it's good to know you can now play the game as the "real" James from the original game's release.

Playing as "classic" James is an interesting addition, especially when you bear in mind the Remake's new special ending that I love and ??absolutely won't spoil any further.

Better hair

Even though the remake does hair physics amazingly well, the same cannot be said about hair lighting. Regardless of your ray tracing settings, the hair on nu-James' head will sport a peculiar sheen in all locations. That's not very realistic and, worst of all, doesn't really look all that great. The best remake deserves the best hair, so modders quickly came to the rescue and gave James a realistic makeover.

Even better hair

If realism isn't your jam, then you'll be glad to know there are also mods to make your James' hair look just like that of Dante from Devil May Cry. Even better, perhaps, is how there are also mods that make his hair feature a color combo that matches Maria's hair. Fabulous Hills.

No fog

Whereas the difficulty level of most games comes from their enemies and/or level design, one of the biggest challenges in Silent Hill is not getting too scared to keep on playing. Are you afraid of coming too close to deadly beasts using the fog as a c??amouflage device? No more!

You can now completely remove the fog, courtesy of FrancisLouis' "Silent Hill HD Collection" mod, which got that name after the 2012 HD collectio??n that accidentally messed up most of the game's fog.

Sunny Hills

If even the complete removal of fog isn't enough for you, then let's make the game look even more like what James and Mary likely experienced when they first visited the town. How? By adding a sun. Sunny Hills doesn't always look great �and it surely wo?n't help you in the m??any indoor areas �but when it looks great, it looks absolutely stunning.

Thi??s, like most of the visual mods on this list, should totally be absorbed and made into an official alternate game mode for NG+.

Ultra Plus Fixes and Visual Improvements

The rema??ke already looks out-of-this-world-good,? but that kind of grandeur doesn't come without a few visual glitches and performance hiccups.

This mod fixes issues with fog noise, stutter, part?icle trails, and reflections and even impr??oves the game's performance. Better yet, all donations made to modder SammiLucia will go towards Wildlife Society.

CJ Silent Andreas

I knew this would only? be a matter of time, but I didn't expect CJ to show up before the game h??ad been out for a whole week. I guess it just makes sense that the remake would be blessed by the video game patron saint of "here we go again," even more so when we're talking about a crossover between two of the best games in the history of the PS2.

Modder Iven warns that CJ might look a bit weird in some cuts?cenes because he retains some of James' attributes, but I'd argue that weirder ca??n only mean better in this context.

Restoring the Silent Hill Ranch to its former "glory"

Some remakes go too far and end up removing jank that had rightfully earned a place in our hearts. Fans will know I'm talking about the controversial "Sile??nt Hill Ranch" sign, which saw its serious font inexplicably replace??d by the universally loathed Comic Sans in the 2012 remaster.

The remake, even with all of its immense improvements, has made �in the eyes of some �the mistake of fixing this sign, which caused the game to lose some of its soul. Rest easy, though, as you can now go through the trouble of downloading and installing a mod just so you can once again re-fix something that you'll only take a brief glimpse at once? during your playthrough.

The post ??The 10 best Silent Hill 2 remake mods?? you need to try appeared first on Destructoid.

Good news, chums, the release of Great God Grove is right around the corner. It’s the sort-of follow-up of Smile For Me by LimboLane. It has a lot of the same good stuff, like puppets and flat characters. It also has jokes if your sense of hum??or hasn’t fallen off.

It’s pretty different, though. It’s still a joy-maker adventure game about helping people out, but Great God Grove bases its puzzles around sucking the words out of someone’s mouth and firing them at someone else. It’s a unique twist on an old formu??la, and I’m not totally sure how I feel about it, so I’m going to work through my emotions the way I usually do: posting questionable content online.

In Great God Grove, you are placed in the boots of a Godpoke, which is a cross between a messenger of the gods and a cowboy. Now, I’m going to admit th??at I don’t fully understand all the details of the story here, so things are going to get a little dicey.

You’re on the trail of King, the previous messenger of the gods. King seemingly became fed up with the gods, mailed each of them a nasty message, and left the pantheon �and the world with it �in complete disarray. This is a problem because a massive rift has opened up in the sky. Apparently, these rifts open ??every 33 years and?? threaten to swallow up the world. To close it, the gods have to work together to pull it shut. Unfortunately, in the wake of King’s nastiness, the gods don’t feel like doing much, let alone cooperating.

The rift also has the power to elevate a single human to godhood, which is where I start to get confused. King is apparently a god, so under his godhood, he was still delivering messages? Under normal circumstances, why does it take so long for the gods to close the rift? How does a human have time to enter it? Does s??omething like this happen every time, where a mortal has to convince the gods to cooperate? Did the game explain this to me, and I just couldn’t grok it through the cute??sy dialogue? I don’t know.

The important parts are clear however: King was nice and now they’re not. The gods are all so absorbed in their own heartbreak that they aren’t even thinking about closing the rift, leaving the world on the ??precipice of disaster. As a godpoke, you need to use your power over words to restore order and close the r?ift.

You’re equipped with a, uh, thing�A suck thing. It has a name, it’s, er�Right, Megapon. Every once in???? a while, someone will say something perforated. There will be little dots around it, letting you suck it into your Megapon. You can then find someone in the environment who says something like, “Ooo, I wish someone would give me a fat compliment,�and you throw it at them, and they’ll hopefully react.

As I said, it’s a unique approach to the adventure game formula, but it also has the same problem that classic point-and-clicks had. When you’re not certain what to do, your ??main course of action might become just rubbing phrases on people until one of them reacts. I ran into one early in the second area that had me scratching my head. I wound up needing to use a word given by a dog on a cow, then using a word from the cow on my target. Looking back, there were certainly hints as to what the solution was, but I can also see why I was confused.

And while it’s certainly novel to use phrases to solve puzzles, I’m not sure they’re much better than items. And trust me, they feel exactly like items. You can carry five? at a time, so you just have a pocket full of sentences. On the one hand, it’s easier for an adventure game to give you a hint when th??e solution always involves talking to someone. On the other hand, it’s not as exciting as carrying a hamster around in your pocket.

It’s worth noting that you sometimes do just pick up regular items. It’s not very common in the demo I played, but maybe it is later in?? the game? I’m kind of feeling that it won’t be, and maybe that’s okay. I was really getting into the flow of things toward the end.

While I may be a bit iffy on the approach to puzzles, it’s hard not to love the art style. It still uses a simplistic, angular style similar to Scott C.’s work on Psychonauts or even just simply �0s cartoons. It feels more naturally executed than Smile For Me, which I already found great. However, I’ve found the art to be incredibly consis??tent and cohesive for both games. It blends well with the 3D backgrounds and effects??. Whenever something looks a bit off, it’s usually easy to believe it was intentional.

Every once in a while, you can view explainer videos that feature real flesh-and-felt puppets. They’re pretty great, but they clearly haven’t helped me ?en?ough. They’re also complete asides that you can’t suck on, but watching two puppets chew on the same hoagie is worth the viewing.

The writing is charming and packed with wordplay, but it’s also maybe a smidge too much. Few folks will straight-talk with you, making you try to glean the communicate?d information from between cutesy intentional misspellings. The names given are often unique non-names �er, nononyms �and I already can’t remember people’s names at the best of times. Or their faces. Or past encounters, most of the time. So, remembering who Sirena is just makes things tougher. So, it’s a me problem, maybe, but thank you for naming the baker “Bayker.�I think I can remember that?? one.

I was given access to a slightly longer version than the demo that will be released as part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest. As it stands, I don’t really solidly know what I think about Great God Grove. I’m told I played about 40% of the overall game, so there’s a lot of time for me to start clicking with the things that haven’t yet clucked. Even towards the end of the demo,?? I was starting to get a better feel for how to overcome its word puzzles.

And I kind of feel like something is still lurking under the surfac??e. A great reveal, twist, or dash of darkness. I don’t think all its ?cards are on the table, and at least with the demo, I really want to see what else it has up its sleeve. It’s out on November 15, so at least I don’t have to wait terribly long to find out.

The post The weaponized words of ??Great God Grove show promis??e appeared first on Destructoid.

If there's one thing Blue Lock has a ??knack for, it has to be unpredictability. Season 1 often left me guessing to the point where I just couldn't flat-out anticipate what would come next. And by the time I reached its finale, I was left wondering, "What's next for our boys in the big blue?"

Season 2's first episode captures that same essence of unpredictability in an entirely unique way, blending new and familiar faces alike. You'll know exactly who the key players are by the look 'em. Just spot the ones with vibrant hair colors or an updo that would make Goku proud, and you've got your main cast. Even though the name of the game remains the same, Blue Lock Season 2 Episode 1 kicks off with a bang, leading the way for a thrilling new a??rc. 

The last time we saw Isagi Yoichi and the rest of the Blue Lock boys, they were beginning the Third Selection in the hopes of replacing the all-star team of Japan U-20. But the only way to get there is by defeating the current one, or else every bit of Blue Lock will be wiped away?. The stakes are high, an??d the tension is even higher within the first minute. 

Episode 1 begins with an intriguing look at the origins of Blue Lock's number one player, Rin Itoshi. I won't reveal too much, but it may make you look at him a bit differently. That's one of the many reasons why I love Blue Lock so much. Sure, the entire show thrives off selfishness and cruelty, yet underneath it all, it's just a group o?f young men who will do anything to play soccer. This layering has tur??ned even my most hated characters into my favorites, and I'm sure it'll happen again with this latest season (Except for you, Igarashi. You're still on my naughty list.)

From Rin's scene alone, I could already see a tremendous improvement in visuals, instilling more fine details to evoke the characters' raw emotions. The vibrant colors of Season 1 have evolved in the second season, making soccer almost feel like an artistic masterpiece. Especially in light of the illuminating glow of their aura, which ups the ante of Blue Lock's classic flames. Altogether, you get scenes that may be on par with top-tier visuals of anime movies. 

But despite its impressive animation, I was curious to see which way the story would go at this point. I always get a little worried whenever there's a continuation of a competition-heavy show. Will it use the same formula as last time? Or will it change up the game to bring something fresh to the table? Fortunately, Blue Lock aims to be the latter, as it introduces a new system set? for the remaining members.

This time around (minor spoiler alert), the ensemble has broken down into teams led by the top six-rated athletes of Blue Lock. Anyone below them must prove their worth in a single match, earning their right to take on Japan U-20. Of course, each member still strives to be the best striker in the world. Yet now, it'll be much harder to achieve since everyone is a star in their own right. Think of it as a bunch of Katniss Everdeens rolled up into one Hunger Games, ??only its careers on the line and not someone's life.

I'm really liking this new direction of having almost no bad eggs on the field. Everyone's good at what they do, so we'll get some good soccer as a result. The actual playing of soccer, however, doesn't take place in this episode, given t??hat it's more focused on explaining the new concept. I know a few folks out there might not favor this approach, but I didn't seem to mind it. I would much rather get an explainer of what's going on rather than jumping into soccer just for the fun of it. It's meant to set the stage for the rest of the season, and even if it's brief, it's enough to get me hyped for what's to come.

Although I don't know much about the new players, the mystery surrounding them fascinates me. How did they survive this far, and what crazy skills do they have to earn the top six rankings? It's also got me exc??ited to see how Isagi will approach these challenges as someone known for his exceptional adaptability. That's one thing I really admire about him and the entire series, for that matter. There's always something new and fresh to behold, adding more to its unpredictable nature for the better. 

I'm not even a sports anime kind of gal, and the show somehow dug its hooks in me from start to finish. I know it has a lot to do with the fact that it's not a traditional form of soccer?, as it separates from team-based elements and highlights the greed of one's passions. The players are Egoists, after all, and it's riveting to see how far they'll go for their dreams. 

While it's only the start of Blue Lock Season 2, I can already tell this arc's shaping up to be a good one. We have all the players laid out, and now all that's left is to play soccer. I can't wait to be? in the front row for the rest of the season, seeing who will make the cut for the ultimate soccer team. 

You can watch Blue Lock Season 2, with new episodes rolling out every Saturday, on Crunchyroll. And, if you ne?ed to catch up, be sure to also check out Season 1 for a refresher.

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I love to pick the brains of developers when given the chance, so I knew the opportunity to interview the developers of Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster was too good to pass?? up. However, something was lacking in this offe??r.

The offer was to ask “the development team�questions via e??mail. Pressing for more information, I wasn’t told who my questions would be goi?ng to. That makes it difficult for me to know what sort of questions I should ask. Would they know anything about the development of the original? Whatever, I thought, it could be interesting.

As it turns out, my questions were answered by Producer Kei Morimoto, Art Director Satoshi Takamatsu, and Director Ryosuke Murai. What’s more, I found their answers to be very insightful, so ??I am more than happy to share them with you. Stick around until the end to learn what is up with those convicts in the co??urtyard.

Zoey: With the ori??ginal version of Dead Rising still availab??le on modern platforms, why did it seem like a full graphical overhaul was necessary?

The original Dead Rising had an excellent game design when it f??irst released, and even now, I think the game feels unique. That said, Dead Rising is an 18-year-old game with certain “usability�challenges by today’s gaming standards. The controls aren’t the most user-friendly for an action game either. Our goal was to preserve the original’s gameplay experience as much as possible, so we took a careful look at every element of the original game. I think the visual enhancements in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster are the?? most obvious change from the original game. The development team wanted to renew characters�aesthetics and background graphics and elevate the game’s visuals to modern standards in hopes of sharing the appeal of the Dead Rising series with an even wider audience of gamers.

Kei Morimoto (Producer)

Zoey: Was the goofy, B-movie tone of Dead?? Rising intended f??rom the start, or did it happen organically as the gameplay began to develop and take shape? I guess what I’m asking is: what’s up with that dark-as-hell opening prologue cutscene?

From early stages of development, ??our goal was to create visuals with inspirations from the medium of film, but we were only able to achieve a B-movie level of production based on hardware limitations at the time.

For Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, we were able to create a creepy atmosphere, more realistic lighting effects, area-specific thematic designs, and even the finer details of a zombie outbreak �none of which were possible in the original game. Based on this, I think DRDR offers players the chance to experience the atmosphere of a horror movie. I was in charge of lighting design for the ??original game, so I’m elated to be able to reflect my learnings and know-how of the last 20 years in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. Players often emphasize the more comical elements of D??ead Rising, but the story itself is a serious one. Thus, I think it’s only natural that the prologue would set the tone with darker contents that make viewers feel like they’re stepping into dire Hell-like circumstances.

Satoshi Takamatsu (Art Director)

Zoey: Was there anything that you wanted to change or add to the remak??e that didn’t get implemented?

There are certain aspects of Frank’s move set and the Psychopaths�battle designs that could use some fine-tuning when compared to the breadth of action games available to gamers nowadays. We considered making significant adjustments to these elements, but we ultimately decided against major changes such ?as adding new skills to focus on creating a remaster that values players�memories of the original game. Instead, we made detailed adjustments to item and skill parameters, increased “usability�for some of Frank’s skills, and tweaked some of the Psychopaths�routines among other things to make it easier for players of all backgrounds to feel and appreciate the charm of the original game. If another opportunity presents itsel??f, I’d love to take a stab at creating a unique and exciting action gameplay experience that preserves the essence of Dead Rising.

Ryosuke Murai (Director)

Zoey: Was it difficult to maintain ?the density of the zombie crowds when porting the game to the RE Engine?

It was difficult trying to maintain zombie de?nsity while keeping gameplay elements intact. The engine and programming language used to develop Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster were both different from those used for the original ga??me, so naturally we encountered some problems.

There were definitely some accidents with imaging where the number and density of zombies on screen didn’t match our expectations, but we plugged along and made corrections while cross-referencing the appearance and actual code of the original game. In addition, rendering a large number of zombies with higher polygon counts than those in the original game naturally impacted performance. Since reducing zombie count and density goes against DRDR’s concept, we made various optimizations to ensure we could maintain pe??rformance in the final product.

Ryosuke Murai (Director)

Zoey: One of my memories of the original Dead Rising on Xbox 360 is how frustrating it would get to try and lead survivors to safety. I didn’t have that same issue with the Deluxe Remaster, but I had trouble identifying what the specific imp??rovements were. Can you explain what was changed?

While the frustration of guiding survivors in Dead Rising was certainly an issue, I think the humorous moments and the sense of achievement players felt when successfully rescuing survivors were also very memorable. For this reason, we’ve done our best to preserve survivors�original behaviors as their personalities, actions, and disregard for Frank’s requests illustrate how panic-stricken individuals would probably respond in a zombie outbreak. That said, we’ve made some adjustments to frustration-inducing elements that players can’t solve on their ??own, such as friendly fire among survivors or survivors getting stuck in certain areas due to a poor navigation system. I think these types of improvements have helped create a less frustrating gameplay experience that stays true to the original game.

Ryosuke Murai (Director)

Zoey: Did the mechanic?s and controls (good or bad) in later entries in the Dead Rising series influence what was changed in the Deluxe Remaste??r?

We made sure to analyze the gameplay systems and mechanics in previous Dead Rising games, but our priority for Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster was to preserve the unique ??charm and appeal of the first mainline entry and make the necessary adjustments to ensure that modern action game fans can play the game comfortably. For this reason, we’ve made some changes to controls that make it easier to execute skills and commands characteristic of modern-day third person shooters. However, we have not made any adjustments that would drastically affect the gameplay loop and feel of the original Dead Rising such as combo weapons or changes to item slot specifications.

Kei Morimoto (Producer)

Zoey: I’m sure there’s nothing to announce, but is there any desire to remake Dead Rising 2 in a similar way?

As part of Capcom’s strategy, we’re always looking for opportunities to reactivate Capcom-owned IP’s, and we believe that Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is one title that fits well within that strategy. If Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster performs well, I think it could open up various possibilities for the Dead Rising ??series in the future.

Kei Morimoto (Producer)

Zoey: Why do the convicts keep coming back to life?

Similar to the original game, th??e convicts that players face after the initial encounter on Day 1 are

supposed to be different? people than the original trio.

Ryosuke Murai (Director)

Wow, ??I’m not sure if I considered the possibility that the respawning convicts were meant to represent different people. I think they technically ha?ve names and prisoner numbers, but perhaps their appearance wasn't varied with the limitations at the time.

I also found the information about the game’s technology and art to be interesting. Satoshi Takamatsu suggested that the team was aiming for the feel of a higher-budget film and landing in B-movie territory to be fascinating. That makes me wonder about how Servbot heads and zombie bees came into the original vision, but I’m happy they did. ??Meanwhile, I imagined the challenge of getting the zombie hordes to fit on the RE Engine would be difficult, and the response from Murai certainly confirms it.

I really enjoyed Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. I have a soft spot for the original, but found aspects of it to be frustrating, but in its overhaul, they’ve all been polished over making it closer to the experi?ence I was hoping to have in 2006. Not every glow-up turns out quite as well, but it’s obvious the team knew the mission.

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