Skull and Bones is not a AAAA game. I'm not even exactly sure what would constitute being an AAAA game, but Skull and Bones is not it. That being said, that doesn't mean Skull and Bones is a bad game. In fact, there's some fun to be had here if you're looking for a more?? arcade-style pirate adventure.

I originally started my own pirate journey in the Skull and Bones open beta earlier this month, since the progress made in the beta carried over to launch. The beta had a?? cap on progress which I reached after about eight hours of playing, but I had enough fun to make me want? to continue my progress on launch.

It's a little less pirate simulator than I'd have liked. But the ship combat and some of the other core combat systems ar?e fun and engaging in a way that makes me want to ??keep going despite the issues at hand.

Skull and Bones (PC [reviewed], PS5, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: Ubisoft Singapore
Publisher: Ubisoft
Released: February 16, 2024
MSRP: $69.99

Yoooo-Hoooo

Skull and Bones throws you right into the action. You were on a ship that had wrecked, and you've washed up on the shores of the Atolls islands. Over the course of a brief intro that also serves as a tutorial, you build a small ship called the Dhow, then sail off towards the Pirate Den of Sainte-Anne in the Red Isles. The Dhow isn't exactly a pirate ship, but rat??her?? a small boat you'll later use for hunting creatures for their hides and skins for crafting. But for now, it gets us from point A to point B, and now our real pirate life begins.

We meet Scurlock, a pirate captain who runs things in the Red Isles. You'll build rappor??t with him by completing simple missions to plunder nearby ships, find buried treasures, and even ambush a royal convoy. Along the way, you'll gain Infamy (experience) that increases your Infamy Rank (level) and unlocks new ships.

Each ship requires a blueprint you will have to track down and acquire, as well as some material costs to build it. You can plunder shi??ps for most resources by looking at your map, finding a Supply Ro??ute that has the resources you need on it, then sailing out to that location and ambushing Merchant Ships traveling the route. It's almost like picking a spot in an MMORPG to farm certain materials, but fit for an open-world pirate game.

You can also find certain raw resources that you can g??ather, and then take back to your Pirate Den to refine into the needed crafting materials. For example, there are islands that might have Acacia Trees on them that you can chop down for the logs, and then at the Pirate Den, you turn the logs into planks which are used for b?uilding your ships.

Oddly though, you perform gathering actions from your ship, not actually as your character disembarking from the sh??ip. So you'll sail your ship to the coastline of the island where you see the trees, play a harvesting mini-game, and then sail around the islands looking for another resource point. It feels a bit off, ?when there is the option to dock with ports and run around the island, to have you chop trees and mine ore by pulling up next to them in your ship like it's a drive-thru window.

You're not always a ship, but most of the time, you're a ship

The core of the game is centered around building bigger and better ships with more powe??rful weaponry and then taking those ships out to plunder other ships and ports for resources. You can customize the cannons, armor, and other equipment on each of your ships, allowing you to sort of build a ship that fits your preferred playstyle.

Once again, you can leave your ship and traverse on foot, but only at designated outpos??ts and settlements. They usually serve as rather confined spaces where you can interact with a few of the same sorts of NPCs that all outposts a??nd settlements have: a merchant, a stash space or warehouse, etc.

The Pirate Dens—I've encountered two so far, Sainte-Anne and Telok Penjarah—act as your bigger quest hubs with other points of interest. Here you can refine your raw materials into better goods, sell your acquired goods to a commodity trader, pick up missions and bounties, and most importantly visit the shipwright to actually build your newly unlocked ships. Th??e Pirate Dens are pretty detailed and feel pretty lively when you're there.

Alan Wake 2 is a paradox. It's inspired by television shows like Twin Peaks, books like Paul Auster’s Book of Illusions, and games like Resident Evil 2 Remake. Yet it feels like nothing else out there.

With its FMV scenes, mind-bending plot, and references to Control, the game is easily identified as a Remedy one, but it manages to do things even the most avid? Remedy fans won’t anticipate.

I happen to be one of those avid Remedy fans and after spending several hours with the game, I feel like Alan Wake 2 may be one of the most interesting and experiment??al games? in recent years, both in terms of its metafictional plot and unorthodox gameplay.

Alan Wake 2 (PC, PS5 [reviewed], Xbox Series X/S)
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Publisher: Epic Games Publishing
Released: October 27, 2023
MSRP: $59.99

I write to escape

Though Remedy has stated that you can jump into Alan Wake 2 without playing its predecessor first, I tend to disagree and struggle to imagine what little sense the plot will make to players who are completely unfamiliar with Alan Wake. The game does attempt to bring you up to speed ??on Alan's story (I'll let you discover that one for yourself) but it's not the same unless you've spent time with Alan?? and understand his relationship with his wife.

As a quick recap, Alan is a famous h?orror fiction writer who travels to Bright Falls to overcome his writer's block and mend his marriage. Here, his wife goes missing, leading Alan to uncover the mysteries of the Dark Presence which dwells in Cauldron Lake. The adventure culminates with Alan entering the Dark P?lace to rescue his wife, but in the process, he becomes stranded there instead.

The sequel kicks off thirteen years later. Detective Saga Anderson, along with Alex Casey, are visiting Bright Falls to ?investigate cult murders. Her search takes a supernatural turn when she discovers pages of a manuscript that seem to be telling her story. She finds the person behind them - Alan Wake - which kicks off a quest to stop the writer's evil doppelgänger, who wants to alter Alan's story to give it a bad ending.

The story is split between Saga and Alan's stories which are intertwined but can be ex?perienced somewhat separately. So far, Alan's tale has been a metafictional rabbit hole that blurs the line between fic??tion and reality. This feeling of fiction spilling out into reality is heightened by the liberal use of live-action scenes within the game world, as though two dimensions have intersected.

To say the plot is weird is an understatement, and at times it can be hard? to keep track of. Despite how absurd things? get, I haven't felt like the story devolves into nonsense. Quite the opposite, I've found it to be a very heady game that interrogates the creative process and its relationship with the Dark Place, as well as the role of the author within a work of fiction.

It's not a lake, it's an ocean

Though Alan Wake was well-received, many complained about its combat which quickly gets tedious and is somewhat shallow. This is a criticism I agree with, which is why I was surprised with h?ow much gameplay has improved in the sequel.

You still have to burn away the Darkness Shield with your flashlight before you can attack enemies, but it's not nearly as tedious any longer. The Resident Evil inspiration shines strongly on this front, and everything from the inventory management system to the dodge maneuver seems lifted from the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3. This isn't a bad thing, as the game pulls it off well, though depending ??on who you play as you? won't be spending too much time in combat.

On that note, one of the features that had me intrigued is the ability to switch between Saga and Alan's perspectives. You don't get the ability straight away - I unlocked it after about six hours of play - but when you do, you can switch protagonists by entering one of the several Break Rooms (they function like the Safe Rooms of RE) scattered everywhere.

When you play as Alan,?? you gain access to the Writer's Room inside his head. Here, you can organize all the manuscript pages in your quest to piece the story together. When Alan visits different locations, he can head to his Writer's Room where, by changing plot elements on the board, he is able to alter his surroundings. It's not easily explained and it's better to experience it for yourself, but it complements the plot well.

Alan?? also gains a cool new tool that allows him to absorb sources of light and use them elsewhere. When light is snatched up, the Dark Presence changes ??things, which may open up new pathways for Alan.

Instead of a Writer's Room, Saga has a Mind Place where she works on her clues and pieces them together to solve the mystery behind the murderous cult. The detective theme fits perfectly in a game like Alan Wake 2 which is chocked full of mystery and suspense. Admittedly, I've been spending far more time ?with Alan than Saga, simply because the theme??s of his story appeal to me more, but I'm itching to unravel more of Saga's character.

The Remedy experience

When it comes to its visuals, Alan Wake 2 attempts to break boundaries. The game looks near phot??orealistic at times, and character models are emotive and feel weighty. On PS5, you've got two? options when it comes to visuals.

Qualit??y mode favors visuals, giving you a 4K output exper?ience at 30 FPS. Switch to Performance mode and the game will target a 1440p output at 60 FPS. I tested the mode in Bright Falls when playing as Saga, and it managed to stay relatively stable at 60 FPS with a few dips into the low 50s.

Thanks to the game's use of SSD storage, it's able to pull off complex tasks nearly instantly. Switching between the regular world an??d Alan's Writer's Room, for example, happens in a flash, and environments change before your eyes when Alan steals light or adds a new plot point to a scene.

My impression of Alan Wake 2 thus far is that it is Remedy at its most self-indulgent. The studio's love of FMV is intensified and implemented innovatively. Once again you have a plot that is trippy and self-referential, but Alan Wake 2 takes th??ings a step further by attempting to rip through the border between fiction and reality in absurdist w?ays.

If you're a fan of Remedy's work, Alan Wake 2 is going to feel like the culmination of everything t??he studio has learned over the years. For first-timer?s, brace yourself, because there's nothing else quite like it.

Alan Wake 2 is still throwing surprises my way, and I can't ??wait to see how it all ends. I'll need more time with the game before giving my closing thoughts, but so far?, the game has been everything I'd want and more out of a sequel.

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

The post Review in Progress: Alan Wake 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

By the time I spent about an hour with Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis, I was hit with an overwhelming wave of familiarity. Not because of nostalgia for Final Fantasy 7, though I have fond memories of that game. Rather, it was because I have seen ??virtually this exact same game on mobile devices for the past seven years now.

Despite what Square Enix’s frankly confusing marketing might leave you to believe, Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis is just a gacha game. Calling it “another possibility for a remake�maybe isn’t untrue, but it's a bit misleading. Games like Genshin Impact or even Square Enix’s own Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent have really raised the bar for mobile games, so I don’t blame anyone for thinking Ever Crisis would be more than it is. But rather than reaching for those loftier heights of quality on the back of the Final Fantasy brand, Ever Crisis is a firmly complacent title. It is as gacha as any gacha t??hat you’ve ever played, ??and we need to establish that before we continue.

So in short, Ever Crisis is probably ?not the game that I imagine many hoped it would be. But what if we set all of that aside and just judged the game on its own merits? Does it, at the very least, function well as a simple time killer to ??put on your phone?

Well, now’s as good a time as any to reveal myself ??as a gacha game sicko to you all.

Disclaimer: All screenshots have been cropped to fit o?n the page. Some shots may not be fully reflective o?f the game.

[caption id="attachment_402790" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis (iOS [reviewed], Android)
Developer: Square Enix, Applibot
Publisher: Square Enix
Released: September 7, 2023
MSRP: Free-to-play with microtransactions

Reroll for initiative

My relationship with gacha games is much like my relationship with fast food. I’m never proud of having a Big Mac, but it is an itch I need to scratch here and there. During periods of my life when I had more time than money, I dipped into virtually every notable gacha game I saw just to see how meta I could make my account for free in each game. I’ve played everything from Dragalia Lost (RIP) to Arknights to Sdorica to Langrisser to BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! to�I think you get the picture.

Ever Crisis specifically comes to us via Applibot, whose bread and butter veers more towards the “put game on auto battle and watch numbers get bigger�brand of gacha games. Their most notable work nowadays is Square Enix’s NieR Reincarnation, which I did generally like. However, that one was carried by its writing and original story, which makes Ever Crisis an interesting case. Sure, jamming what appears to be the all of the “Compilation of Final Fantasy 7�into one game is an interesting hook. But Applibot is absolutely working within their usual wheelhouse here, which makes Ever Crisis feel as strange as it is unremarkable.

[caption id="attachment_403155" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Learn the battle system, or not, it doesn’t matter

At first blush, I did think Applibot might do something different here. The tutorial sequence takes you through Final Fantasy 7’s iconic opening, because why wouldn’t it. You have free reign to move around and explore, plus the battle system initially appears to have some st??rategy. Players have to manage their ATB and select attacks that often need to counter specific enemy mechanics. For example, boss mo??nsters will occasionally put up shields that require certain elemental attacks to dispel.

Also, you can switch between offensive and defensive stances so you can prepare for stronger attacks. I first thought this might set the stage for a combat system that co??uld, theoretically, grow in complexity as the game progresses.

Then you see the main menu proper, where the game quickly turns into, again, a gacha. Those free-roaming dungeons become rarities as the game takes you throug?h the same menu-based motions you’ve seen a thousand times. Select a stage, watch a cutscene, play a battle (typically involving three waves of enemies), collect rewards. Additionally, you soon unlock auto battle and X2 battle speed, both of which I have yet to turn off since. Combat is so basic that auto battle doesn’t ever do much that I wouldn’t? normally do. It even stance dances perfectly and targets those enemy shields as long as you have the right elemental attacks.

The good news is that the game doesn’t use a Stamina system to progress through the story. The “bad�news is that it does use a Stamina system for all the supplemental stages you’ll need to run to strengthen your team. Character upgrade items, equipment upgrade items, items to increase level caps, it’s all here in full force. I put “bad�in quotation marks because I do prefer? Stamina systems? over the hours-long grinds that gacha games without them tend to devolve into. It’s still all dancing around a time-gated system, and I’m sure you know where your tolerance lies when it comes to that by now.

[caption id="attachment_403156" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Final Fantasy 7 The Abridged Series

As for the story itself, I honestly dread the idea of anyone first experiencing Final Fantasy 7 like this. While the PlayStation-style graphics are charming, the structure of the game quickly devolves into Final Fantasy 7 Cliffs Notes. Sure, that intro stays faithful to the origina??l. Then you meet Aerith on the street, get some text summaries, fight some battles, and next thing you know you’re at Seventh Heaven talking to Tifa.

The entire game seems to focus mostly on the major scenes, letting all the in-between fall to the wayside. If you’re the type of person that’s still mad that Tom Bombadil wasn’t in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, you’ll have a rough time here.

Additionally, the way the game integrates the “Compilation of�content isn’t particularly coherent. As you’re progressing through the Final Fantasy 7 story, you’ll make your way to crashing down into Aerith’s garden in the church. You see Reno of the Turks chasing after you, and then�it’s Crisis Core time? I mean, I could understand t??he game shooting over that way if they at least finished this immediate arc. It’d make sense to play as Zack after Aerith mentions him at the playground. But here it just cuts off any momentum the story had built up.

I’m less versed in Crisis Core and the rest of the Final Fantasy 7 extended universe, so I can’t specifically explain how those plots measure up compared to the originals. But overall, Ever Crisis seems more intent on giving Final Fantasy 7 fans some nostalgic feels than doing these stories justice. I think there’s a place for that kind of experience, but I don't think Ever Crisis quite pulls it off so far.

[caption id="attachment_402646" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Let’s talk Gacha

Of course, I’m sure the big question here is just how bad the gacha is in Ever Crisis. It’s, well, definitely a weapon gacha. Honest??ly, the way the game introduces its gacha is one of the most abrasive I’ve ever seen in a gacha game. And in this genre, that’s saying something.

When you’re introduced to the system, you’ll see a series of banners. There are the banners you can roll on with paid currency, which of course show up first. Then there’s the Featured banner, which introduces a lot of rules. Here’s where you roll on weapons for your protagonists to use, ??but only by doing 10-pulls can you collect stamps. Every 10-pull can grant anywhere from 1-12 stamps, which fills out your Stamp card. Collect 12 stamps, and you can earn a specific costume.

This is the only way you can earn costumes, which do not appear in the gacha and do increase stats. However, this isn’t to be confused with getting weapons from the stamp card, which just guarantees?? a certain weapon will appear in your pull and isn’t an actual bonus. Also, don't mix this up with Ticket pulls, whi??ch operate on a different banner and don’t grant stamps. So actually it doesn’t matter if you 10-pull or not here, just make sure you know what ticket you’re actually using, because there are several different ones (including many that cost real money). Still with me?

I understand all of this now, but getting there was a journey. Generally speaking, if I need to study a monetization system like I’m deep in a Wiki learning how to play a Souls game, it’s probably too complicated. There’s also an element of FOMO to this too, since stamp cards expire with no indication that your stamps will carry over afterwards. Many gacha games feature “pity�systems that work like this, but few lock unique ??items like costumes to them. I have zero doubt this exists to get you to spend more so you don’t miss ou?t on that cool Cloud outfit you’re so close to getting.

[caption id="attachment_402711" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Grind it out

H??aving said that, even th??ough the game coaxes you to spend money, I’ve done just fine as a free player. As mentioned above, I’ve kept the game on auto battle and have progressed easily. I have to press my Limit Break buttons so they're timed properly, but that’s it. If you’re stuck, you just have to identify which resource you need to strengthen your character or weapon and go to the right stage to farm it. This will eat your Stamina, but the game gives Stamina restoration items out like candy. I’m literally farming things as I type this.

Ever Crisis automates so much for players that the only strategy really comes from identifying what you need to grind. Hitting the “recommended party�button does all your team building for you, right down to outfitting your party with the elemental coverage you need. And for the most part, the story content has been a cakewalk. I’ll need to see how the later stages of the game play out, but you certainly don’t need to pay-to-win. Don’t get me wrong, you absolutely can pay-to-win, I just haven't hit a wall that mandates it. Someone who? just wants to see the story should get through fine for free.

I will say that, for a game that almost completely centers around its grind, it really needs to streamline its menuing. I often find myself tapping around for far too long just to, say, toss upgrade materials into a weapon. Even accessing your main grind stages requires more tapping and scrolling that most games of this variety require. I’m used to it now, but for a 2023 gacha bearing the Final Fantasy name, it feels outdated.

[caption id="attachment_403157" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

It ain’t all bad, I guess

It’s not like Ever Crisis completely lacks redeeming qualities. It obviously looks and sounds great, even if it does reuse several assets from Final Fantasy 7 Remake. And while the story takes many shortcuts, it is charming to see the extended Final Fantasy 7 world presented in that PlayStation-inspired graphical style. The cutscenes themselves don’t cut corners, even if the overall story does. It still looks downright quaint compared to, say, Genshin Impact, but the appeal is there.

Additionally, these more passive gacha games do kind of work. I mean, there’s a reason we see so many of them on mobile devices. It’s a primal “watch numbers go up and feel happy brain chemicals�kind of experience, similar to an idle game. For someone who wants that, Ever Crisis does the trick. It’s one for people who want to play something but also want to rewatch The Office for the seventh time.

However, the question for me becomes “why would I want to play Ever Crisis instead of other gacha games that do the exact same thing?�And honestly, aside from the Final Fantasy fan service, I’m struggling to find the answer. It’s a pretty game, and it’s the newest one on the block. But beyond that, I don't know what to tell you. Ever Crisis is another possibil?ity for a remake, but so far, I’m good with the one we? already got.

I still want to give Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis a fair shake before declaring a verdict. While I’m a decent ways into the game, I haven’t seen how the game might evolve at the upper thresholds of its available content. Tune in next week for my final thoughts on Ever Crisis,?? and we’ll see if there’s any Mako to uncover underneat?h its surface.

The post Review in Progress: Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis appeared first on Destructoid.

Biting back

Redfall starts off in a curious place. With??in the first moments of the game, the player is shown a montage of the little town’s downfall. Creatures of the night begin to fester and swarm, soo??n locking the town in with bloodsucking beasts, the cult that worships them, and the security contractors hired to cover it all up. A towering vampiress with a haloed visage holds you by the throat, telling you of big plans currently brewing, as the sun emerges outside.

The latest game from Arkane starts off strong. But as the days and nights?? go on in Redfall, I’m finding myself running up against its layout over and over. Some aspects are inventive twists on the four-player co-op shooter. But in both gameplay and technical aspects, it’s fall??ing short of what I had hoped for.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwY9IncC6XI

Redfall (PC [Reviewed], Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: Arkane Austin
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release: May 1, 2023
MSRP: $69.99 (also on Game Pass)

In about 12 hours of Redfall played over the weekend, I’ve managed to clear the first of its two distinct hub areas and get?? a decent way into the second. From the start, the player gets to pick their character to play as, which defines their skill set moving forward. 

If you like gadgets with cool effects, try out Davinder. If you pre??fer some mobility and like the idea of ringing up a vampire ex-boyfriend to help you out, Layla’s your pick. Because I like to help out a bit and wanted free healing, I went with Remi, whose robot helper Bribón can distract enemies and provide a second ring of her healing circle. Each character brings something a little different to Redfall, and the initial diversity is promising.

[caption id="attachment_376681" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

In practice, however, it hits some snags. Redfall will feel familiar to other Arkane first-person games. It’s laid out in a similar way, too. Right away, from the starting segment on a beached boat attempting to flee Redfall, Arkane presents you with choices. You could have a little shootout with the cultists patrolling the area, or you could sneak around them. Go low, go high, or go straight through the middl??e.

Yet not long after that, you’re forced into combat anyways. If not with a cultist, then certainly with a vampire, in a fight that requires ??some bullets, fire, and a stake to settle. The straight-ahead path into the first hub then opens up into a lar??ge town, with different zones and points-of-interests, all open for exploring.

These zones aren’t so conducive to the kind of multifacet?ed approach Arkane offers up front. Some areas, especially those tied into main quests, might offer some alternative entrance options??. And in some cases, it might be a good idea to sneak rather than shoot. But the second you’re spotted, the alarm’s on and all forces converge. And where Dishonored or Deathloop have tools for quick getaways, youâ€??”or members of your crew—may not.

It forms a strange dichotomy where my single-player time felt a little more slow an?d steady, encouraging some careful play and picking fights, sometimes breaking out into mad scrambles for survival; but in co-op, it often fel??t like running and gunning with my best weapons was the best option.

[caption id="attachment_376686" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Bethesda[/caption]

The loot doesn’t feel too rewarding, as guns tend to rotate out fast aside from golden drops, and I always found it more worthwhile to save my scrap than spend it on drops from the arsenal. In fact, I really only spent my salvaged barter cash on ammo refills and the occasional lockpick. Those were often not needed in co-op, but in single-player, some extra ammo and an easily opened door does ?make life a little easier.

Co-op, in general, comes with a few asterisks in Redfall. One big sticking point for some might be that story progress does not carry over for you, unless you’re the host; so if you joi?n someone else’s game and beat a few story missions, you’ll need to replay th??em in your own file. That’s not a huge problem for those already planning to four-stack it through the whole campaign, but might put a sour note on more impromptu sessions.

Redfall’s co-op ???also just amplifies some of the storytelling shortcomings for me. A decent amount of Redfall’s ambient ??story is told through notes found in the open world, or dialogues between characters—either NPCs or those within your own party. Sometimes, dialogue will start just as you walk by. With all four players roaming a hub, conversations were constantly firing off, making it difficult to tell what story was happening where. And notes picked up by other players were inaccessible to me in co-op.

[caption id="attachment_376679" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

There are quite a few mechanical hitches, too. In co-op, we had players flying through the sky or crouch-walking through the ground. After one cutscene, a player had a duplicate avatar frozen in the middle of the hub. Limbs wouldn’t move right. And in both single and multi-player, different bugs would cause pro??blems. Enemies slide around or fail to detect players right next to them. In the? worst case, Bribón disappeared for several missions, and didn’t reappear until I restarted the game.

On top of that, I ran into what seems like optimization issues on PC. I’ve got an AMD Ryzen 5 3??600X, NVIDIA 2070 Super, 16 GB of RAM, and I?’m running Redfall off a solid state dr??ive—nothi??ng top-of-the-line, but should clear the Recommended bar. But Redfall defaulted me to a choppy Medium that I eventually moved down to Low. Still, ?frame rates would drop low and world elements would pop in, issues that four-player co-op exacerbated. A friend I played with, who has a similar set-up to mine, experienced similar optimiza?tion issues.

All of the?? technical mess is something that might exist now, at launch, and then soon be tinkered with and fixed. That’s not necessarily new in t??he world of reviewing games. However, it did make some elements o??f Redfall that I enjoyed difficult to appreciate. I do like its horror and supernatural elements, and there are a few special areas that feel laid out well for a creepy expe??rience. Though ambient dialogue can often spoil some surprises, there were still moments where I was afraid of what might lurk in some downstairs shadows.

And when the story gets going, especially in the second area, it gets pretty alright. I haven’t mentioned it much because the goal is straightforward: vampires are infesting the town, so go take them out. There are big bosses like The Hollow Man, and lesser evils you’ll have to uncover and hunt through side missions. Details on tho??se vary, but a few were thematically interesting, especially when they involved the special versions of vampires like the Angler or Shroud. Where regular vampi??res start off intimidating but can be easily dispatched once you’ve got a few good weapons, special vampires remain a threat. They force you to change up tactics, introducing new rules that can make the otherwise cannon fodder-esque human enemies more dangerous, even just as distractions.

[caption id="attachment_376680" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

And one or two missions so far have shown a? little more of that? multiple-approach design, encouraging me to find some fun alternate ways to tackle objectives. But for the most part, missions in Redfall have constituted navigating to an area, shooting vampires/cultists/security forces, an?d picking up or interacting with an objective. A few intere?sting diversions aside, Redfall seems laser-focused on killing vampires.

Which is why, so far, it’s fallen sho?rt for me. I enjoy blasting a vampire with a stake launcher. Every now and then, I’ve felt clever as I set ??a trap with my C4 and lure enemies towards it, or used Bribón’s distraction function to line up a perfect shot. But more often, I’m walking into an area, blasting whoever I see, and teleporting back to a safehouse to pick up a new mission.

Overall, Redfall so far feels like a co-op shooter with some neat ideas that aren’t fully realized. I can see some of the concepts, like managing a limited loadout of weapons and carrying powerful anti-vampire weapons alongside anti-personnel armaments, and how they create ?interesting moments. Sometimes, they really pull them off. 

[caption id="attachment_376690" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Bethesda[/caption]

I can think of a few occasions where I was running through a firefight, hurriedly reloading and making snap decisions. Sometimes I’d feel rewarded for taking an alternate route, cleverly av??oiding some traps. Or, in one instance, ducking behind cover to hastily swap in a different weapon because a deadly ??Rook was on the way and I needed some vampire-slaying power, now.

More often, though, Redfall has been technical hitches, repetition, and scattershot story. I enjoy the kind of world, narrative, and experience it wants to be, but I just don’t think it gets there. We’ve only had a few days with it, b??ut we’ll have more on Redfall once we’ve rolled credits later this week.

The post Review in Progress: Redfall appeared first on Destructoid.

Wide, wide world of crafting

It’s time for my fourth annual review of one of Koei Tecmo’s Atelier games, and I’ve fallen a bit behind. I passed the 20-hour mark in Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key, which has proven ??insufficient for conjuring a final opini?on.

Atelier Ryza 3 (I’m never going to remember the subtitle, so why pretend?) is a mix of old standards and new experiments. It is so strange. It wears an?? outfit comprised of various poorly fitting garments, and I am fighting with myself to discover whether I think that’s an overall good o?r bad thing.

[caption id="attachment_370045" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Bubble bubble...

The main change for Atelier Ryza 3 is that its world is magnitudes bigger than anything else in the series. In the beginning, you’re in the same area where Atelier Ryza takes place. Pretty much everything from the first game is represented �copie??d wholesale �with one major difference: there are no loading screens. The whole area is presented as one big continuous area. It’s still made up of nodes and pathways, but there’s no stoppage in between.

The story involves the sudden appearance of a group of islands that are quickly referred to as the “Kark Isles.�I’m guessing this name sounds sinister to the Japanese ear, but as an anglophone, it is more like the sound someone makes when a Junebug flies down their windpipe at high velocity. In the weirdly realistic twist for an Atelier plot, the sudden appearance of islands has had devastating consequences for the marine environment. Since Reiselin “Ryza�Stout is the only co?mpetent person on Kurken Island, she is asked to investigate.

But that’s only the beginning. Not ??long after you first start poking around the Kark Isles, Ryza and her squad get s??idetracked by a plot that is only tangentially related to the main issue. So, they travel to a completely different part of the world, and rather than address the problem threatening their home, they get into a crafting competition.

An?d that’s not the last time they’ll switch landmass.

//youtu.be/qDG_g2tcsNY

All the tools

The Cleria region is already a big chunk of land, and I had come to expect that this was just where Atelier Ryza 3 would tell its story, but then Ryza and Co return to Kurken, only to immediately set out again to a completely different region. It’s a big, big game, if the inclusion of the entire region from the first game didn’t tip you off. But it’s less that there’s more Atelier Ryza and more that the same amount of game has?? been spread? across a much wider area.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m a fan of gigantic worlds, and the change in design has had several major impacts that I appreciate. The first is that the game doesn’t take all that long to let you off the leash. You essentially start with your atelier and? can start crafting right away. Progression is immediate. If you are familiar with the previous games and have already built your skills in the game’s mechanics, you can start putting them to use very quickly and build up your party.

There are very few barriers to exploration, as well. While you can travel to the next region until you’ve progressed enough in the story, you’re not shackled to a lack of gear to make your way a??round. Things like the air drops that allow you to dive underwater can be crafted very early, opening up all the exploration abilities quickly. Likewise, recipes for gathering equipment, such as the axe and hammer, are available from the start, so you’re not limited in wha??t you can collect.

[caption id="attachment_370047" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Gilded cage

Where this ?starts to detract from the game itself is in the fact that the wide world was obviously created in a (relatively) short time. There’s a lot less care in its design. At times, the conflicting elements in the environments and the overall feeling of it being thrown together make the areas feel downright ugly. They’re neither lifeless nor empty, but the sporadic enemy and resource placements in some areas can make them feel like they were created quickly and never polished nor revised.

The world design isn’t too much of a departure from previous games, either. There are some areas that are more open, but a lot of the time, it’s just a twisted spaghetti nest of corridors. That might be for the best, because?? not a lot of effort was made to make the t??raversal any more comfortable. There are mounts and zip lines, but Ryza is so rooted to the ground that a lot of the verticality is lost. There are also a lot of invisible walls and areas that it looks like you should be able to access, but can't.

[caption id="attachment_370049" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Mixed feelings

I’m maybe coming across too negatively on Atelier Ryza 3’s world design. To be clear, I think it’s a positive and beneficial step for the series; I just want to temper player expectations. This isn’t a completely reformulated take on the Atelier series. Y??ou could, perhaps, say it’s an open-world approach, but I feel that’s inaccurate. It’s more of a “big world�take on the s?eries. It’s extraordinarily expansive, but the actual feel of its design is much the same.

The resulting shift, however, is enough to make Atelier Ryza 3 something of a mess. On the other hand, it’s a mess? that I’m largely enjoying. It’s a mess with character. I’m still trying to figure out if I think the painful and abrupt expansion has left us with the best game in the series or just a disappointing experiment. It could really go either way. With that said, the changes made are at least worth seeing.

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

The post Review in Progress: Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End &? the Secret Key appeared first on Destructoid.

Part Deux

Less than a year ago, Trails fans finally got their hands on an officially localized release of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero. Released for the PSP back in 2010, the game never made its way over the Pacific, robbing players outside Japan and China of the chance to experience the Crossbell Arc of the greater Legend of Heroes storyline. Zero would be the game that introduced me to the Trails series as a whole, and I?? found it to be a highly enjoyable (if super chatty) RPG.

Of course, as good as it was, Zero only covered the first part of the Crossbell Arc. And while it certainly didn’t feel like it was half a game, its ending did leave me clamoring for its 2011 sequel, Trails to Azure, which will release outside of Japan and China for the first time next week. Given how closely Zero ties into Azure, I’m glad NIS Am??erica didn’t make ??us wait too long to play it.

[caption id="attachment_367253" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure (PC, PS4 [reviewed], Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Falcom
Publisher: NIS America
Released: March 14, 2023
MSRP: $39.99 (Digital) / $49.99 (Physical)

If you’re unfamiliar with the Trails series, join the club. While Trails from Zero made a great impression last September, I haven’t had nearly enough free time since then to try out the rest of the series �even if I own two Cold Steel games on my PS Vita. But I’ve happily made time for Trails to Azure because I really wanted to see how this whole ?journ??ey wraps up.

Trails from Azure begins just a month after the events of Trails from Zero. Protagonist Lloyd Bannings is still heading up the Special Support Section (SSS) along with Elie MacDowell, though this time, they’re joined by newcomers Noel Seeker and the ridiculously named Wazy Hemisphere. If you played Zero, you will no doubt recognize those l??ast two characters, as they were pretty prominent throughout the game’s narrative.

In fact, almost everyone who appeared in Trails from Zero is back for Azure. If, for some reason, you’re choosing to jump into this story mid-stream �and I have to advise against that �there is a handy refresher menu that’ll explain who all the prominent characters are and give the gist of what happened last time. As somebody who last played Zero in October, it was nice to get a refresher on some of the extended cast, but the brief synopses provided in Azure don’t really get to the heart of why some of these characters are so ??memorable. E?specially with KeA. You really need to have been there from the beginning to fully appreciate her place in the story arc.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjPAQQLf8PY

In combat, Azure really hasn’t changed that much since Zero. The turn-based battles still occur on a grid w?here you can attack enemies with melee attacks, Orbal Arts (i.e. magic), Crafts (i.e. skills), and more powerful skills known as S-Crafts. There are two-person Combo Crafts attacks and group rushes, the latter of which happen at random, and you can still get the upper hand on a foe if you hit them from behind on the battlefield. Burst is one new element to the game's combat system. This can provide your team with a few boosts in battle, like increasing your party's attack speed, but so far I haven't found it all that monumental of an addition outside of a few boss battles.

Also new to Azure is Master Quartz. Regular quartz is used to unlock Orbal Arts for your characters to use in battle. Players are encouraged to freely swap those out as they build their par??ty. Master Quartz are meant to be kept around as they level up and gain new abilities. Only one type of Master Quartz can be equipped per character, unlike regular quartz.

I get that I’m not saying all that much about Trails to Azure with this review-in-progress, but that’s only because the game is so similar to its predecessor. Outside of small changes like the introduction of the Master Quartz and some quality of life changes �smell you later, taking the bus �there really isn’t much to say here that I didn’t already say about my last trip to Crossbell.

[caption id="attachment_367252" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

But that’s not a bad thing. I enjoyed the hell out of Trails from Zero, from its characters to its writing to the fact it truly felt like you were playing through a police procedural in the shape of an RPG. All of that is back in Trails to Azure and, 20 hours in, I am having an absolute blast?? with it.

One final note: if you played through Trails from Zero, make sure you still have your save from that game available. Because the bonuses you receive are totally worth it when you transfer the data to Azure.

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

The post Rev??iew in Progress: The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure appeared first on Destructoid.

For the motherland

Before I get into this Review in Progress, I should probably discuss the elephant in the room. Atomic Heart is the debut title from developer Mundfish, who, in recent weeks, has come under pressure to be more transparent over its ties to Russia. According to a Eurogamer article, which goes into far more detail on the matter than I will here, Mundfish's investor is the Russian firm GEM Capital, which is run by Anatoliy Paliy, who used to work for the state-owned Gazprom. The developer bills itself as a multinational developer with team members in 10 differen??t countries, including Poland, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates. However, the original development team was based in Russia, and Russian-state media has referred to the studio? as Russian in reports on the game.

Without more concrete answers from the developer on its ties with Russia, it's all still kind of up in the air. What we do know for sure is composer Mick Gordon, best known for his work on games like Killer Instinct and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, has donated his fee from the game to Red Cross Australia's Ukraine Crisis Appeal. I'm not going to lecture anyone on whether they should buy this game or not, as there are plenty of people online who are ready to do that. But, I will say?, maybe take a peek at that Eurogamer piece before dropping $60 on something that, so far, feels like it's better suited for a rental than a purchase.

[caption id="attachment_364167" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Atomic Heart (PC, PS4, PS5 [reviewed], Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: Mundfish
Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Released: February 21, 2023
MSRP: $69.99 ($59.99 on Steam)

Atomic Heart takes place in an alternate version of the Soviet Union in 1955. The country has experienced a tremendous amount of growth and prosperity thanks to its discovery of Polymer, a substance that paved the wa?y for the advanced robotics that have allowed the nation to flourish. You play as Major P-3, a hardscrabble sort of guy who descends from the city in the clouds to Facility 3826 on a top-secret mission. A terrible atrocity has taken place in this wide-open facility that serves as the birthpl??ace of the Soviet's robotics empire. Blood stains the streets, and robots that were once considered peaceful are now killing everyone in their path. With the impending launch of the neural network known as the "Kollectiv" that'll allow people to control robots with their minds, P-3 is dispatched to the facility to find the source of the tragedy before word leaks out.

And these robots are not willing to go down without a fight. As I do with all games I review for Destructoid, I started my time with Atomic Heart on the "normal" difficulty, thinking that it wouldn't cause me too much trouble. But I quic??kly realized these robots are built Tonka tough when I emptied a clip into a mustachioed humanoid bot only for it to still come after me like it was the fucking T-1000. It went down with a couple of whacks from my fire axe, and it was then I knew I couldn't just run and gun my way through place. I would have to be more methodical about it, switching between P-3's firearms, melee weapons, and assorted glove skills.

Nestled s??nuggly on his left hand is CHAR-les, a highly adaptive talking glove that can shoot lightni?ng from his hand while dropping some exposition. As you slaughter robots and other creatures at Facility 3826, you'll collect Polymer and other ingredients you can use to upgrade P-3's arsenal. With Polymer, you can unlock new skills for CHAR-les, including an electrical shock attack, a freeze attack, and a Polymer shield that protects you from damage. You can also use Polymer to improve P-3's basic abilities, and I highly suggest you unlock his faster movement speed and double dodge as soon as you can.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=WplTw-DSGYc

You'll need t?hose skills unlocked because this game ain't playing around. Even on "normal," I constantly found myself surrounded and in unwinnable situations. Part of the problem is these robots are awfully light on their feet, and it can be difficult to hear them creeping up behind you. It doesn't take that many hits from them to completely drain your health bar, and when you get three or four robots all attacking you at once, you can be finished off in seconds. The other problem is, as I said above, these robots often require a lot of damage before they're put down. On the one hand, that can make for some exhilarating fights for survival. On the other hand, in the early hours at least, you can see these encounters quickly drain you of all your ammunition, leaving you with less-than-ideal first-person melee combat.

Unfortunately, most of the fights I've encountered so far �including the several bosses I've faced —haven't really reached a level I'd call "exhilarating." Most of them have been pretty rote in their execution, and they become more pedestrian as I continue to upgrade my arsenal. So far, the game's best strategy has been to swarm me with several enemies at once. In the early hours, that was pretty effective as I had several encounters where all I could do is shock, dodge, and swing a??s I didn't bring enough ammo to get any use out of my guns. But now that I've unlocked? so many skills and upgrades, the game is going to need to think of a new trick if it wants to keep me feeling challenged.

It also needs to start doing a bit more with its story. Right now, it's all pretty elementary, with P-3 caught in the middle of a mystery where he doesn't completely know who he can trust. Nothing too unpredictable has happened yet, and the game is starting to foreshadow some pretty obvious twists. For anyone who watched a trailer for this game and thought it was nothing more than "Soviet Bioshock," that's pretty much all it's been so far, right down to the audio logs and some of the game's chosen settings. There is still plenty of time for Atomic Heart to forge its own path, one that doesn't immediately draw comparisons to Ken Levine's creations??, and I'll let you know if it does in the full review.

[caption id="attachment_364166" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Before I wrap up, I want to touch on the dialog and voice acting. I've been playing in English for most of the game, and it's been less than stellar. Nobody seems to have a Russian accent, P-3 talks like he's living in our modern era and not in 1955, when the game takes place, and it's clear the developers are trying to make his catchphrase �"Crispy Critters" �a "thing." There is a Russi?an voice-over option, which is how I think this game should be play??ed.

However, Atomic Heart's dialog is conversation an??d banter heavy, with P-3 and CHAR-les pretty much talking throughout the adventure. In English, it's easy to follow along. When I switch to Russian, I have to rely on the way-too-small subtitles that will be ignored if they're chatting it up while I'm in the heat of battle. That's not to say that every word they say is gold, but a lot of important exposition has reared its head while I was busy dodging robo?t lasers.

I'm going to try not to miss any more conversations as I continue to work my way toward the heart of Atomic Heart. Ten hours in, I still don't know where I stand with it. It's big and beautiful with plenty of potential. And there is something quite captivating about this version of the Soviet Union that Mundfish has created. All that said, the gameplay hasn't yet shown itself to be anything more ??than a standard shooter, and the story has a long way to go to get out from und?er the shadow of the franchise it so clearly wants to replicate.

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

The post Review in Progress: Atomic Heart appeared first on Destructoid.

Hopefully it stays fun

When we last checked in with Wild Hearts, I was pleased at how unique the game world was, and how it differentiated itself from the rest of the hunting genre. Four months later with the final build in my hands and the launch swiftly approachin??g, I feel roughly the same.

[caption id="attachment_363055" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

For me, the main draw of Wild Hearts is?? the setting. Taking place in the constantly changing and mysterious land of Azuma, it feels like pretty much anything can happen. An ice wo??lf can drop by and change the arena into an arctic setting. A creature can breathe fire and wreck havoc in an idyllic forest. Of course most of these sequences are scripted and deal with the introduction of big bosses (the subjects of the hunt), but it's still exciting in the context of a first-time playthrough.

It also has a good Koei ??Tecmo action core to boot. The key to all this is the Karakuri system, which are basically magically conjured tools, adding a bit of construction into the hunting formula. The very first Karakuri you acquire is a platform, which can also be used as a spring board to launch you into enemies. Slowly but surely, you start to realize the additional use scenarios for Karakuri, like placing platforms to block attacks and create a makeshift barrier, and so on.

On performance mode, everything plays out smoothly, amid the vibrant visuals. While the story hasn't grabbed me yet (despite being a ??chunk into the game), the world is? driving me forward, and I don't have any major complaints about the action sequences yet. The additional of a "sliding dodge" (triggered when pressing the dodge button while sprinting) feels comically over the top at first, but really helps the player character avoid some of the crazier attacks from bosses.

So far, I have been able to experi??ment a bit with online multiplayer; and in the pre-launch peri?od, things have been going swimmingly. The game will ask me if I want to call for help whenever fighting a big hunt target, and I'll always just hit "yes" just to see what happens. Every other fight someone joins in and answers the call, usually with a completely different main weapon and Karakuri setup.

[caption id="attachment_363057" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Seeing all of the different weapons work in tandem is how Wild Hearts really comes together. As I generally brave close combat situat??ions and serve as the bait, other players use combos of ranged and hit and run weapons, bringing in Karakuri synergy of their own. I've had a blast trying out new strategies and loadouts too on lower priority targets, as it feels like there's just enough weapons to do that without things getting too overbearing.

We've heard from Koei Tecmo for months that the game is supposed to be 30 hours long, and hopefully it keeps up the pacing I've experienc?ed throughout that runtime. But most importantly, hunter genre fans are going to want to know if this game is going to be a flash in the pan, or something they want to invest in for months on end.

Even if it doesn't meet those expectations (and some post-launch patches and DLC never arrive), I'm glad I took the plunge and played through everything I've seen so far. This is a gorgeous game, and as a purely atmospheric action romp, it's hitting a lot of good notes. Expect our full review of Wild Hearts closer to launch.

The post Review in Progress: Wild Hearts appeared first on Destructoid.

Mario, Rabbids, and tactics mix well once again

The first Mario + Rabbids crossover was an interesting, surprising mix of ideas that you wouldn't presume would work together. But while Kingdom Battle laid out the groundwork, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope feels like it's expanding the ideas and making something a bit more its own. And it's all?? the better ??for it.

It doesn't take long to get into the actual battles in Sparks of Hope. While the crew is lounging about at Peach's Castle, they're suddenly thrust into an interstellar conflict. The evil Cursa is vy?ing for control of the galaxy. Meanwhile, Lumas are being turned Rabbid, making them into Sparks that need Mario and crew's help.

Mario, Luigi, and Peach all rejoin the starting roster, alongside their Rabbid counterparts. Down the line, more characters are recruitable, including Bowser and Rabbid Rosalina. All of the characters have new weapons that feel much more distinct than those in the previous game. The Rabbids also talk a lot more, making vocal quips during fights and chipping in during plot moments, and it's honestly a very welcome addition. Rabbid Mario cracks me up every time he chime??s in.

A fresh approach

In battle, the difference between Sparks of Hope and its predecessor becomes much more apparent. The grid-based, XCOM-style approach to combat has been replaced with an action-oriented, circular free-movement system. With each turn, characters can roam around within their potential area of movement. They ca??n dash, use special abilities, and team jump off each other; their position only locks in place once they've fired a weapon.

Though it took me a few battles to get the hang of it, I've grown pretty fond of this system. It doesn't just break Sparks of Hope?? a little further from other tactics games but makes f??ights feel a bit more active.

These new options extend out to upgrades, as the whole team can invest their Skill Prisms into different branches of a skill tree. A base option just focuses on health, but others dive into movement, special ??abilities, and weapon upgrades. 

There's a lot of room for "builds" here, as the way I upgrade my own ??version of Luigi or Rabbid Mario might differ from other players, depending on what they want out of the character. Some might prefer ??emphasizing a character's ability to dash, adding more dashes per turn and putting effects on them. Or maybe they’ll veer into the weapon upgrades, making Rabbid Luigi's frisbee disc weapon bounce and hit more targets.

Further customization is possible by equipping Sparks to your roster. One Spark might make your attacks proc Burn for a t??urn. Mix that with Rabbid Luigi's bouncing disc, and now you can flush a bunch of enemies from cover all at once. Another Spark can make a character untargetable for a few turns, or unleash a toxic Ooze explosion in an area.

Listing all of these systems out at once can be a bit daunting, and Ubisoft has thankfully done a good job of gradually introducing concepts. Early battles in an area will often act as introductions to an idea, while later figh?ts utilize them to create compelling combat puzzles. One level teaches the player about stone faces that can blow gusts of wind, sending anyone in their path tumbling. Then, a later level will construct a puzzle that requires getting a special objective from one side of the map to the other, primarily using these stone faces.

I've been really impressed at how, even when Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope can ??seem straightforward, it pushes the player into interesting tactical situations. The synergy between all the systems—weapons, upgrades, customization through Sparks and skills—is what hums at the center of Sparks of Hope, and it's only emphasized by how much faster and more active the combat is.

A spark of something new

There have been so many levels where I’ve made risky dashes for an objective. Many times where I’ve read a map, took a look at the enemies and their characteristics, planned accordingly, and breezed through without a problem. And so many times when my plans fe?ll apart, and I’ve had to adapt. 

While the battles can certainly get to?ugh, they're just the right amount of challenge. They push and punish, but I've only had to outright restart a battle a few times; ?most of the time, even losing a team member felt salvageable if I played right.

It helps that each character doesn't just feel distinct in the different paths they can take, but in the way they operate on the field. Luigi is an incredible sniper who can carry the crew early on, annihilating high-health foes. But when it comes to groups, his Rabbid counterpart functions a bit better, bouncing discs around and weakening enemies in a la??rge area to mit??igate damage.

Sparks even make the reliance on a healer a little less burdensome. In my time playing Kingdom Battle, I often felt forced to bring Rabbid Peach along for some healing. But different Sparks offer options for recovering health, letting the team be a little ??more diverse. And other characters offer alternatives, like Princess Peach's protecting shields.

Boss battles bring it all together, offering some tough, multi-stage brawls that can drag out and ??test your tactical abilities. ?The fights themselves are excellent but add in the incredible score from Yoko Shimomura, Grant Kirkhope, and Gareth Coker, and these climactic fights get a dramatic flair that works great.

Even outside of battles, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope has expanded the scope wider. Each major planet has a bunch of optional content to explore, from special event battles and secret zones to full side-quests for extra Sparks that often have their own storyline and quirk. There are a lot of ways Sparks of Hope keep?s you pressing forward for more to do, and so far, mo?st of it has been solid.

Still more to uncover

That said, there are a few odd hitches here or there. Performance is good in battles but struggles a bit when it comes to overworld areas like the snow planet. I've noticed a few times where weapons are blocked by invisible barriers or characters struggle to see ?a target from behind cover. And the mini-map navigation can be extremely finicky, especially when trying to latch onto a flag for fast travel. Those are all nitpicks though, and nothing that's frustrated my overall time with the game too much.

I'm still working my way through the full Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope campaign, and I'm intrigued to see how things stay fresh after the first three major areas. So far, I've been very impressed with how much variety and customization there is. I haven't really settled into a core? team, instead feeling like?? there are good use cases for just about everyone in the squad.

There's still a bit more to see of this game, but Sparks of Hope has me locked in. Where Kingdom Battle felt like a surprise, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope feels like this Ubisoft team locking in their own brand of ??t??actics. In a year bubbling over with tactics games, Sparks of Hope is putting out an experience that feels fun, challenging, and consistently engaging to keep blasting through.

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

The post Review in Progress: Mario +? Rabbids Sparks of Hope appeared first on Destructoid.

Back into the breach

I generally approach matters of shooting digital Nazis in the face with avid gusto. However, fate conspired to delay my spree through Sniper Elite 5. A storm ripped through my neighborhood and thoroughly savaged the power grid. The electricity is still down, and I’m writing from a h??idden bunker in a remote location. Be thankful, F?ritz. You’ve been spared a few more days to tighten your helmet strap.

In the meantime, I can give you the rundown of what I have played in the dim light of my underground lair. I doubt any of it wi?ll be very surprising.

Sniper Elite 5 (PC, PS4, PS5 [reviewed], Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)
Developer: Rebellion
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: May 26, 2022
MSRP: $59.99

You’re once again dropped into the boots of Karl Fairburne, OSS guy and sniper-extraordinaire. This time, Karl’s vacationing in France in advance of the Normandy ?invasion. When his ride home is sunk, Karl links up with the French Resistance and decides to lend his scopin�eye to their cause.

I’m only a short wa??y into the campaign, and I can tell you that it’s probably, once again, about a Nazi secret project that got glossed over in the history books. I’m hoping UFOs.

Along the way, you need to soften up Nazi targets and repatriate treasure, among other objectives. If this sounds like a re-tread of previous Sniper Elite games, yes, I very much get that feeling too. The lan??dscape and architecture are different, but the song remains the same.

[embed]//youtu.be/DS8Ef3dHyQw[/embed]

As before, you select your loadout, drop into an environment, and proceed to shoot Nazis in the face. The biggest new feature that comes to mind is the Axis invasion mode. It’s a little bit of Dark Souls ??where some jerk is allowed to come into your game a?nd slip on a pair of jackboots. Their goal is just to try and kill you, which nets them some rewards.

Returning is improved co-op and survival modes. Unfortunately, thereâ€??™s no split-screen. Bummer.

When it comes to new things for single-player, I’m drawing a complete blank. That’s not to say the game hasn’t been upgraded in ways, they just haven’t in a way that significantly alters gameplay. It’s almost so similar to previous experiences in the series going way back to Sniper Elite V2 that I’m distressed. I’ve been shoot??ing Nazis in the face since about the time that we finally moved away from hitscan. It’s still fun, but isn’t there something we can do to make it fresh?

It probably wouldn’t feel so bad if the story didn’t feel just as routine like everything else. Again, the Nazi superweapon plot is stale. Karl Fairburne wasn’t an interesting character to start off with, and that hasn’t changed. The characters flanking him aren’t any archetypes we haven’t really seen before either. You can get a lot more creative with World War II historical fiction without even thinking that far past formulaic creations. You can do more with the characters with?out straying too far into fantasy. Fairburne is boring. He isn’t attached to the game’s name, so why are we still playing as him? He isn’t Sam Fischer, he isn’t even B.J. Blazkowicz. We can do better.

I don’t know where to go from here. The environments look nice, the stealth is as satisfying as ever. When your stealth is bl??own, it’s still a bit of a pill to throw down. Leading up to release, it sounded like Rebellion was going to reach further to accommodate people who prefer the assault approach. However, unless I had a lot?? of reach to work with, I never found myself very capable of fighting.

I guess this is where we point out that it’s Sniper Elite 5 and that expecting anything more balls out than removing Fritzâ€?childhood memories from ??300 meters isn’t really in the game’s scope, but I feel it’s important to point out.

To be fair to Sniper Elite 5, I still have a ways to go before I ??bump up against its credits screen. It’s also possible that its multiplayer is a riot. It wouldn’t be the first time that a game changed my mind about it midway through. However, as it stands, I’m not entirely sold. I’m not telling you to avoid it entirely, just that you should keep your expectations in check. We’ll see what I have to say when I crawl out of my bunker for the final review.

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

The post Review in Progress: Sniper Elite 5 appeared first on Destructoid.

Choices, consequences, and convictions

Some say war never changes. And indeed, Triangle Strategy feels immediately familiar to anyone who's played a tactics game in the past. It ??certainly does enough to be a good tactics game in its own right. It's where Square Enix and Artdink build on top of the pillars, adding their own touches and twists, that you st??art to see hints of it becoming much greater.

Triangle Strategy feels old and new at the same time. It will introduce something familiar, then swerve at just the right angle to make it fresh again. There are bits and pieces of many past entries in the tactics genre, and it combines them in nove?l, interesting ways, while molding in its own spins on both the battles and stories being told.

I'm still feeling my way through the expanse of Triangle Strategy's tactics, both o??n and off the field. But the way it bala??nces between approachability and difficulty, between its story and tense battles, and characters that live on and off the field are something worth experiencing.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nhTJ-Evv_U

Triangle Strategy (Switch)
Developer: Square Enix, Artdink
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: March 4, 2022
MSRP: $59.99

The core of Triangle Strategy is exactly what you expect: a turn-based tactical RPG. ??Battles take place on a "board" of sorts on top of the world map, a pleasant aesthetic touch, and units take turns moving around the fie?ld and using abilities, metered out by points they accumulate turn-over-turn.

In the first few battles, Triangle Strategy seems fairly simplistic. The first units you use are mostly carrying swords, spears, and some basic magic. ?You can attack an enemy, and get a follow-up hit from an ally if they're on the opposite side of the target. There's no job system at work. Each character has t?heir own class, allowing them to be more narrowly defined while still fitting within the broad strokes of certain playstyles.

The first healer you'll get is Geela, who fills the "white mage" role. She gets direct heals and some buffing abilities. But then you might later recruit a healer who's also a mounted warrior, or focuses on healing items rather than magic. Maybe a new archer does more damage th??e further they are from the enemy. And then there's characters that can lay traps, loot more coins, or give more actions to others.

Triangle Strategy lays a solid foundation and then b??uilds up and out. Magic starts out as a basic cross-shaped fireball, but then it starts to have terrain implications and interactions with other magic. A Scorch spell could take out an enemy unit, but then it would melt the ice underneath my neighboring ally, weakening them to the lightning magic of an enemy mage.

Battles are not too time-consuming, though some definitely feel like a stretched back-and-forth. The map size?? usually keeps there from being too many turns spent just closing the distance, and story scenarios have kept the fighting centered on focal points around the field.

Progression also?? feels like it happens at a good cadence, bolstered by the ability to run "mental battles" at the tavern in your camp to earn experience and materials for ?upgrading stats. Though Triangle Strategy is heavy on story, the battles are always ready and waiting with just a few button presses.

Triangle Strategy's sto??ry elements have been what struck me the most by surprise so far though. It's a war story, centering on the tensions between several nations trying to rebuild after a costly war over precious resources. The player takes on the role of Serenoa, the heir of House Wolffort, one of the high houses of Glenbrook. He's set to?? be wed to Frederica, part of the royal family of rival nation Aesfrost and half-sister to its Archduke. Joining him are his advisor Benedict, best friend and Glenbrook prince Roland, and a small group of supporting characters.

Wh??ile all seems peaceful at first, it's not long until war breaks out again. Aesfrost senses a moment of weakness and strikes, leaving the world in disarray. It's a political story, one that so far has centered on hu?man enemies rather than the mystical or fantastic. It's a good one too, especially when it takes time to narrow in on characters, like the tension of Frederica and Serenoa's betrothal after Aesfrost invades, or how Roland handles the mounting pressures the world puts on him.

Story happens either in dialogues, which play out like the sort of story scenes you'd normally see in an old-school tactics RPG, or in exploration. These parts let me roam? around a bit, talking to companions and picking up resources. They also let me survey th??e battlefield.

Those are some of my favorite moments in Triangle Strategy, where it starts to show where it builds upon previous ideas. In one chapter, I knew an ambush was likely waiting in the wings for my party, and I had th??e opportunity to walk around the area. Ostensibly I was doing so to just rest and chat, but I knew a fight was coming, so I started eyeing out different elevations and choke points.

One of the best early game fights arrives if you decide to not hand someone over to another nation to spare Wolffort from the war. Triangle Strategy uses a branching narrative to weave in choices, where I had to decide ??what course I wanted to take. And it wasn't just down to me either, but to my traveling companions; each one had their own opinions, and would weigh them on the scales to decide for the group??.

My decision to not acquiesce to the demands of Aesfrost required exploring the town to learn what I coul??d, and then presenting my arguments to those I wished to sway. It's not always easy to do. I fell into a trap of thinking that just because I had discovered some information, it would be a silver bullet for swaying allies to my cause; but they'd turn them around, making me realize I was just playing and not reasoning.

My reward for swaying them was the Aesfrost army brought to my doorstep, in a seemingly unwinnable fight. It was ??here that Benedict advised me of a secret defense that could sway the tide of battle: the canals that run through the city could be flooded with oil, cr?eating deadly fire traps. This would even the numbers. It would also destroy the homes of Serenoa's subjects.

I was so, so determined to not use this method. I carefully concocted the perfect defense, maximizing chokepoints to funnel their superior forces and numbers into manageable streams. The rooftops, terrain, and tools were all to my advantage??. My ice mage conjured walls to stymy the onslaught, my smithy built traps to fling forces backwards, and my ranged units rained fire as my bulkier infantry held the line.

Yet it still was not enough. The Aesfrosti host was? simply too much. By the time the imposing General Avlora and her greatsword advanced on my position, it was already falling to pieces. Reinforcem?ents pierce the outer walls, seeping units into positions behind my carefully laid chokepoints.

I beat a hasty retreat, as u??nits fell to a rain of blades and arrows. When I had finally fallen back to my final hold, I had less than half my forces standing. In desperation, I saw a moment where Avlora was occupied by two of my units, right in the detonation zone of a fire trap.

I waited a moment before I tripped it, even though I knew several turns in advance I'd have to. There's no permadeath in battles, so my vanguard and smithy were still standing by battle's end. But I razed several homes to the ground. Frederica lamented the loss. It was a moment where Triangle S?trategy actually challenged my convictions: do I hold out, in ??the face of grim defeat, against what I know is wrong? Or do I take the shot, knowing its consequences? Triangle Strategy measured my character in that moment.

Through the rest of the campaign, every time I've been back to Wolffort, a child has been standing outside the charred outline of a house. I've made decisions to ?help the people since then: I've secured more supplies, support, and ensured we have no reason to fear Avlora and her army knocking on our door again. But that kid reminds me that I razed his home to the ground.

I've still got a ways to go in Triangle Strategy, with just about 20 hours clocked at the time of this writing. And at this point, it's checked the boxes for your standard tactics RPG. It has interesting classes, with clever interplay and reasons to switch up my lineup for each battle. Its music and presentation are wonderful. In those ways??, it's what I was hoping it would be.

What's kept me intrigued has been where Triangle Strategy surprises me. And it's in those moments where a de?cision has carried through the story. Not all of them are as massive as starting a war or the death of a character; some are simply reflected in the world. I chose to utilize those fire traps, and there was a consequence.

Alongside the branching narratives, it gives me reason to already be thinking about second or third playthroughs while I'm still in my first. There's also the chance to recruit different characters, and see how my choices shape certain scenes. Maybe in another war, with another strategy, with a more seasoned commande??r at the helm, I won't have to de?stroy those homes.

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

The post Review in Progress: Triangle Strategy appeared first on Destructoid.

Biting personality quizzes, but tons of repetition

I've hit a bit of a wall in Monark. I know I'm about to walk into a new story beat, which means new characters, stories, and probing questions about my desires. Moving ahead means a new ?antagonist to fight, more puzzles to solve, and even another fresh track to score the chapter's boss fight, which has been pretty compelling so far.

Progress in Monark also means setting aside time to grind out battles, in a series of arenas that do little to differentiate ?themselves, and writin?g that varies from introspective and thoughtful to bizarre twists and tired tropes.

Monark is a game with some really good ideas, and some less than good ones. And from the little-over 20 hours I've played so far, I'm not sure the former c?an overtake the latter.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPcGtsCn1Ow

Monark (PC, PS4, PS5 [reviewed], Switch)
Developer: FuRyu
Publisher: NIS America
Released: Feb. 22, 2022
MSRP: $59.99

The set-up of Monark is that you, a student at Shin Mikado Academy in Japan, have woken up in a terrible haze. There's a magical barrier ar?ound th?e school, a fog is driving the students and faculty mad, and random bouts of violence are occurring across the grounds.

It's not long until you're tossed into the Otherworld, a ghoulish shadow realm, and beset by fiends. A devilish demon named Vanitas appears and offers you a deal: become a Pa?ctbearer, and gain the power to defend your friends and fight back.

Monark's initial set-up works well, and the world that FuRyu has created is a pretty compelling one. As you team up with your little sister and the former student council president, you learn that the mists driving everyone crazy stem from other Pactbearers. A pact is essentially a deal with the devil, and the Pactbearer's Wish—what they want to do with their newfound power—is made physical in the? Otherworld, as three Ideals that perpetuate the mist. Destroy thei??r Ideals, and you both dissipate the mist and learn more about their own Wish, and why they succumbed to the sins.

Yes, the "seven deadly sins" play a large role in this game. They're both the theming for the Pactbearers and form a heptagonal chart, showcasing your own desires and predispositions. Monark chucks personality quizzes at you throughout the game, ranging from one-off hypotheticals to choose-your-own-adventure-style stories and long interrogations, each one noting what you've chosen. Maybe your Wrath climbs higher because you acted in vengeance, or Gluttony expands because of your desire to ta??ke someone's power for your own.

These aspects are where Monark shines brightest, offering a pretty refreshing take on the normal life-management side of an RPG. Rather than investing time in building up certain numbers by hitting the gym or working a side-job, I was interrogating what my vices are; or even, what I might want them to be. A higher Lust score might unlock a special gem that gives stats to all my characters, so I might start to act more Lustful in turn. Monark encourages you to b??e selfish and own your desires, and does ??a pretty good job of it.

Once the battles start, things get a little murkier. Your party is composed of the protagonist, usually a companion character who's central to your current chapter, and several fiends that embody some of you??r own sins. 

Both the companions and fiends use the sin set-up in interesti??ng ways: the Gluttony character can sap stats to bolster their own, while the Pride character can heal, and the Sloth fighters can wear down movement. Your own Pactbearer power isn't one of the seven, but rather, of Vanity. This means you can Resonate with other users, sharing buffs and debuffs, status effects, and even access to abilities. 

Each turn you move, determined by a freeform circular radius around you, and then either attack, wait, use an item, or Defer to another character, offering them another action if they've already gone. Extra moves aren't free, though??. Deferrals, as we??ll as certain actions, raise your Madness. Hit 100%, and your character will go berserk, attacking whoever they can with heightened potency before collapsing. 

On the flip side, you can concentrate and focus your power, inc?reasing your Awakening gauge to reach an empowered state with access to a super move. Or even mix both, hitting 100% Madness and Awakening at the same time to become Enlightened; I've only managed it once, but it led to my protagonist sweeping his way across the board.

Monark is dense, layering on a lot of systems that can intersect between battles and the overworld. The mist gradually? boosts your Madness as you wander around in it, solving some pretty solid puzzles to progress towards new Ideals. It might seem bad, but maybe your strategy for a boss revolves around a certain mo??ve that increases in power the more Mad you are. Or maybe you know you need some higher Wrath to unlock an overworld gem, so you grind some battles in a Wrath arena to get extra points.

Its systems are conceptually interesting, but in practice end u??p feeling very repetitive. Most strategies so far have boiled down to positioning all my units and Deferring over and over to give my protagonist extra moves. Alternate strategies likely exist, but the rotating roster of companions means I'm never spending more than one arc with them so far, so I can't hinge any long-term plans around their progression.

Upgrades are also costly, as Spirit—the currency for buying items and upgrading your powers—is in high demand. The required amount to keep progressing jumps up fast at different points in each character's skill tree, and unlocking new abilities is how you level up and boost your other stats for attacking, defending, evasion, and more. Spirit itself can take a while to build up too; one upgrade at my current stage could run about 2,000, and I'm bringing in anywhere from 400 to 700 a map, depending on whether Monark giv??es me a decent number of enemies to fight or not??.

This equates to a lot of grinding. For each of the major story beats in the first Act, I've had to set aside time to just run the same map over and over, grinding Spirit until I'm stron??g enough to handle the final boss, which is usually a?? good step up from the average battle. It's been a lot of auto-pilot, inputting the same movements over and over. The upside is it's made for good background action while I'm listening to podcasts.

It's also meant tha??t while there are some cool options, they start to feel superfluous. I'm scrolling past most of the abilities in my lineup for better options. And the enemies I'm fighting aren't varied enough yet to ask for a deeper strategy. They've started to show a few interesting abilities, like a teleport-strike that lets them move quickly across the field. But outside the occasional status effect throwing a wrench into the works, it's mostly been a game of hitting each other back and forth.

Battles aren't very visually appealing, either. The Otherworld looks cool, but each map is constructed with a few walls and environmental hazards, with enemies randomly strewn about. I haven't found a map yet where the t??errain felt like a crucial factor in the fight. For the most part, it's just a way to break up individual segments of enemies and form chokepoints. They also all have the same look, whether it's the basic battle I'm grinding through 15 times in a row for Spirit or a big boss battle. Special music tracks play during the latter, however, and those are very, very good.

While Monark's world is interesting, I also feel like its actual story is falling flat for me. Part of this is the story content itself. Most characters have a few interesting notes, like the reason they became a Pactbearer in the first place. And Shin Mikado is not a pristine school; it's not quite Euphoria, but issues of bullying, re?lationship drama, and more pop up throughout the story. These should be more interesting, but often fall by the wayside and get fairly brushed-off resolutions.

It also doesn't help that Monark stops you for conversations and cutscenes way too often. The time between ventures into the mist to shatter Ideals is littered with side conversations. These often happen in a row, with you still having to walk between them. It's a lot of stop, chat, walk, stop, chat, walk, etc. And many of the conversations simply recite themes you've heard once before. All this, while walking through the same hallways that look way too similar over time, and Monark starts to feel weighed down by over-repetition.

Monark is a real conundrum, because I can see where it could click together into something much more interesting. Its systems might be a bit over-designed, but they're interesting and, every now and then, result in some big moments of tactical genius. It weaves its sinful nature in and out of the story in interesting ways, and I love the idea of turning my personality quiz results into the mechanical characteristics of my protagonist. And the setting is really cool, combining? aspects of school-life and demon-battling RPGs into a world I enjoy.

A penchant for grinding and repetition weighs on Monark, though. I have to do the less-interesting parts to get myself ready for the interesting parts a little too often. And while the world is intriguing, its characters and stories have yet to hook me in the same way. I'm intrigued to see it through, if only because I'm hopeful Monark can rally and really bring it all together in the fin??al moments. But the gut feel?ing I have is that getting there will feel like an uphill climb, and that's not a good omen.

_{[These impressions are based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review in Progress: Monark appeared first on Destructoid.

Wild new ideas appeared

So we're finally here: Pokemon Legends. It's been a trip! Nintendo wowed the world when they announced that this new entry would not only be a prequel, but a larger ope??n world game that wasn't mostly focused on hopping from ??town to town "being the very best."

Here's our impressions of the first few hours.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus (Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: January 28, 2022
MSRP: $59.99

So Pokemon Legends, while retaining a safe design in several respects, d?oes drastically alter the core formula we've known for decades. A lot of things just kind of trigger now, to the point where I don't really want to go back to the old ways (and ??if every game going forward had just one SKU, that would be good too!).

For instance, battles can play out with you running around the world, without having to micromanage each and every element of them. You can just...do things without endless text floating on-screen. While there is hand-holding �it is Pokemon, they can't resist �it doesn't feel nearly as bad as past games in the series, and certainly nowhere near the worst they've ever done (whic?h has actively stopped me from replaying a few entries). Not having to skip through infuriating tedious menus to capture Pokemon and learn new moves rules too (the latter are granted instantly via a level-up screen after battle). Adding stealth as an option to capture things is a nice touch and allows for several?? different playstyles to happen organically.

It also feels fresh, in its own way, from a lore standpoint. This time around you're legitimately researching the world of Pokemon, instead of somewhat taking advantage of it. It's refreshing to not assume that you need to leave your parent's house, then compete in some big tournament from the very start (you play a 15-year-old who appeared in this land, working for a Survey?? Corp). There's a lot of character moments early on, a few mysteries are forged, and there's some hilarious bureaucracy. I'm invested.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4RynqpahT8

It's for that reason that I'm immediately wooed by Legends. Sure, a lot of it does look dated, and it makes me question why The Pokemon Company, any of the powers that be, aren't pumping more money into this series: Switch games can look fantastic and run better than this, we've seen it. But the promise of something different, even smaller (but not baby) steps, is a good thing for people who still hold water for Pokemon, myself included.

It's not a complete reinvention. Options are slim (though you do have the ability to hide the UI and take better photos), and the environments and framerate issues are the big holdups. It's not even a hardware issue: several of the larger environmental sandboxes look dull, and not becom?ing of previous games in the series. It's give and take, but that's Game Freak's style.

I'm hopeful for Pokemon Legends. I'm not blown away, but it does feel fresh (comparatively), and still has a lot of the Pokemon cuteness and charm. I can see some potential snags (especially if the formul??a gets rote within the game itself if it goes on too long without any twists), and I can see the clear path to victory. Stay ??tuned for our full review.

The post Review in Progress: Pokemon Legends: Arceus appeared first on Destructoid.

Uneven, to say the least

It's been a rocky (early access) launch for Battlefield 2042 for many players, which comes as no surprise. Even when it works, and you're not struggling with online errors kicking you back to the main menu, the results are mixed a??mong fans, myself included.

But after the way the open beta went down, it's actually smoother than I was expecting.

We decided to turn down EA's review event for Battlefield 2042 in part because this is a multiplayer game with no campaign whatsoever, so I'm coming at you with around five hours of real-world playtime against other player??s and the AI. Last night's matches worked like a charm, a good chunk of today was spent just dealing with server issues, and I'm still very much?? figuring out how I feel about this game's design and long-term vision.

I mean, it's a Battlefield launch?. Things can only go up from her??e. (I hope.)

Battlefield 2042 (PC, PS4, PS5 [reviewed], Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)
Developer: DICE
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Released: November 12, 2021 (early access) / November 19, 2021
MSRP: $59.99 / $69.99

I'm liking the full version of Battlefield 2042 way more than the very con??tent-limited and rough-around-the-edges beta �the difference was immediately noticeable.

There are still foundational concerns with DICE's new approach, but compared to the open beta, the gunplay fee??ls much more reliable, the maps have more personality, and the sprawled-out skirmishes are more readable. It wasn't as hard to find the fun.

There are three main facets of Battlefield 2042: All-Out Warfare (with Conquest and Breakthrough modes), Portal (with player-customized gametypes and official recreations of three classic Battlefield experiences), and Hazard Zone (the squad-based "fight smart and get out alive" PvPvE mode). I've spent the least amoun??t of time? with the latter.

I won't beat around the bush here: the best part of Battlefield 2042 is arguably Portal. That might seem like a no-brainer to some of you, but I honestly didn't come in expecting that to be the case. Unlike the gargantuan maps in All-Out Warfare, these official and unofficial modes can feel more del?iberate, manageable, and most of all, fun. They're a blast.

I've yet to mess around with funky user-made modes (much less attempted to create my own), but I keep coming back to Portal. DICE has leaned into nostalgia with classic Rush and Conquest gameplay on Battlefield 1942's Battle of the Bulge and El Alamein, Bad Company 2's Valparaiso and Arica Harbor, and Battlefield 3's Caspian Border and Noshahr Canals. If you have a soft spot for any of these games (or especially all three), you should have a riot with Portal. You don't need to dig into any obscure server list �they're right there on the main Portal menu, and they recreate the weapons, gadgets, and most importantly classes of those iconic games. This stuff looks and feels great. Now I wouldn't go dropping $60 or $70 on Battlefield 2042 solely for this slice �again, it's?? only two maps per l?egacy game at this point �but Portal is already doing a lot of heavy lifting.

That's not to say the big new semi-futuristic side of Battlefield 2042 with 128-player?????????????????????????? battles is a total bust or anything. It's just not the home run it could and really should be.

The specialist system �in which you pick a named character with a unique trait and specialty who can mix and match weapons and gear, rather than a strict all-or-nothing archetype �is still divisive. It doesn't feel entirely gameplay motivated so much as a way to inject a bit of characterization (and eventual monetization?) into the game even though most of us seem to prefer tried-and-true Battlefield classes and the ensuing teamwork.

The main issue I ha??ve with specialists as a general concept is that players have so many options with their equipment loadouts, it's hard to get your team to meaningfully specialize, and that has big ramifications. As one example, I've tended to play as the two current medic-leaning specialists, including Angel, who's good with revives and ammo top-ups �but I can totally roll with a sniper rifle or anti-vehicle gadget if I want.

Although some specialists have flashier perks like a wingsuit or grappling hook, plenty of them are more muted. Some of them (there are 10 so far with the launch lineup) already blur together. And spe?cialists, in general, can kind of just feel like one ??extra layer you have to get through on top of your loadout and weapon customization. The menus add up.

I love the new Plus System in Battlefield 2042 for on-the-fly, mid-firefight attachment switching, but I hate the way it feels to swap to a different specialist and/or alter their loadout for a give??n tactical situatio?n after I've been taken out and I'm looking for a new spot on the map to drop into. There are enough quirks going on with the UI that you almost need to build up muscle memory before you can learn to quickly move through it.

That might sound like a cranky nitpick, but I think it's having an impact on the moment-to-moment gameplay, which is the whole draw of the Battlefield series. I think there's a snowball effect between the fuzzily de??fined player roles, the huge 128-player matches ?(on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S), and probably also the newness of the maps.

Battlefield is at its best when you feel like you're making small yet precise strikes to chip away at the opposing forces, and the rest of your squad is backing you up by doing the same, and every other squad on your side is also working one of many objectives. It??'s not about winning, exactly �it's this gut feeling that?? conscious progress is being made.

On the flip side, there are aspects of All-Out Warfare I have yet to fully wrap my head around. I'm tempted to point to one glaring issue or another, but I think it's far more nuanced. I don't think it's just a matter of wide-open areas leading to futile firefights and an overall sense of despair over how challenging it is to change the tide of battle with even a coordinated squad, but maybe it is that simple. Maybe, with time, we'll all learn how to synergize on these sprawling maps with cool weather spectacles as a chaotic backdrop. As is, I'm feeling wistful about Battlefield V and Battlefield 1, and wh??ile these games usually do take time to reach their f?ull potential, there are no guarantees.

There are glitches to clean up, gameplay tweaks to make, heaps of fan feedback to heed or ignore, and new content to create to keep the live-service pipeline flowing. I hope DICE is ready. On a purely technical front, the PS5 version has been relatively good to me other than the early-access launch-day connection issues which weren't muc??h of a surprise.

At this point �and it's still too early to call �I too rarely experience that warm and fuzzy Battlefield feeling in Conquest on the 2042 maps. When I flipped over to Portal for a smaller-scale round of Rush with the Bad Company 2 preset, the contrast was undeniable. Suddenly, it just resonated again. Both teams were playing to Battlefield's strengths.

I haven't completely made my mind up about All-Out Warfare in Battlefield 2042, and I also need to invest more time in Hazard Zone (even though it's not really my scene), so we'll see how the next week goes. At this point, I'd recommend playing the trial if at all possible. There are ways for DICE to turn this game around, but at this exact moment, I'm not feeling super confident about 2042's long-term prospects. The best moments? are stil??l a blast �it's a joy to parachute off a skyscraper while helicopters, tanks, and even hovercraft sow chaos below �but this game isn't effortlessly clicking the way it should.

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

The post Review in Progress: Battlefield 2042 appeared first on Destructoid.

It's a party if you've got enough people

Since the first Left 4 Dead launched in 2008, many games have tried to replicate its particular brand of co-op shooter. And with Back 4 Blood, Turtle R??ock Studios is returning to that same zombie-killing formula, e??ven harkening back to it with the new game's name mirroring the old.

We're still working our way through Back 4 Blood, but what I've seen so far points to a pretty e??ngaging co-op shooter that's hitting some real high notes—as long as you're playing with friends.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fpkwFpPyjA

Back 4 Blood is a first-person shooter where a team of four has to run through a level, scrounging and looting for better gear while facing off against the mounting threat of a zombie horde. It has Left 4 Dead blood running through its vei?ns, from the smattering of survivors who bicker and quip to each other to safe rooms adorned with atmospheric wall-scrawling.

Its major differences come in a few places. First off, guns are much more varied in Back 4 Blood; every class of weapon, from shotgun to sidearm, has several different options, as well as attachment slots for side-grades you find along the way. Left 4 Dead felt like it encouraged players to perfect a small arsenal of guns, swapping to adapt to what the map asked for o??r just for personal preference. Here, guns feel a bit more of that personal choice, and it results in some hard choices when deciding whether to keep a decked-out basic gun or upgrade to a better base, discarding those attachments in the process.

Personal choice is bolstered by the card system, a mech??anic that's been gradually winning me over. Players can build a "deck" they bring with them into a campaign, which lets them draw cards and put them into play, enacting per??manent benefits for their own character or even the whole team.

Cards start out extremely basic, with small tangible benefits like some extra health or faster reload speed. As you acquire more supply points from completing maps, you can spend them to upgrade the supply lines to your survivors' hideout of Fort Hope, earning cards with better benefits to slot in. Soon I wasn't just flipping on some added stamina, but the ab?ility to gain temporary health for every shotgun pellet that hits the Ridden (the in-universe zombie name) or heal even more health with support items.

I'm still working my way into the full extent of these cards, but they're where Back 4 Blood's feeling of playing a character really starts to work. Each Cleaner—playable character—also has their own perks and strengths, letting ?you define a build even more. When I play Doc, I can specialize into being the team healer; or when I'm? Hoffman, I can focus on keeping the team stocked on ammo, so my friend playing Jim can be the damage-dealing sharpshooter who can pick off the special Ridden that show up.

Outside the regular zombie horde, there's a surprising variety in the Ridden that attack the crew of Cleaners throughout each map. Some can wear on a bit, especially when it's just massive groups of the bile-spewing exploders. But map-specific encounters like the massive Ogre and unique R??idden like the Hag add a lot of variety, and even the generic Ridden get variants, like armored SWAT zombies.

The maps themselves are a bit up and down. I've overall enjoyed the greater focus on objectives and? team activities, like fortifying windows and carrying special objects to destinations, and the side objectives add extra challenge. Very rarely did it feel like my objective was as simple as getting from point A to point B. There also seems to be a pretty large number of maps to start. Each Act has several different linked missions that take you through individual areas, overall comprising pieces of a larger story within the "campaign." The story hasn't been a major draw so far, but the structure seems ripe for additional Acts or maps down the? line.

One massive standout that will undoubtedly be everyone's favorite map comes about halfway through the first Act. It's the zombie movie equivalent of a bar fight, where the survivors have to hold out against Ridden swarming a bar with a jukebox blaring in the background. And yes, ?it's an actual jukebox with real, licensed music. My first time through, it was a frenzied chaos that felt like a real movie montage, and I'm absolutely itching to go back and play it again, even just to see what other songs are in the rotation.

All of this is to say, I've had an absolute blast so far when I'm playing with friends. The solo experience, however, leaves a lot to be desired. When launching into a solo campaign, Back 4 Blood notifies you that you won't be able to make ?any meta-progress while running by yourself. Though you get your pick of any cards you'd like, no supply points will be accrued, so you'll need to play with others to pick up some new cards for multiplayer.

Back 4 Blood is certainly a game that caters to a full party, but to have that solo aspect feel so separate from the draws of the rest of the game makes it feel like an afterthought. Turtle Rock Studios has stated it's going to look into ways to address solo progression, but until they're implemented, that's something folks who don't have a four-stack lined up already should know. It seems fine for toying around with builds, but more ?of a "demo mode" than something you might play for a long time.

And really, you'd probably want to stick to human companions either way, because the A.I. in Back 4 Blood ranges from fine to unhelpful. While I've had a few decent bots, other times they rarely contribute or kill any Ridden, usually need you to bail it out of trouble, and aren't very expedient about getting you back up after going into the down-but-not-out state. Even when the A.I??. holds its own, the difference between a bot on you??r team and a person feels night and day.

This can also get frustrating as you start going up the difficult??y levels, too. I honestly recommend starting with the Recruit difficulty; though it's framed as the easier mode, it's a good way to start out, get famili??ar with the levels and characters, and start racking up the cards you'll need on higher difficulties. And again, you'll want human players with their own capable decks to back you up, rather than the bot that keeps shooting me in the back.

Single-player woes aside, this is a co-op shooter that's reminding me why Left 4 Dead held such a solemn place in games for so long. One underrated aspect that Turtle Rock has nailed for me so far is pacing. It's so crucial to have a well-maintained rise and fall to every area, without repeating the same beats over and over, and I feel like Back 4 Blood is nailing that so far. I've had my fair sha?re of "everybody run" moments, where we're all hurtling down a street towards a Safe Room door with the Ridden on our heels. The aforementioned bar blitz is several minutes of concentrated, all-out zombie-killing mayhem, and it is simply sublime.

There are plenty of moments to stop and breathe, too. There are times where we've had to sneak through areas, carefully picking off Ridden with well-placed headshots, or had to skulk through the fog fearful of what's just outside our sightlines. The banter between Cleaners has been good, and like most good co-op games, Back 4 Blood has also ??bee?n a handy vehicle for friends to gather and chat about whatever in a Discord call.

It's just like going to a friend's house to play some Left 4 Dead, and Back 4 Blood at least nails that aspect. We're still putting together our full thoughts on it, but honestly, if you've got three friends and matching Game Pass subs, there's really no reason to not give Back 4 Blood a try. It is a pretty solid social zombie-shooting game that will ??????????????????????????fill at least a few weekends this year.

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

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