Mister Jack

So what does the Switch have to look forward to in 2018? I'm eager to play Bayonetta 3 and Shin Megami Tensei 5, but there's no telling when those are going to come out.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 I think this is probably my favorite one in the series. It definitely has the best gameplay, as it's far more active and there's much less emphasis on waiting for cooldowns if you are managing your abilities right. I really liked the blade system (basically weapons with Personas attached) and how it allowed me to customize my party rather than just depend on certain characters with certain abilities. It's actually pretty complex and can seem overwhelming at first, but once you understand how it all works it's a ton of fun. I liked the characters in this game more than the others with the exception of Rex, who I think is a poor man's Shulk. The story in the first game was better too. The story in 2 isn't BAD, per se. It's perfectly serviceable and has some interesting twists, it just has a few too many cliches. I know the anime art style is divisive, but I think it's a good change. The Switch only has so much horsepower, and making a more simple art style lets the characters be more expressive. What didn't I like? Well, while the game isn't too grindy in terms of your character levels, it can be grindy in other areas. Blades are the biggest offender. You acquire new blades through core crystals, which are glorified lootboxes. Before you get the wrong idea, there is no money changing hands here. Still, it's annoying because you have pretty much no control over what blade you get. I went the entire game without drawing KOS-MOS, and I really wanted her. You can supposedly influence what element you get by using certain items, but no matter how many of them I used I never got the element I want. The entire blade system is based on RNG, and since blades dictate what abilities you can use, you can really get fucked over if the RNG decides to be a dick. The worst part is that even if you use a rare or legendary core crystal, which are really hard to get, you can easily still have a common blade pop out. I fucking hate that shit. Rares and legendaries should be rares and legendaries! The other thing I didn't like is the field skills. Your blades each come with skills that you can use out in the field to unlock new areas or complete certain objectives. A blade with lockpicking can open chests, for example. This is cool in theory, but the problem is this only works for blades your party has equipped. If you need the lockpicking blade but you aren't using it for combat then you have to rearrange your party just to open one chest. They really should have just let you use backup blade abilities. On top of that, leveling up your blade abilities so you can, say, unlock a level 3 chest can be pretty grindy depending on your blade's affinity requirements. Sometimes you just need to use them for long enough, but other times you have to jump through hoops to level them up. One blade in particular that I saw forces you to store hundreds of items just to unlock the privilege of leveling up his abilities. I mean, come on. Finally, since the blades you get are completely random, if you don't have blades with the abilities you need then you're just shit out of luck until you draw one with the right ability. I have sidequests I never got to finish just because I could never draw any blades that had the right abilities. I also ran into a nasty bug where after I beat the game, the framerate dropped to a crawl during the ending and then froze up entirely before I could save my clear data. This doesn't seem to happen to everybody, but you bet it pissed me off. I just ended up watching the ending on youtube instead. I hope that was a fluke, but I don't feel like beating the final boss again right now just to find out. Maybe I'll try it again later after the new DLC comes out. Something I'm realizing about the Xenoblade series is that they're generally pretty solid RPGs that just happen to be held back from true greatness by some confusingly bad design decisions or oversights. When I wasn't dealing with the RNG or having to shuffle my blades around just to use a specific skill, I had a blast with the game. Those two things were persistent problems though, and I feel like if they weren't there the game would be a 9 instead of an 8. Oh yeah, and the English dub is fucking atrocious. I mean, Jesus Christ. Thankfully the Japanese audio is available, but Monolith should be embarrassed about putting out a dub this bad.

Symphony of the Night was probably the first real Metroidvania game if you require RPG elements as part of the criteria to be called Metroidvania.

Looks like Episode 5 isn't out yet.

It was on sale, I had some steam credit left over, and I liked the first one well enough so screw it, why not.

Stop platform shaming me!

Well at one point Rocksteady had said they weren't going to do the obvious twist for Arkham Knight, and I believed that for a while, but as soon as you-know-who was revealed to be a character in the finished game I thought to myself "you lying sons of bitches!"

I needed to make some space on the ol' hard drive so I went ahead and beat Batman: The Telltale Series since it was just sitting on there ever since it went free on PS+. Overall, I liked it. I think that as a self-contained drama, it was pretty well written and I also liked the investigation segments along with planning out ambushes. I also appreciated how it was a much more personal story where Bruce Wayne is just as much, if not more a part of the struggle as Batman is. However, there are some things I didn't like about the liberties it took with the Batman mythos.

I bought this but I'm going to wait until I beat Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to really sink my teeth into it. I'm at level 60 in that game so it will probably only take a few days. When I start this game I'll be sure to post my thoughts.

I noticed that I had a bunch of Wii games I can no longer play since I sold my Wii U, so I traded them in and... I have had mixed feelings about previous games in this series, but I hear this one is a lot more accessible. I don't plan to start it right away, but there was a +40% deal when trading in toward this game. I still had ten bucks left over thanks to that, and if it turns out I don't like this one either I'll just sell it down the line for something else. No skin off my nose. I didn't spend any actual money on it and I don't see any upcoming releases worth mentioning for a while.

Story mode gets harder in the second half, though how much harder I can't really say. I didn't struggle with it much, but I've played a ton of Arcsys fighters for hundreds of hours so I can't say if you'll have the same experience. I did notice a definite increase in the difficulty compared to the earlier stages, though. I didn't really grind EXP with the optional fights, so part of that difficulty is probably because I was taking on enemies 10-20 levels higher than my team. I don't recall ever actually team wiping at any point, though. In other news, dataminers have uncovered possible future content for the game. Lobby avatars have been found in the code for Broly, Bardock, Goku and Vegeta from the Saiyan Saga, Vegito, Fused Zamasu, Cooler, and Android 17. While this isn't a guarantee they're the DLC characters, I'd say it's a strong possibility. In addition, they found three new potential modes called Z Union, Z League, and Raid Battle. Given that the Kame House and West City areas in the hub currently have no function, I'm thinking it's safe to assume these modes are legit.

I'm all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but if anyone still believes at this point that Trump has no prejudices then I have some lovely swampland in Florida to sell you.

I'm sure I'm in the minority but I actually had more fun with Horizon than with Zelda.

I haven't gotten around to watching it yet, but I'd bet anything that it probably just works better as a manga. Not only are there fewer restrictions there, but the visuals can be as detailed as the artist wants to make them without having to worry much about things like an animation budget. It also leaves more to your imagination when the gruesome scenes aren't playing out right in front of you.

I'm inclined to agree, but I also didn't think George Lucas would ever sell Star Wars.

I pretty much agree with all those points, but Gabe is a pretty enigmatic figure lately. He barely makes any public appearances or statements anymore that I'm aware of so who knows where his mind is these days? I don't think he would sell Valve, but I can't say I'm 100% confident in that belief anymore. I do agree it's the least likely acquisition either way, though.

Rumor has it Microsoft is trying to acquire EA, Valve, and PUBG corp. Talk about a match made in hell. I don't give a shit about EA Games anymore but with all those exclusive licenses they have, it would be a pretty crippling blow to Sony if Microsoft got them. Question for our resident legal experts: can the likes of Disney or the NFL object to EA potentially selling to Microsoft and cutting Playstation out of their franchises without their input? I would certainly hope Gabe wouldn't sell Valve. Years ago I would never even consider the possibility he'd do it, but Valve is a very different company today than what it was ten years ago. I think the most likely one is probably PUBG corp. It would be the cheapest acquisition by far and PUBG is, for some reason, a massively popular title right now. They already did this once with Minecraft so I can definitely see them doing it again.

@Bogie 2.0 Yech...I think I'm good on the PSP one. I haven't played Maximo, though I am aware of it and I've heard it's decent.

I'm hoping Beerus gets a little buff because he's my favorite Dragon Ball character and I want to play him, but he's just got too much startup as he is right now on almost everything.

I'm surprised it was allowed in China at all given the whole ghost thing.

The game is finally out, so here's a thread to discuss everything from story to characters to strategies or just to ask for tips. For starters, here is a link to a very good article for beginners, both to the game and the genre itself. Basic combos in this game are fairly universal. There are combos which take character specific moves into account of course, but if you learn a few universals you'll be off to a very good start.

I'm having a blast with Dragon Ball FighterZ. They freaking nailed the personalities of the characters, especially in the story mode. God damn, I forgot how often Goku just completely roasts his friends without even meaning to.