Pokémon has always been a series near and dear to my heart, and while I was always keen on the mainline titles, the first spin-off I was ever introduced to was Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. I fell utterly in love and this year got the surprise announcement that the first title was receiving a remake. It ended up being everything I wanted and more. A return to one of my absolute favorite games in a new style and yet felt like revisiting old friends I hadn't spoken to in a long time. The story is entirely about friendship, a bond between Pokémon as they struggle to save the world together and solve the problems as they're shunned away from their home after being accused of crimes they didn't commit. It added great new things like shiny Pokémon, mega evolutions and a ton of visual upgrades for items that helped build on the world. It even fixed one of my biggest disappointments that was after the game your partner no longer said good morning to you, but now they will every day even after they've evolved. Heck, they even finally added bandanas on the main Pokémon duo while they're still in their basic forms. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX is a comfort in every way. It's familiar, yet changed, just as you would expect from an old friend and I'm thankful I had the chance to dive back into the wonderful experience once more.
Americans celebrate Thanksgiving every November. It’s a time when families gather, friends reconnect and communities unite. On Thanksgiving you also announce what you're thankful for in life, so several of our writers decided to let everyone know exactly which video games they're thankful for. These thanks are comprised of releases from Thanksgiving 2019 to Thanksgiving 2020 and made up of a variety of reasons. Read on to see the titles everyone decided were personally meaningful enough from the past year to make the list!
A game I'm thankful for in 2020 is one that was met with universal critical acclaim and extremely-divided fan reactions: The Last of Us Part II. There are elements of this game that can be legitimately criticized, but personally the good outweighed the bad. But while I would argue this is overall a great game by most objective standards, I'm thankful for it because of more personal reasons. The original SLG game DLC was a topic of deep discussion with my other half so naturally we were anticipating this release. Playing through the game together was a good bonding activity and led to hours of discussion about the character choices and the storytelling approaches used in The Last of Us Part II.
But perhaps the most crucial consolation in this part especially is indeed the breadth of content on offer in Genshin Impact. From environmental puzzles to work out, to small enemy camps to clear, to brief challenges that reward another chest to open, even just taking a glance at the map and spotting a more conspicuous landmark. To venture to said landmark and find a higher-level and [thankfully] more aggressive boss show up. Most of these content placements do feed back into the continual progression of XP and AR and currency (and of the game doing its subtle best to convince us to drop some money into the Gacha side of things). Like its inspirations, some of these are more blatant and unapologetic than others. But where Genshin's true purposes may not always be purely innocent in nature, what stops the experience from turning in sour or predatory most of all, is the thoughtful craft at which the world is structured. How, like Breath of the Wild, there's no right answer to exploring in of itself, but there's an answer to such things like "how do I get that collectible when it's all the way up there?"
Players pursuing the Abyss in Genshin Impact know Hydro-toting Abyss Mages and Abyss Heralds are extremely time-consuming to kill due to their tough bubble shields. However, Dendro is the best Element to bring in a comp specifically for their destructive potential - simply pair a Dendro and a Pyro to trigger Burning consistently and burn through their shields in no t
When players begin building their ideal comps and favorite units, they will like want to grind through Domains because of their Artifact rewards . After all, there’s a 20% chance that a Domain will grant players their much-needed 4-stat Artifact and get their DPS that much-needed CRIT Rate item! However, players might want to consider going for Artifact Strongboxes in pursuit of their most ideal equipm
As one of the earliest characters to be introduced to Genshin Impact , Diona Kätzlein has had ample time to solidify her role in the game. The alcohol-despising bartender is still Genshin Impact’s only Cryo healer and shielder (Kaeya’s C4 shield doesn’t really count), meaning that Diona has no contest for her role until another Cryo support like her comes al
Any game that's branded as a "free-to-play" title is almost immediately going to get inundated with any number of negative connotations and accusations alike. Long-winded, grind-inducing, predatory, a matter of luck over skill on the kind of content you’re granted outside of some voluntary, monetary investment. It may sound dismissive and pessimistic, but the number of such games whose priorities with maintaining a steady revenue stream doesn’t get in the way of the base game offered are few and far between. Enter Genshin Impact, developer miHoYo’s far from first rodeo on the F2P frontier -- itself thrown many a condescending remark on being a clone of this or imitation of that. The similarities are there to see of course and while admittedly a touch obvious in parts, what I’m most thankful for with Genshin Impact is the genuine effort and design miHoYo have placed in crafting an enjoyable action RPG to start. A live service, continually-expanding release this may be, Genshin Impact’s starting world, its gameplay, its sheer breadth of exploration put many similar open-world efforts, let alone F2P attempts, to shame. To state with hand on heart I’ve now clocked near to 40 hours and still not spent a single penny -- occasionally tempting it may be -- I’m grateful that Genshin Impact has taken a more sensible approach to F2P games: satisfying base game first, additional monetization second as an option.
