(s) Archive
2025-02-18
From the team behind Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2 comes Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, the first part of a new narrative-driven series. If you’re a fan of DON’T NOD‘s previous work, there’s a good chance you’ll find the story here intriguing enough to stick around. That said, the game is held… Read More »
2024-12-03
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail was a challenging expansion to review. It featured some of the best gameplay the MMO has had in years, but after the narrative payoff of Endwalker, the new story arc had some growing pains. Since the first three patches after an expansion have traditionally wrapped up lingering plot threads, I was… Read More »
2024-08-06
“All good things come to an end.” Final Fantasy XIV players experienced this in 2021 when the game’s aptly named fourth expansion, Endwalker, wrapped up the long-running story that began with the original 1.0 release in 2010. But because this is an MMO we’re talking about, Endwalker was not the end of Final Fantasy XIV.… Read More »
2024-02-03
After ten years of playing Final Fantasy XIV, I’ve seen enough patch cycles to learn what to expect from the final major update to an expansion. There’s a dramatic event and a final fight, a cooldown period, and then someone new or unexpected shows up to invite or sometimes force the Warrior of Light to… Read More »
2023-10-06
The Expanse makes an explosive exit in its final excursion of the season. The felota finally hits the fan and any loose ends left in your travels get tied up, one way or another. Though the early episodes felt lacking as they were released, Episode 5 draws it all together. After everything, The Expanse: A Telltale Series has… Read More »
2023-09-29
Camina’s stranded and alone back at Mining Station #184, running low on oxygen with seemingly no way off this rock. Weird things start to happen when you’re running out of air or in isolation, so both simultaneously are an extra gnarly combo. Camina goes on a trip through her past, at least in her mind,… Read More »
2023-09-17
Just as it feels like The Expanse: A Telltale Series is settling into an excavation-of-the-week formula, Telltale pulls the rug out at the end of Episode 3, setting a new course for the second half of the series. The game portion of the mythos finally delivers a major turn that feels like a meaningful consequence… Read More »
2023-08-19
After the first episode’s weighty conclusion, in which you had to decide whether to put Cox in storage or out the airlock, the crew of the Artemis is immediately in trouble in the second installation of The Expanse: A Telltale Series. This is the first time you get a taste of present danger in the series, being… Read More »
2023-08-03
Man, it’s good to have Telltale Games back. The development crew that worked on decision-heavy adventure games featuring well-established IPs was so strongly entrenched in its niche before being whittled away. I still prefer their The Walking Dead to the TV series. With a significant portion of the development team back, it’s exciting to see… Read More »
2023-06-26
We’re still about a year out from the next Final Fantasy XIV expansion, but Endwalker is slowly starting to wrap up. For me, the penultimate main patch has always been mainly about one thing: the conclusion of the 8-man raid storyline and the last tier of Savage content. Because the .4 patch usually starts the… Read More »
2023-01-25
The third post-expansion patch — the middle patch, if you will — is typically a big deal in Final Fantasy XIV. This patch wraps up the main story from the expansion, leaving the last two patches to start laying the groundwork for the next expansion. This usually means that players experience a secondary climax that… Read More »
2022-09-14
It’s fair to say that Final Fantasy XIV players have been expecting great things from the game ever since the eight-year-long story arc concluded in Endwalker proper. While the stakes are understandably lower after saving the world, patch 6.1 delivered on setting up an interesting and dramatic story that left me excited at the possibilities,… Read More »
2022-05-03
When Endwalker was announced as a conclusion to the existing story in Final Fantasy XIV, director Naoki Yoshida was quick to assure players that the game was not ending; instead, patch 6.1 would mark the beginning of a new narrative arc. This is a first for Final Fantasy XIV, and as a result, anticipation for… Read More »
2022-01-15
2019’s Shadowbringers was an absolute triumph. Between 5.0 proper and 5.3, the main story solidified itself as not only the best in Final Fantasy XIV’s history, but also as one of the best in the entire series. I wrote multiple glowing reviews of the patches, but in the back of my mind, I was always… Read More »
2021-08-08
Episode 1 of Scarlet Hollow managed to wow me not only with concise yet rich writing but also in the seamless incorporation of unorthodox gameplay mechanics (for visual novels) without detracting from its narrative substance. Bold and adventurous, Episode 1 truly captured the essence of a remarkable visual novel opening, elevating itself far above its… Read More »
2021-06-29
The final major patch of a Final Fantasy XIV expansion is an interesting experience. It has to finish setting things up for the next expansion, and there’s usually a decent amount of drama involved in that, but it also can’t quite kick the next story beat off. So players are led practically to the edge… Read More »
2021-03-12
When talking about Western visual novels, the first example most would point to is Doki Doki Literature Club, which took the gaming community by storm in 2017. With DDLC‘s meta-commentary and fourth wall breaks that pushed the boundaries of self-awareness in visual novels and games in general, I hoped that perhaps the time had come… Read More »
2021-01-12
There’s always some uncertainty when the fourth major patch following a new Final Fantasy XIV expansion rolls out. The third major patch resolves most of the expansion’s plot threads, and the fourth patch starts setting things up for the next expansion. This is where we get a taste of where the story will be taking… Read More »
2020-09-03
When I reviewed Shadowbringers last summer, I said that it exceeded my expectations by surpassing the high bar set by 2015’s Heavensward. I meant it back then and I still do, but a part of me has been waiting for patch 5.3 to really compare the two expansions on equal footing. For the uninitiated, each… Read More »
2020-03-22
…5.2 is yet another good FFXIV patch, but the star is absolutely the new fights and excellent new music.
2019-12-29
Life is Strange 2 has been a long, on-going journey whose subject matter demands consistent attention to maintain the level of immersion it’s capable of. Unfortunately, for those of us on the frontline of release dates, this has been difficult to maintain and has not benefited the series. As it stands, the three-and-a-half-month hiatus between… Read More »
2019-11-13
The first story patch after a new FFXIV expansion is usually a quieter affair than the events that preceded it. Things can’t stay at eleven forever, of course; after climactic events in the expansion proper, the story needs a little time to recover before ramping up to another epic showdown later in the patch cycle.… Read More »
2019-09-01
Life is Strange 2 has a habit of ending each of its episodes more tragically than the last, and that was certainly true in Episode 3. We pick up with the logical transition in the fourth episode, still uncertain of the Diaz brothers’ fates. Thus far, the series has meandered as consistently as the brothers… Read More »
2019-07-24
Scroll down to watch the video version of this review! When Final Fantasy XIV flopped back in 2010, you would have been forgiven for doubting that Square Enix could save it. But they did with 2013’s A Realm Reborn, thanks in large part to the efforts of producer and director Naoki Yoshida. When Heavensward, FFXIV’s… Read More »
2019-05-12
In season tradition, we’ve waited about three and a half months for Episode 3. Fortunately, this season is so memorable with its seamless marriage of larger-than-life and humble moments that jumping back in takes little effort; few modern adventure games can claim as much. One sticking point of the season thus far has been its… Read More »
