I really enjoyed Gearbits. It was a cute action mecha game that had a great blend of horde-styled shooting, careful tactics against mechs, and objectives that felt right for this type of game. So, checking my Steam’s ‘What’s New’ page, I found that a spin-off had been released: Gearbits: Gear Angels.

At first glance, the most glaring change is that it's not a third-person action mecha game any more, but a side-scroller shooter. It still has the charm of Gearbits, with adorable character designs and a really well-done opening animation.

I’m not the most qualified person to even attempt at unpacking what works and what doesn’t in a shmup, so bear with me.

There are three stages total, with around three major enemy types, excluding boss enemies, and it’s a gauntlet run to get a high score and clear all stages in a single run.

During a run, you will shoot enemies to get two pickups: orange for energy and green for health. Orange pickups are going to be your bread and butter here, replenishing your energy to continue doing maximum damage, increasing accuracy, and maintaining shields. Energy can be replenished without picking them up, at the cost of no longer firing your weapon. So it is best to continue getting as many pickups as possible.

Additional weapons will drop from enemies: a Gatling gun, rockets, and missiles. The Gatling gun fires in a straight line, rockets shoot in three quadrants, giving you a great range to shoot from, and missiles track targets.

One thing to note: I believe the rocket and the missiles are supposed to be swapped in terms of their functions. See, the missile launcher has three pods they are supposed to fire from but only shoots one missile. The rockets end up firing in three directions, similar to how the missile pods are on the model. I might be stupid, and this is how it was intended, but it felt really off having a model with three pods on it only shooting one missile at a time.

Unlike Gearbits, which had you picking from mechs, you're picking from Gear Angels. Women in combat armor. Truly, a step up here.

Felicity, Mira, and Regina are your lineups, with each of them having different starting traits and disadvantages. Regina easily gets the best bonus with double ammo capacity on weapons. But firing depletes more of her energy, and the maximum shields you gain are cut in half. Felicity gets double energy from pickups, which can prove to be useful. But her charged fire is cut in half, and her energy does not recharge. Mira is the unfortunate case of getting no bonuses or disadvantages.

Regina was easily the most fun I had because of her double ammo capacity and getting to shred through enemies with her double-gatling gun.

For the story, there basically isn’t one. Gearbits didn’t have the most outstanding narrative and was more about getting you from place to place. Gear Angels only has the initial opening movie, the setup, and the congratulations screen saying you defeated the aliens. For a game of this type, I can hardly fault it for not including any narrative, but I was curious to see if it would continue the groundwork left by Gearbits. It didn't, but it didn't really need to.

The game is fine, short, and sweet. If you want a fun hour or so in a decent side-scroller, this is completely free and has integration for each character to become playable in Gearbits.

You got nothing to lose trying it out.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is, effectively, a dream game that I’ve never had, but am so in love with its setting a standard for more games like this one. It does so much right, and it revels in what it is, with the added bonus of the gameplay being addictive, responsive, and a fleshed out endgame in which all of the systems fire on all cylinders.

Granblue is a series I know next to nothing other than a post saying how someone keeps mistaking Siegfried for a beautiful butch lesbian (which is true, Siegfried is a beautiful butch lesbian) and the fact the main character is named Gran.

So, John Granblue Fantasy.

Finishing Relink’s short campaign, I understand why people like this world. The crew of the Grandcypher are characters you probably have seen before, but I am such a sucker for a family on a ship sailing for adventure… despite me not having read much of One Piece.

It is unfortunate that the game really doesn’t try to invest newcomers into easing into the crew or starting in the infancy of this journey. The Granblues are pretty well established and there isn’t much of an actual beginning, more like this story taking place a few arcs into a longer running series. The game tries to compensate for this with a Codex and the unfortunately egregious Fate Episodes, but the story manages to stay pretty straight-forward and I never once felt lost.

For how short this campaign is, clocking in at about ten to twelve hours, the beginning act can feel astronomically slow. It really isn’t until your first Primal battle that you get a good sense of, well everything, but when this game gets going, my god does it hit the ground running at mach 10.

Sprinkled throughout, are some of the best spectacles for a game of this type and all are varied in these incredible set piece moments that never overstayed their welcome.

Chapter 5 was an absolute standout to me. The fight against the Primal Beast, Managarmr, has become one of my favorite boss battles in ages. It’s not even the biggest spectacle that this game has to offer, but the music, combined with the excellent mechanics, was such a treat I wasn’t expecting.

And in all honesty, this is what I had in my head when I envisioned Fenrir from XIV: ARR Post-MSQ.

And speaking of Final Fantasy… this game is XVI done correctly.

I think back to that interview with Naoki Yoshida a lot in which he treats JRPGs almost like a slur with insane disgust and the reason why XVI is the way it is.

Granblue is the very antithesis against his statements. Not only is it an actually good action game, it still has roots in what is. It’s so unapologetically a JRPG in narrative that I couldn’t help but be won over. It’s so straightforward and combined with the pacing, its campaign alone is worth the entry point.

But, what I wasn’t expecting was to get sucked into the post-game.

From what I’ve heard, Relink is almost one to one identical in structure of how the mobile game plays out in terms of progression, minus the gacha elements, which it kinda still has but that comes more as a way to continue progressing your character well beyond what they are needed to complete, I’d say, 90% of the game.

The post-game structure is beating higher and higher level missions to collect materials needed to build your character. It is such a simple endgame, but with how fun it is to play Relink, as well as how generous the materials needed to progress can get at times, it is incredibly addictive.

I love when systems all feed into each other, and it gives me a warm, bubbly feeling in my heart as I yearn for the halcyon days of Destiny 2: Forsaken’s systems all feeding into each other as you were always progressing. And that’s the best kind of endgame, where progression is happening and isn’t a brick wall every couple of hours.

It’s hard for me to really talk about how much this game means to me as its positives are sewn into not its sleeve, but its skin. What minor gripes I have with the Fate Episodes and the matchmaking can get kinda borked sometimes, doesn’t matter. It’s all trivial in the grand picture of how tightly made this game is.

I love this game to death. It is the most pure of heart fun I’ve had with a title in such a long time.

Reviewing this game is akin to two hornets hovering over the back of your neck, inching closer and closer until the inevitable stings. The first being the inherent nature of this genre. That being a gacha game. Those words alone would probably invoke a level of disgust and unbridled annoyance. The second being, this is a live-service game. I was grateful that I was able to finish the second major region’s Trailblaze Missions (main story) in one sitting and not wait around for a patch to conclude Chapter II.

So what kept me around? What was the secret sauce Hoyoverse had in store? Plain and simple: it’s the writing. I was grossly unprepared for how well-written this game, particularly, Jarlo-VI, was. I’ll admit, Herta’s Space Station wasn’t the greatest hook, but when this game gets going, and you are shuttled on to Belobog, the writing puffs out its chest with an infectious energy you can’t help but be absorbed by. I can’t speak on how much of an improvement for Hoyo this is over Genshin or Impact 3rd as both of those games I dropped in the early hours with no desire to return, less so after Star Rail’s first impression.

While, at times, this game falls into the trappings from the XIV syndrome of a lot of cutscenes for brief moments of gameplay, it doesn’t at all compromise what it’s trying to do in the name of avoiding what the genre is known for. Yes, you are walking from place to place, combat spliced to breakup traversing from one conversation to the next, but Hoyo is throwing either new characters at you, new plot threads, old plot threads, hilarious dialogue options, character banter, characters actually having personality, emotional tension, there is something that is keeping you hooked at all times.

Despite the inherent nature of this genre, which is to say more for the characters' looks or merely the fact they are stupidly powerful, I want so many of the characters in my roster because of their personalities and the incredible VA work done in the English dub. I care so much about the crew of the Astral Express, the workers aboard Herta’s Space Station, the residence of the Overworld and Underworld, and the denizens of the Luofu, because Honkai lets you get close to these characters. They have such charm to them that, yes, an RPG should have as a gold standard because party members are a critical aspect to this genre, but I’m pleased Hoyo took the time to make these characters…well characters.

I’m deliberately avoiding any major themes or topics because this is a game that deserves to be experienced as blind as possible. So many of these moments are going to be remembered for their spectacle, their emotional beats, and what these stories aim to do.

This is just talking about the main quests by the way. Companion quests and side content have just as much impact, if not more at times, which is always welcomed.

Hoyo doesn’t back down on the gameplay front either. It’s simple in its construction with a basic attack, a special attack, and an ultimate, used to deplete an enemy’s break meter with specific elemental damage for your DPS windows, but eloquently designed. Characters all feel unique despite fulfilling roles, resource management is crucial, and while yes there is going to be that eventual, “this is the best build for that character” you still are switching party members frequently and everyone is on an equal playing field.

My biggest worry was that any ‘freebie’ characters were going to pale in comparison to banner characters, but that is not the case. As said, every character is on an equal playing field and the compositions you can make with characters can get absolutely bonkers crazy. Despite finishing Chapter II, Dan Heng is still a frequent party member, with the Trailblazer as a runner up. As long as you keep up with levels and gearing, your characters are as good as gold.

Now, do you remember those two hornets I discussed earlier? Well, unfortunately, it is time for that stinging pain.

Because this is a Gacha, I have reached a point where progression has been slowed to a crawl, yet I necessarily don’t mind it as much because the earlier levels, 1 to 40, were not stingy at all, quite on the contrary, rather generous at times. I’m thankful the minimal times I had to grind were because of my own desire and not just “hey we are putting you on breaks for the last mission because we need an excuse to pad out this story’s runtime.” The main story was almost an uninterrupted experience and I am really thankful for that.

The other sting is the live-service model, and the fact stories are broken up into patch content. I am familiar with this model, but after having a complete experience from the space station to the Luofu and hearing how mixed Luofu was during its runtime as patch updates, I do worry about the longterm haul, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to what comes next.

Despite finishing the main story, I still have a lot of content I’m eager to get back to immediately. Honkai: Star Rail is the biggest surprise of my year, and this is going on some nebulous game of the year contender in my head. I love this game.

Anyway, Stellemarch the world.