could have been so much more but as the free updates get rolled out i realize how they're all the same thing in a new coat of paint.
the game also tries really hard to be both the most convenient and inconvenient game in the series-- many qol changes like inventory expansion and crafting but you often get the same recipes over and over with no ability to decline them, etc.
I could go on, but I will end it at that i'm glad this game came out when it did. I needed the escape it provided back in the beginning of the pandemic, but the longer I stay away the more I don't see myself returning unfortunately.

I initially had no desire to play Overwatch 2 as I had already made my peace with the first game and was content to move on. However, as I had friends who were interested in playing, I went into this "sequel" wanting to give it a fair shake. I know it's only been out a week at this point, but given the largely unchanged nature of the experience, I feel it's easy to render a verdict: Overwatch 2 is the most lateral change from one game to the next I've ever seen.

That lateral movement, by the way, is mostly in regard to gameplay. We'll get to the Battle Pass situation later. But in terms of enjoyment, it's still primarily the same experience. What was fun about the first game will still be fun in Overwatch 2, and what was frustrating about it will remain a frustration. The change to 5v5 is the big switch in vision for this game, and while I have always been vocally opposed to this change, in reality, all it's done is allocated the flow of the game in a sideways manner. Instead of shooting shields and nothing ever dying, you're now shooting one tank that's never dying. This is because to compensate for the removal of one tank, Blizzard has decided to massively buff them all to allow for better survivability. As a tank main, this is something I feel very confident commenting on.

This is where your enjoyment may vary when it comes to Overwatch 2. If you're really good at tank, or if you're playing with a really good tank main, it's become much easier to clean up and dominate a match. Tanks have always low-key been the carry of Overwatch but it's shifted even further in that direction now. If all you care about is winning, get good at tank and reap the rewards. You don't need to rely on someone else because they've given you incredible tools for sustaining on your own. However, this also comes at the cost of what I enjoyed about tanking in Overwatch, which was the focus on protecting your team. There are fewer plays to be made here, as tanks are now functionally just fat DPS heroes and the game encourages you to be selfish with your abilities to survive. The satisfaction that came from playing that role in a team environment is all but gone.

As for supports and DPS? Eh, kinda the same as always. Supports have less protection so have fun with that. It's why I rarely play the role in this game. DPS does have more opportunities for big plays themselves but you're going to find yourself in more duels now so it'll be sink or swim for the egos of people who love to shootbang. I will give credit to Blizzard for the design of the three new heroes, as they seem mostly well thought-out and balanced. Junker Queen in particular is a good example of properly designing a hero for the 5v5 format as her kit wouldn't have made much sense in the old environment. The new maps and game mode will take some getting used to but I don't have particularly strong feelings about them one way or the other right now. Either way, this certainly doesn't make up for the lack of content for the base game these past three years. I expected a lot more here.

Now let's get into monetization. Overwatch 2 has switched to free-to-play and with that comes the now standard Battle Pass integration. For anyone that played the original game, this is a straight downgrade. There is no getting around that, and there is no excusing it. It sucks. I know loot boxes in general are on the way out, and I'm not going to tell you it was the most ethical implementation of cosmetic unlocks, but Overwatch was VERY generous in letting you earn them and easily accumulate new items and credits to get what you wanted, even if playing casually. This was especially true of people who had been there since the beginning, like me, who had earned enough credits to basically have everything unlocked. Now? Pay money or you get nothing.

I understand there needs to be an incentive for people to spend money on a F2P game but the reality is they've done it by taking stuff away. This isn't a brand-new game where everyone's on the same starting line. Stuff that used to be earned easily is now locked in a shop for ridiculous prices, and the best new stuff requires the premium battle pass. Worse yet, you can't even earn credits through completing the battle pass to pay for the next one, a fairly standard feature for games that use this monetization system. Instead, you can earn those credits by doing weekly challenges, which at the moment grant a pittance of 60 a week. The Battle Pass costs 1000 credits, without even factoring in the use of those credits for anything else. As such you are looking at MONTHS to earn enough to do anything with them. This is just not acceptable, and that's not even getting into how difficult it likely will be for casual players to complete the battle pass in the time required.

Worse still is the decision to work new heroes into the battle pass system, requiring players to grind to level 55 to unlock them if they don't want to pay. For a game that's entire identity is built upon switching to the right heroes to use in the right situations, Blizzard is putting those on the free track at a competitive disadvantage. This is even more concerning for the competitive mode itself, where if the hero becomes meta and suddenly you're stuck with players who don't have them because of this decision, you're now ruining the game for everyone, regardless of whether they bought the battle pass. This absolutely must change for the game to have any sort of future going forward, but given this seems to be their big ace-in-the-hole in terms of forcing people to spend money, I don't expect them to give in. This decision alone is worthy of the game receiving a low score. It could be the best experience I've ever had and I would still hold this against them strongly.

And of course, the real elephant in the room is that this is just straight-up not the game we were promised. Overwatch 2 was sold on being a sequel with the PVE campaign at the forefront, and at launch, it is nowhere to be found. Instead, Blizzard will deal out campaign missions out on a seasonal basis, further straying from what was originally promised. It's starting to feel like the big story mode we all hoped for will end up feeling as disjointed and disappointing as the prior seasonal event story modes found in Overwatch 1. That, coupled with the MASSIVE connection and stability problems for the game's launch, all serve to offer up the reality that despite the lengthy development cycle, Overwatch 2 was pushed out to market well before it was ready. As a result, it feels half-baked in every conceivable way. This is a shame because much like I said in my review of the original Overwatch, this is a game and franchise with so much potential, but it seems like Blizzard cares more about making a quick buck instead of building something truly memorable that will draw disillusioned players like myself back in for more than just a few weeks.

Huh.

I was not having a great time while I played Golf Club: Wasteland. The game is slow in everything it does. Having to watch the player character physically move to the ball's location after every shot was mind-numbing. I was aware that all the downtime was meant to focus my attention on the radio station that plays throughout the game's runtime (which clearly received a ton of effort and care from the development team), but all the clever social commentary and worldbuilding was absolutely not enough to make up for the controls.

This is not a great golf game. It will definitely land somewhere near the bottom of my "Weird Golf Games RANKED" list simply because the golfing is not fun. Aiming and judging distance are both imprecise and felt like guesswork each time. Combine that with unclear terrain effects that seemed to alter surface friction and driving distance at random, and you've got yourself a frustrating time. It was never difficult, it just felt like slapping a ball around with a pool noodle, hoping it'd eventually go where i was aiming. The only thing that kept me from tapping out after ten holes was realizing there were only 35 of them in the entire game. Might as well finish it if it's that short, right?

Through the rest of the game, I found some interesting level design, some chuckle-worthy logos and graffiti messages, but the golf always felt bad. The stellar radio station recordings were carrying the whole game. Soon enough, the 35th hole was over, and there was a brief cutscene. It was pretty much what I had expected it would be based on what had transpired up until that point, and didn't really do anything for me. While the credits rolled, I debated whether to rate this 2 or 2.5 stars.

But after the credits, an epilogue titled "Charlie's Odyssey" appeared in the form of a storybook. About 50 illustrated pages detailing the character's story, including previously-unseen backstory that occurred before the game's beginning as well as an alternate angle on the game's events. Before reading that epilogue, I felt utterly and cynically nonplussed by Golf Club: Wasteland's story. Yet somehow, this final straightforward telling of the story I had just experienced completely recontextualized the whole thing for me. It retroactively made me appreciate what I had played.

Now, I have no idea if this epilogue was added out of necessity or simply because the devs liked the idea, but without Charlie's Odyssey, the whole package would not have landed for me. This is a completely unique experience for me, where a game is saved by its coda. I went from dislike to appreciation in just under 55 pages. What a weird thing!

Disclaimer: I played the Black Eagles route (Edelgard stans, we out here!) and sided with the Church, so know my review is coming from that angle. I’ll avoid spoilers for the story.

This is the first Fire Emblem game I have ever beaten. That’s not a knock to the rest of the series, which I’m sure is great, but the games haven’t really been to my taste until now. I did play Awakening for the 3DS a few years ago, but dropped it about ~5 hours in because I was bored out of my skull. I say this for you non-believers out there — even if you don’t like typically like or care about Fire Emblem, I think there’s a genuine chance you’ll like this game.


Fire Emblem Three Houses is a sort of total conversion for the series. If you played Persona 5 (or read my review on it!), you’ll immediately recognize some of the daily life elements in this game. You will play the voiceless, bland Main Character for you to project yourself onto (hooray) named Byleth in canon, but you can name yours whatever you want. I named my guy Dyna Max, for instance.

The story begins with your father, Jeralt, calling for you to come to Garreg Mach Monastery to become a professor. This Monastery is actually more of a University, but basically a prestigious private military academy that happens to be funded by the Church of Seiros. You’ll choose a house to side with (Black Eagles, Golden Deer, or Blue Lions) and become sort of a mentor for the group as a whole, as well as a teacher at the school. The giant fantasy castle that holds a secret magic school deep in the mountains with dragons, unicorns, and other mythical creatures about does invoke a certain Hogwarts feel. I’d venture to say that Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the best Harry Potter game ever.
Choose your house leader carefully — each one of them leads to a pretty drastically different story.

For you to understand what the actual game is, let’s walk through a typical week at Garreg Mach. On Monday, we’ll set up the lesson plan for the week. This can be done automatically (which is what I recommend) or manually, if you want to really get into the nitty-gritty RPG stuff. You’ll be able to set goals for each of your students, who can train in two skills at a time. There’s about a dozen, including axe, bow, sword, lance, reason (dark magic), faith (healing magic), leadership, and more. The stats of your students will go up during the week of study, but by how much is dependent on their motivation. We’ll get to that in a second.

Throughout the week, you’ll be asked questions 2 or 3 students about what they’re doing wrong and how to improve. If you get the right answer, you’ll be rewarded with an affinity boost. At the end of the week, you’ll see the fruits of your labor and how everyone has done. Then Saturday! Saturday is your free day, where you have options to either explore the Monastery (you’ll do this about 75% of the time), do auxiliary battles (side quests), take a seminar, or rest (this maxes out everyone’s motivation for the next week).

Exploring the Monastery is one of the core parts of the game, alongside the actual battles. You’ll be given a certain number of activity points to spend on various things throughout the day. If you meet with one of the other teachers, you can train your MC in whatever skill they specialize in. You can share meals with your students to raise their motivation and affinity for both you and each other, or cook a meal together with whoever you’re trying to romance. You can look around for lost items and return them for affinity points, or do side quests here and there that mostly have you just running around and talking to people. Maybe host a teatime and answer questions about your guest! Affinity comes into play by raising your support levels, both with your MC and just between other characters. Shipping Caspar and Bernie? Try to get their affinity up to an A level! Whoever you want to romance, you’ll need to get their Support Level to an S. I’d check ahead of time when picking a male or female MC, because some characters are straight, some gay, and others bisexual. If you’re set on romancing a specific character, plan ahead!

You can also raise your professor level here, which you need to unlock the ability to do more stuff. Fishing, gardening, training, and tournaments are just some of the options. Overall, there’s a lot to do, and at the beginning you’ll feel pretty shafted about only having 2 activity points. By the end you’ll be desperate to try and figure out how to spend all 8 of them. You can also spend time with students from other houses, and after your affinity is high enough they’ll join your house! If you want to romance someone from another house (I ended up marrying Mercedes) you’ll need to start on that early. The romance feels a lot more earned after spending 55 hours in the real world and 6 years in-game on it.

This all leads to leveling up your students for TOTAL WAR. These teenagers are getting too soft, give them some real weapons and teach them to KILL! Combat is similar to how it has always been — top down, tactical, turn based strategy. And just like always, if you’re playing on classic mode (and you should), your students will die for real if they die in combat. Luckily, if you lose Lindhart or whatever you won’t have to restart entirely! Through Sothis, the 3000-year old dragon who has conveniently taken the form of a 9 year old girl, you have the power to control time! You have a set number of Divine Pulses during battle, with which you can turn back time as far as you’d like. You’ll get more as the game goes on, and trust me, in the last few fights you’re going to use all of them.

The weapon triangle from previous entries is gone. No need to learn weapon and type weaknesses and advantages — a pop-up box will let you know how much damage your attack will do, and how much damage you’ll receive as a reaction. Use Y to flip through weapons and see different strategies, and use ZR to flip through your special Combat Arts. Be careful and be sure to consider every course of action before moving. This is a slow-paced game, a bit too slow-paced for my tastes, but it’s all about that feeling of know you’re a master tactician after taking out a big rhinoceros badger, or whatever. Combat can also be played from a behind-the-back view, but it’s so difficult to maneuver I doubt anyone committed to it for the whole game.

There’s a pretty good balance between combat and social life, but I have to say it wasn’t nearly as fun as the social stuff in Persona 5. I liked the calendar we all followed, but it sort of annoyed me to not be able to manage my time battling and training except on Saturdays. The music is pretty good, but nothing to write home about in my opinion. The art direction is, for lack of a better word, nasty. Everything is gross dark greys, browns, and greens, which you know I hate. The entire color palette of this game could be described as “murky chic.” It just looks bad. It’s like if Fallout 4 had much worse anti-aliasing. The other main negative is that I found the story to be super boring. I ended up skipping almost all of the cutscenes in the last 10 hours because I just did not care about anything happening to anyone in the Church of Seiros. I did care quite a lot about my students though! I was happy to see the little “where are they now” slideshow at the end. And once you hit the time skip, things get real serious, and your students get REAL sexy. Don’t worry, they’re adults now.

Three Houses is a great JRPG if you want some top notch turn-based strategy. For a Nintendo game, it’s pretty damn hard and unforgiving, so it’s nice to have the feature to rewind time when you lose a hot anime teen. The social life stuff is pretty well structured, and almost every one of the characters has an interesting backstory and personality. There’s a wide variety of romance options as well, or you could romance no one I guess. The integration of social life effects on how your students perform in battle feels earned and satisfying, and the slow pace of the game makes you feel like you really worked towards something when you finally get it. However, this game is ugly as hell. The colors are bland and boring, the graphics are basically enhanced 3DS assets, and the cutscenes run at 30 FPS as opposed to the game running at 60 FPS, which jolts you out of the game really quickly. I recommend this to anyone who likes RPGs with complex systems, turn based combat, and long, slow battles where strategy pays off. I do not recommend this for anyone looking for a beautiful, fast-paced narrative adventure. FE Three Houses is one of the best games on the Nintendo Switch, and deserves a spot in the Nintendo Hall of Greats for opening the franchise to a whole new swath of players.

I'm sure you don't need me to sell you on this game, but it's an actual masterpiece. Everything about it comes together so fluidly. It's exactly the right length, just challenging enough, and has a story you'll actually want to pay attention to. Plus, it's just funny. Almost every joke lands. I honestly prefer this to Portal 2, so I highly suggest you start on this one. Plus, being an FPS without an enemies, this is the PERFECT game to learn how to shoot on M+KB. Or if you have a friend who's learning how to move in a 3D space for the first time in a game, this is the one to give them. They can take their time, figure out what does what, and learn to shoot all without the threat of enemies or combat but still with enough challenge they'll feel good about conquering obstacles. This game is like $2 on Steam right now. What are you waiting for? Go buy it!

I love Pokemon more than anything, but since generation 4 it's been a strained relationship, to say the least. Pokemon Blue was my first ever video game, and I've played every one of them since then. This franchise was stale, repeating a set of old mechanics over and over again culminating in Sword and Shield, the most mediocre of mediocre games. I wasn't sure Legends was going to come through, but wow, it did. Pokemon Legends throws out the rulebook to the same degree Breath of the Wild did for Zelda, perhaps not to the same quality of a final product, but certainly with a similar gusto.

What an amazing game. Definitely the best from the franchise in over a decade. It's not perfect, and the next one could be better, but man I'm truly in love with Pokemon again. With a few exceptions, like not being clear on how to control turn order, the new battle system is superior to the one they've been leaning on for 25 years now. I have no real other qualms with the RPG and combat mechanics. I love the Agile and Strong style adding another layer to the tactics, so it feels less like rock paper scissors. And replacing EVs and IVs with ELs that are simplified to 1-10 was a fantastic decision.

Small things like changing movesets at any time, having the move tutor available from the start, a wide diversity of Pokemon at the beginning, mostly interesting sidequests, being able to take pictures and explore with your Pokemon in the overworld, alpha Pokemon, wild mons attacking the trainer, dodge rolling, Pokedex quests - this is just a small selection of improvements. I don't even miss things like held items and abilities. It's just not what the game is about anymore, and it's better for it. This is a game about creating the Pokedex, and each element of the game remembers that.

The new catching mechanic is the thing that ties it all together - sure, there are bits of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Monster Hunter in here, but the core addictiveness of Legends comes from Pokemon Go. The simple act of finding a Pokemon, physically working to catch it, and succeeding - this is a seratonin shot unlike almost any other in video games. Legends knows its strengths and leans on them hard, while streamlining the worst parts of Pokemon to make them totally fresh.

I cannot deny this game looks like ass. It is butt ugly almost all the time, with the one exception being the actual Pokemon models, and it genuinely detracted from the game from time to time. It bothered me to see the awful anti-aliasing, rectangular shadows and textures, and jagged pixels of clothing. Ordinarily I don't care much about graphical fidelity, but this is the first game I've played in a long time that looked so bad I have to acknowledge it affected the score. If this game was as good looking as Nintendo's other first party titles, it'd be a 10/10.

I love Pokemon now more than I have since middle school. Moreover I am excited, for the first time in a long time, about what the future could bring. Against my expectations, Game Freak put together a wildly innovative and competent game whose core gameplay succeeds so mightily you mostly won't care that the graphics are worse than most PS2 games. It just so doesn't matter. You throw a berry to distract an alpha Hippowdon, sneak up behind it with a leaden ball, and get mowed down by three Hippopotas you try to quietly dodge while you're sweating bullets. It's just pure fun. This is the way Pokemon were always meant to be interacted with, and what the Pokedex was always meant to be. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm much more excited for Legends 2 than generation 9.

This is a Marvel film of a game. Dull villain, misplaced levity, huge stakes without personal attachment, uninspired action, and empty grandiosity. It's adequate. Not too good, not too bad.

THE INQUISITION
Except for the titular inquisition. This should be the game's biggest strength. It should be. Yet the War Table is busywork to earn points that you need to go on missions. Your army is just narrative fluff to show up in a few cutscenes. You can judge people, which is interesting. But the only repercussions are a bit of approval here or some Inquisition points there.

The game needed the potential for failure! You should be able to squander your power, misstep in your alliances, and confront the final boss with the sum of your forces. Instead, the Inquisition is largely aesthetic.

CHARACTERS
Except for the characters. This is where I write nice things! I like the characters of Inquisition and I think they save the game. Not every character works. I talked with Sera once then ignored her for the rest of the game. But that's fine. I could focus on any of the other better characters. The hardest choices in the game were deciding who to cut from my party of Iron Bull, Dorian, Varric, and Solas (it was usually Varric. I played a rogue so he was redundant).

Playing Wicked Grace with the gang, spying on the rabble with Bull, getting Cassandra a new chapter, and forging a future for Cole are great moments and why I kept playing.

GAMEPLAY
Ok, what can I say about the gameplay? The emphasis on Guard and Barrier means that sword-and-shield is necessary to win encounters. Battles becomes a game of defense, but that's complicated by the poor AI. When I'd need a Barrier most, Solas would've used it on himself. That's almost in-character, but also infuriating when defense abilities are the only abilities that really matter and the AI is squandering it.

I don't understand how anyone could prefer Inquisition's gameplay over Origin's. Even on Hard, I could send one character with Guard to fight a group of enemies and just watch from the distance as the enemies very slowly died. There's neither the skill needed for twitch-based reactions or chaining combos, nor the strategy for squad-based positioning and precise ability usage.

STORY
The world is divided, there's a mysterious hole in the sky, and you're the only one to solve it. Good hook! The game spends a while pointing fingers and building intrigue for who caused this event. The story's at its strongest here, as you struggle against fractured conservative orders seeking to profit from this chaos. Then there's a shift.

-spoilers- After Corypheus attacks, you stumble into a convenient castle, become legitimized as a hero, and proceed to stop Corypheus from getting power three times before ganking him. What doesn't work is that Corypheus never feels like a potent threat. He makes connections off-screen with incredibly evil people, monologues about generic villainy, and is more often talked about as strong than shown. His lore has potential and your companions have some nice dialogue about it. That's all. -spoilers-

CONCLUSION
While Dragon Age 2 is fun to talk about for how it failed to live up to its potential, Inquisition is just baffling. This was supposed to be the return to form the series needed. Yet for all the potential that DA2 squandered, DAI neither redeems any of DA2's ideas nor offers anything novel itself.

Inquisition's biggest strengths are its characters and how its themes about religion and conservative values are explored by those characters. I liked playing someone who rejected their religious significance, but respected people's need to believe. Maybe this franchise has lost its potential, but I still hold on to the hope that it can change. I want to believe.

This is a game with potential. It has as many great ideas as it has poorly executed missteps. The biggest problem with the game is that its legacy seems to have scared Bioware away from implementing what worked and learning from this game.

So what works?
Keeping the stakes lower and centering the conflict on a single city helps to make the setting feel lived in and the characters become more relatable as people rather than world savers.
The framing device opens up such a wide myriad of possibilities for embellishments, dramatic irony, mysteries Varric won't disclose, and chapter breaks.
Companions have HOUSES. Imagine that, actual homes for your companions instead of just a plot of dirt they stand on or a terminal they boop every few seconds.
Having a story take place over ten years allows for conflicts to evolve and characters to grow familiar.
The Arishok.

As for what doesn't work? The third act is a choice between good and evil where good has to suddenly become evil to make things morally gray. The game is ugly. Not just graphically, but its art direction is consistently awful. Gameplay is boring, repetitive, and weirdly difficult in one boss fight. The side quests are generally pretty dull.

This is an easy game to talk about. It's such a blunder, but damn could it have been more. All it would take is a company willing to learn from its mistakes, embrace what worked in this and Origins, and push forward stronger and smarter.

What can I say about one of my favorite games of all time? It's honestly hard to express why I like this so much. For me, the pieces just fit. The tone, world, story, characters, pacing, and gameplay all work in perfect tandem.

Some parts drag and some characters are Oghren, but otherwise it all feels right. The later games lean more into fantasy and sillier tones, while shifting the gameplay away from tactics to action button-mashing. Yet even while it drags the other games down by comparison, it elevates them by association.

There won't ever be another game like this. That's a shame. But I'm so grateful this game exists.