Nichole Matthias

Make no mistake: you will lose fighters in this game, and the developers make sure you're aware of it from the very start. And knowing now that each fighter is one of a dying breed, every death - every death - carries an extra sting of defeat and desperation (not to mention the always-looming threat of ADVENT launching a surprise attack on your base - potentially ending the campaign in one fell swoop). But as players learn to use surprise, squad tactics, and smart, not hesitant aggression, the reasons for Firaxis' changes make perfect se Fans have been clamoring for Persona 5 to come on the Switch for the longest time. While Persona 5 Strikers might not be the exact game they were hoping for, it's still a brilliant title that combines the mechanics of Dynasty Warriors with Persona 5 's combat for some truly brilliant Reinforcements are a procedural system as well. So reinforcements will come in while you’re playing the game. That’s another layer to the player experience that changes and alters what you see and how you play it. So even if you would happen to see another portion of the map that you’ve seen before, the mission objective would be different, the time of day, enemy placement. Everything makes it a very different experience. From the single trailer shown, the game appears to be putting an emphasis on player choice, but the game's development is still quite underway, and Triangle Strategy is currently a working title. As the game is currently slated for a 2022 release, they're plenty of time to speculate on what the game can have in store for play As this list will show, cover art is similar to band names. The Beatles and Rolling Stones may not sound great on paper, but they're iconic because they're attached to iconic bands. The same can be said for box art, where the game's quality affects how the cover art is percei However, the combat of Octopath Traveler is the real standout, featuring simple-yet-deep mechanics that allow for some truly engaging battles. The boss fights of this game are major standouts, featuring some nail-biting battles that are bound to be quite entertaining for any JRPG Breath of the Wild 's artistic cover gives players a glimpse at the game's beauty, making them want to explore the world being shown and venture to the ominous castle that Link's body language clearly shows has his full attent Players want to avoid trading shots with enemies as much as possible. Any shot the enemy takes could be the one in a hundred that critically hits and downs a valuable soldier. When leveling up soldiers, picking options that increase lethality will often yield better results than defensive opti XCOM 2 's cover has a far more minimalist design than the other entries on this list. The game's cover is extremely sinister, with the alien's face being made up purely of human skulls, letting players know straight away that this isn't going to be a wholesome Bandicoot -like adventure. Moreover, the morbid aesthetics and fact that the alien is looking straight at the viewer could be seen as an implication of the game's punishing difficul Flashbang grenades will disorient enemies within a large radius. Being disoriented means a -20 penalty to Aim, -30 penalty to Will, reduced Mobility by 6, and restriction of the use of most specialized abilities. It will also cancel Overwatch, Mind Control, a Viper’s bind, and any other sustained abilities. These grenades can be extremely useful to reliably deal with dangerous effects while simultaneously debuffing multiple enem However, the cover art for The Last of Us has had the opposite effect in some ways. Because of how accustomed gamers are to The Last of Us ' post-apocalyptic world and the characters Joel and Ellie, it's easy to forget how striking please click the next site game's cover art is, with a young girl carrying a large rifle and a man with a gas mask seemingly unfazed by the car next to them with a dead body insWe saw the introduction of swords into combat. How does that affect the gameplay considering XCOM has always been a firefight heavy game when you have to be in cover all the time? What benefit is it to run out expose yourself? It's a testament to the longevity of The World Ends With You that it's still somehow managed to be a highly playable title since its inception on the DS, serving as a great — and rather lengthy — romp that players can definitely enjoy from start to For whatever reason, very few tactical JRPGs in recent memory have featured PVP multiplayer. Allowing players to face off against each other simply adds more variety to the game as a whole. Additionally, as the game is centered around the player's choices, opposing players may have access to different characters, weapons, and other resources based on the choices they made, making combat even more var While Xenoblade Chronicles 2 could've also been included on this list, nothing beats the quality of the original Xenogears — a convenient situation, since most people should ideally start off with this title its

What We Said: "At the end of the day, XCOM 2 is the poster boy of the modern turn-based strategy game. The game can feel unfair at times, but Firaxis has crafted a dynamic experience with virtually limitless replay value and a constant level of challenge. Fans of the series will find plenty of enjoyment watching the XCOM troops struggle to protect mankind once again, and Firaxis can pat themselves on the back for making one of the most addictive and rewarding strategy games of all ti Creating badass alien destroyers is a major part of the fun of the X-COM series. The customization option present in the vanilla version of the game is nice, but it lacks a lot of depth — even with the free DLC they released a while ago — leading to a lot of similar-looking grunts. User Stenchfury, though, really kicks the customization up a notch with his modular helmets and arm There is some town exploration in the demo. However, it is truncated. Most of the time it seems players will click on a map icon in order to in initiate a battle, or a cutscene. In-between some battles or story beats intel can be gathered but these exploration moments are very brief. This lack of full exploration is common for tactical RPGs so it understandable why the full slg game reviews would not add this feat Why You Should Play It: Tom Clancy’s The Division has experienced some soaring highs and crushing lows since its launch, but either way it’s hard to discredit the hype surrounding the game. Exploring evacuated New York City and collecting loot was an instant appeal to the game, and the promise of a deep endgame experience kept us grinding away. If nothing else, the introduction of The Division ’s Dark Zone should stand out as a unique approach to PvP and one that we hope more games "borrow." Yes, the game has struggled to keep its players happy, but great strides have been made to improve the core experience. And now there is a lot of content for newcomers to expl The game purposefully left the fate of Doctor Vahlen, the chief scientist from Enemy Unknown , a mystery throughout the game. While she was mentioned briefly, it looks like XCOM have been unable to establish communication with her. In the prequel novel for XCOM 2 , it was revealed that Vahlen escaped a brutal ADVENT attack on a research outpost by taking a boat to the sea. We have little doubt that Firaxis left her fate open for a reason, and we suspect she has been one of the first to work out that a new threat is due to emerge from the dep Why You Should Play It: Movie tie-in games are notorious for feeling like shameless cash grabs, but Ratchet and Clank bucks the trend by sticking to what the franchise has always done well. Better looking, more refined, and as entertaining as ever, this rebooted Ratchet and Clank origin story is pure platforming goodness. Don’t let the look fool you, Ratchet and Clank packs a lot more action and excitement than many of the other 2016 releases out th A rather simple UI change, all this mod does is add an "evac all" option on the normal taskbar at the bottom of the screen when in the evac zone. Maybe not a game-changer exactly, but this is the kind of quality of life update that all large games could use. Truly, anything that reduces what would be 12 clicks with a full squad down to one is fantastic. It almost makes folks feel bad for XCOM 2 players on PS5 and their insane load times . No speed adjustments for them, the poor so In the meantime, Firaxis is supporting XCOM 2 with what ultimately amounts to a Season Pass. Players have the option to purchase the Reinforcement Pack DLC, which will release three bonus collections of content between Spring and Summer later this year. In the meantime, modders are actively supporting the title with puppy-based weapon The final nail in the coffin for story upgrades that this game needs is a better balancing act. One would think Square Enix would be more interested in showing off its gameplay rather than its text for a demo. It seems someone was thinking the opposite because the few battles in here are about an hour apart each. Hopefully the final game won’t burden players so much with too much story all at o The story in this game is dense. There are a lot of characters and terms used that can be hard to follow. This is just the demo too so who knows how complicated the main game will get. It would be nice if these conversations had text logs. To bring up Persona 5 Strikers again, that game lets players hit a button in order to scroll back through what characters just said accompanied by voice work if it was already th They can do some decent melee damage, but the Ranger and Templar do significantly more. They're like a jack of all trades but master of none in a game where the classes are all specialists in a different fi Why You Should Play It: Souls purists have a lot to say about Dark Souls 3, but few can deny it is not a satisfying experience. The way the game ties back into the lore, the improvements to the combat and the deeper customization, and the visual style all add up to a mix of fantasy and horror that few games have ever delivered before. Admittedly, Dark Souls 3 is only going to appeal to a certain subset of gamers, but thanks to Bloodborne that cohort has grown considerably. Everyone is going to die a lot, but Dark Souls 3 sends the series off with a b