Review: Destiny 2 (PC)

Bungie did turn a corner with the laying out of the plan moving forward for Destiny 2, which was a nice gesture, but showing us the content road ahead isn’t what earns trust back ; it’s the work put into Destiny 2. Guardians have been putting in the work of playing the game. Many couldn’t keep up with the grind, but those that stayed see that brighter tomorrow that every NPC is always gabbing about to whichever Guardian will listen.

The most significant aspect of Destiny 2’s campaign is that it has an actual campaign. After Destiny and Rise of Iron’s cookie-cutter missions, it’s nice to have something with more variety and substance than "bad guy over there, go kill it." That’s not saying Destiny 2’s campaign is anything deep. Characters jump in and out of the campaign quickly as the story moves you from world-to-world. While the quick pacing keeps things moving, it never slows down enough to create any connections between the player and the world. Worst yet is the player’s Guardian who, in Destiny 2, is relegated to a silent protagonist. Ghost ends up speaking the entire time for the player and comes off as annoying. The current set up with the Ghost quickly becomes grating, and even more annoying when other characters point out your silence. This was purposefully done so that players can become invested in their Guardian, but in execution comes off as cartoonish.

There’s no real choices and trade-offs to be made anymore. The same goes for the rest of the game. The in-depth and often rewarding dialogue trees are gone, replaced with options that boil down to whether or not the player character is going to be either nice or sarcastic nice. There are no karma checks, no skill checks, no special checks, nor even long and interesting conversations to be had. Dialogue might as well just be there because previous Fallout games had it. The list could go on, but is perhaps better saved for another time. As it stands,Fallout 4 has gained massive mainstream success. It just had to become a different game in order to get it; a game that’s much more a shooter with RPG elements than it is an RPG with shooter elements. It became a game one that fans of the old Fallout games have grown to hate and possibly a series that RPG fans in may no longer care about in the future. Taken on it’s own It’s a decent game, but one that has nonetheless been compromised for the sake of short-term sales. The same is true of Dead Space 3.

There was no way a Persona game would slip past my radar. Shin Megami Tensei IV was easily my number one game last year, so it only seems fitting that another in the beloved franchise, while a spin-off, was among my top 10 in 2014. Persona Q is a fan’s dream, meshing both Persona 3 and Persona 4 into a traditional dungeon crawler format similar to that of Etrian Odyssey. While it’s not your traditional Persona format with fusing various monsters and dealing with social interactions outside of dungeons, it maintains all of the glamour and appeal. It definitely has its own set of issues, but there’s just too much to love about mashing the characters from the two games and building an intriguing storyline around them.

I’ll admit it, I was worried for Sunset Overdrive. We barely got to see anything at E3, and what they were demoing was a tower defense-esque multiplayer mode. It seemed to have all the charm that Insomniac Games is known for, but you could never be certain with the amount of hype Microsoft was putting behind it. Thankfully, the Burbank-studio delivered as Sunset Overdrive is an enthralling, over the top shooter that messes Jet Set Radio with Crackdown into one neat package. With fourth wall breaking dialogue, one of the most colorful open worlds to be found, and a creative arsenal at your disposal, Sunset Overdrive is Xbox One’s prized jewel.

Whether you’re a grown adult or a child, who doesn’t love Pokémon? The release of the Gameboy Advance began arguably the best era for handheld games, and leading the march was Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. These twelve year old games brought us the third generation of Pokémon we love today, so it seemed only fit for Nintendo to remake the duo. With their new 3D engine, Nostalgia hits hard for those who grew up in the late 90s and early 00s, as Game Freak was able to recreate everything you’ve come to love, while at the same time adding on top of it. While it would still be great to see new Pokémon adventures, this is one of the few cases a remake was warranted. Now all we need a second remake of Red and Blue.

While there no new classes, each of the three returning classes get a new subclass. Hunters get Arcstrider, Titans get Sentinel and Warlocks get Dawnblade. Each of the new subclasses is a joy to use and players can unlock their other Destiny 2 Story Guide 1 subclasses (Gunslinger, Striker and Voidwalker) and The Taken King subclasses (Nightstalker, Sunbreaker and Stormcaller) if the new ones aren’t their cup of tea. Each returning class has been tweaked to make them more viable in Destiny 2, and both new and old are fun to play.