Austin King
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Screen RantLatest Reviews
For March To October, I played through the season with the Seattle Mariners, the same as every year. Again, they're listed as a Contender, and I had the difficulty set to Dynamic as I typically do. If anything, Dynamic feels skewed a bit more on the challenging side this year (I went from Beginner to halfway to Minors in around a single game). I intentionally messed up to see how quickly the meter went down, and it definitely didn't drop that fast. I didn't mind, but it does feel like the game balance is designed to challenge you more this year.
Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake comes with plenty of great quality-of-life improvements like difficulty settings, auto-save features, and even hints that circle places on the world map to help navigate the more open-world portions of the game. However, it also includes new features that really add to the enjoyableness of this remake. Most notable are the new Monster Wrangler vocation and the Monster Arena, both of which require recruiting friendly monsters to progress through. New story beats featuring Ortega, the hero's warrior father, were another pre-launch selling point.
Screen Rant was given advance access to Visions of Mana ahead of its release, leaving plenty of time to explore the world, learn about its characters, and experiment heavily with its action-RPG combat. The story, which won't be spoiled here, should be enjoyable for longtime Mana fans, but it also works just fine for newcomers to the series. And this is all by design - in many ways, Visions of Mana is an attempt to get back to the series' roots and create a comeback for an IP that's had quite a few middling releases and missteps in recent memory.
Coming off two critically acclaimed expansions, Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail has some big shoes to fill. The fifth expansion for FFXIV (sixth, if counting the reboot that was A Realm Reborn), sees familiar faces in strange lands while setting up a new narrative arc after Endwalker resolved the Hydalean and Zodiark storyline. For anyone who's seen the trailer for Dawntrail, it's also noticeable what a 180 this expansion feels like - forgoing the darkness that permeated through the last two expansions for sunshine, beaches, alpacas, and tacos.
While there are plenty of things to do in Sand Land, the primary focus is on its vehicle combat. It's a bit like Twisted Metal, a bit like the buggies in Jak 3, and full of customization. Additional vehicles are unlocked over the course of the game, with Beelzebub creating quite a few. From there, parts and vehicles can be customized and upgraded with materials either bought from vendors or found in chests across the wasteland. Different obstacles and battles require strategizing with different vehicles, and toggling between primary and secondary weapons to avoid getting obliterated during reloading times will keep players on their toes.
The story of Granblue Fantasy: Relink may be on the shorter side, but it honestly feels like it's as long as it needs to be. It doesn't overstay its welcome, and the co-op and post-game content is likely where most people will spend their time anyway. Without too many spoilers, the primary (and single-player) narrative involves the crew of the Grandcypher as they attempt to rescue a fellow crewmember, take down some Primal Gods, and go up against the Church of Avia. It's a plot seen in countless other RPGs, including the Final Fantasy games that inspired it, but Granblue Fantasy: Relink really succeeds in presentation - yes, I've seen it all before, but the game looks amazing and plays well, so I don't mind how imitative it all feels.
Monsters can be fought in the wild, but there are also battle contests - one in the human world at the Endor Colosseum and the other at the Maulosseum in Nadiria, the world of monsters. These unlock periodically throughout the story and often must be completed to move the narrative forward, with each rank becoming more challenging. While these fights are a way to break up the story, they sometimes feel unnecessary. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince could've cut its colosseums completely, and the story and exploration would've still worked great. Of course, then it probably wouldn't have felt like a DQ Monsters game - but if this were simply running around in the wild as Psaro with a band of monsters, I would've still been sold.
There's also a problem with gameplay repetition, although anyone familiar with Theatrhythm or rhythm games likely already know what they're getting into. Theatrhythm titles have always been hard to put down, but perhaps because there's so much offered here, Theatrhtyhm Final Bar Line sometimes overstays its welcome. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is a lot of fun, but aside from adding more content, it still feels fairly interchangeable with other Theatrhythm games. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially for anyone who loves the series already or who may be checking it out for the first time, but people who played the first two games (or the Dragon Quest spin-off) may find it all too familiar.