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BYOGBGGG. The extra G is for games. The second one is a typo.
Bowser's Fury is good enough to be released standalone, but makes up a significant part of this excellent package.
With the announcement of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, I was convinced that Nintendo had begun a new Zelda canon centered around The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nintendo had, at last, glanced over the lengthy and confusing Zelda timeline, and have decided to pick and choose the most worthwhile aspects of that universe and create an original timeline with all the features you adore, in a brand new setting. Creating a revolving canon around Breath of the Wild is a solid choice. Well, after a swift 25 hours of playing Age of Calamity, I'm no longer convinced this is an essential place to find canon Zelda lore, but it is so easy to get lost in playing Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity that it's still an excellent game for all Zelda fans.
Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm is not afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve. It knows it is heavily inspired by classic The Legend of Zelda games, and it wants you to know that too. It follows a young boy who leaves his home village and ends up traveling across the world to collect three themed emblems to quash an evil threat. This game is the epitome of games inspired by The Legend of Zelda - then the only question that remains is if it holds up to the series it takes so much inspiration from.
In any good strategy game, there's an enormous sense of risk. Victory is never assured, no matter how dense your army may be, and watching the units you have carefully cultivated over hours of play die by the hands of an overwhelming enemy is heartbreaking. Add to that a good amount of terror from being on the frontlines yourself, and that's essentially what Pikmin is. Carefully producing a capable force, only to have it all fall when the fight kicks off. Watching Pikmin cry as their ghosts leave their bodies from being crushed or eaten by a giant foe is frightening and sad, but it's only a blip on the radar compared to seeing those monstrous beasties fall from the might of your tactics.
I enjoyed Mario Kart Tour more than this. That's a pretty brutal way to start off a review considering the reception Mario Kart Tour received from a majority of the gaming community, but it's also genuinely how I feel. As a game, purely as a video game, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is the least fun I've had playing a Mario Kart game. But to judge this by the software alone is doing the product, and you readers, a grave disservice. This isn't just a traditional Mario Kart game, this is a fascinating and complex remote-controlled car for kids, and this Christmas, this is definitely going to put smiles on faces.
Diablo III is one of the most beloved multiplayer games of all time. You'll be questing through a huge variety of stages and levels, fighting against demonic offspring and smashing through their dungeons with your friends, whether you're sat on the sofa next to one another, or online. Diablo III even manages to deliver this high standard on Nintendo Switch, with four players on a single system running at 60FPS. But this isn't Diablo III. This is Torchlight III, a Diablo-like, with almost none of the redeeming qualities. Maybe it is acceptable to launch this game on PC and not have any semblance of local multiplayer, but when you're launching on PS4, all you're doing is marking yourself as the lesser version of a game which already exists. Before it had even begun, Torchlight III marked itself for death.
I feel that I can't be too harsh on Kirby. Kirby was created for simplicity in almost every regard. He is small and round, making him simple to draw. He has a cute, friendly expression on his face at all times. Even his first game was designed from the ground up to be approachable for younger and less experienced players, thus the decision to give Kirby a near-infinite jump, allowing him to sail right over difficult platform challenges and enemies. As a result, I have a lot of patience for the tiny warrior, as I know what he was created for, and what he continues to represent in gaming. But that doesn't mean I'll grin while sitting through a fairly tedious game.
It's easy to forget that, once upon a time in a just and equal United States of America, Italians were not considered white. The same goes for the Irish, of course, and essentially anyone who had not already been assimilated into the culture. When put into this context, it's easy to see how the Italian mafia first came to be - when confronted with all doors of opportunity firmly closed in your face, the next logical step seems to be a life of crime. That's exactly where Tommy Angelo finds himself in Mafia: Definitive Edition. A man just trying to earn a decent living, struggling to be anything more than a taxi driver, insulted and berated by almost everyone that sits in his cab. Until one day men with a similar accent step into his life, and his prospects change.
Patience is a virtue. It's a virtue many of us lack in the modern era, where a day's rest can mean more lost work than you'd like to budget for. But despite that, sometimes it's better to just sit back, relax, and take things slow. We need to unwind, think to ourselves for a while, take our time, and enjoy life at a leisurely pace. It's essential. So when I play a slow-paced game, I think to myself, this is fine. I can afford to take things slow for a little while. But Necromunda: Underhive Wars genuinely puts me to sleep with a dark presentation and pacing which is so sluggish that it would drain the life from anyone.






