Games

The God of War franchise’s success is largely based on the spectacle it provides. The first three main titles boasted huge environments that contained titans, monsters, and gods fighting epic battles while the protagonist, Kratos, was dismembering his enemies and shouting in fury. But they also tried to add to the combat system with each installment, either with new weapons …

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest is a much better game than its counterpart, Birthright. With a more engaging story and some unique, complex stages, the game manages to maintain the usual quality of Nintendo’s tactical RPG franchise. Fates’ protagonist is called Corrin. The character, despite having their own personality, functions as an avatar for the player, who can modify their name, …

It’s great when things make sense. And it’s even greater when they also come together nicely, harmoniously. Charles, the snob, likes to call this a matter of “coherence” and “cohesion”, but you can call it whatever you want if you still stop and take the time to see if all elements in a piece of art are working together or …

Assassin’s Creed Rogue is Black Flag with a new coat of paint. Offering the same systems and overall structure, it shares similar problems to its predecessor: it’s shallow, bloated, and repetitive. Its story follows suit, showing some promise at the beginning, but quickly falling into similar pitfalls, packed with one-dimensional characters that have little to say about anything. The story …

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess offers a much more complex and cinematic version of the formula adopted by the series after A Link to the Past. With a story marked by melancholy, and with more elaborate dungeons than its predecessor, the game impresses with its epic scope, although, for that, it gives up the element of mystery that surrounded …

God of War III is all about spectacle. During the visually impressive intro, Kratos is tearing his enemies apart on the back of a titan who, in turn, is climbing Mount Olympus and battling a gigantic aquatic creature controlled by Poseidon. The camera is constantly moving in and out of the action to display how the scope is now even …

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag builds on the foundations of its predecessor to set its story in the Caribbean and put the focus on pirates and naval warfare. Black Flag’s many mistakes are old ones in the franchise, with the game being dragged down by clunky stealth, weak combat, a repetitive mission structure, and an underdeveloped story. The main character …

Despite being the first R-rated Visual Novel from Nintendo, Emio: The Smiling Man offers a surprisingly touching story about grief and loss, focusing not on violence, but on the emotional pain, the guilt, and powerlessness those close to its victims feel. “It was a nice day. The kind of day where you want to take a deep breath and savor …

The Last Remnant is pure, crystalline perfection. Every facet of the game, every element, every design decision, they all work in unison to create the most excruciating experience possible. If you are looking for something that can annoy and infuriate you in equal measure, there’s no other option around that is so flawlessly, impeccably constructed to fulfill and even surpass …

Fire Emblem Fates is divided into two titles: Birthright and Conquest, with a DLC called Revelation. Birthright, however, serves as a terrible example to justify such division, making some problematic changes to the series’ classic gameplay structure while offering a narrative that is not only shallow but also ridiculously stretched – like butter scraped over too much bread – to …