Imagine a perfect party game—simple enough for anyone to pick up, yet balanced wisely to make everyone feel empowered. Chaotic to look at, but once in-hand it locks players into a trance of control. It’s the type of game that grows deeper and more intense every round as the stakes …
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To a certain kind of gamer, Diablo is sacrosanct. Arriving for PC in 1997, the first game in the series evoked all the most hellacious phantasmagoria ever dreamt up in a basement-bound Dungeons & Dragons campaign, neatly packaged in an endlessly replayable hack-and-slash RPG. A smash hit, its publisher, Blizzard …
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After 10 years in development, Dead Island 2 is finally here. The zombie-themed action role-playing game underwent four studio changeovers before being dragged across the finish line by Dambuster Studios. With a development cycle about as long as vaporware legend Duke Nukem Forever, a title with a similarly troubled and …
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Octopath Traveler II is a mesmerizing free fall into why traditional JRPGs are an irreplaceable art form. The sequel from Square Enix and Acquire hits every note that the 2018 original so carefully illustrated – the eight co-protagonists, the hyper-stylized turn-based battle systems, and “HD-2D” visuals that make Final Fantasy …
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Like a Dragon: Ishin! originally debuted in 2014, just before its parent series Yakuza got its big break outside of Japan with Yakuza 0. While entries after that game quickly came westward (and now launch the same day worldwide), Ishin remained out of reach for audiences outside Japan until now. …
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In 1997, Japanese developer Square released a juggernaut with Final Fantasy VII, a game generally considered one of the greatest ever made. Ten years later, they’d expand that world with a prequel, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, released for the PlayStation Portable. Relatively well-received at the time, that title would …
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How can we be better for our children? Can anyone ever truly change? Those are the questions at the core of God of War Ragnarök, the ninth(!!!) installment of the now iconic PlayStation series. By the events of 2018’s soft reboot God of War, Kratos, the titular god, has spent …
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After an excruciating four-year wait, Ragnarök is nearly upon us. Releasing for PlayStation 4 and 5 on Nov. 9, the latest entry of the God of War franchise sees the return of demigod Kratos and his son Atreus (a.k.a. the half-giant Loki). Following the events of 2018’s God of War …
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