amphibious_ReViews

Four years ago, Nintendo debuted a brand new IP as a part of their mobile game initiative. In less than a month from the writing of this review, that IP will be shelved alongside the likes of F-Zero and Kid Icarus . As someone who just picked up the game for the first time a couple months ago (just before in-app purchases were suspended), I'm disappointed that the franchise seems to be ending already, but I recognize that I didn't really do anything to encourage Nintendo to keep it alive. Nonetheless, I'm glad to have had a chance to play it, and I genuinely enjoyed it far more than I had expected to. As it turns out, playing a game in its end-of-life has its perks too. Dragalia Lost presents a very familiar gacha-RPG structure, but with fairly unique g for what it is. The summoning, team-building, upgrading, and just about everything else you do while you aren't playing through the stages, is ripped straight from the genre playbook. I actually had to double-check th

I was beyond excited for TCG Live when it was announced. Modernizing the official Pokémon Trading Card Game client, easing access to competitive cards, and finally bringing it to mobile checked all of my boxes! I wasn't able to join the beta immediately, but eventually caved and started playing via VPN. At the start, I really enjoyed it! It was no longer the same chore it was in TCGO to try and get the deck you want, and the battle pass provided a lot of incentive to keep playing. Unfortunately, the cracks started to show pretty quickly, and after only a few weeks, I couldn't convince myself to keep playing. I actually wanted to wait for the official release before I wrote my review, because I know there's a game I want to play in there somewhere. However, after waiting for almost a year, I couldn't keep it in anymore. The Pokémon TCG Live client is The Pokemon Company International 's attempt to translate the physical Pokémon Trading Card Game for online play

What do you do when one of your favorite mobile game developers releases a unique demo for their upcoming co-op-only game? You charge up one of your old phones and double-fist that sucker, obviously. At least, that's what I did. I love the Rusty Lak e series and the world it's slowly crafting l, but finding another person to play with (without committing to some stranger on Discord ) is a pretty big hurdle at this point in my life, so it was just easier for me to play both of the game roles on my own. Honestly, I might even recommend that for other introverts or lonely folks, since it makes The Past Within Lite feel just like the previous Cube Escape games, just with two screens. Keeping in line with the series motif that "the past is never dead, It's not even past," The Past Within Lite has players begin by choosing whether they will play in the past or the future. Players in a cooperating pair must choose a different time from one another, as puzzles in one t

It took me absolutely forever to beat Final Fantasy V. I came off of FFIV on a high, started this game right away, and absolutely tore through its opening. I was really enjoying the game, especially thanks to all of the humor and pop-culture references included by the localization team. However, by the time I started to reach the late-game content, something just wasn't clicking, and I put it down for almost two years. Revitalized by all the time I need to fill in the middle of the night with my hungry newborn daughter, I went and tackled the rest of the game. It took me a while to realize it, but after finally beating FFV , I concluded that it managed to combine an upgraded version of FFIII 's class system and a lighter version of FFIV 's story and structure to make a near-perfect sequel. I was just too grinding-averse at the time to finish it in one go. Following Final Fantasy IV 's direction, FFV begins the game by introducing you to the party members one by one,

I've never been very good at fighting games. On more than one occasion, I've tried playing the likes of Mortal Kombat and Injustice , but quickly get put off by the immense learning curve exacerbated by my general lack of talent. I like playing games to have fun, not to "get good," so it's not always easy for me to find my place in the fighting game genre. However, I've been known to try a little harder at learning something new if Pokémon are involved, and I finally experienced firsthand the value of fighting games thanks to the Pokémon -themed Tekken game, Pokkén Tournament .  While I haven't actually played a true Tekken game yet, my understanding is that Pokkén plays the same way, so those familiar with Tekken should feel comfortable jumping in here. For those unfamiliar, combat in Pokkén is one-on-one, with each round of a fight broken into two phases, beginning with the "field phase." The field phase gives the Pokémon access to the

Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected has a reputation for being short, skippable, and simply not as good as Torna: The Golden Country . While I agree that it can't quite stand up to  Xenoblade Chronicles 2 's special episode, which felt far more like a standalone game, I think Future Connected has way more to offer than people tend to give it credit for. It may not have the longest runtime or the deepest game systems, but it still felt like a complete and well-rounded adventure, and I was thoroughly satisfied with it. Future Connected acts as an epilogue to the original Xenoblade Chronicles , but focuses on bringing closure to Melia's study, which was easily the most tragic of the main cast. The focus on Melia led to some creative decisions that, frankly, I loved! The most obvious of which is the playable party of characters. Instead of reintroducing the whole cast of the original game and finding some way to explain what each of them has been doing between games, your

I remember my mind being blown when Pokémon Shuffle was announced. It didn't look like anything super special, especially since I already owned Battle Trozei , which seemed very similar. However, this was the first major free title that I had heard of from the franchise, and getting a Pokémon game for free was more than enough to get me hyped. Upon release, I played the 3DS version of Shuffle until I was sick of it. I had a lot of fun at first, but it eventually got to the point that it seemed nearly impossible to progress without caving to the microtransactions, so I moved on. Now, over half a decade later, I was ready to play it again, but I took advantage of the convenience of the mobile phone version this time. Pokémon Shuffle is a pretty vanilla match-3 puzzle game. There are Pokémon elements implemented that tie it especially well to the sixth-generation games, but nothing that particularly makes it stand out. The general structure of the game is built around defeating