My top ten favorite games of the year, presented in ascending order each day leading into the holidays. Look for my full Top Ten list with categories and awards on December 24!

#10 Pokémon GO

#9 Skylanders Imaginators

I’ve been playing Skylanders games since the 3rd one back in 2013. I’ve really enjoyed the series’ simple 3rd person action gameplay and huge variety of powers and play styles with dozens of figures.

Previously I would grab the Skylanders games on sale months after release and clean up on deals and BOGO offers. But with Skylanders Imaginators, the sixth in the series, I was ready to jump in at launch. Now it’s the first Skylanders game to make my Game of the Year list.

More than anything else, this was the game my daughter was finally old enough to really enjoy. Any game that can have us play together, and be a legitimately fun game to play, garners high praise from me.

Each Skylanders game features a major gimmick that colors the plot, figures, and gameplay. Skylanders Imaginators has the best gimmick since Swap Force, letting you fully create your own custom Skylander. Of course you have to purchase the Creation Crystals and then permanently choose a weapon class before you can even try it out. But the entire game turns into a loot-based action-RPG as you acquire new body parts, weapons, and gear for your custom creations, and it all works amazingly well.

The new figures are also the best I’ve ever seen. The Senseis and former villains are all well-designed and a ton of fun to play, from a tornado-spewing falconer to the majestic Golden Queen herself. For the first time in the series I never felt the urge to break out my old figures (and I own well over 50).

Standard gameplay is pretty much the same, but it’s been carefully refined and perfected over the years. There’s just the right amount of simple block puzzles, arena fights, and mini-games in each level. My favorite new element was an overland map that bridges each level together – and adds its own secret paths and bonus levels. It’s a ton of fun to traverse.

But as I said, the real winner was being able to play cooperatively with my four year old daughter. There’s not a whole lot of games that both of us can enjoy together and succeed equally. She loved making her own characters and completely kicking ass with them. A few of the levels required an annoying amount of tricky jumps that frustrated her, but for the most part we had a blast. We still play in the post-game, running through levels and trying new figures and challenges.

As a veteran of the series who’s been mildly disappointed in the last two offerings, I was very pleased with Skylanders Imaginators. I’m not sure if the series can continue along this trajectory given how much the Imaginator concept changed the gameplay for the better, but for now Skylanders Imaginators is easily the best of the series.

Read my review of Skylanders Imaginators at Pixelkin

Read the full article on Pixelkin

What makes a successful brand or franchise aimed at kids? Often the first piece of media that entices children or young teens is a movie, television show, or toy line. From there companies can expand with multiple forms of media and merchandising – including video games.

Video games have reached an odd era when it comes to kid-friendly brands. In the 90s and early 2000s, a major video game tie-in was pretty much guaranteed, and many of these games were extremely well-produced and successful. But gradually the games declined in quality and were rushed out the door as games became much more advanced. Many major toy and kid-focused companies all but abandoned gaming – until mobile.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON PIXELKIN

 My top ten favorite games of the year, presented in ascending order each day leading into the holidays. Look for my full Top Ten list with categories and awards on December 24!

#10 Pokémon GO
#9 Skylanders Imaginators

#8 Stellaris

We officially crack into my Top Five Games of the Mid-Year with Stellaris. Though it ultimately fell a few places in my final ranking, that’s more a testament to the incredible line-up from the second half of the year than any failing on how much I enjoyed this grand strategy space game.

Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy titles were always a cut above what I could enjoy, steeped in deep complexity and complicated interfaces. Stellaris rises above all that with an awesome sci-fi theme to create a surprisingly accessible grand strategy title.

The main difference in a grand strategy game as opposed to a traditional 4X (like Civ) is that you’re truly running an entire galactic empire, including governance and ethics.

Gameplay is in real time with a pause feature so you can sort through all the events, trade, war, and exploration. Often there’s so much going on I’m practically playing it like a turn-based game, pausing constantly just to keep up but in a fun “One More Turn” kind of way.

The user interface is a huge winner. Being able to bookmark fleets, science vessels, and entire planets is intuitive and necessary to run a burgeoning empire. And I loved zooming in on individual planets and zooming out to see the entire galaxy, divided up into various empires.

Stellaris also features some brilliantly fun quest and story-missions within each game, adding some much needed personality into a usually story-light genre. These events, combined with the fun emergent stories of uplifting aliens, enslaving populations, and inner faction rebellions really make Stellaris a memorable experience.

Stellaris wins my award for game I most need to return to, and Paradox does a great job updating and supporting their titles. I’ve dabbled in other space strategy games like Galactic Civilizations and Endless Space to varying degrees of success, but none were able to really suck me in like Stellaris.

READ MY REVIEW OF STELLARIS AT CG MAGAZINE

 My top ten favorite games of the year, presented in ascending order each day leading into the holidays. Look for my full Top Ten list with categories and awards on December 24!

#10 Pokémon GO
#9 Skylanders Imaginators
#8 Stellaris

#7 Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Occasionally I’ll have some last minute additions to my game of the year list, but none more last minute than this one. Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun just released last week, and I’ve already completely fallen in love with this unique real-time tactical stealth game.

Shadow Tactics drops you into an incredibly cool, and violently dramatic time period: 17th century Japan, the height of the age of samurai. Instead of randomized soldiers you play as five distinct heroes, each with personalities and unique abilities. Mugen the honorable samurai can defeat multiple foes and has the largest health pool, but only the ninjas Hayato and Yuki can use hookshots to scramble onto rooftops.

While many tactical games give you modern or futuristic weapons or straight-up magical powers, Shadow Tactics forces you to rely mostly on your tactical planning, and a select few skills. For example, one of your ninja’s skills is to literally throw a rock to distract guards.

The early missions give you only a few characters at a time, and part of the challenge is utilizing everyone’s skills to overcome the obstacles. It reminded me a lot of the old Lost Vikings games, and I loved carefully planning out my moves.

You can see the all of the large, well-designed and varied maps from the beginning. Tracking enemy view-cones and noting hiding places is paramount to success. Levels range from snowy villages to mountain temples to rain-slick rice fields. Environmental hazards are both a threat and an additional layer of tactical consideration. Each level is carefully constructed to give you multiple paths and choices.

But you’ll fail, and fail often. The game even warns you if you haven’t quicksaved recently. That’s right – you’re actually meant to save scum your way through each mission. But it’s balanced well enough that the trial and error and repeated failure spurns you toward experimentation and motivation rather than frustration.

The tactical stealth gameplay is pitch-perfect, and to actually weave a compelling historical drama on top of that is incredibly satisfying. Don’t sleep on Shadow Tactics just because it sneaked up on you in December. If you’re at all a fan of tactical strategy, it’s one of the best games you’ll play this year.

 My top ten favorite games of the year, presented in ascending order each day leading into the holidays. Look for my full Top Ten list with categories and awards on December 24!

#10 Pokémon GO
#9 Skylanders Imaginators
#8 Stellaris
#7 Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

#6 Fire Emblem Fates

I was very much looking forward to the sequel to 2013’s Fire Emblem Awakening. I’ve been a fan of the series since it first came to the US in the early 2000s. They’re the closest thing to my beloved Shining Force games. Fire Emblem Fates managed to both exceed my expectations and deliver some unfortunate disappointment.

Fire Emblem Fates delivers the same brutal challenge and tactical combat the series is known for. The combat was improved in every way, shaking up the traditional formula just enough to add in some great new features. 

Gone is weapon durability, except on healing weapons. Now you can forge new weapons to make them stronger, and explore a new custom-built castle to shop and talk with allies between missions. Adjacent allies now fight with you in every battle, creating complex new decisions and calculations. You can also choose to pair them up defensively, giving you a single more powerful unit.

Classes and leveling are similar, but again improvements were made to balance the classes and weapons a bit better, including a new weapon triangle for ranged attacks. Everything is a bit more complex, but it also works way better. As a fan of tactical combat and Fire Emblem, it was the best.

Unfortunately the story is complete crap.

It’s weird to spend a portion of my game of the year blurb to complain, but here we go. Fire Emblem Fates does a dumb thing in creating two separate games with separate stories and missions (and even dumber with a third story option as DLC). They represent a major choice you make early in the game – except it’s not a damn choice at all if it depends on which game you bought.

It’s also just not a very interesting story. It’s yet another fantasy war but gone are any real twists and turns. It’s extremely straight-forward good versus evil, and I found many of the characters completely forgettable.

It also includes the romantic pairings and offspring of Awakening, which doesn’t make any sense in the context of this story. It feels like the developers just wanted to include it because people loved it in Awakening.

Fire Emblem Fates took me a solid six months to actually finish. I had to bump the difficulty down to Normal and grind through one of the DLC maps just to get experience (apparently Conquest is the hard version because there’s no ability to grind). But I still sunk over fifty hours into it.

Despite my harsh complaints I obviously loved the combat improvements enough to still rank it on my game of the year list. Even a mediocre Fire Emblem game is still one of my favorite games of the year. All the combat improvements were a big step in the right direction; I just hope the next game can improve on the story side as well.

 My top ten favorite games of the year, presented in ascending order each day leading into the holidays. Look for my full Top Ten list with categories and awards on December 24!

#10 Pokémon GO
#9 Skylanders Imaginators
#8 Stellaris
#7 Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
#6 Fire Emblem Fates

#5 Overwatch

I don’t really consider myself a big fan of any specific franchises or game developers. But if I had to pick a game developer to receive my feverish devotion, it would be Blizzard Entertainment.

I’ve been loving Blizzard’s games since before they were Blizzard, with 16-bit titles like The Lost Vikings and Rock ‘N Roll Racing. I fell in love with real-time strategy games in the 90s with Warcraft and Starcraft and Action-RPGs with Diablo and the rest is history.

So it means a lot when I say that we are at peak Blizzard awesomeness right now. A Blizzard game (or expansion) has appeared on my annual Game of the Year list for three of the last four years (and twice last year). Now with Overwatch, make that four out of five.

Overwatch is easily the most popular game on my list. The “hero shooter” blending of MOBA and FPS exploded this year. But leave it to Blizzard to once again take a genre and perfect it into an easily accessible, yet highly competitive format.

Overwatch uses a vibrant, intriguing world and equally amazing character designs. All of them could be housed within your favorite graphic novel or animated series. The fandom for this game is just incredible, as Blizzard gives some awesome character designs while only teasing the larger world around them with well-produced animated videos.

The team-based gameplay is all about countering enemy heroes and synchronizing various combinations. The fact that you can switch heroes any time during a match adds an amazing amount of flexibility and strategy. No matter what your FPS play style preference is, you’ll find at least a handful of heroes you enjoy playing, from Lucio the healing DJ to Roadhog the tanky grappler. It’s a brilliant design that’s brought a lot of players together, and Blizzard’s done a solid job with post-launch character and map additions and updates.

Unfortunately the one element where they dropped the ball are the loot boxes. I get that pretty much every modern game design needs to have a sense of progression; a way to level up or acquire new goodies. Overwatch rewards loot boxes after each new level, but the loot is mostly really lame.

Fancy new skins are nice, but exceedingly rare. Usually you’re getting voice lines, taunts, and sprays that you’ll forget about almost immediately. I stopped caring about opening loot boxes a while ago, and the increased experience requirements for later levels slows it way down.

Compare Overwatch’s system to Heroes of the Storm, another Blizzard multiplayer offering that my friends and I actually went back to after Overwatch. That’s right. In the end while we enjoyed Overwatch for a few months, it didn’t have near the staying power of my #2 Game of the Year of 2015.

In Heroes of the Storm you earn levels for each individual character, which awards skin and mount variations and gold rewards. Gold is also earned after each match, and you use gold to purchase new heroes and some skins. It’s a vastly more rewarding system.

While I like that I have all the Overwatch heroes available from the start (you are paying full price after all), it leaves you with nothing fun to unlock other than the awesome skins – and good look ever getting more than a handful.

Complaints about loot system aside, Overwatch is still an incredible game. It takes all the best team-based shooting elements of Team Fortress 2 and multiple unique heroes of MOBAs into a complete and amazing package. I definitely plan on playing it off and on continuously for the foreseeable future.

Recorded and uploaded every week. Subscribe for our weekly adventures!

Previously on “Princes of the Apocalypse”

RPG groups can range from die-hard role-players with nary a dice roll to hardcore combat aficionados where story is merely an excuse to fight monsters. My group definitely veers closer to the latter camp. They enjoy a good story and fun character-focused moments, but in the end it’s all about the battles. So it was very unusual this week that we barely had any combat at all.

This week the PCs traveled around and completed three side quests before finally delving back into the elemental dungeons. Two of the quests had technically already been completed – the shrine last week and the renegade paladins from a few weeks ago. But the third required a trip to Summit Hall, which I set up as a role-playing scenario.

I let the role-playing spill over into their overland travel as well. The PCs have been utilizing their Bead of Windwalking to travel around, but I don’t want them to just Long Rest everywhere and abuse it.

They were setting up a rather funny scenario in crossing the Dessarin River. It involved Kethra casting Alter Self to gain aquatic swimming, and the others lashing a crudely-built raft while she pulled them.

I didn’t really have any rules for this so I winged it with a few rolls and enjoyed the moment. I definitely want to reward outside-the-box thinking in non-combat situations, so they crossed successfully.

On the East bank I showed them the remains of the delegation ambush, and revealed that it was one possible path to the opening salvo of the entire adventure, had they chosen to go this way. Originally I had some ideas for events at this spot, but decided to keep them for possible future adventures. For now it was just a grim reminder of the cult’s power.

Along the road South the PCs met with some of the Knights of Samular, and Kalinaar flexed his reputation as a former member. They escorted the party all the way to Lady Ushien Stormbanner, where they reported on their success with the cults.

Ushien was thankful but implacable. The knights had plenty to deal with. Enemy forces were not sitting idly by while the elemental cults grew in power and threatened the land.

Mostly it was a fun excuse for her and Kalinaar to argue. It grew even more enjoyable when Kalinaar awkwardly tried to convince them to hand over the body of Samular Caradoon – their most revered patron and post-humus founder of their order – so that he can fulfill the wishes of Samular’s brother who’s now a lich.

The reactions and dialogue were hilarious and fun. It was a nice moment, though not everyone in my group enjoys a heavy amount of role-playing. To lighten up the mood (and give them an out since the conversation was ultimately going nowhere), Kethra was able to sneak out and find the body below the main hall. With a few sneaky rolls and Talus’ Bag of Holding she was able to do a little grave-robbing while the knights were none the wiser.

Their conversation at a stalemate, Kalinaar finally did the equivalent of Cartman’s “Screw you guys, I’m going home,” only with a bit more growling. When they left, Kethra told them to pick up the pace as she was able to acquire the remains of the holy warrior. They returned to the Sacred Stone Monastery and the lich having told the Knights about said lich and of their desire for Samular’s bones, which could lead to some interesting ramifications.

Renwick the lich was pleased with their success. It marked a big personal milestone for Kalinaar, who once again pledged his service. It’s a fun bit of character-building, and it’s natural that much of my original role-playing content is focused on the group’s best role-player. Everyone earned an extra point of inspiration for doing a bad thing for the right reasons. I think.

We did get a bit of combat in towards the end. With every other loose end dealt with the party finally returned to the labyrinthine, inter-connected elemental dungeons. There was a staircase leading downward within the monastery, so my players started there.

They ended up in the first room (B1) of the Temple of the Black Earth. I warned/reminded them that they’ve learned the prophets have most likely retreated deeper to their respective elemental nodes, and that all the dungeons are connected to each other.

A trio of gargoyles guards a stone bridge in the middle of a giant chasm and Talus couldn’t help but launch Hypnotic Pattern, hoping to repeat the falling damage death of the manticore many months ago. It worked on one of them, shattering it as it fell to the jagged rocks below. The rest were beaten into submission, including Miri using her monk wall-walking powers to gain flanking bonuses.

I can breathe a little easier now that the party is firmly within another dungeon. Planning is a lot smoother when I can look ahead to single rooms, rather than entire scenarios and events. The way the campaign is designed we tend to bulk the side quests together and tackle them over the course of several weeks. It’s fun, but a hell of a lot more work on my end!

Now it’s a not-so-straight shot to the endgame. But there’s still plenty of danger waiting to be found.

Recorded and uploaded every week. Subscribe for our weekly adventures!

 My top ten favorite games of the year, presented in ascending order each day leading into the holidays. Look for my full Top Ten list with categories and awards on December 24!

#10 Pokémon GO
#9 Skylanders Imaginators
#8 Stellaris
#7 Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
#6 Fire Emblem Fates
#5 Overwatch

#4 Pokémon Sun and Moon

I would categorize my Pokémon interest levels over the last twenty years as “off and on.” My current “on” phase has now been going strong for years, however.

I was incredibly excited for Pokémon X and Y back in 2013, and played through all of Pokémon Black and White just months before its release. X and Y definitely made my Game of the Year list that year, and I’m here to tell you that Sun and Moon may just be the best Pokémon game I’ve played yet.

While each main Pokémon title takes place in a new region, none are more fully realized and more captivating than Sun and Moon‘s Alola Islands. Level designs are far less linear and more interesting as you explore each of the four main islands.

Gone are the standard town-to-town journeys and progressive Gym battles. Now you fight Island Captains and Totem Pokémon, all of whom are well-integrated into the story. For the first time the region feels like a real place within this charming universe, and you’ll find people living, working, and playing alongside their Pokémon.

Tons of fun new systems have been added. Take pictures of Pokémon in a limited mini-game version of Pokémon Snap called Poké Finder. Heal your Pokémon’s status ailments with the new and improved Pokémon Refresh. Gain ridable Pokémon that open up new areas of the world – and free you of having to dump all those HMs like Surf and Fly into your team.

The tried and true combat systems have also been given some much-needed improvements. Like being able to quickly see exactly how stats and abilities have been altered during a fight, and which moves are effective against an opponent.

I found the new Z-Moves not quite as impressive as X and Y‘s Mega Evolutions. They’re tied to specific types (or a few select Pokémon) but you can only use one per battle, and they take up the precious Held Item spot. Still they make for a good sense of progress as you collect them and defeat increasingly stronger teams and totem Pokémon.

Now in its seventh generation, Pokémon Sun and Moon represents a first real shake-up of the traditional formula – and it’s all for the best. They keep everything that makes the series so endearing while improving on everything else. If you’ve been sleeping on the series or waiting for a chance to jump back in, Pokémon Sun and Moon is definitely the way to go.

Read my review of Pokémon Sun/Moon at Pixelkin

 My top ten favorite games of the year, presented in ascending order each day leading into the holidays. Look for my full Top Ten list with categories and awards on December 24!

#10 Pokémon GO
#9 Skylanders Imaginators
#8 Stellaris
#7 Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
#6 Fire Emblem Fates
#5 Overwatch
#4 Pokémon Sun and Moon

#3 XCOM 2

Despite being big into tactical strategy games I missed the original X-Com series back in the day. I was a kid/young teen and they always seemed so daunting. Fast-forward to decades of gaming and 2012’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown reboot made me fall in love with the series and its unique emergent gameplay.

XCOM 2 is better in every way, and a great example of a direct sequel done right.

Know that I played a lot of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its expansion, Enemy Within. Well over 150 hours across many playthroughs and difficulties over the last few years. XCOM 2 takes everything I loved and ratchets them up into an amazing experience.

Reworked classes with two distinct skill trees each that you can mix and match. More soldier customization – including proper international voices. New enemy types that force you to completely change your tactics. Maps with actual objectives instead of “kill ’em all.” Timed missions that compel you to make difficult decisions. It’s all designed to challenge even the most ardent XCOM veterans. I admit on my first playthrough I had to dial the difficulty back down to Normal, and eat a hefty portion of Humble Pie. And I loved it.

XCOM 2 also takes a bold step with the story. I found it humorously cynical though also entirely appropriate that the story claims we lost the fight in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Resistance fighters were forced to go underground as we welcomed our new alien overlords.

XCOM 2 begins as your last line of defense reveals itself, gathers allies and resources, and begins taking back the planet one guerrilla operation at a time. You also have to investigate the aliens’ grand scheme. I love that they included the commander/player as an actual central character in the game.

Not only does this bleak now setting create fun battle maps where you can disrupt the aliens’ infrastructure, but it rewrites the mission selector into a global overland map. Now you have to choose where to divert your precious time: purchase supplies and soldiers, discover new intel, or expand your zone of influence. It’s way more engaging than simply clicking a button and waiting for the next mission or disaster to appear.

I still only have my first playthrough under my belt this year. But I did spend extra time getting achievements and playing with late game goodies, so I still sunk over 60 hours in my battle to take back Earth. I plan on spending a lot more time and playthroughs in XCOM 2 over the coming years.

Read my review of XCOM 2 at Pixelkin

 My top ten favorite games of the year, presented in ascending order each day leading into the holidays. Look for my full Top Ten list with categories and awards on December 24!

#10 Pokémon GO
#9 Skylanders Imaginators
#8 Stellaris
#7 Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
#6 Fire Emblem Fates
#5 Overwatch
#4 Pokémon Sun and Moon
#3 XCOM 2

#2 Sid Meier’s Civilization VI

More than any other game on my list, Civilization VI benefits from “game I most recently played” syndrome. I’m still knee deep into Civ VI, cresting 60 hours and just finished my fifth game. Had XCOM 2 released now and Civ back in February, the two might be in reverse order.

Out of the gate Civilization VI is the most complete Civ packaged I’ve ever played, building upon the successful elements of previous games while tweaking and adding its own. After the slight misstep of Beyond Earth, Civilization VI is a return to strategy greatness.

Civilization VI brings back the major features that had been carefully hammered and honed over the last several years of Civ V and its expansions: city-states, religion, trade routes, civics, spying, and more.

Everything is far more engaging and interesting. Trade routes are much more powerful, boosting a city’s output far beyond what they can work from the land. City-States now require you to earn and spend envoys. Each one offers resources and special abilities, forcing you to make careful decisions. Civics have evolved into new government policies, letting you assign cards into slots that are earned through culture.

The one-unit-per-tile shake-up that Civ V gave us is still there, but modified slightly to let you link support units with active ones, like medics and settlers. Firaxis then went one step further in giving us Civ VI‘s major new feature: unstacking cities.

City building and planning have become just as complex and interesting as everything else. New districts can take advantage of certain adjacencies, and most wonders require specific placement to construct. It’s a great system that makes building and evolving a city far more rewarding than just clicking on a menu.

It’s also far more visually satisfying to see your city literally sprawl outward. The new graphics design is a bit more cartoony, which I though I wouldn’t enjoy. As soon as I met the goofy new Pixar-esque leaders, however, I was smitten. Civ has earned enough of its own quirks over the decades (like Gandhi and nukes), and this fun art style really helps define Civ as a fun board game, rather than a stoic history simulator.

I’d played Civ II and Civ III back in the day, but didn’t really fall in love with the series until Civilization IV. When Civ V came out I remember specifically feeling that it was good, but not as great as Civ IV + expansions. Civ V had a ton of balance issues, but Firaxis did a phenomenal job over the years between free updates and paid expansions to make it the best.

Vanilla Civilization VI is already better than all that. It’s the most impressed I’ve ever been with a Civ game on launch. Assuming Firaxis keeps up with their amazing post-launch support (where’s team multiplayer!?), Civilization VI will easily stand the test of time.

Read the full review at Pixelkin

The recent XCOM reboots may have revitalized the turn-based tactical genre. But there exists an even rarer gem: the tactical real-time stealth game. Combining top-down views, large maps, and enemy viewcones creates an experience I hadn’t seen in years.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun goes several steps further by wrapping it within a rich, character-focused drama set in the war-torn age of shinobi and samurai.

READ THE FULL REVIEW AT PIXELKIN

 My top ten favorite games of the year, presented in ascending order each day leading into the holidays. Look for my full Top Ten list with categories and awards on December 24!

#10 Pokémon GO
#9 Skylanders Imaginators
#8 Stellaris
#7 Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
#6 Fire Emblem Fates
#5 Overwatch
#4 Pokémon Sun and Moon
#3 XCOM 2
#2 Sid Meier’s Civilization VI

#1 Stardew Valley

Once again my top game of the mid-year remains on top at my end of the year list. Once again it’s a delightful indie game I sunk dozens of hours into. Once again it’s a…. farming sim? Wait what?

It’s fun to say indie games come out of nowhere even though with the proliferation of Kickstarter and Early Access that’s rarely the case any more. Stardew Valley very much came out of nowhere (from a one-man dev) and quickly became my favorite, and most surprising gaming love of the year.

Stardew Valley puts your charmingly pixelated avatar into the sweetest small town from your favorite 90s JRPG. You start with a large but untamed plot of land filled with trees and grass, and armed only with the simplest of tools and barely and seeds and money.

From there you craft your dream farm, but also play how you want. Farming is the main money-maker and tied to major objectives, but you can also befriend (and marry) townsfolk, explore the increasingly challenging mines with classic Zelda combat, fish for rare and seasonal aquatic life, cook stat-boosting meals, and attend seasonal town events.

You are constantly challenged by a day/night cycle that forces you into making decisions to maximize your time and energy each day. There’s always a wealth of content to do and an endless list of tasks. Stardew Valley‘s “One More Day” is the new “One More Turn.”

My wife also got sucked into the game. Stardew Valley was the first game she’s ever played for a lengthy amount of time that wasn’t cooperative with me. We played “together” by comparing farms and strategies, and it was incredibly rewarding.

I had never even given much thought to farming sims like Harvest Moon, or town/life sims like Animal Crossing. There’s no reason Stardew Valley should have worked for me. But I absolutely fell in love with the charming world. The music is lovely, the character interactions are well-written, and the amount of content is staggering. Gaming is often about murdering countless things; a game about making friendships and pursuing happiness is incredibly refreshing.

At over 70 hours I’ve only made it through my second year, but I did complete the main objective of restoring the community center, finished the mines, and got married. While I’m not sure how much more I’ll play (as oppose to games like XCOM 2 and Civ VI), the time I did spend with Stardew Valley were my most cherished gaming moments of the year. Stardew Valley represents the best of what indie gaming has to offer: one person crafting their dream game and sharing it with the world.

Read my Review of Stardew Valley at Pixelkin

With Marvel’s popular and successful foray into films with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve finally decided to get back into comics. I grew up a big fan of X-Men and other superheroes but haven’t really kept up since the 90s. Thus begins my grand catching-up of the last ten years of Marvel comics, events and stories.

Thanks in large part to trade paperbacks and the digital convenience of Marvel Unlimited I can make relatively quick progress, and I’ll write down my Final Thoughts for each collection here on my blog. Like my gaming Final Thoughts, this will be full of spoilers. You’ve been warned!

Writer: Jason Aaron

Artist: Chris Bachalo, Nick Bradshaw

Issues: Wolverine and the X-Men (2011), #1-8

Hey, it’s been awhile! Rest assured that despite my recent gap in Marvel Comics Final Thoughts, I’m still reading them. Much of my comic reading time is taken up by my massive read-through of all The Walking Dead comics. But I do sneak some Marvel in.

Currently I’ve been blazing through the timeline circa 2011-12, catching everything up to the big 2012 event, Avengers Vs. X-Men. Most of the stuff hasn’t really been worth writing about. But then we’ve got Wolverine and the X-Men.

Following the divisive events laid out in X-Men: Schism, Wolverine left Utopia to return to the East Coast and re-open Professor X’s School for Gifted Mutants. He takes a number of mutants with him, including Kitty Pryde, Iceman, Rachel Grey, and Beast (who’d basically quit the X-Men after he found out about X-Force).

They re-brand the school as the Jean Grey Center for Higher Learning, and take on several of the younger generation of mutants as students – some of whom only recently became mutants thanks to Hope.

Call it the Harry Potterification era, but Marvel at this time was all about the youngsters. We’ve got Avengers Academy, Generation Hope, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, Journey Into Mystery, and now Wolverine and the X-Men. For the most part I’ve really enjoyed the young people as superhero stories. They’ve been approached with mature writing, interesting characters, and tackling a lot of important issues that young people face.

Then there’s Wolverine and the X-Men, which is mostly just stupid fun. The story arcs are broken up into shorter four-issue Volumes. The first Volume introduces us to the school and already tears things up, literally.

The new kiddie Hellfire Club returns as the villains from X-Men: Schism, much to my chagrin. They somehow wrangle Krakoa, the sentient island monster from way back in X-Men history, underneath the school to wreck havoc. It’s basically the opposite of the carefully constructed teen drama of Avengers Academy; this is an immediate all-out brawl.

Eventually the giant creature is psionically freed and becomes an official member of the team, and protector of the school. At that point I was actually on board with the absurdity of it all. Wolverine and company slap the Hellfire Club with some lawsuits, then he skips off to space with Quentin Quire to earn money for the school through alien gambling. Yep!

Volume 2 balances that weird alien gambling story with an even weirder return of the Brood….in Kitty Pryde’s body. One of the new characters is a student named Broo, a mutant Brood. It’s a fittingly ridiculous character for a ridiculous comic, and he’s hilariously dorky despite his terrifying appearance.

A murderous intergalactic scientist invades the school for extremely weak reasons related to culling Broo from the genetic herd. Part of his strategy is to infect Kitty with a bunch of microscopic brood for reasons I’m still not clear on.

And yet, it’s all a lot of fun. The X-Men go all Inner Space inside Kitty Pryde, punching Brood and causing Kitty Pryde some terrible intestinal pain. Yet she doesn’t sit idly by, and helps Broo evade capture until… Broo eventually goes nuts and attacks the scientist, thereby assuring the scientist that he is in fact a Brood.

Despite my haughty mocking tone I actually did enjoy reading the first eight issues of Wolverine and the X-Men. Not every comic has to be a deep character drama or continuity-laced mega-adventure. There are even a few interesting things going on that spun out of Uncanny X-Force, including the mind-wiped Angel and child-like Apocalypse, Genesis. But neither stories go anywhere, yet.

Wolverine and the X-Men stands on its own pretty well, though I’m not a fan of Chris Bachalo’s near anime-level art style where everyone looks like a warped twelve year old. Thankfully he’s only on the first few issues. Nick Bradshaw presents a much preferred balance that finds youthfulness while still making everyone looks human.

Interestingly, X-Men Legacy (which I’m catching up on now) also takes place at the new school, but with a mostly separate cast and events. I found it completely confusing and unnecessary, yet still enjoy X-Men Legacy because Rogue has been such a great character in the last few years. It’s much better written and more closely connected to the overall X-Men continuity.

Wolverine and the X-Men is a fun romp and a neat idea, but it focuses too much on the teaching staff instead of the more interesting students, features dumb villains, and is easily skipped in the overall X-Men timeline so far.

Ten days of counting down (or counting up I suppose) my Top Ten Games of the Year has lead to this. This is my full year-end post in which I recap my Top Ten 2016 list, compare to previous lists, give out some personal awards and dubious honors, and wax poetic about the year in my gaming life.

Refresh on my previous gaming years:

• My Top Ten Games of 2015
• My Top Ten Games of 2014
• My Top Ten Games of 2013
• My Top Ten Games of 2012

I think I speak for most folks when I declare 2016 to have been a pretty awful fucking year. The UK voted to withdraw from the European Union, the US voted to put a racist, misogynistic idiot in the White House, and we lost numerous beloved celebrities and artists.

The world seems to be growing more divisive and cruel with each passing month. Yet gaming, despite numerous road blocks, seems to be evolving.

Last year was marked by a bunch of AAA games that fell flat (which won my Worst Industry Trend Award). This year my Top Ten list is dominated by successful sequels and follow-ups. Indie gaming becomes an even more nebulous, but robust category. Kickstarter is not quite as prevalent, yet Fig finds success. Nintendo officially announced their newest console, the Nintendo Switch, while Sony and Microsoft offer incremental upgrades that provide 4K resolution.

For another year I resisted the lure of the big consoles, sticking to some PC upgrades and my waning Wii U. After a lull last year I did get a ton of playtime out of my Nintendo 3DS, with a few making my Game of the Year list.

I played less games overall – thanks in large part to selling our old house and moving to a new one over the Summer. But many games I played I sunk well over 50 hours into, with my online game-time dominated by one of my favorite games of the year from last year.

Before I recap my Top Ten 2016 list we have some fun comparisons to make: My Top Ten Most Anticipated list, published back in January, and My Top Five Most Anticipated games of the second half of the year, published in July.

Here was my predicted Top Ten as of January 2016:

1. Mass Effect Andromeda
2. “Zelda Wii U”
3. XCOM 2
4. Divinity: Original Sin 2
5. Overwatch
6. Torment: Tides of Numenera
7. Fire Emblem Fates
8. Cosmic Star Heroine
9. No Man’s Sky
10. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Hooh boy. I lamented that I didn’t do a great job last year, but I seem to be trending downward in my predict-abilities.

Out of those ten games, five of them wouldn’t even release this year. Mass Effect and Zelda were both long shots, and both are expected to release in the first half of 2016. They’ll roll over to 2017’s Most Anticipated list and I’ll feel much more confident about it (though it’ll make Zelda’s third appearance on that list!).

Likewise Torment and Divinity both just missed releasing this year, and should also release early next year (Torment has a Feb release date). I believe it’s the same for Cosmic Star Heroine, which has frustratingly been on my Most Anticipated lists two years running. Gimme!

That leaves us with five games. Deus Ex I literally just bought on the Steam Winter Sale, and haven’t played it yet. I did play the other four, and three of them made my end of the year list (you can probably guess the odd man out, which you’ll find in another category). That’s actually better than last year, when only two games made the final list.

My Top Ten Games of 2016

10) Pokémon GO

Pokémon GO isn’t even much of a game, but to many (including me) it was a fascinating introduction to the concept of augmented reality. Being able to go out in the real world and ‘find’ and capture Pokémon is brilliant and fun, despite the crushing lag and server problems the game suffered from its unprecedented popularity. Pokémon GO has been the definition of a fun, casual experience, and well-deserved among my Top Ten Games of the Year.

9) Skylanders Imaginators

As a veteran of the series who’s been mildly disappointed in the last two offerings, I was very pleased with Skylanders Imaginators. I’m not sure if the series can continue along this trajectory given how much the Imaginator concept changed the gameplay for the better, but for now Skylanders Imaginators is easily the best of the series.

8) Stellaris

Stellaris wins my award for game I most need to return to, and Paradox does a great job updating and supporting their titles. I’ve dabbled in other space strategy games like Galactic Civilizations and Endless Space to varying degrees of success, but none were able to really suck me in like Stellaris.

7) Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

The tactical stealth gameplay is pitch-perfect, and to actually weave a compelling historical drama on top of that is incredibly satisfying. Don’t sleep on Shadow Tactics just because it sneaked up on you in December. If you’re at all a fan of tactical strategy, it’s one of the best games you’ll play this year.

6) Fire Emblem Fates

Fire Emblem Fates took me a solid six months to actually finish. I had to bump the difficulty down to Normal and grind through one of the DLC maps just to get experience (apparently Conquest is the hard version because there’s no ability to grind). But I still sunk over fifty hours into it.

Despite my harsh complaints I obviously loved the combat improvements enough to still rank it on my game of the year list. Even a mediocre Fire Emblem game is still one of my favorite games of the year. All the combat improvements were a big step in the right direction; I just hope the next game can improve on the story side as well.

5) Overwatch

Overwatch is easily the most popular game on my list. The “hero shooter” blending of MOBA and FPS exploded this year. But leave it to Blizzard to once again take a genre and perfect it into an easily accessible, yet highly competitive format.

Overwatch is an incredible game. It takes all the best team-based shooting elements of Team Fortress 2 and multiple unique heroes of MOBAs into a complete and amazing package. I definitely plan on playing it off and on continuously for the foreseeable future.

4) Pokémon Sun and Moon

I was incredibly excited for Pokémon X and Y back in 2013, and played through all of Pokémon Black and White just months before its release. X and Y definitely made my Game of the Year list that year, and I’m here to tell you that Sun and Moon may just be the best Pokémon game I’ve played yet.

Now in its seventh generation, Pokémon Sun and Moon represents a first real shake-up of the traditional formula – and it’s all for the best. They keep everything that makes the series so endearing while improving on everything else. If you’ve been sleeping on the series or waiting for a chance to jump back in, Pokémon Sun and Moon is definitely the way to go.

3) XCOM 2

The XCOM: Enemy Unknown reboot made me fall in love with the series and its unique emergent gameplay. XCOM 2 is better in every way, and a great example of a direct sequel done right.

I still only have my first playthrough under my belt this year. But I did spend extra time getting achievements and playing with late game goodies, so I still sunk over 60 hours in my battle to take back Earth. I plan on spending a lot more time and playthroughs in XCOM 2 over the coming years.

2) Sid Meier’s Civilization VI

When Civ V came out I remember specifically feeling that it was good, but not as great as Civ IV + expansions. Civ V had a ton of balance issues, but Firaxis did a phenomenal job over the years between free updates and paid expansions to make it the best.

Vanilla Civilization VI is already better than all that. It’s the most impressed I’ve ever been with a Civ game on launch. Assuming Firaxis keeps up with their amazing post-launch support (where’s team multiplayer!?), Civilization VI will easily stand the test of time.

1) Stardew Valley

There’s no reason Stardew Valley should have worked for me. But I absolutely fell in love with the charming world. The music is lovely, the character interactions are well-written, and the amount of content is staggering.

While I’m not sure how much more I’ll play (as oppose to games like XCOM 2 and Civ VI), the time I did spend with Stardew Valley were my most cherished gaming moments of the year. Stardew Valley represents the best of what indie gaming has to offer: one person crafting their dream game and sharing it with the world.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Song of the Deep, Planet Coaster, Starbound, Grim Dawn

Beginning last year I began doing a Top Five Game of the Mid-Year list. I like lists. Here were my Top Five as of July:

1. Stardew Valley
2. XCOM 2
3. Overwatch
4. Fire Emblem Fates
5. Stellaris

All five games made my final Game of the Year list, proving that the first half of the year was quite strong. It’s even more impressive as many of these games I hadn’t played in months.

Included in the list are my Most Anticipated Games of the Second Half of 2016. I like lists, remember? Here we go (alphabetical):

• Civilization VI
• Cosmic Star Heroine
• Dishonored 2
• No Man’s Sky
• Pokémon Sun and Moon

Not quite as good. Games often slip out of their Fall release into early the following year – but I can only claim that from one of them (Cosmic Star Heroine).

We were all holding out hope for No Man’s Sky, whose launch was such a highly publicized disaster that I’m not going to go over it here. Suffice to say I was one of the many that were disappointed with the game – but in fairness we really didn’t know enough about it. Boo on the them for being cagey with details, and boo on us for buying into the hype.

That leaves Dishonored 2. I never bought it! The Fall was busy with lots of big games and I just couldn’t find room. I really enjoyed the first one, but I also paid like $10 for it on a Steam sale. Right now it’s only discounted to $40 on the Steam Winter Sale, so I may wait a bit longer.

On to my awards!

Best Multiplayer: Overwatch

Most Disappointing: No Man’s Sky

Biggest Surprise: Stardew Valley

Most Played: Stardew Valley, 77 hours (though overall it’s Heroes of the Storm with another 200+ hours)

Best Early Access/Beta Game: We Happy Few

Best Original Music: Stardew Valley

Best Soundtrack: The Flame in the Flood by Chuck Ragan

Best Art Design: Overwatch

Best World Building/Atmosphere: Stardew Valley

Best Writing: Stardew Valley

Best Cooperative Game: Skylanders Imaginators

Best Game Nobody Else Played: Epistory – Typing Chronicles

Favorite New Game Mechanic: Building cities in Civ VI

Most Innovative: Epistory – Typing Chronicles

Best New Character: Merryn (Song of the Deep)

Favorite Moment: Civilization VI: Barely winning a Huge Island Map on Domination and Emperor difficulty, three turns before the end (2050). Nukes ftw!

Best Industry Trend: Lots of great strategy and tactics games

Worst Industry Trend: Where the RPGs at?

Didn’t Have Time to Play: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Too Long; Didn’t Finish: Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

Favorite 2015 Game of 2016: Shadowrun Hong Kong (ironically won my Didn’t Have Time to Play award last year)

The Wii U suffered a down year for me. Only Skylanders Imaginators made my Top Ten list, and that’s obviously a non-Nintendo, multi-platform title. Much of my Wii U time was actually dominated by one of my favorite games from last year, Xenoblade Chronicles X, which, I’m embarrassed to admit, I’m still working on to this day.

The Nintendo 3DS on the other hand got a whole lot of love this year. The first half was slower with only Fire Emblem Fates catching my attention. But the second half had Yo-Kai Watch 2, Dragon Quest VII, and Pokémon Sun and Moon. It was an embarrassment of riches, and I’m looking forward to DQ8 in January!

For me this year was dominated by strategy and tactical games. We got both an awesome XCOM and an awesome Civ game this year! Unfortunately that put an even further strain on my gaming time, as I sunk over 50 hours into at least half the games on my Game of the Year list.

I also had to temporarily suspend Rogue’s Adventures, my social backlog group. Between hosting a D&D campaign, expanding my freelance writing, and moving in the Summer, I just didn’t have the time to devote to backlog gaming. Yet I still bought new games! I’m hoping to find a better balance next year and tackle some of these smaller titles I’ve been sitting on.

That’s it for me! Expect my Most Anticipated 2017 list to hit early next year. Here’s to hoping we all have a much better 2017. Happy Holidays!

Recorded and uploaded every week. Subscribe for our weekly adventures!

Previously on “Princes of the Apocalypse”

After weeks of side treks, character-focused story lines, and overland travel, we’re back to good old fashioned dungeon crawling. We’re officially entering the late game portion of “Princes of the Apocalypse.” The PCs know what needs to be done and generally where to do it.

But the elemental cults have large, sprawling, interconnected dungeons. Time to knock on the main entrance!

Faced at what looked like a grand entrance into the ancient dwarven stronghold Tyar-Besil, my players opted to quietly retreat and rest upstairs in the friendly lich-controlled monastery. A wise choice, as the Temple of the Black Earth is prepared to empty out nearby rooms full of baddies when heroes approach.

The party saw past the ruined main entrance into the great hall (B4) where a few Hobgoblins camped out near a campfire. Kalinaar waltzed up to hail them, for some reason, and they immediately attacked.

Miri’s quick initiative often means she’s first in the room and first to defend against the waves of bad guys. That definitely played out here. I had an Earth Cultist Burrowshark and his mount Bulette explode out of the ground right in the middle of the rest of the party, chomping on Kethra for some really solid damage (even after her Uncanny Dodge).

The rest of the party dealt with this new threat while Miri battled the hobgoblins. On round 2 I added the nearby Duergar (B5), with some firing their crossbows through the arrow slits in B3.

Talus launched his new spell Evard’s Black Tentacles at the bulette and its rider, stymieing my progress. The Burrowshark was forced to abandon his mount while the bulette’s beefy stats fell quickly to the onslaught by Kethra and Kalinaar.

Miri was handling the hobgoblins easily, but yet another door opened, revealing the nearby barracks/break room (B7). A Black Earth Guard, some cultists, and another burrowshark began funneling out.

These big fights offer a fun change of pace from single static rooms. It reminded me of the large combat sequence in the Temple of the Crushing Wave following Gar’s defeat.

Despite the large numbers of additional opponents, none of them were particularly powerful after the bulette fell. I added a fun little wrench in the combat by having the second burrowshark run like Hell toward the South to grab his mount, which was chained up in B9.

Talus had cast Haste on Kethra to help clean up the foes. After the first Burrowshark fell, she ran all the way through B3 into the Hallway outside the Mud Sorcerer’s room (B8). She had caught up with the burrowshark, and I decided he’d turn and face her one on one.

She got some solid hits in, but rogues are far less powerful when they can’t get their sneak attacks in. The other three cleaned up the remaining foes, including weak cultists and enlarged Duergar, before finally heading South to help take out the final burrowshark.

It was a fun battle that included some tense moments, as Miri had to chug multiple health potions to stay alive (literally defending against about half the foes in the area), and Kethra had that nasty hit from the Bulette in the first round. It was definitely a good thing they decided to Long Rest first!

Multiple paths were available but Kethra had a plan. She used Alter Self and the second Burrowshark’s clothes and, uh, musk, to approach his chained Burrowshark. This gave me an interesting dilemma as a DM.

On one hand I appreciate when my players think of fun strategies outside the box (that don’t horribly break the game or story). I like to reward creativity. But in this case the plan wasn’t quite going to work. Kethra wanted a new bulette mount which would have been terribly game-imbalancing. Plus, the process to bond to a bulette can’t be done with a disguise, even a magical one.

So I let her approach and even climb onto the beast, but she couldn’t operate it. Essentially she could climb in the car but not turn it on. The player was disappointed and I felt bad, but it is what it is. Kethra briefly thought about attacking the beast, and while I thought that was pretty damn cruel, I was willing to give her Advantage and a Surprise Round.

The player thought better of it when the rest of the party decided to open the door to the Mud Sorcerer. Kethra re-chained the beast and walked away to join the others, but still disguised as the Burrowshark.

Miraj Vizann has some notes in the “Princes of the Apocalypse” campaign book. I appreciate when named villains are given a sentence or a paragraph in case I want to role-play a bit. Not every room needs to explode into an immediate fight.

Miraj was willing to strike a deal with the PCs: attack the fire cult, and he’ll reward them with some spiffy black crystals.

The party responded about as I expected: you’re a bad guy and we need to fight you. Kalinaar is basically in charge of all their decisions, and Kalinaar is implacable.

The fight began, and Kethra and I had a bit of fun with her disguise during the combat. A nearby stone golem sprang to life to help defend its master, but I was utterly disappointed in its performance. I should have suspected, as the PCs were able to defeat the stone golem at the bottom of the moat in the Air Temple several levels ago.

As per tradition I only got a single round off with my spellcaster before he was taken out (at least I got a solid spell off, sigh). The golem didn’t last much longer – even with a +10 to hit I managed to miss an entire round of strikes. Blergh! I swear the CR 1/8 cultists did more damage than it did. So it goes.

We made some solid progress into the Black Earth’s domain. We also hit a new record for total XP earned in a session (over 3500 each). The PCs kept Miraj alive and used Kethra’s disguise to suss out the passcode to the golem that guards the path to the fire cult. They also learned of a staircase down to the Fane of the Eye to the West – and that Marlos has retreated to the Earth node below that. We’ll have to see if the PCs can keep up this successful momentum.

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Read the full article at Polygon

Midway through its third season, Lost was in a bit of a crisis. Its bulky seasons were proving unsustainable, and the show spent too much time focusing on minor characters or stirring up pointless side plots. It felt like it was being drawn out for far too long.

Showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse listened. They declared the sixth season would be the series’ last. They tightened the number of episodes in each season to around 15 and focused on providing answers to ongoing mysteries. Ratings stabilized, and now Lost is widely considered a pinnacle of modern story-telling in television.

The Walking Dead is currently experiencing its Lost season three moment. The good news is, though, there’s still time to fix it. In its translation from a black and white comic book series to television sensation, The Walking Dead‘s biggest hurdle hasn’t been violence, gore or characters. It’s pacing.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT POLYGON

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Previously on “Princes of the Apocalypse”

This week we continue cutting an effective swath through the Temple of the Black Earth. Dungeon crawling is what “Princes of the Apocalypse” does best, and I love when we get a chance to battle an encounter in a dangerous situation. This week: several bulettes in the middle of a giant chasm.

Whether the party decided to go North or South from their current position after the mud sorcerer in B8 would have greatly altered what would have happened this session. Since Kethra knew what was to the South – a chained up bulette, they decided to sneak their way down there.

Bulette’s have a high Passive Perception, and Kalinaar’s clunking armor woke it up while they scoped out the large chasm in B9. Sensing a distraction was needed, Talus uses his Pipe of Smoke Mephits and sicced them on the creature – who tore off its chains on my second STR check.

The party ran across the stepping stones across the chasm while the mephits did their job blinding the enraged beast. They made it halfway before they realized they were charging into another two bulettes at the Southern end of the hallway!

This was a fun moment, as the party found themselves in a tense situation. One of the bulettes made the STR check (the bottom two require a DC 20) and uses its Deadly Leap attack to throw itself at the edge of the chasm.

Unfortunately it landed on Miri and Kethra. Both of them made the saves and have Evasion, negating all 30+ damage. That ability comes into play very frequently and feels incredibly useful. The beast was quickly surrounded and taken down, while the second never could make its STR check to free itself.

The smoke mephits proved useful in distracting the original bulette to the North of the chasm, even as it began eating them one by one. Miri and Kethra took potshots with seeker darts and crossbow and Talus with his Firebolt to finally down it safely from afar.

I also had a bit of fun releasing the Swarm of Bats encounter in the middle of this fight, surrounding Talus while he remained on the larger standing rock in the chasm. He used Invisibility to try and evade them, forgetting for a moment that bats have echolocation! I did give them disadvantage, but it’s not like they’re particularly strong anyway.

The real MVP in this battle were Miri’s Seeker Darts, a unique weapon to “Princes of the Apocalypse” that she’d been holding onto for awhile. She used all of them in this encounter, but almost each one hit for 20+ damage while keeping her safely out of range.

Paths from here led West and South. The awkward thing about using a battle map on Roll20 is there’s no good way to disguise the edge of the map. I suppose I could always make the grid much larger than the map itself, but the maps are already crazy big as it is.

To keep the party from wandering off too much, I described how the hallway psychically changed, and even included the appropriate elemental symbols on the walls.

Technically the party could have gone this way, and might have found a part of the Water Temple they hadn’t seen yet (and I was prepared for that). But they knew their priority was to go down, so they headed West.

To the West was the lair of an Ettin. Up until now the party probably didn’t realize they are slightly over-leveled for this dungeon. The encounters they’ve faced are some of the strongest, and I piled a bunch of rooms together for the big battle two sessions ago.

Here was just a CR 4 creature in a room by itself. The two-headed ogre could’ve made for a funny conversation but I think the party was more willing to battle than talk. And I admit, I hadn’t done much prep work (holidays + illness, hence also a few days late on this week’s session).

Broog-Norb the Ettin went down in half a round, before I even got a chance to act. And I rolled a 19! I completely failed a STR save vs. Miri’s Fist of Unbroken Air, despite an excellent STR stat, and the rest was history.

From there the party headed Northwest into B13 with the pool. This area has four different paths to explore, and at this point I was really feeling bad that I hadn’t done my additional dialogue prep that I usually include. They’d made it much further into the dungeon than I anticipated.

I teased some anvil and hammering sounds from the door to the North, and Kethra opened it up and strutted inside. She was interested in forging a new weapon, or something.

The dao inside was having none of it, giving the universal gesture for “get the fuck out.” Kethra continued inside and picked up a hammer, prompting the attack.

The earth genie didn’t speak Common, but as one of my players pointed out, the air genie they worked with many sessions ago did (and now I realize the genies have the Tongues spell to solve this issue – oops!).

Well the dao doesn’t really have a side quest or anything going for it, and as I said, I didn’t do enough prep work to create an interesting scenario. A fight it is!

The dao is a powerful spellcaster with a mess of HP and a strong attack. I didn’t waste any time and summoned an earth elemental in the first round. One of my duergar went down fast from Miri, while Kethra let the other one live for several rounds while she sneaked in to attack the dao. Hilariously I got off some really solid damage with it, much to Miri’s chagrin.

The dao’s earth spells didn’t seem particularly powerful compared to its basic attacks – or maybe I just hadn’t studied them very much. At one point I used Wall of Stone to try and cut off Talus, but Concentration spells are pretty moot when the PCs have you surrounded.

The party took some hits and used more spells and abilities, but eventually the dao and the elemental went down. Kethra took the Claws of the Umber Hulk the dao had been working on and the party helped themselves to a collection of baubles and coins.

It was a solid, combat-filled session. The party never felt like they were ever in real danger, but they’ve certainly taken some deep hits and used many abilities. They had to Short Rest and the beginning of this session, and another Short Rest will probably soon follow.

Although at this point the party has also officially reached enough XP to reach level 10, they require a Long Rest to do so. Long Resting in the middle of a dungeon could prove difficult. We’ll see how the party wants to handle it next week!

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We’ve survived the hellscape of 2016. But we also played a ton of really great games. Meanwhile 2017 will give us a new Nintendo console, new Zelda, new Mass Effect, and a ton of big Kickstarter indie games I’ve been looking forward to for years.

This is my annual Top Ten Most Anticipated Games List. If you’ve been reading my Top Ten Game of the Year lists you know how fun it is to compare these predictions at the end of the year. I predict that I’ll be much more accurate this year – since literally half the games on this list carried over from last year’s Most Anticipated list!

10) South Park: The Fractured But Whole

I’m a bit of a lapsed South Park fan lately (I missed the most recent season in its entirety). But I loved the light RPG that Obsidian crafted a few years ago. It perfectly encapsulated everything great about the show, from the writing to the animation. I’m so on board for a fun sequel, though a bit more cautious with a different dev team.

9) Battle Chasers: NightWar

You’ll see several high-profile Kickstarter games on this list, and Battle Chasers: NightWar is one of them. I know nothing about the comic book this JPRG-style adventure is based on. I backed purely on the amazing art-style, intriguing concept, and the dev team behind my beloved Darksiders games. I don’t know much about the game, other than I want to play it.

8) Pyre

SuperGiant Games have become one of my favorite indie developers. Bastion and Transistor have been two of my favorite games of their respective years, and Pyre looks to continue their brand of excellence in story-telling and gameplay. Pyre is their first step into a more party-based RPG, and features a unique Underworld setting and…sports-type combat? It’s SuperGiant, so I’m on board.

7) Torment: Tides of Numenera

Last year we had a brief dearth of quality RPGs, thanks to some big names getting pushed to 2017. Torment: Tides of Numenera is the next big RPG from Wasteland 2 devs InXile, and may be the biggest one of the recently revitalized cRPG. Torment means a lot to a lot of people and while I’m not quite as obsessed with the original 1999 RPG, I am very much looking forward to this spiritual follow-up.

6) Divinity: Original Sin 2

I love my isometric cRPGs and had enjoyed Divinity ARPGs in the past, but nothing prepared me for how much I adored Divinity: Original Sin – my #1 Game of 2014. It had the perfect blend of tactical combat, witty writing, and an incredibly meaty world. This follow-up looks to build upon everything great and add even more awesomeness. My only worry is that the original was 80 hours long!

5) Cosmic Star Heroine

Cosmic Star Heroine has graced my Most Anticipated List for several years now, with good cause. Zeboyd has carved out a successful and popular niche creating budget JRPG games with clever combat mechanics and humorous, self-aware writing. Cosmic Star Heroine is a huge next step, a full on Chrono Trigger-style 16-bit JRPG with an awesome sci-fi setting.

4) State of Decay 2

State of Decay 2 is the first game on this list I’m not entirely confident we’ll see in 2017. While it was announced in 2016, all we have so far is that same teaser trailer. State of Decay was my #2 Game of the Year of 2013, a fantastic open-world zombie game that combined GTA-style exploration with permadeath and survivor and base management. It worked incredibly well and the DLCs were all fantastic. Fans begged for a multiplayer follow-up and that’s exactly what we’re getting, and I couldn’t be happier.

 3) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

This will be the third year that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has graced my Most Anticipated list. I have not been enamored by recent 3D Zelda games – I barely scratched the surface of Twilight Princess, and skipped Skyward Sword completely.

But you’d have to be crazy not to be impressed with what Nintendo’s showing and preaching here. This looks like a true evolution of the classic formula – a grand open world adventure with looting and crafting. It’ll be one of the biggest games of the year regardless of quality, so let’s all hope it’s as good as it deserves to be.

2) Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption is one of the few titles in the last decade that could grace a theoretical list of my all-time favorite games. “Grand Theft Auto as a Western” is a concept I wanted the second I started playing GTA 3, and we finally got that in 2010.

In addition to an amazing single-player campaign, I was completely captivated by the multiplayer. My friends and I raced horses, holed up in bar shootouts and robbed banks for the better part of a year. RDR 2 has been a long time coming, and it looks like it’ll be the game to finally force me to purchase either a PS4 or XBO (stupid non-PC version).

1) Mass Effect: Andromeda

It’s Mass Effect. It’s one of the greatest modern gaming series. And we’re finally getting out from under the shadow of Commander Shepard, the Reapers, and an ending to a trilogy that still sparks emotional outrage. While I’m one of the few that still think the original is the best, I adore the entire series.

I’m totally on board with the Frostbite engine and Dragon Age: Inquisition gameplay. BioWare has settled into a nice groove of AAA production quality and a great focus on memorable characters. I can’t wait to jump back into one of my favorite sci-fi universes again.

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Previously on “Princes of the Apocalypse”

Our heroes find themselves in the middle of a dungeon crawl of elemental evil. Due to the nature of “Princes of the Apocalypse,” they’re exploring a dungeon I don’t necessarily need or want them in, however. The solution? Give them a map with fairly obvious neon blinking arrows.

I’ve been known to pull out some DM cheats to get the players to go where I want. Directly railroading your players usually isn’t fun, but if your players are more frustrated than fascinated by directionless exploration (as mine are), it can be a useful tool to pull out a magically locked gate, or an incredibly useful map.

I had them find maps of both the current dungeon and the next one, the Fane of the Eye. They’d explored quite a bit of the Fane already, but hadn’t approached from the Earth side yet.

Meanwhile they were cutting a haphazard path through the Earth Temple. It was fun enough but with the prophet gone their main goal was simply getting down to the Fane, and from there start exploring the deeper Elemental Node dungeons.

I wanted to get them out of the Temple of the Black Earth ASAP, and the map pointed them the way directly. I did have an ambush set up in the guard house (B18) near the giant stone staircase. The party was forced to split up and rush down the hallways to engage the Black Earth Guards and Priest.

I got off some solid hits, nearly downing Miri who tanked three of the four Guards and the Priest. The party was already drained from their previous battles in the temple, and hunkered down for a Short Rest there in the bunkroom. I delighted that finally they were having to actually Short Rest and use their hit dice – and they hadn’t even made it to the Fane yet.

The map of the Fane told them approximately where each elemental node dungeon was located – though they’ve pretty much been to three of them already (only actually venturing inside the Air one, however). Ironically the NorthEast corner, the Earth domain, was the one least explored that they found themselves in now.

A nearby sarcophagus offered a helpful boon instead of a deadly trap for once, but only for Good-aligned heroes (F10). To the West lay an interesting crossroads – the fungal caves they had passed through before (heading West to East and eventually meeting the lizard dudes) lay to the South.

According to the map they could make it to either the Air or Water areas from there. To the West I teased some large, loud voices on the other side of a door, and they just couldn’t resist.

Inside a pair of Hill Giants were engaged in some Tic-Tac-Toe (F13). Some of my favorite encounters are when dangerous creatures engage the party in some fun role-playing moments. I was pleased that the party (well Kalinaar anyway) attempted to play along, accepting the challenge to play, and wagering for safe passage to the crystal caves beyond.

The giants accepted, and the party were unsure whether to throw the game or beat them. Kalinaar rolled a natural 1 on his INT check, which could have had interesting (and probably better) results. But they wanted to win, and he used a point of Inspiration to roll a natural 20! I let him use Deception to try and make it look like a tough, well-played win, but he rolled the internal DC I set for him, and kicked the giant’s ass.

The giants were of course infuriated and immediately attacked. I’ll go ahead and reveal to my players (since they read these recaps) that if you had accepted the loss and asked nicely, they probably would have taken the bet money and let you pass.

But humility is not in our heroes nature – kicking ass is. The giants went down alarmingly fast doing little damage, and the PCs didn’t really have to pull any strong abilities. Instead they get the treasure, the XP, and the path to the Earth node.

I’m leaving the order of tackling the final elemental dungeons completely up to my players. They may be able to guess by now the relative strength of the elemental cults (some are definitely stronger than others). But it’s also been a very long time since they were truly challenged by a tough fight.

The entrance to the Black Geode didn’t prove terribly difficult, thanks to some stellar stealth checks from Miri and Kethra sneaking up on the posted guards (G1). They nearly killed both opponents before the Earth Elementals erupted in the middle of the room.

Kalinaar was able to fear one of them with a Menacing Strike, and Talus cast Haste, turning the Paladin into an insane murder machine with half a dozen attacks (when Cleave goes off due to a crit). I think at one point he did 100 damage in a single round.

Even as much ass as they kicked, they still find their resources dwindling. They’re pretty much out of Hit Dice, low on spells, and they’ve reached enough XP for level 10 as soon as they Long Rest.

There will only be a few select safe areas within these dungeons that the party could even attempt a Long Rest – and certainly none in the final node areas. I’ll leave it up to my players to deliberate on where they are, and how they want to manage things going forward.

Recorded and uploaded every week. Subscribe for our weekly adventures!

Recorded and uploaded every week. Subscribe for our weekly adventures!

Previously on “Princes of the Apocalypse”

My players often use standard shock ‘n awe, charge in the front door tactics. Many times when confronted with foes that are not immediately hostile, a fight ends up breaking out anyway.

I’ve been trying to steer away from this on my part, offering the PCs other ways and opportunities rather than just straight combat. My favorite RPGs, like the older isometric Fallout titles, offered multiple ways to get past enemies or tackle a challenge, with “kill ’em all” as only one possible solution.

This week the party manages to overcome two separate encounters without fighting. Well technically one fight did break out, but the party opted to end it fairly peacefully and escape.

The Black Geode is crawling with elemental evil, and the party pushes their limited resources to the limits as they make their way deeper into the crystal caverns.

Initially I thought the PCs would retreat and attempt to Long Rest somewhere. For two sessions they’ve had enough XP to reach level 10 – you’d think that would be a major priority! But hats off to the party for opting instead to dive deeper into the elemental earth dungeon.

Beyond the initial cavern they found a stonemelder cultist with a xorn, a gnarly 3-legged creature with a giant mouth on top of its body. Instead of these enemies just waiting to attack someone, they’re engaged in an odd ritual. The cultist is feeding gems and coins to the xorn, believing it to be an emissary sent by Ogrémoch himself.

The party saw this unfold and decided to test it out. I was pleased when both Kethra and Talus took the initiative. I love Kalinaar but when it comes to role-playing situations, he’s the kid in the class that’s always raising his hand and shouting “pick me!” Every RPG group needs that player. But I also try to involve everyone, and am delighted when others flex some RP muscles.

Kethra used Mage Hand to bat away a gem, startling the group. Instead of attacking, however, the xorn wanted the players to feed it some of their immense wealth. The cultist translated its needs, and the party began to feed it. First in small gold increments, then with gems.

According to the campaign book the xorn needs a substantial amount of money and/or gems before it’s satiated – far more than any adventuring party would feel comfortable giving up for a peaceful solution. So I lowered that threshold drastically while telling the party that it remains docile while being fed.

They got the message and began moving through the chamber. Kalinaar interrogated the cultist, who was friendly but reverential toward the xorn, while Kethra stealthily stole his bag of gems (to then feed to the creature). As a greedy rogue, Kethra was hilariously horrified by the loss of treasure.

Eventually the xorn backed off, and the party used the opportunity to leave the chamber. The cultist told them to head East, but was cryptic as to why. The party took the advice, finding the treasure pile in G3.

Now any adventurer worth their salt should know that a pile of treasure lying out in the open is an obvious trap. Hell in this adventure alone it’s been used several times already.

Sure enough, they dove after the treasure, and one of the stalactites opened an eye to reveal a roper! Another spiffy monster, the roper has giant tendrils that lash out and pull its victims toward its gaping mouth.

In the first round I was able to grab both Miri and Talus. I failed at actually biting anyone, however, while Kethra failed at hitting it with her crossbow. Meanwhile Kalinaar was busy digging through the treasure!

Talus didn’t like this situation at all, so he fired off a Hypnotic Gaze on top of the creature, and used a divination die to force it to fail the saving throw. The creature was stunned, though still grasping its foes.

What followed was a funny, awkward moment as Miri and Talus failed again and again to wriggle free of the tendril’s grasp while the creature lay dazed. After several rounds they finally made it, with Miri slow falling and Kalinaar catching Talus.

With the treasure pile looted, the party opted to simply leave the area before the creature woke up. I later counted that as defeating it, since there’s no reason to return there.

From there the party took a crazy zig-zag path, traveling straight west through a long tunnel to G4, the crystal forest. This area really could’ve used some sort of monster in it, as the Confusion effect isn’t all that dire when there’s nothing else around to threaten them.

As it were only Kethra fell victim to it, and then rolled a 9 so nothing bad happened anyway.

From here paths lay Northeast and Northwest. Northeast is a giant mud waterfall which Kalinaar wanted to dive into. The rest were not keen on that idea, so they traveled the other direction toward the giant chasm of G10.

This was kind of a bummer, since this chasm seems like it works way better if the PCs fall in it from the bridge that spans across it 40 feet in the air. Instead they walked through the large chasm hearing the clicking and clacking of the hidden hook horrors. Miri ran up the wall to scout out the bridge, and I decided to launch the attack.

Hook Horrors are only CR 3, but there eight of them in this chasm, proving a long, difficult fight for the PCs. Kethra was nearly killed, Talus got within half health, and even Kalinaar got dangerously low as he was surrounded.

Talus unleashed Evard’s Black Tentacles on three of them, helping break up a dangerous situation. He then turned the tide at the end by Polymorphing Kethra into a T-Rex, giving her a fresh set of HP and easily destroying the last few Hook Horrors.

Now the party is really in dire straits. They’ve pushed themselves and spent much of their HP and spells in that fight. They’re in the middle of a big, dangerous dungeon with no safety net in sight. The party has never really been in a situation like this before, but continue to impress me with their raw power. Do they press on to the node or retreat and heal up? We’ll see next week!

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