I've been playing The Outer Worlds 2 and it is almost as fun as the first game. If you aren't familiar with the series it feels and plays very similar to both the Borderlands series and the Fallout 3+ series. That is, there's a bit more of a continuous storyline with more meat and dialogue than Borderlands, while not quite being as well-written as the Fallout series, but the game engine doesn't feel as buggy as the modern Fallout games.

The choices that you can make in the game don't have much breadth but the game still posits situations with political and philosophical concerns that one can chew on often enough. I've played through 15 hours and there's still a few more places that I haven't explored on the first world but the game is starting to feel a little bit repetitive but I haven't lost interest completely yet.

Borderlands 4. Man, I hate how into this game I am. It's basically the same game as before which is frustrating as the new stuff is basically just obvious quality of life changes (and I guess one open world is also new).

Borderlands has always lacked depth, the world feels very static and lifeless. You're basically just walking up to interactive card board cutouts and pressing play.

Still, it's fun to mow down enemies and craft your op build. But this isn't a game one plays forever as you run out of things to do.

I've just gotten platinum on Deathloop. It's a pretty standard Arkane studios stealth action with superpowers game, but with the gimmick that your game can (optionally) be invaded by another player hunting you. So I could summarise it as "Dishonoured, with a PvP mode", which is a strong pitch. I've just hit 90 hours or so and I'm still playing after getting platinum (first platinum ever btw!), so obviously I liked it a lot despite the flaws I'm going to list. I think it's a good game with a premise that promised a really really great game, and if it suffers at all it's only by comparison to that promise.

The Good

I think the Time Loop is a good framing device for storytelling: you could encounter a side quest by finding the aftermath of a heist. You then investigate the same spot at an earlier time of day and the side quest might have you alter the outcome or use information you learned from the aftermath or just storm in and kill everyone. The main story plays out similarly: you encounter information organically by exploring maps, leads are placed into a handy log so you never miss anything vital, and the threads you follow direct you toward things you can mess with to tilt things in your favour. Your aim is to break the time loop by assassinating 7 "Visionaries", who are careful not to be in the same place at the same time. But you only get 4 times of day: morning, noon, afternoon, evening, across 4 maps. So you need to learn who is having a secret rendezvous, who has big events in their day you can disrupt to get them to another location, who will be around dangerous machinery you can sabotage. Mid-way through the story as you're figuring this out it almost feels like a Hitman game. At the start of the game when you try assassinating them at their publicly known locations, each spirals into a unique boss fight. So it gives a fantastic feeling of progression when you learn enough to kill each one without lifting a finger. Feels like mastering groundhog day.

The Bad

But then you get to the end of those plot threads, and you find that they're spelling out a single correct solution to the assassination puzzle, summarised for you in a literal cutscene. Your only freedom really is in the kill method you use within missions. None of this undercuts the fun of progressing in the story, but it made the end feel weaker than I hoped. It feels like the intention was to be free-form and they lacked the time to execute on it, just my impression. The side quests also felt like good ideas not given enough air, with many of them being pretty shallow 1 or 2 step affairs that don't give you a choice of resolutions. Some make you alter events, some make you exploit pre-knowledge, in some you just have to bust in and take their loot or you get nothing.

The I-don't-know

The mechanic I'm most torn on is "infusing" which lets gear persist across loops if you can spend the points to keep them. On the one hand, building up a curated armoury with the right powerups for the job was one of the more satisfying parts of the game for me, on the other hand it becomes so easy to infuse all the gear you want that you no longer "feel" the time loop. I think the mechanic is at its strongest in the early game when you can kill bosses but then need to make strategic decisions about what gear you want to hold on to, because you can't afford to infuse everything you drop. I think there could be a version of this game where you couldn't just bring every gun you need into each loop and would have to take detours to retrieve key gear for use later in the day.

The PvP is good

In-game, the antagonist Julianna is the only other character who remembers across loops, and will appear at random to hunt you and derail your plans. This is either another human player or, if you disable pvp, a computer-controlled character who wanders around hunting you but is fairly easy to hide from. I'm sure it's controversial among stealth fans, but personally I like the fact that even the most intricate and rehearsed plan for infiltration needs to be resilient against disruption. Your near-miss brushes with death tend to make better memories, I find. Then when playing as Julianna, the maps are hard to search through, so it becomes a mind game of figuring out what objective they seem to be targetting (based on what doors are open, which NPCs are gone etc.), thinking how you would proceed in their shoes, and cutting them off in the right location. That's how you pull off plays where the other guy pokes his head out a door and you're ready and waiting in your sniper nest halfway across the map, plays that make you feel like a genius sniper in a movie.

The Guns are silly fun

There's a sharpshooter's rifle that doesn't consume ammo when it hits, and when it misses it jams and won't fire for the rest of the mission, and I just think that's a neat idea. There's also a machine pistol with two magazines that can be reloaded while firing. There's also a telekinesis ability that lets you somersault NPCs sideways off cliffs without making much noise, which is extremely fun in a game with a lot of cliffs.

I just finished Lost Dimension for the Vita, a game I'd barely heard about. I had a surprisingly good time. It's kinda like a combination of Valkyria Chronicles and Danganronpa. It doesn't go as deep into each side as those two titles, but I still really enjoyed it. It's kind of the opposite of most JRPGs, where you start with your maximum party (11), and as the game goes on, you whittle them down to 6 as you identify the traitors as you ascend the tower. The traitors are truly random, so you can end up with a unique party comp by the end of the game.

But the game really screwed me over in that apparently Yoko is the second best character, and the game decided to make her a traitor in both of my playthroughs.

It's time for the "mature adult played Pokémon Legends Z-A for 80 hours" post.

Pokémon is weird because on an objective level, this game is repetitive, ugly, a sequel to my least favorite Pokémon games, and I really shouldn't be playing it.

But here's the thing: the game is actually just Pokémon layered on top a kind of a lite version of two of my favorite series in a blender, Xenoblade and Like a Dragon/Yakuza. The gameplay is pretty fun - I've been playing without items in battle (which I've been doing recently for Pokémon games,) the game is actually pretty challenging. The city is full of zany sidestories, some are fun, some really aren't. Another thing really trending well for this series is the characters. I really love the cast for this, like a lot.

The lack of voice acting and the bland textures make Lumiose City a bit soulless however and dings everything I said about the side stories and characters. Nonetheless, it's still a fun mindless romp just trying to catch them all, which again, like Arceus, is possible to do in one game without interacting with other people which is appreciated.

After trying my best to limit gaming time, I went down a call of duty rabbit hole for the last two weeks. I haven’t played in the last 3-4 years if not longer. It started with “I kinda miss warzone even if I suck at it”, and went to “oh they now have a casual mode with players and bots mixed together.” So I sucked less (thanks, bots!) which made me want to play more, which became a big time sink. Yesterday I unplugged the the PS5 and put it away. Back to reality for me. Might still play Balatro on my iPad, but no more call of duty. Too addictive!

Bought BALL x PIT yesterday and it's a game I love to play in short bursts. I'm about six character unlocks and four stages in, and my only real complaint is that the base crafting system just feels bad and unsatisfying. I'd rather gain passive income between levels than have to ping-pong characters around to collect resources. The game also has a bit of a reverse-difficulty curve where grinding stages turns into an absolute slog until your base and roster are sufficiently levelled.

Wish I could have been more enthusiastic about Fellowship because it's a game that has been on my radar since Steam Next Fest when I played in a closed playtest. But of the four sessions I've booted it up, one led to constant login failures due to version mismatches which verifying the integrity of the game files and outright reinstalling the game didn't fix, one was during maintenance where I couldn't login, one I did about two hours worth of Pyromancer adventure runs, and the fourth I just couldn't be arsed to play and immediately closed it.

Old School RuneScape is the other big game I've played. Unfortunately Grid Master is over and I had about eleven grid tiles left to clear, which given my limited gametime and inexperience with endgame PvM was going to be a tall order to complete. So I started playing on regular servers to try and prep for Sailing's release on Wednesday. As much as I love OSRS and cannot possibly return to RuneScape 3 given what a shitshow that game has turned into over the years, starting fresh just feels like an absolute slog.

To sum up my progress, Total Level 1157, cleared Ascent of Arceuus (mainly for Hunter XP), Misthalin Mystery and Bone Voyage (unlocking Fossil Island), and am most of the way through Perilous Moons. Unfortunately, the actual bosses are turning out to be a total pain in the arse because my combat stats are about half a combat level below the recommended for the quest. Even with 55 Defence, the Blue Moon absolutely shreds through my defence and consistently 6-shots me due to the sheer amount of DPS that boss does. As much as it's probably worth me grinding sulphur nagua for a few hours before I can consistently take on the moons, I just find grinding in this game a total slog.

I am also not looking forward to revisiting some of the quests I remember doing before on my RS3 account. Monkey Madness I gave up on part-way through because the guy who designed that quest 21 years ago thought it was a wise idea to make some of the puzzles require tick-perfect movement, i.e. escaping from the Marim jail.

Also not looking forward to doing Underground Pass (where you have to complete 5 Agility checks in a row without fail to reach Iban), Regicide, Desert Treasure, or the TzHaar Fight Caves.

I just played and finished Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon on PC. It is essentially an Elder Scrolls type of game (feels most like Oblivion), but with better combat and a better story. I haven't played a TES game since Skyrim came out roughly a century ago, so it was quite fun. Apparently it was a buggy mess on release (just like a real TES game!), but I didn't hit a single bug in my roughly 50 hour playthrough. I definitely recommend it if you're looking for that type of game. I played on Linux with no issues or tweaks needed.

After shortly trying and refunding ARC Raiders, I had a change of heart, convinced a friend to buy it (honestly, I think he was looking for the same excuse), and also bought the game back.

I'm glad I did, because even though it's a PvPvE extraction shooter, this one actually works for casual players. You can easily read/watch about the game now, but here are some notable points for me:

• It's a beautiful game, and it's well optimized. The maps are gorgeous and a joy to explore.
• PvE enemies (the titular ARCs) are actually dangerous, and not just filler between PvP fights
• The long time to kill (TTK) favors strategic thinking and intelligent use of your gear over fast reflexes
• Most maps are so large that you can usually avoid PvP encounters
• Solo lobbies are mostly chill, while duos and trios are more "shoot on sight"
• You can have freeloader equipment (1 gun, ammo, a few healing items and a random grenade) and keep it after your run
• You always get some crafting mats even when you die, most basic weapons are viable even for PvP

I'm absolutely terrible at PvP, and yet I can extract safely most of the time. That doesn't mean I don't get camped or shot in the back, but in solo play, PvP is just a component of the game, and not the focus.

When playing in duo (or trio), we gear to fight and don't take chances. If you start a game with the mindset that you're going to die, it's still all fun, and most encounters are fair play with non-toxic proximity chat.

Honestly, I've been playing a lot of Archero 2 on my phone lately.

I have less and less time to devote to gaming these days, so playing on my phone is a good alternative. I love that game because, while there are microtransactions (a lot of it). There is actual skill to the game, you can easily level up and get stronger every time you play. It doesn't translate that much into the game play (the monsters get stronger as you do), but I'm at the point where I can tweak my build to maximize a certain playstyle and it's fun when you get the combat upgrades that fit that playstyle.

It's a ton of fun! I must say I'm a little addicted... which I feel is great because I haven't found that in a game in at least 6 months.

Raging Loop

Japanese folk horror / mystery VN focused around a man forced to play a game of real life werewolf in a countryside village.

1. On one hand, the overall writing is pretty good.

   • There's a lot of layers to the narrative, a big cast with a lot of hidden agendas and skeletons in the closet, some well thought out mythology and folklore that ties in well with the story and setting and a clever but unreliable narrator who often doesn't show his cards even to the reader until the last minute. There's a rough, scrappy quality to it (on top of the whole "is this actually a curse or just a human conspiracy?" angle) that reminded me a lot of Higurashi no naku koro ni back when it was just some indie game you bought on home-burnt CDs at comic conventions and had no editor to answer to, so the writer would go nuts with whatever prose and ideas they thought would be cool.
   • The "feasts" (rounds where the characters try to deduce who the werewolves are and vote on one person to kill) in particular are great, with a lot of "if I do X, then Y will do Z, so I have to do A instead... but then B would happen" moments where the characters are trying to outmaneuver each other.

2. On the other hand:

   • Despite having the usual flowchart and decisions, it's a very linear game that's designed to be read in a specific order. Branches are either firmly locked off until it's time for you to read them or lead to swift dead ends.
   • Some of the answers to the core mysteries in the story are kind of ridiculous / implausible and feel like a bit of a letdown after being teased for so long.
   • The deal behind one of the most interesting characters in the story is not covered in the main story at all. You have to read one of the extra side stories unlocked after clearing the game to get her background... but that side story doesn't tie into the main story at all. Instead of tying up the loose ends in the story you just read, it's a bunch of completely new lore dumping and world building that sets up an entirely different story which they never ended up making.

3. One really cool feature the game does have is that after clearing it, you unlock a mode where you can read the inner monologues for all of the characters (including the unreliable narrator protagonist), as well as unlocking a few additional scenes that occur while the protagonist isn't around and a couple of neat secret endings. Playing through the game again with this mode on (which only takes a couple of hours given you can skip read text) not only makes the plot points much easier to understand (e.g. instead of having to read between the lines as to why a character is doing X, you can see them rationalising their decision), but also makes the existing story more believable by addressing some of what would otherwise be plot holes. It feels like watching a movie with the DVD commentary on.

Other games:

• Finished up Once upon a Katamari. The main campaign feels just about the perfect length for a game like this, although the final level is a little anti-climactic given the setup.

• Still slowly playing through Final Fantasy VII Remake. I'm up to chapter 9 now.

  • The melee combat still hasn't clicked for me at all. You can't cancel out of the attack animation to block or dodge, so I feel like my options are to either very slowly hit the enemy one button press at a time and block when they're about to hit back (which turns every battle into a slog given how much HP enemies have), or just forget about defending and combo attack the enemy as fast as possible to build their stagger, which you can get away with on normal difficulty but also feels bad given how much damage I end up taking.
  • I'm coming around to some of the new takes on the characters, though. Barret and Aerith in particular are great and feel like expansions of their original characters rather than outright rewrites (like Jesse / Biggs / Wedge). Aerith is also fun to play as with her ranged attack and busted double magic skill.

Anno 117: Pax Romana

I hesitated to buy this one, since it’s a Ubisoft title, and there’s some discussions online related to their usage of AI generated content. But there’s such a drought of good city builders, especially Roman themed ones, and Anno has always been a good series, so I had to bite. I’m playing it on the PS5.

I have been playing the campaign for 10 hours or so, and I am overall pleased. There are plenty of new additions, compared to 1800:

Curved roads & diagonal placement of buildings. I guess it’s pretty self explanatory, but it stands out as a series first. It helps make the game prettier, and the gameplay feel a tad more superficial, in the best of ways. More like a city painter, less like a spreadsheet.

Controller support. I’m not sure if this is new or not, since it’s the first Anno title I play on a console. But I have to say that they did a decent job. It took me an hour or so to get used to it, but now it feels intuitive & natural. There’s still some hiccups & bugs (it’s an Ubisoft game after all) but nothing game breaking.

Roman empire. No explanation required.

Branching population upgrades. I just ran into this during my last session, so I can’t say much about it. But it’s something new: in a different region, you can choose to romanise the Celts, or to keep their identity. Each branch temporarily locks out the other, and they each come with their own benefits & needs (a.k.a. Supply chains)

Some other notable features are: a research tree in the base game, a faith system, a return of the land combat, and a pretty deep naval system. I haven’t had the chance to dive into any of these systems, but at a first glance they seem deep & interesting.

The biggest minuses I can give are:

Poor performance on Linux. The main reason I’m playing it on the PS5. My PC’s hardware is definitely up to the task (that is, on Windows), but anything higher than Low/Medium on my 4K TV had an atrocious performance.

The campaign is cringe & act 3 was cut before release. I did not expect a period-accurate cinematic masterpiece, but the campaign is ahistorical & quite immature. And the entirety of act 3 was cut (according to some dataminers), probably to repackage & sell as DLC. So, it’s my understanding that at one point the game stops giving you quests & you’re left to play in what is essentially an endless mode. If I had to describe it in a word: amateurish.

Overall, it’s a relatively bug free game, looks beautiful, and has plenty of new & interesting additions. I can definitely recommend it to Anno fans, and also city builder nerds in general.

I finally caved and picked up a Switch 2 as a birthday present to myself, and paid the $10 for the Tears of the Kingdom upgrade. I've owned TotK since it came out, but when I got it I was already so burned out by putting hundreds of hours into BotW that I never really put my heart into TotK before abandoning it. I vaguely remember discovering some item duplication glitch and using that to max out my energy cells and then using a hover bike build to bypass the whole map and hyperfocus on getting all the map towers, shrines, and light roots, and mostly ignored the story.

So now that some time has passed I'm getting back into it, starting over and playing it properly this time, and it's fun. Not a mind-blowing experience like BotW was, but it's basically like getting to play BotW over again with enough new mechanics and things to do/explore to keep it interesting. It could also be my poor memory, but the graphical upgrade when playing docked on my big TV actually is kind of mind blowing--the draw distance in the game is absolutely bonkers... I'll throw a marker on some tower I can see plainly in the distance and decide I'll go there next, only to discover that it's on the other side of the map and would probably take me hours to get there at this stage in the game.

Diablo 1997

This week we played Diablo 1 for our podcast on roguelike/lite games.

While Diablo isn’t a roguelike, D1 does share an interesting amount of historical DNA with other CRPG rogues of the 90s like Angband. In some cases it’s kind of shocking how similar the concepts and gameplay loops are between a static town at the top of the dungeon, and the loot progression treadmill of returning there to sell for gold.

Overall: we had fun with it, despite some elements not aging that great over 30 years. We played on the Devilutionx mod using the GOG files, which thank god for that. I flipped back to the GOG original a couple time to compare and it’s so much slower and frustrating.

Multiplayer in Devilutionx is very simple, but sometimes very sensitive to people’s internet connectivity. There were a handful of times where folks would be dropping out, but I’m not sure how much of that was due to their VPN usage.

I also played a big chunk of it single player on the steam deck as well as the Rogue. Ranged damage is 500x better than melee in this game and much more fun when using a controller input. The interface for Devilutionx takes a little bit to get adjusted to, but works quite well for a pure KB+M classic.

Long time ago I was paying Xcom 2/Chimera Squad, never finished what I wrote, but I quickly added something to conclude it and here it is.

That was something I wrote months ago, so now in more recent news (more than a week after it's over), I'm writing a... summary? for Red Sun over Paradise's Season of Screams V: Blood Moon (Blood Counter 4) event.
Feel free to call it Blood Moon, or Blood Counter, we do that.

To go back earlier, and then jump to the end of the Blood Counter event, I bring Yomi 2.
Now, I got into this a bit weirdly, see there was a kickstarter for the physical game, decided to go for everything + the big box (to get everything extra), which costed me over 300$.
Now, go on Steam. You will find the whole game for under 30 bucks. This form comes with the bonus of handling all bookeeping (like changing HP values), easily showing both player's discard and known cards, a log, and even async games so you can play over timezones!
I spent a good month with the physical game before buying it on Steam.

...I may need to write a little less next time.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Sequel to my favourite game of all time, KCD1. I'm about 30+ hours in, so just getting settled in. Got the Royal Edition, which is the base game plus all DLC.

So, it feels just like a continuation of KCD1 (in a good way), and not just the story. Controls and mechanics are mostly the same, but there are a few changes and QoL improvements. There were one or two cases where I still can't tell when a given negative event or fight outcome is unavoidable, or if I'm really that rusty.

It looks and feels like more or less the same game engine, but with a whole new game map (i.e. geographical region) where the game takes place. Same level of exquisite, beautiful graphics and textures. Inventory and player stat screens have been beautified. There's a new crafting system (smithing, specifically), and you can now cook food and smoke edibles. The speech stat system has been augmented a bit, too, with now five different ways to persuade, intimidate, etc. in conversations.

Plenty of cut scenes of varying length, with good cinematography. The script and storylines are as good as expected, with one or two surprising things, and one plot event that was downright shocking to me. Quite unexpected.

A few bugs here and there, but nothing showstopping.

Real-time hours seem to flow by without me noticing. I'm really enjoying the game so far.

There is the you that remains and remains and remains.

75 hours I spent on Silksong, and it was completely overshadowed by the ~15 hour storyline of 1000xRESIST. Rarely do I find a game that's so good that I don't want to uninstall it after getting every achievement. The last time a game made me feel this strongly was Nier: Automata, which this game clearly draws some inspiration from. I don't want to play something else, I just want to play this again. I'm well aware of the irony of this sentiment, given the themes of the story.

The gameplay isn't going to draw anyone in, and the animations are really more of a lack thereof. It's essentially a visual novel with extra steps. Movement is clunky, the Orchard is nigh impossible to navigate, but by the ALLMOTHER does this game make up for all of that and more with the story. A story of survival, betrayal, loss of faith, and the complexity of figuring out what we should hold onto and what we should let go. Easiest 10/10 I've given a game since Nier. Now I have to find the motivation to play something else.

Hekki ALLMO, sister.

Super Mario Galaxy (2007)

I've finally 100%-ed this game. I played the game on the Wii as a kid but never finished the story. I got the game in Super Mario 3D All Stars and got 120 stars with Mario a while ago. I read that there's 121 stars total but in order to get the 121st star, you need to also get 120 stars with Luigi. So for the last few weeks, I've been playing this game as Luigi and I finally got all 120 stars with Luigi a few days ago. Playing Super Mario Galaxy as Luigi was more difficult than I expected as Luigi is more slippery than Mario, making certain areas of the game more difficult as it's harder to accurately position Luigi. I feel like I thoroughly understand all of Mario and Luigis movement mechanics in this game now haha.

Windswept

I got this day 1 after playing the demo during June's Next Fest and it delivered on being a DKC2 inspired platformer. There are 5 worlds for the main campaign and then all the bonus/postgame levels where the game decides to stop holding back and demands perfect execution of all the movement techs it teaches. I have almost everything collected: 32/40 DK Coins vinyl records for the jukebox, the 5 minigame cartridges, and all the moon coins. I haven't quite cleared the last postgame level legitimately (specifically, the 3rd area with the brambles [due to not knowing where to go] and the last area in the clouds [I ended up using movement techs to skip a chunk of the final area]) and had to use the hidden portals that are out of place but let you skip those segments. As such, I'm still missing the Comet for that level though I do have the spoiler coin, but I do not feel ready to touch the EX version of the level.

The game is pretty kind about the collectibles that unlock the post-game areas: you can pay stars to reveal a vision of the item's surroundings for a level's collectible and the only other use for stars is to buy the figurines which you can look at and play their animations (and pay to rebox them if you like). The vinyl records and minigame cartridges are nonessential for postgame progress so you can't pay stars for visions, but they at least mention which level they're found in.

Forestrike

Got this day 1 after playing the demo during the October Next Fest and I'm a happy customer and certainly wasn't expecting it to be $10 base price. The main premise is being a martial artist with foresight who can practice the fight over and over until figuring out a path to victory and committing to the real fight, kinda like how you can practice Mario Party minigames as much as you want until going through the real deal (or until someone gets bored and smacks the controller out of your hand, hit the start button already). After winning a run with a specific school, you unlock the Reality Run option for that school and going with it completely removes the foresight option. Of course, by the time you win a run, you should be well-versed and no longer need it as much. So far, I've gotten a win with all 5 styles, but only one Reality Run win with the Monkey school.

The practice runs are certainly needed at first; each style typically starts off a fight with only 1 defensive resource (aside from Monkey whose Heavy Attack ends with i-frames, but has a lot of startup before the invincibility kicks in) so you have to figure out how to neutralize everyone and preserve Yu's 3 HP. That goon has a weapon, take him out first to steal it and block that superarmored charger. There's a blocking boxer coming from one side, but the other side has a dodger who throws a rock when he dodges; attack one to provoke them and then dodge to allow them to damage each other and use up their defenses. There's a spiky doll that deals damage when attacked, take out the other doll that's charging and throw its head to eliminate the spikey doll from a distance. There's that satisfaction of ever-increasing mastery, and yet there's still those moments of misinputs where something just goes wrong and things quickly need to be improvised because things did not go according to plan and Yu eats an unnecessary hit.

There's also the roguelike aspect for forming a build. Each school offers 1 of 3 specific starter perks at the beginning of a run and 1 of 3 specific elevation perks after beating the first boss which allows for setting up consistency between the other random perks or perks borrowed from other schools. How do you take care of enemies with 2 stacks of armor that makes them immune to flinching? With enemies that will attack more than you have defense? Do you scale up your defenses? Defeat the enemies in the right order? Go for overwhelming offense to efficiently take out foes? That random upgrade could be good, but it could also ruin that perk for your build. The technique shop has an assortment of techniques including neutral ones exclusive to it, but the other path has an upgrade reward and a foresightless fight. Decisions, decisions.

While the overarching story isn't dense besides traversing the 4 biomes to defeat the Admiral and save the Emperor, each master has their own arc when going on a run with them and the base has commentary from them until Yu proves that he's mastered their styles.

The Martial Art Schools

Listing these out just as much for my own benefit in build planning

• Leaf: Uses Ki to Dodge in place with a focus on getting enemies to hit each other. Among its specialties are neutralizing weapons, turning enemies around, and swapping places with enemies using Substitution.

• Cold Eye: Uses Block to tank enemy hits and punish. Among its specialties are blocking, stealing enemy resources, and critical HP buffs.

• Storm: Uses Ki to Dash past enemies and Lightning Strike-empowered Light Attacks to bypass Dodge/Block. Among its specialties are augmenting the Lightning Strikes further, bonuses for attacking an enemy's back, and gaining/using gold for bonus effects.

• Monkey: Lays on the ground for i-frames after heavy attack. Specializes in maintaining Indolent, a buff for laying down longer, inflicting Surprise on enemies which temporarily negate their defenses, and throwing weapons around (or bananas which inflict Surprise).

• Tiger: Uses Focus to hit an enemy and then leap over attacks and perform an aerial attack. Specializes in jump attacks, launching enemies at each other, and gaining more Focus.