nophilip

Real bummer to see another site get shut down, especially Waypoint. I certainly didn't consume all their content, but I love the whole Waypoint crew and will always remember stuff like Lore Reasons and the Waypoints podcast. I hope Rob, Patrick, Cado, and Ren can all find new jobs quickly.

As a turn based tactics junkie, I was overall disappointed in it. Don't get me wrong - I like story in games, and I've loved more story focused games in the genre. Triangle Strategy's story is way, way, way too overwrought and wordy for its own good. The ratio of story to game is way out of balance for my taste.

The combat itself I would describe as pretty middling. It's competent enough, but normal is way too easy. Hard makes you actually have to think tactically, but it also encourages you to grind more than I feel like you should need to in this type of game.

Overall: 6/10. It's currently #24 overall on my Ranking of Turn Based Tactics Games list. If you're looking for a recently released game in the genre that is better in literally every way (I guess YMMV on HD-2D as an art style), then I'd highly recommend Tactics Ogre Reborn. Much better story, dramatically better combat, and more content than you can shake a stick at if you want to dig into it.

Shoving my way into another book thread with more fantasy recommendations:

The Broken Earth series (N.K. Jemisin): Very nontraditional fantasy told from the 2nd person perspective. Absolutely loaded with queer and POC representation. I maybe don't think the 3rd book holds up to the other two, but still good and the quality of the first two alone make these a must read.

Malazan Book of the Fallen (Steven Erikson): Very dense epic fantasy with (IMO) some of the best storytelling out there. Textually very inclusive - more than anything else, this is a series about soldiers, and women are viewed as the equals (and sometimes superiors) of men in this area. Many textual gay/lesbian characters, plenty of POC representation, and subtext arguably exists for genderfluid characters.

The Lightbringer Series (Brent Weeks): More epic fantasy with pretty unique color-based magic. I'm spotlighting it here for having an overweight POC character as its central protagonist, literally the only one of those I know of in the genre.

Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive, tons more): Mentioning Sanderson because he has really grown a lot in this area over the years. He's Mormon and early in his career had made some statements about his personal religious beliefs vis a vis queer folks. In the last decade plus, he's made a big effort to educate himself, involve queer folks in his creative process, and really developed his queer representation in his writing. Is he the number one writer in the world for queer fiction? Absolutely not, but I thought it was worth mentioning because you rarely see a prominent public figure be this open about wanting to learn and progress in this area.

@bigsteve33: Identical experience over here.

An absolute shame. I had already cancelled my premium renewal since it doesn't offer anything I care about anymore (not interested in the discord), but really sad to hear in general. Absolute best wishes to Jason and Jess, and to the rest of the crew as they recover from this.

• Europa Universalis IV
• Dwarf Fortress
• Luftrausers
• Sekiro
• Spelunky 2 (formerly Spelunky)
• Factorio

I mostly game on PC these days. Vampire Survivors is probably the one that gets added to this list this year.

https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/nophilip/lists/goty-2022/372213/

List is not yet final, but I suspect Pentiment and Tactics Ogre will end up taking spots in the top 10 by the end of the year.

Also as others have mentioned: The list button is not working for me either.

How could it be anything other than Hellena Taylor? It's certainly not the Most Important of the garbage fires this year, but if we're talking Hottest Mess, I feel like nothing else comes close.

I've been having a good time overall. I like a lot of the shows currently going, although I'm kind of baffled at how inconsistent a lot (most?) shows seem to be releasing. Notable exceptions of course being the Bombcast, Morning Mess, Arcade Pit and the Voicemail Dump Truck. Totally get that scheduling is hard, but it seems like almost every show is pitched as a weekly thing and then many run less than 50% of weeks. Blight Club has been a fantastic time. Very sad to lose Albummer.

I guess my biggest gripe is the disappearance of criticism from GB. I know GB has never been a place for like academic criticism, but there used to be much more focus on discussing what works and what doesn't about a game, why it's doing what it does, and general insightful commentary. The notable exception is Jess - I definitely don't agree with her all the time, and that's exciting for me! She's consistently willing to dig into what specifically makes a game work or not work in a way that the rest of the crew doesn't seem interested in anymore - at least not on GB content. Hot Takeouts is great but inconsistent out of necessity.

Overall: Site's still good and I'm still watching more content than I'm skipping, but I would love more of a focus on criticism. Don't be afraid to be negative! I love that shit!

Edit to say: Absolutely love Grubb's addition on the news front. It's the best News has ever been on GB (not to denigrate past contributors at all).

This detail makes Hive DOA for me. Call me an old man but 99% of the time I don't want to do things like browse the internet or twitter on my phone.