granblue fantasy versus
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i'm very much enjoying certain parts of it. it strikes a fine balance between accessible and deep. easy to pick up and bang out some autocombos and specials but near-frame perfect timing is needed for optimizing giant combos ending in supers for max damage. it has a good amount of neutral play but often devolves into corner pressure, like many fighting games and particularly arcsys fighitng games. netcode is awful though, as is ranked matchmaking. my dream is that it gets updated with decent netcode but i'm not holding my breath. i love the art style — led by final fantasy tactics art supervisor hideo minaba — and want to see how they convert characters from the mobile game into a fighting game setting



persona 5 royal
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the definitive version of one of the best jrpgs of this generation. not much to say about it that hasn't been said in previous threads about this game except there is more time and opportunity. technical attacks have been expanded into something useful and the tweaks to the velvet room allow for some very game breaking things. morgana is far less pushy (still a little pushy) so the player has a lot more time after school than in vanilla p5. i'm making it a point to complete all dungeons in one day when it's possible (some dungeons force an exit/extra day due to a story beat) and it has really opened up the game for me. all those extra days to bump up confidant ranks and grind for yen in mementos really pays off in the mid and late game. i'm about to go into the penultimate dungeon of the base game (there is an additional dungeon in p5r) at level 56 with almost nothing but level 80+ personas, including very late game ones like satan. i'm not as interested in the extra story beats in p5r as i am in how much damage i can do to bosses compared to p5



into the breach
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extremely engaging once you get your head around the mechanics, the fact that it's not ftl, and that it's not much of a tactics game. it's closer to a puzzle game with several moving parts and a randomized board each round. great for bite-sized gaming on the go or when you have a few extra minutes



fft battleground
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https://www.twitch.tv/fftbattleground. randomized AI final fantasy tactics units fighting to the death for your amusement. it's one of the best ideas i've seen in a long time. it has shades of dota in the repurposing of existing assets and mechanics into something familiar yet new. as expected, calculators can completely take over matches, summoners can deal out tons of aoe damage, and mimes add an element of unpredictability not seen in the base game. it's wonderful and worth watching and learning if you love fft