The Caretaker’s Spade in The Witcher 3 certainly has some pretty positive attributes. It has a potent life-draining status effect, which is always useful. However, its most notable quality is that in a game filled to the brim with fantastical, ornate swords, it is a crooked, rusty, old shovel. You acquire the Caretaker’s Spade from the rather intimidating caretaker (which makes sen

The Naughty Stick has absolutely pitiful stats, so it really doesn’t make sense to ever use it when there are so many weapons that are substantially better . But it is genuinely hilarious, so maybe if you are looking to style on your enemies, you can equip this and give ’em a good spank

Ivaldi’s Armor Set of Deadly Mist proves to be one of the best when it comes to armor sets in 2018’s God of War . Of course, the journey to getting click the up coming document best gear is a challenging and dangerous one, as Kratos and Atreus must venture into Niflheim , a realm choked with a toxic m

Certain Monsties can let the player jump over gaps, climb rocky walls, and travel over map terrain in unique ways. Giving players the ability to really explore environments is something Capcom seems to have invested in with Monster Hunter Storie

This gorgeous gear is acquired in the game’s third act and, in terms of stats, beats basically all other armor by miles. It’s also unique to the Champion’s class – Mage, Warrior, or Rogue – so the look doesn’t necessarily get repetitive on your second or third playthro

I’m not a huge fan of Breath of the Wild as a game . I am, however, a humongous fan of Breath of the Wild as a world that exists on the Nintendo Switch and could be filled with Pokemon. Pokemon Legends: Arceus was supposed to be the delivery of ‘Pokemon but Breath of the Wild’, but it now seems to be more like ‘Pokemon but Monster Hunter: Rise’. That’s disappointing – Breath of the Wild is much closer to my hypothetical perfect Pokemon game than Monster Hunter – but it might just be for the b

A side-scrolling RPG with a lot of charm, Dungeon Munchies plays on the key phrase: you are what you eat. In this game, that is a shocking literal phrase. To make any kind of progress through the world, players will need to get ingredients from the monsters they k

A Monster Hunter structure means there will be a central hub for you to return to, and various Wild Area-esque zones for you to explore in turn – but unlike the Wild Area itself, you will be exploring them with purpose. It probably won’t be to hunt down and slay a Garchomp, but the game looks set to offer a sense of direction in every open area it offers you. This is a halfway house between the rigid routes of the main game and the Pokemon Hyrule of everyone’s dreams, but it’s probably for the b

In the end, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild obviously doesn’t hold a monopoly on every gameplay element within its scope. It does, however, seem to be a blueprint for a bunch of new adventure games releasing these days. The player desire for deeply explorable worlds, and environments filled with life and excitement, is something that will never go a

The premiere of The Witcher season two on Netflix this past winter spiked viewer anticipation for the series’ direction and what it could bring to the franchise. For some of us, that means following the production of season three much more closely as it commenced, while for others it calls for yet another replay of The Witcher

Battle Chef Brigade has a very interesting take on how to make food, namely that to do so successfully, you need to be playing a match-3 game. After the players gather their materials, they can add them to their dish, filling up squares in a 4×4 grid with colourful circles, and mixing those ingredients together by rotating the placed circles to get lines of th

Of course, the Breath of the Wild inspiration doesn’t necessarily stop there. Even the game’s Monster Dens, where players will be able to get Monstie eggs in Monster Hunter Stories 2 , are somewhat similar to Breath of the Wild ‘s shrines in a way. While Monster Hunter Stories ‘ Monster Dens randomly appear on the map, these are mini-areas that players will enter to retrieve a beneficial item (in this case, Monstie eggs), after besting the opponents wit

There’s no doubt that Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has had a lasting impact on the gaming world, and RPGs in general. Various games have either copied different gameplay elements from the game, or been heavily inspired by them. The general atmosphere of Breath of the Wild ‘s open-world gameplay has also been a major source of inspiration for many new games. It seems like this could also be the case for Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin . Capcom has crafted Monster Hunter Stories 2 to be open-world to a degree, allowing players to more deeply explore the different locations around the game wo

You can return to the Wild Area again and again, exploring more of it and actually being able to catch some critters, but it’s all pointless . You know the real world, and the real story, exists beyond its confines. Yes, that part is snowy and that part is sandy, but it’s all artificial. The Wild Area is like a zoo in the middle of a city. There aren’t really lions in New York, or tapirs in Paris. They’re just creatures in a self-contained, specific area. That isn’t real ice in the polar bear enclosure, it’s white painted rocks. That’s all the Wild Area