There isn't a stirring mini-game in DA:I, though.

I enjoyed the battle system in XIII. I agree that finding that combo of paradigms and attacks to victory was satisfying.

I was a fussy micromanager in DA:I. For all but the simplest, easiest battles, I would throw up the tactical camera and carefully position party members and coordinate attacks. I'm convinced that this allowed me to achieve more, earlier, than I would have been able to accomplish with just found loot and an R2-based…

Oh, there is no GoW in our household. No military shooters or online-oriented games either. It's all basically single-player RPGs, with varying degrees of sandboxy-ness. The last games he played were DA:I and Skyrim.

The enemies I've encountered on the main questline are not challenging. You have to go off the beaten path - exploring, hunting sidequests, etc. - for the more challenging encounters, I think.

I am sure someone'll crack it, but in my experience I've found the levels to be good indicators of what I can actually handle. Do you remember that tempting tyrannosaurus you can encounter very early on just outside Rabanastre in FF XII? They're like that.

I have been playing in the company of a skeptic who has been having a field day with it. I can try to explain it as getting better with the battle system, setting up powerful temporary stat-boosts, or exploring the spellcrafting system, but all he sees are a lot of dead deer-giraffes, quarter-mile treks for peas, and…

FF XII is probably my all-time favorite, after the obligatory nod to VI. That said, I will always remember XII as the game that made it very easy to snack while playing the game. I ate tons of tortilla chips while grinding for Tournesol-related drops.

Is this really fair, though?

That's such a sweet memory! I'm sorry that FFXV has left you out. If it's any consolation, I'm a male gamer who also feels alienated by the all-male party. It just doesn't feel right.

I feel like we almost lack the vocabulary to describe what they're doing with these "sexist tropes." Because, sure, Quiet is this hypersexualized sniper devoted to Snake… who breathes through her skin and doesn't talk because her vocal cords are infected with a virus transmitted through speech. In FFXII, you had Fran,…

Flawless abs, by the way, that don't look like they were created with several layers of foundation.

You're not wrong, though I find that I can't think of a recent RPG with a more equitable gender politics that wasn't also radically open in terms of the main player's identity. So I'm thinking of series like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, Fallout - all with substantial player choice in who you play as and…

At ten hours in, it feels a little bit like DA:I to me in how "tactical" it is. I think that DA:I was intentionally designed so that you could muddle through well enough by just mashing buttons, but the system gives enough room to reward smart tactical play. So, I wouldn't wait for the game to force you to adjust;…

I don't buy the core notion that holding an institution accountable for blatant law-breaking inhibits them from doing their jobs otherwise.

Well, here's the choice we have. We can have a "free press" that occasionally violates the privacy of a few c-list celebrities and gets away with it because the Constitution makes it difficult to successfully sue them. Or we can have a "less free press" that shies away from aggressive coverage of well-heeled…

I am conflicted on these. On the one hand, I find some of these posters irritating, as even clever "sequels" are possible for some of these films only if one understands the film inspirations in the most shallow, unreflective ways possible. There *is* no such thing as a "Pan's Labyrinth 2," for instance, but one that…

Am I just too old to get the appeal of being able to ask a device pointless questions about trivial facts and get immediate answers? That seems to be the main selling point of smartwatches, as well. Is it a generational thing? If so, which generation is to blame?