While we're at it, can we also come up with a new term for "Metroidvanias" that doesn't chain all of them to two specific examples, one of which isn't even the first?

It's the best stealth action game since Metal Gear Solid V for me. The squad mode does tactical team operations better than Metal Gear Online ever did, probably because it's open-world.

One summer in college, I decided to reward myself for crashing and burning over the finish line at the end of the semester with the original freeware La-Mulana. I had heard it's only for the brave and once I heard the opening notes of the first area, I knew I was in for a good time.

If you miss anything in Divine Beasts, you won't be able to get them again. But as was pointed out after the fact, you can pay off the lab to get those boss photos anyway, so forget what I said.

Whatever it is, it's outworn its welcome.

I'm just burned out by all these indie games that explore the human condition and all that. I'm even more distressed that games about being sad are still selling so well after all this time. That can't possibly be healthy. I'm real disappointed that a visually appealing game has to be coupled with subject matter I…

I want to play Night in the Woods because the art style looks cool but I'm turned off by the themes. Why do so many charming games have to coerce you into feeling sad?

I'm looking forward to Pocket Rumble for Switch solely for the novelty of a Neo-Geo Pocket Color fighting game in 2017.

That's what I was alluding to. I don't see any reason it shouldn't be possible to point these things out in, say, a replay, if not during gameplay. If Tekken 7 can selectively manipulate the camera in what would be the last hit of a match, it should be possible to extend that kind of monitoring throughout an entire…

I think the next step from tutorials will be to have the game point out in-game what everything is and what to do at the most common situations. Every time you lose, the game will try to point out how you lost and give advice on what to do next time. You lost because you used an long, unsafe move and the opponent…

I'm in favor of simplifying difficult inputs because do we really need the best stuff to be unreliable to perform in the best of times? Then again, it's exactly that execution barrier that makes for some of the most famous moments in all of competitive gaming, and going too far will reduce that possibility. It's…

I think the reason most fighting games are mostly the same is because Capcom got it exactly right the second time. Street Fighter 1 was missing the smooth movement and freedom to press buttons, and Street Fighter II got them both, so everything that followed just iterated on it, with a good number of distinct…

There have been attempts to move fighting games away from an emphasis on execution, but none of them have been able to retain the audiences that the traditional Street Fighter-inspired games do. Fighting games are a niche because every game to follow Street Fighter II has replicated some aspect of its design, and all…

And Marvel vs. Capcom 3 coming out and taking everyone's attention away from it.

A lot of tutorials make the mistake of trying to teach too much at once. Revelator's tutorial teaches only the most basic things of its particular engine and makes sure it's in a way that's interactive with as little text as possible. It actively discourages button mashing by making the player press only one button at…

It's 3-on-3, which people apparently like much more than me. For FighterZ, they're also rethinking that system to remove the frustrations of it, notably how the match restarts when a character dies so there's no possibility of an unblockable setup that gives no opportunity for the defending player to make a comeback.

I was surrounded by fighting games my entire childhood, and while my older and younger brothers were all able to get into them easily, they baffled me for nearly two decades. I never figured out how they learned them. It wasn't until 2009 when I finally 'got' them with Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. I miss that game, and I'm…

The underwhelming roster, at least on the Marvel side, can be squarely blamed on Marvel and/or Disney because it coincides with their current plans for the films. They do need to promote them now, after all. As for the Capcom side, where the hell is Captain Commando?

You know what's mildly interesting about that? Persona 4 Arena, a game that looks and plays similar to BlazBlue, got a good amount of attention on its announcement and has very few people playing it anymore. FighterZ, a game that looks and plays similar to Xrd, is getting all kinds of hype and will probably sustain it…

I'm pretty sure the only reason so many are talking about it is because it uses the Xrd graphical style. Turns out it works really well with actual anime. Speaking of FighterZ, Future Trunks is in, so now the known roster is up to 7.