It's the NWP Monster Factory!
Welcome to a creative edition of Nerds Without Pants! This week, we’re joined by Mike, the host of Games My Mom Found. We talk about our favorite created characters, a ton of games, and decide who wins when Resident Evil 2 takes on…Resident Evil 2?! I dunno, man, the listeners book these cage matches.
Can't get enough of these fights.
Argue all you want about which RPG has the best characters and story, but neither of those things matter nearly as much as a game’s battle system. Since we typically spend upwards of forty hours in an RPG, the bulk of that time is spent fighting foes within the rule set the designers created, so it has to be compelling enough to keep pulling us along. Sometimes, a combat system is formulated with just the right amount of intricacy, a satisfying splash of spectacle, and exactly what was needed to get in our heads and keep us plugging away until we save the world on the brink of decimation. We’ve picked our favorite RPG battle systems and wanted to explain why we love them so dearly. Maybe you’ll gain an appreciation for a combat system you felt was a drag or you’ll decide to dig into a game you never tried before. Maybe you’ll think we’re daft and forgot the real greatest system around. We’re bound to have a big assortment of faves, so read through our picks and tell us what yours is too.
We give Square Enix some friendly tips for keeping the Fantasy alive.
When Jesse Miller, our resident features guru, asked if I would be interested in doing a Final Fantasy retrospective for the series’ 25th anniversary last year my answer was a resounding “yes!” In the months that followed, I poured all of my love and dedication into a five part series detailing the 14 core Final Fantasy games. It was a labor of love for me; no series of games has been more influential or important to me as a gamer. I’m a staunch defender of these games, even when they go into weird territory like iOS time-wasters. That doesn’t mean that I’m blind to the fact that the series isn’t what it once was, however. As excited as I am for the future of Final Fantasy, I think that the fine folks over at Square Enix need to take a good long look at where the series stands. To that end, I have 5 things that I think could help immensely as we move forward into the next generation.
