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(03/24/18 5:05pm)
By Tanner Kinney
There’s a big meme about Riot’s esports department treating EU LCS like second class citizens. Through not giving visas at the proper times, not stepping in to stop really terrible stuff from happening in the participating organization (shoutouts to MoveYourMothers), and then the shenanigans with giving EU LCS best-of-twos, but NA LCS best-of-threes, it’s kind of true. That, along with making more cash money here in the States, is probably why NA tends to import so many EU players. It seems they’ve now overpowered us though, because they’ve infected our beautiful LCS with something people didn’t expect:
EU loves ties (Riot’s reasoning for giving them best-of-twos), so now NA gets to love ties as much as they do. This past week, we had five additional tiebreaker games, all of them deciding seeding for playoffs. The results of these games will shock you! Well, they shocked me at least.
(03/16/18 5:00pm)
The roguelike and roguelite genres have been massively successful in the past decade, particularly in the indie scene. The ability to make small, low-budget games that are infinitely replayable is an enticing prospect to a lot of small indie developers. Unfortunately, Steam’s oversaturation problems have made it so a lot of these titles end up not receiving the attention they deserve. Plus, a lot of these roguelikes fail to do anything truly special with the genre. Even the excellent Heat Signature from last year failed to be truly replayable despite a cool aesthetic and world. However, just in the first few months of this year, the genre seems to be climbing back up. The absolutely phenomenal Slay the Spire, despite being early access, has drained countless hours of its playerbase, myself included. And now, from the developers of one of the biggest roguelike games FTL: Faster Than Light enters Into the Breach, another incredibly smartly designed and addictive roguelike that manages to be deep both in gameplay and emotionally.
(03/15/18 7:56pm)
Historically, the race for playoffs tends to have some excitement, but many things are already locked in. The top teams are generally already guaranteed a playoff-bye in the final week, but this year no team has been confirmed their playoff-bye. On top of that, the playoff teams themselves qualifying are still on a razor’s edge, with some fates being in the hands of the individual teams, and other fates in the hands of teams like the Golden Guardians. Over the past two weeks, only Echo Fox, Cloud 9, Clutch Gaming, and 100 Thieves have secured a spot. Team Solomid, Team Liquid, and the surprise contender of Counter Logic Gaming are all still competing for those final two spots. Who will claim them? Which meme team will play spoiler? As there’s a lot to cover but not a lot of time, I’m going to touch on something everyone loves: scenarios!
(03/14/18 9:48pm)
By Tanner Kinney
Historically, the race for playoffs tends to have some excitement, but many things are already locked in. The top teams are generally already guaranteed a playoff-bye in the final week, but this year no team has been confirmed their playoff-bye. On top of that, the playoff teams themselves qualifying are still on a razor’s edge, with some fates being in the hands of the individual teams, and other fates in the hands of teams like the Golden Guardians. Over the past two weeks, only Echo Fox, Cloud 9, Clutch Gaming, and 100 Thieves have secured a spot. Team Solomid, Team Liquid, and the surprise contender of Counter Logic Gaming are all still competing for those final two spots. Who will claim them? Which meme team will play spoiler? As there’s a lot to cover but not a lot of time, I’m going to touch on something everyone loves: scenarios!
There are a few different combinations of who takes that final spot (for those who love math), but I’ll go over the basic path each team has to make to get that last playoff spot.
(03/10/18 8:01am)
by Tanner Kinney
The roguelike and roguelite genres have been massively successful in the past decade, particularly in the indie scene. The ability to make small, low-budget games that are infinitely replayable is an enticing prospect to a lot of small indie developers. Unfortunately, Steam’s oversaturation problems have made it so a lot of these titles end up not receiving the attention they deserve. Plus, a lot of these roguelikes fail to do anything truly special with the genre. Even the excellent Heat Signature from last year failed to be truly replayable despite a cool aesthetic and world. However, just in the first few months of this year, the genre seems to be climbing back up. The absolutely phenomenal Slay the Spire, despite being early access, has drained countless hours of its playerbase, myself included. And now, from the developers of one of the biggest roguelike games FTL: Faster Than Light enters Into the Breach, another incredibly smartly designed and addictive roguelike that manages to be deep both in gameplay and emotionally.
(03/05/18 12:48am)
As I write these articles, I start to learn more about how to actually be an analyst. For one, in the word count I like to maintain with these articles, I can’t be as in-depth as I’d like. For two, it’s easier to judge a team when you actually have time to fully watch every game. You can miss a lot by just looking at results and highlight reels. My power rankings last week were probably a bit, well... I admit I made a few mistakes. Not a day goes by that I don’t call myself a fraud. As once said by the famous George Lucas, “I may have gone too far in a few places.” You can never count out the underdogs. Though, since they are in the middle of the standings, they aren’t huge underdogs. So, like middledogs? Is that a thing? It is now.
(03/04/18 10:49pm)
by Tanner Kinney
As I write these articles, I start to learn more about how to actually be an analyst. For one, in the word count I like to maintain with these articles, I can’t be as in-depth as I’d like. For two, it’s easier to judge a team when you actually have time to fully watch every game. You can miss a lot by just looking at results and highlight reels. My power rankings last week were probably a bit, well... I admit I made a few mistakes. Not a day goes by that I don’t call myself a fraud. As once said by the famous George Lucas, “I may have gone too far in a few places.” You can never count out the underdogs. Though, since they are in the middle of the standings, they aren’t huge underdogs. So, like middledogs? Is that a thing? It is now.
As the last few weeks shake out, there seem to be three tiers: the top two, the bottom two (or three), and then everyone else in the middle. At the top, of course, you have Echo Fox and C9. At the bottom, you have the meme teams of Golden Guardians and OpTic Gaming, along with Counter Logic Gaming if you don’t have #faith. And then, in that juicy, delicious middle bit, you have all the crazy teams. Team Solomid seem to go back and forth between trash tier and kings. 100 Thieves have hit their stride again. And Clutch, Team Liquid, and even FlyQuest (sometimes) have had enough good showings to be legitimate threats. Momentum is huge in the LCS, though, so let’s take a look at a couple of teams who are riding high off impressive 2-0 weeks and see what they can translate going into the wild west of Patch 8.4, especially compared to their brothers in the middle of the pack.
(02/25/18 1:05am)
Week five has finished and, honestly, there weren’t too many surprising results. The week played out pretty normally, at least until Team Liquid got bopped by Golden Guardians, which will be covered later, don’t worry. In the meantime, I promised mid-split power rankings and I’m going to talk about teams playoff potential. Only the top six teams will be competing for that big win and a chance to represent North America at the Mid-Season Invitational and I don’t think every team has a chance to get there. Just like before, these predictions are based on perceived power going into the second half of the split, along with their previous results. Consistency and stability are key for top teams, while really impressive looking, but volatile teams may find themselves lower than expected. I hope that someone gets really angry at this—it will make my month.
(02/25/18 12:32am)
by Tanner Kinney
Week five has finished and, honestly, there weren’t too many surprising results. The week played out pretty normally, at least until Team Liquid got bopped by Golden Guardians, which will be covered later, don’t worry. In the meantime, I promised mid-split power rankings and I’m going to talk about teams playoff potential. Only the top six teams will be competing for that big win and a chance to represent North America at the Mid-Season Invitational and I don’t think every team has a chance to get there. Just like before, these predictions are based on perceived power going into the second half of the split, along with their previous results. Consistency and stability are key for top teams, while really impressive looking, but volatile teams may find themselves lower than expected. I hope that someone gets really angry at this—it will make my month.
(02/19/18 11:46pm)
Now, let me start by saying I wasn’t able to catch the games live for week four. So, despite being a true fraud, I will personally apologize for this week of analysis. I’d also like to issue an apology on behalf of anyone who bet on the teams that were expected to win, because no one could be expected to predict the absolute madness week four brought us. 100 Thieves got exposed sooner than expected, picking up no wins against teams they definitely should have beaten. Team Solomid and Counter Logic Gaming failed to capitalize on their upswing from last week, both taking losses on the first day. TSM only picked up a win on day two because, well, they played CLG. And finally, Clutch Gaming is starting to deliver on some of that promise they showed early in the season. It’s a shame there’s so much to talk about this week, because I don’t have time to cover it all. Instead, I’m going to talk about a couple of teams I haven’t really touched on in detail.
(02/17/18 6:26pm)
by Tanner Kinney
Now, let me start by saying I wasn’t able to catch the games live for week four. So, despite being a true fraud, I will personally apologize for this week of analysis. I’d also like to issue an apology on behalf of anyone who bet on the teams that were expected to win, because no one could be expected to predict the absolute madness week four brought us. 100 Thieves got exposed sooner than expected, picking up no wins against teams they definitely should have beaten. Team Solomid and Counter Logic Gaming failed to capitalize on their upswing from last week, both taking losses on the first day. TSM only picked up a win on day two because, well, they played CLG. And finally, Clutch Gaming is starting to deliver on some of that promise they showed early in the season. It’s a shame there’s so much to talk about this week, because I don’t have time to cover it all. Instead, I’m going to talk about a couple of teams I haven’t really touched on in detail.
100 Thieves, caught and detained by local Guardians
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV4ofE6wQ6U
Last week, I predicted that the 100 Thieves would start losing games and falling in the standings. Now, this was partially because I don’t think their roster can consistently deliver and partially because my friend is a big 100 Thieves fan and I wanted to rustle his jimmies a bit. I did not predict, however, that they would lose to FlyQuest and Golden Guardians. As it turns out, they really are 100 Frauds. I don’t know what’s a bigger story, Golden Guardians picking up their first win, or 100 Thieves losing to the Guardians. FlyQuest, at the very least, picked up their win off the back of a smart (at least, unique) draft and their new mid laner FLY Fly. The Guardians changed absolutely nothing other than having Locodoco get fired for disrespecting women. So, how in the hell did the predicted 0-18 team pick up a win against a team that, admittedly, looked like top of the table material?
Looking at the draft, I have absolutely no idea how GGS pulled through. With Camille jungle and Illaoi top lane pulled straight out of solo queue, versus a very meta team drafted by 100 Thieves, a better team would have won. For a while, 100 Thieves WERE doing well. Yet, with some insane play by Contractz on Camille completely outmaneuvering Meteos’s Sejuani, getting good flanks and counter ganks, and some really good teamfights from GGS, they jailed the Thieves before they could make their getaway. I’d give the win to Contractz, of course, because he really did step up, but EVERYONE from GGS stepped up their game. The team drafted, also, turned out to be incredibly smart by GGS, with the Camille countering the Azir pick. 100 Thieves also just seemed to be doing poorly this week. Meteos in particular is getting caught out and looking rather weak, with the bot lane not doing much better. It’ll be interesting to see whether GGS continues to do well, or goes back to the trash. I just hope 100 Thieves keep losing, because starting strong and then losing horribly would be appropriately Finchy of them.
Clutching onto victory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBOl-wByBw0
I think one of the teams I was most excited for was Clutch Gaming. EnVy last year, particularly in the summer split, was a team that at their best looked amazing and was fun to watch. At their worst they had trouble actually winning games. The age-old adage of the wise sage William “Scarra” Li applied to EnVy, “up until they lose, they are winning.” Clutch Gaming, the team bought by the Houston Rockets, not only had a funny dumb name in the preseason (Clutch City Gaming), but also were essentially EnVy but with upgrades in the top and mid lanes. They’ve had trouble actually pulling out wins, again, but are looking stronger than before. Now, in week four, they finally find success taking down both TSM and the #GREENWALL. Not exactly huge victories, but certain players have proven their worth and strength.
Take a look at their win against TSM. At first, it may look like Clutch won by simply waiting for TSM to outplay themselves (which they did). It also looks like Clutch should have lost from their abysmal level one play where Clutch failed an invade and got two members killed by TSM. TSM was racking up wins and tower kills, but failing to secure objectives like dragons or Barons. Why? Because our hero, the legend Apollo Price himself made ultimate plays, stealing key objectives from the lackluster looking Mike “MikeYeung” Yeung. Lira may not have looked good on Skarner (or in most of their games, really), but at least they secured objectives. And, let’s just say that Corki, Ezreal, and Gangplank picking up two Infernal Drakes shouldn’t have tipped late game team fights in favor of Clutch Gaming’s raw damage. TSM simply just can’t do anything with the leads they have. For Clutch, the (Apollo) Price is Right.
Games to Watch
OpTic Gaming v. Golden Guardians on Saturday at 5:00 pm EST
It’s a race to the bottom and OpTic and the Guardians are trying not to be the ones sitting down in the gutter. Both of them picked up wins in week four, but are still obviously the weakest teams in the league as of right now. For this match, I actually expect the Guardians to pull out another win. OpTic may have better players, but are playing like less of team than the Guardians. Plus, if the Guardians can pull out another smart draft, they ought to have victory secured.
Cloud 9 v. Echo Fox on Sunday at 5:00 pm EST
We are at the middle of the split! This means that rematches begin. In the first round robin, Echo Fox took the win over Cloud 9. Cloud 9, however, has shown huge improvement in taking down almost every other team and sitting at the top of the bracket. Will Cloud 9 continue their ascension or will Echo Fox pull them back to Earth? Probably the first, I believe in Cloud 9. I would be willing to say they are probably the best team right now.
Another week gone, and we are reaching the halfway point. That means it’s probably time for more power rankings. This season it seems they aren’t having a week break in the middle like they’ve had in the past, so that will be next week unless something insane happens—watch out for that. In terms of upcoming patches and whatnot, Zoe is finally getting substantial nerfs in patch 8.4. Plus, a quick word on the viability of new Swain: he sucks. I’ve yet to see, in high elo play, Swain do well. He lacks damage and tankiness despite having both. He’s basically a worse alternative to Vladimir. I doubt he’ll see play until his numbers get buffed. Finally, Kog’Maw nerfs have turned out to be very impactful, and the new top ADC’s are Tristana and Varus. Tristana in particular is insane, simple, and effective. She’s so good, even my duo (trash) friend can climb by playing her. I hope they buff other options instead of nerfing her though. Don’t do it Riot, don’t put ADC in the gutter. We can’t go back to the dark days. Never again. To end, one final phrase from scholar and super top laner Hashinshin: “fire the live design team.”
Sources: ESPN
Images: YouTube, The Rift Herald
(02/09/18 8:18pm)
To be honest, week three wasn’t looking like an exciting week of games initially. Every game just seemed like a mismatch between a team on the top end of bracket and a team on the bottom end. During Sunday’s games, they seemed so predictable that both of the analysts on the desk predicted the exact same winner for each game, purely coincidentally. I also didn’t expect much from this week. It just seemed like we’d see if the top teams really were as strong as they looked. As it turns out, a few teams we counted out just came back and surprised us, while the true top teams didn’t falter in crushing their enemies. As we start getting closer to the middle of the season, the best teams I think will reach their place at the top, while the frauds who took advantage of the early chaos will start to be exploited.
(02/09/18 6:27pm)
by Tanner Kinney
To be honest, week three wasn’t looking like an exciting week of games initially. Every game just seemed like a mismatch between a team on the top end of bracket and a team on the bottom end. During Sunday’s games, they seemed so predictable that both of the analysts on the desk predicted the exact same winner for each game, purely coincidentally. I also didn’t expect much from this week. It just seemed like we’d see if the top teams really were as strong as they looked. As it turns out, a few teams we counted out just came back and surprised us, while the true top teams didn’t falter in crushing their enemies. As we start getting closer to the middle of the season, the best teams I think will reach their place at the top, while the frauds who took advantage of the early chaos will start to be exploited.
Return of the King(s)
The first two weeks were absolutely brutal for both Team Solomid and Counter Logic Gaming. By the end of week two, both teams only managed to pick up a single win against a team that was predicted to be low tier trash anyways, and even then CLG seemed to only barely beat the Golden Guardians. I was with the angry Reddit commenters, blaming TSM’s communication and saying that the CLG roster needed to be gutted completely, or at least Reignover needed to be cut. Serious work needed to be done by these teams if they wanted to compete with the undefeated Echo Fox and the explosive looking 100 Thieves. Fortunately, it seemed that the first two teams awoke a fire in TSM and CLG, with both scoring a 2-0 week that they should’ve been scoring much, much sooner.
CLG vs Echo Fox began week three with a bang. The match lived up to usual Echo Fox bloodbath expectations, but this time CLG flowed with their chaos instead of trying to fight against it. At the start, Echo Fox were taking anything they could and getting away with it. Huhi’s Zoe was seemingly getting shut down, while Reignover’s Nunu did little else but secure dragons early on. In CLG’s favor, Darshan kept advantages in the top lane, while the bot lane went relatively even. It still seemed like Echo Fox’s raw power was going to take down another team. Fortunately for the viewers, that’s not what happened.
I believe the real deciding factor of this game is the absolutely disgusting pick potential from Huhi. Huhi’s usage of the Sleepy Trouble Bubble kept finding CLG kills they would not have gotten otherwise. Combined with Braum stuns from Biofrost and Nunu’s Bloodboil, Stixxay’s Kalista was given free reign to start melting targets, particularly in the last fight near Elder Dragon where they picked up a clean ace and ended the game. Echo Fox was completely unable to push their advantages simply by the pick power the CLG composition had. Zoe may be busted, but CLG used that power to their advantage. It may not have been clean, but taking a win off an undefeated team had to feel good for the struggling CLG.
The other former king, TSM, showed an impressive week, not only having two very clean victories, but one of those victories being against a team that was previously sitting at the top of the standings. Their match against 100 Thieves may not have been the bloodbath that CLG had, but it was completely controlled by TSM at all times. Though TSM lost a couple of kills early, they got picks that mattered and snowballed a lead purely off of objective control. 100 Thieves may have picked up a few tower kills, but they could not get a single Dragon or Baron buff out of TSM’s hands. Getting good luck with the Dragon spawns was big boon to TSM as well.
On top of all of that, Bjergsen and Hauntzer played absolutely out of their minds, completely eclipsing everyone else in terms of damage dealt. Even though 100 Thieves almost started to pull it back, the dominating lead TSM had just was too strong for them. Finally, TSM was able to execute on that controlled, calculated TSM style they had been trying to against a team perceived as good. I still hold it that 100 Thieves are a bunch of frauds, and once teams get better they will drop in the standings, but that’s besides the point. TSM simply put out an amazing performance this week, and I’m excited to see them start their climb back to the top like a sports anime protagonist.
All around me are familiar faces
The big hype of the season was around the new teams entering the Rift. Despite that, most of those teams were placed relatively low in most power rankings, my own included. The ol’ reliable teams like Cloud 9 and Team Liquid stayed at the top, while good looking new teams like Clutch Gaming sat at the bottom. Just looking at the current standings, the only new team above fifth place is 100 Thieves, and I expect them to start losing more in the coming weeks. Maybe not next week, considering they face FlyQuest and the LULden Guardians, but soon enough. I’m notoriously wrong in my predictions though. So, what makes Cloud 9 and Team Liquid so consistent?
Let’s start with Team Liquid. They got taken down a peg in week two after losing to 100 Thieves, but didn’t let that keep them down. The mark of a truly good top team is being able to soundly beat the bottom teams, sometimes absolutely murdering them. Team Liquid is definitely a good team at doing that. They’ve beaten their own record for fastest game time of the split three times already. It’s like watching the speedrunner Darbian beat his own world records over and over again. Their current best was scored against the LULden Guardians, clocking in at 26:24. The Guardians got absolutely nothing other than a sound beating from Pobelter’s Azir. There’s almost no silver lining for the Guardians in that game, it was just a massacre. Team Liquid also put up a similarly good performance against FlyQuest the day before, with FlyQuest also getting nothing but a sound beating from Pobelter’s Corki. Pobelter is a monster, and has a good team around him to highlight that. Finally, the prodigal son of North America is rising to the top as a godlike mid laner. He might even be top ten best in NA now.
Similarly, Cloud 9 had their brains turned on in their matches against OpTic and Clutch Gaming. C9 beat OpTic thanks to some amazing play by Smoothie, along with the team as a whole just playing so well with Smoothie’s aggressive Alistar. I wish my Alistar was as clean as Smoothie’s, but I’m also a dirty Janna one-trick so my brain is too small for that. Clutch Gaming did slightly better than OpTic, giving C9 a little bit of a struggle, but C9 still scored the victory in that game, again, thanks to Smoothie. Credit to Clutch Gaming, Febiven is looking like a monster and the Clutch bot lane is looking fairly solid, but C9 is just too strong and too consistent. Their only loss was to Echo Fox, another first place team, so it’s truly commendable how well they’ve been doing, especially since analysts like myself expected them to do worse with Svenskeren and Licorice. Sven and Licorice have been absolutely amazing for the team, Licorice especially smashing any and all expectations people had for him despite being a rookie. It’s always a pleasure to see C9 do well, as long as they never return to the dark days of almost relegation. Never again.
Games to Watch
Cloud 9 v. Team Liquid on Saturday at 6:00 pm EST
Two first place teams battle it out for sole possession of first place (until Echo Fox plays later that day). These matches are always exciting, just because two top teams battling it out will always lead to a great game, generally. It may not be as bloody as an Echo Fox game, but it’ll be good. Plus, Pobelter’s on a quest to prove himself as the best mid laner in NA, and Jensen stands in his way of that title. I think Team Liquid will pull out the win, but both teams are so close that it will be exciting to watch.
Team Solomid v. Counter Logic Gaming on Sunday at 7:00 pm EST
The original El Clásico of the NA LCS, TSM and CLG have both been on an upswing from week three. Who is swinging harder? Will TSM’s raw power be too much for CLG, or will the Counter Logic chaos take down TSM’s methodic playstyle? CLG likes to get messy in their games, for better or for worse. I think TSM will probably handily win this game because CLG is actually a terrible team with no redeeming qualities and I have absolutely no faith in them at all. Nope, never rooting for CLG. This is definitely not me trying to lower the CLG hype so that they can pull out a win when you believe in them the least. Nope, not at all. CLG is just a trash team.
A quick concluding look at upcoming patches, 8.4 is looking like it’ll shake up competitive play a bit. Mage items are getting revamped, so certain champions that are currently good may either get better or worse depending on how broken the new items are on them. I honestly don’t know WHO will be strong, but I’d like to believe that Veigar may make a reappearance. Or rather, I hope Veigar makes a reappearance. He’s my favorite tiny master of evil. 8.3 on the other hand, eh, not likely to do that much, other than Ryze might see less play. We won’t see 8.4 for a few weeks though, so who knows how teams will be looking by then. In other news, my duo partner and I both reached Gold ranking this past weekend. It’s not a huge achievement, but my duo partner only recently started playing and he’s already better than people who have played it for eight years. So, remember to always chase your dreams kids, even if you are duo trash.
Images: YouTube, Esportsranks
(02/08/18 12:32am)
by Tanner Kinney
Picture this: you are in a bar with your best friends: Shaggy, Solid Snake, Garfield, and Hank Hill. You are simply talking about life, Hank and Shaggy share a toast to their struggles and Garfield complains about Mondays on a Saturday evening. Suddenly, the bar is invaded by a gang of angry penguins, all demanding typical penguin things from the bar patrons. Garfield attempts to bail, but is taken down immediately. All seems lost. However, the lost Knuckles tribe has arrived to the bar as well, and spit on the penguins harassing their queen, the beautiful Nep-Nep that sounds like a 30 year-old neck-bearded man behind his voice changer. You thank the Knuckleses (Knuckles’s? Knuckli?) for their contribution, and ask if there’s anything you can do for them. Simply, they inquire one thing:
“Do you know de wey?”
This scenario is one that may seem like someone did all of the hallucinogenic drugs at once while watching Boomerang and old commercials for PlayStation games, then documented their thoughts live, but is something entirely possible thanks to the power of technology. The true purpose of virtual reality is to bring back the hit spiritual successor to Second Life, VRChat. VRChat is essentially the O.A.S.I.S. from Ready Player One, except with less shameless pop culture references and features people with personalities. The player takes on an avatar, generally some dumb meme or an anime girl, and just interacts with other people playing characters. That’s about it. The locations vary greatly, and some servers and maps are ripped one-to-one from their source, but really it is just a social simulator.
This social simulator, however, has become an internet phenomenon. Twitch streams are widely popular, with people like Pokelawls, Jameskii, and many more getting huge off of this VR craze. There may not be real money to be made in VRChat, but there’s an economy much stronger than any traditional economy: a memeconomy. The memes flow faster and stronger with every stream, and famous characters like Hank Hill are given a whole new personality that is scarily close to his original appearances. There’s too much going on in VRChat at any time that discussing its history would be akin to writing a brief history of every major event on the Earth, so I’m just going to cover a few more famous characters and happening within this wacky world.
(02/08/18 5:00am)
Picture this: you are in a bar with your best friends: Shaggy, Solid Snake, Garfield, and Hank Hill. You are simply talking about life, Hank and Shaggy share a toast to their struggles and Garfield complains about Mondays on a Saturday evening. Suddenly, the bar is invaded by a gang of angry penguins, all demanding typical penguin things from the bar patrons. Garfield attempts to bail, but is taken down immediately. All seems lost. However, the lost Knuckles tribe has arrived to the bar as well, and spit on the penguins harassing their queen, the beautiful Nep-Nep that sounds like a 30 year-old neck-bearded man behind his voice changer. You thank the Knuckleses (Knuckles’s? Knuckli?) for their contribution, and ask if there’s anything you can do for them. Simply, they inquire one thing:
(02/06/18 5:00pm)
Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, i7, 8GBs of RAM.
(02/04/18 3:07am)
Week 2 isn’t the most important week in the LCS. Teams are still figuring each other and themselves out, and as patches change and metagames shift, teams are forced to adapt to survive the progressing weeks. Week 2 may not have shifted the meta, but teams are more comfortable within it. The expected result is that teams who did well last week will continue to succeed, while teams who struggled may improve will still probably end up losing games. Results weren’t too interesting, though some of the games certainly were impressive. Those impressive games may have also been impressively bad. There are two main takeaways from this week though: who is at the top, and who is at the bottom.
(02/02/18 9:39pm)
by Tanner Kinney
Week 2 isn’t the most important week in the LCS. Teams are still figuring each other and themselves out, and as patches change and metagames shift, teams are forced to adapt to survive the progressing weeks. Week 2 may not have shifted the meta, but teams are more comfortable within it. The expected result is that teams who did well last week will continue to succeed, while teams who struggled may improve will still probably end up losing games. Results weren’t too interesting, though some of the games certainly were impressive. Those impressive games may have also been impressively bad. There are two main takeaways from this week though: who is at the top, and who is at the bottom.
(01/31/18 7:40pm)
by Tanner Kinney
Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, i7, 8GBs of RAM.
The Japanese role-playing game genre, also known as the JRPG, is one that has seen a lot of changes over the years, for better and for worse. While gameplay may not have changed too much for some established franchises, the tone and overall aesthetic of these titles has become less fantastical, with swords and sorcery and sometimes robots, and taken in a new direction. To put it simply, JRPGs have become more… well, anime. Recently, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 provided a sequel to the relatively grounded Xenoblade Chronicles that, while still a great experience, tended to rely on the crutch of fanservice and anime waifus that it didn’t really need. JRPGs about J-Pop idols and high school students have become more prevalent than your average sword and sorcery romp through the countryside. Some people pine for the old days of an old-fashioned adventure through beautiful fantasy landscapes, like the RPGs on the Super Nintendo.
Fortunately, Tokyo RPG Factory has worked to provide experiences that emulate those golden years, first with I Am Setsuna in 2016 and now with their new title Lost Sphear. Coincidentally, for a story about the power of memories, Lost Sphear uses the memories of classic JRPGs to not only give that feel-good nostalgia, but also to create some good memories of its own.
Visually and musically a Super Nintendo title for the modern age
Lost Sphear’s greatest strength is in its charm. Now, this charm isn’t necessarily due to qualities that are good or bad, but it’s still charming nonetheless. For example, graphically the game is very pleasant. It has a similar style to its predecessor I Am Setsuna, essentially being a Super Nintendo RPG like Chrono Trigger, but with the beautiful 2D sprite work promoted to 3D models. These 3D models somehow hold the same charm as their 2D counterparts, even if they aren’t as visually impressive. Simple things like character movement, enemy designs, and the design of the world map are all very nice to see. The character designs themselves aren’t too interesting though, sticking mostly to traditional Square Enix character archetypes. On the bright side, the main party is a cast of varied and colorful characters, though there aren’t too many standouts compared to the main cast of games like Chrono Trigger or Earthbound, where each character is instantly recognizable. Visually, the game delivers exactly what it intends to do with no fluff or excess amounts of anime tropes.
The music delivers on what it intends to do as well, though it isn’t as good as the soundtracks it tries to emulate. There’s something amazing about Super Nintendo MIDIs that no game attempting to be modern will be able to copy, no matter how hard they try. The soundtrack isn’t bad, of course, it’s pretty decent. There are some tracks I like, but none of them really stand out. In particular, the first major city in the game has music that, while good upon a first couple listens, becomes grating after the city holds the player hostage in its cycles of backtracking and running around aimlessly.
Compared again to the classic JRPGs, there aren’t any songs like “Corridors of Time” from Chrono Trigger or “The Red Wings” from Final Fantasy IV that can be pulled out of a crowd as examples of good music within their respective games. To put a specific reason to why Lost Sphear feels so bland, it’s the instrumentation of the songs. Many songs rely too heavily on woodwinds and strings, while soundtracks like Chrono Trigger’s had a large variety of instruments that can be heard, even through the Super Nintendo’s sound chip. The soundtrack still has its charms and its moments, but it’s a charm that loses its luster over time. It’s like watching an enthusiastic young relative do the same cartwheel over and over again. It’s endearing at first, but eventually both you and the child start getting sick of it.
A simple story that restores lost hope
The story in Lost Sphear is one that is relatively simple, but is delightfully nostalgic in all the right ways. The concept of the story is simple: you play as Kanata, an orphaned swordsman with a magical power to restore things that are trapped within a white fog. This phenomenon is referred to as being “lost.” After discovering and utilizing this strange new power, Kanata sets off on a globe-trotting quest with his friends Locke: a small boy with a crossbow and an empty stomach, and Lumina: a girl who is basically discount Tifa from Final Fantasy VII, to restore the lost parts of the world. Along the way, Kanata uncovers dark secrets of the empire he once respected, and works opposite of them despite their goals of restoring peace to the world to be in line with his. Kanata takes on large robots, sea serpents, forest monsters and the occasional imperial grunt on his quest to restore hope to a world slowly losing it.
The plot is relatively simple, yes, but it’s effective. On top of that, the aspect of restoring what is “lost” is not only a story element, but also an element woven into the gameplay itself, which is always impressive. The player quite literally travels around the world, restoring the lost parts of it on the player’s time, rarely happening in cutscenes. The real icing on the cake is the writing and interactions between the main cast. The cast may be a set of classic Square Enix archetypes, but they are all still unique in their own ways. They have their quirks, and they have great lines interacting with one another. There are some lines in the game, particularly ones delivered by the mysterious stranger Van, that are actually pretty hilarious. If their goal was to emulate the writing and storytelling of the JRPGs of old, then Tokyo RPG Factory definitely nailed it. Especially when compared to the heavy-handed and cliched writing of modern JRPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, this game is a breath of fresh air.
Combat that waits its turn patiently, but delivers something new
Lost Sphear’s core gameplay, at least in its combat, is the active time battle (ATB) system. This combat will feel instantly familiar to anyone who has played the Square Enix JRPGs of old. Each unit in combat must wait for their ATB gauge to fill up before performing an action. That action can be an attack, a spell, using an item, or going into a giant robot suit (because that’s a reasonable thing to do when faced with the dangers of some moss-covered penguins). Unlike RPGs like Final Fantasy IV, where both parties face each other on opposite sides of the screen, or Chrono Trigger, where the combatants move automatically, the player is given complete control of the movement of the party. Positioning of attacks and area-of-effect spells are key to quickly ending encounters. On top of that, timed hits are added through the “momentum” system, where by attacking and getting hit, characters build up momentum. By pressing a button at the right time during an attack, additional effects can be added to both basic attacks and skills.
The combat starts off very slow, as moving party members in active time can be a bit of a hassle when it seems there’s no benefit to it. As the game progresses, however, positioning becomes vital in dealing with certain fights. An early battle against a giant boar essentially teaches the player to use the system of actively moving the party into more advantageous positions as to not get gored by large, pointy tusks. The closest comparison to this system of combat, other than I Am Setsuna, is probably the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, though Neptunia is classic turn-based combat rather than the ATB system of Lost Sphear. It’s a little thing, but it keeps combat engaging throughout the later portions of the game. A lot of other JRPGs struggle with this, especially ones where most encounters can be won by simply having higher numbers.
Accenting the stellar gameplay is the extremely customizable system of skills and passives that Kanata and friends hold. Skills are not inherently learned by the party, they exist in items called “Spirinite.” Each party member can only equip a set number of Spirinite, but there are often more skills and passives that can be obtained compared to what can be equipped. This allows the player to specialize the members of their party. For example, Kanata can either take more offensive skills and focus on dealing higher damage, or he can take defensive skills and passives to take a more supportive role in combat. The choice is up to the player. On top of that, these skills can be given additional effects through equipped momentum Spirinite, which applies the specific effect of that momentum ability upon activating momentum mode in combat. Kanata’s Wind Blade can be given an Air Boost ability that significantly boosts the damage of the attacks.
The cherry on top of this system? Each skill can be renamed to whatever the player desires, within the character limit. It’s a small touch, but there’s always some fun to be found in casting spells that are given dumb meme names.
Featured image from Destructoid
(01/28/18 2:36pm)
The first week of the spring split is always an explosive one. New teams have entered and are battling it out with the former kings. Massive roster shifts tend to inevitably shake up who’s at the top, and many power rankings look like they were put together by frauds. As I fully admit from the start that I’m a fraud, I will say that I misjudged the power of certain teams. Then again, only one week of games where each team has only played two games is a bad judge of the power of teams. Many teams take a while to gel and become powerhouses; while other teams naturally click, but struggle to have the natural ability to hold their high ranking. So, which teams are struggling, which teams are succeeding, and which matches next week are going to be the ones to watch? Let’s get into that.
