Fall Games Explosion
Lego Voyagers, Magic's weirdest set, surprise Fire Emblem, Silent Hill f — and more
Between work and newborn care, my wife and I somehow surmounted a marathon gaming week. We finished Lego Voyagers before jumping to new releases like Magic: The Gathering’s Through the Omenpaths, Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, Puzzle Quest - Immortal Editon, Fire Emblem Shadows, and, of course, Hades 2. That’s not to mention Baby Steps — the Bennett Foddy nightmare I’ve been looking forward to but couldn’t squeeze in!
We’re always down for a cute co-op game, and Lego Voyagers didn’t disappoint. Beautifully rendered entirely in Lego pieces, you and your partner play a red block and a blue block who quest to (eventually) assemble a space rocket. The actual building mechanics could frustrate us — we’d often confuse the button to hop off a brick with the button to snap it to other pieces, and a hellishly finicky challenge near the end of the game nearly sunk our ambitions to finish it.
But ultimately, we persevered because it’s so goshdarned endearing. My wife quipped that Voyagers has more likable characters and better writing than Split Fiction — even though the closest it comes to spoken dialogue consist of “choo choo” noises you can spam while riding a train! It’s simply delightful and ended on a high (and unexpectedly touching) note.
Next up, Magic: The Gathering’s weirdest product… ever? Here’s how I described Through the Omenpaths in a WBUR article I published Monday:
Surprise announced earlier this year, the set’s a purely digital fabrication created to mirror a Spider-Man product that’s only available through physical cards. Wizards of the Coast hasn’t quite explained the hitch in the Marvel partnership, though I suspect it couldn’t break the Marvel Snap monopoly on the intellectual property. In order to bring these card designs to their popular Arena app, the Magic maestros had to scrub all references to Marvel characters, resulting in an eclectic set improbably teeming with spiders. […]
I’ll admit that my early drafts during the streamer event for Through the Omenpaths left me cold. The set’s actually quite small, with 188 cards. For comparison, the last main set, Edge of Eternities, featured 276 draft cards! That stunted size leads to much more repetition and blunts the set’s replayability.
To compensate, Wizards designed a new format for both Omenpaths and its Spider-Man parallel — the “Pick-Two Draft.” Instead of the usual eight players, this draft only requires four people. Instead of picking one card at a time, players in this format take two cards and pass them on. It’s quicker, of course, but also makes it easier to read signals and determine which strategies to pursue. Once I found my rhythm, I started to come around to the format. Like a spider itself, it really punches above its weight class.
While Through the Omenpaths will likely go down as a quirky footnote to the Spider-Man set it’s derived from, I’m glad it exists. Its art direction is messy, its worldbuilding is haphazard, and its replay value is limited — but at least it’s unique. If and when Wizards fails to secure another digital license, I’ll be among the first to celebrate whatever stop-gap steps in to fill the void.
I’ve since logged many, many more Pick Two drafts since the set’s official release — while I’ve now had my fill, I haven’t had so much fun playing Arena in years.
After piloting just about every possible draft deck I could squeeze out of Through the Omenpaths, I fell into Nintendo’s newest “free-to-start” mobile game — Fire Emblem Shadows. I was pleasantly surprised.
I’m enough of a Fire Emblem fan that I’ll at least try any game tenuously related to the franchise. I even persevered with Fire Emblem Heroes until I burned out on its watered-down tactics, gacha monetization and bland storytelling. I can’t say Shadows is much better written than Heroes, but its core loop kept me intrigued.
All matches in Shadows are played in two parts. During the first, you and two other randomly-selected human players fight a room full of monsters. Take care, as one of the three of you secretly serves the Shadow god Fenris and wields extra abilities to sabotage the team.
After clearing the first room, you’ll quickly vote on who you think was most suspicious. Then the game reveals the traitor, who takes on a monstrous, animalistic form and marshals new enemies against the remaining two players. Correct guesses give the “Light” team more lives; incorrect guesses will leave them underprepared for the final assault.
I’m inordinately proud of my nearly flawless record with this snappy social deduction game. I’m rarely caught out when I’m a Shadows player, and I can usually finger the correct traitor when I serve the Light. Admittedly, I may be in low-tier matchmaking (I’ve deliberately not levelled any characters past level four), but I’ve only lost one game over dozens of matches. I’ve already unlocked the full Light side chapters and look forward to finishing off the parallel Shadow story. I imagine I’ll flare out eventually on Shadows, just as I did on Heroes, but it’s proving to be a tasty appetizer before next year’s Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave.
I’d planned to chronicle every other game we played this week, but time has gotten the better of me (yes, that is a Hades 2 pun!). I’ll leave with three quick observations.
First — Sonic Racing: Crossworlds both impressed and bewildered us. Deeply customizable and full of fresh ideas, it also assails the senses with kaleidoscopic visuals and cacophonous sound design. I plan to play more, but it jarred me after the relatively mellow vibes of Mario Kart World, which my brother and I got into when he came to visit the baby this week!
Second — I discovered that Puzzle Quest - Immortal Edition is catnip for a sleep-deprived, analytical brain. After I downloaded this remake of a 2007 classic and slid through its tutorials, my wife took the controller and has slammed the game anytime our kid hasn’t demanded attention. Like FE Shadows, it’s not particularly well-written, but its got gameplay toothsome enough to keep us coming back.
Third — Silent Hill f came out, and would you believe that it’s great? I edited Vinny Acovino’s review for NPR.org (later, he filed a radio story on the game). I’ll give him the final word:
After more than a decade of neglect and middling entries, Konami has now released two back-to-back Silent Hill bangers in less than a year’s time. Silent Hill 2 did the impossible by remaking an iconic game. But Silent Hill f is even more impressive. This is a brand new entry that fully understands the appeal of the franchise. But it’s also one that takes bold risks with its setting and narrative approach. […]
If I had to nitpick, I’d point to the game’s (much discussed) overreliance on combat scenarios and mechanics. There are light attacks, heavy attacks, focus attacks, counters ... it’s all a bit much. Although the game believably ties these frequent encounters to the narrative, I would have definitely traded a handful of them for a few extra puzzles or spooky bouts of exploration.
But the best Silent Hill games live and die by their atmosphere and narrative. Silent Hill f is an absolute triumph in this regard. To my utter surprise, it’s my favorite game in the series since the original Silent Hill 2.
Yes, it’s that good.
Nice article. I enjoyed your overview of Fire Emblem Shadows, which I just learned about this morning and am intrigued by as I am a big Fire Emblem fan.
Thanks for writing this!