The coolest dude in Elyos, with great voice acting, supports and a great looking outfit/signature class. In both of my Maddening runs he has been an invaluable member of the team and my dedicated Radiant Bow-wielding wyvern killer. Giving him Sigurd and having him zoom across the map for big momentum damage is so much fun.
The books contain many surprises for a fan of the movies, and one of my favorites had to be the chapters from Merry & Pippin’s perspectives in TT and ROTK. Far from comic relief, they feel so human and relatable as they struggle with their own limitations and being unable to help their friends.
Zelda has always had stellar art direction, but TOTK constantly stuns me with how beautiful, detailed and creative its world and characters are. As someone tired of fantasy worlds that are either cheap Tolkien knockoffs or drab, “gritty” ASOIAF knockoffs, this world feels so fresh and colorful. I wish I could have played this as a kid because it would have blown my mind and captured my imagination for years.
I know much has been said about TFA over the years, but one thing I really appreciate is how it encourages you to roll with the punches and accept that your investigator is going to get a bit bruised and battered along the way. Trauma is something you accept and work around rather than the end of the world.
I would not be surprised if there was a decent overlap between Magic the Gathering players and Arkham fans - but for those unfamiliar, here is a quick overview.
I think this translates fairly cleanly to Arkham - Timmy players love relatively easy-to-play characters like Mark, Daisy or Zoey who have good stats and can do big damage or hoover up clues with ease. Johnny players love trying to solve puzzle-y investigators like Patrice or Sefina and/or run unconventional builds that play with interesting synergies or combos. Spike players use OP characters like Gloria, Darrell or Mandy to break the game in half and take on higher difficulties.
I think it's great that Arkham is deep enough to offer different kinds of fun in its deckbuilding - I'm an avowed Johnny myself, but would love to know where everybody else lands!
Did this happen to anyone else? I was confused as to where I was being directed to go and used a bunch of hot air balloons to get there before looking up what I was actually supposed to do
The next time they take a crack at Leo, I’d love for them to lean even harder into the “army of disposable faceless goons” flavor and reward you more directly for playing non-unique allies and having them discarded or defeated.
Book Denethor is described as similar to a “spider” in one passage, which is a perfect distillation of everything that makes him compelling vs his film counterpart. I was surprised to see that he had been the one to light the beacons and acknowledged that the ring should not be used but stashed away somewhere. His battle of wills with Gandalf is a delight to read, and he strikes a balance of acting as an obstacle to our characters’ goals without necessarily being wrong in his judgments and conclusions. Much better than devouring tomatos and endless melodrama.
Patrice has always been a fun deckbuilding puzzle that I've wanted to try in a campaign. I'm torn on which direction to take with her, and which hand assets/allies to use. I can't decide between one of the Drowned City discard tools like Anchor Chain or the trusty fire axe, and am not sure whether to go for Katarina Sokja or Miss Doyle. Please share any tips you might have!
Just finished SS (final route!) and romanced Rhea to get more insight into her character. Unpopular opinion perhaps, but she is tied with Edelgard as my “most interesting 3H character” (sorry Dimitri, love ya!)
She and Edie are really interesting mirrors/foils and I wish we got to explore more of Rhea’s trauma and the complexities of her motivations as archbishop. In sharp contrast to Edie, her biggest flaw IMO is her passivity and detachment from the world around her. I really wish 3 Houses or Hopes had made her more of a playable, present character!
Anyone else picked this up? The dungeon delving seems pretty cool and I LOVE the boss monsters they created. I know PBTA is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I really like where they landed with the combat and faction mechanics for this one.
I know it wasn’t perfect but I love that you could go for a magic build if you wanted to - I miss even this basic level of customization in the games since! Fingers crossed Eshmel has some varied build options.
Seeing as they’ve kept the same general gameplay mechanics from 3H, I really hope they fix the balance for different classes and disincentivize wyvern spam. A number of the master classes in 3H were straight-up worse than the previous tier, which felt bad and awkward. Many class-specific skills were also useless or so marginal that they didn’t matter much at all. IMO, units and classes need to feel unique to make team planning truly fun.
Just finished Dread yesterday and had such a great time with the final boss! He was challenging without feeling like BS - once I figured out how to dodge one of his moves, I was able to do so pretty consistently. The game does a good job of training you for this fight through previous bosses with similar moves. Great stuff!
I love Pauper as a format and appreciate that it’s the most affordable way to play competitive MTG. But in a relatively short span of time I’ve seen deck prices inflate and I worry that Pauper will become another format that turns people off due to price. On the one hand we have UB cards like Lorien revealed that cannot be easily reprinted due to licensing costs and on the other we have classic cards like Spellstutter sprite that can’t seem to find their way into a standard set. (Still salty we didn’t get it in Lorwyn Eclipsed!) The death of “remastered” sets and other supplemental releases removes options to reprint these cards without affecting standard.
The sheer length of the show is great because we’ve seen Tim go from overconfident young-ish guy to a walking midlife crisis to an old man desperately trying to project youthful vigor and success when he has neither. You get the sense from the most recent Oscar special that he’s barely holding it together and knows he’s a total failure. It’s dark stuff but incredibly funny.
I was surprised reading through the books for the first time in almost 20 years how different the book is vs the movie for this chunk of the story, namely Frodo and Sam being together and the eldritch nature of Shelob’s lair and her webs of darkness. I appreciate how PJ’s choices made for a thrilling scene but I also really love how creepy Tolkien’s descriptions are. It’s also another example of book Frodo being more collected and badass than movie Frodo (sorry Elijah!)
The MBprint/MPC options look great, but I would rather not pay expensive shipping and tariff fees. I don’t mind a bit of DIY as long as it’s accessible! What are your recommendations for cheap proxies of alt art cards?
For a long time, I enjoyed games with tons of complexity and strategy required and sprawling open worlds. As a working adult, I just don’t feel like I have the brainpower for these types of games any more. That’s why I’ve loved LA on the switch so much - it’s so simple and fun while still having secrets to discover and puzzles to figure out. The aesthetic is so charming and cute. Highly recommend! (Though it does have a few annoying old game quirks, like that one room in the 2nd dungeon, you know which one I mean.)