Bytes ‘n’ Blurts: Playing Through It with Veilguard, Pokémon and Grimstone

Well, fuck ‘em. I’m still playing through it with Veilguard, and Taash’s story is one of the game’s highlights. It’s inoffensive but ultimately positive, which makes it a good fit for this week. The next four years are going to be bad; things are only going to get worse, and there’s no guarantee they’ll ever get better, not with a Republican Party built on hate and prejudice and a feckless opposition party that thinks it needs to become more hateful, too, to compete. And games really aren’t going to help change any of that, especially massive, multimillion dollar games about dragons and mages and whatever the hell the Qunari are. But every little bit helps, and don’t let the bastards grind you down, and other cliches, too. This week might have made it clear that one of Veilguard’s biggest fantasies is a world in which almost everybody is fully supportive and respectful of people like Taash, but if that world is ever to become reality, it’ll come through the kind of understanding and acceptance found in Veilguard. So let’s keep playing through it.—Garrett Martin

Pokémon TCG Pocket

Year: 2024

Platforms: iOS, Android

In the right circumstances, trading card games can rule. Whether it’s throwing yourself into deckbuilding to craft cool combos or the tactical challenge of facing off against others, there’s a great deal of fun to be had with these overpriced playing cards. In some ways, Pokémon TCG Pocket, a mobile take on Pokémon’s trading card game, taps into much of this fun in a streamlined package. You can assemble decks, admire your collection of ‘mons, and test your mettle online. Many mechanics from the physical game have been altered to create quicker matches, and while this makes things less strategically rich, it also makes it much less of a time sink than most of its peers.

But, of course, there’s a catch: the game’s another digital casino. It inherits the grimy practices of both mobile games and trading cards, and your ability to craft the deck of your dreams is gated behind random chance. In classic exploitative mobile game fashion, progress starts out smooth, and you’re treated to a flood of in-game currencies that let you open pack after pack. The boosters hover on the home screen like toys in a store window, wrapped in impossibly shiny digitized plastic, and each time you open one, there’s an alluring crinkle noise that’s likely been scientifically engineered to make you drool like Pavlov’s dog. But then it all dries up, and the packs stop coming in. Sure, you get two a day for free (three a day if you subscribe for $9.99 a month), but after the initial flood of happy brain chemicals as you unlock Mewtwo and Articuno and rare cards with ornate artwork while cracking through dozens of these bad boys it feels damn unsatisfying when you suddenly hit a progression wall and progress slows dramatically. That frustration is very much by design because it may tempt you into spending real world money to return to that previous burst of card opening. As much as I enjoy the idea of having a mobile TCG that fits neatly into the margins of my life, this game is another reminder that this convenience comes with a cost, in this case, quite literally. Also, Pikachu EX is annoying as hell.—Elijah Gonzalez

Grimstone (part of UFO 50)

Year: 2024

Platforms: PC

I gotta repeat myself here: I don’t know if I’ll ever be done with UFO 50, the peerless collection of new retro-style games that make up the fake ouevre of a fictional ’80s game studio. My latest obsession is Grimstone, an old-school RPG in the style of the original Final Fantasy that’s set in an Old West that’s been sent to Hell. Imagine all the stereotypes of a western—cowboys, outlaws, mysterious strangers, sex workers tired of their abuse—but add in demons, angels, oceans of lava, psychedelic cactus juice, and more fanciful hoohaw that you’d never find in any John Wayne movie. Like the best games in UFO 50, Grimstone looks and feels just enough like something that could’ve have existed in 1988 to suspend your disbelief. It then comes up with unique narrative and mechanical concepts that make it very different than its obvious inspirations; here that includes the setting, but also a rhythmic approach to turn-based combat that requires you to hit a button at the exact time in order to hit your enemy. Imagine Final Fantasy‘s turn-based squad combat scenes, with Paper Mario’s rhythm-based attacks and visible enemies on the map that make it possible to avoid encounters, a la Zelda II, and you’ll have an idea of Grimstone‘s distinct approach to combat. It gleefully embraces some of the most eternally annoying aspects of ’80s RPGs—constant encounters, limited save opportunities, a general lack of direction that leads to a lot of aimless wandering and desperate quests to find the nearest town—but becomes an almost wholly original creation. It’s one of the best games in UFO 50, and I’ve grinded through it for hours without finishing yet. Like Veilguard, it’s also been a key part of my plan to play through it. If you own UFO 50, make Grimstone a priority.—Garrett Martin