The Queue: More like Tales of Kenzera: Wow

After a month away for patch 10.2.7, Season 4 and ReMists I finally got back to playing and finishing Tales of Kenzera: ZAU and let me tell you this game was so good my friends. While it is your standard “metroidvania” game, the graphics and music were amazingly well-done. The gameplay wasn’t revolutionary for the genre but it still managed to add some twists to the standard formula, and some of the environmental puzzles were hard. This was clearly a labor of love for the dev team and while there’s more than a half a year to go it’s sitting at the top of my Game of the Year list. If you like metroidvanias at all you should definitely pick it up — the price is pretty low too, only $15-20 depending on platform.

While I ponder which mask to wear when fighting my enemies and escaping lava, let’s answer some questions!

You forgot all the new Elder Scrolls content coming this month! Seriously professional MMO players must be dying here. I was originally like you, thinking that I would bypass the new FF14 and GW2 expansions for now, but Janthir Wilds is totally my gaming aesthetic so I will definitely be coming back for it. Dawntrail will probably have to wait until next year.

Bruh

I think ReMists was an interesting and excellent diversion. Getting to spend all your leveling time in just one expansion is an experience otherwise unavailable in the game right now; it allows for a solid narrative experience for the character. All the new collectibles were nice of course — even though I don’t think I’ll be using any of them in live — but I tend to think I wouldn’t have bothered to get as much as I did if it weren’t for the kind souls who exploited the game and got every level 70 40k free Bronze as a result.

Of course, I wish they had kept to the promise of more powah as we leveled; we ended up feeling strongest at 10 (on alts with a fully inherited cloak, of course), not 70. I was expecting to be a murder machine after 60 — what was the point of the threads if the game was going to scale to them? So I hope next time they fulfill this promise and let us get stronger than the game because otherwise I’m not even sure what the point is after you’ve exhausted reliving the story.

Frankly I would like to see Red buffed! I feel like he’d be a more powerful choice for the meta if his stats were more appropriate for his rank.

I’m going to go old school and choose the Stormpike Battle Tabard. It’s has a complex pattern but isn’t overly busy, and the colors are rich and go well with a lot of outfits on the warm side of the color spectrum. There are probably other tabards I like better from a pure color or design perspective, but in terms of completeness I’m going to Alterac Valley alongside the Stormpike.

I’m going to be honest I feel this is better for those still raiding. Here’s my rationale: consider the Heroic and Mythic teams and players still farming a legendary or the heroic/mythic-only rewards from Fyrakk; with the boost in numbers provided by Season 4 the raids that aren’t Awakened are a lot easier than they were when originally live. If you make them all Awakened simultaneously you’ve made every raid more difficult to farm, instead of just one of the three each week. When Perky Pugs starts doing the Heroic Fyrakk carries for the AOTC mount, two out of the three weeks they’ll be able to carry a lot more people than they would’ve if Amir’drassil was always Awakened.

I know it’s not what the dev team told us would happen, but I feel like it’s a happy accident that it worked out this way.

For the first question I’m going to have to say Unicorn Overlord because that’s the only big game I plan on playing before The War Within (everything else is on the small/indie/visual novel side). I could be wrong and Tavern Talk becomes an amazing experience, but I think if you’re going to bet go with Unicorn Overlord.

Does Metroid Dread count as “dormant”? If so, definitely a sequel to that game. If we’re talking franchises that haven’t had an entry for an extended period of time I think the world is more than ready for an Elite Beat Agents sequel.

Here’s the great thing about The War Within: the zones are on top of each other! So if you fall through the map you’re liable to just end up in the zone beneath. So there’s only a 25% of getting stuck in Azeroth if you plummet!

Last question first: I’d logout prior to shutdown, maybe even a couple days before. I think I’d want to take that time to ease out of the upcoming finality mentally, and it’d be easier for me if I’m already gone.

On the last day I login I wouldn’t go anywhere specific except for the final logout point: Highmountain. My hunters would go to Trueshot Lodge, my non-hunters would find somewhere else to hang out in the zone based on their experiences and interests, and that would be all.

The final character to exit would be Chrth, my Dwarf Hunter. It only makes sense, as he was the one I started with.

Fortunately I don’t think this is going to happen any time soon, and odds are higher I will have retired from playing long before it occurs. But if not I’m pretty certain how it would end for my characters.

Sorry to end on such a melancholy note! I hope everyone has a great week and every game announcement their heart desires happens this weekend! Be good to each other, and be sure to ask Matt plenty of questions!