Hey guys, this is Mrs Stix and today I’m going to give you guys a quick breakdown of Elyon: Ascent Infinite Realm which is an upcoming MMORPG brought over from Korea by Kakao Games. The game was developed by Bluehole Studios – the very same team behind an MMO I spent more time in than I probably should have: TERA. 

As some of you may recall, during the early stages of development it went under the title “Ascent Infinite Realm.” and touted things like aerial combat. Both Stix and I were able to take a look at the game back when it donned the A:IR moniker and with the most recent Closed Beta test, had a second opportunity to look at the game after its transition into Elyon – completely altering the combat mechanics and removing key aspects of the game such as aerial mechanics. 

Keep in mind, this is only a look at the first Closed Beta test! We have every intention of delving deeper into the things that will and may differ as things proceed. 

Kakao were a little vague when it came to discussing the release date, however they did confirm a third quarter timeframe for the second Closed Beta test, with a full release in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Now, upon entering the game you’ll be faced with selecting a faction, either the Vulpin (woot woot) or the Ontari (boo.) We obviously went with the Vulpin faction as it’s blue, and blue is….well….a nice color. 

Factions share both races and classes, meaning that you’re not forced into selecting a specific side because you prefer a certain combination. However, the areas you both start in, and control will differ. 

The races include Human, Elf, Ein, and Orc. The only race that is gender locked is the little Ein. 

Concerning the classes, what we had access to in the first Closed Beta was the Warlord, Elementalist, Mystic, Assassin, and Gunner. Supposedly, there is another class called the Slayer that will be introduced to us in the second Closed Beta that should be available upon release. 

Here is where the game gets interesting in my eyes. Each class has a variety of unique skills that you’ll have the option of selecting from, with space on your hotbar being very limited – possessing only nine spaces in total for your abilities. Each of these skills can be upgraded as you continue leveling and obtain skill points, unlocking further variations of skills by obtaining an enhancement item by killing world bosses or questing. 

The versatility of the builds you can make is utterly amazing. I went mystic, which is the only class that really matters in groups, as.. Well, we’re the people keeping the group from wiping due to DPS standing in AoEs and tanks forgetting they have to point the boss away from us. Yes, the Mystic is essentially the healer. And let me tell you right now, as a support-type class I needed to make a build for PvE, world PvP, dungeons, and more arena based PvP. 

I look forward to seeing all the build guides that pop up from this game – because trust me, you’re going to need them. 

Having the option to build your character around the content you’re doing felt exceptionally rewarding, especially given that the game employs a fast-paced action combat system. 

Everyone is flipping everywhere and I’m just over here trying to aim my skills at them while trying not to hit walls, floors, and ceilings.. Or Stix, who’s in an entirely different region. 

So I attempted to construct a build that was more friendly to my play style – with a much larger focus on crowd control, resulting in people being rooted in place or knocked down more frequently. That way I could take a few additional moments to.. Line up the perfect shot. Granted, this didn’t really end up helping, but that didn’t stop me from trying anyway! Your girl isn’t a quitter! 

Your build gets even more unique based upon the rune stones you have equipped to your armor. These will also boost your item level which has a direct affect on your stats. These runestones will affect things from your attack power, to your healing output, to your maximum armor so it’s very important that you work on obtaining the runestones that most benefit the perfect build you’re aiming to create. You’ll need to enhance them alongside your armor and weapons. Yes, enhance. Something that you Black Desert vets no doubt winced at as soon as you heard mention of enhancement. 

Once you reach level 35 you’ll have even more options to customize your character, as you’ll unlock something called Mana Awakening which enhances various characteristics. 

Just the sheer depth to which you can go about customizing your character in this game boggles my mind. All of these combined will make your character a unique force to be reckoned with in the open world.. Or an absolute pushover that players farm because you didn’t read the guides I mentioned earlier. Don’t be that guy!

The combat within this game, while fun, does have more to it than just spamming abilities to either murder monsters or tank another players’ FPS out in the world. The main focus of Elyon is PvP, and that action combat is going to come into play here, especially the builds you create. 

There is open world PvP, which unlocks at level 30, allowing you to not only engage other players out in the world at any given time, but by that same logic be attacked by the enemy faction. Keep in mind there is no escaping this so if PvP isn’t your cup of tea, then it’s best you go get a different cup for yourself. 

To farm materials, world bosses, and generally get around to quests you’re going to come head to head with an enemy here and there, even if you aren’t looking for a fight. Yes, people like to come at you when you least expect it. Like when you’re trying to nab that perfect fish. Or scratching that itch that’s been bothering you all day. 

If the world itself isn’t providing you enough PvP opportunities there are always more options. Within the Hall of Fame, you can participate in battlefields which offer last man standing and 3v3 game modes. Then you have the Arena where you can work with a team in 2v2 or 3v3, or if you’re like Stix, YOLO in by yourself for 1v1s. 

Winning these will provide you materials, XP, and medals. But don’t think it stops there! 

If these modes still aren’t enough, or just don’t interest you then it goes even further beyond into Dimensional Portals. As of right now there are 4 dimensional portals with a 5th one being teased for those at lvl 99, which is likely just a placeholder until they’re done testing it. 

Within these you will be portaled into an area where you fight against the enemy faction for the right to murder the heckness out of things to receive rewards. Keep in mind the dimensional portals are locked behind levels and also specific times. If you’re not able to make those times you’re going to be locked out from entering until the timer resets. Can you tell the game has a large emphasis on PvP yet? No? Okay, well if that wasn’t enough to convince you, then there are also large scale Realm Wars. Your account can only participate in one of these once every seven days and also have specific times and days that it is even open for. 

Additionally, guilds – or Clans as they’re called in Elyon have the right to engage one another in Clan Wars; These are also available during specific times and dates, meaning they’re easy to miss. It’s also worth noting that it’s pretty important to join a clan as soon as you can for the material that you get just from being a part of one and completing various activities. 

If you need a break from PvP then dungeons are about the only thing you can do besides crafting in your house that doesn’t present the unfortunate opportunity for someone to sneak on up behind you and stab you in the back. Repeatedly. With a stick. Because people are like that. When all you wanted was to just get that cute screenshot underneath the tree over by that lake. Yes I’m being specific because it may or may not have happened to me once.. so if you see someone with my blood on their hands I expect answers. Or their life as retribution. Either will suffice. 

As you level you’ll begin to unlock a variety of different dungeons, some of them are solo, some of them require three players, and some require five players. There is a party finding system, so that’s nice in terms of finding friends. But this is an MMO we’re talking about, so.. Yeah, probably not. Dungeons, more specifically 3 and 5 player dungeons require the holy trinity of at least 1 healer, 1 tank and anywhere from 1 to 3 DPS, depending on which type you queue for. 

The dungeons themselves from what we experienced, were fairly entertaining with a range of mechanics and waves of adds, but from the get go, it’s a struggle to get through them and I like that. Normally you go into low level dungeons with one eye on your PC and the other on cute cat videos on Youtube, that latest Bridgerton episode on Netflix or.. Anything that can keep you from falling asleep due to the ease of the majority of leveling dungeons. 

From the dungeons you have a chance of obtaining high level gear enhancement stones, and a key for the timed dungeons. The timed dungeons do not appear to unlock until you’re level 40 though, which admittedly.. We did not reach. Not for lack of trying! But as the name suggests, it’d be a timed version of the dungeon you’ve done. There is also something called the Hall of Challenges where you basically fight your way up a tower floor by floor to obtain rewards. So if you like the climb, this is for you.

Something that I really enjoy about this game is the fact that you can own your own house. This is something I’m still struggling to accomplish in real life, so let me have my dream-home in-game, damnit! 

Through the story itself you get an ordinary house with some basic items and crafting stations which we’ll address in a second. The house you obtain through the story is free, but is instanced off from the world, so if you want other players to look at and marvel at your creation, you can always opt to buy a luxury home out in the world. These will cost you game currency and will require a fee, but will provide you benefits in growth and size. 

I’m also a fan of how you can not only decorate your home, but you can build your own furniture, adding to the depth that this game provides you in terms of content.

Having your own home, and visiting other players’ homes provide unique benefits as well, as an example, if you help them with their production you have the chance of finding rare seeds for sale within their seed shops.

Within your home, you can have an armor crafting station where you can take your gathered materials and create even better armor for yourself, even scaling all the way up to legendary gear. Naturally, you won’t be able to do this without plenty of time invested into the craft – leveling up your masteries. You can also craft yourself potions, buffs, weapons, and furniture. So if you’re a crafter by trade, which I most definitely am not, then I fully expect you to craft me everything I need to be a successful healer. Honestly, the crafting system is pretty expansive in my opinion as you can fish, mine, gather, lumber, and livestock to get these materials needed.

Within your house you can participate in what is known as Luminous Battles. You can pretty much AFK this activity as you sit in your house and let your luminous go into the dungeons and farm you materials, money, and XP. You garner points for your luminous by hunting monsters. They will require energy to complete these battles though and require time to reset to gain more. The luminous is also important for providing you stats, the higher the star level your luminous is the better. 

The game also has adorable pets that you can equip that will handily run about and gather your dropped items for you while also providing some helpful skills. You can change your pet’s skills with a ticket and from the two I’ve seen can range from gathering speed to store discount prices.

Your pet appears to be able to have five concurrent skills though and may also be fused with material to create a higher tier pet that will unlock these skills slots. This will probably be very important to people focusing heavily upon the crafting aspect of the game.

I know I’m leaving out a lot of things but my goodness the amount of things you can do in this game is fairly endless. Heck, there are even mini-games you can participate in in the open world. So if you’re looking for something to do, this might be it. Moving forward though, do note that the first Closed Beta test does not have the most current build for the game. I’m not sure when we’ll see the version that South Korea has, but I’m looking forward to it. 

We also have no idea what the cash shop will look like for us as Kakao are keeping those cards pretty closely to their chests. I’ll be curious to see how that looks upon release. 

For potential players interested in playing Elyon upon release, do note that this game will be buy-to-play, so that is something to consider. Though I can tell you now that I had a heckin lot of fun playing this game.

I’m no stranger to adventure games. They’ve become one of my favorite genres to play through recently! 

The sheer freedom you’re so often presented with to explore an enormous world – to play at your own pace. How you want. Without restriction. That’s a game I can enjoy. So when the trailer from Ubisoft for Immortals Fenyx Rising dropped I was excited. I’ve been itching to play something new, and with all this free time it seemed like the perfect opportunity! 

Immortals Fenyx Rising will release on December 3rd on Stadia, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC. 

I guess with any epic adventure there is always a story, right? So here is my story. A story of mystery. A story of suspense. A story of.. Love? Loss? And trying to figure out how to survive the expansive world that is now at your fingertips. Welcome.. to Mrs Stix’s dive into Immortals Fenyx Rising. 

Upon first entering the game, you’re presented with the option of designing your very own hero, to which I drew inspiration from for my look today actually. You’re then thrown face first into a world swelling with Greek mythology and mythological creatures. I took a class in college on Greek mythology–why that pertained to nursing you might ask? I honestly don’t know, but I took it, and ever since then I’ve fallen in love with mythology as a whole, and this… this right here takes you on a delightfully humorous, fictional ride. 

The story itself is alive with comedy and mystery, with tales of varying Gods, Goddesses and the Titans. The narration of the story is actually told to us from the perspective of both Prometheus and Zeus as you, the hero, move forth unbeknownst to your character to defeat Typhon, the Titan, and save the Olympians. Because they’ve grown kind of obnoxious, overconfident. Conceited, even. And you’re just the kind of wake-up they needed.

One thing worth noting is that while we do get to see a variety of different Gods, we also get to see various mythological creatures as well. Medusa, the Minotaur and even Cyclops. 

Honestly, it’s just a darn good time. 

As you traverse the world you’ll unlock bits and pieces of real lore through puzzles, vaults, and story. There are seven regions to which you will have boundless opportunity to explore as each region dives into yet another character of Greek Mythology. 

Before moving forward, I just have to touch a bit more upon the puzzles themselves. These puzzles are a literal brain teaser sometimes, and I have enjoyed every aspect of them. 

Some are as simple as placing objects in the right spots, to memorizing what needs to occur, and on occasion.. Something I have a slight bit of trouble with.. Sometimes: Jumping. Anyone can tell you that I love jumping, like so much. I’m great at it. So yeah, these puzzles are a literal boost for my self esteem. Mind you, as you go along and complete vaults, which are dungeons of sorts and can include puzzles, you’ll also do even more jumping! However, these vaults will provide you with gear to better assist you in your battles and.. jumping, because now you can fly! Who needs jumping when you have wings to get you places. 

The gear you receive is also a nice additive, it’s not just about attaining stronger gear, it’s more about finding the specs you want to put into your characters. You can take this gear later on in the story to The Hall of the Gods where you will upgrade the gear of your heart’s desire. 

You can also craft potions, increase your stamina, health, and purchase goodies with the coins that you obtain out within the world for your appearance or character upgrade. You will also discover, ba ba baaaa… sidequests! These will consist of dailies that you can dive into to garner even more of these coins and gear pieces. 

You can also use the coins of Charon that you collect out in the world from completing various tasks to upgrade your skills, and for those of you who haven’t caught onto it yet… these were the coins that Charon took to ferry the dead across the Rivers of Styx. Not Stix as in.. my husband Mr Stix, as much as he’d like to have a river named after him.

Yup, no details were left undone here. These skills are linear in terms of what you can do with them, but man do they make combat fun. 

The combat itself is action and is as smooth as Greek Yogurt. I could seamlessly move between sword, axe, and bow with enemies. They also incentivize you to parry with some pretty epic scenes and damage reflection. 

You can even ride your mount–yes–mount.. because you can go out and capture your mount of choice, and literally launch yourself off of it into the air to come crashing down on an enemy with a giant hammer. When I first saw that happen, my life was made complete. Not to mention when you’re firing your arrows you can choose to enter a state of slowed down time that looks like you’re starring in your own action movie. 

Overall, this game is just.. a lot of fun. It’s nice to just kick my feet up and play something that is lighthearted but yet so full of life, not an inch of this world felt empty to me. Personally, I really look forward to playing more. I’ll be sure to be playing this game when it releases come December 3rd. 

Be sure to check out the season pass that includes three narrative based DLCs with new heroes like Q and Ash, cosmetics, and a new world inspired by Chinese mythology! If you enjoy the game, you’re definitely going to enjoy the upcoming content they have planned! 

So as the Genshin Impact Closed Beta has come to a close for PC and mobile before its hopeful release sometime between now and October, I’m left with some thoughts and feelings about the game. Before I go too much further, for those sitting here wondering what happened to the PS4 release date, yes, they had to hold another Beta test as they did run into some hiccups during the Beta specifically concerning performance issues. This ended up resulting in a slightly delayed release, back to “Fall 2020.”

I did a dedicated video on the game a month or so ago where I went on to discuss various features in detail, so I’m making a note to avoid rehashing past areas I’ve covered. This is, instead, going to be a video completely focused on my general thoughts concerning all of the hours I spent over my few weeks playing through the Closed Beta.

So first things first, the story, holy crap was I entertained by it and the depth to which they went to tell this multilayered tale as you search the world of Teyvat for your.. Less skilled sibling that got beat up in the intro. It was like my first time reading Harry Potter, I was enchanted. Each new tier of the story brought forth a new character that breathed some form of life into your character’s questline and catapulted you further into the wondrous world. 

My only grievances with the story was that it was locked behind your adventure level, which after I reached level 20 felt like I was grinding harder than I have in some games in quite some time. I felt like this really set Genshin Impact very far from Breath of the Wild, which the game drew inspiration from. When I was playing Breath of the Wild I could literally bee-line through the quest and jump to the end to fight Ganon if I really felt like it, but with Genshin Impact, oh boy, they’re going to make me work for that story. 

Then when I did reach the lush refreshing period of the story locked behind higher tiers, it only lasted maybe 20 minutes or less at times. Though, don’t get me wrong, some took their time in telling me a story, and that was perfectly fine by me!

This brings me to questing and leveling. Each day you log in you’ll be faced with daily quests in Genshin Impact that you should attend to in some hopes of garnering more XP. Usually they will give you around 200 to 275 XP upon completion. Which isn’t very much. 

I was actually surprised that there were dailies in a single-player game like this as features like that are usually a little more.. MMO-esque so to speak. Everyday you should also be working on ley line outcrops, they’re like little instances of monster waves that will eventually end with you attaining even more XP for your character and also your adventure rank XP, which are separate by the way. My characters were like level 42 when I was only adventure rank 30. 

Which is fine, I’d rather it not be locked behind my rank anyway because the monsters actually increase in difficulty within the world as your adventure rank goes up. And these monsters don’t exactly die easily. 

Then you can go face world bosses that respawn within minutes, sometimes daily, and honestly we’ll just have to see once release happens what their respawn is, but you’re going to need it for the XP and also the crafting material needed to ascend your characters to the next level. You can also tackle these bosses with three other players besides yourself, which is where the multiplayer co-op really shines, and quite frankly, I was all over that! 

Some of our wonderful viewers were able to hop over to my game once I reached adventure rank 16, a requirement to unlock co-op, and assist me in defeating these world bosses and reap the benefits of murdering them together. You can also do domains, aka dungeons, together as a group. These domains cost resin though, a currency needed to actually participate and you only have 90 originally in a day. You can go out and grind a bit to refill it, but for the most part, you’ll have to wait a certain amount of time before it tops back up for you. I felt like this was a little limiting, and really doesn’t belong in a game that is mostly going to be played solo. 

Just like how each day has new domains of forgery that you can participate in to garner weapon ascension material. So make sure you preplan, because I sure as hell didn’t! Oh, and I should mention there are different types of domains, some are for character XP, some give you ascension material, others give you artifacts. All of these are necessary to gear and level your characters so they’re ready to face the difficulty of the world you’re unlocking as your adventure rank levels. 

Overall, the questing beyond the storyline was just very grinding and also limiting in my eyes. Was it still addicting? Yes. Did it get a little tiresome? A bit. I’m just thankful they cycled through varying dailies to spice things up. I’m hopeful they spice the bosses up, because once you got familiar with their patterns, it was just kind of rinse and repeat. 

So, what do you actually do in Genshin Impact? Honestly, you sign on, do your dailies, story if you unlock it, explore to find chests in the world and fight the slight mobs that come around them, kill the bosses, do the abyss tower, and do the domains. Otherwise, there’s not much else to do, at least currently. 

It looks like they’ll add in a few things come release as there’s something called Battle Pass that’s not unlocked right now. To give you an idea of time required I’d spend three hour streams just trying to get to the next level of story, and let me tell you, sometimes I wouldn’t make it up even one adventure level. But at least I got to fight with some of my viewers in co-op play, which is always fun and helps pass the time spent otherwise repetitiously grinding!

We’ve been speaking of all the grinding that needs to be done, so let’s take a moment and talk about the combat, as that’s always a hot topic of discussion. For someone that doesn’t typically play a lot of action games, let alone Anime RPGs like this, I found the combat to be quite fun and honestly didn’t feel like a cross-platform game. Usually most games I play that are also mobile games feel super mobile game-ish. You all know what I mean! That to me was probably the most pleasantly surprising thing I’ve come across thus far. I had to actually aim with my archer’s aimed skill, granted I sucked at it, but it was a nice feature. I could do their base bow and arrow attacks that would auto-lock to the enemy, but if you wanted a stronger shot, you’re going to need to aim. And unfortunately.. My aim was definitely not always true. The melee though is insta lock-on, and sometimes it would lock me onto a torch and I’d spend a good half of the fight smacking an enemy and then twisting around and showing that torch who’s boss. I’m sorry torches, I didn’t mean to be that kinda person towards you. But in the “heat” of the moment – hehe, see what I did there? Sometimes it’s difficult differentiating between targets! It happens, okay? 

Each character has a base attack, a charged attack, an elemental skill on a cool down, and a burst that’s charged after a period of time. I enjoyed unlocking different elemental characters and only managed to unlock 6 out of the 7 of them. Dendro, aka Nature element, was not in this beta playthrough, so not sure what to expect yet! But each character plays off another character’s elements. Say if I use an electric attack and combo it with a cryo attack from another character then it will create a superconduct attack that deals a down on the enemy’s defenses. It’s just nice figuring out what element works well with another one. Because let me tell you, there were a couple occasions where I used a pyro skill and then switched to a cryo character and accidentally put out my fire attack. Yeah….just….don’t do that. But on the other hand, I can create giant fiery tornadoes. So that’s cool. 

Overall, I like how you can seamlessly swap between four separate characters in solo play and just let loose with a barrage or varying elements that compliment each other and figuring out which characters work best with each other is also fun. 

It took me a while to unlock most of the elemental characters though as most are locked behind the Gacha system. And guys, we gotta talk about this. So there’s a Gacha system in the game called Wish. You use primograms that you can farm within the game itself or wishes that you get through completing the story to redeem for a wish that will either give you a character, a weapon, or a character bonus skill. There’s no other way of attaining most of these characters and I didn’t really win too many of them. I have horrible horrible luck with Gachas. And I’m not sure what the final Gacha system will look like or how much it’ll cost in real money. I think in all the days I played I got one four star weapon while all the rest were blah three stars. I never got a character bonus skill, and I mainly got pyro and electro skilled characters. I can already tell you I’m either going to put myself into a slight money hole with this game or I’m going to get too frustrated at the lack of results. I’m just going to have to see upon release what their Gacha system looks like, but I can tell you right now not that many people are overly thrilled over this choice. Gacha mechanics are a mobile feature, something that really doesn’t have any place in PC titles.

All in all, the game itself is alive, beautiful, and worth hours of exploration during gameplay. There are a few concerning things like the Gacha system and the relatively grindy, repetitious feel between bits of story, and might I add the lack of the ability to pet dogs, because my heart couldn’t take not being able to pet the dogs. But for the most part, this game is ready and I’m ready for it. Am I excited to play it? Heck yes. Am I going to be playing it and probably spending money on the gacha system? Yes, and someone needs to help me with limitations. I love the combat, the elemental compliments each character gives to another, and most of all, I look forward to actually being able to play with Stix and all of you! And before you saunter off, I’d like to showcase a little gameplay so grab some popcorn and kick back and watch!

Genshin Impact is a beautiful upcoming co-op Anime RPG that I, Mrs Stix personally had the pleasure of streaming over on Twitch for the last few days. It’s a free-to-play title from the makers of Honkai Impact and is a title we’ve all been eagerly anticipating for the year or so since its announcement.
I’ve experienced a lot of what the game has to offer, with the exception of the multiplayer aspect since that takes a while to actually unlock. And today, I want to show you my experience within the game.

There’s no denying the fact that Genshin Impact is incredibly beautiful. It’s probably the best looking Anime game I’ve ever played. It offers players a large, completely open world to explore, providing players countless hours of fun in some of the most gorgeous environments I’ve come across in an RPG.  

There are various quests you can take from NPCs in towns, from characters in your party, as part of the story – and, you can find NPCs out in the world just.. chilling, waiting for you to come along and inquire as to what they could possibly be doing standing out in a vineyard. Only to be told, contrary to what you might have initially thought, they were out here looking to scare away some boars and if you could help them get rid of them in the expected time limit. Yup – there’s quite a variety to the quests and NPCs you’ll encounter, and they help populate the world, providing a sense of life.

But at the same time, beneath that sense of freedom, that enormous world lies an issue that some players complained about: And that is that the world at times can feel a little empty. And this is, in my experience, something that isn’t necessarily exclusive to Genshin Impact – even Breath of the Wild and The Witcher had times where you’d feel like you were just wandering around aimlessly trying to make it from Point A to Point B.  So while I can definitely agree and see this as I explore, it’s not much of an issue considering there are teleportation nodes eliminating much of the issue you’d run into running back and forth around the world. And also, I personally just enjoyed going about seeing the scenery and finding little mobs along the way. 

There’s a story – a pretty in-depth one at that which takes you on a wild adventure all over the world of Teyvat, recruiting a variety of different characters each with their own unique personalities and voice actors, as you attempt to save the world. And your sibling. Because they were useless if the intro is anything to go off of. I don’t wanna really spoil anything, so I’ll leave that there, but suffice it to say the story is definitely worth listening to and each language sounds surprisingly good – yes, even the English dub!

Combat isn’t what I’d expected out of the game, nor is it what I’m used to. You can have up to 4 different characters in your group at any given time, and can alternate to each character at the single press of a button. Since you can have parties composed of 4 characters, this means that the game has a level of strategy involved. Large melee boss? Let’s pull out the tank. Lots of adds? AoE-time. Boss keep flying out of range? Time to swap to the mage or archer! Interestingly, the combat is incredibly fluid for a game built with cross-play compatibility in mind between PC, PS4 and Mobile platforms. We’ve played plenty of mobile games and none have ever played like this – this feels like it was designed for consoles and PC as opposed to mobile devices; something a lot of us did not expect. There was one problem I kept running into and that was the fact my character would auto-attack a torch that was behind me when I’m trying to fight an enemy ahead of me. It got a little frustrating at times because I just wanted to focus on what was ahead!

At the end of the day, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Genshin Impact. Or at least, I enjoyed my solo time in Genshin Impact. This is an online cooperative RPG – allowing 4 players to play together. However the level requirement to participate in cooperative multiplayer was a lot higher than I had anticipated it being.  After over 15 hours in game, I still wasn’t a high enough level to group up with other players, which is fine in the grand scheme of things but I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t play with any of our community over the couple days I streamed the game. Furthermore, it was brought to my attention that story-related progress is only applicable to the owner of the instance, as opposed to the entire group participating. Meaning that once you leave co-op mode, you’ll be back to where you left off in your own game. Additionally, you’re limited in terms of what you can loot, what you can do, what chests you can open – honestly, there are a lot of multiplayer restrictions. In that aspect it reminded me of Code Vein’s co-op.

This might be one of only 2 things I was genuinely disappointed at within the game. The other being the Gacha system. There are currently well over 30 playable characters – which is an astonishingly large number of recruitable characters to play as. Naturally, miHoYo need to make a profit off of the game, this is free-to-play after all. So as one might expect, the vast majority of characters are unlocked via the in-game Gacha system. Yup, the completely random Gacha system, meaning that if you’re as unlucky as I am.. you’ll end up spending a ton of money in-game and seeing no return on investment made. This is perhaps the worst part of the game to me, as I had experienced something akin to this in Arknights – where I spent more money than I would’ve liked trying to unlock heroes, and.. learned my lesson the hard way. 

This is a game that I can see myself getting truly lost in, wasting hours exploring a beautiful, large world filled with exciting new things to seek out and explore, and I look forward to not only continuing to stream this if I’m able to, but also record and stream it when it officially launches. The exact release date is still currently unknown, but here’s hoping it releases this year! What do you guys think of what you’ve seen thus far? Are you excited? I know I am!

Hey guys, this is Mrs Stix taking a look at Hunter’s Arena: Legends today.
This isn’t the first time we’ve delved into the world that is Hunter’s Arena. This is our third, maybe fourth look into the game and as such I feel as though we’re uniquely qualified to touch on the game ahead of its Early Access launch on July 15th as a buy to play title.
Hunter’s Arena: Legends is a unique PvPvE Battle Royale, that features 60 players, pitted against one another in a brutal struggle to survive not only the wilderness and the dangers that lurk within it, but also other players.
Well, most players. You get a few that don’t fully grasp the concept of the game and run at your full 3-man group as a level 1 newbie all by their lonesome. But most of the time you need to be weary of other players!

To start things off there are currently four game modes and I was able to participate in three of them as one of them is still not yet available in the stress test.
The first one that you can participate in is the solo battle royale mode. You’re forced to go out into the world on your own and battle your way through hundreds of monsters to level up and gather various gear and loot.
And if you’re feeling spunky like I did, go into a dungeon and gobble up that delicious xp and get the creme of the crop gear and boosts so you can release the final smack down upon your foes.
All the while, the walls of the arena are closing in on you, and if you’re familiar with a battle royale mode, don’t get caught outside the wall or you’ll find yourself dying to your own stupidity.
I’m not saying I did this or anything, but sometimes you live and learn….and then die because you learned the hard way. The goal is to be the final one standing, and of course reach level 20 so you can unlock your ultimate skill.

But if doing this alone doesn’t sound challenging enough for you, you can go into the trio battle royale where three of you must face off against groups of other players. Being a fan of mostly multiplayer games I know that the biggest challenge lies in having to not only rely on, but to also work with other players.
I can’t tell you how many times my teammates just left me to die against other players. Or how often I’d be in a group with an AFK party member. Or had someone that refused to group up at all. Or.. okay, I’ll go ahead and stop myself there.
You can, of course, use the mic system to communicate but there only seems to be open world mic from what I can tell. This has, admittedly, left me in a few highly entertaining situations where I hear people screaming or fighting over comms.
The unique thing about trio is that if you or a teammate dies, you can take their soul to a resurrection point and revive them, for a price of course, to continue the fight alongside you!

But if you’re more into doing things on your own but want to choose between multiple characters, you can go into a tag match which allows you to choose two different characters and face off against another player in an arena.
Be careful though, because you can be Spartan kicked off the edge in this mode. The only game mode I have yet to try as it’s not available at this moment is the Free for all where you’re pitted up against three other hunters to see who’s the top dog.

Overall when you’re playing, I’d be mindful to find out what characters you think work best for you as each one has different skills and ranges of attack.
There are a total of twelve characters with the twelfth one not yet available in the stress test, Yoongeon is their newly added blade master and I’m looking forward to trying him out.
I had to take a character that was new to me out for a test run, Gyeonjo, I think he’s a Gorilla but the tail is kinda throwing me off. But I’ll always go back to my bae Mimi. She got me through many bad situations in previous beta tests.

I think I’ve been playing her for the last three times I’ve gone into Hunter’s Arena. But as you go along, you’ll acquire ways of purchasing varying skins, emotes, and victory poses.
And as you continue to not only accumulate wins but also level, you’ll have additional ways of unlocking more mastery skills which includes upping your HP overall, monster kill xp gained, and finally weapon attack power.

I’ll be curious to see how these come into play when facing off against others with more hours played than myself.

So far I’m having a blast going in and seeing how I fare against other more experienced players and also fighting monsters in the world. The game makes use of a very responsive action combat system that has shown substantial improvement over the various stages of development Stix and I have played.
Overall, it’s a nice hodge-podge of various things I like in games, but that’s just my opinion.

What do you guys think? Are you excited for Early Access? What aspect of the game are you most interested in? Anyway, I hope to see you all next time when I take a look at the game once it releases! Bai for now!

Hey guys, this is Mrs Stix taking over for Stix today to bring you a look at The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross mobile RPG from Netmarble Corporation. This turn-based style game is available for both iOS and Android devices. Quite a few of you have been asking us to take a look at this game, and I’m more than happy to be the one to dive head first into this game as I’ve seen the first two seasons of The Seven Deadly Sins on Netflix, and I’m a huge fan! For those of you who have not yet seen this anime or read the manga I’d strongly advise leaving now as there may be spoilers for both of these for at least the first season and book.

First things first, coming into the game I can certainly say that you have your familiar characters from the anime that brought a warmth to the game I’d not come across before. With Meliodas’ humor, Elizabeth’s adorableness, and the rest of the story rich Sins you’re immediately thrust into the story of The Seven Deadly Sins, and I can with a certainty say that it follows the anime to a T thus far. However, there were a few characters I did not yet recognize. It felt like I was watching the anime all over again only with the slow non-essential parts thrown out. And the graphics, pretty much spot on for the anime! The only downside to the story being interwoven with this game is the fact I’d already seen the story, so there wasn’t anything, I guess, fresh about this. And then if you do play the game without being familiar with the anime or manga, then I guess there’d be not much of a call to go delve into it aside from the game. 

As for the combat itself, it’s a turn-based card game. You’ll pick your team of three and with a fourth laid back as a character to use in case one of your others dies. Your cards can also be combined to create more powerful attacks if you put them side by side. You can either play the cards separating the like cards or lose a turn out of your three attempts by moving the card on your own. Each card of course is a skill that is unique to the character, like Meliodas’ infamous counter attack while Elizabeth uses Hawk for attacks. Your characters will also have a bar above their heads that fill with each attack to reveal an ultimate move once it’s fully charged. This attack will unleash a powerful smack down on your foes. Overall, it requires a bit of preplanning and thought on your part.There is also PvP that is unlocked at Chapter 4 in the story. There’s two types of PvP, one that relies on the gear of your characters and one that does not. Personally, I think it’s great to be able to go into a fight and stand some type of chance. If PvP isn’t your cup of tea you can do story quests, daily quests, awakening quests, raids, and special event quests. 

Looking at the game beyond combat, there is also the gacha system where you’ll see Meliodas fight a demon to unlock a variety of character cards and other goodies. You can also go to the The Boar Hat Tavern and craft a bit by cooking. You can also salvage equipment, talk to the beloved characters, and decorate your tavern. You can also change the appearance of your characters by changing their outfits through unlocking them through the PvP coins, gems, or winning them through the gacha like systems, these outfits also give them stat boosts. Also when going from town to town it will allow you to control one of your characters depending upon where you’re at in the story to walk them around the area to your quest, that was a nice little addition! 

So if you’re looking for a great new turn-based RPG that has a great story to it, this is the game for you. There’s a few things they need to work on, like my game not randomly crashing, but it would appear I’m not alone in this with the most recent update that rolled out. I’m also curious how they’ll go about releasing the story, if they’ll try to time it with the anime season releases, or what shall occur, but I feel like I’m getting tiny spoilers by seeing some of the characters in my cards. Either way, I look forward to continuing on with my adventures with The Seven Deadly Sins!

With a lot of free time on my hands and most of it being spent laying around, there’s a lot of time for mobile games. So in my wanderings of the mobile games I came across Yokai Tamer, a Japanese MMORPG for iOS and Android. I was intrigued at least by the anime-style of artwork in this game and gave it a download since it was free! Currently they are even doing a collaboration with an anime known to anime lovers alike, Cells at Work.

Upon entering the game you’re faced with picking between a male or female hero. There’s three little varying pictures to the bottom left side of the screen, but as far as I can tell that only changes your profile picture whilst in game. But there you are, with a sword and a mission to slice through things with it. You’ll also find that the game has a manual or auto-pilot to it, and of course we all knew that was coming. It’s a very rare day when you have a mobile game that’s entirely hands-on. So after you set your character off into auto-complete mode you can take a look through all the options that are hidden away on your screen! Although, admittedly this game will have pop-ups occasionally reminding you that to advance more quickly all you need to do is spend more money. Needless to say, this game is very pay to advance and will often remind you of how much better your life will be by spending money with red notifications on various options in the menus to purchase items. But if that doesn’t detract away from your enjoyment of the beauty that can be found in this game, you’re going to enjoy it. Without a doubt, the artstyle is beautiful and the voice acting is cute. You’ll even get a cute partner to follow you around in battles called a Miko, these buddies can be leveled up to boost your stats and also they’ll change in appearance and skills as they level. You’ll also get a mount that can be level and costumed as well, they also will increase your stats and take you places faster! There’s also a ton of things to do and getting around to these places quicker makes it easier! You can even get married and have a baby apparently. I slowly tried to worm my way into my guild leader’s heart by sending gifts, but sadly it’s locked behind levels and when you reach level 180, you’ll find that it’ll cost you a pretty penny to get a top notch wedding. You’ll also get a special ring gem from this marriage that’ll of course, give you stat boosts just like the baby will once it grows up and fights alongside you. You’ll also have the normal things to do in most games, dungeons that can be solo or up to three players. You can also participate in the arena, you’ll go in and either one shot them or you yourself are. There’s also an auto-attack in this arena that you can’t seem to turn off, so you really can’t win from your own skill, moreso how powerful you are. You can also participate in something called Ghost King, which allows you to farm gear as you level up to three times a day.There is also the main quest that you can follow until you hit the level wall and then you can begin participating in sub quests, weekly quests, and guild quests. Occasionally you’ll get a quest called Rebirth, which, admittedly, I got super excited for because it made it seem like I’d be able to unlock a new class. But disappointingly, you just unlock new skills doing this and also various titles to increase your stats. Overall, it’s a nice looking game with cute costumes and skins for your character, mount, and partner. I however would say that if you’re looking for engaging combat, this isn’t the game for you. This is more aimed at getting as high level as possible to look as good as you can. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, some people just want to look pretty and hit things. So if you’re looking for an anime-style game this is the game for you!

So I’d like to preface this video by giving a big thank you to whomever requested that I do TERA Classic when you found out that I loved the PC version of TERA. I’d also like to prelude this by stating that I had no clue that this game wasn’t translated up until I had it on my phone, this is going to be fun. So first and foremost, this game is available for iphones and androids alike. Originally the game TERA Classic Mobile was developed by Lantu Games but since then has been published by different regional publishers. Our version that we have here for the US was released last month and is by Black Beard Gaming and is unfortunately in Chinese. There are no plans as far as I can tell for them to translate the game, but heck, we’re going to play. So this is more of a test for me if I can somehow manage my way through a game where I understand absolutely nothing and only have the knowledge of mobile games and TERA on my side, so here we go!

Upon starting the game I can safely state right off the bat that I do recognize the classes. Albeit these classes are gender and race locked, granted the PC version also has some classes like the Reaper and Valkyrie that is gender and race locked, but overall there’s more variety on the PC version than this. There’s Slayer, which can only be a Human male. Warrior, which is a male Castanic. Archer, which is a female High Elf, and lastly Priest which is an Elin…which only has a female gender anyway. This is a shame, as I recall the race you are determines what race benefits you get for your character, but I don’t know if this is true here since I can’t really read what things say. The character customization is lacking, but to be honest the PC version wasn’t that impressive either. So for those of you who don’t know, I literally mained Priest in TERA for years until it fell out of the good graces as a healer, so I’m going to have to go with my classic choice and just kind of see what the difference is.

I can tell you up front, the one thing I’ve really liked so far in the game is that the tutorial that happens from the PC version isn’t here, and if you’re familiar with it….that thing takes like 30 minutes to get through! So I’m already pleasantly surprised. I can also tell this game is entirely auto-playable as it fights for me and takes me where I want to go. Which, in this situation since I can’t understand a darn thing it says, is appreciated! I also like the small helpful steps that occur from this strange little Elin girl in the corner of my screen showing me how to level my gear. The gear is in the Japanese grading system…so S,A,B,C, which I guess makes sense for the most part. From the looks of it, the upgrading works pretty similar to the PC version where you level, convert, and enchant your gear. As to which is which, I don’t really know, but from what I can tell the enchanting is this portion of it.

You’ll also unlock different NPCs to go into the dungeons with you from what I can tell, it wasn’t until around level 20 that I unlocked this feature for the dungeons that you unlock every ten levels or so. Seeing as I couldn’t figure out how to join actual people for a dungeon, it came in handy for more DPS. Which, as a priest, I wasn’t doing horrible in terms of DPS. There seems to be a rotation of DPS and healing skills for me on my skillset, which is nice to flick between. Overall though, the whole fighting thing didn’t feel that fluid for me. And TERA, which is known for its action combat and is widely loved by a lot of people for that, didn’t really get translated, like the language, into this mobile game. I have a dodge skill that honestly you have to slam a couple times to get your character to respond appropriately, and for big AOEs, that’s not going to work that great for me. And honestly, half the time I just let my game auto-play because I seemed to do worse in this particular game when I would take manual control, and normally that’s not something I can say about other mobile games. However, when entering into PVP, where there is no auto-play but auto lock-on is still a thing, I was totally dominating for my level, and then the game gave me a solid slice of reality check and put me up against this. Can we say one shot? So yeah, combat for me was absolutely nothing like the PC version, and having been an avid lover of Tera because of the combat, this was extremely disappointing for me.

One positive I would like to note is that at least graphically, the game is roughly as good looking as its PC counterpart. But at the same time, the PC game is almost a decade old at this point so it isn’t that large of a stretch to imagine this is possible. You get a mount, but it looks like other mounts are locked behind purchases, which again is nothing new for TERA in itself. I can tell there’s also a bit of a story to it, but I just can’t understand it, but it’s still nice to look at despite it. So I guess overall, it’s just an ok free game to pull up and play. There’s nothing that’s special about it and anything that really made TERA special has been gutted from the game. I made it to level 22, and quite honestly, I’m probably not going to go back in. Though I’d still recommend you guys give the game a try if it looks like something you’re interested in, and heck, maybe you’ll enjoy it! Anyway, this was Mrs Stix, logging off for now!

Have you ever wanted to be a part of a drug lord’s mafia, do your parents want you to be a doctor, and have you craved to be surrounded by cute anime girls and boys? Well now you too can be in control of your animated medicinal destiny as a pharmaceutical company based in Rhodes Island where you murder countless people that are trying to stop you from solving the world’s infection problem. This game is basically a tower defense RPG with beautiful graphics and a gacha system that was created by Yostar Limited.

You begin by finding yourself in a room with some strange bunny girl telling you that you need to wake up for some lady that needs us. So of course, you are slammed back into your body only to hear the mutterings of what you’d assume were medical staff around you in a hospital, and quite honestly….as a nurse, some of the things this mobile game said just….yeah, from a made up drug and basically hinting that I am experiencing open heart surgery, I don’t really know how my character made it out alive and instantly began fighting. But anyway, here we are, with a case of amnesia and the title Doctor Mrs Stix. It is our duty to gather our operatives and begin trying to fight our way to freedom. 

So as you look at the main screen you’ll notice quite a few things crowding the view. For one, you have your combat, which leads you into various ways of farming supplies or through the main story. Which, by the way, the main story is actually quite cute if you follow it and the voice acting is super adorable. The combat itself is tower defense with varying waves of enemies coming at you, and it’s up to you to determine what you need to take them down. This by no means, is an easy feat. I’ve had to restart and level my operators more before moving onward. The easiest way to do that is to grind under supplies for XP items to help boost your squad,  which is your main group you’ll go into battle with. Once you clear a level with basically no hiccups, you’ll be able to run that level multiple times for supplies on auto-deploy as many times as you like until you run out of sanity. You’re limited the further you go along in doing runs though by your sanity, which is basically your stamina to continue onward for the day. You can design up to four separate squads to pick from depending upon what you’re going to be facing. And nextly you have your operator management, this allows you to slide through your list of waifus and husbies and begin leveling them up. 

As you can see, once you click one of their cards, you have their level, which is easy to boost just by farming the supplies and completing daily, main, and campaign quests. You’ll also be able to boost them to elite status once you have the supplies to do so, something I’m in the midst of farming. And also you can raise their potential which boosts their stats. You’ll also be able to raise their skill, which will help immensely on the battlefield. Then you’ll see that the operator has a specific trait that is unique to them, be weary when selecting your squad member as I feel some of these traits are more useful than others. Like for instance, one of my healers heals up to three allies simultaneously, while another heals one ally at a time within their range. So suffice to say, be aware!

Now for collecting your cute anime operators you need to recruit more by going to recruit, which of course takes supplies to run this gacha system in hopes you get someone even remotely good. There are a ton of guides out there on how to recruit with purpose though, that way you’re not getting trash or duplicates. But duplicates are viable as well as they can be put towards your potential.Then of course, headhunting, where you can end up spending money. I didn’t spend a single thing as you farm something known as Originite that can be used to unlock some pretty spiffy operators, so just bide your time, you’ll be able to unlock a lot of them. And of course, farming can be done, as I mentioned, by doing the missions. You’ll have daily, weekly, and campaign missions that’ll give you supplies to upgrade your skills to increasing your XP. 

Though, if you’re looking to relax a little, you can go over to your base of operations where you can chill and stare at your adorable operators and also work slowly on collecting useful items as well! Although, if you feel creative, you can decorate your dorm, but this won’t be for free, so in the meantime, my characters are going to walk around staring at boxes. Within your base, you can also build a reception area where you can visit with friends. The folks over on my Twitter were sweet enough to add me as friends on Arknights because like most games, there are friends with benefits. To divulge a little more on this, your friends can come assist you in battle beyond the tutorial, and you can be used to help them as well. You’ll also receive credits from visiting them to use in the shop. And most importantly, you’ll be able to search for clues in their bases, and also share clues with them, which also give you credits! And these credits are extremely precious as these give you the option to buy the materials to upgrade your operators. 

So, I mean, overall, this is a great looking tower defense game. Though if you’re not into grinding, then this is probably not for you. I’ve personally enjoyed unlocking and leveling my squad and trying to figure out how to survive the waves of attackers, this is harder than it looks! You actually have to put some thought into who you’re going to use, how you’re going to use them, and where to place them. Yes there’s a cash shop, but I feel like I say this a lot, you can just grind pretty much the same outcome by recruiting and biding your time for free currency to buy yourself a chance at something better, and there’s no rush.

I’ve been on a huge Pokemon and Temtem kick lately and have basically been spending a large amount of time playing these varying monster-collector games. I never could get into Pokemon Go because well, I had to walk everywhere and that just wasn’t viable from my chair. So as I was sitting there complaining to a friend that I don’t really have a mobile game like Pokemon, they kinda just laughed and told me about Evertale. Evertale is a mobile RPG game that was developed by ZigZaGame Inc. and only costs 99 cents on Google Play and Apple Store.

There’s really no character creation to this, you’re set out into the world of Erden with your base character that is able to go out and collect monsters all while enjoying a story mingled in with your exploration. As you go along and defeat others woven into the story, they’ll be added to your party typically with varying skills. You’ll even have a chance to garner them through side quests littered throughout the world.Their rarity and strength is noted by the bronze, silver, or gold stars at the base of their character card, and of course the number of stars they have to them differ as well. The same is said for the weapons that can be equipped to each party member and monster. The monsters themselves are collected much like in Pokemon as you wander through some grassy areas and engage in a turn-based battle. Watch for shaking bush and grass areas though as within those shaking shrubs is a unique monster!

The actual act of capturing is fairly much the same as well. You must damage the monster enough to weaken it enough to capture it and you need to successfully fight off the surrounding monsters that come with it. The good part about this is, if you fail to capture it, you can try again. There were quite a few times within the battle itself that I found myself destroyed by the opposing monsters because I either wasn’t high enough level or didn’t have enough members on my team. As you level, you’ll be able to expand your team and your weapons as your allotted cost to have higher level members, more members, or better weapons increases. Your characters will also be in a visible queue and depending upon what skills you choose for a particular character you could come later or earlier in the queue as some of the skills require time before you can capitalize on the next hit. And as you’re fighting, you’ll notice that your characters or your enemy characters have a little clock by their bar. This indicates a time before a large skill can be used, but definitely be aware of the enemy’s as this could literally one shot your entire team….as I found out the hard way. Your team also has a spirit bar, some skills add points to the spirit bar while others remove points. If you don’t have enough points, well then you’re going to miss out on some really big moves. So overall, the combat within this game requires a certain strategic approach.

Unfortunately though the same can’t be said for me currently within the PvP, I tried quite a few PvP matches that places you in a level bracket after participating in 10 matches. Which is all well and good, but the scaling of such matches isn’t exactly….fair. So if you do decide to participate in PvP, I would highly recommend waiting until you have achieved at least level 80, otherwise you’re going to be completely blown into the next life. The only match I was actually able to win was when a level 80 took pity on me and didn’t attack or they were just setting their phone down and hoping this was another mobile game that plays for you, but it doesn’t, you actually have to touch your buttons.

Aside from PvP, up until the point of finishing Evertale’s quests, you are playing in offline mode. You’ll be able to capture wild monsters and train and evolve them, and the monsters themselves are quite interesting with each evolution. Though, once you’ve finished the main story, then you’re thrust out into the real world. Overall, up until this point the game is quite fun. I felt like I did very well at capturing wild creatures in the game and had some fun while doing so. Once you are no longer on the offline mode though, you’ll be met with some restrictions that could be overcome with a paywall. The game itself is quite liberal with supplying you soul stones, but it’s a slower grind.