Insomniac Nightmares

My home has been host to the Switch for a little over a week now, and so I felt it appropriate to give some impressions of the game I’ve been playing the most.

No, Zelda is not it. Yes, I do like Zelda, but it’s not where my soul lives right now.

Fire Emblem Warriors has devoured me. If you’ve played any of the Warriors/Musou games before, the basics remain the same; pick a champion, mash X until a few thousand of your enemies are dead, rinse, repeat. Very grindy. But I like grindfests, so I’m okay with that.

Fire Emblem Warriors does that very well while introducing a few minor adjustments – the “weapon triangle” from the SRPG series makes an appearance, meaning that you can’t always just take your favorite warrior and smash through the whole map; you’ll need a little help from your friends. Assisting with that is the option to order about other units on the map so you can command Lissa to go smash that troublesome Pegasus Knight that you can barely scratch with Rowan while tending to the next three objectives that just popped up on your map.

Fire Emblem Warriors also does have some totally unique features and differences that make it a great game, not just for Warriors fans, but also more generic action-RPG lovers, and even fans of the SRPG originals. The story is surprisingly deep and well done… though I will say it does rely on potentially fatal misunderstandings one too many times (story missions 7-13 are all almost entirely “Oh, they must be the bad guy because X” followed by “I’m sorry, obviously you’re not bad, let’s go talk to Y” whereupon “Y sees you and thinks you kidnapped their friends and so you have to beat them down so we can all be homies” missions.)

The upgrade system for the characters is also a little different, with grids and class changes and raw material grinding. It added something different than just grabbing your character’s ultimate weapon and pressing X until you had the full Gamerscore or the Platinum. The menus for it are a little annoying, with constant “Are you sure?” *confirms* “Okay, I’ll do it!” that you’re going to hear fifty times every time you visit that screen. But it’s a minor quibble.

There’s also History mode, which basically grabs some of the more tactical elements of the mainline Fire Emblem games by dropping you on the map and giving you an array of targets that lead to more traditional Warriors levels, each of which offers goodies for completion and alters the lay of the land on the main History map. Multiple endings for each map (some of which impact the main story mode as well) are a nice addition.

Overall, highly recommend it if you have the system to play it on.

For the second piece, we need to talk about the other game that’s eating my soul, lately.

Cuphead.

I don’t have a lot to say on this one. It’s goddamn beautiful. The sound and music are amazing. It legitimately gives you the feeling of being trapped in a 1930s cartoon, complete with scratchy audio and film tears/grain.

It also hates your guts and will punish you every chance it gets. You will see the game over screen dozens – if not hundreds – of times, and that’s before you leave the first world (out of four.) But ultimately, when you do take down a boss or get a better grade on the platforming levels, you will give a barbaric yawp, so insanely pleased with yourself that you feel as though #LifeGoals needs to be altered to include it. Play it. But if you have a low frustration tolerance level, you may want to stay away or invest in extra controllers.

What about you folks out there? Any input on either of these titles? Have something that’s currently consuming your gaming soul? Let us know down below!