Welcome to the debut episode of Critical Hits, a spinoff series of Games Witticism where we take an in-depth look at specific games or mechanics and concepts within games. For our first episode, I'm joined by guest co-host Mike to talk about what is arguably one of the weirdest and most fascinating games in Square-Enix's extensive JRPG library: Final Fantasy X-2. We discuss the circumstances that led to its creation, how both FFX games laid the groundwork for Square's current design philosophy, the conflicting narrative elements within X-2 itself, and much more.

Now that we're out of the Game of the Year mines, we can finally talk about video games again. So what better way to start the year than with punishment and sadness. I talk about Bloodborne in relation to the rest of the Souls franchise, Melissa goes over what's changed--and what's still the same--about XCOM 2, and Luke desperately tries to give a balanced critique of That Dragon, Cancer without looking like a heartless monster.

Oh thank God, we're finally done with Game of the Year discussion. At the end of February. Look, it's fine. Everything's fine. I'll just...make some changes to how this works next year, so that we don't spend over two months working on it. Anyway, Luke, Melissa and I finished off the remaining categories, which include: I Need to Sit Down and Contemplate the Universe, Best Dumb Game, Most Relaxing and/or Delightful, Fuck This Game, Most Interesting Concept, Best Story, Best Moment, and Best Game We Didn't Play (Much). Also, we run down our personal game of the year lists, because there's no way in hell we'd ever agree on that particular award.

It's just me, Luke, Melissa and Shane for this second episode of our game of the year discussions. We manage to get through quite a few more categories this time around, deciding on winners for Best Soundtrack, Best Comedy, Best Visuals, Biggest Surprise, and I Wish This Was Better. As in the last episode, spoilers abound (especially for Life is Strange, Fallout 4, and Metal Gear Solid V), so proceed at your own risk.

Welcome to the first episode of our Game of the Year discussions. Just like last year, we have a bunch of categories, so this is gonna take a few episodes to get through. For this part, we have Melissa, Luke, myself, and two guest-hosts--Shane and Zack--as our debate panel. We only manage to get through three categories, since Best New Female Character, Best New Male Character, and Best Ship end up being really, really hard to decide.

On this last Games Witticism of the year 2016, Melissa and I go in-depth on the fascinating changes Pillars of Eternity has made to the classic Infinity Engine RPG formula, Melissa recounts her adventure playing KOTOR 1 for the first time (as well as some lamenting about SWTOR), Luke explains what the deal with Crashmo and Pokemon Picross is, I briefly recommend Ori and the Blind Forest, and we all try to comprehend the true nature of Kirby: Terrifying Dismantler of the Patriarchy. And as has become tradition now, our spoiler-filled discussion at the end of the episode involves Fallout 4.

On this long-delayed episode of Games Witticism, Tyberius joins Melissa, Luke and I to talk about a new indie game called Cibele that reminds us all of our early AIM/MSN-era internet misadventures. I do SiberDude a solid and talk about how fun headshotting Nazis is in Sniper Elite 3, Fallout 4's gameplay gets discussed (don't worry, no story spoilers on this episode), and Luke makes me incredibly jealous by describing is wonderfully adorable experiences with Yoshi's Wooly World. Also, we get nostalgic for Achewood for some reason? I dunno, man. Oh yeah, and Undertale is a thing that came out, I guess. Like we did for MGSV in our previous episode, we save our spoiler-filled discussion for the very end so y'all who haven't played it yet don't have to worry about missing anything if you turn it off.

Thanks to the recent release of MGSV: The Phantom Pain, we here at Games Witticism finally have an excuse to talk at length about Metal Gear. Before we dive into that, though, we discuss Mario Maker, the Total War franchise, and all the weird and morally questionable stuff you can get up to in Crusader Kings 2. You know, like killing your older son 'cuz he's just too dumb. WARNING: we spoil absolutely everything about MGSV. So if that's a problem, stop the podcast as soon as we start talking about it. We don't talk about any other games after it, so you won't miss anything.

I'm not sure I've managed to have three Final Fantasy-related episode titles in a row on a podcast where I'm pretty much the only one who really likes Final Fantasy. I guess it just makes for good tangent material. In any case, though I briefly talk about FF: Type-0, we spend most of our time attempting to discuss Metal Gear Solid V without getting too far into spoiler territory, learning about Shadowrun: Hong Kong, and explaining why Heroes of the Storm changes the MOBA gameplay just enough to finally make MOBAs fun for me again.

HOLY COW ANOTHER PODCAST EPISODE WITHIN A WEEK! IT'S A MIRACLE! And only happened because I forgot the previous episode even existed. Whatever, still counts. Anyway, we don't really talk about many topics this time. But oh boy, do we talk a lot about the few that we get to. Melissa and I give Luke plenty of time to take a nap as we talk about our experiences with Final Fantasy 14, and then we segue into feminism (as is our wont). After delving into some serious topics, I lighten the mood by recommending everyone check out Card Hunter, and Luke tries to sell Melissa on Bowser's Inside Story. Finally, we wrap up the podcast with a spoiler-filled discussion of Her Story.