Gain Sense

The space 4X genre is one of my favorites (4X stands for "Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate"). As a kid I played games like Galactic Civilizations II, and later on I was always eager to jump into games like Endless Space, Distant Worlds, and StarDrive. But of them all, Stellaris is probably my favorite.  In Stellaris your goal is relatively simple: Develop your spacefaring civilization in any way you deem fit. You can stick to one star system and pour all of your resources into a hyper-advanced ecumenopolis, or you can choose to be more expansionary, sending scouts to nearby stars and colonizing outwards. You can be a warring civilization or a peaceful one, you can choose the direction of your society's research, you can prioritize certain resources over others, you can engage in diplomacy and market manipulation, and you can build spy networks to snoop on AI opponents. And there is much more beyond that.  Here I want to spin for you a tale about a playthrough I had a...

  Good morning everyone and welcome to another article! This is one I've been thinking about for a while now, and yet could never find the time to write. I'll admit, it's been some time since I've played the first two Trails of Cold Steel games (I have yet to play three and four for reasons explained below), but my impression of them is still rather clear. Conversely, I just finished playing Persona 4 Golden and finished Persona 5 a few years back, so both are fresh in my mind.  As a disclaimer, this isn't so much a critique of either series (as I very much enjoy both) so much as it is a comparison of certain aspects that stood out to me. I will also attempt to avoid spoilers as best I can. Finally, I'll organize the article into categories so that you can skip to the part you want to read. Without further ado, let's begin!  Story The Cold Steel games take place within a much larger universe dubbed "The Legend of Heroes," and are technically the si...