Destiny: The Taken King Review

Eyes Up, Guardians.

Destiny: The Taken King fixes almost everything that was bad about Destiny when it first released a year ago. When Destiny first hit store shelves and digital outlets around the world, I succumbed to the hype. I played hours upon hours for three weeks straight until I hit Light Level 28 and stopped because I was just plain bored with it. It was the same grind over and over. Since then, I have gone through a love/hate relationship with Bungie's galactic space adventure game. The Dark Below expansion felt half baked, and it wasn't until House of Wolves, the 2nd expansion, that I really started to come back and start grinding out more hours trying to get that 34 Light Level cap. Eventually I did and the game became super fun. Loot rewards still weren't rewarding me for the time I was putting in, some weapons were overpowered thus leaving others excluded from Raids because they didn't have those exotic weapons, etc. But The Taken King has fixed all of that and more. 

My single biggest problem with Destiny when I reviewed it last year was the fact that there was no cohesive story. There was a universe that Bungie had built, with lore tied behind Grimoire Cards obtained by playing the game, but the Destiny vanilla campaign was extremely lackluster. The Taken King(referred to as TTK from here on out), brought back gorgeous cinematic cutscenes, wonderful written dialogue, and a self-contained story with a single villain, Oryx. The story is simple, Oryx, The Taken King, wants revenge because you and your fellow Guardians killed his son, Crota, in The Dark Below. The six hour campaign was entertaining, sometimes scary, and a ton of fun. The different characters in the Tower all have new written dialogue, making them feel way more important than they were in the vanilla campaign. Cayde-6, for instance, steals the show. Nathan Fillion does a brilliant job bringing this awesome character to life. Peter Dinklage has been replaced by Nolan North as Ghost, a welcome change considering the lackluster performance by Dinklage. RIP Dinklebot. Hello Nolanbot. I think Nolan does a great job with Ghost and makes the bond between your Guardian and your Ghost feel more important. 

The leveling system has been reworked to better benefit everyone. The level cap has been raised to 40 and you get there through experience, just by playing the game. A light level still remains, and now it's calculated by the average number of attack and defense on your weapons and armor. For example, LL 240 is the minimum recommended for the Daily Heroic Story mission and LL 290 is the recommended for the new raid, King's Fall. With the new loot system rewarding better drops more frequently, the climb to 290 is relatively easy by just playing the game and doing the new strikes, missions, and things you enjoy.

Oryx, the Taken King

There are more new weapons to acquire in TTK then there were in the original release of Destiny. These new Year 2 weapons had me dropping my trusty Fatebringer to pick up a random "Uncommon" Hand Cannon that had a better attack rating. Many legendaries and exotics were left behind in Year 1 but some have transferred over to TTK and Year 2 like Red Death, Hawkmoon, Hard Light, and others. I have yet to find a new Year 2 Exotic weapon but for now I'm using the Dead Orbit legendary Scout Rifle. I love all the new weapons and armor. They have also added Artifacts which can be obtained one you reach level 40. They contribute to your Light Level and carry different perks. Bungie has added quest tracking, for a more familiar RPG style of questing, more vault and bounty space, and loads more, not to mention a sword weapon that is used as a heavy. 

Bungie has also added a new playable location, Oryx's ship the Dreadnought. It's massive caverns and halls are filled with enemies and delicious secrets and rewards. With the Dreadnought comes two new strikes, one of them having an extremely intense and nerve-racking boss fight which I won't spoil. As well as a new public event arena called, Court of Oryx. Court of Oryx uses different tiers of runes that you present to statues which then summon enemies and bosses into the arena. Tier 1 is the easiest with Tier 3 arguably needing a Fireteam of 6 people but it is tons of fun. Heroic and Nightfall strikes have now been turned into playlists, with an added streak that allows you to earn higher rewards the more strikes you play without going to orbit. The new Taken enemies will sometimes appear in classic strikes from Year 1 changing things up a bit. Speaking of the Taken, they are the new enemy that consist of every other race from Destiny with added features. Taken Fallen Captains can blind you, Taken Vex Goblins can give other enemies invincible shields, Taken Knights can spew fire, and that's just to name a few. 

There are three new Subclasses for the Titan, Warlock, and Hunter. The Hunter Nightstalker can summon a bow and arrow from the void and use it to tether enemies allowing you and your friends to do more DPS. The Titan Sunbreaker can summon a flaming hammer and throw it into groups of enemies. And the Warlock Stormcaller can fly around shooting lightning out of their fingertips like a Sith Lord from Star Wars, pretty cool and useful for crowd control. They all come with different perks just like the original subclasses, and being a Hunter I am really enjoying the Nightstalker and I can't wait to try out the Sunbreaker on my Titan character. New trophies and achievements have been added for TTK and they are tied to finishing the main story and different side quests that open up after the initial campaign has concluded. The new Raid, King's Fall, has received massive amounts of praise for it's puzzles, intense and mechanical boss fights, and loot rewards. I myself will be trying it out later this week with my buddies and I can't wait! 

Overall, Destiny: The Taken King is a huge improvement over the Destiny that was released last year. A better loot system, new weapons, a captivating new story campaign with great voice acting and dialogue, a villain with motivation, new Strikes, new Crucible maps, more vault space, simpler bounties, more weapons and armor, and tons of other things! The Taken King has been one of my favorite releases this year and looks totally different from what Destiny used to be. If you stopped playing Destiny after awhile last year, I don't blame you, but now do yourself a favor and download The Taken King. I promise, you won't regret it. 

9.5

+New Loot system

+King's Fall raid

+Story and dialogue

+New strikes

+Leveling system

Bloodborne Review

Hunt Your Nightmares

Bloodborne is a beautiful, twisted, addicting, and surprisingly scary game. The spiritual successor to Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, Bloodborne knows what it is even though the beginning is wildly different from the endgame. This game is dark, yet full of light; horrifying, but mesmerizing; punishing, yet rewarding. I found myself falling in love with the world around me as the game changed from a Victorian horror to a cosmic nightmare.

Bloodborne wears its influences on its sleeve. Developed by From Software and published by Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Studio, Bloodborne is a PS4 Exclusive action role-playing game with similar elements to the Souls games. It's extremely challenging and in order to be successful one must be patient and take the time to learn the game's mechanics. It teaches you to play as you learn from your mistakes.

The opening cinematic sees your character receiving a "Blood Ministration" which leads you to the in depth character customization screen. Have some fun with this part if you want, or create a realistic looking person, your choice.

My personal favorite: The Joker. Credit to u/mynameisnotspecial on Reddit.

After that, theres another quick cutscene and then you are set loose in the city of Yharnam. As usual with the Souls games, nobody tells you what to do or where to go save for a few developer notes left on the ground telling you the basic controls and "Seek the Paleblood to transcend the hunt." Thats about all you get. Right off the bat this game is challenging. After receiving your first Trick Weapon and Firearm, you can begin to hunt down the different beasts and bosses. The combat in Bloodborne is much quicker than in Dark Souls so don't expect to stand behind your shield while blocking attacks. The game forces you to keep moving, dodging, parrying, rolling, whatever it takes to keep you from staying in one spot. I personally found this form of combat to be much more satisfying than Dark Souls.

The world of Bloodborne is dark, beautiful, and full of mystery. Every time I advanced through another boss and into a new territory, I was left in wonder at how unique the different areas are. There are city-like areas, intricate castles, and dark forests. Everything is seamlessly connected so that there are no load times between world unless you fast travel or die. And you will die a lot. Like the Souls games, Bloodborne is very difficult, but not impossible. Every enemy has their weakness. In the beginning, you just need to be prepared to die a lot. Eventually you will get better with practice. The major downside to Bloodborne at launch was the load times every time you died. They were improved in a patch so it's gotten better but sometimes they are still about thirty-seconds long, and when you're dying over and over, that might as well be an eternity.

I don't want to spoil or talk about any more story elements because like the previous games, the story is about discovering and interpreting it on your own. It's incredibly interesting though. I found it to be more intriguing than Dark Souls because there is less lore, but it's left wide open for you and other players to come up with your own theories.

PVP works the same in Bloodborne as it does in Dark Souls. Instead of special stones, you have bells that you can ring to summon other players into your world for Co-Op or to invade someone's world to steal their Blood Echoes. I used Co-Op multiple times in order to take down a boss that was giving me trouble and only had a couple connection issues. I never invaded someone's world but my world was invaded at least three times. When someone invades your world and kills you, you lose all your echoes and the person that killed you gains them. It's rather frustrating when this happens so be on the lookout.

The bosses in Bloodborne have a very deformed and gothic style to them. Some of them are wildly inspired by the horror of H.P. Lovecraft which, if you're a fan of his writing, is very very cool. I'm pretty sure I died at least once in every boss fight except for one. They all present different challenges and different fighting styles, so learn to adapt to each one.

I can't state enough how intriguing this world is to me. When the credits rolled on the ending I had logged forty-eight hours in the game and I immediately started New Game Plus to experience it all over again. It's brutally difficult but that shouldn't be a reason to hold back on this incredible game. Bloodborne is a beautiful, horrifying, mesmerizing, and addicting game full of mystery just waiting to be explored.

9.5 

+Visually gorgeous

+Intricate and quick combat

+Intriguing world

+Boss battles

-Load times between deaths