Diablo 4 Is Great Now, Final Fantasy 14 Changes Are Worrying, And More Of This Week’s Hot Takes

Image: Blizzard, Square Enix, Capcom, Square Enix, Screenshot: Hammer95 Studios, Illustration: Nintendo / The Tetris Company

Another week, another round of opinions and spicy takes for you to sift through. Rather than making you search the site and find them yourselves, however, we’ve gathered our best opinion pieces of the week right here. From Diablo IV’s loot game change making it a good game again to a wild Tetris story, we’ve got several things to check out on your next potty break. Just don’t sit for too long, that’s bad for you.

Image: Blizzard

Diablo IV’s Loot Reborn season isn’t quite a version 2.0 overhaul, but its major changes to the action-RPG’s loot and endgame have players falling back in love with the game and showering it with praise for the first time in several months. “Since the release of this season, I have played more than I slept lol,” wrote one fan on the subreddit. – Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Square Enix

After replaying the original, 1997, Final Fantasy VII recently, I knew the next step for me was to immediately jump into Final Fantasy VIII. As my favorite game in the franchise, I can hardly resist any opportunity to play FF8, but this time I felt more encouraged to draw points of comparison and differences between it and FF7. Though they feature totally different worlds, characters, and stories, they work together as almost narrative cousins in an inspiring and fascinating way. – Claire Jackson Read More

Screenshot: Hammer95 Studios

I think most people will agree the future doesn’t look too promising. Between crappy AI replacing real humans and billionaires controlling more and more of the world, things seem a bit bleak, I’d say. So Mullet Madjack, a new retro-inspired, anime-themed, first-person shooter on PC, comes at a perfect time. It’s a fast-paced, action-packed game where you use guns, knives, kicks, and bombs to kill rich AI-powered robot billionaires who have turned humanity into a massive, ever-consuming audience. In other words, it’s catharsis in the form of a boomer shooter. Oh, and it’s also one of the best games I’ve played this year. – Zack Zwiezen Read More

Image: Capcom

Street Fighter 6 was one of my favorite games of last year, and I’m so convinced I’ll get back to its sublime, best-in-its-class fighting that I still haven’t uninstalled it from my PS5 despite months away. Every time I so much as see a clip of Street Fighter 6, I’m reminded that Capcom’s hallmark fighting series is so back, and I wish I had the time to stay on that ride for the long run. But I recently got a chance to play Akuma, the classic antagonist who mirrors series mainstays Ryu and Ken’s Shoto archetype, and he made me appreciate how well this entry managed to fill out old characters’ arsenals to create one of the most robust fighting games in the space. – Kenneth Shepard Read More

Image: Square Enix

Dawntrail, the next expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, is just around the corner with a July 2 release date. Ahead of its launch, Square Enix pulled the curtain back on the job changes players can expect to see during the developer’s latest live letter, which included our first in-depth look at the new Viper and Pictomancer jobs. But it was the changes to the Astrologian job that caught my eye and, folks, it isn’t looking good. – Willa Rowe Read More

Illustration: Nintendo / The Tetris Company

YouTuber and video game documentarian Summoning Salt has made a career out of chronicling remarkable tales of competition and achievement in speedrunning. He’s so good at capturing the inherent drama in these struggles that his videos routinely rack up millions of views, whether he’s recounting the history of Super Mario Bros. 3 world records or world records in Wii Sports Resort golf. His latest video, however, may be his most jaw-dropping. It’s all about the history of world records (and other mind-blowing achievements) in NES Tetris, and it is absolutely not to be missed. – Carolyn Petit Read More