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My 100 Favourite Games of All Time (10-1)

Well…here we are.

Just in time for my 21st birthday, we’ve reached the end of the road, and all that’s left is to cover the best of the best. The games that matter the most to me and that have given me the most enjoyment over the years.

If you need to catch up on the series so far, then you can do that here. So, if you’re all caught up, let’s see this through to the end and discuss my 10 favourite games of all time.

10 – Sonic Mania

Release Date: 15th August 2017
Developer: PagodaWest Games, Headcannon
Publisher: SEGA
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows
Metacritic Average: 86%

It’s a game where you gotta- What do you mean I’ve already used that joke?

I’ve professed my love for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise already several times throughout this series, but this is the pinnacle of what the blue blur has to offer.

Ironically not made by Sonic Team, Sonic Mania was a game made by Sonic fans who truly understood what made Sonic such a phenomenon to big with. Sonic Mania isn’t just a game that’s ‘inspired by’ the three classic Sonic games, it IS a classic Sonic game. It took the core of the momentum-based platforming formula and expanded it into the modern platform. The music, the visuals, the gameplay, everything feels so very close to those fantastic classic titles that it may as well have sat amongst them as Sonic 4 and no-one would’ve batted an eye.

Sonic Mania doesn’t just sit around and copy what the classic games did though, it learns from their mistakes and even brings in some elements that worked in the modern titles. Firstly, we got a 2D Sonic game that actually made use of HD screenspace (looking at YOU Sonic 4), so now it was a lot easier to see obstacles coming your way, even when you were blasting through at top speed. Also, while the game did take many classic level designs, it remixed them, in ways that inarguably improved them. Even a level as simple as Green Hill Zone was expanded in such a way that made it a much more exciting level to blaze through. Not to mention that the terrain is designed in such a way that doesn’t hamper your momentum as much as in Sonic 1.

Where I believe the game shines brightest though, is in the 4 wholely original zones that the team developed for the game. It’s the clearest proof we’ve ever had that Sonic’s classic formula wasn’t a product of its time and it can absolutely still work in a game today. Those fans who played these games as kids are now the creative geniuses and masterful programmers behind Sonic Mania and they get Sonic. Zones like Press Garden and Titanic Monarch hold up as some of the best in the entire franchise. They combine speed, and platforming challenges in such a smooth way that I don’t believe can be topped by any other game on the planet.

When people look at all the horrible stuff the Sonic franchise has churned out over the past couple of decades and say “How can you like this franchise?” this game is my answer. It perfectly distils all the reasons why Sonic became such a popular franchise to begin with, and why fans still love it to this day.

9 – XCOM 2

Release Date: 5th February 2016
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac, Linux
Metacritic Average: 88%

It’s a game about almost losing everything every single turn.

This is turn-based strategy at its peak. It took me some time to appreciate XCOM for what it was. I played Enemy Unknown when I was 13 and back then, I didn’t really have the patience for it. I couldn’t be bothered to sit around and carefully plan my actions, to me it was slow, and slow was boring. Over the years though, my appreciation for turn-based strategy as a genre grew, as I discovered my love for games like Civilization, Worms and even regular card-games. So a couple of years ago, I came back to XCOM, I’ve since played through the entirety XCOM 2 on three separate occasions, and I love it.

What blows me away is that none of those three playthroughs looked even remotely similar. There’s such an extraordinary range of strategic potential with your troops in XCOM that I almost couldn’t believe how deep it went when I first came back to it. From the moment you land in an environment in XCOM, your mind has to be on the ball and ready to calculate countless possible outcomes at a moment’s notice. I talk a lot to myself while playing games anyway, but when I’m playing XCOM, I just can’t shut up. I can’t even pinpoint what it is that makes it so fun, but when I’m surveying the field and slowly narrowing down my options, I feel absolutely incredible.

The tense atmosphere and excitement doesn’t end at the thinking phase, though. There’s just as much to be had when you’ve made your decision and execute your action. I think the late TotalBiscuit put it best when he said that everyone comes away from XCOM with “war stories”. The tale of how your squad was in extreme mortal peril, but your sniper nailed three 20% shots in a row and saved you from disaster, or how you lost your best soldier because they managed to miss a 95% shot.

XCOM’s formula has just the right amount of randomness to it to keep you on your toes and make sure you can never rest on your laurels. However, simultaneously, it doesn’t lean on it so heavily that it feels like the game is entirely luck-based. I think that’s what makes the XCOM formula so satisfying. It’s because, even though there is that touch of randomness that can occasionally topple your best-laid plans, if you are a skilled tactician, you will still always come out victorious.

XCOM tests not only your strategic planning but also your strategic reactions. Yes, it’s a horrible feeling when your soldier misses an easy shot and becomes surrounded by an insurmountable horde of aliens because of it. However, when you knuckle down and calculate a strategy to get them out of that scenario alive, it’s the best feeling in the world.

8 – Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Release Date: 26th July 2019
Developer: Intelligent Systems, Koei Tecmo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Metacritic Average: 89%

It’s a game about teaching a bunch of kids in their late teens how to fight in a war.

So you know everything I just said about XCOM? Well, change the combat style to melee (a much cooler style) and add in a bunch of wonderful characters, all with their own complex backstories and ideals that you get to grow relationships with. That’s why Fire Emblem: Three Houses is on this list.

The Monastery that acts as your hub world during FE:3H isn’t the biggest area ever, I’d imagine many high schools are bigger, but the whole place is so densely packed with intrigue. Visually, it’s so vibrant and full of character, usually ‘monastery’ is a word I associate with a somewhat muted colour palette. However, FE:3H throws bright greens & blues at you all over the place, always drawing your eye to all the interesting things.

The biggest and best of these things is the people around the Monastery. The emotional connection I forged with many of the students & allies in the world is what kept it in my mind for so long. It’s what made me desire to play through the game 4 full times in a row; because I was desperate to spend time and form a bond with every single one of them. Even now, many months out from the last time I booted it up, I could name every single student & faculty member at the Monastery and give you a rough description to boot.

Everything all of these characters do is dripping with charm and personality. It’s true that many of them only have one or two major traits, but when there’s so many of them, and they’re all playing off each other, it doesn’t matter. The support scenes are a stroke of genius designs, as it allows you to see an understand these characters from all kinds of lenses. I don’t just interact with them directly, I get to see them interact with others, which gives me an incredibly deep understanding of who they really are.

Aside from all that, the core gameplay is absolutely fantastic. The turn-based combat gives me all the wonderful feelings that I just talked about with XCOM, only with the focus shifted onto melee combat, which is what makes the two games feel so different in my mind. However, it extends outside of the battlefield as well, as, unlike XCOM, you have total control over what becomes of your units. You actually sit down and have lessons with them to grow their skills, giving me an even deeper level of investment in their growth than I’d already gained from their personalities. You really are these kids’ teacher, and I genuinely care a great deal about them…even the ones I don’t really like.

The simplest way to put it is that Fire Emblem: Three Houses takes a gameplay formula that would already have made the top 10 and gives me a deep sense of emotional connection to every aspect of the world.

7 – FTL: Faster Than Light

Release Date: 14th September 2012
Developer: Subset Games
Publisher: Subset Games
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS
Metacritic Average: 88%

It’s a game about commanding a starship that is just desperate to explode at every available opportunity.

FTL is, without a doubt, the best roguelike/roguelite I’ve ever played. Everything about its premise and presentation is so simple. Even the tutorial is pretty brief, and you’ll probably get the hang of it pretty quickly when you start playing. It’s only once you’ve spent some real time with it that you realize just how stupidly deep of a game it really is. It’s not like Binding of Isaac where you’ll still be discovering secret areas and bosses after years of playing it, but there’s more than enough to keep you going for a very long time.

For one thing, I like the longer campaign length. Sure, a 10-15 minute is nice when you just have some time to kill, but when I’m sitting down with the specific intention of playing the game for a good while, an hour upwards is fantastic. It’s long enough so that I can grow an attachment to my ship & crew, and allows me to spend a significant amount of time planning how I’m going to focus my ship.

While there are a whole host of different ships in FTL, each of which lends towards specific playstyles, you can definitely play the game however you want. You can focus on buffing your shields and augmenting your hull so that you barely take any damage. You can focus on arming yourself with uber-powerful missile weapons that will drain the enemies’ health as fast as it will your pockets, or focus on stealth, firing off a barrage of shots and disappearing before the enemy has a chance to retaliate.

The element of randomness in FTL is just right too. Each map you spawn into feels different because there really is no rhyme or reason to the layout of the nodes. You just have to head vaguely towards the exit. Each node has a massive variety of events. Granted, a lot of them are just battles, but each battle goes so very different depending on your opponent. I don’t just mean their weapons to shield levels either, you have to really consider your strategy based on what type of ship it is & what race is on board. Are they Mantis that will attempt to board you? Are they Engi that annoy the fuck out of you with drones? Are they Lanius that…well…you just have to cross your fingers and pray, really.

Then there’s the final boss. It’s an interesting case with how FTL balanced itself here. As long as you have a decent idea of what you’re doing, you’ll probably be able to get to the final sector on your very first run, reaching the final boss. Then, you’ll actually do battle, and your ship will explode so fast you won’t even have time to comprehend the chaos that is occurring on your ship. It’s something that could be criticized for being way too sharp of a difficulty spike, but I like it. You know why? Because you now have a very tangible goal. In something like Binding of Issac, I never really knew what it was I was working towards because I’d never seen the final boss, I didn’t understand what it was I was fighting against. In FTL, I was IN from the moment I saw that thing, I knew that someday I would vaporize it, and that day would be glorious.

It then took me about 5 years of playing it on and off to actually do it, and it was genuinely one of those “I’m never going to forget this” moments in games.

What’s great, though, is that even though I’ve now won the game, I still LOVE going back and doing a bunch of runs in it every couple of months. There’s just enough randomness that, even when you’ve gotten quite good at the game, you could still get totally screwed over in sector 1 and die. Not to mention what I was talking about with all the different types of ships & playstyles.

I don’t think FTL is a game that I’ll ever feel ‘done’ with. No matter how much I play it, I still feel that urge to go back to it every now and then to try some new stuff. It’s a style of fast-thinking strategy that always leaves me wanting more.

6 – Pokemon Platinum

Release Date: 13th September 2008
Developer: Gamefreak
Publisher: The Pokemon Company, Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Metacritic Average: 84%

It’s a game about growing to love the creatures that do battle for you.

I’m not sure if it’s possible to describe precisely what Pokemon means to me, or even why it means so much to me. Although there are 5 other individual games on this list that I would say I love more, Pokemon as a franchise is the one that means the most to me in modern media.

Pokemon Platinum was the first time I ever connected with a game emotionally. Games were a thing I had always enjoyed up until that point, but they were something I saw more as tools for entertainment (I think the word for that is ‘toys’, but what I said sounds more insightful), they didn’t mean a great deal to me. Pokemon changed that. While I played games where I controlled characters, they were always just the vessel for me to explore and view the world. They had little personality or charm. At least, that was how I saw it as an 8-year-old.

Pokemon was different though. I still had my character, and as it’s a JRPG, they didn’t have any personality at all, but you know what did? Piplup. This weird blue penguin was something outside of myself in the game but acted on my behalf. When I picked it, the game gave me a description of what it was like, straight away, it had a personality, I felt like I understood it. Then we did battle together, we gained new team members, and I came to understand what they were like too. Before I knew it, I had a whole team of these creatures that I genuinely cared a great deal for. They mattered to me. I had an emotional bond with them. I’d never had that with a game before.

This is probably a good time to mention that I’ve never owned a pet in my life. For one reason or another, it’s always been impractical in our household, so I’ve never owned or looked after an animal. So all of these feelings of bonding with something that wasn’t another person was new to me. Once I’d played Pokemon, I felt like I got gaming. I was still young, so I didn’t fully understand the scope of it, but I felt like I finally had a firm grasp on why people cared so deeply about their video games. Sure enough, over the next 12-13 years, I grew into the nerd you see today that won’t stop bombarding you with his opinions on these things.

Why Pokemon Platinum specifically? Well, for one thing, it has all of the nostalgia I can possibly muster. It was my first, after all. However, even looking back at it now, I still think it’s the most consistently enjoyable Pokemon experience. The Pokemon I encounter along the way are among my favourites, from the starters to the routes, to the box-legendary. The music is incredible, the pace holds strong for the most part, the post-game is excellent (with the best version of the Battle Frontier, don’t @ me Emerald fans) and it’s simply a game that gives me warm and happy feelings.

I don’t know if I’d be the person I am today without Pokemon. It set me along the path of games going from something I play to something I connect with. To the point where I’m here with you, running down 100 of the blasted things. Who knows? I might even be able to go as far as saying that Pokemon Platinum is the reason this list even exists.

5 – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Release Date: 11th November 2011
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Windows, and…wait really? That’s it? …I could’ve sworn there was about 500 more…
Metacritic Average: 96%

It’s a game about shouting at things until they fall over.

To say that Skyrim shaped the way I think and feel about games would be an understatement, because it went even further than that. It broadened my horizons beyond just the scope of the game, into the wider world and global communities for games that exist on the internet.

Hitting the most significant point first, Skyrim is the reason I watch YouTube as regularly as I do. I know for most people it was a certain other 2011 game that we’ll be talking about in just a moment, but for me, it was Skyrim. Let’s Plays, cinematic content, super cringy original stories, and deep-dives into lore. I watched it all. It set in motion a chain of events that would eventually expand to the point where YouTube has been the primary place where I go to watch things for years now. More than TV and films.

On top of that, it gave me the gift of PC gaming. Now, don’t worry, I’m not one of those people that believes that PC is above all else. However, it has been my primary platform for playing games for many years and likely will remain as such for many more. I originally played Skyrim on the Xbox 360, but when I was watching the aforementioned YouTube videos on the game, I saw all these crazy things people were doing. They were manipulating the game world and doing crazy stuff like becoming invincible or spawning in 50 Lydias. Not to mention all the cool-looking weapons and quests that I couldn’t find anywhere the game. Yes, that’s right, I asked my parents to buy me the game on PC just so I could use console commands and install mods. It stuck though, as I’m still gaming on PC all these years later.

Looking more towards the game itself, it’s easily the non-sandbox game that I’ve put the most time into. By modern standards, the open world isn’t that big, but it’s so very dense with everything that’s packed into it. The enormous stretches of hills and plains may seem empty at first, but you’ll barely be able to walk two steps without an undiscovered location appearing on your compass, or a random NPC coming up and starting an encounter. I know there’s a lot of conversation and heated debate around this topic, but I think it’s the best world that Bethesda’s ever created.

At least once a year (often more) I get that urge to go back and start Skyrim all over again. Even though I invariably end up playing one of three different playstyles, and I have almost every noteworthy quest memorized, I still have so much fun playing through them all. I just love existing in that world and battling my way through every cave and crevasse I come across. A couple of years ago, I embarked on a playthrough where I installed a mod that disabled the compass and map and made my way around the world just using my own knowledge, and I genuinely did a bloody good job with it. I actually have a large chunk of Skyrim’s world memories in my brain and can get to most places without assistance. There’s not a single other open-world game in existence that I could do that with.

Skyrim is the RPG that contains everything I love about RPGs. I love that it keeps getting re-released under ever console that exists, it just gives me more excuses to play it again…and again…and again…and again…an-well, you get the point.

4 – Minecraft

Release Date: 18th November 2011
Developer: Mojang Studios
Publisher: Mojang Studios, Microsoft Studios
Platforms: Anything released after 2009…except the Ouya
Metacritic Average: 93%

It’s a game about…pretty much anything you want it to be about.

What can you even say? It’s the best selling game ever made, it’s got a cultural reach beyond anything anyone had ever imagined a video game could. You could even argue that it changed the world in several ways, but that’s for people more intelligent than me to debate. How do you even describe what’s so remarkable about a game that means so many things to literally hundreds of millions of people? I guess I can just explain what it means to me.

Minecraft was the first time I really understood how a ‘gaming community’ could thrive on the internet. Through things like the hundreds of Minecraft channels on YouTube or the vast amount of forums where Minecraft was the primary focus, I came to appreciate how exactly gaming brings people together. Not only did I see all the creators I love, interact and collaborate together in a way that I hadn’t seen before, but I found communities where I participated and made friends too. Thanks to Minecraft, the internet became a much larger place to me, full of real people, who I could actually talk to and be friends with. I’d never used the internet like that before Minecraft came along.

Outside of that, the game plays incredibly. It is far-and-away the game I’ve sunk the most time into across my whole life. Unfortunately, I don’t have the exact numbers for it, but given that I’ve been playing it regularly ever since I was 12, I’d say it’s easily been several thousand hours. I’ve created so many different worlds, many on my own, many with friends and they’ve all created a unique experience. Be it because of location, or creativity, or wherever I was getting my inspiration at the time, I’ve never built two worlds that look the same.

Not to mention, it’s one of the best games to play socially too because just about everyone owns it. During the past 6 months especially, playing Minecraft with the people I care about is more or less the only time I’ve been able to socialize. It’s such an easy game for everyone to grasp and everyone to do well in. It can be competitive if you want it to be, but it can be just as – if not more – fun when played collaboratively. It’s just such an easy game to play, it doesn’t really require much mental effort if you don’t want it to.

There’s so much more I could say about this game, but – much like the cultural impact of the game itself – we would be here indefinitely if I talked about everything I loved about Minecraft. I think the simplest way to explain it is that it’s a game that measurably makes my life better in so many ways, regardless of how old I was, or what state I was in.

3 – TowerFall Ascension

Release Date: 25th June 2013
Developer: Matt Makes Games
Publisher: Matt Makes Games
Platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Linux, Android, Ouya…no, really
Metacritic Average: 89%

It’s a game about fast-paced, arena-based archery.

It’s worth mentioning here that all of these top 3 games were in the number 1 spot at some point during the process of putting this list together. I love them all that much.

TowerFall Ascension is the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game. It’s as simple as that.

The multiplayer battling mode is pure perfection. I know it doesn’t have online, but it doesn’t need online, because the whole point of a game like this is playing it against people sitting next to you on a sofa, which you can shout at through your laughter as they kill you in a mad way you didn’t see coming.

The combat runs at an incredibly fast pace, but it’s still a pretty accessible game. When I’ve played this with people (and I’ve played this with many, MANY people) it usually only takes them a few rounds or so to get up to scratch. The controls are very simple so that you can grasp them easily, but there is a layer of skill there for veteran players. Just shooting and jumping would be fun enough, but the inclusion of the dodge/catch mechanic takes things to a whole new level. In a game where attacking is generally the best & only option, you still have a hint of defensive measures, making the combat feel a lot more fluid and give you just enough to think about so that you never truly get bored of it. Not to mention, how satisfying the sounds and animations are, it’s no wonder that the developers’ next game, Celeste, would make that mechanic the primary focus.

Every arena & every match has such a great of variety to it that you can never really rely on the same tactics. Even though each round only lasts 10-60 seconds, a narrative still tends to form. Usually, you’ll start off with no real plan, improvising based on your opponent’s movements and the treasure spawns, but very quickly you’ll start to form an idea of where and how you’re going to approach. Then a massive battle ensues as you come so very close to killing each other about 5 times in 3 seconds before one of you finally makes a mistake. That’s not even mentioning the variants you can add to the gameplay to change the playing field entirely.

While the multiplayer mode is the main focus, I also get a tremendous amount of enjoyment and satisfaction from the singleplayer mode. The design of it is relatively simple – you have to defeat waves of enemies with a set number of lives – but the massive amount of variation in the enemy’s designs and patterns means that you’ve got a hell of a lot to think about. It’s quite a challenging game, in essence, but you can feel yourself improving with every failure. You gradually learn every enemies’ patterns and what the best method to attack them is. It’s great because the game doesn’t point any of this out to you, none of the enemies have glowing weak spots, it’s just a natural consequence of the gaps in their abilities and movements.

Every time I’m playing games with a group of friends, this will always be among my first recommendations because it’s a pure distillation of the fun multiplayer games can bring. I can recall so many joyous memories of times that I’ve been playing this game with people. TowerFall Ascension is a game that I very strongly associate with happy memories, so it will always hold a special place in my heart.

2 – NieR: Automata

Release Date: 23rd February 2017
Developer: Platinum Games
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows
Metacritic Average: 90%

It’s a game about what it means to be human.

(From my Favourite Old Games I Played For The First Time In 2019 article)

I didn’t know what to expect going into NieR: Automata. I played it looking for a fun hack and slash, which I definitely got, but I got a hell of a lot more than that too. Not only would I rank it among my top two favourite games of all time, but I also regard it as the single greatest work of fiction ever written.

That’s a big statement, I know, I played the game back in February. I’ve spent all year thinking about that statement, I’ve rewatched almost all of my favourite shows and movies, replayed some of my favourite games. I compared NieR: Automata to each and every single one of them, and I genuinely believe that statement to be true, and it’s hard to articulate exactly why.

I think the most basic element of why I love it so much is that nothing had ever stuck with me as long as NieR: Automata has. For a solid week after I reached ending E and saw the credits roll for the final time, I was still thinking about it almost constantly. The game has crafted such an incredible story and raised so many profound philosophical arguments in my mind that I just couldn’t put it away. It’s been like that all year, I keep going back to it, to the questions it asks, to the answers it attempts to give and breaking that down and trying to work out exactly what it says to me specifically.

Outside of those deep thoughts and questions, there is a fantastically paced thriller-action story that kept me enthralled for every single second I played it (and later, read it) every character had weight, purpose and felt real. Every action had a consequence, and everything mattered which is just the right word, I’ve played hundreds of games, and I love so many of them, but none of them matter to me as much as NieR: Automata does.

I could sit here and talk about how the combat mechanics made it one of the most fun and satisfying hack and slashes I’ve ever played. I could talk about the world was beautifully designed with such a large amount of variety that I wanted to explore every corner, but that’s not what’s really important to me about this game. That’s not why, as I sit here writing this entry, I find myself almost at a loss for words to describe how deeply this game and its story fundamentally affected me.

Over the past few years, the state of the world we live in has genuinely worn me down a lot. I’m not going to sit here and make some grandiose comment about society, but there have been several points during this year in particular where I look at the state of some aspects of our world and just feel this sense of deep despair. Then I look to a story like NieR: Automata, that is set in a world quite literally in ruins, and yet, it feels so weirdly hopeful in its tone. It was a game that left me with such a weird cocktail of emotions that I don’t think I’ve ever felt anywhere else, it was so melancholic and downbeat, almost tragic, yet there was an undeniable sense of optimism towards the future.

Those words don’t do that feeling justice, but it’s the best I can do with the words I have.

As a game, it’s damn-near flawless, and as a narrative piece of fiction, I genuinely feel that it is the single most incredible story ever told and one that I will never be able to forget.

It’s been an extra 8 months since I wrote this, and I think if anything, my feelings for NieR: Automata have only gotten stronger since. No story has ever stuck with me like this one. All this time later, I’m still thinking about what it has to say, about how it changed the way I see the world and the way I see narratives in games.

I honestly wish I had more words for NieR: Automata, but I find it so hard to express so many elements about it, so all I can say is that I genuinely believe it when I say that this is the greatest fictional story ever told.

1 – Octopath Traveler

Release Date: 13th July 2018
Developer: Aquire
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Windows, Google Stadia
Metacritic Average: 83

It’s a game about the journey of eight wonderful people.

So…I’ve talked a lot about Octopath Traveler…like…A LOT. So much so, that I almost thought it’d be too predictable to put this in 1st place. I went back and forth over it a lot during the year I spent putting this list together, but in the end, I decided there was nothing else that could possibly take the top spot.

The characters of Octopath Traveler are the most joyous personalities I’ve ever had the pleasure of connecting with in a video game. Giving them all their separate stories was a brilliant way to write it because they all got a chance to show who they are, as much of the time as possible. No-one was pushed to the back or got less development than the rest because they all get the same. The interactions that are scattered in there do wonders too. After establishing their extremely varied personalities, we get to see them interact, to incredibly endearing results.

The writing is so very dedicated to bringing me into the world of these characters and telling me everything I could want to know about them, to the point where I feel like I know even more about them than is in the games. I understand who these people are, and more importantly, WHY they are, which is a fact that so many games forget to establish.

The plots are all interesting too. Writing eight separate stories can’t have been an easy task, especially when they’re all meant to be experience intermixed with each other. Having all of these stories be interesting and memorable, as well as having variety, must’ve been an extremely difficult task. However, because the writers knew the characters inside and out, every plot played to the strengths of that specific character. They weren’t just written into challenging conflicts, they were written into conflicts that were very explicitly challenging FOR THEM, because of who they are.

All of this is backed up by an alive feeling world. The visual style is simultaneously utterly unique and totally beautiful, and it gives every location and intense sense of character & charm. Then, there’s the soundtrack, MY GOD, the soundtrack. There is no question, it is my favourite video game soundtrack. Every track, for every location, every encounter and every character speaks to me on such a deep level. It’s masterfully crafted in such a way that I can attribute so much meaning to every note.

Then, there’s the actual gameplay, which is the pure essence of turn-based JRPGs distilled into a battle. None of the systems are particularly revolutionary, but they give you just enough to balance that very few conflicts are easily resolved. The variety in the roles & abilities of each character makes sure that you can easily make a spot for anyone if you want to. More importantly, it’s not too difficult to grasp what role each character is supposed to play either, which makes team building isn’t as agonizing as it can be in a game as vast as Pokemon. You just have to decide what you want each character to do, and then build them around those ideas; playing into their strengths as much as possible.

The whole thing is a world that just wraps it’s arms around me and pulls me into a world that I love to the very core. I keep going back to it time and time again because it makes me so very happy; and honestly, making me happy is all I want a game to do.

And that is the end of that! Those were my 100 Favourite Games of All Time! Thank you very much for following this series, please, let me know what games you love the most, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo.

WWE Summerslam 2020: Every Match Ranked

…well, I sure didn’t see that coming.

Summerslam is now behind us, and I’m sitting here, looking back on the show the next morning and thinking to myself…yeah, that was a pretty bloody good show. Sure, there wasn’t a match of the year candidate on the show, but there doesn’t always need to be. At the end of the day, there was only one match out of the eight that I didn’t like, and even that had some stuff to like about it. Every other match was good-to-great in quality, and I’m very happy I invested my time into watching it.

Now, to the rankings!

8 – The Fiend Bray Wyatt def. Braun Strowman(c)
(Universal Championship)
(Falls Count Anywhere)

It showed hints of greatness, but ultimately, it fell flat.

Let’s talk about the positives first. Firstly, The Fiend is Universal Champion again, this is a great thing, which also means Braun’s title reign is over, this also a great thing. Secondly, Roman Reigns is back, and to that, I give a big HELL YES. Smackdown has sorely missed Roman Reigns this summer, and I don’t think I realised just how much I missed him until he was back. On top of that, it looks like he might have a new ass-kicking attitude, which gets a big thumbs up from me as that has always been the best version of Roman Reigns. Of course, this does probably mean that The Fiend is going to have to lose to Roman pretty soon after winning the title back, but honestly? I don’t care. I said it in the build-up to Wrestlemania, and I’ll say it again now, I am all-in on another Roman Reigns world title run, I think it could be great.

Now, unfortunately, I have to talk about the actual match which…well, it was trash. It didn’t help that I wasn’t overly interested in the story anyway, but this didn’t do much to build that interest either. It was a pretty standard from what we’ve come to expect in WWE when two ‘big-guys’ go head-to-head. It was slow, not nearly as hard-hitting as you would think, and ultimately, pretty dull. I know The Fiend is a fascinating & unique character, that I love, but we’ve got to take a hard look at his history of matches and admit to ourselves that the character’s wrestling style isn’t entertaining. His best match was against Daniel Bryan, which I don’t think should even count because it’s Daniel effing Bryan, so of course it was great.

Still, Roman Reigns is on the horizon, which makes things look a bit more optimistic.

7 – Apollo Crews(c) def. MVP
(United States Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

I feel like I’m repeating myself every single month, but this was standard pre-show action.

It did have a bit of an extra kick this time, as there was a proper story surrounding the match, but the action didn’t push any boundaries in terms of what we’ve come to expect from pre-show matches. It served as a good showcase of Crews’ talents and a reminder that he’s a good wrestler who’s deserving of the US title. It didn’t really do anything for MVP, but it didn’t need to, his credibility comes from being a mouthpiece nowadays, not a wrestler.

Crews retaining was definitely the right decision in my books, and based on something that was teased for Raw, I’m hoping a feud with Aleister Black in on the horizon, which should be killer.

6 – The Street Profits(c) def. Andrade & Angel Garza
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

Fun tag-team action from two teams that know each other quite well by this point.

I did like this match, but I thought it could’ve done with a bit more. 8 minutes did not seem nearly enough for this match, especially with the story it was trying to tell. I know WWE doesn’t give a shit about their tag division, but they could at least make it look like they care a bit. The story surrounding Andrade & Garza was paid lip service to in the finish, but that’s about it. The two of them have been showing tension almost all year, with things never changing in any way. Some weeks they’ll work together perfectly, other weeks they just can’t get along, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Honestly, by this point, even if they do finally break-up, I’m past the point of caring about it.

Like I said though, the action in the match was fun to watch, Andrade & Garza kept the pace going, even when they were doing the ‘work over the face’ thing, and once Ford made the hot-tag to Dawkins, the pace stayed pretty steady. Also, Kevin Owens was great on commentary, first of all, shouting “Look at all my friends!” really aggressively – in reference to the people on the screens of the Thunderdome – was utterly hilarious. However, his best line was after the match, where Ford was celebrating with him, and Owens said to him “You turned in midair! Did you know you did that?” – referencing the move Ford did to win the match – which was a line that caught me off guard and was delivered such a perfect way, that I giggled about it for a good couple of minutes.

5 – Bayley(c) def. Asuka
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

This was arguably the best match these two have had so far, and yet it felt like they were holding back for the sake of the story.

There’s very little new to be said about the kind of matches these two can put on. They know each other exceptionally well, and it shows in matches like this. The match didn’t worry about overbearing us with Bayley beating-down on Asuka. Bayley spent much more time on offence, sure, but it didn’t feel like they were just setting up the story for the second match later in the night. Instead, Asuka had to play the plucky babyface, who picked her spots and made impactful moves when they counted.

The finish was predictable, but I don’t mind something being predictable when it’s the right move for the story. Sasha being Bayley’s key to victory is in-line with everything they’ve been doing together for the past year(ish) and sets things up perfectly to go horribly wrong later in the show. I think that Bayley being the one to hold onto her title is the right thing too. Not only is she great with it, but if we are finally going to get going with the Sasha/Bayley stuff, having Bayley being the heel holding the title is the perfect way to go.

4 – Asuka def. Sasha Banks(c)
(Raw Women’s Championship)

My thoughts on this match are very similar to the previous one. However, I thought this match was a lot more exciting, told a better story, and was all-around cleaner than the previous one.

I think the reason for the different feel to this match is straightforward. Bayley vs Asuka was the first half of the story, Sasha vs Asuka was its conclusion. There’s a more significant aura of excitement surrounding this second match because of what the first one set up. It doesn’t feel like they’re holding back here, instead, they’re pulling together to take the story to its natural conclusion.

The story of the match was able to capture the feeling of Asuka coming in, already beaten-down, without boring us with watching Sasha pick Asuka apart for the opening 5 minutes. They went the much more entertaining route and told that story through Asuka wrestling a much faster match, instead of waiting to pick her spots as she did with Bayley, she went in with a proactive strategy and did her best to never let Sasha take control. This led to a match with a much nicer sense of flow as it built steadily and satisfyingly to the finish.

As myself and many others predicted, Bayley would try to get involved, but her involvement would indirectly cause Sasha to lose the match. I like the way they did it though. With the way things went down, there’s an argument to be had over whose fault it was. Yes, if Bayley hadn’t gotten involved, Sasha wouldn’t have been in that position to get stuck in the Asuka lock. However, because Asuka merely reversed Sasha’s attempt to take advantage of the distraction Bayley caused, you could say that it’s Sasha’s fault. I don’t think that’ll have too much of an impact on the story going forward, but I think it’s a good tool for making sure it didn’t look like Asuka was just lucky.

3 – Mandy Rose def. Sonya Deville
(No Disqualification)
(Loser Leaves WWE)

If there’s any match that I wish had an extra 5 minutes, it’s this one. Not because it suffered from a lack of time, but because I was really enjoying it and wanted to see more.

As was to be expected from two women who know each other as well as these two do, they totally clicked in the ring, their chemistry was incredible to watch. The structure of the match was pretty simple, but I think that helped to tell the story. Sonya is so good as the heel who really just wants to hurt their opponent. She’s not cocky, because she doesn’t have to be, sure, she’s constantly taunting Rose, but that’s not out of disrespect, it’s out of a desire to cause pain & misery, a role that Deville just gets. Rose played off it to perfection, she crawled around the ring like someone who was really suffering emotionally, which did more for the story than a month of promos ever could.

As we got to the middle of the match, things became more balanced, both women went back-and-forth getting their licks in. I like that Mandy was the one to go for the weapons first. She’d played quite a reactive role in the feud up until this point, but this gave me the impression of someone who was doing what had to be done. The spot where she hurled chairs at Sonya, who was deftly dodging them was great fun too. The finish was, clean, simple, and exactly what it needed to be. Rose finally broke free of Deville’s oppression and absolutely went to town on her, those series of knees to the face felt really cathartic, and the perfect wrap-up to the story.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to Deville now. I haven’t heard any reports saying she’s planning to take time off, but who knows? Maybe she’ll go away for a while. Personally, I’d love to see her show up to get in Io Shirai’s face on NXT, but that’s fantasy booking. I think something like Raw Underground would be a better fit for her style. Plus, Deville vs Baszler…now there’s a match made in heaven. As for Rose? I honestly hope she picks up one of the women’s titles sometime soon, I’m really digging her as a wrestler now.

2 – Drew McIntyre(c) def. Randy Orton
(WWE Championship)

No, I’m not kidding. It was a 20-minute, slow-paced Randy Orton match…and I actually liked it. I’m just as surprised as you are.

As a stark contrast to Wyatt/Strowman, I think the fact that I was highly invested in the story coming into the match helped my enjoyment greatly. Not only did it mean that I was in a better mood, and more willing to give it a chance, but it meant that when the match leaned heavily on the story-based moments, I was invested. If I didn’t care about the story, I probably would’ve rolled my eyes at Orton slipping in and out of the ring at the start, but because I did care, I saw it as a continuation of the game Orton’s been playing with Drew all month. I know the idea that ‘if I’m invested in the story, I’ll be more likely to enjoy the match’ is one of the most basic pro-wrestling concepts, but you’d be surprised how often WWE seems to forget.

The slow pace worked in this match’s favour, as it gave the impression of two wrestlers really trying to study and figure out each other’s game plan. Neither man was wrestling a reactionary style, they were both trying to do everything in their power to execute their plan. It led to the momentum swinging back-and-forth like a motorised pendulum, and while the pace never accelerated, the build in the drama meant the tension is what carried my excitement.

The finish annoyed a lot of people, and I’m in two minds of it. I see the perspective that it’s a cheap way to end a world title match, and it makes Drew look like a chump who barely scraped by. However, I’d argue it’s the opposite. I won’t deny that ending things with a Claymore would’ve been a lot more satisfying, but I don’t think anyone believed that this was going to be the end of the Drew/Orton feud, I think it’s going until at least Hell in a Cell. By countering the RKO into a win like that, I think it makes Drew look exceptionally smart, as he’s found a way to turn Orton’s greatest weapon to his advantage. If Drew keeps pulling stuff like this, he will have essentially nullified Orton’s main tactic for matches and will force him to innovate, which could lead to some very interesting spots.

Admittedly, a lot of this is based on potential future gain, so it could all go tits-up, but what can I say? I’m in a good mood after the show last night, so I’m going to play the optimist.

1 – Seth Rollins def. Dominik Mysterio
(Street Fight)

Similar to Cole vs McAfee from Takeover, this was never a match that would be carried by action. This was a match that was all about the story and the drama. The story in question that carried this match was told excellently, which is why I rank this match so highly.

Going into it, I was already behind Dominik as a face. Maybe it was just because of the shock of it, but sometimes, watching a heel absolutely murder a guy is enough to make me root for the guy being murdered. This match did the smart thing and continued playing to that trend. The feeling was always that Dominik was out of his league. No matter who his father was, he was a relative rookie going up against a multi-time world champion, so they did the smart thing and built the match around that fact. The action made it very clear that Dominik could not hang in the ring with Rollins, he would get the advantage every now and then, but it was mostly through fluke than through expertise.

The narrative of Dominik not wanting his father to get involved was perfect too. I think this was the key thing that pulled me firmly over to Dominik’s side. It’s that true ‘heart-of-gold’ style of babyface, where he wants to prove that he can do it alone, even when he doesn’t stand a chance. Yes, some of that’s down to his naivete, but it’s so rare we get a wrestler in WWE that’s truly uncorrupted. It’s why we gravitated towards Sami Zayn & Johnny Gargano during their initial NXT runs, and it’s why I’ve found myself gravitating towards Dominik now.

Sure, Seth Rollins got the win, but that doesn’t matter, because this match got Dominik over in my eyes. I am now fully behind Dominik in whatever he does next (probably a tag match with his father), and I am excited to watch him grow as a performer over the next couple of years. I honestly can’t remember a time were WWE has (deliberately) got someone over so firmly in my eyes like this, it’s wonderful.

And there you have it! That’s a full weekend of wrestling coverage! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. Please, let me know what you thought of Summerslam, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back here this time on Wednesday, where I’ll be releasing the GRAND FINALE of my 100 Favourite Games of All Time series!

NXT Takeover XXX: Every Match Ranked

The 30th Takeover is officially in the record books and well…I definitely enjoyed it. It feels like a notable shift in the style of PPVs that NXT is going to be putting out from now on. It feels like, in order to appeal to the broader USA Network audience, they’re shifting their PPVs to have more or something for everyone, rather than constant, hyper-focused top-quality wrestling matches to please Meltzer’s star ratings. Whether this change is for the better or worse remains to be seen over the next year or so, but if the shows they come out with that like the ones of Saturday, I don’t think I’ll mind.

This was by no means among the best Takeovers of all time, but it was a show that kept me entertained from start to finish, and I can honestly say there wasn’t a bad match for the entire night. Sure, it didn’t blow me away, and I doubt it’ll be remembered all that vividly in the years to come, but sitting here, 12 hours after the show’s finished, I’m feeling positive about it.

6 – Breezango def. Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch, Legado del Fantasmo
(Winners become #1 contenders for the NXT Tag Team Championships)

I was wondering how NXT was going to treat their pre-shows. Whether they were going to give the matches room to breathe and let the wrestling sell the show. Unfortunately, they made the time restrictions even heavier, as they only had 30 minutes for Booker T to bicker with Sam Roberts, instead of the usual 60.

It’s a pretty simple case with this match, it wasn’t bad, all of the action was enjoyable, however, coming in at just under 7-minutes, it didn’t have time to be anything more significant. Especially given that it was a triple threat tag match, it seemed like a really bad decision to cut the time on this one so heavily. That’s the kind of match that needs the time to build to a chaotic climax, but that phase of the match never got the chance to arrive.

What we got was perfectly enjoyable, Legado is doing a great job character-wise in the ring, and I want to see more of them in the near future. Breezango winning is an interesting choice, as they already got a tag title shot recently, but I don’t mind going for round two. As I said in my predictions, they’ve had a new fire lit under them since returning to NXT, and they feel like very different wrestlers to what I knew them as during their first runs in NXT.

5 – Finn Balor def. Timothy Thatcher

Good match, zero build.

There’s honestly no better way to put it in my mind. I think I probably would’ve liked this match more if I had some greater reason to be invested in it. I know Thatcher has been screwing Balor over here and there, but I don’t think it was given nearly enough focus every week on TV. This is one of those situations where it seems like management just wanted to have a Finn Balor match on the PPV, without having any real plan for what he could do.

Regardless of how invested I was in it, the match was of good quality. I’m still not adjusted to Balor’s more muted style, but this was an instance where he had an opponent it played well with. Thatcher is a proper mat-based wrestler, and he knows how to make it look impactful and intriguing (something unfortunately rare in the modern wrestling scene). Balor responded to it well, trying to speed the pace of the match up at every opportunity to stop Thatcher getting one over on him.

The match’s narrative was fairly basic, but it was well-told in this instance. I adored the shot where Balor landed hard on his feet with a missed Coup-de-Gras only for both him and Thatcher to go wide-eyed, realising the opportunity Thatcher has just been given. Sure, Balor predictably came out on top, but I now understand Thatcher’s style and enjoy watching him more than I did going into it, so that’s got to be a positive.

4 – Karrion Kross def. Keith Lee(c)
(NXT Championship)

Sure, this felt more like a main-roster main event, but it was a very good one.

In my predictions, I theorised about the different ways this matches could go. While I pointed to Lee vs Dijakovic for a formula they could try to replicate, that ended up not being the case, and what we got instead had upsides and downsides.

The downsides first, which are mostly to do with pacing. I don’t care who you are, or how in-line with your character it is, ‘working the arm’ by holding it in place for 5 minutes, isn’t entertaining. Putting that spot to early on in the match was a bit of an issue too because it meant I felt out of the match almost immediately, and it had to win me back later on, rather than winning me over straight away and keeping me into it for the rest.

However, once the match left those spots behind, things picked up. The match was never fast, but I don’t think it needed to be, because it was impactful. When you’ve got a guy as big as Lee, and a guy as jacked as Kross, the entertainment value is going to be in the hard-hitting stuff, so that’s what they went for. I don’t feel like it entirely lived up to it’s potential, but I still enjoyed what we got, and I’m not going to sit here crying about how I didn’t get the match I wanted.

The finish was a bit odd. I know the Doomsday Suplex is one of Kross’ signature moves, but it didn’t look all that impressive in this instance. It looks great when he can throw a guy half-way across the ring like they’re nothing. However, with Lee, it looked like any standard middle rope spot – a type of spot that hasn’t won a match in about a decade. It made the finish feel a bit sudden and took the wind out of me a bit when Kross won off of something I wasn’t expecting.

Ultimately, I think he has all the potential to be a fantastic champion, so I’m happy to wait and see on this one.

3 – Adam Cole def. Pat McAfee

Well, it was definitely a lot better than I was expecting.

To point out the obvious, the in-ring action was reasonably basic. McAfee pulled off some impressive stuff here in there, but there wasn’t a great variety in the moves he gave or took (although, he took a picture-perfect Panama Sunrise, so props there). The thing is, the action wasn’t the point of this match, it was never going to be. This was a match all around the drama and the story, and looking at the in-ring storytelling on display here, it was really entertaining.

Pat understood the role he needed to play and played it to perfection. He picked all the right moments to be a cocky jackass and all the right moments to run away scared. I didn’t particularly care for the faction warfare stuff, but it was a good bridge to take us from the 100% drama-focus of the early stages to the latter phase of the match, where action became much more critical to the story.

Cole played off of McAfee really well too. His facial expression on the kickouts and impressive manoeuvres worked into the attitude that they have been presenting each other with. What’s most important is that, when the time came for McAfee to take his beating, he made it look good. Like I said, none of the moves he took (other than the Panama Sunrise) were particularly complicated or impressive, but he made the beatdown on him feel weighty, so watching Cole kick his ass was satisfying.

Nothing about it was a technical masterpiece, but I came away from it in a good mood, having thoroughly enjoyed the match I just watched.

2 – Io Shirai(c) def. Dakota Kai
(NXT Women’s Championship)

Weirdly, despite this being in the number two spot, there isn’t a great deal I have to say about it. It was just a really good match.

I don’t think anyone had any doubts over the result, so my focus around this match was more getting the most out of the action as possible, of which I think both women did a great job. Io looked beatable at several points without ever coming across as week, while Kai got to show off just about everything she can do. Momentum was continually shifting between the two women in this one, which meant we got a great variety in terms of the action. Yes, it had slower spots where Kai worked a limb for an extended spot because it was buried in between plenty of action, I was happy for the match to take a short breather every now and then.

As predictable as it was, I think it’s important to Kai’s story that we hit the obvious beat of Gonzalez getting involved. Given Kai’s insistence that she’s got to where she did ‘on her own’, something like this should sow the seeds of discourse between her & Gonzalez, especially since I’d imagine Kai will find a way to blame Gonzalez for her loss. Meanwhile, I think it’s time for Io to move onto someone else, probably Candice LaRae. Kai could absolutely come back later down the line and challenge whoever the champion is again, but for now, I don’t think we should overplay that hand.

I’m intrigued by the Ripley/Gonzalez tease though. I’m not sure if they want to head in a tag-team direction with that, or whether it’ll be a singles feud. Either way, I’m looking forward to it, and I hope it serves as a coming-out party of Gonzalez as a major player in the NXT women’s division.

1 – Damian Priest def. Johnny Gargano, Bronson Reed, Velveteen Dream, Cameron Grimes
(North American Championship)
(Ladder)

20-minutes of mental ladder-match antics. Perfect, exactly what I wanted.

This one had everything you could want from a multi-man ladder match. It didn’t need much time to warm up, the pace accelerated to maximum pretty darn quickly and stayed there right up until the end. Everyone got a chance to shine, each of them getting their own memorable moments, and somehow, everyone getting a chance to look like they were about to win the match. I honestly thought ladder matches were very limited in terms of pulling off convincing false-finishes, but man, every time someone got to the top of that ladder (which, in the final 5 minutes, was a lot) I thought it was over.

Outside of that, it was ladder-spots galore. Priest running up the ladder to do a dive onto the outside, Grimes holding the ladder on shoulders and smashing everyone to bits with it, Gargano awkwardly power bombing Grimes onto the ladder in a way that made it look even more brutal than intended. We even got a spot I can’t remember ever seeing before in a match like this, where they kept piling up people and ladders into the corner, only for one guy to squish them all together. All of it was a blast to watch, and what makes this match take the number one spot.

Damian Priest was absolutely the right person to win this one. I’m not sure who he’ll feud with first (probably one of the other participants in this match), but I hope he has a long and fruitful reign. He’s been threatening to break through in NXT for a while, and hopefully, a run with the North American title will seal the deal.

And there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. Please, let me know what you thought of the show, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure you come back here this time tomorrow, where I’ll be giving you my review of Summerslam!

WWE Summerslam 2020: Predictions & Analysis

The biggest party of the summer is upon us! Only, it’s not much of a party this year, is it? To think back in March we were all expecting fans to be back in time for this show…

WWE’s been a bit of a mixed bag over the past month or so. I’d argue Raw has had a pretty decent hit-rate week-to-week, with a lot of fun storylines. Smackdown, meanwhile, is definitely better than it was a couple of months ago, but it’s still not great. Still, I think WWE has put together a show with a lot of potential, the main event matches especially are looking pretty tasty.

Let’s break down the matches.

Mandy Rose vs Sonya Deville
(No Disqualification)
(Loser Leaves WWE)

Honestly, it’s amazing that we’ve had to wait this long for a payoff to this feud. It’s not like WWE has carefully spent time building to this match either, they just straight-up dropped the storyline for a couple of months before suddenly remembering about it in July. As it stands though, I’ve been enjoying this one a lot. I think shifting the focus of the story slightly was the right idea. Otis is wildly entertaining, but his presence is no longer necessary in this feud, so I’m happy that the recent instalments have focused just on the animosity between Rose & Deville.

As for the quality of the match, I honestly don’t know, but I’m optimistic. Deville has been on fire since turning heel, and she’s quickly becoming one of my favourite wrestlers in WWE’s women’s division. Rose, meanwhile, I think is a far better wrestler than many fans think she is. I think we’re so used to 00s-10s WWE’s style of ‘gimmick centred around attractiveness = bad wrestler’, I don’t believe that to be the case with Rose. These are two women who know each other incredibly well, so I have no reason to doubt the fact that they’re probably going to kick some ass.

I can’t quite decide who’s going to win though. When it was hair vs hair, I thought Mandy was an easy pick, but now the stipulation’s changed and I don’t see where this is going. I don’t believe there have been any reports that either woman is legitimately thinking of leaving or even taking a hiatus. I suppose the loser could go to NXT, or maybe even Raw Underground, you could argue those would count as ‘leaving WWE’. It’s a tough call, but I’m going to stick with what I think the story was leading to anyway, which is Mandy Rose coming out on top. I just hope there’s something interesting planned for Deville going forward because I want to see her do so much more.

The Street Profits(c) vs Andrade & Angel Garza
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

This match feels incredibly familiar. I wasn’t quite sure why at first, but then I remembered that this feud has been going on, on and off, since Wrestlemania.

As such, I’m not sure there’s much more that can be said about it. Bianca Belair has been doing great work, and I’m glad Zelina Vega is getting to show some skill outside of a managerial role, but it’s only tangentially related to this match. At the end of the day, this is a match containing four incredibly talented performers, and I have no doubt there will be plenty to enjoy once it’s all said and done.

In terms of a result, I think there are two ways it could go. The fact that Andrade & Garza can’t seem to get along has been running for months now, so I’m pretty confident that will play into the result of this match. They could pay it off by having them come together and finally win the tag titles, which I think has a decent chance of happening. Street Profits have been champions for roughly 6 months now, and changing the titles just for the sake of it is precisely the kind of thing WWE would do with its tag titles.

Alternatively, the pair could finally fall apart and start beating the crap out of each other, allowing The Street Profits to retain. I think this is more likely, and also more beneficial. If the two of them launch off into a singles feud, I hope that it’ll give Angel Garza a more prominent platform to get himself over, something I believe he is more than capable of. Meanwhile, The Street Profits can keep doing what they’ve been doing, which, for the most part, has been very entertaining.

Apollo Crews(c) vs MVP
(United States Championship)

I’m of two minds with this match. On the one hand, I think there are a lot of wrestlers who need the opportunity at the US title a lot more than MVP. Not to mention, I think a lot of wrestlers would put on a better match with Crews. That said, MVP has been crushing it on the microphone so far this year, and he’s pretty much the only reason I have any interest in this feud. Between this feud with Crews and his semi-takeover of Raw Underground alongside Lashley & Benjamin, I think we could be praising the entertainment value of MVP for a long time to come.

As to what I think the match will be like, you can pretty much just copy/paste whatever I said during my Extreme Rules predictions. Except this time, I expect we’ll actually get to see the match, rather than it be surprise announced on the show that it’s not happening (I know it was because Crews was ill, but still).

My prediction is the same too, I think Apollo Crews is going to retain. Admittedly, I do see value in putting the title on MVP, and I won’t complain if it happens, but keeping on the younger guy in Crews feels like the right way to go. I think I spent so long not caring about Crews that I forgot how good he can be, so now I’d like to see him carry this on for as long as possible.

Dominik Mysterio vs Seth Rollins
(Street Fight)

We all knew this was going to end up here, and yet for some reason, I was still surprised when this match was announced.

I know I wasn’t much of a fan of the eye-for-an-eye match at Extreme Rules, but I think the build of this story has been great. I’m still not entirely sure why guys like Black & Carrillo are wasting their time with it, but the stuff between Rollins and the Mysterios has been fantastic fun to watch. I was expecting to have a difficult time getting used to Dominik showing up and fighting every week on Raw, but the writing team did a great job in getting me invested in him. Admittedly, it was through the method of having Rollins & Murphy beating the crap out of him, but what can I say? I’m invested.

The match itself is a bit uncertain though, purely because we have no idea what Dominik is like as a wrestler. He might have taken to the sport miraculously quickly and will blow us all away, but there’s an equal possibility that he’ll be really green. As such, I’m not if a weapons match was the right choice for his first match. The positives are that it allows for plenty of interference, so the pressure isn’t all on Dominik to help carry the thing, plus, a slower pace will work better with his relative inexperience. The problem is that it takes two very skilled performers to make a slow-paced weapons match work, which means he could be in trouble. Also, I don’t like weapons matches, but that’s beside the point.

I could theoretically see this one going either way, but I’m reasonably confident in picking Dominik Mysterio. Rollins has won the entire feud up until this point, so I think it’s only appropriate for this to be the time for him to take the loss. If Dominik is going to be sticking around as a permanent fixture of the Raw roster, then giving him a big win like this right out of the gate is an excellent way to build him up. I know people are arguing there’s a believability issue with Dominik beating someone as big of a star as Rollins, but if Rey gets involved, then I don’t think that’ll be a problem.

Braun Strowman(c) vs The Fiend Bray Wyatt
(Universal Championship)
(Falls Count Anywhere)

How is THIS the match I care the least about? On paper, it’s an absolute winner, both of these guys have a history, and both of them have significantly evolved since 2016 when they were together. Yet, this story has been running for roughly 4 months now, and I’m bored with it. I can see what they were trying to accomplish with getting Bliss involved, and I commend them for trying to switch things up in regards to the heel/face alignments. The thing is, I don’t think it’s been very well executed. This is a war between a destructive monster and a brutal psychopath, why are they sitting around arguing all the time?

I used to love Braun Strowman around 2017/2018 because he’d come in full of adrenaline and absolutely demolish anyone or anything in his path. It was much the same with The Fiend, he was this seemingly invisible force of destruction that would tear his opponents to shreds. This should be the most straightforward story in the world to tell, all you have to do is slowly escalate the violence week on week. Have it reach the point where their conflict starts to intrude upon every aspect of Smackdown until management has to step in to try and put a stop to it, only for them to keep causing mayhem anyway. It’s the kind of story that, somehow, WWE don’t tell very often, and with characters like these, it would be an absolute blast to watch. The final segment on Smackdown proved my point on that front, it was by far the best part of the whole feud, and this whole story should’ve been full of cool stuff like that.

When it comes to the match, I’m not sure what I’d prefer. On the one hand, they’ve already had two very drama-focused matches, so part of me wants to see a much more action-focused match. Then again, maybe doing another drama-focused match is the way to go? Bray is a world-class in-ring storyteller, so if anyone could make it work, I’d say it’s him.

The result is a tough one, so I’m just going with what I’d prefer, which is The Fiend Bray Wyatt to win the title. To be blunt, Braun’s title reign has been crap. He’s been boring as a character and none of his matches have been any fun to watch. Sure, The Fiend having the title again may create some problems down the line, but I honestly don’t care at this point. If we’re going to have anyone hold the title until Roman’s ready to come and take it, I’d rather it be Bray than Braun.

Sasha Banks(c) vs Asuka
(Raw Women’s Championship)

AND

Bayley(c) vs Asuka
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Bundling these two together because their stories are essentially one and the same.

So, there’s plenty of theories as to how this whole story with Banks, Bayley & Asuka could turn out, which is why I’m so invested in it right now. There are a bunch of different options, all with their own exciting storyline potential.

First of all, what I don’t think will happen: Bayley & Sasha BOTH retaining. I feel confident that Asuka is walking out of Summerslam with at least one of those titles, the question now remains, which one? Or perhaps even both? I seriously considered the ‘both’ option, and I very nearly made it my final decision, but I think it would create some problems. While it’s become almost a cliche to say it at this point, I think we’re headed to a break-up of Bayley & Sasha, which would mean that they’re going to be feuding with each other in the near future. While I agree with the sentiment that it’s a feud that doesn’t need the title, I think it would unquestionably be enhanced by having a title on the line.

So, which title will it be? Here’s my pitch.

Bayley takes the hit for her friend and has her match against Asuka first, and it plays out mostly how you would expect it to. The two of them have a fun match for 12-15 minutes, then things go into overdrive, and the shenanigans ensue. I don’t know the specifics of it, but Sasha does her thing, screws over Asuka and Bayley escapes with her title. Then, a little later on in the night, it’s time for Asuka vs Sasha. Already we’ve got a great story to tell in the match as Asuka is starting on the back foot in a major way. Things boil to a climax where, somehow, someway, Bayley costs Sasha her title, letting Asuka walk away with the Raw Women’s Championship.

Whether Bayley does this through deliberate sabotage, an accidental miscommunication or simply inaction, something is going to happen that causes Sasha to lose her title. From there, you’ve got a whole bunch of directions to take it. You can either do the break up there and then, or you can let the tensions simmer for a little while, through the pair’s defence of the tag titles at Payback.

It’s an ambitious theory, I’ll admit, and I can’t wait to see how horrifically wrong I am, but let me have my fun, dammit.

Drew McIntyre(c) vs Randy Orton
(WWE Championship)

I cannot believe that I’m sitting here in 2020, excited for a Randy Orton world title match.

I know I wasn’t a fan of Orton vs Edge at Backlash, but I’ll be damned if Randy Orton hasn’t become one of the most entertaining characters on all of WWE TV right now. I don’t know what it was, but something lit a fire under his ass, and he’s become more motivated, animated and downright exciting than he’s been for years. He’s entertaining to the point where I’m sitting here thinking that if he won the world title on Sunday, I’d be perfectly ok with it; even when he’s taking the title away from my beloved British wrestling hero, Drew McIntyre. NOW, to clarify, just because I’d be ok with it, doesn’t mean it’s what I want to happen, I would still prefer Drew to retain, however, if it happens I won’t be mad about it. There’s just something about the idea of Orton vs Edge for the WWE title that gets me very excited indeed.

I honestly don’t know what to expect from this match. I have no idea how the styles of these two men will mesh in the ring, whether it will be a slow burner, or fast and furious, I really couldn’t tell you. However, I’m choosing to take the optimists route and say that I think it’ll be something we’ll look back on fondly at the end of the year. Maybe not a match of the year contender, but definitely something we’ll have been glad to have invested our time in.

Now…I’ve got to pick a winner, and I’m really struggling. Every logical bone in my body is telling me, Orton. Looking at his story since Wrestlemania, it makes all the sense in the world and, as I said, Orton vs Edge III still needs to happen…but I just can’t do it. This a decision made almost entirely by my heart rather than my head, but I’m picking Drew McIntyre to win. He’s had an absolutely cracking reign as WWE Champion, and I’d very much like to see it continue.

NXT Takeover XXX: Predictions & Analysis

NXT Takeover time! A time where we can all rejoice and feel happy that great wrestling is going to be on our screens very soon. Except…this time around, I’m not nearly as excited as I usually am. At least 3 of the matches have unlimited potential, that is true, but weekly NXT TV the past month or so has felt pretty soulless to me. None of the builds to any of the matches have been anything unique or exciting. The only build that’s done things differently ended up being killed dead in the water on Wednesday when Pat McAfee cut the world’s most generic heel promo.

Maybe the pessimism of the world has gotten to me, who knows? Let’s try to stay positive as we break down the matches.

Breezango vs Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs Legado del Fantasma
(Winner becomes #1 contender for the NXT Tag Team Championships)
(Kickoff Show)

You know, the NXT Tag Team division became utter barren so quickly, I barely even noticed.

The tag division on NXT has heavily suffered from Imperium very rarely being on TV week-to-week. I like Imperium as champions, and I hope they hold onto the titles for a while, but they were such a bad choice given the current situation. This isn’t like Lesnar with a world title, where him not showing up as much adds to his drawing power, with the NXT tag titles gone from TV most of the time, it just means we stop caring. I want to care about the NXT tag titles, they’ve given us some of the best matches in NXT history, but right now, they’re in serious trouble.

That said, I’m confident this will be a fun match. I’m not entirely sure what the point was on putting this on the pre-show but provided it gets a respectable amount of time, I have no reason to doubt the excitement we could be in store for. Breezango have had a new fire lit under them since returning to NXT, Lorcan & Burch have always been extraordinarily reliable in situations like this, while Legado del Fantasma are the exciting new prospect and still feel quite fresh.

There’s a couple of ways to go in terms of a winner here. My first instinct was that Legada del Fantasmo would win because they’re the fresh guys and even if they aren’t going to win the tag titles, a high-profile match with the champions would be great for them. However, I’m actually going with Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch. My logic behind it is pretty simple, I think they’ve been killing it over the past year, and while their role is mainly to put guys over, I think it would be really cool to see them go for the titles. I don’t think they’d dethrone Imperium, but it’d be great to watch.

Finn Balor vs Timothy Thatcher

This is one of those matches that most people won’t give much thought, but could absolutely tear the house down on Saturday. I’ve still not made my mind up entirely about what I think of Thatcher, but there’s definitely a lot to love about his character. His stuff with Riddle was a great way to bring him to prominence, and I like the idea that he’s someone who slowly crawls his way up through the ranks in NXT over the next couple of years.

I don’t really know what this match is going to be like, these are two guys who have pretty different styles, and that always makes it hard to tell how they’ll mesh. I have faith in them though, so I’m remaining optimistic that it’ll be good. I’m torn for a winner though. As much as Balor’s in a position where nothing will hurt his stock too much in the long-run, I still don’t think he should lose too often. Looking into recent history, he got a win over Damian Priest at the last Takeover, but that’s it, he’s lost to just about everyone else with name value. That said, beating Balor would be an excellent way to turn some heads towards Thatcher.

It’s a tough call, but I’m going with what I think is the more sensible pick in Finn Balor. I just don’t think Thatcher has been built up enough to the point where he could beat someone on Balor’s level. That said, I would certainly be on board if Thatcher won.

Adam Cole vs Pat McAfee

Ok, just to get it out of the way, I don’t know if the radio show blow-up was a work, or a shoot that NXT turned into a work, and quite frankly I don’t care.

I’m of two minds with this feud. There’s the optimistic side of me that says McAfee is going to blow us away. I have no idea how long or hard he’s been training for, so I can’t make a judgement call yet, but he’s been around the industry long enough, and he’s in the ring with Adam Cole, so I think there’s a good chance this could be a killer match. Then there’s the pessimistic side, which says this is going to be like every other time an ‘outsider’ tried to come in and have a serious wrestling match.

The story’s been ok, it certainly had a decent amount of heat to it following the blow up on McAfee’s show, but I don’t think they capitalised on it all that well. Things started alright, with them seeming to patch things up, only for them to come to blows on NXT again, I even liked Cole’s rant about the situation, because Cole can talk with the best of them. What killed my excitement for the match was McAfee’s promo on Wednesday. I alluded to it in the intro, but it was dull and generic, not just with the words he was saying, but the style he delivered them, it was like what a trainee would put out after their first week of promo classes.

I’m a bit torn with a winner because I think there’s a chance McAfee is going to stick around and wrestle semi-frequently on NXT. If that’s the case, then I think he should win, not to mention, with a draft coming later in the year, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cole is leaving NXT sometime soon. That said, this is Adam Cole we’re talking about here, he’s just off the back of a 400+ day title reign and is bouncing back from a high-profile loss. Surely he’s got to win? Admittedly, I don’t think it would do all that much damage to Cole in the long-run, but it just doesn’t feel right to pick anyone other than Adam Cole to win this one.

Damian Priest vs Cameron Grimes vs Johnny Gargano vs Bronson Reed vs Velveteen Dream
(NXT North American Championship)
(Ladder)

Ahhh, a good old fashion multi-man ladder match. These will always be entertaining, regardless of which promotion they take place in. That said, the last time NXT had a ladder match for the North American Championship, it was arguably one of the best multi-man ladder matches ever, so…

That doesn’t answer the question of who wins though, so let’s take a look at the participants.

Velveteen Dream – I don’t think Dream was even supposed to be in this match initially. Given the uncertainty surrounding his return, I think NXT management decided that the only thing they could do with him so close to the PPV was to shove him in this match. On top of that, Dream’s already had a run with the North American Championship. There are indeed a lot more opponents he could face now, but I don’t see what could be gained from it.

Bronson Reed – The case with Reed is that I think just being in the match will be enough to raise his stock. He’s still a fresh face in NXT, and this is the perfect opportunity to show everyone what he can do. That said, I don’t see him winning the title for at least another year, he’s just not been built up enough yet. Hopefully, his performance in this match will go some way to remedying that.

Johnny Gargano – It’s really starting to feel like the NXT writers have no idea what to do with Gargano. That’s the problem when he’s been in NXT for so long – Ciampa’s got the same problem – as great as he is, NXT doesn’t have as deep of a roster as Raw or Smackdown, so there’s very little for him to do nowadays other than to take high-profile losses to the new guys. That’s not to say he won’t add anything to this match, I think he’ll be fantastic, but much like Dream, there’s nothing to be gained from him winning the title again.

Cameron Grimes – Now we’re getting to the people that I think have a chance of winning this thing. To me, the North American title seems to be the perfect tool for taking someone who’s not quite a huge star yet and getting them over and a main eventer in the eyes of the fans. This is technically the role of any mid-card title, but in practice, it very rarely works out that way. However, Grimes is in the perfect position to pick up a mid-card title right now, if he were to go on a bit of tear for it for 8 months or so, it’d be the perfect launching pad to send him to the main event scene. I’m not picking him to win though, as I think there’s one guy that NXT is more likely to invest in right now.

Damian Priest – Honestly, I think Priest is the only real choice for this one. It’s felt like he’s been on the cusp of breaking through for around a year now, so we’re coming very close to ‘now-or-never’ territory. Priest has all the makings of a top guy in NXT, and I think his feud with Balor was a mini-test of that fact. The way I see it, Priest is a perfect fit for the North American title in his current state. NXT in need of a heel champion, and who better than a man who will probably be one of NXT’s biggest stars in a year.

Io Shirai(c) vs Dakota Kai
(NXT Women’s Championship)

It’s amazing how briefly Charlotte was champion. It already feels like it was years ago.

I’ll speak plainly, Io Shirai has been absolutely killing it since winning the title. I was pessimistic about waiting this long to put the title on her, but all my doubts have since been cleared. Sure, she’s not been wrestling as much, but when it comes to pure force of personality, there is no woman better in NXT in right now. There’s nothing about her character that inherently draws her to a heel or babyface alignment, a fact that I think will be fantastic for her stories throughout her title reign. Dakota’s been on fire too, she grasped her heel persona almost instantly, and since then it’s been built to an incredibly compelling degree.

I honestly think we could be in for one of the best WWE matches of the year so far, I really do. Io has already proven that she can go with just about anyone, and I really get the feeling that we’ve not seen anywhere near the limits of what Kai can do yet. I firmly believe that these two women will have near-flawless chemistry, and we could be in for a fast and fun fight.

That said, I think this is by far the easiest match to predict. Io Shirai is winning this one, her title reign has barely begun and has so much potential. Meanwhile, Dakota’s story can be enhanced by a loss here. She’s already getting a bit too full of herself, so if she blames Raquel Gonzalez for her loss, then there could be months of great TV in that. Not to mention, Io herself is proof that Dakota could easily come back in a year’s time and pick up the title without it feeling any less of an accomplishment.

Keith Lee(c) vs Karrion Kross
(NXT Championship)

Colour me impressed, I really thought they were going to wait on this one.

There’s so much to break down here and so many directions the story could go. First of all, Kross is incredible. He’s the first person in so long that I think genuinely gives off a Lesnar-esque vibe of indestructibility. Not only has he torn through everyone he’s come into contact with, but everything surrounding his persona & characterisation gives him an aura of an unstoppable badass. Meanwhile, Keith Lee is the purest human being on the planet, so watching him being pushed to his mental limits by Kross is very compelling stuff.

I have all the confidence in the world this match is going to rock. Lee’s shown time and time again that he can wrestle any style he needs to for a match. Kross has a wide range as a performer too, so I think there are several ways this one could play out. Personally, I think this will be akin to Lee vs Dijakovic in January, with plenty of big & explosive moves and a pace that refuses to ever let up.

This is where it gets tricky though because honestly, neither man should be losing here. However, I don’t think we’ll get a screwy finish, that’s not the NXT way. The thing is, Keith Lee has only just won the title, he’s barely held onto it for a minute, which, under normal circumstances should mean there’s no way he’s losing the title this quickly. The problem is when you look at NXT’s history, the brand’s biggest babyface always have insultingly short title reigns; Sami Zayn, Johnny Gargano & Drew McIntyre are all clear examples of this. On top of that, Kross has been built up like no-one else has since he debuted. He SLAUGHTERED Tommaso Ciampa, and if that isn’t a sign that he’s destined for stardom, I don’t know what is.

The way I’ve rationalised it to myself is thus: Keith Lee can recover from a loss, a hell of a lot better than Karrion Kross can. Sure, Lee won’t have the title anymore, but people are still going to love him regardless because of everything he is as a person and a performer. Meanwhile, Karrion Kross’ whole persona has been built around his unstoppable nature, so taking such a high-profile loss this early on in his NXT run could be catastrophic in regards to the audience’s view of him. Maybe I’m overanalysing it, but I’m going to go with the logic I’ve laid out and pick Karrion Kross to be crowned our new NXT Champion.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read these predictions. Please, let me know what you think is going to happen on Saturday, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you come back here this time tomorrow, where I’ll be running down my Summerslam predictions!

10 – Sonic Mania

9 – XCOM 2

8 – Fire Emblem: Three Houses

7 – FTL: Faster Than Light

6 – Pokemon Platinum

5 – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

4 – Minecraft

3 – TowerFall Ascension

2 – NieR: Automata

1 – Octopath Traveler

8 – The Fiend Bray Wyatt def. Braun Strowman(c) (Universal Championship) (Falls Count Anywhere)

7 – Apollo Crews(c) def. MVP (United States Championship) (Kickoff Show)

6 – The Street Profits(c) def. Andrade & Angel Garza (Raw Tag Team Championships)

5 – Bayley(c) def. Asuka (Smackdown Women’s Championship)

4 – Asuka def. Sasha Banks(c) (Raw Women’s Championship)

3 – Mandy Rose def. Sonya Deville (No Disqualification) (Loser Leaves WWE)

2 – Drew McIntyre(c) def. Randy Orton (WWE Championship)

1 – Seth Rollins def. Dominik Mysterio (Street Fight)

6 – Breezango def. Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch, Legado del Fantasmo (Winners become #1 contenders for the NXT Tag Team Championships)

5 – Finn Balor def. Timothy Thatcher

4 – Karrion Kross def. Keith Lee(c) (NXT Championship)

3 – Adam Cole def. Pat McAfee

2 – Io Shirai(c) def. Dakota Kai (NXT Women’s Championship)

1 – Damian Priest def. Johnny Gargano, Bronson Reed, Velveteen Dream, Cameron Grimes (North American Championship) (Ladder)

Mandy Rose vs Sonya Deville (No Disqualification) (Loser Leaves WWE)

The Street Profits(c) vs Andrade & Angel Garza (Raw Tag Team Championships)

Apollo Crews(c) vs MVP (United States Championship)

Dominik Mysterio vs Seth Rollins (Street Fight)

Braun Strowman(c) vs The Fiend Bray Wyatt (Universal Championship) (Falls Count Anywhere)

Sasha Banks(c) vs Asuka (Raw Women’s Championship)

AND

Bayley(c) vs Asuka (Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Drew McIntyre(c) vs Randy Orton (WWE Championship)

Breezango vs Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs Legado del Fantasma (Winner becomes #1 contender for the NXT Tag Team Championships) (Kickoff Show)