Ever since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom released on May 12, fans have been obsessed with the game’s new crafting abilities. With Link’s new skills, including Fuse and Ultrahand, players are build nonsense like planes and tanks to commit war crimes in the kingdom of Hyrule. But there is one thing people can’t help but create: dicks, dicks, shlongs, penises, wangs; you understand.

Learn more: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Players take forever in the massive tutorial area

Critics called the sequel Breath of the Wild a certified classic, which makes excellent use of the Switch’s aging hardware. And with Link’s many new rune abilities that allow him to combine items or rewind an item’s place in the world, people are letting their imaginations run wild. Like, really wild.

Hyrule Kingdom can’t escape the dicks

Link gets a whole new suite of runic abilities in TotK that replaces his old BotW abilities. So say goodbye to things like Magnesis and Stasis and instead say hello to things like Ascend and Autobuild, two skills that allow Link to glide through solid surfaces and instantly build previous creations. respectively. Fuse and Ultrahand are mixed together, abilities that give Link the power to combine items to create anything from giant mechs to pickup trucks. And while people are totally building these things, many players here are flooding Hyrule Realm with dicks. So many cocks, in fact.

You’ve got flamethrower, thick cocks, cars that look like dicks, cock rockets, cocks with rocks for balls-The list goes on and on and on. Hell, Twitter user HKSIcabb even had our Hero of the Wild ride a dick…a raft.

Meanwhile, hideyopo made a wheeled mecha monster that sprayed a patch of hyrulean grass with his water-squirting dick.

What is going on? Why are TotK fans just days after launch stuck on dicks? There are some interesting theories, like a Freudian fear of castration or the idea that it’s all a dick measuring contest. Glamor wrote in 2017 that dick drawings are actually about toxic masculinity– which is not so surprising. Even Kotaku pondered this question in a blog from 2013, speaking to developers and psychologists about why dicks are everywhere in games. And even though we’ve come to the conclusion that drawing a dick is “pushing the limits”, there’s another simpler answer here: dicks are fun.

They are (mostly) hairy and (sometimes) curved. They come in different shapes and sizes and more often than not function as if they have a mind of their own. They are bizarre, serving both comedy and sexuality. And as Maxim wrote in 2015, dicks are fun for “despite what they mean, there is no real place for them in the world, and yet they are there”.

Learn more: Tears Of The Kingdom Could Include The Zelda Series’ First Gay Character

These are facts. Because no matter where you look online, from TikTok to Reddit to Twitter, there’s a TotK dick. They are almost unavoidable now. At least Autobuild’s other abilities, Fuse, Ultrahand and Link can be used for something other than genitals –although players use them for torture. I guess our weird code nature hero is actually nature’s war criminal. Whoops.

It’s May 12, 2023, and on this beautiful day, Nintendo’s much-hyped sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, finds itself in the eager hands of gamers around the world. But you: Maybe you stand out. Maybe you didn’t end up playing the previous game, 2017’s hit Breath of the Wild. Or maybe you touched it and fell for some reason. I won’t judge, I’m here with you.

Now here you are, seeing all those cool trailers and…interesting things you’re jumping into the new Zelda game and wondering, “Should I play Breath of the Wild before Tears of the Kingdom?” Should I?” Well, that’s what I’m here to help you understand.

A series purist will always say to go back and play the games in the correct order (which, if you’re considering how long Zelda has been around, you might want to be careful with that line of thinking). But here I will lay out some pros and cons for each action plan. There are valid reasons for either approach, so let’s go.

By the way, this article is a spoiler-free zone. So feel free to keep reading even if you haven’t touched 2017’s Breath of the Wild.

Is the Breath of the Wild story worth living before Tears of the Kingdom?

Breath of the Wild tells a very average fantasy story. Hold your farmer’s pitchforks; I’m not saying that to put him down. In general, the overall story beats are very familiar to almost anyone who has experienced a joint from Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. You have your dark lord, your threat to peace, your amnesiac protagoboy, your magic items of power, rinse and repeat. Watching a short recap video would be enough to give you a general idea of ​​BotW’s plot, and you won’t be missing out on an all-time great epic if you do.

Learn more: Catch up on Zelda: Breath of the Wild before the sequel in under seven minutes

How Breath of the Wild tells its story, however, is something you might want to consider living through, not just via synopsis. Link’s journey to regain his memories has led him to meet countless charming and memorable characters along the way, which will get you much more emotionally interested in Hyrule’s bigger story (as simple as that is) and the people who live there only if you just blow. through a summary.

If you’re just interested in a SparkNotes brief overview of Hyrulian history, a wiki or video will do. But if you enjoy the experience of meeting interesting characters and gaining a greater emotional investment in a fictional world, jumping into Breath of the Wild first will be time well spent.

Does Tears of the Kingdom make Breath of the Wild gameplay obsolete?

We’ve all been there: first you play a sequel, then the original just seems old in comparison. Some sequels improve on their predecessor so much that it’s hard to go back. Mass Effect 2 is an example. Skyrim may be another.

First of all, no: Tears of the Kingdom certainly has its share of quality of life improvements, as in fast travel and cooking– but nothing as earth-shattering as Breath of the Wild suddenly feels Neolithic in comparison.

Tears of the Kingdom does not make Breath of the Wild gameplay obsolete. Image: Nintendo

As for whether or not they feel too similar, never fear. While very similar in some ways, Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild are distinct enough that going back to the old game after Tears of the Kingdom would still give you plenty of new experiences to enjoy.

Learn more: Zelda: Tears Of the Kingdom fixes some of BotW’s failures

As my colleague Kenneth Shepard told me after his early hours in Tears of the Kingdom, the sequel’s gameplay is “less of an evolution and more of a sidestep.” Link’s new abilities, especially the crafting and new Ultrahand abilitymake it a distinct enough experience that if you play them in reverse order, you won’t feel like your abilities have been greatly reduced.

Tears of the Kingdom is a looker – and it won’t melt your Switch into plasticky goop. Image: Nintendo

Tears of the Kingdom looks graphically daunting for the old Switch, so should you wait for future hardware?

It’s no secret that the aging Wii U wasn’t too kind to Breath of the Wild. And basically, anyone who saw the first footage of Tears of the Kingdom was a little nervous wondering if the humble Nintendo Switch, released over six years ago, might be able to keep up.

Learn more: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Switch performance feels like a minor miracle

Well, I have good news. Or rather, Digital Foundry has good news: Tears of the Kingdom will work damn well on your old Switch. You can expect a very close to solid 30fps with a few drops here and there, especially when using Link’s new Ultrahand ability. Fast loading times are also quite fast, around 30% faster than in BotW.

Nintendo / Digital Foundry

I hear you thinking, “surely there’s another Nintendo console on the way, isn’t there?” The Switch has been out for a while, that’s true, but as we reported on tuesday 9th mayNintendo has no plans for a hardware refresh or follow-up to the Switch in 2023.

Learn more: Nintendo says it’s not expecting a new Switch this year either

And no, I have no idea what a “You Zoo” is.

How long is Breath of the Wild?

Say you don’t mind waiting for the game everyone’s talking about right now and that you’re cool to jump into Breath of the Wild first. Can you expect to knock him out in a weekend? Well no.

Breath of the Wild is a long game, and every moment is worth it. Image: Nintendo

According Howlongtobeat.com, the main story of Breath of the Wild is around 50 hours long. What if you want to do all the side quests? You’re looking at just under 100 hours. If you’re a completion fiend, HLtB estimates 189 hours. Our own experiences confirm these numbers.

Breath of the Wild is a game of massive proportions. The world is huge and there is so much to do. If you haven’t played it yet and you’re really interested in seeing the release of Tears of the Kingdom to see what this whole Link thing is all about, expect to have to set aside some time for BotW if you’re jumping in first.

Even if you’re not a finalist, stepping into the world of Hyrule in Switch’s first Zelda title is an experience best enjoyed at a gentle pace, and you won’t feel worse for taking time to let everything sink in.

So yes, BotW is long. Which is good, because it’s a great game.

While some franchises can enter at almost any time, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild offers compelling reasons to give it a shot first. The plot consists of standard fantasy concepts, but is told very memorably and in a sight-rich open world that is a joy to explore.

But, if you decide to jump straight into Tears of the Kingdom, a brief summary or two of BotW’s story beats will get you up to speed quickly. And with the differences in gameplay, playing the two games in reverse order shouldn’t feel too strange.

Order aside, another question is whether you should play the old game. You may feel differently, but my personal view is that Breath of the Wild is a truly wonderful experience, from the well-told story with satisfying gameplay, and a truly vibrant and beautiful world to explore, that you owe it to yourself to play this modern classic if you haven’t already, even if you’ve already spent a good few hours in it. Tears of the Kingdom.

Twitch streamer and YouTuber Simply attempted the unthinkable: giving himself just 12 hours, he set out to learn the tricky speedrun from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and nail one as quickly as possible. . The speedrun challenge was insane, full of death and glitches to make for a hilarious and entertaining watch even if the feat wasn’t exactly accomplished as expected.

Learn more: Breath of the Wild’s hottest new Speedrun is getting all the hoes

BotW speedruns are absolutely cracking. According Speedrun.coma site that tracks speedruns for various games, the fastest time for Nintendo’s 2017 hit was set earlier this month and currently stands at just under 24 minutes by BotW speedrunner Player 5. This was for the any percent challenge, an achievement in which a player strives to roll credits as quickly as possible without worrying about completing any main quests or side activities. There are other speedrun categories that add extra stipulations to the bet, like hitting all dungeons or shrines, but sometimes you just want vanilla, you know? (Unless you’re a Limcube speedrunner, which recently collected all the hoes strewn around Hyrule in less than 30 minutes because he was just bored and desperate.)

All this to say that simply, a speedrunner who ran a few Super Mario 64s categories over the years, wanted to see if he could beat BotW as fast as he could, vanilla. In other words, he attempted a run at any percentage of Link’s latest adventure. However, to give this vanilla a bit more flavor like a French vanilla or a vanilla bean, he simply added an extra challenge to the mix: achieving a solid time in the open-world action-adventure game as newcomer to the category any percentage of 12 hours or less. The results were fun and have now been edited into an entertaining half hour video that really makes you feel the struggle of Simply.

Simply’s quest to become “the best speedrunner ever”

In April 18 YouTube video, Start simply by explaining how BotW works with any percentage of speedruns. You start by collecting Link’s Runic Abilities like Magnesia and Stasis from the four main shrines of the Grand Plateau so you can grab the Paraglider for air travel. From there you book it to Hyrule Castle to cheer the four Scourge Ganons of existence before taking down the big bad himself, Calamity Ganon. I simply had to learn a plethora of glitches, shield clips to enter shrines faster For the BLSS technique to fly over the Grand Plateau, to complete his timed challenge, all with the goal of becoming “the best speedrunner ever”. But learning was the hardest part here.

Merely

Simply died a handful of times trying to skip the intro section of the game. However, using scope clip And whistle– two issues that lock the game into its day cycle and preserve Link’s stamina, respectively – he was able to leave the early shrine and skip the first cutscene. From there, Simply picked up their first gear (after a few more kills, of course) to continue cracking BotW with glitches. With the help of the aforementioned BLSS technique and shield clip issue, alongside the movement of the wind bomb which launches Link several feet into the air, he simply gathered all four rune abilities to then grab the old man’s (aka King Rhoam) paraglider at the Grand Plateau tower. It was already about three hours into his 12-hour challenge. So he sent it back to see if he could do that sequence of events in under 35 minutes. The movement of the wind bomb made him back up a bit. So, too, made a death. Unfortunately, he didn’t finish in less than 35 minutes, but he was still having a good time. Just four hours into their 12-hour challenge, Simply had plenty of time to beat the game.

Limcube entered the chat to help Simply with his speedrun

Limcube, the noted BotW speedrunner responsible for March’s all hoes challenge, sought to give Simply some pointers to finish his speedrun, which only gets more difficult as you fling yourself to Hyrule Castle and the fight against Calamity Ganon ahead. After collecting mushrooms to cook up some Mighty Mushroom Skewers, which buffs Link’s attack damage for 13 minutes, simply used the BLSS technique to infiltrate Hyrule Castle, dodging all the guards patrolling the area. He picked up weapons with higher durability in hopes of making future fights a little easier. Unfortunately, they weren’t easy enough, because despite the coaching he received from Limcube, including how to perform a glitch to easily kill Windburn Ganon, Simply dead. A lot.

Now, normally, casual players would have completed all four Divine Beast dungeons to halve Calamity Ganon’s health. At this point, you’d probably also have more than three hearts so Link could survive more than one hit in the final encounter. But Simply was learning the all-percent route, which, in the interest of going fast, does none of that. So not only did he have to fight all four Blight Ganons in a row, but he also had to defeat Calamity Ganon at full health, a tall order for even the most skilled BotW players. I’m sure you can guess what happened. If you can’t, then let me tell you: just dead. Again and again and again, each attempt slightly better than the last. He simply completed the challenge, of course, but not in 12 hours or less as he had hoped. Instead, Simply’s last time to learn and complete a run at any percentage was around 12 hours and 40 minutes. His total speedrun time? Just under five hours. It’s not the fastest BotW speedrun, but hey, at least it did, and it’s probably faster than most of us could have too.

Kotaku has reached out to Simply for comment.

Learn more: Breath of the Wild’s greatest stuntman is back, and better than ever

I love stuff like that. The determination it takes to push through despite the insurmountable, if self-imposed, challenge before you. It’s amazing to see, especially considering that Simply could have given up on the feat once the going got tough. But he did not do it. It’s a good reminder that anything can be done if you try hard enough…and get a little coaching from a speedrunning master.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is almost here, and at first glance the enigmatic faction called Zonai could play a big part in the sequel after mostly existing in the background of Breath of the Wild. If you feel like you walked into something or missed a big storyline in the last game, don’t worry. Despite many theories being hatched over the years, even the biggest Zelda fans don’t have many concrete details about who or what the Zonai were. But let’s break down what we know and why fans think the Zonai are becoming a key player in Tears of the Kingdom.

What do we already know about the Zonai?

In Breath of the Wild, the Zonai are depicted as a tribe that no longer exists within Hyrule, but their nature is apparently up for debate in the game world. They are depicted as both a savage tribe of barbarians , as well as strong magic users who worship animals, especially Farosh, a water dragon that can be found in places like the Gerudo Highlands. Traces of their existence can be seen in places like the Zonai Ruins in the southern area of ​​the map, with long-abandoned architecture hinting at their reverence for Hyrule’s wildlife. In the story and art book The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Creating a Champion, it is revealed that the animals that feature prominently in what remains of Zonai’s house refer to the three rooms of the Triforce: a dragon for Courage, an owl for Wisdom, and a boar for Power. Beyond the animals, the Zonai also have their own spiral-like crest, seen on architecture associated with the tribe.

Beyond that, Link can acquire Barbarian armor in Breath of the Wild that is said to have been worn by members of the Zonai long ago after navigating specific labyrinths believed to have been built by the tribe. While it all fits together, much of what we know about the tribe is speculation fueled by the game’s ambient storytelling. It’s a very minimalistic, FromSoftware-style approach to world-building and largely rewards those who want to explore the big game world. However, it could pay off for all of us in Tears of the Kingdom.

Nintendo of America

Why do fans think Tears of the Kingdom will involve the Zonai?

Theories that the Zonai would be a major player in Tears of the Kingdom have been rumored since the game’s reveal in 2019 due to the emphasis on the spiral pattern at the heart of Zonai architecture. However, the connection is much more concrete now thanks to the latest gameplay showcase. During this stream, Nintendo revealed that the Zonai were tied to the events of Tears of the Kingdom via a piece of loot. In the 10-minute gameplay trailer, Link defeats an enemy in the Sky Floating Islands and drops an item called Zonai Charge. The video doesn’t dwell on the object, but it clearly has the same green energy seen powering up the machine-like enemies Link is fighting, the (broken) seal around Ganondorf seen in the original trailer, and the Link’s corrupted and shiny arm.

Will we encounter the Zonai in Tears of the Kingdom?

Given Nintendo’s silence regarding the story of Tears of the Kingdom, it’s hard to say whether or not Link will encounter a member of the Zonai tribe. Given that the group seems to have disappeared entirely from Hyrule in Breath of the Wild, with the only information we have about them coming from theories and their remaining architecture, it seems more logical that the Zonai were wiped out or went into hiding. . But even so, their technology and magic are still present and causing problems for our hero in Tears of the Kingdom. That being said, it’s not entirely out of the question that some survived and waited for the events of this game to unfold. The series is also no stranger to time travel, as it’s a key mainstay in games like Ocarina of Time and Oracle of Ages. So there’s a chance that Link could come face to face with the Zonai during their prime, but it’s unconfirmed.

Wait, how does Twilight Princess play into all of this?

Like most of the possibilities discussed here, the connection between The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Tears of the Kingdom is still speculation, but fans believe they have found connections between the Zonai and the Twili, which were introduced in Twilight Princess. . Breath of the Wild incorporates multiple tribes and species of life from the series, from the Sheikah to the Zora. The Twili, however, are notably absent, but given the similarities to the architecture and magic seen in Tears of the Kingdom and that of the Twili, fans believe the Zonai might be the original race that were turned into monsters by Zant in Twilight Princess. There are even breakdowns of iconography and sigils throughout Breath of the Wild which look a lot like the images from Twilight Princess. It’s all theory at this point, and Breath of the Wild itself doesn’t do much to make this possible connection directly apparent. So don’t feel like you’ve completely missed out on a potential connection. That’s all the fan interpretation, for now.

Whatever the Zonai are, it looks like they will at least be part of the larger Tears of the Kingdom setup. Whether we’ll encounter one remains to be seen, but we’ll find out when the game hits Switch on May 12.

At Kotaku, we get a lot of tips by email. Some are spam, some are hateful messages filled with errors, and a few are serious allegations that require serious investigation. So it’s refreshing when something comes up that just points us to something fresh and cool, as was the case with a recent boot fashion tip from the house. Like a dragon: Ishin! developers, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio.

A development subdivision of Sega with roots dating back to 1998, Ryu Ga Gotoku (“RGG”) is a Japanese studio responsible for the 2012 third-person shooter Binary Domain. However, you’re probably most familiar with RGG’s most important work, the Yakuza series. Since 2012, RGG has been in charge of the action-adventure franchise, developing new main entries and remastering old ones while assembling spin-offs such as the Judgment series and the latest remake, Like A Dragon: Ishin!

It was this latest game, which was originally a Japan-only release in 2014 before making its global debut earlier this week, that was the subject of the advice email we received this week. In love with editor Alyssa Mercante “fashion legend” of The Game Awards bland dripthe reader (whose name we decided to keep hidden) said we should check this making-of of the video Like A Dragon to see “cool costumes”.

Learn more: The Best Fits at The Game Awards 2022

“I loved the fashion caption and The Game Awards follow-up article and 40 seconds in this video about Ryu Ga Gotoku making the next game Like A Dragon, there’s an amazing promotional photo of the staff,” said the reader in an email to Kotaku. “I guess if you’re in charge of the Yakuza/Like A Dragon series, you’re basically obligated to wear a cool costume.” And they don’t lie! RGG is literally setting the entire industry back in one fell swoop.

SEGA Asia

In the first episode of a multi-part series on Sega Asia’s English YouTube channel, we get a quick look at RGG’s fashion sense. Japanese fashion is quite captivating if you follow it. Filled with flowing silhouettes, wild colors and patterns, and an interesting mix of casual and smart aestheticthe inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun know how to dress. RGG is no exception. Sure, the suits the developers are wearing about 40 seconds into the video above are all black, but the nuance is in the details. Two staff members have jackets with interesting markings: one with a variety of white dots and another with many small crosses. A different member of staff has a coat with tastefully accenting white lines. Three other staff members have all-over designs, with two of the staff members’ costumes having a nice shine. If you told me it was an alternative J-Rock band and not a video game developer band, I’d believe you.

Even the developers’ boots, while indefinable on the surface, really add to the developers’ collective drip. Most in the photo have round shiny pointed toe boots without laces like they all just came out of filming The Matrix or something. Two others mix things up a bit, one staff member wearing what appear to be Dr. Martens lace-up round boots (but maybe not that exact brand) and another apparently wearing very dark boots, maybe Suede. Either way, RGG’s cuts are on point! I may not be the fashionista that Kotaku’s Alyssa Mercante is, but I, too, gag at the confident simplicity that RGG exudes in their almost matching looks. It’s great to see, especially in an industry known for some of the most predictable (graphic tee and blazer) outfit combos ever.

Learn more: Like a dragon: Ishin! : The Kotaku Review

Anyway, kudos to RGG for killing the entire industry in seconds with both their killer mode and their even more killer samurai game, Like A Dragon: Ishin! In fact, writer Sisi Jiang called it “the best samurai game you can play right now.” You should take a look at it.

It was announcement earlier today than Elden Ring, FromSoftware’s Game of the Year 2022 for many people (including most employees of this website), has sold 20 million copies worldwide since its release a year ago. It’s a lot.

You might be wondering why am I reporting this on Kotaku, a website that in 2023 generally couldn’t care less about sales numbers, especially when featured in a publisher press release?

That’s because I think Elden Ring, a nail-biting action/RPG that’s essentially a single-player experience, is making a hell of a point by releasing and selling 20 million copies in 2022-23. This shows publishers and people who control their purse strings, that not every video game released in the modern era has to be a forever game, a live service time that not only demands our constant attention, but constantly demands money while it does so.

You buy Elden Ring, you play Elden Ring, you rinse Elden Ring and you’re done! There are no DLC packs, no season passes, no multiplayer modes selling skins for $2. What you paid for is what you got. For many people raised on less exploitative games, or tired of the demands of modern gaming (or both!), Elden Ring was, conceptually, a near perfect video game experience.

I know it’s far from the only one. It’s not like every game ever released these days is a live service leak. Indeed this GOTY list I linked to above is dominated by standalone single-player experiences.

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But none of them have sold 20 million copies. That’s what makes Elden Ring’s sales so important. They don’t just show a traditional video game can do well, they show it can be an absolute blockbuster. While nailing down specific sales figures in these days of digital shopfronts can be hard, 20 million puts the game in the same ballpark as Modern Warfare 2 And EA’s FIFA Seriesan extraordinary achievement for a game that’s as tough as hell and enjoyed a fraction of the promotional budget than those behemoths – two full-priced retail games that then try to scam players for even more money on the road – have received.

Do you know what else is in this sales stage? Cyberpunk 2077 – which, admittedly, had its issues and also an astronomical marketing budget – sold over 20 million copies. God of War Ragnarok, another very single-player experience released in 2022, has itself sold over 10 million copies (to Sony’s credit, much of their proprietary strategy, from Horizon to The Last Of Us, follows a similar path). Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the first single-player Star Wars game in a very long time? Oh hey, it also sold for over 10 million, making more than enough to warrant a big-budget sequel coming out very soon.

These huge sales figures are not only success stories for the companies involved, but also a sign for other publishers that perhaps the people who buy and play games are tired of this obsession with ripping us off at every turn and to rip our hearts out in a desperate attempt to prolong our time with them. I understand that companies know that a live service game can potentially make more money than a regular game – look at FIFA, which has made billions in digital card sales on top of its retail profits – but it is not guaranteed. Not all games have to do this. We don’t have the time or the money for that.

Sometimes people just want to play a video game, finish it, enjoy it for what it was, and then move on with their lives. And these folks are showing that there’s enough to not just buy a few million copies of these games, but turn them into absolute blockbusters.

After watching Honkai: Star Rail for a few minutes during a live media preview, I mostly liked what I saw. HoYovere’s “space fantasy” RPG doesn’t reinvent turn-based combat, but the performance was smooth. The combat animations were some of the best I’ve seen in anime games in recent years. The battle turn tracking, team combos, type clashes, and battle animations were reminiscent of games like Shin Megami Tensei and Persona 5. But HoYoverse definitely doesn’t want you to think of it as one of those games. . Besides the apparent identity confusion, my conversation with the developer left me with little optimism about racial inclusion in Star Rail’s space fantasy.

Here’s how Star Rail works: Although you start with a protagonist character, the bulk of your roster will come from rotating wives and husbands through the gacha system. You use them to explore maps filled with enemy encounters (rather than real-time combat like in HoYovers current mainstay Genshin Impact).

Once you have encountered an enemy, you will begin a turn-based battle. Each of the four members of your party will have two skills. Some will be offensive, while others will be support or healing based. Each attack matches an element, and effectively using elemental type matches will allow you to break shield bars. Once an enemy is vulnerable, you can use team combo attacks to kick them while they’re down.

Screenshot: HoYovere/Kotaku

Despite the relatively simple combat, the game will feature an auto-combat mechanic. This should make daily battles for resources easier, which is an essential feature that some modern gacha use to keep games alive.

Star Rail will have a main story campaign and regular side quests. Although it shares similar characters from Honkai Impact 3rd, Fish Ling, a representative of HoYoverse, assured me that there would be no story crossover with their insanely heavy real-time action game.

According to Michalel Lin, another developer representative, the driving force behind Honkai: Star Rail’s development was HoYoverse’s desire to diversify its portfolio from the usual action games it publishes. Second, HoYoverse felt that the turn-based combat was conducive to “the story we want to tell”. Its design philosophy was driven by a desire to make turn-based combat accessible to newcomers.

Things got murkier, however, when I tried to ask who the target audience was. The Star Rail presentation mentioned that the game would feature different cultures. Remembering how bad Genshin Impact flubbed representing darker-skinned people and Southwest Asians in the Sumeru update I asked how the devs intended to improve representation in Star Rail. What lessons have they learned from the overseas community?

“The game takes place in a fictional world,” Lin said. “What we do depends on the growth of intellectual property. As a combination of cultures in our world, there is no specific culture that we are targeting. We’ll continue to listen to fan feedback, but how the world will be built, we can’t say for sure.

Screenshot: HoYovere

It’s 2023 and Asian RPGs continue to drop diversity. This hugely disappointing response reminded me of Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida. answer as to whether or not this game would include people of color. Their response was that their world was fantastic, so it couldn’t be held to diversity standards at all. Star Rail includes characters that are culturally Chinese, so it’s really shit that his launch characters seem to be even clearer than those in Genshin Impact. Once again, we need to start keeping asian RPGs to higher standards.

I got similarly vague answers when I asked where Star Rail got its inspiration from. “We think turn-based RPGs are very appealing and have an active audience in the market,” Lin said. It took me a few minutes to remember that the The Persona series has sold 16.8 million units worldwide and was probably at least one of the games alluded to. When pressed on the studio’s creative inspiration, Lin told me that the Star Rail team consists of 500 individual developers. Therefore, it would be impossible to reduce the specific influences.

I can guess why HoYoverse is so coy about its Persona 5 game in space. It’s probably because the the Internet torn in Genshin Impact during launch for its similarities to Breath of the Wild, to the point that the developer had to reassure the players that the game was more than a clone. But Star Rail will will probably come out this yearand people will be able to see Persona DNA embedded in the way the game plays.

So here’s the honest summary of Star Rail: It’s a space fantasy game that you’ll probably enjoy if you’re a fan of the Persona or Shin Megami Tensei series. Pay attention to the gacha system and don’t hold your breath on the improved diversity over what we’ve seen so far.

Look, I thirsted over Professor Turo for half the year. It was a significant touchstone of 2022.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

When it comes time to write these year-end lists, I usually slim them down to my top five favorite games I played because, despite what this job entails, I usually only have passionate feelings about a handful of games by the time we reach December.

But 2022 was a weird one for me, in that I feel like I played fewer games than ever. Not that any of that has anything to do with Kotaku, as I’ve only been here for about two weeks so far. But going through tumultuous times and a layoff at the last job doesn’t leave one much energy to invest time in a ton of games.

But I did experience a handful of games that really resonated with me, a few of which were old ones that got renewed in some way in 2022. So don’t yell at me when you see them on this list. It’s my list, and I’ll cry about Cyberpunk 2077 if I want to.

I’m a simple man. If the electric rat is there, I’m happy.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Honorable mention: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Getting two major Pokémon games in 2022 was a lot for some people, but being able to run around a Pokémon world with Raichu by my side is the only thing that keeps me going some days. So I was happy to indulge in an open-world Pokémon in the form of Pokémon Violet. However, I just have too many issues with this game to give it a proper spot on my list. It’s buggy, sure, but it’s also designed in such a way that it can’t keep up with its own “find your bliss” philosophy, which made entire sections of its main story annoying and disorienting to play through.

That being said, the stellar endgame has completely rewired my brain and I can’t think about Professor Turo without crying, and playing a Pokémon game in co-op with my friends is a childhood dream come true. It’s deeply flawed, but I keep looking back at screenshots of me and my friends hanging out in Paldea like an old photo album. It’s got so many great ideas, but it’s all built on top of a shaky foundation. I’m awaiting its DLC with bated breath.

I loved Kratos and Atreus’ story, but all the other story threads God of War Ragnarök spun were too much for one game.

Honorable mention: God of War Ragnarök

I really adore the 2018 God of War reboot as an examination on the series’ previous gleeful glamorizing of gratuitous gore, and when it was at its best, God of War Ragnarök felt like it was building beautifully upon Kratos’ and Atreus’ relationship as father and son. But, man, what a messy follow-up it was.

I like large swaths of Ragnarök, and I think, had it been broken up into two games and made a trilogy, rather than Sony Santa Monica attempting to introduce and wrap up two games’ worth of story in the course of an exhaustively long game, I would’ve loved it a lot more. Its action still feels weighty and fun and getting to play as Atreus was a lovely surprise, but it feels breathless and bloated in a way the 2018 reboot didn’t. I’m always going to wonder what the conclusion to God of War’s Norse story would’ve looked like as two games instead of one, as those are the ones that would’ve likely made it onto my list.

Cyberpunk 2077’s city skyline makes me well up the way most open-world vistas don’t.Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

5. Cyberpunk 2077

I’m still very resistant to any narrative that Cyberpunk 2077 is “great” in 2022 after CD Projekt Red put in the work to elevate it from the technical disaster it was when it launched in 2020, but the game was still a central figure in my year, and has gone from something I played out of a work obligation two years ago to a game that’s become pretty special to me.

I played through and dissected Cyberpunk 2077 all year as part of Normandy FM, a retrospective podcast I co-host, and combing through that game in a relatively stable technical state unmasked that it’s a pretty unremarkable RPG. That being said, as a person who spent all of 2022 dealing with the realities of the capitalist gristmill that is America, both through job stuff and in the medical system, there was something freeing about existing in Night City, which felt like an oppressive, capitalist amalgamation of the cities I dreamed of living in while I was stranded in small-town Georgia.

When Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t being insufferably cynical about people, places, and things, it was a constant interrogation of what I was willing to live for, and why I wanted the things I wanted in life. It’s a product of the same capitalist hellscape it claims to satirize, but in the margins there are things worth fighting for, even if you have to go looking for them on your own terms. I don’t boot up open-world RPGs very often, but throughout 2022 I would turn on Cyberpunk 2077 just to drive around the city and imagine the possibilities it held for me. Thankfully, I live in a city now, and no longer have to dream. But Cyberpunk 2077 was a lifeline during a time when the home it proposed felt unattainable. For that, I’ll always keep the story of V and Night City in my heart, even if I don’t think it’s a great video game.

Haven’s Couples Update gave queer fans a new reason to experience the RPG in 2022.Screenshot: The Game Bakers / Kotaku

4. Gayven (Haven, but gay)

Haven completely slipped by me in 2020, but that changed this year when The Game Bakers added an update that let you play as same-sex pairings of its main characters Yu and Kay. As a person who has written a lot about queerness in the video game industry, I was immediately drawn to Haven as a case study in a developer putting in the time and effort to make a game queer-inclusive. Getting to experience Yu and Kay’s story from the perspective of two queer men was a wonderful way to first experience the game, and made its angsty science-fiction romance all the more affecting for me as a gay man who eats that shit up.

Haven is a lovely meditation on long-term relationships, with its exploration and turn-based combat broken up by scenes of Yu and Kay just living together through the most mundane parts of being together. Where many video games thrive in the lead-up to a romantic relationship, Haven sits with what it means to already be well and established, and it leads to some of my favorite romance writing in a game. It’s full of big, oppressive science-fiction ideas, but its best moments are when two people sit together in their home and speak to each other not as spacefaring adventurers, but as two star-crossed lovers willing to find pockets of joy when they’re all they’ve got left.

We Are OFK is essentially an interactive music video, but the drama between its indie pop bangers is just as compelling.Screenshot: Team OFK / Kotaku

3. We Are OFK

The music of We Are OFK, an episodic biopic about a group of young adults drifting through the L.A. game dev grind and into a musical act, nearly topped my Spotify Wrapped this year. The band was second under Coheed and Cambria, my favorite band that released a new album this year, which speaks volumes about how catchy and contemplative Team OFK’s indie pop stylings are. These songs are interwoven between We Are OFK’s depiction of the dramatic, interpersonal relationships between a group of queer creatives just trying to figure their shit out.

We Are OFK is contentious as a video game, as its interactive elements feel insubstantial beyond choosing text messages and playing through an interactive music video at the end of each episode. But as an unapologetically queer musical drama about finding yourself and those willing to put up with your bullshit, it’s deeply relatable. The game exists as a springboard for a larger virtual band experience, and as long as they keep producing bangers like “thanks,” and “Infuriata,” I’ll follow it in whatever form OFK exists.

Overwatch 2 is still only half the game Blizzard promised, but its PvP suite is still pretty damn great.Screenshot: Blizzard Entertainment / Kotaku

2. Overwatch 2

Look, look, I know. I know Overwatch 2 is a mess of microtransactions and free-to-play grind, but Blizzard’s sequel/reboot of its hero shooter is still such a gold standard for team-based combat that I have sunk nearly 300 hours into it since its launch in October.

Right now, Overwatch 2 isn’t exactly what I was looking for when Blizzard announced it back in 2019, as its story content has been pushed into 2023. I (foolishly) came into Overwatch on the back of its characters and lore, so I’m still eagerly awaiting that side of the sequel. However, in its complete revamp of the original game’s format in favor of a 5v5 setup, its new modes, the heroes, and the great deal of attention given to its contextual banter writing, Overwatch feels more alive than it’s felt in years. This is damage of Blizzard’s own doing, as the company essentially put the first game on ice until Overwatch 2’s launch. But it’s comforting as a long-time player to finally see signs of life for the game after all this time, and to feel hope for its future for the first time in years.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus was a mechanical evolution, but also a narrative one, as well.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

1. Pokémon Legends: Arceus

Pokémon Legends: Arceus was everything I’d been wanting out of a Pokémon story for over a decade. After years of watching the franchise add to its mythology and world, it never really felt like many of these games were living up to the promise of the universe Game Freak had built over 25 years. Pokémon Legends: Arceus was the first time since I was a child that this setting felt as large and unknowable as it did in my youth.

Much of that came from Legends: Arceus’ use of a historical setting, rather than the modern one seen in most other Pokémon games. Taking the player back to when the Sinnoh region was known as Hisui, being present for lore-defining conflicts, and watching the universe’s gods have it out was more impactful than hearing about them through historians and seeing cave paintings and statues. It felt like a second chance for Sinnoh to feel like the significant origin point of the universe it had been described as in Diamond and Pearl.

On top of just feeling more vast, Pokémon Legends: Arceus was also the most tangible the world felt to me as a player. This was thanks to Game Freak’s shift into action-oriented mechanics like actually being able to aim and throw a Pokéball at an unsuspecting wild Pokémon, stealthing around the wilderness to avoid giant Alpha Pokémon, and being able to fluidly traverse its open areas on the backs of friendly critters. Even when Pokémon Scarlet and Violet attempted their own versions of these systems, it never felt like they quite captured Legends: Arceus’ frictionless traversal, and that’s why they felt flimsy in comparison.

Legends: Arceus solidified to me what it is I want out of Pokémon games. Some people want to capture every Pokémon in the Pokedex, some want to compete and become a respected champion. But for me, existing in this world and discovering its secrets with Raichu by my side is why Pokémon still holds my attention decades later, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the most I’ve felt captivated by this universe, probably ever. I hope it’s a blueprint for the series’ future, because I feel like, otherwise, I’m going to be chasing the highs of its best moments for years to come.

I was warned of how heated Kotaku’s GOTY arguments traditionally get when I first started here in November, so I was a little nervous when I was put in charge of organizing and tabulating our list of the best games of the year.

Would everyone vote? Would they get mad at me for ranking Destiny 2: The Witch Queen too high? Would Ethan Gach actually do what he was threatening and “hobgoblin” the voting process by adding negative points to the equation?

Turns out, however, that even though organizing this entire process was a pain in the ass, the team at Kotaku is exactly as opinionated, intelligent, and professional as you might expect, offering great insight and honest takes on the top games of 2022. Though we voted on over 20 titles (including ones that narrowly missed this list like Rollerdrome and Sifu) we narrowed it down to a top 10, and have ranked them in order below.

How does Kotaku’s top 10 games of 2022 stack up with your personal GOTY lists?

10. Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Image: Monolith Soft / Nintendo

Reductively, Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s story is an amalgamation of Japanese RPGs whose emotional climax rests on the age-old theme of “war is bad.” Nevertheless, the fact that the trope has become a well-trodden cliché doesn’t dismiss how well developer Monolith Soft executes its anti-war theme throughout Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s 150 hours of playtime.

Read More: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Is A Genius JRPG Vision That Began 25 Years Ago

In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, you play as a troupe of child soldiers from warring nations locked in an endless battle where their limited lifespans fuel a giant mechanical clock once they meet their untimely demise. The kids are not alright. But despite the painful emotional journey its child soldiers must go on, which is portrayed with the emotional maturity and complexity it deserves, the game is not without some great moments of levity as well, courtesy of some lighthearted and silly sidequests. Meanwhile, Xenoblade’s more serious sidequests drip-feed players with rich character studies that flesh out each member of the party, along with the game’s expansive world and its deep cast of supporting characters.

Although Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was snubbed for the best roleplaying game and best soundtrack at Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards, it did give us an impassioned flutist performance from Pedro “Flute Guy” Eustache. This shows that even if Xenoblade loses at gaming’s glorified popularity contest, it still provides some of the best moments in gaming this year.

Isaiah Colbert, Staff Writer

9. Signalis

Image: rose-engine

Much like how I use Devil May Cry 5 as the measuring stick for how good a hack-and-slash game is, whenever I brave playing a survivor horror game I do so with the hope that its story measures up to Silent Hill 2. Big shoes to fill, I know. Signalis not only manages to fill those shoes, it damn near tore the seams off of them joints with how bloody good it was. I’d even argue that it’s better than Silent Hill 2.

Signalis has all the bells and whistles that make for a good sci-fi survival horror game. It’s got a brutal-but-fair limited inventory system, brain-teasing puzzles, and breadcrumb storytelling conveyed through codex entries scattered about its levels. However, where Signalis sings is with its gripping story about two lesbian androids desperately trying to find each other in a space hellscape.

Read More: Signalis Is A Grimy Exercise In Survival Horror, And I Love It

Throughout the game, you play as an android named Elster who’s stranded on an alien planet rife with horrific monsters and derelict spaceships. Elster’s sole mission is to reunite with Anne, a fellow android unit she both literally and figuratively can’t live without. Signalis sticks its landing with the emotional climax of Elster’s perilous journey, regardless of which of the game’s multiple endings you arrive at. This feat is even more impressive considering Signalis is the first video game made by its two-person development team, rose-engine. Ay yo, 2023, can we get some more of those sapphic survivor horror vidya games, plz?

Isaiah Colbert, Staff Writer

8. Norco

Image: Raw Fury

Norco emerged this year and joined Kentucky Route Zero and a few others on the shortlist of games that speak deeply to the experience of living under late-stage capitalism in America at this precise moment in time. Like Cardboard Computer’s masterpiece, Norco also takes its cues from point-and-click adventures, using stunning pixel art to pull us into its industrialized Louisiana landscapes. And where KR0 lent its midwestern road trip a heaping helping of magical realism, Norco uses near-future sci-fi elements to cast the forces its poor, marginalized characters face in sharper relief.

Read More: A Stunning Southern Dystopia Is One Of The Best-Written Games Of The Year

But don’t let my easy comparison make you think Norco is a pale imitator of another game. It’s very much its own remarkable experience, one with its own visual identity, its own poetic voice, and its own noir-ish mystery. Everything about Norco rings painfully true, from its observant little environmental details like the electrified hum of a street light, to the much larger way that religion, cryptocurrency, and the oil industry all become woven together in the haunting texture of your character’s search for her missing brother. Norco, Louisiana is a real place. The Norco of this game is not quite that place, but it’s nevertheless one that feels very real in its own way, and that will leave you reeling from the piercing gaze it levels at the world we’ve made for ourselves.

Carolyn Petit, Managing Editor

7. Horizon Forbidden West

Image: Sony

Poor Aloy. Twice now, her adventures have been somewhat overshadowed at the time of release by other games that more dramatically captured the world’s attention. Her first outing, Horizon Zero Dawn, launched just a few days before Breath of the Wild. This year, her second quest was followed a week later by Elden Ring.

But despite repeatedly serving as the opening act for games that go on to sweep the GOTYs of a hundred gaming sites, Guerrilla Games and Aloy can be proud of what they’ve accomplished. Arguably the most visually stunning game of the year, Guerrilla’s latest takes Aloy into the ruined American west for more of the thrilling, spectacular battles with hulking metallic beasts that helped make the first game an original in a sea of samey open-world blockbusters. And although the larger narrative may fly a bit off the rails in this outing, Forbidden West wisely stays focused on Aloy’s personal journey as someone who feels the weight of the world on her shoulders and doesn’t know how to let her guard down and allow her friends to carry that burden with her. It complicates her character and trusts us as players not to turn on her the moment she behaves in ways that are arrogant, cruel, or misguided. Oh, and you get a really sweet new travel option near the end of the game, too.

Yes, when all is said and done, Aloy and her escapades can stand tall alongside the Links and the myriad Tarnished of the world.

Carolyn Petit, Managing Editor

6. Neon White

Image: Annapurna Interactive

It was about 3 in the morning. I had plans the next day. I really needed to go to bed. Yet, here I was hunched over my computer focused on shaving just one more second off a level in Neon White so I could beat a friend on my leaderboard. That’s the power of fast-paced, FPS platformer Neon White. It’s the kind of game that feels so good that you just can’t stop playing it. Once you get skilled enough to start finding shortcuts in levels, it’s over–the game has you at that point. You’ll end up going back to old levels you thought you mastered to shave off more time. And if you enjoy anime nonsense, angels, demons, and sick-ass music, too, then Neon White will dig its angelic claws deeply into you and never let go. “One more run…and then I’ll go to bed.” I didn’t get to sleep that night until nearly 4:30 am.

Zack Zwiezen, Staff Writer

5. Citizen Sleeper

Image: Jump Over The Age

The profane and sacred mingle with delicate grace in Jump Over The Age’s minimalist cyberpunk RPG about trying to earn your humanity from a world that can’t pay its debts. Every detail from the writing and art to the branching choices and tabletop-inspired dice rolls connect, overlap, and reinforce each other with precision and care so that no piece is weaker than the rest and no rough edge is left exposed. Few games manage to evoke universal feelings or personal truths, but Citizen Sleeper does both at the same time. The future never felt so hopeless and yet so comforting.

Ethan Gach, Senior Reporter

4. Marvel Snap

Image: Second Dinner / Kotaku

Going into 2022, I don’t know how many people expected a free-to-play Marvel card game designed for phones to end up being one of the best and most popular games of the year, yet, here we are. Second Dinner’s fantastic bite-sized card battler, Marvel Snap, really is one of the best digital card games out there right now thanks to its small decks, fast rounds, and random nature. Matches always feel different and even a loss doesn’t sting too bad because it’s over so fast. Sure, it’s still a free-to-play mobile game, so you can expect stuff like iffy over-priced bundles and having to grind for currency. But luckily Marvel Snap is so fun to play that it’s pretty easy to overlook those bits and enjoy one of 2022’s best games.

Zack Zwiezen, Staff Writer

3. Vampire Survivors

Image: poncle

One more run. A sentence I’ve repeated countless times in 2022 either in my head or quietly aloud to justify playing Vampire Survivors for just a little while longer. The gothic roguelike shoot ‘em up became a surprise smash hit while spawning worthy spiritual siblings like 20 Minutes Till Dawn.  

Since Valve started releasing the data in August, Vampire Survivors has been tops in total hours played on Steam Deck month in and month out. This is the same Steam Deck that can run frickin’ Elden Ring! But people want to play Vampire Survivors instead!

All those players are onto something, Vampire Survivors has a simple yet satisfying gameplay loop: your character (I’m partial to Peppino) must survive an ever-growing horde of ghoulies while choosing between randomly generated weapons. If you make it to 30 minutes, the reaper will come calling, which lets you spend coins on power-ups for future runs. You can be strategic in choosing weapons that complement each other or you can just try shit out! These elements of discovery, relentless isometric top down action, and Vampire’s lax attitude towards player death (it has zero impact) remind me a lot of Hades, another regular on that Steam Deck most-played list, and another GOTY contender from years past.

Vampire Survivors’ developer Luca Galante/poncle has regularly been updating the game since it left early access, adding modes, quality of life improvements, and settings to tweak for extra replayability. What’s more, the game recently got its first full-fledged DLC the other week with Legacy of the Moonspell. With the base game retailing at five dollars ($4 under the current Steam sale), Vampire Survivors makes for one of the better bang-for-your-buck propositions in gaming. Go ahead and treat yourself to some floor chicken.

Eric Schulkin, Video Lead

2. God of War Ragnarök

Image: Sony

Sony Santa Monica’s God of War Ragnarök is more of everything. More abilities and weapons. More enemies and locations. More characters and plot details. Hell, even more loot. Though you could interpret this as a knock against the game, especially since more isn’t always better, Ragnarök takes the “more” and deftly applies it in tasteful ways while making room for a compelling narrative and gameplay experience that’s enjoyable and immersive. Combat is crunchy, exploration is intriguing, dialogue is captivating, and the themes are deep and engaging. But what stands out as the glisten on the diamond is the character development between daddy Kratos and adolescent Atreus, an element that sees the co-protagonists finding common understanding in the face of the end of the world. Sometimes, it takes things falling apart for empathy to be reached, and God of War Ragnarök is a glowing example of just that. It’s good shit.

Levi Winslow, Staff Writer

1. Elden Ring

Screenshot: FromSoftware / Kotaku

Are you surprised? Elden Ring easily and inevitably took the top spot during our voting process, further proving that 2022 was the year of Elden Ring. Many Kotaku staff members ranked it as their number one game of the year, and for good reason. FromSoftware’s open-world epic feels like a giant leap forward for the Souls-like franchise, offering us a beautifully deformed and dangerous Lands Between to explore, rife with opportunities to discover oddities, collect goodies, and die over and over again.

Elden Ring opened up Hidetaka Miyazaki ’s sick, twisted world for the normies who haven’t enjoyed FromSoft games before it, while also making sure to still cater to the hardened vets looking to prove their worth in incredibly tough battles. It found a perfect balance between that punishing gameplay so many long for in a game from this studio and a newfound sense of agency, of a chance to get gud without having to run into the same noxious swamp over and over again.

Elden Ring is technically impressive, visually stunning, and satisfyingly challenging. It has humor, it has sadness, it has turtle popes. It dashes your hopes up against a jagged rock only to hand you hope back bit-by-bit as you strengthen your character and your resolve. It is everything that we hope for in a video game, and then some.

If you want to become the very best, you’ve gotta beat the very best.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Defeating the Elite Four and the regional champion in battle is a rite of passage in most Pokémon games, and that includes Scarlet and Violet. These are supposed the most-powerful Pokémon trainers in the Paldea region, and overcoming them and their teams is the only way to become the regional champion yourself.

But what should your team look like if you’re going to take on these trainers? Before we go trainer by trainer and talk about what weaknesses you’ll need to exploit to become Paldea’s champion, let’s touch on some general tips.

Level up before you go-go

Between all the trainers you’ll fight in the Paldea Pokémon League, you’ll face Pokémon whose levels range from 57 to 62. Since you’ll have already beaten all eight regional gym leaders, you’ll notice Scarlet and Violet have a sizable gap between the most powerful gym leader and the first of the Elite Four. Grusha, the Glaseado gym leader, had his Pokémon in the late 40s, and the Elite Four starts out 10 levels higher. So definitely do some training beforehand to get your team leveled up to at least the mid-50s.

“You need healing!”

Pokémon veterans will tell you that before you challenge the Elite Four, you need to stock up on healing items. These fights all happen in sequence, and you won’t be able to leave to heal your team and come back between them. However, you will have a chance to use healing items before each fight to your heart’s content. The PokéMart right outside the Pokémon League building will have plenty of Hyper Potions and Revives for you to buy. These will be helpful both between battles and during them, as it’s likely you’ll need to heal up if one of the Elite Four manages to take out some of your team.

Jack of all trades is better than a master of one

Over the years, I’ve seen a handful of Pokémon players who like to play with teams that double up on moves of the same type, rather than having a nice spread of attacks that lend themselves to more diverse situation. I prefer greater versatility. For example, during the main game, my Raichu had Thunderbolt (Electric), Play Rough (Fairy), Iron Tail (Steel), and Focus Blast (Fighting). Between these four moves, he could reasonably deal damage to nine out of Pokémon’s 18 creature types by himself. This is the kind of moveset I try to have with my entire team, which gives me more options for whatever situation the game throws at me.

If Raichu could use a super-effective Iron Tail on a rock/ground-type Pokémon, but would still be in danger of being one-shot by a devastating Earthquake, I could switch to my Quaquaval and use a water or fighting move without having to worry about him succumbing to the same weaknesses Raichu would. Versatility is a good rule of thumb to keep in mind when you’re building a team, because a team of six Pokémon can’t cover this many weaknesses without learning moves outside its base typing. While it’s important to keep in mind what moves your Pokémon will get a bonus for thanks to their base typing or tera typing, don’t put all your Poké eggs in one Poké basket: You’ll just limit yourself and make fights harder than they need to be.

Save between fights

It can feel cheesy, but you should always be saving between fights at the Elite Four. If you lose a battle, all you’ve gotta do is close the game and reopen it to start where you left off. Do this before you’re transported back to the Pokémon Center in order to circumvent the autosave (or turn it off in the options menu), and you’ll be able to just try each fight again with new knowledge. You can also use this time to change your team’s movesets around if you find yourself lacking a super-effective response to one of your opponents’ Pokémon.

Without further ado, let’s talk about the Elite Four and the champion of Paldea.

Rika specializes in ground-type Pokémon and will stomp you into the ground if you’re not prepared.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Rika, the ground-type master

She is beauty, she is grace, but Rika’s team of ground-type Pokémon is full of a bunch of doofuses. Between Whiscash, Dugtrio, and Clodsire, half her team has big “not a thought behind those eyes” energy. But they’ve still got some hard-hitting moves and effective defenses that can take you by surprise if you’re not prepared.

Whiscash (Water/Ground), Level 57
Camerupt (Fire/Ground), Level 57
Donphan (Ground), Level 57
Dugtrio (Ground), Level 57
Clodsire (Terastalized Ground), Level 57

Dugtrio and Donphan are the most straightforward of Rika’s team, as they’re standard ground-type Pokémon weak to all of ground’s weaknesses: grass, ice, and water. Having a mix of these types of attacks will be important, however, as the other three Pokémon she uses have inherent counters to each of these types.

Rika’s Whiscash sets a precedent for how you should approach her party: You can’t just stick to one of ground’s typical weaknesses for the entire fight. As a water/ground-type Pokémon, Whiscash is only weak to grass-type moves, but it is double weakened by them, as they overpower water and ground-type Pokémon. So a grass-type move is best to start with, but be mindful of its Blizzard attack, as that will knock most grass-type Pokémon out real quick. Luckily, Whiscash is fairly slow, so if you can get a reasonably strong, risk-free attack like Energy Ball—or Meowscarada’s signature attack Flower Trick for those who chose Sprigatito as their starter—Whiscash’s double weakness to grass should do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Camerupt also requires a bit of forethought, as its fire/ground typing makes it more resistant to grass and ice attacks. However, water attacks will do four times as much damage against it, as both fire and ground are weakened by it. Unlike Whiscash, who could severely damage a grass-type Pokémon who weakened it, Camerupt doesn’t have a strong offensive option for the average water-type Pokémon. Its moves lean hard into its fire and ground typing, but it does have a steel-type move in Flash Cannon, which could be rough on any rock Pokémon in your roster if you decide to target its ground weakness rather than water. So the safest course of action is to use a water move like Aqua Tail or Quaquavel’s signature Aqua Step to take advantage of its lower physical defense stat.

Clodsire is Rika’s final Pokémon, and one of her trickiest. She will use her tera orb on it to overwrite its poison/ground typing and make it simply ground, so if you were planning on using a psychic attack to exploit its poison base typing, you’ll have to adjust. On top of this, Clodsire also has Water Absorb as its ability, which negates water attacks and also heals its HP by a quarter of its health. So it’s not just a wasted turn to try and use a water attack, it’s actively beneficial to Rika’s big oaf. Clodsire’s weaknesses in this scenario are grass, water, and ice.

Normally, I would advise against using a grass-type Pokémon against it because of its base poison typing, but Clodsire doesn’t have any damaging poison moves that could weaken a grass-type Pokémon. It does have Toxic, but that will only inflict the poison status, rather than do poison damage. The biggest struggle with Rika’s Clodsire is that, if you go in expecting to use certain moves, its tera typing or ability can trip you up. But once you know its actual spread of weaknesses, it’s a bit more straightforward.

Clodsire has a bulky special defense, but its physical defense is much lower. So if you can hit it with a physical ice or water move (such as Ice Spinner, Ice Hammer, or Aqua Tail), or fall back on the Aqua Step (if you’ve got it), Clodsire should go down pretty quickly.

Poppy’s cutesy personality is a façade hiding a powerhouse party of steel-type Pokémon.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Poppy, the steel-using child labor law violation

The second of the Elite Four is a case study in juxtaposition between trainer and Pokémon, as Poppy is probably the youngest trainer in the Paldea region, but has some hefty steel-type brawlers on her team. All that being said, fighting her team requires the same flexibility as Rika’s, as her Pokémon ebb and flow between the steel type’s strengths and weaknesses. As nice as it would be to pick your strongest fire type and set them all ablaze, Poppy’s team has a few notable counters for the types that weaken steel.

Copperajah (Steel), Level 58
Magnezone (Electric/Steel), Level 58
Bronzong (Psychic/Steel), Level 58
Corviknight (Flying/Steel), Level 58
Tinkaton (Terastalized Steel), Level 59

Poppy leads with her Copperajah, and it’s an immediate counter to fire types. It just has a simple steel typing, but with moves like High Horsepower, it can go toe-to-toe with a fire-type Pokémon with little issue. It also acts as a setup Pokémon because it has Stealth Rock, which will scatter stones around your team, dealing rock damage to any Pokémon you send out throughout the battle. This is especially bad for fire-type Pokémon, as they’re weakened by rock attacks.

You have a few options to counter this. One is to just knock Copperajah out so quickly it doesn’t have the chance to use Stealth Rock, which is best accomplished by using a powerful fire, fighting, or ground attack. Copperajah has a lot of HP and can pack a punch, but its defenses are pretty middle of the road, and it’s exceptionally slow. So if you can manage to outspeed it (fairly easy) and knock it out in one hit (challenging, but doable) you can circumvent the danger of Stealth Rock altogether.

I generally avoid teaching my Pokémon the most powerful moves in their respective typings because they often come with drawbacks to accuracy or recharge time, but if you want to be thorough here, a Fire Blast or High Jump Kick can wipe Copperajah out before it has a chance to set up. These are often overkill in typical play, but when you’re facing a match-long threat like Stealth Rock, better safe than sorry.

If you’re not so lucky to take Copperajah out quickly, having a Pokémon who can clear enemy hazards is always smart. Pokémon like Donphan, Forretress, or Coalossal can learn Rapid Spin, which will clear out the Stealth Rock without being in too much danger from Poppy’s steel Pokémon.

Magnezone is fairly straightforward, as its double weakness to ground-type moves makes it an easy one-hit knockout. Corviknight is also pretty simple, as it doesn’t have much to counter its fire and electric weaknesses.

Bronzong is a bit trickier, as it has plenty of counters for fire-type Pokémon with Rock Blast and Earthquake. It also has the Levitate ability, which makes it immune to ground-type moves most steel Pokémon would be susceptible to. As such, it’s better to focus on its psychic typing, rather than steel. A good dark-type Pokémon would be an ideal counter thanks to its immunity to Bronzong’s psychic attacks, and one that has high physical defense would be able to withstand all of its moves. Umbreon would be a good fit, as it has strong physical defense, and its base dark typing would give it immunity to Bronzong’s psychic moves, as well as strengthen its dark-type attacks like Dark Pulse or Crunch.

Poppy’s last Pokémon is its Tinkaton, which she will terastalize into a full steel-type. Even without the tera type, Tinkaton’s physical moveset packs a punch, so it’s a force to be reckoned with if you’re not careful. Luckily, its weaknesses don’t really change too much with this typing beyond adding fighting. So, if you have fire-, fighting-, or ground-type moves (which you will probably have needed to get this far in the fight), you should be good to take out Tinkaton.

I’d recommend opting for ground, as Poppy will likely exploit either of the other two with Play Rough and Stone Edge, which weaken fighting and fire, respectively. Tinkaton has a hefty special defense, so using a physical-based ground move like Earthquake is your best bet.

Larry, the star of the show, can’t show up only once in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Larry returns to fly to new heights

I can’t lie, he made such a positive impression on me as a gym leader earlier in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet that I lost my mind when Larry, Pokémon’s embodiment of the Dolly Parton song “9 to 5,” showed up as a member of the Elite Four. But while his normal-type team required one strategy, his flying-type party in the Pokémon League requires another.

Tropius (Grass/Flying), Level 59
Oricorio (Electric/Flying), Level 59
Altaria (Dragon/Flying), Level 59
Staraptor (Normal/Flying), Level 59
Flamigo (Terastalized Flying), Level 60

Unlike Rika and Poppy, most of Larry’s trickiest Pokémon lead his team. While most flying-type trainers in this series can be easily handled with a good electric-type Pokémon like Raichu or Jolteon, Larry’s Tropius, Oricorio, and Altaria all require you to look for alternate weaknesses.

Tropius is a grass/flying type, which means it’s double weak to ice. Historically, I don’t typically make space for an ice-type Pokémon on my team because most water-type Pokémon can reliably learn ice moves, but Tropius is kitted out with Sunny Day and Solar Beam, which is a combo that can make short work of any water-type that dares to enter the field. So if you don’t have an ice-type Pokémon to throw out a quick Ice Beam or a water-type that’s both fast and strong enough to interrupt this setup, it might be best to opt to target one of its other weaknesses.

Luckily Tropius has many with its grass/flying typing, so we can pick from fire, flying, rock, or poison, as well. Presumably, you have a fire-type Pokémon from your fight with Poppy, so that’s a good Pokémon to lead with and get a good Flamethrower out before Tropius has a chance to set up its Solar Beam.

Oricorio’s electric/flying typing is interesting, because separately, those two elements have straightforward weaknesses to exploit. But together they limit your options because it will be immune to ground moves and relatively resistant to electric ones. Its remaining weaknesses are rock and ice, Either option is as effective, but be mindful that it also knows Icy Wind, which can be super effective on some rock-type Pokémon if they have a secondary ground affinity.

Larry’s Altaria is one of the Pokémon you’ll face that feels directly spec’d to counter its usual weaknesses. The dragon/flying Pokémon knows Moonblast (Fairy), Flamethrower (Fire), Ice Beam (Ice), and Dragon Pulse (Dragon), which is a hard counter for almost anything you can throw at it…almost.

Altaria can counter dragon and ice pretty handily, but it doesn’t have much to take out fairy Pokémon, or defend against fairy-type moves. It has pretty respectable physical and special defense, but its physical defense is a tad lower. So if you’ve got someone on your team that knows Play Rough, it’s a solid counter that exists in the gaps of Altaria’s moveset.

Then all that’s left is Starapator and a terastalized flying-type Flamigo. You can take out both of these handily with strong electric attacks. It’s best to avoid ice-type Pokémon for these last two, as both of them have fighting attacks that could do significant damage.

Hassel teaches art at the academy in Paldea, but he also teaches the art of Pokémon battling as a member of the Elite Four.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Hassel teaches one final lesson

The final fight before the champion is against Hassel, the art teacher in Paldea’s academy. He specializes in dragon-type Pokémon, and his team includes a few ‘mons you likely won’t have seen by this point in your playthrough. So it’s good to be prepared for the twists and turns of this battle.

Noivern (Flying/Dragon), Level 60
Haxorus (Dragon), Level 60
Dragalge (Poison/Dragon), Level 60
Flapple (Grass/Dragon), Level 60
Baxcalibur (Terastalized Dragon), Level 61

Noivern leads Hassel’s team, and it’s one of the simplest in the group. It’s weak to all of dragon-type’s usual weaknesses, but its flying/dragon typing makes it twice as weak to ice-type moves. So blow a gentle, cold breeze in its direction (Ice Beam) and it should fall pretty quickly. Flapple is also pretty straightforward, as its grass/dragon typing makes it extremely susceptible to ice attacks, which it doesn’t have any real counters for.

Haxorus is also just a dragon-type, but it has a wider type coverage with its attacks. With Dragon Claw, Crunch, Iron Head, and Rock Tomb, it can reliably counter both ice and dragon Pokémon, so your best bet is to exploit the fairy-sized gap in its offensive capabilities as you did with Larry’s Altaria. Its physical defense is notably stronger than its special defense, so if you have Pokémon like Sylveon with an attack like Moonblast in your bag, you can make short work of Haxorus.

Dragalge is complicated because it can easily take down dragon and fairy Pokémon with its poison-type Sludge Bomb and dragon-type Dragon Pulse. So the safest weakness to exploit is likely psychic. You could also try ground, but do keep in mind Hassel’s Dragalge knows Hydro Pump, which can drop ground-type Pokémon in a single turn. Meanwhile, it doesn’t have any real counters for a psychic Pokémon, making it the poison/dragon-type’s biggest vulnerability.

Finally, we have Baxcalibur, Hassel’s ace and Scarlet and Violet’s pseudo-legendary. Hassel’s strategy with this Pokémon is pretty simple: Terastalize into a full dragon-type, and then use its signature move Glaive Rush until it wipes your team. If you have a fairy-type Pokémon you’ll be immune to this attack, so that will take the greatest threat off the table. But, oddly enough, Hassel’s Baxcalibur only knows two other moves, the ice-type Icicle Crash and fighting-type Brick Break. Fairy Pokémon are resistant to fighting attacks, and damaged normally by ice. So if you’ve got a fairy with decent special attack like the aforementioned Sylveon, you can carve your way through this Pokémon.

Geeta charges her tera orb as if it will make any meaningful impact on this battle. Go, girl. Give us nothing.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Here comes the final challenger, Geeta

After you defeat all the members of the Elite Four, you’ll be given a complementary party heal before you face Geeta, the champion of the Paldea region.

Espathra (Psychic), Level 61
Gogoat (Grass), Level 61
Veluza (Water/Psychic), Level 61
Avalugg (Ice), Level 161
Kingambit (Dark/Steel), Level 61
Glimmora (Terastalized Rock), Level 62

As fans have noted since Scarlet and Violet launched, Geeta’s team is a bit underwhelming for a champion, even compared to the Elite Four who are supposedly under her. She doesn’t specialize in any one typing, so there’s not the same subversion and adaptation you see in the other trainer fights. No one on her team is particularly powerful like Hassel’s Baxcalibur or Poppy’s Tinkaton. The weirdest part of all of it is that Glimmora, which is treated as her signature Pokémon, is a setup Pokémon by design, but she uses it last and wastes its Toxic Debris ability. As such, the only real strategy with her is simply having Pokémon who know attacks that weaken hers.

More than half of her team has a one-type elemental affinity, with psychic-type Espathra, grass-type Gogoat, and ice-type Avalugg all starting out as such, and Glimmora becoming one by terastalizing into a rock-type.

Espathra and Gogoat are mostly lacking in hard counters to their weaknesses. A ghost, dark, or bug attack will take Espathra out, though be wary of its Dazzling Gleam if you choose to go the dark route. Gogoat has basically nothing to combat a fire, bug, or flying Pokémon. Avalugg fares a bit better—Earthquake gives it something to fight off any fire or rock Pokémon—but its remaining moves feel like they’re there to fill spaces rather than help it overcome anything you throw at it. So feel free to safely use a steel or fighting attack.

Veluza and Kingambit have dual typings, which makes them a little more complicated, but their movesets are still pretty straightforward. Veluza is a water/psychic type, but those types together don’t create any sort of interesting resistances or immunities to be aware of. It’s weak to everything those types are weak to, so a bug, ghost, grass, electric, or dark move will be super effective. Geeta also hasn’t taught it any moves that weaken its usual vulnerabilities, with the closest thing to a subversion in its kit being Ice Fang, and ice moves are fairly predictable for a water-type Pokémon to have. As such, there’s not much to worry about here.

Kingambit has one saving grace, in that the dark/steel Pokémon knows Zen Headbutt, a psychic move that would make short work of a fighting-type Pokémon who would otherwise be able to exploit its double weakness to fighting. But the Pokémon is also terribly slow, so if you can outspeed it, you have a chance to avoid the attack altogether.

Then there’s Glimmora, whose puzzling placement just really underlines how suboptimal Geeta’s team is. The rock/poison Pokémon will terastalize into a rock type, which does halve its normal double weakness to ground into just a standard one, but it is still very much weak to fighting, steel, and water. This change also opens itself up into a grass weakness it didn’t have before.

When it comes to attacking those weaknesses it has Dazzling Gleam to handle fighting-type Pokémon and Sludge Wave to handle any grass-type Pokémon without a secondary type to resist it. So the safest type to use is water, but Glimmora is also slow enough that you can probably get those attacks out fast enough to defeat it anyway.

There are hints in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s endgame that Geeta and Glimmora are tied into story elements that have yet to be explored. As such, it makes some sense that narratively Geeta would use Glimmora as her partner Pokémon and ace in battle. But the way the Pokémon is built as a setup Pokémon through its Toxic Debris ability, which lays out Toxic Spikes on the battlefield after it’s hit with a physical attack, means it doesn’t make sense for it to be utilized this way in battle. All of Geeta’s team just feels like it lacks the same forethought of the rest of the Elite Four. What an odd fight.

After you defeat Geeta, that’s the last time you can face the Elite Four in this sequential structure. This is a departure from previous games, which let you challenge the Pokémon League multiple times. However, you can still face all of these trainers in the postgame Academy Ace Tournament, where their teams will be slightly stronger and have different movesets. Geeta’s team still sucks, though!