Joe Mad's video games always surprise me. You'd think by his third game that I'd know better than to write it off. I knew Battle Chasers: Nightwar looked as stylistic as any entry in the Darksiders series, but I still put the game off. The funny thing is if I had tried 3 minutes of the game, I would have been hooked a lot earlier.

Once I did finally hit start, those 3 minutes turned into 6 hours pretty quickly. The characters immediately leaped off the screen and I wanted to help this party find its remaining members and save the world. That's all you can ask from a turn-based JRPG-style experience, right?

The overworld map has some nifty mechanics to balance out a risk/reward system for grinding levels outside of dungeons. Each character has fun abilities, and I found myself tinkering with the tactics right out of the gate. It's a genre that doesn't need major innovation, but this game is unique where it counts. Thanks for the giant gloves, Battle Chasers: Nightwar.

Games of 2017

Throughout January, the Games of 2017 will lead the way towards The 2017 Grimmys - Horrible Night's Games of the Year Awards.

Previous years