This article was originally published in Issue 6 of the ICG Zine, August 2024. It was reformatted in January 2026, but has not been edited further.

Matt: Unicorn Overlord

Unicorn Overlord (UO) is a return to form of the tactics genre, parallel to John Wick in action. The John Wick formula in my eyes is to utilize a no-frills approach to storytelling, facilitating an elevation of choreography and action cinematography. That is the territory UO occupies for me.

UO maintains an effective melodramatic good versus evil plot that scaffolds the elevated battles. The skirmishes of UO have been standout and have kept me returning time and time again this past month.

The crux of UO’s battle system is a leader-unit conceit. For the given cast, you select a number of unit leaders to navigate the field, while the remaining characters are allotted to these leaders’ retinues’. This keeps the “bench” to a minimum. Each member of the unit actively engages in combat, with the leader maintaining a higher impact. You are able to explore all the various character dynamics to their fullest, with minimal loss of optimization. If the aforementioned optimization is your jam – the combinations of class abilities and actions are endless.

Despite the density of systems, the quality of life stays well above par. Combine that with the incredible visual polish, Unicorn Overlord is a must have for any tactics fan.

Seb: Path of Achra

Path of Achra is a $10 death sentence for your spare time. A perfect distillation of theorycrafting and RPG character building, it applies these to a traditional roguelike structure and removes all bloat, leaving only the crucial elements.

Its accessibility is deceptive, with a near endless, freeform combination of classes and skills. Want to play as a heavily armored warrior that poisons enemies every time you get attacked? Go crazy and throw in some summoned death cultists for good measure. Or max out your speed and spec into Astral skills, teleporting around the field while dual wielding. Cause lightning storms across the entire map every time your character moves.

There’s zero downtime in Path of Achra. Every round of combat gives you new skills, stats, and gear, pushing your build in new directions. The time spent between getting a new idea for a build (which will be happening constantly, even as you’re mid-run) is effectively zero. Select a culture, class, and deity, and jump right into your next rampage.

Tone is also handled beautifully, adding to the experience rather than bogging the experience down with lore exposition. The game’s lore is compellingly built through class, area, and item descriptions, as well as poems generated at the beginning and end of a run.

Graphics are crunchy in the best way, evoking the game’s myriad retro-CRPG influences. If you’re the type of person who loves spending time drafting up new D&D characters or planning your next party build, this is for you; just be ready to lose a minimum of 20 hours or so.

Jonah: Kingdom two crowns

As a game developer I am often getting scolded by my peers for not knowing my medium. In my home growing up, playing games was practically a sin, an activity only to be enjoyed in private on the weekends – play for more than an hour and you risk getting caught.

This relationship with games still haunts me and makes it difficult to sink into any game. I find myself restless, struggling to sit and enjoy the experience created by a fellow developer. But I want to challenge this impulse – I need to challenge this impulse – and relearn how to play. This month I started with Kingdom Two Crowns.

Kingdom Two Crowns is a slow burn – maybe too slow. It took me a few hours to discover my play style and how the game progresses. It is a side-scrolling base builder that pushes pixel art to its limit with beautiful parallax landscapes, moody atmospheres, and gorgeous reflections. You play as a monarch and build up your presence on island after island by expanding your base, exploring the area, and fighting off the enemies of each with the militias you create.

It is not the game to play if you are looking for something high-pressure. It does not demand much of your mind, your body, or your soul. There are only three input buttons required which have been artfully stretched by incorporating all decision making into the environment of the game – you can only build where they have predetermined it, your character is no more than a means of navigation, and your subjects do all the work.

I have taken to playing it at the end of my day because much like the final moments of a campfire, it is beautiful, it burns slowly, and while it emits an occasional spark of excitement, it is ultimately a reminder that I should go to bed.

Kailey: Destiny 2

For the past 2 years I’ve played Destiny 2 every Tuesday, it’s the game my friends wanted to play and somehow I’ve survived this long. Their recent release “The Final Shape” was fun and painful in a good way (unlike The Witch Queen, which almost killed me).

I unlocked a mission called Dual Destiny, which is basically a 2-person dungeon, and I do not understand how people do that. I played through it once and felt like I was going to scratch my eyeballs out. The whole thing is TIMED and I have to read out D2 specific shapes to my friend.

Some of the symbols are weird angles of the witness! I’m wasting precious time trying to kill guys while running around to find a specific part of the Witness’ head!? I spent a majority of the mission falling, trying to look closer at a shape to explain it to my friend. If that’s the main mechanic of the game, why is the UI so small?? I’M PLAYING ON A TV and I SIT CLOSE! I cannot imagine playing on a monitor. You don’t get anything cool at the end! Just an exotic something!! Not an extra story beat or, I don’t know, something better.

Moral of the story is that I failed the mission and I never want to play that mission again.