We are now effectively six weeks from the end of the 2026 season as the final scheduled launch will arrive on December 10th.

Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games

Week forty-four had just a single title queued up for release, Phantom Blade Zero, but there was still a fair amount of shifting in the scores.

First though, we need to set the bar with where things stood last week.

Week 43 Scores

The score updates started on Sunday afternoon after the week forty-three post had already gone live, with a bit of a hit to One Piece: Grand Gourmet.

  • One Piece: Grand Gourmet
    • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 80.0 to 78.3

That was followed Sunday evening by the first scores rolling in for the week’s one title, Phantom Blade Zero.

Phantom Blade Zero

The Chinese developed wuxia action role-playing game… I looked that up… landed with a seriously solid initial score.

  • Phantom Blade Zero
    • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
    • Now has a score of 90.8

The question, as always, is whether or not a title that comes out strong can hold onto a high score as more reviews arrive.

The next day saw a small drop.

  • Phantom Blade Zero
    • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 90.5 to 89.5

Not a bad hit, but it still had some time before launch.

One Piece: Grand Gourmet on the other hand, continued its decline.

  • One Piece: Grand Gourmet
    • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 77.9 to 76.1
  • One Piece: Grand Gourmet
    • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 76.1 to 75.0

That was more than counteracted when Phantom Blade Zero launched late Wednesday night with a score of 88.8… could you have picked a more on the nose score… boosting Shawn’s score.

However, it was not enough to alter the rankings on the board, so Shawn remained in 7th place despite all the score gyrations.

Meanwhile the league bot was busy announcing a bunch of titles with scores higher than many of our picks.

  • The Wolf Among Us Remastered
    • [Available]
    • Now has a score of 83.1
  • Tenebris Somnia
    • [Unpublished]
    • Score has gone UP from 82.9 to 85.0
  • Songs of Glimmerwick
    • [Unpublished]
    • Now has a score of 83.3
  • Tenebris Somnia
    • [Unpublished]
    • Score has gone UP from 85.0 to 86.7
  • Colorbound
    • [Unpublished]
    • Now has a score of 84.5
  • The Witch’s Bakery
    • [Unpublished]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 88.3 to 85.0

The bot is currently set to announce notable missed picks, which I thought was anything with a score of 85 or over, but the bot must be feeling like piling on by including Songs of Glimmerwick.

Then there was one final score hit for the week.

  • Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse
    • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 84.4 to 83.3

And that was the week, leaving the scoreboard… unchanged save for individual scores.

Week 44 Scores

There was no change in the rankings.  Everybody held their positions… the the league predicts there are some changes coming.

On the upcoming front, we had another title push out to 2027.

  • The Duskbloods
    • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
    • Estimated release date changed from ‘2026’ to ‘2027’

That looks like Shintar needs to make another pick.

We also had two bids.

  • Bids in TAGN League
    • Guns of Eschaton
      • Won by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod) with a bid of $25
      • Dropped game ‘Ecco the Dolphin Re-Something (Unannounced)’ conditionally
    • Hollow Knight: Silksong – Sea of Sorrow
      • Won by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar) with a bid of $11
      • Dropped game ‘Enter the Gungeon 2’ conditionally

Shilgrod dumped the unannounced Ecco the Dolphin title for Guns of Eschaton, while Shintar dropped Enter the Gungeon 2 for the Hollow Knight: Silksong expansion.

That is a bit of a roll of the dice for Shintar, hoping for a big score, as the Hollow Knight: Silksong expansion is only estimated for this year… and there isn’t a lot of this year left.  Given her other remaining title just got pushed out to 2027, she might need to budget for two picks with her remaining $16.

All of which left the upcoming titles… the next 10 of which are the last with solid dates, looking like this.

Week 45 Coming Up

Next week we have two titles.  There is WoW Forever, my final title for the season, and the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, which has the potential to be the GTA VI sized title for Switch 2 players this year.

Related:

  • TAGN Fantasy Critic League
  • Fantasy Critic Site
  • Fantasy Critic How to Play
  • Fantasy Critic FAQ
  • Fantasy Critic Most Desired Reviews
  • Open Critic Review Site