#does anyone who follows me even know the castlevania games well

[furby-yeehaw]

I wanna know what happened in the year or so between Aira of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow. Like Soma has to go back to being a high schooler. My Life As a Teenage Dracula or some shit

[gamerdog1]

Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix Review

Its time to talk about crossovers. It seems that everywhere you look these days, big media conglomerates have been rushing out crossovers left and right, hoping to make a quick buck off of the nostalgic masses. To them, its easy money: put two or more popular things together, and people will come with wallets in hand. It doesn't even have to make sense; Fortnite gets away with slapping whatever popular characters they want in the game, because they know kids all across the world will steal their mommies' credit cards to get them.

But why all the crossover hate? Some of the most exciting and beloved pieces of media in recent decades have been crossovers, in one way or another. Wreck-It Ralph (2012) had Zangief from Street Fighter, Pac-Man, Bowser, and Doctor Eggman, along with dozens of other video-game characters, and none of it felt forced or contrived. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) was the first time Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse appeared in the same scene, and it too, doesn't feel forced. Super Smash Bros., a game series which, under any other circumstances, would be seen as pandering, is one of the highest selling Nintendo franchises of all times, and continues to be an important part of the fighting game community.

Perhaps, then, what makes a crossover film, show, or game, high quality is what it does with itself. Anyone can put a bunch of famous characters in a scene, but what comes next? You've got a bunch of household names in a room together, so what? Pulling off a successful crossover isn't easy, but one thing's for sure: you better sell it quick, and sell it well.

Netflix, for all its ups and downs, sure knows how to sell a crossover. Last year, they lovingly gave us Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, an animated series that features famous Ubisoft game characters in a dystopian cyberpunk future. Most people, like, me, got excited at hear the premise alone. A crossover with all our favorite game characters, helmed by showrunner behind Castlevania (2017) and the upcoming Devil May Cry series, seemed like a sure bet for some fast animation and punchy violence. Little did we know that behind the neon lights and blood splatters, was an important discussion about media's role in a oligarchic society.

CL:BDR follows Dolph Laserhawk, an ex-military cyborg who fights the governing technocracy with his boyfriend, Alex. Betrayed and left for dead, Laserhawk is enlisted in a covert team designed to take down the government through espionage. Along the way, Laserhawk grapples with his own conflicting feelings, as we learn more about how terrible life has become for everyone.

In the show, the United States has been taken over by a company called Eden, which rules through propaganda and heavy policing. Beneath the shiny veneer of peace and unity that peppy TV show hosts provide, lies a city where poverty is rampant, and anthropomorphic animals are treated as sub-human. Its a harsh reality, contrasted wonderfully by the cutesy, childish propaganda was seen on TVs throughout the show. We see a cute character sing about how we should thank all the 'hybrids' in our neighborhood for all the work they do, then smash-cut to a factory where those same 'hybrids' are forced to produce snake venom for hours without rest.

Eden is run through propaganda, which bleeds into every aspect of life for it's people. Buildings all across cities are branded with the company's name and logo, as blimps displaying the news hover above. Popular television star Rayman (from the self-titled games) gives both the nightly news, but runs the children's network too, ensuring that there's no escape from the government mouthpiece. In a world where major brands have begun to dominate the market more and more, its stuff like this that seems less fictional, and more like a warning.

In that regard, CL:BDR is an excellent piece of cyberpunk. After the Netflix anime, and recent game (of dubious quality), it feels as though most people see cyberpunk simply as another aesthetic. A flashy, edgy coat of paint to throw on when the sci-fi story need a little oomph. It saddens me to see that we're losing sight of the important of cyberpunk, but at least with this show, I can rest easy knowing they got the memo.

Still, for what its worth, the aesthetics are on point too. The show is full of lots of sharp, jagged lines, and angular shading, complimenting its fast action sequences and sometimes complex character designs. Night shots are dense, full of geometric buildings with lights littered like smaller suns, casting colored shadows. Its everything you'd expect out of an anime (or anime inspired) cyberpunk show.

What makes CL:BDR more than just a run-of-the-mill gritty animated series is how it leans into its video game-ness. Like Bocchi the Rock (2022), CL:BDR experiments with different animation styles, playing around with its visuals to achieve different effects. One episode has Laserhawk and his mysterious boss wandering through a virtual world, created by one of the last survivors of the wasteland beyond the city. Inside, both characters appear as their voice actors, pixelated like an old FMV game, yet the world around them is animated like normal. When under stress, the characters flip back and forth between pixilation and chunky polygons, as if going through the eras of gaming technology before our eyes.

Unlike early video game adaptations, CL:BDR is unafraid to be based on video games, celebrating past games instead of trying to 'class' them up for a wider audience. Nearly the entire main cast are taken from video games, and tweaked slightly to fit the story in ways that feel normal for them. Older gamers will get a kick out of seeing familiar faces, but for younger folks like me, the characters are written in a way that doesn't rely on viewers to have prior knowledge of them. You could watch this show without having played any Ubisoft games and still enjoy it.

If not for the game references, watch this show for the characters. Laserhawk himself is a deeply fascinating character, who struggles between his sense of justice, a drive for revenge, and feelings for someone he knows he can't trust. In any other show he'd be another gun-waving edgelord, but CL:BDR clearly cares about him, and works hard to get you to care about him too.

Bullfrog is another good character, who, if not for Laserhawk, I'd call my favorite. There's just something comedic about having a trained assassin from an ancient brotherhood be a chipper, cute anthropomorphic frog. In a show where everyone is gritty and serious, Bullfrog keeps scenes from getting too dark, drops a few jokes here and there, and is one of the nicest ones there.

Out of all the characters in this show, though, none are more surprising than Rayman. After years without a new game, and being ignored by Ubisoft in favor of the Rabbids, Rayman finally has his time to shine here, but in the most horrible, wonderful kind of way. Rayman's arc, going from corporate shill to full-blown terrorist, is given a surprising amount of time and focus, and by the end of the show, you really feel bad for him.

CL:BDR, at the end of the day, is a cyberpunk series for gamers, sci-fi fans, animation fans, or really any adults with access to it. Watching this show, I hadn't been this excited to see what comes next in a while, especially given Netflix's feast-or-famine adult animation library. I doubt it'll get a second season, but if it does, I'll be watching it the day it comes out, excited to see what this studio has cooking up next. If it has as much queer rep. as this show does, we're in for a treat.

[hishoukoku]

Tag Game:

10 Characters, 10 Fandoms, 10 Tags

Tagged by: @oddishblossom. Thank you! 💖

This was certainly a trip down memory lane haha. I forgot I was really into a few of these a while back. I may not be in most of these fandoms now, but I put them in for them being my obsession at some point in time.

Rn my head is filled with MDZS anyway so xD

1. Wei Wuxian ~ MDZS

He is one of my absolute favorite characters of all time. I adore everything about him, he's outrageously smart, calculated, intelligent, witty, funny, sexy, he invented necromancy, his morality is perfect (in the novel) what more do you want?

I really have to keep this short and not a 10k essay xD

2. Xie Lian ~ TGCF

Xie Lian's character compelled me through his absolute resilience and tenacity, despite all his trauma. He's been through an outrageous amount of pain and suffering, yet he's selfless but unafraid to fuck ship up when needed. He also recognizes and loves Hua Cheng for exactly who he is and I love him too.

3. Luo Binghe ~ SVSSS

Going from withstanding Shen Jiu's physical and emotional torture, to falling madly with Shen Qingqiu to being 'betrayed' by him and to coming back (all demonic and sexy) to being obsessed even more up to marrying him. He's been through a lot, he's willing to endure whatever it takes if it means he can be with Sheng Qingqiu. The entire plot was altered due to his infatuation with him.

4. Zuko ~ ATLA

If you've followed me for a while I posted a bit / spam reblogged ATLA on this blog. Zuko was always the most compelling character in ATLA for me and I will always love and defend him. He deserves a lot of love and recognition for his growth and development.

5. Chuuya ~ BSD

My gorgeous smart-ass half god, half jerk in love with Dazai. Port Mafia executive Nakahara Chuuya. I theorized a lot about him when I was OBSESSED with BSD and his character is extremely interesting to delve into. + he can fuck up an army with his hands in his pockets xD

6. Shogo Makashima ~ Psycho-Pass

Wouldn't be able to talk abt this show now due to it being so long ago, but at the time I watched this I remember thinking: 'this is the absolute best, most intricate and most well designed villain of all time and I am IN LOVE'. Of course, it's been a long time since and I've the same opinion about others now, but still worth putting here for my brainrot back then.

7. Kageyama Tobio ~ Haikyuu

Before MXTX I was extremely invested in Haikyuu. I loved everything Tobio represented from the first moment he showed up on screen and god knows I fought to defend him a lot.

8. Alucard ~ Castlevania

Castlevania was my shortest obsession, but during the time I watched it I feel in love with Alucard. I cried over my half vampire boy finally getting the happiness he deserves.

9. Envy ~ FMA

I know not everyone's favorite, but he always stood up as that villain that wasn't ridiculously OP for no reason, as FMA does. He had his insecurities and vulnerabilities, he was very realistic and believable!

10. Fushiguro Megumi ~ Jujutsu Kaisen

Megumi's ability not to care what others think judge things by his own ideology is what drew me towards him. Plus he's extremely stoic and calculated.

This was difficult because from each of these fandoms I love a lot of characters and I'm into a lot of ships. I could re-do this list for the same fandoms with a whole set of characters, a few times over haha.

And now for the 10 Tags too:

This is a lot and y'all really don't have to if you don't want to <3

Tagging: @hualianaddict @novas-grimoire @captain-stab-a-hoe @dual-domination @my-surname-is-jin @sweet-sweet-days @shigacajun @anisthasiazewicor @mushrooms-and-ivy @theheartconstellation

Sorry if I missed anyone in the 10 tags list and sorry if some of you already did it. If anyone else wants to do it, please do and you can say I tagged you!

[darkspellmaster]

I've never played the games but I'm curious to know if there really is a significant difference between game Alucard and show Alucard. The reason I ask this is because some of the criticisms I've seen in regards to S3 is how some people didn't like how they've butchered Alucard's character and that they fear that the writers are going to turn him evil at some point due to the trauma. I don't think he will because that would royally tick off the fans of the games but who knows at this point.

I’m so late on replying to these because of my job! 

So this is an interesting topic to me because of how the character of Alucard evolved and what he’s become in regard to Castlevania and it’s history, and the history of known dampirers in general. And how Warren Ellis tends to tell stories, since he’s the one writing this story. 

I suppose I should start all the way back with who Alucard was and where he came from. 

The character of Alucard, at least within the Castlevania lore, really started way back in Castlevania III and was no where near the character we know and love now. This was back in 1989 and Castlevania was still going on the theme of Universal Horror monsters of the 1940s and 1950s. So way back when in 1943 Universal put out a movie called Son of Dracula, where the main character was the son of Dracula named, you guessed it, Alucard. (However in this case he’s not really Dracula’s kid, rather he’s Dracula himself.) It’s pretty clear that Konami wanted to use the idea of dracula having a kid for this game, but I digress. 

So the first version of Alucard was from the game and was designed by  T. Fujimoto and I. Urata.

Alucard in this case was designed to be a mirror image of his father and a vampire. The idea here was to create a character that while a monster was someone that could be seen as an ally as well. During this time his personality was still sort of not fully created as his main goal was the opposition of his father and the other members of those that served him by infiltrating the underground. In Castlevania III Alucard’s personality is shown to be far more amiable and warm. 

His tone here is very different. He’s more invested in dealing with with father, befriending Trevor with a handshake, and later versions of Alucard are more quiet and calm, this one is ready to go and get his father. So early forms of Alucard show him to be a more open and warrior character, but also at the end of the game on Alucard’s route, it’s clear that he feels guilty about killing his father, which brings up one of the aspects of him that moved into the later versions of the character. 

The next version of Alucard that comes up, and leads into the Change of Character is the 1997 Symphony of the Night. The design of his character took a drastic change in the hands of  Ayami Kojima, who restyled Alucard into the blonde gothic character we have now (of note, this was her first big gig, and Captain N gave him the blonde hair in 1993, though that is non cannon), which mirrored the change in Alucard’s personality. 

Gone was the more stylized monster movie look of the smirking character that you see above, instead Director/Producer  Koji Igarashi changed up his personality. While Castlevania 3 Alucard was more or less a “Let’s go get him” possibly upbeat person, Igarashi turned him more into a brooding, bitter pessimistic person who believed his blood was cursed and that he was doomed to forever fight and deal with the actions of his father. While his aloofness and coolness come off as curt, it’s holding back a more traumatic personal history that he doesn’t want to burden on others. He’s quick to throw away allies to keep them safe, and at the same time, takes on challenges to protect those he loves. He tends to be very antisocial at points for fear of being hurt again, yet, he’s willing to save humans and befriend them as his mother’s words stuck with him. 

Alucard in a lot of ways is the dark brooding trauma guy with the heart of gold. This is how most people see him, since Symphony of the Night became a huge deal for most people and how they percive Alucard. As a character he’s someone who loves and cares for others, and wants to protect humans, and sees those who act like his father as dangerous and in the wrong. 

The major differences in Alucard in the Show and Alucard of the game fall down to a few things. 

1. Alucard in the games is less innocent than Alucard in the show. He’s far more cunning a person. He’s a Batman type, having a plan for everything and being alive a lot longer than what he is in the show. Where as Alucard in the show is far more of an innocent person who is only a late teenager, maybe 20 years at most coming up, and has not experienced much in the world yet. The indication, unlike game Alucard, is that Lisa helped raise him until recently. 

2. Unlike game Alucard, Show Alucard seems to be more against the idea of Humans hunting monsters. The problem is that as a character, he tends to find the monsters of the world vile, and rather see them dead than alive at all. While the show does keep true to his guilt issue, it seems more like Alucard in the game is far more invested in the death of his Father and understands that it needs to be done because Dracula in the games is a far more sinister figure than what we have now in show, who seems more based on his later Lament of Innocent’s game depiction (a man that is pushed to chose to do something horrible in order to punish what he believes is the one that wronged him in taking his wife away). So there is a key difference there. 

3. The biggest one. Alucard in game would not pike someone. Again as a more cunning person, and more pessimistic, he would be suspect of the two new hunters. He’d never allow them to get that close until he knew what they were up to, and even then he would not sleep the way he does in the show. Even if they attack him, he’d more likely use magic to send them flying out of the castle. Not to mention the fact that the castle is a living thing in the games, and changes based on who is in control of it. So naturally it would not allow for anyone to harm the son of it’s owner (Dracula) so it would have kicked them out, and Alucard would know that. Alucard is a person who sees the good in humanity, preaching it to others who see them as monsters. He feels they have a hard lot in life and that because of their shorter life span they should be pitied and felt more sympathetic towards. Above all, Alucard would not use his father’s tactics. Rather he would probably bury them in the ground over displaying their corpses for all to see. 

This is where Ellis’s writing comes into play. To make it make sense for why Alucard would go to sleep for 300 years, he needed to give him a reason. What better reason then being traumatically assaulted and harmed  by those you think care for you. My guess is that Warren probably will play up the “tempted by darkness” trope and then in the end comes back to the light, only to seal himself to make sure that he never is hurt again. 

The reason why so many are worried about Alucard is because of how this last season is making him look. Not only foolish for being so trustworthy, even though in the last two seasons he wasn’t, and then allowing himself to follow his father’s belief. This is in conflict to the mirror image that Dracula and Alucard are supposed to hold up to one another. Alucard should not become a monster, he’s a hero, and needs to be seen that way. 

[fancyemowolfbat]

Thoughts on Castlevania S3: Taka and Sumi’s abuse of Adrian

Season three spoilers below: and yes, this is plot heavy. So if you haven’t seen yet, read at your own risk.

But the TL;DR: I love Castlevania and this scene only made me love it more.

To start: This is entirely an opinion post. I don’t have enough energy to make it into a full analysis with resources and other things. So don’t take this as an essay with some deep meaning. This is entirely just an impressions post.

I love this scene. I love the writing and the visuals. And I love that it was handled in a very real manner. And I love that it represented abuse correctly, because make no mistake-- this scene was abuse--at the very least, and rape at worst. But I’m not saying that for the reasons others have given. But I’m going to get back to that in a moment.

I’m going to leave out the controversy that’s been spat about this scene, because honestly, I don’t feel like talking about it. Like I said, I’m tired. And I’m not gonna harass someone else over their opinions just because they’re different than mine. If you didn’t like this, that’s totally fine. Please don’t ask me to debate, I’m not interested in . I’m simply enjoying this show in my own little corner, and am sharing my own opinions and observations for those who might be curious.

1.) Adrian is confirmed canonically (as far as the Netflix series goes) Bisexual.

While the events that follow the scene absolutely make this scene abuse and manipulation, at the start, Adrian does consent to the sex initially (INITIALLY, I’m not forgetting what happens after). He willingly makes out with both Sumi and Taka, and he’s very obviously anally penetrated when Taka puts Adrian’s legs over his shoulders. It’s not subtle. This is probably the smallest thing to mention given what happens, but this did make me happy. Adrian is only the second character in my favorites list to be confirmed LGBTQIA+ (the other being Damien Bloodmarch from Dream Daddy: a Dad Dating Simulator). And I won’t lie, I cried for both instances.

This is a popular show, and Adrian is one of the main characters. This season had so many good examples of LGBT+ relationships-- including a very healthy partnership between two of the female villains which was openly discussed by them on screen. It’s treated as normal but not made the focus of the story, though it’s very obvious and not hidden. This was very impressive and respectful, showing a range of different orientations, and showing both healthy and unhealthy relationships.

I won’t address the games, because I haven’t finished playing them. I’ve heard some saying he’s always been bi, some saying it was never confirmed, and some saying he was confirmed straight. So I don’t know. I am of the opinion that a character’s sexuality does not affect the overall lore any more than their skin color or religion does. BUT, that is all I can say. I don’t know the games. And this scene certainly does include lore, as I will touch on in a bit...

2.) This scene was abuse, and the writing vilifies it as such.

As I said above, Adrian does seem to initially consent to the sex. He returns their kisses, he grips onto Sumi’s ass, and holds Taka’s shoulder as they make out. These are actions that imply he was enjoying this at the beginning. Although, it is possible he may have felt somewhat pressured to go further, as when they initially push him down, he does seem taken back, although that may have been mostly surprise.

However, as the scene goes on, it becomes clear that these two are attempting to make Adrian vulnerable. They continue with him until he is exhausted-- there are two of them and one of him. And given Adrian’s reactions, it’s very possible this may have been his first time. And I’m also not going to gloss over the fact that Adrian himself has said that he aged quickly. It is entirely possible that Adrian may still mentally be a child, in which case, this is also two young adults taking advantage of a younger teenager.

However, when this clearly becomes abuse and possibly rape is why they were having sex with him in the first place-- they wanted to make him vulnerable enough to kill him. They grew impatient with Adrian, wanting him to do things he could not do and teach them things he had not yet had the chance to. He gave them all he could, but their urge to return to Japan and free their people grew into a desire to kick out and replace the authority that abused them, to “make their own empire.” I also like that this makes this very real and tangible-- the abusers are not cartoonishly evil. They are real people with real motives who experienced abuse themselves. This hits a really sensitive topic many people aren’t willing to address-- that anyone is capable of abuse, villains aren’t alien, and people who may be otherwise trustworthy may commit grievous acts which can deeply hurt people.

What solidifies the idea in my mind is Adrian’s reaction after he kills them both and frees himself. We see him, having dragged himself to his childhood bedroom, laying on the floor in the spot where he killed his father, shaking and crying. He was violated. He was betrayed. The first time he’d been living a somewhat normal life in over a year, and the only two friends he had after Sypha and Trevor left stabbed him in the back. These humans, whom he killed his father to protect, took advantage of him and almost killed him, forcing him to kill them first.

I’m going to link to this post by @fandomwanderer​ and this post by @mega-ringsandthings-world​, because the sum up the idea better than I ever could. But this sets up Adrian’s character superbly. I will say, my wish for the next season is a bit different.

I hope that, eventually, Sypha and Trevor do come back, expecting Adrian to be waiting for them with open arms. And instead they find a very cold, very detached Adrian who is not acting like himself. I want tension between these three characters who used to be friends, until it builds up and eventually leads to a clash, possibly in the form of a physical fight. I want it to escalate until something happens and causes pause enough for Sypha and Trevor to talk Adrian down, at which point we finally see him start to crack, and eventually break down in his friends arms. I want them to ask about the scars, and prod and push until he snaps and attacks them, only to lead to him revealing everything that happened and clinging to them for comfort, while they wish they could’ve been the ones to kill the bastards. I truly do hope this happens. It’s been Three Seasons. Two of them have ended with Adrian sobbing. I want him to finally get some relief. But, even with this, I’m sure whatever the writers decide to do, it will be amazing. They’re in a very precarious place right now, but I’m excited to see where they go with it.

3.) Adrian’s reaction is perfectly justified.

This may just be an extension of point two, but Sumi and Taka’s abuse is not excused by the writing. All too often in fiction, rape and abuse are written off as not being that bad or even being desirable. What happens to Adrian is not painted as positive. It affects him extremely negatively, and it is not treated as his fault in any way. Even though he initially consented, these two betrayed his trust and hurt him. That is never treated as something he should be responsible for. Granted, with this being at the end of the series, there wasn’t much time for this to digest. I expect to see some characters see how he reacted by killing and spitting them, and initially assume that he did so because “he’s Dracula's son and of course.” But these characters will likely be doing so without context. The abuse also isn’t blamed on Adrian’s apparent orientation. Hector is abused in the same way by Lenore, in a heterosexual female-on-male abuse scene. And as stated above, there are healthy LGBT+ relationships in the show, as well.

Also, as the above linked post states, this also leads to us seeing Adrian slip slowly into the mindset his father once held-- perhaps not completely, but it is beginning. And all I’m left to think is, how much must this hurt? How much must Adrian hate seeing himself this way after everything he did for humans? But he’s so hurt by this betrayal that he can’t see things any other way right now. He is in pain, and he has had no real rest from that pain since his mother was killed.

“I gave you everything.” Adrian opened his home to Sumi and Taka, and he opened his heart to them, as well. He gave them his home, his weapons, his knowledge, his body. He is very young and very trusting, despite everything he’s been through. And that trust was taken and shoved right back in his face with insult and humiliation. He gave his all, not just for Sumi and Taka, but for humanity as a whole. He killed people, he killed his own kind, and he killed his own father-- his only remaining parent-- after his own mother was killed by the very people he was trying to protect. He gave everything, and humanity took it all and then shat on him in return. Adrian has every. right to feel betrayed. I don’t think he’ll be the new villain solely because I believe they will stick a bit closer to game lore, and may rather have him simply put himself to rest until the next major disaster hits humanity. But I do think this event caused his view of humanity to be less rose-tinted. He was forced to grow up fast, and much more painfully than he should’ve.

I truly hope, more than anything else, in future seasons Adrian does get some form of relief. Though, I doubt the world is done kinking him while he’s down. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, something truly good and unbastardized will come his way. Until then, I’ll be waiting with baited breath. I couldn’t be happier that this series is continuing.

P.S.: Please let me hug Adrian.

[demonfox38]

Completed - Silent Hill

That's at least one more flavor than I need.

So. "Silent Hill." Konami's 1999 survival horror debut about one of the worst towns in the U.S. this side of Raccoon City. It feels silly to talk about this game in any way that a general gamer wouldn't already know its deal. Small town, big spoopy, make polygonal dad man go splat through the town to find his daughter. Can he do? Up to you!

To me, "Silent Hill" is fascinating in terms of its development and aesthetic strengths. Its developers—that is to say, Team Silent—were every sort the rag-tag team that one might see in a film about an underdog team on their last leg. I'm certainly not the best when it comes to following staff members of various productions, but I damn well know the names of Akira Yamaoka and Masahiro Ito because of this series. Hell, the legends about CGI animator Takayoshi Sato sleeping under his desk to protect his cutscenes while they were rendering is awe-inspiring in terms of dedication, if not a little unsettling.

Dude, game developers really need better protection and more time to work on projects or time off. You should not be able to tell who's been working on what project based on body odor.

This game is a mix both of the best the Playstation could do and using its limitation to create art. Pretty much anyone familiar with "Silent Hill" knows of its oppressive fog and how it is being used to cover for the game's poor loading while out on the town proper. While no monster in this game gained quite the same popularity as "Silent Hill 2"'s Pyramid Head, what is here is simple and clear as to what the monsters are supposed to represent (most of which boil down to a child's fear of various animals and people). Hell, what is not present in game is just as fascinating. It's really quite something how dark environments, gritty textures, and simple models can come together to make a disturbing visual experience.

Of course, that can come down to what a person finds scary. But, hell. Puppet Combo and Airdorf prove that you don't need the sharpest of graphics to become horror game icons.

If you can, I would advise playing this game closer to the screen than normal. Perhaps even emulated, if you're down with that. There are a lot of little details you may not catch sitting far back or even watching in a playthrough. Like, I was really shocked to find a decapitated dog head laying under a basketball hoop. I would also routinely walk past strung-up corpses, only to come back and really give them a good stare. It's amazing what will snap into view if you take the time to let the environment sink in.

The real winner in the aesthetics department is Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack. It really does deserve a full listen, if you have the time. The range on this soundtrack is all over the place, from dramatic to somber to straight up metallic screaming and slamming. Like, no shit he pitched in on "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" with sound programming. Dude's got stones in the percussion department. There's a rawness in this OST that subsequent "Silent Hill" games shed (particularly, with the more alternative rock songs present in 3 and 4), so it's a bit of a unique experience. I really appreciate how far it goes, even when it leaves me wincing and worrying about what's in the next room or hall.

While "Silent Hill 2" is the better acclaimed game of the series now-a-days, I find this game to be much more frightening. "Silent Hill 2" is about a depressive march towards some variant of redemption, while "Silent Hill" is about the fears of parents and children. Your protagonist is undergoing one of the worst ordeals a parent can face—that is, losing their child in a hostile environment, uncertain of where they have gone or if they are okay. The kids in this story are facing an abusive parent and powers way beyond their understanding, along with the cruelties of classrooms and hospitals. Hell, there's a bit of a teenaged pregnancy tone to it, when you get deep enough into the story. I'm not saying that the plot doesn't get hamstringed from time to time (particularly, by its cultist roots), but there are enough threads here to really bring out the dread.

I mean, fuck. Everything with Lisa Garland is just so harrowing and awful. Girl deserved none of that shit.

Some of the tone is a bit lost with the voice acting in the game. There are some people that absolutely knock it out of the park. Like, I was taken aback to learn that the same guy who plays Harry Mason exceedingly safe was also the man who gave us the memetastic "What is a man?" reading from "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night." The real tone killer has everything to do with Dahlia and her cult members. A fair amount of that may have to do with some childish-level translations into English, but the level of ham her voice actress provides sure doesn't help, either.

But, hell. Even when the game works well, I don't think it's the developer's intention to be entirely serious. It's hard to keep a straight face with Stephen King's "Study, Dammit!" poster being slapped right in your face, never the less the whole UFO ending and modeling a school after "Kindergarten Cop", of all things. I guess it depends on how much the referencing and dark humor will spoil the mood for you. Personally, I enjoyed it. Horror is best served by people who are a little anxious and goofy, after all. Makes the dreadful parts sting all the harder.

It's particularly weird playing this game as someone who is as old as the protagonist. Not that I have kids myself, but I have a friend who has a daughter that may very well grow up to look a bit like Cheryl. So, lots of bad feels there, worrying about kids. It's one of those things that make me reflect on what protagonists I play, you know? Dad games in particular have become more common as the gaming populace ages, particularly with titles like "The Last of Us", that recent "God of War" game, and that Telltale "The Walking Dead" game. Oh, yeah. And everything about "Dream Daddy," I guess. But, the dad experience is not one I often get. Having this opportunity made me think a lot about how rigidly game protagonists are defined—particularly, how few playable moms there are.

Look. I get it. Games are a lot about marketing appeal, and the average audience targeted consists of 18 to 35-year-old Asian and white dudes. But, there really are a lot of lost perspectives out there. I'm not even saying Harry Mason is that far of a stretch in terms of diversity in protagonists. However, his status as a dad contributed greatly to the reactions I had with this game. I want to have that sort of emotional link to as many different protagonists as possible—especially if they're not 100% like me. Ya know. Building empathy and shit.

Man, can you imagine the bitchfit a certain class of modern gamers would have had over Cybil? Or maybe there were a lot of people complaining about her in the past, and I was spared from their vitriol. I know we're in full ACAB mode, but it is rare to get a well-meaning lady cop that is willing to spare you her gun. Could she have been a bit more than a secondary damsel that you had the option of saving? Sure. But, you've gotta appreciate the gifts you're given. I just feel bad that I couldn't do anything for Lisa, too.  

A major problem with this game is that the controls for Harry are as awkward as a rusty tricycle with a stick poked through the front wheel’s spokes. At his root, Harry operates on tank controls. Which, fine. I got through the non-Dual Shock version of "Resident Evil 2", so I can handle some measure of tank controls. However, Harry's movement also factors in momentum. This will often leave the player weaving drunkenly through the streets, splatting them against walls and doors as they try to escape monsters. God forbid you don't have a straight shot on the door you want to get into. There were instances I had to run around enemies like a bimbo in high heels just because I couldn't get Harry angled right to get into tight corridors. Couple this with a stubborn, downright ornery camera, and you may have to have your fingers on two or three buttons just to get Harry to even look the right way.  

There are options to toggle the camera and movement controls to default to a tighter focus and faster speed, but I can't say they're always helpful. Usually, it ends up with the camera misaligned while you're trying to pick up objects or Harry pinballing between cabinets in a tiny room. I mean, dude. I've had little experience in hand-to-hand combat, and I've only fired a gun a couple of times in my life. I should not feel more apt at battling the forces of madness and darkness than a video game protagonist. And yet, even an average person like myself could easily outperform this guy.

All I'm saying is do not expect to be speed-run smooth on picking this game up.

Harry is not the sturdiest protagonist out there, either. Depending on what you're facing, somewhere between 2-4 hits may be enough to take him down, even on Normal difficulty. The final boss in the Good ending paths is particularly a bastard if you are not monitoring Henry's health after every hit. Granted, most of the monsters you face can also go down in a couple of swings. It's just one of those situations where you've got to get really good at picking your battles. Sneaking around in the dark with your flashlight off will save you a lot of trouble, particularly in the town proper. It also helps to master a couple of weapons, like the distance your pistol needs or how hard to crunch the controller to get the best swings. I personally found myself swimming in ammo but cutting it close with health items. So, take that for what value it provides.

It also helps not to forget the hunting rifle in the second boss room. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything...😓

As far as objective listing and puzzle solving goes, "Silent Hill" is pretty straight forward and forgiving. Well, maybe minus one murderous fridge, anyway. I've heard people have difficulties with a piano puzzle in the school, but I was able to solve that one on my own. Maybe there's an assumption the developers made about an average person's musical education. It's hard for me to know. But what I do know is how to play the piano—or at least, monkey around with it at a Rebecca Chambers level. So, thanks for putting me in piano lessons when I was a kid, Mom! I'm real sure this is what you wanted me using those skills for (I kid, though. My parents are both very supportive of my sister's and my own video gaming habits, particularly when it encourages problem solving and resilience.)

As much as I hate advising this, you might want to put the difficulty down to Easy on your first playthrough of this game. Even if you get spoiled to hell and back on this game, you're going to need to give yourself a lot of time to get used to playing it. This is really an instance where physical experience is needed to understand just how hard the game can go, especially in comparison to its successors. You'll be able to get bullet multipliers on subsequent playthroughs, which may somewhat temper harder experiences. Just learning how to play the damn game is lesson enough.

That is, of course, assuming you want to play it!

Honestly, even with as rough as playing the actual game is, you should give it a chance. For me, it took a little over four hours to complete a Good+ run. The game itself considers mastery of its environment to be a run of about an hour and a half, so it's not a long game, by any means. However, if you're not a particularly patient person, long plays are an acceptable substitute. Hell, there is a particular joy I get from watching Punchy runs of the game. I do think you'll miss out on your own personal horror snaps, which is a pretty big loss. Ya know. Particularly, for a horror game.

It's good to be afraid in practiced scenarios. Clears out the brain and blood, especially when shit really hits the fan. Like this entire goddamn year, for one.

[the-endless-storm]

Nuzlocke Shield Final Part

Part Six

Time to get the road to Challenge Cup finished. Of course, gotta have another cut scene with Hop to slow everything down again. I turned major cut scenes off so I can skip all the train boringness and get right to the snowy Route 10.

Let's get the encounter out of the way, and it's everyone's favourite bug Snom

Snocaine - Snom (m) Shield Dust Brave (Spd up / Atk down) “It likes to fight!”

I don’t have the will or inclination to get Snom's happiness up to evolve it at this point in the game, so it's going into a box until I can sell it off to a drug lord.

This route is so short and so boring.

Wyndon is awesome, but like all the cities and towns before it, it's so EMPTY. There's only a handful of buildings you can go in and one or two streets. In Pokemon games gone you could go into every house, but there's just nothing of interest here. A giant pokemart would not go amiss.

Changed my hair. Gotta look flash for the championship.

Vs Marnie

Marnie was easy, even though her Toxicroak went for a Swagger and Sucker Punch combo that nearly knocked out Cyanide.

Point of interest, you can leave via the lift in between matches. And you can also set up a camp. Why? Who knows. Programming oversight no doubt.

Vs Hop

Hop is still as annoying as ever, “I knew you'd use a super effective attack!” Well no shit Sherlock, it's only the fundamental basics of Pokemon battling.

Fucking Body Slam Dubwool paralysis hax!

And a Full Restore, the dirty fucker. Two can play at that game.

I swear to god, he paralysed me as soon as I cured it. At least he's causing Stamina to increase the damage of Body Press, his ultimate downfall.

Snorlax eats a Body Press and went down in one. So does Corviknight. Pincurchin and Earthquake don’t mix. Now I’m past the cheating Dubwool, I’m not even getting paralysed. That said, I swap out Bullseye for Pina Colada to face his Inteleon. God I hate Inteleon's design. I hate all the final start forms.

Dancing Pineapple Kappa 1 - 0 Skinny Emo Gecko

Ugh. Bring back the Elite Four. All this running around mini Team Yell guess who nonsense takes you away from the drama of the final challenge. Just. So. Many. Cut. Scenes. To. Stop. And. Button. Mash. Through!

Also, why does the game just suddenly drop the name Macro Cosmo out of nowhere? It's never mentioned in any dialogue yet we're expected to know it's the name of Rose's company? I guess it's meant to invoke the feeling of an evil team name, since Team Yell have suddenly joined you and there's now a protagonist shaped hole in the game.

“Security footage released by Macro Cosmo show champion semi finalists James and Hop causing chaos with recently eliminated challenger Marnie and brother Piers whilst accompanied by known trouble makers Team Yell. After causing a stampede that endangered the lives of many at the monorail station, the two stormed Rose Tower for no apparent reason. Because of this outlandish and un-sportsmanship behaviour, the two have been disqualified from the championship and black listed from ever taking part in the future. Up next... Curry. Can we find anything else to eat?”

Anyway. The tower and Oleana are nothing to worry about.

I really wish I could have found a better Ice TM or TR than Icy Wind before going into the final battle. None of the Watt Traders have Ice beam and there's not a single Ice type raid battle going on anywhere.

Bede was a push over, as usual.

Why do they have this cool tournament set up, but never randomise it? It's always Nessa, Alistair/Bea and Raihan. Never anyone else. Just once I'd like to re-battle a full team from Milo or Kabu. I know you have a chance to do it in rematches post game, but by that point your so highly levelled that’s there's absolutely zero challenge. Mini rant over.

Vs Nessa

Spritz drops a Sticky Web to slow Nessa's Pokemon down then systematically obliterates each one with a thunderbolt.

Vs Alistair - Chamomile endures a hit which triggers Weak Armor, gets off a Nasty Plot and with a Full Restore in the mix gets rid of all the pesky ghosts. I was a little worried, as I don’t have any Pokemon that resist ghost attacks but it turned out fine in the end.

Vs Raihan

Bullseye weathers a super effective Muddy Water from Goodra, then just like his team mates defeats everything with single attacks.

So glad I turned cut scenes off.

Mum is outside your house like “Ok sweetie, you and your friend go into the dangerous woods to search for an ancient Pokémon and then go stop the leader of the country from restarting the apocalypse. Do you want some cookies? You're such a strong Pokemon trainer.” No wonder all the kids are missing parents it's a wonder anyone survives.

There's meant to be a giant black cloud over Hammerlocke, but I flew in and whilst the music has changed, nothing else has. It's dark in the middle of the day, but all the people are still standing around chatting shit. I guess the developers thought everyone would go straight into the Weald instead of doubling back. Poor show.

I get an encounter in the Slumbering Weald, and first off it's a Corviknight. Been so long since I encountered this line, but it's still a dupe. Then I KO'd a Munna. I really don’t think it matters anymore, I only have two major battles to go before the end of the game.

Cut scene. Run forward a bit. Cut scene. Run forward a bit. Cut scene. Run forward a bit. Still need my hand held at this point in the game. Frankly I’m surprise Hop doesn’t decide he wants another battle at this point.

“We've evacuated Hammerlocke. Except the people inside their houses, they have chosen to stay. Something about trusting their chairman no matter what he does. Spooky huh?”

Cut scene. Run forward a bit. Cut scene.

Vs Rose - Otis. Fire attacks.

Cut scene. Run forward. Cut scene. Run forward. Cut scene. There is just NO let up.

Did the undefeated Champion just try to catch a resurrected legendary Pokemon in a basic Pokeball?

Bullseye gets a crit Earthquake and knocks Eternatus out in one go.

GMax Eternatus is impressive. Hats off to the designers here, it looks terrifying. The first and only time in the game where something feels like a threat.

And Hop helps out with his Dubwool again. Super helpful.

Cyanide falls in battle, as Eternatus focuses all its attacks on me and Hop helps by using the least effective move he has and doing almost no damage at all. A toast to Slowbro.

Cyanide is KO'd.

I take Jett out of storage, ram as many XP candies as I can down her throat and head in to fight Leon.

Vs Leon - Finally.

Otis knocks out Aegislash with two Fire Lashes

Haxorus is a bit of a tough one, as the only SE attack I have for a dragon is Icy wind on PC. Bullseye survives an Outrage but only does half damage with Earthquake, and switching to Jett almost gets her taken out in one hit. Two hits, she's gone. I bring Bullseye back in and spam some Potions, maybe I can get a free shot in once the Stamina starts to kick in. This isn’t what the crowd want to see but, but I just saved the world so fuck em.

Jett is KO'd

Yep, it takes a minute or two, but once I have 3 Stamina boosts I can Body Press the fuck out of this dragon.

Seismitoad starts off with Toxic, which was a wasted move. Leon uses a Full Restore, so I will too. I’m going to Body Press to victory.

Cinderace meet Body Press.

Fuck, I can’t use Body Press on Dragapault. Chamomile lands two Sucker Punches but gets knocked out a second Shadow Ball. Spritz survives a Flamethrower but isn’t strong enough or fast enough to land a second hit. Pina swaps in to take the Flame Thrower AND a Shadow Ball then KOs Dragapault with Icy Wind. I guess it did come in useful after all.

Chamomile is KO'd

I know Charizard will be faster than me, I just have to hope I can survive long enough to do damage to it. I send out Otis first, who can at least absorb fire attacks and has an electric attack to use. Max Rockfall almost KOs me but Max Lightning does half damage. I use a Full Restore, and I think between the sandstorm damage to Zara and the up boost from my leftovers another Max Lightning will seal the deal.

Yaaaaaas!

Ya boi is the Champion.

I’m not playing Pokemon again until Crown Tundra comes out this was a chore.

The band that plays during the credits, the least they could have done is used some custom animation that didn’t look like they were attacking, and made the music sound like it was being played. There's no drum beat.

Final Team

Bullseye - Mudsdale (lv 64)

Otis - Heatmor (lv 64)

Pina Colada - Ludicolo (lv 64)

Spritz - Vikavolt (lv 64)

Boxed

Joltik, Slowpoke, Charjabug, Croagunk, Oddish, Snorunt

Sizzlepede, Sneasel, Chubcoo, Lombre, Pelipper, Carcoal

Machoke, Dubwool, Shelmet, Sandaconda, Delibird, Cramorant

Jigglypuff, Chansey, Snom, Eternatus

Losses

Bandit the Nickit - Knocked out by a fat squirrel

Gumball the Tympole - Devoured by a centipede with a moustache

Castlevania the Rookidee - Torn apart by a cute mole

HaagenDazs the Vanillite - Murdered in an act of revenge by a smelly frog

Ddraig the Druddigon - Speared by a selfish shellfish

Cyanide the Slowbro - Smote by a god

Jett the Toxtricity - Defeated by the Champion

Chamomile the Poltergeist - Defeated by the Champion

Thanks for anyone that has been following along. Maybe one day I’ll do another playthrough. Hopefully we’ll see Diamond and Pearl remakes, and I would love to do a mono-type playthrough at some point. Not a Nuzlocke though, as interesting as it is, the restrictions irritate me.

Shameless Plug - Please follow @wales-dex for my fakemon.

[ravenquote]

OoC: Favorite Characters

I decided to focus on villains or anti-heroes, it’s hard picking just favorites in a general sense.

1. Harleen Quinzel A.K.A Harley Quin - DC Comic Universe I have been in love with this woman since September 1992 when she first aired in the Batman Animated series, Joker’s favor. Due to her brilliant creators of Paul Dini and Bruce Tim, led with the voice talents of Arleen Sorkin. She was born from her own raw desire to help people in her own best way possible, using her talents of understanding, reading and in many sense controlling people. Sadly, like Alice in wonderland, she fell into a realm of madness and uncertainty. She has been one of the most complex characters in animated history with large backstory and many turns and takes. Extremely popular on various forms and has made many appearances over the years even scoring some of her own comics and shows and now movies. When she was first created, she was merely a fill in and not meant to take and yet here she stands, a triumphant beauty whose overcome Abuse, trauma and degradation.

2. Azula - Avatar the last air bender animated television show + comics What can i say about Azula? In many retrospects she’s fierce, powerful, driven and just intelligent! I think a lot of people forget something pretty important about her: SHE WAS FOURTEEN! This young teenage, overthrew governments, taking whole cities and was the closest to killing the Avatar compared to anyone else. Not to mention her pure intelligence! People compare to playing a game of chess when it comes to moving people or controlling their actions. No, to this woman it was checkers. I truly believe if she didn’t become as over-confident as she did, the war would have ended with her taking the world. With the right nurturing, she would have become the most feared overlord the world would ever see.

3. Loghain Mac Tir - Dragon age book (The Stolen Throne by: David Gaider) and Dragon age Origins the Video game. Yeah, there’s a theme so far i am guessing you are seeing. I can’t help but appreciate sheer intelligence. Loghain is sort of obvious in the video games, it’s clear his intents. At the same time, there is far far more than what is merely on the surface with this man. An obvious villain, almost to the point of it being boring. Yet, why in the games are so many people hesitant and trusting of him? This man had proved himself, over and over, that he had his country in his heart and would do anything to protect it and keep it from the true monsters of the world. People. He was never shy about the routes he’d take, the lengths he’d go, he was brass, courageous, and deceptive. He called things out, forced people to seeing the bigger picture, he didn’t need to control or lie to people about things. He got what he wanted in the most unique ways possible, not his title, not his money, not his charisma but by being true in what had to be done. 

4. Sylvanas Windrunner - Blizzard Entertainment Video games I don’t see her as a Villain, an Anti-hero, yes. Look, we all know Blizz can’t seem to understand women or know how to write them on a large scale. I seriously feel bad for both, Piera Coppola and Patty Mattson as they have to watch this poor woman get brutally torn to pieces. I will always, always have a soft spot for her and remember the days where in many respects was like Illidain, and (above) Loghain. A woman who saw the bigger picture and would sacrifice anything to save everything she cared for. I wont drag on for her, simply because i know the most people who are doing this and following are from the Blizzard franchise and i know we have all heard many many layers to this continued argument about this particular character. If ya wanna PM about it or rant at me, bring it. I’m an Alliance player at heart, but i only got into w.o.w because of this woman. Both sides are shit. *drops mic*

5. Aaravos - Dragon Prince, Netflix television animated show. Okay, seriously, if you haven’t seen the show yet: DO IT! Just as with this theme, INTELLIGENCE, INTELLIGENCE, INTELLIGENCE! Tactful, charming, knowledgeable, i mean...look at that face! He is hands down perfect. Sadly, we still know very little of him but goshdamnit! Love! Love! Love! I can not wait to know more of him and see more of him. 

6. Maleficent - Fairy Tale story / Disney The jist of her, from stories and movies, is general: She was snubbed or insulted by the royal court and took her revenge on the child they were all celebrating. I’m sorry, but this has always been fantastic to me. What is more painful and hard to deal with then your own child being cursed? Claim petty if you want, but no, oh no my dear friend, this is a brilliant revenge. A normal person would blame the man in charge and curse him, but meh, whatever. Kings wont remember how they snubbed others, this is proven time and time again in many stories. Will this act ever be forgotten? Will the generations always remember not to snub a powerful faerie? You better believe it! She made a ever lasting mark, an impression that has lasted since the 13th century! Throughout the years no one has changed these facts: Maleficent was powerful, she was disrespected and she took her revenge onto a child. Normal stories like these over the years have changed both villains and heroes, or even circumstances. This classic has even seen the beautiful creation, directed by Robert Stromberg from a screenplay by Linda Woolverton, and still they honour the root of what was and with a focus on the villain and her origins.  How many villains get this?

7. Narberal Gamma - Overlord Anime/ Manga series Who doesn’t love a maid? Not to mention a Battle maid. Narberal is...mm, i don’t even know how to express her. She’s just generally cool, powerful, intelligent, loyal and honest with everything around her, just a demeanor of a refined perfection. She’s enjoyable to watch. Another thing i enjoy, she’s not the main villain. The show itself has many “villains”, i say in such way because it’s never really clear or obvious what you can count as villain or hero in a lot of ways. Yes, some are obvious but even then in many cases showed within it’s all about circumstances, who you are following, why you are following them. I enjoy the not so cut and dry of “good and evil”. This character also helps continue that ploy, helping and yet also killing people.

8. Carmilla - Castlevania Netflix series I’m a huge vampire fan, been so since middle school. I’m not as quick whipped as i use to be about the lore, history and so on when it comes to many Vampires and their origins. With such said, damn she made me bring out the books again, especially because she was one of my favorites to read about. I mean, Lesbian vampire. Do i need to say more? For now, i’ll only focus on the more recent adaption of her. So, yeah theme? We get it, intelligence. The world truly is a chess board for her, however she does not expect people to just flip the board on her. God, Jaime Murray, thank you so much for that wtf moment cause you expressed her sheer just horror at watching everything fall around her with perfection. Throughout the points we see Carmilla we see her truly be the tact master, stirring the pot and also showing her prowess in form. There is also a lot of restraint i don’t think people will give her credit for. We see how she expresses her emotions in violence, but i also think we are seeing it in a very, very pulled back way. I look forward to seeing how she changes her circumstances and sets things back into her own order in the coming season.

9. Akasha - Book series: The Queen of the Damned by Anne rice and movie: The Queen of the damned. Ah yes, the books that helped start the joys of vampires and how could i not fall in love with someone toying into the very beginning and trying to draw into the beginnings of a creature known throughout the world and time. Why do i choose Akasha considering i already touched base on vampires? Simple, she will always deserve a spot on any favorite list of anything. She gave so little cares about anything and only wanted the world to die and feel her wrath. Not to mention Aaliyah played this part so beautifully well it deserves every recognition it can get. I know she doesn’t seem to quite fit with the rest, but this is partly why she is so low on the list.

10. Callisto - Xena television series Last but certainly not least, we can’t forgot about this one. Good? Bad? Surely just pure chaos! She does what she wants and cares little about the consequences. It’s been ages since i’ve last seen the show i will admit, so my bases on her is a bit rusty. However, i will always remember her out of the many other villainous people we meet in the Xena universe. Fun, witty, combatant, you never knew what she was really going to do. As soon as she popped into a episode, i would recall fondly sitting at the edge of my seat just wondering how or why she did the things she did. There is my list of favorites, i’m sure you can see the themes between them all as many of them have common traits, inspirations and personalities. Hope you all enjoyed! Tagged by: @olivia-lovecraft​ tagging: *boops* you!

[blazehedgehog]

Say Blaze, you mentioned BotW being in your top five favorite games of all time. Care to share the full list with us? :P

Haha, man, somebody always wants these kinds of receipts. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really like committing to numbered lists. I never really think of things in that way. It should be obvious if you’ve followed this blog for any length of time that if somebody asks me for my favorite thing, it’s rare that I can actually pick just one thing and I’ll usually list off a handful.

I mean, I’ll do lists, I have some list requests in my ask box that I never got around to answering, but I will do them eventually, it’s just I never think of them as a set in stone order. They’re always floating around to different spaces on the list, depending on when you ask me.

Without looking at anything else, I’d say my top five favorite games of all time would be…

Yoshi’s Island was a very formative game for me. Anyone who claims Yoshi’s Island wasn’t that great is immediately knocked down a few pegs of respect in my mind. The artwork in that game was transformative, nobody had ever tried those kinds of graphics in a game before, and Nintendo nailed it pretty much on their first try.

And then there’s the gameplay. A lot of games around this era were trying to figure out ways to evolve the 2D action game, when you think about games like Astal, Clockwork Knight, Pandemonium, etc. Most are awkward, with mechanics that don’t always make sense, or don’t feel good to use, but I think the mechanics in Yoshi are incredible. Throwing eggs is incredibly intuitive, and the small expansions like the flutter jump and butt stomp add a little more complexity without feeling overwhelming.

I’m also in love with the game’s boss fights. Some people like to complain that “oh, they’re just really big versions of normal enemies, and that’s lame” but they can go jump in a lake. I remember more of Yoshi’s Island’s boss fights by name than I do some entire games. They may be “just bigger versions of normal enemies” but that doesn’t mean you fight them in the same ways. Fighting your way out of Prince Froggy’s stomach, throwing enough eggs to strike Sluggy the Unshaven’s heart, orbiting the moon with Raphael Raven, each one is a puzzle to be solved and a technical showpiece for the system. Gosh, and who could forget pulling off the trick shot with Navel Piranha.

I only wish literally any Yoshi game to follow it was as good. Nintendo has built a legacy of black sheep Yoshi games in its wake, with the only real comparable game being Yoshi’s Wooly World, and even that isn’t anywhere near as creative or cool as Yoshi’s Island, because it’s stuck in that game’s shadow. All the other Yoshi games have been mediocre at best.

I’d probably put the original Half-Life on this list. Half-Life was a paradigm shift for the first-person shooter that really killed the idea of calling them “Doom Clones.” Levels? Scores? Hyper-machismo? Gone. You’re a nerd, saving other nerds. Even now, in 2019, the way this game tells story remains highly unique. Instead of sitting you down for cutscenes and extended dialog, Half-Life is a “show, don’t tell” kind of game, and it builds its mystery from that. You might understand that the crystal from the start of the game is the same crystals you see at the end of the game, but you don’t understand who keeps secretly watching you. It makes for a narrative that’s simple on the surface, but goes however deep as you want to get.

Gameplay-wise, Half-Life goes to great lengths to make its world feel dynamic and alive. There are no sacred invincible NPCs, Everybody and everything is just as fragile as you are (if not moreso), so a scientist buddy may wander in to the crossfire and get shot, and the rest of his friends may blame you for his murder and refuse to cooperate from that point onwards. And then, of course, are the tremendous military soldier encounters. People will go on about how they aren’t actually that smart under the hood, about how Valve lied about squad behavior or whatever, but they’re definitely well designed enough to feel smart. Again, Half-Life was one of the first FPS games to understand and nail the idea that you don’t have to work within Doom’s concepts. Enemies run around, take cover, and use specialized tactics in order to flush you out of hiding. It was lightyears beyond anything, and if you can get past the game’s dated graphics, it still holds up remarkably well.

And yes, if you didn’t pick up on it, I have been subtly crapping on Half-Life 2. It’s also a great game, but it turns in to a bummer once you really stop and think about what Half-Life 2 does differently and what they ended up getting rid of in favor of a slightly more traditional narrative.

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been in that mood lately, but I’d probably put Mega Man X on this list. There’s not much I can say about this game that isn’t demonstrated better in Egoraptor’s now-legendary Sequelitis video, but the short of it for me is that I don’t love most Mega Man games. They’re fine, I don’t really have any problems with them, but they aren’t for me.

Mega Man X is the only Mega Man game I’ve finished without cheating. It’s just such a brilliantly designed game, and so, so tightly designed. Everything props everything else up, and it lacks the pure frustration and memorization of, like, the vanishing block puzzles of Classic Mega Man.

One of my favorite parts about this game that isn’t mentioned in Egoraptor’s video and didn’t really carry forward through future Mega Man X games is the fact that all of the levels in X1 are literally connected to each other. Actions in one stage have consequences in another. Defeating Chill Penguin freezes Flame Mammoth’s lava. Storm Eagle’s airship crashes in to Spark Mandrill’s power plant. Bosses don’t just have weaknesses, their levels do, too.

The most common complaint I see people relay about Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is that it’s “too easy.” My response is… yeah? And?? A game’s value is not always judged on how difficult it is; plenty of people would tell you that Kirby games are too easy, too, but Kirby is a beloved franchise with legions of fans. It’s okay that Symphony of the Night is kind of easy.

Especially given, that, I feel, the entire point of gaining experience points and powering up your character is to reach that point where you go from chump to champ. What use is gaining strength if you don’t eventually feel strong? Symphony is not a failure in this regard, and exploring the castle and solving its secrets provide enough of a hook even after you start to feel untouchable. And, speaking as somebody who nearly ripped his own hair out with frustration over Castlevania III, being given the ability to style on these creatures is more than welcome.

But what I really, truly love about Symphony is just how much of a love letter it is to the Castlevania franchise and just horror in general. The Castlevania Dungeon has a terrific page that breaks down the hundreds of references the game makes to classical literature, history, mythology, and film. Somebody on that development team REALLY did their homework. There’s so much of that in this game that I feel like I learn something new every time I play it.

It’s also the other half of the term “Metroidvania,” so, y’know. Important™

I know Breath of the Wild would be in this five, but here’s a fifth game anyway: Super Mario 64. I will never shut up about Super Mario 64.

To reiterate: This is the game that invented analog movement. If you’ve played Assassin’s Creed, or Grand Theft Auto, or Dark Souls, or Devil May Cry, you can trace the deepest, raw, fundamental core back to ideas first introduced in Super Mario 64.

And if you ask me, the game still holds up. The camera control could use some work, I guess, but Mario is still just as fun to control today as he was all the way back in 1996. In fact, depending on who you ask, he’s more fun to control in Mario 64, because later 3D Mario games simplified his move set under the assumption he was too complex in this game. But maybe you’re like me, and think that complexity is good. (I wouldn’t even call it complex, it’s more just… robust)

If you want to see a longer list of games I think are my favorites, this GiantBomb list I wrote is still kept somewhat up to date. (And contains a lot more modern games, if you thought these were all too retro)

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #1: Favorite Dracula

1.) Castlevania’s Dracula

Iconic lines and wine tossing aside, Castlevania’s Dracula stands out in just how utterly villainous he is, while still blending class and a hint of tragedy into his character. He is bigger and grander than Stoker’s original vampire, and that is slowly leveraged into a broader cosmic role. Dracula in Castlevania is more than just a bad guy; he is the manifestation of evil on Earth. He’s comparable to the Antichrist, but even that kind of falls flat. An Antichrist is supposed to bring about an apocalypse or change; Dracula in Castlevania is presented as a moral necessity, a rebuttal to the post-modern death of a moral center. His presence is necessary for there to be good in the world. In the process, Castlevania’s Dracula has become the patron saint of the world’s monsters. Every kind of demon, fiend, boogeyman, freak, and specter are gathered into his lair and given a home and purpose.

And every now and then, not for too long, depending on the game, a bit of pathos peeks through and you’re reminded that there’s a man behind it all. It’s never enough to make you stop enjoying Castlevania’s Drac as a villain, but it makes you wonder if he could have been different. Is he bound to his role as the Prince of Darkness? Is it his curse, or does it give him power? To me, Castlevania Dracula is the summation of the character in media as he is now; as a man, as a monster, a villain, a tragic figure, and everything else.

2.) Dracula Classic

Over a century later, Bram Stoker’s original Dracula still confounds us and fascinates us. Every generation brings a new lense, a new reading to one of literature’s greatest monsters. He is an idea about superstition, about xenophobia, about masculinity, sexual deviancy, disease, poverty, degradation, and so on and so on for as long as there are people who can read. For all the grandiosity of the other Draculas on this list, Stoker’s still has an air of realism to him, a banality that makes his horror human. Maybe Dracula classic can’t shapeshift into a dragon or summon an army of spears, but his power is more than enough to eclipse the Victorian Enlightenment. Stoker’s characters are human; doctors, lawyers, teachers, a... cowboy, so it only takes a little bit of inhuman evil to remind the reader of how fragile we and our society really are in the face of the unknown.

3.) Christopher Lee

Moving on into the live actors portion, you gotta’ give it up for THE KING. Lee’s Dracula was the first to go beyond horror into terror; that quickened, gut-wrenching primal scare. He was fast, he was bloody, he was dangerous, and still classy as all hell. The Emperor of Metal planted his roots by starting out as The Prince of Darkness. If I had one complaint, it’s that Lee doesn’t really come off as convincingly Transylvanian; Lee’s pretty clearly British, and the closest he’s ever been to being Slavic was that time he played Rasputin. Christopher Lee didn’t die in 2015; he’s just practicing for when the world needs Dracula again.

4.) Bela Lugosi

But you have to give props to the original. It’s hard to believe now that anyone ever found Lugosi’s Dracula scary, but I still remember my dad and older horror buffs talking about how they had nightmares after seeing Lugosi’s Dracula, or were afraid that he was lurking in the dark when the lights went out. What gets me is just how enmeshed with the role Lugosi was. Bela Lugosi was Dracula, no doubt about it. Other men can fill the role, but Lugosi embodied the character. Most actors don’t star in as many movies as Bela Lugosi starred as Dracula. When he died at a ripe old age, he was laid to rest in his cape and amulet.

5.) Duncan Regher

Every actor brings something to Dracula. Lee brought terror and nobility, Lugosi brought charisma and otherworldliness. Regher? Regher brought pure villainy. The Monster Squad is a gem of 80s monster nostalgia. Regher’s Dracula is a hybrid of Lee and Lugosi, blending sheer evil with overwhelming presence. Regher’s performance is a treat, drawing from that same well of post-Darth Vader villainy that brought us Frank Langella’s Skeletor and James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom; the kind of guys that could convince you to carry them to the moon and be happy about doing it. Also, and I feel this detail to the lore cannot be overstated enough; Dracula-mobile.

6.) Richard Roxburgh

No, this is just a guilty pleasure. Van Helsing is a guilty pleasure. Get used to this, because I love this dumb movie. Roxburgh doesn’t bring anything to Dracula as a character except camp. Cheesy, cheesy camp. Roxburgh’s Dracula is like some unholy hybrid of Bela Lugosi and Tommy Wisseau. He has two emotional ranges, and they are both over-acting. But I can’t not love this Dracula; he takes a lower place because... come on, but he still makes my list.

7.) Fate/Apocrypha

The brief anime portion of this list starts off with Fate/Apocrypha. It’s actually a little disingenuous to call Fate’s Dracula by that name since he insists on being called Vlad Tepes III. I mean one look at his character design next to Castlevania’s Dracula tells you everything you need to know, but it’s still an important distinction. In Fate, Vlad recalls how he is a hero in Romania, a champion of his church and land, noble scion of the house of the dragon. While actually in Romania, Vlad’s power becomes near god-like. It offers an interesting reminder that Vlad Tepes was a real man, and is still viewed as a Romanian folk hero, even after he has become intertwined with Dracula. But because characters in Fate are composed of how they are perceived through time, Vlad can still become a vampire. And, frankly, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t worth it when he finally does turn.

8.) Alucard

The quintessential anime Dracula. I’m putting him beneath Fate’s though because, well... Hot take, but Alucard isn’t much of a Dracula. He’s a vampire monster, but he’s mostly just a kind of edgy antihero with a Dracula underlay. Every now and then something resembling Gary Oldman’s Dracula pops its head up and offers a bit of pathos, especially towards the end of the series. But what Alucard lacks in substance, he makes up for in style; it’s not every Dracula that kills Nazis by bombing themselves from an airplane only to sail back to London to a fairly effective quotation of the original novel.

9.) The Sacred Ancestor

We’re now in legendary Dracula territory; Draculas who lose some points because they don’t make an actual appearance in their series, but still have an impressive presence. It’s never overtly stated that the Sacred Ancestor in Vampire Hunter D is Dracula, but the reader can put two and two together. D’s dad might just be the most powerful Dracula on this list; his powers are nothing short of god-like, and he single-handedly led the Nobility in conquering the world. And yet, from the first novel, there’s an arc present; a Dracula who achieves vampire supremacy, then gains a conscience. What’s left is a mystery that strings the reader and D along through all the novel, presenting a Dracula simultaneously ruthless, brilliant, nurturing, and regretful.

10.) “Someone worse than me.”

You never meet Dracula in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The closest you ever get is a hallucination Mina has in 1969. It’s presumed he’s dead since League is following the novels. But every now and then you’re reminded of his presence through Mina, and the picture she paints is a being of absolute and horrible evil. You already know Mina’s story, but she’s such a strong character in League that you can only begin to imagine what Dracula must have been like. Dracula in League is a trauma, a scar, and like Mina you both dread and hope that you never meet that horrible and beautiful man ever again.

[slewfirst-blog]

hc + family legacy

send me  ‘ hc ‘  + a word and i’ll write a headcanon about it regarding my character.

THE BELMONT LEGACY ft. TREVOR BELMONT . 

While I tend to follow the canon timeline, if there’s one thing I will always take away from the Netflixvania Adaptation is that Trevor Belmont is always the lone Belmont heir / survivor .

I felt it added a richness to his character and while a lot of his designs denote a very tough-as-hell person, rough around the edges  - it benefits for him to be given in one story outside that time-line, a very, very, very rough past and I keep that, because we know little of his background save he was a noble like every Belmont generally, and that the Church hired him in their time of need to slay Dracula despite fearing his family’s powers. If anything, I can’t think of anything more brutal in that series than what was done to the Belmonts . It’s subtle and not talked of often but Trevor literally embodies it . It’s in how guarded he talks; how stoic and unreadable he appears; how quick he is to flinch at any measure of affection . 

In the main time-line, and really every game / story the heart of Castlevania’s plot is there is a Belmont, the Belmont has the consecrated Vampire Killer, the only weapon that can defeat Dracula and kill holy god like beings / and all creatures of darkness - thus, making them the guardians of humanity. The Belmont scales the Vampire’s Castle. The Belmont destroys Dracula, and he’s revived as long as evil exists - and so the task is never finished. It’s a literal eternal war that makes the Belmonts invaluable and must be preserved. 

So where does a young twelve year old Trevor Belmont fit in? As a child, he grew up on tales of Leon Belmont, how he faced the Grim Reaper himself and wounded him with the whip that was made from his true love. 

It fascinated and filled him with awe.Surrounded by loving parents, harsh but strict, raised in the faith of his mother who still clung to the ‘real’ God and not the Church that excommunicated them - Trevor thrived as the oldest Belmont along with his baby sister, Helene - who did not have to bear the heavy mantle of destiny that fell upon Trevor should his Father, Auguste, fail or even Lisette, his Mother. 

Both valid hunters in their own right. Tradition and honor were quickly ingrained in him at a young age - as was compassion for those that were less fortunate because back then they were upper class nobles with a castle and a hold - and lands, servants, etc . They were literally light embodied in people, from the old to the young, and as expected of Belmonts, unparalleled warriors - training their youngest Son with the Vampire Killer. 

Trevor grew up on tales of how to kill vampires, how to slay ghouls, wicked faeries, all creatures which might haunt Romania, a home that was not even native to them - France was . He wore his crest proudly on his back; and took to training with a natural ease and quick-to-learn skill that made his Father especially proud, and someone he strove to emulate as much as he wanted to become a fraction of the man Leon Belmont was . 

He wanted to become his own warrior, and at an early age his eerily adept talent was keen - from hunting and hawking; horse-riding; what scarce time he had for tutors, he was a very serious, but loving boy with a huge capacity of ingrained integrity and heroism - as you’d expect from his Lineage . He didn’t think his legacy was a burden, his family was called to safeguard the world from any evil; and that filled him with pride and purpose. He’d prank his sister, sneak a piece of bread from the table, trick a tutor once or twice, get the scolding of a lifetime; all the while even immobilizing his own Father at eleven with an especially quick and cunning move he’d make on the fly with sheer natural talent - establishing his later strategist skills on the battlefield and his mission and his sheer skill as a prowess. Granted he didn’t often sneak up on Auguste, but he did it enough that it had his Father grinning with pride and wonder at what his son would become.

( He’d never live to see it or his greatness. )

It was a place of light and goodness - a place Trevor eagerly awaited the day he’d be able to visit the Hold and learn even more, learn ways to protect the people on their lands, the people who hadn’t yet scorned them, in the early stages before the unthinkable and unspeakable happened. 

And it did.

His family died suffocating either inside the Castle leaving him to be forced to see nieces and nephews own corpses, grandparents and uncles, aunts and cousins - but the majority were set on stakes, among them, his then seven year old sister Helene, along with his Father and Mother, who even in death were reaching out to each other with their flesh-tearing away hands. Most were not spared a suffocation - they died burning alive, like Lisa but multiplied by near twenties in numbers. They didn’t die, they were slaughtered, erased, culled, massacred.

And Trevor watched every second until every beloved face became a torn away skeleton that he couldn’t even bury because everything, everything he loved he had lost in a split of a second . At twelve, before Dracula ever planned his great war once more on humanity, Trevor’s world had already been eradicated - and in a sense, it was a complete massacre, even dying his family faced their murderers unflinchingly like Belmonts; fire in their eyes and no regret no remorse; no hatred for the people they had been put on the earth to save from any and all evil. The world’s saving light died that day - save for one, and most of him was as much of scattered ash as the family he couldn’t even honor in a monument.

Around his early twenties; Trevor struggles with an unwavering sense of purpose to hold to the light - despite holding bitterness just as much. He lives in a world where existing is a crime, and food often went without for days, as went sleep, as went comfort - as went kindness until literally forgot what it meant to be loved by others in any small goodness - every town spit at him, unaware that his was the Legacy of the very family that would deliver them from Dracula . He feels above all, that his parents, Uncles, Aunts, anyone but him should have survived - saying he has survivor’s guilt is an understatement and his pain can’t even be put into words, there isn’t a word for it.

He carries the legacy with desperate pride and purpose, and knows even more now, in agony, how even for all the hatred of the world he bears on his shoulders, he still bears a hateful world to save . He carries generations of good and honorable men and women who fought for light and salvation for all, not one race or creed, not any denomination or background or orientation . They fought because it was right - they fought because they had the power that made it critical for them to not stand idly by - because it is their duty to fight Dracula and the night, and anything else that stands in their way. 

So for how broken Trevor truly is, how much he wishes he at times could close his eyes and see not burnt away faces but the smiling thrall of his family; the mayhem and the diligence - he can’t. He can’t go back. He can’t play with his dogs, his cats, his hawks. He can’t train with his Father or pray with his Mother, he can’t kiss his sister’s hair anymore, get his hair ruffled by his uncles and aunts, dote on his grandparents, kiss his cousins and carry newborn babies of his relatives offspring - all he can do is carry the mantle that has existed since Leon Belmont’s day - and carry on, even if the world never thanks him, it is still his duty as a Belmont, to carry out the task only they can fulfill. And so it’s with pride and restrained bitterness that Trevor continues on, only hiding his crest to gain information - but mostly bearing it proudly, in a wild sort of grief. A brokenness, a bottomless well of sorrow and pain that will never mend. 

Somehow, the ingrained goodness he held as a child remains, mainly due to his relatives and parents, and so he isn’t a bitter, spit on corpses type of person - but a noble man, as they wanted of him - as confident as he is in his skills, his greatest fear likely is letting his entire clan down. Whether it’s failing to kill Dracula with the infamous Master Sword Vampire Killer or dishonoring their name, he would do anything secretly in his heart to ask his charred, not even bones left to remember them by family at the end of his quest:

‘Did I do us proud? Did you watch from heaven? Someone tell me I’ve done enough but no one is left to tell me anymore. ‘

Are you watching me? ‘ So for all they tried to do is break and emotionally kill Trevor, which, on a fair level they did, the legacy after the Belmont Massacre remains like a kindling fire in the surviving heir - and he can’t shake the cause or the calling, whether he wanted to drown in his pain or not, Trevor chooses to go forward, even if it’s visually limping from being half-buried with them. 

He’ll carry them on forever, and instill that same light in the Belmonts who follow after him that take up the cause . 

[skylights422]

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Review

[Cross posted on pillowfort and dreamwidth]

A little while back I finally purchased Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. I had been wanting it for some time since it was another castlevania game on the PS2, and because I was very interested in the different playstle (various weapons, the innocent devils you summon and evolve to help you fight, the diverse landscapes), and I must say I wasn't disappointed! So let's go through and analyze it section by section. PLOT/CHARACTERS While the castlevania series tends to have simplistic plots, and in certain ways curse of darkness does as well, I found myself really enjoying the cutscenes for this one. The subplot with Saint Germaine and Zed gave an interesting air of mystery, and the main plot had characters that were charismatic enough to keep you invested despite the fact they don't really bother to explain much of anything in regards to backstory or lore. Plus, even with the lacking explanations it still felt like it had more going on than in LoI, which I appreciated. For those unfamiliar with the plot of the game, it follows a man named Hector who used to be one of Dracula's generals before betraying him once Dracula started killing humans indiscriminately. Hector was one of two 'Devil Forgemasters' in the world, humans who could summon creatures known as Innocent Devils to do their bidding. We're told they are also more easily swayed by Dracula's curse, and that it is considered dark magic, but that's all we ever learn about them. The other devil forgemaster, Isaac, remained loyal to Dracula and had Hector's wife killed in return for Hector betraying him. So the game starts out with Hector charging into an abandoned castle and demanding to fight Isaac to the death, even though at this point it is unclear if Hector has any weapons on hand and has not returned to devil forging. I gotta say, I really loved Hector as a protagonist. He was bold but courteous and had a righteous fury and determination that was a ton of fun. He also just had a very cool design, and I liked that he could use so many weapons (I think in nearly all the cutscenes he only fights hand to hand though, and I really love the mental image of him taking down Isaac with his beam sword and devils, Dracula, and Death with his bare fists xD)and he overall just worked as a lead character for this type of game. Isaac was a wonderfully over the top villain, and while none of it was elaborated on there was enough hinted at backstory/depth that he still felt interesting even if the main appeal was how deranged and sort of flamboyant he was. Isaac also apparently had a younger sister who looked exactly the same as Hector's dead wife, named Julia. Both of these facts are never explained (how did Hector never learn Isaac had a sister before? Why do the two totally unrelated women look identical? Who knows), but I really liked her as a character anyways. She was the shopkeeper of the game and the support character and she did all that with a lot of grace I thought. Oh right Trevor Blemont was there too. I'm sure he's great in Castlevania 3 when you play him, and I did enjoy his character in this game, but he was also very much a walking plot device. He was against you when the game wanted tension and supported you when the game needed you to use his Belmont magic, but then he sends you off to fight all the final bosses alone despite his entire reason for being there was to fight the final bosses and spent most of the game insisting he would beat them first. He was like a weird rival character who dropped out of the rivaling business for no apparent reason. I mean the reason was Gameplay, but a better in-story reason would have been appreciated. The end of the game was pretty decent, it wrapped everything up more or less, though I thought Hector deciding to move in with Julia in the middle of the mountains was a little weird. I love them as a brotp but I did not appreciate the romantic nod they were trying to include, she looks just like his dead wife for crying out loud! Overall though I thought the plot and characters for the game were Good and got the job done, so good job game. GAMEPLAY I LOVED the gameplay for Curse of Darkness. I liked getting to run around and fight the monsters, I liked leveling up my Innocent Devils and watching them learn new moves to help me destroy stuff, and the Chair Side Quest was the greatest thing the game gave to me. Honestly, it only added to my love of Hector, because you could interpret the whole thing as him having some kind of mind-room thingie where he collects chairs/benches/other things you can sit on (I laughed more than I should at some of them I'm not gonna lie). Like he just poses dramatically on all these chairs and its amazing. And the weapon crafting and combos were a lot of fun (he can apparently use the electric guitar very enthusiastically lol). The only downside to the gameplay was there was no sprinting feature (you do a lot of backtracking through confusingly designed areas, it got a little headache inducing at times), and I wished there was some kind of projectile weapon or something to make the fighting more varied than just the combos (which I admittedly took forever to discover) since you do so much excess fighting to level up in this game. But overall I really enjoyed the gameplay even with its flaws. The levels, I might add, while confusing and a bit ridiculous in layout at times, looked fantastic and all felt pleasantly different from each other, even the ones that were thematically similar. So if the maps had just been designed better the levels/areas would have been perfect. MUSIC/AESTHETIC The music was absolutely fantastic in this game! Castlevania usually has great soundtracks and this one is no exception. It was all very energetic and catchy and fit the mood of the game really well. Could have maybe had more stylistic variety, but that's a very minor complaint given how well composed all of it was. And i really liked how all of the levels looked! The graphics were pretty good, maybe not as shiny as LoI? But it captured the vibe of the game perfectly and still had some great visuals so it worked out. CONCLUSION To sum up, I really only have a few critiques of this game. Mostly it was an awesome experience to play, I had fun watching the cutscenes in both languages and seeing where the plot was going, and the chair side quest, as mentioned, gave me unparalleled joy. It was appropriately paced and about as long as it needed to be (unless it wanted to explain more, which would have been  nice, but also would have made it a much bigger game potentially). The maps were fun to go through when you hadn't explored much of it yet but eventually became a nightmare to maneuver, but the jamming music sort of made up for that. The characters really spoke to me despite all the unanswered questions about them. Actually its prime fanfic material, I may have to get on that sometime. But basically I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes popcorn gothic vampire slaying games (which is pretty much the Castlevania series in a nutshell, there's a reason I want to buy all games released during or before the PS2 era). 8.5/10

[tomoneofakind]

** In this post, I talk about the game Ori and The Blind Forest.   There are spoilers for the game and it’s story in the post**

I try to avoid putting a picture in the beginning, but I want to get this out-of-the-way.  Anyone think Baymax from Big Hero 6 and Stitch from Lilo and Stitch when you look at them?

In this game, you assume the role of Ori, a white guardian spirit, and Sein, the “light and eyes” of the Forest Spirit tree and Ori’s guide.  Ori fell from the Spirit Tree during a storm and was picked up by Naru, his adopted mother.  A cataclysmic event causes the forest to wither and Naru to die of starvation.  Alone, Ori collapses near the Spirit Tree and be restored by it.  Later, Ori meets Sein and to restore the forest, Sein guides Ori to recover three of the main elements to restore the Spirit Tree in the forest of Nibel.

I loved how there is a white light or dusk trail that trails Ori while he runs.  It’s great attention to detail.

Back in my some games I’m looking forward to from my prior E3 Blog, Ori and the Will of the Wisps was one of the games. That week, Ori and the Blind Forest was on sale for half price on Xbox Live.  Is it worth it for full price?  That answer differs from person to person, I feel it can be.  I purchased the game (half price off of course) and I’m glad I did.  It follows the Metriodvania style of gameplay.  The term Metroidvania combines the name of Metroid and Castlevania and features a large world where you explore and find hidden areas and find secrets.  A lot of the time, there are inaccessible areas until you acquire a new type of power that allows you reach those areas.  Ori does this genre well.  I didn’t feel stuck when I got to certain seemingly unreachable areas of the game and I found upgrades rather easily to find.  I did like the ability to save anywhere in the game at the cost of an energy cell.  It helped to stop unnecessary back travel.  Even with that, the game constantly felt like Ori and the constant trail and error.  I died many times and had to go back several minutes to a prior created Soul Link because I was out of energy cells to quick save.  It was rather frustrating but satisfying when I finally conquered a difficult section.

The Ability Tree showing power ups brought with ability points

The Pause Menu showing Current known abilities and gathered power ups

The pacing was great but it could have used a boss battle or two.  The game isn’t long and has quite a good amount of replayability.  The closest that the game comes to a boss battle is Kuro, an owl who lost her children when the spirit tree called out of Ori.  Explained in flashbacks in the game, when the Spirit Tree released a flash of light to look for Ori, it killed all of Kuro’s children except for one egg that didn’t hatch.  Kuro took away the core of the spirit tree to save her last egg.  Even then, it occurs in the later part of the game and your just hiding and running away from her.  The closest that we got to boss battle was an enemy rush and a close door that won’t open until you defeat every enemy.  The Ability tree is simple but diverse to allow a player careful consideration on which path of powering up to chose when playing.

My Favorite moments is when Gumon is following Ori in the foreground.

The narrative being said during your gameplay works great.

There is always the question that is asked;  Are video games art?  I personally feel that art is subjective.   That being said,  this game is a work of art.  I loved the hand drawn look of the game.  Everything looks very vivid and colorful.  Ori’s animation is smooth in all of it’s actions.  Whether it’s jumping, attacking, or moving from left to right, I feel that the game flows rather well.  It’s also incredible that there is no loading for the game except at the beginning.  I did encounter slowdown at some points of the game.  Mostly whenever there was an encounter with Naru.  The background of the game feels like a large map or canvas.  I didn’t feel that the background was recycled at all and the areas felt original.  Even the creators explain that certain assets will appear uniquely to each section of the world.

Can something be beautiful and terrifying at the same time? I think Naru is.

I read that the game takes inspiration for it’s story from many works like The Lion King, the animation of Hayao Miyazaki (the animator/director at Stuido Ghibli) and the gameplay and style of Rayman Origins/Legends.  I also felt a bit of How to train your Dragon.  I could be the only one about that, but it’s how I feel.  The music is some of the best that I ever heard.  This is an instance that the music set the mood of the game and complements the story rather well.  I thought Gareth Coker did a great job.  I’ve included a link to the soundtrack on Spotify below.  Take a listen to it, it’s really wonderful.

Ori and the Blind Forest (Original Soundtrack)

The story is very simple.  No voice over but the narrative said through a type of speaking gibberish and text reading:

The story is told by text reading.  But it’s not long, simple, and very effective into getting myself into the story.

However, the one thing that ruined the game for me was seeing Ori and the Will of the Wisps trailer before playing this game.  When I started Ori and the Blind Forest, you get this heavily emotional opening of Naru finding Ori.  You see Ori grow up Naru and the relationship that they developed.  When the forest was dying, it’s was really hard to watch when Naru gave the last piece of food to Ori and see her die of starvation.  It was sad and confusing.  I saw her alive in The Will of the Wisps trailer, what gives?  After playing through the game, another character Gumo, a spider like creature and the last of his kind follows Ori in the beginning of the game.  He follows Ori to see what his intentions were. He later revives Naru with his clans treasure, that stored light from the Spirit Tree to revive Naru.   It ruins such an emotionally gripping scene at the beginning, only to cheat death at the end.  But this was ruined because I saw the trailer before laying this game. I can guess it sets up the device for Kuro to scarfice herself to restore the forest and save her last egg.  Seeing Naru trying to protect Ori and the end of the game.  A strong beginning that led to an ok ending.  Most people might have hated that aspect playing the game before the trailer.  That just got ruined for me in the trailer.

I’m going through my second play through of the game.  Was there anything that I may have missed?  Let me know in the comments or message me to let me know.  Thank you for reading.

Ori and the Blind Forest ** In this post, I talk about the game Ori and The Blind Forest.   There are spoilers for the game and it’s story in the post**

[daleisgreat]

Dale’s Top 41 Gaming Experiences of 2019

Happy 2020 everyone and thank you for joining me yet again for my yearly exhaustive look back at my ranked experiences of videogames from the prior year! For newer readers, that is where anything gaming related I played, read, watched or interacted with in any other fashion in 2019 (regardless if the game released in 2019 or not) is dissected and broke down in a way unlike your average videogame website top 10 list. Somehow these keep growing in length each year, and if you survived until the end and desire more than take a look at my past top ranked experience lists for these years: 2018 - 2017 - 2016 Just a forewarning this will be a lengthy read so make sure to ‘Control + D’ to bookmark this page or for you mobile readers I would be obliged if you queued it up on a ‘read later’ type app such as Pocket. Click or press here for this year’s recommended background reading music courtesy of the soothing, ambient beats from the OST for NeoCab! Since I do not anticipate anyone reading this in one go, I googled up HTML code for page anchors to make it intuitive to read this in parts for us time conscience folks, so here are some in-page bookmarks… Part 1 - Rankings 41 through 34 Part 2 - Rankings 33 through 26 Part 3 - Rankings 25 through 20 Part 4 - Rankings 19 through 15 Part 5 - Rankings 14 through 10 Part 6 - Rankings 9 through 5 Part 7 - Rankings 4 through 1 Enough dilly-dallying, let us kickoff the 2019 list with a couple not-so-desirable gaming experiences of the year… PART 1 - RANKINGS 41 THROUGH 34 41) The Spoiled Fruit that is Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD I loved the original Super Monkey Ball games on GameCube and Xbox! I missed out on the last original iteration that hit on the Wii launch, Banana Blitz and was ecstatic to hear that Sega was giving it the HD remaster treatment in 2019 on current systems! All I recall from when Banana Blitz originally released was that it forced in a lot of waggle/motion controls for the Wii and that they made the HD release more traditional controller friendly and took out mini-games that were exclusively centered around motion controls so I thought this would be an ideal way to play the game! I could not have been more wrong!

My favorite memories of the GCN/Xbox versions was getting four people to play the main adventure mode where everyone would take their turn with their own monkey ball and navigate them on progressively tougher stages (think classic Marble Madness). Once a player passes/fails a stage, it would be the next player’s turn and it would serve as a nice preview of the stage ahead and what to glom off of one player’s attempt to strategize for your upcoming turn. With up to four players it was a riot cheering and gasping at successful attempts and ridiculous fails and was always a great time….that is until Sega decided for Banana Blitz HD to make the primary adventure mode only playable for one player!!! I have no idea why they did this and am going to chalk it up to a ridiculous oversight! At least the party games are still multiplayer and the excellent Pilotwings-homage, ‘Monkey Target’ returns….but with only one map!?!? Add on top of this some unexpected jittery visuals that did not sit well with my friends and I and it lead to me apologizing for busting out this sorry version of Monkey Ball for a multiplayer game night! If you still have your past consoles hooked up I recommend Super Monkey Ball Deluxe for PS2/Xbox instead since it has all the stages and party games from both GCN games, exclusive content, more maps for ‘Monkey Target’ and multiplayer support for the primary adventure mode.

The long awaited return of the TFL/DGR/StH Game Show at MGC did not disappoint! 40) Midwest Gaming Class Weather Fail 2018 saw my return to the Milwaukee retro videogame convention, Midwest Gaming Classic, after missing the previous four. I had so much fun reconnecting with everyone and taking in the show at the incredibly spacious Wisconsin Center that I soon enough made reservations to make it down for the 2019 show. With the con transpiring in early April though there is always the chance of a late-season snow storm/blizzard hitting in the Midwest and that is exactly what happened and closed my local highways for nearly two days and I wound up missing out on the show. I did at least get to check out SupertheHardest’s panel where they livestreamed their Jeopardy-style game show that was an absolute joy to follow along with as hosts John and Dave tossed out random games to the contestants and an eager crowd! I do have reservations for MGC later this year in a few months, and I am hoping mother nature does not intervene two years in a row. 39) Metal Gear Solid-Quest Fail

Regular readers of this list may recall me trying to march through all the core Metal Gear Solid games. 2019 marked an off year in my MGS-quest as I took some time off from that feat. I keep kicking myself too, because I only have MGS5 left, and I got a few hours into it and was already getting a good grasp for it, but got distracted too much by getting wrapped up into Breath of the Wild and made the error of trying to play both of those games simultaneously, but eventually succumbing to the power of the Tri-Force and having Breath of the Wild dominate my game time! I promise to fix that for 2020 and made finishing MGS5 one of my few gaming goals for 2020! If I succeed at that I may attempt to take a stab at Revengeance and the original MSX games too. For what it is worth I did pick up the new Solid Snake amiibo that released in 2019, and the OST vinyl of the PSone original so there was a modicum of Metal Gear fandom I participated in. 38) Konami Making it a Win Speaking of Konami, yes, you read that title right, I am ever so cautiously marking 2019 the year Konami started to right the ship! For the last few years since they released MGS5, Konami has been lauded by gaming fans and media that it has been the company that has abandoned gaming because of their lucrative gym business on the side and have remained complacent only releasing their annual Pro Evolution Soccer games since. Things quietly started to change in 2017 when Konami surprised us with a new Bomberman game in time for the Switch launch. 2018 saw Konami release a HD update for their Zone of the Enders titles on PS4 along with some exclusive VR content and also port the Switch Bomberman game for Xbox One and PS4. 2018 also saw the release of the polarizing Metal Gear Survive. 2019 saw them up their ante even more with the release of three acclaimed digital anniversary collections for their arcade space shooters, along with ensembles of hit early entries from their Contra and Castlevania brands. To top it off, Konami got on the mini-console bandwagon by announcing the TurboGrafX/PC Engine-mini that will have over 50 games pre-loaded on it! Minus the stinker that is Contra: Rogue Corps and 2019 wound up an excellent year for Konami and hopefully a taste of what is in store for the years to come! 37) Retro-bit Controllers

2019 saw me getting several controllers from the third party, Retro-bit. They have been growing in prominence in recent years with their growing supply of updated classic controllers and availability of HDMI cables for classic systems and have been dabbling with re-releasing classic NES games (more on that in a bit). Retro-bit answered my long pleading demands of having an N64 controller in with only dual grips instead of the standard three grips, and giving the button layout a tweak to make it more of a standard six-button layout like on the Genesis and Saturn controllers. I tried it with several games and far preferred it over Nintendo’s default controller. The other Retro-bit N64 controller modeled after the hard-to-find controller from Hori is a bit more of an acquired taste, but I found it to work great with certain titles. I also found myself going to Retro-bit to acquire a six-button controller for the Genesis-mini console that also came out in 2019. For whatever head-scratching reason, the Genesis-mini only shipped with the original three button controllers and Sega gave Retro-bit the license to make compatible controllers based on Sega’s updated six-button controllers for the Genesis that hit during the fighting game craze. Retro-bit has several other enticing controllers, adaptors and cables on their website, but I am for now biting my tongue and holding off before splurging too much on their retro-gaming goodness.

Playing through all of Sunset Riders half-out-of-it was my favorite moment of Extra Life 2019. 36) Extra Life 2019

After taking my first year off from the 24-hour videogame charity drive, Extra Life, in 2018 in nearly a decade I was stoked to get back into the 24-hour saddle again for 2019. I returned to join my friends Chris and Lyzz for another round of Extra Life. Props to them for being super accommodating to me as always and providing an excellent gaming and streaming setup for the 24 hours! Unfortunately, some last minute emergency issues beyond our control transpired and resulted in a late start, early finish, and a very on-and-off charity drive this year. For added self-imposed injury, I did not time my sleep/nap cycle ideally leading into the stream and quickly lost steam after several hours in and as you can see by the picture here, took what seemed like nearly double the naps than usual. After realizing we were all in pretty rough shape, we put the kibosh to the charity drive after a little over 12 hours invested through….. ….that does not mean it was all bad however! There was a solid four-to-five hour stretch where I got in a lot of random retro gaming and took requests from family members who donated to play any retro game of their choosing and it was gratifying knowing they got to watch along on the stream as I fulfilled their request! My sister requested the original Super Mario Bros. and my stepdad requested some Tetris and an obscure SNES soccer game I never heard of before. Chris also busted out the PSVR and I finally got a chance to tryout the VR version of Zen Pinball and the fully featured on-rails shooter, Blood & Stone. Probably the highlight of 2019’s Extra Life was finally playing through the arcade classic, Sunset Riders while donning a Sunset Riders shirt to boot in a sleep deprived state! Despite all the hiccups, we managed to make the most of it and got in a fair amount of donations from family and friends for our local children’s hospital! 35) VGmpire’s Last Hurrah! I have been a fan of videogame soundtracks ever since getting my first one for N64’s 1080 Snowboarding, and for nearly a decade VGmpire has been my go-to podcast celebrating all things about videogame soundtracks. Each episode would have a theme around a specific game franchise or genre and several music selections were carefully curated and inserted throughout each episode between host commentary for the music and game itself. For the last couple years VGmpire has been winding down, sparingly releasing episodes on a part-time basis until a few months ago when the host, Brett Relston stated VGmpire would be taking a permanent sabbatical due to new employment commitments. He did not leave his listeners on a low-note however, and after a few years of only a couple episodes here and there he left with five straight weeks of episodes highlighting the best soundtrack selections spanning nearly the entire Street Fighter universe! Those five episodes were an awesome farewell to his listeners and they covered such a wide-breadth of some of the best jams in fighting game history. 34) Annual Videogame Vinyl Love Speaking of videogame soundtracks, this ranking indicates how I faired with my videogame vinyl pickups throughout 2019. I added several new additions to my videogame vinyl library, and all have provided excellent background music to my yoga workouts! Standout highlights from this year include the original Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania ReBirth and complete set for Tetris Effect being my favorite pick-ups this year. However, there was one more OST that stood out among all others this year for me and that was for the legendary SNES beat-em-up, TMNT IV: Turtles in Time! I listened to that several times over, before mixing in something else in my rotation. Memories of beating that iconic brawler several times came flooding back as I jammed out to those shell shockin’ tunes! It even has an appreciated bonus track from the TMNT live concert tour smash hit, ‘Pizza Power.’ In case you are blanking on that sick track, I will permanently instill it in your mind with this clip below…

If you are a 90s kid then you can instantly relate to this chart-topping hit! PART 2 - RANKINGS 33 THROUGH 26 33) Now You’re Playing With Podcasting Power

Friends and family knew I use to run a videogame podcast called On Tap for several years from 2006-2013. Since then I have been scratching that podcasting itch by sporadically guest hosting with the sweet baby boys of Your Parents Basement podcast over the years. If you have read past editions of this best of list, you may recall me linking to my guest appearances on there. In 2019 I was on four episodes of the YPB show and touched on some of my all-time favorites and discovered all new gems I never played before that you will read about below. I also got to guest host with longtime friend Glenn on the PSnation Podcast for the first time in several years and had an epic time talking about all kinds of retro and current games along with the latest in TV and film. Throughout 2019 I uploaded several episodes from the On Tap archives onto my YouTube channel (you can find them by click or pressing right here). The archives have been offline since several months after the last episode released in late 2013. I tried to make them somewhat relative to current gaming events like re-posting our TurboGrafX retrospective in time for 30th anniversary, and our Mortal Kombat special to coincide with the release of Mortal Kombat 11. It felt good getting some of these favorite episodes back online and inspired me to pick up a long overdue new microphone for future guest hosting spots and possibly a return to regular podcasting. I have been giving a serious think to debuting a weekly/bi-weekly show hopefully later this year with the goal to stay in touch better with friends and peers. Hopefully all will go according to plan, stay tuned! 32) Getting my Morning Caffeine Fix…in 2D Pixel Brawler Form! I crave my 2D brawlers/beat-em-ups! I will touch on some others later in this list, and I always enjoy revisiting the classics, but I also am elated to see the indie game market pick up the torch with a decent smattering of modern takes on the retro-pixel brawler. There were a couple I recently picked up, and am beating myself up for not making time for the much anticipated follow-up to the NES classic, River City Ransom with the release of River City Girls. A 2D brawler I did make time for with a couple friends though was Coffee Crisis. It is where an alien invasion happens out of nowhere and two seemingly ordinary baristas take the initiative among themselves to fight back! As you can see in the video below, the gameplay looks and feels like a more fleshed out version of the brawling from the classic Simpsons arcade game! The action is appropriately over-the-top, and is jacked up with power-ups that make the characters feel they are going through a caffeine boost of sorts. I busted it out a couple times with friends Derek and Adam, and we progressed several levels through each time before running out of lives.

Coffee Crisis is a solid contemporary take on the classic arcade beat-em-up brawlers! 31) Ride or Die 2019 Here is my annual love for the quality of driving/racing games I played in 2019. I did not put as much time into driving games as I wanted to in 2019, and went through some serious droughts of getting my racing fix. I wanted to start either The Crew 2 and/or Forza Horizon 3 in hopes of having a big open-world racing game to pick away at throughout the year and failed in both endeavors. I did find time to continually pick away progress at the awesome OutRun/Top Gear tribute that is Horizon Chase Turbo however. Another similar take on Hang-On/OutRun I chanced on a random weekly Xbox sale was a motorcycle time-based driving title, Super Night Riders. It captured the spirit of Hang-On to a T with its evolving time of day, catchy tunes and last second emotions of barely hitting the next checkpoint! I wished it had more than just its several included courses though! I kept coming back to these new takes on the retro-time based driving games in short spurts, and were ideal ways to start off lengthier gaming sessions.

I got a chance to have a few sessions for the first time in a while with SNES-Super Mario Kart inspired Super Indie Kart which is STILL IN EARLY ACCESS after several years. The developer is shooting for a full release in 2020, and compared to what I played a couple years prior, a lot of tracks and characters were added with highlights being both ToeJam and Earl. I experienced many of positive vibes I had from SNES Mario Kart from what I tried out and hope to see it finally emerge out of Steam Early Access this year. I discovered Grip off Xbox Game Pass, and its initially intimidating spherical driving. Eventually, I was able to adapt and get into and make a fair amount of headway into this combat racer that fans are touting as the spiritual successor to the PSone gem, Rollcage. I had a couple short sessions online in OnRush thanks to it being a PlayStaion Plus game. I dug its take by capturing the magic of crashing rivals in BurnOut and putting a new twist on it and making it a team based points competition instead of a traditional position-based racing game and wished I was able to spend more time with it in 2019. The driving game I put the most time into in 2019 was demolition derby-racer WreckFest. I touched on it on my 2018 recap with it coming out of early access for PC, but 2019 saw the console release and my brother and I had several sessions of online WreckFest on Xbox One. The action got pretty whacked several times and we did not care that we usually finished in the middle of the pack with the fun we had surviving each race and the chaos that comes with demolition derby-based racing games. 30) Family Gaming 2019

I had my dad and brother over at my place for Father’s Day and Christmas this year and of course we wound up playing some old school games. On Father’s Day, similar to last year we powered on the N64 and experienced some of the same classics with my dad we did growing up like New Tetris and Mario Kart 64. My dad was starting to hone in his masterful Tetris skills again by the time we wrapped up, and if we would have done more sessions I am confident he would have been wiping the floor with us! On Christmas I had a fixing for my initial videogame memories with my dad on the Atari 2600 so I booted up Atari Flashbacks on the Xbox One. I remember the astutely titled Bowling being a big hit with the family and sure enough we had several close games. Despite how simple it is on the VCS, it remains one of my favorite videogame renditions of the sport. We then booted up the arcade versions of Centipede and Millipede and Joe wowed me with some impressive progress in those games I had no idea about until he said went through a recent period playing those arcade classics nonstop at a nearby locale. 29) Super the Up-Down I have fond memories of the 90s nostalgia arcade, Up Down in the Twin Cities that I wrote about here before and 2019 marked my third trek there! My brother and I met up with longtime friends Moe and John from the SupertheHardest podcast and we proceeded to drink and game the night away. Aside from some brief excursions to clash against John in Street Fighter II and teaming up with my brother in Smash TV the main highlight was Moe, Joe and I nearly beating the iconic X-Men arcade game all the way through before running out of quarters in the final Magneto fight. I am starting to get a little concerned though with the upkeep of the machines at Up Down however. Several machines had faulty buttons and/or would not support a second or third player. I did not recall having these issues the last two times I was there, but I imagine it is inevitable with big crowds getting their drinks sloshed all over that those machines would require constant maintenance. 28) You Do Know Jack!!

I have no idea how they do it, but Jellyvision/Jackbox games has been pumping out a nonstop collection of social party games under the Jackbox Party Pack branding and 2019 saw volume six hit current consoles. Even at six entries in I am continually impressed at how smooth most our sessions run using a web browser window on our phones as a controller with little-to-no lag throughout. I have reminisced before in these yearly breakdowns my recurring couch multiplayer sessions with friends Derek, Brooke and Ryan. Variations of Jackbox Party Pack dominated our sessions this year, with the sixth game taking the most time once it released. Trivia Murder Party 2 was the runaway hit game of the collection with its quirky deathmatch take on trivia and the one we came back to the most. Dictionarium would be a runner-up with us competing to see who can be the most creative with new words and definitions. 27) Flying Power Disc! Long forgotten Neo-Geo game, Windjammers gained notoriety over the last several years from it being regularly featured on Giant Bomb videos and features. I had no idea about it prior either and would be lying if I were to say otherwise. It gained so much newfound fame from GB’s videos that it started gaining traction in the eSports scene, got a remaster on PS4/Xbox One/Switch and recently got an upcoming sequel announced. I briefly tried the PS4 release of WindJammers in 2018 to mark my first hands-on time with it, but 2019 saw me won over by it! I vanquished the computer adversaries with each character to net that trophy and played a fair amount online with my go-to PS4 online adversary, Chris (different Chris from mentioned above)! The PS4 remaster could not handle this combative disc-based version of Pong any better! Highly recommended for quick, local and online multiplayer throwdown sessions!

GiantBomb’s many intense multiplayer sessions of Windjammers turned me (and countless others) on to this Neo-Geo hidden gem. 26) No Rest for the Wicked… I was a huge fan of the first two Borderlands games, but only played the first couple hours of the Pre-Sequel before deciding to take a break from the series. Derek and I played through the second game and was giving me some friendly nudging to get the much-hyped Borderlands 3 that released a few months ago. I finally picked it up several weeks ago, and we only got a couple sessions and several hours in as of this writing and thus this ranking, but from what we played so far I am started to get sucked back into the fun grind that is Borderlands. The first couple hours took a bit of re-familiarizing with the general gameplay and abilities and how to properly manage inventory and level-up because BL3 is a glut of menus. Combine that with the fact I have fallen out of favor with first person shooters in general for the last few years and I found myself extremely rusty initially. After a couple hours though I started to get back in the swing of gameplay and get my Borderlands-wheels rolling again. I recalled the BL-wisdom that Derek helped instill in me from our BL2 sessions of ‘Do not dwell on the countless stats on each gun, keep swapping out until you find something that is fun to shoot with!’ I am a fan of the quirky Borderlands lore and outrageous characters and while the jokes are hit and miss, the frantic gameplay and open-world exploring more than makes up for it. I have a newfound appreciation for Bio-fuel! I look forward to getting back into Borderlands 3 as 2020 progresses and hope to report back next year with how we steamrolled through it! PART 3 - RANKINGS 25 THROUGH 20 25) New Old NES Games and other Limited Run Releases

I eluded to earlier how Retro-bit started re-releasing older NES games. 2018 saw them release the formerly Japan exclusive, Holy Diver and 2019 saw them re-issue the increasingly rare Metal Storm. I acquired both of these in 2019. I opted for the deluxe edition of Holy Diver that saw it include a ton of extra goodies as seen in the pic below. The Metal Storm re-issue is the Japan version of the game that has narrative cutscenes included and more forgiving difficulty tweaks. I did not get a chance to play either of these yet, but Holy Diver looks to be a tough-as-nails platformer that rewards practice and I look forward to attempting Metal Storm’s consistently rotating platform-based stages. Mr. Jeremy Parish did commendable breakdowns of both games upon their reissues so for those that are interested in adding some new old NES games to their collection click or press here for his Holy Diver review or here for his take on Metal Storm. Retro-bit partnered with Limited Run to distribute Metal Storm. It would not be a yearly gaming dissection without highlighting some key Limited Run purchases. Limited Run somehow scored a goldmine of a deal by getting the rights from Disney to re-issue physical versions of several classic Star Wars games for the NES, GameBoy, N64 and PS2 remasters on PS4. I wound up getting one of my childhood N64 favorites in Shadows of the Empire and the remaster of the PS2 racing title, Racer Revenge for PS4. I was also thrilled to lock in orders for physical releases for Atari Flashbacks on Vita, acclaimed puzzler Lumines Remastered and much anticipated narrative exploration titles like Wandersong, Alone With You and Tacoma for PS4. Limited Run has been lately releasing more obscure titles that are off my radar the past few months so I will take that as a blessing in disguise on my wallet! 24) ZOMBICIDE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

These past few best of gaming installments I tend to breakdown some of my favorite board game moments of the year in an entry. Easily my favorite board game night of 2019 was where my brother and I met up with several other people for a six or seven player session of Zombicide. Imagine a meticulous, detailed board game portrayal of Left 4 Dead and you have Zombicide. I did four player runs of it before knowing that Zombicide usually requires a ton of intricate setup with its many tiles, pieces and tokens so I imagined with nearly eight of us we were in for a long night. Luckily, my buddy Mike hosted the game and has a boatload of experience with Zombicide, and even with his brisk pace of moderating and moving the game along we ended up playing for a solid five-ish hours before we wrapped up. It got to the point where we were playing so late and I knew a few of us were getting fairly tuckered out, but we roughed it out because we were passed that ‘point of no return’ in our quest to escape the board with our party alive! Regrettably, my brother and I were the only ones whose characters perished, two times over each as Mike gave us replacement characters, but both of us got a little too hasty with our strategies and we paid dearly for it. Regardless, it was an epic board game night I will never forget! Derek and Brooke were playing with us too and both got into the session as much as my brother and I did. They have since told me they have been doing mini-sessions of it and mastering the pacing and setup for the game, so I look forward for more frequent Zombicide sessions in 2020! 23) A Certain Super Power-ed Guide Book

A couple years back I recounted how Pat Contri’s Ultimate Guide to the NES Library book/tome was bedside reading for me nearly every night. While maintaining a reading schedule of a page or two a night it still took me a year and a half to finish since it reviewed every game that hit the NES in America. Contri soon after got to work on the sequel, Ultimate Guide to the SNES Library and it wound up being one of only three crowd-funded projects I ever contributed to. The book finally finished publishing a few months ago and I got my copy in the mail about a month back. It follows the same format as the last book by reviewing all the American and PAL SNES games, and contains roughly a dozen featured articles and essays to book-end this SNES bible. I immediately looked to see how the SNES games I own measured up, and then continued my same routine as I did with the NES book at reading a page or two of reviews a night before bed. Naturally, I am only a couple dozen pages in and have a long ways to go, but am ecstatic to see a long coming crowd-funded project come to fruition! 22) Top Gaming Videos of 2019' For whatever reason, gaming videos are perfect background noise for me and resulted in me watching way too many. Like last year, here is my notated favorites that hit in 2019…

The yearly ‘Winter Games’ competition video of the GiantBomb crew featuring random videogame challenges and traditional house party a holding your breath contest ….seriously is always one of my favorite GiantBomb videos of the year. Too bad for their Goldeneye challenge in this video they did not know about the one hit-kills from the ‘License to Kill’ mode or their ‘Slappers-only’ duel would not have lasted forever. GiantBomb - Dreamcast Anniversary Stream - Jeff Gerstmanns Pro Skater Series - Winter Games 2019 - GB Family Feud - GB Advance - VinnyVania Bloodstained Series - The Final Mario Party - Mass Alex 2 Series – Get on my Level Series - Resident Evil 4 Playdate Series - Dangerous Driving Quick Look - WWE 2K20 Quick Look - Madden 20 Quick Look (VINNY WINS!!) MetalJesus - Jaguar Love - PS2 Love – Reggie Pickups - WiiU Love - PAL PS2 Exclusives - PSP Racers Gaming Historian - Super Mario Land Series - Story of Links Awakening - Story of Super Mario Bros 3

Attending a couple E3s myself as part of the gaming press I can vouch for a lot featured in this splendid breakdown of what E3 is like for the gaming press. OntheStick/JoeDrilling - ECW Hardcore Revolution - Marvel Superheroes - Resident Evil 2 - Oxenfree No Clip - Gaming Media at E3 - History of Telltale Games LGR - Computer Warehouse Exploration - Doom II 25th Anniversary - Ion Fury - Windows 3 Point 1 Love - SimCity 30th Anniversary CGQ - Genesis in 1990 - Dreamcast Launch - Lets Read EGM issue 36 - Lets Read Nintendo Power issue 2 RetroPals - GameCom Love

Behold, according to the AVGN, a terrible flagship Zelda game by Nintendo. My Life in Gaming - History of M2 GameSack – Shenmue III Review - Worst Sounding Genesis Games - NES Special - Mega SG Review AVGN/Cinemassacre - Videogame Magazine Special - Pepsi Man - Chex Quest - The Immortal - Majoras Mask - Defending NES OG TMNT - Genesis Mini Review - Nightmare on Elm Street - Barts Nightmare - SNES Campus Challenge - Thunder in Paradise - Combat vs Contri

Jeremy Parish did comprehensive looks at all American and Japanese Virtual Boy games in 2019, and topped it off with this all-encompassing look on why this Nintendo system came and went in under a year. Jeremy Parish ‘Works’ - All of Virtual Boy Works - Links Awakening - Tengen NES Trio - Circle of the Moon - Pilotwings 64 - Turok 2 GBC Scott the Woz - Mario Kart for SNES - GCN - DS - and Wii - Club Nintendo - WiiWare Chronicles - Call of Duty DS - Bargain Bin Christmas

Scott the Woz states his case for Double Dash being the best Mario Kart, clearly he is mistaken and we all know the 64 version reigns supreme. 21) Out-drinking Satan I was pleasantly surprised to see the anticipated indie game, Afterparty as part of Xbox Game Pass upon its release day. It is from the developers at Night School Studios who brought us Oxenfree, yes that same game which took the #1 honors for my inaugural top gaming experience list from 2016. Needless to say, I was excited to see what Night School Studios had in store for the sequel. Afterparty is a narrative exploration game where two freshly graduated high-schoolers find themselves suddenly very much dead and in a twisted Tim Burton-esque party version of hell and set forth on a quest to out-drink Satan in order to get a second chance in life on Earth.

The hype going into this kind of rubbed me the wrong way a little bit about its promotion of getting wasted all the time, but it all kind of makes sense in the end with one of the endings available on how that lifestyle may not be all it is initially cracked up to be. I dug the aesthics in Oxenfree, and loved how they brought them over into Afterparty, but with some tweaks to represent a 24/7 party atmosphere in hell. Gamplay is similar to Oxenfree with by picking from a few dialogue choices available and some only available when your character is drunk which warrants multiple playthroughs for this 4-5ish hour game. By the end I liked the universe Night School established and what they were going for by the time I finished it, but I did not love it. Maybe my initial choices lead to a not-so-desirable playthrough as I thought they would. Afterparty has their in-hell version of Twitter with random tweets from background characters going on non-stop and it is more distracting the way it is implemented. I have been listening to the Afterparty OST while writing parts of this never-ending read, and I have been taking it in more this way than the way it came across more muted during gameplay. Oxenfree I loved so much that I played through it two more times within a few months to see other dialogue options and endings, but with Afterparty the last act felt kind of disjointed with my choices and it wrapped up with no real sense of closure. Again, maybe it was bad luck on my part with the options I picked. This however did not lead me to anxiously jumping right into starting another run, but I wanted to see if the other endings were worth playing for so I went and YouTube’d the other endings right away and yes, I think those would have been better ways to conclude Afterparty for me, but they still lacked the memorable high notes that comprised the final act of Oxenfree. Afterparty is on Game Pass though so that is a nice perk at the moment and so I imagine I will at least start a second playthrough sooner than later to see how the opening parts play out differently by picking polar opposite choices. I also wanted to mention I played this on an Xbox One S on an external hard drive install and I was stunned to see this is the first game I ran into with particularly noticeable slowdown and performance issues. I had little to no hiccups with other graphically extensive games like Gears 5 and Man of Medan recently so I found the performance hiccups here surprising with the not-so-overwhelming visuals from this 2D game. Lucky for Afterparty, it is a laid back narrative exploration game so it was not that much of an issue to deal with whenever slowdown and framerate stutters happened. Despite these performance and narrative qualms, I do not regret my time with Afterparty and would recommend to at least try it if you have Game Pass and see if it is up your alley.

EPN went above and beyond with their coverage of the Genesis Mini with several videos dedicated solely to the 16-bit ‘Blast Processing’ wonder. 20) Sega Finally Gets a Mini-Genesis Right After several versions of mini-Genesis ‘Flashback’ consoles of poor-to-mixed quality from the manufacturers, AtGames, Sega took it upon themselves to release and produce their very own Genesis-mini on the 30th anniversary of the North American launch. Sega got it right this time around with superior emulation compared to the efforts from AtGames and a lineup of 42 games mostly from Sega, but with also some notable third party hits too. They also include handy features as seen in Nintendo’s mini-systems like save states and the ability to rewind gameplay which I can attest is a lifesaver for some of these brutally tough games from the 90s. It is worth noting the recent Genesis Classics disc Sega released on current consoles offers up over 50 games, but they are all from Sega’s catalog and have a wide range of quality. The lineup here comparably hits more than misses, and features the expected Sega studs, but welcomed third party additions like Road Rash II, Castlevania: Bloodlines and Street Fighter II: Champion Edition.

I have only briefly played my own Genesis-mini, and am awaiting the close final tweaks to software that is about to release that will allow users to upload their own personal Genesis games to the mini much like I did for my NES & SNES-minis so I can curate my own ultimate Genesis library. I like the library offered up here, but would be lying if I said I was not bummed that Sega omitted some of its hit sports games that helped defined it during the 16-bit wars. I understand there are those pesky royalty fees to deal with for former players and teams, but a lot of the early 16-bit Sega Sports titles lacked those licenses or only had one player being the cover mascot for the title. EA was also a strong supporter of the Genesis (with sports AND non-sports titles) so it was eye-opening to see only one game from EA’s 16-bit library make the Genesis-mini cut. This is why I am awaiting for that library loading software to get perfected so I can have my own handpicked Genesis line ready to go! I also want to give props to EPN for their prolific and thorough videos breaking down the Genesis-mini at launch and give another shoutout Jeremy Parish’s in-depth review of it too where he goes far more into the weeds on the Genesis-mini than I will on my blurb about it here if you want to know more. PART 4 - RANKINGS 19 THROUGH 15 19) Punishing Arcade Action Starring Dolph & Hasselhoff Clones The Punisher is in all likelihood my favorite 90s arcade brawler. Granted, I am biased being an unapologetic fan of the comics and the arcade game makes great use of the license by featuring several of the Punisher’s top villains from that time and having Punisher team up with his on-and-off ally Nick Fury. The Genesis port is noticeably watered down visually in order to run on the system after looking at comparison videos online. When not playing the two side-by-side the differences are negligible to me while playing. It does not have the ability to set max lives in order to breeze through it, but you can set to adjust an option to add a few more which made it plausible to beat on normal difficulty with a non-wreckless strategy of picking your spots and timing attacks instead of rushing into encounters with mindless button mashing. I can vouch for this from experience!

The bad thing about beating Genesis Punisher on Normal difficulty is it gives a bullshit ending screen of ‘Now Play like the Punisher in Hard Mode to see the True Ending.’ I mean, it is not like the ending is likely all that it is cracked up to be to motivate me to going through it again on a tougher difficulty….oh wait…guys I looked it up and turns out that ending blows away all other endings from arcade brawlers at the time as you can see by that attached video below. With that in mind, I invited my brother over one day in 2019 and I was determined this was the day we could beat Genesis Punisher in hard mode. We did have some help though from game genie cheats we had loaded up on an SDcard into the Retron5 we used to play it on though. We did not turn on full health or infinite lives because we desperately wanted to say we ‘earned’ that awesome ending, but one of the things hard difficulty mode tweaks is not the challenge of the opponents, but merely the quantity of them. This would not be a deal-breaker since a lot of the common thugs are pushovers, but with this brawler having a timer, it would lead to us losing a couple lives after running out time while taking out the ump-teenth wave of goons sent our way. Not wanting to burn through more lives on a BS timer system, we disabled the timer on the cheats menu halfway through and we also disabled losing life from executing the leg sweep ‘super’ move. Not that the leg sweep was more powerful as ordinary attacks, but it helped free up some breathing room when the AI cluttered the screen with several enemies. With those two ‘assists’ activated we progressed up to the final stage before we finally ran out of lives in the midst of the ‘ol arcade brawler stereotype, the dreaded boss gauntlet! I am confident if we would have gained a couple lives and disabled the boss timer from the beginning we would have at least got up to the final boss and possibly defeated him! Earlier in 2019 Arcade 1up released a Capcom Marvel edition cabinet loaded up with the classic arcade versions of Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Superheroes. I have no idea why a brawler such as Punisher seemed like a fitting inclusion with the Marvel fighting games when Capcom had several other Marvel vs. fighting games to choose from, but that Arcade 1up release is so far the only reissue of either the Arcade or Genesis Punisher title to this day. The downside is that it will set one back $400!!! As awesome as it would be to have the actual official arcade release at home, I imagine if I would pick that up I would ignore my aforementioned advice and fall victim to maxing out the credits and mindlessly button mashing my way to the end. I think I will prefer sticking with a little bit of strategy in my brawler and one day hope of finishing hard mode, just like the Punisher…..for now.

This will be worth the extra hassle of beating in hard difficulty to witness! 18) Handheld Gaming 2019 I had a pretty solid year for traditional portable gaming (AKA non-phone games!!). With 2019 being the 30th anniversary of the GameBoy in North America, I went to our local retro game shop with the mindset of picking up the only GameBoy variant I did not own, the GameBoy Pocket. I noticed it there on a previous trip going for not that much and when I went to request it the clerk informed me of their modded GameBoy Advances they recently started selling that have new outer shells and a premium backlit screen on par with the latter GBA SPs. That went for three times as much as the Pocket, but after the clerk let me test it out for a few minutes I instantly had a change of heart and forked over the dough for the custom deluxe GBA. I love my backlit GBA SP, but I always preferred the form factor of the original GBA more, and having it with a top class backlit screen convinced me to upgrade. I wound up playing that modded GBA quite a lot in the back half of the year.

In the first half of the year though I wrapped up Dragon Quest VIII in January shortly after posting the previous year’s recap, and stuck with it for a few months consulting guides for recommended post-game quests to take a stab at. Loved my many hours with DQVIII, but that was a game I primarily endured throughout 2018. After that lengthy RPG I popped in the optimal palate cleanser, WarioWare Gold on the 3DS. Up until that point, the only WarioWare release I ever played prior was the GameCube version, which I am a fan of but I always heard excellent testimonials about the handheld versions. WWG has over 300 of the bite-sized ‘micro-games,’ most of which are collected from previous entries, but also consist of a fair amount of exclusive original micro-games for the 3DS. The frenetic gameplay kept me bug-eyed throughout, and the slightly lengthier ‘boss battles’ also cracked me up. There are a seeming infinite amount of Nintendo references and small sections of gameplay taken from countless other Nintendo games ranging from common top 8 and 16-bit hits to the obscure with nods to titles like Virtual Boy’s Mario Clash. It all added up as the perfect pick-up-and-play title coming off a mammoth RPG. Do not be like me and neglect this superb handheld version! I am a nut for picross games, and the 3DS has a ton of them but 2019 I finally started the My Nintendo exclusive game, Legend of Zelda Picross. Like other Picross games on the 3DS it has an intuitive control scheme and a multi-layered hint system which I took advantage of numerous times to nudge me in the right direction! I downloaded the GameBoy cult hit, Mole Mania off the 3DS eShop and consumed a few hours of that action/puzzler to discuss on a clayyyysic episode of YPB I guest hosted on. I imported a few fan translation GBA and DS games that have been on my want list forever because they never had official American releases, but thankfully the fanbase stepped up and changed that so I was thrilled to finally add Ace Attorney Investigations 2, Retro Game Challenge 2 and Mother 3 to my handheld library. I played through the first case of AAI2 and it brought back memories of why I enjoyed the first one so much and the fresh changes it brought to the Ace Attorney formula. Did not get a chance to play Retro Game Challenge 2 yet, but I did put a lot of time into Mother 3.

The fan translation originally released for Mother 3 about a decade or so ago and I started it up on a ROM and got a few hours in, but eventually got sidetracked and regrettably neglected it. Having a physical copy of the game and making 2019 a big year for the Mother/Earthbound franchise for me were the catalysts to have me stick through Lucas’s adventure this time around. Mother 3 has a similar look and feel as Earthbound on SNES, but with an entire new setting and cast of affable characters that similarly immersed me into their unique world all over again. Props to the fan translators who took on that mammoth undertaking with dialogue that does not skip a beat and brings back the vintage lighthearted and crude humor that was a trademark of Earthbound. The battles play out nearly identical too with each character having unique attacks, and retaining Earthbound’s rolling HP meter that allows additional precious seconds to escape death from a gutsy battle. I have been cherishing my dragged out sessions of this gem so I have not finished Mother 3 yet, but according to a guide I am halfway through chapter seven of eight, so almost! 17) Out Contra-ing Contra I have played a few Contra titles over the years, but usually fall victim to their hard-but-fair difficulty. I am starting to come around and appreciate them a little more recently and kind of like I described with Punisher above, play them a little more smartly and not rush in guns blazing in order to conserve lives and survive those grueling boss fights. I heard of a new Contra-inspired indie game gaining some buzz and launching day and date on Xbox Game Pass called Blazing Chrome. My buddy Adam was swinging over to hang out on the night of its release and I brought up about starting the night off with a quick session of Blazing Chrome expecting it to kick our ass and deplete our lives within ten minutes. We booted it up and……did not put it down until over two hours later!

Blazing Chrome plays like Contra III on steroids. The character and background sprites along with all the gunfire and explosions adds some extra ‘oomph’ and a little more dazzling special effects that would not seem possible on the SNES, but easily doable on the Xbox One. The boss battles also capture that ‘larger-than-life’ feeling from the bosses of Contra III. Eventually we fell victim to the fourth stage boss, which was something like going up against a Veloci-raptor that require pinpoint precision in order dodge its flurry of attacks. Thankfully, Blazing Chrome is not as merciless as Contra and allows the ability to restart at the beginning of the latest stage you progressed to after running out of lives. We must have restarted that dastardly fourth stage damn near ten times and played until our eyes felt like they were on the verge of falling out. Despite Blazing Chrome kicking our asses, like Contra it felt like it was not the game being cheap, but instead our own fault and needing to put forth the practice to learn patterns and master the timing and layouts of levels. It was a blissful moment whenever we got another stage or boss that we were previously hung up on and successfully coordinated our attacks to take down mid-bosses or other pesky foes. Adam and I keep thinking of revisiting Blazing Chrome ever since, but knowing what we are in for this time around we keep telling ourselves we got to be in the right mindset going into this five star indie game of 2019! 16) ”Go X-Men, Stop Magneto….err Apocalypse….no actually Magneto, Really!” I reached out to the fine folks at YPB Podcast who were looking for a classic X-Men game to cover to coincide with the release of the X-Men: Dark Phoenix film. The SNES title, Mutant Apocalypse has always been on my bucket list to beat. Despite the polarizing nature of the FOX films, I have enjoyed most of them and was anticipating Dark Phoenix and wanted to re-watch the previous film, Apocalypse for a refresher on the plot too. So for about a week I went all-in on X-Men and played through and finished Mutant Apocalypse, with literally mere minutes to spare before I met up with the YPB crew for our arranged recording time.

Mutant Apocalypse hit when Capcom was on top of their 16-bit game pumping out nonstop, top tier licensed and original games. MA is not an arcade brawler, but more of a methodical action platformer. I dug how each level focused on one of several different X-Men and how each character had their own specialized attacks I knew so well from the hit 90s cartoon from that era. There are still plenty of cannon fodder for to hack ‘n slash though, but also a fair amount of platforming to navigate through and multi-layered boss fights to survive. I hate to sacrifice my gaming cred, but some of these boss battles I had to resort to the save state and rewind features of the SNES-classic in order to proceed. It was worth it though, and resulted in one of the top X-Men games of that generation, barely nudging out Clone Wars on Genesis for my favorite 16-bit X game. I jest with the title of this entry because it eludes to Apocalypse being the big bad behind everything, but ultimately it is a red herring and low and behold it is none other Professor X’s good buddy, Magneto behind it all again! We poked fun at that logic while dissecting the game with the YPB boys, and I surprisingly found myself legit into Apocalypse on my re-watch of it. Playing through MA and enjoying Apocalypse more than I expected the second time around had me way more amped up for Dark Phoenix than I had any right to be because it was impossible to avoid the movie and comic press at the time anticipating a box office dud. While Dark Phoenix will not make my top 10 films of 2019 list and had its fair share of holes to dig through, I still had a good time throughout its retelling of the Phoenix saga and it provided a degree of satisfying closure to this four-movie arc of characters. 15) Sports-Ball Gaming 2019 It was a solid year of sports gaming for me in 2019. It did not dominate the year for me, but the chunks I did rock the old sports-ball were immensely gratifying! Picking up from 2018 and into the first couple months of 2019 was finishing off my season of Mutant League Football. I raved about this in last year’s recap about this being a worthy spiritual successor to EA’s Mutant Football League. It captures the over-the-top nature of the Genesis game and mixed in a dose of dialed up NFL Blitz-esque gameplay for what is likely my favorite football game this generation. I won the championship in season mode, and debated starting up the new Dynasty/Franchise multi-season mode that released as DLC towards the end of 2018, but decided to take a break from this whacked out turf frenzy in favor of….

I loved Madden’s take on Friday Night Lights, and Madden 19’s second attempt at a story mode ups the stakes for the returning NFL hopefuls as seen in this complete collection of all the cutscenes above. …a more realistic version of the sport in Madden NFL 19. I am a fan of EA’s take on a story-based single player mode it debuted in Madden NFL 18 with its ‘Longshot’ narrative. Madden 19 brought back Devin Wade and Colt Cruise in their quest for NFL stardom with part two of ‘Longshot.’ I noticed a polarizing reception to this story mode, but I thought it was a much-needed dose of fresh single player gameplay after so much emphasis on Ultimate Team in Madden this past decade. Wade unfortunately is still having trouble remembering plays, and Cruise bounces back and forth trying to ride the limited success from his song ‘Longshot.’ Cruise’s storyline is noticeably more of the focus this year with him making one last effort at making it into the NFL before being introduced to his long lost half-sister who drags him into help coaching the beloved local football team, the Bullfrogs! The narrative and football sequences are better paced out, and most football gameplay involved is never forcing a player to play through complete whole games, but instead a series of drives to accomplish a certain goal. The awesome high school flashback games return, complete with adorable local announcer commentary! It was interesting to see which active and retired NFL talent they brought into the story, and eventually ‘Longshot’ circles back to Colt coaching the Bullfrogs from escaping being foreclosed on from a real estate bigshot in a feel-good fundraising finale! Despite how much I was into the narrative, I got swamped with a bunch of menu prompts after finishing ‘Longshot’ pressuring me to check out the microtransaction-heavy Ultimate Team mode afterwards, and the menus throughout the rest of the game modes consistently attempt to poke and prod away to Ultimate Team instead. After doing a couple online games with a friend and failing miserably, I quickly traded in Madden 19. I felt like I sold it short and probably could have still got a solid season worth of games in the Franchise mode, but the big push in marketing and development resources in realistic sports games this past several years going into virtual currency-influenced modes like Ultimate Team rubs me the wrong way and I find myself playing more arcade sports games instead.

Speaking of arcade sports games, an interesting digital game on PS4 I tried out last year is Super Blood Hockey! It looks and plays similarly to the NES classic, Ice Hockey (complete with picking the size of your players), but with a bigger focus on fights and….well, blood. I only played a few games and need to come back to it, because I am awful against the AI, but I definitely am into the vibe it is going for. Another arcade sports game that had an awesome old-school NES vibe, but I was able to get a feel for was Basketball Classics on PC/Steam. It reminds me a lot of what Double Dribble would be like if it were on Intellivision. Gameplay is very simple with only three buttons involved for gameplay, but it also mixes in handy modern play mechanics like a 2K-esque shot meter. Basketball Classics has the 8-bit hoops charm factor oozing out of it with a catchy theme song, background chiptunes and interactive dunk cinematics that look like they were ripped right out of Double Dribble. I do not want to overlook the righteous story mode which follows a similar style to the NBA Street games by beating teams and recruiting their top player who have similar player portraits to 80s/90s NBA legends like Jordan, Barkley, Magic, Kareem and Bird. I was able to get to the ‘phantom five’ boss team, but despite several attempts failed repeatedly. There is still a lot I want to dive into and I have yet to try like a regular season mode with several dozen classic team rosters available. PART 5 - RANKINGS 14 THROUGH 10 14) An Offer I Could Not Refuse In last year’s list even though I did not subscribe to Xbox Game Pass, I gave it a pretty solid ranking due to it being the second coming of the Sega Channel, but now with proper resources and superior accessibility to its userbase. It also helped that Xbox Game Pass offers about triple the games at around 130-150 games a month compared to the 40 Sega Channel offered up at the time. Oh yeah, back in the mid-90s Sega charged about $15 a month, and Microsoft is currently charging $15 a month also for its ‘Ultimate Game Pass’ which combines Game Pass for Xbox One and PC as well as bundling in Xbox Live Gold. Since the last year’s recap Microsoft has went on to make all of its first party games available to Game Pass subscribers on their first day of release, and also went on to presumably offer nice payouts to highly anticipated indie games to become available on Game Pass upon their release date like Outer Worlds, Blair Witch Project, Demon’s Tilt, Afterparty, Blazing Chrome and Outer Wilds.

Despite all that temptation, I held off subscribing to it because I already have way too many games in my backlog and do not want to pay a monthly fee on top of it, but then around E3 2019 Microsoft made an offer too good to pass up where for only $1 they would convert the rest of your remaining Xbox Live Gold time to an Ultimate Game Pass membership and then add a bonus month on top of it. My Xbox Live Gold auto-renewed a month prior to that announcement, so it would be foolish to pass up converting my remaining 11 months into Ultimate Game Pass time for only $1. I am glad I did because I wound up trying out a decent amount of games from it. Not a boatload because as you can see from this list I had a lot of other games to play, but the convenience of the service caused me to try a lot more than I thought. There were challenging BMX-based games like Descenders and Lonely Mountains: Downhill, the bonkers semi-platforming game, ClusterTruck, the aforementioned spherical racer, Grip and The Blair Witch Project that I was totally consumed by for the first hour until I got lost in the woods and spent two hours circling around going nowhere before giving up. On top of all that I ended up finishing two games off of Game Pass by the end of the year. One of them was Afterparty that I already gave my rundown of, and another I will touch on shortly. So yeah, even though I may not stick with Game Pass when my $1 membership expires in half a year, it is safe to say I easily got my dollar’s worth out of it and then some! 13) Pinball Madness 2019

The weekly match-up scorechasing leaderboards in Pinball FX3 have been a constant for me for a couple years now. Every Saturday morning I have a routine of loading up the four predetermined scorechasing tables of the week and do a couple three minute runs on them each. The developers at Zen have also been capitalizing on acquiring the Williams/Bally license and have around a dozen-ish classic Williams/Bally pins in the Pinball FX3 library now including a couple personal favorites of mine like Medieval Madness, Champion Pub and No Good Gophers. I remain partial to the way the pinball physics handle to those authentic pinball games in Farsight’s take on the tables in Pinball Arcade, but having them available with the rest of the Zen lineup is convenient. I messed around with a few other pinball titles on Xbox One. Zaccaria Pinball hit Xbox One in 2019, and it is essentially the European version of Pinball Arcade. I toyed with it several times throughout the year and it had a ton of options to tinker around with and I have been meaning to revisit it a little more frequently. Every time I boot up Steam, I continue to do a run of Hyperspace Pinball as I continue to be dazzled by its neon-lightshow aesthetics. Even though Farsight has seemingly abandoned support after losing the rights to the Williams and Bally tables, I still throw in Pinball Arcade sporadically and bust out one of its many tables from its mammoth vault of legendary pins. Finally, in December Demon’s Tilt hit Xbox Game Pass on its first day of release and it became an instant classic. Demon’s Title design is based off the acclaimed Devil’s Crush/Dragon’s Fury pinball games on TG16/Genesis that are themed heavily on three screens of verticality, fills the tables with a potpourri of ghouls to lay waste to and intimidating boss-fight bonus stages. It keeps the TG16-era visuals, but pumps them up with contemporary special effects like Blazing Chrome also did, and throws in a banger of a synth-metal soundtrack to nod along with throughout!

Behold the screen-filling madness of Demon’s Tilt and its jamming synth-metal soundtrack! I dare you not to headbang along with it! In real-world pinball, I finally got around to joining a local pinball club about an hour’s drive away from me. I visited it several times already and am impressed with its lineup of nearly 25 tables available, most of which are from the 90s and up. I spent my first few trips there trying a game or two on each table, and now that I got that out of my system, I think I am going to try going forward just sticking to one or two tables a visit so I can get as much practice and get the most out of each table that way. 2019 wounding up being the biggest year for pinball for me since starting this list and thus its higher-than-usual ranking! 12) Feel the Need…for Jag

This is admittedly an odd tale of my how I crave my retro games. I already mentioned the Midwest Gaming Classic retro-con I like to attend above. In the first several MGCs I went to, they always had a small part of the floor called ‘JagFest’ where they had several Jaguars hooked up and the entire Jaguar library on hand to play at your own desire. Over my first four or five MGCs I would spend a couple hours there each year trying out a bunch of Jaguar games and would eventually settle on the five or six I preferred and would play those for an hour or two to get my yearly Jaguar fix and avoid having to dish out the money for the games and system. After returning to MGC in 2018 after a few years off I could not locate the JagFest corner and came to learn those folks stopped supporting MGC a year or two prior. All of a sudden I found myself missing out on getting that usual fix for Jaguar gaming so I started to keep my eye out online and finally found one for a fair price a few months ago. I started eyeballing places for the several games I liked and tracked all but a couple of them down for decent prices over this past year. Adam swung by again recently and we did a Jag-Night and broke out several multiplayer games. We did a few rounds of NBA Jam TE, and minus the awful background music, it is the best looking home console version of Jam TE for what it is worth. It was nice revisiting some classic rosters too like when the Timberwolves rocked Christian Laetner and the Spurs had the lethal combo of David Robinson, Dennis Rodman & Sean Elliot! We then busted out two player Raiden and got up to the third stage after our second attempt with the two credits setting. Brutal Sports Football is an awesome mess of an arcade sports game and I loved decapitating my friend's players instead of scoring goals more. There is so much chaos going on screen I am surprised the Jaguar was able to barely keep up with it all. Finally finished off the Jaguar marathon by score-chasing on Tempest 2000. My meager Tempest skills did not gain me much headway, but Adam fared better and got a few stages in. I never thought I would eventually cave and get this ’64-bit’ oddity, but here I am….and after that session I kind of do not regret it and am legit having fun with the games for it. Who woulda thunk it!? 11) Still in Pursuit of that Elusive Tri-Force

I know….I know….I am a terrible person for not beating Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild yet. I still semi-regularly throw in BotW every two to three months and get a memorable session out of it methodically exploring every nook and cranny of the map. I cannot help but activate ‘Hero’s Path’ mode to see where I have traversed across the map so I can explore everywhere out of paranoia of missing out on those oh-so-desirable secrets in unexplored areas. I have a majority of the map explored and am on the precipice of starting the last stretch of the core game that is Hyrule Castle. Of course I still want to unlock that rad Master Cycle Zero, complete the Master Sword DLC trials and pursue so many other secrets I likely missed. Despite not finishing it, I have gotten a lot out of my sessions with BotW this year which is why it still lands in the top half of the rankings. Breath of the Wild is right up there with MGS5 as one of my first games to finally knock out of the backlog and I plan on setting everything else aside in the coming weeks to finally grind out the last dozen or so hours I anticipate I have remaining in BotW. 10) Crafting Them Videogame Anniversary Specials For those unfamiliar with my past work, I use to be in the gaming press and penned countless reviews and specials from 1999 until around 2012. I took a break from it after suffering a series of setbacks in my pursuit of landing a major gaming press gig and after about stepping away from writing all together for a good year was when I returned at first with my limited series resolutions-themed blog, and then starting up this movie-themed blog in 2014 and have not looked back since. After a couple years I started to get that little inkling of a desire to get back to videogame writing again and aside from a handful of special circumstance reviews from the last few years the only major videogame-themed writing I have done was these gigantic end-of-the-year blowouts to get videogame writing out of my system for another year.

In 2019 however I started jonesin’ to do a little more. With several videogame platforms hitting milestone anniversaries in 2019, I took that opportunity as an outlet to write not a stereotypical historical retrospective, but instead more a journal of my lifelong memories for the console being commemorated. I went with the outline of how I first learned of these platforms, how I first discovered and played them and of course wrapped it up running through my all-time favorite games and moments for said platform. They were a pleasure to put together, and reflecting back on my early childhood mishaps for the GameBoy brought back memories I have long stashed away. The Genesis special got me nostalgic recounting the summer spent playing the Sega Channel nearly every day. The Dreamcast tribute was an emotional journey to relive the high highs of it being the first system to purchase with my own money and the many late night multiplayer sessions and the low lows of the sudden discontinuation announcement. The TurboGrafX and 32X flashback I felt I had a unique take on because I did not own them until well after their lifecycle. In 2020 there are four more systems celebrating milestone North American launch anniversaries I am shooting to write specials on throughout the year: NES turns 35, PSone and Virtual Boy both hit the quarter century mark and the PS2 will be 20. Keep your peepers peeled for them! PART 6 - RANKINGS 9 THROUGH 5 9) A Paperboy-rogue-like-lite…

I am a moron and forgot to include this Xbox One digital-only gem, The VideoKid in my 2018 list where it dominated a lot of my playtime. It is an 80s-nostalgia themed take on Paperboy, but instead of delivering newspapers on a bike, you are delivering videotapes on a skateboard. There are coins and other jewels to collect that carryover from each run that can be used to unlock 80s themed outfits ranging from AH-NULD to Teen Wolf and a few extra skateboarding tricks too. VideoKid is crammed with pop-culture references from that decade, and each run has…um I think this is the right way to phrase it….’procedurally generated 80s references’ to freshen up each run. The developers dig deep with the references and here are a teeny fraction of them off the top of my head in this game: the California Raisins, Care Bears, Smurfs, Night Rider, Transformers, Bill & Ted, TMNT, Nightmare on Elm Street, Masters of the Universe, Terminator, Batman, Ghostbusters and a plethora of others. It feels slightly more appropriate debuting VideoKid on my 2019 list because even though I played a lot of it in 2018, I never finished a run until 2019. I would always get goosebumps upon realizing I made it to a farther area in the run and I would succumb to my nerves getting the best of me. As you can see by the attached pic of my tweet, all that practice paid off and I finally finished a run after well over triple digit attempts. That was easily one of the single best gaming moments for me in 2019 and why it ranked so high. I would go on to beat it several more times in order to unlock all the outfits and acquire all the achievements. I never would have imagined enjoying this as much as I did upon downloading this $5 game that seemed like a neat little 80s throwback timewaster, but instead I would invest all those attempts in my conquest for ultimate 80s glory. Having Bill & Ted near the end of the run belt out to you in recognition “you rule, Video Dude!” was the icing on this delicious cake!

I had a feeling this game would be up my brother’s alley, and so I used the Xbox One’s ability to gift games and sent a copy his way and urged him to at least give it a shot. Soon enough, he got back to me on how he became addicted to this peculiar title too. He later returned the favor by gifting another low-budget digital-only title to me, Knight Squad. It is a simple 2D overhead visual game where a bunch of knights clutter the screen and players can assign teams or go in free-for-alls with a wealthy amount of options and maps to tinker with. It had easy to pick-up-slaughter gameplay, and I found it to be a fun little mindless deathmatch game I booted up in a few multiplayer sessions with friends. It will definitely remain in my multiplayer throwdown rotation! 8) HadokenFinish Him 2019 Normally this ranking would highlight my routine online fighting sessions with my longtime fighting game rival, Chris! While we did bust out a few of our usual favorites like versions of Tekken and Street Fighter throughout the year, the bulk of our fighting game time was dominated by Mortal Kombat. With the Mortal Kombat 11 release approaching, we had a few meet ups of its predecessor, Mortal Kombat X as a way of having a last hurrah with it before its sequel dominated our meetups.

In the midst of those sessions I realized I never got around to playing the much-touted story mode of MKX so I blitzed through that and finished it within a few days of MK11’s release. It was foolish to hold off so long on that story because I loved NeatherRealm’s past fighting game story modes, and MKX had a neat narrative by introducing the four new ‘Kombat Kids’ that are the new generation of fighters from the offspring of the mainstay regular roster members. A lot of the story involves some deep MK lore which I was somehow able to keep up with because I read a few too many MK comics over the years from Malibu and DC than I probably care to admit. I wasted no time diving into MK11’s story a few days later right at its release date. Other than removing and not even acknowledging two of the four new ‘Kombat Kids’ introduced in MKX, I absolutely ate up the MK11 narrative. The plot manages to achieve the impossible by successfully conveying one of my personal pet peeve storytelling devices, time travel! It then doubles down on that by throwing in an all-powerful-TIME TRAVELLING GOD as the main antagonist that wastes no time messing around with the timeline and mixing in past takes on MK characters from the original 90s trilogy and spewing them out into the current timelines along with their wiser elders a couple decades later. It was a hoot watching modern day Johnny Cage grab 90s potty-mouth Johnny Cage by his ear and give him a lesson on manners. The sexual tension between both retro and contemporary Kano was bizarre to say the least, but well worth watching how their alliance played out. Aside from the time travelling hijinks, there are a lot of serious moments I could not help but get emotionally wrapped up in with my near 30-years history invested into this franchise. Watching Jax initially succumb, and then overcome his PTSD got me good!

Here are some of the more lighthearted moments from MK11’s story mode courtesy of young, obnoxious Johnny Cage which were nice moments of levity from the nonstop time travelling war that is the primary arc. Only praising the story mode would be selling MK11 short, because a lot of the other modes have a ton to offer up too. The multi-layered towers return, and full of all types of consistently rotated gimmicks like past games. I wound up preferring a classic themed tower of several opponents as a perfect way to practice and get use to a new DLC character whenever one dropped. Chris and I would meet up and duke it out online whenever a new character released. Having an older Arnold Schwarzenegger as DLC to coincide with Terminator: Dark Fate has been my favorite DLC character. Having Arnold’s uppercut command be replaced with a crouching shotgun blast is THE BEST-EST! The creation options are a wee overwhelming with oodles of costume and move variants to deck out up to several save slots for each fighter. I stuck to only making a few for some of my go-to characters, and part of me would have preferred having a traditional few costumes to unlock for each character instead. The tutorials are insanely in-depth and reach new levels of pro-strategies detailed in fighting game tutorials. Seeing the Krypt return is always a delight, and having it be hosted by Shang Tsung who is graphically and aurally portrayed by the man who played him in the first movie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is the quintessential fan service! Parts of the Krypt though went over my head as NeatherRealm went overboard with several types of currencies involved and hunting down objects to unlock various parts of the Krypt. Props to the developers in the end though for somehow doing the impossible and consistently managing to outdo themselves with each sequel. I plan on keeping MK11 in my online fighting rotation for the foreseeable future. 7) COG Attack

Having Gears 5 available day one on Xbox Game Pass was an appreciated way of saving $60. I bought into how Gears 4 advanced the narrative with the next-gen of COG a couple decades later and had the original characters serve as more of an elder advisor role. The unique twist at the end of Gears 4 dealing with Kate is a big component of the campaign for the fifth game. I did not anticipate for Coalition Studios to pay off that big cliffhanger by really diving deep into Kate’s past and seeing how the revelations that await her pan out. I imagine most have probably heard how they mixed in a couple mini-open world environments into the story kind of how Uncharted Lost Legacy did a couple years ago. I did not mind it and got into exploring the frozen tundra and desert wastes while the characters filled in the traversal time with dialogue opening up about themselves and poking fun at each other. It helped mixed things up a bit and could not help but get immersed in its (limited) open worlds. By spacing gunfights out with the open world traversal, I forgot how heated the action can get with Gears 5’s variety of mammoth villains, especially in the final act when shit appropriately ramps up. The final act felt worthy of a big budget blockbuster of larger-than-life set-pieces, action and a heavy duty final choice presented that I had to pause and give a serious think over. I played a ton of multiplayer in the original trilogy, and regret not getting a chance to play the multiplayer for the fourth game, but have already redeemed myself by dabbling with several round of multiplayer in Gears 5. I am godawful, but it the occasional kill I pulled off brought back kind memories of how into the multiplayer I was before. Also having Linda Hamilton and Dave Bautista as unlockable characters for multiplayer are both perfect fits for the franchise! I also need to try out Horde mode and see how far it has evolved since I last played it in the prior games. So much left to do multiplayer-wise that I can see Gears 5 being one of the few online multiplayer games I regularly come back to this console generation. 6) How About a Game of Lucky Hit? Last year I picked up Sega’s HD remasters of Shenmue I & II on Xbox One in hopes to finish them again for a refresher on its grand narrative before the long anticipated third installment. I finished the first Shenmue off that collection in 2018. I played through the second game over the course of the following summer. Ryo is now pursuing Lan Di in China in two sprawling cities, with a bonus third area in an extended epilogue and all together it is about double the length of Ryo’s first adventure. Even though there are appreciated quality of life improvements compared to the first game as far as save anywhere and quasi-fast travel features implemented I prefer the first game more. Main thing I chalk it up to is in the first game Ryo having more of a sense of familiarity with Dobuita where Ryo knows nearly all the locals, shopkeepers, etc. In the sequel he only gets to become acquainted with several people and all the minor cast and shopkeepers treat him as an unknown and there are only hints of the charming small banter in the sequel to be had that the first game is overflowing with. There are some killer supporting characters Ryo gets to know like Ren, Xiuying and Joy, but the all-encompassing cast Ryo has varying degrees of acquaintance-ship with is what help makes the first game so welcoming and makes me give the first game the nod. Also, the sequel does not have forklift races and replaces it with an awful cargo carrying QTE mini-game where your co-worker screams at you every time a QTE is missed. No thank you!

A couple things going for Shenmue II is addition of two more YS games: Outrun and Afterburner II (and ability to access the four games from the main menu once they are encountered). Both of the cities are huge with tons of mini-games and side activities to take in with a lot of new ones debuting. Not all of them are winners but there was a ton of diversity between them and at least a few I found myself revisiting frequently. The final several hours of Shenmue II are also truly special and even though it was my second time experiencing this game, it was the perfect way to get me ready for the third game when it hit a couple months later. --spoilers next paragraph-- The romp up the mammoth Yellowhead building complex in the final act of the second city was a twisting, grinding beast to get through, but lived up to the journey to get to the final boss, hot on Lan Di’s tail. The final three-to-four hour epilogue following that is something daringly unique for its time and still holds up. If you were like me and hold in high regard the first Red Dead Redemption's epilogue then you will probably dig Shenmue II's bold epilogue which I did not see anyone attempting in 2001 when it first released. It was special to relive all over again even if there is a total lack of combat. A bulk of the brazen epilogue is a walk and talk where Ryo meets pivotal Shenmue character, Shenhua and the duo mostly converses and gets to know each other on their way to Shenhua’s home which is where the pair discovers a new revelation in their journey that closes setting up Shenmue III. There is a complete lack of combat, and only a handful on QTEs sprinkled in the last few hours. I absolutely loved this gutsy final act, and I understand why it is not for everyone for the crowd that is demanding of more gameplay. ---end of spoilers— 5) Spooky Gaming 2019 I continued my tradition of playing Xbox 360 launch game, Condemned: Criminal Origins on Halloween for the third straight year. I made a couple more chapters of progress in this creepy, first person detective/combat game. I need to stop only playing it on Halloween and finally finish it sooner than later because it manages to pull off a suspenseful and thrilling ride all these years later. I hinted above at my frustrations at Blair Witch Project on Xbox One. I was hooked into its first hour setting up the background of the protagonist lagging behind a search party in the woods and looking for clues they could have missed while catching up to them. Its gloomy woods atmosphere was giving me chills and goosebumps like Condemned was, but then I could not figure out where to go in the woods and circled around and double checked my paths several times for about a solid two hours before giving up. Consulting a guide at that point would not have felt right because I was so immersed in into the world. A few weeks later I read up some other player’s logs on what happened after the fact and it turns out the designers intentionally crafted the game to give that spooky lost in the woods vibe, but I guess it worked a little too well for me. I did a little digging to see what else Blair Witch had in store, and it expectedly involves a lot of supernatural and stealth elements once the legend of the Blair Witch comes into play, so I would like to give it one more shot eventually.

A game I did not give up on however and saved spooky gaming season for me was Dark Pictures Presents: Man of Medan. I was big time into developer Supermassive Games hit teenage, slasher game Until Dawn a few years back. Their follow up hit last year in Man of Medan is the first installment of their ‘Dark Pictures’ anthology line of spooky/slasher games, complete with a Tales from the Crypt-like host. This installment has a similar style of gameplay where six college-age students in trouble at sea wind up in a cursed ship which leads to all kinds of tomfoolery! Like Until Dawn, gameplay rotates between the six kiddos, and they will be constantly barraged with QTE choices that may decide their life or death fate. New in Man of Medan is the ability to set up local or online co-op play, with the developers insisting on setting an evening aside to beat the game in one night within four to five hours. That is exactly what I did when I brought the game over to Derek & Brooke’s place and we went through all of Man of Medan in a single sitting. In an unexpected twist, a severe thunderstorm rocked our town that night which provided a supreme ambiance as we played. We assigned two characters to each of us, and we finished with half the cast surviving. I was so entranced by that crazy night thinking of how to do things differently in order to get all the dorm-rats out alive and I plowed through the game a second time within a week and…..finished with only one surviving the slaughter, and it yielded a despondently meek ending that I only was all too deserving of in my failing of QTEs and decision-making efforts. Nevertheless, those two epic playthroughs of Man of Medan, combined with my excursions into Condemned and Blair Witch Project culminate for the highest ranking yet for the yearly spooky gaming entry. PART 7 - RANKINGS 4 THROUGH 1 4) Dream-tember 20th Anniversary Celebration

As I mentioned earlier, the Dreamcast was the first system I bought with my own personal income and the hell of a ride I had with that system in its two and a half year lifespan is why I have extra affection for this console. Penning that huge anniversary special was not enough as I decided for the 20th anniversary I would take my Dreamcast out of the closet for the first time in over a year and regularly throw in a few old favorites a couple times a week for all of September. Some highlights was revisiting a bunch of driving games and doing a few races each in Hydro Thunder, 4 Wheel Thunder, TNN Hardcore Heat and playing several hours worth of my favorite Dreamcast racer, Demolition Racer: No Exit. I would dabble with some of my favorite fighting games on the system for a few rounds of Dead or Alive 2, Capcom vs. SNK and both versions of Marvel vs. Capcom.

I consumed quite a bit of Dreamcast-anniversary videos this year, and this stream from the GiantBomb crew was the cream that rose to the top as one Macho Man would say. The non-driving/fighting game I played the most that month was a complete run of Typing of the Dead. Yes, I still have my Dreamcast keyboard (and mouse too!), and it was a pleasure putting my home-row skills to good use slaying zombies to gloriously awful voice acting. The typing challenges/mini-games they mixed in on the boss fights tripped me up a bit too and were a hoot to figure out. Aside from playing all those games, I contributed to a crowd-funded indie Dreamcast game, Arcade Racing Legends, that looks promising and should be shipping within a few months. I also dug out my stack of complete run of Official Dreamcast Magazine out of the closet and re-read the first five issues throughout the year. A lot of memories came flooding back from their colorful feature and review spreads. Several YouTube channels I followed did Dreamcast anniversary streams, and I devoured them all! The guys at YPB Podcast were doing a month long Dreamcast special too focusing on a curated Dreamcast gem each week, and I volunteered to guest host on their episode dedicated to, you guessed it, Shenmue! I barely contained myself as I raved about all my favorite memories for it, and apologized to the hosts for some of my incoherent gushing about the game afterwards. Speaking of the original Shenmue, throughout the year I picked away and eventually finished watching GiantBomb’s endurance run/long play of it which was just as entertaining and riveting as their Metal Gear Solid ones! It all added up for a month where I surprised how far I went out of my way to commemorate the system’s lasting legacy 20 years later. 3) Finally Conquering Diamond Dog In late ’97 I played a ton of the cult hit SNES RPG, Earthbound. I was mesmerized by this new twist on the Japanese RPG by taking place in a contemporary setting with young elementary aged children instead of cliché fantasy worlds. Despite putting in a lot of time, I never was able to get past the dual combo boss of Diamond Dog and Carbon Dog before I lost my save data and went decades before coming back to it on the SNES-classic in 2019. I once again have YPB Podcast to thank when they reached out for guest hosting spots and asked for a few suggestions on recommended games to play. I threw out the option of Earthbound so I can finally knock that one off my bucket list, and luckily they obliged me and that was the impetus I needed to work through that game. I only got a third of the way through it by the time we recorded the episode, but I stuck with it afterwards and finally finished it within a few weeks. After doing some research I was surprised to discover where I left off before against the dueling dogs was at roughly the 80% mark through the game. So close!

I had an excellent companion/travel book with me in the form of FanGamer’s Earthbound Handbook which is part strategy/tips, part lore/narrative and entirely exquisite artwork. I read the corresponding chapters of the guide as they marched along with how Earthbound played out to make it the perfect supplementary piece! FanGamer also has a tome all about the localization of Earthbound called Legends of Localization. It was my nightly bedtime reading for a few months as it dove into the weeds on the translation of the original Super Famicom version, and what references were removed and what were added/altered to the American release. Incredibly thorough read that shed a lot of light on the Herculean-effort it took to translate and bring this over state-side! Finally, as I mentioned earlier, but to make it come full circle as the year of Mother/Earthbound, 2019 was the year I made record progress and nearly finished Mother 3 on GBA! Just to emphasize, I am very much into it like I was with the original and hope to finish it within several weeks and rave all about it on the next recap! 2) To the Sequel A constant theme throughout this list has been my passion for narrative exploration based games. One of my favorites of the genre is 2011’s To the Moon from Freebird Games. It is about two professional 'memory explorers' Neil and Eva who use a device to traverse through a dying person's lifetime of memories and implant their patient's final wish so they can die thinking they lived their most fulfilled life. It has a 16-bit RPG graphical style and the writing is lighthearted with the two main memory explorers having plenty of cheery banter as I plugged away through the memories. The sequel, Finding Paradise hit six years later in 2017, and I have no idea why I waited two years to start it up.

Do not let these simple graphics fool you, both To the Moon and its sequel here, Finding Paradise, has some of the best storytelling I have ever experienced in gaming. I was thrilled to command Neil and Eva again as they take on fulfilling a new patient, Colin’s dying last wish. Their new patient is a tricky case who left his dying wish ambiguous, and more-or-less requested our trusty doctors to figure out his dying wish for him. It is the same type of narrative-exploration gameplay with some light puzzle elements, but with a few new wrinkles mixed in due to an early twist, which builds up to an even bigger hook in the final act I did not anticipate and leads to a whole new dynamic of gameplay I could not help but embrace. Kan Gao is the primary creator and designer behind these games and kudos to him once again creating a funny-yet-powerful-and-saddening tale as they dove through Colin’s memories in what felt like a page-turner I could not put down. Luckily, Finding Paradise is only several hours long and I was able to breeze through it within a few days due to the ‘one-more-page’ sensation of the narrative. Combine that exposition with a beautiful 16-bit throwback visuals and another knockout score and it left me depleted and wiping dust from my eyes by the time it was all over.

In a bizarre, ironic City Slickers-sort of way, I felt like Billy Crystal when catching up with my friend Matt a few days later and telling him about this game and To the Moon. He asked if Freebird plans on releasing it on consoles, and I told him how the first game has been out for nearly a decade and since it is not on systems by now I doubt how either game will ever get a console release. A little later that day I looked up online just to be certain and I completely missed it was announced last September that To the Moon would be getting a Switch release within a few days of this writing on January 16, 2020. If you do not PC game and have a Switch, I highly recommend giving this a shot! You will not regret it! 1) ”Kept You Waiting, Huh?” Yes, Ryo……You Very Much Did Exactly That! Surprise….or not! Shenmue III was the sequel I waited 18 long years for, and in the week before it released once it seemed like the game was past the point of no last minute cancellations I had this overwhelming sensation that I cannot describe any better than ‘holy crap, this is actually happening!’ I mentioned earlier about writing those anniversary tributes that the only other videogame writing I did was for a handful of special exception reviews. Shenmue III would be one of those special exceptions! I reached out to my friends at PSnation to see if they had anyone slated to review it and if not I would throw my hat in the ring to cover it for them and to my luck the review opportunity was up for up for grabs. I did this for two reasons, one to once again ensure I did not lollygag and take many months with this dense, sandbox game and two, to get everything I need to say about my experience with Shenmue III out of my system.

Not only did I review the game for PSnation, but Glenn invited me onto their podcast to review it on there too.Click or press here to take in my text review of the game, and click or press here to go check out the podcast. For everyone else, please bear with me for some…abbreviated…thoughts on Shenmue III. With a self-imposed review deadline in mind, I put time into Shenmue III nearly every day (minus Thanksgiving) and finished it within 17 days. Yu Suzuki for all intents and purposes created another Shenmue game, quirks and all. Due to it being on a crowd-funded budget (with later assistance from publisher, Deep Silver) it does not graphically compare with the latest and greatest AAA games, but still looks superior to the old Dreamcast games and offers the same scale of dense sandbox exploring. Some quality-of-life improvements from the 18 years since the last game are appreciated like dual-stick movement and no more quasi-tank controls! The narrative picks up right where Shenmue II leaves off in Shenhua’s village and focuses on two key areas, Shenhua’s rural village and another being a dense urban area. It would not be a Shenmue game without a wealthy range of side activities and mini-games to keep busy and earn money to buy new moves and level up Ryo’s kung-fu. I like the core fighting engine as it is improved and more fleshed out and has a better feel to it than the loose Virtua Fighter-feeling in previous games. Newcomers to the series should probably start with the first two games, or the quirkiness of the intentionally stilted and stoic voice acting and some of the characters will likely throw you for a loop.

The fine folks at MinnMax had a fine installment here of their quest to discover the game of the year by giving Shenmue III an honest try…kind of. As much as I loved this game with it being the clear cut #1 rank, I would be lying if it was in need of a few gameplay tweaks to improve the overall experience with more than the few limited fast travel options available, and better emphasis on leveling up Ryo’s combat skills early on. QTEs could have been implemented better and even on Nnrmal difficulty I found myself missing a fair amount of them, luckily developers YS Net is forgiving with frequent QTE checkpoints, and the fail animations are laugh-inducing. The Shenmue nut in me appreciated the many fan service and narrative callbacks to earlier games (hint: absolutely inquire with the hotel clerk what you can purchase from her). Fans of original games will be bummed like me to discover there are no more classic Sega arcade games to play, but for what it is worth there are other minor Sega easter eggs in the form of posters and other smaller items tucked away in the world. Also, what gives with the lack of soda drinking animation!? I bought a shirt last year that was all about Ryo’s aplomb drinking of soda!

The last big stretch leading to the final showdown of Shenmue III had a few poignant moments that will stick with me in the grand Shenmue saga, but compared to final stretches of previous games it is the weakest of the three and was over a little too quick when I was gearing up for one last sprawling stronghold to take down. The ending left on a high note of how it concluded and what the future has in store for the brand. Now a couple months after the fact, I am relieved that through hell and high water, Shenmue III found a way to exist and despite some shortcomings it was well worth the 18-year wait. According to the trophies and Playstation Store listing, there appears to be some mini-game and fighting challenge DLCs in the pipeline, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that Shenmue III performed well enough for a fourth entry. THANK YOU!!!!! AFTER NEARLY 18,000 WORDS I AM SPENT! If you somehow made it this far please give me a shout out on Twitter @Gruel and I will tweet you a fist bump for indulging me this long! This took me nearly a whole week to write and edit, so thank you once again to making it all the way through or even just jumping around and skimming to what stood out for you. I appreciate it more than you know! I will leave you all with this annual yearly recap book-end tradition. See you all next year!

Suuuuuuuuper-Slam!!! Previous Year’s Best of Recaps - 2018 - 2017 - 2016

[jigretro]

GAME BOY ADVANCE BUYERS' GUIDE AND MY PERSONAL FAVOURITE GAMES

The Game Boy Advance or GBA was released in 2001 and was the follow up to the successful Gameboy Color. The GBA has three different models, the GBA original, GBA SP (2003) and the GBA Micro (2005). We will look further into the differences later. The GBA falls within the top 10 selling game consoles of all time, a list which also includes the original Game Boy and the Nintendo DS. Nintendo own hand-held gaming and the Game Boy Advance SP model specifically is one of my most played retro consoles.

The original model is a landscape layout (with buttons either side of the screen), rather than the traditional Game Boy portrait layout, with the buttons below the screen. It is a 32-bit system and shows a significant upgrade to to GBC, although without a light on the screen I found it quite disappointing when I had my original many years ago. The original GBA takes 2 x AA batteries. Probably the best feature is that it’s fully compatible with all of the original Game Boy and GBC back catalogue. The first revision GBA SP I feel improved nearly every aspect from the original. It’s rechargable via a power cable, has a front lit screen (which at the time made it much more playable), a folding laptop-type design for more compactability and also works to protect the screen. One downside is that the SP model doesn’t have an AV port for headphones. The 3rd model came in the form of the GBA micro and I feel this was a disappointing release, it has brighter and a much more powerful backlit screen but its tiny form factor is too cramped for even the smallest hands. It also ditches the backwards compatibility of the previous models. The micro has clip-on plates for customisation. At a similar time to this Nintendo also released another GBA SP (model AGS-101) with a fantastic backlit screen similar to the GBA micro and the soon-to-be-released Nintendo DS. This is a great system for fans of the Super Nintendo, I never owned a Super Nintendo but, while collecting for this system, I discovered that many of the games from the Super Nintendo and even the NES saw releases on the GBA. It was a simple way for me to access some of the classics from those previous released consoles. My personal recommendation is that if money is no object then the GBA SP (model AGS-101) with its amazing screen is the one to get, but it is rather expensive. For those on a budget (like myself), I would recommend buying a GBA SP (model AGS-001), as they are more readily available. This system will run the whole Game Boy game library. Buying a DS Lite has the benefit of having an amazing backlit screen similar to AGS-101 and is able to run both original DS games and is backwards compatible to the GBA games library only as well, so that is another option.

The GBA had a ton of both first- and third-party accessories. Some of the highlights for me include: the Worm Light, which was essential for playing on the original model; the Link Cable in order to access multiplayer features; and the GameCube-Game Boy player, which works similar to the Super Game Boy and allows you to play GBA games on the big screen. All of the models discussed above were available in many different colours and artwork styles, which for a collector may mean that you have an interest in picking up multiple systems. One of my favourites is the classic NES-inspired GBA SP, which I would love to have, especially with a model 101 backlit screen 🤤.

Another feature that is easily forgotten is that the GBA adds a limited colour pallet to Original Game Boy games; you can use the direction pad on the boot-up screen in order to choose different ones. Shoulder buttons have no use while playing Game Boy and Game Boy Color games but they can be pressed in order to have the original aspect ratio or to stretch the image to fill the GBA’s larger screen. I personally don’t collect boxed GBA games as it’s too expensive.

Here is a brief run though of some of my highly recommended, which I would recommend to anyone who is interested in starting a collection for this amazing console:

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2: A very well-made game that plays exactly the same as the console versions of the beloved series but from a isometric view. Great way to play a bit of Tony Hawk on the go.

Sonic Advance: This is a fantastic Sonic game made by Sega for the GBA. Who would’ve thought it? Sega’s prized mascot on a Nintendo system. This game has all the speed and gameplay of the best sonic games. 2D is where sonic games are at.

Advance Wars 1 or 2: Either or both. Many long hours can be consumed by this game. It’s a turn-based tactical war game featuring cartoon-style characters and animation. Both simplistic yet technical with a fair learning curve.

Mario vs Donkey Kong: A successor to both the arcade and original Game Boy game Donkey Kong. This is a fantastic-looking puzzle game with tons of character and variety.

Warioware, inc. Minigame Mania: For anyone who has played any Warioware game, you will know exactly what this is all about but, for those who don’t, it is a super addictive game that involves loads of wacky, quick-fire mini games and you have to scramble to work out what to do in quick succession. One of my favourites.

Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission: I had to add both here because they are both masterpieces. Fusion sees Samus face a new virus threat called X while evading a fully powered evil clone of herself. It is a direct sequel to Super Metroid but has a more linear approach; this has caused some criticism but, as my first ever experience of a Metroid game, I appreciated its structure. Zero mission is a well crafted remake of the original NES game (which is also featured as an unlockable) and is much more in line with the open world, which fans of Super Metroid will appreciate. It could be argued that either of these are the best Metroid game ever made.

Castlevania Aria of Sorrow: This game does everything perfectly. It may not be the first Metroidvania-style Castlevania game (that honour would go to one of my absolute favourite games, Symphony of the Night) but I would happily accept any argument that says it does it better. It is perfectly balanced and the story is great. The main character, Soma, can absorb the souls of enemies in order to gain magical abilities and attacks. This was first introduced here but is also felt today in the form of Shard’s from the game’s creator Koji Igarashi in his latest game Bloodstained Ritual of the Night

Games not in my collection that I am also on the hunt for are:

GunStar Super Hero’s, a sequel to the Megadrive classic.

Contra advance.

Metal Slug advance.

I hope you have enjoyed this month's blog. It is a topic that I have a huge passion for and I highly recommend starting any game collection with this system. There is a ton of amazing games and even a rather big collection can take up very little of your space at home. Until next time. 🎮

[roleplayersoul]

👼 - babysitting🍛 - cooking💃 - dancing🎭 - acting/performing arts For death!

(Prompt!)

Fun fact, because Death is basically a Creature born out of the evil in the human heart (Chaos), he often has knowledge of many, many topics as there are many, many humans. 

Still, since he is not only basically a demon born out of negativity, he often has little true experience with things, so his performance in regular human acts-varies, to stay the least.

And he would never, ever let anything interfere with his duties, of course

More below the cut.

Oh, and since I just sort of realized after I typed this all out this was “Ask the muse”, in-character stuff will be at the bottom.

👼 - He babysits Dracula perfectly.  He gets the job done.

Now, I know the whole debacle on how much Lament of Innocence is canon to some, but if we take it into account, the creatures of the night did serve Dracula during his life with Lisa. 

I’d like to think that with Dracula’s clearly ungodly power and vampiric lifestyle, he was no ordinary monster, and thus was already the Dark Lord or became one soon after Lisa died, or, again, Lament of Innocence.

Besides that, Death addresses Alucard with-surprising grace despite him already being a traitor far before the events of Symphony of the Night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGoNjcodfls

 Even just saying, letting alone the way he says “Still befriending mortals…” or “What is your business here?” is more casual then saying “You’re a traitor, get out or I’ll kill you.” He rarely talks to his enemies, after all, and Alucard has helped slain his father, Death’s Master, Dracula. He steals Alucard’s heirlooms, sure, but that’s simply a slap on the wrist.

What I’m trying to get to is that Death knew Alucard as a child.

There’s no way of telling exactly how much Alucard had in contact with Dracula’s vampiric and monstrous side while he lived his life with Lisa, but just the thought of the big bad Grim Reaper shooing away or trying to keep a toddler Alucard complacent and not cry whenever he wandered deep into the castle… Come on. That’s cute.

I don’t think Death is good at babysitting in normal terms. He’s had little to no reason to care for anyone except Dracula and the ones he cares about, and Dracula is a fully grown man, certainly not someone who needs babysitting. 

Not to mention he doesn’t seem to care when close monster associates, especially his servants Slogra and Gaibon, fall in battle. I don’t think he has a caring heart.

But I DO think he’s cared for Alucard before, however loose the term, and perhaps more on his lord’s request. He would do things very specifically, and probably be a little moody while doing it. Change diaper? Fine. Feed him food? Fine. He might not like it, but at the very least he can follow instructions, he does that on a daily basis anyways.

I think he has no problem protecting the young who he wants to protect, and make sure they stay safe, too. I can imagine him doing other things under request too (you might see a pattern here on him following orders vs. taking initiative here), but I think if a child was bored, he’d read to them first, I think.

TL,DR: So while the kids might be bored out of their mind, they’d be safe from Death’s watchful eye. They might get some entertainment in mocking the silly skeleton man, however, who would probably grumble a lot and throw some threats out.

I do want to see Dad Death though. God that’d be lovely.

Have this picture of Death on a bumper car:

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

🍛 - Don’t have Death cook for you unless you want to get sick. In monster ways, he could be worse, though.

Death, normally, has little to no reason to eat or drink, especially nothing physical. Feeding the Creatures of the castle may be tedious, but his lord Dracula knows how to sate them, which may or may not be just letting them loose to kill humans. 

Plus, again, Chaos Creature. So he has no experience in this category.

Death follows directions and commands with Dracula’s dominance. He is naturally drawn to orders and instructions because of this, which is a bit ironic considering his status of a chaotic being, but whatever. 

He would cook with directions. This may lead to a plain, uninteresting dish, and I can imagine him-improvising incorrectly if they were not to have the correct ingredients. If he were to cook something bad, he’d probably start over instead of serving it, too.

He’s not sanitary, being a demon.

You can see maggots dripping from his lungs in his Symphony of the Night artwork, for starters. His bones don’t exactly seem to shine clean, either-his wrist seems to be a bit brown, doesn’t it?

So a human eating anything he would serve would be disastrous, and I imagine Dracula would prefer a naive maiden’s blood for the main course.

Now, I do have a modern human AU for Death too, where he’s sorta Dracula’s back-up buddy. There, while I imagine Dracula liking his meat, to name an example, more rare, Death would prefer his more done, and I imagine Death as much more sanitary and more neat with his cooking, though he’ll generally just do small portions. I know that’s more food preference and less cooking but whatever.

💃 - He dances better with a partner, and he does have a desire to dance.

To preface anything, Death can alter his form to have legs, though he generally floats in most of his incarnations.

If you look closely at second phase Rondo Of Blood’s Death, the green one, you’ll notice he’s wearing a shoe or the like-not to mention the huge indents in his cloak while he moves that show legs are indeed there and not him trying to “act” like  they’re there or some weird ripples. 

In my headcanon, he can only alter his form so much, as his default look varies depending on human emotion, though he’ll always adopt his “grim reaper” form if possible, and possibly because that’s what Dracula desires him to be? Honestly, writing all this is getting me a bit tired, and off track, woops.

Now, to answer the question, because he normally floats, his movement is surprisingly limited alone. Not in a literal sense, he can float wherever, but he can spin and move his arms in the directions he wants, but it doesn’t feel any-different from just moving to him.

With legs, however, I do indeed imagine Death trying to-groove. He’s no showoff or anything spectacular, mind. His knowledge and Dracula’s dances with Lisa, as well as several couple monsters and ghosts, is about all he has. But even some castle monsters seem to have a groove and dance at times. It may be beyond him, but to say he wasn’t intrigued would be a lie.

I like to think of a cute scenario where the Ghost Dancers, possibly Fred and Paula, help Death Dance. 

Remember how I mentioned how his “floating form’s” movement was limited alone, in terms of dancing capability? This isn’t true with a partner-mind, he doesn’t have one, and he’d be damned before he would dance with the likes of Carmilla or such, and he would never let such a petty, small desire inconvenience Lord Dracula.

But the possibility of Death twirling and spinning, floating back and forth, a pirouette and a catch with a dance partner… That’s something all of his forms could do with practice. Because of the amount of control and trust in a partner dance anyways, it’s certainly something he would desire and manage-it would be new, exciting, and just a hint of chaos for him to seep. 

A dance with Death, anyone?

🎭 - Not half bad! He just can’t play some characters due to him not getting-that excited about most things.

Anyone’s who played the games where Death has lines know that he isn’t some stereotypical “silent badass” guy, or at least not all the time, though “silent” and “badass” are acceptable descriptors.

Acting is something Death has had to flat out do before in Castlevania lore. He’s had experience. 

I don’t personally believe he is one to hide his identity unless it is necessary, however: in many games where you meet Death before you know Dracula’s around, he pretty much never disguises himself: he makes himself and his intentions-somewhat clear.  It depends, really.

He’s manipulated people to reach all the ends that he can,  and then drops the act once he achieves what he must. To say he’s always an actor is a lie.

Back to the question, plays and theatre are-performances of delight. Which can either make him annoyed or he could find pleasure in it. This is sort of pure HC territory, but I do think Death would enjoy theatre as a small pastime, but not as much as the dancing we brought up earlier. 

However, I do think Death is better at acting then dancing. Again, this is basically due to him having more experience.

Well, no, it’s pure headcanon territory, really. I just think Death would be a good actor for quiet characters, having enough inflection to get the job done, enough resolve to sound serious. Darker plays are what he would prefer. Probably not a musicale where he has to sing, as I don’t imagine him having a good range. 

He would not do well with more passionate or emotion-driven characters as he himself is neither of these things most of the time, at least outwardly.

Here’s another funny picture of Death just cause.

In character responses:

“…Must we continue this dull questionnaire? This rubbish is better saved for gossip. I will not stand for this for much longer.” 

👼 - “I will take care of whoever I must, for and including my lord. If one happens to be a child, so be it. I will be up to the task.”

🍛  - “I do not eat. I do not cook. To rate one’s self on what they don’t know nor need is ludicrous.”

💃 - “….I haven’t done any sort of movement in years and have no need. Next.”

🎭 - “I perform well enough, and will strive better for the next time I must “act” in this game of life.”