#metroid prime 2 remastered when

[tugey]

METROID PRIME 2 SPOILERS

I beat it!! I liked it a lot but I don't think as much as the first one. The light and dark world mechanic is really neat when I was stuck and couldn't find out where to go I kept forgetting that there was a whole other version of the map I could be checking.

the powerups in this one were really cool. I love getting a whole arsenal of stuff and then by the time the final boss comes you have a whole slew of stuff to try out to figure out how to damage it. I like how they brought the screw attack into 3D but it does feel a lil clunky sometimes. like sometimes I would try multiple times to activate it and it wouldn't work for some reason (and walljumping with it took some getting used to also.)

I found myself not using the light and dark ammo as much as I probably would have if it didn't have limited ammo. when I only have a limited amount of something I hoard it like a dragon in case I need it later, like to open a door or something (but then I learned you can still open light and dark doors when you're out of ammo by charging the beam whoops.)

Exploring is so much fun in these games and this one in particular had really interesting areas. the bog with the underwater bit where you get the gravity boost. the entire sanctuary fortress is so unique and cool and I loved it so much! the mechs are such a different enemy type than what I'm used to in Metroid. I also love the lore of how the luminoth built them to fight the ing but they ended up losing them to it instead. poor guys really had a tough go of it, they lost a lot of good men in the fight o7

there were some really cool and unique boss fights! quadraxis and spider guardian come to mind. and dark samus!!! what a cool thing. she looks so damn dope the last time you fight her when she's all blasted out with phazon. the timer on your back makes the whole thing so tense too. big dark samus fan. damn grapple guardian took me a million years tho, did not enjoy that one.

Some things I feel like could have been done a little better tho. the fact that the safe areas in dark aether heal you encouraged me to sit there with the game on for long periods of time while I look at my phone or something and wait for Samus to heal when I was low on health. I feel like a game shouldn't encourage you to actively not play it lol. speaking of not playing, I relied on the hunt system a lot in this game. I rarely looked stuff up, but I waited around for hints to drop a lot more than I would have liked. that's definitely partially on me too tho lol

another thing is the damn key quest at the end of the game. I wish it was something they let me know about sooner so I could keep my eye out for them over the course of the game rather than springing it on me at the end. at least the hint system in the first metroid prime was pretty straightforward in how it led you to the artifacts but in this one the hints are tied to whether or not you thought to scan all the dead keybearers (by the time I was given the quest I had scanned four out of the nine of them) and I do not like that. I just wish there was some way for me to have known those were more important than just lore info. I ultimately had to use a guide for all but one of them which I'm not proud of, but if it's between that or me not finishing the game I'll do it everytime.

all in all I really enjoyed my time with Metroid Prime 2. I like that the story was a little more involved in this one and that the world was interesting to explore, the powerups were cool and different, and that there were some neat boss fights. I'll probably play Metroid Prime 3 next as it's the only one I haven't beaten yet, but I think I'm gonna take a break and play something a little lighter first. I just got a Wii U and it really feels like high time to mod the thing.

#metroid #metroid prime #metroid prime 2 #wii u #Metroid prime trilogy #wii #gamecube #metroid prime 2 remastered when #it will probably come out real soon now that i beat it #same thing happened to me with the first metroid prime game #gave me an excuse to play it again tho #that game rules #this one does too #i love metroid

[tsvai]

this looks really good!!

#audrey plays metroid prime #a little disappointed that apparently when 2 and 3 get ported they won't get remastered quite as aggressively but DAMN this looks good #3 was a wii game rather than originally being GCN so it won't need it as badly at least lmao #also getting screenshots off my switch - even using twitter - is a pain in the ass (i made a private side account for it lmao) #nintendo continues to be weirdly hamfisted when it comes to online functionality

[ponett]

Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video  •  Movies  •  Comics  •  Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it’s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it’ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU’RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance. 

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,” but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ‘90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year

#bobby writes #i don't have a writing tag so i'm making one now to save this and other things

[milesluna]

My Favorite Games of 2023.

Hi. Hello. Thanks ever so much for clicking on this page. Happy to have you.

First thing's first: I'm a little freak when it comes to video games. I don't feel the need to beat most games I play. From Software is one of my favorite studios in the industry and I've never finished a single one of their games. This means, fortunately, that I get to play a LOT more games than the average bear.

I've written up some blurbs about my top ten favorite games from 2023, but before that here's the list of every game I remember playing this year that left any sort of lasting impact on me (in no particular order):

Dead Space Remake Resident Evil 4 Remake F-Zero 99 Humanity Dredge Metroid Prime Remastered Anemoiaplois Alan Wake 2 Baldur’s Gate 3 LoZ Tears of the Kingdom Counter Strike 2 Hunt Showdown El Paso Elsewhere Jusant Slay the Princess| Remnant II The Finals Street FIghter 6 Lethal Company BattleBit Remastered Don’t Scream Homebody The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Pizza Tower World of Horror Super Mario Wonder Mr. Sun’s Hatbox Fifa 23 Sea of Stars (Demo) Half-Life (25th Anniversary Update)

And the games I played that were NOT released in 2023:

Unpacking Persona 4 Golden Picross 7 The Order 1886 Shovel Knight Dig Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Spider-Man: Miles Morales Pac-Man Championship Edition DX Project Zomboid Quake LoZ The Minish Cap Drill Dozer Wario Land 4 Pokemon Pinball Resident Evil Revelations Summer of ‘58 Trackmania TwinCop We Were Here Visage Cursed Halo CE Half-Life 2 (I probably play this once per year) Witch Hunt Red Dead Redemption 2 Cyberpunk 2077 Borderlands 3 Brutal Legend Cultic Slay the Spire PUBG Rez Infinite Batman Arkham City Alan Wake Alan Wake: American Nightmare Max Payne LoZ: Majora’s Mask 3DS Metroid Prime Metroid Prime 2 Tunic Everhood Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy VII Remake GOODBYE WORLD Yakuza: Like a Dragon Critters for Sale Dome Keeper Phasmophobia Hades Nintendo Switch Sports

Now that you understand the kind of freak you're dealing with…

Let's dive into my top ten favorite games from this objectively fucked up year.

10. El Paso Elsewhere Developed by Texas indie studio Strange Scaffold, El Paso Elsewhere is a Max Payne-clone with vampires, an opinionated narrator, and lots and lots of bullet time. As a small studio punching well above their weight class, Strange Scaffold leans into abstract, PlayStation 1 minimalism when it comes to visuals and pairs them with a soundtrack that will make your hands sweat. The vibes are here and they're ready for the end of the world. I'm personally also a big fan of everything this studio stands for.

9. Mr. Sun's Hatbox I want you to imagine Metal Gear Solid V. Now I want you to imagine that game as a 2D, level-based, slapstick platformer you can play with up to three friends. If you think that sounds stupid, you'd be right. And it's beautiful. As you build up a secret army of soldiers with various skills (and disorders), you'll start to develop *favorites*. This game constantly asks if you're willing to send those favorites on a harrowing mission and risk losing them forever… or if you'd rather send an idiot you recently captured who blinks constantly and can't kill anyone without fainting.

8. Dredge Every year I feel like I find one game that falls into the “just one more round” category, and baby… Dredge was it for 2023. As a weary fisherman in strange waters, you'll make the most out of your 12 measly hours of sunlight only for your daily voyages to inevitably pull you into the darkness of night, and night is when things get weird. Rocks emerge from the fog that you swear weren't there before, your equipment malfunctions, and you're pretty sure you just saw something in the water… something big. Despite only containing a small collection of islands, the world of Dredge manages to feel vast - perhaps vast enough to swallow you whole.

7. Resident Evil 4 Remake I was curious to see what sort of changes would be made to the timeless classic and father of modern 3rd person shooters, Resident Evil 4. I wasn't let down. RE4 Remake takes all the things that didn't age well about the original, tossed them out, and replaced them with only good things. And MORE things! It's campy, fun, and better than a game of bingo.

6. Jusant I really feel like this one didn't get the recognition it deserves. Jusant is a rock climbing game that combines the quiet contemplation of Journey with the mechanical specificity of Death Stranding. Unlike Death Standing, though, there is very little story to interrupt your flow. There are plenty of collectible bits to find for those curious to learn more about what happened before the events of the game, but the environmental storytelling does most of the heavy lifting. For me, the joy of the game comes from how it feels. Right trigger controls your right hand grip, and left trigger controls left hand grip. Plan your route, manage your stamina, and climb high above the clouds in search of answers.

5. F-Zero 99 This. Shit. Slaps. I've never been a big F-Zero guy, but this MADE me one. The “battle royale”, 99 player format is the perfect fit for the ruthless, high octane world of the game. Races last about three minutes, and friend, they are the most intense, white-knuckled three minutes of your life. The decision to make your boost meter the same as your health meter started in F-Zero 64 (I believe), and it is so much more HARROWING in this game when another player could side-swipe you mere meters from the finish line and blow you to bits. Sadly it's only playable via Switch Online, but it made me cheer, laugh, and scream enough this year to earn a spot in my top 5.

4. Alan Wake 2 Remedy makes weird games that also manage to exist in the AAA space and for that I will forever love them. Although Alan Wake 2 resembles a 3rd person shooter survival horror, I'd honestly say it's more of a narrative game than anything else. There's sidequests, there's puzzles, there's upgradeable skills, but at the end of the day the characters, world, and story are what kept me playing. If you haven't checked them out recently, you should definitely watch a story recap of the original games before diving into this sequel, but the wild swings for the fences this game takes are well worth that small price of admission. There's a god damn musical number, for Christ's sake.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I've really got nothing to say about this game that most people don't already know. It's incredible. The fact that Nintendo made a game that redefined an entire genre and then made a SEQUEL to it that ups the ante is remarkable. To be honest, I've only cleared the Rito, Zora, and Goron cities. I got a bit tired of exploring the depths and guiding Koroks to their friends, but I can't deny the sheer level of complexity and polish on display here. I saw someone on TikTok build a functioning Mecha Godzilla in this game. Good God. I've heard that the ending of this game is one of the best in the franchise, and if I'd seen it this year then it may have wound up higher on my list, but for the time being I'll continue picking up this masterpiece from time to time, chipping away at it until the day comes that I can finally smack the tits off thicc Ganondorf.

2. Half-Life (25th Anniversary Update) I know I'm gonna get shit for this, but I don't care. This year was the 25th anniversary of Half-Life and Valve released an update that made playing it (and it's online Death Match) much more accessible. I threw it on my Steam Deck out of curiosity, expecting to play for 20 minutes. I could not put it down. It is unbelievable how modern this game still feels. I simply had so much fun sprinting through the corridors of Black Mesa with a dozen weapons strapped to my back, blasting aliens and military Spec-Op chumps as a 24(?!) year old theoretical physicist.

1. Baldur's Gate III This game is fucked up, man. The sheer amount of writing in this game scares me. We can all talk about how BIG this game is, it deserves it, but the thing BG3 does better than any other role playing game I have ever experienced is actually encourage roleplaying. I've played through Act I four times now, with four different groups of friends, and it has felt fresh every time. I have seen the same events play out in so many different ways that it boggles the mind, but in every one of those play sessions I see players asking themselves “What would my lil guy do here?” rather than "what is the best thing to do here?" The game rewards players constantly for just trying shit and the D&D 5e rule set means playing like the character you said you were from the start leads to frequent Points of Inspiration. Maybe one day I'll see the end of this story (probably not), but I don't have to in order to feel a connection with BG3's world, characters, and most impressively, the characters I made myself.

Honorable Mentions for 2023

5. Dave the Diver 4. Homebody 3. Sea of Stars 2. Humanity 1. Super Mario Wonder

Top 5 Favorites NOT from 2023

5. Metroid Prime 4. Final Fantasy VII Remake 3. Cursed Halo (Halo CE Mod) 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 1. Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (3DS)

Games I didn't have a chance to play from 2023 but still want to when I find more time...

Viewfinder Venba Chants of Sennaar Thirsty Suitors Hi-Fi Rush Moonring Armored Core VI Laika Aged Through Blood Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

OKAY THANKS BYE!

#video games #2023 #GOTY

[0m3g45n1p3r4lph4]

Whats the deal with Bionicle Heroes (Wii)?

Okay so everyone here knows Bionicle Heroes, probably by either the GameCube or Playstation 2 releases. Maybe even the Xbox release (of which all 3 are pretty much just ports with the input graphics changed) or the PC version (mouse and keyboard controls being the most drastic difference). It's many people's favorite (or at least most nostalgic) Bionicle game, competing with or right after Mata Nui Online Game.

The game itself is already quite repetitive - if you're the type to go for 100% completion, you're gonna be hearing the Hero Mode song A LOT. Even the DS version makes better use of unique mechanics by having Hahli use her Kanohi Elda to detect secrets, but that's a different tangent.

When I learned there was a Wii Version I was so excited to play what could very well be the Best version. To preface, I know a lot of people have a stigma against motion controls, but I've always found that the Metroid Prime Trilogy works so excellently with a Wii Remote and Nunchuck in ways that no other control scheme can match! Movement with an analog stick is more precise and comfortable than keys, and aiming with an analog stick is always wonky and imprecise. Mouse is okay, but Prime's pointer controls make those games really slick - just point where you wanna shoot, you can adjust the zones on the edges of the screen for turning your view, I really like it. I play on a close approximation of that style on Prime Remastered, but Joycons even have Gyro Drift so it doesn't always feel great.

So I go into this expecting similar - to be able to point at anywhere on screen and shoot at that. To point at an enemy and have the targeting lasers aim right at them.

Nope. Targeting is locked to the center of the screen.

Despite constantly having your pointer visible, THE ONLY INTERACTION IT HAS WITH THE GAME IS TO ROTATE THE CAMERA. You can't point at anything. Only moving the cursor towards the edges of the screen to turn your view, and whatever is closest to the center of the screen becomes your target.

You can't even adjust these zones.

Prime Trilogy showed me how WiimoteNunchuck can be one of the best control schemes, but I underestimated how it can also be one of the worst. What's the point of having a pointer if you're just gonna treat it as an analog stick????????

Not to mention it's clearly a rushed port of the GameCube release, including any prerendered cutscenes being much more compressed (though including new dialogue in the opener?) and even some missing textures revealing open skybox (luckily just minor stuff).

Like sure, I've got my gripes with every version of Heroes (the dumbing down of the most intense part of the story thus far, turning the Piraka into bumbling fools, you could at least make them intimidating in the part where BALTA TALKS ABOUT HOW INTIMIDATING THEY ARE CMON) but the control scheme makes the Wii version easily the worst. All the DS hand cramps are at least balanced out by the unique content, rahi variety (THEY HAVE FROST BEETLES), etc.

At least it's still got the good soundtrack.

#bionicle #bionicle heroes #nintendo wii #yeah that's basically the issue #every other complaint I could make is one that applies to mostly every other version #but I could never complain about the soundtrack as a whole

[astrarobotica]

People like to say the Switch is aging but...

Metroid Prime Remastered gets a surprise release and there isn't a single part of me that thinks it looks old or outdated or even "last-gen".

I'm not sure why they called it a remaster. Remasters typically just have HD resolutions, higher-res textures and a few modern lighting/shader tricks. This thing is more of a remake, because it's been entirely rebuilt from the ground up. Every 3D asset is new. Every texture is new. Even character animations in cutscenes have been tweaked. Metroid Prime Remastered looks like a brand new game, even though the original came out in 2002.

I've seen a lot of people saying over the past few months that the Switch is "aging tech", people on reddit have convinced themselves that the "Super Switch" or "Switch 2" or whatever is imminent (just like the Switch Pro!). And yeah, Nintendo is probably gonna put out another console within a few years. But I don't feel like the Switch is getting too old. I'm just as excited for games coming out on it this year as I was when the console launched. I don't see this game and Tears of the Kingdom and think about how much better they could look on newer hardware. They obviously would look better, but they still look incredible on the Switch.

I think this is why Nintendo has my favorite first-party IPs; most big games over the past twenty years have been increasingly focused on hyper-realistic graphics, while Nintendo has almost always focused on art style, which translates well regardless of hardware. And I think some games benefit from hyper-realistic visuals like Red Dead Redemption 2. It's such an insanely beautiful game, but it's also a very good game in general. A lot of recent games feel like they use realistic graphics as a crutch to support bland game design. Graphical fidelity and art style are two different concepts. Good art style can age well even on limited hardware. Fallout 3 was a pretty good-looking game when it came out, fifteen years later however...

Nintendo prioritizes art style. The art style of a particular game/franchise can be adapted to whatever hardware it's being developed for and then pushed to the level of graphical fidelity the hardware can handle. Metroid Prime Remastered is an entirely rebuilt game, but it retains the exact same art style from twenty years ago. Breath of the Wild was a launch title for the Switch, but it still looks just as impressive six years later. Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2/3, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Kirby and the Forgotten Kingdom (and many others)... they all look incredible on supposed "aging" hardware.

But why exactly is the Switch seemingly not good enough anymore? Well it came out after the PS4/XB1 and was already less powerful than those consoles. Now another generation of consoles have come out which are even more powerful, making the Switch seem more underpowered. People also tend to look at console generation trends, and most consoles are around for about seven years before the next one comes out. But that's an artificial reason; industry trends don't magically make the Switch outdated. The real reason is that people want a Nintendo to make a console with hardware on comparable level to other current consoles, or at least last-gen consoles at this point.

That's understandable, but is it because Nintendo games don't look good enough? No, it's because we want to play non-Switch games like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 on a handheld, in particular, one less bulky and with a better battery life than the Steam Deck, and one that still has Nintendo games on it. Sure, some Switch ports are quite bad, but we also have Doom Eternal, No Man's Sky, NieR: Automata, and plenty of others that were poorly optimized to begin with or seemingly "too much" for the Switch to handle, yet we have them, and they're amazing. There's also Xenoblade Chronicles 3, which uses very clever upsampling to produce an amazing image quality. The Witcher 3 may not look amazing on Switch, but people said it would never happen, yet here we are. That isn't to say the Switch is capable of running any game, even with clever ports and decent optimization. But it's much more capable than a lot of people give it credit for.

I bought a gaming PC in 2021, primarily for sim racing. So I don't need a PS5/XBS, but I wasn't planning on buying one even before that. The only big new game I've even played from the past year is Elden Ring. Those consoles have already been out for two years, and there's only a handful of games that can't also be bought for the previous generation. Yes, games will look and perform better on the newer consoles, but cross-generation releases have never lingered around for this long before.

Even though new generations of console will always be more powerful than the last, not many games use that extra power for much more than higher-fidelity graphics. The big issue with that is that it's a matter of diminishing returns; the jump in visual fidelity from one console generation to the next has become less and less impressive over the past twenty years. Visual detail in graphics will always get better as the hardware advances, but the closer you get to photorealism, the less there is to improve on. More polygons on-screen stops being impressive when you stop noticing the polygons. The jump from 480i to 1080p was far more noticeable than the jump from 1080p to 4K. A lot of games on newer consoles are starting to boast about 60fps, because in some cases, an increased framerate is the most noticable difference between the same game on two console generations.

Overall this trend is a bit concerning to me. Honestly, it began when the "pro" consoles came out during the last generation. The old business model feels like it's rapidly becoming obsolete, and Sony and Microsoft must feel the same way, considering how many of their first-party games they're releasing on PC these days. So it feels strange to me that the Switch is somehow too weak as the other consoles just over a generation ahead of it are running straight into a very real plateau. Metroid Prime Remastered looks just as visually impressive to me as any PS5/XBS game.

Yes, Nintendo will eventually release a new console. But we’ve reached a turning point with Sony and Microsoft where the reasons to buy their new consoles are less obvious and convincing than they’ve ever been. So maybe it's a smart strategy for Nintendo to take their time and make sure their next piece of hardware is substantially more impressive than the Switch 

#metroid #metroid prime #metroid prime remastered #nintendo #switch #gaming #video games

[piggybankstomfoolery]

Been thinking a bit this weekend about how my three favorite original games so far this year have been Pizza Tower, Spark 3 and now Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, and how all three of those effectively surpass their inspirations.

meanwhile the three big games I played last year, Saints Row (the new one), Pokemon Scarlet & Sonic Frontiers all suffered from major gaps in quality that soured my mood with all three.

when I factor in the games I've enjoyed so far this year from AAA devs, both of those games (Metroid Prime Remastered & Quake 2) were solid remasters of fantastic games I had simply never played before.

I guess the conclusion I've got so far from all of this is that I'm really looking forward to seeing more indie stuff release in the coming years and seeing how some of those studios may grow.

[warpskell]

Can't sleep, so I'm gonna talk about something.

Looking back, I think Metroid Prime is my all-time favourite game, or at least very high up there, probably tied with Metroid Zero Mission. Something about it just hits it with me like nothing else.

Maybe I just played it at the right time. I remember playing it when it first came out and going around the school playground with my arm in my coat sleeve pretending to be Samus lol

Soundtrack is also amazing, which is something that Dread unfortunately lacks. Probably the best menu theme next to Timesplitters 2.

I hope MP4 can recapture what made it special to me (if it actually comes out, it's been 6 years), they did a fantastic job with the remastered version. Usually, remasters tend to miss the point in some cases, usually with the lighting, soundtrack, or just changing stuff unnecessarily, but MP remastered to me is pretty damn spot on.

[midnakoopa]

Quasi-personal ramble about video games oh boy. Just wanted to talk about games I've been playing, and games I've been not playing. :v

So I started playing Genshin at the beginning-ish of January, and whoops it kinda became a hyperfixation and practically all I played for like 3 months. Last I checked, I already had over 450 hours in it :v I still haven't even booted up Fire Emblem Engage and now I'm playing other games too 🙃

As for what "other games". Like I posted a while back, I played Evoland 1 and 2. Great games, gameplay-wise. The story of 1 is just kind of a parody, which is fine. 2's story, especially its ending, doesn't really do it for me, and I'll leave it at that for now; this post is gonna be long enough as it is.

Friend of mine gifted me Momodora, so I gave that a run-through. Pretty good game. For as prominent in images as the titty witch seemed, she kinda just showed up twice and then died. Skill issue I guess.

As for right now, I just finished a playthrough of Metroid Prime Remastered today, and started playing the MMBN collection, starting with the first one of course.

Battle Network 3 was the first one I played when I was younger, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it, 5, and 6. Didn't play 1, 2, and 4 until later in life when I played them very legally on my real game boy advance.

MMBN1 definitely has that first-installment jank. The net is kinda confusing to navigate, especially the metro area. I also forgot it heals you after every battle. I feel like I never completed BN1 100%, because I don't think I ever fought Bass. I don't think I even knew he showed up as early as the first game. Also, Mega Man 8 came out in '96, time ain't real.

I suddenly have too many games I want to play and Tears of the Kingdom is less than a month away, which feels surreal. I'm going to play Fire Emblem Engage someday 🙃

#video games #personal stuff? kind of? #rambling #long post #i've had xenoblade 2 for years and haven't even booted it up #:v

[sonatanote]

February 2023 Nintendo Direct Bullet Thoughts

Pikmin 4 being a rescue mission feels like a natural progression, same with the assumed night-time exploration. Probably going to add some good tension, though not as much as the unsettling dog friend.

Someday I'll play Xenoblade Chronicles 3... when I have time hahaaaaaaaaa.

Samba De Amigo is the strangest comeback, but I'll take it?

I haven't wanted to be an Influencer™ even virtually and I'm not going to start now.

Is it just me or is the new Tron game kinda pulling from the Necrobarista school of mostly static narrative panels in 3D spaces w/ really precise and gorgeous cinematography?

GHOST TRICK REMASTERED BB!!!!!! :3

...followed by a game in which we play a cop... 'kay. I mean cat form cool, but ehhhh

Bayonetta: Origins has a gorgeous storybook aesthetic, but also feels real strange? Not even sure what pricks my mind on this, but it's probably going to be fine.

If Splat33n crosses over with Nier, I will laugh hard enough to blow up the sun.

So strange to see an "X of Illusion" game from Disney in the year of our gods 2023, but the animation is satisfyingly good, so I can't really complain.

Harmony, is yet another game with gorgeous animation, but also might have an interesting enough story to keep me hooked.

Stars, I'm never going to play a JRPG again with my schedule, huh?

NA NA, NA NA NA NA NA NA NA KATAMARI ON THE SWING 🎶

Been waiting for Sabotage's next game after The Messenger to come out, and MAN IT'S LOOKING GOOD.

Seeing Etrian Odyssey get an easy mode for it's older games is FUNNY, but I'm surprised they don't seem to have remastered / remixed the soundtracks.

Advance Wars finally exists, for real this time.

I've always wanted to play as Magolor, and now my wishes have been fulfilled. Now we can finally learn how he came to become a Theme Park Manager.

GBA / GB games are nice, and the local / online multiplayer is nice. Cool. Cool cool.

Metroid Prime Remastered feels like they're building up hype to try and get a reveal of Metroid Prime 4 later down the line. Still, looks gorgeous.

Ah, hello Not!Danganronpa.

Oh, it's that Animal Crossing Fantasy game that was decidedly okay

Huh, new Professor Layton game... WAIT WHAT‽‽‽‽

Banger soundtrack tbh for the rapid-fire blitz of games. Highlights for me were Blanc, Battle Network Collection, and Have a Nice Death

6th time seeing Breath of the Wild 2 as the stinger really kinda dampens the effect. But hey, we have slightly better voice acting and a tentative release date!

#Nintendo Direct #Nintendo #Zelda #Pikmin #Advance Wars #Kirby #Magolor #Ghost Trick #Professor Layton #Bullet Thoughts

[prgilland]

life update

i think this is a blogging site. i guess i'm gonna blog a bit

if anyone who left twitter ages ago has been wondering what I've been up to for the past year, my family moved from tennessee back down to florida back in january and are currently living in my aunt's house rent-free, and my dad suddenly passed away from alzheimer's early last month, on july 2 at 2:25pm surrounded by my mother, aunt, her boyfriend, my brother, and I. we're still reeling from the aftermath, especially with finances and insurance and all that shit. things kinda have sucked the big one this year

i'm still on twitter while the ship is still sinking, which has become turbulent now that the official tweetdeck is gone, and unofficial addons are living on borrowed time. i'm trying to find alternatives, and i've decided that vivaldi will be my social media web browser because of the tab-tiling feature, kinda like tweetdeck's columns. it'll never be the same though. anyways, i wish the CEO a very go to hell

on lighter news, moving down here means I get to see family and friends again, whom I haven't seen in 6-10 years, so that's been very nice. for games and such, the big games i've played this year have been xenoblade x and future redeemed, kirby return to dreamland, metroid prime remastered, pikmin 4, zelda totk, and i think's that's it. i've been on another hyperfixation for nearly 2 months: the dragon ball anime series. i started with DB which i've only seen part of when i was a kid, and i'm almost done with Z, which i used to watch the original on toonami as a kid and through kai when i was in high school. not sure if i will watch GT or super or any of the movies

anyways, here are other websites I can be found at:

YouTube: youtube.com/user/masterofs…

Twitch: twitch.tv/prgilland

Discord: PRGilland - won't add you if I don't know who you are

some extras I barely use:

Newgrounds: prg.newgrounds.com

Deviant Art: deviantart.com/prgblah

Gamebanana: gamebanana.com/members/1317176

feel free to contact me or invite me to games or streams or something, i'm free 100% of the time pretty much

ok I think that's everything. see you all next year, bye

#life update #dragon ball #twitter

[light-wolf]

Ok, time for some thoughts regarding yesterday's Nintendo Direct!

Pikmin 4: Nothing too revolutionary, just taking the Pikmin formula and refining/expanding it, like Pikmin 2 and 3 did before it. And honestly, that's not a bad thing! I love the Pikmin games, they're really fun and charming and this one seems to continue that trend. It seems we're getting all the existing Pikmin types in addition to the new Ice Pikmin so that'll be cool. And the new doggo is adorable! I'm really looking forward to this one.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective: This is a game that I always wanted to play and never got to do it, so I'm glad to see it ported to the Switch! Maybe this will be the time I actually play it.

Sea of Stars: Absolutely gorgeous and looks really fun as well, taking inspiration from one of my favorite games ever. Apparently it got a demo so I'll probably give that a try. I still need to play The Messenger though...

Game Boy and Game Boy Advance added to Nintendo Switch Online: Finally! And now I actually have the Expansion Pack thanks to a friend so I can get hyped about GBA too. The libraries are a bit limited for the time being but that's to be expected. Looking forward to replaying some of my favorites from that era and also try a few classics for the first time. Although the games I'm most hyped about are the ones that were confirmed to come in the future, like Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Pokémon TCG, Metroid Fusion and of course freaking GOLDEN SUN (yes, I'm ready to replay it for the millionth time).

Metroid Prime Remastered: Okay, I wasn't expecting this one, even though it had been rumored for a while. While I would've liked to see the entire trilogy in one package, the first Prime is arguably the best one and also one of the best games ever made. The remake looks amazing and much more polished than just a simple HD port. Seriously, if you haven't played this game before, give it a try, it's a masterpiece, and this is coming from someone who hates shooters (Metroid Prime isn't really a shooter).

Baten Kaitos I & II Remaster: HOLY SHIT. Another one (two?) that I always wanted to play but didn't get when it first came out before it became impossible to find, and never bothered with trying to emulate. I'd love to give the series a chance on modern hardware.

Professor Layton And The New World of Steam: HOOOOOO BOY!!! This might seriously be my favorite announcement of the Direct, even though they didn't really show us anything! I was a HUGE Layton fan during the DS era and I was so sad that the series kinda just died all of a sudden. I'm honestly so fucking hyped for this! Please be good, please be good, please be good!

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC Wave 4: The new track looks amazing! Yoshi's Island was one of the defining games from my childhood so this gets me extremely nostalgic. Also Birdo was a nice surprise! I wasn't expecting characters in the pass! While I don't really care about Birdo in particular, this opens the door for more characters so maybe this means I can finally have my boy Diddy Kong again. Please. It's been so long.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Honestly I don't have a lot to say about this one. Am I hyped? Absolutely. But we still know so little about this game! What's the story about? How does it differ from BotW? Although, part of me kinda wishes it stays this way. Trailers tend to spoil too much stuff these days, so I'm fine with keeping the surprises for when I actually play the game. Oh, and it's a minor thing, but I hope they bring back Wolf Link and/or a similar mechanic (and not locked to amiibo this time). I just loved exploring Hyrule with a doggo.

Overall a really exciting Direct, and there were also a bunch of other cool announcements that I didn't touch here. Now to work on my backlog so I can play shiny new games without feeling guilty, lol.

#Nintendo #Nintendo Direct #Light Wolf plays videogames

[stevetown]

Metroid Dread

Completed: 2/26/23 Playtime: 7h30m

After finishing up Symphony of the Night, I had my appetite whetted for more metroidvania. While everyone else went crazy for the new Prime Remaster, I decided to stick with the 2D trappings of Metroid: Dread.

The game is...good, although I'm not sure it worked for me as a complete package. Or rather, I'm not sure if I got from the game what I wanted.

For starters, the game is hard as hell. This can be fun, and I really found some early boss fights fun to learn, but far too often the brand of difficulty the game employed was "you must execute this series of steps perfectly repeatedly." I realized that's just not my thing. I like to be able to either hit the boss when I want, or have the ability to make opportunities to exploit myself.

I was also let down by the map design overall. The game is incredibly knotty, but it still manages to shepherd you down a linear path so you don't have to think too hard to find where you needed to go next. This kept things moving, but it really lost the spark of fun that metroidvanias have given me in the past. I never felt like I learned where I was going or got to recognize portions of the map. Things never folded in on themselves in a way that let me use new abilities to get that secret I couldn't get before. What secrets I did find through my playthrough almost always required some other power up I wouldn't get for hours. By then I wouldn't remember where it was and felt ready to move on anyway.

To cap it all off - none of the exploration ever really feels worth it. Where exploration in SotN yielded me new weapons, familiars, or secondary items, the only collectibles in Dread are more missiles and health upgrades (even then, sometimes just 1/4 of a health upgrade).

There are moments where the game really shines though. The aesthetics and atmosphere of the levels are top notch. Samus' movement is slick. A handful of bosses really worked for me, particularly the Chozo warrior fights and the final boss. I just wish it had built on all the good stuff instead of feeling like I was losing momentum between difficulty spikes.

#metroid #dread #2023 game journal #video games #metroid dread

[spectrum-studios]

When you were watching your childhood replay in real time infront of your eyes.

For context: I'm a Metroid fan and from a ridiculously young age too. So I would watch my father play all the GameCube metroid games (yes that means Metroid Other M too..) and I did help my dad with puzzles too (I was pretty good at that.)

And probably a few weeks ago my dad bought Metroid Prime Remastered and I watched him and then attempted to play alone... failed to do so and then tried again with mom by my side and got into the game.. this is my first time actually playing a Metroid game (well I attempted Dread and got too scared in my first e.m.m.i room).

Right now I'm going for a 100% casual difficulty run. I'm super close, and then I'll do another run in a harder difficulty.

But these past three days I've fleshed out 2 aus and I'm going to just show one off.

Metroid - [System Hatred]

And this is Marana Aran. The forgotten younger sister of samus.

She genuinely hates samus for getting all the glory and is one to like what crimes space pirates did- to the point she learned their language and murdered a entire human facility with all this high tech, with only a damn kitchen knife, when space pirates find Marana Aran, speaks to them and convinced them to let her join. And soon she stands by Ridley's side just as strong as Samus Aran...

Bonus info:

Marana Aran is 7 years younger than Samus.

Marana is Ridley's favorite and even calls her a daughter..

Kills anyone (except space pirates) that is after Samus, because she wants to kill her, herself.

She got space pirate, metroid, and choso (chozo) DNA infused with her blood to have a chance against Samus.

She's short. But space pirates respect her.

#metroid #metroid prime #metroid other m #metroid zero mission #metroid au

[mrslittletall]

Over the last few days I have played Metroid Prime Remastered. It isn't my first time playing the game, I already played the Game Cube version in 2011. And the game... it still holds up so WELL! You have to see, this was one of the franchises that created the Metroidvania genre and then they made the bolt move to make it into an FPS shooter. And it is... but it also is still a Metroidvania! One of the best Metroid games and one of the best Metroidvanias I ever played! The game just WORKS! The first person perspective works. Samus' upgrades are little changed for the pov change, but they work. Tallon IV is such a cool map, the game has a 3D map that actually works. It is great. And best of all... the game just lets you... explore. Like, sometimes you get hints where you can go, but you are never forced to go there right away, you can keep exploring and get your next upgrade when you feel ready for it. I really hope they remake 2 and 3 too, though I have to admit, the first Metroid Prime is simply the best.

#little plays games #metroid prime remastered

[thrilly23]

Games I've been playing (Feb/Mar)

I may have gotten bad at this. Been watching some stuff like The Office, The Last Of Us, but haven't finished anything. Been playing multiple games without really finishing anything. A few more than others though:

Game Complete #3: Kirby's Dream Land. Doesn't really deserve its own post since it's just like 30 minutes long. Been playing it thanks to the GameBoy app on Switch, same as ...

Wario Land 3. I've been playing this for probably 5-6 hours or so, and it's still not done. It's a great game and I wish Nintendo still did games like these. I've been enjoying Wario Land more than Mario as a teen for the exact same reasons. It's not just going from left to right, but actually looking for things inside these levels. Some clever puzzles that do not even feel like puzzles. Great game.

Metroid Prime Remastered. Was so hyped for this, but then I have barely played it yet. What I have played is great though, just feel like I need more focus/energy for this.

Soul Hackers 2. Happy when it was announced for Game Pass. I've played a couple of hours and am both intrigued and a bit disappointed. Kinda want to continue but also kinda not. Love the Y2K vibes.

Atomic Heart. Game Pass launch. Great game so far, stopped when Prime released. Need to get back playing.

Ratchet & Clank. Sony offered a special deal for a month of Plus, so of course I've got the tier that includes retro games. Been trying a few classic games before eventually sticking with this one through streaming (PS3 HD Collection), but at a point right now where some of the encounters are actually becoming difficult. Maybe I just need to try some others weapons.

Rayman 3 HD. Speaking of platformers, this was on sale on Xbox and of course I've got this. It plays like a charm for something that's also essentially a PS2 game. Hope there will be a Rayman 4 soon.

#game log #backlog #wario land #nintendo #switch online #game boy on switch #kirbys dream land #metroid prime #atomic heart #soul hackers 2 #ratchet and clank #rayman