Most people are wary when people recommend their music to them. I totally understand this but over the past three or so years, the majority of what I have been listening to has been from recommendations. Whether I continued to enjoy them or not after the fact is another story. So here are some albums that I found in 2018, most of which I would not have found if not for other people recommending them to me. I listened to a lot of albums recommended to me and these are the ones that have stuck with me the most and left a lasting impression. So instead of telling you that you NEEEEEEED to listen to this thing I like, I will leave a bunch of albums hanging around here in hopes that they leave a lasting impression on you too. Thank you again, "other people".
I am going to make a playlist for this on Spotify. It will consist of one song from every album here. It might be my favorite song from the album or one that's high up there. It might just be the one that is one I find more accessible. It might be in-between or both. Either way, here it is:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5R8HbqoXXLK7zuIo0r6HpQ?si=pg_TxLBTQoKbbOREBfbNCw
Uroboros by Dir En Grey [2008]
Dir En Grey is a Japanese metal band with a fuckload of albums. Unfortunately, not all of those albums are on Spotify (for those of you who use Spotify). Uroboros and Withering to Death are on Spotify. Vulgar, Arche, and many others are not. Uroboros is my second-favorite album by the band (Arche probably being my favorite). Dir En Grey is ultimately a heavy metal band with visual kei roots for anyone who cares enough to understand what that means. Each album (from the 5 or 6 I have heard songs from) has its own unique sound from the others in terms of overall composition and mixing. Uroboros is the weird one. The other ones certainly aren't made for your grandma but Uroboros has a lot more strange instrumentation choices, compositional transitions, and weird mouth noises. The vocalist has a ridiculous range both tonally and pitch-wise. He shows off a lot on this one. Where most metal singers use this as an excuse to hit the highest notes possible, Kyo (the singer) flaunts his ability to sound like a Looney Tunes audio track being scraped across a railroad. But in a good way though. Uroboros is still a heavy metal album, even dipping into the death metal category, but there are many strange quirky parts and serene parts strung together by both pretty synths and guitar arrangements. There are 3 more albums by them on this list and I'm going to try to keep them brief. I also listened to Dum Spiro Spero, which is another album you can still listen to on Spotify along with their new album called The Insulated World. Dum Spiro Spero has a lot more death metal tropes and does not sound as original as their other work. I don't recommend that one nearly as much as these other 4 albums listed here but it certainly isn't bad.
I apologize in advance that half of this post is just talking about Dir En Grey. I swear it eventually ends.
https://open.spotify.com/album/1BdqcsPQ16Pt11iA3Md0X8?si=mEP2YjSGQ7ml-MnJb6VG6A
Withering To Death by Dir En Grey [2005]
Withering to Death is more contemporary than Uroboros, Arche, Vulgar, and Dum Spiro Spero but that by no means makes it bad. For the most part, it isn't even cheesy or contrived. It's everything I like about Uroboros except lacking the weirdness. Some of my favorite songs by the band are on this album. I think this is probably one of the best albums to start off with for anyone who has never heard of Dir En Grey before. It sounds enough like a lot of other metal bands to keep seasoned modern metalheads invested while not losing the original soul and sound of Dir En Grey.
https://open.spotify.com/album/7KOmySDb3gn3vRmhkmMMrH?si=IL0zthuPQj2tyckUpzuc8A
Vulgar by Dir En Grey [2003]
This album is a bit more "garagey" than the other albums I have mentioned here. What I mean is that Vulgar sounds a lot more raw and generally has less overdub. There is not much more I have to say about it. There are a lot of songs where the vocals carry the music. Take that as a good or bad thing upon listening to it. It doesn't encompass a lot of what I personally love about this band but it's still good shit.
As of writing this, Vulgar isn't on Spotify so have fun looking this one up (or just buying it).
So here is a song by them that mixes what I like the most about the album with its accessibility to those unfamiliar. It's called Marmalade Chainsaw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXGrwcXo7-k
Arche by Dir En Grey [2014]
Arche is my favorite of Dir En Grey's albums and probably one of my new favorite metal albums. I, unfortunately, have no real idea on how to explain why. It has a lot more variety than a lot of the other albums do within themselves and that's something that usually suits my fancy with a custom tailor. If you prefer something more tonally consistent and genre variety in short spurts gives you emotional whiplash, you're better off with Withering to Death or Vulgar. If you want... heavy metal music but sometimes not??? then Arche will probably do something for you. It's definitely weird without going into psychedelic or mathcore territory. I respect the hell out of this album.
Arche isn't on Spotify right now either.
So here is just my favorite song on this album. It probably isn't the best or most accessible. But fuck it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5aQVRWuWlE
Pacific Myth by Protest the Hero [2015]
Protest the Hero is one of my favorite bands of all time. It's not for everyone but what fucking is. Protest the Hero, I know, from first glance, sounds like another "Verb the Noun" hardcore band. Surely, they take some inspiration from such music, as is evident from their first EP. Their first LP, however, blew that shit completely out of the water (and for the record most of their influences for the band's music are more jazzy dudes and score composers and shit, but I guess that's neither here nor there, just me being a fanboy). It went from some overly political, nasally, AFI shit with breakdowns by a bunch of literal teenagers to this progressive metal opera vision realized. Their second album, Fortress, was the one that got me into them. To this day, there is not a song on that album I don't like. That album was supposedly mostly improvised and then they just went back to glue the pieces together later. That shit rarely stays in the same time signature and tempo for more than a minute, and their first album, Kezia, is even more spastic. Then you have Scurillous, which is much less conceptual and the vocals are a bit off in relativity, but the album is still good. Volition is this crowd-funded masterpiece. Nothing about Volition on the surface is particularly thought-provoking or groundbreaking but the more you get into it, the more it gives. Even then, it's pretty great the first time. I have witnessed several people who aren't into this kind of shit have firsthand impulsive, positive reactions to songs from Volition. See, I don't like it when bands get super political in their songs because they tend to focus on getting out a message or pushing some agenda rather than focus on making good music; rather than focus on making entertainment. To each their own but if I wanted the same shit repeated and punched into my brain a billion times over with no payoff or minimal thought involved, I would just go back to listening to hymns and Christian rock. I agree with a lot of Protest the Hero's messages but the point is, I had to look up a lot of it or listen to the songs multiple times to fully get what they were saying because the music comes first here. Protest the Hero are very politically charged with a lot of their music but they still understand that. Volition also touches topics like origins of fiction, heartwarming stories from their lives, and the music industry. The composition and attitude of each song are where this shit really shines though. The songs are not as sporadic and ridiculous as their previous work but the entirety of Volition can just be described as being the album with the biggest balls and the most intimate touch of those balls on their fans. Anyway. Where does that put Pacific Myth?
Pacific Myth is not their best album. It has a lot of shit that fans like about their older stuff. They take things we have all heard before and make a unique experience with this checklist on every album they make. There are high, powerful-sounding (probably not healthy) vocals. There are intricate drum fills and segways. The guitars are show-offy but never so much so that it ever becomes pure shred-metal. Sometimes you can actually hear the bass parts too (an issue I have with their other albums). On top of that, Pacific Myth is one of their concept albums. It tells a story about the world's creation and destruction in relation to the ocean or something. I don't understand it but in music, that doesn't fully matter. If it sounds like it is telling a cohesive tale and it all functions as one entity from beginning to end better than it does on shuffle, then I consider it a success. Pacific Myth does that. The only thing that keeps this from being a clone of the formula that has made PTH so beloved is the vocal effects. Maybe some other parts of the mix and some interesting parts here and there too. Two of their longest songs ever are on this album and this mostly works out better than I expected for the band. There are a few parts that definitely just sound like the vocalist karaoke-ing over something that was not originally intended for vocals though. I don't mind this usually but it shows on this one.
So I recommend their other stuff more but this is a great album too. They really don't have a bad LP, though. I guess I mostly just used Pacific Myth as an excuse to gush about Protest the Hero for a little bit. Sorry.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5EN5DdJO9aVuNxRptUeNTD?si=lBfGr4qQQv62QFhj_gj3sQ
Field Songs by Mark Lanegan [2001]
Mark Lanegan is that guy who does all the low, gravelly vocals on Queens of the Stone Age's songs. Or if you are one of the 2,000 people on planet Earth who still know what Screaming Trees is enough to hum a melody, he was the lead singer in that band. His voice is really unique. His range is not particularly crazy but he is much better at conveying emotions with what he has. That in itself makes him a great singer and pretty much a good songwriter by default. Which brings us to Field Songs. Don't go into Field Songs expecting heavy metal or anything. It's folk with elements of rock in it. Almost folk-rock even. There is a lot of stuff on here that would be boring as fuck in someone else's hands but Mark Lanegan makes it work. A lot of simple progressions and predictable transitions. That doesn't make it bad though. Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age came out the same year and does the same shit. That one's considered one of the greatest albums of all time, at least in the rock realm. This one got swept under the rug somehow. I guess if you have a unique voice and a penis, it doesn't matter unless you're a natural tenor or the "Chocolate Rain" dude. Field Songs is twangy. It sounds like what really good bourbon tastes like. It's worth a listen. I don't get addicted to it or want to listen to it every day, it's just worth a listen. From there, you might want to listen again. I did.
https://open.spotify.com/album/04ASPfRh4CrzJXln0xm32U?si=ZDcJXjbbQuao4LiUUbY6gw
The Belle Album by Al Green [1977]
I have been meaning to get into older funky shit and soul shit. Al Green delivers and he delivers hard. Everything on The Belle Album is chill as fuck but still has memorable moments. Nothing is ambient just for the sake of being ambient. Nothing is too dancey just for the sake of being dance-worthy. Nothing is too repetitive for the sake of being considered catchy later. It really dresses up the fact that a lot of the songs are just different shades of wanting to fuck. It's a 70s album and it's a 70s Al Green album. If you expected anything else from that, you might be a goober. I personally think it makes up for it. I don't remember every song after listening to it a few times but I remember liking every song and don't mind shuffling the whole thing into my big Spotify playlist (which is just everything I would go out of my way to listen to in one giant playlist). I am pleasantly caught off guard every time a song from this album comes on. I want to check out more Al Green and hopefully be blown away by something. I won't say The Belle Album necessarily blew me away but I like it enough to recommend it.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4RQHNjzrVVxNSlkcmnZDCG?si=TyUluQErRpybrY9bCBIU8Q
Bad Self Portraits by Lake Street Dive [2014]
I have yet to listen to a song by Lake Street Dive that I don't like. I haven't listened to everything yet but the stuff I have listened to from three different albums and some covers of other people's songs they did on YouTube has sold me. They are a great fucking band that knows how to focus on making a great and entertaining song before worrying about their egos. Plus all of the musicians are talented as fuck. Based on bullshit like fucking Paramore, Flyleaf, and everything No Doubt did after Tragic Kingdom, it is easy to look at a band that looks like Lake Street Dive and go "girl band!" and make assumptions that it is going to be one of those. Lake Street Dive indirectly says fuck that. I'm sure there is an interview somewhere that directly says fuck that. Every member of the band has writing credits. Every member of the band knows how to perform their instrument. On that note, some of them perform multiple instruments from a wide variety and it never feels... "hipstery" for lack of a better term. Some songs are rockier so they have more guitar. Some have no guitar at all when they are jazzier so they focus more on the upright bass. If nothing else, Rachel Price is god tier. I cannot believe that there is a vocalist who makes music this accessible and sings this well and not everyone and their unborn brother is talking about her and her band. It is honestly baffling. I don't want to be that guy, you know the one. Like I love Protest the Hero, The Mars Volta, Mr. Bungle, The Gazette. For the same reasons I love those bands, I get why most people wouldn't. I get why nobody meets me and goes "pffft, you like The Knife, why don't you pick something even more mainstream to listen to, basic bitch?". The thing with Lake Street Dive is that most of their shit is absolutely radio-friendly and accessible to a wider audience. Someone somewhere is dropping the give-a-fuck ball. Maybe it's for the best? Maybe it's the band's collective decision behind the scenes to not be as big a deal as they could be. But popularity is not an important thing, this is just me thinking out loud.
So I picked Bad Self Portraits as the recommended album here because it has the most songs that I find myself singing aloud. There are equally interesting songs and individual moments on their self-titled album and Side Pony. You cannot go wrong. You just can't. Do yourself a favor and just check out a handful of songs. I guarantee that you will find one song that you at least think is alright. If not, you are trying too hard to not like things. It's simple as that. They haven't done like prog deathcore or anything but there is so much variety in their discography that I can't fathom someone listening to them with a truly open mind and hating everything. I can't imagine someone genuinely trying out Lake Street Dive and getting pissed off.
https://open.spotify.com/album/1Ie34DR7t2RGL8bWBPNWVF?si=WUS1-L8USgSq5-wq76Ob-Q
Okay, well, I might do one of these again one day. Good thing I have this blog to do shit like this. God. Can you actually imagine if I made a video out of this? Like...
...
...
...
yyyyyuuuuhhcccchkkkk.
About Chris Niosi
I have no personal connection to the guy, I just had a lot of stuff to get off my chest regarding Chris Niosi's past of being an abusive, manipulative, ass. So I blew this angsty load all over my Twitter and decided to document it here. Is this partially to stroke my own ego by treating my Tweets as if they are actually important? Possibly. Probably. However, in lieu of recent knowledge, it seems like he has been called out for this bullshit before and danced around it for years. People leaped to defend him and people are still leaping to defend him. So if there is one more post out there with one more voice saying "remember, this guy did all this", then I feel like my duty in this scenario is fulfilled. I guess I don't really have a duty here but I'm giving myself one and following through anyway.
I am editing the tweets slightly to get rid of typos and shit but otherwise, this is verbatim what I said, not that it really matters because I still have no personal connection to any of this. That has not changed since the last paragraph.
Here ya go:
https://twitter.com/GoNintendoTweet/status/1154940926193819648
https://gonintendo.com/stories/340993-nintendo-confirms-removal-of-chris-niosi-as-the-voice-actor-for-f
An article from GoNintendo.com called "Nintendo Confirms Removal of Chris Niosi as the Voice Actor for Fire Emblem: Three Houses/Heroes' Byleth, New Voiceover Coming Via Patch". The links provided in the article start a rabbit hole of people who know Niosi calling him out for his bullshit. For those who will say "lol, just a bunch of girls whining about a shitty boyfriend with no proof of anything", it's there (ya sexist bitch). You don't even have to use Google. And Niosi minces words but doesn't deny any of it. Anyway. I retweeted the article saying:
"I talk shit about Nintendo from time to time but I like that they realize the importance of voice actors to the public. This was an extraneous step they did not have to take but I very much respect that they did."
"I recently found out about his bullshit and can't believe I never heard of it before. The links articles like this are giving don't even come close to telling the whole story (not that they should be expected to, there's a lot of abusive history to cover)."
What I was saying here is that the article is about Niosi's voice lines being replaced in "Fire Emblem: Three Houses", not Chris Niosi being a dick. Even then they briefly stated the reasoning, linking another article about Chris Niosi being a dick and apologizing for it publicly. In that article, there are links provided to responders that knew Niosi personally, most of them being victims of his abusive behavior. There is so much text to sift through there that at a certain point, it's out of the journalist's and/or writer's hands.
"I didn't know he was even in Three Houses until yesterday." That would be July 26th, 2019, watching my friend play "Three Houses". "It's hard to completely separate the art from the artist. I don't even want to think about Brawl Taunts or TOME anymore because I don't like thinking about actual rape. I think Nintendo made a good decision."
Then I started a separate thread.
"Actually, I have not had a chance to sort out my thoughts on Chris Niosi and his recent [admission] to years of mental, physical, and sexual abuse to several people. I am going to talk about it a bit more here. Feel free to chime in at any time."
"Niosi was one I always looked up to from a young age. My friends and I were floored by 'Brawl Taunts' and would reference it all the time. His work introduced me to many other inspiring and creative people like Kira Buckland and Deven Mack. [Niosi]'s the only reason I know about OK KO".
"On the other hand, I have now read quite a handful of firsthand accounts of his actions. It's really shady to me how he is not directly denying any of the actions but he is still trying to deny what they are.
"Forcing your drunk girlfriend to have sex with you is rape, by the way."
"It also seems that allegations have come out before. To the public. He denied it then, his friends and fans backed him up, and so the victims were silenced and reverted to a state of fear."
"Prime example here:"
https://amethystlashiec.tumblr.com/post/149095962046/regarding-chris-kirbopher-niosi
A post from someone who knew the guy all too well. The home stretch has a lot of juicy links of Niosi dodging things before "Fire Emblem: Three Houses".
"None of this is okay. If he is really trying to get better, that's great and all but it doesn't change what he did. I can't sympathize or empathize with that shit. That's where I'm at with him if that wasn't clear already.
"This leads me to the 'interesting' bit."
"What line do we draw when it comes to what forms of media we enjoy procured by monstrous assholes? Many would argue 'all of it' but I think it is more situational. Though if you feel 'all of it' is the answer, that's perfectly understandable. I respect that."
"For me, it comes down to four factors:
1. what bad thing(s) I KNOW they did
2. how they are involved in the art
3. how much are they involved in the art
4. how much I think about this while processing said art"
"These four factors are just the pattern I notice in my own thought process. I'm not even offering it as a rule of thumb. It's just what my mind does. Everyone is going to go through this sort of thing differently."
"Let's specifically use Niosi-related pieces here. Let's start with TOME. TOME is fully imagined by Niosi. It's on his personal channel. It is nearly impossible to consume TOME or anything related to TOME without thinking of Niosi."
"Other people worked on TOME and helped make it what it is but it is still primarily the vision of a rapist.
"Another factor worth noting here is that TOME is a YouTube series, so revisiting it directly supports him (a rapist)."
"Let's look at another example. 'A Hat in Time': one of my favorite games of all time. He [is] the voice acting director and I think had some hand in casting if I'm not mistaken but he was definitely the voice acting director."
"Boycotting this game because of Niosi's involvement seems silly to me. To clarify: that seems silly to me *for me* if that makes sense."
"I am sure Niosi' contributions to that game were important and necessary but as a work of art, many other people made the things that make A Hat in Time memorable for me."
"When I think of A Hat in Time, I don't think about the voice director, I think of the process of Jonas Kaerlev, the creativity of Jenna Brown, the versatility of Mick Lauer, and Luke Sizemore's performance, among many other contributions."
That's a run-on sentence, ladies and gentlemen.
"If Niosi's involvement in A Hat in Time triggered me just thinking about it enough to where I did not enjoy the game anymore, I would never play it again.
"Inversely, I cannot imagine watching TOME again, or even something as silly as Brawl Taunts for that matter."
"I think it all comes down to the individual. It's not about what you are or aren't comfortable with, it's about what level of discomfort the involvement conjures."
"This is why I don't completely hate 'cancel culture' but also think it has periodically been taken out of control. That is another interesting facet of the situation because people are telling other people to ease up because 'he apologized' and 'he's trying to get better'."
"God knows I have made mistakes and some of them are technically public, so free game to riff on me. However, I'm not a rapist. I think the argument for 'cancel culture is stupid' is moot when it comes to someone who really thought about how to fuck with other people."
"One last point before I stop stewing on this; I am now embarrassed to say I kind of looked up to this asshole. He, up until recently, was doing exactly what I wanted to do a few years ago and didn't achieve."
"Even after I stopped applying for voice gigs, he was still just another inspiring person to me because he 'made it'. He made consistent money doing something he loved. He had a responsive and supportive fanbase."
"However, I am not saying 'in situations like these, let's not forget the good times/things'. Nope. What's done is done. I'm all about spinning a negative into a positive but whatever that negative might be, it's still a fucking negative."
"I also love giving people second chances, whether I know them personally or not. I love seeing people overcome their demons. That said, I want to 'cancel' Niosi from my life. I gladly unfollowed him on everything and wrote off his future projects the night of the 'apology'."
"Bonus point: Those apologies were ass.
"That's my two cents, or like... enough cents to make a dollar or two. I'm open to any discussion on this because I think the surrounding cultural and moral implications of the situation are interesting. But keep in mind, I'm done with Niosi."
I am editing the tweets slightly to get rid of typos and shit but otherwise, this is verbatim what I said, not that it really matters because I still have no personal connection to any of this. That has not changed since the last paragraph.
Here ya go:
https://twitter.com/GoNintendoTweet/status/1154940926193819648
https://gonintendo.com/stories/340993-nintendo-confirms-removal-of-chris-niosi-as-the-voice-actor-for-f
An article from GoNintendo.com called "Nintendo Confirms Removal of Chris Niosi as the Voice Actor for Fire Emblem: Three Houses/Heroes' Byleth, New Voiceover Coming Via Patch". The links provided in the article start a rabbit hole of people who know Niosi calling him out for his bullshit. For those who will say "lol, just a bunch of girls whining about a shitty boyfriend with no proof of anything", it's there (ya sexist bitch). You don't even have to use Google. And Niosi minces words but doesn't deny any of it. Anyway. I retweeted the article saying:
"I talk shit about Nintendo from time to time but I like that they realize the importance of voice actors to the public. This was an extraneous step they did not have to take but I very much respect that they did."
"I recently found out about his bullshit and can't believe I never heard of it before. The links articles like this are giving don't even come close to telling the whole story (not that they should be expected to, there's a lot of abusive history to cover)."
What I was saying here is that the article is about Niosi's voice lines being replaced in "Fire Emblem: Three Houses", not Chris Niosi being a dick. Even then they briefly stated the reasoning, linking another article about Chris Niosi being a dick and apologizing for it publicly. In that article, there are links provided to responders that knew Niosi personally, most of them being victims of his abusive behavior. There is so much text to sift through there that at a certain point, it's out of the journalist's and/or writer's hands.
"I didn't know he was even in Three Houses until yesterday." That would be July 26th, 2019, watching my friend play "Three Houses". "It's hard to completely separate the art from the artist. I don't even want to think about Brawl Taunts or TOME anymore because I don't like thinking about actual rape. I think Nintendo made a good decision."
Then I started a separate thread.
"Actually, I have not had a chance to sort out my thoughts on Chris Niosi and his recent [admission] to years of mental, physical, and sexual abuse to several people. I am going to talk about it a bit more here. Feel free to chime in at any time."
"Niosi was one I always looked up to from a young age. My friends and I were floored by 'Brawl Taunts' and would reference it all the time. His work introduced me to many other inspiring and creative people like Kira Buckland and Deven Mack. [Niosi]'s the only reason I know about OK KO".
"On the other hand, I have now read quite a handful of firsthand accounts of his actions. It's really shady to me how he is not directly denying any of the actions but he is still trying to deny what they are.
"Forcing your drunk girlfriend to have sex with you is rape, by the way."
"It also seems that allegations have come out before. To the public. He denied it then, his friends and fans backed him up, and so the victims were silenced and reverted to a state of fear."
"Prime example here:"
https://amethystlashiec.tumblr.com/post/149095962046/regarding-chris-kirbopher-niosi
A post from someone who knew the guy all too well. The home stretch has a lot of juicy links of Niosi dodging things before "Fire Emblem: Three Houses".
"None of this is okay. If he is really trying to get better, that's great and all but it doesn't change what he did. I can't sympathize or empathize with that shit. That's where I'm at with him if that wasn't clear already.
"This leads me to the 'interesting' bit."
"What line do we draw when it comes to what forms of media we enjoy procured by monstrous assholes? Many would argue 'all of it' but I think it is more situational. Though if you feel 'all of it' is the answer, that's perfectly understandable. I respect that."
"For me, it comes down to four factors:
1. what bad thing(s) I KNOW they did
2. how they are involved in the art
3. how much are they involved in the art
4. how much I think about this while processing said art"
"These four factors are just the pattern I notice in my own thought process. I'm not even offering it as a rule of thumb. It's just what my mind does. Everyone is going to go through this sort of thing differently."
"Let's specifically use Niosi-related pieces here. Let's start with TOME. TOME is fully imagined by Niosi. It's on his personal channel. It is nearly impossible to consume TOME or anything related to TOME without thinking of Niosi."
"Other people worked on TOME and helped make it what it is but it is still primarily the vision of a rapist.
"Another factor worth noting here is that TOME is a YouTube series, so revisiting it directly supports him (a rapist)."
"Let's look at another example. 'A Hat in Time': one of my favorite games of all time. He [is] the voice acting director and I think had some hand in casting if I'm not mistaken but he was definitely the voice acting director."
"Boycotting this game because of Niosi's involvement seems silly to me. To clarify: that seems silly to me *for me* if that makes sense."
"I am sure Niosi' contributions to that game were important and necessary but as a work of art, many other people made the things that make A Hat in Time memorable for me."
"When I think of A Hat in Time, I don't think about the voice director, I think of the process of Jonas Kaerlev, the creativity of Jenna Brown, the versatility of Mick Lauer, and Luke Sizemore's performance, among many other contributions."
That's a run-on sentence, ladies and gentlemen.
"If Niosi's involvement in A Hat in Time triggered me just thinking about it enough to where I did not enjoy the game anymore, I would never play it again.
"Inversely, I cannot imagine watching TOME again, or even something as silly as Brawl Taunts for that matter."
"I think it all comes down to the individual. It's not about what you are or aren't comfortable with, it's about what level of discomfort the involvement conjures."
"This is why I don't completely hate 'cancel culture' but also think it has periodically been taken out of control. That is another interesting facet of the situation because people are telling other people to ease up because 'he apologized' and 'he's trying to get better'."
"God knows I have made mistakes and some of them are technically public, so free game to riff on me. However, I'm not a rapist. I think the argument for 'cancel culture is stupid' is moot when it comes to someone who really thought about how to fuck with other people."
"One last point before I stop stewing on this; I am now embarrassed to say I kind of looked up to this asshole. He, up until recently, was doing exactly what I wanted to do a few years ago and didn't achieve."
"Even after I stopped applying for voice gigs, he was still just another inspiring person to me because he 'made it'. He made consistent money doing something he loved. He had a responsive and supportive fanbase."
"However, I am not saying 'in situations like these, let's not forget the good times/things'. Nope. What's done is done. I'm all about spinning a negative into a positive but whatever that negative might be, it's still a fucking negative."
"I also love giving people second chances, whether I know them personally or not. I love seeing people overcome their demons. That said, I want to 'cancel' Niosi from my life. I gladly unfollowed him on everything and wrote off his future projects the night of the 'apology'."
"Bonus point: Those apologies were ass.
"That's my two cents, or like... enough cents to make a dollar or two. I'm open to any discussion on this because I think the surrounding cultural and moral implications of the situation are interesting. But keep in mind, I'm done with Niosi."
Present and Future of Randomrings
As of now, it has been 7 months since my last video (the one where I rank/review MCU movies) and 8 months since the last video that I was really, really proud of (the Pokemon Battle Revolution review). Instead of posting a million tweets or an update video that I will end up deleting later, I'm just going to write this and try to make it as easy to read as possible.
I'm an online student and my school runs its courses pretty much year-round. I get a week off in the Spring, a week off in late August, a week for Christmas, and a week off for New Years and that's it. Four weeks off for a year of school. I have been at this school since October of 2017. Fortunately, since I have been in and out of other schools since 2011 (I know), I will be graduating with a bachelor's degree in creative writing with a screenplay focus in March 2020.
I've also been looking for a new place to live. I still haven't confirmed one but I've been working on that. My lease ends at the end of this month. That's another factor.
My mental health has been better since I last posted about it. That said, my life is stressful anyway. Depression is a factor but I think trying to balance all of this stuff out without extreme burnout is next to impossible. I felt burnout symptoms up until the eighth week of this past term of school. It has helped put into perspective what I want to do with videos from now on. Whether or not I actually will do any of this is another story.
I am kind of leaning toward not doing heavily analytical videos anymore. I'm not sure. If I can do them in a way where I can still show off writing skills/voice then I will. I want to do more Gumflap-style videos, specifically like the Pokemon Battle Revolution video but not as long-winded. If I don't use capture footage, I can upload these videos to Newgrounds and that's one of the main points I want to make with this post.
YouTube is a cesspool so I want to try my hand with Newgrounds. To do so, I have to make new kinds of videos. Newgrounds's rules bypass a lot of the technical issues that, along with bad management, make YouTube a cesspool but with that positive notion comes a demand for more attention to what you are putting in your videos. There is only one video on my channel right now that could technically pass Newgrounds's regulations: the 2017 mental health video. I kind of don't want that to be the only thing on my Newgrounds page though. So I don't know what my new videos will look like. Well, I know what they will physically look like but I don't know how they will play out, what their topics are, whether or not they are more sketch than a review or vice versa.
The videos help me in real life. I get stuff off of my chest so I don't rant to other people about what I like and dislike about things they don't care as much about. I don't want to stop making videos because I don't want to stop writing. I think if there is one main point to take away from this post, it's that I don't want to make videos from stress or some fictitious, self-deprecating obligation. I want to make videos from pure inspiration and a persistent, very real desire to make other people happy.
In terms of making content more regularly, I also want to make let's plays. I want to make channel art before I publicly post a video there though. I think the channel will just be called "Randomrings Let's Plays". I have set up a lot of stuff to get that to work but my friends and I just have not recorded anything with that in mind yet. We have been talking about it for sure.
Don't expect a boon of content from me over the next 4-8 months. I want to make more portfolio things that are entertaining and not just "this game is stupid" or "this movie is pretty good". Like last time I did this, here's a list of what I want to release independently. I'm sure I will update more as time goes on. In general, I need to narrow down my focuses so I can release things more regularly without driving myself mad. Anyway, list:
Gumflap - videos where I take a topic, most likely a video game or video-game-related concept and talk about it with a little, sketchy cartoon man.
Late to the Party - I talk about TV shows and movies for a bit. Not sure if I will make a Newgrounds-friendly version of this or not.
Randomrings Blog - I guess I'm still doing this for some reason.
Webcomic - I have been working on a big webcomic series for a while and still have not storyboarded anything. I have been thinking about putting out something lighter and less plot-heavy, whether in comic form or in video form, until that gets done.
Lexi Karma - I'm still working on music. I was having technical difficulties for a while but everything is back up and running now. I still have no idea when I'm releasing the second Lexi Karma project. I wanted it to come out in 2017 or 2018 and it is long overdue.
Thanks for understanding.
I'm an online student and my school runs its courses pretty much year-round. I get a week off in the Spring, a week off in late August, a week for Christmas, and a week off for New Years and that's it. Four weeks off for a year of school. I have been at this school since October of 2017. Fortunately, since I have been in and out of other schools since 2011 (I know), I will be graduating with a bachelor's degree in creative writing with a screenplay focus in March 2020.
I've also been looking for a new place to live. I still haven't confirmed one but I've been working on that. My lease ends at the end of this month. That's another factor.
My mental health has been better since I last posted about it. That said, my life is stressful anyway. Depression is a factor but I think trying to balance all of this stuff out without extreme burnout is next to impossible. I felt burnout symptoms up until the eighth week of this past term of school. It has helped put into perspective what I want to do with videos from now on. Whether or not I actually will do any of this is another story.
I am kind of leaning toward not doing heavily analytical videos anymore. I'm not sure. If I can do them in a way where I can still show off writing skills/voice then I will. I want to do more Gumflap-style videos, specifically like the Pokemon Battle Revolution video but not as long-winded. If I don't use capture footage, I can upload these videos to Newgrounds and that's one of the main points I want to make with this post.
YouTube is a cesspool so I want to try my hand with Newgrounds. To do so, I have to make new kinds of videos. Newgrounds's rules bypass a lot of the technical issues that, along with bad management, make YouTube a cesspool but with that positive notion comes a demand for more attention to what you are putting in your videos. There is only one video on my channel right now that could technically pass Newgrounds's regulations: the 2017 mental health video. I kind of don't want that to be the only thing on my Newgrounds page though. So I don't know what my new videos will look like. Well, I know what they will physically look like but I don't know how they will play out, what their topics are, whether or not they are more sketch than a review or vice versa.
The videos help me in real life. I get stuff off of my chest so I don't rant to other people about what I like and dislike about things they don't care as much about. I don't want to stop making videos because I don't want to stop writing. I think if there is one main point to take away from this post, it's that I don't want to make videos from stress or some fictitious, self-deprecating obligation. I want to make videos from pure inspiration and a persistent, very real desire to make other people happy.
In terms of making content more regularly, I also want to make let's plays. I want to make channel art before I publicly post a video there though. I think the channel will just be called "Randomrings Let's Plays". I have set up a lot of stuff to get that to work but my friends and I just have not recorded anything with that in mind yet. We have been talking about it for sure.
Don't expect a boon of content from me over the next 4-8 months. I want to make more portfolio things that are entertaining and not just "this game is stupid" or "this movie is pretty good". Like last time I did this, here's a list of what I want to release independently. I'm sure I will update more as time goes on. In general, I need to narrow down my focuses so I can release things more regularly without driving myself mad. Anyway, list:
Gumflap - videos where I take a topic, most likely a video game or video-game-related concept and talk about it with a little, sketchy cartoon man.
Late to the Party - I talk about TV shows and movies for a bit. Not sure if I will make a Newgrounds-friendly version of this or not.
Randomrings Blog - I guess I'm still doing this for some reason.
Webcomic - I have been working on a big webcomic series for a while and still have not storyboarded anything. I have been thinking about putting out something lighter and less plot-heavy, whether in comic form or in video form, until that gets done.
Lexi Karma - I'm still working on music. I was having technical difficulties for a while but everything is back up and running now. I still have no idea when I'm releasing the second Lexi Karma project. I wanted it to come out in 2017 or 2018 and it is long overdue.
Thanks for understanding.
That Time I Ranted About "The Goldbergs" on Twitter
I just really want to revisit and cherish this moment where I got so fed up with the mere existence of ABC sitcom The Goldbergs that I wrote a blog post's worth of tweets about it AND made a Twitter moment out of it later!
https://twitter.com/i/moments/1010906460761608197
For those who don't use Twitter, I am going to post this below:
(I am going to write it all out below that too because the Twitter screenshots don't translate well on all monitors)
Just wanted to point that out because whenever I remember that this is something I spent energy to do, it always gives me a laugh. I think this is mostly because I pretty much don't make any jokes or anything in this thread/moment. I'm not trying to be funny here and I think that unintentionally makes it way funnier. I hope you enjoyed that, I did.
https://twitter.com/i/moments/1010906460761608197
For those who don't use Twitter, I am going to post this below:
(I am going to write it all out below that too because the Twitter screenshots don't translate well on all monitors)
"I'm making this so I don't rant about it that often. Probably still will.
"There are much more pressing and repulsive things going on now but I have nothing to add to the discussion so:
"The Goldbergs is still running and it is written like a fucking toothpaste commercial now. It was awful before but now it won't even stick to its gimmick. Scratch that. I think at one point when I was a kid there was a toothpaste commercial line with a sentient set of human teeth. That's a funny idea on paper. The Goldbergs is not even a funny concept on paper. I'm probably just overwhelmed with my week and am taking it out on a beloved ABC sitcom. I can tell because I have always hated that show and it's such a hollow show that it's an easy target.
"You're allowed to like The Goldbergs and enjoy it if you want. I can't take that away from you. Don't want to. At the same time, you're blind if you complain about TV becoming shit. If you tune into that show, you're part of the problem and should be aware enough to see that. I kind of want to do a video on that show but that means I would have to sit through more episodes than I already have to make fair points and I don't know if that's worth it."
"If you pirate The Goldbergs... then... fuck, you're just a masochist, and I completed Sonic 3D Blast just to do a shitty video on YouTube about it, so that's really saying something. To each their own. If I was going to make a video on The Goldbergs, I would probably make easy comparisons to other shows that run around the same time on the same channel. The Middle and Modern Family. They are not perfect shows but they do what they do way fucking better than The Goldbergs.
"I'm not a big fan of The Middle but the writers, directors, producers, and probably casting agents knew that their kids would not be kids forever. Their characters grow from the past and it isn't ham-fisted. The audience can see it and feel like they were a part of that. Modern Family does the same things except every character grows, even the adults. The fucking grandpa has to learn shit about his gay son and it doesn't just work because it's topical, it's because the main cast of Modern Family is awesome. The cast makes that show. The Goldbergs is on Season 5 and things are slowly progressing but nothing important is changing because there was never anything important to begin with. By trying to make the show relatable to everyone, they created 5 alien characters that no one cares about. You can't.
"The guy that the story is allegedly based on, based on the home movie stuff at the end of each episode, probably has a creative mind. He's probably got some real mindfuck ideas in there but the show is such a corporate ABC dollhouse asylum that it doesn't matter. Even then, when something momentous or "important" happens in an episode, they usually ruin it by trying their damnedest to throw in an homage to 80's pop culture and it's so fucking distracting. Even if they almost hit it, they shoot themselves in the foot everytime. There was an episode where the plot was almost a complete abridged rip-off of A Christmas Story. I'm not exaggerating. I'm hyped on caffeine and kind of angry and tired and overwhelmed with a lot of stuff to do. So fuck The Goldbergs. If you don't know what it is, good."
Just wanted to point that out because whenever I remember that this is something I spent energy to do, it always gives me a laugh. I think this is mostly because I pretty much don't make any jokes or anything in this thread/moment. I'm not trying to be funny here and I think that unintentionally makes it way funnier. I hope you enjoyed that, I did.
Being an Entitled Baby on deh webbernet (Update Blog)
I haven't been posting a terrible amount of anything recently. It has been 6 months since my last main video and 5 months since my last video on my channel in general. My music channel (Lexi Karma) might as well not exist. I posted a blog saying how exhausted and miserable I was a few months ago. I think that it is probably fair to update that. As it stands now, I have squirrels constantly invading the attic of my apartment and the management and pest control people are not doing a whole lot to fix that. Naturally, if I do something to fix that, it breaks lease. So I'm up at 8 in the morning ready to procrastinate and write about my life anyway (the fucker is skittering around up there storing food as we speak).
I'm going to put brief synopses at the end of this post for those who don't want to read a book about where my head is at with all this.
So:
General Life/ Mental Health
I am surprisingly much better. I am in a mental homeostasis sort of thing that I don't know how to define... other than "mental homeostasis". I recognize that my life is a fucking joke but considering the efforts I am putting in daily to make it a little less idiotic, things are not so bad. I don't feel like I'm tricking myself into seeing the positives in my life. I'm not rich. I'm not constantly surrounded by trusting friends. I'm being woken up by rodents at least one week out of every month. But I am making progress. Typing this out now, I realize this sounds way more depressing than what it is. I guess I just realize that no matter where I am in life, there are going to be things that I want to change. Where I am at now is, in many ways, flawed but compared to where I was even three years ago, I'm doing pretty damn great. I am growing new mental health issues but they are sustainable. The most dangerous ones that have plagued me since I was really young are certainly at bay. They have their spikes but are otherwise barely there.
UNFORTUNATELY THOUGH, since they are not completely gone and I have had some recent insurance issues, I now have to do more grinding for money that has nothing to do with anything creative so I can continue to do creative things so I can afford drugs so I don't kill myself. It's a ride. I already had to balance school, shit job, music, writing, video editing, and some weird semblance of a social life. Now I have to do more school and more shit job, leaving less time to do or even enjoy the other things. Drawing things, for example, has become a rare occurrence for me over the past few months. But I'm also moving into another place soon so I can't just take a vacation or something. Welcome to being an artistic person in your 20's in America, I guess.
School
School can kiss my ass but I'm almost done. The sad thing is that this far into the major, I am actually starting to take classes I am interested in that can directly help my future and they are being stifled by other classes. Juggling the class I care about (a screenwriting workshop) with the class I know I don't care about at all (an elective) instantly makes me care less about the class I should be caring about. It's making my grades in the cool classes slide slightly below perfect. Ohhhhh godddd!!!!
In any case, I graduate sometime in Spring 2020. Some days that is my only motivation to keep going with this workload.
Randomrings Channel
I want to keep doing Randomrings Channel but focus less on being analytical and more about being silly/ writing stuff that I hope people will find interesting. It just isn't in the cards right now. I want to do more stuff like that Pokemon Battle Revolution review even though I have said repeatedly that I never want to do another video like that again. A more cartoonish video makes the video inherently more Newgrounds-friendly. I want to make things I pour a lot of effort into go on a site that isn't festering with dead body-filming vloggers, pedophiles, Fortnite, more Fortnite, and 30-minute video essays about how that game you like is actually bad. So from now on, if I ever upload videos ever again, I would expect the video to be one of three things:
Gumflap:
Gumflap is mostly game reviews and I guess from now on I would like to keep it in the style of the Pokemon Battle Revolution video. These would be short, goofy videos where I talk about my general thoughts on a video game and why that might matter on some grander scale. Honestly, as long as I keep the scripts under 10 minutes, it probably won't take any longer than a video like the "Hat in Time" one. In some cases, it might not take as long at all.
Late to the Party:
I don't know why, but writing tiny movie reviews has been something I have been growing attached to recently. I started doing this here on this blog but I might do more of it in video form. They won't all be 40 minutes long like the MCU video I made. At this point, I have written a large handful of these, including more MCU movies (Ant-Man and the Wasp and Avengers: Infinity War with plans to cover Avengers: Endgame after I finally see it... you can spoil it, I already know a lot of the stuff that happens).
Whatever else I want:
I need more practice writing. After I graduate college, I just might do more original stuff that isn't tied to #epicg@m3r content.
I don't have any plans on abandoning or shutting down Randomrings Channel. This is more of a "not enough hours in the day" situation.
Lexi Karma
When I have time off and no one is available to watch me scream at Sonic in my own apartment, I have actually been pecking away at some music. Unfortunately, I have been running into a lot of technical issues over the past year or so. I planned to release the 2nd Lexi Karma project around Summer or Fall of last year and now it is the Summer of 2019 and it isn't even done. At least it's written out and synths and stuff are assigned. I want to redo a lot of the singing and there is a lot more mixing to be done. I have worked on stuff I want to release after all that too. I shouldn't be, it's sinful that I'm even considering it, but I'm doing it.
Webcomic
Believe it or not, I'm still trying to work on this too. I have drawn pretty much nothing but concept sketches. My main focus on this is the writing though. I am much more talented and passionate when it comes to writing than drawing. I come up with ideas for it almost every day. Sometimes I just genuinely exhaust myself to the point where I can't give it the focus the story deserves. More details on this in the distant future.
Okay well, that's it.
Summary:
General Life/ Mental Health - I have a bigger workload now than ever and my current living situation is stressful but measures are being taken to fix or cope with all of this and I'm doing just fine.
School - It is driving me bonkers and leaving me with no true days off but I graduate in Spring 2020.
Randomrings Channel - Clearly, I don't have much time to do these things but stay tuned anyway. I haven't given up on this. I write new ideas for "Gumflap" and "Late to the Party" pretty often.
Lexi Karma - I have run into many technical difficulties but I'm still inching towards new music coming out as soon as I can get it to a point where it doesn't sound awful.
Whining About State of Play March 2019
Today, Sony released their first ever PlayStation "State of Play" livestream, which is supposed to be their equivalent of Nintendo's "Nintendo Direct". I think I found a list of all of the games touched on here and now I am going to talk about my thoughts on them similarly to my OGIGACA (Only Games I Give a Crap About) posts. I will probably add anything new and particularly interesting to the OGIGACA revisited post towards the end of the year or early 2020 depending on what happens. Fair warning: I do not have any VR peripherals and I am not really interested in the medium. I know firsthand that there is fun to be had with VR games but I have yet to see or play anything up my street. So I am pretty closed-minded when it comes to VR games, as you will soon see.
BLOOD AND TRUTH
excitement: 0/5
Blood and Truth is a game that wishes it was a James Bond movie.
VR FPS with mo-cap trying to do some James Bond stuff. Don't care. Next.
CONCRETE GENIE
excitement: 0/5
Concrete Genie is a very artsy game about an artist bringing a grim city back to life with a magic paintbrush.
There was not much in the trailer I saw that fully explained the gameplay. As visually impressive as the game looks and how it seems to be using those visuals to actually affect the gameplay and tell a coherent story, nothing seems engaging enough for me to care as a video-game enthusiast.
CRASH TEAM RACING: NITRO FUELED
excitement: 2/5
Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled is a PS4 remake of Crash Team Racing for the original PlayStation.
There were many things that pissed me off about the N. Sane Trilogy. One was that there was an unskippable opening to the game that featured an HD polygonal model of Crash that looked great and you have to watch him get skewered into a photo-realistic fursuit. Another thing that pissed me off was that they flubbed a lot more than they improved in terms of general gameplay and somehow menu design. One last thing: it reminded me that Activision still owns Crash Bandicoot. After the financial and commercial success of the N. Sane Trilogy, I figured they would do something else to pee on Crash Bandicoot's grave but I was not sure what. I will never side with Activision in the grand scheme of things but I am going to give Beenox the benefit of the doubt. Beenox is known for a lot of shovelware and some Skylanders stuff but the exact same was the case for Toys for Bob who developed the remakes of the original trilogies for Crash and Spyro. I also really like that they added polygonal models for Nitro Fueled because I really did not like the vast majority of the visual "upgrades" in N. Sane Trilogy. The realistic-but-not style is still in the game in a general sense but the option for the characters to not look like this is a really nice touch. I don't think what is publicly known about Nitro Fueled is enough to sell me on the game yet, especially because I don't like giving Activision money and I already have the original CTR on my PS3. If they do more with it that I find interesting, I may consider actually buying this one. On the other hand, I have literally already played this one since it is a remake of an already pretty well-made PS1 game. Time will tell.
DAYS GONE
excitement: 0/5
Days Gone seems to be another cinematic shooter.
Everyone is bored with these right? Aren't we all done with these? I couldn't find much on the gameplay and the story that the game is based on looks pretty fucking boring. More accurately, it's nothing I haven't seen before. The problem with making your video games more like movies with real people and motion capture is that you still have to do something that separates it from being a movie, otherwise you are just making a movie with physical, interactive rules. Maybe there is something I am missing but I highly doubt it.
EVERYBODY'S GOLF
excitement: 0/5
Everybody's Golf is what you think it is.
VR bores me almost as much as golf does. Next.
FALCON AGE
excitement: 0/5
Falcon Age is a game where you raise a bird.
VR and crafting. No thanks. Next.
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S VR: HELP WANTED
excitement: FUCK OFF/5
Can we PLEASE be done with this?!?
I have no interest in FNAF and I CERTAINLY have no interest in a VR edition of that. If there is such a thing as negative interest that goes beyond general disdain or apprehension, that's what I have for this. NEXT!!!
IRON MAN VR
excitement: 0/5
Iron Man VR is a VR game where you play as Iron Man.
It looks like it is trying to cash in on the MCU rendition of Iron Man. A game where you control Iron Man and do Iron Man things should be fun by default but it doesn't look like anyone knows how to do it and make it fun, probably because every major attempt at this I can think of is either a game that is not an Iron Man game specifically and the MCU is still an unrelenting media success. The little gameplay shown looks pretty bland. There are games like this you can play on your phone for free with VR technology that don't interrupt themselves with one-liners and 360-degree cutscenes. Definitely skipping this one. Next.
JUPITER & MARS
excitement: 0/5
Jupiter & Mars seems to be a story-driven adventure game starring two dolphins named Jupiter and Mars.
Very, very pretty but nothing enticing beyond that. The thing with VR games is that a game might still sort of passively pique my interest with something more visual or story-reliant but in a VR game trying both, I don't see much room for focus enough to make it that interesting. But now I'm just bitching about VR. This definitely does not look bad, it just is not something I find particularly interesting.
MINI-MECH MAYHEM
excitement: 1/5
Mini-Mech Mayhem is a game where you play games. You design a player mech and then sit at a little table where you and a few other people can play some kind of strategy game together. It looks kind of like X-COM but instead of facing a wave of aliens, you face other players' soldiers.
This is one of the few VR games that I think would just be a cool idea without VR. The game within the game seems more complicated than I expected from a cutesy VR game called "Mini-Mech Mayhem". I'm not really stoked for it or anything but, and this is going to sound incredibly pessimistic, I'm interested to see if it flops or completely falls off the radar. I hope that's not the case for the developers' sakes. At the same time, I am not buying this day one unless something really thwaps me in the face. I am assuming you can play this without VR. If that's the case, I am somewhat interested in it but mostly just curious if it has more than what's on the surface in the final product. Otherwise, I would probably say excitement 0/5.
MORTAL KOMBAT 11
excitement: 0/5
Mortal Kombat 11 is a fighting game. I probably do not have to explain or introduce what this is.
It looks pretty crazy and silly. I gave it 0/5 excitement because I am not a huge fan of Mortal Kombat. I don't have a whole lot against it, just not a fan. I hope it fulfills whatever wishes fans of the series have for it. I'm sitting this one out. Again. As usual.
NO MAN'S SKY BEYOND
excitement: 0/5
No Man's Sky Beyond is a free update to No Man's Sky. It allegedly will have actual online multiplayer this time along with a lot of stuff I would have to care about No Man's Sky to give a shit about.
No Man's Sky has always been a huge disappointing trainwreck. A lot of people have been vouching for it after that giant update they did recently but I still just don't see it being any fun. The design of the game as a whole really did not change enough for me to justify ever buying it. Passive multiplayer is not going to sway my opinion on what is already a Frankenstein creation of a game.
OBSERVATION
excitement: 1/5
Observation is a game where you get to control a space station. Not as a character but directly. As normal games would have you controlling a character or controlling a character controlling the station, you as the player are personified in the game as the station itself.
That idea is pretty cool in its own right. I could not find very much gameplay at all but it reminds me of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I am curious to see what kind of game comes from such a concept and whether or not it will actually be fun. I'm probably not going to actively follow it every day or anything but I hope the idea is fleshed out enough to be as cool as it initially seems.
READYSET HEROES
excitement: 1/5
Readyset Heroes is Gauntlet for little kids. The twist that separates it from most top-down dungeon action-RPG's is that other co-op groups can be in the same dungeon as you. At the end of these dungeons, you can fight other groups. The faster you get to the end of the dungeon, the more powerful you will become against your opposing explorers.
I don't know what it is but something about the overall presentation of this game rubs me the wrong way. The character designs and their Fortnite-esque animations look really cheap to me. The game doesn't necessarily look like complete shit but nothing about the physics or visuals seem to be very exciting. The idea is cool but I think it would be better suited for something like actual Gauntlet or something like Divinity - Original Sin.
TABLE OF TALES: THE CROOKED CROWN
excitement: 0/5
Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown is another VR game where you play a game within a game. You control board pieces and they attack other pieces on a constantly morphing, enchanted game table.
Another game that looks like a decent enough idea but it is VR and it makes it instantly exponentially less interesting. Next.
TROVER SAVES THE UNIVERSE
excitement: 1/5
Trover Saves the Universe is a VR adventure game written, voiced, and directed by Justin Roiland. A creature with two eyeholes has stolen your two dogs and put them in his eyeholes to give him devastating power. The world is mad at you and your dogs. A smaller eyehole creature is hired to get you to save the universe from this eyehole monster.
I really like Justin Roiland's work and his personality really shines through in this game but I just don't care about VR as much as he does. It looks like a very entertaining and clever ride and I am glad it exists. It's still... just... VR.
VACATION SIMULATOR
excitement: 0/5
Vacation Simulator is almost exactly what it sounds like.
At least it looks stylized and has a silly backstory to what you are doing. I definitely do not want it but I respect it to a degree. I would say "next" but there were no more games touched on in the livestream to my knowledge.
Overall, I think the State of Play was just as serviceable as Nintendo Direct. The problem here is just that none of the titles were very enticing. Maybe some of it is just personal preference but most of what was shown looked outright bland and tasteless to me. I probably won't talk about all of these in OGIGACA Revisited this year because it would just be a waste of both my time and yours.
BLOOD AND TRUTH
excitement: 0/5
Blood and Truth is a game that wishes it was a James Bond movie.
VR FPS with mo-cap trying to do some James Bond stuff. Don't care. Next.
CONCRETE GENIE
excitement: 0/5
Concrete Genie is a very artsy game about an artist bringing a grim city back to life with a magic paintbrush.
There was not much in the trailer I saw that fully explained the gameplay. As visually impressive as the game looks and how it seems to be using those visuals to actually affect the gameplay and tell a coherent story, nothing seems engaging enough for me to care as a video-game enthusiast.
CRASH TEAM RACING: NITRO FUELED
excitement: 2/5
Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled is a PS4 remake of Crash Team Racing for the original PlayStation.
There were many things that pissed me off about the N. Sane Trilogy. One was that there was an unskippable opening to the game that featured an HD polygonal model of Crash that looked great and you have to watch him get skewered into a photo-realistic fursuit. Another thing that pissed me off was that they flubbed a lot more than they improved in terms of general gameplay and somehow menu design. One last thing: it reminded me that Activision still owns Crash Bandicoot. After the financial and commercial success of the N. Sane Trilogy, I figured they would do something else to pee on Crash Bandicoot's grave but I was not sure what. I will never side with Activision in the grand scheme of things but I am going to give Beenox the benefit of the doubt. Beenox is known for a lot of shovelware and some Skylanders stuff but the exact same was the case for Toys for Bob who developed the remakes of the original trilogies for Crash and Spyro. I also really like that they added polygonal models for Nitro Fueled because I really did not like the vast majority of the visual "upgrades" in N. Sane Trilogy. The realistic-but-not style is still in the game in a general sense but the option for the characters to not look like this is a really nice touch. I don't think what is publicly known about Nitro Fueled is enough to sell me on the game yet, especially because I don't like giving Activision money and I already have the original CTR on my PS3. If they do more with it that I find interesting, I may consider actually buying this one. On the other hand, I have literally already played this one since it is a remake of an already pretty well-made PS1 game. Time will tell.
DAYS GONE
excitement: 0/5
Days Gone seems to be another cinematic shooter.
Everyone is bored with these right? Aren't we all done with these? I couldn't find much on the gameplay and the story that the game is based on looks pretty fucking boring. More accurately, it's nothing I haven't seen before. The problem with making your video games more like movies with real people and motion capture is that you still have to do something that separates it from being a movie, otherwise you are just making a movie with physical, interactive rules. Maybe there is something I am missing but I highly doubt it.
EVERYBODY'S GOLF
excitement: 0/5
Everybody's Golf is what you think it is.
VR bores me almost as much as golf does. Next.
FALCON AGE
excitement: 0/5
Falcon Age is a game where you raise a bird.
VR and crafting. No thanks. Next.
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S VR: HELP WANTED
excitement: FUCK OFF/5
Can we PLEASE be done with this?!?
I have no interest in FNAF and I CERTAINLY have no interest in a VR edition of that. If there is such a thing as negative interest that goes beyond general disdain or apprehension, that's what I have for this. NEXT!!!
IRON MAN VR
excitement: 0/5
Iron Man VR is a VR game where you play as Iron Man.
It looks like it is trying to cash in on the MCU rendition of Iron Man. A game where you control Iron Man and do Iron Man things should be fun by default but it doesn't look like anyone knows how to do it and make it fun, probably because every major attempt at this I can think of is either a game that is not an Iron Man game specifically and the MCU is still an unrelenting media success. The little gameplay shown looks pretty bland. There are games like this you can play on your phone for free with VR technology that don't interrupt themselves with one-liners and 360-degree cutscenes. Definitely skipping this one. Next.
JUPITER & MARS
excitement: 0/5
Jupiter & Mars seems to be a story-driven adventure game starring two dolphins named Jupiter and Mars.
Very, very pretty but nothing enticing beyond that. The thing with VR games is that a game might still sort of passively pique my interest with something more visual or story-reliant but in a VR game trying both, I don't see much room for focus enough to make it that interesting. But now I'm just bitching about VR. This definitely does not look bad, it just is not something I find particularly interesting.
MINI-MECH MAYHEM
excitement: 1/5
Mini-Mech Mayhem is a game where you play games. You design a player mech and then sit at a little table where you and a few other people can play some kind of strategy game together. It looks kind of like X-COM but instead of facing a wave of aliens, you face other players' soldiers.
This is one of the few VR games that I think would just be a cool idea without VR. The game within the game seems more complicated than I expected from a cutesy VR game called "Mini-Mech Mayhem". I'm not really stoked for it or anything but, and this is going to sound incredibly pessimistic, I'm interested to see if it flops or completely falls off the radar. I hope that's not the case for the developers' sakes. At the same time, I am not buying this day one unless something really thwaps me in the face. I am assuming you can play this without VR. If that's the case, I am somewhat interested in it but mostly just curious if it has more than what's on the surface in the final product. Otherwise, I would probably say excitement 0/5.
MORTAL KOMBAT 11
excitement: 0/5
Mortal Kombat 11 is a fighting game. I probably do not have to explain or introduce what this is.
It looks pretty crazy and silly. I gave it 0/5 excitement because I am not a huge fan of Mortal Kombat. I don't have a whole lot against it, just not a fan. I hope it fulfills whatever wishes fans of the series have for it. I'm sitting this one out. Again. As usual.
NO MAN'S SKY BEYOND
excitement: 0/5
No Man's Sky Beyond is a free update to No Man's Sky. It allegedly will have actual online multiplayer this time along with a lot of stuff I would have to care about No Man's Sky to give a shit about.
No Man's Sky has always been a huge disappointing trainwreck. A lot of people have been vouching for it after that giant update they did recently but I still just don't see it being any fun. The design of the game as a whole really did not change enough for me to justify ever buying it. Passive multiplayer is not going to sway my opinion on what is already a Frankenstein creation of a game.
OBSERVATION
excitement: 1/5
Observation is a game where you get to control a space station. Not as a character but directly. As normal games would have you controlling a character or controlling a character controlling the station, you as the player are personified in the game as the station itself.
That idea is pretty cool in its own right. I could not find very much gameplay at all but it reminds me of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I am curious to see what kind of game comes from such a concept and whether or not it will actually be fun. I'm probably not going to actively follow it every day or anything but I hope the idea is fleshed out enough to be as cool as it initially seems.
READYSET HEROES
excitement: 1/5
Readyset Heroes is Gauntlet for little kids. The twist that separates it from most top-down dungeon action-RPG's is that other co-op groups can be in the same dungeon as you. At the end of these dungeons, you can fight other groups. The faster you get to the end of the dungeon, the more powerful you will become against your opposing explorers.
I don't know what it is but something about the overall presentation of this game rubs me the wrong way. The character designs and their Fortnite-esque animations look really cheap to me. The game doesn't necessarily look like complete shit but nothing about the physics or visuals seem to be very exciting. The idea is cool but I think it would be better suited for something like actual Gauntlet or something like Divinity - Original Sin.
TABLE OF TALES: THE CROOKED CROWN
excitement: 0/5
Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown is another VR game where you play a game within a game. You control board pieces and they attack other pieces on a constantly morphing, enchanted game table.
Another game that looks like a decent enough idea but it is VR and it makes it instantly exponentially less interesting. Next.
TROVER SAVES THE UNIVERSE
excitement: 1/5
Trover Saves the Universe is a VR adventure game written, voiced, and directed by Justin Roiland. A creature with two eyeholes has stolen your two dogs and put them in his eyeholes to give him devastating power. The world is mad at you and your dogs. A smaller eyehole creature is hired to get you to save the universe from this eyehole monster.
I really like Justin Roiland's work and his personality really shines through in this game but I just don't care about VR as much as he does. It looks like a very entertaining and clever ride and I am glad it exists. It's still... just... VR.
VACATION SIMULATOR
excitement: 0/5
Vacation Simulator is almost exactly what it sounds like.
At least it looks stylized and has a silly backstory to what you are doing. I definitely do not want it but I respect it to a degree. I would say "next" but there were no more games touched on in the livestream to my knowledge.
Overall, I think the State of Play was just as serviceable as Nintendo Direct. The problem here is just that none of the titles were very enticing. Maybe some of it is just personal preference but most of what was shown looked outright bland and tasteless to me. I probably won't talk about all of these in OGIGACA Revisited this year because it would just be a waste of both my time and yours.
Only Games I Give a Crap About in 2019
Let's do this again!
Like last year, I am not going to have a lot of money to splurge on video games so don't expect me to fully dive into all of these games later but I think first impressions CAN be interesting. Hopefully, my impressions are. I'm more doing this to talk about things we all know about and offer a potentially fresh perspective as well as expose whoever is reading this to things they may not have known about. Doing these lists also forces me to look up stuff and discover things I would not have otherwise. So I'm going to look up all of the games currently announced for 2019 and talk about the ones that I find the most intriguing. And Kingdom Hearts III. But other games too. Probably. I'm still debating that upon typing.
[side note: the console I show in parenthesis next to the game's title are just the systems that I have and can play them on. Some of these are also available on other stuff I just don't bother mentioning them. Anything you see on here that you might like, check and see if it's on your X-Bone. It might be.]
KINGDOM HEARTS III (PS4)
excitement: 5/5
This is now the THIRD OGIGACA list in a row where Kingdom Hearts III has been on the list and I have been made into a colossal fool for thinking it wouldn't be delayed. But this time I have it pre-ordered damn it! It's becoming real! I have not been looking much into the recently released trailers or announcements because I want KH3 to be a brand new experience for me. Despite how repetitive the gameplay can be and how long-winded and nonsensical the plot is, this is still a game that I have been looking forward to for a very long time. The gameplay looks a lot more varied and improved based on what was brought to the table in Fragmentary Passage. As I have been saying since 2017: all Square Enix has to do is make a coherent experience likened to Fragmentary Passage with a conclusive plot and I will be more than content. The plot doesn't even have to be good. The ending doesn't even have to make sense. I'm just waiting on an actual ending. And another Kingdom Hearts game. Hopefully, one that doesn't make me feel guilty for playing it.
JUMP FORCE (PC, PS4)
excitement: 2/5
I might honestly not buy this one because I am not the biggest fan of most of Shonen Jump's library. I am not necessarily disapproving, just out of the loop. I did not grow up with Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, Yu Yu Hakusho, etc, etc. I am interested in this game because it looks like everything I theoretically liked about the Jump crossover games but more like the recent Xenoverse games in terms of active gameplay. I'm still curious how they are going to pull Light Yagami and Ryuk from Death Note being in the game if nothing else. I have a similar concern that many people have with the game looking "gross". The visuals overall do feel weird but not in a way that benefits a game where cartoon pirates fight space monsters and Yu-Gi-Oh! shit. I'm not personally that concerned with it so long as you can see everything going on. At the same time, Smash Ultimate has me covered for ridiculous crossover games where people beat the snot out of each other so I might not make it to Jump Force this year.
SHOVEL KNIGHT: SHOWDOWN [and King of Cards???] (Wii U)
excitement: 5/5
Yeah, I know, the Wii U version. Shovel Knight: Showdown is more free Shovel Knight DLC that makes me feel guilty for owning the game because Yacht Club adds so much crazy stuff that I would gladly pay for. On top of this, I am pretty sure King of Cards is coming out sometime this year. That is a whole new campaign and supposedly the last one they are making, at least for a while. The original campaign (now called "Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope") was fantastic. Plague of Shadows was not my favorite but wholly unique and commendable. Specter of Torment is one of my new favorite games of all time. So it goes without saying that I am just as excited for King of Cards as I am for Showdown. And now it goes with saying. Usually, I don't talk about DLC on these so much but as anyone who has played Shovel Knight after the release of Plague of Shadows already knows, each installment might as well be its own game.
I am curious how Showdown and King of Cards will play out on the Wii U versions of those installments. The Wii U version of Shovel Knight is my favorite version. This version allows you to switch between items and equipment in your inventory by tapping them on the screen as opposed to the Mega Man-like toggle system in the other versions. Another alternative is pausing and equipping an item in the inventory from there. Not to be the "immersion" guy but the feeling of quickly having to switch between items keeps me glued to the combat more. Toggling with the shoulder buttons can be irritating to me and stopping time with the pause button throws off the rhythm of the fight, which is important to how Shovel Knight's bosses and some puzzles are designed. Being able to switch weapons on the fly adds a bit of precision and timing to the combat that is not as prevalent in the other versions. I wonder if that will even be applicable to Showdown and am not sure how it is going to work with cards and card-based gameplay. Regardless, I am more than excited for another pixel-art game on a console no one plays anymore.
PS. If you haven't played Shovel Knight yet, you can play it on almost literally anything so go do that.
TEAM SONIC RACING (PC, PS4, Switch)
excitement: 2/5
I didn't buy into the All-Stars Racing games because they seemed like the same Mario Kart clone I have already seen a million times but with clunkier elements of more realistic racing games. The part-switching system in Transformed was interesting to me but not much else in the game really was or at least not enough for me to pay full price for it. Being realistic, I can't see myself pre-ordering Team Sonic Racing or anything but I have to at least applaud it for trying something different, if only on paper. Team Sonic Racing lets you race in a team of three people and they all have different types, like MOBAs or team-based shooters do. The idea here is that the racers in the back can actually catch up easier. People in the back can piggyback off of teammates closer to the front or send support stuff to screw with the opponents further up. I am curious to see if this chaos is actually fun in execution. In relation to the racing game genre, this slight deviation would be groundbreaking in relativity... if it isn't shit... because let's keep in mind that this is a Sonic game.
ANIMAL CROSSING (Switch)
excitement: 1/5
Animal Crossing is game franchise that I have always cared about but I never figured out why. Animal Crossing is a really simplistic, silly, and stylized life sim. The games have not really changed much since the first one other than adding new stuff to do that still just add to you paying off a mortgage and doing errands for anthropomorphic animals. There's the mobile thing too but I sincerely don't care. New Leaf is pretty much just the best installment for several reasons but mostly because of pure accessibility both in online play and local play. I cannot imagine a new installment doing much to top this without dramatically changing the game but if there is one game company that can pull something off in the weirdest way possible, it is Nintendo. I am not necessarily excited for a new installment of Animal Crossing as much as I am curious if they are actually going to do anything worth mentioning in it or if it is simply going to be Animal Crossing on Switch. Each installment has added enough to justify its original purchase. The Gamecube release was fairly necessary since the original was Japan exclusive and the Nintendo Disc Drive that the international release was planned for was canceled completely. Wild World for the DS does not provide anything that New Leaf doesn't but at the time it was a very worthy and engrossing sequel. If you like life sims. City Folk is the only installment I can say was almost completely pointless to fans of the series unless they had never played one of the other games and really wanted to play it on Wii for whatever reason. Anything you would want out of the previous games (except for the NES ROMs from the Gamecube one) is present and organized better in New Leaf. A lot of new Nintendo-exclusive games coming to Switch can at least be argued as great ideas for the portability alone but New Leaf is pretty much the best Animal Crossing and it was on 3DS. So again, I'm really just popping popcorn and seeing what happens rather than tattooing Isabelle on my chest.
BABYLON'S FALL (PC, PS4)
excitement: 2/5
Babylon's Fall is pretty much just a trailer at this point. The only reason it is on this list is because I liked the trailer and I liked Platinum Games. I have played at least 5 of their games (that I can think of). I hate one, am largely disappointed with another, very much appreciate one, and really liked the other two. There is not a whole lot more to say here. There are very few game companies that I really feel safe latching onto and Platinum is one that has given me at least an okay time with the exception of Revengeance. They are doing some fantasy shit and I want to see where that goes.
BAYONETTA 3 (Switch)
excitement: 4/5
I really like Bayonetta 1 and 2, so when I heard that Bayonetta 3 was going to be Switch-exclusive, I was pissed. Now that I have a Switch, I am less pissed. I still don't really know where they can go with the plot or gameplay of Bayonetta that will make it significantly different enough from 1 and 2 to justify full-price but I'm curious enough to consider it. That's just how much I enjoyed the first two games. Bayonetta 1, 2, and 3 are all made by Platinum so as I stated for Babylon's Fall, I'm more curious than anything. At least for Bayonetta 3, I can be excited for what might be over what we have already seen... which in the case of Bayonetta 3 is pretty much nothing.
CONTROL (PC, PS4)
excitement: 4/5
Not much has been shown (to my knowledge) of Control and no one I have talked to really knows what it is. It is being developed by some studio called Remedy. I don't know either. It's a third-person shooter with some sort of odd gravity-manipulation mechanic. In conjunction with this, a lot of the stylized visuals seem to showcase environments being constantly affected by gravity or a lack thereof. I am not the biggest fan of shooters, especially modern ones, and especially modern ones going for a creepy atmosphere but if the E3 2018 trailer is anything to go off of, Control seems to be doing all three aspects gracefully. It looks like a solid shooter with a vague yet functional gimmick that seems fun to use. Control also seems to have enough uniqueness to its graphics and mechanical concepts to be a fresh game and solid contender to those- eh- not so fresh. The game doesn't just look dark, it looks like a game that leaves you in an unfamiliar environment. The way things are shifting around in the said environment, sometimes rapidly and sometimes ominously, makes the situation seem daunting even with the power of gravity and whatever the weird sci-fi Lego gun in the trailer is. It is not often that a fairly unknown title leaves me more excited than the bigger franchises but Control has me incredibly intrigued and I recommend trying to Google it while it's still relevant because naming a video game "Control" is going to be a tragic mistake down the line.
DAEMON X MACHINA (Switch)
excitement: 3/5
Daemon X Machina is a Switch exclusive for whatever reason and is a game about mechs that I think looks cool. The combat looks like it has just the right amount of clunky movement to be a fun robot shooting game. It also has a material collection component that reminded me a bit of Custom Robo and that always has me interested, seeing as there has not been a Custom Robo game in over a decade. I also like its very polygonal art design that is not very common in the current age of pixel-art versus 4k high-res "realism". If you like the idea of blowing things up with a customizable robot then Daemon X Machina is worth checking out until something in the future convinces me that it sucks.
DIGIMON SURVIVE (PC, PS4, Switch)
excitement: 4/5
I just want to start this one out by saying I am genuinely surprised and in slight disbelief that I am talking about the new Digimon game for the third year in a row! Digimon is a pretty dumb franchise with a lot of inconsistencies and general qualitative mediocrity but I really like the concepts and art direction for most of it so I keep hoping they will make good games. Usually, they don't. Many people born in the 90's or early 2000's will probably argue the PS1 games but I have played them enough to know that they really aren't great and are indisputably flawed. Digimon World 2 was close, Digimon Rumble Arena 2 was fun (not great, but fun), and Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth was really solid. Of those three games, we have a dungeon crawler, a brawler, and a story-centric turn-based RPG. Digimon Survive is a tactical RPG with a lot of glorious 2D art. So far, I can't help but notice the fact that it is a little hard to read who is on what team on the map at first glance. You can tell on the HUD and it isn't necessarily difficult to find out but in comparison to tactical RPG titans like Disgaea, this seems like a strange oversight that could be easily fixed. I am also scared of the few minutes I have seen of the story because it looks like it has the potential to bog down a lot of the pacing. I am also pretty sure I saw a Telltale/Mass Effect-like choice being made as well, which almost always turns me off. The main gameplay seems fine enough and I am curious to try it out one day. The trailer and the game's music also seem to give off a somber tone. This is not to say that emotionally bittersweet moments never happen in the other games but making it so prominent in the trailer and during a video of actual combat leaves me to believe that the overall tone of the game will be bittersweet. That is either going to be a very unique take on the source material or unintentionally hilarious. I would not be entirely upset if it did what Digimon Story did. That is to say that Digimon Story had a much more haunting conflict at its core but laced with enough comedy and a solid enough strategy system to make the game consistently fun and not brooding or taking itself too seriously. The good thing about Digimon only having a small handful of well-crafted games means that my expectations for it are already neutral-to-low going in. I just hope it surprises me like Digimon Story did but I'm not betting on it.
FINAL FANTASY VII, IX, and XII: THE ZODIAC AGE (Switch)
excitement: 4/5
I have always liked the Final Fantasy games that I have played to some degree or another but never got around to VII or IX. I had a copy of the original version of XII on PS2 but neither that disc or my disc reader was ever really top-notch. Being able to play VII and/or IX wherever I go seems like a grand idea. For whatever reason, and this may just be me, playing Final Fantasy on a handheld is incredibly convenient. Two of the Final Fantasy games I have spent the most time on were Final Fantasy VI Advance and the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy III. Being able to pick at it piece by piece and continue finishing off something to a save point when I get home is something I have always valued and will be even more convenient on the Switch. They will also be fairly inexpensive. I am mostly just glad they are porting these games to the Switch, I'm not sure if I will get around to any of them this year.
I didn't include Final Fantasy X and X-2 because I already have the PS3 remasters of those but those are coming to the Switch at the same time.
INDIVISIBLE (PC, PS4)
excitement: 5/5
Indivisible is an RPG with an active battle system and platforming elements. It already has many things I appreciate in 2D platformers and in RPGs. There are a lot of Paper-Mario-reminiscent mechanics in the game and many interesting ideas implemented for how to control your party. Guarding and countering enemy attacks is also consistently challenging and heavily reliant on timing, something not very common in RPGs. Indivisible is a crowdfunded game from the people who made Skullgirls, another game I really liked. I backed the game (technically twice) so I will be receiving a PS4 physical copy and a Steam key upon release. I am sure I will at least talk about the game on this blog, if not also on the channel.
THE LAST OF US PART 2 (PS4)
excitement: 4/5
I am not a big fan of cinematic games but Naughty Dog is a notorious developer of such games that I can at least salute. Naughty Dog created two of my favorite games of all time (Crash Bandicoot 2 and Crash Bandicoot: Warped) so if only for that, I still respect them. I played a lot of Uncharted in its heyday and who the fuck am I kidding, I played Uncharted 4 and liked it more than probably warranted. I'm saying I'm a giant hypocrite. The Last of Us was heavily story-based but its survival mechanics and more grounded movement made it feel more like a game than Uncharted. It is by no means perfect but no game is. The sequel has supposedly been in development for a very long time and gameplay has been shown. What was shown was a lot more linear and sticking to the story than most of The Last of Us has in its shootout waves but perhaps that was just to easier portray the game in trailer form. I am not completely enthralled with a new installment starring Joel and Ellie because I feel that it defeats some of the artistic purpose of the first game's ending but am still willing to give it a shot.
MEDIEVIL (PS4)
excitement: 3/5
I never played more than a demo of the original Medievil but of all the remakes cashing in on old games coming out these days, this one seems to be one of the most tasteful. A lot of the main things turning me off to trying the original version today seem to be repaired in the new version, such as draw distance and potential camera issues. I may try this one day but as you can see, the list of things I'm interested in this year is already quite large and I probably won't even have much time to touch those.
POKEMON (Switch)
excitement: 4/5
I don't know anything about what is going on here yet but Nintendo has been suggesting that it won't be like Pokemon Let's Go so I am certainly okay with that. Pokemon Let's Go doesn't look terrible or anything but I know there is a lot of shit they did to baby the players in a game that was already targetted towards 8-year olds. I'm not one of those competitive EV/IV training people either. I'm all for an enhanced casual Pokemon experience but I don't think making Pokemon easier is the same as enhancing it. Nintendo has been hinting at Pokemon on the Switch for a while and confirmed that this year they would release a mainline inclusion on the Switch. The most recent Pokemon game that I really enjoyed was Pokemon Omega Ruby. ORAS (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire) did a lot of things that made certain aspects of the main formula easier but added so many other things to achieve and build on that streamlining those aspects made the game itself a better RPG. It wasn't just made easier to appeal to a younger crowd since most game developers making kid-friendly games these days just assume that kids are all mentally defective. Adversely, I really don't like X and Y, yet ORAS's use of that engine worked in its favor. This goes to show that turn-based RPG's are really easy to screw up. I think that this is mostly in part to how much the game rules rely on numbers. Billy Hatcher, for example, was an incredibly flawed game but one with a lot of unique mechanics that make it fun to mess around with. Turn-based RPG's naturally don't have similar mechanics in that regard so big design oversights can really hurt the final product, even Pokemon notwithstanding. There were a lot of things about Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon that turned me off because of this ideology but also a lot of fun gimmicks that I applaud. I really don't know where they are going to go with this one. I expect nothing.
SEA OF SOLITUDE (PS4)
excitement: 2/5
Sea of Solitude looks very pretty but I fear that this might be all it has going for it. What little gameplay was shown has a lot of the character just moving forward and not doing a whole lot else. The unique art style is the only reason this is on this list and if I hear more about it being an actual game more than a visual experience then I will be exponentially more intrigued.
TOWN (Switch)
excitement: 4/5
Town is being made by the developers of Pokemon and it looks like a very quirky RPG. I can't even point out anything making it inherently groundbreaking but at the same time, it certainly does not look normal. I'm already psyched to see where it goes and whether or not it keeps its title. Town. Just Town.
Well that's it. In about 10-13 months I'll come back to this and see what happened okay thanks for reading bye have a good night and all that.
Like last year, I am not going to have a lot of money to splurge on video games so don't expect me to fully dive into all of these games later but I think first impressions CAN be interesting. Hopefully, my impressions are. I'm more doing this to talk about things we all know about and offer a potentially fresh perspective as well as expose whoever is reading this to things they may not have known about. Doing these lists also forces me to look up stuff and discover things I would not have otherwise. So I'm going to look up all of the games currently announced for 2019 and talk about the ones that I find the most intriguing. And Kingdom Hearts III. But other games too. Probably. I'm still debating that upon typing.
[side note: the console I show in parenthesis next to the game's title are just the systems that I have and can play them on. Some of these are also available on other stuff I just don't bother mentioning them. Anything you see on here that you might like, check and see if it's on your X-Bone. It might be.]
KINGDOM HEARTS III (PS4)
excitement: 5/5
This is now the THIRD OGIGACA list in a row where Kingdom Hearts III has been on the list and I have been made into a colossal fool for thinking it wouldn't be delayed. But this time I have it pre-ordered damn it! It's becoming real! I have not been looking much into the recently released trailers or announcements because I want KH3 to be a brand new experience for me. Despite how repetitive the gameplay can be and how long-winded and nonsensical the plot is, this is still a game that I have been looking forward to for a very long time. The gameplay looks a lot more varied and improved based on what was brought to the table in Fragmentary Passage. As I have been saying since 2017: all Square Enix has to do is make a coherent experience likened to Fragmentary Passage with a conclusive plot and I will be more than content. The plot doesn't even have to be good. The ending doesn't even have to make sense. I'm just waiting on an actual ending. And another Kingdom Hearts game. Hopefully, one that doesn't make me feel guilty for playing it.
JUMP FORCE (PC, PS4)
excitement: 2/5
I might honestly not buy this one because I am not the biggest fan of most of Shonen Jump's library. I am not necessarily disapproving, just out of the loop. I did not grow up with Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, Yu Yu Hakusho, etc, etc. I am interested in this game because it looks like everything I theoretically liked about the Jump crossover games but more like the recent Xenoverse games in terms of active gameplay. I'm still curious how they are going to pull Light Yagami and Ryuk from Death Note being in the game if nothing else. I have a similar concern that many people have with the game looking "gross". The visuals overall do feel weird but not in a way that benefits a game where cartoon pirates fight space monsters and Yu-Gi-Oh! shit. I'm not personally that concerned with it so long as you can see everything going on. At the same time, Smash Ultimate has me covered for ridiculous crossover games where people beat the snot out of each other so I might not make it to Jump Force this year.
SHOVEL KNIGHT: SHOWDOWN [and King of Cards???] (Wii U)
excitement: 5/5
Yeah, I know, the Wii U version. Shovel Knight: Showdown is more free Shovel Knight DLC that makes me feel guilty for owning the game because Yacht Club adds so much crazy stuff that I would gladly pay for. On top of this, I am pretty sure King of Cards is coming out sometime this year. That is a whole new campaign and supposedly the last one they are making, at least for a while. The original campaign (now called "Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope") was fantastic. Plague of Shadows was not my favorite but wholly unique and commendable. Specter of Torment is one of my new favorite games of all time. So it goes without saying that I am just as excited for King of Cards as I am for Showdown. And now it goes with saying. Usually, I don't talk about DLC on these so much but as anyone who has played Shovel Knight after the release of Plague of Shadows already knows, each installment might as well be its own game.
I am curious how Showdown and King of Cards will play out on the Wii U versions of those installments. The Wii U version of Shovel Knight is my favorite version. This version allows you to switch between items and equipment in your inventory by tapping them on the screen as opposed to the Mega Man-like toggle system in the other versions. Another alternative is pausing and equipping an item in the inventory from there. Not to be the "immersion" guy but the feeling of quickly having to switch between items keeps me glued to the combat more. Toggling with the shoulder buttons can be irritating to me and stopping time with the pause button throws off the rhythm of the fight, which is important to how Shovel Knight's bosses and some puzzles are designed. Being able to switch weapons on the fly adds a bit of precision and timing to the combat that is not as prevalent in the other versions. I wonder if that will even be applicable to Showdown and am not sure how it is going to work with cards and card-based gameplay. Regardless, I am more than excited for another pixel-art game on a console no one plays anymore.
PS. If you haven't played Shovel Knight yet, you can play it on almost literally anything so go do that.
TEAM SONIC RACING (PC, PS4, Switch)
excitement: 2/5
I didn't buy into the All-Stars Racing games because they seemed like the same Mario Kart clone I have already seen a million times but with clunkier elements of more realistic racing games. The part-switching system in Transformed was interesting to me but not much else in the game really was or at least not enough for me to pay full price for it. Being realistic, I can't see myself pre-ordering Team Sonic Racing or anything but I have to at least applaud it for trying something different, if only on paper. Team Sonic Racing lets you race in a team of three people and they all have different types, like MOBAs or team-based shooters do. The idea here is that the racers in the back can actually catch up easier. People in the back can piggyback off of teammates closer to the front or send support stuff to screw with the opponents further up. I am curious to see if this chaos is actually fun in execution. In relation to the racing game genre, this slight deviation would be groundbreaking in relativity... if it isn't shit... because let's keep in mind that this is a Sonic game.
ANIMAL CROSSING (Switch)
excitement: 1/5
Animal Crossing is game franchise that I have always cared about but I never figured out why. Animal Crossing is a really simplistic, silly, and stylized life sim. The games have not really changed much since the first one other than adding new stuff to do that still just add to you paying off a mortgage and doing errands for anthropomorphic animals. There's the mobile thing too but I sincerely don't care. New Leaf is pretty much just the best installment for several reasons but mostly because of pure accessibility both in online play and local play. I cannot imagine a new installment doing much to top this without dramatically changing the game but if there is one game company that can pull something off in the weirdest way possible, it is Nintendo. I am not necessarily excited for a new installment of Animal Crossing as much as I am curious if they are actually going to do anything worth mentioning in it or if it is simply going to be Animal Crossing on Switch. Each installment has added enough to justify its original purchase. The Gamecube release was fairly necessary since the original was Japan exclusive and the Nintendo Disc Drive that the international release was planned for was canceled completely. Wild World for the DS does not provide anything that New Leaf doesn't but at the time it was a very worthy and engrossing sequel. If you like life sims. City Folk is the only installment I can say was almost completely pointless to fans of the series unless they had never played one of the other games and really wanted to play it on Wii for whatever reason. Anything you would want out of the previous games (except for the NES ROMs from the Gamecube one) is present and organized better in New Leaf. A lot of new Nintendo-exclusive games coming to Switch can at least be argued as great ideas for the portability alone but New Leaf is pretty much the best Animal Crossing and it was on 3DS. So again, I'm really just popping popcorn and seeing what happens rather than tattooing Isabelle on my chest.
BABYLON'S FALL (PC, PS4)
excitement: 2/5
Babylon's Fall is pretty much just a trailer at this point. The only reason it is on this list is because I liked the trailer and I liked Platinum Games. I have played at least 5 of their games (that I can think of). I hate one, am largely disappointed with another, very much appreciate one, and really liked the other two. There is not a whole lot more to say here. There are very few game companies that I really feel safe latching onto and Platinum is one that has given me at least an okay time with the exception of Revengeance. They are doing some fantasy shit and I want to see where that goes.
BAYONETTA 3 (Switch)
excitement: 4/5
I really like Bayonetta 1 and 2, so when I heard that Bayonetta 3 was going to be Switch-exclusive, I was pissed. Now that I have a Switch, I am less pissed. I still don't really know where they can go with the plot or gameplay of Bayonetta that will make it significantly different enough from 1 and 2 to justify full-price but I'm curious enough to consider it. That's just how much I enjoyed the first two games. Bayonetta 1, 2, and 3 are all made by Platinum so as I stated for Babylon's Fall, I'm more curious than anything. At least for Bayonetta 3, I can be excited for what might be over what we have already seen... which in the case of Bayonetta 3 is pretty much nothing.
CONTROL (PC, PS4)
excitement: 4/5
Not much has been shown (to my knowledge) of Control and no one I have talked to really knows what it is. It is being developed by some studio called Remedy. I don't know either. It's a third-person shooter with some sort of odd gravity-manipulation mechanic. In conjunction with this, a lot of the stylized visuals seem to showcase environments being constantly affected by gravity or a lack thereof. I am not the biggest fan of shooters, especially modern ones, and especially modern ones going for a creepy atmosphere but if the E3 2018 trailer is anything to go off of, Control seems to be doing all three aspects gracefully. It looks like a solid shooter with a vague yet functional gimmick that seems fun to use. Control also seems to have enough uniqueness to its graphics and mechanical concepts to be a fresh game and solid contender to those- eh- not so fresh. The game doesn't just look dark, it looks like a game that leaves you in an unfamiliar environment. The way things are shifting around in the said environment, sometimes rapidly and sometimes ominously, makes the situation seem daunting even with the power of gravity and whatever the weird sci-fi Lego gun in the trailer is. It is not often that a fairly unknown title leaves me more excited than the bigger franchises but Control has me incredibly intrigued and I recommend trying to Google it while it's still relevant because naming a video game "Control" is going to be a tragic mistake down the line.
DAEMON X MACHINA (Switch)
excitement: 3/5
Daemon X Machina is a Switch exclusive for whatever reason and is a game about mechs that I think looks cool. The combat looks like it has just the right amount of clunky movement to be a fun robot shooting game. It also has a material collection component that reminded me a bit of Custom Robo and that always has me interested, seeing as there has not been a Custom Robo game in over a decade. I also like its very polygonal art design that is not very common in the current age of pixel-art versus 4k high-res "realism". If you like the idea of blowing things up with a customizable robot then Daemon X Machina is worth checking out until something in the future convinces me that it sucks.
DIGIMON SURVIVE (PC, PS4, Switch)
excitement: 4/5
I just want to start this one out by saying I am genuinely surprised and in slight disbelief that I am talking about the new Digimon game for the third year in a row! Digimon is a pretty dumb franchise with a lot of inconsistencies and general qualitative mediocrity but I really like the concepts and art direction for most of it so I keep hoping they will make good games. Usually, they don't. Many people born in the 90's or early 2000's will probably argue the PS1 games but I have played them enough to know that they really aren't great and are indisputably flawed. Digimon World 2 was close, Digimon Rumble Arena 2 was fun (not great, but fun), and Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth was really solid. Of those three games, we have a dungeon crawler, a brawler, and a story-centric turn-based RPG. Digimon Survive is a tactical RPG with a lot of glorious 2D art. So far, I can't help but notice the fact that it is a little hard to read who is on what team on the map at first glance. You can tell on the HUD and it isn't necessarily difficult to find out but in comparison to tactical RPG titans like Disgaea, this seems like a strange oversight that could be easily fixed. I am also scared of the few minutes I have seen of the story because it looks like it has the potential to bog down a lot of the pacing. I am also pretty sure I saw a Telltale/Mass Effect-like choice being made as well, which almost always turns me off. The main gameplay seems fine enough and I am curious to try it out one day. The trailer and the game's music also seem to give off a somber tone. This is not to say that emotionally bittersweet moments never happen in the other games but making it so prominent in the trailer and during a video of actual combat leaves me to believe that the overall tone of the game will be bittersweet. That is either going to be a very unique take on the source material or unintentionally hilarious. I would not be entirely upset if it did what Digimon Story did. That is to say that Digimon Story had a much more haunting conflict at its core but laced with enough comedy and a solid enough strategy system to make the game consistently fun and not brooding or taking itself too seriously. The good thing about Digimon only having a small handful of well-crafted games means that my expectations for it are already neutral-to-low going in. I just hope it surprises me like Digimon Story did but I'm not betting on it.
FINAL FANTASY VII, IX, and XII: THE ZODIAC AGE (Switch)
excitement: 4/5
I have always liked the Final Fantasy games that I have played to some degree or another but never got around to VII or IX. I had a copy of the original version of XII on PS2 but neither that disc or my disc reader was ever really top-notch. Being able to play VII and/or IX wherever I go seems like a grand idea. For whatever reason, and this may just be me, playing Final Fantasy on a handheld is incredibly convenient. Two of the Final Fantasy games I have spent the most time on were Final Fantasy VI Advance and the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy III. Being able to pick at it piece by piece and continue finishing off something to a save point when I get home is something I have always valued and will be even more convenient on the Switch. They will also be fairly inexpensive. I am mostly just glad they are porting these games to the Switch, I'm not sure if I will get around to any of them this year.
I didn't include Final Fantasy X and X-2 because I already have the PS3 remasters of those but those are coming to the Switch at the same time.
INDIVISIBLE (PC, PS4)
excitement: 5/5
Indivisible is an RPG with an active battle system and platforming elements. It already has many things I appreciate in 2D platformers and in RPGs. There are a lot of Paper-Mario-reminiscent mechanics in the game and many interesting ideas implemented for how to control your party. Guarding and countering enemy attacks is also consistently challenging and heavily reliant on timing, something not very common in RPGs. Indivisible is a crowdfunded game from the people who made Skullgirls, another game I really liked. I backed the game (technically twice) so I will be receiving a PS4 physical copy and a Steam key upon release. I am sure I will at least talk about the game on this blog, if not also on the channel.
THE LAST OF US PART 2 (PS4)
excitement: 4/5
I am not a big fan of cinematic games but Naughty Dog is a notorious developer of such games that I can at least salute. Naughty Dog created two of my favorite games of all time (Crash Bandicoot 2 and Crash Bandicoot: Warped) so if only for that, I still respect them. I played a lot of Uncharted in its heyday and who the fuck am I kidding, I played Uncharted 4 and liked it more than probably warranted. I'm saying I'm a giant hypocrite. The Last of Us was heavily story-based but its survival mechanics and more grounded movement made it feel more like a game than Uncharted. It is by no means perfect but no game is. The sequel has supposedly been in development for a very long time and gameplay has been shown. What was shown was a lot more linear and sticking to the story than most of The Last of Us has in its shootout waves but perhaps that was just to easier portray the game in trailer form. I am not completely enthralled with a new installment starring Joel and Ellie because I feel that it defeats some of the artistic purpose of the first game's ending but am still willing to give it a shot.
MEDIEVIL (PS4)
excitement: 3/5
I never played more than a demo of the original Medievil but of all the remakes cashing in on old games coming out these days, this one seems to be one of the most tasteful. A lot of the main things turning me off to trying the original version today seem to be repaired in the new version, such as draw distance and potential camera issues. I may try this one day but as you can see, the list of things I'm interested in this year is already quite large and I probably won't even have much time to touch those.
POKEMON (Switch)
excitement: 4/5
I don't know anything about what is going on here yet but Nintendo has been suggesting that it won't be like Pokemon Let's Go so I am certainly okay with that. Pokemon Let's Go doesn't look terrible or anything but I know there is a lot of shit they did to baby the players in a game that was already targetted towards 8-year olds. I'm not one of those competitive EV/IV training people either. I'm all for an enhanced casual Pokemon experience but I don't think making Pokemon easier is the same as enhancing it. Nintendo has been hinting at Pokemon on the Switch for a while and confirmed that this year they would release a mainline inclusion on the Switch. The most recent Pokemon game that I really enjoyed was Pokemon Omega Ruby. ORAS (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire) did a lot of things that made certain aspects of the main formula easier but added so many other things to achieve and build on that streamlining those aspects made the game itself a better RPG. It wasn't just made easier to appeal to a younger crowd since most game developers making kid-friendly games these days just assume that kids are all mentally defective. Adversely, I really don't like X and Y, yet ORAS's use of that engine worked in its favor. This goes to show that turn-based RPG's are really easy to screw up. I think that this is mostly in part to how much the game rules rely on numbers. Billy Hatcher, for example, was an incredibly flawed game but one with a lot of unique mechanics that make it fun to mess around with. Turn-based RPG's naturally don't have similar mechanics in that regard so big design oversights can really hurt the final product, even Pokemon notwithstanding. There were a lot of things about Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon that turned me off because of this ideology but also a lot of fun gimmicks that I applaud. I really don't know where they are going to go with this one. I expect nothing.
SEA OF SOLITUDE (PS4)
excitement: 2/5
Sea of Solitude looks very pretty but I fear that this might be all it has going for it. What little gameplay was shown has a lot of the character just moving forward and not doing a whole lot else. The unique art style is the only reason this is on this list and if I hear more about it being an actual game more than a visual experience then I will be exponentially more intrigued.
TOWN (Switch)
excitement: 4/5
Town is being made by the developers of Pokemon and it looks like a very quirky RPG. I can't even point out anything making it inherently groundbreaking but at the same time, it certainly does not look normal. I'm already psyched to see where it goes and whether or not it keeps its title. Town. Just Town.
Well that's it. In about 10-13 months I'll come back to this and see what happened okay thanks for reading bye have a good night and all that.
"Only Games I Give a Crap About in 2018" Revisited
I didn't play most of these games because money was slightly tighter this year and honestly, not even the premises of most games blew me away or even gave me very much excitement. Without further ado, here are the games I talked about before they came out and now I will add another two cents.
Here's my original post if you care but you don't really need to read it to understand what I'm putting in this post:
Randomrings Blog: Only Games I Give a Crap About in 2018
Here's my original post if you care but you don't really need to read it to understand what I'm putting in this post:
Randomrings Blog: Only Games I Give a Crap About in 2018
DIGIMON STORY: CYBER SLEUTH - HACKER'S MEMORY (PS4)
Verdict: Didn't play
My main fear of Hacker's Memory was that it looked like a rehash of a game that hadn't even been out for four years and it looks like I was right. I'm not refusing to play it per se but it really doesn't look different enough to justify supporting its development when there are so many more deserving games out there right now trying to do something original.
DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY NT (PS4)
Verdict: Didn't play
NT looks a lot more cash-grabby than I expected and I have heard from fans that the PSP version is still superior. By the time it came out, I lost quite a bit of interest, especially when the $60 version didn't even get the customer all of the base playable characters. As time went on, more games came to my attention, and funds dwindled, NT slipped farther and farther off of the fresh, wet blacktop that is my interest in modern games. Maybe I am missing something here and I am positive there is fun to be had here but I didn't deem it worth it and still don't. Maybe I will find it cheap one day and feel like a big old dummy for doubting it.
NT looks a lot more cash-grabby than I expected and I have heard from fans that the PSP version is still superior. By the time it came out, I lost quite a bit of interest, especially when the $60 version didn't even get the customer all of the base playable characters. As time went on, more games came to my attention, and funds dwindled, NT slipped farther and farther off of the fresh, wet blacktop that is my interest in modern games. Maybe I am missing something here and I am positive there is fun to be had here but I didn't deem it worth it and still don't. Maybe I will find it cheap one day and feel like a big old dummy for doubting it.
KIRBY STAR ALLIES (Switch)
Verdict: Played a demo of
I was fearful that the party mechanic would make the game way too easy. That is saying a lot for a Kirby game. Somehow Star Allies managed to make a Kirby game too easy. The art style has been kept intact since Triple Deluxe too. Triple Deluxe looked fine but almost every installment of Kirby before this game had a unique look to some degree. Star Allies just feels like "Kirby for Switch" and not much more. This was my main fear going into it and playing every part of the demo did not sway me at all. Even something about the controls felt a little off, which I did not think was possible in a Kirby game, yet here I am typing it out, being a big entitled baby about a free demo of a game. I'm sure there are moments where Star Allies shines more but for a full-price game, I don't care to see it. I would much rather just play Super Star, Nightmare in Dreamland, Crystal Shards, or Dream Land 3 again.
I was fearful that the party mechanic would make the game way too easy. That is saying a lot for a Kirby game. Somehow Star Allies managed to make a Kirby game too easy. The art style has been kept intact since Triple Deluxe too. Triple Deluxe looked fine but almost every installment of Kirby before this game had a unique look to some degree. Star Allies just feels like "Kirby for Switch" and not much more. This was my main fear going into it and playing every part of the demo did not sway me at all. Even something about the controls felt a little off, which I did not think was possible in a Kirby game, yet here I am typing it out, being a big entitled baby about a free demo of a game. I'm sure there are moments where Star Allies shines more but for a full-price game, I don't care to see it. I would much rather just play Super Star, Nightmare in Dreamland, Crystal Shards, or Dream Land 3 again.
FORTNITE (PC)
Verdict: Quickly lost interest/ 10
Fortnite was Epic Games' attempt at stealing the spotlight from PUBG. I guess it worked because I probably don't need to explain what Fortnite is to anyone reading this. Fortnite is currently damn near everywhere. Usually, I don't condone rip-offs like this but the case of Fortnite versus Player Unknown's Battlegrounds is more interesting. PUBG was, and in many ways still is, a faulty game that was even less functional upon its full 1.0 release. Fortnite looks less like something replicated in SourceFilm Maker and has its own pleasant art direction. This just took a basic formula and expanded on it so I can respect it at least a little. Overall, I really love the environmental graphics and I love how it is one of the rare shooters that prioritizes clarity over realism. Unfortunately, Fortnite made me realize why a 100-player battle-royale system is inherently not up my street, aside from technical aspects. Fortnite feels like another survival shooter game where you need to get items because you start with basically nothing and have to shoot the other players. It feels like a lot of people simply have access to guns that I don't have and although I will admit I am not the best at most shooters, I don't think it's because I have bad aim. I don't have great aim but I distinctly remember shooting people several times before getting completely obliterated later. I also frequently play Overwatch, so I'm not the worst. I can only imagine it might be because I didn't pay to play Fortnite but they allow a free version so I don't see the point in punishing me for it, if that is the case anyway. The building system makes Fortnite unique from PUBG and one of the most unique shooters I have ever seen but that doesn't intrinsically make it fun. The game asks you to be creative with the way you use its crafting system, which is commendable but if someone gets the drop on you anyway or starts tearing down your shit with blunt objects and explosives, all that work you put in is for not. At the end of the day, it's another survival shooter, which we already have plenty of. I prefer something like Star Wars Battlefront II (2005), Star Fox Assault, Overwatch, or even Halo where you can play quick strings of deathmatch rounds or even quick matches rather than playing one long drawn out one. One of the things I hate about most modern shooters is that they make me watch a screen with not much going on instead of letting me actually play the damn game. Fortnite accidentally does this too. Granted I prefer spectating something I understand and just got shot out of rather than terribly boring dialogue, it doesn't change the fact that Fortnite only has gameplay relative to your skill level. It's hard to get a higher skill level or build the motivation to become more skilled at the game if you get instantly slaughtered in nearly every match along the way. Because of these things, I don't particularly recommend Fortnite but it is cross-platform and has a lot of cool ideas. If you really like playing shooters with your friends then I can almost guarantee more enjoyment for you than what I had with Fortnite.
KINGDOM HEARTS III (PS4)
Verdict: Didn't come out
Okay.
Okay.
RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 (PS4)
Verdict: Didn't play
It looks bloated as hell. Most of the universal praise I see for it is purely story-centric so I just don't give a fuck because even then the story-centric parts are bogged down with forced walking around. Red Dead Redemption 1 is one of my favorite Sandbox games and I'm not even that big of a fan of the way the story was handled in that. I shouldn't be so quick to judge a game I have not played but everything I have seen, heard, and read about Red Dead Redemption 2 leads me to believe that I will probably despise a lot more things about it than I will end up loving or even find entertaining. I'm not putting a snake in my own boot.
It looks bloated as hell. Most of the universal praise I see for it is purely story-centric so I just don't give a fuck because even then the story-centric parts are bogged down with forced walking around. Red Dead Redemption 1 is one of my favorite Sandbox games and I'm not even that big of a fan of the way the story was handled in that. I shouldn't be so quick to judge a game I have not played but everything I have seen, heard, and read about Red Dead Redemption 2 leads me to believe that I will probably despise a lot more things about it than I will end up loving or even find entertaining. I'm not putting a snake in my own boot.
THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU -FINAL REMIX- (Switch)
Verdict: Didn't want to play because the original is better
In the original "Only Games I Give a Crap About In 2018" post, I pretty much just bitched about the existence of this remaster. I still haven't played it but now that more information is available than there was when I talked about it before, it looks like they did everything I feared. Before you read this and think I'm just being a whiny idiot, keep in mind that TWEWY is one of my favorite games of all time and seeing it drastically changed in some aspects while watered-down in others is scary to me because I don't want this version to be how future generations see this game. TWEWY is still a unique experience on its own but one of the things that made it incredibly unique from a game design standpoint was its combat system. This is such an important factor in what makes TWEWY what it is that the combat system giving the game unique design is an almost objective fact. If you take away the dual-screen functionality, it just becomes another quirky action-RPG, granted one that still has a great story, incredible art direction, and a lot of fun and experimental design choices, now you will be able to just hit buttons and win. On certain settings, you could totally do this with the original TWEWY on DS but the gameplay forced you to stay alert in every single situation, making even the most ridiculously hard fights in the game fun. I commend whoever's idea it was to bring such an understated game back to a more popular medium. Let's be honest: current-day Switch has a lot more static and people eating up that static than 2007-era Nintendo DS did. I just feel like the original point of the game was completely thrown out the window. If you have considered getting TWEWY, I highly recommend getting the original DS version. I would even recommend getting a 3DS just to play it because I know the DS and 3DS have a lot of awesome gems that make the Switch's current library look a little inferior. If you don't want to buy a new console just to play this game, that's understandable too. As much as I don't like what they did with it, the Switch version still has a lot of things that make the original memorable and unique and have added content that I'm sure is fine but not enough to justify me buying the game again right now. Just remember that you are missing out on the core thing that made TWEWY a different "game" over being a different "experience".
BAYONETTA 3 (Switch)
Verdict: Didn't come out
That's fine by me. However long they need to take to make Bayonetta 3 a more unique experience from two of the best hack-n-slashes I have ever played is more than fine by me.
That's fine by me. However long they need to take to make Bayonetta 3 a more unique experience from two of the best hack-n-slashes I have ever played is more than fine by me.
THE LAST OF US PART 2 (PS4)
Verdict: Didn't come out
I don't know if I will get this one when it comes out but I am very curious to see what they improve on or butcher in this one.
I don't know if I will get this one when it comes out but I am very curious to see what they improve on or butcher in this one.
These next two were not on the original OGIGACA 2018 list but I am going to talk about them on the revisited version. I did not play many newly released games but I did play these two enough to find them worthy of talking about.
ATTACK ON TITAN 2 (PC)
Verdict: Great anime game / *****
I started reading the Attack on Titan manga this year and my friend showed me the recent game adaptation around the same time. I enjoy the story of Attack on Titan but from what little I've seen of the gameplay and now being pretty far in the manga, the game is kind of an awful way to experience the story. However, for an anime-based game, Attack on Titan 2 should not be near as fun as it is. When I was a kid, the reason that games based on TV shows were always so disappointing was that the development studios didn't have time to care and the publishers had no reason to care. This is what makes a lot of anime-based games specifically trashy and cheap. Attack on Titan 2 is by no means the greatest game in the universe but it really captures almost everything that makes the story of Attack on Titan so exciting and entertaining... if you ignore the story. The gameplay is stellar and fully incorporates the excitement and actual flying by the seat of your pants that makes the original story consistently suspenseful. You can even use a lot of items from the story but you have to build forts mid-match to access more of them and recharge your other resources. These give a nice time-sacrifice system to the game and make pre-game customization seem more important to the player. Fighting bigger boss Titans is fun and consistently challenging from the few hours of the game my friend and I played together (my friend showed me this game because he is a big AoT fan and thought the game was pretty tight, with which I agree). There's even a D-pad function to command your fellow soldiers to certain targets that works way faster and more comfortably than in any game I have ever seen try to do something similar. This really makes you feel like part of a collective with your AI friendlies save for the fact that the AI can sometimes be pretty damn stupid and don't do a whole lot on their own. The story depiction was the most crippling flaw I noticed. I really only played up to where I was in the story at the time and everything was done with a strange amount of censorship. There was way less gore and it made the most dramatic scenes of the early manga and anime look far less dramatic and more silly. The pre-rendered cel-shading cutscenes look okay but really pass the minimum requirements for looking like the anime without adding anything new without making things worse. One of the major differences between Attack on Titan 2 and Attack on Titan 1 is that you can make your own soldier. This is a cool system but characters will interact with you in pre-rendered cutscenes and it's more awkward and funny than it is engaging. Outside of cutscenes, you can talk to different characters and build certain relationships with specific characters to get more things to upgrade. The upgrade system with your weapons, armor, and equipment are already awesome without this and are always very clear about what everything is going to give and take away. You don't have to spend 20 hours of gameplay for this system to be rewarding. All-in-all I was very impressed with Attack on Titan 2 but because of it's cheap story depiction, I wouldn't recommend paying $60 for it. I am waiting for it to go on sale on Steam. There seems to be a lot of multiplayer fun to be had with it if you can convince friends to play it with you. It's probably a blast, if not the single-player mode is still alright. With the multiplayer components and the fun of the game as a whole, I would pay $40 and not feel rip-offed in the slightest but $60 seems like a stretch to me. Price aside, Attack on Titan 2 is one of the best anime-based games I have ever played and I recommend checking it out, especially if you love the manga and/or anime. My friend is a bigger fan of it all than I am and he loves this game. I'm not the biggest fan of the manga but that's a rant for another time. I still recommend trying the game or at least looking up gameplay footage.
SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE (Switch)
Verdict: Everything I wanted
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is one of the few games that is ridiculously expansive yet is mostly expansive in a way that does not bog down the overall experience. All of the extraneous content is made to constantly freshen up the formula of the general gameplay as opposed to trying to show off how much the developers could fit on a disk... well... cartridge. The game is not perfect but the main flaws because of this are typically pretty avoidable. Any item you deem unfair can be turned off. Any stage hazard you find annoying can be turned off. Anything stale and boring can typically be enhanced or ignored unless you are going for 100% completion. The adventure mode, World of Light, was fairly disappointing. I still haven't beaten it yet but it is more like the event matches from the other games than it is like Subspace Emissary, which I'm pretty sure is what people were expecting. Imagine dough. If you stretch it, it starts to lose consistency and becomes increasingly thin and less useful. World of Light is dough not thin enough to just be burnt to a useless crisp but still just throws as many gimmicks in as possible. Don't get me wrong, it isn't trash or anything. There are some minor puzzles every once in a while to spice things up but most of the progression of the game relies on beating the crap out of people. It becomes a bit mindless until a more annoying challenge comes along. I say "annoying" over "worthy" because most of the more difficult fights can be won by eating the enemy with Kirby and spitting them out underneath the stage, or so I've found so far. The spirit system has a weird type advantage system that doesn't seem to matter all that much. I commend the idea to add RPG elements to Smash gameplay but the way it is organized and presented left a bit to be desired for me. The loading times also get in the way of that and the rest of the game, though they aren't any worse than that of Smash for Wii U or 3DS, so another minor complaint. The new characters all feel like fun, fresh inclusions with the obvious exceptions of Daisy, Chrom, and Ken. Inkling adds a new mechanic to the game that is engaging for the one playing as Inkling and the one fighting them. Ridley feels like controlling a video game boss while still fair enough to not feel or be overpowered. King K. Rool is just ridiculous. Isabelle is just different enough to not feel like a clone of Villager and I think I already like her a bit more. There are new items that are pretty fun. I'm not sure how I feel about the inclusion of certain items and moves that completely obliterate an opponent under certain conditions as opposed to just doing an obscene amount of knockback. The fact that good timing can 100% guarantee a kill reminds me of PlayStation All-Stars and kind of makes me feel like such attacks defeat the original purpose of Super Smash Bros as a not-quite-fighting-game. On the other hand, every time I have been suscept to such an attack or dealt it to someone else, it never felt unfair or wholly unavoidable. If I had to summarize Ultimate in a way other than this giant paragraph on it, I would say "it's everything I like about Melee merged with the accessibility of Smash for Wii U". The physics and more specifically the weight are a lot closer to Melee yet it has a lot more goofy and ridiculous stuff to mess around with whether alone or with friends. Overall, so far, I would say this game rivals Melee for me, which has always been my favorite in the series. I think this game is worth getting a Switch for not only because the game itself is awesome but just because the console is so convenient.
That's about all of the ramble I have built up in me from these recent games. The only other one I can think about is the Seal the Deal DLC for A Hat in Time. It's fucking great, it just doesn't count as a whole game. If you have A Hat in Time, you should definitely get the DLC because it adds so much more to the game than I have even dealt with yet myself. If you love that game, the new world and levels added are worth the price of the DLC anyway.
Okay, now that is all of the ramble I have. Thanks for reading and maybe I'll do the same thing for next year, maybe I won't, maybe I will. I usually write these around January or February if I remember correctly so I might do a 2019 one. So far, I just don't have that much interest in anything coming out except for Kingdom Hearts III because I am a child. So again, maybe. Thanks.
I started reading the Attack on Titan manga this year and my friend showed me the recent game adaptation around the same time. I enjoy the story of Attack on Titan but from what little I've seen of the gameplay and now being pretty far in the manga, the game is kind of an awful way to experience the story. However, for an anime-based game, Attack on Titan 2 should not be near as fun as it is. When I was a kid, the reason that games based on TV shows were always so disappointing was that the development studios didn't have time to care and the publishers had no reason to care. This is what makes a lot of anime-based games specifically trashy and cheap. Attack on Titan 2 is by no means the greatest game in the universe but it really captures almost everything that makes the story of Attack on Titan so exciting and entertaining... if you ignore the story. The gameplay is stellar and fully incorporates the excitement and actual flying by the seat of your pants that makes the original story consistently suspenseful. You can even use a lot of items from the story but you have to build forts mid-match to access more of them and recharge your other resources. These give a nice time-sacrifice system to the game and make pre-game customization seem more important to the player. Fighting bigger boss Titans is fun and consistently challenging from the few hours of the game my friend and I played together (my friend showed me this game because he is a big AoT fan and thought the game was pretty tight, with which I agree). There's even a D-pad function to command your fellow soldiers to certain targets that works way faster and more comfortably than in any game I have ever seen try to do something similar. This really makes you feel like part of a collective with your AI friendlies save for the fact that the AI can sometimes be pretty damn stupid and don't do a whole lot on their own. The story depiction was the most crippling flaw I noticed. I really only played up to where I was in the story at the time and everything was done with a strange amount of censorship. There was way less gore and it made the most dramatic scenes of the early manga and anime look far less dramatic and more silly. The pre-rendered cel-shading cutscenes look okay but really pass the minimum requirements for looking like the anime without adding anything new without making things worse. One of the major differences between Attack on Titan 2 and Attack on Titan 1 is that you can make your own soldier. This is a cool system but characters will interact with you in pre-rendered cutscenes and it's more awkward and funny than it is engaging. Outside of cutscenes, you can talk to different characters and build certain relationships with specific characters to get more things to upgrade. The upgrade system with your weapons, armor, and equipment are already awesome without this and are always very clear about what everything is going to give and take away. You don't have to spend 20 hours of gameplay for this system to be rewarding. All-in-all I was very impressed with Attack on Titan 2 but because of it's cheap story depiction, I wouldn't recommend paying $60 for it. I am waiting for it to go on sale on Steam. There seems to be a lot of multiplayer fun to be had with it if you can convince friends to play it with you. It's probably a blast, if not the single-player mode is still alright. With the multiplayer components and the fun of the game as a whole, I would pay $40 and not feel rip-offed in the slightest but $60 seems like a stretch to me. Price aside, Attack on Titan 2 is one of the best anime-based games I have ever played and I recommend checking it out, especially if you love the manga and/or anime. My friend is a bigger fan of it all than I am and he loves this game. I'm not the biggest fan of the manga but that's a rant for another time. I still recommend trying the game or at least looking up gameplay footage.
SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE (Switch)
Verdict: Everything I wanted
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is one of the few games that is ridiculously expansive yet is mostly expansive in a way that does not bog down the overall experience. All of the extraneous content is made to constantly freshen up the formula of the general gameplay as opposed to trying to show off how much the developers could fit on a disk... well... cartridge. The game is not perfect but the main flaws because of this are typically pretty avoidable. Any item you deem unfair can be turned off. Any stage hazard you find annoying can be turned off. Anything stale and boring can typically be enhanced or ignored unless you are going for 100% completion. The adventure mode, World of Light, was fairly disappointing. I still haven't beaten it yet but it is more like the event matches from the other games than it is like Subspace Emissary, which I'm pretty sure is what people were expecting. Imagine dough. If you stretch it, it starts to lose consistency and becomes increasingly thin and less useful. World of Light is dough not thin enough to just be burnt to a useless crisp but still just throws as many gimmicks in as possible. Don't get me wrong, it isn't trash or anything. There are some minor puzzles every once in a while to spice things up but most of the progression of the game relies on beating the crap out of people. It becomes a bit mindless until a more annoying challenge comes along. I say "annoying" over "worthy" because most of the more difficult fights can be won by eating the enemy with Kirby and spitting them out underneath the stage, or so I've found so far. The spirit system has a weird type advantage system that doesn't seem to matter all that much. I commend the idea to add RPG elements to Smash gameplay but the way it is organized and presented left a bit to be desired for me. The loading times also get in the way of that and the rest of the game, though they aren't any worse than that of Smash for Wii U or 3DS, so another minor complaint. The new characters all feel like fun, fresh inclusions with the obvious exceptions of Daisy, Chrom, and Ken. Inkling adds a new mechanic to the game that is engaging for the one playing as Inkling and the one fighting them. Ridley feels like controlling a video game boss while still fair enough to not feel or be overpowered. King K. Rool is just ridiculous. Isabelle is just different enough to not feel like a clone of Villager and I think I already like her a bit more. There are new items that are pretty fun. I'm not sure how I feel about the inclusion of certain items and moves that completely obliterate an opponent under certain conditions as opposed to just doing an obscene amount of knockback. The fact that good timing can 100% guarantee a kill reminds me of PlayStation All-Stars and kind of makes me feel like such attacks defeat the original purpose of Super Smash Bros as a not-quite-fighting-game. On the other hand, every time I have been suscept to such an attack or dealt it to someone else, it never felt unfair or wholly unavoidable. If I had to summarize Ultimate in a way other than this giant paragraph on it, I would say "it's everything I like about Melee merged with the accessibility of Smash for Wii U". The physics and more specifically the weight are a lot closer to Melee yet it has a lot more goofy and ridiculous stuff to mess around with whether alone or with friends. Overall, so far, I would say this game rivals Melee for me, which has always been my favorite in the series. I think this game is worth getting a Switch for not only because the game itself is awesome but just because the console is so convenient.
That's about all of the ramble I have built up in me from these recent games. The only other one I can think about is the Seal the Deal DLC for A Hat in Time. It's fucking great, it just doesn't count as a whole game. If you have A Hat in Time, you should definitely get the DLC because it adds so much more to the game than I have even dealt with yet myself. If you love that game, the new world and levels added are worth the price of the DLC anyway.
Okay, now that is all of the ramble I have. Thanks for reading and maybe I'll do the same thing for next year, maybe I won't, maybe I will. I usually write these around January or February if I remember correctly so I might do a 2019 one. So far, I just don't have that much interest in anything coming out except for Kingdom Hearts III because I am a child. So again, maybe. Thanks.
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