My Recency Bias

Game of the Year 2023   What better way to get into 2024 than to recap 2023, just like everyone else. I have always appreciated not only the brand new game releases that shape the discussion online throughout the current year, but also those past game releases that you finally play, and it just blows you away and almost changes your entire DNA as a capital G Gamer. So, I want my own personal Game of the Year list to reflect that. Without further ado, here is my top 10 games that I played in 2023.   10. Yakuza 0 I always heard great things, and between following the @YakuzaFriday account for years on Twitter and loving Yakuza: Like a Dragon, I knew I had to at least give it a shot. What I got out of the experience was something as equally fun, detailed, and endearing as Y: LaD, all framed around all these characters that I heard about for years but had never been formally introduced to. Kiryu and Majima’s intersecting story had many endearing twists that made their in...

  Part 1: Intro Just as I was reconsidering my Game of the Year list after playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Alan Wake 2 hits the entire list like an earthquake and plants down its flag right at the top of an already stacked list, during an incredibly stacked year. I could say that “Alan Wake 2 feels like *this movie director* or *this author* made a videogame”, but to do that would be a disservice to the folks at Remedy Entertainment, who’s only real point of comparison is their previous work, since no one is really doing what Remedy does at Remedy’s level of quality. Alan Wake 2, with its narrative complexity, gorgeous environment design, seamless inclusion of live action sequences, and thrilling gameplay, feels like a final form for how Remedy makes games. If it wasn’t already obvious, I was blown away by Alan Wake 2, and I’d like to explain why.   But first, a brief recap… The first Alan Wake ends with Alan trapped in the Dark Place, sacrificing himself to save his w...

  Mario in 2D has stagnated for the past 20+ years. After Yoshi’s Island in 1995, the majority of Mario’s 2D outings have been through the New Super Mario Bros. series, a series that has increasingly seemed like a snake eating its own tail, as the past 3 entries for each of Nintendo’s major consoles have all seemed incredibly similar in terms of both mechanics and aesthetics. Juxtapose that with the sheer level of innovation, creativity, and difference between any of the original 2D games, and you would not be called crazy to say that modern 2D Mario has seemingly run out of juice. In comes Super Mario Bros. Wonder to dispel any notion of that idea. There is not a moment in Super Mario Bros. Wonder that doesn’t feel bursting with new enemies, mechanics, or set pieces. The game’s precise goal is invoking joy and wonder, and it does both to the utmost degree.   The story of Mario Wonder has you collecting royal wonder seeds from the flower kingdom in order to defeat Bowser, ...

Play Final Fantasy VII Remake Fail to understand Final Fantasy VII Remake Play original Final Fantasy VII Play and finally understand Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade Watch the trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Change all my wallpapers to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth           Guess there’s only one thing left to do.   o    Play Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion The path most taken when making a prequel is making something to be experienced after the original that explains how everything happened and how all the pieces fit into place. An example of this is the Star Wars prequels, where it’s a major story revelation that Darth Vader is actually Anakin Skywalker in Episode 5, and in the prequels, specifically Episode 3, the story shows exactly how that happened both physically and mentally. Episode 3 was never meant to be seen before Episode 5, and the same can be said for Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion . This game exists as...

  A lot of people’s favorite movie post pandemic is Spider-Man No Way Home . It is a film that brings back our favorite characters from the older movies and allows them to interact with all of our current characters, and it also sets up a foundation for Tom Holland to have more typical Spider-Man circumstances in his life. My problem with this movie (a problem that I’ve had since the second time I watched it) is whether I liked the movie for what it does, or did I like the movie for what it was trying to convince me it was doing. Concept versus execution is the name of the game with this review, as the video game Alan Wake has a very similar struggle between its story and gameplay mechanics. Story wise, Alan Wake is an engaging thriller/horror game, with an intriguing plot that kept me wanting to know more the entire time, but a rift begins to form in the overall package when the game side of this game does not deliver in equal measure with what the story is offering to the playe...

  Part 2: Orange Town The Manga One Piece’s 2 nd arc, Orange Town, is the introduction of 3 very important aspects of the series’ world, that being Nami, Buggy, and how Luffy takes on the aspirations and dreams of others. The basic overview of the arc is this: Luffy crashes Buggy the Clown’s party of destruction in Orange Town where he meets Nami, the thief that steals from pirates. Luffy eventually asks Nami to join his crew, and she becomes angry with him after he mentions he’s a pirate. Nami sells out Luffy to Buggy, offering her fealty to him (when in reality she just wants to rob him blind), but backs out when the initiation into his crew is killing Luffy. Luffy escapes with Zoro’s help, and as they hide out in what’s left of Orange Town, they meet Chou-Chou the dog, who they learn has been protecting his deceased master’s pet food store in his memory. When Chou-Chou isn’t able to fight a giant lion, Luffy fights for the dog, kicking the crap out of said lion and Buggy as...

  Part 1: Romance Dawn Romance Dawn, One Piece’s first arc, has been retold an innumerable number of times, starting off as a one shot concept that Oda wrote as a predecessor to One Piece, and ending (as of 2023) as the first episode of the Live Action adaptation of One Piece. With every medium it’s been retold in, different aspects of the story are highlighted given the strength of said medium. With that, I thought it would be a nice exercise to examine the big three mediums One Piece has used, that being the manga, anime, and live action, to see what aspects of the story are hindered or bolstered thanks to how the story can be told. This also is my excuse to rewatch more of One Piece, spoilers ahead. The manga can almost be viewed as the control group in this experiment, because it is the blueprint that other adaptations take from and change. I won’t waste much time singing its praises, but I will say that there is a reason that One Piece is still around today, and that poten...