Serious Time

Okay, so it’s not really this blog’s place to talk about Real Issues, it’s a place to talk about fun things. But I think that for posterity, I should take a few moments to discuss my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic. Best case scenario, it’ll be fun for Future Me to look back on how terribly misinformed I was. Worst case… I’m dead and it’ll be fun for you to look back on how terribly misinformed I was.

COVID-19, as I’ve learned, is a totally new virus that the world was understandably unprepared for. To a degree, I guess. While obviously it’s going to take time to study, understand, and come up with a vaccine, a few news articles/tweets I’ve read have suggested that the infrastructure to get out ahead of something like this just doesn’t exist. Or we reacted too late? I really don’t know. I’m not going to claim to be an expert. It just seems to me that maaaybe this is a good opportunity for governments the world over to be more ready for this kind of catastrohpe.

And I don’t think that catastrophe is hyperbole. While a huge percentage of people who contract the virus do recover, it’s still killed thousands, and those numbers are just going to keep going up. Schools are shutting down, offices are issuing work-from-home mandates, major sports leagues have suspended their seasons, the stock market is crumbling to pieces. The entire country of Italy is closed for business. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like the backstory to a dystopian movie or something. I’m actually a little frightened of how much worse it’s going to get, and what that’s going to mean for human society.

And that’s my main fear. I’ve made it no secret that I’m not terribly fond of the human race, but that doesn’t mean I want to see it suffer like this. And maybe it really won’t be all that bad. Maybe everything I know is just a product of the overreacting that the internet is no fond of. Entirely possible! After all, I’ve only been keeping up with the goings-on from news reports and Twitter. Only one of those is even semi-credible.

But the other thing I worry about is that someone I care about will be afflicted. Myself? Not so much. I’m young(ish), I’m in the best shape of my adult life, and I have no existing medical issues. I’m near the bottom of COVID-19’s hit list. I beat pneumonia as a weak little 9-year-old, I can beat a beefed-up version of it now. (Of course now that I say that, I’m as good as doomed.) But I have a lot of family members who are up in that 65+ range, many with existing health issues. And I genuinely worry for them. I’m hoping for the best, and am ready to help out in any way that I can, but I’m still deeply concerned about all of this.

Anyway, it sounds like this is really all just getting started. Like, it’s going to keep seriously affecting the world for months to come. I’ll admit that I didn’t take it very seriously at first, thinking it would pass fairly quickly and that it was just media blowing something out of proportion. But now “experts” (I put experts in scare quotes because I haven’t investigated the source of these claims) are projecting a death toll of over a million in the United States alone, so… yeah. Maybe it’s time to stop joking about people hoarding toilet paper, and start being one of the people hoarding toilet paper.

Legendary Update: Volume 1

As I continue to slowly plod my way through Mega Man Legends 2, I find myself wondering more and more “Do I genuinely enjoy the first game, or is it just nostalgia?” Because MML2 really isn’t doing much for me, and I can’t pinpoint exactly why.

I touched on this before in regards to the plot, but I think the bigger world also hurts the gameplay, in a sense. In MML2, the story has you go through a handful of elemental-themed dungeons to collect the four sacred macguffins. This makes it feel a lot like Zelda, which should be a good thing, but I don’t want Mega Man Legends to be Zelda. The original game had a collection of underground tunnels and ruins that seem segregated at first, but as you collect various weapons and power-ups, you slowly discover that most of them are actually smaller sections of one gigantic interconnected maze. It was amazing! Now that I think about it, MML might have been the first 3D metroidvania. MML2 has no such reveal, as each dungeon is located on a separate island.

Plus, the conceit for exploring the ruins in MML is “maybe this one will have the legendary treasure!”, which is significantly less video game tropey, and just more fun in my opinion. I’m way more excited to keep adventuring when I don’t know what’s at the end of the next ruins. Knowing that the goal is just to check another goober off the list isn’t nearly as compelling. (Though the compulsive part of my brain begs to differ.)

At this point, I’m probably about three-fifths of the way through the game, and I’m desperately hoping that the worst is behind me. See, the second dungeon is the Water Temple equivalent, which allows you to flood or drain each level as required. Only you need each floor to be flooded at pretty much all times to get anywhere, so it’s basically 90% underwater. And Mega Man moves SO SLOW underwater. Easily half-speed, and it is so impossibly tedious. I think I spent two hours in this dungeon, and I’d bet that I could have shaved off at least half of that if I’d been able to move at a reasonable speed. Maybe it’s my fault and I missed the Gravity Suit upgrade, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think that it’s just a really poor design decision.

Now let’s talk about a greasy anime trope that made me sigh in contempt. MML has a scene where you walk in on Roll while she’s changing, which is like… ugh, really? But it’s a very quick scene and I think it’s even optional. You’ll miss it completely unless you go into the wrong door at the wrong time. MML2 has a similar scene, where you walk in on Roll in the bathtub. It’s not long either, but this one is forced. You literally cannot move the story forward without seeing it. I suppose that the bathtub scene does get replaced with a “depressed Roll” scene if you treat her like garbage, but why would you do that? Who would do that to Roll? So yeah, the bathtub thing is completely unavoidable.

MML2 doubles down on this, though. About halfway through the game, you’re pitted against Tron in a boss battle. Once you win, the robot she’ piloting explodes, and the camera switches to a blushing Mega Man. A couple of Tron’s servbot cronies then sheepishly explain to her that her clothes were burned off in the explosion, and that she is now buck naked. In what other medium besides anime do characters completely fail to notice that their clothes are no longer present? It’s ridiculous in the worst way, and it just sits on this reaction shot of Mega Man for what seems like ages as Tron admonishes him for staring and being a big ol’ pervert. Yikes.

So that’s that for this update on my Mega Man Legends 2 playthrough. It’s possible that the rest of the game could really turn it all around and amaze me, but I’m thinking that’s probably not going to happen. I think what’s going to happen is that I’m going to get to the end, finally beat it, and then never play it again. I’m having a hard time coming to grips with this concept, but I think that I might legitimately dislike Mega Man Legends 2. Is that kind of thing even possible?

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2020

Turok (Switch) – A real bait-and-switch, since I grew up knowing the N64 subtitle “Dinosaur Hunter”, but really you’re mostly killing people and the occasional velociraptor. Aside from that, I really liked this game. It’s a lot like DOOM, but in 3D and has lots of platforming. The biggest failing is that the first boss (and only the first boss) is almost impossibly difficult. I burned through seven of my nine lives in that fight.

Timesplitters 2 (GC) – Co-oped the story mode, and it was a wonderful nostalgia trip. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like big studios don’t really make shooters like this any more. Specifically, ones with big maze-like levels, varied objectives, and a willingness to be unapologetically weird. And it’s the last one that matters the most to me. I’m less turned off by murdering hundreds of people when they’re over-the-top cartoons.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2020

Turtles all the way down

I’ve been listening to the soundtracks from TMNT III: The Manhattan Project and TMNT IV: Turtles in Time all week. If you’re not overly familiar with theses games (why are you here?), many of the songs are remixes of the theme song from the 1987 TV series. If they don’t feature the full theme in some way, they absolutely take pains to include the “heroes in a half shell” and/or “Turtle power!” beats.

Taking it another level down, I’ve also been playing lot of remixes of these songs. Many through OC Remix, others from random YouTubers. But the point remains that in many cases, we’re looking at remixes of remixes here, and the idea of that is making my head spin. At this point, I’m kind of hoping to stumble upon a remix of a remix of a remix, because I think that will probably be the key to finding the meaning of life.

If you really stop to think about it though, this isn’t a terribly strange phenomenon, especially at this point in time. There are probably a lot of franchise-based games that have the same kind of thing going on. Many modern entries in long-lived video game franchises (Mario, Kirby, etc) use official remixes of tunes from older games. I don’t have an example on-hand, but I’m sure those remixes are being remixed by unofficial musicians all the time.

So yeah, it’s not really an unusual thing. I’ve just never stopped to think about it before, and I decided it would be an interesting thought to share.

Not impressed? Fine. Listen to this. It’s fun.

Chasing a Legend

I replay Mega Man Legends fairly often. Probably every other year, at least. I could likely even squeeze in more replays, as it’s a pretty short game. It’s an all-time favourite of mine, even as its age becomes more and more apparent with each subsequent run.

Despite this, I’ve only ever played the sequel once, and I didn’t even finish it, at that. The final boss was just too tough for me, and I guess I must have been distracted by some other shiny thing before I could work up the skill to finally conquer it. I’ve been in a very PS1 kind of headspace lately, so I decided last weekend that it’s time to right this long-standing wrong.

Mega Man Legends 2 just isn’t landing with me the same way the first game does. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the same nostalgia for it that I do for the original. I don’t know. It’s certainly a better game, in technical terms. The graphics are considerably better, the controls are less terrible, the world is bigger, the dungeons are more impressive, the voice acting is even wackier. I could go on.

What bothers me are just a few little things. Most of all, that the lock-on feature is a friggin’ idiot, quite commonly locking onto the enemy farthest from Mega Man, sometimes refusing to switch to closer threats. A lot of the time, it shows a strong preference to lock on to enemies that are around corners, which is never helpful. The solution, of course, would be to not bother using the lock-on, but it’s way too hard to aim manually at anything that isn’t stationary. So that’s a bit of a frustration.

I’m also not super crazy about the bigger scope of the story. Yes, of course it was going to build up to that, and it’s not that the plot really suffers for it. I just have a personal preference for the story of the first game, which focused on a single island and its many mysteries. In MML2, you’re hopping between all these islands, and the fate of the world is at stake, so on and so forth. That’s all fine, but Kattleox island had so much personality, whereas the smaller locales in MML2 haven’t been developed enough to have that same level of charm.

Lastly, the first dungeon boss was just insanely annoying. This stupid frog boss took me four tries to beat, mostly because the room is constantly flooded with things trying to kill you. For one, there are spike traps zipping around the perimeter of the room, and these little tadpole guys flopping about in the center, between the raised platforms that the boss jumps around on. The boss itself is constantly spewing out bubbles that track you until they hit a wall or you shoot them, and there’s a respawning dragonfly flitting around above the arena that exists solely to screw up your lock-on. You might have to see it to get a good idea of how badly this fight is stacked against you, but trust me. It’s rough.

But I’m only like a quarter of the way though as of this writing, so who knows? Maybe it’ll really start to click with me once I get a little farther in. I hope so. I feel giddy every time I play the original game, and it would be awfully nice if I found even half as much enjoyment in the sequel.

A dream, that I am living

Last fall, I was presented with an opportunity to live out a life-long dream of mine: to dress up in a mascot suit and do mascot things. For the sake of preserving said mascot’s secret identity, I won’t say exactly which organization I have been mascotting for, but I will hint that it would surprise literally nobody.

Since that time, I’ve continued to don the costume for numerous different events: sports matches, fundraisers, meet & greets, etc. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned from observing other mascots that I’ve got a lot of room for improvement. Even behind the mask, I’ve had a somewhat reserved personality. I wave and pose and sometimes even dance a bit, but I don’t think that’s really enough. There are antics to be had! Being animated and outgoing is the core purpose of mascot!

Another thing I’ve learned is that I’m woefully out of touch with today’s youth. This is no surprise, but still makes me a little sad. This mostly comes in the form of me not knowing any Fortnite dances, thus disappointing many teenagers who shout indecipherable requests at me. I like the little kids who run up to give me hugs and high-fives, though. One kid even told me that he sees me in commercials all the time, which made me happy, because I knew that at least one kid out there actually watches TV instead of just YouTube.

I’ve also been doing this pro-bono, giving up my precious, precious time for no material or financial gain. I was given a gift card once, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it and have never asked about being compensated. I like being able to consider this as volunteering. It’s not really a “for the good of the community” kind of volunteering, so I’m not sure if it would make a good bullet point on a resume, but it’s still something I can be proud of myself for doing.

I guess there isn’t too much else to say on the subject. Even everything I’ve typed up so far doesn’t really need to be said, but I figure it’s an interesting little footnote to my life. And, I’ve got this blog… so I might as well make use of it. If nothing else, it may help to bore any would-be cyber-stalkers away.

Not the JackBest

When I purchased Whipseey and the Lost Atlas a couple weeks ago, I bought JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword at the same time. They were the same price, and both on sale with the same discount applied. I probably should have clued in that they’re by the same developer/publisher.

Indeed, Blowfish Studios is not making the best name for themselves in my book. While I’m somewhat ambivalent about Whipseey (it’s too colourful to be mad at), I can say confidently that I did not especially like JackQuest.

Unlike Whipseey, JackQuest has a little meat to it. But not much, mind you. It took me about an hour and a half to finish. That includes a lot of time being stuck and going in circles because the entire game is one samey-looking dungeon with no direction and one false wall that you must find to move on. That said, JackQuest is a wee little metroidvania, and it does have power-ups, keys, switches, save points, etc, etc. All the Video Game Things you expect, as opposed to Whipseey’s very minimalist design.

While I am mildly annoyed at JackQuest’s whole “here’s a maze, figure it out” design, it’s not technically a flaw. You can roughly navigate by landmarks, and while it takes about half the game to earn it, there is a rudimentary map available. It’s old-school design. I played games like this for years and didn’t knock them because they lacked features that would lead me directly to each point of interest. In a game that was more fun, I might even appreciate the invitation to draw up my own map.

The real problem with JackQuest is that the controls are loosey-goosey, and the physics don’t feel like they make sense. Jack has a really weird gravity to his jumps, and wall-jumping in particular feels imprecise and more difficult than it should be. I think if the developer has spent just a little more time tightening up how Jack moves, it could have increased my enjoyment of this game by a significant margin. Alas.

So what else is left to say? I don’t know… To be honest, JackQuest is largely unmemorable. I’ve forgotten most of the fine details already, and have been left with little more than a foggy memory of being unimpressed. I think the boss fights were alright? There are about four bosses, and they do present a halfway decent challenge. Or at least the spider boss did, as I remember needing to retry it a few times before I defeated it. The rest are part of that foggy blur.

Of course, I would not recommend JackQuest. I spent four dollars on it, so sure, I got my money’s worth in gameplay. But it wasn’t an enjoyable experience. Just a middling plod through tropes, with nothing really special or unique to share. It isn’t a bad game, but with so many similar options available there’s really no reason to bother with JackQuest. Just pony up a few more dollars for Hollow Knight instead. It costs only slightly more and is a vastly better video game.

Let’s Laugh At Americans

I’ve never really been a fan of King of the Hill. I would sometimes watch it (or have it on in the background while playing video games) on Sunday nights when it was on between all the other shows I wanted to watch. But it was never something I would have said I liked.

Which makes one wonder why I’ve recently decided to dive in and see how far into the series I can get before getting tired of it. There are thirteen seasons! I would have guessed ten at most.

To the point, I’ve finished the first season, and it’s been… okay. I like the idea of exploring how ignorant Americans are, but it isn’t terribly funny. Mostly just groan-worthy and/or uncomfortable. That said, it seems like there’s one exceptionally funny punchline in each episode. The best example, and easily my favourite moment in the series so far is this line:

Maybe it’s just me, but I cracked up hard at that. I hurt myself laughing. It’s not the funniest line, but the whole scene really made it work. Something about the perfectly flat delivery and how unexpected it was. Peggy immediately leaving without saying a word was the perfect response.

Will season two have a similar moment? Will it have more than one? I don’t know, but I’m sure as heck probably going to find out soon eventually.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: January 2020

Remember back in the day when I used to write a little blurb for each of these? I don’t think it’s going to be a regular thing again, but… Man, I played a large variety of video games in January. Considering that AGDQ sapped up a lot of my free time and school is eating away the rest of it… You start to realize that most of these games are either very short, or carried over from last month.

~ Game Over ~

Mega Man X (SNES) – The opening video game of the year, as per usual. Short writeup here.

Mega Man Legends (PS1) – I really do adore this game. Sadly, every time I go back to replay it, the… unfortunate control scheme gets harder and harder to re-acclimatize to. And the stupid racing game is impossible but I want the Shining Laser. Wah wah wah gamer tears.

Army Men Air Attack (PS1) – I kind of wish I’d played this back when it was new, as I think I would have really enjoyed it then. Looking at it now, it’s an amusing little curio almost certainly lost to time. What I found most odd about it is that there’s a massive difficulty spike right in the middle of the game. If you can tough it through missions six to nine, it’s smooth sailing to the end. Also the co-pilot voice clips are super repetitive and annoying.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: January 2020

Top 10 Video Games of 2019

Here’s a fun piece of trivia for you: I played 99 different video games throughout 2019. If you averaged it out, that would mean I spent 3.69 days playing each one. That’s obviously inaccurate and meaningless, but it was a way to introduce the real topic: The Top 10 Video Games of 2019.

Like last year, I’m using more traditional criteria again: for a game to be given nominee status, I have to have beaten it, and it must have been released in the calendar year 2019. The fact that I have to have beaten a game to count it is harsher than most critics, but really, if I couldn’t be bothered to finish a game, would I have counted it anyway?

After whittling down the list of 99, I came out with a rather surprising 26 nominees. That’s actually a lot more than I expected. Mostly because I felt like I left a lot of big 2019 games unfinished. That said, TOP TEN, GO!

~ Honorable Mention ~
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne

Here’s the thing: as much as I enjoyed Iceborne, I don’t think it qualifies. It’s a 2019 release, and I beat it, but… it’s just a DLC expansion. I know that I make the rules, but I don’t know if I can allow this. I can certainly allow it an honorable mention, though!

All that aside, I think that Iceborne is really great. It adds a ton of value to Monster Hunter World, though it also has a price tag to match. There’s a whole new campaign, with tons of new monsters, and just as many new features. I already wrote a whole article about this one, so you can go and check it out. Iceborne is a little more difficult than I would like in my old age (it is called Master Rank, after all), but it was a lot of fun to dive back into MHW for a while.

~ 10 ~
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

You know it’s a weird year when a Zelda game shows up on the bottom of my top ten list. There’s a reason for that, though. This Link’s Awakening is more or less a carbon copy of the Game Boy original. Yes, it looks and sounds different, but it’s almost exactly the same otherwise. And that’s fine, because the original is my personal favourite Zelda of all time, but I still would have liked to see a little more new/changed content.

Let’s put that behind us and talk about why I like this game. Link’s Awakening is my favourite Zelda for a reason: It’s got one of my favourite worlds ever. For my money, Koholint has more personality per square inch than any other Zelda. No part of the island seems sparse or boring, everything has a place and a purpose. The dungeons are probably my favourite set in the series as well; they’re all complex but very rarely tedious. Plus, it’s just completely weird, and I love that. Oh, and I guess the remade graphics and music are pretty astounding, too.

~ 9 ~
Pokémon Shield

True story: Pokémon Shield was under contention to get on this list for a long time. It was actually going to be number ten, and might have been ousted by Iceborne if I hadn’t relegated that to an honorable mention. But then I remembered that Max Raid Battles exist and suddenly it became a lot easier to place those last few titles.

Pokémon Shield (and Sword) are… They’re very standard Pokémon games. While they’re the first HD games in the series, they still feel a lot like handheld games. There’s the Wild Area, which is completely open and cool (and super laggy when you’re online), but the rest of the game is very constrained and limited. However, the new Pokémon introduced for generation VIII are generally really great, and the previously mentioned Max Raid Battles are super fun. Pokémon’s campaigns are usually very easy, and I’m not hardcore enough to stand a chance in mulitplayer battles, but Max Raid Battles split the difference by letting you and three other trainers (CPU or human) fight it out against a single super-powered Pokémon. It’s literally the only time in any Pokémon game that I go into a battle not knowing whether I will win or lose and I am so thankful for that. Sadly, I’m sure it’s a one-time feature and will go away next generation, so I’m going to really enjoy it while I can!

~ 8 ~
Yoshi’s Crafted World

There has been some contention online regarding where Yoshi’s Crafted World places in the ranks of Yoshi games. Lots of people seem to think it’s better than Yoshi’s Woolly World. I think those people are absolutely nuts because everything about Woolly World is excellent. But Crafted World is still a very good Yoshi adventure.

In a very general sense, Yoshi’s Crafted World is exactly what you’d expect from Yoshi: walk around, eat up enemies, chuck eggs at things, and find secrets. Only this game has a really creative and well-executed theme of being made entirely of crafts. Everything looks like it was assembled out of household objects and stationery. Not only is the aesthetic unique and enjoyable, but it also allowed for the designers to come up with all sorts of fun new stage gimmicks. Even the boss battles are all designed around what kind of material each boss is made out of. There are a few things that hold this game back from excellence (bad soundtrack, tedious collectibles), but I genuinely enjoyed the time I spent with it.

~ 7 ~
Dragon Quest Builders 2

When I played the first Dragon Quest Builders, I didn’t really feel it right away, and let it sit for like two years before picking it up again and beating it. When I played Dragon Quest Builders 2, I basically did nothing else with my free time between the start and end of it.

DQB2 is an incredible game. If you need a quick primer, it’s a Dragon Quest game that plays sort of like Minecraft instead of your typical JRPG. The first game is great as well, but DQB2 improves on it in basically every way and stands as a shining beacon of pure delight. What I really appreciated about it is that it does something that few games do: it makes NPCs feel important. For one, DQB2 gives you an AI partner who will help you collect materials and slay monsters. More importantly, building up the towns on the game’s islands will increase their populations. The people who move in will then have needs and wants of their own, but many of them will also contribute to the town by cooking, crafting, or fighting off invading monsters. Each town also has a major construction project central to the plot, and ultimately all the townspeople will rally together to help build it under your guidance. It’s really satisfying and provides a unique sense of community that you don’t typically get from single-player games. Oh and also it’s just really fun to be able to explore a Dragon Quest world in a more adventurey style. More, please.

~ 6 ~
Luigi’s Mansion 3

At their core, the Luigi’s Mansion games are very simple. Go here, suck up ghosts, go to next place, suck up ghosts, repeat until win. But what really makes them shine are all the little details in between those basic steps. And Luigi’s Mansion 3 absolutley nails those moments.

The first thing you’ll see when booting up Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a surprisingly long cutscene of Lugi, Polterpup, and all the rest going to a grand fancy hotel. Please note that the visuals are incredible; it is significantly better looking than any video game in the Mario franchise has a right to be. It’s also important to note that the characters are absolutely bursting with personality, everyone has these fun little character quirks and they’re all so entertainingly cartoony. There is a constant stream of gags that are consistently funny. All of these things persist for the duration of the game, and make it probably the single most charming video game I’ve played all year. That’s not to discount the gameplay by any means. While the ghost-to-ghost suck-’em-up business is repetitive and does get a little tiresome after a while, the boss ghosts were refreshingly unique, and I was constantly engaged by all the little environmental puzzles scattered throughout. Spoiler: the real reward for finding all the collectibles is the sense of satisfaction you get for figuring out how to collect them all.

~ 5 ~
Blaster Master Zero 2

Blaster Master Zero was one of my favourite early Switch games, a classic 80’s title that was thoroughly refined to make it more dynamic and playable. So when I heard that IntiCreates was making a sequel, I almost literally jumped out of my chair in joy.

You have to wonder, what could they do to make Blaster Master Zero better? Well, this sequel is really more of an “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” kind of thing. The game is generally the same as before: a side-scrolling exploration platformer with top-down shooter levels mixed in for flavour. The one major refinement is the world map: now you don’t have to truck through every single area when you need to backtrack; you just choose a planet from a menu and you’re off! And that’s the other thing that really stood out to me: around each world are tiny little plantetoids that each host their own challenge stage. They’re all quite short, but tend to be tougher than anything on the main path, and it’s a lot of fun to figure out and conquer them all. Otherwise, BMZ2 is basically more of the same, and in that case, that’s a very good thing. Except for the waifu robot and plant woman with literal giant melons. Could’ve done without those.

~ 4 ~
Tetris 99

Everything on the list up until this point has been pretty well on-brand for me. They’ve literally all been sequels (and a remake) in long-running franchises that I’ve been crazy about forever. So here’s something a little different. A little.

Sure, you could call Tetris 99 a sequel. But that’s not the point. The point is that someone (Nintendo) finally made a Tetris game that has truly made me excited about Tetris. And how did they do it? By turning it into a battle royale game, where 99 players square off to see who will be the last one standing. It’s unexpectedly brilliant, and while I don’t put aside nearly enough time for it, I always have an absolute blast when I do sit down with it for a while. It’s got that insidious “just one more round” thing going on, where I always want to play another match because maybe this will be the time where I finally win. Did I mention it’s free to play? Sure, you can pay some money for a couple extra modes, but all the important content is free (though you do need a Switch Online subscription), so there’s really no reason not to play. All that is to say, while Tetris 99 is the game I’ve spent the least time with on this list, it’s made an absolutely huge impression on me and I’ll definitely keep going back to it until the servers die.

~ 3 ~
Fitness Boxing

If Tetris 99 is the game I spent the least time with, maybe I ought to talk a little about the game I spent the most time with in 2019. Well… is it really even a game? Certainly it has some game-like elements, but really it’s more of an exercise app. And yet here is, at Number 3.

There’s no doubt that this is the real wildcard entry on this list. It is in fact an exercise program of sorts, and more often than not I dreaded having to boot it up. But hear me out, there’s one thing about it that really makes it stand out from the rest: it worked for me. Fitness Boxing has been out for over a year now, and I am still using it regularly. Less now than I did through most of 2019 because reasons, but it still gets loaded up once or twice a week. Maybe it has more to do with my mindset for exercise being better than ever before, but I’m giving the software at least partial credit here. I still hate exercising, but I’ve found that (shadow)boxing is really my thing. It’s the exercise I hate least, and I find it engaging enough to keep me coming back consistently. I may not always be having fun while using the software, but Fitness Boxing has definitely helped me become happier on the whole by playing a huge role in improving my physical fitness level. Though it could really use a DLC pack to help freshen it up a bit.

~ 2 ~
Shovel Knight: King of Cards

Looking back, I am completely puzzled by the fact that I didn’t include Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment on my Top 7 list for 2017. It is, to this day, my favourite chapter in the Shovel Knight Treasure Trove. Perhaps I should have made that a Top 8 list?

So that was a weird tangent. I’m talking about the Shovel Knight campaign that came out in 2019, here. King of Cards! It’s really good! In fact, it’s excellent! While it doesn’t quite satisfy the same way that Specter of Torment did, it’s definitely my second-favourite, which I suppose makes it perfect to be slotted in at spot #2 on this list. To justify this placement: let’s talk gameplay. King of Cards is a 2D platformer like all the other Shovel Knights, but he’s got a unique tackle-and-bounce move that makes it feel appreciably different. It’s a bit hard to wrap your head around a first, but once you get going, it’s makes for silky-smooth gameplay that I’m sure would be an amazing speedrun to watch (spoiler: it is). Couple that with dozens of micro-stages, each with their own gimmick to test King Knight’s abilities, and you’ve got an absolute master class in game design. To top it all off, this is by a wide margin the most entertaining story in the Shovel Knight oeuvre. It’s legitimately funny, and I couldn’t help being totally charmed by King Knight, despite the fact that he is an insufferable dick.

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Resident Evil 2 (2019)

And so, on this list that is almost entirely made up of sequels and remakes… Of course we have a remake of a sequel at the tip-top.

I know that you’re not going to believe it, but the honest truth is that I just don’t get especially excited about very many video game releases any more. But RE2 Remake was an exception. A huge exception. I was so very eager to get my hands on this game, and I was so very relieved when it turned out to be pretty much all I could have wanted. This is more a re-imagining than a straight-up remake, changing a few story beats here and there, messing with the locations of items and the way you progress. The gameplay also changed dramatically, going from static camera angles to the over-the-shoulder view that RE4 pioneered. Despite that, it doesn’t feel like it’s morphed into an action game, as the zombies are still generally slow and most players are going to find that ammo isn’t quite plentiful enough. I like just about every change made to this game, which is an amazing feat since the original RE2 is my sentimental favourite in the series. Capcom did a fantastic job reconstructing a classic video game, and I really hope that the magic works just as well when the RE3 remake releases this spring.