Category: 2024

Video Game Exclusivity Is Dying And That’s Fantastic!

Published March 11, 2024

I remember thinking to myself, many years ago, about the concept of video games being exclusive to particular platforms and, for the first time, thought about how silly the mere concept was! “After all, Blu-ray discs don’t require specific players to function! Why should video games be any different?” were my thoughts and, while it isn’t quite as simple as that, we now see that the industry is beginning to think this as well. Therefore, I thought I might discuss video game exclusivity, why it’s dying and why that’s fantastic news!

For as long as the video game industry has existed, there have been games exclusive to particular platforms. Limitations were certainly a factor in this since many earlier games used Assembly language, a programming language which prevented programs from being released on multiple devices. This meant that the same game released on different platforms at the time were actually completely different titles and would have their own quirks and differences! However, the advent of high-level programming languages meant that titles were no longer restricted to specific hardware and could be released across multiple platforms. Despite this, we have seen video game exclusivity make its way into the present day with numerous titles artificially restricted due to contractual agreements. The idea was that video game exclusivity helped to move hardware by creating an artificial and, usually, unnecessary difference between platforms that would influence consumer decisions and spending.

Previously restricted to the DS/3DS, the games in the Apollo Justice Trilogy were released on multiple platforms this year.

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My Opinions That Diverge From The Mainstream

Published March 4, 2024

I was recently recording for Victory Achieved Gaming, specifically Ori and the Blind Forest, when, among many other topics, Kathlynn and I began talking about Avatar: The Last Airbender due to the upcoming Netflix show. While it proved to be an interesting discussion, it did end up highlighting a particular difference between myself and other fans and, upon watching it again in editing, I thought it might be interesting to do an article where I share some of my opinions that diverge from the mainstream and briefly discuss why.

1. The Legend Of Korra Is Better Than Avatar: The Last Airbender

A picture of Korra from The Legend of Korra

I might as well start with this opinion since I’ve already touched on it and is what ultimately inspired me to write this blog post. I personally believe Korra to be a superior show to The Last Airbender which is something that I’ve rarely heard, if at all, from other people. However, I do have reasons as to why I have this opinion. Firstly, I don’t think The Last Airbender is as great as everyone makes it out to be. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the show overall, but I have a few issues with it. I actually bounced off the show when I first tried to watch it, finding the humour too juvenile and overwhelming the drama of the first two episodes. I eventually came back to it and persevered which is when I ran into my second problem. The first season has quite a few episodes that seem standalone and not important to the overall story. This eventually turns out not to be the case but it takes almost the whole series to finally see their relevance. I was finally drawn into The Last Airbender in the second season but these blemishes as well as a few other issues mean that I’m not as enthusiastic about the show as some others are. In contrast, I was instantly enamoured with The Legend of Korra due to its tighter storytelling and, in my personal opinion, superior balancing of humour and drama. Additionally, The Legend of Korra took several concepts from the original series that I felt was underdeveloped and fleshed them out beautifully. I’m not saying that The Legend of Korra is without its flaws but they interfered far less with my enjoyment than they did with The Last Airbender. Thus, I personally love The Legend of Korra more, in some ways much more, than The Last Airbender. I may be merely one of very few who believe this but this is something that I believe in completely and unerringly.

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Soseki Natsume: Perhaps The Most Important Author Of The Meiji Era

Published February 26, 2024

I’ve been playing The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles recently and, upon encountering a certain character, I paused, staring at his name and thinking to myself “Is this that famous Japanese author I’ve heard about?” A cursory bit of research quickly confirmed my suspicion but I quickly found myself intrigued at his experience and the impact that he’s had on Japanese literature. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at Soseki Natsume, a man who’s often considered to be the most important author of the Meiji era.

Soseki Natsume was born in 1867, with his birth name being Kinnosuke Natsume, in a rapidly changing Japan which had only ended its policy of isolation, Sakoku, and was in the process of Westernisation and making contact with global powers. Soseki ended up learning the English language and began working as a teacher at several schools. At this time, Japan’s relations were rapidly growing, which would eventually lead to the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, and, in 1900, Soseki was chosen by the Japanese government to study English literature in Britain, making him the first Japanese to do so.

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An Overview Of The Ace Attorney Franchise

Published February 19, 2024

Ace Attorney was a franchise that I had little experience with in the past. I, of course, knew of the character Phoenix Wright and his trademark yell of “Objection!” but, beyond seeing a brief bit of gameplay at a friend’s house, I had never had the opportunity to play an Ace Attorney game. It was about a year ago when I first began playing the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, a compilation of the first three games in the series, and my experience with it led to an intense admiration for Ace Attorney as a whole. Therefore, I thought it worth doing an overview of the Ace Attorney franchise and why I’m excited to play more of the games in the future.

The very first Ace Attorney game, “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney”, came out for the Game Boy Advance in 2001 and was made with a small team of seven people over a period of ten months. Taking the role of Phoenix Wright, Ryuichi Naruhodo in the original Japanese, you must solve cases by collecting evidence before cross-examining witnesses in court and pointing out contradictions. Two sequels, “Justice for All” and “Trials and Tribulations”, were also released for the GBA in 2002 and 2004 respectively but it’s worth noting that these games were only released in Japan at the time. It wasn’t until 2005 when the first game saw an international release as a port to the Nintendo DS with added functionality and a brand new fifth case. The American release proved to be a surprising success, especially strange since visual novels were considered unpopular at the time, and eventually saw the other two games released internationally as well.

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Nippon Animation: One Of The Most Important Anime Studios

Published February 12, 2024

One thing that always surprises me is how numerous anime studios are significantly more discussed in Japan rather than the West and vice versa. This mainly comes down to the difference in taste with niche anime often proving to be more popular in the West than mainstream ones. Nonetheless, it’s always important to remember that fact, that a lot of the anime we consume is niche and that many mainstream titles are ignored, which is why I thought I might highlight Nippon Animation, a company that has proven to be one of the most important and impactful anime studios in the history of the medium, discussing some of their history as well as some particularly notable series from them.

Nippon Animation was founded in 1975 after Zuiyo Eizo, a studio founded in 1969, was split into Nippon Animation and Zuiyo. Zuiyo Eizo had been working on World Masterpiece Theater and Nippon Animation continued to work on these series. While this left arguably the most famous of all World Masterpiece Theater series, that being Heidi, Girl of the Alps in the hands of Zuiyo, Nippon Animation continued to work on World Masterpiece Theater from their founding to 1997 and then from 2007 to 2009, creating international hits such as A Dog of Flanders, Anne of Green Gables and Tales of Little Women to name only a few.

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Some Stop Motion Animated Works That I Love

Published February 5, 2024

With the rise of CGI animation, we’ve seen other forms of animation struggle to be made in the West, something which I personally find to be quite sad. However, a form of animation that I don’t often bring up on this blog, certainly not as often as traditional or CGI, is stop motion. Some of my favourite animated works are stop motion and, so, I thought it might be interesting to highlight some in particular that I love and that I’d recommend to any fan of animation.

1. Robot Chicken – Snail Rides A Turtle

Robot Chicken is a show that is often quite reliant on pop culture references and, when you don’t know what they’re referencing, it can take some of the humour from the sketch. However, there are quite a few that don’t and one of my favourites is a mere three second sketch where a snail rides on the back of a turtle and exclaiming in delight about how fast they’re going. It’s a very simple joke, particularly in regards to Robot Chicken, but it’s one of several from the show that has stuck with me throughout these years.

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Some Of The Best Video Games I’ve Played Recently

Published January 29, 2024

I’ve been playing quite a few video games recently across both my Steam Deck and my PC and there have been quite a few that I found incredibly impressive. Some of these games have been popular releases but then others seem to be, in my personal opinion, overlooked by the greater gaming population. Therefore, I thought that it might be interesting to take a look at some of the best video games that I’ve played recently and highlight some titles that I think are worthy of achieving greater success.

Wild Guns Reloaded

I wasn’t exactly sure what type of game Wild Guns Reloaded was as I sat down to play it for the first time. I’d heard it referred to as a rail shooter but I also heard that it contained platforming and bullet hell as well. Turns out that the genre Wild Guns Reloaded belongs to is “Shooting Gallery” and that the original game, Wild Guns, was seen as one of the best shooting gallery games. Wild Guns Reloaded is a remaster of the 1994 original and takes place in the American Wild West that also features robots, laser guns and other sci-fi elements. You control one of four characters who have to dodge incoming bullets while mowing down the enemies and bosses that come wave after wave. The game can be quite challenging to get to grips with, definitely worth looking up the controls before you start playing, but the superb music, gorgeous pixel art, tight controls and more make it a game that is well worth learning, playing and mastering.

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A Change To The Blog Post Schedule

Published January 22, 2024

It’s been over four years since I released my first post on this blog and, ever since, I’ve been releasing two blog posts a week almost continuously. However, I’ve recently felt the need to change this schedule due to other aspects of my life. Therefore, I thought it worth devoting a blog post to this change in schedule, what’s happening to the blog for the foreseeable future and some of the reasons why I feel the need to do this.

Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room, the change in blog post schedule itself. Rather than continue to release two blog posts a week, I’m now going to be releasing only one blog post a week. This was actually something that I intended to do far sooner, probably within months of first starting the blog, but I felt the need to continue after several of my early goals weren’t met. I believed that having more and more content on here would eventually solve the problem and, to some extent, it has. Viewership has increased over time with more views in 2023 than in 2019, 2020 and 2021 combined! However, I will say that a couple of those early goals have, even after all this time, still not been met and the benefit of releasing two blog posts a week has steadily depreciated over time. That’s why I feel that now is the time to go back to my original plan and release blog posts on a weekly basis.

A graph showing blog viewership in, from left to right, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively. While it’s true there’s been a small dip from 2022 to 2023, both dwarf the viewership from prior years.

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Now Is The Time For Anime Ltd To Release Tokusatsu

Published January 18, 2024

I recently went to the cinema in what seemed like a very, VERY, long time to see the newest Godzilla film, Godzilla Minus One. For those wondering, I thought it was an excellent movie and is one that I’m eagerly anticipating seeing again with some friends once the home video release is out but I also took note of the UK and Ireland distributor of the film, that being Anime Ltd. I was already aware of this as I’d read that they’d expanded the number of cinemas due to demand but I still wondered whether the film would prove successful for them. It seems that it has as Godzilla Minus One has already become the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film ever in the UK and Ireland box office! Therefore, I believe that now is the time for Anime Ltd to finally move into an area that I’ve been asking companies for a while now, that being to release tokusatsu films and TV series.

Just to briefly remind readers of what tokusatsu is, it refers to Japanese live-action media that focus on the use of special effects and is most heavily associated with the Kaiju and Henshin Hero genres. I was curious whether Anime Ltd had even released any live-action media before and, while certainly not comprehensive, I looked through their website’s catalogue in order to see. As far as I can tell, the only live-action media that Anime Ltd have released prior to Godzilla Minus One is the live-action adaptation of Tokyo Ghoul as well as two documentaries, Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki and 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki. Even if they have released some others, if you’re aware of any others feel free to leave this information in the comments below, it’s clear that tokusatsu is a relatively underdeveloped part of their business model and one that I would love to see expand.

The poster for Godzilla Minus One. — Godzilla Minus One has proven to be an unexpected international hit!

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Taking A Look At My Steam Replay 2023

Published January 15, 2024

I had just taken a look at the Steam frontpage last night and I noticed a big banner saying “Steam Year In Review 2023”. As you might imagine, I was quite pleased to see this since I was not only curious about my statistics over the course of 2023 but also because my article “Taking A Look At My Steam Replay 2022” was one of my more popular posts and doing a follow-up makes perfect sense to me. Therefore, I thought it worth taking a look at my Steam Replay 2023 and breaking down some of the information within it. Also, as before, I’ve made my Steam Replay public so that anyone can take a look at it themselves if they are curious.

First thing to note is that the number of games that I’ve played has gone up slightly from 197 to 200 and the number of new games, those that I’ve not played before, going from 151 to 154. As before though, I do have to confess that these numbers are corrupted by the fact that I subscribe to Humble Choice and that I use a program to farm Steam cards off of these games. More accurate to look at perhaps is that I got 1854 achievements across 61 games, an increase from 1302 across 59 games last year.

A quick summary of my Steam Replay 2023.

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