Post by Cervantes on Dec 27, 2021 5:06:24 GMT
It's that time of the year, when we remember our best and worst experiences to give them very specific, strangely named awards. Here are my picks:
Game: I thought a lot about this. The rule is that it can't be a game that I had played before: otherwise, Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma would keep getting this award almost every year. The highlights were Crimson Skies, Mega Man 4, 9 & 11 and Okami (which I just started), all of them almost perfect games. But while I loved them all, and while I hate to admit that this year's award is going to another big AAA game (last year was Shadow of the Tomb Raider), I'm giving it to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PC). I'm a long time fan of the series and only this year found time to finally play its most famous release: great setting, carefully designed map, interesting enemies to fight, very well written characters and meaningful stories. It's the only game I know of that even clocking in around 170h of play time barely had any padding: storywise and in sidequests, there was none; the only padding was the busywork in finding question marks on the map, but that was forgivable, considering how huge the world is. The game has its flaws, but for how much content there is in it (and how well crafted it is), it was going to be hard to choose another game over it, though Mega Man 9 came really, really close to be my final pick.
Game series: While best individual game went to The Witcher 3, I really spent most of my time in 2021 going through all the Mega Man (Classic and Game Boy series) games, which was the best gaming experience I had in these last few years. With 17 games in total, it's astonishing how I only disliked (and even then, not totally) two games, MM8 and MM & Bass. I created a thread to discuss the entire series, including a little commentary on each of them and ranking my favourite ones.
Movie: Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (aka Samurai X 4). The Rurouni Kenshin movie series is maybe the best live action adaptation of any manga/anime I know of, and I'm admired that I didn't know about it until recently. Truly fantastic stuff, the highlights being the 2nd, 3rd and 4th movies (but the 1st and 5th ones are no slouch either). I'm picking the 4th one because the more serious and grounded tone, along with the beautiful photography and tragic story made it the most memorable to me, although the 3rd movie is absolutely fantastic and I could pick any of them as my favourite. I was thinking of awarding this as a "Best movie series", but that went to...
Movie series: Rocky/Creed (I think cobretti would agree with me, even with the low body count). This year I finally decided to watch/rewatch all the six Rocky movies plus the two Creed ones. I'm impressed at how well the series holds up and how many quality entries there are in it: with the exception of 5 and maybe 3 (4 is cheesy but tasty cheese) every movie was enjoyable and engaging, which is impressive considering how they all mostly deal with the same basic structure (hard times, training, emotional fight). How many times can we say that the sixth entry in a series is maybe the best one? The truth is that there is heart in these movies: you can feel how much effort and personal experience go into them, and how Stallone treats Rocky and the other characters with all the reverence they deserve. Rocky 6 is the highlight.
Animated movie: Tenshi no Tamago (aka Angel's Egg) left quite an impression. Besides being among the most beautiful animation I've ever seen, if not *the* most beautiful one, it was created from a collaboration between Yoshitaka Amano (the concept artist for classic Final Fantasy games) and Mamoru Oshii (director of Ghost in the Shell), so it's deeply melancholic and philosophical, with a very disturbing ending once you get how fucked up really is the world that its characters live in. The plot is barely comprehensible for most of the movie, but when you finally get what kind of setting it is, it becames a shockingly great world and story.
Tv show: How To with John Wilson. It's a great comedy/documentary show in which John Wilson somehow finds some of the most deranged people around, set mostly in New York (so it was not that hard to find those people). The episode in which he finds the anti-circumcision guy and the other one with the Mandela effect people are bizarre and funny in a way that I was just not expecting. Shout-outs to Nathan for You, The Witcher season 2 and Squid Game, you can't go wrong with any of them.
Animated series: Castlevania. Season 4 was so great and fixed so many little grievances that I had with the previous seasons that I can hardly find any fault in it. The fighting scenes were especially awesome.
Webshow: KBash. I thought about giving this to Sega Lord X again, but I don't want to repeat last year - and KBash outdid himself in 2021, with longer in depth videos exploring every main Metal Gear Solid game, the Drakengard/Nier series, Viewtiful Joe, Ninja Gaiden (the Sigma releases), Persona 1-5, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Final Fantasy Tactics and other stuff. Just his Persona videos go for almost three hours total, so his reviews aren't just superficial commentary - he really had an interesting take on every reviewed game. He also has some of the most classy, best thumbnails on Youtube, which is a sign of high quality nowadays, when even AVGN fell into the awful "badly cut highlighted screaming face" style:
Shout-outs to Sega Lord X (his longer videos on Master System games, like every japanese exclusive, Tec Toy releases and all the movie games were the highlights), Matt McMuscles (his weekly What Happened? series is really good), New Frame Plus (his video on the animation of every Sonic game is among the most impressive I've seen in 2021), Arcus (steadily speedrunning the entire NES library) and Stop Skeletons from Fighting (his constant videos about obscure peripherals are always the best). Another one of my favourites is also The Gaming Brit Show, but he released very few videos this year.
Website: Ok, I won't repeat the award to the Wind Squid Pub (still the best place online), so I'll give the award to a website that I discovered in 2021 and that is all about discussing action games in depth: Stinger Magazine (link)! It's the best place to read articles about Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, Platinum Games and other stuff, including more forgotten action games or specific mechanics in the genre. Always a good read.
Back to games:
Most exciting rerelease: Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection. And it delivered: I replayed the three games and had a blast; NG Sigma could easily be the best game I played this year (though I didn't count it due to having already played NG many times), and the PC release was pretty good with its higher resolutions.
Most disappointing game: The Messenger. It was not terrible or the worst I've played this year (that maybe should go to Shadows of the Damned or Deep Fear), but I expected so much more from this homage to 2d Ninja Gaiden that every flaw was a ninja kick to the balls. Most disappointingly for a 2d action game, it had long stretches of boredom - how they managed to make a Ninja Gaiden clone boring just blows my mind. They had a fast 2d action game in their hands, it must be a special achievement to make it boring.
Most heartless ultra capitalist: Recettear! As soon as I got the hang of it, I felt the urge to go out and exploit the plebs, destroy or buy-out my competitors, practice unfair prices and make the entire world a terrible place as long as I can sell a useless leather armor for 2000 pix. Capitalism, ho!
Most obvious Resident Evil clone: while it's a toss between Deep Fear and Onimusha, I'll go with Deep Fear. It surpasses RE on the cheesiness department, though, and almost reaches the superior level established by Blue Stinger.
Most "My opinion on this game only gets better with time": Dragon Force. Replaying it now made me see it as even better than before.
Best revival: Mega Man Classic was revived twice, with 9 and 11; Tenchu Z was also a revival of sorts to Tenchu, although a not very good one. I'll go with Mega Man 9, it nailed everything about the NES games while offering great robot masters and some surprises along the way (like the multi-screens boss fight). I loved it.
Most "I hope no one is seeing me playing this right now" moment: the various sex scenes in The Witcher 3 could qualify, but this award definitely goes to the Naked Paula level in Shadows of the Damned. Part of the level is spent literally running over the body of a giant naked lady moaning and dancing. Fun for the entire family!
And that's it, I hope you guys also had some memorable moments with games/movies/tv shows in 2021!
Game: I thought a lot about this. The rule is that it can't be a game that I had played before: otherwise, Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma would keep getting this award almost every year. The highlights were Crimson Skies, Mega Man 4, 9 & 11 and Okami (which I just started), all of them almost perfect games. But while I loved them all, and while I hate to admit that this year's award is going to another big AAA game (last year was Shadow of the Tomb Raider), I'm giving it to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PC). I'm a long time fan of the series and only this year found time to finally play its most famous release: great setting, carefully designed map, interesting enemies to fight, very well written characters and meaningful stories. It's the only game I know of that even clocking in around 170h of play time barely had any padding: storywise and in sidequests, there was none; the only padding was the busywork in finding question marks on the map, but that was forgivable, considering how huge the world is. The game has its flaws, but for how much content there is in it (and how well crafted it is), it was going to be hard to choose another game over it, though Mega Man 9 came really, really close to be my final pick.
Game series: While best individual game went to The Witcher 3, I really spent most of my time in 2021 going through all the Mega Man (Classic and Game Boy series) games, which was the best gaming experience I had in these last few years. With 17 games in total, it's astonishing how I only disliked (and even then, not totally) two games, MM8 and MM & Bass. I created a thread to discuss the entire series, including a little commentary on each of them and ranking my favourite ones.
Movie: Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (aka Samurai X 4). The Rurouni Kenshin movie series is maybe the best live action adaptation of any manga/anime I know of, and I'm admired that I didn't know about it until recently. Truly fantastic stuff, the highlights being the 2nd, 3rd and 4th movies (but the 1st and 5th ones are no slouch either). I'm picking the 4th one because the more serious and grounded tone, along with the beautiful photography and tragic story made it the most memorable to me, although the 3rd movie is absolutely fantastic and I could pick any of them as my favourite. I was thinking of awarding this as a "Best movie series", but that went to...
Movie series: Rocky/Creed (I think cobretti would agree with me, even with the low body count). This year I finally decided to watch/rewatch all the six Rocky movies plus the two Creed ones. I'm impressed at how well the series holds up and how many quality entries there are in it: with the exception of 5 and maybe 3 (4 is cheesy but tasty cheese) every movie was enjoyable and engaging, which is impressive considering how they all mostly deal with the same basic structure (hard times, training, emotional fight). How many times can we say that the sixth entry in a series is maybe the best one? The truth is that there is heart in these movies: you can feel how much effort and personal experience go into them, and how Stallone treats Rocky and the other characters with all the reverence they deserve. Rocky 6 is the highlight.
Animated movie: Tenshi no Tamago (aka Angel's Egg) left quite an impression. Besides being among the most beautiful animation I've ever seen, if not *the* most beautiful one, it was created from a collaboration between Yoshitaka Amano (the concept artist for classic Final Fantasy games) and Mamoru Oshii (director of Ghost in the Shell), so it's deeply melancholic and philosophical, with a very disturbing ending once you get how fucked up really is the world that its characters live in. The plot is barely comprehensible for most of the movie, but when you finally get what kind of setting it is, it becames a shockingly great world and story.
Tv show: How To with John Wilson. It's a great comedy/documentary show in which John Wilson somehow finds some of the most deranged people around, set mostly in New York (so it was not that hard to find those people). The episode in which he finds the anti-circumcision guy and the other one with the Mandela effect people are bizarre and funny in a way that I was just not expecting. Shout-outs to Nathan for You, The Witcher season 2 and Squid Game, you can't go wrong with any of them.
Animated series: Castlevania. Season 4 was so great and fixed so many little grievances that I had with the previous seasons that I can hardly find any fault in it. The fighting scenes were especially awesome.
Webshow: KBash. I thought about giving this to Sega Lord X again, but I don't want to repeat last year - and KBash outdid himself in 2021, with longer in depth videos exploring every main Metal Gear Solid game, the Drakengard/Nier series, Viewtiful Joe, Ninja Gaiden (the Sigma releases), Persona 1-5, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Final Fantasy Tactics and other stuff. Just his Persona videos go for almost three hours total, so his reviews aren't just superficial commentary - he really had an interesting take on every reviewed game. He also has some of the most classy, best thumbnails on Youtube, which is a sign of high quality nowadays, when even AVGN fell into the awful "badly cut highlighted screaming face" style:
Shout-outs to Sega Lord X (his longer videos on Master System games, like every japanese exclusive, Tec Toy releases and all the movie games were the highlights), Matt McMuscles (his weekly What Happened? series is really good), New Frame Plus (his video on the animation of every Sonic game is among the most impressive I've seen in 2021), Arcus (steadily speedrunning the entire NES library) and Stop Skeletons from Fighting (his constant videos about obscure peripherals are always the best). Another one of my favourites is also The Gaming Brit Show, but he released very few videos this year.
Website: Ok, I won't repeat the award to the Wind Squid Pub (still the best place online), so I'll give the award to a website that I discovered in 2021 and that is all about discussing action games in depth: Stinger Magazine (link)! It's the best place to read articles about Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, Platinum Games and other stuff, including more forgotten action games or specific mechanics in the genre. Always a good read.
Back to games:
Most exciting rerelease: Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection. And it delivered: I replayed the three games and had a blast; NG Sigma could easily be the best game I played this year (though I didn't count it due to having already played NG many times), and the PC release was pretty good with its higher resolutions.
Most disappointing game: The Messenger. It was not terrible or the worst I've played this year (that maybe should go to Shadows of the Damned or Deep Fear), but I expected so much more from this homage to 2d Ninja Gaiden that every flaw was a ninja kick to the balls. Most disappointingly for a 2d action game, it had long stretches of boredom - how they managed to make a Ninja Gaiden clone boring just blows my mind. They had a fast 2d action game in their hands, it must be a special achievement to make it boring.
Most heartless ultra capitalist: Recettear! As soon as I got the hang of it, I felt the urge to go out and exploit the plebs, destroy or buy-out my competitors, practice unfair prices and make the entire world a terrible place as long as I can sell a useless leather armor for 2000 pix. Capitalism, ho!
Most obvious Resident Evil clone: while it's a toss between Deep Fear and Onimusha, I'll go with Deep Fear. It surpasses RE on the cheesiness department, though, and almost reaches the superior level established by Blue Stinger.
Most "My opinion on this game only gets better with time": Dragon Force. Replaying it now made me see it as even better than before.
Best revival: Mega Man Classic was revived twice, with 9 and 11; Tenchu Z was also a revival of sorts to Tenchu, although a not very good one. I'll go with Mega Man 9, it nailed everything about the NES games while offering great robot masters and some surprises along the way (like the multi-screens boss fight). I loved it.
Most "I hope no one is seeing me playing this right now" moment: the various sex scenes in The Witcher 3 could qualify, but this award definitely goes to the Naked Paula level in Shadows of the Damned. Part of the level is spent literally running over the body of a giant naked lady moaning and dancing. Fun for the entire family!
And that's it, I hope you guys also had some memorable moments with games/movies/tv shows in 2021!
