2023 Wind Squid Pub Awards!
Dec 10, 2023 19:34:59 GMT
Imperial Khador, stratogustav, and 3 more like this
Post by Cervantes on Dec 10, 2023 19:34:59 GMT
Live from space and the future, at the prestigious Wind Squid Pub, where outstanding ladies and gentlemen from all the universe get together to award their favorite experiences throughout the year while getting completely shitfaced and wrecking themselves up, your host, Cervantes , brings to you the important announcement of our own...
2023 WIND SQUID PUB AWARDS
To differentiate ourselves from the recent Doritos & Montain Dew show, this year we have 0% trailers of inexistent (but already disappointing) games, 0% of sucking up to famous people on stage, 100% awards only to things we actually like and a never-ending mission to review everything.
Remember: every member of the pub can (and should!) choose their own favorite experiences of 2023, be it in games, movies, music, books, flip-flops, historical empires etc.
Here are my picks:
Best fetus: I didn’t know this was becoming such an important thing to developers, but I had to sooth and take care of a fetus in two different games I’ve played this year, Death Stranding and Amnesia Rebirth. BB-28/Lou from Death Stranding gets the award. I liked the personality, the constant thumbs up and helpfulness in fighting Kojima’s petroleum-based attempts to outcrazy Metal Gear.
BEST GAME: I’ve played many good ones this year and they all have merits, it’s hard to compare them between themselves and any pick will feel unfair to the others, and...
Who am I kidding, it was Ys VIII, the other ones had no fucking chance to go against it, in fact it was a very humiliating dispute for all of them. There you have it, the game that broke my A button and probably my right thumb. Here are some of my thoughts while I was playing it:
Best webshow, best resurrection, best reason for the invention of the internet: Classic Game Room is back, baby! Mark is as sincere and funny as ever. It’s also supposed to come back with a new set and even more elaborate videos in 01.01.2024, as CGR 2085.
Best game series: Ok, I won’t give this one to Ys again, since, except for VIII, I didn’t play its best games (they were VII, Celceta, V and VI). So the award goes to a series that I should’ve played a long, long time ago: Nintendo’s Super Ellen Ripley 2D, I mean, Metroid! My favorite entry was not made by Nintendo, though: it was AM2R. Huge respect for fan works after this one.
Best tv show: What if The X-Files was actually good and the main characters were less dumb, but still complete morons? You’d get Wellington Paranormal!
Best movie: DEAD BY DAAAAAAAWN!!! Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn! Dead by Dawn!
(It was Evil Dead Rise)
Best anime (movie): I’ve finally watched Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart, and it’s already one of my favorite movies in their catalog. It’s about creativity and I think it’s also a trustworthy representation of Hayao Miyazaki’s creation process, which means the girl stops eating and sleeping, gets into fights with her family, becomes severely depressed, finishes her story and thinks it’s unsalvageable shit. Very relatable.
Best anime (series): I’ve been watching Gundam lately, it’s pretty good (just started Zeta Gundam, I’m 10 episodes in). By the way, I think they should install some alarms on those robots, they keep getting stolen ALL THE TIME. If they park those robots in my neighborhood they’ll never be seen again.
Best western animation (series): Series only, as I haven’t seen any movie, so it has to go to Castlevania Nocturne. I think the first 3 or so episodes were unbalanced, mostly due to the opera guy and his boring scenes, but the series picks up after Richter finally decides to act like a Belmont: a vampire tells him “Now you gonna die like a bitch, pretty boy!”, then Richter says “I’ve fucking had enough, you can leave your stupid comments in your pocket, stop jerking me around and fuck you, by the way”, then puts his badass bandana, starts kicking shit up, some chicks rock Divine Bloodlines on their guitars, everything explodes, it’s all awesome, and that’s how I remember that scene.
Now, more games:
Best controller: Retro-bit wireless Saturn controller. It’s very close to the perfect JP Saturn controller and gave a new life to my Saturn, that I hadn’t been playing much lately. It’s so much better that I can lay down on a couch farther from the tv, relax, and not worry about my cat deciding to play with the wire. I’ve even played a new Saturn game because of this (Linkle Liver Story) and replayed some nice ones (The House of the Dead, Assault Suit Leynos 2 and Dark Savior). The Xbox Series X one is also a good controller and even better sandpaper.
Best Mega Man game: The best Mega Man of 2023 was Azure Striker Gunvolt!
Best successful attempt at pissing me off: The Wonderful 101, it was a low point in my loving relationship with Platinum Games. We will always have Metal Gear Rising, though. Sega came very close with Sonic Heroes, but I had very low expectations for that one from the start.
Best line(s): Sonic: “Talk about humongous!”; Tails: “Wow! How'd he manage to build something so big?” (Sonic Heroes) – THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID! HAHAHAHAHA!
I’ll also give a shout-out to “Remember, there’s no such thing as a second chance!” (The House of the Dead 2), as it could be a teaching moment at the end of a Saturday morning cartoon.
Best “FINALLY, I CAN’T BELIEVE I HADN’T PLAYED THIS ALREADY”: Final Fantasy VII (original) is stupidly good. Not “best game ever” good, but certainly “I can’t believe how much fun stuff there is in this game” good.
2023 was a great year for games. In 2024, I intend to play more RPGs and some of my unplayed Saturn JP games: Shining Wisdom, Shining the Holy Ark, Wachenroder etc. Before them, my next game is Final Fantasy XIII on PC – I know it’s supposed to be at the bottom of the series (I’ve heard good things about its sequels, though, and I’ll also play them), but I’ve been interested in its visual style and combat mechanics for a long time, so I’ll give it a try starting next week.
So, what were the Pub's other favorites in 2023?
2023 WIND SQUID PUB AWARDS
To differentiate ourselves from the recent Doritos & Montain Dew show, this year we have 0% trailers of inexistent (but already disappointing) games, 0% of sucking up to famous people on stage, 100% awards only to things we actually like and a never-ending mission to review everything.
Remember: every member of the pub can (and should!) choose their own favorite experiences of 2023, be it in games, movies, music, books, flip-flops, historical empires etc.
Here are my picks:
Best fetus: I didn’t know this was becoming such an important thing to developers, but I had to sooth and take care of a fetus in two different games I’ve played this year, Death Stranding and Amnesia Rebirth. BB-28/Lou from Death Stranding gets the award. I liked the personality, the constant thumbs up and helpfulness in fighting Kojima’s petroleum-based attempts to outcrazy Metal Gear.
BEST GAME: I’ve played many good ones this year and they all have merits, it’s hard to compare them between themselves and any pick will feel unfair to the others, and...
Who am I kidding, it was Ys VIII, the other ones had no fucking chance to go against it, in fact it was a very humiliating dispute for all of them. There you have it, the game that broke my A button and probably my right thumb. Here are some of my thoughts while I was playing it:
I'm floored on how good Ys VIII is. It kept the great combat from Seven/Celceta and brought back the platforming and pacing from VI/Felghana/Origins. One really good decision was to make the characters stranded on an island, so (until now) there's a single village where the survivors reside and there are no traditional shops. You go exploring the island, finding more castaways, then you go back to the village and the rescued characters are always expanding it. To get new items/equipment, you only use materials found on the island, which are plenty, so I never had much problem with that. Once in a while, the village gets attacked and you go into a raid, which combines the action with some very light tower defense elements (basically, you build baits, enhance the walls etc., but fighting against the invading beasts is done through normal combat). As there are much fewer characters than the previous two games, the story never gets in the way and the sidequests are only a few and usually very short - that's why I think the pacing is closer to Felghana, which also revolved around a single town. dschult3 was right, I'm definitely not minding the longer quest.
As far as problems go, I can only point to one: as the game was designed with the PS Vita in mind, all the areas are divided in much smaller segments with some loading between them. Even if the loading times are negligible on PC, the interruptions are enough of an annoyance. The areas are much smaller than those in Seven or Celceta and I think it would be much better if the entire island was a single, continuous map (or at least had less divisions).
As far as problems go, I can only point to one: as the game was designed with the PS Vita in mind, all the areas are divided in much smaller segments with some loading between them. Even if the loading times are negligible on PC, the interruptions are enough of an annoyance. The areas are much smaller than those in Seven or Celceta and I think it would be much better if the entire island was a single, continuous map (or at least had less divisions).
Best webshow, best resurrection, best reason for the invention of the internet: Classic Game Room is back, baby! Mark is as sincere and funny as ever. It’s also supposed to come back with a new set and even more elaborate videos in 01.01.2024, as CGR 2085.
Best game series: Ok, I won’t give this one to Ys again, since, except for VIII, I didn’t play its best games (they were VII, Celceta, V and VI). So the award goes to a series that I should’ve played a long, long time ago: Nintendo’s Super Ellen Ripley 2D, I mean, Metroid! My favorite entry was not made by Nintendo, though: it was AM2R. Huge respect for fan works after this one.
Best tv show: What if The X-Files was actually good and the main characters were less dumb, but still complete morons? You’d get Wellington Paranormal!
Best movie: DEAD BY DAAAAAAAWN!!! Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn! Dead by Dawn!
(It was Evil Dead Rise)
Best anime (movie): I’ve finally watched Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart, and it’s already one of my favorite movies in their catalog. It’s about creativity and I think it’s also a trustworthy representation of Hayao Miyazaki’s creation process, which means the girl stops eating and sleeping, gets into fights with her family, becomes severely depressed, finishes her story and thinks it’s unsalvageable shit. Very relatable.
Best anime (series): I’ve been watching Gundam lately, it’s pretty good (just started Zeta Gundam, I’m 10 episodes in). By the way, I think they should install some alarms on those robots, they keep getting stolen ALL THE TIME. If they park those robots in my neighborhood they’ll never be seen again.
Best western animation (series): Series only, as I haven’t seen any movie, so it has to go to Castlevania Nocturne. I think the first 3 or so episodes were unbalanced, mostly due to the opera guy and his boring scenes, but the series picks up after Richter finally decides to act like a Belmont: a vampire tells him “Now you gonna die like a bitch, pretty boy!”, then Richter says “I’ve fucking had enough, you can leave your stupid comments in your pocket, stop jerking me around and fuck you, by the way”, then puts his badass bandana, starts kicking shit up, some chicks rock Divine Bloodlines on their guitars, everything explodes, it’s all awesome, and that’s how I remember that scene.
Now, more games:
Best controller: Retro-bit wireless Saturn controller. It’s very close to the perfect JP Saturn controller and gave a new life to my Saturn, that I hadn’t been playing much lately. It’s so much better that I can lay down on a couch farther from the tv, relax, and not worry about my cat deciding to play with the wire. I’ve even played a new Saturn game because of this (Linkle Liver Story) and replayed some nice ones (The House of the Dead, Assault Suit Leynos 2 and Dark Savior). The Xbox Series X one is also a good controller and even better sandpaper.
Best Mega Man game: The best Mega Man of 2023 was Azure Striker Gunvolt!
Best successful attempt at pissing me off: The Wonderful 101, it was a low point in my loving relationship with Platinum Games. We will always have Metal Gear Rising, though. Sega came very close with Sonic Heroes, but I had very low expectations for that one from the start.
Best line(s): Sonic: “Talk about humongous!”; Tails: “Wow! How'd he manage to build something so big?” (Sonic Heroes) – THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID! HAHAHAHAHA!
I’ll also give a shout-out to “Remember, there’s no such thing as a second chance!” (The House of the Dead 2), as it could be a teaching moment at the end of a Saturday morning cartoon.
Best “FINALLY, I CAN’T BELIEVE I HADN’T PLAYED THIS ALREADY”: Final Fantasy VII (original) is stupidly good. Not “best game ever” good, but certainly “I can’t believe how much fun stuff there is in this game” good.
2023 was a great year for games. In 2024, I intend to play more RPGs and some of my unplayed Saturn JP games: Shining Wisdom, Shining the Holy Ark, Wachenroder etc. Before them, my next game is Final Fantasy XIII on PC – I know it’s supposed to be at the bottom of the series (I’ve heard good things about its sequels, though, and I’ll also play them), but I’ve been interested in its visual style and combat mechanics for a long time, so I’ll give it a try starting next week.
So, what were the Pub's other favorites in 2023?
