My Anime Picks for 2018

This is the second half of a two part blog series. If you missed the first half on my favorite video games of 2018, then you can read it here, otherwise please enjoy checking out some of the anime I liked the most in 2018. And for those who need a refresher, or just aren't interested in my gaming list, please remember that I do not think myself in any way shape or form an expert, and this is just a personal list I made up for my own amusement. Other than that just like the year before I am avoiding listing sequel seasons and won’t be talking about a long running anime unless it started this year in 2018--so even if I thought a show from a prior year--such as Black Clover--had a great run in 2018, I won’t be acknowledging that here. This list would just be too much of a mess if I did! Everything is presented in alphabetical order to so as to avoid ranking my chooses.

Devilman Crybaby

Devilman Crybaby began 2018 off with a huge bang, and was able to maintain its number one spot in my heart the entire year, an impressive feat considering its January premiere and just how good Megalo box, Planet With, and GeGeGe no Kitaro turned out. I wrote so much about Devilman already this year that I honestly can’t bring myself to sing any more praises for it by this point, but it definitely deserves all my praises and more. Crybaby was an absolutely beautiful and chilling re-imagining of a true classic, done justice by an auteur creator. If you want to read a bit extra about it, check out the piece I wrote about Devilman in my Halloween series this year.

GeGeGe no Kitaro

2018 marked the 50th anniversary for a lot of legendary properties and legendary creators. This was Go Nagai’s 50th anniversary as a comic artist, and the 50th anniversary of the Ashita no Joe manga, but perhaps one of the most important of the big 5-0 anniversaries this year was the 50th anniversary of the GeGeGe no Kitaro anime series. After the passing of comic legend Shigeru Mizuki in 2013 there is something all the more meaningful to see Kitaro on the small screen again--even after his creator’s passing Kitaro is still there to grow up with another generation of children. This is another anime series I talked ad nauseam about during my Halloween series this year, so I don’t want to go on too much now, but I will say this has easily been the highlight of all my Sunday mornings since it started in April, and this is the series that Mizuki and his legacy deserved. It’s doing one hell of a job kicking most “adult” anime's asses in terms of writing quality and animation, all while still being a kid show. It never talks down to its young audience either and tackles some really modern issues such as smartphone overuse, bullying, refugees that lost their own country, and even suicide.


The Girl in Twilight (Akanesasu Shoujo)

The Girl in Twilight is pretty much the last thing I expected but somehow I came around to really enjoying it. From the mind of Kotaro Uchikoshi, the creator of the Zero Escape, comes … well .. ah … a magical girl show? About traveling to different parallel worlds? Where hijinks ensue and it’s more a story about growing up? Yeah, this … is a hard one to explain, and not really what I would expect with Uchikoshi’s name attached. I mean 999: Nine Hours, Nine, Persons, Nine Doors, this is definitely not, but well, this isn't half bad. The science fiction elements about radio frequencies and different worlds definitely feels like something out of an Uchikoshi game and all the all girl cast is actually very charming and sweet. I got really invested in seeing them grow up and face their inner problems. So a weird show, and nothing too special either, but this really grew on me personally.

Gundam Build Divers

The original Gundam Build Fighters anime in 2013 was like a phenomenon that caught literally everyone off guard. This silly little kid’s show meant to sell toys was somehow one of the best anime the year it aired and was made with so much love and attention to detail that it was a better anniversary present to the Gundam franchise than some of the actual anniversary celebrations. Ever since the original fans have been pretty divisive on the sequels, and while Build Divers is still not the original, I think it’s the closest we've come out of all the past sequel seasons and OVAs in the “Build” sub-series. I really enjoyed the Virtual Reality angle of the series, and thought the creative team did a lot to give the series an identity of its own instead of feeling like a dull retread of the original Build Fighters like Try did. So wrap that together a great main cast, and some pretty fun team battles and I say this was a win for Gundam fans.

Gurazeni: Money Pitch

Gurazeni is an anime I think most people never gave a fair chance. What seems like a basic sports series with a weird focus on money turns out to be so much more. It’s an inside look at the professional world of Japanese baseball, where you can really learn all the ins and outs and what makes the business end tick. The most interesting part however is that this is not your usual series starring a High Schooler with some grandiose dream, but a cast of adult professionals, many of which are just struggling to get by and stay in the game. It’s a completely different kind of feeling. 

Professionals play some 100+ ball games a seasons. With that many games it’s not like they are all hot blooded screaming matches and if you lose once you’ll be out of the tournament. You gotta play smart, you got to think about your stats during the season, you gotta make sure you secure your spot on the roster for next year, if you excuse the horrible pun, this is a whole different kind of ball game. That’s what made Gurazeni so much fun every week, it’s more a calm collective observation about life in the major league for most players who aren't big celebrity stars instead of the usual shonen anime fair with some hot shot kid with a dream. I greatly enjoyed every laid-back episode of this show.

How to Keep a Mummy (Miira no Kaikata)

Cute!!! This is probably how I can define every single episode of this quirky pet comedy anime. Whoever knew mummies, dragons, and ogres could make such adorable pets. This was a basic “feel good” slice-of-life series where not much ever happened in each episode but it was such a nice reprieve from real life that the audience wouldn't mind. You didn't watch this for the plot, you watched this to just relax and smile for a half an hour, and How to Keep a Mummy accomplished this goal expertly. 

Karakuri Circus

Karakuri Circus is maybe one of the most underrated anime of the year, and it’s a darn shame considering the attention Ushio & Tora was eventually able to garner. Hopefully Karakuri Circus can one day get the same kind of tight knit following that its predecessor did. And if you couldn't tell already, Karakuri Circus is based off a manga by Kazuhiro Fujita, the creator of Ushio & Tora. Both series share the same well written and fleshed out character writing that Fujita is known for, and for fans of Ushio & Tora there is also the bonus treat of one of the three main protagonists, Narumi Kato, is literally just Tora from Ushio & Tora. The two characters share very similar appearance (when Tora was a human) and have the same personality. The Karakuri Circus anime even went the extra mile by casting the same exact actor for the roles. 

Unfortunately Karakuri Circus has the unenviable job of trying to adapt a weekly manga that is 43 volumes long in just 36 episodes, which means a lot of stuff has to be skipped over, condensed, and simplified, but for those of us who are watching I think we can all agree the studio is doing a great job at picking what to animate. The pace may be very brisk, but it sort of has that OVA kind of feeling to it with how fast it moves. You know, how a movie or an OVA can seemingly get so much story told in just a couple hours versus how a TV show may tell a story over the span of multiple months. Karakuri Circus definitely feels more like the former than the latter. 

Even with its faults however, this anime really shouldn't be as passed over as it has been. Karakuri has the most heart and it’s easily the most ridiculous and fun shonen battle anime airing right now, and that’s saying a lot considering JoJo is airing right now too!

Lupin the Third - Part V

As somebody who was greatly disappointed by Lupin the Third Part IV I came into Part V expecting more of the same, but walked out blown away! This is everything I wished Part IV was, and it seems like the staff really learned from all their mistakes and were able to come together to make a very memorable Lupin series. My favorite has to be all the anniversary episodes that feature Lupin in his old jackets and the animation style changing over to how each previous series was animated. As a long time Pink Jacket Lupin fan I was in heaven, it’s probably been about 20 years since Lupin acknowledged the Pink era! Glad they were able to have so much fun with that particular throwback episode. 

Megalo box

As mentioned earlier, Megalo box is the 50th anniversary project for the Ashita no Joe manga series, and one hell of a fantastic anime to boot. Everything from the animation to the music is top notch and invokes the feeling of the late 90’s and early 2000’s era of anime. It’s both nostalgic and new, and I think that’s a great way to pay homage to such a classic series. Megalo box is its own thing entirely while also reinventing many of the great moments from the original Ashita no Joe like some mirror that both reflects and distorts--it’s Ashita no Joe, it’s Megalo Box, it’s a classic reborn, it’s like nothing you have ever seen before. Megalo box is such a wild ride with thought provoking episodes and a crap ton of adrenaline rushing fights, and I can sing its praises all night if you let me, but the less said about each twist and turn, the better, so I think I’ll leave it at that. Easily one of the best anime in years, and had it not been for Devilman Crybaby it probably would have had my number one spot.

Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues (Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa) 

Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues is one of those weird spin-offs where you don’t really need to be familiar with the source material because … well it’s barley like the series it spun off of. This comedy centered around the Kaiji manga side character Yukio Tonegawa is best described as office humor, and it’s pretty straightforward with its premise of a hugely important businessman and his daily woes at his job. It’s sharp witted, and pretty funny but I think what made this series special to me was because it was the first “dubcast” anime from Sentai Filmworks I watched on Hidive, and I have enjoyed hearing all these different dub actors each week. I've gotten pretty use to hearing the Funimation and California based dub actors in weekly dub premieres, but hearing Sentai actors is quite something, and damn does this dub knock it out of the park. The real MVP of the show is by far David Wald as the narrator who can manage a laugh out of anyone no matter what the dialogue might say.


Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation

Muhyo & Roji is a Shonen Jump manga from 2004 that never really got its due credit. The manga was popular enough to maintain its spot in the magazine for many years but it never got an anime until this year. Was it worth the wait? Well, yeah, this is a classic Jump battle horror manga, with some good creepy monsters, and fun battles. I really enjoyed this show and I’m glad Muhyo & Roji finally got their moment of spotlight on the small screen. It brought back a lot of warm feelings from the early 2000', almost like a lost show from back then that I missed!

Planet With

Planet With is weird. It involves a giant cat monster eating a young boy and turning into a super battle robot that said boy pilots and uses to get his revenge on the psychics who protect the earth from evil invading aliens. That’s … sure is something, but it’s just what you would expect from an original story penned by Satoshi Mizukami, the creator of cult hit manga Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer and Spirit Circle. Just like Megalo box this is a bit hard of a series to talk about without spoiling all the best moments, but just know, the plot twist keep coming, and the game keeps changing, and everything gets more and more insane, and more awesome. This is one hell of a ride, and was also a major contender for my number one spot, personally. It's a show that anyone who enjoys the werid and anyone with a sense of humor definitely has to check out. You may come for the humor, but you will stay for the well written character moments ... and giant cat robot battles.

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san (Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san)

Have you ever worked in retail? Well Skull Face Honda knows your pain! This skeleton man has been stuck working in a book store and has all kinds of stories to tell. This humorous look into the life of book salesmen and the manga market is a fun little series. There’s tons of insight on not just the retail industry but also manga publishing companies as well. It’s a great little short anime that packs a lot of laughs. 

Tada Never Falls in Love (Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai)

Tada Never Falls in Love reunites most of the staff from the popular 2014 anime series Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, and features a lot of the same kind of humor and characters. It’s a very laid back anime for most of its runtime, which lets the romance bud between the two leads at a more believable pace, and the final payoff is heart wrenching. As someone that has fallen in love with the wrong person in my past, I know all too well how much it can hurt to begin to harbor feelings for someone you know you can never be with and that heck you should never be with. The final few episodes of this series packs such a punch to the gut, and it’s really what won me over.

We Rent Tsukumogami (Tsukumogami Kashimasu)

Did anyone besides me actually watch this anime? It got no love whatsoever and that always bummed me out whenever I watched an episode. It’s such a cute episodic show about a rental store that has tsukumogami, or inanimate objects that have souls and can come alive. Every week a tsukumogami is used to solve some sort of problem in the neighborhood, and it’s just a delight to see how these little dolls, tobacco pipes, and combs can be used to find out everything from cheating husbands, to phantom thieves. Of course the real treat is seeing how all these episodic stories eventually weave together into one greater narrative, and that characters often become reoccurring within the neighborhood, so even after their own episode is solved they still have roles to play within the greater story. You can really tell this anime started life as a novel, it’s so well written. 

BONUS ENTRY: -Biggest Anime Surprises-

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me personally this year for anime was that I actually spent more than any human ever should on the Legend of the Galactic Heroes blu-ray box set. No kidding, this thing haunted me most of the year, and makes for one hell of a conversation starter. “Yeah, I am one of the few 1,000 elite that own Legend of the Galactic Heroes in English, what of it?” I say, while my guest stare at me confused as to what the hell Legend of the Galactic Heroes even is and why there is apparently only 1,000 of it to go around. 

But in all seriousness now, Sentai Filmworks really impressed me personally this year. Their hidive streaming service has become one of my favorite to use this year to stream anime, and I watched so many great classics on it; Legend of the Galactic Heroes Gaiden, Blue Gale Xabungle, Space Runaway Ideon, Glass Mask (1984), Armored Troopers Votoms, Aura Battler Dunbine, and the list goes on. This year was a huge year for streaming classic 80’s anime in large part do to Hidive. And now Sentai/Maiden Japan are releasing a large chunk of these anime on blu-ray which is something I never thought I would live to see the day. You can buy the entire Space Runaway Ideon series on BD right now if you wanted to. What a time to be alive! Perhaps the biggest surprise was their acquisition of Armored Troopers Votoms, a show I wanted someone to license rescue for close to a decade now. I always regretted missing out on the original Central Park Media (man they don’t even exist anymore!) DVD release back in 2001. I always thought it would be Discotek coming to the rescue for Votoms, but you know what, I’m glad to see it was Sentai. The more companies putting classics on BD the better, I say.

I hope you all enjoyed my anime list and have a great new year! Happy 2019!!!

My Video Game Picks for 2018

2018 marks the year I was able to get back into blogging and it has been quite a journey for me. I got to finally do a series for Halloween that I have been wanting to do since my early-20s, and I was finally able to talk about some of my old favorites I've always wanted to write about such as Jinguji Saburo. While personally this was not the best year for me--I was in and out of a few jobs, and that has nothing on my own medical health’s rollercoaster--writing wise, this was one of my best years that saw the most creative output in me since probably my college days. 

For 2019 I really hope I can keep this creative train going, but enough about my own personal stuff, you guys just came for the list, right? Last year I combined my favorite anime and favorite games into one super list, which really was far too long--so this year I thought it was best to separate them into two different lists. I’ll start with my favorite video games of 2018 and then the next blog post right after this will be for my favorite anime of 2018. As always this is just a personal lists, and has no real merit on anything in the real world. I fail to see how I even qualify as an expert! Although I’m flattered if you thought I was! I’m just a hipster with a blog barley anyone reads, so take what you can from that.

A few rules, I am not omnipresent nor am I omnipotent, so I did not have enough time to play every game this year. I may have missed quite a few gems just because I have yet to play them. This could be from a lack of interest or it could just be for a lack of time, there a quite a few games I bought that I want to talk about such as 428: Shibuya Scramble, or The 25th Ward: The Silver Case, but I simply did not get a chance to play them yet. I want to hopefully make up for that by writing an entire blog post dedicated to a few of those I missed next year. I can say with 100% confidence, 428 is definitely getting its own post soon. There’s also my money being tight this year from jumping around jobs. I would love nothing more than to be playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate right now, but unfortunately I've been way too broke to get it! 

Without further ado, let’s jump into some of my favorite games of 2018, in alphabetical order.

Alliance Alive - Nintendo 3DS

The SaGa franchise has really made a total 180 in recent years, it wasn't too long ago that the series was all but forgotten except by a select few, but now in 2018 we’re seeing not one but two games that are heavily inspired by SaGa (and we’re even getting a new SaGa game to boot!). Octopath Traveler got the majority of the publicity out of these two spiritual successors, but I think I personally enjoyed Alliance Alive just a little bit more. It’s tough out there for a 3DS game in a post-Nintendo Switch world, especially tough for Alliance Alive competing with Octopath, but for the select few who got around to picking up this game they got to experience one hell of a send off to the 3DS era of JRPGs.

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Sony PS4

You better believe I picked this one up as soon as I got out of work the day it was released and played this bad boy all through the night until it was time to go to work the next morning. Dragon Quest XI is just that kind of game. Once you pick it up, it consumes you, it becomes your life. Having a brand new Dragon Quest game after 8 years of almost radio silence from Square Enix (okay, we had a fair amount of spin offs and a couple remakes but I just wanted a NEW main entry so bad) was such a wonderful feeling, like seeing an old friend you never thought you would be able to meet again. Dragon Quest XI is my favorite game I played this year, and I have no regrets saying that. Usually I try to list all my picks for every year in alphabetical order to avoid playing favorites but screw it, this is my favorite. 

Dragon Quest XI is a beautiful game that really pays homage to the entire series and I couldn't think of any better 30th anniversary celebration out there than this. The characters were some of the best in the series, and Horii crafted such an emotionally powerful story. This was a fantastic game from start to finish, and that isn't even going into the post-game content where Dragon Quest XI goes all out on being an anniversary title with some mind blowing moments for long time fans.

Dragon Quest Builders - Nintendo Switch (Sony PS4/PS Vita back in Oct 2016)

Dragon Quest Builders may have already came out once in North America back in 2016, but who cares about that when you can play it on the Nintendo Switch in 2018! So yeah, this may just be a basic re-release of an older game, but I never got to spend time with Builders previously so the Switch release was an entirely new game to me. I never got into Minecraft so Builders is in a lot of ways my introduction to games of that style, and what a game it was. I became obsessed with mining early on in the game and building as many bases all around the world that I could. I got way into this and before I knew it I passed 100 hours in the main campaign. This is such a nice little spin-off I recommend to anyone that may have missed out on it back in 2016.

Jake Hunter Detective Story: Ghost of the Dusk - Nintendo 3DS

Jake Hunter is back after not appearing on American shores for almost 9 years, and oh boy am I ever glad to see him. For the uninitiated, Jake Hunter, or Jinguji Saburo as it is known in Japanese, is one of the longest running Adventure game series that you have probably never heard of. I wrote quite a bit about him just last month actually, so if any of this seems interesting to you, I really recommend giving that a read when you have some spare time. This is one of my favorite Japanese adventure game properties, and I really want to share it with everyone that I can.

What makes Jake Hunter special is how much it adheres to the classic hardboiled detective narrative. This is a down-to-earth series without anything too crazy going on, just a classic 1940’s noir style detective tackling difficult cases in a harsh world. As Jake Hunter says, “No one is ever truly happy after a case.” All detectives can hope to do is figure out something tragic and offer a hand to the victims in picking up the pieces, they aren't magic men. This is a series that works best with a glass of bourbon and some smooth jazz vinyl. I really miss games like these and whenever I play an entry in the Jake Hunter series it reminds me of a lot of old point-n-click Detective PC games that we really don’t see enough of anymore.

Octopath Traveler - Nintendo Switch

So despite what I said about Alliance Alive it doesn't mean I did not enjoy Octopath Traveler, on the contrary, I think both games actually compliment each other. Octopath has a much better ambiance and atmosphere, where as Alliance Alive has much better character interaction and overall story. Had there been a way to get the developers of both games together they probably would have created the most perfect SaGa spiritual successor ever. 

But on to what makes Octopath so great, the effects and the personal journeys. It’s no secret that Octopath is an absolutely stunningly beautiful game. The 2D pixel art and 3D HD backgrounds create a stellar and unique look that carries a lot of the game. I heard people compare it to the N64 prototype of Final Fantasy VII and it really does have that similar kind of design aesthetic to it. It’s just absolutely stunning. But beyond Octopath’s looks is a very unique story approach that just tells eight different personal journeys. There is no evil alien to crush, no shadow organization, no end of the world, these eight tales are all just people’s journeys in this world. It’s far from perfect, and many people were left wishing the characters could interact and their stories would intertwine instead of staying separate, but I really respect an RPG that isn't all about all about saving the world for the ten millionth time.

Phantasy Star I - Sega Ages - Nintendo Switch

So believe it or not, I have never actually beaten the original Phantasy Star. I did get close to doing it in the past, but never seemed to keep my interest in the game to get all the way through. Which is a real shame because this game was groundbreaking for its time. The amount of firsts that PSI in general claimed in just insane, from the first female protagonist to the first use of 3D in JRPGs, it’s a game that has it all. Even the story is a step up from its Famicom brethren Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Yet unlike those you rarely see people clamoring to play PSI. 

That’s why I hope with this Sega Ages re-release that this time will finally be the one for me. I really want to beat this game all the way and see the ending credits. The added quality of life features such as a mini-map for the 3D dungeons, an easier difficultly setting, and a new translation certainly help to make this the best version to get into too. I also love the retro CRT filters, personally speaking, as seen above, but those are optional, don't worry.

Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu! - Nintendo Switch

Confession: I never played Pokemon Go, despite my best efforts I just could not understand what all the hype was about for that app. Because of this I did not closely follow any news for Let’s Go either past the main reveal, yet somehow I still got the game the day it came out. Maybe it’s my love for the franchise, maybe it’s because of my brother being super into Go and pushing me to get this so we could play together; I don’t really know. But what I do know is that I was having fun playing Let’s Go--a lot of fun actually. It’s weird, but the Go mechanic of throwing pokeballs is actually kind of addicting when it’s not tied to micro-transactions. Catching pokemon hasn't been this fun for me in probably a decade, and I know I just lost the respect of some people for saying that but I dunno, I was having a blast chucking these balls! I haven’t tried to complete a pokedex in ages, but that rush to catch ‘em all came back to me in Let’s Go.

Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology - Nintendo 3DS

Hey look, yet another 3DS game! Yeah, if you are like me then you weren't quite ready to throw away your old friend in 2018 either despite already owning a Nintendo Switch for almost a year. I never got a chance to really play the original Radiant Historia on the Nintendo DS, so this enhanced port helped me finally experience what a lot of people considered one of the best JRPGs of the DS. I definitely don’t think I would go that far after finally playing Radiant Histroia, I mean the DS was packed with some real masterpieces, I would still put Strange Journey or Solatorobo much higher personally speaking, but damn if Radiant Histroia isn't one great game either way. 

I really enjoyed all the characters, and the newly introduced voice acting that wasn't in the DS version went the extra mile to make the cast come alive. The combat system was great, the time travel mechanic was thoroughly thought out, and the story had me invested--not much else I could ask for really. I have to say though, the original DS endings actually seems kind of crappy though, so I am definitely glad I played this version that got a new (and much better) ending. Although this is all just my own personal opinions.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux - Nintendo 3DS

Well, well, well, speak of the devil. Yeah, I’m not sure if this was a coincidence or if Atlus planned this, but 2018 marks the year of Nintendo DS remasters by Atlus. Strange Journey on the Nintendo DS was one of the earliest SMT game I ever played, and to this day is still one of my personal favorites, so having an enhanced port of it on the Nintendo DS with more content and a new ending is such a dream come true for me. I was and still am bummed that Atlus did not dub the game for the English release, especially since the voice acting is a key feature for this release and because of the lack of dub I opted to turn it off thus missing out on said key feature, but well, what are you gonna do? Budgets and all. 

This is a great game I really highly recommend to anyone that has missed it originally on the DS, especially if you played the Shin Megami Tensei IV duology, as you really Didi get the full picture yet without Strange Journey.

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana - Nintendo Switch (Sony PS4/PS Vita back in Sept 2017)

I know what you’re thinking, yup another game that technically already came out earlier but just came out for the Switch in 2018. Maybe I am cheating this year by including games like these but well, I’ll let you be the judge of that. What matters here though is that I loved playing this game in 2018 and I just want a chance to shout about it!

Ys VIII initially threw me off, as one of my favorite things in the Ys series has always been all the cool landscapes and ruins Adol can explore, and learning everything about the native culture and people there, so having a game set entirely on a deserted island felt like a misstep, but boy was I wrong. The Island of Seiren turned out to be one of my favorite locations in the Ys series that truly feels alive, like it’s almost a real place. You get such a sense of everything exploring the island in this game, that it sticks with you. Not to mention the village building mechanic ended up being a ton of fun. Finding all the NPCs and getting to know them really gave Ys VIII a unique charm compared to other entries in the series and suffice to say all the characters were excellent. Uncovering the dark secret of the island and its now lost people had me engrossed pretty much the entire way through. There’s a lot more going on here than what you initially are lead to believe. 

By the end of the game I was sad to finally leave the Island of Seiren, but Adol Christian can never stay in one place for too long!

BONUS ENTRY: -Game of Yesteryear-

Last year I added a bonus section to my picks for game of the year that was on my biggest gaming disappointment of 2017--so for this year I think I should do the opposite and add a bonus section on something more positive. 

I figured since I am already here and since I already wrote about so many games from previous years with my excuse being that the game in question was a port, remaster, came out in the US in 2018, or downright just the same game but came out on Switch in 2018 now, I am already pretty deep into pre-2018 anyways. So here’s one more bonus game, one that no matter how much I tried to BS it into the list I had to admit it had nothing whatsoever to do with 2018. A game that may not be 2018 material but a game that you should play nonetheless, I know I did, and it was one of the best gaming experiences I had in 2018, falling only a little short of my favorite Dragon Quest XI, that is. 

So, once again, without further ado, here’s the last game I played during 2018 that I wish to share with you all tonight.

Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - Sony PS4/PS Vita - 2017

The Danganronpa series was always a complicated one for me. I really wanted to like the series a lot more than I did, but I could never seem to like it as much as everyone else. And that’s the key word here, because I certainly liked it, but I just didn’t like it as passionately as most others seem to. I found a lot of faults with the writing and character, and honestly some of this stuff is just a bit too much for me personally. The game play though was always so darn good, and while I may not had enjoyed every chapter in past games, the overarching story in said games were always able to keep my interest for the most part, some too chuuni moments for me aside, and I was able to power through those chapters. It’s because of that, and many more reasons, that I missed out on Danganronpa V3 last year when it came out new, something I finally got around to correcting in 2018.

What makes Danganronpa V3 so special to me has to be that the game is incredibly self-aware of most of its issues. V3 is the third mainline entry in the series, and counting spin-offs like Ultimate Despair Girls, and the Danganronpa 3: End of Hope Peak Academy anime series, the franchise has pretty much done everything it could by this point. A bunch of students being trapped in a school forced to kill each other in some twisted game pretty much went from a super interesting premise, to a super old one, and the staff behind V3 were well aware of this. No matter how good a franchise may be it will inevitably suffer from franchise fatigue, and by this point Danganronpa was pretty much a limping, wounded deer. 

So instead of reinventing the wheel and risking upsetting long time fans, the staff behind V3 pretty much did the next best thing and intentionally jumped the shark. They went places they never went before, they did things that were so weird, and so out there, that it brought back a lot of the magic of the franchise’s early days. By the end of the game the level of self-awareness was pretty much off the charts that the game practically trolled you--even going as far as insulting you for why you still like these games in the first place. And I loved every minute of it. It’s hard to talk about the final hours of the game without ruining some of the best surprises, so I’ll try not to say anything too revealing, but at one point, the game even reached maximum meta, and the only way to win was to put the controller down and stop playing it. It’s really great stuff. 

Happy New Year's everyone and I hope you all enjoyed this silly list of mine!

Four Video Games Set During Christmas!

For all three of you out there that live under a rock (or have somehow escaped the nonstop blasting of Christmas music on the radio) it may come as a surprise that, yes, it's that time of year again. The days are shorter, the nights are colder, and the snow is coming--as long as you live in the right hemisphere (cue those angry Australians). Considering the holiday season, I thought it would be fun to wrap up my blogging for the year with some simple Christmas and New Years related content, and since a prior year’s Christmas List went pretty well, I figured why not just take another swing at it. Instead of anime episodes though, for this year I felt I should list off some Christmas video games since I sort of exhausted all I could say about anime this year with my Zero Frights project.

In my head this blog post seemed like it would be a slam dunk. “It should be super easy to come up with a list fast” I thought to myself, but then … I actually got around to thinking of all the classic examples to use in video games and realized something ... they all suck! Yeah, it's something I never stopped to think about much before but did you ever notice that most Christmas games; are just lazy assortments of Christmas iconography, or even worse some random snow level in a Mario game or something? I mean, sorry guys, but putting a santa hat on Master Chief or adding some snow effects to the city in GTA does not make Halo or GTA a Christmas game. Where are all the games that actually have Christmas in them? Where the games at that take place during Christmas? You see, after pouring through countless BuzzFeed lists to steal ideas, er, no wait, I mean, after countless hours of very academic research, I came to a weird conclusion--Halloween has plenty examples of games that take place during that holiday specifically, but Christmas related games are the exact opposite. Almost none of them are actually on Christmas! Like what the heck Elf Bowling for Wii, step your game up. This is just a sham by this point!

Looking through the sheer large amount of holiday themed games made me come to the realization that while not a perfect track record, Halloween themed games, have a much higher rate of being actually good, where as Christmas games are almost guaranteed to be crap. I can think of a bunch of solid, fun, Halloween holiday games, where maybe I got like, 2 games that are actually good for Christmas. We need better Christmas games! And these games better take place on Christmas! Too long have we gone with these hallow lies.

In order to fix this great tragedy of Christmas fail, I feel like I have to produce a list to end all lists. A list that is so good, it will blow all game developers’ minds and they will have no choice but to make some sweet Christmas game. SET ON CHRISTMAS. I will have to take some drastic measures to accomplish this sadly, so that means I will skip over a lot of beloved classics like Nights into Christmas, but it will all be worth it to spread the word that video games CAN take place on Christmas day! And the ones that do ARE good! So strap yourself in and get ready for some Die Hard-esque Christmas hijinks; here’s four games that actually take place DURING Christmas.

2064: Read Only Memories

Here’s a game that wears its inspirations right on its sleeve. Read Only Memories, or ROM for short, is an indie adventure game made in the bane of classic titles like Snatcher (which coincidentally took place during Christmas too) complete with bright colorful sprites, and an old school UI you would see in a game like Jinguji Saburo on the Famicom.

ROM takes place in the far off future year of 2064, specifically December 20, 2064, and the plot progresses over the course of multiple days, with the final chapter taking place on Christmas Eve, and an epilogue on Christmas day. The story centers on robots called "Relationship and Organizational Managers" or ROMs for short, that are commonplace tools used to do almost anything in the city. There are police roms, there are janitor roms, there are medical roms, and most importantly, the biggest market for roms: a replacement for the personal computer for consumers at home.

The protagonist is contacted by the robot Turing, the first truly sapient ROM who enlists your help to find its kidnapped creator, Hayden. Together the two of you uncover the dark conspiracy behind Turing’s creation, and Parallax, the mega corporation that created all the ROMs--all set during a delightful holiday season.

Parasite Eve


The 90’s was a really weird time for video games, and I totally love how experimental a lot of early 3D titles were on the N64 and Playstation. Parasite Eve is definitely among one of Square soft’s more experimental fares for the Playstation (which is saying a lot since this was the same console where Square gave us Chrono Cross and XenoGears).

This horror, action based, RPG, third person shooter, really is quite hard to put into words, but feels like, in a lot of ways, a precursor to more modern action based menu-driven interface JRPGs such as XenoBlade Chronicles. So what makes this strange, gruesome M-rated experiential game from 1997 a Christmas classic? Well easy. It starts on December 24th! Yup, this whole shindig is one long Die Hard like video game, where the protagonist Aya Brea is wrapped into the crazy battle against Mitochondria powered mutants right smack dab on Christmas Eve night in Manhattan, New York. She’ll have to kick some serious ass if she wants to make it to see the New Year. Now this is more like it!

Hotel Dusk/Last Window

Hotel Dusk Room 215, and its sequel that was too good to come to America, Last Window The Secret of Cape West, are both fantastic adventure game/visual novels released on the Nintendo DS by the small, and sadly now defunct, company Cing. Both games were written by the great Rika Suzuki, a living legend in the Japanese adventure game scene, and represent some of the best the Nintendo DS has to offer in the genre--which I shouldn't have to remind you--was a genre that flourished on the console with excellent title after title releasing on the Nintendo DS such as Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, 999: Nine hours, Nine persons, Nine doors, and my much beloved Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past.

Both Hotel Dusk and Last Window have their own plot that don’t tie together per se, but they both star everybody’s favorite wise-ass detective turned washed-up salesman of useless crap, Kyle Hyde, and guess what, they both take place during the holiday season! That’s right, these noir lite little vignette of a game were both set during the end of December, and both games feature Christmas celebrations in them, and let me tell you, Christmas with Kyle Hyde is quite something, and involves a good glass of bourbon. But in all seriousness, what makes both of these games fantastic are the wonderfully fleshed out characters, how they all communicate to each other, and how they are all related to each other in some way once you uncover everyone's back-story. Spending Christmas night with the other vagrants staying in the Hotel Dusk, and in the sequel seeing more of Hyde’s personal life on Christmas, really is some of the best reading. I still can’t not recommend these gems. These Christmas gems now!

Blue Stinger

Speaking of weird experimental 3D games, I think most people forget about the Sega Dreamcast. It's easy to just think of the N64, or Playstation, and maybe even the PC, but most people are often too busy comparing the Dreamcast to the PS2--the console that essentially killed it--which fair enough, but because people so often only think in those terms they can forget that 3D games were still not fully figured out yet, even on the Dreamcast. It's easy to find a lot of stinkers on the console now in 2018; we can all look back in hindsight at Sonic Adventure and have a cheap laugh at the horrendous controls, bad camera and hilarious Clutch Cargo-esque lip syncing quality, but when the 3D games worked on Dreamcast they really worked. This is probably why the console is still so fondly remembered to this day; it goes beyond just simple Sega nostalgia for their console making days. There were tons of strange, excremental games on the console that were trying to figure out what to do with 3D space, and it's Blue Stinger here that was one of the earliest.

Blue Stinger was one of the launch titles for the Dreamcast back in September of 1999, and it was greeted to the world with more or less subpar reviews and general indifference. Over time however, a lot of people have started to really come around on this very strange launch title and some even find it it fun to boot!

So what is Blue Stinger, I see you asking. Well, it's kind of a mess. It's like what would happen if you threw in a little bit of everything that was popular at the time in the blender with reckless abandon. We got survival horror that just became popular, arcade style beat 'em up action game play that you saw in a lot of Sega arcade cabinets of the era, and a sci-fi story that is not unlike what you would expect out of the SciFi Channel complete with aliens and dinosaurs. You can really see the developers were trying pretty much anything they could at this point and not just sticking to typical conventions. No, Blue Stinger didn't want to be in the usual horror theme settings, it wanted to be in a science fiction lab on a tropical island in the year 2018. It didn't want you to conserve your ammo or, to even feel powerless, no, it wanted to double down on the campiness of beat 'em up games with the main character, Eliot Ballade, over here punching alien monster things to death with his goddamn bear hands. Move over Resident Evil, there's a new king in town! 

So what makes this a Christmas game? Well you guessed it! Blue Stinger's plot starts on none other than Christmas Eve 2018. Wait! That's tomorrow! Oh boy, I wonder what kind of day it will truly be.

I hope you all enjoyed this semi-humorous list, and have a wonderful, safe holiday season. It's been a lot of fun this year blogging again on a somewhat consistent basis, and I really hope to keep it up. See you next week for a New Years post!