My Favorite Movies/Anime/Games/... of 2021
My Favorite Movies/Anime/Games/... of 2021
In order to reminisce on this infinitely long year I'm looking back at the movies, tv shows, anime, manga/comics, books and games I played this year. I want to feel as though the media I engage with helps me learn, grow, smile and cry because otherwise what's the point of spending time doing these things? If it's one thing about me, I hate having my time wasted and I'm generally someone who's not going to do something without reading reviews or searching the internet first (with the exception of new movies/tv shows which I avoid spoilers of any type) so I guarantee everything you see here will be great for most people. (For each medium (film, tv show, video game, etc.) I will link to the tracking platforms I use for those respective mediums). This can be read pretty much like a long recommendation list and I suggest skipping around through the sections you're interested in and at least reading one for a medium you don't know much about.
So without further ado, here's my favorite Movies/Anime/Games/... of 2021 (needless to say there may be some spoilers especially if you haven't experienced any of the things I talk about).
Contents:
1. Movies
2. TV
3. Anime
4. Manga/Comics
5. Books
6. Games
Movies
This year I watched ~50 movies and boy were a lot of them great. With the help of Letterboxd I was able to discover and engage with movies in a much different way than I had ever before. It provides a social aspect to the discovery and post watch periods of movies which has been great for me to find new movies and to get a start at writing reviews or at least one line zingers about the movies I watch. Baby steps in the right direction I guess. My letterboxd profile.
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
Judas and the Black Messiah is one of those movies I knew I'd love as soon as Rahsaan Roland Kirk's saxophones blare in (see Inflated Tear). Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield are standouts, but really everyone manifested the people of the times and the emotion of the film. Seeing Bill O'Neal's turmoil from being a Judas figure is powerful and a revolutionary film concept that redirects guilt from him towards the FBI and white supremacy. It's great to see a piece of art that excels at educating and provoking its audience so well.
Mr. SOUL! (2018)
Mr. Soul is a documentary film about a legendary television host named Ellis Haizlip. He was a gay, black pioneer who created opportunities and spaces for black art on live television through his show called SOUL!. He created a platform for such creative art that had never and still hasn't been seen in the same scope on TV. Mr. SOUL! was an eye opening look into his life as well as the ways he advanced the culture and promoted all kinds of artforms from soul music (of course), to poetry and dance and I highly recommend to anyone.
This quote from Ellis Haizlip is much more profound than what I can say :
The primary purpose of SOUL! is neither to educate nor entertain, but to give people a chance to share in the Black experience. The show must do that first. Then it can educate and entertain.
The Thing (1982)
At least 3 different times this year, I've said that this thing is just Among Us but with insert here. After I watched this I said "also got me thinking about how among us is just this movie but with our own dynamic narratives" (see my letterboxd review). Everytime a crew member ends up dead in this Antarctic bunker the crew come together to discuss who the impostor is -- i mean whose body has been taken over by the alien body snatcher. The drama and excitement caused by those emergency meetings and votes leading to dramatic plans to snuff out the alien had my adrenaline racing and made for an amazing thriller/horror film. The Thing also has that classic horror look to it, from the special effects to the motion of the film. Always showing just enough to keep you on edge and shock you when necessary. Horror is slowly becoming one of my favorite genres and watching classics like this cements the genre and its ability to excite for me.
Candyman (1992)
Like The Thing, Candyman is an excellently terrifying horror film, but uses its horror for a different purpose. Set in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood on the southside of Chicago, Candyman is a modern supernatural folklore tale that has entered the modern mythos. Without giving too much away, since I feel that the surprise is valuable, the value in respecting and fearing history and folklore. Seeing Tony Todd, the actor for the Candyman, mostly in shadows, while dripping with blood while delivering haunting monologues in his deep and gravelly voice is immediately terrifying. This movie shook me to my core and is another standout horror film that I would love for folks who dismiss horror or fear horror to try.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: End of Evangelion (1997)
For those unaware, Neon Genesis Evangelion is an anime --in layman terms-- about robots fighting monsters who threaten all of humanity. Typical anime setup in those regards but it is deemed a classic by many due to its characters and the depth of pain in them as well as the impact it had on the anime industry. This movie End of Evangelion sits in a complicated point of history as a redo/alternate telling of the final two episodes of the original show's run. Due to budget and studio issues during the original show's running the final two episodes are entirely abstract and occuring entirely in the mind of the main character, Shinji. End of Evangelion is action-packed, dramatic and provides satisfying conclusions for all the characters we learn so much about throughout the original 26 episode run.
End of Evangelion at times is utterly confusing and mind boggling, but that to me is part of the greatness of Evangelion and many other anime that take inspiration from Evangelion's narrative. Using the backdrop of impossibly confusing battle between EVA units and Angels, Evangelion allows you to look into the souls of its characters and feel their pain, confusion and joy in a very visceral way. ![[Pasted image 20211228145710.png]]
Honorable Mentions
- Black Swan
- The Evil Dead
- Casino
- Chinatown
- Rango
TV Shows
Dark
Dark is a tightly written, 3 season, time travel narrative highly interested in the trinity, love and determinism. Very rarely does a television show have such a good ending in my experience and even more rarely does the time travel trope result in a meaningful, emotional plot like Dark does. As the title suggests, this show goes to some dark places and has some of the best and dramatically written dialogue that you will see in any show. Finishing season 3 this year was exciting and felt like the first time travel media I'd seen in a while that had something new to say about time travel and its possibilities.
Community
Community has brought me many a good laugh since I started watching it and will continue to do so upon every rewatch I do of it in the future. I don't think there's anything that revolutionary about this show, but the characters are so unique and their writing is always superb, sentimental and hilarious. Troy and Abed are examples of two unusual people who form an unlikely and wholesome friendship that I just love, and even Shirley and Jeff also find common ground between one another in an episode where they're spilling tea with one another. It's quite special how Community makes me laugh and smile and with every episode and I hope that everyone feels that same joy when they watch the show.
New Girl
I did not expect to like New Girl, mainly because I incorrectly thought it was just another generic, laugh-tracked filled, letter-network sitcom. Oh how I was wrong. Who would've thought I could enjoy the constantly singing and often grating "new girl", Jess, to the degree that I do. Similar to Community, New Girl teaches through its comedy. Each character has lessons to learn about their life, and while most focus on relationships there are also some periods where you see characters learn how to navigate another phase of life in terms of career as well. Strong bonds of friendship and caring carry New Girl and its characters into the most absurd situations and those situations tend to be hilarious and compromising for at least one of the people involved. I love Jess, Winston, Nick and Schmidt and love how they show their appreciation for one another and how they are authentically themselves.
Succession
Succession is pretty much my de-facto recommendation to anyone who watches television these days. It is a show where people are literally just talking to each other, but is somehow anxiety inducing. Every character in this show is absurdly rich and out of touch with reality in a way that is makes you nod your head and say "that is how an absurdly rich person would act in this situation". The main characters at play here are the Roy's what is at stake for the 3 seasons currently available is the future of their mega news and media corporation called Waystar-Royco. What ensues is a Game of Thrones-esque drama battle of politics, business, and scheming. The patriarch of the Roy family, Logan Roy, is my favorite of the easy to hate Roy family and despite his old age and poor health is often 10 steps ahead of all the schemers and plotters who aim to take him down and get one past him. This constant subterfuge and battle between him and everyone else is what hooked me in and keeps me watching and is somehow still upping the ante in season 3.
Squid Game
So, everyone with a Netflix account watched this, me included, but how could I not bring it up. Squid Game executes its premise and themes perfectly and is supported by great acting that portrays a desperation and depravity fitting of each player's situation. One reason I decided to add this on this list was to shout out a similar show (also on Netflix) called Alice in Borderland. I think these shows go toe to toe with each other in emotional impact and deserve similar amounts of praise and recognition.
Honorable Mentions+In Progress
- Witcher S2
- Adventure Time: Distant Lands
- The Wire
Anime
ODDTAXI
I didn't watch much anime this year, but I'm glad this was one of the few I watched. Without saying too much (since this show is only 13 episodes), ODDTAXI's first few episodes set up a Quentin Tarantino esque narrative with unrelated characters and unrelated narratives only to draw them all back together. This one was really masterful and bingeing this was one of the only things I can confidently remember actually happened in 2021. Take my word for it, you will not be disappointed with watching ODDTAXI.
Tokyo Revengers
Tokyo Revengers is all about 6 foot tall, muscular, middle school boys in biker gangs. This trope of middle school age boys is more than pervasive in anime and manga and seeing it as the main focus in this show put me on an investigative path to determine the roots of it. As far as I could tell that root is the very real subculture of youth biker gangs, Bōsōzoku, in Japan beginning in the 1950s. What's most interesting to me about this subculture is its reliance on American greaser influences from hairstyles to manner of dress. With that tangent out the way, I can introduce the main character, Takemichi, a short and unimpressive guy who regrets all his choices in life and exemplifies any ideal of a "loser". He in no ways fits into the gang lifestyle and can't light a candle to any peers. What he does have over his peers is knowledge of the future through time travel (anime, so let it slide) and emotional intelligence. This is a really nice feature of a protagonist that has been attempted before but always leads to disappointing conclusions (e.g. Naruto, Steven Universe make people ask why are they always talking people into submission when they have all this power?) whereas Takemichi is incredibly weak (at this point in the story at least) and can at the least be a punching bag and the most a voice of reason and sensibility. I'm excited to see where the story goes here as there are some true scumbags in the mix who "just want to watch the world burn".
Sonny Boy
Imagine you're sitting at school staring into the window, counting how many tens of minutes until 2:05, how many until the end of your class and in that daydream you and your classmates are transported into somewhere else entirely. Along with this discovery you and your classmates discover that you possess supernatural powers and abilities. You all find that you are indeed in some plane of existence that is inescapable and that your life as you knew it is no longer retrievable. Sonny Boy is an incredibly irreverent story about kids searching. What they're searching for may differ, but all of them enhanced with power and purpose search and search for answers, purpose and reason. A very different type of show that is often beautiful and incomprehensible, but delivers in the subtext otherwise known as vibes.
Honorable Mentions+Not Finished
- Star Wars Visions
- Akudama Drive
- Attack on Titan Final Season
- Iron Blooded Orphans
- Mob Psycho
Manga+Comics
One Piece
I read and watched a lot of One Piece this year. I am still baffled by how enamored I am by a rubber boy and his friends traveling the world but here I am ~66 volumes into a series I swore I would hate on for eternity. Its hard for me to point to the one moment I really stopped hating on Luffy and the Straw Hats, but if I had to choose two moments: the first would be the above scene from the Alabasta arc and the entire Skypiea->Water 7->Enies Lobby saga. For full disclosure, Skypiea was the first arc where I stopped watching the anime and started reading the manga. While it does feel slightly like cheating to say 3 separate arcs made me love One Piece, I have to! Each arc present beautiful art, hilarity, deep worldbuilding and the most pure bonds of friendship. Everything in One Piece is contingent on the reader empathizing with the denizens of whichever island the crew land on and the crew themselves. Early on in One Piece all I saw was a goofy rubber boy foolishly charging into problems for someone he didn't hardly know. Luffy couldn't have told you two things about Nami or anyone on the Cocoyomi Island, but that doesn't matter to him. The distinction between Luffy charging into danger in spite of the risks and him doing it regardless of the risks is the key nuance of Luffy and the One Piece storytelling formula. Luffy never even considers risks when there is anyone he wants to protect.
Experiencing the Straw Hats' growth and love for one another makes me want to set off on grand adventures with nothing but a singular dream and unboound motivation. Here's to being inspired even more by their unrelenting and loving spirits.
My Hero Academia
Back in 2016 the first two things I loved about My Hero Academia were its unapologetic love and inspiration from American comics and Deku's rival Bakugo. Seeing a society saturated with superheroes who aspire to "save everyone" and all have cool powers was the main thing on my mind and Bakugo reminded me of Vegeta in the way that he is Japan's National Player Hater of the Year, every year. When I look back now on the series, being very near up to date with the most current chapters released (this is ahead of the anime), I see the naïveté of the society and world that the story begins in and consequently, me and other readers. Putting blind faith in heroes without questioning their intentions, without any well-defined regulations or diagnostics is never something I would agree to in real life. Relinquishing all of one's ability to defend oneself against crazy criminals and super villains is unrealistic and yet that's the world that did exist. (WARNING, THIS CAN BE SPOILER TERRITORY IF YOU ARE NOT CAUGHT UP TO THE ANIME) What I love about the developments of the plot of My Hero Academia beginning with the introduction of Re-Destro is that the ideologies of his anti-hero group are not inherently wrong, but their methods are at odds with the current status quo. It is the writing of characters' and groups' intentions that is so masterful and keeps me excited to read more. It was incredible to have several volumes of the series completely dedicated to fleshing out all the villains and their relationships with one another as well to their goals. This is the hallmark of any superhero story, and any good vs. evil story. If the antagonist of said story has ill-defined purpose and doesn't directly oppose the protagonist with their methods then the whole charade falls apart for the reader, they no longer believe the fantasy and can see all the cracks in the writing. The beauty of serialized art is the ability to tell stories in longform and to show change over that time and what once was just a pure, simple story now is also telling the story of a society dealing with the loss of leadership and growing distrust of the power solely in the control of others. I love how My Hero has matured and transitioned and it has definitely been one of my favorite things I read in 2021.
Look Back
Look Back is a short manga written and drawn by Tatsuki Fujimoto --the author of Chainsaw Man-- about a young girl, Fujino, who has promising skills as an artist and mangaka (writer and artist of manga) but begins to doubt herself when another classmate, Kyomoto, proves to be a better artist/mangaka. Eventually, the two begin to work together and publish their own manga for a time. It's hard to put into words the feelings inspired by each panel of this story, because so much of the story is told through expressions and art. Feelings of regret and nostalgia are pervasive and heavy on every turn of the page. We are allowed a glimpse into a beautiful friendship and into a beautiful dream, perhaps one not so dissimilar to ones we've had as fellow dreamers. Similarly, we see profound loss and feelings of guilt that are truly palpable and heavy to view. By the end of the story, we look back at the river of nostalgia and end up in the pit of regret, only to finally understand purpose and love. Looking back on this manga helps me to remember to recenter and refocus when I'm upset with the progress of my work and I'm grateful for the thought Fujimoto put into this work.
Honorable Mentions+In Progress
- Uzumaki
- Yotsuba&!
- Blue Period
- Blue Lock
- Static Season 1 (only American comic here but this is Static Shock and actually is too good except its not done yet)
- Pluto
Books
The End of Policing
The End of Policing was not a revolutionary text for me in that it was not brand new concepts, like many Americans recently, I have heard and read a few things supporting a process called "Defund the Police" before this book. In nothing else that I've seen has it been done so succinctly, broadly and as effective as in this book. Author Alex Vitale breaks down several spheres of life in which policing is done and provides evidence for why policing is at its core an ineffective and inefficient solution put in place to protect the interests of a higher class. It is a very simple and effective book that provides a compelling case for the need for our government to support alternative means of community support and organizations that are equipped to deal with things people with riot armor and assault weapons cannot. Please read this and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.
Obelisk Gate
The sequel to the spectacular The Fifth Season was everything I wanted it to be and has me very excited to read the last book in the trilogy soon. Because of the reveal(s) at the end of the first book it is nearly impossible to discuss this one at all! But, I will talk about the series in general because chances are you haven't read either the first or the second book :). The Broken Earth trilogy describes a world ravaged by "Fifth Seasons" that force terrible climate changes, natural disasters and perpetual dystopia upon the entire world. People subsist in "comms", small communities of people who have mutual agreements not to rob and murder one another and to abide by their "use-caste" a typical caste system separating people by job/role. What is unique about this world are the people known as Orogenes, who are people who can control the energy of the earth mainly seen through the creation and quelling of earthquakes. For this reason, they are feared and used by society and are often killed by their own family or given to a group of people named Guardians to train. If any of that interests you, go read this series now!
Parable of the Sower
Parable of the Sower was my first Octavia Butler novel and I'm glad it was! In terms of Science Fiction, it is her imagining of the near future (2024-2026) as a result of her perception of her current time (1993) and it is really awful to see how many of the phenomena desscribed in her book are real and tangible now. Because of that we see how much a visionary thinker Butler was in visualizing societal progression which is scary to think about. In all the awfulness of her vision though buds a young thinker named Lauren who has new ideas about and dreams for the future. She does so in the form of a religious text called Earthseed: The Books of the Living. She writes that "The Destiny of Earthseed / Is to take root among the stars" and "Consider: Whether you're a human being, an insect, a microbe, or a stone, this verse is true. / All that you touch / You Change. / All that you Change / Changes you. / The only lasting truth / Is Change. / God / Is Change". For me, Parable of the Sower and Earthseed are a reminder to dream and to be cognizant of the change we affect on others and the world and the change happening around us.
A Little Life
This book. Phew. Thinking about the heartbreaking events of this book is difficult because Hanya Yanagihara is such a good writer. The book is told from different perspectives of friends from their younger years all the way until they're old and grey. Yanagihara's writing stars in every chapter in every line by means of 3rd person omniscient perspectives in the beginning and then more focused on one character in specific. This book focuses strongly on themes of friendships (particularly between men), relationships, disabilities, self-harm and trauma (lots of trauma). Yanagihara writes these people's lives in such a way that will make it feel like onions are perpetually being cut. Each character is silently dealing with their traumas, insecurities, pains and lives in such a real way that it hurts to see them fail, it hurts to see when they struggle with communication, with showing love. There was many times when I had to just set the book down for days at a time because the trauma and pain was hitting to close to home or because the subject matter was too much for that time (re: abuse, self-harm, trauma). I did not think that there would be any beauty in this book because I knew there would be a lot of trauma as the main focus of the novel, but contrary to my belief I found more than I thought. I'll leave a few of my favorite quotes below for example. A Little Life is a one-of-a-kind novel that really built up my understanding of friendships, relationships and love its not one for everybody but I do think that there is light to be found in its darkness.
"He closes his eyes, not because he's tired but because it is a perfect moment, and he knows how to enjoy them."
"Around him, the room was redolent of the unknown herb he'd found. green and fresh and yet somehow familiar, like something he hadn't known he had liked until it had appeared, suddenly and unexpectedly, in his life."
"...and he felt, despite his anxiety, deeply calm, and glad he was telling somebody..."
"He liked too the specific and unexpected companionability of the place. There were times on the weekends when everyone was there at the same time, and at moments, he would emerge from the fog of his painting and sense that all of them were breathing in rhythm, panting almost, from the effort of concentrating. He could feel, then, the collective energy they were expending filling the air like gas, flammable and sweet, and would wish he could bottle it so that he might be able to draw from it when he was feeling uninspired, for the days in which he would sit in front of the canvas for literally hours, as though if he stared long enough, it might explode into something brilliant and charged."
"Jude saying something and the other two leaning in close to hear him, and then in the next moment, the three of them leaning back and all laughing, and although for a moment he felt both wistful and slightly jealous, he was also triumphant, as he had gotten both shots. Tonight, I am a camera, he told himself, and tomorrow I will be JB again."
"At times he missed being part of the pictures himself; here was a whole narrative of his friends’ lives, his absence an enormous missing part, but he also enjoyed the godlike role he played."
"“See! See, see?!” That would be Malcolm, jumping up and down and pointing at JB, while Willem laughed. On weed, Malcolm grew both sillier and more pedantic, and the three of them liked getting into silly and pedantic philosophical arguments with him, the contents of which Malcolm could never recall in the morning."
"You see, Jude, in life, sometimes nice things happen to good people. You don’t need to worry—they don’t happen as often as they should. But when they do, it’s up to the good people to just say ‘thank you,’ and move on, and maybe consider that the person who’s doing the nice thing gets a bang out of it as well, and really isn’t in the mood to hear all the reasons that the person for whom he’s done the nice thing doesn’t think he deserves it or isn’t worthy of it."
Honorable Mentions+In Progress
- Children of Blood and Bone
- The Will to Change
- Pride and Prejudice
- All Systems Red
- Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy
Games
Persona 4 Golden
Surprise! Another thing about friendship! This time its a game though so I promise its a bit different than the two or three other ones I've already talked about. Persona 4 Golden (on PC) is a remaster of a PS2 murder mystery, JRPG, dungeon-crawling, visual novel game. You play as a high-schooler and his buddies as they traverse into a television and wield psychic powers known as their Persona to defeat shadows of people in the real world. If you're scratching your head and muttering "what the heck is Kevin doing with his time" bear with me because its cool! You and your friends have access to these Personas because you faced, accepted and defeated your "other self" AKA the side of you that you hate, deny and repress to the world, but festers inside of you and manifests in the shadow TV world. All of that is standard Persona biz, but where does the murdering come into play? Well, it starts when a TV announcer is found dead, her body strung high up on an antenna and then a few days later the person who finds her also is found dead. Each one of these murders and the subsequent ones have no witnesses and no evidence pointing towards any criminal so it sets a fever about the small countryside community. You and your friends later discover ties between the mysterious Midnight Channel, the victims and the TV world. Throughout the game you build relationships (social links) with your friends in order to gain more power in the shadow world where you battle the shadow demons representing people's repressed emotions. It is really beautiful to see how growing closer to your friends (i.e. building emotional strength) translates into tangible strength and is immensely rewarding to do so and to actually feel like a friend to these kids. If I played this when I was younger I can definitely see that emotion being a transformative experience for me because the characters would be more relatable in age and in terms of the struggles they're going through. A must play for RPG fans who have the patience to see a 100+ hour game through to the end! (For full transparency, this game and every Persona game is slow and boring for the first 4-5 hours of gameplay unfortunately! At least the music is great!)
Mass Effect 1 (Legendary Edition)
For a while one of my favorite Twitch and YouTube groups, the Gaming Illuminaughty, has hailed the Mass Effect series as their favorite games, and their standards for RPGs, narrative games where you make decisions (that actually affect the story) and science fiction games in general. Because I never had the chance to play these when they originally came out I was itching to try them a few years ago when I caught them on sale, foolish me didn't realize they came out 15 years ago and you feel every single one of those years now. The gameplay of the first game did not age well and the game looked awful on top of that so I gave up on playing these gems. Nevertheless, fate had other plans for me! Bioware released a remastered version of the trilogy called the Legendary Edition that adds quality of life updates and graphical updates to the trilogy which for me made the first game playable. And boy was it playable. I found that while the gameplay was still not quite it for me, the overarching narrative, characters and decision making available were more than worth sludging through the clunky shooting of a 15 year old game. I thoroughly enjoyed being a mostly good space soldier who was willing to bend the rules when I needed to do what was right. I really felt the threat of the Reapers especially once I first encountered the existential threat. This game just oozes the love of sci-fi and dives deep in the lore and interspecies interactions which is without a doubt now some of my favorite aliens in all of sci-fi. In most sci-fi I will complain to others and say "this is so human-centric! Where are the aliens!? Why does everything always have to be about humanity and humans!?" and most everyone just looks at me is probably wishing I would shut up. Mass Effect seems to hear my desperate plea and features several great alien characters as well as a plot not just concerning humanity (although you could play the game in a manner in which you only care about humans and actually hate alien races). Truly a great game everyone should power through (on easy mode to make the shooting sections end faster) and enjoy.
Undertale
Undertale is a very different type of game than most things I've played. The game makes MERCY or running from a fight a viable option. most games would have you ruthlessly murder the cutest of monsters along with the most heinous of villains; to quote Ad Astra, "I purged the innocent along with the guilty". This choice to me is revolutionary because it allows the narrative to shift from the traditional "defeating evil" to something else. On top of that Undertale has a deceptively deep plot and hilarious characters. This was a shorter game that did everything it needed to do and then ended (instead of forcing you to play forever and ever) and I loved all of it. Even folks who don't think of themselves as gamers can enjoy this game and its wacky cast.
Hades
I'm proud to say I played Hades when it was still the unknown indie game in early access! Now the game is many people's game of the year contender and has won several awards for its narrative design, music and the game itself and for good reason! This game is a roguelike, which means that each time you play you will access a choice of randomly selected upgrades and random map setups and when you die, you start at the beginning again. The premise is you are Zagreus, son of Hades, and you want to escape Hell. You travel through places familiar to those who know their Greek Mythology, Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium in order to reach the surface. Unlike any other roguelike before it (that I've heard of), the narrative evolves as you gain access to more abilities and die more. As you return to your starting point you're greeted by Hades who naturally disapproves of your attempts to escape his realm, Achilles, Dusa a friendly gorgon who probably has a crush on you, Orpheus and many others who are hoping for your success. You further these relationships by talking to these people more, but the game presents you with unfortunate circumstances, you can only talk to them agian if you die! So you keep playing, hoping that you can defeat your father's forces and failing again! But this time you get to give Dusa a gift that makes her giggle, blush and fly into the ceiling. The gameplay here is so tight and rewarding and as always for most gamers it is awesome to see big number go bigger when you find the right boons to make your damage go up. Speaking of boons, I haven't even mentioned the Gods that are in the game! We have the familiar pantheon and they are all fantastic, they are godly in their indifference to your plight and their voice actors really nail the feeling you would expect from each member of the family. Hades is just a fantastic game that is not only a blast to play but is also an example of great game design.
Valorant
Hi, I'm Kevin Bryson and I'm an FPS addict. I've put in an ungodly amount of time playing this game and I still suck! Not sure why I keep playing but I do. I've begun to think some of it is about the camarederie of playing a game with others or that others in my friend group play but I really don't know what keeps me coming back. Maybe its the sweet sound of getting a headshot or clutching a round with 3 kills. I think mostly Riot Games knows how to make a game that people get addicted to despite raging at while playing.
Honorable Mentions+In Progress
- Metroid Fusion
- Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139...
If you made it this far, thanks! I'm excited to follow this up with more writing about more of my interests like photography, digital privacy, and maybe even some of my professional experiences. I'm leaving it open to myself so I can be free to just write things which is the goal. If you're interested in my takes or just appreciate the recommendations I have here then stick around :)