Changes

Wow. What a week.

I started writing for a site called Games Reviews this week. My friend Adam Roffel, who writes there, said he liked this blog and asked if I'd write for his site. So I started writing a column called "More Thoughts From Me" at Games Reviews. The first column can be found here.

So what does that mean for this site?

Well, it definitely means that this site will get a "reboot": A new name and maybe a new objective. Though, honestly, I haven't given much thought to what the name or objective will be yet.

I've decided to take a break from this site. I want to focus on my new column for Games Reviews and hopefully write some reviews, previews, etc for that site too.

Plus I want to get back to writing fiction again. I've wanted to do that for awhile now but with this site, my comic review site, and everything else, well, its been hard.

Oh and that brings me to my comic review site. I will post this same blog entry over at that site too. I've decided to take a break from writing comic reviews. I will get back to it. I have a lot more comics from Carl to review.  I'm not sure what my plan is yet for when the reviews will be back. I'm winging all of this.

I just felt like it was time for a change.

There is also one final change of note: I'm not working for Real Otaku Gamer anymore. I won't go into details on why. But I will say that I'll miss working with Jon and Harold.

Finally, I wanted to make sure you all know you can still find me @df2506 on twitter. And I plan to write more on my Tumblr too. There are some really interesting tv shows coming up and I think I might write about them.

I'm going to start thinking about and planning stuff for this site, my comic review site, and other things. I don't know when anything will be back. If you're interested, keep an eye on my twitter. You just never know when I'll reveal something new.

So thats it. Not the end of this site. Just a break and a regroup. Thanks to everyone who has read my stuff so far and I hope you'll come back to read whatever I come up with next.

Till next time!

When I Was Your Age...

I'm feeling a bit old today.

Yes, I'm about to give you one of those "When I was your age...I walked ten miles in the snow barefoot" stories. Ok, I didn't do that. But this is a blog entry in that vain.

When I was your age (you're just a little kid right? Right), we didn't have all these fancy graphics, cool controls, and HD TVs.

We had 8-bit graphics, the NES controller, and television sets that filled whole rooms. Well, they weren't that big, but they weren't thin and the picture would look grainy today.

The point is that we weren't focused on how good the game looked. We cared about the gameplay. From Atari to NES to Super NES, it was all about the gameplay. And then the 64 came about and then the Playstation and things changed. People started to get wowed by Sony's Playstation and star struck by the graphics. Sure, there was a lot of great gameplay too, but if you choose the Playstation over the 64, it was probably over the graphics. I admit thats a big reason that I fell for the Playstation 1.

Yet, there's still this need for retro games. We see Indie developers still creating games that are more about gameplay than graphics. We see Nintendo and some other third parties do this too. Look at Super Mario Maker, thats a game that is all about the retro. We can finally create our own Mario levels! If someone could time travel back to when I was a kid and tell me about Super Mario Maker, I would not have believed them.

When I was your age, the graphics were simple, the gameplay was simple in comparison to today's gameplay, and we loved it.

There are a lot of us that still love the simple, fun games. Of course, there are a lot of new games that are awesome too. We can't live in the past completely. The video game industry, like all industries, most evolve and change in order to still be interesting to young whippersnappers like you.

But we must not forget the past either. We should always look back to the past as a point of reference, "How can I make this game as good as Super Mario Bros?", "How can I make it better?" We must always remember where the industry came from.

Thank goodness for the Virtual Consoles. Thank goodness for the Indies who love retro. Thank goodness for youtube.

When I was your age, we didn't have virtual consoles, indies, or youtube. We didn't even have the internet. Man, my generation will be one of the last to grow up without the internet. I don't know if I should be happy about that or weeping.

(aside: we also didn't have cellphones. No big loss there, imo)

Oh and one last thing: Don't play in the streets kids.

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I'll be back on Friday with something else.

The Games I Can't Wait to Play In 2016

As I promised, here are the games I can't wait to play in 2016:

Zelda Wii U: Currently untitled. The next installment for the Zelda franchise is for the Wii U and everything we've seen of it so far looks amazing. We know nothing about it really, but I can't help be excited for this game! I love the Zelda franchise. I'm huge fan of the Wii U. Can't wait to see what Zelda Wii U is all about.

Twilight Princess HD: Twilight Princess is one of my favorite Zelda games. I'm really excited about the HD version. It'll have better graphics and yet to be revealed new content! I'm ready!

Dragon Quest 7 and 8: When it was announced last year that Dragon Quest 7 and 8 were FINALLY coming to North America, I was beyond excited! I love the Dragon Quest series. I have played 8 and liked it a lot. Can't wait to play it on the 3DS. But Dragon Quest 7 is definitely more exciting because I've never played it before. I'm hoping to get Dragon Quest 7 for my birthday (in July).

YIIK: YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is coming for the Wii U this year. This game looks like a cross between Earthbound and...actually there really isn't anything to compare it to. YIIK is a turn-based rpg with a strange sense of humor and really good looking graphics. I hope I get to review this game, but if not, I still want to play it. It looks like it'll be a lot of fun.

Oddworld: New & Tasty: Follow me! I was hoping that Abe would make it to the Wii U last year, but it didn't happen. Hopefully he'll arrive this year for the Wii U eshop. I loved the original Oddworld. The new one looks even better.

Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam: I'm a big fan of both the Mario & Luigi franchise and (especially) the Paper Mario franchise. A crossover game with them both?! I would have never even dreamed of such a thing. This game looks like a lot of fun!

And whatever else Nintendo has in store for us: We only know about the 3DS and Wii U games for the first half of the year (well, expect for Zelda Wii U of course). That means that we should be in for some surprises come E3. I'm sure there will be one or two or possibly more 3DS and Wii U games I want from Nintendo. Can't wait to see what the second half of the year will bring us for the two systems.

I'm sure there will be a lot of cool Indies out this year too. Games we know about and games that haven't even been announced yet! There are games I'm excited for that I didn't list here. I'll hopefully cover even more cool games this year via this blog.

What games are you looking forward to in 2016? Please let me know in the comments!

I'll be back on Monday.

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All of the above images were taken from Google.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm sorry that this blog didn't return the week after Christmas. The holiday season was full of laziness and video games for me!

And now I'm back (a day late) and that means there will be plenty of game blog entries ahead of us.

I just wanted to write a blog entry today filling you in on what I'm doing writing wise and what I'm playing.

I'm currently writing news and reviews for Real Otaku Gamer.

My first review for the site was Legend of Dark Witch 2 for 3DS!

My second review will be Runbow for the Wii U. I'm currently playing that. Not sure when the review will be up, but if you're interested in hearing my thoughts on it, please keep an eye on my twitter account. I'll let you know when my Runbow review is up there!

I plan to write another game blog entry here on Friday. I want to talk about what games I'm looking forward to playing this year!

As for what I'm currently playing (just for fun): Animal Crossing New Leaf, Super Mario Maker, and Xenoblade Chronicles X!

I got Super Mario Maker and Xenoblade Chronicles X for Christmas. I love both games. As I mentioned on this site before, I'm a huge fan of games where you can make stuff. Super Mario Maker is the ultimate game maker. Nintendo did a great job with it. I currently have Nine levels online for people to play. Maybe I'll write up a post sometime sharing the codes for my levels.

And Xenoblade Chronicles X is extremely addicting! The story, so far, is fantastic, the world is amazing to explore, and the giant robots are freaking awesome. It was definitely my favorite rpg of 2015 and continues to my favorite of 2016 (well, so far at least. lol).

I can't wait to write about the games I'm looking forward to playing this year! There are a lot of them. I'm sure I'll miss something. I'll see you on Friday!

Super Smash Bros 3DS/Wii U Final Video Thoughts

Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 is in a Nintendo game. Just let this sink in for a moment.

I remember back when Final Fantasy 7 came out. I was a big Nintendo fan who had decided to buy a Playstation 1 instead of a Nintendo 64. The Playstation just looked cooler to me. And I loved (and still love) Final Fantasy 7.

Now Cloud is in a Super Smash Bros and two worlds that I love: Nintendo and Final Fantasy, are back together again. Thats really awesome.

But you know, we already knew about Cloud in Super Smash Bros 3DS and Wii U before this week's final video about Smash.

So what did I think of the new reveals?

I can't say I was impressed by yet another Fire Emblem character being added to Smash. There's already so many. I did like the look all of the new costumes for Smash, especially the Chocobo costume and the Geno costume (that was a shock!).

And that final reveal shocked me a lot.



Bayonetta in Smash Bros! WOW.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the character. I mean, I tried the demo and thought it was ok, but she wouldn't have been high on the list of characters I wanted for Smash.

Even so, WOW. She looks incredible in Smash Bros. She absolutely looks like she'd be a fun character to play as. I'm sure people are going to love playing as that character when she comes to Smash Bros next year.

I'd say, overall, it was a good final video for Smash. It wasn't a great one though. I still think that Shovel Knight or Rusty or some Indie character should have gotten into Smash Bros instead of that new Fire Emblem character. Also at least one more big surprise would have been amazing.

Still, the Smash Bros final video was very welcome in an otherwise slow Nintendo news week.

What did you think of the final video? What characters do you wish had been added to Smash Bros?

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The Cloud picture was taken from here and the Bayonetta picture from here.

I'll be taking next week off from this blog. I'm just way too busy. This blog will return the week after Christmas!

Goodbye Shigeru Reviews, Hello Real Otaku Gamer!

As some of you may have heard, I've left Shigeru Reviews and moved over to Real Otaku Gamer. Here's my goodbye to Shigeru that I posted over the weekend at that site:

" Dear Readers,

Just like Jon and Harold, I’ll be leaving Shigeru Reviews and heading over to Real Otaku Gamer too. I’ll miss Shigeru a lot.

When Matt asked me to write my first review for this site (Stick It to The Man), I had no idea that it’d turn into a full time writing position. I was delighted when I started receiving review codes from Matt and that feeling of excitement/worry about “what will this game be?” has never worn off (and I doubt it ever will). Writing for Shigeru has been a blast!

I have enjoyed writing the reviews the most, but writing the news has been an excellent learning experience. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my reviews and news posts here.

There are some people I want to thank:

Matt and Jon for giving me games to play and things to write. What a fantastic experience!

The rest of the Shigeru crew! Especially Harold, Fletcher, Jolt, and Chris.

I also want to thank Adam Roffel, Shaun Edwards, and Trevor Gould for their support of my writing. The feedback you guys provide is really helpful and I hope we’ll continue to talk a lot.

Some people that inspire me and make me strive to be a better writer: my mom & dad, Daan Koopman, Shawn Long, Roger DiLuigi III, mattmagician, Tony Brasel, Jess Carder, Carl Smith, and many more.

Thanks to Nintendo Everything, Go Nintendo, and Nintendo Enthusiast. Three of the best Nintendo related sites and our main sources for gaming news.

And thank you to the fantastic Indie developers who gave us review codes, interviews, and plenty of news to report. There are way too many of you wonderful people to list. You all know who you are. I hope we’ll work with you again very soon.

Most of all: YOU guys. The readers. Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

Daniel Fugate

@df2506 on twitter "

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And thats it! How will this change effect this blog? 

Not at all. I still plan to write previews, reviews, and other stuff for this site. 

With Real Otaku Gamer, Jon, Harold, and I saw an interesting opportunity to join another site and took it! We just started working for the site this week, so its too early to tell you what we have planned for the site (other than we will still be talking about Nintendo & Indies) or how its going. Wish us luck! 

You can check the site out here if you want to.

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I'll be back on Friday. Let me know in the comments if there's anything Nintendo or Indie related you want me to talk about.

Congratulations to Image & Form

Today I thought I'd write a blog entry about Image & Form, developers of Steamworld Dig and now Steamworld Heist.

As many of you know from my blog entries here, I was really excited for Steamworld Heist. The game came out yesterday. I got to review it over at Shigeru Reviews and I loved it.

Image & Form created an excellent game. It was everything I had hoped for and a bit more! Please check out my review at Shigeru Reviews here to find my full thoughts.

Image & Form has always been a really friendly developer. I've talked to them a lot on twitter and yes, I'm a huge fan. That did not stop me from being critical of Steamworld Heist. I did have some nitpicky things to say (not many). I know that I failed in my Steamworld Dig review here on this site because I just loved that title too much and couldn't be unbiased about it. I tried to be as unbiased as possible in my Steamworld Heist review. It wasn't easy.

There was a lot of hype for Steamworld Heist. I felt that hype and I even wrote poems based on what I'd seen and heard of the game. I was constantly bugging Image & Form and tweeting my excitement for the game.

I thought one of the coolest things that Image & Form did was the Steamworld Heist Ambassador contests. It was amazing that fans could win early copies of Steamworld Heist! I didn't enter those contests because I hoped that I'd be reviewing the game (I did enter their contest for the soundtrack though). I feel really lucky to have gotten a review copy and to get to play the game early!

I've only played two of Image & Form's games so far. I feel like they make really amazing games and their games are only going to get better and better! I can't wait to see what they do next! If you haven't bought Dig and/or Heist, what are you waiting for?! GO GET THEM!

Congratulations Image & Form on the release of Steamworld Heist for the 3DS. All the best to you! Hope Steamworld Heist sells a ton of copies.

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The Image & Form logo is from Image & Form's blog here. The Steamworld Heist picture is from Image & Form's press kit for the game.

I'll be back on Monday to talk about the FUTURE of something. Not this blog. Something else.