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Megaman X4

Megaman is one of the oldest video game franchises. They are incredibly formulaic, but fun, if simple. This was back from the time when Mario's primary ability was jumping.

When it jumped to SNES, the SNES had enough power to actually do something really interesting, if barely so. Few video games did it. Terminator introduced real music. Metal Warriors had a great story with almost cinematics, and Megaman X combined it together. Megaman was a rote robot, so they couldn't do anything deep with it.

X was fully sentient. Dr. Light realized it was a good idea to leave him in a capsule to test him for a couple of hundred years to make sure he wouldn't just downright kill anyone.

Dr. Cain decided to copy him into Reploids without such safeguards. And some of them went Maverick.

The Megaman X games had complex characters with minimal dialogue, and music that was as close to Heavy Metal as you can get with a MIDI. The gameplay itself was a lot more dynamic and exciting.

Of course, all good things come to an end. Megaman X was meant to be a 5 part series that jumped off into Megaman Zero. The 5th game was not quite as good as the fourth, but still a good game. Subsequent games were absolutely terrible.

For years, at least a decade, Megaman X4 was considered the best platformer of all times.

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"Weird Al" Yankovic - The Saga Begins (Official Video)

Runtime:  5:37

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Shadow of the Colossus

We could talk about how it's the prequel to a fantastic game, about the basic plot, or even about the beauty, but the most important thing is the control system.

You play as Wander.

Standard video game dude. Has a sword. [] has you do basic attack. /\ is jump. X is call your horse. d-pad (left)/(rght) lets you cycle weapons between nothing, the sword, and a bow you find later one. The bow does no damage to any of the enemies in this game.

O lets you... reflect light from your sword. You might think this is some cool video game attack, and you would be wrong.

This is because, while your sword is super cool, and likely divine, your enemies are all colossi. Not just really tall enemies that you wail at with your sword until they fall down, but walking mountains, or at least hills.

And there are no other enemies in the game.

This is sounding like an incredibly boring game, and you would be right.

If not for R1. Hold R1 and you grab things. Cliffs, enemies, moss, vines, etc. If you have nothing to grab onto, he crouches down, which helps him recover.

In order to kill the colossi, you need to climb them up to their weak point, and stab it with your magic sword. In order to do this, you need the best climbing engine any video game has ever come up with.

And while Shadow of the Colossus completely changed how games CAN be made, there is a grand total of one game that took the basic premise, and made a good game out of it.

You hold R1 to grab things. When you jump near a cliff, or something climbable, you will grab onto it. When you let go of R1, you let go. If you hold down /\ while clinging from something, you charge up a jump. You press your L-stick in the direction you want to go, and let go of Triangle, and you jump there.

This creates such an intuitive climbing system that it feels like you are part of the game as you explore the absolutely beautiful game world.

When climbing colossi, you have stamina, grip strength, and they will actively try to shake you off. This makes every colossus climb a gripping, harrowing experience. Every colossus you kill makes you look more corrupt, (slightly), but also increases your fall resistance. Which is kind of essential, as each colossus gets bigger and bigger, but so subtly that you might not notice the first (few) times you play the game.

When you do this, every part of the game, feels intuitive, and you can simply get lost in the breathtaking world.

Oh, and the sword collects light, and if you point it in the right direction, it creates a beam of light to the next colossus. And when you get there, it points to the weak point.

The bow can be used to piss off the colossus, to get him into position to start a climb. And to hunt lizard tails, which increase your maximum stamina.

There was... eventually... a sequel to Shadow of the Colossus, but it seems the publisher forced on them a standard modern climbing engine, which you constantly have to fight against, and requires constant tool tips to be useful. Taking a game that should be about the joy exploration to one about annoyance and frustration.

The only other game to do this well was Dragon's Dogma. It then had a sequel that tried to mainstream normie the control system that made it infinitely inferior to the original.

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PATTY GURDY - RUN (new original hurdy-gurdy music)

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Onimusha 3: Demon Siege

Resident Evil was never meant to be a good game. And to be fair, they have kept their promise, by never making a good game.

Resident Evil was always designed as a shitty B movie.

Now, are Resident Evil games fun? Yes. At least until they discovered quick time events, (I spit upon the name of God of War for introducing them. Anyways, they started playing around with what they could do with the premise.

One of their spinoffs was Devil May Cry. DMC was based off a potential control system for Resident Evil. It turned out to be a dumb idea for Resident Evil, but a great idea for Devil May Cry.

Another was Onimusha: Warlords. While DMC took the cinematic aspect of Resident Evil, Onimusha took the controls, and tried to perfect them. The end result was what are referred to as Tank Controls. Tanks, at least early tanks, had to stop to turn. While Dante can turn on a time, Samanosuke has to turn that way before moving. This provided a plodding, methodical movement system.

And, we need to take a moment to point out that early 3D games absolutely suck. OoT was great. Mario 64 was 50/50 over whether the camera controls worked at the moment. Parasite Eve has completely unique controls, because while it (barely) worked, they were absolutely idiotic, if fun. Two-stick and mouse-look were not invented until the PS2 era.

And so, Onimusha's tank controls were, honestly, revolutionary at the time, even if they are rightfully left in the dusts of history.

The original pair of Onimusha games played off the Unification Era. Oni are good. Genma are evil. Because, subverting expectations.

The first one was actually close to Resident Evil, in the sense that it starts off as an investigation that turns supernatural. The hero of the first game is Samanosuke Akechi, whom is basically Akechi Hidemitsu. In the game he is an idealized confusion warrior. Confusion warriors are paragons of selflessness, to the point they don't have a personality, and the game is primarily interesting because you are dealing with people from the unification wars, although many of them are possessed/empowered by the demonic Genma. 2 was a different story, with a different character, but still used history as the primary way of making it interesting.

Onimusha 3: Demon Siege brought back Samanosuke, and added a new one.

Jacques Blanc

A modern French soldier with a blue trench coat flak jacket.

The two swap eras, coordinating through tier fairy tengu.

Jacques Blanc has whip-like weapons. Instead of the bow that Samanosuke uses, Jacques uses alternate whip attacks, which can grapple opponents. He can then draw his side arm to pepper them, toss them, slam them, etc. His whip also gives him a vertical movement option, dramatically improving the exploration options.

He allows the game to be a LOT more dynamic and exciting, even if, at it's base, he uses the same tank controls of Samanosuke.

He also has a personality. Girlfriend. Son. Emotions.

Demon Siege also follows the growing Resident Evil tradition of having a bunch of interesting characters have their own sidestories.

And this is an colossal east/west division, as while 3 is far more interesting for a foreign audience, it's largely decried by the Japanese audience.

This was honestly one of the best games of the PS2 era, but because of the disinterest in Japan, will likely never get a modern remake.

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Charlemagne - Massacre of the Saxons - Christopher Lee

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The Crimson Permanent Assurance!

When making The Meaning of Life, Monty Python wanted a cold open. And the official version of why it was so long is simply that no one told them to stop.

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MANOWAR - Sleipnir (Official Lyric Video)

Runtime:  5:15

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WIND ROSE - Diggy Diggy Hole (Official Video) | Napalm Records

Runtime:  5:41

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E Nomine - Wolfen (Das Tier in Mir) (English Translation)

Runtime:  4:43

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X-Wing

One of the two games that made space flight sims a genre. Wing Commander game first. Descent was more of a 3D DOOM game.

X-Wing does an absolutely fantastic job of 3D space flight, and hammered out many of the unmentioned rules of the Star Wars universe. Such as hyperdrive navigation, and the the fact ships are pulled out of hyperspace by heavy gravity wells. Which you can create artificially. Which does come up in the plot.

I think it was in the sequels, but it allows you to attack individual turbolaser batteries.

While the flight is non-neutonian, (if you turn off the engines, you come to a stop; maybe it's a safety feature that stops starfighters from drifting off into nothingness?). Flight is done incredibly well, with various ships having very different handling.

You can adjust the blaster and shield recharge of your ship, transfering power into them, or into the engines. Remember in the first movie, where they put their shields double front? You can do that. And double rear. And balanced. And if you have it balanced and cycle it, when you get back to balanced, it will distribute the shield energy evenly.

And this brings up the glorious TIE Fighter!

TIE Fighters were NEVER meant to be the equal of the X-Wing. The X-Wing was one of the most expensive fighters in the galaxy. They were so expensive that no one could afford to build them en masse. The Empire had... and empire to maintain. The TIE Fighter was designed to be as good as they could get, without spending a lot of money. They ended up with a fighter that looked simple, but packs a lot of punch into an extremely tiny package. Despite the engines and blaster cannons being a fraction of the size, they had the same power as the X-Wing. So, the tiny TIE Fighter had the same speed an maneuverability as the X-Wing, which was, at the time, the best fighter in the galaxy. X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and X-Wing: Alliance introduce a number of other fights, establishing that the X-Wing and TIE Fighters were far faster than the average. About 1/4 faster.

The TIE Fighter was instead designed to use great training to produce fantastic pilots. The problem is that training can only produce GOOD pilots. Fantastic pilots have innate talent that cannot be taught.

But, a skilled TIE Fighter pilot can keep up with an equal X-Wing pilot. TIE Fighters don't need missile launchers, as they always fight as part of a battlegroup, with TIE Bombers backing them up. They don't need hyperdrive, because they are always part of a battlegroup.

The Empire did had hyperdrive capable fighters, but they weren't as maneuverable as the X-Wing.

In fact, the TIE Fighter is so small and maneuverable, that you might have to turn off auto-convergence for your blasters. You can also switch through Fire Linking, which have single shot, pair, and if you have four, quad-linked.

You can summon back-up. If you have a hyperdrive-capable fighter, you can even make a single jump. As in Star Wars you have to spend a lot of time actually calculating your jumps.

The original has you play as the iconic and prestigious X-Wing, (among other Alliance fighters). The first sequel, TIE Fighter has you fight for the Empire. You get to see the empire as peace makers, and you spend most of your time on pirates, smugglers, crime syndicates, and rebel, (not Rebel), generals. They then produced X-Wing: Alliance, were you play the son of a merchant family who flies for the alliance, but you have times where you have to fly for your family, using another Corellian YT transport.

They then created X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, that tried to balanced the ships. The whole point is that life/war is not balanced. You don't always get what you want.

Since then, they have come out with Squadrons, that focuses more on how diverse your characters are, rather than, you know, space combat. YOU SPEND MOST OF THE GAME IN A FLIGHT SUIT, and you only see the main character's face in the occasional cutscene.

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ReBoot

The - first- CGI show, and despite the reputation that CGI would later gain, one of the best shows in history.

It is set in a computer. Modern audiences will likely not get most of the humour, as a lot of it has been obfuscated away from modern computers. Most people don't have to worry about clock speed anymore, and have never had to deal with command-line interfaces.

But, this aside, you need to know nothing about the topic, nor the show, as it does an absolutely fantastic idea of introducing every element in an incredibly entertaining way. Despite the fact the first episode introducing a complex new world, along with all of the main characters and the primary villain in a way that no only does not feel like an infodump, but in an incredibly entertaining way.

The biggest problem was ABC, and their Board of Standards and Practices, whom they actually attacked in the show.

Once they severed from ABC, they created a deep, rich story that has more character growth than the vast majority of shows ever created. Including one that develops a deep anger that causes him to lash out at the ones he love. He doesn't understand why he does it, and cannot stop. And, I personally have never felt so much affinity with another character.

One of the best parts of the CGI is that it still is almost as good as it ever was. It wasn't until I went from 42" to 55", (sitting 10ft away), that I saw any flaws in the animation. It was created in 1994, and has better animation than pretty much anything for 15 years. Other than Pixar. The world is beautiful and interesting, the vehicle designs are incredible, ever episode requires completely redesigned characters when playing as NPC's in a video game, (the ReBoot in ReBoot). From Mad Max to the INFAMOUS Mortal Kombat. They even have an episode when games collide, creating the wonderful T-Rex Tank, as a military game combined with a dinosaur survival game.

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Dark Forces: Remaster

Back in the day, we didn't have First Person Shooters, we had DOOM clones. DOOM had the appearance of a 3D game, but wasn't even fully 2D. DOOM clones used almost the exact same engine.

This was until Dark Force came along. Not only did Dark Forces create truly 3D environments, but the game had you face off against ledged-up Stormtroopers in the first level. You had devices that had power requirement, enemies that actually communicated with you, secret that weren't just push-space button-against-random walls, but required you to jump, duck, look around, turn on your headlamp or cleats. Oh, by the way, your headlamp actually gave you away in the dark, which meant with it turned of, you could actually hide. Not only could you use the terrain as cover, being able to fire around it, but enemies were set up in positions where they were automatically doing this.

Most of the advances made in Half-Life were made in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2. And half of the advances made in Jedi Knight were made in Dark Forces.

The biggest problem with this is that the game was made before we had Mouse-Look or Two-Stick, which made it incredibly difficult for any modern gamer to actually play. I even tried going back to the PS1 port, and it was absolutely frustrating. Games have come a long way.

Well, the Remaster allows you to remap all of the controls, so you can use the Two-Sticks... almost. The controls sometimes get confused, but the vast majority of the time they move so fluidly that the gameplay is incredibly fun, even after playing 25 years of games with much better controls. They also redid the CGI, so the game looks and feels just as good as my nostalgia tells me I should.

This was the game that turned DOOM clones into First Person Shooters, doing as much for the genre as DOOM and Wolfenstein did, and the first time it's really accessible for modern audiences.

One thing modern gamers don't understand is that old games based their timing off the computer's own clock speed. This made back compatibility... troubling. Combined with the ancient controls, made the game extremely hard to get into.

Well, now you can experience the game as it was meant to be played.

I cannot overstate how important this video game was for the history of First Person Shooters in specific, video games as a whole, and for the Star Wars franchise. This was one of the Expanded Universes first true forays into something other than books. This was from when LucasArts was the very pinnacle of video gaming. This game, along with X-Wing, made Star Wars a truly expansive universe, and both completely revolutionized video game history.

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Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon)

One of the best stories ever told - period - end of sentence.

And one constantly beset by terrible spin-offs and knock-offs, and something the producers could not replicate in subsequent shows, INCLUDING their own sequel.

The show has absolutely brilliant worldbuilding, until the retcons in their own sequel show.

In the Avatar world, there are 4 main races, each named after the four Indian elements: Earth, Fire, Wind, Water.

Rather than being token aspects, the differences come down to deep philosophical differences, to the point that the world views might not be reconcilable. The Earth Kingdom is Imperial China. They value stability above all else, and as such it is exactly what they have.

The Water Tribes are a combination of Inuit with coastal China. They are fluid and free flowing, and the thing they value the most is love, (both platonic and romantic). Their deep love is what holds them together as they sail the roiling seas.

The Air Nomads value freedom, to the point they don't raise their own children. They travel the world, never having a home, but never wanting one either.

The more spiritual members of each nation gain the Bender of their element. This has them manipulate the energies of their bodies, (i.e. moving their bodies themselves), to manipulate the elements around them.

But, of course, it's a wide world. Every - single - village they come across has their own culture. They have their own laws, their own customs, their own clothing. And a third of the story is just having them explore their world. Their life is one of adventure. Literally. They spend as much time exploring their wonderful world as they do on character development as they do on the primary plot.

While the story was intended to be watchable by children, it contains a great number of heavy, thick, and deep themes, such as genocide, filial piety, and uncontrollable power. Sometimes the right answer is military force. Sometimes the power of diplomacy is what is needed. Sometimes it's trust, in others, or yourself.

The main characters are wonderful, loveable, flawed, and dynamic.

As are the villains.

As are many of the background characters, some of which became absolutely iconic.

For anyone who's seen the show: "MY CABBAGES!"

A:tLA is one of the shows where your favourite character might be a one or two shot character, and this is not in any way an insult to the main characters. This is because even one-shot characters are often done with as much love and affection as the main characters are.

All of the background writing is done in Chinese, by expert calligraphers. The martial arts are impeccably researched, beautiful, intrinsic, and true. The stories are epic and adventurous. The characters, big and small, beautiful, loving, and flawed, to the point you want to them.

An uncle of one of the main characters provides life advice that many fans return to in times of need.

That said, the sequel series is at best, petulant, the comics are femslash fanfiction, the M. Night Shyamalan movie is horrifying, but he actually improved it, the live action remake removes pesky things like worldbuilding, character development, and... honestly, fun. And The Dragon Prince, made with a lot of the same productions staff, is a completely hollow world that has world building that would have caused a bloody civil war before the show even started.

Well, lightning cannot strike twice.

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Othercide

Most tactical RPG's use the exact same terrible combat system Final Fantasy Tactics introduced decades ago. Yes, it helped created the Tactics game genre, but that doesn't mean the gameplay holds up in the slightest. XCOM is the best overall, at least with hindsight. Fallout Tactics used the Fallout gameplay system, for better or worse, (mostly better).

But, the question is always, how do you treat diagonals? Are they 1 square or 2? Fallout dodges the question with the hex grid, which is not the right answer.

Most tactical RPGs, the ones that use the FF Tactics system, treat diagonals as 2, which means you can't melee your corners. 40k: Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion treats it as 1, which is much, much, much better.

Othercide uses AP. Moving diagonally uses more AP than moving straight, and less AP then moving in a zigzag. The game also has a Burst system. When you go past a certain AP threshold, you take more time. And the game represents this with FFX's Timeline system, which so many more games should use. This is great, because in most RPG's, if you don't have the AP, you don't have the AP.

Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion gives some characters and wargear the power to generate or borrow AP, but other than that, you have the option of stopping before the space, in the space, but not after the space. This means that next turn, you will have to make a quick move to get across, because if you stand in the space, you'll get shot.

Burst gives you the option of making the long run and attack, because if you do it right, you can kill the target, and not be left vulnerable.

Storywise, you start as a supremely powerful maiden, fightings the Others from beyond the veil of reality into unreality. She is powerful, and can do it physically, but it turns out her enemy was tortured as a child. He's too far gone, now, and too powerful to stop. So, she sends her power back in time to You, the non-entity general. You can use her power to birth Daughters, that do the fighting for you.

Each of the Daughters has a name, and in regular gameplay, they can never be healed. The damage they build up over the game never goes away. The only way to heal them, (outside of Easy mode), is to sacrifice another Daughter of equal or greater level.

Once they die, the memory of them remains, and these memories last through playthroughs. At any time, you can revert time, and try again. Throughout each campaign, you can get a few items that allow you to resurrect a Daughter, and this allows them to be persistent, through playthroughs. You also can gain buffs that are also persistent. This means that every time you play the game, you CAN get more and more powerful. And you will have so many Daughters in your memory, that you have to do the heartbreaking action of Forgetting them.

Because of the persistent health per life, ANY mistake can destroy your playthrough. In order to do this, the game has to be perfect enough to allow you to not make mistakes, and it is.

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Batman: The Animated Series

Batman has been around since the 1930's, and in that time, there has been quite a bit Batman.

So, what do you do?

You can have a singular vision and focus, which is what Christopher Nolan did.

You can do things you like, which is what Frank Miller did.

Or you can autistically go over the entire history of Batman, and take the best parts of every era. Which is what Bruce Timm did. He created the most well though out and visceral interpretation of Batman, ever.

It was the first Saturday Morning Cartoon that used real guns. Whenever the network censors had commentary, the standard procedure was to make it scarier, while following the exact wording of the comment.

This is the first Batman, where Bruce Wayne and Batman both have different voices, but voiced by the same actor. And Kevin Conroy did a fantastic job of both. Not the gravely shouting, but two very distinct, very natural voices. His booming voice as Batman was genuinely awesome, and when coming from the darkness, was genuinely frightening.

They actually used Black paper for the animation, meaning that anything that wasn't coloured in was black, and this allowed the whole show to be enveloped by dark of the night, but still clear enough to see the actions, and emotions.

And while Batman doesn't exactly emote, you can still see his emotions through his mask. You can still feel his emotions through the voice. Batman isn't a psychopath, he's someone who cares too much, and has to work hard to not to.

This is the series that made Bruce Wayne train for 10 years before trying to stop crime. He traveled the world, trained in Jujitsu, trained under Zatana's father, he studied, he worked on his body.

They show flashbacks of his original Batmobile. He got the new one by hiring an engineer who whistle-blew about the criminal lack of safety in the auto industry, and was hence unhirable by automakers.

This is the Bruce Wayne that maintained the charitable foundations in his parents' names. This is the Bruce Wayne that sat on the board of Arkham to make sure the prisoners were treated fairly. This was the Bruce Wayne that would hire convicts if he genuinely believed they had given up their previous life. This was the Bruce Wayne that genuinely cared if his rogues were treated, and genuinely hoped they could get better.

It did so well he was given Superman. That did so well he was given Justice League and Batman: Beyond.

Afterwards he did Green Lantern: The Animated Series, that did the exact same thing as he did with Batman, becoming the quintessential version of Green Lantern.