#not gonna tag as everything individually unless somebody dares me to

[purplekoop]

For genuinely no reason I'm gonna be doing a couple lists of things I'm into. Was gonna be one single post but the list for even just games was getting pretty long so I'm splitting it in two: this one for just games, and another for just shows. Those are basically the two categories of things I really like so uh... yeah let's do those now.

Kirby: In terms of "has things I like versus things I dislike", Kirby has just about the perfect record, all happy feelings with no strings attached. It's a series that sparks thorough delight in just about every aspect, with incredible atmosphere, an extremely lovable cast, gameplay that scratches the perfect balance of "hard to lose but fun to master", GODLY soundtracks, fun background story to dig into, and probably one of the most naturally pleasant fanbases I've had the pleasure of being in contact with. Personal favorite is Return to Dreamland, which still ranks as one of my all-time favorite games ever, though Robobot, Forgotten Land, and Super Star rank pretty highly too. Favorite characters are Susie and Dedede, favorite abilities are Hammer, Ninja, Jet, and Beetle.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Not even gonna dignify the joyless losers who thoughtlessly make fun of the series with a disclaimer, this is the ultimate in "this is cool, shut up". I really don't know how to describe it besides "cool factor", the stylish character designs and inarguably banger music keep me invested in this series by themselves. Admittedly I'm not super hardcore when it comes to playing the games, still working my way through most of the series, but like. who cares, the Sonic Fandom IRS? Leaving a note on my doorstep that reads "fake fan lmao"? Not afraid of those guys. I'll spit in their lunch. And they'll like it. Favorite characters are Rouge, Omega, Vector, Metal Sonic and Eggman.

Pikmin: A series I have WAY too much extremely specific petty fandom history with that I have ultimately decided to ignore to accept that I still adore these games. Gorgeous atmosphere, delightful whimsical speculative evolution designs, and Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiincredibly satisfying real time management gameplay. I like 1 and 2 after playing/replaying both of them recently just about as equally, 3's still my favorite and I'm excited to at LONG last play 4 once I get my Switch's battery fixed.

Mario: It feels weird specifying I'm a Mario fan, it's not a series I'm that passionate about overall but with how much of the series I've played it feels weird not to mention, especially when it's technically the inspiration behind my username. No game opinions. Rosalina best girl but all the girls are great. Bowser is great too.

Zelda: Another one where it feels odd to specify but. yeah I like these too. hard not to. The one game in the series I'm exceptionally (though I do mean EXCEPTIONALLY) passionate about is Skyward Sword, another one of my favorite games of all time worthy of its own mega post eventually. I also love the BotW trilogy (yes, all three of them) and Link Between Worlds. Ravio gets a special Silly Little Guy Award.

Pokemon: Genuinely forgot to put this one because this is genuinely one of the most exhausting series in the most neutral way possible. Burnout from the newer releases aside (not even necessarily for quality they just keep HAPPENING) it's hard to say I'm not a fan anyways. It's a hard formula to truly make joyless despite PLA's best efforts to massacre the battle system. Even the worst main series games have the fun of planning out a team of little guys you wouldn't give the light of day if they didn't just happen to fit into your team plans (Hopsune Mikeru my beloved Seismitoad). Plus there's the fun of shiny hunting and challenge runs, my personal pick for the latter being monotype bug. Bug is my favorite type, and makes up most of my top ten favorites like Scizor, Vikavolt, and Heracross, but my all time favorite is Meowth for. More reasons than you might think.

Splatoon: Kind of like Sonic where I have that vague "fake fan" mindset just because I've never been that into the multiplayer and mostly just enjoy the aesthetic and narrative aspects. Difference though is that I have played the entire series in terms of single player content, which I do in fact love a pretty good bit. Thankfully just finished Side Order right as I noticed my Switch was looking kinda funny, because uh! yeah gay fish! My god these bitches gay! Good for them! I haven't interacted much with the wider Splatoon fandom yet, but this is the one game series in over half a decade I've made OCs for, and I think they're pretty fun even if they have a total disregard for the canon art style and bend the lore to whatever I think would be neat if it existed. So uh. yeah I hope they get looked at soon.

Overwatch: The reason I never really felt the need to play Splatoon multiplayer and that's all I'm going to say about it now.

Plants vs. Zombies and Insaniquarium: In my heart PvZ is a series of two games and one of them is about fish. Might try the shooter spinoffs at some point, no ill will to fans of those, I just haven't given them a try yet. These two are kind of the surviving remnants of that golden childhood purity of simple flash-like games, which have such a simple charm, and genuinely satisfying gameplay loop. Obviously PvZ is the overall better game that's stood the tests of time, but Insaniquarium Deluxe has an even more primal nostalgia embedded in my brain. Of all the obscure fish tank games I saw my dad play on his old computer (as some of my rare happy memories of the man) this is the only one that I ever reunited with. They're both fantastic and also collectively like 3 bucks on Steam during a sale, please play them.

Endless Ocean: Can't bring up the fish autism without mentioning this one too. Specifically referring to the second one with a different name depending on where you are, never played the first one and not necessarily in a hurry to remedy that. Very chill but also secretly insane diving game that profoundly itched the underwater-loving corners of my brain first tended to by Finding Nemo. The fish have Lore. Insanely excited for the third game, genuinely did NOT expect that happening.

Subnautica: The third and final horseman of the fish autism apocalypse, which is allegedly a horror game that I choose to play as a farming simulator because it didn't stop me. Gorgeous, insanely brilliant creature designs with intricate biological thought put behind them, fun exploration and base building, it's just great. Have only played up to the endgame myself but have seen the ending (thanks Mark, only got into this game thanks to you) and still haven't played Below Zero but I'm excited to get to it in spite of it apparently not being as good.

Spore: This one's like. Fish autism adjacent. Even if they CUT THE AQUATIC STAGE THOSE HEARTLESS BAST- anyways yeah this game's great. Not as like. A video game. That you're supposed to actually play. Going through the actual gameplay stages as intended, the only one that comes close to being interesting is Creature and that's entertaining for like an hour before you run out of stuff to do and are shoved into moving on. No, this is beloved to me because of it having the single most addictive character creator of all time. It's genuinely endlessly entertaining just making creatures of all shapes and sizes, pushing the creation tools to their limits. Even if the core gameplay was good I don't think my playtime would be that different. If there's any games that have similar creation mechanics then please tell me, I'd love to at least check them out.

Minecraft: it's uh. It's Minecraft. When my laptop works I stream it every saturday with friends. do I uh. have to say more.

Epic Mickey: Another nostalgic Wii classic, and the most excited I think just about anyone my age gets over the mouse. It's an incredible love letter to Disney history with such a unique art style and story that all work together to create something special and not just something tacky and aimlessly edgy. I'm honestly shocked there aren't more games that use a run down theme park as a setting, especially with how popular and neat urban exploring stuff like the Disney parks is, but I feel like it'd be easy to take that too far into grimdark, which EM neared as close as it could without going overboard by virtue of being a real Disney product. Oswald also gets the premium golden Silly Little Guy award, I love him dearly please let him do more things now. Also if you wanna get into the game without waiting on and/or paying for Rebrushed then I highly recommend the incredibly well-researched and very entertaining Let's Play of it by youtube user "theenglishman", it's so good for such a small channel I gotta shout him out where I can.

Shovel Knight: The NES throwback game that's so good you forget that was its marketing gimmick back in the early 2010s when people cared about that sort of thing. Obviously the gameplay is just more palatable with modern polish and... actually good game design, but even just the game being fun (and also an INCREDIBLE deal now if you bought in early and got the whole package of essentially 5 games for the price of the original release, and even if you only buy it now it's still worth it) doesn't cover all of why it's stuck with me. Again stop me if I've said this before, but fantastic visuals, incredible music, and great character designs that have a delightful style all their own rather than feeling limited to just what'd be accurate to the NES era. Genuinely great, got some underrated blorbos there. King Knight is my favorite of the treasure trove's collection to play but also Plague Knight is another Silly Little Guy honorable mention.

Undertale/Deltarune: you uh. gonna be surprised the tumblr user likes these games. I really don't need to say what's been said a thousand times about these games being so special, but I can say I have a weird angle on the series as a relative newcomer, only getting onboard with Deltarune chapter one when it came out at a VERY weird time in my life, and then going back to Undertale so much later it was shortly after Chapter 2 came out. But ever since falling in (no pun intended) it's been hard to get out of the theory brainrot, it's truly special when a game does things like that to your mind. also something something Mad Mew Mew.

Chrono Trigger: Adjacent to the last one and I SWEAR that's crucial guys. Feels weird mentioning this because I've only personally played through to the end of the first dungeon but I've seen a very comprehensive Let's Play of it by a uh... recently retroactively unfortunate source I don't wanna dwell on. But that can't taint this entire game, it's too good for that. Very much a classic for a reason, with its incredible story, great soundtrack, some of the most gorgeous sights on the SNES, and a phenomenal cast of characters. Excited to finish playing through it myself, maybe starting from the top to do a let's play of my own.

Fighting Games Lightning Round: Lumping these together because. Yeah.

Smash: Yes Ultimate's the best one. Unless you care that much about that one Subspace cutscene with the ships flying and the main theme kicking in. Which case I respect that. Mains: Ridley, Dedede, and Bowser. God I wish I could do things as Rosalina.

Rivals of Aether: Going in I was expecting Melee pandering but no it's genuinely the best platform fighter aside from Smash, even entirely ignoring the custom content. I'm EXTREMELY excited for 2 it looks so good oh my GOD it can't happen fast enough. In the meantime I uh... guess I can try and beat Dungeons? I guess? Mains: Kragg and Olympia. Almost certainly gonna do my best with Loxodont and Fleet when 2 happens.

Street Fighter: My first foray into traditional fighters and hey, SF2 is as good a place as any to start. Very fun series to learn the history of, and serves as a good basis to learn other fighting games. Only really played 2, Alpha, and 3 with my sibling. Played like an hour of 4 and am looking to get 6 at some point. Mains: (not as attached to these as my mains for other games) Sagat, Cammy, Makoto, Elena. I feel like I have a hunch who I'd main from 6.

Skullgirls: Unfortunately has the second most "baggage" out of any games mentioned here (not elaborating, go research and form your own opinions), but past that this game is goooooooooooooood. Gorgeous art style and soundtrack, and gameplay that takes a minute to get into (god the tutorial can take a minute) but feels great even if you just barely know the basics. So far my favorite traditional fighter even if I'm scared to fight anybody who's actually decent at it. Mains: Big Band, Eliza, Robo Fortune, Valentine.

Darkstalkers: Only played this one really briefly and casually but god it's worth a mention. Literally the evolutionary midpoint between the past two, and it's fun getting to see where certain ideas from the latter got their inspiration from. Plus it's also just incredibly fun and stylish in its own right, gotta love a good ol' monster mash...ing each others face in. Please let this series come back as more than just waifu statues and crossover appearances. Main: Huitzil/Phobos.

Aaaaaaand that's it! All the major games and game series that currently come to mind as things I'm super passionate about. Obviously not a comprehensive list of every game I like ever, but these are the most special to me or interesting to talk about. Will probably do the followup post about shows... later. Not sure exactly when.