Gaming off the Beaten Path

It's been a long time since we've stepped into the ring, but it's time to dust off the gloves grab our fight shorts and get ready for a heavyweight battle. Well, since we are comparing two handheld games, maybe they are fighting for the bantamweight title? Maybe flyweight? Regardless, it's time to look critically at two Game Boy Advance titles that absolutely brought the heat, both of which I played during my mini series on GBA Metroidvania games. And in this battle, we will pit team Metroid vs. team 'vania. Both Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Metroid: Zero Mission were revelations when I played through them earlier this year. I was genuinely shocked to find two games of this breadth and scope that were original GBA titles, but I'm sure glad I did. Because both of these titles were absolutely incredible. I actually gave them the same scores and they are both going to be in contention for game of the year. So I figured, why not get them in the ring now? Why wa...

I haven't really been in a survival horror mood as of late, so I had to find another way to keep it spooky this Halloween. I mean, few gaming series have their roots as deep in classic horror as Castlevania. I wouldn't exactly call these games scary, but they definitely lean heavily into that spooky season aesthetic that everybody is looking for this time of year. It's not exactly an "Off the Beaten Path" franchise, but it is one I'm not overly familiar with. I have certainly played the games before, I am a huge fan of Symphony of the Night and the lesser know Lament of Innocence was one of the first games I ever reviewed, but it's not a series that I am super heavily invested in. I've played most of the mainline ones, but not necessarily to completion, but I haven't really branched out to many of the lesser known titles. I certainly haven't played any of the handheld entries in the franchise before. Speaking of things that are scary, I kind ...

While I love retro games as much as the next person, I have mixed feelings about how the video game industry as a whole milks nostalgia for all it's worth. On one hand, it stifles creativity, as studios pump out never ending streams of remakes and remasters of the same games we played 20 years ago. It also prevents those games from standing on their own, almost as if they weren't worthwhile. On the other hand, it has led to some really, really great titles, like the Final Fantasy VII Remake. It has also brough us an almost-subgenre of games, games done in an old school style as homages to their classic counterparts. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night fits squarely into that almost-subgenre and it's easy to see why. The game was the brainchild of Koji Igarashi, a former producer for Konami who had a major role in the creation of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. After leaving the company in 2014, Igarashi couldn't escape fan requests to create a game similar to SOTN. S...

Every once in a while, a video game comes along that goes above and beyond. A title that reaches deep and forces you to reflect on something far bigger than just a game. A title that wants you to think critically about something truly important, whether it be something personal, societal or conceptual. Hollow Knight is not one of those games, despite how hard it tries to be. Stuff like this is common in film, critics like to call film equivelents to games like this "Oscar bait." You know exactly which kinds of movies I'm talking about, the ones where Martin Luther King, Cleopatra and the Pope meet in a timewarp and spend three and a half hours teaching super Commie Nazis not to hate people by using the power of long winded conversations, introspective monologues and Renoir's art, all to a moving score featuring an orchestra playing alongside whatever douchey indie rock band is popular at the time. This has been happening with film for a while now, but it's a relat...