A Self-Proclaimed Dreamer

      Hi friends, my name is Jonathan and for over a year now, I've been writing once a week here on the Self-Proclaimed Dreamer. It's been a tough year for everyone, but in a lot of ways, things are slowly getting better for society as a whole as well as individually. Yes, the virus is still around and people are refusing to take the vaccine, but at least we have a vaccine in place that is slowly being distributed to people willing to take it. In addition to things getting better, hopefully the shortage in chips that is making it impossible to make next generation consoles/new cars in the past few months will be fixed soon as the factories that were shut down because of the pandemic are getting back to work and getting the chips made in a quick and hopefully effective way. On a selfish note, this year hasn't been too terrible for me personally, as it's given me the inspiration to start writing in a more focused and scheduled way, which has helped me to keep my writing ...

    Hey friends, last week I said I'd be going over Sonic Adventure 2 , maybe the best known of all Sonic games, especially from the terms of what characters stand out the most today. This game introduced quite a few fan favorites, as well as some elements that would definitely return in future titles. This has probably the most melancholy story out of any game in this entire franchise, which is a strange thing to say about this series, considering that the main character is one of the biggest causes for memes. For such a peppy and upbeat character, this game definitely ends on a note of sad recollection, which makes it even more interesting to me. I hope you brought your rocket shoes and your snowboard made from the door of a helicopter, because it's time to get started! Live and Learn!     Sonic Adventure 2 didn't have to rewrite the rulebook following off the heels of Sonic Adventure, but it made a lot of interesting improvements and changes to the overall fo...

     Hey friends, I think you all know by now that I'm a pretty big sonic fan, and as such, I think it's time for another post talking about some classic titles from Sonic the Hedgehog's past. We're going to skip around a bit in this section, because there were a lot of spinoff titles for Game Gear and other obscure consoles like the Saturn (even some that were cancelled like Sonic X-Treme ), but the next big shift came with the release of the Sega Dreamcast. Of course that's also skipping the pretty awesome Sonic CD, which was the introduction of Metal Sonic, as well as Amy Rose, a female pink Hedgehog and a love interest character for Sonic, even though she's not one that Sonic has really shown any interest in. It was a great game in the lineage of 2D Sonic platformers, that includes a time travel mechanic, creating three different designs for each of the stages, past present and future. It was a great game, but for this post, I'm going to begin with a ste...

    In the year 2008, Level-5 dropped a little game on Nintendo DS titled Professor Layton and the Curious Village.   I didn't hear anything about it at the time, save for a button that was given to me at Wal-Mart of all places with the box art on it. Over the years, however, this series that started with a curious village ended up being something of a cult classic. Though Professor Layton will never get the same amount of recognition as Mario or Crash Bandicoot, I think his games are really something special, and throughout all 7 of his adventures (8 counting Layton's Mystery Adventures , starring his daughter), the series maintains that level of wonder. It's a weird series for sure considering I'd say the gameplay is the least compelling part of it, but that makes it sound bad, so allow me to explain this puzzle of a franchise today. Get your top hats on, because I'll be your guide around these mysteries as we traverse all kinds of frontiers, curious villages, and...