A Self-Proclaimed Dreamer

        Hey there, friends! I hope you're all doing well as always, and as always, I'm here to talk to you about something that I think is pretty interesting, and I'll do my best to explain why you should too! I started talking about Mario's many different themes and music throughout his long platforming career last week, and I hope to finish it up today. We still have a lot of games to get through, so I'll start soon, but first I have to make an important clarification. In the New Super Mario Bros. games, I'm only going to cover the first one, as the music for all of those games is pretty similar, even down to the gimmick of singers coming in and saying, "la, la" and making the world react to it. I'll explain that when we get to those games, but I'll go ahead and start this post with a game that is divisive even to this day! Not quite the vacation that Mario wanted...     Mario's first adventure on the Gamecube came out in 2002 in the for

     Here's a sentiment that I bet you have never heard before: Koji Kondo's music is incredible. I'm joking of course, considering just how many iconic themes Mr. Kondo has written over the past 35 years or so. If you don't think you're familiar with his contributions, I can almost guarantee that you are in some shape or form. Mr. Kondo has written music for the Super Mario Bros.  and Legend of Zelda  series of games, including the iconic theme from the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES which is quite possibly the best known theme in any video game. The man is a legend to the video games community, and his contributions cannot be ignored. He could potentially be seen as the original video game composer, as before him, video games had very simple scores, typically there wouldn't be more than one song you heard for an entire game, especially back during the Atari days of the 70's and early 80's. In the years since his iconic works, however, he's

     Kirby and the Forgotten Land caught the eye of many a few months ago when it was announced as the first Kirby game to have a full 3D perspective. Just for that feat alone, I've already been very hopeful for the game as a whole, but we got a new trailer for it this week, emphasizing some new and returning power-ups, as well as the return of co-op! There isn't a whole lot to go off of just based on these two trailers, but I will do my best to help point out some things that I noticed from them so far, and give some hopes and predictions as we go along. Let's all get on our warp stars because we're headed to a new land of speculation and magic! Kirby's got some new tricks!     Kirby is a great Nintendo franchise with a long history, but he's never shown up in full 3D, save for a few shorter minigames or experimental titles like Kirby's Blowout Blast on 3DS or Kirby Air Ride , which is hardly even a Kirby game, still fantastic though, make no mistake. Wi

      The Metroid series has been neglected by Nintendo for a long time. I don't think that's news to anyone, as the original 2D series was dormant from 2002 until 2021, but thankfully that long hiatus is over. Now that I've finished the game after a relatively short experience, I'm happy to present some of my findings! This game is pretty wild, and it's great to see the return of one of the architects of the "Metroidvania" genre so many years after the indie scene exploded with it. Does this game hold its own against the onslaught of indie titles? Let's dive into it. We're headed to planet ZDR for a little bit of spoiler-free fun! Samus goes up against quite a few E.M.M.I.s as you can see! The Bounty Hunter Returns!     After nearly 35 years, Samus's saga with the Metroids finally comes to an end in this game. Metroid Dread begins with a short scene, recapping how Samus got to this point in the story, mostly focusing on how Metroid Fusion en