Where does the time go? (Two years of the Self-Proclaimed Dreamer!)

     Hey friends, this is a strange time for me, because as of now, I have actually been putting out one post of this blog a week for the past two years. It seems unreal that I've been writing this consistently for this long, but here we are. Thank you so much for all of the support that you've all given over the past two years, and though I still don't have an actual job that relates to this area of expertise or anything, I still feel like I've been able to improve my writing skills so much that it's crazy.

    I'm going to be honest here, it's tough to write posts sometimes. You don't always have an idea of what to write about, though luckily sometimes there will be events where news will be revealed on weeks like that. I started out this blog to talk mainly about video games and theme parks, and since then, I've broadened my horizons to also include movies and TV shows, just because theme parks are very slow to be updated, and there is typically not a whole lot of news involving those. I finished my blog posts about the different parks in Walt Disney World, and after that I just didn't have a lot to say in general, I've just focused on smaller areas that may be getting some upgrades of some kind. I talked pretty extensively about Disney Genie+ when that was rolled out, but I haven't talked much since then. Unfortunately it's been a while since I've been able to visit any parks, and it's one of those things that is hard to talk about without experiencing it again firsthand. D23 is starting today (September 9), so maybe I'll be able to write about that some next week. I've started doing little news segments every now and then whenever there's some event like a Nintendo Direct or one of Geoff Keighley's games awards/news shows that he puts on, which helps to give me some more things to write about. Of course, with those shows, sometimes there is just too much stuff and I'm not interested in a lot of it, but there are certainly always some nuggets of fun that I can pick out, and I'm always grateful for that.

    Now I am going to take some time to talk about the things that I wrote about last year in my "One year" post. God of War Ragnarok was first shown off a few weeks before that post, and while the game still hasn't come out yet, we only have about two more months to wait, which is really nice, and I'm still just as excited for that one as I was back then, if not more so. We still haven't seen anything else from Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 or Wolverine, which were shown off in that same direct, and it seems like the remake of Knights of the Old Republic has hit some pretty major setbacks unfortunately, so it seems unlikely that we'll see that again for a good little while. Horizon Forbidden West came out in February as I wrote back then, and it was, indeed, spectacular as I hoped that it would be. Warioware: Get it together was great, as I thought it looked, though it's not incredibly long or anything, in true Warioware fashion. The same could be said about Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Which I referred to as "Kirby and the Last Frontier" last year for some reason), as well as Metroid Dread, which isn't a bad thing, as they were both fantastic games, but as with many great games, you always want more. As I wrote months ago, Kirby and the Forgotten Land was a fantastic first step for Kirby in 3D, and I really can't wait to see what the puffball does next! I also mentioned Mario Party Superstars last year, which did end up being a great time with friends, even with pretty strong online multiplayer. I still wish that this game would get some DLC sometime soon since there are only 5 boards there, but it's probably not going to happen since it has already been almost a year since the release. I talked about Breath of the Wild 2 coming this year, which as we all know isn't going to happen now, it's coming out next year, and let's pray that I don't have to write in a year about how the new Zelda game isn't coming until 2024, but if it is, I'm fine with waiting, as the game is going to be fantastic whenever it comes out. Bayonetta 3 is actually shockingly close now though, and I'm so looking forward to playing that game once it's released at the end of October.

    In terms of games that I'm excited for this year, the ones mentioned above pretty much cover it, though I still want to check out Psychonauts 2, Disney Dreamlight Valley just entered Early Access on Tuesday, September 6, and I've had a great time with that so far, and I really want to play the Klonoa remakes soon. More than anything though, I want Nintendo to give us some news about what is coming out for the rest of the year other than Pokemon. There are lots of rumors swirling around that Nintendo will have a direct presentation this month, but that still remains to be seen, so I'm not getting my hopes up, and I don't really want to talk about the rumored announcements either, as they sound almost too good to be true. I would be really happy to be wrong about that, but we'll just have to see! I would love to see another Mario game that's probably in the works, I would also be happy for a lot of my friends who are Fire Emblem fans to get a new game in that series, as there are a lot of rumors going around about one coming out sooner than we think, but we'll just have to wait and see. I'm still holding out hope for a new Kid Icarus game or just a remake of the one for 3DS, but it's probably not going to happen, since Sakurai is probably still recovering from Smash Bros. Ultimate, and lord knows he deserves that break!

    I know this post has been complete chaos, friends, but the main thing that I want to say in this post is just... thank you. When I started this blog two years ago, I just wanted something to do while the world was on fire outside, and now it has become something that I'm genuinely proud of. It's not bringing in money, and it's not very popular, but I am so glad that I have something that I can point to when people ask me what I'm doing right now. I feel like throughout this writing adventure, I'm constantly getting better and more practiced, and that's all I can really hope for. Thank you for being my friends, and thank you for bearing with me as I post every week over your timelines and feeds and whatnot. I thank my lucky stars every day for all of you, and I hope you know how much I appreciate your time. Until next time, friends, I've been Jonathan, your incredibly grateful Self-Proclaimed Dreamer, and I hope you all have a wonderful day.