Time keeps moving faster and faster! (Birthday time again!)

     Hey friends, I'm Jonathan, the Self-Proclaimed Dreamer, and my birthday is in just a few days. It's wild how this day sneaks up on me and the years just seem to go a lot faster than they used to. Of course, when you're in control of your own schedule and there are no classes to fill your time with, it seems like there are fewer activities to track the time with. Either way, here it is, we've all made it another year, and while I begin my 29th journey around the sun (as I'm going to be 28 in a few days, I had to do the math a moment ago), I'd like to talk a bit about how this year has gone for me. I don't want to get into anything too terribly heavy today, but we'll see where this post goes, shall we?

    This year has really been more of the same as the last year, though I've sent out a lot more job applications and did get a handful of interviews. While I am still looking for a more conventional job, I feel like my writing style continues to develop in the meantime. I've gotten better and better at self-regulating my schedule so I'm continuing to become more and more professional, even if that's by my own standards. I'm still proud of the work I've done, and I've definitely noticed that more people seem to be interested in actually reading what I've had to say this year. Honestly I so appreciate the friends who have been kind enough to read my work, and even more to the folks who have let me know that they enjoy what I've written, as that's really what it's all about, aside from my own feeling of personal accomplishments. As you've noticed, I'm sure, I've spent most of my time this year writing about video games, and that's mainly because I just haven't been to an amusement park in quite a while now, which is why I haven't had as much to write about them outside of news stories about the parks. Video games are the things that I know about the most, and so I have written a lot more about those than my other three subject matters this year, though I hope I'll be inspired to write some more about the other things next year as well. I've been streaming pretty consistently this year and hopefully I'll be able to continue doing that for the near future as I continue to work up my speaking voice to hopefully match up with my writing.

Games this year!

    Honestly there have been an insane number of games this year, and I want to go over just a few that have really stuck out to me! Starting out in the end of January, Pokemon Legends Arceus arrived as a Pokemon game that I actually really enjoyed for the first time since Colosseum or XD: Gale of Darkness, which almost surely covered up the bad taste left by the lackluster Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl from last year. Horizon Forbidden West is a fantastic Open World Action game, and one that I feel like didn't get as much respect as it deserved, because of Elden Ring coming out a week before it. Aloy's journey continued to blow me away as I played through it, and had just as much of an impact on me as the first one did, if not more so. With open-world games, you can expect lots of filler, and that was here for sure, but I loved the main story and Aloy's continuing character arc, along with her supporting cast which felt like they did much more this time around. Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga came out back to back as two great titles for sure. Kirby is always a great time, and for this to be his first foray into a full 3D Platforming game, Hal Labs completely nailed it in another short, but sweet adventure. Lego Star Wars I think is the next logical step for Lego games in general, and it's such a massive step forward for the Lego game subgenre, that I hope they won't go back. I will say that I've been playing it since April or May on streams... and I am still working on getting 100% in this. They put a massive amount of content into this game, and even though I still like it and estimated that it would take an incredibly long time for me to get 100% in this one, it's almost overwhelming. I still love the game and appreciate all the work that was put in, I hope you don't misunderstand. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes was a game that I really enjoyed playing with my brother in Co-Op, and there's not much more I can say about that one. If you like Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Warriors games, you'll have a good time!

    I made one mistake of a purchase this year, Mario Strikers: Battle League. I was so excited to get a new Super Mario Strikers game, since I haven't played the series since it was there on the Gamecube with the original title. This newest game, however, follows the unfortunate trend of underwhelming "Mario Sports" titles that they've put out on the Switch in the past few years, with promises of free DLC that will fix the game some time after its launch. The game shipped in July with ten characters, and when you have two teams that have to pick four characters each, as you can imagine, the game ran out of new content to see extremely fast. Bundle that with almost no single player content to speak of, outside of the few cups that are all extremely dull and repetitive, and an emphasis on online multiplayer content (which really seemed to die almost immediately), it made it a miserable time. This game didn't even have Daisy in it at launch, which is crazy, considering Super Mario Strikers was really when a lot of Daisy's personality was cemented. Her crazy screams from that game were the absolute best. Fun side note, I tried playing online twice, which put me in the bronze tier, meaning presumably that I would enter matchmaking with other people that were also bronze tier, but instead, they paired me with a gold rank player who destroyed me for the entire game and just really broke any chance of me being interested in even trying to play this game on online mode, which is definitely where the bulk of the content in this game is. Just a really rough time all around, though I still have lots of respect for Next Level Games, their animations for all the characters are still incredible, I just wish there was more here.

Well, that covers about half of the year, maybe I'll talk about the later half of it in one of my other posts talking about this year. I really didn't go to the movies much this year, really only a few times, but more than I have in the last several due to Covid becoming less and less of a pressing concern as the years go on (though I still wear my mask pretty much everywhere). As I said earlier, I haven't been to a theme park since 2019 and as such, I've had very little to write about in terms of them without retreading on some territory. As new things have been added, I've done my best to write about those developments the best that I can, even though it's mostly speculation as I haven't been on the new ride or restaurant. It's nice to do research on that sort of thing though, so I am still really happy with that sort of post. In related news, Super Nintendo Land was just announced to be opening in Universal Studios Hollywood on February 27, 2023, which is really exciting! We knew that it was coming sometime next year, but it's nice to get an actual opening date, and especially one so close to the present!

And readers like you, thank you!

    The last few years have been rough, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, but because of this blog, I've been able to feel like I've at least made a tiny difference in this world, and that's good enough for me. You folks who have been reading every week, the people who have told me that they enjoy what I put out, it truly means the world to me. I know this content isn't as easily digestible as a video that you could put on in the background, so I appreciate it more than I can possibly express as I continue to move closer to my goal of having some sort of career where I can utilize these writing skills that I've developed. Someone that I watch a lot of on Youtube once said that it isn't enough to just love something to be able to write about it, you have to learn how to write and have those skills on top of having strong opinions on whatever your subject matter is. I think I'm getting to that point now. I feel really strongly about what I write every week, and even though some weeks are better than others, I think most of what I've written is really good. Sorry to toot my own horn there, it's just that I've now been writing this blog for more than two years now, and I'm still really enjoying what I do. Thanks again for being my friends and reading my blog, it honestly makes me feel better than I have in a while. 

    In the interest of not repeating myself too much here, I think I'll wrap this post up by thanking you all once again for reading, being my friends, and supporting me, even long before I ever began my blog. Every year on my birthday, I think it's important to think back on all the friends that I've had over the years, even those that I haven't seen or heard from in a long time. I just hope you're all doing well, and thank you for having a profound impact on my life, even if you don't realize it. I hope to bring more good times and quality content here for quite some while to come, and I hope you'll all join me as I continue on. Until next time, this is Jonathan, the Self-Proclaimed birthday boy, signing off. Talk to you again soon, and have some cake for me, will ya?