Three years? How is that even possible? (3 years of a Self-Proclaimed Dreamer)

Well, this is a crazy time for me. It seems completely impossible, but my blog that began as a way for me to keep up my chops and give me something to do while Covid had us all locked inside is three years old as of this month. People always say that time moves faster the longer you've lived, and that's incredibly true. In one sense, it feels like I've been writing this for no time at all, but in another sense, it seems like I could have been writing this blog for an incredibly long time. In the last few years, I've shared a lot about myself and what I've been doing, what I've been interested in, important issues that plague the industries that matter to me, etc. and to my amazement, I've heard from a lot of my old friends and mentors from throughout the years. One of my big goals in this whole project is to work on getting my ideas and writings out there to show myself and others of what I'm capable of when I put my mind to it, and I just really appreciate all of the incredibly kind words that have come from so many people. Now, I'm not going to lie to you and say that this whole experiment has shattered all expectations of what I could accomplish, in terms of the analytics side of it, I still have a very small presence here on the internet, but it is something. Since the beginning, however, I've never been out here to try to get any amount of Internet clout, it's been a way to keep in touch with people that I haven't seen in a long time while also working on a professional writing resume. In that sense, I'm actually much more successful than I ever dreamed that I could be! Let me talk a bit about some of the progress that I've made in the past year, and I hope you won't mind a bit of self reflection today.

    I wrote last year that it can sometimes be hard to write posts, which is still somewhat true, though the biggest issue is just thinking of something to write about. Interestingly enough, D23 happened right around the time that I wrote my post last year, and in the past few weekends, they did a mini D23 event that I may have to write about sometime soon! There are always a lot of Nintendo Directs/other gaming events to be announced around this time in the year, including a direct that just happened last week, along with the Sony State of Play, followed by Tokyo Game Show this month. I know my posts can be a little "Inside Baseball" which just means that they're very niche and mainly for people already involved in the video game community, but hopefully they're still kind of fun to read about and not too terribly dry.

    This year has been a tough one, but full of a lot of great growth and achievements for me. I've been working more on myself than I have in a long time, finally reaching out and getting help from some friends (shout out to them, you know who you are), I've been making some new friends recently, in addition with reconnecting with some old friends, and I even have a job working with a youth group now! It just started last month and I'm definitely still getting the hang of things, but I'm really enjoying the feeling of community that I've been lacking for the last few years. I just hope that I can make some difference in the lives of these young people similar to the way that so many helped me back when I was their age. Though I'm still getting to know this new community of friends better (since I only met them back in February or March), it's so nice to make new friends every now and then, and I'm very happy to know them.

    Last year I brought up God of War: Ragnarok and how excited I was for that game, which has now been out for nearly a year and that I've already gotten the platinum trophy for. This game was phenomenal, and though I don't know if it had quite the staying power of the previous game in the series, I still adored this game and the increased emphasis on Atreus's story this time around. Definitely my favorite game of last year! Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is only a month away now, and it looks pretty incredible based on what has been shown so far, though we still haven't seen anything more from the Insomniac game about Wolverine. I imagine they're holding out information about that until Spider-Man has already been out for a little while. I said last year that I couldn't wait to see what Kirby did after Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and of course, Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe came out back in February or March, being a remake of a Wii game, it wasn't too terribly surprising what we got. It was still a lot of fun and the added "Magolor Epilogue" mode was a great time as well. I discussed that "Breath of the Wild 2" was delayed to 2023 and that I hoped that I wouldn't have to wait until 2024. Luckily, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom released back in May and is a fantastic game. They took all of the systems that Breath of the Wild used back in 2017 and updated them with some wacky powers to crack the world of Hyrule wide open. Bayonetta 3 was another topic that I mentioned, and it was a lot of fun, though I thought maybe a bit too serious for its own good. In my opinion, games like that are at their best when the protagonist is allowed to be as goofy and over the top as they want, and this threat that she faced this time didn't really allow her to do that as much as I would like. Still a great game, and one that I enjoyed a lot, with gameplay that may have had the most variety out of the series, which is actually a great thing. Not only did we get Bayonetta 3, but also Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, which was also a fun time, though wildly different from any of the other games in the series. The story was fun and the presentation was beautiful, even though the repetitive gameplay perhaps overstayed its welcome by the ending. Psychonauts 2 was a great addition to the first game in that wacky series of platformers, and I really enjoyed the Klonoa remakes, especially since I didn't really play them as a kid.

    I never thought when I was writing last year that we would have the year that we are in terms of game releases. Earlier this year we got Pikmin 4 which was a fantastic return to the old franchise that had it's last fully original (mainline) game back in 2013 on the Wii U. The game is great, and I'm pretty sure it actually sold better than any other game in the series. That still doesn't mean much, since the series has always sold poorly, but this one sounds like things may have been different! Of course, we're finally getting Detective Pikachu Returns, which is a big deal for a lot of people who have been waiting for it since the first one ended. My biggest surprise came in the form of the Super Mario RPG Remake that we're getting in just a few months, which was announced back in July! I love this game so much, and I've told tons of people that it's definitely up there as one of my favorite RPGs of all time, so I'm very excited that we're getting a full remake with better graphics, but keeps the same style. Speaking of my favorite RPGs of all time, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was also just announced for a remake for Switch! I don't know what it is about this year, but I'm very happy about it! Super Mario Bros. Wonder is another topic that I'm very excited about of course, but I've already talked about that pretty extensively, so I won't regale you with more at this moment at least! WarioWare: Move it! also looks like a lot of fun, and hopefully I'll be able to try it out soon, despite my very drifty joy-cons. While I'm finishing up this little Mario love fest, I have to give a shout out to Princess Peach: Showtime, because that game looks super good. I'm so glad that they're letting Peach have the spotlight (literally and figuratively), because as a character, I think she could be so much more than the role that she's been relegated to for all this time.

    I've been rambling for a little while now, and I don't want to make this post too terribly long, so I'll go ahead and wrap things up here. Ultimately, thank you for being here with me, for allowing me to have even a moment of your time, and thank you for believing in my writing. I really hope that I haven't bragged on myself too much in this post, I'm just really proud of myself for keeping up with this for as long as I have, and for the most part, I think I've done a good job of keeping it to a high standard. It really makes me happy to have so many of you enjoying the simple thoughts of a Self-Proclaimed Dreamer like myself, and I hope you'll continue reading for a good while to come.

    Thanks so much for all the support that I've gotten over the past 3 years, friends. Whether you're friends that I know from real life, friends from online, or maybe even people who don't know me, but you've just found me somehow on the web, I truly appreciate you reading my stuff. I hope that I've done you all proud and that I'll continue to do so in the future. Let me know if there's anything that you think I should write about, I know there is a massive pool of topics that I could write about, so I'm bound to miss a few that fall through the cracks. Until next time, friends, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Dreamer, and thank you so much for all your time and support. I'll talk to you again soon!