A Self-Proclaimed Dreamer

      Hey friends, I have a bit of a question for you all. Do you have voices in your heads? The little things that dictate what should and shouldn't be done, based on how different events in your life have played out? It's an interesting way to personify different impulses that we as people continue to have as we go through our lives, and it's what a little show that I just watched recently is based on. "Up Here" is a musical comedy show that's streaming on Hulu now. There are only 8 episodes, but it's rare that something speaks to me in a way that this short show does. It's a weird show about trying to find your place and learn how to get somewhere, as well as how to navigate a relationship. If you know me, you already know that I have a tendency to overthink to the point of not going anywhere until I've thoroughly driven a point into the ground, and by then, any sort of opportunity has typically passed. If you're a fellow over-thinker like m...

     You've heard the story before a million times. Nintendo, one of the top video game companies in terms of creativity and quality, is going to announce a new piece of hardware soon. Naturally, people are foaming at the mouth to get even the slightest bit of information about the release date, price, games, or even just the name of the newest console. The CEO of the company stated months ago that the successor to the Switch would be announced at some point this fiscal year, meaning that it will be sometime before the end of March 2025. September was full of buzz that it would finally happen, we would be getting information any day now... October begins, and then Nintendo pulls one of the most "Nintendo" moves that it has ever pulled. They put out a trailer for new hardware... but it's not a system, it's a high-tech alarm clock. "Nintendo Sound Clock Alarmo" was announced out of nowhere last week, and I really just wanted to take some time to talk about...

     Hey friends! It's not every day that you get to talk about a new top-down Zelda game! As a matter of fact, this is the first game in this style to come out since I started my blog, with the last one being the Link's Awakening remake back in 2019 before the last original game of this style, 2013's A Link Between Worlds for the 3DS. Needless to say, it has been a really long time since we had a game like this, and I'm very happy that this smaller, less life-consuming version of Zelda is here for us to enjoy. This alone is more than enough reason to celebrate, but it's also the first time that a full mainline Zelda title has allowed us to play as Princess Zelda, the titular character of the franchise. How does this game do to hold up against the legend? Let's talk a bit about this today while we delve into a Hyrule that shares a lot of similarities as well as differences to what we know. Princess Zelda's first playable adventure!     The story of this ga...

     Back in the 90's and early 2000's, Wario was a huge character. He started as the final boss of Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins for the Game Boy Color before getting his own series of platformers, starting with Wario Land and later getting five more entries in the series, including one for the ill-fated Virtual Boy. While Wario is still a big character now, and has gotten two Warioware games on the Nintendo Switch, the Wario Land series has been dormant since Wario Land: Shake It!  came out for the Wii 16 years ago. This series of 2D platformers was incredibly clever and creative, so it's such a shame that it doesn't get the love and respect of some of Nintendo's other titles. I'm happy to say that the spirit of Wario Land is still alive and well in the indie space, and leading that charge is a game called Pizza Tower . It's not a very long game, and seems to heavily encourage speed running, so I'll try my best to get my thoughts out in a si...

      This month marks yet another big milestone for me, and I continue to grow a little more every year. I have been writing this blog for four years now, at a pace of one post a week, only missing a few chances to write something here and there! Though I haven't always posted all of my blogs on different social media, once I started to, it made me feel much better than to just have something for me to be proud of without anyone else seeing. For those of you who don't know me very well, or if this is your first exposure to my blog, my name is Jonathan Bowers, and I started this project out of a desire to do something more creative during the pandemic. It's pretty timely that this week marks this milestone, because some new friends asked me just last week where I got the title, "A Self-Proclaimed Dreamer," and I was happy to tell them why. Growing up, I was very shy and typically let things go pretty quickly. I had lots of thoughts in my head, but I didn't wan...

     Hey friends, I think I would be making a wild understatement here if I were to tell you that the Paper Mario franchise has had some weird steps. The series began with two solid turn-based RPGs, then an action RPG/Platformer, then a couple RPGs with linear pathways, limited characterization, and terrible battle mechanics, followed by a game with great world building, but still pretty bad battle mechanics. In the year 2024, to the joy of everyone, Nintendo announced a full remake of what many consider the crown jewel of the franchise, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.  It was a great game when I played it as a kid, but I never beat it back then, the final boss was just too hard for me. This is probably because I didn't understand how RPGs worked, so hopefully I'll have an easier time going through it this time around. Everyone hop on the boat, we're headed for the seedy town of Rogueport today! Just Another Normal Adventure for Mario!     Paper Mari...

     Hey friends, it's rare that a game will come out and it just so completely resonates with me that I almost have to play the whole thing as soon as possible, but that's what happened last week. Astro Bot was released on September 6th, and it was a joy to play through from beginning to end. There are very few games of this quality and genre that aren't put out by Nintendo, and it's such a delight to see Sony not only putting out an excellent 3D Platformer, but also appealing to nostalgia and making a connection between these older franchises and some younger fans. It's time to board the PS5-shaped ship, friends, because it's time to go to space with Astro and his friends! An Intergalactic Quest!     Astro Bot is the sequel to the PS5 pack-in game, Astro's Playroom,  which functioned as a tech demo for the console itself as well as what the DualSense controller could do. Even though the PS5 has been out for four years now, it's still probably the bes...