This year has overall been a load of hot garbage. The one shining beacon of hope for me so far has been in video gaming. The quality of new games (and remakes!) this year has been extremely high, even if there were a fewmajordisappointments. Most of the games on this list will come as no surprise to people that know me at all. With that said, here is my list of the best games of 2017, and it is very Nintendo-heavy. I’ve again stuck with 7 games. I figured that sometimes tradition can be fun, so this is my very own. We also made a supplemental Seasonal Anime Checkup OVA episode talking about our choices, and you can listen to that here.
Lately, I’ve been getting A LOT of comments on an old piece writing about the sexualization of Ann Takamaki from Persona 5. While I’m not sure why it’s getting hits recently, I do want to respond to some of them. First off, I do find it intriguing how aggressive a lot of the comments toward me are, as if I have no right to the statements I made in the piece or am ignorant of Japan/video gaming. Second, it has also been stated straight out in the comments that characters like Ann are not made for me. To that, I ask why?
As someone who is relatively new to the Danganronpa series, I was extremely excited to play one at release.1 Danganronpa V3 promised to be a new experience completely separated from the Hope’s Peak Arc. I will not and can not recommend Danganronpa V3 to anybody, as it’s such a pretentious mess of a game that spits directly in the face of anyone who cares about the world of Danganronpa. Although the game has artfully crafted cases and new trial mini-games, the finale of the game ruins the rest of the game in a way that makes me sincerely hope this is the last game in the series.
Recently, internet personality and Let’s Player PewDiePie found himself in hot water again through his use of an undeniably racist word. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the original controversy he found himself in was because he had paid two men to hold up a sign that said “Death to all Jews.” It is worth noting that the men in the video are also people of color who were paid $5 to hold the sign by PewDiePie. Corporate sponsors dropped him, and the internet came to his defense. PewDiePie himself posted a response video on his YouTube channel, in which he says that everything was taken out of context.
So what has he done this time? During a live stream of him playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, he dropped the N-word as an insult for a player he was trying to shoot. For those of you who don’t understand context, he later amends the word to another negative one. He meant it as a negative word to use against a player he was angry with. He apologized once he realized what he had said. He knew immediately that the word would not be acceptable, but given that he had originally used it as a negative, it’s clear that his intention was to equate the two words as a negative toward the other player, as if they’re equivalent words with the same meaning.
Again, the internet has come to his defense. Most argue that he was in the heat of a gaming moment, and it slipped out. That argument does not fly. As someone who regularly plays video games, I have never once let a racial slur “slip” while angry at a video game or a player. That is not a word that just pops into your head without some regular use. His fans and some gamers again say that he apologized, and so he should be forgiven.
My question is, why is the internet so willing to defend this person who is willingly and openly engaging in blatantly racist rhetoric? Why is he allowed to get a pass just because he says he isn’t racist?
But when Kjellberg does something offensive, he’s defended as though he were a naughty child, just a random guy who plays video games on the Internet who can’t help but pick up on some of the crudeness of “gaming culture.”
PewDiePie and his defenders are symptomatic of a bigger issue in gaming. It is largely an immature, offensive, racist, homophobic, and sexist culture. It is not uncommon to play games online and hear homophobic, sexist or racist slurs said as a derogatory towards other gamers. To some gamers, to be considered anything but a white straight male makes you lesser, and that’s part of why it is acceptable in the culture to use these slurs against people you are angry with. There are plenty of negative words one can use when angry, but gamers specifically use these types of words and defend those that do as well. You can only use the excuse for so long that it is a joke before people outside that echo chamber realized that you’re most likely just a person with no respect for people who aren’t just like you.
Video gaming has always been very much rooted in a white, middle class reality. PewDiePie is very white. Most of the people that I’ve seen defending him are also white. They argue that African Americans often use the N-word, so it has lost its racial connotations and thus is a fair game phrase. They cite people like Dave Chappelle who are African American and use the phrase often in their comedy or hip hop artists who use it in their lyrics. While I am not an expert on reappropriation, it is a choice that African Americans made to reappropriate the N-word, and that is not automatic permission for people in a place of racial power to use it as a slur against people they are angry with.
I write about video game history for a living. I am constantly surrounded by the sexist and racist language and behaviors that have been with video gaming since the 1970s. As a woman who plays video games, I’ve always felt a sense of the “other.” Movements such as GamerGate have not helped that situation much. Current gamers generally see themselves as a larger community who have been victimized, and they gatekeep those that they feel do not belong. People have been fighting for representation in video games and the industry that creates them for decades. People defending PewDiePie are engaging in a method of gatekeeping by accepting his behaviors as normal, rather than acknowledging that it is not okay to use this type of language under any circumstances. They see it within the community and feel it is normal.
People like PewDiePie and his defenders are a huge problem in the gaming community. It’s unacceptable to use this type of language, make these types of jokes, and to assume that it is okay because there was an apology issued. Gaming deserves better as a medium, and the gaming community can do better than this.
I’ve already written a somewhat thorough review about Persona 5, and I also have discussed it at length in a podcast. Now I’m back to talk more about Persona 5! Why, you might ask? Haven’t you covered everything you need to say about Persona 5? No, I absolutely have not. I want to talk more about the arc and treatment of Ann Takamaki within the game and in the merchandising surrounding it.
Let me just start by saying that I didn’t expect any progressive ideas at all from an anime based on a manga from the 1980s with a protagonist who looks like this:
That’s what I get for judging by appearances! Sorry, Joseph.
While Battle Tendency, the second arc of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, definitely has intense problems with the normal sexist anime tropes2, some racial stereotypes3, and some not-so-normal praising of Nazi Germany4, there is also a surprising amount to commend Battle Tendency for.
Given that it presents itself as an extremely hypermasculine bout of good versus evil, with unnaturally and somewhat appallingly muscular men fighting each other with super natural abilities in the very definition of a male power fantasy, the second arc of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure does not shy away from allowing the main protagonist, Joseph Joestar, to express intense emotion, cry onscreen, and eventually have a friendship that is not entirely about competition. He is demonstrated to have complex thought processes and feelings, which is somewhat rare for an anime of this type.
Throughout the Battle Tendency arc, the friendship between Caesar and JoJo evolves from just a standard anime rivalry into one where the two young men genuinely respect each other and begin to understand the thought process of the other, which even led to a teamwork save of JoJo’s life. They do have the trope of rivals to friends at first, which involves a bubble Hamaon fight at a water fountain in Italy, but eventually its shown that Caesar and JoJo begin to respect each other after a life threatening oil climb up a tower using only their Hamaon. It’s shown throughout Battle Tendency that Caesar extensively cares for his friends, and he is willing to risk his life to protect those he cares about.
This is what friendship is supposed to look like…minus the impossibility of the poses, I suppose.
It made the two characters feel more like real people, and it made the death of Caesar hit even harder. While I’m somewhat used to media using women’s deaths to create man pain, it’s a lot more rare to fuel a man’s revenge based on the death of another man, especially one that is not related to him in any way. Man pain drives a lot of the last part of Battle Tendency, and surprisingly, two things occur after the death of JoJo’s really good friend that is refreshing.
Joseph is allowed to cry. He ugly cries as he mourns, and it’s wonderful. He is allowed to express his emotions, which is wonderful considering there is still a damaging stigma against men and boys crying or showing strong emotional responses. It’s refreshing to see a character as strong and steeped in masculinity as JoJo embrace his emotions.
Lisa Lisa, who has continuously been extremely stoic, unemotional, and the extreme trope of “strong female character,”5, is also allowed to break down at the death of Caesar. She too falls to the ground and cries, and it doesn’t make her appear any weaker in the eyes of the viewer. When emotions such as grief and the action of crying is criticized as a bad thing, this entire scene blows that myth out of the water. 6
These things are great to me! For one, Battle Tendency has moments of fighting toxic masculinity, which I was not at all expecting from a show like this. Given that the first arc with Jonathan and Dio utilized Erina’s sexual assault as a source of man pain and rage, I was certainly not expecting such a turn around in the second arc of the series. While Joseph certainly has problems, he was a protagonist I didn’t really have many moral issues supporting.7
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is not by any means a perfect anime. It has a lot of flaws, and it does fall into some gross tropes. That said, I am quite impressed that a show of this type did break down some gender stereotypes, and it allowed an otherwise walking male power fantasy to express himself and show “weakness.”
My thoughts on Persona 5 have changed a lot since this review was posted. Most of this is no longer accurate.
If you know me at all, you know how much I love the Persona series. I consider Persona 3 one of my favorite video games of all time. I have been so excited for Persona 5 since it was announced, and the style and tone of the game thrilled me. After several delays, the game finally released earlier this month. I barely slept, and I put 100 hours into the game as of completion. While I really did like the game, I had some problems with it as well. With the amount of controversy I’ve seen pop up surrounding the game, I figured that it was time for me to chime in with my personal opinions beyond just what you can hear in the podcast. Keep in mind as you read this review–you can enjoy media and still critique it for things that are done poorly. Spoilers below!
Trigger Warnings: Suicide, Rape, Homophobia, and Child Abuse.
I have a vivid memory of being a young kid–somewhere around the age of 10–who would continuously go to the rental store, get Banjo-Kazooie for my Nintendo 64, play through it until Mad Monster Mansion, then have to return the game before I could beat it. Every time I’d get the game back, my save file would have been wiped, and I’d happily start from the beginning in a long standing loop of late 1990s platforming. I never actually finished the first game until I was an adult, but I loved every second of getting to Mad Monster Mansion all those years ago. I can tell you where to go and what to do almost exactly up to that. I also have very fond memories of playing the sequel, Banjo-Tooie, as well as the other Rare-developed 3D platformer of the era, Donkey Kong 64.
With clever writing that consistently makes me laugh out loud with its breaking of the fourth wall and jokes, as well as gameplay that felt fun and intuitive, Banjo-Kazooie and its sequel were games that I long considered peak 3D platforming of the era. They’re two of the few games I have actually gotten every achievement for on my Xbox 360, and I own the Rare Replay package for the Xbox One just to replay them as I please, despite the fact that I also own them on my 64. When I heard that the original team behind these games created a Kickstarter to make a spiritual successor to the Banjo series, which they called Yooka-Laylee8, I immediately threw my cash their direction.
This was me when I heard about the Kickstarter.
I waited, I got updates, and finally, I got my download code a little over a week ago. It all started well. It seemed that the game itself looked fantastic with all the excitingly bright colors, and I felt the writing about set to be on point when I ran up to Yooka and Laylee’s ship house and saw the name they had given it.
I admit–I laughed a lot.
I felt like I was in for a treat–a strong reemergence of a genre which I loved as a child that has long been on life support. As I continued to play, though, it began to feel more like Weekend at Bernie’s. There is an illusion of the genre being alive and what you wanted, but it’s just a dead shell of what it used to be. While some may claim that my ascension into adulthood has also made me a dead shell of what I used to be and that is why I didn’t enjoy Yooka-Laylee, keep in mind that I did very, very recently replay the Banjo games. I enjoyed replaying those, and I felt like they held up extremely well. They had a soul.
You know what doesn’t have a soul? This monstrosity of character design.
I can’t with this.
What even is this? What’s it meant to be, besides horrifying? I felt like the characters in Banjo were all fun and lively, but here we have this horrible mix between Spongebob and the old Donkey Kong animated tv show. A lot of the characters are similar to this. Dr. Puzz is a notable character that you also interact with often, and she is legitimately terrifying as well. While the main two characters look great, and characters such as the cameo of Shovel Knight are also wonderful, overall design feels like a giant miss. I didn’t feel an attachment to these guys like I did Bottles and Mumbo Jumbo. There just feels like a lot less heart in this game. Instead, it unfortunately feels like a quick cash grab for those seeking nostalgia, which I can fully admit worked on me.
The game itself also just doesn’t work, though. Much like the older games, you get your moves from a NPC, but in this case, the explanation for the moves weren’t exactly clear. I tried to solve a puzzle for 30 minutes before I got frustrated, left the level, and was told by a caged pagie that you can actually aim your shots with a click of a stick. Who knew, especially after I felt I had pressed every damn button under the sun thinking that they would have that ability, much like Banjo-Kazooie did. The move definitely exists, but it would’ve been nice to have some kind of indicator of it.
I sat here for 30 minutes before I just raged quit the level.
There is another move that spins the two characters into a ball, and you use that to move up slippery slopes or steep inclines. When you’re just going up, it works fine. When you have to jump to clear obstacles, which is a whole damn lot, it does NOT work. At all. It is finicky, annoying, and not a good gameplay mechanic that you just slide all the way down whatever you land on. It’s frustrating to go into a boss fight and get hit by a million logs trying to even reach the guy because your jump didn’t work for whatever reason. You also can’t adjust the speed of the roll, so I hope you enjoy barreling to your death. Gameplay issues like that just aren’t acceptable for a 3D platformer. It has to feel smooth with tight controls, and it has none of these things going for it.
There is also a retro arcade within each level, and for the one game that I played, it was a slog. It wasn’t fun, the controls were horrible, and I understood what they were going for in terms of aesthetics, but it just did not really stick the landing. Given that there is one of these in each level, I was not exactly champing at the bit to get to more of them.
Honestly, I did not even continue the game after trying to force myself to get through the first level. I learned that there is another strange mechanic of “expanding” a level, which you use earned pagies to extend the current level to have more explorable areas. While this sounds like a neat idea, when I did not connect at all with the world in the first place, it was hardly encouraging that I had to expand it even further. Even with the expansion, it felt extremely devoid of any love or interest. It was just there. My intense level of disappointment at this point was apparent, and I decided that I shouldn’t torture myself to play and finish a game just because I liked the games that came before it. I’m not sold that the genre itself is dead, but I am convinced that the old Rare is in fact dead. They are just toted around with sunglasses on to try and convince people that they’re still alive and ready to have a good time.
Final Fantasy X-2 is probably one of the most hated Final Fantasy games, and to me, that is a tragedy. I have been considering my own position on the game, and this is my reevaluation of the game after playing the HD Remaster on the PS3.9
This year, I actually didn’t play as many games as I would have expected to. I also played games that I wouldn’t recommend playing.10 However, when it comes down to it, seven games rose to the top as my favorites this year. Seven, you ask?! Why such a strange number? Why not 10? Why not 5? The answer? This is my list, and I came up with seven.
