Critical Cycle

<< 2024 | 2026 >> This year felt like escaping limbo, perhaps by moving backwards but necessarily so. Hopefully next year holds forward steps and a greater capacity for fun and games. Here's  a short playlist  before getting to it.  Best Games A round-up from my  recommendations through the year . I've thought about whether I should change my approach to this section. As-is it's mostly summary, only adding a few bonus sentences or bracketed asides, and then worst and non-games are more of a novelty (even if I did tweet about them or whatever, they won't be wholesale copies). Maybe next year I'll try to write a bit more and/or reword old feelings on highlights, at least if I have a broader selection to choose from. 1. Baba Is You (PC) Walks such a fine line between guidance and challenge that the few times it breaks down (like Bottleneck) go to show how incredible it is as a rule. Almost always elegant, novel, streamlined, secretive yet too exci...

<< 2023 | 2025 >> Spent a lot of time tinkering with tabletop rpgs this year, hopefuly I'll get back to some blog posts that've been on the backburner. Take this mixtape before continuing. Best Games A somewhat sparse year ( full lineup here ), so I'm getting creative. Not creative enough to include DLCs, mind you, gotta have some standards. 1. Monster Train (iOS) So many cool builds to find and combinations to explore, with immediate run variety and short length. Lots of awkwardness here and there, one-floor set-ups are a lot less dynamic than res/spell oriented ones, a lot of champs kinda suck, and the dlc is as messy as it is cool, but tends to work out. 2. An Angel Dances in the Sparks of a Bonfire ( Web ) Takes the most fundamentally compelling part of shmups and isolates it to display all the raw beauty within (i.e. routing bullet patterns without relying on memorisation). The deepest 1D movement like how Getting Over It is the deepest 2D movement...

Other studios: Ghibli | DreamWorks Finally arrived at the big one, it's been through several stages with a lot of rewatches over a few years, so there's everything from a sentence-long summary to rambling about could-have-beens. Two of these I have heavy nostalgia for but mostly I watched them for the first time as an adult. Even then, given this lineup, it feels like this Walt guy has to be the most influential cultural figure in modern times. As the company has grown and branched out, this will only be the main studio, what's currently known as Walt Disney Animation Studios, no direct-to-DVD sequels or whatever. Big list first, then the higlights of their extensive shorts catalogue, and then the full feature films in order of release. Encanto Tarzan The Lion King The Little Mermaid Aladdin (4/5) Tangled The Hunchback of Notre Dame Lilo & Stitch The Princess and the Frog Treasure Planet One Hundred and One Dalmatians Beauty and the Beast Robin Hood Moana Brother Bear...