BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle: A Breakdown/Rant

So, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle recently found itself in the crosshairs of most fighting game fans for its DLC practices. For those of you who missed this, the game is due to have a total roster of 40 characters on launch (which wouldn’t cover EVERY character from all four of the franchises involved in it, but would certainly get a good number of them in)...but the default roster without DLC is 20 characters. That’s half of the game’s characters locked behind a paywall! This has not gone down well, to say the least: a lot of people are very unimpressed with Arc System Works for their use of DLC in this game and it’s made worse when you consider several factors, such as most of the assets of the BlazBlue and Persona 4 Arena side being recycled from previous games, a lot of fan favourites not making the initial roster just to become DLC and the fact that the main RWBY team, the main draw for a lot of people, have been split in half, with half of them put behind a paywall.

Speaking personally, I’m not impressed with this move, as fighting games were one of the few genres of gaming where I’d defended the move to DLC as an improvement over the previous system of doing things. For those of you who weren’t following fighting games before patching games and DLC were standard, if changes needed to be made to the game, it meant a whole new copy of the game had to be made, often with a new character thrown in just to placate people who had got the older game, which, had this practice continued, would have meant spending £40-£60 for what was essentially a new character or two and gameplay tweaks. DLC brought that cost right down and negated the necessity to make new copies of the game for gameplay tweaks, which arguably has made fighting games less financially difficult to keep up with and justify their purchase more in a time when (at least outside of Japan) arcades are functionally dead to most people.

Then this happens.

Now, I’m going to take my hand off the pitchfork for a few seconds and point out that, as of this writing, we have no idea what the actual pricing for the DLC characters is. While anyone familiar with how DLC characters for fighting games tends to go will already have a bad inkling of what it is likely to be (around £5 for any character bought individually and the expected packs likely to be in the £20-£30 range, with the all-in-one download likely the cost of the game again), it is very possible that Arc System Works are aware that this price range is ridiculous for this many characters and will be selling the characters at a much cheaper price. This doesn’t necessarily make up for this much of the cast being locked behind a paywall, but would be a very good way to show that they are very much aware that asking for so much money for half of the cast is silly and having the packs be very cheap would help gain back some of the ill will the game has acquired so far. I will also point out that other fighting games have had a ratio of base-to-DLC characters similar to this game in the past, though, in that case, the DLC characters came out over several years and were done in seasons, effectively meaning it ran on a modification of the original fighting game release system (and, at least in the case of the most recent Killer Instinct, those new seasons were free!). Lastly, it might very well turn out that the entire cast can be unlocked in game, which wouldn’t necessarily make things look any better, but would at least take some of the sting off (and be a case where the “encouraging longevity” argument might actually hold some water, especially if the DLC store is deliberately kept closed for a month or so with regards to the characters to encourage players to unlock them legitimately). Heck, if they WANT to encourage the longevity, have the characters unlock on post-launch dates and mix it with that system of being able to unlock the characters in game, effectively punishing those players who would just buy all the DLC and not actually play the game by forcing them to wait for everything to become available and making it easier to just unlock them normally (actually, that would probably be a good system, now I put it like that!)

Alright, back to the flaming.

First of all, why did Arc System Works think that having half of the cast be DLC on one of the most anticipated fighting games in recent memory was a good idea? While non-fighting game fans will likely be scratching their head at that “most anticipated” comment, let’s remember that all of the franchises have some good attention: the BlazBlue franchise has been a highly regarded fighting game franchise for several years, so it has a built in fandom for it already, the Persona 4 Arena games tend to be beloved by fighting game fans and I’m sure there are a great many Persona 4 fans who got introduced to fighting games through them, so Persona 4 fans, by and large, will be supporting this release, RWBY is a reasonably popular web series that has many fans who aren’t fighting game fans, but who will happily buy one just because the cast are in it and Under Night In-Birth, while very much a cult classic in comparison to the other three, is also highly regarded, with many fans outright demanding that the game get a sequel (which this is reasonably close to counting as, since the story mode could potentially be continuing the story of the characters who appear in it). This basically means that this is the fighting game which fighting game fans will be overjoyed about (it’s a new game in a franchise which had functionally finished its main story with its last instalment, bringing back the cast of a beloved fighting game for one last time and potentially serving as a sequel to a game which fans have wanted a sequel to for a long time) and also bringing in a new audience who might very well have ignored the game normally (as this is the second game the RWBY has been involved with...and the first was originally a fan game, so some would debate how much it should count!). As such, pissing off all four fanbases could easily cause the game to flop. Whether this news has become the point of no return is hard to say, but I know that a lot of RWBY fans will not have reacted well to the fact that they don’t even get the main quartet in the base game (I know I was annoyed when the final character reveal came out and the news later reached me that what I had seen was all the base game had to offer) and revealing that there’s half of the game which has to be bought post-release will have soured them on it quite dramatically. While fans of the other franchises MIGHT be a little bit more forgiving over some characters being missing (BlazBlue has 36 characters, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax has 21 and Under Night In-Birth, include the two guest fighters, has 20: even if you restricted the RWBY team to just the main 4, you’ve got over 80 characters to choose from, so fans will understand having to leave some of them out!), you’d have thought that the first thing written down on the game’s design document would have been “RWBY main quartet in by default” so that, even if the rest of the fandoms react negatively to the DLC stuff, then at least the RWBY fans will have something to be happy about and that will keep some goodwill about the game going.

Secondly, the roster choices from the Persona 4 Arena side have, unfortunately, caused some controversy. While I can understand why this particular decision was done (getting the four characters from Persona 4 who functionally serve as the main cast throughout the whole game makes a lot of sense), there has been no mention of any characters from Persona 3 making an appearance in the game (oh yeah, quick explanation for anyone reading that and wondering why that would be a problem: Persona 4 Arena and its sequel also serve as sequels to Persona 3, since several cast members from 3 are also in the game and the story of the games is confirmed as canon by Atlus). Unfortunately, due to the cast of Persona 4 comprising 8 party members, it is very likely that they will be the main focus for that game’s DLC instead of the Persona 3 cast, so there is a good chance that the Persona 3 cast will be locked out of the game entirely. Now, this is pure speculation here (bear in mind, as of this writing, the only DLC character confirmed is Blake from RWBY), but, due to having to cut down the roster to support four different franchises and the story mode hinging on battling as a team in 2 vs 2 matches, it would make an unfortunately large amount of sense for the Persona 3 cast to not make the final cut (though, as the games are confirmed to be canon, getting the Persona 3 cast in on the technicality of “they did become friends with the Persona 4 cast during the games” is still plausible, so I’m not grabbing my pitchfork on this one yet). As much as I think this one is still a bit of a non-issue until the full character list is made available, I do understand why Persona 3 fans will be feeling a bit upset that they haven’t had any character confirmed from that game yet, ESPECIALLY since the cast will be making a return for their own rhythm game this year (potentially even for the Persona Q sequel with the cast of Persona 5, though this is unconfirmed speculation on my part), so leaving them out in that game’s biggest year since the original game came out feels quite insulting (though I imagine that Arc System Works were unaware of the games coming out this year, as they would have had to be told by Atlus about it before any public news came out to have known to include any of the characters in the base game, which seems unlikely when you think about it: sharing news with someone who is technically your competitor about your confirmed plans for your future games isn’t a good business strategy!).

Things are also controversial on the BlazBlue front, as the game’s base roster is half BlazBlue fighters and fans are expecting that, because several BlazBlue fan favourites are still missing, that there will be more characters available as DLC. While I personally think the developers haven't done anything wrong here (it’s still a BlazBlue game, when you think about it, so it makes some sense for that franchise to have the most representation), I do think that the base game could have taken out one or two BlazBlue characters (Es probably could have been moved to DLC due to her role as the cute fighter with a huge weapon being already filled by Ruby and Hazama and Azrael, being villains in BlazBlue, might have been better off not being revealed as being in the base game to keep them a surprise for story stuff!) so as to ensure that the RWBY main quartet got into the base game (and MAYBE slip in a Persona 3 character into the base system to reassure fans that there will be Persona 3 characters in the game). The favouritism does make some sense, but, when you can fairly point out that the game has left out important characters who really SHOULD have been in the base game because of how much sense it made to prioritise another franchise which already has a large cast being represented, then it’s hard not to acknowledge that those saying that the BlazBlue cast are too prominent have a valid point.

Another controversy, albeit one which I think is making a mountain out of a molehill, is that there isn’t any crossover happening with the Guilty Gear franchise, which, for all intents and purposes, could be argued as being BlazBlue’s spiritual ancestor (it used a lot of the mechanics that BlazBlue uses and there are recognisable similarities between the cast members of both games, as well as also being by the same developers). There is certainly something to be said about the lack of a crossover having been made between both series, but I personally am not sure this would have been as good an idea for THIS crossover as many fighting game fans seem to think it does. Remember, Guilty Gear characters generally are WAY more powerful than BlazBlue characters (granted, having not played any of the Guilty Gear games, I am going off of Death Battle’s episode when Ragna faced Sol Badguy, which I know wasn’t as well researched as it could have been and was released when BlazBlue was still only in its third game, so he MIGHT have gotten powerful enough in that game to make this not applicable any more, but, factoring in Ragna’s maximum power being when he became the Black Beast still not stopping him from being destroyed in a single hit, it’s pretty clear that there is a major power level difference!), so having them appear in a crossover with the Persona and RWBY cast (probably the Under Night In-Birth cast too, though I haven’t played it yet, so I couldn’t tell you that for sure) would either require the Guilty Gear cast needing a massive power nerf to explain why they can fight on an even footing in the same setting as the other franchises or essentially making the entire game become like those matches where you use two or three characters against one single character (and, even then, that would likely still be underselling them). For a crossover between just the two series, that’ll be doable, but you’re not gonna find anyone who will be looking on the possibility of Sol Badguy (who, I’ll remind you, obliterated Ragna at his most powerful in one shot when he wasn’t using all of his power in Death Battle) getting beaten unconscious by Ruby Rose and Yu Narukami (the canon name of the Persona 4 main character, if you’re wondering who they are), who are functionally two teenagers (granted, teenagers who can withstand attacks that would kill most people easily and one of whom can summon daemons, but still, teenagers!) without calling bullcrap on it! So, while I do sympathise with the Guilty Gear fans who are just wishing Arc System Works would get back to the series or give it some representation to show that they haven’t forgotten about it, I have to be honest and admit that I’m not convinced that the franchise would actually make a sensible good crossover pick, at least not when there are franchises involved when the main cast are basically teenagers who, by all reasonable standards, would likely be knocked unconscious by a single blow from a Guilty Gear character. Maybe having Sol as a bonus boss for beating the entire story mode with perfects in every match (and only unlockable by beating him, though with unlimited retries once you make him available to fight and with an ability to start directly at his fight to alleviate some of the frustration beating him would require), but that’s it.

So yeah, basically, while SOME of the controversies are silly to my eyes, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle has basically managed to score an own goal with the DLC system it has gone for and has caused controversies that might have been avoided had one or two different decisions been made. While I’m hoping that Arc System Works are sensible enough to have already intended for the DLC characters to be fairly cheap overall (or have already decided to dial the prices back to a fairly cheap price behind-the-scenes), there’s a very unfortunate trend among the DLC culture with fighting games at pricing new characters at around £5, which, if followed here, means that the whole game’s roster will cost more than the actual game itself will cost on retail.

I am hoping that I am wrong and that the game is sensibly priced for the cost of the DLC characters (like, I don’t know, have the all-in-one pack cost £20 or something like that to make up for the large amount of them) or that every character can be unlocked via playing the game normally (which doesn’t make up for having so much DLC, but takes some of the sting off, at least). But, let’s be honest, if Arc System Works had been sensible, the base roster would not have locked out half of Team RWBY and the DLC trend does not always point towards being sensibly handled, so I’m not going to be surprised if the game launches and buying all of the DLC characters costs more than the base game.

Please prove me wrong, Arc System Works. I love your stuff and really, REALLY want to be able to gush about this game, but I refuse to support crappy DLC practices like what you’re doing here and, if this is going the way I think it will with the pricing and there isn’t a way to unlock the characters normally, then I will be telling you, in no uncertain terms, to take a long walk off a short pier for your greed with the DLC stuff you’ve done here and refusing to buy the game. I can accept a lot of DLC characters in a fighting game if it has been out for several years and I’m catching up on it, but on launch? You can fuck right off, and I don’t care what your reason is or who I’m speaking to when I say that!

STOP THE PRESSES! (sorry, always wanted to say that!)

Between the writing of this article and publication, it came to my attention that highlighted that the game will launch at a lower price than most games do and that the game plus full DLC will not cost that much more than a normal full price. While a detailed price breakdown has not been made available, it does sound as if Arc System Works are aware that so much DLC warranted a lower price for the base game and that keeping the DLC cheaper to make up for it was a sensible business strategy.

Personally, I don’t think this makes up for the handling of things (as this should have been said right from the start) or cutting the RWBY cast up so they aren't all in the base game and we will have to wait and see how much the DLC costs when the game actually releases before we determine how true this is, but this does make up for things a little bit. I will even go so far as to say that launching the base game at a lower price tag (which I had NOT expected would be the case, so props to Arc System Works there!) may actually turn out to be a huge point in the game’s favour, as it means that there’s more reason to buy the game over anything else that comes out that week because it’s not as expensive.

So yeah, I still am not amused over how much DLC there is, but this has taken a lot of the sting out of it and, if Arc System Works are telling the truth on the price stuff, then they have made up for it enough that I can’t get TOO mad at them.

Well, I can (especially since most of the assets are recycled, so people pointing out that this doesn't make much sense as a DLC practice aren't entirely wrong). But I’m going to save my anger for after the DLC cost breakdown and launch price of the game is revealed, because this has regained enough goodwill to stop me from engaging in further roasting for the time being!

Also, fun fact: I guessed £20 for all of the characters based on how much all of the DLC characters cost in the most recent BlazBlue game, as I'd found that fairly reasonable. If that's what the full DLC price ends up being, then I will be laughing my ass off and yelling "CALLED IT!" at the top of my lungs.

When Does Innovation Becomes Destructive?

About a week or two ago, I picked up Valkyria Revolution on my PlayStation Vita. Having playing the first Valkyria Chronicles game on my PC, having the second game on my Vita (which I dipped VERY briefly into before playing Revolution and am happy to report, for those who missed it, that it is REALLY good and plays a lot like the original game: if you liked the original game and have a PSP or PS Vita or can pick one up reasonably cheaply, pick it up, you won’t regret it!) and being aware of Valkyria Chronicles IV due to see release some time this year, I was feeling in the mood to play something different in the series.

Valkyria Revolution, on paper, looked like a good bet. Taking on more of an action-RPG style, part of me was thinking “OK, this’ll be like Monster Hunter with Valkyria Chronicles aesthetics. Alright, this’ll be fun!”

It...wasn’t. Lots of loading, excessive cutscenes, combat which was kind of crappy...I’ll admit, I didn’t even get to the first save point after starting a new game because I was bored out of my mind by it (that and I started playing the game at around half three in the morning and it took so long that I still hadn’t reached the first save point by four o’clock, resulting in me just skipping cutscenes out of boredom and finding that I’d had to skip about four cutscenes to FINALLY see the save point).

Thankfully, I know that Valkyria Chronicles IV will play closer to the original game, so this has taken some of the disappointment out of Valkyria Revolution (which can thank its lucky stars that I did not have a way to play it on release, because I would have torn it a new one!). However, this all got me thinking: when does a desire to innovate in franchises actually destroy what made them so good?

Well, this is a tricky question to answer, because it’s all very subjective: one man’s step too far is another man’s perfect decision. Plus, it would be a lie to say that all attempts to innovate a game are bad decisions: as fans of Resident Evil 4 and Sonic Adventure will no doubt be able to attest, innovation can sometimes result in a truly fantastic game which sets a new high level for the franchise.

However, there is certainly a grain of truth in the comment that innovation is a tricky thing to get right in an established franchise, as, even when you succeed, you sacrifice what made many people become fans of the franchise in the first place and risk alienating them even as your success pays off dividends. Since this is quite difficult to nail down and explain, I’m going to use a couple of examples from franchises which have very split fandoms to hopefully showcase how this can happen.

Let’s start with the obvious example: Final Fantasy. Many a Final Fantasy fan (or gamer in general) will be aware of the notoriously unpleasable fanbase the franchise has: merely mentioning some titles can bring out hordes of people willing to argue to the death as to why said game is the best/worst game in the franchise. Even getting a consensus of which games are the best to start with can result in VERY different answers: I asked this question among a few of my friends who know the franchise once and the answers I got were striking in that none of them agreed on where to start: one friend said III, one friend said VII, one friend said X and one friend said IV.

(Incidentally, I originally picked VII, then switched over to X because I noticed that the gameplay from it inspired The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, a game I actually enjoyed a lot while growing up, and features a main character who is essentially a sci-fi basketball star. No regrets from me on that move!)

Having taken a quick bit of time to play a bit of every Final Fantasy game I could get my hands on (so, every mainline game available on Steam except for XI, XII, XIV and XV and the spin-off games Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, Final Fantasy Explorers, Dissidia Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD: I’m also counting Adventures of Mana, Bravely Default and Bravely Second as part of this, though their actual status as Final Fantasy games is very much in the “not actually part of it” vein of things) for research into this, it is VERY easy to see how this might occur...and, equally, how the Final Fantasy franchise can end up so split on everything. To say the franchise is diverse would be underselling it, but that comes with the problem that it is nigh-on impossible to please everyone because what some people want won’t be what other people want. Even going by just the classic games, you can spot shifts in how the series handled itself: Final Fantasy I is relatively simple in terms of how it works and the combat is reasonably straightforward, but, even as early as Final Fantasy IV, you can see the shift towards when the franchise is argued to have hit its peak in Final Fantasy VII (the slowly filling bars that judged when you can make actions mixed with real-time combat was introduced there, for one thing). So it is very easy to see why someone could look at even the classic games and not feel that they are what would be wanted by the player (indeed, as someone who doesn’t like the bars system in VII, I found myself disappointed to learn that IV actually used the system first, though, admittedly, for most European readers, this would probably have been a surprise when IV was originally released: remember, the entire PAL region, which includes Europe, did not get any of the mainline Final Fantasy games on their initial release until VII and piracy was INCREDIBLY difficult in those days due to the internet being in its infancy, meaning anyone who played any of the earlier Final Fantasy games before VII was released likely did so on a copy of the game imported from the US).

Once you start getting past the classic era, the games REALLY start getting controversial. Final Fantasy VII, ironically, can be seen as the cause of this, being the first game to explicitly break from the fantasy setting (not to say that the earlier games stretched fantasy credibility somewhat, like the metallic walkers in VI) and being so successful that, for Europeans, the Final Fantasy series became known for its sci-fi setting...NOT its original fantasy setting. As such, the shift back to a fantasy focused setting was inevitably going to cause controversy when it happened for Europeans because the sci-fi setting is what they first knew the franchise for...but sticking with the sci-fi setting would inevitably cause controversy for Americans and the Japanese, because the fantasy setting is what THEY first knew the franchise for.

This alone would be enough to fracture a fanbase purely based on how radically different both settings are, but then you start adding the spin-offs, like Final Fantasy Explorers (like Monster Hunter/action-RPGs and Final Fantasy? You’ll enjoy this!), Final Fantasy Tactics (like turn-based strategy games and Final Fantasy? You’ll enjoy this!), the Dissidia series (like fighting games and Final Fantasy? You’ll enjoy this!), the Bravely Default spiritual successor series (like the artistic style of Final Fantasy IV through to VI, but want a turn-based system rooted in I through to III that is also unique? You’ll enjoy this!) and the not-actually-Final Fantasy-games-despite-being-released-under-the-name-originally like Adventures of Mana (like The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy? You’ll enjoy this!) and things start turning very messy. Like it or not, the Final Fantasy franchise is large enough and spans so many game genres (plus other media, like the movie and anime stuff) that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make something that will actually please every fan of the franchise...and a vocal minority of fans WILL make their voices heard when Square Enix releases a Final Fantasy game, whether in praise or in condemnation of whatever their new offering is.

Since I feel like I’m roasting Final Fantasy fans really heavily despite the focus being on a more general discussion, let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about another JRPG franchise for a few minutes: the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. Most of you reading this will probably be scratching your heads a little bit and going “What’s that?”

Well...ever heard of the Persona franchise? Well, that is a sub series of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, which is itself a continuation of the original Megami Tensei franchise that never left Japan (and marketed as such in Japan, but I’m gonna use the non-Japanese marketing title for ease). Now you know, and knowing is just the start of summing up the larger Shin Megami Tensei franchise: aside from the previously mentioned three series, there’s also the Last Bible sub series (none of which ever reached Europe), the Majin Tensei sub series (which never left Japan at all), the Devil Summoner sub series (which got the 3DS remake of one of the games and a PS2 action-RPG that hasn’t had a PSN re-release in Europe despite the U.S. and Japan getting the game on PSN several years ago), the Devil Children sub series (which never left Japan), various mobile spin-offs (which never left Japan), the Digital Devil Saga duo, the Devil Survivor duo, Jack Bros. (which never reached Europe) and a crossover with the Fire Emblem series. While the biggest of these connected series is easily the Persona series, there are a lot of fans of the original series...and not all of them are fans of the other. Even in the Persona series, there’s a split between fans of the first two games and fans of Persona 3 onwards and fans of the spin-offs of Persona 4 and detractors of those same spin-offs: throw that in with the larger Shin Megami Tensei franchise and fans of the other sub series who don’t necessarily like the other sub series and you have what I can only describe as like the axis forces in WWII: all of them united under the same larger banner, but not necessarily liking each other and all too capable of turning on the others if provoked too much.

Fortunately, Atlus are sensible enough not to diversify too heavily from what they are known for, so, while the new settings for games and additional elements to the core experience might differ from sub series to sub series, the games offer the game basic experience when you think about it. Some of the Persona spin-offs do break from this (Persona 4: Dancing All Night springs to mind) and there are non-video game media for the larger franchise to know about (including two stage plays for Persona 4...no, seriously, I did not make that up!), but you’ll generally have the same basic experience when you play a game in the larger Shin Megami Tensei franchise: an RPG where you play someone who has to face off against demons by summoning other demons. So the split isn’t quite as dramatic as it might seem in comparison to the Final Fantasy series.

None of this necessarily makes the Shin Megami Tensei franchise better than the Final Fantasy franchise, but the core point is that the Final Fantasy franchise is fractured because of how far the games can change on a gameplay level alone just following the main franchise, let alone the spin-offs. By contrast, you can pick up a game across the larger Shin Megami Tensei franchise and there’s relatively little on the gameplay front which will trip players of the other sub series up too badly or will leave them frustrated because it doesn’t play like what they’re used to.

Not all franchise problems are down purely to the games, though. Take the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Now, admittedly, the Sonic the Hedgehog games do have reasons why they can cause controversy today (the shift from 2D platforming to 3D platforming, the franchise having many games which are poorly received, poor attempts at storytelling, variety which actually detracts from what made the original games so beloved), but this doesn’t explain just how toxic the fandom has become on its own, because many well known franchises have gone through the same thing and do not have a franchise as vitriolic as the Sonic fandom (the Rayman franchise springs to mind: even when you bring the rabbids into the discussion, things don’t get anywhere near as bad as in the Sonic fandom). No, the Sonic fandom is also split because of how Sega handled the license outside of the games. For a good while in the 90s, there were MANY Sonic productions which had their own continuities and approaches to telling a story: several different comic series ran simultaneously and there were two different Sonic TV shows which were very different in terms of the details (this isn’t counting stuff like the anime movie, too!). So, the Sonic fandom essentially was split between all of these interpretations and liked and disliked them to various extents, but, united against a common enemy in the form of the Mario franchise and Sega continuing to keep continuity loose, this didn’t really cause any major issues.

Then Sega decided to change things with Sonic Adventure, essentially giving a canon personality to their characters at last through voice acting and stories, starting to put together greater creative control over the franchise by declaring many of these other media productions non-canon and then, due to the failure of the Sega Dreamcast hot off the heels of the gross mishandling of the Sega Saturn, financially collapsed, forcing them to leave console development and partner up with Nintendo, the makers of the Mario franchise and Sega’s nemesis during the era.

Needless to say, this essentially removed the uniting force that kept the franchise’s fans from tearing each other apart and poured salt into the wounds of those fans who had had their preferred interpretations of the characters declared non-canon, resulting in the franchise’s infamous infighting. While this infighting has almost certainly been exacerbated by the quality of Sonic games generally being less-than-spectacular and the changes in gameplay, this theory certainly explains why it tends to be those who did not grow up playing Sonic games from the start and weren’t massive fans during the whole “Sega does what Nintendon’t” rivalry who tend to be the more easygoing fans who are just happy to see the blue speedster doing his thing and enjoy the games for what they are. Not all of them, admittedly, but it certainly would explain a lot, as fans who don’t remember this rivalry don’t really have much reason to make a big fuss or have any reason to hold any grudge towards Nintendo over it.

Vocal fans of Sonic, though, tend to be remarkable similar to bronies in some regards. Now, as an ex-brony who got through a tough time thanks to watching the show and is aware that the show isn’t as popular as it once was, I am going to avoid being too critical of the fandom (especially because I know many people will see doing so as beating a dead horse). However, it is certainly true that vocal bronies and vocal Sonic fans tend to be very similar in that they both tend to be very hostile to criticism of their beloved franchise. Yet Sonic fans arguably have more right to do so: for bronies, this can be quite strange, since their franchise has a lot of good reason to be held up as a fine example of how taking a new approach to a franchise can work wonders.

Despite this, the My Little Pony fandom can also become very vitriol when it comes to comparing earlier instalments of the franchise to Friendship is Magic, even though, from a objective standpoint, it’s easy to argue that Friendship is Magic has the most effort put into making it a good show (whether it actually is good or not, I’ll leave up to reader interpretation). After all, earlier instalments of the franchise were focused purely on selling toy ponies to small girls (to be fair, Transformers was basically the same thing for guys) while Friendship is Magic aimed for a more universal audience that isn’t necessarily those interested in toy ponies. This makes it a show which isn’t purely a vehicle for new toys, but a show which can develop as the writers want it to, which, when you think about it, is an objectively better way of designing a show: instead of pulling a new character out of the hat every week and coming up with ways to explain increasingly broken powers mandated from on high, the show can make those decisions as it chooses and do so whenever it feels comfortable doing so.

So, why the controversy among the fandom if the show is objectively better handled? Well, basically, gen 3 of My Little Pony (for reference, Friendship is Magic, the spin-off Equestria Girls and last year's movie comprise gen 4...and that's just the animated stuff, too!) and My Little Pony Tales tend to see Friendship is Magic as too heavy on pop culture references, too heavy on the slapstick and being too dark while fans of Friendship is Magic tend to see those two as being too girly (as hypocritical as that might sound on paper, remember that, before Friendship is Magic, the franchise was aimed EXCLUSIVELY towards small girls, so there is a valid point there!) and basically being poorly done on every front. I’m going to avoid personally wading into this debate, but it IS worth noting that the slice of life stories upon which a lot of Friendship is Magic hinges on can be first traced back to My Little Pony Tales, so the likelihood is that My Little Pony Tales had some influence on Friendship is Magic (though this isn't something I've researched to check the truth behind). It is also worth noting that none of the critics of Friendship is Magic seem to argue that it is a poorly animated show!

All of these show that a lack of quality isn’t always a reason for fracturing a fanbase. Yet, as someone who has spent time doing creative writing in his free time, I can definitely understand why creators can feel a change in direction needs to be done even when things are working well: it’s all too easy to get bored of doing the same thing again and again, even if you know you can do it well and it’s what you enjoy doing. For the non-creative sorts, the best way I can sum it up is to ask you to try eating the exact same meal day in and day out, without variety and with nothing else in your diet except for that same meal every time you have something to eat. Doesn’t sound so bad when you’re looking at it, but trust me, after a week or two (maybe a month for the more set-in-your-ways sort), you’ll be craving ANYTHING different.

So, how would you go about doing something innovative with a franchise without this innovation becoming destructive? Well, first of all, identify what must NOT be changed under any circumstances. Sounds like an odd start point, but you’d be surprised how tempting it is to view “innovation” to mean “doing everything different”, which frequently results in an experience which doesn’t feel like it’s actually part of the franchise beyond the skin applied to it. So, identify the core themes that make the franchise what it is (which means, for games, identify the gameplay mechanics which help your franchise stand out as well) and make sure you keep a careful eye to franchise continuity so you don’t do anything which will go against what fans know (unless the entire point is to show how what the series has previously shown to be true is actually a lie, in which case, make sure the new explanation actually makes sense in terms of the impact it had and make sure there’s a good explanation for why the truth has never been revealed), then make sure you keep those in mind during all of the design stages. This will help fans to feel reassured that the creators know what makes the franchise what it is and will hopefully allow for the new elements to be accepted easier.

Secondly, don’t try to make too drastic a jump into something new at first. It’s very tempting to do it, but it’s usually worth making the shift to the new direction gradual so fans have some time to accept the new stuff and you have a better idea of how receptive the fanbase is to the new direction. Sometimes, this might be impossible to do (to use a deliberately ridiculous example, unless you are writing an anthology series or have established the sci-fi elements right from the start, you are not going to be able to shift from historical comedy to sci-fi horror in the same series, no matter how good a writer you are), but, if there is a reasonable overlap between what you are doing and where you are going (like shifting from a turn-based RPG to an action-RPG), then this is definitely the sensible way to go about things! As a good rule of thumb, a shift should ideally take long enough for people to get comfortable with your new direction, but you shouldn’t be making your new audience wait forever for it, so aim for three new instalments (assuming a yearly release schedule, though adjustments should be made based on fan reception and your own schedule) that gradually shift towards the new direction.

Thirdly, don't be afraid to have your innovation be its own separate thing if the new direction seems too much for what you think fans will want, but you still want to make it. To use my silly example earlier, say you want to have a historical comedy transition into a sci-fi horror, but you haven’t established anything that would verify that there is any futuristic side to the historical side or a greater sense of something horrifying behind the historical side in your current series, so the move will understandably look out of left field. OK, then: why not do a new series as a spiritual successor which DOES have those facts hinted at from the start and makes that transition as the instalment goes along? It’s a gamble as to whether that would be allowed in some media and there’s no guarantee it’ll reach the same audience, but it allows you to do that idea in a way which also leaves the original franchise safe from brand name value damage due to the departure of longtime fans if this new move flops. Throw in some mentioned in interviews about it being what you wanted to do with the original franchise, but opted to do as its own thing because you felt it was too drastic a change to go over well there and you could have the entire fandom give it a watch out of curiosity just to see what was so drastic a shift that you felt it had to be its own separate thing, which is exactly what you would want to have happen (especially if the original franchise goes on hiatus or takes a break while the spiritual successor is being made, though expect fan backlash just for not being the original franchise).

Fourthly, be prepared for the likelihood of having to backpedal if the new direction doesn't catch on at all. Now, I’m not talking fandom level here (though a bad fandom reception is certainly worth taking note of), but a more general level: say your new direction is commercially unsuccessful (obviously, in this example, I’m going to assume the flop is successful enough that you can still make follow up works). How you handle it should depend on what fans and critics generally say about it: if they liked it and the new direction just failed to be commercially successful, it’s usually worth sticking with the new direction, as you probably got unlucky through a poorly timed release date or a failure to capture a new audience (and word of mouth could mean that it will catch on during the time between instalments) or got screwed over by the higher ups through poor marketing or bad slot placement (in which case, try asking for permission to have a hand in them next time so you can make sure this doesn't happen again and planning your own marketing for it alongside what the higher ups are doing: even if the first suggestion is shot down, you’ll be able to get some buzz going even if the higher ups choose to ignore it!) and another shot will likely validate your new direction if handled well. Alternatively, if there’s indifference to the new direction (or, worse, strong dislike) on all sides, be prepared to shift back towards the original direction. If there’s a split between critics and fans, it is PROBABLY better to side with the fans and apply the appropriate choice from the above options: after all, they’re the reason you even have a franchise to begin with while there’s a good chance that the critics reviewing it are not fans of the franchise, so the critics won’t necessarily have the same appreciation of the franchise that the fans do and may make suggestions that aren’t what fans would actually want (though keep an eye out for reviews by critics who are fans: if they’re lining up with the other critics, they might have a reason for it which you’ll want to keep in mind for the next instalment!).

Finally, be aware that, even in the best case scenario, there WILL be fans who don’t like the new direction irrespective of how good it is from an objective standpoint. The sad truth is that every new instalment in a franchise will inevitably disappoint someone somewhere, so a minor break will always happen whenever you release something new (even if the reason is complete nonsense when you think about it). The real goal, as such, is to win over as many already established fans as you can (while still keeping things accessible to newcomers, of course). Remember: fans are the lifeblood of the franchise, so even a highly innovative new title which is rewriting the franchise from the ground up to provide something to encourage more people to try the franchise out NEEDS to appeal to these people. This is trickier than it sounds, but, if you approach the new instalment with care, understanding of what has come before and treat the past with respect, you’ll usually find that you’ll get longtime fans on board with it pretty easily!

That’s basically how to make sure innovation doesn't become destructive: move forward and keep seeking to convert a wider audience, but never abandon what made you beloved in the first place and treat your already established fans with respect. Sounds really simple on paper, doesn’t it? Well...need we bring up Fox’s attempt at a Fantastic Four reboot in 2015 or the VERY mixed reception that the DCEU has acquired from most of its cinematic titles? Just saying...

2017 Awards

2017 has been a very interesting year, to say the least. We've had several things of massive impact happen in the video game industry happen (not all of them good, admittedly), the DCEU finally put out a film that is ACTUALLY good (which I haven't actually seen, but hey, it's the thought that counts!), Black Sabbath finally bid a permanent farewell to the music scene and there's been a massive look at how figures in power abuse it to hide their own unpleasant behaviour. Among many other things!

For me personally, though, 2017 has been a year of finding who I am. After many years of trying to lie to myself, 2017 was the year where I finally felt comfortable with embracing who I am and made me realise that I am stronger than I thought I was. No longer do I feel ashamed of being geeky or anything like that: to me, it's just what makes me who I am and I should not feel a need to hide it any more. Plus, 2017 helped me to explore some sides of media which I had ignored for way too long, which I feel has helped me become a more rounded individual.

Still, it's fine looking back over 2017 on a personal level, but that's not what we're here for. So, let's get the awards for 2017 out of the way so we can continue seeing what 2018 has to bring!

Best Game Of 2017

2017 has been a pretty interesting year for gaming, with the Nintendo Switch being, in many ways, a game changer for consoles. Certainly, the absence of any Switch games in the debate of personal awards for best game of 2017 is only down to the fact that I do not own the system yet: in many ways, I’d be inclined to argue that it is one of the best games consoles ever released, simultaneously taking handheld gaming and console gaming into new, uncharted waters and raising the bar for what to expect from both.

Still, I can’t talk too much about games without naming my favourite game of 2017 and, honestly, my pick was locked down as far back as June and anyone who knows me in person is going to be very unsurprised by my choice, because I still gush about it now and it was the game which truly hooked me in to what is now one of my favourite JRPG franchises (behind only Pokémon: incidentally, I am not giving this award to Pokémon Ultra Sun because I didn’t actually play it in 2017, though I honestly would have banned it from obtaining the award even if I had played it because I feel rewarding an already great game for basically remaking itself isn't sending out the right message!).

I speak, for anyone unaware of where I’m going, of Tales of Berseria. Calling it a pleasant surprise after my disappointment with Tales of the Abyss in 2016 doesn’t really do it justice: it’s a truly magnificent game that I adore for its amazing (and very unconventional, by JRPG standards) story, its deep combat system that expertly blend elements of fighting games, real-time combat and turn-based strategy, its brilliant characters and its wonderful art style. You know you’ve done a game right when I am so impressed with it that I happily buy copies of it (admittedly, while on a Steam sale) for my friends so they can experience it for themselves, gush about it whenever I get the opportunity to do so and go out of my way to play as many previous games in the series as I can just because I have become so enthusiastic to learn more about the rest of the series from experience. I speak no hyperbole when I say that I could genuinely see this game being this generation’s Final Fantasy VII: the game which sets the new standard by which all other games in the genre will be judged against. It isn’t flawless (it has some padding and I will acknowledge that Velvet, the main protagonist, can come across as a bit TOO focused on her own pain at points), but, if you like JRPGs even slightly or just want to make a start with them, then GET. THIS. GAME!

Honourable mention goes to Persona 5. Why is it not my game of the year, I hear you ask? Because I picked it up a few days before the end of 2017 and barely got any time to play it due to a busy few days in the lead up to New Year’s Eve, which unfortunately disqualified it from getting any awards due to it not being played for long enough to form a decisive enough opinion on justify giving the award to. What little I DID get to play before I had to write the final draft of the awards, though, is brilliant (even on PS3, the system I got it on), so, if you are disappointed that Persona 5 did not get the award, then rest easy in the knowledge that, had I been made aware of the PS3 version before the end of the year, it may very well have ended up dethroning Tales of Berseria as my game of the year. Both games, however, are fantastic and I urge fans of either franchise who have not yet played a game in the other franchise to pick up the most recent instalments of each franchise if you can, because both are really worth your time!

Best Metal Album Of 2017

I am not going to lie, I’d actually been listening to a lot less metal music than might be expected in 2017. Don’t get me wrong, there were some solid metal releases that I’d heard, but, honestly, my priorities musically leaned towards other genres, like acid-jazz, folk and country.

Still, I would be lying if I said that I’d completely avoided metal music and I actually have a pick for metal album of 2017 that may surprise everyone: The Future in Whose Eyes? By SikTh. While “best” might be debatable for a lot of people, I feel that SikTh’s reunion record deserves the award simply because it is the metal record that made me remember why I loved metal music so much in a year when I had drifted so far away from the genre. By the time this record came out in early June, I was basically convinced that there was little in the scene that was new and interesting to me any more. I hadn’t grown to HATE the genre, but I was tired of hearing the same old sounds again and again in the metal scene and was wanting something new and exciting to remind me of why metal made such a big impact upon me when I first started listening to it.

This, to me, was that record. Unorthodox, slightly unhinged and yet very memorable, The Future in Whose Eyes? was (pardon the word choice) an eye opener for me, making me realise that I COULD still be pleasantly surprised in metal music. It made me reconsider my stance on nu-metal to some extent (though listening to a lot of LINKIN PARK in the aftermath of the suicide of Chester Bennington also helped) and made me realise that there was some really unusual ideas in the metal scene which I barely had paid attention to before now. In that regard, it was the most important metal record of the year to me and deserves recognition for that fact.

Best Non-Metal Record Of 2017

Interestingly, this is the first time I have had far more nominations for record of the year where the choices were not rock related in the slightest than were. So, to save giving an honourable mentions list which needs more lines than this whole paragraph, here’s the records that DIDN’T get the award:

Under Burning Skies - The Souljazz Orchestra
Empty Rooms - Halflives
Hell Yeah - KMFDM
Beautiful Trauma - P!nk
Stones - Manafest
TLC - TLC
Fénix - Nicky Jam
El Paradise - Los Amigos Invisibles
Under Your Spell - The Birthday Massacre
Heart Break - Lady Antebellum
Songs of Robert Burns - Robyn Stapleton
okay. - As It Is

Doing the maths for the curious, that’s 3 nominations which are undeniably in the rock spectrum (Halflives, Manafest and As It Is), 3 which are debatable (The Birthday Massacre and KMFDM) and 6 which absolutely are not (everything else). The winner...is another which is absolutely not rock related: Automaton by Jamiroquai. This was a very big surprise to me, as I originally passed it off as club music from the cover alone...only for it to turn out to be the record which made me love acid-jazz (and remember why I like house music, too!). A great fusion of acid-jazz and more electronic elements, the best way I can describe this album is what you’d get if you got Daft Punk to remix a typical Jamiroquai album...and the results, put bluntly, are fucking amazing! Definitely worth checking out if you have even the slightest interest in house or acid-jazz music!

Best Film Of 2017

I am not going to lie, up until mid-December, I thought this pick had been locked down by Logan essentially by default: nothing else I had seen in 2017 affected me quite as much as it did and, while really depressing, it represented a high water mark for superhero movies to me (ironically enough, by NOT being a superhero movie, for the most part). Then, about a week and a half before Christmas, I went to the cinema with my now-girlfriend to see a film that touched my heart in so many ways that I realised that I HAD to include it as my film of the year: Wonder.

Now, admittedly, when you look at the basic events in the film, it’s easy to think that Wonder isn’t an especially remarkable film. Based on the 2012 children’s novel of the same name by Raquel Jaramillo, the film spends a year in the life of a ten year old boy who is an outcast, going to school for the first time and deals with bullying. Nothing too unusual, I hear you saying: there’s a lot of movies like that out there.

Once the details start getting added in, however, Wonder truly begins to become (pardon the pun) a truly wonderful movie. See, the outcast suffers from Treacher Collins Syndrome, a genetic disorder which affects about 1 in every 50,000 people and is characterised by deformities to much of the face. While I have seen some people criticise the movie for taking an inspirational tone towards the end (especially as Treacher Collins Syndrome is a lifelong condition, with the only ways to make things less noticeable being reconstructive surgery and speech therapy, among many other things), I honestly found myself touched by the story because it DOESN’T sugarcoat the struggles that Treacher Collins Syndrome sufferers have to live with and the film cleverly approaches telling the story from more viewpoints than just the appropriate main character: it tells a larger story that also pays attention to his family (which allows for a look into how a disabled family member can bring strain upon a family, even in the best case scenario where everyone understands the condition and loves their family member), family friends (which shows how friends can drift apart over misunderstandings and that sometimes, this won’t always be a permanent thing) and even personal friends (which shows that someone who is disabled can still be a really good friend once you get used to their condition and are able to look past it to see the person behind it all). It also handles an interracial relationship really nonchalantly: essentially, it just goes “yeah, they’re a couple” and just moves on with the story, not making a big deal about it when it would be so easy to spend some time bringing it up. All of this is powerful stuff and it’s very hard not to be impressed that this is in a film which could have so easily taken the easy way out and focused on just the one story at the expense of a larger, more detailed story which truly comes to life and turns an already powerful movie into an amazing one which is hard not to be touched by.

On top of that, it’s a REALLY well acted movie, with an great cast of actors who turn in solid performances (including a surprisingly great performance by Owen Wilson, who plays the slight manchild of a father with a sense of humour so perfectly that I couldn’t help thinking that he needs to do these roles more often).

While I can see why Wonder might not be for everyone, it’s my film of the year for the simple fact that it is the film I saw in 2017 which I feel simply HAS to be seen by everyone. It might follow a few too many of the cliches one would expect of a film clearly made to win Oscars, but this time, it’s in service of a movie which is truly fantastic and I cannot recommend it enough!

Best Anime Of 2017
I was not expecting to be giving out an anime award originally, but, ever since getting Crunchyroll on my iPhone, I’ve been casually watching anime series a lot in my free time, so I figured that it made sense to provide a nomination! While part of me was tempted to give the award to Nora, Princess, And Stray Cat for some hilarious comedy (and, indeed, it’s my honourable mention, if you don’t mind the slightly awkward fact that the anime is based on a H-game!), the true winner is actually Konohama Kitan. A beautifully touching series inspired by the manga of the same name, Konohama Kitan is a series that tells the story of a young fox spirit named Yuzu and her time working at a hot spring hotel called the Konohanatei. While it has more than a few moments of lesbian fanservice and teasing of being in a relationship which goes so far beyond blatant that I still am not convinced the two characters responsible for it aren’t actually lesbians and in love with each other (yes, even by anime’s not especially subtle standards, the shipping is blatant!), the story has this adorable charm to it which is really sweet to watch and the episodes manage to balance comedy with emotional storytelling beautifully. While those wanting a more action packed story might find the pacing a bit too slow, it is a really solid series that is worth taking the time to watch. Highly recommended!

Best Company of 2017

Yeah, I know, awarding a company an award for not being rampantly dickish seems like giving an award for basic decency, but, considering just how bad 2017 was in terms of dick moves by companies, I feel giving praise for a company who actually got things right would be quite appropriate. To that end, I have to say that Nintendo actually might have been worthy of the most praise as a company in 2017. Not to say that they’ve been perfect (quite a few moves they did were VERY dumb, especially during the start of the year with stuff like the Nintendo 2DS), but, when you look at decisions across the gaming scene from 2017 like the widespread embracing of loot boxes, Nintendo suddenly starts looking much more sensible for not embracing all that bollocks. Combine it with a REALLY great release for a fantastic new console (despite my grumbles over the strong focus on re-releases of games available on other systems) and it’s really hard not to come out of 2017 impressed with Nintendo for treating their audience with a surprisingly large amount of respect in a year when contempt for gamers practically is a new industry standard.

So yeah, through virtue of not embracing dumb trends in modern gaming too heavily and treating their audience with a surprisingly large amount of respect that seemed all too rare in 2017, I have to give the award to Nintendo! While Namco Bandai also have had a pretty great year (so, feel free to consider them an honourable mention if you want!), Nintendo’s success really is all the more remarkable because NOBODY saw it coming when the year started (for those who forget, 2016 was when Nintendo announced that the Wii U would be being discontinued from retail sale once the new year rolled around and the 3DS only really had a big sales boost thanks to Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon...and, arguably, Fire Emblem Fates) and 2017 has just been proof that Nintendo can always surprise people!

Best Catch Up Media
(For those reading for the first time: this is basically where I give a shout out to the stuff which I caught for the first time this year that I feel is worth checking out and don’t mind getting stuff which isn’t necessarily new!)

Brace yourselves, because this is gonna be a long list!

On the music front, I’ve made at least a solid dug into the discographies of a HUGE number of artists. To pick just my favourites, Kate Rusby, Ruth Notman, Shania Twain, Danny & The Champions of the World, Planxty, Vienna Teng, Five Point Plan, Teaze, Destiny Potato, TLC, Mother’s Finest, Los Amigos Invisibles, Jamiroquai, SikTh, BABYMETAL, exist trace, Cynic, TNT, Harem Scarem, Pretty Maids, Eagles, Death, Atheist, Dire Straits, Dir En Grey, John Denver, James Taylor, Highwaymen, Theocracy, Lynyrd Skynard and Def Leppard were artists that I’d spent a lot of time listening deeper to and really enjoying. Going purely on a genre level, 2017 was the year where I REALLY got into acid-jazz after a brief dip into it in 2016 and, indeed, acid-jazz may very well have become one of my favourite genres of music, being a fantastic fusion of jazz, soul, funk and disco that has scope for so many extra sounds alongside that while still managing to have a recognisable core sound that binds it all together. It also reminded me of why I enjoy house music when I actually bother to listen to it, so that’s another point in its favour!

Not counting the Tales franchise (because this whole section would basically comprise of every localised Tales game aside from Zestiria if I did count it!), I’ve also done some catching up on the BlazBlue series, which is a lot of fun if you like fighting games. I also highly recommend Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax (though you’ll probably want the internet on standby, because quite a few of the characters are from media which hasn’t left Japan), God Eater, Guns of Icarus, Super Meat Boy, Persona 4, Skullgirls, The Binding of Isaac, The Expendabros, Long Live The Queen, Overwatch, StarCraft II and Dark Souls, if you haven’t played them yet, as I quite enjoyed my time with them, despite 2017 being the year which I first tried them out! To talk purely on a franchise level, the Tales, Shin Megami Tensei (which includes the Persona subseries) and BlazBlue franchises have won me over this year, after generally mixed reactions to them on first encounter in 2016. I will admit, I misjudged them the first time around and it took giving them a proper go this year to realise how good they really are! To a limited extent, I have also gained an appreciation for Gears of War and Halo this year: while I’d never disliked them, I’d never really had a chance to properly experience them until late in 2017, when snagging my own Xbox 360 also gave me a chance to play the first games in both series and realised that, while some of what they paved the way for in shooters today sits poorly with me, they DO hold up as really fun games in their own right.

I’ve caught up on a good few anime which I’ve quite enjoyed in 2017: Black Lagoon, Blue Exorcist, Ghost in the Shell, Attack on Titan (and the Junior High spin-off), Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Yuri!!! on ICE, Glitter Force and Little Witch Academia. I also have found The Testament of Sister New Devil and The Irregular at Magic High School quite enjoyable, though A LOT of the content in them is unlikely to appeal to most people, so keep this fact in mind if you’re reading this and looking for new stuff to watch!

Slightly unrelated, but I’ve also enjoyed watching BoJack Horseman, Rick ‘n’ Morty, Inspector Gadget, Red Dwarf, Yes Minister and Archer. For most of them, I had not watched a lot of them before, but, with Red Dwarf, it was basically me doing a rewatch of the whole series and loving it all over again!

Worst Game Of 2017
I’ll be honest, I REALLY don’t want to have to give this award to this game. I’m not saying this to make excuses for a terrible game, because, honestly, it really isn’t: it’s flawed and maybe made some choices that weren’t the best in hindsight, but there’s a lot which works about it and, as a fan of the series, I really do not want to have this being my worst game of the year. However, I genuinely have not played a game released in 2017 which was actually worse than this game, so, by that virtue, I have to give this award to Dawn of War III. There was so much potential for this game and it just didn’t manage to capitalise on it on launch: a limited range of multiplayer options hurt its online potential, a lot of questionable decisions were made for how to create armies, the story mode was pretty much a retread of the original Dawn of War (though I’d argue this one is justified: there’s not really a lot of ways to escalate things in 40k without involving Chaos at risk of destroying the universe!), the new voice actors didn’t really give performances on the level of those who they were being compared back to and there just isn’t the variety one would expect of a base game for a Dawn of War game (though I feel those comparing it to Dark Crusade and Retribution are ignoring the fact that those were expansions to their base games, and not the first ones either, so I feel some of the criticism is unfair there!). It’s really not a bad game...but, unfortunately, I genuinely have not played a worse game than it that came out this year, so it has the bad luck of being my worst game of the year.

If it’s any consolation, Relic, I’m not giving your game this award because I hate it: honestly, I DO want to see what you do with the expansion for this game when it comes out! But you can do better than this, I know you can!

Worst Album Of 2017

This one was an interesting one, as two picks found themselves at the bottom on my shitlist for different reasons and each one was a solid candidate for being given the worst album trophy. I was tempted to split this into “worst metal” and “worst non-metal” awards, since they easily give me something to put in each award, but, honestly, by distinguishing the award, I feel like I’m trying to make the metal album look less bad...and, frankly, I don’t want to do that, as both of them are worthy of a lot of criticism in my eyes!

So, for the first time ever, I’m giving the award to two records: Will to Power by Arch Enemy and Now by Shania Twain. Arch Enemy as a band have been coasting on their name for a long time, but Will to Power criminally misuses one of the greatest guitarists in metal today and badly uses Alissa White-Gluz for the second time on top of providing a record that had even less worth listening to than the already underwhelming War Eternal. Shania Twain, by contrast, returned from her long hiatus sounding not like her usual, faintly rock-influenced country self, but like your typical average country pop singer who relies WAY too heavily on the auto tune...and also failed to provide anything worth listening to. Twist my arm and ask me which is worse and I’d say that at least Shania Twain has an excuse for her material sounding different (her divorce from Mutt Lange made some style change a necessity) and relying so heavily on the auto tune (she did basically have to retrain herself how to sing after several years of what was basically vocal paralysis, to say nothing of the fact that it’s been 15 years since her last record, so her voice changing is understandable), which is FAR more than I can say for Arch Enemy. Even then, I refuse to accept that those excuses should magically fix the problems I have with Now, so my criticism (and, thus, giving it the award) still stands!

So yeah, both records are my worst albums of the year. Call me lazy if you want that I've put both in one category, but I consider it efficiency!

Worst Film Of 2017

I know that some people will be labelling this a troll review right from the moment I say what movie is getting this award from me, so let me back up a bit and stress this now: I do not think this is a bad movie. Unfortunately, it is the movie which I was most disappointed by in 2017 and I never saw a movie which I could fairly label as a bad movie (not even Ghost in the Shell struck me as bad, just very flawed), so this leaves this movie with the award by default. So take this award more as a sign of how few movies I saw in 2017 rather than a sign of the movie actually being bad.

With that out of the way, the film I felt to be the worst movie of 2017 was Star Wars: The Last Jedi. On a purely technical level, there isn’t anything wrong with this movie: the effects are great, the cinematography is great and the acting is solid. Unfortunately, it all comes down to the story for me...and, put bluntly, I think this is the worst story of any Star Wars movie to date (yes, even compared to the prequels). It fails to live up to its claims of being a truly original story after the heavily rehashed story of The Force Awakens, being basically a retread of The Empire Strikes Back with some Return of the Jedi mixed in, about a third of the story is completely pointless when you think about it (and could have easily been avoided had someone thought to just tell another person their plan right from the start) while simultaneously being padded out with several unnecessary endings, the story pointlessly kills off interesting characters who, by all rights, should have been kept for another movie and ultimately results in a film which somehow manages to do everything wrong on the story front while using visual effects to conceal this fact.

Now, is it possible that I am being way too harsh? Oh yeah, undeniably: The Empire Strikes Back arguably had some of the same issues and I will admit that, as a technical achievement, The Last Jedi is amazing! However, it is really telling that I felt that the prequel trilogy had better storytelling than The Last Jedi (even factoring out the rehashing), because the ultimate question that I came out of The Last Jedi with was “What exactly was the point of the main characters being in this movie when they felt mostly superfluous to the actual story being told?” Say what you will about the prequel trilogy, but the main characters actually were important to the events of the main stories. Here, though, the only thing that the main characters really did in this film is encourage a character to kill another character (which did nothing to affect their overall morality), encourage a character to fight another character (which resulted in their death), fight another character and watch their perceived death in a thoroughly anticlimactic fight and accidentally cause the First Order to be aware of something which, had they not been in the story, would have potentially saved hundreds of lives.

That’s pretty much the extent of the main cast’s importance to the whole film, told spoiler free. You could literally have the main cast cut from this movie and little-to-nothing would change. In fact, if anything, it might have actually worked out better for the rebels!

This is the point I’m making: as technically well made as The Last Jedi is, the story is just a mess that has the main cast do nothing of any major importance and may, in fact, have ended better for the rebels had the main cast simply not existed in this movie. In a movie which followed up a really solid movie that followed the main cast really well, this is a pretty big screw up on the writing front which is hard to ignore!

So yeah, as harsh as it may be to name a technically great movie as my worst film of 2017, The Last Jedi just did not live up to the hype at all for me. Technically brilliant, yet woefully ill thought out on the story front, this is just a frustrating movie that only leaves me asking what the point of making new numbered Star Wars movies is if all that Disney are going to do is rehashing the original trilogy to increasingly diminishing returns. I love Star Wars, but I’m not letting The Last Jedi off the hook because it’s part of one of my favourite film franchises and I really, REALLY hope that episode 9 finally does something truly original with the story, because, if it just rehashes Return of the Jedi, I’m gonna be furious!

Worst Company Of 2017

I could keep this short and just say that, a few select exceptions aside, the entire triple-A gaming scene deserves this award. However, I feel giving an award that vast would be unprofessional, so I’m going to focus on one company...and, let’s be honest, if you’re a gamer at all (and probably not even then, as this was in the mainstream news), then this should be VERY unsurprising, considering their actions not only destroyed what little goodwill they’d regained from most gamers, but outright opened the entire gaming scene up to investigation from gambling regulators due to how heavily they’d pushed loot boxes in one of the most hyped games of the year: Electronic Arts. None of this is to say that Warner Bros. should be allowed to sleep easy (they were just as guilty of doing this in Middle-earth: Shadow of War) or that Blizzard don’t deserve condemnation for starting this whole trend off with Overwatch, but EA had the stupidity of pushing loot boxes in a game that was likely to be played by hyped up children who were huge Star Wars fans AND made so much of the game built around it that gambling regulators have cited it as their main reason why they stepped in to examine whether loot boxes are gambling...and the results so far, while not official findings which will enforce major action from the law yet, are “yes, it is”.

Bear in mind, this is from multiple countries worth of gambling regulators, too, not just the US, so anyone wanting to argue it isn’t, there are ENTIRE NATIONS worth of regulators saying that, nope, you’re the ones who are wrong here. You ain’t winning this debate any more, sorry! And yet, despite this being a REALLY good reason to drop loot boxes permanently and move away from the whole mess, EA have learnt absolutely nothing from that and haven’t changed course at all: it plans to bring them back at a later date, to say nothing of the fact that several of their games releasing after Star Wars Battlefront II will still have loot boxes in them!

This, in and of itself, would be very good reason to give EA the award (kind of hard to think of anything more insulting than bringing entire nations worth of gambling regulators down on the entire industry’s head over loot boxes and STILL continuing to show contempt to gamers by planning to bring it back at a later date and putting them in future games right after the whole debacle!), but there’s another couple of facts which really cement why EA deserve the award. Their games library this year have been underwhelming (on its own, not a reason to give the award, but certainly not helping their case for anyone wanting to defend them), their awful treatment of the Mass Effect franchise this year (not only closing down the studio which made Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare Montreal, but pretty much killing off the franchise in all functional terms) has been infuriating to many and they have basically shown a complete disregard for gamers in a time when people in general have less money than they used to by forcing so many microtransactions into games. It is telling that even Konami, despite their actions in the past two and a half years or so, have incurred FAR less wrath online this year than EA have.

I’m not someone who likes holding onto grudges, so I’m not going to say that EA have basically proven their naysayers right this year for refusing to trust them. But I genuinely cannot think of a company who have acted worse this year than EA have. In a sea of bad decisions from the triple-A video game scene this year, EA have topped the list by such a huge measure that I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who can look at their behaviour this year and seriously say “Nah, other gaming companies have acted worse this year!”

So congratulations, EA, for being such rampant dicks and so devoted to being complete idiots that you might very well have put the entire video game scene into the same category as gambling and done so with nothing in your pocket to earn back the goodwill of gamers. Was it really worth it?

Biggest Surprise Of 2017

There’s quite a few answers I could give to this one, if I’m honest, but, focusing purely on the media side of things, I would have to say that the biggest surprise of the year for me was actually KMFDM’s Hell Yeah, because, in so many ways, it is NOT what I’d usually listen to. I usually am not interested in the industrial spectrum of music even at the best of times and, while I did recognise the band for “Ultra” (Anime Abandon uses it as the show’s intro music), I wasn’t sure that I would like them enough to want to listen to a full record by them.

Then I checked out “Hell Yeah” by them when it came out.

Fast forward about half a year later and the record the song came from (Hell Yeah) is a record which I still love listening to now, to the extent that it was actually one of my nominations for record of the year! I think it’s because KMFDM’s take on industrial, at least on this record, is MUCH more electronica influenced than industrial, which makes the sides of industrial which I don’t like less prominent while still keeping a lot of the obvious features of industrial (and some industrial metal) to make something that is surprisingly accessible while still being able to be really heavy. There’s a lot which really works about the record and it is ultimately just a fun listen. Considering I normally would have passed over it out of complete disinterest, I’m honestly surprised at just how much I enjoy the album! Ironically, on some forums I’ve visited, it’s actually considered among the band’s worst records (which isn’t to say it’s considered bad, just that the ratings it has had attached to it place it among the worst received records that they’ve done to date), which really leaves me wondering just what the band at their best sound like, because Hell Yeah is a record I really enjoy and want to hear more stuff like!

Biggest Disappointment of 2017

Alright, so, ignoring the stuff which has been given awards already by me (and the obvious joke answer of “myself”), there’s actually very little which especially disappointed me that came out this year. Some of this probably comes for the fact that so much of this year has been me enjoying stuff that hadn’t came out this year, but there’s honestly not been a lot which I’d been hyped up for which came out this year and which, as a result, left me feeling disappointed (well, except for the stuff which I’ve already given awards to, obviously!).

That said, there is one album I’ve not mentioned yet which came out this year which I had hoped would be better than it actually was: Bringer of Pain by Battle Beast. Now, I was well aware that the band had lost a very important member before the album came out (I mean, he was their main songwriter, a co-vocalist, one of their guitarists and served as their co- producer, as well as taking on pretty much EVERY production related task on their self-titled album), so I was expecting a dip somewhere, but, honestly, having been let down by Unholy Saviour back in 2015, I wasn’t exactly sitting waiting for the blown away by the new album: I just wanted something decent. The single, “King for a Day” wasn’t BAD, but it felt rather underwhelming, so I was hoping that the rest of the album would be better.

It...wasn’t. Granted, some moments were decent, but I was mostly bored by the record and it just didn’t grab me much, which is a pretty big failure when you realise that the point of metal is to grab your attention! I wouldn’t normally put a record in this category that I didn’t have high hopes for in advance, but, bear in mind, their self-titled record was one of my favourite records of 2013 and Unholy Saviour still had some solid tracks, so I was hoping that, against all the odds, something good would come out of Bringer of Pain. Unfortunately, Bringer of Pain was just too underwhelming to really be worth the wait and didn’t really do enough to be worth paying much attention in general. It didn’t incur any wrath from me like the offerings by Arch Enemy or Shania Twain that came out this year did, but it is telling that I still can’t remember much about the record, despite it having been out for most of the year!

Sorry, Battle Beast, but, if this is your best now, then you might be better off hanging up your boots now, because this isn’t going to cut it in the slightest. I’m giving you one more chance when the follow up to this finally comes out, but, if you don’t step your game up, I’m giving up on you entirely and sticking with Beast in Black!

Hopes for 2018

On the album front, I’m really looking forward to seeing confirmed new releases by Shinedown, Orphaned Land, Judas Priest, At The Gates, Job for a Cowboy, Kamelot, Joan Baez, Rammstein, Queensryche, Machine Head and Dorothy. As for personal wishes, I am already hoping to see new releases of Fefe Dobson, New Device, BABYMETAL, Adam Lambert, The Brand New Heavies, Knightmare, Raise the Anchors, Destiny Potato, Hacktivist, TNT, Urban Species, One Last Run, Salsa Celtica, Kate Rusby, Ruth Notman, Vienna Teng, System of a Down, Without Mercy and Vixen. As remote as some of these are, I also am hoping for reunions from Five Point Plan, Planxty and The Morning After, as well as for any of those artists who I mentioned in the personal wishes above if they’re no longer active and just haven’t let people know yet!

On the film front, I’m looking forward to the MCU movies that are confirmed for next year, as well as Deadpool 2, Incredibles 2, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (yes, I know it’s almost certainly going to be crap, but I liked the original film and I like ABBA, let me have my guilty pleasures!), Venom, Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2, Mary Poppins Returns and Pacific Rim: Uprising. However, I will also be making a concentrated effort to try to keep an eye open for movies that are not connected to an established franchise, so this list is more the stuff that I know is coming up which I’m wanting to check out.

On the games front, I am looking forward to Monster Hunter: World, Persona 5: Dancing Star Night and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, as well as confirmed re-releases/remasters/ports of Radiant Historia, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy XV and Under Night In-Birth to systems I can actually play them on. I am also interested in Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game, Valkyria Chronicles 4 (though Sega better not screw it up by rushing it like they did with last year’s game!) and the upcoming Fire Emblem game. I am hoping that this year will bring a gen 7 remake of Pokémon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl, Project X Zone 3, God Eater 3, Code Vein and a new Rayman game, though whether these are especially likely to actually happen, I don’t know.

So, that's my 2017 awards. Hope you discovered some new stuff, had a great 2017 and are looking forward to what 2018 will bring!