Captain Morton's Notes

I'll admit, I passed on Spark the Electric Jester when I first heard of it. Which might seem odd to people that know me, because I'm a MASSIVE Sonic fan, so it should have been right up my alley, right? Thing is, Classic Era isn't really my thing. It holds a place in my heart, I grew up with it after all, but I grew up again in the Adventure era, with the naff PC port of Sonic Adventure 1, and the gamecube version of 2. My unabashed love of Shadow the Hedgehog is well documented. I'll even defend Sonic 06 in a pinch. For me, this is MY era of Sonic. In the same way that Chris Eccleston is MY Doctor Who. So when I found out that Spark the Electric Jester 2 was a Sonic Adventure throwback, my wallet came out faster than a wild west gunslinger.

Here, fancy a quick trip out? Check out some old ruins, maybe stop by that house by the stream? It's a gorgeous day out, might even see some elk if we pass through the forest. We can be back in about 40 minutes or so. You're in? Brill, pack your lamp and camera and lets head off too  Esothe .

The Devil May Cry series has always been defined by one word: Style. Melodramatic anime cutscenes sandwiched between combat that plays like action movie choreography, where you're constantly measured on your ability to look good while kicking ass. And quite frankly, DmC has more style than all it's predecessors. Granted it's not quite the same  style as the rest of the series, but still, it's absolutely got more of it.  And similarly, it's flaws weigh heavier on the whole than they do on the original games.

Devil May Cry V's announcement at E3 2018 was the absolute highlight of the event for me. It's exactly the sort of announcement that keeps me watching and anticipating the self-indulgant advertising hellscape every year, one that gets me to completely lose my mind with raw, unfettered excitement. A new Devil May Cry!? Starring Nero!? Heavily influenced by DmC?! Kickass buttrock in the trailer!? Every second of that trailer kicked me into a new level of existance, cutting through my cynisism about hype culture and press events. Because Devil May Cry was back, baby. And despite some hickups( oh good greif ), it's remained my most anticipated game of 2019 ever since the announcement. So naturally I've been chomping at the bit to get my hands on it, and now the PS4 demo has finally dropped, I can lay down my thoughts on how it's shaping up and weather my hopes are dreams are going to come to pass.

As soon as I opened the " 2018 in Video Gaming " Wikipedia Page I was immediately struck with the feeling of "fuck, that was 2018?" for 3 seperate titles, before I even got past February. Granted it's in part down to a particularly nasty bout of depression a few months back, stretching out time and making life before existential dread ruled my thaughts feel like a forgotten era. But it's also indicative of the sort of games that got me this year. Games that embedded themselves so firmly into my mind that they feel like they've always been there. And also because a lot are rereleases that I've been hearing about for years beforehand, which tends to screw with your memory. Dragon Quest Builders So speaking of rereleases, Builders came out in 2016, but only found it's way to Switch this year, so naturally I had no interest in playing it until it did. It's an incredibly smart game, clearly built by people who played Minecraft, saw EXACTLY w

Somehow I never clocked that World of Final Fantasy was a Pokemon game until I started playing it. You'd think that knowing it involved stacking little creatures with yourself would lead to the assumption that you'd have to catch them at some point, but nah, it took the introduction of the Definitely Not a Pokeball for me to go "oh huh, so that's what this is". Not that I'm complaining, of course. In fact, World of Final Fantasy actually fixes a lot of what bugged me about Pokemon for years.