Five Years Ago: Grand Bank, Ghouls, And Goodbye To Sarah Jane Smith

Five years. Half a decade. It feels like such a long time, huh? A child born in 2011 is now old enough to be walking and talking, ready to enter kindergarten. Still a little kid, but hardly an infant. And yet, five years doesn't actually feel all that long when you think about it. I still have plenty of memories of it. Even 2013, three years on now, only feels like it was very recent. 2011 is just a stone's throw away. So, time for a little reflection. Actually a lot of reflection since I'm gonna pull some mirror talk out of my butt. (Hi, Rainiac!) April 2011 had a lot of weird intersects that have ended up changing me as a person. So, I'm going to write about those intersects and cast my mind back. So, step through the looking glass, the 144 mirrors I've set up to reflect you back into the past.

Whoosh.

So I was in Grand Bank, Newfoundland. It's a very nice place that I have done video footage on extensively. I go once or twice a year. The previous day, April 18th, was spent actually driving to the place. About... oh, three hours before getting there, we passed a landmark. This big imposing cliffside. I remember looking out from the vehicle, up at that cliffside... and I thought something. I don't remember quite what compelled me to think it. It might have been the episode of the Retronauts podcast I had listened to during the early phases of the drive, but one clear mad seed of a thought embedded in my brain. A wild idea.

I was going to beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts.

Yes, it's a game that many say is impossible, and I gave it a try. I couldn't get past level... 2, I want to say. I found its controls rigid, its random spawns unforgiving, and its limited continues terrifying. So that was going to need some work. Come the next day, April 19th, and I'm using the tunes as background music for my video to document the trip. Here I am, five years ago, ranting about Pepsi Throwback and VHS tapes. The Pepsi Throwback was a mistake. I had a decayed wisdom tooth on the right side of my mouth, and the thing was a screaming mass of pain that rayed up into my right eye socket and even around my ear somewhat. Sweets did NOT help, even if I brushed my teeth immediately after. The sugar got in and did its work and made the pain continue. I ended up taking the maximum dose of over-the-counter Tylenols every day in order to kill the pain, and even that was a mess. Take every four hours, it said. Well, I'd take one and it would take an hour to kick in. Two hours later it would wear off, the pain would be back, and I'd have to endure for an hour more before I could take another. It was nasty, but later in the year I had the thing forcibly hauled out of my mouth once I could pay the dentist bill. Good thing I'm covered nowadays! This had nothing to do with Doctor Who or hard games, but while we're remembering. Come to think of it, the Super Mario Galaxy I rented from that video store? I think it's the last thing I've ever rented from them. The place got me into RPGs. 1996, I rented Super Mario RPG. 2001, I rented Final Fantasy 6 (Well, 3, but you know what I mean.). I've no recollection of what I'd rented in 2006, if anything. 2011, Super Mario Galaxy. Maybe I should do a courtesy rental of something, anything. I am hella rambling now, but let's move on.

1986 for Doctor Who saw the onscreen death of a companion, and on one of the DVD extras some talking head mentions that we actually don't see her death. We cut away, and when we come back there's an alien slug brain in her body. Somewhere in between that cut, we lost her. 8 minutes and 38 seconds into that vlog video, I'm rambling about Pink Floyd. At 8:41, I'm showing off stuff I bought. Somewhere in between all of this, I found out about the real-life death of a Doctor Who companion: Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith. I'd yet to delve into classic Doctor Who yet, but it was still a sad thing to see. Phil Sandifer wrote a little touching memorial to her on the day of, and here it is. What's interesting is his mention of a half-written Nintendo Project post about monsters. Digging it up, we find that it's about... Ghosts n Goblins and Gargoyle's Quest 2. I had no idea TARDIS Eruditorum or Phil Sandifer existed on April 19th, 2011. And yet, while I was lamenting Elisabeth Sladen's death and thinking about Super Ghouls n Ghosts, he was also lamenting Elisabeth Sladen's death and writing about Ghosts n Goblins. The coincidence here is astounding. For what it's worth, I said my farewells to her at 14:40 of that trip video, while the Space network up here was playing all sorts of Doctor Who in preparation for the Series 6 debut. 19:22 is where I react after 10 minutes, to all the weird bullshit that happened with Impossible Astronauts. Enough talk of April 2011. It's time to jump back.

The mystery of the Impossible Astronaut ended up being resolved pretty much exactly where I found out about it; on a Grand Bank trip in September of 2011. By then I had learned how to play hard games, how to motivate myself to learn them out of sheer attrition and spite for the patterns. I was there for a wedding, and between reception and dance, I beat the game. It was about the fourth time I did so, I believe. I would eventually write about Doctor Who, both on my blog and even once or twice on TARDIS Eruditorum, thanks to my silly decision to try and complete the Nintendo Project. I made a good attempt at it, I think. I've seen every classic Doctor Who episode with Elisabeth Sladen in it, and she really was pretty marvelous, wasn't she? Her and her Doctors faced off against mummies, mutants, and Morbiuses, and though they were scared, they always pulled through.

So, I guess Sarah Jane had experience in dealing with Ghosts n Goblins.

Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation: A Review

Shitload Of Fuck II: Electric Boogaloo

Ah, here we are once more. Where do we begin? Plenty of angles to take, plenty of important wafflings to be had about the "new old" style of retro pixel jump n shoot games that have been coming out as of late. Well, I suppose a quick primer is in order to provide context to... what this is. This is Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation. Heh heh, ain't that a clever title. Like 90% of you know the score with this character already, and are returning once more to a world of old-timey action platforming and loud swear words. Unlike most, however, I dare to provide a little explanation for things without just assuming that everyone "knows" what's going down. So, here is our history lesson. In 2006, when Youtube was rising in power and influence, a filmmaker named James Rolfe uploaded some videos of him critiquing old NES games, picking at every flaw, and swearing up a storm. People seemed to find this very funny and his character, the Angry Video Game Nerd (hereafter referred to as simply "the Nerd"), rose in popularity to easily become the thing James Rolfe is known best for. In 2013, developer Freakzone Games (hereafter referred to as Freakzone) worked in tandem with Screwattack Games to release an actual honest to goodness game starring the Nerd: Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures. It was well-received by a lot of people and made a name for itself. Critics and fans alike helped to put its Metacritic score up to respectable levels, and the game even got ported to both of Nintendo's current systems, the 3DS and Wii U. Truly a rousing success story, and everyone involved felt really good about themselves.

Look, kids! A cameo!

Meanwhile, I hated it. My own expectations about what it would be versus what it actually was deflated me in that regard. See, the main design philosophy that seemed to fuel the heart of this Dread Beast of Code was the plot of the Nerd becoming trapped inside a video game; specifically, a "shitty one". Cue frustrating "gotcha" masocore game design. An area isn't challenging enough? Pepper it with instant death blocks, then reuse that asset ad nauseum throughout the entire game! Not only was that tedious (and honestly a little lazy!), but the game was basically a walking reference factory to AVGN video canon. The entirety of its humor was either juvenile swearing or elements ripped straight from his videos, with very few actual original gags of its own. This was a non-issue for many, and I didn't frame my argument very well when I talked about it in 2013. That got me a little heat. We won't address that here just yet, but it will be dealt with. I really did not like AVGN Adventures, but the rest of the world seemed to be just fine with it. It got high scores and made Freakzone a lot of money, so well done to them for making a thing a lot of people liked. People liked it so much that a sequel was soon announced. It was with some reluctance that I took a closer look at the trailer, and found that there seemed to be some elements that could make my eventual time with it a little less aggravating. Whether or not that improved my time with the game would remain to be seen. An acquaintance hucked me a gift copy of the game on Steam, just like a different acquaintance had hucked me a gift copy of the first game two and a half years ago. History repeats, and so it was that I began to play AVGN2.

Well. It's a little better this time.

Upon beginning the game, a cutscene plays out to explain the story. It's nothing special. Rather than be pulled into another shitty Nintendo game, a beam from space zaps planet Earth and turns it into a shitty Nintendo game. Only the Nerd, who is accustomed to shitty Nintendo games, can collect six pieces of the Sexforce (a sextuple Triforce with a naughty name, ah heh heh heh) to revert planet Earth back to normal. It's only a slight variation on the previous game's plot, but let's be real here. The plot doesn't matter whatsoever, I just wrote about it to give context to what you're doing. So, once the tutorial is cleared, you see your first big change between games; the level selection. AVGN Adventures took a Mega Man-esque approach to its level selection, with eight stages that you could play in any order. AVGN2 does it in a style similar to Super Mario Bros. 3; there's a map screen with five themed worlds on it, each containing three stages and a boss battle, that you can visit in any order you choose. This creates an interesting new approach to level design. In AVGN Adventures, the levels were long affairs that, by the time repeated instant death to all of the tricks and traps was taken into account, would take a player around 15 to 20 minutes to clear. Possibly less, but it's been a while since I played the first game and that's a rough estimate. AVGN2 has more levels, but they are now shorter; even with deaths, levels would only take me about 5 minutes on average. This is a good thing! The brevity present in these new shorter levels allows for new and interesting gameplay elements to be introduced, and smaller challenges to be themed around them! For the most part, the game doesn't milk its new challenges so much that they become annoying... barring one issue I had, but we'll get to that. I will say that I liked the variety, however. The new gimmicks are nothing wholly original, mind; conveyor belts, gravity flipping, teleporter mazes, underwater sections... that sort of deal. Still, as said, they get in and out before really wearing out their welcome.

An over 9000 joke in 2016. Yes. They did that.

Then there's the new mechanics and the many little tweaks Freakzone made to AVGN2 from the first game. As the Nerd, you play through the retro-themed jump n shoot levels by... well, jumping and shooting. Your Zapper blaster can be aimed in 8 directions by holding down a shoulder button on your controller (not sure if this is as unfortunate to play on a keyboard as the last game apparently was, however) to take out enemies at odd angles. AVGN Adventures had three unlockable characters you could find while playing, each with their own different attack style and attributes. This system is absent from AVGN2, but has been replaced with hidden permanent upgrades, not unlike Mega Man X. Hell, if you need proof of that, the first one you get enables you to wall jump. Credit where credit is due; the wall jumping in this game is used well. I've got almost no fault with it; you go where you want to go, and though a lot of the wall jumping involves tricky triangle jumps past sawblades/spikes/hazards, Freakzone was kind enough not to make those instant death traps. That's a relief, because I was skeptical from seeing the wall jumping in the trailers. My only gripe is that wall jumping from the very bottom of a ledge is a bit finicky; you slide off the side of the wall before you can kick off. This isn't the only upgrade you can find, though; if you're clever enough, you can permanently upgrade the Nerd with five more powers. Fortunately, it doesn't work quite like the extra characters did in AVGN Adventures; in that game, you had to collect them in a certain order because each one's special ability unlocked the next. Granted, at least two upgrades require you to have other upgrades in order to collect them, but you can get three with your standard skill set. Unfortunately, the upgrades aren't all that good. The Power Glove can get you some extra goodies and get you through certain obstacles a little easier, and the Turbo Pad/Super Scope give you a charge shot and a damage boost, respectively. The "Swear N Scout" lets you see hidden blocks and you can find some extra lives or powerups with it. The Cape lets you glide, which isn't as big a lifesaver as you might think. I was a little underwhelmed once I got all of the upgrades; you don't actually feel that much more powerful. Some armor to give you extra health might have been nice. Or, even better, a shield of some kind to let you take one hit from an instant death obstacle per life. With this kind of game, that would have been infinitely more helpful. Also present in each level are four collectible Nintendo cartridges, each with a letter on them, that spell NERD. Some of them are tricky to get to, but a completionist can go for them. Getting them all adds to the challenge, but they don't actually do anything other than tick off an achievement or two on Steam. Unlocking a secret boss fight for getting them all, or hell, even altering the ending slightly would be welcome for the mild effort it takes to get every one.

SURPRISE! IT'S DEATH BLOCKS!

Presentation wise, the game is fine...ish. It does look nice, but there can often be a lot going on. Some of the auto scrolling levels are particularly busy on the eyes; between your character sprite, the multitude of bullets you're shooting, the enemies coming at you full speed, and the bloody giblets of them exploding, it can be a lot to take in. Then there are the level that play about with the art style. The Japan-themed world has heavy neon everywhere, and it's a visual marvel... but also a bit hard on the eyes. Then the horror-themed world starts off in black and white and has all these low visibility filters everywhere. Freakzone really loves these, as evidenced by their remastered version of their Manos: The Hands Of Fate game. The gimmick in the horror world involves hitting switches to create platforms and "colorize" the stage for short bursts of time. At least they give you enough time to get across each gap while also dealing with the hazards; they could have been real jerks about that. Clever as it may be, all the filters and low visibility fun do end up getting kind of annoying after a while. As for sound and music... it's okay. A lot of people who praised AVGN Adventures praised the music a lot, and I didn't really get it. It wasn't bad, but it just wasn't particularly memorable. I can remember maybe two or three songs from it. AVGN2's music is a little better, I suppose, but even having beaten it twice now I can't tell you any music from the game beyond the theme for the Japan world, which has a girl saying... something in it, and kabuki YOOOOoooooOOOO noises. It's not bad. Just, nothing that sticks out in my mind. Though, it has to be said; boo on re-using the music from AVGN Adventures for this game's final level. The composition has been tweaked a little, I suppose, but it's the same thing.

There are a bunch of other little improvements as well. For one, there appear to be no limits on continues with the difficulty settings. Granted, I've only done Easy and Normal, but the higher difficulty levels might actually be possible now, and not just seem like "jokes" on the shitty game. Though there's probably a YOLO mode somewhere that only gives you one hit for the whole game, but that's not my jam. In addition to that, on every difficulty that isn't the standard hardest, your lives refill after clearing every stage! Best of all, though... there's no randomly generated AVGN-style "I'd rather X a Y than play this Z game" death quote when you die; you just plop right back to your last checkpoint after a second. All of these elements combined make the game infinitely more playable, and it plays in sync with the masocore elements rather than clash against them like the previous game. Replacing the screen-clearing powerups of the last game are some new useful items, though some show up more than others. Rocks and F-bombs (that is, cartoon bombs emblazoned with the letter F) are somewhat useful thrown weapons that have their applications. The most useful item by far is the keg, a full heal item; with only three hit points on Normal mode, this is extremely helpful. One disappointment, though, is the power up that gives you a spread shot. It's great, and helps you blast things with less hassle... but take one point of damage, and it's gone. This was a flaw in the first game as well with its similar Super Scope powerup. This could have been fixed to be like the other powerups, where only a death takes it away. Maybe Freakzone was worried that it would be too easy to have the powerup through a bunch of the stages, to which I say... it's a masocore game with lots of instant death hazards. The average player will die sooner than later and lose the item. It wouldn't have been that bad to let them keep it for a bit, trust me.

SURPISE! IT'S MORE DEATH BLOCKS!

So, Freakzone fixed a lot of things! They've created a game that is tolerable to play this time and tweaked many of the elements that so disappointed me personally last time. Well, I'm sad to say it's not all sunshine and roses. Beneath the sheer and shine of all these new and improved elements, there's still a Dread Beast lurking within the Code. Its name is the Death Block. "Less Death Blocks!", the trailer promoting the game's release proclaimed. "Yeah, okay." I said to myself. "But how many instant death obstacles are still there?". As it turns out, still quite a few. Bottomless pits, laser beams, gigantic underwater mines, Thwomp-styled crushers... death will happen. The levels are brief enough that you'll get by with only mild frustration... but then there's those bloody death blocks. They are not quite as spammed in place of legitimate challenge as AVGN Adventures delved into, but there are still sections that call back to my annoyances with that game. A nasty bit in the final horror world level where the low visibility just has the death blocks appearing in front of your face. Granted, you can shoot ahead of you to see if your shots hit the invisible death blocks... but it's when the game alternates between "hurry past the crusher" and "NO WAIT TAKE IT SLOW, INVISIBLE DEATH BLOCK MAZE" that you get killed by cheekiness. Then there's the final level, which just goes overboard and shoves almost every gameplay mechanic, hazard, and enemy into one long stretch of stage... with loads of death blocks at almost every turn, some filling the entire screen with tiny safe zones to dash between. This is the same territory as the first game, and it's unfortunate that Freakzone dropped the ball here; it's as if they were 85% done with the game, having created all these nice new hazards and challenges, but then couldn't fight the temptation to revert to their old ways at the last second. It's disappointing. Somehow, in a strange paradox, the rest of the game ended up being kind of... easy by comparison? The bosses especially. The game gives you a keg at every boss, but they also sometimes like to shove beers in to heal you as well. It's a nice gesture, but it just goes to show how much of a dud the boss fights are. Without the keg and the beers, some would be frustrating (and at least one I can think of does this) and would have you trying time and time again. On the other hand, some bosses give you way too much health and just become boring. Particularly the final boss; you can beat it with very little effort. Badly designed as he was, at least Fred Fuchs, the final boss of AVGN Adventures, was a tricky bugger to fight. This thing, while large and imposing, is not really that challenging. It's a game that's too easy in a lot of places, which makes the parts that are hard in the same ways that AVGN Adventures was hard stick out like a sore thumb.

Oh, I'm pretty sure I know what they were thinking.

Then we come to the humor, and the references. I tore into AVGN Adventures hard for leaning almost entirely on jokes that did little more than reference gags and characters from AVGN videos. Yeah, sure. There's going to be some fanservice in this game; it's primarily for AVGN fans. I am an AVGN fan. I'm a part of this game's target audience, then. That doesn't mean I'm impressed when I see that, for instance, you walk over a block-wide gap in a sewer themed level and the Nerd's running commentary says "You can just walk over it? Why even have that there?". Yeah, I get it. It's a reference to his Ninja Turtles video. I've seen that video. This entire world is a TMNT reference; you've got Mousers, the electrified kelp from the infamous dam stage, and the boss fight is... the not-Battletoads. Close enough, since they were a TMNT ripoff anyway. I get it. The game hammers it in enough with the Nerd constantly piping up and complaining. Just because I get the joke, though, doesn't mean I'm impressed. References are not jokes. This is an important distinction. AVGN Adventures was lousy with this kind of reference-based humor (and kind of lousy because of it), but AVGN2 manages to have some original jokes. More than the first game, at least. At its core, we still are playing with the "Do you UNDERSTAND the REFERENCE" mentality. Not that I expected them to tone it down or anything; the people who loved the first game didn't say anything bad about that aspect, and why would Freakzone tweak a winner, right? It's just disappointing. There are two big new AVGN canon references that the game's added, and the first ones are the recurring appearances of his rival Internet media personality, Doug Walker's "Nostalgia Critic" character. Apparently people wondered why he wasn't in the last game. Well, here he is. He doesn't bring any of his own canon in here, thank goodness, because the Nostalgia Critic has his own gigantic canon of in-jokes and memes that he could have dragged in here to bloat things. All he does is show up in certain levels as a miniboss/arch rival. His fights always give you a keg and you can just rapid fire him and tank his hits. He's nothing. The second big thing is an entire world dedicated to the AVGN movie that came out in 2014. Again, obvious that they would do this. There's a somewhat clever joke in there regarding this world, I suppose; there are death lasers and a gravity gimmick, and the boss of the world, a military general from the movie, turns into a scorpion in his second form (this being a reference to the AVGN Star Wars video, see, I told you I know what these jokes are calling back to). The running Nerd commentary is all about how this has nothing to do with the movie, the joke being that movie-based games on the NES usually have nothing at all to do with the events of the movie. Even the good ones; look at Sunsoft's Batman. I will say that the references annoyed me a little less at first while playing, mostly because the actual game part was more tolerable so I wasn't in as foul of a mood. It's still disappointing to me, but the people who loved the first game shouldn't have a problem with it. I'm not fond of it because it makes everything a bit too clique-ish, lowering the net from "people who like retro-themed jump and shoots" to "people who like retro-themed jump and shoots, and have seen every AVGN episode". Would people who don't know all the AVGN jokes like this game? I don't know! It would be nice to widen the net a little, I think, just in case! Which this game has done to some degree, I suppose. But only a little.

I GET IT!

That is AVGN2. It honestly does improve upon the first game in a lot of important ways, and makes a tolerable experience overall. There are some personal annoyances, and a lot of what made the last game so frustrating is still here. Not only that, but it's incredibly short when you get down to it; I cleared the thing in about two hours. Granted, it's tolerable enough that there's replay value, I suppose, but at the asking price of $15 USD I find it a bit steep. I just think that there are better options out there. For that price, you can get Shovel Knight, which is an infinitely more well-crafted game that will last you a longer time. If you want retro action that references old video game things and tropes while having lots of tricky jumps and traps, there's Castle In The Darkness. Not only does it last longer, but it's a third of the price. If you want to hear AVGN jokes, all of the videos are out there on Youtube, for free, to watch. If you want to hear AVGN jokes and support James Rolfe, rent or buy the AVGN movie. I'm glad that Freakzone made a game I don't hate. It's a playable game that I didn't dislike the actual act of playing. I was pleasantly surprised by its quality level, and it is better than I was expecting in a lot of ways. In the end, though, with all these other retro-themed experiences out there, I'm afraid I have to say that you can do better with your money. I'd love to see Freakzone try their hand at more original games that don't reference something else, be it a media property or other old games. There's one or two on mobile, I think, but with this game they've proven to me that they do have the potential to make a decent experience.

An ANALysis Of The Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation Trailer

You knew this wasn't over, in your heart of hearts. I exorcised the first game back in November. It only took 3000 words or so, and here it is again for posterity. Even then I knew I wasn't done. The sequel game was in the works, and I knew that it would be hucked at me when it came out. Sure, I could deny playing it and save myself the headache. I readily admit that. I wasn't expecting to dislike the original so much... nor was I expecting the hilarious backlash. I'm courting fate by playing the sequel, in order to write about it, in order to possibly make people angry online and call me bad at video games for not liking the Angry Nerd game. I admit that. One day I may get over myself... but it is not this day. On this day, the release date looms over us, a Lavos Spawn hurtling towards the planet at high speed. March 29th. By April Fool's, I should have cleared it twice. I'll be writing about it by then, I imagine. Until then, all we have is the trailer. Which, despite being only 65 seconds, reveals a great deal. Let's analyze this, because I want to have my expectations on record this time for when the game actually comes out. It'll make writing about it a lot easier. So, for those of you following along at home who haven't seen the trailer yet... Let's stick the little bugger right into the writeup.

Okay, we've all seen it now. Let's dig deeper into this. I've got approximate timestamps for the stuff I'm going to talk about, if you want to follow along with the trailer and get visuals of what I'm mentioning. With that in mind, let's dive in.

0:06- We're going with the "oh no, trapped in a shitty Nintendo tape" plot again. Serviceable, but hardly an excuse to make the game bad while you're at it. I do like the pixel art for the Nerd's game room, though. There's even a Donkey Kong Country 2 poster rendered good enough that I can tell what it is. DKC2 was a tentpole of my childhood. I'm so sorry it had to be in this. No clue what the other two posters are; they're too vague for me to tell.

0:10- And right away we come to the one big change I'm actually excited for. Yes, I said that. We have a Super Mario Bros. 3 style level progression now, as opposed to the previous game's Mega Man style of "pick one of these 8 stages". This could actually be really good, if it's done the way I think they're going to do it. See, from the look of it, there are a shitload of levels on that map screen. It's hard to tell, but it seems like there's going to be 3 or 4 in each "area" and then a boss? It could work, and the reason I think that is brevity. The first game's levels were about... oh, let's say 20 minutes each? Definitely more if you weren't wise to the traps or down with the old-timey action platforming. They were also slogs of instant death gotcha moments. Now, unless Freakzone has made a gigantic 10 hour masocore fest, the levels should, in theory, be shorter in exchange for there being more of them. 3 or 4 minutes each, maybe. That sounds manageable! 4 minutes with a quick gimmick revolving around a certain hazard, escalating it across screens and then ending the level to move on to another before it gets stale. I like the idea of that. Whether or not Freakzone is actually going to do that or not is another story, but this is the one area I actually have some faith in. Don't burn me again, boys and girls.

0:14- Oh, god damn it. To be clear on this one, I'm not complaining about the boss. He's a big imposing thing who fits with the "totally rad" aesthetic Freakzone goes for. No. Look closer. The edges of the levels are dark. Please. I'm beggin' you. When we get to the graveyard set of levels, don't bring that fucking low visibility gimmick back. It's awful. It's just plain awful and you ruined your Manos game by adding it into the remaster. This isn't a found footage movie, we should be able to see shit while playing your game.

0:16- There. Now we can see shit. I really like the neon aesthetic of this level. It looks really pretty, even though I'm not sure what "generation" we're going for with the pixel aesthetic. 8-bit? 16-bit? 32-bit? Pick a side, guys. This is also a good time to point out the upper right. Yeah. The lives counter is back. You borrowed the SMB3 map screen just like Shovel Knight, why not borrow the infinite lives thing from them as well? Especially if you're gonna kill us over and over again. You'll probably put that on Easy Mode again and give the Nerd a pink Zapper again. Which raises a whole mess of problems I won't delve into here.

0:20- More borrowing from Super Mario 3 by adding in P-switches, essentially. What looks to be a good and exciting level gimmick can easily be ruined. It will all come down to one thing: how much leeway time do you have to get across the P-switch platforms and onto safe ground? If there's a second or two of wiggle room, then fine. If it's pixel perfect "we are giving you the absolute bare minimum of time" mechanics then it can go fuck off.

0:23- Portal gimmick. It seems like it could work well and create... interesting mazes. Just as long as it's used for good and not evil. Now that I'm all jaded, I look at these cool mechanics with hesitation because, when it comes to not making video game mechanics into super-difficult shit I detest, I trust Freakzone about as far as I can throw 'em. 

0:28- Now this I remember from the earlier trailers; the armor power ups. Yet again, it could be good, if not abused and tainted by terrible mechanics. Namely the one that plagued your blaster power-up in the first game; getting hit once took it away. If the armor power ups end up staying on until you clear the level, that's great. Even better if you do go full Mega Man X and make them permanent upgrades. Speaking of Mega Man X...

0:33- Fucking wall jumping. I'm real wary about this one. On the surface, it sounds like a rad mechanic from Mega Man X. Except, look at the timestamp of this bulletin point. There's wall saws you have to jump between. This isn't Mega Man X, it's goddamned Super Meat Boy. The wall jump in Mega Man X was there to evolve the movement options in Mega Man and give general good feelings when you pulled off wall jumps. This? There's no way I trust Freakzone to not put all kinds of insta-kill shit on the walls that you have to triangle jump around with utter precision. Time will tell on this one, but I've got a bad feeling.

0:35- AVGN reference "humor", back in full force. Like I really expected this to go away. I have to wonder, though. That entire sewer level is made to look like the sewer stages in TMNT 1 on NES. What came first here? Did Freakzone plan out a sewer-based level and then just so happen to add in the AVGN joke about just walking over the platform? Or did, god help us, they say "Hey let's add in this joke" and then craft the level as a walking reference to it? I'd love to astral project myself back in time to watch the planning meetings on that sort of thing, just to understand the thought process behind the design.

0:42- Race cars. Okay then. I wonder if this is going to be like a Turbo Tunnel sort of thing. Freakzone hasn't invoked Battletoads yet and the Nerd did do a video on it...

0:45- Riding a giant tanuki who is on fire and shooting waves of enemies in a shmup setpiece. See, this is the kind of stuff I actually liked in the last game. I would really love to see Freakzone make a full shooter game. They're not half bad at that in short bursts. It would be interesting to see, if only to get them out of the current rut they're in of making pixel art jump-n-shoots.

And that's all I have. What am I expecting? To be honest, more of the same. Gotcha traps with "self-aware" humor in an attempt to excuse it. The new mechanics look nice, but are rife with potential to be abused in the name of "tee hee it's a shitty game". Still, if that map screen prediction I made is correct, at least the levels will be brief enough that you can take breathers in between. You won't be mired at the same bit for too long. We'll see how it goes. All we need to do now is wait three weeks. Then, the fun begins.

Ten Years Ago: The St. John's Retro Gaming Scene And My Game Boy Advance

2006 was... well, let's be real. It was a pretty grim time in my life. University-less, jobless, and living in just about the easterly edge of North America, in St. John's, Newfoundland. I was lucky enough to have reunited with some old college friends who lived off campus during my final semester, before everything went to shit and seemingly destroyed my life. So it was that I got to move in with them, into their rented house, and with financial assistance from family so I didn't starve to death, the job hunt during the harsh city winter was on. How the job hunt went is irrelevant to this story and I already feel like I'm oversharing. The shit that went on in that house during the nine months I lived in it are drama of the highest order. The first three months or so, however, were fine, and since that all happened ten years ago we're gonna focus on it. It wasn't all doom and gloom in that house. Two of the guys there were avid video game player men and we bonded a lot over that sort of thing. Being either poor college students or poor job seekers, we didn't really have a lot of money to hurl around at the nicest new video games.

Lucky for us, the old video game scene in St. John's was bustling. I can think of at least three places within walking distance. There was Nintendo World, up by the Avalon Mall. I grabbed a bunch of stuff from that place. The EB Games (that's what Gamestops are in Canada, folks) in the Avalon Mall itself still sold lots of used N64 and PS1 games for our purchasing pleasure. A little further down the road was... Oh god. Now you can really tell that age has fogged my memory of these times because I can't remember the name of the next place. Hang on. I have to resort to Google Maps for this. Huh. It says Games X Change. I don't remember it being called that, but it has been ten years. Anyway. Bought lots of good things from there as well. Even further up the road, and a bit of a long haul to walk, was Netherworld. Look at this goddamn place. It was teeny tiny and mainly dealt with Magic cards and comic books, but they had games there as well. They also set up a booth at the flea market every week. Oh yeah. The damn flea market. That happened at the Avalon Mall every Sunday evening, and you could get all sorts of crap there. Old games, cards, VHS tapes, books. We would always go there, grab some stuff, and end up getting dinner at the food court. Dairy Queen. Two cheeseburgers for 2 bucks. Hey, they were good burgers. Now, the title of this article has to do with a Game Boy Advance. So, where'd I get that from? None of those. I have fooled you all. No, one of the guys found a for sale listing for a GBA online and told me about it. I kind of wanted it since it was like 10 bucks. So, on a February Saturday, much like the one I'm posting this on, we bundled up and made the long trek. And I do mean a long trek. We had to go even farther than Netherworld. We ended up on Merrymeeting Road, practically at the edge of downtown St. John's. Looks like this. I don't remember the exact house or anything but that's the neighborhood. So I got the GBA, an original model Glacier color with the translucent plastic, for 10 bucks. Not bad. Now all I needed were some games. Lucky that we had to pass by all those old game stores on the way home, huh?

So I ended up with a Pokemon Sapphire from Netherworld, and a Golden Sun from Games X Change. Not a bad way to start your GBA library. And hell, our other roommate had a GBA too, so there were lots of games for me to play in my down time. My collection grew from there, spending pocket change here and there on some old luxury fancy. I got a copy of Doom for the damn thing. Doom. On a model 1 GBA with no backlight. I literally had to beat some levels by turning on the automap and just following that. I tried to play my roommate's copy of Circle Of The Moon on that thing too. My condolences to the children of 2001 who got that shit on launch. I mean, holy shit. Hell, I even remember taking it along on a flea market visit, playing Fire Emblem at the food court. My god. Playing video games in public. What a silly 20 year-old dork I was. Of course, as the snow melted and the drama intensified, things had to change. I do remember walking all the way downtown again in the summer, hunting for a good job after some brief missteps. I was just finishing up Golden Sun then, and let me tell you, walking an hour in the blistering heat ain't fun. Or walking back. I should have taken the bus. Christ. Well, it was around this time when I upgraded the old GBA by trading it in to Netherworld for a GBA SP. A garish goddamn color scheme of neon green and bright orange. Ech. I don't know what it was promoting, but backlit GBA games served me well. Before I left that house, I traded that to my roommate for his original model DS. That was the machine with which I left that place in late summer, and that's where our little rambling ends for today.

I could tell an infinite number of old video game stories about 2006 in St. John's. Maybe I still will as the year goes on. For now, with all of that behind me, I reflect on the time when I was buying minimal groceries, struggling to find work, and passing away my leisure with an old GBA and an exploration of Hoenn. I never did pick up Alpha Sapphire on 3DS. Maybe I will one day, and relive those adventures. My Pelipper would be proud.

5 Hard NES Games You Never See On "Top 10 Hardest NES Games Ever" Lists

Alright kids, sit back and let old Uncle Frezno tell you all about hard Nintendo games. Am I some sort of hard Nintendo game master? Absolutely not. I'm an old asshole with rudimentary pattern recognition who's often fueled by either tenacity or just sheer spite against whatever the hell I'm playing. Still, I earned a title or two. "Hard Game Beater". "Beast In The Shape Of A Man.". There are still plenty of hard-ass Nintendo tapes that will probably elude me forever, but I've beaten enough of the big ones that scare people. Battletoads. Ghosts 'n Goblins. Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Turtles. I could go on. Sometimes the pain of beating your head against tough 8-bit game design ain't enough. Sometimes I need to hurt myself more, Snake. That's where my hobby comes in. I like to read lists and watch videos of what other people consider to be the hardest Nintendo games ever, and then shake my head in disarray at how much I disagree. But why do I disagree?

Because of James Rolfe and the Status Quo.

You know, as an aside, I think I quietly changed out mission statements on this blog. Goddess Valya and the Dread Beast GREED have been replaced by me becoming some sort of anti-nostalgia revolutionary, waving a flag against the Way Things Are. And I keep harping on James Rolfe as I do it. Let's put that to bed: I adore the work of James Rolfe. For ten years the AVGN shtick has amused me, and his other projects are fun in their ways as well. James and Mike Mondays, Board James, Monster Madness... he is a very talented fellow who has brought me much entertainment over the years. To badly mangle a quote from The Spoony One, I don't have a problem with James Rolfe and the AVGN at all; just his fans and what they've done. And I don't even mean the mad shade they threw my way when I didn't like his pretend Nintendo game! (Although that's tangentially related.) No, I'm talking about how his rantings on Nintendo games got perceived by the masses. The AVGN is an exaggerated parody, I find. A weirdo who has nothing better to do with his time than play terrible video games and yell about them online and talk about the poopy. Which, as a weirdo who has nothing better to do on a Tuesday morning than complain about how an Internet reviewer's changed Nintendo game reception, I can empathize with. Note the key phrase, exaggerated parody. It feels like a lot of people miss that, because his exaggerated opinions on the games have led to the Status Quo declaring them the Holy Writ on what those games are like. Now, it's not entirely James Rolfe's fanbase doing this; a lot of it is just the general perceived difficulty of famous Nintendo games. It does crop up, though. I researched a few "Top 10 Hardest NES Games Ever" lists for this article, and we'll crunch those in a bit. I can tell you two games that I feel would not be on them if not for him; Fester's Quest, and Silver Surfer. Fester showed up on two of the lists, and Silver Surfer showed up on a whopping five of them. I mean, Fester's Quest did show up in Nintendo Power... but that game always struck me as more "tedious" than "difficult". I watched a longplay of it to see how tricky it could be, and it just looks like a boring slog, rather than a high-stakes hard game.

It's Silver Surfer that really pet peeves me, though. I mean, this really sets me on edge, the way people keep including this on their lists. I'm getting dangerously close to "fake hard Nintendo gamer" talk here, and I really don't mean to be a gatekeeper of what people can consider a hard game or not. I can understand why one might put Silver Surfer on their hardest games ever lists; it's just the way they explain it that drives me up the wall. It's my poster child for AVGN fans influencing Hard Nintendo Game Opinion based entirely on the aforementioned exaggerated parody of James Rolfe yelling at the game. I beat Silver Surfer. It has its flaws that can compound to make it a difficult game. Your hitbox is rather large in both side and vertical scrolling modes, and you're expected to weave through some tricky shmup mazes. Enemy fire is numerous and quick. Getting killed knocks away your power-ups, and the game doesn't even have an autofire. That's all anyone would have to say about Silver Surfer, and I wouldn't be raising an eyebrow. But no. That's not what they say, isn't it? They always, without fail, fall back on that one critique.

This game is so difficult because if you touch ANYTHING you are dead!

That's straight out of AVGN's video, basically. Touch the wall you die, touch the floor you die, et cetera et cetera. And people repeat it basically verbatim when they make these lists. It drives me goddamn batty because one hit kills upon touching the scenery are a basic fucking rule of almost every shooting game ever made. You might as well be bitching about how spikes kill you in one hit in half the platformers out there... and doesn't that just burn when you compare it to how the "new old" retro style of game fills every surface with instant death spikes? I feel like I'm living in a Mirror Dimension here! How do people keep pulling out this exact same criticism of this one? What I found real interesting was this list. Not a mention of Silver Surfer on it... and oh, it's from 2006. Pre-AVGN video. It's hardly definitive proof, but considering that it showed up on 5/6ths of the lists I surveyed (with the outlier having really eclectic shit on it like Ghoul School and Sword Master) it says something. What concerns me more is TodoNintendoS's list. Silver Surfer's #2 there, and look. "It's considered as the hardest shoot 'em up of all time". Which, where do I begin? The obvious question of "well what about any danmaku game?", sure, but also that language. "It's considered.". I fell into that same trap when I LPed Silver Surfer, but then I bothered to share my own opinions on it. Do you consider it to be the hardest shooter ever, Todo? That's what I want to know. I don't give a toss what the Status Quo says, because I'm already at odds with that.

And so it goes as we keep running into the games that show up on multiple lists. Double Dragon 3 is the hardest because you only get ONE LIFE! Which, Double Dragon 3 is some shit for doing, but you do get other characters who act as lives. And a continue or two. Hey, why not mention that Bimmy and Jimmy thing while you're at it-- OH MY GOD. Contra is impossible without the Konami Code! Which, the code is there for you to learn the patterns and then get good at the game and beat it sans code. In Ghosts n Goblins you can only take two hits and even if you win you have to beat the game twice. As if we didn't already know this. Talk about how you're committed to your jumps, or the randomness factor. Anything other than all the shit we already know. Battletoads. Now, Battletoads I agree is legit hard. But it's all hard. All you hear on these bloody lists is "The two-player is impossible and so is the Turbo Tunnel.". Which is basically all that You-Know-Who got to as well. As an aside, I'm happy that his pal Bootsy actually bothered to do an entire series on beating Battletoads. It's a step in the right direction of dispelling the frightening legend and going "No no no. This shit is possible. Here's what you gotta do.". If Bootsy does a Bootsy Beats on Silver Surfer, I'll be bloody ecstatic.

So, with all this in mind... here's 5 games I thought up that absolutely deserve to be on these lists, but usually get bumped off in favor of the more well-known myth makers of the NES era. My criteria were simple. 1) It can't be on any of the lists I researched. 2) It has to be legally playable in North America. For reference, here are the six lists I found on Youtube that I cribbed from for the "not eligible" category.

Danger Dolan
Screwattack
Dixie
TodoNintendoS
TheTop10View
Starsoldier1

Dixie's is pretty eclectic, as I mentioned. Already this ruled out a few games I would have put on there; The Adventures Of Bayou Billy (#4 on Screwattack), Journey To Silius (#9 on Dixie), and Punch-Out (#6 on Top10View). Well then. Let's see what I cooked up here, hm?

BUCKY O'HARE

Some Konammy game about furries in space or something. Bucky O'Hare is a pretty late NES game, from like 1992 or so. Explains why nobody played the thing, I guess. It's a legit great little jump and shoot, but holy christ is it also difficult. It feels like a greatest hits collection of video game obstacles sometimes. You've got big snakes that were plucked right out of Battletoads, fire arches from Gradius, quite a few spikes, conveyor belts, and even a shmup section near the end. It demands perfection from you at all times, but it's fair enough with unlimited continues (as well it should be.) Though you do lose health upgrades if you die, but by the later levels you're dyin' in one hit anyway so it's mitigated. I guess.

ADVENTURE ISLAND

How the hell this avoids so many lists, I don't know. It's not even that obscure of a game. Adventure Island is like Super Mario Bros. if Super Mario Bros. were goddamn vicious. 32 levels, tricky enemy placement, a constant timer counting down to your doom (that really gives you no room to breathe on certain levels), and some really quite ludicrous jumps. It really is a product of the Famicom era, a sadistic piece of software made for god knows what reasons. On the Japanese show, Game Center CX, it took an Assistant Director 28 hours to clear the game in full. 23 of those were spent on the final eight stages, and nine were spent on one hellish segment with falling platforms requiring perfect jumps, along with swooping bats. Holy shit.

SUMMER CARNIVAL '92 RECCA/SUPER MARIO BROS: THE LOST LEVELS

Okay. A lot of these lists stick with just games that were released in North America, opting against imports. Hell, Screwattack specifically says this in order to not include the Lost Levels or "Takeshi's Castle". (They mean Takeshi's Challenge, but whatever.) I don't see the point of it, myself. So they can showcase what would have made kids of the NES era frustrated? Okay, fine, so explain how their #8 is Battle Kid; a goddamn homebrew released in 2010. Those rules don't matter, and the two imports I picked here are still technically eligible because both have been released on 3DS Virtual Console. They are legally playable in North America. Okay then. So, Summer Carnival '92 Recca is one hell of a thing. It's basically a high-speed 60FPS danmaku shmup for the NES. Look at this shit. Now this is a goddamn hard shmup. None of this "if you touch a wall you die" shit. It makes Silver Surfer look like a silver slog with how fast and furious the shit comes at you, and it being part-danmaku, the bullets are fast and furious as well. It almost feels Treasure-ish with its use of multiple bosses per stage, and it's really great. But also hard as balls. You die in one hit, by the way. Which, as we know, makes a game impossible. As for The Lost Levels... well, I lied up there. This is Super Mario Bros. if Super Mario Bros. were goddamn vicious. The first goddamn powerup in the game kills you. It is Super Mario for expert players, and it shows. Poison mushrooms, wind, red piranha plants that can come up from pipes even if you're standing on 'em, reverse warp zones. Oh, and you're scared of Ghosts n Goblins because you have to beat it twice? There's a bunch of special worlds in this game. To get to one set, you have to beat the game without warping. To get to the other set, you have to beat the game eight times. Terrifying, ain't it?

METAL STORM

The last time I got snarky at these lists, I made one of my own. It was all games, not just NES. Mine had a few games in common with these lists; TMNT 1 and Battletoads. Which, I still get mad at their inclusions on lists because those are only scratching the surface. Anyway, my king champion back then was Metal Storm. An interesting lil game in which the central gimmick is swapping gravity. Fuse VVVVVV with Contra/Mega Man/any other robot jump n shoot and you've got the idea. It's pretty tricky. Then it won't give you the good ending until you try a game for experts. Which, on the one hand you don't have to, but if the other list makers are going to say that "this story is happy end" is the actual ending of Ghosts n Goblins, we have to play by those rules too. GnG on NES, on the second loop, really is just the same damn game twice. Metal Storm on the second loop is brutal. It requires split-second perfection at all times or you're just dead. Again, one hit kills you so it's obviously the hardest! Metal Storm on Expert is just goddamn ridiculous, and I don't know if I'd give it the Hardest Game Ever award if I did one of those lists again, but it's an experience I won't soon forget.

So that's that. Did I exorcise my hard game list pet peeve hate? Probably not. All it'll take is someone else citing the Silver Surfer defense to make me grit my teeth again. Please. Just give the games a whirl. All I'm asking for is for list makers to use their own personal experience with the old video games as their template, rather than what a bunch of people online think makes them the hardest games ever. We don't need an echo chamber. Silver Surfer is possible. So is the Ninja Turtles dam. So is the Turbo Tunnel. I've done it, and I'm an asshole who just complained about hard Nintendo game lists. You can do it too! I believe in you, and I just want you to try the games. That's all. I should peace out of here before we all get too mad. Maybe next time I should talk about something happier.

Like anime.

Sayonara, 2015.

More like The Nintendo Project Restalled, is it right? I mean, it's been a year without a proper post. I really would like to do that gonzo Ninja Gaiden thing someday, but for now I think the dream's over. Gosh, but what a year it was for old video games! The 30th anniversary of the toaster box itself! Not to mention the revival of the goddamn Nintendo World Championships. I almost wrote something about that. I think I'm glad I didn't, because I was going to tie in the mystical God battle nature of the last one with the fact that someone with a grand galactic name took second... but that's not her name any more, so it would not have worked out. The blog was active for the latter months of the year... when it became a Doctor Who blog. Because, you know, having ripped off the idea for this thing from Phil Sandifer, why not rip off the idea of abandoning it to talk about Doctor Who while I'm at it? With 4 hours of Newfoundland time left, I figure... why not look at some stuff I wrote this year? A trip down memory lane, one last stroke of the old ego before time's up. That sort of thing. Let's see what we've got.

Frezno's List Of The 2015 Thing

I just wrote this today, but it's a list of all the shit I really enjoyed in 2015. Mostly computer games, but there's one surprise in there. Well. Not really a surprise. Anyways, this is too fresh to historicalize, so check it and argue about my opinions and let's move on.

Metroid Other M: I'm Authorizing Use Of The Gameplay Beam

This article is one of two I did this year that were basically attempts for me to finally exorcise the dead horse's ghost of games that haunted me. Metroid Other M disappointed me proper, and I've snarked at it for ages ever since... but then something spurred a neat realization about it within me and I wrote this. I found it interesting.

Sexy Fun With The Socks Make People Sexy Podcast!

I'd be remiss to not mention how SMPS fostered an idiot with video game opinions and his words. This year they actually let me say those ridiculous opinions on the air in podcast form. I was on there three times this year (once more since that post, for the SnS Clubhouse) and each time it was an absolute blast. I adore the little friend circle I've become a part of via Twitter, as I adore all such friend circles I have become part of over the years. Thanks, you guys.

A Tribute To Satoru Iwata

We lost a mighty fine video game pillar this year, somewhat unexpectedly. I still can't look at all the loving fanart of him without tearing up. Fuck, even thinking about it has me still tearing up. Anyways, what came to light after Iwata passed away was just how goddamn integral he was to the history of Nintendo games; the secret code alchemist, ever tinkering away, making miracles. You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone, huh?

The Exorcism Of James Rolfe (The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures And Me: The Final Chapter)

And this is number two in getting rid of a dead horse's ghost. A 3000 word screed about the AVGN Adventures game, the ad hominem nonsense that followed in trying to discredit me, and even wild number-based theories about how people decided to enjoy the damn thing. It was a white hot heat to write, and I'm still proud of it. AVGNA2 is going to be a fucking wild ride, whenever it comes. I'm ready.

Doctor Who Series 9 First Impressions: Face The Raven

I picked this one because I feel I was the most passionate in it. Of course, that passion was sort of tinkered with two weeks later and we got something better... but like that crying wrestling guy says, it's still real to me. Clara Oswald, man. Clara fucking Oswald. If I ever get to meet that Jenna Coleman lady in person... well, I'd better be talking about something else she did because who wants to hear about Doctor Who after you've been done with it? But I would want to tell her how much I adored her Clara, and how she made my favorite sci-fi show even better just by being there and being her.

Challenging The Status Quo Fills You With Determination

Undertale won my Game Of The Year spot. Big surprise there. The bigger surprise was it winning this poll. I really hope that in a year's time I still remember Undertale as fondly as I do now. Like I said, I'll remember 'cause I wrote it down. Still, this was an impassioned cry against the Status Quo. Which I should mention, I do still like. Just, I also like things to get shaken up every once in a while.

So that's 2015. I have at least two articles I can write on the back burner. One of them is even about actual Nintendo games! I do need to think of a new name for this blog space, while also making sure all the old shit redirects. If any of you actually want to RE-resume this big Nintendo blog... well, you've got my blessing at least. Maybe ask Mr. Sandifer about it. Also he has dibs on Zombie Nation. Hell, you can even do a Ninja Gaiden thing. It won't invalidate mine if I ever do it. Alright. See y'all on 2015. Hail Valya, fight against the Dread Beasts GREED and NOSTALGIA, and don't let yourself fall to the blade of Peko The Destructor. Did I cover all of my mythology? I think I did.

Peace out.

Doctor Who Series 9 First Impressions: 2015 Christmas Special (The Husbands Of River Song)

(Hope your holidays were well! Now be careful, because as River says, spoilers. There are spoilers so if you didn't watch this go watch it. Also have a good rest of the year. We're gonna be... busy here before 2015 is done.)

That was nice.

This is actually the first time I've ever written words about a River Song story. From the looks of it, this is also the last River Song story. So I've pretty much shown up at the end of the party here. For the record, I like River a lot. Smug, snarky, confident women with a morally grey streak are the sort of characters I'm fond of, so I'm pretty fond of River. My only real grievance with her was basically with the way she was a proxy for Moffat puzzleboxes. OOH HOO HOO I KNOW A THING AND YOU DON'T, OOPS I TOLD YOU I KNOW A THING. But we're free of that now! We know who River is, we know where she came from, we know where she ends up! I endured the smug puzzlebox "teehee I know more than you" attitude because I was awaiting the reverse; a situation where the Doctor knows more than she does about her future events. Which, in a way, I guess we always had with her death and all... but the only real times we get him with more knowledge than her are... well, Let's Kill Hitler and this. And people hate Let's Kill Hitler. It's fine. This one was also fine and nice and a good Christmas episode. It was basically a romp.

The Doctor fits into an interesting role in this; he's basically River's companion, playing oblivious. So, he's mirroring a companion role, if you will. Nyeh heh heh. The degree to which Capaldi goes from going along with the events because it's River, to just plain fucking around while he has the advantage of being incognito, to letting his Doctorish tendencies be visible, are numerous. His over the top "bigger on the inside" freakout is fucking amazing and I love it. There are hints of him grieving over the "loss" of Clara, like the antlers or the mention that he hasn't had a laugh in a while. Last Christmas really was Clara's last Christmas, and I do still miss her, but the grief has been gotten over. Don't forget that three years ago when a companion left, the Doctor moped up on a cloud for months. Here, the Doctor is getting to have fun again. And with his old pal River, too! Of course, the fun has to give way to serious time eventually, but we'll get to that.

The villains are... well, a farce. Although getting your head cut off and put in a robot is pretty scary. Moffat has a thing for people who are living heads. He must love Futurama. NO ACTUALLY HE MUST LOVE MATT GROENING! Because the second joke I adore in this episode, other than Capaldi's TARDIS scene, is when River's going to give the King's head to Scratch and she's got the bag open and then he starts praising the King and she just zips that bag right the fuck back up. That's just a Simpsons joke. From the first season. In 1990. Moffat nicked a 25 year old Simpsons gag and it still worked, holy shit. Granted, he also nicked the "the restaurant patrons are actually all evil" gag from himself; it's the same as Deep Breath. This is basically a story with a lot of little ideas all bundled together in a holiday romp; those monks with the swords, the big robot that steals heads, a head in a bag yelling at you, a space restaurant for genocidal evil folks, and the Singing Towers. Which, y'know, let's get to that and head off because I ain't got no grand thesis statement to make about the rest of this episode. It was a lot of fun and the perfect way to unwind on Christmas night.

So, the end of River Song. At least, the supposed end of River. The Doctor accepts that this is his last Christmas with her, and finally takes her to the Singing Towers, gives her the nice sonic, and the implication is that the next time they meet, it'll be at the Library and he'll be David Tennant and not know what the fuck. At this point, they're basically equal; the Doctor only knows one spoiler ahead for her, and it's the big one. I like that a lot, somehow. At last, they're basically equals. One smug spoiler separates them; there's no big confusion on the part of either. River didn't know who the Doctor was for 45 minutes because she didn't know he could break the 13 regeneration limit. Moffat could, if he wanted to, slip in another River adventure if he or Alex Kingston really wanted. It's just like with Clara; I accepted Face The Raven as a great end to Clara, and then Hell Bent made it better. Husbands is a good ending for River Song, but it could be made better. They'd have to try really hard, though. For now, this incarnation of the Doctor is one who seems to have gotten better at letting go. Or maybe he's just had enough time to deal with the River thing internally. Either way, this is how it ends for them. A lovely Christmas dinner at the Singing Towers. So, then, does that end Doctor Who in 2015. Wowie zowie. I'm going to have to do a little ranking thing in the next day or so. Until then, this was fun and I liked it. Notably, it ends with no big plot hooks or trailers or whatnot. Doctor Who in 2016 is up in the air, and already the dire rumors are spreading. Oh no, it might not come out in September! Oh no, Capaldi might leave! We don't know what will happen, but as Matt Smith said, we're halfway out of the dark. Rewatch the new series. Delve into the old series. Read a book, listen to a Big Finish. Do whatever you like to pass the time until Doctor Who returns, because it will return. Someday.

And until it does, we'll be right here waiting for it. Living happily ever after.