Mind you, I’m still a bit livid about the whole “Not getting the awesome scarf pre-order bonus”. As far as ridiculous swag goes, that has probably been the coolest thing, and in Canada, the most practical.

Instead I settled with DLC costumes for my favourite Nintendo villain.

Not that I really cared about any bonus I’d be getting, mind you. I’ve been looking forward to a game like this way back in April of last year. During an old episode of the TL;DL podcast we talked about ways we could change the Zelda formula, and I excitedly expressed a Dynasty Warriors style game in which you play as Ganondorf.

So you can bet upon first mention of Hyrule Warriors, I’d be on the edge of my seat in anticipation. But I guess there’s a lot of you out there that want to ask why this is so exciting for me.

First of all: Yes, it’s exactly the kind of game that you think it is. Dynasty Warriors with Zelda characters instead of a Chinese Dynasty. You hack and slash your way through hundreds of enemies until all of the red dots have disappeared from the map. To do that you capture points and kill generals and blahblahblah you-know-what-Dynasty-Warriors-is…

On-top of that it’s not necessarily hackneyed, but it does deliver you the type of story you’d expect in a Zelda game. Actually there were moments where it felt like the characters knew they did this so many times, and were just making sure they hit every beat that presented itself.

But to the average person that plays the average game, something like this is going to seem absolutely boring to them, and I understand that.

Growing up, Brawlers were one of my favourite genres to play. I’d waste many hours on the Final Fights, the Streets of Rages and the Ninja Turtles. I always felt there was something absolutely satisfying about mindless button mashing to progress through stages.

But my tolerance for monotony is incredibly high. While I could enjoy something with a little bit more complexity like Diablo III or the uphill battle that is EX fights in an MMO, I really appreciate the kind of game that lets me turn my brain off and get rid of all the red dots.

Also, I dare say that after playing a lot of Dynasty Warriors games in my time, it’s interesting to look for any moves or animation reuse. It may be hard to notice because there’s the part of your brain that wants to believe it’s all original animation and combos for characters (and don’t get me wrong, there is.) with so many iterations of that game over the years, it’s entirely possible that they'd be cutting corners in that way to save development time.

Setting aside my strange feeling of Deja Vu, it’s great that every character plays completely different. Each moveset has a different groove that you have to find the rhythm of, which can be strange when you play with standard characters like Link, Impa and Shiek before jumping to niche ones like Agatha and Midna.

The variation could be enough for some of those that don’t like getting too comfortable with any one characters combos.

Along with standard modes you’d come to expect in a Warriors game (like Free and Challenge), the adventure mode is a really cool idea that ends up being a big chunk of the game after you finish the story mode.

Unlocking and exploring parts of the old 8bit Zelda map; Collecting items, and other characters is fairly engaging. Each part of the grid is a different challenge, like “Kill 300 enemies/Kill All the bosses” or “Quiz fight” to name a few. There’s enough in there to make it challenging, as you try to get the best rank possible.

As much as I am enjoy this game based on my own playing habits, I know I can’t necessarily recommend it to people. You can practically view the “Warriors” franchise as Madden at this point. The same game keeps coming out and you always wonder why. Every once in a while they put a new skin on it and tell you it’s a different kind of game, but deep inside it’s the same game that it’s always been and you know you can’t be fooled.

Hmm… I’ll say this. There’s a certain amount of Novelty that makes it worth playing. It breaks the convention of Zelda in a way that could give enjoyment alone….

… But at the end of the day, it’s still Dynasty Warriors and you either like that or you don’t.

How about I sit here and talk about Destiny for a tiny bit.

Since it’s release I’ve only played it a total of three times, and each one of those sessions were between 40 minutes to an hour. Each time I’ve been playing it by myself. With that in mind, I haven’t been able to enjoy it.

To me, it doesn’t feel like a game that I want to play alone. The atmosphere feels too isolating, even if I do see other people running around on the map with me. But I also wonder what others experiences have been like.

I remember during the alpha, playing it with Xeiphyer and Dolphin Butter and actually enjoying that time, even if some of the missions were a little too monotonous. (coming from a guy that just wrote a little too much about Hyrule Warriors) But I guess it’s true for online games, in that communication/co-ordination with others is always the biggest draw.

When I played it on my own, it’s presentation is just completely uninteresting and it really bums me out. Maybe the people on my friends list will make me tag along with them.

I’m just a guy that wants a little company on that desolate waste land.

If you ever want to play a fun social experiment with the internet, then make sure to play Fibbage with random people online. After a session of that game over the weekend, I’ve become really curious about the identities of some of these kids over the racist/homophobic humour they’ve opted to type in. (and I’m only assuming they do this, because they try hard to be funny.)

The game itself is totally interesting though, and definitely recommended to play with a full group. Just… make sure you know the people, as random internet user might be the one guy at the party that makes everyone want to leave.

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I can’t be bothered to write about video games anymore, frankly I shouldn’t be doing so in the first place. I’m 5 weeks deep into Journalism school and I’m totally enjoying my time learning to be a newsie. (And getting along with people that are totally making me feel old in the process.)

I’m not sure if I can classify myself as one of those people that have “always had a passion for writing stories” or “I’m going to be that one asshole that changes the news.” but’s a nice and “equally unrealistic” change from farting around in the film industry for 5 years.

But you know, at least I know where I want those skills to take me. So I’m looking forward to the next couple of years.

So if you excuse me, I have a hell of a lot of reading I need to continue doing so I can at least pretend I've been paying attention to current events, and not just playing Videogames.