Videogames are a weird thing for me. They are something I've grown up with all of my life and have been the one consistent thing in it. Whenever life got weird and various things fell apart, back into place, and then apart again, it was videogames that were there in it in some capacity. My very first memory in coming into self-awareness, was me playing Super Mario Bros. for the NES. For a long time, they were my single only hobby and held a large portion of my attention. It's how I found sites like Destructoid and Giant Bomb where many people also held them in a very dear place in their hearts.

It is no longer the case that videogames are my only hobby. For the last four or five years, I've been pretty heavy into anime. For as long as I can remember, when a game had an option of "choose male character or female character", I would subconsciously for a long time choose "female". The first instance of this I can remember is Chun Li in Super Street Fighter II . This is relevant because the thing that attracts me so much to anime. Today's anime. Not anime from 90's, or 80's or before that, I have no interest in that stuff, is that today's anime contains many strong female characters and leads. Very often the protagonist of a show is female, and that makes me happy.

Unlike many people this season. I'm not writing a Top Ten List of games. Because there aren't ten games I've played and love so much they became note worthy in mind.

I played Grand Theft Auto V, it was a good game with a bit of a shoddy multiplayer component that I will probably spend more time in after it releases on PC and can play it with a friend. I enjoyed the Single player for what it is was, but unlike a lot of people I did not have a favorite character to play. I liked all of the protagonists pretty much equally. I really wish I could have gotten rid of a large portion of their wardrobe though so when I bought clothes for the characters, those clothes stayed on them. I buy you a hoodie and you wear the hoodie goddammit! If I have to see that stained white shirt ONE MORE TIME!... Ehem... Anyway... I found out mid game you could mod the protagonist default cards which was nice. Black and Green color scheme for all!

"I'm not playing Saints Row 4"

These are the words I said to my self during it's announcement. I loved Saints Row 2 and 3, but 4 just looked so cheesy to me. The super powers looked lame and like they were basically going to make Saints Row not really a Saints Row game anymore.

I was right.

It's not a Saints Row game anymore. It has Saints Row's humor and story telling, but the game part of it was Crackdown and Prototype style. I'll admit I did have my fun with it though, so it deserves special mention in that regard. Even if it's not a Saints Row game anymore is just some weird, highly entertaining Prototype rip off, I can appreciate that for what it is also. It turns out, not only did I play Saints Row 4, I got 100% completion on Saints Row 4

DmC Devil May Cry

Finally, the main point of this list. Devil May Cry is not a series that ever garnered my attention. I've never had an interest in the series before this year and honestly it almost didn't happen. Then Brad did a quicklook, and everything changed.

One of my favorite games of last year was Alice: Madness Returns. I love these sorts of games, but not so much that I will play them with just any old protagonist. I was always incredibly turned off by the look of old Devil May Cry games, and old Dante never looked cool to me. I had a similar problem with Bayonetta where I played through a level of that game and was so turned off by Bayonetta's look her self that I stopped caring about the game completely.

When new Dante was introduced a lot of people who were found of old Dante were very upset about new Dante's look. I didn't fall on either side of that argument since at the time I was to busy not at all caring about Devil May Cry in any capacity. After finally picking up and playing DmC after having watched the Quicklook Brad did, I knew that if this game wasn't my game of the year, it would certainly be a very strong contender. It had almost everything I look for in a video game. It was dumb, it was awesome, it's story was competent, the protagonist was cool the combat and gameplay felt awesome. I enjoyed the game so much, I bought the game at full retail price twice. One copy for me and one copy for a friend of mine.

It's the one game this year that, out of all the games I played, I would beg for a squeal. I very much hope Ninja Theory at some point makes a new entry into this series, because in my eyes, they took this series and made it their own.

Yes, maybe it's not old Devil May Cry anymore, and maybe it was a poor choice to associate it with that brand initially. But whether or not you consider it a real part of that franchise, it's worth playing on it's own merits, and that's why it's my Top One Game of 2013.

[s]Note: That title is supposed to say "off" at the end. Forgive me I'm typing on a half-cracked nexus 7 as my computers out of commission.[/s] Fixed it.

I've noticed there are some people who think including a character perma death option in this game is stupid or don't know who it's for. So I thought I would mention in here that I think it'd be stupid to not include that. I've always had a hard time understanding certain aspects of gamer culture, such as berating someone who plays on easy or the sentiment behind the term "save scumming". It kind of reeks of "If you don't play it the hardcorest of hardcore ways you suck and should just die." Ignoring completely the fact that everyone who plays games plays them for different reasons and is in it for different experiences.

One of the things I have the hardest times understanding is why people like to put them selves in discomfort for entertainment purposes. I simply will never be able to understand the concept of stress, horror and tension as fun. These things have never been fun to me, so in fact it falls completely flat to me that if you don't turn on the optional item that will add more of these things to a game you playing it "the wrong way". However I fully understand certain people enjoy these aspects very much, to the point of doing "no death" runs of games like Fallout and Farcry 2. I always enjoy seeing how people with perspectives different from me play games, it's interesting to hear how people who enjoy putting them selves in discomfort think and approach games.

I play games to have fun, to see a story, to relax and escape. I don't need them to bring me more discomfort. I'm uncomfortable enough. However I thought I would share this sentiment. I will be playing Fire Emblem with character death off because otherwise I will just "save scum" to make sure no one dies and the game just becomes a complete ordeal instead of an entertaining experience.

The newest episode of Shrine Impulse is here! The show has gone threw a few changes since we last posted. We decided to make the show a seasonal thing, and as such, they editing is much more lax and the show is longer the previous episodes. In this episode we talk about this seasons anime, some Touhou stuff, and of course the video games we've been playing like always. The music as the top of the show is Postmeride and the at the bottom Sis Pulla Magica, both from the OST of the anime "Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magicka"

Enjoy!

http://www.mediafire.com/?918c902rn1xbw0b

Our podbean account was locked for some reason (probably because we don't post that often), so you'll have to download it threw medifire. I'm sorry for this bit of inconvenience, but hopefully you'll enjoy anyway :)