(Brace yourselves, friends, but this is the 200th article on The Contrarian Corner! How crazy is that! What an amazing journey this has been so far! Here’s to another 200 to come!)
Okay, let me break down this title for you.
Have you ever watched a Comedy movie that was so funny, you find yourself endlessly comparing any other Comedy movie to it (and ultimately, every other Comedy movie falls short)? Or have you drank a certain brand of Lemonade so much better than any other Lemonade brand that you simply can’t go back now? That’s what I mean by this title. When something “ruins” something else for you, it means that it was so much better than the competition that you have a hard time accepting anything other than that now. That’s what this list will be looking at.
Also, just to clarify, just because something is on the list doesn’t mean that I will never enjoy anything else that falls within the same category as it. I’m mostly using the word “ruined” to make my point, not to try and say that, using the Comedy movie example above, I’d never watch another Comedy once I found my favorite. I’m not that extreme with my opinions!
Let’s get into it (and if you’re still lost, it’ll make more sense as we go along).
10) Matthew Ward’s Books ~ Fantasy Worldbuilding/Characters
As a writer myself, I’m always absolutely enamored when a writer is able to craft a gigantic world that feels lived in and thorough, where everything has a purpose, but there’s also still mystery and a ‘lived-in‘ kinda feel. It’s a tall order, and it’s scared me away a bit from pursuing my own big fantasy epic series. And yet Matthew Ward manages this Herculean task as if it’s easy, and he’s done it across multiple series! How does he keep getting away with it? How does he keep making the most interesting worlds and irresistibly fantastic and layered characters, time and again? Honestly, I have no idea, but it’s really inspiring! Every time I read one of his books, I simultaneously get to enjoy a fantastic novel, and also feel a figurative kick-in-the-pants to go and write some stories myself!
9) Fire Emblem Heroes ~ Gacha Games
I think a small part of me knew, eight years ago, that when I first started playing Fire Emblem Heroes, I might never stop. And yeah, that’s still held true to this day, and that’s largely because this game blows the competition out of the water. Gacha games (a massive genre that, at it’s core, means games where you spend currency to roll/pull for characters at a tiny percent chance of obtaining them) are notorious for being some of the worst and most predatory things around. Spammy ads, purposefully manipulative FOMO, low quality. Fire Emblem Heroes, on the other hand, has no in-game ads, no giant banners tempting you to visit the store and spend real money, pretty generous rates on summoning characters (alongside built-in systems that can guarantee your success, preventing sunk-cost fallacy), it’s a very high quality game with constant content updates, there’s plenty of mechanics to allow you to make any character your favorite…yeah, it’s just really hard to get into any other mobile gacha games when this is the competition.
8) Arcane ~ Animated Shows
This one is really unfair of me, but I can’t help it. Even in the face of the fact that Arcane is the single most expensive animated show of all time by a massive margin, it’s simply my brain’s new gold standard for what is possible in an animated show. Again, as I explained in the opening paragraphs of the this article, the existence of Arcane (and my love for it) don’t prevent me from enjoying other animated shows. But there’s definitely this small tickling sensation in the back of my brain whenever I do watch an animated show, some tiny little voice saying “this looks good, but nowhere near as good as Arcane“. Yeah, it’s unfair of me, and I try not to let that little voice massively sway my opinion of animated shows, but I can never fully resist it. Once you’ve experienced a masterpiece like Arcane, it can be hard to adjust to anything else. And hey, animation quality has started stepping up massively in both shows and movies, so maybe we’ll soon reach a day where everything is as visually stellar as Arcane!
7) Andor ~ Disney’s Star Wars
Disney has had one heck of a roller coaster ride ever since they’ve gotten a hold of the Star Wars IP, and there’s been a few ups but quite a few disappointing downs. So it’s kind of a shock that one of the greatest Star Wars projects ever created came about under their watch! And while I could talk on and on about how phenomenal Andor is, it’s honestly more the fact that it’s quality is so much higher than anything else Disney has done with Star Wars that really gets to me. I liked Episode 7, the less said about Episode 8 the better, Episode 9 is a mess of a movie, Solo and Rogue One are great, and the other television shows have ranged from decent (Mandalorian) to middling-at-best (Acolyte). And then here comes Andor, this masterfully-crafted experience, that goes ahead and sets the bar almost impossibly high. Not that I’m complaining about how fantastic this show is, but I do wonder how Disney expects me to react the next time they unveil a Star Wars project that can’t compare to this!
6) Eddie Wilde and Nina Chase Series ~ Literary Action Scenes
Filming an action scene, while technically and logistically tricky, is ‘easy‘ in the sense of what-you-see-is-what-you-get. You want your audience to see one man punch another? Then film that! Authors have it harder, having to paint their action setpieces so vividly that the reader can derive full movement of the characters via text alone. Not only that, but action moves quick in writing. Something that could take up thirty seconds on the screen might be only a paragraph in a book. It’s really hard, but also really fun, to write action scenes in books. And yet in the Eddie Wilde and Nina Chase series (by Andy McDermott), the action scenes are frequent, relentless, and utterly fantastic! Despite the length of this series, despite the common occurrence of these scenes, they just so consistently enrapture and entertain. They’re always fresh and innovative, and I read them with the biggest, dumbest smile on my face. I can only hope to write action scenes that are half as good as these.
5) Fairy Tail ~ Shonen Anime
It’s pretty common knowledge in the anime community that Shonen anime (a broad term loosely referring to long-running action-oriented shows aimed at mass audiences) are pretty derivative of one another. If you watch one Shonen, you’ve watched them all, even if you, of course, continue to enjoy them. The Power of Friendship, the cheesy heroic speeches, the out-of-nowhere twists and turns, a hundred bazillion characters…every Shonen does this, and since Fairy Tail was my first, it’s the one I put on the highest pedestal. And, if I may be so bold, I truly do think there’s a lot that Fairy Tail has over the competition. The stellar Celtic Rock soundtrack, the amazing English Dub, surprisingly profound emotional beats, a pretty good amount of humor, excellent implementation of minor characters despite the size of the cast, and just an overall enjoyable earnestness. A lot of people sleep on this show, and I feel that’s not giving Fairy Tail anywhere near enough credit!
4) Xenoblade Chronicles X ~ Open World Games
I’ve talked about this a crazy amount of times on this blog, so I won’t babble on for too long here, but half the reason I praise this game so much is because many modern-day action games still don’t apply its lessons! Yeah, not every open world game needs to follow the Xenoblade Chronicles X formula, but I’m tired of open world games that just aren’t fun to play! No stamina limits, no fall damage, fast sprinting, driving around in a Skell, flying around to the highest heights, the complete lack of invisible walls allowing you to go everywhere, incredibly engrossing and addicting side quests and worldbuilding…this game has it all. It’s so good that it just makes me sad when I boot up the latest Ubisoft game, see the world map stuffed with clutter and boring fetch tasks, and watch my character slowly plod around at a snail’s pace. It really is just kind of a true statement that no gaming studio out there can do it like Monolith Soft can with the Xenoblade franchise.
3) A Hat In Time ~ 3D Platformers
So, of course I love every single thing about this game, and I could talk for hours about how the level design and boss design is so far above other 3D platformers like Mario and such. But honestly, what I’m specifically focusing here is on Hat Kid herself, and how she controls. The levels in this game may be good, but they only work so well because our main character is so much fun to play as and run around as!
Astro Bot, one of my favorite games from last year, had amazing level design, but an extremely bland main character. Astro himself can jump, hover, and do a spin punch. And that’s…it. By just a few hours into the game, I was tired of playing as him. The levels were fun, but he wasn’t. On the massive contrary, Hat Kid is my favorite playable character in any 3D platformer. She jumps, double-jumps, dives, dive-cancels into another jump, wall-jumps, kick-climbs up walls if she just barely misses the edge, sprints, long-jumps after sprints, dive-dashes along the ground, swings her umbrella to attack, grapples onto hooks, and homing-attack-dives into enemies by chaining bounces together. She’s phenomenally liberating to play as, and I can’t get enough (and her fun in controlling is why I briefly did Speedruns for this game). Other 3D platformers just make me miss Hat Kid.
2) Mission Impossible ~ Action Movies
I like action, a lot. I just did a list of my favorite action scenes a little bit ago. But when I say that my views (and, perhaps, standards) on action scenes reached a brand new peak after jumping into the Mission Impossible franchise, I don’t say that lightly. Getting into this series has been amazing, but it’s also made me extremely picky about all action scenes in films ever since!
And, of course, this all ultimately has to do with the ‘realness’ of the action scenes in the Mission Impossible series. Like, yes, obviously, wires and harnesses were digitally edited out of the footage, because it’d be wildly unsafe to do these things otherwise. But Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, rather) really did hang outside a plane as it took off. He really did jump off a mountain on a motorcycle. He really did learn to hold his breath to film those underwater data vault scenes. He really did fly a helicopter through those misty peaks at breakneck speeds. He really did scale up the outside of the Burj Khalifa. It’s all real, and it’s all so gloriously in-camera. Where lesser action movies distract (and nauseate) with shaky-cam and quick cuts, the Mission Impossible franchise lets you see it all so clearly, vividly, and immersively!
1) Freedom Planet 2 ~ 2D Platformers
This game right here was the impetus for this entire article. Because, over the past few weeks (and maybe this is owed to spending all my hours at work listening to this game’s soundtrack) I have been unable to get Freedom Planet 2 out of my mind. No matter what I do, I can’t shake it away, and my thoughts just keep drifting back to it.
I almost get stunned, thinking about this game and realizing how perfect it is as a 2D platformer. The massive amount of unique and varied levels. The intricate and incredible level design. How unbelievably fun the four main heroines are to play as, each presenting their own options for traversing these levels. The fun little hub worlds and goofy NPCs. The action combat and the engaging boss fights. The jaw-dropping soundtrack, with practically not a single iffy track in the entire game. And not only does it have all these positives, but stacking it up against its 2D platformer competition? There’s no contest! Freedom Planet 2 excels in more areas all at once, and at higher levels of perfection, compared to any other 2D platformer that exists. Anytime I’m not playing it, I kinda just want to drop what I’m doing and go play it!
I do this fairly rarely on this blog, but if I could go back in time I think I would change my review score of this game from my article to a 10/10 instead of 9.5/10. Because even though I still do have minor issues with the storytelling, the rest of the game is just that phenomenal!
But hey, that’s just my opinion!
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