Ramblings of an Englishman

Now before you get angry let me pre-empt this by saying I am a Kingdom Hearts fan of that is not clear from the multiple posts here I have made on the franchise before this. In fact I believe the opposite could be argued as well for fans of the series who analyse everything in depth to be able to make accurate predictions. As a series it depends where you look at the narrative/lore of Kingdom Hearts to where you get confused or enjoyment out of it. The main purpose of this post is to look at how that has evolved and how that is now overly complicated. Personally for me I do still enjoy the games but do feel the overall story is confusing in parts to fully keep track of which I hope to explain in more detail below. When you think about longform narratives video games are an interesting format for this. Unlike in films where the actors get older the characters in your game don't have to unless you want them to. While consoles change you can keep a cast of characters for as long as yo...

It's hard to imagine a wrestling landscape without Impact Wrestling. Formerly known as Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Impact has been active since 2002 at various levels at it's peak a viable alternative to the WWE with a fresh roster and a unique identity to at it's troth a chaos of managerial mistakes and money blown. It could be argued up to the formation of All Elite Wrestling (AEW) or New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) expanding into America that Impact was the number 2 company with TV deals all over the world including being the company to really look at breaking into the Indian market for wrestling before WWE put the belt on Jinder Mahal for the same reason.  However, something is just off with Impact to me. The majority of the promotion just feels like it's missing something. I feel this is due to the overall roster and how Impact finds itself in a wrestling landscape. Some of the talent I really like and will cover later but I think they suffer from being a smaller fis...

For reference before we begin this post will only cover Fire Emblem Fates and not Corrin's inclusion to Super Smash Bros and the whole Fire Emblem 'controversy' surrounding the franchise and host of characters in Smash. If I am honest my opinion on that as a whole is covered a lot better then I could by Schaffrillas Productions in the following video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Dg8qOYZzU so please watch that. When I saw the image above it was the first thing I saw of Fire Emblem Fates and I loved it. Combine it with the concept and I found it interesting a character torn between his birth family and the family he grew up with, what the internal struggle for Corrin could be, how would his two families react and the kingdom themselves. I was hooked in on concept alone and coming off of being one of the many people who got their first taste of Fire Emblem with Awakening I was really looking forward to this. And then the game happened.  Look, Fates it isn't the wors...

I should preface this by saying I do enjoy some of The Fiend's work I think it's an interesting gimmick. The idea of this is to look at what is happening and why fans seem to be turning off the character as a whole. When Bray Wyatt came back as The Fiend WWE audiences were intrigued by the new character and what it would mean for Bray Wyatt who career is stagnated. After battering Finn Balor at SummerSlam 2019 the only logical step was to have him challenge for the Universal title held at the time by Seth Rollins. Well, one mismanaged Hell in a Cell match later and it felt like a sucker punch for the character. While he has had his ups and downs with 2 world title wins since the debut of the character it is safe to say that audience reaction has changed. Using the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (WON) award you can see The Fiend went from Best Gimmick in 2019 to Worst Gimmick in 2020. Now, I am not saying the WON awards are gospel but they can be seen as an indicator of fan senti...

Spoilers for Final Fantasy 7, Dragon Quest 11 and Final Fantasy 15 ahead The remake of Final Fantasy 7 has lit a fuse underneath me in terms of this game series. I have to be honest, looking at the back catalogue of games I have played over the last year Square Enix. From the aforementioned remake of Final Fantasy 7, Kingdom Hearts 3 and Dragon Quest 11 I can't think of another video game company that I have invested as much time into the worlds and characters they build (except maybe Football Manager but that's a different story), seeing these characters their growth with each other and evolution made me realise something and that being Final Fantasy 15's main cast of four really fall flat when it comes to being compelling or interesting characters. Now don't get me wrong I think the quartet of lads had some good moments and they had potential but something felt off to them. I hope over this article to look into the failings of the crew and where they fall short when i...