The Professional Gamer - December 15, 2018

We’re halfway through December and almost to the end of the year now. I’ve had a fairly good week in terms of finding time to enjoy myself. I was finally able to watch the end of one of my favorite animated series, and I got my fancy new laptop that can actually play games and doesn’t hang whenever I try to change tabs in Chrome. And that’s made me very happy. I also had time to finish binge-watching another new animated series and watch Crystal play Dragon Quest XI. I guess I have a lot to write about this week. Best get started.

First up, let’s talk about She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. This series by Dreamworks is a remake of the 1980’s She-Ra: Princess of Power headed by comic artist Noelle Stevenson. I was never big into either the He-Man or She-Ra series back in the day. In part, the 1983 debut of He-Man (and 1985 debut of She-Ra) meant that I was way too young for it when it was brand new. To clarify, I was born in 1983, and I don’t think a baby had any reason to be watching either of those shows. Don’t get me wrong, I had a few of the toys growing up, but was decidedly late to the game. On the other hand, I did grow up with the Master of the Universe movie, which was a very weird adaptation of the original material. Then, there was the 2000’s reboot of He-Man, which I watched a few episodes of during college, and then mostly forgot existed. I say all of this, to put my perspective in context: I have some passing familiarity with the tropes of the series, but without any strong emotional investment. I saw a lot of the hype building up for the new She-Ra, but didn’t pay much attention to it. I love Nimona, but even attaching Noelle to the project did not pull me into it. I figured I would watch it at some point, but I wasn’t planning to make a priority out of it. And that seemed to be the path that I was on, until Crystal sat me down and got me started.

To preface, this is a show targeted for a younger audience than me. That said, this is a seems like a really good show for young viewers. The characters have a surprising amount of depth and their own motivations. Because of this, the dynamics between the characters are more realistic and believable. I ended up watching most of the series in just a few evenings, and am anticipating the next season. Again, a show for which I am totally not the target audience, but I still see how great it is.

Next up, the last season of Adventure Time. This, I ended up watching over the course of two days. Somehow, I had missed when it was released to Hulu, and only noticed when I was cleaning out my spam folder. So, yeah. Several months late here, but I’m all full of feelings. I’m glad that we tied up some of the more interesting plot threads that had been set up over the prior seasons. Since its still newish, I’m not going to spoil anything here; but I’m very happy with the ending and how the last episode went down. It was such a great series, and I’m sad to see it go. But, it did have a great run and a great ending. Cheers to Pen Ward and his team!

In the seasonal anime category, both Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san and That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime continue to be great shows.

So, new computer. Now, I can play some of my favorite games while I’m travelling, or from the comfort of my living room. While I was getting the computer set up, Crystal has been playing Dragon Quest XI. And it looks like a lot of fun. I’ve never really gotten into JRPG’s very heavily, so I had completely skipped out on this series. Crystal has always been a big fan of Final Fantasy and other games developed by Square-Enix; but she also missed out on the Dragon Quest series. The first game that she really played was Dragon Quest: Builders. After watching some discussion of the latest game on YouTube, she decided to give the newest edition a chance and purchased it. I have some qualms with the English adaptation, like why does everyone have British and Scottish accents? But, the characters are fun and there are a lot of little jokes interspersed with somewhat serious plot. This could be a great addition to your library if you are a fan of JRPG’s.

Christmas is coming soon, and I may find myself without time to write regularly. If you don’t see me occasionally, that’ll be why. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find some time to write, cause I know I’m going to find time for fun. Until next time, game on!