MapleStory 2005-2011
In spring of 2005, a new free-to-play MMORPG was released by reasonably unknown gaming company “Wizet”. Prior to this, they only have one other game under their belt which hardly gained any acclaim outside of Korea. This new game, MapleStory, was really novel at the time because all popular MMOs at the time were in 3D, while this game was a 2D side-scroller! I’ll be a lot of people at the time were still grinding away on Rose Online, or Runescape and looked down upon this style, but look where they are now, right?
At the time, there were 4 versions of the game on the market, the Global version which most people play and one of the focuses of this review, the South East Asian version which released around the same time, and the Japanese and Korean versions which had already been out for a while. As Wizet is a Korean company, Westerners would always get new content literally years before the other versions. Despite Koreas dislike of Japan, JMS got updates pretty quickly.
So onto the the actual game. MapleStory is compared a lot to games like Mario; you control your little super-deformed character with a huge head and tiny body, and run around the world killing mushrooms. As it’s an MMORPG, you have the traditional gameplay elements of killing monsters for experience, levelling up to get more stats, and finding new armour and weapons to make you even stronger. When Maplestory first came out, these basic mechanics where pretty much all the game had but everyone loved it. Levelling up was considerably slower than it is now, as there was no 2x experience events, 2x exp cards, Mapler rings, family reputation, or Big Bang (all major experience modifiers) so it was rare to see someone over level 60. And with good cause, as at level 60 you would need over 1,200,000 experience points to level up and Stone Golems (a popular grinding spot at the time) would give only 210 experience per kill. As such, a lot of people where in the lower level areas and there was a great social community of people playing the game. Whilst lacking a lot of features the game was loved by a lot of people, and reminisced to this day.
2006: This is the time a lot of people would consider the game to be at its “Golden Age” as content was being added more consistently (Ludibrium Tower, Aqua Road, 3rd Job, Zakum ) while still retaining its tried and tested mechanics. At this stage, the original server “Scania” was overloaded with users and more servers had to be opened. At this stage, I was a level 40 Spearman, after making a level 30 Fighter and realising I had allocated my stats wrong. I also managed to find an amazing guild full of interesting and friendly people called “Tranquility”, and was probably the best experience I ever had in a MMO! Even when levelling took 10 hours per level, chatting in guild made it all worth it. It was really almost like an elaborate chat program.
Not everything was puppy dogs and butterflies, though. Wizet was taking the backseat in favour of its publisher, Nexon, and at this time the Cash Shop was implemented. For those uneducated in F2P games, there is usually a virtual store where you can spend real money on items in the game. A lot of companies have a rule that all items sold are merely cosmetic, such as fancy clothes or pets that follow you.. And Nexon actually followed this rule!..For a little while.
2007: The game was in full swing now! While more and more content was added and the player base was expanding rapidly, noticeable flaws where being brought up within the game. The cash shop now contained items that give the player a large advantage over non-paying players, with items such as 2x experience cards, Gachapon tickets which allowed the player to get rare and powerful items, pets that pick up items and money, and teleport rocks which can instantly warp you to most locations in the game. Another issue was hacking, a lot of elaborate hacks allowed players to never die and to “suck” monsters to their location so they can stand still and attack without needing to move around, saving a lot of time. While apprehensive of these hacks at the beginning, I ended up trying a few out and eventually got banned, causing a bit of drama within the guild. At the end of this year, the game had a drought of content updates and the guild became inactive, and eventually split off into other guilds. By the end of the year I had quit Global Maplestory. This wasn’t the end of MapleStory however, as even more versions of MapleStory was being released. The European version was already released, so I eventually moved onto that.
2008: European Maplestory ended up being essentially the same as Global Maplestory, except a year behind. The strange thing was that is is run by the same branch as the Korean version, but apparently translating the content to French, Spanish and German warrants a few years delay. EMS opened up right away with the cash shop, presenting the same issues Global suffered. The saving grace was that everyone was new and low level, and starting fresh allowed for new communities and friends to rise up. This time I made an Assassin, because they were always the apparent strongest. Early on I also found a friendly guild, “Miyavizm”. At this point the game was almost identical to the late 2006/early 2007 which was cool. It was good times, but updates where incredible sparse, and the game started to stagnate. Support for the game was also low, as the Korean staff could not communicate with the European users very well.
2009: The game was still missing a lot of major updates that the other versions had. While Global was getting ready for new classes such as Aran and Knights of Cygnus, EMS had barely only implemented the 4th Job Advancement. In August, a new server was opened to combat Kradias overpopulation. I rarely played prior to this, and my Assassin (well, Hermit) was stuck at level 102 for a long time. The new server, “Demethos” sparked a new interest due to it releasing the same time as the new classes, the Knights of Cygnus. These classes were basically the original Adventurers on easy mode. They received 6 ability points instead of 5, and learned more powerful magic and abilities. The downside is that they were capped at level 120, which made it seem like a “babies first MapleStory” class. Either way, I created a new Flame Wizard and after a month had already reached the level cap. The only reason for this is that I had a credit card now, and spent real money on 2x experience cards and a pet to make the levelling faster, along with some cosmetic clothes. It was at this point where I realised just how much of an unfair advantage the cash shop provided. 90% of the population of Demethos did not buy NX, and where still floating around the level 30-40 range and here I was at level 120. With little to do now that the level cap was reached, I quit once more with a faint sense of buyers regret. Hacks had also resurfaced at this time, and a particularly potent hack known as a “no delay Spirit” was released which allowed hackers to use their Spirit skill to attack the entire map incredibly fast. These hacker players also reached 120 incredibly fast, but where mostly all banned within a few days.
2010: While some important updates where released such as Arans and the Horntail boss, the player base fell. Demethos players had experienced the new server but either quit or went back to Kradia, resulting in a ghost town of a server. This year I had also quit to play other games (World of Warcraft) and practise for University. While I didn’t experience it myself, my little brother played and told me about an extremely damaging hack where an unlimited amount of mesos (the games currency) could be produced quickly. As a result the player owned market suffered from a huge inflation, of which Nexon could barely solve. They resorted to cutting everyones total meso by 70%, or something similar. But when a hacker already owns 50,000,000,000 meso, a 70% cut still means you’re rich enough to buy out the entire market. As far as I know the game still hasn’t recovered entirely.
2011: I started playing once University finished, conveniently enough this was when the Dual Blade class was implemented. I made one and once again (using cash shop) quickly grinded to level 97. It was at this point the worst hack to hit MapleStory was made public. A number of hacks where released simultaneously, first a hack where the 4th Anniversary Presents could be opened without destroying the box, allowing the presents to be opened again and again. The items inside, including expensive Pink Scrolls, Maple Items and other equips flooded the market. Soon after, a duplication hack was released to the public. This allowed anyone with a Free Market store to duplicate any item or money they have, causing incredibly powerful items to be created and distributed throughout the game. A popular use for the hack was to duplicate Secret Spell Scrolls, which could be sold to the games vendors for 5,000,000 each. When sold in stacks of 100, this caused an obscene amount of meso to enter the game, even larger than the previous hack from 2010. With the games Free Market in shambles and no word from Nexon about a solution, the games outlook didn’t look good. Nexon then appeared a week later and banned a lot of accounts, but the damage was already done. I too, experimented with these hacks and gained an incredible supply of items and meso, and have not been banned. I cared little for the game at this point, but in foresight stored the meso and items obtained in a separate account, on the offchance of future classes being made and perhaps even motivation to make yet another new character.
July 2011: Nexon has announced that the “Big Bang” update will be released on the 21st, which includes considerably faster experience, new classes and the entire world remade. While this is a very dramatic update to the game, the same problems arise time and time again and I personally feel the game won’t be able to survive much longer. Nexon has already had to close down some of their games which is a telltale sign that they are losing out on profits. Will MapleStory be next? I feel that we will know soon enough.
DC Universe Online
First on the list of recently played games, is a little MMO called DC Universe Online. From the name, you can probably tell that it’s based on the DC comic franchise, which I personally don’t really care for as I’m more of a Marvel guy. DC tends to be pretty uncreative with their characters, at least with their names. Superman and Batman are tolerable but Supergirl, Wondergirl, Wonderwoman, Power Girl, Batwoman, and Batgirl? Gimme a break! But I’m not here to complain about lack of creativity, there’s a game to review.
Now before I begin, I played the PC version of the game. I hear the PS3 version is slightly slower and buggy, but even the PC had its fair share of problems. I couldn’t even play the darned game for a couple of days due to an error caused by my systems local language being Japanese, instead of American… Not something you can easily diagnose.
Once the game finally started working, I was immediately impressed. The opening cut-scene sort of set the scene and story of the main enemy, Brainiac, using the defeat of the Heroes as an opportunity to take over the world. The graphics and style were beautifully made and the characters really look badass, especially Future Lex Luthor and Future Batman’s armour. To summarise, once Brainiac took over the world Future Lex Luthor went back in time to warn the current Heroes of their impending doom. I zoned out from the lovely graphics at this point, but apparently the tiny nanobots turned regular Joe’s into Superheroes/Villains which is where you come into play.
The extent of the character creation is to be admired; you can do the traditional face, hair and skin change but also allows you to change the colour, hue and saturation of every single aspect. So you can have a bright blue skinned naked guy and pretend to be something from Avatar, if you so desire. Choosing initial armour is really in-depth too, giving a selection of premade styles for each part of the body of which you can mix and match to your desire.
For my play through I created a slender, fox- skinned villain with biker gang looking gear. Not the most traditional design, but hey I don’t work for DC! You can also make robot looking characters too, which was tempting. I didn’t like the idea of a huge man-robot flying around with the agility of Superman, though.
Another interesting mechanic is the ability to take on a mentor, an existing popular character from the DC universe. Heroes can choose from Batman, Superman or Wonderwoman, and Villains get The Joker, Lex Luthor and Circe. Taking on a mentor dictates how your character advances through the game, and if I remember correct also dictates how your character controls, be it flying, acrobatics or speed. You can also choose your speciality in combat from a pretty wide range of choices, some focusing on close combat and others specialising in long range spells. I chose a mentalist under the watch of Circe.
At this point you’re thrown into the actual game and get given some missions to do. These usually involve flying/running/climbing to an area, beating up some enemies or collecting/activating objectives. As you’re running around a giant, free roaming city you never know what you’ll find along the way. You might get jumped by a pack of mobs and die, or even get jumped by another player if you’re on a PVP server, so you really need to stay on your toes.
The highlight of the gameplay for me was the instanced “dungeons” of the game, mostly in the form of buildings, opposing headquarters or other random indoor location. These instances are usually the storyline-progressing parts of the game and have you run through, battling popular DC icons. When it’s against a nobody like Black Lightning or Dr Fate, you might feel a bit “meh” when defeating them, but going against Wonderwoman or Robin is pretty cool. These bosses can drop equips in the traditional MMORPG manner (Green = Uncommon, Blue = Rare, Purple = epic) which is always nice… For now.
These quests and instances will continue onto level 30, which is the maximum level. At this point the game takes a large plunge in fun; well it did for me anyway.
You see, with no levelling left the only way to make your character stronger is by getting better gear, which is where it falls into the same pitfall WoW is in: grinding dungeons and PVP for better gear forever. Sure, there are new instances and raids for when you hit level 30, but they need to be repeated every single day to get better gear, sometimes multiple times a day if you’re farming tokens to buy better armour. This really drags on and within a few days you’re probably going to be drifting to another game. This would be fine, if not for some things.
Firstly, the game requires a subscription on top of its £19.99 initial payment. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to constantly play this game for more than a month with the lack of content to warrant subscribing, which is probably why the games user base is so low. If they did a one-time purchase without the sub, similar to Guild Wars, or perhaps even a Free-to-Play game with cash shop items, then I could see the game really pick up.
So yeah. The game is definitely fun for about 30 hours, more if you want to make multiple characters, which is recommended if you want to see both Hero and Villain storylines. But an initial payment and subscription based payment? Too much for what it offers.
3/5
Personal Post 2011 Part 1 – A Reflection on the last year
Welp, it’s been a long time since the last update.
‘Tis the way with a lot of wannabe bloggers as of late, interesting things to write about are hard to find. They get into a buzz of “I’m going to tell everyone what’s on my mind and be famous!” and then a week later the site is mostly just junk data filling up the interwebs.
I’d say this website would be the same situation, but I really only wanted this website as a front for all the file storage and hosting I use, so I don’t really mind. The idea when setting up a WordPress website was that it would be a sort of portfolio site with a more personal feel.. But I’ve been so busy with real life work (University started) that the animé inspired art dried up and I had to create what was required for the semester’s modules. This is okay for a number of reasons. For one, my old drawings were/are terrible. The majority of it is just anime characters that would appeal to no-one apart from the legions of weeaboos on DeviantART and would not benefit to any future artistic progressing. And secondly, university work was actually fun! There were some really cool assignments to complete, including making a 2D platform genre game (link) an environment image and even a Resident Evil-inspired board game. And that was merely the year 0 course, so hopefully things get even better (and more challenging!)
So I want to write a little about my experiences during University, as I only updated the front page twice since, and they were done on the same day during the Christmas break as a solution to boredom:~
So September came, and I was shipped off to Uni. The accommodation was exciting at first, but to enjoy it you really need to get lucky with who you are neighbours with. The people I were with where tolerable, but we didn’t really connect. By the end of semester 2 I was glad to leave.. There just wasn’t enough privacy to take it easy. Some nights the corridors were covered in egg, or flour, like some deranged chefs had a cooking contest during the night. At least, that’s how I like to think it was. Saying hello to whoever was in the kitchen also got pretty old. By April we mostly just acknowledged each other with a simple nod or wave. Kind of depressing! I’ll be happy to move into a house with proper friends once the year 2011-2012 year starts. The location was pretty good, it’s only a short walk to Asda or Mcdonalds. Someone also set up an accommodation-wide file sharing network, which was amazing. Most movies, television shows and games where available to download which was a lifesaver on the more uneventful days. There was a seeder/leecher ration to it, so I uploaded my WoW patch files folder, movies (mostly Jurassic Park) and image folders. Someone on my course found the doujin folder, but he’s a bro so it was cool.
Making friends on the course was surprisingly easy after the somewhat troubled times of college, which I really appreciate. You can really like doing something, but if you don’t have friends to help you along the way then you’ll end up hating it. Everyone on the course was really friendly, tutors and classmates alike! As far as I know there weren’t any tense situations between others, I guess the mutual love of videogames brought us all together. The class size was only around 20 students, which dropped to around 15 by the end of the year.
I think I worked a lot harder than others. While others where partying, I was getting down with some hardcore Game Maker programming, and therefore had finished a lot of modules before others had even started. I know it was only level 0, and even a crippled chimp could have passed, but I really wanted to make some great stuff. I imagine this same attitude will continue onto year 1. It’ll be interesting to see how the people who actually got enough UCAS points first time around (240 was it?) will fare against the university deadlines. My guess is a lot of people will be people fresh out of college with the mindset of “IM GOING TO WORK FOR VIDEO GAMES!” and then drop out in the first semester due to partying too much.
In conclusion, it was a really great time, and definitely the highlight of my life for a good few years. College was a downer and the short time I was working was questionably worse. The only way I could have improved it for myself was to be social enough to stick with the societies for the full year. Sure, work got in the way for some of it but more effort could have been made. Particularly with the anime society, I feel that I could have made some really great friends if I had gone more than a couple of times at the start of the year. As year 1 is coming up, and an influx of newbies join, I hope to make a bit more effort on the subject. I really want to have an excuse to go to the MCM Expo at least once!
When semester 2 ended and I had arrived back home, I was still in the mindset of games design, and because no “real” work (read: some mind crushing, inspiration killing student job) could be found, I continued learning the ropes of 3DSMAX during April/May. I say ”learning the ropes” a year on from my previous posts when this website first opened, because the stuff we learnt during the university was more focused on architecture and buildings, rather than the organic/character modelling that I would prefer to do. So I made a few models which are a bit more improved than last years *cough* attempts:
While they aren’t exactly next gen graphics, I’m happy that my characters are at least beginning to look take shape.
Obviously as a Game Design student, I’ve been playing a bunch of games. Old games, new games, good games, bad games. At risk of sounding like my initial paragraph, I’m going to write a few reviews on the pick of the litter over the next few days, along with some future projects to be done over the end of summer/into university time.
My Top 10 Games of the Decade 2000-2010
And now for my top 10 vidya of the decade:
10 – Breath of Fire 4
I bought this game in a WHSmith for £4.99, sometime near the end of the Playstation 1′s reign, making it sometime in 2001-2002. The characters were in 2D while the surroundings where in 3D, and it went together pretty well.. Although considering Final Fantasy IX came before it, the graphics were looking dated already. But hey, if Disgaea still manages to make the style good it can’t be too bad. Anyway it was a solid RPG with interesting characters and really neat gameplay elements, such as Ryu’s ability to find and merge with dragons that appear during the game, and even mix them together to create stronger new forms (Not always stronger though, wat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv8HjLPqtfs) and also the ability to take on mentors to learn more skills and magic. The difficulty of the game is also admirable, as I only ever managed to complete it with the bad ending. This for me probably ranked as good as Final Fantasy VII, because I really like BoF games. Honourable mention to Breath of Fire 1 on the GBA which I played shortly before which was almost as good but ever so slightly basic due to it originally being a SNES game.
9 – Super Smash Bros: Melee
When the original Super Smash Bros came out, it was crazy stuff. Being able to play as a Pikachu and headbutt Bowser into oblivion? Hell yes. Anyway, while the N64 version was fun, it’s sequel Melee really perfected it. The single player mode was pretty fun, you could go through platformer style levels, break targets without dying, or hit a sandbag as far as you could which eventually unlocked more characters. Melee had a much larger roster of characters to choose from and more game modes without being too bloated (‘Sup brawl) which made this a kickass game, and that’s not even going into the multiplayer mode which is where you really can SMASH some BROS. Back in the day I would play 99 life stock matches with my little brothers and it was glorious. In my opinion this was considerably better than the Wii game.
8 – Super Mario Sunshine
Another example of a prequel being better than its sequel! The main thing I liked about Sunshine is it’s fully explorable hub “town” with NPC’s to talk to, hidden stars and levels to find, and even a Yoshi egg to hatch and ride on. This beats the Galaxy series in all respects, which only became slightly interesting once obtain the ability to fly (which was only fun for about 5 minutes). A lot of people still claim this is the worst 3D Mario game, but they must just be hipsters because it combines the huge levels of Mario 64 with some great gameplay mechanics given by the FLUDD cannon, which Mario wears on his back and lets him shoot water at enemies, or shoot it below him to work as a sort of hoverpack. While the storyline is once again nothing to shake a stick at (Princess, captured, Bowser, etc.) it’s still one of the funnest games the Gamecube has to offer.
7 – Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
Yeah, that’s right. Sonic beat Mario in the Top 10 best games. Haters gonna hate, but that’s because in my opinion Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was the last truly great Sonic game despite being 3D. There were a number of characters to play as, each with there own levels and even their own genres. Sonic and Shadow had their RUNRUNRUNFAST platforming levels, Tails and Eggman had their 3rd person mech shooting levels, Knuckles and Rouge had their treasure hunting levels. Tails and Rouge even had a racing car level. It’s just great how varied the game is, and how much there is to do. The storyline is interesting and even gets pretty serious near the end, culminating with a FUCK YES final ending. But the main game is only half of why this game is awesome, the other half being the Chao garden. This thing must have taken 100 hours out of mine and my little brothers lives with the racing, fighting and just general Chao levelling minigames. A bad thing about this was you needed items from a stage to level your Chao up, which results in replaying the first level HUNDREDS of times. Either way, it was the best virtual pet ever made and they really should put this sort of thing on the newer Sonic games so at least they would be slightly good.
6 – Pokemon Gold+Silver
Standing in for Pokemon Red because that was released in 1999 or something, Pokemon G+S was undoubtably the best gameboy colour game made (I guess Zelda: Link’s Awakening came close but still) because it was goddamn Pokemon. Catching them monsters, levelling them monsters, you know where it’s at. This was even better than the original games because well, they were sort of in G+S too because you could explore Kanto (the original games land) as well as Johto and you could catch old Pokemon, obtain old badges and fight the old Pokemon league. A huge game with hundreds of hours worth of gameplay if you wanted to catch all 251 Pokemon. Also you could fight Red which was badass as hell.
5 – Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Out of the other Zelda games released this decade (Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess) takes the cake for me. People raged because it was cel-shaded instead of being “real” 3D but it made the game that much more beautiful. The gameplay itself is classic 3D Zelda, go through dungeons and obtain some relic of sorts and a weapon that will help you proceed through the game. It’s a tried and tested thing that makes for a real fun game. The dungeons in this game also seem a lot more interesting that the others (well maybe not more interesting than TP’s sky temple). Another reason that this game is superior is the BEST Ganondorf. No longer a vicious beast trying to destroy the world, this gentleman is just trying to restore the world away from it’s water filled hell to what it once was. Also he had twin katana blades, which was just badass. I could almost say that he was the good guy, and Link, who only wanted to save his sister was thrown into this mess by the evil King of Hyrule (read: King of Hyrule Is An Asshole comic)
4 – Megaman Battle Network 3
I almost want to put this at first place, because this game and its prequels/sequels was the most fun I have had on a handheld console. An RPG with a really fun style of battle, and things to do out the wazoo, Megaman Battle Network was an amazing series but the 3rd game in particular stands out. The games all followed a “A bad guy did something bad, stop them!” but each time this happened there would be a unique puzzle to solve which kept it fresh. Anyway while the main game was badass, my favourite part is the secret area once you have beat the last boss. It contains an all new onslaught of viruses and challenges to steal away your hours, with amazing new chips to obtain. Back in highschool I played this game with a few friends and multiplayer battling during breaks (and during lessons occasionally) was really good times. This went on through Battle Network 2,3 and 4 although by 5 and 6 we had already finished highschool and couldn’t play together. If I had one gaming wish I would wish for a truly online version of Battle Network, because everyone should experience this multiplayer glory. All the games combined must have resulted in near 1000 hours of gaming, maybe more. Starforce gets an honourable mention but it wasn’t as good due to its strange battle style and worse characters.
3 – Half Life 2 or Portal
I felt valve deserved a place somewhere in this, but I don’t really like Team Hatress 2 so this will do. Half Life 2 is the best FPS game I have ever played, with great EVERYTHING. Ravenholm was probably my favourite area of any game ever because ZOMBIES and the overall scary ambience. It didn’t really fit in with the rest of the game but it was amazing nonetheless. I didn’t complete HL2 but completed Episode 1+2 so that maybe makes up for it. Either way I’m looking forward to Episode 3 when Gabe finishes his All-you-can-eat buffet. Portal was also great, I zerged through it on the my birthday (Orange Box was a present) and then replayed it like 3 times in the next few weeks. At least Portal 2 is coming out soon to tide me over.
2 – World of Warcraft
Please don’t hate me
My Paladin has reached 115 days of playtime since early 2007 and it probably won’t be stopping anytime soon!
Although the latest Cataclysm expansion has been rapidly tiring, Burning Crusade and to a lesser extend Wrath of the Lich King was really fun. Raiding is amazing and even gets in the way of real life sometimes. To defend this game, it’s the only MMORPG that actually does things right. Theres no unfinished stuff (FF14) Weeaboo saturation (Korean MMORGPS) or boringness (everything else) so it deserves some acclaim.
1 – Final Fantasy X
Ahh, the best RPG and the best overall game. Square were really on a roll in 2001 with FFX and Kingdom Hearts, it’s a shame that soon after they had to merge with Enix and release consistent mediocre-ness. I still can’t get over how amazing this game is. The characters are interesting and unique, the Sphere grid is amazing because you can customise your characters how you want, heck you could even have Auron doublecasting Ultima if you wanted. The world is designed really well despite being sort of on rails although not as bad as FF13. There is tons and tons to do and easily results in over 100 hours of gameplay if you don’t rush through it. Unlocking the Ultimate Weapons? Fighting the Dark Aeons? Unlocking the Monster Arena stuff? You’re in for a long hard time but damn it feels good. (Thats what she said) Last time I played I made the extra effort to obtain the Anima summon and hoooly shit PAIN PAIN PAIN VICTOLY.
I constantly want to replay this game and look forward to the next PSP being powerful enough to run PS2 games. Or even better, a HD re-release for PS3. Do it Square-Enix, you know you need the money.
I’m looking forward to what this next few years brings, even though it most likely won’t be near as good
My Top 10 Anime of the Decade 2000-2010
So it’s 2011, the start of a new decade. It’s time to look back on the last decade and decide the best of what’s happened! And when I say what’s happened, I mean the anime and vidya games that I’ve experienced.. Because they’re the most fun things ever, right? To begin with, the best anime broadcast in 2000-2010:
10 – Death Note
The favourite of every 14 year old that likes Linkin Park and staying up all night, Death Note ended up being really interesting and has a unique storyline. It’s been a good few years since I have watched this anime so I can’t really remember it (which is probably why it’s only 10th in the list) but at the time it was really special. Watching the latest episode every Thursday, it was amazing with its “OH GOD xxxx HAS DIED” and “THAT WAS SUM GENIUS STUFF RIGHT THERE”. Prior to watching this I hadn’t experienced such a storyline with its ups and downs so it sticks out in my mind.
9 – Excel Saga
This, along with Chrno Crusade was the first non-mainstream anime I had watched. Previously it was just Pokemon, Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon once school let out every day, and as they didn’t have streaming websites back in the day it was hard to get a decent fix. Then I went out to Borders one day and bought a few DVDs, and that started my decline into weeaboo oblivion
Anyway, Excel Saga is a pretty lighthearted comedy anime. There are “serious” situations such as bomb threats, sewer infestations and Excel being arrested and put in a concentration camp for immigrants, but these are handled with lolsorandom humour which is actually funny, if not a bit cheesy and ridiculous. The show parodies both Western and japanese things, such as the great Fist of the North Star later in the series. In fact, each episode parodies a different genre which keeps the show fresh and interesting. I ended up buying a ton of DVDs of this series which must account for something because I never buy physical copies of anything. On a related note, the english dub is atrocious and Excel sounds like nails on a chalkboard. A prime contender for the case against dubbing.
8 – Kimi ni Todoke
One of the more recent things I have watched, this managed to make it into the top 10 solely because of how great the characters are. The story mostly revolves around a creepy looking girl named Sawako, who is so creepy (I personally thought she was pretty kawaii) she ended up with the nickname Sadako, a reference to the japanese “The Ring” movies. After witnessing the outgoingness and confidence of a boy in her class, she devotes herself to being like him and overcomes a lot of hardships to make friends and become liked. Okay yes, this is a shoujo anime, but that doesn’t stop it from being an entertaining, funny and emotional thing to watch. Each character has their own likeable (or in some cases unlikeable *cough* YUME) personality so you don’t get bored of any particular character appearing. Everyone seems like they have their own story, and I imagine this is reinforced further with the manga, which I haven’t read entirely. I read a few chapters which supposedly takes place after the anime and it was all kinds of crazy. Like a number of shows in this top 10, I can associate with the character Sawako, going from an unknown person to someone that is liked by a bunch of people. My only comment against it is that the episodes drag on near the end. There’s no major threat, no one dying or getting revenge. just a girl trying to be popular. And as it’s a 25 episode series…yeah.
UPDATE: Since posting, Kimi ni Todoke 2nd broadcast back in January/February. While retaining most of the original charm of the first series, It seemed like the creators wanted to wrap the story line of Sawako and Kazehaya’s relationship up too quickly, and thus the series was only 12 or 13 episodes, half the size of the original series.. While frustrating sometimes due to the misunderstanding of the characters, it is mostly a feel-good ending. A great series if you’re into this sort of thing.
7 – Welcome to the NHK
Oh boy, this. This show hits home if you’re in the same situation as the main character, Satou. Satou is a hikikomori which means he stays in his room all day, never leaving due to fearing the outside world or something. Mostly a psychological show, it follows Satou through all his troubles and challenges of constantly staying inside and dealing with the ‘conspiracies’ held against him. It’s kind of a depressing insight to japanese life, and seems realistic enough that it seems like a re-telling of the creators personal expedriences. There’s a part midway through the show where Satou becomes addicted to an MMORPG loosely based on Final Fantasy XI, but it really shows the issues of online game addiction. As a ex-WoW player it makes you feel bad, man. This show wasn’t even really funny or amazing, but it was interesting. I think it was also the motivation to make me start University instead of sitting on my butt all day, so it gets in the top 10. I don’t even remember what happened at the end, but I read the light novel more recently and I think everyone dies or something. Or maybe that was the author. Either way this anime was good for all the wrong reasons.
6 – Angel Beats!
I was initially weary of this show. First it was because the main female character looks exactly like Haruhi and would be a CHINA QUALITY ripoff, but the show ended up being way different. It’s exciting, it’s touching, it’s funny. The music is great, and the storyline is amazing. It’s about a bunch of highschool students, except they’re dead. Well they died when they were alive (people die when they are killed) and this school is some kind of purgatory between Earth and Heaven. The school is also filled with students who are tagged as “NPC’s” who are just artificial intelligence entities who don’t really interact with the main characters. Why they are there isn’t revealed at first, they’re just there to “survive” against another person in the school, who is a self-proclaimed Angel. This Angel has all sorts of crazy technology and weapons, and when she kills a student, they apparently disappear into an even deeper purgatory, or perhaps go to Heaven or Hell. Anyway as the story progresses they realise how they died in their previous life, and realise how to get to Heaven. Some embrace it and go with the plan, but others remain. This culminates in a touching union of characters as they realise they have to move on from their highschool purgatory life. This should probably be higher up in the list, but the next ones are ever so slightly better.
5 – Nana
Another shoujo anime. But spare your closed-minded insults, because this has another great storyline. It follows the intertwining lives of 2 girls called Nana, as they first meet, live together and endure happiness and hardships as they try to make it in Tokyo. Quite a long series at just over 50 episodes, but enough happens to stop it from becoming boring. There’s a lot of relationship business which could put people off, but as a slice of life drama it’s a great series. As one of the Nana’s is a singer, there is a heavy musical influence throughout the show and also has FABULOUS Jrock music which is sung by Anna Tsuchiya and Olivia Lufkin. I think Aya Hirano also voices the doombitch who ruins Hachiko’s relationship. Strangely enough, Aya Hirano also voices Yume in Kimi ni Todoke who attempts the same.
To think of a bad thing about this anime, the ending was dissapointing and concerning, although perhaps a bad ending gave it more personality because we can’t all live happily ever after. I would have really liked it if there had been a second season to show what happened to the characters..
4 – The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Ahh yes, the world famous Haruhi. There is likely not a single anime fan in the world that hasn’t experienced some form of Haruhiism, be it watching the show, listening to Bouken desho or fapping over Mikuru. This show broadcast some time in 2005 or 2006, and had a strange way of releasing each episode. There was a “broadcast” timeline, which was the order in which the episodes where shown on TV, and also the “chronological” timeline, which was the order the episodes should be watched in. I think this was dumb as hell, because it messes up anyone who watched it on TV. Anyway, the show was extremely entertaining, It gives a fresh look on the whole “highschool slice of life” anime by adding ghosts and gods and stuff. It’s almost a mystery genre anime, and even had an episode exclusively about that, but not quite. The art was great, the fight betweek Nagato and Asakura was great, the ending was okay, the concert was good too. Actually, Angel Beats! was better than this. I’m not going to talk about the second season because… Ugh. I don’t even..
3 – Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
I could probably best describe this as a clusterfuck of the crudeness of Southpark, superheroine action and outrageous monsters of Powerpuff Girls and the LOLSORANDOM of Invader Zim, this show is just..Amazing. Revolving around 2 “Angels” who are really just whores who can turn their undergarments into weapons to kill demons, it manages to be awesome and hilarious at equal amounts. While I worried that Gainax was going to go soft again after Hanamaru Kindergarten, they outdid themselves once again. Each half an hour episode is split into 2 smaller episodes, and didn’t really follow a strict storyline until the last few episodes, where the antagonists Scanty & Kneesocks arrived. I was extremely entertained by this show but the last couple of episodes where exceptional, especially the TTGL quality drill cannon action and mindfuck cliffhanger. As per usual with great anime, P&S also has great music. I must have listened to Scanty&Kneesocks theme 100 times at least..
2 – Hajime no Ippo
Hajime no Ippo was a masterpiece. It was a motivating, awesome storyline about a guy following his dream and smashing the faces of anyone that got in his way. Ippo started as a cowardly, quiet guy who got victimised by some Banchou delinquents who didn’t really end up that tough. After being saved by the awesome Takamura, who would smash even more faces if they dare get in his way (Also he fought, killed and ate a bear) Ippo started training to be a good boxer, and becomes better than anyone expected and eventually becomes the Japanese champion. There are so many awesome characters, in fact they’re all awesome in their own way, even Gero-michi. This show shown the importance of the fighting spirit and respect for people, and I wish I could follow Ippo’s footsteps. Also I must mention the awesome opening music of Inner Light (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap0zJeeqB6k) which makes you want to punch an incoming train or some crazy shit.
1 – Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
And here we are. The best anime of the decade in my opinion. I try not to use the word “epic” to describe something, but this really was an EPIC series. If it appealed to me, a moe loving, shojo watching gentleman then it could appeal to anyone! Anyway this show smashed through my ideals of how good anime should be just like Simons drill smashed through the Heavens. I actually thought this show started off a little slow at first, and stopped watching after 2 episodes, leaving it for a few months. Then I manned up and watched the rest in succession and was blown away. The robot battles where incredible, especially near the end when they were literally HUGE. Kamina could probably be the best character of 2010 also. If anyone is reading this who has yet to watch it, do it. DO IT NOW
And so that’s it! I wonder how much moé will fill the 2010-2020 list?
