This Week In Retro: 2021 (Patreon)

2021: An Unexpected Journey

by Diamond Feit

We made it, folks. This time last year, a lot of us felt like we were at our collective wits' end, exhausted and overwhelmed by the collision of a global pandemic, economic chaos, and a tyrant threatening to occupy the White House. Looking back at my 2020 wrapup, it reads to me as a desperate attempt to cherry-pick a highlight reel from a year that drained me emotionally and pushed me to the brink of a breakdown.

Today, I'm in a very different place. It's not that 2021 has been a utopian fantasy free of turmoil; that pesky pandemic is still with us, many millions are still struggling to make ends meet, and even after a major presidential election the United States seems no closer to solving its many systemic crises. My own year has certainly seen its share of ups and downs, successes and failures. Yet when I sit down and remember the last 12 months, most of my memories are positive ones.

Despite everything, this was a good year for me. When the very first month hit me with bad news, I managed to handle it without slipping into despair. When fortune smiled on me, I took advantage of those opportunities without talking myself out of it. I went out of my way to try new things, to live and appreciate my life as it happened. I even managed to take a much-deserved vacation and remind myself of what's really important in this world.

For this, my last column of 2021, I'm going to run through the events of the year as I experienced them, all while reflecting on the games I played. Hopefully a pattern will emerge and I'll find a coy way to connect my favorite game of 2021 to what I've learned this year. If not, well, at least you'll learn how I spent my free time.

January 2021 started with great promise. With no means to travel in the previous year, I made use of my excess vacation time and took an extended break from my work at Osaka English Village over New Year's. This three-week respite synced up perfectly with my freshly-renewed contract, a welcome relief after 2020 had been so full of uncertainty. The pandemic had forced our suburban edutainment facility to shut down for months, and rumors ran rampant around the office that our days were numbered (all the more reason for me to use that vacation time). However, with a new contract in hand, I took it as a sign that we were on our way to recovery, especially as the February and March months were always our busiest of the year.

Work could wait, though. During my time at home, I took advantage of the vacant living room to boot up my PlayStation 4 and explore my back catalog of software. My first mission was to play through all six original Mega Man games in preparation for our Retronauts Mega Man Ranking Hootenanny episode. While I was at it, I also logged in to my long-dormant Twitch account and streamed my struggles for everyone to see ("everyone" being an average of 2 viewers, max).

The resulting experience taught me two things: Mega Man games are both harder and more fun than I remember, and sharing a video game with the internet is itself entertaining to me. I only managed to clear the first two games, but enjoying my time showed me I needed to separate "completion" from "amusement" in my mindset. It's why I went to bat for Mega Man 4 in my recent column: Out of the six original games, it surprised me the most, and I appreciate that.

Rolling high on this mega-momentum, I recorded an episode of the Games are Queer podcast, and you can hear my enthusiasm and optimism throughout our conversation. I had just come forward with my new pronouns and that helped fuel my good mood. I sound content and eager for the new year to bring change after the terrible experience of 2020. While I'm not a believer in "resolutions," I shared my goals for the coming months: With hopes of exploring my creative side, and a year of these columns under my belt, I wanted to write and podcast more often.

Somewhere in the world a monkey's paw must have heard my voice and curled a dried finger into its cold palm, because within two weeks of that recording, our company announced Osaka English Village would permanently close in March and all employees would be laid off. My wish was granted.

Facing unemployment again while also fretting about a COVID-19 resurgence is a dreadful combination of worries. I had a hard enough time being out of work in 2016 sans-pandemic; taking the OEV job had been my escape from that torment. I was scared that another bout of job hunting in Japan would shatter the self-confidence I had built up with the help of my therapist. I'm not comfortable with resume-writing and interviews in my native language, so the thought of enduring that hardship in Japanese deeply frightened me.

Fortunately, I didn't let that fear shut me down, and before January wrapped up I had two promising leads for a new job. The first was a private English school in the same general vicinity as my outgoing job, a much smaller facility but that in turn meant the position carried more responsibilities. I would become both a teacher and a manager, creating lessons as well as maintaining an office. This also meant a much-needed raise, welcome news after nearly a year of the pandemic siphoning my wages.

The other lead was right next door to OEV in the very same mall at REDEE, a technology-heavy business that had unfortunately held its grand opening on March 1, 2020—days before Japan closed all schools and the mall shut down for months. I had never set foot inside their building but they contacted us looking for an English teacher who was familiar with video games, and thankfully my office manager recommended me.

I interviewed with them in Japanese and they revealed their plans to start an "eSports English" program. I would be tasked with creating a curriculum where kids could enjoy playing games while also engaging with a foreigner in another language, an uncommon occurrence for most Japanese children. The concept was as new to them as it was to me, but after four years of teaching at OEV, it seemed tailor-made for a person of my interests and experience. However, since it was a brand-new, untested venture, it would strictly be a part-time job

Weighing these two alternatives, I had to consider my strong desire to explore more creative endeavors in 2021. I needed work, I needed health insurance, and I needed a paycheck, but after four years of full-time employment, I wondered if the best thing for me was to dive right back into teaching 40 hours a week again. My reduced schedule in 2020 had hurt my wallet, but spending more time at home freed me to devote more energy to other pursuits (such as this column).

A recurring theme in my ongoing therapy sessions is "goals vs values." Instead of setting benchmarks for myself and turning my life into a checklist, a far healthier approach is to identify what values are important to me and to abide by them as best I can. As bad as 2020 had been, it taught me important lessons about how I wanted to live, and I couldn't ignore those lessons just because I find uncertainty frightening.

With all that in mind, I turned down the stable-yet-dull teaching position in favor of the untested-yet-more-interesting eSports English role. Not only would the reduced hours allow me to keep stoking my creative flames, this was an offer to play video games on the clock and I couldn't resist taking a chance on such an appealing opportunity.

Off the clock, however, I found myself drawn further towards my massive backlog. If taking on Dr. Wily and Twitch at the same time had proven to be worth the effort, what else could I try? The answer stared at me from my dusty shelf of last-generation discs: Mass Effect. I picked up a copy for the Xbox 360 over a decade ago and gave it a good 10 hours before life interrupted me and I never went back. Since 2021 would see a remastered edition of the trilogy, there was no better time to throw that data into my Xbox One X and find out what Commander Shepard was made of.

Mass Effect proved to be a terrific science-fiction RPG, a great open-ended experience from start to finish. After clearing the initial obligatory expository missions, my Shepard was free to explore the stars as she saw fit. It's not quite an "open world" scenario, as the necessities of game design means the universe is anything but infinite, but there are enough systems and planetoids that I genuinely felt like I was an explorer, not just a soldier.

I also appreciated how often the game let me talk to people and make decisions that impacted the universe, so to speak. There were little things, like convincing Citadel security to take it easy on a preachy alien, but there were also entire encounters that could have gone south if I hadn't chosen the right words. I haven't played enough Mass Effect 2 to know how many of my choices will return to thrill or haunt Shepard in her future, but the hooks are there, and I don't think it'll take me another decade to get around to completing the series.

Another sci-fi classic that I finally embarked upon this year was Phantasy Star. I had long been curious about Sega's RPG franchise that blended fantasy tropes with spaceships and rayguns, but I never owned the right console at the right time to take the journey myself. When the subject of the original Phantasy Star came up on both Retronauts and Axe of the Blood God, I knew my moment had arrived.

However, I did not stop after avenging my brother's death and bringing peace to the Aldol system. Ever since I wrote this tweet last winter (and later read Kimimi's essay on the topic), I've wondered about Phantasy Star Online. I don't have much experience with MMOs (don't you dare recommend you-know-what to me) but if any setting was going to grab me, I figured it would be outer space. 2021 also happened to see a major update to the series with Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis, and I discovered both the original and modern versions are free to play. I was all out of excuses!

Officially, Sega pulled the plug on Phantasy Star Online years ago, but fans maintain servers for the Blue Burst version of the game to this day. The over-the-shoulder action-camera took me by surprise; I thought Phantasy Star was strictly turn-based, whether online or off. PSO looks like an interstellar spin-off of Ocarina of Time, minus the fluid action. Instead, the characters move stiffly, though there's a rhythm to the combat that rewards well-timed button presses with combo attacks.

I didn't get too far in Phantasy Star Online thanks to the game's lumbering pace, and I'm pretty sure I never encountered any other players, as all my battles were against robotic AI beasts. However, it's a bold, colorful game that few modern creations pull off anymore, a beautiful embodiment of the turn-of-the-millenium Dreamcast aesthetic.

New Genesis is the exact opposite of the fan-supported Blue Burst game, as it's actively maintained for modern platforms, which means it delivers high-res HD graphics and characters can move at fantastic speed around the map. Consequently, I found myself losing interest in the game quickly because it looks and sounds like a million other action RPGs out there. I think I'll give both games a second chance in 2022, but I know which one I'm more eager to revisit, and it's not the one with wall-running.

2021 marked the 25th anniversary of a very important game to me, as the original Resident Evil came out for the PlayStation in March of 1996. Capcom's pioneering "survival horror" adventure shocked and terrified me when I brought it home from the store, and it's a game that has occupied my mind ever since. Yet as much as I think about how much I loved the original game, I've actually played very few of its sequels.

Besides writing a column about the first game, I also decided to try streaming the HD remake of Resident Evil on the anniversary of its release. While I struggled to overcome the monsters and keep my cool, I had a blast even as I fumbled my way around the mansion. Something about that day flipped a switch inside my brain, for Resident Evil suddenly became the only subject I could think about for hours at a time, and the only way I could work through these obsessive thoughts was to pledge to play more of the series.

It began with a complete playthrough of REmake with Jill, followed by a no-save single-sitting speedrun, my first-ever attempt at such a feat. That earned Jill a break, so I next played through the game as Chris on Hard mode, then steered him on a complete knife-only run. All of this was on my Xbox One, but since I also own a copy of REmake for PlayStation 4, I started running that version with the hopes of getting a platinum trophy. I haven't gotten there yet, but I have step-by-step speedrun routes saved on my tablet, should I decide to return to the world of survival horror for another rush.

However, my compulsion did not stop there. As a means to test my emulation capabilities, I went back to the 90s and beat the Arrange Mode of Resident Evil: Director's Cut as Jill for the first time. This proved to be a lot harder than REmake, but I did not give up until the Tyrant was a smoking husk on the helipad (yes, I got the best ending). The fact that I overcame the extreme challenge of the Director's Cut (with minimal save-stating) made me realize two things. First, the old "tank controls" are a lot easier to get used to than I expected. Second, if I can beat a PlayStation 1 game on hard mode, then I can do just about anything.

High on survival horror thrills, I knew I had to keep going, so I broke out my 3DS to revisit Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D in time for its 10th anniversary. I even dug out my Frankenstick (and replaced the long-dead battery inside) so I could turn back the clock to 2012 and play Resident Evil: Revelations without compromise. When I took a much-needed vacation to the US this summer, I made sure to bring my Vita so I could clear Resident Evil 2 for the first time in my life. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I must have played Resident Evil in some form or another for at least one-quarter of 2021.

It wasn't all zombies and giant spiders in the Feit household this year though. 2021 would be the first year in almost two decades with a brand-new Metroid game for the world to enjoy, so I figured it was high time I give its much-maligned predecessor, Metroid Fusion, an honest try. Popular wisdom states that unlike the first three games, Fusion is rigidly linear, as poor Samus can only visit each new sector of the space station when she gets permission from the computer. Fusion also gets a lot of guff for having far too much dialogue for its own good, with Samus talking to the AI (and herself) throughout the game, a stark contrast to her usual taciturnity.

The good news is that popular wisdom is way off the mark: Metroid Fusion is much closer in tone to classic Metroid games than it gets credit for. Even with the strictly segmented levels, I had plenty of ground to explore in every sector of the space station, and I still got lost a few times despite all the hand-holding. Samus also uncovers hidden passages between the zones of the station, proving that the map is more labyrinthine than it initially appears. The verbosity of the game certainly wore on me, but Metroid Fusion does tell a specific story, one that has twists I did not anticipate (finding you-know-who sitting in the station's freezer made my jaw drop).

What I didn't expect from Metroid Fusion was its high level of difficulty, particularly where hit boxes are concerned. In boss battles, I struggled to hit their weak points, especially as I tried to keep Samus on the move lest she make contact with their massive frames and take damage. It was these moments that made the game's linear approach abrasive, as I seldom had any choice about where to go next. My favorite Metroidvanias allow players to explore and build up powers at their leisure, ensuring that no boss fight ever overwhelms them. Metroid Fusion doesn't afford enough freedom for that; until the late game, Samus simply cannot stray from the critical path, so the resources available to her seldom include any optional extras. Still, I made it through to the end, so it was never too hard, just harder than I anticipated.

Speaking of Metroidvanias and surprises, I had no idea summer 2021 would bestow unto me Axiom Verge 2. The first one stood out as my second-favorite game of 2015; I knew how long it took Thomas Happ to create it all by himself, so when the sequel was announced two years ago, I never thought I'd see it before 2024. I also did not figure on the sequel straying so far from the format of the original, a very Metroid-like game in a genre defined by Metroid comparisons.

Axiom Verge 2 has the interconnected world and exploration down pat, but the combat feels unlike any Metroid game I can think of. The hero never finds a gun and must rely on melee attacks or a boomerang. Boss battles are optional, as there are bruisers to fight on the world map but they can easily be avoided and do not guard any crucial items. It's also a brighter, more colorful game than Axiom Verge 1, with plenty of outdoor environments that look nothing like the gloomy caves or goopy chambers seen in the first installment.

Metroid Fusion, Axiom Verge 2, and eventually Metroid Dread all challenged me this year, both as video games and as sequels to games I already loved. Fusion proved to be better than its reputation suggested, as it stuck closer to the Metroid formula than I had always been led to believe. Axiom Verge 2 did just the opposite by cutting back on Metroidness but doubling-down on customization and lore. Metroid Dread wowed me at first with its slickness and strict adherence to the series' past, but wore me down as the level of difficulty (and mandatory stealth sections against invincible enemies) forced me to ask if dying over and over was really how I wanted to spend my evenings. I don't want to admit I've given up on Dread, but I think it's telling that of these three games, it's the only one I didn't finish.

I have no interest in engaging in "difficulty discourse," but if the subject of dying in games is on the table, then I have to talk about Dark Souls. It's a game that became so popular, it launched its own genre which embodies the idea that quality and challenge go hand in hand. For years I was too intimidated to try Dark Souls, put off by the constant braying of internet warriors telling me that judging a game to be "too hard" is a sign of personal failure. Yet I remained curious, and the game has been ported so many times I thought I might as well pick up a copy for Switch. With its 10th anniversary upon us, I finally booted it up and…wow, I love it.

I cannot deny that Dark Souls is a difficult game. I also must admit there were moments when I just wanted to save my progress instead of fighting my way through the same clump of monsters for the ninth time. However, at no point did I feel like my efforts were futile, a feeling I have gotten from many other games not famous for being hard. Dark Souls puts all its cards on the table, always allowing me to look around and think twice before I open a door or turn a corner.

When I die, I'm not happy about it, but nearly every time I learn a lesson. Early in the game, there's a split path where players can either go up a hill or down the hill. I first went downhill and found skeletons waiting for me in a graveyard. They proved to be sturdier than they looked, and I couldn't get very far before they trounced me.

After at least a dozen disappointments, I managed to pick up a few items so I tried going up the hill instead of down and discovered it led to an entire town full of weaker foes. Clearly, this gentler location is designed to be the next destination for players, but Dark Souls never put up an invisible wall or a warning sign to keep me from trying the other route. Instead, I was free to explore and, as it turned out, get my ass kicked.

I never finished Dark Souls. I may never finish Dark Souls. What I have already begun to do is try other "Souls-like" games without convincing myself ahead of time that I won't enjoy them. I am under no obligation to play games just because they are popular or deemed to be important, but it's crucial that I overcome my prejudices and anxieties that have long stood between me and the unfamiliar. For me, that's a far greater challenge than any hulking brute carrying a hammer the size of a speedboat.

To pull all these threads together, let's go back to that new job I mentioned. When I interviewed for the position, an idea we floated for "eSports English" lessons revolved around Street Fighter, a game I know very well and feel comfortable introducing to new players in another language. However, once I actually got the job, I found out my first mission was to create a curriculum based on a game already popular with kids around the world: Epic's behemoth online phenomenon, Fortnite Battle Royale.

I had never played Fortnite before. More than that, I had long felt that Fortnite, PUBG, Call of Duty, and every online competitive multiplayer game was anathema to me. I like to play games by myself, at my own pace, so I can enjoy it how I want. Combating anonymous passerby on the internet sounds like a recipe for disaster, as there's no way someone at my skill level can hope to compete with the masses; I don't even play fighting games online and I'm no stranger to that genre.

However, work is work. I did not hide my lack of Fortnite experience from my employer, and they understood that when I wasn't creating or teaching a lesson, I would need to spend time on the clock to figure out the ins and outs of the game. For months, I only played Fortnite while in the office, viewing it solely as an obligation rather than a pastime. After all, I'm a Retronaut. What business do I have logging on and facing off against twitchy pre-teens in a battle to the (digital) death?

If you don't follow me on Twitter, what comes next may surprise you, but the more time I spent in the madcap world of Fortnite, the more I came to appreciate how confident it is. The game has been operating for years and, thanks to countless corporate tie-ins, has millions of players who can dress up as almost any character they like. If you think Smash Bros features off-the-wall match-ups, just wait until you see Boba Fett, Kratos, Ariana Grande, and Wonder Woman all dancing together.

More significantly, Fortnite manages to deliver the thrills of a battle royale game with a cartoon sheen that makes the violence feel more slapstick than realistic. I've hit opponents with exploding pumpkins and laughing snowballs, I've whalloped them with baseball bats and slices of cake on a stick, and I've even hooked them with a fishing pole. It's all bloodless; defeated players (and animals) disappear in a flash of light as if they're being beamed away, a meta-textual reminder that this is all a video game and none of it has any consequences.

That last point is an important one, because the best thing about Fortnite is how low the stakes are. Don't get me wrong, I find the game can be incredibly tense, especially in solo mode, but I'm able to enjoy it even when fate deals me a rough hand. I've had matches where everyone in my party was wiped out by a single dinosaur. I've also had victories where I eliminated entire squads by myself. Winning feels better than losing, but since another match is never more than a few seconds away, I seldom feel like I've "lost" anything at all.

Some of what you've heard about Fortnite is indisputably true. There are a lot of children playing it, and it's never pleasant to hear a 9-year-old holler at you with his microphone when he gets himself shot by wandering off from the group. There's a conversation to be had about cultural appropriation in Fortnite, and I'm concerned about my kids' eagerness (and mine, frankly) to spend real-world money on in-game perks.

Yet if I must review my year in video gaming, there is no larger presence in my life than Fortnite right now. I play it daily, not just at work, and I can see the difference it has made. Experience points in Fortnite don't grant you extra abilities or power-ups as their benefits are strictly cosmetic, so the only way to improve your skills is through practice, practice, practice. When I started in the spring, I felt lucky to have a student drag me across the finish line like the dead weight I was. By the fall, I was winning solo matches and schooling kids on the latest updates.

It sounds silly to describe a constantly-updating product that's been running since 2017 as my "game of the year," but I see Fortnite as a microcosm of how far I've come in 2021. At first I was optimistic, then I was overwhelmed by change, but I never gave up or let pity take over. Instead, I moved on. I tried new things. I challenged old, outdated perceptions I had held onto for far too long. I seldom finish in first place, but I can find the positives even in those times where I come up short.

So 2021 is finished and I feel fortunate to have made it this far. I could rattle off the plans that fell through this year, list all the ideas I had which never turned into anything, or recount to you how I let myself down in a lot of ways that I'll never forget. Doing that won't help you, though, and it certainly doesn't help me.

Instead, I'm happy. I feel good. I feel lucky. I'm excited for the new year. I'm eager to host more podcasts, stream more games, and keep clutching to those aforementioned "values" as I live my life the only way I know how. I hope all of you out there find what it is that you need to feel this good about yourselves, and I hope we all have better years ahead of us.

Here's to 2022.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch. Yes, you can play Fortnite with me.