Reflections on the Evolution of Gaming (part 3)

Reflections on the Evolution of Gaming (part 1)

Reflections on the Evolution of Gaming (part 2)

While having a conversation with my son, I found another thing that he didn’t really understand and required explanation due to his being born while the Wii was still in fashion. And that is the concept of the hint guide / player’s guide / gaming magazine. For almost all of the games he’s played, they have either had a tutorial and enough built-in dialogue or hints that there is never a danger of “getting stuck” in a game, or he’s playing something that I know well and can direct him, or it’s something that can be easily looked up online with ease.


What he’s never experienced is getting stuck and having no recourse. With walkthrough websites like GameFAQS, message boards like GBAtemp, and thousands of “Let’s Play” videos on YouTube, it’s really easy to accidentally find the answers to puzzles in any game.

It’s probably a safe bet that games which feature puzzle elements are made by other people who enjoy such puzzles, and the same could be said for adventure games. Part of the challenge in creating such a game is to make the puzzles challenging but still solvable. There’s always a risk that the solution is too obscure, giving the game a bad reputation for being overly difficult. But it’s also possible to make the solutions too obvious, making the game too easy. It’s quite a conundrum when trying to make a game that is accessible to all ages when certain parts of the game might “age-lock” someone out because they’re either too old or young to understand the hints required to solve the puzzle (incidentally, I found out that the Leisure Suit Larry game I got age locks kids out on purpose by requiring them to pass a test that revolves around 80’s cultural references and history, ensuring that younger kids won’t be able to play).

After some of the first puzzle games got a reputation for being impossible, several solutions came about. The first is the gaming magazine, like Nintendo Power. Many (cynically) saw its existence as another way of making additional money by making an impossible game and then charging extra money to get the required info to finish it. The same could be said about Player’s Guides or Hint Guides. Player’s Guides became a thing during the NES-era, and probably peaked around the N64-era. They could be purchased at gaming and retail stores, as well as other places where games could be purchased. Hint books came in several forms, but one such form was a book that had specific questions (such as, “How do I open the red door?”) with hidden answers that were obscured so players didn’t accidentally spoil the answer to something important while looking up a different hint. Some needed a red piece of transparent plastic to see the answer, while others needed a special kind of highlighter (Space Quest’s hint book is one such example). TV Tropes refers to this predicament as "Guide Dang It!"

But I tend to take a more forgiving approach to magazines/guides, and see them not as a soulless cashgrab, but as a measure to meet younger and/or less puzzle oriented people halfway. This allows the developers to put in difficult puzzles, but let players who are unable/unwilling to solve them solo have an avenue to get the answer.

Before these kinds of guides became so popular, sometimes games would include some supplementary material as assistance. The Legend of Zelda famously came with an almost complete map of the overworld as well as the first two dungeons, with additional hints and suggestions on how to make your own map. Maniac Mansion came with a hint sheet that resembled an old-school college campus bulletin board with cleverly disguised clues. A Link to the Past also came with a small “Top Secret” hint guide that was sealed with a Triforce sticker as well as a map with the overworld and first three dungeons. One interview I read stated that the developers were worried that the game was too hard, which is why they included the Top Secret manual. To be fair, some of the solutions like, “lighting all the torches,” weren’t as common then, whereas games these days just include them and everyone just sort of knows to try it. Razbuten has a great video about what gaming is like for non-gamers, which mentions that there are some strategies or knowledge that developers just expect players to know, but Miyamoto wanted to make sure there was an avenue for new players who hadn’t caught on yet.

Another avenue was to write letters or phone the company directly. While playing King’s Quest II: Romancing the Throne, my dad got stuck. I loved watching him play these games and helping him when I could, but when we were stumped, my dad wrote to Sierra Online (snail mail) and got a few answers. Nintendo set up a hotline that players could call to talk with “Game Counselors” to get help. Thankfully it wasn’t a 1-900 number, but just a regular phone number (which was still long distance to everyone outside of the Redmond, WA area). These are who Hailey is talking to on the phone near the end of the movie, The Wizard, while Jimmy is practicing in the arcade. 


The final source of help were peers at school. Before the internet, the only real way of getting help or trying to spread information is to physically talk to people face-to-face. Telling each other about secrets we found dominated the conversations at the lunch table during grade school and even into middle school. It's not as efficient or effective as internet message boards, but it's the best we had back then. I sometimes see posts on gaming forums stating that someone is trying to play an NES game without a walkthrough and finding it impossible. They can't fathom how kids used to do it back then, but aren't aware of how much we crowdsourced tips and secrets like that. 

Once the internet became more established, and games themselves started including more in-game tutorials and ways of obtaining help, the guides were needed less and less, and eventually became more of a collector’s item than a necessity. 

MCU Post Mortem (Part 2)

MCU Post Mortem (Part 1)


The previous post had the big 4 things I would do to make the MCU franchise better and more cohesive by focusing on big problems. This post is more of a reflection on the MCU in general, and a list of small things I would do to improve it. 


First, reflections.

I honestly didn’t think the MCU thing would work out at first. When Iron Man was first announced, I kinda thought that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel. See, to understand that, you have to know a little history about Marvel Comics and their movie deals.

In the 90’s when I was reading/collecting comics, basically for every comic starring Iron Man, Thor, Cap, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, or cosmic stuff that was sold, 15 copies of something Spider-Man related were sold, and probably 20 copies of something X-Men related were sold. In fact, at one point they decided to kill off almost every major character that wasn’t X- or Spider-related and reboot them in a pocket universe with famous and well liked artists to try and garner favor with the masses. It sorta worked, but they still weren’t selling really well.


When the movie deals were cut, Marvel was just trying to get cash to stay afloat because they had overspent and overextended on building the company based off of a misunderstanding of sales figures. They sold the rights to various well known characters to different studios - X-Men and the Fantastic Four to 20th Century Fox, Spider-Man and Ghost Rider to Sony/Columbia, Hulk to Universal, etc. And once the first X-Men and Spider-Man movies got the ball rolling, we got a slew of Marvel movies that were mediocre by today’s standards, but pretty good when compared to the horrible Captain America or Fantastic Four movies made in the 90’s. While I was glad to see some of these get made, I was sad that because of all of the properties being divided up to different studios, they could never cross over.

So when I saw rumors of Iron Man, I wasn’t particularly impressed or pumped. But the first trailer made me kinda excited. And when the movie was over, I was thoroughly impressed and couldn’t wait for more. Once Tony walked into the end of the Incredible Hulk, I got psyched up for a possible crossover, but withheld my excitement because I was pretty sure they’d screw it up somehow. After all, the memory was still fresh of how badly they had dropped the ball on X3, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Spider-Man 3, Elektra, etc. As the MCU got ramped up for Avengers, I kept waiting for the studio to screw it up, but beyond stumbling on Iron Man 3 (and later releasing Captain Marvel), they never really did. I never thought I would have been excited for Ant-Man, or Guardians of the Galaxy, but damn if those weren’t fun movies.

That’s not to say everything was perfect. There are a few little minor bumps that I would love to see them do just to make the continuity tighter, especially when actors are replaced. So here is a list of small (inconsequential) changes in addition to the big four changes from the last post that would just put the sugar on top of the cherry on top of the MCU sundae.

• Deepfake Don Cheadle onto Terrence Howard in Iron Man, as well as John Slattery onto the image of Howard Stark during the “history of Tony” part. (for continuity’s sake)
  
  
• Deepfake Mark Ruffalo onto Edward Norton in The Incredible Hulk, and redo Hulk’s CGI to match the rest of the MCU.
  
  
• Fix Thor’s hair, beard, and eyebrows in both Thor and Avengers to match what they looked like starting with Thor: The Dark World.
  
  
• Take off Cap’s neck guard and give him back his chin-strap helmet in Avengers.
  
  
• Have Tony give someone a tour of all of the suits he’s built, explaining that some go on/off easily, some are waterproof, some have more defense or firepower or speed, etc.
  
  
• The sub-plot of Thor bathing in "the water of sight" needs to be re-worked a bit. 
  
  
• Take out some of the one-liners from Guardians Vol. 2 - like two from Drax and another from someone else. Some of them felt forced.
  
  
• The scene in Civil War where Ant-Man instructs Cap to throw the truck at his enlarging disc should have been done by Hawkeye - trying to hit a small object with another small object seems more like a Hawkeye thing to me. 
  
  
• I know it requires extensive planning and is a huge headache, but I really liked the first two seasons of Agents of SHIELD for their connectedness to the movies. The reason it stopped was because of one producer in particular (Ike Perlmutter) and it kinda ruined the effect. So the change would be to somehow incorporate Coulson’s team as well as the Netflix heroes (Daredevil et al.) into the movies somehow and vice versa. One example could be just having Iron Man fly over Mike Peterson's sister's house for Ace's sake (this would only require a small CGI Iron Man, not Robert Downey Jr) in Agents of SHIELD. It would then make Secretary Pierce's comments to Cap about Tony better in Winter Soldier. 
  
  
• Vibraninum needs to be downgraded from “magical bullshit material” (thanks Critical Drinker for that term) that can miraculously heal spinal cord injuries and all the other stuff it can do. Shuri needs to be taken down a couple of notches as well in terms of the fact that she's apparently smarter than Tony and Bruce combined. Her wrist blaster things were good, though.
  
  
• Someone needs to give Wanda a power boost in Infinity War to enable her to destroy the Mind Stone.
  
  
• Make Thor work out a couple of weeks while they’re building the time machine, and a little more after finding out he’s worthy. Also, Critical Drinker’s suggestions would be good too.
  
  
• Just before the "portals" scene, Thanos should have told Cap to give up, and he would grunt out a, "I can do this all day."
  
  
• Taken out the "A-Force" Scene and given the gauntlet to Mantis. Specifically take Wasp out. It makes no sense for the heroes who are trying to get the gauntlet to the van to have half of the team trying to fix the van fly all the way across the battlefield just to pose with all the other women.
  
  
• In the background of the “portals” scene of Endgame, we should see Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Deathlok, Ghost Rider, and Daisy Johnson but never have the camera focus on them so that people who haven’t seen the shows don’t feel like they’re missing out, while those who did watch them get a little easter egg. 
  
  
• Coulson should have been hiding behind a bush or post at Tony’s funeral with a nod and a wink from Fury.
  
  
• Eliminate all of the Skrulls elements from Spider-Man: Far From Home and just make them regular Fury/Hill with a couple of dialogue changes. Since I am intending this to be the last movie, take out the cliffhanger of Spidey’s identity reveal.

Finally, I would have had a little more planning on the music side of things. One advantage George Lucas had with the 6 Star Wars and 3 Indiana Jones films (yes, that's an accurate count of both franchises) is that he got the same composer to do all of the movies. Besides just being the best in the business, he got to plan out musically what happened across movies and not feel like he needed to show up the previous composer or anything. Williams developed themes for characters and used them at appropriate times in multiple movies so they all sound like they're part of the same story. Also see Howard Shore and the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies for something similar. 

As it is, each Iron Man movie had its own composer who scrapped the previous guy's work and inserted his own. Between the 3 movies and three themes, it's hard to nail down what Iron Man sounds like. There was even a fourth motif made for Spider-Man: Homecoming when Tony showed up to help Peter with the ferry problem. As such, there's no real definitive musical cue that can readily be associated with the character, and that's kinda disappointing to me. 

I felt that Brian Tyler, while composing his own Thor theme in The Dark World, did make it similar enough to Patrick Doyle's more regal theme that it was hard to distinguish upon first hearing it, and felt like an evolution of the previous theme. John Ottman did something similar for X2 where he took Michael Kamen's theme and improved it. Danny Elfman also put his own spin on the Avengers theme in Age of Ultron, but his contribution was a more divergent than Tyler or Ottman's offerings. 

Obviously, getting one guy to do the whole MCU would be unfeasible, so my proposal would be to hire one guy to do the Iron Man trilogy, someone different to do the Thor trilogy, someone different to do the Cap trilogy, etc. Finally, hiring one guy to do all 4 Avengers films and having him incorporate the themes from the other movies when applicable. 

We did get a little taste of this here and there. Alan Silvestri did the music for both Captain America: The First Avenger and Avengers, so we heard Cap's theme throughout the movie and some AC/DC when Iron Man shows up in Germany. Brian Tyler put a little bit of Cap's theme into Thor: The Dark World when Loki looked like Cap. And we got to hear the theme from the first Thor movie when Thor sits on his throne at the end of Ragnarok. 

But we could have used a lot more of that. Hearing the Hulk theme after Wanda messed with his mind in Age of Ultron, or hearing the Spider-Man theme mixed with the Avengers theme when he's trying to move the gauntlet in Endgame would have been epic. 

 

MCU Post Mortem (Part 1)

For me, the MCU kinda wrapped up with Spider-Man: Far From Home. While it is its own movie, it felt more like the resolution to a franchise where Endgame was the climax. Partly this is because they had planned on doing more series on Disney+ and didn't have movies in the pipeline coming out every three months (and the whole COVID Plandemic exacerbated this), and partly because it just feels like a natural stopping point. I agree with a lot of reviews which say that Endgame had some problems, like that time travel is kind of a cop-out for writing one's self into a corner. But it hit the right emotional notes - it felt right and had the appropriate callbacks even if it wasn't as tight of a plot as the previous movie. In particular, I felt like Hulk and Thor got treated a little poorly and didn't get the kind of character arc resolution that the other four original Avengers team members got. 

I have deeply and sincerely enjoyed this ride, and I'm really glad to have been able to see it all unfold, especially since I never thought such a thing would happen. I've said before that I just assumed all movie versions of stuff I liked would have a high likelihood of turning out terribly, and that there's no way general audiences would go for something like the Infinity Quest storyline, let alone comic book characters like the Avengers. But they did it, and did they ever make a lot of money along the way. Credit should go to Kevin Feige for pulling this off, along with all of the other directors and producers. [Edit from 2023 - I'm hearing that it was more because of James Gunn's plan and not so much because of Feige, and from how Phases 4 & 5 have turned out, I tend to believe it]

The MCU pioneered something that a lot of studios have tried to copy since then, albeit unsuccessfully. And that is the concept of the shared universe. One-off crossovers on TV shows  happen all the time, like when Jake Peralta from Brooklyn 99 was being driven around by Jessica from The New Girl, and then later she and Nick were in B99's precinct. It was a little more common in shows that did have a loose shared universe, like when detectives from SVU would show up on vanilla Law & Order, or when Buffy and Angel would crossover. But it really wasn't done in movies at all, other than for a joke or quick easter egg (such as Bruce Wayne name-dropping Metropolis in Batman Forever). 

The thing that the MCU did right was treat each movie as a separate movie capable of standing on its own, while also essentially being one episode of a much larger story involving other movies. This is exactly what Stan Lee did back when he launched the modern Marvel comics universe in the early 60's. He set all of the heroes in New York and they bumped into each other all the time. Hell, the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man had Peter trying to get a job with the Fantastic Four before he found out they don't get paid [the origin story with his powers and Uncle Ben's death was in Amazing Fantasy #15 and his own series wouldn't get the greenlight until a year or so later]. This was very different from the DC heroes keeping to themselves in their own respective fictional cities (Metropolis, Gotham, etc.) and only crossing over in the Justice Society/League comics. 

For the most part, I think Kevin Feige [and/or James Gunn] is a genius who helmed this ship into unknown territory, and he gave us fans pretty much what we had been wanting for all these years. Now having said all of that, I want to list how I would have done things differently. Granted, I have the benefit of hindsight of seeing how everything turned out (both in the movies and the real world) and all that, but most of these thoughts were the same ones I had at the time the movies premiered. 



1. Iron Man 3 should have been better. 

I felt like Shane Black was more about doing his own thing and putting his own stamp on the character of Iron Man than trying to make a movie that fit within the framework that Kevin Feige was building. Lest we forget, this was the first post-Avengers movie, and most people still didn't have a good grasp on the big, overall picture and structure of the MCU. I also think (and I have no proof of this, just suspicions) that Feige was trying to find the right balance of letting directors/writers do their own thing and mandating certain plot points as setup for future movies. In Iron Man 3, he didn't exert enough control, while in Age of Ultron he was a bit too controlling, but he found the right balance after that it seems. 

In a post-Avengers movie, the question main everyone keeps asking is why didn't any of his new superfriends show up and help other than Rhodey. Ant-Man did this perfectly, and then gave a really good reason why that wouldn't work, but Iron Man 3 just kinda avoided the topic entirely. 

But besides not including enough elements from other MCU properties, the movie is more like a popcorn / fun-and-dumb movie when compared to the rest. There were some pretty major plot holes (like why so much effort was focused on fixing the Mark42 suit when JARVIS could just fly him any of the others in a couple of hours) and the whole Trevor Slattery/Mandarin fake-out was kinda stupid. It seemed that by taking two popular stories from the comics (The Mandarin and the Extremis stories) and mixing them, they had fallen into the same trap as X3 and Spider-Man 3. Some of the plots would need to re-worked to fix these issues, but one that would be super easy to fix is just inserting some dialogue noting the difference between the various versions of the armor - some are waterproof, some can lift heavier but are slower or have fewer weapons, some go on/off easily, etc. 

I will say that I did like the PTSD elements as well as the psychological delineation between "the Mechanic" and the suit, having to think on his feet without his tech, and the little interactions with Harley. But overall it felt like Shane Black went a little off the rails and some of the ramifications would have to be fixed in future movies (like the romantic plot between Tony and Pepper, for example) while others were just ignored (blowing up all his suits but making more by the time Age of Ultron was out). 

There are other movies like Thor: The Dark World, The Incredible Hulk, or Guardians Vol. 2 that aren't as highly regarded and could have been a little better, but Iron Man 3 was the biggest and most obvious one in need of fixing. This post from ScreenRant says a lot of the same things, though I don't agree with everything in it. 



2. Captain Marvel should have been Black Widow

This was the perfect opportunity to do what Joss Whedon did in Age of Ultron, when we fully expected Hawkeye to die and then got the Quicksilver fake-out (we didn't see it coming). We could have gotten the backstory on how Natasha was trained and defected, and that would have been a good way of having Hawkeye play a supporting role. While the movie focuses on Black Widow's past so they get to release a "solo female movie," having Clint play his bit would strengthen their onscreen friendship that would have made her sacrifice in Endgame all that much more meaningful and tragic. It would have also been good timing for actress Scarlett Johansson to dip out at the same time as the rest of the actors whose contracts were up. 

For full disclosure, I DO have problems with the character Captain Marvel as presently constituted in Marvel Comics (Carol Danvers Carl Manvers), but that is irrelevant to the issues the movie dumps onto the MCU continuity. If she were (pre-Rogue) Ms. Marvel and not cosmic-level powerful, mantle-stealing Captain Marvel, I would be more enthusiastic and probably a bit more forgiving of its shortcomings. But I digress . . .

Releasing Captain Marvel just before the climax of the MCU just felt odd and out of place. Plus the problems of having a 90's flashback movie broke a lot of continuity things (I realize most of these aren't huge issues, but still). For instance, her callsign being "Avenger" makes it seem like she's sorta been a shadow influencer to Fury all along and it's an example of prequels attempting to explain things that don't need an origin story (see Solo's depiction on the origins of Han's blaster and Chewbacca's bandolier for more examples). Another thing is that we learned that Fury apparently had the ability to call her during the NY attack by Loki and chose not to do so. Additionally, the story behind his lost eye was given a really bad explanation. And having Monica look up to Carol was kinda bass-ackwards. 

I also really didn't like that the explanation of her powers were that she just got them from the Tesseract in an accident. In my mind, neither Wanda and Captain Marvel shouldn't have greater power than the Infinity Stone that granted said power to them in the first place (I felt like someone/something should have needed to give Wanda a power boost in order to destroy the Mind Stone). By the time Carl reaches her full strength (in a plot twist on par with the Ruby Slippers having always had the power to return Dorothy to Kansas if she had just known), she's way too overpowered and it makes the battle in Endgame feel like it would have been over in  seconds had she just been there sooner. A fully powered Thanos with all 6 Infinity Stone couldn't even hurt her with a headbutt, FFS. 

But besides all the generic plot and lackluster script, it seemed more like this movie was released at that particular time for political reasons outside of the MCU universe. In my opinion, they chose an actress who is politically active in Social Justice to headline the first female-led MCU movie to be released in between the two biggest Avengers movies to guarantee people would see it or suffer from FOMO. And instead of giving that honor to Scarlett (who had six MCU movies under her belt by that point) it went to someone new who hadn't "earned" her spot, so to speak. There were several subtle and not-so-subtle "woke" plot points in the movie as well, and there really hadn't been any in the previous movies, so it felt a little out of place. To be fair, most of Hollywood has been captured by the woke cult, but are less conspicuous about it.

However, if I were forced to make a Ms. Marvel movie, I would have picked Yvonne Strahovski (who knows how to smile) to play her instead of the cardboard cutout that is Brie Larson. 

In fairness, one continuity issue I see brought up often is that they were calling the organization SHIELD and not the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division in the 90's and then reverted to the longer name for Pepper's sake in the first Iron Man movie. I don't see this as a big deal, as I can easily explain in my head canon that nobody knew who SHIELD were before they started getting more involved with Stark. If I went back to the 1930's and used the letters, "FBI," I probably would have gotten stares and blank looks. It took a while before the Federal Bureau of Investigation was well known enough to where everyone just started calling it "the FBI," while people in and around the institution would have used the shortened version years before normies. Besides, Howard Stark used the name SHIELD in the Peggy Carter one-shot years beforehand. 

Anyway, point 2 leads directly into point 3, which is . . . 

3. Captain Marvel's role in Endgame could have been easily distributed among other characters.

If you think about it, Carl Manvers had 3 major roles in Endgame - A) Rescue Nebula/Tony from space, B) Break Thanos' ship, and C) attempt to fly the gauntlet to the ugly brown van and stop Thanos from snapping again. Let me 'splain. 

A) Rocket was on Earth and could have cobbled together a space-worthy quinjet out of stuff lying around Avengers Headquarters and retrofitted it to be able to "jump" in order to give Tony and Nebula a lift. Alternatively, he could have got some help from Wong in making a portal or Thor using Stormbreaker's Bifrost emulating abilities. The explanation for how Rocket would know where to find them could be that he put a tracker in Nebula's head/body during the events of Guardians Vol. 2 because he didn't trust her to not escape again. 

B) Instead of Captain Marvel coming out of nowhere just in time to stop Thanos' ship from "raining fire," it could have been a combination of Ant-Man, Scarlet Witch, and Hulk. See, Bruce gets the brilliant idea of having Wanda do the same mind-magic she pulled on him in Age of Ultron, so he'll become the savage, rampaging Hulk of yore (I fully admit I'm borrowing this idea from the conclusion of the X-Men Onslaught crossover event from the late 90's). Then Giant-Man throws Hulk (the fastball special usually performed by Colossus/Wolverine) and he tears the ship apart, and that keeps him occupied until the end of the movie when he calms back down to Professor Hulk.

This serves to not only eliminate the need for rescue from Carl, but it would expand the roles that Scott, Wanda, and Bruce play in the final battle, plus it would give Hulk some proper revenge for the beatdown he received in the opening scene of Infinity War. 

C) Near the end of the battle, as they're trying to get the gauntlet to Luis' van, Spider-Man ends up with it and gives it to Captain Marvel. Then she apparently needs help from all the other women, even though she could have flown above all of the enemies in her way (other than the leviathans). This is stupid and contrived and total cringe.

It would have made a lot more sense to have the gauntlet get knocked out of Spider-Man's hands and have Mantis catch it somewhat by chance. She's by far the weakest of all the heroes there, and so it would make the plot of everyone else (note: not just the women) needing to clear the way for her more impactful (also, Mantis can't fly and would need the road to be plowed, so to speak). As it is, the one person who can apparently take on Thanos solo shouldn't need the help. 

Once the van is destroyed and the gauntlet is out in the open, Iron Man, Thor, and Cap (in that order) attempt to prevent Thanos from getting the gauntlet and fail. Rather than having Carl fight solo after the big 3, it could have been 7 or 8 others who didn't get the chance in Infinity War to do so (like a combo of Valkyrie, Pepper, Rhodey, Rocket, Groot, Black Panther, Okoye, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, etc.) in a scene similar to the one on Titan from Infinity War. This group is still unable to stop him from doing the Power Stone Punch thing, and then Iron Man swoops in to have his nanotech suit steal the stones. Simple. No Carl necessary.

The only other smaller thing she did was scout Thanos' planet before the remaining Avengers, and that could have been handled by someone else (Rhodey or even a lifeform scan from the ship Rocket was piloting).

4. There should have been a 5-year hiatus. 

I remember people bringing up "superhero fatigue" as a reason to why Batman vs. Superman and Justice League didn't succeed, but I really don't think that's the reason - it's because they were too long/convoluted and just weren't good movies. 

However, by the time Endgame came around, I think most people (and I include myself in this category) were ready to move on. We've seen various forms of movie fatigue in the past (westerns, 80's action films, Epics, etc.) but because the plot of the overall MCU was ramping up to a big conclusion, I think most people's interest in the franchise stayed unusually high. 

Had I been the one in charge, I would have stopped Marvel Studios for a while, so as to not visit the well once too often. I realize that would have gone against the wishes of greedy CEOs and shareholders at Disney, but it's what would have kept the fans happy, counterintuitively. Basically what I'm wishing to avoid is what happened with Star Wars. When the prequels (and later Indiana Jones 4) were announced, I was worried that Lucas' streak of 6 really good movies would be tarnished with lesser quality sequels. I can say that the 3 prequels were iffy, but the Disney Star Wars movies and Indiana Jones 4 were terrible and made me not want to watch the earlier movies as much. I would hate for the same thing to happen to the MCU, but history has shown that producers will usually run something into the ground with sequels and spinoffs until they've extracted every cent they can from a franchise. One of the few exceptions is the Back to the Future trilogy, where the director (Zemeckis) has control over whether any more can be made and has stated that there will be none as long he is alive. 

So, my plan would have been to end after Spider-Man: Far From Home and shut everything down for at least 5 years. The COVID plandemic occurring where it did would have made this plan seem like the person in charge was almost clairvoyant. After some time has passed and the superhero fatigue was wearing off, I would try jumpstarting it with a couple of the later additions to the MCU (like Spider-Man and the Asguardians of the Galaxy), introducing a whole new group of characters (Ms. Marvel, Shang Chi, Eternals, etc.), and maybe the Disney+ series for some of the older characters (Loki, Falcon/WS, etc.) to cash in on some nostalgia. The only problem with this plan is that almost all of the good characters have been used already, so restarting with C-tier doesn't sound super promising. However, Disney recently re-took control over the Fantastic Four and X-Men, so those could be the big tentpole movies while some of the other lesser known/liked characters can ride on the coattails.

MCU Post Mortem (Part 2)

My Favorite Series (besides Zelda)

 

While individual games/movies are great, what I really love is a continuous series where I can compare and contrast entries with each other. I especially love them if there's some kind of continuity of story that carries over, and that's one reason why I love the MCU (at least through Spider-Man: FFH). 

So having said that, here are some mini-reviews and thoughts about some of my favorite series of games that aren't Zelda related, along with lists of which ones I have and haven't played. Note: ports, collections, and remakes aren't listed here. 

Super Mario

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Donkey Kong	Arcade/NES	Yes	Yes
Mario Bros	NES	Yes	Yes
Super Mario Bros.	NES	Yes	Yes
Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA)	NES	Yes	Yes
Super Mario Bros 2 (JPN)	FDS	Yes	Yes
Super Mario Bros. 3	NES	Yes	Yes
Super Mario Land	GB	Yes	Yes
Super Mario World	SNES	Yes	Yes
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins	GB	Yes	Yes
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3	GB	Yes	Yes
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island	SNES	Yes	No
Super Mario 64	N64	Yes	Yes
Super Mario Sunshine	GC	Yes	Yes
New Super Mario Bros.	DS	Yes	Yes
Super Mario Galaxy	Wii	Yes	No
New Super Mario Bros. Wii	Wii	Yes	Yes
Super Mario Galaxy 2	Wii	No	No
Super Mario 3D Land	3DS	Yes	Yes
New Super Mario Bros. 2	3DS	Yes	Yes
New Super Mario Bros. U	Wii U	Yes	No
Super Mario 3D World	Wii U/Switch	No	No
Super Mario Odyssey	Switch	Yes	Yes

Mario Kart 

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Super Mario Kart	SNES	Yes	Yes
Mario Kart 64	N64	Yes	Yes
Mario Kart Super Circuit	GBA	Yes	No
Mario Kart Double Dash	GC	No	No
Mario Kart DS	DS	Yes	No
Mario Kart Wii	Wii	Yes	No
Mario Kart 7	3DS	Yes	Yes
Mario Kart 8	Wii U/Switch	Yes	Yes
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit	Switch	No	No

Donkey Kong

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Donkey Kong	Arcade/NES	Yes	Yes
Donkey Kong Jr	Arcade/NES	Yes	Yes
Donkey Kong 3	NES	Yes	Yes
Donkey Kong ‘94	Game Boy	Yes	Yes
Donkey Kong Country	SNES	Yes	Yes
Donkey Kong Land	Game Boy	No	No
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest	SNES	Yes	No
Donkey Kong Land 2	Game Boy	No	No
Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie’s Double Trouble	SNES	No	No
Donkey Kong Land III	Game Boy	No	No
Diddy Kong Racing	N64	No	No
Donkey Kong 64	N64	Yes	Yes
Donkey Kong Country Returns	Wii / 3DS	Yes	No
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze	Wii U / Switch	No	No

Final Fantasy

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Final Fantasy	NES	Yes	Yes
Final Fantasy II	NES	Yes	No
Final Fantasy III	NES	No	No
Final Fantasy IV (released as FF2 in USA)	SNES	Yes	Yes
Final Fantasy V	SNES	No	No
Final Fantasy VI (released as FF3 in USA)	SNES	Yes	Yes
Final Fantasy VII	PS1	Yes	No
Final Fantasy VIII through XVI	Various	No	No

Mega Man

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Mega Man	NES	Yes	Yes
Mega Man 2	NES	Yes	Yes
Mega Man 3	NES	Yes	Yes
Mega Man 4	NES	Yes	Yes
Mega Man 5	NES	Yes	Yes
Mega Man 6	NES	Yes	Yes
Mega Man 7-11	Various	No	No
Mega Man X 1-3	SNES	Yes	Yes
Mega Man X 4-8	Various	No	No
Mega Man Zero (all)	Various	No	No

Punch-Out!!

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Punch-Out!!	Arcade	Yes	No
Punch-Out!!	NES	Yes	Yes
Super Punch-Out!!	SNES	Yes	Yes
Punch-Out!!	Wii	Yes	Yes

Ace Attorney

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney	DS	Yes	Yes
PW:AA Justice For All	DS	Yes	Yes
PW:AA Trials and Tribulations	DS	Yes	Yes
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney	DS	Yes	Yes
PW:AA Dual Destinies	3DS	Yes	Yes
PW: AA Spirit of Justice	3DS	Yes	Yes
Phoenix Wright vs. Professor Layton	3DS	Yes	Yes
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth	DS	Yes	Yes
AAI: Miles Edgeworth 2 Prosecutor’s Path	DS	Yes	Yes
The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures	3DS	Yes	Yes
The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve	Switch	Yes	Yes

Metroid

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Metroid	NES	Yes	Yes
Metroid II: Return of Samus	GB	Yes	Yes
Super Metroid 3	SNES	Yes	Yes
Metroid Fusion	GBA	Yes	Yes
Metroid Zero Mission	GBA	Yes	Yes
Metroid Prime	GC	Yes	Yes
Metroid Prime 2: Echos	GC	Yes	Yes
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption	Wii	Yes	Yes
Metroid: Other M	Wii	Yes	Hell No
Metroid Prime Hunters	DS	Yes	No
Metroid Prime Pinball	DS	Yes	Yes
Metroid: Samus Returns	3DS	Yes	Yes
Metroid Prime Federation Force	3DS	Yes	Yes
Metroid Dread	Switch	Yes	Yes

Ninja Gaiden

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Ninja Gaiden	Arcade	Yes	No
Ninja Gaiden	NES	Yes	Yes
Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos	NES	Yes	Yes
Ninja Gaiden 3: The Ancient Ship of Doom	NES	Yes	Yes
Ninja Gaiden (everything else since)	Various	No	No

Castlevania

Game	System	Played?	Finished?
Castlevania	NES	Yes	Yes
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest	NES	Yes	Yes
Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse	NES	Yes	Yes
Super Castlevania IV	SNES	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: The Adventure	GB	Yes	Yes
Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge	GB	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood	TGfx16	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: Bloodlines	Genesis	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night	PS1	Yes	Yes
Castlevania Legends	GB/SGB	Yes	Yes
Castlevania	N64	No	No
Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness	N64	No	No
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon	GBA	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance	GBA	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow	GBA	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence	PS2	No	No
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow	DS	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness	PS2	No	No
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin	DS	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia	DS	Yes	Yes
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow	PS3/XB360	No	No
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow-Mirror of Fate	3DS/PS3/XB360	No	No
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2	PS3/XB360	No	No