October 2018 has been my slowest month of updates on this site since I launched it back on Christmas Day of 2014. I’ve only written three posts (two game reviews and a movie review) so far, so I figured I’d write a little something so things don’t seem too empty.
Don’t worry your pretty little head, my slower updates aren’t a sign that I’m losing interest in this site. I have no plans to stop writing Wizard Dojo. Even if I become a successful game designer or something along those lines (as I hope to be), I’d still try to find some way to update this site.
The simple fact of the matter is…I’ve been busy.
Along with life being, well, life… Zipping through all those Mega Man X games in September also kind of burned me out (BURN TO THE GROUND!). So I was already going to take things easier in regards to this site in October, though I didn’t mean to take it this easy.
Looking ahead to November and December, I hope to pick back up some steam, and carry it through 2019. With that said – and I’ve mentioned this before – I expect my reviews of more recent games to slow down a bit moving forward.
There are two obvious, simple reasons for this. Reason A) video games are expensive, and as much as I’d love to review every big game that’s released, I don’t get paid to do this, and my wallet just can’t keep up. Reason 2) modern video games are just too time consuming. I love video games, but my word, they’ve become quite the time-investment (the recent release of Mega Man 11 was a total delight. A game I can complete in a few sessions? Lovely!). So again, while I’d love to be able to play through and review every last major release, I simply don’t have the time to do that. I’m just now getting back into God of War on PS4, a game that came out months ago, and still need to start playing Ni no Kuni 2, which not only came out in the first quarter of 2018, but was one of the games I was most looking forward to this year.
Between life and priorities, in addition to having other interests and endeavors (again, I’d like to make a game myself some day), I just can’t dedicate 60+ hours for every game that comes out just to beat them for a review. I’ve actually heard some people online complain about Super Mario Odyssey and Marvel’s Spider-Man’s campaigns being “too short” at around 15-20 hours. That actually seems like a more ideal length for a contemporary title from start to final boss (optional content is always welcome, because it’s optional). I mean, that’s most of a day right there! How is that short?!
*Also, speaking of Spider-Man on PS4, that’s probably my next game review*
Long story short, I have no plans to slow down this site in terms of content, but I think it’s safe to say most of my reviews going forward will be for shorter games (retro titles, indie games) and movies. Yes, I still plan on reviewing TV shows at some point, but don’t expect them to be a regular occurrence.
As of this writing, I’ve reviewed 319 video games, so I don’t feel like I’m leaving my readers short if I slow down on AAA titles and such. Besides, it’s not like I’m never going to review big-budget, lengthy games, just that you can expect my reviews building up to the 400 and 500 (and beyond) milestones being mostly comprised of games from yesteryear and those of a smaller scale. And also games with 15-20 hour campaigns. Which are short, apparently…
Oh, and yes, I still hope to make videos of some capacity. And what’s that? My list of all-time favorite video games? Yeah, that’s still a thing at some point.
Alright, this filler update has gone on long enough now. I hope you’re not too bummed about my recent dry spell and the news that I’ll be slowing down on high profile games in the not-too-distant future. Hope you’ll still put up with my nonsense.
Wizard Dojo 
Oh, Spider-Man is only 20 hours long? Good. AAA designers really need to learn that more time =/= more quality. Indeed, Undertale is one of the best games of the decade, and it’s barely over ten hours long (ditto OneShot). For that matter, I have to say that as flawed as their storytelling is, one thing I have to give Naughty Dog credit for is that they deliver compact experiences. They’re no stranger to pointless padding, but at least with them, the padding is short.
But seriously, I get where you’re coming from. Your life definitely comes first. We’ll leave you alone if you’re busy.
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Yeah, I’d say Spider-Man is about 20 hours. Took me a bit longer because I liked the game enough to get the platinum trophy. Probably my favorite game this year so far, I only see RDR2 and Smash Bros. being able to change that. Though Celeste was also excellent, I must say.
Seriously, more developers have to learn that length doesn’t equal quality. For that matter, more gamers have to learn that as well.
And I promise, by ‘busy’ I’m not just staring at a wall or something. 😛
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I kind of think that was true with Naughty Dog in the PS3 era but Uncharted 4 could have used an editor to shave off about four or five chapters and five or six hours of gameplay. Lost Legacy on the other hand, which started as a quick fire expansion to Uncharted 4 and balooned in to a proper eight hour game, was the perfect length for their narrative, action-adventure experience.
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That’s precisely why I think The Lost Legacy is the second-best game in the series; it delivers a compact experience with no filler. Meanwhile, the rest of the series (with the possible exception of 2) is what happens when somebody conceives a script for what is, at most, a three-hour long film and tries to stretch it out over the course of fifteen hours. In fact, if it’s one of the very few things I genuinely like about The Last of Us, it’s that it’s longer than the average Uncharted game, but has surprisingly little filler. It comes across more as a miniseries than a singular film.
Still, as I said, as egregious as Naughty Dog is with their filler, they have nothing on the rest of the AAA industry in that regard.
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15-20 hours often seems too long for me anymore and I’d rather have a tight 5-10 hour experience. That’s not to say that some games of great length aren’t also great, I loved The Witcher III even though it took me 70+ hours to complete and over a year of actual time. But, the experiences worth me putting that amount of time in seem few and far between while more and more games want me to put that amount of time in just for their base experience.
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I love shorter games. It takes a lot to convince me to pick up a really long game these days.
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Yeah, a lengthy game is fine on occasion, but too many games these days seem to think “length = quality.” The way I see it, it usually means “65 hours = less likely to finish/ even less likely to replay.” Glad I’m not alone on this.
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