Everyone has opinions on what they enjoy and don't enjoy. This is news to no one at this point. With fictional media, there may be several different reasons a person thinks about something in such high or low regard. Every now and then, though, you'll find someone online who enjoys a fictional media piece so much that they'll be willing to die on the hill that whatever this is has no problems whatsoever.
Whether it be games, books, movies, shows, or anything in between, these are the examples we commonly refer to as peak fiction. The best of the best. The magnum opus. Upon exploring some of the various Cong threads as of late, I've had an opportunity to look at what people tend to enjoy in various mediums. Now, I'd like to propose the big question. What installments or series would you consider peak fiction?
I'll start with one of my own that I and many others love (not my artwork by the way):
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, released for the Nintendo Wii in 2008, was always one of the more... divided Smash games as far as people's opinions on it go. There tend to be two kinds of Smash fans: people who love it for the wide array of casual appeal and impressive amount of content for a Wii title, and people who hate this game because it's one of the worst Smash games for competitive play due to several perceived designed flaws. Hidden inside this game's offerings, though, lies an Adventure Mode- an Adventure Mode so good that even Brawl's nay-sayers can't help but love it.
Let me get something straight. There are very, very few things in this world that I would consider perfect. I can count them all on one hand, and I genuinely believe The Subspace Emissary is the closest the video game industry has ever gotten and likely ever will reach to straight-up perfection. The game mode itself is already popular for its gameplay and nostalgic impact, but it's the little things that The Subspace Emissary does that demand respect. Every stage in the game is meticulously designed, down to the tile. Stages with various characters play and feel like you're actually playing that character's games. The famous story cutscenes manage to do so much with so, so little, with almost no expositional dialogue during the entire process. When something goes wrong in this game, you can easily identify what went wrong and practice to get better. It may not have much in terms of a post-game, but it almost doesn't matter sense the game's 30+ stages have a surprising amount of replayability, since stages can be replayed after completion to find secrets you may have missed the first time through, with any character already unlocked. All of this is included inside of a streamlined package that captures the feel of the glory days of retro gaming while still feeling new and modern to incoming fans all at the same time.
With any other game mode in any other video game I can think of on practically any console, I can think of at least one slight negative about it if I think hard enough. This simply isn't the case for this game. The story with multiple fulfilling character arcs, the gameplay that remains even better than the base game, and a beautiful OST composed by some of Japan's best composers... I cannot think of a more fitting example of peak fiction.
Whether it be games, books, movies, shows, or anything in between, these are the examples we commonly refer to as peak fiction. The best of the best. The magnum opus. Upon exploring some of the various Cong threads as of late, I've had an opportunity to look at what people tend to enjoy in various mediums. Now, I'd like to propose the big question. What installments or series would you consider peak fiction?
I'll start with one of my own that I and many others love (not my artwork by the way):
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, released for the Nintendo Wii in 2008, was always one of the more... divided Smash games as far as people's opinions on it go. There tend to be two kinds of Smash fans: people who love it for the wide array of casual appeal and impressive amount of content for a Wii title, and people who hate this game because it's one of the worst Smash games for competitive play due to several perceived designed flaws. Hidden inside this game's offerings, though, lies an Adventure Mode- an Adventure Mode so good that even Brawl's nay-sayers can't help but love it.
Let me get something straight. There are very, very few things in this world that I would consider perfect. I can count them all on one hand, and I genuinely believe The Subspace Emissary is the closest the video game industry has ever gotten and likely ever will reach to straight-up perfection. The game mode itself is already popular for its gameplay and nostalgic impact, but it's the little things that The Subspace Emissary does that demand respect. Every stage in the game is meticulously designed, down to the tile. Stages with various characters play and feel like you're actually playing that character's games. The famous story cutscenes manage to do so much with so, so little, with almost no expositional dialogue during the entire process. When something goes wrong in this game, you can easily identify what went wrong and practice to get better. It may not have much in terms of a post-game, but it almost doesn't matter sense the game's 30+ stages have a surprising amount of replayability, since stages can be replayed after completion to find secrets you may have missed the first time through, with any character already unlocked. All of this is included inside of a streamlined package that captures the feel of the glory days of retro gaming while still feeling new and modern to incoming fans all at the same time.
With any other game mode in any other video game I can think of on practically any console, I can think of at least one slight negative about it if I think hard enough. This simply isn't the case for this game. The story with multiple fulfilling character arcs, the gameplay that remains even better than the base game, and a beautiful OST composed by some of Japan's best composers... I cannot think of a more fitting example of peak fiction.
