Metroid

One of my first big hyperfixations, Metroid is a fun action-platformer where you explore an alien world, collect powerups, and use said powerups to explore more of the world. The sense of isolation that you feel throughout the games, as well as the more ambient yet ominious music that is played often. My favorites have to be the Metroid Prime games and Metroid Dread.

My love of Metroid is deep, enough that I've dedicated an entire shrine on my website to it! Feel free to go there to read more about my love of these games!

Mother

Known as Earthbound in America, The Mother Series is a trilogy of games themed around young kids getting psychic powers and going through a wacky, strange adventure to save the world. Although a simple premise, the games are filled to the brim with extraordinary unique wild humor, fun gameplay, and a setting that is different from that of ordinary RPGs-- rather than a fantasy world, it's more modern with the enemies being everyday objects or aliens.

Of particular note is Mother 3, a game that is darker than the previous two games, but with an indepth and heartwrenching story within it. If there's any I recommend playing, it's Mother 3.

Death Stranding

Death Stranding is a different type of video game whereupon you walk across an entire continent to make deliveries. Although some might find that not exciting, in my experience it was genuinely a mostly nice experience, especially when you took into account the surprisingly in-depth gameplay mechanics and had to plan out your routes to get to the delivery points. Not to mention, well, avoiding getting eaten by ghosts that will explode into nuclear bombs.

Although DS is a strange game, the story in it is worth it in my opinion, as it's all about trying to forge connections and bonds despite the world around the characters, as well as moving on from the destruction of the past.

Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop is a fascinating space western anime about a small group of bounty hunters trying to get by, taking on various bounties that usually end with them not getting much of anything out of it. Cowboy Bebop is lowkey at times, with each episode being mostly self-contained. It's a wonderful anime to watch, and by the end of it I was genuinely crying from seeing everything unfold out the way it did.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

This is a wild one.

It's a movie about a chinese-american woman ending up in a bizarre adventure where she has to connect with alternate universe versions of herself to stop the destruction of the multiverse.

... Look, I can't really say much more about it other than that it's a wonderful and delightful film that genuinely kinda changed my perspective on nihilism and existentialism. Go watch it as soon as you can.

Devilman Crybaby

HOO BOY.

This is a recent addition to my favorites. Devilman Crybaby is about this teenager who ends up getting possessed by a demon thanks to the plotting of his life-long friend.

It's animation is strange and surreal, the designs of the demons are wild, and the whole story is... heartbreaking, with it's themes of war and oppression of "the enemy".

Do note that this anime is very heavy with adult topics. Like, 18+ recommended. Very dark, sexual and violent. Also the ending of it will probably fuck with you emotionally in just how brutal and painful it is.

Cruelty Squad

Cruelty Squad is probably the most unapologetically eyesearing game I've ever experienced. Well, one of them, anyway. Cruelty Squad is an immersive sim of sorts, where you do missions in small areas and are paid to kill people. Simple enough. Except that the entire world is a dystopian hellscape where capitalism has reached it's absolute horrific peak where even death is just a mild inconvinence.

Despite what many percieved to be a shitpost game, it's actually something much more than that with in-depth gameplay and planning being needed to execute your enemies, a lot of secrets around every corner, and really a fascinating and bizarre critique on capitalism.

Much like with Metroid above, I have made a shrine for this game as well! It's not recommended for if you have eyes that suffer from eyestrain. Go here!

Yakuza

Yakuza (Also known by it's original title of Like A Dragon in Japan) is a action-adventure beat-em-up series where you play as an ex-Yakuza named Kazuma Kiryu (and later Ichiban Kasuga) as he regularly gets dragged back into the world of the Yakuza despite all his attempts to get the hell out of it.

With in-depth and grappling stories and a lot of fun to be had beating the shit out of people around you, the Yakuza games are so much fun to play through. Especially when you get into the substories where you experience some funny things going on elsewhere in the town of Kamurochō.

Ultrakill

Ultrakill is a face-paced brutal action game where you play as a funny little robot named V1 that wants blood. As the game puts it:

MANKIND IS DEAD.
BLOOD IS FUEL.
HELL IS FULL.

So yes you invade hell and kill every demon in your path so that you can get blood. It's very fun, fast-paced, and insanely in-depth with it's gameplay mechanics, with the most rocking music you'll ever hear.

Although at the time of writing this, the game is still in Early Access, it's regularly getting updates and is looking to be one of the best games to play, especially as you delve into getting various secret levels found in the game and fighting the intense bosses.

Drakengard

Although I've not finished this particular series yet, Drakengard is... something different compared to the rest of these games.

Drakengard is a... fantasy(?) series, of sorts. The games are all combat games in the vein of Dynasty Warriors, with air-combat sections akin to Panzer Dragoon. Only Drakengard's renditions of those games' mechanics tends to be more half-baked.

The characters in these games tend to be shitty as fuck people. In the first game alone you have a bloodthirsty knight who makes a pact with a dragon that hates all humans, a bard who makes everything worse due to his jealousy, a pedophile, a cannibal elf who likes to eat children, and a child that ends up causing the worst ending of the game to occur. Yyyyyeah.

Despite all of this, the game is not ashamed of the fact that it's half baked and seems to take glee in the fact that it's such a thing, with the story embracing the fact that it's grimdark as fuck and gets into the stuff of nightmares as you get into the endgame. Not to mention the music, which sounds like a CD being scraped against the sidewalk, is surprisingly catchy to me. Which probably says a lot about me.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is one of those things where you watch it and you can feel the sheer hype and energy put into it. It's an anime about giant robots and piercing the heavens and being badass as fuck.

Although it's been a long time since I've watched this particular anime, the mark it left on me when I was younger is not to be understated. Sometimes all you need in life is the hypest, most over-the-top shit that embraces it and goes absolutely fucking wild with it.

Kore Wa Zombie Desu Ka?

Okay so this is admittedly a guilty pleasure for me since this was one of the first animes I've ever watched but, ey, that just how it be.

'Kore Wa Zombie Desu Ka?', also known as 'Is This A Zombie?', is a anime about a zombie who burns in the sunlight getting the power to be a magical girl. He's joined by a necromancer from hell, the magical girl that he accidently stole the abilities from, and a vampire ninja who calls him a maggot on a regular basis.

It's a goofy kind've thing, it's a early 2010s harem anime so you know, it has all the baggage that comes with.

Despite that, I can't bring myself to really look down upon it. I enjoy it and it has it's good moments still.

Metal Gear Solid

METAL... GEAR????

Admittedly I kinda suck at these games, I'm not very good at the stealth aspect of the Metal Gear games but I try my best! Metal Gear Solid is all about government conspiracies, stopping them and the giant nuclear death robots that come about from them, and fighting oddly tragic motherfuckers who can do crazy supernatural bullshit.

They're wacky games, especially when you get to the mind-fuck that is MGS2 and director Hideo Kojima's odd sense of humor, but they hold a good place in my soul with how wild and amazing the stories can be.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventures

I. Fucking. Love. Jojo.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is... well, a bizarre anime about manly men (and occasionally women) doing badass things with super punchy ghosts called Stands.

The best way I have to describe it is if you took a super manly shonen anime (like, say, Fist Of The North Star) and then combined it with a Soap Opera.
(So I guess just imagine Yakuza except more fantastical honestly)