2020 Year in Review (Patreon)

Obligatory remark on how 2020 "certainly was a year" and that "we survived it" yadda yadda.

Sorry for the delay, but it's finally time to look back on the videos I've released throughout 2020! To preface this for the public, starting from February 2020 I have put out monthly reports on Patreon about my quick thoughts on content released each month, so patrons can revisit those for more detailed thoughts if they wish! I won't repeat too much points from them, but will probably end up doing so anyway since this post is public unlike those. Also, think of this post as my December monthly report. With that, here we go!

Every other noteworthy news about 2020 aside, this year has been decent for my channel! Maybe I could've potentially cleaned up more of my core video idea backlog were it not for current events, but there have also been plenty of other content like Things of Interest videos that I'm really proud of. I've talked about my brief thoughts on each video as they were released in my monthly reports, but here I'll probably be doing that with added hindsight, and maybe divulge some fun facts about them along the way. So with that, here we go! This is gonna be a read.

Konami's Hyper Shot: A Tale of Two Buttons 

This was basically a Things of Interest episode expanded into a core video! Well, to be honest...I guess there really aren't any major differences between them aside from the subject matter, but this video also takes an in-depth look at two other games so...eh, whatever. I probably would not have learnt about the stuff I talked about in this video at all if it weren't for me coming across those two strange controllers, so this was one of the videos this year that also taught me a lot of new things as well!

This is probably one of the first times where I had to go out and dig a little deeper than usual for certain research! I wasn't aware of any easily accessible sources that stated the price of the Hyper Shot controllers for the Famicom. After skimming through some magazine scans, the answer I needed was found on a photo of an ad brochure posted by a Japanese Twitter account. Info can come from the most unlikely of places...

Ken Shimura, the actor whose "Bakatono-sama" persona made it into a limited edition of Hyper Olympic, unfortunately passed away on March 29, 2020 from COVID-19. He was originally slated to carry the Olympic torch for the Tokyo Olympic Games too. :(

Near the end of the video I showed snippets of the trailer for Hyper Sports R on the Switch, which was initially announced in 2018. However, as of July 2020, Konami has cancelled its release, citing "various circumstances". It would've been interesting to see the Hyper Sports series revived, seeing as the last entry was a 2008 DS game...

Also, that "literally go outside" gag aged like milk. So much for "fun facts", wow.

Pro Pack Mini: A Knockoff Wii Remote? | Things of Interest 

All of the Things of Interest videos released this year have had really good subjects, and this one is certainly no exception, because talking about bootlegs is always fun! (The fac that this was the most popular TOI video this year speaks for itself. :P) The Pro Pack Mini controller actually did surpass my expectations for how a knockoff Wii Remote should perform, but obviously came with its own issues, and I think I definitely gave it a good amount of scrutiny in my review. Perhaps I could check out more third-party controllers in the future, but right now there aren't a lot I own outside of generic gamepads, and I don't think they would make for a video that's as interesting as this one. Perhaps someday!I 

I mentioned this in my February report, but in the video, I forgot to test whether or not the Pro Pack Mini has an internal storage that allows you to save Miis to it through the Mii Channel. (remember that?) And testing shows...that it does work! They really thought of everything

More people knew about the Nunchuck controller hook than I realized.

A History of Nintendo's Hong Kong Releases 

Oh wow. This might not have been the most fun video for me to make simply in terms of production, but from my Twitter post asking you all which 2020 core video was your favorite, a lot of you mentioned this video, and I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising, seeing as it covers a topic that is obscure, but people would still be interested in learning about! As someone living in Hong Kong, I suppose the culture of gaming here is substantially different than that overseas (such as the brief tangent about buying games from all regions I mentioned at the beginning of the video), but I've always just seen it as regular.

In addition, I learned a lot about Nintendo's pre-Wii-era operations in Hong Kong as well! Previously, I've only been familiar with the situation the 3DS faced, and mentioned wanting to make a video about it as early as 2015. So in a way, this video was a long time coming! I suppose in the future there could be more videos that have a more Hong Kong-oriented focus, but I can't think of any ideas as of yet, outside of maybe doing a tour of the most common Hong Kong game stores I visit on my second channel.

This video attracted quite a few Chinese-speaking viewers to my channel, which is cool to see! To be honest, my primary audience has always been in the English-speaking world, and my online persona is definitely quite a bit different than how I'd normally act in real life, so that's why you haven't seen me speak Chinese or cover Hong Kong in a substantial way until now.

Some people have asked whether I'll do more Chinese videos in the future. Eh......don't count on it.

There's going to be more videos that possibly explore the Chinese side of gaming in the future! One of the videos I have planned is a deep dive into the iQue Player, from its history to the homebrew community. That would require a LOT of research and talking to folks about things I'm not knowledgable about, so I can't definitively tell you when it'll happen. It's something that's in my pool of ideas to draw from for 2021 though!

The Famicom 3D System: Nintendo's 3D Roots 

THIS core video was a loooong time in the making. I first got the Famicom 3D System in 2018, finishing collecting like all but one of the games in its library around February 2019, started work on the script and finished it in March 2020, and then the full video wasn't completed until June 2020. In-between, lots of stuff from COVID, social unrest, dealing with a game store that took months to ship one of the games at a ridiculous price......all that happened. But in the end, I think I've made a pretty in-depth look at the 3D System's library in my own style. Even with other YouTube creators having made videos on the thing, it still remains a relatively obscure Nintendo accessory, so I'm glad I'm able to also show it off to others while also offering my own two cents!

This time around I offered an alternate version of the video with reduced the flickering effects that are caused by the method 3D images are displayed through the 3D System. Honestly, it wasn't something that crossed my mind until I posted a video preview on April and someone in the comments pointed it out. So remember kids: accessibility is important!

I've sold the extra one since then, but I'm glad this video has immortalized the one time I had two Famicom Disk Systems stacked on top of each other.

The Famicom Power Glove makes plenty of cameos in the video. It would make for a great Things of Interest subject some day, but the logistics needed to figure out how to capture both game footage and off-screen video of me using it hasn't been something I wanted to commit to fully yet. (The R.O.B. video already put me through enough pain to make! More on that in a bit.)

And a fun but useless fact: with this I now have at least one video covering each of Nintendo's 3D outings: The Famicom 3D System, Virtual Boy, 3DS and Labo VR!

Game & Watch: Donkey Kong | Things of Interest 

The Game & Watch series turned 40 years old on 2020, and while I didn't intentionally plan on celebrating that fact outside of a piece of artwork, I did end up making like 3 Game & Watch-related videos in 2020. So here we are!

Most people watching my channel are probably familiar with the Game & Watch line, but for this TOI episode I wanted to put some emphasis on the experience of using an actual Game & Watch from the 80s, since this just also happened to be the first (and only) old Game & Watch I own and it was very fun getting to try one of these firsthand, so I wanted to convey my experiences with it as much as possible for those who haven't tried one! (with some light jokes sprinkled here and there.) Overall a very solid production.

I mentioned in the video that at the time this is the oldest thing in my collection. It has since then been dethroned by the Color TV Game 15, released in 1977. Another Things of Interest subject? Perhaps sometime...

Graceful Explosion Machine & Physical Indies | Things of Interest 

I've said it before, but this was the first time I received a product for review on my channel! So thanks to Super Rare Games for the opportunity once again. I'm usually fine with the idea of sponsorships, free product reviews and all that, as long as the product was something I'm legitimately interested in and would serve as a good (and relevant) video topic. Nevertheless, this still presented an interesting challenge for me. I would have to make do with looking at whatever current game that Super Rare was releasing at the time (in this case being Graceful Explosion Machine), but also didn't necessarily want to just do a game review for the sake of being a review, since that wouldn't mesh well into the usual content I put out.

In the end, I thought tackling it from the perspective of looking at limited-edition physical indie releases in general was a good move, and gave me some insight into something that I usually haven't spent much money on or time examining, since I buy most of my indie games digitally! While it might not have received as many views due to the more specific niche nature of the topic, I think it still went over pretty well!

The 3DS AR Games: Portable Pioneers 

Okay, this might be the most fun core video I've worked on this year. And not just because the topic has yet to be fully explored in an in-depth video before!

While from the start I had a pretty good idea of all the topics I wanted to cover with this video, from the built-in AR Games to the support in other games such as Kid Icarus Uprising, this might also be one of the first videos where I tried to think of more fleshed-out gags that needed more editing to make happen. Not that all the jokes I've made in videos previously were bad, but this time around I had a lot of fun just thinking of scenarios and filming dumb bits like me reflecting on life in a shower and all that. That, and it released right as Nintendo discontinued 3DS production worldwide. I think it accidentally ended up as one of the best send-offs I could've made for the handheld. Maybe until I make a video about WarioWare Gold or something.

Some people pointed out that I didn't mention how the Globe actually needed to be rebought from the shop after you, uh, destroy it. In actuality, I deliberately never brought it back up or rebought it in the video footage, just leaving a hole in the minigame library for the rest of the video for comedic effect. :p

If you had a keen eye in the "control time" gag, you'll notice that the portion of the video where I skipped ahead to the next Things of Interest episode actually 100% lines up with the beginning of the actual next video. I thought it'd be a neat touch!

I didn't talk about it in the video itself, but recording footage of me catching a Blooper in Free Fishing was HELL ON EARTH. There was only a brief amount of time when the Lakitu shows up for you to catch one of the Bloopers swimming around, and throughout my recording session I'm pretty sure I missed my chance more than 5 times. I was recording for NEARLY 2 HOURS to get a chance at fishing up a Blooper. I don't know what took me so long.

The epilogue for this video is one of my favorites, where I talked about how AR technology has advanced since the 3DS. I originally wanted to just throw in quick mentions about smartphone AR and Pokemon Go, but the fact that I got the chance to try out a HoloLens headset was a complete coincidence and it completely blew past my expectations of thinking how good modern AR technology has gotten. I hope that Mario Kart ride in Super Nintendo World kicks serious butt if what I've seen of AR headsets is any indication.

Some people pointed out that I didn't mention Face Raiders, the other built-in 3DS game that uses AR. It didn't cross my mind at the time, seeing that it was mostly using the (blurry) 3DS camera footage as a backdrop, and wasn't necessarily doing any actual AR calculation (the position of game objects in relation to the camera footage can vary wildly if the gyroscope drifts.) Actually, the HoloLens has a game called RoboRaid which I felt was basically what Face Raiders would look and feel like with actual modern AR technology where you can actually dodge shots with your head and shoot in real-world space. (it even has enemies crashing through walls and leaving holes JUST like in Face Raiders!) Look it up! It's a really immersive experience from what I've tried.

A Bootleg 'Super Mario' Game & Watch | Things of Interest 

My second Game & Watch-related video of the year...is a bootleg! Because of course. This was a no-brainer TOI subject, and examining it was loads of fun. However, I was so set on comparing this handheld to the official Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch that I almost completely forgot about the Nintendo Mini Classics line of handhelds that this bootleg is actually copying its form factor from! The video made it all the way to the Patreon early access stage before I was reminded of its existence and had to add in a quick addendum talking about it. That was probably the only regret I had with the video, since I probably would've done it slightly differently had I already knew about the Mini Classics line beforehand, but it was certainly still a fascinating perspective to check out the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch game from!

Yes, I got someone to don a suit for a 5-second gag.

SiIvaGunner contributor Sarvéproductions provided the quick edit of the Super Mario Bros. overworld theme!

Of course I had to hide some background details during the addendum segment, it would've been dumb for me not to lol

3D Challenge Showcase: A Found 3DS Tech Demo! 

This was definitely something new! Preservation is a topic I'd love to cover more on my channel, and having a newly dumped 3DS tech demo that I could check out and cover first hand was a really cool experience. I got to know a lot of other people that worked together to datamine and document this demo as well! Near the end of me working on the video and almost about to release it, the unused minigames were made functional through cheat codes and I had to immediately go back to the editing bay and add info about them so that was fun. I'm definitely down to  cover more interesting preservation finds should they pop up in the future and if I'm given the opportunity!

My 3DS capture card is a 2DS, so the 3D Challenge game footage you've seen in this video was captured from that. While it is still possible to distinguish the 3D models from 2D textures on certain occasions (such as by looking for the aliasing that's present in 3D models), I actually lucked out and managed to get a perfect 5/5 score on one recording session. I guess that is what they call a pro gamer move.

In the October report, I mentioned that Forest of Illusion (the preservation group I'm working with) was acquiring four first-party 3DS development cards to dump. For those who missed the update...the four cards all contained prototypes of Pokemon Rumble World. While I'm not a Pokemon fan, this is still a neat find!

Super Mario Bros. on a Game & Watch vs. Game Boy Micro 

And this is my third Game & Watch video of the year! This was mostly a quickie I wanted to put out ever since I made a tweet comparing the newly-revealed Game & Watch to the Game By Micro, and this ended up as a more fun way to "review" the device rather than just doing a standard video. It contains a serious-ish review of the Game & Watch's build quality and play experience while also being a jokey comparison video in general. I'm glad people enjoyed it!

The Famicom R.O.B. the Robot Experience 

And to close off the year, a core video on the Famicom version of R.O.B. the Robot! Yes, while I did technically hint at it at the end of the Famicom 3D System video, I was serious when I said I didn't know when it would be completed. But then I made a poll on Patreon to vote on the next video topic, and R.O.B. the Robot won by a landslide, so it ended up taking less than a year to happen!

Making this video kind of forced me to actually upgrade some of my recording equipment. I had an old Elgato capture card from 2012 that could take composite inputs, but evidently couldn't fully process the signals from my Famicom and intepreted screen flashes as the video signal being interrupted for some reason, which completely foiled recording plans. I ended up upgrading to an Elgato HD 60S capture card as well as a basic AV to HDMI converter to prevent this from happening, and even then the direct footage I captured occasionally desynced from the camera footage I took of R.O.B., and it was a mild frustration to splice it all together.

In the end though, I feel I succeeded in making an informative video about R.O.B.'s games without being too negative about the experience in general! R.O.B. is certainly still a very interesting device to look back on despite his clunkiness and allowed for game experiences that were almost one-of-a-kind. I'll...just need a break from videos where I'll need to sync B-roll of a game controller to wonky direct capture footage.

Oh yeah did I mention Scott from Scott the Woz was in this

The idea for having a cameo in my video came sorta out of the blue. I had the "calling someone to play Stack-Up Bingo" gag drafted out, and was wondering who to pick. I ended up sending an invitation to Scott first because "hey why not it'd be cool and fitting if it was him" and he graciously accepted! I'd like to thank him again for actually taking time out to do this despite it being an end-of-the-year period where he was busy with his own videos and charity event! Also, he did send in some alternate takes for the punchline, since I figured it'd be fitting for him to come up with one himself. Patrons can watch the alternate takes he sent me in a video I've put in my Discord server!

Other things from 2020!

And that about wraps it up for the videos I've made during 2020! Of course, there's other things too. I started making unscripted side content on my second YouTube channel to cover tiny topics such as miscellaneous things from my collection! I made a handful more WarioWare D.I.Y. covers! I got to cameo in Nitro Rad's 2020 April Fools special! I freaked out more than I should have at the announcement of Super Mario 3D All-Stars! In general quite a few cool things happened in 2020 despite the rest of it, and I'm pretty satisfied with my output, given the challenges we all had to face during this time. And right at the end of December, I surpassed the 40k subscriber mark on YouTube! It was a great way to end the year, and I can't thank all of you enough for continuing to watch and support my stuff.

Now here's the thing about next year...

What to expect in 2021...

Obviously the pandemic will not be snapped away right as the calendar flips to a new year. Despite that, I will still be continuing to make videos out from my backlog of video ideas. There have been a lot of neat things I've gotten from 2019 to 2020 that would make for perfect videos, and I have yet to cover them all, so that's the stuff I'll be mainly focusing on for 2021.

That being said, this year will still be a very tough challenge for me, as this year, I'll be graduating from university. This means having to seriously take time out to work on thesis projects, and after graduation, I'll also have to heavily consider things such as finding jobs and whatnot. As of writing this, I am still not entirely sure how all this will end up impacting my YouTube schedule. Therefore, I want to put out a disclaimer for now that for this year, I might be tied up in academic stuff a lot more than usual, which could result in a larger drought of new content. For my patrons, it is completely understandable if you may want to change or end your pledge due to this, and I would like to thank you for the past support anyway.

While this year will be more of an uncertain time for myself, at the same time there are still lots of video ideas I want to put out if possible, and I will try my best to work on these ideas as long as they don't heavily interfere with my studies. So I won't go so far as to say I won't put out anything at all this year, there will still be new videos, just maybe not as much as before! This is just a small heads up. I don't know how things will transpire for myself personally up ahead, but hopefully after this year is over, I'll be smoother sailing.

As for all of you, I wish you all a safe and happy new year! The future may seem bleak with what's happening, but I think changes for the better can only happen if we all work together and have a more positive outlook on things. Even if I might be jinxing things in case this year turns out worse than 2020, nothing is set in stone! So here's to (hopefully) a better year for all of us. :)

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