User:Sam Strife 58

Basic Info - I'm a fan of anime/manga, video games, history and astrology.

Since 2009 I've been into tropes, though eventually I became disgruntled with the TV Tropes website due to its heavy censorship, clique mentality & the obscene dictatorial power abuse at the hands of its administrator (some guy called Eddie).

Yet I still liked the concept of tropes, so I looked for an alternative. Luckily I found it here, and I'm so glad this site exists to keep the true spirit of tropes alive, without corruption.

These are a few of my favorite things (including explanations of why I like them, just for context)

Video Games=
 * Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - The first video game I ever played, as far as I can remember.
 * Sonic 3 and Knuckles
 * Shadow the Hedgehog
 * Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back - Was my first game for the PS1, for years was my favorite platformer
 * Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped - Spent even more time playing this one. The Relic challenges eased me into speedrunning.
 * Crash Team Racing - It blew Mario Kart out of the water with its superior controls and sense of speed. I still think it's great.
 * Crash Bash
 * Crash Twinsanity - The last decent Crash Bandicoot game (that I know of).
 * Medievil - IMO one of the most underrated games on the PS1. The atmosphere, the soundtrack,... Tim Burton would approve.
 * Pokemon Yellow - A birthday present in 2000 for my Gameboy Color. It's what really got me into RPGs for the first time. It's very nostalgic to me, but I do realize the many flaws RBY had; the battle mechanics were broken in many ways and there was very little left to do in the game after beating the Elite Four; later games in the series had something like the Battle Frontier at least. So I'm not claiming the first gen to be the best generation of Pokemon, unlike some people. Definitely the most nostalgic to me, but not the best.
 * Pokemon Emerald - I got Emerald after Diamond (I lost interest in Pokemon throughout Gen 2 & 3). Overall Hoenn is quite fun.
 * Pokemon Diamond - Brought back my interest in the Pokemon series, as it did for many other people. Though the Gen 3 games weren't bad per se, it was still sort of a Dork Age for the series, due to Pokemon's fad status fading a bit, and because kids who grew up with Gen 1 & 2 were in middle school during Gen 3 when it was suddenly no longer "cool" to play Pokemon, therefore Gen 3 largely got the shaft amongst somewhat older fans. Then Diamond/Pearl resurrected the series. The Sinnoh games deserve special mention for pulling that off.
 * Pokemon Soul Silver - Still my favorite entry in the whole series. Made me realize what I'd missed out back in the day when I skipped out on the Johto games.
 * Pokemon White - I like Unova. I still don't understand the comments regarding the new Pokemon. Sure, an ice cream pokemon is silly, but it's not like earlier Pokemon games didn't have similarly stupid concepts (Exeggcute is a bunch of floating rotten eggs, Grimer/Muk are piles of goop, etc). By comparison, an ice cream cone Ice type isn't that bad of an idea. A bit vanilla and uninspired, but not the worst, and not that strange for a pokemon.
 * Pokemon Black 2 - A direct sequel to Black/White, which is a nice idea. It's done quite well, being one of the more story driven entries in the series, without getting too overbearing (unlike some some other Nintendo RPGs such as the Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi RPG series, ugh, can't there be a level WITHOUT tons of text to scroll or a tutorial!??). This time there are pokemon from previous generations available throughout the whole region, probably because people complained about the newer pokemon. Funny, the series always gets criticized for repeating the same formula over and over, then when they actually try something fresh with Black/White (by having a full assortiment of new pokemon instead of just rehashing older ones, along with other features), people criticize them anyway. So they caved in and scrambled the Unovadex, mixing in some of the classic pokemon with the new ones.
 * Pokemon Omega Ruby
 * Fallout New Vegas