Thursday, December 31, 2015

The Seasonal Orders: Winter 2016


Season's greetings and Happy New Year!


Welcome back one and all to my Seasonal Orders! Shock of all shocks, there's a lot to talk about this time as we head into 2016. There's going to be some changes round these parts, and they're gonna be doozies. But first, let's talk about the big ones...

PATREON

Yes, you heard that right. As of the new year, I'm going to be creating a Patreon for the site. As of right now the Patreon is not active and most likely will remain the way until the New Year official starts, or until mid February.

So why am I creating a Patreon? Simply put, while I am able to support my reviews fairly well on my own funding, my bank account is not infinite. As shocking as it may sound, I don't make that much money from the site as is, and while I do have a solid summer job, I do not have a job currently. Here's the thing; I spent most of the past two years saving up money for my trip to England, which in turn also allowed me to spend money on movie tickets, games, and my various streaming services. Most of the jobs I took were acting jobs that look really nice on a resume, but because of the nature of the business, acting jobs are few and far between. I had a solid job in the Spring that paid me $500 for about a month, but then the job ended with new propositions looking slim and far between.

Essentially, now that I have spent most of my money in England, in order to help make the site grow and become bigger than it currently is, I'm asking for some funding. Mind you, I don't need much funding, nor will I withhold reviews for not getting money. Reviews will still come out as they are and at the pace they are, but having just that little bit of income will allow me to make huge changes. For instance, one of my milestones is going to be setting up a dedicated site for The Critical Order away from blogger so I can host my own content. There are also going to be a few more projects, potential video reviews, and other nifty little rewards that I want to do to reward my readers.

Again, you don't have to donate, but if you can, it would make my life so much easier. My milestones aren't going crazy high, so even if you have a measly dollar to donate, that'll help me out incredibly. I want the site to become bigger than it already is after having exponential growth in 2015 (seriously, in 2015 alone, we've more than doubled readership since last year) and I feel that a Patreon is the logical next step. So if you can donate, that's awesome! If you can't, that's fine! You should keep on doing whatever you want to do!

BEST AND WORST OF 2015

So now that the year is done, I have definite release dates for each of my Best and Worst Lists, as well as a few hitches.

So I'll start producing my lists starting on January 4th with my Best Anime of 2015 list, followed by the Worst Movies of 2015 on the 7th, then the Best Video Games (hopefully) on the 10th, ending with the Best Movies on the 13th. I say hopefully because there are still two more games that I need to play through before I can accurately make my best list... and one of those games is Xenoblade Chronicles X, a game that is so big that you don't even get the mechs until the 30 hour mark... I'm going to try my damndest to get there by the 10th so I can accurately see if the game deserves to be on the best list. If it does, then I'm going to do some serious crunch time to get to that 30 hour mark to accurately rate the game. If it doesn't deserve to be on the list, then the list will go up as planned on the 10th. It's all up to skill and seeing if the game is as good as the hype.

So not only that, but I won't be reviewing a few games and movies because of this rush to get the lists done. Maybe I can get a review of The Hateful Eight and Yoshi's Woolly World out in time, but I highly doubt it. Unfortunately, you will not be getting reviews of The Revenant, Rodea The Sky Soldier, Persona 4: Dancing All Night!, and Spotlight. I'm dead set on making these lists the best they can possibly be, and if I have to sacrifice a review or two to make these lists perfect, then so be it. I don't want to churn out rushed reviews just to meet a quota or to let you know whether or not I liked them if I'm detracting from something more important. It would be a disservice to you, and I don't want to churn out bad products.

After the lists are done, I will be taking my annual break for the month of January. I'll take some time off, and I'll return most likely in early February with more reviews and a buttload of things to talk about. Speaking of...

MOVIES

As always, I've got a semi-large list of movies to cover for the first few months of 2016. I'm going to try my best to get to all of them, but no guarantees as always.

Norm of the North
Deadpool
Zoolander No. 2
Gods of Egypt
Zootopia
Batman vs Super: Dawn of Justice

I'm not going to give my likelihood for seeing them because, in all honesty, they tend to not really matter in the grand scheme of things. I'll try and see whatever movies I can, and if it changes, it changes. I don't want to commit 100% to seeing a movie, because life happens, and I don't want to disappoint you all. I'll try to see them, and if that fails, then I'll make it up to you guys somehow.

VIDEO GAMES

2015 was a year where I wished I played more games than I did. However, 2016 is shaping up to be a pretty busy year for games, so that's something to look forward to. There are a lot of titles on the horizon that I want to play, and I'm going to try my best to get all of the reviews out on time. If not, then I'll just do another triple feature, but this time for video games. Anyway, the games that I'm most excited for that you'll hopefully getting reviews on are...

Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam
Mighty No. 9
Darkest Dungeon
Farcry Primal

No guarantees that a few of those games will release during this time period, because game companies love their delays (coughUnchartered4cough), but fingers crossed.

ANIME

I honestly have no idea what to make of this season's anime offerings. There are a ton of anime coming out this winter, and while I'm pretty optimistic, there's probably going to be a few stinkers in there and since there are so many original titles, it's going to be really hard to determine which titles are actually going to be good. Still, I must persevere and try to be fair, so here are the titles that I will at least watch the first episode of. Whether or not you see them at the seasonal anime review is entirely up to fate.

Divine Gate
Reikenzan: Hoshikuzu-tachi no Utage
Bubuki Buranki
Luck and Logic
Dimension W

Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm
Ajin



And with that, 2015 has come to a close! The year has been pretty great overall, and I look forward to seeing you all in the new year!

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