I grew up in a real small town. A good chunk of my free time as a kid was spent not playing games, but just going out for long walks with my friends. We would always be taking strolls through the woods, along the lake surrounding our little town, climbing small trees and hopping fences. Even up to the end of my time in high school, my best memories were made going on hikes through the woods, aimlessly wandering around, finding odd things and accidentally crossing into no-trespass areas and getting badly told off. When I first played Breath of the Wild, it was when I was still in high school, and I loved it. I thought the shrines were cool, the approaches to combat were fun and varied, and the world was a fun playground to mess around with the physics in the game.

When I entered college, I suddenly moved from this small town I had spent my life living in, leaving behind most of the friends I had to hole up in a dormitory inside a pretty big city. Suddenly, I didn't have many places to just walk around in. Everywhere I went was with a destination in mind, as the campus and surrounding area was along a major highway and most of it was just paved road. It became more of a hassle to get out, and when I was out everything was gray and walled by large buildings and generally uninteresting to just walk through. So I started spending a lot more time inside, playing games. Through a turbulent process of troubled mental health and constantly moving my place of living, ultimately capped off by the start of the pandemic I would stay inside a lot more often and a lot longer. If I did go out, it was either to catch a bus to my class or get some coffee at Tims. My family lives in this city now, and we left any trace of that little town I grew up behind. I'll probably never go back there again.

When I play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild now, it reminds me a lot of those days I spent in that little town. I appreciate the shrines and puzzles far less, find the combat almost dulling to experience, but just walking around, taking in the sights, climbing up trees and hills to reach little vantage points, that's what I love about this game now. In a place where it's far harder to get outside the paved roads and lines of stores, I appreciate being able to just wander aimlessly through a gorgeous and vast world, free of much distraction than the ones I find interest in myself. This game is able to well enough emulate the really calming experience of being able to just take a nice, long walk through the woods.

Persona 5 Royal is one of, if not my favorite, video games of all time. I love the story, the gameplay, the characters, the music, and just about every other aspect of the game. The story was captivating to the point that I didn't once remove the game from my PlayStation until the game was finished, and only even closed the game a handful of times. The turn based combat was refreshing for someone who has been used to playing Pokémon games that have gotten increasingly more stale over the years. The social simulator aspect is fantastic as well, introducing many interesting characters that I was able to get to know. The characters were written so well that by the time I was done with the game I couldn't help but feel a little sad since it was almost like I wouldn't get to spend time with friends again (I played this during the beginning of COVID so I hadn't been going out and seeing people all that often, but yes this is a bit pathetic). It also introduced me to Makoto Niijima, AKA the greatest character in the history of media. Then there is the music. I played this game for around 130 hours and didn't get sick of a single song in the game and even a year later find myself listening to them on a regular basis. There has not been a day since I have beaten Persona 5 Royal that I have not thought about it. It is a masterpiece.