2017 Positivity Thread (Good things that happened, you came across, etc.)

[Apollo Chungus]

It's the start of the final month of 2017, a year that (depending on where you live, and how often you read the news) was arguably even worse than 2016. And as we reach the end of the year, I figured I'd take a cue from a similar thread I did last year and talk about the good things that happened in 2017.

Good things that happened to you, good things that happened somewhere, or even just coming across good pieces of entertainment; all were welcome here. The only thing I will request is you not be snarky about it; if you've got nothing good to say, simply just don't reply. It's been a heck of a stressful year for a lot of folks (me included), and I want this to be a place where people can celebrate the good things that happened to them, and hopefully to recognize how good things still exist no matter what.

With that, I'll begin with a smattering of thoughts:

-My family and I were able to go to Waterville, Kerry this year. We'd always gone there for a week or two every summer, so it holds a lot of nostalgia for me in particular, but we hadn't been able to go there since 2014 for one reason or another. Thankfully, this last July, we were finally able to head over there for a week, and it was so relaxing to just be there again after so long. To go to places I hadn't been in for years, to walk on the beach in the early morning, and to

-Working on the 1001 Animated Films You Should Watch thread has given me the chance to check out all kinds of things that I might have previously ignored, and some of them are just amazing. It's also given me something to work towards, in a year when I haven't been too creatively productive, and I really appreciate having something to look out for when I've not got much else to do.

-I finally graduated from my Film & TV Production course in a local college, and have gone on to work on a Music course in another college to try and improve my music composing skills, understanding of terminology, etc. I'm currently able to read and write music at a Grade 2 level, and I think I'm about to go onto Grade 3. I have something of a performance anxiety, but hopefully I'll be able to deal with it in the coming months.

-I got to write a series of reviews for long-running gaming website Hardcore Gaming 101, under the pseudonym 'Apollo Chungus'. It's helped me learn how to work under an editor, how to take screenshots on emulators, and I've even gotten paid for it, which has allowed me to buy books, games, donate to websites, and do other things I wasn't able to do before.

-I listened to a lot of good music this year, and gotten into quite a few artists/composers like Anne Dudley, nelward, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, Pogo, Wojciech Kilar and more. I even took track of the awesome music I heard on YouTube through a series of playlists, and you can check out the playlists with these links!

-Actually got to see a few great live-action films in the cinema, such as Baby Driver, Kong: Skull Island and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. After a couple of years of seeing mostly generic franchise tripe, it was great to see really well done live-action movies again. (Seriously, go watch Valerian if you liked The Fifth Element; it's an awesome spiritual successor!)

-Sonic Mania was fucking excellent. No word of a lie; fantastic level designs, kickass music, gorgeous graphics, and perfectly replicating how the original games played - goddamn, my hat goes out to Whitehead and everyone else involved with that game. I wish them the very best for what they've done.

With that done, I'll leave y'all to discuss the good things that happened this year. Have a good day, everyone, and let's hope for a better 2018!

-Jim McGrath/FrDougal9000

[Chili Dawg]

In general, video games in 2017 were pretty fucking great, so if nothing else, at least there's that. I haven't even gotten to half the games that came out this year but my Switch home screen currently contains a GOAT Mario, a GOAT Zelda, and a GOAT Sonic all sitting next to each other and I really can't ask for much more than that for a system that came out not even 12 months ago.

[Mr Loopone]

While 2017 has been an awful year for me both physically and mentally perhaps one of the worst in a good while, there were a few good things that did happen.

- Managed to come out of retirement to preserve some sprites even though it is brief. A long time ago, I was a sprite ripper for a well known website and I'm still listed as top submitter for the Genesis/Mega Drive section but I pulled out for various reasons, some personal and some related to the website. So come this year and thought, hmm maybe I could try it again. The question was which system should I do? One of the reasons why I stopped ripping was because I was exhausted from ripping the Mega Drive, Master System and Game Gear library at least ones that could be done and by the end no one cared because people were really into say the next Pokemon game or Undertale rather than some obscure game. So I started thinking of obscure systems, ones that didn't get much love. Then I thought of the Amstrad CPC, a 3rd place home computer but had graphics more closer to a Master System with the right game (some were pretty much Spectrum ports though) and no one at the time ripped from the system, I wanted to rip because of the really good port of Donkey Kong, the best port of the time actually before emulators and Donkey Kong 64. I was the first but I got turned down. Not because of the quality of the rip but rather lack of a section and interest. Ironically that said website accepted them much later by different people and only games that people could laugh at.

There was another sprite uploading site that used to be much bigger but as of more recent days, gets not much activity since nearly everyone goes to the other so I thought yeah I try there. I was still learning how to do it since no one else was doing the system so it started off with screenshots then I found something with a tile viewer and moved straight to there even though I have to reduce the size 50% every time to be correct. After doing my first batch, they got accepted and that made my day so I focused on more as well as uploading more of my older stuff to there. I was even said that I made someones day by the owner of the site because I once had a batch from 117 games (mostly my older stuff and a couple of mobile games), that made me feel touched. While it wasn't everything that I wanted to do and some that I couldn't do, it was a learning and an interesting experience. From my first rips of both Shao-lin's Road and Daley Thompson's Decathlon to blooming Donkey Kong and Codemasters' first game BMX Simulator, I'm actually pleased how they turned out.

- Managed to nearly finish off getting my games collection and did really well buying this year. From cheap bargains that are worth a lot more such as Handball 16 on the Vita, Tomodachi Life on the 3DS, F1 2014 on the 360 and Fire Emblem on the Wii to cult classics such as Shenmue 2, Conker, Stranger's Wrath, Urban Chaos (all original Xbox) and Silent Hill Shattered Memories on the Wii, even a boxed copy of ISS 2000 on the N64. The latter was thanks to a new console shop that opened fairly recently that tends to have either more obscure games or older games, both in the case of hard to find in general Dreamcast games. Seeing the latter lights up my eyes and that did happen this year thanks to some surprisingly cheap 1st party Sega games in as best condition as they could (Virtua Fighter 3, Virtua Striker 2 and Virtua Tennis 2). Got plenty of 3DS games such as Metroid Samus Returns, Monster Hunter Stories, Fire Emblem Echoes, Mario & Luigi, Dragon Quest 8. Even got a few N64 and Gamecube games. What made this better was that not everything was paid by cash but rather some vouchers too. Finished off getting my Wii U games, finished off the 360 games, finished off the 3DS to my knowledge, nearly finished the original Xbox, nearly finished off with the PSP (just Phantasy Star Portable 2 left to find) and very close to finishing the PS3 as well. More recently, managed to get Etrian Odyssey V even though it took me nearly a month to find the game! Mainly because of a print run that seemed like less than a 100 and really glad that I have it. I'm really pleased that I have all these games to play. Sure its mostly older stuff with only the 3DS games being new however many of the games were most wanted and really wanted to play them or give a try at least. Meaning that in 2018 will be the year of playing my games rather than buying them. I was actually surprised that the 3DS even had new games this year.

- Played and loved a lesser known game. Usually when I have a game that I like, usually know what to expect but sometimes you get that surprise and fell in love with it. That game was Earth Defense Force 2017 on the 360. Sure the graphics might not be the best, the voice acting from Kirk Thornton and Cindy Robinson was really cheesy and the slowdown can get bad from all those enemies but the gameplay was so much fun to play just by shooting giant ants, robots and even a Godzilla type of enemy. I can't remember the last game that I had so much fun playing. I even managed to do both Easy and Normal mode with a few Hard and a couple of Very Hard missions too that says something when normally it is a beat a game then stop playing on it if I get that far. Well considering that I had bad luck with the other games that I played this year whether it is difficulty or just plain faulty, it was refreshing to see. So much so that I'm going to play the others in the future. Not just EDF but Transformers War for Cybertron also surprised me, I expected a typical licensed game and got perhaps one of the smoothest 3rd person shooters that I have ever played and I've played quite a lot of that genre. Again like EDF doesn't look great but it plays so well and trying some of the similar games in the future such as its sequel. Also before this game, I didn't like Transformers because of the movies and the cartoon was before my time so its something from a different era but now it has given me a different perspective and like at least Optimus Prime, Megatron and Starscream.

- Just being on here cheered me up for quite a lot of the year. I know it is a small thing but sometimes the smallest thing for someone is a very big thing to them. One status update even made me laugh that itself is a very hard thing to do. Some members made my day on my birthday, usually a lonely time for me. Some gave some good advice. Even managed to talk to a few of the members here because there are some friendly people out there. Considering the year that I've had, it is small talk but small talk is still better than nothing.

Smaller things that happened were managed to get my movie backlog down to almost nothing now including watching both parts to The Dark Knight Returns, enjoying Justice League Action, watched Tipping Point to its final episode, liking some of the soundtrack to Sonic Mania and Forces, these fair few songs were stuck in my head as they were great to listen and ate some nice food.

[RedFox99]

I made it through my first semester of college with decent grades and I gained some new experiences there. In addition, I'm back at home in New Jersey for winter break, so I was about that. I've played some rather interesting games on Steam.