Johnny Malloy
Johnny Malloy has written for 25YL since 2019. A lifelong gamer who considers The Binding of Isaac to be a subversive masterpiece. He has written an extensive series of articles about Castlevania, Super Mario Bros, Final Fantasy, and Resident Evil. He enjoys writing fiction when he's not watching RedLetterMedia videos on YouTube. He has one of those faces. Sorry about my face. It can't be helped. He's @mistercecil on the Twitter. Follow him if you like wild tangents and non sequiturs.
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in VideogamesWe’re Just Playing: Whatever Gets Us Through the Year
2020 has been a year. You know it. I know it. We’ve been saying it all year now. So now that we’re on the cusp of 2021, and (perhaps?) better days, let’s take a look at what one man is doing to get through the holiday blues. Johnny Malloy – Breath of the Wild, Hades, […] More
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“Hero or Hate Crime?” is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Finest Moment
If I had to pick my favorite live action sitcom of all time, I’d be pretty hard pressed to single one out. I have a ton of shows jockeying for the title, with Seinfeld, Community, NewsRadio, Cheers, Fleabag, and Schitt’s Creek all in the running, but if I could only watch one sitcom for the […] More
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in Videogames
Is Ms. Pac-Man the Greatest Pac-Man Game of Them All?
This week, our managing editor has Ms. Pac-Man fever, and muses on the classic game while reflecting on a few early entries in the Pac-Man series that don’t get much love. Johnny Malloy One of the most interesting stories in episode one of the Netflix gaming documentary High Score tells the tale of how MIT […] More
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in Videogames
Nintendo Continues to Sleepwalk Through 2020
Much like many Nintendo gamer’s Switch consoles, the company itself has spent the majority of 2020 in Sleep Mode. The multi-billion dollar company is having one of their all-too-frequent slow years where they trickle out the bare minimum as far as new content goes. The Game We Needed, Now More Than Ever People may disagree […] More
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in Videogames
The Retro Charm of Final Fantasy IX
We’ve come a long way traversing the history of the Final Fantasy franchise so far. From its humble beginnings on the NES, to the next gen beauty of the SNES era games, up to the PSX era entries, the series’ visual flair was ever changing. Some might argue that the Playstation era games (VII through […] More
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in Videogames
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Assembles
We’re Just Playing is our weekly roundup of games that are on our personal radar. They don’t need to be timely and buzzworthy, they just need to be what’s trending in our own personal zeitgeist. Johnny Malloy I’m not very good at fighting games. When I was in my late teens/early 20s, my buddies and […] More
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in Videogames
Final Fantasy VII Was Messy, Clumsy, and Wonderful
When my co-editor and friend, Collin Henderson, wrote about Final Fantasy VI, he added a disclaimer that he would get spoiler-y, and I feel compelled to do the same. I won’t spoil a lot, and the things I will spoil are—at this point—common knowledge and fair game for a title released for the Playstation Uno […] More
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in Videogames
Final Fantasy IV’s Storytelling Elevated It Above Past Entries
I hadn’t played Final Fantasy IV since 1991 when it was called Final Fantasy II on the SNES. Western audiences didn’t get the true Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III until much later in the form of PSP and DS games. As much as I love a good RPG, I rarely ever replay them […] More
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in Videogames
Earthbound is Still an Inspiration 25 Years Later
I found Earthbound in a bargain bin just outside the automotive repair department of my local Sears. There were dozens of copies of the large rectangular shaped boxes in there, all marked CLEARANCE $19.99. I had wanted to buy the game when it first released, but I wasn’t making my own money at the time. […] More
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in Videogames
The Original Final Fantasy was Almost a Finite Adventure
The original game in the now-massive Final Fantasy franchise was neither original, nor final. It’s a long running joke now that no game in the series is finite in any way, shape, or form. The original title was to be Fighting Fantasy, but there was already a series of role playing gamebooks under that name, […] More
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in Potpourri
Maria Bamford is My Hero
Depicting mental health issues in entertainment is always a dicey endeavor. Even if the creative person (or people) behind a project are clinically diagnosed with what they’re dealing with, they still end up suffering from the inevitable criticism that their depiction is incorrect, tone deaf, or even irresponsible. I understand the need for people to […] More
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in Videogames
Did Nintendo Build the Super Mario Maker Series to Last?
Don’t worry, it’s not a history lesson—but real quick—E3 2014 was the year Nintendo revealed Super Mario Maker for the WiiU. It may not have been the biggest thing they announced that year, but for a guy like me, who grew up in the ’80s dreaming of making my own video games someday, it was […] More
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