Samus & The Mandalorian

[Mild spoilers for Metroid & the first 6 episodes of The Mandalorian]

Okay so I really like The Mandalorian. And it's impossible to not notice certain similarities to Metroid games. Of course, Boba Fett came before Samus, so some of those similarities originated with Star Wars. But not all of them. Let's take a look at how much of them started where:

Who did it first?

	Mandalorians	Samus
Tri-directional visor	X
Bounty hunting	X
Boosted jumping	X
Flame weapon	X
Reluctance to remove helmet in public	X
Grapple (hook/beam)		X
Thermal visor		X
Parents killed in attack on peaceful colony		X
Traumatic reaction to the being that killed parents (droids/Ridley)		X
Rescued as a child by aliens who gave them armor and taught them to fight		X
Upgrading armor using items found on adventures		X
Rescuing/sparing a baby alien that had been flagged as a target		X
Getting rescued by the baby alien they saved		X
Dealing with evil organizations who want to exploit the baby’s powers		X
Betrayed employer by letting morality override job requirements		X
Attacked by monsters that are pretty much just two feet and a head with sharp teeth		X
Cool theme song		X
Total	5	12

Let's hope Samus isn't the suing type.

Christmas Nostalgia

Being an old geezer (okay, well at least half an hold geezer), it sometimes takes a while for the feeling of Christmas to kick in. And I'm not talking about the good feeling of doing good things for other people. Yeah, I know that that should be the focus, and I do try to do that. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the feeling of looking forward to getting fun stuff and getting time off of school/work for a while while you enjoy it. But there are a few things that can instantly trigger nostalgia about Christmas. Maybe they're weird, but whatever. Here they are in chronological order:

• Music from whatever records we listened to as kids. I think Perry Como and Bing Crosby or something.
• Certain types of cookies and chocolate candy, although I can't put my finger on exactly what
• In theory, old-style Transformers would do this. But I haven't seen one in a long time.
• Mega Man 3. This was probably my most-anticipated Christmas present ever, and something about the pre-Christmas-morning vibe made me think I wasn't going to get it. But I did! The music from this game is just epicly legendarily awesome.
• Mentos. The smell/taste of these are directly tied to playing Mega Man 3 at Christmas time, because that's when I first had them.
• Bomberman 64. There was one Christmas when Nintendo didn't have any good new games out, so I got the closest thing I could find to Mario 64 (as far as I could tell). The superhappy Green Garden music feels especially Christmasy, although the snowy White Mountain music does too.
• Metroid Prime. I was skeptical about whether you could make a good first-person Metroid game, but they did it! The quiet music from Phendrana Drifts (the snowy area) is especially wintery.

And... nothing else comes to mind. I guess the older you get, the more the seasons blur together, and I guess once you can buy your own stuff you don't rely on Christmas in quite the same way for cool stuff and experiences. But that's okay, because there's usually enough nostalgia in the above things to keep me going.

Bonus question: 

Since "Phendana" is a completely made-up word, why didn't they just spell it with an F?