About
BalrogtheMaster, real name Wallid Kanaan, is a somewhat popular YouTuber, and a part of Hidden Block. A majority of his content comes from game reviews, while a small number of other videos appear often, such as the discontinued Nintendo 101 series, and his satirical .avi series.
History
Early Days
Beginning his YouTube career on April 23, 2011 with his video entitled “Balrog’s Game Room – 3DS Ports made in my Mom’s Basement”, which talked about how many bad ports of older games and console games the then recently released 3DS had, Balrog had very little success with that video.
From there, Balrog made a few videos of him playing Cat Mario and began his series known as “Nintendo 101”, which was a series that involved Balrog breaking down the history and plot of a certain game, as well as explaining it’s influences on the genre and gaming as a whole. The first episode of Nintendo 101 revolved around the history of Pokemon Red and Blue, and was posted on March 14, 2012.
From there, Balrog posted the first episode of his most well known series: Balrog’s Nintendo Game Room, otherwise known as BNGR. This show involved Balrog looking at a game and breaking it down into 4 basic parts, including:
- Fun
- Looks
- Sounds
- Length
The first episode was a review of Mario Tennis Open, and was posted on May 22, 2012.
BNGR: Season 1
On September 8, 2012, Balrog posted the first true episode of BNGR, as he felt that his past work was too mediocre to be an official review series. This led him to rethink his writing style, and to go for a more comedic view on the game, while still having a general opinion and review on the game. He also introduced his mascot of sorts: The Plush Wario. Wario would mostly sit around doing nothing, as plushes do, but Balrog wrote him to be a conniving Mischief Maker, often messing with Wallid to get him to play bad games. The first episode of BNGR: Season 1 was on Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Around this time, Balrog officially started another series, his .avi series. This series was a satirical look of some of the tropes and memes to come out of gaming. He would make these rarely, and it is his least uploaded series. The first episode of Balrog’s .avi series was uploaded on June 23, 2013, and covered reactions to the announcements of new Pokemon games
Balrog’s final new series during this era was his “Power Reviews”, which were essentially 5 minutes or less versions of his normal review show. The first episode of Power Reviews was about Fire Emblem Awakening, and was posted on February 11, 2013
During his first season, Balrog was noticed by the members of the gaming site Hidden Block, and he was asked to join them. Balrog agreed, and on March 2, 2013, Balrog became an official member of Hidden Block. It was after that, on July 16, 2013 that Balrog ended the first season on BNGR covering Little Nemo: The Dream Master, a game that he never played due to bad experiences with movie tie-in games. The season ended with Balrog finally admitting that the way he judged games was too childish, and that he needed to change…
BNGR: Season 2
Due to various schoolwork and personal issues, BNGR was put on hiatus. However, during this 6 month break, Balrog uploaded various new episodes of Nintendo 101 and Power Review. However, Balrog surprised his fans on September 12, 2013, when he began season 2 of BNGR with a review of cult classic NES hit: A Boy and his Blob
Balrog kept most everything the same, other than the fact that he changed the intro in order to seperate himself from seasons prior. During this season, very few episodes of Nintendo 101 were released, and Nintendo 101 was officially discontinued on March 21, 2014, with his final episode on the Legend of Zelda.
Balrog also continued to post episodes of his .avi series, and started a very small new series called joshfest. This series was nothing more than a highlight reel of conventions he went to, starring him and his friend Josh from Really Frickin Clever.
However, it was here that Balrog hit his biggest claim to fame, when he officially became a meme. On April 16 2014, Balrog posted a pic of a 3DS EShop $50 points card in order to talk about how bad he thought the system was. It was then that somebody used the card before he could, causing Balrog to question why he posted the picture, and why somebody was so rude as to do what they did.
This officially put Wallid in the status of “meme”, a concept which he would joke about for the rest of the season, and even jokes about to this day.
Season 2 of BNGR ended on November 3, 2014, as the amount of schoolwork he had at the time made it hard to focus on making quality videos, and he also felt that the long gaps between episodes was harming the comedy that the series held dear. In a 2 part finale, Balrog admitted that he had to start from the beginning again. The final episode of BNGR was on Game and Wario.
BGR and BGPR
On December 7, 2014, Balrog posted his review of Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 3DS as the premiere to his new show: Balrog’s Game Room. This show was the spiritual and actual successor to his BNGR series, except he would review games from all systems. He also had a slightly different set of criteria for the reviews. He still had the Looks, Sounds, and Length, but instead of fun as the fourth category, he simplified it to just being Gameplay.
During this time, he also rebooted Power Reviews (Now just called Direct Reviews), and he started a new series known simply as “Thoughts On…”, a series in which he would give his two cents into a certain question. The first episode answered the question “Are Amiibos worth it?”, and it was posted on December 31, 2014
Along with the reboot to the channel, Balrog also made a new channel entitled “Balrog’s Gameplay Room”, more commonly known as BGPR. That channel acts as a Let’s Play Channel, and while not as popular as his main channel, BGPR has the following of most BGR fans.
The Memeworthiness
Since he posted the Eshop card on Twitter, Balrog has become a joke of sorts amongst fans and haters alike due to how many stupid faces he makes, and how meme-worthy he has become. On almost every video Balrog has created, he has had some kind of stupid face that has made it’s way into a meme, and his fans on Twitter make sure to show them all off
