T.U.G.

T.U.G. (born: ), short for The Ultimate Gamer (also known as TheUltimateGamer07), is an American YouTube gamer and streamer from Arizona. He joined YouTube on January 9, 2007, and is known primarily for his series "The Ultimate Let's Play" and "The Ultimate Gamer's Guide," a collection of video walkthroughs and strategy guides on many older-generation video games.
==Online persona==
T.U.G. refers to himself as a retro-gaming enthusiast, but does try to keep up with the times. He creates videos about classic and current video games dating from the 8-bit era to today, and his persona is that of an elder statesman of the video game community.
Unlike other narrators who show a lot of emotion, he is mostly deadpan, though recently has become more animated and uses a lot of wordplay, puns, sound effects, and self-deprecating humor in his commentary, as well as incorporating voice-acting in some of his later projects. 
==The Ultimate Gamer's Guide (2007–2012)==
His first prominent work was The Ultimate Gamer's Guide, which ran from February 25, 2007, to March 20, 2012. There are thirty editions of the series.
==Editions==
#Mega Man 3 (NES, 19 episodes, 2/25/2007)
#Captain Skyhawk (NES, 1 episode, 3/11/2007)
#StarTropics 2: Zoda's Revenge (NES, 10 episodes, 4/9/2007)
#Kirby's Adventure (NES, 8 episodes, 4/30/2007)
#Earthbound (Super NES, 40 episodes, 6/9/2007)
#StarTropics (NES, 10 episodes, 6/23/2007)
#Advance Wars (Game Boy Advance, 32 episodes, 7/21/2007)
#Earthbound Zero (NES, 18 episodes, 8/15/2007)
#Mega Man Battle Network (Game Boy Advance, 13 episodes, 9/2/2007)
#Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers/Darkwing Duck/DuckTales/TaleSpin (NES, 4 episodes, 9/10/2007)
#Super Dodge Ball (NES, 1 episode, 10/3/2007)
#Mega Man V (Super Game Boy, 14 episodes, 10/27/2007)
#Skate Or Die 2: The Search For Double Trouble (NES, 5 episodes, 11/18/2007)
#Bucky O'Hare (NES, 8 episodes, 12/14/2007)
#Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES, 8 episodes, 1/9/2008)
#Crystalis (NES, 24 episodes, 3/14/2008)
#Goonies II (NES, 1 episode, 4/21/2008)
#Metal Gear (NES, 9 episodes, 5/15/2008)
#Super Mario RPG: The Legend Of The Seven Stars (Super NES, 33 episodes, 8/1/2008)
#Golden Sun/Golden Sun: The Lost Age (Game Boy Advance, 75 episodes, 1/16/2009)
#Punch-Out! (NES, 4 episodes, 8/25/2009)
#River City Ransom (NES, 3 episodes, 12/30/2009)
#Mega Man X (Super NES, 14 episodes, 6/1/2010)
#Adventures In The Magic Kingdom (NES, 1 episode, 7/6/2010)
#Chrono Trigger (Super NES, 33 episodes, 12/31/2010)
#Zelda DX: Link's Awakening (Game Boy Color, 20 episodes, 6/21/2011)
#Mega Man Battle Network 2 (Game Boy Advance, 18 episodes, 9/2/2011)
#Mother 3 (Game Boy Advance, 36 episodes, 11/11/2011)
#M.C. Kids (NES, 8 episodes, 12/17/2011)
#Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (Game Boy Advance, 24 episodes, 2/25/2012)
==Secrets Exposed (2007-2008)==
On July 5, 2007, he debuted Secrets Exposed. In this series, a single secret of an NES game is demonstrated within a one to two minute video.
This monthly series concluded on January 20, 2008 after eight episodes.
===Episodes===
#StarTropics 2: Zoda's Revenge - getting the dagger early
#Snake Rattle N' Roll - all the hidden warps
#Track And Field II - hammer throw trick
#Rad Racer II - time saver, stage select, night track
#Tecmo Bowl - invisible team glitch
#Super Mario Bros. 3 - the treasure ship
#Nintendo World Cup - easy goals
#Mega Man 5 - turning Mega Tank into extra lives
==The Diary of a Pokemon Trainer (2009–2010)==
This series was a 96-episode fan-fiction playthrough of the GBA video game Pokémon Emerald, with narration in the form of first-person storytelling. It debuted on June 6, 2009 with its first season ending on July 23, 2009 after 23 episodes.
The second season lasted 21 episodes and ran from September 10, 2009 to November 20, 2009.
The third season started on January 9, 2010, the three-year anniversary of The Ultimate Gamer's debut on YouTube, and ran 26 episodes, ending on April 19, 2010.
The fourth and final season started on August 6, 2010 and ended on October 21, 2010, running 26 episodes. It was the only season under YouTube's new fifteen-minute rule. It was scheduled to run an additional four episodes, but due to technical difficulties, the remaining four episodes were scrapped.
==The Ultimate Let's Play (2012–present)==
On March 20, 2012, he announced the beginning of a new project entitled "The Ultimate Let's Play", to take the place of the now-retired Ultimate Gamer's Guide. The first season consisted of four Nintendo DS games: Pokémon HeartGold, Dragon Quest IX, MySims and Mario Party DS. The project officially debuted on June 4, 2012 and its first season ended on March 29, 2013.
Unlike the Ultimate Gamer's Guide, audio commentary is not pre-written beforehand and is instead recorded on the fly, and no visual edits of any kind are made during the gameplay (unless noted), though some language is bleeped out for younger audiences. He does try to retain some aspect of his original project by talking about facts and strategies for different parts of games as he comes to them.
Season two debuted July 8, 2013, and ended December 27, 2013.  The games covered during this season were Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People for the Wii and Mega Man X: Command Mission for the GameCube, and a series of NES games under the collective name "Ultimate Let's Play Quickies." They include 720 Degrees, The Three Stooges, Duck Tales 2, Tecmo Super Bowl, Rad Racer II, Blades Of Steel, and California Games.
Season three debuted on June 30, 2014 and concluded July 24, 2015. Games featured this season included Pikmin, Kirby's Return To Dream Land, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, and Final Fantasy VI.
Season four debuted on April 18, 2016, and ended June 16, 2017. The games included Breath of Fire, Robotrek, and Dragon Warrior III. Pokémon Black was planned but was cancelled due to technical issues.
Season five debuted on January 29, 2018 and ended May 30, 2018. This season had a sports theme and the games covered were Bass Masters Classic, Kirby's Dream Course, Super Baseball 2020, and Rock n' Roll Racing; all games for the SNES.  The season also returned to the format of all games running at once as opposed to one at a time.
Season six debuted on February 25, 2019 and ended June 12, 2020.  In terms of number of videos and time, it is the longest season to date.  The games covered were Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, and Dragon Quest VIII: Journey Of The Cursed King.
He announced in a channel post on December 31, 2020 that the sixth season of The Ultimate Let's Play would be the last, and that he would focus on livestreaming for future projects. However, in late 2021, he announced the project would make a one-time comeback with Pokemon Brilliant Diamond. That premiered on November 29, 2021 and concluded on March 4, 2022.
In August 2023, he announced the return of the Ultimate Let's Play for a seventh season, with a focus on Nintendo Switch and NSO. The games for the revival season will be Breath of Fire 2, Pokemon Trading Card Game, and Fire Emblem (GBA). The season officially kicked off September 25, 2023 and finished March 8, 2024.
He is in the process of planning an eighth season. Unlike past seasons, this is planned to only cover one game - Dragon Quest XI S. Start date to be sometime in the fall of 2024.
==Livestreams (2020–2021 (full time), 2021-present (part time))==
He did his first livestream on July 24, 2020, his 35th birthday, playing Mega Man 1-3. He would follow that up with Mega Man 4-6 and Super Mario Brothers 3. Afterwards, he announced his first livestream project - Fire Emblem: Three Houses triple-house run. Unlike The Ultimate Let's Play, these livestreams are not on a fixed schedule. He followed that up with Golf Story.
Due to outside circumstances, he decided to revert back to the traditional way of Let's Playing after Golf Story. He now only livestreams on special occasions.
==The Ultimate Gamer's Ultra League Baseball (2022, 2024)==
After Pokemon Brilliant Diamond, he announced a new project: Ultra League Baseball, which is a computer-simulated 60-game season on the game Super Mega Baseball 3, which includes twenty-four teams of his own design. It started April 11, 2022 and ended September 10, 2022, with the Nomads winning the championship, defeating the Yellowfins. Most episodes were premiered instead of uploaded.
In August 2023, he announced Season 2 of Ultra League Baseball; this time using Super Mega Baseball 4 and featuring new teams and all-new rosters and players. Season two premiered on April 1, 2024 and is scheduled to run to the end of August.
==Live-action videos (2012–2020, 2022-present)==
Beginning in 2012, he started attending video game conventions in his home state of Arizona, starting with Phoenix Comicon, and eventually expanding to Zapcon in 2014, Game On Expo in 2017, and then venturing out of state to Texas for PAX South in 2019.  Some videos include cameos from well-known entertainers such as voice actress Tara Strong, the cast of the original Power Rangers, and multi-time Donkey Kong champion Robbie Lakeman.  Due to rule changes at the venues, celebrity Q&As are much rarer now.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the live-action videos went on hiatus for roughly 28 months after PAX South 2020. The long hiatus ended on May 9, 2022, when he posted The Ultimate Gamer Goes To Zapcon 8.2.
The Ultimate Gamer Goes To Game On Expo 2022 was the first time he collaborated with the Earthbound Crew (minus DKS3A) for a live-action video. For 2023 onwards, the series moved to the Earthbound Crew channel.
==Other works==
One of his first popular works was the "Ultimate Mega Man Gauntlet Challenge", where he defeated all the robot masters of Mega Man 1-6 without taking damage. It also gained some infamy when he used the Select Button glitch to defeat Fire Man. He would follow that up with "The Ultimate X-Buster Challenge" shortly afterwards.
He has also posted several gameplay videos, which either simply demo some aspects of a game or show off an amazing feat. Despite being a mere gameplay video with no special gimmicks, on June 28, 2012, "The Ultimate Gamer Plays Pac-Man" became his first video and one of only two videos to eclipse the 100,000-view mark (the other being MySims Episode 1). For roughly 16 years, this video was the most-watched on his channel until July 2023, when MySims Episode 1 surpassed it.
He also created a project called "Pokemon EV Training 101", a 12-minute instructional video on the EV training concept of the Pokémon series.
He directed one music video in 2008. It was a tribute to 20 years of Mega Man and uses footage from Mega Man 1 through 6.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Mega Man, he uploaded "The Ultimate Mega Man Marathon", a complete gameplay of the original six Mega Man games, on December 17, 2012, the exact date of Mega Man's 25th anniversary. It was, at over five hours and forty-five minutes, his longest video, up until December 17, 2017, when it was surpassed by the second part of The Ultimate Mega Man X Marathon, which clocked in at nearly eight and a half hours.
"The Ultimate Mega Man X Marathon" was uploaded on December 17, 2017, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Mega Man. It was posted in two parts because the running length of both videos was over thirteen hours and YouTube's limit is twelve hours.
He did his first livestream on July 24, 2020, his 35th birthday.
==Collaborations With Other YouTubers==
He was featured in the 18th edition of thejonnymar's Subscriber Spotlight.
In 2017, he participated in a few Jackbox streams of Briley Gaming.
In 2019, he collaborated with Hunter P Brown to take on Mega Man 11 at PAX South 2019 and a year later collaborated with both him and his wife Arebellia in Super Mario Party at PAX South 2020.
== The Earthbound Crew ==
In 2014, he along with gamers Hunter P Brown, Alota115, and DKS3A, formed a team called the Earthbound Crew, named after their first project together (found on Hunter P Brown's channel). The team reunited for Hunter P Brown's LP of Final Fantasy VI in 2016 along with other gamers and teamed up a third time in T.U.G.'s Dragon Warrior III project.  Alota115 left YouTube in April 2019; she was replaced several months later by Arebellia.  The new foursome had their first appearance as a group in Hunter P Brown's Final Fantasy Four White Mages challenge.
In 2020, the Earthbound Crew in full began work on Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. (Hunter P Brown's former roommate SirMogs subbed for DKS3A in the first episode).
In 2021, the Earthbound Crew united again in Dragon Warrior III, this time on the NES version, with Arebellia replacing Alota115, and DKS3A as party leader for the first time.
In 2022, the Earthbound Crew came together again for Earthbound Beginnings (Earthbound Zero), on Hunter P Brown's channel. 
Shortly afterwards, in November 2022, the four decided to start a brand new collaborative channel for The Earthbound Crew. They have linked all of their previous joint projects and have recently collaborated on a four-player adventure of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. More games are planned but on hold due to several real-life changes involving members of the Crew.
A planned VA project of Final Fantasy IV featuring the Earthbound Crew among others is also in the planning stages.
The Earthbound Crew Original Lineup
 	T.U.G. 	Hunter P Brown	Alota115 	DKS3A
Earthbound 	Jeff 	Ness 	Paula 	Poo
Final Fantasy VI 	Locke Cole	Gogo 	Terra Branford	Shadow
Dragon Warrior III (GBC)	The Hero 	Warrior 	Mage/Sage 	Cleric
The Earthbound Crew Current Lineup
 	T.U.G. 	Hunter P Brown	Arebellia 	DKS3A
Final Fantasy (NES) 	White Mage	White Mage 	White Mage	White Mage
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles	Lilty 	Clavat 	Selkie 	Yuke
Dragon Warrior III (NES) 	Fighter 	Warrior 	Priest 	The Hero
Earthbound Beginnings 	Lloyd 	Ninten 	Ana 	Teddy
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet 	Scarlet 	Violet 	Scarlet 	Violet
Boldface - indicates party leader
Italics - SirMogs replaced DKS3A for the first episode
==Competitive accolades==
===2017===
*Zapcon Tetris Tournament - second place
*Zapcon Arcade Round Robin Tournament - second place
*Phoenix Comicon Nintendo World Championship Tournament - second place
*Game On Expo Retro World Championship Tournament - second place
===2018===
*Zapcon Tetris Tournament - first place
*Phoenix Comic Fest NES Campus Challenge Tournament - first place
*Phoenix Comic Fest Punch-Out Tournament - first place
*Phoenix Comic Fest Tetris Tournament - second place
*Phoenix Comic Fest Super Mario Kart Tournament - third place
===2019===
*PAX South Pokemon Stadium 1+2 Minigame Tournament - first place
*Phoenix Fan Fusion Tetris Tournament - first place
*Phoenix Fan Fusion Super Mario Kart tournament - second place
===2022===
*Zapcon 8.2 Back In Black And White Bronze Age Arcade Tournament - second place
*Phoenix Fan Fusion Tetris Tournament - second place
*Phoenix Fan Fusion Dr. Mario Tournament - first place
*Game On Expo Retro World Championships - top five
He was also a participant in Game On Expo's first ever Gameonathon, where he made it to the quarterfinals.
=== 2023 ===
* Phoenix Fan Fusion Tetris Tournament - first place
* Phoenix Fan Fusion Dr. Mario Tournament - first place
* Game On Expo Retro World Championships - third place
=== 2024 ===
* Zapcon 9 Super Mario Kart Tournament - first place
* Zapcon 9 Bronze Age Arcade Tournament - third place
* Game On Expo Retro World Championships - fourth place
* Phoenix Fan Fusion Pac-Man Tournament - first place
==Trivia==
* He has beaten over 300 titles in his lifetime, including over one hundred different NES titles.
* His cat, Lucy, made a cameo appearance in his Phoenix Comicon 2017 video; she can also be occasionally heard in the background of some of his videos. In July 2024, he adopted another kitten named Mia.
* His top five video game series are Mega Man, Pokémon, Kirby, Final Fantasy, and Fire Emblem.
* He has been a gamer since 1990.
* The first four NES games he owned were Super Mario Bros., Snake Rattle n Roll, 720 Degrees, and Mickey Mousecapade.
* He currently owns the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, GBA, DS, 3DS, GameCube, PlayStation 1 and 2, Wii, and Switch consoles.  He also owns the Retron HD clone NES console, the Retron 5 and the RetroUSB AVS.
*He joined Steam in 2020 using the username iamtheultimategamer07.
* He often uses the NES Advantage Joystick for NES games, primarily due to his original controllers fraying out but recently reverted back to traditional controllers.
* He prefers the Switch Pro Controller.
* He obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science in May 2007.
* Aside from video games, he enjoys old-school rock and roll music, pro wrestling, writing, card and board games, fantasy football, and fishing.
* During the COVID-19 pandemic, he developed an interest in cooking.
* He is a lifelong fan of Star Wars.
* He is a musician and songwriter, having composed his own intro theme for The Ultimate Let's Play as well as the background music of some of his live videos.
* He roots for New York and Arizona sports teams, and his favorite athlete is retired Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald.
* On July 3, 2012, his videos reached a combined one million views.
* He considers Ultimate Gamer's Guide #15: Super Mario Bros. 3 to be his personal favorite.
* He used the emulators FCE Ultra, SNES9x, Visual Boy Advance, and DesMuMe. He used specially-designed emulators to allow AVI recordings, though his emulator use in later videos has greatly subsided.
* He officially changed his screen name to T.U.G. on November 7, 2013, and prefers to go by that moniker now.
* The "07" in his previous username TheUltimateGamer07 represented the year he graduated college as well as the year he started the channel.
* He considers himself a very private person has never shown his face on camera, and only his closest friends know what he really looks like.
* Unlike other gamers, he does not use social media aside from Discord and YouTube, he is not on Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or X and has no plans to ever use them.
* He tries to keep his content PG/PG-13 and bleeps out any major profanity.
* He participated in the both the 2018 and 2019 Classic Tetris World Championship Desert Qualifiers.
* He is a former Pokemon Unite player, reaching his highest rank of Master 1337 in the game's second season. He mostly played the Speedster role and center lane (his top two were Absol and Talonflame). He retired near the end of Season 3 with 800 total matches to his credit and a career record of 406-394 (50.75% win rate).
==Quotes==
* "Game on!" – usually when starting a new game
* "I'm T.U.G....later, gamers." – his signoff for first three seasons of The Ultimate Let's Play
* "Be smart, be safe, have fun." – his most recent signoff of The Ultimate Let's Play
* "Aw, great, we just got eaten by a whale." – after getting eaten by a whale in StarTropics
* "He dead." – occasionally used when an enemy dies
* "Something/someone blew up." – used after an explosion off-screen or unexplained explosion
* "SHUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUUUP!!" – to Strong Sad in SBCG4AP
* "Guys, you may want to step back for this one!" – about to fire a Multi-Bottle Rocket in Hunter P Brown's Earthbound LP
* "I kind of want to go out with a bang here." – about to bomb a wall in Pikmin
* "Here comes the cavalry!" - when a group of characters rush in to aid him or his enemy
* "The old one-two." - when a combo of attacks defeat an enemy
* "Bingo bango." - when defeating an enemy with an impressive move
* Often, when a game shows a rather provocative scene (especially in Dragon Quest VIII), he will feign discomfort and describe the scene as "questionable" or "suggestive."
Category:Gaming YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2007