Monthly Archives: May 2020

The Seventh Victim Review

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It’s time to look at an old film about lots of mysterious things going around. Unfortunately the conclusion to this ends up being pretty weak which takes away from the experience. You can’t help but feel like the whole thing was pretty pointless in the end. Everyone acts rather oddly for the plot and the film’s ending is so abrupt that it feels like a ton of it was cut out. Abrupt endings can work out quite well and I do like cliffhangers but it felt like almost nothing was resolved.

The movie starts out with Mary finding out that Jacqueline has gone missing. She leaves school to go and find her, however it’s a big city and Jacqueline isn’t at her business anymore since she apparently sold it to someone. Mary meets up with Jacqueline’s husband Gregory who agrees to help find her. Unfortunately this guy isn’t very helpful at all so Mary uses a private detective to break into a building where Jacqueline may be. Unfortunately the guy gets murdered and slowly Mary starts to figure that maybe she should give up. She is easily intimidated by one of the villains after all.

Part of the issue here is that Jacqueline handles everything pretty terribly. First off she did get into a crazy cult which is already bad enough. From there she keeps hiding from the world rather than exposing them. Presumably they are blackmailing her with something but to the point where she has to give up all of her businesses and money? At that point she’s got to do something to defend herself rather than playing defense. We get really random scenes like her not talking to the hero or stabbing people. She gets a little startled but then doesn’t even talk to defend herself. You’ve also got the pretty terrible ending that really seals the deal on my not liking this character. Now the villains get to go free without any testimony against them.

Gregory is also an annoying character here since he is literally married to Jacqueline and ends up falling for Mary. This is the same guy who was calling her a child earlier and making a lot of snide remarks. It’s great that they get along, but why’d it have to escalate so quickly? It’s hard to get a read on Gregory but this definitely didn’t do his character any wonders. Then you have Jason who seems nice enough. He’s got connections and helps the heroes find Jacqueline at least. His whole origin story involving knowing Louis a while back feels pointless though. Louis not telling Jason that his friend went completely crazy was also odd.

The film just has a lot of little elements here and there that don’t make sense and don’t add to anything. The best character was Irving since at least he did his best to try and find out the truth of what was going on. Too bad he ended up getting stabbed so easily though. He knew that something dangerous was behind the door so he definitely should have gone through a little more carefully in that case right? When you consider how dark it is especially.

I think the film wasn’t sure if it wanted to go towards total conspiracy land or keeping things more grounded. The whole film was building up to something big and crazy but by the end we see it’s just a small little club with around 5 members. They don’t even believe in violence themselves although they hire people to get the job done so it’s basically the same thing. They shouldn’t have all that much sway at all so if Jacqueline went to the cops she should be fine. Louis is also really an accomplice here since he does all he can to get in the way of the heroes. The guy was acting like a villain the whole time.

How did the heroes break into the hospital so easily anyway? You’d think that security would be tighter. Then the villains somehow finding a way to get Irving’s body out of there without anybody seeing is also pretty sketchy. The whole film works a lot better if you change the twist. Have Jacqueline be involved in a country-wide conspiracy where everyone is a suspect and the whole thing works out a lot better. Personally that would have made the film better although it probably wouldn’t have saved it. To be a good noir thriller or conspiracy thriller you need a good set of characters. It’s the only way you are going to get through and Irving was really the only solid one. The others were all super submissive and would not stand up to the villains in the slightest.

Even the brief “confrontation” we get with the main characters and the villains is super quick. It’s supposed to be pretty emotional and intense but it’s extremely quick and if this shook the villain cult to their core they must have never been all that serious in the first place. Why couldn’t we have had a scene with the cops coming to arrest them? A quick moment like that would have made a world of difference, but instead the film ends where it began, with nothing really happening.

Overall, I’d recommend avoiding this film. The Seventh Victim’s title basically summarizes everything that happens in the movie anyway. The rest is really just fluff to keep you going. The suspense does work reasonably well but since the resolution to it is pretty sub-par that just means that all of the build up ends up feeling pretty pointless. Definitely not the way to wrap up this cinematic experience. Perhaps with all of the cut scenes they could have helped improve the film although it would have taken a lot to save the film entirely and push it over a 5.

Overall 3/10

Lucifer Morningstar vs Thor

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Suggested by JordyPresto0418 Lucifer Morningstar is a being who is near the top of the cosmic hierarchy. He is supremely confident and has several abilities like speed, flight, and even healing regeneration. That won’t be enough for him to take down the Prince of Asgard though. Thor is an excellent hand to hand fighter and while it isn’t often shown he also does have super speed of his own. Lucifer will not be able to keep up with Thor and ultimately that’s going to cost him. Thor can hit him with a barrage of blows which will quickly overwhelm Lucifer’s defenses. Thor wins.

Michael Demiurgos vs Loki

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Suggested by JordyPresto0418 Michael Demiurgos is known as one of the strongest cosmic beings out there. In DC he is able to easily take down the Spectre and has some decent abilities. He can fly, wields a sword, and also has energy based skills. These will not be enough to stop Loki though. Loki has a lot of illusions up his sleeve and it’s also worth noting that he has obtained cosmic powers of his own at different stages in his career. Michael doesn’t have enough combat experience to block Loki’s attacks or truly counter them. Loki wins.

Séance on a Wet Afternoon Review

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It’s time to look at an old film about a couple of insane people trying to see what’s worse, being an insane criminal or being a gutless accomplice. The two of them duke it out for the whole film on which character is worse. For my money I’m going with the accomplice because at least the villain is straight forward with this. The accomplice is always offering some justifications and half heartedly saying they should stop. This is definitely a film that drags on for quite a bit so be prepared.

The movie starts with Myra hosting another seance with a group of her friends. Afterwards she tells Billy that it’s time to enact their plan. They’re going to kidnap a kid and will hold her for ransom for a while. Once the cops are unable to turn up any leads she will use her fake psychic powers to tell them where the kid is. At that point she will be rich and famous just like she’s always wanted. Her husband Billy is less sure of the plan but he’s not even sure of his own sanity so Myra sends him to get the job done. Kidnapping the girl is criminally easy because everyone is negligent in this film so once they have the girl Myra gets her plan into action. The only tricky part is that aside from every part of the plan being pretty insane Myra’s own fragile psyche is getting worse and worse. Soon she may not even be able to speak rationally.

Obviously I don’t have a whole lot of respect for these two characters. Myra is portrayed as insane from the start and is just super lucky that she has Billy here. He does whatever she said. Even when she turns off the music and Billy sees her do it, she just says that he did and he accepts this. Billy accepts whatever Myra says to pretty crazy degrees. The whole opening scenes are basically just Myra making a long speech and doing whatever she wants and telling Billy he better agree to it. These scenes are a chore to get through in part because of her but definitely because of Billy.

Billy is one of the most annoying characters in a while because the guy just acts defeated in every single scene. He somehow is able to pull off the kidnapping and stealing the money despite all of this which is a stretch. What kind of designated driver for a super rich family just leaves the car alone and unlocked with the key in the ignition when a stranger is there? The whole thing was super suspect and he should have taken the kid with him. Billy had no real backup plan either so the whole thing was based on a lot of luck.

The villains are also asking to be foiled the whole time by doing things like having a seance with one of the parents while the kid is right upstairs. The room also didn’t seem very sound proof either and the kid should have done something. That would have been a tougher spot but yelling a bit would be ideal. The only good characters here are the parents. I’m glad that the father wasn’t falling for the supernatural nonsense. The Mom gave the main characters a little more of a chance and got pretty emotional but I won’t blame her either since the situation is so intense.

Going back to the plan though, even if Myra did use her “abilities” to find the kid it’s not like the cops would believe her. That would just throw even more suspicion on Myra being the one to kidnap her since she was already making that point pretty obvious early on. At the end Myra even wants to murder the kid and that would really seal her fate. That’s the thing with having main characters like this though, it’s never going to make sense in the end.

Ultimately the film doesn’t go for the ultimate grim ending which is good because that would have been an easy way to hit 0. The ending isn’t bad but it doesn’t help the rest of the film. The whole scene of Myra cracking in the climax as she talks to herself goes on for a very long time and it’s all nonsense so you wish the film would just gloss over it. Since we know she is crazy from the jump I think it’s fair for us to just skip the scenes entirely. You already get the point of the film. The cops did good even if the one detective should have been more confident. I liked the code of how they would pretend to be talking about a car radio while trying to identify Billy as the thief from earlier. The detectives did a lot of beating around the bush and passive aggressive talk but at the end of the day they got the job done and that’s what counts.

Overall, This is definitely a movie that I would advise you to avoid. There’s really nothing positive to say about it. The whole movie is very slow and the main problem here is that all of the focus is on the main two characters and they’re not likable in the slightest. They’re just petty criminals who are also insane and I think it’s pretty much impossible to have a quality film about such leads. The film should have been from the focus of the detective or the cops. That would have made for a much more interesting story at least and the film would have been better off with that change.

Overall 2/10

Only You Review

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It’s time to look at an old school romance drama. Unfortunately this one is really not that good. The main characters are all pretty terrible which makes it hard to sympathize with any of them. Some of the scenes can be tragically funny in a way but you still have to shake your head for most of it. My hot take here is that the film should have focused more on the search for Damon Bradley and less on finding him so many times. That would have worked out a lot better if you ask me, but that’s just a theory.

So the film’s present timeline starts out with Faith getting ready to be married to her fiance. I forget the guy’s name and it really doesn’t matter since he’s only in it for a few scenes. He tries to mess with Faith’s hair and also promises on her behalf that she will wear an ancient wedding dress to her own wedding. Faith feels like her life is crumbling apart and she has fallen away from her destiny. See, as a kid she always knew that the guy she would need to marry was Damon Bradley because that guy was going to be her dream partner according to an occult board game and a fortune teller. That’s not how the dice worked out though but then she gets a call from Damon Bradley. He says that he is a friend of her fiancee’s and then hangs up. Faith was able to get some info out of him though and knows that Venice is where she needs to be.

Faith packs some stuff and quickly heads to Venice along with her sister-in law Kate. They now have to search the whole country for him. Getting in their way is a guy named Peter who suckers Faith into having a one night stand with him by pretending to be Damon but then decides to atone by helping her find him. The problem is that along the way he keeps tricking her over and over again. Will Faith give up on her whole Destiny angle or will she just keep on finding various Damons to get past the friend zone with until it’s the right one? It’s going to definitely be a long day for her.

This film has quite a lot of issues so it’s always hard to know where to start. I suppose I would start off with the fact that Faith is just not a very likable character. From the start she is not portrayed all that well as she is instantly ready to throw her fiance away when she hears the name Damon. It’s fine if she didn’t really like him to call things off, but why wait til the last second? She doesn’t even tell him where she is going, she just vanishes. I mean, the guy never even notices which is pretty insane but that’s just the way it is. Now, if she still had some morals about it that would be one thing, but she acts incredibly desperate each time.

She is basically throwing herself at anyone who claims to be Damon Bradley and really seems to have no shame. The whole affair with Peter really tells you all you need to know about her. She was about to call off the wedding after just meeting him until Peter made a rookie mistake and left his identity out. Faith never gets better from here and you’d think after such a humiliating scene she wouldn’t fall for these tricks again…but she still does.

Meanwhile this doesn’t let Peter off the hook either. He lies to Faith a whole lot. It’s supposed to be endearing or even funny based on how the film presents it, but it’s pretty tragic if you think about it. He was really just taking advantage of Faith and you can’t feel bad for him when he gets emotional because the whole thing really is his fault. Just because Faith is super easy doesn’t mean it’s right to still be tricking her the whole time.

Then we have Kate who is another poor character. She is actually married already and decides to have an affair with a random guy anyway. She keeps telling herself that he knows she is married and won’t try anything but they both keep giving each other hints so of course an affair was going to happen. The film paints her husband Larry as a guy who’s not exactly the most charming and does call her telling her to go make a sandwich. It’s obvious that he’s not supposed to be a very likable character either but Kate is the one who comes across as more petty. She thinks he is cheating on her with no evidence and naturally it turns out to not be true. While Larry was not the nicest guy, at least he wasn’t cheating on her.

These various plotlines just really don’t work wonders for the film. By the end of it the general morale is that none of these relationships are likely to last for very long. Kate’s not trust worthy and the same is true for both Faith and Peter. Faith won’t forget that Peter lies to her face quite a bit and he won’t forget that she came close to having 3 different affairs in the span of a week. The odds of them managing to pull through this in one piece are pretty slim.

At least the backdrops are pretty fun. It’s always nice to see Venice. I wouldn’t want to live there because that’s just way too much water for me, but the scenery is good. The film also does have some fun moments like the contrast it shows between New York and Italy. In New York there was no way they were going to let the main heroine on the plane without a ticket but in Italy since they were helping her get the guy they stop the plane and let her on. It’s a pretty stark contrast and it was naturally a blast to see New York looking so good. We definitely don’t let people randomly get on trains. The film also has some good meme material with how everyone is constantly clapping at the heroes making up with each other. You don’t see the reactions you’d expect like people being upset that their flight is being held. It’s all wholesome to these guys.

Overall, Only You is a film that’s definitely not very realistic. The writing could use some work and the characters just are not likable. You can definitely have some fun with this film as it goes on but the whole thing just doesn’t make a lot of sense most of the time. I’m still surprised that Faith’s fiance never got to appear at the end. Kate should also remember that Faith was very quick to ignore her current plight. Kate was literally in tears asking Faith for help and our nice heroine brushed her off to take a phone call and starting celebrating when it was Damon. Keep in mind that Kate is still in a mess on the floor next to her. The film definitely makes sure that you are unsure if we are supposed to root for the main character or not and that is an original approach. You can do better with a different rom-com.

Overall 4/10

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity Review

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It’s time to take a look at the next Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game. This one actually ended up being the longest one yet so it definitely gave you time to be attached to the characters. It’s a great game and definitely one that I would recommend. While it is not quite able to top the last one, it really has no weaknesses. The mechanics are easy to pick up on and we get some pretty cool cinematics. Now there is only one Mystery Dungeon game left so I am definitely going to miss them when they’re gone.

The game starts off with Terry arriving from the human world and turning into a Pokemon. He meets up with Tepig who is trying to build a Pokemon guild so they can share paradise with him. “Paradise” is the name of the town that Tepig is creating but it’s been tough since Pokemon in this world don’t like each other which makes things pretty tricky. Terry agrees to help Tepig and initially they start by befriending local Pokemon and getting materials to build the house. We get more of a plot soon as a mysterious pair of Pokemon show up and explain that the world as we know it is about to end. The heroes will now have to buckle up and head out to protect the present, but doing so may involve destroying the future. Can Terry and Tepig really pull the trigger and make such a call?

While the plot does get pretty high tier as you would expect, it does have a longer opening act than the last title to allow you to get used to the village and the members. Since part of the plot deals with Pokemon not liking each other the game wants to really make sure you know what’s going on here before you get into the meat of the story. It’s a fun opening act though and part of why it’s solid is because Terry is solid. He talks quite a bit more than the other main characters from previous games which I think is definitely a good move. He feels like a natural leader and doesn’t rely on thought bubbles. One particularly impressive scene is when he takes down 3 bosses at once and later holds his own against another 5 before being saved. Terry is portrayed as a real fighter here and it was really a lot of fun to play as him.

The supporting cast is also pretty solid. Tepig’s a nice guy and he’s a lot more reasonable than your partner from the last game. Tepig at least always tries to do the right thing and doesn’t keep hounding on the other characters over mild matters. Emolga and Dunsparce have a good bond between them. I like that Emolga was always ready to step up for his friend and make the hard calls. If anything Dunsparce was just less impressive because he was a bit too gullible and obsessed with Virizion. Virizion was solid as one of the wise characters and while she didn’t really believe in friends, I couldn’t really blame her for that. She certainly did not have the best prior experiences with them. I also loved having her on the party because of how powerful she was.

Umbreon and Espeon are pretty solid. They are definitely very business oriented so they don’t mess around as much as the others. The Voice of Life made for a pretty interesting character. Just from the name you can tell that this guy has quite a lot of power. Unfortunately I have to give him a thumbs down here because at the end of the day he keeps saying that he has no choice and can’t really do anything about anything but you gotta be able to do more than that when you have cosmic powers. What’s the point if at the end of the day you’re not going to use them? Kyurem was definitely cool though. All of his scenes were definitely pretty hype and he had a menacing air about him. His goal also wasn’t all that bad. It was actually very reasonable which made him a compelling antagonist.

One subplot in the game that I don’t think was really needed though was Keldeo. The plot wouldn’t have really changed almost any part of the story so if you cut him out it all works out quite nicely. He tries to talk a bit tough by the end but nobody’s buying that. As for Kyurem’s position that I mentioned earlier, it’s basically that you shouldn’t change the future just because you don’t like it. The whole concept of the game is that we’re going to change the future because it turns out to be an apocalyptic one while Kyurem’s saying that it has to be preserved. I’ve always been for changing the timestream so I’m not objective in the slightest but I’m with the heroes here. If it’s a bad future then you’ve got to change it.

Additionally, it’s Kyurem’s view that we’re changing the future. Last I checked, the whole game takes place in the present so his argument loses a lot of steam. So long as we did not build a time machine or something it’s all fair game if you ask me. So in effect by trying to stop us he’s changing the future just as much. No future is certain unless you’re actively moving through time. Thanos for example has a stronger case since the Avengers got salty that they lost and started playing with time. That’s not what the heroes are doing here.

The gameplay is your traditional overhead turn based combat. It plays out a bit like a Fire Emblem game only you are moving through a dungeon. You recover health as you move and the goal is always to get to the final dungeon where you may or may not fight a boss. You have 4 different attacks and can have up to 3 partners with you. Be careful, your main partner will count as a second life so if one of you dies then the whole mission is a fail. Just something to watch out for because your partners tend to take really big risks for some reason.

Also, make sure you have a good amount of items before tackling the final boss. I had saved up a ton of them throughout the game so I was ready for it. Otherwise, you could be in for a pickle because the game saves after the first form of the final boss so if you’re not ready to fight the real one then you could end up being stuck in a loop. Hopefully there’s a way out of that but I didn’t intend on risking everything to find out. That’s why I always keep items in the bank for tricky situations like that. I was really glad I had the stash when I walked into the fight. One tip I have is to use the orbs you get during the levels. You get some that will put every Pokemon to sleep for example and they are incredibly handy.

The main campaign should definitely last you a clean 15 hours at the least. Aside from that the game has a ton of content to explore. You can get materials and money to build up the town and make a lot of gardens. I didn’t really play around with this feature, but there’s a lot you can do here. Additionally there are a bunch of extra dungeons and Pokemon to recruit to your cause. You can also work on maxing your guild’s rank up. If you do all of this the game should really last you for quite a long time. Then we get to the graphics and soundtrack which are both quite solid. The soundtrack has some catchy tunes even if none of them are all stars. The graphics are particularly impressive with each of the characters having a 3D model now. That’s not something we’ve really seen a whole lot so it was pretty fun.

Overall, Gates to Infinity is definitely a great game. The gameplay is tight and naturally the graphics/soundtrack are good as well. You’ll have a lot of fun here and aside from a pretty solidly long story you’ve also got a whole lot of post game content to work with. I expect you’ll definitely be kept busy with this game for quite some time. I doubt the price would be too crazy nowadays and either way this game has enough content to really make it worth your while. We really need more Pokemon spinoffs to come out soon because they’ve been pretty dynamite. Pokemon lends itself well to the RPG format.

Overall 8/10

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 16h 12m
Quests Completed 58
Rank: Silver
Gold Bars 21

Character Levels

Tepig 39
Terry 39
Pansear 25
Woobat 2
Venipede 16
Sandile 21
Yamask 24
Emolga 39
Dunsparce 6
Espeon 27
Umbreon 26
Hydreigon 64
Virizion 37
Keldeo 50

Dynasty Warriors 5 Review

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It’s time to take a look at another Dynasty Warriors game. With this title out of the way I have now finished playing through all of the installments that I own. It’s been a pretty fun ride to be sure. This one definitely has the biggest change between entries in the series. It’s really like playing an entire new game which is cool. I definitely like all of the changes made here and he game still gets quite difficult by the end of its run. It’s certainly not a game to underestimate.

The basic plot of the game seems to be the same as all of the other ones. Your goal is to unite China under the same flag as the army you are fighting for. Once you do that, then you will have restored honor and balance to the kingdom. I went with Wu as always. The army’s armor always looked pretty cool and it was nostalgic to play as the same guy from the third game. From there I just went on to clear the campaign which was certainly a lot quicker than the last two games. There are only 5 levels here compared to the usual 7-8 you would have expected. Couple that with the game’s less difficult nature and it was a breeze.

I’d heard about this before but the difficulty in 5 is definitely a lot lower than in the previous two games. You really just mow the enemies down and they don’t fight back quite as much. I would say that the whole game was a cakewalk except that the final level was actually very difficult and felt like one of the installments from the earlier titles. It took me a lot of attempts to clear that one. I did my best to try and complete it the “normal” way but my army would lose morale way too quickly so it would never work out. Finally I just had to try and run straight up to the main villain and then I was able to clear it. This certainly took a good amount of effort.

Most likely the reason for the spike was because my level just wasn’t high enough. Due in part to how easily I would complete the other levels, I hadn’t needed to fight nearly as well as I should have. If I had been a higher level then I’d be beating enemies a lot quicker and naturally that would make a difference with the army morale. That wasn’t how things went down though but it does add to the replay value of the game. You can easily beat the game in under 3 hours if you blast through. However, after that you can also work on getting all of the other characters leveled up and completing their stories as well. In this game each characters gets their own story so that is definitely a lot of stories to run through. It’s definitely not something that will be an easy task nor will it be one that you can do quickly.

The graphics definitely look very good here. You’ve got a lot of little improvements like each enemy having a health bar and also their status not vanishing. In the old games you could easily lose track of a general among the mob because the title would flicker in and out. In this game it stays put the whole time which is appreciated. Characters load up a lot quicker and in general it all just looks quite good. Then you have the soundtrack which has a lot of classic rock themes like the last two. I’m still pretty surprised in general that the games have such a great soundtrack but I’m certainly not going to complain.

The gameplay in Dynasty Warriors 5 plays it straight this time around. You don’t have any missions to find a missing box or anything like that. All of the missions are simply about taking down a boss and unlike previous games they never lock the main villain away. You can run up to him in any of the levels and just test your skills. It won’t be super easy to do so as there are a lot of minions in the way, but 5 certainly makes it possible. I imagine that experienced DW fans would be able to easily get in there and take down the boss. It’s ultimately a strategy that will bite you in the end since your level will stay low but if you’re just planning to quickly beat a campaign then it makes sense. If you do this then I recommend the paralyze combo. It’s two week hits and then a power shot. It trigger a 5-7 hit combo with guaranteed stun. It’s really hard to think of any attack option that is superior to this. Spam it as often as you like. As always make sure to keep your final smash on hand until someone attacks you to instantly combo-break the opposing hit.

If you get a horse then I recommend keeping him around. On Easy mode none of the minions can do anything about him so just jump off when you make it to the boss. The horse won’t be going anywhere either so once you’re done you saddle up and move. The humans run a lot slower than the horses and these levels are massive so I definitely recommend keeping him around. In general it is just so handy to have your own horse and they can be rare to find. Another way to get one is to lure your ally who has a horse into a big battle and once the enemies knock him off you grab the horse and run. I hope in one of the future games you are given the ability to tell your ally to leave the horse. It’s a small feature but one that would be very handy.

Overall, Dynasty Warriors 5 is about as solid as the last two. If anything I would say that it is even better than them thanks to the graphics improving quite a lot and the gameplay feels smoother. The opening cutscene for example is pretty incredible. 5 feels way more polished than the last two and you would have expected that the game would have come out a lot later than it did. It’ll be interesting to see how 6 tries to stop 5. It definitely won’t be easy but the series seems like it’s on an upwards trend so I won’t say that I’d be surprised either. If Dynasty Warriors wants to keep improving I expect that it will be able to do so. If you like beat em ups then you definitely ought to give this one a try.

Overall 8/10

Shadow of the Ninja Review

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Time for another classic Nintendo game. This one I was definitely not familiar with but it looked like Ninja Gaiden so it had to be good right? Well, the gameplay is definitely pretty similar although I would say that Ninja Gaiden still has the edge overall. The gameplay was just a little tighter in that one and it also had more of an engaging plot. Still, this one is pretty close in all respects which is quite impressive. I’m surprised that the game isn’t more well known. I think there would definitely be a pretty good audience for it.

The United States has been taken over by a powerful new villain who needs an empire. The two Ninja are called in to take this guy down. You’ll probably have a whole lot of questions about this. Why is the U.S. banking everything on two ninja warriors? Why do ninja still exist in a futuristic America? Well, the game has no time for these questions because it throws you into the thick of the action right away. The goal here is to just stop the villain and so the heroes march their way through various levels and lots of different enemies.

The game does a good job of taking advantage of this future setting. You fight a lot of robots and at times the game feels a bit like a Megaman X title. When you blast at the robots they even split into two different ones in a similar fashion to some of the original X villains. The backdrops have a ton of variety and the bosses are pretty fun too. One guy gets swallowed up by his bird and they merge into an armored bird which was pretty cool. The final boss also has a pretty good design. One thing I found interesting about the bosses is the game would try to keep you in suspense about what their weak point was for a while. During the first bit of each boss fight they have an extra health bar but you can’t see it so it looks like you may be hitting the wrong point.

The fact is you are hitting the right spot, you just can’t see the damage it is taking. On the other hand it’s pretty risky business because with at least one boss you did have to hit him in a specific way (crouch hit) so if you were not doing that you would be there for quite a while. Each boss is different which may sound like a pretty small thing but I always appreciate when each boss is different. It speaks to the effort of the developers. Cloning different bosses is pretty easy but it also feels a bit lazy at times.

The gameplay is pretty straight forward. You rush through the 2D levels in order to reach the end. You standard weapon is a sword but when you break crates you can change weapons to a chain, throwing knife, sword with shockwaves, etc. The one I recommend staying away from is the chain to the point where I would rewind if I grabbed that one. It’s hard to tell which weapon is in the box and I believe it’s intentional. It’s like a roulette game where you just don’t know what’s going to happen next. I doubt the chain is meant to be a terrible weapon, it just did not click for me.

The graphics are definitely solid although I think you already get the picture from how I was describing it earlier. A lot of effort was put into this game for sure. Then you’ve got the soundtrack which is pretty light but works quite well either way. Couple that with the smooth gameplay and this title’s ready to go. One really fun enemy was this little robot square that would keep circling the stage and trying to blast you. This is one of those games where attacks deal massive damage so let me tell you, you do not want to get hit by that guy. Figuring out the right strategy to beat the various enemies who would show up was half the fun of the game.

Overall, Shadow of the Ninja is a very fun game. The story is definitely solid and the gameplay really holds up quite well. It may be pretty short but the game is really diverse so it feels like they kicked in a bunch of content. This game did take me about an hour which is definitely longer than most NES titles. It’s a pretty challenging experience so don’t expect it to be a walk in the park either. You will definitely have to work at beating this one and mastering those fundamentals quite a bit. This is definitely one of the best NES games available in the service.

Overall 7/10

Double Dragon Review

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It’s time to look at an old beat em up game for the NES. I’m pretty familiar at least with the title because this was a pretty popular game back in the day. Who doesn’t like a good 2D beat em up right? The only thing holding this game back is that it randomly decides to throw an infinitely looping level at you during the campaign. Why would a game even add that? I feel like there is no real benefit to doing so and it just throws you out of your rhythm. Still, the game is definitely fun and it has an actual plot which is always nice.

The game starts with a girl being kidnapped by a gang of thugs. The main character decides to save her, but to do so he will have to travel across cities and mountains to their base. He is also up against an entire city’s worth of thugs who are out to get him. It won’t be easy to stop all of them, but that’s fine. The main character is ready to do whatever it takes in order to win and he is clearly not opposed to getting into some fights. If anything he looks forward to the action.

The controls are pretty simple. You can punch, kick, and do a flying kick. You can also grab the opponent to get some extra pummel damage in which is pretty handy. To continue to going through the level you have to defeat all of the enemies you currently see. After a few waves of this you will make it to the next level. Most of the enemies are pretty easy to dispatch. I recommend kicking over punching as it has a longer range so it’s just a lot more efficient. They will have a hard time landing a counter hit on you.

The toughest enemies are the big dudes who show up to smash your health away. The trick to beating them is to kick when they are the maximum distance away from you. That way you can unleash all 3 kicks in time to knock them down. That’s absolutely your best bet here and if you do that then you will certainly be in a great spot. It’s easier said than done though so you will likely need to work on the timing a bit. A lot of times enemies show up out of nowhere too and throw things at you which are hard to react to in time. These items take a lot of health away so you’ll likely need a few restarts. Still, eventually you will have beaten the game. There are only 4 levels if I recall correctly so that won’t take you very long at all.

The gameplay is straight forward as I mentioned, but the one thing holding it back is level 3. I don’t see why a level loop was necessary. It’s really just penalizing the player for going ahead and kicking everyone around. There’s no reason you should be looking for a secret exit because you haven’t needed one throughout the game. Up til now all you had to do was just beat people up and that worked really well. I feel like this was just to extent the game a bit and it didn’t really age well.

The graphics are pretty solid though. I like the various level backgrounds. You can use quite a few objects throughout the game and it’s always easy to tell what you’re using. The character models are good and the main music theme is pretty solid as well. I definitely didn’t have any complaints with this. There isn’t much replay value since the game is so short and there is no post game content to try and tackle so this is definitely a game that you just play through once and call it a day.

Overall, Double Dragon is a pretty fun game. It may not be the game of the year material you may expect it to be, but you’ll have a good time. It’s fairly short but should still last you for around 30 minutes. Maybe even longer if you get tricked into the infinite level for a while before realizing what is going on. The levels all have time limits which is the main indicator that something is wrong. The time limit is around 2-3 minutes so if you’re still running and there isn’t much time left then you know that something isn’t adding up. If you have the Nintendo Switch Online then there is no reason not to check this one out. The Switch Online even has Double Dragon II already so then you can see if that one does a good job of following up the original.

Overall 6/10