Hades II Review

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Hades was an amazing game that absolutely got me even more hyped for the sequel than I already was. ISee, remember the trailer for the second game coming out during one of the Nintendo Directs and it completely overshadowed all of the other games. That was when I immediately had to order the first game and when it arrived, it turned out to be as good as everyone had always said. So this way I was ready for the sequel which regrettably was not for the PS5 as of yet but the Switch 2 would work out well enough. This game does not leave you lacking for anything.

The game follows a girl named Melinoe who has been trained from young to take down Chronos and to save her family. All of the characters in the underworld from the first game have been enslaved and are in no position to help out. Fortunately the gods are still able to offer some assistance including a few new faces. Although they have their hands busy with Typhon so Melinoe will have to save them as well. She’s certainly going to be busy but with her training, she can win the day!

There are a lot of similarities to the first game of course. The gameplay is an overhead style title where you have to defeat waves and waves of opponents who go after you. You will gain different abilities as you clear each room. If you die, you can get some permanent power ups and try again. This is a rogue title so you are expected to lose multiple times and each run will allow you to get stronger. So don’t give up and just keep on pressing forward.

While the first game was more about getting in close for melee attacks, this one takes a more long ranged approach as most of Melinoe’s attacks are about keeping the enemy at range. I ultimately decided to use her scepter the most. You will have many weapons to choose from but this one suited my playstyle the best. You have your normal attack, power move, and cast. You know you have a good build when they all suit some kind of a purpose.

It may be tempting to throw the first few games on purpose in order to get stronger but I’d advise against it. Sure it’s a good strategy but it just doesn’t feel fun. Give it your best even if it means taking some heavy losses. They are all learning experiences after all and you will quickly become better at the game. One of the big strengths to this title is that basically every action helps you grow in some way. Whether it is fishing or digging up flowers, they can all be traded in for more upgrades. I made sure not to skip a single thing even though I wasn’t aiming for 100% here. You just don’t know what you will miss if you decide to be lazy.

The graphics are really good as always. The illustrations are always really solid and the different effects within the gameplay all look great. The game feels like a 2025 title and I mean that in the best possible way. Meanwhile the soundtrack is great as well. A lot of really good metal tunes and you can always feel like you are fighting for the fates of multiple planets.

There is a ton of replay value here as I already noted. You will have to complete the game many times in order to get the base ending and even from there you still have to max out your relationship status with each character in order to get their respective endings. Throw in how many characters there are and naturally that is a big hurdle. This is a game that will be taking you at least 50 hours minimum. If you aim to just do the main story, well that will still be a rather solid length too.

A tip I would leave here is to focus more on dodging than attacking. As you play through the game you will get a lot of abilities that deal passive damage and you need to be able to survive long enough to take advantage of that. Master the enemy movements and you will be fine. There are also two new mechanics in this game. The first are your moon abilities which essentially work as a final smash. Always try to get the energy blast ones but it is RNG. So if you get a weaker one, no problem. They are all still good to an extent.

There are also the new omega abilities which took me a little while to get used to. Essentially think of them as super attacks which take up some meter but reward you heavily with strong attacks. I was spamming the power special towards the end game because I upgraded a weapon to focus around that ability. When you’re choosing abilities from the gods, really try to style them all around a similar focus. So for example don’t just pick all the ones that sound cool if they are just being redundant.

Only experience and repetition will help you get used to them all. Likewise you have a card deck which you equip to get certain boosts. You can’t equip them all though so that’s where you have to make some tough calls. There are also a bunch of challenges and fire runs which is a massive partn of the game that I didn’t even get around to trying out. That naturally throws in a ton of extra replay value for you as well. It’s a way to spice up the normal story runs and you get great rewards out of them too. This game is just so loaded with content that there are even a bunch of stuff that I haven’t mentioned yet.

Overall, Hades II is a real blast. I love this survivor style of rogue game. I’m still not completely sold on Rogue titles in general but ones with lots of progression like this game always tend to go over well. I want to feel stronger as I’m going through the game and as of yet, no other game has been able to master it quite as well as the Hades series. They are really built different. It’s hard to picture them going back to do a third one, but you can bet that I will be there day 1 if they do. I highly recommend picking this one up as quickly as possible.

Overall 9/10

Journey Back To Christmas Review

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It’s time for a classic Hallmark Christmas movie! They always tend to do good work with these titles and I’m happy to say that this one is no exception. It even involves time travel which is absolutely a massive W. I always like to see that in any film since it adds some interesting concepts. Now the romance may not have been particularly strong in this one but the rest of the adventure is still solid overall.

The movie starts by introducing us to Hanna who has had a rough time of things since her husband was sent off to the war and is presumed to have been killed in action. Hanna has watched everyone go to these wars and feels like she has not really been able to contribute as much. She does get to save a dog who got lost in the cold though and does her best to help keep a kid stay cheerful even when he’s in a rough condition. Well, a time travelling comet shows up and brings her decades in the future to 2016. Now Hanna sees that her actions did lead the way to a whole lot of good changes. Is she stranded in the future?

Hanna’s a fun lead but I do have to say that she was a little slow on the uptake when it came to realizing that she had time traveled. Usually you get one or two freebies from me but after that you need to lock in. She was still running through stores and wondering where her house was after there should have been enough time to see that things were different. Even if she figured time travel was impossible, then she needs to consider that this is some kind of government experiment or aliens are around.

In any of those events, it would be in her best interest to act normally and play her moves carefully. Ah well, at least she was still a nice person and did her best to help the others with their own issues. She brought a good amount of cheer to the neighborhood and showed everyone what an old fashioned Christmas was like. We didn’t get the usual amount of Hallmark baking moments in this Christmas movie but we did get some caroling.

The main guy here is Jake and he’s not the most professional guy here. I did like the fact that he didn’t want to arrest Hanna straightaway the way the rest of the police wanted him to. He pointed out that she wasn’t dangerous and they could figure this out. Nothing wrong with that but where he faltered is when he actually fell for Hanna. You really can’t be getting involved with the suspects and it also meant that there was no way to root for him to get along with Sarah afterwards. It would make the whole thing a true rebound.

Jake tried to tell everyone that he was just being polite and that’s how the film should have played it out. Instead you have the jealous childhood friend doing her best to get Hanna out of the picture and it ends up making her look really petty which make the ship even harder to root for. That’s why the only good romance here was between Hanna and her husband since that one had a lot of development and you wanted the happy ending. The other plot didn’t really need to be included to be honest.

As always with the Hallmark films, this one has good pacing and quality writing. It’s why you can overlook a lot of things because you’re just having a lot of fun here. Even the main antagonist is fun as she keeps trying to encourage the cops to take Hanna away. She’s just being petty for no real good reason and acts like a real life grinch. Her husband tries to mind his business while he enjoys his dinner but it’s clear that she takes the flavor out of it. Some of these supporting characters don’t have much to do like the kid who finally learns to put the phone down but it’s to make the town feel very large so it’s probably worth it.

It’s also fortunate for Hanna that she wasn’t warped 100 years into the future. There are still a few people from her era who are still alive like Tobias who helps to add a lot of credibility to her claim. He was the kid that she helped from a while back so it’s also another way for her to see what a difference she made in so many lives. Without him, I like to think that the perfume would have still helped a lot because it was a discontinued model but I think it still wouldn’t have been quite as convincing.

So in the end my only negative would essentially be that Hanna was a bit too oblivious to all the context around her. It’s a small issue though and one you can look over. I wouldn’t have minded a proper confrontation with the one lady who was trying to stir up trouble as well but it would only work if you gave Hanna a different personality. She just wasn’t the combative type here. Maybe if you scrapped the backup romance plot, that would have left more time for a full character arc like that.

Overall, This won’t go down as one of the all time Hallmark titles but I had a good bit of fun with it. They could have done more with the time travel but the film was fairly short and I suppose they didn’t want to complicate things too much. If you like the formula then you should check this one out. It’s a reminder that every action has consequences even if you don’t get to see them in your lifetime. Hanna did a lot of good even if she would have never know it if not for the time travel. The ending itself is also very wholesome when she goes back to the past so I can appreciate that. A perfect film for Christmas season.

Overall 7/10

Christmas Comes to Pac-Land Review

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Pac-Man is one of the original video game heroes. He was the kind of character who would go up against crazy odds and would still come out on top. Now there is a character that you really can’t underestimate. In this special he ends up going up against a threat that even he can’t handle and so he will have to try a more diplomatic approach. It’s a pretty fun special all around.

The special starts with Santa crash landing into Pac-Land. A place where humans don’t exist and the only people there are round Pac type creatures. It’s all a little strange but fortunately a nice man named Pac-Man and his family show up. They vow to help him complete his trip around the world but to do this they will need to reclaim all the presents that have been scattered. The ghosts are running around as well and so Pac-Man will have to be careful not to get chomped.

What will probably surprise folks with this one is how powerful the ghosts are. Usually you’re probably expecting them to be on the run from Pac-Man the whole time right? Well, that’s not the case in this one as they actually defeat Pac-Man. He takes them out in the first run after a long fight but then they dominate him afterwards. You even feel bad for the guy since he is thoroughly chomped and barely makes it back home. It was almost like he got mugged.

Then at the end they’re all taunting him and laughing it up as they have the edge. Pac basically has to beg in order to not get chomped again and they let him off easy. It really showed what a dangerous world this is. There are emergency pac pellet phone lines all around but the problem is that they are unlocked so the ghosts can grab them as well. The town has a police officer but it’s unknown just how powerful he is.

So basically living in Pac Land is incredibly dangerous. I assume the ghosts have an honor code so they wouldn’t go after the Pac Kid but the rest of the family would be in danger. They can even attack the place where Pac lives. This is low key one of the scarier places to be since the villains have so much power. I give Pac-Man a lot of credit for remaining really strong and courageous in spite of those odds. A lot of other characters would have faltered well before that. This is a man who doesn’t break easily.

Then we have the animation which is pretty strong. It’s got a solid traditional style here where you can really feel the passion behind the characters. I like how the character designs came out and it’s all very smooth. The soundtrack is more on the forgettable side though. There aren’t any tunes that are really going to stand out to you. In general this is the kind of special that feels like just another episode so I wouldn’t expect anything really fancy out of this one.

In a way that is what helps the special be so good though. Everything is treated as just being standard fare. This special isn’t concerned with breaking down the concepts to you or anything like that. No, instead it is just jumping to the story. If you have not seen the cartoon before then you might have some questions about how the world works but you can figure those out in your own time. The adventure will go on with or without you.

I wish we could get a Pac-Man game set within this continuity at some point. It’s basically like the World games setting so I would accept a new game in that series as well. The most important thing is to get a story based game with Pac-Man involved and just have a fun story there. There are so many things you can do with the series and yet it has remained dormant for a while.

That said, while it is funny to see Pac-Man being crushed by the ghosts, I do think he should generally look stronger. He’s a pretty experienced fighter by this point so he should be more than a match for the ghosts. We can assume in this world that they have a bit of a rival type relationship though as death isn’t permanent for the ghosts and they don’t murder the Pacs even when they could. If you look at it through that lens, then this isn’t quite as scary as it would have initially appeared. Maybe the world is actually a whole lot more wholesome than anyone could have initially guessed.

Overall, This is a pretty fun special. Ultimately it’s not like there is a whole lot to it though. It’s just about 30 minutes of fun as you watch Pac-Man try to save Christmas. It succeeds on the most critical aspect of a special like this, which is that it’s a lot of fun. You’ll have a blast rooting for Pac-Man to win the day. The writing is on point and the pacing is pretty good too. So while it may not have gotten an extended budget or anything like that, it definitely gets the job done here. I would recommend checking this one out whenever you can.

Overall 7/10

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Review

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Metroid Prime fans have been waiting a very long time for this game. We got the first trailer back in 2017 after all and even then it ended up taking another 8 years to come out. After all that waiting you would certainly be expecting an absolutely top tier experience. Well, ultimately I thought it was pretty good but I suppose it would be a bit underwhelming considering all the time that has gone by. It’s a good game but an ordinary one at the same time. You’ll be able to blast through the content and so in the end I would recommend it but definitely keep your expectations at the baseline.

The story starts with a big battle between the Federation and Sylux’s goons. Samus is able to easily overpower him but then gets stranded on a planet along with a few other soldiers. Samus will have to find several teleporter keys as well as a mythical fruit in order to get off this place. Unfortunately it is loaded with powerful monsters everywhere and Sylux is still on the loose. This may finally be a job that Samus cannot complete on her own. Will she be able to trust these other soldiers to help her out or will she be forced to tackle all of the responsibility on her own?

The game puts a lot of stock into Samus being the chosen one, a hero beyond all measure. Honestly I wouldn’t even say that’s a bad thing. She is clearly a cut above the rest and as the various games have shown she is able to incorporate a ton of different dna and special abilities without side effects. In essence she is the ultimate battle soldier and this game does a good job of showing how powerful she is. This can be a double edged sword though. For example, Sylux is never portrayed as being a real threat to her.

Likewise for the rest of the villains. This is clearly an easier battle for her than the last 3 Prime games and the only reason the situation is tough is because getting off the planet will require more than super strength. Her allies help out quite a bit and so that ties the whole adventure together. It just makes this an uphill battle for the villains since they are the ones on the back foot the whole time. They are never even close to making a play.

That being said, I still like Sylux. He gets some good dialogue at the end and has a good design. His boss fights are also fun except the final boss which gets a bit rough. This ties into the gameplay itself. You have to use both joysticks to aim which makes it hard to also shoot. I had to hold the controller in a bit of a weird way in order to land all 3 and it didn’t really feel natural. I think there should have only been one control stick to move and then the rest goes as normal. It felt like they had to nerf the lock on feature here in order to make the final boss more of a challenge.

To be clear, they definitely succeeded. It was a really tough final boss and one that absolutely kept me at the edge of my seat. I died several times there before I was finally able to win. Ironically the first phase is the toughest one while the next two go by very quickly and easily. In general the game is easier than the first 3 Primes but not insultingly so. I would say the difficulty is reasonable enough so long time fans will have a good time.

The main gameplay is still the classic first person style where you can shoot your energy blasts or missiles at the opponents until they go down. You will unlock different elemental attacks as you go forward and will get other kinds of power ups. It’s all pretty familiar if you have played the previous titles. In a lot of ways this one is trying hard to be a total formula game without trying to go beyond that. Fortunately the gameplay is fun enough where you won’t mid the repetition too much but there are some areas where the game isa bit dated.

The biggest example is not having any fast travel. There is a lot of backtracking here and it feels completely unnecessary. You should be able to cover larger chunks of ground without taking so long. Then you also have the green crystal grind at the end. I made sure to hit all the green crystals I could as I went through the game but wouldn’t go out of my way for others either. So then at the end I would do the main grind. It won’t take you longer than 2 hours or so but it just feels like a pointless grind. Why even include it?

The Prime games always have a bit of a collectathon at the end so it felt like this game was just adding one to continue the trend instead of actually getting real hyped for it. Not the best way to go. The desert definitely could have been handled better and the bike would have been more fun if it was faster. It goes by slow enough where that just adds to the tedious nature of it. A rare mistake from Nintendo. So the game had its issues like this but on the whole it was fun.

The collectibles are pretty easy to find with how well the map is labeled. Additionally, the power ups do help to make you feel a lot stronger. The puzzles are much better than in previous games and so for the most part it did feel like Nintendo thought this one through. Just one or wo quick fixes would have done a lot to make the game reach the next stage.

The graphics are definitely real solid. Metroid has never looked sharper and that is something I can say with 0 reservations. I did appreciate that we got more voice acting here. The side characters were all rather weak though. I much preferred the aliens and metahumans from Prime 3. I don’t know why you would go back to normal humans. Still, we got more of a plot than I was expecting even if it would vanish for large portions of time.

The soundtrack is also solid although it doesn’t match the previous games. For example you won’t be hearing anything that launches you out of your seat the way the Dark Samus theme did in the second game. That one is just hard to beat. So it was good all around but like in other areas, Prime 4 was unable to pass the third game here.

Overall, Metroid Prime 4 is a pretty good game. I had a good time with it. The title is fairly short as you will definitely manage to beat it in under 10 hours. Getting all of the collectibles and such will likely take this to around 15 hours or so but even then it won’t be extending things a whole lot. There isn’t a ton of replay value here unless you really like the story. For that reason you may want to wait for a bit of a discount. I’m always glad to see Samus though so hopefully this time the wait for Prime 5 is a lot shorter.

Overall 7/10

The Bionic Commando Review

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Whenever you make a video game where your main character doesn’t have the ability to jump, it should raise some red flags. How do you actually plan your game around that? Surely it can’t be easy and that’s why I would usually recommend not even taking the risk. Well, this game decided to do it anyway and unfortunately it did not go very well. The game goes too far in being as non-linear as possible to the point where you have no idea where to go after a while.

The game starts out with the world’s greatest agent being taken out of the picture. So the world’s second best agent is forced to get in on the action. He has to find the first guy and save him as well as stopping the villains from taking over the world. It will be difficult but this guy has a whole lot of training up his sleeve so it’s nothing that he hasn’t seen before.

The gameplay is your standard 2D platformer at first glance. You can move and jump as well as firing your blaster at folks. As I mentioned before, there is no jumping though. Instead you have an extendable claw that you can use to grab onto walls and mount your comeback. You will have to time the claw throws very carefully because your momentum only lasts for a quick instance. Once it is gone, then you are back to normal and often times you will be in a worse position than when you started.

Each level has a computer room that you must access before you can complete the level. This is a place where you can swap out your current equipment as well as learn some information about the villains and their movements. So this still sounds straight forward right? Well, where the wheels come off is you have to move through the hub world to the last level but you have multiple paths to get there. There are around 19 levels and the numbers are on them but it can be difficult to follow them in order.

You have to endure extra battles based on the enemies who are patrolling those areas. That’s not the only problem, you then have to factor in that you need the right items equipped for different levels to get through. You have up to 3 walkie talkies for example and no clear indicator on which one you need to use in order to proceed. You also have obstacles that can only be broken by specific guns. So there’s a lot of things to consider and none of them are all that fun. I would say that’s the main problem here.

I want to just get to the levels already. The combat is fairly decent and I enjoyed the boss battles. The shine starts to leave as you have to complete those same levels and bosses over and over again though. They keep on respawning and it just feels like that goes against the whole point of the adventure. This should be a fast paced battle to save your friends, not an ever lasting war against foes who refuse to go down. It just doesn’t add up.

The graphics aren’t bad. I do appreciate that we have actual cutscenes of sorts here as well. There is a real story and so this game put in the effort, it was just unfortunately overwhelmed by the fact that the gameplay mechanics were no good. Unfortunately I don’t believe there are a whole lot of ways to get around that. This game was not able to accomplish such a feat after all and that’s why I didn’t really want to rush back to it. The way I see it, this game just failed on a basic level in terms of being really fun to play.

The game’s length is fairly good for such an old game so I can give it some credit in terms of lasting value at least. The soundtrack was okay too so it had some fundamentals here. I think this would make for a good film and I would definitely play a remake of it someday. In the meantime though, this is going to be remembered as one of the weaker Game Boy games. The title just got a little bit too clever for its own good and so the whole thing backfired.

Overall, The Bionic Commando is not a game that I would recommend. It’s not like it’s bad or anything like that but to me it wasn’t that much fun and that’s the biggest thing you need in a game. Actually, I guess I could call it bad in that case as anything under a 5 can earn that title. If you ask me this game should have either kept in the ability to jump or it should have made the levels linear. Either option would have made this better but the whole guessing game doesn’t really work in a game like this. I wanted to be right there in the action, not left to guess on what was going on. Props to folks who figured out how to complete this game back in the day. If you have the Switch Online, I’d recommend playing Kirby instead.

Overall 4/10

The Angel of Pennsylvania Avenue

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It’s time for a wholesome story about a few kids deciding to see the President. It reminds you that this isn’t an easy task and yet it can be accomplished if you have a lot of resilience and are resourceful. This makes for an uplifting film even if it is all handled rather seriously. There aren’t a lot of overt laughs to be had here but the film doesn’t falter and the pacing is pretty good. I wasn’t aware of the events that the film was based off of either.

The movie takes place during the Great Depression and jobs are scarce. Everyone was looking forward to a good Christmas but the father announces that he will have to travel across states for a job opportunity. His wife is pregnant and they already have 3 kids so money is absolutely becoming an issue now. He tells them to stay strong and it’ll all work out but unfortunately that is easier said than done. He is framed for assaulting someone while trying to get the job and is taken to jail. Unfortunately this may end up being a death sentence if the victim dies and so the oldest kid decides that she will visit the president to put a stop to this. Her younger siblings want to come as well and naturally once the three of them vanish, the Mom has to go after them as well.

Now this is one of those things that probably couldn’t happen in the current day. There are way more safeguards in place and travelling across states is incredibly tricky. They would really need more money and I also don’t think the bluffs they used in this film would actually work. People are going to have their guards up if they see kids running around all by themselves and for good reason. So the kids would likely be stopped pretty early on in their journey.

As it is, they got quite a lot of help in this one like with another kid helping them hide while in the train and the conductors trusting their word when the kids say that their mom is already on the train. The kids get big props for making it this far although it would have probably been a bit easier for the oldest kid if she was on her own. The younger ones were a lot quicker to give up and also generally be disheartened at times. It makes sense since they are so young but it’s why they should have really stayed home. Their stubbornness could have really back fired.

Meanwhile the Mom did her best considering that she was still pregnant. She had to essentially go on an adventure of her own and in the days before cell phone and technology, this was a real shot in the dark. She had to hope that the kids were still on track for their destination and there are plenty of ways that they could have missed each other. That whole trip would have been super stressful.

The movie does show that there were quite a lot of helpful people every step of the way. Whether it was nice people helping through hitchhiking or just providing direction, everyone helped out a bit. There were one or two bad apples in there like the drunk driver so the world wouldn’t feel overly perfect but it was definitely filled with many more positives than negatives which is always reassuring. So on the whole the movie is sounding pretty promising so why do I not have it super high?

Well at times the movie just feels like it’s not making a whole lot of traction. I don’t think the pacing was great at it could take a while for plot progression at times. I also think that since the main characters were the kids, that limited the film’s potential at times. The kids did their best but it’s not like they’re going to have a lot of witty banter. The younger kids would be giving up like I mentioned before but even the eldest wasn’t always good at staying in control. She was baited into a fight rather easily which isn’t bad. There are good times to get into a fight for sure and this could even be one of them but then she needs to own it. She acted confused on why her mother was upset when it should have been pretty clear even from her perspective.

I also think this is an example of a film that’s a bit dry. Without any big humor scenes or explosive climaxes, there isn’t a whole lot to keep you at the edge of your seat. I think it would have been nice to have had more meanwhile scenes with the father in jail. Maybe showing him try to plead his case or coming up with a plan. I imagine it might have been difficult to do too much here considering the movie was based on a true chain of events but it would have been interesting because I think his plot would have been fun. He was a good guy just trying to look out for his family and then things went sideways. He’d be really desperate at that point so there is a lot you could do there.

Overall, This was a good movie. Even though it is light hearted, the serious nature of the film does prevent it from having too much replay value. The pacing isn’t very fast and like I mentioned before there aren’t a lot of laughs. You will enjoy the good quality of the movie but I feel like there won’t be a whole lot of reason to watch it again beyond that. So this is one of those titles where you are in it for the initial enjoyment and that will have to be enough. If this sounds like it is up your alley then you should check it out.

The Little Troll Prince Review

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Now this is a special that I haven’t seen in a very long time. The Little Troll Prince is one of those wholesome stories that is fairly quick but covers a lot of ground. Bu may not be the most intense main character out there but he does serve his role well in learning about the true meaning of Christmas. This is a special I could really recommend to anybody.

The story starts by spoiling the ending though as we see how Bu is living a happy life. He lets the audience know that he used to be sad though as he grew up as a troll. The rest of the special is a flashback as we go back to the troll world and learn that they are taught from early on to be as mean as possible. The Trolls are a very cruel people and Prince Bu is the only one who wants to be nice. The school is desperate to knock that out of him though and Bu’s father is certainly upset about this. The other trolls decide to take Bu out of the picture permanently by sending him off to be eaten by the humans.

Fortunately for Bu the humans aren’t so bad. Otherwise he was completely tricked and dominated in this encounter though. Unfortunately while being nice is a good trait, Bu also ended up being naïve which did make it easy to put him in a bad position here. In a way I was surprised that the film didn’t end with him going back to the troll world in order to rehabilitate them. Instead he sort of rolls with the idea that goodness turned him into a Gnome and he’s just happy that it all worked out.

I would say the side characters end up standing out a little more than Bu here. Bu has a good singing voice here and he does his best to be a good prince while not succumbing to the way of the trolls. At the same time, he’s a bit too timid and there isn’t a whole lot to him. I enjoyed the King because he was actually concerned for his son but was stuck within the negative trolls framework.

So his only idea for helping Bu out was to be mean because that’s the only way that he knew. The King even went to the school personally to try and figure out what was going wrong. He was in Bu’s corner the whole time so I appreciate that. The Queen was a whole lot less sympathetic as she just considered Bu to be a failure and wasn’t going to defend him at all. It shows the completely different approaches that both of them had to this situation.

Then you have the two kids in the human world who got to explain things to Bu. They did a good job of rejecting all his arguments about how the trolls were beyond saving. They basically told him to stop being silly and listen to their points. They also explained the true meaning of Christmas being about the birth of Jesus Christ and instilled within Bu some true life lessons. Without them, Bu would still have been in a rather rough place.

The special does a good job of balancing the adventure with also being a more educational special where it talks quite a bit about the Bible and Jesus. It’s the kind of thing you don’t see a whole lot of nowadays so that was a really nice touch. It’s the small things like this which help to take the special to the next level. Surprisingly we don’t have a huge bombastic climax but I guess this special didn’t really need that. No need to promote violence here when the whole point is about Bu finally learning a better way.

The animation is pretty solid. It has a very traditional style that works well and reminds you how good the hand crafted style is. It holds up better than some modern titles which is absolutely a huge inditement on them. This style isn’t going for anything fancy but has strong fundamentals across the board.

As for the soundtrack, the songs could be a bit catchy at times. I actually liked the song Bu had about how cruel the trolls were. He sings it really fast to the point where it is almost hard to keep up but I liked the lyrics and he showed just why trolls could not be underestimated. It was all handled rather impressively if you ask me since I don’t always enjoy these old songs.

Overall, This is a pretty good special. It may be under an hour but they still cram in quite a few characters and the world building is solid. The special doesn’t try to show how the trolls are just misunderstood, but instead their society is just built completely different than the humans. It’s really interesting and also when you consider how close it is to the humans base. Perhaps one day the two sides will meet and things will get really intense but if not, you still have the lore here and can imagine how it all plays out. If you haven’t seen the special before, I would definitely recommend checking it out. I think you’ll be surprised at how fun it can be.

Overall 7/10

Batman: Arkham Origins Review

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The Batman Arkham games have definitely been a blast and so now it’s time to get back in there with another one! Arkham Origins is a great addition to the series and easily has some of the longest cinematic battles within the series. The fights with Deathstroke and Joker were good examples of QTEs mixed in with live combat. It’s all aged incredibly well so this is a game that is very strong on all sides.

The general plot involves Black Mask putting a bounty on Batman’s head. It’s a rather large sum and so now Gotham’s most dangerous villains are all after him. Batman is fairly early in his career and yet he will have to deal with a wide assortment of crazy villains. Finding Black Mask will not be easy, particularly since GCPD is also after him at full speeds. Commissioner Gordan is not exactly impressed with Batman’s approach after all.

Right away the gameplay will feel familiar to Arkham fans. The action is heavily centered around parrying. You want to be dishing out damage but also keeping an eye out for nearby attacks. If you time your parry right, you will block the hit and land a counter. You can also finish off an opponent but it will leave you vulnerable to attack. The benefit is that they will stay down and otherwise they will get up several times during the fight. So there is a lot of strategy here right out of the gate.

You also have an array of gadgets to help you out like smoke bombs and such but honestly they are sometimes more work than they’re worth. I preferred to just jump in each time and start the combos. I did die quite a few times though so perhaps this wasn’t always the right move. The game has a kind of old school level of difficulty. It’s tough enough where you will be dying quite a few times but the checkpoints are fairly close by so you never feel like you have lost a ton of progress. I would say it is really balanced. When you die, it’s always to a very avoidable mistake on your part.

What will really test your creativity are the stealth sections of the game. You often have to find ways to isolate a bunch of the villains and take them down one at a time. At the same time, the game does allow you to go and fight them if you want but the bullets deal massive damage. So this way you have some freedom to challenge the villains in whatever your preferred option is. I like that it’s not the kind of game where you instantly die as soon as the villains see you.

The graphics are really great and have definitely aged well. The art style nails a realistic look without making the mistake of trying to simulate a live action movie. As a result it is still stylistic enough to get the job done. The soundtrack is a bit more on the forgettable side though. I would have liked some kind of fast paced battle theme for some of the battles but that wasn’t really going to be the case in this one.

If I have any slight issue with the game, it’s that the loading times can be a bit long. When you boot up the game, there is no way to skip all of the company announcements. Then when you die, you have to watch a fairly extensive cinematic of the villain making fun of you. It’s not ultra long or anything but when you die a lot, it certainly begins to feel that way. It’s a nice touch that the villain mocking you will change based on the level but I’d prefer a quicker restart.

There is a lot of replay value here in getting the PS3 trophies to aim for a Platinum. It seems like a rather difficult set of trophies to get, or at least a very time intensive endeavor. One day I may go for it but this doesn’t seem like the highest one on my list for that reason. You are definitely getting a lot of bang for your buck here though. You can also unlock different costumes for after you beat the game, although low key I would have liked to have had those sooner.

There is also a progression system where you can use your level ups to unlock moves and such. The EXP system is maybe a little too generous though because you will have all of your moves maxed out before the end of the game. There are gadget upgrades you can do next but not without doing some kind of side mission so I never actually got around to that part.

Each of the boss fights have their own unique mechanics so you will be glad to hear that there are no recycled fights. Each one also incorporates some level of QTE into it. It’s not exactly surprising, the games have always been really good at that. Like I said before, this is a very high quality title that clearly had a lot of effort put into it. The main campaign may be fairly short but that is true for most of the games in this series. The replay value helps to counter balance that with how much more content is available.

Overall, Arkham Origins is a great title that really avoided making any big mistakes. You could tell that some of the platforming could be a bit clunky next to Arkham City but just on a relative level. If you look at the game on its own then it is as smooth as it needs to be. If you don’t own this game yet then you definitely ought to change that. This would also make for a pretty good movie one day. Now there is only one Arkham game left in my marathon adventures so we’ll see how that one ends up playing out.

Overall 8/10

Red One Review

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It’s time for one of those Christmas titles that just gets you hyped right out of the gate. The stakes have never been higher with Christmas itself being on the line here. If you’re looking for a modern action blockbuster with tons of humor running around, then you have come to the right place. This is a very light hearted film with quick pacing so right away you will be able to tell if you are going to be a big fan of it or not. This film isn’t trying to hide what it’s all about. What you see is what you get.

The movie starts by introducing us to Callum who is the right hand man of Santa. He leads the guard detail at every event and makes sure that nobody gets to Santa. He has been doing this successfully for hundreds of years without any hiccups. Well, one day Santa is kidnapped and he will have to rely on the help of Jack, the world’s best underground hacker. This guy knows how to stay off the grid in most cases but gets picked up by the heroes and is essentially blackmailed into helping. It was Jack’s info that allowed the villains to breach the North Pole and so he has to make amends. He has no real training in the field though so he and Callum will have to put their differences aside in order to claim victory here.

Right off the gate you have the dynamic that this film will be going with. It’s the classic Buddy cop duo where both characters will be taking shots and digs at each other continuously while gradually learning how to respect each other. It may not exactly be a new dynamic but I have to say that it still works. Both characters are a lot of fun and it’s nice to see what they can do against the big villains.

Gryla is one of the big villains here and she is able to possess people as well as hear any conversation involving her name from anywhere across the planet. These may not be the most powerful abilities to have in an offensive way but at the same time she is widely feared. You can kind of understand why she wants to take all of the naughty people down because it becomes apparent that society has fallen under tough times. That said, she wants to also get anybody who has ever been naughty which is where she goes into full on psycho mode.

Her whole plan also revolved around the North Pole being ridiculously easy to infiltrate. If Callum had been there, then she likely would have failed right at the onset so I can’t say that she planned things out well at all. Once the characters get to where she is, things go south pretty quickly for her. There are some things she couldn’t have counted on like a certain other character getting involved but either way she needed a way to execute her plan quicker.

One subplot that didn’t add much to the equation was Jack’s family drama. We already know that he was a jerk, the deadbeat father part is meant to lead up to his big character revival but I could have done without that. Maybe save that for a sequel but in this one just lean into him being a jerk the whole time. Give him an ambiguous scene near the end where he does something good but doesn’t admit it and that’s how the viewer sees that he has changed. Adding in his kid for the bonding moments was a lot more in your face.

Callum of course has his crisis where he just has a hard time seeing the good in everyone anymore. As the film goes on, he is able to get back into a more positive mindset. A basic but more effective character arc if you ask me. He had only been faltering recently so it was easy to do a 180 compared to Jack who has been a mega jerk for ages. Jack even stole candy from a baby which was really crazy. Even at his lowest, Callum would have never done that.

The movie has a pretty good amount of world building so they could definitely build a franchise off of this. While Christmas is the main attraction here, the organization deals with any supernatural menaces so you could spread that into a lot of spinoffs. Even if this film never gets any sequels or spinoffs, it still helps to make the world feel pretty good for this one. The film doesn’t try to chomp all of the lore down for you so you can fill in some of the blanks.

Meanwhile the action is pretty solid. The hand to hand is on point and I always enjoy see Callum just threaten everyone to their faces. Now that takes a lot of guts and outside of one slap fight, he always has the upper hand at the ready. The soundtrack is also pretty good with some classic Christmas songs in there. The movie definitely feels nice and festive as a result. Like I mentioned before, the pacing is also pretty fast so the whole thing goes by really quickly. There’s a ton of replay value here and as long as you enjoy a good amount of humor during the adventure, you’ll be having a good time.

Callum definitely needs some better assistants though. Throughout the film it feels as though he doesn’t have anyone he can really rely on. Sure, Jack becomes that guy but for the most part, the other characters don’t even keep up the appearances of trying to help. Whether it’s letting villains get away or being taken out off screen, it’s just not a good look for them. If Callum did decide to retire, well I bet Santa would be captured real quick.

Overall, Red One is a pretty good film. It’s what I would call a very basic action blockbuster. There are a lot of laughs and fun action scenes. it never takes any real risks so you can bet that all of the jokes and fights are as safe as possible. That’s not a problem though because the execution is still on point the whole time and that’s what counts. You’ll be grinning along with the characters as things get real and they absolutely handle the situation. I could easily watch a sequel with the same cast because the dynamics work well. If you haven’t seen it yet, then you should definitely change that.

Overall 7/10