The Curious Cat is a pretty strong creature with a lot of attack options but he’s not taking down Ruby Rose. When Ruby is at the top of her game and firing on all cylinders there are very few fighters who can take her down. The Curious Cat is definitely not one of them. He will very quickly be unable to keep up with her speed and while he has a lot of durability she can chip away at it all day until she takes the win. Ruby Rose wins.
Jinwoo has returned for another big win in this fight. Cha Hae In can fight really well to be sure but Jinwoo is the main character of his series for a reason. His stats far outstrip any other opponent in the series. She won’t have the speed to keep up with him for very long and doesn’t have enough attack power to finish him off either. What does this mean? Jinwoo holds all of the cards in this fight and has no real loss conditions. Jinwoo wins.
Beru is a very powerful creature with abilities that would strike fear into most. That being said, he is not quite ready to take on a fighter on Jinwoo’s level. Jinwoo is one of the more powerful main characters of our time and he surpasses Beru in all combat stats. Beru would barely be able to keep up with this guy’s movements and doesn’t have the durability needed to survive more than a few strikes. This really puts him on the losing side this time. Jinwoo wins.
It’s time for another super long Switch game in Temtem. This one’s basically a Pokemon homage for the modern audience. In some ways it definitely surpasses Pokemon like the fact that the story can get a lot more out there but on the other hand it does have some extra issues like endless battles that do bog it down somewhat. So it’s a good game but not nearly as good as it could have been.
The game starts off simply enough with your character getting his first Temtem. He can finally travel the world and fight all of the Dojo Masters. Unfortunately his journey is interrupted by the fact that a big terrorist organization is making a move on the planet. They are building some kind of super Temtem to take over the world. The lead will have to stop these guys while also improving his skills, but what can one kid do?
Basically this is like the plot of the original Pokemon game but with a few additions and twists. Additionally the game definitely has fun being really self aware about the whole thing. You are often given 3 dialogue options, usually a nice one, a mean one, and a random one. I certainly had fun playing around with the responses. Note that this doesn’t actually change the story or anything like that but at the same time it does give the lead some personality. Also the characters do actually react to what you’re saying which is nice. In Harvestella this didn’t really happen as the two options were almost always pretty much identical.
I wouldn’t say that most of the characters are all that memorable but I did like the final boss because of how insane he got and I also enjoyed the general. The rival Max started out good but basically fell off a cliff. Where the game gets a bit dicey is it tries to be as edgy and modern as possible which works in some ways like this game having a body count and you getting to fight unwinnable battles. Where it doesn’t work is with the game getting rather PC and shoving a bunch of iffy romances at your face. The game constantly trying to ship me with the rival was pretty awful. At least there’s always an option for you to tell him to back off or just be really mean to keep it from happening but making that a main plot point was definitely not a good idea. A ton of the NPCs you beat up also have romance drama going on, at least two being story plots you can’t skip so the game wanted you to absolutely know where it stood on the gender politics. It’d be nice if all of that could have been sidelined so I can focus on the actual game!
To the rest of the plot, at least the lead actually has real character and can talk. That’s a big departure from the classic Pokemon games where this was absolutely not the case. Even now Pokemon doesn’t really do that and I think it will be years before it’s ready to be more of a full RPG the way this one was. The game doesn’t want to invite too many comparisons to Pokemon beyond all of the inevitable ones so it does go and switch all of the type advantages. Because of this it took me forever to learn them and even by the end I was mostly working off of memory from when I fought the Temtems. I still couldn’t tell you most of the types.
As this is one of those games where you are always online, the game is constantly saving. That’s good because the game crashed several times where I definitely would have lost some data but fortunately in this game when you restart it takes you to the exact point where it crashed. Literally if you’re mid battle you will respawn on the same turn within the same battle. So that was definitely cool. You also have a portable Pokemon center of sorts which you can use to recover all of your health once after every poke center visit. This is huge because otherwise I would have to be going there constantly.
As I mentioned earlier there are tons and tons of fights and they generally keep really close pace with your Temtem. So you can probably beat maybe 2 of them before you have to go and heal. So with this item you can do 4 fights before you have to reset. There is no EXP share or anything like that so most likely by the end of the game you will have 2 super powerful Temtem and the other 4 would be fodders. I basically resorted to just catching my last ones in the wild since they would at least be level 70 that way but my main two were both over level 90. This made the final fight tough since there’s a timer and I had to keep on reviving the main two but it worked out.
You need to watch out for the fact that money is hard to come by from Pokemon encounters though. In fact I think you don’t get any money from those so you need to fight with trainers a lot and that money goes really quickly. It makes losing really high stakes since the game saves so often and then you don’t have enough cash to buy more revives. You can always grind out more levels of course if it gets to be too much though. Fortunately I didn’t have to much after the first chunk of the game, for the most part it stays manageable. Just pick your main two Temtem carefully so that you have a balanced form of attack. I used a thunder type and a bug type which covers most matchups.
The soundtrack is a bit more on the forgettable side so you likely won’t be remembering too many themes. The graphics are also not super impressive, they do the job but ultimately I wouldn’t say that they’re high tier or anything. This could pass for a much older game than on the Switch but it feels like it’s an indie title to an extent so this isn’t exactly coming with a Mario budget or anything like that. It could have probably put some more effort into it, but it’s not bad at least.
One thing this game really lacked was a better fast travel system. There are large parts of the game where you’re running from place to place and it just takes a very long time. Being able to teleport to a town once you have been there would be huge. The main Pokemon games have always done this so Temtem deciding not to bring that feature along was a big mistake. Maybe they thought it would feel too similar but there are tons of ways around that and most RPGs have fast travel so it shouldn’t have been a big deal. In short, this game’s biggest weakness is easily that it is missing a ton of quality of life features. It feels a lot grindier than it needs to be with all of the constant fighting and that means there is less time to just enjoy the story even if the story could have also been better. There are a lot of elements that I liked but also things left on the table. For example the climax is a huge missed opportunity. Lets just say that you’re expecting one more huge battle at the end the whole time and then it just doesn’t happen. I was really surprised about that. It may have also been a budget thing but it was absolutely not a good idea.
Overall, Temtem is a good game. It’s held back a bit by how hard the game is being drawn out towards the end though. There are just so many battles. They may not be super tough but you still have to go back to the healing station each time after fighting them and this gets old quick. Especially because the minion spawn rate is rather high too so you have to be running away a lot. This is a game where you will need to have a book or something with you while you are playing for all of the dead time. It’s a turn based combat game after all so there are a lot of animations and the battles tend to be a little on the long side. It could use some Asdivine Hearts quality of life features to cut out animations and speed things up if you ask me. Still if you want a Pokemon type game with a story that can go a bit harder than the main games then this should be right up your alley. It’s not like there are a ton of Pokemon type games out there either so you need to grab each one that you see.
Overall 6/10
It’s time to look at a farming game and this is the first time that I’ve bought one like this. I was a little hesitant because farming isn’t necessarily my thing but I had heard that this game had a really good story and was still in large part a full RPG with lots of combat. So I decided to take the plunge and it really is a great game. Certainly on the long side as it took me over 50 hours though and nearly ended up catching up to Tears of the Kingdom. The Switch has definitely gotten a whole lot of playtime lately!
The basic plot is that one day you wake up in the middle of nowhere during an event call Quietus. You have complete amnesia but fortunately the local doctor nurses you back to health and even gives you a little farm. You are determined to make this the best farm of all! Eventually an alien ship lands and a girl appears from it. She claims to be from the future and needs a way back to her time. So now you have to help her, tend to your farm, and you also need a way to save the world. See these Quietus events are dangerous since if you stand outside during one you could die and they’re happening very regularly now. Something’s up, but what? As you travel to different towns to buy farming ingredients you meet more people to add to your party and find out more about this time traveler. Ultimately the pieces will fit together but you’ve got time.
There’s a lot to enjoy here but the one thing I will take away from the game is that I would have liked more voice acting. For a modern day Switch title it’s pretty odd to just be reading text the whole time. It’s not like they couldn’t have voice acting either since your fairies call out to you every day when you leave the house and when you return. For two of the final bosses we suddenly get full voice acting as well. So to me it just seems like a budget thing or they were hurrying a lot but it’s unfortunate since voice acting could have helped to elevate this further.
The actual graphics are really good though. I really like the colors and the overall atmosphere of the game. It has a bit of a sci-fi feel to it even when you’re on the farm because of the crystals everywhere. The visuals and the fun soundtrack do a lot to make this game feel grand. It’s an RPG that is taking itself very seriously and I can definitely appreciate that. As a mild negative it would be nice if the fairies didn’t have to greet you home or say goodbye every time. They only have 1-2 sound clips so this gets really old fast. It’s one of those audio things the devs really need to think about since you will be performing those actions well over 100 times.
The RPG combat is really solid, if a bit complicated. Basically you have around 10 different job classes which all change up your attacks and element type. You can use a sword and just slash away at the enemies or you can use futuristic energy blades to fire at opponents from long range. Each job seems to have some advantages to it. I used the Mage class for around 80% of the game and then went to the fighter and holographic classes for the climax. I didn’t experiment too much with the others but they all seemed pretty fun.
There is a stamina system like Breath of the Wild which can get a little annoying. You can’t regenerate it naturally so the only way is to eat some food or go to sleep and start the next day. Not ideal when you’re in the middle of a dungeon though. Additionally you have a hunger meter so after a point you can’t eat anymore. You want to stock up on fruit juices because those you can continue to have even once your character is fully full. This is probably the main point where the game is being just a tad too realistic. I think the game should have dialed that back a bit.
I’m also not typically a fan of the day system and you can bet that this was not an exception. Having to rush home because the day was ending is not really my idea of a good time. I like to just relax and do things as they come so that goes against my gaming style. I’ll make it work of course but yeah these are all mechanics that I could do without. I suppose the most satisfying part of the farming is gathering resources though. It was always nice to finally build something.
By the end of the game I had completed all side quests and managed to build almost all of the items. So I really got a whole lot done and it shows jut how tough the final boss is because I needed all of that in order to win. I would recommend creating a juicer as early as possible because that is really what let me beat the game. I saved up over 40 fruit juices and had to spam almost all of them in order to win.
You could probably do with less of those if you got more level ups I suppose but I capped out in the early 50s so I didn’t have a ton of health. Without all of the health recoveries I would have certainly gone down. You can only get one juice per day too so the earlier you start the better. I ended up beating the game in around 1 year in-game time since I got to experience each of the seasons once so that was pretty cool.
It goes without saying that there is pretty much unlimited replay value here. You can keep on playing for a very long time as you keep upgrading your farm and getting level ups. I imagine it would take an extremely long amount of time for you to 100% this game but at least you do have a final goal of sorts. So the game never feels aimless. I can’t picture myself ever trying for the 100% but at least it is there should you ever be tempted to try and pull that off. Beating the story was satisfying enough for me.
Finally one of the big things about this game is how you can’t do everything you want to do within the day since it goes fast. You always have to decide between resource grinding, progressing the story, doing side quests, or working on equipment. Some of those categories can be broken down even further as well. I would usually focus on resources since there are always enemies to fight along the way but attacking enemies uses stamina which you need to pick up items so it’s still a tough call. Go with your gut on this one and remember there’s no time limit so eventually you will have what you need to get the win.
Overall, Harvestella is a pretty great game. I do think it survives entirely based on the combat gameplay and the great story though. You really get to know all of the characters after being with them for 50 hours so the climax hits really hard. You also had some tough moral decisions to make and ultimately this was just a very complete story. Ultimately this tells me that I still wouldn’t be fully on board with a big farming title. It doesn’t hold the game back enough to hurt it but it would absolutely be really bad news if the whole game had to rely on that. So if you’ve ever been curious about the genre, check this game out. As long as you like RPGs you will still enjoy it and this way you get to have a taste of what the farming is like. It’s really a full win/win for you. There’s also so much depth to the game that it’s hard to mention it all in one shot so trust me you will come across a lot of things that I didn’t even touch on here. The main thing to remember is that this is a game with a serious amount of grinding so pretty much all power ups and equipment really have to be earned. Prepare for a long journey right there!
Overall 8/10
Suggested by Mehama Sadafa Hiei and Dragon are both exceptionally strong fighters with top tier equipment. I would say Shiryu’s equipment is a bit better though and his shield should be able to block Hiei’s strikes. Dragon is also fast enough to keep up with Hiei’s speed and then some. Mix in his much mower powerful attacks and Dragon really has the edge here. I’m not going to say this is a blowout or anything like that but the victor should never be in doubt. Dragon Shiryu wins.
Suggested by Killzit The Colossal Titan is a fairly huge opponent but that won’t be enough to stop Sakura. Sakura has slowly developed into one of the more powerful Shonen Jump heroines. Her super strength would be enough to instantly vaporize the Colossal Titan with a single blow. His defenses aren’t ready for a fighter like that and speed was never really hit thing. Trust me when I say that he has no shot here. Sakura wins.
Suggested by Princess Ichigo Bradley Ichigo Momomiya and Sailor Moon are both some of the most iconic magical girls in all of fiction. Sailor Moon’s attack power is far greater than Ichigo’s, but where she loses here is the difference in speed. Ichigo should be able to stay out of Moon’s range with ease. Think of any superhero dodging a villain with a gun. Sailor Moon can amp up her lasers to cover a wider and wider distance but ultimately she does need to point and Ichigo will get behind her. Moon’s travel speed won’t be enough to overcome this fighter and her lack of durability feats will be her undoing. Ichigo Momomiya wins.
Wait a minute, shouldn’t the title actually say that they met Frankenstein’s monster? Hmmmmm, well that’s a mystery for another day. Honestly I would have exchanged that for the Werewolf since it makes the most sense personally but I suppose it gets the idea across that the supernatural monsters are here and they are ready for action. It’s a pretty good film and the Abbott and Costello banter works really well. It’s always fun to see them having a hard time communicating with one taking everything super literally and the other one not knowing how to phrase things a bit better. Ultimately the monsters have the edge in firepower but can they overcome this duo’s creativity and unexpectedness?
The movie starts off with Larry Talbot stealing the show as per usual as he calls in to try and stop the world from unleashing the powers of Dracula and Frankenstein on the world. Unfortunately his power is too great and he turns into the legendary Wolfman which ends the call. We then cut to Chick and Wilbur who are messing around and getting into trouble! They got the deliveries of the monsters and end up bringing them to the client’s place but allow the monsters to escape. Now Dracula and Frankenstein are primed to destroy the world and even steal Wilbur’s body if they aren’t stopped. Will Larry arrive in time to stop them? Also can Wilbur stay focused as the villainess Sandra tries to pull the moves on him?
There’s quite a bit to unpack here but first off it’s really nice to see Larry return. He was always the best out of the original Universal monsters and is an even more sympathetic character than Bruce Banner/Hulk and Jekyll/Hyde. You actually feel his distress with how he wants to keep the Wolfman at bay but it’s just so difficult. Ultimately in this movie I would say he has a decent handle on it as he uses his abilities to take on Dracula. His scenes are all played straight as true scenes of terror and he’s consistently great. The film may not be the best way to end his legacy in terms of a happy ending but his role was powerful.
Fans of Dracula should enjoy him here as well because he does get his respect. On the minus side he does get scared of Chick and hides a lot but on the other hand he is treated as the mastermind on the villains’ side. He is the one who powers up Frankenstein and leads all of the attacks which is pretty good. The guy is the most iconic out of all the universal monsters after all so it makes sense he would get the top billing as the leader there. As for Frankenstein, well he’s back to being fully mindless so you can really ignore him. He’s not actually doing much of anything here except stumbling around. I wouldn’t consider him to be nearly as much of a threat if you ask me.
Chick is one of the highlight characters in the film. I like how he always dominates the conversation and keeps Wilbur in line. Of course a lot of the time he does end up being wrong but you can always get why he would make the assumptions that he does because Wilbur is the kind of character who is always exaggerating and making a mess of things. Put it this way, he is always super hyper so aside from this adventure he’s probably panicking like this every day. I’m sure Chick has seen a ton of false positives over the years and in the end Chick helps out when it counts. He even talks tough to Larry. I just like how Chick doesn’t back down.
He is a bit desperate when it comes to girls though so he loses some points there. For example when all of the girls like Wilbur he keeps asking if he can have one for himself to which Wilbur is basically saying “No!” which makes sense. Additionally it’s not like he would have a ton of input in that. Either they like Chick or they don’t and in this case it seems like they don’t. The guy just needs to take his L gracefully and move on. No need to dwell on it, it is what it is after all.
Wilbur looks pretty bad though. He is pretty crucial to the humor of course and gets a lot of funny moments there but as a character he just isn’t very focused and often makes the wrong moves. He panics constantly and also doesn’t have the strength of will to stick to his girl. When the other girls start flirting he immediately folds and it’s a very sad look for the guy. He loses a lot of points in that instance and never really gets them back. The guy never really mans up by the end either. So while he is a net positive to the film because the scenes are funny, I wouldn’t say he ranks as a character.
In general of course the reason why the film is so good is because of the humor. The humor is really handled well with a lot of high quality moments. It’s pretty guaranteed to get some laughs out of you and especially if you like this humor style then you’re in for a treat. The movie never slows down with all of the jokes and gags so they keep on coming rapid fire. We also do get some action in the monster battles which was pretty nice to see. Mix in the solid cast and you have all of the right elements here. I’d also have been game to enjoy this film straight up as a serious adventure with Larry as the main character but we already had a bunch of those so this works as a change of pace. It has definitely withstood the test of time and you don’t really see this kind of humor style anymore. It’s a relic of its time and a pretty solid one at that.
Overall, Abbott and Costello have another solid film here. It’s a pretty good time with a lot of funny jokes and good pacing. I would say the jokes hit the hardest during the first half while Chick doesn’t believe him so you have a solid dynamic there but of course the second half is still good too. The ending really works well with that last scene stinger and I really don’t have very many complaints with the film. It’s an all around solid title with a lot of positives going its way. My favorite film in the series is still the one where they meet Boris but this is another really good entry. I would definitely recommend checking it out.
Overall 7/10
It’s no surprise that I didn’t really like the first Lassie movie. In fact it was pretty awful now that I think about it. It’s just not really my kind of film and the sequel is better but still pretty bad. You have the dog still getting shot and some general animal violence. It isn’t in the same level as the first film of course but why can’t we just have a happy dog film instead? That’s what the people want and most importantly, it’s what I want! Seriously just think about it, this has potential to be as big as Air Bud but instead the film ends up being more of a miss. Also more than the first film it just feels a bit aimless at times.
The movie starts off by introducing us to Laddie, the son of Lassie. This guy is really aggressive and doesn’t play by the rules. This often frustrates the Duke because Laddie messes up the flowers. Laddie’s owner Joe doesn’t really care all that much though because he correctly realizes that Laddie is just having a lot of fun. Well Joe gets drafted into war so he heads out while Laddie is to finally be trained professionally. The owners underestimate him though and Laddie travels across the country to find Joe. Looks like Laddie will be having a spot in this war after all but is it really safe for him?
I wouldn’t say the film has a huge plot beyond that though. A good chunk of the adventure is Laddie running after Joe, being taken back home, then finding him again, etc. It’s really a cycle that just keeps on going over and over again. Sure by the end we actually get to meet the enemies and Laddie gets to prove his stuff but that’s the very end of the film. For the most part it was relatively aimless until then.
Also Joe doesn’t make for a very compelling main character. Everyone’s always insulting him all the time and he typically doesn’t really notice or react. Intentionally not reacting to a diss is absolutely a good skill but the problem is that I’m not sure if he even notices so that’s not a good look there. You really need to be ready for action at all times and the digs aren’t exactly subtle either. So if you don’t recognize that then we have some problems. His lack of confidence is also huge.
He likes this one girl and she basically tells him to confess several times and it takes a lot to force it out of him. The guy’s just way too nervous and always running off. Some guys can be shy sure, but this was a bit much. You’re just cringing the whole time. The whole romance isn’t particularly good but it’s not a big part of the film anyway so I suppose it doesn’t have a huge impact. It’s just part of a bigger problem which is that any scene with Joe is brutal. The guy also had no plan when he was taken at gunpoint in the climax and Laddie had to do all the work.
I always say if it’s life or death what do you have to lose? In this case the villain is walking Joe up a cliff so that he can be shot and fall into the abyss. Joe knows that, the villain knows that, and I know that. So why would you possibly just keep walking up and wait to get shot? Lunge at the guy, go for the gun etc. What’s he gonna do…shoot you? Well that’s going to happen anyway so you might as well take a chance. It’s not like this is a scenario where you only might get shot. The guy made is clear that Joe has to be exterminated so that’s really it. You have to try and fight back while you still can. Definitely a pretty brutal moment for good ole Joe.
Still, like I said the main problem here is that the film can just be rather boring. The story can barely last 40 minutes, let alone the full length of the title. We probably should have focused more on training scenes or maybe even some military battles. You needed more plots or some kind of hook to pull this off. That being said, I was glad that Joe didn’t go with the other guy’s plan to hit Laddie. That would have been absolutely awful so in all of my bashing of the guy, he got that part right.
There’s really not a whole lot to even talk abut with this film in the end. I guess we can say there was a lot of plot armor in nobody being able to stop Laddie from travelling cross country each time. You’d think the characters would learn and keep the leash on each time but Laddie was always a few steps ahead of them. I would have liked the Duke to have appeared more since he’s always the most enjoyable character but he doesn’t do a whole lot here after the intro scenes. Lassie herself also doesn’t have a big role.
Having her step in to save the day would have been a clever way to get some excitement in here. Actually it’ such a great idea that I’m surprised they didn’t do it. Lassie doesn’t have any of the huge pivotal roles you would expect from the old main character appearing in the sequel. It’d be like if Naruto didn’t do much in Boruto or if Goku was slacking off in Super. Lassie should still be the one making a big play now and then even if Laddie is the one with the final moment.
Overall, Son of Lassie is just not a very interesting film. Mix in the animal violence and it was really out of its depth. I think there is probably a great film mixed in there somewhere…but it’s very deep in there so that’s not going to be all that helpful tbh. In the end a dog film should be a fairly upbeat one where the dog isn’t in any danger. Sure that can be boring if handled wrong but it’s all up to the writers. Surely you should be able to make a film that is still really interesting even without that right? If you can’t…well I guess now we’ve got a real problem now don’t we?
Overall 3/10
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