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Sagebrush Trail Review

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John Wayne still has more adventures to go through and so now we’re back here with another one. This time Wayne has to go undercover to put a stop to one of the most dangerous gangs around. The only way to trick his adversaries is to also trick his friends which ends up getting him in quite a bit of trouble. It’s a pretty fun film all the way through and fits right in with the rest.

The film starts off with John on the run as he has to clear his name once more. He ends up bumping into a guy named Joseph who introduces him to a gang that could always use a little extra firepower. John agrees as a way to sabotage the gang and along the way he also wants to help Joseph stay on the straight and narrow. It’ll be difficult though because the rest of the gang starts to suspect him early on. It makes a lot of sense because all of their plans begin to go haywire immediately after John joins up. Doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Will John survive this one?

So John means well but you can see how the plan isn’t particularly good. He also has to count on the gang not making the first move and just bumping him off. For example there is a scene early on where he tries to break up a fight and is knocked out for his troubles. That easily could have gone even worse for him. He’s also just not very subtle about ratting them out as he goes to the nearby store to flirt with the cashier and then drop the notes.

There is slightly more romance here than in the last few but only to the extent that we have John and Joseph flirting with the same girl. Ultimately you have a feeling on who is going to win out there. At least she is given a role beyond just being the love interest as she helps relay the messages and also talks to Joseph when he gets the wrong idea about what John is doing. So by giving these contributions to the story, that helped the heroine be important. Still not a strong romance though.

If you’re familiar with the Wayne films by now, you know what to expect when it comes to the fights. There is a lot of fun hand to hand combat all the way around. The script and writing are both solid and the film’s extremely short runtime helps make for quick pacing at all times. Adding Joseph in as a supporting character was a good way to not just have the film be focused around John for once. Joseph is a criminal through and through but the film does try to humanize him to an extent.

It’s part of why John feels bad for the guy since he is clearly not as heartless as the others. Unfortunately for him, this still comes a bit too late. This gang is a serious one after all and doesn’t take kindly to traitors. You also feel a bit mixed on the idea of the sympathetic villain like this. On one hand, he doesn’t seem to be the smartest guy around and is someone who can be easily influenced. So if he had a good role model then perhaps he would have been a good guy all along.

At the same time, as an adult he is still responsible for his actions. So even though we see that he is less evil than the others, just hanging around them for so long makes him guilty by association to all of the crazy crimes that they have been committing. It’s probably why his character arc had to end the way thast it did so the film wouldn’t send out a mixed message here.

The villains as a whole are not very memorable otherwise though. They’re still a fun group to have around though. They land pretty good blows here and there and did have the town running scared. If not for John, they would have really ended up dominating here. The leader in particular had a lot of confidence on his own and was the first to see through John’s ruse so you have to give him some credit there. He’s not the leader by chance or anything like that, it’s because he is absolutely the most skilled member of the group.

Finally, John was a solid hero as always. He could also really fight hand to hand when needed and was doing his best to see that justice was done. It’s more than the others could. The town gets a bunch of demerit points for not really doing anything though. The town has a lot of able bodied men so why aren’t they doing anything? It’s always my criticism for these kinds of films but it’s not something that would hurt the score of the film. It just means that you’ll be judging them rather hard. Sure there is a sheriff and he’s always ready in the climax once the heroes have the edge but without John around he ends up being rather toothless.

Overall, This was a pretty good film. It’s always fun to see John have to play the role of a villain for a bit. He definitely has that smug confidence that works well in the role. I always have a blast seeing him act, well essentially sarcastic with how he talks to the other characters. He is always rather polite to everyone on the surface but you can feel the contempt when he’s talking to one of the villains. I’d definitely recommend this movie.

Overall 7/10

‘Neath the Arizona Skies Review

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It’s time for the next John Wayne adventure and this time the hero has to really be careful because there’s a kid who is going to be getting him into lots of trouble. This extra weakness does help to separate this film from the others and get it to be a bit more unique. It’s a good bit of fun like the other John Wayne films, so if you like an upbeat western then you should enjoy this one as well.

The film starts off by introducing us to Chris and right away I was surprised that he wasn’t called John. Well Chris has been taking care of a little girl named Nina since her mother is dead and the father’s a no show. He needs to find the father, dead or alive so he can have full custody of her and they can get the money that is owed to her. Unfortunately the local thugs hear about this and decide to stop Chris. Chris nearly deflates the situation without a fight but unfortunately Nina messes up and appears even after Chris had told her not to leave the closet. Now it’s a race against time and Chris needs to make sure not to let his guard down. Doing so could be absolutely fatal!

The film couldn’t resist a little bit of a frame up though so while Chris is unconscious, a guy shows up and switches their clothes. It turns out this guy is the brother of Clara, a nice lady that Chris bumps into. That adds a little wrinkle to things but Chris is determined to stop this guy without letting Clara find out. While at face value that may seem like a nice thing to do, I would argue that she should know the truth right away. It’s true that her brother probably won’t try to put her in harm’s way, but it’s also a side effect of the occupation.

Clara doesn’t have a huge role here except to be the eventual love interest. As always with these old films, the romance is basically just something added as a box to check off but there isn’t a lot of development or anything like that. I would say the extra time is really for Nina’s subplot as Chris leaves her with an old friend…or intended to. The old friend is actually dead so she ends up with a nice cook who works for more of a total villain. Yeah the kid can’t catch a break but she also made things tough in the first place.

There’s one long scene near the end where she’s standing in the cold water with a scowl on her face while Chris is fighting one of the villains. Every time the camera pans to her you’re expecting a different reaction or something but instead she’s just there the whole time with no change. Ah well, I guess she was just that overwhelmed at the time. There just wasn’t much else for her to do at that point.

As always these films have really fun action scenes. It was nice to see Chris dishing out absolute haymakers to anyone who tried to go against him. He even handles himself very well in a 3 on 1 fist fight near the beginning of the film. Yeah maybe that will seem a little cheesy but you can tell these henchmen are used to fighting against people who won’t try and oppose them. So getting into a real fight it makes sense that they would not be a match. Chris is also allowed to get hit and be temporarily overwhelmed as well so it’s not like he’s an absolute terminator.

You do have the obligatory gunfighting later on as well although there isn’t a ton of that over here. I would say that the vast majority of action is close quarters here. Either way I personally find those to be more fun than the gunfights. I like a good gunfight as much as the next guy but you just feel the blows so much more when it’s an old fashioned fistfight.

The film has some fun tunes as you would expect. Mix that in with good writing as well as quick pacing and you’ve got yourself solid fundamentals. It’s why I would be surprised if any of the Wayne films ended up being downright bad. When your fundamentals are that good, it takes something huge to destroy the score, like if it suddenly involved animal violence or something like that. Occasionally you’ll see a horse fall down which is never cool but at least the films don’t really go beyond that.

Overall, This film was pretty solid. You get your classic action scenes here and Chris tends to be in charge of the situation. If you’re a side character, your odds of surviving are always more of a 50/50 so that’s part of the fun. Even this kind of film will usually have a body count by the end after all. The film is also really short as you would expect so there’s no reason not to watch it. I would even say it probably has a little more going on than the average title with so many characters in the picture. It does mean that there is less time to focus on each individual character though so we’ll see if the tradeoff is worth it for you when viewing the film.

Overall 7/10

Old Yeller Review

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Old Yeller is one of those films where you immediately know that it’s not going to be very good. Nothing about it particularly stands out for good reasons but there are sure a lot of bad ones. When a dog is a prominent character in a film, odds are that the movie will not be able to hold itself back from having bad things happen to it. That’s just the way that these things go.

The movie starts with a man leaving his family behind as he has a job to do and so his older son Travis vows to protect the family. The problem is that he is out of his depth from the start as he constantly panics and blames everyone else for his shortcomings. He goes as far as to threaten the local stray, Old Yeller. Travis never appears as a reasonable character for a large chunk of the film and even lays an intentional trap to try and shoot Yeller. This kid’s not above throwing rocks at the dog either. All in all, a sad excuse for a main character. You’re absolutely waiting for him to get humbled the whole time and admit that he never had a good plan.

As the film goes on you never get to be a fan of him. He’s rude and immature for the duration of the film. Meanwhile his younger brother Arliss isn’t as bad although he is so young that he does manage to get into a lot of trouble on multiple occasions. He’s just not old enough to know what’s going on and has a habit of disobeying authority which doesn’t help. You’ll be cringing at several of his scenes.

Meanwhile their mom Katie does her best to keep a hands off approach but sometimes you feel like she should be doing a bit more. She calls out Travis when he keeps making mistakes in the intro but perhaps it was her time to take charge by this point. She also has to play nice with the annoying neighbors who come to visit. I won’t be as harsh in this instance because it’s probably the smart play while they’re all alone. It’ll just make you annoying at Arliss again for making them have to cook dinner.

Some would say that the kids in this film are realistic but all that counts is how annoying they are here. Yeller does good, he’s probably the only high quality character in the film. He fights hard at all times and really dominates. The only time he’s on the losing side of things is when the pesky humans get in the way. So that’s not really something that would be his fault.

The supporting characters were not all that good either. In particular, Yeller’s old owner stands out. You would have expected him to have been ready to fight for Yeller the whole way through. Why would you let some kids keep him? That just doesn’t make any sense and makes the guy not look like a good owner. Yeah some kids would be sad about it but you’d be even sadder to lose your dog. It’s really no contest.

Of course the biggest issue the film has is the animal violence. You probably guessed that by this point though. There is quite a bit of it as animals are hunted left and right while of course stuff happens with Yeller. The film has no shortage of making sure you don’t have a whole lot of fun with this one and this absolutely sealed the deal for the film. It’s not like I find the old west to be a great backdrop in the first place. So it’s not like the film had any backup there. In the end the deck was absolutely stacked against it.

I don’t even think a remake would be able to do a whole lot of good here. Ultimately what would hold that one back is that even if they change the ending, I’m sure there will be a lot of turmoil with the dog and they will probably want to keep the other animal stuff present as well. Lets face it, this is the ultimate lose-lose kind of situation. It’s why generally my advice to filmmakers is not to include animals in their movies at all. Yeah sometimes you will get a harmless one but those are exceptionally rare.

I suppose a remake could at least make the kid less annoying though. Maybe age him up so he’s already an adult and doesn’t have to be trying so hard with little results this time around. Maybe it’ll be more of an invasion film where he’s attacked by Indians or something. Now if there’s one positive I can say for the film, it’s that the runtime isn’t super long. If this film were 2 hours then it would have definitely been really rough. It would have been dragged on forever, so I give the film credit for showing some restraint there.

Overall, Old Yeller is not a film that I would recommend to anyone. It fails the basic lesson of all films which is that they’re supposed to be fun. A film that does not provide any entertainment value is one that was doomed from the start. This is definitely a film with 0 replay value and you will want to stay far away from it. If you need to watch a quality film with dogs, I’d say to grab a random Air Bud film. Those usually have a tendency to be pretty solid all the way around.

Overall 1/10

Shining Force Review

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Shining Force is a game that I was never really familiar with back in the day. In fact, it was so unknown that I didn’t even realize it was a tactics game until I played it. I can definitely say that this is a long adventure though so it’s the kind where you really get your money’s worth. The game also gets quite difficult towards the end. There are a number of areas where the game has not aged particularly well but all in all you will have a fun time here.

The game starts with a lot of turmoil between the kingdoms as always, but this is all spurned on by a group of villains who seek to resurrect an ancient evil. Once this evil is let loose, the world will be in great peril. The main character has to band a lot of allies together in order to save the day. They will be known as the Shining Force and will be travelling across the planet in order to take on all challengers. Will they be enough?

The game’s story is pretty solid. It seamlessly mixes in some humor at good points but is otherwise a pretty serious story. There is a body count here to be sure and the villains tend to always be one step ahead. It’s really not until the very end that the heroes really seem to even stand a small chance. The ending is pretty fun and so you have a real complete journey here.

Now when it comes to the gameplay, tactics style will always take a while. It’s almost self explanatory since you need to come up with plans to win and then manipulate all of your fighters into the right spots. That won’t be an easy task because you will often be outnumbered and have to keep track of a lot of fighters. Your team caps out at 12 active fighters at once while the enemy forces can have around 30 or so. Next up is the RNG to account for. Each enemy has a standard attack which does almost no damage, and then a power attack which can wipe the health bar of even an experienced fighter.

The final boss even has an instant KO attack which feels incredibly cheesy. While the A.I. is dangerous, at least I won’t say that it is completely unstoppable. I was able to exploit it a few times like attacking from an area where the boss would refuse to move. The final boss and his lack of speed also make him easier to exploit which might be why the developers gave him a one hit KO move. Still a bit cheesy if you ask me but that’s how it goes.

Where the game’s age shows is in how the menus work. Each character can only hold 3 items in addition to their weapon. There are a lot of chests everywhere with items but when your main character is full, he can’t pick it up. So you have to go through 4 menus to remove one item and give to someone else. Rinse and repeat every single time you come up to a treasure chest. Trust me when I say that this absolutely gets old quicker than you might expect.

Additionally, there is no way to easily gauge where your units are and their stats. You have to look them up one by one as you navigate the field. You also can’t skip animations so all of the turns tend to take forever. I also think they went a bit too far when increasing the dodge rate for the enemies later on. It gets to the point where they are really dodging everything and that just feels like a really cheap way to lose. I want to lose because their units are more powerful, not because I missed at a critical juncture.

The length also makes field effects feel tricky. For example, there are a few levels where you are in a forest. In those levels, each character’s mobility is cut in half so that immediately doubles the amount of turns to win. It can be seen as a difficulty thing but I’d prefer adding more enemies to just making everything slower. So there are a few times in the game where things can drag a little bit because of that. I generally enjoy tactics gameplay but a smooth interface is absolutely necessary. It’s part of why Fire Emblem is so popular nowadays, they have really done a great job of optimizing the gameplay.

I do like how the game handles EXP grinding though. In some games like Fire Emblem you can effectively get permanently stuck because there is no area to grind. In this game, you can grind forever. The main character has a magic spell that works as a guaranteed escape from battle. You keep all EXP when doing this so all you have to do is keep on defeating enemies without ending the level and you will watch the EXP really rack up in no time. Trust me, it feels really satisfying to pile that up.

One thing to keep in mind is that you can promote a unit to its evolved form as soon as they hit level 10 but you get much better stat boosts if you wait until 20. Personally I decided to wait for my heavy hitters and then the others I did around level 13-15. It’s just hard to wait for some of these fighters who take a while to level up. It’s almost inevitable in a tactics game that you will have some favorite units who will soak up the EXP and that definitely happened here. At the end of the game I had a swordfighter, archer, and a mage. That was about all that I needed, I just left the other units for dead and marched through to the end. Probably not the recommended way to fight but it worked for me.

The graphics are pretty good and definitely benefit from a colorful artstyle. The game has really aged well and I also liked the combat effects like the energy moves and such. The soundtrack is good but a little limited. You’ll probably be tired of the combat theme by the end because you will have heard it hundreds of times. There’s probably no way around that except to set up multiple battle themes that play randomly for encounters.

Overall, Shining Force is a pretty good game. I definitely had fun with it and am looking forward to seeing how the sequel stacks up. If you like a good tactics game then I think you’ll enjoy this one as well. While there are quality of life features that keep me from calling this a great game, it still holds its own when it counts. At the end of the day that’s the important part and all first games in a series will end up having some lessons to learn.

Overall 7/10

Puzzle & Dragons Z + Super Mario Bros. Edition Review

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This game is one that I’ve been playing for a long time. Both games in this collection are quite long and the game is also no walk in the park. You’d better be prepared to train and grind for a long while to get your fighters to a level that is needed to clear the game. By the end of its run, I had put more play time in this title than any 3DS game except for Super Smash Bros. That is not an easy feat so this is a game with a ton of bang for your buck.

For the Mario game, you’ve got a classic story with Bowser causing some trouble. You will go through a bunch of worlds and have to go through the Koopa Kids and Jr. The story is pretty barebones and you will go for large chunks of time with no cutscenes. The appeal here is clearly just about having fun with the gameplay and seeing the Mario characters. I can’t really complain, you’re never going to be playing Mario for the plot. I’m just glad there was some kind of a story here.

The other game has you starting off as a junior monster tamer. You are part of the defense force stopping dragon from running wild. Unfortunately there is a villain group on the rise which have decided to awaken the dragon gods and bring the world to ruin. You will have to stop them along with a mysterious little dragon that popped up. It won’t be easy but you can never count out basic friendship. You also have some allies at the ready, but the burden of saving the world is squarely on the main character’s shoulders. The story is definitely a lot better than the Mario one although a very questionable choice for a villain’s musical theme does take the edge off.

The gameplay is about matching orbs of different colors to create combos. In a lot of ways it’s like Candy Crush and I have to admit that I always wanted them to come out with a story based game using this gameplay style. I got my wish so that was really satisfying. The game could definitely use some solid quality of life updates though. Gathering minerals to evolve monsters is incredibly tedious and everything takes way too much energy. Getting energy back is difficult since it seemed like back when the game had online access you could farm it better. Apparently the mobile version fixes all of these issues but on the 3DS you’re stuck.

When you’re allowed to just play the game it’s a bunch of fun. That said, the level up system does mean this will be impossible eventually. You will need to evolve your fighters in order to raise their level caps to level 99. The final boss has absolutely deadly attacks and can regenerate all of the health bars his parts have in a single turn. If you have your initial fighters who cap out at level 30, you are simply not winning. I ultimately had to complete every side quest and 100% the initial game in order to win. It still took me a lot of tries to actually get through.

I can only imagine how difficult the post game is. Each game has a post game that literally doubles the amount of levels in it. So that would make this a 100+ hour game which is extremely impressive. I tip my hat off to the developer because delivering that much content without paid dlc is always welcome. I’m tempted to bump the score up for that but to me the tedious parts of grinding so ultimately hurt the gameplay just enough for me to drag it down a star. It’s still a pretty good game but quality of life is always a big factor for me.

The graphics are definitely solid. I like the monster designs and the energy effects in combat. The Mario side is especially striking with the way the artstyle works in the game. Then for the soundtrack, well it’s pretty good. I just don’t like the bad guy theme in the Z story. It’s way too happy for the tone that the game was trying to go with. I don’t need to go into replay value here since I already mentioned the 100+ hour runtime. If you like this gameplay style, you should absolutely pick the game up because it is worth the price.

I would say as a gameplay tip, be careful not to hatch or power up anyone when you start the Z story. Save the resources for when you’re really stuck and then figure out who you want to use. Make sure to keep track of their new abilities because sometimes one evolution path will lock you onto truly terrible special moves which will make it way harder to win the game. There are just so many factors to keep track of and of course RNG does play a role here. Sometimes you just don’t get a good role on the colors and have to play again. Just try, try again each time. Eventually you’ll win and since you know ahead of time that it will be 50+ hours, that may help you be patient with the game. It’s not the kind of game you can beat while on auto pilot. When you feel burnt out, just put the game down for a bit and do something else. Getting combos requires a lot of concentration so if you aren’t feeling it, then you’re not going to do as well as you’d like.

Overall, Puzzles & Dragons is a pretty fun game. I really do like the gameplay style and I’d be down to play more games in the style. Amp up the story a bit while cutting down on the grinding for materials and we’ll really be in business. There are a few cheesy bosses near the end like the guy with the one hit KO and pure RNG but at least they’re rare. I didn’t know much about the game series back in the day and really just got it for Mario. It’s impressive that Mario got a game with this style in the first place. Maybe one day we’ll get another Nintendo title like it. In the meantime, this one is usually cheaply priced online.

Overall 7/10

Unico in the Island of Magic Review

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Unico has returned for some more hype. At this point you know the drill with the character and this one isn’t really trying to change up the formula. Unico is brought to a new land where he has to solve some problems and once again awaken his ultimate form. The movie does give us better animation and strong effects this time though so I definitely appreciate that. It’s what I would consider to be a pretty low key movie but one that does have some good action.

The movie starts with Unico being dumped into an island that is about to be under attack by a mad wizard. This guy is turning everyone into toys and Unico barely manages to escape him. It turns out that his sister is a girl named Sheri who has been waiting for him to come back home but something changed him. The wizard Tolby now works for a real demonic spellcastor named Kuruku. This guy has abilities that can barely even be comprehended and so he is always causing mayhem. Can Unico and Sheri put an end to this?

First thing I have to give the film credit for are the designs. Kuruku actually looks rather frightening for a kids film. He is constantly changing shapes and dashing through the air. His energy blasts have the potential to take out any opponent in an instant because of how his matter manipulation works. He is also not someone that can really be reasoned with because he doesn’t care at all about humans. There is no heart to be swayed and so Unico must adopt more violent methods with this guy. It made for a really good climax.

Unfortunately, Tolby looks pretty bad in comparison. He has a more convoluted plan about working for Kuruku and turning everyone into toys so he could learn how to turn them all back. The plan doesn’t really make any sense as it relies on a whole lot of things that just aren’t likely to happen. Tolby should have been teaming up with the heroes from the start in order to stop him. You’ll have a lot of questions on exactly how they met and how Tolby went down this path so quickly but even to the end he just doesn’t do a good job of seeing the big picture.

Tolby is also not particularly good at aiming and so he tends to lose in each of his fights. I did really like the character design though. It really stands out and he definitely looks fancy in that outfit. As a character he really needed more work. He gets a sidekick cat for most of the movie who can be fun though. This cat likes listening to his music and is also a scaredy cat so he will change sides at the drop of a hat. Not someone that you can depend on at all. I was expecting him to turn out to be super heroic by the end but his character doesn’t really change much. I guess Unico can’t win everyone over.

As for Unico, he doesn’t look very good for most of the film but that is to be expected when there is constant amnesia. No matter how much Unico may improve in one adventure, all of the character development is removed by the next. So as a result Unico always has the same character arc of learning how to use his powers and gaining more confidence. That happens here as well and it’s just a really tough road to get to that point. If anything, Unico showing off crazy levels of power at the end can be annoying because then you feel like he should have been doing that the whole time. So in a way it just flips the situation.

The film is definitely aimed a bit younger so at times it might feel a little bit boring. Also every character is constantly yelling, it’s a very loud film. I know some people accuse shows like Black Clover of having a bunch of that, but this movie tops that with ease. Trust me, it can get a little grating after a while and things really have to be spelled out for you. It’s why I was glad that we did have some action scenes later on since those really helped to make the whole film feel more like an event. The film was really not scared to have some scary imagery with the fights as well.

There’s one toy that goes around chomping anyone in its path and actually comes across as real intimidating. Kuruku naturally fits that bill as well and so that is something that does set it aside from the average kid’s adventure. Also as far as kids go, I guess Sheri wasn’t bad. She was rather proactive and kept on going on her quest to save the day. Even being willing to leave Unico behind so that he wouldn’t be in danger. It didn’t work but it’s the thought that counts. We also have a cat who’s related to the Sphinx to help out but she didn’t actually do much. You were waiting for her big moment the whole film and it never came. I liked her enthusiasm as she was always ready to fight but that’s about all that I can say for her.

Overall, If you’ve seen other Unico films then you know what to expect with this one. It’s got more danger than the others but at its core this is a film about friendship and how Unico helps to restore the bonds between people. Unico is someone who is always ready to help out but takes a whole lot of pushing in order to actually begin fighting. The film may not be long but it can feel long as the dialogue isn’t always super interesting so how much you enjoy the film may actually come down to the animation and fights. If that ends up being the case, I dare say that you’ll be in fine hands. The animation has aged really well and just the novelty from that can really help to boost this one up. I’d recommend it if you’re up for a nice story about a little unicorn.

Overall 6/10

GI Joe: Wrath of Cobra Review

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It’s been a while since I played a GI Joe game so it was time to change that. Wrath of Cobra is one of those games that never got a physical release so it was time to finally grab it on the PSN. It’s definitely a short game so I would feel bad for anyone who might have gotten it on opening day. The gameplay is fun enough and all but you really feel like they could have put way more effort into this. At least make it a few hours longer right? I don’t think that would have been so unreasonable.

The game starts with Cobra Commander deciding to take over the world but there is also a clone of him and both think that they are the real deal. So they attack the Joes and along the way will have to watch their backs or they will be absolutely dominated. One wrong step and that is game over. So Duke and friends prepare to fight them. There isn’t much more of a story than that but I do appreciate that the game will actually throw in the occasional cutscene. It helped to liven things up and we even get to see a glimpse of the outside world as Cobra Commander tries to get some kids to support his cause. It helps to flesh the world out a tiny bit.

Of course, the whole game is still only around 2 hours so it really goes by in a flash. There are 12 levels and each level tends to be around 7-9 minutes. You have your basic attacks as well as a super move. You have to use these attacks to try and claim total victory. You have 4 lives to play the game with although if you lose them all, you get infinite continues. So that’s pretty handy. There are trophies for beating levels without getting hit or dying which sounds insane to me. I just don’t know how anyone would really be pulling that off.

I suppose with enough practice but this is not a game that I think most people would end up sticking with. I definitely wouldn’t be playing the game more than once. The reason does come down to how basic it is. I prefer 3D beat em ups but the 2D ones can be good too. There just isn’t much to it because the moveset is too low. You only have two main attacks to combo with. Then the enemies don’t have a whole lot of variety to them either. I suppose you could have fun switching characters since you have several options here but even then that is not going to buy you a ton of time.

It was always fun to exploit the occasional glitch though. A few times there would be a boss or an enemy who would not realize that you were standing slightly beneath him so he would keep striking out at empty air. Was a good way to cheese some of these guys who had really large health bars. For my playthrough I decided to play as Snake Eyes because he has incredibly high attack power. I think I made the right choice there. His super attack is that he summons a dog to come in and deal a lot of damage. A bit random but a fun super since even the bosses would take a lot of damage from that.

As far as the graphics go, they look good enough. I liked how colorful everyone is in order to match the old show. The cutscenes we get definitely aren’t very high quality but at least we had cutscenes which was cool. The soundtrack is okay but also not something that I would call really memorable. You’ll have forgotten the tunes real quickly once the game ends.

My main advice when playing is to jump a lot. It’s a great way to clear the distance over to your opponents and of course you get to dodge attacks along the way. Then once you have the enemies in one spot, you can really combo them all to death. Keep on swinging even once they are in the air and usually you can finish each opponent before they had a chance to hit the ground. Pretty sneaky eh? It’s a pretty good way to whittle down the odds.

The game would be really difficult without the infinite continues but since you have them, this one is a true cake walk. While the length is extremely short, the trophies do add a lot of replay value since I think it would be incredibly difficult to get them all. Getting the Platinum for a game like this would really feel like a pipe dream. Not totally impossible or anything like that but not really worth the amount of time it would take. To me at least, maybe you could see it as a badge of honor.

Overall, Wrath of Cobra feels very much like the kind of game you would find on the app store. It’s not particularly high quality and is a very short experience. The gameplay is simple and while it’s not bad, you get the feeling that there wasn’t a ton of time spent on it. This game was just churned out quickly to take advantage of the retro beat em up feeling that everyone has been enjoying. This one loses to most of the other games I’ve played in this genre. If you really like GI Joe though, perhaps the nostalgia alone will make it worth it for you.

Overall 6/10

Hard Times Review

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It’s time for a film about boxing that is not Rocky. Rocky will always be the definitive film of this kind of genre but of course there are others that also throw their hat into the ring. Hard Times is definitely more of an underground kind of fighting film though and so it doesn’t have the classic glamour and sportsmanship of the tournament battles. In these fights, you can always expect things to get ugly.

The film starts off with Speed hoping his fighter will win a match but the guy is crushed again. That’s when a man named Chaney shows up and declares that he can win a few fights. Speed watches him demolish his first opponent and realizes that this guy is the real deal. So they make a deal to be partners and Chaney gets Speed to agree to his terms of 50/50. Things are going well at first as they win some fights but Speed quickly gets greedy and starts betting more and more money. He takes loans from some dangerous sources and also keeps up his gambling habits. It will all catch up to him soon, but will he bring Chaney down with him?

Now of course gambling is a serious addiction and not something that is easy to turn away from. So I’m not saying it would have been easy but Speed definitely needed to have had some level of restraint. He was already in a rough spot before the event started and then after that he should have been feeling really lucky that Chaney won the super high bet. Instead by wasting it, he has a run in with the mafia and things only get worse from there.

I wouldn’t have blamed Chaney if had just left Speed to the mess that he created and skipped town. It was absolutely not Chaney’s fault that things went that way but of course Speed would have been murdered and it’s hard to just leave knowing that is going to happen. So Chaney takes the high road and risks his life once again. Fighting is never a joke, things can escalate in an instant and so you don’t want to do it unless you had to. Chaney is good at what he does and fight in order to make some money to get to his next destination but he’s not just fighting anybody.

Also he got very fortunate that his opponent was a class act and refused to cheat. In a battle with the mafia present, that is certainly far from a guarantee. So I give his final opponent some respect there, I don’t think any of the other villains would have held back in the same circumstance. They would cheat as much as they could in order to win any fight.

Outside of the fights, it’s not like Chaney was a super good guy though. He has an affair with a lady named Lucy for a good chunk of the film and the whole romance is as shallow as possible. Definitely not the kind where you’re rooting for the pairing. There’s no love there, only convenience on both sides and hopefully Chaney can go a bit slower when he starts fresh in the next town.

I get the feeling that Speed and his doctor Poe are going to be continuing to get into more and more trouble on their side though. Poe never kicked his drinking problems and Speed is still gambling. Chaney has given them a true fighting chance though so hopefully they can keep themselves on track. The underground circuit will always exist but you definitely don’t have to be a part of it once you have all of the money.

The fights themselves are pretty solid as well. You definitely feel the power in some of those blows and it’s not like Chaney was blowing through his opponents. He was clearly the best fighter in the movie but still had to use a lot of good strategy to win. It’s always more impressive that way as opposed to coming in and winning with a single punch which feels less realistic when you’re battling other pros.

The dialogue and writing as also pretty solid. It’s one of those films where there are certainly a lot of threats being flung around but they generally still have the villains putting on the pretense of being polite. I also liked that while Chaney may not be as book smart as some of the others, he is extremely street smart and wasn’t being pushed around by anyone. The scene where he is ready to walk away from the deal when Speed is immediately trying to scam was a good moment for example.

I think to boost the film up a little, I would have either made Chaney more likable or the doctor. So instead of all 3 characters having their vices and not making the best decisions, have one of them actually be a true professional. That character would walk away midway through the film while the other two get greedy. For Chaney you could also just get rid of the romance angle or for Poe, not introducing him as an alcoholic from the start. I think it would have worked to have made the film not quite as grim since all of the leads ere gray at best.

Overall, Hard Times does a good job of showing how dangerous boxing can be. It’s definitely not a profession that most people choose for the joy of it. You’re either poor enough where you have to take a gamble, or one of the rare few who just enjoys fighting to such an extent that the risk is worth it. Chaney likes his lifestyle of travelling the country and not having to work a standard job so to him it makes sense. Win a few fights, then leave and restart. Still not something I’d advise, but to each their own. It’s a good film and doesn’t make any big mistakes but I’d also say it’s just not the most fun title out there. It’s a bit on the dreary side even if the ending does lean as positive as it can be.

Overall 6/10

Pokemon Go Update

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This latest Platinum medal was way quicker than I thought! I managed to finally catch Keldeo through one of the event missions and that was enough to finally get this collection medal. Definitely continuing to make that solid progress in the game although this time I think it’ll be a lot longer to the next Platinum medal. At this point I’m over halfway to getting them all!

The Place Promised in our Early Days Review

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It’s time for a dramatic anime film with a lot of feelings going around with the main characters. Unfortunately the film also has a really interesting political plot going on. The only reason I phrase that as a negative is you’ll become a lot more interested in that part which is really just to set the stage for the main adventure. You won’t get any real closure or details on that part which is a bit of a shame.

The movie starts by introducing us to Hiroki and Takuya. They are best friends and have been working together to build a jet. They want to visit the large tower that separates the country of Japan. This is pretty dangerous and against the law though so they have to do this on the sneak. They’re each a genius in their own righ, Takuya is an expert on code while Hiroki is more on the hardware side but they’re both very proficient on both ends. They have a mutual friend named Sayui who wants to tag along as well but one day she vanishes. Both of the boys don’t really know if they want to complete their plane after that and drift away. Years pass and multiple parallel dimensions begin to emerge. Is it time to bring the plane back in?

So I mentioned how the tower has split Japan in two. Well, you’re not going to get a lot more about how this affected the region. We see that half of the country belongs to the U.S. and half of it is for Japan but that’s really the extent of what we know. The tower is being used for experiments to harness energies and matter from other dimensions on but why are they doing this and how did they get such a big headstart? Apparently that half of the country is close to 50 years ahead of our main characters.

I could have followed a whole movie about this as the characters have to wonder if they should even be using this power or if it is perhaps a little too much for any of them to be dealing with. There’s a whole lot of potential right here but instead we go back to the main story. So in a sense, the main story may be better than what it felt like since I couldn’t help but compare it to the larger scale of what was going on. It was just really interesting and why make an alternate history film if you aren’t going to go into it? You could have easily done the whole jetplane plot with a normal timeline if you ask me.

For the main characters, Takuya starts out as a good lead but really begins to falter down the line. He makes the classic blunder of beginning to trust the government a little too much and letting it cloud his judgment. At one point he finds out that someone is being kept asleep in order to protect the planet. Yes, it’s a noble goal if you look at it from a utilitarian point of view but obviously it’s not good for the person who is trapped. This person is even conscious and stuck the whole time although Takuya couldn’t know that.

He goes as far as to nearly sabotage efforts to save this character and really just fell down a whole lot compared to what he used to be like. As a kid he was serious but still had a good head on his shoulders. His technical abilities may have improved but his emotions sure didn’t. I get that he was under a lot of stress but this should be a no brainer. The fate of the world based on some massive assumptions, or saving an innocent person who’s been trapped? The latter has to always win.

So I give Hiroki more of the credit here. He definitely took Sayuri’s disappearance hard and vanished for a while but while he was depressed, he continued to move forward. Once he learned that he had a chance to save the day, he didn’t hesitate and went right back to the project. He was a very earnest guy and is what you’d expect from your average main character. He does what is needed as soon as possible.

As for Sayuri, she was a fun enough character. She always had fun hanging out with the boys and the 3 of them made for good friends. It was nice to see them all getting along without anybody getting jealous or anything like that. It seemed like she initially liked Takuya and even eventually liked Hiroki instead but it’s played in a much more subtle way and didn’t blow up into some annoying romance drama. Trust me that would have been super annoying. Instead, the film lets them all act mature about this.

Sayuri definitely had the hardest trial out of the 3 main characters since she was stuck all by herself in a really desolate place. The way the time worked, she at least didn’t need to eat or anything like that but the loneliness alone is still a killer. So she did well to stay as positive as she did when others would have definitely cracked by the end.

The cast remains pretty small even to the end. There’s a researcher who liked Takuya and of course you had one of the big resistance guys who was always flirting with girls and getting parts for the guys, but that’s about it. The focus here is really on the small, intimate story that is going on despite the huge events taking place in the background. I’m all for focusing on a few characters but the story gets distracted a little too much for me to rank this one higher.

All the parallel worlds business didn’t seem to have much of a point here except to include Sayuri’s plot into the story. It’s an interesting concept but since the film doesn’t have a ton of time to focus on it, it feels like it’s just extra weight. The fact that some guy actually invented how to read into these worlds and come up with new tech is certainly impressive….even if it leaves you with more questions.

The animation is pretty solid here. I don’t think it’s the best work that I’ve seen from this group but it works well enough. It’s not like there are a ton of action scenes that would really let the film show off its stuff or anything like that. The soundtrack is also a bit more on the forgettable side. No song that will really stay in your head or anything like that but the ost works well enough in the moment.

Overall, The adventure was fun enough but you just don’t care about the kids too much. It takes a little while for their plot to really start going and by then you would rather learn more about the government or more about the parallel worlds. The last thing in your head is abuot the kids and to be honest it’s pretty hard to picture them completing the mission anyway. Their jet would have had a tough enough time when they were first building it, but years later? It would just be too out of date by that point. Still, it’s a wholesome story about never giving up and has a soild enough ending even if it does dabble into one thing that I’m never a big fan of. The sacrifice one character makes just erases too much character development for me. So if you’re up for a quick anime adventure you can check this one out, but there are strongr anime movies out there.

Overall 6/10