Suggested by Destroyer Kazuya is a powerful Tekken fighter whose blows really deal a lot of damage. He also has his ogre form which comes fully equipped with laser beams and a not of other useful abilities. That said, he isn’t quite ready to take on someone like Pharohman. Pharohman’s beams would slice right through Kazuya and the fighter won’t be able to gain the advantage at any point. This will effectively nullify his hand to hand advantage. Pharohman wins.
Suggested by Sonic Pharohman really made a name for himself when he took down Megaman back in NT Warrior. He may lack in speed but he does have a lot of power to make up for it. Also, in the anime he would then go on to become Bass which is quite the super form. That said, the anime has less feats there and in terms of stats I would trust Shadow’s speed a whole lot more. Pharohman is strong but just not strong enough this time. Shadow wins.
Suggested by Sonic Kirito and Roy are both very powerful swordsmen who know how to use elements within their swordsmanship. Kirito ultimately takes this one though as the guy just continues to get stronger and stronger with each arc. Alicization really brought this to the peak when he mastered aura usage and gained his powerful super form. In this mode it’s fair to say that he is barely even human anymore. Roy has had some really good speed feats in his day as well but at this point they are in different leagues. Kirito wins.
Suggested by Sonic The Level 4 Akuma is one of the strongest D Grayman characters in the series. This guy has a monstrous amount of attack power and speed at his disposal but it won’t be enough to stop Obito. Obito’s base form? Perhaps, Akuma should have the edge there but when you consider the tailed form and how much Obito has improved, this match will end up being over very quickly. The Akuma just would not be able to win. Obito wins.
Suggested by Sonic Dante has super speed and high speed regeneration which are both really excellent abilities. He should be able to take a lot of the punishment that Accelerator can dish out but only for so long. Gradually his abilities will begin to weaken and that’s when Accelerator will really begin to have the upper hand here. His vectors is just such an absolute ability that Dante can’t hope to dodge it and Accelerator is fast in his own right so he could dodge Dante’s attacks long enough to win here. Accelerator wins.
Suggested by Sonic Mukuro has a lot of powerful illusions at his disposal and he can also make them tangible which is a really useful ability for any illusion user. That said, he won’t be able to defeat Yoh here. Yoh still has the overall edge in power, speed, and durability. Mukuro would have a very hard time tracking Yoh at any point and would instantly get overwhelmed once Yoh got serious. The difference in their fighting potential is too vast. Yoh wins.
Now is the title a bit hyperbolic? Perhaps, after all:
This guy exists. Who’d have thought that turning your city’s protector against you would be a bad idea, especially when she was the strongest in the land. But we aren’t talking about Rung right now, this is all about Clayman. This is what I would call an “emergency editorial” as after watching the “That Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime” episode leading up to the Walpurgis meeting, a certain scene happened which took me for a loop. It’s just such a crazy moment that makes Clayman look so bad, especially since he is supposed to be one of the smarter villains. It’s really a tutorial on how to speed run your own demise. Note that this editorial will contain spoilers up through Walpurgis and will reference events from season 1 although not in great detail. If you haven’t watched That Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime up through this point in season 2 then you will want to bypass this editorial.
So before I even play the clip let’s set the stage here. You’re Clayman at the moment. You spent all of season 1 causing disasters for a powerful tribe leader known as Rimuru because you have contempt for the guy and also as a distraction to buy you more time to become a true demon lord. See, the only way to become a demon lord is to murder a bunch of people and absorb their souls. For Rimuru it took murdering 100,000 people and claiming their souls to become a true demon lord.
It’s not easy to get that many people though, especially as there is a truce among all of the demon lords at the moment. You’ve been breaking this truce but doing so subtly in a way where nobody can prove it even if they suspect. Finally you have gathered around 30k-50k people at the ready to be murdered. Additionally you were able to mind control one of the true demon lords and are even blackmailing another one. It’s finally time for Walpurgis, the meeting among all demon lords. You’ve been getting your pieces ready for years at this point.
Now as you’re walking in it is important to remember that you are the weakest guy at the table. You’re barely even any kind of demon lord while the rest or at least most of these guys are “True” Demon Lords. There are 3 ranks to this: Demon Lords, which are quite powerful of course and still above most beings. I am not positive if Clayman is a demon lord or a pseudo demon lord as they keep mentioning he hasn’t achieved a true status yet but I think he has the normal status so he is higher than pseudo.
Then you have the True Demon Lords like Leon, Rimuru, and any other fighter who has completed the genocidal conditions. They have abilities that are leagues above any normal demon lord. Finally, you have the Elder True Demon Lords. While technically there is no extra rank, these are the 3 demon lords who have been around the longest and are at least implied to be far stronger than the rest. Milim is one of these three along with the red haired dragon demon at the front of the table and one other. So now you have the stage set for what is to come. It’s in your best interests not to make enemies of these guys right now while you are vulnerable . I should also mention that your attempt to claim the 50k souls was foiled by a bunch of mages and super powered orcs so you really don’t have an easy fallback option right now. You really just need to lie low and survive this meeting or throw in a lot of subtle burns and insults to pit the demon lords against each other. Okay with the stage set, here is what I consider the dumbest villain move of 2021 and you can probably take it much further than that with ease.
https://gfycat.com/antiquedefinitiveargusfish
So what exactly happened here? Well, Milim is the demon lord who is being mind controlled which is why she didn’t react to the strike at all. However, everyone clearly noticed this and now know that something is wrong with her. Previously some were under the impression that they may have struck a truce or she was just teaming up as a whim. Not it isn’t easy to deduce that something isn’t quite right here and as quite a few of them get along with Milim, this instantly puts Clayman at a bad position.
Even if you ignore the fact that quite a few of the demon lords like Milim because they find her amusing, there is also a great sense of pride among many powerful fighters. To see the equivalent of a “commoner” striking one of their elites is sure to stir up some bad blood with the rest. As the demon lords may be immortal they also value any entertainment they can get so that’s another reason not to attack Milim. There isn’t a single good reason to immediately make an enemy out of everyone like that.
Now these are demon lords so you won’t expect a friendship moment where they talk this over. If any of them gets sufficiently upset they could just wipe him off the planet like nobody’s business. Keep in mind that some of these guys could potentially take him out in a single blow. He has Milim to protect him but Clayman is surrounded by demon lords so the odds of her stopping several attacks is slim. Additionally, now that they know something is wrong with her, the necklace will be an easy target.
I haven’t seen the next episode yet as I rushed this editorial out as soon as I finished this one but whether he gets away with it or not, it was a really bad move. There’s just no good reason to antagonize these guys when you could be turned into paste in a moment. This guy just can’t see the long game and ruins it all with spur of the moment decisions. Rimuru was already making moves against the guy but it was really a proxy war at the time. Now you have Rimuru promising to murder the guy. All it takes is one true demon lord trying to murder you and that’s it.
Now, Clayman may not have known that Milim and Rimuru were “besties for resties” as they put it, not very many people knew about that. But, he still knew the risks of the others seeing what was going on and turning on him. Now he has infuriated one of the most dangerous guys at the table. Rimuru may not literally be the strongest demon lord in the room but the fact that it is even debatable makes things really bad for Clayman. Rimuru also has the largest army of powerful monsters at his beck and call. If he summons the Tempest Alliance to wage war against Clayman, there is no escape. While Rimuru could solo him 1 on 1, it also means that Rimuru could destroy his castle, reputation, and every trace of him on the planet.
There’s another wrinkle to this as well. Milim has a self defense function which activates if she takes damage or is attacked. Fortunately for Clayman he is so weak that it didn’t activate but he was already warned about this earlier. If he had triggered her defense function it was already made clear that she would destroy him instantly. That’s just another risk to take on top of all the others. Just like that all of his careful planning over the years will have come to naught. It’s also worth mentioning that aside from being one of the weakest demon lords in the room, he is even weaker than one of the attendants who it seems is a demon lord in disguise.
In the end Clayman is extremely lucky that he wasn’t obliterated on the spot. Who knows, maybe he will have some kind of master plan that will make this worth it but much like Athena’s plan in Saint Seiya, I can’t imagine it being anything other than some super convoluted endeavor that ultimately isn’t worth the effort and would have backfired under any circumstances. Clayman really made himself be one of the weaker antagonists in the series with this move. Imagine throwing away every possible advantage you may have had in this situation just to show off a bit. His days may have been numbered anyway but he really went out of his way to guarantee his demise. This is a fairly quick editorial but it was such a shocking moment that I had to write about it.
Stats time!
PS4 Trophies 9/49
It’s been quite a while since I played one of the hockey games. Well, no better time than the present right? I got to play this one a bit more than the others as I went deep into the game for the trophies. One of them was for completing all tutorials so as a result I finally developed some fundamental skills here. I wouldn’t call myself a Hockey pro or anything yet…but I wouldn’t bet against myself either at this point. It’s a decently solid game that should please Hockey fans.
There are a lot of modes here, so many in fact that you can pick a few to pin to the quick access menu at the top in case you don’t want to have to navigate through all of them so often. It’s a solid quality of life feature although I think some modes could have really been bundled together. I mainly stuck to the quick matches but also played some levels in Be A Pro and the World Career mode. They all essentially lead to the same gameplay although the main difference is that in Be A Pro you can only play as one character (Yourself) in the matches while in the other modes you can switch between players at all. It’s a key difference.
Personally I like controlling all of the players. When I’m only one person it just feels like I’m not really controlling the flow of the game as much as I’d like. Also, there’s more dead time as a result since you have to wait to get the puck back while in the other mode you are always with it. I’ll give the game props for having a choice though. More choices is always a good thing since everyone will want to be able to play the game in their own way. I think that makes a lot of sense and is just practical. Shouldn’t be hard to implement either so it’s worth going the extra mile here.
The graphics are really solid as expected. You definitely don’t have to worry about anything not being very clear here or anything like that. Everything is fairly HD and if EA knows how to do one thing exceptionally well, it’s how to make a game look visually appealing. You also have to give them credit for the smooth gameplay. They may not change it almost at all from year to year but it works pretty well and they are the ones who set that up initially. The soundtrack isn’t very good but it’s rare to have a sport game with a very memorable one.
Going more into the gameplay, the main idea here is you want to shoot the puck into the opponent’s goal. This scores you a point and whoever has the most points at the end of the game claims victory. You want to prevent your opponent from doing the same to your goal. You move throughout the hockey field and on offense you can pass to other players or take a shot. On defense you can openly body slam opponents but be careful about tripping them. The latter counts as a penalty but if you can shoot your stick out with good timing you can prevent a shot from soaring into the goal.
Defense is really difficult which is no surprise since that’s often the toughest part of any sport game. Even in Football I have a hard time with that. I will say that the body slaming is really satisfying though. I don’t understand all of the rules in NHL so occasionally I’ll draw a flag for being on the wrong side but on the whole you don’t need to know a lot of technicals. Being able to maneuver around the arena is really the most important skill to have so if you can do that then you’ll be good.
Now on offense, the main thing I would recommend you learn how to do is pass effectively. It’s almost impossible to get a straight shot past the goalie so what I found is the most efficient way to score is to have one ally near you. Have both characters sprint at the goalie and then immediately pass to the other player and shoot. If you do this in one quick motion the goalie is usually not fast enough to stop this attack and then it’s off to the races. I found this to be the most reliable way to score at least and I even blew out one of my opponents using this trick.
A fun thing about hockey is that even the computer has a very hard time scoring. So if you can score just 2 goals in a game you should win over 90% of your matches. I’m sure if you bump the difficulty level up then this will change but for the most part it really is an excellent way to make sure you come out on top. I don’t have any other gameplay advice other than that. In terms of movement it’s really all just about making sure that you’re at the right place at the right time. Don’t let the computers surround you or put too much pressure on. Keep them at a distance and you’ll be just fine. Although the field is limited so just do your best.
Overall, NHL 19 may be the best of the NHL games I’ve played or at least it’s definitely one of the better ones. It helps a lot that the tutorial mode was very comprehensive so I felt like I actually could play the game instead of button mashing. Parts of the game feel a little overly complex but I suppose watching high level NHL battles would likely be really fun as a result. If you like hockey then you’ll enjoy this game and if not then you won’t. At least that makes it extremely easy when thinking about recommending this one or not. There aren’t a whole lot of extra thoughts you’ll need to put into that aspect. I’ll probably get NHL 20 in a year or two once I can find it for $5 like this one. I’m not a big Hockey guy so I only play the games until I get a C rank in terms of trophies but it’s worth it to at least get that far for me and for that price you can’t go wrong.
Overall 6/10
Time for a spooky story with the Toy Story special. It’s pretty impressive that the franchise got a special which effectively works as a true mini movie. It looks just like the actual movies and with the voices back, you could stick this in as a subplot during one of the movies and it would work quite well. It’s a solid self contained story and at less than 30 minutes long, it really goes by in a flash.
The special starts with the owner’s car getting a flat tire so they are forced to stop at a motel. The toys are dropped off and this should all be fine except one by one the toy start vanishing. Jessie warns everyone to stay together but they just can’t help but dash off. Soon Jessie is the only one left. She bumps into a toy named Combat Carl who warns her to stay put. Still, her friends might need her. Can Jessie overcome her claustrophobia and fear of being alone or will this be game over?
Most of the special takes place at night which is cool since it helps establish the atmosphere right away. Same with the Motel itself as it appears to be quite ominous. In a way I feel bad for Motels because in every movie/show I’ve ever seen they always appear to be really shady. I imagine motel owners would like to clean up that image at some point but maybe it’s just too late at this point in time so they’ve all given up.
Jessie works well as the main character since she’s one of the more interesting Toy Story characters. Additionally her fear of being boxed in and of being alone works well in a setting where everyone is being taken out. It works as a solid character arc here and she had to be brave to get past the mysterious monster. At the end of the day the toys would have been toast without her.
The mysterious monster turned out to be a pet named Mr. Jones who worked for the villainous Ron. I was glad to have some antagonists here, it made for a fun little climax since it gave the heroes a real obstacle that they had to overcome as opposed to this being all fun and games. For example, Jones is rather fast so it makes sense that avoiding him wouldn’t be easy. All it takes is one charge/lunge and that’s game over as well. Jones also means well since he knows that he will get his snacks for finding the toys.
Then you have Ron who is really looking to make a quick buck. I’d like to see the story behind this guy because he has to be truly desperate to be stealing toys from little children. I mean, if you’re going to be a criminal you figure there should be more efficient ways to earn money. Why has this guy taken such a path? By the end of the movie you know that he is completely doomed and in a way he just makes it worse for himself by running. It did end up being a fun way to end the special but Ron really didn’t handle the situation well. He’s a fun villain and good at making money but he really took the wrong path in life.
As for the toys, Combat Carl gets a big role here as he gives Jessie the inspirational speech to keep on going on matter what. Without him she may not have ultimately been able to gather her strength in time. In some ways he reminds me of Buzz since they’re both so confident. Buzz and Woody don’t get much to do here but I suppose they have the films for that. Pricklepants gets a big role here but I wasn’t crazy about it. Basically Prickle keeps reminding us about horror movie tropes and how the heroes are nearly doomed. I think this joke got worn a bit thin by the end of the special since that was the entire subplot. You can also blame a lot of this adventure on Mr. Potato Head since he was the first one to run off.
As mentioned, the animation is quite impressive considering that this wouldn’t have gotten the same kind of budget as one of the films. It maintains the art style well. It may not be something that looks as streamlined as a traditional hand drawn title but it does the job. The toys are on point and scenes where the toys have to try and execute complex maneuvers is fun to see since they are constrained by how the toy works. As a result they have a whole lot of difficulty with a paper clip in one scene.
Overall, This is a short special so there isn’t much more to say about it. It’s a fun story and should keep you entertained from start to finish. It’s an adventure with a full beginning, middle, and end that has a good amount of replay value. The writing is on point and the characters are likable so there really isn’t anything to dislike here. It’ll really be over before you know it and you aren’t likely to forget the antagonists any time soon.
Overall 7/10
