Suggested by JordyPresto0418 The Sentry is definitely an intense powerhouse, but he’s not quite ready to take on someone like Jiren. Jiren’s power was so great that even Goku had a tough time dealing with him. That is a fighter who is many leagues above Sentry in power. Jiren also has the massive edge in speed and has his limit break mode to tap into. When you add all of that together it spells curtains for Sentry. Jiren wins.
Stats time!
Rank 3
Tezuka Level 2
Oishi Level 1
This was definitely a pretty random app game that’s for sure. Who’d have thought that Prince of Tennis would be coming out with a rhythm game right? This is really the first one I’ve played. I can see the appeal but I think there’s room to improve on the execution. Ultimately this isn’t a game that I stuck with for very long as you’ll see based on the various brief stats page I’ll be uploading. It just doesn’t feel as interactive as I’d like although the songs are cool.
The plot seems to basically be handling the early parts of the New Prince of Tennis series. It’s been so long since I read those parts that this really feels brand new at this point. That also means no Ryoma at least in the levels that I played so you’ll miss him a bit. The game is still relatively early on so there aren’t a lot of story levels yet but I imagine that will change as the game continues to update.
Aside from the story mode there are a lot of other things to do like playing through normal battles or customizing your characters. In fact you have to play through some of these normal levels in order to progress through the story or you’ll get stuck very quickly. After two story levels is when you have to play your first side mission. I’d rather the game let you just play through the story without having to go on a side tangent. I suppose the gameplay is all the same so it shouldn’t make a big difference but I want to just see what happens next in the story.
The graphics are pretty good. The art style is colorful and I like the gameplay effects. On the other hand, it’s all fairly repetitive. Every stage looks very similar and the characters are chibi style which can be fun in short doses but I don’t think it works for the whole game. It’s fun and looks nice though which is the important part. The soundtrack is definitely impressive with all of the lyrical songs. That makes sense of course since you can’t have a musical game without the songs to accompany it right?
As for the gameplay itself, the goal of the game is to tap precision. It’s effectively like Dance Dance Revolution except instead of dancing to the beat you are tapping to it. If you click the circle when it’s in the right spot then you can either hit the ball or even return it. It’s not very hard to get the hang of it either. At times you will hold onto the icon in order to complete the action and other times you will just need to tap it really quickly.
A lot of mobile games have a heavy emphasis on tapping so this isn’t anything new but at the same time it just doesn’t feel very interactive. Maybe it’s because the animations are set and your actions don’t change it. Usually at least the animations change like in a fighting game or something. Here you will be seeing the exact same animation back and forth as the two characters hit the tennis ball around no matter what you do. There’s not really any variety either.
I think that’s really what hurt the game for me. It’s just not all that interesting after a while and I wouldn’t say the story is enough of a legend to hold the whole game up. For that you could probably just read the manga or watch some of the shows and movies. I wouldn’t call this a bad game but it doesn’t really have enough strong points for me to call it a really good one either. As a result it ends up lagging behind the other apps.
There’s not a whole lot more to say about this one. In terms of replay value there is certainly a lot as long as you enjoy the game. Customization alone is already quite extensive and then you have the level up system and wide array of characters to work with too. The game will likely continue updating as long as it gets support so you shouldn’t have to worry about content drying up anytime soon either. Just keep on chugging along and you shouldn’t have any issues. The game is free too so it’s not like you’re spending any money here.
Overall, I’m glad Prince of Tennis got a game even if this one didn’t really hit it off for me. I’m still surprised it came out since the title doesn’t seem too huge anymore, particularly the sequel. It was hard to find on the app store initially due to the way it appears in the search results too. Hopefully it does well enough for them to consider another game in the series but with a different gameplay style. A tennis focused game would absolutely have a lot of potential if you ask me. You can definitely achieve that with mobile. Now for mobile I’m really just waiting on Megaman X Dive to show up. That’s a title I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time.
Overall 5/10
Saint Seiya has always made it clear that most of the Gold Saints are either evil or complacent. They don’t help when it counts and usually avoid fighting entirely so Athena never really had a lot to work with. This quick one shot expands what happened with Aiolos into 3 chapters and shows us just how much he had to go through to keep her safe. It’s a fun prequel and I always like seeing more of this guy since he is easily the best Gold Saint and one of the best Saint Seiya characters in general.
Episode Zero starts off with the Pope getting ready to choose which Gold Saint will succeed him in the position. There are really only two candidates who are close to the position though and they are Aiolos and Gemini Saga. Aiolos believes that Saga would be the best man for the job since the guy is revered as really being a great person and his abilities are second to none. Little does he realize that Saga is currently dealing with a lot of inner doubts and believes that Aiolos should be the man for the job.
The time table is sped up though when Saga goes missing and the Pope seemingly goes insane. Aiolos needs to keep baby Athena safe but where can he go? The other Golden Saints all want Aiolos dead since the Pope claims he is trying to take Athena and they have enough power to rend the whole solar system into oblivion. Somehow Aiolos needs to escape them and get Athena to safety but this won’t be easy.
All Saint Seiya mediums have one thing in common, they make sure to show that the Golden Saints are absolutely the biggest jerks around. I don’t want to hear that they’re supposed to be heroes or anything like that because they really aren’t. They actively do everything they can to help the villains and don’t listen to reason. Now, we already knew this because this 3 chapter prequel is effectively expanding on what we saw near the beginning of Saint Seiya. So you know how it ends but this really gets into the specifics.
I’d say it’s also taking a few liberties here as Aiolos refuses to fight back while he’s usually shown to be fighting against the Golden Knights. My favorite part of the mobile game was when he knocked out 3 of them in the opening level. Given that Aiolos is one of the strongest Golden Knights it makes sense although I suppose this manga would probably have more weight as canon material than a mobile game. Not really sure.
Regardless, Aiolos shines through as a great character here. Since he knows that the war with Hades is approaching (I think he may have underestimated how long it would take for Hades to show up since that was the final arc of the series) he has decided not to injure any of the Golden Knights since they will need to all be ready to fight soon. That part can be a little frustrating as these villains are pounding away at him and he decides not to fight back. I think it’s the wrong call but I admire his drive.
Aiolos manages to complete his mission with flying colors and never looks back. As for the other Golden Knights, well they get 0 points to be honest. So you’ve got the main 3 who are after him, Aphrodite, Shura, and Death. Usually I see him called Death Mask but in this manga they just call him Death which is a cool title anyway. These guys are pretty bad. At least Death has the excuse of actually being evil which makes a lot of sense on why he wouldn’t mind carrying out this mission.
The other two have no such excuse and they look awful when they try attacking Aiolos and basically say that they won’t listen to anything he tells them. Must be easy to trick someone when they won’t hear the other side of the story. They just look so petty ganging up on Aiolos when he won’t even fight back. Not minding the fact that their attacks will put Athena in danger is also really suspect.
The entire goal of the Golden Saints (Or any Saint to be honest) is to protect Athena so when they put this mission on hold or try to attack her then that means they are failing in their entire purpose. It’s just a really bad look and it’s why I never liked the Gold Saints. Aiolos is the only exception and that’s why he had to get bumped off early.
Gemini Saga also looks pretty bad here. He is overwhelmed by his dark side with such ease that it’s disgraceful. When you have a split personality you’d like to think that both sides are pretty evenly split but the evil one is clearly a lot more powerful. How did that ever happen? It means that the good side was definitely slacking in his mental defenses. He only ever whines when he is on screen which isn’t a good look anyway.
Athena actually gets a pretty intense scene where she glares at one of the Golden Saints and stops him in his tracks. Yeah it’s a little cheesy I’ll grant you that but at least Athena is doing something. That’s more than what she tends to do in the main series after all.
The art is pretty solid. It’s definitely got the vibe of the original series within it that’s for sure. There isn’t really a chance for a lot of fight scenes here which is unfortunate but I suppose it would be hard to incorporate more into this prequel. I still defer to the mobile game since it did add the extra fights to this part of the saga.
Overall, This was a fun prequel. It’s always good to see more of Aiolos since he doesn’t get to appear almost at all in the main adventures. That’s why I would have liked to have seen him fight more. Since it’s only 3 chapters, the series goes by in a flash but it was certainly a fun ride. If you enjoy Saint Seiya then this is definitely a good special to check out. Hopefully one day they bring Aiolos back into more of a starring role. I’ve still got a lot of different spinoffs to check out so maybe he’ll be in one of those.
Overall 8/10
Whenever a main character has amnesia in an action series it can be pretty annoying since you have to wait a long time for them to gain their old abilities back. In a comedy angle it definitely works a lot better though. There’s a lot of interesting things you can do with the premise but unfortunately Overboard misses the boat on this one. It ends up being fairly mean spirited for a while so by the time the characters are all getting along it just feels a little too late.
The movie starts by introducing us to Joanna who is incredibly rich. She enjoys living the high society life on board her huge yacht. Joanna isn’t a very nice person to be around though and is rude to everybody. One day she hires Dean to put in a new bookcase but then complains about it after he’s done. She even goes as far as saying she will not pay for the job and throws him as well as his toolkit overboard. Dean’s upset but there’s no real way for him to get revenge.
Joanna has that covered though as she sets the roots for her own demise. Late at night she heads back upstairs to grab her ring but slips and falls off the boat. She suffers amnesia as a result and winds up in a hospital. Her husband realizes this but is rather happy at the outcome since he now has riches of his own he can squander in her name. So he heads off to have a bunch of affairs. Dean happens to see a news broadcast of Joanna in the hospital and figures he will have a little fun with this. His master plan is to convince Joanna that they are married and make her do all the chores. Once she has paid him back for the lost tools though this grunt work, he will tell her the truth. Will things really play out like that?
Now this is a comedic romance so this is all portrayed in a rather light manner. Dean’s pretty selfish here but at least you know he’s not a bad guy so things won’t get crazy. My main issue here is really just that he takes the whole prank too far. Is it really still a prank when he is actually making her do everything and making fun of her in the process? He has a blast making her feel pretty bad about her past throughout and doesn’t make her job any easier. Dean also likes to troll her about their sleeping arrangements.
It would have been nice to have seen Dean at least help out a bit. As Joanna gets used to the role and performs more tasks, it feels like Dean does less and less. When his kids are having a tough time in school and flunking, he refuses to help her out and even says it’s none of her business. So he comes close to messing up his own cover story several times and is actively neglecting the kids.
Now, we know Dean has a golf course to work on and has two jobs but you’d think he would at least listen to Joanna a bit. She turned their home from a dump into a rather respectable place. Joanna even got the kids to be a lot more reasonable compared to their opening appearances. The fact of the matter is that even as someone with no memory or practical experience (It’s made clear that she has never cooked or done common chores in her life) she was doing a much better job than Dean ever did. She was really trying hard and he wasn’t supportive.
As brainwashed Joanna, she was a pretty solid character. She did her share of whining but ultimately got the job done. In her normal self she’s certainly not a likable character but you don’t see her in that form for very long. As for Dean…yeah I didn’t like him. Even as a gag, manipulating someone who is currently suffering from amnesia is very sketchy to say the least. He lost more and more points for neglecting the kids as well. Dean even chooses the absolute worst time to try and come clean with Joanna about what’s going on here. It’s like he couldn’t really get a lot right. He’s a good carpenter but that’s about all I could say for him.
As for Billy, he’s Dean’s best friend and gets a decent sized role. He’s usually the voice of reason here and keeps Dean from making any mistakes that are too large to walk back from. I didn’t care for the guy though, he’s not exactly good about keeping his eyes to himself. The only thing I’ll give him credit for is at least not letting Dean self destruct in the climax but that’s about it.
The humor in the film can be decent at times but not nearly as much as you would expect with this being a comedy film. Quite a few of the jokes don’t land nearly as much and any scene with the kids can usually be more on the annoying side. They may get a little better by the end but have a lot of screen time before that as well. For a good supporting character, Joanna’s mother is at least determined. She was the only one who even seemed to care that the heroine was missing and did everything she could to track her down. We do see that the mom is as rude as Joanna (So we know where she got these traits) but I’ll give her credit for actually going on an adventure personally.
Really, fixing this film would be fairly easy. I think you just tone down the extent to which Dean is pranking her. You still keep in the premise of him tricking Joanna and going home with her since that’s the whole point of the movie but have him actually contribute. His cover story is that he wanted her to pay him back for the tools/installation so her doing the dishes, laundry and such is all helping pay this back.
Fine you keep that and then stick with it as the baseline. Dean should still be hanging out with his kids and at least not actively making a mess. Surely he can help out around the house as well. It would give a real reason for a romance to actually develop since they would get along better. Joanna may even like the home environment compared to the yacht and Dean would also see her true character shine through like when she defended the kids. That would make for a much more organic experience.
I haven’t touched on the romance but as you can probably guess, it really doesn’t work. It’s about as shallow as you would expect. Now, I can’t say it comes out of nowhere since they are together for a pretty long time throughout the course of the film but when Joanna inevitably gets her memories back you can’t possibly imagine this working out. Imagine finding out that someone’s been playing you for weeks/months? Nah, that’s definitely not going to end up being a romantic ending no matter how you slice it.
Overall, Overboard has some potential but ultimately doesn’t live up to it. The writing’s okay and the general idea is interesting but the execution should have been handled better. Make the characters more likable and then you’ve really got something here. Dean should have stuck to his goal of just trying to get a fair shake with the money he lost as opposed to just trolling her for the fun of it. He just takes the joke too far to the point where it isn’t a joke anymore. If you want a good comedic experience, you’ve got better options than this one.
Overall 4/10
Ozuma is dedicated to keeping the Bit Beasts free but he would have a difficult time if R wanted to keep them sealed up. R’s got enough speed and power to easily get past any of Ozuma’s attempts to stop him. Ozuma is powerful but definitely not powerful enough in this case. His Blade would be shredded to pieces and he would be on the ground before he even realized what was happening. R (GoH) wins.
Hiro’s a pretty interesting character. We know that he’s a very powerful Blader and yet he never got a truly serious fight. It’s fair to say he’s not quite on the level of Tyson and Kai but he’s confident enough where you wouldn’t be surprised if he has some kind of trick up his sleeve. Either way just by how he performed in his alter ego and fight against Tyson, he’s above someone like Johnny. Johnny badly needs an upgraded Beyblade in order to keep up. Hiro wins.
Kenny was never one of my favorite Beyblade characters and I have to say that the final arc did not help his case at all. He was really lowering his guard left and right. The guy definitely doesn’t have the focus or skill needed to defeat Daichi. Daichi may still be learning but he’s proven himself on the national level and would only need a few seconds in order to take Kenny down for the count. Daichi wins.
Hilary is a very enthusiastic character in Beyblade but she’s not going to be doing much in this fight. Ming-Ming ended up being one of the strongest heroines in the original Beyblade series. You can even make a strong case that she was the most powerful one. Hilary has shown virtually 0 skill in the dish and would quickly be overwhelmed by Ming Ming’s quick fighting style. Ultimately that will be Hilary’s downfall. Ming-Ming wins.
Robert was one of the most powerful Beybladers back in the original series. A lot has changed since then though and he just hasn’t been able to keep up. Garland ended up being one of the most impressive Beybladers around. His martial arts style would quickly take Robert down for the count. The difference in their actual Beyblades should be observed as well. It’s hard to see Robert having enough physical power to do any real damage. Garland wins.
DReager1.com 