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Pandora Hearts Review

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It’s time to look at a rather confusing and convoluted manga. This one lasted for a very long time so it got to set up a lot of plots and then end them. As opposed to other series, I didn’t find the ending all that rushed, which was definitely a good thing. At the same time, I can’t say that the series was that good though. While it never turned into a train wreck like Black Butler, it ultimately never got to be all that great either. 07 Ghost was a confusing title, but one that had potential and I think a re-read of it makes the series all the more interesting. With Pandora Hearts, I don’t believe that going through the series again would make it much better because it still has a lot of negatives that can’t really be scrubbed away. If anything, reading it in such a quick batch would likely just make me remember more negatives that I may have forgotten otherwise. As you can tell, this won’t be a very positive review. The series isn’t terrible though so the score won’t be super low, but low enough to keep it under the line.

The series follows Oz, a member of royalty. He was cast into the Abyss, which is the home of demons. They are called Chains in this series though and you can make a contract with them. It comes at a great price if you don’t do this the right way though and as a result, Oz now has a timer on his life. Once it goes down enough, he will die. Using his partnership is naturally now recommended all that much. One day, Oz meets up with his Chain, the B Rabbit. Her human form is that of a little girl who doesn’t know all that much about human customs, but she likes eating and can fight very well. This works for Oz as he finally has another fiend. His butler, Gilbert is the other. The heroes decide to help Alice (B Rabbit’s human name) find her memories, but this will put them in the way of many powerful aristocrats and evil organizations who have their own plans for this unique chain.

That’s the plot from the beginning at least, but it changes rather drastically as the series goes on. If you thought that you’ve read a convoluted manga before, I can assure you that this one is even more so. I pride myself on the fact that I never really get lost in any movie, anime, manga, or other form of media. This one is no exception, but sometimes it will be tough to get what’s happening. My advice is to just take it in stride. Whatever you gleamed from the scene you should simply add to your head canon and continue from there. That’s the way to do it if you ask me.

Now, what holds this series back? Well, there are a few things. For one, this is one of those mangas that can go a little overboard with how violent it is. In particular, this usually applies to the flashbacks, like one which involves Alice and her true origin. The massacre is mentioned and hinted at several times before appearing and it manages to live up to the name. In the present, the violence never gets to be all that bad so it’s really just flashbacks which make things dicey. The past can also be very dark at times, which can also be a bit much.

For example, one character is basically born to die. She must be sacrificed in an old ritual that has survived throughout the many centuries. Even her brother, who is a super honor bound guy that everyone looks up to decides not to try and save her. On the contrary, he is the one to do the deed. To fulfill an experiment, another scientist asks Alice if she wants to have a kid right before she dies and she agrees to it. That was really random and also pretty nonsensical. Alice’s ancestor should never have agreed to such a thing. It definitely cheapens her character. As a result of all this, the real Alice ended up being born in darkness and not having much of a life to start out with until she met Oz. Even from there, the other Alices all try their best to mess things up for Alice before going through quite a few 180s until they decided on a personality.

Unfortunately, the art is also not that good for this title. Quite a few of the characters have identical character designs so they all start to blend together for a while. By the end of the series, I was finally able to distinguish one of the blond villains from the other, but it certainly took a while. The art also can’t keep up with the fight scenes so whenever a battle occurs, you end up missing a lot of it. We get large visuals and double splash pages, but there’s simply too much happening for the page to contain it all and things get rather crazy. The artist could take some tips from how Bleach handles its fights.

I can say that there was some clear improvement from the start of the series to the end though. The artist certainly did his/her best to make the action scenes more legible. We also got many cool closeups and images of the hero with his monster/chain in the background. Two of the images that I used for this review are examples of that. The series had a lot of epic visuals throughout which is why its a shame that the series ultimately wasn’t better than how it turned out. The concept still could have been great and I think that Pandora Hearts could have been a great success if it had played it straight and acted as more of a standard action title with each character being able to summon his/her chain to do battle with. It could have been a tournament series of just an average Shonen battle manga. This didn’t happen, but it would have been neat.

All right, let’s take a look at the characters. Oz is the main lead in this series. He can be a decent main character at times as he tries to be a nice guy who gets the job done and takes out the villains. Unfortunately, he is very similar to Ciel from the Black Butler series in the sense that he also tends to crack a lot and go off the deep end. He goes on a big murder spree a few times through the series. Usually it’s because he’s either being mind controlled or the villains decide to push his buttons, but he does let loose quite a few times. It makes it a little harder to take him seriously later on when he’s giving friendship speeches. His weapon of choice (Large scythe) is pretty cool though and I’m glad that he can fight a little. I wish he were stronger so he could put up more than just a little fight, but it’ll do for now I suppose. What Oz needed to be a better character is a nice injection of confidence and consistency.

Alice was a likable heroine. I think she would have worked a lot better as the main character instead of Oz. She never seemed to fall for the villain mind games that Oz and Gilbert always stepped into. Her only annoying trait was that she always tended to act very uncivilized and would bite Oz as a greeting once or twice since she thought that was normal. It’s not taken to extremes like with other characters though so it was manageable and in the end she is one of the better characters. Having her as the lead over Oz would have been a great idea. Just seeing her deal with the other 3 Alices and convincing them to see things her way is an example of why she’s so good.

We’re going back to inconsistent characters with Gilbert though. He’s someone who I wouldn’t trust too closely. Technically, his goal is to protect Oz and that’s what he does for most of the series, but a spell was placed on him which sort of forces him to betray Oz at one point. Suffice it to say, this did not help his case one bit. I know that mind control’s an iffy thing, but it’s always a little hard to recover from that. Beyond this scene, he wasn’t all that bad. He did a decent job of protecting Oz and he did have a chain so at least he could fight when necessary.

Oscar is Oz’s uncle and the guy was definitely nice. Despite the tragic origin stories that came to light later on, he always had a positive disposition and cheered Oz on whenever possible. Unfortunately, he was also completely powerless and never really had an effect on the story. On the other hand, Zai was a pretty terrible character. He’s Oz’s Dad and basically a villain who hid among the rest of the cast. He barely appears and really only shows up to insult Oz and get the main character into another Shonen depressed state. The guy really didn’t have a purpose here at all.

Vincent is one of the antagonists although he tries to act like a good guy at times too so he’s really all over the place. Needless to say, I definitely didn’t like this character. He made some decent threats at times I suppose, but for the most part he was really just all talk. It doesn’t help that he got a fairly generic design within the realm of this manga. It’s a good design for the average series, but here it just looks similar to everyone else. There’s nothing really likable about him.

Echo’s a fairly decent character. She doesn’t really have any emotions, but gradually starts to get them during the series. Out of nowhere she does obtain a split personality though with a being named Noise. It acts as a puppet controller which can manipulate her actions and tries to sever her bonds. It definitely leads to some dark moments for the character and does wreck everything for her. Echo’s a likable character, but it’s a shame that she was really losing the mental battle against Noise. What happened to the heroes having strong will power? There is a lot of mind control in this series so it doesn’t stop with Echo.

Next up is my favorite character of the series. Elliot felt out of place amidst the others because he had a great moral compass and never wavered in his trust in justice. He constantly called everyone else out on the corruption afoot and he didn’t need any special powers to fight it out with the others. He only used a normal blade to fight for his ideals. I suppose that I can’t say much else due to spoilers and such, but needless to say I wasn’t crazy about how things played out for him. In my eyes it was a mistake on the manga’s part. Granted, it was certainly unexpected so I’ll give some kudos there.

Leo is one of the worst characters in the series and I certainly couldn’t stand him. Originally he started out as a soft spoken guy who always liked to throw insults for no good reason. It was supposed to grow on you, but it just came across as irritating the entire time. In the second half he gets a lot more vocal, but it’s because he’s being partially mind controlled for these sagas. Either way, it didn’t do anything, but make me lose even more respect for the guy. Leo’s powerful, but verrrry annoying and unlikable.

Break isn’t all that much better. He’s the “hype” character of the series who can even fight when he is completely blind. That’s impressive and all I guess, but he’s always very cryptic and it’s hard to find him likable at all. He’s certainly no hero and will do anything if it means that he will be closer to his goal. He’s one of those characters that no side can trust, but he doesn’t pull off this role all that well. Sharon is one of the main heroines, but her role is rather small. She can actually fight to an extent, which is nice, but she didn’t really do anything in the grand scheme of things. Getting into a fight does keep her from being too generic or powerless at least.

Rufus appears as the first big villain in the series aside from the Baskervilles. That’s how he appears at first, but then he starts switching sides like crazy. It doesn’t help that he’s a member of royalty either so nobody dares to mess with him. Even the heroes just allow him to have free reign the whole time. He gets a plot twist near the end, which does nothing to help him. After all of the hype that he got, Rufus didn’t do much with it.

Reim was a fairly good character. He was a loyal sidekick who would take a bullet for his friends. (And he did just that) He never became one of the more important characters, but sometimes the minor ones are the guys who steal the show. We’ve also got Jack, who gets a number of plot twists. They all serve to make him less and less likable until he ends up being one of the meaner/crueler characters in the series. At first it seems like he’s at least being evil in order to save someone, but then it turns into more of a classic revenge story, but on someone who doesn’t seem like she’s earned his wrath. Jack’s plot really makes no sense no matter how much they try to make him sympathetic. His plot is all over the place and he can’t even trust himself. It’s a shame since he started out as one of the more likable characters. When he told Oz the truth about the Rabbit, I did actually enjoy that twist.

As for the Baskervilles, they don’t actually get much character development. One of their members is a little girl who likes to murder people after playing them. On one hand, she acts rather innocent, but then that seems to be a facade on other occasions. By the end, it’s unknown which side was real since the manga plays up both aspects. There’s also an older lady who seems a lot more reasonable and offers to help prevent the end of the world depending on what the higher ups say. There’s a guy who is around to punch things…..that’s basically his role. You’re left to wonder why these villains work for the big boss since they seem rather confused about the whole situation as well. Why do they know some things and how do they ultimately fit in with this mystery? In the end, that is a mystery which engulfs the other mysteries. It may have been mildly explained at some point, but this group never gets a big flashback to flesh them out. Ah well, maybe a bonus chapter or a post series interview dealt with that.

The series takes a lot of cues from Alice in Wonderland so fans of the classic fantasy stories will likely enjoy this series a little more than they would otherwise. It’s definitely a nice tribute to those classics. I mentioned earlier that reading the series from beginning to the end in a quick batch or two probably wouldn’t help the series, but I thought I’d add a disclaimer that it could be the reverse. I really can’t say for sure until I re-read the series and it could be a long time until I do that. Naturally, it’s always a lot more fun to read a series all the way through with no interruptions, but that’s really not possible until a series is over and even then, only if your local library has it all or you already own the series. Plus, the double edged sword is that you will remember everything. The good and the bad will both be a lot more fresh and you simply have to hope that the former wins out. This series made it to 24 volumes and did get a pretty big fan base. There’s a lot of content to be found here so if you enjoy the characters, it makes sense that you would like the series a lot. It really just needs to start on the right foot for you.

I will also give the manga some props for the fact that it really didn’t have any fanservice. Perhaps I am forgetting something, but as far as I can recall, there was none of that to be found here. Considering how long the series lasted, this is actually quite the feat. It’s sad that this is actually a super rare occurrence, but that’s just how it is nowadays. The manga stayed classy throughout and I also can’t recall any animal violence although I say that with far less confidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if something happened at some point.

Overall, some may appreciate that the series is so convoluted, but that was not the case with me. As mentioned earlier, the series never got very bad and I certainly wouldn’t compare it to titles like Black Bird, Vampire Knight, or Black Butler, but I also don’t really want to put it in the same conversation as Pokemon Rescue Team or even the Kirby manga. At the very least, you can have some fun reading this manga and it is all very interesting even when it’s not all that clear what is happening. Complexity isn’t always a good thing. Typically it is as juggling several different plots at once can make for a fantastic read in the end, but it has to be juggled well. This series didn’t do that and the art certainly help its chances either. I’d recommend skipping on this title and if you want a good manga with a lot of depth, go read Death Note instead. I can guarantee that you will not be disappointed. (Now that will be a fun retro review at some points.) Still, if you do check this out, be sure to let me know what you think of it in the comments.

Overall 4/10

Yugioh 5Ds Duel Transer Review

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It’s been a while, but I finally got to go back and complete one of the old Yugioh games that I’ve had on the back burner for a while now. It feels good to finally take it down for the count. It suffers from the usual problem that Yugioh games have on the home console and that’s the long loading times. Still, that’s really the only main problem for the title as it still does a good job of capturing the Yugioh enjoyment that I’ve come to expect from the series. It’s long and it’s difficult, but the game can also be very satisfying. After all, what’s more fun than having a quick round of Yugioh?

This title also does have a plot which is something that you can’t really say for many of the other Yugioh games. Where this takes place in the anime is a little vague, but all that you really need to know is that many of the world’s greatest duelists have been trapped inside of a large tower. The only way to get out is to duel everyone and prove yourself to be the strongest. The problem is that there are no pushovers here and some of the villains may decide not to play by the rules. You control an original character who has arrived at this tower. He may not have a rep yet, but he is actually the greatest duelist of all time. Not too shabby eh? Can Terry (That’s what I called him) save the world or is he doomed? Time to find out!

We may as well go over the technical aspects of the game first. The graphics look fairly good here. Everyone is a little pixelated, but in retrospect, a lot of the Wii games had similar issues with the character designs. It still looks rather well considering. I also liked the designs for the new characters. They stood out and were original. Odin had a cool armor and his true identity was also pretty intense. That definitely worked well for the final boss. As for the soundtrack, it is fairly solid. A theme will come up if you are close to winning and likewise if you are close to losing. There are quite a number of good tunes here although the soundtrack definitely could have been larger. It’s mostly all fast paced and fits well for the duels.

Time to quickly explain the gameplay system in case you have never had a duel before. Each player starts with 5 cards and then you draw another one each turn. You summon monsters to the field (1 per turn although you can special summon others) and use them to attack your opponent’s life points. Spell and Trap cards are also allowed into the mix of course. The first person to land at 0 life points loses the round. The concept is simple enough, but there are many rules and complexities surrounding this so you’ll still have a lot to take in when you first boot up the game. I recommend working on building your first deck to start things off. Choose each card yourself so you know exactly what they do and when to activate each card.

I recommend holding down the B button during the turns if you know that you won’t be using a Trap Card. Otherwise, it will ask you this question throughout every phase of the turn, which can slow the game down considerably. I ended up going with a deck that was heavy on trap cards and anti trap cards. My deck was a little larger than most people would recommend it be, but this served me well twice. There is one character in the game who has an incredible defensive strategy. Her name is Luna and she won’t hesitate to time you out. Our duel went into the 80s I believe, but luckily my deck was a lot larger than hers so that ended up earning me the win. She tried the same tactic later on and I used the same counter. Don’t underestimate trap cards. They are extremely valuable in this game.

You will need to really enjoy the duels to get any fun out of this title. That’s because the game is over 20 hours long and that equals a lot of duels. There are roughly 13-15 levels in the game, but each one has up to 5 duels and sometimes even more. You also shouldn’t expect to coast by either as these guys tend to put up quite the fight. Many of them took me several tries to defeat, but naturally none of them could ultimately stop me from reaching the goal. Ironically, the second last boss is probably the easiest in the game. I happened to get a really good hand, but even considering that, a perfect 8000-0 battle is pretty rare.

As for replay value, there is a lot of that. After beating the game, you will unlock a few more levels where you can fight opponents with incredibly strong decks and get more cards. There are hundreds, if not thousands of cards in this game so collecting them all will be a very tough thing to do. That is sure to buy you a lot of time. One thing that I don’t like is that you can’t use some of the cards that you obtain because they are deemed illegal. If that’s the case, why put them in the game at all? Even if the computers keep on using them anyway, we shouldn’t be able to buy those cards if they are just going to sit around.

The gameplay’s a lot of fun as you can tell, but the game did have one thing holding it back. The long loading times. I can’t stress this enough. If a game takes a while to get through each duel, then the adventure will start to feel a little too much like a grind by the end. For some reason, this always happens to the home console version of these titles. The DS World Championships and the PSP Tag Force games are always lightning fast and I dare say that they are more intuitive. After all, in those games, you could activate magic cards whenever you want. Now, you have to wait until it’s your turn.

Overall, It feels good to have finally completed Duel Transer. That game was certainly on the backburner for a long time so this is a big moment. Next up, I aim to take down the Yugioh game for the Gamecube. The plot is definitely very odd (and boring) and the game is even slower paced than this one. Ah well, we’re just going to have to wait a while before we get a really fast title I suppose. At the very least, this just goes to show how popular Yugioh is. It’ll always have more games to play. If you’re a big fan of Yugioh, then I definitely recommend this game quite a lot. You may never get to Synchro Summon since the rules seem more complex than usual, but at least you’ll get to fight many powerful foes. If you’ve never played Yugioh before, then you may want to start with World Championship instead as it does a good job of easing you into the challenge.

Overall 7/10

Myth Makers: Trixie in Toyland Review

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It’s time to take a look at another infamous Wii game from back in the day. While Trixie isn’t quite as well known as Ninjabread Man, it is on the same level. It is by the same company after all and the game is almost completely copied from the Ninjabread Man title. Seriously, it’s probably hard to believe but you are basically playing a reskinned game. Even the main menu theme is exactly the same. It does seem to be a little more polished though, but this works as a doubled edged blade. You’ll see what I mean in a moment. Trixie’s a bit of a bad game due to the short length, but it certainly could have been a whole lot worse.

As with the Ninjabread Man, there isn’t really a plot in this one. You’ll have to check out the back or read the booklet if you want to get the story behind the game. You play as a girl with rabbit ears who goes around whacking people with her weapon. Eventually, you reach the final boss and take the win, freeing the land from the oppressors. By this point, you will notice that the game did have higher production values than Ninjabread Man. For starters, there is actually voice acting in this game. “Take that buster” is Trixie’s catch phrase and she tends to say this when you hit one of the enemies with her weapon. As you can expect, this does get a little repetitive so I’m glad that it doesn’t happen every single time. It seems to be random, but at least I do like her enthusiasm. The villains also yell “Destroy” whenever they fire a missile. Those guys are tricky, but nothing you can’t handle.

There are two main types of villains. The robots are the strongest and I recommend taking out from afar. That being said, they’re a lot weaker than the counterpart from the Ninjabread Man so you can win in close quarters combat as well. The controls are a lot more responsive than Ninjabread Man so you can actually fight normally for a change. The other enemies don’t even try to attack you all that much so you can just swing at your discretion. The part of the game that is a little tougher than Ninjabread Man is the jumping part. The game loves to eat your double jumps so then you end up falling into the gap and plummeting to your doom. Trust me, it’s not a fun way to go out. This won’t be much of a problem until the final two levels, but you should expect to lose many lives at that point.

The main levels are all in 3D and you travel through the level trying to grab the 10 puzzle pieces to complete it. They can be a little hard to see, but luckily you do have a compass which helps you find them. It’s certainly not the most accurate one by any stretch of the imagination, but it works well enough. What does make things difficult is that the first level is very large. Even by this game’s standards, you’ll have a hard time locating anything. There are around 10 floors and all of the differently colored blocks start to look the same after a while. That level took me a very long time and naturally, losing a life can be very sad because you go all the way back to your latest check point, which may not have been all that close.

This is really what I meant when I said that the extra polish was not necessarily a good thing. The levels are a little too big now and while they have more of an actual design than the Ninjabread levels, it also means that it takes a little longer to find everything. The game is also longer than its rival, which should be a good thing in theory, but I wouldn’t have minded it only being the usual 4 levels. There are 10 levels in this title although 5 of them are fairly short.

After each main level, there will be a bonus one. The gameplay for those varied from overhead to side scroller. They were actually pretty fun and were more enjoyable than the main levels. You would have to reach the goal while surviving from these different gameplay styles. It’s hard to see where you are going so I recommend taking your time. As for the final boss level, it’s a small one that just has you work on getting through a few jumps. The actual boss is very easy and you shouldn’t lose any lives against him. Just run around the guy while shooting your darts the entire time. The damage will built up and the villain eventually falls. It’s much safer than actually trying to fight the guy in hand to hand combat.

Graphically, the game isn’t all that bad. It certainly looks better than Ninjabread Man, but still wouldn’t hold up all that well to the average Wii game. At the very least, I did like Trixie’s design, but the main villain could have been a little cooler. The soundtrack is pretty bad and the fact that it has the same theme as the other title is pretty lazy. It works for nostalgia like having Melee’s theme in Smash 4, but it shouldn’t be reused for convenience.

There isn’t really any replay value here so that hurts the game a little. It’s still very short even if you do end up getting lost a few times so this wouldn’t even last you the full afternoon. Luckily, you can grab it for a few dollars, but that’s why I definitely could not give the game a positive rating. Honestly, it would have probably dropped to a 3 if it had gone on for much longer. The final boss level was pretty frustrating as I kept dying to the same jump and the final main level was a little too much of a maze. It also had tricky jumps that could be quite tragic.

Overall, Trixie in Toyland is actually not as good as Ninjabread Man even though it seemed to have been more refined and to have gotten more of a budget. Sometimes more content isn’t always a good thing. I did appreciate the voice acting though and the fact that the game actually had a final boss was also a nice improvement. The minigames were solid too so if not for the main level designs being so bad, this title would have had a decisive victory. I certainly recommend trying it out for the novelty value, but you won’t be missing much if you decide to skip out on this one. I’ll be trying out the Trixie racing game soon so we’ll see if that game is able to surpass this one. I don’t see how someone could mess up a racing game so maybe we’ll finally see a 5-7 star game from this company.

Overall 4/10

Ninjabread Man Review

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Have any of you ever heard of the Ninjabread Man? This game may have flown under the radar for a while, but it does have quite the reputation and it is certainly well deserved. This is known as one of the worst Wii games of all time although I have to say that this may be overdoing it a little. Sure, the production values are quite bad and the game is extremely short (Roughly an hour) but it does have heart. If anything, the game would have been more annoying if it had been longer…but maybe that just means that this game really isn’t that good. Regardless, it is getting a negative score, but it could have been a lot worse.

There is no real plot to be found in the game as it stays on the cover. You simply start out as a living Gingerbread Man who wields a sword. You go around destroying Cakes and Tomatoes. The Cakes are very overpowered so don’t engage them in close quarters combat. Instead, spam your Shruikens. They can take out any enemy from a safe distance and they also get stronger the more that you use them until you get to the point where every enemy will die from a single hit. It’s a nice way to effectively break the game. The controls are very spotty though so watch out for that. We’re back in the classic motion controls era after all and this isn’t exactly a AAA title. The sword swinging rarely worked which is why I switched to throwing in the first place.

The gameplay is in 3D and you can jump. You now know all that their is to know about the gameplay. The objective of each level is to find 10 puzzle pieces to fix a generator. You then jump in to automatically complete the level. There are 4 levels total and one of those is a tutorial level so there are really just 3. There are no bosses whatsoever and no real ending either. The credits just play and that’s it. The 3 real levels all have the exact same format. There is a compass towards the bottom of the screen which lets you know which direction to go. Unfortunately, it’s not always the greatest way to find a piece as the terrain messes with its sensors, but it does its best I suppose.

The final level tries to be more linear which helps with the finding. As long as you don’t make a wrong turn, you should be fine. Each enemy that you defeat gives you one health point and defeating 6 of them gives you a one up. I recommend stocking up on those. Not really because of the enemies since they’re reasonably easy to deal with once you start spamming the projectiles. You’ll want them because of the jumps since the sensor bar will often times not record your jump or it will merge them together so you won’t go far enough. It will rarely lead to a death, but there is one section where you can die. I got through it fairly easily, but I wasn’t so lucky in another title from this company. (I’ll be reviewing that one shortly)

On a technical merit, Ninjabread Man is no more impressive than with the gameplay. The soundtrack basically consists of free domain type music that don’t seem to have much emotion. It just feels like the music was put together in roughly 5 seconds and the developers just figured that you wouldn’t get tired of it. There’s no real variety and while the theme can be a little catchy after a while, it’s no fun compared to titles like Sonic and Mario. I want my hype themes. Meanwhile, the graphics are naturally not all that good. They’re pretty low budget and while they aren’t terrible, Ninjabread Man will lose in a head 2 head fight against just about any other title. It may look better than Balls of Fury at least.

There is no replay value to be found here whatsoever. I suppose you could just replay the game, but there is literally no reason to do so as it doesn’t keep track of your score and there are no collectibles around either. This game didn’t even get any real voice acting so the game is very silent. I imagine that the game must not have cost a lot to make so the developers probably made a profit off of it. It’s a scary thought to have considering that this game was just not all that good. Again, it wasn’t terrible considering all of this.

The concept is decently sound. How bad can a 3D platformer be right? The controls are the main frustrating part. Luckily, I didn’t come across any big glitches so that was good. If the jumping was more stable, that would have gone a long way. That being said, the overall length is really what keeps this game from getting a 5 or higher. There’s no way I can justify a game being about an hour long or less. Even if it had multiplayer this would be a bit of a stretch although it would certainly help out quite a bit. This game now goes for around 1-5 dollars so at least you won’t be losing a lot of money.

Overall, Ninjabread Man is for the hardcore Wii owners who want to own all of the titles. I honestly purchased it because of how bad the game is known to be. I’m the kind of guy who gets curious about things like that. It’s still not the worst game that I’ve ever played by any means and I actually think that it was more fun than the higher budget spinoff that I played afterwards. That review is coming soon and it will help you remember that sometimes bigger isn’t better. Quality still trumps quantity even if both of them are in very short supply here. If you’re curious about Ninjabread Man, I recommend satisfying your curiosity. If won’t cost you much and then you can finally count yourself among the select few who got to play this game. It’s truly something else!

Overall 4/10

Star Trek Beyond Review

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The trilogy of Star Trek films ends with this installment. Does it go out with a bang? Not exactly, but the film doesn’t end on a whimper either. Rather than feeling like the climactic finish, this film decides to take the unique approach of being “just another day in the office” for the Star Trek cast. It succeeds in acting like an extended Star Trek episode which is a good thing in some areas. We finally get to see more interaction between the crew and the banter between “Bones” and Spock is something that the films had been lacking. However, the fun dialogue and adventure on the planet does come at the expense of stakes. Sure, the crew is in danger and technically the threat is real, but Beyond never feels quite as intense as Into Darkness. It’s a good film and Beyond is content to stay in that realm.

As you may remember from the ending of Star Trek Into Darkness, the crew has been tasked with a 5 year expedition into deep space. Naturally, this could be a little dicey for the rest of the Federation since the Enterprise is their greatest ship and the universe could probably use Kirk and the others if a firefight starts. Ah well, they’ll manage I suppose. 3 years have passed and Kirk’s group has to dock on a planet to grab some supplies. After doing so, they receive word that a ship is stranded past a cluster of asteroids. The crew walks into this trap and the ship is torn apart as all of the members are left to fend for themselves on this planet. Can they escape this ruthless alien race or is this the end for the crew?

One thing I feel that I have to point out is that the Federation feels doomed if they were to ever encounter a competent alien race. The Enterprise is apparently their best ship and it is extremely weak. For starters, while its design is legendary and iconic, it is not suited for combat in the slightest. There are weak points everywhere and it is not very agile. The villains in this film exploit this quite easily. It doesn’t bode well for the smaller ships in this alliance. In the entire trilogy, I don’t believe that we have gotten to see Kirk’s ship win a single round. Maybe in the first film as it has been a while, but I don’t recall that occurring. They definitely need a new ship.

I’d also like to point out that the plot does seem a little iffy when you take a close look at it. I’m keeping this review spoiler free, but the villains are not in a position to obtain a whole lot of resources. Even if they got off of their planet and toured the universe for a while, I don’t see how they could get such advanced weaponry. It’s one thing to see their ships take the Enterprise down after a quick fight, but it’s extremely one sided and apparently these mini ships can take down an entire planet in the blink of an eye as well. I feel this was definitely exaggerated a little too much. There wasn’t a whole lot of plot hax luckily due to the weakness working well, but I think the ships should have been nerfed a little.

As one would expect from a Star Trek film, the special effects were very well done. The space fights look great and the environments are also very good. That being said, I was super glad to see the city return at the end. Everything feels fairly glossy and futuristic as opposed to being super realistic, which is a positive for me. The alien world could have felt very Tarzanish, but instead it feels like a film version of the location, which is a definite improvement for me. The soundtrack is less impressive, but we get a throwback or two to the classic themes and one of the music themes from the first film of the trilogy returns. It definitely works well for the scene and I’m always ready for something that’s fast paced. It’s not a bad soundtrack by any means, but it does come across as a little generic.

As mentioned earlier, one of the strengths in this film is the banter. As a whole the writing was fairly good as well. Some language as I’ve come to expect, but not all that much and nothing super drastic. For the most part, if Kirk, Bones, or Spock is present in a scene it’s going to end up being a good one. It is good to see the team actually do some exploring for a change and we finally get to see more TV show related items. The team has their communicators out, they use the phasers a lot and we even have the Tricorder that Bones uses.

This is probably the first time that I can ever say this, but Captain Kirk was actually portrayed as a really good character. In the second film he was greatly improved from the first, but still had a pair of scenes to remind you that he was not going to rank too highly anytime soon. There is nothing like that here. He is still having some doubt issues, but they don’t play a huge role here and I do agree with him to an extent. A 5 year cruise in the middle of nowhere seems completely pointless and they should be doing something constructive instead. Unfortunately, Kirk is only human so he doesn’t do too well in the fight scenes, but he still tries his best. He actually comes up with plans and makes saving his comrades top priority from start to finish. He was definitely surprisingly good in this film.

Meanwhile, Spock is a fairly good deputy as well. One thing that definitely does get old is the fact that Spock is supposed to be the emotionless character, but he breaks character constantly. I think the classic show did a better job of only having him break character once in a blue moon. He still does look good for the most part though. I will be glad to have his romance drama with Uhura done with since the back and forth throughout the entire trilogy got old really fast. Considering that they are all stuck on the ship for such a long time, the constant separating and coming back together would make things awkward. On that note, it is completely Spock’s fault this time. It was Uhura’s in the second film, but Spock basically gave her no real choice in this one due to his making some fairly bad decisions. He gets one fight in this film, but is unable to join the fray for most of the film so that’s too bad.

Bones is the stand out character this time and is easily the best one here. His small role in the first two films may be part of the reason why the films never had a whole lot of witty banter up until now. Granted, there wasn’t a whole lot of time for it, which is one of the reasons why having more of an everyday adventure is a good idea once in a while. When the big events happen, it’s typically one fight after the other so there’s no time for dialogue. If you think about any great TV Show or film, you’ll remember that dialogue can be important as well. Just look at Yugioh, how much fun would the duels be without the constant trash talking and witty puns? It would certainly lose some of its depth without that element. Hopefully Bones gets a large role in the next film as well.

The main heroine of this title is Jaylah. Debatably Uhura’s role is almost as large, but Jaylah was made up for this film (As far as I’m aware) so she was more integral to the plot while Uhura spent most of her time trying to reason with the main villain. Jaylah’s a good warrior and she does a better job of being the hardened female veteran than most of the iconic ones. The lady from Alien, the warrior from the Hobbit, Gamora, Jaylah’s a better character than all of those if you ask me. Perhaps it’s because the film doesn’t really go into her tragic past all that much. It could also be due to the fact that the film doesn’t spend a lot of time trying to overhype her or having the characters all make statements to support this. Truly cool characters only need actions to back them up and holding her own against one of the main villains is a good way to accomplish this.

On that note, did anyone else feel like the hand to hand fight scenes had too much shaky cam and cutaways? Some of the fights were super chaotic as a result and hard to follow. The action scenes were still solid though and I would have liked to have seen more of them, but the camera work could have been better. Back to the characters, Scotty has a fairly large role here, but with Bones back in the center stage, Scotty didn’t seem as charismatic in comparison. I also don’t really care for his sidekick. It’s not at the point where he is a unlikable character yet, but I think reducing his role for the next film could be a good thing. Chekov has probably surpassed him for me although I suppose he may not return for the next film or he’ll be recast. Sulu’s role here is also a little larger than last time, but it’s mainly just used for real life politics. To the point where we got a whole press release statement about it. As a result, he doesn’t really contribute to the story at all. Seriously, he’s present in many scenes, but it’s always another character who actually performs the action. His only big moment would be letting the ship fall and then signalling someone else to activate the boosters. With the politics out of the equation, the next film should hopefully give him more to do. He’s one of the team’s best fighters so giving him a close quarters fight scene would be a good start. (I was actually expecting that. Overall, the film had less fight scenes than I would have liked)

As for the main villain, he’s quite possibly the worst one yet. I didn’t care for the villain in the first film either though so it’s a tough call. I liked the minions though as they looked like the foot soldiers out of Halo or something super sci-fi like that. It was a good armor, even if the actual aliens were incredibly weak. Uhura takes down a few of them pretty easily and most of the others prove to be human level as well. The main villain’s deputy can fight, but doesn’t have much character beyond that. The main villain goes for sympathy and is the classic delusional fellow who believes in the ideals of the past. Needless to say, this didn’t help his cause. I do appreciate the fact that his final moment wasn’t him going for the power of friendship or something like that. I thought this angle may have been taken and while it’s usually great to see a villain redeem him/herself…it would have been extremely unrealistic in this case.

If there’s any real issue with most of the cast here, it’s that they don’t care all that much about the supporting characters. Like always, the red shirts die by the dozens/hundreds. Everyone’s still fairly chipper by the end though and I suppose you must be good at getting over things to be in this position, but it does make you feel bad for all of the new recruits. It’s like being the best friend in a horror movie, you always know that the character’s days are numbered.

Now for the big question….did Star Trek Beyond manage to defeat the latest Star Wars film? I have to say that it did. As it stands now, Star Trek’s current trilogy has been handily defeating Star Wars no matter which trilogy you pit against it. While Star Wars may easily be the better franchise due to the superior video games, concept, and characters, Star Trek definitely has the monopoly on the films. If the rest of the upcoming titles for Star Trek hold onto this solid level of quality, the franchise really could make a nice rebound and become more of a well known product like the good ole days.

Overall, Star Trek Beyond does a good job of checking the right boxes while avoiding the mis-steps that plague many films. It was good to see that the critics got this one right. It’s a well written film that doesn’t go for any crude humor or inappropriate jokes like other titles. Captain Kirk was portrayed very well and the supporting cast did a good job of supporting the film. The fight scenes were handled very well and the movie never dragged on. There was a good deal of plot hax and I don’t really follow the logic of how this villain amassed such a powerful amount of resources to deal with the Federation, but no film can be perfect on that regard. I still wouldn’t call this film great as it would either need to be a little more exciting or be extremely funny to get that extra star. As it stands, this is a solid “lost episode” for fans of the original Star Trek. As an added bonus, Captain Kirk even sniffs out a trap for once! I’m also liking the new Trek costumes. The classic yellow is good, but the blue navy-esque uniform looks really sharp as well. I’m inclined to say that the next film will win as it’ll probably be more of a big event film like the last two, but at the same time it needs to be careful not to lose the fun factor that this one acquired.

Overall 7/10

Constantine Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version. All thoughts below should be read as such as a review of the unedited version would be even more negative.
Constantine-2005
Well well, it’s time to look at a horror film that also happens to be a comic book film. I’m not sure about this combo and it certainly didn’t work out this time. Constantine ends up being a very weak title which contradicts its own message and spends a lot of time wondering just where the plot went. One thing’s for sure, this isn’t the sleeper hit of 2005 and it even makes the recent Ghost Rider film look good.

The film’s about a guy named Constantine who exorcises demons. He wants to be allowed into Heaven since he has done a good job of keeping the demons away, but the angel Gabriel reminds him that one cannot enter into Heaven on good works alone. Constantine shows his contempt for this by slamming a Bible on the ground, insulting and berating a lady who is trying to save her sister, and then torturing a spider that he found in his house. Yeah….I wonder why they aren’t letting this guy into Heaven….It’s impossible to root for Constantine from this point on, but one thing leads to another and he’s the only guy standing in the way of a mad quest for power with human lives in the balance. Looks like it’s time to fight again!

It’s hard to know where to start on how bad this film is. We may as well get the ball rolling with Constantine since I’ve already started taking shots at him. He’s just a horrendous main character. Constantine doesn’t seem to even pretend to follow the Bible’s teachings. He spends the entire film being mean to just about everyone and his opening scene where we’re supposed to be impressed with how he handles the exorcist just makes him look bad. He’s not even that good at his job and barely manages to scratch out wins. Constantine loves smoking as well and even after he gets lung cancer, he decides to keep on smoking anyway. Once he gets a sidekick, Constantine tries to be a little more heroic when he’s not pulling guns at demons at a bar where there’s a truce, but it’s too little too late. I’ll never forget the spider incident. Sure, he had a bad day, but taking it out on another living creature is way past crossing the line.

There’s also this subplot in the desert where a guy finds a spear which mind controls him and forces the guy to come over to the city. Not only does this plot go nowhere until the very end of the film, but it is immensely boring and just slows the film’s pacing down even more. The film never really gets good or exciting so it may not matter all that much while you’re watching, but it doesn’t help matters.

The film can also be pretty violent at times and also just grotesque with the various demons running around. Supernatural films like this one love going for those crazy visuals. There were some good ones here like when Constantine went into hell. I liked how the place looked and the film had potential with some of the fight scenes and other special effects. It was one of the few positives that this title had to offer.

Back to the negatives, the film decides to make God (Yes, the film actually decided to go with the real God in this film. Big mistake considering that they decided to make him look terrible) look incredibly unintelligent and he spends the entire film getting tricked by everyone around him. Part of the premise in this film is that God and the Devil are having a chess game with humans being the pawns in it. Neither one of them can affect the humans directly, but they can tempt them. The Devil tempts them to do wrong things with his demon hybrids while God has the half angels. Full fledged Demons and Angels are forbidden from interfering. Aside from the moral ambiguity of this game, you’d think that God would ensure that the match is fair right? Nope, he doesn’t realize it, but the Devil has rigged the match from the start.

He’s not even subtle as he just summons a bunch of Demons to Earth and directly attacks people. His allies even go to bars and start indiscriminately murdering people. They also murder one of Constantine’s allies and an angel can do nothing but watch since he’s heavily outnumbered. Of course, the fact that the angel was watching and doing nothing the entire time is another negative. It gets even worse as one of the higher ranked Angels turns out to be crazy and evil. God appointed him as one of the 4 big Angels so you’d think that the interview process would have been more rigid. The Angel believes that he’s still a good guy and that genocide will help the human race turn to God before they die. He believes that suffering always has this effect, but you can see how crazy he is.

Also, the Devil is portrayed as incredibly strong and while God won’t set foot on Earth, he has no qualms about it. He shows up and wrecks everybody. The final straw is the fact that he can mess with Heaven as well. So, remember the part where Constantine can’t earn his way into Heaven with actions? Yeah…the film forgot about that. By being heroic and helping someone out, he was able to earn his way into Heaven, but the Devil can’t have that. He literally reaches up and just pulls Constantine back to Earth. Wow…..I can’t even….

So…yeah, this movie had a very warped idea of how Heaven and Hell works. It’s always nice to see a film actually bring Christianity to the forefront and tackle these concepts, but it was done so horrendously that it backfired completely. I don’t believe we even got any lines where the characters remind Constantine that he can only get into Heaven through Jesus Christ. It seemed to completely revolve around being a nice person instead, which is 100% false. No matter how many good deeds you do or how nice you are as a person, it will never be enough to get you into Heaven without accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. The whole point of faith in Christianity is that you know that you can’t make it to Heaven on your own. You need Jesus, but this film decides to go around that. Also, the concept of an Angel being evil is pretty terrible. Lucifer was an angel once and there are other Fallen Angels, but they are fallen. There aren’t any evil Angels still lurking or anything like that. That’s just Hollywood trying for an epic plot twist, but there isn’t any to be found in Heaven. I don’t think for one minute that any bad guy can trick God into letting him in.

As for the rest of the supporting characters, the main heroine was decent. Angela was certainly a big improvement over Constantine and she goes through a lot of trials in order to help her sister out. Her sister committed suicide, but Angela knows that she would never do such a thing and it finally helps her to believe in the supernatural. This brings another negative to light which I almost forgot about. All right, stay with me here since the film decides to use its crazy logic again.

So, a demon possessed Isabel and forced her to destroy herself. That wasn’t her own free will so she surely wouldn’t be penalized for it would she? Nope…she actually is. See, as part of the match, this falls into the whole “Satan influencing people” part so it’s actually a legitimate victory for him with Isabel now being doomed to Hell for eternity. Now you can see how this whole game is so rigged right? Luckily, Isabel ends up having a happy ending, but once again, the Devil was just portrayed as way too powerful here. Essentially, he was the one with power over Heaven and Hell in this version given how he can influence the game to such a degree.

So, Angela’s a good character. I also liked Chas, who’s the comic relief character of the film. He did a good job in the role and helped out as best he could. Things didn’t go too well for him, but he does get a big plot twist in the post credits scene…which may or may not be canon as I also read that it was an alternate ending. I’m pretty sure that it is canon though, but I don’t really care enough about the film to do any searching. If you see the film you can stick around past the credits and tell me if it’s there. None of the villains were particularly likable and the demons didn’t have great designs. The final fights were pretty decent, but Constantine was so far out of his league that it was scary. He’s a human with a gun….there’s only so much he can do against a very fast/powerful demon. Plot hax is really his only weapon at this point.

Overall, Constantine is pretty terrible to be honest. I’d stick far away from this film if I were you. The film defies its own logic and the logic is already super flawed and fake from the get go. You won’t learn anything from this film because there is nothing to learn and the actual movie isn’t well made anyway. Constantine is a very unlikable main character and even the edited version can’t save the film’s writing and the excessive violence that shows up at times. All of Constantine’s allies (One of which is a priest who likes to drink a lot. Gee….the film had to fit that in didn’t it?) are doomed to painful and unfortunate ends at the hands of the demons and since the heroes never had a shot from the beginning…what’s the point? If you want a better comic book film, I recommend Batman V Superman, the original theater version. That film has it all, hype, action, and an epic soundtrack!

Overall 2/10

Super Mario 3D World Review

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I’ve been meaning to buy this game for ages, but it just never happened. Luckily, I ended up buying a Wii U from a relative and got a few games for free. This one happened to be among them so I finally got a chance to play the final 3D Mario adventure. While it isn’t quite as good as the others, it’s still a great game and one that I’d recommend to all Mario fans. With 4 Player Mode, you can imagine how chaotic a lot of these levels are. There’s also a lot of content here so you won’t be cheated out of 60 dollars like with Star Fox Zero. Not that this matters much at the moment though since the game goes for 20 nowadays. At that price, how can you not get it?

The plot is pretty simple and to the point. Bowser has kidnapped a bunch of fairies and Mario has decided to get them back. Bowser has amassed quite the army this time though so Mario has enlisted the help of Luigi, Peach, and Toad. Together, the four of them are ready to take down all the foes who would dare stand in their way. Rosalina also shows up to help, but only after Bowser has already been defeated so it was a little too late by that point. Awesome character to play as though.

By now, the gameplay is likely self explanatory to most Mario fans. It’s a 3D Mario Platformer where you have to try and reach the end of a level. They are all linear so the levels work more like the 2D games or Galaxy to an extent rather than the more complex/circular levels from the Super Mario 64 and Sunshine days. (Still the best two Mario games) Each character has a special ability that will help you complete the levels. Mario…is Mario. The sheer hype that his cap brings to the table is all that you need. Luigi can jump extra high which should help you reach the flagpole just about every time. Toad has some super speed which can help in the races/speed levels. Finally, Peach can float for a limited time which is like having the Raccoon Tail permanently. Her ability is easily the most useful and I’d say that she is unquestionably the best character in the game. Getting the Green Stars with her is almost too easy. As for Rosalina, she can spin, which works as an attack like having the Tail. It’s pretty useful against bosses and enemies alike. That being said, I’d still give Peach the edge over her. Once you start floating around, you don’t go back!

As always, Mario 3D World has an impressive soundtrack by its side for the levels. While they aren’t quite as ironic as the other titles, there are still a few themes that may become iconic from this one like the boss theme. The game did a very good job with that one since it is fast paced and gets you excited for what’s to come. Graphically, the game is also as good as ever with the colors really standing out. Nintendo’s definitely done a good job of staying near the forefront in this area.

As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of replay value here. After the initial 8 worlds, there are 3 bonus ones and then a final secret world. The last world is a little on the small side, but to unlock it you will need to collect all of the Green Stars and stickers, which should take you a very long time in and of itself. The stickers were actually a neat touch, but I don’t like the fact that you have to beat all of the levels with each character in order to unlock some of them. That seems like it would be a little tedious after a while. Most of the levels are only about 2-5 minutes long so it’s not terrible, but you shouldn’t have to do all of that to unlock the world. All of the Green Stars is reasonable, but not the rest of the requirements.

The game does have a little bit of an issue with repetition though. You can guess what will happen in each world based on the first. You’ll get to the castle, where the Fairy will yell “Help!” You’ll save her and then she’ll build a pipe to the next world. This happens at each world with the same music and everything. Both of the Bowser battles are identical and the game also reuses mini/normal bosses in the game. I suppose with a title this long that’s an efficient way to do things, but the repeated cutscenes is certainly a no no. At least switching up the music would be a nice switch.

The Mario games live in a staus quo that they don’t want to switch and that’s fine. I can get used to fighting Bowser at the end every time because it’s classic. That being said, It would be fun if the games would throw in more of a plot. I feel like Mario Sunshine took a large step forward with that as it had actual cutscenes and a talking character. Granted, Mario didn’t handle his arrest as well as Sonic did in Adventure 2 Battle, but..heh, few characters are quite as cool as that hedgehog!

One of the big selling points with this title was the fact that you could play with 4 players through the story. That was certainly fun. It comes at the expense of the gameplay mechanics to an extent as there has been a noticeable drop from the Galaxy titles, but it was still good overall. I do think that splitscreen should return though as one player shouldn’t die if he goes too far from the other. This can get tricky in the stages where jumping switches them all around or when you’re running away from lava/Bowser. It makes for good tactics though and Peach can typically cheese the levels anyway. You’ll always want to play as her.

This game also saw the debut of Captain Toad so it was nice to see him around. The gameplay is fun and these are the kinds of puzzles that I can get behind. They are like brain warmers with one correct answer and not too much guesswork. You’ll either know the answer of you’ll have to walk around and figure it out. You don’t have to sail across the world in order to find the goal. (Final Fantasy VII…..) I definitely wouldn’t want to buy Captain Toad for 40, but if it drops to 20 then that could be reasonable. It would be ironic if I bought that game before New Super Mario Bros U or Luigi Mansion Dark Moon though since it’s more of a spinoff than those two.

Another minigame of sorts in this title was the box challenges. You could earn up to 10 Green Stars in those by winning really quick contests. These tended to be a lot easier with co-op than they would have been otherwise for missions where you had to defeat several enemies in 10 seconds. I liked these bite size challenges and would be up for seeing them reappear in the NX Mario title. I want the Hub World to come back for next time though. Just look at Mario 64 or Sunshine for how to do a Hub World. Galaxy had it as well, but it was a lot less interesting so the next game shouldn’t take a leaf out of that book.

Overall, Mario 3D World is another solid title from Nintendo. It feels like a well polished title with enough fun and extra content to keep you busy for a while. It’s still the weakest Mario 3D platformer, partially due to the fact that it plays out more like a 3D New Super Mario Bros than a full fledged title. The soundtrack also wasn’t quite as epic as those and it felt like it was less of a grand installment. I imagine that it wasn’t a system seller the way that the others were. Still, Nintendo’s seal of quality is certainly found here and I invite you to try and match your gaming skills against this title. Are your Mario skills as good as you think they are?

Overall 8/10

Reign of Fire Review

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0708
It’s time to look at an old Game Boy Advance game that I’ve had for a very long time. I finally managed to complete it the other day as I just barreled through the game from start to finish in 2 batches. It’s a game that definitely feels like a cash in and even embraces this, but still has some potential. There are fun aspects to the gameplay, but the overall product definitely needed more polish. In the end, this didn’t end up being a surprise hit or anything like that, but if you’re looking for a fun way to spend 2-4 hours, this is your ticket!

The story of the game roughly follows the movie, but it only contains the bare minimum requirements of a plot. The game starts off with characters yelling about supplies and that dragons are dangerous. You spend a few missions growing crops, destroying Dragon Eggs and adding more people to your crew. Rinse and Repeat for 9 missions. I was fully expecting one of the groups to betray the heroes since I feel like that happened in the film, but instead they all jump into the alliance wholeheartedly and say the exact same things. “Why fight each other when we can fight dragons?” They all seem so sincere that you will naturally be very suspicious the entire time. I know that I was! Still, you probably aren’t playing this game for the plot.

Instead you are playing this for the gameplay. It uses an overhead style similar to Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance. You have an unlimited ammo of missilles that work just like bullets as you mow down the legions of dragons that chase you down. You don’t have to worry about the flying ones as they will rarely even fire a single shot, but the ones on the ground are the tricky ones. The Red Dinos can fire off multiple fire blasts and your allies will typically get hit every time, leaving you to fend off the armies on your own. You can find health supplies along the route so use them whenever necessary. Most of the missions will involve you searching for something so follow the compass and you’ll hopefully be fine.

The core mechanics of this game don’t seem all that bad. Walking and shooting can work well as a decent, linear experience. Think Super Mario or Pac Man, the games are simple, but effective. The problem is the technical limitations of the game. For starters, you can’t run. The characters move very slowly while the environments are incredibly large and sparse. This makes for a bad combination since you can be walking for several minutes in a row. There’s a reason why they give you a full 30 minutes to complete each level after all. Furthermore, the compass is rarely accurate. As I just said, the levels are huge and there are mountains blocking off several paths.

Let’s say the compass is pointing straight down. You’ll start heading that way only to be stopped by a long row of mountains as far as the eye can see. You must now guess whether the path to get lower is right or left. Choose incorrectly and you won’t make it back within 30 minutes. You can literally spend that entire time just walking around. This is partially due to the fact that all of the levels seem to share the same map and each level covers a different part of town. If you make a wrong turn in level 6, you may wander into the level 1 area and that journey takes a very long amount of time. Personally, I’d say that each level should have had its own stage. At the very least, you shouldn’t be able to walk between them by mistake, that doesn’t seem right.

That part was easily the most frustrating aspect. It’s not as bad as a bad puzzle or anything like that, but it really does slow your momentum down. The game isn’t very difficult once you understand what to do, but the game really does leave you to your own devices right from the start. For example, I died in level 1 many times because I didn’t know how to enter the Harvestor vehicle. Once I found that out, it was smooth sailing and the rest of the levels were pretty easy. There actually is a final boss so that’s neat. You have to fight against a giant dragon. The anticlimactic part is the fact that this dragon isn’t really any stronger than the minions. It has a lot more health, but it won’t even try attacking you since it just burns houses in the meantime.

After completing the human’s campaign, you unlock Dragon Mode. I wish this had been around from the start since it is certainly a lot more fun than the first mode. Granted, I probably would have started with the humans anyway. The gameplay is similar except you play as a dragon so you can fly and you also have super speed while walking. That really fixes one of the big negatives that I had with the gameplay. It is a little lazy that all of the dragons have the same emoticon/facial picture though. It’s interesting to see things from their point of view. I only completed two of their levels and probably won’t go and beat the others anytime soon. It would be fun, but I have other games to play and spent enough time on this one.

It does help the replay value though. Make sure that you jot down the password saves after each level because you likely won’t be able to find them online and then you’d have to start all the way from the beginning again. I do wish that the game had a save feature and I’m glad that it has become the standard for games nowadays. It really can make a world of difference. I would like to quickly point out that one of the pictures used for one of the characters instantly reminded me of a twitch emote. I dunno, the resemblence may not be all that striking from this angle, but go to Twitch chats for a while and it will all start to make sense.
Emoticons

The graphics aren’t bad, but they’re not great either. The title didn’t put a whole lot of effort into the character models. Everything is clear in the sense that you can distinguish between all of the objects, but they do tend to be a little blurry and unrefined. The soundtrack is fairly limited although I did play most of the game on mute. I made sure to listen to it a little afterwards though. It’s just not all that special or spectacular and you may want to keep it off as the constant sound effects from shooting and all of the explosions make it a very loud experience.

Overall, It feels good to be done with this game once and for all. The first level had be worried that the game would be quite terrible, but it picked up quite a bit from there. It’s still not a great game or even a very good one, but it can at least hold its own now. I think you’ll enjoy playing it and the game should be up for sale at less than 5 dollars online. For that price, it’s a bargain to snag. There are around 18 levels if you play both campaigns so that should buy you enough time to make the purchase worth it. With this game gone, I’ll have to see which game takes the top priority spot next time. It may be time for Yugioh to make a comeback.

Overall 6/10

Pokemon: We’re The Mew Research Team Review

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It’s time to look at a quick Pokemon one shot that came out. This manga is less than 30 pages long so there’s only so much that it can do. Of course, that also makes reviewing it pretty easy since I can just read the chapter and immediately review it afterwards. It does a good job of capturing the hype that we all felt when Mew was first released. I wasn’t even playing Pokemon seriously at the time and I can still feel the hype and the tension that was involved. The manga really goes for a lot of slapstick which can be trying for many, but it never goes too far into crude humor territory.

It starts out with a kid looking at his Pokedex and realizing that he has caught every Pokemon across Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn except for the legendary Mew. He wonders about this when Atsushi bursts through the store and decides to tell the kid about how Mew was first discovered. This leads to a flashback of 9 years ago where Atsushi and Gorita decided to compete over who could get the Pokemon first. They were each tied at 999 wins and 999 losses so this was the deal breaker. What we get after this is them using whatever means necessary to find out info about Mew. They run around town, ask locals about it, but nothing works. Finally, they hear that the latest issue of CoroCoro comics has news about it, but neither one of them has enough money to buy the issue. They are ultimately forced to put aside their differences to buy the issue. Sadly, neither one of them had the skills needed to get Mew because the only way was through codes from the magazine and you had to send them a letter. The deadline had expired by the time these two kids got to the store. (How long was that run? It seemed like the magazine had just come out according to the other kids so maybe the trip was a week or something)

Back in the present, Atsushi decides to fight the kid and reveals that while it took him 9 years, he still caught Mew first. He (probably) crushes the Rayquaza that the kid used and then goes back to bickering with Gorita. He hyped Mew up a lot though and reminded us that he can use any TM, which makes Mew quite the threat. He’s certainly not a Pokemon that you want to underestimate.

The story isn’t bad, but the characters are all pretty annoying. Rivalries between a kid and a bully are nothing new, but this one makes sure to exaggerate the facial expressions and chibi fighting to a whole new level. The characters can’t go a panel without throwing a punch or insulting each other. The bully even claims that the main character is the one who picks fights with him. I use the term “bully” loosely as the fighting seems to be completely fake. They’re just friends who are highly competitive and both of them love Pokemon. Of course, even 9 years later and they still can’t help but keep on trying to beat each other up. That’s just how it goes.

The art isn’t all that bad. It reminds me of the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl art. It uses a rather simple style that I can imagine any artist emulating. It’s certainly not all that good, but at least it’s easy to read. It would have been fun if this story had taken place in the Pokemon world, but I suppose it can be fun to read about Pokemon fans as well sometimes. I think this manga could have easily turned out to be a bad one if it was longer or if the art was worse, but as it stands, it is a decent way to spend 5 minutes. I don’t think it deserves a negative score at this point.

Overall, This probably isn’t a chapter that you will remember a year from now, but it’s not a bad one shot. If anything, it reminds you how overpowered Mew can be. The character’s Mew was only level 50 something and yet it was causing a lot of damage in the one panel that it appeared in. Mew’s always been a fun Pokemon although I consider Mewtwo to be a whole lot stronger. Now that’s one Pokemon that you definitely do not want to mess with. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing more one shot titles to promote new Pokemon or other Nintendo games and events. For all I know, Japan does this sort of thing all the time and they just aren’t scanned all that often. It’s always fun to see a gem from the past. Who knows what will be scanned next? Whatever it is, I shall be waiting and ready for when it pops up! Now, back to Pokemon Go to catch me a Mewtwo one of these days!

Overall 6/10

Mystery of the Wax Museum Review

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It’s time for a really old film. This one came out over 20 years before the original Godzilla title so you can tell that this one has been around for quite a while. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t help disprove the myth that old films are boring. The pacing is quite bad and the film spends far too much time on scenes that simply don’t matter. It’s a shame since this film tried to be a mystery thriller, but forgot to include the actual thrills. The Mystery of the Wax Museum is unraveled within the first 20 minutes (Or seconds if you looked at the poster) so that doesn’t leave the film with a lot of material.

We have a reporter named Florence who typically doesn’t do too well in the biz. That being said, she’s never afraid to go after the long shots and this is the case when she finds out about a possible wax scandal. It involves stolen alcohol and dead bodies so her editor, Jim, doesn’t believe her. He spends most of the film insulting and belittling her, but deep down he’s a nice guy….or so the film wants you to think. Florence eventually realizes the truth, that the new Wax Museum’s statues are all actual people who have been murdered. Unfortunately, she is quickly overpowered by a very strong old cripple. Can the cops save her in time?

The film actually starts out in the distant past and shows us how Igor turned from a normal businessman into a psychotic murderer. See, all it took was a quick fire that burned down his entire life’s work. He murders a guy in the fist fight though…I think. Maybe the guy escaped, but it doesn’t matter. Igor decided that nobody can craft as well as he can so he’ll have to use actual bodies to make sure that they are accurate. That starts his long road into villainy. We’ve also got a subplot where Florence’s friend, Charlotte and her fiancee Ralph are thrown into the mix since Ralph works there.

Ralph doesn’t suspect anything though. He’s working along side a pair of crooks and both are pretty suspect, but Ralph fears nothing. Right up until the very end Ralph is completely useless. You’d think that he would perform well since his fiancee is in danger right? Not a chance, Ralph goes down faster than a sack of potatoes. A single punch is all Igor needs to take him down. After that, he gets up again only to be defeated once more. I found myself face palming and chuckling at the same time. I don’t think this should be possible and maybe my imagination just proved to be a stronger reality than this film.

Charlotte’s not an interesting character either and is just here to be here. Florence shouldn’t be that bad since she is made to be the tough Lois Lane character of the film. That being said, it’s hard to take seriously. She talks a good game, but the ending destroys her. She decides to randomly marry her boss despite the two of them arguing at every turn. He seemed to have no real respect for her whatsoever and just popped the question for the lolz. Maybe he didn’t think she would accept. Also, she could have been rich otherwise. The ending makes absolutely no sense whatsoever….so it was pretty appropriate.

As for Igor, he’s a pretty lousy villain. There’s nothing interesting about him at all. His final battle is humorous, but for all the wrong reasons. He was horribly disfigured by the fire and crippled to an extent. He hasn’t walked all that much in years aside from when he goes to kidnap people. Yet, he has the skills to defeat about a half dozen police officers and random civilians back to back to back. He only loses in the end to sheer numbers and firepower as he takes an unfortunate dip. I can’t help, but think that the film was just trying to extend its run time at that point.

The worst thing about the film is the fact that it is very boring. The film refuses to move at anything past a snail’s pace. The Cops don’t believe the reporter and they really shouldn’t, but I wish they would try to look around and find evidence or something. Instead, they just go back to the party and read dirty magazines all day. Is this really how the police should be portrayed? I mean seriously…this was just embarrassing for them.

The fight scenes were also pretty low end to downright bad as well. The first one with Igor and his partner was just flat out terrible. It got surprisingly intense considering this was back in the day with underhanded tactics being prevalent all around. Beyond that, the film does really show its age. Everything feels really old. The camera work suffers the most from this, but the backdrops aren’t all that bad. They hold up decently well as a city always looks good, whether it’s the 60’s or more modern.

There’s not really a soundtrack as you probably expected from such an old film. What could have saved this film? It’s hard to say since the film never seemed like it even had much potential to start off with. I suppose having a better cast would have helped a lot and taking out the random marriage proposal at the end as well. Ralph should have put up a better fight to help his fiancee and the cops shouldn’t have struggled so much against a very weakened old guy. At least say that he use some kind of super human serum on himself. Instead, he has the strength of a monster for no real reason. I also find it hard to believe that breaking into a hospital and stealing bodies is so easy, even back then. Surely they have heard of security patrols right? Also, since it made the news, you’d think that someone besides the lead reporter would notice that the victims matched the new displays perfectly.

Overall, Mystery of the Wax Museum is a mystery film that I’d recommend skipping out on. If anything, just watch one of the newer versions, but I definitely can’t vouch for those either. For all I know, those are worse. I wouldn’t call this a horrible film as it manages to keep its class for the most part, but it’s just a bore which really defeats the entire purpose of watching the film. If it’s not going to be any fun, you may as well go back to sleep and take a little nap. That way you’ll be ready to watch a different film.

Overall 4/10