Category Archives: Reviews

Super Mario Party Review

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Mario Party is one of those really long running series that just keeps on going and it’s always impressive. It did hit a bit of a slump for a while there starting with Mario Party 8 but this one is getting on the right track. My main problem with it is just that the control scheme isn’t great. The fact that you can only use the single Joy Con and can’t use any of the actual controllers is rather puzzling to say the least. Why would you even do that? The only explanation I could think of it that maybe it would be slightly easier for 4 people to be in the same room playing buttttt I’m not sold on this because in theory if you had more standard controllers you could use the 2 Joy Cons and two wireless for an instant 4 player session. So yeah that was a little too bad.

When you boot up the game, you get the brief intro cutscene which is pretty much a remake of the first Mario Party at least in terms of the concept. Everyone is fighting to be recognized as the greatest superstar on the planet. To prove this, they will all compete in a bunch of minigames and so that sets the stage for all of the modes. There are a decently large amount of options to be had here outside of the normal party mode and it’s all connected within the hub world. You can quick travel to any area once you have unlocked it as well.

Interestingly the intro movie plays every time you boot up the game but you can skip it so that’s not a big deal. I suppose the first place you will likely go to is Party Mode which is always a safe bet. You are able to set each stage to 10 turns which is nice. That may sound like a given but believe it or not this isn’t the case. After playing through the original Mario Party titles I was reminded that you used to have to choose 15 turns. 10 turns is fairly long anyway so don’t worry about that. There are a ton of unskippable cutscenes on every turn and of course you can’t skip the CPU’s turns so that’s a lot of waiting time anyway. It’s why this is a game that is really meant to be played with friends.

There are 3 main maps and then a 4th one that you unlock by playing the first 3. A key thing to note is that you don’t have to beat these levels, just playing them is enough to unlock everything. By playing the 4th level you unlock a jewel. Gather all of the jewels to unlock the true ending. You do this by completing each mode. So aside from the party mode you also have co-op party mode. I’m not exactly sure what that entails but maybe if it’s a 2 v 2 the whole time, any stars and coins you obtain are merged? That means you need to hope you have a good teammate.

Another mode is music based. All of the minigames that you play in this one are build around timing and rhythm. So feel the beat as best you can and then you will be fine. This mode is the quickest by far and only has 3 levels to play through in order to unlock the gem. This time I think you do have to win but the games are fairly easy so you shouldn’t have a problem. Then there is the water-raft mode. This one feels the most pointless to me so far. Basically everyone is stuck on a boat as you try to maneuver your way to the end. Completing minigames adds more seconds to your timer so just keep on playing and you’ll make it to the end. I think part of what holds this one back is everyone is stuck together anyway so there’s no real competitive aspect to the game. It also feels really hard to lose. There’s just not much to it.

Outside of that you have the classic minigame modes, mini, minigames in Toad World, and you can check out the shop to buy advice. There’s a fairly large variety of content to be found within the game so I give the title a lot of respect there. There were still a lot of question marks within the game by the time I finished it. In terms of minigames, I unlocked nearly all of them, there are just 2 left. A great quality of life update is that the game prioritizes minigames that you haven’t unlocked yet when playing. The curser will intentionally stop on the question marked ones for any area where I was missing a game.

I can’t stress enough what a big deal that is. It saves an incredible amount of time and makes unlocking the games no chore at all. It could be rough in older games if the RNG wasn’t just right. There are also unlockable characters here which feels nostalgic since you don’t get to go through that process nearly as much anymore. Each character has different unlock criteria so I recommend looking that up online. Once you fulfill the criteria, just run around the hub world until you find that character. I ended up unlocking Dry Bones so I have 3 characters left to go through.

In terms of graphics, the game definitely looks nice and modern. I definitely have no issues there, no corners were cut here. Of course without much of a story it’s not like there is much to really test the game with either. For the soundtrack, it’s a bit more forgettable. I can’t say that any of the stage tunes really stood out to me. Fortunately this game really just needs fun minigames in order to succeed and those were good. I may not have been all that thrilled with the Wii tier motion controls running around but the traditional games were fun. There’s a really good soccer game and a lot of fun platforming ones. Running through a maze filled with bananas for example made for a very memorable stage. I certainly won’t forget it any time soon.

Overall, There are enough minigames here to keep you busy. So mix that in with the general replay value and you have a lot of bang for your buck. The fact that the game has a lot of unlockable content here is a pretty good trick to keep you interested for a long while. None of the unlockables are particularly grueling in terms of time to unlock either. So since you’ll be having a good time, it will fly by as you play through the next levels. Throw in the online modes and that’s pretty nice since it’s still a fairly new concept to be able to challenge people online. I’m not sure if it’s quite $60 good, but if you can get a bit of a deal on this game then I definitely recommend buying it.

Overall 7/10

The Man in the Moon Review

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All right it’s time to talk about a sci-fi film about the moon right? Wrong! This film has nothing to do with the moon and the title is only really used at the very beginning and ending. It doesn’t have much to do with anything but I suppose it’s a catchy title. Ultimately this film is about the sting of betrayal and how it’ll always stick with you. You need to be careful about making the wrong move for short term pleasure because it is usually accompanied by long term pain.

The film starts off with Dani being rather upset because Maureen is super popular around the guys but nobody takes notice of Dani. Everyone just says to wait since she is the younger sister and will eventually catch up but time is going by too slowly. Well, one day they get a next door neighbor named Court and Dani realizes that this is her chance. They bond right away and Dani is determined to become more than fiends. Court is more apprehensive about this because he feels like Dani is too young but as always in these films his willpower is about as solid as a plate of jello.

So for Dani she is on cloud 9 as she is quickly seducing the guy and her life is really starting but one day Maureen gets home early and meets Court. You have to keep in mind that Court has the attention span of a chocolate bar that was just thrown into the oven and so he immediately starts making passes at Maureen and downright ignoring Dani. Maureen knows that Dani likes Court and so now it’s her turn to say that she can’t betray her sister like that. You must always stick by family in a situation like this and it is extremely taboo to go with someone who is connected to your family.

There’s just one problem though, Maureen has no real willpower either and after her extremely half hearted attempt of saying no, decides to get together with Court right away. No need for a long romance either, they immediately hook up and aren’t super subtle about it. Karma hits Court like a truck but basically the film is really about how betrayal’s just not a good thing. You just gotta do the right thing and can’t be making little excuses on why you have to crack. It’s not the way to go…not at all. This is one of those films with no real likable characters which is unfortunate. After all you already know that this means the entire film is doomed right?

So Court is an awful character for having no real moral standards and being so flippant about who he’s with. I give him a complete thumbs down all the way. Just disgraceful tbh. Then for Maureen, I can’t really cut her any slack. The fact that she knew Dani liked this guy and still went ahead with it is no good. If Dani never forgave Maureen, she’d just need to live with it because that was an awfully big mistake. Then for Dani, she was really rushing into things too much. She should have settled for just being friends.

It’s why you always gotta be careful when someone says that they just want to be friends. Dani just said that to get Court to lower his guard and then went after him again. Ultimately that’s now really going to work if you see the person as more than friends. Yeah you can live in denial and if you have a really good poker face you can pull it off but then you have to be extra vigilant on when you hang out. Never 1 on 1, certainly not swimming together, etc. Even without the betrayals I couldn’t root for Dani and Court so it’s not like the film had an alternate exit where things turn out well. The romance was always going to be sub par.

Then for more drama, we also had Dani’s mother getting injured when running around during the storm. I was really glad that the film didn’t go down the extra edge route of losing the baby or something. Would have dropped this film close to a 0, let me tell you. That said, we didn’t need the part where Dani’s father takes it out on her. This family sure is really emotional in this film. If they could all be a bit calmer and more rational about things then most of the film wouldn’t have even happened.

Even if we take all of the awful romances and betrayals out of the mix, I don’t think this film was going to ever be anything great. Mainly I say that because the story wasn’t very interesting. You have scenes of the grownups talking like Dani’s mom and her friend about the old days and it’s all a bit on the cringe side. the friend apparently liked the guy that the mom married and jokes about how she got lucky. Yeah it’s just banter between friends…but I’d be getting a bit defensive about having her around to be honest.

Then we have the party where it turns out that the guy Maureen went with was a creep and then his father was also being rather iffy. It seems like every movie I watch lately reminds you to never take a drive with a guy unless you know him super well. I wouldn’t say that this even adds anything to the film either and I would have at least liked a scene of those two being told off but we never got that. The film really put all of its eggs in one basket with the whole love triangle and when that failed, there was no plan B. It just meant that the whole film went down with it and that’s unfortunate.

Overall, Man in the Moon is a film that I would advise against watching. Often times these “Coming of Age” movies tend to be on the negative side. It’s as if the average movie creator figures that to grow up you gotta go through some kind of tragedy and get burned in the love game. Why don’t we get one instead about a kid who doesn’t want to grow up and just tells the world this is how it’s gonna be. Something like…I dunno Peter Pan. Now there’s a character who was always on top of things. You of course can pull off a dramatic film like this but you’re already stacking the deck against yourself by trying to throw in a romance plot because the characters just feel too young for that. You already know it’s not going to be anything too serious and it’s way too young to be worrying about fighting over a guy. Leave that kind of plot to the pros like Nisekoi.

Overall 3/10

Courage of Lassie Review

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The Lassie films have a long standing reputation of all being rather bad so the question was if this one could finally change things. Well, I am here to report that it could not change thing at all. This is one title that does not surpass its limits or do anything even like that. Instead, it just repeats all of the same mistakes that you are used to seeing from the franchise. It’s unfortunate but not really unexpected. No, if anything you are used to it and we’ll just have to keep on waiting for a good one.

The main dog in this film is named Bill and he’s a nice dog. Bill is a strong dog who can run around a lot but his owners don’t think that he has what it takes to shepherd the sheep when the going gets tough. Kathie wants to prove the world wrong and runs around with Bill to try and prove her point. It was a good attempt at least. Unfortunately Bill is often the subject of bad luck. Over the course of the movie he is run over, shot with a gun, and even gets drafted into the army. While in the army, Bill is sent to an active warzone with bombs flying all over and he gets injured enough to the point where he develops PTSD.

His owner also goes too far in trying to win the day and has Bill continue to move even while he is super injured. This doesn’t help things out either. Bill then becomes so wild that he eats/injures other animals and a warrant is put out for his death. Yeah this dog can’t catch a break. You get the feeling that the film really wanted to up the stakes as much as possible and show how this wasn’t your average Lassie film but my answer to that is it just makes this one that much more. It’s a Lassie film so you are expecting the dog to get shot but why go through all of this other hardship as well?

It makes the whole film rather try hard and edgy. You really didn’t need to see any of that. The drama doesn’t make the film any more engaging or anything. It just holds it back. With this level of animal violence the film never stood a chance. Meanwhile it’s also no that interesting. None of the characters really glue you o the screen. The main character is Kathie and while she means well, she’s too young to do much of anything. Like when Bill is taken away to the army, there is noting she can do. She doesn’t even know what happened to Bill after he vanished for a while there. Then when Kathie does reappear with Bill, one of the first things she does is accidentally disclose his position to the cops which almost proves fatal for Bill.

Naturally it’s not like that’s really her fault as she couldn’t have known but it’s hardly a great look for her either. Then for Bill’s owner at the army, I didn’t like him for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Having Bill continue to fight when he was so injured was not a good look. Bill needed to lie down and recharge, not get right back on the saddle like this. The only decent character was the old man who tried keeping Kathie calm and then tried keeping Bill as a secret in the end. He was old enough to know how the world works and wasn’t just spilling his guts about everything. The guy knew how to keep a secret.

Still, it’s a rather low bar for characters. This is definitely not the kind of film where you expect great characters or anything like that but even more decent ones would have helped. I suppose at best the writing is decent. The characters still talk in the old fashioned way that is always fun. I also thought that the pacing was fairly reasonable. They manage to squeeze in a lot of different locations and characters into a film that’s not overly long or anything. So the movie really knew how to balance its time effectively. It just didn’t have a great story to accompany it.

Now when a film has lost the plot as badly as this one has, I like to add some some advice for how the film could have succeeded. Okay so hear me out, you cut out all injuries that happened to Bill in this film right. Have him go missing one day and so the main characters have to try and find him. Ultimately they end up finding him helping out the US army in bomb detection or something. They take Bill back home as a hero and that’s the movie. It’s still wholesome and has the army subplot and everything. It just ends up being a much more light hearted movie with great moments rather than trying so hard to be a suspenseful tragedy. We don’t need any of those. Extra bonus if you make the main character Lassie instead of Bill since that would work a lot better.

Overall, There’s not a whole lot to say about this film beyond that. It follows through the Lassie formula to the point where this might as well be an edgy reboot. Even the whole joining the army thing has already been done before. I don’t get why the series doesn’t just make a movie that’s all slice of life. Lets just see Lassie running around town and having fun. Yes, Lassie, not some future descendent named Bill. Doesn’t that completely take away from the point of the series? I’m watching the movie to see Lassie, not another dog. I dare say that the title is really clickbait. Yeah you can use it to tie into things later but it’s click bait because the first assumption with that title is that Lassie will be appearing. Definitely skip this film as quickly as you can.

Overall 2/10

Sword Art Online: Project Alicization Review

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It’s time to talk about Sword Art Online which always gets intense. On one hand, it will always be one of the most exciting and intense franchises of all time. On the other hand it always ends up matching the extremely high highs with some devastating lows. This series is no exception. The series has to squeeze in a ton of content into only a few volumes so over half of the events are skipped but of course what event does it not skip? The worst one in the series. Mannn….that’s how it goes.

The basic plot is that Kirito has already been through a life or death event with several games at this point. Surely there’s no way he would ever put himself in that spot again right? Well the price is right and his safety is guaranteed so he works with a government group about one of the games and then he gets stabbed on a rainy day in a completely unrelated incident. Well, now he’s stuck inside of the game and if he dies in the game….he dies in real life! So Kirito is back into the same situation but this world is so much more real than the previous ones. Even the NPCs talk like real people.

Kirito figures if he can get deep enough in the game he will be able to find someone to log him out. To that end he meets up with a guy named Eugeo and Kirito helps him chop down a big tree. This means they can now pursue training within the city and try to find Eugeo’s long lost friend Alice who was kidnapped by the government a long time ago for breaking a rule. In this society, it shouldn’t be possible for anyone to break rules so if it happens then it’s a super big deal.

So here’s the thing, it takes a few volumes to even get the setup all completed. So now you’re over halfway through the series and the heroes still have to make their way past all 108 Integrity Knights, take down the Administrator, stop the Underworld armies, and then stop the drama happening in the real world. So you may be wondering, how will they do that? Well, the answer is simple. The series basically skips almost all of that. We get a few pages at the end of the volume that uses text to explain what would have happened next but even the final fight has to be abbreviated/basically skipped. It’s evident that the author simply ran out of time which is really rough. Especially when you see other adaption manga that kept going years after the main media had finished. Sword Art Online got the rough end of the stick this time.

It’s especially tragic since the art was actually really good this time around. There was a lot of attention to detail all throughout. The battles looked fierce and it really did adapt the scenes very well. You were able to be invested in what was going on the whole time. There was some real talent at work here. The story was already really engaging so throw in the solid art and it really made reading through the volumes really good. Ending with only 5 volumes does mean that there is only so much that you can do though.

So lets get the elephant out of the plaza first. The series did decide to keep and fully adapt the moment where two students attack two of the heroines who aren’t able to fight back since the rules are in effect. This should have been the scene that was skipped to be honest because it adds nothing to the series and is just another example of a crutch that Sword Art Online uses. It’s easily the most valid complaint that you can have about the series because it is definitely annoying. It doesn’t go nearly as far as in Fairy Dance since Kirito and Eugeo do stop them before it reaches that point but it still goes farther than it ever should have.

You’re rooting for those characters to get bumped off right away. I also think it’s a real stretch of logic on how their attack was within the rules. It reminded me of a certain attack in Jujutsu Kaisen that didn’t count as “violence” which was seen as this big 4D chess move by the villain when it was clearly violence. It’s the same thing here, no matter what flawed logic the royals used when attacking the girls, it’s still a full on attack. The rules in Alicization are definitely messed up.

It’s enough of a bump to shape 3 stars off of the series as well. That may seem rather harsh but that’s how bad the scene is. It’s not exactly something you want to see in this title when you’re just trying to have fun seeing the heroes taking out the villains. The core plot is basically a boss rush after all as Kirito and Eugeo take everyone out. I also like how Kirito is starting at level 1 technically but since he has his memories intact he is able to use more advanced techniques that wow everyone. It’s fair to say that he is stronger than all non Integrity Knight fighters right from the start of the series.

He doesn’t get to show off for a while there but Kirito is super confident and that comes through in all of his scenes. It’s easy to see why Eugeo looks up to him. The series does a great job of showing off the bond between Kirito and Eugeo as well. It’s a little odd to see Kirito in more of a mentor role since he is usually the young upstart but it does work well with how many life or death experiences the guy has been in. He still does have his carefree side though and that’s when Eugeo has to try and pick up on the responsibility part. You could really make a whole series just based on their dynamic. It’s a really solid one all the way through.

I’ve always really enjoyed Kirito’s character in every arc but I dare say this might be him at his best. He still has his confidence and cocky attitude but now he can also make great speeches. Kirito gets to talk about friendship, fighting with honor, etc. He has so many quotable lines in this series to the point where even this manga which cuts most of the content gets to show off a lot of his great scenes. Kirito is a generational character and that goes a long way to making the franchise really good as well. With all of the asterisks and iffy moments in the series that I have to dance around, I do think that it would have totally crumbled if Kirito wasn’t around.

Then eventually Alice gets added into the mix but unfortunately she doesn’t get almost any time to interact with Eugeo. The timing just gets messed up by that point but she has good banter with Kirito. Alice is a really fun character and while it takes a while to fight off all of the brainwashing, she ultimately does get to be a really solid character that you can completely count on. I also liked the main villain a lot. Design aside, she is a calculating opponent who is also really strong. She doesn’t really have any weaknesses and ends up being a villain that you can really fear.

One piece of credit I can give to the series is also that it’s fairly light on fanservice. You only have 2-3 moments with the Administrator and that’s about it. Usually the series can get a bit dicey in that area so I appreciated that at least. The short length may have helped in that respect but for the most part there isn’t a ton of time for that in between all of the battles. Later on in the war there would have definitely been some moments though.

As a final note, the human plot is pretty much nonsense for manga only readers. A lot of things are teased over there and Asuna gets some small appearances but the series ends before anything really happens. So it just ends up feeling like filler. It’s part of what makes the manga a very interesting read when it ends early like this. Some scenes you just won’t get and others will be under the wrong context. That’s why in an ideal world you will always want a series to be able to be long running and adapt everything but in a way maybe that’s just common sense. The cliffhanger of sorts is fun but it’s so early that there are a bunch of fights that you wish you had gotten to see.

Overall, Sword Art Online is fun as always but one scene definitely does throw the whole series for a loop. It’s a shame that there almost always seems to be some kind of catch to every piece of Sword Art Online media. It’s just really hard to avoid and I suppose that’s life. In the end I wouldn’t be able to recommend this manga all that much. What I would do is say to play the video game instead because that seems to fix things. I am early on in that game so I can’t fully confirm that but that seems to be what typically happens in these things. I at least know that they fixed the Administrator’s costume in that one.

Overall 5/10

This Happy Feeling Review

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It’s time for one of those films where a weak romance really holds it back. There’s only so much you can do with the rest of the film when this isn’t on point after all. I also think the film could have gone a little more all out with the comedy since it doesn’t tend to be laugh out loud humorous most of the time. I did enjoy a bird that was running around for most of the movie though.

The movie starts off with Mitch realizing that he is super old and the world of the theatre has long since passed him by. Part of him wants to get back into the business but the rest of him knows that he can’t keep up. There is a lady that he has been involved with for a long time named Nita but he’s bored of her as well. Well, one day a girl named Janet stops by his place after being defeated by the rain and so he lets her stick around. The problem is that she’s fallen for him and this inflates Mitch’s ego. Perhaps he’s not over the hill yet but at the same time he knows that a relationship is a bad idea here due to the really large age gap. What can he do?

Well the obvious answer is to just not get into a relationship but most main characters aren’t smart enough for that. This is very much a rebound type of film. Mitch was bored with Nita so he briefly gets involved with Janet and then common sense returns so he goes back to Nita. The problem is that it’s not particularly satisfying for anyone. Mitch proved that he can’t be 100% trustworthy at this point. There are no take backs and the film should have probably gone for a more somber ending where he retires or something and runs off. Janet goes to find a new job while Bill and Nita just wonder what they should do next. That would be the ideal ending.

I’m still glad that Mitch saw reason by the end. Better late than never and all that but the whole plot is definitely more on the annoying side. It helps that most of the cast is rather annoying so you’re rooting for Mitch to prove the doubters wrong at least in terms of his horseback riding and acting ability. Lets take Nita for example. She immediately gets super jealous of Janet and starts being petty about everything. You get why she would be upset since Mitch is intentionally portraying this as him cheating. Lets face it, there’s no other reason to have had Janet pick up the phone.

So I’m cool with Nita getting angry but where it gets unreasonable is when she takes it on everyone else. When Bill falls and gets seriously injured, she takes that time to gloat to Mitch instead of feeling bad about it. Not very compassionate right? Rather than being so bitter she should have just left Mitch entirely and moved on to someone else. Why stick around to be with someone that doesn’t appear to actually like you?

Meanwhile you’re supposed to be rooting for Bill to get together with Janet but why would you do that? The guy’s a jerk. He looks incredibly awful right from the jump as we find out that he moves on from girlfriend to girlfriend as such a common occurrence that nobody can keep track of who he is currently dating. Then when Janet is in a vulnerable spot he takes that moment to put some real pressure on her. Yeah part of it is a misunderstanding but most of it is just Bill trying to make a move under the worst set of circumstances possible. The worst part is that he blames her for all of this.

It’s a part of the film that is rather dated to be sure but even with that context there’s just no way for me to find Bill to be even remotely likable. The guy is just super annoying all the way through. He’s quick to turn on Mitch too even though he was the one who was badmouthing the guy. If Bill wasn’t so aggressive about that, the movie could have turned out very differently as well. I’m afraid that Janet isn’t fully innocent in all of this either though.

Janet knows that Bill likes her but she likes Mitch so she decides to make the older guy jealous by intentionally acting as if she likes Bill during the dance. What this means is that she is putting the guy on and is very intentional about doing this. Manipulating someone emotionally is never cool. It’s a really underhanded trick and of course this just leaves Bill confused later on. Janet spends a lot of time working to seduce Mitch as well and obviously it’s successful since the guy has the willpower of an old banana but none of this really helps Janet as a character. If she was hopelessly in love with the guy and needed a reality check then that could at least give her some character development but instead she just walks back to Bill.

Yeah the romance here is just so bad. It’s all rebounds or romances that you couldn’t root for from the start. The only likable character here is Mitch’s maid who helps him out by fixing his back and generally helping out around the house. She’s a fun character and delivers about 90% of the film’s humor. She has a dry wit about her and is always in the right place at the right time. I don’t know what Mitch would do without her. She definitely elevates the film which makes her a model supporting character.

Like I mentioned before, the film just doesn’t have quite as much humor as you would expect. The romance itself feels like it’s played fairly serious the whole time. Mainly I think the issue here is that the humor is just too subtle to the point where it just can’t actually dominates the scene even when the joke is being played. So this ends up being more of a drama and it isn’t able to succeed. It would have needed a stronger cast of characters for that.

Overall, This Happy Feeling isn’t a particularly good movie. It makes quite a few mistakes in the romance and it just isn’t able to overcome them. The title may remind you of the hit anime, My Happy Marriage but that title is infinitely better than this one. So unless you are desperate for a romance film, you should give this one a skip. There are many better titles within the genre to watch instead. It’s also important to remember even in real life that you never want to be the second choice. Don’t be the rebound guy and instead keep on searching until you’re the starter. Otherwise you’re stacking the deck against yourself in the risk department.

Overall 4/10

Granblue Fantasy Versus Review

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It’s time for a great fighting game that knows how to combine solid gameplay with a good story. This game is really the whole package and that’s why it is so much fun. It’s always cool to see the Granblue cast returning once again. Throw in an excellent soundtrack and this is a game that you won’t be forgetting any time soon. So strap in everyone because you’re going to be in for a high quality time.

The story starts with most of Gran’s friends forgetting about him and Lyria. They’re going to have to beat the memories back into everyone but this will not be an easy task. For starters, all of their friends are quite powerful. Additionally, there is a mastermind behind all of this and if he isn’t stopped soon, all of reality will be destroyed. This may be their toughest task yet but Gran and Lyria know that they are up to it. Nothing can destroy the bonds that they have forged!

There are 40 levels in the game and they tend to be fairly short but there are a lot of cutscenes in the game which help it to end up feeling longer. We’re talking full voice acting here and also some complete cinematics. So you know that you are in good hands as soon as the story starts. There is also a lot of replay value to be found around every corner. There’s hard mode, tons of extra missions, and also some kind of tower mode. Naturally you also have the vs mode which would be the main mode for replay value. You could fight against other players for everyone as you test out each character and learn how to use their combos.

The gameplay is that of a 2D fighter so you should be fairly familiar with the different standard and special moves in the game. You have super attacks, and can use your special moves with standard ones for fusion type attacks. They work like Ex moves in Street Fighter. The movement combinations can take a little getting used to though. It took me until the end of the game to be able to reliably use my final smashes since you had quite a few buttons that you needed to click at the same time. It’s not something that you could just blink and ace in an instant.

The story isn’t very difficult, you should be able to blast through it. Just remember that you can level up your gear and abilities. I only did that twice during the story when things were starting to get close and each time I would really leapfrog past a tons of levels. So if the bosses get close, just do this and you’ll be good. In general all you need to do in order to win is button mash a lot. Gran has a really good 3 hit combo that leads into any special attack so keep repeating that as often as you can.

As long as you block the occasional counter attack then you’re fine. Especially since you can carry two support abilities with you. I recommend one for healing and one for increasing your attack. Switch them from little to medium as you progress through the game and they make a huge difference. It can just be hard to remember to use them but once you make a habit out of it, you will really be all set.

In terms of graphics, there’s not much more to be said here. The game looks fantastic at all times. They really went all out on the budge here and the cinematics are also really impressive. Trust me it even looks like a CG tv show. Then for the soundtrack, it blew me away with some of the themes towards the end of the game. You had really intense anime opening type music going on and it really makes the difference in having you get invested into the climax.

If you’re a Granblue fan then you will get an extra big kick out of the game but even if you don’t know the series, you’ll have a lot of fun playing through this game. It can be easy to take a great story for granted but many story games can only dream of having a cinematic adventure like this. It just doesn’t happen very often at all and I can absolutely confirm that it elevates the game to the next level. Yes, I would have still enjoyed the game without the story since the gameplay is very solid, but the story is one of the big reasons why I won’t forget the game.

In the story you play as Gran the whole time although I think I may have been able to switch later on. I just never tried so I haven’t actually gotten to try out the other characters yet. I’ll definitely need to do that at some point. Since every character has a final smash with a whole animation, it will be fun to see what the other characters look like. I’ll definitely be returning to the game to try and get some more trophies so that’ll probably be my chance to try the other characters since often times there is a trophy for playing as everyone.

Overall, Granblue Fantasy Versus is definitely a great game. I really enjoyed it and every aspect of the title felt like it had a good amount of polish. The main menus are good, the colors are striking, and it just feels really modern. At no point will you feel like you got the short end of the stick here. There’s just too much to have fun with. I know there’s an expanded pack/sequel of sorts in Rising so that might cause some to jump ship but otherwise this is definitely a game that you should be able to hang onto and enjoy for a long while. It stands out well among its competitors. As a last gameplay tip, just remember that you need to duck to guard low attacks as the final boss will try some cheesy attacks with that. He’s the one part of the game that actually is really challenging but odds are that if you’ve made it that far already you’ll be fine. Just attack him patiently and block as needed.

Overall 8/10

Dragon Ball Z: Sagas Review

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All right, buckle up folks because we’re diving into the really nostalgic days of DBZ. We’re talking classic dub with the famous narrator and it’s just got that retro vibe to it. The game certainly doesn’t compete with the average DBZ game in really any way but the series has set an extremely high bar for video games. As a title in its own right I would still say Sagas is pretty good. It takes you through the first two main arcs of DBZ (If you’re a super big DBZ fan you’d probably argue it’s more like 4-5 sagas but in general I consider the series to be Frieza, Cell, and Buu. Those are the 3 arcs) and it’s fun to beat everyone up.

The game introduces each level by playing scenes from the anime with the narrator talking over it and stills being thrown in as well. It’s like a compressed clipshow version of the episode which is pretty interesting. You’re then thrust into the level and after beating it you get a second set of clips. There are a decent amount of levels, around 25 or so. Some of the levels can be a bit on the longer side while others are really short. So it varies but the total game length would be around 5 hours or less I’d say.

So it is a short game and there is really no replay value to be found here. I suppose you can go through the levels again as different characters like Broly but there is surprisingly no multiplayer option here. Now that would have helped boost things up further. There is co-op mode for the story apparently which would be pretty interesting with these gameplay mechanics. Still this is mainly a single player experience through and through and so you really have to jump in and prepare yourself to be taking down scores of enemies. Can you succeed?

The 3D gameplay is a little hard to pick up at first but once you get the controls down you will be completely steamrolling through the rest of the game. Seriously, the first few levels really got me nervous but by the end I was winning with almost full health. You have your punches, kicks, ki blasts, and you can block. You can hover around but it’s rather useless in the game so don’t worry about that. The idea in the beat em up levels is to destroy all opponents in your way while the boss levels just have you beating someone. Occasionally there is a special condition like use a Kamehameha to clash beams in order to win but I was able to beat the final level without that. Not sure if it’s a glitch or something but that was neat.

All right so at first where you might get overwhelmed is with the minions. When you punch one, you’ll get hit by another and take a lot of damage. Part of what confused me at first was I kept trying to lock onto them before attacking. Don’t bother with lock on at all. Just rush in and land a bunch of blows. Move onto the next one. If you try to block and dash towards them, this will trigger the enemy to attack so it’s not worth it. If you just run up to them without lock on or anything like that then they typically won’t attack until you attack first. This is exactly what you want to happen. It puts you in the driver’s seat here because once you land an attack you can keep on chaining it.

Normal game logic would tell you to finish a combo right? The trick is to stop your combo midway and then start it up again. You can do this endlessly until your opponent’s health goes to 0. By the very end of the game they will start blocking and using combo breakers to try and stop this combo but it only delays the inevitable. It never actually stops the attacks which is the key part here. You absolutely will claim victory in the end by doing that and this is the key.

Sure you can finish a combo once in a while if you really want to, but the lost time often isn’t worth it. The only reason to end a combo is when you need a second to power up into Super Saiyan mode. You get that later on in the game and it is very useful. All of your attacks deal massively more amounts of damage with each hit to the point where you may not even believe your eyes. It’s super impressive. So definitely use Super Saiyan whenever you can. Beyond that, you should never use your super attacks. They take too long to load and every boss will block the hit 100% of the time without exception. It makes the attacks super pointless, same for ki blasts to be honest.

I’d say that’s where you could tell that the gameplay was not super refined. It definitely had its share of issues and limitations there. So you gotta exploit the gameplay with the infinite combos that I talked about. In terms of extra content you are able to collect coins in order to buy new moves and combo attacks. They’re decently helpful so buy whatever you need but for the most part you won’t be using them anyway. The game also gives you senzu beans in the levels and you can hold up to 3 of them. Think of them like extra lives so when you die, you automatically consume a senzu bean. I ended the game with all 3 of them in my storage so again I do emphasize that the game is fairly easy. You likely won’t need to eat them but it’s still nice to have them around.

Meanwhile the graphics aren’t the best. I would say it still looks pretty good but it’s clear that for a Gamecube game it could have looked way better. The soundtrack is also not super memorable. There are some good tracks but the main theme is way too somber for this title. This is a beat em up, why is the music so sad? It would have worked perfectly for an emotional scene but there aren’t really any scenes like that in this game anyway. This one is definitely way more focused on adapting the best fights and action moments of the series.

Overall, Dragon Ball Z Sagas is a game that would likely be many times better if it came out nowadays. With a good amount of extra polish and more context it really could have been an early version of Kakarot. In a way that game is like the spiritual successor to this title. Still, I had a good time with Sagas. It’s a pretty fun game. It may not be a great title but once you start the game you will be sucked in until the end. You just can’t help but really get engaged with the content. Especially seeing the anime scenes really brings on the nostalgia. So if you can get this for a good price then I would recommend it.

Overall 7/10

Killer Instinct Review

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All right it’s time for a fighting game! Those are always fun to look at. This one is definitely really old of course so it’s certainly not going to compete with some of the newer titles but it’s still pretty solid. It definitely feels like an old Mortal Kombat even though I haven’t played through that series. It just has the vibe you would expect from it. The edge is almost a bit funny with how old the graphics are.

So there’s no story mode or anything like that here. This is all about the fighting gameplay and in a way that’s really what you’re hoping for here. That’s why you are playing after all. The core gameplay is good and at the end of the day that’s why this game is pretty good. It’s got infinite replay value and the character roster may not be very large but all of the characters are quite distinct. My favorite character to play as was easily the guy made out of fire. He reminded me of the Human Torch and was really solid.

The gameplay does take a lot of getting used to in terms of using the combos though. For example, the quarter circle moves I mastered for Street Fighter don’t work here at all. I was able to button mash myself to a few reliable combos that would work but that was really it. Otherwise I just had to hope for the best. It reminds me of Tekken a little bit as well with how one hit can lead to an absolutely devastating combo. I make one mistake and the opponent would immediately counter by taking out half of my health bar. It’s definitely impressive but also rather scary. I imagine that tournament battles for this game would really end very quickly.

After all, a pro player could probably get even more leverage out of that initial hit than a computer would. I could be overestimating the depth of the game and maybe that wouldn’t happen but for now I would bet on losing 70-80% of my health after the hit. So make sure you guard and approach really carefully! That said, it’s a game that I know I would never be an expert at since it’s not like I would have played it much so I would just hold the L there. I didn’t really experiment with the other characters but I’m sure all of the movesets are fairly good.

While there is no story, I should say that the characters do get a quick ending writeup which was nice to see. It reminds me of the classic arcade endings from games like this. The graphics are fairly good. They may be a bit blocky but the designs are all distinct so I do think that the game did a good job in the end. The soundtrack is also decent. Not amazing or anything but I thought the variety was good considering that this kind of game could have easily just had like 4-5 tracks or something like that.

Naturally the replay value really depends on how much you like the gameplay. It’s pretty much infinite as I always say for fighting games since the experience will always be different but by the same token, that means it has to completely compete with other fighting games. A story based game has its own unique scenarios so it doesn’t run into that problem. I suppose you could say it’s one of those things where there are pros and cons to each genre. In the end though the common element is that each game must succeed on its own merits. In the end I would say this one does a good job so it gets the passing grade.

Overall, Killer Instinct is a pretty good game. The combat is really on point and while there is not a lot of different modes for combat, it is fine. The game is 100% focused on being a solid brawler and succeeds in that respect. There’s no story, nothing like that but you know that you can boot this up at any time and really enjoy a solid amount of martial arts. I would definitely recommend checking this one out. It’s a pretty fun blast through history, particularly since I was never really familiar with the Killer Instinct series all that well.

Overall 7/10

Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll Review

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It’s time for another classic retro game. This one’s definitely fairly difficult with how the control scheme goes. Particularly in the last levels you wonder how anybody could pull this off in a reasonable amount of time. You have to be running and jumping while trying not to slip on the ice and it’s a really difficult task. I had to retry the sections so many times. There may only be 11 levels in here but let me tell you that the levels can take a while to complete.

The gameplay itself is fairly simple. You have to maneuver your way through the level until you reach the scale where stepping on it will cause the alarm to hit the ceiling. That means that you have put enough weight on it. At that point, the door at the end of the level opens and you can crawl through it. The way that you pick up weight is to eat the little balls that get shot out of a cannon somewhere in the level. The cannon also shoots out bombs that look similar but you must make sure not to pick up those or you will lose health instead. All the while you have to keep the timer in mind because if that goes to 0 then it is all over for you.

The timer is often the most difficult part to get around. The exception are the ice levels that I mentioned earlier, but it can just be really difficult to get big enough to break the scale before the time goes away. I suspect there is probably a better way to optimize how you eat the pellets since I was just button mashing though. All in all, it’s an interesting gimmick but it’s a gimmick that does get old quicker than standard platforming.

In terms of graphics this isn’t the most impressive Nintendo title. It looks good but it’s nothing to write home about. I do like the artstyle though. In terms of the soundtrack, eh it’s okay but also not super good. So all in all it is passable which is sort of how I would describe the whole game. It excites you a bit with how unique it is and by the end you start to get tired of it. I would say that’s what separates a good gimmick from one that gets old. As you see it used in more difficult contexts you have to ask yourself if this is still a lot of fun or if it’s getting in the way now. In this case it was the latter so then that’s an issue.

While there may not be much in the way of replay value, the 11 levels will take you longer than you might suspect so that’s not actually a big problem. Especially for back in the day when most games were super short. I’d say it’s why people loved RPGs and Mario titles because those were certainly way longer than the average title. It’s definitely quite impressive and I couldn’t appreciate that quite as deeply as I do now after playing all of the competitors. Who knows, maybe this will get a remake at some point, but in the meantime it’ll stay forgotten and that just makes sense to me. It needed to have a little more pop.

I guess my quick gameplay tip for this title is to remember that you are always moving in 4 directions. There is no way to move diagonally despite what the camera angles might indicate. So if you are having trouble getting somewhere, pick a direction and plunge straight ahead. It can be really tough to see exactly where you are going so this helped me a lot in the later levels. It doesn’t mean that things will suddenly get easier but it certainly helps.

Overall, Snake Rattle is a decent game but I do think that the level designs end up holding it back quite a lot. There needs to be less slipping and sliding. If you remove ice from the equation then the levels end up being a lot more pleasant but part of the problem is that you just don’t want to play through the later levels. You just spend too much time slipping around which takes away from the platforming. That’s where this game doesn’t really age well if you ask me. Give it a try if you have the Nintendo Switch Online but it’s not a game that you will be coming back to.

Overall 5/10

Still Alice Review

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It’s time for the marathon of film reviews where I’m absolutely devastating these films! The higher reviewed ones will be coming up but I thought that this made sense as a theme. This film tends to be on the sadder side. It’s not super objectionable or anything like that but at the same time it’s definitely not a film where you will walk away grinning. I definitely would have tweaked the ending a bit with one of those miracle cures but that’s just how it goes.

The film starts off by introducing us to Alice who is a genius. She is very well spoken and conducts herself as a true professional. She is a professor and has a happy marriage with her husband John. All 3 of her kids are doing well within their fields…well one of them is having a bit of trouble with theater but it’s a happy life. Unfortunately one day Alice is diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s and the genetic results say that she has a 0% chance of stopping it. It will gradually continue to get worse and worse until she dies. Particularly to Alice where her intelligence was something she took a lot of pride in, this comes as a big blow. She’s not sure how to really deal with it or if she even wants to continue dealing with this. What can she do?

Alzheimer’s is definitely one of the tougher ailments out there for two real reasons. One is the lack of a cure right now. Yeah, medicine continues to go a long way and you can generally slow this down but as a rule of thumb once it goes to a certain point there’s not much that can work. There’s also still a lot of mystery around how it works but you can actually see the pathways between neurons get cut off and there is currently no way to restore them. So the best thing you can hope for is that you only lose memories that you don’t need but it’s a scary way to live.

The other difficult part which in a lot of ways is the worst part is that there is no real way to have prevented this from happening. When it’s genetic, you were pre determined to have a higher chance to get this when you were born. In some cases they’ll know right away so you can be a kid and know that it will happen to you once you reach a certain age. It’s definitely a tough situation to be in. So these are all the things that Alice has to deal with.

She works on leaving herself notes and lots of little tips to help her remember what she has to do but these don’t always help. Additionally long lengths of time will go by where to her it just feels like a day. One tough moment was when she lost her phone. She thought she lost it a day ago but 6 months had actually passed. It’s definitely easy to get depressed at that point. Everyone does their best to help her out through this period but to see someone slowly deteriorating like that is definitely tough.

So then what you’re wondering is…when does the film become fun? Well the answer is that it doesn’t and that’s the problem. Much like Alice, we have to watch the film’s entertainment value slowly deteriorating along with it. It seems to be a fairly realistic take on what Alzheimer’s is like so I can give the film that credit but at the same time it doesn’t make for a good film. It plays out like something you would read on the news where it’s a tough tragedy but you aren’t able to do anything about it so you just feel bad the whole time.

That’s exactly why I would have had the film give her some kind of a cure. It doesn’t have to go into the range of sci-fi, just say that she’s getting better because the condition stabilized. Maybe she lost the first 30 years of her life but she will remember things going forward for a while. It doesn’t have to be a 100% crystal perfect happy ending or anything like that but I think this would go a long way. The film opened the door for this a few different times with how Alzheimer’s doesn’t always result in 100% mental failure. There are degrees to it but ultimately the film went all the way.

As for the supporting characters, there’s not much for them to do here. The kids for the most part are understanding although one of them always seems rather harsh. They all know that Alice is having memory issues and yet she gives her a hard time about it. The main daughter who wants to work in theater is easily the most patient and does everything that she can in order to help. Alice’s husband is also solid there but since he has a job he’s just not able to be there for her quite as often and has to run off to Academia and move to a new location as well. At least before she went all the way gone, Alice was able to give one last speech in a big professional setting so that gave her one last big hurrah. This kept the film from going to the next level of being mean spirited. I was worried when the notes fell to the ground that she was not going to be able to give the speech at all which would have been pretty mean.

Overall, Still Alice is definitely an emotional film. I wouldn’t recommend it if your family has a history with Alzheimer’s since it will just cause extra stress in the meantime. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re looking for a fun or entertaining film either. Ultimately there’s just not a whole lot here for you. It’s a film that just gets sadder the more you watch it and that’s tough. You can do sad films in a way where they are still solid but typically those will involve stories with some kind of hope or a fun journey in the meantime. This one just can’t do that because of the nature of the plot and so ultimately you are just doomed.

Overall 3/10