Nerve Review

Posted on by
Reply

nerve_ver15_xxlg
It’s time to look at a film where the entire premise only works if you’re one of the corrupted members of today’s youth. It’s a classic game of chicken where the main characters want to be the victors. The film’s definitely not good at all, but I have to admit that it is fairly realistic. Maybe not in how the idea is implemented, but I can totally picture a lot of people playing this game if it ever came out. It’s something that people just wouldn’t be able to resist.

The film follows a girl named Vee. She is usually pretty mild mannered and timid. While her friends go out drinking and doing a lot of wild things, Vee likes to keep it real and just be a nice person. How long does that last? Not long at all. See, there’s this new game called Nerve. Essentially, you give this very shady app access to your phone and GPS location along with the ability for them to access your bank account and do all kinds of things in your name. The up side is that you can win a lot of dollars. There are two modes to Nerve, Watch and Play. Watch means that you’ll be paying them a large monthly fee, but you’ll get to take a look at people’s private lives when they stream themselves doing the dares. They are the players. So, how does playing the game work? It’s all about how much nerve you have.

Nerve will tell you to do something and there will be a reward for it. One might say to go drink a bottle of beer for 10 dollars. Another might say to vandalize a Police Car for 500. The amounts continue to get higher, but the risks increase as well and the person who does the best can become a millionaire. All of the teenagers are into it and the ones who don’t have enough nerve to play content themselves with watching instead. After Vee is embarrassed in front of the local sports hero, she decides to join the game. She wants to be one of the cool kids and if that means embarrassing herself in front of millions of people, breaking the law, and sacrificing her morals…that’s a small price to pay for getting her 5 minutes of fame and fake friends. Vee quickly starts to rise to the top of the charts, but a shady fellow shows up to start teaming up with her and this game may have higher stakes than Vee ever thought possible.

So…where to begin. The Nerve game isn’t properly explained as you’re not totally sure who is doing the dares. For example, in one scene, Vee’s friends are able to create a dare for her on the spot. Can anyone just create a dare? That would be bad for the company since they would lose a lot of money on easy dares. It seems like a lot of ordinary citizens actually work for Nerve, but how did they get in on the loop? How did nobody find out about this and are we really supposed to believe that none of the adults know what’s happening? The ending was a clever way to end the game for good since it’ll never get quite as popular again, but you will have quite a few questions as the film goes on. This isn’t one of those films where the writing is so sharp that all of your questions will be answered.

Next, the film only works because all of the characters are so unlikable. If Vee was even a semi decent main character, she never would have gotten involved with this in the first place. Accepting a dare to kiss a random stranger is already a super suspect challenge and that was one of the first ones that Vee did. Breaking the speed limit and driving blind were also ones where you have to shake your head. Not only did Vee only complete that last challenge through plot hax, but you’d just hope that someone with common sense wouldn’t accept the task.

Again, there’s also the security aspect of it all. If someone can just throw money into your bank account, aren’t you going to be a little worried about them just taking it back later? The film’s a good public service announcement to all users about why you shouldn’t download strange apps and then attach your bank account to it. It was cool to visually see how it took all of her info though. Search Engines and Social Networks do it all the time and that’s basically how I picture it.

Lets take a break from the bashing to look at Nerve’s main theme. These films typically don’t have much of a soundtrack so it was cool to see this film have such a solid tune. Even the tagline “Snitches get stitches” was fairly catchy. The scenery was also good since the heroes were usually at or around big cities and those always look good at night. My recommendation to all films is to take place in NYC, it makes the whole thing cooler.

Back to bashing. Vee’s plan may have been clever, but it made no sense anyway. I don’t see how she could have made her plan and then told the necessary parties about it in time. Throw in the fact that she also had to get past the observers and everything and this plan was simply too unreal. It was also very convenient for Vee’s best friend Tommy to be a super hacker who knew a big group of hackers who helped to save the day. The one thing that could stop the game was a hacker after all.

Tommy was all right, but you can’t help but feel like he’s losing out here. He could be at home having fun, but instead he’s just following Vee around everywhere. She even ditches him at one point so he has to download the game before tracking her down. He’s the nice guy, but it also means that everyone walks all over him. Sydney is Vee’s other friend and she definitely doesn’t seem to have the main character’s best interests at heart. She just wants to be the most popular streamer and tries to sabotage Vee’s efforts when possible. Putting her friend on the spot while she was just trying to relax at the local pizza joint was definitely not a move that you’d expect your “friend” to make. I couldn’t sympathize with Sydney and the toxic relationship that she had with Vee was pretty bad both ways. Vee also made sure to slam Sydney live in front of millions. The film tries to act as if she didn’t realize it, but she’s playing the game…everything is on stream.

Ian is the main guy in the film and he’s certainly not going to do the film any wonders either. He wants to win at all costs and that means that he needs to encourage Vee to put her life on the line and go down the dark path. He acts as the main bad influence on Vee and he has great success with corrupting her. She doesn’t really put up any resistance since she always wanted to surpass Sydney in something and this was her chance. Ian gets a sob story to try and win you over, but I wasn’t really buying it. The guy was just annoying and unlikable the whole time.

Nerve’s just one of those films that’s not really well made. The film even resorts to using fanservice as one dare involves the main characters running around in a fancy clothing store in their underwear. It makes you wonder how far people will go for money and I like to think that the security in the store should have been able to stop them. At a place this fancy, they must have guards right? Don’t expect the cops to help all that much otherwise though since they don’t dare mess with the game. While my initial hunch about one of the cops being an undercover agent never panned out, they may as well be. They don’t believe that the game exists so they don’t feel obligated to do anything about it.

Overall, This film had a lot of potential since the idea is interesting, but it just couldn’t pull it off. Its underlying message about how people will be a lot bolder and do things that they usually wouldn’t once they have the cover of anonymity is a topic that Sword Art Online tackled more effectively. Since the characters were all pretty unlikable anyway, it’s not as if the game made them that much worse. You’ll be left with a lot of questions about the game as well and the plot convenience is certainly a bit much. If you want a similar kind of conspiracy group shaping things in the background, you should read the Liar Game manga. I can’t really think of a film that’s similar to this one, so just watch the second Tron film. It has cool music like the Nerve theme throughout the film so that’s definitely one that you should check out.

Overall 3/10

Tenkai Knights Review

Posted on by
Reply

bda336ba23f1bb9719541b19928d1dca
It’s hard to believe that I started this show all the way back in 2013. It feels like that was such a long time ago, but I suppose that’s the way it is for all shows that reach at least 50 episodes. The show definitely started out as one of the all time greats and had everything in its favor. Unfortunately, it started to peeter out a bit during the second half of the series. Perhaps it is a good thing that it ended before the downgrade could really affect its overall standing all that much, but it definitely would have been nice to have gotten that extra season. 100+ episodes of Tenkai Knights could have put it on the map or at least in the same conversation as Beyblade and the other big toy based shows back in the day. I’m assuming that many of my blog readers won’t even know what this show is because it’s so obscure, but you’re about to find out now!

The show follows four boys who find lego pieces and are chosen as the guardians of a mysterious planet in another realm. By activating the pieces, they turn into Power Ranger fighters and have to stop the dark armies led by Vilius. Of course, if the heroes die in the virtual world, they also perish in real life. Guren and Chooki don’t really give that last bit a second thought, but the other two need some time to wrap their heads around it. The heroes are strong and can usually stop the villains with ease, but the bad guys do have some advantages. For starters, they are on the planet 24/7 and can attack at any time. Guren and friends have to go to sleep or leave at some point and that’s when the villains can make their move. They have the superior numbers as well and I dare say that they had the better fighters for a little while. Of course, Guren and the others continued to improve at a rapid pace. By the end, the heroes definitely had the edge. Can the 4 part timers really stop Vilius for good though?

It should definitely give you some Power Ranger vibes. The series starts off with a lot of energy and really did everything right. Lets talk about the positives. The plot is pretty engaging and starts off rather rapidly. I’m always a fan of virtual world adventures and you could compare this to Sword art Online, but without taking itself so seriously. There are only 3 main villains, but they had a 4th and a 5th member for a while and they aren’t half bad when it comes to strength. Once the villains unlocked Titan Mode, they were always able to put up a fight.

The show got a lot of top notch voice actors here like Ichigo’s and Kirito’s to voice two of the main characters. I have to admit that this definitely added an extra layer of epicness to the show. The animation was also solid. I didn’t really care for the scenes where they are robots as much as it would take a noticeable dip, but they would still add a lot of budget to the big fight scenes at the end. If you were worried about the actual fights looking bad, don’t worry about it. The fights are still as good as you’d expect and probably even better than that. The colors were always very sharp and on point and the human animations hold up very well.
9c6fdeba883b2ddf70d38da642b69279
What really sets Tenkai Knights a bar above most of the competition is the dynamic array of music themes. The catchy “Tenkai whoaaaaaaa Tenkai” chant before every transformation is the definition of epic and really gets you ready for action. It distracts you from the recycled footage that is always used for the transforming moments. The battles all have great themes as well and there are just so many to choose from. I believe that part 2 of the show remixed the Tenkai theme and it wasn’t quite as catchy, but it was still solid. The soundtrack is definitely one of the best parts of the show, no question.

The main cast was really good as well. Guren does a good job of leading the team and he is certainly well suited for the job. He’s a natural leader and is a lot more ready for anything that the villains can throw at him. While he’s not quite as athletic as Chooki, he can more than hold his own in any event. His skills while in Tenkai form do certainly surpass the others by a wide margin. There’s really nothing to say against his character and he’s essentially just a kid version of the best protagonist that you can think of. He’s a hero who gets the job done.

Ceylan is Guren’s best friend and while he is not quite as outgoing, he’s always got a lot of jokes at the ready. He hits it off pretty well with the others, but is prone to quit or fall into a slump quite a few times. He just doesn’t have quite as much self confidence and determination as Guren, but very few characters do so it isn’t too much of a strike against him. His Tenkai form is ice themed so it’s not quite as cool as Guren’s flaming winged form, but it gets the job done well enough I suppose. By the end of the series, all four Tenkai warriors are very strong so it’s okay even if Ceylan isn’t the strongest. I’d put him at third for the record.

Chooki is pretty similar to Guren. He’s a natural born expert at just about everything and he’s always ready to make new friends. He’s just a cool guy who gets along with everyone and he does pretty well in the Tenkai fights. He’s an extreme contrast to Toxsa and helps to get the guy active in everyday life. Guren’s my favorite character, but Chooki’s definitely right behind him along with Gen. It shows how strong the cast is as Chooki could have easily been the best character in another show. It was an odd creative decision by the writers though since his character is just so similar to Guren’s. Usually a show will try to avoid that unless it goes for debates about leadership or something, but that never pops up.

Finally, we have Toxsa. He’s a big gamer so naturally that means that he isn’t very fit so he has a hard time keeping up with the others in the real world. He’s always talking about Doomsploder 5 and you have to admire his dedication to that I suppose. He’s the main comedy member of the group and really tries to slam the others with puns left and right. I like a good pun, but a lot of his jokes do tend to fall flat. He’s not a bad character, but Toxsa is easily the least interesting and a lot of his scenes are really just filler. It’s a shame since he talks such a good game, but still ends up being the weakest member.

Mr. White is the guy behind the group. He mysteriously knows a lot about the other world and is the one with the portal that sends the heroes back and forth. The show never really gets into his secret origin or that of Guren’s Dad since he seems to know more than he lets on. My personal theory was that Guren’s Dad is Beag’s human operator and Mr. White used to operate one of the robots. Maybe he operated one of the legendary council. It’s not like it’ll ever be explored though and Mr. White just comes across as annoying. He refuses to answer any questions and never makes himself all that useful. Beag is almost as bad. I can see what the show was going for with his character as he naively believes everything that the 4 heroes say and looks up to them quite a lot. He’s supposed to be charming and endearing, but he ends up being rather annoying instead. He also never really does anything to move the show along and could have been left out without really changing anything.

Gen was the hardcore rival of the show. At first he’s on the side of evil before eventually joining the heroes. I forgot what his exact goal was, but maybe he just treated the whole thing as a game. It seems like he was always going to betray Vilius so he just wanted to be the strongest being of them all. He sort of came close as the only ones who could stop him were Guren and Vilius. It’s safe to say that Vilius was ahead of him for just about the whole series. By the very end, I like to think that Gen and Guren were stronger than Vilius, but I suppose that it’s debatable. Gen was nerfed quite a lot when he turned good though. He suddenly stopped getting power ups and was heavily surpassed by the main 4. While he was a villain, Gen did quite well though. He was usually on the winning end of fights and he also rose the stakes. After all, he knew who the heroes were in the real world as well so they could never rest easy after that.
wqgsh0s
Beni was Gen’s partner and she certainly had fun with the battles. Her robot was incredibly fast and the writers clearly couldn’t decide how to defeat her. She’s the one character who basically never loses during the whole show and got to show up the heroes several times. They just couldn’t keep up with her and she would have made a great ally for the heroes to have. In arc 2, she couldn’t decide which team to help though so she ends up going back and forth between the two sides for quite a while. Maybe one day she will be a trusted ally, but even at the end it’s hard to trust her since she betrayed the heroes so many times. It didn’t even make sense when she helped the villains out, but I guess she likes to keep the heroes guessing.

Vilius was a very good main villain. He had a lot of power so he could back up his tough talk and he lived up to his reputation. I liked his design and his super forms made him even more dangerous. There was a brief moment near the middle where the heroes had actually surpassed him so the villain needed a power up for a change, but for the most part he did a really good job remaining as a threat. He’s fairly smart for a villain and was able to see through Gen’s deceptions. His only comic relief moment was in a fairly infamous comedy arc that I’ll get into shortly. We can safely ignore it as far as his character goes. He’s easily better than his two generals.

The other main two villains are Granox and Slyger. Granox is your typical strong, but slow and not very smart character. Slyger is quick and a tricky fighter to mess with, but I suppose he’s slightly weaker physically. Honestly, I’d pick Slyger to complete destroy Granox if they were to ever fight. It wouldn’t even be a fair fight. They made for really good fight scenes, but as villains I could only respect Sluger. Granox was just a little too weak and could rarely give the heroes much of a fight. At least Slyger was a credible threat and as mentioned before, Titan Mode really helped them out quite a lot.

Boreas was one of the 4 legendary Tenkai Elders and he got the biggest role of the 4. He helped the heroes out quite a lot from the very beginning. He’s likable enough I suppose, but he couldn’t live up to the hype quite as well as you’d hope. Vilius took down all 4 Elders even while they were teaming up and then brainwashed them to do his bidding. They put up some slight resistance, but it was all for naught in the end. They did have some really cool abilities though and were some of the best fighters in the series. It’s a shame that they always transformed into their giant lego forms for the final battles though since the humanoid ones always did a lot better. They sacrificed their great speed and durability for a little size? Definitely not worth it in the long run. The elders should have spent less time guarding the portal and more time actively fighting. If they had helped to defeat Vilius back in the early episodes, none of this would have happened.

Orangor and Scorpidon are responsible for the low point of the Tenkai Knights series. Basically, the main characters are kidnapped and brought to an odd little dimension where the Scorpion rules. To escape, they must defeat him in a Grand Prix or another such event that he dictates. They win several times, but are just thrown into a pit and forced to redo the events. This allowed the writers to use whole minutes of stock footage at a time. They redid 5 minutes of recycled grand prix racing and hoped that we wouldn’t notice…but we did. It was generally just too much comedy over action as well. We lost the Tenkai fights and the races weren’t worth it. Even Vilius showed up to play a game of soccer and the whole thing did not make any sense. It’s as if the genre just suddenly changed out of nowhere. It also dragged on and on for quite a while. I couldn’t wait to see it go and the two new characters never appeared again. Most excellent!
thumbnail_42461
Finally, we have the Tenkai Dragon. He’s always getting captured and kidnapped so you’ll probably feel bad for him after a while. He is said to be invincible and unstoppable, but the villains prove that wrong many times. They even build a Dark Tenkai Dragon, which is just as strong as the real deal. To get the dragons in the first place, you need to assemble a lot of artifacts. By the end, it barely even feels worth it anymore. It was a cool design though, but I could never take the dragon seriously. Honestly, I’d take Guren in a fight against him.

Even if we take away the dreadful mini arc, part 2 of Tenkai Knights would still be under the first. The problem is the fact that they opted to do a soft reboot with the same formulaic style. Part 1 was very formulaic as one episode would see Guren unlock Titan Mode, then Chooki, then etc. Next, Guren would unlock his signature skill, then Chooki, then etc. Part 2 decided to do that, but also to dial it up to eleven. First, the heroes lost their Titan Modes, but they learned how to use elemental powers. You would always know that this would take at least 4 episodes since they would learn it one at a time. After that, they re learned Titan Mode, one episode at a time. They also learned how to fuse and naturally, they had to try all of the different variations. Once the Elders were mind controlled, it was the same deal with them. The heroes would fight one per episode and they would all use the same transformation to prolong the fight. It may have been even more repetitive than Buddyfight One Hundred’s battles at one point, but these were still a little better because at least we had some really cool action scenes and it wasn’t the same villain each time.

I think part 2 of Tenkai Knights could have definitely changed the formula up a bit. I think it would have done wonders for the show. After all, the climax was always very intense. The final battles of both arcs in the show are easily 5 star matches and you can always feel the gravity of the situation. The already solid animation would get even better and you couldn’t really discern this show from that of a Shonen during the serious moments. If the whole show could have been like that, it’d be an easy 9. Of course, you could say the same about a great deal of shows since they all try to be at their best for the climax. Tenkai Knights still operates at a rather high level normally, but the extra boost would help.

I’d say that it probably is the ultimate Saturday Morning cartoon. This isn’t counting shows like Yugioh which were originally more Shonen and Cardfight, which never made its way to the big screen. It may not literally be the greatest of all time as there is probably some show somewhere that I may be forgetting, but it has everything that you could ask for from a show aimed at kids. The series plays it very safe content wise, but still gives us great animation and fights. It never resorts to a lot of crude humor or anything like that and naturally the show’s target audience ensures that the title has absolutely no fanservice. There’s no language to watch out for and the writing is pretty strong. Most of the characters are likable and there is a sense of danger throughout. Tenkai Knights really pushed itself as far as it could go and other shows that are now aimed at a similar audience like Pokemon Alola and Monster Hunter could learn a few lessons from this title. You can be aimed at kids and still have a lot of action.
b2b64d141bf53ff7976eaa1c4fb287e9
Overall, Tenkai Knights is a great show. It’s a title that just about anyone can get into since everyone likes a good action and who doesn’t like Power Ranger esque transformations? The show had a very modern/high tech feel right from the start like the PS3 and never lost that. The character cast is great and it performs exceptionally well on a technical level. The series went through a few hiccups during the second half, but it was able to bounce back in the end. I’m not sure what the series would have done for a third part, but introducing some new villains could have definitely worked quite well. There really weren’t many different opponents for the heroes to face so a little extra variety could have gone a long way. Introducing more human world fights would have also been great. We got some glimpses of this when the villains were able to materialize in the human world, but it was mostly used for laughs as opposed to action. Having the ability to crossfuse like in Megaman NT Warrior would have really upped the stakes. It’s one thing to be in lethal danger in another world, but it hits closer to home when your town is the one that is attacked.

Overall 8/10

The Vision of Escaflowne Review

Posted on by
Reply

10883e6f00318633fc3261fdc2584935
It’s time to look at a recent anime that I saw. This one’s an old school action fantasy romance (Wait…what’s romance doing here?) with lots of danger and dragons. It’s a pretty solid show that may have an annoying main character and a lackluster ending, but hits most of the right notes with the plot and action scenes. The animation has aged pretty well and the music is very memorable. The most important part though is that I can add this title to my mecha list alongside Heroic Age, IGPX, and Transformers. (Probably another one or two somewhere in there)

The plot follows a girl named Hitomi who is on a search for true love, but only finds rebound guys and people who want to use her powers to save their kingdom. So…Hitomi runs. She runs and runs and ultimately becomes one of the best track and field athletes at her school. The main guy from school decides to move away so Hitomi confronts him and wants to prove that she can run really fast. Her big moment is interrupted when a giant laser shows up from the sky and brings her to another world along with a kid named Van. They slay a dragon and Hitomi realizes that she is now on another planet.

Van’s kingdom was exterminated by the Zaibach empire and so he is now the King by default. He intends to exact his revenge, but it’ll be tough since their technology is centuries ahead of the other kingdoms. While people from the hero side still fight with sticks and stones (With a few low tech robots as well) Zaibach has electronic assassins, people with shape shifting abilities, and robots that can burn whole cities to the ground. Luckily, Van finds a robot named Escaflowne. This robot is the strongest robot in history and it is the one thing that can tip the scales of this one sided war. Together with Hitomi’s ability to see the future (Wait, when’d this happen?) they will save the world!

Hitomi may have just been an ordinary runner at first, but travelling to the other world strengthened her pre cog abilities. She was already good at reading fortunes, but now she was the real deal. Hitomi can sense dangers before they occur and her predictions are 100% accurate. They can be changed of course, if she uses this knowledge to warn people ahead of time. Her very existence also works to nullify fate alteration weapons and if she becomes strong enough, she can heavily influence destiny as well. After all, any future that she sees will be in jeopardy since Hitomi can change it if she wants. If she were a strong main character, this ability could have really helped the heroes even more.

Unfortunately, being strong willed is not one of Hitomi’s abilities. She consistently makes the wrong decisions and is certainly one of the weaker characters in the show. For starters, she is really the symbol of the rebound character. She starts off liking one guy, then goes to a second, and finally a third. She goes back and forth between these guys throughout the whole show and simply cannot make up her mind. By the very end of the show, she finally makes a choice and everyone else made theirs anyway, but it was hard to sympathize with her plight. She also lied to one of her friends, which doomed that person to a failed marriage. Hitomi only deserves half of the blame since nobody should ever leave their marriage up to a fortune reading though.

The worst strike against her is that Hitomi ultimately decides not to use her powers to help everyone. She doesn’t want to see the terrible visions and would prefer the armies to just destroy each other than to end the war quickly. The joke’s on her since the visions come true regardless and will keep on popping up, but Hitomi does help to increase the body count dramatically. Yeah, I definitely didn’t like Hitomi and it felt like she just kept making things worse. A pet peeve of mine is that when she returns to the past…Hitomi decides to do everything in the same exact way. It defeats the purpose of getting a second chance if you’re not going to do anything about it right? It’s like if I could go back in time to my first Super Smash tournament. You can bet that I’d wreck everyone since I’d be ready for the attacks that they’d throw out.

Moving on, Van is a pretty good hero. For a while there, he was losing to Allen but ended up passing him due to a whole host of reasons. Van’s your typical action hero. He’s pretty head strong and is always ready for a fight. He craves battle even more than some leads since the whole matter is pretty personal. Once he unlocks the true power of Escaflowne, he really reigns down chaos on all of the villains. He becomes so powerful that they simply can’t hold a candle to him anymore. While the romance isn’t really handled all that well, it doesn’t become much of a factor for most of the series. For the most part, Van is just focused on taking everyone down. Even with the emotions machine making everyone a little more upset, it was odd to see Van and Allen go all out in the final episode. It was a good fight though and Van was definitely doing well. I didn’t care for Van too much in the first half as he was just mean for no reason and was surprisingly weak considering all of his tough talk. Gradually, Van did prove that he was a nice guy when out of his shell though and he became a good fighter. He’s definitely the best character in the series by the end.

Allen’s a good rival and for a wile there he was easily the best character in the show. Unfortunately, his character took a bit of a nosedive by the end as the show had to prove that Van was the only acceptable answer. For starters, Allen couldn’t make up his mind on whether or not he actually liked Hitomi or not. Once he decided, Allen was very heavy handed about the whole thing and seemed to just treat the whole thing as a contest where he could one up Van. He never seemed all that serious and since he would still be flirting around Millerna and had another affair in the past…it’s sort of hard to like him by the end. He never turns evil or anything so there’s always that.

Folken is one of the big villains who has one of the most unbelievable turnarounds out there. He’s behind the wheel, destroying all cities and villages to try and get to the goal. His own homeland is one of the first to go and he never looks back. See, Folken’s a pacifist who didn’t like that his village forced you to destroy a dragon at one point so he decided to become a mass murderer to end war. You know, it’s the classic “Take over the world and murder all the leaders so they can never start a war again” train of thought. It ultimately won’t work and will just make a lot more conflicts in the mean time and Folken eventually sees this. So….he becomes a good guy who is all about peace. Lets just say that this doesn’t end well for him, but he 180 turnaround was extremely sudden and I can see why Van wasn’t very accepting of this. Hitomi was way too accepting of this if you ask me as she instantly jumped on his side. I can’t say that I ever liked Folken, he was constantly using everyone so I can’t believe the turn around.

Dilandau was easily the more interesting villain. He likes to cause carnage and picks fights everywhere. He does get an identity/gender crisis by the end which is really weird and out of left field. I can’t say that I was thrilled about the twist at all. It was a little humorous with how sudden it was, but did nothing for the character and just felt unnecessary. Side stepping that land mine, Dilandau worked perfectly as the main rival for Van. He got completely outclassed once Van learned of Escaflowne’s true power and never put up a good fight again, but he had a solid run. I guess you can say that he’s like Allen as they both started out very strong and ended on a whimper. He’s still the best villain in the series though.

Finally, we have Zaibach’s leader, Dornkirk. He’s a really old man who can’t move anymore so he just sits down and looks at everyone through a telescope. He has McDonalds Wifi so the connection is always very distorted and blurry. No matter, he wants to build a Utopia where everyone is in a dream and living in harmony. He’s mad at the fact that Hitomi’s existence makes this just about impossible. The way that he goes out is definitely laughable as it’s how I picture The One Above All getting wrecked in a fight. It was rather clever to make sure that he met his end at the site of the reverse fate manipulation weapon though since that means that his death is flipped around. It was ultimately pointless though since he stayed in a ghost like state though. There’s nothing really interesting about Dornkirk, but he’s probably the funniest villain of the bunch since he literally cannot move. It’s hard to take a villain like that seriously. Especially considering that Dornkirk panics at least once an episode since fate cannot see through love and this is a romance series so that happens a lot.

Millerna was a decent supporting character. She’s a princess who is also a little confused in matters of the heart. She goes for the rebound character because everyone expects her to do so and naturally it leads to one of the quickest divorces in anime. That part definitely made her look bad since she was just lying to herself the whole time, but at least she’s not the one who broke it all off. Then again…maybe it would have been better if she had made the decision. She can’t really fight since Van and Allen are the only ones with mechs, but she’s always around to encourage Hitomi. Merle is another heroine who is always around and she’s a cat creature who’s very loyal to Van. She makes sure to insult Hitomi all of the time and is one of the main comic relief characters of the series. She’s not all that bad although her “romance” with Van doesn’t really add anything to her show. All of Merle’s scenes are basically filler although at least she called the guards when Hitomi was kidnapped for the 4th or 5th time.
6d88238828bca85951145003ac65a250
Eriya and Nariya were two villains who showed up towards the second half of the series. They’re skilled generals who work for Folken. Their mechs are pretty speedy and they make for good opponents. They only got to battle Van in a fair fight once, but that round didn’t go well for them at all. Choosing to fight a rage mode Van is definitely not the best call. Their luck enhancements were seriously powerful and made them the toughest threats of all, but in the end the weaknesses of it were a little too grand. They were good villains, but mainly because of their mechs. Their roles were a little too small to do much other than that. They do beat a lot of the other villains like Folken though.

Dryden is a prince who shows up to get married and remind the characters that having a lot of money is handy in this series. He’s pretty annoying and while the show tries to present him as a likable guy by the end, I wasn’t buying it. He definitely doesn’t seem genuine and maybe I just don’t trust rich salesmen in these kinds of things all that much. I mean, who doesn’t remember the happy salesman from Majora’s Mask? There’s also a Mole Man who is very annoying throughout the series. He breaks into people’s rooms, steals things, and is generally just a bad guy. Despite this, the heroes never do anything about him because they just figure that he could never do anything too terrible. They don’t take him seriously, but if you ask me, he should still be brought to justice. The guy gets away with wayyyy too much. I do like the fact that none of the characters ever bothered to ask his name though. He literally doesn’t have a name, which is fitting.

The screenshots here don’t really do the animation justice. It’s definitely held up really well and the fight scenes are excellent. The colors stand out and you can feel the blows. There aren’t many energy blasts or weapons to be found here, but Escaflowne’s energy jewel stands out. The character designs are all solid and while I haven’t actually seen the movie, I can already tell you that the designs here are many times better. The best design is probably Allen’s robot, it always looked very regal and majestic.

The music makes sure to keep up as well. I can still remember most of the soundtrack clearly, which is something that I can’t say for other shows. The themes were also very good. We had an epic opera theme, a really good villain theme, a good thinking theme, and a whole bunch of others. The overall soundtrack is definitely a lot better than I had been anticipating. It has an old feel compared to most of my favorite soundtracks, like the techno Cardfight Vanguard, but it works really well with the show. It’s old, but it’s not boring and that’s an important distinction to make.

Escaflowne’s fight scenes are definitely pretty good. We get a few hand to hand battles, but most of the action scenes are with the mechs. Any battle with Dilandau is sure to be entertaining and I also liked Allen’s fight style. Since he is a great sword fighter outside of the mech, it makes sense that it would translate well to the robot. It’s a shame that his robot couldn’t fly or use any projectiles though. That would have helped him a lot. As it stands, he was still beating Van most of the times that they fought. Right now, Van would easily defeat Allen thanks to the fact that his robot is 100x better, but Allen still has the better fundamental skills.

Escaflowne is also pretty unique with how long it takes for the heroes to do anything. The first 3-4 villages that they go to are all destroyed by Zaibach. Each time, Van and Hitomi try to warn the locals, but they don’t listen and as a result, they’re all destroyed. This happens to them over and over and over again. Finally, they are able to make a counter offensive by the end. The whole dynamic goes from the situation being hopeless for the heroes to them being overpowered by the end. Without Van’s robot, there is definitely no way that they can win. The villains are more prepared in every area and also have the large advantage in numbers. By the end, Van’s so powerful that he can basically take on the whole army on his own, but all of his teammates are still in trouble.

That’s why the villains could have easily won so many times had they not made the mistake of listening to their old leader. They were winning drastically, but he told them not to make a move. Well, it cost him since one of the heroes decided to fire a nuke. The scene was super unexpected, but also pretty interesting. Once again, it was just not something that an anime would typically do. Usually, you have the heroes win the big final battle or something, but the main heroes didn’t actually do much this time around. They actually would have been overwhelmed if not for the nuke, although it was a rather sour ending to the alliance and got everyone fighting again. The ending showed everyone’s true colors after the dust was settled.

Escaflowne’s one weakness is definitely the romance. It plays a rather large role in the show, but none of the characters even know what they want. Hitomi chases after several guys, but loses them all. Millerna goes after one, but winds up with another. Allen goes after one, but it doesn’t end well so he leads on a second while he tries for a third and eventually comes away with none. Van tries for one, but loses her in the end. Two villains aim for one, but they lose their lives first. One guy gets his girl, but then breaks it off because he’s not ready for this. It goes on and on with these guys and none of the romances really matter in the end. Everyone just keeps on spinning their wheels and hurting the others emotionally while also getting hurt by someone else. It feels like the romance is just a distraction and should be treated as such instead of being the main plot for a while. Trust me, it does become the main plot as the main villain’s plan involves pairing up Hitomi with her second choice as it will let him take over the world. His plan was too vague to work anyway, but the fact that he has to help encourage a romance is also rather strange.

There’s no need to talk about the ending much since it’s hard to discuss without spoilers. Needless to say, I was not thrilled with it. It would work if someone had pulled the friend zone card before leaving, but since the character made the opposite move…it makes no sense. It’s one of those head scratchers where you just have to wonder what the writers were thinking. I certainly thought that it was a bad ending at any rate. One more thing you will question during the film is why the friends and the Mom don’t care about Hitomi being missing for months as much as they should? Hitomi gets one text/fax from the guy she was trying to impress and that’s it. Maybe they tried to send more and they didn’t get through the dimensional firewalls, but since one did I have to believe that others could. The Mom’s only reaction is that she’s sure Hitomi will be fine. That’s not the best reaction. There’s a plot twist about Hitomi’s grand mother which may have helped to bring this reaction out, but it was still rather unrealistic.

vlcsnap-2016-09-04-20h21m38s512
Overall, The Vision of Escaflowne is a solid anime. In its 26 episodes, the show managed to cover a great deal. We had several big villains, one shot villains, etc. The heroes got to visit a lot of different landscapes and even went into a portal where they met vague high above beings who built Escaflowne. It has a good amount of action and the plot is solid as well. While the cast may not seem all that great from the character profiles, they can hold the show with ease. Most of them may be unlikable individually, but at least they’re interesting. Boring characters are worse for a show than unlikable ones and while Dunkirk may have not been threatening in the slightest, he was a memorable main villain. (For all the wrong reasons) The show even got to try out several tones as we had a few dark and intense episodes, but also several light hearted ones. The pacing was always nice and fast and you could never tell when the next tragedy would occur. Be prepared for a lot of it though as the villains leave no stone unturned. They make sure to get to everyone by the end. I definitely recommend this anime and don’t let the romance scare you off. It’s definitely the weakest part of the show and it’s omission would have made the whole thing better, but it doesn’t drag it down all that much. Now you can safely compare it to titles like Transformers and Gundam. Winning that battle is another story though!

Overall 7/10

Home Alone 4 Review

Posted on by
Reply

mv5bmtaznjm3otewnjneqtjeqwpwz15bbwu3mdk1odiwmde-_v1_uy1200_cr3206301200_al_
It’s time to take a look at the next Home Alone film. Kevin’s back and we already know how good he is at stopping crooks. The problem is that the crooks do a good job of stopping themselves as it is and Kevin doesn’t have as much nerve as you’d think. It’s a solid film that is bogged down by a few elements like the villains and the unfortunate ending. There are less iffy jokes like in Home Alone 3 though so that’s a nice improvement.

Kevin is getting ready for Christmas, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll be a good one. His parents filed for divorced and his Dad immediately found the rebound character and intends to marry her as soon as possible. He wants Kevin and his two siblings to spend Christmas at his house, but the Mom doesn’t approve. Ultimately, she leaves it up to Kevin though and initially he chooses to spend Christmas with her. She then makes the really odd decision of telling Kevin to stay with his older brother for a while while she gets some errands done. Kevin tells her that he’s going to get bullied a lot, but she ignores him and leaves. Well…Kevin gets humiliated, lids slammed on him, and a whole lot of other stuff off screen and the Mom’s only response to this is to tell Kevin to go to his room and think about how much worse it could have been. Kevin imagines it all right and decides that instead of having a terrible Christmas over there, he’ll visit his Dad.

This is where the plot starts to get a little obvious and unfortunate, but lets continue. The Dad is now with a super rich soon to be step mom who is basically perfect. She has a large game room, personal attendants for everything, and the house is fully electronic. You just say something and the house will listen. Lets just add in the names so it’s easier. Kate = Mom. Natalie = Step Mom. Peter = Dad. So, Natalie is not just super rich and more fashionable than Kate, but she’s also a nicer person. Her only flaw is that she’s super successful and has to go to a lot of meetings and parties. That’s fine though, it pays the bills and helps keep them rich right? Kevin doesn’t approve though and has a bad attitude the whole time.

Marv returns from the first film and brings alone Vera to rob the place. Kevin has to stop them himself since nobody will believe him, but he does it in the worst ways possible to the point where you can’t sympathize with him. If we’re being honest, we all knew how the film was going to end from the start. Natalie would lose out since Kate has to win and the family would get back together again. It all happens as expected, but you just feel bad for Natalie. Lets think about all of the examples from the top.

Kate allowed Kevin to be bullied and was not apologetic about it at all. She wasn’t being nice to Kevin during Christmas time and her plans for Christmas were rather terrible. Meanwhile, Natalie wasn’t expecting Kevin since he declined the invitation and was ready to have a fun night with Peter, but Kevin just walks in uninvited. All right….that may have wrecked Christmas to an extent, but Natalie quickly shifts gears without batting an eye and gives Kevin a great welcome. The day is going perfectly and while Kevin’s a little ungrateful about Natalie and Peter having to leave, he lets them go. When they get back…Kevin has completely wrecked their multi million dollar mansion by flooding the entire thing with water. He did it to stop the crooks, but did he have to be so extreme? Seriously…millions of dollars gone in the blink of an eye. He ruined the entire mansion.

This is already reason enough for Natalie to get Kevin out of the house for good. Instead, she chooses to forgive and forget. This time, the party is at her house so she gets people to quickly fix it up as best they can and hopes for no disasters this time. That’s not in Kevin’s game plan though as he breaks the windows and makes a loud commotion. He freezes the butler and nearly destroys him. Next, Kevin wrecks the dinner as he throws everything at the villains, which leads to a big fall for all of the guests and things shatter. The party is completely ruined and once again, Kevin should have planned things out better.

Natalie is very upset by this point, but she is completely justified in it. It’s not as if she goes off the rails and hits Kevin or anything like that, but she finally tells him that one more “accident” like that and he’ll have to leave. That’s reasonable right? No, the film makes it a point to say that she is the villain and we should be sympathizing with Kevin right now. No, I was sympathizing with Natalie. She was being a good sport the whole time and even helped with putting the tree up. It got taken down because she had a professional company already on the way to put up their own, but that’s not a big deal. Her very small slights against Kevin were nothing compared to what he did and they weren’t even intentional. She then had to endure a painful conversation between Kate and Peter as they talk about how much fun it used to be when they were married and the old days with Kevin. Is that really a good topic to talk about in front of your new fiancee? Peter’s definitely unlikable, but more on that later.

As you can tell, Natalie had to put up with a lot. The ending just makes it even worse as all of the characters gang up on her. First, Peter decides to break up with Natalie because he wants to move back with his wife. This shows just how petty and superficial Peter is. He was glad to be with her for the money and the late night fun that they had. Once he had enough of that, he just dumped her. I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me. We’re supposed to be on this guy’s side? No way! He has the delicacy and manners of James Bond if he’s going to be like that and the film gives no indication that Natalie was not a good person at all prior to this. She was a very nice character and it just gives you the impression that Peter was using her the whole time. He got what he wanted and got out.

The next big diaster was that Natalie’s butler decided to quit. He had a very well paying job and a nice boss. Natalie was always reasonable and it’s not as if the butler had a whole lot to do. Still, he quits because Kevin tells him that he should. Natalie’s other butler turned out to be a crook as well so now she has no main employees to watch the mansion. It can’t get worse can it? I’m afraid it can as a subplot in the film was that the royal family was coming over. This was super important for Natalie since it would benefit her company quite a lot and she really needed this contract. Well, that’s out, since the prince wants to have Christmas over at Kevin’s house instead.

Lets recap. Natalie had her ultra rich mansion ruined, She had her party completely sabotaged, She lost her reputation, She lost her soon to be married boyfriend, and she lost her staff. You’re supposed to be thrilled at this “happy” ending, but it was really all just in bad taste. She was easily the best character in this film, but she ended up getting a raw deal anyway. I could go on and on and on about how she was the secret hero here and how the film’s ending is very tragic, but you get the point. Over half of this review was just on that after all.

That’s part of the reason why I couldn’t stand Kate and Peter. Peter’s obvious so we don’t need to talk about him anymore. Kate is just as bad as she is completely okay with bullying and she makes life as tough as possible for Natalie. Busting into the house uninvited was definitely not good manners and then trying to say that Kevin’s past Christmases were better is just hogwash. She doesn’t even cope well as she just spends her Christmas Eve crying in front of the TV. She’s not a good character whatsoever. Kevin’s two siblings aren’t good either as they are even more extreme than usual. They were total bullies and I didn’t buy their “suddenly nice” routine at the end. Even when Kevin was in actual danger and called for help, the brother just laughed at him, insulted him, and then hung up. There was quite a lot of bullying and people being generally mean in this film.

Kevin’s not exempt though as he’s just not a nice guy. He immediately goes into areas where he’s not allowed too just to spite everyone. He has the run of the entire mansion aside from one room so what does Kevin do? He immediately goes into that room. He panics a lot and is scared of the villains even after he was just trash talking. He goes through a ton of personality shifts the entire time and you just have to wonder what his plan is. Half of the time he doesn’t seem to know himself. He’s definitely very unlikable and comes off as an ingrate the whole time.

The villains were pretty bad as well. The film went a too far with how goofy they were. They just kept tripping and slipping up at every opportunity. The girl villain seemed as if she was always chewing on something and the guy would just get beat up by everything. Any scene with those two was a little hard to watch so I was always glad to see them not show up. They didn’t have a major role here so that was good. The slapstick definitely looks very painful here as per usual. The villains should have died multiple times, but they keep on going. At least the butler got to help a bit unlike that old lady from the last film who was heavily hinted to do something at some point, but never got around to it. It’s more of a mild consolation than anything though.

Some of the dialogue can be quite forced in the film. Kevin has conversations with his parents about their divorce and offers up his worldly advice, but then he’ll go back to being a very unintelligent kid after that. He is a very inconsistent main character and after a while you’ll start to realize that the writers just didn’t know what to do with him. It’s definitely cheesy and the parents getting back together at the end was more tragic than happy.

Overall, Home Alone 4 was a fun film. For the most part, it was even better than 3 and I was enjoying it quite a bit. It may be silly at times, but the other parts were written well. Unfortunately, the ending kind of wrecked it for me. I thought I would be giving it a solid 7, but the more I wrote this review, the more that I realized that would not be possible. The ending is just way too mean spirited and the film got its protagonists mixed up. It doesn’t really leave you with a “feels good” feeling at the end so I actually won’t recommend it. 90% of it is pretty solid, but the other 10% is enough to knock it back out. I suppose it breaks even, but just barely.

Overall 5/10

Insomnia Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be addressed as such. A review of the unedited version would likely be more negative.
insomnia_ver4
It’s time for a dark thriller by Nolan. This film’s a pretty sharp contrast to the light hearted Christmas films that I’ve reviewed of late so it’ll serve as foreshadowing to the horror films coming your way. The film’s battle between Will and Walter is interesting enough and the writing is pretty deep as you would expect. It gets a little too dark by the end though and the film ends on a rather bad note, which ends up hurting the film in the end.

Will is a pretty good detective who is caught in the middle of a rather tricky controversy. His partner wants to sell Will out because otherwise he’ll be the one who is caught in prison. Will has a solid reputation so he wouldn’t be in jail for too long, but the real problem is that many of his cases were dependent on his word so if he becomes a convict, a lot of villains will go free. It’s a tough moral dilemma and Will ends up shooting his partner. It’s an accident, but as the film goes on, Will begins to question whether or not that is really the case. Making things even worse is the fact that he is now being blackmailed by Walter, a villain who murdered a teenage girl. If Walter takes him to justice, then he’ll be freeing many other murderers and if he lets him go, Walter may go on to hurt others. What will Will do?

You can already tell that this is the kind of film where nobody really wins. It doesn’t matter what Will does to an extent, people are gonna get hurt. Now, this is true in life as there are always more villains out there and every choice has its repercussion, but it’s just a little too much if you ask me. I won’t spoil the ending I suppose, but lets just say that it’s verrrry dark. It’s heavily implied that one character makes a certain decision which means that the courts could make another decision that’ll end up with a lot of victims. Now, it’s not a 100% guarantee that the convicts will get out, but as there is no epilogue to the contrary, it’s just a very sad ending. It could have been easily fixed with a single scene at the end where the felons are still behind bars or a judge just says that the old cases are completely shut. It does show why vigilantism won’t work too well in the long run though. The truth always catches up to you and Will learned that the hard way.

The main plot is also rather dark with Walter murdering the girl. Not only did she die, but first she also had an abusive boyfriend who immediately moved on to her friend right after that. The rebounds were strong here and it’s why you can’t always trust sketchy friends from school. I don’t think we needed all of these dark elements. The film was already somber, this just helped to make it grittier and grittier with every scene. Of course, I’d expect no less from a Nolan and Al Pacino team up. Mix dark with gritty…and you get a dark, gritty film.

Will’s a good main character for the most part though. I’m of the opinion that it really was an accident when he shot the partner although the film makes it very ambiguous. You wouldn’t be wrong if you chose either option since it’s up to the viewer to make the final call. It’s a shame that we couldn’t see Will in his prime since he is clearly a very good detective, but doesn’t get to shine since he is being black mailed and manipulated the whole time. Walter’s actually a step ahead of him for the majority of the film, which is rather annoying. It seems like the villains are always geniuses as well in these kind of films.

Walter wasn’t a likable villain, but of course, he’s not meant to be. He’s just there to fill in the antagonist role and give Will an obstacle to overcome. There’s nothing redeeming about him and he’s just another psychopath on who needs to be brought to justice. It’s why you have to remember that someone’s always watching and lies will be found out eventually. In this case, it’s the worst possible scenario as it’s best to be found out by law enforcement or some kind of positive force rather than being found out by a villain. Then they can manipulate you as they please.

Ellie was a good supporting character. You feel bad for her since she looks up to Will and wants to prove herself as a detective, but slowly realizes that he is actually the culprit this time. She really did do a good job and ended up proving herself, but not in the way that she would have liked. Letting her guard down against the villain was pretty sloppy though and Walter really did embarrass just about everyone in this film. Again, it’s why it would have been fun to have a film where she could have teamed up with Will first before this situation had to pop up. No matter, Ellie made all of the right calls and depending on how you look at the ending, maybe she made another one. The decisions were all very hard, but in the end she had to accept the truth, whether or not she liked it.

The other supporting characters were mostly all good as well. I liked the local chief of police as he didn’t want to engage in all of the spying and double talk and just got down to business. He didn’t care about the scandals, he just wanted to solve the case. The local detective was also good and while Will kept on trying to steer him down the wrong path, the detective wouldn’t listen. He did a good job and I can sympathize with him since nobody likes to get pushed out of their job. He didn’t let Will’s legacy intimidate him and he just kept on chugging.

So, the whole film is just rather tragic. You’ve got a lot of good guys and girls trying to solve a murder, but little do they know that one of their own has been compromised. Will does try to break free of the black mail a few times, but Walter’s just too smart. The film also adds another layer to this by having Will murder an animal to try and use a gun’s bullets as some kind of evidence. I forgot the exact purpose of this, but I definitely don’t like to see any dead animals. Upon second thought, the animal may have already been dead and he just put the bullets in it, but I forgot. It wasn’t a pretty sight either way.

Overall, This was a well written movie and a fairly engaging one at that. There’s just only so much that a tragedy film can do and this is an example of a dark film getting too dark. There’s just too much misery here and almost no “feel good” scenes at all. It’s a somber ride from start to finish and it’s definitely not a film that I can recommend because you won’t enjoy it. It’s the kind of film that you simply experience. Cut out a few of the subplots and parts of the main plot…and maybe you’ve got yourself a good film. If you want a thriller with a good battle of the minds, then check out the recent Sherlock Holmes films. Those were actually quite good and also have a lot of engaging mind battles.

Overall 4/10

Super Mario Advance Review

Posted on by
4

43262-super_mario_advance_ueurasia-9
It’s time for another one of the Christmas games. I believe this makes 5 completed and 4 to go. Mighty No 9, Shantae, Mario Kart, and Klonoa have been completed along with this one and the ones left are Frogger, DBZ, and Mario Party. Not bad…not bad at all! I suppose Mario Party will probably be next, then Frogger, and then DBZ, but expect some game interruptions in the middle of those from the New Year’s batch. Anyway, this Mario game is pretty solid. It’s definitely shorter than some of the other Mario games and not quite as polished, but certainly a good game all around.

The “plot” involves Mario, Peach, Toad, and Luigi saving a kingdom from the tricky Wart. Wart will send his army of Birdos to stop you, but the heroes won’t waver. They’re just too heroic and determined. You know, it’s almost odd just how skilled these guys are. Mario’s just an ordinary man right? How can he jump so high and perform all of these feats? Well…just stick around for the ending. Lets just say that it makes everything clear and will answer all of your questions.

Mario’s gameplay has remained mostly untouched over the years, but this was one of the few games that tried to change the formula up a bit. At first, it seems like your usual 2D adventure with lots of jumping and running. The main difference is that the characters can grab things and that’s how you defeat enemies. Jumping on them won’t hurt the villains, but once you’re on top, then you can grab them. Throwing villains into each other will defeat them and you can also throw chairs at them. (They’re basically chairs) You use objects to defeat all of the villains. The backgrounds are also fully in 2D so if you run off the screen on the left, you’ll usually appear on the right. It opens up a lot of possibilities in the stages so keep your eyes peeled.

Attacking enemies with throws instead of stomps is a very different approach for Mario. It’s pretty fun and I enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t want this to be the staple. Jumping on enemies is a lot more satisfying and it’s just so central to Mario that it’s hard to let it go so easily. Mario Advance’s large roster (For a Mario game anyway) also makes it interesting for long time Mario fans. That’s because there is really no reason to play as anyone besides Peach. Remember how overpowered she was in Super Mario World? That’s the case here as well. You can cheese a lot of levels by using her float ability along with the super jump. For example, there was one level that involved a lot of precise little jumps. I just chose Peach and floated over the obstacles. You could scale a few jumps with one and that made the levels a lot easier. Did you jump too far? No worries, you can float back a little. Playing with Peach makes everything a lot simpler. I can’t say that there’s any reason to play Toad and for Luigi, getting used to his jump would take a bit of time.

The level designs are pretty solid. Having your second heart is crucial for making the obstacles more bearable. It is annoying to run into an area that’s a dead end though because it becomes your new re spawn point and getting back up can be very difficult. That happened to me once on the last level, but for the most part, the check points are usually next to a heart, which helps a lot. I do like the fact that when you die, you always return to the last room that you were in. Having fewer checkpoints would have definitely made the game a whole lot tougher and more tedious as well since some of the levels were a little long.

There are 20 levels in the game so it’s good that they weren’t standard length or you’d really breeze through the game. As it stands, the length is decent. While it is less than most Mario games, you’re still getting a good value for your dollar and you can add in some replay value for grabbing all of the Red Coins and the Yoshi Eggs from the bonus mode. You can also play the classic Mario Bros game on the side to see how high of a score you can get. That game’s always entertaining and I like how the GBA Mario games always seem to include it. Why not right?

The graphics look pretty good. I wasn’t crazy about these sprites compared to Super Mario World, but they get the job done. The bright levels all age really well and I was a little surprised not to have any fire worlds this time around. Bowser should have made a surprise appearance at the end, that would have been really cool. The soundtrack is solid as always and it’s always fun to hear the old Mario tunes. Nintendo’s always done a good job with that and this game is no exception.

There is one part of the game that’s rather unnecessary and just slows the whole thing down. After completing a level, you can spin a roulette for extra lives. The problem is that it pops up after every level even if you don’t have any coins available. That just results in the game over sound effect and a lot of extra loading time. It should really only pop up if you are able to use it at the moment. Otherwise, what’s the point? It also feels rigged since I only won it once, but that’s another story I suppose.

Overall, Super Mario Advance is a solid game. I still consider it to be one of the weaker Mario titles, but if you compare it to something else then it still ages really well. The bosses are a little more limited since around 80% of them is just Birdo over and over again, but it’s a well designed fight. It’s certainly tougher than the modern Mario games that come out and the difficulty helps to extend the game’s length. It’s nothing unfair, but a good challenge that’ll keep you at a level for a while. The game doesn’t have much plot, but Mario’s never been about that. The gameplay is the important part and the game does that well. I certainly recommend it and it’s a game that anyone can get into.

Overall 7/10

Klonoa: Empire of Dreams Stats and Records

Posted on by
Reply

Stats time!

Stage Stats

Vision 1-1 30/30
Vision 1-2 30/30
Vision 1-3 30/30
Vision 1-4 72/100
Vision 1-5 17/30
Vision 1-6 44/100
Vision 1-7 30/30
Vision 2-1 27/30
Vision 2-2 30/30
Vision 2-3 25/30
Vision 2-4 78/100
Vision 2-5 24/30
Vision 2-6 40/100
Vision 2-7 15/30
Vision 3-1 25/30
Vision 3-2 18/30
Vision 3-3 30/30
Vision 3-4 59/100
Vision 3-5 27/30
Vision 3-6 50/100
Vision 3-7 15/30
Vision 4-1 21/30
Vision 4-2 25/30
Vision 4-3 20/30
Vision 4-4 24/100
Vision 4-5 28/30
Vision 4-6 40/100
Vision 4-7 20/30
Vision 5-1 19/30
Vision 5-2 23/30
Vision 5-3 21/30
Vision 5-4 15/100
Vision 5-5 20/30
Vision 5-6 33/100
Vision 5-7 13/30

Transformers: Combiner Wars Review

Posted on by
5

cw-webseriesposter
It’s time to look at the recent online miniseries that came out. Unfortunately, it would be taking the old “5 minute episodes” tactic that rarely ever works out well. The main difference between this one and Pokemon Generations is that the episodes do combine to tell one self contained story. It does have a bit of a cliffhanger to lead into the next part of the trilogy though. It’s a pretty solid mini show that could have certainly benefited from having normal length episodes instead of mini ones, but was fairly decent for its limitations.

The plot takes place in the far future, which is a nice change of pace since most of the shows and movies all take place during the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. The comics have long since passed this part in history, but the shows and movies don’t seem to ever want to leave it. I guess it makes sense since that era had a lot of interesting characters and battles to look at, but the future arcs can be a blast too. Case in point, the plot in this series is actually very interesting and epic. The series itself just fails to completely utilize it.

Both sides are now working together since there aren’t Decepticons and Autobots anymore. Rodimus Prime, Starscream, and The Mistress of Flame are the three rulers now. They use Combiners to take any pockets of villain resistance left. The world still isn’t at peace and it probably never will be, but the situation isn’t half bad at this point. Unfortunately, that’s when the heroes get the bright idea to try and use a super special item to mind control all of the Combiners to have them serve as a personal army. This will take away their autonomy and it’ll serve as the ultimate counter to evil. How can this fail? Rodimus half heartedly advises against it, but is then for it later on. All three of the members go back and forth on the issue until someone ensures that the device is used. It’s like they always say, if you have a weapon, that means you intend to use it at some point.

Windblade knows about what is going on so she recruits Optimus Prime to help her end this. She wants to destroy the device and Prime is in agreement, although he isn’t thrilled about being called back into action. He’s in retirement and nobody likes him even though he fought for peace for many centuries. People blame him for the war and that just goes to show that the average Cybertronian isn’t much smarter than the average human. I can’t believe that Prime of all people would be turned into an outcast after the many sacrifices that he made for justice. It’s pretty unreal. Prime also realizes that the two of them against an army of combiners may be a bit unrealistic so they call in Megatron. Megatron’s enjoying his retirement at a Colosseum, but he’s certainly happy to help if it means messing up Starscream and the others.

Seeing Optimus Prime and Megatron team up was probably the biggest hype moment of the mini series. Unfortunately, there really weren’t any villains for them to fight by that point. They got to shoot at the giant Starscream and at a few Combiners, but I would have liked more of a tangible threat for them to be honest. The back and forth between the two rivals was always good though and we saw their battle experience first hand. You always get the sense that Megatron and Prime are head and shoulders above the rest of the robots. Prime’s retirement was definitely pretty iffy if you ask me and seemed like another hero giving up the Luke Skywalker way. It’s a stretch to imagine Prime just deciding to give up and let others wield the torch, but at least that won’t be a problem for the next two parts of the trilogy. Megatron was definitely in character the whole time though and I can definitely see him being a big villain again someday.

Rodimus Prime didn’t look all that smart though. I don’t know how everyone just decided that it would be a good idea to let Starscream on the tribunal. If you ask me…that’s just not a smart move. Even if he claims that he’s changed….it’s Starscream that we’re talking about. He’s the shadiest Decepticon of them all. Starscream’s definitely pretty solid though. He has a good plan and considered all of the angles. You definitely can’t say that he’s not one of the smartest bots out there.

Windblade was basically the main character and she was really good. It’s nice to see her as a hardcore assassin. Robots in Disguise tried to make her really cool as well and she is decent in that show, but this one goes a little more all out. She’ll remind you of Arcee from the Transformer comics. Windblade gets the job done and while she should not have won her fight against the Combiner, (Get ready for a lot of plot hax, but this show is full of that so you won’t be surprised by the end) Windblade is definitely a character who is easy to root for and I would certainly say that she is one of the better Transformers overall.

As expected, the characters and the plot are good. Now, where did the series fail? Well, the 5 minute episodes really ensure that the show can’t do much. Now only are the episodes only around 5 minutes long, but they really waste time. One episode will have someone flying for about a minute or another will just have people talking about nothing really important for a while. I feel like the show was trying to show off its animation, but since the graphics weren’t really anything to write home about…it didn’t work. Plus, time was a big factor here so the show needed to take it into consideration.

The graphics aren’t bad though and despite getting a lot of heat, I dare say that they even look great. They have the style of a PS2 game, but with modernized graphics. The colors really stand out and since it is night time for most of the series, the contrasts make for really good visuals. The energy attacks all look sharp as well and these are graphics that I grew up with to the extent where the designs look solid. It’s hard to describe, but the robots actually look strong and menacing instead of skinny and more unassuming. It can’t hold its own to a modern hand drawn anime or anything like that, but the CGI is really good. I can’t say that I really remember the soundtrack all that well though. It’s very forgettable and it’s the kind of fare that works well while you’re in the moment, but just barely. It covers its bases and that’s about it.

Combiner Wars does end on a really epic note though. The cliff hanger for part 2 is really intense since aliens may finally be showing up to make a move. That’s one aspect of Transformers that was never handled too well. Aliens showing up could be really awesome, but usually their designs aren’t great or they just don’t get to do much. A proper Transformers vs Aliens plot for the sequel could definitely be really cool. It would certainly make for a better fight than Prime and friends against Cosmic Giant. The final fight is a little underwhelming because the villain can barely move and the heroes can’t hurt him, which leads to an unfortunate stale mate. Some good visuals make it in there, but that’s about all that you can say for it.
transformers-combiner-wars-maxima
Overall, Transformers: Combiner Wars is a pretty fun little show. Just treat it as a 30 minute OVA and it works well. The animation is solid and the fight scenes are a lot of fun aside from the last one. The plot is very engaging and the main character cast of Windblade, Prime, and Megatron is a good trio. It will also remind you of just how good the show could have been had it been full length though. Despite it being a series about Combiners, we didn’t get to see them do all that much here. There was simply no time since the series had to try and fit everybody in with the limited length. Hopefully the next part will either have more episodes or they will be able to extend the length of each episode. I think that would do wonders for the show. Still, I recommend it if you’re interested in the future timeline of Transformers, which is rarely explored.

Overall 7/10