You’re the Greatest Charlie Brown Review

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Looks like it’s time for the next Charlie Brown special. I’m slowly building up my resume as far as these are concerned. One day, I will have seen them all! This one focuses on the school’s Olympic meet so it makes sense that this was one of the better ones. I’m always up for some sports and the special actually doesn’t skip any of them which was nice. I was expecting some to be glossed over for the sake of time, but they all got their props. Snoopy doesn’t look as dominant as he should have though.

Charlie Brown’s school is neck and neck with a rival group, but none of their members want to enter the Decathalon. Luckily, Charlie Brown shows up and asks them if he can enter any of the events. The kids quickly give him that one since it is the toughest of the bunch. Charlie Brown undergoes a tough training program so that he can compete with the best of them. Just in case, Charlie Brown’s school enters Marcie as well and even Snoopy gets in on the action. Their only opposition is a bully that the other team sent in to even the score. Still, Charlie has trained for this so he should have the edge right?

Charlie actually proves that he can hold his own and actually would have won the event if not for his severe overconfidence. Charlie seemed to think that none of the other contestants had the skills to defeat him so he decided to run the last race with his eyes closed. That was his big mistake as he went charging into the forest and nearly cost his school the win. Luckily Marcie still claimed victory for the school, but Charlie really let everyone down. Typically he tried his best and things just didn’t work out, but this time it was directly his fault. It was rather out of character for Charlie, but I suppose he’ll get em next year. He’s still a solid character and at least he went through with the training.

As for the supporting characters, only Patty and Marcie really got roles this time. Lucy would appear every once in a while to insult Charlie a little, but that was it for her role. Marcie kept subtly insulting Charlie by complimenting him after he would fail a task. She was definitely a bad character in this one and also had the most predictable ending of the group. I’ve never really cared for Marcie, but this was probably her worst appearance. It was clear from the start that she would be the one to win. Patty wasn’t bad and served her role as group leader, but that’s really it for her this time.

The animation has stayed consistent with the other Charlie Browns specials. It is really retro and you can tell that the series came out a very long time ago, but it still looks fairly good to this day. It certainly ages well. There isn’t much of a soundtrack, but I can’t say that I was expecting one. At this point in time, films never really had much of a soundtrack. At the very least it was rare to find anything besides the usual themes.

Overall, You’re The Greatest Charlie Brown is a good special. As I mentioned earlier, I do think that Snoopy was a little under powered this time. I would have expected him to have easily crushed all of the other contestants. I was glad to hear that he took the bully down in the end, but he should have won the whole tournament. This is Snoopy that we are talking about after all, he is virtually invincible. Marcie was also annoying for the most part. Snoopy, Lucy, and Patty were solid though. If you like the other Charlie Brown specials than you should like this one. There is more action than usual due to the events and as a result this special doesn’t reuse most of the normal gags. With the new scenery this means that it is telling more of a fresh story than usual. In the end, this Charlie Brown special is a pleasant way to spend a half hour or so.

Overall 7/10

Scooby Doo Team Up Volume 2 Review

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It’s been a while, but it’s time to finally check out the next volume in the Scooby Doo team up series. This one brings adventures with more DC characters as well as classics like the Jetsons and the Flintstones. Needless to say, The Mystery Gang is always ready to go and capture some ghosts no matter where and when they are. It’s another solid installment in this series. Now all we need is a team up with the Crime Syndicate so the heroes can unknowingly help them commit a crime for some extra tension.

The first story involves the Flintstones. Scooby Doo and the gang were sent back in time when the Flintstone professor started to mess around with his time machine. He underestimated his genius apparently. Either way, it’s good that Fred and the gang are around because a ghost is haunting the opera. The gang may be a little confused as to how they got to the past, but that won’t stop them from uncovering this menace! I’m not a huge fan of the Flintstones, but the cast seems fairly standard as far as comedy shows go. I don’t like the little kid with super strength, but the others seem all right. Fred Flintstone nearly got to escape and have his fun bowling night, but it wasn’t to be.

It even ended with a cliffhanger as the group was sent too far into the future by mistake so they got to meet up with the Jetsons. The Jetsons was always the cooler show and it also made for a better comic> The gang has to find a way to get back to the past, but it’ll be tricky since another ghost has shown up. The boss of the main Jetson is also forcing him to work on a top secret project which has made his family members a little tense since he hasn’t been home all that much lately. The boss is definitely a good character and he even talks back to Daphne and the gang. His rival is even better though as he laughs and scares the main boss whenever he shows up. This rival seems to be winning the company battle in terms of profits and it is easy to see why. He’s got that natural charisma after all.

Another story featured Superman and it’s always great to see him. The Mystery Gang helps him stop the Prankster, but in the process Superman is exposed to Red Kryptonite and turns into a Super Monster. Lois and Jimmy try to change into their super powered forms, but Shaggy and Scooby steal the elixirs and use it on themselves first. Now they’ll have to defeat Superman and with a little help from Krypto…they can actually pull it off. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang works on putting the Prankster behind bars for good. Naturally, the heroes could never hope to stop Superman without plot hax, but this is a comedy adventure so we can let it slide more. The Mystery Gang likely realizes that Superman is too strong as well. This portrayal of Superman was also good overall as he took down 4 super villains at once without any effort. That’s definitely the kind of strength that I like to see from him.

Later on, we also went to Gotham City where Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy called for the help of the Scooby Doo gang. They have a cursed jewel that has been spoiling all of their robberies as of late. Fred and the others are confident that it is Batman posing as the ghost so they decide to play along. Unfortunately, their guess was wrong as per usual. They will need some help though since the villains start to get serious. This issue had a bigger cast of super heroes than the others which was nice to see. It’s always nice to see Gotham City as well and while all of the stories are fun, they are at their best when the team up is with DC comic characters.

Another crossover was with a group of people that I actually didn’t recognize. Essentially, they are archaeologists who stop Aliens and save the planet on a regular basis. They go along with the Mystery Gang to Monster Island to stop a villain with mad ambitions. Both groups get their turn to shine as the Mystery Gang uncovers the crime while the other guys make sure to blow up the island afterwards. The insults were definitely real this time though and the Mystery Inc was always on the wrong side of it thanks to Shaggy and Scooby not helping their case. Still, it’s why I definitely like Fred as the leader. He doesn’t back down to these guys and continues to talk tough the whole time. Nobody pushes him around! This was actually the best comic in the batch so it broke the “DC Comics are the best stories” trend that I just mentioned.

Finally, we have a story with a talking Beever Squirrel apparently, who is actually a secret agent. You thought that 007 was good? No?….well, this guy’s 000 so he is definitely an improvement. He has scissors in his hat and he can do all kinds of neat stuff with his gadgets. He constantly ridicules the Mystery Gang for their conspicuous attire and vehicle, but he ends up being even worse than them. He was actually very annoying as a result and this was the weakest comic of the batch. The Beever just isn’t a cool guest star and his universe doesn’t seem all that interesting. Who knows, maybe it just gets better over time or something. Still a decent comic though, it just loses out.

The art is fairly good as well. It does a really good job of capturing all of the character designs. All of the characters look as they should be. It’s good to see Harley Quinn in her true costume as the comics have moved away from it. Everyone else looks like how they would be if they had been in Super Friends. The Mystery Inc characters all look good as well and it’ll remind you of the original show. So far the art has been consistent so hopefully the artist stays on board for as long as possible. (Although this collection already had 2 and they both looked rather similar)

Overall, The Scooby Doo Team Up adventures is a fun series. It’s like Batman’66 in the sense that you know what you will get each time. It’s a very consistent comic that I don’t expect to ever have a bad volume. The formula works and that will ensure that the series never loses its course. If you want to see some fun adventures with the Mystery Inc and various DC characters, then this is definitely the title for you. Hopefully the series continues to go on for quite a while. It feels good to be reading an ongoing Scooby Doo series to go along with all the others.

Overall 7/10

Digimon Cyber Sleuth Stats and Records

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Play Time 51h 21m
PSN Trophies 80%
1784227 Yen
Sleuth Rank 17
Saved 57 Digimon
Solved 47 Cases
243/249 Digimon found
210 Digimon Registered
Medals 300/500

Digimon Stats

Omnimon Zwart Level 99
Gaiomon Level 99
HiAndromon Level 99
Lilithmon Level 99
MegaGargomon Level 99
MirageGaogamon BM Level 99
Rosemon BM Level 99
ShineGreymon Level 99
UlforceVeedramon Level 99
WarGreymon Level 99
PlatinumNumemon Level 99
SkullGreymon Level 84
Kuzuhamon Level 71
RustTyranomon Level 99
MagnaAngemon Level 27
Jesmon Level 99
GroundLocomon Level 75
Imperialdramon PM Level 99
Omnimon Level 99
ChaosGallantmon Level 99
Garurumon (Blk) Level 26

Digimon Cyber Sleuth Review

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Digimon has always set the bar very high for its games. I’ve played quite a few of them and they have all ranged from good to amazing. Digimon Data Squad was an all star title for the PS2. I actually only gave it a score of 7 back in the day, but now (With the power of nostalgia goggles I suppose) it’s easily a 9. Looking back at it, that was really the first big Digimon RPG that I played. Digimon World DS followed suit and that one was a lot of fun thanks to the fast paced turn based style. That one’s easily at least an 8. Digimon Racing was more on the mediocre side, but we had Digimon Rumble Arena 2 and World 4 to compensate. (I’ve still got to go back to World 4 at some point) I wasn’t a huge fan of Digimon Dawn back in the day and ended up selling it because I didn’t like the concept of having to devolve my Digimon before Digivolving them. I still don’t like that mechanic, but I’m mostly over it since I do enjoy grinding up the levels nowadays. Cyber Sleuth is another excellent installment in the franchise and you can make a solid case for it possibly being the best Digimon game.

Part of what helps Cyber Sleuth really rise up the video game charts is how long it is. The story mode took me around 48 hours to complete although I did spend a good amount of time leveling up and finding new Digimon evolution routes. Through the course of that time, it’s easy to get used to all of the characters and become more invested in the plot. It’s an advantage over shorter games like Knack. I’d like a sequel to this game although the next Digimon title seems like it’ll be a stand alone story once again. I’ m sure that I’ll grow to like the new characters by the time I beat that game, but I will miss these guys for a while. I still don’t have the Platinum trophy yet, but I’ve got my sights on it and I’m definitely getting closer. The toughest one is definitely going to be the 30 online wins trophy since I don’t have PS+. I’ll have to wait for the next free weekend, but that should happen soon.

Cyber Sleuth fully embraces the futuristic sci-fi feel that comes with the concept of Digital Monsters and it greatly enhances the overall experience. The soundtrack is easily the best one that I’ve seen in Digimon and ranks as one of the best video game soundtracks ever. Prelude to a Bloody Battle, Royal Knights theme, and Eater theme are three in particular that I recommend looking up. They really steal the show. There are also several themes that play during the mystery moments to help build up the hype. As I’ve always mentioned in the past, a good soundtrack can always help a game make it to the next level of quality.

Meanwhile, the graphics are solid. I wouldn’t say that they are amazing of groundbreaking this time, but everything looks fairly sharp. There is a noticeable lack of animated cutscenes though and I would have liked to have seen more. We never really got to see a fight in the middle of a cutscene and that would have certainly been a blast. Ah well, I suppose that’s something that can be improved in the next game that’s coming up.

As for replay value, there is certainly a lot of it. Not to mention that the game also has a lot of initial value considering how long the main campaign is. Once you finish that, you can work on grabbing all medals and trophies for the PSN. There are also many bonus missions that you can grab from your Digimon or a few more side missions where you help people out. There’s also the 8 part DLC mission pack where you help a girl save the world from the 7 Deadly Sin Digimon and also find out a twist about your computer correspondent. There’s even a Colosseum cup challenge where you can fight many characters that you’ve met through the game in very challenging matches. Yes, a lack of value is something that you’ll never hear regarding Cyber Sleuth. It’s a game that will last you quite a while.

As you’d expect, the gameplay is your traditional turn based title. You get to have 3 Digimon on the field at once, but you can command up to 11 in your party. When 3 die, you throw in three more, but you can also substitute mat any time. You’ll want to have some fast Digimon on your side since having extra turns is crucial to winning. You can have the strongest Digimon in the world, but it won’t mean a thing if you can’t get a single turn. Towards the end, the computer may have 7 turns before you get one and that can get very dangerous. I had to completely re tool my team. One trick that you’ll want to be familiar with is the Tactician USB with Gold PlatinumNumemon. You can get hundreds of level ups in minutes with that strategy which greatly reduces the amount of time that you’ll need to spend leveling up. It’s a must.

I’ll basically skip Terry in the characters section since he doesn’t have much of a personality. To clarify, he doesn’t talk much, but you can tell that he is a hero. He tries to save the villains while risking his life and always comes across as a team player. He can act a little oddly at times like pointing out that someone was drooling over a good food item, but otherwise he is solid. Kyoko is Terry’s boss and she is the one who gets him into the detective gig. She has a lot of connections and likes to throw out some real world knowledge in the game. She’s a charismatic character and her coffee gimmick works well. An important thing is that she can also fight when necessary.

Arata is Terry’s friend and he is very similar to Sasuke. He starts off as the tough and aloof rival who has a tragic past. He helps out the team quite a lot and really want to get to the bottom of the mystery involving the Eaters. He wants to save his friends, but slowly he realizes that more power is necessary. He is being left in the dust of Terry and Nokia so he sets off and slowly starts to be corrupted. He goes as far as to eat one of Terry’s Digimon friends and it’s hard to see how he’ll go back to the side of good. Terry gives him some hero speeches and everything, but it is hard to forget what he did to the Digimon. Arata’s a solid character, but he really didn’t get a whole lot of responsibility for his actions. He got off a little too easy.
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Nokia is another one of Terry’s close friends and she wants to be friends with as many Digimon as possible. When she finds out about the Digi Eaters and the Digi World going into ruins, she decides to amass an army to protect them. She gets a very large role in the plot as a result and even gets a Mega level Digimon before Terry and Arata. She becomes the heavy hitter for a while and that was unexpected. She’s actually a better character than Terry and Arata by the end. Her plan’s a good one even if it is a little naive since you certainly can’t trust everyone. Her one downside is that she can be way too overconfident about how attractive she believes herself to be and constantly rubs it in when talking to her two friends. Aside from that, she’s always eager to fight (When she has the upper hand) and sticks up for Digimon through to the very end.

Yuuko is another one of Terry’s friends although she joins in a little later. She starts off as a mysterious figure with another tragic past, but gradually she becomes one of the main characters. She is rich and has connections to the shady organization which helps the group out quite a lot. She’s more reserved than the others (Even Arata) so it takes her a while to get used to how everyone acts. By the end she starts to embrace her emotions a lot more, which makes things a little tricky for Terry at times since she threatens him quite a bit. Her character arc is a good one even if she sometimes has to slow her pace down to let the main characters keep up.

Matayoshi and Date are a Detective and Cop who help out from time to time. They can both be quite annoying though and usually their appearances are the signal for filler to come so you just want them to go away. They do nothing, but slow down the plot. Another problem is that they both have to obey orders so they put Arata in a bad spot and really set him up to turn into a villain. None of them have any Digimon either so they end up just being liabilities in the long run.

Kishibe is one of the main villains and she certainly gets a huge role. Whenever someone has a huge role, they typically get a big plot twist. Nokia, Arata, Terry, Kyoko, Kishibe, and Yuuko all have very big plot twists by the end. The twist certainly helped me take Kishibe a lot more seriously than I had. Post twist, Kishibe is a cool villain. Before that I couldn’t take her very seriously, but her plans certainly were well thought out. Suedouis the other big antagonist. He wants to remake the world so that there is no sadness, but to do that he has to erase free will and force humanity to evolve. He’s certainly a villain even if his motives aren’t the usual “Destroy the world.” goals. He’s an annoying villain since he is extremely weak, but the heroes never try to stop him and just tolerate his existence the whole time. He does help them unravel some mysteries after all, but it would have been nice to have seen the heroes try to arrest him or something. He gives out a lot of meta speeches by the end and explains the Digi Eaters origin. See, they are multi dimensional beings who have limitless power and even Digimon can’t stop them. It’s all decently interesting, but in the end it’s not as if it matters all that much aside from wiki purposes.

Zaxon is one of the big hacker groups who stand in the way of the heroes at times. Their leader, Yugo is reasonable, but most of the Zaxon members are corrupt anyway. Zaxon tries to stop the main villains on their own though, which makes for a very epic level since you had several groups fighting at once. Kishibe’s group, Zaxon, Terry, Arata’s group, and Nokia’s posse. It was certainly one of the best parts of the game and I always like to see multiple groups duking it out at once. It adds in an extra dynamic since it’s not just a classic 1 vs 1.

Jimmy Ken is an annoying villain. He speaks with a lot of slang which must come across very oddly in the original Japanese version. His theme is catchy, but he’s mostly just a thorn in the hero’s side. He never actually contributes to the plot either so you can think of him as a pre arc boss. The game is so long that it can afford to have a bit of a long pre arc while the plot slowly starts developing in the background. Even so, I was glad when he completely disappeared as the plot really started going.

We can’t forget about the Royal Knights either. Seeing as how the humans sent the Eaters into the Digital World where they started eating all of the inhabitants, it makes sense that the Digimon King would send out a counter attack. The Royal Knights mission is simple, they must destroy the Human World to stop the source of the Eaters. Let’s face it, the human world isn’t ready to repel this invasion so it is up to the main characters now. Once this plot started, the game had reached its Apex of hype. We got a lot of really cool themes and also some epic cutscenes. Naturally, I had already enjoyed the game quite a bit before they showed up as this was at around Chapter 11 I believe, but the game’s second half really took off. The Royal Knights are great characters and even if they always end up being on the antagonist side, they are quite the epic group. If they ever attacked as one, they would be nearly unstoppable. Plus, it’s hard to blame them being so upset with the humans after so many Digimon were massacred by the Eaters. The humans are always causing trouble on other planets.

Finally, we have the Eaters. They eat data so they are very dangerous for Digimon to battle. One hit can be fatal and their sheer numbers are impressive as well. The big Eater Queen is even more deadly than the rest and made for an epic final boss. I remember the boss being super easy though thanks to the super grinding and some of the earlier bosses had been trickier. Ignoring that though, it was a climactic way to end it all. The humans will be glad to have the Eater threat gone as well. A big of a running gag is that humans kept on dying throughout the game. Terry was always to slow to save anyone so the body count by the end is incredibly high. It was actually pretty funny at certain points, but the humans should have really ran a little more. The Eaters are incredibly slow after all.

Then we’ve also got the crossover characters. Mirei is actually a main supporting character as she gives out quests from time to time and is in charge of the Digi area where you can train your Digimon. She even gets some character development in the final DLC quest as she lets the power get to her head and temporarily turns evil. The power was simply too much for her. She doesn’t have much of a personality though so you may not have much of an opinion on her by the end. Sayo joins the cast thanks to the DLC missions as well. She’s the main rival in the Digimon Dusk/Dawn game (I still need to go back and complete that one!) and she gets a lot of hype as being very powerful. Her Dianamon did beat all of the Legendary Sin Digimon on her own after all. The fact that she wasn’t supposed to defeat those Digimon is still pretty baffling and I don’t buy it. Sayo seems like a good character even if she may be overconfident, after all..that’s a good quality to have.

Rina is the final big crossover character and she’s from one of the big Digimon titles that never made it to the U.S. She’s definitely very scatterbrained and overly cheerful, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t fight. Rina can hold her own against any of the big fighters in Cyber Sleuth and she is the only reason that the heroes were able to take down the fastest member of the Royal Knights. Her Ultra VForcemon (Close enough) proved to be the strongest Digimon of them all. Her world doesn’t look as interesting as Cyber Sleuth’s though, but it was cool to have her as part of the cast. The game went all out with the crossover effect.
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Overall, Digimon Cyber Sleuth is a great way to spend 50 hours. The plot is very engaging and the game feels like a lot of effort was put into it. (Unlike Star Fox Zero) If you want even more of a challenge then you can always try out Hard Mode. I’m not sure that I would recommend it unless you have a lot of time to burn though. The game gets significantly harder and the opponent’s health bars go up as well. Boss fights can take around an hour and if you don’t have the best possible team with you, it could be game over. I’ve heard quite a few stories about how insane hard mode is, but you would definitely have some serious bragging rights if you can pull it off. I now await the next Digimon game and in the meantime, maybe I’ll finally get around to getting Digimon Championship!

Overall 9/10

Naruto: Kakashi’s Story Review

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I finally got around to finishing the first Naruto novel! Reading the next two should definitely not take as long so you can expect reviews to be published for those much quicker. Unfortunately, I can’t say that the Kakashi story sets them off on a high note. Crude Humor, large amounts of plot hax, and sketchy writing hold this one back from being a hit. I honestly wouldn’t really want to see this one animated unless some significant creative liberties were taken. That being said, the anime writers could be up to the task since I’m sure that they’d be tempted to change things anyway.

A long time has passed since the end of the Naruto manga and people are pressuring Kakashi to take on the mantle of Hokage. He doesn’t want to do this though since being Hokage is a large responsibility and he’ll be held accountable for everything. Nonetheless, the choice isn’t his and the whole village continues to pester him about it. To take his mind off of this, Kakashi goes to guard a large boat. It will be the first ever flying boat (Blimp basically) in the world. The builders want to use it to revolutionize travel, but at the expense of a whole industry which will result in thousands of people being out of business in the long run. That’s a bit of a heavy price to pay, but at the same time, innovation always replaces the old way of doing things. If people resisted change because of how it would affect the job market, many inventions would simply not exist at the moment.

However, the main villains of the novel aren’t pleased. Kakashi notices that someone has sneaked into the blimp and gives chase, only to find out that it is Might Guy. He really wanted to go for a ride so he snuck in, but unfortunately, so did the villains since there weren’t any real guards around by this point. The Leaf Anbu Black Ops are taken down instantly so Kakashi and Might Guy will have to save the hostages in the Blimp and defeat the Rogue Shinobi. Time is not on their side either as these guys aim to free their master from Hozuki Castle and the other neighboring lands ar weighing in on the conflict. If the Blimp isn’t back on the ground before it crosses the border…then it will be destroyed. Moreover, Tsunade wants Kakashi to destroy the Blimp if it gets to close and murder every last one of the passengers. Kakashi’s not a cold blooded killer like Tsunade so he aims to find another way.

This should be easy right? Kakashi is one of the strongest fighters in the Leaf so he can crush some random rogue ninja. Not to mention that Naruto’s just a phone call away. With his final form abilities, he can move at hypersonic speeds and virtually fly. He can use his arm extensions to gently force the Blimp down or simply grab all of the villains and then escort them all away. Well..the first moment of plot hax happens here as Tsunade forbids anyone from telling Naruto about this. In her defense, everyone else goes along with this terrible plan including Kakashi. All right, back to the Kakashi plan right?

Wrong I’m afraid. Kakashi decides to go for a frontal assault and walks up to the villains. Guess he forgot about the hostages right? The main villain destroys a handful of them and then breaks Kakashi’s fingers so he can’t pull off any real ninjutsus. To add even more injuries, his right hand woman freezes Kakashi’s chakra so he can’t do anything with his ninjutsu or he’ll freeze over. Rahyo is the leader of the villains by the way and Kahyo is the ice ninja. Kahyo’s abilities are fairly impressive as she just needs to make contact with someone once to freeze their chakra whenever she pleases. Rahyo is more generic as he can punch people with super strength.

Kakashi is at a disadvantage from the start because Kahyo already made contact with him at the very beginning of the book when she pretended to fall and Kakashi helped her up. Unfortunately, Kakashi was already out of character as he fell for her instantly. So much for professionalism. As for Rahyo, he should be easy to defeat, but Might Guy looks incredibly bad here. Due to his injuries at the end of the series, he is still not at full fighting strength and I guess he’s back to being around Chunin level or something. Plus, his motion sickness has gotten even worse and it is at Natsu levels of terrible now. At least Natsu has a good reason for it though, Might Guy should be able to pull himself together.

His fight scene with Rahyo is actually very bad and even involves puking as a distraction. Might Guy’s also the reason why Kakashi’s first plan went so badly as well. If he hadn’t been around or if he could have just went to sleep for a while, the novel would have been very different. He’s comic relief, but not the good kind and he just holds the book down. Kakashi’s plan to throw up later on to trick the villains was also gross and definitely a large stretch of disbelief. These two scenes are the main reason why the book couldn’t get a positive rating in the end.

The fight scenes were good when Might Guy wasn’t around at least. Naruto’s fight in the intro was fun and I’m glad that only his Shadow Clone was hit since Naruto should be able to easily fend off these villains. In his current state, he should never lose to anyone ever again. Only aliens would be acceptable like in the movies, otherwise it is just too much of a stretch. Kakashi vs Kahyo was brief, but good as well. Hopefully we’ll get more action in the next novels.

Finally, my last complaint with the novel is just the fact that all of the characters are terribly unlikable to the point where I have to say that they are out of character. Not literally every character as Naruto is good, but everyone else is simply unreasonable. Everyone taunting Kakashi at the end of the novel is simply mean spirited. Shikamaru wanting to see if Ino has the same reaction while in another body is a really crazy scene that has no place in the novel and just makes him look terrible. Tsunade comes across as incredibly ruthless. Deciding to execute an entire group of civilians just to avoid an international incident is quite bad. It’s no wonder why Kakashi knows that he now has to accept the title of Hokage. He can’t let someone as unfit to lead as Tsunade take charge.

As for the two villains, they both want revenge on the cruel society. It’s easy to see why, but they really do lose themselves in the mission. They claim to not want to indiscriminately murder people, but that’s what they do the entire film. Both of them show remorse by the end and Kahyo always seemed to have more of a heart than Rahyo, but the latter’s big turn around I could not buy at all. He was way too evil and too unrelenting for me to believe that he simply lost sight of his original goal. At least for Kahyo there was a lot of foreshadowing and she did help the kid who really needed it while Gahyo was just going to let him die. I suppose that it’s still good to see Gahyo turn good, it just felt forced is all.

Overall, Kakashi’s Story was a weak first installment, but it shows signs of promise for future novels. There is still a lot more that can be done in these stories although I wish that Naruto or Sasuke would get one. Those two can easily hold their own stories. The next book is Shikamaru’s and since he isn’t much of a fighter, I’ll assume that the villains are even weaker than these two as I think that they probably would have crushed him. So long as the characters aren’t all super annoying and unlikable, the next novel should definitely knock this one out of the park. No more puking on the villains either since that was sad. If you’re a big fan of the Naruto franchise, then this is probably a good story to check out to make sure that you know all of the mythos. That being said, you may just want to skip this story. You won’t miss much and it tries to make Blood Prison canon which makes all of the characters look even worse so it’s best that the movie doesn’t become canon. Naruto’s chapter is definitely the best one in the book so at least you’ll start off on a high note.

Overall 5/10

Sonic World Adventure

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Well, it seems like this series ended a while ago with 8 chapters before the it kept going on as a Sonic and the Black Knight series. Unfortunately, only the first two chapters have been translated thus far. Someone else has uploaded the full raws so hopefully someday they will be translated. If they are, I’ll end up reviewing it. As it stands, it’s a decent comedy adventure. It’s not 4 Koma which is an instant positive and the art got good starting with the second chapter.

Overall 6/10

Knack Review

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It’s time to review one of the big PS4 launch titles. Knack was meant to be the next Mario, Crash, or Spyro. He was going to change the gaming world and become a whole franchise. Unfortunately, just like PS All Stars Battle Royale, it was not meant to be. People were not overly thrilled with Knack and a lot of them said that it was repetitive and simply not as engaging as it could have been. Both are complaints that I can agree with to an extent, but Knack’s a fun enough game. I’d buy a sequel at some point although I admit that it wouldn’t be the most interesting series out there.

The Professor builds Knack (Mostly anyway. He doesn’t seem to fully comprehend Knack’s abilities and sentience so maybe he had some help and that’ll be a plot twist. I forgot if he ever gets a name either, but the Professor works just fine. Human cities have been attacked by Goblins and the army has started to get overwhelmed. The Professor decides to step in along with Knack. Together they crush the Goblins easily and decide to go to their home base to put an end to this. The situation gets more complicated than that when Vicktor and his army of robots decide that they want Knack. They need Knack to open up a tomb that leads to powerful Relics (Source of energy and power in this world) that could last them a life time. They also may have The Professor’s wife held hostage and if that’s the case….The Professor’s agenda may have just changed!

After playing a game like De Blob 2, I really can’t call Knack boring in the slightest. For the most part, it is a fun adventure. However, there are times where the plot will slow to a stand still as you rummage through a forest to grab relics or just walk around for a while. There are 13 chapters and each chapter has 3-5 levels in it. The game’s is of decent length. It isn’t too short, but I wouldn’t call it a long game either. If you play it for 2-3 hours a day then you’ll have it beat in about 3 shots. The plot does start right away so that’s good, but it keeps on changing direction because the Professor’s a little confused about what to do. He has to stop the Goblins, but he also has to stop the Robot army and he needs to free his wife as well. Plus, he wants the Relics for himself. As a result, the characters are constantly running from area to area without actually accomplishing their missions for a while. As an example, we decided to go stop the goblins in Chapter 3, but don’t get around to doing so until around Chapter 11.

I almost forgot to mention the Gameplay! It’s a 3D beat em up although it plays more like an action platformer. You can use standard punches to attack enemies or a jumping homing attack/dashing attack. Those are your only options so prepare to see the same punches thrown for the whole game. Once you’ve built up enough sun meter, you can also turn into a whirlwind or make a mini earthquake to startle the villains. Gaining relics in a level will fill up your health and Sunstone Crystals will fill up your energy. The minions can be a little tricky at times so just make sure that you wait and weigh your options before deciding to fight them.

The levels will have treasure chests scattered throughout them. They are always behind a fake wall so if you see something with cracks in it, give it a good punch. These chests have rare stones or parts in them. Once you collect them all (And there are quite a lot) you can unlock new forms for Knack and gadgets that will help you play through the game like a combo meter that increases your power and a secret radar. This is where the Knack’s Quest app will come in handy as it can at least earn you a few parts to save some time. Unfortunately, I don’t like how the Treasure Chests system is handled. For starters, you cannot find them through Chapter Select. The only way to grab the chests is to play the game over again and unfortunately, it seems like you can get old jewels after a while. This means that you may have to play the game several times until you finally get all of the pieces. Not a very appealing thought is it?

Despite that, the trophies seem fairly reasonable. There are a few speed challenges in there, but mostly it is about collecting everything and completing the game on all difficulties. It’s nothing that should be too difficult so much as it is just a little tedious. This does help the replay value though as it wouldn’t otherwise have any. There’s no multiplayer so the replay value is still a little sub-standard, but trophy hunters will still have their money’s worth. Not to mention that the price has gone down quite a bit since it first came out and that makes a big difference.

The soundtrack is not all that noticeable. It doesn’t really stick out I’m afraid and comes across as generic. As for the graphics, I don’t think that they did a great job of showing off the PS4’s power. The character designs are comically bad to the point where the cutscenes are more humorous than anything else. The characters keep walking towards each other only for the tables to turn so they all keep walking in circles. The character proportions are really off for some and for others the designs are just really cartoony. The in game graphics are solid though. It may have just been the artistic style that didn’t work very well for Knack.

The Professor was an okay lead and I actually agreed with his decision to go grab the relics. Sure it would be dangerous for the rest of the world, but unlimited energy is also a great positive. I typically sided with him over Lucas in their various debates. Lucas was very annoying from start to finish. He was always blowing up at the Professor and just being an ingrate in general. Seriously, the Professor could do no right as far as Lucas was concerned. Everything had to be done his way or the highway. Lucas always feels like he is right even when he isn’t. He never develops into a good character. As the main villain Vicktor is all right, but you have to like the more political villains. He does seem a little more emotional as he actually gets visibly upset when Katrina is seemingly destroyed. The way that he goes out was pretty great even if it is a little anti climactic for his fans. Katrina was a good rival for Knack although I still have to question how they were rivals in the first place. It’s seriously a mismatch no matter how you look at it. It was impressive to see her dodging his blows though and getting a robot suit towards the end was a good idea.

Ryder is an Indiana Jones parody and easily the best character in the game. He makes the hero call and never leaves a man or woman behind even when the stakes are high. The Professor and Lucas couldn’t care less about saving the villains, but Ryder makes the right calls. I’d definitely want him to be in the sequel. Gundahar is the leader of the goblins so you’d think that he has a big role, but he actually doesn’t do all that much in the game. I also can’t take him seriously thanks to his design. Charlotte’s The Professor’s wife and she is a very bad character. She is nursing a grudge with the Professor for not finding her soon enough and she builds the weapons for the goblins, yet doesn’t show a lot of remorse for it. Her character arc is incredibly rushed and aside from the Professor, nobody should be thrilled about having her back at this point.

As for Knack himself, he’s an okay character, but he’s not that engaging or charismatic like most leads. He even admits that he doesn’t do the thinking, just the execution. Main characters don’t have to be smart, but the classic “Strong, but not smart” character is typically the side character for a reason. It’ll get old if the character is in the lead since you can expect the same jokes time after time. Knack doesn’t really make jokes, but the game constantly goes in slow motion to dramatically show how hard he hits the ground every time he jumps. We get it..Knack’s strong! His design also isn’t all that great. He reminds me of Hellboy if Hellboy was made of rock and had an evil looking grin. Knack shows signs of potential like when he gets overconfident or brags, but the sequel will have to give him a lot of development to say the least.

Overall, Knack’s a fun enough game, but it does start to be affected by repetition towards the end of its run. After all, you’ll be using the same attacks on the same enemies for quite a while by the end. Luckily, I did enjoy the gameplay quite a bit, but that’s why it is important to have a lot of different attacks so you can defeat enemies in various ways. The story is decent and it was funny at least so that’s good. The heroes did make a lot of questionable calls throughout though so hopefully they’ll be better in a possible sequel. I recommend this game. Even if you’re not a huge fan of it by the end, it’ll be fun for you to compare it to other titles like Crash and Mario. I haven’t played Crash yet so I can’t really comment on whether or not it beats that title at the moment.

Overall 7/10

FCBD 2016 Boom Summer Blast Review

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I had been avoiding this comic for as long as possible, but eventually it was time to take the plunge. This one brings several comics with it, but unfortunately none of them looked very good. Still, maybe they would have potential right? It didn’t get off to a good start though as the first comic is about a guy who catches a cold. He asks people for help, but nobody knows how to help him. Someone gives him tea, but it doesn’t work. The art is quite bad and the story is not engaging for an instant. Let’s hope that it gets better from here.

The next story is about a mouse who is alone and doesn’t like to be alone. The main reason why this comic is bad is due to the very hard to read font. You’ll be very tempted to just skip it all since the dialogue doesn’t add anything to the story and simply wastes your time. The art isn’t very good here either and comes across as lazy since the panels aren’t too large and don’t have a lot of details. Yep, another strike for the comic. The next story was from Cloud and at least it had an actual plot, but the art was reeeeeeeeally bad. I really can’t emphasize enough how poor the whole comic looked and that hurt quite a bit. The actual premise has potential as a prince wants a wishing stone to change something from the past as well as the future, but a thief shows up and steals the orb. The Prince will now have to try and find the thief to get it back. This could be fun, but the art ensures that I won’t be checking this series out anytime soon.

Adventure Time got a story next and naturally it was about the heroes going to a place that stinks. The dog doesn’t want to go, but he’s coerced into doing so and as a result, he loses his job to hit it big as a writer. Them’s the breaks I suppose and he should have known better than to have gone to an interview like that right after jumping in a swamp to fight the living embodiment of filth. Still, this story was relatively decent and it had the best art yet so that’s a good thing.

The next story was about a group of hikers who decide to tell each other ghost stories after eating plants all day. It’s about the Shining so everyone dies and that’s the cliffhanger. I know that the story was (not) thrilling….but that’s not much of a cliffhanger since it is all just a story. The main characters seem incredibly unlikable as well and bringing up the fact that they may have just eaten something disgusting doesn’t help the issue either. The art was decent though so that’s something.

The final story is a mystery title that seems to be similar to Nancy Drew and a Suite Life on Deck. The art is fairly good and the main character seems decent. I don’t like the little kid and his lollipop since he seems like a huge ingrate, but luckily he’ll probably never appear again so that’s not much of an issue. Once the cases actually start, I could see this story actually being good. It’s easily the best one in the batch if you ask me. Unfortunately, it certainly cannot save the rest of the stories in this collection. Free Comic Book Day 2016 has ended on a rather low note, but it was still a decently good batch overall. I look forward to seeing what the next batch has in store!

Overall 3/10

The Amazing Spider Man Spider Hunt Review

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Time for another classic Spider Man volume! You can never tire of these adventures and this was during the height of quality for the famous hero. As much as I liked Next Chapter, Mary Jane was pretty out of character and stopped being a likable character. That was reversed here although I believe this may have taken place before the earlier collection. Either way, it deals with the origin of Spider Man’s alternate costumes, which is always neat.

Things aren’t going well for Peter Parker because Norman Osborn has taken over the Daily Bugle. This spells trouble with a capital T. Norman has spread the Anti-Spider Man regime even more intently than J Jonah Jameson to the point where the hardened reporter does not get along with him. Norman has also threatened Jameson so this comes as no surprise. Spider-Man will have to be sure not to go outside all that much, but that’ll be difficult to pull off. When someone’s in danger, you can bet that Spider-Man will be on the case no matter what.

The art is big and bold in the classic style that it always fun to see during these Spider-Man issues. As with the Cosmic Spider-Man trade or the other recent ones that I’ve been reviewing, the art just works really well. It is also a clear signal that this is from the Prime Spider-Man comics where he was depicted just right. It’s hard to ever call something a perfect adaption, but this Peter Parker is about as close as we’ll get. Spider-Man’s not treated as a joke, but is seen as a capable hero just like any other. His sense of justice isn’t skewed or in doubt. Spider-Man just takes on the villains and never crosses any kinds of lines.

One of the main sagas involves the Punisher comic from the cover. Punisher has lost his memories yet again so he’s not sure what he is even doing at this point. He wants answers though and Spider-Man isn’t about to let anyone die from this quest. One thing leads to another and Punisher decides to help Spider-Man out, but it is really a one way road. Whenever Punisher shows up, Spider-Man just ends up tying him up or pushing him to the side. Spider-Man’s not really sure what is happening here, but he certainly doesn’t want to team up with anyone who uses guns so freely. He’s not really given a choice though as bounty hunters start showing up from the woodwork to take Spider-Man down.

Spider-Man can take these guys down no problem if it were all one on one fights, but they start wear him down as the collection continues. Bullseye comes into play and Norman’s son also goes missing. Of course, it could all just be a ruse, that’s not a risk that Peter Parker can take. This collection eventually sees the start of his costumed personas since going outside in his full gear starts to get a little dangerous. It’s a nice compromise since he is still out there saving lives instead of simply putting the costume on the shelf for a little while.

One problem with not reviewing this comic for so long (It’s probably been on the back burner for almost half a year at this point) is that it’s easy to start mixing up the plots a little. The Spider-Man comics have always been iconic for having numerous subplots scattered throughout the issues. When one plot ends, another 3 or more will pop up in its place and then those will interconnect to others along the way. As a result, I can’t say with full confidence whether or not these plots have started or even begun to wrap up in this one. Some that I recall (Probably) involve the Venom calls to Mary Jane, the Kingpin is starting to get back to power as well. I think Black Cat and her luck powers may be around, but that plot may have actually ended already. Well, you get the jist of it. There are dozens of players running around at this point so it’s tough for Spider-Man to even know which villain to focus on. Every time he turns around it seems like someone else is in danger.

One odd issue involved a crazy scientist kidnapping Spider-Man and forcing him into a fake virtual reality world until Spider-Man finally broke free and snapped the machine. For a while there you didn’t know if the whole thing was fake or not so it was a little intriguing although probably one of my least favorite issues. I don’t think we ever even find out how Spider-Man was kidnapped and that’s likely because it is all a little sketchy and hard to believe. One fun issue was seeing Spider-Man don the now famous paper bag over his head to fight a few comic relief villains. It just goes to show that even without a good costume Spider-Man can take down some villains.

Another stand alone story away from the main plot of being framed by Osborn has Spider-Man take on the combined forces of Sand Man and Hydro Man. Both of these villains can be very dangerous on their own so combined they make for a very good opponent. Their team work isn’t the best though so Spider-Man can exploit that. Another random issue has Spider-Man go up against the cosmic villain Blastaar. Spider-Man goes to town on him although it’s a fairly good fight. It’s another match up that I can’t picture going quite as smoothly in the newer comics. Even if it did, the art wouldn’t be quite as full and dynamic as it is here.

Two more stories involve fights against Mr. Hyde and Black Tarantula. Black Tarantula is a surprisingly powerful villain who actually gives Spider-Man a really good fight. I also like the design here and feel like it is much better than any other incarnation that I’ve seen of him. Mr. Hyde’s not quite as interesting and I don’t care for him as a villain. Still a decently fun issue, but I would prefer a different villain. I do hope to see more of the Black Tarantula in future Spider-Man collections though. That guy has a lot of potential.

Overall, This was a fun collection. I always enjoy seeing a comic have many plots at the forefront so you never know which plot the next issue will follow. The framing of Spider-Man was a complete success by Osborn here so Spider-Man is once again being driven into a corner. I suppose it wouldn’t be one of his series without that as it is practically a requirement of a Spidey title by now. I definitely recommend this to all Spider-Man fans out there. This era certainly has a lot of stories to pull from and hopefully they all get adapted into collections like this one someday. I feel like a lot of them are probably lost in the shuffle between collections. We need a “Marvel Masterworks” sort of series for these issues. A series for the titles that aren’t super new, but aren’t extremely old either. The 90’s and early 2000’s lose out a little in that respect. That’s why I’m glad that everything goes into trade so quickly nowadays. 50 years down the road, those will be extremely helpful for new comic readers. This review’s a bit short for a comic of this size, but hopefully I’ve still illustrated why this is a must read. It has good writing, solid art, and likable main characters. All of the issues are interesting as well with even the filler ones still making for good stand alone adventures.

Overall 8/10