One Above All vs Madeline

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Requested by JHG The One Above All has had a very rough time of it on the blog. He has well over 100 losses at this point and the number continues to grow. That being said he isn’t completely hopeless in terms of combat abilities. He can still throw a good punch or a kick. Madeline is a little girl while The One Above All is an old man. In this case, he actually has the physical advantage for once and he should be able to defeat Madeline in close quarters combat. Poor Madeline drops down the blog ranks with this loss. One Above All wins.

Kiva vs Pac Man

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Requested by Someone Pac Man is a skilled fighter, but that being said, this wasn’t as much of a blowout as with some of the other Smash characters. Pac Man is strong, but he doesn’t have a huge defense against Kiva. Kiva’s the better hand to hand fighter and his speed will let him dodge Pac Man’s projectiles. It’s a good thing that Pac Man has his golden form and his super forms from the new show to combine with the other power ups over the years. He takes a narrow win over Kiva this time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this match was overturned someday. The difference in abilities is quite close this time. Pac Man wins.

Supreme Kai of Time vs Thor

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Requested by Unknown The Supreme Kai of Time is a very skilled magic user who excels in team combat thanks to her healing magic. Unfortunately, she has no real feats when it comes to actual combat. She is known to be powerful thanks to the fact that she is a Kai, but titles don’t mean a whole lot on the blog without actual feats. Healing magic will only manage to buy her some time as Thor’s punishing attacks will ultimately give him the edge here. A few good shots from Mjolnir should be enough to end this battle. Thor wins.

Iroha vs Irma

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Requested by Sonic Finding out where Iroha came from was certainly tough, but I did it! Good thing too since she definitely wins this round. Irma is a decent swordfighter with her twin daggers and can’t be underestimated in a close quarters battle. However, Iroha is simply faster and stronger. She’s a better fighter and her true form as a crane is quite difficult to combat against. I just don’t see Irma lasting long in this fight as she is simply outclassed. Iroha wins.

Nappa vs Esdeath

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Requested by Random Esdeath is a very fast fighter with some very lethal ice abilities. She can hold her own in a fight and is no slouch in the speed department either. That being said, I don’t think that she can physically keep up with someone like Nappa. He can blow up cities with ease and fly at super speeds. His energy attacks will be more than Esdeath can handle as she can’t even approach him safely. Nappa is simply too strong of an opponent and outperforms her in all combat areas. Nappa wins.

Flashman vs Doomsday

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Requested by Destroyer This is definitely a fun match and one of those battles, which I would love to see animated. Flashman’s attacks are quite deadly and were even able to injure Megaman. I have no doubt that his attacks would have a noticeable effect on the beast. Naturally, the reverse is also true and Doomsday’s healing factor will definitely come into play here. Flashnan will have to wrack up a lot of damage very quickly here in order to win. It’s a tough fight, but I ultimately believe that Flashman’s inability to fly and lack of impressive speed feats will be the end of him. An anime fighter losing to a comic villain? Impossible!!! Doomsday wins.

Teen Titans Volume 1 It’s Our Right to Fight Review

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It’s time to look at the start of the New 52 Teen Titans run. I always thought the comics looked like fun with the dynamic covers and the cool new costumes. I can imagine how it may be a little too flashy for some readers, but it helped capture what the New 52 was supposed to be all about. The only thing that I was a little wary about is the fact that one of the main characters is gay and I believe that it may become a bit more of a focus in the future, but hopefully it simply remains a background element that doesn’t come into play. This comic series doesn’t need any romance of any kind. Simply focus on the action and this title should stay solid.

Red Robin/Tim Drake finds out that teenage meta humans are being targeted and kidnapped by an organization known as NOWHERE. He has written many blog posts to warn fellow heroes about this, but decides that he’ll finally have to step in to save them. He dons the Red Robin costume and finds Wonder Girl first. The two of them fight off the agents and Red Robin decides that he’ll save everyone else in the same way. Unfortunately, the two of them do not get along very well and the other members like Kid Flash, Bunker, Skitter, Solstice, and Danny are all not used to being on a team. Red Robin has his work cut out for them as the team ends the graphic novel embarking on their first big mission. They need to save Superboy!

There’s a lot of action in this first graphic novel. Superboy gets to fight the whole group of Teen Titans as he works for NOWHERE in this continuity. I suppose that they built him or that there will be a plot twist about that at some point. As with other modern day trades there are some events that happen in other issues so you won’t fully see them here. After all, Superboy already had his own comic series at the time so the timing must have been interesting. (Granted, the same thing happened in Civil War as well) You can still understand everything that is happening with no extra effort though. The best part of this comic was certainly the battle with Superboy.

As it stands, Superboy completely outclasses the Teen Titans in a fight though. This isn’t exactly evenly matched after all. Superboy is the strongest member around and since he has telekinesis at his disposal, he can even stop Kid Flash. I’ll still take classic Super Strength and speed like Superman any day, but it is always handy to have an extra power. Superboy seems like a reasonable guy even if he isn’t thinking things through a whole lot. It’s obvious that NOWHERE is suspect and even if his mission is to serve them, he should think about what kind of reception he’ll get for failing his mission. That was a good hero move on his part though.

The art is really good and continues to show why DC is leading the industry in this area. It holds its own as well as any other comic on the shelf and that is especially true for the action scenes and character designs. It’s been a long time since Red Robin was such a starring member so it’s good to see that his new design is so sharp. I imagine that Kid Flash’s is the one that people would find too colorful, but it works well for the character.

Unfortunately, the writing is what I’d call the weak point of the comic. The dialogue between Red Robin and Wonder Girl in particular can be a little sad as both of them really try your patience. A line should always be cool sounding or at least it should push the plot along. Some of the conversations that they have are just filler and usually it is just Wonder Girl accusing Red Robin of being a creep. He doesn’t seem to deny it typically so that doesn’t bode well for him at all. Even the conversation leading up to Bunko’s big revelation is rather forced as well. Characters don’t need to be talking about flirting all of the time!

Anyway, as you’d expect I didn’t think too highly of Red Robin. It’s unfortunate since I do like the Robins quite a bit, but he had too many iffy moments. Red Robin tends to look good when he’s on his own taking down criminals and making deductions, but he’ll have to work on himself when he’s with the team. I’m sure that he’ll gradually get used to being a team player. As it is, he also makes a very questionable call at the end of the comic which I naturally disagree with. He lets other meta humans get hunted and injured just so he can have some more proof. Definitely a bad call.

Wonder Girl plays up the “tough girl” angle a little too much most of the time, but granted I can see why she is always annoyed at Red Robin. He constantly calls her Wonder Girl even though she doesn’t want to be called that. She is not as eager to fight as Wonder Woman, but still seems to get a thrill out of it so that’s always a good personality trait. She’s easily the strongest member of the team, but not quite as Superboy’s level yet. Her dialogue needs to get better for her to be more likable, but she’s still better than Red Robin, Bunko, and Skitter.

Skitter has very weak will power. She lets her animal form take control rather easily and comes across as a self-defeating person the entire time. She definitely needs to work on getting a little more confident. Her Skitter form has a cool design and seems to be decently strong so she should grow into a being a good character. She just needs more will power and confidence is a good way to increase that quality. Bunko was a fan of Red Robin from the start so he’s one of the only members who is really glad to be on the team. His telekinetic powers will surely be useful as the fights go on. That being said, his costume is a complete rip off from Iron Fist’s. DC didn’t even try to give him something original. Right now he is a rather bland character, but at least he is optimistic which is more than I can say for some of the others. Danny has no role as of yet and he’s a living street. That’s got to be one of the worst powers of all time. I hope it doesn’t hurt when people step on him. There’s really nothing to say about him at the moment though there may never be since it seems like he’ll never take human form. I suppose having enough written lines as an object could still give him a personality…maybe.

Solstice has mysterious dark powers so it’s good that Raven’s not on the team yet. She seems fairly powerful, but we haven’t really gotten to see her fight yet. Energy Projection and flight is a good start though. She is the only one to realize that Red Robin is up to something iffy and she is also very optimistic. Solstice is definitely off to a solid start as one of the best members, maybe even the best. Kid Flash acts as you would expect him too. He has great speed and it naturally goes to his head. The concept of a backdraft following him into a burning house makes sense even if it feels like he just had some bad luck there. I could swear that the Flash has done the same thing many times with no ill side effects. Kid Flash will be integral to the plot as time travelling shenanigans are already starting and Kid Flash may not be what he seems. It’ll be sort of neat to see his true story, but it’s not interesting enough to warrant a full comic flashback so hopefully it just gets a few panels. His blue costume seems neat though.

The comic ends with a fairly great cliffhanger as the founder of NOWHERE shows up to fight the full team along with an injured Superboy. That should make for a solid fight even if this guy seems completely outclassed. His Grim Reaper design is another great one and the New 52 has done a good job creating original villains. His powers seem shadow based and those are usually difficult to fight against. I look forward to seeing what he has got in the next volume.

Overall, This was a solid comic. It ends up being just shy of the 8 due to the weak writing at times, but still makes for a fun read. It’s a good start to the Teen Titans adventures. The roster is also surprisingly strong as Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, and Superboy are all power hitters with Solstice and Bunker being decent in combat as well. It’ll be interesting to see which villains are pitted against this group as it will be tough to stop them. After enough issues, I naturally want to see the Justice League fight the Teen Titans. It should be a blowout, but just the concept of a crossover fight is always fun. On an ending note, I’d also like to point out that the group fight against Superboy is exactly how all team comics should begin.

Overall 7/10

Civil War Review

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After all these years, I have finally gotten a chance to read the famous Civil War arc. Due to the movie recently coming out, it makes sense that a lot of copies from the comic would be lying around. It certainly holds up as one of Marvel’s greatest events although you do lose a bit of the narrative by not reading any of the tie ins. I still say that big Marvel/DC events should be a little longer (10+ issues) but a lot still happens here and it is quite epic. This was back during Marvel’s prime and everyone is solidly in character although the ending is pretty iffy.

A few teenage heroes fail to stop a villain named Nitro and a school full of kids is blown up. Iron Man decides that heroes should no longer run rampant and agrees with SHIELD and the Government on the Registration Act. Heroes have to formally register and give out their secret identities if they want to continue operating. Moreover, the government will be making many more decisions when it comes to crime fighting. Captain America disagrees with this law and evades arrest by SHIELD. He gains some more sympathizers and the Civil War is now on!

Captain America’s side is definitely portrayed as the right one in this battle. The registration quickly starts to become rather extreme and SHIELD cannot be trusted. Iron Man’s side also begins to hire murdering villains as allies to round up the heroes. They even build a very morally iffy jail in the Negative Zone to contain the heroes and clone Thor. The tie ins typically chose sides as well so sometimes Captain America’s group would come across as a little iffy as well, but through it all they were the “heroes” this time.

The art is excellent and easily one of Marvel’s more impressive creations. The fight scenes are handled very well and do a good job of having a serious vibe to them while still feeling like comic book fights. It’s definitely fun to see all of the heroes on panel at once and the event does feel like a big crossover epic. I do miss some of these classic costumes like Cyclops, Captain America, and Spider-Man’s. Before the gimmicks, there were the original costumes and those are the ones that are present in Civil War.

Before going any further into the comic analysis, I can safely say that I am on Team Captain America as well. For starters, SHIELD can never be trusted. There are always Hydra agents in their ranks and as soon as this sensitive data is put on a database it will be hacked. Sharing their secret identities is very risky for the heroes families and friends. I know that Spider-Man discussed the situation with Mary Jane and Aunt May first, but it was definitely not a good decision on his part. He rectified this later on, but he has dozens of enemies and most of them would definitely wreck his life in the blink of an eye. Especially the local ones like Hammerhead and Kingpin who could easily make a move. If there was a way to make the whole process absolutely safe, then I would probably agree with Team Iron Man. Unfortunately, there isn’t and there never will be. That’s simply the nature of comic books.

Also, if you really think about it, this won’t stop a similar incident from occurring. Sure, the teen heroes wouldn’t be able to have a public livestream, but they could always do it in the sneak. Not to mention that there will always be heroes who won’t register. The only difference from now is that more heroes will be hunted like the mutants are. I’m sure the heroes wish that they could be in DC land where the heroes typically aren’t attacked quite as often. At the very least, the government seems to tolerate them.

Captain America’s a great leader as you would expect. He shows off his military tactics and does a good job of pressing the advantage on Iron Man’s team. His plan for Hulkling was also well done. As mentioned earlier, I did not agree with his final move though. Sure, there was a lot of property damage, but he basically deserted everyone who had been following him. He just left them to dry. People are going to get injured regardless and the heroes did try to evacuate the area. The humans probably just hid and decided to attack voluntarily. Just because the civilians are on Team Iron Man doesn’t mean that it is the right side. Cap ends up getting shot in a story shortly after this one so he may want to rethink the whole thing.

I do agree with his move to have Punisher leave the team though since he is a murderer. That being said, this is one of the cooler appearances from the Punisher. He took down 4 villains with ease and he played a big role in infiltrating the tower for the plans. He simply follows a more lethal methodology than Cap and isn’t going to change anytime soon. He doesn’t aim to be a hero, he just wants to destroy as many villains as possible. It’s what makes him fall to their level, but he is certainly a lot more likable than the average villain. Refusing to fight Cap was also an intense move that took character.

Iron Man is naturally not all that likable in this one. He does really try to bring Cap on his side, but there’s no way that it was going to work. Not to mention that Iron Man really tries to take charge immediately and that really defeats the chances of having a big debate about the whole thing. He comes across as rather trigger happy when Spider-Man decides to leave as well so the fight was really unavoidable. Iron Man definitely got lucky there too since he’s not quite ready to deal with Spider-Man just yet. If you were getting sympathetic to his side then no worries, SHIELD quickly steps in again and tries to destroy Spider-Man. They don’t really take prisoners at all and show a general disregard for the heroes.

Building the Thor clone was another big strike against his side. Iron Man’s not completely unreasonable though so don’t think that he is a downright bad character. He does a decent job of championing his side, but I feel like his mind is changed way too easily. All it takes is one lady spitting at him for Stark to take the whole thing seriously. I think he should be able to stay true to himself a little more strongly than that. Mr. Fantastic was fairly cool. I do consider him to be one of the more underrated Marvel characters at the moment, but he’ll change that soon enough. He can be a little inconsistent though. Despite the fact that Invisible Woman is on the other side, he does make sure that the government won’t arrest her regardless of the outcome. That’s the kind of move that I would hope to see from some of the others make, but they typically don’t have the guts.

Spider-Man looks great in this trade. This was back when people took him seriously and he’s treated like an adult hero who commands respect. He’s seen as no different from Cap, Iron Man, and the other big heroes which is as it should be. He can hold his own in a fight and certainly goes through the wringer. During the story arc he takes on about 5 fighters at once and defeats them all. He also seems to have had the edge against Cap and Iron Man as well. I was really glad to see him lose the Iron Spider armor though. It’s fine for once in a while, but I definitely prefer his traditional look. His portrayal was spot on. He made a mistake, but doesn’t hesitate to fix it.

I can’t take Namor seriously and still don’t like the guy. I don’t believe that his forces were the game changer that they were made out to be. By and large, Cap’s team was seriously outgunned though. Even by the end when the numbers were almost equal, the fighting forces were not. Iron Man’s team has the Sentry on it. Isn’t that basically game over since Thor and Hulk aren’t in the equation? Ms. Marvel is strong as well, but as far as I know she was on Tony’s side as well. If not, she could at least give Sentry a decent fight. Cap’s team was starting to have the upper hand by the end though and I won’t call plot hax on that considering just how many heroes were involved. There may have been some big shots that I am unaware of.

Maria Hill gets a pretty humiliating ending as Civil War comes to a close. She was particularly unreasonable throughout the arc so it makes sense that Iron Man should get the last laugh here. SHIELD is one of the main reasons why I couldn’t be on Iron Man’s side so it was good to see her demoted. It also looked good on Iron Man’s part since he had to notice that she was really jeopardizing the team’s chances at winning over the crowds. With her out of the way, Iron Man should be able to start making a positive difference. He may have been on the wrong side, but he can still make the best out of the situation.

There were certainly a lot of other characters involved in the story and I can safely say that they all looked rather good. I’m a little disappointed that the X-Men didn’t get involved, but it makes sense why they could not. They would join Cap’s side and then it would barely be a fight by that point since Iron Man’s side wouldn’t stand a chance. Just Cyclops and Emma Frost are intimidating enough, but the X-Men had legions of members at the time. Even if Iron Man’s side brought in every villain from the jail cells and threw in the Sentinels they wouldn’t be guaranteed of victory. They would guarantee themselves a bad rep and a lot of civilian casualties though.

Overall, Civil War was definitely a game changer for Marvel. Marvel always likes to say that each event is the biggest one yet and that it will change things. Sometimes that’s true and sometimes it isn’t, but Civil War was definitely a title that turned the tides. It made things rather rough for the heroes for quite some time. After all, the ending to this comic is pretty somber and it does start to lead into Dark Reign and Siege. Ultimately, Iron Man basically agrees that the Civil War was a bad idea. The sequel just started so it will be interesting to see how that one is. I actually think it should be fairly great, but I don’t see it possibly matching up to this one. This one was just a blast and I highly recommend it to all Marvel fans. It’s a very engaging story with fast pacing that never lets up. It’s the big character crossover that fans have always wanted much like the Secret Wars and Infinity Gauntlet arcs. The only difference was that this time it was heroes against heroes.

Overall 9/10

AquaPazza Review

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AquaPazza is a game that I really decided to buy on a whim. It is a 2D fighting game with random anime characters, how could this not be epic? Well, the story mode is unfortunately very bland and the gameplay is rather lackluster which makes this one a bit of a miss. It is still a good game purely thanks to multiplayer, but there is so much lost potential here that it is quite scary. Seriously, the series that the characters are coming from are either the most bland ones ever or the writers just didn’t understand them. I can say with confidence that even if I did not know who the characters from Dengeki Bunko were, I would have still enjoyed the story quite a bit more.

As for the gameplay, it is your average 2D fighter, but it is simply not as smooth. The gameplay can be very choppy. This seems to be due to how slow the gameplay can be at times. After working on some trophies for a while in vs. mode and score attack, I grew a little more fond of the game. Not enough to say that it beats any other big anime fighting game, but I suppose it will still be a positive in the end. It is cool to see that every character has a fully animated super attack. That is a solid amount of dedication and work from the game.

Unfortunately, this game is also a prime example of cheating A.I. programs. The semi final boss/ final boss both have incredibly high attack power. This means that you can be winning the whole match only for you to die in one super attack. The opponent also gets to rewind time and get a full health bar back. It took me many tries to beat the semi final boss and I didn’t want to burn another hour or two on the next one so I just left by that point. The trophy was all that I needed, but I do think that the attack power was too high. If I had been playing the mode for fun, I would have definitely been more upset.

The story is as bland as you can imagine. A comic relief witch unleashed a spell that merged all of the worlds somehow. As a result, the heroes have to join forces and stop her. Unfortunately, the characters are not interesting. For some reason, none of them are intense characters. None of them are overconfident, tough talking heroes like I would have wanted. It is possible that a different story would be more interesting, but after the first one I knew that I was done with it. I even tried out the second story for the initial character, but it was not any better. Story isn’t too crucial in a fighting game but every pebble ends up hurting the final product a little more.

There is a decent amount of replay value to be found here. You can probably forget about getting the Platinum since nobody really plays online anymore, but you can still get a lot of the other trophies in the game by learning how to pull off some rather advanced combos. I grabbed quite a lot of them and someday I’ll go back to get a few more. It is definitely rewarding to pull them off. You can also work on clearing score attack and both stories with each character. That should definitely take quite a while and vs. Mode itself should add quite a bit of time to the overall length.

I didn’t really go into the specifics of the gameplay earlier, but each character has around 5 super attacks and one ultimate move. They all take up meter so you can choose to wait for the ultimate or go for a lot of supers. You also have an assist character at the ready who will jump in to help when you summon him/her. Some are better than others since they are vulnerable to attack so you probably want long ranged assist. As mentioned earlier, it is a little slower than most other fighting games. Getting close to the opponent can be tricky as a result since neither side will really want to approach as a result.

At the end of the day, I am still surprised that the character models are so bland. Most anime games are hype because the characters look really cool. Only a few of the characters have interesting designs in this game and most of the movesets could use some work as well. It is a PS3 game, but it is not even close to being as polished as Dengeki. I don’t see this one getting a sequel, but I’m sure that it would be able to improve most of the complaints that I had with this one.

Graphically the game holds up rather well. The animated attacks look sharp. The character models aren’t bad either and the stages are all right, although they can be a bit bland. The soundtrack is also on the generic side. I believe that I only particularly liked one theme and it was for the final boss or the semi final boss. The rest of them weren’t bad, but I certainly forgot them. I could use the time to compare this to Dengeki again, but by now you can the general idea. Anything AquaPazza can do, Dengeki can do better.

Overall, AquaPazza is a decently good fighting game, but that is where the buck stops. The story and characters aren’t all that great. Some of the designs aren’t bad, but the personalities just aren’t there. That being said, it is not all that strange for this to be the case in a fighting game. To an extent, this was the situation in Virtua Fighter and King of Fighters. That being said, Virtua Fighter had the clearly superior graphics and gameplay on its side. It was also more interesting due to how you would rise in rank as you fought stronger and stronger opponents. I’m very early in the King of Fighters series so that title still has time to improve as well. If you’re looking for a solid action title to last over the weekend and play with some friends, this could be a good purchase. Otherwise, you are better off….just buying Dengeki Bunko.

Overall 7/10