Cerberus (Disney) vs Megalodon

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Suggested by Destroyer The Cerberus is a powerful creature that has elemental attacks. As we saw in Kingdom Hearts he was even able to take down Cloud. Now that’s rather crazy when you think about it. The Megalodon is a giant shark but he has no long range attacks which means that he will still be doomed as soon as the battle begins. Cerberus can spam attacks at will and ultimately there just isn’t much that Megalodon could do about that. Cerberus (Disney) wins.

Dracula vs Ebirah

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Suggested by Destroyer Ebirah is a powerful Kaiju but this just isn’t a match that he can win. Dracula is a lot more powerful and faster in combat. Throw in the fact that Dracula has a healing factor and that’s the match. Ebirah will just have to beat a hasty retreat here but he won’t be fast enough to get away. That’s why at the end of the day he’s going to have to hold this L. He would need a lot of massive powerups to make a comeback. Dracula wins.

Spikeman vs Mecha Godzilla

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Suggested by Destroyer Mecha Godzilla is one of the most powerful robotic Kaijus in the whole Tohoverse. He has a lot of different weapons at the ready and some good physical feats but those will not be enough to take down someone like Spikeman. Spikeman is a lot faster than Mecha Godzilla and his needle/spike attacks will breach Mecha G’s defenses. At that point it’s only a matter of time before Spikeman takes him down. Spikeman wins.

Beast Boy vs Killer Moth

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Suggested by Sonic Killer Moth’s a fun villain. He may not be one of the most powerful ones but he has some good techniques and equipment. Ultimately in a close quarters fight he could beat some of Beast Boy’s forms but he is completely outmatched against the stronger ones. Especially as Beast Boy can even transform into some animals that aren’t from our universe. That puts Killer Moth out of his league. Beast Boy wins.

Sabretooth vs Yeti

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Suggested by Sonic A Yeti is a powerful ice monster but that’s not going to be enough to stop Sabretooth. Sabretooth’s durability and speed mean that he will be able to just rush in and overwhelm the Yeti. Sabretooth can endure any counter blows long enough to secure the win, that’s why it’s hard to beat someone who is super powerful and has regenerative abilities. The Yeti never stood a chance here. Sabretooth wins.

Nick Fury vs Baron Zemo (12th)

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Suggested by Sonic Nick Fury recently became the Watcher of sorts and may have cosmic abilities but unfortunately for him we can’t really be sure of his abilities. For all we know he really can’t fight beyond his normal abilities. Baron Zemo would have the edge there with his sword skills. Fury would be on the back foot the entire time and ultimately their super soldier serums cancel out. Fury would just need some kind of boost to win this. Baron Zemo (12th) wins.

Spoutman vs Squid

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Suggested by Sonic Spoutman is not one of the more powerful Megaman characters. The guy is always nervous and crying which is not a great combination of traits for a battle. Squid has decent super strength and some projectiles. While the ink may not be a good fit against Spoutman’s water blasts, I do think that he is fast enough to claim victory here. Spoutman will have a hard time landing any attacks here and will ultimately be defeated. Squid wins.

Zombie vs Hidan

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Suggested by Sonic A Zombie may be hard to destroy but the same can be said of Hidan. Hidan has his scythe at the ready as well and a single blow would take the Zombie down for the count. Zombies just aren’t very durable even if they are good at clinging to their undead life. Hidan is also a lot faster and more powerful than the Zombie so that would really put an end to things here. Hidan wins.

Ad Astra Review

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Ad Astra is a fairly low key space adventure. You’re not going to have a lot of explosions or anything like that but you do get to see space which is always fun. I do think the movie would have benefit a lot from some actual aliens and explosions though. Maybe have the humans turn into space apes or something. Still, it’s a fun film and it should keep your interest the whole time.

The movie starts by introducing us to Roy. He is one of the top astronauts and one thing that really makes him stand out is how he has no real emotions. Rather, he is so good at suppressing them that this comes naturally to him. He is the son of the legendary Clifford, an astronaut who was doing great work on the Lima Project but unfortunately died in space. The Lima Project was all about finding any aliens in space. Well, the government lets Roy know that Clifford may actually be alive. Unfortunately, it appears that as a byproduct of the Lima Project, mysterious power surges are rocketing across the cosmos and causing all kinds of dangers. Roy was almost destroyed by one of them. The government needs Roy to make contact with Clifford so they can ask him what’s wrong and fix this. Is that really all they plan to do though?

As always in these films, you have to take what the government tells you with a grain of salt. If they say they just want to talk…you have to assume there’s more to that than meets the eye. Of course with Roy not showing his emotions much, he’s not really going to talk about any of this. It’s not until we’re deep into the film that he gets to show off his emotions more like when the government tries to take him off the case. Roy’s a very capable soldier and proves his worth in several fights like when bandits nearly end his mission from the start.

Roy also seems to dislike the fact that space has become a really big retail mall. When you go onto the Moon the first thing you see are a bunch of food stores and things for sale. He mentions that his father wouldn’t have enjoyed this either. It’s clear that everything has been turned into a place for shopping and Roy figures humans will continue to wreck every planet they come to. It’s a jaded opinion but one that’s probably correct at this point. So yeah I liked Roy as a main character. He had to make a lot of tough choices but I would say he always made the right ones. He didn’t back down and aimed to complete his mission from start to finish.

He’s a good contrast to some of the other characters who are doing the whole “Just following orders” routine. Some of them really don’t think for themselves and just obey all commands even if they don’t make sense. There are 3 agents in particular who look really bad here as they are ready to instantly try and murder Roy. Fortunately for the lead he ended up being more powerful than they were and stopped them. It was a needless loss of life though and only serves to weaken their chances at completing the mission.

As for Roy’s father Clifford, he gets a decent sized role by the end. We get a few plot twists on the Lima Project and the extent to which he wants to complete it. Needless to say, this mission is really Clifford’s life. Now he hasn’t done a great job with some parts of it though like putting the whole universe at risk. Clearly there are some bugs with the project that need to be resolved. He’s not really addressing the issues though and by the end you could say he feels like a total villain. Same with the government here but at least their overall objective will protect everyone. Clifford seems willing to sacrifice the known for the unknown which isn’t good. Even if he were to find his objective, there would be nobody left to celebrate this.

The writing here is solid. The film can move a little slowly at times and it’s certainly not meant to be a thriller but you will be engaged. In some ways it feels like a very old school sci-fi adventure where it isn’t relying on action or explosions to get by. It’s just telling a story about space. Of course I’ll always take a more action packed adventure but when executed well this can certainly work and Ad Astra will end up being a good example of that. The dialogue is good throughout and most importantly, you won’t be bored. Even while plot developments are slowly tossed over to you, the characters are able to hold the scenes up well. At worst the emotional scenes just won’t land so much but they’re typically quick and then you get back to the adventure.

Due to the nature of the film there isn’t a whole lot to discuss though. The story is very straight forward with Roy needing to find the source of these power surges and stop it, even if it’s Clifford at the helm. Most of the film is about the journey there and realizing that space has quickly become the new Earth. If anything it’s probably even more lawless judging by how easily the pirates were able to show up and cause trouble. I wonder where the pirates live though, it must not have been easy to create another base on the Moon. Perhaps it started as a revolt and they overtook one of the sites. Either way you’d expect the government would be able to take them out then. The film’s not about that but I would have been interested to learn more about that.

Overall, Ad Astra is a solid Sci-Fi film. It’s not a game changer or anything like that but it’s just an all around quality movie. I could recommend it to anyone who likes Sci-Fi since it’s so accessible. One of the benefits of not being super deep or having a lot of foreign concepts is you could even watch this as your first sci-fi film and immediately understand everything. It’s basic and not in a bad way. I’d be up for a sequel that goes more all in on the action but they’ve shown that they could do a low key movie once so I’m sure they could do it again.

Overall 7/10

Crash: Mind over Mutant Review

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At long last it’s time to play the next big Crash game. It keeps the monster hacking from the last title but changes the mechanics of how it works a bit. The gameplay is solid but the game is held back by some questionable design choices like the fact that you can’t actually fast travel between lands. So effectively you have a giant hub world but have to actually walk back and forth between each level. I’m still wondering why they would do that but we’ll go into it in a moment. For now I’ll just say this is certainly the weakest Crash game but still a decent game overall.

The game starts with Cortex coming up with his latest scheme to take over the world. He has these VR goggles that will put you into an environment that is so realistic and top tier that you can’t help but get sucked in. Even Crash’s best friend Crunch and his sister Coco were not able to resist. Crash and Aku must now try to stop Cortex before it’s too late but what can these two do without some kind of backup? It’ll be tough but either way they will aim to give this their very best shot. After all if they can’t win…who can!?

So the gameplay is your average 3D Crash style for the platforming elements. You can run, jump, spin, and even dig in this game. You have to typically get to the end of a level or beat up enemies to proceed. There are quite a few sections for combat here but the battles are never too hard. It’s the kind of game where if you die, you appear close to where you died, so you never have to backtrack a whole lot. I definitely enjoyed that at least. Nothing’s worse than having to redo a large section. For the monster jacking, you can store up to 2 monsters at a time and switch through them at will. The downside to having two monsters is that you can’t play as Crash which makes some of the platforming impossible. So typically you will want to stick to one monster which is the perfect setup. Particularly if you pick the Hedgehog as one of them since he’s so fast.

When you’re going through all of the back tracking, it’s very helpful to have someone like this at the ready. When you defeat an enemy you are given the option to take control of it or keep on going. Don’t worry about not taking the right one, any area that needs a specific ability will warp an enemy to you in those instances. So it’s a fun enough gimmick although it feels like we’ve gone far away from the original Crash structure. It’s fun getting to fire off energy blasts and slow down time so the monster abilities are always fun. The slowing down time aspect is quite powerful so they make sure you don’t get to control those monsters until the end of the game.

So lets talk about the backtracking since this mechanic did not work. Basically the island is so huge that it connects to around 6 areas. I want to say in real time if you had to travel the whole island it would probably take you around an hour or so. Fortunately you never have to do that in one time but say you beat the desert world, you’ll be told to go back home. From there you have to head to the school then home, then back to the desert, etc. Most games would have a teleporter or something which would be incredibly useful here. Unfortunately this was not included for a gag. At the very end of the game one of the villains mocks Crash for running around the whole game and quickly whips up some teleporters.

Yes, you gain the ability to fast travel to any point at the final level in the game. By this point it’s so late that it doesn’t actually help out a lot. I suppose if there are some good post game content to play through then it would be nice but this should have been around for the base game. Trust me when I say this would have been incredibly useful to have had a lot sooner. It’s just tedious to run back and forth as well as being very time consuming. You’ll spend more time running around than actually playing the game which is really an issue here. The decision just doesn’t make sense to me.

There’s also a level up system built into the game which doesn’t seem to have much of a point. You get a little stronger and unlock new moves but I never noticed the difference and it takes a while to get level ups. So by the time you are stronger you’ll have beaten the game. I forget at what level I completed Crash but I think it was around 5-7. The game is easy enough where it won’t make a difference and so the whole mechanic may as well not even be here. As they say, if a mechanic doesn’t actually affect anything then you may as well have not had it in the first place.

Well, the graphics are good. During gameplay it all looks solid at least. The levels are colorful and everything is on point. My only issue is with the cutscenes that are going for a more experimental look this time around. Sometimes the cutscenes look like drawings where everything is as low budget as possible. Others use designs like something out of Jacob Two Two. The designs are always changing from cutscene to cutscene, Crash even looks like a Super Saiyan warrior at one point. Now that was definitely something that was a different experience. I’m not really into the experimental techniques myself so personally I think the best thing to do would have been to go with more traditional artwork. It would have just looked better.

At least you can say it does match the crazy plot though. The whole game is rather bonkers with how everyone falls for these goggles. A lot of the dialogue is so self aware it almost threatens to break the 4th wall. The characters aren’t very smart here and even the villains get humiliated by Cortex. The evil mask is certainly on the backfoot here. The scene where he is literally being milked by a machine while Cortex gloats and laughs is rather intense for the guy’s fans. Cortex is really the only villain who keeps his hype here. Perhaps this will even solidify him as the ultimate Crash villain for most. At this point, none of the others seem like they can keep up with him.

Overall, Mind over Mutants is a step down from the other Crash games but I would still call it a good game. Beyond the lack of fast travel, the rest of the gameplay is good and that’s the important thing. The soundtrack may not be too memorable but it works well enough. While the graphics aren’t very good, the story still has a good amount of funny moments and a lot happening at all times. I may not like Crash as a main character but Cortex has enough good lines for the both of them. If you need to complete your Crash experience then this is a good entry to check out. Otherwise you’re not really missing a whole lot though.

Overall 6/10