PS3 Trophies 12/48
Play Time 3h 41m
Game Completion 57%
Money Earned 9520
Items Collected 231
Recipes 6
Animals Caught 22
Fight Record 21-0
Trainings Won 18
Mini Game High Scores
Ice Sculpting 95, 55, 35
Fire Torch 14 0 0
Quiz Challenge 7 1 0
Dragons
Night Fury Level 14
Hideous Zippleback Level 12
Cronckle Level 13
Monstrous Nightmare Level 12
How to Train Your Dragon was always a series with a pretty unique concept of being able to train some dragons as allies. I don’t know a whole lot about the series beyond that but it must be doing something right to have had 3 films as well as a TV show and multiple video games. This game is actually more fun than I thought it would be. Not saying it’s suddenly an 8 star game or anything but the combat is really on point and so are the various mechanics when navigating the hub world.
The basic plot of the game is that you grow up on an island where people raise their Dragons to fight in tournaments like Pokemon. The first tournament is filled with 1 on 1 battles, the next 2 on 2, etc. Tournament 5 is the ultimate championships but it caps off at 4 on 4 battles so you don’t need to worry about getting a 5th one. The game follows a pretty steady formula where you complete one tournament, then do a few side quests. Complete another tournament, more side quests, etc. It’s a fairly short title as I completed it in under 4 hours. There is actually a solid amount of replay value to consider though.
After beating the game you can still work on clearing all of the side quests, maxing out your four main dragons, and getting the Platinum trophy. I don’t think any of this will take you very long to achieve but it does give you more to strive for. The core gameplay is solid so that helps with making you want to play it a little longer. It’s a well crafted game even if it’s on a fairly low budget.
So the gameplay is that of a 2D brawler. You control the dragon and have to knock out the opponent’s health. Pretty simple enough eh? The game has some good depth there though as you have your standard attack, power moves, projectile blasts, dodging, blocking, and jumping. You have a lot of attack options throughout and it helps to make the fights more interesting. There are things you can do before the fights to help get your dragon ready too. Feeding them allows for their health bars to be a little bigger and you can complete tutorials in the cave to muster up some new combos. The combos can be quite handy for sure like one 8 hit combo that leaves the other dragon stunned so you can follow up. These tutorials give your dragon EXP and there are also minigames you can play for exp as well. The minigames is the fastest way to do this.
When you’re not battling you are walking across the village and either helping the villagers by giving them ingredients or finding things for the chief. These little intermissions are fun enough although they’re very short. I was pretty cool with the tasks because even if they don’t really add anything to the game, at least they are short enough where they don’t really hurt it either. The last thing you want to do is add this free roam part but at the expense of making the game less fun to play after all.
There is virtually no story in the game though. You get a few quick cutscenes here and there but if we’re being honest it’s never anything important. Just the characters talking about the next tournament or planning ways to cheat in it. You can tell that the developers were focusing completely on the gameplay. You almost could have just made this a pure arcade mode type game and I should note that there is an arcade mode here. Now the game does have one real weakness though which becomes a bit apparent by the very end of the game. So it’s not something that ended up hurting but if this game were longer then it may have become a real concern.
It can be a bit repetitive. The gameplay is fun like I said but the more dragons they force you to compete against, the more nonstop fights you are looking at. Take the final tournament for example. You have to defeat 5 opponents, who each have 4 dragons. That’s 20 back to back to back battles. Each match is like a normal Street Fighter round so that’s effectively clearing 3 arcade modes in one tournament. Then you have 5 tournaments to consider. The first ones are shorter of course but be that as it may, it’s still a whole lot of battles that you have to go up against. I think the game didn’t need to make you go through so many battles at once.
The game is rather short as it is though so maybe the developers were worried about it being under 3 hours otherwise. So that’s my only real complaint here. The graphics are solid. They may not be Sonic 2006 level or anything like that but the graphics during combat were good so I’m satisfied. The soundtrack is quite generic though. I definitely wouldn’t say that it was anything particularly impressive. More like elevator music where you hear it while you’re on the ride but forget it immediately afterwards.
Overall, How to Train Your Dragon is a good game. It’s a very short one to be sure but the developers did make sure that the experience you had was fun. It’s the little things sometimes like being able to just run around the village at top speeds or being able to train conveniently. Everything in the game feels quick and easy. The gameplay is also quite strong as I mentioned earlier. When you put all of that into perspective then this is a tie-in game I can recommend. Particularly if you are able to get this game for under $10. At that point the short length won’t bother you so much. So if you enjoyed the movie or just like the idea of a Pokemon style game where you have dragons face off against each other in real time then this will definitely be up your alley.
Overall 7/10
A Raisin in the Sun is a film that decides to bet everything on its writing. The entire film is structured around a few characters having a lot of disagreements with each others. Tensions grow pretty high the whole time. I’ve seen a few other films with this style but they have consistently failed in the past. Usually the issue being that throughout the arguments all of the characters will expose themselves as just being awful people so you can’t root for them anymore. Where this film succeeds is in keeping each character likable no matter how tough things get which is important.
The film starts off by introducing us to Walter. You could argue he is the main character since he is the only character who gets scenes by himself without the other characters. It’s close though since all of the characters get pretty big roles. He wants to open up a liquor store. Right now he is not satisfied with his current job or living conditions where his family is always low on money. Well, his mother is about to receive a check for $10,000 for life insurance from her husband. Walter believes that she should give him the check to put into the store. She isn’t keen on doing this though because she believes opening up a store like that would be luring people over into drinking a lot of wine and becoming alcoholics. Walter’s wife Ruth doesn’t think this is a good idea but Walter puts a lot of pressure on her to be on his side.
Ruth’s sister Beneatha meanwhile just wants to find someone she can marry and also enjoys getting involved in a lot of hobbies even if she ultimately tends to ditch them pretty quickly. One of her goals is to attend medical school which will be expensive so she hopes Lena may help contribute to that. Then you have the Mom Lena who wants to do what’s best for the family but at this point it’s clear that there is no way to make everyone happy. What can she do to ensure the family doesn’t go off on the wrong path?
From the main characters the weakest one would have to be Beneatha. Mainly I’d say the issue here isn’t so much that she wants to try out a lot of hobbies but that she is aware of how broke the family is right now. In light of this, she has to realize that buying so much expensive equipment all the time is a bit of a burden there. She definitely has the biggest personality of the group though as she always makes her thoughts known. Aside from Lena, I would say Beneatha is the most straight forward with everyone as she speaks her mind. That’s a good quality.
In comparison I’d say Walter’s not as good at that. Several times when he’s making his case about the liquor store you feel like he could make a better case for why he wants it. He clearly knows why he needs the store but a lot of the time he isn’t really able to explain why that is. In his head it’s because he has already explained it a ton of times but that should be good practice. He tends to give up more than the other characters and is quicker to compromise on his morals. While you can understand this in large part, I do think his final mistake in the film is pretty inexcusable. Once you’ve made a promise and are given a lot of responsibility you can’t just throw it all away like that. He wasn’t really able to recover after that and he had already been on shaky ground with his reaction to Ruth’s baby.
As for Ruth, she’s a very solid character. She does her best to make ends meet and works as hard as she can. She doesn’t want Lena to have to do everything for them so Ruth tries to be as pro active as possible. She’s patient with Walter as well and may have the biggest workload here. She’s also able to talk civilly with everyone and doesn’t get drunk so she stays mature throughout. The best character though is Lena. She is always ready to offer the correct advice and has always lived her life in a way where she can keep her head high with dignity.
Lena probably has a lot of the more emotional scenes here as she watches her household effective start to get torn down with the decisions they are making. She was clearly disappointed on many occasions. The film does end on a high note after all of the trials at least but it was definitely a tough road for all of them. The movie did a good job of adding a new obstacle to the family every time they would get past one. It’s good because it also keeps the conversations fresh and there is also some pretty good set up here.
For example, from the start we know that Walter wants the money but the check doesn’t actually arrive for a while. Even after that you have to wait until Walter arrives for the big confrontation. So the plot is pretty dynamic and the story is constantly adapting for the new challenges. You could easily make a sequel for their experiences in the next home but at the same time without one you can at least hope that things finally went smoothly for them and they didn’t have to worry about any extra drama this time around. It’ll be good if they can finally relax here.
Overall, A Raisin in the Sun is a solid movie. The dialogue is pretty strong all the way through. The movie may only really have the one main backdrop of being in the house but the characters are all written well so this doesn’t feel like an issue. Lena is definitely the standout character here. When Beneatha tries the whole “God is dead” argument Lena quickly shuts that down and establishes the ground rules that this won’t be allowed in the house. She consistently pushes the characters to make the right choices and without her they definitely wouldn’t have made it through this experience. If you’re up for a good drama as the characters discuss how the family should move forward then this is a good one to check out.
Overall 6/10
Time to continue the films with an education battle this time around. Students definitely love to give teachers a hard time and in this film that’s the entire premise so you can bet that they aren’t going to go easy. It’s always nice to hear the British accents in a film because they’re just fun. It’s part of why Dragon’s Den tends to be pretty fun. This is a solid all around film that has a pretty satisfying ending.
The film starts with Mark getting hired as a teacher. This is a pretty tricky school though that’s not in the best neighborhood so a lot of the students have their own share of personal issues to deal with. As a result school has become more like a game of rebellion where they can cut loose and do whatever they want. The other teachers don’t exactly want to be here either so that leads to a bit of an endless cycle as you might expect. Well, Mark is determined to crush this cycle once and for all before leaving for another job but will he be able to stick around?
Right away the film does a nice job of showing the defeated atmosphere among the teachers. The very first teacher he meets is a very sarcastic guy who doesn’t even bother trying anymore. The children broke him so now he just slacks off and watches the days go by. He made for a pretty fun supporting character though with how consistently negative the guy was. He definitely wasn’t about to change his tune, not anytime soon that’s for sure.
The other teachers are a lot more reasonable of course. From them, the teacher with the biggest role is definitely Gillian. She’s also pretty new at this and does her best to support Mark when he’s trying to surpass the system. She was quick to volunteer to go to the museum so his project would pan out. Definitely a solid ally to have around the whole time. The principal was a lot less helpful since he gave up immediately despite not helping out at all. That’s just how it goes I suppose.
Mark makes for a solid lead because he’s pretty careful and puts up with a whole lot without cracking. He does a good job of engaging the students and always trying to stay a few steps ahead. I also think it made sense that he kept applying to jobs the whole time as well. No sense in boxing yourself in when there are other options at the ready right? In the meantime he didn’t give up though and just kept on going. He’s the kind of teacher you would probably want to have in school since he is sure to make the topics interesting. His down to Earth approach was quite solid.
School tends to have a lot of different kinds of teachers. Fortunately nowadays you’re more likely to find relatively relaxed ones but it’s still anyone’s guess at the end of the day. As for the students, you would hope that they wouldn’t be quite this tough. Most of them become quite receptive to the lessons though aside from Bert. The way his plot ends out was pretty solid though. Sometimes the quickest way to an understanding there is with a quick spar and Mark was able to get his point across without seriously getting involved in the fight. That definitely could have easily gone sideways but he handled it well.
The other student to have a big role here was Pamela. She’s one of the only kids to give the lead a fair shake pretty quickly in part because she hadn’t been around a whole lot of respectable people. Her home situation was rather difficult and most of the kids were being pretty sketchy at ties so he served as a role model. The film does a good job of giving all of the students a presence though. They all get a lot of dialogue and while you may not recall all of their names by the end, it was a memorable class of students.
One of the most important things a film like this has to have is strong writing. You can’t have a solid drama containing a battle of wits without it. Both the teacher and students are given a suitable amount of respect here and the back and forth is handled well. You’ll be kept engaged the whole time. The story moves pretty well and the film never drags on. It’s a very tight story after all without much room for fluff. All of the scenes are pretty important. There was one subplot with Pamela that I’m glad remained just a vague subplot as that could have definitely been some extra drama that we didn’t need. The film remains rather upbeat throughout though and knew how to add in tension without going overboard.
Overall, To Sir, with Love is a good movie. It’s aged pretty well with a solid cast to hold it up. The dialogue is good and it doesn’t drag so there’s nothing really negative to say about it. The film also avoids the typical rushed romance here by hinting at one but not actually doing anything with it. A romance just wouldn’t have made sense with how much was going on and how short the timeframe here was. So it was the correct decision and the movie was better off for it. The ending also leaves room for a sequel and apparently it did get one so it’ll be interesting to see how things go on there. This is the kind of plot that you can do over and over again but I imagine it’ll be tougher and tougher to execute each time. Either you try to make the kids double trouble this time and go too far in making them edgy or you have everything go too well and people wonder what the point is. Well, sequels have a lot of pressure but of course if it works out well then that’ll be good.
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