Peewee Piranha vs Duck Hunt Dog

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Suggested by Sonic I like Duck Hunt Dong as a character well enough I suppose, but I don’t think he will be doing a whole lot here. Peewee Piranha has a lot more raw strength at his disposal and can crush this guy by jumping on him. Peewee is surprisingly fast as well so it’ll be tough for the dog to dodge for very long. Any steps he takes to evade will only delay the inevitable as his attacks don’t have enough oomph behind them to deal any real damage. DHD is out of his league here. Peewee Piranha wins.

Sauron (LOTR) vs Crazy Hand

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Suggested by Sonic This is a pretty close match. The Crazy Hand has the same abilities as the Master Hand and is a lot more unpredictable. He can fire off missiles, lasers, and a bunch of other moves. The real question here is whether or not Sauron is fast enough to take this guy down. Sauron does have a good amount of strength and sword techniques so if he lands a few blows then this will be over. I never had a really high opinion of Sauron’s power before but he looked very good in one of the games which boosted him up. I believe his speed will be enough here. Sauron (LOTR) wins.

Ice Hockey Review

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I’ve been playing a ton of NES games lately but to the point where I hadn’t actually reviewed them yet. So it’s time to quickly take a look at what some of those titles were and first up is Ice Hockey. It’s a pretty straight forward game that gets you right into the action. As with most of these old sport games there is a certain charm to it although I don’t expect you would be playing this title for very long with all of the newer editions out there.

When you jump into the game you get to go right into the thick of it. I enjoyed around 4-5 games here although I did lose most of them pretty badly. The game is surprisingly high scoring for Hockey as my opponent scored around 20 in one game. In most hockey games I played previously it would be rare to get into double digits much less 20. I also felt like I was blocking pretty well for most of the game as I must have stopped close to 100 shots. It clearly wasn’t enough, but it shows you how fast paced the game is. You can also effect the speed level which is pretty cool. When it’s on its max setting you’re really flying across the field.

The gameplay has aged pretty well except for the passing. Shooting the ball into the net is easy enough but I just couldn’t get the puck to my teammates. They would eagerly stare the puck down by beyond that they would just end up falling back and I would start to get steamrolled. The graphics have definitely aged pretty well considering how old the game is. There was a good amount of effort put into the game and this is the kind of gameplay that just works pretty well for all times.

What ultimately keeps the game back from more of a positive score is definitely the lack of content here. There isn’t a ton of replay value with only one mode to play and after a few rounds you will feel like you’re pretty much playing the same match. This game is perfect for multiplayer so that’s when you should bump up the score another star or two. If you’re on your own then as I mentioned you’ll probably be tired after an hour or so. Considering that the game is free with Switch Online that’s not really a bad bargain though.

Overall, Ice Hockey is a reasonable game. It’s a good way to spend an hour or so, but in a way you’re just checking off a box as you play through all of the NES classic games. Once it’s gone you’ll forget about it pretty quickly. It’s not exactly Madden or Mario and to an extent some games just aren’t meant to last the long run. Titles like Pac Man and Mario will always be a blast no matter in what era you play them and that’s a testament to the amount of detail and design put behind them. To the average game, once 20-30 years have passed it’s probably just going to feel dated.

Overall 5/10

Why Black Clover is the best weekly manga/ongoing anime right now

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It’s time to take a look at why Black Clover is the best weekly manga on the block and also why the anime is so amazing. Clover started out with humble beginnings. I only knew one person who was with it from the very start and recommended it quite highly. Initially there was a good amount of push back against the series as fans of the big titles of yesteryear feared its coming. Black Clover was mixing together a lot of ideas from older titles like Naruto and giving them a new spin. Make no mistake though, Black Clover had a great start right from the jump.

For the anime it was clear that it would be amazing from the first episode which looked spectacular and still holds up. The characters were engaging and the whole thing was interesting. The pacing and directing was on point so you were excited to see what would happen next. The world setup is excellent and the cast of characters have gotten better and better as time went on. The series isn’t literally perfect as it still loses out on best manga of all time to Megaman NT Warrior and then One Punch Man, but it is quickly cementing itself as one of the biggest titles. It’s certainly the best of the modern big 3 of Shounen Jump.

Quality rivalry

One area that really works out well in Black Clover is the rival dynamic between Yuno and Asta. Unlike some Shounen rivalries there aren’t any bitter feelings between the two. They both want to be the Wizard King and see each other as worthy rivals in this quest. Both of them continue to get more and more power ups as they rise through the charts to the point where I would consider both of them to be stronger than the Captains at this point in time. Given how powerful the latest villains are I see more power ups in the near future as well. It’s a great rivalry and both of them have gotten to save the other a few times at this point so it’s pretty balanced. For the record, I’d pick Asta to beat Yuno right now if they were to fight.

A Powerful Heroine

Next up, a strong point in the series is how Noelle has remained relevant. In a lot of these big action titles the heroine is quickly left in the dust when it comes to power levels. Sakura Haruno in Naruto was left in the dust as early as the Zabuza arc where she was unable to do anything against Haku while the other two put up pretty big fights. Her first real big fight wouldn’t be until her match-up with Sasori but even there she had a ton of help. Fiddletwix of Anime Madhouse recently wrote a great article depicting what I mean with this. Then in the final battle of the series with the trio fighting once more she did put up a reasonable fight but you never really got the feeling that she caught the others. I’ll give her some props regardless, but that’s 72 volumes in.

Then you have Nami in One Piece who isn’t really meant to be a fighter. That doesn’t take away from the fact that she is significantly weaker than Zoro and Luffy. Finally you have Bleach which is an amazing title but you have to admit that Orihime doesn’t fight much. You could make the case that Rukia should be counted in which case she does put up a better effort. Kubo gave her a fair shake as she had her own share of battles and even took down an Espada. That series is the closest to Clover in this regard. Clover still stands on its own though by giving Noelle quite a few super forms keeping her in league with Yuno and Asta. While she may not be quite as powerful as those two, she has handled her share of battles flawlessly and even saved Asta on occasion. In her Valkyrie armor we don’t yet know how powerful she is, but she can hold her own in a fight. Right now if she were to team up with Asta and Yuno she could do so proudly and fight as an equal.

Humor is on point

While you’re likely here for the fight scenes humor is also very important in any series. You want the humor to be on point so you can laugh along with the characters and I’m happy to report that Black Clover pulls this off as well. The “Haha” character is great and Asta is always the best character for comic relief scenes. I like the way he is drawn with stars for eyes in various scenes and a lot of his humor comes from the fact that he never lets things to get to him and can be a bit oblivious. He just wants to keep on training through everything and even uses these moves to get villains to submit to him. This is easily one of the funniest titles out there which works as a great contrast to the epic action scenes as well. I guess what I’m getting at here is that Black Clover is a very versatile series and one that succeeds at everything it does. It’s an easy 9/10 series.

Now, does Black Clover have any weaknesses? Sure, no series is completely perfect right? In the most literal sense nothing can ever be perfect because if you look hard enough everything has flaws. For Clover, I’m not a fan of quite a few of the Black Bulls. I don’t really care for Charmy, Gordon, Grey, or Finral. Finral has gotten a little better as the series has gone on, but the others haven’t really worked for me. That being said, all of the latest members of the Bulls have been quite solid and each new addition makes the team that much better. Maybe those other characters will rise up for me soon and even if they don’t we have enough great characters to hold things up rather well.

So if you haven’t started Black Clover yet then you really need to change that. Whether you pick up the manga or the anime you’re in for a blast. It’s quite impressive how far the series has come and I’m ready to say that it is one of the best Shounen Jump titles out there. The action scenes are incredible both in the manga in the anime. A standout for sure is the Yuna and Asta vs Licht battle which goes all out. The animators in the series aren’t afraid to go all out and be a bit experimental with the battles as well. While Asta vs Ladros is the only one that didn’t work for me as it got too experimental, it’s still cool how the series is able to change styles so readily. Different episodes look like they’re done by completely different studios which takes a lot of talent. At its best this is one of the best animated titles out there. Things can only continue to go up from here. I could keep on gushing about how awesome Black Clover is, but you get the idea. It’s a series that you have to experience first hand.

The Transporter Review

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It’s time to look at an action film from back in the day. I definitely know the title to this film pretty well because of the most recent installment where I saw the trailer to it a while back. It always looked pretty fun and I would say that this one is pretty solid as well. It does have some issues but ultimately it’s a very good film with a lot of hype action scenes. When you’ve got great hand to hand fight scenes like this you just can’t really go wrong.

The film starts off by introducing us to Frank. He’s a villain who goes around transporting things for the criminal underworld and gets compensated for his troubles. His 3 rules are that he never looks inside the package, he always sicks to the deal, and no names. This has worked out pretty well for him in the past but that’s all about to change. This time he decides to look in the package only to find a lady inside. He ignores this and delivers as promised, but the villains double cross him and blow up Frank’s car. Now he wants revenge and that gets him involved a lot deeper in this case than he had wanted.

One big difference compared to most other leads like this is that Frank never really turns good. Even after he finds out about the girl being tied up in the package he really doesn’t care. The whole time you are expecting him to break in and try to save her but that doesn’t happen at all. I’ll give the film props for being unexpected because I didn’t see that coming at all. Ultimately Lai has to do all of the work to save herself for most of the film including breaking into the villain’s car so Frank unknowingly drives her out of there. She then seduces him into helping her cause so the film makes it clear that Frank is a villain the entire time. If anything he looks pretty terrible with all the lengths it takes Lai to convince him to help her.

The romance if you could call it that for most of the film is pretty weak. After the opening trick from Lai they do end up actually getting together but there is really no development here. It just happens and there’s no real need for the romance in this film. If you cut it out then nothing really changes which is always the sign that the romance wasn’t really needed here from the start. It could have been worse, but it still feels pretty forced into the film.

The soundtrack in the movie is definitely really good. You’ve got a lot of fast paced themes that really go well with the fight scenes and this movie has quite a lot of those so a stellar theme is very much appreciated. The action scenes are also choreographed very well. There are a lot of pretty interesting combos here. Frank is portrayed as a guy with pretty advanced martial arts and I could see the movies delving into his backstory a little more in the sequels. Some of the sidekicks are particularly impressive and the combo attacks are different from what you may be used to seeing. It’s a very unorthodox fighting style. I was also glad that the villains could fight here.

A lot of times in movies the boss can’t actually fight so he lets the minions do all of the work. That’s not the case with Bettencourt. This guy was actually beating Frank in their initial encounter which takes a good amount of skill for sure considering how good the lead looked earlier. Bettencourt’s big mistake was leaving Frank to 20 of his goons and just walking away. Had he just finished Frank right then and there then things could have been very different. I liked this guy as an antagonist though. He always had a good quip ready and seemed like a practical business man. His plan was also pretty reasonable for bumping Frank off.

Then you’ve got the cop who is always after Frank. He’s a pretty nice guy who always seems to know that something is up but doesn’t have the heart to actually go after Frank. He just wants to help people and thinks that Frank is a nice guy overall. He is crucial in helping Frank out towards the end of the film and is a charismatic side character. The thing is, his faith in Frank is actually pretty misguided. Let’s quickly go over the facts here. Frank would absolutely not have helped Lai (the girl) out if not for being forced into the situation by being targeted. He’s not as nice a guy as Tarconi seems to think.

That’s one problem with the film as well. Frank is definitely portrayed as a villain the whole time, but the film seems to try to say that he’s actually not such a bad guy. He used to be military and has hit a low in his life because he thinks his efforts were all wasted. That’s why he turned to a life of crime. That’s all fine, but once he decided to not only ignore Lai but actually deliver her to the villains and allow her to die, that’s going another step into the extreme. I really thought he was going to go back and save her so I was surprised. He’s a reasonably hype villain, but I feel like the film forgot that he was a villain at times. I’m sure now he’ll be a more heroic character for the sequel but I definitely wouldn’t trust him.

Finally you have Lai whose story is shrouded in mystery for most of the film. She doesn’t seem to trust people all that much based on how she was lying to Frank even towards the end. She manipulates people to get to the goal which is effective but by hiding some parts from Frank she did put the heroes in a pretty bad spot. If she had told a better story then things would have gone over a whole lot better. She’s not bad though because I do appreciate the fact that Lai is a pro-active character. She contributes quite a lot when finding out about the villains and also knows how to use a gun. The scenes with her and Frank are still too fast, but ignoring that they made for a good team here.

She’s not written all that realistically at times though. The scene that really comes to mind is when she is first let into Frank’s house and he goes to sleep for a while. Not only is he being way too trusting here because she can just murder him, but she seems to feel no fear either as she breaks into his boxes and spills everything while looking through his past. Fortunately Frank is an extremely heavy sleeper, but it seems like all of this was an excuse to find out more about his past but it didn’t make any sense from a narrative point of view. They have no reason to trust each other just yet. As far as Lai knows Frank was trying to deliver her to the villains and murder her a short time ago and from Frank’s point of view Lai may want revenge so why leave her alone in the kitchen with all of his knives that he proudly showed off while he goes to sleep? The film seems to go on auto pilot with the logic once in a while.

Overall, Transporter has a pretty quick pace throughout so it’s engaging from start to finish. There’s always a fight scene happening or some good chase scene. Surprisingly we don’t get to see Frank doing a whole lot of actual transporting though which I thought was ironic. After the opening scene and the delivery of Lai, Frank does no more transporting. The title can be a bit misleading in that respect but the movie did a good job of introducing us to all of the characters in the meantime. We do learn a lot about Frank even in these brief moments. There are definitely moments where you have to suspend some disbelief or where the writing is a bit weak but on the whole this is a solid film and one that I would recommend.

Overall 7/10

Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs Review

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Time to look at the final Pokemon Ranger game and definitely the one with the most ambitious story. I really don’t remember the first game’s plot all that much but I actually enjoyed the second quite a bit. Ultimately I would put this as the best Pokemon Ranger game though. All of the mechanics are at their peak and I enjoyed the whole Signs system. It’s nice to finally be able to have abilities of your own without having to worry about catching Pokemon all of the time. These quality of life updates along with incredible gameplay and a sound story make this a very solid all around Pokemon game.

The game starts with Terry and Summer flying to the next region as they chase the Pokemon Poachers. Unfortunately they are defeated by one of the enemy generals known as Red Eyes and crash on the island. Summer has been kidnapped and Terry’s Capture Arm is damaged so he can’t capture Pokemon. The villains have also taken out the comms tower so he can’t alert HQ about this. Terry meets up with the lone ranger on the island and his family who help him fix his tech. Terry must now find Summer and stop this villain group from concocting their evil plans. Can Terry manage to do this or will the Pokemon Poachers stay one step ahead of him? This won’t be an easy task, but someone’s gotta do it.

The fact that the villains actually shoot the heroes down in the opening cutscene is a pretty powerful start for them. It’s not every day that a group is able to beat the heroes like that. Along the course of the game they also beat up the Ranger Boss, Blow up an entire island, and even take down some Legendary Pokemon. There are also quite a few twists about the main villains and who the true boss was. This game did everything it could to make the Pokemon Poachers a legitmite threat and I’d say that they succeeded. Now keep in mind that this is still Pokemon so there are a lot of underlings who are comic relief as well. Not all of them are ready to deal with the rangers. The stakes are here though and all of the main villains were quite solid. I gotta give the game kudos for taking more of a bold approach to the story.

The cast is solid on both sides of the ball. For the villains my favorite member would be Red Eyes. He made for an imposing fighter and he liked a good challenge. Blue Eyes was also solid and got a lot of development. Then you’ve also got the other villains who are neat. The game gives a lot of them fairly open endings which leaves room for a sequel if Nintendo ever wanted to do that. I’m still surprised that we haven’t gotten a new Pokemon Ranger game since this one. It seems to me like there is a lot of potential here for more games.

As for the heroes, Summer is a solid partner. I did expect her to use some more Pokemon or help out in combat a bit more though. In theory she is about as skilled as the main character so having a nice parallel with her taking down some of the villains would have been neat. Instead she usually just watches as you take down the villains. Then you have the local ranger and his family who are around and rooting for you. They help with tech and figuring out the villains plans. It’s all about teamwork in this one.

Then you’ve got the actual gameplay which as I mentioned is pretty great. So instead of traditional Pokemon battles you have an electronic capture net. How it works is you have to draw lines around a Pokemon until his capture meter goes all the way up and you win the battle. Once a Pokemon is captured then you can use him to weaken other Pokemon or use his ability to get past an obstacle on the map. Be warned that once you use a Pokemon’s ability in the map then he leaves your party. The only Pokemon you get to keep around with you the entire time is Pichu as every Ranger game gives you one buddy. It’s a very interesting system that also forces you to time tings well. When you summon a Pokemon in battle don’t let him get hit or you’ll lose him. Additionally when drawing your circles don’t let your line touch an enemy attack or you deal damage. Some Pokemon can be hard to capture because they are always attacking.

When outside of combat you can also level up your Styler so that it has more defense, attack, or other stats. I maxed out power as soon as possible because that lets you capture opponents quicker which is how I roll. I like the glass cannon approach. It really forces you to play the game carefully and then rewards this with how much power you deal. I managed to make it through the whole game without dying so I can tell you that this is a pretty good strategy worth pursuing. As long as you are confident in your passing abilities then there should be no problem here.

As for the graphics, they are definitely really good. The level designs have never been better and the battles look good as well. We do get the occasional cutscene in the background which is good as well. Then you’ve got the soundtrack which is pretty catchy. I like the Poacher theme and the boss themes near the end are also pretty good. The themes build up the suspense and ultimately have a nice variety which is always important. The game really delivers when it counts.

The main campaign is around 13 hours long which is pretty good. There’s also a good amount of replay value when it comes to capturing all species of Pokemon and clearing all of the quests. That should take you a pretty good amount of time to achieve. Once you have that all done then I suppose there won’t be much more to do, but you’ll have played enough to justify the purchase if you ask me. It’s not every day that you get to play a Pokemon game like this one.

Overall, Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs is a solid way to end this part of the franchise. I’m sure that someday we will get a new entry but it has been quite a long time since Signs came out so we may have to wait until the game is old enough for a nostalgic revival of the series. In the meantime if you haven’t played these games yet then you definitely should. It’s not likely that it will ever pass the main Pokemon series but this is one of the best spinoff series that I have played. It keeps the top level quality you would expect from the main series and never lets up.

Overall 8/10