Come Blow Your Horn Review

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It’s time to look at a comedy film from a long time ago. It’s one of those films where you may start to suspect how the second half will play out. It’s a fun enough film, but one that hobbles over the finish line instead of sprinting across. The film tries a little too hard to smash you with the moral of the film whereas keeping it subtle would have still done the trick. There’s a good time to be had here but I wouldn’t put it as my first choice.

The film starts off by introducing us to Buddy and Alan. They are brothers who are 18 years apart and have completely different personalities. Alan moves out to his own place and loves slacking off at work. He tends to work one day a week and spends the rest of the time being a bum as his father would put it. Meanwhile Buddy has been living life on the straight and narrow. He shows up to work day in and day out to make sure that the company is able to do well. Unfortunately this life proves to be too stifling for him and so he moves in with Alan. This causes a lot of family drama. Buddy must now decide if he really wants to live his life like Alan or go back home and be a responsible adult. He’ll have to choose carefully.

There’s definitely a pretty big contrast between the two. It’s easy to see why Buddy would look up to Alan because Alan seems to get away with just about everything. He blows off work constantly yet he manages to live in a 5 star hotel type apartment. The guy is constantly throwing money left and right. Then you’ve got Buddy who does the right thing and comes to work but barely has a dime for himself. That doesn’t exactly sound fair right? I think if Alan had been fired from the start then maybe that could have changed things a bit. The film does explain why Alan has so much money at the end involving a deal he made with someone, but the father could have at least taken his job away earlier.

Alan’s definitely not a heroic character, but he’s a fun lead. He’s a lot more entertaining than Buddy and also does a better job with the lifestyle. It may be fairly crooked but at least he had to take the initial risks himself. Alan used his charisma to succeed. Buddy had to rely on Alan’s goodwill to make it and that’s why I have less sympathy for him. Buddy ended up being one of my least favorite characters. He was okay at the start even if he did whine a lot. The problems started to come up once the power went to his head. Buddy’s one of the most ungrateful characters I’ve ever seen. Just copying Alan is one thing. Alan wouldn’t have a problem with that and it makes sense.

Where Buddy goes wrong is when he starts intentionally taking things from Alan. He steals the guy’s barber, makes a mess of the apartment, sabotages his phone calls, etc. Buddy goes way too far way too quickly. There’s no reason for him to turn into a total villain over this. By the end of the film it’s fairly open ended as you get to choose if you think he’ll succeed in Alan’s place or not. Personally, I don’t think he will be able to do it. He just doesn’t have Alan’s charms and with no more coaching at the ready Buddy will be digging himself a pretty big hole by the end.

The best characters were the parents. Whenever the father would show up you knew that sparks would fly. He would constantly be calling the characters bums and flying into a fit of rage whenever he showed up. A lot of the times it was fairly justified as Alan was costing him thousands of dollars, but then the follow up question would be “Why not fire him?” and there’s no real answer to that. After a point he can only blame himself for this because he lets Alan get away with absolutely everything. That’s no way for a business to succeed. While the father was one of the most entertaining characters, what holds him back here is how he also takes it out on his wife. It makes sense for him to constantly be upset as the two sons, but she really didn’t do anything. That’s why she ends up edging him out.

The Mom can also be super dramatic, but it’s not typically aimed at anyone else. She just throws a lot of pity parties for herself as she tries to solve every problem. She does her best in answering the phones even when there is no pen around. She even recalls all of the messages although she isn’t exactly thrilled about being used as an answering service. Her ability to keep on talking nonstop is definitely a lot of fun and so the film had quite the colorful cast.

One character that was too exaggerated was Peggy though. She’s oblivious to everything to the point where she believes all of Alan and Buddy’s lies without even detecting the slightest hint of Deception. It’s played for laughs but the plot goes on way too long and too far for it to be funny. Peggy clearly will do anything to get ahead in the field and so hopefully she does know what’s going on and just uses it as an excuse for her actions, but either way this plot should have been removed and the film would have been better for it.

Romance is the film’s Achilles heel. It’s not terrible or anything, but it doesn’t really add anything to the film. Connie does her best to get Alan to turn away from his constant affairs but you almost feel like she should give up on him. He’s clearly not trust worthy and has been playing the field for a very long time. Of course I’ll take the glass half full approach and assume that he is sincere, but it’s really trusting of her to still be going ahead with this.

Overall, Come Blow Your Horn is a film with strong writing that is held back by some questionable characters. The humor is pretty good and the song we got was solid. One sub plot that was satisfying was when one lady’s husband from Texas shows up and intimidates Alan quite a bit while also knocking him into an elevator. The best part of this film is the opening act as we meet Alan and get introduced to all of the family drama. At times the subplot with the parents can be more entertaining than the main one. A lot of things happen in this film and it does a good job of pacing the story in a way where there is never a dull moment. Not all of the humor has aged well but if you want to see a story about living free with no responsibilities then this is the film for you. It’s a dangerous road that offers a lot of thrills but there’s always a fall at the end.

Overall 5/10

Gareth (Megaman) vs Kyojuro Rengoku

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Gareth is a pretty powerful Megaman X enemy. I wouldn’t say he’s top tier or anything like that, but he’s got a balanced moveset. It won’t really do a whole lot of good against someone like Kyojuro though. Kyojuro has incredible amounts of super speed and strength at his disposal. His breathing techniques will also ensure that he is always one step ahead of Gareth. In a battle of blades Kyojuro simply won’t lose. Kyojuro Rengoku wins.

Pokemon Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel Review

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It’s time to take a look at one of the latest Pokemon movie manga. This one brings back memories as it had the real Ash and not the reboot version we’ve gotten for the last few films. It’s nice to have the veteran that I’m so used to. This isn’t the most exciting story out there, but it’s pretty solid and I dare say that the pacing is better than in the movie. It’s a solid title with some good action scenes and you’ll get to learn more about the new Pokemon.

So the story starts with Ash bumping into a Pokemon named Volcanion. This guy is pretty upset because his pal was kidnapped by a villain and his thugs. They plan to use the metal Pokemon Magearna in their plans. Magearna is a Pokemon that was created by humans much in the same way as Mewtwo and this makes her highly valued among the villains. Volcanion wants to save her, but he spends the majority of the manga getting beaten black and blue by the various Mega Pokemon. Fortunately Ash is here to help. Can Volcanion get over his distrust of humans long enough to join forced with Ash and save the day?

Volcanion can be a bit annoying with how much he doesn’t like humans but I’ll cut him some slack since most humans are pretty dicey. At least Ash is good, but he has no way of knowing that. My real problem is just how weak he is. Ash has to save his bacon many times in this adventure so when the guy still keeps on talking tough it’s impossible to take him seriously. He’s losing to the random villains of the movie and their Pokemon. That’s unacceptable, especially for a Pokemon who is supposed to be super powerful. Volcanion didn’t really leave a good impression on me.

He still looked better than Magearna though. My issue with her is that she has no character. She sort of just stands around as everything happens. I think part of the point is that she doesn’t have full emotions yet or has a hard time expressing them, but I needed her to show a little more agency in the meanwhile. Even just a quick scene where she fights back against the villains when they show up to capture her would have gone a long way. Mewtwo definitely doesn’t let himself get trapped like that.

Meanwhile Ash looked great though. While being stuck to Volcanion is a big inconvenience Ash takes it in stride and gets right into the action. Nobody’s going to stop him from saving the day and Pikachu also gets some good hits on the Mega Pokemon. If not for Volcanion being unable to keep up Ash probably would have taken them all down. This is really Ash at his peak and its one of his best portrayals in a long time. It’s always good to see him getting his props.

Meanwhile the art is pretty solid. At times Ash looks a little out of character and is a bit inconsistent with how he’s drawn, but that’s about it. The most egregious example of this is definitely the back cover of the manga. Where the artist really shines is when the action scenes come in though. The Mega Pokemon all look quite fierce and the attacks are also pretty impressive as well. The scenes are easy to read so they aren’t convoluted but still have a good amount of scale to them. You can tell that the Pokemon here really know how to fight.

I guess there isn’t a whole lot to this title beyond what I’ve said, but that’s part of its charm. It’s not a grand tale or one of the more ambitious Pokemon movies turned into a manga. Effectively it’s just a fun little Pokemon story with Ash showing more Pokemon why hunmans are decently good at times. I doubt we’ll ever see Volcanion or Magearna again, but if we do that would certainly be pretty cool. I also thought the villain was a step up over some of the other villains. Not saying he’s super memorable or anything, but at least he actually had a good army of Pokemon.

Overall, Volcanion and Magearna are probably the weakest points of this manga but as far as legendary Pokemon go I’ve certainly seen worse. Volcanion took a while to come around, but by the end he sees why everyone loves Ash. Ash always manages to get the job done and that’s really the key takeaway here. Pikachu is fun as always the artwork is good so it all flows together pretty well. Whether you’ve seen the movie or not I would recommend checking out the manga. It’s a good way to spend 20 minutes or so and it’s one of the last times you will get to see the main Ash in the manga so it has that going for it as well.

Overall 7/10

Yugioh Double Pack Review

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It’s time to look at a Yugioh game that has been on the backburner for an extremely long amount of time. I remember playing this game for ages a super long time ago. I wish it kept track of the play time because it must have been at least 20 hours. Neither one of these games are short and they are both quite challenging. Reshef of Destruction in particular is extremely difficult and it’s a game with an almost impossible final boss. This is definitely one of the best Yugioh games I’ve ever played though and the duo probably has the best plot.

First up is The Sacred Cards. This game basically has the Battle City plot from Yugioh. A big tournament is underway which Kaiba is using to get the 3 Egyptian God Cards as well as to prove that he’s better than Yugi. The main character of the game enters the tournament as well and slowly but surely he begins to wreck every single character in the series. One fun thing about games where they make up an original character is that he is always unbelievably broken. Seriously, there is nobody who can even begin to challenge him which is pretty crazy. Can the main character stop Marik and his plans?

In the Reshef of Destruction game we get a completely original story which takes place after The Sacred Cards. It’s pretty cool that the games have a continuity. Well, the lead has saved the day but a mysterious villain known as Reshef is quickly approaching and threatens to plunge the world into darkness. Pegasus seems to be involved in this somehow and even Kaiba/Yugi are unable to stop him. It looks like they’ll have to call in the real champ to solve this issue, but can even Terry take this guy down? Seeing as how I was unable to beat the final boss I suppose the answer to that will have to be no this time. I’ll go more into that final boss in a second, but needless to say he is completely broken.

Both games have effectively the same gameplay and style which is why I figured I would go over both plots first. The gameplay is about as smooth as I’ve ever seen Yugioh. To date my favorite game in terms of gameplay is World Championship 2004 or 06 while my favorite aesthetic is Tag Force. This one isn’t quite able to top both of those, but it is able to keep up. One nice enhancement is that the game quickly auto scans the field after every turn instead of giving you prompts so it only gives you the option to use a spell card when it’s applicable. The turns go by very quickly as well. Using the back button to look at the details is a little odd so that takes some getting used to, but it’s fine.

One difference in this game compared to others is that you have to get strong enough to use various cards. Your duelist level and deck capacity goes up as you win duels. So for example you may need 250 deck space to use someone like the Summoned Skull and your Duelist level would need to be at least 50. I suppose this is to prevent you from going to the shop and assembling an intense deck but I don’t really care for this mechanic. Maybe I should specify that it is the execution which is a little dodgy. The concept could have worked but by the end game your level only goes up by one per duel and same for the capacity. It would take forever at that rate to ever get anywhere near where you would need to be to get some good cards. It’s pretty sad to have so many cards sitting in the trunk just waiting for their turn at bat. I had some great cards in Reshef which I never got to use because they were so high leveled. Keep in mind that I got to level 200+ but that still wasn’t enough.

The Sacred Cards was a difficult game but not an unfair one. With enough strategies and planning you could really end up having your way with the villains. That was more up my speed and I can tell you that it worked out quite nicely. I built a fire deck with a health amount of trap cards and I was set. As for Reshef, from early on you can tell it’l be tricky. For starters, your health points don’t regenerate between duels. This means that in some sections of the game you will have to beat up to 4 duelists in a row without gaining life points. This means you have to destroy them and even with a great deck it’s hard to show that much dominance. It took me ages to get to that point.

There’s also a new mechanic added into the game which are the type advantages. Effectively how it works is they surpass attack points. If you’ve got a fire monster with 4000 attack points and I have a water one with 200, my water type will bypass damage calculation and just destroy yours automatically. I’m guessing the game did this to counter how powerful some of the monsters are, but I don’t think it was a good idea. At the end of the day all it really did was widen the gap because the computers would really take advantage of this. I think now’s a good time to talk about the final boss and why he is easily the toughest boss I have ever faced. First off, this guy has 10,000 lift points. Next up, he has the Change of Heart spell which he will always save to snipe one of your strongest monsters. It’s hard to have any counter play to this and he can usually win the match here since it comes at such a dangerous point in the duel.

He’s also got a second version of this where he absorbs your monster and adds it to his own. Then he’s got two copies of Swords of Revealing Light which prevent all of your monsters from attacking for 3 turns. Good luck surviving this long because he can still attack during this period which can go up to 6 turns. He’s also got the wave trap which erases all of your spells and traps as well as a card that wipes out your hand. Basically no card you have anywhere is safe which adds another layer of stress. So good luck trying to beat this guy when odds are that you won’t have a high enough duelist level to use most of those abilities. They’re all just too broken and the fact that he has all of them at once is crazy.

Nevertheless, after about 50-60 rounds with him I won…or did I? After you wipe out his 10,000 life points he instantly revives. This time he has 20,000 life points. He’s got all of the cards he had before except there is one big change. He now has the God Cards in his deck. If he summons one then it’s basically game over for you. God Cards have more attack power than anything in your deck and they can’t be affected by spells or trap cards. How does a villain have this in his deck when you should possess the only copies of those cards? The whole thing is crazy and your life points don’t recover as I mentioned earlier so you’re fighting a guy at 2X power while you may be at half strength. I only made it up to this guy 2-3 times total and I got blasted away each time. Outside of codes and such he seems almost impossible to defeat nowadays. You’d need an incredible deck to put him down.

The graphics are fun enough. It’s got a nice chibi style that flows well with the story. The illustrations we get are nice and there are a good amount of backgrounds to enjoy. I do think a solid amount of effort was put into these two games and they’ve aged really well. The soundtrack is a little more on the forgettable side though. Despite the shows having excellent soundtracks I feel like the games have always been quite a few steps behind. Only Tag Force had an awesome soundtrack all the way through.

You don’t need to worry about length. As I mentioned both of the games are pretty long. You’ll be playing for a very long while as you increase your level and improve your deck. Your deck has to be incredibly powerful to even stand a chance against the villains at the end of the game. For replay value there are a bunch of post game duelists to contend with and naturally you can expect those guys to be crazy strong as well. If you are able to take them down then you will have really proven your Yugioh skills beyond a doubt.

Overall, Yugioh Double Pack is really a steal. It’s bringing two RPGs inside one cartridge for a very small price. It’s just hard to beat that, especially when both games are top tier even if the final boss for Reshef is a little too powerful. I’m sure it will feel great when you do eventually defeat him, but that’ll probably take a very long time. He’s not the kind of enemy you can just show up and defeat without a plan.

Overall 8/10

Psyvariar Delta Review

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Psyvariar Delta is a game I had never heard of until I happened to come across it at Gamestop. The cover art looked interesting enough and I’m always up for a sci-fi game so I quickly hit the trigger on this. The game ended up being a bit lackluster though as it doesn’t really have a story and is incredibly short. It would have been quite amazing as a SNES title, but on the Switch it feels quite a bit dated. The game is an HD remake of sorts so it is an old game, but I think they should have added a few illustrations to work as cutscenes or something like that. Even something minor would have really gone a long way to making this title more impressive.

When you start the game you don’t really have a lot of options. You can play Score Attack or jump into the main arcade mode. In the Arcade Mode you can choose between the two characters, 3 different music themes, and 3 different routes. All 3 routes are basically the same but I believe one is based on the original version, one’s from a remake, and then one is a remix. I couldn’t really tell the differences between the 3 of them so to me it almost felt pointless. Still, at the end of the day a little customization is better than none right? That’s at least what I tried to tell myself to justify the purchase a little more. Choosing between the two characters is also something that barely counts because while the ship looks a little different, the game doesn’t even go as far as to change the character portrait so it looks like you are playing as the same character. That’s not exactly what I had in mind.

As for the gameplay, this is a bullet hell game. What means is you’ll be faced with constant streams of projectiles. The levels are auto moving ones like Galaga where you can move left to right and up/down but you can’t go faster than the actual level. You have a main blaster which you can condense into a more powerful blast or keep as a wide attack. I prefer the condense version, but they both have their uses. You also have a few bombs which you can fire and then detonate. Make sure you press the bomb button a second time to actually blow it up or the bomb just gets wasted. You get unlimited continues in the game which makes the route pretty easy so you don’t really have to worry about playing cautiously. Just get in there and start blasting.

Some of the enemies/bosses have pretty original designs which is always nice to see. The graphics here don’t disappoint as the whole package looks pretty nice. Perhaps not out of this world levels of awesome, but you won’t really be complaining about the presentation. The controls are also smooth so I don’t have any real qualms with the gameplay. I think you should be able to move a little bit faster since it feels impossible to dodge the attacks at times, but I think that just means you had to make a different decision earlier. It would be a nice change, but it’s not exactly a deal breaker.

It’s the length of the game that’s an issue here. You can beat the arcade route in around 15 minutes. I beat the game 5-6 times in one day but there are no real rewards for doing so. It’s the same thing every time and I guess you can just try to improve your score. I played all of the routes just to see if things would change and it never really happened. I know you can’t win them all, but I was still hoping for an extra victory here and there. Maybe a cool cutscene or a big new boss who shows up to mess everyone up. These are the little details that I personally think would have gone a very long way towards making this game more of a real contender in the shooter genre.

As it stands, I can see why the game is only about 15 bucks nowadays. Even that feels like a little too much. I’m effectively docking a star for the length and lack of features here. If the game at least had a basic story to go along with it or something else then maybe we could have something here. 15 minutes just doesn’t really cut it. I don’t regret getting the game since the store was having a buy 2 get 1 free sale anyway and it wasn’t a bad game, but I was certainly expecting more than what I got.

Overall, Psyvariar has an interesting title and a dynamic cover. Whoever did the artwork should definitely get some praise because that person helped me buy this game. If you know what you’re getting yourself into beforehand then you should be okay here, but you really do want to be aware that the game won’t last you more than a few minutes. You should not be paying anywhere near top dollar for this one because it’ll be gone in an instant. At least it allowed me to bump a game off my backlog almost instantly so there’s always a silver lining there. Browsing through the Switch collection at Gamestop there are certainly a lot of interesting games for the system. One day I’ll nab em all.

Overall 6/10

Kyojuro Rengoku vs Bass

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Kyojuro is one of the best Demon Slayer characters. His fire abilities are pretty cool and his excellent reaction times ensure that nobody is going to land a sneak attack on him. That being said, Bass has no need to use such tactics. His abilities are already on a higher level than Kyojuro’s so all he has to do is walk up to him and land a lot of punishing blows. That’s really all it will take to claim victory. Bass wins.

Irene Belserion vs Bass

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Irene is a powerful mage whose abilities were so impressive that the heroes were getting completely defeated by her. Only luck allowed the heroes to prevail. Bass won’t need to rely on that though, he’s perfectly capable of winning this match on his own. He once beat 100 enemies in a fraction of a second. A guy who can do that can really do just about anything when he puts his mind to it. Bass wins.

Zeref vs Bass

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Zeref has returned, but now he is up against the strongest being out there. Bass has taken down legions of opponents over the years and never even had to break a sweat while finishing them off, Zeref’s most dangerous ability is the fact that he can suck your life force just by being around. It won’t be able to take Bass out in time though. That guy’s life force is absolutely crazy and his attacks are too fast and powerful for Zeref to tank them either. No matter how you slice it, it’s game over for the guy! Bass wins.

Zeref vs Bui

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Bui is a very powerful fighter and his axe can really deal massive damage. You don’t want to mess with this guy. That being said, he still won’t be able to take down Zeref. Zeref has enough dark energy abilities to destroy entire planets at this point. His final fight with Natsu was intense. Bui just gets overwhelmed in all areas during this fight. He won’t be able to claim the win here. Zeref wins.