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Cardfight will+Dress Season 3 Review

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It’s time for another big Cardfight adventure and as always you can bet on a lot of awesome things happening here. I can never hide my surprise at how this series really did a full 180 and ended up being such a spectacular part of the franchise. It just goes to show that you can never count any title out. This one already has a lot of set up from the previous season so we’re able to just jump right into the battles with the Uniformers. My guy Tohya doesn’t get to do much this time but at least he does have one big fight.

The show starts with Yu-Yu and pals still wondering what exactly they should do about this. Yu-Yu doesn’t agree with the Uniformers method of having everyone fight with the same style but strictly speaking they are not doing anything illegal. Yeah they are pressuring players into using their style but they aren’t even blackmailing or beating anyone up. The only slight case you could make is that they’re using some kind of brainwashing that takes place after a win but it’s a bit of a stretch and I don’t know how you would go about proving it. The show never really goes this avenue either even though to me it did feel like brainwashing. In the end the only thing to really do is defeat these guys in a cardfight and prove that Uniformers aren’t the only way to victory.

Right in the first episode we have Yu-Yu dueling to try and prove that point. His skill level definitely seems to vary at times though. Sometime he is one of the most powerful duelists in the world who won’t lose to anyone and then other times he just seems to be generally powerful but not a top tier. This continues in this season but for the most part I’ll say that he looks good. Whenever he loses you’ll wince a bit but with cardfights there are a lot of variables in place. Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting the wrong cards or the opponent’s deck is a hard counter.

I appreciate Yu-Yu putting on his game face and making the case against the Uniformers but I think just about any other character would have been able to make a more compelling argument. Ultimately we’re many seasons in but Yu-Yu just isn’t one of my favorite characters. I don’t think he ended up growing into a really confident player the way that Aichi and Chrono did.

Jinki actually loses some points in this season. I still think he had one of the best intros in the series where he shows up to announce a massive tournament and has an air of mystery about him. He was one of the all time big threats after all and the head of the villain organization. Well, as the story goes on he becomes more of a puppet and one who isn’t able to fight back against the true threat. He comes across as a little wishywashy in not understanding the big picture the whole time. Since nobody really ends up taking his side, it just makes him look that much worse.

Then we have Haruka get a fairly decent role. In fact I’m pretty sure she duels more than Tohya in this series which is crazy. You’d figure that her character arc was complete but after she is dominated by a Uniformer she ends up joining them. Once again this is why it feels like mind control to me because her character just does a 180 there. By the end she gives some reasons for why she would help out but I just didn’t really buy it. It did make for some tense duels though and I liked this whole season as a tribute to Link Joker. The season wasn’t kind to Haruka though.

I’d also say that Mirei isn’t quite as impressive as she once was. She went from being a final boss to just one of the crew now and she doesn’t win as often. I would have liked her to have had some rage in avenging Haruka and taking everyone out. She deserves some good revenge after all of that right? It’s good to take the high road sometime but not all of the time. Still, she did get a good win at one point so that was good.

Zakusa gets a decent amount of hype here but he’s one of those characters I can’t take seriously. Like with the others you could argue that he’s just being mind controlled for most of the series but even so he just went down too easily. The guy seemed to have some plans but in the end he didn’t do anything outside of the duels. I just don’t think this character will ever click for me.

As a result of his getting a bigger role, Tomari gets to appear more too which is a decent trade off though. She’s always fun although Tomari is also a character that I feel isn’t in the upper echelon of fighters so I’m a bit skeptical of her hanging with the crew here. I guess the best argument you could make is that she really knows the deck of her opponent so it gives her a better chance of winning.

One of the villains that I could take seriously was Halona. From the start she was a fun character and someone who does believe in the cause. Her backstory ties into this so she has a much better resolve than most of the cast. I was rooting for her in both of her fights with Urara and Megumi. I just think she is the much better fighter and she’s really earned the win with the amount of work that she has put in. None of the other characters can even come close to matching her beat for beat. It’s just not happening. I hope we get to see more of her in future seasons.

As for Urara, I wouldn’t say she looks great in this season. She may be back with the heroes but it doesn’t feel like her skills have grown all that much. She’s also very timid which like Yu-Yu, doesn’t work out so well. I’d like her to get a bit bolder and really defend her deck choices more. Now that is something that would make her really stand out in all of the best ways. I can see her improving eventually but it’ll take some time.

Things are also tough for Megumi as she seems to lose a lot of duels but at the same time she’s always trying. Her confidence may be unfounded to a degree, but she’s not giving up and to me that’s just as important. I prefer her to Urara for that reason. Hopefully at some point Megumi gets more of a true power up since I’d like to see her get some more wins. I’d argue that she has trained so much that she deserves the spotlight more.

Instead it always goes back to Danji being the best and showing everyone up. Hey, he is a prodigy for good reason of course but it’s time to let someone else take the center stage. His duel with Megumi is fun but the guy is not someone you would want as an ally. He helps when he feels like it, which isn’t very often and that’s about it. You want an ally who is loyal and dependable, someone who will step up to defend the world right? Well that’s definitely not this guy, not even close! He’s got to be one of the most unreliable/irresponsible heroes that I’ve ever seen. He’s fun but the show doesn’t put as much spotlight on how much he’s letting everyone down as it should.

Then we have the rivalry with Raika and Sophia that keeps on going. Sophia is an extremely entertaining character with the way she’s constantly mocking Tohya and comparing him to a dog. She’s such an excellent antagonist but unfortunately she does not stick the landing. The show decides to completely change her character by the end which is part of her development but it’s not satisfying at all. It unfortunately means that she won’t be as fun when she returns.

This is also another matchup where the hero just doesn’t feel as strong as the villain so Raika’s match feels rather cheesy. I still like Raika as a solid rival who may not be Tohya level but can fight well. He just hasn’t had any real significant power ups which causes him to lag behind the other characters. He needs something and he needs it fast or he really will be doomed to stay in the back. He still has one of the best themes in the series though.

Then we have Tohya. Like I said he gets a very small role with only one real duel against Masanori. It’s hard to get as invested in this one since he’s been stronger than Masanori from the jump. Still, it’s a chance to see him in action so I can’t complain too much. His fiery fightstyle is still a lot of fun to watch and he really holds nothing back. I hope he will be brought back at some point in the future when a new threat is on the horizon.

Meanwhile I really hope Masanori stays gone this time. He manages to show up in every season somehow and yet there just isn’t any real point to his character. He just loses and loses and loses some more while trying to gaslight everyone into thinking that it’s part of his plan. It’s not a very convincing argument when you very rarely win. His only big win here is against a character who is so weak that it really can’t be used as hype.

Finally you have the AI who is trying to make the world a better place. It makes for a pretty interesting villain as it naturally takes everything literal and it goes from trying to make the world a better place into taking almost everyone down in order to achieve that reality. It’s not exactly the most complex villain but I always enjoy having a robotic type villain like this. In theory such a program would be amazing at Cardfight so it also makes sense why the heroes are having such a tough time.

As always the climax is really a blast here. It continues the energy from the rest of the season and never lets up. I think it was a smart move to have all of the heroes have a big rival from the villains group. It meant that each duel was really personal the whole time. We probably could have used a little time for power ups for the heroes to be honest but in the end it still works out well enough. Each duel is impressive both visually and narratively which is the most important part.

As always the animation is pretty solid here. I still wouldn’t call this one of the top tier productions or anything like that but it is consistent and looks sharp the whole time. You can’t really ask for much more than that. The soundtrack is also really good which is just as key. There are less of the big insert songs here compared to previous seasons but the soundtrack is still very balanced.

It’s pretty rare to get a season that’s basically just one long series of battles but this isn’t even the first time that Cardfight has pulled this off. It’s why it is definitely one of the best franchises out there. Few titles are doing it the way that Cardfight is. The stakes may not seem quite as high as in some of the other seasons since as I mentioned, the Uniformers aren’t doing anything illegal or trying to destroy the world. However, a battle of ideals is always a pretty fun reason to battle as well.

Overall, Cardfight is definitely in good hands. It looks like the next season is going to reset the main character group again so I look forward to seeing how the next group handles things. Most likely that means the season won’t be able to top this one as usually the first season with a new lead takes a while to develop all of the characters. It’s a long term investment where you sacrifice the first season to set up a lot of awesome sequels. That said, as long as the sacrifice isn’t too drastic then it is absolutely worth it all the way. This season in particular might be a little harder to get into compared to older ones since it’s a direct sequel and all but if you enjoy action then you should definitely check it out.

Overall 8/10

Sonic Prime Review

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It’s time to talk about the most recent Sonic show that just ended. Prime definitely had a pretty good run although the episode count isn’t as impressive as the overall length because of the way the show kept getting split up. Still, because of that you certainly can’t say that it was over in the blink of an eye. It had some good action and it’s always fun to see the Sonic characters running around even if the show never got too ambitious or tried to be anything more than pretty good.

The show starts off quickly with Sonic and friends trying to stop Eggman’s latest attack. He’s trying to do something with a crystal shard and so Sonic quickly attacks him but ends up blowing the shard up which sends him into a whole different reality. There are now different worlds that have alternate versions of Amy, Tails, Rouge, Big, and Knuckles. Sonic has to unite the gems to reform the crystal and bring his world back but to do hat he will have to defeat the Chaos Council, a group of different Eggmen that are bent on ruling the universe. Can Sonic stop them and will these alternate characters want to prevent the fusion since it could have dangerous repercussions on their own home worlds?

So right away I will say that this is pretty much a classic Saturday Morning cartoon title. You shouldn’t expect things to get too tense/dangerous even with the end of the world stakes at place. There will be a lot of one liners and comedic moments to keep things light but Sonic’s always been good with those. So the tone itself fits, but the execution isn’t always up to par with the high standard of the games’. Sonic is often not as witty as he thinks he is and so some of the jokes tend to fall flat. It’s why the show is definitely at its best when there is action happening.

We have one of our longest Sonic vs Shadow fights in the series during the second part of the show and it’s handled really well. Fans of Sonic may not appreciate that he plays second fiddle to Shadow all of the time but I’m pretty cool with Shadow being the strongest. (Remember that Sonic 2006 showed that he has been holding back the whole time and could have easily beaten Sonic) They should be fairly close but Shadow having the slight edge isn’t bad. In fact you could argue that a slight edge in a fight like this would be enough to have one character dominate.

Shadow is consistently shown to be more experienced, smarter, stronger, and more combat ready in general. In any scene with the two of them running around Sonic will often end up falling flat on his face while Shadow lands with grace and poise. As a result the show does have to write him out quite often since he would be dominating the whole time. Even then he shines off screen like when we see how he actually managed to take down a whole army of enemies. That was great. Shadow is absolutely the highlight of the series and any scene with him is awesome.

I will say that I also enjoy Sonic a lot. Yeah he definitely acts a lot younger than usual which is why my head canon is that this takes place back in the old days despite how that would not fit with continuity. However, he’s still a hero through and through. It’s always fun to see him use his speed and dominate the enemies when the chips are down. He’s a good lead and he still clears over 90% of the cast in the show.

It’s a bit of a shame that we don’t get to see his friends much since the alternate universe fighters take the main stage here. Most of them are rather boring. There’s the pirate crew but they don’t have much of a role beyond their version of Knuckles. That Knuckles is okay but it’s hard to take him seriously as a threat since you figure Sonic can beat him at any point. At least he did have a full personality the whole time so I’ll give him that.

Then in the Jungle role the only one with a real full role was Amy. She had a pretty good action scene with Sonic as they avoided the trees/vines while battling. Beyond that though, there isn’t really much to her. Her bird also ends up failing at the last possible moment for no reason other than to buy time which was odd. The Amys in general go more of a role than the other characters though. Typically each world had one primary character: Pirates was Knuckles, Rebellion was Tails, Jungle was Amy, however then you had the robotic Amy from the pirates world also get a big role so that broke tradition.

Robotic Amy was fun, she didn’t get quite as much to do later but it was a fun concept. Having her finally break away from the programming and do her own thing was cool although even then I think they could have done a little more with it. Imagine her being a full third faction just trying to take over the world or something. I think that could have been a lot of fun.

After that is Nine who has a super big role. His role is second only to Sonic in the show as he is a consistent presence in each part. The guy is a genius like the real Tails but has to live with the fact that he isn’t the Tails that Sonic always hung out with. The whole thing’s pretty tragic for him and I think the show does a good job of playing him up as more of an anti hero than straight up villain. I mean some of his dialogue in the last part is classic bad guy but the motivations make sense.

Basically the way I saw it at first is that depending on how the merging goes through, Tails’ and his timeline may no longer exist. The way the show actually ends it doesn’t seem like that’s the case but it’s a very reasonable concern. So his goals and Sonic’s are directly opposed to each other and Yu-Gi-Oh Arc V had a very similar issue. It’s a very interesting one that I enjoy because there isn’t really a right answer. Once a new world has been created, you don’t really have any authority to suddenly destroy it to bring your own back right? However if you don’t, then you are sort of murdering billions of people by inaction. Sonic has to bring his world back at any cost and Nine has to protect his.

Again, this is Sonic Prime so it’s not going to go with the hard philosophical questions like that. The final part makes this more of a black and white struggle in regards to who the good guys are and the bad guys but it was a fun way to end off the second part. Nine also works really well as a villain and while I will always take speed over smarts, he absolutely does give Sonic a good fight.

I’ll talk about the power levels in a minute but lets wrap up the characters. Metal Sonic shows up here which was pretty cool although it’s a very different take on the character to be sure. He likes to throw out puns and joke around just like Sonic. It’s going for the more literal copy of Sonic right down to the personality rather than being cold and calculating like he usually is. I get what they were going for here but I don’t think it really works. It does make him memorable though so I’ll give him that. Later on we get more copies that are truly mindless and they don’t end up being all that interesting.

Then we have the Chaos Council. While I’m not as harsh on them as some others, they are very weak villains. I didn’t personally like any of them and they just made me miss Eggman. The baby is super annoying since he can’t even talk and the old man is the other extreme where he is super old and that’s the only joke that the series will keep on reusing for him. You have the kid who loves playing video games which is barely even a personality and then the only adult who I could only describe as a watered down Eggman. So not a very intimidating group and the problem is that the show really wants you to respect them. They actually give Sonic a hard time at different points which doesn’t make any sense. We really could have used more villains.

This brings me to the power levels issue. It’s common for anything including speedsters so it’s not unique to Sonic Prime but it’s still annoying as always. Sonic should be mopping the floor with just about every villain in the series. I don’t mind him having trouble with Shadow, Metal Sonic, or other speedsters. But the Chaos Council, Pirate Knuckles, and Nine? Those fights should be over in the blink of an eye. It never makes sense whenever Sonic is hit by any of these guys. If you want to do that, then have him get exhausted first like when Nine forced him to keep saving people. That would make sense but a fresh Sonic can’t be getting hit all of the time.

It’s part of why I looked forward to seeing Shadow every time because he looked the way I expected Sonic to look. He actually used his speed well and was usually winning his battles while Sonic jobbed the whole time. Yeah Sonic would eventually win with the help of his friends but that was about it. Also the friends should not stand any chance against the Grim Sonics running around. It just comes across as really cheesy the whole time.

As mentioned, the animation is pretty smooth though and so that works with the fights. At times you don’t really feel the weight behind the blows though. I always turn to the DCAU or Dragon Ball Z for this. You need animation effects for the blows or a good sound effect. Part of the problem with Prime is someone will get punched or slammed but the effect is so weak that it feels lifeless. As for the soundtrack, it’s more on the generic side. Don’t expect anything memorable.

I will say to prepare yourself for a very dragged out Part 3. While I still enjoyed it quite a lot with the fighting and climax, it is fair to say that they really start to overplay their hand. There are a ton of moments that feel straight up like recycled footage and I think that’s actually the cast. We reuse the same story beats over and over to fight the same opponents in the same setting. I knew something was suspicious when we entered the climax almost immediately in the final part and that’s because we would end up going on a loop.

Part of the problem is that this makes the power level issues more obvious. On one hand you have Sonic and Shadow teaming up to beat the Grim Sonic and then later on you have him getting punched around by Knuckles and Amy. Yeah the Alphas are stronger than the clones but even the Alphas were losing to the friends. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think maybe part of the problem is the CG and the show had to keep reusing backgrounds and character models. It would explain why throughout the series we kept going to the same places and fighting the same enemies. It’s yet another reason why hand drawn will always be superior.

By the end of the series you deeply miss Eggman and Sonic’s actual friends. I would really like to see a series focus more on them without any big gimmicks because if you think about it that never really happens. In Sonic X we were busy with the humans and then going off to space, in Sonic Boom they’re all trapped on an island so the rest of the characters aren’t there, etc. I think there are plenty of great stories you could tell with the main cast and no gimmicks.

So repetition is the show’s biggest weakness. It should have mixed things up a bit more and even if I give the writers the excuse that the animation limited them, you can absolutely write around that. So Sonic Prime is a very safe show and it’s a fun one but these are the kinds of basic issues that keep it from moving forward. If the show ever does return or we get a brand new one, I’d like to see them mix it up a bit. Also they shouldn’t be afraid to make Sonic more of a true leader. Yeah he’s a free spirit but he’s a fairly mature one in most forms of media. He has fun with the jokes but always at a good time and he takes care of the situation with ease which is part of why it works.

I should give the show some credit for Sonic’s new super form though. It wasn’t really necessary since he has a ton of existing ones as it is, but I still enjoyed seeing it. It was a good way to end off one of the parts and at least salvage the climax from the usual giant villain. In general I also really liked a lot of the designs for the original characters like the Grim Bots and pretty much all of the mechs. So the character designers did really know what they were doing.

Overall, Sonic Prime was pretty fun. I had a good time with the episodes. The animation is good enough as it looks like cutscenes right out of the video games. It may not be as top tier as it could have been with a more traditional style but it did the job. In a lot of ways that describes the show all around. It’s pretty good even if it’s not groundbreaking. I don’t think the show itself will have a ton of replay value but I could see myself Youtubing some of the fights every now and again. Particularly Sonic vs Shadow which is the highlight of the series.

Overall 7/10

City Hunter Review

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It’s time for a fairly wacky comedy film. This one definitely does not hold back in terms of how out there it gets. That said, the humor doesn’t really land very well most of the time. There are some good moments but on the whole the film ends up dragging itself out and whenever you think a hype scene is about to occur, your hopes get obliterated right away. This is basically what happens if you make a film with someone like James Bond as the main character…

The movie starts off with City Hunter’s partner getting extremely sloppy as he is gunned down by a group of villains. He quickly tells the hunter not to get together with his sister and City Hunter vows to live up to those words. He’s busy flirting with every girl in town anyway but his days of slacking off have come to an end as he is hired for an important job. He must locate a girl named Kyoko who is with the wrong crowd and her father wants her back. The City Hunter vows to complete the mission for all of the wrong reasons and after fumbling the operation, follows her onto a fancy cruise. What he doesn’t realize is that the boat is swarming with so many terrorists who can fight in hand to hand combat far better than he can. Is it all over for him?

So here’s the deal, I’m all for some good slapstick and I don’t even mind a main character who is completely unable to fight. Someone who is out of his depths the whole time can be a lot of fun with some sarcastic humor. The important point is that he has to be likable and unfortunately….that’s where he falters big time. This guy is just too much of a flirt who prioritizes that over the mission. I won’t say he’s as bad as James Bond but any scene with this guy is extremely annoying.

The film certainly does a good job of incorporating a lot of harem type antics into the movie to make this as authentic as possible but it comes at the expense of the movie being any good. City Hunter should have leaned more into his goofy nature and how he couldn’t find the police office let alone any crooks, but instead it focuses on what a perv the guy is. You’re rooting for the villains to take him out most of the time.

Also most of the film’s humor basically revolves around this which gets old fast and doesn’t come across as clever. There’s quite a lot of fanservice here which bogs down the movie. It’s not quite Charlie’s Angels territory which still takes the dubious crown in that department but it’s fairly unrelenting here. Even when viewing the film under the parody lens, you’re not really going to be sticking with this one for very long.

Kaori isn’t really a great heroine either. She is always jealous of the other girls that City Hunter is with and so she pouts a lot but a better heroine would have really been beating him up all the time. She imagines doing so, but actually tackling him more would have been better. I want to see some confidence and charisma. Instead she goes as far as to pretend to ally herself with the villains at times to get a reaction out of the guy…although it never works anyway. Why would she even want to be with someone who is clearly not going to be loyal in the slightest? City Hunter would drop her in an instant as soon as another girl talks to him.

Now they probably could have let up a little with how many times Kaori gets knocked to the ground though. It just gets sad after a while when you see how often she is the film’s punching bag. Kiyoko gets into a fair deal of trouble as well but unlike Kaori, Kiyoko was basically seeking this out the whole time. I don’t think Kiyoko played this very smart at all from the start but intelligence isn’t the strong suit of just about any character here.

Okay lets talk about some positives. For what it’s worth, there are a few good fight scenes once in a while. There’s a solid fight in the theater where City Hunter mainly gets dominated but eventually churns out a win. It’s still part comedy of course but it works well enough. The best fight is against the main villain’s bouncer though. Both characters move so fast that they keep on missing each other. See, this is actually a pretty good gag that is parodying how good of a fighter they both are. They’re so good that they both actually end up looking weak. Now that’s clever. There are a few other good jokes in there as well.

The effects are so bad that they go all the way around into actually being funny as well. This may not be intentional but I wouldn’t even be surprised if that’s what they were going for. This film is trying to be as silly as possible which is why it’s a shame that it’s not better. Usually I’d be a sucker for a film like this but it just didn’t have the right humor approach. Humor can be very difficult to land of course but at the same time it’s rare to mess up this badly. Seriously just make City Hunter less of a two dimensional character and you could be on to something! A film like this should never feel like its dragging and yet that happens at times. It’s a flurry of activity but sometimes it feels like nobody is going anywhere which doesn’t help matters.

Overall, City Hunter is a movie that just tries way too hard. It ends up being more cringeworthy than funny most of the time. Having a better main character would have helped a whole lot. Ultimately it’s probably for the best that most people don’t remember this one. Why would you adapt City Hunter instead of the original Gundam or even Astro Boy? Trust me when I say there were plenty of other manga titles you could have adapted before this one even entered the conversation. You may as well call this guy the City Hunter by the end of it with how much he’s getting wrecked the whole time.

Overall 4/10

Dragon Fist Review

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It’s time for a very old film with Jackie Chan. It’s definitely not one of his best films but the fight scenes are definitely on point when they occur. You get a lot of action at the end of the film but outside of a fight near the beginning, the film does go a long while without action. There are quite a few twists throughout the movie which does take it in a different direction than you might have expected but in this case that’s not necessarily a good thing.

The movie starts off with two factions fighting. One of them wins and so the master claims the title of “Champion” and has the banner to prove it. The master of a different faction didn’t like this and so he challenges the first one to a battle for the crown. The first master loses and is promptly murdered. His top student Tang is tasked with avenging the master’s death and restoring honor to his family. So he travels with the master’s wife and daughter to the home base of the villainous Master Li. Tang has been doing some training but is he really ready to take on a master level opponent when he was folded so easily the first time? Additionally there is a lot of politics going on here with various factions so Tang must really plan his moves carefully or risk complete and utter defeat.

Okay so lets start off with the positives here. The fight scenes are really good. I always appreciate some good martial arts like what this film has. The choreography is really good and the fighters are attacking at high speeds all the time. You feel good power behind the blows and it’s nice when two fighters finally go at it in life or death stakes near the end. A lot of the action scenes tend to involve one side holding back due to circumstances but of course you’re eager to see the fighters cut loose. There’s a really fast fists barrage near the end of the film which should really stand out even among the other combos.

The film is also fairly unpredictable which is good to an extent. I probably would have preferred the more predictable plot of revenge in this case but more on that later. There are also a decent amount of memorable supporting characters so it helps make the film more memorable. For example the 2nd in command for the main villain and the main heroine of Master Li’s faction. So it’s not one of those films where only the main character and villain are important.

Now on the not as impressive side is the main character. This is in part I’d say a cultural difference as well. A lot of times in both Japanese and Chinese films, there’s a lot of stock put on family honor and doing whatever you gotta do in order to preserve it. The main problem is that this will often result in the characters making the wrong decisions just because to go against it would be dishonorable. Tang strikes me as that kind of character as he goes as far as to become a full villain after some strategic blackmail. Here’s the main problem, he should just be taking what he needs by force.

The situation involves a drug that he needs or at least the formula to replicate it and the only way he can get it is to beat people up by working for a gang. At that point if you’re going to have to be a villain anyway, choose the outcome that has the least amount of victims. In that case it would be taking down the villains himself. Tang just seems a little slow on the uptake here as he doesn’t quite seem to realize how evil his bosses are when they don’t really hide it.

There’s one scene where the villains murder a child and Tang gets framed for it. He quickly confirms that he didn’t murder the child but this doesn’t stop one of the villains from being upset at how he orchestrated all of this for Tang to murder some more heroes. Here’s the thing..he says that right in front of Tang yet the lead doesn’t visibly react at all. Surely that should have been the end of this alliance right?

Then Tang goes as far as to fight all of the good guys at once while still working for the villain and it’s not until the final 15 minutes or so that he realizes he’s not doing well. This results in yet an even higher body count once more. I would also argue that the ending isn’t even a happy one at all. You have to remember that the heroes were heavily outnumbered with numerous guys with swords bumping off anyone who tried to leave the complex. The movie ends immediately after the final fight but as far as we know there are 3-4 super weakened heroes left who are going to have to fight well over 2 dozen armed fighters. I don’t think they’re actually leaving that place alive. There’s a slight shot Tang can do something since he’s the most skilled but even then I just don’t see it.

All right time for some spoilers so skip the next 3 paragraphs if you haven’t seen the film. It’s time for me to go into detail on some of the twists and why they didn’t work for me. Well first off, we never got the big fight with Master Li. It turns out that his wife destroyed herself in guilt after his win because she had an affair with the other guy so then Li removed his leg as penance and wants to make amends with the main characters. It’s not like you can just go ahead and beat up on someone with one leg who can no longer fight although Tang comes dangerously close to attempting this anyway. It’s a very intense twist to be sure but it means we have lost the main villain//the strongest fighter in the series. The movie has a hard time recovering from this because the actual main villain is so much weaker.

It’s subversive but it comes at the expense of a cool climax. The new villain’s second in command is reasonably tough but only makes this a real fight because he grabs some weapons at the end. Likewise the actual new villain only does well because the hero is tired by then. It would be much more satisfying to take down a main villain who is super powerful. It also feels like maybe the film did this because Tang would have been no match for Master Li but I’d still have preferred to watch that fight.

Ultimately though, the film’s lacking because of Tang in each scenario though. Beating up on the heroes while working for the villains is pretty wild in itself but he’s always extremely slow to act. At one point a group of 5 men attack one of the heroines and he just stands there like a statue until their blows start to add up and he realizes he should be in there fighting. Yeah it’s good that he eventually got in there but leaving her to fend for herself for any period of time really wasn’t cool.

That’s it for the spoilers so back to the program. The old master’s wife and daughter were more reasonable than Tang at least which is good although you do feel like they were just holding him back the whole time. I know they needed to be there as per tradition for their revenge but if Tang had just gone by himself then the whole film would have played out verrrrry differently. Having to watch out for two noncombatants the whole time is very tricky.

The film can also get a little dark at times. Of course you have the kid dying which I wasn’t really expecting. Fortunately it’s completely off screen but it’s still something we didn’t really need here. Two characters commit suicide and so the film which already had a fairly large body count, really added to it with some intense ones there. Considering that the gang’s run things for a while now, it’s likely something that happens a lot. Master Li’s reasoning for not fighting back doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Yeah he was waiting for proof but in the meantime his men are being attacked and the villains are gaining more ground. That’s a losing, defensive strategy. If you want to win then you have to press forward and attack. It’s not like he’s a diplomat who needs absolute proof before doing anything. He’s a martial arts master whose first duty is protecting his students, he really should have done something.

The characters don’t always feel very logical to me and it feels like an honor thing at times. They all just have to pretend to be polite at all times and do everything by the book. That may be fine in some scenarios but often times you need to get out there and attack. While I have numerous issues with Tang throughout the film, at least his intro scene where he jumped in to defend the master was good. It would have been nice if he would have at least looked decent in the fight instead of being thrown around effortlessly but the attempt was the important part.

Overall, Dragon Fist is not going to be able to hang in there blow for blow with most of its martial art rivals but if you’re looking for a quick film with lots of action then this definitely works out well. It is over with very quickly and so the pacing’s not bad. I would have liked a little more action and for Tang to have been more likable for it to have crossed over into the next level. I think that alone could have bumped it an extra two stars. It just focused too much on so many different plots with all of the factions which could work really well for a series where you keep spreading out the cast for the inevitable conclusion but having 3 different groups in a film that’s barely 90 minutes is pushing it. You don’t have much reason to care about some of these characters and it takes away from the main story which gets put on the backburner at different points.

Overall 5/10

Yu Yu Hakusho (2023) Review

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It’s time to jump into the world of Yu Yu Hakusho! I admit that I was rather skeptical of this one when it was coming out. While I’ve always preferred anime to traditional animation cartoons, I’ve often found that their live action products do not really compare to the average western one in terms of effects or even just pacing and excitement-wise. It just looks a bit more low budget in general although it’s not like I’ve seen tons of them to compare to be honest. Well, this one was pretty fun, ultimately I think it needed a little more punch for it to be considered as great though. By the end it actually just makes you want to go back and watch the anime again…which I did end up Youtubing a lot of the best moments afterwards. The show is only 5 episodes long so it goes by quickly.

The show introduces us to Yusuke Urameshi who is considered a big delinquent at school. He’s definitely not the nicest person around but is generally a good guy who just gets into a lot of bad situations. Well, one day he sees a kid about to get hit by a car so he jumps in to save him but ends up dying in the resulting crash and goes to the spirit world. There he is given a deal by Koenma, he can be revived but will have to spend the rest of his days as a Spirit Detective or he can stay dead. Yusuke’s rather stubborn and initially thinks about staying dead but ultimate he gets revived. Now he has to stop the demons that plague this planet, but does he have the strength to pull it off?

The series has to move rather fast because it is trying to set up the characters but then jump right into the action. So sure enough the first episode covers his death, resurrection, and his first fight with a demon. Well, not a true demon anyway but a kid who was being possessed by one. It’s a solid way to start things off with a lot of action and also gets you used to the fast pace that the show will be operating on. This is definitely not a title that will be slowly taking you to the goal. That said, in retrospect this is actually the episode I would have sped up a little more.

A lot of time is spent on this kid who got possessed. Basically he was being bullied at first and couldn’t defend himself which gave the demon the opening it needed to tempt take control of the kid’s weakened heart and get revenge. It all takes a decent amount of time though and since the kid wouldn’t end up being all that important later on, you could actually save some time by just having him get absolutely crushed real quick and start the first arc with the 3 demons early. It would give you more breathing room at the end.

The actual fight is good though. Yusuke is holding back the whole time trying not to hurt the kid too badly which is mainly why the battle takes a while. If Yusuke was going full blast then it wouldn’t have been a problem. We also get to know Kuwabara and Botan a little more through this introduction saga. The second and third episodes are really more about Yusuke’s first battle encounters.

Basically 3 demons have each made off with a powerful object from the spirit world which they obtained by defeating a pack of other powerful demons. That means these guys are real serious and Yusuke learns that the hard way when he has an extremely difficult time with the first one. That first demon always gets a smaller role than the next two which is the same here. There just isn’t much to him and he’s also a lot more irredeemable than the other two because the guy is always targeting kids. Hiei and Kurama are able to get redemption arcs and fight as rivals because at least they weren’t really doing anything too evil. In fact in this Netflix version you could make the case that they are functionally heroes from the start. That just doesn’t apply to the first demon.

There are also a few changes to the arc here like in Yusuke’s battle with Hiei. Yusuke is properly shown to be way weaker than Hiei for most of the fight and even though he gets some hits by the end, I don’t think the victor is really ever in any doubt. Hiei’s speed is just way too fierce and it’s not like he is lacking in overall attack power either. So that gives him the absolute edge in a fight. The way the arc seamlessly transitions into the Toguro saga is also pretty good. Each of the characters have a reason for wanting to head to the island to take him out.

The rest of the show is the island adventure which even takes some queues from the Dark Tournament like Toguro’s team being there. It means everyone gets an opponent to fight in the final episodes which I definitely appreciated. This is also where the show goes a bit beyond my expectations because some of these fights are actually rather long. In particular I would give a lot of credit to Kurama vs Karasu as the longest fight and it could go blow for blow with an anime battle.

Yu Yu Hakusho’s effects are better than I would have expected so mix that in with the extended action scenes and it puts the show in a good space. While I had some negatives with the show, this is the positive that really outweighs all of the other areas. The fights are real intense with a lot of good close combat action. I wasn’t overly impressed with how they handled the Spirit Gun, it often felt more like a quick burst than an actual energy attack but all of the other attacks were on point. We even got some good speed feats for Hiei.

Then the writing is also pretty solid. Yusuke works well as the likable jerk and Hiei’s always a classic tough guy. All of the characters have a lot of spunk to them and so that makes the episodes real enjoyable. The pacing is super fast so you’re never bored and even if it’s unfortunate that we are unlikely to get a straight Dark Tournament adaption now, hopefully they keep going and eventually give us another season some day.

Now lets talk about some of the series’ weak points. First up would be that the power scaling can be really wonky. It has the classic issue that most titles with a speedster face which is that he suddenly moves way slower when in a battle. Yusuke should not realistically even be able to touch Hiei yet he holds his own in a fight? I’m extremely skeptical about that happening at all. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense and you see this happen in other fights as well. Hiei should be dominating Bui when they battle and Kuwabara should really be getting wrecked in his battle.

There are also some demon dogs that are added to the island which is pretty needless. The anime also had a quick monster there for Toguro to defeat but I don’t remember it looking like a dog. So there was a bit of creature violence there that felt a little close to animal violence so I was glad that it wasn’t around very much. We did bypass the bird death that the anime had so in a way they sort of canceled themselves out there.

In terms of the pacing I’m cool with it moving so quickly. The only negative would sort of be that whatever’s been skipped and moved away is unlikely to ever appear. So I miss something that didn’t ever get to exist which is why it’s not really the kind of thing that would hurt the score. It hurts the potential of this as a full live action franchise but for now the season traded future potential for immediate returns which does mean that in the short term it does work out pretty great.

Now lets talk about the characters a little bit. As mentioned, Yusuke is a great lead. He may not have the same fire as his anime self in a lot of ways but he’s still a good guy who is always ready to fight. He’s a little less cocky and powerful for sure so get ready to see him on the defensive a lot and having to use agility but he’s still got those street fighting skills. Keiko is also a good heroine who always has his back even when Yusuke’s not exactly making himself look great. Her role even feels a bit bigger here than how it usually was since she tags along with the crew on their missions.

Botan is a really fun heroine as you would expect. She’s always having a good time and taking things in stride. Botan may not be the biggest fighter but she’s great in the support role and has a ton of experience. Kuwabara gets a solid role here. He may be Yusuke’s punching bag as usual but the guy tries hard and does get his moment with the spirit sword. I’d argue he should still be no match for Elder Toguro because of the speed difference and all but I already talked about the power levels. His core character is good and it’s nice to have another delinquent who is actually a nice guy so it’s not like Yusuke’s one of a kind.

Then we have Hiei who has certainly been softened a lot in this version. He’s basically a hero like I mentioned. He only murders villains and is really intent on saving his sister who has been kidnapped. He has many chances to murder Yusuke and doesn’t take them, he really spares his opponents whenever he can. I would say he also doesn’t seem as powerful as he is usually portrayed though. He has a really difficult time against Bui for the whole run and doesn’t feel like he stands a chance against Toguro. You could make a strong case that he would lose in the anime as well but that was after dozens of episodes of him appearing to be so much stronger than all of the other characters so it was more of a shocking moment when we see that even he is outmatched.

Hiei’s still really cool though which is the most important thing and he works really well as the rival. He doesn’t take orders and he does his own thing like when he splits up at the island. So I do think that they really understood his character all the way. Likewise Kurama looks really good here too. Also a bit underpowered with how his fight against Karasu plays out but the ending is what counts. There were several moments at first where I thought he was doing something on purpose because it was part of a plan but then no, he was actually getting hit.

In Karasu’s defense he is really powerful though so that could explain why Kurama had trouble. It’s my favorite fight of the series either way and Kurama is the most heroic out of all of the demons for sure. He really did turn over a new leaf and the redemption is handled very well because it already took place from before we even met him. It was a very solid way for the story to go and is still very original. You don’t see many characters written like him. A strategist who can also fight with the best of them will always be excellent.

Then we have the villains. First up lets talk about Elder Toguro whose role isn’t huge but the show definitely gets the creepy atmosphere around him pretty well. The guy’s shapeshifting and stabbing moves are hard to deal with. It’s always an extremely difficult power to contend with and of course he has regeneration as well. Then you’ve got Karasu who is really fast and has invisible explosions that are launchable. That means you’re never safe anywhere around him. It’s an incredibly good technique to have and another really original power. In theory he would make for an incredible assassin since the target would not see his blows coming.

The guy is also really confident with how he was trying to draw out Kurama’s latent power. If he had just gone all out from the start then the hero wouldn’t have had time to adapt. After that is Younger Toguro, the main villain of the series you could say. The guy’s pure power is pretty crazy and he wants to fight even more powerful opponents so he’s sort of like an evil Goku. He’s a fun villain. I wouldn’t say there’s a whole lot to him at least in this version but he makes for a great end game boss which is all that you could ask for. He kept the heroes on their toes the whole time and kept getting stronger and stronger. It makes sense that he would be fairly desperate with nobody else being able to give him a good fight anymore.

Sakyo is not really a fighter but I did like how the show handled his character. He suffers from boredom too because it seems like he is invincible. Not because he is super powerful or anything like that but because he is super lucky. So it seems like no matter what he does, things work out well. For example he takes out a gun and fills every chamber except one and then shoots at himself. It ends up being a blank. Apparently every wager he has ever made, he has won. The guy has never experienced defeat which has to be a crazy feeling. So the guy gets crazier and crazier which makes sense although his final scene is extremely underwhelming.

Finally we have 3 more supporting characters. There is Yukina who has a great ability to create diamonds but nothing offensive which is unfortunate with how many people are trying to get to her. Hopefully she can find some way to use her powers in a fight at least for self defense but she’s nice enough. Genkai gets a role in training Yusuke and Kuwabara but she is gone just as fast. She’s a character who had a lot of potential but ultimately she just left too quickly. Finally there is Koenma. I don’t mind them removing the baby form because it is one of those things that works really well in the show but I probably couldn’t take him seriously in this version. As it is I still couldn’t take him seriously which is part of the point but still. He’s a fun enough supporting character, just get ready for him to always be helpless. The guy is never able to do anything except make empty threats and plead with Yusuke to save the day. So yeah that’s the show in a nutshell. I do hope we get a season 2 at some point and hopefully it doesn’t take 4+ years. I want shows to churn out seasons a bit quicker than that.

Overall, Yu Yu Hakusho is pretty good. I would definitely recommend checking it out. Obviously you get an added experience when you already know the series but even if you’ve never seen anything from the series before, you shouldn’t get lost. The show is pretty clear with what is going on. Ultimately I’m thinking this will probably give you encouragement to watch the anime afterwards. Personally I would say to go back to episode 1. Yes you will be rewatching some scenes but you will see a lot of new ones as well and the dub is terrific. You do not want to miss any of that.

Overall 7/10

Behind Enemy Lines Review

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It’s time for a film that reminds you of just how dangerous it can be to be caught behind enemy lines. Trust me that’s not a situation that you ever want to be in. It makes for a pretty action packed movie with a lot of chase scenes and having to avoid enemy fire. I had a pretty good time with it and would recommend checking it out to anyone looking for a solid action movie to watch.

The movie starts with Chris really looking forward to his current tour ending. He had been hoping for a lot of action and excitement as a pilot but instead he’s mostly just had to do a lo of flying around empty areas. No gunfights or anything like that and he doesn’t appreciate the peace. Well one day, he ends up flying a little far out and gets shot down by the opposition. His partner is executed and he barely escapes into the wilderness. The US is in a tough political battle with this country and so with the treaty nearly here they don’t want to risk anything setting that back. So despite having a soldier on the run, the higher ups forbid Admiral Leslie from stepping in. Leslie wants to help but needs to figure out a way to do this. Will assistance be in time for Chris or is he truly on his own?

Now if this was a power fantasy film Chris would just defeat the whole army and keep it moving but of course that wouldn’t be super realistic. Best we can do for you here is have Chris be able to outrun the entire army and dodge all of their bullets. A pretty impressive feat in and of itself though. You’re going to see a lot of scenes of everyone trying to murder Chris and he’s just too fast for them. He moves through the forest like it’s his own backyard and he’s also able to use the mud to his advantage so that he can hide even while they are right on top of him. So yeah pretty impressive all around.

This film will have you stretching your disbelief quite a bit with how it’s handled but it does make for a very exciting movie which is always a good idea. It does come at the expense of the hype for one of the villains though. This guy is supposed to be an expert sniper, the best in the business and the film hypes him up as a huge threat. The problem for the guy is that ultimately when the chips are down he isn’t able to hit Chris. He has Chris straight in his sights and misses every single shot. Really a bad look for the guy since he’s a sniper and shooting at someone should be what he does best. It definitely had me a little confused I have to say. Just feels like the villain should have been handled a lot better.

There’s also another scene where he gets really lucky. Basically the villain who was with him steps on a land mine and asks him for help. The sniper says nah and start to walk away. The first villain should have just tried to run or make a jump for it then and blown them both up. No way you just let the other guy get away like that right? It would make no sense and just makes you look bad for accepting that. You have to keep your dignity in tact. All of the villains were on the weak side here to be sure but you can’t just take that. You have to make a move.

Meanwhile Leslie was a good admiral. He definitely did try to do the right thing throughout the whole film but it just wasn’t so easy. Every time he was being stopped on all sides by other officials. The film was definitely trying to show a lot of corruption within the government here like one guy in particular who seemed to be working with the terrorists the whole time. I was surprised at how easily he got off after it was all said and done. I guess there just wasn’t a strong enough case against him and he probably blamed it on someone else but that was unfortunate.

It was nice to see Chris actually get a little help as the film went on from the resistance. Usually it feels like nobody’s around at all and so the hero is really on his own but even just having one person makes a huge difference when you’re on the run like that. The crazy thing is that Chris could have really saved himself a whole movie if he just hadn’t yelled when they blew up his partner. I get that he was feeling pretty stressed and shocked when that happened but at the same time he really didn’t need to yell like that. The scene took so long and was so drawn out that it’s not like he didn’t see it coming. So he should have been prepared for that moment from the start.

If he doesn’t make a sound then nobody finds out and he has a really solid head start over to the extraction point. Even with the moles and traitors running around, I don’t think anyone would have had time to stop him before he escaped. So it was really a turning point in the whole movie right from the start.

Overall, This is definitely an exciting film with a whole lot of action the whole time. The pacing is on point and while the character cast isn’t huge, they work well enough. The movie is definitely at its best when it is really focusing on the thriller aspects of the title over the drama but handles them all rather well. It has a lot of fun with slow mo scenes and tons of camera cuts all over the place to really make you feel the intensity. This is absolutely more of an action film than your classic war title so keep that in mind when you’re watching it. I’ll be curious to see if any of the sequels can match this one. In theory you can just keep reusing the same plot over and over again so it’s all going to come down to the execution. Give me enough fight scenes and you absolutely have a chance after all.

Overall 7/10

Override: Mech City Brawl Review

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This game didn’t make too many waves when it came out to be honest. It was around and then just as quickly as it came out, everyone forgot about it. The main problem is that it just didn’t really have a big hook to it. No singular reason why you would play it over some other mech game or anything like that. Still, the sequel brought in Ultraman so I figured…okay let me give this one a shot so I can go play the sequel soon and in the end it was pretty good.

The game actually does have a brief story mode even though there really isn’t much to it. Basically you have to help protect the world from alien invaders that are trying to take over. The only way to beat them is with your giant mech suit that has a ton of power at its disposal. Sounds easy enough, but you are outnumbered. You’re also a rookie so nobody takes you seriously yet. Can you defy the odds and save the world?

You’ll have the game beaten in a matter of hours so don’t worry about any of that. This is definitely not what I would call a really hard game at all. Just keep on punching the enemies away and the game will be over before the difficulty can really spike up at all. Considering that this is a PS4 title I do think they could have done more with the voice acting and budget to make this feel like a modern game. Because otherwise it just doesn’t really feel like it unlocked all of the latent potential. You could have made this game on the PS2 and it would be about the same.

The gameplay itself is fairly basic. You have your standard hits, power blows, and a super attack. Some attacks are so weak that you will never use them though. For example the main character has an energy blast, but it is slow and short range. What’s the point of an energy blast that is short range? I play long range fighters in fighting games for the spamming potential. That’s what I live for but if I can’t even do that then I’m absolutely going for the close range fighter all the way. There wouldn’t be much point in doing anything else at that point.

The gameplay can also be a bit slow. I’d say that using robots isn’t really an excuse for that either because I’ve seen plenty of faster ones. This game definitely could have stood to speed things up a notch but this is starting to sound negative for the gameplay so let me just clarify that the gameplay is still solid. I did have a good time with it because in general I love combat gameplay. You really can’t go wrong with it. It may not hold up against some other titles but I was still having fun. The game is also so cheap nowadays that it makes the value go up.

What this title really needed though was a larger cast, more modes to play, and a longer story. Throw those elements in and we’re talking about a whole new adventure at this point. If I bought this on opening day then I’d be super sad but buying it now, well it works out pretty well. The graphics are pretty decent. Nothing amazing but they’re fun and remind me of the old Godzilla Gamecube title. I also like how you can destroy just about every part of the city just by walking around. It helps show you the true scale of just how absolutely massive these robots are. Everything in their way is basically begging to be destroyed. The soundtrack’s more on the forgettable side though so don’t really worry about that.

In terms of replay value, this is mainly a multiplayer game so of course right off the bat that’s a ton of replay value. Just find some friends who enjoy the game and you can have fun playing against them for a while. Additionally you can work on getting the Platinum. I didn’t really look into how difficult that would be though. It all depends on if they included any online trophies or not but without a doubt it will add onto your overall playing time too. It’s why I still love trophies as a concept.

Overall, Override Mech is a pretty fun game. It’s not particularly ambitious nor does it have the sheer volume of content to compete with most mech titles but it’s a quality title. I always like seeing a new IP try to get out there and survive. This one at least does that and evidently did well enough to get a sequel. Unfortunately that one got rid of the stakes in the story although I’m very early on so that could change. At the end of the day if you like mecha fighting games then you should definitely pick this one up. Trust me you won’t regret it. This is the kind of game that you need to dive into especially when you see the low price.

Overall 7/10

Winback: Covert Operations Review

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All right now this is what I would call a gem in the rough! It’s a game I’d never heard of before and without the Nintendo Switch Online I probably never would have gotten to play it because of how obscure it is. I’d just not have ever thought to look it up. Well, this game is a blast and I absolutely recommend checking it out if you have the Switch Online bundle because this game does not hold anything back.

The story starts with the top notch agents all being placed on a mission. They are being dropped onto an island to stop some terrorists that have taken over to try and use a powerful weapon to bring the world to its knees. This mission is one where failure is not an option so the heroes can’t leave until they’ve guaranteed success. Unfortunately it does not start out well as the copter is shot down and everyone gets split up. You now have to find your comrades while taking on the villains but will you really be able to pull this off?

First up, the game’s story is very impressive. There isn’t really any voice acting here but we still get text boxes and technical limitations did not slow the writer down. You have a lot going on here, a fairly big character cast and also a serious body count. Nobody feels safe and that makes sense because you are behind enemy lines at this point. Make the wrong call and that’s game over. All of the characters understand the stakes and act appropriately. There is always a villain to be stopped and they will follow their mission to the end.

The epic soundtrack helps to balance this out. It reminded me a lot of Oni for the PS2 with the sci-fi vibes here. The costumes are really solid and the villain entrances are memorable when they show up with their accompanying music. One of the first bosses in particular impressed me as he had a very detailed design and must have had some kind of interesting backstory but the main character doesn’t have time for that. He just launches right into the battle and I definitely had to respect that. That’s exactly the kind of energy I would expect to see here. It’s just a fight to the death and it’s not personal as both sides are fighting for a cause that they believe in and would give their life for.

There are a ton of twists and turns to be found in this story as well so get ready for a lot of epic moments like that. The game is also fairly long with over 30 levels, some levels are quite long at that. So definitely a lot of amazingness all around. It also ends up being a bit extra long because the game is very difficult. Far from being a walk in the park, this game has a lot of absolutely brutal sections mixed in. You will be jumped by tons of enemies from all sides and have to try and fend them off. Taking a stray hit can take over half of your health bar. You have to always be taking cover and keeping track of your surroundings.

The controls are very basic. You point and shoot, plus you can hide behind objects. That’s basically it. You can use lock on which is extremely handy but just watch out because sometimes it takes an extra second to find an enemy and by then you’ll have been shot. That’s really where the game is at its most tricky. It’s trying to encourage you to use manual shooting which is without a doubt superior, but it can be really hard to move so quickly. So for me I stuck with auto and just did a lot of extra hiding.

Even with that though, there are so many rooms on the island and they are all filled with enemies. New enemies spawn when you enter a room and then back track so you can really never lower your guard. Some enemies will run up to you and just stab you which is usually a game over. Each level has check points but the check points remember your health so ironically this can actually be a bad thing. Like you survive the first section with one piece of health left so now you are doomed to always start that way until you completely finish off the level.

Yeah I died time and time again in this title. It’s got to be one of the harder games that I’ve played and this is often the case with shooters. It is definitely not my best genre and if I had to play it straight like back at the arcade I don’t see how I would have stood a chance. It’s just so unforgiving because you can finish the first 20 enemies perfectly but then the 21st gets you. That’s really all that it takes to tip the scales which is the crazy part. With the awesome music and story you’ll definitely power through but with a lesser game you’d probably end up being frustrated.

That’s why it’s good to have developers that really give a title their all though. Every piece of this game is great. From the smooth controls to the solid story, no corners were cut here. Even the length went above and beyond since most games for the console were considerably shorter. Nobody would have bat an eye if it was 15 levels instead of 31 but the game still brought in a ton of content and made sure that the replay value was really on point!

Overall, This is definitely a game that I would recommend checking out. It’s just great all around and way better than I ever could have guessed. It has that retro vibe to it which you just don’t see anymore nowadays. The characters are solid and the gameplay is excellent. It’s hard to beat a good 3D shooter after all. The game is incredibly hard though so props to whoever managed to beat it back in the day. The checkpoints help but we’re still talking long sections in which you can’t save or anything like that. Yeah this probably kept people up at nights trying to conquer it.

Overall 8/10

Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto Review

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It’s time for an anime that is fairly bonkers and definitely in a good way. This show takes the idea of the perfect student and dials it up to 11. Sakamoto can do no wrong and he makes for a very solid main character. You will probably find yourself identifying with his character and basically going “That’s me for real” the whole time. That’s how moving he is. Yeah the show definitely goes by pretty quickly as a result and each episode has something crazy going on.

For the most part each episode is fairly stand alone but there is a true continuity the whole way through. Past events will be referenced and some episodes do continue. The basic premise though is that there is a student named Sakamoto who is basically perfect. Everyone loves this guy, he aces every kind of class and challenge that gets put in his path. The guy is super agile, powerful, and knowledgeable. Yet the guy has a good amount of humility and will always help others out. The school can use someone like Sakamoto because there are a lot of bullies here and so without him the place would fall into anarchy. Can he make the school a better place or does he have a secret flaw?

The opening song is pretty catchy for the series. It really grabs you and stays fairly memorable. The show itself has a pretty good ost as well with some nice variety in there. I’m not saying it’s the next Naruto of course but yeah this is high quality stuff all the way. The animation is also solid although it’s not a stand out. For a show like this that’s part comedy I imagine they didn’t break the bank in terms of the animation quality. So it looks pretty good but it’s not the top of the line stuff. You wouldn’t likely see it in any best animated moments kind of thread.

Where the show excels is with the humor and writing which is bound to get a few laughs out of you. The situations can just be so out there and absurd that you can’t help but grin a little. You always know that Sakamoto will get some characters out of trouble and it’s just about seeing how he will do it. Sometimes he will do it himself like pretending to be possessed and other times he will manipulate the students into doing the right thing. That’s why Sakamoto is a secret mastermind, he’s always a few steps ahead of the competition.

He has to be up there as one of the best characters in the series and that would probably be true for most people. Even if you don’t tend to like the perfect character trope, Sakamoto is very aware of this and so the show has a lot of fun with it. As a result this portrayal works really well. Sakamoto just makes the world a better place and I only have one negative for his character which is that sometimes he goes too far in sandbagging. Like there’s one episode where he gets blackmailed into buying some sketchy DVDs and another where he ends up being the servant of one of the bullies.

Yes, at no point is he in any serious danger and you know he’s just playing along for fun but it’s still not the best look for the guy. Personally if you ask me, I’d just like to see him stand up for himself there and show them up even if it’s in a subtle way. I’d say he tends to be more passive aggressive in how he handles these moments by being a bit too useful and that’s the gag in those moments but eh…that’s the only time I’m not super impressed with him. His positive moments heavily outweigh the negative ones though which is why he’s still a great character. He’s always got a plan and does his best to stay on top.

His friend Kubota is more of a sad character who gets picked on and isn’t strong enough to fight back. That’s a tough predicament to be in for sure so you do feel bad about that. His role in the show is a lot smaller than I would have guessed though as he doesn’t do much after the initial episodes. He has a running gag about his hair changing a lot but that’s about it. Honestly you forget him as soon as he leaves the screen so we didn’t need more screentime anyway.

Atsushi is one of the main bullies in the show and he gets a big role. Unfortunately he does tend to be one of the more annoying character and takes way more Ls than Ws. This guy gets shown up early and turns over a new leaf but he has very weak willpower which means that he backslides very often. You may think that you can count on him after a point but unfortunately that just isn’t the case. He looks really bad in the climax of the series where he completely loses his mind and the main problem is that it’s due to him being tricked. Now granted he would have looked bad no matter what his excuse was but getting tricked makes it sting extra hard.

The guy just didn’t get consistently better and falling backwards like that is a quick way for me to lose respect for the character. At least the same thing didn’t happen to his two friends but they couldn’t stop him anyway so it didn’t help much. Then you have Sera who likes being the center of attention but of course he can’t compete with Sakamoto. That leads to a lot of jealousy and petty moments for the guy. Unlike Atsushi though, he actually has a consistent character arc and ends up becoming a better person after he is humbled the first time. He has a very unfortunate reoccurring gag about stripping though which does hurt his character. It’s more sad than funny most of the time and you feel bad for him because initially he had such great aspirations for himself. Now he is doomed to just be the comic relief.

Aina is a fun character even if she doesn’t have time to do too much. Basically she likes Sakamoto and aims to seduce him but she finds that it’s not so easy because the guy is always extremely focused. He overpowers all of her techniques and she also has to deal with a lot of people meddling in her affairs. The fight over the Ouija board was a really entertaining moment though and one of the better parts in the series. Talk about high takes, you really had to be careful what answer Aina forced on the group. If the series were longer I imagine she would have had more full episodes but the series is pretty short and mainly each character had to get their moment to shine so there wasn’t much time for general chats.

Megumi is more of a timid character in comparison. While Aina directly goes to Sakamoto to try and get him, Megumi is content to hide and try to take pictures of him in secret. You have to give her points for effort there but ultimately as a character she’s not great. I just tend to prefer the bolder characters and so she’s not going to stack up like that. Even a minor character like Kakuta leaves more of an impact because the gag of him trying to get Sakamoto to be one second late to penalize him is a fun one. The guy just is never able to pull this off.

Shigemi is one of the worst characters here. Her gag is that even though she is the mother of Sakamoto’s friend, she falls for him. His natural charms are simply too powerful and while we all know and understand the gag, it doesn’t make her any less annoying. You’re still shaking your head when she shows up. She only gets one full episode to herself but yeah it’s a bit rough. I think the gag was overplayed right out of the gate.

Maruyama was a more entertaining character and that’s considering the fact that he ended up being more annoying at times because of how that was the episode where Sakamoto was working for him the whole time which was hard to watch. Still, the gag of being scared because of how talented Sakamoto was at least worked a lot better as a gag and could hold up its own episode there. The episode being solid is always the important part. Like i wasn’t a big fan of any of the kids but their episode about not crossing the line was still fun. It showed that Sakamoto would make time even to hang out with some kids.

Then we have Hayabusa who is another great character that you could rank near the top. He may be the head honcho of the bullies but he seems like a standup guy. He has a solid honor code and lets his people do whatever they want. He seems to just want to have a good time and for nobody to get seriously hurt. He even sticks up for Sakamoto when the going gets tough. This guy is the real deal and definitely someone that you want on your side. His episode where he tries to survive a fancy restaurant experience was also a very noble one.

Trust me that’s a rough spot because a lot of that fancy food doesn’t even taste good. He did it all to support his father which was really nice of him. Now at the end of the day you should stick up for yourself and make sure not to get yourself into a jam like that but his heart was in the right place. He did want to make things better all around so it’s hard to fault him for that.

Finally we have Fukase who is the big villain here. The head honcho, the big cheese. He does a good job of ending the season off with a bang. Now this is one plot where I wasn’t crazy about the resolution though because I was just expecting more. The gag itself is funny to an extent but the fast redemption arc just didn’t feel earned. This guy caused a whole lot of trouble after all and while it’s great that he will be a better person now, I wanted more of a true fight. This guy felt like he could be on Sakamoto’s level with all of the tough talk so I just needed to see that in action.

In the end he was more of a strategic fighter which is cool too but seeing someone give Sakamoto a run for his money would have been fun. Maybe next time I suppose. The ending itself was still pretty fun as an emotional climax and a solid name drop. I was thinking it would have been cool to have seen Sakamoto join a new school or something. My theory was that he was like an alien or something sent to make the school a better place. I found out about a darker theory after finishing the show which makes a lot of sense though in which case you can see why they went with this ending.

Overall, This was a really fun show. It’s a full on comedy title that really makes use of the absurd humor style. It can sometimes be tough for a show to get going right away with the humor but this one pulled it off. It was important to start fast too considering that it’s not like this one has 50 episodes to burn. A lot of comedy titles need a second genre to work as well but this one just went all in and it turned out well. I’d say the replay value is fairly strong as well since there are so many gags per episode. Throw in a solid main character and a pretty decent cast overall and you’re set. Outside of the episode with the Mom chasing Sakamoto, all of the other episodes were pretty solid as well. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a good time. Even if you’re not typically a comedy fan, I’d say to give this one a chance because it’s very accessible.

Overall 7/10

Paycheck Review

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It’s time for a film with a pretty interesting premise, in part because I could see this actually happening in real life at some point. Companies want to keep things confidential after all and right now people sign non-disclosure agreements but at the end of the day those are hardly full proof. What if they could just erase your memories? Oh man that would be a company’s ultimate dream! This movie is pretty fun and will keep you entertained the whole time but I do have to admit that the main character does come across as gullible.

The film starts off by introducing us to Michael who basically contracts with various companies to work on specialized projects. After which his memories are deleted and he goes off to live his life. The positive here of course is that he’s making absolute bank. The guy is basically rich because of the missions but the negative of course is that he’s missing massive parts of his life. He’s completely okay with this and feels that it’s a fair trade off though. Well, one day an old friend shows up and asks him if he is interested in a longer term contract. This one will last 3 years and of course he won’t remember any of it. Michael agrees but when he wakes up, it turns out that he gave away all of his money for some reason and all of the records have been destroyed. Now he is being hunted and it’s all an elaborate frame up. What can he do to get out of this?

I have to give the film more credit here because this is exactly what my worst fear would be. When you’re erasing whole chunks of your memory like that, you seriously have no idea what happened previously and that is opening up the door to all kinds of trouble. You can’t properly defend yourself from someone accusing you of something when you yourself don’t know what occurred right? So long story short, I would never even consider doing this even if the money was really good like this. An added wrinkle is in this film the procedure of removing memories is actually super dangerous as well so one wrong move and you will lose all of your memories or potentially even die in the machine.

Michael is one of those guys who usually takes things in stride. He’s fairly confident in himself and is skilled but as a character I wouldn’t say that he’s great. He’s cool with having one night stands since he figures that he will forget all about them afterwards anyway and that doesn’t make for a particularly solid romance. So once he does fall for someone you have a hard time buying into it. The romance doesn’t seem all that convincing and in large part it’s because the main character doesn’t exactly seem like a great guy.

You still feel bad for him of course since being framed is rough but that’s about it. As the main heroine Rachel isn’t bad. Taking aside the romance plot of it all, she does contribute a lot to the plot and can also be rather tough which I always like to see in the heroine. Michael also has a friend in Shorty who is very helpful here. The guy has a bit of an “I told you so” attitude but it is completely justified he whole time. Like this was a bad idea from the jump and it was pretty clear to see.

Now where the film taps into some interesting themes is with how Michael keeps having items on hand that are useful in very specific circumstances at specific moments. It’s basically as if he is following a destiny that is pre written by his past self who saw into the future. I always like theory crafting with time and looking at all of the different ways it could work. Basically, if you can see into the future then does that imply that your future is written in stone, you are just seeing one possible version?, or was that the future but the instant you saw it, it has now changed since you can effect things?

Personally I always go with the one possible version theory because to me it makes the most sense by far. You should be able to change the future once you have seen it and everything being pre written is just hard to buy for me. That said, this one is mainly going in that direction as Michael saw the future and planned things out extremely carefully in a self fulfilling cycle where he saw what was going to happen and made sure that it did. So what happens when two people see the future? Well that’s another interesting one.

The climax is pretty fun as it deals with all of that. On the whole I wouldn’t say the film is super action packed or anything like that but there are a whole lot of chase scenes. We also get the government involved which is always fun. Of course they do tend to get in the way a lot at first as they take everything at face value and fall for the villain’s traps. The fact that they went straight to torturing the lead and nearly frying his brain was a really bad look for them. Come on now can’t they at least pretend to not act like the villains for a little while?

Overall, Paycheck is a pretty fun. On its surface it’s just a classic action thriller but the time manipulation and sci-fi elements help to make it stand out. It has some interesting themes there and while that’s never the focus, it is still a fun little thing to touch on even if it’s just temporary. I’d recommend checking this film out, it’s a solid cautionary tale about how technology can get really dangerous really quickly if you rely on it too much. At the end of the day I personally recommend not letting anyone mess with your memories, but hey that’s just me. Also important to note that even if you don’t remember something, it still happened. So Michael’s idea here about doing stuff since he won’t remember it later on…yeah not a very good idea.

Overall 7/10