Tag Archives: Action

Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge Review

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After reading through all of the X titles it was time to finally take a look at the Mega Man 2 adaption. When you have a title like “Dr. Wily’s Revenge” you know things are about to get epic. Naturally the manga is a lot calmer than the X titles which makes sense since the classic era was known as a peaceful one next to X. To an extent the writers would need to be careful whenever doing a classic title since if they make things too explosive, it may seem a bit off. (Gigamix handled this exceptionally well though as they just went all out anyway and made the definitive Mega Man experience possible) This manga one shot plays it pretty safe and by the books so it’s an enjoyable experience too.

The manga starts with Mega Man finally having some relaxation time, but unfortunately it is cut short when Wily appears on the T with his new robot masters. They taunt Mega Man and dare the blue bomber to try and stop him. Mega Man is eager to rise to the challenge so he jumps in. These robots are tougher than the original ones though so Mega Man is going to have to fight smarter this time since he can’t just win with brute strength. It’s actually a theme throughout the volume about how fighting smarter is the way to go. It’s a pretty nice theme for sure although I like to think Mega Man’s specs should be better than some of these guys but maybe Wily really is the better inventor.

There are 8 chapters in this series and basically each chapter has him defeat around 2 of the Wily robots. Sometimes it spills over to the next chapter but by the end of the first 6 he has taken care of business. Then we get the climax of the series where Mega Man goes after the dragon and Wily’s final robots. One opponent I was surprised to see was Guts Man only he is now in a new form where he is some kind of vehicle hybrid. If he was in the game then I have to say I really don’t remember him. It was a nice way to acknowledge the original title though that’s for sure.

Mega Man has solid action in the volume and the artwork is good. It’s not nearly on the same level as X though with that series being a whole lot more detailed throughout but this one is going for more of a retro feel with the simpler character designs. It’s fitting for the original series and it’s easy to read so I’ll give it some kudos there. The fight scenes are on point and you’ll be blasting through the volume with ease. The story is pretty simple but to the point.

Thanks to the format of the game that this is adapting, you could say that this one shot is really just nonstop action throughout. It never lets up as Mega Man takes on challenger after challenger. Anyone who gets in his way is promptly shut down immediately. Nobody’s about to get one up over Mega Man even if they all start out strong. I will say there’s no way Mega Man should have been able to stop the guy who could literally stop time though. Now that’s an incredibly broken ability if I’ve ever seen one. I don’t see how you can think your way around such a power. Quickman’s speed was definitely impressive although time stop is a bit of a perfect counter to it which makes things pretty tough for Mega Man.

The writing is on point with Mega Man being portrayed as a lot more gullible than X. Both of them have similar ideals about world peace but Mega Man here is willing to take Wily at his word that he will just turn over a new leaf and immediately become a good guy after losing. Keep in mind for context that he made the exact same speech after the first adventure and it turned out he was lying. Why should this time be any different right? Mega Man chooses to see the best side in everyone even if it doesn’t always pan out. At the end of the day that’s just his style.

There was one twist I liked near the end of the volume that the manga had some fun with. When cornered, Wily turned into an alien and revealed that he was never an Earthling to start with. Of course this isn’t true, but it did allow us to have a proper battle scene where Mega Man has to go up against this mysterious looking alien and it was a fun way to handle the climax. You couldn’t help but feel that if this was real it would have been a pretty amazing twist. You certainly wouldn’t look at Wily the same way knowing that he was holding back so much power and pretending to be weak the whole time. It’s quite the crafty move.

The characters are all written pretty well too. Wily’s a crafty villain as always while Dr Light always shows up out of nowhere to quickly drop off an invention and provide some insight. His upgrades do come in handy. I was surprised to hear the giant dragon talking but he had some solid lines as well. The series also does a good job of explaining the video game mechanics as well so you can treat parts of the manga a bit like a walkthrough as Mega Man offers tips and tricks which can better help you navigate the obstacles in the actual levels. I thought that was pretty clever the whole time. After all, some people may be reading the manga because they weren’t sure how to complete the game so Mega Man points out every boss’ weakness as well as the best way to get across the invisible blocks and areas where you should use the hoverboard.

Overall, Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge is a fun manga. It’s not exactly going to light the world on fire with how great it is, but not everything needs to be the next big title. This manga is content to be a fairly standard action title featuring everyone’s favorite robot. It encompasses the game really well and provides a well rounded mech experience. I didn’t have any complaints with the title and look forward to reading the next installment. Hopefully we get Proto Man or Bass coming up but I always forget when those characters debuted in the games. Proto Man at least should be close I think.

Overall 7/10

Little Nikita Review

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Time to take a look at a film about spies and traitors from a while back. It’s a fairly low key espionage film so don’t expect a lot of fight scenes or anything like that. In a way it’s a film where it feels like not a lot happens until the very end. It’s more of a slow burner. The film works well enough even though it’s not particularly exciting. I wouldn’t recommend it over other films in the genre but you should be entertained during the movie.

The movie starts off with someone murdering an employee of the IRS. It turns out that this employee had actually been a double agent from Russia. Interestingly enough, he was murdered by a Russian agent who has gone rogue. The agent’s codename is Scuba. He is blackmailing the Russians into paying him a large sum of money or he will continue to murder all of their operatives. They decide to send in agent Konstantin to take him down. Konstantin is given strict orders not to allow the media to catch wind of this and he has to bring Scuba in alive.

On the other side you’ve got agent Roy of the FBI who wants to avenge his partner who was murdered by Scuba a while back. He finds out that Jeff’s parents are sleeper agents and figures this could be a good way to finally track this guy down. Thing is, he has no proof and furthermore, as sleeper agents that means they haven’t actually done anything yet so it’s not like he can just go in and start shooting. He tries to convince their son Jeff to step in and find out the truth but involving a boy in a case like this is fairly reckless. Will it actually pay off for him?

The idea of the Russians being blackmailed by one of their own makes for a pretty interesting plot. I dare say that it is a pretty original one as well. Usually you might see this on the other side but for the Russians to be on the defensive was an original twist. Naturally due to this the CIA, FBI, and the rest aren’t too keen to get involved. They figure they will just let the Russians take each other out. The reason Roy is getting involved is because it’s personal this time. To avenge his partner he feels like he has to get involved and take Scuba down. He is told off the bat that he will not have any backup though.

With a premise like this you’d probably expect a whole lot of action right? Well, the wrinkle in this plan is that the sleeper agents aren’t really fighters. The whole time the film is going on you’re expecting the pin to drop and for these two seemingly normal parents to suddenly just grab their guns and go into commander mode. Well, that doesn’t exactly happen here. They never get to fight and even at the very end they’re about to easily lose to Scuba. It’s to the point where even once he is shot they aren’t able to stop him from getting the briefcase. I admit that they really did not look very impressive in this film at all. At least in an action context. They seemed like perfectly reasonable people otherwise. Maybe a little naïve since they don’t pick up on anything unless it’s spelt out for them though. At the very least I thought their guard would be up when they met Roy and he suddenly moved next door but they really didn’t.

Jeff’s a decent main character I guess but as a kid he does tend to panic a whole lot. He just isn’t ready for these kind of twists. He just never helps contribute to the situation and while he means well, the scene of him trying to pass the air force exam was pretty rough. The cast is fairly small so each person has to do their part. The other characters were a lot more solid. First up is Roy. Of course he has the whole revenge angle but on the whole he does have some good plans most of the time. He comes in handy with his clutch shots and did figure out the mystery of the sleeper agents really fast. Most of the other characters would have still been in the dark otherwise. I do think his decision to quickly have a random affair was poorly timed though. He’s in the middle of the most important case of his life. Surely he can wait a little bit to stay professional before getting distracted right?

Konstantin was also fun. I always like seeing the experienced agents who have already been through a lot and just have all the answers. That said, he was overwhelmed and surprised by Scuba rather easily. The scene of Scuba breaking into the guy’s shower was just embarrassing for the hardened agent. Especially how he panicked afterwards. Not his best moment to be sure and you feel like he was enthusiastic about paying up afterwards because he was actually scared of Scuba. He just hides this with his nonstop banter. Scuba doesn’t get much if any personality in the film though. He’s really just a mysterious figure who has a clear goal. He wants to get money and will murder people to get it. He’s a bit of an old school antagonist in that sense as there is no origin story or anything like that to clue you in to why he is the way that he is. He just does things his way.

What I think this film probably needed is to have been a little longer. A large chunk of the film seems like it’s all about build up to a big series of interconnected plots. So when the payoff finally happens, it goes by really quick and not in a super satisfying way. Honestly, if you cut out Nick that would probably be the best thing to do. Then you can really have two sleeper agents who still have their skills going up against these forces. Alternately you could also have just made these two agents a little less rusty to force some solid tension in. It would have increased the sense of danger throughout.

Overall, Little Nikita is a good film. It’s definitely fairly low key but I do think it manages to accomplish what it set out to do. A little more focus on the actual agent vs agent action would have been good though because there’s just a lot of fun ways this could play out. While the writing was good, I also think that area could have been bumped up a bit. Put some more solid banter in and make the characters a little more likable. Part of the problem is that Nick wasn’t great and then Roy/Konstantin weren’t as good as they could have been. Tat said, if you’re up for a quick spy thriller this is a good one to check out.

Overall 6/10

Warriors Orochi 3 Review

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Warriors Orochi has always been a pretty fun series. There was a huge gap between when I played the first two Orochi titles but this time I was determined not to wait so long. I took the plunge and grabbed Orochi 3. Fortunately the PS3 is region free so that worked out pretty nicely. Orochi 3 definitely has a very strong plot and it features time travel so that’s a win win. It’s certainly the best Orochi game so far.

The game starts off with Orochi returning but this time as the Hydra. This 8 headed dragon crushes the entire planet to the point where within 10 minutes of the game’s start there are only 3 heroes left alive. The rest of the Dynasty and Samurai warriors cast have been obliterated. This desperate mission ends in failure but the heroes are saved by a goddess known as Kaguya. She has the ability to time travel part of the way into the past but not so far back that we can prevent Orochi from returning. Using this bonus time we have to alert everyone to the true danger and bring the world to an era of peace. Then we will return to the place of the final battle only this time we will have more of a full roster at the ready. Can the heroes stop Orochi once and for all?

I love crossovers, beat em ups, and time travel. Mix all of that into one game and it’s not surprising in the slightest that this is an absolute win. First off, the story is just very grand in scope. Seeing this dragon show up and just decimate the cast was intense. Especially since these characters are all quite powerful in their own right. It may be a little hard to buy that they would all lose like this but when you factor in that they’re always fighting among themselves they probably were weakened by this point. While the game ends with everyone finally being at peace, something tells me that won’t last for the sequel.

The main campaign is fairly long at 29 levels and there is a good amount of replay value here as well with all of the bonus levels to tackle as well. Getting everyone to level 100 will take ages too although I don’t think there’s a trophy for that so no need to force yourself. There are over 100 characters after all so that’d be pretty crazy. By the time I beat the game I only had 1 person at level 100 so I think it’s safe to say that getting everyone over there would just be too long. I’d say the story mode is maybe around 7-8 hours. I didn’t count exactly and they don’t store the playtime but that sounds about right to me.

As for the gameplay, it’s your standard 3D combat system so you will know what to expect. You rush into battle and slam into enemies using both standard and power attacks. You have super attacks as well but I recommend keeping that in your pocket as a combo breaker in case a boss lays a good hit on you. Typically they go down pretty quickly but if they do start a combo they can take off huge chunks of your health in an instant. You definitely want to respect their power and keep some distance between you and the boss. At least I would recommend that.

One of the most handy tools at your disposal is your horse. I recommend summoning him as much as possible so you can run through the battlefields at top speed. Doing this will help you reach your objectives quicker. After all, aside from conquering enemies you also have to protect your comrades. My strategy in each level was to knock out all of the officers but mainly not worry about the minions. I would still average around 1000 KO’s per stage so those come naturally but getting rid of the officers is key or your allies will end up defeated and you will have to start the level from scratch. Let me tell you, you do not want to start the level from scratch to be sure.

Naturally the graphics for this game are absolutely stellar. The character models are on point and the level designs are really striking. This is the kind of PS3 game where you can tell they spared no expense. It could easily pass for a PS4 title. Likewise the soundtrack is excellent. It’s no surprise as the Orochi games tend to sound quite excellent but this one really manages to even go above and beyond. The battle themes really get you into the action so you feel ready for what comes next.

When you’re not fighting there are still other bonus things you can do as well. One of those is buying new weapons or fusing your older ones into weapons with more slots and abilities. Your weapon is quite important in this game so I recommend working on that right away. Don’t worry about the money it costs because by the end of the game you’ll be swimming in it. At the very least there was never a point in the game where I was low on funds. There is also the tea shop where you can increase your bonds with the other characters but I never really tried that out. I think the bonds mechanic increases your strength when you fight with allies but admittedly I never really tried this out. I tend to run ahead of the others to try and shield them from danger while also getting the fun fights for myself.

Overall, Warriors Orochi 3 is fantastic. It’s a top tier game filled with a lot of life and action. The story is a lot of fun, the graphics are top notch, and so is the soundtrack. There’s a lot of replay value here and the gameplay is a blast. You can easily have fun just playing the levels over and over again. I can see how people would sink dozens and dozens of hours into these games. It would make for a fun ride to try and platinum it, but the trophy for beating all of the levels on chaos difficulty sounds a bit daunting. Maybe someday. Now just one more Orochi game and I’ll finally be caught up!

Overall 9/10

The Fifth Element Review

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The Fifth Element is one of those Sci-Fi films where you hear about it all the time thanks to the main villain but otherwise I couldn’t say that I knew much about the film. Sci-Fi always has a lot of potential though. This film balances out the action, sci-fi, and even some humor fairly well. It’s not exactly the perfect Sci-Fi film out there but it has enough fun with itself to make this a pretty fun movie. At times part of it almost felt a bit like a parody.

This film starts off with someone finding out the truth behind the universe. There is a battle coming up where the forces of darkness will destroy Earth. That’s when some aliens invade and murder the guy. They leave a key with a priest telling him that they will return in 300 years to help us fight off the evil. We then jump 300 years into the future where the Darkness has returned. His name is Mr. Shadow and to the rest of the world he appears to just be a giant mass of nothingness. He blows up a nearby ship and keeps on heading towards Earth. The President is forced to call in the one man nobody ever thought would return.

We then cut away to the main character, Korben. Korben is a cab driver who used to be part of the government but things didn’t exactly end well for him. He’s just going about his day when a girl crash lands in his car. Her name is Leeloo and she is the last survivor of the alien species who promised to return to save us all. Unfortunately she is only part alien as the rest of her got blown up by bandits so she’s mostly an android now. She needs to find the rings so she can return to the temple and restore the 5 elements before Mr. Shadow arrives. Her assistant here is the Priest. Korben doesn’t exactly want to get mixed up in this but he’s basically threatened to do this or die so he prepares to locate the rings. Meanwhile you’ve also got bounty hunters and other rogues trying for the rings as well.

Naturally there is a whole lot going on here which is pretty neat. Pretty much every character wants to get the rings. When you factor in that you’ve got multiple alien species running around, a rich guy who wants power, and the Priest then there are quite a lot of factions to consider. While the film could have easily been overloaded, that’s where some of the humor starts to set in. One of the solid things about the film is how it plays around with this. The Priest ends up being a tennis ball with the way he is smacked around the whole time. Then you have the rich villain Zorg who betrays the other aliens while running in to end things himself. The film is at its best when it isn’t taking itself super seriously but I would make the case that it is rarely being serious.

Take all the scenes of the President and his men trying to fight off the Shadow. When their attacks don’t work, everyone on the first ship completely freezes up until the Shadow envelops them. I felt like that was taking a shot at how everyone always seems to freeze up in these things. The President made for a fun character up in the ship even if he wasn’t able to be all that effective in the end. His final scene with Korben’s mother was also pretty neat since you can respect the fact that she wasn’t about to get tricked even if there was some irony in the moment to be sure.

I would say the best scene in the film had to be when Zorg managed to finally get back onto the ship with the plan to deactivate the bomb. Turns out there was another bomb. The whole thing was so unlikely and sudden that it just works. You pretty much never see a second bomb show up in that kind of situation so that was cool. Again, the film’s humor was definitely on point here which helps to mask some of the issues.

A big issue here would be the power levels for Leeloo. So, on one hand she is shown to have enough physical power to be able to punch through a barrier that was deemed “unbreakable” by the futuristic tech experts. She was barely even awake and did this so clearly she is super strong right? Then she masters all of the data files of humanity so she learns advanced hand to hand combat as well. Despite this, she is rarely portrayed as being very powerful. She got one cool scene where she beats up a bunch of opponents on her own but then runs when Zorg shows up and ends up getting blasted as a result. She should have pressed the attack. Even the plan to get the rings didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Why wait until after the show when the savior of the universe is this powerful?

The characters rarely seemed to acknowledge that Leeloo was all that powerful. I also thought the point of her scanning the databases was also to learn English but she doesn’t end up learning until the very end of the film so it was a bit odd. Ultimately the movie definitely fumbled the ball rather massively with her character. In the end she was used a bit more for fanservice than to acknowledge her combat abilities. The one scene of her beating up the aliens was fun but we should have gotten more of that.

It goes without saying that the romance in the film is pretty rushed as well. As with most movie romances it’s just hard to buy into this. It all happens within the span of a few days and Leeloo didn’t even like Korben at first. Korben was also presented initially as a character who was too busy for romance and was waiting for the perfect woman. As soon as he hears that Leeloo was made to be the perfect being it’s like just the title was good enough for him. Korben has his share of solid scenes outside of the romance though. He does a good job of pushing the other characters around when they try to trick him like the Priest assuming the identity. Additionally when it came time for a firefight he definitely did step up when it counted. I wouldn’t say he’s a great main character but he was fun.

The Priest tends to get a lot of the humor moments in the film and he handles them well. He always has a shocked expression on his face which ends up working well. I wouldn’t say all of the humor in the film lands though. For example I wasn’t a big fan of Ruby’s character. Pretty much all he does is panic a whole ton. The point is that he’s extremely over the top but the gimmick gets old pretty quick. Usually for jokes the point is to go in, deliver the punch line quickly whether it’s visual or through witty wording and then move on. The tougher part for character gimmicks is that if it’s ongoing you have to do something to keep it fresh. This film didn’t really pull that off here.

A good gag for example if Zorg nearly choking and dying in such a crazy way. It’s unheard of for a main villain to go down like that especially during his big monologue. That’s when the film is at its best, just being incredibly crazy like that. He was definitely a fun villain even if he was out of his league a lot of the time. Really, I think this film should be considered as a sci-fi/parody with those being the two main genres. If this wasn’t intentional for most of these scenes then I would be quite surprised. Naturally there’s a lot of ways you could turn this into a series with sequels and all but as a one shot all of the plot lines do end so technically it’s not like you definitely need a sequel or anything like that.

Overall, The Fifth Element is a fun film. It’s a sci-fi title that pokes fun at a lot of the usual scenarios while still keeping with a full story experience. I would have liked to have seen a little more action with Mr. Shadow to be sure but making him a literal ball of darkness was a bold approach. Initially I was also surprised that the futuristic robot aliens were so weak but then I figured that may have been the point as well. Even one of the aliens being unceremoniously crushed by the rock when giving his parting speech to the humans was likely intentional. Same with their being blasted out of the sky by random aliens. Events tend to happen rather suddenly and without warning in this film. It doesn’t pull its punches. The power scaling is definitely a bit off at times though. If you’re looking for a pretty light hearted sci-fi title then this is the one you’ll want to check out.

Overall 7/10

Jujutsu Kaisen

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I’ve now started the Shonen Jump title that’s been the talk of the town as of late. Demon hunting tends to be a pretty popular genre among Jump with titles like Yu Yu Hakusho, Demon Slayer, Bleach, and a whole lot more. We’ll see if this one is able to tangle with those guys as it goes on. The series is off to a solid start and it’s definitely one of those series that could and should go on for a super long time since there’s a lot you can do with this. I’ll have a review up once the series finishes.

Overall 7/10

How to Train Your Dragon Review

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How to Train Your Dragon was always a series with a pretty unique concept of being able to train some dragons as allies. I don’t know a whole lot about the series beyond that but it must be doing something right to have had 3 films as well as a TV show and multiple video games. This game is actually more fun than I thought it would be. Not saying it’s suddenly an 8 star game or anything but the combat is really on point and so are the various mechanics when navigating the hub world.

The basic plot of the game is that you grow up on an island where people raise their Dragons to fight in tournaments like Pokemon. The first tournament is filled with 1 on 1 battles, the next 2 on 2, etc. Tournament 5 is the ultimate championships but it caps off at 4 on 4 battles so you don’t need to worry about getting a 5th one. The game follows a pretty steady formula where you complete one tournament, then do a few side quests. Complete another tournament, more side quests, etc. It’s a fairly short title as I completed it in under 4 hours. There is actually a solid amount of replay value to consider though.

After beating the game you can still work on clearing all of the side quests, maxing out your four main dragons, and getting the Platinum trophy. I don’t think any of this will take you very long to achieve but it does give you more to strive for. The core gameplay is solid so that helps with making you want to play it a little longer. It’s a well crafted game even if it’s on a fairly low budget.

So the gameplay is that of a 2D brawler. You control the dragon and have to knock out the opponent’s health. Pretty simple enough eh? The game has some good depth there though as you have your standard attack, power moves, projectile blasts, dodging, blocking, and jumping. You have a lot of attack options throughout and it helps to make the fights more interesting. There are things you can do before the fights to help get your dragon ready too. Feeding them allows for their health bars to be a little bigger and you can complete tutorials in the cave to muster up some new combos. The combos can be quite handy for sure like one 8 hit combo that leaves the other dragon stunned so you can follow up. These tutorials give your dragon EXP and there are also minigames you can play for exp as well. The minigames is the fastest way to do this.

When you’re not battling you are walking across the village and either helping the villagers by giving them ingredients or finding things for the chief. These little intermissions are fun enough although they’re very short. I was pretty cool with the tasks because even if they don’t really add anything to the game, at least they are short enough where they don’t really hurt it either. The last thing you want to do is add this free roam part but at the expense of making the game less fun to play after all.

There is virtually no story in the game though. You get a few quick cutscenes here and there but if we’re being honest it’s never anything important. Just the characters talking about the next tournament or planning ways to cheat in it. You can tell that the developers were focusing completely on the gameplay. You almost could have just made this a pure arcade mode type game and I should note that there is an arcade mode here. Now the game does have one real weakness though which becomes a bit apparent by the very end of the game. So it’s not something that ended up hurting but if this game were longer then it may have become a real concern.

It can be a bit repetitive. The gameplay is fun like I said but the more dragons they force you to compete against, the more nonstop fights you are looking at. Take the final tournament for example. You have to defeat 5 opponents, who each have 4 dragons. That’s 20 back to back to back battles. Each match is like a normal Street Fighter round so that’s effectively clearing 3 arcade modes in one tournament. Then you have 5 tournaments to consider. The first ones are shorter of course but be that as it may, it’s still a whole lot of battles that you have to go up against. I think the game didn’t need to make you go through so many battles at once.

The game is rather short as it is though so maybe the developers were worried about it being under 3 hours otherwise. So that’s my only real complaint here. The graphics are solid. They may not be Sonic 2006 level or anything like that but the graphics during combat were good so I’m satisfied. The soundtrack is quite generic though. I definitely wouldn’t say that it was anything particularly impressive. More like elevator music where you hear it while you’re on the ride but forget it immediately afterwards.

Overall, How to Train Your Dragon is a good game. It’s a very short one to be sure but the developers did make sure that the experience you had was fun. It’s the little things sometimes like being able to just run around the village at top speeds or being able to train conveniently. Everything in the game feels quick and easy. The gameplay is also quite strong as I mentioned earlier. When you put all of that into perspective then this is a tie-in game I can recommend. Particularly if you are able to get this game for under $10. At that point the short length won’t bother you so much. So if you enjoyed the movie or just like the idea of a Pokemon style game where you have dragons face off against each other in real time then this will definitely be up your alley.

Overall 7/10

The Fastest Gun Alive Review

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It’s fairly rare to have a western without much travelling or gunfights but The Fastest Gun Alive manages to pull this off pretty well. It’s more of a down to Earth story about a guy trying to walk away from the business. Unfortunately the main character doesn’t end up being a likable character though as he makes the wrong decisions consistently throughout the movie. The movie survives despite him though and it’s a pretty solid experience. You’ll be kept interested throughout.

The movie starts off with the main villain Vinnie searching for a man named Fallon. Fallon is said to be the fastest gun around. Well, Vinnie takes him down in a gun fight and is now satisfied as the best. Meanwhile, news travels around to a small town where everyone is fascinated by the idea of someone being this fast. This annoys George because he is actually a very good gunman, but he doesn’t let anyone know it. He prefers to live as a very meek shop owner who just minds his business. The issue is that this all starts to get to him more and more. Will he remain strong or is it time to show everyone what he’s got?

Needless to say, George definitely doesn’t stay strong and quickly tries to prove himself to everyone. Part of what makes the character annoying is that he lets everyone get to him rather easily. He doesn’t help matters either by deciding not to dance or constantly going out on walks instead of actually minding the store. He basically leaves all of the work to his wife Dora. We find out later on that George also lied to her about getting rid of his gun when he kept it the whole time. He just made every kind of mistake possible and either got drunk easy after his half a cup or his desperation made him drunk. Either way he definitely did not look good during the whole saloon scene where he is making fun of everyone.

I can maybe get past that except then at the end he is too afraid to go out and fight Vinnie when the villain hears about this. Not only is this directly George’s fault for showing off but he is willing to let the entire town burn if it means that he doesn’t have to fight. It makes sense that some people don’t want t fight in a gun battle of course and George would usually have the right to refuse a challenge but not in this circumstance. It’s only when another member of the town tries to go in his place that George finally works up the courage to act. A lead who wants to be recognized but then immediately regrets it is just too wishy washy to be a quality lead. He should have just been content with the life he had with Dora. She did her best to help out and he wasn’t grateful.

Meanwhile Dora is a solid character. She does her best to keep George on the straight and narrow but at the end of the day she has her limits too and made sure to hold her ground. Moving again wasn’t going to be an option for her. She definitely didn’t support the gun business in the slightest. As for the rest of the town, they all seemed pretty friendly except for one guy who was always getting on George with some passive aggressive comments. It’s clear that the guy had some strong views about guns but at the very least that’s as far as he went. With the rest of the town seeming pretty supportive to me I still say George had a great gig here that he was willing to blow for a few minutes of fame. Even the older man who kept recounting the story about the gunfight was having a good time. It was a pretty thrilling experience for him so why not enjoy it a lot right?

We get one long dance scene in the film where one teen gets to show off his moves. It feels like the potential start to a romance subplot that never actually happens. I feel like there was more that was cut out from the film or something. Still, it’s a pretty solid scene because the moves are quite impressive. He’s able to use all of the objects in the room to his advantage with some tight footwork and clearly he has spent a lot of time honing his skills at the barn. So while the entire scene is really filler to be honest, it’s a pretty fun scene to watch. I’d say it even beats a lot of the more classic dancing scenes you would typically see because this felt more like an athletic exhibition.

Meanwhile Vinnie was a solid main villain. He has an honor code which I like and he was also smart enough to make sure that none of the other two villains would stab him in the back. The guy’s gun skills were also the real deal so he makes for a very complete villain. The icing on the top was the fact that he has a good honor code where he doesn’t attack kids or dogs. You really couldn’t ask for much more out of a quality villain like this. There is a lot of build up to his big fight with George and it makes for an epic way to end off the movie. The ending to the film is quite solid and a great way to wrap things up.

The writing in the movie is on point as you would probably expect. The dialogue is pretty strong and there are a lot of quality discussions the whole time like deciding how to handle the situation with Vinnie getting ready to burn the town. I may not have liked George but he was still written well and never got crazy or anything like that. All of the characters are pretty reasonable and even minor characters like Vinnie’s right hand man get some personality in their brief appearances.

Overall, The Fastest Gun Alive is a solid western film. I like the idea of several characters all fighting it out to prove that they are the fastest. It’s a title they clearly all want to own since it’s a matter of pride. Even George was more into it than he would let on. At the same time as a blind character in the movie said, there is always someone faster. Your opponent could have a jammed gun like someone else mentioned or maybe just a bad day. In a gun draw where both characters quickly try to fire off their shot, there are a lot of ways that things may not plan out as you figured. Every bit of speed comes in handy in those ties though. I would definitely recommend checking this film out if you like the Wild West. It’s an all around solid title.

Overall 7/10

Star Ocean: Second Evolution Review

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This game has been on the backburner for quite a while. It’s one of the last PSP games I hadn’t played yet so this was cool to knock out. Mixing the classic RPG setup with some Sci-Fi is always fun. The game has a good story and the fact that all of your partners are basically optional is pretty interesting. Apparently the game has over 80 variations of endings depending on how you use your team which is also cool. The game gets pretty difficult towards the end and there’s even a trick you can do to make the final boss even more difficult. You must be a master of the game to even attempt that I would imagine because otherwise that sounds pretty crazy. I was in the mid 80s for my level when I beat the game and while the last two bosses were quite easy thanks to this, taking down some of the earlier Wisemen was brutal with how they would petrify each member.

The game starts off with Claude and his father working on a spaceship. Claude has always wanted to follow in his Dad’s footsteps by becoming a pilot himself one day but unfortunately this isn’t to be. On one of their expeditions he gets a little too close to an artifact and is teleported to a primitive planet on another star system. He now has no way of getting back home. He decides to pretend he is around there. Claude meets a girl named Rena who explains that he is likely the fabled Hero of Light here to save them all. Calamity is approaching after all. More and more monsters have been appearing in the land and nobody is able to stand up to them. Well, Claude will do his best to help out until the crew can find him but does he even want to go back now?

The monsters are the main plot for most of the game but then towards the end we get a full villain group known as the Ten Wise Men. These guys are interesting because the game is definitely trying to go for something with their names here. You’ve got Zadkiel, Lucifer, Michael, and Gabriel all on the same team. Effectively the Angels and Demons have all decided to team up to destroy the universe. Why? Well, to be honest while usually I’d say I couldn’t tell you for spoiler reasons, they don’t really have any reason in particular. They want to either rule the universe or destroy it just because they can. They make for a pretty fun group I have to say. Their inclusion was a little last second but it definitely did help to increase the stakes here. I also tend to like villain groups in general.

As for the main characters, Claude is decent but not quite as good as the average RPG main character. He gets really jealous whenever Rena talks to her old friend Diaz which can get a little iffy. This often makes Claude act rather petty around her which isn’t a good look. I also think he should have come clean with the group about being from another star system a lot earlier in the game. It would have helped a lot particularly since he knew that the aliens were using high tech items as well. A little heads up could have gone a long way to saving more lives.

The death count in this game is absolutely massive. The villains just have more abilities and tech than the heroes so stopping them is really a difficult task. In any head to head confrontation you can really assume that the heroes are about to get wrecked. There are quite a number of fights in the game that you have to lose in order to progress the story. It’s a fun concept for sure but the only dicey thing is you may end up wasting a lot of potions and revives in this fight since you think you have a shot here.

Star Ocean ends rather abruptly without much of an after-ending so don’t expect a lot of closure for the characters. In particular I was expecting one of the old characters to show up again but I guess their premonition that they would never see him again was correct. You get the feeling that this game was left rather open ended for a sequel at some point. You could end the series with this game and it still works but there is definitely enough material for that third game. It’s definitely a satisfying story. I liked the way things turned out and the end of the game got to give Claude a good rage mode so he was more intense at the climax than he was for most of the game. You like to see it because he needed some more intensity the whole time.

As for Rena, she’s a solid heroine. Rena has her own story in the game and I’m sure that would give her even more backstory and personality like exploring her scenes with Diaz and all. She does well and keeps up with Claude the whole time. They have their share of disagreements but Rena is always reasonable about the whole thing. She’s a fun character to have around and has more of a presence than the other characters. Due to the optional nature of the rest of the party they don’t appear in any of the animated cutscenes. Even in the text ones their characters can be interchangeable. For example, I lost one fight with the Wisemen a lot to I had to keep seeing the cutscene over and over again and the side characters would take turns on who would talk to him but with the same dialogue each time. It was pretty interesting to see.

The best of the side characters would definitely be the travelling thief though. Her backstory got more time to shine than the others and since she was with the team near the beginning we at least got to see a lot of her. Some of the guys near the end came in rather late to the point where I intentionally left one of the kids back at base since he would just slow us down. I did like the rival Diaz quite a lot though. His skill with the sword was really impressive. Even by the end it’s hard to say if Claude had truly surpassed him or not. The tournament was a nice little event to show the gap in their abilities.

Not surprisingly the graphics here are really good. The fact that there are cutscenes which are completely animated at different points in the game was also very impressive. You definitely don’t see that every day I can tell you that much. The in game graphics are also on point. Not totally graphics related but I do think the game could have made the animations a little shorter though. Whenever the characters use a super attack there is a long unskippable cutscene that draws out the battles just a bit. Considering that you are going to need to grind out a lot of battles this can add up quite a lot.

As for the soundtrack, that was pretty good. It’s not quite at Tales of tier where each game has a super standout track but it still works out pretty well. There’s a lot of depth to the game so in addition to the 25-30 hours it takes to beat the game you’ve got a ton of replay value. You can beat the game again as Rena or work to get all of the other endings. It’ll definitely take a lot of time to do this so this game will last you an extremely long amount of time. It’s part of why RPGs tend to be some of the best games, you’ll almost always be very attached to what is going on by the end.

Overall, Star Ocean: Second Evolution is a great game. The plot is excellent and the characters are fun to root for. The anime cutscenes help to make this game feel high budget and the whole climax with the Ten Wise Men showing up was really good and kept a high energy approach the whole time. I liked the way you could allocate your abilities into skills as you leveled up since it made you have to decide on what to upgrade first. Strategy plays a huge role in this game. Star Ocean the series is off to a good start so I look forward to checking out more games in the series at some point. Either way if you have a PSP then I highly recommend picking this game up.

Overall 8/10

Rise – Dharuriser Review

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Whenever you think of guys fighting in colorful suits you’re probably going to be thinking of Power Rangers or Kamen Rider. They have really done a whole lot to make this trend stick and in particular Power Rangers is one of those franchises that is just so huge at this point. It makes sense that there would be a lot of other competitors in the genre. Dharuriser is a one shot movie so you don’t need to watch anything else to get into it. It’s a little more down to Earth than some of the other titles I mentioned but we get quality action scenes and a good plot. This is a film I would be able to recommend to anyone who wants to watch a solid action film with a good story behind it.

The movie starts off by showing us how Akihiro’s dream of being an actor isn’t paying off all that well. His wife Mio is now pregnant so he needs a way to find some steady income. He reluctantly moves back into his father’s house but does not want to assist in the family business. He gets a job as a security guard instead and also enters a “create a suit” contest in his free time. He submits the Dharuman costume which later gets renamed to Dharuriser. The issue is that there is a very real villain group called DICE. They intend to purify the county by eliminating all those who they deem impure. They seem to be connected to the mystery discs embedded into everyone’s wrist. Can Akihiro find out what they are doing and stop them or will he ultimately not rise to the occasion?

At the end of the day Akihiro isn’t a hero when this all starts off. He doesn’t know how to fight and is just an ordinary guy. During the course of the film he works to change this as he gets more and more serious about being in the hero business. He’s a solid main character who is definitely determined and ends up helping out quite a lot when the going gets tough. He’s the kind of guy that you want in your corner when things get tough.

That said, I did agree with his father in some respects. Akihiro absolutely did not want to help in the hotel business but he’s got a family to think about. He was rather unreasonable about this from the start. If he didn’t want to go straight to work then he is taking advantage of his father’s house. It’s something he had to think about before having a kid. That’s why you wait to have children until you have a stable income and living situation. Akihiro didn’t really think any of this through and then he nearly loses his job by oversleeping. So he had his moments where he was taking things for granted to be sure but once he turned into Dharuriser he became a lot more reliable.

Akihiro’s wife Mio is definitely a quality character as well. She’s a very loyal character who takes his side at all times. Whenever he is in trouble she doesn’t throw extra blame on him either. There’s a scene where he is getting ready to fight again and you think she might guilt trip him, but instead she just helps him get back out there again. It’s always a nice change of pace to have a character who isn’t quick to change sides. Mio was someone he could count on.

The movie’s close to 2 hours so it’s able to capture quite a lot of story in that time. DICE gets a full backstory to the group and we gradually learn about their goals. The leader ended up using his goal of keeping someone alive more as an excuse though to be honest. He definitely went way overboard with the whole thing and cracked up. Akihiro’s friend from work would probably be the worst character though as he was corrupted really easily and never tried to fight it. He just went off the deep end rather quickly and never looked back. You probably won’t be able to trust him again after all that.

Akihiro’s parents were good. As mentioned, the father was pretty reasonable with why he was upset with the lead the whole time. The Mom always tried to calm things down between the two of them as well. Then you have Akihiro’s best friend who was pretty solid. He definitely came in handy quite a lot as he assisted Akihiro in pretty much every task. He could have been a little less nervous at the end since he has a one hit KO gun but I guess even with that he felt like the danger was too much.

As expected the fight scenes are pretty good here. We get a lot of quality hand to hand action. Akihiro certainly improved in hand to hand a lot over this period of time. The costume for Dharuriser also looks really good. A particular standout here would be the soundtrack though. There are a lot of great themes with a quick tempo that feel very fitting for the battle scenes. Sometimes even when there was no battle present the music would ramp up. It helps enhance the chase scenes and adds a bit of stakes to the fights. A good soundtrack can definitely go a long way.

Throughout the film someone is trying to contact Akihiro using a bit of telepathy and a lot of direct mental images. You can’t help but feel like the sender could have made the message more specific though. Akihiro wanted to help the whole time but without any hints as to where the villains are or how to recognize them, it’s not like he could have done much about it anyway. It’s not until the very end of the fil that he is given any real instructions. I feel like the sender could have done a better job with that and who knows, Akihiro may have ended things a lot sooner.

Overall, Dharuriser is a good movie that manages to stick the landing. Things almost get a bit dicey in the climax but Akhiro makes the right call. At times the film may seem a bit cheesy with the hero being able to dispatch tons and tons of opponents even though he just learned how to fight but when you consider that his opponents are often pretty old and don’t know how to fight then this adds up rather nicely. If the enemies had guns then that would have been tricky but it might be hard to acquire those in this small town. The film has no real weaknesses so it’s definitely one that you should have a lot of fun with.

Overall 7/10