Tag Archives: Collection

Batman: Return to Arkham Review

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It’s time to return to the world of Batman games. Yes, this collection absolutely lives up to the hype and it’s been great playing so many elite games back to back! It’s really hard to see how DC can top this Batman series in the future because of just how well it nailed the mythos and atmosphere. Not to say we’re done with the Arkham series as there are still two games left to get but this was a fantastic start all around.

The first game in the collection is Arkham Asylum. Batman was undergoing a normal operation where he took down the Joker and arrested him but unfortunately the jail isn’t as secure as it should be. Joker ends up breaking out and takes over Arkham Asylum real quick. The inmates all answer to him now and they are united in their drive to destroy Batman. Batman will really have to call upon all of his knowledge and gadgets in order to take these guys down. Batman is heavily outnumbered by tons of opponents after all so this won’t be easy.

The game does a terrific job of embracing the combat elements of Batman along with his detective’s nature. It’s all really handled quite spectacularly and whenever you lose, you do feel like you deserved the death. The infiltration missions for example are difficult but never unfair. You have to watch the opponents carefully and if you are caught, take down the opponent as soon as possible. Often times I would get into a gunfight and die but sometimes I would pull off the win. The game felt very open with how many options you had and it was ultimately up to you to use them in the right ways. If you made a mistake then the game would punish you quite harshly for it and I didn’t really see any problem with that. It’s all on you after all.

For example the parry system is quite incredible here. The timing is tight but you always have a visual sign that someone is going to make a move. It’s possible to fight whole scores of enemies and not take a hit or you might have your timing thrown off by getting hit and then suddenly you’re panicking and taking a lot of blows. It feels a lot like a real fight due to this which adds a real layer of realism to the whole thing. I was definitely real impressed and it’s not something that you would see in a lower tier game. It’s all these things that add up.

The gameplay is something I could take about for ages. You have tons of gadgets in the game that allow you to strike at an enemy in a variety of ways. You can just keep on going and really overwhelm them by freezing them, stunning, using a batarang, normal blows, etc. The gadgets are mainly the same across both games but do change up a little bit. I liked each variation and they both ultimately do the same kinds of things. The gameplay is incredibly smooth in both titles so I wouldn’t really change anything. I played them back to back and had no complaints. The games have aged extremely well in either case.

Naturally this goes for the graphics as well. It all looks really HD and crisp. They have all of the little things like the cape fluttering and all of the textures. The artstyle is one that will age really well I’d say so even 10 years from now it will look great. The sequel also went all out in allowing you to change into a bunch of different costumes so I really had fun with that. They all work rather seamlessly into the gameplay.

Arkham City has Hugo Strange show up to take over the city. It was pretty cool to be playing as Bruce Wayne temporarily since he doesn’t appear very much in the video games. It was also the natural follow up with having the whole city being taken over this time around. It really helped to change up the scenery as well. I really liked the Asylum and the whole atmosphere there, but being able to be outside with all of the different environments was great! It may have been a bit easier to get lost at times but that’s just how it goes. It was absolutely worth the trade off.

Getting sniped by randoms on the roof could get a little tricky at times but hey…skill issue. Like I said, you are always really in control so if you lose then it’s on you. The only time where it felt like it would be hard for you to reasonable guess what to do was in the boss fight with Mr. Freeze where you have to use every gadget once in order to take out his health. You basically couldn’t injure him the same way twice. Now that was a super hard boss fight to win. It was extremely difficult but still fun. I also thought it was creative how he would foil any follow up attempts.

It goes back to the game feeling really vibrant and alive. The A.I. is years ahead of many other titles around. The grunts will actually team up and come up with plans to stop you. They’re not just wandering around and wondering what to do. They’re getting out there and doing what has to be done. If you make a wrong move they all gang up on you and cover all exits. It’s really fun and the reason I don’t mind dying a ton of times is how many checkpoints there are. You never lose a significant amount of time for dying which I extremely appreciate. These are the quality of life features that I absolutely live for. Nobody’s walking around talking about why check points make a game amazing but boy do they feel good!

It was also cool to actually play as Catwoman for a few levels in the second game. While the majority of gameplay should always be with Batman, I do think switching it up a bit to other fighters is not a bad thing. Emphasis on fighters of course, I don’t want to be playing as any civilians. Next time Robin should be playable as well. It was cool seeing his cameo and everything and I think they could really do a lot with his gameplay options.

Overall, These two Batman games are absolutely elite! The stories are real interesting and while the campaigns aren’t super long, there is a considerable amount of replay value here. Certainly enough to keep you really engaged. They didn’t rush any part of the experience here and so I can easily recommend this to anyone. This is AAA gaming at its finest and definitely one of the best superhero games out there. You owe it to yourself to play through this collection. There’s really nothing bad to say about the game, it is an absolute masterpiece in every sense of the word. The developers clearly knew what they were doing and had a lot of passion for the product.

Overall 9/10

Castlevania Anniversary Collection Review

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Castlevania is one of those franchises where I actually hadn’t gotten too involved with yet. There are tons and tons of games but I’ve only played a handful up to now. Well, with this collection I get to jump into 8 games right off the bat which is a huge increase. They’re definitely fun titles and only one of them actually deals with a lot of puzzles and mysteries so I appreciate that. The rest are all direct platformers which is of course the best way to go about things. The games are rather difficult so the access points really come in clutch.

First we have the original Castlevania which is of course very dated in terms of graphics. This is how the saga all started of course so it definitely did well for itself. It’s a very direct game about having to stop Dracula so you fight bosses on each level and then make it to the end. You really have to be perfect in your jumps and attacks in order to really stand a chance though. A single slip up and you are really going to be absolutely doomed here. It’s one of the harder games in the collection to be sure but I had a good time with it. Sometimes you don’t need all the extra frills and such. Just give me some good core gameplay and I am set!

The second game is the worst one so at least we get it over with quickly. This one decides to go the full Metroidvania experience as you have to find items scattered throughout the world. Different items will unlock new pathways so you will continue to travel across each level multiple times. It’s definitely not easy to put it mildly and the game doesn’t do a great job of directing you. The NPCs are definitely not helpful and some of the objectives are so vague that I can’t imagine how you would have ever figured the hint out on your own. Seems to be like it would have been an absolutely futile effort. Mix in the day and night system where you just have to wait the nights out in order to proceed and that’s a mechanic that didn’t work so well. Why should I have to wait? I want to just get in there and progress. I’ve yet to see a game where a day/night system really enhanced it.

The third game goes back to its roots. We have a clean platformer here where you have to destroy all of the monsters. It’s very similar to the first game but you do notice the improvements. They have improved the graphics and the gameplay. You have a bit more freedom here and the game isn’t quite as punishing as the last one where you were absolutely doomed the whole time. So I can definitely appreciate that and of course it’s always fun to take on Dracula again. He really never stands a chance against the power of the Belmonts!

Continuing on, we have the 4th game which has really gotten the style down to an art by this point. You have to go through all of the levels and beat every boss until you get over to Dracula. It may be a story that you’ve seen before but the games all have their little changes. I really like how you get to read the long plot synopsis before entering the game. That way even if you don’t see much of a plot within the story itself, you still know it’s there. That’s a really good design decision if you ask me.

After that we do have one of the weaker ones though. It’s not the game’s fault by any means but we go to the Game Boy so the graphics take a rather large dip. The gameplay speed is also exceptionally slow so you really have a hard time landing hits on the enemies. It just doesn’t feel as lively or energetic and of course it makes the levels feel longer than they actually are. Even with that it ends up being the shortest game though as there are only 4 real levels here. Certainly not enough to keep you here for the long haul or anything like that.

Then we actually have the second game boy game. I’ll give the title credit for fixing some of my biggest issues like the slow speed. In the sequel you can actually move at a reasonable speed which is really good. You also regain some of the more standard abilities from the mainline games like sub weapons. So it’s definitely improving but doesn’t really get up to the level of the main core games.

After that is easily the most impressive game in the collection, Bloodlines. This one looks really modern and has a dramatic improvement in graphics and gameplay. It’s clearly on a completely different level. You have two different characters to choose from so I went with the guy who has a lance to try out this new gameplay style. It’s definitely a lot of fun. His weapon has such a good reach too so you really have the advantage here. I’m not sure what, if any downsides this weapon has vs the whip but the fact that it’s a different/unique option makes the whole thing worth it. I like to shake things up and this character gave me a way to do it. This is definitely going to be the turning point for the series.

The final game shakes things up a bit by bringing in Kid Dracula. You get the feeling that they wanted to end off on a fun note. It’s a chibi style game that plays more like Mega Man as you blast away at every enemy in your way. It’s actually rather fun and the game is not afraid to get really crazy as you go through it. You fight enemies like the Statue of Liberty before you’re all done. That was a pretty fun boss battle. If I had a complaint it’s that you don’t see the boss health meters anymore and there isn’t always a visual indicator to show that they’re taking damage. So for the final boss for example, you’re just not sure if you’re playing the fight in the right way for a while there.

The games all generally have pretty solid soundtracks to go along with the gameplay. The older ones are a bit more limited but the tune that they choose isn’t bad. The gameplay is generally smooth and of course the graphics get better as you go through the title. In general you could tell that they put a good amount of budget behind these games and were really trying for them to be successful. Clearly it worked out since the franchise is a household name right now.

Overall, It was fun to really start getting used to the Castlevania titles. For now I would even say it is better than I expected since I was dreading the more labyrinth style games where you have to run around and find things. This one managed to avoid all of that for the most part. Perhaps that’s just something the latter games have or maybe it’s actually not that frequent and the series just became known for it somehow. I can’t say I really know how this is going to play out but regardless I can definitely recommend this collection. In general collections always give you such great bang for your buck.

Overall 7/10

King of Fighters 2002/2003 Review

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King of Fighters has had many games over the years. There are very few who can say that they have played all of them. Even for me thanks to the elusive 99 I won’t be able to say that but I will have basically played through the whole series so that feels like a rather massive W if you ask me. These two games are pretty fun and continue the game on a rather high note.

First up the 2002 game doesn’t really have a story. So for that game you’re really playing through the arcade mode to have a general sense of the controls and you get to beat up a revived Rugal again which is always intense. Definitely not a boss that you want to mess with. In 2003 you’re mainly playing with Ash as you try to get more power and then get wrapped up into another big villain conspiracy. Looks like the Orochi factions aren’t quite done yet but Ash can hold his own.

At this point King of Fighters has so many different factions and it’s always fun to see all of them being active a the same time. That’s not something that you usually see so that’s pretty different compared to other fighting game titles. You have the Orochi revivers, the NEST remnants, Ash basically counts since he’s trying to absorb more power, Rugal’s kids, etc. The game would really be able to do a whole lot as an RPG with this many characters to play around with.

The gameplay is pretty classic as you would expect. There are different mechanics that get added and removed as the games go on but the classic core of the gameplay is still the same. Use your attacks and special moves to take your opponents down. The arcade mode will take you down the path to taking down the main villains. After playing so many of them in a row, I do think it’s impressive how consistent the games are. They all tend to generally follow the same patterns and schedules.

It’s mainly the story that changes and of course some specifics in the actual gameplay like I mentioned. I wonder if the hardcore fans could immediately tell you which game it is based on the win screens after a match. That would be a fun test for some of the more intense fans. I naturally wouldn’t be able to clear that quite yet but I do think I would be able to put up a decent fight since they’re all really fresh in my mind.

The graphics are good as always. I definitely have no problem with them. I do miss Terry’s old design with the cap but since he gave it to a girl at the end of one of the games, it makes sense that he no longer has it. It was so iconic though. I forget if he ever gets it back in the newer games but hopefully he does. He still has it in all of the spinoffs after all. The soundtrack is also good. I felt like we got some more memorable tracks this time around although it might be difficult to find them. I suppose I’d just have to listen to the full soundtrack to pick it out.

As always there is no limit to the replay value here. Just keep on playing with a friend and you could do that all day. If you’re only playing by yourself then that might not be quite as fun but that’s always been the case historically. So it’s not unique to King of Fighters or anything like that. These games were made to be enjoyed by everyone and that way you can also learn how to fight the right way. In a lot of ways fighting the computer teaches you the wrong things since you are focused on exploiting the AI and your moves may not be optimal. Like overusing the jump kick to sweep kick combo may work on the computers but if you keep on doing that against a real opponent then you’re going to be countered real hard.

As always get ready for some real crazy final bosses. These aren’t the craziest to be sure but you’ll likely still die a few times an need the bonus. It’s still very impressive that the bosses are always this tough though. It’s like a point of pride for the series and it is definitely well earned. That kind of difficulty doesn’t just appear on its own. The developers had to work really hard on that one.

Overall, These two games were fun as expected. They had some fun tunes and the gameplay was good as always. You really get to test your limits in these games as well as your reaction times. You’re not going to go down very easily that’s for sure. I’ll be having more King of Fighters reviews up pretty soon so get ready for that. It is definitely a really fun franchise and if the developers were willing to go just a bit harder with it on the next big title, it could really start to make waves on the fighting game scene. Give us a story like Street Fighter V or what Tekken always has. The characters in KoF and their backstories are definitely detailed and expansive enough to support this.

Overall 7/10

King of Fighters 2000 & 2001 Review

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It’s time for some King of Fighters hype! It’s pretty fun to be playing through all of the games in the series. These two start to feel a bit more modern on the PS2 but you’ve still got enough retro elements in the game to make it feel nostalgic. You’ve also got some real stories going on here which is always fun. It would be nice if there was a longer story for everybody but I’m still satisfied. There is basically always a cliffhanger here as well to keep things moving.

In 2000, we get to play as K who is fighting for his memories and to take down the villains like NEST. He enters the King of Fighters tournament to deal some serious damage and along the way the villains make their move as well. Kula also gets involved which is fun because for me she’s one of the more nostalgic characters. I played as her a lot in one of the spinoff games. So to see her with more of a starring role was definitely a lot of fun, her ice abilities also work pretty well in the gameplay.

The game has the striker system active so you can summon assists like in Marvel vs Capcom. It’s pretty fun although it never really works on the bosses all that much. This is the only game where the final boss isn’t too crazy though. You can actually fight him like a normal boss and eventually win as opposed to just being cheesy the whole time and staying in the corner. Hey, you have to win whatever it takes right? So no shame there, you just look forward to actually rushing in and fighting so this was a fun change of pace. Part of King of Fighters’ whole appeal is the insane difficulty though. These final bosses are really made to make you work to find whatever exploit you can in order to win.

2001 adds another extra mechanic to the striker system. This time you can have up to 3 strikers. So you can use all 4 fighters to attack the enemy or only have one. The balance is up to you but one thing to keep in mind is that the final boss will have more health if you opt to go with 4 fighters. I didn’t even realize that so for a while there he was dominating me and had tons of health. Fortunately every time you die you can readjust your team so after a bunch of losses I put everyone into being a striker except my main guy and then I used him to win the day. It was still extremely difficult to be sure and I just barely pulled it off but that does seem like the play. You are basically banking on RNG here to be able to beat the final boss.

You need him to make the wrong choices just a few times on 2001 and then you will be able to finish him off with minimal difficulty. I suppose the one drawback is you will be getting sent to the game over screen a lot quicker this way as your one fighter will keep on going down quickly but at the end of the day it’s still worth it. I still advise going through this way. Also, make sure you do not use your summons. They will never land a hit anyway and only exist to get in your way. Activating them is basically ensuring your own defeat. So definitely make sure that you don’t do that. In the split second it takes to call them out the boss will inevitably use a wide energy wave to take down both of you.

The final boss is also able to use super attacks without using up any magical energy. This means that blocking forever is only worth it if you are aiming for a timeout but otherwise it’s not like you’re going to tire this guy out. So definitely just keep an eye out on that. For most battles you still want to go with the tried and true tactic of an aerial kick into a sweeping kick but you never want to approach these final bosses. Let them come to you and you just stick to punishing their mistakes. Each small hit will eventually add up and then you’re good.

As you would expect the graphics for both games are pretty good. In general you can see the graphics improving s the games go on but it still will take some time before they’re completely up to PS5 level or anything like that. The sprites are very colorful though and that’s why I recommend them as an artstyle. They will never get out of date and will always look very pleasant no matter how many years go by. The soundtrack is another okay one as well. The themes match the stages but aren’t something you would necessarily be looking up on Youtube.

That’s good enough though, at the end of the day this is a fighting game and one that is a lot of fun. I enjoy all of the combos and the big character roster. It’s a game that really never has to stop giving you entertainment since you can have endless vs battles. The replay value is there and since the gameplay itself is really solid, that’s all you need. It’s certainly possible that you won’t need to play this one if you have the sequels but at least this will still work out. Terry is still my favorite character even if I’ve had to play as the other characters lately for the story.

Overall, King of Fighters is a solid series that has certainly had a lot of games. This collection does a good job of bringing two of the games in and they work really well together. I’ve certainly improved my King of Fighter fundamentals even if I would not exactly be tournament ready just yet. I would really need to stud the games for that and get used to the combos. In the meantime, going through story mode is definitely the right amount of investment for me. I don’t really need anything more. Of course if we ever do get a massive cinematic story mode then I would have to really learn the controls because I would not want to miss that!

Overall 7/10

Rocket Knight Adventures: Re-Sparked Review

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Believe it or not, I actually hadn’t heard of these games before. So playing them in a collection was definitely different although it was pretty fun. It’s definitely got that retro platformer vibe with a lot of fun level designs and colorful characters. I’d be down for a modern remake/reboot at some point.

The 3 games are all fairly similar but I’ll break down the differences. The core gameplay in each one is a 2D platformer. You have a jet pack which you can use to charge into enemies and through obstacles. You also have your close quarters weapon which does a lot of damage. Often times you will eventually have a vehicle or some other kind of assist tech that can really get you places. So definitely don’t lose that or you are probably going to be in a lot of trouble here. It can be tough to defend yourself in those suits so move with extreme caution.

One thing you will notice right away about the first game is that the difficulty level is incredibly high. You are going to absolutely have to pull out each and every stop in order to win without rewinding. I can tell you that I died so many hundreds of times that I absolutely needed it. This is a game where that feature is pretty much mandatory. Without it I would have been in a whole lot of trouble. You are able to save after each level so you can try doing that to potentially dodge the rewinding but the levels are rather long so I can tell you that this will still be a very difficult task.

The second game changes the boost feature so that it’s a separate button now. This makes things easier because you can just spam that without having to hold any of the controls down. Pretty handy stuff I would say. Unfortunately the trade off is that your blade doesn’t shoot any projectiles anymore so you have to get really close to the enemies. Your health bar is fairly low and your attack range is short so this is risky. When possible, use your boost instead. Of course the one drawback is when you use the boost attack, the recoil will often cause you to fall into another attack. So you will definitely have to watch out for that.

Sometimes you would get yourself into a loop where you get hit, rewind, get hit again, etc. Because once you’ve already boosted it’s hard to control yourself and everything is happening so fast. One thing about rewinding that you have to understand is when you are thrown back into the level, you have to immediately do whatever movement you were doing before. If you lose your momentum then you will be slow and will get hit by another attack. Even with the rewind this ended up being very difficult and not many games can say that.

Then we have the third game. I like how this one was the most colorful of the 3 and the characters were super expressive. It plays out more like the first one even down to the story. (Well all 3 don’t have much of a story beyond the Princess getting kidnapped but 3 is really just doing the same scenario as 1) Once again you have to charge up for your boost and your sword shoots energy blasts. I would say that it is the easiest of the 3 games though. I still had to rewind a whole lot mind you but the levels were considerably shorter.

The toughest part was definitely the final level. Defeating the giant mech suit I was up against was tough. I’m still not sure if I was really doing that the right way but it was fun. The third game experimented a bit more with the different fighting styles like riding on a kangaroo type dinosaur robot and then using an aerial one later. Platformers can always have a lot of fun like that but of course the main gameplay is always the best part.

The graphics are pretty solid like I said. The artstyle has really aged well for all 3 games. Meanwhile the soundtrack is also good although not quite as memorable. It’s not quite the next Sonic The Hedgehog in that regard. In terms of length, the games are all short but this brings all 3 of them so that helps a whole lot. You’re still going to wind up getting some good bang for your buck. There is also some replay value in going for the Platinum and I guarantee that won’t be super easy. You have to beat all 3 of the games roughly 3 times and you have to do the boss rushes. With enough rewinds you can pull it off but I was having trouble on easy mode. I can’t imagine what hard mode is like!

I’d definitely be up for a modern reboot for the series some day. The main guy has a lot of potential with the cool design. I also like how he’s not crazy about the princess like some other heroes and just runs off after saving the day. It works for a good contrast. There are naturally tons of stories you can tell within this universe and we just need some writers to step up and give it the ole go. There were definitely a whole lot of platformers back in the day and I look forward to seeing how the next one is.

Overall, Rocket Knight is a pretty fun game. Definitely one of the all time most difficult platformers that I’ve played. I don’t know how kids would have pulled this one off back in the day. It definitely would have taken a whole lot of dedication and effort to memorize all of the enemy patterns and keep it moving. So I give them a whole lot of props there. That being said, a remastered port should always have some quality of life updates and this game succeeded in a very big way. Rewind and Access Points are very huge. I definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a fun time.

Overall 7/10

The Last: Naruto The Movie Update

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Update, I now own this movie on Blu Ray! Was fun rewatching it and the movie definitely still holds up as one of the best Naruto movies. Top tier action and Sasuke has a really hype role in here. Would have worked well as the true final movie as well although of course I’m glad that the series kept on rolling. If you haven’t seen this movie yet then you ought to change that!

Seven Little Sons of the Dragon Review

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It’s time for a anthology. You know those can get a little dicey at times because it’s just hard to come up with a bunch of good short stories. Worst case you have a really good one and it ends too quickly and then you’re still mad about this being an anthology. So there are a lot of ways that this can go wrong but not a ton of ways that it can go right. That’s the real problem here when you really think about it. Fortunately this one was pretty good.

The first story introduces us to a world where a big dragon has been parked between two kingdoms for a very long time. They used to be bitter enemies who would murder each other but nobody can leave the kingdom or they are eaten. As a result everyone is slowly getting ready to die of hunger. Fortunately there is one guy who is able to freely cross between countries with small supplies. So he does his best to help get supplies from the other kingdom to his. What he learns is that the other kingdom isn’t evil, they’re really just like his people. Unfortunately the grudge between kingdoms has been going on for so long that nobody is really backing down.

So it’s a fun intro about how sometimes battles and grudges have been going on for so long that they’re basically pointless. Ultimately they are able to find peace once the dragon leaves and so this big trial was a blessing in disguise. It’s a fairly low key story that had a good ending. I was really worried that something would happen to the dragon at the end so I’m glad that he was okay.

The second story is also solid. Basically humans and mermaids are not supposed to interact. Mermaids may look totally human but officially they are classified as animals so you’re supposed to leave them alone. That’s hard for the main character to do though, especially when he sees one mermaid who is always having a lot of trouble. So they get close despite warnings from his friend and the mermaid nearly drowns him. So the lead realizes that he needs to learn a lot more about mermaids

I wasn’t expecting the mermaid to try and drown the guy but it was a good way to show that they really couldn’t understand each other at that point in time. No matter how much the kid thought they were friends on equal ground, it just hadn’t happened yet. The mermaid was just trying to be friendly and show him the sea but couldn’t understand that he couldn’t breath. It’s not likely that he will come up with a sci-fi gadget to make them understand each other but doing research to help bridge the gap between the two species definitely sounded like a good idea.

Next up was probably the most low key story of the batch. A little girl wants to do well on a test so she is hoping that one of the gods will help her. In this world, every kind of object has some kind of god watching over it or that embodies the object. So she raises a god in her fish tank and she eventually gets it to full strength only to find out that it can’t actually help her with tests. So the whole thing was futile and the story set this up well. There are gods for everything here so why would a fish god be able to help with studying?

It’s almost so basic that you have to do a double take because it makes a ton of sense in hindsight. So it’s a pleasant story but there isn’t really anything to ponder compared to the first two stories. Like it just ends and you move on to the next story. You don’t even really think about what just happened all that much. By no means does it make this a bad story or anything, it’s just not all that eventful and that happens sometimes.

After that we have a much more serious story. Basically in this world some people are born as werewolves and so when the full moon strikes, a separate personality shows up. This has often been seen as super dangerous and so the main guy’s mother was scared at first but did her best to learn about the condition. She is now the top expert in the world which is really impressive. Her son sometimes feels that she profits too much out of this though and wonders if she has his best interests at heart. That’s really where the drama comes in here and so I would say that it doesn’t reflect super well on him.

It would definitely be awful to not be in control of yourself any time a Moon comes up. Or to not even remember what you did at that point since the other soul has all of the memories. That said, he should have discussed the situation with his Mom rather than just holding it in and being sad the whole time. The moral of talking things out is a good one and I liked the premise. It’s fairly original.

After that was my least favorite story of the bunch though. So there’s this painter who is so good that anything he draws becomes alive. He’s sort of retired now but there is a fake knock off making drawings of his own. So the old guy has to get out there and settle this. Along the way he is protected by a rather sloppy counterfeit of one of his own paintings and a lot of other distorted ones.

There is naturally a twist on who is drawing these but it was hard to get all that invested this time. The whole drawing plot just wasn’t very interesting. The ending is certainly wholesome but also still pretty sad. Especially when you consider that the paintings basically do have feelings. In a way having the ability to make your paintings become real is probably not something you would want to have. It would make you really double guess every single thing that you draw.

After that we have one of the more fun ones with a mysterious lady offering to help a group of soldiers get across a mountain towards a vicious monster. What they don’t know is that she’s bumping them all off one by one. There’s definitely a bigger sense of danger here than in any of the other stories. The lady is really deadly and just overall scary the whole time. Clearly not someone that you ever want to mess with. I liked the premise here although I would have changed up the ending a bit.

I felt like the soldier got off a bit too easily. Now none of this is directly his fault so I’m cool with him surviving but I found the whole thing to be a little cheesy especially considering the resolve of the assassin. You probably could write an interesting dynamic there if you wanted this to be an ongoing but as a one shot it ends up feeling rather rushed. This finally goes to the potential issue anthologies run into where the story concept/premise is just too much for such a small window of time. I thought it was the most interesting of the bunch though.

However, the final story is my favorite. It’s about a family where everyone has different powers. The main character feels bad because she feels like her power is the worst. She can change your clothes into pajamas. Not much compared to mind reading, telekinesis, teleporting, etc. Well it might come in handy this time as a detective shows up and the house turns into an elaborate murder mystery.

The whole thing is a big tribute to Detective Conan and it works really well. The mystery is fun and you really see how all of the misunderstandings start to work. The ending’s a bit of an unbelievable gag and I felt like the author was trying really hard to make the pajamas power cool. It didn’t work….but I appreciate the effort. In general I just really liked the vibes the family had and the setup was good. This is definitely a story that could have been an ongoing.

The art is fairly decent here. I don’t think the artist is one of the higher tier ones in the business but this is still professional through and through. I definitely have no issues here. The volume is easy to read and so you’ll be blasting through. Most of the stories are pretty good as I mentioned earlier so you’ll have a fun time here.

Overall, The stories are pretty well balanced. They all bring something different to the table without being repetitive and I liked just about all of them. The author has good range as the stories really have a lot of variety. Even the painting one which is the worst one by default isn’t bad. I just found it to be borderline boring at times but still not one that I would flat out give the thumbs down to. I can definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a fun collection of stories. While none of them are great to the point where they will wow you, none of them are bad either. At the end of the day that makes for a good collection.

Overall 7/10

2022 Christmas Haul

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With Christmas over I have compiled all the games I got. It was a pretty good haul of 20 games this year with a lot of high powered titles here. I’ve attached an image below as well as a written list of all the games. It’ll definitely be a little while until I have completed all of these of course so this should last a while. It’s a good variety of games among different consoles.

As a console milestone, the 3DS caught up to the Switch as I now have the same amount of games for each console. Pretty impressive I must say but ultimately I see the Switch winning this one as they just have a lot of games that we haven’t gotten yet. No other console took a lead yet but PS4 got the most new games here with 8 so that console continues to rise quickly.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope
Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening
Mario Party Star Rush
Detective Pikachu
Legend of Zelda Link Between Worlds
Final Fantasy III
Children of Mana
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
He Man and the Masters of the Universe
Madden 23
My Little Pony Maritime Adventure
Doug Flutie Maximum Football
Astria Ascending
Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom Remastered
Nexomon Extinction
Trial of Mana
Need for Speed Payback
Star Ocean The Last Hope International
The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge
Rengoku The Stairway to Heaven

Godzilla: World of Monsters Review

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Godzilla has returned! Lesss gooooooo. So after all these years I’ll now have gotten to read 6 different Godzilla series in one month. It’s nice to be catching up on all these titles after so long. In general the previous collection probably takes the win but the comics here are all solid as you would expect. Godzilla Oblivion is the weakest one but feels the most traditional while the gangsters series is the most different but ended up being the best. Rach series is quite different from the others so you certainly can’t say that the series is trying to play it safe. This title isn’t afraid to keep on switching things up.

First up we have Gangsters and Goliaths which follows a guy named Detective Sato. He’s been after a criminal group for a very long time now but unfortunately this group has grown too powerful. They now have people inside of the police force and just about everywhere else too. There is no way to escape from them and he is slowly seeing how futile the whole thing is. No matter how fast or far away he goes, the villains are right on his tail. His only chance now is a desperate one. He kidnaps the two priestesses who control Mothra and decides to use them as hostages so that Mothra can destroy the gangs. Naturally the gangs can’t do anything against a Kaiju but this is a dangerous game that he is playing. All it would take is one slip up and Mothra might end him in an instant.

Sato is a decent guy who has been taken into a rather extreme situation. The comic does make it clear that he wouldn’t actually shoot any of the two girls so that was good since it would have completely tanked his character. Still, taking hostages is certainly not the best plan in any case. Additionally he goes on a bit of a power trip by the end where he actually starts to try and drag the situation out. Rather than just end the gang in an instant he wants them to know that Detective Sato was the one who did them in and this is what makes things tougher for him. If he had just gone straight for the win then he would have saved himself a whole lot of heartache.

Mothra’s faction don’t look great here either. It’s like none of them can fight. I understand that they’re pacifists for the most part and get that but you have to still know that other people are ready and willing to fight. So when you walk up to a mobster with no plan and get shot it just makes these guys look bad. Mothra needs to re train her faction right from the ground up in order to get this all taken care of. They shouldn’t be getting handled by a normal guy like this. As for the actual human plot, I sort of missed the monsters the whole time. The gang plot is well written but since you’re reading Godzilla you’re hoping for more explosions and Kaiju battles. Now that’s something that would help elevate this to a whole new level. This was a good way to kick things off though and life does go on even while Kaiju are around so it does make sense that there would be gangs running around.

In Cataclysm we see that Godzilla successfully took down the entire planet. It’s now a wasteland with nothing left and people live in a very apocalyptic environment. At this point it’s a struggle just to stay alive. Only one Kaiju wants to bring the Earth back to life and that’s Biollante. Well, I guess Mothra is around to help but Biollante has the nature energy to revive the planet. The problem is that Godzilla keeps murdering her before she can really generate enough power. Hiroshi blames himself for this because he was part of a government experiment about mind controlling Godzilla and of course it went terribly wrong. All he succeeded in doing was getting that Kaiju real mad. Godzilla holds quite the grudge as he wants to doom the planet forever now. Hiroshi’s only chance is if he can escape with part of Biollante to buy her some time but this won’t be easy because Godzilla is king of the monsters. He is always around ready to dish out some pain.

The setting here is definitely very dreary and the comic paint quite the picture of what would happen if Godzilla won. There is a lot of narration from Hiroshi as he believes that nobody can ever truly know Godzilla so this might not even be rage but just Godzilla doing whatever he wants. There isn’t really a way to know for sure and that’s the crazy part. So in the grand scheme of things the humans couldn’t do much. So this makes for a decent survival story. The humans tend to look really bad here though. Some immediately want to go back to sacrifices and such to appease Godzilla while others just turn back to a life of crime. Hiroshi’s relatives blame him for everything even though that’s unreasonable because he was just following orders and had no way of knowing that this could even happen. Hiroshi was feeling guilty about the whole thing all these years but technically speaking he wasn’t as responsible as he figures. It would have been nice if the other characters could have acknowledged this.

I’d say the best part about this series is that it really shows why Godzilla is the king. It’s clear that no other Kaiju was able to even come close to his overall abilities and that’s how it should be. A king should be considerably stronger than the others and Godzilla proved that with ease. This comic really understood that aspect of his character which was great. I’m also cool with the humans panicking and looking awful since I could totally see that happening if we ever got a Godzilla. It’s annoying to watch but it definitely tracks.

Finally we have Godzilla Oblivion. So there are a bunch of scientists who are being paid to create a giant portal. They complete this task and then reluctantly turn it on because the boss wants a demonstration. This leads to all of them heading into a parallel Earth that is filled with monsters destroying everything. This isn’t exactly what they bargained for so they head back home but Ghidorah follows them and destroys everything. A few years pass and the heroes need to open the portal to send him back home but is that even possible?

The humans are completely out of their depth but what else is new right? Just trying to dump all of their problems onto another Earth isn’t the best idea either. The scientist tries explaining that but gets overruled the whole time. One issue here is that a lot of the characters look really similar. Throw in the fact that this comic has a unique style of framing the panels where you rarely see anybody and it can be really easy to mix everyone up. I feel that this does limit the series from the jump because it sort of takes you out of the experience. There’s not a whole lot to care about in the human plot because they all get mixed up and are thinking about themselves anyway.

I was actually kind of happy when the other Earth decided to throw all of their Kaiju at us because our Earth was being so annoying about the whole thing. They’ve got some really valid reasons for just doing this because it seems like our humans would have done the same thing if they could have. At first the other Earth actually seemed like decent fighters but in the end they were just doing their best to survive like we were and weren’t exactly winning the fight. The Kaiju are just too tough and relentless like always.

We do get a good amount of Kaiju action here which is always good though. They all get to show their stuff from start to finish. Godzilla looks like one of the big shots but we also have Ghidorah and Destoroyah running around so this time he has some actual competition instead of it just being a cakewalk for him. That’s good since you always want to have a little bit of a challenge there. I’d say we could have focused less on the humans and more on the big Kaiju action.

The art throughout these issues is fairly good. I wouldn’t say it ever gets amazing but it’s pretty solid. You really get to see the different energy attacks and the Kaiju designs definitely stick out. That’s the important thing here since you really want them to be able to stand out. There was a body of a dead animal in one comic that felt rather unnecessary. Fortunately it was a passing shot and had been gone for some time but I always get nervous that an animal will be collateral damage in one of these issues so the comics need to watch out.

Overall, Godzilla Oblivion is a very solid comic. It’s got a whole lot of action to it and a nice variety of stories. You should definitely check this out if you’re a Godzilla fan. Who knows maybe one of these comic series will be turned into a film or a TV show someday. There’s always hope out there and I think that could work really well. To keep things expanding I would probably say to do an original story instead but if it does get adapted then we’ll be able to see these fights on the big screen. Sadly Orga doesn’t appear here but I can still hope that he will return one of these days. He’s easily the most underrated Kaiju and it’s not even close.

Overall 7/10

Godzilla: Unnatural Disasters Review

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Godzilla has returned to destroy everyone who gets in his way. He has long been known as the King of the Kaiju but in this collection he has to go up against all kinds of opponents. It’s a pretty solid collection with a whole lot of stories within it. I had a good time here and I would definitely recommend it to any Godzilla fan. You’ll get all of the action that you could want and more.

From the 3 titles in here I already read the Godzilla in Hell saga so I’ll go over that one a bit quicker. See Godzilla gets taken to hell by some kind of demon and it’s heavily implied that Godzilla has to overcome every challenge of hell in order to escape. This means overcoming physical threats as well as mental ones. Nothing is particularly effective against Godzilla though and he just continues to barrel through the place with ease. It’s impressive just how powerful Godzilla is. The guy is absolutely unrelenting and looks really impressive here. A lot of the monsters he fights with have very unique designs as well. Part of the hype here is that the whole saga is shrouded in a lot of mystery. Even by the end you have to use a lot of headcanon to decide exactly what happened.

The art is very solid and the pacing is good so I didn’t really have any issues with this one. It’s also very unique so I’d say that any Godzilla fan should really appreciate the experience. You know that you probably won’t be seeing anything quite like it any time soon. I think this would be the perfect story to turn into a movie because it would just be so out there that it should catch people’s eye right away. How could you turn away from a film with this kind of premise right? Now for the other two story collections they have a more traditional approach with humans running around but not all of them. We’ll dive into the Legends issues first.

The first Legends issue focuses on Anguirus who is a super big underdog but the humans talk fondly about how he never backs down from a fight. You can take this as a positive trait in that he’s super brave or you can take it as a negative one in that he is very bad at understanding power levels and jumps into flurries that he knows he can’t win. It’s a solid first issue but man does Anguirus need a power up. It feels like someone is giving him the McDonalds combo every time he steps into a fight. When’s the last time he got a definitive win against anybody? Because I can’t think of a single win for his character and that’s unfortunate.

The second issue is definitely a lot weaker though. So this crazy scientist has a Rodan egg and gets obsessed with it. The government isn’t happy because of how dangerous it is and get ready to destroy it so he runs off. His son gets picked on a lot and wanted to show off so he helps his father keep is secured but then the Dad gets arrested and the kid is potentially bumped off. This was probably the only issue in the collection where the Kaiju was completely put to the side in favor of the human plot and that’s what hurt this one quite a bit. The humans were just super annoying the whole time and that’s not what you want to see here. In general the humans are usually not great in the Godzilla comics as you sort of tune them out and wait for Godzilla to return but these guys really stuck out as being rather annoying.

Now the third issue is definitely one of the standouts here. So we have these telepaths across the world who can control Kaiju and the main character is taken to one of these schools to be trained. It’s like something out of Assassin’s Creed as they emotionally manipulate him the whole time and we get a real solid twist involving aliens. The humans were actually rather interesting this time around and it’s a shame that these are all one shots because this could have had a real solid continuation. Titanosaurus got to look good as well, well maybe not in the sense that he was being mind controlled but he looked good in a power context and that’s what you want to see. Throwing in a solid cliffhanger like this one did was pretty effective.

Issue 4 continues on a very solid note as we see Hedorah enter the fray. This time the humans have a Mecha Godzilla at the ready but are still unsure if he will be enough to really help them be victorious this time around. The story has a good amount of tension and they have to decide which monster to take down when Godzilla appears. What I liked about this one is that Hedorah really got his respect. He’s one of the few Kaiju who was actually more powerful than Godzilla when they first fought and so I wanted him to look powerful here. That definitely did happen as the humans had to get involved. It was an emotional story and one that has a satisfying conclusion. I dare say fans all around will have a good time with this one.

The final story is a bit more low key as an old danger climber goes on one last hike. This time he’ll be climbing Godzilla and it’s the most daring thing anybody had done. Godzilla’s filled with radiation so this gets dicey but it’s interesting to see someone hanging on like this. I’m sure Godzilla could have removed him a any time but just wasn’t bothered enough to do so. He knows that no human can hurt him anyway so what would be the point right? It’s a reasonable attitude for Godzilla to have when you really think about it. It works as an emotional climax here especially with the final scenes.

Now we dive into Rage Across Time as we see that Godzilla has been terrorizing the world for centuries at this point. He’s just built different and not even time can get in his way. In the first issue we have him going up against a bunch of samurai/ninja which makes for a pretty unique setup. Personally I tend to like trips to the future a lot more than trips to the past but I get the concept of the series. If a modern military had trouble with Godzilla, imagine back then right? Fortunately other Kaiju are around as well so this leads to a lot of big fights.

Then in the second issue we have the Greek gods trying to unite in order to fight off Godzilla. Thing is they’re really bad at that. None of them get along at all and you can throw the lion’s share of the blame onto Zeus for this. Zeus is just being mean for no reason right out of the jump and it only gets worse from there. Since the gods power comes from the prayers of the mortals he enters the fight in a weakened state because he has been distant for so long. No johns though, Godzilla would have beaten him anyway. There is a good reason why he is known as the King of the Monsters after all. It was nice to see how out there these fights were. It really felt like a very hype supernatural encounter and not just Godzilla beating up on other Kaiju and humans. A very solid issue.

The third issue was a bit different than the others. So it had the knights of the olden days and there was a plague around so they go to Mothra for help. We get a nice fight with Mothra and Battra while the corrupt people across the kingdom mess the knights up. It was interesting but just felt a lot different from the others since Godzilla didn’t get to do a whole lot. A decent issue but Mothra isn’t able to hold her own issue quite as well as some of the other Kaiju. Regardless you should have a good time here.

This 4th issue may be the weakest of the set so you can see how it’s losing a bit of steam here. Godzilla shows up but this time he actually has trouble against humans as they put a lot of snow on him. It may be a tribute to Raids Again but this one suffered from the main issue of the humans getting too much screen time. Nobody really cares about the humans here…no offense to the humans. But I’m reading Godzilla for the Kaiju and the fights and this was the only one that didn’t really deliver in that respect.

This last issue gets real crazy as a bunch of Kaiju all appear and it becomes a whole nonstop fight from all sides. That was great and definitely the right way to end things off with. You barely even remember the story of this one beyond everyone just duking it out and that’s fine by me. Throw in Orga and then you’d really have a party. One issue for the future would have been nice to show that Godzilla is never over but I suppose it just wasn’t to be this time. Maybe next time.

The artwork is mainly solid during the issues. It fluctuates a bit but on the whole I was satisfied with it. You get to have the Kaiju with solid proportions and the fights are on point so that’s the important thing. By the end of this adventure you will be having a good time all around. The writing is good and there is a whole lot of content here so you will be able to enjoy Godzilla in his full glory the whole time.

Overall, If you haven’t read this comic yet then you definitely need to change that. All big fans of Godzilla owe it to themselves to check this out because it is just such a great collection of issues. You’d be missing out if you missed on this one. I would like to see more of a proper ongoing return with some really big plots in the verse but think of these like best hits and stories that could have certainly been movies in their own rights. Look at the issues through that lens and then you’re really all set. I have another Godzilla comic to check out pretty soon so that’ll be hype.

Overall 7/10