Tag Archives: Godzilla

Godzilla: Skate or Die Review

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They say that the artwork in a comic is the most important aspect…and they were right. Good writing is something you want to have too of course but when reading a comic you need the art to look solid. Unfortunately this is one of the worst displays of artwork that I have seen to the point where it is incredibly distracting. Nothing looks right and since the story didn’t have the greatest plot in the first place, the whole comic ended up being cooked. It’s not bad but it’s definitely not all that great either.

The comic starts with some skaters talking and having a good time getting ready to head to their favorite spot. They are not exactly grade A students but they are a close knit bunch who are all ready for some fun. Unfortunately it turns out that Kaiju are real as Varan and Godzilla both appear. They are heading towards at each other for a climactic battle. That’s not the worst part though, they will be colliding at the big skating area that the main characters set up. They will have to dash over there now to get one last skate session in and find a way to stop the Kaiju from tearing it apart. Will they be able to get past the government barricades and put a stop to this?

Now you may be thinking that the cops will make short work of the skaters but they’re actually kept on the back foot the whole time. They do their best like having the cop cars running around but the skaters keep on outmaneuvering them. We get some extra drama as the police guy in charge is the father of one of the kids. The comic doesn’t care a ton about this connection though which is fine with me since I am hear for the Kaiju. The problem is that none of the humans get a ton of development. They start out the adventure as your average skater dudes and don’t change much from there. They’re not over the top annoying or anything but they’re also not particularly good either.

Of course it’s always easier to point out the negatives there than to fix them. I’m not exactly sure what I would do to fix them for example. Maybe playing up their different characteristics a bit more. Like one of them was really into Kaiju so they could have had him show off his knowledge more or worked on the father-son tensions with the other one. At the same time it’s still all about the execution. So that leads me to my main solution, the comic should have leaned into the cheesy nature of the concept a bit more. Have Godzilla actually fight with the skaters. He tries to blast them while they keep jumping away and dodging every move. That would have made for a much better dynamic and then you would have a reason for them to get so much focus.

With their speed and all, readers could maybe buy into it a little bit and it’s not like Godzilla would be going all out using his nuclear wave to stop them or something. So me personally? That’s how I would have solved the issue and I dare say that it would have really worked. It’s just my two cents though and again with the art the way it is, it’s not like the score would be much higher.

I think Varan fans will be satisfied with his portrayal though. He actually has the edge against Godzilla for a good portion of their fight. You can even make the case that he would have ultimately defeated the King of the Monsters if not for the humans giving some help near the end. I like to think Godzilla would have gotten his second wind though. We don’t actually get to see most of the fight since it keeps cutting back to the skaters so for all we know, Godzilla had the edge for most of the battle.

The art still wasn’t good for the battles but at least it was something to catch your attention. I would say the main issue here is that the art was just too abstract. For the most part it was just severely lacking in detail and that’s never a good thing. A comic should be easy to read with everything being organized neatly. That was not the case here. It actually takes longer than it should in order to read through the comic because of how cluttered each page is. The artist really tried sticking everything possible onto the page and it just did not work.

If we ever got a sequel to this comic, they just need to switch the art style asap. There was enough foreshadowing where you definitely could do a sequel after all. Even a prequel I dare say since it was said that Godzilla has appeared several times in the past. It’s hard to say what kind of timeline we’re working with here but it’s definitely something where you could throw in a whole lot of fights. It’ll just all be futile if you can’t really enjoy the fights because you are deciphering the art. Also, the comic neglected to put Orga in the giant Kaiju splash page which was definitely a big mistake. That guy is iconic.

Overall, Skate or Die is definitely more about the skaters than Godzilla. Not necessarily a bad thing but you just don’t care about those guys. They’re all nice enough and all but don’t end up being all that memorable. I would say most of the issues are all amplified by the art though because if the art was really good then the characters would stand out more. Ultimately this whole comic is just a reminder of how important the artwork can be. If you really love Godzilla comics then you should probably check this one out as a completionist kind of thing but otherwise there isn’t much reason to check this one out. It’ll probably go down as one of the weakest Godzilla titles.

Overall 5/10

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong Review

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I remember when I first saw Godzilla blasting the life out of Superman when the comic came out. People were talking about it for weeks and with good reason. It’s very rare to see Superman taken down so easily. Yeah he’s lost his share of fights but in one shot like that?? Yeah that is super rare and just doesn’t happen. Superman is a symbol of power and so when he goes down…the world loses its confident defender in an instant. Such is the power of Godzilla.

The comic starts out with the Legion of Doom all fighting each other and throwing around insults when Lex unveils a big plan he has. It goes haywire when the Toyman tries to prove himself though and now a bridge has been made between the world of the monsters and DC. Godzilla has emerged and in order to restore balance to the worlds….Superman must die. Will he be able to save the world along with his super friends or are they all going to be no match for the King of the Monsters?

There are other monsters running around here like King Kong but Godzilla definitely gets the meat of the appearances. It makes sense though as everyone is here to see this guy. It goes without saying that he is absolutely the main draw here. King Kong and the others are good but you would probably still expect Superman and the League to take them out quickly. This is a much different matter entirely. The story also gives quite a lot of the DC superheroes a chance to shine so I appreciated that. They made the most of all the issues here.

The standout part is definitely the fight with Superman and Godzilla. Now granted, I really don’t think Godzilla should ordinarily be able to win this one. Superman is much too fast and powerful. Even if Godzilla can hand in there for a few blows, he would ultimately fall after a while without being able to properly land a counter attack. It’s still fun to see the battle though and Superman still looks like a great leader. Meanwhile Batman’s team is the only one to convincingly defeat their Kaiju opponent so that was some nice hype.

It was fun to see the Bat Family all working together as a unit with the exception of Red Hood. It’s not Jason’s best role to say the least as he gets utterly humiliated. I get the fact that he really wanted to show off but this was definitely not the right time to do it. Guns just aren’t the best weapon against full powered Kaijus. The other teams mainly stall or convince their fighter to stop which are still impressive but Batman’s team stands out for really getting the job done.

One character who does not get the job done is Shazam. He messes up in the intro and then somehow loses to the Legion of Doom. It was not a good moment for the guy as that should have been an easy W for him. You just can’t let that happen to you. Green Lantern and Flash also get pretty big roles and look good. Their banter is always a lot of fun and they keep things fresh. I imagine it also helps morale a whole lot. If only Guy Gardner had someone to bounce off of like that. Maybe people wouldn’t always be so mean to the poor guy. At least within the context of this comic it gets a bit harsh for him.

As expected the art is really good here. There is a ton of detail and it makes for an easy read. The fights all pop out at you and the colors look sharp. It really lives up to everything you would expect to see from a big Godzilla and Justice League crossover. Of course I would still like to have more adventures but if the comics were to stop here, I could already say that they accomplished a whole lot.

I suppose if you’re a Legion of Doom fan then you may be left wishing they could have looked more impressive but at this point it’s hard to take them seriously even on a good day. It doesn’t feel like the Legion of Doom have ever managed to keep up with the Justice League for very long. You tend to be more worried when the villains show up on their own with a big plan rather than as a team. Lex Luthor himself is a huge threat for example but when he’s leading the legion? Eh, not really a big deal.

Of course there are times where this can be different but it’s usually not the case. The Toyman definitely looks really bad for a while there but I suppose he ended up causing some trouble even if it was incidental. Deathstroke was one of the most fun villains in his little subplot trying to find Toyman. It’s just hard when there are giant Kaiju running around and dimensional crystals in play. That’s why it was impressive that he was finding any leads at all. Lex gets his share of action of course but definitely ends up being in a little over his head. I do like how Superman’s supporting characters were so aggressive though. Lex was constantly throwing out insults and threats while Lois was also making sure to try and outshine Clark Kent just because she could.

Now on a quick power levels aside, I do think that realistically this wouldn’t really be a big challenge for the Justice League. They should be able to very easily crush all of the Kaiju that show up and then take care of the Legion of Doom. It was of course an enjoyable adventure with everyone splitting up to battle but Superman is just too powerful for all of this and should be able to clear the board on a whim. Such is the power of Superman.

Overall, Justice League vs Godzilla was definitely a fun read. There’s a lot of action and quality characters all the way through. They did a good job of allowing the characters to still have some downtime and personalities going on beyond the fighting like with Superman and Lois hanging out and of course all the banter with Green Lantern and the Flash. I was also totally cool with King Kong getting a smaller role here because of course Godzilla is the main draw. Yes, you should be satisfied with this adventure no matter what side you’re on.

Overall 8/10

Godzilla x Kong: Titan Chasers Review

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Games like Genshin Impact and other free to plays get a lot of insults thrown their way over the character designs but when you play a game like this you remember why most titles try to be very colorful. Titan Chasers is a decent game and there’s a lot to do here but the characters are so bland and lifeless that you have no real incentive to keep on. You don’t care about their struggles or what they intend to do about the situation and in a cutscene heavy game like this, it really spells the end rather quickly.

The story involves a bunch of Titan Chasers crashing on monster island. They have no way off of the island now and have to try and survive until people notice that they’re gone. Half of them want to focus on survival and so they set up camp while the other half grow crazy immediately and want to slaughter all the Kaiju. They will also destroy other humans for the lols. You play as the survival folks and are armed with different weapons that will let you destroy Kaiju and other monsters with ease. In this world the Titans may still be powerful but they can also be prey.

Now obviously we’re not talking about someone like Godzilla here. The main characters immediately note that he is too powerful and he actually works as a stage hazard where he just blasts around and you have to make sure not to get hit. I was glad he got some respect there but the fact that these Titan chasers are actually able to beat some monsters is a bit iffy. It’s always a slippery slope here because the instant you show that monsters can be destroyed by a few well placed gunshots, the whole verse starts to lose its intimidation factor. Also the story doesn’t mesh well with the gameplay.

Why is that? Well, we know that a decent amount of people crashed on the island but it wasn’t a whole army. So how come the majority of minion encounters early on are against humans? How are there this many humans running around? Yeah it’s gameplay mechanics but that’s still something they should take into account here. You also fight dinosaurs and such which is interesting but the gameplay doesn’t have much variety. It’s a very classic turn based fighting system. Nothing wrong with that as I like turn based but it does need to be paired with fun characters or a good story. This game has neither and you’ll be sleeping through the cutscenes.

As for the survival element, you use materials to build new houses and level them up. The whole thing works on a time gated mechanic so you could wait for a very long time or you can spend in game currency to speed things up. Naturally that is a trap as it runs out quickly. You also have an energy meter so you can’t play for too long without taking breaks. This is all standard stuff so while it sounds negative, it is to be expected. Ultimately I would just like to have seen the Godzilla game be a little more innovative.

I guess another way to look at it is that 5 years ago I may have stuck around with this one a bit longer. Mayyyybe. There just isn’t much reason to stick with this one for very long because it’s definitely going to be a big time commitment and a game like this needs to hook you in right away. Also there are gatcha elements here but it’s the most pointless that I’ve ever seen. In a Megaman game you can look forward to drawing your favorite character but here? You can roll for a bunch of made up humans and that’s it. No Kaiju or anything like that. I rolled a few times and got some random joes but I don’t care about these guys.

This will be the biggest example I ever use of how a game can underwhelm you because of the characters. Give me the Genshin crowd any day. As far as the graphics themselves go, I would say the game looks pretty good. Sure, the artstyle may be nothing special but we weren’t expecting much out of that anyway. Meanwhile the soundtrack is okay but rather limited so far. You better like the main theme because you will be hearing it a whole lot.

In terms of replay value there is a good amount here. It’s clear that the game launched with a ton of content so that is definitely a good thing. I give them credit for that unlike certain other games which were a bit on the light side when they launched. That said, you have to make sure that the content is interesting too. My biggest negative here is around the story so that means if you do like the story then you can be assured that the gameplay is pretty good. That part won’t let you down at all.

Overall, In a way I want the game to succeed for the Godzilla brand name but it’ll definitely need to do a lot of things quickly to polish the experience or gamers will be bleeding out fast. The mobile market is as tough as it gets with thousands of active games on the store at a time. Most games close up shop within the opening year so this one will have to work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m rooting for it to do well…but we shall see. In the meantime you’re better off playing some of the older Godzilla mobile games. This one would be around the middle for now, beats some and loses to some.

Overall 6/10

Godzilla: History’s Greatest Monster Review

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How many of you all remember Godzilla, King of the Monsters? That guy was an absolute beast and so having a comic about how he is history’s greatest monster is a pretty good idea. It’s a pretty fun comic to be sure. At first it starts off a little slow for me and I never cared too much for the humans but that climax is absolutely intense. Space Godzilla really gets his props here and it has some of the best Kaiju fights that I’ve seen. This absolutely needs to be adapted into a movie at some point.

The series introduces us to Boxer, a guy who has a ton of combat experience and now works as a bodyguard. Unfortunately he is unable to save her when Godzilla shows up and trashes the place. This is the second time that he has lost everything and so he finally cracks. He is desperate enough to call up his ex, his estranged son, and a combat buddy of his. Boxer announced the unthinkable, this rag tag group of people are going to take down all of the Kaiju of the world. Godzilla, Anguirus, Titanosaurus, etc. They’re all going down and Boxer will be charging 10 million a piece. The question isn’t if he can take down all of the Kaiju, it’s just a matter of how long will it take him to do it?

Now you might be thinking that this is absurd. Kaiju can’t lose to random humans right? Well yeah you’d be right so lets just try and suspend our disbelief for a bit. The humans have invented something called a headache ray which works on almost all of the Kaiju except for Godzilla. So what they do is they hit the Kaiju with this and then drop a building on him. That works pretty well and then a government will show up later on to take care of the body. Sure it’s unlikely that this would work in practice but the humans get a whole lot of hype here.

To the comic’s credit, it’s not like this is portrayed as a super easy task either. Often times Boxer and his crew only win out of complete luck and are usually completely out of their depths. I still have my reservations about the whole thing and think they would be dead immediately but it’s all to buy time for the real plot. Some Kaiju are attacking from outer space which leads us to the big Kaiju war in the climax. It’s definitely a super high tier climax and the kind of thing you’d love to see in the movies.

Having Monster X show up for example is epic because that’s the best incarnation of King Ghidorah. Naturally Space Godzilla is another really big one because of how mysterious he is. How is it that this guy even exists right? Depending on the continuity there can be a lot of Godzillas so they even existed before the bomb but having one from space that can fly brings up a whole lot of questions. The 3 way battle with the two Godzillas and King Ghidorah is really excellent.

By this point the humans aren’t doing much but we do get to see Mecha Godzilla get some action in during the B fights to swing things a little bit. I thought the rich American guy looked really good there to be honest. Boxer may have been mocking the guy but I would argue his plan makes more sense than Boxer’s. Yeah he lost but at least he gave it a good try as opposed to a lot of other characters who were just hiding and waiting for the inevitable. That’s not a good way to pass the time with the world at stake. Needless to say, the government looks pretty bad here.

Boxer’s final appearance is definitely pretty funny I gotta say though. I know it’s going for themes and narrative and all that fancy stuff but at the end of the day he’s just jumping straight into his doom. For a guy who always had a plan and lots of contingencies, he really just threw it all away when it counted. So much for this guy eh? Even his partners all seemed a little taken aback for a minute there. Just when they were becoming a real team too.

The explosives guy at least saved a lot of people when he checked out. The son had his big man up moment which was good but for now I’ll need to see more of him. The ex is probably the most interesting character even if the romance itself is super cliche’d and kind of annoying. You have to actively ignore it because it makes no sense with how she and Boxer keep on bashing each other.

As for the artwork, it’s not bad. I don’t generally love a lot of the styles they use for the Godzilla comics. It’s a mix of trying too hard to be realistic and gritty without being streamlined and artistic enough to really make it work. It does still service the Kaiju fights really well though. Seeing the big blue energy burst when Ghidorah knocked both Space Godzilla and Godzilla away was epic. The fights are definitely where the comic comes alive and Rodan also gets a lot of respect. I was glad to see it. People forget but Rodan is one of the top tier alphas. He can hold his own with all of these top tiers.

Overall, This climax definitely sets the tone for what I want to see in Godzilla adventures. I could do without the humans, just give me tons of big battles and lots of Kaiju around every corner. That’s absolutely the best way to do this and I admit it’ll be tough to top this one. It basically went into Final Wars territory with how many monsters were around and all of the team ups. It’s such a great theme, you could have a whole series just dedicated to the Earth Kaiju taking on the outer space ones and it would work super well. I would be there right away when my library got the collection for sure. Either way this is a must read for any Godzilla fan.

Overall 7/10

Godzilla Minus One Review

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It’s time for the return of Godzilla! Japan likes to bring him back from time to time although lately we haven’t really seen any big opponents for him. This is a return to form of a more serious Godzilla film and what would happen if he really did show up. It’s a solid modern take on the Kaiju and delivers with some solid special effects. It doesn’t stand out compared to the average Godzilla film but having any Godzilla film show up is always awesome!

The movie starts with Koichi deciding to dodge his suicide bomb run and just head to an island to recharge for a bit. No way he’s dying in futility! Nobody is particularly thrilled about this but they don’t have time to convince him to be destroyed because Godzilla shows up and starts laying waste to all of them. Koichi and Tachibana are the only survivors. Tachibana escapes to parts unknown while Koichi visits his home but people are also upset at him. A suicide bomber cannot return alive, it means that they didn’t follow through. The only thing keeping Koichi together at this point is taking care of a lady named Noriko and a baby she is helping out. They are homeless after the attacks and so he lets her crash at his place. Can he redeem himself now?

A lot of the story is really about Koichi dealing with the fact that he survived and wondering if he made the right choice. He has survivor’s guilt and a whole lot of PTSD to unpack so it’s definitely not easy. I would say this also tends to be a cultural distinction here as Japan always was really big on the family honor dynamic. Koichi knows he would have died for pretty much no purpose and yet he still can’t shake the guilt because it’s what was expected of him. Defying the rules and doing your own thing is more of an American ideology and that’s where I tend to stand. To me it makes sense to keep surviving and make the rational decision without guilt but of course that’s easier said than done.

So the film keeps up this very somber tone for a long while with Koichi and it’s a bit hard to connect to. I do appreciate that he is trying to take care of Noriko though. The film can’t help but try to force a romance later on though which I thought was rather unnecessary. Having Koichi help a pure stranger out of the kindness of his heart or some kind of belief that he needed to even out the scales would have been really good. In saving her he would save himself or something like that. The romance just muddies that message a bit I’d say. At least it does take place over several years so I won’t give the usual complaint of it being rushed. It really wasn’t in this case, I just felt it didn’t really support the themes.

Noriko is a good person as well with how she takes care of the baby and everything. She also tries to move on so that she is not a bother to Koichi at all. I can appreciate that like her getting a job and everything. Her reaction times are also a lot better than Koichi’s and her instincts are sharp. She even has the best durability feat among the humans in the whole film. As a whole she is definitely a quality character, dare I say easily the best human in the film?

There are some other characters but they tend to be more on the annoying side. You have the inventor who barely knows what he is doing and who gets drunk a lot. You’ve got the young guy who is out of his depths but really wants to help. Then you have the older, more jaded guy who is ready to step up when needed. They aren’t bad but don’t do a whole lot. Tachibana was a good rival at least in that he wouldn’t let Koichi off easily but didn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of things by the end. When it was time to buckle down and do his job, he did it 100%.

Now as for Godzilla, unfortunately this is one of his weakest incarnations. That is usually going to happen when you have him up against humans though. In this case, conventional weaponry is enough to heavily damage him to the point of needing to use his regeneration. The main ships are nearly able to destroy him on their own. This Godzilla would not last for very long against someone like Orga, I can tell you that for sure. I liked the regeneration and how fast it worked, but being at the cost of his overall durability was a little unfortunate. You have to try and strike a balance of course but I don’t think this was it.

Naturally it’s all going to get a little cheesy with the humans fighting Godzilla but that’s how it goes I suppose. Whenever the power balance is drastic enough, that is going to happen. The ending actually had another cheesy event aside from Godzilla going down, but that one I was fine with. I always root for the Hollywood type ending where things go well and so this worked out really well. Why have a grim ending when you can have a happy one right? If not for that part of the ending you could argue that the costs were just way too great.

We do have a pair of cliffhangers at the end of the movie. We know most likely they will never be followed up on but I still appreciate having them in there. It’s an ending that reminds you just how doomed everyone is going to be in the future. Humanity has no idea what they have just gotten themselves into! It’s also a very realistic human setting so the odds of building some kind of Mecha Godzilla this time feel very remote.

The soundtrack is all right. The standout is definitely when they play the main Godzilla theme from the good ole days. None of the other tracks were nearly as intense. Godzilla’s new roar isn’t bad although I prefer the original one. The design itself is definitely solid on all accounts though. The Atomic Breath may take a little too long to fire and recharge but these nerfs were likely necessary to give the humans a fighting chance and even then they feel super outmatched anyway.

The writing was solid in the film and I appreciate that there is a lot going on. The graphics are definitely good all around. In general it’s just not quite as fast paced as the average Godzilla film though. It’s hard to go back to the days of not having an opponent Kaiju. Shin Godzilla did that to better effect with all of the humor throughout the film and poking fun at how everything needs a meeting. This one was going for a much more somber tone which was never really going to work out quite as well. It’s just tough to really pull that off in general but thanks to Godzilla the film is still pretty solid.

Overall, Godzilla Minus One is a pretty good film. It may not reach the usual Godzilla standard at times but that’s because they were trying to lean a bit more on the humans here. I don’t think that plot ever becomes super compelling as Godzilla steals the show without appearing for a while. So you’re left just wanting Godzilla to appear every time even when the humans are supposed to be dominating and it’s hard to really balance both ends. Still, I definitely recommend checking this one out as soon as possible. It’s not every day that we have a Godzilla film!

Overall 7/10

Godzilla Battle Line Review

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It’s time to jump into the next Godzilla app game but I’m afraid to say that this one is not very good. It’s one of those app games that is a clear cash grab from start to finish. Nothing about the game is very enjoyable to me. It was just missing the key elements to make this a high quality title like fast paced gameplay, quality fights, etc. In the end the strategy styled gameplay just didn’t have anything on the console Godzilla games and this one would have been better off with a connect the dots gameplay style like Fruits Mania. At least that gameplay style is always guaranteed to be off the walls hype. I generally play over 100 levels of that gameplay style real quick.

Okay so this is similar to Digimon Championship in that you don’t control the Kaiju themselves. You throw them onto the field and then they move towards the enemy. Along the way you can drop them some assistance, items, and such. These will be the difference between victory and defeat so definitely pay very close attention here. If you make the wrong call then that could be it for you. That’s about it, I mean I’m over simplifying this by quite a lot but that’s about the size of it. It all comes down to who has the better strategy and monster team.

I can say that the cast of Kaiju in the game is pretty impressive though. You’ve got numerous different Godzillas running around and pretty much every Kaiju you can think of. The game didn’t feel too greedy in terms of what you need to pay for but granted, they tend to all seem that way at first. I would probably have to stick with this game much longer to see if that is really true or not. The gameplay just wasn’t fun enough to hold me.

So okay, what’s the problem with the gameplay? Well because I can’t control the Kaiju, it feels more like I’m just watching the A.I. attack each other. It’s not interactive enough for me. It’s like watching computers playing against each other in a game, it may be interesting for a minute but for the whole game? No shottttt, that’s just not my cup of tea. What I need is to be doing something. Let me assume direct control of the Kaiju so I could go over there and take the enemy down. I would pull it off even if my opponent had a higher power level or something like that. You’re missing the human touch with this kind of setup.

The graphics aren’t bad at least. It’s not really something to write home about but the chibi character models are good and I liked the explosion effects. As a whole it really doesn’t look super bad or anything but of course it does completely look like a mobile game the instant you lay your eyes on this one. There is really no escaping that fact, that’s for sure. The soundtrack is completely forgettable. You won’t remember the tunes by the end, it’s definitely not the kind of game to sneak in some kind of lyrical song or big metal tune.

At least I can say that the replay value is basically infinite. You can keep on playing until you are the number 1 ranked player in the world or something like that. It is definitely a tough road to the top but if you keep on practicing then anything is achievable. The fact that the game is still going means that at least some people are still playing here and after taking a quick look online I see a lot of positive reviews for it. Granted, the people who are searching up videos for the game are probably fans first and foremost so that makes a lot of sense. They would be more likely to enjoy the game and so I hope their community is able to stay strong. This may not be a game that I was particularly interested in but the plus side is that it helps to continue keeping the Godzilla brand nice and strong. I’m still waiting for that big Godzilla vs Kong game which is supposed to be coming out in early September. Hopefully that one is a lot more fun.

Overall, Godzilla Battle Line is lacking way too much in the actual battling. You’re not fighting here and I know that this is a strategy game but even then I need to be doing something. If I have my hands empty for so long it just doesn’t feel like I’m really playing a game at all. If you’re going to pull off a strategy game like this I dare say that the levels have to be shorter or you have to find some way to make the player more engaged. The original Godzilla mobile game was also strategy oriented but it was a lot more fun as you planned out your resources. That was interactive and high stakes. This game couldn’t quite match up to that no matter how hard it tried.

Overall 3/10

Godzilla Library Collection Volume 2 Review

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It’s time for a big Godzilla comic collection. Let me tell you something, this one brings a whole lot of issues. I would expect nothing less since it is a whole library collection though. It brings the full 12 issue Kingdom of Monsters series. In this one, the world is attacked by Kaiju and quickly begins to fold. We have several plots ongoing in this one. There’s a soldier who befriends a child whose parents were eaten by Kaiju. He vows to get her to safety. Then you have the President of the USA who is worried about his poll numbers and doesn’t know how this situation should play out. Of course there are a lot of different Kaiju attacking the planet as well. Godzilla may end up saving the planet or perhaps he is just going to murder everyone. At the moment it sure feels like it could go either way for a bunch of the characters.

Right off the bat you can tell that this series is having a bit of fun with everything. Almost every character is sarcastic and there is a lot of witty banter going on. Every character has something to say and they aren’t about to wait until the right time to say it. They’re just going to go and say their piece. Right away you can see how you are rooting for the Kaiju to end humanity. There’s no reason for the humans’ continued existence. It would be better to be reset through history and perhaps some day humanity will deserve the planet again.

I should let you know right now that there is a cliffhanger here so the series doesn’t end as completely as you might expect. It’s a pretty hype way to end the comic though so I was on board with that. Throughout the comic you see how everything is being completely destroyed and you might be wondering how the humans will rebuild and come back from this. Well, now you’ve got something to wonder about for afterwards. I’m guessing for the writers it was less interesting to think about the fallout and recovery so they wanted to keep every reader focused on the battles.

I get it, that is the most fun part. Also, it’s not like there’s a whole lot of humanity left by the end of the comic. So many people die left and right on every Kaiju battlefield. There’s no shortage of casualties to be found. The best of the subplots was probably with the soldier. This is where we see just how villainous all of the desperate people are. Now that food and water are scarce, they’ve all devolved into picking fights and trying to murder any other human they come across. Fortunately the soldier is strong and he does a terrific job of protecting the kid the whole time. He deserves a ton of credit for that since it’s not an easy task by any means. When you are surrounded by monsters and evil humans at every turn, it would be real tempting to run off on your own to survive.

Instead the soldier takes the hero call and helps her out. Along the way he even figures out how to pilot Mecha Godzilla and holds his own really well in a big Kaiju fight that starts. So that was a pretty fun subplot and I always looked forward to seeing it. I really liked the President stuff as well but those scenes were a lot more rare. In general the dialogue should have you laughing a lot at just how petty all of the characters are. They’re all rather unlikable to be sure to the point where the comics almost feel like a parody after a while but it’s a parody that works really well. As long as you are funny then you are good.

Of course, we all know why we’re really here. We’re here for Godzilla! Godzilla and all of the big Kaiju fights that naturally appear when you have this many Kaiju running around. The fights are definitely as good as you would expect. I had a lot of fun with them and you definitely see how Godzilla is known as the strongest here. He has a tough time with some of the Kaiju, usually because they land a cheap shot or gang up on him. One on one though? Always bet on the King of the Monsters without a doubt.

One thing that keeps the series from going further up though is that it doesn’t really do anything you haven’t seen before. The comic is a take on what would happen to the real world if Kaiju suddenly appeared and started terrorizing everyone. I get it, everyone wants to take a crack at that because the initial confrontation is always a lot of fun. People like seeing the origin but after a while I would argue that it is time to try a few different directions. While I didn’t care much for the pirate or Greek stories about Godzilla time travelling, it was a different direction. Lets have a story where Godzilla warps to the future and has to deal with a more advanced army. Maybe a story where he is stranded on an island filled with tons of monsters and has to get out. May sound a bit like Godzilla in Hell but you could do some things to differentiate it without a doubt.

I guess some credit I should give it here though is some of the human reactions. A lot of times in a story like this you typically have all of the humans panicking about these crazy giant monsters running around and all that. I get it but I think in real life you’ll have a lot of people who think its a hoax, others who think the Kaiju is friendly, and others who go about life as normal. This comic did a good job of getting a bunch of varied reactions from everyone. Even if some of these were used for comedic purposes, I actually think it was pretty realistic and more likely how people would react. Nowadays people are jaded enough where the craziest things ever could be happening and you’ll still have some people memeing and having fun. It’s just how it is.

Overall, Godzilla Library Collection Volume 2 is a lot of fun. I’m always up for more Godzilla comics and right now there are technically still a ton of issues I have not read from a bunch of different titles. At least now I can scratch this one off the list. It was not really doing much out of the ordinary so I don’t think it will rise up as one of the top ones but it was still good. For the next Godzilla comic I will hope for slightly stronger art and maybe a more unique plot. How have we not had some kind of big Kaiju tournament yet? That would be a lot of fun and is an example of a classic scenario that you could do well with.

Overall 7/10

Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons Review

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I’ve always been a massive Godzilla fan ready to see who he will vanquish next. I tend to really prefer the stories of him defeating other Kaiju but the stories involving the government can work well enough. Unfortunately this one goes all in on him just stomping around and not doing much of anything since the story is a story within a story. For the first time I would say that this is a Godzilla comic that I …didn’t like.

The story starts off with a pirate about to be executed. He knows that he has to do something quickly and so he informs the guards that he knows of a conspiracy that even involves the queen of England. This is considered blasphemy because he is in England so they get ready to take him down but then a high ranking government agent shows up. He explains that they have to listen to this and the prisoner will regret it if the story is fake. So the pirate begins his yarn about a giant Kaiju known as Godzilla and other monsters that walk the lands. He has actually gotten to see them and lived to tell the tale. Pretty spooky eh?

Lots of problems here right off the bat of course. For starters, the entire comic follows this story format. It’s not even in the style of a true flashback where I can just forget about the current plot and enjoy the story. No, it’s constantly told through through narration so it’s never actually happening live. This is a framing device that I really don’t like. It means there really isn’t a story. The comic is about someone talking about stuff to a few people and that’s it. So nothing happens live, the fights aren’t fully there and it just ends up being rather boring.

At least whenever Godzilla is on screen I enjoyed seeing him roar and stuff but I really could not care less about the pirates stuff. There’s some in fights with different gangs and everything….but is that the best that they can do? It’s just so very dull and since you figure the pirate is an unreliable narrator at best, you don’t know how much you can even try to get engaged with all of this. I want to say I can see where the author was going with this but it was definitely not the right direction and ended up backfiring big time.

There is only one interesting part of this comic and it’s the very last page. It works pretty well as a twist and cliffhanger. This is a plot thread that I would actually like to dive into because there is a lot of potential here. It means no more flashbacks though. I want to see what is happening in real time like a classic comic. If that can be pulled off then we can work in a lot of espionage and political drama in a sequel. Seriously I don’t think that would be hard and the sky’s really the limit from there. That would be so incredibly hype! But of course lets not get our hopes up for now. Rather than banking on the sequel to be good after this, I would rather place my hopes in a brand new Godzilla comic with a new setting and everything.

In general pirates don’t add much to the Godzilla lore. In fact, I don’t see them as a selling point at all. It’s not like they can hope to fight the King of the Monsters, instead they would just get absolutely crushed. It’s not going to be all that entertaining to just see Godzilla step on them over and over and over again. That’s not a true cinematic experience. Instead what we need is to see Godzilla absolutely devastate every opponent in his path. That would be something to write home about without a doubt.

But yeah there’s not much more to say here. At the end of the day the story is just really boring and that’s the biggest taboo you can have for a comic. Even seeing the cameos from the other Kaiju couldn’t really save it. This barely feels like a Godzilla comic so much as it’s a pirate story that happens to feature him. I was definitely disappointed here and the artwork isn’t anything to write home about either. The art is okay so I’m not going to say that it’s awful or anything but it doesn’t touch a lot of the other stories. What I can say is that the comic ends very quickly at least even with all of the dialogue.

Overall, Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons really made history because it’s the first time that I’m giving a downright negative score to the Kaiju. In general I haven’t given many comics a negative score either so it’s super rare. This one just made every kind of mistake possible. Seriously it’s just not fun and that’s a massive L to take at any point here. I want to have a good time and for that I need a story and some fights. It has to actually be happening though and not someone telling me how hype the whole thing was. So yeah…..this was not the way to go.

Overall 4/10

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Review

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All right it’s time for the next film in the Monsterverse and you can bet that this is going to be a really intense one. Seeing Godzilla and King Kong take the stage again is definitely a lot of fun. The movie delivers on the action and while I would like to have seen Godzilla more, he does get several fights and shows up early so I’ll give the title credit there.

The movie starts off with King Kong running away from a bunch of creatures. He may be the King of this realm but even that has its limits when the numbers disadvantage is drastic enough. Fortunately his traps are enough to stop them and he continues his quest to find other members of his race. He does end up finding a bunch of them but unfortunately they are being led by the Skar King who has the help of a powerful monster known as Shimo. King Kong can’t handle these fighters on his own…it’s time to call in Godzilla.

A good portion of the film is really about setting up the team-up. You have Godzilla travelling across the world and destroying a bunch of Titans in order to stock up his power for the mission. Meanwhile King Kong actually takes a while to meet up with the Skar King as he first defeats a ton of opponents and bonds with one of the smaller creatures. Think of that one as a King Kong Jr in a way. I like the concept of the team-up a lot and my only issue with it is the lack of threat from the villains but more on that later. There is something really hype about seeing Godzilla gearing up like that.

Right up through the into of the hyped Skar King is really intense there. You’re ready for this and he’s even got a throne. From there though….the Skar King’s not a joke by any means but he’s not a final boss. The film makes it clear that he is weaker than King Kong and many times weaker than Godzilla. He would be lucky to last more than a minute against Godzilla and while he can so marginally better against King Kong, he would be taken down in short order. I like his design and fighting style though, they are both excellent but that’s all he has going for him.

Meanwhile Shimo has a really cool design but I’m afraid things aren’t looking good for her either. She seems to be stronger than King Kong by a good margin but still not a complete match for Godzilla. Still, it’s at least closer, my main problem is how she takes orders. I just don’t see this happening to one of the Alphas who would sooner die in resistance. I’d like to see more of Shimo in the future but yeah this film’s main weak point is that you never feel like Godzilla is in danger. Yeah King Kong is, but we need Godzilla to be pushed to his limits too unless you just keep him for the final climax or something.

Now you may be wondering, what about the humans? Well the humans are okay. You’re mostly waiting for them to get off the screen so you can have fun with the Kaiju though. The main plot is about Dr. Ilene’s daughter Jia to start seeing visions about Kaiju and some kind of a message. She hasn’t been fitting well into school anyway so she gets to go on a trip to the Hollow Earth to see what is going on. Jia’s a nice enough character, she means well and does help out a bit.

I’m not really a fan of Ilene though. The fact that she allowed Bernie to get railroaded by corporate despite helping save the world is pretty harsh. I thought that she looked really bad there and I wouldn’t trust her if I was Bernie. Bernie is easily the most likable member of the main cast and his humor moments tend to land the most. At times he can cross the line into being rather cringy and annoying though. Then you have Trapper who is the only one with absolute confidence at all times. I liked seeing him think of different ways to help out and he was always creative.

So the humans as a whole weren’t bad. The writing wasn’t always great but I’ve seen much worse. It can just drain a lot of time, it felt like their plot would just keep on going long past when you figure you’ve got the point of what they were talking about. I would argue King Kong also has a bit too much screen time of just walking around with Kid Kong. I wanted the big action set pieces you know, not the adventure. Also some of his kills against the local creatures were a bit much. I know they’re technically monsters but they did look rather like animals so that was a little dicey. Basically the King Kong survival moments didn’t really help the film go further.

Ultimately I would say it lost to the original Godzilla vs Kong and Godzilla: King of the Monster films for that reason. Still, this is starting to sound negative so lets go back into the positives real quick. First up, the Kaiju designs here are all great. We’re finally talking S rank fighters here. I liked the spider a lot, the underwater Kaiju, etc. Each of Godzilla’s opponents were fun to watch. They were strong but nowhere near his level. This is why Godzilla is King of the Monsters. The difference is made very apparent when nobody wants to challenge Godzilla while everyone is trying to test King Kong.

One annoying thing about Godzilla being this powerful though is that the film has to constantly make him miss with the atomic breath. After all the fight would be over the instant he scores a direct hit on any of the enemies. Then the film acknowledges his Atomic Wave attack but he conveniently doesn’t use it in any of the big battles because it would end the movie. So I admire the attempt to try and keep this even but we all know Godzilla would have stomped everyone in this film. It’s why I thought it was a bit of a stretch how Shimo kept ducking him and landing sneak attacks on Kong. I don’t know about that but Godzilla’s strength was respected and I always like that.

The film does have a bit of an odd plot point with Godzilla being drawn to a signal the whole film and gearing up but by the end of the film some characters think he wasn’t going to make it. The simplest solution if you ask me is that the researchers were wrong and Godzilla was on the way. I can buy into that, particularly since in the last film we saw how he knows how to get to the Hollow Earth by just blasting into the ground. So that’s how I would answer that at least.

I’m surprised the government hasn’t made another Kaiju of their own yet. Mecha Godzilla did very well after all and they should be able to reverse engineer the specs at some point. It might have made things cluttered but it’s time to see the army do something different. I felt like chuckling when they sent some plans to go and take down Godzilla. I mean, are you kidding me?? It goes without saying that the special effects are excellent here. I also thought the soundtrack was good. I’d have liked some electronic type tunes like Godzilla Final Wars but I’ll take what we can get here.

The film delivers on the team up and I’d argue the final fight already makes the whole experience work pretty well. It’s an excellent spectacle and the decision to have the fight be in the real world was a great idea. In the Hollow Earth things tend to be a lot bigger so you can’t always appreciate the scale while in the real world you get to see everything get destroyed.

While this can sound like a bit of a diss, the film is really playing to its strengths when there is a lot of destruction on screen. I’m really here for the Kaiju fights and those go really hard. I could easily watch 2 hours of the Kaiju just fighting among each other. It’s incredibly entertaining and just great at all times. I’m definitely ready to see what they do for the next film in this series. Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long for it.

Overall, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a pretty good film. All it would have needed to cross the threshold into great territory would have been to have one of the enemies actually be powerful relative to Godzilla. You feel like Godzilla would beat them 2 on 1, much less when he has King Kong at the ready. There are a lot of fun easter eggs to the series and you even get to see an unexpected character. So that was great and it also shows that there are a lot of elements already ready for that future film. I think it’s time for a Destroy All Monsters adaption with Destoroyah as the final boss now.

Overall 7/10

Godzilla Unleashed Review

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Godzilla is one of those franchises that has a big revival every few years and reminds the world why it is on top. This game is one of the only missing pieces of the franchise that I hadn’t gotten to experience yet. Well, I finally got to play it and it’s pretty fun. Personally I would say that it loses to the previous two big console Godzilla games but there’s a lot to enjoy here even with the Wii controls. Now those were an…interesting blast from the past.

The game actually has a story with full voice acting which I thought was really impressive. Seriously, it’s not like that’s a given or anything even in the Wii’s era. Basically crystals are appearing all across the planet and the Kaiju are being drawn towards them. These crystals are powering up the Kaiju and making them way more powerful. Who could be behind this crystal catastrophe? One thing’s for sure, the humans might need the help of the King of the Monsters for this one. They might need the help of….Godzilla!!!

The classic gameplay is mainly unchanged from the previous titles although it does have the downgrade of removing the Rage feature. Seriously, why would you remove that? It was pretty cool to be honest. The energy blasts in this game are motion controlled which means that they are virtually useless in the game so you should never bother firing off anything. Fighting in close quarters combat is also extremely not recommended. The enemy Kaiju will always break out mid combo and just knock the life out of you.

So….how do you fight? Well the best thing to do is pick up buildings and chuck them at the monsters. Each building takes out half of a health bar so just throw like 4 of those and you win. If there are no buildings to throw then you should throw the Kaiju which deals about the same amount of damage. Problem solved right? Trust me, follow these two easy steps and you will really be off to the races. I admit that it may feel like an odd way to fight but in the story mode campaign at least it is really the best way to do it.

So I think the multiplayer will end up being more fun from a pure gameplay standpoint but it’s definitely interesting. I’ve never really played a fighting game before that actively encourages you not to start fighting. Then a lot of the levels involve destroying crystals to end the level so you can go and shatter those instead of fighting the other Kaiju. Destroy the crystals and the level ends. Now this part does seem optional though. I didn’t totally get how this works but it seems like there are 3-4 factions in the game.

What you do in the levels increases or decreases your points in each area. There’s some kind of secret ending if you max them all out but I’m not sure exactly how this works. I even beat a few levels where I’m not even sure how I beat them. The complete message would just appear after a bit so it might have been time based. Hey, I’ll take it of course but I was a bit surprised. So the moral here is to really just jump in and things will work out. I flat out lost one level and I still moved on just fine so maybe winning is optional? Maybe that was just the first level though.

The character roster is pretty solid though and you see most of the classic Kaiju running around. The game was smart to save Orga for the final 2 levels since that guy is a beast and still the most underrated Kaiju of all time. Seriously, I’d argue that it’s not even close. I always get really impressed to see him running around. The graphics are also good. Perhaps not amazing but I’d say they get the job done. I also liked the soundtrack, quite a lot in fact. There’s a really solid rock theme for all of the menu screens that plays a lot.

In terms of replay value there is naturally a whole lot of it. You have Vs Mode for endless fun and you earn currency in the levels so I assume you can buy cool things in the shop. I didn’t really check it out yet but yeah there’s a good amount of content here. The game also goes for a fairly reasonable price on the Wii. If you want the PS2 version then that’s another story but that version is strictly a downgrade anyway with no story mode and less monsters so you would want to pass on it.

Back to the gameplay for a minute, I do like the extra detail of everything breaking when the Kaiju are running around. You see a big bridge? It gets crushed when you walk past, same with buildings, monuments, etc. Almost everything is destructible which really makes you feel like a Kaiju. You also have the government blasting you in the background with everything they’ve got and you don’t take much damage. The only weapon they have which gets tricky is the ice ray which completely immobilizes you. It’s a little RNG I’ll admit but one that I didn’t find annoying here since it wasn’t overplayed. You just feel like giving humanity some props for coming up with such a good weapon.

Overall, Godzilla Unleashed is a pretty good game. I had some issues with it and the direction the game went compared to something like Save The Earth but ultimately it is fun. At the end of the day, it does hold its own and it was pretty nostalgic to play this game. Controlling Kaiju and running around is surprisingly rare after all. There aren’t a whole lot of games like this. It is truly a fighting game that is meant for the multiplayer experience and that’s where you will end up having a ton of fun. I’d recommend checking it out, particularly since it feels like we won’t be getting another Godzilla game for a while at this point although they could surprise us.

Overall 7/10