Puella Magi Oriko Magica Extra Story Review

Posted on August 12, 2016 by dreager1

After reviewing the Oriko manga earlier, it’s time to look at a one volume AU for it. This volume works as a What If prequel where we follow the two main villains from the last title. While the art has greatly improved, this manga decides to follow Yuma’s plot more, which dooms it in the end. Otherwise, all of the other areas of the core manga have improved so this is a good sign for future Madoka titles. Just keep Yuma’s origin out and we’ll have ourselves a winner!

The manga starts with Kirika having no friends and eventually getting Magical Girl powers. She vents out her frustrations by beating Witches until she finally finds a friend that she used to have. She saved the girl and reminds her to always have hope as she physically defeats the friend’s mental demons and heads back home. It’s a nice little origin story for Kirika and she is already much more likable than how she was in the previous volumes. The fact that her boss, Oriko, is a good guy in this series changes things dramatically since Kirika does whatever the other girl says without question. Of course, a true friend should always be willing to call someone else out so Kirika’s definitely got to work on that.

The real plot starts after this. Oriko happens to run into a little kid named Yuma, who is being hit with child abuse. Unfortunately, Yuma doesn’t want to leave the situation as she believes that being a good kid will take it all away. Oriko isn’t cool enough to break in and actually help Yuma, but at least she does give her some words of advice about the whole thing. That’s good….but helping would have been better. Especially when you consider the fact that she got a vision that Yuma was going to die. I didn’t mention it in this review yet, but Oriko’s magical ability is that she can see into the future. Unfortunately, she can’t control this ability so it happens completely at random.

Oriko doesn’t have a lot of time to rethink her moves either since a magical girl hunter in white has shown up. Her name is Sasa and Oriko is naturally on her hit list along with Kirika. The irony of all this….Oriko will have to fight hard in order to defeat this villain since Sasa has the ability to control other Witches. Still, Kirika and Oriko are fairly powerful so they should be able to handle this challenge with no problems!

So, Oriko’s a decent main character. As I mentioned earlier, she should have helped Yuma out more. Besides that, Oriko doesn’t really do anything wrong. She decides that instead of murdering every other magical girl like in the main manga, she’ll just go and fight the final Witch as best she can. We can assume that she died in this battle since even Homura couldn’t win in the TV show, but who knows…maybe she can pull it off. Either way, it’s much better than just trying to destroy someone. Hopefully the irony of Sasa trying to assasinate her and Kirika really hit home. It’s amazing how different a character can be in a what if though. The single difference of meeting Yuma before making her plan is hinted to have been the deciding point. (At least according to the volume) It’s hard to imagine Oriko’s personality changing so drastically, but it’s definitely a good thing since she was a very unsympathetic villain in the first series who was pretty bad.

Kirika’s also much better. She’ll still follow every order and while she talks about friendship, it comes across as hollow due to this. Naturally, Kirika looks a little weaker now that she’s one of the protagonists, but that’s a classic manga/anime trope so it’s to be expected. When she’s not around Oriko, Kirika is typically a lot more independent and heroic and that’s why she looked so good in her origin story. I don’t think the dynamic of Oriko and Kirika would make for great banter so I’d hope that more characters would be introduced in a long running series. Especially since the manga keeps trying to pair these two up and has a lot of teasing between them. Focusing on the action is much better.

Especially since we can finally see the action scenes this time. The art really has improved and it is leagues ahead of the first two volumes in the Oriko series. Those were almost unreadable at times while this one looks more like your standard action manga. It’s still not incredible, but it certainly rises up to an average level and is clear enough where you can easily get what is happening on every page. I was pleasantly surprised to see this.

As for the main villain, Sasa was okay I suppose. She fits the bill as the villain and her army of witches is also fairly impressive. She’s certainly very greedy since she wants all of the Grief seeds for herself, but this strategy definitely seems risky. Why go out of your way to attack other Magical Girls when there are already so many seeds to grab? Well, I guess she needed some kind of motivation. Her design was a little on the generic side though.

Finally, Yuma’s a good character. It’s too bad that she had such a tragic past though. The topic of child abuse is a little too dark for this title and especially since she actually died in one timeline. It shows that this threat was quite serious and it took Yuma too long to get out of there. It was great to see the grand parents show up and take her away. I would have liked to have seen a prison announcement for good measure as well, but this was a great start.

Overall, While this volume’s art was significantly better than the main series and Oriko/Kirika were greatly improved as characters, it was not able to beat the main title. I really missed having the main characters of the TV show around since they really held up the first manga. The fights were solid and since this was a single volume, the pacing was very quick as well. It’s an easy 7 if not for Yuma. If you don’t mind a dark plot like that, then I believe you’ll be able to enjoy this manga a lot more than the other one. If it is an issue, then I recommend checking out the two volume Oriko series instead. The art may be bad, but at least you’ll get to see Homura, Kyoko, and Mami with solid roles. They look really good and have the best scenes in the series. With this volume now complete as well, I look forward to seeing how the next Madoka manga titles fare. I’m still waiting for a definitive one!

Overall 3/10

Superman Red Son Review

Posted on August 12, 2016 by dreager1

It’s time to look at a classic Superman title that takes place in an alternate timeline. What if the Americans had not found Superman? That’s a question that many people ask themselves and this comic is essentially an interpretation of that concept. Being American is a rather large part of Superman’s character if you ask me so the character would definitely be pretty different, but his actual character should still be very heroic and just. Nature vs Nurture after all and his good heart should win out. This book starts to have him jump the fence a little towards the end, but for the most part he is portrayed well.

So, the soviets find Superman and he grows up to be their nuclear deterrent. Russia becomes a super power and nobody dares to mess with them. Eventually, every country falls in line with the Soviet Union except for the good ole USA. We’re not exactly team players after all and the USA will never bow to any other country. America hires Lex Luthor to put a stop to the Superman problem, but can his genius pull it off? Meanwhile, can Superman truly create a utopia as long as humans exist? Within Russia, the Man of Steel has managed to eliminate just about all crime, but a lot of bad things still happen constantly over in America. Free Will vs Security is the debate that he must wrestle with here.

As mentioned earlier, the comic is fairly well written and ends up being very engaging as a result. It’s always fun to read a good Superman story and this was a nice take on his origin. Seeing the Superman and Lex debates were certainly fun…even if the Lex hype may have been a little too much at certain points. Really just one in particular. Before Lex can verbally debate Superman, Brainiac quickly shoots the genius because he estimates that Lex would have talked him into suicide in a few seconds. (or minutes) This is essentially meant to be taken as fact and Superman was getting crushed in every single debate he was in, but I like to think that his strength of will would be a little better than that. At least it showed how Superman knew that he was getting to be in a dicey spot.

At first, Superman acted like his normal self. He saved people in Russia and protected the country without actually harming innocents or destroying anyone. He defeated his share of villains and also took out the fake Superman and other opponents who popped up. (I did feel bad for the fake Superman though) Once he saw the poverty in Russia and assumed command…that’s when things got pretty dicey. The power went to his head and the change was rather fast. He started walking into traps and he turned Russia into a complete police state. The way he sacrificed Wonder Woman for his plan also wasn’t a very Superman-esque move as he didn’t show a whole lot of remorse afterwards. At least he made the right call in the end, but it certainly took him long enough.

I suppose that the situation will always be tough for Superman after a while. Since he can hear everything across the world, there will literally always be someone who needs to be saved at some location. There will always be criminals and he really wouldn’t have any time for a secret identity. That part of the plot was also interesting since he didn’t have to bother with one in Russia. If he didn’t have to worry about being Clark Kent in the current comics, he could certainly save a whole lot more people. It would be at the expense of his daily life though and that could mentally burn him out a lot quicker than necessary. There is a big plot twist in the final page of the comic as well and it’s certainly a pretty cool one. I certainly like this time paradox and it adds another layer to Superman’s origin. It’s not one that actually matters, but it’s still cool all the same.

Lex Luthor was certainly a very good antagonist to have here. He’s not completely off the rails evil as per usual this time. He still wants to stop Superman at all costs and he is hired by the government to work officially which likely helps to temper him. If Superman had been on the US side…well we know how that turns out. It just ended up being convenient for Lex that Superman chose the wrong side. Lex’s intellect was certainly shown in its full force here as his elaborate plans were quite great. Of course, you can make the case that Superman’s intellect is roughly on par with how he did a lot of predicting of his own. The only facet of Lex’s character that wasn’t very good was his relationship with Lois. For some mild shock value, they were married in this comic and the pairing doesn’t really make any sense.

We are never given any reasons as to why Lois would go with him. He never has any time for her since he is obsessed with Superman and even randomly tries to divorce her at one point. I believe that they stick it out, but they’re essentially acquaintances by the end as opposed to a couple. Lane’s role is rather small beyond this so she didn’t get a chance to stand out. Batman gets a mild role here as well and he is a much more extreme “VIVA LA RESISTANCE!” vigilante than the Dark Knight that I am used too. It was a fun take on him I suppose even if I’m not sure why he changed so drastically here. Regardless, he did a good job of standing up to Superman and was a good mini boss although he didn’t get a whole lot of hype this time. He was a difficult antagonist to stop, but he doesn’t get too much screen-time. It was a fun little cameo in a way.

Wonder Woman and Green Lantern also appear at different points. GL’s appearance certainly wasn’t his greatest, but he seemed fairly decent. He just didn’t get a chance to do much and taking down Superman is a little above his pay grade. Wonder Woman looked good as she helped Superman out until he went over the deep end. With the friend zone intact, they made a good team. While Superman could have handled the situation a lot better, I don’t really get why she was so upset with him though. As far as I could tell, he did his best to make sure that her recovery was smooth and I don’t believe that he absolutely knew what effect the ordeal would have on her. Maybe he did though since he is a genius in which case I suppose she should be upset. She ultimately did decide to perform the deed though….lets not go in circles here.

Brainiac also shows up for a little while and he had a fun role. His final moments will be sure to please his fans since Brainiac would have not looked very good otherwise. He’s always been a solid villain even if he is less interesting than most of Superman’s other foes. The Man of Steel just has too many good villains to choose from at this point. There were some other side characters like the traitor, Pyotr, but they’re not all that important in the grand scheme of things.

I’d say that the first half of the comic is certainly better than the second. That’s probably because the concept is still very fresh and unique at the beginning and Superman still feels like himself through and through. That being said, it never jumps the fence and even though Superman may have not totally stayed in character, he didn’t go over the top for no good reason like in Gods and Monsters or even Justice League the animated series. Justice Lord Superman had been in character for a while, but deciding to destroy the Flash for kicks? That’s a “Jump the shark” moment for him. The ending of this comic has a lot of great moments to help keep it close to the first half.

The art was quite good in this comic. I liked Superman’s new design and the whole atmosphere is slightly darker, but not in a gritty sense. It’s more like a dark timeline where everything is a little sandy, but still light. Even when it’s day time, the comic makes it feel more like the afternoon. It does a good job of capturing the political element along with the action and solid dialogue. You can also see how Superman and the other characters age throughout the comic. Art plays a big role in any comic and it really helped this one live up to its potential.

Overall, Superman Red Son is definitely a very good Superman story. It’s certainly not his best as Superman Unchained still takes that title (as well as the title of best comic of all time) but it’s up there. I haven’t read a great deal of Superman comics to be honest so this is probably in my top 5 by default. I really need to check more of them out considering that he’s my favorite comic book character of all time. Of course, I have read quite a few JLA stories so I suppose that they count. I definitely recommend this comic. It has a good amount of action as well as political drama, which makes for a good mix.

Overall 8/10

Midnight Special Review

Posted on August 12, 2016 by dreager1

I remember seeing the trailer to this in theaters and not being too impressed. The concept of a kid with super powers can be done well and has been in the past. Just look at Superman. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t go all that far with the concept. If you were hoping for a thriller with the heroes trying to escape the aliens and ducking the government….well that’s not going to happen. It’s mostly just the main characters trying to get from point A to point B and not much besides that. It ended up being a bit of a boring thriller, which is never a good thing.

The film starts out with a news report that a boy has been kidnapped. We then see the main character Roy and his son Alton. The government is after Alton because he has super vision and it seems like he can intercept radio broadcasts. This is a security risk and something big is happening in 5 days (around that much time anyway) so they have to catch him ASAP. This won’t be easy though since Roy has a gun and he’s travelling with another guy named Lucas. The government may be after him, but what can they do? Not much it seems as the government looks incredibly bad the whole time. Let’s hope that the big event doesn’t spell their doom!

So what is the main problem with this film? Well, I’d say that it is the film being rather boring which is the problem. It really drags on and on and on as the characters just sit around and talk. Even as the government starts to learn about the kid, it’s not as interesting and sensational as you would hope. This is due in part to the fact that the kid’s abilities aren’t all that impressive. He can shoot blue lights out of his eyes, which is all right I suppose, but his other abilities wouldn’t even seem that odd. If he hadn’t been tapping into the government frequencies, they likely would not have even known about it.

It’s also tough for me to stay engaged in a film where a kid is one of the main characters. I dunno, they just can’t act well enough or in this kid’s case, Alton doesn’t really act like a kid should. It’s partially due to the twist of course, but he tries to sound wise beyond his years at some points. It doesn’t work since he is a normal kid at other times. He needs to pick one side and then just stick to it for a while. I didn’t care for the two adults either though. Roy panics and yells a lot. I actually figured that the other guy was the Dad for a while before they mentioned that it was Roy. I dunno, I just never got that vibe from him so it was pretty surprising. I guess Roy had no reason to be happy so it makes sense that he was downcast the whole time, but he just wasn’t likable.

As for Leon, he seemed a lot more reasonable the whole time. The fights between him and Roy did get real old real fast though as they seemed to always fight about the same exact things. It also doesn’t help that he destroyed an innocent cop who was just trying to do his job. When you consider what the actual goal was, then it’s even worse. The journey didn’t seem to matter all that much by the end as nothing was really accomplished as a result of the journey. The only difference is that we don’t have a cop anymore and the government chase is over.

One of the few supporting characters is a guy named Paul. He’s from the NSA and is doing some snooping into this case. Unfortunately, he’s in over his head with this and as he seems to be puzzled about why he is even here, Paul decides to just help Alton out. This leads to a large amount of plot hax as the kid and him slip past a few dozen armed guards at a heavily protected government installation. How did they escape? The film couldn’t be bothered to explain so we’re led to believe that shutting the lights off was enough to scare the guards and get them to scatter as Alton and Paul escape. Great….I’m not buying it though. At least the government wasn’t completely evil this time. They were fairly reasonable with how they handled the kid. Getting two random cult gunners to come and secure him though? A little iffy, but maybe they did it of their own volition. We don’t know for sure.

Since the film was a bit of a snorefest, there was one thing that could have easily saved the movie. A cool alien attack at the end. Imagine the hype if aliens had suddenly rained down on the cities and started firing at everyone. Not only would it have immediately forced the film to switch genres, but the whole situation would have gotten 20x more exciting in a single instant. That would have definitely been a blast if you ask me. After all, this film’s premise heavily implies aliens from the Get Go. A classic “He’s warning us that they’re coming!” would have been a nice thing for the film to build around instead of just focusing on the journey.

Overall, Midnight Special is easily one of the most boring films that I have ever seen, but it technically doesn’t do a whole lot of things wrong. It’s boring, but not inappropriate and I’ll always take the former. I suppose that’s enough to keep from giving it a negative score this time around. I still wouldn’t really recommend it as you’re better off watching the recent Star Trek Beyond film, but if you want to see a alien esque film without the aliens/action…then this could be your cup of tea. Just prepare for a very long car ride with lots of plot hax moments sprinkled in for good measure.

Overall 5/10

Suicide Squad Review

Posted on August 9, 2016 by dreager1

Suicide Squad got a lot of hype early on since it was going to be a “superhero” film about super villains. If the concept behind this wasn’t terrible enough then the actual product makes sure to finish the job. I would actually go as far as to say that this is the worst superhero film of all time. This is only counting titles that I have seen of course as Batman The Killing Joke and other extreme titles like Deadpool could possibly still lose to this one. As it stands, Suicide Squad did an admirable job of lowering the bar considering that titles like Catwoman, Flashpoint Paradox, (While not on the same level of terrible, Flashpoint destroyed an entire dvd line so there’s that) and Justice League Gods and Monsters. There’s really not much to like about this film, but a whole lot to despise. In all fairness, I had a hunch that I was not going to like this film from the start and my hunches are rarely wrong. The tagline of them being the worst heroes was already a sign of things to come. It had some of the worst posters that I have ever seen for an action film and the trailer was pretty bad. I really didn’t think that the film could turn things around.

Like Batman V Superman, this film may also be getting an R rated extended cut as some point. As with the former, I’m sure that it’ll be even worse. It hasn’t been confirmed, but good ole Reddit scooped up a rumor of the scenes that were cut and if even half of those are true, this film really could have gotten a 0. Whoever did the editing for this film definitely deserves some props. That being said, he should have cut out another good chunk of the film to really make it watchable.

The plot involves a corrupt business woman named Amanda Waller. As she is a murderer who is protected by the government, she decides that it would be a good idea to get more murderers into the streets. They can go on suicide missions and possibly get some other people along the way. She manages to capture Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and some other guys with a little help from Batman. After putting a bomb in their necks, she sends them off on their first mission to stop a supernatural threat which has been murdering people for 3 days. (A little late eh?) Can these humans hope to win?

Let’s back up one more time. The Suicide Squad idea was presented after someone asked a hypothetical question about what the government could have done if Superman had burst into the White House and attacked. Amanda brings up the Suicide Squad, but there should have been a lot of laughter in the room with several members running out the door. These guys would have trouble with Batman…they wouldn’t last a second against Superman. This has to be the worst idea ever presented when you think about the fact that there is 0% chance of success. Ah well, I guess it’s good that the government is humoring Waller before she stabs them all in the back.

The main problem with the film is the general gritty vibe that it goes for. This translates into every other aspect of the film. First and foremost is the terrible writing. The characters use the s word more than some abridged episode on Youtube and those titles don’t shy away from language. There’s a curse word in just about every sentence and it just never, ever ends. Every single joke has to use a curse word as well and you’ll wish that there was a censor. The amount of beeps would drive everyone crazy, but it would be worth it to save the writing. Harley Quinn’s very first scene is her pulling a “New 52 Starfire” as she lets the guards know that she is a free woman, but on her terms to put it nicely. Harley Quinn’s a terrible character like the others, but more on that later. Unlike Batman V Superman, which had some of the greatest dialogue in a CBM, this one had no good lines and all of the moments that could have been cool were destroyed by the language.

Next up is the terrible soundtrack. It is easily the worst soundtrack of all time. The songs naturally have a lot of cursing in them as well with the quick f-word drop to remind us that every PG-13 film has to use it at least once now. Hopefully the Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps it out of their movies. Even if the beats were occasionally cool, the lyrics threw you out of every moment and the film would have been better off without any songs. Silent films did work fairly well back in the day after all. If a film’s got nothing nice to say, then it should keep everything to itself.

For a film with this intense name, there isn’t actually a lot of cool action in Suicide Squad. There’s only one real fight scene at the very end of the film as the team takes on a mystical god. The problem is the fact that the writers should have never put a team of humans to take on such a powerful fighter. The villain could have destroyed all of them in an instant, but plot hax took control at this point and steered the villains to safety. The way that the Squad deals with the threat by the end is terrible and makes no actual sense. The writers had put themselves in a hole and couldn’t get out. For the rest of the film, you only get to see the Squad beating up police guards, army men, of CGI rock creatures that can’t fight back. Not the most thrilling fight scene if you ask me.

Also, once again….I just can’t root for these villains as the main characters. They don’t care for justice and they work for a mass murderer who always takes out innocent civilians. You really want the CGI rock creatures to defeat them and put an end to the whole debacle. It’s quite telling that the film jumps into the climax very quickly, but then spends an extremely long time getting out. This is complete with beer breaks and the like. The pacing was admirable, but the film clearly didn’t know what it wanted to do from there. It also couldn’t handle the suspense as well as a film like Resident Evil because the characters in the Evil series were much more likable even if they were throwaways. At the very least, you could root for Alice. Here…even the GI Joe character was fairly bad the whole time. It’s also a comic book film where the Squad have equipment/actual powers so it’s hard to get up to the same intensity. Maybe if the rock creatures had actually been Xenomorphs or if there was a good soundtrack, but there wasn’t. The film tried to play itself out as a zombie outbreak kind of title, but never went all the way because of its identity crisis.

All right, let’s take a quick break from bashing the film. The special effects were fairly good even if they were out of place. The two supernatural villains had fairly good designs. One of them went for the classic “Gods of Egypt” look which was cool. He actually looked like a cooler version of Apocalypse than what we got in the new X-Men film. His abilities were great as well and he was a great antagonist. It’s a shame that he had to be put in a film consisting of D listers. The other villain looked like something out of the Grudge and she tried to throw the horror aspect into the story. Once again though, this element disappears as swiftly as it arrives and she turned out to be too powerful. She could have eliminated the Squad many times and her plan really should have succeeded, but we do need those sequels….

The visuals look like what I’m expecting from the Ghost Busters film or even Dr. Strange to an extent. The film really goes all out trying to make the villain very eccentric and ritual-esque. She does a lot of odd dances even has basic hypnosis. It felt like something from the 90’s. It worked fairly well, but again..you should never pair a god against random humans. So, at least the visuals were a positive and the villains worked pretty well. Too bad we couldn’t save them for the Justice League film as that title is desperately looking for a villain. Even the Wonder Woman film would have been glad to have them.

Back to the negatives. Lets look at it from a character by character basis. Captain Boomerang is terrible as he’s just another drunk murderer who tricks other people into dying and has a nice laugh about it. There’s nothing to like with this guy. Deadshot is the most “heroic” of the bunch, but he’s not a hero by any definition and only helps people according to his own sense of twisted morals. It is quite telling that his number one wish for happiness is to murder Batman. He may try to be sympathetic, but he’s as ruthless as they come and no amount of jokes can help gloss over the fact that he is a mass murderer.

Harley Quinn may be the character who is supposed to stand out in the film, but she is portrayed in a very negative light. For starters, she is mainly used as fanservice with her costume basically just being a pair of undergarments for the entire film. A great deal of her lines are suggestive and her relationship with the Joker is very twisted. He tortures her when they first meet and there’s nothing shown to suggest that things have changed in the slightest. She’s basically his possession and that’s certainly not a proper relationship. As long as she stays with him, her life certainly isn’t going to get any better and I’ll be rooting against them since this is not the kind of relationship that should be portrayed in a positive light for any span of time. Her actual character needs a lot of work too though as made obvious during the really random CPR scene as part of her flashback. That scene was just brutal.

This is the worst portrayal of the Joker as well. He’s portrayed as your average mobster who isn’t very confident and is very obsessed with Harley Quinn. There is no moment where you feel like he is an evil genius and he doesn’t seem to care about Batman at all. There is no hero/villain dynamic there as the Joker is just a nobody who runs away from Batman and keep crashing his car. It’s also a huge plot hole to have the Joker around at all. Let’s face it, since Batman is a mass murderer in this series, there is no way that the Joker would still be alive. If Batman couldn’t find him, then it just further proves that the Batman of this film universe isn’t very smart. Even once Joker resurfaces and starts attacking installations all around, Batman never shows up. I’m still banking on the theory that the Joker is Robin, but it doesn’t really help this plot hole as Batman would likely still finish him off anyway. This Joker tries to be over the top crazy and slightly effeminate, but it just ends up leaving a broken character who makes the Lex Luthor in Batman V Superman look good.

Killer Croc was all right. He didn’t really have any character and was just around to bite people. He barely even qualifies as a character, but automatically that does mean that he beats most of the cast. Katana is around as well and she’s another character who really enjoys murdering others. She basically lives off hype though as she doesn’t really get a chance to do anything on screen. When she finally does fight, Katana looks incredibly weak and anticlimactic. She lost in a sword fight to add insult to injury. It’s going to be very hard to take her seriously after this.

Rick Flag is the “good guy” of the group. He was in the army and knows how to end a fight. He has crossed the line in the service, but still has a moral compass. Unfortunately, he is a complete yes man and starts to get black mailed very quickly. He has to resort to asking the people that he taunted for help and the whole thing is a very sad experience for him. After opening up to the other villains the film tried to make him a likable character, but it didn’t really work. The fact that Waller predicted that he would fall in love for a hostage that she sent him to find shows what a shallow/superficial guy he was from the start. I think I’ll probably prefer Steve Trevor from the Wonder Woman film.

Almost forgot about Diablo. He’s portrayed as the nice character who doesn’t want to be a villain anymore. The film gives us a very dark, gritty, and tragic past to forcefully push this message at us. Of course, he finally embraces his powers at the end along with a quick curse word as he runs at the villain. Another possibly good moment wrecked. At least the team has someone who can fight thanks to his true form, but the past was too tragic for me and I’ll find it very hard for this character to be even remotely likable.

Waller is another fan favorite character, but I don’t really care for her. I like the tough sounding government guys and I don’t even mind when they’re evil sometimes like in the latest Bourne film. Perhaps I wouldn’t mind her if she had been portrayed as totally evil because she is. Waller is a mass murderer who should be locked up like the others. My problem is that nobody seems to care as even Batman gives her a pass. I mean…are you kidding me? Batman giving her a pass is ludicrous and makes him look terrible as a hero. I know he crosses a lot of lines and probably doesn’t mind villains as much in this version, but locking her up has to be a top priority. The problem is that she can black mail him as well so there probably won’t be anything happening on that corner. Waller was great in the Justice League show because she actually cared a little more about her country. She still used underhanded methods to succeed and committed many villainous acts, but killing a group of men just because they knew too much? I believe that would be out of character for her and it was just too much when that happened here. The film went too far trying to make her appear as a hype character.

I remember there being a lot of articles about how significant Batman’s role was going to be here and how he was going to be super scary and the main antagonist. That never happened so either the scenes were removed or it was more fake hype to build up the film. It’s too bad as that could have helped the film a lot since Batman’s scenes were the best in the film. “I don’t want to do this in front of your daughter” was a great fake line from Batman as he very clearly chose this time to attack since it would put Deadshot in a bad position. He knew that the villain couldn’t go out and risk hitting his daughter. Luckily, this Batman has very few scruples about using underhanded tactics and that’s how he was able to conclude the fight. The line just adds more salt to the wound since there’s nothing Deadshot can do about the situation. Batman is ruthless and since he is also eager to cross the line, he makes for a compelling villain. I wish that the films played Batman straight, but as it is, the other characters make him look like a perfect individual by comparison. I don’t know where the film would be without him.

It goes without saying that you should stick around past the credits. The scene is the best one in the film after all even if it makes someone not look too smart yet again since another individual has found out about his identity. I’m always up for some classic tough talk from both sides. It can be annoying when it’s one sided so the trade here is good. The film could have done a little more with this, but as it was, I was pretty satisfied. The tributes to the rest of the DCCU were fun and one character looked a lot better than how he was in Batman V Superman so that’s a good start. I think the cinematic universe from DC should go strongly from here. I am a little worried for Wonder Woman since there doesn’t seem to be much of a villain yet and her fighting ordinary soldiers is going to get old even quicker than this film’s fights, but I have hope that there will be big fight scenes. Surely DC wouldn’t let such an easy opportunity for more Man of Steel esque (Slower I suppose, but still hype) battles slip by would they? I have similar concerns for Justice League, but mainly because Superman isn’t there yet and the idea of having a Justice League film without its leader/main member would be an incredibly terrible idea.

Another negative is the fact that this film makes no real sense when placed into the DC expanded universe. This doesn’t affect the score, but it’s a problem that starts to appear a lot in expanded universes. If this supernatural monster has been destroying a city and its inhabitants for 3 days…where are Batman and Wonder Woman? They definitely should have been on the scene. Even Marvel’s gotten rather dicey with that as the President gets captured and nobody arrives to help. This is almost as bad since it’s an entire city and its been attacked for 3 whole days. At least you can make the argument that Batman and Wonder Woman are not heroes so maybe they didn’t care. It’s possible that they just saw it on the news and chuckled. Of course, that would go against Batman’s character development as he wants to help the world thanks to Superman. It’s feasible that Wonder Woman would not care though. She did stay out of the Man of Steel fight after all so maybe she would rather leave the humans to their own devices at this point. Hopefully the writers plan for this a little better in their upcoming films.

Now, how could this film have been saved? First of all, the excessive language has to go and the soundtrack’s got to disappear. Next, some of the grit has to go. Do we need to have shots of Harley Quinn being zapped and shocked by the Joker as well as the jail? No. We can also get rid of Diablo’s origin story which is gritty to be gritty. After we get rid of all this and give Harley Quinn an actual costume, we have to tone Waller down so she’s not completely insane and evil. Make her an antagonist, but a reasonable one. Batman needs to appear a lot more and there should be more DC cameos. Preferably with very loud and obvious rock music as we see the hero logos and the Squad learns about the Justice League. Throw in some more action scenes and give the main villain a better debut than to be cradled in a very awkward scene that was quite sad. Mix all of that together and we’ve got ourselves a decent film.

I could go on, but let’s start to wrap up with one last improvement. The film should have chosen a genre and stuck to it. It tried to throw in elements from Ghostbusters, (CGI supernatural threats) The Avengers, (All of the one liners and puns…just the terribly written versions) and Resident Evil. (A few lone survivors up against zombies) It just did not work at all though. You can’t be dark and gritty and expect to pull off something like the Avengers. Likewise, you can’t have a super down to Earth Resident Evil adventure when there are super powerful beings trying to destroy the whole world. The film needed to pick one angle and stick with it.

Overall, I’m glad that Rotten Tomatoes is taking so many shots at the film. I tend to disagree with the site quite often, but for once I’m on their side. This film was just hard to watch at times. If the film wanted all of the Suicide Squad members to be unlikable then they succeeded, but at a large price. It’s a shame since the Batman scenes were nice. I do like how the cinematography is so different from Marvel’s. The scenes look like they’re out of a TV show episode instead of a movie. It’d hard to describe, but the Batman vs Deadshot scene totally encapsulates this as opposed to the average Marvel fight scene. It’s less glamorous and stylized, but works quite well. Oddly enough, the hand to hand scenes are far better here than in the latest Bourne film, where you would expect it to be better. The fight scenes were the one part of this film that were not gritty. Unfortunately, the terrible soundtrack, characters, and writing keep this film way down on the totem pole. I don’t expect that I’ll ever see it again and I highly advise you to stay away. You’re better off watching Man of Steel again.

Overall 1/10

Puella Magi Oriko Magica Review

Posted on August 5, 2016 by dreager1

Well, it’s time to take a look at a short Madoka Magica What If story. Since Homura went back and forth in time to save Madoka so often, it makes sense that sometimes things would turn out very differently. This manga plays out like that as this universe has a new magical girl who can see the future and she decides to do something about it. Unfortunately, while the plot/concept are fairly good, the manga really fumbles the ball with the poor dialogue and really bad art. What should have been a home run knockout instead turns into a manga that just barely breaks even.

The plot involves three new characters who were made up for the series. Yuma is a girl whose parents were destroyed by a witch. Kyoko was able to vanquish it, but not in time to stop Yuma from being an orphan. As a result, Yuma tags along with Kyoko for a while and eventually becomes a magical girl with healing abilities. She makes for a good support fighter to have on the battlefield. Unfortunately, Kyoko then hears that someone is going around destroying magical girls so she sets off to stop this.

Meanwhile, Mami is actually the one who gets in on the action as she does a lot of sleuthing so Oriko deems her as a threat and sends Kirika to dispose of her. This will be a tough fight for Mami, but luckily Homura is also around and Kyoko manages to enter the fray as well. Can the classic Magical Girls defeat this pair of evil fighters or are they doomed in this timeline!?

Everything about this manga is a little off. Let’s go back to the art first since that’s probably the biggest issue here. It’s incredibly hard to see what’s happening during the fights. The art is all over the place and the character proportions don’t have any consistency. The facial expressions are downright crazy like one that I attached to the bottom. Homura’s face just makes no sense considering that she just blocked Kirika and is poised to win the fight. This is an issue that affects all of the characters throughout this two volume series. It’s so chaotic that it’s actually a lot clearer to read the series online since it is just one page at a time on a white canvass so everything is a lot easier to read through. Of course, this should never be necessary for a manga and still doesn’t make the actual quality any better. This is certainly a contender for worst artwork in a manga.

The pacing is also very odd. The first volume focuses almost completely on Kyoko and Yuma as they bond and fight witches together. It’s even mentioned by Kyoko that there are no other magical girls around since they’ve all been destroyed by the Magical Girl hunter. Then we cut away to Madoka’s town where there are Magical Girls everywhere. Mami just shows up out of nowhere and instantly becomes the main character for the second volume. Timeline-wise, this basically gets us to the start of the TV series except that Kyoko and Mami already know each other and Homura is a lot meaner than usual. In this timeline, Homura decided to be Madoka’s friend right from the get go and threatens anyone who even gets near them.

The tragic backstory for Yuma was also pretty unnecessary. She had bad parents which traumatized her as a kid so now she feels like everyone is going to abandon her. Yuma does a good job of coping with her powers and becoming a dependable ally at least. She ends up giving the heroes the pep talk that they needed to continue the fight. That being said, only having healing abilities is definitely a pretty big liability in a fight and I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of her design. Nonetheless, she’s not a bad filler character I suppose.

On the other hand, Kirika is a fairly underwhelming villain who isn’t really likable. She really wants to please Oriko and doesn’t really care to think about anything else. She forgets all other details because they apparently take up too much space in her mind. As a result, she’s the perfect killing machine for Oriko to use. Her abilities aren’t bad as she can slow down an opponent and has a lot of magical knives to use against her opponents. She nearly defeated Mami so that’s definitely a pretty impressive feat. It’s not enough to make her a good character though.

We’ve also got Oriko, who is the main villain here, but she’s no better either. She saw the future and immediately pulled a Bruce Wayne from Batman V Superman, but takes it to the next extreme. “Everyone has to die!!” is basically her view as all magical girls are far too dangerous since they can turn into Witches. I’m assuming that after she destroyed them all, she would end up destroying herself and Kirika as well. She’s very unhinged as the manga shows. Her power is basically precog and she has some exploding energy balls as well. She’s certainly not that great in a fight. I also don’t get why she encouraged Yuma to jump into the fray as that just adds another target for her to destroy, but maybe she just has fun this way.

As for the real characters, Madoka and Sayaka don’t really get to do anything in this version. Neither one of them has powers after all as Homura has gone to great lengths to ensure that they never get them. At least Madoka realizes that Homura isn’t helping the other heroes out and is only protecting Madoka so the heroine calls her out on it. This doesn’t work all that well though and then Madoka just walks into the battlefield to help out. This wasn’t her greatest plan, but she was a solid character as always. It’s certainly in character for her to try and help out.

Kyoko gets a rather large role as you would expect. She looks pretty good. Unfortunately, Kyoko never really gets to test her mettle against the villains, but I’d say that she would have held her own quite well. It’s definitely hinted that Mami and Homura are stronger, but being the third best isn’t all that bad. Getting depressed for a few pages after learning about the Witch revelation felt rather out of character though. It was pretty forced in there. While Kyoko isn’t good at being a nice person, at least she tried with Yuma.

I didn’t care for Mami in the TV show because she cracked under pressure and tried to murder the whole cast, but she did a good job here. As always, she also got depressed towards the end, but at least she was just willing to let her friends die and didn’t actively expedite the process. I know that strength shouldn’t really affect how much you like a character, but it really did help her case a lot when she was able to defeat Kirika. If she had lost that fight, I definitely would have been a little upset. As it stands, she did a good job of using strategy to claim victory and proved to be the second best character in the manga. The franchise really loves to hype her up as one of the strongest fighters, but I’d definitely say that Homura deserves the number 1 spot.

Naturally, Homura was my favorite character in the manga. She got a lot of hype from the villains since she already knows the truth about the Witches and has seen the end of the world multiple times. To Homura, this predicament is nothing new as she’s been through a lot over the years. Homura’s time stop ability is still super useful as well and I dare say that she probably would have been able to beat both villains on her own. I was hoping for more of a direct win without any help, but the end result was fine. This version of Homura definitely doesn’t mess around as she goes for the kill shot the instant that she sees the two villains and even tries to trick them by pretending to negotiate. Homura was really handled well although she was a little too drastic when Mami just tried to talk to her. Seriously, Homura spends about 90% of her time threatening or trying to destroy someone in this manga.

Unfortunately, the ending is quite bad. It’s not horrendous in part due to the fact that Homura is here so the ending has no real stakes. Had the series been longer or Homura was not in the equation, then I think the ending would have hurt the manga more. As it stands, it just doesn’t make much sense and I don’t like how it allowed Oriko to get one last laugh. There’s no way that this plan should have worked to even the slightest degree. Even Kyubei wasn’t too thrilled with how things played out and usually he’s grinning from ear to ear.

On the bright side, since this manga is only two volumes long it has to move at a very rapid pace. Volume 2 in particular feels like an abridged series as all of the characters just quickly meet up and get ready to rumble. It’s a lot better than the first volume if you ask me and if the series had kept going on for a while maybe it could have redeemed itself. Of course, the pacing may have been slower so the whole thing could have backfired instead.

Overall, This manga spinoff wasn’t very good. There have been several titles that have come out for Madoka Magica and this one technically has one of the cooler sounding plots. Hopefully the others are better at the actual execution of it. Some of the other manga out there definitely sound promising and it wouldn’t be hard to top this one. The art is just so bad for this manga and the writing was sub par as well. Throw in the aspects that are Yuma’s random tragic past and the only thing that really keeps this manga together are the characters from the TV show. They’re still a lot of fun to follow and the action scenes were fun/hype even if they were hard to read at times. If you’re a big Madoka fan then I recommend this title since it’s great to see the cast in anything since the show was so short. It makes titles like this a lot easier to swallow since you’ll jump at anything. It’s why I want a big Madoka fighting game to help fill in this void. Ah well, just don’t go in expecting anything too good or you’ll be gravely disappointed. Keep your expectations tempered and you will have some fun with this manga.

Overall 5/10

Jason Bourne Review

Posted on August 5, 2016 by dreager1

It’s time to look at the latest entry in the Bourne franchise. The series has had pretty cool titles up til now so it was a little disappointing to see that this one just used the main character’s name. It makes sense for the marketing I suppose, but it’ll also make it a little harder to look for things from this movie through Google Search in a few years since the character will keep on popping up. Jason Bourne is a fun film and a nice installment in the series although I dare say that the third film was better and probably the second as well. I’m inclined to say that this one beats the fourth film though and I can barely remember the first one at this point. It’s a nice way to start wrapping up the summer and probably is the final good film of this season.

Jason Bourne has been living under the radar. He enters fights to make a decent living and is content to stay off the grid. Unfortunately, that is no longer an option when one of his old friends requests a meet and the government quickly finds out about this. One thing leads to another and now Bourne must find out the extra details of his past which were kept from him all these years. The organization behind the Bourne initiative better watch out because Bourne isn’t leaving without some new knowledge. Meanwhile, they see this as their best chance to take him out of the equation once and for all!

I was definitely looking forward to this title because of how good the trailer was. It’s no exaggeration to say that it is the best non superhero trailer of 2016. (Wide release theater films only) Jack Reacher gives it a little competition, but Bourne could not be topped. The music was perfect and the plot seemed like it would be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, things do feel just a little random at times and I partially blame this on the film not being long enough or simply having too many plots. Typically, I wanted to see more of Bourne. The social media subplot just didn’t really go anywhere.

Of course, it is a positive for the film that it goes by so quickly as well. The pacing never really died down except for when it tried to show off the side characters a little too much. The soundtrack was pretty solid although not as good as the trailer theme. It’s the intense chase scene type music that you would expect although the sound effects typically drown it out so I’m already starting to forget it all. I liked the special effects that were used whenever the government was shown. As many people pointed out during the trailer, they probably shouldn’t have a big folder called “BlackOps” as it makes ta hacker’s job a lot easier, but I suppose they were really proud of their security. It ultimately was pretty good, but most of the staff didn’t know how to handle it which defeats the purpose. The fun visuals are one of the main reasons why I love to see the government play a big role in a film.

The other reason is for all of the tough talk. Dewey is one of the big villains and also one of the best characters in the film. He may even be The best. Dewey does a good job of sabotaging everyone and proving that nothing is beneath him as he does whatever it takes to stay ahead. It’s easy to see how he got promoted to such a high organization and he gets most of the best lines. There’s always some kind of plan going on inside of his head and in the end, he proves that he can take on even the best of agents in a one on one fight.

Naturally, Jason Bourne is a good character as well. He’s still super intelligent and knows how to stay away from the government. He’s tends to say something pretty intense and epic whenever he talks. It’s made pretty clear that Bourne can’t be found unless it’s part of his plan. He knows the system way too well to fall for any of the tricks and traps that are set for him. The intro scene is definitely not great for him as he really lost his way, but now that he has a purpose, he should stick around as the Bourne that we all remember. When it’s clutch time, Bourne will pull through in the end. He’s a much better James Bond than 007 ever was and is still one of the better agents out there.

Nicky is the girl from the trailer and her role is rather small. Her heart’s in the right place, but she doesn’t really seem like she’s ready for this level of strategic thinking. She doesn’t really seem to take the government seriously and just walks from trap to trap constantly. It’s good that she helped to get Bourne back into the game, but I would have liked for her to have done a little better. Taking out a few soldiers and coming up with a plan would have been cool. Meanwhile, we’ve got Heather as the other heroine. She works for Dewey, but has aspirations of her own. She certainly is very tech savvy and does a good job of making sure to be present whenever Bourne strikes. I’d say that Heather is rather charismatic. It’s always tough working for someone who’s both powerful and evil, but Heather does a decent job of it. While she was fairly likable, it’ll be a little hard to take her seriously as long as she has to take orders from her higher ups. Of course, she’ll have a whole film and possibly more to develop herself as a true threat…or hero by the end.

There’s also an assassin who wants revenge on Bourne. As a result of Bourne leaking everything that the organization did to the web, he was captured and held for several years. There’s nothing to like about this guy though and the film doesn’t even try to make you feel sympathetic for him. He’s a villain plain and simple and you’re still going to be rooting for Bourne to take him down. I also felt that he did a little too good in the end as he took down many cops and road blocks before Bourne finally cornered him. Films always make roadblocks look incredibly inept so I like to think that in real life they are a little better.

I mean, you see a guy approaching in an armored van. Knowing this, you set up a blockade which consists of two little police cars, which the guy runs over. The cops always looked shocked at this outcome, but this is what will always happen. There’s no reason for the guy not to run into the cars. At least half heartedly shoot at the tires! Instead, the casualties were very high as the guy rammed into dozens of cars and really took the house down. It was pretty cool visually, but I can’t help but feel bad for the civilians. (And all of the poor cops who got in the way)

Unfortunately, the fight scenes weren’t very good in this film. The final fight in particular was poorly handled as it just tried to be super violent and gritty to remind us that Bourne is a tough guy who can fight under pain. I’m sure that all of us already knew that. This film was definitely a little more violent than it needed to be, but at least nothing else was quite as bad as that final fight. Locking someone up in the bathtub was also unnecessary though as it was just there to be gritty as well. This aspect of the film certainly hurts it the most.

The ending is pretty conclusive and there doesn’t really need to be any more sequels, but they could certainly expand on the situation some more if they want. Bourne didn’t get to read the complete file so there is certainly more to see there and the whole plot twist with his father just came out of left field as well. I think the film tried a little too hard to turn the situation into one big conspiracy, but that’s not a bad thing either. It’s certainly reasonable to think that the government planned for all of this. Also, it was fun to hear the classic Bourne theme from the older films play again. It’s been ages since I got to hear that on.

The best part of this film was easily the first big action scene in the film. It’s the one from the trailers where the town is burning and the heroes are trying to stay away from the cops. THat was definitely handled really well and I could have definitely been content for that scene to have kept going on and on and on. It just had the most Bourne like feel to it and even the fights in this scene were far better than what we got at the ending.

Finally, there is also a subplot about a social media product. This was probably the plot that was the most forced as it’s basically just a social commentary on what is going on behind the scenes. The government is naturally trying to use the guy’s product in the shadows so the people don’t realize it. The guy decides that people deserve their privacy and decides to fight back. People who are already conspiratorial about how the government is always watching will definitely enjoy this, but it just felt like this plot had no business being here. It’s nice that the guy is trying to protect our privacy I guess, but I actually agree with Dewey here. It certainly makes it a lot tougher for the government to do their job and in this digital age, there is always someone watching. No data is truly private. The second you turn on the computer, you become a data point that someone is using. It’s just how the times have rolled on.

Overall, Jason Bourne plays out like your average action film. None of the plot twists are too unexpected and you can follow the plot well enough from your experience with other films. That being said, the film does handle itself relatively well and just because it’s a little predictable doesn’t make it a bad flick. I’m sure it beats most of the other rival action films that are out at the moment although Jack Reacher could give it a nice fight. This film has started a new era for the Bourne series so I look forward to seeing where it goes from here. I recommend this film and one important thing that it has over other films is that the main cast is rather solid. Just about everyone is likable and that’s always a good thing.

Overall 7/10

Sorcerous Stabber Orphen 2: Revenge Review

Posted on July 31, 2016 by dreager1

It’s been a while, but it’s finally time to look at the sequel to the first Orphen show. Interestingly enough, this show took a dramatically different approach compared to the first one. While the first season was very dark, somber, and dramatic the entire time, this one shifts gears into a full on comedy. You can see what the writers were going for here though. In the first show, there wasn’t a whole lot of time to see the cast just hang out and have fun since there were always a lot of things at stake. With the world completely safe once more, it’s the perfect time to pit the cast in all kinds of wonky situations. For the most part, this works well, but some parts of the show really just make no sense. Plot points are brought up and then completely forgotten. It makes for an odd blend, but at the end of the day the show is fairly good. The first season definitely takes the win here as I did miss “hardcore” Orphen from the search for Azalie, but this title has a lot of great moments as well.

Orphen has been having a lot of strange dreams lately. He’s trapped in a cave and bad things always seem to happen. He’s chased by giants, laughed at by the unknown, or even attacked by monsters. The one constant is that whenever he wakes up, he finds the main heroine Cleao in his room to the dismay of both of them. The shenanigans continue for a while until a new character, Licorice shows up. She wants Orphen to come with her to the royal knighthood of honor chaps so that they can properly award him. Orphen refuses so she decides to follow him until he relents. The upside for Orphen is that she is backed financially by the group so now he can use her money and live a decent life instead of scraping for pennies.

Meanwhile, a Red Haired girl continues to follow them and plays the piano during the night. Her plot twist is really obvious and I guessed it as soon as she appeared, but for those who are not too familiar with the trope, it may take a little longer than that. There are also a lot of monsters which keep showing up and try to destroy Orphen from time to time. There seems to be a mastermind behind them, but who can it be? One thing’s for sure, Orphen and the others are not going to be getting a lot of rest this time!

As mentioned earlier, the show doesn’t really know where it’s going at times. Let’s take the first plot, where the two heroes keep waking up in the wrong room. This is never resolved. There is no actual reason for the characters to be sleep walking and if the show intended for this to be a pure comical subplot, then it was not handled well. During the entire show, you’re waiting for the revelation of what is causing this, but it wasn’t to be. We can’t forget Orphen’s dreams either. He gets them constantly and some of them are even used purely for comic relief and have no purpose. One of them does come true by the end, but what about the rest? Has Orphen’s imagination just started to run away with him in his old age? I dunno, it just felt pointless once again.

Finally, Orphen’s new magical symbols are also odd. As opposed to the first show where he could just send off a spell at will, we now get a visual of an odd looking circuit board. We can definitely assume that Orphen is drawing energy from this tech to use his magic. I had a theory going on for a while that this Orphen was a clone and that was going to be the big twist. That would have really been something and I think it could have been handled very epicly. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t to be I guess. It was purely an animation change that the show did for kicks. Gotta save the budget whenever possible right? There is certainly a decent amount of stock footage in this season.

That being said, the animation is reasonably good here. It hasn’t changed all that much from the first season, but it didn’t really need too. As it stands, everything looks to be on point. The fight scenes are always exciting and all of the character designs make sense. It’ll remind you of the classic 90’s days for sure. The soundtrack is pretty uninspiring, but we have 1 or 2 very catchy themes. The theme songs look pretty good animation-wise. I’d say that the first theme song of the original series is probably the best. As for the music of these intros, I’ll update this review with something on those once I listen to them again within the next day or two.

As mentioned earlier, most of the show is rather lighthearted and fairly aimless. While this may not sound good to the action readers in the room, it was rather nice to see the group just hang out and engage in witty banter. There are some shows where you never really get to see the heroes have fun like in DBZ so this is a welcome change. Let’s face it, Vegeta and Goku bickering could make for a lot of good episodes. This cast isn’t quite as dynamic, but they can do a good job so long as the two trolls and Orphen are the main focus. My favorite episode of this season actually wasn’t an action episode, but a comedy one instead.

In this episode, Orphen gets cloned so that there are 4-5 other Orphens chasing him. Orphen even compliments this concept since the only one who can defeat him must be another him right? I can actually follow this train of logic. The fight scenes in this episode are a lot of fun and the dialogue is also rather strong. This episode simply could not be surpassed no matter how much plot they crammed into the final episodes. Some of those titles did put up a good fight, but none could match the brilliance of this event. If you thought that clone episodes couldn’t really be all that good, you’ll want to watch this one to reassess that statement.

The characters haven’t changed all that much since the first season as you’d expect. Orphen’s still the tough main character who is always ready to throw out some insults. He’s still a tough mage as well, but is portrayed as being a lot lower on the totem pole than usual. He is actually on the losing side of just about every serious fight in the series. He loses to all three of the main villains in one on one fights and ultimately only proves to be dependable against comic relief characters. I don’t think his fans will be too pleased at that part. I really thought that the writers didn’t give Orphen enough credit in this season. Maybe that will change if we ever get a season 3. He’s still a great lead though and I’d definitely say that he is the best character in the series.

I still have to give Volkan the runner up spot. He’s actually a really great comic relief character and puts most others to shame. He’s very consistent and never has a moment where you’re supposed to feel bad for him or respect his abilities. He plays the role of the comic relief guy right up until the end and that’s how it should be. He never loses his nerve and we’ll always see him try to make Orphen’s life more difficult. It would simply be odd if he ever switched from this tactic. I still don’t care for Dortin though. He doesn’t pull off the road nearly as well. His voice actor does a good job of giving him a very old/raspy voice, but that’s the only real positive for him. He really needs to get behind Volkan and help him out more against Orphen.

Majic is not nearly as terrible as he was in the first show, but there’s still little reason to root for him in this one. He’s still letting Orphen cheat his father out of a small fortune via the tuition when Majic isn’t actually learning anything. We had a whole episode about this and the moral was basically that Orphen is a terrible teacher, but Majic may as well continue to pay him out anyway. Not the greatest ending for Majic fans. He’ll have to really improve for me to like him more as a character.

As for Cleao, she’s still a good main heroine. It’s definitely fortunate for her that she has a super powerful dog in the form of Lucky. Even Orphen’s afraid of that little guy. She may not be able to fight all that much on her own and it can get old to see her quit the group so often, but at least she can be reasonable and her arguments with Orphen are always entertaining. Unlike Majic, she’s actually a very good supporting character who helps to push the show along. There are other characters from the first season who show up like Orphen’s child hood friend and the new leader of the spell castors, Azalie. Unfortunately, they don’t do a whole lot here and their roles aren’t great. You’d think that Azalie would get a lot of hype since she is one of the strongest mages in the world, but her quick cameos are just there to remind the fans that she exists. She doesn’t really get to do anything in the grand scheme of things. As for the child hood friend, his hobby of transforming into a superhero identity is still around, but beyond that he mostly spends his appearances getting beaten up or beating up on weaker monsters. There’s no real middle here and he can’t hold a candle to the stronger fighters. Neither can Orphen though so I suppose we couldn’t expect much more out of him.

Licorice is one of the newer characters and she gets a large role. Unfortunately, she is a pretty bad character. She wasn’t too bad at first as I didn’t mind her gimmick of always mentioning the Royal Knighthood. It could be catchy and she wasn’t bad. However, she started to get a lot worse once she started uncovering the truth behind her past. Suddenly, she would start getting very snippy with everyone and had a tendency of running off into the rain. She tried destroying herself 3 times or more and tended to get in the way of the heroes at all times. She lost any dignity she had by this point and ultimately the show would have been better off without her.

Erukarena is the final boss of the show and is an example of how you make a good final boss. She is a high above being who just so happens to look like a little girl. Don’t let her appearance fool you though, her powers are immense. She has super speed and a wide variety of spells to the point where she is able to take on McGregor and Orphen teaming up. They really don’t fare very well against her at all. She may look innocent, but takes great joy in making life tougher for everyone else. She may not have many goals or aspirations, but at least she makes sure that the heroes feel her sting. The design really worked well this time.

McGregor was the big villain for most of the series. (When he appeared anyway) He got to show off his skills quite a lot as he took Orphen down rather easily. He moves pretty fast for an old man. The show tries to make him a sympathetic character by the end as we find out a few plot twists about his past. It’s all pretty intriguing and while most of his decisions were good, it doesn’t really excuse the fact that he went off the deep end. Whatever the intentions may be, it doesn’t change the fact that McGregor was a complete villain by the end of all this. He was someone who needed to be taken down for the count. At least he made for a good villain though.

As far as the villains go, the final one is Flamesoul. Surprisingly, the show presented him as a greater magician than Orphen. The court room scene with Flamesoul interrogating Orphen was handled pretty well. He’s not the greatest of villains as he can be rather dramatic at times. He doesn’t know that Orphen was actually framed for murdering his mother so he seeks revenge throughout the series. He is definitely lucky to have an array of monsters to back him up, but he actually does a very good job. He came so close to completely getting his revenge here. I definitely liked him a little more than I thought I would by the end, but he does lose to the first two.

Finally, we have Esperanza. I would have liked her character more if she had stuck to playing the piano in the background. Instead, she gets a lot of development and is unsure of what she should do. Protecting Licorice is her main goal, but she also wants to take Orphen down which would be bad for Licorice emotionally. It’s definitely a tricky call either way as it will be tough for the two of them to get along. I also have to say that the kiss between her and Orphen felt very random and out of nowhere. That scene definitely had no real purpose if you think about it. Esperanza may have been mysterious, but unfortunately she was not a good character. I also happened to be playing Sword Art Online Lost Song at the same time as I watched this and that game had the very same twist as this title involving a mysterious red haired girl. It made the resolution to this plot that much more obvious.

Holding back this show from getting a complete 7 is that it did have a little more fanservice than it should have by the end. It’s nothing too drastic, but the little scenes here and there do add up. Most of the comedy episodes weren’t bad, but they were also pretty devoid of action, which widened the gap between this season and the first one. It was very close to matching the score, but in the end it just couldn’t pull it off. I’m sure that a season 3 would likely get the job done though.

Overall, Revenge is a fitting title for this season as several characters have this motive over the course of the show. It’s not as fitting though when you find out that this season is mostly a comedy. The action scenes do look really good when they show up of course, but it does take quite a while for them to really get going. Once you’re in the climax, you get a glimpse of how epic the show could have been had it stuck to this genre. We do have the first season for that though. If you like the characters then you will still enjoy the show regardless as the comedy is handled rather well. Had some plot points actually ended or been removed entirely, the show would have been even better. As it stands, I’d certainly recommend this show. The franchise may appear to be about 95% dead, but there’s always a chance that we will get a movie or another show someday. Never stop hoping for that sequel!

Overall 6/10

Pandora Hearts Review

Posted on July 31, 2016 by dreager1

It’s time to look at a rather confusing and convoluted manga. This one lasted for a very long time so it got to set up a lot of plots and then end them. As opposed to other series, I didn’t find the ending all that rushed, which was definitely a good thing. At the same time, I can’t say that the series was that good though. While it never turned into a train wreck like Black Butler, it ultimately never got to be all that great either. 07 Ghost was a confusing title, but one that had potential and I think a re-read of it makes the series all the more interesting. With Pandora Hearts, I don’t believe that going through the series again would make it much better because it still has a lot of negatives that can’t really be scrubbed away. If anything, reading it in such a quick batch would likely just make me remember more negatives that I may have forgotten otherwise. As you can tell, this won’t be a very positive review. The series isn’t terrible though so the score won’t be super low, but low enough to keep it under the line.

The series follows Oz, a member of royalty. He was cast into the Abyss, which is the home of demons. They are called Chains in this series though and you can make a contract with them. It comes at a great price if you don’t do this the right way though and as a result, Oz now has a timer on his life. Once it goes down enough, he will die. Using his partnership is naturally now recommended all that much. One day, Oz meets up with his Chain, the B Rabbit. Her human form is that of a little girl who doesn’t know all that much about human customs, but she likes eating and can fight very well. This works for Oz as he finally has another fiend. His butler, Gilbert is the other. The heroes decide to help Alice (B Rabbit’s human name) find her memories, but this will put them in the way of many powerful aristocrats and evil organizations who have their own plans for this unique chain.

That’s the plot from the beginning at least, but it changes rather drastically as the series goes on. If you thought that you’ve read a convoluted manga before, I can assure you that this one is even more so. I pride myself on the fact that I never really get lost in any movie, anime, manga, or other form of media. This one is no exception, but sometimes it will be tough to get what’s happening. My advice is to just take it in stride. Whatever you gleamed from the scene you should simply add to your head canon and continue from there. That’s the way to do it if you ask me.

Now, what holds this series back? Well, there are a few things. For one, this is one of those mangas that can go a little overboard with how violent it is. In particular, this usually applies to the flashbacks, like one which involves Alice and her true origin. The massacre is mentioned and hinted at several times before appearing and it manages to live up to the name. In the present, the violence never gets to be all that bad so it’s really just flashbacks which make things dicey. The past can also be very dark at times, which can also be a bit much.

For example, one character is basically born to die. She must be sacrificed in an old ritual that has survived throughout the many centuries. Even her brother, who is a super honor bound guy that everyone looks up to decides not to try and save her. On the contrary, he is the one to do the deed. To fulfill an experiment, another scientist asks Alice if she wants to have a kid right before she dies and she agrees to it. That was really random and also pretty nonsensical. Alice’s ancestor should never have agreed to such a thing. It definitely cheapens her character. As a result of all this, the real Alice ended up being born in darkness and not having much of a life to start out with until she met Oz. Even from there, the other Alices all try their best to mess things up for Alice before going through quite a few 180s until they decided on a personality.

Unfortunately, the art is also not that good for this title. Quite a few of the characters have identical character designs so they all start to blend together for a while. By the end of the series, I was finally able to distinguish one of the blond villains from the other, but it certainly took a while. The art also can’t keep up with the fight scenes so whenever a battle occurs, you end up missing a lot of it. We get large visuals and double splash pages, but there’s simply too much happening for the page to contain it all and things get rather crazy. The artist could take some tips from how Bleach handles its fights.

I can say that there was some clear improvement from the start of the series to the end though. The artist certainly did his/her best to make the action scenes more legible. We also got many cool closeups and images of the hero with his monster/chain in the background. Two of the images that I used for this review are examples of that. The series had a lot of epic visuals throughout which is why its a shame that the series ultimately wasn’t better than how it turned out. The concept still could have been great and I think that Pandora Hearts could have been a great success if it had played it straight and acted as more of a standard action title with each character being able to summon his/her chain to do battle with. It could have been a tournament series of just an average Shonen battle manga. This didn’t happen, but it would have been neat.

All right, let’s take a look at the characters. Oz is the main lead in this series. He can be a decent main character at times as he tries to be a nice guy who gets the job done and takes out the villains. Unfortunately, he is very similar to Ciel from the Black Butler series in the sense that he also tends to crack a lot and go off the deep end. He goes on a big murder spree a few times through the series. Usually it’s because he’s either being mind controlled or the villains decide to push his buttons, but he does let loose quite a few times. It makes it a little harder to take him seriously later on when he’s giving friendship speeches. His weapon of choice (Large scythe) is pretty cool though and I’m glad that he can fight a little. I wish he were stronger so he could put up more than just a little fight, but it’ll do for now I suppose. What Oz needed to be a better character is a nice injection of confidence and consistency.

Alice was a likable heroine. I think she would have worked a lot better as the main character instead of Oz. She never seemed to fall for the villain mind games that Oz and Gilbert always stepped into. Her only annoying trait was that she always tended to act very uncivilized and would bite Oz as a greeting once or twice since she thought that was normal. It’s not taken to extremes like with other characters though so it was manageable and in the end she is one of the better characters. Having her as the lead over Oz would have been a great idea. Just seeing her deal with the other 3 Alices and convincing them to see things her way is an example of why she’s so good.

We’re going back to inconsistent characters with Gilbert though. He’s someone who I wouldn’t trust too closely. Technically, his goal is to protect Oz and that’s what he does for most of the series, but a spell was placed on him which sort of forces him to betray Oz at one point. Suffice it to say, this did not help his case one bit. I know that mind control’s an iffy thing, but it’s always a little hard to recover from that. Beyond this scene, he wasn’t all that bad. He did a decent job of protecting Oz and he did have a chain so at least he could fight when necessary.

Oscar is Oz’s uncle and the guy was definitely nice. Despite the tragic origin stories that came to light later on, he always had a positive disposition and cheered Oz on whenever possible. Unfortunately, he was also completely powerless and never really had an effect on the story. On the other hand, Zai was a pretty terrible character. He’s Oz’s Dad and basically a villain who hid among the rest of the cast. He barely appears and really only shows up to insult Oz and get the main character into another Shonen depressed state. The guy really didn’t have a purpose here at all.

Vincent is one of the antagonists although he tries to act like a good guy at times too so he’s really all over the place. Needless to say, I definitely didn’t like this character. He made some decent threats at times I suppose, but for the most part he was really just all talk. It doesn’t help that he got a fairly generic design within the realm of this manga. It’s a good design for the average series, but here it just looks similar to everyone else. There’s nothing really likable about him.

Echo’s a fairly decent character. She doesn’t really have any emotions, but gradually starts to get them during the series. Out of nowhere she does obtain a split personality though with a being named Noise. It acts as a puppet controller which can manipulate her actions and tries to sever her bonds. It definitely leads to some dark moments for the character and does wreck everything for her. Echo’s a likable character, but it’s a shame that she was really losing the mental battle against Noise. What happened to the heroes having strong will power? There is a lot of mind control in this series so it doesn’t stop with Echo.

Next up is my favorite character of the series. Elliot felt out of place amidst the others because he had a great moral compass and never wavered in his trust in justice. He constantly called everyone else out on the corruption afoot and he didn’t need any special powers to fight it out with the others. He only used a normal blade to fight for his ideals. I suppose that I can’t say much else due to spoilers and such, but needless to say I wasn’t crazy about how things played out for him. In my eyes it was a mistake on the manga’s part. Granted, it was certainly unexpected so I’ll give some kudos there.

Leo is one of the worst characters in the series and I certainly couldn’t stand him. Originally he started out as a soft spoken guy who always liked to throw insults for no good reason. It was supposed to grow on you, but it just came across as irritating the entire time. In the second half he gets a lot more vocal, but it’s because he’s being partially mind controlled for these sagas. Either way, it didn’t do anything, but make me lose even more respect for the guy. Leo’s powerful, but verrrry annoying and unlikable.

Break isn’t all that much better. He’s the “hype” character of the series who can even fight when he is completely blind. That’s impressive and all I guess, but he’s always very cryptic and it’s hard to find him likable at all. He’s certainly no hero and will do anything if it means that he will be closer to his goal. He’s one of those characters that no side can trust, but he doesn’t pull off this role all that well. Sharon is one of the main heroines, but her role is rather small. She can actually fight to an extent, which is nice, but she didn’t really do anything in the grand scheme of things. Getting into a fight does keep her from being too generic or powerless at least.

Rufus appears as the first big villain in the series aside from the Baskervilles. That’s how he appears at first, but then he starts switching sides like crazy. It doesn’t help that he’s a member of royalty either so nobody dares to mess with him. Even the heroes just allow him to have free reign the whole time. He gets a plot twist near the end, which does nothing to help him. After all of the hype that he got, Rufus didn’t do much with it.

Reim was a fairly good character. He was a loyal sidekick who would take a bullet for his friends. (And he did just that) He never became one of the more important characters, but sometimes the minor ones are the guys who steal the show. We’ve also got Jack, who gets a number of plot twists. They all serve to make him less and less likable until he ends up being one of the meaner/crueler characters in the series. At first it seems like he’s at least being evil in order to save someone, but then it turns into more of a classic revenge story, but on someone who doesn’t seem like she’s earned his wrath. Jack’s plot really makes no sense no matter how much they try to make him sympathetic. His plot is all over the place and he can’t even trust himself. It’s a shame since he started out as one of the more likable characters. When he told Oz the truth about the Rabbit, I did actually enjoy that twist.

As for the Baskervilles, they don’t actually get much character development. One of their members is a little girl who likes to murder people after playing them. On one hand, she acts rather innocent, but then that seems to be a facade on other occasions. By the end, it’s unknown which side was real since the manga plays up both aspects. There’s also an older lady who seems a lot more reasonable and offers to help prevent the end of the world depending on what the higher ups say. There’s a guy who is around to punch things…..that’s basically his role. You’re left to wonder why these villains work for the big boss since they seem rather confused about the whole situation as well. Why do they know some things and how do they ultimately fit in with this mystery? In the end, that is a mystery which engulfs the other mysteries. It may have been mildly explained at some point, but this group never gets a big flashback to flesh them out. Ah well, maybe a bonus chapter or a post series interview dealt with that.

The series takes a lot of cues from Alice in Wonderland so fans of the classic fantasy stories will likely enjoy this series a little more than they would otherwise. It’s definitely a nice tribute to those classics. I mentioned earlier that reading the series from beginning to the end in a quick batch or two probably wouldn’t help the series, but I thought I’d add a disclaimer that it could be the reverse. I really can’t say for sure until I re-read the series and it could be a long time until I do that. Naturally, it’s always a lot more fun to read a series all the way through with no interruptions, but that’s really not possible until a series is over and even then, only if your local library has it all or you already own the series. Plus, the double edged sword is that you will remember everything. The good and the bad will both be a lot more fresh and you simply have to hope that the former wins out. This series made it to 24 volumes and did get a pretty big fan base. There’s a lot of content to be found here so if you enjoy the characters, it makes sense that you would like the series a lot. It really just needs to start on the right foot for you.

I will also give the manga some props for the fact that it really didn’t have any fanservice. Perhaps I am forgetting something, but as far as I can recall, there was none of that to be found here. Considering how long the series lasted, this is actually quite the feat. It’s sad that this is actually a super rare occurrence, but that’s just how it is nowadays. The manga stayed classy throughout and I also can’t recall any animal violence although I say that with far less confidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if something happened at some point.

Overall, some may appreciate that the series is so convoluted, but that was not the case with me. As mentioned earlier, the series never got very bad and I certainly wouldn’t compare it to titles like Black Bird, Vampire Knight, or Black Butler, but I also don’t really want to put it in the same conversation as Pokemon Rescue Team or even the Kirby manga. At the very least, you can have some fun reading this manga and it is all very interesting even when it’s not all that clear what is happening. Complexity isn’t always a good thing. Typically it is as juggling several different plots at once can make for a fantastic read in the end, but it has to be juggled well. This series didn’t do that and the art certainly help its chances either. I’d recommend skipping on this title and if you want a good manga with a lot of depth, go read Death Note instead. I can guarantee that you will not be disappointed. (Now that will be a fun retro review at some points.) Still, if you do check this out, be sure to let me know what you think of it in the comments.

Overall 4/10

Yugioh 5Ds Duel Transer Review

Posted on July 30, 2016 by dreager1

It’s been a while, but I finally got to go back and complete one of the old Yugioh games that I’ve had on the back burner for a while now. It feels good to finally take it down for the count. It suffers from the usual problem that Yugioh games have on the home console and that’s the long loading times. Still, that’s really the only main problem for the title as it still does a good job of capturing the Yugioh enjoyment that I’ve come to expect from the series. It’s long and it’s difficult, but the game can also be very satisfying. After all, what’s more fun than having a quick round of Yugioh?

This title also does have a plot which is something that you can’t really say for many of the other Yugioh games. Where this takes place in the anime is a little vague, but all that you really need to know is that many of the world’s greatest duelists have been trapped inside of a large tower. The only way to get out is to duel everyone and prove yourself to be the strongest. The problem is that there are no pushovers here and some of the villains may decide not to play by the rules. You control an original character who has arrived at this tower. He may not have a rep yet, but he is actually the greatest duelist of all time. Not too shabby eh? Can Terry (That’s what I called him) save the world or is he doomed? Time to find out!

We may as well go over the technical aspects of the game first. The graphics look fairly good here. Everyone is a little pixelated, but in retrospect, a lot of the Wii games had similar issues with the character designs. It still looks rather well considering. I also liked the designs for the new characters. They stood out and were original. Odin had a cool armor and his true identity was also pretty intense. That definitely worked well for the final boss. As for the soundtrack, it is fairly solid. A theme will come up if you are close to winning and likewise if you are close to losing. There are quite a number of good tunes here although the soundtrack definitely could have been larger. It’s mostly all fast paced and fits well for the duels.

Time to quickly explain the gameplay system in case you have never had a duel before. Each player starts with 5 cards and then you draw another one each turn. You summon monsters to the field (1 per turn although you can special summon others) and use them to attack your opponent’s life points. Spell and Trap cards are also allowed into the mix of course. The first person to land at 0 life points loses the round. The concept is simple enough, but there are many rules and complexities surrounding this so you’ll still have a lot to take in when you first boot up the game. I recommend working on building your first deck to start things off. Choose each card yourself so you know exactly what they do and when to activate each card.

I recommend holding down the B button during the turns if you know that you won’t be using a Trap Card. Otherwise, it will ask you this question throughout every phase of the turn, which can slow the game down considerably. I ended up going with a deck that was heavy on trap cards and anti trap cards. My deck was a little larger than most people would recommend it be, but this served me well twice. There is one character in the game who has an incredible defensive strategy. Her name is Luna and she won’t hesitate to time you out. Our duel went into the 80s I believe, but luckily my deck was a lot larger than hers so that ended up earning me the win. She tried the same tactic later on and I used the same counter. Don’t underestimate trap cards. They are extremely valuable in this game.

You will need to really enjoy the duels to get any fun out of this title. That’s because the game is over 20 hours long and that equals a lot of duels. There are roughly 13-15 levels in the game, but each one has up to 5 duels and sometimes even more. You also shouldn’t expect to coast by either as these guys tend to put up quite the fight. Many of them took me several tries to defeat, but naturally none of them could ultimately stop me from reaching the goal. Ironically, the second last boss is probably the easiest in the game. I happened to get a really good hand, but even considering that, a perfect 8000-0 battle is pretty rare.

As for replay value, there is a lot of that. After beating the game, you will unlock a few more levels where you can fight opponents with incredibly strong decks and get more cards. There are hundreds, if not thousands of cards in this game so collecting them all will be a very tough thing to do. That is sure to buy you a lot of time. One thing that I don’t like is that you can’t use some of the cards that you obtain because they are deemed illegal. If that’s the case, why put them in the game at all? Even if the computers keep on using them anyway, we shouldn’t be able to buy those cards if they are just going to sit around.

The gameplay’s a lot of fun as you can tell, but the game did have one thing holding it back. The long loading times. I can’t stress this enough. If a game takes a while to get through each duel, then the adventure will start to feel a little too much like a grind by the end. For some reason, this always happens to the home console version of these titles. The DS World Championships and the PSP Tag Force games are always lightning fast and I dare say that they are more intuitive. After all, in those games, you could activate magic cards whenever you want. Now, you have to wait until it’s your turn.

Overall, It feels good to have finally completed Duel Transer. That game was certainly on the backburner for a long time so this is a big moment. Next up, I aim to take down the Yugioh game for the Gamecube. The plot is definitely very odd (and boring) and the game is even slower paced than this one. Ah well, we’re just going to have to wait a while before we get a really fast title I suppose. At the very least, this just goes to show how popular Yugioh is. It’ll always have more games to play. If you’re a big fan of Yugioh, then I definitely recommend this game quite a lot. You may never get to Synchro Summon since the rules seem more complex than usual, but at least you’ll get to fight many powerful foes. If you’ve never played Yugioh before, then you may want to start with World Championship instead as it does a good job of easing you into the challenge.

Overall 7/10

Myth Makers: Trixie in Toyland Review

Posted on July 24, 2016 by dreager1

It’s time to take a look at another infamous Wii game from back in the day. While Trixie isn’t quite as well known as Ninjabread Man, it is on the same level. It is by the same company after all and the game is almost completely copied from the Ninjabread Man title. Seriously, it’s probably hard to believe but you are basically playing a reskinned game. Even the main menu theme is exactly the same. It does seem to be a little more polished though, but this works as a doubled edged blade. You’ll see what I mean in a moment. Trixie’s a bit of a bad game due to the short length, but it certainly could have been a whole lot worse.

As with the Ninjabread Man, there isn’t really a plot in this one. You’ll have to check out the back or read the booklet if you want to get the story behind the game. You play as a girl with rabbit ears who goes around whacking people with her weapon. Eventually, you reach the final boss and take the win, freeing the land from the oppressors. By this point, you will notice that the game did have higher production values than Ninjabread Man. For starters, there is actually voice acting in this game. “Take that buster” is Trixie’s catch phrase and she tends to say this when you hit one of the enemies with her weapon. As you can expect, this does get a little repetitive so I’m glad that it doesn’t happen every single time. It seems to be random, but at least I do like her enthusiasm. The villains also yell “Destroy” whenever they fire a missile. Those guys are tricky, but nothing you can’t handle.

There are two main types of villains. The robots are the strongest and I recommend taking out from afar. That being said, they’re a lot weaker than the counterpart from the Ninjabread Man so you can win in close quarters combat as well. The controls are a lot more responsive than Ninjabread Man so you can actually fight normally for a change. The other enemies don’t even try to attack you all that much so you can just swing at your discretion. The part of the game that is a little tougher than Ninjabread Man is the jumping part. The game loves to eat your double jumps so then you end up falling into the gap and plummeting to your doom. Trust me, it’s not a fun way to go out. This won’t be much of a problem until the final two levels, but you should expect to lose many lives at that point.

The main levels are all in 3D and you travel through the level trying to grab the 10 puzzle pieces to complete it. They can be a little hard to see, but luckily you do have a compass which helps you find them. It’s certainly not the most accurate one by any stretch of the imagination, but it works well enough. What does make things difficult is that the first level is very large. Even by this game’s standards, you’ll have a hard time locating anything. There are around 10 floors and all of the differently colored blocks start to look the same after a while. That level took me a very long time and naturally, losing a life can be very sad because you go all the way back to your latest check point, which may not have been all that close.

This is really what I meant when I said that the extra polish was not necessarily a good thing. The levels are a little too big now and while they have more of an actual design than the Ninjabread levels, it also means that it takes a little longer to find everything. The game is also longer than its rival, which should be a good thing in theory, but I wouldn’t have minded it only being the usual 4 levels. There are 10 levels in this title although 5 of them are fairly short.

After each main level, there will be a bonus one. The gameplay for those varied from overhead to side scroller. They were actually pretty fun and were more enjoyable than the main levels. You would have to reach the goal while surviving from these different gameplay styles. It’s hard to see where you are going so I recommend taking your time. As for the final boss level, it’s a small one that just has you work on getting through a few jumps. The actual boss is very easy and you shouldn’t lose any lives against him. Just run around the guy while shooting your darts the entire time. The damage will built up and the villain eventually falls. It’s much safer than actually trying to fight the guy in hand to hand combat.

Graphically, the game isn’t all that bad. It certainly looks better than Ninjabread Man, but still wouldn’t hold up all that well to the average Wii game. At the very least, I did like Trixie’s design, but the main villain could have been a little cooler. The soundtrack is pretty bad and the fact that it has the same theme as the other title is pretty lazy. It works for nostalgia like having Melee’s theme in Smash 4, but it shouldn’t be reused for convenience.

There isn’t really any replay value here so that hurts the game a little. It’s still very short even if you do end up getting lost a few times so this wouldn’t even last you the full afternoon. Luckily, you can grab it for a few dollars, but that’s why I definitely could not give the game a positive rating. Honestly, it would have probably dropped to a 3 if it had gone on for much longer. The final boss level was pretty frustrating as I kept dying to the same jump and the final main level was a little too much of a maze. It also had tricky jumps that could be quite tragic.

Overall, Trixie in Toyland is actually not as good as Ninjabread Man even though it seemed to have been more refined and to have gotten more of a budget. Sometimes more content isn’t always a good thing. I did appreciate the voice acting though and the fact that the game actually had a final boss was also a nice improvement. The minigames were solid too so if not for the main level designs being so bad, this title would have had a decisive victory. I certainly recommend trying it out for the novelty value, but you won’t be missing much if you decide to skip out on this one. I’ll be trying out the Trixie racing game soon so we’ll see if that game is able to surpass this one. I don’t see how someone could mess up a racing game so maybe we’ll finally see a 5-7 star game from this company.

Overall 4/10

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