Tag Archives: Sequel

Rings Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for another Ring movie and this one is the weakest yet. It’s time for a whole lot of exposition to things that we already know about. There aren’t any real great characters here and the film falls into the usual issue of the whole thing being futile. The main characters have absolutely no chance of claiming victory here and will only continue to be absolutely crushed. The film desperately needs to introduce a villain to fight the demon or something because the humans are not cutting it.

The movie starts with Samara crashing an airplane filled with people because at least two of them had seen the video. Everyone is now doomed and upon their death we cut to the real main characters. Julia is the heroine here and her boyfriend heads off to College but they swear to stay together. They will make the long distance relationship work. Unfortunately he stops returning her calls early on and the last time they spoke he was surrounded by other student who didn’t seem like good influences. Another girl shows up on his computer and starts acting crazy so Julia drives over to find out what’s going on. Unfortunately she is not entering the middle of an ongoing death experiment.

There’s already a lot wrong with this. Holt just comes across as a terrible character. So he willingly joined an experiment about death, knowing full well about the risks. He bought into the explanation that this can help humanity learn some knowledge or something but with the risk it’s not worth it. Basically Professor Gabriel has a lot of students watch the Ring video. Then before the week is up, they get other students to watch it. You can keep on passing the curse along so that nobody dies but the professor waits for a long time to get a tail on this and so people still keep on dying anyway.

Holt’s excuse here is that he left Julia in the dark so that she wouldn’t get involved. It’s a terribly thought out plan. For starters this would make her nervous and want to come over anyway. If she didn’t, then she probably would have just straight up dumped him. In either case, there is no real winning on this one if you use that strategy. Instead he could have just acted like all was normal and at least texted her back once a day. Even letting her know about the experiments and just hiding parts of it would have worked better. So he’s just not very smart.

He’s also not likable for even getting involved with this in the first place. I’d also throw in that if he had roommates with him, he should have warned Julia in the call before she started stripping. Obviously that’s putting her in a really embarrassing situation otherwise. I can’t say that I was a big fan of Skye either because she was quick to watch the video and then was ready to pass it on to someone else. Not a very nice thing to do and it makes her as guilty as the other characters.

How come nobody suggested just making this into a Daisy Chain? Person A gives it to Person B who gives it to Person C who gives it to Person A, etc. You could do that every 3 days and in theory nobody would ever die. It would certainly be a lot safer than their current plan. Perhaps I missed one of the very sketchy rules about copies here but as far as I know this would work. Now admittedly, I still have to stretch some disbelief to understand how Gabriel found out so much about these rules. I guess you could say through a lot of trial and error but it’s always weird to have someone figure out so much about this.

Unfortunately that doesn’t save us from the exposition as we still have Julia and Holt travelling the world to learn more about Samara and her past. This is basically retreading a ton of old ground that we have already went through so I can tell you that this was incredibly dull. We already know that Samara is evil so it’s not like finding out more is going to help. The film introduces another big villain in her father but Samara is not some random victim.

She has been murdering dozens of people for years and has already said that she would never stop. While the father was crazy and evil himself, you knew that he didn’t stand a chance. He was blind so perhaps he figured that would be a natural defense against her curse but what he didn’t realize was that Samara has the ability to restore someone’s eyesight. Checkmate! I know that sounds pretty ridiculous but as long as you keep in mind that she is all powerful then it works out.

So you don’t really have any likable characters here. Gabriel should be treated as another big villain here as well since he was a mass murderer by showing the video to so many people. He may claim it was for science and stuff but that doesn’t give him a free pass. When Samara messes them all over by stopping the video from being copied, you can’t even feel too bad because people were already dying anyway. At least this will stop all of the experiments.

There just comes a point where you wonder what the point of this all is. Samara cannot be defeated or even slowed down at this point. She can take anyone down and even possess others whenever she wants to. You can try to burn the tapes but she will return right away and ignore every attempt to stop her. She seems rather slow so you could in theory run away from her but then she’ll just have you choke from bugs or be in some Final Destination type explosion. There is no escape and there is no way to beat her so everything is absolutely brutal.

I guess I can say that the film is at least not ultra violent. It certainly has its moments but isn’t on the same level as something like Final Destination or Halloween. The film makes up for this with a lot of disturbing imagery and just dark themes in general. This is definitely not what you would call a feel good movie nor does it have much in the way of replay value. There aren’t even a ton of scares to be had. Yeah we get some jump scares and all but the exposition part of the film is reallllly long. Honestly there is no easy way to save this franchise. Giving her a weak point would be a good start but it doesn’t seem like that is in the cards. Maybe at least give us a likable character.

Overall, Rings has more pertinent things to say about long distance relationships than actual lore about Samara. It’s all recycled at this point so you just don’t care. Her father has a good voice for exposition but the character himself is just randomly evil without a whole lot of development. I would definitely recommend staying far away from this film. It doesn’t meaningfully upgrade the Ring series and just takes a few steps back instead. Maybe the next film will be better…one can hope.

Overall 2/10

.Hack//Quarantine Part 4 Review

Posted on by
Reply


After 8 years since part 3, it was time to dive into the final part. This one is incredibly difficult to get a hold of because it is completely out of print. Usually it goes for hundreds and hundreds of dollars so you’re really expecting a grand climax here. It was definitely fun to see the ending and everything about the game was nostalgic. That said, it is fairly short next to the other games and you’ll breeze through it. The longest part here was definitely just grinding normal enemies for the virus cores.

The story begins with the heroes preparing for their final battle. The Wave is approaching and intends to end everyone once and for all. The World is in danger and if this attempt to stop the Wave fail, then it will be too late to save anyone who is already in a coma. To prepare for this, the heroes have to defeat phases 7 and 8 of the virus. Get ready for some long dungeons.

So the game makes up for a lack of new dungeons by having absolutely massive ones in the area that remain. One of them is close to 20 floors and that dungeon took me around 2 hours to complete. Imagine losing at the end of that right? The boss had 6 phases and he wasn’t even the final boss. Granted, the final boss technically had less phases with 5 but was still really difficult to defeat. These are styled as raid bosses so they are meant to take a long while. Of course that means it would be rough to die when you’re deep into a boss. Fortunately I never lost in a phase after the first one. The first phase of one boss did manage to take me for a spin several times but then I got used to him.

I recommend having 100 revives, restoratives, and potions with you at all time. A single boss can have you using close to 80% of that. Also make sure to stock your allies with these as well for when the boss hits you with an unblockable/undodgeable one hit KO move. That may sound cheesy but every boss in the final game has this ability. It’s probably one of the only games I can think of where you can be taken down in one hit at level 99. That is super crazy but does reinforce how big teamwork is here.

You will need to set up your teammates with their orders and then dynamically continue to issue new ones the whole time. You really have to stay sharp because if you stop for even an instant then you might lose. Make sure you keep several different equipment’s ready for every part so that you can shift elements as needed. The bosses are constantly switching after all and so you have to do that as well. You can only hold around 30 types of items at a time though so you will always be running on full.

Another thing to keep in mind here is that the final dungeon has a ton of data enemies. These cannot be defeated until you have hit them with Data Drain. The problem? That increases your corruption levels. The more you do it, the more “glitches” affect your character. The effects are drastic like casting negative spells on your teammates or even losing entire level ups. I lost 2-3 levels during the final dungeon. There is even a chance that you can jump right into a game over screen. Fortunately that didn’t happen to me but I can tell you that I was definitely feeling the pressure here. My corruption level was deep in the red at the time so I knew that I was right on the border here. One wrong hit and that would be it.

The most annoying part of the game is definitely about obtaining virus cores though. Basically you have to hit enemies with your data drain ability and sometimes they will drop a core or an item. You then have to run back to an older world and best enemies to lower your corruption level and then try again. There is a lot of repetition here. Also you won’t get more than 1 EXP per enemy when you data drain them so this slows down your progress. You need a ton of cores for the final dungeons. I spent over half of my time in this game getting cores. There may be a faster way to do it but this was the best way that I knew.

I will say that the game does have a lot of replay value in terms of other dungeons. There are almost an unlimited amount of dungeons you could play through for fun. Additionally there are a lot of side quest dungeons to play through and even little games like tag against a demon. Those all help to add up to the play through if you want to have fun there. The game even has a post game with some more crazy dungeons. Getting trough that will definitely not be easy.

The graphics have aged pretty well. It definitely feels a whole lot like you are inside of an MMORPG. You get full on cutscenes and of course the text ones. The full voice acting also feels ahead of its time here. Finally the soundtrack is also pretty good. A lot of great tunes all the way around and at this point they feel pretty iconic. The 4 .Hack games really lasted a long while and it feels great to have made it to the end.

Overall, This was a fun way to end the saga. It was fun to be able to keep my levels from the first 3 games. Starting this one around the 70s after all was pretty impressive. I also like the way the level up system has a consistent 1000XP for each level and how much you get is just based on your level. I could do without the virus core mechanics though. It really feels like that doesn’t add a whole lot to anything. It’s more of a needless grind than anything. I suppose a lot of games ill have something like this to extend the play time but I’d prefer to have more main dungeons or something instead. Now I can finally go ahead and play the .Hack GU games and I can safely say that I have really high hopes for those. They always looked like a ton of fun. This next installment of 4 games shouldn’t take me as long as the first 4.

Overall 7/10

All Dogs Go To Heaven 2 Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for Charlie and the crew to return to the front line one more time. You’d have expected that Charlie’s journey was over after dying but nothing can keep him down for long. The story works pretty well as a sequel with letting all the familiar faces show up. You’ve got some good action and adventure going on here. I’m not going to say that it’s a great film or anything like that but it will keep you entertained and is a fun film all the way around. I had no serious issues with it.

The movie starts off with showing us that Charlie isn’t very happy over in Heaven. He feels like things are just too peaceful and everyone acts too happy. What he wants is the hustle and bustle of Earth that he is used to. He gets his chance when Carface manages to steal Gabriel’s Horn and escapes back to Earth. There is no way to process the recently deceased now and this is only going to get worse. So reluctantly, Heaven sends Charlie back to the real world along with his friend Itchy to reclaim the horn and save everyone. This should be an easy task….except Charlie may not be eager to complete his mission. Oh yes he bumps into a girl dog named Sasha and her owner David. This may complicate things as well.

Charlie wasn’t exactly subtle about his intentions so it’s hard to blame him too much for not taking the mission all that seriously. I suppose the risk may have been low initially since he went as a ghost and couldn’t interact with anyone. Nobody had guessed that the villain Red would come up with collars that could allow Charlie to act as if he was still alive. Charlie still does the right thing when it counts but does need some prodding. In a sense you can say that he needs to personally care about the situation in order to really help. If Sasha wasn’t around then things could have gotten really rocky here.

Still, Charlie’s an entertaining character. His sheer experience and confidence is always fun to watch. He isn’t afraid of the big bouncers at the beginning of the film at all. (Granted, we find out later that he was invisible and intangible but it’s not like Charlie knew that)

His pal Itchy is stuck playing the straight man in all the jokes. He’s not really able to keep up with Charlie’s crazy antics. Itchy was really happy to stay in Heaven and just have a good time but was ultimately dragged into this whole situation thanks to Charlie. By the end Itchy is able to stick up for himself long enough to finally break away from Charlie and live his own life. The two will always be great friends but sometimes you still gotta go on different paths.

Carface isn’t one of the more interesting villains so fortunately he really plays second fiddle here. Obtaining the horn at the beginning was his biggest moment. After that it is really Red’s show all the way. Red makes for a more entertaining villain. He certainly should have been able to claim victory with the big lead he had but in the end you could say that he got a bit cocky. He does have an actual sinister design though so that was impressive. The character himself may not be super memorable but the design certainly helps quite a bit.

As for the heroine Sasha, I’d say she is a pretty decent character. I wish she could have looked tougher though. The film portrays her as the really tough type of heroine and she talks a good game to Charlie but doesn’t really show up as much when the chips are down. Just a few good scenes of her really taking down opponents would have been really good. Instead she’s mainly here to set up the romance which is not handled particularly well at all. Honestly the first impression with Charlie should have been enough to keep them from being an item at all.

She also has to look after David which limits her since he tends to be an annoying character. He ran away from home to be a magician so he seems rather delusional from the start. He’s young but you would still expect him to be a lot wiser with his choices. He definitely caused the parents a whole lot of worry throughout the movie and doesn’t really recognize that he made a mistake for a very long time. It’s not like his skills are all that bad. I liked the classic hiding the ball trick but he wasn’t even able to realize that Charlie’s trick was a whole lot more impressive. This kid has a long way to go.

The animation was reasonably good. I always like the hand drawn style since it is nice and colorful and tends to age well. The film is definitely very expressive the whole time and it is always moving at a really high speed. The soundtrack is more on the hit or miss side but I did like the villain theme. Those tend to always be a whole lot more impressive than the hero tracks here for some reason. The other songs just come across as a bit more generic or otherwise uninspired.

Now the film definitely has a lot of humor and isn’t taking itself super seriously so you should keep that in mind. That said, the film is pretty direct about this from the start. It still does have a body count just due to the nature of the film and there are some intense visuals. It may not be as intense as the first film but you don’t have to worry about this being a boring movie or anything like that. It still has a good script and Charlie is enough of a renegade to keep the film from being all goody goody or anything like that.

Overall, This sequel does a good job of continuing the story with the characters. It’s fun enough even if the film is not the kind of title that will stand out 10 years from now. It’s hard to imagine actually wanting to go back to Earth once you’re in Heaven but the film does portray Charlie as being really unique in that regard. I suppose there’s gotta be one guy who really wants to go the other way. If you really liked the way that the first film ended then you may not be a huge fan of this one on principle but beyond that it is a good standalone story.

Overall 6/10

Sniper 2 Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s still pretty crazy to think that the Sniper series has gotten so many movies. It just never seemed like the kind of franchise to break out in that way but hey that means more action scenes for me. This may seem surprising but the second film actually beats the first one. This one just jumps right into the action and doesn’t try to be as gritty as the first one. The heroes have a job to do and they just get right on it.

The movie starts out with Thomas being recruited by the army for one last mission as a sniper. He points out that he was let go because he lost some fingers in the first film but the army explains that they have nobody better. (Translation: They found someone expendable to put in a crazy dangerous mission!) So Thomas is sent abroad for the latest assassination and this time his partner is Jake. Jake was also a really good sniper but he ended up murdering one of his teammates and so he was taken to jail. If he clears this mission, he can get a pardon so that’s the incentive but Thomas has to be careful. This still might not be someone that he can really trust. That’s a tough doubt to have when you’re in a life or death situation.

Now what some may not like here is that a good chunk of the film actually has absolutely nothing to do with Thomas doing any sniping itself. They take down the main target really quickly. A lot of this ends up being running away from an enemy sniper. So you’re sort of flipping the script here. Thomas finds out that the government has been using him once again so now he has to help Jake get someone out of enemy territory but it won’t be easy. The enemies have a powerful sniper of their own who is really good at making high pressure shots.

There may be some issues where you have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit but that is normal for a thriller. The biggest instance of this absolutely has to be when the characters hijack a bus and then run through a bunch of cars. They break away to run from the enemy soldiers but you don’t see how they could have possibly escaped. Jake is captured quickly so we see that every soldier stops searching even though they knew that they were chasing two guys. Thomas just hides around the corner and nobody goes on to check. Seems a bit farfetched right?

In general you were always going to have a hard time trying to find a way for the two soldiers to go into a super urban environment, bump someone off and then escape. That’s hard to do and so the film doesn’t always make a convincing case for it. Still, the pacing is always good and this is a very explosive film. Someone is basically always shooting at the main characters here. Ultimately Thomas makes for a pretty good character here as well.

I thought the subplot about him not being able to see well would be a bigger deal but surprisingly that plot doesn’t matter after the opening shot. He is basically able to shoot and fight normally. He isn’t the kind of guy who talks too much and just gets the job done. That works pretty well for the main character and his experience really came in handy here.

As for Jake, well I can’t say that I liked his plan. It’s the kind of plan that usually has a 99% chance of failure. Somehow he was able to pull it off here thanks to plot armor and all but that doesn’t make it a good one. He was still a good ally to have and was much better than the spotter from the fist film. Jake is an actual professional who could hold his own in comparison. During the climax he takes down a ton of enemy combatants on his own.

The most annoying character has to be the guy that they are trying to rescue. He’s one of those classic pacifists who talks about how war is bad and everyone who participates in it is terrible. Yeah war is a bad thing of course but not every combatant is in on it. Thomas is here to try and make the world a better place and Jake is actively trying to save this guy. There are times when violence is necessary for the greater good and the absolute stance on how it’s bad is always a bad thing. Sure enough, this guy comes around by the end but it’s a bit late for that. It’s just such an obvious thing to realize that it shouldn’t be an actual twist or anything.

The main heroine here is Sophia and for most of the film I figured she would be the traitor. She is quite helpful and knows the best places to snipe from and where the villains will be at their weakest. Without her the main sniper duo would have had a much tougher time of it. Sophia ends up being a pretty solid character. Definitely someone who is taking an active role in this conflict as opposed to just sitting around watch. This whole adventure is happening in her country after all.

There isn’t much to Sniper 2 beyond being an action title so how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you like that premise. I don’t think it’s inherently a bad thing to be hyper focused like this. For the most part the film isn’t throwing a ton of twists at you and the formula follows a lot of what happened in the first film. When you see the plot description of the film you can guess a lot of what will happen from there. Not every individual twist but the general flow. The character cast is very small as well. If you’re watching for some good gunfights then you’ve come to the right place.

Overall, Sniper 2 is the definition of a classic action film. I thought the execution was pretty good to that end and had a good time watching the film. You won’t be bored or anything. The film can get violent at times but not nearly as much as the first one. This is more nonchalant about the battles so it doesn’t dwell for too long on any one scene. Naturally if you don’t enjoy films about war time situations and fights then you should skip this one but then there wouldn’t have been much to save it in general. I’m not sure I really see any future Sniper films improving further on the formula here but I’ll still be curious to see how they turn out.

Overall 6/10

Cardfight!! Vanguard Divinez DELUXE Finals Arc Review

Posted on by
Reply


Cardfight Vanguard has had so many seasons at this point and yet I still remain impressed every time. There are very few franchises that can pull off this kind of high level consistency time and time again. This whole season is for the final rounds of the tournament so you can be sure that there will be a lot of action in just about every episode. This is an elite climax to this phase of the tournament so I can safely say that Cardfight fans are eating well here.

When it comes to the storyline…well there’s not much to say. The top 8 Cardfighters in the world are competing in order to win the championship. Each of them have their own motivations for winning the tournament. They range from just wanting to win, to defeat an old rival, to become a pro, etc. There can only be one winner though and there are no cop outs here. So you have to strap in and see how it goes.

Another thing I really enjoy about Cardfight is that it’s one of the only shows that can pull off an upset. In 99.9% of fiction you immediately know who will win a big fight based on the narrative. You can have a good time watching a fight like Gojo vs Sukuna, Goku vs Jiren, and Godzilla vs the military but at the end of the day you’re generally going to know who is going to win because of the situation. If it’s near the end of a series/movie, well the hero has to win. Not 100% of the time but you’re generally going to be able to guess. Well, Cardfight has uprooted that notion in the past and this season does that as well as my bracket of predictions was essentially tossed out the window.

It was really cool to see and also made the tournament feel a bit more realistic in that regard. Anyone can win a given Cardfight. That’s part of the appeal of the sport, it all comes down to your strategy with the cards that you are dealt. From that point on, anything is possible. Now if you want the end of the world stakes, you’ll have to wait for the next season. The very ending does give you a glimmer of what’s to come and it looks hype. Cardfight is able to nail the sports genre and the end of the world genre so it’s all good by my book.

By this point you should be pretty well acquainted with the animation. If you liked it in the previous seasons then you will like it here as well. I thought it looked pretty sharp and smooth the whole time. It’s not necessarily improved from last season but continues to hold its own. Then we have the soundtrack which is solid as always. Every character has their own tune and there is quite a lot of variety here. I tend to like all of the themes to a degree with some of course being at a higher tier than others.

Now there are a ton of guest star characters from previous seasons. You’ve got old main characters from tons of past seasons in attendance for the tournament. Mainly I’ll be focusing on the people actually involved in the tournament or someone who gets a big duel like Yu-Yu. Yu-Yu has been retired for a long while now as he became a fashion designer but it was still fun to see him duel. It would be nice to see a prior protagonist take a more active role someday though. I always felt that even Aichi wasn’t done full justice when he returned in G. Likewise, I would like to see Yu-Yu fighting to save the world at some point. He is still a skilled duelist though.

The first big battle is between Kagetsu and Ruka. Kagetsu was introduced in the last season as one of the most powerful duelists in history. His skills are incredible and so it was interesting to see him set up against Ruka, a character with the same levels of hype. In fact, Ruka actually defeated him in the past and then she vanished for a while. She gets a lot of backstory in this one and we really find out more about her motivations. She just doesn’t like to be tied down and considers dueling to be something that is always done for fun.

I can appreciate her easy going personality and she’s a fun character to root for. I was rooting for her over Kagetsu but it was close either way. I liked Kagetsu as well but miss his more fiery self from the flashbacks. He has really gone into full on adult mode by this point so he doesn’t typically how as much emotion as he used to. Of course only one character could move on from here and neither of them had very large ambitions outside of the matchup.

Then the next fight was Michiru vs Mirei. It was surprising to see Mirei make it this far into the bracket. She was always known as a powerful fighter but not usually someone you would expect to be in the top 8. Mirei is essentially playing with house money at this point so every extra win will feel good. Meanwhile Michiru is still trying to find fun people to duel against. His goal is simple but always a good one. I was never able to buy into the hype though. He as strong but there are so many characters who were set up to be the strongest that he just folded next to them. It didn’t help that he lost one of his first important duels in the series.

After that we have Suo vs Erika. Erika quickly became one of my favorite characters in the series when she debuted. Her goals of trying to save the future were definitely good ones and she took the necessary actions. Her story is still rather tragic as she had to give up on living with her family so as to avoid any time inconsistencies. I don’t really think that would have been a problem to be honest but in the end she changed her name and aims to become a pro. Winning this tournament will really help her reach that goal.

Meanwhile Suo aims to win to continue polishing his skills. He likes a good duel after all and his powers of darkness as potent as ever. He is not someone who will be going down easily. He doesn’t have much of a story arc going on right now but he’s not a bad character. I always thought he made for a more interesting antagonist than hero though. It is fun to see a hero command the powers of darkness but the cast is so large that he doesn’t really stand out.

Finally we have Akina vs Megumi. Akina is the main character of the series after all so you would expect him to be getting a lot of action. He certainly has a high degree of skill as you would expect. He’s still one of the heaviest hitters on the block. He aims to be a pro so that’s why he has to win this tournament. He can’t afford to lose and fall behind on his dreams. Akina has been a well balanced main character who steps up when needed. He really wants to enjoy his duels and fight at full power throughout but knows to turn it up when the stakes are high.

As for Megumi, she is one of the last fighters of the old era. She has long tried to become one of the world’s strongest but there were always obstacles in her way. Danji is not in this tournament so this is really her best chance to win it all. Will she really be able to pull it off? Well it won’t be an easy task. Megumi is a fun character and at times she does show some fire but I wish she would show this off more often. That would really make her stand out as a fighter.

Then when the first rounds are completed, the semi finals start and then the finals. There are a few intermission episodes in between there but for the most part every episode is about a big battle like this. Since the season already starts off with the top 8 beginning, the show does not have to hold off on the epic nature of the battles from the start. Episode 1 is already dialing things up on a high level. You really can’t go wrong with tournaments.

Between the upset victory and all of the characters being likable, there is really no reason not to love this show. As long as you enjoy the game of Cardfight, then I’d say you will have a really good time here. I’d say to make it even more fun, try and pick someone to root for in every matchup. It makes the duels more exciting when you have a dog in the race. You may expect the main character Akina to win all of his matches but aside from his, you can still have fun betting on the other matches. Everyone has some kind of motivation on why they want to win their fight after all. The motivation you identify with the most can help you make your choice.

There are definitely several moments of foreshadowing for the next season as well. You have a brand new character who seems to be quite powerful and she makes some cryptic statements here. Then at the very end you see the brand new villain. So this helps build the hype even more in addition to the tournament itself. This might end up being the final tournament we get but I wouldn’t mind one more. Something really huge with all of the key characters across each season participating. You’d probably need 24 episodes for that at the least and will have to skip through some fights but I want to see Tohya get back into the picture.

If there is an issue with the series, it would just be that the cast is so large that some of your favorites won’t have time to do anything. At this point it is completely impossible to balance them all in 12 episodes. So each season has to choose some core characters and then ditch the rest. Fortunately there are enough good characters where you should still have a bunch to root for. At least that’s the way I see it. I really enjoyed seeing Erika here but it’s likely that she won’t be doing much at all in the next season. Getting two seasons in a row would be a bit greedy of me to expect.

Each season always adds some new characters as well so I’ll be looking forward to seeing what the new villains are like. Hopefully we should be getting some really serious power creep in here. Akina is definitely ready for action, we’ll have to see if the other characters can follow suit. With the pro leagues close by, it does feel like this saga is coming to a close though. I hope they have a new installment ready to follow it up right away though.

Overall, This was another top tier season and I would definitely recommend checking it out. I’m eager to also get back to the end of the world stakes as well though. Cardfight really excels at both sides of the coin here. If you aren’t watching Cardfight yet then you really need to change that. It’s really amazing how far the series has come. I may bring this up in every season review but the first season in the latest timeline was so rough that I had doubts on the series recovering. Well, it certainly did that in spades. I can essentially expect every season to be a 9 star experience which is really insane.

Overall 9/10

The Creature Walks Among Us Review

Posted on by
Reply


This film is a bit of a mess and the biggest problem is that the romance is absolutely crazy here. The film should have focused a whole lot more on the Gillman himself. Instead he is functionally a human for most of the movie and we have this awful love triangle going on. Trust me, the drama is not worth it for this film and you should stay far away. The winning formula is not to be found here.

The movie starts off with the main characters taking down the Gillman once more. He was badly burned so they take off the gills and it turns out that he looks just like a human now. He can no longer breath underwater without the gills but maybe they can slowly rehabilitate him. The problem is that Dr. William is bit on the crazy side. He’s also randomly abusive towards his wife Marcia and so their relationship is incredibly strained.

Unfortunately one of their divers is a man with no redeeming qualities named Jed. Jed decides that he wants Marcia all to himself so he begins to continually harass her as he tries to weaken her will so that she can cheat on her husband. Marcia doesn’t have much love left for William with how things have gotten and so she gradually weakens enough to allow Jed his advances. What does any of this have to do with the Gillman? Well, the poor guy is getting an up close view at how humans cannot be trusted and are all rather sinister.

That’s a huge problem for the film which is that the characters are simply unlikable. You’re basically rooting for the Gillman to take them out. First it’s easy to say that William is the worst of the humans. There’s no excuse for being abusive. The fact that he gets physical puts him on the lowest rung of the totem pole here and you’re waiting for someone to bump him off. He’s also not that good at thinking ahead as he puts himself in a really rough position when trying to frame the Gillman.

The Gillman gets framed? Yeah that actually happens near the end which was definitely a real desperate move. Could have been interesting if we had a courtroom trial or something but all of this is taking place privately with the characters on their property so we never get that far. Next up I have to put Jed as the second most unlikable character. You should never be trying to get someone to cheat. How classless is it to go after a married woman? That’s just total villain behavior and this guy seriously cannot take no for an answer.

So I can’t say that I felt any real sympathy for him. He found out real quick what the repercussions for this would be and shouldn’t have been making those mistakes. Finally, Marcia takes up some of the blame here but naturally not as much. She was on the back foot here but could have been more decisive in shutting Jed down. For example when Jed was going to go diving underwater, she insisted on coming along.

Everyone warned her that she’s not experienced for this and she could get the bends. Marcia insists on going and naturally she immediately makes a big mistake and Jed has to save her. That’s far from pushing him away and now it’s an excuse for him to be real close to her. Marcia needed to make sure she wasn’t putting herself in that kind of position. Sure, she couldn’t have assumed that she would make a mistake underwater but the point of the mission is that diving is really hard. It’s why Ned is here as an expert in the first place.

So instead of swimming with him, she needs another way to stop his endless pestering. This is the kind of serious matter where you do tell everyone and make a big stink about it. You have to embarrass the guy and if you don’t feel safe, then it’s time to get the cops involved and such. It’s also time for her to end the marriage to William and just start fresh. Hard decisions but this guy was clearly escalating more and more. Once things go physical then there isn’t a way back.

Still, this is a whole lot of screentime for the pesky humans. Keep in mind that the runtime for the movie is short. This is under 90 minutes total. The Gillman spends a good amount of that time getting burned and then being in recovery mode. He wakes up in time to take down one of the animals just for the film to remind us that this is not a quality picture. Far from it! Then the ending also goes out on a total whimper.

The Gillman walks out onto the sea. We know that he can’t breath under the water anymore so the implication is that he walked into his death. Living on the ship with those crazies was enough to thoroughly break him. That’s pretty sad in its own right. There is no climactic battle, in general the film didn’t have much action. This really feels like a poor way to end the Gillman trilogy. You’re left wondering what the whole point of the film was really about.

What purpose was there in showing that the Gillman was actually very similar to a human being? William had an obsession with evolution and biological changes like this but it’s not like that ever went anywhere. The Gillman didn’t ultimately learn how to hold a whole conversation or anything like that. You can barely even call this a horror film to be honest and maybe that’s not one of its official genres anyway. It’s more of a full on drama.

Overall, I’d say to stay away from this film. It doesn’t really satisfy you as a creature feature film and when it comes to full on dramas, there are way better ones out there. We needed a much better cast of characters here and there should have been way more action. If you do want to go into the romantic drama, then go all in and have both guys trying to murder each other throughout the film or something. Put it out in the open and the film is a battle of wits in this murder game. Then you somehow have the Gillman get involved in all of that. it would have been infinitely more interesting that way. Instead what we get is a mishmash of genres that won’t really satisfy anybody.

Overall 3/10

Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for the return of Shantae! This game seemed like it would never come out for many years but now it has been finalized and released to the public. It’s definitely a pretty fun title and I’ve always enjoyed the games quite a bit. I would have appreciated a good map for this one since the backtracking can be tricky without it but I don’t have many real qualms with the title. If you like a fast paced Metroidvania then this is the one for you.

The title starts with our half genie hero Shantae faced with a new crisis. Risky Boots has returned and she intends to sink the entire country while looting it to the ground. Shantae will have to find the legendary relic hunters in order to spoil Risky’s plans but to do so she will need to face off against the terrible trio. Three powerful monsters who have sworn allegiance to Risky. So this won’t be easy by any means. Fortunately Shantae has a lot of friends on her side as well.

These games are always pretty light with some dark tones underneath. The banter is always a lot of fun. Now these games do tend to have quite a bit of fanservice but that’s easier to ignore in a game since you’re focused on the combat. It’s still a lot more in your face compared to other titles though so it’s enough to note. The game is especially shameless about this for the ending where they make sure you know what’s going on. Fortunately the script and gameplay are still strong enough here to make up for that.

This is a 2D platformer so you can jump, attack, and use a lot of special abilities to get through. I didn’t use any of the special abilities until the final boss because for the most part your normal attack is already busted enough. Your specials are really good though. For example you can become completely intangible with one of them, double your attack power with another, etc. You can also buy items that completely restore all your hearts and it only costs 10 gems. So this is a game where you essentially control your difficulty based on whether you use these items or not. You could choose to skip them and then naturally there will be more of a challenge.

One of the important things that the title does well is let you feel stronger as you get more power ups. It can often be the tipping point between a good and bad Metroidvania. For example you get a faster swimming form near the end so you can easily dash through areas that took a while at first. Then you get a flying form at the end so you can skip a lot of the platforming. These are absolutely crucial additions to the game because they feel like a suitable reward for playing. It’s nothing new for the series but always worth mentioning.

The game is a little short but there is still a good amount of content here. Finding all of the collectibles will take you some time and if you want the elusive platinum trophy then you are going to have to complete the whole game in under 4 hours which will not be easy. I ended up clearing it in around double that time for reference. You will really have to get a great sense of where the next items are each time. I would often get lost between chapters.

I guess the main advice I’d give is to constantly make sure to talk to everyone for hints and for them to give you more collectibles. I apparently got around 80 collectibles out of 100 so that’s not too shabby if I do say so myself. Perhaps next time I could get that number even higher. Most of the collectibles feel natural to obtain without you having to do a lot of crazy things or take on a fully alternate path. Then there are a few that you can easily see but it’s just difficult to get where they are.

There is a puzzle aspect to Shantae to an extent but it’s not a big focus. Yet another W for the game since we’re here for the platforming. The puzzle exploration stuff should only be something to supplement this as opposed to taking over. There are also several ways to approach a lot of the situations here with all of your abilities so you have a lot of freedom in how you play. There isn’t really a wrong way to enter battle here.

The soundtrack is really solid as always. There are quite a few fun references here and the final world in particular has a really ominous theme that worked really well. It was fitting for the game to let you know that the intensity was going up. The graphics are also really good. The artstyle is very colorful and fun. You’re never confused on what is going on within the levels. At worst, sometimes a platform can be hard to see because it doesn’t stand out next to the rest of the level.

Overall, This was a pretty good Shantae game. It’s definitely nostalgic to be playing through another one since the titles seem to come out so rarely. Hopefully the next one arrives sooner than later because the formula is really a strong one. I could play through these all the time and they are a staple for how Metroidvanias should be. Well, it’s just missing the map but that’s it. I’d recommend checking this one out if you haven’t already purchased it.

Overall 7/10

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Review

Posted on by
Reply


Metroid Prime fans have been waiting a very long time for this game. We got the first trailer back in 2017 after all and even then it ended up taking another 8 years to come out. After all that waiting you would certainly be expecting an absolutely top tier experience. Well, ultimately I thought it was pretty good but I suppose it would be a bit underwhelming considering all the time that has gone by. It’s a good game but an ordinary one at the same time. You’ll be able to blast through the content and so in the end I would recommend it but definitely keep your expectations at the baseline.

The story starts with a big battle between the Federation and Sylux’s goons. Samus is able to easily overpower him but then gets stranded on a planet along with a few other soldiers. Samus will have to find several teleporter keys as well as a mythical fruit in order to get off this place. Unfortunately it is loaded with powerful monsters everywhere and Sylux is still on the loose. This may finally be a job that Samus cannot complete on her own. Will she be able to trust these other soldiers to help her out or will she be forced to tackle all of the responsibility on her own?

The game puts a lot of stock into Samus being the chosen one, a hero beyond all measure. Honestly I wouldn’t even say that’s a bad thing. She is clearly a cut above the rest and as the various games have shown she is able to incorporate a ton of different dna and special abilities without side effects. In essence she is the ultimate battle soldier and this game does a good job of showing how powerful she is. This can be a double edged sword though. For example, Sylux is never portrayed as being a real threat to her.

Likewise for the rest of the villains. This is clearly an easier battle for her than the last 3 Prime games and the only reason the situation is tough is because getting off the planet will require more than super strength. Her allies help out quite a bit and so that ties the whole adventure together. It just makes this an uphill battle for the villains since they are the ones on the back foot the whole time. They are never even close to making a play.

That being said, I still like Sylux. He gets some good dialogue at the end and has a good design. His boss fights are also fun except the final boss which gets a bit rough. This ties into the gameplay itself. You have to use both joysticks to aim which makes it hard to also shoot. I had to hold the controller in a bit of a weird way in order to land all 3 and it didn’t really feel natural. I think there should have only been one control stick to move and then the rest goes as normal. It felt like they had to nerf the lock on feature here in order to make the final boss more of a challenge.

To be clear, they definitely succeeded. It was a really tough final boss and one that absolutely kept me at the edge of my seat. I died several times there before I was finally able to win. Ironically the first phase is the toughest one while the next two go by very quickly and easily. In general the game is easier than the first 3 Primes but not insultingly so. I would say the difficulty is reasonable enough so long time fans will have a good time.

The main gameplay is still the classic first person style where you can shoot your energy blasts or missiles at the opponents until they go down. You will unlock different elemental attacks as you go forward and will get other kinds of power ups. It’s all pretty familiar if you have played the previous titles. In a lot of ways this one is trying hard to be a total formula game without trying to go beyond that. Fortunately the gameplay is fun enough where you won’t mid the repetition too much but there are some areas where the game isa bit dated.

The biggest example is not having any fast travel. There is a lot of backtracking here and it feels completely unnecessary. You should be able to cover larger chunks of ground without taking so long. Then you also have the green crystal grind at the end. I made sure to hit all the green crystals I could as I went through the game but wouldn’t go out of my way for others either. So then at the end I would do the main grind. It won’t take you longer than 2 hours or so but it just feels like a pointless grind. Why even include it?

The Prime games always have a bit of a collectathon at the end so it felt like this game was just adding one to continue the trend instead of actually getting real hyped for it. Not the best way to go. The desert definitely could have been handled better and the bike would have been more fun if it was faster. It goes by slow enough where that just adds to the tedious nature of it. A rare mistake from Nintendo. So the game had its issues like this but on the whole it was fun.

The collectibles are pretty easy to find with how well the map is labeled. Additionally, the power ups do help to make you feel a lot stronger. The puzzles are much better than in previous games and so for the most part it did feel like Nintendo thought this one through. Just one or wo quick fixes would have done a lot to make the game reach the next stage.

The graphics are definitely real solid. Metroid has never looked sharper and that is something I can say with 0 reservations. I did appreciate that we got more voice acting here. The side characters were all rather weak though. I much preferred the aliens and metahumans from Prime 3. I don’t know why you would go back to normal humans. Still, we got more of a plot than I was expecting even if it would vanish for large portions of time.

The soundtrack is also solid although it doesn’t match the previous games. For example you won’t be hearing anything that launches you out of your seat the way the Dark Samus theme did in the second game. That one is just hard to beat. So it was good all around but like in other areas, Prime 4 was unable to pass the third game here.

Overall, Metroid Prime 4 is a pretty good game. I had a good time with it. The title is fairly short as you will definitely manage to beat it in under 10 hours. Getting all of the collectibles and such will likely take this to around 15 hours or so but even then it won’t be extending things a whole lot. There isn’t a ton of replay value here unless you really like the story. For that reason you may want to wait for a bit of a discount. I’m always glad to see Samus though so hopefully this time the wait for Prime 5 is a lot shorter.

Overall 7/10

The Legend of Zorro Review

Posted on by
Reply


When you watch a Zorro film, ordinarily you’re expecting the hero to look pretty good. Unfortunately that is not the case here as Zorro has his worst film appearance yet. The film itself isn’t bad but yeah it’s going to be a bit hard to get around that and the romance is absolutely abysmal here. Definitely one of the worst romances you will have seen in quite a while here. None of the characters look even remotely decent by the end of it.

The story starts with Zorro taking names and saving the day as per usual. Unfortunately his wife Elena is not happy with how much time Zorro spends away from the family. So they end up divorcing and Zorro gets super depressed. Fast forward to some time later and Elena has quickly rebounded with the wealthy Armand. She can now live a life of luxury with a man who will devote all of his time to her. Zorro is very jealous about this but it’s hard to defeat this guy. Zorro has become a bit of a drunk and Armand seems to be good at everything. Hopefully Armand turns out to be evil or something…or Zorro might be doomed.

I should also mention that Zorro and Elena had a kid which makes the divorce that much worse. The kid gets quite a bit of screentime and tends to be rather annoying. You have to try and watch his scenes as though the film is a complete comedy like his opening action scene where he defeats his teacher in a fencing battle. He straight up takes down a full adult and it’s meant to be real impressive. It’s more of a groanworthy scene. The fact that the kid can fight automatically makes him better than the average kid but he didn’t really need to be here.

Outside of the opening action scene which is admittedly very solid, don’t expect much from Zorro either here. The whole middle part of the film is him making a fool out of himself. Getting dunked on by Armand, allowing himself to be the butt of the joke like in the maid scene, and generally just looking very petty. He didn’t really give Elena any good reasons to go back to him. We finally get some fun Zorro action in the climax and even Elena gets a fight but it feels really late for that.

Part of the problem here is that the film has a number of plot twists to unveil but you immediately know that none of them are going to salvage Zorro’s character. Even if he doesn’t exactly know how things escalated with him and Elen so much, he should have been the bigger man and done some digging. Confront her and get to the bottom of the issue/find out if the problem is really that he is Zorro. As for Elena, the twists don’t help her at all. Lets just say it involves blackmail and then she has plans of her own but none of them really excuse her deciding to just leave Zorro in the dark.

In a perfect world they could have been teaming up the whole time. There would need to be significant changes to the plan of course but it could have worked and made both of them look good. Instead they just look really bad and Armand ends up looking a lot better. There’s a particularly embarrassing scene where Zorro is hiding behind some vegetables and thinks he has an opening so he walks over to Elena. Naturally he was not subtle and Armand caught him.

You’re going to be cringing really hard on Zorro’s behalf here. It’s crazy character assassination and I don’t think I need to go into detail on why this makes the romance really bad. Zorro and Elena’s bond was apparently weaker than you ever could have imagined for this whole story to take place. I also think to an extent the whole romance drama was added because the main plot wasn’t going to be enough to hold people’s attention. You have some drama over the states and the civil war approaching but it’s all rather boring. The villains are fairly generic and the plot just doesn’t have much life to it.

So I don’t blame the movie for putting the romance as the main focus but it absolutely could have given the characters some more dignity in the process. The film’s fight scenes are good enough where you feel like the movie should have leaned into that a whole lot more. With all of the big fight scenes this could have been an absolutely great film. Maybe actually build up to Zorro being too obsessive with sopping criminals to make Elena’s problem appear to be more valid. It’s always going to be a tough sell because he is saving lives throughout but it can be done. Maybe he starts to go too far or something.

As for the villains, well you’ve got a classic heel with Armand here. Whether he ends up being evil or not, play him up as the big antagonist. Someone who is a total jerk and taking everything that Zorro wants but without giving Zorro a way to take him down. He keeps his hands clean on the surface which makes Zorro more and more frustrated. The building blocks were all there to make this a really fun film. Then just write the kid out and you’re really all set.

Overall, The Legend of Zorro is a film that is fun to watch but you can definitely tell that it should have been a lot better. At times it does aim a little too young and goes with the easy jokes. The pacing is good though and the movie does feel like it really flies by. So you can see that there was a lot of effort put into this one, the priorities just weren’t always where they should have been. I’d still recommend checking the movie out but if you really like Zorro as a character…be warned that his appearance here is a bit diferent.

Overall 6/10

M3gan 2.0 Review

Posted on by
Reply


This movie is pretty interesting because it has a downright excellent premise but executes it in one of the weakest ways I could have imagined. The script tends to need a lot of work, the fight is basically just teased for 90% of the movie, and the final climax/ending aren’t as good as they should have been. So in that sense the movie left a lot of meat on the table, but on the other hand…I still had a good time with it. I would say it is still a good movie even if it’s not amazing.

The movie starts off by introducing us to a new robot named Amelia. She is essentially a weaponized version of M3gan who can be sent into active war zones or other places that could be dangerous. At first this looks promising but then she goes rogue and appears to want to end humanity. This forces the government to locate M3gan’s creator, Gemma. M3gan shows up beforehand to warn her that this will happen but the government shows up with threats anyway. Gemma knows she will have to stop this new threat but doesn’t want to rebuild M3gan. Will she be able to stop the new android or will she be forced to turn to her old enemy?

Naturally I like a good hero/villain teamup. It tends to make for an exciting plot and that’s the benefit of being a sequel. Long time horror fans may be dismayed to learn that the horror is mostly gone though. The intro scenes with Amelia temporarily bring back the horror with a few jump scares and vicious murders but after that this becomes a full on action movie. Fortunately I love action movies so that worked for me. This has that classic summer blockbuster feel to it.

Lets get into the negatives right away though. You are looking forward to M3gan fighting Amelia. That is pretty much the core point of this film’s plot. Despite that, they don’t really fight until the very end of the film. The first time they meet, M3gan is in the wrong body. After that, Amelia is in the wrong body and they are interrupted before they can fight. Finally we get a battle near the end but M3gan was already super weakened so it still wasn’t an even fight. They made a massive mistake here if you ask me.

We should have gotten a big fight in act 1, then the rematch down the line. It felt like that was the obvious play right? I would also say another weakness is that the writing is generally pretty weak. Lots of lines that will just make you wince or even worse, cringe. They try to write M3gan as being very direct and without shame so she tends to get more of these lines. It’s a tough balance because she also has the best lines but some of them are just being crude for no real reason. I’m hoping they can strike a better balance in the next film.

Finally one more negative would probably be the long singing sequence we get from M3gan. It’s clear this was meant as a funny joke but it’s another example of the film’s poor execution since it drags on for too long. I think it would have been funny if it was just at half the length that it was. Unfortunately that didn’t happen.

On the character side, Gemma is okay I suppose. She seems a bit passive the whole time and it feels like she isn’t properly recognizing the incoming threat here. Amelia is certainly dangerous and a bunch of government fighters even broke into her house. Deciding not to rebuild M3gan is one thing, but she should be telling Cady what is going on and getting a plan together with all of them. That would at least allow them to prep. Otherwise it feels like she is setting them up for a loss here.

At least she does get some action later on. Those fight scenes were fun and hopefully if we were to get more films, she would remain as one of the fighters. We could get a nice tag team with her and M3gan eventually. If you like Gemma’s sidekicks though, they don’t do a whole lot here. A few scenes sprinkled in but yeah I wouldn’t expect much out of them. This is not the humans’ show. In general most of the humans just look bad. We get the rich entrepreneur character who is easily seduced by Amelia.

In general the romance in the film is pretty weak. The classic villain getting seduced trick never ends up being convincing. Then we have Gemma going out with Christian but apparently, he’s not even really her type? M3gan gets some incriminating details on her searches and yeah that’s rough. Sounds an awful lot like settling and that’s a recipe for disaster. It’s not a big part of the film so I’m hardly going to dwell on it, but yeah that was a rough look for the heroine.

As for M3gan, she definitely dominates throughout her screentime. She is the most prepared out of all the characters by fault and also has way more charisma than the others. That really goes a long way here. Additionally, she can fight so at least the heroes have someone who is ready. I also thought Amelia made for a good villain. We didn’t need any grand speeches or motivations besides ending humanity. Amelia just does what she wants and that works well for an evil A.I.

The special effects are pretty good and the soundtrack was generally solid. The movie has good pacing and really flies by. I also enjoyed the tone as this movie is really just trying to give you a fun time throughout. I can always respect that. That’s why I’d ultimately say this was a good title. It just feels like a wasted opportunity since it could have easily been great.

Overall, M3gan 2.0 is what happens when you land an amazing premise but forget that you still have to execute it with care. That said, I still recommend it. You don’t get horror films that turn action like this too often. I imagine it feels like Terminator 2’s initial premise when that film was coming out. It’s a lot of fun and I would definitely check out a third film. As a franchise M3gan may not have lasted very long but I definitely will remember the character so in a way you could say that she did become a true horror icon.

Overall 6/10