Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master Review

Posted on March 7, 2024 by dreager1

It’s time to return to the world of Shinobi. The last one certainly had a crazy hard final boss and the same is true of this one as well. In fact they ended up doubling it this time since you fight two of the villains and they both have fast moving attacks. Then after that is the actual final boss who is pretty intense as you would expect. He attacks extremely quickly and has so many different techniques that it is tough to match them all.

The plot feels more low key this time. I mean you have the usual villain running around trying to destroy the world and you have to stop him but there’s not much of an intro and then there’s nothing until the final boss. The second game had a more memorable intro all the way and felt more like a full adventure. Admittedly it’s a rather low bar since this is still a Genesis game but I still appreciated that all the way. You’re playing this more for the gameplay than anything else though. That part is largely unchanged from the last game but does have some improvements.

You can run now which is great since last time I said that the characters moved a little too slowly. Now you can actually dodge attacks as needed. Additionally you have better use of your special moves. I still don’t know how you could use the other symbols but in this game there is only the lightning so it’s less overwhelming. Beyond that, it still comes down to your overall ability on slicing through the enemies and landing hits before they strike you back. The Shinobi himself is fairly fragile so if you aren’t careful then you will be completely knocked out.

There are a decent amount of health items to grab in the levels though so it’s not quite as hopeless as in the second game. In that one if you ran out of health at any point then you were really doomed. It fits in with the overall feel being that this game is a fair bit easier than the second. The final boss makes them fairly comparable in the end but the actual levels are a lot easier. There is still a really tough maze level near the end though so watch out for that one. You could potentially be running around in loops for ages if you pick the wrong doors so you want to be careful about that.

The graphics look good, I do think they may have improved a bit over the second game although the second had some more memorable shots. So it’s a case of the technicals being better but you feel like the second at some more heart at times. Same with the bosses, they look better here but the second’s were definitely way more memorable due to the references even if they were toned down later on. So I guess what I’m saying is that the second was generally more memorable in every way which sounds a bit harsh.

This is still a good game that holds its own though. At the end of the day the gameplay is quite smooth and that’s one area where I would say that it beats the second one. You’re always in full control of what’s going on which I appreciate. At no point do you feel like you died because you made a mistake. Now there are areas where the enemies are unforgiving which goes back to the difficulty I mentioned but the fact that you can control your character more efficiently is a massive buff and can’t be overstated. Trust me it makes a huge difference. I wouldn’t mind if they made some of the jumps shorter though, you almost have to be frame perfect to make them. Reminds me of my Mario Maker days.

Overall, Shinobi III is a fun game. I do think as with many Genesis games it is a bit too unforgiving. It could stand to add more checkpoints and fun features to be honest. The overwhelming difficulty would have made it super difficult back in the day and I feel like that would even hurt the enjoyment level to an extent. Still with the power of rewinding thanks to the Switch Online it helps a lot. If you already have the service then it definitely makes sense to check this one out. My Genesis marathon still has quite a few titles left so get ready for more adventures soon!

Overall 6/10

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review

Posted on March 7, 2024 by dreager1

It’s time to look at Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, one of the greatest games of all time. This title is absolutely amazing and definitely a real special experience. I liked the first Remake game quite a lot and this one even exceeded it. You feel the grandness of the story all the way through while also allowing for a lot of fun interactions between the cast. There will be less time for that in the third game so this one really made the most of it. It’s due to this game that I finally own a PS5 and I’m sure it’s the same thing for a lot of people so Sony fans should definitely be grateful to this title.

The game picks up where the first one left off, with the gang fighting off Sephiroth. He’s still around though and now that the rest of the team has seen him, they don’t have to doubt Cloud anymore. Unfortunately finding Sephiroth will be difficult as he’s constantly running around with the speed of lightning while the heroes have to take cars and planes to catch him. The deeper their journey takes them into the world, the more they have to confront their doubts and dark pasts. Will the team be able to hold it together?

First off, this game is a fairly long RPG. We’re talking a full 40 hour experience right here. It’s pretty impressive and that’s considering that I didn’t do much in the way of bonus content. I awakened any towers in my way and explored a few ponds for items but for the most part I was plunging ahead to get to the core of the mystery. With the plot being this exciting, it’s just hard to want to do anything else. You just want to dive in and have a blast. Based on the amount of side content I saw here, I’d be willing to bet you could almost double the playtime.

There’s a whole mode for Queen’s Blood, a Yu-Gi-Oh type card game that has its own story. All of the opponents apparently have their own cutscenes, personalities, and it’s really very expansive. The gameplay reminds me of a board game I played not too long ago, Castle Keep or something like that. You want to have the most points in a line and you move based on the numbers on your card. It’s fairly easy to start but difficult to master because there’s a ton of strategy in it. There are tons of other minigames scattered between each world as well ranging from ocean based to space based.

Of course you also have the combat room to unlock new summons, tons of side quests, explorations, mini bosses, etc. They basically grabbed the whole hub world from Tears of the Kingdom and that’s just the side content. So yeah that’s super impressive. Then like I mentioned, the actual story is incredibly impressive. It’s just really emotional and intense the whole time. It adds a ton of extra context to the characters. Cloud’s role in particular is one that I mainly knew the extra details from data books and fan videos but now we actually get to see more of what he went through here. Unfortunately it does mean that he looks pretty bad in times. I would argue he looks significantly worse than in the original game because of that. Technically a lot of the actions are the same but this one has a lot of extra build up to set these moments up and it does feel like he has low will power as a result.

This wouldn’t be a modern Square Enix game without a ton of convoluted plot twists and story developments though so you can bet that it has changed a lot from the original. I’ll offer my ideas on what these twists mean in the spoiler section at the end but the less you know about the story the better. It really helps you to be able to just get out there and enjoy it. Zack’s role here is good but I’m still not sure it’s big enough to justify putting him on the cover. I’d have switched him with Aerith to be honest at least narratively. I’ll agree that having Zack there does look cooler since you have the 3 SOLDIERS at the front.

It also goes without saying that the graphics here are absolutely top tier. It’s one of the best looking games that I have ever played. Of course it’s my first PS5 title but I’d be willing to bet that it would look super sharp on the PS4 as well. Final Fantasy VII just doesn’t hold back. The soundtrack is also really good, I’ll be listening to some of those tunes quite a bit coming up. You’ve got fresh themes as well as a ton of remixes.

The gameplay is a 3D active turn based system. So you can move around and you can use normal attacks at will but to use any items or specials you have to build up enough energy to use them. It’s a pretty unique system since most titles will at least let you use items freely. So that means that you have to really bring your A game at all times because if you’re caught without meter for too long then you might die before you can use a revive or a potion. Not a particularly fun way to go out I have to say.

It’s a difficult style that does take some getting used to. Particularly if you don’t use the combat simulator to learn the basics. I’d say the most important thing is to just fight a lot and you’ll get all of the little intricacies down to an art. You really want to unlock as many synergies as possible as quickly as possible because those will help out a great deal during combat. A lot of them give you super armor and they also raise an enemy’s stagger meter quite a lot. Most bosses will be nearly impossible to defeat without them. You also have your limit breaks and materia of course. The materia you equip will allow you to use different spells so I recommend putting in as many as possible.

One thing to note is that all of your party members get EXP even if they aren’t present in the battle. The same is true for their equipped materia so make sure that you have everyone fully loaded at all times. It will save you a ton of headaches later on. Each one levels up very slowly after all. As for the characters, they level up rather quickly. To compensate for that, there aren’t a ton of minions in the various areas so beating them as you go will have you at the natural level but if you want to be overleveled then you should try to do side quests and extra bosses.

One trick to getting XP is to find a large enemy group that is easy to beat. Defeat all of them except for one and then hit retry battle. You keep the XP this way and can keep on fighting the same mob over and over again. This helps you get around their 15-20 minute cool down before showing up a second time. This is one game where I didn’t skip just about any enemy and for most of the game that worked out fine. I only ended up grinding once before the final boss for an extra few levels and then when I lost at the final boss, I had to grind for a few more hours.

I beat the game at level 50 but I would recommend trying to get to 55 or so in order to give you some more breathing room. One thing I have to warn you about is that you can get yourself trapped. Once you are over the halfway point for chapter 13, there is no way back. You have to complete that chapter and the next one without being able to leave for better weapons or summons. Unfortunately this means it is also very difficult to train since the only minions in the dungeon have a ton of durability or don’t give much EXP. It was one of the scarier moments for me since I was really at about the end of how far the training could take me. Fortunately I just barely managed to beat the boss. I nearly had to resort to lowering the difficulty level.

This final saga is tough for a few reasons but the main one is the time it takes to get there. If you lose and have to go back to change your equipment, then you have to redo 11 boss fights and a ton of unskippable cutscenes. To get back to where I was up to, it took me well over an hour. So that’s why I say better safe than sorry here, make sure you are at a really high level and have good gear before entering the dungeons. Otherwise you will definitely be in some trouble.

It’s kind of fitting in a way that I lost to the first boss in the game as I was still learning the controls and then I lost dozens of times to the final boss. It’s truly an end to end experience here. In terms of quality control I think that’s the one area the game slips in because there shouldn’t be a full lock out like that. If I was just a few levels lower than I could have been permanently stuck unless I entered easy mode.

I already talked about the replay value so have no fear, there is a lot to keep you busy. The Platinum for this game also looks really difficult. Beating the whole game on hard mode won’t be easy and then there’s one that looks like a lot of grinding where you have to get all of the items in the game. From the online stats, more people have beaten the game on hard than have done that, which is quite telling.

As for the story direction, without spoilers I can confirm that I like where it is going. It is pretty controversial that it has changed things from the first title but most of that should have died out with the first game since that’s where the divergence started. It’s not surprising that this one continued with that and even more so I would say. It’s considerably different but this lets us get a new story so I’m all for it. I’ll always be in favor of changing things up instead of just doing the same story for a second time. All right now the rest of the review’s going to involve spoilers so you can skip to the final paragraph for the wrap up or exit here until you have completed the game. Just have to wait 4 years to see how it all goes down.

Spoilers time All right so with all of the universe hopping and that ending there’s a lot to discuss. So first up, I would say that this is flat out a different Earth than the one of the original Final Fantasy VII. It seems like Sephiroth became aware of the multiverse at some point after his origin story which is basically the same as in the original/adapted in Last Order. In Last Order when he stabbed Tifa, it was obviously not a killing blow while in this game it seemed like it might have been from Cloud’s POV which is why he was suspicious. In this case I think Cloud just wasn’t thinking clearly and didn’t notice that she was alive.

Since Sephiroth is aware of the other timelines and universes, it’s why he is able to manipulate the fates. We see at multiple points in the game that he can take control of the body of any cloaked figure. At first this appears to just be Cloud hallucinating but I would say it is literally Sephiroth doing this. Similar to Slade in the Teen Titans episode where he was beating up on Robin, Sephiroth is trying to make Cloud look crazy and also to doubt his own senses which starts working.

We got some foreshadowing of this in Advent Children, where in that movie Kadaj is able to become Sephiroth temporarily by drinking the Sephiroth gene. Cloud ultimately defeats him there and in the film they’re referred to as remnants. Of course that takes place after the game but it’s the same concept. Additionally it implies that eventually he will be able to control Cloud once the degradation is complete which is why he is already able to influence Cloud. I don’t like how he is already able to completely control Cloud though to the point where he nearly murders both Tifa and Aerith in the story.

It’s great that Tifa is so patient with him the whole time but after a point he is basically becoming a villain here so she should probably keep her distance quite a bit. I don’t see how any of the characters can sleep soundly at night with how crazy Cloud gets in this one. The game goes all the way with showing how insane he is throughout. In fact in the ending I’m pretty sure he still is crazy and Aerith isn’t actually there. It would be really cool if she was and I’m sure a force ghost of her will appear at some point but right now I think that he’s just delusional.

We see Aerith get murdered by Sephiroth like in the original game. Cloud was too slow to save her and her hair gets cut off. When she shows up in the big final boss with Sephiroth, her hair is back to being long and the same is true for all of the cutscenes in the ending. Everyone ignores her except for Cloud so we can tell that they can’t see her at all. You could say that Cloud is able to see her ghost because he’s so close to the mako at this point but I don’t think that is the case. Additionally when he tells everyone to look up at the sky, they don’t see the rip in space. So yeah he’s completely seeing things differently from the cast which is scary but also exciting. You just know that’s going to escalate.

Also, the game adapts the final boss from the original FFVII. We flat out finished the game, albeit with some events skipped. So game 3 can really go in a ton of different directions. I think at this point I’d like to see them really double down on the multiverse. Bring in the original timeline Cloud, maybe even the Cloud from Kingdom Hearts. There is so much potential here and it’s all a real blast. That’s about it for now but I’ll be having a lot of fun watching all the different theory videos on this. One thing’s for sure, in this timeline the planet appears to be losing to Sephiroth so the heroes need to think of something and fast. With how he can keep body swapping and how his power level is so much higher than all of the other characters’ in the game they will really need a miracle to stop him. End Spoilers

Overall, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a top tier title in every way. No exaggeration to say it’s one of the best of all time. It’s right up there with Adventure 2 Battle, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Kingdom Hearts II as one of the all time unforgettable titles. Super Smash Bros is still the greatest game of all time so I won’t use it in the same sentence for the comparison just yet. The amount of polish and detail that went into the game is incredible. As always RPG type games tend to be the best bang for your buck because of how long they last. A good fighting game can do the same thing of course as long as you have online access and a friend to fight with but with an RPG all you need is a controller and some time on your hands. I suspect the next game won’t be around for another 4 years at least but at least that gives us plenty of time to watch tons of videos with different theories about what will be coming up. That sure sounds exciting to me I gotta say and of course now the pressure on the 3rd game is going to be absolutely insane.

Overall 9/10

B’T X Neo Review

Posted on February 19, 2024 by dreager1

Kind of like Magia Record, it’s time to check out a sequel that was a lot shorter than the original. It was always going to be interesting to see how Neo fared because there were still a ton of villains left but not a whole lot of time to get to them. I will say that this one can be a little rushed at times with some villains having to go down fast but it’s still a great ride all the way through. It’s another title that is basically action all the way through and that’s always a win.

The sequel picks up right where the last one left off as Teppei and the team are still heading to the villain’s main base. Teppei is there to save his brother Kotaro while the others are going for their own reasons. Fou wants to see if the Empire really is evil, Hokuto is a bit of a wild card but he’s generally there for the same reasons and Ron really wants to make sure that he hasn’t been manipulated. So this isn’t quite a united team just yet but hey at least they’re all heading over. The villains may have lost a lot of generals already but they still have Juggler, the dark generals, and the 8 higher ups. I forget their team name but that’s a lot of fighters for 14 episodes to deal with. Plus the heroes will still have to fight Raphael, the ultimate monster/robotic hybrid creation that the villains have been working on.

One thing I appreciated about Neo is that it did keep up the normal pacing for as long as possible. For example you may figure that Neo has to hit the ground running with all of the villains coming up but it still gives 3 whole episodes to the first fight where Fou deals with his old friend Quattro. It was really important that they take this time because narratively that’s a really big fight. We finally see the full details behind Fou’s backstory and I do have to say that he messed up there. Basically the reason Quattro is so mad at him is because when their mutual friend was dying, Quattro begged Fou to encourage her so they would have a chance at saving her. Instead, he basically just told her that the religion they all followed was fake and there was no real hope. So she died and Quattro holds a grudge there.

Yeah, she probably would have died anyway but Fou didn’t have to say it the way that he did. There is a big difference between being honest and just being unnecessarily brutal when talking to someone. He did the latter and that was too bad. He’s come a long way since then but it’s understandable why Quattro has such a big grudge. Again I disagree with Fou in the present for basically deciding that it’s fine to let Quattro murder him as a way to atone. At the end of the day that’s never the way to do it.

Fou is still one of my favorite characters though even if this was a rough start for him. He protects the kids from the villains and has generally been a great guy since then. He actually learned from his mistakes and I can always appreciate that. Meanwhile Quattro was a really good villain. He still is a bad guy all the way but I always appreciate having a villain with motivations that you can really understand like this. He ended up being really memorable as a result.

As always Teppei is a great main character here. By this sequel he already has a great bond with X so the two aren’t really bickering much anymore. They’re able to fight really well as a team and keep the enemy forces at bay. Teppei still needs to get a little stronger by the end to handle the main threat but he hangs in there until it kicks in. He does remind me a lot of Seiya with his resilience and he always keeps a good attitude up. Meanwhile I also enjoy X a lot and it makes a good difference to have a pair of main characters who are likable like that. He was also there to support Fou when the guy was having a lot of doubts.

Meanwhile Kotaro still gets a big role here but I really wish that he could have gotten some cool abilities to fight with. The smarts is good and all but you feel like he is always destined to be on the sidelines when it counts as a result of not being able to fight. He’s constantly in danger in the underground and just can’t do much about it. He does make some allies there and is crucial to the climax but only as a supporting character. Karen finally gets to actually show up here and while I’d like her role to have been a bit bigger, she’s a lot of fun. We know that in the past she was one of the top fighters and it’s clear that in the present she still is. I would have liked her to have flexed a little more but as it is the franchise was getting ready to end so there’s only so much that can happen at once. Regardless I expect you’ll be pretty happy with her role.

Aramis and Metal Face get a role here as well. I always liked Metal Face as a good underdog kind of character. He was never quite ready to deal with the top tiers and so he takes a lot of Ls in the series but the guy never gives up. I could respect his determination and it made the guy really memorable. Sure he was never a threat but he still got his own character arc and that’s more than you can say for most villains. Aramis also gets a lot to do but I take more shots at her because she lacks determination.

By the end of the first series she already had serious doubts about the Empire and here she is still getting crushed by Misha and the other villains. It would have been good if she could have defected a lot earlier and taken a stand against Raphael. Especially since it turns out that she really is quite skilled as a fighter. I mean she takes on Juggler and actually does great which automatically puts her near the very top of the verse. This is why you should never just mindlessly obey orders. Imagine what she could have been doing this whole time.

Misha is a super annoying villain though because he just seems petty and overconfident the whole time. He’s the kind of character where you could warn him that the heroes are approaching and he would just sit back and eat a sandwich. He doesn’t proactively make moves except to yell at his underlings to take care of things. The guy is no strategist and if he was then I dare say the war would be over. You have to consider just how badly the heroes were outnumbered for the whole series. We’re talking 100-1 and it’s not like the villains are super weak. In season 1, Teppei was having a ton of trouble with the random generals.

Yeah he got a lot stronger since then and is on Fou’s level now but even the top 4 generals are shown to have trouble with some of the other villains. So if you sent everyone right away then the heroes would have definitely been finished. You can’t claim this is just gameplay mechanics since it’s an actual story here. Misha just didn’t take any real steps to stop them which was his big mistake.

Now if you want to talk about a great villain, lets talk about Juggler. This guy absolutely dominated whenever he was on screen to the point where I dare say he set the bar way too high. I was expecting every member of the villain’s elite ranks to be as strong as him but in the end he really outshined them all. Purely in feats and portrayal at least I don’t think anyone came close. When Juggler was introduced he acted as if he could take the heroes group all at once and I believed him. Well, at least I believed that he would make it a great fight which is already crazy impressive. The guy had charisma and was quite the merciless villain. He really leaves a lasting impression on you.

Meimu is probably the next most impressive from the 7 shadow warriors because this guy also gets a few episodes to himself. He’s also not trying to compete with Juggler in terms of physical power. This is one of those guys who uses a lot of shadows and mind games to get into your head. He’s strong and gives Teppei a good run for his money. By this point in the show you do have to get a little worried though because we’re already halfway through and that’s only taking care of 2 out of the 7 shadow warriors. I still say it’s a positive that the show took its time in the first half to give the characters their time to shine but yeah it does hurt the other villains a bit.

Even the heroes to an extent. So for example Fou got a lot to do but what about Ron? Even in the first series Ron got to appear the least since he was the last member. Well, here he does get more action. For example he’s the first one to reach the villain’s base and start fighting since he went on ahead. He looks good in the action against the random minions but against the named fighters he can’t do as much. Again I think the problem here is that he just didn’t have enough time. Ideally you would want him to beat a few generals before pairing him up with Raphael where he would lose to show just how powerful the final boss was. That’s not exactly how it plays out since things are sped up but I still did like Ron as the gruff team member. He could have been even better but I’ll still give him his props. It is at least hinted that he is the strongest of the 4 generals in pure combat power.

Hokuto is probably the most bland member of the 4 and it’s more of a by default I suppose. The guy is a super genius and his B’t is a defensive type which means that he isn’t running in and dealing a bunch of damage. That’s not really the way that he fights. Thing is, we already have Kotaro as the genius character which eats into Hokuto’s hype a bit. There’s just not a ton of room for two characters with similar personalities even though Hokuto could actually fight. Also the two don’t really get to interact much and I think that’s where the show could have had some interesting moments. Hokuto even gets his own origin story later on but it’s so late in the game that it feels too late.

When it comes to the climax of the series, I will say that it doesn’t quite beat a lot of the top battles here. For example, the battles with Quattro and Juggler were more fun. The real problem here is that Raphael is too huge. The villain is absolutely massive and while he can put up a fight as a super durable tank, there’s not much more to him than that. He’s practically mindless for most of the battle and the fight really revolves around the heroes attacking, he tanks it. Then he attacks and they dodge, rinse and repeat. It’s why it can’t touch the more intense close quarters battles.

The soundtrack is pretty good here. There are a lot of fun tunes and they fit the sci-fi genre fairly well. The action themes are tense and the adventure themes are fast paced. A lot of good effort was put in here and the animation is also pretty smooth. I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely top tier or anything like that but the choreography is good and it’s always easy to follow along with what’s going on.

In general I liked the series aesthetic. It could have easily fallen into the bland desert trope but instead this actually feels like an alternate planet where everything is just a bit different. The world is still high tech even if they don’t always show that part off. I also still like the idea of the villain base being divided into a ton of squares that serve as territories and each one is guarded by a villain. It’s why this series could have gone even longer so we could have had more bosses. The show was smart to never show us a map though so you couldn’t tell how close the heroes were until they actually made it to the base. I think we could have gotten more of a reason why the B’ts don’t work in Misha’s room though. It felt like a cheesy way to try and make him a slight threat near the end.

Overall, If you liked B’t X then you will definitely like B’t X Neo. It continues the saga seamlessly with a ton of fights and a satisfying ending. The animation here is solid and in the end there’s just nothing to really dislike here. It’d be cool to see this one get a modern remake or another sequel at some point. We sort of jumped right into the world ending stuff here so there wasn’t a lot of time to explore the world and I feel like there is a ton of latent potential there. I still remember how the first episode of B’t X started out fast with those robot assassins. Realistically it feels like this is a franchise that has been forgotten but you can never say never.

Overall 8/10

Magia Record Season 3: Dawn of a Shallow Dream Review

Posted on February 19, 2024 by dreager1

All right it’s time for the end to the Magia Record saga! Season 2 was top tier elite and could easily hold its own with even the main title. I was super impressed and the big question was if season 3 could match it. Well, the season is a lot shorter so season 2’s definitely got the win but it’s still an elite ending. I will just say the way that the old characters were written out was extremely lazy. Did they not realize that more enemies were still around? Leaving just felt odd and it’s the only reason the villains last as long as they did.

So Iroha has to continue going to the enemy base to put a stop to the evil magical girls once and for all. She has to rescue her friends and find out why they went down such a dark path. Along the way we finally see the villains motivation for why they are doing this in the first place and the first episode is a good way of seeing things from their point of view. With any villain that is the make or break point. Will the backstory make you feel sympathetic or will it just be forced and you’re laughing all the way?

With a title as good as Magia Record it’s not surprising that the backstory is pretty good though. Touka is probably the most sympathetic because she was kept in the dark the whole time on exactly what was going on. Her memories weren’t complete and so she was fighting to save the day but without knowing the risks and a certain important figure regarding who the witch was. Ultimately I do think she would have chosen to keep fighting though so Nemu definitely should have confided in her. Touka is super forgiving so it works out but that could have definitely been a friendship ender.

Nemu is a little full of herself which holds her back next to the other villains. At the end of the day as the big mastermind I have to put most of this on her. She may be trying to save everyone in the end by stopping the cycle of witches but after a point when you’re murdering so many people, you’re just not being the hero you thought you were. I get the argument of slaughtering a few hundred to save untold billions because in a logical sense it makes sense but it’s hard to ever get behind that idea even if you were to think it had a 100% success rate.

Because I should say right now that I still think the plan was going to fail. The whole plan revolves around using their super witch to defeat Walpurgisnacht but the problem with this? It never looks like it even has a shot of pulling that off. Walpurgisnacht is known as the ultimate witch with unlimited power for good reason. It took Homura hundreds and hundreds of tries to even get close at beating it and even then she wasn’t ready to deal with this threat in the end. This witch may be strong as well but the heroes are able to land some damage so I don’t think it is durable enough to survive the onslaught or powerful enough to really resist. No matter how you slice it Walpurgisnacht is not going to lose to any other witch no matter how powered up it gets.

So with the plan being a bust, it means that the villains really don’t have a leg to stand on for their defense. They should have found another way or brought Iroha into the fold earlier to try and help. That way she could have talked them out of it. So the whole story is pretty emotional here as they go for a good redemption arc and how these girls were trying to help make things better but in the end they made things so much tougher on everyone that it just isn’t good enough as an excuse.

One character you do feel bad for is Kuroe though. She was mainly roped into situations that were just too big for her. She does deserve a level of blame for choosing the villains over the heroes but even when she was ready to come back, her inner darkness was too powerful by that point. For a while there she was really a villain completely against her will so I’ll naturally be a lot more sympathetic to her plight at that point.

Of course this season only has 4 episodes so with using a full one on the villains, we have to hit the ground running on the others. The whole season is like one big climax though so it works out well. The animation is still absolutely stellar here and we get some pretty cool combo attacks. It will be cool if they can keep this unity feature in for the main series as well. I always like the idea of merging energy into a big super attack. Also with the animation budget as high as it is, the new characters even feel stronger than the old ones at times.

By the end of the series I don’t feel like it really addressed why the new characters are able to use their witch hybrid forms the way that they do though. This still feels like a new concept that just wasn’t a thing the first time around. I can write it off as this timeline being slightly different so it’s possible but it’s a bit weak. So retroactively if you have Homura and friends using witch moves in the next movie/season that could change things but for now it’s a bit odd. Still makes for really great fights though.

It’s a bit lazy that season 3 doesn’t have its own opening though. It makes this really feel more like season 2.5. Even if it was a low budget, rushed last second kind of opening I would have liked to have had something new here. It would have helped the season stand out more. I think the best way to look at this one is like a movie to be honest since it really fits in with the runtime that way. Of course the fact that it’s basically all nonstop action is part of why the series tracks so high. Opening aside, I did enjoy the soundtrack a lot. A lot of very grand themes are playing the whole time.

One last thing I’d say is the third season is short enough where a lot of characters don’t get a big role this time around. Yachiyo for example has been a huge character throughout the series but takes a big step back to Iroha this time around. She does help a lot during the climax in one of those cool combo attacks I was talking about but for the most part isn’t a focus this time. As for the rest of the friend group, you can really forget about them. They help a bit in the background here and there but that’s about it. I’d say it’s a good idea though given the length. if the season was longer then I would want them around but with 4 episodes you get that not everything can happen at once. You do get to see them try to stall the final witch so that’s enough of a role.

I would have liked my favorite villain to have done more. I still remember her having that amazing cliffhanger in season 1 were she revealed that the plan was to fight Walpurgisnacht and she has an interesting ability where she can use paint to create huge barriers and amp up the villains but she doesn’t get a true 1 v 1 fight the way that most of the other characters did. I feel like she would probably end up being one of the top fighters but we never got to really see that for sure.

While you could be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of info drops and characters running around here, it is impressive how the show ties everything together. Don’t forget that the show started off as part mystery on why nobody remembers Iroha’s little sister who used to be in the hospital with the other girls who turned evil. The natural assumption is that she was the price for one of the magical girls since there is always a cost that you have to pay but then you need to figure out who would have made that the cost. This season finally wraps up that mystery along with the mini Kyubei.

The very ending I would say is still a bit ambiguous on where this takes place in the timeline though. Of course you know my theory from the start is that this is a failed timeline, one of many where Homura could not save Madoka and so it doesn’t exist anymore. I still stand by that one but it would have been nice if the show had went into this with a bit more detail. Whether as a yes or a no I’d have been curious there.

Overall, This was a great end to the Magia Record series. I’m ready for the main cast to return but these characters really held their own rather well. I was impressed at how high quality the title was all the way back from season 2 and season 3 really kept up the momentum all the way. I would highly recommend checking this show out. You probably want to at least watch season 2 for context though. The quality writing and messages work well even without context but you won’t get the full impact. You wouldn’t have seen the struggles they all went through after all. This is Madoka of course so there is plenty of tragedy just in this season of course. The heroes can never catch a break.

Overall 9/10

Dark Cloud 2 Review

Posted on February 11, 2024 by dreager1

It’s definitely been quite a while since I got to play the original Dark Cloud. It was a pretty fun game but one that had some mechanics I wasn’t crazy about like the breakable weapons and building. I always enjoyed being in the endless dungeons but the parts outside of that were a bit weaker. Well, Dark Cloud 2 definitely improves on the first one. I will say that building still isn’t my favorite part to say the least but weapons are no longer broken in the same way. They can run out of energy so you have to give them a potion but you never lose a weapon and I can tell you that this is an absolutely huge deal! A serious game changer all the way through.

The game’s story is also rather ambitious. You start out with the main character Max trying to get into the circus when a really odd evil clown shows up asking for the necklace that he got from his mother. Max barely escapes into the sewers and then manages to leave the town. The rest of the world is…empty. It turns out that his town is the last one in existence and the only reason it wasn’t destroyed with the rest of the world is because the villains need his necklace. So if he turns it over…then its going to be the end of everyone he knows. Fortunately he runs into a time traveler named Monica who is here to save the world from its imminent fate. It’s not just the world that is in danger but all of history as the villain can time travel as well. Can they possibly stop him?

So this is a full RPG story all the way through with a lot of twists and turns around every corner. The game handles everything very nonchalantly though which can always be pretty fun. Max just takes it all in stride and never reacts as hard as you would expect. The heroes are going out there and fighting off god level threats and he’s still got his wrench and determination. It’s one of those games where it would be fun to see this as an anime because in theory these are just average joes fighting crazy high level opponents.

The game really has two main gameplay styles. First is the combat in the dungeons and then you have the overall building aspect. I’ll go into the building first since that one to me is definitely trickier and will take a lot of time. So basically one of the elements of the plot is that the villain is destroying the “origin point” of various landmarks that are critical to the heroes. So you have to rebuild them with parts that you obtain from every level in the game. Building involves buying the required materials and then putting them all over the map. Here’s where most of the grind comes from because you need money for the materials and you get a lot of money by selling materials but then you’re missing the materials for the next item. Rinse and repeat over and over. It’s a rather tricky cycle and I sold important stuff a few times by mistake before I realized what was up.

If you put something in the wrong spot, it takes a few steps to remove it and replace. Would have been good if you could have just picked something up and moved it. Part of me suspects that there has to be a way and I was just doing it wrong. You’re given hints as to where each item should go but there’s going to be a ton of trial and error to get it just right. Also you won’t see all of the hints initially so you have to keep playing levels to get there. Occasionally a level will have two exits so you need to hit both of them.

As for the combat, that is still the meat and potatoes of the game and it’s the really fun part. It’s sort of like .Hack where you will enter a dungeon with many different floors and have to clear them all. You do get to save between every floor which is incredibly useful. I would have really been in a jam without that because I did die a fair number of times. It can be difficult to gauge the enemy range and then you die from a powerful hit. I do want to say though that the gameplay is rather exciting because of that. You’re certainly never bored because the game isn’t too easy but it’s also never unfair. When you die you know that it really was your fault because you got greedy and over extended.

The level up system is one of the toughest parts of the game. Unlike a traditional RPG where you level up with XP, you instead get weapon XP when you beat an enemy> This levels up your weapon which allows you to give it orbs to absorb to increase its stats further. This is another manual process that takes a while but get the stats high enough and then you can upgrade the weapon. Rinse and repeat as much as needed. So I took it at face value and kept on doing that, but it’s actually better to level a weapon up to level 5, then sacrifice it to your main weapon to get much bigger stat boosts. I didn’t find that out until the final boss….so it took me a little longer than it should have but in my defense I don’t know how you would guess that from the start.

As a result there are tons of different methods towards building yourself up with the best armaments by the end of the game. Go with whatever seems like the best bet and then you’re all set. Some routes will take more effort than others but you’ll still be able to make it. The final boss is incredibly difficult because you have to fight close to 11 bosses back to back. Make sure you bring a ton of health items and boost your attack power as high as possible. I had to go back and get just about every health power up possible with my attack upgrades and it was still close.

This game is listed as being 50+ hours for the story and I can see why. I beat it sooner than that but there is a ton of content here. There are also side missions and a post game so there is a ton of bang for your buck. That’s a good thing since the game tends to be on the expensive side. There are a ton of different mechanics into the game that I barely even touched on like golf, fishing, etc. so the developers really went out of their way to make sure there was a lot to do here. Even the gameplay is rather deep but I will leave you to experience that all for yourself. Mainly the thing to focus on here is that the game is just great and excels across the board. Hopefully we get more games in this series at some point. I don’t mind if they drop the building aspect and focus purely on the dungeon gameplay though heh heh.

Overall, Dark Cloud 2 is an improvement over the first and a really solid game. I feel like many people have not gotten to play this one since it always felt a bit on the obscure side but if you can find it in stores then I definitely recommend checking it out. It’s really a good bit of fun all the way through and is a lot more expansive and all encompassing than you might think. The building mechanics can be a bit of a challenge but once you get the hang of it then you’ll be fine. It just takes a lot of time unless there are some controls I ended up missing on.

Overall 8/10

Dr. Stone: 4D Science Review

Posted on February 4, 2024 by dreager1

It’s time for the return of Dr. Stone. After the series ended a while back, it returned briefly for a 3 chapter mini series. That was a pretty nice surprise particularly since it actually does add some more context to that controversial ending involving the time machine. Retroactively it adds a lot to the lore as well although this may have been a bit too ambitious for a 3 chapter series. The first chapter has a massive cliffhanger after all and the second one ends with some mysteries but the third has to wrap things up rather quickly. I’d say it feels rushed but I’m at least 99% confident this was meant to be a 3 chapter miniseries from the jump so I suppose that was intentional.

The series starts by having Senku remember his first time trying to make a time machine. He was a kid at the time and so he knew he couldn’t actually build one but what he could do was test to see if a certain event would happen in the future. For example, hypothetically if you built a time machine and did find a way to travel through time, the best way to prove it would be to leave something for your past self to find right? Well nothing happens so Senku gives up on it but in the present they decide to try again. To their surprise something does happen…they discover a message from Senku’s father implying that he was able to master time travel but how is that possible? It’s time for the scientists to work on one last case!

I do want to say that this experiment is the most logical way to test time travel and it’s also why I’m confident that it will never be discovered. In theory there would be some evidence at this point from people going back in time. I know a few counter arguments for it is that they’re really careful about changing time so that only the outcomes are noticeable and since that’s our present reality we would not be able to tell. I’m not sold on that but time travel’s always an interesting subject. So for the heroes to get a message from Senku’s father, that’s pretty big.

It’s a great hook from the first chapter and the only problem is that there are a ton of really fun scenarios you can make from that but the series doesn’t opt to go with any of them. It’s a shame because I think that would have been great. Perhaps a little “Jump the Shark” in nature since it would be way less science based but it would be fun. Instead the series opts to go with the cop out ending as in it ends before we see exactly what happened. The series allows you to decide for yourself if the time travel worked or if it didn’t. Me personally? I’d rather know one way or the other. The author needed to take a stand here and just tell us. Putting off the decision of what happened feels like the author was just playing it too safe.

Perhaps one day we will get a sequel to this that explores the ending because at least if the ending goes one way then there is plenty of room for a sequel and that’ll definitely change things in a big way. Beyond that the art is really solid as always. I like the realistic style that is always used for Dr. Stone. The writing is also good as you would expect with all of the characters making plans and it’s good to see that Senku really hasn’t changed a bit. He’s still a super logical person who doesn’t let anything get to him.

I did appreciate that Ryusui also got a really big role here. He’s the first one to pick up on something and the series hasn’t forgotten that he can compete in intelligence with everyone else. Perhaps not as a pure scientist, Chrome, Xeno, and Senku are definitely superior there but in overall intelligence and picking up on things, it’s hard to beat him. He was also doing his best to shield Senku from taking any emotional damage which I appreciate. The characters are really a close knit group at this point and even with society back, you figure they will always stay great friends and won’t drift apart.

There’s one emotional subplot in here that sort of comes out of nowhere though. At best you just don’t really care about it and at worst it feels like just a way to nerf a character. The all powerful alien cube beings apparently have emotions and just hide them behind logic. Why is this even a thing? It just doesn’t make sense to me and it has this whole emotional goodbye to everyone before going back into its emotionless mode. So why is his basically filler? Because if you skip that chapter, the status quo hasn’t changed. It’s back to being emotionless and in theory the emotional outburst will never be mentioned again. So…..yeah there just wasn’t much of a reason for this. I can’t say I felt bad for it either since the being creates a lot of the drama in this miniseries for no good reason. If it just talked things through with Senku that would have been way better and Senku would have understood since he is a scientist at heart. There are some twists of course since this miniseries is part mystery so I won’t go any further into the nitty gritty of what’s going on there.

Overall, This was a fun mini series. At only 3 chapters long it’s really a blink and miss it kind of title. You’ll be done with it so quickly that it almost feels like a one shot but in volume format it’ll be a fun way to see the cast again. Each character gets a quick moment to contribute and we also get a classic building roadmap which was always fun in the series. It’s a little too short to really go into too much detail on this but there’s still enough for you to feel the nostalgia. Outside of the cop out ending which is a little iffy, there’s nothing bad here so there’s really nothing to dislike. Particularly within the context of the 3 chapters limit I’d say it did a good job.

Overall 7/10

Bloodfist II Review

Posted on January 28, 2024 by dreager1

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

All right it’s time to jump back into the world of Bloodfist! I have to say it’s impressive just how different this film is from the first one. It may as well not even be a sequel to be honest since it laughs in the face of the first one with Jake’s character development but hey that’s how it goes right? It definitely makes its share of mistakes and so it won’t be another film to be remembered.

The movie starts with Jake winning a big tournament but he murdered his opponent and so he retires from fighting. He has now fallen into all of the vices including paying a lady of the night when he gets a call from an old friend who’s in a jam. He hasn’t seen this guy in ages and the call is the shadiest thing I’ve ever seen so Jake quickly decides to come along where he is beaten up by a group of thugs. He has been kidnapped along with a bunch of the world’s strongest fighters. They are all being taken to an island to fight against humans who have been enhanced with a drug that prevents them from feeling pain while also increasing their physical abilities. Can Jake get out of this or is he doomed?

All right the most disappointing thing here is the fact that the concept for the story is really good! You can’t help but get hyped for something like this because it guarantees a whole lot of action. It’s a classic case of skills vs physical abilities here. These guys may be amped up but the main characters have the edge in fighting technique which you would assume would be enough to take the lead. The problem is breaking the habit of stopping once you have your opponent down because you need to finish them off.

The actual tournament is pretty fun although I think it could have been a bit more balanced. For the most part just about all of the heroes were getting completely destroyed by the fighters and I’m not sure how much I buy that. I get that these guys weren’t rookies or anything but the top level pros should have done a lot better. The place is rigged of course so the winners would quickly get jumped and pummeled by everyone but that should have been necessary more times than it was.

Of course the film does get quite violent here with each fighter meeting rather painful ends. There are more survivors than I expected there to be which is a silver lining for the heroes but yeah they get put through the wringer. At least I don’t question why they would enter such a tournament this time since they were all forced into it. It’s the best explanation for why you would enter a tournament where almost everyone is guaranteed to be murdered. Also since it’s life or death, characters do grab guns and whatever they can which absolutely makes sense. Why stick to hand to hand when the whole thing is rigged anyway right?

One of the plots where the film drops the ball is with Mariella though. So she is the daughter of the main villain and gets beaten up whenever a setback happens. It’s really explained to us quite vividly that her life here is awful and filled with abuse. So you’d expect she wouldn’t have any sympathy for the villains right? Like I can get her betraying the heroes since she is afraid of what will happen if they lose but if the villains go down then that’s fine right? Instead she actually seems concerned and saddened by what happens to the main villain and you’re just shaking your head.

She should be absolutely cheering by that point. He had her publicly beaten and humiliated and yet she isn’t filled with anger at what’s going on? We also find out that she can fight later on around the mid point of the film which would have really helped her in a lot of the early scenes….yeah the writing here wasn’t great to say the least. Most of the villains are also annoying and can’t really fight. They just use their status and cheap shots to beat everyone up.

The strongest fighter was probably the traitor Vinny who also only got as far as he did due to cheap shots. In a fair fight he was not going to stand a chance against Jake and he knew it. Jake could be annoying here as well though because the guy is clearly a top tier fighter but falls for the easiest traps imaginable. At one point he is warned numerous times that Vinny is evil which should have been absolutely obvious from the jump, but at least when he realized that the whole phone call was a ruse right?

Well somehow he doesn’t put the pieces together and loses in the most sucker punch-ish way possible. He just turns the corner and gets knocked out. It’s not the only time he gets beaten up either and even when he’s winning, Jake doesn’t push the advantage and runs off. It’s all just pretty annoying because with his skill level he should be doing way better. By the time he gets serious, a ton of characters have already died. It’s an odd case where you don’t feel like he’s in a ton of danger most of the time and yet you know that everyone around him is doomed because he won’t do anything.

You definitely get Mortal Kombat vibes from the film and can see the potential but it just didn’t work. I’d also argue the film could have stood to have started the tournament earlier so that way there is time for more of the heroes to win one round before they get taken out by the higher ranking fighters. I haven’t seen a ton of team vs team films in the martial arts genre yet so that would have been a lot of fun but it’s relegated to the end. I will say that the fights have at least improved since the first film though. The film definitely gets that credit at least.

Overall, Bloodfist II has some fun ideas but still holds itself back. The random scene of Jake having an affair while he is down in the dumps was wildly bad but once we get on the island we get a lot of fights. The main heroine’s plot is fumbled though and we needed more battles. As with the first film, it will scratch the itch of being a solid action film with a lot of fighting but there’s not much beyond that and ultimately I would say you’ll want to pick a different movie to watch instead. For now this is still not touching Mortal Kombat which is the golden standard for tournament films. We need more titles like that.

Overall 4/10

The Evil of Frankenstein Review

Posted on January 28, 2024 by dreager1

Well this film is definitely back to what you expect to see when you watch a Frankenstein film and I mean that in all the worst ways possible. The writing makes no sense and everyone is out of character. I won’t even talk about the continuity since this just ignores everything anyway but I don’t get why this is such a downgrade. In the last film Frankenstein was a stable genius but in this one he just looks like a sucker who has no idea what to do. He has fallen so far that it’s crazy. He really is a different character here.

The movie starts with Frankenstein being sloppy so he and Hans are run out of town. They manage to escape to a small circus where nobody recognizes them but Frankenstein is saddened to learn that his old home has been completely looted and the local guy in charge has taken all of his possessions. Frankenstein makes a big scene so now the cops are aware that he’s here. He does some more running and confronts the guy again only for the cops to defeat him once more. A local girl saves him and that’s when it turns out that the monster is still alive and just trapped in ice. Frankenstein frees him and uses a local hypnotist named Zoltan to wake the beast up. The problem? Zoltan now has full control of the monster. Frankenstein really messed up this time.

A lot of my issues just come from the fact that Frankenstein is no longer a genius at all. He makes the absolute worst mistakes over and over and over again and there’s no reason for it. Why make such a big deal about his material possessions and his ring? I guarantee that the old Frankenstein didn’t care about these things. He was cold and calculating, not overly emotional like this guy is. He continues sabotaging himself for the whole film and looks so bad. I also can’t stress enough how bad it was for him to be getting blackmailed by Zoltan.

Zoltan is a drunk who was being kicked out by the cops and he’s overwhelming Frankenstein?? Come onnnnnnnn. The fact that Frankenstein didn’t see this coming is also pretty bad since he saw Zoltan in action earlier. He knows exactly how hypnotism works so then he should have known that the monster would be listening to him. So Frankenstein really brings down the film quite a bit. His partner Hans also seems rather useless in this film. In the last one he had enough intelligence to hold his own with Frankenstein but in this case that’s no longer impressive since they have both fallen so far.

The girl was a reasonable character that you actually felt bad for. She definitely had a hard life and I don’t totally get what the purpose of her character was. She ends up helping Frankenstein a whole lot by taking him to the cave where he found the monster…but why was she really here? It felt like the film wasn’t even sure and in a way I guess you may be wondering why it matters. She is in the film so it doesn’t really matter why she’s there right? I guess I just can’t put my finger on it but she felt like a character who had a bigger role in the script and scenes got cut out of something. I dunno maybe that’s just me.

Meanwhile Zoltan is not one of the better villains. The guy gets control over a monster and the first thing he thinks to do is send it into town to steal money? Shouldn’t you be at least a little subtle about this? Once the cops start shooting and all then it’s going to be all over, monster or not. Use a little tact at least. Then the guy gets greedy and ultimately commands too much so it’s over for him. Yeah nobody’s very smart here. The smartest character was probably the head of the cops with how many times he caused Frankenstein to run away. I respected that guy.

For miscellaneous issues, the film reverts back to animal violence. Of course it does right? Why would we possibly need that….but yeah it’s pretty awful. We see the monster eating animals and then Frankenstein runs in front of a gun and gets shot. I’m telling you he looked soooo bad in this film. I also don’t think it was necessary to get such a large rewritten flashback of the original film. I think the writers knew that the current story didn’t have enough depth to it for a feature length presentation but then in that case maybe make a whole different plot? Cmonnnnnnnn.

Okay let me cut the film a little slack. We don’t get much of the body horror this time with limbs being taken off and all of that. So we’re trading poisons a bit and in that case I’ll take this poison over the other one. That’s pretty much all the solace I can give at this point. There just isn’t much I can say about the film at all in terms of positives. It’s not interesting and this time we don’t have the good writing from the last film. It basically ditched everything that at least made the franchise salvageable. It’s one of the weakest films I would say completely. The first film is still worse with the kid getting brutally murdered but that’s a low bar to match.

Overall, This film had no real thinking behind it. It fumbled the ball almost immediately and just could not be saved after a point. The film annoyed me just looking at it and that’s saying something. It just kept on going from bad to worse and the worst part is that a good amount of it could have been improved if Frankenstein at least looked decent. Sure, it would still have a bad score but at least the film would have had something to support it. Without even a decent main character it was doomed from the start. I definitely recommend staying far away from this film. Frankenstein films are definitely well over the hill.

Overall 1/10

The Revenge of Frankenstein Review

Posted on January 28, 2024 by dreager1

It’s time for the return of Frankenstein! I have to say that this one is marginally better than most of the previous films in the franchise. Not to say it’s a good film or anything because of course that’s not the case but yeah it definitely beats some of the others because we don’t have the classic monster here. Instead we have Frankenstein styling on everyone and the film mainly just has to get around its rather violent body horror type moments and new monster. Oh…so yeah I guess it was doomed anyway.

The movie starts off with ~~not~~ explaining how Frankenstein escaped his impending death at the guillotine. He escaped to a remote town where he practices as a doctor and does rather well at it. So well in fact that the illuminati of scientists have been unable to shut him down or force him to join their cabal. This means they are constantly upset but one young doctor realizes that this new practitioner is the legendary Frankenstein. He blackmails the main character into accepting him as a sidekick and both are super wary of the other. Still they make for a good team and Frankenstein lets Hans know of his plot to transfer Karl’s brain into a new body. Karl is a hunchback with an arm that doesn’t work well and this transfer will prove what a genius Frankenstein is. Karl is also on board so it’s not a secret or anything. The only possible obstacle is a girl named Margaret who basically forces herself into being a nurse/assistant at the clinic. Will she end up destroying everything?

All right lets talk about some of the good aspects of the movie first. For starters I actually think that Frankenstein himself is a really good character for once. The guy is actually engaging and entertaining. He is always a few steps ahead of the other characters and I like how rude the guy is. He straight up doesn’t care what the other characters think of him and is just determined to keep making advances in science. He’s not dumb about it either. The guy legitimately became the best doctor in the land with a ton of valid surgeries and operations so that he could subtly take a few extra limbs here and there for his experiments.

Everyone respects him outside of the council and nobody except Hans ever suspected a thing. He holds his own in all of the questionnaires until the end and so for once he actually did feel like a full genius. I also liked the tension between him and Hans the whole time. They’re both basically villains here who are willing to use each other and so they each have to watch their backs. It made for a pretty good dynamic the whole time. I tend to really enjoy reluctant partnerships like that.

Hans may have been a little out of his depth but he was a solid character too. The guy stayed his ground even through the obvious threats that Frankenstein tossed his way. Not just anyone could have done that. Also Karl was good at least until he started to lose his mind. The guy has been through a lot and was willing to do what he needed to do in order to improve himself. I mean he is playing along with this whole scheme that he had to know was sinister so I am by no means calling him a hero or anything. He definitely shouldn’t carry that moniker but he was a character you could really feel bad for the whole time.

Margaret was a character who was much less sympathetic. It felt like she was really throwing herself into trouble the whole time and had no reason to really do so. I mean the film makes it clear why she wanted to jump in but yeah she definitely was not doing herself any favors here. I suppose she at least means well later on like when helping Karl out but ultimately even then she sets everything back a bit and is just responsible for more carnage and destruction.

The movie certainly had better writing and more thrills than most films in the franchise but this is about where the positives start to end. For the negatives we have the usual here. The film can get rather violent once Karl is actually a monster and starts to destroy everyone. We learn that the transfer has the side effect of making its victims turn into cannibals so you can probably guess how that goes. The worst part is that Karl wasn’t even that bad at first but then we get an over eager security guy who starts beating him up which triggers the transformation. The whole scene felt rather forced to be honest.

We also have all of the body parts lying around that the film puts a whole lot of detail into. It’s definitely pretty gross to see them all just lying around and the film does not look away when it comes time for the operations. I’d even say that the film is practically gloating about this because the scenes did not need to be nearly as long as they were. It’s not like they really add anything to the film since by that point we already know what’s going on.

As a final note I will say that the film’s ending is really solid though. I was not really expecting that and yet it does make a lot of sense in hindsight. It’s another moment that makes Frankenstein look like a genius while also buffing another character. Unfortunately the next film would not follow in this one’s footsteps which was a massive mistake as it starts to sink all the way down again but we’ll go more into that later on.

Overall, This is a film that I would not recommend. Yes it is better than the average Frankenstein title as focusing on the scientist over the monster was a superb idea. Any scene with him talking to the doctors tends to be really good. I also liked the really smug custodian. I didn’t talk about him much but the guy also seems to be a few steps ahead of the others. There’s just a lot of really strong character interactions everywhere. They aren’t enough to save the film once it enters the second half with all of the monster action but it is enough to be memorable and still give me some positive things to say about it.

Overall 3/10

Cardfight will+Dress Season 3 Review

Posted on January 15, 2024 by dreager1

It’s time for another big Cardfight adventure and as always you can bet on a lot of awesome things happening here. I can never hide my surprise at how this series really did a full 180 and ended up being such a spectacular part of the franchise. It just goes to show that you can never count any title out. This one already has a lot of set up from the previous season so we’re able to just jump right into the battles with the Uniformers. My guy Tohya doesn’t get to do much this time but at least he does have one big fight.

The show starts with Yu-Yu and pals still wondering what exactly they should do about this. Yu-Yu doesn’t agree with the Uniformers method of having everyone fight with the same style but strictly speaking they are not doing anything illegal. Yeah they are pressuring players into using their style but they aren’t even blackmailing or beating anyone up. The only slight case you could make is that they’re using some kind of brainwashing that takes place after a win but it’s a bit of a stretch and I don’t know how you would go about proving it. The show never really goes this avenue either even though to me it did feel like brainwashing. In the end the only thing to really do is defeat these guys in a cardfight and prove that Uniformers aren’t the only way to victory.

Right in the first episode we have Yu-Yu dueling to try and prove that point. His skill level definitely seems to vary at times though. Sometime he is one of the most powerful duelists in the world who won’t lose to anyone and then other times he just seems to be generally powerful but not a top tier. This continues in this season but for the most part I’ll say that he looks good. Whenever he loses you’ll wince a bit but with cardfights there are a lot of variables in place. Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting the wrong cards or the opponent’s deck is a hard counter.

I appreciate Yu-Yu putting on his game face and making the case against the Uniformers but I think just about any other character would have been able to make a more compelling argument. Ultimately we’re many seasons in but Yu-Yu just isn’t one of my favorite characters. I don’t think he ended up growing into a really confident player the way that Aichi and Chrono did.

Jinki actually loses some points in this season. I still think he had one of the best intros in the series where he shows up to announce a massive tournament and has an air of mystery about him. He was one of the all time big threats after all and the head of the villain organization. Well, as the story goes on he becomes more of a puppet and one who isn’t able to fight back against the true threat. He comes across as a little wishywashy in not understanding the big picture the whole time. Since nobody really ends up taking his side, it just makes him look that much worse.

Then we have Haruka get a fairly decent role. In fact I’m pretty sure she duels more than Tohya in this series which is crazy. You’d figure that her character arc was complete but after she is dominated by a Uniformer she ends up joining them. Once again this is why it feels like mind control to me because her character just does a 180 there. By the end she gives some reasons for why she would help out but I just didn’t really buy it. It did make for some tense duels though and I liked this whole season as a tribute to Link Joker. The season wasn’t kind to Haruka though.

I’d also say that Mirei isn’t quite as impressive as she once was. She went from being a final boss to just one of the crew now and she doesn’t win as often. I would have liked her to have had some rage in avenging Haruka and taking everyone out. She deserves some good revenge after all of that right? It’s good to take the high road sometime but not all of the time. Still, she did get a good win at one point so that was good.

Zakusa gets a decent amount of hype here but he’s one of those characters I can’t take seriously. Like with the others you could argue that he’s just being mind controlled for most of the series but even so he just went down too easily. The guy seemed to have some plans but in the end he didn’t do anything outside of the duels. I just don’t think this character will ever click for me.

As a result of his getting a bigger role, Tomari gets to appear more too which is a decent trade off though. She’s always fun although Tomari is also a character that I feel isn’t in the upper echelon of fighters so I’m a bit skeptical of her hanging with the crew here. I guess the best argument you could make is that she really knows the deck of her opponent so it gives her a better chance of winning.

One of the villains that I could take seriously was Halona. From the start she was a fun character and someone who does believe in the cause. Her backstory ties into this so she has a much better resolve than most of the cast. I was rooting for her in both of her fights with Urara and Megumi. I just think she is the much better fighter and she’s really earned the win with the amount of work that she has put in. None of the other characters can even come close to matching her beat for beat. It’s just not happening. I hope we get to see more of her in future seasons.

As for Urara, I wouldn’t say she looks great in this season. She may be back with the heroes but it doesn’t feel like her skills have grown all that much. She’s also very timid which like Yu-Yu, doesn’t work out so well. I’d like her to get a bit bolder and really defend her deck choices more. Now that is something that would make her really stand out in all of the best ways. I can see her improving eventually but it’ll take some time.

Things are also tough for Megumi as she seems to lose a lot of duels but at the same time she’s always trying. Her confidence may be unfounded to a degree, but she’s not giving up and to me that’s just as important. I prefer her to Urara for that reason. Hopefully at some point Megumi gets more of a true power up since I’d like to see her get some more wins. I’d argue that she has trained so much that she deserves the spotlight more.

Instead it always goes back to Danji being the best and showing everyone up. Hey, he is a prodigy for good reason of course but it’s time to let someone else take the center stage. His duel with Megumi is fun but the guy is not someone you would want as an ally. He helps when he feels like it, which isn’t very often and that’s about it. You want an ally who is loyal and dependable, someone who will step up to defend the world right? Well that’s definitely not this guy, not even close! He’s got to be one of the most unreliable/irresponsible heroes that I’ve ever seen. He’s fun but the show doesn’t put as much spotlight on how much he’s letting everyone down as it should.

Then we have the rivalry with Raika and Sophia that keeps on going. Sophia is an extremely entertaining character with the way she’s constantly mocking Tohya and comparing him to a dog. She’s such an excellent antagonist but unfortunately she does not stick the landing. The show decides to completely change her character by the end which is part of her development but it’s not satisfying at all. It unfortunately means that she won’t be as fun when she returns.

This is also another matchup where the hero just doesn’t feel as strong as the villain so Raika’s match feels rather cheesy. I still like Raika as a solid rival who may not be Tohya level but can fight well. He just hasn’t had any real significant power ups which causes him to lag behind the other characters. He needs something and he needs it fast or he really will be doomed to stay in the back. He still has one of the best themes in the series though.

Then we have Tohya. Like I said he gets a very small role with only one real duel against Masanori. It’s hard to get as invested in this one since he’s been stronger than Masanori from the jump. Still, it’s a chance to see him in action so I can’t complain too much. His fiery fightstyle is still a lot of fun to watch and he really holds nothing back. I hope he will be brought back at some point in the future when a new threat is on the horizon.

Meanwhile I really hope Masanori stays gone this time. He manages to show up in every season somehow and yet there just isn’t any real point to his character. He just loses and loses and loses some more while trying to gaslight everyone into thinking that it’s part of his plan. It’s not a very convincing argument when you very rarely win. His only big win here is against a character who is so weak that it really can’t be used as hype.

Finally you have the AI who is trying to make the world a better place. It makes for a pretty interesting villain as it naturally takes everything literal and it goes from trying to make the world a better place into taking almost everyone down in order to achieve that reality. It’s not exactly the most complex villain but I always enjoy having a robotic type villain like this. In theory such a program would be amazing at Cardfight so it also makes sense why the heroes are having such a tough time.

As always the climax is really a blast here. It continues the energy from the rest of the season and never lets up. I think it was a smart move to have all of the heroes have a big rival from the villains group. It meant that each duel was really personal the whole time. We probably could have used a little time for power ups for the heroes to be honest but in the end it still works out well enough. Each duel is impressive both visually and narratively which is the most important part.

As always the animation is pretty solid here. I still wouldn’t call this one of the top tier productions or anything like that but it is consistent and looks sharp the whole time. You can’t really ask for much more than that. The soundtrack is also really good which is just as key. There are less of the big insert songs here compared to previous seasons but the soundtrack is still very balanced.

It’s pretty rare to get a season that’s basically just one long series of battles but this isn’t even the first time that Cardfight has pulled this off. It’s why it is definitely one of the best franchises out there. Few titles are doing it the way that Cardfight is. The stakes may not seem quite as high as in some of the other seasons since as I mentioned, the Uniformers aren’t doing anything illegal or trying to destroy the world. However, a battle of ideals is always a pretty fun reason to battle as well.

Overall, Cardfight is definitely in good hands. It looks like the next season is going to reset the main character group again so I look forward to seeing how the next group handles things. Most likely that means the season won’t be able to top this one as usually the first season with a new lead takes a while to develop all of the characters. It’s a long term investment where you sacrifice the first season to set up a lot of awesome sequels. That said, as long as the sacrifice isn’t too drastic then it is absolutely worth it all the way. This season in particular might be a little harder to get into compared to older ones since it’s a direct sequel and all but if you enjoy action then you should definitely check it out.

Overall 8/10

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