Mosaic Review

Posted on May 23, 2026 by dreager1

It’s time for another old school superhero film. Although in a way it may be more apt to call this one a mystery thriller that would have led into a superhero sequel. There isn’t quite as much action as in the Condor but you do have a whole lot of characters running around and setting up plots for the future. There is a good amount of world building in here and it would have been nice to see what kind of expanded universe we might have had. I guess that’ll have to be something that you can only dream about for now though.

The film starts by introducing us to Maggie who is finally achieving her dream of being a big actress. Her father is skeptical of the career though and wants her to keep studying in school so she can get a real job. Unfortunately his career as an interpol agent is quite dangerous and he is defeated by a mysterious shapeshifting alien. Maggie is also inadvertently blasted with the powers of the chameleon during a thunderstorm so now she can turn invisible and shapeshift.

A crisis rarely comes when you expect it and so now she will have to do her best to master these powers and stop the alien threat. She meets a guy named Mosaic who will help her out but he has the same powers and may not be trustworthy. Maggie will end up learning the truth behind these “aliens” and these truths threaten to change the course of human history itself.

Like I said, there’s a lot of world building here. We learn a whole lot about these chameleon creatures and all of the events that lead up to the present. We also get a quick reference to the Condor and other heroes running around. It’s a big world that just got a whole lot bigger but there isn’t a whole lot of time to get into that.

The main adventure is really about Maggie getting used to her powers and making sure that these villains can’t target her father again. Her abilities are really handy all around. Who wouldn’t want to be able to shape shift or turn invisible right? This gives her a big advantage over the average crook even if it doesn’t help as much in this one since everybody has the same abilities. Hers are slightly heightened in that she can tell when someone else is a shapeshifter as well though.

Maggie is a nice character and an easy main character to root for. She knows when it is time to take action into her hands and throw caution to the winds. Sometimes you have to do that in order to save the day and plunge ahead. The government actually seems to mean well in this story so far but it would take way too long to explain everything to them so I completely understand why Maggie had to plunge on ahead without worrying about any of that. Getting out of the Interpol chief’s car and making a break for it was the right move. The film also explained how she went out of her way to learn a lot of fighting styles so it makes sense why she is able to get into the action so easily.

Meanwhile her best friend Stephan is secretly in love with her. The problem is that the poor guy can’t bring himself to tell her this and so he always lags behind and allows himself to be in the friend zone. He either needs to say something or just be honored to be her friend. The secret crush always ends up making one party look bad because it’s sort of spoiling all of the friendship moments. Maggie really thinks that Stephan is her friend and so she is able to share her excitement at being cast in the shows and all without any reservations. If Stephan confesses and she doesn’t like him like that, well it’s going to get awkward.

I’d also argue that the film goes out of its way to show that she considers him as just a friend with how she acts around Mosaic. Mosaic is one of those very suave characters who seems to have a way with the ladies and is also an excellent agent on the side. That said, he is a lot weaker than you’d expect. You could say that most of his fight scenes weren’t really fair but honestly I could only give him so many excuses before I had to shake my head. He is just not star material.

There’s one scene where he gets effortlessly knocked down, then he gets up only to be combo’d back to the ground. Mosaic then gets up for a third time before they just hold him down. I appreciate the resilience but you have to have some kind of a plan. Not just getting up to be knocked down once again. I wasn’t super impressed with Mosaic as you can guess but they did have to move fast to get him out of the way. If the film was longer then he would have definitely had more hype scenes.

Meanwhile Maniken worked well as the main villain. He’s definitely got a real intimidating design all the way through. He is also strong and has a very specific plan so it’s not like he’s just trying to destroy the world. I was satisfied with having him as the big boss at least. Maggie’s father actually put up a decent struggle against him at first. He just made the classic mistake of forgetting that being invisible doesn’t mean you’re intangible in most cases. I feel like you should just start firing all around or throwing punches. Instead characters always freeze up while the invisible menace just walks over and finishes the job.

That’s why I’m giving a special shoutout to the cop at the very beginning of the film who actually kept his calm and fired the gun at Maniken. He was even able to get the magic gem away from him as a result. Usually the cops in these films miss every shot and never even get close so this was a real nice change of pace. The Interpol chief also looked good and was trying to be supportive. Down the road I could see her helping Maggie out but there will probably always be some tension since you never know when the gov will turn you in for testing.

The animation was solid enough. The character designs are good and the action is on point. I liked the invisibility effect and all in all the animation was very streamlined. There weren’t big chunks where you were wondering what happened to the budget or anything like that. The soundtrack is a bit more on the forgettable side. Nothing to write home about anyway.

Overall, This was a good film. I don’t think it will go down as being super memorable though. I didn’t have any specific issues but it is a little slow paced so on the rewatch that may hurt to an extent. The characters are always looking around because of how many people are actually alien shapeshifters. I enjoy that kind of tension but naturally it won’t hit as hard the second time around. The sequels would have been in a great place now that Maggie is confident in her powers though, maybe they will at least do a comic sequel to it someday. In the meanwhile I would recommend this one, it’s a fun watch.

Overall 6/10

The Condor Review

Posted on May 17, 2026 by dreager1

It’s time for one of those superhero films that has a pretty snazzy name but it didn’t actually go very well. Nobody’s really heard of this film and it’s too bad because it had some good elements. I do see where the film did make a lot of mistakes though so it’s certainly not the next Avengers. I would have watched sequels to this one though. The film is surprisingly short and wraps up in the blink of an eye.

The movie starts off with the cops chasing a bank robber. The guy has on some kind of a head piece that gives him super speed. The cops still catch up though and then the robber runs out of juice and dies. Seems like this has been happening more and more often, clearly there is a master manipulator behind the scenes who is orchestrating all of this. What could his end goal be? Well, the film then takes us to our main character, Tony. Tony is one of the best skaters around and is looking to defend his title for the 4th year in a row. He has some tough competition ahead of him but isn’t scared.

His father feels like Tony isn’t using his skills to their fullest though. Tony could be a total genius helping to make the world a better place. Right now the family is working on experimental technologies that can heal people and stop various negative affects across the planet. Tony admits that all he cares about is skating though and so he doesn’t even pay much attention when finding out that his parents are involved in some shady business. Tony’s friend has also gone in with the wrong crowd so there is a lot going on. Perhaps it is time for Tony to put on a uniform and become a superhero known as the Condor?

Right away I have to say that this film is really crazy. There are so many plots and characters running around the whole time but like I said, the film itself is pretty short. So the film has to try and juggle all of this. This results in some plots having to be rushed and others largely being left for a sequel. There was a lot of material here for a whole chunk of films to come out. Fortunately the film still works as a stand alone adventure as long as you just assume that the adventure goes on.

The weakest part of the film has to be the romance here. It’s one of those films where you quickly see how none of the guys are loyal and will fold to any assertive girl. This doesn’t just happen to Tony but to his friend and the Z Man. None can resist the charms of a beautiful lady and while it’s supposed to be funny or endearing, it just makes those guys look really bad.

Lets start with Tony, the “hero” of the story. First off, he is extremely quick to believe an out of context conversation that implicates his parents as criminals. He absolutely refuses to believe anything they say and as far as we know they have had a good relationship. It should not be possible for them to have been ripped apart so quickly and easily. Then Tony turns on his best friend Sammi constantly. She helps him out a lot throughout the film by giving him support, creating legs for him to walk again, etc.

Tony is incredibly ungrateful the whole time. Honestly Sammi should have walked away after a point because it was getting crazy. Now I don’t blame him as much for not noticing her in the romantic sense as the guy seems to be incredibly dense. She should have made a move if she wanted them to be together, but I do blame him for being super inconsistent. After he and Valeria are going out, Tony was still ready to start kissing Sammi at the drop of a hat. At that point that’s not a real romance, it just shows that he’ll enjoy any girl’s company and has no loyalty.

Tony is at his best when he’s skating or fighting. At least he gets a lot of good one liners there and isn’t afraid to go into fights where he is outnumbered. You may question how he is able to fight so well all of a sudden but that even goes for the villain for once. The main villain is shown to be able to fight on par with Tony while not having any super powers. You wonder how Tony can be having any trouble here when he is so much faster. Either Tony has no fighting skills or he has a bunch, you can’t really have it both ways.

For Sammi, well I wouldn’t say she was a great character either. She is still considerably better than Tony though. Sammi’s main issue here is the fact that she just expects Tony to pick up on things without telling him explicitly. That doesn’t really make sense considering how long they’ve known each other. She should have figured out by now that he’ll never pick up the hints so she can either ask him out or move on. In the film she does move on to rebound with the Z-Man but then quickly goes back to Tony. Rebounds like that are never good so she lost a lot of points there.

As for the Z-Man, well he seems like a nice enough guy. He’s a competitor and has some banter with Tony but just wants to have a clean fight. Unfortunately he’s also a bit of a player and can’t resist any lady who throws herself at him. This is definitely meant to be more of a gag but it also means that he is another guy who won’t be the definition of loyalty. He was also way too quick to support Tony and Sammi being together when he liked her. I guess it wasn’t a very strong relationship after all.

Tony’s “friend” Reuben is also pretty bad the whole way through. He gets bullied a lot and so you feel bad for him at first but then it turns out that he is constantly putting himself in bad spots. He decides to get involved in a poker game and uses money that he doesn’t have which resets the whole status. We also find out early on that he is the one who sabotaged Tony which was basically attempted murder. Reuben continues to go down from there and also shows himself to have no morals as he is easily seduced as well. I’m not sure exactly how sympathetic the film was hoping you would find him by the end but I can say that I was at 0%. This guy was just not reasonable at all.

As for Valeria, well she’s not a good character but you almost have to respect her confidence to a degree. She just walks up to whichever guy she wants and claims him. There is no resistance and based on her confidence she has yet to meet a guy who is able to resist her charms. I also thought that she was going to end up being super shallow and dump Tony once he was injured but she actually didn’t. She stuck with him throughout rehab.

So next I figured this was some kind of a trick…but no she actually seemed to like him. It’s possible that she just wanted him for his body but there’s no real way to say for sure. From what we can observe here, she actually ended up being far more loyal than any other character in the movie. Now who would have guessed that? Obviously she is crazy but when you are constantly seeing movie characters like Sammi being too afraid to express their feelings then it ends up being rather endearing. If she had just stuck to Tony and not tried this with anyone else, I would have had to give her my support. That is the kind of confidence you want to see from your girlfriend.

As for the animation, I’d say the fights are pretty solid. Nothing outstanding but the film has a very retro feeling to it with the animation. The strikes are clean and the battles tend to be long and smooth. The power levels are a bit wonky though. It feels like the super speed is very inconsistent in terms of how much of a boost it gives you. The best battles definitely tend to be when Condor is fighting his nemesis.

The characters aren’t very likable and some of them make the worst decisions you can think of. It never made any sense for the parents to be telling the villain that they’re onto him without some kind of a backup plan. I also thought that they handled the car chase poorly but you could argue that may be more of an animation limitation than what was intended. It looks like they could have sped up or at least tried a lot of turning to shake the villains off. By doing nothing it put them back in harm’s way.

The film does also fall into the fanservice issue. This is pretty rare for a superhero film I gotta say but it is frequent here. There are too many zoom ins and slow down effects when Valeria is around. Even the fight with Tony falls into this to a degree. In a way the animation doesn’t help here since they really made sure to do a good job with all of her scenes. A strong movie never has to rely on this kind of tactic. Throw away all the crazy romances along with the fanservice and you’d have a really strong title here.

Overall, The Condor is a good film but does have just enough issues where I can’t give it a higher score here. I like the idea behind it and would say this makes for a pretty good origin. I could easily see them building a whole franchise around this. That said, there are already so many different superhero franchises that you don’t really need any more. If you want to check out a one shot superhero adventure then I’d recommend checking this one out. It’s a special kind of chaotic that you don’t really see nowadays. Just don’t expect this to be the next Superman TV show in terms of quality.

Overall 6/10

Spider-Man 3 (Playstation 3) Review

Posted on March 7, 2026 by dreager1

It’s finally time to play Spider-Man 3 on the big console. A long time ago I played it on the game boy advance and naturally that’s a very different kind of experience. Still a lot of fun of course but I need my 3D environment to be swinging around in. The game surprisingly changes the gameplay quite a bit from the first two games. Or at least from the first since I have a vivid recollection of that one even if the second game is a bit more murky for me.

The game follows an extremely loose version of the movie’s plot as it adds on a ton of new villains and different scenarios to play with. I actually thought that was pretty cool because it keeps the experience fresh. Spider-Man will have to take down powerful threats like Venom and Sandman while also fending off the Lizard, Rhino, Kingpin, and more. Fortunately he has his trusty spider sense so it shouldn’t be hard to stay alive. Coming up with a way to counter these guys will prove to be the far bigger challenge.

The biggest challenge will be to the player though as this game is significantly more difficult than the first two games. It is seriously not even close. First off you have the fact that some of these enemies have state of the art a.i. with how they dodge and block your attacks. It often feels like you are fighting a total wall. One random henchmen blocked over 20 of my blows before I finally landed a hit in. Then the bosses can tank over 100 blows in order to defeat them. The toughest was either Kingpin or the Rhino, both of them will definitely have you fighting over and over again in order to conquer them.

Part of what makes the combat difficult is that you learn a new move after every level. There re 42 levels in the game and you need to complete at least 40 of them in order to beat the game. Why not just make it mandatory to beat all 42 at that point? I dunno. When you learn a move, it flashes on the screen briefly but otherwise you have to go into the pause menu and look at your upgrades to find it again. It’s really difficult to memorize all of your moves and most of them use extremely similar button combinations. As a result this became the first Spider-Man game where I was just button mashing for most of it. You just need to keep on throwing hits until they land.

Your spider sense is a meter that you can turn on to automatically dodge all attacks except for a rare few unblockable ones. Pretty handy right? Well, the catch is that the meter gets drained at different speeds depending on the attack used. So you might think you have enough meter to dodge one more attack when suddenly you don’t and take maximum damage. Most of the levels have no real way to restore health so if you lose some, it’s going to cost you. There are a good amount of checkpoints so you won’t lose too much progress but a lot of the cutscenes are unskippable so they do tend to add up a little bit.

You have some super attacks but the only one that seemed to be worth anything was the ground slam with R1+Triangle. It can one shot most minions and does serious damage to bosses. I recommend leading with that. You can meter by attacking and countering your opponents. Finally you also have a lot of quick time events and these are incredibly difficult. The buttons stay the same so you can eventually just memorize the combinations but it will be through a lot of trial and error. My own reaction times were just not enough to be able to keep up with this and so I would die to every boss at least once.

Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that I died at least once in just about every level. This was essentially my Elden Ring moment. There are no difficulty settings within the game so what you see is what you get. I can definitely respect that and it makes the game a little longer than it would be otherwise. I see online that some people beat it in around 5 hours while it took the full 7 for me. Even the web swinging is harder than in other games as you really have to watch your momentum. You’re using 3 different buttons while most of the other games just use one.

I prefer the first Spider-Man’s gameplay but it’s hard to say how much of that is nostalgia. Either way this one works pretty well and is definitely a smooth experience. It may be hard but the checkpoints helps to take the sting out of it. The game crashed during one boss fight which wasn’t the game’s fault but it was rough as I had just beaten him. I guess the Kingpin managed to get the last laugh there.

The graphics are pretty good. I really like how expressive everyone is. The game is really a product of its time in that way as you won’t usually see this level of movement among the NPCs otherwise. They just feel so animated and always keep you in the thick of things. The voice acting is also a lot of fun and of course the soundtrack is on point. It’s actually quite a bit better than I would have guessed. The hub world music is very ominous like a Batman Beyond track and there are a good amount of action tunes. They certainly put more budget into this than you would have normally expected.

I also think the UI is very user friendly. I like how you can pause the game and immediately see everything from your play time to your completion% and how many missions are left. It’s just all very direct and clear which is something a lot of other games can learn a lesson from. While the game is fairly short, there are a decent amount of crimes to stop before you reach 100%. So that adds a bit of replay value even if admittedly there isn’t a ton of it. I imagine this may buy you like an hour or two and then you have the various trainings/activities which might buy you another 2. There are no PS3 trophies for this game but all of that combined is still pretty decent.

Overall, This is definitely a game I’d recommend trying out. The game is well rounded with a solid story and a really big hub world. It’s also fun to see just how difficult games could be back then. The default difficulty level is rarely this challenging on a modern game after all. I have heard that Web of Shadows could also be difficult on the PS3 so I look forward to seeing how that plays out some day. In the meantime I am one step closer to owning all of the Spider-Man games. That will definitely be a real milestone I’d say.

Overall 7/10

Blue Beetle Review

Posted on November 8, 2025 by dreager1

It’s time for the big origin story for the Blue Beetle. This guy got a pretty big push in the 2000s and I dare say it worked since he has remained as a well above average character in terms of popularity. The movie works pretty well as an origin. You’d probably like for some of the characters to show a bit of urgency when things are getting real but the action scenes are on point and the special effects are really good.

The movie starts by introducing us to Jaime who just finished school and now he’s ready to get a job. Unfortunately it won’t be so easy and he finds out that his family has been through a whole lot of hardships while he was gone. He has always wanted to support them but it’s not so easy to just get rich. Well, his sister lands him a job but then gets him fired from it on basically the same day. I suppose you could say that cancels out but Jaime steps in to break up an argument between the CEO Victoria and her nice Jenny. This causes Jenny to feel bad for Jaime and offer him a job.

What Jaime doesn’t know is that Kord Industries is messing around with alien technology. Jenny wants to stop this and so she gives it to Jaime, but it ends up bonding with him as a kind of symbiote relationship. Now there is no escape for Jaime as he becomes the Blue Beetle. The alien wants to murder people and keep Jaime safe while Jaime just wants to be an ordinary dude. That will be difficult though as the whole company is after him, led by Carapax who also has alien powers thanks to the exosuit. Can Jaime defend himself?

For starters the film has pretty much everything you’d like to see in a movie. It’s got a quick pace, good action scenes, fun characters, and some good humor. I pretty much knew it would be a pretty good film early on. That said, it’s also fair to say that the film plays it pretty safe and so it wasn’t going to be a great film from early on as well. It’s going with the basics as opposed to trying to really wow you. Nothing wrong with that, but in a way I feel like that’s also what hurt it at the box office. It wasn’t really seen as a “must watch”.

Jaime is a decent main character. He cares about his family and likes being a hero. He’s certainly not going to be going around murdering anyone or anything like that. So he is someone that you can count on. That being said, he can also be a little slow on the ball. He starts crashing out when he finds out that it will be difficult to remove the scarab but it’s a cool alien armor that gives him powers. Why would you want to ditch it? Far as I’m concerned that is a net positive.

Then when the company attacks his family, I think he should have been a little outraged. Instead he takes it all very casually and as a result his family is further injured and it all feels very preventable. I get wanting to be careful not to really hurt the humans too badly of course but when they are after the family then you should really be gearing up to fight back right? That just feels logical to me at the very least.

So all in all he’s good, but not a great character. He is fun enough to keep the film going though and does beat most of the other family members. They can generally be a little bit too annoying to him. They mean well like with Milagro getting him the job but of course getting him fired was really rough because of how unnecessary the whole thing was. I did like Rudy though. He’s the big conspiracy nut of the family who goes around acting crazy and embarrassing at all times.

Unlike the others it really works because that’s a big part of his character. He will never accept the obvious and will do whatever he can to resist the government. It is his complete focus in life and what keeps him going. So his jokes always tended to land. The weakest family member would definitely be the grandma though. The film tries way too hard with her and all of her big moments tend to fall flat.

As far as Jenny goes, the romance feels a bit forced here. I don’t see how it all worked out with her and Jaime considering they barely knew each other. Also there was a ton of plot armor with Jaime going out for a drive and bumping into her so quickly while she was being chased by all the gunmen. Like sure that’s probably not going to be a very likely event in most cases. I’ll give her credit for standing up to corporate though and as a character she was pretty solid. She had a lot of willpower to stand up to all that danger.

Then there is the company’s muscle, Carapax. He makes for a pretty decent villain but I would say he is a better villain than character. My main problem with this guy is they wait real long to try and make him sympathetic and honestly it doesn’t work. He spends most of the film trying to murder a kid. I’m not exactly going to be feeling too bad for him. His origin story is rough as they squeezed in multiple sob stories into one event but he still did end up being a bad guy in the present. His final scene was also really weak and didn’t feel necessary.

There’s not a whole lot to say about Victoria. She’s your average CEO type main villain. Yes, Lex Luthor has always been an example of one who works but he’s often the exception. Most of these villains just come across as really generic and that’s basically what happened here. She’s not bad but you won’t remember her for very long. Meanwhile the action scenes are pretty fun. We never really get to see Blue Beetle completely cut loose so that would be in a sequel but you can already see how he would be a total threat in combat. He just has so many options for good attack patterns here.

I also enjoyed the scarab. Generally he’s always been a really fun character and this one was no exception. The music is also not bad. I wouldn’t call it the next Guardians of the Galaxy or anything but the soundtrack worked well within the film. I will say that the big cliffhanger to the film is more on the weak side though. It’s not terrible but it’s also not particularly compelling unless you are a really huge fan of a certain character. Personally I like this guy quite a bit and even then I wasn’t particularly hyped. It just needed a little something more.

Overall, Blue Beetle is a pretty good film. While some may take my calling it a basic film to be a bit of an insult, I would say it’s just that the film was focusing on nailing the fundamentals. They managed to pull this off which isn’t always easy. The movie has very few real negatives and the most important thing is that it will go by really quickly. For example not all of the jokes land in the film, but it is generally funnier than it isn’t and there are enough jokes where you know they will land most of them. At no point does the film start to really drag on or anything like that. Instead you will be enjoying the action and the fun throughout. I’m sure the sequel would have been really good too.

Overall 7/10

X Men ’97 Review

Posted on June 22, 2025 by dreager1

It’s time for the big sequel to the classic X-Men 90s show. There was definitely a whole lot of hype for this one the whole time so could it live up to that? Well, I’d say it definitely did, they cover a whole lot of ground within the short time frame they had. I’d say there was only one particularly weak episode which is mainly just because I didn’t care at all about Storm’s subplot but beyond that you could expect a lot of action and setup throughout the rest of the season. I’ll be eagerly awaiting season 2 to see what comes next.

The show starts off with the X-Men doing what they do best, saving humanity from the shadows. Storm and Bishop are taken down rather easily during the battle though and the X-Men may not be in their best fighting shape without Professor Xavier. Fortunately, that’s where Magneto steps in. He confirms that Xavier left it in his will for Magneto to take over the team after his death. It’s such a crazy move that the X-Men know in their hearts how true it must be. Only Xavier would think of doing something like this. Magneto must now find a way to get humanity and mutants to exist in harmony. Only problem is, when has humanity existed in harmony with anybody?

This show is allowed to aim a bit older than the original and as a result I would say it inadvertently makes one of the strongest cases for Magneto’s dream over Xavier’s. When I say “inadvertent” I don’t mean that the show had no idea it was pushing the Magneto narrative as it is a major plot of the season but I do think they forgot to give Xavier any compelling points. I usually don’t have a whole lot of patience for the old guy and this show makes it tougher than ever. He really comes off as being completely out of touch with reality and someone who just wants to keep on trying the same old things time and time again. Lets recap the visions.

Xavier believes that mutants and humans can coexist in peace. To that end, he has the X-Men save lives and do their best to get a good image out there. They fight the evil mutants to prevent them from harming this dream but along the way you also have governments secretly funding sentinel programs, plagues that target mutants, and general anti mutant sentiment that has always been rather high. The heroes have been fighting this war for years now and you could argue that the goal is farther away than ever. In this show we see a genocide of mutants as well as yet another sentinel program. Xavier’s response to this? It’s time to give humanity a chance. I think we run into the sunk cost fallacy here.

Yes, Bastion doesn’t work for the government so this sentinel program is a bit different but it doesn’t change the fact that yet again, mutants around the world are being taken down and nobody is ready to stop it. Xavier won’t change his ways or his mind at all though and just continues to go through with the same lines, even deciding to allow a further genocide of the mutants by shutting down Magneto and re-activating all of the sentinels around the world. This is probably his worst idea but I’ll get more into that during the Magneto side. Xavier is criticized for effectively abandoning the planet for love and his critics in the show are not wrong. Yeah things didn’t turn out well for him and he came back, but he is not in a position to just come back and start barking orders. It just doesn’t work that way. He means well, but I do think that he has not kept up with the times. Xavier will have to work hard to be even slightly likable in season 2.

Now lets talk about Magneto. His idea has changed a little more than Xavier’s. The initial plan was for mutants to basically take over the world. He figures that a war between human and mutants is inevitable and so he will have to unite the mutants and destroy all of the humans before they can begin to fight back. Pretty drastic and of course it’s why he is a villain. He then switched it to just separating the mutants and humans but that didn’t work thanks to insider traitors and then the second time they all basically got nuked. So now it’s time to basically cripple the world and give the mutants a chance to survive thanks to their meta abilities. This will also be another genocide though, basically a genocide to prevent another genocide.

Naturally this is a tough call but it’s a lot like Attack on Titan. When you know for a fact that the other side is going to destroy you then perhaps you should be the one to fire first? In most situations you can’t know what the future will hold of course, but in this series you actually get to see the future on more than one occasion. So that’s why I end up leaning towards Magneto’s idea here. It’s just hard to go against him when you know for a fact that his decisions will save a whole lot of mutants. He had to watch thousands and thousands of mutants die right in front of his eyes. Very few characters would have made a different decision at that point. So the big EMP, yeah Magneto was right in that case. The X-Men should have tried negotiating with him rather than just showing up with their bravado and basically aiming to murder him. They acted more leniently towards Bastion which is crazy.

So I definitely enjoyed Magneto’s character a whole lot here. His subplot with Rogue was pretty annoying though and the only blip in his character arc. Even ignoring the age gap, it just happens too fast and he’s been away for too long. It also didn’t make sense for Rogue to entertain this at all. She ended up wavering way too much which caused other problems. The X-Men franchise has always been one to have a lot of dramatic romance plots so it’s not entirely unexpected. The Cyclops drama was just a lot more compelling but we’ll get into that soon.

Cyclops gets a lot of screentime here and really makes the most of it. From the start we see how confident he is and the guy has really mastered his abilities. He has quite a few great fights here and the guy looks more powerful than ever. He is the voice of reason for the team but it’s also clear that things are starting to frustrate him. Certainly having Xavier pick Magneto as leader over him was a big cause for this. Cyclops even has a testy interview in one of the episodes where he calls out the humans. I thought it worked well and in a lot of ways it reminds me of Superman in Justice League Unlimited who was also starting to show a lot of cracks in his cheery disposition.

The biggest drama for Cyclops is the arrival of a second Jean Grey. It turns out that he has been with a clone for a long time now and the only question is for how long has it been the clone? The show is careful to keep this rather ambiguous so it could have been days, weeks, or even years. It’s got to be a very weird situation to be in and Cyclops admittedly doesn’t handle it all that well. The relationship with him and both Jeans gets to be very rocky. It’s not always his fault though as after a while it gets convoluted enough where all 3 of them start to make mistakes. For what it’s worth, Cyclops always does his best but he should have definitely talked straight up with both of them more. His biggest mistake was being real secretive the whole time, like meeting up with one of the Jeans in secret mind melds.

Madelyne (The first Jean) is a solid character as she is the one whose life is really tossed upside down. She is labeled as the clone and overnight all of her friends basically go to the other Jean. It makes sense since it’s not like there is anything debatable about this. The blood test results are quite certain but to Madelyne, her memories all feel real. This basically results in her needing to leave the mansion and from there things really don’t go well for her at all. It does feel like a bit of wasted potential though because we see how immensely powerful she is and then she basically doesn’t get another fight. I do think she could have gotten a bit more to do.

As for Jean, she ends up being on the more timid side for a while since everything is rather awkward to her. She has the memories but doesn’t know which ones are hers so it’s almost like she’s a stranger now. Her whole relationship with Cyclops is certainly strained. By the end of the series she is starting to come into her own again although one moment did not feel particularly earned. The series wrote itself into a bit of a jam with how powerful one of the villains was so Jean had to get a real sudden power up. We’ll see how that ends up developing in the next season.

Wolverine doesn’t get a whole lot to do in this season. He does do well in the fights that he does get and lends a really good hit on Magneto. I would have liked for him to have gotten more to do but at least he didn’t waste a single scene. I do have to dock some points for him on the quick fling with one of the Jeans though. He could have done more to prevent the moment from happening and naturally it was a bad look for that Jean as well. His romance plot was always rather shaky because he is effectively acting like a homewrecker always causing trouble. He really needs to do a better job of sealing his feelings off.

Then we have Morph who is probably the worst at using his abilities. He is not only able to transform into other people but he gets their abilities as well. He can seemingly pick any mutant as we se him pick powerful ones like the Juggernaut at times. So why would you ever pick someone as weak as Deathstrike or some of the other street level fighters? Keep on picking the Hulk and Quicksilver. It’s a fun way to make a lot of guest stars appear but you do have to stretch your disbelief when he gets tagged while being the Quicksilver for example. I assume his copies do have some severe limits but super speed is super speed. If he ever learns how to fight then Morph will really be a fighter to be reckoned with. Compared to the rest of the X-Men he doesn’t seem to have had his big character arc yet so I’ll be expecting that to show up in season 2.

Same with Bishop who appears early on to lose against some thugs and then returns at the very end to aura farm a bit. Bishop’s powers are really handy with hos he can absorb energy and fire it back. He should easily be one of the heavy hitters here so I am expecting big things from him. Generally he’s not quite as fun as Cable but this is his chance to outshine the other guy. Cable looks good as always. He really does his best to keep on changing the past so it’s always tough when the future remains bleak. After a point you have to assume that the future is just doomed to be a dark one no matter what happens. It’s almost as if the Marvel Universe is always doomed to destruction. Still, he never gives up.

Then we have two characters in Jubilee and Roberto who get a fairly big role. Roberto is the newest member to the group and he tries to keep his mutant identity a secret. I feel like the reasons should be fairly obvious but this doesn’t stop Jubilee from putting a whole mountain of pressure on the guy. After a while you really feel bad for him because I would want to keep it a secret as well. Mutants are constantly being hunted and the ki is rich so now it will be a double target. Sure enough, things do not go very well once he does reveal his identity. I didn’t think that Jubilee was particularly patient on this and later on when they end up fighting, Roberto has to try and be the voice of reason while Jubilee is out for blood. Jubilee may have gotten older but she still feels immature. I will give her props for battling well in the Modok level though. It was easily her best appearance as she used a whole lot of strategy to come out on top there. Things could have easily gone sideways otherwise. She is still a fun character but the romance didn’t make her look particularly good. In general the pairing just didn’t seem to work very well with how easy it was to pull apart.

Then we have Storm and Forge which takes the cake as the most boring plot. Like I said in the intro, it’s the only part that I just didn’t care about. So Storm loses her powers and Forge helps her out but naturally there is some drama and then he also begins to like her. The romance is rather fast and Storm is a bit too emotional the whole time. I think she heavily overreacted when finding out the kind of technology that he was working on. The random demon that showed up was pretty interesting but then ended up being taken away too soon. I think the idea of this plot could have been interesting but it just dragged on a bit too much. It also could have helped if Storm had looked more impressive in the opening instead of being taken out by some random humans.

The Beast has his own romantic subplot where he is a jerk to a reporter right away. Yet another superficial romance plot where one misstep causes a lot of friction. I blamed Beast on most of this because he didn’t really give her a chance. Beast generally didn’t have much to do in this season which isn’t really his fault though. I’m guessing he will be doing a whole lot more in the next season. Nightcrawler didn’t appear until later on in the season and yet his role was felt a whole lot quicker. He does well in the fights and the teleporting is always really cool. It’s the kind of ability that you really want to have on your side because of how versatile it is. That can always be handy in a fight.

Time for Rogue and Gambit which is naturally a whole magnet for drama. They were always flirting back in the old days but would let the status quo stay the same. Well, now Gambit waited too long and Rogue is drifting around which ends up causing a lot of regrets for both of them. To Gambit’s side, he can only blame himself for not trying to make things more official sooner. By waiting he really did not put himself in a great spot. He does get some pretty cool fight scenes though and generally did a good job in the series.

I’m afraid Rogue comes across as way too indecisive the whole time. She’s rather petty with Captain America and then can’t stop herself from crossing the line later on. While I have no issues with her big decision near the end of the series, it would have probably worked better if not for a lot of the baggage from earlier on in the series. So you could say that things really did not go her way. Her powers look impressive as always though, she is easily one of the strongest X-Men.

There are a solid array of villains running around here. I enjoyed both Gyrich and Trask as always. They have been meddling in the X-Men’s way for a very long time and are up to their old trick. Up to a point you almost have to respect their endless determination here. They will continue doing everything they can in order to destroy the humans until they are stopped. Everyone knows it and yet they are hard to stop. The show deals with this theme as well but a whole lot of humans openly support them. It’s why even in Jail they are able to get big updates on what is going on in the outside world as well as tools on what to do next.

Master Mold even gets a little bit to do here. The first iteration doesn’t look all that impressive but the second one is on point. You’d think sentinels are old hat by this point but the show finds a way to make them still look impressive. I suppose at the end of the day with enough of them they will always be fairly powerful. Sinister also gets to show up and does pretty well in his fights. The guy has always been a fairly strong combatant who just ends up picking fights with opponents who are stronger than him each time. Not a good recipe for success of course and he definitely finds that out the hard way each time. I do think they’ve done about as much as they can with him though so I don’t think the guy needs to appear much more in the future.

Bastion gets a big role near the end but I can’t say that I bought into his backstory all that much. Yeah he had a rough past but that’s true for so many characters in this series. He didn’t have to fully go evil or anything like that. So he’s fully responsible for what’s going on and should have made better life choices if he didn’t want it to go like this. His design and abilities are pretty cool though. Definitely makes for some pretty fun fights.

There are also a ton of guest stars throughout the series with more minor X-Men characters showing up as well as people completely unrelated like Avengers and other figures. I definitely appreciated this because it makes the universe feel that much bigger. Yes, you can end up questioning where the heroes are during other event and that’s valid but showing them on occasion is better than nothing. I also have high hopes that in the next season we will see a bit more of an active role from some. It’s best not to get your hopes too high of course. This is still an X-Men series but I can actually picture an Avengers vs X-Men series now which would definitely be really cool. There is a lot of build up for it after all. The trick will be in not making the Avengers appear to be complete government lackeys but since the X-Men are always infighting it’s possible that the X-Men will even end up being the villains here. In the comics it would usually depend on the writer for the tie-in/event.

There are probably over 100 different guest stars across the series and so keeping that balance throughout the seasons will definitely be the key part. Still, if any series can do it, this one can. As the first big revival season, it’ll be difficult to defeat this one but still season 2 could have a shot. In the meantime the series certainly succeeded on a technical level as well. I enjoyed the opening remix as well as the general tunes during the show. The animation may not be as good as the original show but they did a good job of emulating the look and I would say that it worked out pretty well. There were some real crisp cuts in the fights for several episodes.

One thing that the show continues to do really well is challenge you with moral debates as well. The X-Men go through a whole lot of difficult ordeals, both physically and mentally. This season is no different as the heroes have to fight against their own extinction and there are several ways to go about it. So the debates with Magneto vs Xavier, Madelyne vs Jean, and others are all very interesting. The fights don’t tend to be one sided as you can make good cases both ways but it’s good practice as a thought experiment for you to think about it and pick a side. As for the romance drama, well that’s gonna be more of a miss generally but I suppose even that is usually handled with some tact. Although most of the romances still end up getting a thumbs down.

The show ends off with some pretty big cliffhangers for season 2. I would say it was about 50/50 for me in terms of excitement. I really liked the stinger in the present timeline as this villain is always really exciting. That should make for some great entertainment. The plot in the past? Eh, I don’t really care so much about that one. It’s an origin that’s fairly straight forward unless they throw in some curveballs. The future should be fun as that always tends to be the best era. So a lot to look forward to in season 2, we’ll have to see how it stacks up against season 1. I would say the only worrisome element will be if we don’t spend a lot of time in the present since the guest stars were really starting to exert their presence and this will feel like they’re stalling for season 3 to be the big Marvel crossover event season.

Overall, X Men 97 was definitely a great series. It really goes by quickly and every episode was really exciting. The animation does a good job of emulating the original series and of course the ost is solid as well. This is a show that has nailed all of the fundamentals and so it is not a surprise that the product ends up being great. I can really recommend it to anyone and while watching the original series will give you the greatest level of enjoyment, you can jump into this one and still have a real blast. Episode 1 gives you all that you need to know about who the X-Men are and what they stand for.

Overall 8/10

My Hero Academia Review

Posted on August 4, 2024 by dreager1

My Hero Academia just finished today and was one of the last of the big Shonen Jump titans. The only titles with over 400 chapters now are Black Clover and One Piece. It’s hard to even say if any others really have a chance but we’ll have to see. My Hero’s definitely a great title and does feel like a fun next generation of Naruto in some ways. The idea of a series about superheroes is always a good idea and you can bet there were a ton of big fight scenes all the way through. Hopefully we get a sequel series at some point.

The story introduces us to Deku who is one of the few humans who is born without any kind of super power. For the most part, everyone gets a special ability called a quirk and then a lot of people go on to become professional heroes to take down the legions of villains. The number 1 hero is a guy called All Might who is known as the Symbol of Peace. His abilities are so good that he almost single handily ended crime on his own. Unfortunately his powers are nearly at their limit and so he passes on his powers to Deku. This is supposed to be impossible but his quirk is an exception. Now Deku can do his best to become a hero but will he really be able to pull this off?

Deku was always a bookworm and so he knew a lot about various abilities and fighters’ tendencies. This would translate pretty well when he got the abilities because now he could fight efficiently. In a way All Might’s power is too good for a while there as Deku’s body isn’t really able to contain that level of power. He has to hold back a lot even during the big fights because otherwise his own body will be torn apart. So as you can see it is an ability that carried with it an incredible amount of risk and destruction. It is not to be used lightly in any situation. As Deku learns and get older he will be able to use 100% without any issue but that assumes that there is still a world to fight for. The League of Villains are doing their best to make sure that this is not the case.

We start off with a light pre arc but it’s interrupted rather quickly for the first invasion saga as Shigaraki and his friends make their big appearance. From the start Shigaraki is a tough fighter to go up against because with a single grab he can destroy you. Any kind of contact is absolutely fatal so you have to deal with him from afar. They also have a Nomu creature which was able to go toe to toe with All Might for a while. Considering that this is just the first attack from the villains, it is really impressive on all angles. This was a good way to setup the villains but also show what the students could do right from the start. Most of them aren’t really ready to fight but there were a few like Bakugo and Todoroki who were ready from the start.

Then you’ve got the Sports Festival with the big tournament among the heroes. It’s sort of like the Chunin Exams in a sense and a big part of this was about Todoroki finally facing his powers and learning to use them all even after his tragic past. He really went through a whole lot but at the end of the day he pulled it off. His fight with Deku was definitely a highlight and it was also nice see Bakugo take a massive W in his match. His ability is suited for combat really well after all so that’s not exactly a surprise. It goes by real quick for sure but definitely squeezed in a whole lot of content. Characters like Endeavor would continue to have a really big role up through to the end of the series.

It also led to the debut of Stain and his big fight with the heroes. It was a really good part in the series both with the stakes and also what happened. Stain goes around murdering heroes who don’t quite fit into his box of what a true hero is. His rationale doesn’t always make sense but he’s a villain so that’s to be expected. This was Ida’s best role in the series. Usually he’s just the mild mannered class president who follows the rules without any kind of complaint. He does what he needs to and that’s the end of that. In this arc, his brother was taken down by Stain so Ida wanted revenge. Unfortunately we never see that same level of vigor from him again but at least he was really fun to see in this arc. You were definitely rooting for him to do well and it made for a good team based fight to end the arc with.

After that we got more character development for the heroes when they had to team up against the professional heroes. Deku and Bakugo are naturally picked to be teammates since they are worst enemies and it goes about how you would expect it to. Bakugo keeps on causing problems and picking fights there. He goes as far as to say he would rather lose than work with Deku which is definitely a very drastic take. All Might definitely went rather hard on them here too so you really get to see him land some devastating blows. It was a pretty fun set of battles and it’s always nice to see these teamwork fights. You may have some doubts about if the students could actually take on some of these pros but remember that this is for practice. It’s not like the pros are going all out necessarily.

The first big high stakes are for a while is in the forest. The students had went over there to get some experience when they were attacked by the league of villains. This time we were talking full stakes with the villains here to murder all of the kids that they could. Dabi really got to show off more of his abilities this time around and the heroes were really on the back foot for a lot of this. Deku also had his own 1 on 1 fight with Muscular which was real intense. To date that is still one of my favorite fights in the series. I thought it was a perfect way to show off how much stronger Deku has gotten. Naturally he still has a ways to go in order to become the strongest in the verse but the fact that he was overpowering this guy who focuses on strength was super impressive. Already by this point in the series I would say that he could easily defeat any of his fellow students.

Things move pretty quickly from there as we immediately turn the corner to Bakugo getting captured so Deku goes on a rescue mission. This leads All For One to show up and we finally get his big rematch fight with All Might. This is definitely some real good stuff and it’s another top fight in the series. It’s the last time we would ever get to see All Might fight at full power after all so you definitely needed to really savor the experience. It’s easy to see why he was the #1 hero for so long. He was definitely not someone to underestimate. The battle was definitely a turning point since the heroes no longer had a reliable shield behind them. I continued to expect one more stand by Al Might later on since we know he can transform for an instant but I suppose the timing was just too tight. Still, imagine how cool it would be to see him throwing a punch as slim might and at the last second he turns buff to land the full weight of the blow. That’d be awesome.

After that it was finally time to get the hero licenses! I will say this is definitely one part where the humans were always extremely unreasonable. Yes, the licenses are important but at the end of the day these are kids who have been saving everyone time and time again. It was always so annoying when the humans would show up to badmouth them and talk about how they can’t be fighting. Like cmon now, I get this for standard humans but even for them when it’s an emergency and you just saved a bunch of people, I think it’s 100% justified to have used the powers. Just tell the kids they did good and call it a day there.

After that is one of the most pivotal arcs in the series. There is a big villain gang around and they are going to team up with the League of Villains. At the head of this group is Overhaul, a guy who can destroy things and put them back together. He’s one of the darkest villains are he continues to inflict terror upon a little girl named Eri. This was a rough moment for Deku though which I never let him live down. He had a chance to end the arc before it even began by saving Eri but ultimately chooses to step aside. Yes, he was encouraged to do so by Mirio but there are times when you just have to attack and this was one of them. There is no room to back down or anything like that. You have to fight and show why you are the top hero. I could really accept nothing less. Still, Deku does his best to make up for this and we get some real intense battles in the arc. Mirio also comes into his own with some really good showings here.

You’d expect we need some time to calm down after that arc so we get a much smaller one with the Gentle Criminal. This was a really solid mini saga, I had a blast with it. He’s surprisingly very powerful and one of those villains that you can’t really underestimate. He was able to hold his own against Deku and is also very agile. Fact of the matter is he could probably crush most of the pros at this point in time. He gets a good talking to and while he does have to go to jail, you figure he will rehabilitate pretty well. He’s more of a lost soul than a hardened criminal after all.

Following that up is really the last chance for the heroes to have some fun. We get the joint training competition with the other class. Each of the characters get to have their moment to shine and we even have Deku start to learn some new powers. They may have been rather controversial but at the end of the day they are pretty neat. Most of Deku’s powers aren’t ones that will be super useful compared to his main super strength/speed abilities but they certainly don’t hurt either. I’d say the rival school deserved to win more rounds though, they had some really good plans and abilities at the ready.

The villains can’t be left out of the fun for too long though and they actually get their own mini arc to deal with a different villain group. This was pretty fun and it’s something I’d like to see more of in different titles. This is one of the only times I can think of where the villains got a whole saga to themselves to fight it out without any hero interventions. It’s not the literal only time but it’s extremely well and it was definitely a really cool story. It helps that the other villains were all really talented as well. It was to the point where the main villains actually needed a power up of their own to try and launch a counter attack. They ended up stronger and more unified as a result so they would be more of a threat in the next arc.

This would of course be the first big war with Shigaraki and his troops. We have all of the heroes jump in to stop them and it’s a really nice united front. This is one of the massive advantages of being a long running series. You can’t really pull this off to the same effect in one of the short titles because we just wouldn’t really know the characters and it wouldn’t have the same impact. With these characters though, we know them and have been with them for a long while. So it definitely hits a lot harder. The fights are all pretty high tier by this point with all of the characters really knowing how to fight. Definitely a lot of fun all around.

After that was the big tipping point with Deku transforming into Dark Deku. He decides to go it alone and take care of the villains. To be honest that’s pretty much the right call though and while that’s not supposed to be the case, I would argue the series accidentally agrees with me here. Deku takes down several formidable opponents on his own and even wins a battle while he has to protect someone. He’s fully capable of doing this on his own and the rest of the students would just hold him back. Yeah it’s emotional to be seeing them show up with their speeches and all but they are too weak to help. They don’t want to admit to this and I get it but Deku was taking care of business without them. I dare say if they had stayed back then he would have continued doing great things on his own. That is his power, that is why he needs to take the lead. The teamwork approach doesn’t work when he is this much stronger than the others and he surpassed them a long time ago. So the ending of the arc is pretty cheesy but it was still a lot of fun overall.

Finally we have the last arc. The big war against the heroes once again with everyone being involved like last time. This time the heroes decide to really make sure that the villains are all split up so they cannot help each others. It’s a pretty good plan and most of the matchups aren’t that bad. Putting Toga with some of the weaker fighters may not have been a good idea though. I would see Deku and Endeavor winning their matchups but for example Dabi’s another one who would have the clear advantage in his fight. It’s hard to see him losing that round but the heroes were doing the best with what they got. At the end of the day it’s up to the heroes to go plus ultra from there and take everyone out.

It’s quite the ride and with the series being as long as it is, it makes sense that there would be so many sagas. All of the characters really got to change with the times and everything. In general I would say I didn’t really like the ending but big manga endings can be a bit hit or miss at times. This one felt a little too harsh even with the final moment at the end. Still, you should never let an ending get in the way of good content. This is still dozens and dozens of great volumes of material all the way through after all.

What the series always did extremely well was focusing on the fact that this is an optimistic story about heroism. It’s a title you could pick up at any time and have fun with. There are tons of big battles and then also lots of interactions between the cast at school. You really got to know most of the characters and what they were thinking really well.

Naturally it goes without saying that the artwork is really good here. The series always gets a lot of praise for this and it is absolutely deserved. The close ups look real intense to the point of being borderline horror at times. The series does well with each of the tones and always shows a good amount of variety throughout. The writing is on point as well and it’s a series with a very clear premise that is easy to jump into. I expect even 20 years from now people will still be talking about the series. It had a real strong hold on top of the charts after all and was mega popular. People will never really forget this one.

Okay time to really dive into the characters. Get ready because there are certainly a lot of them running around here. No, the Vigilante characters never get to show up and save the day so you do have to relegate those to the spinoff series. It is a shame since at least the main guy could have really helped out a ton considering just how powerful he got by the end. He should seriously be one of the strongest heroes on the planet at this point in time. Still we have lots of other big fighters.

First lets go over some of the staff. Nezu is the principal and while he’s not really a fighter, the guy does have a lot of good tech at his disposal. He comes up with some pretty good designs to slow the enemy down with which isn’t easy. Additionally, he does defend the students at times. I had him pegged as the traitor for a while since he always seemed a little suspect to me but in the end I suppose he was a decent guy. He’s not my favorite character or anything but he does his best.

Then you have whose role as a teacher is bigger than a hero for most of the series due to his powers going away. As a teacher he’s only okay though. It’s pretty clear that he’s a hero who could do almost anything back in his prime so it’s harder to teach the skills. He still serves as a good role model for Deku though. Towards the end of the series he seemed to be losing it a bit though and I was sort of expecting a villain type arc. Not that he would join the villains but he would start to get more and more extreme as he got close to the line. Ultimately that wasn’t really the direction they were going for here.

Eraser Head is a pivotal character in the series. The guy tends to be harsh towards Deku all the time to the point where he even takes a shot at him in the very final chapter but he will always defend his students either way. His ability to take away someone’s quirk is extremely helpful all the way through to the end of the series. After all, most fighters are basically helpless without their quirk. Naturally that isn’t the case for the final boss but that’s one exception out of a whole series of fighting. So it’s still a really good deal if you ask me. He’s a fun character to have around.

Present Mic is Eraser’s foil and you could say the dynamic is a bit like Might Guy and Kakashi. Present Mic has way more fun with everything. He doesn’t take things too seriously and he likes being very loud. We actually do deal with a tragic event that affected both of them in the past but surprisingly that is really only in the spinoff series. So you have to read Vigilante to see the whole story. You can pick up enough here to still understand the context though.

Midnight is definitely more of a sketchy character. Yeah her gimmick is for humor but she’s just not the best kind of role model. Her ability has her conveniently stripping to power up which isn’t great. Although the series itself is actually great about not having much fanservice at all. It’s extremely tame so the series gets huge props for that since a lot of titles just can’t resist. That being said, it doesn’t save Midnight so she still ends up being one of the weaker characters.

Then we have Gran Torino who is a solid mentor type figure. His quirk is actually really handy since it’s basically like a mini version of One For All. He gets your classic super strength and super speed which lets him do a good job of training Deku. It was definitely super useful to have the whole time. You just know he would have been a top tier fighter if he was just a bit younger. As it was he still did a really good job in the series. He was definitely real likable.

The author did a good job of giving just about everyone in Class 1A something to do but to be honest not everyone really turned things around. First up is Kota and I’ve got nothing against the guy but he just wasn’t ever very big. His power isn’t the most useful and so he never got a chance to shine. Sero has his tape which isn’t going to do much against most of the villains. He gets a moment or two but that’s about it for him as well.

Jiro has her sound abilities which are considerably more helpful than some of the others. I’ll give her that and she did good in the festival as well as some of the other events. Her personality is also a lot of fun, she’s not afraid to talk smack with the rest of the fighters. If any of the side characters was going to get a bigger role she would be my pick. Sato by contrast is a character who doesn’t get much to do and doesn’t have much potential. He has super strength but to a fairly low level. Not much is going to happen from that.

Shoji surprisingly gets a bigger role by the end of the series. He will try to help end the monster discrimination but until then there isn’t much for him to do. He doesn’t have any powers that would stop the stronger opponents and so he would be caught lacking in the end. Ojiro is in a similar spot where all he has is a tail. It’s a strong tail but…that’s just not going to be much of a game changer when you get down to it. He seems like a nice guy though.

Now we start getting to the bigger characters. First is Hagakure and in a lot of ways the reason she got big was because everyone thought she was the UA traitor. Her invisibility just made this a done deal. Of course when you look at actual screentime she is near the bottom. I enjoyed her character though even if a lot of that is for reasons outside of the series. I’ll never forget the fun debates about her criminal intent.

A character with actual criminal intent is Mineta though and he is a terrible character by every metric. It’s a shame he wasn’t expelled because the guy was crazy. Unfortunately a lot of series still have the obligatory perv character and that was Mineta’s role here. He would always be around to harass someone and his power’s also rather lame. You were definitely rooting against him in every match.

Then we have Tsuyu whose role isn’t huge either but she is consistent. Unfortunately she was consistent in a very bad way. She would usually have the worst takes on things like saying Deku shouldn’t go to save Bakugo and that it would make him a villain. I really needed her to brush up on what it means to be a hero. Ultimately she isn’t bad or anything like that but definitely not a top tier character by any means.

Aoyama is one of those characters you feel bad for because his own power gives him a bad stomach. That’s just such a cruel twist of fate. He can barely muster off one blast before falling to the ground. I would feel so massively scammed by that point. I’m not a big fan of his though, he likes to be flashy but there isn’t much to his character beyond that. He gets his share of development and big moments but they didn’t do much for his character for me.

Ida as I said earlier looked great during the Stain arc. He was ready to land some punishing blows and that was real impressive. Where he really ended up faltering was the fac that after that he learned the wrong message. Ida never wanted to break the rules again even if people were in danger and that was a shame. He really has a lot of potential too. The thing to always remember is that following the rules is the right thing to do but never check your common sense out by the door. You gotta keep it with you and continue to push forward.

Mina is a fun character and she’s always at a bit of a disadvantage because her acidic powers are super lethal. If someone gets hit with that then they’re probably dying and she has to live with that. So part of the dilemma here is that she has to hold back just enough which is difficult. Still, she always tries hard and gets her share of emotional moments. She steps up even when it’s hard and that’s why I have a lot of respect for her.

Next up on the list is Uravity. She is more of a supporting fighter no matter how many times they tell us about her gunhead martial arts. She should have lost most of her fights in the series. She was a reasonable character for the most part but starts to fall off a cliff as the series ends. She just gets way too emotional about taking down a mass murderer. She did everyone a favor but it’s breaking her down inside. I get being upset, but I jut thought this was a little too much. They should have held back somewhat at least. Her goals aren’t bad but it was annoying to see her fall for the propaganda a bit.

Kaminari strikes me more as the kind of guy who would keep things real. For sure he doesn’t want to murder anyone but if he does end up saving the world then he will take it in stride. It’s what he does and his thunder powers are fun. He has a huge drawback like Aoyama which is that he ends up frying his own brain but at least that’s something he can train at as he gets stronger. You definitely want to get to the point where you don’t have any drawbacks to your power.

Kirishima actually got through those issues on his own. He used to not be strong enough so he would chip and start to fall apart as he fought. Now he has made himself hard and strong enough to the point where that is not a problem. He just takes the whole thing in stride. I like his confidence as well and he ends up being one of the better students. He’s also one of the only ones where you could say he and Bakugo are genuinely friends. That’s a feat in itself.

Tokoyami is another really powerful student. His dark energy bird is definitely tough and the fact that he gets even stronger at night is great since you figure most crimes would take place in that period. It makes him extremely well suited to being a hero, even more than a lot of the other characters without a doubt. He is not the guy that you want to leave on the bench.

Momo has cool powers of her own like being able to make anything she understands the mechanics to. That’s definitely a great ability even if she doesn’t have the stamina to keep it up for too long. She also has good tactical skills which makes her very difficult to defeat and helps her be a good supporting fighter as well. Momo always means well and has a likable personality.

Then we get to Todoroki who is one of the biggest characters in the series. After all the Todoroki family in general has a lot to get through. He had a rough upbringing due to Endeavor breaking their family apart and Todoroki had a hard time using his powers because he didn’t want to glorify his father. Eventually Deku helps him out and from there Todoroki becomes a top tier hero. He’s definitely one of the best characters in the series. I thought he handled his subplot extremely well like a professional. He is always fair about everything and you can count on him to have your back.

Bakugo is the big rival in the series and he always keeps Deku in top form. If Deku slips up even a little bit then Bakugo could end up surpassing him. Bakugo is always rather rude to everyone and that’s the way he aims to be a hero. Even through to the end he’s still yelling at everyone and hasn’t changed as much as you might expect. At least he does respect Deku now. He’s come a long way from being a petty bully and telling Deku to jump off a building. You can bet that those things don’t happen anymore. He may be rude but he’s certainly no bully. Bakugo is a real stand out character and the fact that he gets to be so strong with what I would call an average quirk is super impressive. Mini explosions usually don’t make you the equivalent of an S rank fighter.

Of course then we have Deku, the main character himself. He starts out a bit rough with being super timid the whole time. It takes him a little while but eventually he gets full confidence in himself and starts to take initiative. He has his flubs like the Eri moment but in general he is a good main character. The series is actually rather harsh to him I’d say when we go back to the ending but on the whole at least he got to accomplish a lot. Like with Uravity he does fall into a bit of a trap in terms of being a little too sad about how things turned out with the villains. At the end of the day they made their choice and Deku was forced to make his. Deku tried every possible alternative out first so he should have nothing to feel sad about. He gave it his all and I agreed with the call. Deku’s best mode was Dark Deku though, I’d love to see that return at some point.

Hawks is one of the pro heroes who shows up later on and he’s definitely fun enough. With his feathers he can fly at super speeds and he has a lot of power. He’s one of the most powerful all around heroes as a result. He has to put up with a lot by being an agent for both sides. The amount of intel he gets is really good and he had to put himself in a ton of really dangerous situations to get it. So nothing but respect to the guy, he did good.

Monoma is a really fun character. His copy ability really makes him a threat to any opponent and he also has a ton of confidence. The confidence is really what makes him the great character here because that’s what you love to see in a character. He was always ready to stand up for his class and prove that they were just as good as 1-A. Nobody else really had the gusto to pull that off so I’d say it was a rather big deal. It shows that he had a lot of guts at all times and so he was easy to root for.

Hatsume is a mild character from the support agency but she gets props for being super good at what she does. When the heroes need some kind of gear or equipment she is able to whip it out in no time flat. Nobody else could pull that off and that’s why she is the boss. There is nobody even close to her in terms of technical know-how.

Now lets go into more of the heroes. We’ve got Edgeshot who doesn’t have a huge role for most of the series but becomes absolutely pivotal by the end. He can get into any crack and exploit it. The guy is fast and hard to detect. Considering that he’s one of the top 10 heroes you know he is strong but I really do wish we could have gotten him to fight more. You never really get to see exactly what he can do in a true combat scenario for very long.

Then you have the Suneater who mostly gets overshadowed by his two teammates in the series. He can eat food in order to metamorphize his body which seems like an extremely useful technique to have. He has his share of contributions at the very end of the series but doesn’t do a ton of things on his own so that’s what keeps him from keeping up with some of the others. Also, he’s a bit too nervous and you know how I tend to take points off for that. I need him to show some more absolute confidence!

Nejire is a fun character. I like her lasers and she tends to stand out a lot. She’s another character where I would have liked to have gotten to see her do more. Her fights tend to mainly stay off screen but on camera she would absolutely dominate. You feel like most villains without regeneration wouldn’t be able to do much against her lasers but maybe it is difficult to limit them enough to not absolutely destroy the humans.

Mirio is a character who had a rough start with not saving Eri but at least after that he made this his primary mission. He would save her no matter what and he did a good job of that. Even at the cost of his powers, he really went all in. Surprisingly in the final war he doesn’t do as much as you would expect. I feel like with his abilities he should be a top tier fighter from start to finish. Maybe it just wasn’t a great matchup for him. Either way he does end up being a real fun hero all the way through and does more than a lot of the pros.

Take Wash for instance, what does he even do here? He makes the washing machine sounds but that’s about it. You forget that he’s around half the time which is too bad. Woods is another high tier hero but he really can’t keep up with anyone and is written out real quick. At least he seems like a good hero though so power isn’t everything. Mr. Lady may not be the most powerful hero on the list but she always rises up when necessary. She gets some pretty solid moments near the end where we see her determination. She gets some good props there.

Jeanist is one of those guys who actually gets a good amount of screentime and is strong. What really holds him back though is the fact that it’s hard to take his powers seriously. He can control denim to make something super tight or loose. It’s a good way to trap people but the strongest villains just aren’t going to be tied up for very long. He has a good amount of confidence though so he’s okay. Ryuku is a hero I expected more from though. She’s one of the top 10 and has absolute killer power. That should be enough to easily crush most fighters but she only gets maybe 2-3 battles and we don’t see her much. Felt like the series left a lot of meat on the bone with her.

Gang Orca has a cool design but doesn’t seem like the strongest hero. He didn’t do much at all when Toga was around after all so he lost points there. I know he was helping against the nameless minions but you have to do more than that. Mirko is the perfect example of a pro hero who came in and really took names. She did have the unfortunate habit of losing limbs in most of her fights but this never discouraged her. She would just come right back into the mix and land more blows. She felt like a grownup version of Bakugo. Definitely a great addition to the series and she was an instant scene stealer.

Fatgum had some moments as well. He’s not my favorite character bus his super durability while in fat mode is definitely real handy. You do not want to mess with Fatgum, that’s for sure. Then back to some of the students, we have Shindo who was really cool. He’s a character that I initially did not notice much in the series but then the anime helped bring him to the forefront. He does his best to stop the villains and nearly had Muscular on the ropes so I have to give him that.

Yoarashi is one of those real petty characters. He apologizes after creating a mess of things but the character motivation was rather weak. I almost would have preferred he just stay antagonistic the whole time but I suppose now he can always be used more freely in the future. Then we have Shinso who has been moving around quite a bit. Currently though he will be back with the main class which is handy. The ability to immediately brainwash/control someone is super useful and with how everyone loves talking, you can bet he will be useful for a very long amount of time. He needs someone to respond to him for the ability to activate but with how villains like monologuing that won’t be a problem.

Nighteye is an assistant but one who can move fast and read the future. This actually allowed him to dodge Deku’s strikes which might be a little bit of a stretch. My think with this is even if Nighteye knows where the hits will be, I don’t see him physically being fast enough to do anything about it. He should still be getting absolutely washed in a fight if you ask me. Either way he was a fun character to have around though.

Then we have Endeavor as one of the top tier fighters. He is a super combatant so I want to say that strength is not something that he is lacking. The guy definitely has true skills but the reason I didn’t like him is because of his backstory. Basically he was abusive to his wife and kids. The series goes to great pains to work on the character redemption saga but ultimately it wasn’t enough for him. He just went way too far by that point so there’s no turning back. I’m glad that he’s on the right side now but yeah I had 0 real sympathy for the guy. He created all of the big problems and now has to live with them for however long he lasts.

Star and Stripes is the final big hero here and she ran into the issue of being too powerful. Her ability basically let her alter reality by making anything she says come true. It’s extremely difficult to stop that, in fact you could say it’s borderline impossible. The best way would be to speedblitz her before she could get any orders out but the problem is that she built her body to be All Might level in terms of speed. She always has one rule up to keep herself that way so that plan won’t work. You’ll be shaking your head at how she goes down but either way she is a great character.

Now onto the villains! I want to give a quick shoutout to the villain from chapter 1. He never gets to do much of anything but was pivotal to the series. Without him making a move in the first episode, everything would have turned out super differently. Low key it also seems like a pretty good power and even All Might had a hard time catching up to him.

Lady Nagant is more of a serious villain though. She is dispatched to take out Deku and the fact that her gun strikes can even come close to the guy is super impressive. By this point in the series Deku’s speed is absolutely insane so keeping up with him in any kind of capacity is certainly a trick. She gets a whole backstory which was handled well and I like how her character ended. she was a good character through and through.

Then we have Stain who is always fun. Again, his idea of who is worthy to be a hero can be a bit vague. You’d figure Ida’s brother would have met the criteria but at his core you have to remember that he is still evil. He gets a good moment near the end and in general his abilities are super useful in a fight. If you get paralyzed even just once then it could be all over. He uses blades after all so unless you are wearing some armor then that’s it.

Next we have Mustard who is a fairly minor villain but the guy has a gun which is absolutely crazy here. Most pro heroes aren’t bullet proof so if you get the attack in then it could be super dangerous. The heroes have to take him out real quick each time since he shouldn’t be underestimated. At the end of the day he is just a normal guy with a gun but that’s why he’s so scary. Because you know that someone else could copy him in the future. Then there’s the Nomu. By the end of the series there are a lot of them. I would say that none of them ever manage to surpass the original one from season 1 but a few of them certainly come close. The high end who fought Endeavor comes to mind. Especially since that one could talk, that was a lot of fun.

Another strong fighter is Gigantomachia even if he can be a little too big at times. If he could scale down somewhat then I dare say he would be the bigger threat. It would be harder to lock onto him and everything. He could then appear out of nowhere and deal devastating damage. Yeah that would have been rough. As for the Doctor, not much to say about him. He’s basically your average scientist villain concocting plans and getting in everyone’s way. He’s not what I would call a massive threat or anything like that.

Then you have the Gentle Criminal and like I said before the guy is a lot of fun. I like his fighting style and his gimmick is also pretty neat. It’s not like he is going around murdering anyone either. He knocks out anyone sent to stop him but that’s about it. Meanwhile he has his partner La Brava who handles the tech and his social media. They really make for a good team all the way through.

There aren’t really any other teams though. After that we have Muscular who has a big grudge against Deku after the first fight. Don’t expect him to be just following orders all the time. I like that kind of rebel character so it’s no surprise that I enjoyed his character quite a bit. He ended up beating Spinner for me as an example. Spinner had his whole subplot with the creatures but I felt like it didn’t go anywhere quick enough. Additionally Spinner just wasn’t the smartest character a he let himself be manipulated so easily. Definitely not a good look there at all. He basically became a mindless monster.

Twice was a nice guy. Also a bit gullible but he would always do his best. Now during this writeup I do want to underscore that he is still a villain. He fell in with the wrong crowd and led a life of crime but at the end of the day he still has to take accountability for that. You don’t get a pass just because you were tricked. After all he still knew exactly what he was doing.

Mr. Compress doesn’t get a ton to do but he was a loyal fighter and a pretty good character all around. His abilities were super handy and we even get a brief backstory which wasn’t half bad. I would have liked seeing more of him. Kurogiri is another character who could have used some more screentime. We know about his backstory but like I said before most of it is in the spinoff anyway and not here. Most of this guy’s scenes are all from the very beginning of the series and then he’s gone for a very long time. Teleporting is always super handy though so I liked him but I wish he wasn’t held captive for so long.

Then you have Toga and you have to remember that she is super sadistic and evil. I feel like the manga tries gaslighting you a bit on this with Toga and the others but this isn’t some random victim. Toga was causing a whole lot of destruction throughout the series and had to be stopped. There’s no real way around it, if you don’t stop Toga then it’s all over. She was going to tip the scales before she was defeated. I think she makes for a decent villain when that is how she’s being presented at least. Her blood copying abilities are definitely hard to stop.

Dabi is the standout villain and the best in the series. He was ditched by Endeavor early on and just kept on training. He’s the only character that All for One could not manipulate which already gives him a ton of hype. Factor in that he has the strongest flames and it’s a wrap. He had a rough backstory so I’d say I sympathize with him more than the other villains. In a way they made him too sympathetic at first so they added some stuff to make him go lower again. That’s fine, he’s not someone you are supposed to look up to anyway. He just so happens to have a really cool design and everything

Now we’re at the two big villains. First up is Shigaraki who gets a whole lot of screentime. I didn’t care for his origin story since it involves some animal violence. Miss me with that but it is easy to see how he turned evil. The environment didn’t do much to help him there but by no means is it the old lady’s fault. Later on we get a scene where some people think she should have acted but I reject the premise out of hand. By no means should she have been expected to go and do something about this. Shigaraki continues to get stronger and stronger throughout the series as his ambitions also grew greater. He is a very interesting and well layered villain. I dare say the series wrote themselves into a bit of a hole with how he can destroy anyone by touching them though. It means that none of the fights can have any contact for the most part so they have to work around that. Since he is as fast as All Might later on though, that starts to feel a bit impossible. There are definitely some power level issues there but all in all I liked Shigaraki. His group also know he has their back. They actually stick together and you love to see because I actually like loyalty among villains.

Finally you have All for One from the main villain group. The guy was always so mysterious and doing things from behind the scenes but man did he fall down hard near the end. He was panicking left and right as everyone barreled into him. There was a time near the end where he spends maybe 10-15 chapters getting crushed by everyone. He makes so many mistakes and looks so bad. I still like the villain of course and most crack by the end but this was definitely real drastic. You just couldn’t help but laugh at him a bit as well as he lost all of his charisma. He definitely needed to get out of his old body and that would have helped out a lot. Instead it was time for him to get humbled big time. So fun villain, but Shigaraki is definitely higher.

Then we have the alternate villain group led by Re-Destro. Re-Destro is one of those villains who was amazing at first and then from there he really ended up going down big time. He had a lot of aura and leadership potential but then he squandered it all and became more of a loyal lapdop. No, that was not my Re-Destro! It was a shame to see him lose everything that made him a cool villain. So by the end of the series I can’t say that I was much of a fan. He still had a really awesome intro though.

Curious was one of his big fighters and she was cool. Her fight with Toga was really solid and in a lot of ways you could say she should have won that battle. She played the matchup to near perfection and had counters ready for every tactic. That’s the kind of fighter you absolutely do not want to underestimate or it’s all over. She is one of those villain psychos who has a gimmick and stands by it which I appreciate. Of course the best member of the group is Geten. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of him. His ice is so powerful that he was able to hold his own against Dabi for a while which is absolute insanity. I would say that automatically puts Geten near the top of the verse and that’s probably why they couldn’t show him too much. He would be absolutely dominating everyone who made the mistake of getting in his way.

Rappa is a fairly minor villain in the grand scheme of things but I liked him. He always enjoys a good fight and didn’t want any cheap tricks to get in the way. He was extremely strong but also had an honor code. So you actually didn’t mind when he was winning. He’s still a villain without a doubt but at least he has a purpose/focus. I think it could have been pretty cool to see him go up against Deku at some point.

All of the One for All previous user get to show up in the vestige world and everything so that’s pretty neat. I wouldn’t say we get to know too much about them but we know what we need to. The theory about Backugo from the future may not have panned out but that was fun while it lasted. Imagine having 6 people living rent free in your head though. That could have been a little funny subplot to keep going in the background if the series had just wanted to keep that up.

Finally we have the last two characters who supported Deku a lot. His mom gets several appearances in the series. I wouldn’t say she ever gets to look good here but unfortunately her role didn’t permit much time for that. She’s mainly here to get emotional a whole lot of times. It would have been nice to ser her step into the action like she found a way to improve her quirk or something. Meanwhile Eri is also around as a wild card. I would say she is a true wild card because the whole time you’re waiting to see her use her youth powers again. The way they write around this can be a bit annoying but she still gets to help out as needed. She’s put up with a whole lot as a kid so you can bet that I’m not going to be all that harsh at all.

The series does have a lot of power level issues mainly due to Deku himself. He has the strongest quirk around and continues to grow during the series. He should be crushing most of his competition with ease like All Might used to. There are times like when Toga grabs him that you just have a hard time believing it. Likewise when Shigaraki is fighting and doesn’t manage to grab anyone even with his super speed. The issue is that Deku and Shigaraki are both just way too strong for anyone else and that leaves to some unbalanced environments. Every series has power scaling issues of course but this one tended to appear more drastic because of skilled these two were.

Overall, My Hero Academia is definitely a great series and what Shonen Jump is all about. You’ve got a large cast of fun fighters and a whole lot of battle scenes within it. You’ll be blasting through the series real quickly as you eagerly await what happens next. The pro heroes could never keep up for the most part but at least this paves the way for the kids to become the next wave of heroes. They will do what the grownups could not and really make the world a utopia. It’s a bold goal but they are ready for it. This was definitely quite the writeup and I can assure you that I still left out a bunch of characters and events. If you want the full experience then it’s time to binge the series. Get ready for a real good time!

Overall 8/10

Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review

Posted on May 11, 2024 by dreager1

Time to look at the big spinoff to that iconic Spider-Man game. This one’s definitely quite a bit shorter and so it feels like a lean version. Gone are all of the science minigames and civilian levels. Instead you are really Spider-Man the whole time and some of the map navigation has changed a little. Some of these are positive changes while others are not but it works really well in this pocket setting. Ultimately I would say that it’s another top tier game and really does a great job of continuing the saga. I may not have been as thrilled if I paid $60 for it but otherwise it definitely does the job.

The game starts off with Spider-Man being defeated by the Rhino so Miles has to save him. Peter figures it’s about time for a good vacation so he heads off to be with Mary Jane for a while as Miles takes center stage to fill in. He doesn’t just want to fill in though, he wants to prove that he has what it takes to be the true Spider-Man and he may get his chance now. The new villain group known as the Underground is so powerful that they took out the Demons gang and they are planning something big that could destroy the city. Can Miles stop them even if it means taking on some former friends?

The story is around 6-8 hours give or take although it can be a bit longer if you spend more time on side quests. I didn’t do as many as in the first Spider-Man game in part because there were less of them so I wouldn’t pass them by in pursuit of the story mission. Also in part because in this game the crimes are endless compared to the first Spider-Man game where they would end. So as a result I didn’t feel like there was much of an incentive to working on those. Eventually there is a trophy that is crime related but that will be showing up later on. The trophies for this game don’t look all that hard and actually seem easier than the first Spider-Man title but the one that will take a while is beating the game again on New Game+. I suppose not that it’ll take a super long while or anything but noticeably more intense than the rest of them.

It gives you some good replay value though. I mentioned some changes earlier so of course the endless crimes was one so what about the others? Well, now you can turn invisible which is super helpful for getting the drop on enemies and landing more stealth takedowns. I will admit that it makes the game much easier as well. You can turn invisible mid combo to confuse the enemies and then keep on beating them up. Additionally Miles comes with his electric abilities which all land a real big punch. It makes for a satisfying way to beat down the enemies of course but it’s also another way to get yourself out of a tight spot.

So you should really be breezing through this game. That said, it’s a worthy trade off because I really like the venom abilities. They help to make the combos flashier and it’s like having special attacks in addition to the standard moves. The upgrade tree has been simplified so there aren’t as many upgrades. With far less collectibles as well, cleaning up the city has never been easier. I doubt it will take all that long after completing the game all the way through.

The combat speed itself feels faster with all of the combos but that might just be more of a feel and less of a fact. It’s hard to say for sure but I was definitely racking up the blows. Navigating the map is more or less the same as in the first game and moving the side missions to a separate screen feels about the same even if the location is different. The game has removed the quick time events which is too bad but I can’t say that I missed the human stealth missions. You don’t have a camera or anything like that this time which I’m also fine with.

These are things that show how this game is more like a mini version of the first but the important thing is that it still has a lot of content. It has less costumes for example but it still has a good amount of them. So there’s less of everything but compare this to another big game and it probably still comes out favorably. So I would say that’s pretty impressive. Meanwhile the graphics are still really good. It’s likely using the same engine which makes sense. Some costumes don’t always work as well in the cinematics like the cartoon one I wore but that’s to be expected since the art style is so different. I just chose it anyway because I like that costume a lot.

The soundtrack is more on the forgettable side. It’s good and all for the moment but there are no tunes that you would actually go and look up. I would have liked some rock themes or at least one when you fought the Prowler. That may be the best boss fight yet in these two Spiderman games. I like how you had to really rely on your spider sense. It’s something that hasn’t been utilized a whole lot yet so that was really nice. You had to trust in your reaction times and get the job done. Yes, the timing isn’t super tight so it’s a little on the easy side, but regardless the concept was really cool.

Naturally the game does lead into the big sequel with the ending so that’s definitely real exciting. As a whole the story did a good job of setting Miles up for the big leagues since he will need the experience here. At times the drama with Tinkerer could feel a little forced perhaps but all in all you were engaged the whole time. The stakes may not have been Earth shattering but that’s for the main games, not the spinoffs per say. It also will help and make Spider-Man 2 feel more like a crossover now that both characters have had their own games. I assume each one will keep their respective combat systems but we’ll see if that is really the case. I’m also curious on how switching between the characters will go.

Overall, Miles Morales really delivers with a superb game here. The original game set up the groundwork and this one took it all the way. I love these kinds of games with massive free roam over the city. It’s handled so well even to the basic things like movement. I actually want to go and grab the collectibles because the game is so fun. You’re encouraged to just get out there and have a good time which I appreciate. The more I play through these games, the more I’m curious to check out the final outstanding ones that I haven’t played like Web of Shadows or the home console version of Spider-Man 3. All in good time I suppose.

Overall 9/10

Spider-Man Review

Posted on May 10, 2024 by dreager1

After all these years I have finally played the big Spider-Man game that came out many years ago. This one really made a whole lot of waves and it’s easy to see why. They clearly put a lot of budget into it and the world is very expansive. There are so many different collectibles and side missions to go through. I guarantee you will be playing this game for a very long time, you can trust me on that.

The game starts off with introducing us to a very experienced Spider-Man. He’s been at the game for a very long time and has saved the world more times than we can count. Well, he’s going to be up at bat once more because the Demons have shown up to take control of the city now that the Kingpin is behind bars. This new gang is absolutely ruthless and they have dangerous plans for the city. They have a beef with Norman Osborne and its one that threatens to destroy even the innocent civilians who have nothing to do with this. Can Spider-Man save everyone this time?

It’s really nice to see an older Peter Parker who already has a handle on things. The game puts a lot of emphasis on his scientific knowledge as well so you can definitely expect to see him inventing a lot of things and generally being a handy guy. The game works these in as minigames which are fun enough. Admittedly I was always ready to just go out there and enjoy the combat some more but the minigames are fairly short so it’s not a big deal. The story itself is definitely excellent and you are going to have a good time here. It’s a fairly sizable campaign too so you won’t be completing it too quickly.

Then you have the primary gameplay which is definitely really solid. The game makes incredible use of the spider sense as you weave in and out of attacks. It’s all very fast paced and you can approach the game in many different ways. The combat just gives you a lot of freedom and of course you can imagine that I tend to go for a more hyper aggressive style. I just want to take down every enemy in my way and that’s sometimes going to be more of a challenge. The game does want you to opt for stealth sometimes and I try but I usually get spotted anyway. Most of the levels are about being Spider-Man and generally dominating but you do have the occasional level as Mary Jane or Miles which are complete stealth missions.

I didn’t mind them but I’m sure I would have gotten more tired of them if these levels popped up too often. As it is, they were a solid change of pace. Each level can be beaten quickly if you want to get to the end or you can explore a bit and pick up a lot of easter eggs/foreshadowing for the future. I’m impressed at how interactive every part of the game is. This is exactly the kind of title you think about when you hear the words “AAA game”. It’s a term that has gotten a bit watered down over the years but this is a great example of a title that had a lot of effort and care put into it.

It goes without saying that the graphics are excellent here. It is going for a more movie/cinematic type of artstyle so it may not quite look as sharp as the more colorful titles but it still works really well. It’s always fun to see New York City in a big game like this as well. They got in so many different landmarks and it’s really impressive. The soundtrack is a bit less noticeable. It’s good and all but not great so I wouldn’t expect it to be knocking you out of the park or anything. It performs its job well and that’s what counts though.

In terms of replay value, well where should I even start? There are tons of suits and powers to unlock. You can upgrade your tech, and of course gather all of the trophies associated with the game. It’ll take a while to really do all of that even if the trophies themselves aren’t super difficult. I imagine you’ll be playing for 30 hours minimum so you’re getting a whole lot of bang for your buck. The game has aged really well so it’s still not too late if you want to purchase it now.

Probably the area I’d give the most credit to within the game is how seamless the whole hub world is. You can be on your way to fight the next story mission when a crime breaks out a few blocks away. You can choose to ignore it or go over there and fight. I decided not to ignore crimes early on since they would help for trophies down the road and it’s just really smooth. After I stop the criminals I go to where I was supposed to go. On the way to objectives I would stop by to pick up backpacks and other collectibles as well. No loading times or anything like that to break up the flow. You also get faster as you level up which makes going through the city a breeze. So I rarely ever used the quick travel except for the trophy associated with it although I am glad that it is an option. It is easily one of the best hub worlds I’ve ever seen.

Overall, Spider-Man is an elite game. It’s definitely the kind of title that you think about when you are expecting a top tier comic book game. Fans of the character should be very pleased and I will be back in the world of spiders very quickly since I got the Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2 games in the same batch. So 3 big titles all in a row. We’ll see how they stack up to the original here. It’s definitely a tall act to follow after all.

Overall 9/10

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Review

Posted on December 7, 2022 by dreager1

I have to say this is definitely a film that I hadn’t heard of before now. It seems like a really obscure comic book movie even if they got a fairly big actress in this one. It’s a fun throwback to the more retro superheroes from the backgrounds to the plot and characters. It works well and I had a good time with the movie but I could see how the visuals would be rather mixed. It’s a very unique style that makes everything look mysterious like a noir film but it can also make you a bit queasy. I could see this getting people sick in the theaters, there’s something about the lighting that almost makes you dizzy. I dare say that a more traditional approach would have worked really well for the film even if it would perhaps make it a little less unique.

The film starts with reporter Polly looking into why a bunch of scientists have been disappearing. Her boss warns her not to get mixed up with all of this though because it’s quite dangerous but she is determined to get in the mix. She’s much like Lois Lane in that no story is too dangerous for her. Well she meets up with the last scientist yet and his name is Dr. Jennings. He rambles about how a guy named Totenkopf is going to murder them all because he was part of some project but he runs off without giving too many details. Not a very smart move tbh. Then giant robots attack the city and the government is forced to call in the Sky Captain. This guy is as tough as they come. He has a tough airplane and has a way with words.

Brute strength won’t win the day this time though so he may have to team up with Polly. Thing is, they have a lot of beef with each other. Sky Captain seems to go on the rebound at times and Polly would lie/steal from Sky Captain. They really just didn’t match and I think the film had fun making things as bad between them as possible. Still there is no escape from the team up this time so they have to get ready to talk like the old days. Really none of them are going to do much against a ton of robots so it’s all about finding Totenkopf’s base and taking him out.

As the main heroine I’d say that Polly does a really good job here. She’s a fun character and I’ll always give her credit for just jumping into the danger and doing her thing. She won’t be stopped by anybody. You can see how that may not make it easy for her in a romance since she is quite independent and will keep taking risks anyway. It’s much easier to do that when you aren’t tied down since you can then take all the risks that you want. She will need to be a little more careful with the photos she takes though. There is a scene at the very end of the film that has to be heartbreaking. It’s a comedy scene and all but is still rough for her. She ultimately chose sentimentality over doing the job and that cost her big time.

Then we have the Sky Captain who may not have a ton of personality but he’s one of those old heroes that you can’t help but like. He has a lot of confidence and is not afraid to go up against incredibly powerful fighters all on his own. At the end of the day he is just a normal guy so the fact that he is able to go up against giant mechs without batting an eye is impressive. He may be a little harsh with Polly which huts him in terms of being professional but otherwise is reasonable throughout the movie. He’s quick on his feet and is very decisive with all of his actions. You won’t get any hesitation out of him. The city would have been doomed without him.

What superhero would be complete without a sidekick though right? He has Dex at the ready and he’s really the tech guy. He analyses sounds back at the base so they can track the villains. He’s always handy to have around and while he may not be an active fighter, that doesn’t stop him from always getting into the mix. It would have been nice to have seen him in the field more but you do get a little of that in the climax. Ultimately while sidekicks are a staple, I think they usually aren’t needed for a film even if that is tradition. If you are going to do it then the sidekick should be able to hold his own and fortunately Dex wasn’t a liability for most of the movie.

Totenkopf makes for a solid main villain here and the film throws some twists your way by the end. One thing I was really impressed with was how high tech everything was. The robotics and tech at the ready look a bit ahead of their time. Both in and out of universe, they did a good job on the special effects. In a way it also helps that I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this film. I suppose I was thinking of something a little more grounded than what we got here so that ended up working out quite nicely. Surprising me with a lot of extra action all around is a win in my book.

I think this could have made for a pretty solid franchise. There aren’t any parts of the film that I would say were very weak. It’s well balanced on all sides from the characters to the fights. Perhaps I would switch gears with the villain in the sequel and make it someone who can get a lot more screen time and maybe even fight the Sky Captain in hand to hand. That’s more of a style choice though, so long as the execution is good then they could do a film like this again. It’s a very direct movie that delivers on what you would expect without relying on any gimmicks. You have to be confident in your writing skills to pull that off and this film did good there.

Overall, The Sky Captain is a pretty good film. It may not have ended up being all that big but it gets the job done. If you see this one around then I’d recommend checking it out. It’s an interesting movie and I can always use more comic book superhero type films. It may not have become a big franchise but then that means you can really enjoy this adventure as some kind of stand alone. The pacing is quick so the movie never drags on or anything either.

Overall 7/10

Black Adam Review

Posted on October 22, 2022 by dreager1

It feels like this movie has been coming out for so long that you almost started to wonder if it was really happening. Well at last it’s here and the movie definitely lives up to the hype. With top notch action, a solid story and a good group of characters you’re definitely going to be pleased here. I would put it in the top 3 DCEU films just under Man of Steel and Batman V Superman while knocking Justice League off the 3rd spot. You could say that the hierarchy of the DC universe really did change.

The movie starts off with showing us the past of Kahndaq as its King turned crazy with power and enslaved his own people so that they could find him jewels of incredible power. One kid didn’t like this and made a brave stand which resulted in the wizards transporting him away to gain incredible powers. He then stopped the King but it took everything he had and the destruction was massive. 5000+ years later in the present day, the country is once again ruled by terror as Intergang rules now. They’re up to their usual tricks of looking for powerful artifacts. The Crown of Sabbac is their objective and the only one standing in their way is Adrianna.

She is trying to locate the crown first so that she can hide it and works together with her brother Karim and their friend Ishmael. In trying to find the crown we see that Ishmael is a traitor and Adrianna is forced to summon Black Adam from the void to protect them. He defeats the evildoers quickly but is unsure of what to do. He’s been gone for so long that the world doesn’t feel like his. Still, he won’t let the country stay oppressed for long and prepares to fight. Unfortunately the aggressors have help as the Justice Society is summoned to stop him and put this country back into being oppressed by Intergang. If Adam doesn’t stop them quickly then all hope will be lost.

Right off the bat one thing I liked about the film is how fast paced it is. After that initial flashback to the old days, you can bet that there was going to be a lot of action. Just about every scene has someone getting absolutely devastated in combat or a lot of explosions galore. Considering that the film is 2 hours, that’s a lot of good content around every corner. The fights are a lot of fun and Adam’s speed is handled well. It almost looks like teleportation with how quickly he can move and it’s why nobody appears to be a match for him. If he could just keep on attacking while moving at that speed more freely then even the final boss of the film and characters who seemed to last for a little bit like Hawkman wouldn’t have a chance.

The visuals are top notch here and I also liked the soundtrack. Now I won’t say that every tune was a winner here but for the most part they were all solid. I liked Adam’s main theme and when it played you knew that things were about to get real. When a movie looks and sounds good then it’s already starting on a good note. Could the rest of the film capitalize on this? I’d say that it did without a doubt. The movie has some good humor as well mainly thanks to Amon (Adrianna’s son) giving Adam a lot of ideas and him doing his bet to meet them. The movie’s humor style works really well with how serious and stoic Adam is at all times. You should crack a smile a few times.

Now a big thing here was that the Justice Society would not just be appearing but also getting a decent role. Would their scenes just make you wish Adam was around or would they do good? Well, they made for fun supporting characters. The film did have to try hard to make them appear to be any kind of match for Adam though because you get the feeling that he could crush them all in an instant if he actually wanted to. None of them are remotely in the guy’s ballpark after all.

Strength aside though, they look absolutely awful at negotiating. They are given two different opportunities to try and talk Adam down and use the worst possible ways to do it. “Kneel or Die” is not a phrase that just about any character would appreciate so that being the first impression here is a massive miss. I was wondering if the helmet was mind controlling Dr. Fate when he flew in and said this because it seemed so out of character. This isn’t really hinted at so I guess it was just him but it was an odd scene.

Then later on the Society are given another chance so Hawkman promptly ruins it by saying “We’re here to negotiate your peaceful surrender” when the whole idea was supposed to be just to talk. So power levels aside, I can also see why Adam found these guys to be really annoying. I wouldn’t trust them to be heroes at all and it’s clear that they had let this country alone to fend for itself for ages. While Adam couldn’t know that they are just lackeys working for Waller, that probably explains why they didn’t come sooner. I’m guessing they just wait until the government tells them who to fight.

I don’t doubt that they are heroes but they are bad at reading the situation and that didn’t help matters here. They just fumbled the ball so the whole time you are rooting for Adam. See, Black Adam is the kind of villain you can root for here because he’s still protecting people and has a very clear honor code. He’s not going to go after anyone who is keeping to themselves and not hurting anyone. He only punishes the wicked and does so without any mercy.

It’s why characters like the Punisher are always appealing because they keep the villains off the street permanently. So they aren’t heroes but they make the world a safer place and for people living in those areas, they can’t afford to be picky. It’s easy to see why they would side with Adam here. At long last they have a protector and their country won’t be so easily messed with anymore. It opens up a lot of possibilities for the whole area in the rest of the DC Universe. It’s sort of like Atlantis, Wakanda, or Latveria now where it’s an independent area with its own setup.

Picking fights aside, Hawkman is a fun character. He’s just super annoying with how he’s picking unwinnable fights the whole time. His baseless confidence just doesn’t work in this case and always wanting to fight reminds me of Hawkgirl there but usually she wasn’t matched up with someone outside her league like this. Hawkman seems to be the leader but isn’t a big strategist. Still, at the end of the day he is a tough fighter and I liked his determination.

Atom Smasher is the rookie here and he almost felt a bit like Deadpool with how he’s always joking around and having fun. This guy is still a hero and all though. I thought his attempts at humor weren’t nearly as good as the jokes around Adam but he tries. I always thought turning big wasn’t a great power since it just makes you a huge target but he does decently well for himself. His role is fairly small though. Likewise Cyclone doesn’t do a ton of fighting here but her wind powers are nice to have. If she can use her genius to build some kind of robotic suit to protect herself while fighting then I think she would have a good set up here and could really go to town with her wind abilities.

Dr. Fate is really the heavy hitter here and he had the only attack from the Society that actually seemed to hurt Adam. Magic always has a lot of uses and its power can be quite impressive so he makes for a good addition to the team. He doesn’t take things quite as seriously as Hawkman so he actually has some fun with all of this. I really liked the voice that he uses as Dr. Fate so it’s a shame that he didn’t use it more. This guy was a lot of fun though so I can see why everyone likes him.

As for the humans, they were okay. I didn’t care for the villain Ishmael though. He’s just your average guy who wants to be super strong. It’s all well and good that he has these elaborate plans and all but he’s just not very interesting at all. Karim is the comic relief guy here who does his best but is always in over his head. I give him props for coming out to help in the climax though and not backing down. He may not be the best fighter but he still tries his best.

Then you have Adrianna as the main heroine here and I was glad that she always had Adam’s back. When the Society tries to convince her that he’s a menace she doesn’t believe them and defends Adam every time. That’s good loyalty because he’s done nothing but help her by this point in time while the Society hasn’t done much of anything to help out. If anything they get in the way with all of their meddling and destroying half the city trying to stop him.

Finally for Black Adam himself, I was a big fan of the character. He’s very no nonsense with how he goes about attacking the villains. He’s portrayed to also be fairly quick on the uptake. He takes things literally but not to extreme lengths like Drax and while modern things may be foreign to him, he doesn’t suddenly act dumb with new concepts. His character has a lot of nuance to it and even to the end he is making the right calls. As a result he makes for a very good main character and someone you can root for here.

So I didn’t really have any issues with the film. If we want to get into really minor things, occasionally it felt like they had to nerf Adam a bit in order to keep the Society competitive. Based on his opening showing in terms of speed there is no way Hawkman or the others could come anywhere close to even landing a hit on him. They’re just way too slow. I used the excuse of Adam not being able to fight while moving that fast which we could use if we have to, but that really is an excuse since I don’t think anybody actually buys that. Still, the movie did show that none of their attacks did any damage aside from Fate’s so I can let that slide.

It’s also interesting seeing the Society effectively seem like antagonists for a good chunk of the film. It reminds me of how the Avengers went off the deep end during the AVX comic series. I like to think the League would have handled things better which is why Waller didn’t call them in. That or she knew they wouldn’t listen to her and would cause a lot of chaos. It’s always tricky balancing superheroes with a broken country like this because you do wonder where the heroes have been. There is no excuse or reason big enough for them to have abandoned this place for over 20 years so inevitably the hero is going to look bad in this kind of circumstance. I don’t think there would be any way for the Society to win back people’s trust after that.

Naturally the film does have a scene after the credits so you’re going to want to check that out. It’s definitely a real important scene and again it makes Adam look really good with how he handles this. Now, one character here needs to be handled carefully because he’s not the kind of guy who just takes orders. He may follow them if they’re good orders but he’s nobody’s lackey. It’ll be interesting to see where this plot goes and of course I’m hyped to see it. It was a good way to end things off.

Overall, Black Adam is definitely a film that you need to watch as soon as you can. It even throws in some twists and turns for you as it really goes back to the original DC days of Man of Steel and Batman V Superman with the incredible battles and intense story. Like those it can feel a bit darker at times and there’s a lot of grey here as the characters even call the Justice Society out for trying to draw a line between good and evil real quickly. You’ll have a good time here whether it is for those big power displays or also as you weigh in on if Adam is doing the right thing or not. With the country in ruins like this should he keep taking everyone out or should he try to adopt some kind of justice system and make things work out in a more legal way? It’s a lot to make you think but at the end of the day you’ll be glued to your seat the whole time. To answer your big question, I’d still put Superman as the most powerful being in the DC universe but Adam is solidly ahead of Shazam, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and every other member. The next DC films are going to have a lot to live up to as this one set the bar very high again.

Overall 9/10

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