#Chippster

[ladybugboots]

chippster

[chippsterdotcom]

Welcome to Va-11 Hall-a

Hello! Let’s take a look at the far future of 207X welcome to a little bar where people come to refuge, Va-11-hall-a. A game released in 2016, you play as a bartender you serve regulars. As a simple bartender the world around you is nothing short of white noise; You are a civilian named Jill. As you progress through the game a wonderful cast of characters reveal themselves; all of them are charming, and unique with distinct stories and problems. The game itself is a visual novel, with a drink mixer feature, and that’s ok I don’t mind visual novels what I do mind is just that. I would have loved to see the bartending in action a lot more than just a feature occasionally used. The whole mixing drinks could have easily been removed and you wouldn’t notice. Another thing I would like to see improve is the importance of choice, within the game the only choice you can make is to serve drinks which do nothing anyway. All my complaints are just that I thought it would be a different game instead of just a visual novel; with that in mind that doesn’t underline why I bought it. The aesthetic, I love cyberpunk and the art in the game is wonderful to look at. On the last note music, the beats in this game are nice and with the jukebox allowing you to choose your own playlist. Some of the tracks are almost made for curtain moments like a confession, or a somber moment. Maybe I’m just putting to much thought into it a warning in the beginning of the game says to “chill out and enjoy the game”

Final verdict: 8.314/10

[jolikmc]

Aaron's Chippster Aaron J. Grier

[chippsterdotcom]

Hollow Knight

Welcome, readers, let's review something that's not anime for once, but a game, a video game. Ladies and gentlemen, picture this you an adventurer who has wandered into a lost forgotten kingdom, a shell of its former self. You don’t know anything about it other than subtle clues suggesting once a mighty kingdom, and your unknown connection to all this. let me introduce you to Hollow Knight, a game developed by the indie developer named, Team Cherry, what's important is the team size Team Cherry is only two people (I’m serious). It came out in 2017 on Microsoft, MacOS, and Linux, but later ported towards consoles in 2018, I played it on the Nintendo Switch. So let's explore the hidden gem that is Hollow Knight.

The story is, well… um, its Dark Souls story telling. You know like when they don't tell you a single thing; the only thing to go off on is scenery,  NPC dialogue, and item descriptions. Basically, you need to actively look for it to piece together to form your own interpretation. I don't think I can say anything about the story without spoiling it, and that I still don't properly have an explanation. Even if I did you’d be reading for quite a while, its a very complex story. Hell, even the main character himself is a whole spoiler to the game, just know its really well thought out, and a tragedy. The saddest part is you can go an entire game not knowing what to do. Enough about story, whats a game without gameplay?

The gameplay is simply put a Metroidvania, for you normies out their a Metroidvania is a name for the genre of games inspired by the legendary Metroid, and Castlevania making Metroidvania. The term actually is the type of gameplay that consists of non-linear exploration, item retrieval and usage of these items to get further through the game, Hollow Knight is a great example of a Metroidvania. The map is big, like really big, and full of items for you to either earn or find randomly to access more areas of the said map. Items in this game are sort of unlockable abilities that you permanently own, and use freely, an example is a double jump. The controls are tight, so much so you can't help but to only blame yourself whenever you die. You got your usual up, down, left, and right, attack jump, and heal, ooo, yes you can heal when you hurt an enemy you gain souls, then either use soul to channel ether an attack or heal yourself. 

The world that you are constantly surrounded in is also pretty neat. As written above you are in this shell of a kingdom, Hollownest, that's split into a few major regions, including but not limited to Crossroads, City of Tears, Queens Gardens, and deepnest. Each looks different from the last with accompanying music and enemies. Great stuff, you almost forget that only two people built this game from the ground up. 

Imagine(more), along your travels you stumble upon a worn building, everything has a blue hue. As you further into the hallway you hear the rain pound on the ceiling, a massive window meets you, the view of a flooded city. You have reached the City of Tears. the soundtrack is wonderful a nice blend of atmosphere and melancholy, like the soundtrack alone will blast you with feelings you didn`t know you could feel the best (in my opinion) has got to be The City of Tears, beautiful heavenly sounds flood your ears, as an angelic voice sings. The tone like water reflects the game perfectly, a slow start, then spices up, all while having an underlying sadness to it.

The highlight in this entire game is the bosses the game is not for the faint of heart, this is a hard game. Bosses are just as hard, but not without fun in them. Most bosses are fun to fight to the sole reason that they have a rhythm to find. For example, Nightmare King Grimm undoubtedly the hardest boss in the entire game, and died many times to him alone, but I never gave up because he had simple attacks but at a fast pace. His moves never changed and were easy to spot, and after a while (the first day) I got used to his speed. The more and more I practiced the quicker my reaction time was; soon enough it looked like a dance, one partner bouncing and bobbing after another. Also, every boss has a purpose to why they are there, again to the fantastic level of story in this game. plus, a great award is awarded if beaten, as in a boss grants access to another area, power-up, or plainly story. Finally, out of 35 bosses, the total, you only need to beat 4 to get the bare minimum end, that's crazy in my mind!      

Story: 7/10

Visuals: 10/10

Sounds: 8/10

Enjoyment: 9/10

Final Verdict: Git Gud!  

[chippsterdotcom]

Floral shoppe 2: the darkest Future

Hello hello and welcome to musical whatever the hell day it is, today we’re going to delve deep into V A P O R W A V E, ps I unironically enjoy it. Let attempt to review Floral Shoppe 2 the sequel to Floral Shoppe, the holy grail of V A P O R W A V E.

my is it a piece of art. This album though may it be weird and astronomically abstract, yet I can’t help to not see a reason to hate it. Because that’s the power of V A P O R W A V E its suppose to be ironic. While most V A P O R W A V E pieces are not almost mocking modern music, this takes it to a whole new level. The album that mocks its genre.

Cover art:

As far as cover art goes it looks exactly like it’s older brother but dark eerie. It reflects the title, The Darkest Future.

Music:

The album starts off with that famous song but glitchy and more distorted then it fades to the unrecognizable sound of a, what seems to be a priest preaching. And with it glitchy over glorified stereotype of V A P O R W A V E

Conclusion:

Now for many, this album it a joke while it is a masterpiece for others. But the most shocking part of it all the creator: dark pyramid, is actually HTC the most renounce V A P O R W A V E artist.

Floral Shoppe 2: the darkest future exactly ironic irony. No one knows if that’s his intent but it's definitely art. This was Floral Shoppe 2: the darkest future, from the year 4014

Cover art: 6/10

Music: 無限/10

A E S T H E T I C: ?/!

Final verdict: 無題

[chippsterdotcom]

Freed from the world

-New deluxe life

Hello hello, and welcome to another one think of this to the second coming of V A P O R W A V E. Today’s topic is actually the darkest futures older brother. That right introducing new deluxe life’s freed from the world. First of all this is complete shit, and not recommended. This surpasses Floral Shoppe 2 in every aspect you listen to sounds following sounds getting nowhere. It’s hell

When I first wonderfully laid my eyes on it, the album cover is a screen shot of episode 31- breakthrough of the anime mobile suit Gundam. My first thought was huh looks cool might sound lovely but like the “music” that followed half assed and rushed without effort.

I use “music” as a loose term as what followed was not it. It can only be described as youtube_poop.mp3

As I listen I only just try to URAP my head around it. And yet I can’t this puts the darkest future to shame.

But like it’s younger brother, this was also meant to push V A P O R W A V E to its maximum and test the humans perspective of music as a whole.

Bonus fact: the darkest future was originally going to be called freed from the world 2 but darkpyramid changed it to make people more shocked

Cover art: 7/10

Music: 💩/10

A E S T H E T I C: Other worldly/ V A P O R W A V E

Final verdict: this album marked to end of V A P O R W A V E every album released after this isn’t canon.

[chippsterdotcom]

My Hero Academia: Two Heros

As a person on earth, it was bound that at one point in my carrier that I had to come across My Hero, well glad to say that time is now. The topic on my agenda today is the My Hero Academia movie, Two Heros. As of writing this, the anime has undoubtedly reached its peak. You cannot go anywhere without the mention of Deku, All Might, or any other reference to it. Never has an anime ever reach this level of widespread success; other than Attack on Titan, or One Punch before it. Back to the topic at hand, My Hero was everywhere, so a movie did make sense. A movie would just be enough to sell everyone on it but in this case, it was to contain details of the time, B.M, Before Midoriya and on top of all that Funimation promised a limited theatrical release for the said film, outside of Japan. Fans were eagerly awaiting and at first, I wasn't really paying much attention to it, but that all changed when my partner in crime David, offered me a ticket. Today on Chipp`s review My Hero Academia: Two Heros.

      The movie is its own stand-alone adventure, I expect all of you to know what My Hero is, but for the two percent of those who don't. In a world where the average man has superpowers, named Quirks, a boy Green Naru- Izuku Midoriya is born without one. He then meets All might, his idol, and the worlds most super, superhero, who gives him his quirk. Midoriya cant fully handle it yet, so for all purposes, his quirk is the ability to break every bone in his body. Fortunately, that's all you need to know for this to make sense. The movie begins with All M taking his basically sidekick, Mint Flavored Na- Izuku to a world's fair of sorts, instead it's on an island and full of Albert Einsteins, Izuku soon meets All M`s first sidekick, he was really more of a Barbra Gordan to Batman. David, his name, had a child Melissa, shes 17, Izuku freaks out. Melissa shows him around the island, and they both coincidently bump into literally everyone else in the anime. The festivities begin, evil thugs, show up and its all up to the class of 1A to fix it. Regarding the thugs, they want something to do with David`s new invention. Careful Spoilers for the rest of the review. The fellowship of All M set a longish journey to scale the tower where David’s toys are. Mineta is useful and we see some wicked neat fighting from both sides, of Todoroki of course. 1A reaches the top its revealed that David set this all up, and his toy is like hand band that acts as steroids for quirks. The main evil thug is really Magneto, and All M now free, with the help of Midoriya. Both proceed to beat not-Magneto like its the end of NNN.

The Movie plot is nothing to go crazy for but in fact, throughout the entire movie I couldn`t help but feel reminded of a certain other anime about a class of inexperienced minors getting stuck on an island and then proceed to scale a tower to beat the boss. Times up its Classroom Assassination the last arc of season 1. They`re basically to the same thing, one a set of heroes, the other a set of assassins. I'm not done with it, the movie felt like three episodes, and if it was three episodes that would be fine, but it was like three main events with filler in between them. Midoriya learns about young All M, the island becomes a hostage situation, All M, beats the bad guy, three episodes. But you know what's even more problematic, the actual promise that failed to come to light. All Might`s past, I know that we did get it, but I wanted to see more of the world, B.M. this movie didn`t do justice. And finally, the entire fact that it's a one-off thing, the plot, characters, and development in the movie are all contained in the said movie, like Melissa she shows Midoriya a cool band that can make it so he doesn't break his bones using his quirk. We never get to see it ever again...

The Movie itself looked great, absolutely amazing. Especially the final 30 minutes of the film. It almost feels like they built the movie on that one scene alone. The animators definitely went PLUS ULTRA with this one. Just keep everything just as good and never stop improving as a studio. Now, this isn't a review without criticism, Young All Might looks, low key, straight out of a Bugs Life, maybe because up to this point we always saw him as a triangle, or with very defined shading. Please make his design, with maybe mess-ish hair, and smaller eyes. The soundtrack like the actual show itself just as good nothing to say there. The Actual movie is ok I would recommend it, to anyone, but it's not a must-see film. You can literally skip it and be just as informed as ever about the world. It would have been nice to see more of a BM world but maybe they can turn it into a spin-off, one day when My Hero rules the world. Thank you.

Story: 5/10

Visuals: 8/10

Enjoyment: 6/10

Final Verdict: Wait why wasn't toga in this?

[chippsterdotcom]

Squid Girl

Alrighty, this past week I had the pleasure to watch all of Squid girl-de geso. Now what is squid girl, is about (as basic as possible) a sidetracked invader learning the Japanese culture-de geso. Sounds fun-de geso. Well, get ready to dive on with me as I look at Squid Girl: Invader from the Deep-de geso.

Background:

So I was introduced by this series from a little game of Splatoon-de geso you read that correctly Splatoon, now how did a game about human-like squids that took over the world to fight have to do with an anime about a squid-like girl trying to take over the world is my guess-de geso it’s true they crossed over with Splatoon; the game has equitable gear resembling squid girls outfit-de geso.

Now enough CLAMoring lets get to it.

Squid girl is a neat little idea. I love it and all their characters. Sadly I feel that this could have gone a whole different direction, with 2 seasons that’s 24 episodes I just sat through. I can’t help to say that it feels like zero progress was made. And I hate seeing a great idea go to waste.

Story:5/10

Enjoyment: shrimp/10

Puns:11/10

Final verdict: “how old is she?”

[chippsterdotcom]

is it Wrong to Try and Pick up Girls at a Dungeon: Familia Myth

The highly successful anime started out as a manga but before that, it actually was a webcomic. Now let’s get into the meat of it all Hestia

Simply put it I love it. The world, lore and dungeon and dragons aspect. Now the story was great, about an adventure wants to prove himself to a girl and with the help of his goddess they’ll have to overcome the hurdles of being part of the adventure life. Such as hiring little thieves that take advantage of him. Witness how our main character somehow manages to make everyone fall in love with him.

Going into further research a 13th episode exists it’s about them looking for a hot spring, yay. But the most interesting part is that a spinoff Series and anime also exist it’s called, Sword Oratoria. Detailing the life of the sword princess and crosses paths with familia myth. Like a second piece of the main story. Lastly, the second season for familia myth is in works.

Thank you for reading, chippster

[chippsterdotcom]

Birth of a New Day

The night train back from work. You look at the passengers around you.
A man covered head to toe in mechanical body modifications sits to your left, fiddling with a display set into the flesh on his forearm. To your right, an anxious extraterrestrial, its antennae curled back in discomfort at the heavy scent of humanity filling the air. Across the aisle, a wide-eyed child of indeterminate gender watches intensely as the sleek blue android next to them polishes its own detached leg. And holding the child's hand, an old woman, modestly dressed with an unaltered figure, appearing, in general, out of place in her surroundings. She peers straight ahead at nothing in particular, her face fixed in an expression of longing.
You put on your headphones.

Hello everyone, today is a sad day for me. As today is the book end of the V A P O R W A V E trilogy, ladies and gentlemen im proud to introduce the last album i think i'll be covering titled ２８１４ - 新しい日の誕 tranlatation: Birth of a New Day. its a collaboration between V A P O R W A V E producers Hong Kong Express and t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者, ２８１４ is a project that creates cyberpunk-esque, dystopian yet psychedelic and relaxing ambient soundscapes. Drifting off into a daydream is hard to avoid as each track flawlessly flows into another, each with its own unique atmosphere, a true masterpiece.

So what makes it the masterpiece it truly is well what makes V A P O R W A V E, V A  P O R W A V E, some people listen to it for enjoyment, others to get transported back to a time where they themselves never experienced. This does both, it creates this world a city, like a cyberpunk japan in the future. And the sounds sprinkled into the album of sirens, city noises really complement it.

The cover art reflects it beautifully, a Tokyo city landscape, shrouded in bright vibrant pink neon lights. On a peaceful stormy night, its all the dystopia without any of the horrors or sacrifices humanity needed to get here. Unlike many V A P O R W A V E albums where they reflect, and pair to an 80s Miami feel, or even a mall. It's the future. Not like Future Funk, an ether hyperextended cyborg infested city exciting, and adventurous. Its combining all aspects of the underground musical movement known as V A P O R W A V E.  it transports you to the Future, told through the lens of someone in the 80s. And that ladies and gentleman is why I think Birth of a New Day is the Final V A P O R W A V E album every album released after this isn’t canon. Ironic isn't it

Cover art: 10/10

Music: t e n/10

A E S T H E T I C: indescribable

Final verdict: h u r r y   b o y s h e s   w a i t i n g t h e r e   f o r y o u

[chippsterdotcom]

FLCL

Fooly Cooly

The only reason I watched it is because of two reasons. 1. It’s short with only 6 episodes it could be easily binged in a day. 2. It’s having a sequel in June known as FLCL: progressive.

Now flcl from what I understood is about an alien who wants to find another alien. And this boy is her key to find him, he needs to get aroused though. But unluckily enough he absorbed him and his power, and she left as soon as she came.

Where do I begin this series is surreal, that’s why I love it so much. It has no point where it makes sense while you know what’s going on. It’s ballsy with its visuals, fast, energetic, and while watching it you can barely keep up. Barely... and another thing, it’s timelessness. I could not figure out when it would have aired until they said something about Crystal Pepsi. My mind was shocked.

It’s a must watch for any anime fan, like a studio gibli film, but more down to earth.

Story: 10/10

Visuals:10/10

Final verdict: “eyebrows”

I await your progressive.