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secretgamergirl · 1 year

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So I just watched every Child’s Play movie and now I’m going to talk about them.

A few recent conversations with people have lead to me picking up some weird trivia notes about the Child’s Play/X of Chucky movies (and the recent TV series based on them), and as luck would have it, almost all of them are on Tubi right now, the one streaming service that still seems usable, and since they’re honestly on the very short list of ‘80s horror classics I never got around to, why not marathon through all seven and blog about it? Also before I do the whole “continued below the fold” thing can I just note real quick both that the later entries are surprisingly queer, so, on topic for the month, and that every single sequel, spinoff, whatever is written by the author of the original screenplay, and this series is practically the only thing on his IMDB page. You don’t see that sort of writer-controlled franchise basically ever.

Child’s Play (1988) is, of course, an evil doll movie. That’s kind of its own whole subgenre, and honestly does a pretty good job of elevating itself from what that generally entails. The absolute first thing we see on screen is the backstory here, where a police detective is trying to gun down a serial killer, who as just sort of a random thing (at least until later when he goes back to the witch doctor he learned it from to complain) has a magic soul transfer spell he’s apparently really itching to use, what with the having been caught for all the murders and all. He can’t find anyone to body jack, but ends up pinned under a pile of these very My Buddy style jumbo dolls and gives it a shot. I feel like this opening was probably a studio mandate thing, or at least a late addition, because otherwise the movie plays things real close to the chest about the whole thing.

We have this YOUNG (6 year old actor) kid who gets the possessed doll as a late birthday present after his struggling single mom buys it from a shady guy on the street who swiped it from the deadly shootout scene, and he talks about things the doll says to him, but we never actually see the conversations and without the intro you could totally play this up as a misdirect that we’ve got some sort of evil child here. You’d figure we’d be doing the whole thing where the kid is trying to tell everyone the doll is evil and nobody’s listening, but mostly he just gets to be a cute latchkey kid kept somewhat in the dark on this, and before we even really have a decent body count or string of suspicious things, his mother actually just notices she never put the batteries in the thing, so even the standard squeeze me and hear catch phrases talking doll stuff he’s done shouldn’t actually be possible.

She does a whole lot of worrying about how if either she or her latchkey kid explain this, CPS is probably going to get involved, but eventually confides the whole “hey this doll I got my kid might be possessed and responsible for some recent deaths” thing with the detective looking into things, who is just super relieved because he was actually already going down that road and also didn’t want to say anything that absurd, and then things just kinda rush to a conclusion after the aforementioned witch doctor check-in gives us the rest of our lore for these early entries. Turns out if you pop your soul into a plastic doll (or presumably other inanimate object), first off your only option for bouncing out is the first person you told your real name to (which he carelessly did with the kid), and also that inanimate body is eventually going to start gradually becoming human and obeying sensible rules like being full of meat and having basic mortality going on, and also this eventually closes that window to jump out. So OK NOW the kid he’d mostly been ignoring is in danger, they burn the doll, shoot it a lot, the end. Impressive animatronics work.

Child’s Play 2 (1990) is... the more by the numbers experience I was expecting the original to be. We start with the reveal that the protagonists of the first movie and second cop who showed up at the end did in fact go public with their story and it got enough buzz that the doll’s manufacturer went to the trouble to gather up what was left of it, do a full rebuild and restore, and test things out to put any sort of possession rumors to bed, and we also find out that oh, actually that looming concern over the whole first movie actually WAS totally valid, and the kid was dumped into the foster care system (which does not come off in a good light here at all) “while his mother recovers.” That’s the last mention of her we ever get too, so presumably she’s just locked in some psych ward indefinitely or something, which is pretty damn dark.

Quick tangent here- So the doll itself is “a Good Guys doll,” and while at no point in the series do we really go in too deep on this, Good Guys is apparently some sort of Care Bears-like cartoon that aired for a bit before getting the merch out, and part of the gimmick is while the dolls all otherwise have the same appearance and stock dialog, they all have different names (or at least a wide pool of names), and like... this is somehow the one thing I can’t suspend my disbelief over. Like yeah it’s a neat gimmick that you don’t know what your specific doll’s name is until you first put batteries in, but you are leaving so much money on the table not encouraging kids to collect the whole cast. And like, there’s a pre-existing show right? Shouldn’t they all have unique character designs from that alone? Also other Good Guys dolls keep showing up in the sequels, 2 here has one already in the house that Chucky replaces, but aside from a quick gag of having to pause to remember what name to say here, the unique name thing never actually ends up mattering, so it’s weird to introduce it.

But yeah, kid’s in foster care, so NOW we have parents who don’t believe him about the whole killer doll thing and wonder if he’s doing messed up stuff like you’d figure. They’re also taking care of a girl named Kyle who’s super jaded about the whole getting bounced around from home to home thing and talking about being abused in a lot of them and such, and she kinda becomes our co-protagonist here. This one WOULD end up pretty boring except I want to say the last third of the movie is this big extended climax in the doll factory and they just really go all out with weird creativity. Lots of hazardous conveyor belts and molten plastic and machines shoving limbs and eyeballs in. They have a ton of fun with it and it really sticks with you. They also cash in on that “doll eventually becomes more human” thing for some really incongruous gore as Chucky gets just horrifically mutilated and rendered into an indistinct mass. Good stuff.

Child’s Play 3 (1991) is the one entry in the series that’s just kinda more of the same. We’re jumping forward a decade or so with the toy company deciding to finally clean up the again really impressively grotesque aftermath of that second movie’s climax and start making these dolls again. Feels a bit early to be doing the retro ‘80s toy line thing but I guess it’s just a forward thinking movie like that. Anyway some of Chucky’s blood leaks out into the main molten plastic vat as they’re using a crane to remove his remains from the floor so he’s kinda reborn as the first new doll off the line, kills the CEO, and tracks down the kid, who’s just been transferred to military school, because the foster care system still sucks. Bit weird how Kyle’s not addressed at all, after the ending of 2 pretty strongly implied she was just going to go raise the kid off he grid somewhere, but here we are. Generic military school/bullying stuff, 16 year old kid. There is a point where Chucky realizes wait this is technically a new doll he’s possessing and that first person he tells his name to bit presumably got a reset, so he’s trying to possess this other kid (who I don’t buy as young enough to be into this doll, especially when he’s at a military school). We switch settings to this super elaborate haunted house ride at a nearby amusement park for the climax which is kind of fun, but it’s no doll factory... and even the writer doesn’t care much for this one. We are out of steam, trilogy over.

Bride of Chucky (1998) eventually picks things back up and just kinda goes “screw it, we’re capital-C Camp horror-comedy now.” We’re also doing a lot of retconning. Soul transferring now requires this magic amulet, and we’re no longer doing the doll-slowly-becomes-human thing. We ARE doing the doll-is-full-of-meat-and-blood thing though. We’re also saying before the original movie Chucky had a girlfriend (played by Jennifer Tilly, this will be relevant later) who was also a big fan of murder and broadly in on it, and while it took her a bit (or not? I’m figuring 2 took place immediately after 1, but then we skipped forward 10 years for 3, and now this is actually a decade from the original and mentions the dolls having been a thing back in the ‘80s, so the math gets weird here), she found all the Chucky bits after he was tossed into an industrial fan in 3, stitched them together, and casts a spell to revive him.

Long story short they have a very hot and cold relationship going, where at first the plan is hey, let’s restore Chucky’s humanity and go get his crime spree money, but then they have a fight, she locks him in a care, he kills her and magic rituals her into a similar doll, they fight some more, then eventually decide to just find some random couple to body jack and go back to being human. Contrary to the title they don’t actually get married at any point, but do get engaged, and the audience is challenged with the fact that at some point (while, again, both are dolls, but remember they ARE full of meat, so this makes SOME sense) they have sex, she gets pregnant, and the big ending sting after they start squabbling again, ruin the body stealing plan, and get shot for their trouble, she gives birth to this weird doll baby who we see pouncing on someone who approaches the scene later. Also I don’t know if it’s coming across from this summary but there’s very little in the way of slasher stuff here. It’s like, 90% wacky unhealthy relationship banter by volume.

Seed of Chucky (2004) picks up from THAT ending somehow, and after a big ol’ CGI montage of where murder doll babies come from goes into this narration from the perspective of the hideous doll baby from the end of the last one, who has since grown up somewhat and is actually very nice and polite and was actually just giving a big hug to that person in that stinger. Anyway after years of working as a fake ventrilloquist’s dummy, and going off the assumption of being Japanese because apparently having Made in Japan stamped on your wrist is a genetically inheritable trait for living dolls (and extra weird because I’m pretty sure the doll Chucky was possessing at the time was made in the factory from 2 and that was explicitly in Chicago), the spooky doll child who is our protagonist learns they’re making a movie about the events of Bride of Chucky and sees the same wrist stamp on the prop version of Chucky in that. So, off to the set to do a magic ritual and bring the actual sophisticated animatronic movie props used for in-universe versions of these movies to life, harnessing the souls of those dead murder parents and yeah this all works out somehow. And now it’s time to get super meta.

From here we have two plot threads going. The one with the kid, and one where Chucky’s love interest is struck by how amazing the casting it is that they got Jennifer Tilly to play her for this movie, both because she sounds just like her and she looks just like she did before she got turned into a doll, and also because she and several other people in this movie as an odd running gag thought she was really good in the Wachowski’s first movie, Bound. So the bulk of this movie’s actual plot is this evil murder doll plotting to possess her own voice actress and that’s just great. The plan is also to get whoever’s she’s dating as a host for Chucky (initially real world rapper Redman and later her limo driver), and to artificially inseminate her with... the title of the movie to get a human (or, more human anyway?) baby for the kid to possess. Long story short this actually does work out except for Chucky stopping at the last minute and realizing that this is very ridiculous, and being some limo driver dating an actress isn’t as cool as being a famous killer doll, so screw the whole thing. Oh and then gets dismembered by his own child with an axe after a goofy martial arts battle, because it’s kind of a tradition for every movie to end with Chucky’s gruesome dismemberment.

Then the other half of the plot is these two being parents to this child who they each project their own gender onto and who personally never really gave the matter much thought, and they straight up go all Ed Wood fighting over whether to call them Glen or Glenda. The child in question eventually says something along the lines of “I do like being a boy, but I also like being a girl, can I just be both?” which scores some pretty serious points for progressiveness for 2004, but then kind of immediately loses them by kinda playing this up as a split personality thing and getting the tidy (for some value thereof) solution of Jennifer Tilly actually having twins, so hey, just possess both these babies and actually be a boy and a girl. But like, put a pin in that one.

Oh and fun trivia. I suspected this on my own and wikipedia confirms it with quotes. Going full camp for Bride and casting one of the women from Bound basically pushed the whole series over some sort of queer event horizon, which the writer was OK with because hey, he’s openly gay. This movie had to switch studios because the first thought it was “too gay,” and he just kinda doubled down from here on out. Like I don’t think any straight characters, major or minor, get introduced from here on out.

Curse of Chucky (2013) took another decade to come out and went straight to video. Which, you know, reread that last paragraph, and while we are just making everyone gay now, it seems our writer and now also director realized he flew too close to the sun with the high camp duology and we’re back to doing the standard evil doll thing, terrorizing a new family, with the actual real life daughter of Brad Dourif (who plays Chucky and was also Wormtongue in the Lord of the Rings movies and the guy with the giant eyebrows in the ‘80s Dune) as the lead, she’s in a wheelchair due to Chucky attacking her mother while she was pregnant back before the whole doll thing happened, and we’ve kinda got a back to finish the job sort of setup, with this whole extended family in a big house getting bumped off and gradually piecing together there’s something up with this doll someone mailed to the main character’s niece.

This is the one entry in the series that didn’t do anything for me. It goes a bit nasty and gory on the kills which previous movies kind of just saved for big awful Chucky deaths oddly enough. It doesn’t have the high camp energy of the previous couple either and I miss it. Someone pointed out to me that it is interesting how it manages a really good fake out and absolutely comes across as a straight up reboot until a good ways in, at which point Chucky takes off some patch-overs hiding the scars from being sewn back together in Bride and giving a bit of a speech that basically amounts to “oh no absolutely everything is still canon actually. There’s just more to my life than stalking the one kid and dealing with my unstable girlfriend.” Also this one ends with a post-credits scene I literally found out existed just now when looking up release dates because Tubi kept jumping right into the next movie as credits started, and it’s kind of important to see for that one to make even a little sense, as Chucky mails himself to the kid from the original movies, and hey he also gets a phone call from his mother, so OK either she did get let out of wherever eventually or he got adopted by someone decent. Nice to learn. Also nice to learn this actor didn’t get messed up from staring in a horror movie when he was just freaking six. Anyway he counter-ambushes Chucky with the big ol’ rifle he has because I mean 3′s still canon.

Cult of Chucky (2017) is the last movie in the series... because it’s setting the stage for the TV series. And by “setting the stage for the TV series” I mean it just kinda does the screenwriting equivalent of dumping a whole bin of legos on the floor and leaving it for someone else to clean up. Makes this honestly just a complete mess of a movie (especially coming in without seeing that post-credits scene) but honestly it was probably the right call. Unlike most other things following the trend of adapting an ‘80s horror series to a serialized TV show, we didn’t actually have a big sloppy mess of lore and confusing continuity and unaccounted for characters, so yeah, make a big mess of things and spend a season or two cleaning it up, sure.

Basically the protagonist from Curse ends up institutionalized because... she was kind of the sole survivor of that one and insisting a doll killed everyone, but it’s not really plausible she did it because the house it takes place in isn’t all that wheelchair accessible. So we have this whole cast of other committed people here to be... not great portrayals of mental illness (but I mean, I’ve seen much worse) and give us some victims to run through, and a super awful corrupt hypnosis and sexual assault-y head of the place. And like, the tone of these last two is such that when she learns Chucky is actually there she tries to kill herself and Chucky then discovers this and sews her wrist back up. Not a fan.

Thing is though we’re cutting away now and then to the kid from the original trilogy interrogating the half-exploded and severed head of Chucky as was mailed to him in that post-credits scene, while Chucky is running around the mental hospital, and the eventual explanation for that is he found lessons online on how to possess multiple dolls at once. Also people. And by the end of the thing we’ve got 3 Chucky dolls running around (plus the interrogation head), plus our protagonist is possessed, and for good measure Chucky’s girlfriend still possessing actress Jennifer Tilly is in the mix, and original kid had a... poorly thought out big hero plan that just kinda lead to him being locked in a padded cell. And yeah, as a starting point for a TV series, sure, I’m good with this. Oh and this also had a post-credits scene I missed, where Kyle from 2 shows up to torture the head. Glad she’s still around.

So that’s the whole series, aside from, you know, The Series, which I am quite tempted to watch now if I can get my hands on it, and the ACTUAL reboot with Mark Hamill and Aubrey Plaza where it’s less possessed doll and more evil smart home setup. Although that’s STILL the original writer and I hear it’s actually quite good, just, yeah, access issues here.

Speaking of the series though, that pin I put in the whole Glen/Glenda thing? While I haven’t watched the show what first sent me down this rabbit hole was catching references to Chucky having a queer kid and while I’m pretty sure Seed of Chucky had its heart in the right place with... let’s be blunt, bad execution, having 20 years to learn how to do better apparently the show just freaking quadruples down with it, and both of the twins they possess at the end of that grow up to be nonbinary, are played by a nonbinary actor, do the whole they/them pronoun badge thing, and for good measure Glen has a more femme look than Glenda. And yeah both their parents are actively cool with this, so, you know, that’s just cool.

As is this series on the whole, really? I’m kind of surprised. I don’t like slashers, generally speaking, which these definitely are except the super campy entries in the middle. But they’re pretty clever and fun, and like, Chucky works way better as an actual character than other slasher villains tend to. Some people find Freddy Krueger fun but like... go watch the first movie again. That backstory is too irredeemable for me to watch you do improv while killing kids. Most others are just silent killing machines. Chucky though, despite the whole magically possessing a doll thing, is Just This Guy. Like yeah he kills people with little to know provocation, but he’s got this schlubby put upon working class guy from New Jersey who just kinda got caught up in a weird situation thing going on. Plus I’m easily charmed by good practical effects and damn is that doll rig impressive.

Oh yeah I keep writing these giant posts and then forgetting to plug my Patreon at the end. I know people don’t like plugs but apparently this blog is now how I survive and I’m not doing a super great job of it. The sooner I get back to the point where my rent and utilities are properly covered the sooner I can stop spending most of my time begging and do stuff interesting enough to write about.

#child's play #chucky

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adamwatchesmovies · 1 year

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The Conjuring 2 (2016)

The Conjuring 2 is not as good as its predecessor but those itching to see this sequel will nonetheless be pleased. With an emphasis on the relationships between the characters, you care for the people plunged into this nightmare while eagerly awaiting to see what the film's array of monsters will do to them.

Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are taking a break from the paranormal after a particularly disturbing trip to the famous Amityville house. They are pulled back into the fray when a single mother, Peggy Hodgson (Frances O’Connor) comes begging for help.

Following this film’s success, one of the primary monsters, a demonic-looking nun, has gotten its own film but the picture dedicated to it doesn’t hold a candle to how frightening it is here. Bonnie Aarons, who played the nightmare-inducing homeless woman in Mulholland Drive has this quality that makes you feel like she's boring into your chest and pouring icy cold water directly into your veins. You're shown enough to get scared, but not too much that you become used to the creature’s appearance. The scene where she is introduced (via a creepy painting inspired by a dream Ed) fills me with chills just thinking about it.

Directed once more by James Wan, this film, much like the first, uses familiar ghost story elements to their full potential. The buildup to the scares is terrific. Each member of the Hodgson family experiences one or two weird little things that let you know what kind of danger they’re in, but isn’t enough for them to pack their bags and leave the house. Splitting the occurences like this sounds like a no-brainer but we've seen it done wrong time and time again. For the most part, the picture does little things to get under your skin and build dread. It’s an out-of-focus shape that slowly changes to reveal something much more terrifying, or a sound that was previously shown to be completely harmless now given a new, sinister purpose.

The most significant aspect of the film isn’t the monster (there are again, more than one and they’re both pretty good, though I like the “Crooked Man” less than the "Nun"), or the way it uses real-world people and events to make it seem convincing. It’s not even the neat twists on the formula brought in right before the climax. It’s the people. With this picture even more than the first, you realize how refreshing it is to have two protagonists in a horror movie. Not a main and a sidekick; a loving couple who care about each other and bring their own strengths to the fight. The scenes of Ed and Lorraine reminiscing about how they met and saying what they mean to each other, combined with the scenes of the Hodgson family banding together provides the climbs that make the sharp plunges generated by the scares that much more effective.

No moment in The Conjuring 2 matches the “hide and clap” scare in the first (just writing those words literally gave me a chill). The writing isn't as sharp either. There's a revelation during the conclusion that feels forced and overall, the film is too long. I still think those looking for scares will be happy. This confident picture delivers what you want to see, expands on the characters and keeps building up its menagerie of creatures. You'll look forward to seeing them again in their own spinoffs.

You have to be truly awful for your horror film not to make gangbusters at the box office but very few franchises manage to make a second trip down the scary lane worth it. By maintaining consistent chills, The Conjuring franchise is proving itself one of the best in the realm of horror. (September 8, 2018)

#The Conjuring 2 #The Conjuring #movies #films #movie reviews #film reviews #James Wan #Chad Hayes #Carey W. Hayes #Vera Farmiga #Patrick Wilson #Frances O'Connor #Madison Wolfe #Simon McBurney #Franka Potente #2016 movies #2016 films

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akascow · 8 months

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?? can you really call it Saw X if the last two movies werent actually named Saw

I thought Jigsaw was like a modern day remake/sequel/prequel

and i forgot about Spiral but i coulda sworn it was a spinoff lmao

Stupid Saw rant bc i know too much about these movies:

thats like calling Joey (spinoff from Friends) Friends 2 lmfao.. Annabelle as the Conjuring 2.. puss in boots as shrek5 HAHAHA

like yes its IN the franchise but theyre DIFFERENT

...

is jigsaw even IN Spiral cuz idk i never watched it. ik he was TECHNICALLY in Jigsaw which is a weird sentence considering the title is HIM but like spoiler alert half of the movie takes place after hes dead and the other half takes place before the first movie is even conceived

which i guess you could argue the second half of the franchise takes place after hes dead too but every copycat jigsaw in the sequels were in previous movies (which was their dumb way to shoehorn in a way for the franchise to stay alive)

so,, even if he was dead we either get flashbacks to them helping him or just like,, story progression through movies like shitty star wars or smth

but as far as i know jigsaw shows up in Jigsaw at like the verryyyyyyyy end for like 2 minutes so idk if i count it

anyway i did not think i felt this passionately about fuckin Saw but if ur still reading this uh thanks ? sorry ? idk

#this is dumb why am i mad about SAW. its SAW!! its supposed to be bad lmfao #they really wanted that X title i guess #well guess WHAT ur shitty movie franchise hasnt EARNED IT YET #alr Spiral is 'from the book of saw' but id still consider it a spinoff idk

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jet-bradley · 1 year

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"why are you a tron fan if you hate tron legacy so much?" why are YOU a tron fan if you will never play or watch playthroughs of tron 2.0? why are you a TRON fan if you belittle every single part of TRON that isn't directly related to legacy? why do you apologize for the animation of the original film, the clunkiness of the controls of the 2003 shooter game, the art of the spinoff comics, the abandoned state of the platforming game, the strange hitboxes of the old arcade cabinets? if you like TRON so much, why do you apologize for every single bit of it that isn't legacy? do you like TRON, or do you like daft punk?

i'm honestly tired of dancing around my genuine opinion of tron legacy - that it is a technically masterful movie, with a lot of fun scenes, and a very interesting reimagining of TRON... but also a tech demo for what became the overuse of CG in disney-owned marvel films (while TRON's CG accented the set design, this was a demo for the tech that would eventually allow the full replacement of it). and frankly "flynn is sad now please care about our movie" launched thirteen years of some of the worst sequels i've ever seen in almost every franchise. tron legacy genuinely did a lot right, but i honestly wonder if the industry would be in a better place if it had been a flop.

and the worst thing is it's not like you can pretend this isn't befitting of TRON. put all your experimental film shit in TRON, it's the "animate things weird with computers" franchise. it's always been experimental in that regard and there's nothing wrong with that.

TRON legacy had everything interesting about TRON filtered out of its plot, and what's left in its place is an uninspired story where everything--from individual characters to the genocide of an entire fictional race--revolves around One Protagonist from the original film. (one of the other classic human protagonists is dead, and the other hardly has any screen time.) and really, it revolves around giving him reasons to be sad, because why write a movie about kevin flynn when Sad Kevin Flynn will maybe make old fans care about your movie, despite how disconnected your sequel is from any prior work.

but it sold a lot of merch, so at least we can copy and paste everything that sold, right? actor cameos! making beloved happy movies Sad Now! making the entire movie revolve around one white guy who the entire audience definitely remembers the name of! overusing CG to save money on unionized production worker wages!

people overlook a lot of the bigger-picture negative impacts of TRON legacy, because it kind of gets to the core of what the franchise is. TRON (1982) only got produced by disney because they were willing to try to animate it, and they've never known what to do with it. it's always had the whimsy of a classic disney movie with these more grown-up corporate plots. and there's no way to get rid of the whimsy to make a pure action film in a way that fits their image as a company (at least pre-marvel and pre-star wars, but those franchises, someone else already did all the marketing to make them popular for them). and it's a disney original franchise because of that, but they never know what to do with it. so it becomes their "throw shit at a wall and see what sticks" franchise. well something stuck. but i honestly think it made the industry worse.

but we did get End Of Line and a roller coaster out of it, so...

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alfatonki · 2 years

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Angry birds temple run 3

#ANGRY BIRDS TEMPLE RUN 3 UPDATE#

#ANGRY BIRDS TEMPLE RUN 3 ANDROID#

#ANGRY BIRDS TEMPLE RUN 3 SERIES#

Love it or hate it, there's no denying that Candy Crush Saga was a huge hit on Android. The title is still updated with new content from time to time.

#ANGRY BIRDS TEMPLE RUN 3 SERIES#

While the Asphalt series has several other spinoffs and sequels, none have been able to match Asphalt 8: Airborne in popularity. Up until 2015, it was almost impossible to find someone who hadn't given the game a go at least once. It also featured seasonal content to keep the game fresh and keep pulling in players back for more. This arcade racer offered amazing graphics for the time, addictive gameplay, fun race tracks, a huge roster of cars, and a respectable playlist. But perhaps nothing from its portfolio stood out more than Asphalt 8: Airborne. Asphalt 8: Airborne Image via AndroidSpinīack in the early 2010s, Gameloft was commanding the wave of "console quality" games on smartphones with games like Six Guns, Modern Combat, Real Football.

#ANGRY BIRDS TEMPLE RUN 3 UPDATE#

The title received its latest update just this month and is still available on Google Play with a smaller, but dedicated, player base. Clash of Clans was extremely popular among players who liked city-building games due to the diverse content it offered, coupled with its focus on playing with your friends.

#ANGRY BIRDS TEMPLE RUN 3 ANDROID#

This freemium strategy game landed on Android back in 2013, tasking players with building up their clans, attacking other players to loot their resources, and defending against attacks your their own bases. The two games are still updated from time to time with new content and bug fixes. Even though the two games were extremely similar, both enjoyed immense popularity at their peak, and it was not surprising to see both installed on someone's Android device. While Temple Run had you being chased by demonic monkeys in a temple in a jungle, Subway Surfers had you on the run from an inspector who has seen you spray graffiti on a trains on the subway. Both these games are endless runners, which simply mean that you control a character that's running on an endless path and you have to swipe to dodge obstacles and change directions while picking up power-ups and coins along the way. Temple Run and Subway Surfers Image via 91MushroomsĮven though I have coupled these two titles together because they are extremely similar in premise, this should not diminish their respective popularity. Unfortunately, Angry Birds as well as most of its spinoffs are not available to download any more because Rovio has decided to shift focus to its newer titles. None reached the heights of the original but managed to find their dedicated audiences nonetheless. Seeing its popularity, Rovio was able to partner with various franchises such as Star Wars, Rio, and Transformers, among others and release various sequels and spinoffs. With over 100 million installs on Android alone, Angry Birds was popular among all age groups. Coupled with an addictive theme song, there was a weird satisfaction in killing pigs with birds - many of which had special powers - and it offered great replay value. The title had a simple and silly premise: launch the titular Angry Birds at pigs who have stolen your eggs and are now hiding in destructible structures. This 2010 blockbuster from Rovio Entertainment was all the rage back in the day.

#Angry birds temple run 3

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littleeyesofpallas · 2 years

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Full metal Panic! ZERO[フルメタル・パニック！0]

#manga covers #funny enough Atom the Beginning isnt even Kasahara's first foray #into weird sequel spinoffs of other franchises #he did the FMP! prequel before he did Atom #which again as far as I know never got touched in English

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max1461 · 2 years

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Feel like I'm weird (as in, atypical for this milieu) in that I really like the original three Star Wars movies, I think they're pretty good, and I appreciate the prequels for their meme value, but I have basically no interest in the "franchise". Like, I watched the first sequel when it came out it 2015 or 2016, thought it was fine but kinda underwhelming, and never bothered to see the see the other two. I have never engaged with any of the shows or extended universe stuff or spinoff movies. Just not that interested. Not mad about though.

#navel gazing

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buildinggsr · 3 years

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“We’re the dinosaurs,” a jovial William Petersen says as he sits alongside longtime partner in crime-solving Jorja Fox in Los Angeles. “Billy’s more like a T. rex,” she counters with a laugh. The pair are talking to TV Guide Magazine about their iconic CSI: Crime Scene Investigation characters—dispassionate forensic entomologist Gil Grissom and his wife, intrepid forensic scientist Sara Sidle—returning to the lab in CSI: Vegas, a sequel to their 2000–15 crime drama sensation.

Last seen sailing off into the sunset in the 2015 finale movie Immortality, Sara and Grissom “were my favorite parts of the original and the perfect entrée into the story we’re telling here,” says executive producer Jason Tracey. Vegas joins a franchise that has already spawned three spinoffs, CSI: Miami (2002–12), CSI: NY (2004–13) and CSI: Cyber (2015–16).

An attack on their old workplace is the catalyst that brings the happily married couple back to dry land. “Someone’s targeting the lab. A conspiracy calls into question the integrity of the work we always saw get done,” Tracey says. “Thousands of prior convictions hang in the balance.”

New faces in Vegas include boss Maxine Roby (Paula Newsome, Barry), who’s a geneticist; senior investigator Josh Folsom (Matt Lauria, Kingdom); Level 2 CSI Allie Rajan (Mandeep Dhillon); and head medical examiner Hugo (Mel Rodriguez). We’ll also see past team members David Hodges (Wallace Langham), now an expert witness, and, for two episodes, retired LVPD captain Jim Brass (Paul Guilfoyle).

First, Petersen and Fox tell us why they decided to roll the dice on CSI: Vegas.

Congratulations, first of all. How has it been revisiting Sara and Grissom?

William Petersen: Completely weird because we thought we’d put this to bed a long time ago. It’s a whole new thing and yet still the bones of the old thing.

Jorja Fox: Like Groundhog Day on some psychedelic [level].

When you first got the call about this sequel, what were your reactions?

Petersen: I was hesitant, but the idea of coming back and doing this with Jorja…

Fox: I was also hesitant—I felt like the story left Sara and Grissom in paradise together—but getting to work with William Petersen again? They had me at hello!

Petersen: It’s like riding a bike; you just get right back on. We got a tandem and we know how to do it.

What’s the state of the union for these two characters?

Fox: First of all, I love Sara and Grissom. I always will. Not to talk about the olden days too much, but even though we were together, we weren’t together. We were [secretly] married, we were divorced. Embarking on this phase, we’re going to meet them not only as a couple that’s together, but a couple that’s been living on and off a boat together for several years.

Petersen: We’re working on saving and studying fish, protecting sharks, down in South America somewhere.

Fox: We kind of pulled a Jimmy Buffet.

Petersen: We’re in Margaritaville.

What on earth could cause Sara and Grissom to ditch that for Las Vegas?

Petersen: Somebody accuses the Crime Lab of having falsified evidence, and it goes back over a long period of time.

Fox: All of the characters are tapped into [this case] for the duration of the season, and the stakes are really high. There’s loved ones involved and the safety of loved ones. And through that, we meet the new CSIs and forge those relationships.

There are weekly cases too—Sara still has CSI accreditation, and Grissom signs on as a consultant. But has the technology left these two behind?

Petersen: [Grissom walks] through the lab and [doesn’t] even understand what the machines are.

Fox: I thought it was difficult to get away with a crime in [the year] 2000. Now there’s no way to get away with murder! The science is a thrill!

Will we finally get to see some PDA this time around?

Petersen: Our attraction to each other was always based on the work. We were always in some kind of mind meld when we were working. There was nobody he would rather be in the lab with or on a crime scene with than Sara. She got it. She got him, and he eventually got her.

Fox: [Grinning] The show is going to air at 10pm, so we can be a little edgier than we were last time.

CSI: Vegas, Series Premieres Wednesday, October 6, 10/9c, CBS

This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s 2021 Fall Preview issue. For more inside scoop on the new fall TV season, pick up the issue, on newsstands Thursday, August 26

Source: TV Insider

#csi:vegas promo #csi:vegas #spoiler #gil grissom #sara sidle #william petersen #jorja fox #csi

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dereksmcgrath · 3 years

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In order to talk about this episode, we have to talk about how manga publishing and anime production does (and does not) work.

And before we can get into this episode, and its originating storyline that comes not only from the My Hero Academia manga but also its spinoff Vigilantes, I have to talk about three things:

The challenges of adapting more than one manga series.

An imaginary Vigilantes co-production (an “Imagine If,” to steal a phrase from a writer better than I) between Studio BONES and Studio Trigger.

But first, another franchise Studio BONES adapted the same year as MHA: Bungo Stray Dogs.

(Bear with me–this is all going somewhere.)

“More of a Hero Than Anyone,” My Hero Academia Episode 107 (Season 5, Episode 19)

An adaptation of Chapters 253, 254, and 255 of the manga, by Kohei Horikoshi, inspired by My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Chapters 59 to 65 by Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court. All translated by Caleb Cook with lettering by John Hunt and available from Viz.

My Hero Academia is available to stream on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Spoilers up to the My Hero Academia Chapter 324, Vigilantes Chapter 108, and the film World Heroes’ Mission.

There are also spoilers for Bungo Stray Dogs and Gurren Lagann.

Created by writer Kakfa Asagiri and illustrator Sango Harukawa, with additional spinoffs illustrated by Kanai Neko, Ganjii, Oyoyo, and Shiwasu Hoshikawa, Bungo Stray Dogs is about a world where characters, who happen to have the names of real-life authors of Japanese and other literature, also happen to have superpowers based on the titles of works by those same famous authors. For example, Herman Melville can summon the giant battle fortress Moby-Dick, Nikolai Gogol can transport items through his overcoat, and Motojiro Kajii has the ability “Lemonade,” which prevents him from being harmed by bombs shaped like lemons.

(…Bungo Stray Dogs is weird. The first anime doesn’t even have dogs in it.)

Studio BONES premiered an animated adaptation of Bungo Stray Dogs in 2016, the same year the studio premiered the MHA anime. What makes Bungo unique compared to some other anime is that each season adapted from not only the manga but one of the franchise’s light novels as well. While some of the light novels take place concurrent to the manga, most take place in the past–which made Season 1 awkward, re-setting some events from the Azure Messenger Arc in the present and hampering some characterization for what was supposed to be the very first meeting of the characters Osamu Dazai and Doppo Kunikida.

The next light novels adapted for the Bungo anime all take place in the past, with Season 2 giving what I think is the best of the adaptations, The Dark Age, as we learn more about Dazai’s time with the Port Mafia and his relationship with fellow mafioso Sakunosuke Oda. This arc set a high standard that I don’t think the next light novel adaptations have reached, as it not only fleshes out the characters and builds the world, but it also has two important accomplishments. First, on its own, you could watch the entire four-episode arc as its own movie. While some details will gain more significance if you watched the first season, and will become more important as you watch the rest of the series or read the manga and light novels, by itself, The Dark Age is a thrilling narrative of intrigue, deception, betrayal, and heartache. Second, thematically, The Dark Age ties in very well to the rest of Season 2. Some of it is cheap shorthand: the Lupin Bar matchstick container becomes a visual indicator for Dazai helping Atsushi Nakajima save an ally when Dazai couldn’t. But even as cheap as that may seem, it enhances the overall season, giving Dazai more to do in a story where he is otherwise on the sidelines and playing everyone like chess pieces. Plus, you kind of needed to see The Dark Age to understand who Ango Sakaguchi is in Season 2 and why Dazai hates him.

Season 3 gave me high hopes for where the next light novel adaptation could go. This season focuses on a third party attempting to destroy Dazai and Atsushi’s organization, the Armed Detective Agency, along with the Port Mafia. When Agency founder Yukichi Fukuzawa is poisoned, we see the usually lighthearted and arrogant Ranpo Edogawa become momentarily silent and devastated by Fukuzawa’s hospital bed. I blame myself for reading theories online that this moment would lead the season to do a flashback arc to one of the light novels, one that shows the origins of the Agency, how Fukuzawa first met young Ranpo, and explains what that cat was doing all throughout The Dark Age and Season 3.

Instead, as soon as I started Season 3 and saw the premiere was beginning with a lengthy adaptation of a light novel centered around Dazai and his former Mafia teammate Chuuya Nakahara, my heart sank. Nothing about that story thematically tied into the overall season as well as would Ranpo and Fukuzawa’s light novel, a story that reveals how much Ranpo has lost in his life and why he clings onto Fukuzawa for approval and why the dissolution of the Agency would not only deprive him of family and friends but also the very meaning to his existence. That is a heavy story to tell, one that would make the audience better appreciate the lengths the Agency goes to for Fukuzawa. By comparison, there is next to nothing about Chuuya’s back story that accomplishes the same. If anything, all that light novel adaptation tells us is that Dazai and Chuuya’s partnership mirrors that of Atsushi and the Mafioso Ryunosuke Akutagawa–and that detail was already established well enough in Season 2, so we’re just retreading the same old material.

Adapting Chuuya’s story is like explaining Aizawa’s back story: as I’ll explain in the moment, all you really learn in either case is why Chuuya hates Dazai and why Aizawa is a lone wolf–and it’s the reasons you already see in the present day, Chuuya hates Dazai because he’s annoying, and Aizawa has always been a loner, end of discussion. The choice to give these two characters the spotlight doesn’t really do anything new for the audience. I’ll say more about Aizawa later, but for now, I’ll say, nothing against Chuuya as a character, but the decision to adapt his light novel seemed very much like a marketing strategy by manga/light novel publisher Kadokawa and Studio BONES: Dazai and Chuuya’s relationship is popular with fans, there’s a lot of back story to mine, and the light novel that gave us this anime adaptation already set up a sequel that itself could serve as a Season 4 adaptation or even a feature film.

(Honestly, that Chuuya sequel novel in Bungo is more entertaining: there’s a cyborg named Adam Frankenstein. Re-read that sentence: a cyborg named Adam Frankenstein, who treats Chuuya like a little kid, offering him candy because he read that young people like candy and the serotonin from sugar can help with dealing with times of stress. Chuuya’s babysitter is Frankenstein: it’s so absurd that it just works.)

So, why am I talking about Bungo Stray Dogs instead of the other anime Studio BONES makes, My Hero Academia? Because I’m seeing a set of mistakes and Band-Aids repeat themselves all over again.

I profess ignorance about how the anime industry works: there are better people than I who can speak to it. As far as I can gather, just by looking at the evidence in that industry, and the evidence of just about any industry, the goal is to make money. I don’t think the goal to make an anime is necessarily to get people to watch it, especially now that streaming makes the cost of entry very low or even free if you wait long enough for Crunchyroll and Funimation to put it up with commercials. I don’t think it’s to get you to buy the manga: even if you get hooked like I am to read ahead to see what happens next, why read something you just watched? Instead, I think the goal is to buy merchandise, like how musical groups have switched from record deals to selling individual songs online and getting merch sold at concerts (pre-COVID). The conundrum for the anime and manga industries are not dissimilar from those in comic book publishing in the United States: DC and Marvel can have all the crossover events in the comics that they want, but those don’t always get someone who to read a new series just because Spider-Man or Wolverine pop up in it. I have not looked at sales for Vigilantes, so I don’t know whether Aizawa, Midnight, and All Might popping up in there boosts its sales. Rather, the comics are testing grounds for what works. Marvel uses its comics to test what can work in films and streaming, where money now is, while maybe Vigilantes was testing the Oboro story to see if there was something there to put into the anime. Sure enough, the fan art out there for Oboro has increased since the episode, merchandise can’t be far behind.

But let’s move on to actually looking at the episode itself. “More of a Hero Than Anyone” centers on Aizawa and Present Mic being brought to the prison Tartarus to interrogate captured League of Villains member Kurogiri. As I have complained for most of this season, BONES has made confusing choices regarding which chapters of the MHA manga it is adapting first: this story comes from manga chapters that were the last before the big Pro Heroes vs Paranormal Liberation Front Arc, and we haven’t even gotten to the Meta Liberation Army Arc yet. True, this episode ends in a way to set all of that up, showing us Shigaraki getting his power boost, but it has been a befuddling choice of what to adapt first. Making matters more confusing is that, while this episode introduces Aizawa and Present Mic’s classmate Shirakumo, someone alluded to during Shinso’s arc this season, that story doesn’t really originate in the main manga: it started in an MHA spinoff.

The manga My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is to My Hero Academia like the Bungo Stray Dogs light novels are to its main manga: it is largely a prequel that fills in back story for major characters and some worldbuilding details while telling its own story with its own protagonist and plot. Chapters 59 to 65 are the first major departure for the series, as it shifts from the usual protagonist to a plot about Aizawa, showing his time as a UA student and setting up why he ended up returning to UA as a teacher.

The first time I read Aizawa’s arc in Vigilantes, I hated it: it is a cynical attempt at giving us an origin story to explain how Aizawa got to be the way he is–without actually showing us anything we could not have figured out ourselves. It tries to set up this idea that, if Shirakumo had not died, Aizawa would not have been the lone wolf.

That idea butts up against two details. First, we already see Aizawa keeps up the lone wolf appearance anyway in the present, so imagining an alternative timeline doesn’t make sense, especially when, in its own flashback arc, Aizawa was already a lone wolf–that was his entire dynamic with Mic, Skirakumo, even Midnight, so it’s less that Shirakumo’s death made him this way when he was always this way. Hell, this was a gag in the supplementary material of the manga that got adapted into the anime, when Mic had to come up with a Pro Hero name for Aizawa because he was that checked out–and, again, that was before Shirakumo died.

Second, we know Aizawa’s lone wolf persona is just that, a front he puts up that belies his pragmatic willingness to work with others. Just because he is annoyed by the antics of friends like mic and Skirakumo, just because he bristles at Midnight trying to rope him into teaching at UA throughout most of Vigilantes, and just because he is overly serious when dealing with his students or with newbie heroes like Vigilantes’s protagonist the Crawler, none of that ignores that, despite everything, Aizawa, maybe more than anyone else, fulfills the collaborative spirit of Pro Hero work that other characters do not.

Aizawa’s strengths as a teacher center around his understanding that people have to work together. That detail fails when remembering he is still the one who is not properly reprimanding Bakugo to stop being a bullying, violent dick to Izuku. (Seriously, this episode is yet another moment of him being awful: how many times in the anime alone has he kicked the shit out of Izuku for no reason, as if any reason would justify it?) But otherwise, Aizawa understands how to work with others, and that has set him apart for so long from other prominent Pro Heroes. All Might doesn’t really collaborate–he’s been trying to hold up the peace of the world on his own. Endeavor may run an agency with sidekicks that enhance his abilities, but as seen in the Endeavor Agency Arc he would rather rush ahead to save the day on his own, in this pathetic desire to catch up to All Might. Aizawa, though, knows his limitations and is willing to work with anyone else to help him achieve his goals, something we have seen him learn to embrace more and more, whether hanging back to be the face in front of the camera to distract the League while the other Heroes rescue Bakugo, or when he accepted Izuku joining on the Shie Hassaikai mission. And you can pick up on all of this from just reading the main manga–so why bother reading Vigilantes if all it’s going to tell you is,”Aizawa’s friend died and that’s why he’s sad”? Even little details get lost in the shuffle: while I should appreciate Aizawa bringing up the cat Oboro rescued, that’s such a big part of the Vigilantes plot that it feels like a nod to the story rather than getting fully into it. (Trivia: That cat, Sushi, is adopted by Midnight. Enjoy feeling awful that Sushi may have passed away by now or is going to be without an owner when Midnight dies.)

I had thought I could put that frustration with that Vigilantes arc behind me. Then the main manga revealed Shirakumo’s corpse was used to create Kurogiri–and I rage quitted. Okay, that’s exaggerating: I didn’t stop reading the manga, but I did take a long pause in keeping up on it, seeing as the next arc got to be so bloody and depressing that, on top of enough real-world concerns, that wasn’t the kind of escapist reading I was looking for. I needed some time to sit back and process how annoying this revelation was. That means, for all of Vigilantes, this detail, that Kurogiri was Shirakumo all along, was just waiting to be revealed. To again repeat the SpongeBob meme I used last week, this series used me for plot contrivances.

(Vigilantes also seems like one long troll. After the main manga shows the Hood Nomu used to be an underground fighter, he gets a backstory in Vigilantes. And Vigilantes give you the last bit of Midnight you’re going to get before she’s killed off–which, now that I think about it, makes her exclusion from this episode even worse: she was friends with Shirakumo, too, so bring her into this episode before we fridge her!)

It doesn’t help how ignorant I feel for not realizing this sooner: Skirakumo’s name and abilities are the white-and-black opposite of Kurogiri’s. The cover to a collected volume of Vigilantes made that all the clearer. But if that’s the case, why wasn’t this hinted at when Aizawa and Kurogiri first encountered each other way back in the USJ Arc? I know it’s a lot to expect the audience to track throughout the series, and I appreciate the story trying to explain that away by Aizawa asking the same question I have, before someone tells him that maybe Kurogiri’s reprogramming made Oboro’s personality disappear. But Horikoshi’s creation of Shirakumo seems more like a late addition rather than something always there since the earliest chapters. And that’s fine–it’s just disappointing compared to other comics creators like Oda who sets stuff up years in advance before payoff in One Piece. And it’s more disappointing it didn’t come up in the anime adaptation: I would have hoped, if Horikoshi had that idea so early, he would have told BONES so they could throw in a hint early in that fight. I don’t know, maybe Aizawa has a flashback to the last words Shirakumo told him and that motivates him to use his Quirk one last time to save Tsuyu and Izuku, or maybe Kurogiri pauses before Aizawa just long enough that you think that’s a weird choice, then upon rewatch now you realize, “Oh, shit, Kurogiri was remembering his classmate and trying to process that information!”

It doesn’t help that the Shirakumo story doesn’t feel like something Studio BONES should handle. Granted, that story is from Vigilantes, not the main manga, so I anticipated BONES would not adapt it here–even as I held out hope for an OVA or, as I hinted earlier, something akin to Bungo Stray Dogs: start the season with this three- to four-episode adaptation of Aizawa’s back story to introduce this season. I’ll say more about why placing that story at the beginning of the season in a moment, but there was another reason why I didn’t think this was a Studio BONES story: it always felt like a story suited for Trigger, the studio behind Kill La Kill, Little Witch Academia, and more, built by people from Gainax of Evangelion and Gurren Lagann fame.

The Shirakumo arc in the Vigilantes manga felt like a visual love letter by Shueisha to Trigger saying, “Please adapt this!” Betten Court’s illustrations for Vigilantes emphasize diagonals, even when adapting MHA characters originally designed by Horikoshi, as well as facial expressions with sharp lines rather than curves, all visually reminiscent of some Trigger and even Gainax anime. Characters’ facial expressions look more like Panty and Stocking than Studio BONES. Aizawa’s final fight in the arc is against a stories-tall behemoth with laser powers that, if not visually, then narratively invokes similar fights in Gurren Lagann, Gridman, and Evangelion. Speaking of Gurren Lagann, in this arc Midnight is sporting Kamina’s shades, and Skirakumo’s last words to Aizawa come through an intercom, after he supposedly died, similar to Kamina’s death. Also, Midnight is running around in a nudist beach outfit from Kill La Kill–so, yeah, the Trigger allusions are that in your face, in all senses of that phrase. Again, I’m not saying I personally would like Trigger to adapt MHA: it’d be different, they are not the first studio I would go with or one whose output I would like, given a lot I don’t like about their output, but when you look at the manga-based evidence, going in that direction makes sense.

I don’t know what plans Shueisha, Toho, and BONES had for this episode, but the style of it already feels so different and off-kilter anyway, due to Aizawa’s nostalgia, that I can’t help but think that someone at some point did have an idea to go with a different studio to animate it, or at least a different approach. I appreciate how much they changed Chapter 254’s opening, re-staging Oboro’s agency talk to be outdoors instead of a walk-and-talk scene as in the manga. Even if I can’t quite say the street walking and outdoor sitting under a bright sky is indicative of Trigger exactly–if anything, the fixation on centering the scenes Wes Anderson-style (the hallway walking in Tartarus, Aizawa and Mic and Oboro hanging out under the blue sky) looks more like something out of Shaft or BONES’s Bungo Stray Dogs–that difference tells me there was something more ambitious in mind than what we ultimately got. It’s the same when we get Kurogiri’s point of view as Aizawa and Present Mic get through to Oboro.

Imagine how gutsy it would be to start Season 5 with an entire Oboro flashback arc. Imagine moving forward in time to this moment of Aizawa and Present Mic interviewing Kurogiri, disorienting the audience asking why we’re skipping the Classes 1A and 1B fights, the League of Villains vs the Meta Liberation Army Arc, and the Endeavor Agency Arc, to show this moment that was supposed to come later. Imagine how gutsy it would be to start with Aizawa and Present Mic learning all of this at Tartarus, setting up the finale for this season, the Pro Heroes versus the Paranormal Liberation Front–then not actually showing that fight start until next season. Why do all of that? Because, if you’re going to delay the LOV vs MLA Arc for that long, you might as well start your season assuring the audience that, no, we have not forgotten the Villains, they will be relevant this season–because, since Aizawa and Present Mic’s high school years, they have been the Big Bads all along and were toying with these two for so long. Imagine how gutsy all of that would be.

Instead, all of that is reduced to just one episode. It’s all so cliche. Aizawa points out, towards the beginning, that this power of friendship trope won’t work–then it does work, negating the entire point of calling it cliche. (Well, it does work, for now: given often we’re told rather than shown how All For One is a chessmaster, it wouldn’t surprise me if he let Kurogiri spill the beans like this knowing it would help him break out of prison later when the Pro Heroes foolishly take on the PLF all at once with little back up plan.) If we had had the full story of Oboro, like did readers of Vigilantes, the slow revelation that Nomus are hardly puppets but, more than that, are reanimated Frankenstein’s monsters capable of agency and personalities, would make this hurt more. We would have seen Oboro, we would have been as horrified as Aizawa and Mic are to learn he was resurrected–but, instead, it is already upon our first meeting with Oboro that suddenly we learn he is also Kurogiri, and it’s just too fast.

How disappointing, but sadly realistic.

It feels like BONES has made a lot of safe choices this season, and while that helps sustain the studio during the unpredictable times of COVID and does what works already for MHA, it doesn’t feel very adventurous. It makes me wonder whether BONES should have put in that time improving Season 5 than trying to make another MHA film. I have not seen World Heroes’ Mission, and while I’ll reserve my review of it until I see it, and will limit as many spoilers as I can, based on just the plot summary I have read, I fail to see how putting in the budget on that film makes sense in terms of narratives, even as I understand how it makes sense in terms of increasing an audience and getting box office sales (in a pre-COVID model, of course).

But speaking of COVID, yeah, I do see why World Heroes’ Mission is necessary right now: it is a globe-trekking film, from what I read it includes beautiful scenery as characters travel vast distances–it is a film needed right now when many of us are still social distancing and still staying at home in the hope that our contributions limit the spread of this deadly virus. (Get vaccinated, mask up, stay at home when possible, and stop being a jerk, people.) Still, I can’t say I’m not disappointed that, with a season whose animation has depended a lot on flashbacks, even if that makes sense given how much ground to cover and how far along the story has come over more than 100 episodes, it is disappointing to not get something more stylistically out-there.

I’m also not saying it’s realistic that Trigger would ever animate this arc. I don’t even necessarily want them to: I find most of their productions to be so light on story while heavy on themes, message, and the animation that, while I appreciate people getting into how visually stunning the artwork is, I find the story so empty that I just can’t get into it. And I’m not expecting Shueisha, Toho, or Studio BONES to cut some kind of deal with Trigger to give them the rights to adapt part or all of Vigilantes: Trigger is animating Star Wars stuff next, that’s a wider market than My Hero Academia (regardless how many Star Wars references Horikoshi puts into his series).

I know I’m being very critical of the production choices behind the episode. Granted, the recap to the last episode was needless–and seems like it’s just there to remind us that we’re somehow supposed to see Aizawa, Mic, and Oboro as analogous to Izuku, Bakugo, and Todoroki–which does not work at all. And somehow BONES made the unfunny All Might part from the manga even longer and even less funny: we already got comedic relief off Iida to accent how much a contrast there is to the Aizawa stuff, and that has a more personal connection as he is Aizawa’s student, while All Might’s Dad Joke is as painful a pun as it looked to be for the students.

Otherwise, I thought the episode was good, just not meeting expectations I set that are not fair. Present Mic’s extended pause, then the long pause before Aizawa has to hold back from crying, when realizing Kurogiri’s concern for Shigaraki means he is indeed Oboro, is more powerful than it was in the manga. Aizawa letting loose the tears at the end while claiming he has dry eyes is very much Roy Mustang complaining about the rain. I do think the ambition for the storyboarding hints at something bigger they had planned, and largely the animation and tension, especially trying to reach Oboro, did work. Wrapping up this episode showing that Kurogiri was just the start of an experiment that would lead to Shigaraki’s transformation only creates a more foreboding tone.

Furthermore, the voice direction and acting in the English dub was very good. Ever since David Trosko replaced Sonny Strait as Present Mic, he has upheld all that works in the character, and while I feared that kind of loud acting would disrupt any pathos for this episode, it worked incredibly well, putting up so much bluster that shows how powerless he feels facing this madness and how this is as heartwrenching for him as it is for Aizawa. I especially appreciate, in the English dub, how much Oboro sounds like Izuku: while the series has never made Aizawa see a bit of Oboro in Izuku, that casting lends a new way of interpreting why Aizawa sticks with that masochist after everything he lost when Oboro died.

(You know that if things had worked out differently, Vic Mignogna would’ve ended up cast as Oboro, given his roles already as the dead friend of the hard-ass teacher in Naruto, and the presumed dead Sabo in One Piece, and his dynamic acting against Kurogiri’s Chuck Huber in other productions).

So that takes care of all the stuff about Aizawa: what about his students? I don’t just mean the class he failed–which, no, that detail doesn’t really work for me, that Aizawa failed a class as we were told upon his initial introduction, and now we reveal it was an empty threat since, while that is on their record, it was to reset matters with his class, not so they would take him seriously but so that they would value their lives. That’s not how that works. I don’t pretend that students, myself included, took our education so seriously that a failing grade or a career setup felt awful–but not the same kind of life-threatening that is literally dying. A poor mark on your report card does not typically result in that kind of same mortal fear, and I hate this story for trying to compare the two, especially when it positions teachers like us to have a fatal power we don’t have: we’re not the Grim Reaper, this isn’t Soul Eater, this is real freaking life. I can’t imagine any good teacher wanting that kind of power to think they are the difference between life and death. We don’t want our students to think these are mortal matters–especially right now, in this context, where I don’t think it’s at all appropriate to re-start in-person teaching and learning (without masks and without social distancing or remote learning opportunities) at a time when not enough of us are vaccinated and the threat of COVID remains too dangerous even when vaccinated. This takes me out of the story. Granted, it’s not the rest of this story is somehow like real life: this is a school where Nezu somehow has a ton of money, so applying real-world matters to a work of fiction is foolish. The only bar this story needs to clear is believability, and it’s not unbelievable that Nezu made that money and overlooked Aizawa’s behavior.

(It’s also why I wish Midnight was in this episode: she recruited Aizawa to UA as a teacher–it would be fascinating to hear her say she chose him for these reasons, that she knew the school needed a hard-ass like him.)

But like I said, I don’t just mean the class he failed: I mean his current students. Re-reading Chapter 253, I now understand why Iida doesn’t pop up in the third film: if he had his new desire to loosen up, then it would make a lot less sense seeing as he just came off a mission to save the world like Ochaco and his classmates did.

And that again leads to a paragraph of me repeating that I don’t give Ochaco enough attention. I promise, I will say more about where her character stands in this series at some point, if not when talking about Chapter 324 tomorrow. But even as this story keeps insisting she is important, it feels like it’s hanging her up like that All Might toy from Izuku. I appreciate putting in the budget to animate her dive-and-hide on Izuku’s gift, something not as obvious or visually impressive in the manga–but we couldn’t have put that budget into doing something more creative with the Aizawa story? Building her characterization around Izuku, at this point in the anime, remains frustrating–until the manga gives that a good payoff and seems to be sticking the landing on it. That’s one of the challenges of reviewing the manga as it goes on, and why reviewing the anime is in some ways easier: I can see where the pieces fit in and what is being set up. It doesn’t change that it’s annoying right now in this moment, but it fits in the overall scheme of her and Izuku’s story. But When it comes to how Toga is going to tie into this, I’m less convinced, but we’ll get to that in the next few episodes and in tomorrow’s manga review.

Oh, and Bakugo remains the worst. I’m so grateful he is tolerable in the manga right now, because the fact that he was getting away with this nonsense up to Chapter 253 is an indictment against teachers like Aizawa and All Might.

I apologize for how much this post seemed like a long college lecture (a college instructor leturing–shocking), or a Rachel Maddow monologue–only far less repetitive than Maddow’s condescending “I’m going to repeat the same point five times and treat you like you haven’t been paying attention”–and far less financially profitable. This is basically a joke I told a friend after posting last week’s review:

“Show me you’re an academic without telling me you’re an academic.”

“I wrote nine pages reviewing an episode without actually reviewing the episode."

#my hero academia #shoto aizawa #oboro shirakumo #long post

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frasier-crane-style · 4 years

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Again, Trank came to Slater with a skeleton idea: His Fantastic Four would be the opposite of every other franchise kickoff. “The end of the Fantastic Four was going to very organically set up the adventure and the weirdness and the fun. That would be the wish fulfillment of the sequel. Because obviously, the sequel would be, ‘OK, now we are [superpowered] forever and it’s weird and funny and there’s adventure lurking around every corner.’ But the first movie was going to basically be the filmic version of how I saw myself all the time: the metaphor of these characters crawling out of hell.”

Developing the script was a similar clamber. Slater was a badge-carrying nerd ready to convert comic book lore into bombastic, CG-ready set-pieces. Trank was the opposite, having seen a few episodes of the Fantastic Four cartoon from the mid-’90s and having a general distaste for comic book movies. “The first Avengers movie had recently come out, and I kept saying, ‘That should be our template, that’s what audiences want to see!” Slater said. “And Josh just fucking hated every second of it.”

“The trials of developing Fantastic Four had everything to do with tone,” Trank said. “You could take the most ‘comic booky’ things, as far as just names and faces and identities and backstories, and synthesize it into a tone. And the tone that [Slater] was interested in was not a tone that I felt I had anything in common with.”

In an effort to creatively engage his director by any means necessary, Slater loaded Trank up with comics from his personal collection — the greatest Doctor Doom stories, his favorite Ben Grimm moments — but nothing sparked. Trank was more interested in the early moments, digging into Reed Richards’ character development and traumatic arc. The screenwriting pair would try to find common ground, watching movies for inspiration. What was the Inception version of Fantastic Four? The Saving Private Ryan version? The Cronenberg body horror version? Once the team got its powers, that’s where it started losing Trank. Galactus, Annihilus, Herbie the Robot, time travel, multiple dimensions, old teams fighting young teams — everything was on the table, and any sequence or character could get tossed out at a moment’s notice. “It didn’t matter if they were fighting robots in Latveria or aliens in the Negative Zone or Mole Monsters in downtown Manhattan; Josh just did not give a shit.”

“I feel like I get Mole Man,” Trank said in his defense. “He’s angry and undermined by the system.”

[...] Trank faced immense pressure as he worked on the script, storyboards, previsualized set-pieces, and casting, and much of it was born from his own anxieties. The director came from behind with Chronicle, and was suddenly in charge of something that everyone expected to be a huge success. “That requires a degree of experience that we often underestimate,” one source close to the production said. Trank took bold swings where he could. Early on, he insisted to Fox that Chronicle star Michael B. Jordan was the guy to play Johnny Storm, a character traditionally depicted as white. “For the world I grew up in, a racially intense Los Angeles where we were used to seeing white superheroes, some of my friends who were black should have seen a black superhero [...] so I felt that while being in a position of power, I could change the system a little bit.” Miles Teller (Whiplash), Jamie Bell (Jumper), and Kate Mara (Shooter), as Johnny’s adopted sister, rounded out the cast.

So you want to make a movie about a black superhero and you hate Fantastic Four comics--naturally, that makes you the best choice to do a Fantastic Four movie.

ETA:

It didn’t help that throughout the making of Fantastic Four, Trank had a second job. A few months before production, Kinberg, who, on top of producing superhero movies for Fox, was a consultant at Lucasfilm, asked Trank if he wanted to make a Star Wars movie. Kinberg knew that Trank had met with Kiri Hart of the Lucasfilm story group after Chronicle, and now the company was interested in hearing his pitch for a spinoff movie.

At the time, Trank rented a house in Benedict Canyon just a few blocks from where George Lucas lived with his editor and wife Marcia Lucas when he wrote the first draft of Star Wars. With a few days to mull over Kinberg’s offer, Trank walked up to the Lucas house and basked in its glow. He called it one of the most surreal moments of his life. “The visions that I had in that moment were just out of this world,” he said. He walked back to his home with a three-act pitch for a Boba Fett movie.

Trank presented the idea to Hart, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, and Disney chairman Alan Horn. Up until that point, only J.J. Abrams had been approved to play in the Star Wars sandbox, and granting permission for a filmmaker to forever impact the moneymaking mythos was a monthslong process. But the guy who made his name with a lightsaber-themed viral video came out the other end with a Star Wars movie deal.

The next June, in the middle of production on Fantastic Four, Lucasfilm announced the director as part of the family. “He is such an incredible talent and has a great imagination and sense of innovation,” Kennedy said. “That makes him perfectly suited to Star Wars.” Nearly a year later, Trank would bow out of the movie. “I quit because I knew I was going to be fired if I didn’t quit.”

Hearing how this guy is kinda a pretentious idiot with no friends, it makes a lot more sense that he’d get hired to make a Star Wars movie.

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buckybarnesss · 3 years

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the weird, odd hate boner that people have for kathleen kennedy as president of lucasfilm is just...a lot

people do realize she presides over as much of their successes as much as their failures?

there is valid criticism in there ie: treatment of john boyega and oscar isaac for one thing, how the sequels had no real overhead direction that lead to a cohesive story that lead to their lackluster reception by fans and general audience alike.

but like -- people really be out there saying this woman is mad over the success of the mandalorian? why? it’s making her a boat load of fucking money? it’s success made is so we’re getting all these spinoffs and other properties

but oh yeah it’s all kennedy’s fault and not a collaborative effort that lead to both failures and successes of an entire company.

she may be president of lucasfilm but star wars is owned by disney. they are her bosses. do these people think she has sole creative control of the entire franchise?

every time i click a youtube video or article to try to find some concrete discussion and evidence all i find is big hate that she’s a woman and how feminism is a failure which doesn’t exactly read as valid criticism. it just reads that people hate that a woman is president of lucasfilm and they see that as the property of the fanboys and that she’s giving it female cooties or some shit.

#my blog #i'm not tagging this #i don't need that kind of shit #it's just my thoughts #i haven't like extensive followed this

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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How Double Dragon’s Abobo Became a Beat em up Legend

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In the late ’80s, video games started featuring over-the-top, meaty musclemen. Metro City had Mike Haggar, a shirtless former wrestler who became mayor and decided that being “tough on crime” meant ridding the streets of criminals with his bare hands, his girlfriend’s psycho boyfriend, and a ninja in Nikes. Circus strongman Karnov scoured the world for adventure and treasure, fighting all kinds of mythical monsters. Bald Bull was trying to dominate both the boxing ring and the arm-wrestling circuit. Gutsman was a jacked construction robot who was later rebuilt as a 40-foot-tall tank centaur.

And then there was Abobo, the gigantic antagonist from Double Dragon. He wasn’t THE antagonist. Hell, in the first game, you fight him within the first two minutes. Despite his low-level status, he’s still far more fondly remembered than the main Double Dragon bad guys like Willy and the Shadow Master. There’s just always been something about this random brute that’s made him special.

Abobo’s journey begins in the original Double Dragon, Technos’ 1987 arcade hit. The game’s story is very simple. A dystopian, lawless, post-nuclear war version of New York City has been overrun by a gang called the Black Warriors or Shadow Warriors or Black Shadow Warriors. (They kind of workshop that name from game to game.) Billy and Jimmy Lee are two martial arts brothers whose mutual friend Marian is captured by gang members. Off they go to lay out everyone in that gang with their bare fists and occasional barrel/whip/knife/baseball bat.

While the cannon fodder is mostly made up of normal-sized guys, out walks Abobo, who makes his entrance by punching his way through a brick wall. From the moment he appears on screen, it’s clear Abobo is meant to stand apart from the rest. He has longer reach, takes more hits, can’t be thrown, and is able to throw Billy and Jimmy like ragdolls. The only guy more dangerous than Abobo is Willy, the final boss, who brings a machine gun to a fist fight.

Weirdly, Abobo has various forms in the game. His initial form is as a bald, pale guy with a mustache. Soon after, we fight Jick, an Abobo clone who closely resembles Mr. T. Later, we face off against an Incredible Hulk version of Abobo. This is post-nuclear war, so I suppose this tracks.

But it was NES port that really delivered the ultimate form of Abobo, whose appearance was seriously altered for the 8-bit console. With orange-brown skin, Abobo is still bigger than everyone else, but also looks inhuman. He has a giant, bald head almost the size of his bulky torso, and a black arch on his face that is apparently a mustache merged with a frown! While the NES version had its own quasi-fighting game mode with everyone redrawn with a bigger and better sprite, Abobo looked exactly the same. You just can’t mess with perfection!

Abobo sort-of-but-not-really appeared in the sequel, 1988’s Double Dragon II: The Revenge. In a game filled with giant enemies, there was a guy named Bolo who looked exactly like Abobo, but with long, black hair. Actually, in retrospect, he looks a lot like Danny Trejo.

Huh.

Abobo sat out of the next few Double Dragon games, as the Lee brothers busied themselves fighting mummies and chubby clowns. But he returned in a very unexpected crossover: 1993’s Battletoads/Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team. The game featured a bizarre team-up between the Dark Queen from Battletoads and the Shadow Warriors. As Double Dragon didn’t have too many memorable boss characters that could stack up to the likes of a giant rat in a singlet, they went with what they could get.

As with the other bosses in the crossover gamer, Abobo was depicted as an absolute giant compared to the Lee Brothers and the Toads. He was also very generic-looking, appearing as a shirtless, bald guy with no ‘stache. Due to the sci-fi nature of the crossover, his storyline ended with him getting booted off a spaceship and sent spiraling through space itself.

1993 also gave us the Double Dragon animated series. Somehow, this thing ran for two seasons (26 episodes) and Abobo was there from the beginning. The first episode was a weird Saturday morning-style retelling of the NES game’s plot, down to Billy Lee having to fight his “evil” brother at the end. Abobo acted as a henchman, alongside a very colorful take on Willy.

In the cartoon, Abobo was a bald muscleman with blue skin, meaning he has the same mysterious complexion situation as Captain N’s King Hippo. Abobo was also strangely competent on the show, all things considered, although the only fighting he ever did was throw oil drums at Billy and miss every single time. He spent more of his time annoyed at Willy, who was depicted as a psychotic cowboy with a laser gun — one-half Yosemite Sam and one-half the Interrupter from Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

The second episode introduced the Shadow Master, who immediately showed disgust at his underlings’ failure by magically bonding Willy to a giant mural of punished souls. Abobo tried to run for it, but succumbed to the same fate. The two would remain in that mural for the rest of the series.

While there was a fighting game released based off of the Double Dragon cartoon, Abobo wasn’t part of the roster. It was just as well. Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls was a really bad game and Abobo had bigger things on the horizon.

Abobo was about to go Hollywood!

In 1994, Imperial Entertainment Group released the Double Dragon movie, a total cheesefest that couldn’t make back its $8 million budget. But Robert Patrick’s scenery-chewing main villain made the movie almost watchable. The story takes place in a version of Los Angeles that’s a cross between The Warriors and No Man’s Land from the Batman comics. Billy and Jimmy are teens who get roped into a plot that involves two dragon-shaped necklaces that form an all-power medallion when put together.

Initially, Nils Allen Stewart plays the gang leader Bo Abobo. As head of the Mohawk Gang, he’s there to act all intimidating in a goofy ’90s bully sort of way, but he really doesn’t actually do much. He takes part in a car chase and teases a fight scene, but nothing happens.

Then, the villain Koga Shuko transforms him into a literal steroid freak with some experimental machine. From there on out, Abobo is played by Henry Kingi in a bloated, rubber suit. Despite being a muscle golem at this point, Abobo STILL doesn’t actually fight anyone and is instead kidnapped by Power Corps.

Abobo eventually sees what he looks like in the mirror. Broken over what he’s been transformed into, he turns on Koga and…still doesn’t fight anyone. He just gives Power Corps some advice to help turn the tide against the bad guys. At the end of the movie, he asks the Lee Brothers if they could be buddies and recklessly drives their car.

Yeah, it’s…almost something. Not the awfulness of Super Mario Bros, but not the good-for-the-time quality of Mortal Kombat. It’s also not quite as fun-bad as the Street Fighter movie, but it does share one major similarity to it.

Much like Street Fighter, the Double Dragon movie had its own fighting game spinoff. Rather than a one-on-one fighter featuring digitized actors (which was the original idea until it wasn’t deemed viable for the deadline), Technos put together a Neo Geo animated fighter that isn’t so well-known these days due to how run-of-the-mill it was. It looked like your average SNK fighting game, with no real identity of its own. The game was released for arcade, Neo Geo CD, and PlayStation.

The 1995 fighting game was loosely based on the movie’s plot and featured some FMV clips. Showing up from the movie are Billy Lee, Jimmy Lee, Marian, Shuko, and Abobo. The rest of the roster is made up of original characters, though Technos did redesign Burnov, the Big Van Vader-looking boss character from Double Dragon II: The Revenge. Abobo more closely resembles his initial, more human-looking form from the movie, complete with mohawk, although he’s cartoonishly big in the game. Fortunately, he occasionally transforms into his blobby, tumor-like mutant form during certain moves and winposes.

His ending in the game features him eating a lot of meat at a restaurant, demanding to eat meat so rough that it’ll make his teeth bleed. Heh. And Roger Ebert said video games aren’t art.

Games

Double Dragon and Kunio-kun: Retro Bundle Coming Soon

By Rob Leane

Games

Double Dragon 4: Story & Multiplayer Modes Detailed

By Matthew Byrd

After the inexplicable crossover, animated series, failed movie, and fighting game tie-ins, Double Dragon as a franchise was finally spent. As the arcade scene died down in the late ’90s, the side-scrolling beat ‘em up disappeared for a time, and it would be a little while before nostalgia for it would kick in.

Fortunately, there was still some juice left in the fighting game genre, and in 2002 the Neo Geo had just enough time left before SNK’s hardware line was discontinued. The company Evoga developed what was, for a time, meant to be a Double Dragon fighting game, but ultimately the team wasn’t able to secure the rights and was forced to make the game with a knockoff cast of characters. The result was Rage of the Dragons, a tag-team fighting game featuring Billy Lewis, Jimmy Lewis, and Abubo…

Abubo does not have a tag partner and is instead a mid-boss so powerful that it takes two opponents to stop him. He’s depicted as a low-level mob boss with a ponytail, sunglasses, pink tank top, and overly-long, muscular arms. It’s a decent enough redesign of the original, but…Abubo? That’s the best they could come up with?

As for the official Double Dragon, it made its comeback a year later. Double Dragon Advance for the Game Boy Advance took the original arcade version, updated the graphics just enough, added more stages, enemies, and attacks, turning this installment into a souped-up take on the classic. This of course meant the return of the real Abobo!

2012 would be a banner year for the musclebound henchman. Since 2002, I-Mockery’s Roger Barr had been trying to develop an Abobo-based fangame, and in early 2012, the free-to-play masterpiece Abobo’s Big Adventure was released to the public and we were better for it.

Using 8-bit graphics, the game follows Abobo as he searches for his kidnapped son Aboboy. Each level is based on a different NES title and features a dizzying amount of Easter eggs. There’s a Double Dragon level, underwater Super Mario Bros. level, Urban Champ, Legend of Zelda, Balloon Fight, Pro Wrestling, Mega Man, Contra, and finally Punch-Out. The game is an absolute blast, especially for anyone who grew up with the NES and features such whacked out moments as:

Abobo mating with the mermaid from Goonies 2, which gives him a forcefield powerup made up of Abobo/mermaid hybrid babies, one of which begs for death!

An Abobo vs. Amazon wrestling match that includes the summoning of Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Roddy Piper, and Undertaker assists in the form of Pro Wrestling sprites.

Taking on Krang’s giant robot body with Kirby in the abdominal area.

An incredibly long and over-the-top ending that gets extremely and laughably violent. If you’ve ever wanted to see a muscular child drink blood from the Shredder’s dismembered arm, this game is for you!

In terms of OFFICIAL nostalgia, 2012 also saw the release of Double Dragon Neon for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (and later PC). Using 3D graphics, the game was a modern update of Double Dragon’s playstyle while playing up the 1980s aesthetic. It was a lot more ridiculous than the original series. In fact, it’s more in line with the Battletoads crossover since this game also lets you launch Abobo into the deep recesses of outer space to die.

This game also gave us the first – and, as of this writing, only – polygon Abobo. This time a towering, hunched over brute with lots of spiked armbands. All that AND the mustache!

But of those two 2012 releases, Abobo’s Big Adventure is surprisingly the better game in terms of its portrayal of the big man, as it solidified his status as nostalgic beat em up icon.

In 2017, Arc System Works put together Double Dragon IV for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Rather than emulate the arcade original’s aesthetic, the game took its art style from the NES games. That meant the return of the classic NES Abobo as not only a recurring enemy but an unlockable playable character. Double Dragon IV actually lets you play through the story mode as various enemy characters, but honestly, who else would you pick in that situation? Well, maybe Burnov.

Sadly, playing as Abobo in Double Dragon IV leads to a non-ending. I know you can’t improve on “Abobo punches Little Mac’s head off so hard it transcends time and space,” but at least TRY!

Around the same time, another game tried to play up Abobo’s ironic/iconic status. River City Ransom: Underground was released for the PC in early 2017. The River City Ransom series has always had ties to Double Dragon, but this high school brawler goes the extra mile by putting Abobo on a big pedestal. First off, he’s the school principal. If you attack any of your teachers, you’re sent to Principal Abobo’s office to suffer a serious slap on the wrist, shoulder, jaw, spine, etc. Sometimes he’ll even enter classrooms by punching holes through the brick walls, all while shirtless and talking like the Hulk.

Even better than that? Abobo’s not only the school principal but the Mayor of River City! No wonder everyone’s always kicking the shit out of each other! God bless Mayor Mike Haggar for being a true trendsetter.

The Double Dragon/River City connection only grew stronger when 2019 brought the absolutely must-play River City Girls. As the story goes, River City Ransom heroes Kunio and Riki have been kidnapped, so their badass girlfriends Misako and Kyoko go on a violent rampage to save them. Early in the game, while Misako and Kyoko fighting in a classroom, there’s a projector playing a short film about a boy learning about puberty.

It just so happens that the kid in the video is being taught by Abobo, who thanks puberty for his monstrous size and strength. This, my friends, is foreshadowing, as Abobo shows up later in the game as a boss.

Misako and Kyoko confront Abobo about their missing boyfriends, and Abobo admits that he isn’t sure whether or not he kidnapped them since he kidnaps a LOT of people. They throw down and we’re treated to the most powerful take on Abobo yet, considering the length of his life bar. Once defeated, Abobo admits that he has nothing to do with the missing boyfriends, but gives the heroes a lead by talking about his side job as security for an upcoming concert.

In 2020, Arc System Works released a collection for PS4 and Switch called Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle. It collects 18 8-bit games, including the three NES Double Dragon games, River City Ransom, and all the old spinoffs from the River City Ransom universe. And who’s on the cover?

Yes, despite technically being in one game out of 18, and not even being the final boss of any of them, Abobo gets a major spot on the cover of this huge collection among the games’ hero characters. Finally, the world understands that Abobo is a star. Now we just need Abobo to appear in Guilty Gear Strive and then we’ll really be cooking.

The post How Double Dragon’s Abobo Became a Beat em up Legend appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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vuelie-frost · 5 years

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F2: How do we cope?

So I’m someone who has a moderate dose of anxiety in her life, which is being combatted through therapy, medication, & learning healthy coping mechanisms. I’m no expert, but I have some experience dealing with strong negative emotions. One strategy I’ve been recommended is asking yourself, in any given anxiety-riddled situation, “What’s the worst-case scenario that could happen?” This brings you out of your own head- out of hypotheticals- and into the concrete.

Don’t get me wrong, it can be painful to think about. But it can be helpful to see where our biggest fears lie. And if you’re interested in alleviating those strong negative emotions, it’s a necessary step.

I’ve said before that I’m trying to stay open-minded and optimistic about this movie. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have fears and concerns. For me personally, my biggest "worst that can happen” theories for the ending of Frozen 2 are:

- The sisters never see each other again (with a heart-shattering goodbye scene that makes us all inconsolable) - Elsa loses her humanity to become a spirit/goddess, essentially intangible and immortal - Elsa is no longer called “Queen Elsa” in the franchise, invalidating a huge historic part of her identity - Elsa doesn’t attend Anna’s coronation because she’s “too busy” doing other shit - Disney+ makes a spin-off TV series with Elsa going on adventures (just please... no.)

(please don’t chime in with what you guys think about those ideas, at least in this post, whether they’re right or wrong... that’s not the point.)

So what if any, if all, of these things happen? What next?

Stuff not to do (I mean, do whatever you want, but these probably won’t be very helpful)

- oversleeping as a defense mechanism - eating your feelings - drinking/using substances to numb pain - stew and ruminate on the internet with people who only get your sadness and anger riled up - spend all day on the internet - engage in maladaptive compulsive behaviors (oh, hello dermatillomania. great to see you again.) - completely avoid feeling your feelings - making impulse decisions (don’t go buy a car just because “Frozen 2 sucks, the world is meaningless.”) - rant to Jen/Chris/the creative team at Disney on Twitter (which is different from an honest review of the movie, which I’m sure they’d be more receptive to)

Stuff to do

1) Grieve the movie we longed for.

This might sound dramatic and my inner critic is constantly chiding me with “It’s literally a movie for kids, why are you so bonded to it?” But that’s totally unhelpful here. It doesn’t matter why or how, but most of us in the fandom feel a deep connection to the first movie. It’s not exaggeration to say that IF the sequel crushes us, it could be emotionally devastating. Grief is complex, individualized, and weird to work through... but it’s real, and if it’s something we need to face in order to move forward, 2) Decide how tightly to hold onto the franchise.

Something being canon doesn’t mean we have an obligation to internalize it. How many franchises before have whittled their stories down to C-rated TV shows and average spinoffs? Do we accept all of them wholeheartedly?

Granted, this is hard to write about because there’s a slight cognitive dissonance that has to happen for us to disbelieve the sequel of any story. But regardless, determining your relationship to the narrative is a deeply personal choice- one that can’t be decided for you. If my worst-case scenarios happen for F2, I’m probably going to maintain my complete love for the first movie... and pretend the sequel is an AU. Or extrapolation. Accept that it exists as the canon progression, but reject its meaning in my life.

3) Get off the internet.

This is probably the best possible thing to do when the online world is causing you strife and stress. Tumblr has a tendency to be an echo-chamber; I actually only recently rejoined after a long loooong hiatus for that reason. Despite what boomers want you to think, the internet’s not inherently toxic. But despite all its good, it’s also highly curated, completely biased, full of half-truths, and a fantastic vehicle for rumors.

Also realize that until November 22, anything and everything Frozen 2-related that’s released by Disney is going to make you psychoanalyze the content for clues on how to feel. We’ll all become obsessed, deranged Sherlocks in our own right. Don't let it consume you.

4) Creatively output your thoughts & feelings

Headcanons, AUs, derivative work, fan fiction, fan art all serve us well (and are way healthier than like, downing an entire chocolate cake in sadness.) I’m an artist and you bet your biscuits I’ll be sketching Elsa for weeks and WEEKS before & after the premiere. It’s just how I process things.

Another thing I’ve decided I’m going to do if any of my worst-case scenario fears are realized is: write letters to the sisters as if they were real people. Talk to them about the ending. Jen Lee kept journals writing to/from the girls when they were conceptualizing the movie; I think there’s merit in letting the characters speak for themselves.

5) Employ your favorite coping mechanisms

These are personal to you, but could include:

- meditation - working out or exercising - yoga - writing/drawing (see above point) - making coffee or tea & relax in bed with a book - talk to someone about it, bonus points if it’s someone in the “real world” - take a walk outside - use breathing exercises - take a hot bath or shower - clean your room/house/apartment - put on music - cook - play with a pet - do something with a friend Note that all of these have to do with the external world. Distraction doesn’t heal us by itself (which is why denial is a poor way of dealing with shit,) but it helps our brains reset in the background. It sets the rest of the world into perspective, so that we can more effectively face our negative emotions later. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with putting off processing until you’ve done something helpful or enriching. “Listen brain, we can cry later, right now I’m going to bake pumpkin cookies and you can’t stop me.”

6) Remember story is told to connect us with the real world

The idea of escapism is a bit paradoxical, because in pursuing a fantasy world, we’re only working to realize our desires in the real world. The reason we love Frozen so much is because we want that kind of love in our own lives... and the fairy tale reminds us that it’s real. Idealized and sanitized by The Mouse, sure, but it’s real.

It may be painful to acknowledge but: we don’t need Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, or Olaf in order to flourish. Fiction exists to affect us in the real world. Frozen is one story among many- MANY!- that have the potential to sculpt your own personal future. That’s not to say it doesn’t retain a deep meaningful significance for us. I’m going to hold the first movie in my heart forever, that I know for sure. But its reasons for being great are because it plants us in reality. Can you imagine a beautiful young woman with the ability to freeze ice? Maybe that’s not plausible. But an undying, fiercely loyal commitment between two women? Hell yeah. 7) Recognize idolization & parasocial relationships where they may be... and start to heal them

This is heavy stuff that might require a professional to help you sort through- but if you’re truly suffering, paralyzed, or flung into a depressive episode due to any life circumstance (including a movie sequel,) it’s not silly to seek help in order to move forward.

Parasocial relationships are perceived relationships where the other party (usually a celebrity, in terms of celebrity worship) doesn’t know you. Fictional worlds can fall into this category as well. It’s a one-side relationship that feels unbalanced when the other party does something we don't like. This is a studied topic I’m not super knowledgable on, but here are some links to more information if you’re interested: Why We Get So Attached To Fictional Characters by Kimberly Truong

Parasocial Relationships with Fictional Characters in Therapy by Kathleen Gannon

Parasocial Break-Up from Favorite Television Characters: The Role of Attachment Styles and Relationship Intensity by Jonathan Cohen

Our fictional friends: Parasocial interaction and relationships in an evolving media world by Carri Romm - - - Also: I love you guys. <3 I love being in the Frozen fandom. It’s all going to be okay.

#frozen 2 leaks #frozen 2 spoilers #frozen 2

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kaedeichinose · 5 years

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hi janelle, do i remember right that you like otome games? please help me out i have an abundance of free time and im feeling so lonely i just need fictional characters to say they love me. what are the best ones you'd recommend?

hell yeah i do. ok so as a general rule, if you’re taking a chance go for something thats out on a real console (psp, vita, ps3/4) basically because theres a lot more random garbage on the mobile and steam fronts, and it’s not like there arent good ones but obviously the rate of trash to good is higher

so heres a few of my most highly recommended:

Hakuoki: this is the most popular otome franchise in the west by far (even the non otome spinoff action game got localized. imagine) the most recent edition of the games in on vita (maybe steam? i havent checked) and its the combo of kyoto winds and edo blossoms. the reason theres two of them is because the game has SO MUCH CONTENT there was no way they could localize it as it was and possibly make a profit, so they ended up splitting it. Some people dislike the protag bc shes a little too yamato nadeshiko for their tastes but it never bugged me. it’s got a lot of action, historical intrigue, theres like? 13? romance candidates as of kw/eb so you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck. plus, since so many version of hakuoki got localized the older versions tend to go on sale whenever aksys’ stuff is on sale so you can get one of the older version for real cheap if you wanna dip your toes.

Code Realize: this is probably my favorite otome game and one of my favorite vns in general. the art is gorgeous, the characters are so fleshed out and well developed (even the side characters), all the narratives whirl together with intrigue and drama and the protagonist has a lot of personality. Theres not a single character i dislike here. i think the ps4 version comes in a dual pack with future blessings, which is a direct sequel focusing on lovey-dovey marriage stuff with some more serious stories too.

norn9: norn9 is really unique because it has three entirely different protags to play as, and each one has three different boys to pursue. this affords for them to have a lot of love interests while still keeping the MC’s arcs feeling fresh. theres one route i dont like but 8/9 aint bad! nice art, good writing, intriguing world building. fully recommend.

anniversary no kuni no alice: so this ones pretty different in that its a doujin game that was never officially localized (ok, there was a mobile port that got released in the west but calling that a translation...... is generous) but the fantranslation finally got finished like? last year? recentlyish. despite its humble routes it made a huge splash in japan and is definitely genre defining. it also isnt as tender and sweet as some of the other games i listed, it fully embodies the charm of alice in wonderland where nearly everyone is an oddball whackjob/asshole (and dont worry, the protagonist can throw a punch) and has an old fashioned affection point and date system which make it feel really old school. its not an eroge but these characters absolutely fuck, which is nice if you want some self indulgent steamy stuff. that said i fully recommend opening up the debug menu and just slapping max affection on your chosen boy bc the low budget, slightly dated mechanics can be kind of a slog. theres also like a shit load of secret events that you need to monitor flags for so you might as well just save yourself the trouble and fudge the numbers a bit. and since the company that made it is fucking dead its 100% free! rad.

collarxmalice: this one is a bit weird bc im more recommending it for the story bc the romance elements didnt really do it for me? like full disclaimer this is a me problem, and even though the romance elements didnt click with me the routes are all still very well written (except.... for one.... who i was expecting to like the most..... aaaaaaaaaaaaa) . the heroine is a cop so shes very action focused and the game even forces you to do your own crime solving, and its easy but its still more immersive than a lot of other games try to be. it has a very strong story and aesthetic and even though it bounced off me im still looking forward to the fandisc releasing on switch so i still really enjoyed it. it was met with rave reviews and was even an office favorite of the translators working on it.

if youre still unsure i suggest just checking out which game has a cast you find appealing, theyre the main reason your here afterall

#Anonymous

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scoutception · 5 years

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Final Fantasy Type-0 review: Depression central

If there’s one Final Fantasy subseries whose fate gets me feeling down, it’s the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, a novel and ambitious concept based around various games and stories of different settings and casts of characters, but sharing common themes and mythos, putting them in different contexts in each. While a fascinating idea, it ran into nothing but trouble with each of its entries, with Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels being very divisive, to say the least, Final Fantasy Versus XIII running into an infamously extended development hell, only to finally emerge as Final Fantasy XV, now almost completely separate from its original concept, and the final big entry, Final Fantasy Type-0, vanishing until 5 years after its announcement in 2006, as a PSP exclusive that only came out in Japan, a rarity for the series when it comes to its higher profile spinoffs. Thankfully, in 2015, Type-0 got a remaster on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC, finally allowing other audiences to enjoy it. Was it worth the almost 10 year wait? Well, that’s something we’re about to find out now.

Story:

Final Fantasy Type-0 takes place on the world of Orience, divided into 4 great nations blessed with Crystals: the Dominion of Rubrum, a place for the study and teaching of magic granted by the Vermilion Bird crystal, the Kingdom of Concordia, a female led monarchy able to communicate and control monsters and, more importantly, dragons, and home to the Azure Dragon crystal, the Militesi Empire, a technologically advanced state able to produce great machines of war known as Magitek Armors, or MAs, through the power of their White Tiger crystal, and the Lorican Alliance, whose citizens are much larger and powerful than any other in Orience thanks to their more direct connection to their Black Tortoise crystal. Orience is, unfortunately, not a place of peace, with each of the 4 crystal states wishing to unite Orience under them, and making plenty of attempts to in the past. The motive behind this is the legend of the Agito, a messiah said to appear during Tempus Finis, an apocalyptic event prophesied in the somewhat dubious, yet widely believed, Nameless Tome, with every crystal state seeing it as their divine duty to create Agito, to the point of Rubrum training so called Agito cadets from its brightest and most magically adept citizens.

The story opens with yet another war being started in the year 842 by Milites, whose emperor has been deposed by the brilliant and ambitious Imperial Marshall Cid Aulstyne (Final Fantasy games have a tradition of having a character named Cid somewhere, and finally, he made it as main antagonist), who immediately sets out to attack Rubrum. What would otherwise be a “normal” invasion quickly turns disastrous for Rubrum when Milites unleashed a new device called a crystal jammer, which cuts Rubrum’s legionnaires from their connection to the crystal, rendering them helpless before the Militesi invaders. Even worse, Milites also deploys a l’cie, a human chosen by their nation’s crystal to become its direct servant, in exchange for immense power and near immortality, the use of which in warfare was mutually banned by each of the 4 nations. Just when Rubrum seems doomed, the mysterious Class Zero arrives, 12 cadets who are unaffected by the crystal jammer, raised by Rubrum’s even more mysterious archsorceress, Arecia Al-Rashia, who proceed to liberate the capital, Akademia. Now, with the addition of two promising but otherwise normal cadets, Machina Kunagiri and Rem Tokimiya, Class Zero becomes a vital part in Rubrum’s efforts to reclaim their lost land and defeat Milites, once and for all.

To just come out and say it, the story’s biggest weakness is the cast, or, more specifically, its use of the cast. While the playable cast alone is certainly large, at 14 characters, and the supporting cast only grows from there, almost nobody gets proper focus. The main 12 members of Class Zero, named after playing cards, consists of Ace, Deuce, Trey, Cater, Cinque, Sice, Seven, Eight, Nine, Jack, Queen, and King, and despite being the “proper” members of Class Zero, they all only have a few character traits each. Trey is a knowledgeable type that tends to ramble, Sice is an arrogant loner, Nine is a violent muscle head, Cinque is nice, but downright weird, and so on. While after a while they all grew on me, it’s still pretty unsatisfying, especially when Ace, the face of the game, gets neglected just as badly. The supporting cast gets it even worse, as outside of Arecia and Class Zero’s commanding officer, Kurasame, most of everyone else that’s notable either has minimal at best story presence, or doesn’t show up in the story, period, being relegated to sidequests. Ultimately, the most focused on characters are the two “normal” people in Class Zero, Machina and Rem, which kinda makes sense, giving a more grounded air compared to off how putting the others can be to begin with, but even they don’t work out quite well. While Rem is fine, she doesn’t do very much interesting with the time she gets, while Machina, on the other hand, is very, very unlikeable to the point of hurting the story, whether it be his own cold attitude or broodiness to put the usual RPG protagonist stereotype to shame, he ends up way more unsympathetic than near anyone else in the story, even most of the antagonists. While the cast overall is definitely flawed, though, they’re definitely entertaining at a lot of points, whether they come from the main cast, mostly Trey or Cinque, or from some of the side characters, mainly the extremely greedy Carla and, most memorably to me, the paranoid, bombing throwing Mutsuki.

Since the story doesn’t focus on the characters very much, the main focus is instead the war itself. While it definitely has a few twists and turns, especially starting in chapter 4, overall, the battles and events of the war aren’t the most interesting subject by itself. More interesting is the elements around the war. This is by far one of, if not the darkest game in the franchise, and it doesn’t shy away from showing just how messed up Orience is. Rubrum’s main strength comes in the form of its Agito cadets, meaning, teenagers, as young as 14, at that, and the tactics the military uses means they tend to die in droves. Even when it’s technically pragmatic, between magic proficiency peaking at teen years and decreasing with age, plus not having many other means to resistance, it’s still very uncomfortable, and keep in mind, this is what the good guys, or the relative ones, get up to. Milites, meanwhile, is all too happy to deploy superweapons, such as literal nukes, and its soldiers are disturbingly fanatic, being more than happy to massacre towns, and even refer to Class Zero as demons. Class Zero themselves were raised to be soliders, and feel almost nothing in battle, and Rubrum’s leadership are paranoid and petty, to the point of the military commander actively trying to get Class Zero killed out of pure spite. Eidolons, extremely powerful monsters able to be summoned by mages, demand the lives of their summoners, and there are outright suicide squads of cadets who are only meant to summon more powerful Eidolons. Additionally, a very important plot point is that the crystals automatically erase the memories of anyone who dies from everyone’s minds, to the point Rubrum’s citizens need to wear dog tags just so it can be confirmed they even existed after they die. While they try to justify it as a blessing from the crystals that allows people to move on and not be held back by the dead, all it’s done is completely desensitize Orience to death, and having characters casually talk about being informed of their friends or family dying, and not feeling a single thing, is pretty disturbing, especially when it’s named character involved. It does a very good job of showing how constant warring and lack of reverence for the dead has corrupted this world, even when many of the characters affected still remain sympathetic.

Unfortunately, the biggest flaw of the story to me is that there simply isn’t a lot of it to be found, at least in regards to the main story. While the game is comprised of 8 chapters, that’s more than a little inaccurate, as half of those consist of a short introduction and a singular mission, rather than the 2 or 3 missions in the rest of the chapters. The story only really gets moving in chapter 4, and even then, many important points aren’t addressed until chapter 8, which is a downright bizarre and sudden change of subject and tone compared to the rest of the game, to the point a second playthrough is required because of how many holes are left otherwise, and even then, it can be a bit difficult to figure out just what is going on. The biggest achievement of the writing, on the other hand, is the lore of the setting. Orience is a fascinating world, with a detailed history of each nation, plenty of info to find on the various characters, and examinations of the various enemies of the game, all stored in a book in the hub called the Rubicus. It’s also quite interesting seeing the perspective flip compared to Final Fantasy XIII; instead of l’cie “merely” being granted the use of magic, and quickly going through their usefulness, at least by their masters’ consideration, along with the main cast being comprised of them, l’cie in Type-0 are near demigods who often live hundreds of years, and are just as fearsome to the party as to everyone else, for instance. Overall, though, while there are certainly many problems with the writing, I can’t help but say it works quite well regardless. Even with the limited time for both the story itself and the characters, it still builds a cast worth rooting for throughout the horrible situations, and an effective atmosphere that’s quite good at leaving you feeling somber. Moments like the entirety of the opening chapter, showing the utter devastation inflicted on Akademia in a mere three hours, and the various costly, large battles are very effective moments, and the ending is easily one of the saddest endings I’ve seen in a video game, for all the right reasons. Even the final chapter, odd as it is, has a lot of cool revelations and setpieces to me, at least now that I comprehend it.

Gameplay:

Type-0 is an action RPG that has you control the 14 members of Class Zero on various missions, each one possessing a different weapon. Ace uses cards, Deuce uses a flute (I swear they aren’t all this weird), Trey uses a bow, Cater uses a magic infused pistol, Cinque uses a mace, Sice uses a scythe, Seven uses a whipblade, Eight fights with his bare hands, Nine uses a lance, Jack uses a katana, Queen uses a longsword, King uses dual revolvers, Machina uses dual rapiers, and Rem uses dual daggers. Each one possesses a vastly different moveset and playstyle, such as Cinque being slow, but strong and tanky, Sice encouraging an aggressive hit and run style of play, even getting stronger for the more enemies she defeats while taking minimal hits, Trey excelling at range to a much degree than anyone else, while being near helpless up close, and Deuce being more of a supporter, having great support abilities, while her attacks are fairly weird to get used to, though effective on their own once you understand them. Despite the huge amount of characters, they’re actually fairly well balanced, all of them having important strengths and weaknesses, and while some can definitely be better than others, with Trey in particular coming to mind, possessing absurd range and the ability to charge his shots, it’s never quite game breaking. You can have up to three characters in your party, though their AI isn’t exactly great. They can certainly distract enemies well, and will make sure to heal you if your HP gets low, they don’t tend to be aggressive, and are terrible at avoiding the attacks of most enemies more complex than your average imperial trooper, and are near guaranteed to die to bosses. Speaking of which, the main wrinkle is that, while it varies, overall, your characters are not very durable, and in fact take hits about as well as wet toilet paper when faced with most enemies. This is balanced by the sheer amount of people you have. One person dies on a mission, don’t sweat it, you’ve got 13 backups. Of course, this also encourages training them all up and learning to play them as well, which is complicated by only characters in the active party gaining experience. Leveling up, in addition to granting the usual stat boosts, also grants ability points, which you can use to purchase or upgrade command or passive abilities and moves.

While just attacking enemies normally is decently effective, it can put you in unnecessary danger, and while you do have items like potions you can use to restore your health quickly, the most efficient way to fight is to use breaksights and killsights. Every enemy has at least one attack that leaves them vulnerable for a short time either before or after using said attacking. Hitting them during this period will trigger a break, or, if their health is low enough, killsight. Breaksights take a good chunk of their health away and stuns them, giving you a chance to attack them freely, while killsights just kill them outright. This one mechanic adds a lot to the gameplay, encouraging you to learn enemy patterns and attacks to see when they are vulnerable, and getting the timing down can make otherwise fearsome enemies easy to take care of. Of course, some enemies won’t take this very well, and may counterattack or even go into berserk states after recovering from breaksights, so you still have to be careful. Every character has 4 commands: regular attacks with their weapons, 2 slots that can either hold abilities or offensive magic spells, and a defensive command, whether it be the cure spell to restore health, putting up a magic wall to nullify some attacks, or just flat out blocking, which, while still causing you to suffer damage, prevents being knocked down, letting you score breaksights easier than if you were to simply dodge. Magic can be upgraded by harvesting phantoma from dead enemies, coming in various types like red for fire magic, green for defensive magic, and purple for unique spells. While powerful, magic usually takes a large chunk out of your magic points, meaning it’s better to save it for more dire situations, though harvesting phantoma restores small amounts of MP. As for equipment, aside from weapons, you have access to accessories that do things such as increasing HP by a certain percentage, giving immunity to status effects, or raising defense, though everyone can only have 2 accessories at a time. You also have three different squad commands: triad maneuver, which simply causes the party to do 3 powerful, rapid attacks, Eidolon, which summons an Eidolon you can control for a short time, in exchange for KOing the character that summoned it, and Vermilion Bird, a powerful spell that, to actually become powerful, has to be upgraded using crystal shards, which, while fairly easy to get most of the time, aren’t very numerous.

Type-0 uses a mission system, throwing you into various locations to complete objectives, though it usually equates to to reach the end of the area and kill an enemy commander. Most locations are pretty linear, though they all have a few side areas you can go to, usually for more items. You get graded based on how fast you completed the mission, how much phantoma you harvested, and how many party members got KOed during the mission, with getting the best rank on all three categories getting you an S rank, which gives a bonus item. Beating each mission on a difficulty above easy also unlocks other bonuses, whether they be additional items up for purchase or unlocking new spells or Eidolons, or just flat giving you a rare item. Completing missions also gives you money, with more the higher the difficulty and the higher your rank. Speaking of difficulties, there are 4 of them: cadet, which is just easy mode, officer, normal mode, Agito mode, which is a hard mode that makes every enemy 30 levels higher than on cadet and officer, and Finis, which is only available after completing the game once, and is, just plain absurd. All enemies have their levels increased by 50, they’re in permanent rage mode, causing them to move twice as fast and hurt twice as much, and you’re restricted to only being able to use one person per mission. It’s not much worth the effort. Aside from completing missions, your main source of items, magic, and Eidolons is from completing special orders, optional objectives that can pop up in various areas. While there’s various generic, white orders that only give items at the end of the mission for doing stuff like not getting hit for 30 seconds or not using magic for a few minutes, there are also specific, red ones with more specific objectives like taking out certain enemies, that give out better rewards. The main problem with accepting them is that, if you fail to complete them, you risk instant being killed over it, though you can avoid it you’re fast enough, as it’s delivered through portals on the ground.

In between missions, you’re allowed to explore Akademia, chatting with NPCs or party members, or engaging in “free time events” which are either conversations with random people, or cutscenes that tend to have much more interesting information. You only have a limited amount of hours until the next story mission starts, with each event taking two hours away, though time doesn’t pass just running around and talking to people without events. While a neat concept that could easily be like Persona, in practice, it doesn’t add much. While you can get some interesting information at times, and doing events also gives you items, it’s not very in depth otherwise. Even the sidequests with the more prominent side characters just consist doing their events whenever they’re available and doing a sidequest for them, eventually getting admittedly very good bonuses at the end of their little storylines. The other thing you can do with your free time is go out into the world map, where you can visit extremely small towns, get into random encounters, visit dungeons, and... not much else. While the world map isn’t tiny, there’s just not much to find. While there’s many towns, they are, again, tiny, only consisting of a single small area with a shop or two, a sidequest, and a little unofficial side quest to get a l’cie stone, which can be traded into a certain NPC to unlock lore entries in the Rubicus. There’s just not much of interest, and you’re very heavily restricted in where you’re allowed to even go on the world map, only being able to go to areas officially reclaimed by Rubrum, or that are the destination of the current story mission. Only in chapter 7 do you finally get some kind of freedom, to the point of being able to gain an airship to allow easy traversal of the world. Plus, most dungeons aren’t even meant to be explored on a first playthrough, with only about one or two being reasonable at that point, not that there’s even much to find besides l’cie stones and a chance at a rare item, emphasis on chance, since they’re always in a specific chest at the end that can only be opened once without reloading your save, and the chance of getting the most valuable item from them is rather low.

As for other activities, you can train in the arena, for downright piddly gains, or take on sidequests, most of which just contain of going out and defeating a certain amount of specific enemies, giving over items, and so forth. Most rewards aren’t great, but a few, namely from the more notable characters like the leaders of Rubrum, Kurasame, and Arecia, give very notable rewards. Sidequests don’t take time to do, but often require you to leave Akademia, meaning you need to weigh the time lost going out to do the quests against the time you could use doing events, which is difficult when you don’t know just what rewards either give out. When it comes mission time, though, you gotta venture out on the world map to your next destination. Speaking of the world map, along with the regular missions, there are also RTS style missions, where you, controlling a party member on the world map, help the dominion army reclaim forts and towns by taking out enemies and having units generated by controlled areas weaken said areas until you can invade them in a regular mission style. Instead of being graded on phantoma harvested, you’re instead graded on objectives completed, as occasionally you’ll get orders to do stuff like defend a fort for a specific amount of time or taking out a large enemy. While technically optional, you get bonuses for completing them beyond mission grade, such as access to “hero units” and direct control of certain areas. There’s a decent amount of these missions in the game, and they do make for an interest change of pace, but they aren’t much notable. You’re even allowed to skip participating in them, though obviously you miss out on rewards.

The highlights of the game are, rather sensibly, the end of chapter missions. Not only are they much longer than typical missions, they have much more unique settings, and, of course, bosses. This game has some very enjoyable, if difficult, bosses, ranging from the giant mech Brionac that is more than capable of wiping you out in a single attack, to the highly mobile mech of Qator Bashtar, Cid’s second in command, to several fights with the near invincible Gilgamesh (another recurring character in the series). My personal favorite is the boss of chapter 5, the dragon Shinryu, which is also all too happy to instantly kill you with most of its attacks, even more so than Brionac, and spend most of the fight enveloped in the darkness surrounding the arena you’re in, only being visible by the lights of its glowing red eyes. It makes for an amazing setpiece, and losing to it is almost more enjoyable than winning simply due to the failsafe implemented since the devs expected most players to lost, the details of which I simply cannot spoil. Finally, on a second playthrough, two new types of missions are available for you: expert trials, and Code Crimson missions. Expert trials are optional missions you can do during your free time, which you’ll likely have a lot of since events you see on a previous playthrough can be viewed again at no time cost on repeat playthroughs. While technically available in the first playthrough as well, they are way too difficult for the average player, i.e who isn’t insane like me. Code Crimson missions, on the other hand, are replacements for the end of chapter missions, consisting of you going off to do other stuff. While an interesting concept, in practice, they aren’t anything special, especially when they’re replacing the most interesting parts of the game, and they barely give any more story context either. The chapter 7 mission is the one exception, being very short, but an interesting concept and adding a bit more to the story. Plus, completing them all on one playthrough unlocks an interesting alternate ending, so that alone makes them worth a go.

As for the hardest challenges to be found, they’re a bit lacking. Aside from the regular optional dungeons, there’s one notable bonus dungeon and two notable superbosses. The bonus dungeon is the Tower of Agito, which can only be reached by airship, which consists of 5 floors where you need to fight 100 specific enemies, such as tonberries and behemoths, with plenty of chests to open in between, ending off on an extremely disappointing end boss that is just a Malboro that happens to be massive. While it certain sounds difficult, and pretty much everything is capable of one shotting you, once you get into a good pattern, it’s really just boring. Most of the time, they just spawn so slowly, and while after a while more of them come out at a time, it takes about an hour and a half at best to get through even if you’re otherwise efficient. As for the superbosses, there’s Nox Suzaku, only available in a second playthrough and onward, who has a chance of appearing whenever you harvest phantoma, stealing everything you try to harvest until it decides to go away. Aside from making it go away on its own, you can beat it up, which is quite a doozy. Instead of fighting you directly, it summons phantoms of various enemies to fight you, and while you could just defeat them all, this doesn’t do anything to Nox itself. Instead, you have to let the enemies defeat you, causing Nox to appear for a short time, allowing you to attack it until it retreats. Rinse and repeat, it’s not that difficult, and the rewards aren’t that great, so the main reason to beat it up is just to make it go away, because it stealing your phantoma is extremely annoying, especially when it can show up during missions, since you can’t just leave to fight it, and it’s entirely possible for it to flat make it impossible to get an S rank on that mission it decides it doesn’t want to leave. Not exactly a fun mechanic. The other superboss is, per tradition, Gilgamesh, in a stronger form than in the story. He only shows up on a third playthrough, at a few different locations on the world map, in the form of a portal. Entering said portals causes him to randomly select one of your characters to challenge. If you win, you get that character’s ultimate weapon, but if he wins, he steals your character’s current weapon. The ultimate weapons are kinda underwhelming, especially considering you may well have everything else done after a second playthrough, and it’s annoying getting specific people picked, but it’s actually a fun and fair fight, if easy to figure out.

Overall, Type-0 has some of the tightest gameplay among all the Final Fantasy spinoffs, and is the main thing that holds it together. It has a fast, hectic pace to it, interesting enemies to tackle, and a wide variety of people to try out. Really, the main criticism I have is the actual missions you have with which to try them out. The other main story missions aren’t much to look at, and same goes for the expert trials and Code Crimson missions. I’m sure this is at least partially due to originating on the PSP, and having to deal with its limitations, something that’s about become a theme in this review. Overall, though, it’s still more than satisfactory.

Graphics:

The visuals of Type-0 are a very mixed big, unfortunately leaning more towards negative. More than anything else, they make it very apparent that Type-0 was originally a PSP game. While the members of Class Zero themselves have decent looking models, if rather unemotive, everyone else, except a few important characters like Arecia, are much lower quality, especially the faces. Here’s a comparison between Ace and Carla.

The textures don’t fare much better, looking very blatantly stretched and blurry, especially on the world map, where bridges are just one long, hideous texture. Most locations outside of, again, the end of chapter missions don’t look anything special, and so many areas are just reused over and over. You go into a town, it’ll look like every other town, at least of that region. You invade a fort, it’ll look like every other fort. Repeat for almost every mission in the game. Thankfully, the big story missions look quite impressive and creative, my favorites being chapter 5′s, taking place on frozen clouds that end up near breathtaking, and especially the setting of the very final mission, which is, to avoid anything too specific, downright insane, in a good way. Another positive are the enemy designs, more specifically, the actual monsters, with enemies such as bombs and flans resembling their earlier FF designs much more than most modern entries. Unfortunately, there’s just one problem: the actual variety of enemy designs is rather lacking, with the majority of enemies being slight alterations or palette swaps. It’s a more minor point than most, but still something. The original enemy designs are quite inventive though, and overall, this is a game that excels more in general design than actual fidelity, like the spiraling Concordian capital surrounded by a sea of clouds.

Sound:

The music of Type-0 is plain great, as is usual for the series. The boss themes especially are fantastic, along with the main theme, The Beginning of the End. It also sounds quite distinctive compared to most of the rest of the series, having a greater focus on metal, fitting the more modern aesthetic. The English voice acting, on the other hand, isn’t quite great. It’s pretty obvious the dub was a rush job, considering Type-0 lacked the simultaneous localization process of the main series games, resulting in it being very lackluster overall. There are some notable voice acting names in it, like Cristina Vee as Cinque, Bryce Papenbrook as Machina, Danielle Judovits as Carla, Cassandra Lee as Mutsuki, and even Matthew Mercer as Trey, and they all do good jobs, but the rest of the cast varies, especially Class Zero itself. Ironically enough, the side characters tend to have much more solid performances, with special props going to Steve Blum as Cid, giving a very menacing perfomance, as well as other characters like Aria, Class Zero’s orderly, and Kazusa, the resident mad scientist. Corri English as Sice and Heather Hogan Watson as Queen also fair quite well. Beyond that though, the performances can be rather forced, like Nine and Cater, or just weak overall, like Rem and Deuce. This is not helped by the normal, in game cutscenes themselves, with their structure causing many long, awkward pauses nearly every sentence. It does, however, improve as the game goes on, to the point of the final cutscenes not being hurt by it near at all.

Conclusion:

Overall, this is a solid recommended by me. Even with the weakness of elements like the graphics and the short, underdeveloped story, the core gameplay just holds up that well, and there’s quite a bit to enjoy in the weaker elements even beyond that. Overall, this is one of my favorite Final Fantasy spinoffs, and the fact that it will most likely never get a sequel due to the departure of its director, Hajime Tabata, makes me very sad. With that unneeded note, this shall be the last of the Final Fantasy spinoffs I play in some time. The next time the name Final Fantasy pops up as the subject of one of my reviews, it shall be about the main series. Till next time.

-Scout

#Final Fantasy #final fantasy type 0 #game review #long post #action rpg #JRPG

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