One Piece Pirate Warriors 4: Additional Episode 3- Path To The King Of Pirates PS4 [DLC REVIEW]

So here we are, the actual final piece of PW 4 DLC content that isn’t playable characters.

(i’m taking the educated guess of not expecting more content in any shape since there’s a digital Ultimate Edition package of all PW4 content on sale, and given TK’s track record, when they use/release the “Ultimate” edition of something means they’re done with a game)

(FIY, this isn’t the last time i will cover Pirate Warriors 4, i have a final impression/re-review/addendum in the works but i’m waiting to see if they plan to keep doing more Character Passes at a later date or not, i doubt so – see the above paragraph as to why – but then again Xenoverse 2 is still getting a lot of DLC content in a somewhat regular fashion, with no signs of stopping)

The final piece of the Special Log mode offers – alongside the final Soul Map that adds the advertised & expected batch of new skills to unlock and stats upgrades – what’s basically a post-game gauntlet of challenges.

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[EXPRESSO] Civil War (2024) | FraKctured

I was disappointed by Garland’s previous (and winner for “most on the nose possible horror title”) film, MEN, and the trailer for Civil War really was so generic i could almost believe it was promoting a live action adaptation of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s The Division 2’s, or whatever a big budget version of a “January 6 Simulator” without a Trump phrophecy orb would have looked like.

(then again, this is an issue A24 seems to have recently, see the trailer for The Zone Of Interest)

That aside, when i actually got to see the film in theathers, i was pleasantly surprised Garland didn’t “lost it”, so to speak, at all, as Civil War definitely deserves the critical “praise nugget” of punch packing and delivering, as you would with the subject matter.

The plot follows a couple of war journalists that, after surviving a suicide bombing attack while reporting in New York, they decide to accompany a mentor of theirs and a young girl that idolizes their work while travelling through an America torn apart by (yep) a civil war, as many states have split and factions formed, with the goal of interviewing the president, as he holes up in a contended Washington, and his forces slowly losing steam to the “Western Forces”…

It’s a bleak depiction of a fairly realistical future scenario where the many contraddictions and divisions in the American social stratum broke out from social media mudflinging into actual, literal, civil war, but the movie avoids any easy weaponizing and name calling by putting focus instead in the day-to-day ground reality and the routine atrocities witnessed and perpetrated.

And it’s an uncompromised vision because it denies itself comforting platitudes or hypothetical, naive resolutions, while sporting a stellar cast and being constantly engaging and entertaining on an immediate level.

One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 – DLC Pack 6 PS4 [REVIEW]

So yeah, this is the final DLC characters batch for Pirate Warriors 4.

Almost can’t believe it.

“Almost” because people datamined the game and basically were able to learn beforehand with great accuracy what the new DLC characters would be, which is especially true for the final pack, Legends’ Dawn, one that indeed is dedicated to the old guard of One Piece big cheeses characters, with Gol D. Roger, his second-in-command Rayleigh and “younger Garp”.

In a way, Roger does feel weird to have a playable character this soon, i would have reserved him as a post-game unlock for Pirate Warriors 5, as in we barely even know bits of his moves and fighting style, but he has been a fan favourite and it will be at least 5 more years (if more, given PW 4 released in 2020) until we see the next PW installment, so yeah it kinda makes some sense.

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[EXPRESSO] Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) | Lament Configuration Sphere

So we’re back yet again with Ghostbusters, with a sequel to Afterlife, which was decent when it wasn’t completely lost in his own nostalgia and uncanny CG recreation of dead actors, among other issues, but i’ve lamented those when reviewing that movie back in 2021.

Frozen Empire i will say it’s already more enjoyable because Afterlife did the setup of this new Ghostbusters squad, and it takes place in a ghost infested NY, with the new “busters” moving in ye old Ghostbusters HQ/old firehouse, the old guard helping with new tech for the job, and an ancient mystical artifact that contains an evil presence hitching to spread icy death on the city…..

I do like the new villain, the comedy and the new characters introduced here, how they use the old glories and i did enjoy this a lot more than Afterlife, i found it a bit funnier as well, but it still carries some issues, as the movie stopping dead in its tracks to make an overly long reference to the original Ghostbusters film, because it can’t be a quick wink, of course.

And there’s the issue of bloat, as the film kinda feels overstuffed with too many characters added into the mix, fighting for screentime – alongside the references – over the 2 hours runtime which in turn makes some have barely anything meaningful to contribute to the plot, like the brother, Trevor, might as well be offscreen all the time since he mostly exists as a delivery character for the Slimer scenes, while Phoebe’s subplot is basically the focus of the entire film, and characterization is quite uneven, with some support characters often being kinda obnoxious more than funny.

This is the kind of script that could have used some trimming, despite cleary unwilling to cut anything.

[EXPRESSO] Monkey Man (2024) | Ramayana Revengeance

Dev Patel’s directorial debut, Monkey Man is a violent action thriller that it’s being sold as “indian John Wick”, which is both true as it does explain succintly the kind of movie you’re gonna see, but it’s not quite that.

Sure, it even acknlowedge John Wick is a film that exists diegetically, and there are some surface elements that are there almost to do a wink and a nod (a dog is involved at one point, for example), it’s pretty violent and graphic, but its more grounded and more akin to The Raid – as other have pointed out– which it’s also pretty good.

The plot sees the protagonist, Kid (played by Dev Patel), an anonymous man, becoming an avatar of justice and vengeance by donning a mask of Hanuman, a mythological monkey-man from the sacred indian epic, the Ramayana, after years of losing in a underground fight club, as he finds a way to avenge all the abuse he received and punish the corrupt men that were also behind the massacre of his family.

Aside from the protagonist actually having a more proper motivation and not starting out as an already legendary murder machine (so he does have to learn shit and plan out things more than which weapons to pick from a super armory), it also taps into Hindu mithology not just for the hell of it, but because the film is ultimately more about religious intolerance, the wide spread (and intertwined) corruption of police and religion in India, about literal, actual social justice.

Action it’s still a cathartic, bloody affair that feels quite visceral and fastifying, acting it’s excellent, you will barely feel its 2 hours runtime, so indeed, it’s a pretty damn good action thriller that’s inspired but not a copy of Keanu Reeves’ assassin extraordinarie.

[EXPRESSO] Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) | Les dents du singe

Honestly, Godzilla fans have been eating good lately, because we both have great serious Godzilla movies like Minus One and then we have the Monsterverse delivering the funny cheesy , super silly Showa-era style kaiju clashes, crossovers and “monster royal rumble collabs”.

And i’m supposed to stand there and tell you i don’t love the high quality of monster movie silliness of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, as if i can’t love both.

Following up after the events of Godzilla VS Kong, the two Titans have reached an equibrilium of sorts, with Kong ruling over Hollow Earth and Godzilla serving as a “protector” against other kaijus on the surface of the planet. But when quakes inside Hollow Hearth make way for a new menace, the Monarch foundation will have to make two rival Titans work together to confront it…

Sadly, Godzilla kinda plays second fiddle in terms of relevance to the story, which is mostly about Kong’s loneliness and longing to meet other apes of his kind, the human characters are still pretty much stereotypes deep as a puddle, but here they’re more fun and-or tolerable than they were in Godzilla VS Kong, we do get to learn more about the lore of the world and the creatures as expected/promised (there’s a lot packed into a 2 hours runtime), there are some cool new monsters, with the kaiju’s personalities coming through perfectly, all culminating into one of the more expensive tag team kaiju wrestling matches ever seen on films.

Silly as shit, and deliberately so, with Godzilla taking a knack to sleeping in the Coliseum you know what the tone is gonna be, and i can’t deny it’s a blast.

A silly, hugely entertaining blast.

Can’t wait for the next one, come on Legendary, work Gamera into this Monsteverse thing!

Early April Hiatus + Musou May Swapparoni

As mentioned at the start of this year’s Giant Monster March, i’m gonna take a break of two week starting from early April for educational reasons (uni and related stuff), and will resume on the 15th of April with my reviews of the last (and i assume final) batch of DLC contents for Pirate Warriors 4 and maybe a Ghostbusters related thingie.

As usual, during the break EXPRESSO reviews might still come about, and to a certain extent will.

ALSO, might as well put out that there won’t be Musou May this year, for schedule and reality reasons, but there will be Melee May instead, as look as various beat ‘em ups/hack n slash games that aren’t musou or musou-like, for a change.

Godzilla GB [REVIEW] | Chibizilla Made A Maze

the lesser known but far funnier PAL cover of the game.

Yep, the one you might remember as part of the AVGN Godzilla episode, with the Godzilla chibi sprites, Puzzle Bubble-esque music, we’re doing this Godzilla game this Giant Monster March, because why not after downing shitty licensed affair such as – but not limited to – the PS3-PS4 Godzilla game?

Curiously, this isn’t an entirely random game, per sé, as this Game Boy title is actually a port of the MSX title Godzilla-kun by Compile (yes, the same company that would become Compile Heart and crank out Neptunia titles by the dozens), done by Compile themselves, and the game in turn was based on Godzilland’s merchandise line that had chibi versions of Big G and the various kaijus.

The only differences between the original japanese GB release and the localized American & European ones is the rescue target, as in the original japanese version various monsters kidnap Godzilla’s girlfriend, Bijira (which was apparently a thing), and the western one they kidnapped his son, Minilla, and trapped him in a maze.

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Ape VS Mecha Ape (2023) [REVIEW] #giantmonstermarch

As we all knew it, the adventures of “untrademarked simian monster” would continue after his debut against “copyright free atomic dinosaur”, after all Ape Vs Monster was one of the few new modern Asylum movies that people gave a shit aknowledging at all, as they basically resorted to rip-off themselves for the most part, but that’s another review, and with Jagged Edge Productions now outilining clearly their shared cinematic universe called Twisted Childhood (planned to end with Poohniverse: Monster Assemble in 2025) after unleashing the first Winnie The Pooh slasher, Winnie The Pooh Blood & Honey… the Asylum spirit lives on stronger and worse than ever.

For todays’ feature though we have to kinda go back to Toho’s handling of the Kong property during the 1960s, as after the first King Kong VS Godzilla there was a follow-up… as in, Toho made another King Kong monster film back in 1967, King Kong Escapes, again a Japanese-American collaboration, but not a sequel to King Kong VS Godzilla (which is even funnier considering that film too ignored everything but the first Godzilla film), that would make some sense.

No, instead it was based more around the animated children TV series The King Kong Show, a collaboration between Toho and Rankin Bass, co-produced by Videocraft International and Toho Animation, and featured – in the japanese kaiju tradition – a mecha antagonist version of the protagonist monster, called Mekani-Kong, created by an evil genius called Dr. Who, not fans of the BBC show, but more of the then common asian evil genius scientist-mastermind, as popularized in Bond films and spy flicks of the era in general, with the obviously attached racism.

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It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955) [REVIEW] #giantmonstermarch

It was another age. Another time.

The land was green but not good, as it was irradiated with radioactive sludge.

It was indeed the age of the atoms, the nucular spectacular of what new horrors science could do, and then eventually what kind of cinematic entertaiment companies could spun out of the Atom Age fad, monster movies being the more obvious one, as even the second Godzilla movie was more cheesy, and more in tone with other disaster flicks where the giant creature stomping and romping about was in some way born or mutated by radioactive fallout.

Before mutated anything, there was a man that already stunned the world of cinema with its special effect wizardry, Ray Harryhausen, having learned the ways of the magic known as stop-motion animation from his mentor, the legendary Willis O’Brien, whom worked on bringing the original King Kong to life, as well as the dinosaurs in the 1925 film adaptation of The Lost World.

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