Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition NSWITCH [REVIEW]

This is like the 4^th time i review Hyrule Warriors overall (and the second i review the Definitive Edition), but it IS the first time in english, and it IS Hyrule Warriors, so….

Since i also wanted to review Age Of Calamity, might as well do the previous iteration of “Zelda Musou”, one that was conceived as most Dynasty Warriors crossovers with other IP are, as in this is just a spin-off where we have an original story made pretty much to have most character from said license/series/brand appear together and fight in a hack n slash manner through opposing armies, through the power of the usual convenient “dimensional portals”.

Still, even there Nintendo was involved in the project more than previous companies “crossing” their properties with Koei’s trademark style of hack n slash, even Team Ninja (which survived the Itagaki exodus better than Itagaki’s career) helped in the development alongside ol’ Omega Force.

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Dino Dicember #26: Aztec Rex / Tyrannosaurus Azteca (2007)

Thunder, thunder, thunder rex!

Actually, not quite, but i wonder why not also give the “rexes” magical elemental powers (since the Aztecs call them “Thunder lizards” in the movie itself), if we can stretch the imagination to have a movie like this, set in the 16^th centhury about a group of conquistadores going to Mexico in order to search for treasure and colonialize the “savages” while they’re at it, but end up captured by the tribes, whom plan to sacrifice them to their sacred gods, T-Rexes.

I mean, i do trust in Godzilla, but ….

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Dino Dicember #25: Turok: Son Of Stone (2008)

Taking some time to spotlight this 12 years old, fairly forgotten direct-to-video animated movie about the most popular Native American dinosaur-slaying character in videogame, Turok (yes you are he).

Which is fitting, since the games themselves were based on the Turok comics, the first one titled “Turok Son Of Stone”, but before going any further, i have to say i’m not exactly that familiar with Turok in general, and what little i know comes from the first Turok videogame, and some cultural osmosis. I didn’t grow up playing Turok games on the N64, when i got my very first console the series was already quite slumming as Akklaim itself was inching ever closer to bankruptcy.

This was released alongside the 2008’s reboot simply called “Turok”… which didn’t help in breathing some life back in the series, so the planned sequel to that was scrapped and the series layed dormant until Turok: Escape From Lost Valley released in 2019.

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Dino Dicember #24: Poseidon Rex (2013)

Yes, the ever elusive Water-Dragon type of T-Rex, because nowadays you could make fake monster movie poster art with Pokemons as a joke, and realize someone did it for real already, beat you to it years ago. And if someone had to do it, might as well be the director of cult films like Commando, Armed And Dangerous, and Class of 1984, Mark. L. Lester himself, as he eventually went back to doing B-movies for TV or the home video market after the “Hollywood years”.

Because, really, the sharks enjoyed preying on B-movie beaches for decades, it’s time to move out and let dinosaurs do it for a change. At least in some of the cover art, in this specific case it does happen, but often with movies like this the posters promise more than what the movies themselves can actually deliver.

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[EXPRESSO] Bleed 2 PSN | They Watch The World Burn

After becoming “the world only and truest hero” in the first game (as in her fantasy videogame world), Wryn sat around playing videogames and all was well with the world. Until the usual gaggle of old rivals, new villains and alien invaders (some of them robotic) attack The City, for the usual reasons that this is a videogame and we need to shoot a lot of baddies. Not that it matters in any way, it is a videogame.

What has improved is the gameplay (graphics not so much), which was already good but has been refined, with better controls and a better control over the jump and dash manouver, and a new found emphasis on deflecting back projectiles and countering boss attack thank to the katana, already available in the fist BLEED, but now given as the standard melee weapon to compliment the usual twin pistols, making for faster, tougher and more satisfying encounters and ways to control the flow of battle.

Even the campaign levels are paced and flow better into each other, while also providing more variety, ticking all the classic arcade clichès, like riding and moving around rockets shot by the enemy airship, standing on moving cars while fighting in the highway, levating into the alien mothership, etc.

It’s still a short experience, but this one improves on replayability thank to the better gameplay, as it lends more to speed-runs or the Arcade “1 life only” run, but it also has more varied and interesting characters to unlock (including the Clawgirl from They Bleed Pixels), mutators and a mode that offers a set of 5 randomized levels. The Challenge mode is back unchanged, but at least they just outright say “it’s totally unbalanced”.

Short but quite sweet, i’d recommended getting the series bundle when it’s on sale.

Dino Dicember #20: Theodore Rex (1995)

The 1990’s had such a thing for the “extinction impaired” that they managed to spawn not one, not two but three (at least) dinosaur cyberpunk movies, and yes, i’m counting Super Mario Bros The Movie as one of them, because it fits. But we’ll reference that one some more later, when we tackle Anonymous Rex, today we’re talking about a movie that people knew about at the time… but wish they didn’t.

Clearly it didn’t help Whoopi Goldberg’s career, but neither this nor Monkeybone stopped her. Baby Geniuses 2 did more on that regard, as far as playing a character (instead of herself) in a movie.

Of course, this means Theodore Rex, the sci-fi dinosaur buddy cop comedy that was meant for theathers, but ultimately went straight to the home video market, at least in the US and Italy. Also, it did earn Whoopi Goldberg a Golden Raspberry Award, but the Razzies… yeah, whatever.

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Dino Dicember #19: Super Mario Bros The Movie (1993)

I could have waited until that animated Super Mario movie Nintendo commissioned Illumination (urgh) released… but sure as shit it isn’t coming out this year (not like it was gonna, it was slated for a 2022 release before the COVID-19 pandemic anyway), and i’m doing Dino Dicember… well, in Dicember, so it’s a pretty good “excuse” for me to watch and review the infamous Super Mario Bros live-action movie. And i do enjoy the challenge, it’s not like it’s this obscure adaptation nobody on the internet talked about, but let’s give the movie a fair shake with almost 2 decades of hindsight.

And yes, it totally counts, since it’s about a dinosaur dimension that originated from the meteor that hit Earth 65 millions years ago, which actually created two parallel dimensions of Earth, one inhabited by reptile people descending from dinosaurs, and ours of “human people” descending from primates. As the resources have dried up on the “dino end”, the leader of the dino-people, Koopa, sends minions in our dimension to search for a fragment of the meteor that split the dimensions to begin with, so he can unite the two and rule them under his scaly thumb.

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Dino December #18: The Land That Time Forgot (2005)

Of course we’re not reviewing the original novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, or the more known 1975’s adaptation by Amicus. We’re doing the 2009 one, done by The Asylum, which in a way it’s kinda fitting, and… kinda isn’t; sure, it’s about dinosaurs, but usually the company sticks to ripping off Jurassic Park and whatever it spawned over time (including the Carnosaur series), not so much in adapting Burroughs. Almost as surprising as the lack of many adaptations this story received, very little in comparison to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World.

The story follows the same premise of the book (which didn’t start off but in the later parts develops into a “lost world” story, as popularized by the aforementioned Conan Doyle’s opus), but it set in modern times, it involves frigging portal/dimensional rifts the group of main characters, which aren’t soldiers but just some random persons that were doing some “extreme vacation-activity” thing. Given this is an Asylum production, i’m not really surprised, i mean, they’re not gonna try to film it as a period piece, you just know they ain’t going to… and they don’t.

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One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 – DLC Pack 3 PS4 [REVIEW]

Here we are again, for the review of third and final Pirate Warriors 4 DLC Pack.

And i was gonna say this couldn’t be the last thing Koei has planned for the game, given how the company has generaly no shame in selling multiple Season Passes, like it did for DOA 5 or – to circle back – Dynasty Warriors 9. Which had 3 of the damn thing, 2 costing 50 bucks. Each.

But honestly i don’t feel this is case, since it’s also a Namco Bandai joint, and they used this pattern before, with a three-pieced season pass released seasonally for World Seeker, so it would be reasonable to assume we’ll have to wait 5 or more years for another Pirate Warriors title.

Who knows, maybe in that time One Piece will actually reach a conclusion and Koei won’t randomly sponge entire arcs from their videogame adaptation of the series.

Joking aside, i feel lukewarm at the idea of more playable characters for Pirate Warriors 4, like i said in the review of the last Character Pack, good, but i’m just gonna use them on old maps i’ve already played a lot, since i 100 % this game months ago.

And i’m far from a completitionist.

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[EXPRESSO] Bleed PSN | All The Shakespearoes

You’re not a hero. You’re a girl with magenta hair, Wryn, and you do have pen and paper, so it’s time to write and draw yourself into a story where heroes aren’t relevant anymore, and you twin-stick shoot your way through the random cabal of ex-heroes, from the alien defender, the “Astrogirlie” robot, the dragon, etc. so you can indict yourself to the Hall Of Heroes in the story you insert youself in. And maybe think what would Travis Touchdown would do.

The story is non-sensical meta-narration there just to “excuse” the kitchen sink approach to enemies and bosses, complete with passable 2D retro style graphics and characters that remind one of early 2000’s webcomics. Here it’s cute because it doesn’t hide itself under some “high pretense”, and because it focuses on what it wants, gameplay, and to be honest it delivers, combining side scrolling action in a twin stick shooter style,with emphasis on style, since you’ll have to master the triple jump dash and a bullet time bar to avoid the fairly challenging patterns of enemies and bosses.

Controls fairly well, shooting is satisfying, it’s quite challenging even on the standard setting without feeling impossible and so becoming just pure frustration. It’s good fun, but it’s fairly short lived fun, by design drawing in from the arcade era with just 6 stages. This isn’t necessary an issue, since it is a small indie title sold for relatively cheap, but i can’t say it has as much replayability as it parades, as aside from harder difficulties and trophies/achievements, the extra modes are kinda lousy, and there isn’t much that much to unlock or upgrade.

I’d still recommend pickin it up for fans of the twin stick shooters and sidescrollers, especially when it’s bundled on sale with the sequel, Bleed 2.