Bill Viola’s Hatsu Yume (First Dream) (1981) [REVIEW] | Perchance To Dream Fish

So, i’m not gonna lie, this is kinda out of left field, because i sure wasn’t familiar with Bill Viola’s work before i decided to do some research for this review, and still don’t know much, this isn’t exactly my field of expertise, but i figured it would be interesting, it sure was one of the strangest DVD finds ever.

Yeah, someone dropped at one my local flea markets this DVD (french edition but with english text on the back of the box) release of Hatsu Yume (First Dream) by Bill Viola, had no idea what it was but for 3 bucks, sure, it looks and sound interesting enough.

Sometimes while thrifting, among the piles of shitty editions of movies you already own (and discard age old editions of FIFA or PES titles, especially here), you can find something interesting, so keep perusing, you never know.

You might find even rare old ass avant-garde American videoart on physical media.

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[EXPRESSO] Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba: Infinity Castle (2025) | To Mega Therion

So the first part of the Demon Slayer Infinity Castle film trilogy finale is out, after debutting a couple months ago in Japan, continuining the story from the finale of Season 4, with Muzan countering the Pillars/Hashira assault on him by using his Infinity Castle to trap all them in alongside his legions of demons, especially the strong “Demonic Moon” elite units.

The Pillars and the other members of the Demon Slayer Corps then scatter to find Muzan and finish him, despite the endlessly shifting living labyrinth that defies logic of the castle itself…

Definitely it’s a step up from the compilation films they kept making, and i will say ufotable didn’t skimp on the animation, it does look incredible, properly made to take advantage of its cinematic nature and deliver an incredible, stunning spectacle, and it mostly manages to properly balance the frantic shonen action with some character development and the expected tragic flashbacks for both heroes and villains, some of which were teased

I say mostly because towards the final act the “tragic emotional flashbacks train” kinda overtakes the action and the rhythm suffer, even though i understand why it does so, and simply wouldn’t have felt kinda exhausting if if spaced out in episodes… which it can’t because they have to go through an entire seasons worth of material in 3 movies that each are almost 3 hours long.

On the flipside, it doesn’t feel overburden, there’s a lot going on but it never feels too much, this is supposedto to be the final decisive assault on the enemy’s stronghold and it feels as such, the battles are cool, and Zenitsu also gets some character development that makes him less the one-note annoying comedy character you had to tolerate.

If nothing else, it’s good battle shounen fun.

Mario Kart World NSWITCH 2 [REVIEW] | Open Kart Policy

So, yep, this review is a bit late, but given there was no communicated immediate plans for their “content roadmap”, i feel what i have to say now would have applied at launch and might apply despite future updates, but we’ll see about that, though i don’t plan to update the review as they add stuff either as part of DLC expansions or free software updates.

I mean, i also didn’t plan to keep reviewing Pirate Warriors 4 DLC as i did, so time will tell, but as of now they haven’t hinted or said anything about what they plan to do with the title in the future, so here we go.

That said, i did play a good chunk of the game at launch, then i came back after DK Bananza to dig into the “open world-free roam” mode, play some online matches occasionally, and trying to have the RNG grant me the other hidden characters like mah boi Fish Bone.

[EXPRESSO] Dangerous Animals (2025) | Three On A Sharkhook

New shark movie with a big budget, a widespread cinematic release and it’s not a Jason Staham trashfest romp, another gonzo shark movie about an Esper Shark (TM) or something done with lunch money-allowance budget?

What has the gone world to?

Apparantly something good and conceptually simple, i guess that’s why it took so long for someone to make a good shark movie that also plays the “Uno reverse” card on the concept without overcomplicating it or being outlandish.

Meaning that Dangerous Animals is about a serial killer that hides his murderous calling by posing as a shark cage experience activity for tourist in Australia (which fittingly all good modern shark movies seem to hail from), killing people and filming as he feeds them to the sharks.

His next victim is a surfer girl, Zephyr, living a nomadic sort of lifestyle, whom finds herself kidnapped by the killer in preparation for his macabre rituals…

it’s so simple that a shark movie like this hasn’t been made before, but on the flipside it’s actually pretty good, thanks to a good budget, very solid acting and good characters, with a resilient leading lady/final girl and a good psychotic villain that does have a humourous side that actually makes him more believable as he use it alongside some charm to better camouflage his true self, without going overboard and making him feel cartoony or excessive.

It’s also pretty gory without going into full splatter territory, going for a more realistic tone to the chases and attempts of his victims to escape his grasp, making for a very tense film that is less predictable than one would expect, yet very satisfying even when it hits the expected notes, one also basically devoid of filler, exactly as long as it needs.

Pretty good.

Platformation Time Again: Bubsy Has Somehow Returned… AGAIN

I was writing this post just to make clear i WILL tackle the entire Bubsy series now that LRG has given a release date, September 7, so pretty soon, and i will eventually (waiting for a sale) get it on Steam since i already have there the 2 new ones they did back in 2018 or something like that (there was a rerelease of Bubsy 1 and 2 on Steam already, Bubsy Two-Fur, but it wasn’t quite legal and nothing more than an SNES emulator using ROMs that anyone already could run, i forgot the details)….

and then some days ago Atari drops the trailer for Bubsy 4D.

We ain’t getting Crash Bandicoot 5 or a new Spyro, but we are getting a new full 3D platformer with Bubsy, now basically a 30 going 40 dude that wants to relate to the kids and to stay positive despite still having PSTD from Bubsy 3D…. so already an improvement over being an annoying teenage edgelord personality-wise, and the game looks honestly decent, might even be the first good Bubsy game ever made.

So, i’m gonna clutch my pearls and wring them in hope of a Jumping Flash collection, why not?

Though with my usual luck we would get a Awesome Possum Kicks Doctor Machino’s Butt remaster instead.

Regardless, look for an eventual full coverage of Bubsy… sometime in the future.

One Piece: Grand Adventure PS2 [REVIEW] | Grand Battle Rushed

One Piece videogames were actually quite wild in terms of what got released out of Japan during the PS1 and PS2 era, with a very inconsistent series of releases outside of Japan, some esclusive to North America, some to European countries, some like One Piece for the GBA being the weird case of being regionally exclusive to North America, as in, there doesn’t exists a Japanese GBA cart of that game because it was never made in the first place.

One Piece Grand Adventure also falls into this category, as it was never released in Japan but made esclusively for North America and Europe, still by the same developer of the Grand Battle series (and behind a lot of One Piece games over the years), Ganbarion, to profit off the good sales for One Piece Grand Battle Rush (just One Piece Grand Battle in NA and EUR territories) on PS2.

I said PS2 as in the Gamecube version is a NA exclusive, in Europe we just got it on PS2.

But yeah, keep in the mind the “to profit off” part, which will also explain why this review might be shorter than expected.

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One Piece: Grand Battle/Grand Battle Rush PS2 [REVIEW] | “Chaser”, the other White Hunter

No i didn’t review this before, it just happens that Bandai “did a Konami” and released this new entry in the Grand Battle subseries as One Piece Grand Battle…. yes, with the same exact name as the first PS1 game that launched what it is now an established subseries of One Piece videogames.

Then again, this is technically Grand Battle 4, they never released Grand Battle 2 (which was still rocking that 2.5D gameplay) or Grand Battle 3 but when they started selling the anime with the 4Kids license/treatment i guess it was time to resume locazing these again, and keeping the original title of “One Piece Grand Battle Rush” must have made too much sense… but then again this time around we have a Power Stone clone.

As in, a proper one this time around, Grand Battle 3 did go full 3D first, but unless you lived in Japan or imported it at the times, you wouldn’t know (plus the more i find about GB3 the more GB Rush seems more like a Turbo Edition than a proper sequel).

So i’ll chalk it up to the localizers not giving a shit and just reusing the title of the series because who cares, after all this is first One Piece game of this sub-series to even reach North American lids.

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One Piece: Grand Battle PS1 [REVIEW] | East Blue Smash Stone Brothers

As announced, we’ll be reviewing a handful of One Piece videogames this August, basically the entire Grand Battle sub-series… at least the games that got localized or released westward as well, so logically enough we’re starting out with One Piece Grand Battle, the first one, released for the PS1 in 2001 and brought to Europe in 2003.

It’s so early that it’s ALMOST the first game ever based on One Piece (that would be an action RPG-card thingie for the WonderSwan, never release outside of Japan, like the console itself), but it is the first game ever developed by Ganbarion, which will be handling a majority of the One Piece videogames for more than a decade (and also come back to developed One Piece World Seeker), alongside other anime related/based project for Namco Bandai, like the beloved Jump Super Stars for DS, Dragon Ball Fusions for the 3DS… and also Pandora’s Tower for the Wii.

Being this early in the One Piece anime it means it mostly depicts the “East Blue Saga” ensemble of arcs and basically the prelude of the Alabasta one, though here it stops even before Whisky Peak (due to some characters appearances), hence before Little Garden, so it’s kinda of tease, not gonna lie, but what can you do, it was pretty early in…

At least it has the classic “WE ARE” opening from the anime (kinda), might as well since the original japanese titles puts the “From TV Animation” well before the actual name of the game.

I didn’t play this one until i finally was able to find a copy for a reasonable prices years ago, i did actually play the PS2 game also called “One Piece Grand Battle” well before, so i was expecting a Power Stone clone, just less refined since it’s obvious a far earlier iteration on the idea…

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(Mini) One Piece August is coming back, baby!

Yeah, that is pretty self-explanatory, since i’ve done this before, many times, but yeah, we’re back to a (mostly) One Piece exclusive August, as the first half of it, i’m gonna review One Piece media, in this case videogames… though it will have to happen in “redux” form since IRL events and academic endeavours are kicking my ass harder than planned.

So we’re gonna basically look at the One Piece Grand Battle games released westward for PS1 and PS2… and i was gonna do more but it just ain’t happening, as i realized bitterly.

And FIY , this has been planned in mid-January 2025, with the idea of finishing up the collection for One Piece videogames… as in, the ones that were released in Europe or globally, this time around.

Minus the VR one since i still don’t own a PS VR.

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[EXPRESSO] Donkey Kong Bananza NSWITCH2 | Potassium Primus

Holy banana Batman, this is some primo 3D platformers with some bonkers mesh of a Red Faction style terrain-enviroment destructibility, an 3D DK platformer (with some stylings taken from both Mario Odyssey and Bowser Fury) that plays with the open world idea without being one for the sake of it, and often feels like the recent Zelda mainline games, with climbing, falling down and how it handles challenge rooms/levels.

The plot sees DK going on a island where they’re mining a new kind of banana-gem, encountering an odd talking rock, that (in a reverse Jojolion twist) turns out to be a very young Pauline, whom DK then travels with – Wreck It Ralph style – by exploring the many layes of an abyss leading to the planet core, where a special vein of “Banandium” is located, apparently able to grant any wish, which is why the greedy Void Kong and his underlings are also after it and want Pauline for unknown reasons..

Gameplay it’s a mesh of lot of things from DK games, Mario, other Nintendo games, and a lot more, but done in a way that is original, fresh, and unique, managing to feel and play new even when old time fans might see some crazy ideas as “remixes” of old DK staples (especially from the Country series), it looks great, runs mostly well, and it’s a treasure trove of stuff to find, all fun and constantly rewarding, it’s a massive world full of secrets to find, that is also constantly fun simply indulging how you can break almost everything in a level, even more with the weird “Bananza” transformations that go from “DK SSJ4” to weird hybrids.

I will have a proper review for it down the line, let’s just say this is a Switch 2 MUST HAVE.