[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.

Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 PS4 [REVIEW] | Gaia’s Wrath

Given the first World Brothers turned out quite well in terms of review and profits, D3 did the obvious, by greenlighting a sequel, simply called EDF World Brothers 2.

Obvious to a certain degree because EDF spin-off never received sequels, but i did like the first World Brothers, so i was more than happy to see Yuke’s (also behind EDF Iron Rain) come back for more voxel Earth Defense Force.

This is a direct sequel as well, and this time, after watching the skies so hard in case of another alien invasion coming from there, we get bitten in the ass by a monster that was inside our squared, voxely Mother Earth, Gaiarch, which erupts from its core and breaks the world apart, meaning it’s up to the EDF once again to make the planet whole by sticking back the destroyed pieces.

This is done by your team of newbies trying to find the more experienced EDF members scattered around the globe, and also new allies like an alien-esque amnesiac girl (that’s like an anthromorphized version of the Daroga enemies, since she loves the buggers and has a Daroga style hat of sorts), new and old bros and sisters, a time travelling Caesar (not the monkey), highlighted by odd giant replicas of the main EDF classes to fight as enemies before taking down a mothership.

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Halfway (?) through Donkey Kong Bananza

So this is just a quick post, not gonna get into any detail since i would love to feature this into a Platformation Time Again big ass review, and i’m gonna do a quick EXPRESSO review once i beat the game…. which i apparently i’m just barely halfway through, from have i’ve been told, and that already is telling this maybe should have been the launch game, this is stuff that sells you on the console, that good.

(i’ve played platformers that were about the same lenght- can’t specify because the game doesn’t keep an internal playtimer – and nowhere as good AND dense of fun stuff to do)

It’s an impressive game, it’s basically a modern 3D DK game done by most of the core Super Mario Odissey team at Nintendo (which you can tell by how it handles costumes and special collectibles), with the main new mechanic being the ability to basically destroy and burrows almost everything in the level, almost mixing a touch of Red Faction destructible enviroment but done in a “sandbox” way, despite the game not being open world, the approach is that you’re encouraged, rewarded and if not required you might find unthordox ways to reach a certain collectable by digging in certain ways or tearing and throwing different types of terrains around.

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Shark Warning (2024) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Due to rescheduling issues i noticed Sharkapalooza was one movie short, so i figured i’d review one of my recent “sight unseen and cheap” DVD pickups, Shark Warning, from last year….

…..and it’s an Asylum joint.

I literally paused my Donkey Kong Bananza game to see this, no that i expected this movie to be good.

The odds were never on my favour, i guess this one of their generic shark films since there was no big budget shark film released that year… was it? I mean, we got Under Paris via Netflix, but this is not a mockbuster of that, and some other shark movies (like No Way Up) but nothing big budget or cinema bound for the Asylum to try make some cents out of its reflected glory.

Doesn’t matter anyway, so what kind of shark movie are we getting?

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