The Cinema Show Experience Debate Cycle (2nd Round)

Told you we’re gonna do this dance again, and i feel now it’s the time to address some of the issues left unchallenged and unchanged, as anyone with any foresight could have told you before.

I guess the catalyst for new lamentations is the new blockbuster releases mostly doing very bad, regardless of quality or marketing employed, as even movies coming from recognizable and renowed studios and carrying recognized names and brands come out to basically big box office woes most of the time, in what most people have accetted as a “post-Covid 19” world, even in countries where it’s still far from over because reality and consequences and such.

Because i’m a dumbass, instead of making a thumbnail with a load of nonsensical buzzwords on it for a “video essay” (really, words mean nothing anymore to a certain subset of creatures) that’s somehow longer than the movie it discuss… i’m gonna say it’s obvious this wanna gonna happen.

Even if we collectively agreed to pretend the pandemic is over everywhere and forever, even pretending and disgarding the argument/issue as a thing of the past, this newly found “box office bombagery” should really not surprise anyone that has been to theathers more than once in recent years.

To avoid repeating what i said before, i’m just gonna link the previous editorial so you can check that out instead. Consider this an addendum more than a “follow up”.

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Pikmin 4 DEMO NSWITCH [HANDS-ON] | The Dog Doing

so Nintendo just released a demo for Pikmin 4, coming at the end of this very month, and given how long i’ve been waiting for another Pikmin game, i’ve got sumething to say about it, for sure.

The first big addition to the formula is the hugely marketed “pikdog”, as in now you have a dog.

That already it’s a good thing, but thankfully this one isn’t gonna suffer the same fate of the dog in Call Of Duty Ghosts (as in getting locked forever into the toybox after being used once), as it ismore than a gimmick, serving as a mount (which can carry many pikmins on his back too) enabling traversal via jumping, being able to smash obstacles, dash, dig, fight by tackling and biting, and can even be controlled directly, especially useful in underground caves that can your character and Pikmins separated by an obstacle Occin (the dog) can’t pass through.

Plus, as your rescue more stranded astronauts you get more upgrade points for the dog, which is just lovely and obviously pretty useful.

And the dog already it’s a great addition to gameplay, and feel natural like it had always been there, but obviously, there is more, in the way of new types of Pikmin, ice and luminescent, but the demo only lets you encounter and use the Ice Pikmins, which already offer another way around exploration, as they can be even used to freeze water surfaces, alongside enemies.

But there has been some streamlining, as in now there is just a big “onion/deposit” for all Pikmins despite of their colors, the 3 protagonists multitasking of Pikmin 3 is gone, and – the more controversial one – there is no limited number of days under which to accomplish the various tasks, which might sound terrible to some old time fans, but frankly i don’t get the issue, since Pikmin 3 already utilized a system that basically gave the player a lot of days to accomplish the various objectives, like a lot, especially if you went for completition.

So really, the removal of the limited days altogether it’s more vestigial than controversial, and i’m fine with it since the days themselves retain the limited time indicating how much you have left before it’s nightfall and you have to scurry back to camp in order to avoid getting your Pikmin eaten by the hungry beasts that are even more aggressive at night.

Hence even so you get some sense of urgency, as you wanna still get the most out of your day of gathering and exploring and rescuing, etc.

Regardless, the fan favourite caves to explore are back from Pikmin 2, and work more or less identically, but are also more abundant in the huge levels/areas, and now there is more emphasis on resource gathering, with these new gems that can be retrieved and converted in building material for bridges and the like, or used as currency to buy items and gadgets from the scientist/inventor, ranging to rotten carrots to paralyze enemies, dog treats, and stuff like fireproof abilitiees.

And these new additions gel without issue with the formula, nothing feels forced or there because there needs to be more shit in a sequel, regardless if it makes sense, no, thankfully Nintendo didn’t really fucked with the proven formula, but expanded it well.

The trailers revealed that indeed now we’ll be able to explore at night, but since the demo ends when you get a certain amount of the new energy resource, the Luminium, we’ll have to play the full release to find out.

Not that this is a small demo, it’s pretty sizeable, including the tutorial area and letting you play a big chunk of it, it’s one of those where you kinda forget you were actually playing a demo so you feel bamboozled by the game telling you “thanks for playing the demo up to where we meant you to play it”.

Speaking of which, by finishing the demo you’ll be able to unlock an Occin costume in Pikmin Bloom, alongside the expected ability to carry over the progress to the full game.

Yeah, as a longtime fan of the series, i’m honestly just chomping at the bit to have the full thing on my hands to play more of it, so yeah, check it out to get your fix on.

[EXPRESSO] After Work (2023) | Automatonic Chomsky Honk

A documentary by Svedish director Erik Gandini (Videocracy) about a potential future where work is even further delegated to machines and automated in some fashion, while discussing the philosophical ramifications of a labor-less society and analizing the various realities around the world, from the Sud Corean culture of overwork as a badge of honor, to the unique case of Kuwait where people are handsomely paid to basically play pretend office work, passing by the testimony of an Amazon delivery driver employee, among others.

Relevant questions are asked, with various figures ranging from foreign ministries to philosophers like Noam Chomsky himself, average people with rents to pay and wealthy heirs alike, and as expect not many answers are given, since the topic at hand encompasses a lot of different realities and views on the subject of labor, how or if providing basic income for everyone without a job is the solution it seem, this documentary never wanted (or wanted to pretend) it could deliver definitive, simplistic solutions to complex problems of our age.

Problem is that despite its intentions and it being a very recent release, at the end it feels kinda slapdash, myopic and kinda outdated, as way too much of this 80 minutes documentary over feature takes from people that are willing to say “Hitler was efficient, can’t deny that away” on camera, rich or privileged in some manner, never properly looks into topic as the NEET percentage in Italy and Greece, ignoring the internet angle all together (so don’t expect mentions of stuff like IA “art”, despite chaggering of how this work-less future would give more time for exploring creative pastimes, etc), sometimes going for gross political indifference, or repeating some vague fears that one could have aired verbatim if this was made 10 years ago.

Bit duff.

Future Shock: No Sleep From September (and Summer Plans) (UPDATED)

So, let’s not wait around more to lay out what’s coming in July and August for Wise Cafe International, and what will change from this September onwards.

July will have another round of killer croc AND killer sharks films, Sharks N Crocs Part Deux, alongside some timely videogame reviews to tie in with upcoming releases (aka – pardon me for the disgusting thing i’m about to say – trying to milk some “SEO juice” since this time i could plan ahead something reasonable).

August won’t have a One Piece retrospective per sè, but will have some One Piece videogames’ reviews, plus a newly written full lenght review of Film Red, and hopefully some fittingly summer themed posts about stuff that maritime or whatever.

From September instead – after thinking about it for months – i’ll have to slow down the posting significantly, so instead of a review or piece every 2 days, i opted for a weekly basis, since i will be taking a master’s degree this year, so yep, even less time on my hands since i will be hitting the books, attend and most likely still continue the dayjob.

So instead of shutting it down or opting for a “whenever i can” posting schedule, i feel this it’s a reasonable compromise, even more since i guarantee a review every 7 days, meaning there could be more if i can squeeze in some EXPRESSO reviews or something on the quick, i will try.

Meaning EXPRESSO won’t be retired, it never has been and that won’t change.

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12 Hours Into The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

I expected many things, but i wasn’t quite ready to get the sequel to Breath Of The Wild and see that the development team actually “pulled a Nuts & Bolts”, but actually do it in a way that doesn’t leave disappoiment and bewildered fans.

Mostly because Tears Of The Kingdom doesn’t completely goes away with almost everything from the previous movies (and its open worlds/spaces have actual shit to do in it, instead of meaningless wandering for few collectables in oversized dromes), retaining pretty much the same basic gameplay seen in Breath Of The Wild, from attacking, the stamina management for climbing, running, flying, item collecting, having to deal with freezing cold or scorching hot enviroments, Sacraries acting as both mini-dungeons and fast-travel locations where to collect orbs in order to power up life or stamina, tower that need to be actived to scan the area you’re in, etc.

And of course the weapons are made of biscuit crumbs, which is both worse and better, as now there’s is a real, honest-to-god story justification for Hyrule’s metal weapons having becoming corroded (which is fuckin hilarious in a way)… BUT at least now you can find more resistent variant of the weapons, the last strike that would seen the weapon break always deals a critical hit damage, and one of the new abilities is also there to help, as it lets you combine weapons with items to strenghten them or create weird ass weaponry.

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Musou May and the State Of Musou as of May 2023?

As per what is now tradition, this year too we’ll have Musoy May, with a picked review of a musou/Warriors game every sunday of May.

Here’s where i usually make a general ramble about the state of the genre as of late, but…. there isn’t really much to say or even get unreasonably hyped about, as we neither got any new contender/challenger from some small or medium sized developer & publisher nor does TK really revealed, teased or announced anything.

Samurai Warriors 5 came out in 2021, but aside from a Season Pass TK didn’t either put out a XL or Empires version, Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires needed a lot of shit to be added or patched in, but again, aside a tepid Season Pass that wasn’t really worth paying (for the most part), there was no post-launch support, and since how barebones the modes on offering were… it would have needed.

Touken Ranbu Warriors was also released, but for whatever reason TK decided to launch it digital only on both Switch and PC (via Steam), and i’m gonna save the lamentations about that for its review.

Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes was almost perfect but was curiously devoid of expansion content (which is fine since it’s an already massive offering to begin with), so that’s odd.

All we got since June 2022 was simply a teaser trailer for Fate Samurai/Remnant that should release sometime this year, no actual gameplay footage or any real info aside from what could be seen in that short teaser trailer. Surprised it took them this long and actually Marvelous already did developed 2 Fate musou games, but still, it has been months devoid of any news about it or anything else Warriors or Warriors related.

Maybe TK is holding out for what was “E3 time” or for the TGS to drop the existence of Dynasty Warriors 10 (which they teased in interviews before), but at this point there’s just nothing to talk about of substance, and this behaviour kinda speaks volume for how Koei considers his musou output.

I mean, when the best news is them re-releasing WO3 Ultimate in a definitive edition package…. you can tell there’s a drought and no signs of the main gardener being interested in watering the cacti.

I mean, unless they do a 180 ° with Dynasty Warriors 10, Koei shouldn’t complain of losing even more customers, after DW 9 they deserve every critique and negativity coming their way.

Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is broken again, so its’ DLC review might arrive quite late

(the scheduled review for Giant Monster March will arrive tomorrow due to complications)

Wanted to post this earlier, but whatever, we’re doing it now, because i was planning to review the DLC of the latest Pokemon mainline games, i did so for the latest ialian blog, but… Pokemon Sword/Shield wasn’t held together with shit and sticks, say what you will but it wasn’t.

But sadly Pokemon Scarlet/Violet really IS “Pokèpunk 2077”, as after they announced the 2-part expansion for the game… it turned out the more recent patch actually made thing worse, including a bug that potentially could wipe or corrupt saves, low chances but not THAT low given the install base, so bad it had Game Freak say it would be better to just “import” your squad and whatnot to Pokemon Home before the worse happens.

Which means i haven’t touched the game after i played and reviewed it at launch, and i plan to keep it that way, hoping that the next patch will be proven to have fixed any chance of that shit happening, i’m not risking it.

And sure as shit i’m NOT pre-ordering the Expansion Pass, NOT when they should have delayed it as a project to work AFTER they at least addressed some of the many bugs, glitches and MANY technical issues (some of which were improved upon…. by reducing the already laughable amount of NPCs on screen at once).

But because this is Pokemon and Scarlet/Violet sold like gangbusters, fuck you, we’re going ahead with the DLC plans (takes me back to the same shit happening with the buggy ass Batman Arkham Origins situation), as in one expansion split in two parts and with a matsuri/japanese festival theme… one they’re also charging 10 bucks more than the Expansion Pass for the previous games, all made worse when the teased new Pokemon feel like “rejigged Yokai Watch designs”, and a one legged Suicine.

So don’t expect a timely review of the first part of the DLC, maybe one of the expansion on the whole when it has been released all, depends all on how much it takes for Game Freak to unfuck this specific bug and hopefully NOT reintroduce in a later patch, who can really say what will happen?

Maybe they will fix the issue by the time the first DLC rolls out, and in that case i will review it

Taking the post-Christmas break now instead of never

Since i couldn’t take the break post-12 Days Of Dino Dicember as usual (due to some releases i wanted to cover before they could be “forgotten” or whatever), i’m… taking it now before the chance slips aways entirely.

From today until (and including) the 20th of January , the blog will take a complete break, with even EXPRESSO going on a hiatus in the meantime.

A review of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is coming later this month, actually + EXPRESSO review of Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

While i did make some first impressions/ramble on both Pokemon Arceus and the Diamond/Pearl remake, i figured this time i HAD to make a proper full lenght review of the first 9th gen Pokemon title, especially since it’s a mainline release. And since i did actually preordered the damn thing this time around, and i kinda wish i didn’t. Kinda.

Seriously, while the game has already been discussed and fairly criticized enough for the obvious reason (it runs and looks like ASS, let’s be brutally honest about it), and while the undeniable fact of Violet/Scarlet selling 10 millions in 3 days it’s kinda depressing and makes it clear once again how “boycotts in videogames” are useless for many reasons and most often feel moot since we’re talking about franchises that do incredible numbers by name recognizition alone… we do gotta talk about Violet Scarlet’s issues proper.

Especially since the fact of it being Pokemon means for many the plethora of issues are mostly handwaved or pre-forgiven, when we’re pretty much in a Cyberpunk 2077 situation, yet we didn’t and we’ll never see the same backlash, despite derserving it and the criticisms being pretty similar in origin and nature.

So i’ll do what i can to “balance the scales”, and talk in length about the many problems and strenghts of Scarlet/Violet, a game i’m currently enjoying despite everything, but one i’m also feeling quite disappointed, since it was clearly something that Game Freak should have been made able to cook in the “development oven” for at least 1 more year.

To misquote Strong Bad “this goose isn’t cooked”.

Seriously worried this will be become another costant issue plaguing Pokemon releases, because sure as shit Nintendo isn’t gonna make Game Freak take more time, but crack on with the “AAA pretty much biannual” style of releases.

On another tangent, while i did find some theathers that showed Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio almost a week before it’s Netflix release date… it was literally like 5 days, as much as i prefer watching movies in theathers i also can use to save me some cash, and i still have a Netflix subscription, so the EXPRESSO review for that it’s gonna be a little later than it could have been, but regardless, it’s coming soon.

Dead Island 2 got delayed (again) and what it means for the #deadislandretrospective

So yeah, i just found out that 4 days ago Dead Island 2 was yet again delayed, this time though NOT as much as it had already been, so instead of early February it’s now shooting for a late april release, as displayed in the above “delay communication post/image” (which are by now a specific brand of art in themselves), which at least acknowledges how ridiculous (yet fitting, i would add) is for a game that spent 8 years in development hell to be delayed so soon after reemerging as something else entirely.

Which in itself it’s fine by me, i can wait, we can wait at this point (and it’s also savvy given what’s releasing that month in terms of videogames), but i wish they announced this sooner, as now the original plan for the retrospective on the Dead Island series, with a review each month, it’s busted, so instead of releasing a review of Dead Island Riptide – Definitive Edition at the end of this month, it’s gonna skip November entirely and instead go for a December slot.

Same for the remaining two games (again, i’m not counting the defunct spin-offs Survivors and Epidemic, here is a reminder as of why), so those reviews will come out bi-monthly to coincide with the new release date of Dead Island 2.

Hoping i don’t have to do another of these post by then, who the hell knows.