After the expected success of Pirate Warriors (which is still the most profitable/successful series of One Piece videogames), Koei made another one the following year, also for PS3… and PS Vita as a japan only release. Continua a leggere “One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 PS3 [REVIEW]”
So yeah, today the entire of Italy is officially in lockdown, and you could easily recreate the entire of Die Pest En Florenz, on the upside. On the downsides (as far this blog is concerned, as the obvious problems shouldn’t need explanation) cinemas are closed, and it’s quarantine, so, time to do the NEET, i guess, until the start of April, where cinemas should open again so we can catch up to all most english speaking countries already saw months ago (didn’t manage to see the new Grudge reboot-sequel-remake, i wanted to review it, but at this point i’ll have to see on streaming or home video).
I already explained some of this in a previous article, but the situation has gotten worse (we should had declared quarantine much earlier, i think, but it’s Italy, so of course every decision of this magnitude is half-assed and done at the last minute), so keep that in mind, and as i said before, i had some reviews planned and prepared, so the blog will keep going like before.
Stay safe and look forward to more One Piece reviews, as well as the Azur Lane anime review as soon as the last episodes arrive in the coming days.. if they don’t get delayed again. We’ll see!
So yeah, Yostar’s new gacha game, looks a lot more like Girls Frontline (or an anime take on The Division) than Azur Lane but isn’t any of that, it’s a tower defense thingie with people befitted of the ever popular animal ears, because. The vague plot sees you as the amnesiac leader of pharmaceutical-commando company Rhodes Island, in a world afflicted by Catastrophes, bringing destruction and the precious mineral known as Originium, which infects people with the mysterious disease of “Oripathy” ( awakening powers but also being lethal in the long run), and you fight the other factions at play, the cultish Reunion and the military force of the city of Chernobog.
Plot is decent, character design good for this type of game, and gameplay wise – as i said -, it’s a tower defense affair: you put units on the available grid spaces to stop the enemy units from entering through the gate/s at the end. If anything, the surprisingly long tutorial-prologue will get you up to speed to the basics and Arknight’s minor but nice additions to the formula. The usual free-to-play bullshit isn’t that bad either, as the game gives you useful items to start with (not just crap), but of course wants you to roll the gacha for characters with an alluring design by using real money.
Aside from some inusual design choices, like characters who don’t receive exp directly from fights (instead you gotta use xp item received as rewards to level them up), Studio Montagne’s game is fairly good in itself, with a good introduction of new enemy types and objects to keep things interesting, using actual gameplay to keep you coming back, instead of just using the typical psychological hooks to make you log in something way repetitive that basically plays itself (hi, Azur Lane).
Yeah, an actual videogame devoid of the gacha free-to-play trappings, based after the “Kancolle Killer” smartphone title that basically positioned itself as a Kantai Collection clone (not quite, but it’s obviously aimed at the same demographic), one easily available pretty much worlwide instead of a japan only browser game requiring VPN and troublesome hoops to jump through and compatibility errors if you want to play it.
It’s an odd concept to have a proper videogame that you pay to own as a spin-off of a free-to-play estabilished/borne series, almost emblematic of the state of the market and this “era” of gaming, but it’s interesting from a conceptual standpoint, and now you don’t have to import it from Playasia, as it came out, even in physical retail form, in Europe and the States. Still kinda surprised by that.
I preordered the “super duper hyper” edition with all the tat and OST and artbook, but maybe i’ll eventually review the Limited Edition contents by themselves, they don’t factor into the actual PS4 videogame at all. Continua a leggere “Azur Lane Crosswave PS4 [REVIEW] | You Are A Boat”
For the upcoming release of Pirate Warriors 4 (which i though wasn’t gonna happen until it was revealed in the summer of 2019), i’m gonna review all the previous Pirate Warriors titles before it reaches Europe on the 27th of March, so here we go! Continua a leggere “One Piece: Pirate Warriors PS3 [REVIEW]”
So yeah, i was expecting to see Lupin III – The First movie and at least review the new american The Grudge reboot/remake/whatever, but many screening are being delayed indefinitely (unless it’s garbage, a national production or was already screening/i’ve already seen it), so who knows when i’ll be able to see Leigh Wannel’s The Invisible Man, and i don’t feel the mass hysteria will have died down before the 5th of March, so yeah, sorry, but these are the circumstances for now. Not good.
Since basically this screwed up my plans for EXPRESSO reviews, guess is time to get some use out of Netflix. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Stay safe, wash yourself (like you’re supposed to), and stop raiding supermarkets, this isn’t fuckin Judgement Day, fools.
Yes, we didn’t get this till now, and i was honestly looking forward to see this, to witness how bad it was, for someone that never saw or cared about the play or Thomas Steams Elliot book upon which the musical was notoriously based on.
Maybe it’s because of this, but i was expecting a mountain of weird and baffling stuff, and i wasn’t disappointed, actually found myself quite enjoying it as a “so bad it’s good” experience.
What’s the plot? A group of cats calling themselves “Jellicle Cats” find an abandoned new cat in the streets, they present themselves to her in musical fashion (as you’d expect), tell of their annual dance communion, which culminates in a contest to determine which Jellicle Cat will be sent to the Heavyside Layer in order to be reborn. But an evil magical cat (that seems to have eaten the Sand Sand fruit) wants to sabotage the ritual in order to be chosen for the “cat rapture”.
Why the human-cats hybrids’ size and proportions are constantly changing and not quite matching the size of streets and interiors? Why are they both naked AND clothed at the same time? Why do they look so fuckin creepy and uncanny, being frankly unbelievable in every sense of the word, despite the CG being not cheap by any means? Why is Ian McKellen here to basically mutter and meow like he’s just minutes away from dying? Why Tom Hooper (definitely not the right choice) decided to direct it?
Why Judie Dench is so freaky as Old Deuteronomy, and becomes even more uncomfortable to watch when she lays in the cradle, splaying and spreading?
Really, she’s uncanny.
Not that you’re supposed to ask many (or preferably, any) of these questions.
It don’t matter anyway.
Some nice songs, though.
A quick rant, since Koei continues to takes the piss hard with their business policies, because even now that they don’t have to necessarily physically reprint a game for the expanded/upgraded… they still charge obscene prices, pretty much making more sense to wait for a price drop on the physical edition of the upgrade/expanded game.
Except that they are strong-harming you to still buy DLC, regardless if you bought digital or physical. Continua a leggere “Warriors Orochi 4: Ultimate (Overprice)”
So after Sega decided to let the internet hivemind make artistic decisions for its Hollywood blockbuster movie based on its most iconic franchise, after that FX studio fixed the ghastly design Paramount was originally gonne use for Sonic (and got axed, as proof that karma is a phantom under capitalism), after the delays from late 2019 to now, the live-action Sonic The Hedgehog movie hit theathers.
The premise here sees Sonic as an alien who escaped to Earth from his home planet after being hunted for his powers, and hides for years in a little town in Montana called Green Hills, until he accidentaly causes a power outage, prompting the authorities to send the eccentric genius known as Dr. Robotnik, and Sonic has to run for its life, helped by Tom, the local cop who accidentaly discovers him, in a quest to recover the lost magical rings.
I was skeptic and waiting for this one to be a regression after the Detective Pikachu movie, and it’s Sonic, there are legitimate reasons why the series has this sketcky (at best) reputation nowadays outside of the 2D style releases. … and sadly i wasn’t too far off. Mind you, it actually fairly good as an adaptation, with pretty much all elements associated with Sonic displayed or worked into the plot, but it’s also a very formulaic kids movie at heart (no “liar reveal”, thankfully).
And while having Jim Carrey back to chewing the scenery with mighty gusto like he did before is nice, he isn’t given very funny lines, and it all feeds into the 90 nostalgia this movie leans heavily on without trying much on anything else.
It’s not bad, at all, but i’m not gonna say it’s decent just because we are trained to expect weird baffling shit from Sonic as a brand.
So this is basically a horror reimagining of a 70’s/80’s tv series, one i’ve never even heard before i stumbled upon the listing of this movie, but i guess if children shows like The Banana Splits can get remade as horror movies, it’s fair game for everybody.
The premise centers around the eponymous, remote tropical island, where the mystical Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña) makes the most secret dreams of his guests come true. But as the fantasies morph into nightmares, the captive guests have to solve to mystery of the island if they want to escape it, and the true reason they were all brought there.
I frankly don’t know or care if this is a “needed” or random remake of the source material, but even so, i could see this movie working even without the horror elements, which at times they do spice things up a bit, but on other occasions are so tacked on and clichè to the point of being just laughable, just thrown together into the supernatural thriller-drama cauldron, using the premise to link together scenes from different genres (a bit of Saw, a bit of war movie, a bit of heist movie, a family drama) in a coherent way.
And it works, it’s what i would classify as “movie meatloaf”, but it’s entertaining, fairly well acted, has decent characters, but it should (and could) have been shorter, as the last act drags on by using horror cliches, and it’s odd how mostly bloodless it is for a horror movie, not that this one actually needed Braindead/Dead Alive levels of gore, or horror elements to begin with. It’s not a case of “neutering for the sake of PG-13”, it just a story that could have done without being horror “flavored” and not lose much.
It’s alright.
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