Earth Defense Force 4.1: Wing Diver The Shooter PS4 [REVIEW] | Bullet Ant Hell

To further prove how Earth Defense Force 4 port-expansion for PS4 and PC, EDF 4.1: The Shadow Of New Despair, was when the series really started getting popular worlwide, D3 Publisher figured just making DLC mission pack for the main game wasn’t enough, and so had developers Clouds Inc and Giga-Rensya Inc spun a spin-off game from EDF 4.1 assets, releasing first as a digital download on PS4 and then PC via Steam.

This being Earth Defense Force 4.1: Wing Diver The Shooter, which indeed focuses on the Wing Diver unit/class, presenting a “gaiden” story of sorts that has a Pale Wing/Wing Diver unit face off alone against swarms of enemies, but this time in a 2D vertical shmup fashion.

Sounds fun and frankly it’s perfect to make a spin-off in this style off a series that already has so much “arcade DNA” in it, there’s very little more arcade than 2D shmup action.

Sure it used 3D models from the mainline game of the era, but gameplay is classic 2D spaceship shooter that scrolls and for which “tate mode” is a thing…. which i have to admit feels weird, since you basically never miss the enemies even though they look more in the distance or foreground, there’s a bit of disconnect due to them reusing the 3D assets from the EDF 4.1.

from a technical standpoint, this is basically D3 doing the ol’ Tecmo Koei thing of fashioning out a new Samurai or Dynasty Warriors spin-off from an earlier mainline entry, it basically reuses old assets A LOT, the same enemy models, with some little new in terms of enemy variants or new stuff in general, aside from the mission dialogue, with the usual cheesy so bad it’s good english voice acting we’ve come to expect (and love) from the series to accompany the wafer thin plot that sees basically a Pale Wing/Wing Diver squadron on their own separated mission, one that runs concurrently to the events of EDF 4.1 story. Or something. Doesn’t really matter much.

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[EXPRESSO] Masters Of The Universe (2026) | The Barbarian Legend Of Big McLargehuge

Ah, yes, the new He-Man movie, i say if i actually grew up with the cartoon, or even saw the old 1987 live action adaptation with Dolph Lungren…. i did not.

I absorbed some He-Man knowledge through memes and Robot Chicken sketches, and i did grow up with the original TMNT, i know this “multimedia franchise-empire ment mainly to sell toys” tango very well, so why not?

The plot it’s an origin story where a very young Prince Adam is sent to Earth by his mother to escape the armies of the evil Skeletor invading the planet Eternia, entrusted with a magic sword, and 15 years later as a man he comes back tp his home planet to become the hero of legend he was destined to be, He-Man, and vanquish’s Skeletor and his minions for good.

It’s Superman meets Star Wars with a vague 80s PG-13 barbarian-medieval theming, with very little distinctive and a lot borrowed from the aforementioned franchises… and Marvel, more accurately trying to ape Gunn’ Guardian of The Galaxy trilogy, with very middling results since it can’t committ proper to be “Marvel quippy” nor sincere about its inherent sillyness, and tone comes off as undecisive and confused, almost as if the four writers were actively at war with each other.

It’s not horrible, mind you, there’s some simplistic entertaiment to be had, there is, despite these issues and other like some odd castin, i honestly found it enjoyable, the action fun enough, but… this really shouldn’t be 2 hours and 20 minutes long, it tries to cram too much stuff into this runtime and the result is that it’s bloated despite very little plot going for it.

It’s definitely not the worse movie to have an Amazon van in it, you can quote me on that.

Batwoman: L’Invincibile Superdonna/La Mujer Murcielago AKA The Batwoman (1968) [REVIEW] | The Spy Who Lucha’d Me

While i could have waited to spring this one on you when The Batman Part 2 finally releases…. that date is still far away, but the Supergirl live action film is not, so why not, and there’s still shit like Batman Da Il Pianeta Eros or Batpussy i could review for the occasion.

I’ve been recently studying up on ye old lucha libre mexican cinema, whom some of you might have been exposed via the few localized american version of El Santo movies, which called him “Samson” since El Santo as a figure wasn’t really know in America… nor is it now, but him and many other masked luchadores were also starring in their own film as themselves.

Some of you might remember stuff like the MST3K fan favourite Samson VS The Vampire Vomen, or the adjacent “luchador free” old The Robot VS The Aztec Mummy, but let’s just say these are just the tip of the sweaty beef iceberg, as there are dozens, hundreds of these films made in Mexico, most about El Santo but other luchadores like Tinieblas, Mil Mascaras or Blue Demon had their own film series, which often mixed spy film, gothic horror, mad scientist and monsters and of course had crossover, with some like El Santo and Blue Demon now teaming up to undo a sinister scheme of world conquest or strange murders ordained by some comic book styled mad doctor.

These were basically superhero series of their own right, just that the hero existed inside and outside of the ring, and his masked identity was kept as such, so, in the same way we call Dwayne Johson by his nickname regardless of what movie he is or what character he is playing, these movie do star El Santo or Black Shadow in the credits, they are playing a character alright, but they’re still rocking the luchador persona as the main one, as you would due to lucha libre tradition in this regard.

Due to some cultural sensibilities in common, we in Italy did get a few more localized films of this genre, but this one today is a bit of a “cheat”, in the sense it was an Italian-Mexican co-production starring Maura Monti, an Italian-Mexican actress and model that was in many Mexican films in the 60s, aside from this one, even if this the one she’s more recognized from, alongside 1966’s neo noir thriller Rage, where she acted alonsgide Glenn Ford.

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Tentacles (1977) [REVIEW] | Jawsuckers

While i have already set my shark movie picks for the summer, i wanna give you something extra in the “killer aquatic animal” subgenre of Jaws rip-offs that don’t fit the “shark month” criteria… well, because they are not about sharks at all.

(This was supposed to be an extra review for July, but i’m gonna do it now as “compensation” for the Masters Of The Universe movie review having to bedelayed AFTER i posted the schedule)

But make no mistake, this is basically the producer of the original Piranha, Ovidio G. Assonitis, credited as Oliver Hellman, cashing into the Jaws craze by stringing together a lot of old big Hollywood actors and having something to put in theathers ASAP, ideally to get some box office revenue in before Universal released their sequel to the original Jaws.

There’s very little point to go over the plot of Tentacles (“Tentacoli” in its original italian release, which is just the italian word for “tentacles”) because you know the plot outlin-well, the plot everything, this is just Jaws but with a giant octopus doing the terrorizing and killing in the waters of a small beach town.

Some small details are different, but there’s no point circling around the obvious, this is “Octo Jaws” and the characters are also transparent in functioning the same as in Jaws, but look, we have an admittely impressive number of big name Hollywood actors roped in: Bo Hopkins, Shelley Winters, John Huston and even Henry Fonda.

Even with Fonda swapping in and in doing so eluding us from having John Wayne in a Jaws rip-off, i can’t deny this is impressive, and sure did help a lot in marketing the film… as in, good for having those names on the poster and hence working wonders as a honeytrap to sucker people into seeing a very fuckin boring Jaws rip-off.

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The June EXPRESSO schedule

Time for more talk of “upcoming attractions” for EXPRESSO revies, and terms of upcoming or just released films i can make some promises.

First, since we also got a limited theathrical release of The Amazing Digital Circus finale in cinemas here, i will be attending tomorrow, so for Sunday that review should be up.

Not too long after that the review for the new Masters Of The Universe live action film (which released yesterday here) should be up.

Some of you might think i’m missing a horror related comedy thing…. i don’t know what you’re talking about, we know those things don’t actually exist, no point in assuming what a movie like that would be if it doesn’t exist, nor i recall ever being a thing before. One can wonder, though, of a what such a hypotetical film would be.

I will be seeing Toy Story 5 and Disclosure Day, there’s no fixed date yet but reviews for those will happen.

Closing off the month, we’ll get reviews of Gore Verbinsky’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, the Supergirl film, and of an anime film called ChaO (which is releasing here in late June).

Maybe (MAYBE) you’ll see a review of the new and last (the very last one this time i suppose) Jackass film, again, a very big MAYBE.

[EXPRESSO] Yoshi and The Mysterious Book NSWITCH2 | Creature Comforts

Yoshi games nowadays seem to have a bad rap and this subseries has definitely struggled to forge its own identity while people (allegedly) just wanted a “proper” Yoshi’s Island 2, and struggled to co-exist with another less challenging Nintendo platformer series, Kirby, somewhere above that but below the average 2D Mario in terms of difficulty.

Yoshi and The Mysterious Book more than Crafted World (also developed by Good Feel) looks back at the long time maligned N64 entry, Yoshi’s Story, in terms of taking risks and skewing the old classic formula for something a bit different, while building on the old gameplay basics that do make a Yoshi 2D platformer.

With the premise of helping a mysterious illustrated talking encyclopedia, Mr. E, we go inside his pages to basically play a saurian Mr. Attenbourough, as it ain’t much about reaching a level “exit” but researching the mysterious odd creatures (which you can then rename) that dwell inside the mustached tome, by interacting with them, which also means using the new gimmick of tailswiping a creature-enemy on your back and using its abilites, which range from spreading spores, blooming flowers, creating bubbles, exploding, etc.

It focuses so much on exploration and a puzzle-like usage of how the various critters interact with the enviroment that while there are some platforming challenges and fail states objectives in the various levels, there’s no real health bar or deaths per sé, which is undeniably a radical choice in addressing the often lamented low difficulty of Yoshi games.

Honestly, i think it works because it’s still a joy to explore the levels, find all collectables, and the creature usage isn’t a cheap gimmick, since it helps in keeping every level full of new little surprises and creative ideas, though it’s a bit on the short side.

[EXPRESSO] Backrooms (2026) | Liminal Architects

I’ll come clean, i’ve heard of this being another creepypasta phenomenon (apparently spurred at random by a single picture never meant to be more than that)… so i immediatly lost interest, as these come off as just another horror frenzy whipped up to make some quick buck in a way or another, so imagine my confusion when i saw the A24 logo for the Backrooms movie trailer.

I guess Ari Aster movies lose more money than they make nowadays, and for the record i never saw the titular web series by Kane Parson, which here directs and writes this film adaptation, nor i will be lambasting Backrooms The Movie because it’s from a Youtube turned horror filmaker, because it’s unfair, and – as i’ve noted before – this pipeline mostly seems to be working out decent or good work, weirdly enough.

The plot is set in the 90s, about Clark, a frustrated man that would like to pursue his dream career as an architect, but he’s stuck running an unsuccessful furniture store, and one day, while checking the electric grid for malfunctions, finds a hidden door in the basement room of the store, leading to a weird labyrynth resembling desolated office spaces, full of weird geometry and irregularly placed objects, that seems to span and lead into a seemingly infinite number or rooms….

Honestly, while you can tell this was spun from the “SCP-creepypasta-analog horror” side of internet trends, the Backrooms film does fare better than i expected.

It’s nothing special, again, and this is basically a “liminal space” iteration of the found footage formula, arguably the more normal film A24 ever distributed, but the plot has some surprises, the sound design is top notch, acting is good, it is entertaining, visually captivating and avoids overexplaining itself into absolute banality.

Decent.

[EXPRESSO] Passenger (2026) | Roadside Hitchin’

I was a bit concerned when i saw Passenger pushed by very little marketing even here, given it’s the new horror movie from respected director Andrè Øvredral (Trollhunter, The Autopsy Of Jane Doe, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, The Last Voyage Of The Demeter).

The plot involves a couple that has to leave their house and decide to start living on the road, driving their little caravan around the US, but when they stop one night to try and help the victim of some gruesome road accident, it turns out they involutarily picked up a sinister entity, dubbed by early travelers as the “Passenger”…

The premise isn’t bad at all, and i’m glad we have Øvredral directing, because he can actually do effective jumpscares, the photography is good, the characters are decent, the acting is pretty solid too, but Passenger as a whole isn’t even bad, it’s just disappointing, especially coming from a director that has already proved he can do better than this.

most of the script has either half baked ideas or just rehashes very generic horror elements, which is especially true of the “Passenger” itself, this derivative, generic ass looking and acting demon motherfucker, and even with the lore being an American roadside folklore mythology affair, it then pivots into religious territory… which doesn’t really fit.

There are some nice ideas like them using the cinema projector to visualize the entity, but the rules of the entity seems vague at best, often ignored anyway, the setpieces don’t really build upon each other, and overall the movie just doesn’t do anything original, interesting or that hasn’t been done WAY better before.

Passenger isn’t terrible or anything, it’s watchable, but also incredibly disappointing and frustrating, because you can see the better movie this could have been.

[EXPRESSO] The Sheep Detectives (2026) | Chicken The Godless

I’ll be frank, at a glance i kinda dismissed this when i saw it appear in cinemas, but after repeated positive word of mouth and some coverage encouraging not to sleep on this one, i’ve decided to check out The Sheep Detectives.

I’m sure this also beats the awful new animated adaptation of Animal Farm in terms of “animal rising up and growing a political coscience” aspect of things, and that movie doesn’t even have Hugh Jackman as a lonely british shepherd, Greg, that loves tending to his flock, so much he named every single sheep and even made a habit of reading mystery murder novels to them as a good night story of sorts, pretending like they can actually understand him.

But it turns out the sheeps are actually able to understand his words, and when Greg is found dead one night, the animals, especially the most intelligent sheep of the flock, Lily, decide to practice what they learned from the books and help the incredibly inept single policeman in town to solve the whodunnit and avenge Logan, even if that entails finding out way more than they really want to know about the world, and questioning their existence and core beliefs.

The surprisingly star studded cast (both as VA and live action actors) is actually just the proverbial icing, since this is a very, very nice blend of mystery murder genre savviness without going into subversion territory with comedy that’s actually fairly witty, despite while still being a very wholesome family film with adorable talking animals for the kids, one that also manages to be emotional without becoming outright saccharine, and somehow juggle that with more heavy themes without becoming depressing.

What a very nice surprise, which i didn’t expect to say about the “sheep existentialism” family film.

Juufuutei Raden’s Guide for Pixel Museum STEAM [REVIEW] | In It For The (Picross) Art

I usually stick to Nintendo consoles for Picross titles, but since this is basically the first time Jupiter releases one of their Picross game across multiple platforms (and it was on sale) i opted for the Steam version, this is also on Switch and it has since released on PS4/PS5 and Xbox consoles too.

Plus, i figured it would be a perfect fit for mouse controls… and it is.

The only difference is that Nintendo owns the Picross brand, so the Steam and other releases just drop the “Picross” moniker from the title, and refer to the puzzles themselves as “picture puzzles”, as in nonograms, more commonly known for the “sudoku” type of configuration.

Seems kinda pointless to discuss gameplay as the series has basically been Jupiter’s Dynasty Warriors, meaning they put out a lot of Picross games that basically play the same (even more than most Dynasty Warriors subseries, actually) but have a different license/s sticked onto to entice the various fanbases into trying the formula, like the Kemono Friends one, the Overlord one, and this time Hololive themed, specifically about Juufutei Raden from the REGLOSS unit.

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