Tag: Classic

Animini: Cowboy Bebop -Episode 2- Stray Dog Strut

If you have read my latest Natsume Book of Friends  review you’ll know I often have issues with second episodes of anime. These are usually exposition dumps that have very little interesting stuff to tell in favor of fleshing out the world.  Cowboy Bebop takes a bit of a different approach and I like it!  It isn’t a flawless second episode but we got no exposition dump here.. instead we get Corgis. 

The Summary

Spike and Jet travel to Mars where a new bounty rests on the man named Abdul Hakim! Using Bounty Hunter TV we discover the universe knows roughly 300.000 Bounty Hunters and an 8 Million bounty is sure to attract some attention right?!  Hakim allegedly stole a precious lab-animal. Spike decides to go to shady pet-shops to track the man when he eventually wants to unload the precious pet.  Spike quickly slips up however when  Hakim seems to have used a proxy to make the sale. Seeing a “worthless” Corgi sitting in a box the petshop owner with a turtle on her head values it at just 200k which apparently in this world is nothing… maybe it’s even just 200.. I am not sure how much the currency of this world is worth and heck it might even be called K… *Checks around if she accidentally summoned a movie blogger* 

Hakim walks into the store and tries to take the dog back.. but Chaos ensues.. the dog escape and Spike pursues Hakin.. eventually the dog Jumps of a bridge onto a boat and when  Spike leaps in to pursue.. the dog latches onto his face causing him to miss the jump and the dog escapes from Hakim.  Jet and Spike don’t care much for worthless Corgis so they use the dog as bait.. only to lose it  to some scientist who made a super sonic dog whistle van.. as all dogs in town chase the car, Hakim steals a car and Spike goes in pursuit with his airship.  The scientist snare up all the other dogs but the Corgi escapes, it seems super smart..almost like a person.. it can not escape Hakim however.. who basically  Chloroforms it with an Aerosol (And I know Chloroform doesn’t actually work like that.. but it’s a detective novel/film noir trope,, that I think fits the setting)  The scientist start using guns on Hakim and Spike.. who tries to use his landing gear to bash the roof of Hakim’s car open. This makes the Corgi wake up who jumps on the wheel.. pushes some buttons and then falls out the window once Hakim’s car gets harpooned by the dog whistle van. Spike chooses to save the dog and forsake his bounty. Hakim turns himself in.. and Spike gets himself a genetically engineered super smart Corgi…even though he dislikes dogs.

The Positives

For those who have followed me for a while and actually read what I write, you probably know I love randomness. It’s a big elementi I try to incorporate in my life as much as I can… so when I see what i believed to be a dark Space Western with some dandy elements ..be all about chasing a Corgi I was amazed. It felt so random and nothing like a second episode normally is. We get no long tales of Spike’s tragic past, we get no flashback to how he and yet met.. no we get a guy who goes and tries to earn some money and ends up with hyper intelligent Corgi instead. I love it! The weird pet shop lady, calling all the animals her babies but looking like a heavy smoker and boozer  felt almost out of place.. but also not.. THere is a turtle on her head that nobody questions.. which is kinda amazing and seeing a Corgi do that classic bridge leap to land on some canvas instead of the human characters?! I certainly haven’t seen that before! This episode was entertaining with a capital E.. Maybe a capital N as well. 

The character designs were amazing as well. Abdul had so much flavour, the Petshop lady even more.. even the random mook who had to sell the Corgi had this design element to him.. kind of looking like a young Leorio from Hunter X Hunter. Last week I complained that the grunts looked a bit like “video game mooks” which instantly told you how easy they would be to deal with.  This week we have some new grunts but there is a sense of design in them, unique hairstyles different body types even a bit of personalities.. as a result you can push them way further and get a much more interesting chase in the end. I also love the design elements in Mars so far.. taking a more Chinese like approach in design it feels a bit like Macao City… the Chinese Vegas but more seedy and filled with underhand deals and earlier .. opium trade and the likes. It is also established as such.. on Mars “Everything” is for Sale. Under the counter shops are everywhere , and people don’t take kindly to you asking questions.. unless you show you are a cool guy. I like that money isn’t the only rule here.. Spike adresses an arms dealer based on his passions and it works, it lifts these characters from cartoon characters in a stereotypical town to something a bit more real.

The Negatives

I really enjoyed this episode but it also does feel a bit sloppy at times, because of how weird the plot is.  The Corgi can bend his shape to operate a steering  wheel but can also latch onto a face and for whatever reason Spike and Jet have a dog collar in it’s size on board..while they don’t really seem to like dogs. Jet seems to be fine with him.. but he calls the Corgi a Mutt anyway. When it hopped onto the steering wheel it kinda felt to “liquid” also Hakim not yanking it off his steering wheel feels off! If I was driving a car.. and Arceus have mercy on the soul who is in the car with me,  I would not allow a dog to make me crash let alone push it several buttons on the wield why I just quietly tell it “stop it”. I would punch the dog of my steering wheel.. and No that doesn’t make me cruel I am driving on a bridge while being shot at that just makes me sensible.. and sometimes this episode misses that sensibility making the characters cartoony… it’s very entertaining but it isn’t “ engaging”.

I am willing to believe this dog is hyper intelligent.. I just don’t think ti can change size… To make this episode a bit more powerful I would have at least liked to see Spike and the dog bond a bit… I am pretty sure they are going to keep it..but now it staying on Bebop feels kinda un-earned.. I would have loved a brief scene where the dog found Spike a half eaten Peking Duck in  one of those take away boxes that he could finish.. or stealing him some actually food out of a restaurant.. heck even a look would have been fine! Just something that makes Spike want to save the dog when it falls out of the car later on..That is not really a negative though ..but more of a suggested approvement. 

The Score

I really liked this episode a lot LOT more than the first one, and that already was great.. yet I have to give this episode the same grade. This episode is a lot muddier than the first one and a bit more clownish. It is really something I want to see in this series.. the ability to have fun with itself  but I can not escape that feeling that there is a lot of rickety parts either. It’s kind like comparing A Tardis with Bell and Teds Payphone time machine. I’d probably have more fun with Bill and Ted but if you ask me which is the better time machine it will be the Tardis. The payphone is a bit of a joke so it lacks that same wow factor and I think that is a good summary of those episode as well.

I loved this episode and I am super excited to see if they will keep the dog and name the dog. I am super curious to see if the dog will live and heck.. I am also super curious to what other worlds are out there.. what else Mars has to offer and what is in store for the crew of the Bebop. This is quickly turning out to be one of  those cases that Science Fiction really works out for me and Mari pointed me out why. One of the few sci-fi shows I really like is drawing HEAVY influences from Bebop to a point where I now feel that Firefly really copied HARD.  The way these characters are, the banter, the level or airiness and the whole Cowboy/Space world building it clearly was a love letter to this. So seeing a prequel to one of the greatest Sci-Fi shows ever seems to become quite an enjoyable ride.. but who knows.. which of these two will be my favourite Sci-Fi Serial in the end?!

These are some of my favourite games: Pinkie’s Top 5 Video Game Genres

Greetings once again dear island guests! I tried to have another game finished the week I am writing this, but unfortunately , Pokemon Rejuvenation ate all my gaming time! So instead I decided to dedicate a post on an idea of what type of gamer I am! With my top 5 of game types I like to play! I will use categories in the broadest sense of the word, since I like variation! Per category I will specify how much I like certain sub-genres. Each category will also feature a game I really want to play!

Honorable Mention: Party Games

I love playing games with friends, but since it is more of a social experience than a gaming experience I shall keep this down to an honorable mention. I will include the Lego games into this format because they are hilarious and super casual to play with friends! I have plenty of these games and recently tried playing the Harry Potter ones, which weren’t nearly as good as the Pirates one, my absolute favourite or the Marvel one.. which I think is a tad to big.

My favourite Party Game is Use Your Words, a game I discovered through YouTuber BrentalFloss. It is best compared with Cards against Humanity. Make a funny subtitle for a movie clip, make a newspaper headline or complete the sentence in a funny way. However all the answers are filled in by connecting to the game using  your phone. No standard answers just your wit! This does mean however that you can have as clean of a game you want or as insensitive as you can get! You decide what is funny thus avoiding it’s rivals greatest weakness! It’s cleaner and funnier! The game I really want to get in this genre is Overcooked 2! That is great fun to play in a group!

Favourite Genre #5 Point and Click Games

Ever since I was a wee little Pinkie, I had an obsession with the Point and Click Genre. The first one I ever completed was Simon the Sorcerer, but I also played a lot Myst with my parents. All of us had notebooks and explored different worlds and we would compare hints together. It did not take me long to find other games. I adored the Monkey Island Games, I played both Discworld adventures, loving Discworld Noir’s atmosphere! Grim Fandango is one of my favourite games of all times.

I have a lot less love for the hidden object subgenre yet I always raced mom in these! That was still kind of fun! The stories are usually cringily generic but there are actually a few good ones as well… unfortunately the titles are generic as well so I can’t remember those. Another subgenre is the whole telltale games thing! I deeply enjoy those, but nothing beats the charm of Simon hurling at the Swamp Creatures Piece de Resistance.. his swamp stew. In this genre I have been planning to pick up the game Deponia.  I played the demo once and loved it.. but back then the game costed way more than I could afford! Now however I will probably pick it up soon.

Favourite Game Genre #4  Horror Games

I am a big horror fan,  from games like Little Nightmares, to the Resident Evil games. From Spooky Jumpscare Mansion to Layers of Fear. I consume these games on a regular basis! I loved the Evil Within and my favourite Horror Experience was Alien Isolation in VR! I dont have a VR headset so I can never complete that.. but it was the coolest thing! My actual favourite Horror Game is Dead Space, the first one, there is just something to space horror that works for me. Lust for Darkness was my biggest letdown.. not even sure how I got that one.

Another game that seemed super cool but I could not get into was Darkwood. Top down survival horror is not my thing, nor is the whole, master these boss paterns gameplay of Soulsborne games. Rembering attack paterns in modern games is a big no no for me, I want to be emersed, so it sucks to focus on mechanical parts! This is also why I dislike MMO’s gameplay in general. However even though these things are not for me, I can still have some fun with them. Horror games I really want to play are Evil Within 2 and Soma…and Alien Isolation on a VR headset..but that is a bit out of range right now 

Favourite Game Genre #3 Turn Based RPG’s

Taking the third spot is what I think most of you would think its my favourite genre, but no! I do count Pokémon in this genre, and sure collectable creature games is my favourite subgenre. Pokémon Gold being my absolute favourite, yet this genre also comes with a lot of tedious qualities! The gaming high during the great moments may be highest but this genre also comes with a lot more lows. For every great story beat there is a clunky crafting system, for every amazing boss there is a grind! It’s all worth it but it takes more effort. The Tales of series is among my favorites in RPG’s having overtaken Final Fantasy by a fair amount.. the latter peeked at part 6. My favourite RPG however is Chrono Trigger..aside from Pokemon Gold.

I hate the modern final Fantasies, Part XV was horrible for me, pretty, yet it had nothing to do with the series for me anymore. I want to play the VII remake but only once the full story is out and I already hate the counter combat system. Final Fantasy XIII is flat-out one of my worst hated games ever! Don’t get me wrong I think Lightning is an amazing character but the gameplay I found absolutely atrocious. Luckily games like Tales and Dragon Quest don’t try to innovate  what I fell in love with. I still need to play Tales of Beseria so that is on my wishlist! However Mallow also warmed me up for Nexomon Extinction so even more to add to my wishlist. Though I never use my Steam Wishlist! I remember what I want .. I just miss out on sales.

Favourite Genre #2 Adventure Games

Darksiders and the Legend of Zelda games are the best examples of this genre to me. Yet my absolute , without a doubt , favourite of the Genre was Beyond Good and Evil. The later Jak and Daxter games also veered a bit into this genre and away from platforming. Another game in the genre I hold very dear is Omikron: The Nomad Soul. There is something about roaming a world freely, experiencing aspects of the world, talking to people, getting items taking quest and the likes. While arguably more and RPG Fable still hit that feeling for me while Skyrim doesn’t.

There is something about having several layers of gameplay that captures me. I love just to go fishing in Ocarina of Time, go to a fighting tournament in Omikron or take pictures as Jade. Getting the good bee in Link to the past feels like an achievement and finally getting bombs in the Wind Waker and going back to your old home to check that mysterious spot feels so good!  I love exploring in this way and it offers something more whimsical and variaring than action rpg’s. Games I have my eye out in this genre are Link’s awakening on the Switch but even more so Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy on Steam.

My Favourite Genre: Platform Games

Platforming was my first love and it will forever be my favourite game genre! Even if I can’t rank high in Mario 35 and even if I don’t like the insane difficulty of Super Mario Maker. I love platform games. Ducktales was my first, Donkey Kong Country was the first game I was super proud of beating.. and it’s amazing. Never do I have so much fun as with a platformer. It is one of the few genres where I really like Indie games.  I slighty prefer 2D platformers over 3D ones but with games like shovel knight and the sublime “The Messenger”. Can you really blame me? I slight get more thrills from getting from A to B rather then finding all collectables.

That being said I adore 3d platformers as well. Yooka Laylee is so good! Super Mario Sunshine brings sunshine to my life..but my absolute favourite, A Hat in Time! That game is so good it even kicks Banjo Kazooie’s sitting-meat for me! When I play a platformer I blossom. I am not to keen on Kaizo platformers though and I do prefer games without long jump strings, my slight spasms make games like Celeste and Ori and the Blind Forest nearly unplayable for me. I can control the spasmsn or at least predict them enough to hold on a small platform or ledge, but when you have to execute a two minute string of jumps I am bound to misclick, twitch or spasmn just a bit at least once so I prefer trickier single jumps over longer jump challenges. Eagle Island the game is something I want to play but I really really REALLY have my heart set on Yooka-Laylee and the impossible lair! It’s a spiritual successor to Donkey Kong after all!

When The Dog Bites, When the bee stings, when I am feeling sad! I just play some of my favourites games…and I won’t feel bad! Tell me what type of games you love in the comments and do remember, these are just my opinions, if I don’t like your favourite game.. it’s just my opinion.. I just quoted Julie Andrews to close off a post about games! Clearly my judgment isn’t all that!

The Charisma of an Anime: Why Pinkie Doesn’t Always Need “Quality”

Why do we like certain Anime? Is it the quality of the animation?! The depth of the story, the characters? I have noticed that quite often I can’t follow the opinion of the crowd. I very much dislike anime like Sword Art Online, Code Geass, Attack on Titan, Death Note and am less enthralled by My Hero Academia and Re: Zero than most. I think all of them are good series in their own way, I also like a lot of anime the public doesn’t think is very good! Mostly childhood classics.. but is that just Nostalgia or is it something else?

<Disclaimer>
This is my personal opinion throughout, even if I decribe them as factual that is only because this is the truth in MY head for me as a person if you prefer to think of it another way, you are not wrong for doing so, nor am I for feeling this way. Multiple opinions can exist and for each and every one of us our opinion is true please respect each others opinions in the comments as well
<End of Disclaimer>

Charisma over Quality?!

If you have read my favourite anime A-Z challenge you know that I do not necessarily favor the BEST anime. I have always preferred the one that speaks to me the most. Sometimes it can be a really low quality anime. I prefer Cardfight Vanguard over Clannad or Code Geass. Now I dislike Geas so that is not saying much..but I still recognise the quality of the latter. It is a good show! It just has no appeal to me! I do think the writing style is pretty bad too.. but I can’t really say I think Cardfight does story better. However Vanguard feels much less pretentious to me. Where Geass aims high and in my opinion strikes out due to some plot events feeling incredibly forced. The card battle anime basically aims to be a commercial. Within their respective parameters I feel the trashier anime of the two exceeds my expectations of what a show like that should be, while Geass to me fumbles in being that high stakes political war game. It doesn’t fail badly but enough for me to be dissapointed.

Each time I tell this a picture of him crying shows up! Such a crybaby!

Compare it to two passengers on a plane. Code Geass is the hot woman sitting next to you and Cardfight Vanguard is a plain mousey looking woman with a baby. You expect the baby to cry and have a hell of a journey, but it is surprisingly quiet. Even though it is still a baby and doesn’t offer much in terms of conversation .. you still think… WOW that was such a sweet child.  Meanwhile the Hot woman next to you yawns and despite being nearly perfect in every way she has one blacked snaggletooth in her mouth. It’s just one tooth and you can probably get over it, yet you can not help but think about that one element that is wrong with it. It’s NOT that I would not date Rotten-Snaggletooth if the rest is good enough don’t get me wrong but as for a general impression one is much more likely to talk about that thing that was not in line with your expectations than the things that are. You could pretend to be the one that would not do that.. but as humans I think we are kind of rigged to spot that one off element.

Every anime has an innate charm. Which can be anything. Sometimes you see this really is a passion project of it’s makers. Like for example the sort of anime Oban Star Racer.  There is this effort in it to present itself well, people clearly wanted to make this, and even if it is not perfect that anime has an amazing vibe to me. You can see the intent to make something unique and something they cared about. Big companies never talk about that in their reviews its just visuals, story sound and usually some fourth metric.Lots of stuff in Dragon Ball isn’t that well written but there is a charm in the way Toriyama forgets things, in the way he cheats things. You see the humanity behind the creator in the series if you pay attention.  You see that through its flaws. 

I might be the Guilty Pleasure Random Girl of Anime?! Oban was Great though!

As such I find Dragon Ball  a much more human product than say My Hero Academia which to me feels much more “mechanically” constructed. It feels as if Dragon Ball really is a story Toriyama wanted to tell versus my MHA being a story that was made because people want to see it. The Mangaka’s most of us know by name aren’t know because of their amazing work.. They are often named with their quirks. Toriyama forgets, Araki has this weird thing with dogs, Miuara put some people on a boat for a few years to play with Idol-Girl-Games. It brings humanity to the manga and anime medium.  This also explains my draw towards the weirder shows it is a story  a person  really wanted to tell. Then take Geass again for example where Mecha’s were added to the story to make it cooler, while not a thing in the early manga and you can see that the anime is not a passion product of one person. It is that vision of a person of a person, shifted by a marketing department and maybe a think-tank on how to sell it to the public. While it has all it’s flaws polished out.. it lost a bit of personality or charisma if you will.

The Classics

It is no secret that I really like Dragon Ball and all it’s series. I love Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh and even Beyblade and Medabots. I like Zoids New Century, Yu Yu Hakusho, heck I had a lot of fun with Shaman King as well.  While plenty of us love at least one show in this list, much less would put them in their favourite list. They are too silly. they have too simple plotlines or haven’t aged well. Yet if we take a look over the internet.. millions of people are still talking about the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, analysing Dragon Ball or doing Sailor Moon fan content. Now there are a few newer big anime who get this too..but it’s still on a smaller scale. Re Zero and My Hero being the most noticeable exceptions. Yet there is a difference. My Hero is less quirky then those old shows.. no pun intended. Back in the early days there was much more ambiguity on how a power worked, less was explained about the world.

Plus Ultra! You don’t need Magazines to understand HIS power!

 Did you know for example that it took until Dragon Ball Z Kakarot to explain why the King of Central City is a dog?! Why do there live animal people?!  Techniques were forgotten, more loopholes to get around problems were needed.. and then the fans came together and tried to find explanations to it.  To this day people still try to polish the mistakes out of Dragon Ball with weird theories! We do that to certain games or western series as well. Is it all due to nostalgia?! No! That would blind us to a lot of their mistakes but we are aware of them! We just have grown to love them DESPITE these flaws. The modern modus operandi however seems to really nitpick the shows that we love and even go as far as drop them and shun them for having one character that portrays a gender or race in a less than adequate way.
It’s easier for me as well.. because I don’t feel like I am demeaning Horikoshi’s work when I say My Hero is something I think makes a few wrong choices… it’s more sterile. 

Modern anime have so many benefits that it makes them objectively better. They have the internet  to easily look up what happened before, they have fans point out a flaw so it can be retconned immediately. Yet because this happened in anime.. and media in general for that matter feels much more like a team effort. It does no longer feel like it came from the pen of a single man or woman. Teams are often very big and we get a joined effort that is always increasing in quality!  I really think anime is getting consistently better over time. At least objectively! Stories make more sense, animation has less and less flaws.. (at least in a situation where corporate doesn’t force people to use cheaper studios..but cheaping out is a whole other problem) but because of it. .that airplane is more and more filled with “generic” people. With a whole team monitoring who gets on board you get less weirdo’s. So no tranquil baby and no Snaggletooth woman. Maybe a woman with a slightly loose tooth and a baby that cries at a less annoying pitch..but they now fulfill much more their intended roles.. everything is as it should be .. but does it really have to be?!

While it might seem like a critique on big names only it is not.  Isekai Cheat Magician, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two Hit Multi Target Attack and Uzaki Chan wants to hang out are for me deeply flawed products. But their main gripe is the same. They are boring and generic.  They lack a passion. They are made for the audience as such if they offer you what you seek they can still be a hit with people. Yet once they stop providing that they die out quickly.  Dragon Ball Z and One Piece might have tricks in them for cash and to sell more figurines but they are also MORE than just that. Märchen Mädchen that I watched recently was also more. It’s not just what fans one.. it’s a love letter to classic stories but also an awareness on how poorly they aged. The author was in there.. somewhere!

I don’t understand why this screenshot is so popular! But Welcome new viewers!

You will always remember your first kiss. You will always remember your first anime. What defines a classic to you is also up to your age. To some Naruto is a classic.To me.. it is a transition period. For everyone that golden point will shift. Too many people much younger than me Naruto may already be that cheesey flawed product that Dragon Ball was to me. Something they love despite what they see as flaws.. as Anime become objectively better and better and more mainstream accessible.. much more tools are being used, sales are being measured so precisely, polls on the internet, fan magazines whatever.. no matter when you start anime, in a few years that gateway of yours will show some cracks and you will learn to appreciate them I think. 

It creates a much stronger love for anime for me at least than a series that just is good. Would I use the visuals, music and story metrics to measure what I think about all the anime I watch? I would be much more positive about most anime At least if I compare it to the quality I need, not so much if I compare everything to the 10/10/10’s out there. Yet to me they often  lack the charisma Sailor Moon has. When I hear that poor quality transformation music I become genuinely happy. Even the quiet shrill sounding opening song bestows me with so much more emotions. Even though the Soundtrack of MHA is vastly superior to Moon’s.. the highs I can reach with Moon are much higher than with the more recent anime. I do love  You Say Run a lot and rock out to it, but I like it because it IS good. I am not sure if the Sailor Moon transformation song IS good..but I love it for it’s personality! That retro vibe, the over usage, I don’t like it because it is good. I like it because it is the Sailor Moon transformation theme. Somehow that love feels purer to me.Less earned maybe.. but that makes it more intoxicating.

Even as a Duth girl THIS is my drug!

It’s all relative

This is a weird kind of love, though as it has zero base in objectivity. There are people like me who love Dragon Ball.. but I can’t tell a random anime fan I love Dragon Ball and expect to be understood. When you love something despite of its flaws you really need someone who loves it as well to get that. Goku’s Japanese voice actor for example gets a lot of flack from the Dub loving people.  “He sounds like a kid that is so stupid”. No he does not sound LIKE anything, he sounds like Japanese Goku.. that is the voice of Goku. I find Japanese Goku to be more versatile than Sean Schemmel. Still, Sean Schemmel is also the voice of Goku. There is nothing wrong with him…well that might be pushing it.. there is nothing wrong with his voice acting. However, to explain why Goku works in Japanese..  you gotta like Goku in japanese ..because it is one of those things. My love for the Digimon universe is much the same. The new show really does show me how poorly the first run did on storytelling.. but it doesn’t make me love it less. It just makes me glad I now get a good story in addition to that and makes me enjoy both even more. Yet to understand that.. you really have to love Digimon like me. 

I can safely walk up to someone and say “You Go Run goes with everything” and a random animefan probably will go heck yeah! If I walk up to a random guy or gal at a convention and tell them I genuinely love Digimon, they have a much bigger chance to be weirded out. It is because all guides on blogging or journalism tell us to be objective. To write objective reviews. It made us believe anime can objectively be bad. It made us afraid to love something that isn’t well reviewed. It allows us to unify behind a single vision or at least with confidence step up to someone and say! Hey the visuals for this anime are stellar! Yet in the process we lose something.. the ineffable part of loving something. When I fall in love with a girl it is never because she has pretty eyes or a nice rack. It’s not because she has a great personality either because otherwise I would fall in love with all of my friends and most of you too! It’s not because of her voice or clothing choice either.. It is that hidden factor , something unspeakable, something that can not be put into words. It can only be stated. It can only be understood by peers who fell for that girl before.

Awww crabcakes! Okay bring forth the evil exes! *Cracks Knuckles*

Let’s say that girl I fall in love with is an anime… Let’s say she is also on the plane I used earlier, because why not! I see her much more in the past. If she is Digimon she might tell me some weird stories or maybe she is built a bit awkwardly.  If she is Dragon Ball , she might not be the prettiest and has a bit of a weird voice.The girl is out in the open though.. not hiding displaying her flaw for me to see and acknowledge.  If she is a modern anime…she is wearing the make-up that got the best rating.. We now know what tests best. She is a pretty smooth talker because she saw a youtube video on how to talk to strangers. As we now know so much more about properly fleshing out dialogue and there are bigger teams who proof read stuff. She wears the most popular clothes as found on review sites. All in all in her modern form the girl is a lot more marketable and she will find someone who will like her , heck it still could be me.  Yet I have to look much deeper to see her true self beyond that stuff everyone wants. I will like her faster because she is wearing a pretty as heck mask that I can deeply enjoy! However it would take me much longer to fall in love, because for that I have to see behind the mask. I am not saying it doesn’t happen but it will take me longer to fall in love.

 So my plane experience has shifted. From an uncomfy ride with one or two people who rock my world I now found myself in a plane full of pretty and acceptable people..I have a much more pleasant flight but by the time I take off next season I will have forgotten most of the pretty people… while that girl I saw 20 years ago is still haunting my  mind. She had her quirks.. but she wasn’t there for me.. she was there for her! That is a charisma I like to see in everything I love. If we only judge and measure objectively at one time that experience might fade away. For now it’s fine.. in general it’s as simple as switching over to a smaller airline and taking some risks. Just remember that if you review something it’s okay to look at quality.. but look at the charisma sometimes. It might not be as useful to the people reading your review but I do think it would be healthy in the long run!

Heck even in Airplanes they get THAT seat

I really hope I have not offended you guys or that you think I am super shallow now! In the end we all like what we like! If you came here for objective reviews , I might have shot myself in the foot! Because you will not be getting those! I am just a pink avatar, telling you what I personally like and what I don’t like! Speaking of what I like! I would really appreciate it if you support my Kofi by clicking on the link below! Or if you can’t spare or want to part with the money leave a comment below! I really appreciate you all in every way you support this blog! So while I might not approve of your favourite anime! I approve of all of you!

A BIT of History Part 4 : Altered Beast (Sega Genesis)

My TALDIG had some issues working for a while but I had it fix. Now that we are  ready to travel back to the past that shows us the past again, I find myself asking, is this to weird?  Perhaps we should make these things a bit more straightforward? 

Change

Altered Beast is a well known classic for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. It started out as an arcade title in 1988 but was ported to Sega console the same year at least in Japan. The game then appeared as a launch title for the system for Europe and America and got numerous arcade releases bundle releases and was a part of the Sega Genesis Mini.
In this game you play a nameless fighter who gets resurrected by Zeus back in the days of ancient Greece (which roughly puts it at around 1200-900 BC) were you have to rescue his daughter Athena from the evil god of the Underworld Ha… I mean Neff. I distinctly remember that being somebody else though.

Altered Beast is all about changing, it’s a beat them up, the changes up the formula quite a bit. The length of the stage depends on how long it takes for you to gather three orbs that change you to more powerful forms and the final boss can only happen when you acquire beast mode. If you encounter Neff before this happens, the stage .. kind of loops on you.
You take the role of “Fighter” .. a guy in a pinkish Toga so clearly I was excited to play this one, but it left me wondering. Should I change as well?

I feel that the ‘A BIT of History’ concept might be a bit too weird to focus on. The history lessons taken from these games might be a bit too flimsy to focus on and best be relegated to a paragraph should I find such a game. So I am thinking of changing this series into “A BIT of Nostalgia’  in which  I revisit famous classic games or games that are very dear to me.
It offers me a bigger spectrum of games to play and allow me to play the games I would actually want to play, rather than have the time setting dictate which ones I should play. It took me a fair bit to get me to play this one because I wasn’t in a beat them up mood. Yet it was one of the most iconic ancient greece games. So expect some changes to this format soon. Now back to the review, because unlike the era of the ancient greeks, this game has not aged well.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures

This game features Fighter in Pink.. our hero that we all know and love! Back from the dead he has to stop the evil god of the underworld Neff and not Hadas..who turned Athena into a blue bird, which anime taught me mean she is a lesbian now. Throughout five stages you have to fight classic greek enemies such as cyclops (plural) and …. well there are Satyrs…sort of they have goat heads as well but I guess they are there? Though they are called Gory Goats here… then there are zombies, demons ant wasps and evil chickens with poisonous stingers. So clearly the greek setting is used very well. I can only assume all these creatures died out because Fighter in Pink really disliked them and punched them all to death.


The most important enemy in this game is the three headed wolf though, which came in two colours. The useless brown variant and the all mighty blue variant. Both will make the sound of a paper crumpling when you kick them and die right away, but by killing blue three headed wolves the ancient greeks could call upon the power of an orb, that turned them from buff philosophers into half naked Jojo characters.

Killing another  one then turns them into the old Dragon Ball Broly, and after killing a third blue three headed wolf the ancient greeks could turn into beastmen. The buffing up and the whole Neff  standing menacing before you, checking out if you are worth his time has a pretty big Jojo feel, this could be a new take on that series and since it’s set in ancient history I decided to name this Fighter in Pink. Jorges Jorda is a farmer who died from being attacked by animals.. now zeus resurrects him and by gathering the power of death…he can channel what caused his death.

The game does feel like a bizarre string of adventures with stages strung together like the graveyard, the swamp, the cave, the Greek building and the underworld/city of the dead. Wait.. if the hero died wouldn’t he already be in the underworld? Would that not be better to start? Now he gets resurrected and has to travel back to the underworld again. One could argue that Jorges would have to find his power orbs but Neff steals them at the end of each stage, assumingly needed to make him reach his final form or something.  Hmm.. clearly not all the ancient Greeks were philosophers. Zeus clearly wasn’t the smartest god either, then again that seems to be a bit of a theme with Zeus in games or movies, he tends to get blindsided a lot. So you heard it here first guys! Zeus can be outsmarted by uncle Fester from the Addams family.. because I am pretty sure that is who Neff is.

Too much bits

The Mega Drive was the first sixteen bit console, with amazing stuff like blast processing and an iconic sound chip.  Unfortunately it clearly shows that this game was not designed for this console and people were still a bit unfamiliar with the power of this machine. The enemies don’t look very clean. The three headed wolves look more like misshapen bulls to me and for a few other enemies I also had to struggle to look what they are. Now of course this in part is due to the home consoles being less powerful than arcade cabinets, but if we look at Turtles in Time, which although appearing later did it much better. Stages were changed up , difficulty was slightly adapted and  visuals and vocals were changed.  This games suffers from this being NOT the case in this port. In fact I like the Master System port more because it feels more distinct.

With the speech of Neff  included he welcomes players to their doom before the start of each boss fight, and doom you will face , over and over and over and over again. This is a problem with a lot of Beat Them Up ports. Most of these games were designed to be unrelenting so they can guzzle up as much of your quarters as much as possible. Basically in the arcade you have infinite lives as long as you have quarters. Good Beat them up ports thusly either give you infinite lives… as the price of a full priced game should get you infinite quarters or at least a series of lives and a handful of continues. Altered Beast on Genesis asks you to beat the entire game on three lives which basically equals three quarters. If even that!

There are NO healing items in this game so all damage is permanent. You get three “hearts”/blocks of life that can all take 1 to 3 hits depending on the enemies strength. Given that a random chicken enemy (who crossed over from Golden Axe) can take a complete life block away due to you having virtually no invincibility frames after being it.. this game is relentlessly hard.

Luckily by holding A (or 1)  plus start in the main menu you can at least continue on the stage you died on. Yet still finishing a stage is a rather herculean feat. Yet like most arcade games this doesn’t really come down to your gaming skills,but more to pattern recognition. If you know where the blue wolves will show up and you can manage to hit them quick and fast and gather your orbs fast enough these stages are fairly doable. Mostly because the bosses once you get their pattern down are actually quite easy. Except for the second boss.. whose tell of damage is so deceptive it took me five times to figure out that I wasn’t exactly damaging it when it flashes red when I hit it.. I needed to hit different hitboxes, which do not flash at all!?It’s things like this that show this game came out so early in the console’s life span, that actually influence how enjoyable the gameplay is.

Sega Does

I really wish I could be more positive about this game, but unfortunately there was very little that I liked about this game. That doesn’t make it is a bad game, just that I review if negatively, if you enjoy this all the power to you! I hope and know people do like this game, which is great, everything deserves love. I did like the variety in bosses and how you have to actually use your beasts powers and some strategy to take them down. I especially like the fourth stage boss, which is like a baby dragon with a huge lava ball. It releases some firebird minions as well as big strings of fire balls and avoiding both felt like a good challenge.

The third boss and the final boss however are total pushovers I beat them first try both without taking a hit just by using cheap tactics.  The third boss is a sort of dragonhead stuck on a helix fossil with some gooey egg sack material attached to it.. and it shoots purple balls and blobs. By using the Bear’s  (that stages animal)  spin jump while on it’s body you can defeat it without any trouble.  The third stage itself though has some awkward platform jumps which can be very irritating to get trough.

In the fifth stage we see Neff finally taking his true form, that of a white Rhino. Yet in the Master System it is Cyan and in the Arcade it is pink. It always grinds my gears when pink things are such pushovers. It isn’t much harder than Rocksteady from the first TMNT game on NES. You can easily jump over it and spam damage until it dies. No skill required. However everything else on that stage deals soooo much damage, especially the dark unicorns, so getting there.. is a long arduous process of learning where things spawn and when to punch it to death.

If you miss a blue wolf on your first roulation I found it rather impossible to stay alive long enough to reach the boss. The music is the same in about every stage with fairly little sound effects other as coming from the player so I am glad the fifth stage was the final one.  We see Athena standing next to some beastmen.. in the final cutscene and then we are done.
In the fifth stage we turn into the wolf again, we turned into the first stage as well..but this time he is golden. So I guess it’s a super Wolf?!

Also why go for choices like the Dragon and the Tiger? I get the wolf and the bear as those might be found in ancient greece but why not make one where you turn into a Bull/Minotaur and one in a horseman/centaur. So much potential here goes away with bad flavoring. I barely learned anything about ancient greece because.. nothing is done with the setting at all. The cutest thing is that they have  the chicken enemy from Golden Axe as a homage.

There was so much more they could do with this formula, even for an arcade cabinet. It’s not like the greek mythos is lacking in mystical creatures or cool enemies to fight. Yet according to this game it does, which by the logic of A BIT of History .. now means that I learned that ancient greek had plenty bland video game type enemies.. which in truth I never knew!

While I have no doubt that this game was amazing in 1988 and even in 1990 this game has been surpassed left and right by just about every other beat them up out there. Turtles 2 the arcade game, Turtles in Time, Streets of Rage, Final Fight and Towers of Mystara just to name a few. Nintendo in particular has time and time again shown that this does not need to happen to games. Sega more or less in their original IP’s as well. Yet even when we consider this one in the arcade , the better version it has been surpassed by just about everything. Sure the classic mario has been improved upon but you can still enjoy the original game, this just made me want to play Turtles in Time instead. I guess Sega really does what Nintendon’t . Because Nintendon’t age this poorly.

This cocktail has been sitting here for a while.. and it has fermented which leaves a Pine-Meh-Pple taste in your mouth if you can not add enough nostalgia sugar

All other posts in this series

Part 0: What is Pinkie Doing now

Part 1: E.V.O. The Search for Eden

Part 2: Flintstones Treasure of Sierra Madrock

Part 3: Joe and Mac Caveman Ninja’s

To be REBRANDED

She just will not stop ruining our Childhood! Pinkie takes the Light Novel Title Challenge Again!

My dear island guests, I have been a busy bee lately and I had little time to prepare some posts! Luckily it is tag week which means I can now update my backlog on all sorts of tags. One of the most fun and unique ones was Dewbond’s give it a Light Novel Title Challenge and soon after I did That Random Editor nominated me for the challenge again. Well I feel creative today.. and in short supply of time so it’s time to do it again! This time I chose to ruin some of our favorite childhood shows! But this time we do it a bit differently. I will start with my Light Novel Title.. then discuss  the show and then reveal what the original title is. Can you guess them all?! Let’s play!

The Rules of the tag and the rules of my game!

Tag Rules

Choose up to five anime, manga or visual novel series that have a short title

  • Light novels that have shorter titles (Date A Live for example) are also allowed.
  • Give these series a new title based on those classic overly long Light Novels we love!
  • If someone has already picked a series you wanted. It’s ok! Let’s see your own take on the title!
  • Link back to the original post
  • Include Give it a Light Novel Title in your tags so everyone including myself can find them all easily.
  • Nominate around 1-6 bloggers.

Rules of my super fun game!

Now how do we play my guessing game it is very simple! All light novel titles will be featured in purple blocks with yellow letters. (My sunset colour scheme) After which a small paragraph of why I chose this title will follow. If you can guess the correct anime by only the purple thing you get 2 points. If you need to read the text you get 1 point and if you need the picture right before the answer you get half a point! Leave a comment telling me your score and win absolutely nothing!

Score Meaning:
0-2: Thanks for Playing
3-5: Whippersnapper
6-7: So you know your classics!
8-9: Pinkie thinks you are cool now
10-11: Messed up that third one didn’t you?
12: Virtual Head pats and Cookies for you!

Guess that Title: The Game!

That Time I became friends with an Edgelord and my Spinning Top got Possessed by a Dragon!

This show used to run on tv when I was a kid. Following the adventures of Tyson who fights for fame.. and the safety of the world by letting it rip.Along with the juvenile delinquent Kai and his phoenix, Martial Artist and cat fanboy Ray with his tiger and… well Max and his…purple turtle, Tyson has to compete along with his spirit dragon to be the best spinning top team in the world…which of course also saves the world.

This was such a fun show in the day and I watched all of the orginal series even getting a fair while along in the “spin” off series Metal Fight. Not sure if it’s an actual spin off but it’s still fun to call it that!

The Answer was: Beyblade

All of this is to sell cards?! Grandpa’s Soul got stolen by a 24 year old loon. Now the voice in my head must cheat at cards! A lot!

Promotional anime usually aren’t very good, however many card battle anime are surprisingly well done. The first season of this show (not including season 0)  is NOT really that good. There are barely any rules, there is no rhyme or reason and every single match was just a big rule of cool kind of thing. A card destroying the actual moon.. but also  a tank tunneling through mazes or swords of revealing light that hold up a castle whose floatation rings get destroyed.. so it falls down on other monsters… what?! 

Pegasus and his silver locks and majestic disposition is the antagonist of the first season. Yet did you know that that time he was only 24 years old? I’d always imagine him way older. How can he call the protagonist and the deuteragonist boys when he still is one himself? Regardless. .. fun anime but i call hax!

The Answer Was: Yu-Gi-Oh!

Why is that Referee everywhere? Our Storekeeper is A Master thief!  He lost this medal and made me a robot-battler!

Ah more memories. The adventures of Ikki Tenryou fascinated me when I was kind of to old to be fascinated by it. Along with his trusty robot pal this battle of the week kids show brought so much joy to my world! Each episode we saw another opponent which often included dudes dressed up in skin tight latex suit with a big horn on their head. I am pretty sure one of them was a baby!

Unfortunately this show was dropped by dutch tv before I ever could finish it. It was dropped 6 episodes into the new series with a new villain and a different kind of robots! I have since finished this show but this was one of the few shows that actually had a very solid dutch dub!
At least the dutch people pronounced Erica like it should and not go for that weird E’Ry’Kah stuff. She isn’t an elf you know!

The Answer Was Medabots!

I didn’t wish for this! My best friend got blown up and in anger .. I became an Aryan man.

Now this show was well on it’s way before the titular event happened and while I do not think this show had any ill intentions in it’s message .. I live to ruin your childhood.  In this show we see a dark haired character we all know and love transform into a character with blond hair and blue eyes. Even referring to this state as ..surpassing that of his regular  standing. “Super People” as of sort. So there at least enough similarities to damage your childhood.

In reality famous mangaka Akira Toriyama made this form a reality because it took him to much time to colour in the protagonists hair. He got tired of doing that.. so he came up with a transformation of sorts that allowed him to leave the characters hair blank and he would just have to do the outline. It’s a practical effect that would have made the last part of the story so much easier to draw. As originally Planet Namek was supposed to conclude the series. Of course e wall know more would follow so that blonde hair really turned into a time saver. Especially when the hairdo’s got bigger!

The Answer Was : Dragon Ball Z

That’s not a Jelly Filled Donut : My ten year old son got a mouse to travel the world with! Now the mafia is hunting him down!

Ah even more childhood memories ruined. In this anime set in a wonderful world each ten year old gets either a frog, a turtle a lizard a baby fox or in this case a mouse before they are exiled from their homes trying to win a tournament.. tournament that mostly hold contenders that are twice their age.  Sometimes they are even younger?! Of course it is dangerous to walk through a world filled with monsters all by yourself.. so take this!

So our protagonist is awarded with his first battle pet that turns out to be so strong a criminal organisation that shows a lot of similarities with the Mafia is hunting him down to gain that creature.  This same organisation tries to use a clone of the “ancestor creature” to rule the world. The adventure would kill the protagonist several times (currently around 8) and most seasons do not get a very happy ending! 

The Answer Was : Pokémon

Bonus (Not an actual anime)

I AM READY! This Burger Chef is such a square! His Aquatic Adventures are F.U.N!

F is for friends who do stuff together.
U is for U and me!
N is for Nywhere and Nytime at all 

Downhere in the deep blue sea! 

Should you for any reason have failed to gather points this one should basicly give you some for free.

The Answer was: Spongebob Squarepants

My nominees

Mallow
Geek Girl Joy
Anime as a Cup of Tea
Iniksbane
As Told By Carly

How many points did you get? Do you want to be nominated yourself to give this one a go? Feel free to poke me and I will add you and we all pretend like I nominated you in the first place! I do this because I love you all and remember to keep smiling!
Stay Positive

XO

Pinkie

Top 5: SNES Tunes

I love  me some retro video games and even though I don’t really like  music I do like my video game music. When I originally did did the Top 5 NES Tunes post I had a clear idea on which ones to pick. With this Top 5 I had a hard time though. There are so many good songs. So I kinda resolved to cheating.While I have made a top 5 of pieces of music which I will tell you about, I will also give you an alternative rom the same game or series.  Basically this is both a top 5 of SNES tunes as well as it is a Top 5 soundtracks. I made sure not to pick just the most iconic songs as well otherwise would just keep ending up with main themes. Which oftenly carries over consoles. I made this top 5 based on how much they impacted me and will consist out of a bit of everything.

SNES Tune Number 5 :Mega Man X – Central Highway

While this game is mostly hailed for the theme to Spark Mandrill’s stage, which is my honourable mention  for this pick, I would have to rule in favor of the Intro Stage. While Mega Man 2’s Wiley castle had the best boss music, I feel that Mega Man X had one of the most epic , badass introduction stages ever. It sold everything that Mega Man X was about , and how X differed from the original Mega. When X charges his blasters,  it seems to harmonise with this stage. The way explosions and the sound effects blend in this stage music. Mega Man X has a lot more story to tell, it’s the first time the blue bomber had a real story throughout. It felt darker and more mature, themes of betrayal and an added dash of cyber punk. Central Highway makes this very clear from the get go. There’s high stakes in this one.  There is no light hearted stages, this is Megaman X, it’s a hard game, but the pace is also a lot faster than your used to, so you better get good! Better so you can rival your pal Zero and defeat Sigma. It’s all there. In a way it’s fitting that one of the best opening stage themes of all times opens this list. It’s a weird thing how this song is on the bottom of my list because it’s almost too fitting, it’s such a good match that I never felt surprised it just felt right! Yet these other tracks went even above.

Honorable Mention : Spark Mandrill Stage

SNES tune Number 4: Final Fantasy III/VI : Aria di Mezzo Carattere


Final Fantasy IV is  with some distance my favorite final fantasy game. The story, the locations, the journey, it was all so amazing. To no-one’s surprise the music of the game is amazing. While Terra’s theme, which is my honorable mention might be my favorite track of the game, arguable Aria di Mezzo Carattere is even better. In Final Fantasy VI you visit and participate in the opera and never had I seen anything like that. The complexity of this song is unsurpassed. The way the music gets bigger as the song progresses, shifts tone several times it feels so well thought out. The way it reflects not only the story of Draco and Mario, the main characters of the musical, but also the journey of Celes, the character whom you play as during the musical scene. This song is deep , it came unexpected and it’s unlike other SNES tunes.  When I attended the dissonant worlds concert and heard it performed by real opera voices for the very first time I was blown away. Somehow hearing it live did not make me thing… so that’s how it would sound when sung in real life. The 16 bit version somehow sold that to me already. In the theater I could just close my eyes, smile and nod! Yes that’s right! This takes me back, as if I was listening to the original rendition.
Also the foundations of Aerith’s theme may come from those opening notes.

Honorable mention: Terra’s theme

SNES Tune Number 3 : Tutrles in Time -Sewer Surfin

This one might be a bit of a cheat song. It featured in the arcade first after all. Yet as a Turtle fan, I simply could not ignore the best song from the best turtle game. And Since I am already cheating, no honorable mention for this one! Instead a super special remix awaits you that I absolutely adore. When I was little I would never be able to go to the arcade, mostly because we didn’t have any close by but also because I would be bullied off. Since I was a wimpy kid even for girl I could really dig the games where I felt bad-ass for a while and nothing was as badass as the Ninja turtles. Not only where you a ninja badass, you were also super cool. The Sewer Surfin Stage was the coolest video game stage a six or seven year old could wish for. Not only were we doing ninja stuff we were also surfing , dodging traps and hurting our feet! We looked so cool! Taking down robots and aliens like it was nothing only to face of with the dreadful rat king at the end.  The music of this stage was breezy , energetic and just good old fun. It sets the pace for the level and it totally feels Ninja turtles. Some of the notes of the turtles main theme are even snuck in there for good measure. This piece of music understood very well it’s a turtles song. While the evil looking aliens and deadly hazards in this stage might require something with more gravitas in this game it fits because it’s just ninja turtles and it leaves you hungry for more. Now I am hungry as well I guess tonight I will dine on turtle soup… and for some reason I also really feel like tacos!

Snes Tune Number 2: Donkey Kong Country – Gang Plank Galleon

While to me there was no doubt that Donkey Kong Country would make this list , I had such a hard time to pick out the song I liked best. Aquatic Ambiance just  got bumped of the list and my honorable mention is going to have to be Stickerbrush Symphony from Donkey Kong Country 2. It’s just so serene and ..kinda like Aquatic Ambience.. but less overplayed I guess so yes I stick by my choice. My favorite track is Gang-Plank Galleon though. the final boss fight theme. It starts out with a simple sea shanty that feels kinda underwhelming. But when King K Rool the pirate king comes running at you. After I took down the king the subtitles appeared and I was cheering and trampling in my little plastic chair with joy. I found it a funny joke that they made the credits to be all Kremlins so I giggled as I trampled a bit as the music began to swell. The End appeared… with a question mark….huh! The soundtrack then got rudely  interrupted by me losing a life.

‘NAAAAANIII!!!’ Little me did not comprehend what had happened my childlike brain to small to get it. The second time around I was ready and i realised the real boss battle had just begun. This was amazing! I buckled down.. and game-overed. This song tricked me, it taught me to be suspicious, that music could give clues on games. It made me a better gamer and that’s why it should be on this list.

Honorable Mention: Stickerbush Symphony

SNES Tune Number 1: Chrono Trigger – Frog’s Theme

Ducktales is one of the contenders of my best video games ever, but Chrono Trigger is a serious contender. I finished this game so many times on so many different platforms. I am pretty sure I got all the endings at least once,  Most of the time I eat the cake…it’s a good looking cake.. and it doesn’t matter inthe end anyway so I ‘d be a fool not to eat it. While Chrono’s theme is obviously the most epic song that really fits the theme of time travel, I really prefer the theme of my man Frog. I love how epic this song begins and how heroic it sounds, as a symbol for your journey. Then it becomes something so tiny and cute, yet still so brave. Just like you are a bunch of kids, a silly robot and a frog on an adventure. Yet it is also the perfect music for you as a gamer. When we first played this we were but a tiny kid. Never did we take on such an epic adventure, sure we have saved princesses before , gathered 4 crystals of the elements.  Never have we saved multiple times or timelines before! Never had we played a game with so many possible endings. Not only did this song emote the journey of frog it connected us as the player to the characters. We were all in this together. Just a bunch of kids on an adventure together in way over their heads. We grew together we fought together and we even cried together. When they played Frog’s theme at that Distant Worlds concert I went misty eyed. Thinking about those wonderful friends I made on that journey and each time I hear it I want to play the game again and that makes it a perfect game tune.

Honorable Mention: Chrono’s Theme

Classic Review: Pokémon Snap

Yay it’s finally saturday, which means I can finally come out to play! The others Pinkie’s might be bigger than me and have like important jobs and such …but just because I am just a chibi doesn’t mean you can think little of me! I am the Pinkie that discusses like the actual fun of playing like the games or who plays with the toys and the likes. Today I decided a classic Pokémon game a lot of people seem to like! My Pokémon Fun the Mime Jr will play it along side of me! Even if this is a single player game! Today me and Fun wil play Pokémon Snap on Nintendo 64.

The concept

Uhm even though I find this a bit of a difficult word, the main Pinkie told me I should talk  about what’s the game about here so here goes! This game is like a 3d on rail shooter… but like not one of those mean ones where you kill people or monsters while a lot of angry music blasts through your speakers.In this game you shoot, with a roll of film… well quite a few a rolls actually.  You play the role of Todd “Gimme any name’ Snap. A photographer that one his adventures once encountered a Mew but Mr Snap failed to snap it on camera. Luckily after he is tired of the Pokédex and Red, Oak calls Todd to investigate a mysterious place called Pokémon Island. On this Island Mew is to roam and it’s up to our generic looking hero to succeed where he failed before. Generic looking as he may be, he has a nice short! Gotta love the colour. Poké-Island is pretty rough terrain for a hike though, so luckily professor Oak shows us his skill in engineering as he made an all  terrain vehicle named the Zero-One… and I mean ALL-Terrain. Mr Snap can take this yellow basket looking vehicle thing out to seven stages that unlock as you complete puzzles or score enough points. Yes points, rather than paying the young photographer in cash, professor Oak hands him points based on how good your photograph is. Earn enough points and you will get new tools and sometimes stages. Solving puzzles with these tools will allow you to snap new pokémon or progress in the game even further. It is a nice idea that is executed quite well and some puzzles are very clever, but more on that later. A lot of people are still hoping for a sequel and given how far the pokémon world has progressed  it could make for a nice beefy and mostly relaxing game! This one really misses out on the beefy part.

The Atmosphere

Professor Pinkie told me, I should tell how a game looks, sounds and feels on this spot. So I think, this is what Pokémon Snap does best! It looks super cute! The pokémon are very recognisable and are lively, they do their own thing and if you bonk them with an apple or pester ball on the head they react to it in a funny way! The best thing is, Pokémon have their anime cries. That means every single pokémon states their name or a part of it. Jigglypuff sings it’s iconic song if you save it in a cave, Pikachu is full of Pika-Pika’s and shellder pop out of the water with their cute..yet somehow annoying shell, cry. The 7 stages are very diverse and though they are short they are filled with fun things and easter eggs. Like a surfboard for Pikachu or zelda like walls. Of course this is a game of 19 years ago and yes you will spot it, but the way they move and flow around, it really doesn’t feel that old. The fact that this thing is on rails instead of a massive stretch of land might really help with that. The Pokémon theming is done very VERY well. Originally this game would be launched as Jack and the Beanstalk for something called the Nintendo 64DD , which was supposed to be like an extension or something, but with that falling through Pokémon Snap was born.  Normally when a game originally is something else you really notice it. Think Super Mario Land 2 for example. You can easily tell it was Doki Doki Panic first, well not the title of course.. but you can tell it used to be a NOT mario game. Snap can let you lure a slowpoke to a shellder infested river so it can evolve, you can see meowth being mischievous and you can see Snorlax sleeping peacefully. Everything FEELS like pokémon. They look like Pokémon and sound like Pokémon as well. Graveler looks kinda bad though!

Except for Graveler not being as sleekly designed as he could be, the only complaint I have is how boring the non pokémon stuff is. The nature in stages are fine.. but the items and technology thingies are bland and seem to not contribute anything. Todd is blander than Pidgey and never gets anything going for him. The Zero-One.. though practical.. is just a basket on wheels and doesn’t really seem like the best thing to send on this adventure. That loading screen where Oak waves at the Snap kid makes them both look terrible. However this is kind of a nitpick, cause you only see those elements at the beginning and ending of a stage. The stages themselves like the pokémon are wonderful and varied.

Technical Thingies

So how is the game build? Did the makers do their jobs well?  Does it control well? I really liked the easy controls myself, even though that Nintendo 64 controller  kinda looks like an evil spaceship thingy that can easily cripple you. The biggest problem with Pokémon Snap’s  control on the original system actually is Mario Party. I played a lot of Mario Party on my N64 so all my controllers are a bit..wonky because of certain spin the analogue stick mini games. This gave me some issues while playing this, but for the most time it worked well.  Controls are fairly decently chosen , though I personally would have preferred all items to work from the C pad, like Zelda instead of just one. That being said the apple and the pester ball are a lot more frequent so I get why this was chosen still as soon as you unlock everything it kinda feels odd. Except for some pop up here and there, the game feels quite smooth actually. The main part of the game , shooting pictures works wonders! I like the Z button for photograph mode controls. It is easy to take cute snaps, and easy to send them to the professor. Everything flows. .. except for the throwing.  Throwing apples and pester balls onto pokémon reacts way to specifically. There is no auto-aim whats so ever so be prepared to toss a gazillion apples. Hitboxes can be weird at times and sometimes you knock a pokémon back with a pester ball but sometimes you need an apple for that same job. The balls are filled with some annoying gaslike thing so it would make sense to for it to have an extended hitbox..but no to pester a pokemon you gotta hit it flat on the head. Aside from tossing the technical side is solid as a rock-type though.

The gameplay

Many people adore this game and in the general review scene it would score between a 7,5 and 8,5 out of 10. There is one magazine that has a really weird point score that goes up to 40 and I think they got 30 or so there. Though I had amazing fun playing this game.. I am more in line with the review people as the general public.  This game is not a timeless classic. It’s a snack that is great fun. Though it is great fun to take all the snapshots, the fact that it doesn’t feature all 151 original pokémon is understandable, yet 63 feels like such an odd number as well, especially how easy it is to get them. While progressing to mew, I discovered 54 species without any trouble.  In part because of the gameplay in my eyes biggest flaws. Pictures professor Oak disapproves off still count towards your “Pokédex’
You can litteralty shoot the foot of Kangaskhan in the first stage and it will still be logged towards your completion process. Though your point count helps unlock items, like the Pokéflute, making bad photos still counts, just very slowly. It takes away some of the magic of the game. Puzzles however are positively interesting. There are spots where pokémon can evolve if you interact with it in a specific way. Knock that charmeleon into a lava pit with an apple and bam you have charizard.  Toss an item at Electrode and it will self destruct, which might unlock new secrets, bait a Slowpoke to a shellder pool and congratulations that Slowpoke evolves into a Slowbro! These are fun and oftenly quite clever. Puzzles that you need to complete are nicely telegraphed to the player without it being in your face obvious on your first run either, you really need to look around! These are even fun for non-pokémon players. The only one that might not work for a non Poké-player would be the Slowbro one because the evolution lore is never conveyed to the player. Maybe the diglett you have to snap three times as well.  All the other puzzles are something the game can communicate to you and you find out by playing around with your items and pokemon. Progression is possible for everyone and the game knows what it is doing and relays the needed information to it’s players.

Unfortunately all that cleverness is thrown out the window for the final encounter. The way you snap Mew is so dumb that it aggravates me.  Once you enter the rainbow cloud you see Mew in a barrier that lights up once you photograph it, ensuring it will not be seen. You solve this by tossing apples onto it’s barrier until they break it.  The Pokémon that created all Pokémon life, who has the power to learn every more, shoot fire that can melt through mountains, that inspired the ultimate weapon Pokémon.. which was basically just a clone.. can be stopped by six apples.  How cool would it have been if we could use everything we learned so far to break it’s barrier. Knock a zubat out of the sky with an apple so it heals it.. losing energy to his barrier, then wake up a pokémon with the flute while we see Mew losing some energy playing with it. Using the dash engine to ram into the barrier while it gets closer and the likes.  Or keep it even cuter. Feed a pokémon with an apple, save a pokemon being bullied with a pester ball, wake a sleeping mother pokemon so she can take care of her kids and eventually Mew sees you love pokémon and reveals itself. Instead we really do get in my opinion of of the worst final stages in gaming history! Meany developers this could have ended so amazing.


I would not have minded the final stage so much if the road towards it was nice and beefy, but you can finish this game  very easily. Within 3 to 6 hours you can beat this game if you can keep your eyes peeled, maybe a bit more if you don’t have the logic sense of a gamer. Speedrunners are even able to 100% complete this game in 24 minutes. That time gap is mostly due to the second gameplay element that can feel a bit iffy, the photo ratings.
At the end of each stage Professor Oak will give you an evaluation of your Pokémon. Size, Pose and is it in the middle of the camera.  That last one works perfectly. The other two are sometimes a bit hard to find out what oak exactly likes to see. A pokémon doing an attack will always give you good points but not every pokémon does that. Sometimes the pose is connected to a seemingly random set of frames. I managed to capture a dragonite during my run and it popped out with a huge smile on it’s face and the moment I snapped it it looked exactly like it was giving me a thumbs up. It was the cutest photo I took during those 3  and a bit hours and Oak didn’t like it all that much! Waaaaaaah! My favorite photograph!
The ratings can make the game feel a bit more static, but if you are just out here to be driven around in the cart and snap Pokémon it’s nothing too bad. It just can break your heart a little of that greyed fool baka meany professor doesn’t like that one truly amazing photograph.

Score

I truly loved replaying this game, I had an amazing time while playing it. Yet though I love spending time with this game, I do not necessarily love the game.  It is definitely worth picking up for an evening when you just want to relax and it ages amazingly well. It doesn’t feel all that retro, in a way it still feels like a modern game. It feels like one of those 20 dollar games you buy on steam these days, you know it’s short but it’s great while it lasts and it’s flaws are easily ignorable for how long the game lasts.  The game feels like it was made for “one evening’ and one might argue we should judge it as such. But I am not going to do that. It feels wrong. It feels like saying you love a hooker as much as a wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend . Simply because  the one may satisfy you fully that one time doesn’t mean she is 100% satisfactory! Pokémon Snap is an enjoyable ride but it is not something you will come back to each night.  It might not it’s intention to last for longer but if we go compare it to a life partner, those can still be fun for that one particular night as well as an entire life. That is why I mark Snap one grade own!

<\ I really need to talk to this girl about her analogies ‘Pinkie Prime>

I am absolutely eager to see a sequel game  someday with hopefully just a bit more flesh on it’s bones and a better final encounter.Until then snacking this will have to do!  Have you ever played Snap? What monster did snap on camera last? Next week you will find me shouting at a pikachu but remember:
I am not weird, just very pink!
Until we read again.