Tag: Review

An Aquatic Adventure that does not make a Splash: Aquaman

Hear Ye Hear Ye, Princess Pinkie has returned with another movie post.

Salutations my loyal subjects and sweet Island Guests.  There is this age old question when it comes down to the comics. Marvel or DC. I myself always find myself a bit torn between them, which is great actually as they suit different moods. In marvel I mostly read the lighter stuff like Gwenpool and some Spiderman. In the DC universe I am usually drawn to the big stories and the narratives where everyone ends up dying. Yet when it comes to the movies, I am never in conflict. The DC movies can not hold a candle against the Marvel ones. The water based one.. is not all that different.

Rough Waters

Aquaman was released to the silver screen in 2018 and was directed by James Wan. With a 6.9 score on IMDB and a Metacritic fan score, this is one of the better received DC movies. It sees Jason Momoa return after Justice League to play the titular character. Supported by Amber Heard, William Dafoe, Nicole Kidman and Patrick Wilson. Critics rated the movies with about a 5.5 out of 10 and this time I am very much on board with the critics and less so with the audience, because while this movie does provide a lot of entertainment, there is also a heck of a lot about this movie that grinded my gears. As a Princess my gears should never be grinded! 

I have a chemical dislike for Amber Heard, that even predates the whole Johnny Depp debacle. Ever since I saw her in Drive Angry… I just felt that this would be a person I dislike with all my heart.  This happened only twice in my life before. Once to a classmate.. whom we shall call Archibald and once with a dutch celebrity that I could just not stomach. I knew Archibald was a good guy, he had humor and was witty…but somehow everything in my body told me to dislike him. I knew better and I managed to not be hateful to him.. but I would never be able to go past that.  Amber Heard invokes the same reactions. There is just this thing.. the way she looks out of her eyes, for some weird way the way she “carries” herself.. makes me genuinely dislike her for no reason at all.. it is just my entire body and brain telling me to dislike her. I won’t judge the movie for having Amber Heard in it to hard.. but I thought it would at least be honest of me to tell. 

The biggest issue however is not Amber Heard, it’s James Wan’s direction. This movie at least to me seems to lack a style. The best way to compare this is by saying it felt like as if I was watching Thor Dark World and Thor Ragnerok spliced together.  That doesn’t match. The DC cinematic universe so far has been fairly raw and gritty and this is more like.. an actual comic book movie…at times. It is a style that is a lot more entertaining, but it feels really shoehorned in at some places. Jokes are used at very strange times and feel like the script said “insert joke here”  rather than it being an actually funny joke. As a result of the clashing tones and some hollywood shenanigans I never got sucked into this movie. It felt like I was reading a comic. A comic in a style I would normally rather read marvel for.

Angler Fish

The movie is visually very pleasing. The set locations are fantastic and very imaginative, and to be fair the comics of Aquaman are a lot more whimsical as Jason Momoa’s first portrayal and this movie kind of fixes that. The adventure Aquaman goes on feels like a typical and classic D&D style adventure and has plenty of fun “side quests”  so  once again , as an entertainment product .. this isn’t so bad.  It offers a fun little romp with fun characters and in some cases unique ways of fighting.  There are some stunning visuals and some creative designs that feel more comic book loyal than anything else we have seen from DC (and in most cases Marvel)  so far.  So there is plenty of fun to be had with this movie… but I would like to compare it to you having a cool lego build set.. like a Lego Death Star, or maybe one of those pyramids filled with traps. Now you build it together with a kid… and while the build is fun.. at the end you can REALLY tell a kid helped you.. you used all the blocks but you can tell things are JUST a bit off. 

Take Atlantis for example. This plays a major part in the movie and the visuals we get of it are stunning…but they are all empty. Nothing we see is ever used except for a Turret.   We see technology like Manta Ray elevators or highly advanced tunnels.. but it doesn’t do anything. It just sits there for characters to travel through and after we seen a trip going forward and a trip escaping we never see the visuals again.  After that Atlantis is shown from an interior perspective only.  A shot from outside the castle could have done wonders. Take Asgard for example.. that is used rather well.  The Bifrost is in use, we see shots of Odin’s castle and we get some sense of purpose in the city…still not great but already better than this. Black Panther is the best example. Every visual they use.. had purpose. The iconography, the buildings had purpose, the palace was shown both inside and out it never felt as set dressing.  Aquaman does a lot just to look pretty.

Take for example the ring of fire.  Aquaman meets his evil brother inside a glowing tile/small arena like ring then that room is just used to swim up into the real arena. Which is a big chasm with magma at the bottom. The magma is used for a bit in combat, as one would think would be the case in a Ring of Fire.. but once Orm (the bad guy) stops centimeters away from it and swims up again.. it is not used again.. we then get a trident duel, which then seems to have been the point always?! First of all.. if hanging a centimeter above magma doesn’t hurt you then why would Magma itself hurt you .. but okay comic book logic, but why would Aquaman abandon the fighting style that resulted him in almost winning two times and revert to fighting something he is disadvantaged in. Now they battle on some statue or ruins or such… a new visual but this ruin style is never used again or is seen back in the design of current Atlantis!

To me the visuals constantly feel like I am being baited into believing this movie is more epic than it really is. At one point Amber Heard’s character Mera and Aquaman go to the realm of the desert Atlanteans.  People who sunk into the sand rather than the water.  Aquaman falls into a hole and gets to go down one of those classic slides into an underground lair. They nearly fall into an impressive chasm but Arthur (Aquaman’s people name)   rescues Mera in the nick of time. Before that they were stuck in the desert with no water and no supplies because Mera randomly jumped out of a plane…which is cool and all.. but if you are stuck in the desert with no water, then fall several dozens of meters or easily a hundred feet underground through a slip and slide… how do they do they get back up.. how do they overcome this impressive visual spectacle?! By a camera cut of course.. Once they concluded their business we just cut away and moved to them arriving at the next.. stunning location.

Release the Kraken

Aquaman’s journey takes a herculean style narrative, where in order to become the king of Atlantis he has to overcome a certain amount of trials. Even when he doesn’t want to be king yet the story feels quit segmented, which is both a good and a bad thing. It really makes this movie super easy to follow and it gives these classic treasure hunter vibes.  In many ways this movie is  structured more like an Indiana Jones movie than a comic book movie and that means it does stand out from it’s peers. Yet it also makes the movie feel really “blocky”with soooo many enemies. It kind of gets a bit of a Power Ranger feeling. 

The first enemy is some random pirates, who are easily defeated.. but Arthur shows he is not worthy to be king yet by condemning a villian to his death.   Then he is defeated by the big villain showing the man exactly how not ready he is. Next block he is out traveling with a girl whom he does not seem very compatible with.. she is quite the Tsundere but slowly begins to warm up to him, next block pits him against the pirate whose dad he let die earlier, having to face the consequences of his actions, before being faced with a bunch of mercenaries, then a bunch of feral people who just want to eat him and he has to show humility by just running away.   Next he has to face a creature that can only be defeated by showing it how much he has grown on this journey before coming face to face with his brother showing he now has the whole package and doing a role reversal with his brother. It  all gels together..but it kinda feels a bit “build a bear” ish. Sure you made a movie..but did you really write a story?

I never saw this movie before and right after the desert scene I began to predict scene after scene after scene. Not just scenes but entire strings of dialogue. Not to the letter but the gist of it.  “So this is where we see that character”  .. the Dark Kraken like creature asks him why he is worthy he will say “I am not”  and that’s why the Kraken thing says he is.  The final battle will end in him sparing a villain because of how the earlier scenes have set this up.  It all is done very well.. but it is also done very unimaginatively. I know there are plenty of people who do not mind but I really hate it when I have seen a movie even I haven’t actually seen it before.  On the one hand the movie is kinda good… but it feels as if someone opened a stock script and added a lot of water to it. 

The Final battle doesn’t make a lot of sense either, it once again is very stunning visually but King Orm wants to fight some Volcano based crustation creatures because if he defeats them he can be called “Ocean Master” as he has command of all the armies of the sea.. and  their leader gives him his army.. but refuses to follow the man himself.. so they end up fighting anyway?! Also one race of more fish like creatures also had their king slain by Orm and now they blindly follow him in battle in the fear of being destroyed themselves otherwise.. but apparently their army is so strong they are needed to defeat the crustaceans..so why would they not betray Orm their and side with the “Scorched” against this tyrant.. if he needs that army to win, he would certainly lose if it turns against him. Also Aquaman just has the Kraken thing living on the other side of the world erupt out of the ground  with him on it and now also commanding those evil fish things because he has a spear that makes him the official ruler of the sea.  He sits on top of the multiple story high creature yet the entire atlantean army fails to notice  he has the spear.   Maybe he is too far away.. but  they mass attack the Kraken thing.. so it just doesn’t feel right to me.

This also applies to the final showdown between Aquaman and Orm, Orm is a strategist, everything he did , he did from a strategic angle, why would he now forsake that and fight against Aquaman at a clear disadvantage… the answer of course is that Aquaman can use a technique that looks very visually spectacular to win the fight. This is throughout EVERYTHING a movie that relies on it’s visual spectacle, where the narrative, the dialogue and even character motivations bend to enable spectacle. The Pirate who becomes black Mantha knows NOTHING of Atlanten technology yet he completely manages to customise plasma rifle into a big ass helmet that has eye beams.  His revenge against Aquaman is very personal yet he decides to use an alter-ego name to do it.  Aquaman in the end learns a technique he never could do.. just because it looks cool and I don’t really like that.. this movie has the right elements.. but it got it’s priorities wrong. 

Was I entertained? Yes!  Did I watch my clock a lot during the 2,5 hours this movie lasted? Enough to know I am not fully sucked in, I did not feel the need to turn it off though.. it’s kinda like staring at a superficially hot girl with no personality. Do I think you should see the movie if you haven’t?! Yes…but not because it’s a good movie but because the fights have this anime quality to it and to be honest it just looks really cool. For something about oceans.. this movie is very shallow! But if you just want to find something cool.. shallow will be enough! Tricky! What did you think of this movie?! Let me know … or not.. but no matter what you do! Stay random!

Cherry’s first dish(It’s actually a game Review!)

Hello everyone! Your new Chef has arrived! As Pinkie already explained, I’m Cherry and will be doing some posts from now on as well as part of the team here on the resort! I’m a little bad at thinking where to start, so I will just get right into it! I love playing games, and I also love cooking! I do quite a lot of cooking my home life and usually try to do my own recipes, so a combination of both gaming and cooking seems like perfect for me. And it mostly is! Lately I have been playing one game in particular, and it is what I will be giving a brief overview of today, so without further ado, here is Chef: A Restaurant Tycoon!

Game Introduction

So! Chef is a Restaurant management/cooking simulator game currently available on Steam! It game out of early access in 2020 and recently had its first expansion(which adds in a bunch of new features primarily focused on Eastern Asia Cuisine).

The premise for the game is pretty simple, you are a chef and you run and manage a restaurant, the rest is up to you! It is a very free game in terms of options. The end-goal is up to you, as is what kind of restaurant and food you wish to be playing with. For some players, the goal might simply be to run a single seafood restaurant. For others, it could be to have a large burger franchise with several restaurants. All of this is available to do!

The character creation

Getting Started

So first things first. After you get past the main menu, the first screen you will see is the character creation! Here you decide how your chef will look. You have a few options, first being body(This is where clothing is. You got a variety of clothing outfits/styles for both a more masculine & femining body, but no specific gender lock thing!) Secondly, you pick a headshape and then a hairstyle. As a finish touch you can then change your chef expression as well as colour for the various things!

Once you feel happy with your Chef, you get to pick a difficulty option. These come in 4 categories: Normal, Hardcore, Relaxed & Sandboxed. Normal is how it sounds, it’s the game with the original settings. Hardcore is more of a challenge run, stakes will be higher and it will be more difficult to manage the resturant.

Relaxed mode is a lighter version of normal. The pace is slowed down, the difficulty curve is a bit easier, allowing you more freedom to pick and play exactly how you want. Finally Sandbox is more of Relaxed. Atop of having easier settings, you start with near infinite money, and enough skill points to create whatever kind of resturant you want from scratch. Otherwise you need to gradually progress to get exactly what you want.

In my personal opinion, I would say that I greatly prefer Sandbox or Relaxed mode. While I really enjoy the game and think it has alot of creativity and fun, the normal difficulty can sometime feel a bit stressful and straining. You get more or less forced to try and minmax various stats for the most optimal way to make money. But if that is what you are into, then go for normal. It’s still fun!

Pick a location!

Next on the list is to actually pick where you want to have your first resturant! You are taken to a pretty large map(Which is randomly generated each new game). You have a variety of districts to choose from. For example, do you want to have your resturant in a factory area, towncenter, out on the countryside and so on. This will determine some things such as price of rent, how many people will come to your resturant and what types of people(As seen on the right of the picture!)

Each district has a few choices of a resturant themselves, which can be varying in size of both the kitchen and dining area. The resturants can also have small traits that will affect customers and rent. A resturant that is in a dangerous neighbourhood will have lower rent, but the richer customers will refuse to come there, for example.

The restaurant layout!

Running a restaurant

Once you have locked in your pick of resturant, you will be taken to the beautiful image above, specifically your resturant! This is the main layout of the game and where you will be spending most of your time. While I will give a rough explaination of all of the options, I only have two deep-dives left to do however(With pictures).

At the top right corner of the screen you can set the name of your resturant. This has no gameplay effects and can be changed at any time you feel like! Below that is a small panel showing some customer statistics. In order from left to right they are: Customers waiting to be seated, customers waiting to order, customers waiting for food, customers eating, customers waiting to pay, and amount of customers who ran out and didn’t pay/just left.

On the right side is your crew management, and here is where you will see your staff and how they are doing. You can also set them to do different tasks here.

And now for the menus! Going from left to right I will explain a bit what each one does before focusing on the two big ones later as a final touch!

So first, starting with the chef’s hat icon is the Skill Panel! Here is where you see the skill level of your Chef and your crew. As you do activities like cooking or serving customers, your characters will level up. You can then spend points to increase their performance or unlock new options. For your main chef, this for example lets you unlock new recipe templates for the recipe creator, which we talk about later!

Next up is the decorations panel. Here are the options for building up your resturant! You have options to change the colours of the exterior and interior, this doesn’t do much other than look nice! The actual decorations, such as tables and wall-art, clocks, shelves and so on, all affect what type of customers will want to come to your resturant! They add to a specific type of atmosphere(examples being Rustic, Modern, Fancy, Cheap). Finally, you also buy your kitchen appliances here, which determines stats for your cooking. In order to fry food for example, you need a fryer. You can add in a microwave to make food cook faster, but lose quality. Fridge to reduce ingredients costs, and so on!

Following the decorations is the staff manager! It’s here you go to hire new staff. Currently there are two types of staff available,waiter and chef. You can also use different ways to seek out more high quality staff by either just asking people on the street, put out ads or hire a recruiting agency.

Menu is next on the line! Here is where you set up your resturant menu with what is available as well as prices. What type of food you got, as well as how much variety and options will all affect your customers. When you unlock new ingredients you also get pre-created food which you can’t edit, so if you don’t feel like creating your own recipes, there will always be things to serve as you progress! The menu offers alot of options, as you can set up the following: Apetiziers, Main Dish, Soups, Salad, Side Dish, Dessert and drinks! Delicious! As a final note on the menu as well, it is here you go to edit recipes you created yourself.

Next up is the Recipe Editor! Here you will create your own custom recipes, which I will go into more detail later, so for now I leave it as it is and move on to the next option!

The next menu is a bit smaller, and simply details your types of customers you are getting and some customer statistics, not alot to say there! It can help you if you are trying to pinpoint a specific customer base, as it will tell you what your customers tends to order, what they like and so on!

After the customer menu is the ingredients panel, which I will cover with the recipe editor!

Next up is the Chef Advisor! It is basically a built in Yelp/Review site for the game. Your previous customers will sometimes rate your resturant with stars and leave reviews. Some can be helpful, others just really stupid. But it’s always good to pay attention to what they are rating as they can rate everything from staff, speed, food and how the resturant looks! The more stars you get on Chef Advisor increases the amount of people coming your resturant!

After the Chef Advisor comes decisions. At the beginning you can’t do that much here, but you still have a few options. On the decision panel you can set staff wages as well as cleaning routines for the resturant. You can also gradually start to unlock different types of advertising. From billboards to blogs to commercials and so on. You will also be able to buy new furniture options, and eventually, set up mulitple resturants! All of these bigger options though, costs influence. Influence is the measurement of your larger success. As your resturant climbs in popularity, you also gain influence, which allows you to do bigger decisions and begin the path from a small diner to a large, five-star resturant chain!

Next is the city map. It will take you back to the screen at the beginning of the game and lets you choose new locations for your resturant(if you wish to move), or if you want to open up a second one!

Following that comes the financial menu, where you can see more details about your costs and income. It is a good way to determie if you need to lower any decisions or change your prices!

The calendar is the next one! It shows you information about dates. You have twelve months, and 4 days every month. Each day represents a full week. During some months there are special events, like christmas for example, that can change how many people come by your resturant!

The last two menus are not very much to talk about, as they are just more information about the resturant/and a secondary rating/Chef advisor, just without the details. So with those out of the way, let’s go into the ingredients and recipe editor as the final parts of this lengthy article!

The vegetable section of the ingredients panel!

So this is the ingredients panel, and it is huge! If you can think of a type of food ingredient, it is probably in here! The ingredients come in sections of Vegetables, carbs, meat, seafood, nuts, fruits, milk products, drinks, spices and so on! There is quite alot of it.
When you start a new game you begin with 10 ingredient points(510 if you play sandbox), which you can use to buy ingredients. As you unlock ingredients, you get more options to add to your recipes as well as pre-created recipes on the menu depending on what you unlock. You earn ingredients points by cooking your custom made recipes!

Each recipe also comes in 3 levels of quality. Silver, gold, platinum/purple. The more higher-ranked ingredients you use, the better the food quality, but the cost of preparing the food is also higher. I really like this system simply because it has so many options!

The main menu for the recipe editor!

Fun with Recipes

Finally, we have now reached the recipe editor, the highlight of this game! Here you have the option to create your own recipes using a basic template! As you first enter the recipe editor, you are greeted with the option to pick what type of dish you want to create, based on the template. Do you want to make a pie, a sandwich, a soup and so on. Once you have picked that, you can customize the image for your dish. This has no gameplay impact and is just for fluff. And finally you name your dish, and decide where on the menu it sits(Apetizer, main dish, dessert etc).

Once you have saved your template, you are taken to the next menu. Here you will have a small icon telling you what ingredients(and the amount of each) you need to make the basic recipe. Once you have those done, the recipe can be created and you can go nuts with everything else! You have every single ingredient you own available to you, and can throw them in as you please in terms of quality an amount. Each ingredient will add stats to the dish, such as fatness, bitterness, sweetness and so on, as well as the flavour, cost, cooking time and calories. If the ingredients matches well in terms of taste, you can gain special buffs, and the recipe quality will generally be better if the ingredients are matching!

And that is all! My first article here on the resort! I hope all of you will enjoy it, and perhaps even get curious to try out the game yourself! I am very happy to be here, to be able to make all the delicious food with my friends(Which I might share recipes with here soon!) and to be able to geek out!
This is Cherry, signing off on her first post! Bon Appetit!

Pretty Princess Pinkie – The Phantom of the Face Off Superhero Movie- Darkman

Hear ye Hear ye!  Princess Pinkie is here with a new movie post!


Greetings my loyal guests and subjects! If you are a bit like me you will have watched Taken and thought “That is a pretty good action movie with Liam Neeson….. but that whole daughter being captured is kinda cliché.. it would be so much better if he threw a temper tantrum over a pink plushie!” If you are not like me, there is a chance this movie might have flown under your radar! So no matter if we are different OR alike, today we will take a look at Darkman!

Behind the mask

Darkman is a superhero movie that was released on the silver screen in august of 1990, it starred Liam Neeson as Dr Peyton Westlake, who would later take up the moniker of Darkman. The movie is directed by Sam Rami, and is co-starred by Frances McDormand, a name people might recognise despite her kind of lacking any iconic roles. A quick IMDB search gave me no real “iconic roles” but she has played in Fargo, Burn After Reading and did a lot of voice works such as the Mamma Dinosaur in The good Dinosaur. The Antagonist of the movie, and it’s sequel is played by Larry Drake… who is best known for Darkman and Darkman II, but also was the voice of Pops in Johnny Bravo! See there you go!

The movie scores a respectable 6,4 on IMDB, which I think is a really good score for a 1990’s Sam Raimi directed superhero movie (and yes it has a Bruce Campbell cameo). While Liam Neeson played the role of the titular character in the first movie, the character was played by Arnold Vosloo in the sequel, which  would not be a big objection this time around since the movie is about switching faces… but for some weird reason in the sequel they replace Liam Neeson as if he was Vosloo all along. If nothing else this movie ins an interesting peek into Neesons earlier days of acting, which was .. a bit different, and with the early 90’s direction AND Raimi at the helm.. we see Neeson’s version of “Bully Maguire” or Symbiote Suit Spiderman from the Raimi trilogy… just done a lot earlier… and this time involving a pink elephant and let me tell you it is great.

Flim

Julie Hasting (played by McDormand) is ..I think… in real estate, or a real estate lawyer  When she discovers a big player on the real estate market is doing some illegal things trough a document, a crimelord by the name of Robert G Durant begins looking for these papers, for he is in the real estate market as well and with this document he can put pressure on his competitors and own the city! By mistake or plot convenience this document ends up in the possesion of Dr Peyton Westlake, boyfriend of Hastings and the man who one day wishes to be her husband.  He is researching a synthetic skin solution that can be printed into any face based on a few photos.  However the chemical compound of his masks degrades by exposure to light!  The masks are fine…in the dark but can survive about 100 minutes when exposed to light.  Durant finds Peyton and kills his lab assistant, electrocutes Peyton so hard his hands char up completely then traps him in an explosion ruining his face.. in a very similar style as to how Harvey Dent lost half of his face in The Dark Knight.

With many burns over his body Westlake can no longer face the woman he has proposed to.. he lost his scientific work  and his assistant, he lost his hands.. he lost everything, so now he swears revenge…which is amplified because the hospital severed all his nerves. Peyton no longer has any input of pain in his senses.. which causes everything else, including his emotions to overload! Drapped in bandages , a raincoat and a wide rimmed had.. he plans revenge.. rebuilding this face printing lab in an abandoned factory.. and using  these masks to take revenge on those who wronged him… unknowing it will cause his old love Julie to become tied up in this once again.

Face *Flourish* …..Off!

So in this movie we get Liam Neeson with enhanced emotions, and all sorts of B-Grade actors having to play Liam Neeson playing them, but Liam Neeson with Soap Opera emotions! This concept is amazing… When you watch Face-Off it’s great to see two of the most over acting Hollywood stars, playing the other playing them..in all their overacting glory. This movie.. let’s a handful of Hollywood Redshirts, play Liam Neeson.. who is forced to over act. Which is great because we know him as someone who is very stoic and composed.  This is mixed with a very strong Phantom of the Opera Influence throughout and supplemented by the camp that is 90’s superhero movies!…And it’s directed by Sam Raimi! How can this NOT be good! This concept is just so amazing!  What makes it even better is that a lot of the technology that is used in this movie, kind of, is relevant in this day and age. Sure we don’t have skin that dissolves in the light.. but the whole 3d printing and phone apps that can extrapolate a lot of data on your face make this movie all the more delightful to watch.

In this movie Liam Neeson infiltrates the Crime Network of Durant by making himself look like the henchman and of course like the head honcho himself. Now this already is a very fun criminal organisation, with your classical bald bruiser type guy, the sunglasses wearing cool dude with long hair,  and the scruffy looking guy with an artificial leg that can be detached and used as a weapon!  We have seen machine gun legs in a few movies.. but the way how this movie handles it is the GREATEST weaponised limb I have seen in movies. What’s different?! Well normally we see the owner of the weaponised limp use it… but not this time the cool guy just yanks the limp from the other guy and uses it.. or the scruffy guy hands it over to him.. but than just stands there.. hopping on one leg… that’s ALL he does!  He takes of his leg and gives it to someone else to shoot it .. while hopping! Hilarious.. but it also makes a lot of sense.. cause you can’t aim when hopping! It’s things like this that really show me the movie isn’t afraid to have fun with itself. 

Have you ever wondered how the phantom of the Opera just happened to find  one of those half masks .. and also the right half for his face?!   Well in this movie Neeson tries to print his own face.. but because his lab exploded the one photo he had of himself is damaged in the exact same spot as his real face! He tries to make his mask.. but he can’t he has to extrapolate.. and because he only has an old junky computer which was old in the 90’s.. turning that into a 3d model takes hundreds of days. Which sounds legit but nowadays it sounds hilarious! However it also shows us a bit in what timeframe this movie takes place it helps us feel the alienation, Peyton Westlake must go trough and it offers interesting challenges.

 Every mission he does..which later in the movie includes dating his former girlfriend again.. has to be done in 100 minutes or his new face will melt! So when a Carny refuses him a price he won..with only a few minutes left on the clock… with his enhanced emotion Peyton just loses it, with over the top rage eye effects added in and mind snapping animations to boot.. it’s just the flavour of bonkers I am looking for!  Honestly this movie makes Face/Off seem like a nuanced movie. Take the damned Elephant.. is something I never expected Liam Neeson to say in such a threatening voice, and it gets even better when we get into the classic, Shoot Him.. No Shoot him I am your real boss moments when a character is forced to shoot at one of the two similar looking characters.  I normally find that something for a Cartoon but there are little moments and motions that really sell this for me.  For example Peyton is super afraid the masks comes off so he is constantly tucking in his neck, it’s so weird to see a real actor.. straighten their own face.. but it really helps sell the illusion, it makes everything silly at the same time but I really love it.

Not so Dark….Man

This movie feels quite different from other Superhero movies as well, as Peyton does not really have much super powers, other than not being able to feel pain. He has to outsmart the villains, has to stake them out and thus he doesn’t patrol the streets at night, no he constantly stakes things out and goes for the slow burn. He learns routines, practices their voices, their quirks, and since Raimi wants to make the timer element much more of a thing, almost the entire movie , except for the grande finale, takes place during daytime. It’s the light that adds the suspense rather than the dark, and while I would not call the movie suspenseful, it really does add something that all fights take place during the day and we can see the doppelgangers in full colour rather than in a dim lit room to polish out some bad effects.  While some effects clearly do not hold up.. the movie really commits to it’s style!

You can see the movie was released at the back-end of the 80’s as a lot of the criminal stuff kind of reminded me of miami vice, the bright coloured suits the gangsters wear, the over the top.. cutting your finger off with a cigar cutter thing, the fact the movie has to have a helicopter chase. It feels really dated….but in a good way. Sure lady in this movie is a pretty helpless damsel in distress, their is not as much representation in this movie and the technology this movie was based on now almost is a joke, but that’s also what’s so likable about this.  It is not something that could exist in this form in this day and age, in almost any perspective. There is no real development for Peyton, the name Darkman is way to on the nose, the damsel is way too helpless  and durants gang ALMOST look like Jojo’s characters, fashion wise. Even the way chinese restaurants look feel dated..  which made me feel like I was watching something that has gone extinct.. like the Buddy Cop genre. .. It had a lot with that genre in common in the cinematographic style as well.

There is something about the way this movie is shot, not a lot of fancy tricks, not a lot of dark broody hero poses making the hero look cool, no! He gets the job done and is nervous, keeping checking on his watch,  At the ending we are shown there is another guy besides Durant who is all part of this whole construction situation scheme and he jumps around those metal girders of a construction site with ease, he has been on so many he developed a feeling for it, while Neeson’s character wrapped in a heavy coat and bandages has trouble. Never does he feel cool, or all that hero like..the camera really shows this as well.  Feeling very VERY basic for a Superhero movie, the action doesn’t feel “cool” or stylised. We really get the sensation that this is just a guy out for revenge..with a lot of enhanced emotions. 
Only those emotions are stylised which is neat because that fits the silly tone of this movie so well but also never makes the hero seem immortal. He does not feel physical pain..but he can be ashamed..he can be so nervous he is forced to run away and that’s just such a neat take on the genre.

Pink Elephant

I LOVED this movie! I still love it, even though I know the IMDB score of 6.4 is probably fair, to me it is so much more than that.  Yes the acting is hokey at times and McDormand really isn’t good in this movie but for some reason it blends so well. Because the movie wants Liam Neeson and the “duplicates” to lean so much into soap opera acting, the hammy acting of the rest of the cast really works as well, they fit in the same universe. Darkman somehow is extremely cliché YET  has this “pragmatic”  style of film making to it that really sells it for me. The big bad doesn’t get taken down  in a big epic satisfying way, it’s more like as if an opportunity arises and our hero takes it. That goes for all the takedowns. It goes for the movie making as well. It doesn’t come on screen as spectacular as you might want, sometimes even a bit clunky..but it feels very much intentional.

In the end I’d have to compare the movie with the a pink elephant plushie. Sure it’s not a giant bear , it also is made with some cheap looking plastic eyes and some overly bright fur and it’s not an iconic toy such as Pikachu plushie or whatever is on your Dakimakura and in many way it’s just a generic plushie.. but once you hold it and hug it, you can really appreciate how soft it is, how good it is to hug!  It might not be something you display with pride.. but whenever you are feeling blue you can pull it out of wherever you hide it and have a great time and let it and all of it’s flaws and camp cheer you up!  Great entertainment even if it’s nothing else.

Amazon.com: MaoGoLan Big Pink Elephant Stuffed Animal Soft Elephant Plush Toy 20'': Toys & Games

Have you seen this movie?! Did you like it?! What is your favourite cheesy Superhero movie?! Let me know in the comments! The Princess would like to know the thought of her subjects! If you liked this post please consider supporting me on Kofi! I am currently working on tiny projects to bring more content to the blog!

Pretty Princess Pinkie Plays: Pokémon Xenoverse Per Aspera Ad Astra

Hear ye hear ye! Princess Pinkie has returned with a new Pokémon Post

Salutations my loyal subjects and island guests. Today I bring good tidings, I feel enamoured,  I feel buzzed… and I also cried a bit when it was over! For the past two weeks or so I have been playing a Pokémon fan game that is SO GOOD, that it without a shadow of doubt in my head is now my favourite Pokémon fan game EVER. Yet keeping it at that would be an understatement, this game might be one of my favourite Pokémon games ever…and I just might get some more after game in the future. Today I introduce you to the second item in my treasury (Phantom Menace being the first one)  today I introduce you to Pokémon Xenoverse.

Story

Did you know that the Italian word for Download…. is Download?!  With this knowledge I was able to downloaded the greatest Pokémon Fan game… the very best like nothing ever was.  I stumbled around an Italian website and found the download button. After fumbeling around for a bit I got the game downloaded for free.  This game has rose to prominence in the Pokétubing community  recently being picked up by more and more english people. What caused this strange event, I do not know. Perhaps it was the game being finished, perhaps it was the english version being fully available and kitted out. I do not know nor do I care. I got to play this game spearheaded by a man calling himself weedle.. and his team of italian geniuses. Spending over 70 levels with my Pokémon and almost every moment with them was great. It even began with a cool anime style opening and would feature a much more fleshed out story than regular pokémon games.

Afbeelding

The game begins showing a red haired man walking nervously in a hospital. This is the happiest day of his life.. but his heart is burdened with a secret.  None of it matters though when the nurse calls him to the bedside of his wife.  She asks her husband by the name of Versil to guess the gender of the baby. The player picks the gender.. so I chose a girl.  He guesses it’s a girl.. and Clover smiles. “Just like we always dreamed off”  she then asks Versil what he thinks is a good name for the baby. I can type in a name, and he says Pinkie.  Clover thanks her husband for coming up with such a wonderful name and we skip four years ahead in time.  Versil is playing with his daughter showing her around the area of her house that really lies in the middle of nowhere.  It is beautiful and serene, the visit the grave of Pinkie’s grandfather. Versil does not tell her a lot about him as it is not the time.

Xenoverse: Per Aspera Ad Astra - GameList

In the distance a sound can be heard and Versil goes out to investigate , his daughter tagging along. It did not sound dangerous so it was fine for her to tag along. Three pokéballs can be found abandoned by the road. A lizard with a mask, a cheeky fire lizard and an adorable blue baby dragon.  Versil tells his daughter to grab one.. just in case something dangerous is along. Of course his daughter would grab the blue cutey called Shulong…it has an adorable cry!  After she had chosen it, an ominous voice can be heard.  A man stands in the shadow addressing Versil.  They talk about something little Pinkie would not yet understand..but very quickly the man orders his Tyranitar to use a Hyper Beam on Pinkie.. Versil steps in front of the blast and everything goes white.

Pinkie wakes up…. that was a horrible dream. But it felt kind of different. Today is her 15th birthday. It has been years since her father left on a business trip… did she just dream up of a way to say goodbye to him? Walking downstairs her mother wishes her a happy birthday, gives her some gifts but as they start talking about the dream Clover goes silent. It was not a dream, it seems Pinkie has finally remembered what really happened.  The Pink haired girl wants to go find her dad!  Her mother sends her to her room angrily! “You are not going anywhere young lady”. Pinkie is upset in her room as her Shulong tries to comfort her. She named him Mooch! .. When Mooch finds out he can not comfort her he suddenly acts all brave and makes noises gesturing the two should flee trough her bedroom window.  As Pinkie picks up Mooch Pokéball , something he never been inside of much before.. the two set out  on the greatest journey of their live to find Pinkie’s dad!

Design

Afbeelding

With a story that seems a lot like the story of Fallout 3 , you go on a Pokémon Journey that is not like the others. Though sharing similarities with Pokémon Uranium, the pokémon Gym challenge is an afterthought here, a means to an end.  Everything is part of a bigger narration. Most gym leaders you defeat because you need a favour from them, even if it’s only the right to pass trough their town, sometimes you require their insight. All gym leaders in this world have second jobs. Most of  them like Drayden are the leaders of their respective town, yet others are the sheriff or even hiphop icons. It allows your journey to rely on them much more and give them much more characterisation. The same goes for  your rival who may turn out to be an actual love interest.  The same goes for the pokémon professor, who like Sonia in Gen VIII has a much more personal journey in this story and the champion whom you meet very early in this game so you can really grow to appreciate his strength.

Afbeelding

This game feels like an anime, and I don’t mean the Pokemon anime. I mean this feels legit like an exciting anime story, a story that can hold itself on it’s own but is increased 10 fold in efficiency if you have played through at least  the Kanto and Johto region stories. This game is a tribute to Pokémon and much more Geekiness.  The fact that beating  the Champion gives you the Plus Ultra! Achievement already will tell you something! Yet you will encounter so many colourful characters that many of them could hold an anime show on their own.. like the Pokémon variant of Ghostbusters “Geist” Or the Hiphop Gym Leader Wallace Daddy, who adopts a lonely Pokémon even though it ruined his big concert. There are so many great characters in here… and what is even better, the Fakemon are also great.

Afbeelding

Fakemon is the official term for fan made pokemon so do not think that the term is derogatory or anything. In fact I think these are the best starters  since Gen III (excluding Rowlet). There are a lot of clever ideas. How about a Habanero styled Pokémon that is a Grass and Fire type or how about a Hercules Beetle that is a Sumo Wrestler.. as it is a chunky warrior beetle from Japan?! It is awesome! How about a Vulture that also takes design elements from the Grim Reaper?! There are great ideas in this game troughout! It also offers Xenoverse variants of certain types.. like Regional Variants but often a bit beefed up to be more relevant as well. Like an Ice Type Galvantula or a Ghost type Sharpedo. Well over 75% of them looks truely amazing with very little stinkers in the entire lineup. And this game has 3 separate Pokédexes so that is an achievement.  If you do not like using fakemon, there are plenty of pokémon in the game as well, but why would you use a Pidgey when you can use a Bremand. A pokémon that is actually four pokémon all based on one of the Town Musicians of Bremen…all carrying my wished to be real “sound type”

Mechanics

Afbeelding

The game is not afraid to introduce new mechanics and it does so on many levels starting with this new , and by fans desired, sound type. And though I do not like how the typing is flavoured and the new moves lose the ability to bypass substitutes it does really balance the game out pretty nicely. The sound type is super effective against water, flying and fairy types, while being weak to Dragon and Electric types. This gives us a tertiary typing core. After Water, Fire Grass and Dark , Fighting, Psychic we now can build our teams around a Fairy , Sound and Dragon core. It gives Fairy types a bit of a nerf which isn’t a bad thing and boosts Dragons up a bit again. The Dragon Typing has become a bit of a dud since the introduction of fairies. A lot of classic pokémon that now have the sound type appear in the game as well. Jigglypuff, Ekans, Drowzee, Loudred and Chatot just to name a few.  Really giving the usage of electric types a boost as well!  So while the typing makes much less sense then it could have, the way it works makes the game really smooth and balanced to play!

Afbeelding

From the beginning of the game you can choose to use the old individual experience thing or the newer party experience style. I chose the latter because frankly I wanted to have this game beat by the time New Pokémon Snap Rolled around. Plus I want to see as many Pokémon as possible…and Fan games tend to be a tad difficult so I did not want to do needless grinding. As a result I always ended up somewhat overleveled, yet because the typings are so smooth and the movesets Pokémon learn great moves and Tm ‘s are so plentiful it doesn’t matter much either way. Individuals will give you more of a challenge , but I found myself in tough battles anyway. Your lead Pokémon gets more experience as the rest so I just had fun by going with more creative movesets rather than pressing the super effective button all the time.. and I had a wonderful time with it.  There were times I really needed to step up my game.. but I was also allowed to use a team I really wanted which is great.

HM’s have been replaced by holograms you summon from your gloves, fishing at times can be a minigame and other cute things like that can really enhance your gameplay experience.  You can play as you like with whatever monsters you like. This is how modern pokémon games do it and this is how it should be. It allowed me to bond more with my team.. and for the first time since a long time… I super bonded with my starter.  This game FORCES you to use your starter all throughout the game. Because much like you, your starter is involved in the story. It’s as much it’s journey as it is yours.  This is shown in the fact that it can enter places called Den’s , these are puzzle rooms your unevolved starter can access throughout the game, here you play your stater trying to find treasure or switches and avoid being kicked out by the den’s owner…. but how can you play the cute little guy if your starter evolves? Well the truth is your starter doesn’t evolve… it digivolves…. well kinda!

Presentation

Afbeelding

It became clear to me that your starter could not just evolve from the get go!  That is because your starter is involved in cutscenes, not only does it’s model show up on the overworld sometimes, it also has a portrait in dialogue. Everyone you talk to does, making the dialogue in this game feel much more like a visual novel in terms of presentation. This makes dialogue a lot more present to read. Important characters show expressions making dialogues seem dynamic. Like your starter padding it self on the chest to show it is brave! Or give it a worried look on it’s face once the protagonist is struggling.  It would not make sense that they would draw all those portraits for all evolution stages for your starter at the beginning of the game right? Yet SmallAnt or another Pokétuber would just grind it out jut to give it a try! However this game makes the briljant choice to “evolve” your starter .. narratively. 

Afbeelding

The evil team of this universe is called Team Dimension, which is basically the sequel to team Rocket, but since they lost so much influence they use robots instead of criminals. These robots take on Daft Punk designs (even their theme does)  but when facing their elites, you end up getting washed. Faced with inevitable defeat a passion burns inside you as an item you found suddenly overflows with energy, and equipping it’s sister item to your Pokémon allows it to transform shapes. It’s a sequence that feels extremely much like Digimon. The fact that your starter does not just happen to have 3 forms  but 4 enforces that Digmon feeling even further. Your Starter can go back to it’s base form by losing it’s item.. so if you enter a den with your stage 2 shulong you just take it’s ring for a moment and send the little guy for a adorable stroll. This does mean your starter has to be on your team for all important story moments and those dens… which  makes the bonding so much stronger. 

The game goes for a Gen IV like look, much like Pokémon Uranium, but it does an even better job at it. The Eldiw Region has a very spiritual aspect to it. A religion differently then Arceus, one that feels much more in line with nature worship and a lot of villages you visit seem to be based on ancient times. There is a medieval Fairy Town, with knights in Pink Armors and a Gym puzzle where you have to entertain and host a tea party for a princess. There is an ancient egypt area where you have to bring down a false god and the gym puzzle is to explore a pyramid, and there is a Wild West style area  where you have to clear a haunted  Saloon and where the gym puzzles involve hunting some criminals as a deputy.  It all feels unique and much more deep. Every town plays a role in your story, every location has a story line and routes are often much longer and less throwaway than in official Pokémon games.  Not all Pokécenters look the same, they blend into their towns,  every time zone and area has unique wild Pokémon battle music to fit it’s current theme.. and so much more, the presentation of this game is truly sublime.

The Flaws

Of course this still is and always will be a Pokémon Fan game, which means it is not as polished as a main Pokémon game…even though we do not get floaty trees. The game can crash so it is important that you save often.  The English patch is not flawless and on four or five separate occasions I found characters suddenly speaking italian in half of their text to me as some dialogue simply was forgotten to be replaced. Awkwardly it happens in one of the final battle scenes against the dark forces, yet otherwise it’s not as bad.  The Daycare guy does it repeatedly but most times these are just one offs. Nothing too horrible. It is just these tiny things that made me remember I was playing a fan-game.. and if these did not happen along with some slowdown (which you can reduce by playing in the old engine by clicking on settings in the launcher)  I would have probably crowned this my favourite Pokémon game. 

It does have some flaws that did actively annoy me though. The first one is the inventory system.  For some reason the bag has been given separate controls of sorts to flip through. Being Q and W , which just doesn’t feel right to me! I hated using stuff in my bag during the entirety of my run. I never fully got used to it. The second issue I have with this game is not even a gripe as I can fully understand WHY they did it.. I just do not like THAT they did it.  A great many Fakemon in this region do not evolve by level up, which makes sense given how easy it is to actually level. However since the game is moderately hard, using unevolved pokémon will not get you that far. You need the power. There are a LOT of stone evolutions and a LOT of item evolutions in this game. Vroombug for example only evolves if you give it Spare parts, while Eevee can evolve into its new Eeveelutions Scaleon the Dragon Type and Bandeon the Sound Type by learning its Sound of Dragon Pledge moves. You hear the rumor from one guy while having to find the other guy to teach it the move.  If you want a fully evolved team you better talk to everyone!  There is a Wiki that tells you how pokémon evolve but it’s Italian only… I luckily have an italian friend who helped me or I would be one Pissy Princess.

To make up for that you have to talk to everyone though , they really went all out to make all dialogue interesting. If characters have boring things to say their names are oftenly references like Peach and Mario being two scientists that establish some world lore. Yet there are also some references that go very far. For example in one house I saw two couples at a table. A girl named Robin sat next to a guy named Barney who said his favourite Pokémon were Legen……wait for it ….dary.   While on the other side of the table Lilly set next to her partner Marshall, who was bummed out his friends made him give up his beloved hat.  While Upstairs I saw a depressed boy named Ted , wondering if he will ever find a special someone… on his desk, without explanation and without the model EVER being used elsewhere in the overworld was a Pinap Berry. Which is a reference to a very specific How I Met Your Mother episode. 

These references are everywhere, for example in an ancient temple I encounter Jojo’s Battle Tendency’s Pillar men!  That does not change the fact though that the evolution system gave me some anxiety. You can buy evolution stones fairly late in the game and by then you might have fallen in love with a new Fakemon and that other one never gets to live up to it’s potential, what if I missed a house and missed how to evolve my favourite team member. This anxiety was also there surrounding the crashes and the bag system felt like treading a needle at times… but if you play the game with google translate  and google to look up the evolutions you will have a blast. This is a pokémon game I would recommend to anybody! Even if you do not like Pokémon and just want a nice story based/anime esque game.. this is great!  This is the ultimate pokémon fangame and I honestly think that it shall hold this title for years to come. It might face some challenges, but through challenges it becomes stronger. Per Aspera Ad Astra.

Afbeelding

This genuinely is the best fan game I ever played, and since it is free, if you haven’t played it but like playing Pokémon I absolutely MUST recommend it to you! Just be sure to turn on “use old engine” in settings. This game really is THE pokémon game I always wanted. What is your favourite Pokémon Fan Game?! Have you played any?! How do you feel about Fakemon?! Tell me in the comments or dream about your ideal Pokémon. Because remember my sweeties! Friendship is magic but dreams are even more wonderful! Oyasumi!

SLEEPING ON 'EM - A Super Smash Bros. Wii U Jigglypuff Montage - YouTube

Cowboys, Giant Robots and a Pink Dame! Pinkie plays Wild Guns

Hear Ye Hear Ye  Princess Pinkie has returned with a new gaming post!

Salutations my loyal subjects and island guests. As you might know I love retro games and especially the SNES era of gaming.   I have done a fair few reviews in the past! Recently with Covid rules becoming a bit more lentient I have been meeting with a friend to play some cool SNES Co-Op titles using my Nintendo Switch Online subscription.  Today I will talk to you about a game we recently beat! A game that is about shouting cowboys and giant robots. Steampunk meets Cyberpunk in the SNES cult classic. Wild Guns!

Clint and Annie’s date at the Saloon

Wild Guns - Wikipedia

Wild Guns was one of those SNES titles that saw a very diverse release date. Released in Japan in August 1994, the US in  July 1995 and finally in Europe due October 30 1996 Wild Arms is a classic game in the very obscure shooting gallery genre.  While the game has an incredibly arcade feel Natsume developed and published it exclusively for SNES. It would not be until 2016 and later that a “remaster” was released on anything else but a Nintendo platform. But nowadays a four player variant of this game with new characters and new stages is also available for pc and playstation 4. Of course the updated version is also available on Nintendo Switch. Wild Guns Reloaded is available on steam for around 13 euro. While I would love to play as a dog on a drone (which is an reloaded exclusive character)  I will talk about  the  base game.. because if you pay for Nintendo Switch online it’s free!

I have no idea what the story is of this game! I don’t remember if I skipped it or if I needed a manual to read it .. but   in the base game you play Clint .. a gruff classical looking cowboy or Annie a blonde in a pink dress and a fancy hat! Guess which one I insisted on being!   Each character comes with four colour variations which also change your crosshair. I played better as Blue Annie then Pink Annie because  I lost track of my crosshair less! White Annie I found unplayable.. but that might just be me!  The game has  6  stages of which the majority consists of 3 parts.  In the end you have to defeat.. some chinese/japanese looking guy. The stages and subsections are pretty varied and most enemies are unique to each stage.. though the classic SNES colour variants show up. The game features 3 difficulties and a versus mode, so there is some replayability. 

SNES Longplay [243] Wild Guns (a) - YouTube

My friend and me started at the normal difficulty, which had Clint and Annie already die quite a bit. The first stage is themed after a saloon. With the first part being a shootout against cowboys outside the saloon with enemies shooting at your from windows or behind barrels. It was pretty neat and the cowboy vibe clearly can be felt.  The way this game work  is basically as follows. The first two subsections of a stage you fight against a clock, you have to survive against an onslaught of enemies until the timer runs out after which you face a mini boss.  If you score enough points you can earn more lives , better weapons and screen wiping bombs to make the rest of the stage easier, so you always have to balance how much risk you take killing people versus. Risking how much you want to upgrade versus how much you want to live. Which is easier said then done.. because this game comes at you , guns blazing.

After you have survived against your first wave of cowboys you have to face a giant robot cowboy with machine gun arms which  tries to mow you down remorseley. Luckily Clint and Annie have some sort of spider sense and they will tell the player to watch out and make them dodge when projectiles fly their way. In their jump they are also near invisible. If you listen to your character you have a good chance to survive , and with a bit of learning you can take down this first mini boss pretty easily. Clint and Annie beat this stage after only one game over. The second bout of this stage takes place inside the saloon!  This one is already a bit more tricky, not only do bullets fly your way, there is also dynamite to deal with.   Which limits in what directions you can block.  Jumping into an explosion will end up getting you killed and if you do not kill enemies quickly they will keep piling up turning the game into a true bullet hell.  

Wild Guns: Reloaded adds an adorable dog who controls a machine-gun drone to its chaotic roster | TechnoBuffalo

It took us two attempts.. but when we found out we can use a Lasso to stun dynamite throwers, while the other would gun them down  we cleaned out the saloon and took down the wimpy Miniboss.  The final area of this stage put us on the roof of the Saloon where we take down a Mecha equipped with a missile system that rains death from above.. and gatling guns that sweep half the screen.  Playing smart we saved up a lot of our bombs which made short work of the boss. Clint and Annie finish their date at the saloon after dying only like 40 times (21 times Annie and 19 times Clint) ! Hey I have been on worse dates!

Crazy Cowboys

Amazon.com: Wild Guns - Nintendo Super NES: Video Games

After this the game lets you pick one of four stages,  A goldmine, a train,  a canyon and an arms depot.  Each stage pits you against a crazy mix of cowboys and robots.  Each stage gives you a point total which you can see as bounty for taking down the boss. Not every stage has the same bounty and of course the stages with the higher bounty offer higher difficulty! Yet bounties also go up if you beat a stage, so if you are interested in score there are some tactics to have fun with… for me bullet riddled Annie, we just decided to play the stages from high to low! Only to give on medium difficulty after 4 attempts of desolation canyon. We really wanted to beat the game and play through it and despite having unlimited continues that keep track of which stages you beat, having to do all three subsections of a stage on 3 life each.  Now Normal is a doable difficulty but we did not have enough practice time.. and due to the world state we can’t play this as often as we would like.. so we would just try easy mode, hoping the game would not insult us at the end.

It gave us a perfect insight at what difficulty would do. The higher the difficulty the higher the health pool of enemies is  and thus how smaller your window to dodge becomes. This will also result in you having more enemies on screen to deal with at the same time, as you can’t kill everyone quick enough to keep your screen rather clear.  The higher the difficulty the more likely enemies are to use their special abilities, like drones throwing their own lasso or one of those deaths from above missile barrages. All in all easy was a lot more manageable, though still not  very easy. There is a lot on the screen to manage. Powerups, your dodge notifications, enemy placement, the placement of your crosshair and the missiles falling from the sky , powerups and ground traps.  Funnily I discovered that me and my friend struggled with different things. He kept getting hit by traps and missiles while I failed to see a notification of a bullet.  Which helped us get a flow where we warned each other of one of those. 

Voyeurism – Wild Guns | Games and Junk

The single player mode of this game as such is a bit tricky, there is so much happening I am convinced you will always have a weakness and there is no one to polish it out, and it is not as fun either. The action is a bit repetitive, even though all stages offer a pretty diversive, way of approaching things. The mine has enemies as tiny dots in the distance, the  train has enemies zipping past and changing positions, the canyon has a lot of enemies that can stun! So each stage is different in how you approach it .. but it is all very samey in it’s pacing, which is  why you really need a friend for this.  Competing for the higher score is also a  lot more fun than getting a highscore in some random list.  The set high scores are super easy to beat.  We beat the game and already set the high score.. while we actually did pretty terrible.  So just beating high scores by yourself would not be fun at all! Maybe if you beat the game once or twice to beat your personal best.. but with how many games we have access to nowadays , no one will do that.  So it really is a game for two.

This also helps with the game’s biggest appeal. Finding out what craziness is next. The enemies are really crazy and most bosses are really fun!  There is one really boring flame tank thing but there are also some bizarre bosses that are super fun to learn and face.  The mid stage bosses are fairly fun as well, though unfortunately these are the ones that are reused the most. In a way there are some similarities with Cowboy Bebop ..but without the break. Think Bebop meet’s Gurren Lagann, while graphically reminding me a bit off Final Fight mixed with Metal Slug.  That feeling and craziness is also the biggest appeal. You don’t play this game for the challenge , you might not even play it to beat it every single time you play it for the fun, in a similar way why you play Pacman or Tetriis.  There is just something fundamentally fun about this game. 

Wild Guns - Retro of the Week

That same appeal is unfortunately also it’s biggest downfall.  Because it has that arcade appeal it’s linear/level based setting makes it less repeatable than it’s competitors.  Where you can play a Pacman a bit every day, this you will put down for a fair while after you beat it. It feels more like a beat em up with guns. However where  Beat Em ups let you play another character that does really play differently as the other, here it doesn’t feel that way. Because you walk on a 2d plain instead of a 2.5d plan your actions are much more set and because enemies target you in specific ways , knowing how they will  react will get you past them each time. At least in Beat ‘m ups they will move slightly differently.  This makes Wild Guns a perfect game to beat once a year with a friend. I really like this game a lot but I also don’t want to play it again any time soon, maybe I want to get the reloaded version someday so I can play the dog on a drone trough the extra stages! Now  I just need to hope the Dog on a drone comes with a pink skin!

Wild Guns Reloaded no Steam

Did you ever play Wild Guns?! Do you have a favourite arcade like title? What character would you play? I have so many questions for you I might have to sleep on it! In the meantime you can already babble in the comments! Because remember, Friendship is Magic but Dreams are even more wonderful! Oyasumi.

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Paradise Hill: Origins

POSTCARDS FROM PARADISE HILL

… I never really understood how I got there until long after I was already apart of the town. The last thing I remember is seeing Cookie walk into a fog. I followed in after him wondering where he was off to. He seemed quiet and more focused than usual. Eventually the fog grew so thick I could barely see directly in front of me. I called out for Cookie to no response.

It felt like I had been walking for days. Eventually the sand of the beach turned into asphalt and I began following the lonely white road line to keep some sense of direction. It felt as though I was traveling in dream years. So quickly through time that it gave the illusion of time itself standing still. When all at once the silhouette of a sign jutted out through the mist.

“WELCOME TO PARADISE HILL”

That was a few weeks ago I believe. But it could have been years ago. Time is a concept very rarely regarded in Paradise Hill. Besides, I had bigger fish to fry. I stood with the letter in my hand. I couldn’t believe it. The letter read:

“NOTICE OF EVICTION”

I stood shocked. I had fallen in love with the town. No traffic, no lines, no one to bother me. The fog made certain things and people a bit harder to see but really, once you got used to squinting all the time it was quite the destination. It had all of the makings and charm of your typical north west lumber town.

Nurses between shifts walking down the road together. I seem to see the same group every day after I wake up, hop out of bed and take a shower in Paradise Motel. “Hi ladies! Working hard or hardly working?” They always seem to get a kick out of it.

When I did leave the motel room in it was in short bursts. Run to the corner store and pick up a six pack – stop at the diner and use the kitchen to cook up a couple of steaks and then stroll merrily back through the blurry black and white white fog to my hotel room. Occasionally outside some loud fire siren would go off and it’d start to get dark outside but i never seemed to have an issue with it.

Just like anywhere else – you keep to yourself and no one tends to bother you. Not even in Paradise Hill. Until now.

As I read the eviction notice the board of directors at Paradise Hills sited a few reasons for my cause of eviction:

1.) LACK OF LODGING EXPENSES PAID: It’s true. I wasn’t paying rent. I mean no one ever asked. One time some guy with a huge hat knocked on the door and just sort of stood there and walked off. But I didn’t know if he was the landlord or just a creeper.

2.) THEFT OF GOODS AND SERVICES:

– (5) Welcome to Paradise Hill gift shop shirts

– (16) Six packs of Paradise Hill Ale

– (2) Bottles of sexual lubricant

– (1) Copy of The Titanic

– (1) Copy of Silent Hill: Origins

3.) FAILURE TO FACE YOUR OWN INNER DEMONS/ BE CREEPED OUT

Mr Winkle. Please – keep the goods you have procured and please leave town immediately. You are no longer welcome here at majestic Paradise Hill. Also your Sea Lion has been returned to your home safely. Please do not speak to any one on your way out as you have been creeping out the other residents for quite some time now.

Sincerely,

PARADISE HILL TOWN HALL

I packed up all my belongings as some beautiful sad music began playing from no where and I backpacked out of town. As I was on the outskirts of town I heard cheers of celebration. But before long I saw the bright lights and sights of Paradise again. Like a tilt-a-whirl through the dark. As I walked through the crowd no one seemed to notice me.

It dawned on me that I was now trapped in Paradise Hill forever. I was free to travel across the globe but no one would ever see me again. Only maybe being able to detect my presence here and there like that one movie with Sean Bean in it.

Baddest Bean on the planet.

Which I was completely fine with. I began to think of the possibilities of my new invisible life. I could sneak into Area 51 and finally figure out what the hell that place was all about. I could get into concerts for free. I could haunt people! This was going to be great. But my first mark was a hot dog stand I saw off the path near the coconut’s huts. I grabbed a roll and reached in the hot water and grabbed a hot dog. I slapped it into the bun and took a bite. Ah. Delicious hot dog stand hot dogs. Disgusting and delicious and now free for the rest of m-

“You gonna pay for that?”

Turns out I wasn’t invisible. And I wasn’t getting free hot dogs for the rest of my life. I walked home.

FANCY INTRO VIDEO

Released: March 4 2008

Developer: Climax Action (Sudeki, The Italian Job)

Published: Konami

Well back to reality and really sad gaming. Today, we have a case of a game that might have been alright if it wasn’t associated with such a strong franchise. I also sort of wanted to use this opportunity to explain what little work that does actually go into these posts and the sad consequences that result from playing (generally) nothing but bad games all of the time.

Not pictured: The Cry Hole that I crawl into after hours of bad gaming.
Shelves of despair

When Pinkie and I had a check in conversation (now that she has a palace built it’s become a whole event with feasts and festivities etc) she asked what I was working on. I told her I was planning on starting Silent Hill: Origins. She responded with, “isn’t that the really bad one?”

Which surprisingly it’s not the really bad one. It’s just not a really good one. Which sums up this game perfectly. If it were named anything else it would probably be considered a forgotten but slightly above average survival horror game – starts off kind of lame, picks up and ends in an absolutely nonsensical way. Put the words Silent Hill on the case however and now you’re looking at a lackluster experience.

In the game you start off as rootin’ tootin’ truck driver, Travis Grady. He’s driving his MAC Truck getting his kicks off Route 66 and all that when he spots a little girl in the road. He swerves to avoid her (as most human beings tend to do) and stops to get out and investigate the scene. Looking for the lost child, he sees her approaching from behind him in his rear view mirror only to disappear which scares the shit out of him but certainly doesn’t deter him from abandoning his vehicle and walking miles and miles in a thick fog in the middle of the road.

Eventually this leads Travis to a house fire. He spots some weird broad hanging out by the burning house and runs in because of course he does. And he rescues some kid that’s torched like a marshmallow. Eventually passing out – he awakes in Silent Hill to go search for the french fry kid and madness ensues.

Now, if I may – first off – I am a Daughter Daddy. She is the light of my life. When my wife was pregnant I think I surprised her by crossing my fingers and hoping for a daughter and we were lucky enough to get a bright, beautiful, healthy little lady. I fucking love that kid. BUT – I have watched enough scary movies to know that if I’m out in the middle of no where and some creepy little girl is hanging around – I’M NOT FOLLOWING HER. I DON’T CARE. GO AWAY. LEAVE ME ALONE.

Alright, with that out of the way lets cover a couple of things that this game does really nicely. The sound effects and soundtrack are top notch – Silent Hill quality. Like all other SH soundtracks, composed by the master, Akira Yamaoka. The absolute badass Thom Yorke-esque dark genius of video game soundtracks. The sound effects and music are unnerving and uncomfortable – aptly suited for the atmosphere.

I want to recommend this game so much more but it breaks my own personal cardinal sin of gaming: difficulty due to controls. There is nothing I hate more than fighting a game more than the story or gameplay itself.

Controls and saboteur camera angles are what takes this Silent Hill entry out at the knees. The storyline and voice acting isn’t seminal by any stretch of the imagination but it’s not noteworthy poor. The puzzles are weak and there is a lot of backtracking (RE style) – also not a lot of actual area to explore. For an open town the game has you on rails for a good majority of it.

Camera angles that can really get in your head

The game does certain things right but it does so many little things wrong that it begins to become a serious distraction. The small unnecessary changes are enough to anger longtime fans. The nurses now see and react to noise/light/everything – just another static sprite that is easy to avoid but lacks any of their signature creepiness.

You can pick up large heavy objects to toss at monsters – which is cool – but kind of pulls you out of it as you go through your inventory and realize that your character is carrying twelve portable TVs, three filing cabinets, sixteen I.V. drip bag stands and six different guns. I am not a huge fan of Resident Evil’s death-by-no-inventory-space strategy but how many fax machines can one guy hold?

Not to mention you don’t even really need weapons most of the time. The ability to punch your enemies is overpowered for a survival horror game. I have beat up so many nurses in the past week I could star in my own episode of COPS.

Bottom line: Please for the love of all things holy – Konami – if you are going to outsource one of your flagship franchises please let it be to Kojima Productions. I don’t give a shit what beef you guys have. Figure it out and lets do this.

SHOP TIL YOU DROP

Now here is where it gets tricky. To be frank, even the bad games I adore. I just love playing games. I love buying them, I love looking at my horrible collection of bargain bin trash just as much as any rare games I find. Like little trophies made from melted garbage can lids. They’re mine and I absolutely enjoy playing and writing about them.

Generally, on this blog I deal almost exclusively with cheap games. This game? Not very cheap. Luckily for me, I purchased this years ago before everything Silent Hill exploded in price online.

I would never, ever tell anyone what to buy or what not to buy. I wouldn’t even judge anyone for buying Rule of Rose for $16,999. I mean, I would hope you would find it cheaper but whatever at the end of the day it’s your money, you work hard for it, you spend it on whatever you want.

Right now it looks like it’s averaging about $110-120 on eBay.

Is it worth $2300? I’d have to give it a hard, “no.” But I clean pools for a princess that pays me in bad games – so you do you. I would suggest checking out eStarland or Lukie Games over bid sites for collector’s series games like Silent Hill. There are a ton of gougers that will buy everything up just to raise prices even higher upon resell THUS continually driving up market prices for regular gamers like you and I. Dicks.

DESERT ISLAND SONG

The classic that can get anyone in the mood. Even if it’s for Origins:

Periwinkle’s Lowing Hanging Fruit Punch Ingredients

1.) A small chunk of fur from Parka (Cold Winter)

2.) A thimble of Jack Bauer’s sweat (24: The Game)

3.) A can of Reservoir Dog Food (Reservoir Dogs)

4.) A handlebar mustache (American Chopper)

5.) Blood of a Backstreet Boy (American Idol)

6.) An impossible to control Q-Tip (CSI)

7.) The tooth of a terrorist (Fugitive Hunter)

8.) One Mona Lisa Smile (The Davinci Code)

9.) One Copy of, “Night Rocker” by The Hoff (City Crisis)

10.) One blood stained trucker hat. (Silent Hill: Origins)

Suggestions? Requests? Send me a message!

Yay! I am a Pokémon Princess: Pokémon Royal

Hear Ye Hear Ye, Princess Pinkie is here with a new Pokémon Post

My loyal guests and subjects, it is with the utmost delight that I am here to tell you about a Pokémon Fan Game that has eluded me for a while! I did not know of it’s existence until some sentai looking guy on YouTube told me this was among the best Pokémon fan games out there… he was not wrong!  Today I shall share my experience of the Pokémon Royal version with you!

Princess Pinkie in the Aristo Region

When I write this , I have only recently taken up the mantle of princess of Paradise Island , so I googled games in which you can be a princess. Not a lot came up, except for this super difficult Steam game with lots of stats and menus. I got bored and went looking for new Pokémon games to play!  Trough a YouTube Video I heard about Pokémon Royal! A game in which you play a princess.. or prince. As the youngest child of King Arthur and Queen Guinivere you are to embark on your very first pokémon journey… however this time.. if you win you do not just become the champion.. you the future king or queen! However for some strange reason, while you travel across the lands searching far and wide, something strange is happening, alternative forms of Pokémon show up.. not regional forms..but Pokémon from different times. It all seems to connect to a mysterious organisation named Team Knight! 

The Aristo Region features a classical Pokémon adventure, where you have to earn 8 gym badges, fight an evil team, can capture some legendaries here or there, and can capture pokémon from all 8 generations, as well as some counterparts for them of forgotten times. What’s more is the game isn’t as insanely hard as Pokémon Reborn, Insurgence or the likes, but instead ditches the “useless” stuff like worthless moves or “dead” abilities. It results in a fast paced Pokémon game that teaches you how to play at a semi-competitive level and think like a real trainer. The second gym already gives you Scald as a TM  which  is one of the best water type moves in the game and it really teaches you to keep a healthy balance between physical and special attackers, without feeling overly difficult.. it offers you plenty of variety but also shows you how a pokémon is properly kitted out.

The journey you take feels very much like Sword and Shield.. but from beginning to end basically let’s your monsters level from level 5 to right up to around 100 for the post game. When you get there though you are already around level 90.  The game throws you an exp share right away that works like the one in Pokémon Sword and Shield .. thus you can very easily get the team you want trough fairly minimum grinding Though keeping the challenge level of the orginal games with just a bit more oomph. The game features an original story that only uses Arthurian legend for namesake. Yes you will encounter Merlin, Morganna , Percival , Gallahad and Lancelot, but there is no magical sword there is no relation to the mythos .. it really is it’s own tale, that feels very Pokémon, not overly dark.. it completely feels like a legit pokémon game!  Which is nice for a change!  Fan games are either a lot darker or a lot sillier but this one gets the balance right.  Plus it does make me feel like a princess.

Pretty Princess, Silly Subjects

The game has been made by a fairly large group of people under the group of Norfolk Gaming.  They manage to create one of the best Pokémon regions I had the joy of playing trough. You bounce all across the map, unlock items to replace HM’s that willl grand you access to some part of the world but that path isn’t always in front of you. It really has puzzle elements and travel elements that remind me of Johto  and Hoenn and I mean that in the best way possible. We aren’t just walking circles, we trigger events that allow us to traverse a dynamic map! The battles are great , with trainers being much less bound to typings , unless it makes no sense otherwise (Swimmers due stick to water pokémon). The world feels alive, even bug catchers know to carry a pokémon that covers their weakness or so. 

As a result the game forces you to keep switching around in battles, healing items are a lot more sparce at least early in the game and revives aren’t available until after the fourth gym, which already is around the late level 30’s or early 40’s. This means the challenge isn’t so much in incredibly hard battles that constantly forces you to carry teams that are super effective against a specific type of trainer or gym leader, but rather invites you to build ONE team that covers everything and has some synergy amongst each other.. this is how I think Pokémon should be. I don’t enjoy those Kaizo roms. This makes you think.. yet still allows you to have fun and choose your own team…as long as it is at least semi functional. There aren’t much non functional Pokémon available anyway. No one would use shuckle for a game playthrough so why put it in the game… that’s this games motto and it makes  things great. The Temporal Pokémon, the special variants have super fun mechanics and puzzles are never a hassle so when it comes to your journey it’s such a delight.

For all the gameplay talent these developers had in their stable, they sincerely lacked pixel artists, their custom sprite work is  not good. When you see King Arthur for the first time you think… Oh boy.. this is gonna be a rough one… but no the game is great.. just the sprite work….and the name creativity I guess.   The third gym leader is a pirate, which for example uses Drake’s sprite.. but with a pirate head added to it.. but it doesn’t bland because colours aren’t adjusted. It just shows the creators aren’t sprite artists at all and at times it can really show compared to how polished the game is otherwise.  Most Temporal Pokémon are just recolours and they don’t always work.. with some great exceptions like my Hakomo’o!  Pink armored dragon yay!  But yes.. sprites can look a bit wonky and on area’s with special tiles the game can drop frames quite a bit. Which will be a constant reminder that this is a fan game, which is not a bad thing.. but some of these sprites would litterally take a minute or two to fix.. like Pirate Drake, or even King Arthur, he looks nothing like his back sprite or overworld variant.

Fit for a Queen

Like the models, the writing can be a bit hokey at times as well, plot twists are REALLY obvious and names of things are a bit to on the nose, no Morgana is not the leader of the evil team .. it’s still just names but seemingly innocent lines characters spout clearly show a hidden intention that is not revealed until much later.  There is a time travel element to this story that really reminded me of a movie about a time travelling prince, in fact the plot of this game is eerily similar to that movie.. but pokémonified.  It is not bad by any means but it is very by the numbers. It makes sense as a plot..but maybe it makes too much sense?! Every character has a counterpart it seems in the regular Pokémon world with your dad being a bit like the way Oak was originally intended and your brother being a Gary, even though his sprite is Hau… given how his mother and father look.. Hau did that happen *badum tsss quack*  While I point it out as a negative, this is really in line with how normal pokémon stories unfold though… and besides the lack of creativity here and there.. I really have no gripes with this game.

So much suddenly makes sense in this game, people actively mention that they would not like strangers in their house, but they welcome the Princess.. who may very well be their new queen, people are very friendly and helpful to you in this world as you are a somebody in this world.  So it’s not just.. “hey look a random 10 year old.. let’s give him a bike” .. no it’s OMA (Oh my Arceus)  the princess just walked into my bike store.. here have one of my bikes!  The whole Pokémon League and elite four thing is also much more a test to see if the Royal family is ready to defend the region! An elite four makes a lot more sense in a scenario like that.. as it is the gateway to a final tournament. People acknowledge that some parts of the world are more dangerous and have more dangerous pokémon so these areas are shielded from people who do not have enough badges, rather than them being locked because there is a sleeping pokemon in the way.

Areas and routes have much more a type bias with route 1 having bug and normal types, while route 2 may have some water pokémon and maybe some flying types.. The game starts you out with picking from a Dark, Fighting, Psychic core, with Zorua , Riolu and Espurr rather than the standard Grass Water Fire Core, which allows the routes to be more dynamic. Rather than hunting for random Pokémon you can hunt route 3 for a grass addition to your team, route 12 for a good ground type etc. This means you can build your party much , much more intentional with less clutter Pokémon. The Temporal Pokémon can diverge from these  biases though as do other event pokémon, which usually are good against upcoming gym leaders which makes exploring often worth your while as well, while the more generic pokémon you encounter often struggle against the gym leader.  For example when you cross the haunted forest, you’ll face the dark type gym leader next, when you travel through a rock Pokémon filled cave, you’ll fight the ground leader next.  However in case of the latter, you can find some event based water type pokémon by going off the beaten path!  I love this format! 

At the end of each track to a new town you encounter a repeatable trainer that can be challenged over and over again… so say you are stuck on the dark type leader you can go back to the route where you can find a lot of bugs or fighting pokémon, add it to your party then head back to the trainer right before the gym and repeat to make use of your exp share and level up your counter against said leader. Grinding can be knocked out within an hour that way meaning that even if you swap out your party a lot, you won’t end up putting THAT much time into grinding.. the game features a nifty speed up button that makes most grinding a matter of .. 30 minutes (provided you grind with at least some semblance of a plan).  I managed to beat the game in 5 evenings of playing with  the final stretch being a nice weekend day with a game I loved. This game has so many great ideas that it is worth picking up, and even if it doesn’t always stick to the landing of things it tries to achieve.. this game is a really great fit for any pokémon gamer who just wants another pokémon game! It might not be a Royal Flush.. but it is certainly a full house Queens over Kings!

Meeting God in Shattered Skies

POSTCARDS FROM PARADISE

Another week on Paradise – which means more pool cleaning, lawn mowing and preparation for coconut tourist season. But this week a different task led me down a dramatically different path than usual.

It all started with orders from the top (as it normally does). However, instead of a bad game frisbeed through my hut window like normal there was just a map of the island, a small note from Princess Pinkie and a pair of Power Bracelets left at the breakfast bar. I hadn’t even heard anyone come in. My guard Dog/Sea Lion, Cookie had spent the night at the reef somewhere off the coast with one of his girlfriends.

“HEAVY. ROCK. LIFT. MOVE. 🦆”

I sipped my coffee and held the note. The morning had started off rare as it was. I woke up in a green tunic. Which I chalked up to a combination of too much to drink the night before and laundry day.

Second, earlier that morning there was a bright large bug that kept yelling, “HEY” at me trying to wake me up. Eventually – completely irritated – I arose and squared up with the bug and boxed it. After punching it out of the air I tossed it’s strange, unconscious faerie body in the garbage can outside and laid back down.

Now there was this note. Rarely did I exchange much correspondence with the palace as is. I’ve always been the self motivated type. Wandering around the island looking for things to fix up. Generally assuming if I’m found busy my employers will almost always be happy. But a personal request – this was different. And the Power Bracelets looked badass. So equipped with my newly found gauntlets and tight-but-comfortable-green-tunic I set off towards the boulder that must be moved.

Upon arrival I saw the large rock that needed moving. There were some strange plants around it. They looked like cartoon bombs 💣 growing out of some weeds. I assumed they must be some sort of land mines left over from the war – Princess Diana did her best to have all land mines removed and eradicated from ex-war-zones but Paradise is a bit out of the way. They must have missed a few.

I, personally am not fucking with a bomb of an undetermined age sticking out of the ground. So I avoided them. Maybe I’ll put some caution tape around the area once I move around them and get this rock out of here. In other words: bomb disposal : outside my pay grade.

So removing the rock itself was extremely anticlimactic. I just lifted it over my head and tossed it. These gauntlets are excellent quality. The startling thing was this strange music I heard from everywhere around me as I lifted the rock. I quickly realized that by moving the rock I had exposed a hole. A seemingly bottomless pit.

Despite everything in my body telling me this was a mistake I decided to jump down the hole anyways because fuck it – why not. And I’m glad I did. I landed softly on a mirrored pad – where I heard a gorgeous harp – the sound of a running fountain and a relaxing, disarming ambience. I, was sure I was in the company of pure good.

As I approached I heard a powerful roar. A voice so beautiful and strong – easily the strength of a choir of people singing from the depths quickly approaching the fountains surface until completely breaking through the still water. A giant faerie? Or a giant god? Or the… unbelievably talented singer songwriter, Chris Cornell??

Chris Cornell emerged from the faerie fountain completely dry and all knowing. It wasn’t until now that I realized one of my favorite singers of all time sort of already had a Jesus look going on for awhile on his own.

His voice soft but firm.

Cornell: Periwinkle – I have been watching you from afar.

Me: Mr. Cornell – Why… I’m .. so… flattered.

Cornell: Of course you are. You have projected me. You wouldn’t pick someone you don’t like to be a faerie God…I mean.. think about it…

– Silence –

Me: Yeah. Yeah I s’pose you’re right.

Cornell: ANYWAYS… let’s see .. where was I – alright… As I was saying. *Clears Throat* Periwinkle – I have watched your self destruction from afar. It’s finally time, son.

Me: It’s time to move on? I can come with you? I have been waiting for thi-

Cornell: No! What’s the matter with you. You’re not going anywhere. It’s time for you to play a good game, finally.

Me: Oh. Well.. yeah, of course…

Cornell: Between back to back terrible titles like City Crisis and Trigger Man your heart meter is so low. Which is why I’m here. To provide comfort to weary travelers. Let me blow the life back into you.

Me: Wait.. wha – … like a ..sexual thing?

Cornell: No. Definitely not a sexual thing.

—- Neither makes eye contact for what seems like forever ——-

Cornell: I was going for like a game cartridge thing. Like when it wouldn’t work –

Me: Yeah, yeah I get it.

Cornell: But, anyways! You have suffered selflessly enough for the coconuts on Paradise. Trudging through horrible games to warn the visitors and retro enthusiasts on Paradise of the perils of bargain bin gaming. What games to avoid. Selflessly diving on grenades to save the masses. It’s time to treat yourself, son.

Me: This means so much… what game can make me love again? Can you, Grammy Award winning multi-instrumentalist, Chris Cornell show a guy like me how to live?

Cornell: Young Periwinkle – I can only steer you in the right direction. I can recharge your hearts and give you one single title to get you back on track. After that your destiny is in your own hands. Before I leave I suggest you take that bottle over there and make sure you bottle a little golden mini me as well. In case you ever find yourself dealing with Trigger Man level of incompetence in the future again.

I heard the flute noise and felt my energy being restored. *Flick flick flick flick* ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Golden Chris Cornell Faerie God also handed me a copy of Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies.

I grabbed the empty bottle and put a tiny Golden Chris Cornell inside it for later use. The floating Cornell smiled at the new lease on my gaming life.

With my arms out stretched over my head a floating bottle with a tiny golden statuette rest in it. You have acquired a Golden Cornell. Let him free to recharge your energy and soul.

Chris Cornell: Now before I go, son. Do you have any questions? About anything in the entire universe?

I thought hard.

Periwinkle: When is the McRib coming back?

Cornell looked extremely disappointed. Shook his head and floated back into the faerie fountain. Apparently it was such a good question he couldn’t even answer it! Or it was really bad. Eh, who cares?

I stood with my arms raised with a copy of Ace Combat 04 floating above my hands. YOU HAVE ACQUIRED A COPY OF A PLAYSTATION 2 MASTERPIECE, ACE COMBAT 04: SHATTERED SKIES.

FANCY INTRO VIDEO

Released: November 1 2001

Developed & Published: namco

I have such little experience writing about how much I enjoyed a video game that I am almost completely at a loss. I have messaged Pinkie nearly every day telling her how much I love this game. I have told my wife. I have told my friends. I have told the dog next door. Everyone after day two or so just eventually starts to roll their eyes.

I drove to New York City to profess my love to Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies while standing on the top of a skyscraper but there was already someone doing it. This game is a masterpiece. Beautiful, sad, fun, easy to learn but hard to master. All of the good stuff.

The game itself is about a future world where some asteroids posed a major threat to the planet. Mankind built a gun to shoot the asteroids and it didn’t really work so now we all live on one shitty continent. Naturally because we’re human beings we begin a war over land and resources and the “bad dudes” highjack the massive asteroid gun and you have to stop them. Sounds simple and stupid but it isn’t. The storytelling is so well done, exploring the human condition in times of war.

I’d also go on record and say this game is a top ten ps2 game graphically. Some of the colors, graphics, picture-esque skies and backdrops are still breathtaking to this day. With 2021 eyes that is quite a feat.

It even has a beautiful replay mode that you can exploit and slam your jet into the ocean all cinematic like:

SHOP TIL YOU DROP

I understand that this was a big series back in the day but it passed me by twenty years ago. I have noticed that most of my fellow ps2 collectors are around my age. A lot around mid 30’s. So when these games were out we didn’t necessarily have the money or the time to buy these games on our minimum wage grocery store paychecks.

But here’s where the news gets even better! I picked this bad boy up for $2.99 at a flea market. On eStarland you can find it CiB for $9.

On EBay I’ve been finding it for about $3.99 which is a great deal.

But as usual – there are ridiculous price gougers that deserve to be shamed. Like this fuckface:

I’ll just buy my own jet, thanks.

Regardless – without paying this guy $599 – if you are a collector or just a fan of retro games this game is well, well, worth its budget price tag these days. And if you’re an emulator player – get on it! You don’t have to be a jet or a war enthusiast to enjoy this game. I recommend it so much – I had to create a new cocktail because I refuse to put it on the list with all the other bad games. So here is the good game cocktail ingredient list!

PERIWINKLE’S GIN AND GEM INGREDIENTS

1.) One liter of Jet Fuel (Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies)

DESERT ISLAND SONG:

If nothing else – if you have skipped this entire article – which is fine – do yourself a favor and listen to this. I needed a harp version of a Soundgarden song to tie in Cornell w/ Zelda. And because the internet rules here we are:

Alright I think that’s it. I’m actually working on another surprisingly good game right now. I’ll see you guys next week. Have more ps2 gems it seems everyone missed out on? Let us know! Comment below or Hit me up on social media (Instagram has been popping lately!) Until next time, Coconuts.

I want a Real Estate on Paradise: Reviewing Video Game Castles

Hello Little Lights! In real life I am quite content with my new place in my real life. Yet virtual me has much more of a struggle! I am not made for a tiny little hut! I need an Estate to keep all my things!  Not one of those villa mansions either.. I want something special! Something that screams.. someone who is more than just a manager lives here! 

So I hired a realtor as we checked out some fairly iconic real estate.. You know I’d probably alter it just a bit so it is safe for me to use.. but you know a girl has to have inspiration. Anyway I found this Realtor named Phil.. he kind of is a geek! Met him in some virtual game.. and today we are looking at some of the most iconic Real Estate in video games.

Dracula’s Castle (Castlevania)

Dracula’s Castle

Phil : So this is the first place I would like you to see, it’s a  classical gothic structure, stemming from  1094, and belonged to a guy named Mathias Cronqvist, a powerful alchemist that lived up until the end of the 1990’s. It has about 200 rooms and can travel dimensions and locations, as it has shown up in Europe, Transylvania but also Japan as well.   It is also known to change shape and sizes to fit wherever and whenever it is needed.  I will be honest, the original owner has passed away in the castle.. as I am legally obligated to tell you this… in fact he has been murdered in his castle by a blonde man with long hair and a whip… and the palace might be a bit of a fixer upper.. but I think it can provide you years of happiness

Mathias Cronqvist

Pinkie: Phil this is Dracula’s castle from Castlevania isn’t it?!  Why do you use to name Mathias Cronqvist, now I have to explain to my readers that in Castlevania lore, Dracula is not an alter ego of Vlad Tepes, but of an alchemist who made himself immortal through his science and all that stuff. Besides I am not sure this place is for me.  It looks quite gloomy. I might become more than a manager soon, but I am pretty sure I won’t be turning evil or a vampire! If anything I am trying to become less nocturnal and Rainbows can’t be out in the dark.

Phil: Well it has a library, it has a dinner room, it has a piano room  and even it’s own swimming pool! You made a big deal out of wanting your own swimming pool which I don’t really get because don’t you have some amazing pools in Paradise?! I guess this palace is a bit of a fixer upper, you might need to fix some staircases fixed but that should not be to hard! It comes pretty cheap ever since the creators wanted to fix more on pachinko machines, the castle has been neglected a bit so you can pick it up without overspending. 

Pinkie:  Sure Phil, then tell me how we get from the main hall to the dining room. If you can explain it to me in less than a paragraph I will consider buying this place. 

Symphony of the Night Castle map

Phil:  I think that’s a bit unfair.. it is easy enough! All you need to do is gather a red orb from the music room, then kneel at a pond , a staircase that leads your underwater will be revealed.  You need to follow the tunnel and then choose the third mirror on the second floor from of the study and enter it and it will take you straight to the drawbridge that if it is open will take you to the dining room, If not you might need to take a little detour by getting a grappling hook..to move onto a higher platform.. but we can just build a staircase there to work around that.

Pinkie: I think you know why I am passing on this. I don’t want to need Nintendo Power to find my bedroom each night.. let’s go look at the next lot.. but before we go.. I really need to pee, could I use the bathroom here?!

Phil: Sure all you need to do is walk up the half broken stairs,  take a little leap of faith down  from the overpass, defeat the giant bat in the pantry so it drops a key that lets you access the west wing. Follow that to the end by jumping a few gaps and dodging some medusa heads and it will lead you right to the clock tower the bathroom is at the top.. it really is nice for the drainage.. you never have any smell or annoying kids throwing fireworks in the sewer to make your toilet spill.

Hyrule Castle (Legend of Zelda Series)

Hyrule Castle 64

Phil: Okay.. I am sorry you died twice while trying to get to the bathroom, that was my fault.. This palace is actually owned by a titular character. It follows a more classic structure and has plenty of space. A princess much like … Oh right… A Smash Brothers character I guess, lived here and many of her incarnations have found happiness in this castle.  Her father has been murdered in it only once .. so it already has way less deaths to it than most other castles we will visit. It already has been restored properly for the potential of Breath of the Wild 2.. and it has only gotten larger over time.

Pinkie:  This is actually quite nice Phil.. but  there seems to be a very thick wallpaper on the walls, I don’t really like it. .can I paint over that?!   It seems like it might go a bit soggy if I do.

Phil: Don’t worry you can paint over it.. the thick wall paper has been in place because the castle got devastated and converted to a fortress of evil for a bit.. during the era of the hero of time.  You know six magical seals were placed. spirits of some sages were imprisoned.. it all resulted in a bit of an edgy architecture, the rightful owner restored it to its previous condition.

Pinkie: Ah I see.. how unfortunate for the rightful owner! I would not like it if someone came and took my castle and made it into a dark fortress! So what’s that greenish looking residue on the ceiling, it kind of looks like mold!

Submerged Hyrule Castle

Phil: It’s dried in Algae actually, you see a couple of years later the country of Hyrule got completely flooded and the castle became completely submerged for many years! The princess became a pirate and all that unless a new hero could be found.. but after the evil was defeated it dried right up!  You might find a few pin bones here and there..but nothing a good round with a vacuum cleaner can’t fix up.

Pinkie: Okay.. but is it still a flooding hazard now? I mean I am Dutch so we know how to make dry land…but that sounds awfully costly! I also notice a lot of plaster work has been renewed and the cellar has  a do not enter sign? Why is that then?

Strike on Hyrule Castle

Phil: Well fairly recently the entire castle was destroyed because the evil forces took over four fire  giant animal mecha’s and layed the castle in ashes. The hero of the wild took control of them back.. but not before the evil  created all sorts of spider cyclops.. it really hurt the drywall.   The evil was defeated by the giant animal mechas firing a combined beams at him… but unfortunately the wine cellar now is just a crater. You know.. this castle does end up getting cursed or destroyed a lot.. given how unlucky you can be this might not be the purchase for you… I might be able to sell it to Pepper though.

Pinkie: Who is Pepper? Why would you sell him this thing? This is a timebomb! It gets destroyed like every other generation?! And why do all the shadowy corners of the castle have this dog pee scent to them?!

Dr Wily’s Castle (Mega Man)

Classicc Wiley’s Castle

Pinkie: Phil are you really trying to sell me Dr Wily’s castle?! I mean the music here is SOOOO good that I would almost consider it ..but this is an architectural nightmare. I know my taste in things can be a bit garish at times.. but this is pushing it. Maybe Indigo and Kuro would like it but why would I like a building that has a huge satellite dish, a  giant skull and some ribs.. a rocket.. that in the original design actually is more like a bullet.. and some silo’s that look like they belong on a farm?! I want a brick castle not a steel one! That is super cold and I am a fairy type! Steel is super effective against me!   So no I can already tell I will pass on this one. 

Phil: Yeah I guess this one might not be for you, you are going for a more classical vibe right? You know as Realtor I am obligated to at least show you a different style. But if you look for a princess castle we will look for something traditional. Sorry about that sometimes I can make this mistake as I come from such a Modern Family. 

Pinkie: Okay.. I wrote that joke.. and I might not get any emmy’s for it .. but for the sake of this post i’ll say, You are a funny man Phil!

Phil: Thank you, it’s actually a fact that if you look up the word funny inside an encyclopedia you  see my face! I am very proud of it! And sorry for wasting your time! But hey isn’t it cool to see this in real imaginary life?!

Wiley’s Gear Castle

Ted: Actually that word is pronounced encyclopeahdia!  I do agree with Pinkie though this place is an architectural nightmare.. besides it garish looks those eyes in the skull will give very big problems with heat regulation, the use of such varying materials such as bone, steel , brick and red plastic will also make sure that your house expands in various degrees when it is heated up by sunshine which would cause significant  structural damage over time.  The palace also has a lot of self destruct buttons which is trouble when you run with a cast as wild as Pinkie’s.

Pinkie: Who invited you here?!  You know what.. you can stay.. lots of these palaces have been needing changes , you might be useful. Besides.. now I got two sitcom characters and WandaVision is super popular right now.. I might be able to bank on their success by doing this weird cross over thingamajig myself.  

Ted: Cool, while we go to the next lot , how about I tell you the story of how I met the mother of my children?!

Phil & Pinkie: NO!!!!!

Princess Peach Castle (The Mario Series)

The Castle of Castles

Phil: So you seem to like Nintendo so I figured let’s try this one as well, this one might be a bit pricey to get but it needs the least work.  It is in functioning order.. and it also doubles as a dimensional hubworld , you can hang up a painting of Scott and jump straight through his blog by jumping through a painting. I love Scott! he talks about such great tech!  There is room for a lot of those rooms.. and the castle is pretty much cleaned of all other furniture so you can move right in! The times of the princess being kidnapped is mostly over now, she recently plays a more active role in adventures so she is looking to move into a bit of a smaller place. With a bigger kitchen so she can make more cakes!  Also perhaps a bit of added security! So yes you might need a few tech upgrades here and there but over all I think this could be the perfect castle for you!

Pinkie: You actually might be right Phil, I really like this one.. though I really need to do something about that stained glass Window that is shaped like Princess Peach! I mean  I don’t like the coconuts of the island to start worshipping the wrong person!  I know I am getting some design changes soon.. so I might not look her a lot.. unsure do you think we can change that window Ted?

The Skylight

Ted:  That may proof a bit trickier than you think you see that  skylight opens up a dimensional portal to the sky domain if light shines trough it.. if we wear it down at the wrong time of day…or take to long we may actually rip a fabric in the space time continuum which could have disastrous results..  We may even be dragged straight to hell as depicted by the Poët Dante who’s famous work Inferno has become the blueprint of ultimate dystopia as we know it!  If I were to quote him in the original Italian it would go a little something like this….

Pinkie: Shut up Ted!

I really wanted to use this

Frederik: Oh Hai everyone.. I see you chose a second grade realtor.. while actually I am the one that should have been listed, so I just came to tell you all that and maybe start a bit of a fight with Phil.. as it will be good for the ratings! I know what you are going to see, Frederic you work in New York and the Mushroom Kingdom is not in there.. but if you have ever seen the Super Mario Bros movie.. you know the Mushroom Kingdom is actually set beneath Brooklyn.. so this is my turf! How dare you take on other Realtors.

Pinkie: Go away Frederik I doubt any of my readers will know who you are!  I wanted to use a Realtor for this post most people know and I first selected Kirstie and Allan from House Hunters UK .. but I opted out of that as well.. so you can go away too! Don’t you dare bring Josh Altman into this either.. these castles are not Million Dollar listings.. we pay fictional money here not real!

Frederic: Oh.. why did you not say that from the beginning anyway.. not interested then.. see you later alligator! I must say I love Paradise though! Can I grab a cocktail?! Maybe some of the delicious food as well?

Pinkie: Yeah yeah go ahead.. I am am busy! Phil… I love this place. It’s so cute and girly and it has a nice garden . how much would I need to offer to get this.. and could you please send these toads away?! It might be kind of unprofessional to let them hear how excited I am about this! They may make sure Peach gives a higher counter offer.

Phil: Oh no you don’t need to worry about these Toads Pinkie, they won’t spy for Peach, they come with the castle


Pinkie: …….. I’m Out!

Where did the "Shaking Toad" gif come from? - Album on Imgur

A Minecraft Palace

Ted: Pinkie, is your existence not based around that of the V-Tuber and do you not seek to return to YouTube once your health Issues pick up?!

Pinkie: That is true
.. why?!

Ted: One word:
Minecraft

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is confused-pinkie.png

Pinkie: Building my own castle?! 
That seems like a lot of effort.

Ted: For Realz
And hey the effort could be video content!

Pinkie: I don’t want to spend two months building a palace and I bump my head all the time! If everything has blocky edges I’d hurt myself a lot! Plus I ‘d have to use a lot of cheats.. unless we find like a very little version of Steve that can just build a huge palace that it seems round it might not be a very good idea.

Ted: Look what I found though it is a tropical  Sandstone palace made in Minecraft set on a tropical island! It has a lot of space, and you can completely customise your house! It could be a fun thing to do with some members or Staff as well. You know build Paradise Island in Minecraft! There. Sandstone will keep you cool on hot days but also holds some heat in winter so it is a good way to build a home, it beats making a house of wool blocks and then getting a fire don’t you think!

Pinkie: Wow that’s a pretty palace I’d like to make something like that.. but let’s be honest I do not really have the patience for that. Could we not just imagine this is kind of like my palace?!  Just a lot of pinker?! Also who told you about my wool castle?! It still hurts! It was so fluffy! Then it was all gone! Let’s pass on Minecraft for now and wait untill I have enough followers to help me build such a thing! 

Stormwind Keep (World of Warcraft)

Stormwind Keep

Phil: Okay this one might be a bit bland for your taste, but it is highly customisable.. It’s built out of mostly white bricks,  and has held kings of Stormwind for many generations. It’s also set in a world where cities and castles can fly.. so getting it to Paradise should not be too hard.   It comes with a courtyard, throne room and has several rooms that can easily be adapted to suit all your needs,  it even has a bit of a protective wall, to keep the simps out!  It hasn’t been destroyed as much. Lot’s of rooms and no Toads.  It doesn’t come with any staff as most people  prefer to be stuck to a Stormwind of the past.  There is a lot of time shenanigans with a gnome, it somehow exists in several realms and some of them are pretty dead and we might be able to snipe one of these during a server merge or a Timeweaver event or whatever they are called.

Pinkie: Hmm I don’t dislike Stormwind keep! It does look nice without looking braggy! Those Lionheads can be replaced I assume?! How about the blue roofs can we make them pink Ted?!

Ted: I got into a lot of troubles due to Lionheads so I will happily take this one down .. Stormwind itself has coloured roofs for all districts, the mage district has purple shingles if we sun bleach them those will appear Pink.. .. Would you like to change the Lionhead into an effigy of yourself?

We need prettier decorartions

Pinkie: Eeew No! But yeah the Lionhead is a pretty tacky icon..  like .. oh we are a human organisation in a fantasy setting.. lets use blue banners and golden Lions.. .for some reason that is really unoriginal.  It is a bit of a bland generic  and the castle has that around it as well but.. to be honest it is filled with a lot of characters that are spoofs of other things, so it does really fit!  Let’s make an offer!  So how much do you think we should offer Phil?!

Phil: Oh don’t worry all we have to do is tweet that Diablo II Remastered will NOT have HD cutscenes.. that should shut down a server or two!  It will be cheap! Oh and have you heard about the new subscription plan?! This place will be a steal!

Pinkie: Ahhh Cancel Culture at it’s finest!  Now we should go on a hunt for some nice things to customise my new place!  Thanks Phil.. Thanks Ted!  And thanks to the reader who put up with this entire post! I hope you all shine on little lights! Oyasumi! Oh and if you want to help me in the accessory hunt.. you might want to consider supporting my Kofi!

Pinkie’s Vision on WandaVision

Hello my little lights! The upside of being sick a lot is being able to play catch up with a lot of content  you might have missed, and for me one of those pieces of content was WandaVision. I had watched the first three episodes and felt kinda “meh” about it but with six more episodes out there, I just had to check if that feeling had changed! At worst Wanda seemed like an excellent homemaker, so I might just learn some tricks to manage Paradise!

<Disclaimer>
This Post will contain spoilers on WandaVision and older MCU Products
<End of Disclaimer>

WandaVision: The Sitcom

This show can roughly be divided into three parts, all give or take three episodes long.  Phases as it were. The first three episodes this show presents like a sitcom. A progresive one with each episode dealing with a new decade and iconic sitcom to spoof.  Episode 1 of WandaVision is set in the 50’s and heavily spoofs the Dick van Dyke show, while Episode 2 is in the sixties , showing a lot of similarities with BeWitched. Episode 3 is set in the seventies and borrows heavy influences from the Brady Bunch.  All with just a splash of Twilight Zone mixed in between them. It’s lovely to spot all the smaller references and  even the major ones , like the tripping on the stool Van Dyke used to do.. it’s all there and done very faithfully which makes this is a great homage… yet that is also a pretty big problem for me.

The first three episode of this show seem to be the most loved among those that I follow that had anything to say about this show.. but for me it has a huge flaw. These are kind of rehashes of old Dick van Dyke Episodes, the second episode really feels like a recast of Bewitched and the third episode feels like a nuttier unhinged episode of the Brady Bunch…but because of it… it doesn’t do  that much new stuff other than blend in a mystery, yet if you have seen what happened before and if you know what Wanda can do in the comics as Scarlet Witch, the mystery is really REALLY obvious. That was confirmed to me at the end of episode 2.  Which, I must admit is one of my favourite episodes of the show overall, just because I do kind of like Bewitched.. However I do not like The Brady Bunch or Dick van Dyke and as such those episodes kind of strike out for me.

I do have to say that Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Betanny have great on screen chemistry though!  They also do the whole time skipping thing in a very funny way! There is so much love for sitcoms in this first part of the show, there is attention to detail and on a production level it works really well! The simple coloured in parts in episode two, the video effects, the fake commercials, it is all done very well. I just do not care about the subject matter of two out of those three episodes.. but I can see the good despite of it!  Clearly this is a passion product and that is the saving grace of these three episodes. This is great experimental tv, that also pays tribute to tv of the past. This is something that has been done much outside of cartoons before, and it is very unmarvel at the start making it a more intriguing product. However if you come to get your Marvel action on, you kind of can kind of  skip the first three episodes and not miss a single thing.

WandaVision: Agents of S.W.O.R.D.

The second act drops the focus on Wanda and shifts the focus to agent Monica Rambeau , who in the comics is better known as Miss Marvel 2,  Spectre of Photon. She has heavy connections to Miss Marvel and somehow became part of Wanda’s little world and in the next few episodes we find out why.  Monica Rambeau is played by Teyonah Parris and she is assisted by FBI agent  Jimmy Woo, played by Randall Park and the plucky Scientist Darcy Lewis, whom you might know from the Thor Movies played by Kat Dennings. Mostly the latter character really shines so much more for me than she did before.  Darcy here is a charming character. I am not sure if I can say the same about Rambeau, while I love that  we will get a more diverse cast in the marvel universe I could not really buy her story and her motivations. She is an extremely determined woman who lost her mother during the Blip and that makes her relate to Wanda so much that she is willing to break all kinds of rules and do her utmost to save Wanda?!  I am not sure..while acted pretty decently I felt there was a lot of forced writing. 

This is also the part where the show creators begin to do something about the whole “It’s too obvious” thing, as we are thrown for a loop on several occasions. We do establish indeed that it is Wanda who is doing all these things yet things do not always make sense. Stuff seems to happen without her intending it too. Like her dead brother showing up..strange! However he has been recast… by the Quicksilver from the Fox XMen Universe. That is hilarious! It is also what made the fanbase incredibly toxic.. They all felt that this could lead them into bringing the X-men into the MCU .. but Marvel doesn’t go that route and throws us a huge red herring, the likes of one in Iron Man 3. Fans are reacting super salty that their fan theory was not correct.. and I think heavily disagree with those fans! I LOVE that they threw some red herrings in there!  This show was a little on the nose before.. but here the creators just make it fit into the MCU in their own way.. and thus WandaVision gets more needed identity in this second part.  Even though half an episode is still clearly a spoof of Malcolm in the Middle, there is also more of an actual show moving throughout it. Albeit with a lot less mystery.

Unfortunately this is the part that suffers the most from the show just being 9 episodes.  Of which 6 episodes are only 30 minutes long. Monica and Darcy uncover things a bit too fast for my liking. Which is enhanced by the fact that most of the fourth episode is just Darcy rewatching the first three episodes on an old tv. The next two episodes add in twists and turns and change the dynamic between Wanda and the Vision, which takes away that awesome chemistry. For a large part of the second and  third act, the Wanda and Vision don’t interact with each other at all. Which dulls the experience of the third act a bit. That being said however I do really like the dynamic between humans trying to cope with a super powerful entity of questionable sanity and alliance.  You do get invested in how this situation can be resolved and you get a certain sense of dread as it seems inevitable that this show can not end with a “happily ever after for everyone” While clearly the weakest part of the show it did provide the incentive to watch on.

WandaVision: The Marvel Movie

The third act plays out as a classical Marvel movie, including the hidden endings at the end, new people getting superpowers and a colourful cast of heroes and villains ending with an epic showdown. As a Marvel fan I was kind of pleased with this part! I haven’t read to much Scarlet Witch Comics but I am fairly aware of the bigger universe, so I actually knew who the main antagonist was at the moment she was introduced. It’s a nice character to meet Wanda since the two share a mentor-student relationship from Scarlet Witch her villain days.  The character has her origins in the Fantastic Four comics though and I very much hope that they do not make that connection. After three different attempts to create a Fantastic Four Franchise, with only one of them getting a sequel,  I think we are done with them for a while. We failed too often, now we need to give it some time to breathe. However with Wanda having a limited rogues gallery, I think  the choice was nice. I allowed Wanda to blossom into Scarlet Witch finally and be a more defined character in terms of powers, mindset and her hero identity. I also like the choice to mirror this type of antagonist for Vision.  Clever and it really opens possibilities for the future. Even in the case of the Vision , introducing his rival also felt like a huge cop-out!  At least given how that encounter ended.

I think this part really does a pretty good job at making Wanda walk both the path of the hero and the villain, which is very much in line with the character in the comics. I’d say the series offers a more compelling product though, being both a hero and villain at the same time, rather than just be a redeemed character. Wanda has a darkness and an instability to her, she is aware of this and does not ask for forgiveness, instead she accepts what she has done and even Monica says she would have done the same in her situation! I really like this.. philosophy as it makes for much more compelling characters. Wanda has an insane amount of power and now that her powers have been explained to her, even more so, it makes sense that someone as broken as Wanda would abuse her powers and not just use it for good, unlike virtually every hero ….ever. Wanda feels so much more human and I love her for it. Darcy and Woo, really come alive during the last part as well and even Rambeau lightens up a bit and feels less like a Deus Ex Machina. I also liked the cleverness of the last battle. People  argue that Wanda would not know how to do what she did.. but she can create towns.. I assume she can make some things she saw as well pretty easily.

What the third part lacks for me is pollish!  Where the first part had so much love and attention to detail, that really dries up in the third part. We find out trough flashbacks that Wanda loved classic Sitcoms, but I don’t think that has  been established very much before.   We see an old 60’s tv to  depict her Sakovian poverty , yet somehow they are able to connect a dvd player to it?! That should technically not even work!  At least not here in Europe! There would not be any way to connect these two devices.. and while it is a nitpick..  the fact that they went through great lengths to duplicate sets and hairdo’s from original shows in the first part and now miss something as obvious as this just shows how the tone of this show shifts. We never seen Wanda display these traits before in any of the movies she was in, at least not to my knowledge, the Villain somehow escapes Wanda’s mind altering magic that effects everyone else, yet her entire thing is that she can steal power by being hit by a said power… so the why does not make sense. Monica gets powers and suddenly instinctively knows how to use them, a misguided cop goes from stickler for rules ot stone cold child killer in the bat of an eye…it all is epic and looks amazing and is super Marvel and satisfying.. however it all feels a bit like loose sand.   That even messes with it’s own consequences one to many times.

Wandavision: The Show of Many Shows

I had a fairly good time with WandaVision , in fact I really came out of the conclusion pretty hyped! I really want to see Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Magic or whatever it is called now, which features Wanda. However after sleeping on it for a night… cracks began to show.. WandaVision has three parts that all have something compelling to offer in their own right! We get a fun experiment with old Sitcoms, we get an intriguing mystery that is solved by scientists and detectives and the likes and we get a bombastic Marvel Movie at the end.. that seems like a pretty good three course meal! And it is!  The acting is great, the production is high level and doesn’t feel like a tv show at all! It feels movie quality almost all the way trough! Cool effects, great references, this is a great series to just geek out with! Even if it’s just for seeing more obscure marvel characters, cool red herrings that might be more.. and all that jazz. Throughout the journey I felt engaged to consume more and keep watching. Never have I seen a show that has been so many shows at once!  Because It’s not just a sitcom, it is Dick van Dyke, it IS  the Office, it IS  modern family .. but it is also WandaVision and that on it’s own even has three versions! That is something so unique and fascinating and worth watching.

Yet at the same time.. this is also the greatest weakness of this show!  Because all those versions of WandaVision don’t blend very well.  The Sitcom tone is in shrill contast with the suffering people go through in this series. Yet because Deborah Jo Rubb (best known as Eric Forman’s Mother in That 70’s show)  is type-cast as that Sitcom type character, suddenly believing this was a normal person being brainwashed.. feels… odd. Because Sitcom references are such a part of its DNA seeing sitcom actors take those roles counteracts that third act. The fact that the whole detective stuff is kind of blown out of the water by a supernatural force being an element in the third act, invalidates the second act a bit and this keeps happening. If you like the first part, the third part will feel too safe, if you mostly like the third act, the first act is bit too much out there. Especially when everything ends with basically a reset of the status quo. Except that Wanda now knows what her powers are and Rambeau will go into space.

In the end this is just yet another Marvel product where you need to have seen at least Captain Marvel, Avengers 2, Civil War, Avengers 3, Avengers 4 and kind of Spider Man Far From Home to get what is happening. You need to watch WandaVision to get full context of Dr Strange. Yet even in a 9 episode show we lack actual context. So we now know what Wanda’s power is, but have no idea why she has magic, why is her brother an Inhuman or a Mutant yet she is a witch?  If Photon, or Miss Marvel 2 or whatever else Monica Rambeau uses (as she has like 9 hero names)  gets a movie you have to also see this series, and I do not like that.

The C in the MCU stands for Cinematic and I think  the important content should be limited to cinema. Sure this allows for deeper story telling, but honestly the first six episodes hardly matter to this show’s grander story. It could all be made into a movie by Darcy watching a comedy episode showing Wanda and Woo asking her what she is watching.. giving some explanation that Wanda in her grief erected a reality bubble and they are trying to free people..but some strange force is interfering.. and we could have all fitted it in a movie. So in the end while an enjoyable experience.. something isn’t right here. Normally I end with an allegory but the perfect allegory for this show.. is this show itself. The show within the show describes all the flaws and oddities of the product we get.

While I might be highly critical of the show, I still had a good time! However I also think that the Marvel formula is wearing a bit thin. I really enjoy the MCU, and Scarlet Witch/Wanda is very much a character I adore.. but I feel like the world is getting thinner.. stretched to far.. and this series kind of confirmed that for me! Do take in mind this is just my own opinion! If you had a great time , all the power to you! If you really disliked this, I am sorry it wasn’t your cup of tea! Regardless! I love you all my little lights! Shine on! Oyasumi!