Nicholas Cage is back again as Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider in the second outing of the flaming skull dude on a badass motorcycle.
Ghost Rider is an awesome character. This movie, on the other hand...not so much.
Hell hath no fury like a flaming skeleton on a motorcycle
Lets see...what went wrong with this movie.
I think its easier to point out what went right in this movie.
Which is to say: None.
Ok maybe not, that was harsh. One or two things went right.
Ok, this scene was damn mothereffing awesome.
A side story in the movie deals with the fact that the Ghost Rider persona being "hungry", after being suppressed so long by Johnny Blaze refusing to let it come out. And when it does finally come out, oh boy...the Rider goes nuts like a withdrawn drug addict in a pharmacy.
In those scenes, Nicolas Cage pretty much just has to be himself.
That was an interesting way of analysing Ghost Rider. Too bad it got approximately a whole dedicated 10 minutes to it.
Other than that, the graphics was the only other thing that went right.
That looks painful.
The transformation to Ghost Rider is smoother and looks more believable, even the way Ghost Rider moves is not as awkward as the first movie, and looks sharper.
And...that's the end of the good points of this movie.
Frankly, this movie sucks.
Let's begin with the story. The Devil/Satan/Mephistopheles/Roarke (seriously? Couldn't find a better name?), wants to manifest himself in our world, so he impregnates a woman in the mortal realm, so that he can take over the child's body.
*Yawn*
That's the best story you can think of? That story has been explored in god knows how many other movies. He's the goddam GHOST RIDER for fuck's sake.
Furthermore, he does not get any good fights at all, NO ONE poses a significant challenge to him.
Magikarp is more dangerous than these useless buggers.
Blackheart and those three elemental hippies from the first movie were frankly a bore.
In the second movie, Roarke/Satan/Whatever does not do anything at all, short of standing around looking smug and evil. There's this other antagonist, Ray Carrigan who looked like he could've been a pretty badass mofo.
I mean, he only had access to mundane guns and missiles, but you gotta give him credit for trying his best against Ghost Rider.
Then, Roarke/Red-eyed-Old-Man turns him into BLACKOUT!! (Not to be confused with the much more awesome Pave Low Decepticon)
L'oreal: Because you're worth it.
Roarke/Bad-Planning-Dude grants him the power of...DECAYING TOUCH!!!
Everything he touches ages and slowly turns to dust!! Everything except...Ghost Rider apparently.
Uh huh. Smart...
At one point in the movie, for some reason or another, he was affected by a few point blank grenade launchers, but later on he is completely unaffected by a FUCKING JAVELIN MISSILE.
*cough* Continuity fail *cough*
And what happened to his Penance Stare?
OH MY GOD, NICOLAS CAGE IS STILL GHOST RIDER!!!
THE LUNACY!!! PLEASE STOP!!!
Not once was it used in the whole damn movie. What? He forgot he had it? Ghost Rider re-rolled his character and forgot to pick it from his skill tree?
It also does not help that almost the entire cast looks like they were bored. Even the story is bloody uninterested in characterizing them properly, resulting in mostly one-dimensional people that serve as much use as...a Twinkie bar.
On a different note, she's got a REALLY nice
rack......of weapons behind her. Yes.
The only character that I had fun watching was Idri Elba's acting as Moreau, the delightfully alcohol-loving monk, who sort of serves as the comic relief in the movie.
After the fanbase-breaking Final Fantasy XIII, it actually came as a surprise that Square Enix made a sequel to it.
However, they made promises to fix what was considered bad design decisions in the previous entry.
The question is: Does the oddly titled game fix what was broken?
It does. But unfortunately, it also tried to add too much, and fix what ain't broken.
Storyline
The game picks up three years after the end of Final Fantasy XIII, but for some reason, Lightning has disappeared and many people believe she had sacrificed herself along with Vanille and Fang to save Cocoon.
Except Serah, who is the only person who does not believe it, as she saw Lightning alive at the end of the events of the previous game. Worse still, Snow, Hope, and Sazh are now separated from her as well, off doing their own thing, for one reason or the other.
But then one night, Serah has a vision of Lightning in her dream just as her new home, New Bodhum is attacked by monsters. Then for some damn reason, her clothes change.
Honestly, was the costume change necessary?
And then TADA!! Noel comes out of nowhere, helps Serah and tells her that he met Lightning and he is suppose to help bring Serah to her. From there, the story starts.
Now, I won't spoil too much of the storyline here, partly 'cause that would be really bad of me, but mostly because I DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND THE DAMN STORY.
A lot of things are not clear in the story, such as the existence of the time travel gates, the artefacts, the Goddess Etro, the Farseers, Academia and so forth.
Compared to FF13, the storyline is far less focused here. The basic plot is fine: Serah and Noel have to go find her sister, and stop Caius from destroying the world!! There.
But when it comes to explaining beyond that, the story falters.
And, somehow, despite only having only two characters to play with, the game failed to bring out anything meaningful to them. They feel rather flat.
Not everything was flat in game though.
Not because of poor writing, but rather, the storyline does not focus on the characters but keep emphasizing on Finding Lightning and most of the time, the mission amounts to nothing more than just "Go there and make things right in the timeline". Which is rather weird, considering that FF13's main draw was that it was far more character-centric and were more compelling.
At some points in the game, the storytelling shines. *Spoiler Alert*
At one point in the game, you, as Serah, see Noel at his timeline, where he was one of the last few humans still alive about 700 years into the future.
The bleak setting, combined with the sad music, painted a rather character-defining moment for Noel. Suddenly, Noel's narrative about changing the future for the better, are no more just empty words sprouted over and over as Noel walks across the desert, alone after Caius left, and Yeul died (again).
Unfortunately, the game does not do this often enough, and thus loses a lot of focus. A bit of a 180 turn there compared to the last game, for the worse.
Gameplay
A lot of changes to the gameplay mechanics were made in the sequel.
One of the more significant changes is that the monsters are now not on the battlefield anymore, well, at least most of them. Only a few very powerful monsters are actually there, but these are few and far in-between.
We meet again, you overfed turtle.
Which I thought was rather dumb to change. Because now, instead of being able to see what monsters you could engage and plan somewhat ahead; the monsters randomly jump out of some chrono-arsehole and engage you.
If you can time it right, and hit them with your weapon, then you will get Haste bonus effect and a pre-emptive strike. If not, the battle goes on as normal.
However, there's a Mog Clock system that ticks down during this situation, if you want to avoid combat, you must run as far away as possible from the enemies before the time runs out. If you fail to do so, you will engage in combat penalised and WITH THE RETRY OPTION LOCKED.
Bloody annoying system. Why change what was not broken?
The same can be said of the Crystarium System: instead of being multi-faceted, it is now rather linear, and you choose from a menu which role to upgrade. And at the end of each path, you choose what bonuses to get, such as an extra ATB segment or unlock a new role.
Not to say that this system does not work. It just feels like a trivial change; change for the sake of change.
Thankfully, there are a few gameplay changes that are more thoughtful and fun. For one thing, if the selected leader gets K.O-ed, you simply switch to the other character to continue the battle, unlike the last game, where the loss of the leader means GAME OVER. Even better, you can switch leaders anytime during battle to take advantage of their skills.
Also, the linearity of FF13 is gone, due in part to the storyline. Similar to Chrono Trigger, Noel and Serah can time travel between different locations and time.
Each different location has their own little distractions to complete, though the side quests amount to little more than fetch quests. Still, it is a refreshing change to be given this much freedom after the last game.
However, unlike Chrono Trigger, the consequences of changes in the timeline are not governed by you, but pre-scripted storyline progression. So, for those looking for the chance to have their own unique ending will be a little disappointed.
FF13-2 brings something completely new to the table, the monster taming system.
Kitteh!!
Since you can only play as Noel and Serah, the third slot is now taken up by a monster which you have a chance of taming upon defeat. And, each monster has their own Crystarium to expand upon, using certain materials to progress.
This system is addictively fun, not unlike Pokemon, as you go around the maps trying to obtain rare monsters to add to your party. Each monster has their own pseudo-limit break, and unique skills to add to the battles. Although you may only interchange between any three chosen monsters at any point.
The monster element brings a pretty fun angle to battles, as you come up with strategies to make the best of them.
Which is why the game becomes extremely disappointing, when it comes to the enemies you can fight. Despite having a wealth of battle options, almost all the battles in can be fought with minimal effort. The effort being switching paradigms.
The final battle took me a glorious two minutes to beat.
Square Enix, if you're gonna give us so many options to toy with in battle, then give the players something challenging dammit!!
I think there was less than a dozen boss battles and most of them were damn bloody easy to defeat. The rest was just easy.
Effectively, there was no tension at all when it came to battles. No sense of excitement at all. And, no sense of achievement after beating them.
And then, there are the puzzles.
Usually, in order to repair the timeline in some of the locations, players have to solve and get rid of "Temporal Rift Anomalies". They consist of three types of puzzles, and they are also bloody boring to solve.
God ,I hated doing this one soooo much.
They serve as rather unwanted pauses in-between the action, and more often than not, they take up far too much time to solve, especially the Hands of Time puzzle variants shown above.
In fact, instead of putting up these goddamn puzzles, I feel that the team should've spent time making the anomalies a small story in itself, and end with a boss fight instead.
Overall, I'm not too impressed with the changes in gameplay. There are good ideas, but too many unnecessary ones.
Graphics
As usual, FF13-2 looks gorgeous, especially during the important story-relevant CGI cutscenes.
Absolutely gorgeous
However, those CGI cut scenes are shown very rarely. Instead, a lot of the scenes are done in-game, while it's not horrible by any means, the graphics level is certainly nowhere close to the beautiful CGI. And, during those scenes, the range of movements for the models are obviously limited.
There are noticeable framerate drops as well during the more graphic intensive scenes.
Somehow, I get the feeling that the graphics department were somewhat rushed to push the game out. Taking into account the fact that most of the monsters are recycled from the previous game, that fact gains more footing.
Bad music choices, especially that heavy metal, rapping boss battle theme
Gives illusion of being able to have multiple endings, but actually does not
Making changes to aspects that were not broken in the first place
Overall, I am not impressed with Final Fantasy XIII-2. While it is by no means a half-hearted attempt, obviously alot of thought were put into it, but due to a short production time, it does not feel like it was all implemented properly.
Honestly, if you ain't a fan of the XIII universe, give this one a pass.
So recently Sunrise/Bandai remastered Mobile Suit Gundam SEED in HD, with the Blu-ray compilation coming sometime this year.
When I first heard the news, I was very excited. Gundam SEED was my first true foray into the Gundam franchise and left a deep mark on me as a teenager, becoming one of my favorite series of all time.
Ain't no better time than to have a trip down memory lane, and revisit one of the most iconic, and popular Gundam series of all time.
It has been almost 10 years since this series debuted, so I'm not going to bother with keeping spoilers in check. If you were a Gundam fan, you probably would know about the general story anyway.
(Warning: Long ass post ahead)
Two giant robots, a girl and a fuck-load of explosions.
Story
In the Cosmic Era timeline, humanity is divided into two major groups: Naturals and Coordinators. Coordinators are genetically enhanced humans, who are faster learning, stronger and immune to most diseases. Children born from a Coordinator couple inherit the genetic modifications without further need for more enhancements. Naturals are, duh, natural humans without any modifications.
The conflict between the two groups are the major driving force of the story. Coordinators are feared, despised and envied by Naturals; while Naturals are seen as an inferior species by Coordinators. Of course, this is not the viewpoint of every single person in the world, but certainly there is enough to launch a full scale war.
Before the war, most Coordinators fled to either PLANT, or neutral nations that are not anti-Coordinator, such as the Union of Orb.
In such a hostile world environment, it was just a matter of time before war exploded.
And then the war began between the Earth Alliance and PLANT's military wing, ZAFT. Three days after the war began, on 14th February, the EA launched a nuclear attack on one of PLANT's colonies, killing over 240,000 civilians. In retaliation, PLANT dropped Neutron Jammers all over Earth, which blocks nuclear fission reactions. This in turn caused hundreds of thousands of people across the planet to die as a huge energy crisis struck the planet, which was dependant on nuclear fission reactors.
Thus, began the Bloody Valentine War
Damn, this made World War II look like a snowball fight in comparison.
Giant Stomping Robots!! (Episode 1 of the HD remastered episode)
The anime starts one year after the war began, as the Earth Alliance is slowly losing ground to ZAFT's superior mobile suit technology, eventhough they have the numbers.
Receiving news that the Earth Alliance is also developing their own mobile suits, a small ZAFT commando team infiltrate Heliopolis, a space colony owned by the Union of Orb, in order to steal them.
Our protagonist, Kira Yamato, somehow ends up in one of the prototype mobile suits, as he learns to his horror that his childhood friend, Athrun Zala is now a member of ZAFT.
Rule of Drama
I don't think I did the anime any justice. This is, after all, a very summarized version of just the first episode.
Gundam SEED started off a bit slow, but the story gets better and more dramatic. Especially in episode 30, after having their close friend killed by the other, Athrun and Kira finally have a no-hold-back beatdown on each other in their respective Gundams, resulting in one of the most brutal fight scenes in the whole series.
From that point on, the series matures, as the Bloody Valentine War became even more gruesome as both the Earth Alliance and ZAFT start engaging in genocidal tactics, determined to wipe the other side out completely.
The most annoying thing? Bloody flashback episodes. At least three of them were flashback episodes. It doesn't help that they used stock footage for them. It's no wonder the director, Mistuo Fukuda, earned the nickname "Flash Back 'Em All".
Overall, the storyline of Gundam SEED is very well done: there is no black and white morality here, though that is typical of any Gundam series, the added element of discrimination/racism and nuclear weapons bring it to a whole new level, sometimes it feels like extreme racial riots on a planetary scale.
Relatively speaking, Gundam SEED is probably the darkest Gundam series to date. It rarely has any funny moments, which of course is the whole damn point. By the end of the series, many characters have died.
War is hell, and the message is very clearly delivered.
Graphics
Gundam SEED is still a rather beautiful anime by today's standards, despite being made in 2001. However, low quality production still shows up once in a while in earlier episodes, though it is mostly averted by episode 10 or so.
Being one of the first Gundam series to be digitally animated, Gundam SEED was a huge leap in quality, it especially shines during the later episodes and during mobile suit combat scenes. Special mention goes to the design of the Archangel and the Dominion battleships, the Moebius Zero mobile armor unit and Freedom and Justice Gundams.
The HD Remastered version takes the graphics and pushes it up to eleven, by actually re-drawing and re-animating scenes that were low quality in the original: adding shadows and details to character faces and the mobile suits, detailed special effects etc etc.
Holy crap, how did I not remember her looking so bad??
(Remastered on top, original on bottom)
There are more comparison pictures here. (hint: The widescreen pics are the remastered versions).
One of my main complaints on the original Gundam SEED was that there was a shitload of stock footages. Recycled over and over and over and over and over again. It was very jarring especially when considering that the rest of the anime is actually quite well drawn.
Specific examples: Strike launching (in one of the episodes I can't remember which, the Strike was launching with the wrong equipment!!), Aegis firing his beam rifle, Kira in Freedom spamming his shooty beam death machine of doom, Moebius Zero using the Gunbarrel pods, Buster combining his two weapons into a single gun etc etc.
It was probably to reduce production costs but really...it was quite bad.
Characters
This is like...one third of the entire cast list. Probably less.
There are ALOT of characters in Gundam SEED. And this is not even counting the sidestories like in Gundam SEED Astray or Stargazer.
The main characters are, as mentioned above, Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala. As characters, they do develop through the series, as they slowly get a hold of themselves and grow determined to stop the war at any costs. But their conflict and eventual reconciliation is one of the central theme of the plot, which in my opinion was much more important and interesting to watch. Thankfully, they were not generic heroes, though some people do find Kira's character a bit whiny to watch during the first part of the series.
To be fair, the guy was thrown into a situation he had no control over at all, and he was forced to kill people just because he was the only one who could pilot the one Gundam they still had on their side. For a person with no soldier training, it can be very traumatizing, especially when thrown into a life-or-death situation constantly.
Will you be able to point a gun at your own friend?
Threatening to kill him?
Athrun and Kira's conflict is central to the story, giving us different perspectives to consider: the traumatizing effects of war, the cynicism and at what point does the war end? Is there a right side?
The most interesting character in my opinion was actually Flay Allster, which has a very broken fanbase. You either love her. Or hate her.
Me? It's both.
One of the most tragic characters in Gundam SEED
I find her a fascinating character to watch. Yes, I hate her for the way she manipulated Kira's feelings; the way she was whiny and bitchy. But at the same time, to watch her as she spirals out of control is heartwrenching and I find myself unable to look away eventhough I know how tragic it will end.
It was like watching an accident in motion: you want to look away, but you can't.
While some people just hate her outright and dismiss her, I find that her actions are not without some form of justification. She was a young spoilt teenager (very likely a daddy's girl), and she was thrown into a middle of a war where survival was far from certain, and then she watched as her father was nastily killed off AFTER Kira promised to do his best to protect her father (note that I am not blaming Kira for this).
Sure, her actions were extreme, as she manipulated Kira's feelings as revenge. But is it that unthinkable? I certainly don't think so. Many people take for granted how broken someone can be when they reach extreme psychological low points.
Lets move on to the pilots. This is, after all, a Gundam anime.
The most badass pilot, and one of the coolest character, in the series in my opinion is:
Even before the series began, he was a famous pilot, known as the Hawk of Endymion, for taking out FIVE mobile suits in a Moebius Zero. Granted that said mobile armor is more powerful than the typical Earth Alliance mobile armor, but it is still a feat that was thought impossible.
Remember that is a world where the general consensus is that to take out even ONE GINN mobile suit requires FIVE mobile armors. If they were lucky. And in the process, very likely all of those mobile armors will be destroyed.
Furthermore, this guy once took on a battleship with his Moebius Zero. And won. Eventhough Rau La Creseut was onboard the battleship and has a sixth sense connection to him. So, even WITH foreknowledge of him attacking, they couldn't stop him from disabling the battleship.
Also, remember that this guy is a Natural, meaning he has no genetic modifications whatsoever in a world where every single ace pilot is a Coordinator. He is near the top of the list of kick-ass pilots through pure skill.
Hell, all of these achievements were well BEFORE he ever got into a mobile suit (which was Strike by the way, sorta like a hand-me-down from Kira).
Even his death scene was epic.
"I'm the man who can make the impossible, possible."
*manly tears were shed*
A Positron Blaster Cannon that fires antimatter positrons that annihilates anything in its path? No problem!! I will block it!!!
The only reason that huge wave of energy didn't go right through him is probably because of his sheer goddam awesomeness.
His death then became another reason to hate Azrael for his actions. Too bad Gundam SEED Destiny removed the dignity of his death by having him somehow surviving that shit.
As for the villains, there are three featured in the series.
Muruta Azrael is the head of Blue Cosmos, a radical/terrorist anti-Coordinator group that has a lot of influence amongst the Earth Alliance military. This man is a complete monster. He is trigger happy with his nukes, laughs like a maniac, creates supersoldiers with superaddictive drugs (so that said soldiers will die from withdrawal without regular consumption) and treats them as equipment rather than actual humans, and is a supreme sore loser.
But DAMN he is one hell of a sharp dresser.
That is a nice suit.
AND his last name is named after the ANGEL OF DEATH. Rather fitting for a man who practically started the Bloody Valentine War. Believe it or not, prior to his utter breakdown towards the end of the series, a lot of girls regard him as a pretty hot guy. And he's not exactly an armchair general either, he actually goes to the front lines to lead the troops, though he never actually gets into a mobile suit to fight.
Hard to believe that this guy was voiced by none other than Nobuyuki Hiyama, the guy who voiced the hot-blooded Guy Shishioh from The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar.
Seriously, how the hell.
Also: I'M FABULOUSSSS
Patrick Zala, Athrun Zala's father, is the antagonist from the Coordinators side, and is the most sympathetic out of the three (relatively speaking). He became the chairman of PLANT after winning the election from the former chairman, and old friend, Siegel Clyne. Like Muruta Azrael, he wants to see the other side completely annihilated, because his wife was killed in the first nuclear attack that sparked the whole war.
From that point, he got worse. He framed his OLD FRIEND, Siegel Clyne for treason and had him assassinated. He treated his son like any other soldier and even shot him at one point. Then he had GENESIS designed and built. It's a superweapon that fires a massive burst of gamma radiation that literally boils any fluid within the human body, the pressure causing their bodies to explode. *shudder*
Also, apparently two shots from this thing will decimate ALL LIFE on planet Earth.
That thing even looks evil.
Last, but not least, we have Rau La Creuset, undeniably one of the darkest characters in the series and the most omnicidal Char Clone ever. He manipulates Patrick Zala and Muruta Azrael, to ensure that both sides will annihilate each other, and almost succeeds.
Rau La Creuset is a clone of Mu La Flaga's father, and somehow being a clone makes him want to kill all life on earth. Something to do with him being the only person suitable to judge all of humanity. And he has decided we all don't deserve to live. Harsh, but er...somewhat a weak excuse.
But hey, he gets results. And based on his backstory, he is not a Coordinator, or rather it was never mentioned if he was a Coordinator. Which means that this guy was such a badass pilot, that he can fake being a modified human. Holy shit.
With great piloting skills, comes one badass Gundam.
While his reasons for villainy aren't very strong, there is no doubt that he gets the results. He may not have started the war, but he sure as hell made sure the casualties were high as fuck through manipulating people in the Earth Alliance and PLANT.
And a special group that deserves a mention, affectionately nicknamed by fans as "The Druggies"!!!
One of the few moments where Druggy is used as a good word.
Clockwise from bottom: Orga Sabnack, pilot of Calamity Gundam, an artllery/bombardment type mobile suit, with extreme ranged firepower but lacks close ranged weapons.
Clotho Buer, pilot of Raider Gundam, a transformable mobile suit (abit ugly though) that is somewhat a jack-of-all trades, but Clotho uses him effectively as a hit-and-run unit. Raider also serves as a mobile carrier for Calamity, as Calamity does not have flight capabilities.
Lastly, Shani Andras, pilot of Forbidden Gundam, an amphibious/close combat mobile suit. It uses a giant scythe and has two special shields which can deflect energy weapons. It also has a plasma cannon which can bend, giving it a unique surprise element.
The Druggies were put under the command of Muruta Azrael, and are given performance enhancing drugs that places them on the level of Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala. By the time the Druggies appeared, Kira and Athrun were one of the most powerful pilots and were using nuclear-powered mobile suits. AND the Druggies were still giving them hell.
Damn.
Music
If there's one thing that people both lovers and haters of Gundam SEED can agree on, its that the music for the series is extremely good. This even extends as far to the sequel, Mobile SuitGundam SEED Destiny, and that one had even more haters.
I love all the openings and endings for the series and some of the background music as well, which until now are still some of my favorite J-pop songs of all time. The only other series which I have that much love for the music is Mobile Suit Gundam 00.
Maybe next time.
For me, Gundam SEED was my first introduction to T.M. Revolution and Nami Tamaki.
So far, almost all of the openings and endings were extremely popular when they first debuted.
These are definitely fantastic songs to listen to, it helps that the openings animation are awesome. And with the HD remastering, there's no doubt that it will be even more awesome.
(Artist - Name of Song)
Openings (in order of appearance)
T.M. Revolution - Invoke
Vivian or Kazuma - Moment
Nami Tamaki - Believe
Nami Tamaki - Realize
Endings (in order of appearance)
See-saw - Anna Ni Issho Datta No Ni
Tatsuya Ishii - River
Mika Nakashima - Find The Way
Insert Song
T.M. Revolution - Meteor
Special mention goes to this particular song, Akatsuki no Kuruma (translated as The Wheels of Dawn), which was played in full during Episode 40 of Gundam SEED. It was a tearjerking scene as the protagonists have to escape the Union of Orb and Cagalli's father sacrifices himself to ensure that they escape, for the sake of a peaceful future.
Akatsuki no Kuruma playing in the background was akin to a funeral song for him, and many viewers found the scene heartwrenching. Said scene can be watched here.
So, to summarize the goods of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED:
Decent starting storyline, but picks up immensely after about 13 episodes.
Badass Gundam designs (Providence and Calamity are my favorite)
The War is Hell theme is really driven home here, showing how bad war truly is, especially in the last arc
Character driven, instead of focusing on said war.
Excellent voice acting and characters potrayal (for the most part anyway)
Fantastic music direction
One of the darkest Gundam series to date
The bads:
Not a very strong antagonist character(s), or rather since there are three major baddies, not all of them are fleshed out properly, especially Rau La Creuset.
TOO. MUCH. STOCK. ANIMATION.
Inconsistent animation quality (although this is rather common with any animated series)
Similarities to the original Mobile Suit Gundam turns off veteran Gundam fans
Character driven, instead of focusing on said war.
One of the darkest Gundam series to date
Wow, this was one heck of a trip down memory lane for me. But Gundam SEED does hold a special place in my heart, as I watched it as a teenager.
That was a hell of a long post as well.
Now excuse me. I'm going to try to finish up Final Fantasy XIII-2. Tune in next time for the review.
Now for a more serious review, cause this game (well...visual novel) deserves it in my opinion.
Now I came about this game after seeing it appear on the Escapist website's front page, specifically this article. Of course, my first reaction, probably similar to a lot of people's, was WHAT THE FUCK.
I have, erm, experience with visual novel games, so it came as a bit of a shock.
If you are not familiar with the visual novel sub-genre of games, here is a brief rundown of it: Visual novel has limited interactivity with it then almost every other game genre, usually only at certain points in the game can you choose an option that may or may not change the storyline.
It's actually more like digital choose your own adventure game. Traditionally, visual novels will contain sex-scenes, though it is not compulsory. However, if the visual novel in question is a dating-sim, then expect adult scenes aplenty in them.
Which was why 4Leaf Studio'sKatawa Shoujo piqued my interest, when reaction towards it is universally positive. In fact, most players actually posted in various forums saying they were motivated to make themselves better, and some even cried. And interestingly enough, it's not made in Japan, but by a international group of programmers, artists, writers etc etc. It has a rather interesting production story.
So, to satisfy my curiosity, I went to their website, and downloaded the game. It's available for free.
So the storyline starts off with you, playing as Hisao Nakai, who has a heart attack from a slumbered heart defect known as Arrhythmia (Fucking hell, that's a mouthful). And it happened during a confession from his crush, which should have been a beautiful moment with all the pretty white snow and acoustic music.
That's harsh dude.
So, in order to cater for his heart condition, he has to move to Yamaku High School, a school that specializes in taking care of disabled students, as long as they are not mentally-disabled in some way. Thrown into a completely different environment, cut off from his friends and his crush, and carrying a life-threatening condition that could kill him if his heart so much as fluttered, Hisao certainly has had a hard time.
But, with the help of new found friends, Hisao gets his shit together, and, depending on your choices, may even find love.
Following anime stereotypes, there are a lot of cute girls in the school.
Now, before any of you assholes out there call me a bastard pervert with a disability fetish (although, granted that if you managed to read this far into the post, you're a very understanding asshole), this game does not really make an issue of the disabilities. Yes, they have emotional baggage, and it is partly YOUR job to help them get over it. But their problems are only mildly related to their disabilities.
In fact, the disabilities portrayal in Katawa Shoujo is very well handled. Basically, it comes down to this: They are people too. Look past their physical limits. They are not defined completely by their deformities. Of course, there are certain difficulties and complications because of it, but the point is, just like anyone else, they are defined by their personalities.
To be defined by their disabilities is a slap to their face, as if the rest of person does not matter.
As a thought, no one is perfect after all. We are all flawed in more ways than one, especially mentally.
And, before you ask, yes, there are sex scenes in the game, though there's an option in the menu to skip them. But they are not there for the purpose of eroticism nor fetish and those scenes are not like the primal love-making stamina olympics like in pornographic movies.
Those scenes, in my opinion, add to the story and the personality of the girl, placing the couple in their most tender, loving moments (most of the time), which gives a little more insight into the mind of the girl in question.
So,in total there are 5 girls to pursue (took these off a forum):
My personal favorites are Hanako and Lily, Emi comes in close.
Lily's route however does not have much character development on the girl's part, but more towards Hisao and Hanako's development. This relationship is probably the most normal (relatively) and has the least emotional conflict out of the five, so this route is akin to a childhood love story, but set in high school. Also helps that Lily is an exotic mix of Japanese-Scottish and is really, really beautiful. It's probably her motherly conduct that appeals to me the most.
Hanako on the other hand, well...I'm surprised that I like her. She's very reclusive and I never thought that those kind of girls would appeal to me. The way her route plays out surprised me as well, it made me think properly on how even the best of intentions and actions, can be harmful. Goodwill and intentions mean NOTHING, if you do not understand the person. It was an emotional roller coaster for me, but by the end of it, I was shedding tears alongside Hanako and Hisao (if you get the good ending).
But no matter which girl you eventually pursue, for whatever reasons, the writing in this game is extremely good. You can actually feel the people changing, for better or for worst: when you pull through to the girl, and get her to smile, it's a huge satisfaction; when it goes horribly wrong, despair and a bit of misery sets in.
With just sprites and a paragraph of words, the writers at 4Leaf Studios can tug at your heartstrings, make you laugh out loud and sometimes just smile.
Kenji Setou: The legally-blind Japanese Harry Potter feminist conspiracist nutcase.
And I LOL-ed everytime he appears.
Certain scenes, when the girls or Hisao are at their most vulnerable, as they spill out their emotions, or their past, the writing really shines.
I shit you not. I cried.
Yes. I cried.
I'm not afraid to admit it.
Oh no, don't remind me of this scene again...
FuckfuckFUCKKKK...
I need a box of tissue T__T
Especially Hanako's route for me. I cried like...3-4 times I think. And yet I soldiered on with the rest of her story.
For the most part, the story is solid, though I feel Shizune's part is rather bland: lack of choices and I did not feel satisfied with the ending, but that is just me perhaps. Some of the choices feel forced too, there are some given choices which I knew would lead to something bad, but you have no choice but to pick it anyways.
But beyond that, there really isn't much to complain about. The graphics are beautiful too, every special scene and animated cutscene is lovingly drawn and well...as they say...pictures speak a thousand words.
And yet...I can't find a single word to even describe
how beautiful and touching this simple hug is.
And the soundtrack...God...it is beautiful.
It is first class composition and their timing is perfect. The game does not have any voice acting (due to their refusal to take in funds and status as a volunteer-based project obviously), it is up to the music to do the job of setting the mood and the characters, and it does a fantastic job of it.
My particular favorite is this tune, aptly named: "Innocence", very prominent during Hanako's route.
Excellent character development and story (most of the time I guess)
Beautiful soundtrack
Great art
It's free!!
They said never to judge a book by its cover. And I'm glad I did not, and took the chance to try out this game.
It's too bad that 4Leaf Studios have no plans to make any other visual novels or games after this one, and will probably disband. I feel like they have the potential to make more heartwarming stories.
The bottom-line is: it's about humanity.
It will make you cry.
It will make you think.
It will make you smile.
We need more of these kind of stories that reflect on the subject of humanity.
What are you waiting for? It's available for free anyways. >>Download<<
I think this short poster by the developers said it best. Go be a better person.
