Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (PSP)


Grand Theft Auto:  Chinatown Wars was originally of the Nintendo DS.  It was ported to the PlayStation Portable a few months later.  It was the first portable Grand Theft Auto game of the DS, so the graphics and gameplay is slightly tweaked compared to what you are used to.  Due to the limitations of the original hardware, the game has a camera angle from above.  It’s not directly overhead like the original games, but more at an angle.  The PSP version removes the cel shading effect so it looks more akin to the console games.  The change in camera angles still takes a little bit to get used to though.  The controls are familiar.  Your character can run around, get weapons and use them, jack cars and drives them.  Of course, the biggest draw of the series is the open world and the huge amount of optional content.  Chinatown Wars does not disappoint in this area.  As you play the game and more and more things unlock, you’ll come to realize that this game is a true Grand Theft Auto game.  It’s the full experience but on a handheld.  This is very impressive, given that there’s so much to do, from racing, drug dealing, rampages, ambulance missions, and much much more.

However, the age of the game shows in the missions and game design.  It’s still as tedious as ever to gain weapons in a permanent manner from scratch.  Similarly for money making.  If you get busted by the police, then you’ll lose everything on you.  There are no checkpoints during missions.  If you fail at any point of the mission, no matter how far you may have progressed, you will have to restart it completely again, which can be absolutely painful.  The only saving grace is that the game is nice enough to allow you to immediately restart the mission upon reloading, and even so far as to allow you to skip some of the traveling you may have had to do.  While the missions are nowhere near as frustrating and hard as the console counterparts, there are still some annoyances every so often.  The gameplay also feels a lot more gimmicky, thanks to its origins from the DS.  Driving was never great in the Grand Theft Auto games and it is bearable here.  It can be a bit tough given that you do not control the camera angle at all, it follows you.  The best you can do is force it to face the same direction as your character.  Due to the small space / screen estate, controlling the cars can be slippery and annoying.  The overhead camera means that you can’t really see too far ahead of you.  Your activities will attract the police, which is always annoying when they try to hunt you down in the most inopportune of moments.

The story follows Huang Lee, who returns to Liberty City after his father, who was in the triad, had died.  He will end up wanting to seek revenge and in the process, climb his way up the ladder.  To do that, he starts off helping out as a lackey with various triad members (some of which are family).  The game doesn’t break any new ground, it’s still the same structure where various missions are available so you can pick and choose which ones you’d want to do first.  The mission designs are predictable.  The graphics are actually quite good and holds up even today, but the cutscenes retain the cel shaded look.  The story, like most Grand Theft Auto games, can feel disjointed because you only get cutscenes during missions.  This means that the more that you get distracted with the optional content, the longer the period of time between each story piece.  The story is mixed between the cutscenes and the in-game emails that you get.  It basically has Huang on a huge wild goose chase while he does this, then this, and then that, before he finally finds out who killed his father.  He’s basically a lackey throughout the whole game but has so much sass that the insults that he throws around in this game is extremely funny and amusing.

There is a lot of mission variety as it is beyond just driving and shooting.  Although not every piece is good, at least they got the difficulty right.  Shooting isn’t great since the auto aim works most of the time but when it doesn’t, it’s annoying.  Similarly, it’s also awkward to shoot while driving.  The penultimate mission are fun and you can tell that the story was reaching its climax.  Unfortunately, the final mission was a bit of a let-down, both in terms of gameplay as well as the story.  The ending was short and quickly explains what happened with Huang’s father, and while it was expected and passable, at the same time, it highlighted how simplistic the story was.  Of course, even finishing the main story there is still so much of the optional content left.  The story missions take around seven to ten hours to complete if you focused only on them.  Overall, Grand Theft Auto:  Chinatown Wars is an impressive game, especially for the DS (not so much for the PSP given that it already had two Grand Theft Auto games).  Make no mistake, this is a fully fledged Grand Theft Auto game with everything one would want of the series:  a big open world and a ton of things to do.  The story is weak but then again, none of the games in the series had amazing stories.  However, the characters are good and the dialogue filled with all those insults added a nice dose of humor.

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For other game reviews, have a look at this page and this page.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

SSSS.Dynazenon (2021)


SSSS.Dynazenon is a sequel to SSSS.Gridman, at 12 episodes long. The anime starts off like a typical teenage drama. Yomogi is a high school student and there is a girl at school, Yume, who was developing a reputation for asking boys out, but then not appearing at the agreed time and place. Yume then asks Yomogi to meet her after school but of course she doesn’t turn up. You’re led to believe that there must be some sort of reason for her behavior. It’s an interesting mystery in and of itself but it isn’t the focus here, since this is a mecha and kaiju anime.


Yomogi also meets Gauma, who is a self-proclaimed kaiju user. When a kaiju appears to attack the town, Gauma enlists the help of Yomogi, Yumi, as well as another person who just happened to be there. They all become pilots of Dynazenon, a giant robot that can split into four components. They take down the kaiju and afterwards, the four form a group together to figure out how to pilot Dynazenon properly. Each of the four components can function independently and has various combinations.


The anime goes for a classic mecha theme with over-the-top combination stock sequences, a lot of yelling, and rousing music. It’s not a bad thing but can sometimes feel out of place. Like SSSS.Gridman, it can feel episodic and predictable as each episode will bound to have a kaiju of the week show up and the characters eventually fighting it off. The characters seem to have no regard for collateral damage, and these are populated areas too. They destroy buildings without a care and for such a huge random mecha to show up, the public sure isn’t making a big deal of it either.


There are a few subplots going on. The major one is that we learn that kaiju are summoned by a specific group known as the Kaiju Eugenicists. Then there are the more personal subplots such as Yomogi and Yume in their quest to resolve Yume’s problems. While there is the fourth Dynazenon user, Yamanaka, who is unemployed, meeting up with someone that he knows and had feelings for back in middle school. In these aspects, the anime can feel so normal. It can be quite jarring when the end of each episode will always result in a kaiju appearing and then a big battle.


With the amount of focus placed on the characters’ normal lives, the kaiju and Dynazenon aspect feels undercooked and superficial. Seemingly they’re just there to draw in the fans of the giant mecha and kaiju genre. You might expect the anime to try to touch upon how hard it must be to juggle between normal life and fighting the kaiju, but it only has a passing mention with no hard decisions or sacrifices to be made. That said, there is a surprise appearance in the middle of the season. It’s surprising because up until this point, we’ve only seen Dynazenon and its various forms. Then again, it does appear without too much explanation though.


As the season never gave us a deep and engaging story, it doesn’t give us a satisfactory ending either. It admirably resolves most of the plot points, from the kaiju users to each of the subplots of the characters. However, it is anticlimactic with how the anime approached it. It resolved everything without too much build up or fanfare and the characters then quickly move on. At least the ending has some sweet moments and feelgood vibes.


Overall, SSSS.Dynazenon is an average anime. The first time Dynazenon appeared and transformed was awesome. Every time after that, because the anime decided to use stock footage, it can feel shoehorned in. The anime felt like it was designed to capture the nostalgia of older shows, but it carried all their weaknesses as well. It does an admirable job of being both an episodic anime that you can jump in at any time, while also carrying some deeper plots that span across the whole season. Although as it tries to do both things, it doesn’t do a great job at either and the anime is forgettable as a result.

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For other reviews, have a look at this page and this page.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

World End Syndrome (PS4)


World End Syndrome is a visual novel with a nice and unique aesthetic. What makes it so is the animated backgrounds. So not only does the aesthetic makes it look like a piece of art, but each background scene has something that is constantly moving, whether it is the pinwheels, or the fan spinning, or the waves breaking. It gives the visual novel a dynamic feel, even if the character designs are using more traditional aesthetics.


The story follows a male protagonist that you can name yourself. He moves to a small seaside beach town. There, he attends school and joins the mystery club, which is predominantly comprised of female members, and each of them is a romance candidate. The town has a legend where every 100 years, yomibito (the rising dead) reappears to kill and coincidentally this is the 100th year. When playing through the story the first time around, you will hit a compulsory bad ending that feels like it comes out of the blue. It truncates the whole story as it comes straight after introducing the characters. However, this sets up the mystery element and as you go through each of the various characters’ routes, you will learn about each girl as well as revealing a little bit more of the mystery.


The gameplay and story progression largely revolve around the player progressing day by day in the month of August. Each day is usually split into three segments: morning, day, and night. During each segment, you can decide where to go within the town and this will determine which character he will meet. Meet enough of a specific character to trigger their route and ending. It’s nothing revolutionary and can be quite boring as you go through similar motions each day. It doesn’t help that each day can feel short and has a lot of fluff until the bigger story moments. There is also a lot of trial and error as you do not get any hints at all on where the characters you want to meet are… which can lead to a lot of wasted time.


Naturally with these types of games, there is a romance element between the protagonist and the different girls. Unfortunately, the story takes place over a few months, and it only takes two hours or so for each route. There isn’t that much time to build these relationships. It does a commendable job, but it is very hard to shorten character development. As a result, most of the time, the characters just suddenly confess to each other, and it lacks that spark and chemistry.


In terms of gameplay, the game makes a very weird choice. It constantly breaks up the sections with a message asking if you wanted to save. At a minimum, after each in-game day (which may only take a few minutes), it will ask if you want to save. An autosave, or even just omitting these points (as you can save quite frequently anyway at points in the story), would have been an easy quality of life improvement. The other thing is that while you can open the backlog to reread text that you may have missed, you cannot jump back to scenes. There is also no way to jump to specific points in the story. You have to replay a huge chunk of the game, which is a pain if you made mistakes but didn’t want to waste that much time.


With the various routes focusing on each heroine, the game is repetitive in its story structure. This becomes predictable as each route has the same key scenes such as the moments where the significant backstory of the chosen heroine is revealed. Thus, the game becomes a bit of a chore by the time you’re on the third route. Each route will end with something weird but also reveals just a little bit more of the mystery surrounding the town. You will have the typical harem romance story that tonally clashes with the darker mystery which usually only shows up from time to time. With the way the story teases the mystery, including a cutscene at the beginning of each route that reveals a little bit more each time, it has a lot to prove that all this fluffing around is worth it.


The concept of the story is sound, but the mystery was thematically so different it doesn’t quite gel with the slice of life romance elements. The true route in which it reveals everything had a lot of predictable elements to it which most players would have probably already guessed. It saved a bigger reveal for later, but it wasn’t that amazing to the point of justifying the repetitive loops. The other thing was that even after playing the true route, it still doesn’t justify the journey of playing 70% of the story five times, for a payoff that is disjointed from them. It would have been better if the diverging routes were instead merged into one longer story that had better character development and build up.


Despite the various routes, the game is still short. You can replay sections of the story to see if you can pick up on the foreshadowing now that you know the big reveal, but the game makes it painful to skip. You can only fast forward events rather than skipping them entirely or jumping to a specific section. There are some collectibles scattered throughout but they are hard to find without a guide and ultimately do not unlock much. All in all, it takes around 15 to 25 hours to complete depending on your reading speed and whether you follow a guide to know exactly where everyone is each day. The music of the game has a creepy tone to it, which is further enhanced with the voice acting. The way that they whisper their dialogue at specific moments would lead you to think that there is a horror tinge to it, but it doesn’t.


Overall, World End Syndrome has a good concept for a story, but it doesn’t quite pan out. The aesthetics are unique and the moving elements in each of the backgrounds are a nice touch that sets it apart from other visual novels. Unfortunately, the story arcs are somewhat shallow, even the big emotional payoff at the end of the game doesn’t quite justify it. Having to repeat most of the same story elements multiple times is tiring and repetitive. This leads to a visual novel that’s slightly above average, but not much so.

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For other game reviews, have a look at this page and this page.

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The physical copy of the game comes with an artbook, here are some samples below.









Sunday, February 25, 2024

Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy United Animated Optimus Prime (Voyager)


Review:  #787
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Autobot
Line:  Generations - Legacy United
Year of Release:  2024
Size Class:  Voyager (Wave 1)
Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:


Based upon his Animated appearance, Optimus transforms into a stylized truck (without the fire truck elements on the back).


The back is a bit messy, as there are exposed hinges, joints and the robot feet on top.


Size-wise, he's fine.  He looks bigger thanks to his chunky look.


The original design had two wheels and there are two prominent wheels here but for some reason they are set quite far behind so it looks weird.  There is another set of wheels underneath the cab.


The robot axe can store on the back.


The designer kept the aesthetics of the figure fairly faithful to the Animated aesthetic and resisted the urge to G1 the design, which is appreciated, and it's solid vehicle mode.

TRANSFORMATION:

Transformation scheme is standard, there doesn't seem to be the same ingenuity as the original line.  The back splits to form the legs, while the front the torso and arms.  The grey bumpers folds into the torso.  To be honest, it is a boring transformation.

ROBOT MODE:


Despite the lacklustre transformation scheme, the robot mode looks great, and again, seems to keep a lot of the Animated aesthetic.


He doesn't have much kibble, only the roof which doesn't jut out much at all.


The head sculpt is great, and the baby blue used for the face is a perfect match.


Again, size-wise he's fine.  His does look big and chunky, but in particular, his legs feel hollow.


Articulation is great, with joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles.


He comes with an axe for his weapon.


The axe can be held in either hand, and the the translucent blue blade is a great touch.


The axe can store on his back via a peg and slot.


What's neat is if you have some blast effects, they can be attached to the back of the axe to replicate the rocket axe action from the cartoon.


Finally, the handle can extend and you can attempt to have Optimus hold it with both hands.


However, Optimus' range of articulation for his arms and hands are not wide enough to easily let him hold the weapon with both hands.



The other minor issue is the lack of heel spurs.  You'd expect him to have at least some small ones, and since the ankles don't allow front / back tilt movement, there are some poses where he struggles to stay upright.



Other than that, this is a strong robot mode.

OVERALL:

Optimus Prime is a nice update and this is a good figure.  The transformation scheme is boring, and the vehicle mode looks a bit weird with how the wheels are spaced out, but it is surprisingly faithful to the original design.

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For other Transformers reviews, have a look at this page and this page.

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Friday, February 23, 2024

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S (2021)


Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S is the second season, with 12 episodes and an OVA. It follows Kobayashi, working as a programmer in an office. Tohru is her maid, whose real identity is that of a dragon. Tohru is strong and possesses magic. In the first season, several other dragons had arrived and started living in the human world. This season continues the slice of life and doesn’t bring anything different or new to the anime. The first few episodes deal with the arrival of yet another dragon, Ilulu, who is slightly different in that she is aggressive against humans but eventually gets pacified by Kobayashi anyway.


After Ilulu joins the cast and family, things return to normal and it’s just the characters learning about the human world and experiencing new things. It is a comedy so there will be times where Kobayashi, being the somewhat reclusive person that she is, doesn’t quite know some of the things Tohru and Kanna is asking about. The writing and developers are predictable, it’s the characters that somewhat help alleviate this.


The anime does not have any stakes at play. Every so often, one of the dragons might react violently or get angry but it is mostly played for laughs. This season, we get to learn a lot more about the backstories of several of the characters, such as how Tohru and Elma met and became the enemies that they are now. Similarly, we see how Tohru and Fanir’s first explosive meeting was like, which was hard to fathom before consider Fafnir’s usual short temper. It’s a bit sweet seeing how innocent some of the characters could be, such as Ilulu and her quest to find a job that gives her satisfaction and fulfilment. It turns out that she is a nice dragon on the inside. Kanna remains the cute elementary girl that can really do no wrong.


Despite the first season focusing mostly on Kobayashi and Tohru, given the introduction of so many characters, each episode has various segments that each focus on a different character. This is either a good thing in that it adds a bit of variety, or a bad thing if you haven’t really grown attached to many of the characters. You might feel that the anime keeps going back to some characters that you may not like.


The events of each episode feel inconsequential, even for a slice of life anime. No matter what happens, there is generally no urgency in anything. The dragons that have come here, even when they might have been dangerous at first, will soon mellow and get used to human life. They will start to question their previous way of life. Then again, just when you think that the characters are normal, they would do something that reminds you that they are great magical beings. They can transform, use magic, and do all kind of things but are still so innocent. They have the same problems that humans do on the inside which is what makes them much more relatable.


The second half of the season has some better events where the comedy works better and as a result, is funnier. When Elma tries to fight for better working conditions, or when she looks after three children, it blends in normal worries with their dragon specific issues, to create something more interesting than normal. The dragons usually have some sort of anti-presence magic going on but whenever they accidentally slip up, due to a strong emotion that they’re feeling, it can be funny when they must wipe the memories of the humans that have seen them.


As there is no major plot, the season kind of just ends. It tries to close it off with a heartwarming gathering of all of the characters in an outing but still fizzles out. It doesn’t help that the OVA continues as if it is just another episode. The animators have once again resisted the temptation to do a fan service episode. The season does have its own share of fan service, but it isn’t too much or too frequence, it’s just mainly frequent comments and shots of the characters’ various chest sizes.


Overall, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S is more of the same. This is good or bad depending on whether you liked the first season or not. That said, the season provides a lot more context for each of the characters, so that we understand their motives a lot more. The characters, jokes and gags felt more natural this time around as the anime has managed to find its feet and strike a good balance between its various elements.

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For other reviews, have a look at this page and this page.
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