It started off so well, they said we made a perfect pair… : Code Geass – Season 2

So after a very high score for the first season of Code Geass, we walk into the next with pretty high expectations. Can the next season live up to our expectations? We will shortly find out.

I remind you that at the end of season one, a pretty incredible cliffhanger is left open – and so I do pity those who watched it when the show first came out. It must have been pretty frustrating to not know what happened. Who wins out, Lelouch or Suzaku?

Please note however that this review will be considerably shorter than my usual ones as the basic premise has already been established in the first one. Plus I don’t need to comment on animation or music this time around, as it’s pretty much the same. But enough of this, let’s leap right in!

Plot 1/5

Ouch, yeah that is not good at all. Don’t fret too much here though, as it isn’t quite as bad as the scoring suggests. Despite the number I’ve given it, it still remains interesting and watchable – but I have no choice but to mark it down due to lack of continuity, and most importantly, making the plot go unintelligibly crazy. Seriously, some parts of this second season make very little sense and are incredibly confusing.

All throughout season one we are hinted at the Emperor having some kind of secret plan going on behind the scenes, with his frequent appearances in the strange world that seems to be called the ‘Sword of Akasha’. Constantly, I asked myself, what is this place? What purpose does it serve? Is it related to geass somehow? I guessed it was. So when this was finally coming to a conclusion I couldn’t wait for these questions to be answered – there’s nothing wrong with being bizarre, just as long as it is explained in the end. Final Fantasy for example often has incredibly weird plots, but in the end there is a reason for everything.

How disappointed I was.

Apparently god is ... Jupiter? I really wish this made sense.

This is my first and one of the major criticisms of this season – even after the Emperor is killed, we never find out what that thing even was. Apparently, just to make things even more confusing, it was created specifically to slay God. What the hell? Not only that, but God is actually a manifestation of all of the dead people’s thoughts, and by killing it they will prevent people lying and bring people back from the dead and …. What? To be honest I’m not even sure if any of what I’ve just said about the ‘God’ is true, but it’s just the impression I got from the small amount of information we were given. Apparently God can also be geassed, even though it needs direct eye contact – God has no visible eyes I might add. Or anything really, its hard to tell what it is honestly. This part was a severe disappointment.

As for the continuity, they finally did it – they broke the rules of the geass. I had a feeling they might try and make Lelouch so clever that they accidentally overstepped the boundaries they laid down for themselves – and sure enough they walked right into it. About the same time as the bit with God actually is a good example – Lelouch fires a missile that explodes into shards of broken glass – using his geass, he reflects his power onto the Emperor without looking at him. Firstly, this is so convenient that he would have this installed on his Knightmare for such a specific occasion – I really don’t believe it would happen. But that’s a lesser point.

Need I remind you, Code Geass, that the geass specifically requires direct eye contact? This was clearly established in season one, even with an example where it wouldn’t work. Remember the psycho, Mao? He wore a slightly shrouded visor which prevented him from being geassed – so why did a reflection work? If reflections work, why wouldn’t looking someone directly in the eye who is wearing glasses of some sort? This throws out a lot of questions for sure.

Moving on, in season two, the fight scenes which I tended to find were predictable are back with a vengeance – and more predictable than ever I should add. The unnamed soldiers are even less effective than ever, dying by the thousands to characters who actually have a point. It’s pretty much a guaranteed thing that extras in these types of anime will die, but it spirals a bit out of control. Eventually this is culminated in a plot to launch a F.L.E.I.J.A missile (which causes a large amount of matter to implode) onto every capital city on the planet. Really, getting a bit ridiculous now – as Lord Ilpalazzo would say, “They intend to conquer the entire planet at once, do they? I can only say it’s an idea for fools, who can only grasp the most generalised of concepts.” Hear hear.

But anyway, the ace Knightmare pilots are back with a few extra others in this season, blown even more out of proportion than before. There’s even an organisation called the Knights of the Round who are the best pilots in the Britannian Empire – though oddly despite this name, the majority of them are terrible. They tend to be beaten by several of the untrained terrorists with regular ease, in fact one of them is even beaten by Jeremiah Gottwald – a previous member of the Britannian Army as a Lord. If he was better than one of the Knights of the Round, then logic tells me he should be one of them, doesn’t it you? But yeah, these scenes really get boring.

Next up is the fanservice – there was plenty of fanservice in season one don’t get me wrong, but in season two it goes overboard. There’s even a scene where Kallen goes into battle wearing a bunny outfit, you’d think she would at least throw something over it before getting in her Knightmare. A lot of ladies in anime do tend to be sexualised but still, let them keep some dignity for the collective unconsciousness of all human’s sake (see what I did there?).

Finally, I need to talk about the ending. The great plan that will stop all war, that will save all of humanity from itself, and the plan that will make us all weep for the great martyr, Lelouch. Apparently he makes the world hate him specifically, and then has himself assassinated – thus ending all wars. As he becomes the Emperor of Britannia, the next in the heirachy would be Schniezel – who has been geassed to listen to Zero, who is Suzaku in disguise. Apparently, this will somehow end all wars, because Suzaku can now effectively lead the empire with Schniezel as his puppet. Oh what a hero, let us all remember him fondly – but hang on. This plan has more holes in it than a mole exhibit at the local animal sanctuary. What experience does Suzaku have with leading an empire? He’s never led anything in his life, and suddenly he’s thrown into control of a gigantic empire? What about the other Britannian nobles? They probably won’t be satisfied with

All hail Schniezel!

discarding their might for peace after a lifetime of conquest. Many of Schniezel’s followers also know about geass and so would be able to guess what happened – they also developed a geass remover. Need I say more? Of course, Zero has enemies too, a lot of enemies in fact. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few assassins go after him too. There are just so many things that could go wrong that it almost certainly would not work. I keep seeing these random theories online that Lelouch doesn’t actually die – so I think to myself, people are making the ending up for themselves eh?

Well then, if the ending is left open, here’s my interpretation. Schniezel’s dedicated assistant whose name escapes me creates a new geass remover. He then uses said geass remover to free the master whom he has been so loyal to over the series, and so a plan is set on motion. Schniezel, being the genius he is, pretends to go along with Suzaku’s orders until his plan is into motion – Zero is assassinated along with the few sympathisers he has gained. Schiezel then conquers the world, and so Lelouch only delayed the inevitable.

All hail Britannia, I suppose.

Characters 3/5

A slightly disappointing score for the characters again sadly – while they are by no means bad, series two does several things wrong in this regard. Firstly, it introduces a lot of new characters – the majority of whom are a massive pain in the rear. For example, the opening scene introduces Rolo – a boy pretending to be the little brother of Lelouch to spy on him for the past year. Later on in the series he betrays his empire and masters because of the cheesy little bastard he is – he actually loves his fake big brother. Ugh, the entire thing wants to make me vomit. Despite being an assassin in the employ of the empire, he is just so innocent it makes you cringe. I was pretty glad when I saw the back of him.

Code Geass also falls into the ‘little girl’ trap that you know I hate so much, if you read my five most annoying characters post a while back. This time it’s the Empress and her… friend of some sort in the Chinese Federation. These two brats are excruciatingly annoying whenever they appear, especially the Empress – I know I just complained that Rolo was innocent but wow. She really goes beyond the call of duty there. She strikes me as the kind of girl who wouldn’t take a step forward without checking the ground for ants. The entire Chinese Federation subplot is just a bit dull if you ask me, and it was nice when they finally got back to Japan.

The rivals fight - Kallen vs Suzaku, Lelouch vs Schniezel and Nunally faces her worst foe - the stairs.

My next reason for downrating this section is that the characters that were less likeable in season one returned – this time with a lot more screen time and importance for some reason. For example, Nina, the most annoying of them all, is revealed to be an incredible scientist and genius. I also recently found out that her full name is Nina Einstein – that’s the least subtle thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Anyway, as crazy as ever, Nina waltzes onto the scene and everyone treats her like she’s important because she designed a weapon. Really wish she would just get lost to be honest. She even has a morality clash at one point – she has to choose between giving herself to science, or keeping her heart (apparently). Sadly, death didn’t seem to be an option. After such a crazed stunt like in season one, trying to make us feel sorry for her now really was never going to work.

Nunally also makes an appearance – as Viceroy for Japan no less. Seeing such a pathetic character in a position of authority is a little unbelievable – especially when she starts to perform feats that not even the strongest characters appear to be capable of. I of course speak of her breaking the geass used on her through sheer will – how this miracle was achieved I don’t know, but I honestly find it hard to believe such a broken girl would have more willpower than say – Cornelia. Nonetheless, she does break it – presumably we are meant to think she is stronger than meets the eye. However, after she is successfully manipulated by Lelouch, Schniezel, Suzaku, even her assistant… well that’s pretty hard to believe.

The other thing that really annoyed me is that the characters stabbed their own ideology in the back. Pretty much every major character goes against all they were fighting for in the beginning. Lelouch, who swore to bring down Britannia in vengeance for his mother and sister, ends up joining them and becoming their Emperor. He claims to have done this to solve the problem from the inside – but for the last forty episodes he has laughed at Suzaku for trying to do exactly that.

Suzaku on the other hand ditches that exact ideology, and instead adopts a “the end justifies the means” approach on the situation – so exactly what Lelouch was doing before. This whole thing just blows my mind really, that they spend such a long time criticising each other and then all switch their stance. I imagine this is meant to be a clever thing by the producers, but honestly it just makes all the characters you liked before lose all the positive features.

Even Schniezel, who has been built up as a threat to Zero all this time, goes against his previous personality. Originally he was built up as a hero of Britannia who is even more of a genius than Lelouch, and so rather than fight with weapons, he uses a more compassionate approach. He obtains the loyalty of many of Zero’s followers by promising a brighter future, by sending Nunnally – a peaceful viceroy instead of warmongering one – generally taking a more friendly approach. This way, Zero loses popularity for his militant group, a clever plan indeed. Then at the end of season two he wants to destroy every capital city on the planet.

What. The. Hell.

That being said, not everything new is bad. I actually really like Schniezel, so him getting more screen-time was good. I was pleased to see Cornelia made a return, and even Sir Guilford survived. And of course, Jeremiah Gottwald makes his best appearance in the series here. So it’s definitely not all bad, you just need to bear in mind that I rated both this and the plot compared to season one – not as a standalone show. That’s why they came out so low.

Conclusion 12/20

The ending is so "happily ever after" it makes you cringe.

Well as the animation and the soundtrack haven’t changed score-wise, we can finally ask the question – is season two as good as season one? No is the answer, not by quite a long way. Perhaps now the significance of the title makes more sense (Save Me by Queen by the way) – it may have started out perfectly, but it didn’t end on such a good note. However, despite that, it is by no means bad. You might be disappointed by the ending, sure, but if you sat through all of the first season you will definitely make it through this one.

Code Geass has achieved quite significant popularity over the years though, and as is to be expected from such an achievement, spinoffs have been spawned. I cannot stress enough how much these should be avoided – many of them completely rewrite the story, and definitely not for the better. My minor complaints here pale in comparison to some of the butchery that has been commited against the Code Geass storyline, the likes of which I haven’t seen since I read the Twilight saga.

So despite my many complaints, season two is still fairly good – and I highly recommend it if you watched all of the original series. Sadly, to those who were excited to see the conclusion of the cliffhanger at the end of season one, it doesn’t get resolved for a good long while. Oh well, after so many complaints, I still enjoyed myself thoroughly sitting through most of Code Geass.

JudgeReviews commands you – watch it now!

All Hail Britannia! – A Code Geass Review

Welcome back to my blog, and this time we’re talking Code Geass (full title Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion). This anime is longer than average, stretching over two seasons to make fifty episodes – and recently a third season has been announced! With something this popular, it must be good, right? Before I get started however, let me first just clarify that due to the length of the series, I will omit my usual randomness post and instead split Code Geass into two reviews, the first and second seasons. That’s twenty five episodes each. So, without further ado, let’s launch into the first one.

Code Geass is about a young prince of the empire of Britannia – true name Lelouch vi Britannia, but acting under the alias of Lelouch Lamperouge. This is because, despite being a part of the royal family, he hates his heritage and was exiled to Japan as a child along with his sister, Nunnally. When Britannia later invades Japan and most of those Lelouch loved are lost, he swears vengeance against his former homeland – a promise which he later gets to fulfill.

After an accident involving a run-in with terrorists, Lelouch stumbles across CC (known as C2) who grants him the mysterious power called geass – that lets him command anyone he chooses to obey his exact commands. It does have limitations – it will only work once on any given person, requires direct eye contact, etc, but still a formidable weapon. With this power, he forms a group of terrorists known as the Black Knights, and starts his plan to bring down the empire.

On the other hand we have Suzaku Kururugi, son to the prime minister of Japan before the Britannian take-over. To repent for sins in his past he joins the Britannian military – seeking the same goal as Lelouch, equality for all, but instead believing he will have more influence from the inside rather than through terrorism. Unlike Lelouch, he does not believe the ends justify the means.

Well with the basic premise set, let’s talk about the plot.

Plot 3/5

While the plot of Code Geass is interesting, it sadly is incredibly repetitive and simple. In a sense it reminds me of Cowboy Bebop in that every foe that Lelouch seems to come against, he just overpowers using exactly the same techniques as before, giving you no sense of any real threat at all. That is, until Suzaku shows up and starts smashing that smug grin off his face. Then at least, things start to get interesting.

A Sutherland, one of the more common Knightmare Frame variants.

That being said though, Code Geass has far too many deus ex machine moments – it tries to be clever in the same way as Death Note, but doesn’t quite manage it. Any problem Lelouch encounters can either be solved by use of the geass or by use of some new gadget he mysteriously acquires mere seconds before. For example, at one of the earlier battles, Lelouch is faced with apparently incredible odds against him. However, he just happens to have had a new Knightmare Frame donated to his cause (which are basically mechs used for war). This Knightmare Frame has a strange claw which apparently can do something; a quick explanation containing fictional techno-babble is apparently used as justification for its strange powers. They then instantly use it on the mountain that they fight on, which causes a suspiciously accurate landslide towards the mass of Britannian troops that have all grouped up in one spot and appear unable to move anywhere other than in a straight line for some reason.

I really didn’t buy this. Not only did they have plenty of time to move out the way, they also seemed to lose an incredible amount of forces for no reason – they were assaulting every side of the mountain, so surely the losses would be fairly small? It’s not like the avalanche affected the entire thing. Besides, how did the claw make this happen anyway? Introducing something to instantly solve a problem is… weak storytelling. But hey, I told myself, it’s not that bad. Maybe it was just used to show the claws abilities beyond the barely audible technical speak, and it’ll be clever in future. But no, it has these moments almost every time there’s a significant battle.

Another example is near the end of the season, during the Black Knights assault on Tokyo. This is probably the most extreme example, and I really can’t stress just how annoyed it made me. The Black Knights are apparently outnumbered incredibly, and assaulting an almost impregnable fortress, and so everyone calls it suicide. However, Lelouch, mere seconds before the assault begins, announces that the Tokyo Settlement is built on top of an earthquake proof structure. He has used his geass on someone inside (we don’t get to see how he gets in and does this, making it even more unexpected) who, typing a few things into a console, causes the entire structure to collapse.

Seriously.

We are now meant to appreciate Lelouch’s genius – apparently he had organised a miracle.

What. The. Hell.

Why would you include a device to trash this entire city?

That’s not genius, that’s just the most incompetent architect to ever walk the face of the planet. Seriously, self-destruct buttons are what you’d expect in a kids show like Dexter’s Laboratory – not something serious like this. What possible purpose could it serve on the structure? To be fair to the show, its not actually a self-destruct button – they justify it by saying whatever he does drastically weakens the structure, so the weight on it causes it to collapse. But then again, a program that deliberately weakens the structure seems even more pointless than a self-destruct button! No matter what way you look at this, it’s just a feeble attempt to make Lelouch look good. If you think about it, they didn’t even need to geass someone to do it – any covert agent would make short work of it too.

Still these things put aside, I must admit that the rules of the geass are generally followed in season 1, there’s no real event where the plot contradicts itself. For that at least I will give it a thumbs up – it may be repetitive at times but it is at least, consistent. However, there is one plot hole that I do have to address – at one point Lelouch fights a rival for CC’s attention. This man is named Mao, and despite being able to read minds, he is beaten in an episode or two. However, he makes a return later, despite being shot multiple times by armed police and left for dead in the middle of an empty amusement park. Upon his return, he claims “You have Britannian medical science to thank!” as an explanation as to how he returned so quickly. A bit far-fetched, but reasonable, yes?

Well wait until you hear more. Later on in the season, a Princess named Euphemia is geassed and forced to order the massacre of hundreds of unarmed civilians – the Black Knights respond by trying to assassinate her. Eventually catching up with her, Lelouch fires a single shot at medium range from a pistol – so light and compact it wasn’t detected by security. This would likely hamper its ability to kill. The bullet he fires hits Euphemia somewhere below the chest – she is then taken to hospital, but sadly dies as the doctors were unable to save her.

Now hang on a minute.

If Mao, one of the Chinese, whom Britannia apparently view as second class citizens in this show, gets so great medical treatment that he recovers from being shot so many times you could paint him yellow and market him as cheese, then why can’t a Princess of the realm survive? Surely the medical treatment the royal family received would be of a quality unmatched throughout the entire world – considering Britannia is the most technologically advanced nation. This just doesn’t make sense – it’s almost inconceivable that she dies.

Earl Lloyd Asplund - Since when did America have Earls?

I do have one more gripe with Code Geass, though honestly it’s more of a petty grudge than anything else. So, the dominant power on the planet is Britannia – which is fine. However, if you look at the map, you can clearly see that Britannia is actually composed of the Americas, which is just too weird. As a citizen of Britain myself, I was amused but surprised to find that in Code Geass, Britain (despite still being called that) is part of another group entirely – the EU. While I suppose that’s fairly accurate, it still seems very bizarre that the American empire is called Britannia despite that. Many of their traits and customs seem to fall in with old British traditions and myths too – for example, the order of elite soldiers is called the Knights of the Round. Their leader has a custom sword for his Knightmare Frame called Excalibur. Really.

One last thing I should probably mention (this time for real!) is the fact that Code Geass is one of those… naïve animes. One of the ones that labours under the false impression that it’s funny, when in reality the humour moments are almost as out of place as the ones in Hellsing. I guess some people might somehow like this stuff, but Code Geass only way of trying to be funny always seems to involve women taking their clothes off and being seen in public because they made a stupid decision. This is especially prominent in Kallen, who just doesn’t seem to want to stay dressed, I swear. Honestly, every time one of those Ashford Academy school episodes showed up, the friend and I watching at the time would groan. Fast forward, please…

Still that being said, excluding the filler episodes the plot is interesting, especially where character development is concerned. Speaking of which, let’s move onto characters and talk a bit more in-depth:

Characters 5/5

This one was actually a hard one to grade, as honestly despite the score, there are a lot of characters in Code Geass that make me want to tear my hair out. The worst culprit of all for this is Nunnally – Lelouch’s sister. She is both unable to walk and blind, meaning her brother has had to spend the last few years taking care of her, along with their maid. Sounds like someone you’d be sympathetic to, right?

Wrong.

She is just far too annoying – her voice is so high pitched and frail at times I wonder if she is trying to communicate with bats. She adds barely anything to the story, yet somehow the entire cast of characters love her so much it honestly shocks me that she hasn’t been proposed to by half the country yet. I’m sorry but I really just don’t buy the whole love thing – apparently Lelouch is even murdering all these people to create a brighter world for Nunnally. This seems incredibly hypocritical – Nunnally on several occasions voices her distaste against the actions of the Black Knights, and wishes they would stop. So yeah, Lelouch must just have completely the wrong idea of what she wants.

With a face like this, I find it hard to believe anyone could see Lelouch as good.

That being said, I gave Code Geass a perfect score for its sheer number of characters. This anime has characters coming out of its ears, and while at first I was rather sceptical it actually works just fine. Every character has enough development to give them their own personality, and at some point tend to play a role in the story – if only a minor one. All in all, despite there being many characters I dislike, there are just as many that I think are great. It strikes me a little like Death Note (before the introduction of the terrible two, Melo and Near) as it almost seems to have two main characters with conflicting ideals. Its up to the viewer to decide which one has the right of things, and I must admit that I’m firmly with Suzaku in this.

I suppose the reason why I didn’t feel justified in marking Code Geass down for its more annoying characters is because, with a couple of exceptions (Nunnally and Nina I’m looking at you) I can see why other people might enjoy them. It’s not often I think an anime can cater for all audiences but Code Geass certainly falls into that category. No matter what type of person you like, ranging from chivalric knights, schoolgirls, women who can give even the most experienced Knightmare pilots a run for their money, slightly mad scientists… you get the picture. I don’t think anyone could watch this and not like someone.

The voice acting in Code Geass is superb, and I thoroughly enjoyed the dubs. They definitely didn’t cheap out on getting some of the best names in voice acting in to do the job, even Crispin Freeman, one of my personal favourites, plays a role in Jeremiah Gottwald. His performance as Alucard from Hellsing was amazing, and it certainly didn’t diminish in quality here.

Is that a Geass? Luxury! Is that a Knightmare? Sloth! Is that a mask? Vanity!

Another I found mildly amusing actually was the Emperor of Britannia – while I can’t remember the voice actors name off the top of my head, I recognised it instantly. It’s the same guy who voiced Uther the Lightbringer in Warcraft 3, and you can really tell why he keeps getting these roles. When he wants to, he definitely sounds regal and intimidating enough to be an emperor, and so this role was perfect for him. Just a shame that the Emperor didn’t get much in the way of screen time.

Before moving on I do have to complain about one character in particular though, whom I mentioned briefly before: Nina. I honestly believe that no-one could possibly like or even appreciate this character. I suppose it is true that some characters are meant to be disliked, but Nina goes beyond the call of duty here making her every appearance agonising to sit through. For those that don’t know her, let me give you a brief explanation of her character, and maybe you’ll realise just why she’s such a pain.

She starts the game as a genius of sorts in her school, who despite her intellect is a rather overt racist – when a Japanese student enrols in her academy; she is very quick to voice her protest. This racist attitude is further compounded when, while on a trip, she and her classmates are held hostage by a Japanese terrorist group vying for power where she bawls like a baby and, once again, racially insults their captors. Then she’s surprised when they retaliate by threatening her. But no, it doesn’t end here – one of the captives actually turns out to be Princess Euphemia, who reveals herself to prevent Nina having the stuffing kicked out of her. Overwhelmed by gratitude for her saviour, Nina rushes straight back to her school where she touches herself while staring at a picture of the Princess – a scene we really didn’t need, or want to see. Nothing graphic mind you, but it doesn’t leave much to the imagination lets say. Still, you get the picture here – this girl is just really weird.

Go on Nina, do it, make us both happy.

But I’m not done yet. Later on in the anime, Euphemia dies – causing Nina to go even more batshit insane (if you can believe it). She somehow makes a massive bomb and straps it to a Knightmare that she happens to have lying around, and then near the end of the season claims she is going to blow herself up with it, taking the Black Knights, responsible for Euphemia’s death with her. Of course what she doesn’t mention is that it will also kill all of her school friends, hundreds of civilians, all the teachers… you get the idea. She’s absolutely stark raving mad, my blood pressure must double the second she steps on screen – she’s just that annoying.

Thank god the other characters make up for it. To be fair though, she thankfully doesn’t get much screen time.

Soundtrack 4/5

The soundtrack to Code Geass is decent, there isn’t a huge amount of music as far as it goes, but honestly it doesn’t really need it. What little music there is though fits perfectly, isn’t so loud that it’s overbearing but isn’t so quiet you don’t even notice it. Not really much to say or complain about here, bar the fact that it’s just what you would expect from such a high budget series.

Oddly, Code Geass seems to switch intro songs more than just once a season – there’s several for some reason. Fortunately, it doesn’t take a leaf out of Death Note’s book and have an intro song that makes your ears scream for mercy, but in all honesty none of them really jumped out at me either. The majority of the time I just found myself skipping through them entirely, as they weren’t very exciting and the video to go with it was just a few of the characters standing around as if they are for sale at a slave auction.

The same thing can be said about the ending themes too – they are passable but nothing worth waiting around for. They also have this very bizarre habit of drawing characters in a very strange way, such as giving Suzaku wings, for reasons I’ve never been able to fathom. Perhaps this is trying to hint at some deeper meaning to the plot of Code Geass but, in all honestly, its mostly mindless violence with nothing that seemed very clever to me. Anyway, going off track a bit here.

Strong score for Code Geass – now onto the final point.

Animation 4/5

Code Geass has its own bizarre, but eventually enjoyable style. It has a very strange method of drawing people – everyone seems a tad out of proportion, their arms and legs are too long and thin. The physique of most people in the show tends to be this spindly, it seems slightly like everyone in the Britannian Empire has the physique of a Greek God.

That being said, you do get used to it after a few episodes where it starts to grow on you. The style does fit the show, and it is nice to see someone trying something new – I must admit that much. It does creep me out a little sometimes though, especially as most of the male characters seem to be drawn with eyes the size of a small mountain as well as the girls, making quite a few of them look strangely feminine. Fortunately, most of the characters I like were spared this treatment (Go Prince Shniezel!).

I can’t give it full marks though because, like the plot, the animation for Code Geass is recycled so much I’m surprised it hasn’t won an eco-friendly award. There’s just certain sequences that get repeated so often in the show it does start to get dull after a while, where you end up wishing the scene would hurry up and conclude itself. A perfect example of this is Kallen and her Guren Knightmare Frame. Remember the claw I mentioned before? We’re led to believe Kallen is an unbelievably skilled Knightmare pilot – though she always seems to fight her battles in the same way. She sticks that claw in the opposing Knightmare’s face and explodes it in a scene that looks pretty much identical to all previous incarnations.

They do the same when Lelouch uses his geass. Every time he does so, he does this strange hand movement over his eyes, and then the camera zooms in on him until eventually you see a very odd mass of coloured lights move. Quite what this is supposed to represent I honestly don’t know – the obvious answer is it represents a brain function being changed, but if so the creators might want to research what neurons actually look like. Anyway, he does this almost every time he uses his geass – much like the claw, it looks suspiciously similar to the times before. I actually started to wonder if they just recycled the same three second clip and superimposed a background in to make it look authentic.

Had to dock a point for this.

The characters are so loyal to Pizza Hut, they get this fellow named Cheese-kun as a reward.

My final point is more of an observation rather than a complaint really – but am I the only one with a sneaking suspicion that Pizza Hut sponsored this show? It seems like almost every episode a subtle Pizza Hut advertisement is drawn in, taking the shape of a billboard in the background or a box left discarded at the side. It’s actually quite funny, although I do have to wonder if noticing all the Pizza Hut adverts speaks a bit negatively about how interesting the plot at these times are. Personally I never really enjoyed the Ashford Academy scenes, so maybe not that surprising.

Oh well.

Conclusion 16/20

A very high score for the first season of Code Geass, and that’s a high score well earned I’d say. Somehow, despite annoying characters, repetitive plot devices and animated sequences and a mediocre intro song, Code Geass managed to keep me incredibly entertained. That, I think, speaks volumes for just how good it really is. Especially as honestly, at first, I was certain I wouldn’t like it at all – giant mechs kicking the crud out of each other has never been remotely interesting to me. However, if you take the few fight scenes (which are rather obvious who will win at the time anyway, usually) with a pinch of salt, you’ll be fine.

Definitely worth watching, especially if you can endure the subliminal messages without rushing out to buy pizza in the middle. Somewhere in there will be a character that you like, I can guarantee that much.

So, with a score this high, we walk into the second season with pretty high expectations. While I won’t be rating the soundtrack or the animation any different, it’s the plot and character development we’ll be caring about – I wonder how it will go? Stay tuned for my next post, concluding this so far incredible anime. Season 1 ends on an expertly set up cliff-hanger, so l have high hopes.

BRB, off to Pizza Hut.

Still Uttering the Same Nonsense…. A Dracula X Chronicles Review

So maybe a lot of you are wondering what this game actually is, because lets face it. The title is as vague and nonsensical as they come, and it really doesn’t give anything away other than that Dracula presumably appears somewhere. Well let me clarify that for you – the full title of this game is actually Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. Yes, it’s another in the series of strangely named Castelvania games – with titles like Lament of Innocence, Harmony of Dissonance and Portrait of Ruin, you really have to wonder if they are just taking random words and sticking them together. Dracula X Chronicles goes along with this trend by giving away as little of the game as physically possible yet still somehow sounding interesting.

However, Dracula X Chronicles is actually different from the other games in that it is actually a remake instead of a brand new game. Quite a while back a Castlevania game was released in Japan that, despite being advertised in America and Europe, never actually got officially released outside its place of birth. This game was originally called Castlevania Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, which I certainly think fits the criteria of strange words smacked together. While I must admit I’m not a big fan of old games being remade – it does seem a lot of the time like a cheap cash-in – this time it did seem a little justified.

So, without further ado, let’s jump right into this game. It’s actually called Chronicles because it has a collection of several games from the same timeline, most unlockable for play later. I will only be reviewing the actual Rondo of Blood remake however, as that’s the main game.

Plot 3/5

Dracula X Chronicles uses that Castlevania plot. You know the one I mean. The one that’s recycled constantly – Dracula is revived and a descendant of the Belmont bloodline decides to go and evict him from the local doom castle again. Now, this actually makes me think…

The other day, I visited the Imperial War Museum in London as part of my course at College to view the holocaust exhibit. It was fascinating I must admit to see just how far the Nazi’s would go to eradicate their foes, and how their opponents would go to save themselves. Despite these extreme measures, I found myself oddly unaffected. I wasn’t horrified and forced to shield my eyes from the extreme horror reproduced in front of me, in fact, I faced it with more mild intrigue than anything else. I discussed this with a colleague with a similar experience, and we deduced it was likely down to desensitisation – as we are exposed to knowledge and research based on the holocaust so frequently, we tend to shut it out. Kind of like “The Boy who Cried Wolf” I suppose.

This may seem a bit random, but consider… the amount of times Dracula has been reborn and stopped by a Belmont must be getting pretty old by the end of the series – Castlevania is one of the few series’ that can actually rival Final Fantasy on the sequels front. You’ve got to wonder if the world by this point has become desensitised to Dracula himself – if when the Demon Castle reappears once again; the populace of the planet just shrug and continue with their daily routine. If the victory party held in Belmont’s honour after Dracula is defeated once more slowly loses guests everytime it’s held until only a few of their friends, family and the local town drunk turn up to raise a glass to the latest heroic efforts. It is starting to become apparent that maybe, Dracula isn’t as much of a threat as was originally claimed.

Still I can’t criticise Dracula X Chronicles too much for this as it’s a remake – fortunately Dracula hasn’t made another ill advised attempt to take over humanity and instead we just get to see him get the stuffing knocked out of him in higher quality. This is all looking into it a bit too deeply of course, but that’s the result after playing Dracula X – it’s so clichéd you cant help but start to go off in your own tangent. Or at least, that’s what I thought.

Wow, Dracula corrupted Richters girlfriend in more ways than one.

When I first started playing, I was generally unimpressed by the lack of plot – excluding the agonisingly predictable. Within moments of you starting the game, the dark priest serving the antagonist kidnaps the protagonist’s girlfriend, and carts her off to their castle. What is this, Disney?  I was ready to rate the game a 2/5 for being so average I couldn’t even rate it with 3 until a bit of a surprise hit me. After massacring my way past a legion of undead, demons and the like, I finally found the girl I was trying to save – Annette. Oh, I thought, now she cries about being taken captive, I fight off Dracula and we go home to add plenty more offspring to the Belmont fold. While thinking this, Annette cackled insanely, transformed into a succubus / demon hybrid and proceeded to tear my face off. Wow, that I did not see coming at all – and that I like, and I like a lot. That’s how Disney should start ending its movies if it wants to surprise anyone – Cinderella should get beaten to death by her abusive stepmother after she goes one step too far and Prince Charming is left mourning for the rest of his days, unable to move on.

Well maybe that is a little dark but nonetheless – this is certainly a plot twist I didn’t see coming, and plot twists I like. It’s good to see that they started to move away from the predictable Castlevania plot and included a few things we didn’t expect. Admittedly, you can save her by doing a crapload of secret stuff but let’s face it – people who only just picked up the game won’t do this the first time for certain.

Well done for impressing me Castlevania, there’s life in you yet. I do love the series, but their plot had started to get a bit stale – with the upcoming complete makeover of the series though, this issue will soon be going away. 3/5, and a side order of hope.

Characters 3/5

Richter is easily my favourite Belmont - maybe because hes one of the few with a personality?

This was an odd one. I really wanted to give the game a 4/5, as the characters tend to be those I have always liked in the series. The first one of course being the main character – my favourite Belmont of all the happy family, Richter. This is mainly due to his appearance in Symphony of the Night which I must admit I adore. So, with high expectations I delved right in and… hmm. He was alright, though his voice actor sounded so American it was frankly a little odd. Not quite what I was hoping for. However, his outfit and overall style was something I still quite liked, and I never seemed to grow tired of using item crash for the sole purpose of hearing him yell “HYDRO STORM!”

Next up, as the other ‘main character’ we have Dracula himself – who was astonishing in that I recognised his voice instantly. He has the same voice actor as two characters that are personal favourites of mine and perhaps would be recognised by at least some of you: the first ones that came to mind were actually quite well known. For example, Prince Arthas Menethil in Warcraft 3 had the same voice actor, and used the same after joining the ranks of the undead. He also shares the same voice as Luke Valentine from one of my personal favourites: Hellsing. This actually leads me to another point on the recycle scale – is it just me, or do the Japanese love the name Valentine? It’s everywhere. We have Luke Valentine, Faye Valentine, Vincent Valentine, Mai Valentine… the list goes on.

Anyway, Dracula is, the same as Richter, a bit of a disappointment. I mean no disrespect to the voice actor that I can’t recall the name of – he is fantastic and I like pretty much all of his appearances that I have seen – but this one just doesn’t seem to hit the nail on the head for me. He’s just a bit too arrogant and confident, and while it’s true that Dracula exhumes these traits more often than a war exhumes corpses, it just doesn’t seem to fit right. I think it’s the tone of voice actually; something about it just isn’t quite regal enough. Sure, he does sound like a badass evil bastard, but he doesn’t have the kind of voice that I’d associate with a Lord pretty high up as far as social class and hierarchy goes. It’d be like if Rude was the president of Shinra – something just wouldn’t be right.

Next of course is everyone’s favourite dark priest. He’s one bad motherf….. huh? Shut my mouth? I’m just talking ‘bout the Shaft. Yes, Shaft, the other character that makes an appearance in Symphony of the Night. Once again, I was excited to hear his voice and model updated – yet once again was slightly disappointed. As before, he isn’t bad as such but he just isn’t quite what I was hoping for. I don’t know what it is with people sounding American in this game, but it seems to me that this game tries to persuade us Transylvania isn’t in Romania at all. Still, he looks cool, especially on the opening cinematic. Can’t complain too much.

However, there is one glaring reason why I felt like I couldn’t possible rate it 4/5 as I originally hoped – and this reason is a little girl called Maria. Remember in the last post I made, I expressed my hatred for the ridiculously young girl with a save the world attitude who gives the badass heroes a run for their money. Sadly, Dracula X Chronicles falls right into this trap by having Maria – an interesting if poorly voice acted character in Symphony of the Night, but in this game she seems to be around 8 years old. It’s a little bit depressing, and very difficult to take the game seriously, when you see such a tiny girl beat Dracula so hard he won’t be able to sit down for weeks.

Still the character cast overall is pleasing, even if the voice actors aren’t quite what I wanted. 3/5, just because Maria pisses me off.

Gameplay 4/5

The gameplay to Dracula X Chronicles is just what we’ve come to expect from the old classic Castlevania games to be honest – hero has whip, you press a button to whip things. Sometimes you want to use a secondary weapon – you can press buttons for that too. Very simple, very average, but importantly – it works just fine. I must admit though, that some weapons tend to be a lot more useful than others. Despite numerous times where I could choose otherwise, I found myself using the Holy Cross or Holy Water far more than anything else – in fact I’d only use anything else if I had no choice. While I am glad that weapons other than the whip actually have a function, it does seem a little odd that some secondary weapons – like the bible – barely have a function at all. Oh well.

Despite being so incredibly simple (whip anything that moves, and most things that don’t), the gameplay is surprisingly addictive and fun.By the end of the game you will have spammed the whip button hundreds of times, yet somehow you aren’t bored of it yet. Still, one of the functions that Richter appears to have gained that his predecessors hadn’t quite mastered is an ability called “Item Crashing”. Now I must admit I never really have understood the significance of this name – but when you try it out, you really don’t care anymore. While costing a significant amount of hearts to cast, these abilities tend to be devastating to Dracula’s ill-fated forces. For example, instead of throwing a single dagger forward, you can throw a hundred in a matter of seconds – Richter unleashes a deadly barrage that even the toughest foe will be hard pressed to live through. You can also make it rain holy water, meaning you don’t even have to aim where to fire, everything around you just dies. It’s quite fun to do, though is suitably expensive so as to not make it overpowered.

And that’s one thing I really want to expand on here. When considering whether to buy this game, I skimmed through several reviews on Amazon and the like which all seemed to repeat the same two phrases. “I bought this game specifically for Symphony of the Night” and “Be warned, this game is unforgivably hard.” As a big fan of Symphony of the Night the fact that this was included was a big plus for me. I’m also a firm believer that games have gotten far easier over time, so having a hard game would be a refreshing change. I was however, severely disappointed and slightly confused by the result.

The game is, well, easy.

This puzzled me quite a bit actually, how so many people could complain about its difficulty but in reality is doesn’t appear hard at all. I actually concluded from this that the fact people were buying it simply for Symphony of the Night and claiming it was hard was no coincidence. Don’t get me wrong, Symphony is one of my favourite games of all time, but I don’t think anyone on this planet can truly claim that it’s difficult. Of course, what they got was a Castlevania game far more in line with the first games in the series – a much more linear sidescroller with no RPG content at all. You can’t gain levels or farm rare items to overcome the tougher bosses; you just have to do it with pure skill. So if you are considering playing this game, remember that if you have really just played the Symphony of the Night games then this will be very difficult for you. If you are a veteran of the several games beforehand, well this pales in comparison to their difficulty. Seriously anyone claiming this is mind-blowingly difficult should play the original Castlevania, now that game is unforgiving.

Maria, throwing her birds. Wait, what?

Still, one thing I both liked and disliked about the game at the same time is the extra character. Indeed, you don’t have to play as Richter, if you save Maria (the little girl mentioned earlier), you can in fact play as her. Now, I’m all up for a second character with a different playstyle but Christ- anyone but her. To make it even more humiliating, Maria actually tends to be far stronger than Richter against the majority of bosses – when Dracula gets the stuffing kicked out of him by a girl who hasn’t even heard of puberty yet, well, lets just say my desensitisation theory only seems more likely. The reason for this is because Maria attacks by throwing birds, which return to her after flying a short distance forward – however, they pause for a moment at their maximum distance. This often leaves them flying inside the enemies, hitting them three or four times per attack – making her damage output far higher than Richter. To make it even worse, you can have two of these birds out at the same time. If you truly are finding the game hard, just bite your pride and play as her – it’ll go much more smoothly, trust me.

The biggest disappointment in the game actually the final boss – the mighty Dracula. Or not so mighty. The remake of this boss fight is actually drawn from the game Chi No Rondo instead of Dracula X on the SNES – let’s face it, from the title of the game it’s actually quite difficult to tell which one it was trying to remake. In Dracula X for the SNES however, Dracula was incredibly hard as you fight him on a series of small platforms. This means a single hit can send you off the edge to your death. In Chi No Rondo though, the final boss fight is almost identical to the practise boss of Dracula in Symphony of the Night. Now, I’ve replayed Symphony so many times it’s a little bit silly, so when I finally came against the big man himself I annihilated him first try without taking a single hit. Yeah, such a hard game.

Still I’m not trying to say a game needs to be hard in order to be good, in fact the 4/5 shows that I actually had a lot of fun. It just needed to be a bit more difficult on some of the bosses meant to inspire some dread – Dracula and Death specifically. Oh, and to have a character more realistic than Maria. I guess we are meant to feel sympathetic towards her when she explains her parents were killed but, afraid not. She’s just too annoying.

As a final point, I should probably mention the nifty little ‘Boss Rush’ mode included in Dracula X Chronicles. This is a bonus mode that lets you fight a series of bosses in a row with whatever secondary weapon you choose, to get as far as you can as fast as you can. It’s pretty nifty and fun, especially once you get tired of jumping on platforms over water, dodging medusa heads and smashing candles. Maria is godly in that mode, though.

Anyway, a high mark.

Graphics 4/5

I must admit that Dracula X Chronicles looks pretty all the way through it. The 3D style is pulled off very well, and I was extremely pleased to see Konami didn’t attempt what they have been doing lately, and turn the characters into cute anime mascots. I don’t think I could bear to see Richter that way. Instead all the characters look just as they should, and while it is hampered somewhat by the PSP’s graphics capabilities, I honestly can say it looks a lot nicer and more like Castlevania than all of the strange DS games out at the moment. Maybe it’s just my personal preference, but they seem to take themselves a little less seriously.

A sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft certainly is, I'm sure.

Speaking of the hampered graphics engine though, I must admit that the introduction cinematic looks fantastic – a shame nothing of massive excitement occurs in it, but it definitely looks great.  I’m not entirely sure what language is being spoken there, I’d guess at German but could be wrong, but it’s a very nice touch. Somehow makes it feel more authentic. Of course it’s always nice to see Shaft fully rendered too, though one does have to question why he would want to resurrect Dracula. Oh well, I guess no-one really does understand him but his woman.

But as for the actual game, it looks good. I was pleased to see that most of the backgrounds are also properly rendered, instead of the developers taking the cheap way out and using a skybox or static image – as is the case with many 2D games. Not really a lot else to say, the explosions look right, the fire is convincing, etc etc. I couldn’t possibly give Dracula X Chronicles a full five though because of its nature – being a 2D it would be a lot easier to pull off than many three dimensional ones. Still good though.

Soundtrack 5/5

The soundtrack to Dracula X Chronicles is just amazing. Some of the songs you hear during play are very nostalgic to old players, and others are completely new yet still fit very well for the overall style. Some of my personal favourites that are always a smile to hear have been remade too, such as Vampire Killer – part of the soundtrack that has been in the game since game one. This one is probably my favourite version so far, which was definitely nice to hear.

The main reason I gave Dracula X Chronicles full marks here though is because it is actually customisable. In secret places all throughout Dracula’s castle, you can find bonus CD’s that contain music from other Castlevania games – mainly Symphony of the Night which also had some great tracks. You can then go into ‘Sound Assign’ mode and actually change the backing music to any level you like! This includes boss music too – meaning if you don’t like the music to any one level, you just switch it with one you do like. If you find them all, you end up with so many tracks to choose from that if you claimed to dislike them all, you’d surely be lying.

Great work Castlevania, have a helping of a perfect score.

Conclusion 19/25

While Dracula X Chronicles wasn’t quite the game I expected difficulty wise, it certainly wasn’t a bad game. I must admit though, that I didn’t like the new voice acting. This carries over into the Symphony of the Night contained in part of this game too – perhaps I’m just being overly nostalgic but somehow I preferred the older, incredibly cheesy dialogue.

Despite so many people clamouring after it because it contains Symphony of the Night, Dracula X Chronicles certainly can stand on its own two feet as a game of its own right if you ask me. It could be a little longer, true, but as a remake of an older game it can’t really help that.

After his appearance in the terrible game we call Castlevania Judgement, I kind of hope they just leave him alone.

One thing that does amuse me slightly though, is the people who buy the game specifically for Symphony of the Night and complain that they would have preferred it for Symphony to be remade instead of Rondo of Blood. ‘Why would they remake a game no-one has ever heard of, and not the one that’s often called the best game in the entire series?’ The answer is actually quite simple. Firstly, they avoid remaking it because if they screw it up, they certainly wouldn’t be popular. Secondly, they don’t need to remake it. Consider for a moment how long Symphony of the Night is, and realise that I completed Dracula X Chronicles in around two hours (with the bad ending anyway). Which one would take a lot more effort to remake? Which one would cost more money? It’s simple really, they remade Rondo of Blood because it was cheaper, and an excuse to tack on an unchanged Symphony of the Night. Then we all bought it anyway. The point is, they didn’t need to remake it for us to buy it.

So everyone who bought this game for Symphony of the Night, myself included (it was one of the driving forces behind my purchase) has actually been scammed. By Konami of all people, the driving force behind Yu-Gi-Oh.

I guess you could say we triggered their trap card.

Oh well, it’s still a good game, and worth playing. I may have been scammed to hand over cash, but I enjoyed it enough to have a laugh and forget about it, surely that’s a good sign!

Final Fanboy Special – Incredibly Annoying Playable Characters

And so the time has come for a bonus post again, and this time I’m gonna be talking about my one of my favourite series of games – Final Fantasy. However, its not all sunshine and daisies as far as brilliance in concerned, as somehow each game has at least one character that really makes you beg for them to get the Aeris treatment. And by that of course, I mean they die horribly.

It’s true that most characters have a moment where they start to get on your nerves a little, I’m gonna talk about the ones that really started to get under my skin. Having not played the thirteenth instalment yet (I didn’t really like the recent games all that much, and thirteen is an unlucky number after all) – incoming is a list of the most annoying character for the six numbered games before.

Health Warning: Take a chill pill before reading.

Final Fantasy 6 – Relm

Does she even look human?

Ah Relm. I must admit that I actually have only played FF6 recently, despite being such a fan of the series. While most of the characters were a little bit underdeveloped due to the sheer number of them, Relm had a personality that certainly made her stand out from the crowd. A shame that’s because it was so god awful. This game definitely had some cool cats (Edgar and Sabin for example), but Relm really pissed me off, for a number of reasons.

The main reason I guess is her age – we are expected to believe that this tiny girl is ten years old. Despite this, it only takes a couple of minutes for her to persuade your party to take her along, and then you are stuck with her forever. It really is stretching it, trying to make us believe that this ten year old girl is equal in power to a man training in martial arts for the past decade, or a genetically enhanced supersoldier. Just adding to how unrealistic she is, her special skill she brings to the game is drawing enemies. Yeah, she draws them as a special attack. All of this combined, it really kicks the idea of Kefka  being any threat at all in the nads, as lets face it – he got beaten by a ten year old girl, literally.

A final point of complaint is that when it comes down to it, Relm is actually a douche. While a lot of the characters support each other, Relm instead resorts to blackmail and threats, insulting people making foolish decisions and generally making a nuisance of herself. The scene where she joined the party was just depressing, watching her threaten to paint my martial arts expect and causing everyone to run around in panic. All I thought was, ugh, please, let me change characters already.

Final Fantasy 7 – Yuffie

I've never been able to figure out what that weird arm thing is.

Irritation to the bloody max. Yuffie may even top the list of incredibly annoying characters here, because she really is annoying as hell. Seeing as Final Fantasy 7 is so popular, she appears in several different games (and the film Advent Children) yet somehow managed to make herself a pain in the rear in every single one.

Let’s start with the obvious: the original game of FF7. Anyone who has played this I’m sure remembers the first time they went to Wutai – and instantly regretted it. Yuffie instantly stabs you in the back and steals all of your materia, making it almost impossible to continue the game without completing an annoying sidequest. This cripples you massively, and hit me far harder than Cait Sith – kidnapping a child is nothing compared to stealing my precious abilities! Yet, even after you complete the sidequest and she returns to you, the pain doesn’t even end then. She tries to be helpful and reequips your material for you – only to get it completely wrong, and screw it up entirely. Welcome to ten minutes of screwing around in menu screens putting everything right again – and for barely any reward I might add.

But it doesn’t end there. In Crisis Core, a Final Fantasy 7 spinoff, Yuffie returns as a brat who cries constantly and once again, steals your stuff. Being the kind of addict that needs to complete everything 100%, having to sit through the side missions with an 11 year old Yuffie bawling her eyes out while pretending to act tough is very painful. I almost wanted to just not bother, but damn that Bahamut Fury reward. I just couldn’t.

Then of course, there’s Advent Children. Thankfully Yuffie only plays a very small part in the film and as such only has a couple of lines –but lo and behold, her two lines are so painful to listen to, I ran for the nearest sharp object to hack my own ears off with. Easily the worst line in the entire film is when Vincent describes Kadaj as a “sort of larval form”, where she replies:

“LARVA?! YOU MEAN HES AN INSECT?!”

Dear lord Yuffie, to take a leaf out of Lelouch vi Britannia’s book – “Never speak again!” Thank god she got a similar reply out of someone, even if it was a magical Scottish cat.

Final Fantasy 8 – Irvine

The cowboy outfit doesn't have great connotations either.

This was a very close call between Irvine and Selphie I must admit, as both of them are annoying in their own way – though admittedly less so than most of the other characters on this list. However, in the end I chose Irvine simply because he was so good gameplay wise, it compels you to use him despite his personality.

In a game series renowned for its feminine looking blokes, Irvine surely comes somewhere near the top of this list. Perhaps this is partly because of the 3D graphics not quite being perfected yet, but no, I think he really is meant to look a bit girly. Despite this, he has more confidence with women than even Tiger Woods – in fact one of his first lines when asked what his department is, is “Guns and Women.” With such a cocky attitude on a character entering so late in the game (near the end of the first disc) I certainly had high expectations of this newcomer.

And then I was severely disappointed. Despite his boasts of being the best shooter in his school, he fails miserably. On the first mission the team are given together, to assassinate a sorceress, Irvine turns from arrogant and cocky to incredibly emo and whiney in the space of a second. He then proceeds to have a mental breakdown, and cry about how he can’t perform under pressure. He then screws up his shot entirely, leaving it up to Squall to actually get results.

But wait, the failing doesn’t end there. Shortly after, Irvine follows Squall to battle her up in close quarters, claiming that he has to redeem himself – within seconds, Squall is stabbed in the chest with a massive icicle bringing him to within an inch of his life, the entire team is captured and put in prison, and Squall is brutally tortured. Well done Irvine, you really know how to impress us as soon as you hit the scene eh?

Using his contacts to get himself out of prison, Irvine then leaves all your characters to rot in jail. He actually drives several miles away before being literally assaulted, to persuade him to go back to help the others. Great character there. Thanks Irvine, we know we can trust you.

Final Fantasy 9 – Eiko

Hope someone in the party can change nappies.

And here a pattern emerges – another character, this time even younger than Relm. Eiko is in fact, in her in-game representation, only six years old. Yet again we are supposed to believe this six year old is capable of standing up to a Knight Captain, a bounty hunter or an Angel of Death? I, quite frankly, don’t buy it.

Despite being only six years old, Eiko quickly develops a massive crush on the main character, and constantly plots against his actual love interest so she can gain his attention. Yet, doesn’t this strike you as odd? She got her hormones seriously early it would appear, so early that the game is bordering on condoning paedophilia. She persists with these attempts to gain his affection almost constantly throughout the game, yet the other characters seem painfully oblivious to it. It is up to us, the gamers, to shoulder the pain alone it would appear.

It is revealed at one point however that Eiko is really just afraid of being alone, which I suppose would be understandable considering her entire family is meant to be dead, though it does raise questions as to how she has managed to survive by herself for so long – she must’ve been even younger when they left. It’s still painfully hard to sympathise with her as the only dialogue she ever really gets is flirting with her ‘love interest’. One thing is for sure – I didn’t use her, and I never intend to.

Final Fantasy 10 – Rikku

Oh Rikku... what did they do to you?

Alright, granted in Final Fantasy X, Rikku actually isn’t that bad. Sure, she has what can only be described as a … unique personality, and her patronising tones to the entire party can be annoying at times. However, when it comes down to it, she does have decent dialogue to contribute and it is nice to have someone so upbeat when the majority of characters are so depressing.

But no, what really pisses me off about Rikku is her performance in that atrocity we call FFX-2. Suddenly her loudness, her use of pet names and her cocky attitude increase tenfold – all this, and the game forces you to use her. She easily has the worst dialogue out of the three main characters in this instalment, but is obviously built up to try and bring humour to the game. However, it seems like the translators missed out one crucial point.

SHE ISN’T BLOODY FUNNY.

Instead, she is just annoying as all hell. The scenes when she doesn’t make an appearance become a complete blessing – just play it, and you will notice that the few times she isn’t there for whatever reason, everything seems quieter. You will live for the times when she finally shuts her trap, because one thing’s for sure, she won’t have anything interesting to say. It’s even worse when she pairs up with her brother (strangely his name is Brother, this is never really explained) as they are both as insane as each other. The times when this happens, you had best mash the skip dialogue key as fast as you can, because you can be sure it’s not gonna be pleasant.

She also has this annoying habit of latching onto Yuna and trying to leech off her fame. Don’t get me wrong, Rikku was there in FFX and so is entitled to a bit of love, but it seems like instead of getting credit where credit was due, she has no choice but to stick to Yuna like a parasite. This is especially strange in the couple of scenes when Yuna is asked to do a concert or perform in front of others (if you haven’t played it, don’t ask – it makes as little sense as it sounds), and Rikku just appears behind her as if trying to remind everyone she’s still there. Maybe that’s why she’s so loud too. Feel a little bit guilty but I can’t deny it – Rikku, you are a pain in arse.

Final Fantasy 12 – Vaan

Seriously, what is he wearing?

Yeah, I’m guessing anyone who knows anything about FF12 saw this one coming. It’s true that this was a close call between Vaan and Penelo, but sadly the loser is arguably the main character. And I think I speak for everyone when I say the main character should never, ever, be annoying. Yet Vaan fits this description perfectly. A homeless kid who gets involved in situations he really should avoid, Vaan dresses like a male prostitute and hangs around with a group of similar homeless and exiled individuals who presumably see a likeminded spirit in the fellow. Little do they know just what they are getting themselves into –a hugely long adventure involving endless desert, with a voice like her permanently has a cold whining the whole way.

One of the things that really annoyed me about Vaan is just how insignificant he is. Square really tried something new here by having the main character be unimportant in the story, but instead being more like the narrator of how it all takes place – he is more of an observer than a major player. However, this really doesn’t combine with his awful personality too well. When a character acts like an arse and has no relation to the plot, I have to wonder why they couldn’t just remove him. He just isn’t likeable.

Not only that but, as Vaan starts as a homeless kid, you start the game as a small scale thief. Picking the pockets of guards for a few spare gil, sneaking into the sewers to break into hidden places – you get the drill. Throughout all this, Vaan dreams to become a sky pirate – a select group of bandits with airships, travelling the world as they see fit and ignoring the boundaries placed by empires and civilisations. So, what does Vaan do when you complete the game and have collected enough gil to fund a small country? Vaan buys an airship and becomes a sky pirate. This baffles me slightly, as now that you are rich, why would you choose to break the law? Surely Vaan could live an easier life.

Also, with all that money, buy some new damn clothes. Just a small tip Vaan.

Conclusion

So that’s the most annoying characters from the past six Final Fantasy games. If you haven’t played these games, you might notice that Final Fantasy 11 is missing – that’s because it’s an MMORPG, and so it doesn’t really count.

A few of them were close calls though, as the likes of Wakka, Selphie and Penelo had quite a few moments of aggravation themselves. It kind of seems like, Final Fantasy makes characters to try to appeal to everyone – and thus it also makes characters in each game to annoy just as many people. Kind of funny. Maybe I’ll make a list of the best characters in future – we will just have to wait and see!

My Last Will and Testament – Cowboy Bebop Review

If you are reading this, I regrettably have to have to inform you that I have passed away. Most likely murdered by those I love most – those whom I thought were my friends, that later turned against me. I have been crucified as a martyr, but I die happy, knowing that I will be a shining example of those who refuse to cave in to peer pressure.

Melodramatics aside, you probably guessed this is a review of Cowboy Bebop, an anime that’s fairly old now – dating back to 1998 as its original air date. It consisted originally of 26 episodes, but was successful enough for a feature film, Knocking on Heaven’s Door to be released after. This review will incorporate that into itself, but maybe later I’ll do a separate one for it.

Anyway, so I had heard a lot about Bebop, even hearing it being described as “The Grandfather of modern anime” and it topped the favourites list of several people I’ve spoken to. For what must have been around two years, if not more, people pressured me into watching this show, but for some reason I never got around to it until recently. So, with all of this massive hype surrounding it, I tossed the notion of sliced bread from my mind, certain that Cowboy Bebop would be the next best thing, and leapt right in.

I can at least, prove I am not alone. It takes a lot of searches for Google to do this!

And so, thinking it wasn’t great really put me in a tough spot. And so that’s why I started this review stating my death – as publicly announcing my views on the subject will probably result in said friends paying rabid bears to maul me or something. Oh well.

So, Cowboy Bebop follows the story of a group of bounty hunters named Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Faye Valentine and a young girl strangely named Edward. Despite how they seem to have some of the best crew around – Spike shows off his skills in combat several times, and has basically no equal, while Ed is an incredible hacker who seems to be able to break into any site by throwing digitised smiley faces at it – I can at least conclude that they aren’t very good bounty hunters. This is because despite all their talents, they seem to fail the majority of the time in capturing their target – sometimes through letting them go, sometimes through not completing their task in a certain way, so the bounty is cancelled. Whatever the excuse, when it comes down to it, they rarely get paid because something gets in the way. Perhaps having a moral compass makes you a bad bounty hunter?

Oh, one last thing before moving on. The director, Shinichirō Watanabe, said that he based Cowboy Bebop heavily on American counterculture of the 50’s and 60’s, along with most of their music. He was aiming to make Bebop appeal more to American audiences, and so moved away from the solid Japanese audiences most of the shows had at the time. Whether this was what people meant by the Grandfather of modern anime or not, I’m not sure. Still interesting though.

Plot 2/5

Yeah, I’m afraid that’s the first blow dealt. A pretty low score for plot, because in all honestly, Cowboy Bebop barely has any. The majority of the episodes have their own plot instead of a continuing one, and while Bebop has a few ‘funny’ moments, most of it tries to be pretty serious. While other people might disagree, I really tend to find that you can’t get a solid plot across in 25ish minutes beyond the fairly predictable. There’s no real room for plot twists, so everything seems to happen exactly the same way. The episode begins with Jet contacting yet another of the millions of people he seems to know around the galaxy that has information on their target, Ed throws smiley faces at a website to get better information, Faye and Spike race to capture them. They both fail, argue, come back and Jet acts unimpressed.

That’s not to say they don’t try to include plot twists though. They seem to make Faye claim she is going to leave the others five or six times throughout the show, to the point where you really don’t care anymore. In fact, the only part of the show that really surprised me was when Faye actually did leave – I must admit, the amount of times she whined about doing it before really made me immune to it. I’m guessing the writer hasn’t heard of “The Boy who cried Wolf”, or he might have seen that one coming. Even with such minimal levels of plot though, they still manage to include continuity errors and plot holes though.

Speaking of Faye, the most obvious error revolves around her past. She is frozen cryogenically (or something, the exact details of it escape me) to be awoken in the future – where a doctor tells her that her personal history wasn’t kept with her. As such, no-one knows who she is or who her family are – not even herself. The doctor then tells her that he gave her the name, Faye Valentine, as she had none at the time – he mentions that he named her after one of his favourite songs. However, later on in the show she finds one of her old friends from when she was young. They refer to her as “Faye” – so wow, massive coincidence that the doctor gave her a false name, which actually WAS her name? Impressive.

To its credit, the show eventually moves away from its predictability and short plots and goes original instead – however, I can’t honestly say I prefer these episodes. Occuring nearer to the end of the series, the final few episodes are just completley crazy, and from being slow and predictable, it leaps to incredibly random and bizarre. The most prominent example of this is the episode entitled “Pierrot le Fou”. I’m sure people who have seen it remember this one – in this episode,

Doesn't this just look a bit silly?

Spike seems to be tailing someone, presumably a bounty, but finds that someone else got there first. This man happens to be, what I can assume, the fattest man in the entire galaxy – who, despite his incredible weight, appears to have agility beyond human. Apparently this is because he has experiments performed on him, which I guess is a marginally better excuse than “magic” for something like that. However, this extremely overweight killing machine also has the personality of a child, resulting in him bawling like a newborn when he gets hurt. Because he is so disabled while crying his eyes out, he’s unable to move out of the way of a massive easy to avoid obstacle that crushes him to death. Seriously, this episode is just plain weird – even some of my friends who love the show agree.

Moving right along (I’m trying to avoid writing too much here, as my FFX-2 review was too long if you ask me) I do have to mention one thing in the shows defence – there is a small recurring plot that comes up in four or five episodes, involving a man depicted as Spike’s rival, named Vicious. While I would like to say that the times when this does come up it provides satisfying plot, these episodes are usually 3 or 4 hours apart – so by the time you get to the next one, you have forgotten the details of the one you watched before. While I do appreciate that, despite my complaints, they do try to keep an ongoing theme plot; I think it would have worked better if they had used the first part of the series for character development and had the Vicious plot at the end, rather than having it all so spread out.

So that’s the first words I use to sign my death warrant. Let’s talk characters.

Characters 2/5

Again, not a great score. But, that’s not to say I don’t like the characters – strangely enough, despite this score I thought the cast was pretty good. Bebop is filled with a diverse range of personalities that make for a good story. There’s the calm, collected and cocky Spike – he’s voiced by the same guy that does Vincent Valentine, that’s a definite plus in my book. There’s Jet, the more serious kind of guy who stresses himself over their constant lack of money and is really the driving force behind them all – he finds the targets, and gets the info. Even Ed, whom at the start I seriously despised, I eventually found to be kind of charming and amusing in her own weird way. So why the low-ish score?

The lighting on this picture, really makes it look like it could be Sephiroth. I was disappointed to see it was Vicious 😦

It’s quite simple actually. There’s no antagonist, rival, villain or even bully that they really go up against. Sure, there’s Vicious, but his appearances are so sparse he may as well be one of the standard thugs that they chase every episode. Though he does look a bit like Sephiroth… dang, I’ve stopped making Hellsing references and moved on to Final Fantasy. Anyway, it just seems that the lack of real threat to the Bebop crew lessens them a fair amount. At not a single point during the entire series (except the movie, I guess) did I ever really feel like Spike was in some serious trouble, or that anyone was ever really threatened. I just didn’t really get a feeling of power or badassness from Spike that I think I was meant to – watching him show off by beating up several graduates of the Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship while they miss at him constantly, is a little bit dull.

Then there’s Faye. You may have noticed I didn’t mention her before when I mentioned the main characters – and that’s because she’s a bit of an odd one. I have to wonder if she was created specifically to appeal to the basic male instincts, because throughout the series she seems determined to wear as little as physically possible. No matter how hard the viewer tries to concentrate on what’s actually happening, the camera seems determined to stare at her chest or crotch as often as possible – and you can’t help but notice her shorts are rapidly disappearing up her rear, as if there’s a black hole somewhere there. Then there’s a couple of scenes where she seems to have come very close to being raped, and acts all depressed as if we are supposed to feel sorry for her. Well, maybe if she hadn’t run away from the Bebop claiming to leave (both times) and run off down dark alleys chasing people whilst wearing basically nothing, it never would’ve happened. I get the feeling natural selection doesn’t quite work in this show. There’s also a porn star called Faye Valentine, which I stumbled across accidentally while searching for a picture of her on google. I doubt that’s a coincidence.

Then there’s Julia, a woman with almost as much hype to her as this show had for me. Spike’s love interest, she is hinted to be something special all throughout the series – one of the few things that comes up in many episodes. I was surprised when she finally arrived, at the very end of the series, and wasn’t the sweet and kind woman I expected but just as much of a gangster as Spike was. And then she died ten minutes later. Yeah, she didn’t really live up to the hype either, again they have this weird atmosphere of expectation, as if you are supposed to be crushed because their love never got to blossom. But it’s hard to care about a fictional character introduced half an episode ago. It’s weird though, Spike says after meeting Edward, that the three things he hates are “Kids, animals, and women with attitudes.” Yet, Julia clearly falls into this category.

Come to think of it, the entire supporting cast seems to be made of slightly strange people. Not that I have anything against them, I just wonder why they were chosen to be included. As mentioned before, there’s a huge bloke with the personality of a child. There’s a space trucker who I’d guess is a transvestite with attitude (honestly I thought she was a man the first time I saw her). There’s a group of eco warriors led by “Mom”, and staffed otherwise by her sons (Futurama anyone?). There’s an ancient old man with a massive bounty on his head, who spends his days playing chess. You get the picture; they included pretty much everyone here.

Still, to end this and move on, the cast really needed some bad guys (or rivals) to give everyone a bit more flavour, rather than just giving us the impression of watching them go about their day to day lives. Sure it’s a more interesting day to day life than mine, but still you know what I mean.

Soundtrack 5/5

Yeah I really can’t fault Bebop here, even if I wanted to. The music is pretty much perfect in all the scenes – sure, there are a few slightly odd bits, but they don’t detract from it at all. One example is when Spike is falling from the church, with what sounds like a choir singing in the background. Didn’t really get that personally.

Another cool addition to Bebop is the name of the episodes –that may seem a bit weird to mention in the soundtrack section, but there is a reason. Each episode is named after, or has some significance to music (specifically American music as mentioned at the start of the review). Some of them are only vague, but others are direct takes from song names, such as Bohemian Rhapsody (and yes I know Queen was British, but that doesn’t stop them being popular in America.)  If you have been reading my other reviews, you will know I love Excel Saga – that means I’m a sucker for cultural references.

The intro song to Bebop is awesome as well, so I can’t fault it for that either. In fact it’s probably one of the best I’ve heard, easily comparing with Excel Saga and Death Note. Thumbs up to Bebop, you got me beat here.

Animation 3/5

The animation from Bebop is weird, though not necessarily in a bad way. It’s very different from today’s anime style (so Grandfather of modern anime? Debateable). But that’s mainly because the of the style in which the men are portrayed, which I must admit I am glad for. I doubt I would actually have managed to sit through this show if all of the blokes looked like the perfect, smooth skinned girly kind of guys in most other shows of today (it really wouldn’t have worked.) So I won’t be marking it down for that.

Can you imagine if Jet looked like a Lelouch or Light style character? It'd be really worrying.

When I first watched it though, I thought the animation style looked a bit like Dragonball when it was a newish series. While I didn’t watch more than a couple of episodes, I still remember the weird style that it was presented in. Honestly nowadays it looks really rather outdated, it’s just not quite as smooth as I’m used to (I’m watching it over 10 years late after all!) So, while I’ve docked a couple of points for that, I’m not going to take it below average because of its age. While it may look a little weak now, back in its day I’m sure it looked great – and lets face it, slightly dodgy graphics never made anything truly bad. Look at Final Fantasy 7 for example – the graphics are some of the worst I’ve ever seen in my entire life, but the game is frankly fantastic.  Damn, I mentioned FF7 again.

Anyway, not going to bash it too much here.

Conclusion 12/20

A fairly average score if you ask me, for what I would call an ‘alright’ show. I didn’t think it was horrible at all, and it was certainly watchable. However, it wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it was going to be. My opinion might be biased due to the amount of hype I sat through, but it just didn’t live up to the expectations I was given. To me it had average pretty much everything, good and bad characters, interesting and dull episodic plots, etc.

The voice acting is good though at least, in the dubbed version as well. Sure, there are a couple of extras with less than convincing voices, but when I start judging something by the extras with one line I’ll know I’ll never be satisfied.

He's gonna need guns. Lots of guns.

It was alright. That is all.

However, for the poor fans of Bebop that are about to smash my skull with a blunt object, I commend you for sitting through this review. As such, I intend to reward those of you who aren’t frothing so hard with rage they are unable to read further – by mentioning something that you may or may not know. A new Cowboy Bebop movie is in the works, a live action one this time. The main guy, Spike, has been confirmed as Keanu Reeves. As a bit of a Reeves fan, I’d say you might be in for a treat. Apparently it will be out sometime in 2011.

Whoa.

Tell me what you like, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong. Send requests to JudgeReviews@hotmail.co.uk

Grass grows, birds fly, Sun Shines and brotha’: I review things – a Team Fortress 2 review

It’s been a while since my last review, as sadly I have had to concentrate a lot more on college over the past week. However, here I am back again with my next game review – a frankly unique FPS called Team Fortress 2. Unlike most games these days, Team Fortress 2 only features online play, and has no story mode or campaign to speak of. That admittedly makes it a pretty hard game to review – yet unlike the previous game review I actually had great fun this time. So, I’ll give it a shot and we’ll have to see how it turns out!

The TF2 Team in a group photo.

First a little description of how Team Fortress 2 works. It’s a class based First Person Shooter where two teams, RED (Reliable Excavation Demolition) and BLU (Builder’s League United) square off against each other to achieve certain objectives, familiar to anyone who is an FPS veteran. This includes Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, etc.

There are nine classes in total each with their own strengths and weaknesses – Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, Engineer, Sniper, Medic and Spy. Each one has their own unique style of play, and brings a different advantage to the fight.

But, can an fps with purely multiplayer really be that good? Let’s find out.

Plot 3/5

This is probably the hardest section of all to rate for TF2, and I’m still a little unsure even now. As a game with no story mode, I hear you ask, how can I possibly justify not only giving a mark for plot at all, but giving several? Well, despite what I said originally, the creators of Team Fortress 2 do put a lot of effort in to try and bring life to their world. Despite originating as just an fps with unnamed characters, slowly but surely the TF2 world comes to life a little more each day – even though very little of it is actually inside the game itself.

For example, on the Team Fortress website, a large group of comics has been developed which gives a bit more background to just why these teams are so dedicated to bludgeoning each other to death despite the horrific mortality rate. They even gave life to the disembodied female voice that congratulates your team when they accomplish an objective – or scolds you if the opposing team achieves theirs.

These mercenaries will sink to any depths to win.

They also bizarrely include a completely insane weapons manufacturer named Saxton Hale, who appears to consider himself the manliest man in the entire world. This is backed up by some very odd stunts such as jumping out of a plane to go to work every day, and assassinating anyone with more money than him. This is just one example of some of the strange characters that have spawned out of the TF2 universe – despite no reference to them being in the actual game (at least until later patches).

The other reason I chose to give TF2 a decent mark is because while it does try, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Unlike many online shooters such as Counter-Strike, TF2 doesn’t attempt to be a super-serious game involving incredibly resilient army recruits shooting each other multiple times while the players sit back and say “This is realistic.” Of course what would really happen if any fps was realistic is that, after being shot, your character would go to a military hospital for a month meaning you can’t play for that period of time. After that, you’re left with a permanent limp and weakness in the leg you took the bullet in and… well you get the picture. No fps is ‘realistic’ and I really wish people would stop claiming they are. As such, I have to give points to Team Fortress because not only does it have a sense of humour, it seems to realise that it doesn’t need to have super realistic bullets and explosions to have a market.

Of course despite saying all this, the plot is flawed in a couple of ways – which is why TF2 didn’t score higher. My main criticism is the obvious one, that very little of this background is actually included or referenced in the game. Because of this, I would actually be very surprised if even 50% of the players had any idea about all the effort that some poor sods have put into it. A shame really.

My other criticism is still linked to the one above – because the team are rather limited in the methods of how to get this stuff out there, and its also rather low priority. Therefore, while I can give them points for putting effort in where others most likely wouldn’t, I can’t honestly say the plot is actually something you’re going to think about even when not playing. Or even when playing at all.

So, for a few cheap laughs it’s worth checking out, but that’s about all. Hence, average score, mainly for effort.

Characters 4/5

Ah the characters. Despite all being simply known as their team colour followed by their class (BLU Demoman, RED Spy etc) each character has a surprising amount of personality. It makes quite a change from most of the other online shooters, and games like Halo where a bunch of power armoured mutes run around blowing each other up with no reaction or emotion whatsoever – you’d think they were dancing professional ballet or something rather than fighting for their lives.

That’s not to say that Team Fortress 2 is like actual people fighting for their lives – once again they went for the humorous approach. I have to admit I do think I prefer this idea, as lets face it, you wouldn’t want to shoot an opposing player and have to listen to your medic complain for days about how ‘the killing should stop’. Instead the classes of Team Fortress seem to enjoy their job to an extent that would probably be considered grounds for being sectioned – but I do have to admit some of their lines are pretty funny. There’s something rather gratifying about dominating another sniper, to hear your character say “One sniper to another mate: Give up!”

Each character has their own unique country of origin, background, job description etc that shows even through the things they say while fighting. Much like with the background of the TF2 world, the creators have put a lot of effort into developing their characters outside of the actual game – releasing videos as an interview with most of the classes. This includes Meet the Scout, Meet the Soldier, Meet the Demoman, Meet the Heavy, Meet the Engineer, Meet the Sniper and Meet the Spy. My personal favourite is probably the Spy. Sadly as of yet there is no video for the medic or the pyro, but it has been hinted that these are in the works and will some day soon come to fruition. So for those who haven’t yet played, the medic is a German doctor with a questionable dedication to medical ethics, and the pyro is… hard to explain. The pyro is an illiterate masked pyromaniac, who has so much difficulty in communicating with their team-mates that even their gender is uncertain.

A demoman taunting, you see what he did there?

Still, the characters of Team Fortress 2 are all funny in their own way, which is just backed up by the taunt system. Each character can taunt by pressing a button, and perform an animation to mock the opposing team (though it does leave them defenceless for a few seconds while they perform it). It can be quite amusing to give the enemies death-cam shots of you mocking them, though strangely some people seem to be caused offence. Honestly I’m not entirely sure why.

The only reason I didn’t give the classes a 5 however is because of the nature of the game – while I don’t think they could really be improved in any way, the shallow nature of gameplay makes it hard to develop them. So therefore I couldn’t really give it a perfect score when there are characters like Sephiroth and L sitting around – they are funny, but not as ‘legendary’ as others.

Strangely, there’s also Meet the Sandvich.

Gameplay 5/5

This is where Team Fortress really excels, because the gameplay is just so addictive. As mentioned before, each character has their own style of play to bring to the field ensuring that you will never get bored. Whether you are the type to sneak around invisible and pick off prime targets, a healer to keep your friends alive, or run headlong into the fray with a rocket launcher or a mini-gun, Team Fortress has a class for you. I must admit I much prefer the class system to the one used by games such as Halo, where you find weapons around the map. It’s just so much easier to keep balanced and fair – and you don’t have to facepalm when the super serious player kills you with the rocket launcher that he has been camping the spawn for all game.

The Sniper can unlock a bow and arrow instead of his rifle.

That’s not to say all your weapons are set in stone though – there’s a couple of alternatives to pick from for each class (other than engineer at time of posting, which is to come in a future patch). Most of these alternatives need to be found through getting achievements or pure luck however – a nice addition that means achievement hunters have objectives to fulfil while those that can’t really be bothered don’t have to. These aren’t an ‘upgrade’ either, so not getting them technically won’t put you at a disadvantage to those who do, though admittedly a few of them (mostly the melee weapons) are clearly worth using.

As well as having variety for classes, Team Fortress 2 has variety in game modes and maps too. There’s pretty much all the traditional stuff such as Capture the Flag, Capture Point, and King of the Hill – all of which can be played on both the more popular maps from Team Fortress Classic and new ones original to TF2. Similar to most valve games, there’s a big community of people who their own custom maps, some of which are actually quite good. In fact, one of the community maps was accepted by Valve as a permanent staple due to its popularity, and got added in to the default game edition.

Of course, being the light-hearted game it is, even the weapons that classes have are funny in some way or another. While some are pretty standard (rocket launcher, shotgun) some are fairly bizarre and wacky. For example, one of the optional items for the Heavy is a sandwich (called Sandvich to make fun of his Russian accent) which he eats literally saying “Om nom nom.” There’s a can of soda that makes the Scout temporarily invulnerable – though he can’t attack while under its effects – which if you look closely, states that it contains fatal amounts of radiation. The sniper can equip a jar of his own urine to throw at people, making them take increased damage. You get the picture.

That does lead me to my one and only criticism however, which I hope will get hotfixed fairly soon. That is, the most recent update added weapons for both the Demoman and the Soldier, and I have to admit I find their new gear to be quite a lot stronger than the others. Hopefully only a temporary issue.

Overall the gameplay is excellent. For new players, some classes can be easy to score kills with, and for old veterans you can rack up impressive kill streaks with pretty much anyone. Bordering on perfection!

Graphics 4/5

Again, a very strong score for Team Fortress 2. The graphics reflect how seriously it takes itself very well (I know I know I keep going on about that, but its really the main reason I play – its competitive but amusing at the same time) as they are very ‘cartoony’ rather than trying to look real. It seems to play out like a young teenagers comic book kind of style, some of it ending up being incredibly strange and unexplained. For example, medics can make every shot by a friendly player critically hit for 8 seconds – this is shown when activated by their gun glowing with a huge amount of lightning temporarily. Quite how this works I don’t know, and it sounds to me like it would be incredibly painful to hold, but one thing is for sure: it looks cool, and you certainly know when someone’s been buffed by it.

A Pyro meets an unlucky end to a critical hit.

Despite this however, they do put a lot of effort into making it look decent and certainly don’t take the light-heartedness as an excuse. When eating the sandvich, a bite does actually come out of it, when people are shot blood does actually come out of that area. They even take the kindness of, when you are exploded, labelling your bodily parts in case you didn’t notice (after being hit dead on by a critical rocket, its nice to see the game point out that your pancreas has exited your body). This is actually one of the things I found quite intriguing about the game, that when hit by explosives people actually did explode – unlike in other games where it just tended to cause the physics engine to go crazy. When I first started playing the game I was a little weirded out by the parts flying everywhere, but after a while you become immune to it. This is part of the reason why I sadly couldn’t give full marks to TF2 – as actually the ‘gibbing’ effect sometimes looks a little awkward. This is especially noticeable with the bigger characters (such as the Heavy) as when he explodes, there is clearly a lot less parts than there should be – so it looks a little like the heavy just disappears. Not a big criticism, but still.

I do like the special effects on most of the weapons however – the rockets look pretty cool firing across the map, the explosions look great (especially when coupled with people sent flying into the air) and the bizarre weapons still look great. The medigun (the medic’s ‘weapon’ that shoots a healing beam) looks quite impressive, as does the animation for his invulnerability and critical buffs. The spy’s cigarette actually emits smoke, when fires are put out steam actually rises – you get the idea. The detail is very pleasing.

Overall, it looks great. The fact that it’s cartoony is actually a good way to prevent it looking outdated – as once again (I need to stop saying this) it’s not trying to be serious, and so it’s meant to look a bit silly. Thumbs up for the graphics.

Soundtrack 4/5

Again, a strong score. There isn’t a huge amount of music in TF2 it has to be said – though I think that’s just fine. In most games I play, I expect there to be a fair amount of music (lets face it, in RPG’s like Final Fantasy music can actually make or break the game) but in this case it’s not so important. FPS’s are a lot faster paced, which would mean any music would have to match that – which I think would sound ridiculous. Not only that but, players who play quite seriously (including myself) listen out for certain signals to let you know an enemy is near – whether it be the sound of footsteps approaching or a spy uncloaking, you want to be listening pretty intently.

That’s not to say there isn’t any music at all however. I actually quite like the Team Fortress 2 Theme that plays in the “Meet the Team” videos, which is also on the title screen of the game as well as sampled after a round is over in the game. There are also many other pieces that play at various points, some of which were not even in the game originally. That’s one of the things I really like about the game in fact, that they didn’t just make it and abandon it – it’s been years since its release and yet patches still arrive on a regular basis. Not bad at all for a game that was just a one-off payment.

There are other aspects of the soundtrack I like though. When dominating (or being dominated by) another player, a sound clip plays to let you know that you’re awesome (or that you suck) which lets you know without having to check. It’s quite a small thing, but still a nice addition I think.

Other than that, I can only say the game sounds fantastic. The character sound clips really make it for me, some of them are so funny. I don’t get why I find the Scout saying “I broke your stupid crap, moron!” so funny after he smashes an engineer’s contraptions, but it certainly works somehow. I can’t give it a 5 again because of the lack, but what they do have works amazingly well. Strangely, these character sound clips have become so popular that people have made songs by remixing them. Youtube stuff like “Mortal Kombonk”, it’s really rather strange.

Conclusion 20/25

Let me start the conclusion by saying what I’ve clearly had in my subconscious all along.

I LIKE TEAM FORTRESS 2 BECAUSE IT IS FUNNY AND NOT SERIOUS.

The Heavy is happy with this score!

Yeah I imagine you probably figured that out by now as I went on about it for bloody ages, but still, that’s the main thing I can say about it. You can be the serious Counter-Strike player that’s always the last one on their team to die and just someone out for a few cheap laughs, and Team Fortress will still work for you. There really is no reason to play it. So, why are you reading this review and not playing it? Why am I writing this and not playing it? I have no idea.

But on a more serious note, 20/25 is a good score – far better than FFX-2 for sure. 80% still isn’t all that high I must admit, but to be fair it won’t appeal to everyone. Some people look for engaging plots and complex characters in their games, and it’s true that they would be disappointed. However, if you like online shooters, this one is pretty much perfect and I implore you to get it.

Certainly, this game gets my seal of approval.

Tell me what you like, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong. Send requests to JudgeReviews@hotmail.co.uk

The Ultimate Showdown – Excel Saga, Manga vs Anime

Hail Ilpalazzo!

As you may well have picked up if you read my “Top 5 Underrated” post a week or two ago, I’m a big fan of Excel Saga. In fact, that’s an understatement. While the Excel Saga anime was aired in 1999, a considerable amount of time ago, I only discovered this gem recently but I have at last purchased every single volume of manga. Contemplating on the subject while I wait for my beloved Koshi Rikdo to release the volume, I suddenly came up with a very difficult question to answer.

A battle of epic proportions... kind of.

Which is better?

The anime covers a lot less ground than the manga as it was made while only a few volumes were released, but instead contains a few additions by the director, Shinichi Watanabe and the other crew dedicated to bringing Excel Saga to the TV screen. So which one appealed to me more? Let’s take a look at the areas in which they could excel (see what I did there?).

Plot

The Excel Saga anime uses a mostly episodic plotline until close to the end of the series, with the plot of three or four episodes linked together. It does have the running theme of ACROSS trying to conquer the city and Kabapu with his civil servants trying to defend it, though this is mostly shown through different ‘mini-plots’. ACROSS tends to be foiled in their plans or at least don’t accomplish their overall goal – though whether the civil servants actually have a hand in this is debateable as honestly they are all as comically useless as each other.

Actually surprisingly different to this, the manga has a much deeper plot where one chapter (usually) influences the others significantly. Bouncing back and forth, L vs Light style, ACROSS and the civil servants seem equally matched in this written account – although they aren’t nearly as useless as the anime would have you think. Or at least, not all of them. It seems a lot more like Ilpalazzo squares off against Kabapu’s most able employees, as the servants of ACROSS and the less… intelligent of the civil servants actually aren’t hugely helpful. It’s quite amusing to watch Iwata fail hideously while Matsuya looks on in horror.

And so yes, you may be able to tell that I definitely prefer the manga in this regard. While the anime was a lot more light hearted and cared a lot less about the final outcome, the manga puts a lot more emphasis on the city actually switching hands (at least after a certain point). So, if you are in the mood for something that doesn’t take itself too seriously yet still has a coherent story you care about (and very little breaking of the fourth wall) I would have to say the manga surely wins out.

Score one for the manga.

Humor

Noooo! Not another Pedro scene. This picture is just awesome by the way.

A pretty big question here – which one was actually funnier? The anime has a clever mixture of both obvious slapstick kind of humor and a more subtle underlying references kind of thing for the real otaku. Even fairly old material gets paid tribute to, with some really old fathers of manga and anime such as Lupin III clawing their way in. This really makes it amusing for pretty much anyone who can bear to watch past the (hugely inferior to the rest of the series) first episode. Admittedly some parts of it are less funny, such as the forced and endlessly repeated scenes with Pedro that really do little other than take up screen time, but still the majority of episodes will definitely have something for you.

The manga on the other hand takes a much more subtle approach in most respects, with a few still obvious jokes sneaked in amongst a mountain of obscure references and cultural humour. This is really best represented by the character Umi, who in the majority of scenes she appears in is cosplaying a character from someone else. This seems to occur if anyone even leaves the room, despite returning a couple of minutes later she has changed – yet nobody ever mentions it.

Before passing any judgement I’d like to thank both the Oubliette of the manga, and whoever sat down to write the optional captions for the anime. Both of these are excellent tools for someone such as me who didn’t know that much about Japan before and certainly helped open my eyes. Wait. No. No, it can’t be.

I WAS EDUCATED BY EXCEL SAGA?!

Well, blow me away I never realised. That’s just how unbelievably awesome Excel Saga is. But anyway, I seem to be getting off topic, so… which one is funnier? I would say the anime. While funnier may be fairly poor wording, the anime is certainly easier to laugh at as it takes less brain power. While I compliment the author on being witty and clever, when it comes to coming in after a hard day you will certainly find it easier to laugh at the anime.

Point to the anime.

Characters

So, which of the two has the more enjoyable, funnier, or really the characters you have the most interest in? The anime characters have a couple of unique characters that never make a proper appearance in the manga – the first that come to mind are the director himself, That Man, Pedro and The Great Will of the Macrocosm. Saying that, I must admit I didn’t find many of these added much to the show, and the majority (excluding the director) weren’t really that funny after their first couple of appearances.

However, despite that, the anime did have its upsides. Mainly, something that that manga can never really have – voice actors. Despite what anyone may say, I personally thought the voice actors were excellent for Excel Saga, even dubbed. Especially dubbed in fact. Being someone who doesn’t live in Japan or speak the language, it’s far easier to grasp how stereotypical or eccentric some characters are by listening to them, rather than reading subtitles. As such, you can kind of figure out that’s my problem with the manga – it’s hard for the author to get across (ha, I said ACROSS) how the characters talk, which does make up a lot of personality.

The three ACROSS girls, including Elgaga

Having said that, the manga should not be tarnished by just that negative comment. The characters are in fact, excellent. It may be slightly unfair for me to say they are better developed as the manga has far more time, but they do seem that way from the off. The manga has unique characters just as the anime does, the first couple springing to mind are Elgaga, a third subordinate of ACROSS serving under Ilpalazzo, and Shiouji’s cousin Umi. Despite how much I wanted to hate Elgaga (having seen the anime first, and her not being part of it) yet I found that I really couldn’t. She felt just as much at home in the manga as any of the other characters within a single volume, and while I didn’t like her as much as Excel, I was more than willing to read about her serving our future ruler – Lord Ilpalazzo.

So, who gets the point this time? Honestly despite the voice actors I lean towards the manga. The unique characters are genuinely more likeable and far more natural in the show, Lord Ilpalazzo is practically a God instead of a moron, and they just get a lot more time for character fleshing out. In the anime they just don’t seem so unique – and I can’t think of a better example that Sumiyoshi. As he speaks through floating text, the first time I watched this (without subs) I had no idea what he was saying. After turning subs on, I rewatched the series yet had exactly the same experience – what does this mean? Sumiyoshi adds basically nothing, other than the joke of him speaking through floating text. Slightly disappointing there.

Plus, I never thought I would say this, but the manga actually makes a pedophile a likeable character. Yes, for those who haven’t watched it, Excel Saga actually has a pedophile in it – Shiouji, as named before. Where in the anime he was truly creepy and slightly worrying, in the manga he somehow comes across as clever, patient and somehow enjoyable. After the bizarre family he’s forced to endure, it’s not really a wonder he turned out a bit weird himself – so as long as he sticks to just watching kids at play in the park I won’t report him. For now…

Point to the manga.

Atmosphere

Don't blink, or you might miss Toshio's second of screen time.

So with the final point, I move the reader’s attention to the atmosphere – how easily are you drawn in? What makes you lose yourself the easiest, and stop paying attention to real life so much? Well, the anime achieves this through a couple of means. Each episode (excluding one or two) has a similar opening, involving the original author giving permission for the crazy antics of the episode ahead. This is a fairly amusing way to make a clever pun, insert a joke or two and also create interest on what lies ahead, in less than a minute of introduction.

Of course the anime also has what the manga cannot in the same way as the voice actors – music. The magical touch of Toshio Masuda is the driving force behind the Excel Saga soundtrack, a man who would later go on to compose all of the music for Naruto – an anime which while I’m not a fan of, has a gargantuan following. All of the scenes seem to have exactly the right music at exactly the right volume – and I have to say, the scene where Excel gets shot almost moved me to tears in a way that Elfen Lied somehow failed. The music there was perfect. Of course, as a final point, there is also the opening song which was written by the director himself. Fantastic.

The manga actually creates interest for each chapter in a similar way, with most beginning with a page or two introducing a theme, idea or a simple joke to get the reader involved.  This is usually followed by a clever (or not-so-clever joke in the title) which will make sense after reading it. Of course, with a bit more of a detailed plot and more developed characters, it can be hoped that the reader is interested already.

So as you can probably tell, I have to give this one to the anime. It’s a lot easier to just sit down and watch anytime you feel like it – with or without friends – than the manga, which does require a certain amount of interest. While in some regards that can be seen as a strength, for creating immediate interest it’s a little less effective.

Point goes to the anime.

Conclusion: 2 – 2

Yeah, if you’ve been keeping count, you’ll realise it’s a tie. So you completely wasted your time reading this, and I wasted mine writing it, as now we are no closer to figuring out which one is better.

Crap.

At least my Lord approves of this! *Swoon*

But wait, what am I saying? This post has actually just confirmed what I thought all along – that both are equally as awesome. So in reality this ended up as a massive fanboy splurge of love, for why Excel Saga is great in all forms. Sure, they both have their strengths and weaknesses, but that really just means they are great for different reasons. I really only have a preference depending on my mood.

Whereas the anime can be seen anytime, anywhere in (almost) any order, the manga is a bit more of a long term investment. If you are in the manga for the long haul it’s definitely worth it (so sucks to be you, as it’s not online past a certain volume!).

Either way, if you haven’t tried both of these yet, I don’t think I can ever talk to you again. Which means I just alienated every single one of my friends – bugger.

Oh well, what can you do. I’m off to conquer the city. Hm, I wonder if I had permission from Koshi Rikdo for this post?

A tale of Evil and… More Evil – Elfen Lied Review

Finally my next review, and without as long a wait as the previous! It took a lot longer than I originally thought to sit through the vile FFX-2 and tear apart its plot. This time however, I’m talking about an anime that’s got a lot of graphic violence and nudity – not for the faint hearted. How did I find it? Well it was certainly an interesting, though I didn’t seem to get the same experience as the friend who recommended it to me. While I was told it would be incredibly depressing, I seemed to be bordering on the amused instead. Why is that? Well, I’ll soon explain.

Am I the only one who thinks they could be cat ears? This is the Angel of Death by the way.

But first, a little background of Elfen Lied, for those who haven’t seen it. The story basically can be summed up as; some mutants escape from a laboratory where a private company appears to be experimenting on them. They end up in a city in Japan, where they attempt to live in normal society. They look like normal humans, apart from two small horns (which look like cat ears, in fact at first I thought they were. It’s not unusual in anime after all. Dammit Schrodinger how do you keep ending up in my reviews?)

However, the mutants, known as Diclonius, also have strange extra arms they call ‘Vectors’ coming out of their back, that are invisible to humans and thus very easy on the animation department. These arms have incredible strength, able to break humans in two with very little effort and turn almost any random object into a lethal projectile. This, combined with the fact they have a natural instinct to kill humans, leads to some fairly awkward situations as you might imagine.

The two Diclonius the show follows, known as Lucy and Nana, end up moving into a house with two current teenage residents, and at first have a fairly easy life. It is not long however, until people searching for the one or the other turn up, and everything doesn’t go as hoped.

So, with the premise set, I’ll launch into the review. Beware of spoilers.

Plot 2/5

While this is a below average score, that doesn’t mean that the story is terrible. It actually was quite interesting, if a little repetitive, however it is riddled by a few rather large flaws, coincidences that are so far-fetched it really is difficult to believe they occur, and a very strict time constraint. In fact, that would be my main complaint about Elfen Lied and I believe a reasonable explanation as to why some parts don’t make sense, and many loose ends aren’t tied – the anime is just too short. With only a single season, Elfen Lied is composed of 13 episodes, with an additional bonus episode that was made later. As such, it really has to rush to fit all the major plot points in – or should do, rather.

However, even more disappointingly, they don’t even try to do that. Instead Elfen Lied progressing at the pace it wants to, which is rather slowly I must admit. It is also plagued by a frankly unreasonable amount of filler in the small time-space that the creators had to work with, and when it finally concludes, doesn’t really resolve anything at all. Very disappointing indeed. While I don’t know this for a fact, I can guess that the likely reason for this is that Elfen Lied was intended to be longer and so did not feel the need to tie up every loose thread. The manga actually goes on for much longer than the final episode of the anime. Whether it was cancelled due to lack of popularity, or because of criticism at its nudity and violence is anyone’s guess.

So while Elfen Lied will keep you interested in what’s going on, you certainly won’t feel satisfied at the end. Not by a long shot. But enough excuses – with a score that low I need to justify it. Let’s talk plot holes.

My first point is that, actually, the basis for the entire show seems flawed at best. If the Diclonius have a natural instinct to kill humans, why would they choose to live with them? It seems like a bad idea from the start that could never end well – in fact, it doesn’t end well at all. While Lucy, when she is in the right personality (she splits between two) seems more than happy to give in to her instinct and kill, Nana seems very against it – in fact I don’t think she kills an actual human during the entire show. Wouldn’t it be much easier for her to exile herself or something? Then again that leads me to my next point – despite Diclonius having this instinct, Nana doesn’t seem to exhibit this at all. The only explanation we get is that her dad told her not to, which seems a bit weak. Especially if you consider that in episode 10, someone states:

“Diclonius would kill their own parents without hestitation.”

Yet Nana doesn’t seem to show this at all, in fact she actually shows quite a lot of signs of love towards her father. So maybe she’s just different, right? Maybe an exception? That’s what I thought, that maybe it was just because it wasn’t quite as black and white as was stated. However, later in the show again, another Diclonius kills her own adoptive mother, who has showered her with love and affection since a few days after she was born. This Diclonius, simply called “Number 35”, later on sees her real father. This man she hasn’t seen since a few days after her birth, who willingly imprisoned her in what was assumed to be total isolation ever since this point. He is also indirectly responsible for the death of her real mother, and a high ranking executive of the company that imprisoned her and all of her kind. So, what does she do? She cries, hugs him, and forgives him. The hell? Surely, if anything, he would be the one she kills.

Yet apparently not, and so I was left thinking. Maybe, I see what they were doing. Maybe it was all a lie to get you thinking, that actually the Diclonius aren’t that bad, that they were trying to send a message that they have been misjudged. Then Lucy says right at the end, that she was born to put an end to human life, and would even kill the friend who had been taking care of her all this time. And so, my theory is shat all over, and I realise that it was just lack of continuity more than anything. A shame.

This leads me to my next point – and also the reason for my title. Just who are the bad guys meant to be in this show? The main characters are the Diclonius, who you are obviously meant to feel very sorry for and so I assume they are meant to be good. But how do they justify this? This is why, unlike many people, I didn’t find this show depressing really (other than the final episode, which admittedly touched my shrivelled heart – but only a little.) Because when it comes down to it, the

Lucy ripping out a guard's heart. If I were picky, I'd say the heart isnt in the middle of the chest.

Diclonius are the ‘bad guys’ from my perspective. The very opening scene of the series, you see Lucy tear the beating heart from the chest of a security guard and toss it aside, rip the head off an innocent and defenceless absent-minded secretary, and tear more generic unnamed characters than I care to count, while she leaves one left alive so that she can make him suffer more than merely through death. Later in the show, she even tears a girl of around 4 years of age in half. Think for a moment, does this scene really make you think, “Yay, what a heroine, justice is truly on her side!”

No, she’s just clearly a psycho.

And so, how do they justify making the Diclonius out as the ones you are meant to feel sorry for? By making them cute, of course. I highly doubt it’s a coincidence that the horns look like cat ears, and also you may have worked out by now – all the true Diclonius we are introduced to are girls. Young girls in fact with pretty faces, pink hair, and a strangely unnatural desire to get topless in any situation and flaunt themselves all over the camera. That ought to appeal to the majority of viewers, eh? But seriously I wouldn’t be surprised if it was this reason the show was discontinued – especially as most of these girls are minors.

The director even looks like he could be Satan.

On the other hand, if that wasn’t enough to make you prefer the Diclonius, they make out the ‘bad guy’s to be so stereotypically evil it makes me want to puke. There’s the soldier who expresses glee at the thought of being able to execute a child, and punches a woman randomly at his HQ for no reason whatsoever. A scientist who drugs Lucy and attempts to rape her. The director of the company, who seems to have no agenda other than to cause as much pain to other people as possible. There’s even a child molester. It’s like the league of freaking villains.

Despite all their flaws, I actually found myself agreeing with the ‘bad side’ more, or at least understanding their actions. Honestly I may be in the minority here, but I would have to say to people who disagree that, no offence, but you are failing to see the big picture. Lucy admitted it herself; she intends to wipe out mankind and can make it so there are more Diclonius than there are humans in just five years. If you heard that in real life, I doubt you would shed any tears when the military gets sent in.

My final point before I move on is the flashbacks – there are far too many, and too long flashbacks in this show for something that’s only thirteen episodes. There’s at least two episodes dedicated to flashbacks to character’s childhoods, and even more later. In fact they even flashback to another flashback twice – once in episode 12 and in 13. That means you see the same bloody flashback with Kohta and Lucy at the zoo as children right next to each other. As if we had forgotten in the 20 minute gap.

So moving on, I leave you with this food for thought – and this is a major spoiler so don’t read if you don’t want to know.

What are the chances of Lucy escaping the island she was held on and happening to wash up not only in the same city as the friend who she killed the father and sister of, but just as said friend happens to be walking past that very spot, who just happens to have the same girl who was with him at the time next to him, and all three of them happen to have some reason why they don’t remember what happened and so don’t recognise each other? *Breathes*.

Characters 3/5

An average score here, which I find fitting as the characters are just that – so very average. While Lucy, Nana and Kohta all seem to have their own personalities, most of the others are just so incredibly bland it’s incredible. This isn’t helped along by their voice actors who once again are very average and don’t really reflect a huge amount of emotion – and I watched episodes both dubbed and subbed. In fact most of the characters were so unmemorable that I didn’t even remember their names. I think again, this may be due to the length of the series as many of the characters didn’t get a chance to develop and ended up being a tad shallow.

A shining example of this is how almost everyone else in the show, strangely, looks the same. Almost all of the minor characters and extras, especially the women, appear to be the same person – a slim brunette with brown eyes the size of a fridge. In fact they resemble Yuka, another girl that lives with the others, quite a bit. I mean I’m not expecting all the little people to be incredibly well developed, but it just seems a tad unimaginative. Speaking of Yuka and voice acting however, one of the funniest moments in the show was when she said to Kouta: “Do you ever think about touching my breasts?” with about as much emotion as a brick wall. Seriously, I laughed so hard – its completely out of context as well, if I recall they had just been sitting down eating dinner at the time. Thank the lord this awful writing was just a one-off, and doesn’t really happen again.

Always bet on Bando.

Still, the characters weren’t all bad. In fact, I liked the soldier guy who I mentioned before, who I believe was named Bando. This strange Duke Nukem look-alike actually turns out to be rather useless, as he is sent to assassinate the Diclonius and fails miserably with every attempt. However, his attitude remained consistent even if he was overall a bit of a douche, and he seemed to be one of the only people in the entire show with a brain. He realised that the Diclonius have invisible arms within a few minutes of meeting Lucy, and so tries to stay out of their range if he can. When preparing for a rematch, he clears away all of the trash and debris from the surrounding area so that she has no projectiles to throw at him.

In fact, he has my favourite line in the entire show (I was watching the dubbed version at this point). After meeting Lucy for the first time, she tears one of his arms off, breaks the other and rips both his eyes out. OUR HERO, YAY! No but anyway, his life is fortunately saved by a nearby homeless girl – who later, after being repaired with mechanical eyes and a hand, he meets again. Not one to be indebted to anyone, he gives the little girl his phone number in return. She asks what for, and he replies:

“If anybody gives you trouble, just call me. I’ll fucking kill them for you.”

Seeing him say that to this girl of about 11 or 12 is just so funny. I think we all wouldn’t mind that kind of friend in their teenage years!

Sadly, this girl somehow kind of develops into a main character – or rather, she moves in with the rest in the same house. Kohta must feel like such a stud – suddenly he’s living in a small mansion with no less than four girls. However, this girl (Mayu) really contributes nothing to the story at all. Her entire existence beyond saving Bando is really questionable if you ask me, especially as sadly Bando doesn’t really do anything again other than plot against Lucy. Whether bigger plans were in the works or not, I’m not too sure, but by the end of the series she didn’t seem to have much of a point.

Kohta is again a rather average character despite being the main one, paired with Lucy. His reaction to everything is agonisingly slow, and whereas Bando was quick with his reflexes and had a sharp mind, Kohta seems to wander through life oblivious to everything going on around him. Even the most obvious situations he seems to need clarification to understand, and yet despite being so air-headed he ends up helping people for no justified reason. For example, he takes Lucy, Nana and Mayu into his home without talking to anyone at all – you’d think he would be concerned about where they came from for at least one of them. For all he knows, they could be serial killers on the run from the law…

Letting this person in our home can only end well.

…

…

Oh wait… THEY ARE.

I won’t really speak about the Diclonius here though, as I mentioned them in plot. I will briefly say however that both Nana and Lucy were alright – they had their ups and downs. Lucy’s alternate personality is unbearably innocent and cute, whereas her normal is cold and uncaring. One of the times I really liked Kohta actually is when, right at the end, he grabs Lucy and says “I can’t let you go knowing you will hurt people.” Thank the lord, someone who agrees that she is dangerous and not just eye candy for us to cry about how she has had such a hard life. I’m sure the widows of the thousands of police officers, security guards and soldiers she has killed will have hard lives too, but you don’t see them getting any attention.

Finally, one character I did like again was a fellow whose name I never caught. I just called him Shiouji as he looks a bit like the doctor from Excel Saga, but he is the true parent of Number 35 and the adoptive parent of Nana. I found him to be one of the few characters in the show with realistic reactions to situations, being forced to tear himself between doing what’s right for mankind and what his conscience tells him to do. While he doesn’t get a huge amount of screen time, when he did choose to die with his daughter at the end, I did find it really rather touching. Thumbs up and a point for Shiouji! Or… whatever he was called.

The rest of the characters aren’t really worth talking about as they are just too minor. So, next!

Soundtrack 3/5

The soundtrack for Elfen Lied is actually very good despite this score, I don’t know the mind behind it but they certainly knew what they were doing. Dramatic music plays at all the right parts, creepy music when a mystery is unfolding, sad music when a depressing moment happens – you get the picture. So, why did I only give it an average mark? Allow me to explain.

My first criticism of the soundtrack is lack of variety. While it’s true that most of the music is good, there just isn’t enough of it, and most of the time you are sitting in silence. Sure, this can build some dramatic suspense, and we don’t want music playing constantly but… it sometimes feels like something is missing from a few scenes. That you could bring out the emotion a bit more with some backing music to go along with it.

Supporting this point, they also recycle the music quite a lot. Again, repeating tracks is fine as some of them are really good but, the intro song is repeated in the anime so many times, by the time you get to the end you have heard it so often it starts to lose its effect – it even has different versions, such as the dulled down version in a music box that Kohta owns. Whether they were trying to sell it, or just didn’t want to spend the extra money on more, I don’t know.

My other point is the volume, at some points the music is so quiet you can’t really hear it over the sounds of people being slaughtered (or whatever), or its so loud you can barely hear what the character is saying – though admittedly the latter one doesn’t happen that often.  I don’t know who the shy guy who composed the music is but there’s no need to be worried. You have talent, let us hear it!

The soundtrack is good. Give us more!

Animation 4/5

The animation for Elfen Lied is admittedly, quite impressive and detailed stuff. As mentioned before, the anime has a very very large amount of graphic violence and gore. This is really has a lot of time and effort devoted to it, as characters bleed in ways you could never imagine. This is the only anime I’ve ever seen that I can compare the amount of blood to Hellsing – and this is becoming a review with quite a few references, isn’t it? Anyway, I was suitably impressed by the amount of gore in the show; I must admit I thought the friend who recommended it was exaggerating – but apparently not.

The detail never fails to suprise you. I'm not sure if thats good or not.

The only reason I can’t give the show a 5 is because of a point I mentioned earlier, the fact that the vectors are invisible to humans is just too convenient an excuse for them to use to not animate anything. While having them invisible makes sense plot-wise, there’s no reason why we, the audience, can’t. In fact on several occasions they make it so you can see them, apparently at random. I really didn’t notice any pattern or anything, and I have to admit it didn’t really take a genius to notice it didn’t appear in any of the larger fight scenes. As such I have to complain that it was really a bit lazy – and it does detract from the experience a bit. The fight scenes are really rather dull at times, when all it is, is five minutes of watching Lucy stand still while people around her randomly blow up or fall into pieces. Still a good score though.

Conclusion 12/20

Twelve isn’t a bad score; I would say it’s what I would expect of most anime to be honest. I would call it average, and that’s exactly what I would call Elfen Lied as well. It’s definitely not bad, and I enjoyed my time spend with it – I would probably watch it again in a few weeks time. However, I wouldn’t say it was hugely memorable other than for being incredibly overt and leaving little to the imagination – and I have to wonder if that’s what they were actually going for here? To make everything so borderline offensive, that people will remember it because it’s not often you see a girl with no shirt on tearing out a man’s spine.

I wouldn’t recommend Elfen Lied to the easily offended or the faint hearted as it’s so graphic, but it’s worth watching if not. While I doubt you will put it down in your list of the best things you have ever seen, it’s certainly not a waste of time to see. It has interested me in the manga I must admit, to see if some of the events which really didn’t get concluded are later, which can only be a good thing.

I suppose that’s what my real conclusion of this show is. It had a great start, but the ending was just so terrible they balanced themselves out, making it average overall. A bit of a shame really, and disappointing – if only there was a season 2.

I wouldn’t say it matters whether you watch subs or dubs though. They aren’t too different in quality.

Tell me what you like, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong. Send requests to JudgeReviews@hotmail.co.uk

“Surging, Flapping, Neighbouring Gullwings” – FFX-2 Review

Believe it or not, the quote in the title is actually a line used in the game – and let this terrible dialogue set the standard for this entire review. In fact, characters often seem to describe their own feelings about the game during their speech, one of the characters (Rikku) saying “Yeowch” at the start really summed up my feelings at the time. I suffered through the game for the second time to bring you this review, so I certainly hope it will prevent any of the public whom are interested from playing.

In case you haven’t realised, I didn’t think much of FFX-2.

Now I know what many of you must be thinking – a final fantasy game that’s not good? What the heck is going on? You must be one of those people, the ones who always criticise them no matter what. But no, actually I’m a big fan of the FF series (see my top 5 underrated games), especially Final Fantasy X. This however, just made playing X-2 all the more painful. If I could, I would love to erase this entire game from canon, the internet and in fact from the world itself.

Final Fantasy X-2 is a stupidly named game which is a sequel to X, as you may have already gathered. If you didn’t try that yet, in the original you play as Tidus, a blitzball player (a sport kind of like underwater football) ends up travelling a thousand years into the future where civilisation has actually devolved. This is due to a huge monster by the name of Sin, who is drawn to large gatherings of people and tends to treat them in a manner not greatly appreciated. A religion named Yevon has formed which preaches one day, Sin will be gone forever. Summoners make a pilgrimage to a holy land where they receive an Aeon (a summoned beast bound to them) which can beat Sin. However, when this actually happens (not often), Sin just reappears.

Throughout the course of the game, you pretty much shake the foundations of the planet through revealing the truth behind the lies of Yevon, finding Sin’s true weakness, slaying a god and more. At the end of the game, Tidus sadly passes away in a pretty touching scene along with another character (Auron). The other ‘main’ character through all this survives, Tidus’ love interest, a summoner girl named Yuna. She is the main character of FFX-2. So its pretty much a typical Final Fantasy game, utterly insane yet somehow pulls it off and makes it incredible. Definitely one of the best games I’ve ever played. However…

At the start of FFX-2, you now play as the ‘Gullwings’, a group of sphere hunters containing two characters from the previous game and one new. These are Yuna, Rikku and Paine – making this game filled with girls, girls, girls. You start the adventure after finding a sphere (they are devices which record memories) that contains Tidus, implying he could be still alive. You set out on your journey and well…

Spoilers inc. More spoilers anyway. So, just how did I score it?

Plot 0/5

That’s right, quite a change from my Death Note review, I’m actually giving X-2 a zero for plot. Absolutely nothing. I don’t know what happened while they were making and translating this but, the plot is filled with more holes than a block of swiss cheese in no-man’s land, and the dialogue is quite frankly horrific at times. Where FFX was smooth sailing plot-wise, slow but for good reason – the incredible detail going into the unravelling of the story – X-2 is more of a bumpy ride in the back of a dirty truck. The first massive flaw is right at the very start in fact, which is a good place to begin.

What a huge difference between the two... not

Remember how I said that you see a sphere of Tidus, and set out to find him? Well it actually turns out it wasn’t him you saw. It was in fact, a man named Shuyin. Sounds normal thus far? Well, here’s the thing. Shuyin could easily be mistaken for Tidus because… he has similar dress sense to Tidus, he looks so similar he could pass as his twin brother, he fights in exactly the same style, he ALSO is from one thousand years in the past, he is from the same city, he is also a star blitzball player, he’s even voiced by the same freaking guy! Are we seriously meant to believe this? This is the cheapest cop-out I’ve ever seen for a sequel, they revived the main character’s image just to sell more copies only to have him not really take part? What a load of crap. To make it worse, none of the characters seem to realise either. I kept expecting in the middle of dialogue for someone to scream “WHY THE F*** DO YOU LOOK LIKE TIDUS?!”

Moving right along however, the next thing that occurs right after also utterly baffled me. The game begins with Rikku and Paine fighting Yuna, or what appears to be Yuna but is revealed to be an impostor later. While unrelated to the point I’m about to make, this also makes no sense. She literally looks identical to Yuna while in disguise, which is established as she steals one of her dresspheres. Dresspheres are the lamest class system I’ve ever seen – basically how they work is equipping one changes one of the girl’s powers, however you can clearly see equipping the same dressphere on two different characters produces a different look. So why does this imposter look the same as Yuna? Continuity is hard apparently.

So anyway, this imposter it turns out has stolen a dressphere and this is what lets her look like Yuna. So, what do you do in response to this situation? Call for the help from guards? Steal it right back? No, you attack her, slaughter her men in cold blood (and in front of a huge crowd I might add) injuring several innocents in the process in the opening cinematic. Jesus, not only is this clearly unreasonable force, but it’s also premeditated murder. I mean sure you kill people in most FF games lets face it, but with a reason. Whether you’re a mercenary or a freedom fighter, at least you are supposedly fighting for a just cause. Yet this opening scene is so light-hearted they don’t really seem to justify this at all. One character by default has a gun, one a sword and one blades attached to her fists, so let’s face it they aren’t just incapacitating their targets. It makes me sick to think while the three of them dance and pose for the delight of the easily entertained, if the camera panned around slightly you’d see the walkway littered with corpses, with blood and brains spattered all over the place.

I wish I could say any part about the entire plot of this game made sense or was at least interesting, but it failed to grasp my interest at any point at all. It doesn’t help that this game is obviously intended to be far more light hearted than any FF game previously, yet most of the “jokes” really aren’t funny. At all. I pray to god this is just a translation error and the Japanese got a better game, but they really failed to hit the spot here.

An example of these travesties is one plot device that gets described as an “awesome sphere.” I really didn’t get this, when you go out searching for it, even the priests and the soldiers all describe it as an “awesome sphere”. Why? It’s never established – in fact, when you finally get it, the memory inside is rather dull and uninteresting. So why did they go to all this effort to call it “awesome”? I can only assume because it was meant to be funny in some strange way. Instead it just sounds excruciatingly forced, not helped by the appalling voice acting.

It is just me, or does Rikku look like she could be a man here?

Yeah, I can’t believe I just said that about a Final Fantasy game but it’s true. It’s a mixture of taking the most annoying characters from FFX (Rikku and Brother) and  adding fresh blood, including an arsehole of an arrogant kid named Shinra (har har FF7 reference). Even Yuna seems to really fail at delivering her lines, quite a change from FFX when she was pretty good. This is probably because of her change of character, instead of being a shy and quiet girl, she becomes cocky and confident – something her voice actor wasn’t designed for I think. Rikku and Brother are by far the worst though, both trying to pull off an energetic and bubbly performance and delivering it with the same quality as a primary school play. These two also bear the brunt of the horrible dialogue (the line in the title is a line from Brother), meaning it’s mainly these two who are responsible for destroying this game.

Another criticism I have of the plot for this game is that it quite simply, just can’t decide what exactly it is. It seems to be torn between trying to stand alone, and being a sequel that relies entirely on the audience playing the previous game. This is shown by when, right at the start, Yuna explains who Rikku is. I’m left sitting in the corner thinking, “Duh? I have played FFX you know.” Yet no, I tell myself. People who haven’t played it could use some explanation. But… then later, once you discover Yuna is searching for Tidus, you notice that in every cinematic everyone refers to him as “You” or “Him”. Now, I know exactly why they did this, but still any new players will have no idea who they mean. It’s never really established just who “Him” is. So, Tidus was actually the only character you could rename in FFX – and as such his name was never actually mentioned in any cinematics (strangely you don’t really notice it). So this is clearly a reference to that you could’ve changed his name – so now we are catering for the people who rename their characters “Fagmaster” or something similar, so that all new players get screwed over?

Christ this rant is getting long, but I’m not done yet. Next up is, progressing along the plot a bit, Vegnagun. For those who haven’t played, Vegnagun is a giant machine that serves as this games version of Sin really – apparently it can destroy the world, and as such it has been deactivated for millennia. However, now Shuyin – the antagonist –

Shuyin, clearly controlling Vegnagun

has come around and is trying to bring it online, as part of his revenge against the world. The reason why Vegnagun was never used against Sin is, apparently, because Vegnagun can’t tell the difference between friend and foe. As such, he was deemed too dangerous to use. Yet, once again, this is riddled with massive flaws. For example, the main one, they claim Vegnagun is uncontrollable and must be hidden away. Yet… when you finally come against Vegnagun (who a few people take apart with ease I might add), Shuyin is CLEARLY seen controlling it. So what, Vegnagun can’t tell friend from foe in the same way an AK-47 can’t then? Surely it depends on who’s pulling the trigger, and what it’s pointed at. If Vegnagun is piloted, then that’s a load of crap. So that raises the question of – why wasn’t it used against Sin? Apparently this game isn’t content with having a terrible story itself, it also wants to punch holes in its predecessor’s plot.

On the same topic with Vegnagun, right at the end of the game before you are about to fight it, one of the characters (Nooj – stupid name, or what?) comes up with a plan. Shuyin has to possess people to control Vegnagun apparently (as he’s just a spirit), so he will shoot the current body and then kill himself – somehow taking the spirit down with him once it comes for his body instead. It’s simple, Nooj and the current body (Baralai) are both characters with barely any screentime –and in this small amount of time its established that at least one of them seeks death. So this is an easy solution to the problem, two minor characters will off themselves and then the world is saved. But no, Yuna has an incredibly painful speech about the importance of friendship which somehow inspires everyone to take part in a far more risky plan with a much lower chance of success. Think about it – the lives of two men, or having nine men with swords try and take on a colossus eighty feet tall described as having the power to destroy all life. Fortunately its powers seem to have been exaggerated, as it doesn’t manage to kill a single one of the nine pitted against it.

My next point, not hugely plot related but more about the atmosphere itself, is actually how Yuna is received by the majority of the population of the world. Having played FFX for hours striving to save the world, I was expecting to walk around and watch as people received me like they would the second coming of Jesus. Being the saviour of all life, I was expecting people to recognise me at least – however it seemed like the majority of civilians actually didn’t really care. Most of them didn’t seem to recognise me at all, or at least didn’t acknowledge it – making me feel pretty unappreciated I must admit. In fact, the few times people actually remembered who the hell I was, was on occasions where they hate me for no really established reason. At one point when you go back to Yuna’s home town, an ex-crusader calls you worthless, and bets that you won’t be able to beat his score on a monster killing challenge. I mean wow, what? I’m the only person in a thousand years who managed to truly kill Sin, the most powerful being in existence, and you think I’m not gonna be able to beat some average enemies? How stupid can you get?

Moving right along again, (this plot section sure is getting long, but I feel like I can’t give a zero without a lot of justification), remember how I mentioned Aeons before? Well, at the end of FFX the statues (called Fayth) that bring life to these Aeons turn to stone and as such all the aeons disappear. This is what leads to the death of Tidus, as was actually created by these Fayth it turns out and when they disappear – so does he. However, just when you think it can’t get worse… guess what happens.

Aeons turn up in X-2.

Remember this from Family Guy? It's pretty much what I was thinking by the time I finally finished FFX-2.

This really sealed the deal on my opinion of this game overall, as they do once again maul the story of its far superior predecessor. This time however, the Aeons are evil and attack you. When this first occurred I actually thought this could be interesting, as presumably there is a reason the Fayth have come back to life. Sadly, I was mistaken – actually it’s never explained. Ever. I… can’t even express in words how stupid this is. At one point they give the weakest explanation ever of why the Aeons have turned evil – a Fayth appears and says, and I quote: “We tried to stop him, but instead we fell into darkness.” That’s it, that’s all the acknowledgement it gets – another massive cop-out. While this happened, I was almost screaming at the screen: “Please! Give me story! Give me coherent plot! Why are you even here?!”

Speaking of Fayth and summoners, do you remember the fiends from FFX? They are the normal monsters sent out into the world, which are established as manifestations of the spirits of the deceased, those who weren’t sent to the farplane (kind of like the next life) and so become envious of the living. Summoners are the people who complete the sending, and so give the spirits peace – however, they disappear after Sin was destroyed. The fiends however are still around, so the same process must still exist. Doesn’t that make you think, that surely that means now no sending can ever take place and as such the world will eventually be overrun with fiends? Maybe that’s why Yuna isn’t acknowledged much, as she just as much destroyed the world as she did save it. Whatever, I get the feeling you aren’t meant to question it.

I’m gonna stop here as frankly this part is just getting too long. But you hopefully have now got the impression with just how terrible and flawed the plot of FFX-2 is, so bad its barely comprehendible. If I was feeling philosophical I would maybe claim that this game represents the downhill slide of adolescents but of course that would just be a lie, all this game really is, is a cheap way to make quick cash. Which I shamefully caved in to, bah. Well let’s continue.

Characters 2/5

Again, not a strong score. As I’ve mentioned before, the characters in this game are plagued with bad voice acting, horrible dialogue and dodgy backgrounds – the main being the antagonist, Shuyin. While I’m not going to repeat what I’ve already said of him as it was related to plot, there are still a few other flaws with his character specifically. One of them is an issue I like to call “Ultimecia Syndrome” – this basically means he comes into the plot far too late for the audience to really get involved with them. Sadly however, where Ultimecia is a challenging boss fight (if you aren’t overpowered at the time anyway) with incredible music, Shuyin is completely the opposite. There is no upside to this character at all, everything about him is frankly quite silly and bizarre.

Next up – the Gullwings, that band of Sphere Hunters who fly around the world in a ship that looks like it once belonged to Zoidberg of Futurama. The actual characters themselves however are some of the worst in the game, as mentioned before, especially Rikku and Brother. While both in the previous game, in X-2 the pair have a much much bigger role – which they really didn’t deserve as they are what can only really be described as comic relief characters increased tenfold. It’s just too much.

Colour schemes and style the same... a pattern in FFX-2 perhaps?

Paine is the new member of the Gullwings, whom I can never really think of any other way than that she’s just trying to cosplay a female Squall from FF8. In fact, after doing some research into this, I actually found that it has been hinted she was based on him – though don’t get me wrong this isn’t actually a bad thing. As she was the new gal I must admit I wanted to hate her right from the start, but in contrast to the rest of the cast it’s actually a refreshing breeze to have her on the team. Sure, she may not be very original, but someone needed to be around to inject some reason into the situations they encounter. A criticism I do have of her however is that she’s another Ultimecia – she hides her background until unreasonably close to the end of the game. By this point it’s far too late to care, and so while I thought she was alright she was still fairly shallow. Nonetheless, she gets a thumbs-up from me.

As for the High Summoner herself, Yuna, I was pretty disappointed. They really changed her character a lot from the young woman in FFX who was willing to lay her life on the line for the sake of her people. Suddenly instead of quiet and shy, she becomes cocky and arrogant, and while they try to weave this into her natural instinct to help others, it doesn’t really work. They also seem to go out of their way to make her look ‘cute’ while doing so, and it just seems to create this strange character who can’t decide which way she should act. To be honest it’s kind of hard to believe she would still be the innocent kid after the amount of lives she must have ended by the end of the two games, so I’d much rather she had matured a bit by now. Wasn’t pleased with how she turned out.

The Gullwings in general were pretty uninspiring and frankly reacted unrealistically to the situations they came across. They also seem to have this weird obsession with attempting to make catch-phrases that are so lame they make you cringe (chanting “Gullwings take the gold!” after a battle ends) and posing in some frankly ridiculous positions, which make me wince and pray no-one saw me playing at the time. Minus Paine, they could’ve made for some basic comic relief if they didn’t have such a huge part, but you spend the entire game with them constantly in your face until eventually you’ll be begging for them to shut up.

The supporting cast have both good and bad characters in, as mentioned before we have Nooj and Baralai who they attempt to make fit an important role but sadly fail. They simply don’t get enough screentime as they disappear shortly after being introduced, and you don’t meet them again until near the end. There’s nothing really that bad about them, in fact I think they could’ve had more impact if we knew more about them, but sadly that’s not the case.

She really needs to wear more. A lot more.

We also have the Gullwing’s rival sphere hunters, the Leblanc Syndicate. Now anyone who’s played FFX-2 will instantly know what I’m about to say – she looks like a strangely expensive prostitute. Other than her and random grunts, there are two other members of the squad called Ormi and Logos – one fat and short, one thin and tall. They come across as another source of comic relief, and with the amount forced into your face by the Gullwings they really weren’t necessary. They also don’t really contribute anything to the story whatsoever, other than as a target for your characters urge to slaughter early in the game. Strangely you actually ally with them halfway through – I wonder how happy the grunts are, considering how many of them you murdered.

Finally, one part which was quite interesting, was seeing how the other characters from FFX turned out. Quite a lot of them make appearances in the game just living a normal life, Khimari becomes the elder of his tribe, Lulu and Wakka get together at last – even some of the minor characters like Dona and Isaaru are there. Apologies to people who haven’t played FFX to know who they are, and apologies on behalf of the game as well. This kind of proves that if I hadn’t played X-2 before, I would’ve given an even lower score.

One aspect of recurring characters I actually didn’t like was the secret ending. If you defeat the last boss with 100% game completion, then it is actually implied Tidus is brought back to life – while I’m no emo and was sad to see him die, it really would’ve been better for the series if he stayed there. The ending to FFX was so conclusive it was perfect, and so not only do I think this should never have happened, I think this game should never have happened.

Still, X-2 gets a few points at last.

Gameplay 3/5

The gameplay for this is…. alright. It’d love to give it more actually, some of the ideas they had were new and interesting, the class system for example. However, it’s all held back by a couple of massive flaws which prevented it from really escalating into anything too special. In fact, the problems can all really be summed up into one main statement:

This game was far too easy.

Some of the dresspheres look silly... at best.

As lame as the “dresspheres” which change your class sound, they were actually quite interesting as it allowed your characters to switch abilities in the middle of battle as well as customise whoever you want to fit any role. That’s all very well however, but as I say, the game is just too easy and really you can breeze through it with any classes you want. While the first time I played X-2 through I did all of the sidequests and got all the optional classes, the second time I just didn’t bother. This had no negative impact whatsoever though, and even though I was underlevelled I still shot through the game using the default classes without any real trouble.

FFX-2 is also missing a pretty iconic part of gameplay that FF is famous for, and that is the summons. With no summoner class, even if it is following the story (for once) it’s still managed to shoot itself in the foot with it. With no summons it not only hurts the experience, but it also means the game will need to be easier to cope with it – and so now all the huge bosses, monsters etc you can just deal with on your own. To their defence, they did include ‘special dresspheres’ that send a character into a strange form with unique abilities and increased power but frankly they were unnecessary. In fact, on my second playthrough I didn’t use any at all. Despite how flashy and cinematic they were, they really didn’t add anything to the game.

I had the same issue with the sphere grid – a system that means if you change class during battle, you actually gain additional stats or powers. But once again, didn’t bother with them at all and still waltzed my way to the end without anything getting in the way. This really isn’t helped by the fact they throw potions and other healing medicine at you like they are armed grenades or something, by the time I finished chapter one without doing sidequests, I had nearly 70 potions.

The ease of this game is really embodied by the final boss, which is hugely disappointing for the apparent machine capable of destroying everything. For some reason, after the first couple of fights the game itself actually heals you inbetween battles – so unlike games such as FF7 and 8, instead of the last boss being an endurance round, its just a couple of boss battles spaced out. And to top it all off, he doesn’t even hit that hard. The very final boss you fight is actually Shuyin, and in typical Tidus style he has a copy of every one of his moves. Yet, he hit incredibly softly – in fact when he used “Hit & Run”, an attack consisting of multiple hits, he wasn’t actually breaching the 100 damage barrier. That’s just retarded.

The magic in this game annoyed me as well it has to be said, which is why I stuck mainly to the physical attacker classes when I could. While Black Mage was actually incredibly strong, the new design for the attack system made it quite frustrating to use. In FFX-2, instead of the turn based system of previous games, all of the characters (and enemies) can potentially attack at the same time, rather than waiting for each other. In fact, the game rewards you for this – chaining attacks does extra damage. However, while the physical fighters just jump right in there and get to cleaving, the mage classes don’t seem to shut up. They clearly like their voice actors for some reason, as almost every special attack results in a character delaying their move to spout some one-liner that isn’t funny. As the Black Mage only has specials, this results in a lot of talking. Nothing is more annoying than watching your mage spend half an hour preparing a spell, then waiting for an enemy to finish attacking, and then it feels like they start reciting the entire works of Shakespeare. My fighters run in and out, in and out laying down the hurt while the mage chats happily to herself, until eventually they kill the mob without her. THEN she suddenly decides to step in pointlessly, and finally casts her highest MP cost spell on a corpse for no effect. Then I changed her class.

FFX-2 does have a nice non-linear world though, which you can explore anywhere you really want to right from the start of the game. While this is a nice addition as it really removes any restriction and has a lot more freedom than many previous titles, it does lead to some pretty weird situations. At one point, I visited one of the old places only to be told a nation was under attack by some huge fiends (one being a superboss, far harder than the final boss) and I had to go find 10 gatekeepers who could prevent it from attacking them. While dramatic music played in the background and people urged me to hurry as the fate of the people lied in my hands, I boarded my airship and went back to my hometown where Wakka and Lulu lived. Lulu finally gave birth to their child, so Yuna decided to spend a few hours gawking over how cute the baby is, until eventually she took up Lulu’s offer to stay the night. While this was progressing, I couldn’t help but think – how many lives were lost because of this?

As a couple of last points that are minor complaints, this game could’ve used some limit breaks, and the ability to skip the experience screen instantly. Think about it, the amount of random battles you fight in a Final Fantasy game, you don’t want the game to force you to read just how much experience etc you gained, every bloody time. You only have to wait a couple of seconds, but those seconds sure do add up. Still, the gameplay while not pulled off too well, did at least have some good ideas.

Graphics 3/5

As we have come to expect from FF games, the graphics for the everyday moving around are impressive. Especially on the main characters that have a far higher polygon count than everyone else, the detail on them is quite superb. While that instantly gains a few points in my book, it seems strangely like the Square team know they’ve done a good job and really want to rub it in our faces. There are so many weird scenes where the camera gets unnecessarily close to Yuna’s face or upper body, as if it’s trying to say

“HEY GUYS, ITS YUNA! You remember Yuna right? From the last game?! She’s in this game too, look! And look at the time we put into her face! It’s awesome!”

I suppose it’s fair for them to be proud of their work – they should be – but it just seemed really strange. In a similar manner, they seemed to use a lot of dramatic camera movements or changes whenever a character says anything of remote importance, that were really random and unnecessary. Maybe I’m just being picky here, but when the dialogue itself fails to grip you, you end up paying attention to how the characters look a lot more.

Not even optional superbosses escaped the copying and pasting.

The main reason why I haven’t given FFX-2 a higher score for graphics however despite its high quality, is because it’s pretty much all recycled material from FFX. Almost all of the backgrounds are the same, id say at least 90% of the enemies are models from its predecessor, sometimes not even with the skins changed. While Rikku and Yuna have their looks and outfit altered a little, the other recycled characters haven’t changed at all in the two year gap between the games. The most amusing of these is probably Wakka and Lulu, as they both have significant changes since FFX. Wakka used to be a blitzball player in the first game, and while out and about he wore his Besaid Auroch’s uniform – however partway through the game he retires. So, why, two years on from his retirement, is he wearing the same uniform? He’s not even part of the team anymore. Obsessed much, maybe?

Then there’s Lulu, who is actually rather baffling. She is heavily pregnant with Wakka’s child, yet… what’s that? They didn’t change her model whatsoever? Wow. It’s true, her model is identical and her outfit is exactly the same – I bet the majority of pregnant women wished they had that kind of luck. All their old outfits fit them like a glove, and no-one would notice they are pregnant until some significant plot device tells them. Amazing.

My final point here is, again, although the in-game graphics are quite nice, there isn’t really a lot of the cinematics which Final Fantasy is quite well known for. Remember how there was a lot of Advent Children quality full CGI in FFX? Well there’s only three or four of those in total throughout this entire game, which is rather disappointing. So, overall, the graphics are decent but still not quite what we’ve come to expect in Final Fantasy.

Soundtrack 3/5

The soundtrack in FFX-2 is actually quite good, but again is not without flaws. Sadly Nobuo Uematsu didn’t have his magical hand to influence the music for this game, and you can really tell. While the majority of the music is fitting, and its actually quite nice to have a more ‘rock’ feel to a lot of the game, such as the normal battle music, some of Uematsu’s magic is missing.

For example, this is one of the few Final Fantasy games to be missing the fanfare, an iconic part of FF history. It’s been used so much even people who don’t know Final Fantasy have heard it – it’s travelled the world from ringtones to World of Warcraft addons. So, why would you miss out on such a piece in your game soundtrack when you have rights to it? It beats me, that’s for sure.

My other major disappointment with the soundtrack for FFX-2 is that there was no real track that stood out. Most Final Fantasy games have had a piece that becomes incredibly popular on the internet, usually the final boss

Some FF characters are said to be too emo, but this game is the total opposite. Happy... Overload...

themes, such as Dancing Mad, One-Winged Angel, The Extreme and the unusual Otherworld. However, Vegnagun and Shuyin didn’t get any musical piece that really added to the moment, in fact if anything the soundtrack choice at the time brought the experience down a level. I remember specifically at the time, just before you fight Vegnagun, Yuna decides to give a speech on the importance of friendship and how, and I quote, “Love conquers all!” Not only have I never heard a cheesier line in my entire life, disturbingly happy and upbeat music began soon after. Nothing kills a dramatic atmosphere than a group of girls giggling and posing for the camera while something I’d expect in the closing scene of “The Life of Brian” plays.

I should however mention the two songs with lyrics composed for this game, 1000 Words and Real Emotion. While not really my thing, both of them were very high quality and a good nice addition to the game. A shame the entire thing couldn’t be of this quality really – though they are a bit mainstream, perhaps a resprentation of how Final Fantasy is headed? Final Fantasy XIII seems to hint that way at least.

So overall the soundtrack is admittedly pretty good, but it’s missing the extra couple of bits that make it really special. So, I just have to rate it with average.

Conclusion 11/25

Not a good score Final Fantasy X-2, not a good score at all. As a stand-alone game, FFX-2 would be passable at least – but its negligence to explain important plot details to newcomers prevents that from ever occurring. To fans of the original FFX, I would be surprised if FFX-2 was actually considered a good game – because it really isn’t, if you look even slightly below the surface, plot holes the size of a country begin to appear.

So... much... posing... And er, is it just me or does Rikku look like a psycho again?

I would highly recommend passing this one up, as it can only spoil your opinion of an actually great game. It didn’t get good marks from me, and I don’t think it was liked by the majority of people either. I think you can really tell how badly this game failed by its rating in plot – as to be honest I personally play Final Fantasy games specifically for their unique and interesting stories. When one fails to present such a story, well, you know it can only bring bad news.

My final opinion is that actually, FFX-2 may not actually be that horrific a game, it’s just far too girlie and far too happy for my tastes. But this makes you think, considering the looming apocalypse feel of FFX, why would you make the sequel to a game for a different target audience? I think, only Square can answer that one.

Better luck next time Square! Maybe FFXIII will be more of a success.

Tell me what you like, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong. Send requests to JudgeReviews@hotmail.co.uk

The Fantastic Five – Five Things that are Underrated

I'm the little known 5th member, who hangs out on the internet in a basement.

In the current gaming climate we live in, it seems like all the new companies and ideas are instantly put at a massive disadvantage. While customers all stick to their slavering bases of fanboyism and buy the same titles with a number on the end slowly increasing (Call of Duty have pumped out the same game six times since the original in 2003, and plan to do more), new titles are left to rot on the shelves of retailers everywhere. While I haven’t finished my upcoming game review yet, instead I’ll talk about five things that should’ve taken off but never really did.

5) Jade Cocoon (PS1)

Jade Cocoon is a story of a young man who has just come of age, who aims to become a ‘Cocoon Master’ like his father – who is missing, and presumed dead. (Admittedly this is the most obvious plot point ever, if you ever hear this line in a videogame ever you know perfectly well he turns up at some point.) His coming of age ceremony ends rather hastily however when the apocalypse comes and the entirety of your village is wiped out – no kidding this actually happens. Well perhaps just a little hyperbole there, in reality most of them are simply put into sleep forever. After quickly getting married to but not actually touching in any way one of the girls in the village, you set out into the forest to find a herb to cure your people and to be silent at everyone due to your lack of voice – this is one of those games with a silent protagonist, though honestly everyone else speaks more than enough anyway as often happens in Japanese RPGs!

As for the rest of the plot however… well you’d have to play it to find out, but rest assured things slowly progress for the worse until eventually you are saving the world as you are in the majority of games. Onto the gameplay however – A ‘Cocoon Master’ has the power to entrap the spirits of the wild monsters in the forest (it’s a damn huge forest I might add) and turn them onto your side, making most of the gameplay monster versus monster. On the way you occasionally walk into someone else who has tamed a monster and fight theirs, because for some reason the majority of people still alive want you dead. Sound familiar? It’s true, Jade Cocoon is often criticised for being a little bit too much like Pokémon. This may in fact have been its downfall, as most reviewers didn’t give Jade Cocoon any more than a 7/10, some even dropping so low as a 2.  However, in my opinion it’s actually better in some ways. You can merge monsters together to form more powerful beings to serve you, a simple yet effective process that is quite essential to actually manage the task of beating the game – while not a mind-blower, Jade Cocoon is definitely not easy. While not a unique feature to Jade Cocoon, I found this kind of merge between Pokémon and Monster Rancher to work pretty well.

The cinematics are all anime style. A nice and easy way to make them look respectable.

Finally, the presentation! While nowadays the graphics of Jade Cocoon would probably make some individuals new to gaming scream in horror and melt their faces, at the time they were actually quite impressive. Just like many older Final Fantasy games, Jade Cocoon makes great use of pre-rendered backgrounds in order to create a realistic atmosphere – and this is another main aspect which I find far superior to Pokémon. While I can’t criticise it for poor graphics as it was on the gameboy, Jade Cocoon clearly put a lot of effort in to try and make itself serious and steered clear of anything too cute or cartoony. Not unusual nowadays, but back then trying to make a game too serious never really seemed to work well (Resident Evil 1, ha).

While Jade Cocoon did in fact spawn a sequel for the PS2, I sadly have to say it seemed to take on the fact that it was like Pokémon a little too much – and became even more of a clone. Suddenly you are just a small kid with the goal of becoming the very best, like no-one ever was. To catch them is your real test, to train them is…. Wait let me rephrase. You’re a teenager who instead of having a deep plot of trying to save the world, just wants in on the bloodsport of setting animals on each other to tear themselves apart – while it gets more serious later you still get the idea. Jade Cocoon 2 still isn’t a bad game; it just seems to have taken on an entirely different approach to its predecessor. Give both a try!

Frankly I’m just glad it didn’t have a pinecone monster called Pineco.

4) Final Fantasy 8 (PS1, PC, PSP, PS3)

Ironic that after claiming people just buy famous titles with a large number on the end, that I include this in the list. While claiming that any Final Fantasy title is unpopular would be a downright lie, it often puzzles me as to why FF8 wasn’t received as well as it should have been. Coming directly after number seven – a game so famous celebrities could marry it without it appearing unusual – it’s true that it did have a lot to live up to, and perhaps this could’ve reflected badly on it. However, I tend to find that most people I ask always cite the same phrase.

The infamous Junction system.

For those who haven’t ever played Final Fantasy 8, the junction system is the rather unique RPG element of the game that lets you customise your characters stats. Unlike previous games where magic cost MP, instead you stocked magic just like you would an item, with a maximum of one hundred on each character. These could then be assigned to specific stats to increase them – the stronger and more plentiful the magic, the bigger the bonus. This seemed to always culminate in two ways however – as it could be a little bit complicated, the player wouldn’t understand / couldn’t be bothered with it and as a result ended up underpowered and found the game too hard. Alternatively, with a few minutes of reading around, the player would understand, stock up on powerful magic, and destroy the game utterly – trivialising all bosses but the final battle and the superboss, Omega Weapon (and even these could still be ‘lamed’ through as Zell and Squall’s limit breaks are frankly overpowered).

The graphics were truly ahead of their time here.

Honestly though I don’t see what the big deal is here, as personally I think gameplay is but a small part of the Final Fantasy experience. And now don’t get me wrong, I love Final Fantasy 7 but number 8 certainly made quite a few advances for the better. The most obvious of course being: the graphics! FF8’s graphics were a gigantic improvement to its predecessor, a jump easily as big as that of FF6 to 7. The characters finally look realistic rather than the massive head syndrome of all the previous games, and the cinematics are just beautiful. One part that will always stand out in my mind is the Sorceress’ Parade at the end of disc 1, which is utterly astounding.  As a final comment on the graphics – while it’s true that you can become powerful enough to make the Final Fantasy trademark summons unnecessary, it’s definitely worth bringing them out at least once to check out their awesomely detailed attacks.

But honestly I find the main reason I play Final Fantasy is for the storytelling and the characters – of which FF8 has in the plenty. While a couple of the characters seem a tad more minor and don’t do a huge amount (Selphie and Quistis for example), others left a lasting impression in my head. Squall for example is possibly my favourite FF main character, mainly because he doesn’t succumb to the horror of ‘the power of friendship’ – though as soon as Eyes on Me started up in a scene I knew I had a few minutes of pain incoming. FF veterans will know what I mean there…

As mentioned before, the story of FF8 is impeccable, but complicated. Quite a lot of it is very very surreal, and so if after your first playthrough you find you don’t understand some points, I’d recommend playing it again. Quite a task, but missing just one piece of the plot could easily result in little making sense – indeed, this happened to someone I know. The story in Final Fantasy 8 admittedly leaves a few plot threads still untied come the end, but if anything this has only encouraged fans, and a few theories have cropped up over the internet as to what could have happened. To those who haven’t already, I recommend looking up the Rinoa is Ultimecia theory – it makes surprising sense, and kudos to whoever came up with it originally.

Not to leave anything out, FF8 has a superb soundtrack with some of my personal favourites on it, and a great collection of mini-games and side-quests. I’ve played more card games on FF8 than there are in an entire season of Yu-Gi-Oh, and didn’t even feel ashamed afterwards! Definitely a worthy addition to the FF series overall, so hopefully this either changed your opinion or encouraged you to play!

Also it has this in it. Which is just amazing. (Skip to 1:20)

3) Dark Cloud (PS2)

Nowadays it seems like everyone, everyone’s mum, and everyone’s mum’s dog is reviewing, discussing, and overall just getting nostalgic about old classic consoles like the NES, SNES etc – I seem to be one of the few people giving any love to the Playstation. While there isn’t anything wrong with that (frankly I love the Angry Video Game Nerd, check him out if you get the chance), I just feel like someone’s got to give Sony some credit! So this brings me on to my next underrated game – Dark Cloud.

Dark Cloud is a unique game in that it tries to blend so many different genres at once. One minute you can be down in a dark cave fighting off hordes of the mindless undead – the next you are building a town from miles in the air, trying to keep all the people in it happy. Despite how it sounds, this actually works incredibly well – both the third person combat and the Sim City like elements are fun and detailed enough to make it seem like they didn’t rush anything.

The plot of Dark Cloud is admittedly not its strongest point, but yet is still interesting enough to keep you wanting to know what happens next. The only real problem with it is that it can just be quite a long time before anything progresses, and only after clearing the majority of an entire dungeon does anything important really happen. When it comes down to it, the story is pretty much your standard good versus evil – with a couple of simple plot twists thrown in while you try to save the world. Nonetheless it’s still a very enjoyable experience, and this is only a minor piece of copper in a massive pile of gold.

Your character could use better taste in hats, though.

The dungeons in Dark Cloud consist of randomly generated floors, Diablo style – making the game different every time you play. Similar to Diablo this is also reflected in the items and weapons you find, and although it doesn’t have quite as much of a range as Diablo they are a lot more customisable. In fact, customising weapons is actually Dark Cloud’s level up system – not levelling up the actual characters in a way similar to Vagrant Story from Square. Your weapons gain experience and level up just like a character in most RPG’s, and upon levelling up absorb any attachments on them. This means that you can pretty much customise your weapons in a direction you want them to go, instead of getting the standard plus to a couple of stats in most RPG’s. Pretty cool.

Dark Cloud also has a veritable supply of playable characters, and while at some points you are forced to play as them I tended to find that the main character is preferable at all times. Strangely, all of the characters other than the main seemed to provide some other form of comic relief – ranging from the crying musclebound berserker to the flirty sorceress with a temper to put Satan to shame. While these aren’t necessarily bad, their gameplay style all seems to be less effective than the main character – rendering most of them pretty much useless. One I do admittedly utterly despise is Xiao – a cat girl who would make a perfect partner for that obnoxious Hitler youth, Schrodinger. And no I’m not being offensive, Schrodinger really is a member of the Hitler youth – watch Hellsing! Not only does she attempt to be cute constantly, but she continually rubs the main characters leg and calls him “master” – starting to question what he does in his spare time over here.

Finally, the soundtrack to Dark Cloud is just fantastic, with most of the music fitting the situation extremely well. One of my favourites pieces is actually for the “duel” scenes, brief moments that are basically quicktime events (Yahtzee feels a great disturbance in the force right about now, I think!). Despite how overused they are nowadays, quick-time events at the time were a fairly rare occurance, and honestly they are a nice break from the usual combat.

One last comment, if you choose to take this game up (and you should) you will hear Toan say the same four attack sounds thousands of times. Only a minor complaint, but still it will drill into your head forever.

2) Beyond Good and Evil (PS2, Xbox, Gamecube)

This game actually surprises me with its name, as “Beyond Good and Evil” seems to imply that rather than using the traditional good versus evil approach of the majority of games, it would instead focus on a more grey area of factions that are good from different perspectives. I was soon found to be completely wrong however, and the plot had some pretty obvious bad guys who you were meant to beat up. Despite that however, Beyond Good and Evil is by no means a bad game, it is in fact fantastic.

Napoleon from Animal Farm sure has gone downhill since his foray into politics.

It may surprise you to hear that, despite the fact that many of its characters are animals (one of the main characters is a strange man-pig thing called Pey’j) and the 7+ rating, Beyond Good and Evil is a surprisingly mature game. It features biological experiments, human trafficking and a plot to enslave the human (and er, animals that are kind of human) race. You play as a journalist called Jade, who takes it upon herself to bring this information into the public eye. Fortunately, you also appear to be a ninja of some sort as you can outdo pretty much anything in combat fairly easily.

Without giving away any more however, rest assured that the plot of Beyond Good and Evil is surprisingly deep and very gripping; sure to keep you on your toes for hints as to what happens next. The atmosphere is just terrific all the way through, and again without spoiling – the ending is pretty surreal, and both the music and sound effects provide exactly what was written on the tin.

Another factor I also like is the sidequests – a science museum hires you to document all the different life forms on Hillys, the planet where you live. This results in you taking a lot of pictures, of both obvious creatures and ones you need to look carefully to find. This may sound boring but it does actually get quite interesting, especially as you don’t need to slow down your progress on the main story much in order to partake – and you are rewarded excellently.

It does admittedly get slightly difficult to believe the populace really believes that the bad guys are good, as the propaganda messages and videos you experience along your journey are about as subtle as Alucard from Hellsing. Yeah sorry I’ll stop mentioning that now.

Anyway, as a reporter you are at least not a complete God at combat – in some sections stealth is required. This leads to some clever puzzles and challenging situations that make sure the game is not too easy, but nor is it crushingly difficult. While I am actually a fan of hard games, in examples such as this where the story is one of the most important features it really is important to keep people progressing and thus: interested. Beyond Good and Evil masters this incredibly well.

The soundtrack of Beyond Good and Evil is once again a great feature, especially focused around the effort they put into the propaganda broadcasts. The tracks for these are mainly based around real propaganda from the Cold War, which I found to really fit in well. Strangely, a lot of the music tracks also have lyrics – many of which aren’t in English. For example, during hovercraft races a track plays with some Spanish lyrics, but this still blends in just fine and you barely notice at all. I can’t believe I actually am saying this about a videogame but, Beyond Good and Evil actually has multiculturalism down well.

Despite having mostly good reviews, sales of Beyond Good and Evil failed pretty miserably – mainly due to being released the same time as big titles such as Prince of Persia. As such despite having an open ending, the game had no mention of a sequel for years – no mention until now that is. Recently it was announced that Beyond Good and Evil 2 would finally be made, years after the original. About bloody time!

But overall, I would probably rate this as the best underrated game I’ve ever played. This however, means that the final spot on this list is an anime. Close friends of mine will have no surprise to hear the final number one underrated anime for me is…

1) Excel Saga

Hail Ilpalazzo!

Excel Saga is an anime that aired between 1999 and 2000, and I’d love to say that it was the best ending and beginning for a millennium to have. Sadly I actually only watched this masterpiece several years later, but it was quite an experience. This actually baffles me and most of my friends, who consider my cynical and judgemental nature to make me ignore such silly comedies. Yet still, Excel Saga managed to break down that wall with ease, and before you can say Koshi Rikdo I had my hands on a special edition DVD set, three movie posters and the first half of the manga.

Excel Saga redefines expressions that the human face can show.

Unsuprisingly, the main character of Excel Saga is a recently graduated schoolgirl named Excel Excel, who is now the number two (out of a total of two) in the secret ideological organisation of ACROSS. As a self-confessed moron, Excel does her best but fails constantly to serve her commanding officer and love interest; Lord Ilpalazzo – suffering from her own stupidity and some of the worst luck you can possibly imagine. Being the genius he is, Lord Ilpalazzo is the brains of the operation, deducing that the easiest way to conquer the world would be to start with a single city, yet still he seems somehow ignorant of his subordinates interest in him – and with lines such as “Oh, take me Lord Ilpalazzo!” its kind of hard to miss. However, I’ll try to avoid spoiling anything in the hope any newcomers to this gem will take a look.

As Excel Saga is an anime rather than a game, it’s kind of hard to talk about the gameplay. So instead I’ll just talk about the experience over all, and the layout of the episodes. Excel Saga is spread out over 26 episodes, with each one usually having its own plot to fulfil instead of having a hugely developed one. While it’s true this style makes it difficult to have a serious plot make progress, Excel Saga is about as unserious as you can possibly get. This makes it a very easy anime to watch every now and then when you have spare time; instead of more developed ones like Fate/Stay Night and Death Note where you need to remember what happened before for it to make sense.

Despite this, I find that it’s actually very quick and easy to grow an attachment to the characters. At the end of the show a small quick attempt at plot is created in order to provide closure, and again without spoiling, I found a certain point very touching indeed. So strange that an anime can go from being hilarious and suddenly have an event like that! (Got you curious now, haven’t I?)

While more characters are introduced throughout the show, and even the ranks of ACROSS manage to grow, I have to admit I do take issue with one in particular. My only real complaint about Excel Saga is this one man, who uses up all his funny rather fast and just becomes a bore whenever he gets screen time. This man’s name is Pedro, and old Excel fans will surely learn to hate him.

This leads me to my next point however – the manga! The manga for Excel Saga takes a very different approach to the anime, adopting a much more serious tone and doing away with the utter moronic nature of a few. This is quite possibly because it goes on for far longer so a plot is needed, but I digress – this means that there is no Pedro whatsoever. Surely, God (or Ilpalazzo) has smiled upon us this day. But anyway, not only does this mean we can in fact get MORE Excel in the manga, but the boring scenes are pretty much gone.

Overall, Excel Saga is a great anime and manga for both newbies and veterans of anime – with both obvious humour and hundreds of obscure references to other shows and artists. The soundtrack also compliments the scenes they are in incredibly well, and I’m so addicted to the opening theme song I have it on my Ipod (screw Zens, the friend this is directed at knows who they are :P). If you are reading this, watch Excel Saga!

Conclusion

So that’s my top 5 list of entertainment that should be a multimillion corporation by now, but instead faded into the background. As a last bonus treat, I leave you with a final comment of one more thing that’s underrated – my dear friend the PSP. As a commuter who has to spend over an hour on trains every weekday, I found myself in love with my portable partner – and was saddened to see how its sales compare to that of the DS. Honestly I have nothing against the DS or Nintendo (I love the Ace Attorney games), but almost all of the people I know with one seem to just play Pokémon or a Mario game constantly. As I never really stuck with the franchises past the first handful of games (they really seem so ‘samey’) it really puzzles me why the PSP hasn’t done better. At any rate, if you haven’t already these are five things you should definitely look up.

And if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to conquer the city. Hail Ilpalazzo!