Forced Continuation Disease

So after my article on the best of Metal Gear Solid, I got to admit that I had a bit of trouble thinking about what to review next and while I have a good number of ideas, one movie in particular came to mind. I won't say specifically which, but lets say it has to do with some old series that I used to enjoy, but as it went on, my love for the series deteriorate at a great rate. It doesn't help that I'm thinking about this in the shower of all places, but nevermind that.

The reason the series seemed to deteriorate was after it contracted what I like to call the 'forced continuation disease'. What is force continuation disease or FCD for short? The concept centers around a fairly good and enjoyable series, such as for instance, Naruto, that starts off fairly strong, only to be controlled by a demand by the fans for more and as a result, it goes down in quality.

Spoilers abound for a few series, so readers beware.

Parasite Eve AKA Much Ado about Mitochrondria

With the release of Final Fantasy 13 near the beginning of the year, Roleplaying games in general continue to advance in complex battles, plot (arguably), and needless to say, graphics. It’s almost surprising to note that Square, the company behind Final Fantasy, has made more franchises than just Final Fantasy, such as Brave Fencer Musashi, the just as popular Kingdom Hearts franchise, the Mana series, and lastly, Parasite Eve and since it's Christmas time and the game takes place during Christmas, what better way to celebrate than to be scared out of your pants.

Diamond Daydreams

Reviewer note: This review was originally written back in the Winter of 2006

Yes, tis that time of year where we all go and pay ridiculous prices for those we love. However, if you’re like me, then you don’t have a girlfriend or at least you had one and now because of the break up, you just lie awake at night and spend your days curled up in your basement crying yourself asleep and now you’re so pale that it hurts to go outside because the sun burns your eyes. If you fit this category, or if you’re an otaku who wants an anime that actually makes you feel something in the cockles of your heart, or perhaps even in the sub-cockles, then Diamond Daydreams might be your anime.

The Best of Metal Gear Solid

When it comes to the stars of video games, I think a lot of gamers think of the Metal Gear Solid series as iconic to the industry as a whole and for good reason: It was the franchise that established the Stealth Genre as a whole and it's effects are still felt throughout the industry's history, even today. Not to mention it also set the bar for storytelling in a video game, involving themes about war, trust, and life in a huge epic whose story spans nearly half a century.

Truly, the franchise has earned it's place among the classics in gaming, but which of these entries stands out? Well, to find that answers, lets break down the bests of the franchise into several categories: Graphics, Music, Gameplay, Story, and Overall. Now, as much as I'd like to include the original Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, I'm not going to; not because I think they're bad, they're just a pivotal to the main franchise as any other entry, but here's the thing: I never played either fairly, so it wouldn't be right for me to judge these games, so yea: Probably good games, I just haven't played them.

Favorite Movies to watch around Halloween

Halloween has come and gone, but that's only the first of many major holidays to come.... okay, really just two major ones with Halloween and Christmas, but there are plenty of tiny ones inbetween all the commotion and it's just nice to go through the late fall into the early winter. To celebrate, two articles, including this one, will be talking about my personal favorite movies to watch around the holiday season. In this article, we'll be talking about Halloween movies!

Now take note that I haven't seen a lot of horror movies, like Friday the 13th or even some cult classics like Rocky Horror Picture Show. Also, this is my personal selection of favorites and if your favorite isn't here, that doesn't mean I think they're bad.

Happy Halloween

Street Fighter 3's Q

Happy Halloween everyone. What did everyone else dress as for Samhain?

Also as far as articles go, I'm working on a few Halloween themed ones, but they'll be a tad late. A little exhausted from this past week. Til then!

High School of the Dead: Source of Entertainment or Attraction of mindless anime zombies?

For some time, I've been told, “You've got to watch High School of the Dead! It's so awesome!” And “Man, High School of the Dead was kick ass tonight!” and I've even heard, “High School of the Dead is a action filled anime that's intelligent!” And after watching the entire series, my response is: What show was I watching?

Warning: Possible Spoilers

And then there was that one time the great wizard Avatar killed his evil brother with...

From Ralph Bakshi's 'Wizards'

WARNING: Spoilers if you couldn't tell

Panty and Stocking: First Impressions

Last Week, I should've had a review out. Also, my brother got married and a lot of responsibilities came up. Now that the week is winding down, I feel like it's time to talk about something I watched between all my running around last weekend and that includes my initial impressions of the new Gainax anime, Panty and Stocking.

Anime Weekend Atlanta Log

Day 1

Well, I'm back from my first day at AWA and I'll begin by saying that despite having a fun time, I really didn't go see a lot of stuff. This is mainly because of just going to see a lot of old friends and more or less follow them around and just chat with other fans of gaming or anime, and ultimately, I still had a lot of fun. Because of this, tonight's log isn't so much any new stuff that's happened, but more just a remininsing of various aspect about this conventions as well as just some remarks I came across.

Anime Weekend Atlanta Pre-Show: Super Happy Fun Sale

All right. This is very exciting. I was thinking about doing this for a little while, but I had decided against it, mainly because I felt that while it is a celebration of anime and gaming that it was something that not too many people may be in, since it's more or less a lesser known, but after meeting some friends there, I couldn't help but at least give it it's due and who knows, maybe one day I'll be going to this with my own panel someday, so who knows?

Fighting Games 101: Character Selection

About a year and a half ago, I thought I was awesome and an expert at fighting games when Street Fighter 4 came out. After all, I had played nearly all the previous games and except for a few people I thought that I was king of Third Strike. How could I possible suck at Street Fighter 4? Well, surprise, surprise, I did, big time. After continuous losses and great amounts of frustration, I wondered 'why was that?' Because I wasn't using strategy or even trying to understand how this particular game worked differently from previous titles in the series.

Ponyo: Alternate Ending

First off, I want to say that I love Hayao Miyazaki. He's quite possibly one of the best animated film directors of our times. Actually, I take that back. In my opinion, he IS the best animated film director of our times. His works are things that can be enjoyed by so many people of all ages. His are the films I would lay out for my kids for the whole family to enjoy and as my kids would be amazed by these movies, I too would very much enjoy these films as much as I did when I first saw them, full of mature themes without being completely inappropriate and even then, I think they're some of the better movies out there.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World: Hipster Trash or Glorious Nerdom?

For the longest time, various fans of comics, video games, and other form of nerdity have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Based off the comic series of the same name, trailers portrayed the film in a form that at first made me think "Oh, just another boy meets girl movie. Well, time to move on to the next big mo-" And then suddenly there's Evil Super powered boyfriends involved. Trailers don't do that often, so this film certainly peaked alot of peoples' interests. Is it glorious nerdom or just hipster trash?

Zerg Rushin!

"Hey fellow terran! Better get to a bunker! Zerg are invading!"
"Really? When?"

Full image can be found here

Beyond Good and Evil

This review was written in Spring 2007

Some time ago, Ubisoft came out with a series of really good games: Prince of Persia, XIII, Splinter Cell; just a lot of good games, most of which are still played today. However, in the midst of so many good games, it’s actually an often occurrence that some of those good games don’t get the credit they deserve. No doubt, you’ve might have seen the ads for Beyond Good and Evil, showing a girl sneaking around with a camera. By looking at these ads, one might think that this game is just a rip off of Pokemon Snap with more edge! Let me assure you that is and never was the case.

Melty Blood: Act Candenza (Vampires, Magic girls, and demons, oh my)

This may come as a surprised, but you know text-based games? The kind that are more about puzzle solving and finding out what to do next rather than full out combat and action? They’re actually pretty popular over in Japan and while a import of games like that might involve a big English patch or mastery of the Japanese language, certain text-based games can be so popular that they invoke spin-off titles. Such is the case of Melty Blood, a fighter based off the text-based game Tsukihime.

Kicking your Ass: Street Fighter X Tekken initial thoughts

Okay, so it's been rumored, it's been hinted, but it's announced now: Street Fighter X Tekken, the 2D mash up of Street Fighter characters and Tekken characters. How do I feel about this? In one hand, based on the idea alone, I'm disappointed. This is mainly coming from a big wish to see a new DarkStalkers game, but oh well, maybe sometime in the future... or at the very least, a HD version of that will come out. Hell. They also just announced Street Fighter 3 HDR, so who knows?

However, the idea of just Street Fighter Versus Tekken is disappointing because I had heard rumors of Capcom vs Namco, which sounded like it could have more potential! Think about it: KOS-MOS vs. Megaman, or Arthur vs Nightmare! That had endless possibilities and could be really bad ass, so to hear that both companies are limited to just Street Fighter and Tekken kind of disappoints me.

However, after watching the 2 minutes of gameplay shown, my feelings went from disappointment to slight interest. To see Ryu use moves like his wall bounce kick and then juggle into a shoryuken was exciting to see and the increased ease to do various combos is also a welcome addition, but at the same time, it's kind of funny that the Capcom vs Namco rumor said it would use the SF4 engine and while I expect similarities, I didn't expect to look just like SF4. I even made the comment: "IT'S JUST LIKE I'M PLAYING SUPER STREET FIGHTER 4: TEKKEN EDITION!"

Also, the way they demonstrated the tag out ultras seemed alot more clunky that what the game actually will be like. The Chun Li tag in ultra was all right, but everything else seemed too scripted. Then again, this is just a demo video and it'll probably be more complete down the line.

So my initial feelings on Street Fighter X Tekken? Slightly interested, but not crazy about it. I'd have to see move before I'm sold on it.

Anime Review: Welcome to the NHK

Ever had a bad day? A really bad day? On such days, do you ever wonder if something or someone may be conspiring against you? To force you into a state of mind that makes you act a certain way or just fall into some other conspiracy for the sheer purpose of just being evil? Well then, 'Welcome to the NHK' might support your theory, or maybe, it's just another device from those evil conspirators just to pull you further into that state of mind.

Something to tide you over

Still gotta get some kinks worked out of my next article, but here's a little hint about what's to come relatively soon.

Godhand: Be the Fist of the North Star! Jesus Christ!

If you remember, beat ‘em ups back in the day were awesome: Streets of Rage, Ninja Turtles, even the Avengers in arcades all over. However, since we’ve entered the 3D age of gaming, beat ‘em ups have always seemed subpar in comparison to other game types, with complaints like repetitiveness and the game being too easy. However, Clover Studios, creators of Viewtiful Joe and Okami, decided to bring the fun back to the genre with Godhand back in 2006. What made it so great?

Final Fantasy 12: Log 2

Okay, so it’s been a while since my initial report on Final Fantasy 12 and since then, I’ve received several comments, some of which note I spoke nothing about the plot of the game, well, lets fix that now, shall we?

Final Fantasy 13: Initial Thoughts

So I have my friend Kiyo to thank for letting me borrow Final Fantasy 13 after she beat it, roughly a week ago. Since then, besides studying and working on my Honors thesis and playing another game that I’ll be talking about shortly, I’ve been playing Final Fantasy 13. I’ve been playing it for at least 25 hours, so I’ve more or less reached the end of the ‘tutorial’ phase of the game that holds your hand for the longest time. After posting my Final Fantasy 12 log, I’ve received a few comments saying ‘You’re going to play final fantasy 13, right?’ ‘I want to hear your thoughts about final fantasy 13’. Well, I figure I might as well give my initial thoughts.

Contra 4: AKA Ballbuster 4

Reviewer's Note: This Review was originally written in the fall of 2008

Who remembers Contra? Back in the days of the NES, this game was fun for its extreme difficulty, yet accomplishable levels. Not to mention the music was pretty kick ass. Even going back today, one can pick and play Contra and enjoy it despite its brutal difficulty. Now we have Contra 4, which may have it’s number count wrong, considering there was Contra: Shattered Soldier, Super Contra, and so on and so forth, but I’ve seen worse mess ups in terms of chronology. Does this DS title fit the bill?

Xenosaga 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra (AKA Game the Movie 3!)

Reviewer's Note: This Review was originally written in Spring of 2007

It’s been a long and rough road, but at long last, the supposed finale of the Xenosaga um… saga has come to its ending game. Sure, the first game had overly long cut scenes, but to a portion of good fans, they were still very interesting, and the game play managed to entertain those fans long enough to the end of the game.

Xenosaga 2 on the other hand not only made quite some boring and unexciting (not to mention even LONGER) cut scenes, but the battle system was so FRUSTRATING that most fans simply stopped playing. Has Xenosaga 3 followed the path of Xenosaga 2 and make it even more unplayable?

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

~*Goodbye Mr. Despair*~

~Intro~
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is probably SHAFT's (those who brought you Pani Poni Dash, Maria+Holic, and Bakemonogatari among others) crowning achievement.
As it stands, there are three seasons (1) Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, (2) Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and (3) Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Along with OVA's of Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Bangaichi.
So, as you can see, it has quite a little empire unto itself, and it's still not through.

Punch Out!!!

Reviewer's note: This review was originally written in the Fall of 2009

Remember the good old days? The days where owning a video game console was considered nerdy and gamers were social outcasts? Remember Punch-Out? You might know better as that old Mike Tyson game. Well, it was more than that. Punch-Out put you in the shoes of Little Mac, a hopeful rising boxer to become the world champion. It was a fun game with a catchy battle theme and tricky, intense fights that relied on reflexes and recognition. It was very fun.

There was an arcade version with unique characters and a sequel for the Super Nintendo that was just as fun. For the longest time, we heard nothing until the Game Developers conference of 2008 came around and hardcore Wii owners were delighted to find a game trailer meant for them, Punch-Out was coming for the Wii. However, does it have that knock-out punch or should it retire?

Odin Sphere: Five Characters, Five Stories, One Epic Adventure

Flash back to about a year ago, the next generation of console gaming was already out for a year (which makes it current gen by this point), but despite that, several game companies were still producing games to systems like the PS2, giving it a few last breaths to hold its own until the Wii and 360 pretty much took over, cause at the time the PS3 and it’s $600 price tag wasn’t really selling systems. However, these final additions were surprising in their quality, really good. Odin Sphere is one such game that takes already excellent Norse Mythos and transforms it into a game that in a world blow your mind.

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

~*Idiots and Tests and Summoned Creatures*~

~Intro~
I figured it'd make sense to start off with the last series I watched all the way through (temporarily). I say temporarily, because there's supposed to be a second season coming out, which is a good thing, because at first I was like, "Wait, where's the ending?"

Since it's a romantic comedy that oddly enough wasn't all too plot-driven, it's awfully hard to spoil anything. Especially given that it's only the first season.

Sup?

So, I'm modnaR. I'm mostly going to be attempting to keep up with anime more than anything else. You can check out my current progress and whatnot here.

As a forward, I'd like to mention that I'm a psychology major and philosophy minor, so I may look at anime with a different lens than a few of you out there. So I'll be sure to explain a few references, so make sure that you check to see if I make comments on my own posts if I completely confuse you. That's just how I operate.

Deadly Premonition: Obsessed over a Bad Game?

So the other week, I was at a friend's place for a impromptu pool party, which after the pool-ness, we played a game that said friend checked out, called 'Deadly Premonition', a budget title for the Xbox 360. The game is revered as being so bad that's it's almost hilarious, probably capturing some of the more entertaining horror films these days I suppose.

Final Fantasy 12: Log 1

I recently re-picked up Final Fantasy 12 lately mainly because I had thought about it and wanted to give the game another shot. Back in 2006, when the game originally came out, I played for about 10 or so hours and there was alot about it I didn't like. I hated the character designs of some characters, I really disliked how generic and not unique each of the characters were in the battle system.

However, after a recent watching of a review for game that I know I don't like, Final Fantasy 8. I got to thinking about why I didn't like that one, the main reason being how boring it is, and I think that's mainly due to the art style they went with. They were going for a high school drama sort of style and thus, alot of the characters looked very modern day high school... and that's so boring. Sure, Zidane in FF9 looked a little silly with his monkey tail, but at least he looked like a adventurer as opposed to Squall who looks like some gothic loner, but now I'm getting off track.

Goliath Online

All right. First post.

I've been meaning to get into this scene for a little while now and I posted a few articles on facebook, only to realize not alot of people can really see it, so here I am, setting up the Nerd Sanctum. I'll be mainly posting things related to gaming, anime, movies, and other forms of nerdity for fun and whatnot, so here's to a future of posting lots of nerdy stuff.