Anime review : Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Legend of the galactic heroes AKA: (銀河英雄伝説 /, Ginga Eiyū Densetsu )

Where to start with this gargantuan OVA. The release spanned over 10 years and there are one hundred and TEN! Episodes.

So, as you can probably tell. Ite pretty old and long.

To Outline the story of LOGH, two factions have been warring for galactic superiority. And you follow two brilliant minds. (one on each side of the factions)

Now, this setup might seem cliché, but the skirmishes and Battles in LOGH are on fantastic scales. And much of the warfare is done as if they were at sea, which is pleasant because during the battles a tactician might show a diagram of the stratagem they will use, although some of them do not go to plan, and I have to say. There is not much action in LOGH, but it sure keeps you hooked because you will know that some of the outcomes of these skirmishes or battles will drastically change the whole direction of the show.

The cast in LOGH is extremely expansive. I have to say, it is also one of the most impressive casts of any piece of fiction I have ever seen or read. Every single character gets development, every character has their own little backstory. And something to also mention is that every character has an original voice actor, you will never hear two people with the same voice in this show. That's extremely impressive considering you have around 30-40 Main characters within the show. The best thing is, the writer was not afraid to kill off developed characters.

The two main characters; Reinhard von Musel And Yang Wen-li are both gifted minds (within the story of course, haha ) And they both face their own hardships and while none of them are “good” or “bad” You will end up sympathising for one of them more then the other.

Indeed, the characters in LOGH are extremely deep and you will feel like you personally know them every time they come on screen. For example; Throughout the series you see Yang wen-li drinking tea, however there is a certain point where he is served tea, and just stares at it blankly because he only has his tea “this way” or “that way”. It's this kind of depth that the character has In LOGH that really gives them a flaring personality. No doubt you will be able to relate to some of the situations put forward in LOGH too.

The Soundtrack to LOGH is done by Germany Symphony Orchestra (correct me if I'm wrong)

and it just sounds magnificent when drawn to the political and warfare side of things in this series.

The fact that it fits well and still isn't some tacky techno-jpop makes me happy. Even the Openings and endings mean something in LOGH. If you watch the first opening, predominantly its just faces moving. However when you get to the second, third and fouth openings. It displays the various things going on in characters lives and so on. It's subtle, but brilliant.

The animation in LOGH differs depending on what episode you are on as I said before, it was released over the course of 10 years, and there is great difference if you compare episode 1 to 110.

But it is quite fluid and nice for it's time.

There is not a lot I can say about LOGH without spoiling it. But it is truly, the greatest anime to have ever been released. I really cannot express this enough, even if you have half a brain you will be able to follow the narrative and political aspect of the whole show (which is a LOT)

I feel that it cannot be plugged enough, and should be up there with the great “Mature” anime With Death note and Gantz.

Overall, I feel that 110 episodes were worth it, very, very worth it. Not only do you get a deep, engrossing story with well developed characters. There are also twists and turns where just as you think; “Alright, this is getting boring, I've had enough”

IT completely catches you by surprise and you just fall prey to the beast that is LOGH.

It's a fantastic anime, the best I have ever watched. There are also side stories and movies to accompany the OVA.

I really cannot stop recommending this to anyone who comes my way, even though most are deterred by the longevity of the series, it is worth watching. It will pay off.

Personally, this is my favourite piece of fiction of well, all time. You will not be disappointed if you watch this. I guarantee you.

Quick Review : Darksiders (PS3/360)

So, my first encounter with Darksiders was with  gaming press saying "its a god of war clone, no it's a Zelda, no por-" et cetera et cetera.
To my recollection, it was released sometime in January and was the first "big" game of 2010.  
Intrigued, I rented the game for a week, back in January. Personally for me I thought that everything in it was juuuust right, unfortunately. My time with the game was over before I realised it started.
So, back in late March I saw it going on the cheap and snapped it up.

First off, this game's art style is amazing, comic book artist Joe Mad was the creative director for the game.
It somehow reminds me of Gears of war with the HUGE BULKY HERO. But that's not even a bad point of the game as it fits within the context for the game anyway, there really needs to be an artbook for this game, if you look up some of teh concepts on  Creative uncit there is a LOT of awesome stuff right there. To be fair I'm surprised that an artbook never happened.
As for the story of the game, it's no RPG mammoth, however it keeps you "going" as you are intrigued by the whole setting and twists the plot turns towards. It starts off with all of humanity getting killed off- pleasant.

Gameplay is extremely varied in Darksiders, with Puzzle solving, button mashing, portals, and boomerangs.
I wouldn't say that the puzzles in Darksiders are BAD, It's just relatively simple to get through most dungeons using not much intelligence at all. And they implement the strange mix of using some of the weapons into then a la the Legend of Zelda 3-D Series, (OOT, MM, WW, TP)
I might mention Zelda a lot during this, but what the hell. They are both extremely similar.
The combat of Darksiders is cookie cutter stuff, it feels quite "tacked on" but still, the combat seems to be extremely challenging (for me anyway, who is new to this button mashing business)  although most Combinations and attacks were done with the Square and Triangle buttons. It's good enough for the game and still be enjoyable, You can also purchase more moves from the shop allowing for more intricate combos, although this usually turns into the normal IMMA MASH THE BUTTON RRARRAGH!
Early on in the game you only have a few Lifestones, so I initially has getting slaughtered on the normal difficulty mode against the first boss fight, but practice makes perfect as everyone says.

The weapons that you can acquire throughout the game seems to scream "LETS EXPERIMENT WITH ALL THIS AWESOME STUFF"
And what can I say, most of these are cool concepts brought to life. Such as the portal gun. As far as I know it's the first implementation of the portals inside a game outside of, well. Portal.
I draw a line to Zelda again as the whole game seems to just be a reskinned Zelda. But this is not a bad thing by any means. It uses and implements all of these Extremely well, and I have to credit the Developers for that as this is a game that scratches a specific itch for me.
The dungeons are very well done and has a certain polish to them. The level Design in this game is VERY up to scratch and you can find lifestones (heartpieces) if you just look hard enough, the world is very open and pleasant to explore. some of the secret things are usually guarded by a simple puzzle. Souls are the main surrency for the game, you earn them by killing anything and everything, you can also open chests and get a truckload of them, you can purchase various things at the shop, such as weapons and other "combo" moves. which just happen as you mash, naturally. 

                                                                                  " War killing stuff. Awesome."

As for the Graphics of Darksiders, it's nothing phenomenal. But it isn't bad. It does the job pretty well for the combat systems to work well.A few issues with anti aliasing here and there, but aside from that. It looks pretty mediocre.  And for being a multiplat, it runs pretty goddamn well. But I hear there are some frame rate issues on the Xbox 360 Version of this game.

Overall, Darksiders is a strange mish mash of different games put together, the execution of this is excellent. By all means, play the demo which contains the first dungeon of the game, you will be surprised by the length of it. I fully understand how this To other people might look extremely bad, however most of them are comparing it to games like God of war and Devil May Cry, it's definitely not like any of these games, similarities? yes. But do not expect That style of game all over.
Make your own judgement on this game, but I feel that it is a very Niche market that this game is aiming towards. But if you are a Fan of the Zelda series of games, this one is a must have!

Pokemon Black + White news

So, pokemon Black and white was announced a while ago now, but I didn't say anything because there was nothing to Judge, I guess.
But today A popular Japanese Pokemon program "Pokemon Sunday" Showed some footage of the battle system and the battle system with the new starters.
 




So, After those two videos I think that Game Freak is going for a new experience with these two games.
As they said in some interview which I REAALLY cannot be bothered to cite at this point in time. And ontop of that the graphics have been kind of downgraded to low 3-D a la FFVII but there is a different viewpoint which gives the maps a sense of depth. I think that this is good on Game Freak's part for trying to do something new for the franchise but I dont know who it will be taken by the hardcore fans.
I prefer the old style graphics rather then 3-D because 2-D stuff is beautiful when done right.

What Impressed me the most is the new battle thingy, there are individual animations for each pokemon and their attacks. This hasnt been done before in terms of pokemon, but in other RPG's such as Golden Sun which was an Old GBA game made by Camelot in 2001. They had animated sprites in their battle system... So in that sense the Pokemon battle system was extremely outdated.
All In all I wont make a complete judgement on the whole system until I actually play it myself. But I was impressed how they pushed the game and added new features like that. But it's also a bit too late because a game made 9 years ago has done the same thing.

Sayem out!

Review: SUPERR STREET FIGHTEERRR FOUUURRR!!! (PS3/360)

Well, this is a game that really doesn't need an introduction, Capcom's flagship fighting game pretty much created the genre with Street Fighter 2 In arcades and home consoles in the early nineties and was spoilt in GREAT SUCCESS. So much they made a horrible
live action movie. Oh dear.

More to the point, Last year the fighting game scene was revitalised, not only with Street fighter IV. But various other games Such as Arc System Works' Blazblue (creators of guilty gear), King of Fighters XII and Tekken 6.
Now, a year on. Street Fighter IV pretty much reigned Champion above all of these fighters, so naturally. Capcom announced their new iteration of this game with various new characters and tweaks to gameplay/new gameplay modes.

I will not scrutinize Capcom for doing it this early because well, all fighters seem to have some new iteration of sorts a while after about a year or so. So its a tradition.
In my case, I only got a PS3 with the launch of the Slim in September, so I have missed quite a truckload of games, including SFIV.
So the release of SSFIV was the perfect opportunity to get to grips with this game properly.

Street fighter is what you call a 2-D fighting game as there is only a X and Y axis to move across, therefore mostly 2D graphics have been used in previous titles like Third strike and the Alpha series, but SFIV decided to switch it up a bit by having 3-D models fighting on a 2d landscape. And I have to say that it fits the game perfectly. It retains that street fighter aura that you get when playing some of the older games, although they are not as great as say, FFXIII. It does the job.

However some of the newer 2-D fighters like KOF and Blazblue look absolutely GLORIOUS in HD, because all of the sprites are very fluid and in VERY high resolutions. But who the hell plays fighters for the graphics?! onto the actual gameplay...

Street Fighter is a game accessible to both newcomers, and seasoned greats such as Alex Valle and Umehara Daigo, which is what makes it so great!
SSFIV has the typical 2-D fighting buttons with things such as Light, medium and heavy Punches and kicks. And taking that to a further level is that you can tie the direction your character is going in and a respective Light/med/Heavy Punch or kick to do a technique.
Taking this to a further level are "focus" Attacks, wherein you leave yourself open, but can take the hit and counter. This can be increased in complexity by doing Focus cancels, which are where you can preform an attack, cancel the frames in between by focusing, and chaining that into another attack. There is a LOT more depth to the system then is visually apparent in the actual game.
Of course the classic characters are all in there from the start, unlike Vanilla SFIV where you have to unlock all of the characters.
In my opinion it worked extremely well compared to say, Tekken 6 where All the characters were unlocked from the start and I really had no drive to "do" anything with the game. Whereas SSFIV Brings things such as the "trials" where you test your skills to do combos against a dummy. The Bonus stages make a comeback in this version of SFIV. where you break barrels and smash cars, it's a nice retro touch that they added that I think will be greatly appreciated by hardcore fans of the series.

         Akuma Fighting a car, Pure badassery.

The beauty of Playing with other people/online is that there is always going to be that one guy that will be better then you, and you train the insides and outs of the game, and you get your own little group of friends who play and there is a little sense of community that builds within. I can't say that I have ever experienced the fighting games in arcades, but it sure has "spread" with this new online aspect in the home consoles.

Websites like Shoryuken and FADC exist for these fighting games, and I have to say. It's possibly the greatest gaming community I have ever been in "touch" with. It's the drive to get better and beat your friends is something great that cant be found in modern Day shooters like Call of Duty or Halo.Fighting games are tests of pure skill, wit and how to outwit your opponent and keeping your head cool. This separates the genre from all others, this is pure competitive gameplay. Which anyone can get into, anyone can take on the greats with this console online aspect. And I have  to say, in about Six hours with this game yesterday, I went from being a completely shit Scrub to a mediocre Scrub. Hah.
It's the taste of glory when you get your first win, it's something that you just DON'T get with other games.
This is why Super Street Fighter IV is possibly the BEST fighting game to have ever come out. Ever. In terms of advancements in gameplay and fundamentally changing things, I'm not sure if balance is an Issue in SSFIV yet. It's too early to Call. But this and Guilty Gear Accent core Plus are possibly the best fighting games on the market right now.
And ontop of that. It's being sold brand new at a Budget price, there is really no excuse for picking up this fantastic fighter.

EDIT: oh, and on another note, check out these two badass indie street fighter short movies.