…and that’s why The Angry Video Game Nerd, The Nostalgia Critic, and Spoony are here. Perhaps it’s just the inner schadenfreude in me, but I’ve been catching up on some of these guys’ reviews, and found a few really funny gems: the Nerd’s Atari Jaguar retrospective (Part I and Part II), The Critic’s review of North (and his reviewing partner/nemesis The Nostalgia Chick’s look at Xanadu), and Spoony’s review of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. That last one is an easy target, I know, but surely someone with more Internet fame than me had to have managed to finish that game and made a video of it.

Category: Movies, Video Games
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: angry video game nerd, nostalgia chick, nostalgia critic, reviews, spoony

Two months ago, I gave my opinion on Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, a series we seemingly had to wait forever to watch legally since the dissolution of Geneon left it and several other completed-but-not-released titles. Long story short: liked it, wished there could have been more. Luckily, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s, the direct sequel, picked up on some of its predecessor’s weaknesses. For one, no crazy/excessively cruel villains. It’s kinda weird watching a fight and having trouble justifying the defeat of the “bad guys” when you realize that their goals sort of have a purpose, too. Secondly, there’s much more action in this one (as Nanoha, Fate, Arf and co. have multiple opponents to contend with, rather than the random monster-of-the-week).

The storytelling is better, but the DVD set itself has some problems…no English-language credits again, and “Arf” is still called “Aruf” on the dub track and in the subtitles (at least this time they’re consistent). They’re really small problems compared to the great action taking place, so I can safely rate Nanoha A’s a B+.

Category: Anime/Manga
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: magical girl lyrical nanoha, recommendations, reviews

So, I’m finally caught up on my anime watching, having just finished Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha’s first season to complete my collection. What did I think of it? Well, I guess I could share my thoughts, if you have a few minutes (cut for spoilers):

Click to read more…

Category: Anime/Manga
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: magical girl lyrical nanoha, reviews, spoilers

Castlevania: Judgment appears to have been given the finger by game critics all around lately. I could think of a few reasons why this might be the case.

• Maybe it’s the Death Note-inspired character designs of the classic Castlevania cast that look way different from their original designs.
• Or that Judgment isn’t a platformer or action game, but a fighting game. (scare chord) Sudden genre shifts from a well-known formula have a pretty low success rate these days. Take a look at Heroes of Mana (real-time strategy) and Dawn of Mana (action RPG minus the RPG elements). Potentially great ideas brought down by some questionable game design choices. That’s too bad.
• Could it be the 3-D games curse? Castlevania: Lament of Innocent and Curse of Darkness, while somewhat decent, just didn’t feel right in 3-D to most gamers. They’re probably also still feeling the sting of the 3-D Nintendo 64 Castlevanias.

That really sucks, too…I wanted to give Judgment a chance, but if it doesn’t look like anyone else will, then I won’t bother. I might play Lament once again when I pick up a replacement PS2, and maybe play Curse so that I can finally beat the damn things, but after that…nope.

Category: Video Games
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: castlevania, fail, nintendo wii, reviews

I think there’s something wrong with me. I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t buy another Dynasty Warriors game after the fourth one, especially once the series started settling into “Mega Man Mode” – release a sequel every year or so with only marginal changes. I skipped over DW5, played and forgot about Samurai Warriors, and then gave up on SW2 after just one round of struggling with an AI that blatantly cheats. (The Sugoroku mini-game just made me angry). Then Warriors Orochi, a crossover with both Dynasty and Samurai Warriors characters came out a few weeks ago.

I caved.

In reality, this game isn’t as bad. Koei actually made some updates to the graphics engine, so distant objects don’t seem to pop up out of nowhere anymore (well, background objects don’t…there are still only a handful of soldiers on screen at any given time). No more stupid “Kryptonite fog“. And I can actually fight fair without some dumbass enemy general severing my head in a matter of seconds. The bad news is that yes, it is still a DW game at heart, so if you’ve played one, you probably won’t find many surprises here. I find this one to be quite less objectionable than the other, though, and actually quite a bit of fun in some places, since it’s a non-historical crossover between the two universes.

Category: Video Games
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: crossovers, dynasty warriors, playstation 2, reviews, samurai warriors, warriors orochi, xbox 360