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erictmason · 4 years ago

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The Road To “Godzilla VS. Kong”, Day Four

(Sorry for the delay on this one, Life proved just a bit too busy the other day to finish it; my “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” review is gonna be pushed back as a result too. But! No worries, on we go. ^_^)

KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Writers: Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, John Gatins

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly

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Technically speaking, Gareth Edwards’ “Godzila” from 2014 was the first entry in what is now generally referred to as “The Monsterverse”, an attempt by Warner Bros. Studios and Legendary Pictures to do a Marvel Studios-style series of various interconnected movies (and which, like most such attempts to cash in on that particular trend, hasn’t really panned out; “Godzilla VS. Kong” seems likely to be its grand finale as far as movies are concerned, the only two “names” it had going for it are Godzilla and Kong themselves, and even at its most successful it was never exactly a Powerhouse Franchise). But the thing is, when that movie was made, the idea of a “Monsterverse” did not yet exist; it was only well after the fact that Legendary and Warner Bros. got the idea to turn a new “Kong” project into the building block of a Shared Universe of their own that they could connect with the 2014 “Godzilla”, with a clear eye on getting to remake one of the most singularly iconic (and profitable) Giant Monster Movies of all time. As you might guess from that description, however, said “Kong” project also had not originally been intended for such a purpose; it would not be until 2016 that it would be retooled from its original purpose (a prequel to the original “King Kong” titled simply “Skull Island”) into its present form, which goes out of its way to reference Monarch, the monster-tracking Science organization seen over in 2014’s “Godzilla” and which includes a very obviously Marvel-inspired post-credits stinger explicitly tying Kong and Godzilla’s existences together.

The resulting film is fun enough, all things told, but that graft is also really, distractingly obvious.

Honestly, I wish I knew why I’m not, generally, fonder of “Skull Island” than I am. It’s not as if, taken as a whole, it does anything especially bad; indeed it does a great deal that is actively good. Consider, for example, the rather unique choice to make it a Period Piece; that’s decently rare for a Monster Movie as it is (indeed one of the only other examples that springs to mind for me is Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of “King Kong”, which chose to retain the original’s 1933 setting), and it’s rarer still that the era it chooses to inhabit is an immediately-post-Vietnam 1970’s. Aesthetically speaking, the movie takes a decent amount of fairly-obvious influence from that most classic of Vietnam-era films, “Apocalypse Now” (a fact that director Jordan Vogt-Roberts was always fairly open about), and it results in some of the movie’s strongest overall imagery (in particular a shot of Kong, cast in stark silhouette, standing against the burning sun on the horizon with a fleet of helicopters approaching him, one of a surprisingly small number of times the movie plays with visual scale to quite the same degree or with quite the same success as “Godzilla” 2014). It also means the movie is decked out in warm, lush colors that really do bring out all the personality of its Jungle setting in the most compelling way and, given how important the setting is to the film as a whole, that proves key; Skull Island maybe doesn’t become a character in its own right the way the best settings should (too much of our time is spent in fairly indistinct forests especially), but it does manage to feel exciting and unusual in the right ways more often than not. The “Apocalypse Now” influence also extends to our human cast, which is sizeable enough here (in terms of major characters we need to pay attention to played by notable actors, “Skull Island” dwarfs “Godzilla” 2014 by a significant margin) that the framework it provides-a mismatched group defined by various interpersonal/intergenerational tensions trying to make their way through an inhospitable wilderness, ostensibly in search of a lost comrade-is decently necessary. Though here we already run into one of those aspects of “Skull Island” that doesn’t quite land for me. Taken as a whole, it sure feels like the human characters here should be decently interesting; certainly, our leads are all much better defined and more engagingly performed than Ford Brody, to draw the most immediately obvious point of comparison. Brie Larson (as journalistic Anti-War photographer Mason Weaver), Tom Hiddleston (as former British Army officer turned Gun For Hire James Conrad), and John C. Reilly (as Hank Marlow, a World War II soldier stranded on Skull Island years ago) definitely turn in decently strong performances; I wouldn’t call it Career Best work for any of them (Hiddleston especially feels like he’s on auto-pilot half the time, while Larson has to struggle mightily against how little the script actually gives her to work with when you stop and look at it) but they at least prove decently enjoyable to watch (Reilly especially does a solid job of making his character funny without quite pushing him over the edge into Total Cartoon Territory). I likewise feel like Samuel L. Jackson’s Preston Packard has the potential to be a genuinely-great character; his lingering resentment at the way the Vietnam War played out and the way that feeds into his determination to find and defeat Kong is, again, a clever and compelling use of the 70’s period setting, it gives us a good, believable motivation with a clear and strong Arc to it, and Jackson does a really solid job of playing his Anger as genuine and poignant rather than simply petulant or crazed. But there’s just too much chaff amongst the wheat, too much time and energy devoted to characters and ideas that don’t have any real pay-off. This feels especially true of John Goodman’s Bill Randa, the Monarch scientist who arranges the whole expedition; the Monarch stuff in general mostly feels out of place, but Randa in particular gets all of these little notes and beats that seem meant to go somewhere and then just kind of don’t. Which is kind of what happens with most of the characters in the movie, is the thing; we spend a lot of screen-time dwelling on certain aspects of their backstories or personalities, and then those things effectively stop mattering at all after a certain point, even Packard’s motivations. A Weak Human Element was one of the problems in “Godzilla” 2014 as well, though, and you’ll recall I quite liked that movie. There, though, the human stuff was honestly only ever important for how it fed into the monster stuff; it was the connective tissue meant to get us from sequence to sequence and not much more. Here, though, it forms the heart and soul of the story, and that means its deficiencies feel a lot more harmful to the whole.

Still, those deficiencies really aren’t that severe, and moreover, like I was saying before, there’s a lot about “Skull Island” to actively enjoy. The Monsters themselves do remain the central draw, after all, and for the most part the movie does a solid job with that aspect of things. It does not, perhaps, recreate “Godzilla” 2014’s attempt to make believable animals out of them (even as it does design most of them with even more obvious, overt Real World Animal elements), but there is a certain playful energy that informs them at a conceptual level that I appreciate. Buffalos with horns that look like giant logs with huge strands of moss and grass hanging off their edges, spiders whose legs are adapted to look like tree trunks, stick bugs so big that their camouflage makes them look like fallen trees…the designs feel physically plausible (especially thanks to some strong effects work that makes them feel well inserted into the real environments), but there’s a slightly-humorous tilt to a lot of them that I appreciate, especially since it never outright winks at the audience in a way that would undercut the stakes of the story. Kong too is very well done; rather than the heavily realistic approach taken by the Peter Jackson version from 2005, this Kong is instead very much ape-like but also very clearly his own creature (in particular he stands fully erect most of the time), with a strong sense of Personality to him as well; some of the best parts of the movie are those times where we simply peek in on Kong simply living his life, even when that life is one that is, by nature, violent and dangerous. Less successful, sadly, are his nemeses, the Skullcrawlers; very much like “Godzilla” 2014, Kong is here envisioned as a Natural Protection against a potentially-dangerous species that threatens humanity (or in this case the Iwi Tribe who live on Skull Island, but we’ll talk more about them later), and while they’re hardly bad designs (the way their snake-like lower bodies give them a lot of neat tricks to play against their enemies in battle are genuinely fun in the right sort of Scary Way), they’re also pretty bland and forgettable, even compared to the MUTOS. That said, they serve their purpose well enough, and their big Action Scene showdowns with Kong are genuinely solid. Indeed, the movie’s big climactic brawl between Kong and the biggest of the Skullcrawlers has a lot of good pulpy energy to it (particularly with how Kong winds up using various tools picked up from all around the battlefield to give himself an edge), likewise there’s a certain Wild Fun to the sequence where our hapless humans have to try and survive a trek through the Crawlers’ home-turf.

Where things get a bit tricky again is when the movie attempts to put its own spin on “Godzilla”’s conception of its monsters as part of their own kind of unique ancient eco-system. The sense of Grandeur that gave a lot of that aspect such weight there is mostly absent here, especially; there are instances where some of that feeling comes through (Kong’s interactions with some of the non-Crawler species, for example, do a good job giving us an endearing sense of how Kong fits into this world), but far more often it treats the monsters as Big Set-Piece Attractions. Which is fine as far as it goes, it just also means a lot of them aren’t as memorable or impactful as I might like. Meanwhile, the way the Iwis have built their home to accommodate, interact with, and protect themselves from the island’s bestiary feels like a well-designed concept that manages to suggest a lot of History without having to spell it out for us in a way that I appreciated (I would also be inclined to apply this to the very neat multi-layered stone-art used to portray Kong and the Crawlers except that the sequence where we see them is the most overt “let’s stop and do some world-building” exposition dump in the whole movie). But the Iwis in general are one of the more difficult elements of the movie to process, too; it seems really clear there was a deliberate effort here to avoid the most grossly racist stuff that has been present in prior attempts to portray the Natives of Skull Island, and as far as it goes I do think those efforts bear some fruit; we are, at the very least, very far away from the Scary Ooga-Booga tone of, say, “King Kong VS. Godzilla”, and that feels like it counts for something. I just also feel like there’s some dehumanizing touches to their portrayal (in particular they never speak; I don’t mean to imply that Not Speaking equals Inhuman, but the fact that we are not made privy to how exactly they do communicate means we’re very much kept at arm’s length from them in a way that seems at least somewhat meant to alienate us from them), especially given their role in the story as a whole is relatively minor.

At the end of the day, though, all the movie’s elements, good and bad, don’t really feel like they add up together coherently enough to make an impact. And I think if I had to try and guess why, even as I find it wholly enjoyable with a lot to genuinely recommend it by, I don’t find myself especially enamored by “Skull Island”. It has a lot of different ideas of how to approach its story-70’s pastiche, worldbuilding exercise, Monster Mash-but doesn’t seem to quite succeed at realizing any of them fully, indeed often allowing them to get in each other’s ways. It isn’t, again, a bad movie as a result of that; there really isn’t any stretch of it where I found myself bored or particularly unentertained. But I did paradoxically find myself frequently wanting more, even as by rights the movie delivers on basically what I was looking for from it.

#king kong #kong: skull island #godzilla vs. kong #movies #theroadtogvk #review #ericthemason #my writing

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xathia-89 · 5 years ago

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Long Lost Sibling - Shingen

“Natsuki!” My mother’s screeching was probably the most irritating part of her, along with her insane ability to know when I needed to leave for something.

I had long grown cold to my adoptive parents. They treated everyone else as though they were simply pawns to make their own lives easier, including myself. I loathed their attitude, anyone who didn’t have their vast amounts of wealth was simply not worth the time. And for some ingrained reason, that they claimed to be direct descendants of Nobunaga Oda made my blood boil as well. I was adopted when I was eight, and I definitely had made it clear since I stepped out to college ten years ago that I was my own person. They just insisted on funding me and trying to control what I did, who I associated with, and even had the audacity to attempt to marry me off on one occasion. The marriage plan had fallen swiftly flat on its face since no one had considered that I was a factor in it. I hadn’t been invited to any of those large fancy parties since, which did me a huge favour.

I was a lawyer who took on the cases for less than peanuts. I’d made it my civic duty to protect those who couldn’t defend themselves, and I was definitely making a name for myself as I came down the stairs to face my harpy of a mother. Her face was like thunder, as I made the silent guess my latest case was going to upset her social circle. I was never that great at hiding my smug looks in these situations. I had set up my own company using my parents’ money on purpose. Though I had been oddly fascinated with Sengoku warlords as a teenager, and I’d come across the accomplishments of Shingen Takeda, and one of his vassals, Yukimura Sanada. I’d been so inspired to the point that I’d named the firm after them just to avoid getting my parents’ surname any further publicity.

I wasn’t that surprised to see that my father was standing next to her, ranting on the phone about ‘the ungrateful brat’, while a piece of paper was shoved in my face.

“You sign that, and leave this case!” She barked, as my presence had attracted my father’s attention.

I sighed dramatically, and glanced over the sheet, before getting out my lighter and setting fire to it.

“You can’t buy me with money,” I replied. “Now go away before I call the police again!” I yelled, turning around and heading up the stairs.

I never gave an empty threat. The police loathed attending these scenarios, technically my parents were trespassing and had to be removed, but then their boss would be stuck between pleasing one of the most agitating lawyers who could take down the department with a single piece of paper and the people who funded most of the luxuries they had in the building. Something was said, and they left. The latest case wasn’t about buying someone off, the individuals involved were paid handsomely to keep their mouths shut about it all, but I’d been fighting to find someone who didn’t have the liabilities who would stop them from just taking the money to make an example of what this company was doing.

Seeing the police at the door in an early morning wasn’t that unusual for me, criminals would plead for any lawyer to cover for them and new people started all the time. I was still in my pyjamas, which wasn’t a new sight for any of us involved. I frowned, I knew both these officers, which meant this wasn’t my usual.

“Ms Oda, we’re so sorry,” the woman started. “There was a brutal accident, your father had been drinking and drove straight into an oncoming lorry. Both your parents were killed instantly on impact,” she had the look of expecting even me to crumble into tears at the news.

I felt a relief I’d never known. I didn’t have to keep fighting them both, and listening to their supposed expectations. Though I might have to change my attitude and start taking on some clients who could actually pay my legal bills, which was going to suck, but I needed to live to keep going.

“Thank you, this can’t have been easy for you,” I smiled, and gave them a fair amount from my wallet. “Please take this and make sure everyone at the station gets special coffee and treats from me. It should make things a little easier for yourselves from now on,” I graced them with a goodbye and shut the door.

“I’m sorry, I’m the sole inheritance?” I repeated back to the family solicitor. He was an aged man who had taken no nonsense from either my parents or myself since we’d all started arguing and making life difficult for everyone else.

“Yes Ms Oda, they never changed it despite all their attempts and threats to,” he stoically replied, simply watching me pace about his office.

“Too much of a public backlash to face,” I tried to justify rationally. “Any catches?”

“You are to move back into the mansion,” he sighed, knowing how much I loathed that place. “And you can’t sell it for at least five years.”

“Does it have to stay solely as a place of residence?” I asked after an extended silence.

“No, it doesn’t,” he chuckled. “Here are the details for planning permission.”

“Ms Oda!” my secretary was a woman not a lot younger than myself but refused to call me by my first name as I had insisted on so many times. She was baffled as to why we would be moving into such a grand place. “We cannot afford the lease on such a place-”

“I was left this place by my parents on the strictest point that I couldn’t sell it for five years after they passed. Might as well use it and put more money towards running the business so we can help more people, feel free to move into one of the rooms upstairs. I’ve had all the bedrooms converted into single apartments,” I shrugged, not particularly wanting to do anything except scrub every memory of my childhood from this place.

“I had no idea,” she muttered.

“I couldn’t stand them, anything they stood for and this place, so let’s make this a symbol of hope,” I smiled.

One of the lawyers gave me a wary smile, as he approached my desk in the miniature maze of offices I’d had set up. Open plan offices weren’t always the best, so I’d opted for everything to be glass screens and encouraged individuality for each little space. The library was the only room I hadn’t changed in the manor, it was something out of a university and spread over two floors, only now it was filled entirely with law books and cases, and I was having a mimic of a system installed for all of our case files. It had only been a couple of years since we’d moved in, and most of the lawyers had one of the apartments upstairs, and I’d even made family suites available on the upper floors which hadn’t been converted at the time we’d moved in. I felt like I was making some hope for the area at the very least, as yet another request from Kyoto came in.

“Maybe it’s time to look at expansion,” he suggested.

“Can’t do everything from Tokyo,” I admitted with reluctance. “Kyoto is another good powerhouse to start from, draw me up a list of the cases and get someone to scout out buildings and lawyers for me. I’ll find some time to go and look at it all.”

“If you don’t sleep soon, then you’re going to be finding yourself at burn out,” he warned before leaving to go and do that.

I didn’t even know when it’d become night time, and my stomach grumbled in the complaint of the lack of nourishment as I finally called it a day and went to leave for my apartment. Everything around me had changed so quickly. I’d been sat on a bench in Kyoto after a day of interviewing lawyers and office staff, and three days of office hunting, and then a strange man in a lab coat had caught my attention before I’d been pulled through something and had just rescued a strange man from a burning building. I stank of smoke until we arrived back at the castle, and was able to get a wash and change into clean clothing.

I’d saved Nobunaga Oda from the fire that supposedly killed him in 1582, the strange man in the lab coat turned out to be an astrophysicist chasing wormholes. He had made his way into the castle the first night I was there and introduced himself as Sasuke. He was a ninja, and likely to be working for an enemy as he didn’t want to be found out.

I found Nobunaga himself absolutely repulsive. He found it amusing at first that I would recoil from him and slap his hands away, but then he quickly grew bored as my reactions wouldn’t change. Hideyoshi was quick to scold me, and I was eager to stay out of the way of each of the warlords. I threw myself into cleaning the castle with the maids under the mantle of Chatelaine. Sasuke’s visits were my only glimmer of hope, alongside the escapes I made down into Azuchi. The townspeople were always so pleasant and happy, regardless of the circumstances it felt like as I disappeared to see what the morning had brought in.

A few merchants were new to the market, or clearly hadn’t been in a long while, as I was being stared at all around the place I felt like. A handsome young man was slack-jawed and went to grab me when Sasuke appeared at his side. I waved at Sasuke, who looked like he hadn’t intended on being seen before I resumed my glancing over the melons that had been brought in.

“She looks just like Lord Shingen,” I overheard as I went to return to the castle with my purchases, and turned to see Sasuke and the merchant having a miniature face off. “We can’t just ignore this!” The man venomously hissed. “He’s been searching for her since she disappeared!”

I smiled sadly and passed on the conversation. The new wormhole was due in about six weeks, so I’d survived halfway as I came under the scrutinising gaze of Hideyoshi on my return.

“Lord Nobunaga has requested your presence,” he stated, waiting impatiently for me to tidy away my shopping before I was escorted to the currently ongoing war council.

I was being glared at from all sides, it wasn’t exactly warming to see the woman who your boss offered everything to, and then see her slap him without another thought. I couldn’t explain my feelings towards the men around me, so I just kept myself tucked away from their daily lives.

“Natsuki,” Oda coldly addressed the room. “I have decided that you will be accompanying us on tomorrow’s battle against the Uesugi and Takeda forces. You are the good luck charm for us all,” he decreed before I was swiftly removed.

I was rightly terrified as the battle erupted around us. I was on the back of Nobunaga’s horse as the man was running irrationally into the middle of the fight. He was loving every second of it as I clung to him out of sheer fear that every second would be my final one.

“Nobunaga!” A voice and tone that had long haunted my dreams drove the battlefield in two. A familiar face was leading the charge with an ugly snarl and determination that I had never seen before. Oda was shrugging casually, a smirk on his face as he clashed swords with the furious male who had imposed himself on our little part of the field.

I was relieved into someone else’s arms, and couldn’t hide my shock to see it was the merchant at Azuchi now fully dressed in armour as he gave me a smile before the whole farce was retreating back to their camp. I was being seen to by a healer, meticulously checked over for any slight problem while the angry man had changed to a very stressed one, and wouldn’t cease his pacing in the background.

“Aside from the strain of being dragged out into the middle of a battle, then she’s fine,” the healer announced, much to the relief of everyone in the immediate vicinity. “Some rest and food will cure her current ailments,” the man smiled before leaving.

Sasuke appeared, much to my surprise, and made me quite dizzy in shock.

“Natsuki, sit down,” the man who had led the charge on Nobunaga instructed, a frown on his face as he made a gesture for some food and drink to be brought over.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked quietly, looking up at the man and then at Sasuke, who had a guilty expression.

“Don’t you remember me?” The man looked hurt, but then Sasuke swept in before much more could be done or said.

“She won’t remember anything from before her disappearance,” the ninja replied. “It’s best we retreat back to Kasugayama before we delve into things too much, it’s easy for anyone to overhear a lot of this,” he calmly explained.

“I’m not going back out there after I’ve finally gotten her back,” the other male shook his head, making his stand clear.

“Lord Kenshin will insist on continuing,” Sasuke warned.

“Then I will take Natsuki back tonight to keep her out of harm’s way,” he staunchly added.

The bickering continued as I was served up a warm bowl of something while wrapped in a blanket by the ‘merchant’. He was busy looking over at what the tall man was doing, rather than looking over me as I just accepted the attention being relieved of me for a little while.

“He won’t fight this battle until you’re home and safe,” the merchant spoke abruptly.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing here right now,” I bitterly added. “I don’t know who anyone is apart from Sasuke,” I replied, jabbing my spoon in the direction of the arguing ninja. Melancholy was welling up from deep inside of me after I put the food down and put my head in my hands. It was easy to pull the blanket over me and have a cry at the overwhelming situation, at least just to clear my head.

“Lord Shingen, I think we all make the retreat tonight, leave Lord Kenshin to fight the last of it and see how it goes. I get the impression that the Oda forces won’t be pursuing us,” the man next to me interrupted the argument without a thought, and I ignored that I had the attention of the decision makers it seemed at that moment in time.

I was riding with Shingen, and he insisted I rode in his arms instead of behind him. His excuse was so that I could fall asleep if I needed to, but I wasn’t buying it.

“She was fighting that for a long time,” Yukimura spoke up after Natsuki had finally dropped off. “I wonder how she ended up with them,” he said, making sure to match the pace of his Lord.

“Sasuke said he would be able to give us a lot of answers back at Echigo, I’m just glad to see her alive and well after nearly twenty years,” Shingen fondly smiled at the sleeping woman. “I imagine I’m not the only one,” he teased, as his vassal flushed bright red in the night.

“We were kids,” he snorted dismissively.

“I recognised that look when you realised it was her as well,” his Lord chuckled. “We’ve got time, we’ll find our answers,” he answered confidently.

It was a few nights before we arrived at Kasugayama. It had a familiar tinge to it, but not one I’d call ‘home’ at exactly. I hadn’t long been disturbed by Shingen, who had put himself into an overprotective brother mode since I had been ‘rescued’ from the opposing forces, and was rubbing at my eyes to try and remove the sleep from them. The townspeople were overjoyed for the return of the soldiers, as many of them broke off to see their families, while we continued on to the castle.

The staff were surprised to see me for sure, especially since the resemblance between Shingen and me had been the hot topic of conversation since the battle. I was eager to hide away until I’d gotten my head around my complete changeover in this era. Kenshin apparently was the Lord of the castle while Shingen and Yukimura were being hosted since their lands had been taken by the Oda forces. The room next to Shingen’s was converted into mine, as the seamstresses descended the second I put my foot inside of it. Then the warlord and his vassal were waiting patiently as the women were taking every measurement of mine I could think of.

I was blushing slightly at how waited on I was, and brushed my hair out of my face as I offered a tight smile to the two men.

“Can I help?” I asked, feeling very uncomfortable.

“Sasuke said that you need a good night’s rest and some decent food down you before we start upsetting everything,” Shingen smiled, “So I was going to suggest that you get some sleep on a futon and we’ll have a feast tonight.”

I nodded. “Certainly, sleeping on you on a horse wasn’t very restful,” I agreed and shut the door to try and quiet my mind.

Everything was very noisy as I was shown to the main hall by one of the maids, and then the room fell silent after the doors had been opened to reveal me. I was blushing, I knew that much before Yukimura came to my rescue and practically pushed me to sit between him and his Lord. Though the ‘normality’ resumed, I knew I was safely the main focal point now. The fight had finished, and I was the only change to this whole scenario.

Since I had slept for most of the day, I was able to outdrink the soldiers now. Which then left the inevitable cluster of me, Sasuke, Yukimura, Kenshin and Shingen as Shingen decided that his room was the best place for the discussion to take place.

Yukimura was avoiding looking at either me or his Lord, which had my curiosity peaked, but not as much as Sasuke apparently knew. I was nervous and started playing with a loose lock of my hair as we were all seated comfortably around the table. Sake supplies had come with us, and something told me that it would be liberally required for myself at the very least.

“This conversation is going to be quite hard to believe,” the ninja opened, taking control straight away as he filled Kenshin’s cup with sake. “I’m originally from five hundred years in the future, and the same wormhole that brought me here, also brought Natsuki from the same place, which is how we know each other,” he said, his tone as neutral as always. “A wormhole is effectively a hole that takes you from one point in time and deposits you somewhere else. Time hasn’t changed for you, but it has for those around you,” he was explaining as much to me as he was to the warlords.

“Then how did Natsuki end up in the future?” Shingen had the deepest frown I’d seen in a long time.

“My theory is that she wasn’t kidnapped like you believed, but she was taken by the wormhole. I was studying wormholes, and I have a theory that they were waiting for Natsuki to come back so they could correct themselves to a degree,” Sasuke replied. “I don’t know how or why she ended up there, but maybe something else decided she needed to be in the future for a while,” he shrugged, as I chugged back my entire cup of sake, and then considered forgoing the cup entirely.

“Well, you’re my little sister,” Shingen chuckled, looking thoughtful about everything. “I wasn’t sure who was more shocked to see you on the back of his horse, me or Yuki,” his smile was all-knowing, as my eyebrows disappeared off my forehead. “You disappeared nearly twenty years ago, our parents were distraught, and no one ever claimed to have you, which makes sense now.”

“I hated my time in Azuchi,” I broke my silence. “There was something deeply ingrained in me about them all, and there was just something none of us could figure out. Oda had declared me his lucky charm since I saved him from the fire before I knew who he was. I appeared in the middle of this burning building, and he was there,” I explained, not looking any of the men in the eye and instead focusing on my sake bottle. “It was always so strained between my adoptive parents as well,” I paused, and then looked at Sasuke. “They claimed to be Oda’s direct descendants,” I said, “I did everything in my power to make them ashamed of me and become the power I had burning inside,” it wasn’t making much sense to anyone else as I smiled. “I even named the business I set up after you,” I added with a sense of embarrassment to my brother. “I wanted nothing to do with the surname that had been forced on me.”

Sasuke gave a wry smile. “Makes sense now,” he tipped his cup back.

“How long were you at Azuchi for?” Shingen asked, a curious look on his face.

“A month and a half,” I shrugged. “Why, how long has Sasuke been here?”

“Four years,” the ninja replied. “Must have been our positioning,” he countered. “And I’d suggest we all go back to our own rooms, it’s a lot of information to soak up,” he gestured specifically to me.

“I’ll take her,” Yuki spoke up brusquely and picked me up by the crook of my elbow. “You weigh nothing, it’s a miracle no one has just walked off with you,” he snorted, walking off before I had a chance to react.

It took a few days to settle down into any kind of routine, and then Sasuke was always finding me to discuss the future and wormholes as he was as intrigued about how we’d ended up so far apart from the same spot. I was slightly surprised about how Yuki would usually end up interrupting us with some excuse about Sasuke being needed by his Lord, or that Shingen had decided he needed something, and would then take me down into Echigo to look around the town.

Echigo was smaller than Azuchi, but everyone was just as friendly. They were all surprised to see me, but then quickly eager to show off their goods since word had soon spread that Shingen’s sister had been found and pieces of the puzzle were forming. I sampled a few of the foods for sale and then admired the books available before I was dragged off to the teahouse.

Yukimura was a little grumpy but had an order of dumplings and tea brought out for us both with a wave to the owner. The dumplings weren’t as sweet as the ones in Azuchi, which was a little disappointing.

“Don’t tell me that sweet tooth is a family trait,” he groaned, as I looked up surprised at the man. “I have to hide the sugar candies and the likes from Lord Shingen, or he’d eat everything in the blink of an eye,” he grumped.

“I love my sweet things, but I like to regulate them,” I replied, trying not to look so embarrassed about how obvious the relation to Shingen really was now it was out in the open.

“Yuki? Shingen didn’t need anything,” the voice of the ninja joined us, a perplexed expression on his face. “He told me to come and find you, and tell you that you’re being obvious? He wouldn’t tell me any more,” Sasuke was sat opposite us, trying to figure out the cryptic message. “If you have time this afternoon Natsuki, I’d love to show you-”

“She doesn’t,” the vassal interrupted, blushing a little as I frowned at him. “Lord Shingen has asked me to take her somewhere this afternoon.”

“Oh, I see now,” I was surprised to see a rare smile on the face of the ninja, and chuckling as he rose. “Lord Kenshin is due back, I best go and make sure there is enough sake to keep him going. Shingen said to tell you that the meadows are the best in the evening.”

The cryptic conversation had me feeling like I was missing a major piece, especially since those around us had all knowing smiles on their faces as well, though they were all quick to look away at the movement of Yuki.

I could only admit it to myself, but it felt like things had just been picked up from where they had left off with Yuki. He hadn’t let go of my hand since the teahouse, and I wasn’t the one who was going to point it out. He felt safe and probably hadn’t changed a lot, I imagined as we eventually made our way to the meadows in time to just relax, and watch the sunset. I’d long had the suspicions that he’d been making excuses to spend time with me, but it always made me happy, and I was feeling selfish in that I didn’t want him to stop it.

I didn’t even know who had made what move exactly, but I was sat in his lap and admiring the last slivers of sunlight dip below the horizon.

I tilted my head up to say something and found his lips with mine. It was slow, we were both determined to make it last and savour each other indefinitely. His fingers were holding my jawline delicately, as my arm was looped upwards to hold the back of his head.

“This is definitely a lot steamier than the version I saw over twenty years ago,” Shingen’s voice broke us apart after we’d separated for air. “Aw, don’t leave me hanging,” he teased, as I picked myself up off the floor after Yuki was trying to hide his blush away from his Lord. “It was cute when you two were kids, and looks like nothing’s changed, so I was just going to invoke the arrangement,” he grinned knowingly at his vassal. “Not that you have changed venues that much for you two,” he chuckled.

“Wait, what arrangement?” I asked before Yukimura could promptly turn me around and march me out of the field, much to my brother’s deft amusement.

He waited to make sure that we were out of earshot and sighed loudly. “Our parents made a marriage arrangement,” he grumbled, clearly out of his comfort zone and embarrassed about everything, until I kissed him on the cheek.

“Come on, we can go and get him back by stealing the sugar candies,” I suggested with a bright smile, offering my hand out to him.

#shingen takeda #yukimura sanada #ikesen #Ikémen Sengoku #ikemen sengoku

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blogtrax905 · 4 years ago

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Total War: ATTILA - Blood & Burning Crack

11.1K Total War: ATTILA; 6.6K General Discussion; 674 Community Mods; 159 Assembly Kit; 278 Multiplayer; 3.5K Total War: ATTILA Support; 2K Gameplay Issues; 1.2K Crashes & Performance; 106 Multiplayer; 180 Mac & Linux Support; 1.5K Total War Community Content; 1.3K Community Content; 201 TEd Tips and Tutorials; 87.7K Total War Eras; 82 SHOGUN. Blood & Burning update includes: Added blood effects to over 140 more death and wounding animations. With graphics settings above performance/low, decapitations are now more frequent during battles. Improved blood effects in battles, made blood more visible and in some instances, spurts last longer.

Buy Total War: ATTILA - Blood & Burning Pack as a Steam Key.

As the barbarians rise and the Huns are loosed upon the world, the Western Roman Empire staggers, pierced by a thousand blades. These are the end-times; the age of blood and fire!

Experience the horrors of the apocalypse with Blood & Burning for Total War: ATTILA. This pack adds blood-spurt effects, decapitations, limb-lops, disembowelment and more to the game. Disease-ridden soldiers can even be seen vomiting on the battlefield, adding to the ghastly realism.

Blood & Burning comprises:

Gory new Campaign Map combat anims with blood-spatter, arm severance and decapitations.

Ultraviolent Battlefield combat animations including limb-severance, decapitation and blood spurts.

Soldiers in armies suffering from disease will vomit when idle on the battlefield.

New burning and burn-to-death animations for both soldiers and civilians.

New gore decals in battles depicting vomit, blood and bodily organs.

New, blood-soaked versions of key animated event messages.

All Blood & Burning effects can be enabled or disabled in the Graphics Options menu.

Total War: AttilaDeveloper(s)Creative AssemblyPublisher(s)SegaDirector(s)Mike Simpson János GáspárComposer(s)Richard BeddowSeriesTotal WarEngineWarscapePlatform(s)Microsoft Windows, OS X, LinuxReleaseWindows & OS XLinux

WW: 10 December 2015(1)

Genre(s)Real-time strategy, turn based strategyMode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Total War: Attila is a strategyvideo game developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega, released on 17February 2015 for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux. It is the ninth standalone game in the Total War series of video games.

The game begins in 395 AD, during what is now called Late Antiquity (the transition period from Classical Rome to the Medieval age in European history). While the title character will be able to become the leader of the Huns, he is not yet in power at the start of the campaign. Due to its setting near the Dark Ages, the game is possibly a spiritual successor to Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion.

Gameplay(edit)

Campaign map(edit)

The campaign map for Total War: Attila spans from Bactria to Lusitania and from Caledonia to Garamantia in the Sahara. Provinces are groupings of three regions, and each region within a province can be conquered separately. The number of cities and regions is different from Total War: Rome II, but the size of the map is similar. The map of Total War: Attila further extends into modern-day Russia in lieu of the eastern provinces of the Hindu Kush found in Total War: Rome II, shifting the player's attention to the nomadic Huns. The largest settlement in a province is designated as the province capital. These province capitals have more building slots than the other settlements and are also walled at the start of the game, though in a change from Rome II the small settlements can eventually be upgraded to have walls.

Historical setting of Roman factions(edit)

At the dawn of the Dark Ages the Roman Empire descends into chaos due to volcanic changes rocking the empire as apocalyptic signs foretell of a great scourge to sweep across Europe. Upon the death of Emperor Theodosius I in 395 AD, the empire is divided between his sons who each rule a half: Honorius in the West, and Arcadius in the East. Since the days of Diocletian it has become a custom to divide Rome as the pressures to govern the empire have become too much for a single emperor to handle. With the split of the empire both sides face multiple threats on all sides, including internal instability undermining each of the young emperors' control as part of the long-term repercussions of the Third-Century Crisis. When the game begins, playing as the Western Roman Empire, players will face waves of hordes entering their borders as the arrival of the Huns in the east and the devastation they have caused have forced them to flee in search of new homes. Since the death of Emperor Valentinian I and the division of the empire, the weaknesses in the West have rapidly begun to show and edge the empire closer to ruin. With depleted funds from centuries of internal mismanagement and corruption, the West is unable to muster an effective army to combat the invaders. While players will start the campaign with vast territories under their command, it will quickly become a game of survival as Rome's legions are stretched to breaking point to protect a decaying empire. The Eastern Roman Empire, however, has profited from the division to take control of the civilized world as it begins its transformation into a new empire. With the new administrative capital in Constantinople serving as the gateway for trade between Europe and Asia, along with economic reforms, the eastern empire has become an economic powerhouse in the game. Yet, the Eastern Romans face an initial threat from the Visigoths led by Alaric I in Greece, who makes a direct assault on Constantinople itself, and remain wary of the Sassanid threat in the East. The Romans must find new ways and technologies to cope with this changing world if they are to survive as the old technologies and antiquity systems no longer apply, along with the increasingly growing power of the Church becoming ever more influential. If players choose to play either of the Roman empires, they will be tasked with saving and preserving the once-great empire, and if possible unite Rome under a single emperor.

Features(edit)

As Total War: Attila embraces an era of great change with the people of Europe migrating across the campaign map, Attila adds a new dimension in the form of a faction's religious conversion in the game that brings an array of unique benefits across the player's empire depending on the religion that they choose to favour. The presence of a faction's state religion offers bonuses, including provincial edicts assigned, temple buildings, churches, and even character traits. These factors all play an important role in how dominant the player's religion is over a province. If a province has a population with several religions, it can have a negative effect on public order and thus lead to revolts. Factions also suffer or gain religious penalties when engaging in diplomacy with each other depending on their chosen religious affinity. Should the player choose to convert to a new religion, their faction's overall population must have at least 35% of that religion to convert. To find which religion is dominant in a region, the campaign map may be searched using the religion filter provided. For players who choose Christianity as their state religion, the five cities of Rome, Constantinople, Aelia Capitolina, Antioch, and Alexandria that formed part of the Pentarchy have the exclusive option for their churches to be upgraded to 'Holy See' status, which comes with major bonuses. The game includes a total of 13 religions available throughout the campaign map, although the effects of minor religions are not fully understood.

The game also introduces the ability for players to use their armies to raze settlements once they have been conquered. This new feature allows the player to enact a 'Scorched Earth policy' which destroys the land around the nearby settlement, crippling the enemy's food and money supply. Attila also lets a faction who did not originally begin the campaign as a horde to abandon its settlements at the cost of burning those former settlements or simply abandon a chosen number of cities which before being destroyed, will provide a small amount of wealth to the treasury. However, it is advised to analyze which settlements players destroy; recolonizing it would cost a faction a hefty amount of gold, a separate cost from building expenses to reach its former state.

Total War Attila Steam

Based on historical accounts, a mini Ice Age in this period plays a part for the people of Northern Europe to move to the more fertile south as the winter cold moves further down and engulfs Europe in longer winters as the game progresses. As an added new feature included in Attila, the Fertility of a region plays a crucial part when settling in a region if playing as a migrating horde or creating important buildings that deliver food throughout your empire. The campaign map is divided on various fertility levels that are color-coded and labeled; from highest-lowest: Rich, Good, Average, Poor, Meagre, Infertile. The greater the fertility level, the greater the amount of food can be cultivated with the appropriate buildings. However, the amount of food harvested is affected by a number of various external and internal factors. These include: building consumption costs, razed areas within your controlled province, provincial edicts, character traits, foreign armies raiding within your borders.

The game features 56 factions, 40 of which are unplayable. Each faction has their own unit roster and agenda. Ten factions are playable in the game at launch, with others added via downloadable content (DLC) packs.

Factions(edit)

Factions by Culture(edit)

Nomadic Tribes

Roman Empire

Eastern Empire

Attila Total War Wiki

Great Migrators

Barbarian Kingdoms

Norsemen

Celts

Desert Kingdoms

Slavs

Factions in The Last Roman(edit)

Factions in The Age of Charlemagne(edit)

Downloadable content(edit)

Several DLC packs are available and planned for future release. These add factions, units and new standalone campaigns to expand the original game.

The first of these, 'Viking Forefathers', was released on 17February 2015, adding three new playable factions: the Danes, the Jutes and the Geats. The second, 'Longbeards', was released on 4March 2015 adding a further three factions: the Langobards, the Alamans and the Burgundians, as well as introducing a new narrative chain, 'Lay Of Ybor', which when completed unlocks the titular Ybor as general, with traits tailored by the story.

A third faction pack was released on 25March that contains three Celtic factions: the Picts, Ebdanians and Caledonians.

On 29April 2015, The Creative Assembly released Assembly Kits on Steam, which is a pack that features modification or 'mod' tools that allow players to create, edit, process or customize campaign maps, database entries and textures as well as other features.(2)

On 25 June 2015, The Creative Assembly released its first Campaign Pack, titled the Last Roman. The Campaign focuses on the Wars of Justinian I in the former Western Roman Empire as he sends a Roman Expeditionary force led by his general Belisarius to reclaim the western provinces from the various Barbarian kingdoms that have torn it apart. However, the prospect of rebuilding the Western Empire may influence men to make other agendas such as becoming emperor themselves which is made possible in the campaign once a settlement has been taken. The campaign is unique in that the Expedition functions as a horde using Roman units, and that any captured settlements are controlled by the Emperor unless the general declares independence. It also allows you to play as the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Franks or the Vandals. In addition, the Campaign Pack also includes the Historical Battle of Dara. A free DLC pack, released the same day made the Suebians playable in the Grand Campaign as well.

Total War: Attila - Blood & Burning Cracked

A fourth faction pack, titled 'Empires of Sand' was released on 15 September 2015. This pack adds three new playable factions: the Tanukhids, Himyar and Aksum. Along with it, 3 new religions were introduced into the game each with their own benefits: Eastern Christianity, Judaism, and Semitic Paganism. A Free DLC pack, was released the same day and added the Lakhmids as well.

An expansion, titled Age of Charlemagne was released on December 10, 2015. It is set in the early Medieval Age and features new units and a new campaign that stretches from modern-day Portugal to Western Romania and from Scotland to Sicily. It is in this period from which the medieval kingdoms begin to form. The campaign begins in 768 A.D., depicting Charlemagne's rise to power as the King of the Franks with his brother Carloman I, later becoming the first since Imperial Rome to unite most of Western Europe under a single ruler with the title of Holy Roman Emperor. After centuries of warfare, a leader must rise to bring peace to an entire continent.(3) In addition, a free DLC pack was released the same day making the White Huns playable in the Grand Campaign.

On 25 February 2016 a fifth faction pack was released entitled 'Slavic Nations' along with a free DLC that includes the Garamantians as a free faction. These nations have been tipped to be the 'world's best hope to defeat the Huns'. This new pack includes the Anteans, Sclavenians, and the Venedians each with settlements in the nearby proximity of the Hunnic Hordes advancing into Western Europe. Each faction enters the game with a formidable cultural trait including immunity to snow attrition and becoming the only factions to recolonize razed settlements for no cost.

Reception(edit)

Reception

Aggregate scoreAggregatorScoreMetacritic80/100(4)Review scoresPublicationScoreDestructoid6.5/10(5)GameRevolution(6)GameSpot7/10(7)GamesRadar+(8)IGN8.1/10(9)PC Gamer (US)83/100(10)Polygon8/10(11)Hardcore Gamer4/5(12)

Total War: Attila received 'generally favorable' reviews, according to review aggregatorMetacritic.(4)

Dan Griliopoulos from PC Gamer gave the game 83/100, praising the in-game representation of history, enjoyable multiplayer, stunning music, animation and sound-effect, improved army and character management as well as the themes, which he stated 'has reflected the era accurately' and the new family system, which adds new complexity into the game. He also praised the developer for fixing the long-term problems in the series. However, he criticized the extreme difficulty, AI problem, laggy chat in multiplayer, frame rate issues and bugs. He concluded the game by saying that '(Total War: Attila) is a barbarous twist on Rome II, with a handful of fixes. The Total War games still need work to reach that perfection they’re aiming for, and the bugs this close to release are worrying, but Attila shows that Creative have been listening.'(10)

TJ Hafer from IGN gave the game 8.1/10, praising its dynamic campaign, AI, improved interface, siege battles and utilities, new army types, and enhanced pacing in the real-time battle, which he stated 'adds an extra layer to the choice of army composition'. He also stated that the game has helped people understand 'the perspective of these ancient people, notorious for raiding and pillaging.' However, he criticized the game for its impenetrable, non-user-friendly and frustrating internal politics and diplomacy, occasionally nonsensical AI and the disappointing Celtic factions, which are non-playable and lack their own roster or models. He stated that 'Total War: Attila' is a cleaner, better thought-out experience. It is an adept refinement of Rome 2 instead of a glorified expansion pack for its predecessor. In fact, Attila is proudly its own game, and puts a firm foot forward in contrast to Rome 2's initially unsatisfying jumble.'(9)

Atlas Burke from GamesRadar praised the graphics, audio-design, and new additions. He stated '(New additions) seem to be direct responses to the Rome 2 backlash'. He also praised the satisfying gameplay, outstanding tactical battles, improved AI and UI, the option to turn settlements into armies, and the heavy emphasis on political machinations. However, he criticized the excruciating build turn, technical issues, over-simplistic interface, and unbalanced units. He summarized the game by saying that 'Total War: Attila is a damn fine strategy game in its own right, without having to compare it to its oft-lamented predecessor.'(8)

Writing for Destructoid, Greg Tito was slightly more negative about the game, giving the game 6.5/10. He praised the choice of setting and improvements to the real-time battles. But he was less positive about the campaign side. He criticized the changes to the political system and issues with trade and diplomacy. He thought there was 'a lot to like' in Total War: Attila, and that it 'doesn't need to reinvent its formula each time,' but 'setting even a well-made sequel in the crumbling legacy of the once-mighty may not have been a good choice.'(5)

References(edit)

^'Total War: Attila Performs Miserably On Linux - Phoronix'. www.phoronix.com.

^Nunneley, Stephany (30 April 2015). 'Official mod tools for Total War: Attila are now available'. VG247. Retrieved 30 April 2015.

^Purchese, Robert (24 November 2015). 'Total War goes medieval with Attila expansion Age of Charlemagne'. Eurogamer. Retrieved 25 November 2015.

^ ab'Total War: Attila for PC reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 13 February 2015.

^ abGreg Tito (12 February 2015). 'Review: Total War: Attila - Be the barbarian'. Destructoid. Retrieved 13 February 2015.

^Griffin Vacheron (12 February 2015). 'Total War: ATTILA review'. Game Revolution. Retrieved 13 February 2015.

^Nick Capozzoli (12 February 2015). 'Total War: Attila review: Horders'. GameSpot. Retrieved 13 February 2015.

^ abAtlas Burke (12 February 2015). 'Total War: Attila review'. GamesRadar. Retrieved 13 February 2015.

^ abTJ Hafer (13 February 2015). 'Total War: Attila review: Greatness from the Ashes'. IGN. Retrieved 13 February 2015.

^ abDan Griliopoulos (12 February 2015). 'Total War: Attila review'. PC Gamer. Retrieved 13 February 2015.

^Colin Campbell (12 February 2015). 'Total War: Attila review: The Empire'. Polygon. Retrieved 13 February 2015.

^Thew, Geoff (13 February 2015). 'Review: Total War: ATTILA'. Hardcore Gamer. Hardcore Gamer. Retrieved 13 March 2015.

External links(edit)

Total War: Attila - Blood & Burning Crack Full

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Total_War:_Attila&oldid=991032397'

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