#i do feel like‚ after a few fairly standard adventures‚ this fifth series has just rocketed into madness now; first Nessie‚ now a Roman

[zeldauniverse]

Diablo is a series that needs very little introduction, but, despite being one of the most famous video game series for PC, it has never been available on a Nintendo platform until now.  Diablo III was recently released for Nintendo Switch, and even though I have played many other Blizzard games, I had never played Diablo for more than a few minutes, at least until now. I quickly learned that I had been missing out on something quite fun.

Full disclosure Activision-Blizzard graciously provided a review copy for the Switch.

A typical RPG setup

Diablo III is an action RPG dungeon crawler. When you begin, you create a character and choose a character class. I like playing long-range magic-casting types, so I primarily played as a wizard. Other classes include barbarian, monk, necromancer, and others.

You unlock new skills and modifications for those skills as you level up.

In typical RPG fashion, you will gain levels and learn new abilities as you progress. Diablo keeps the gameplay fresh by regularly giving you new abilities and only allowing you to keep a handful selected as a time. When you reach higher levels, you also unlock the ability to add secondary effects to abilities you already know. A simple example, the wizard’s force-push spell can be augmented to reflect enemy projectiles.

Your character is further improved with new equipment and passive skills that you unlock as you increase your level.

All of this is pretty standard fare for an action RPG. Diablo III provides a great amount of variety to keep the gameplay interesting. There is nothing extraordinary about the game systems, but they are well-made.

Fast-paced and customizable

Diablo III‘s campaign is separated into five acts; the first four acts tell the main story and the fifth act is the expansion pack, Reaper of Souls, that continues shortly after the end of the main story. Each act tells a portion of the story and generally has a single theme. Act One is mostly graveyards and crypts while Act Three is mostly desert and desert caves and so on. The acts are a decent length, but they end before you get too tired of seeing the same kinds of areas.

The enemy visuals are similarly varied, and I always seemed to be encountering something new. Even so, I generally felt overpowered for a good part of the game. It was hard to appreciate the visuals when the enemies were just constantly exploding in waves. Diablo III sends a lot of enemies at you, and it was always satisfying when I won.

The action is fast paced with very little downtime in the middle of an act. I was generally happy with this approach, but it did mean that the story objectives remained very simple. More often than not, your objective is just to travel from point A to point B and kill whatever you find at the end. Occasionally I was tasked with defending something from waves of enemies. However, the gameplay is fun enough and the story doesn’t last long enough for it to feel repetitive. Furthermore, you always have the option to change your skills or play a different character class to add more variety to the gameplay.

You are frequently surrounded by enemies. These battles are fast-paced, chaotic, and absolutely the most fun you will have while playing.

The variety and customization available are what makes Diablo III stand out for me. The amount of customization available means that your character can be made your own. You can select your class, spells, augment those spells, select secondary abilities, and select the gear that best fits your play style. It’s unlikely that someone else would have the same character as you, and that gives the game a less cookie-cutter feel than some other games. I’m sure there’s a “best way” to play that gives the best results if you really want to look it up, but, for a casual player just looking to have fun, I found that I was able to make whatever changes I wanted without ruining the experience.

An endless adventure

Playing through the story is almost always my favorite part of a video game, and the same is true of Diablo III. However, once the campaign is over, you can still play “Adventure Mode” and experience an endless number of procedurally-generated levels called “rifts.” You can create new characters to try all the different classes, adjust your skills repeatedly, and continue battling to acquire new equipment for each character. It’s a style of gameplay that I find enjoyable, but it’s not for everyone. If you do enjoy a loot-grind, there’s tons of content to explore.

Diablo III adds additional replay value by including both local and online multiplayer modes, so you can experience the same rifts with a team.

When you look at all of the content combined, Diablo III has the potential to provide a nearly endless amount of play time. I tend to move on from one game to the next fairly quickly, so I have not taken a deep dive into everything the game has to offer, but I enjoyed my time with the game and fully expect to revisit it in the future.

About those special Zelda items…

I really enjoyed playing Diablo III; The entire experience was just a lot of fun throughout. However, there was one Switch exclusive feature that definitely did not live up to my expectations: the exclusive Legend of Zelda crossover items. On one hand, all of Zelda crossover items are given to you near the very beginning of the game for free, and that is very nice. On the other hand, anyone who, like me, is dreaming of playing through the entire game dressed as Ganondorf will be severely disappointed.

The major Zelda item is the Ganondorf outfit, and it is very cool. The outfit is a “transmog” set. Transmogrification is a game mechanic that lets you change the visual appearance of a piece of equipment to look like another piece of equipment. The appearance is tied to a specific piece of equipment, so when you replace your pants with a better pair, you have to speak to an NPC in town again to reapply the appearance. Diablo throws new gear at your left and right, so this would get annoying pretty quick on its own if you just want to look like Ganondorf all the time. Unfortunately, there is a bigger problem that prevents the Ganondorf dream from happening at all: applying appearances to gear costs in-game gold. It’s not cheap either: 20,000 gold per piece. You need well over 100,000 gold to look like Ganondorf one time.

Blizzard never promised that I would be able to look like Ganondorf all the time, and the other armor sets are nice enough. It was just a bummer at the beginning when I realized that I couldn’t really be the King of Evil for the entire game.

The other Zelda inspired pieces are less impressive. There are a set of wings, which are purely cosmetic. They look cool and are supposedly Majora’s Mask themed, but I have no idea what makes them Zelda-related. They’re just some nifty looking wings. Next is a Cucco companion who follows you around. It doesn’t do anything; it just follows you around. It’s cute, I guess. Last, there’s a Triforce-themed character portrait border.

These are all nice-to-have exclusive additions to the Nintendo Switch version of the game, but if you’re a Zelda fan who is only interested in Diablo III because of the Zelda items, you will be disappointed.

A great starting point

Diablo III is a fantastic game; it is one of the best I have played in the last year. The Nintendo Switch version is a port that has little to offer that wasn’t already available on PC, and that can make it difficult to recommend to anyone who played it before. The new features are the Zelda-inspired items, local multiplayer, and the portability that comes with being a Switch game.

But if you haven’t played Diablo III before, the Switch release is a great opportunity to finally give it a shot. This was my first real experience with Diablo, and when the campaign was over I immediately joined the fans waiting for Diablo IV and an HD remake of Diablo II. The Switch has a growing library of excellent games, both new and old, that are constantly shifting our attention te whatever is new this week, but Diablo III deserves more time in the spotlight.

Score Similarity to other Zeldas 8.5/10 Tri Force Heroes – ▲▲▲△△ Four Swords – ▲▲△△△ Breath of the Wild – ▲▲△△△

  Score: 8.5

Similarity to Zelda:

Four Swords: 2/5

Breath of the Wild 2/5

Tri Force Heroes 3/5

  Review: Diablo III is a great RPG dungeon grinder, but the Zelda extras aren’t worth it Diablo is a series that needs very little introduction, but, despite being one of the most famous video game series for PC, it has never been available on a Nintendo platform until now. 

[pkmn-fangamer]

Pokémon Gaia Review

Intro:

Hi guys! This is my first Pokemon fan game review. Hopefully there will be many to follow! Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. If you want to skip right to the review part, you can scroll past Description and How to Play. If you want any more details on the game that I don’t cover here, feel free to send me an ask! Also, if you have any games you’d like me to review, feel free to send in requests as well.

Description:

The storied Orbtus region was once populated by a prosperous civilization. They created several monuments to their gods and guardians. Their untimely demise was brought about by a series of disastrous earthquakes; all that remains of their society are their temples, idols and story, as relics of the past.

In the present day, local archaeologist and Pokémon Professor, Professor Redwood, has noticed an increase in the region’s seismic activity. Propelled by a growing concern for Orbtus’ safety, he seeks the assistance of new Pokémon Trainers with a flair for adventure in the rural Celanto Town, a seaside town near the mysterious totem poles, and your home! Will you, along with the help of the Professor and your rival, be able to prevent the earth from consuming the region once more?

How to Play:

To play Pokemon Gaia, you’ll need to download a few things. They are Visual Boy Advance, Pokemon Gaia (V3.2), Pokemon Fire Red, and NUPS. I highly recommend watching this video, which contains links to all these necessary pieces in the description and teaches you exactly how put them all together.

Story:

From my first few minutes playing, I could tell that the story in this game would be fairly put together. It seemed to have a lot of potential, being based on the Regis and having ancient roots in regional history. However, I feel as though the story didn’t live up to its full potential. It wasn’t horrible by any means; it just could have been better. For the most part, it feels a lot like a standard main series game story.

The overall story is very formulaic. You have your silent protagonist, kind of bland rival, professor named after a tree, an evil team called the New Elders, etc. None of the characters are particularly memorable to me, but none of them are particularly bad either. One particularly interesting surprise was a character from another region in a leadership role- that’s the most I’ll say about that, though.

Overall, this story isn’t the best one you’ll ever see in a Pokemon, but it gets the job done, and serves to be fairly interesting.

Score: 7/10

Pokemon:

I’ll begin with the selection of starters. To my pleasure, the available ones are the Sinnoh starters, which feels right for this game. I’ve also never seen another fan game with solely Sinnoh starters before, and I’m partial to the Sinnoh region, so this was a pleasure for me.

The range of Pokemon available in this game is amazing. There are Pokemon included up to and including Gen 6, with every mega evolution. One person playing this game will never have the same team as another- there are just so many options right from the beginning. Just from the first three routes and towns, you can seriously build a decent team of six Pokemon. Or you can wait like I did and pick up one Pokemon at a time along the way.

One thing of note that I appreciate is the availability of all types of Pokemon, and it’s clear that there are specific areas in the game dedicated to most Pokemon types. Notably, ice type Pokemon are available in a relatively early part of the game. No main series game offers ice types before the fifth badge, whereas ice types are readily available directly after your second gym battle.

Score: 10/10

Gameplay:

The overall difficulty of the game is medium-high. I’d compare it to Gens 1-5; it’s definitely harder than 6 and 7. Trainers frequently have Pokemon about the same level as you, or only a few under. I did have to do some grinding and was actually beaten by my rival a couple of times. However, grinding is easy with the speed up button since this game is played on Virtual Boy Advance. I’d also like to note that I was pleasantly surprised that the grunts of the evil team are actually a bit stronger than the average trainer you’ll battle. This really helps bring the New Elders to life as an actual threat.

Additionally, there are several nice additional touches that really help bring the Orbtus region to life. Almost every NPC you talk to actually has something meaningful to say; they’re packed with optional side quest offers, items to give out, Pokemon to trade, and offer a wealth of information about the history of the region and local towns.

Like a normal main series Pokemon game, Gaia includes a normal eight-gym circuit, and each gym has a simple, yet unique gym puzzle that is fun to solve but not overly difficult.

The biggest deficit to me was the appearance of HMs. Like Gen 6 and earlier, HMs are not only present, but required to get around the game and find hidden places and items. For older fan games I would not count this against the creator but being that this game was finished after the release of Alola, I think this game could have been better without them.

8/10

Art/Music:

The art found in Gaia is truly reminiscent of Gen 3 games Fire Red and Leaf Green, with a decent number of maps being mostly made of these tiles. As the game went on, more areas used original tiles. There was a desert area, a farm-based area, a canyon, and so many different environments. However, one thing that I really didn’t like was the lack original design when it came to the evil team. The grunt design was imported directly from BW2, and the overworld sprite for the team leader is the old lady one from FRLG that may be slightly edited.

One of my personal favorite cities is Windmist City, which is a snowy city far north similar to Snowbelle or Snowpoint. The weather there is constantly snowy, and the snow is well animated. It’s neat to see a snowy town in Gen 3 graphics. The NPCs in Windmist are also unique, dressed in coats and drawn distinct from the default NPCs from FRLG. Another interesting city is Telemurk City, which was run by a gang, and reminded me of a more put-together Po Town from Alola.

Overall, the music is passable. There are few original tracks, with most music imported directly from FRLG. My favorite original track is the Elder Nights admin theme. I would have enjoyed more original tracks, but I do prefer this if the alternative could have been badly composed music.

Score: 7.5/10

Misc:

This isn’t a rated section, but it’s nice to know what kind of community support you’ll get going into a game. Unfortunately, while there is a decent amount of people that enjoy Gaia, there isn’t a big fandom presence. There’s only a partially filled out wiki with some not-so-reliable information, which was disappointing to me. However, there are some google sheets of helpful info that you can find in the discord channel.

I’d also like to say that while the story of this game is finished, a new version is set to come out, which should give Gaia some post game content.

Overall:

After only visiting a few of the first towns, I noticed something about Gaia that’s hard to find in a lot of fan games: a polished final product that is truly similar to a main series game. I can’t find single grammatical, language, or graphical error in the whole game, which significantly contributes to the feeling that this could be a main series Pokemon game.

All in all, I did enjoy playing this game, and would recommend it- especially to someone that really wants a game that doesn’t deviate from the Pokemon Formula. In terms of where I’d rank it among Pokemon fangames, I’d put it in the upper middle of the pack. I would rank it higher among fan games, but it lacks a sort of wow factor that the very best fangames have. Everything considered, this is a solid game that’s definitely worth a play.

Final Score: 8/10

[skarletterambles]

Pirates of the Caribbean 5

I just got back from seeing Dead Men Tell No Tales.  I have thoughts.  Quite a few of them, actually.

I should preface this review by giving a bit of background on my involvement with this franchise.  I saw the first PotC movie in the theater seven times.  I saw Dead Man’s Chest three or four times and loved it.  I saw At World’s End exactly once, hated it with the passion of a thousand burning suns, and never saw it again.

I was--and am--a hardcore Sparrabeth shipper.  The canon status of Willabeth only explains part of my disillusionment with the franchise, however.  My biggest problem was how Elizabeth had an amazing character arc over three films, going from a prim-and-proper governor’s daughter to the ass-kicking Pirate King, pursuing her dreams in defiance of society’s expectations, outwitting both the EITC and legendary pirates, leading an armada in battle...and then had it all stripped away at the end of the third movie, where she is left literally barefoot and pregnant to wait for her man to come back.  I was--and am--livid.  I felt betrayed, both as a fan and a feminist, to see one of my favorite characters do a 180 like that.

So I have very strong feelings about these movies.  I’ve tried to get over it in the years since AWE, with limited success.  Against my better judgment I did see On Stranger Tides in the theater, and thought it was mediocre.  Since Elizabeth wasn’t involved I could just ignore its existence, for the most part.

Then the fifth movie was announced, and Will was going to be in it.  I had hoped that maybe, just maybe they could try to rectify some of the mistakes (read: character assassination) of the past.

They didn’t.  But they still came up with a pretty good movie.  Honestly, I’d even give Dead Men Tell No Tales four stars out of five.  I was riveted to the screen for most of it, and it was thrilling to hear the theme music and see the familiar faces.  It was exciting and entertaining, the special effects were impressive, and there were some good laughs.  Plus, zombie sharks!

Do I have issues with parts of it?  Yeah.  And I’m going to ramble at length.

**** MAJOR POTC: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES SPOILERS BELOW ****

Sequel creep is definitely at work, where each installment has to be bigger and zanier than the last.  The gags are broader, the willing suspension of disbelief gets even more strained, the stakes are higher, and it becomes almost like a Saturday morning cartoon version of itself.  

Thinking back to CotBP, we had to buy into the curse turning Barbossa and his crew into undead, but other than that the world operated on fairly realistic terms.  Yes, there was movie logic involved as far as coincidences, travel times, fast wound recovery, and all that, but it still felt more or less like the real world.  Stakes got higher with each sequel, until we have whatever the hell that “bank robbery” was in DMTNT.  

Don’t get me wrong; it was an enjoyable action sequence, but it felt more like a cartoon than anything that could happen under the laws of physics as they exist in our world.  That’s not inherently a bad thing, but the tone was noticeably different compared to the earlier films.

Moving on, I was glad Captain Salazar didn’t have that slurpy, blood-drooling voice through the entire film.  When I first heard that in the early trailer I was both grossed out, and concerned that he would be hard to understand.  Instead it was just that one scene, and he spoke normally the rest of the time.  He was a great villain, from his badass and scary entrance through to his delightfully ironic death.  He was genuinely threatening, which was kind of surprising considering the cartoony feel of some of the action scenes.  Javier Bardem killed it.  Thumbs up to him!

The legend surrounding the trident, and the map to find it, seemed cool until you thought about it for more than two seconds, and then it didn’t really make any sense.  Calypso is the Sea Goddess in this universe, so where did Poseidon come in?  How can his trident override curses that she put in place?  If it could be broken by a single sword blow, how did it stay intact under the sea for (presumably) thousands of years?  I mean, sure, maaaaaagic, but...eh.

And why did Will get all barnacley anyway?  Elizabeth waited for him, so that part of the curse shouldn’t have kicked in.

And what will happen to the souls of the dead without the Dutchman to ferry them to the afterlife?  

And what happened to Bootstrap Bill?  Did Will figure out how to free him and let him move on to the afterlife?

And if breaking the trident cancelled all the curses related to the sea, how did Davy Jones appear in the after-credits scene?  (Assuming it was him.  The gait, crab claw, barnacles, tentacley silhouette and the music box theme all pointed to it being him, anyway.)  I could almost buy him coming back to life when the curse was broken, but as a normal human again, not ol’ squidface.  The mythology makes no damn sense at all!

This review is coming across pretty negative so far, but I really did enjoy the movie.  I thought it was much better than OST, and felt like a return to the original vibe of the series.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching (almost) every minute of it, and I left the theater grinning and humming the theme music.  As a summer popcorn movie, it’s pretty great.  It’s just when the adrenaline wears off and I start thinking and analyzing that I see the issues.  And, like I said, I have a long history with this franchise, so overthinking it is what I do.

There were definitely some surprises, although I saw a couple of the twists coming.  The instant I realized Carina was Hector’s daughter, I was like, “Well, he’s going to die saving her somehow.”  And I was right.  It was sad (and that damn monkey gave me more feels than any creepy little primate has a right to), but at the same time I’m delighted at how his character grew into so, so much more than he was originally planned to be.  He was supposed to be a one-shot villain in CotBP, but Geoffrey Rush is so damn awesome, and he and Johnny Depp brainstormed a history between their characters, decided his first name was Hector, and one thing led to another and here we are, genuinely mourning him in the fifth movie.  It was a worthy sendoff for a memorable character.

One of the themes that got raised over and over in the earlier movies was the idea that it’s possible to be a pirate and a good man.  Bootstrap Bill Turner was.  Jack is.  Was Hector Barbossa a good man?  I don’t know if I’d go that far, but he wasn’t 100% evil, either.  And he was a lot of fun to watch.

Henry definitely reminded me of Will.  He had the same wide-eyed earnestness about him, as well as the tendency to charge into danger because it’s the Right Thing To Do without thinking through the full plan first.  Elizabeth’s legacy is a bit harder to see, except in the first two scenes.  Keeping a secret stash of pirate memorabilia and legends?  Totally Lizzie.  Back-talking authority figures?  Yep, Lizzie’s genes are in there.  And later, in the jail, taking Jack’s ego down a peg by scoffing at his legendary reputation in comparison to the reality of a scruffy, rum-soaked pirate?  Also from the Swann side of the family.  So I think they did a pretty good job of making Henry his parents’ son. 

I just wish we had more information on how he was raised, and where.  I always imagined him scampering around Shipwreck Cove and up the rigging of Elizabeth’s ship(s), the mischievous pirate prince.  Based on the house Elizabeth is living in at the end, and the fact that he was enlisted in the royal navy, I don’t see that happening in canon now.

When Carina was introduced I had a couple thoughts:

1.  “I wonder if she’s related to any existing characters...  No, don’t be silly.  This isn’t a fanfic.  They’re trying to move the franchise forward into the next generation.”  (Or not.) 2.  I don’t want to like her because no one can ever replace Elizabeth Freaking Swann the Pirate King as the best female character in these movies.  And that’s still true, but she definitely grew on me.  She had a fairly good balance of “smart woman who can take care of herself and doesn’t need a man to complete her story” and “too perfect to be likable or believable.”  I could have done with a costume that didn’t draw quite so much attention to her heaving bosom, but I suppose there’s some vaguely historical style going on.

Honestly, there’s a reason her backstory could have been lifted from a story on Fanfiction.net circa 2004:  those kinds of long-lost relative reveals can be a hell of a lot of fun.  Especially when you have Jack there to tease “daddy” Hector mercilessly.

I’m glad they didn’t have her be Jack’s daughter, though.  That thought crossed my mind, too, and that would have been...not good.

Pity Hector never got to introduce himself to Elizabeth and Will as the father of their potential daughter-in-law.  Awwwwwkward!  Bwahahaha!

Speaking of the dreaded Willabeth...  Jack saw them smooching in his spyglass, made a face, and announced that it was a revolting sight.  Same, Jack.  Same.

Therein lies my biggest complaint about the movie, and, as I mentioned above, it’s just the latest sprout on a tree of dislike that I’ve been nursing since the ending of At World’s End was leaked.  How in the seven hells they thought it was an appropriate, satisfying, logical plot development for Elizabeth Freaking Swann the Pirate King to end up standing around passively on a beach in a frilly dress and a fucking corset, waiting for the menfolk to do the important stuff, I will never, ever understand.  It’s a slap in the face of everything her character arc was over the first three movies.

“Sure, little girls, you can have adventures and play pirate for awhile if you want to, but in the end you still have to get married, grow up, conform to society’s beauty standards, put aside those dreams, and take care of your husband and children.”  Fuck that with a rusty garden trowel.

And here, when they had the chance to redeem that travesty, when they could have showed a glimpse of her at the helm of her own flagship, or holding court with the other Pirate Lords, or just simply wearing pirate-type clothes and carrying a sword, for the love of all things holy, did they do any of those things?  Oh, no.  No, they doubled down and had her be so passive that she didn’t even get to speak.  (Doesn’t that mean they don’t have to pay Knightley as much?)  Literally all she’s there for is to be a reward for Will upon his homecoming, and then sleep with him--on land in a fancy house that could have been in Port Royal, for all we know.  Any journey her character had is moot.  She’s back to square one, and it makes me want to throw things.

Oops, I was going to keep that rant short, and failed.  Oh well, it’s a sore spot, obviously.  I have never felt so betrayed by a franchise as I did when they did that to Elizabeth in AWE, and it still stings after all these years.

My ire didn’t even stem from my shipping preferences, although that certainly was salt in the wound.  If they couldn’t give us a series of movies with Jack and Lizzie, the best pirates in the world, having amazing adventures while flirting like they did in DMC, at least they could have given us a sort of open ending, where she, Will and Jack all sail in their separate directions, knowing that their paths would cross in the future in any number of entertaining ways.  I’m never sure if I should blame the writers, the studio, or the actors, or all of the above, but I would have bought, like, ALL THE TICKETS to see those movies.

But, alas, that’s not what we got.  We got OST and DMTNT instead.  OST was quite forgettable, but DMTNT packed a pretty good punch and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.  I won’t say it totally redeemed the franchise for me, but it’s got its head above water for the first time since DMC, so that’s progress.

Should you see it?  Yeah, I think so.  If you enjoyed the precious PotC movies, or just like pirate movies in general, it’s a fun couple hours.  Just don’t think too hard about it afterward (like I did.)

[stacks-reviews]

New Releases 10/3/17

Happy New Release Day! 

In Books --The Name of the Wind 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition by Patrick Rothfuss “My name is Kvothe. I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that would make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me. So begins a tale unequaled in fantasy literature - the story of a hero told in his own voice. It is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man’s search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.”

This book more than likely did not require me to provide a description. But I just love the description so much that I just had to put it up. This is my current top favorite book. I really love it and I am very excited to see an anniversary edition for it. I have been wanting to retire my mass market paperback for a while. I did get to meet Pat at a book signing a few years back and got that copy signed, as well as my copy of The Wise Man’s Fear, and my hardcover of A Slow Regard of Silent Things. I’ve been wanting to retire these signed copies so that nothing happens to them so this anniversary edition is just what I’ve been waiting for. At least until I can meet him again and get this one signed.

This edition has a new cover by designer Paul Buckley and artist Sam Weber. I’m not crazy about the cover. I prefer the standard cover used now. I’m having some trouble trying to understand just what all the images represent in the story so that’s what is really making me not like it as much. There is also some never before seen illustrations by artist Dan Dos Santos. Nate Taylor created a updated and detailed map of the world. An appendix of the calendar system, the currencies, and a pronunciation guide was added. And Pat wrote a new author’s note for this edition.

As of this writing (around 10:30pm Monday) it has not arrived at any of the bookstores near me but I have seen where it it out at other locations. I’m hoping it will arrive near me sometime today. Then I guess I’ll have to plan a fourth (or maybe a fifth. I don’t remember) reread of it soon.

--Anime Supremacy! by Mizuki Tsujimura “Japanese animation - the globally acclaimed, family-friendly theatrical features are the exception rather than the rule for a TV-oriented industry that has been pushed into late-night slots in an era of fragmented audiences. When only three titles among fifty might turn a profit, topping the charts is hardly an overambitious aim. Yet as three women, a producer, a director, and an animator, survive in a business infamous for its murderous schedules, demoralizing compromises, and incorrigible men, moments of uplift emerge against all odds - and how. More than just a window into an entertainment niche, here’s a kickass ode to work.”

A new; though only volume, manga about the animation industry in Japan. It sounds like a good look into this industry and it follows three women as they try to make their way in an industry full of ‘incorrigible’ men. Which this might be the first manga to follow women in this industry. I’m not positive but I’m fairly sure most of the manga that has used this type of story has mainly followed men. I can think of maybe one or two that has some ladies but I can’t recall for sure.

--Assassination Classroom Volume 18 by Yusei Matsui “Nagisa and Karma travel to the International Space Station in hopes of learning the secret to saving Koro Sensei’s life. Meanwhile, Yanagisawa and the upstart Grim Reaper II train ever harder to assassinate him. Then, when academic setbacks lower the spirits of his students, Koro Sensei comes up with an ingenious - or perhaps idiotic - way to cheer them up. Next, Valentine’s Day arrives! Will any of the 3-E students or teachers find true love? And will the meddling and teasing of the others help or hinder Cupid’s arrow in finding its target...?”

I’m reading this volume right now. But in Volume 17 Nagisa and Karma faced off in their fight to determine if they should save or assassinate Koro Sensei. Nagisa won and they learned that information about Koro Sensei was on the ISS that could potentially help them save his life. It ended with Nagisa and Karma sneaking into a rocket prototype to retrieve said information. Which was handed over fairly easily in this volume. The part with Yanagisawa and the Grim Reaper were short which is for the best to keep us wondering what they will try to do to kill Koro Sensei. I last left off during the start of the Valentine’s Day chapters which I will finish sometime today.

--Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Illustrated Edition by J.K. Rowling and illustrated by Jim Kay Finally! I love the illustrations in these editions and just how full and how many are used in them. PoA is my favorite of this series, mainly because of this is when we are introduced to Sirius (my favorite) and Lupin.

Though as the rest of these are released I start to wonder how much longer they will be released as a single volume. At some point; either for money or for the binding of the books, they will probably be split into volumes. For my bookshelf’s well-being, I hope that is not the case but it could happen.

--The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli “In the beginning, there was the Namsara: the child of sky and spirit, who carried love and laugher wherever he went. But where there is light, there must be dark - and so there was also the Iskari. The child of blood and moonlight. The destroyer. The death bringer. These are the legends that Asha, daughter of the king of Firgaard, has grown up hearing in hushed whispers, drawn to the forbidden figures of the past. But it isn’t until she becomes the fiercest, most feared dragon slayer in the land that she takes on the role of the next Iskari - a lonely destiny that leaves her feeling more like a weapon than a girl. Asha conquers each dragon and brings its head to the king, but no kill can free her from the shackles that await her at home: her betrothal to the cruel commandant, a man who holds the truth about her nature in his palm. When she’s offered the chance to gain her freedom in exchange for the life of the most powerful dragon in Firgaard, she finds that there may be more truth to the ancient stories than she ever could have expected. With the help of a secret friend - a slave boy from her betrothed’s household - Asha must shed the layers of her Iskari bondage and open her heart to love, light, and a truth that has been kept from her.”

I have a few questions regarding this book. Mainly revolving around the Namsara since it isn’t mention again in the description except in the beginning. Is Asha’s betrothed the only one who knows that she is the Iskari? If so, is she being blackmailed into marrying him? My theory right now is that by killing all these dragons it makes her the Iskari but since light and dark are two sides of the same coin, she has the possibility to turn into the Namsara. Cause I expect the legends to end up saying that it was the same person.  It sounds like it could be pretty good. There’s dragons, fights with dragons (don’t kill dragons cause they are awesome), and the classic light vs dark. 

--The Water Dragon’s Bride Volume 3 by Rei Toma “Unable to return home, Asahi grows into a lovely young woman. As a priestess, she must spend time with the water dragon god for a ritual every year, but because of her connection to the water dragon god’s power, someone kidnaps her! Will Asahi be able to escape unscathed?”

Such a cute and still surprisingly dark series. The first two volumes were kind of dark because her best friends; Subaru, mother tried to have her killed a few times. And the water dragon god didn’t care if she lived or died. He only really intervened when the other gods started annoying him. 

This volume came out early where I live so I read it over the weekend. The volume was mostly about Asahi being kidnapped, then rescued by Subaru, which then started a war between her village and the one that kidnapped her. The water dragon god does sorta intervere and helps them out a little. But he slowly seems to be changing and might eventually develop feelings for Asahi. Which will interesting since Subaru obviously loves her and she him. Though she may not realize that herself yet. 

--Yona of the Dawn Volume 8 by Mizuho Kusanagi “Jaeha, the Green Dragon, joins Yona’s party after their harrowing adventure together in Awa. Now the group must find the Yellow Dragon - the last dragon from the prophecy that Ik-su told Yona! Meanwhile, Su-won visits Chishin Palace and tells General Geun-tae, chief of the Earth Tribe, that he should hold a mock battle and festival. But what could be the true intent behind Su-won’s proposition?”

I think the last volume I read was six. Seven never came in near where I live and I haven’t been able to order it. Last I read was Yona and Yoon got themselves onto the pirates boat so that they could try and send a signal for the others to attack the right boat. 

I can’t wait to see what the Yellow Dragon is like and I’m interested to see what this mock battle will be about.

In Movies --Revolutionary Girl Utena Set 1 (Blu-Ray) “‘Never lose that strength or nobility, even when you grow up.’ When Utena was just a child and in the depths of sorrow, she found salvation in those words. They were the words of a prince, who wrapped her in his rose-scented embrace and bestowed upon her both a ring and the promise that it would lead her to him again. She never forgot the encounter. In fact, she was so impressed that she aspired to like the prince and also help those in need. Now a spirited teenager, Utena attends the prestigious Ohtori Academy. However, her strong sense of chivalry soon places her at odds with the school’s student council and thrusts her into a series of mysterious and dangerous duels against its members.”

For the first time the hit anime is being released on blu-ray. I have only seen the series and the movie once. One of my friends can explain it a lot better than I can. The next time I watch it I will not be putting so much time in between each season. There is a lot of symbolism throughout the show so it can be easy to forget or miss something. It is a really good show and worth checking out. The manga of the same name (by Chiho Saito) that it was based on is also available in an awesome box set that was released by Shojo Beat. 

This set contains the first twelve episodes. Set two is not street dated until 11/7/17 but is now available on Rightstuf. Set three is set for 12/5/17, might also be out before that day but not at this moment of writing, and includes the movie. There is also a box set coming out on 12/5/17 that contains the complete series, the movie, a replica Rose Crest Ring, a replica Black Rose ring, and a 264 page art book with sliver foil numbering.

[onion-souls]

Dark Souls III: The Ringed City

Discussion of the Dark Souls III DLC after the break.

The Ringed City is the last bit of Dark Souls content ever until From Soft needs money in a decade. It takes you to the Dredge Heap, a conglomerate of ancient castles compressed together at World's End, different eras warped around each other and rising from a vertical plane in a very Inception-y way.

The first section of the game is a mad run across cliffs as angels blast you with artillery. This is the entire first few hours of this game of punishing medieval combat. Running from lasers shot at you by angels, just to reinforce the theme that God hates you. Eventually you do get to kill them, if you figure out their weakness - their synchronized maggot-men- and their hiding places. Though its requires some dumb luck or tight exploration while running from your life from angelic artillery strikes on narrow tree branches. It's as though you're Disney's Tarzan but also at the Battle of Verdun. This is the part of the game where fall damage is a thing again, right in time for skilled jumping puzzles. Yay.

The revelation that this section is in fact Earthen Peak from DSII sounds like a cool call back but really doesn't add anything to the experience other than a few windmill visuals and an encounter with a cute pyromancer girl. You get to pick up the outfit of one of her sorceress sisters, who, in a bit of environmental storytelling, must have slowly stripped across an entire swamp for the entertainment of headless giants and parasects. This is one of two swamps in the DLC: the swamp of the Ringed City, which doesn't cause poison build up, a series first, and this swamp, which does cause poison build up, a series 37th. I am rather baffled by this use of Earthen Peak, the only real callback to DSII in the DLC; it doesn't take advantage of some of Earthen Peaks' unique medusa boss or strange interior vs. exterior verticality. In a Dredge Heap composed of random castles smashed together, Drangleic Castle or the Iron Keep feel like a better choice, especially since the Harald Warriors look more like Drangelic Castle's golems and DSII-style giants.  In any case, at the end of this section is the barely recognizable remains of Dark Souls I's Firelink Shrine, inhabited by yet another Last of Demonkind, a pair of demons that are not particularly hard, which means that they are obviously going to pull some fusion dance bullshit when you kill them. They do, and Wall-Eye into what seems to be the Demon Prince that Prince Lorien fucked up.

Killing the Demon Prince leads you to the eponymous Ringed City, a crumbling ruin of desolate beauty with a welcoming crew of invincible ghost archers controlled by a giant summoner guy, like the fifth type of distinct giant race in the series. After an hour of running towards a small door beneath the summoner, I realized that I needed to jump off the side of the ring and go around the side. This DLC has a running theme of stealth, running, and evasion of enemies rather than direct confrontation that only really compares to the Nightmare of Mensis from Bloodborne or the Tower Knight's level.

This leads to the second swamp, a Floridian nightmare of giant summoners, powerful, headless giants, turtle-backed clerics, and locust-men evangelists. This latter group are the most interesting, a race of locusts with humanoid faces developed by the Abyss to teach humans the wonders and comforts of Darkness, often preaching sermons that obliquely reference characters from the previous games; one tale is clearly a distorted condemnation of the Darkmoon Knightess' fear of the humanity writhing within her. The vast majority of them seem to have degenerated into mindless maneaters, but that happens to pretty much every group in Souls games. This is the strongest hint yet that the Abyss has an intelligence or collection of intelligent operators behind its spread, rather than existing as a  mindless metaphysical presence or force of natural entropy and corruption.

The Ringed City, especially this section, just spits +3 Rings at you, which is cute, awesome, and totally undermines the NG+ rewards.

Outside of the swamp comes the original Souls game “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE” scene, a dragon flaming down a narrow passageway. Ah, good times. You then run into what might be part of the Catacombs from Dark Souls I, although that was already where you awoke at the beginning of DSIII. This part is fairly brief and easy, and you get to face the dragon again and knock him off the ledge. This does not reward souls, a warning sign for later.

Within a castle, there is an elevator with a small cubby hole that you can dive into in order to access an entire area and secret boss, a hilariously common trope in Dark Souls found literally nowhere else in human experience. Here is Deatheater Mildred or whatever, and he is yet another Definitely Final Last of the Dragons. He is basically the Ancient Dragon 2.0, and one of those bosses with enough RNG and HP involved that you eventually just get kind of sick of it; the best Dark Souls bosses are interesting and challenging, not repetitive slogs, hard for the sake of hard.

Eventually, you can make your way to another giant summoner who defends a lady name Feanore or whatever on behalf of a king. This is the Old Monk fight, and like the Old Monk fight, has a lot of bullshit added to make the experience awful, namely a souped-up painted world guardian who spawns periodically. Why is this the DLC with the painted world guardian and not the Painted World DLC? Fuck you. After six to twelve times getting lag-stabbed by a 12-year-old sociopath named VegitaCumies88, you get to encounter a sad waifu holding an egg, in what might be a reference to the shape of the Transposing Kiln or to the movie Angel's Egg. Feanore here is Yet Another Last of the Gods, Gwyn's daughter. And yes, Gwyn had a daughter whose fate is now permanently unknown, and was a beautiful tall lady tied to illusions maintaining a world, but whatever, here's a new chick for no reasons. But anyway, you put your hand in the big lady's hole and she, and the world she was sustaining, decay away.

The area outside her keep is now at ground level, and lone and level sands stretching far away. In one corner, you may get invaded by a lady named Sheila or whatever, a knightess who claims to have been the daughter of the Duke and apparently a friend of Darkeater, showing that after the success of Crossbreed Priscilla, the dragons wasted aeons producing nothing but Worst Girls. Looking at you, Shannalotte. Worst Girl Shiela tries to make us feel bad about destroying the Ringed City, but considering that the nicest person you met in the city was a maneating locust preacher, its hard to feel to bent out of shape about it. She comes at you with a cool lightning bow miracle that probably sucks in PC hands like everything and a bludgeoning weapon that is AN ANCIENT, STILL-LIVING PYGMY KING NAILED TO A CROSS. Fucking metal.

The Duke here is almost certainly Seathe the Scaleless (I mean, the Duke Tseldora had nothing to do with the Age of the Gods). I feel like all these individuals with direct ties to the Age of the Gods from DSI undermines the theme of loss, decay, and forgetfulness. I actually prefer DSII's loss of much of human history, with most nations being fogotten. It made it all sadder.

Then you wander over to the other corner of the desert and it's our friend Gael, the entry point and summons from Ashes of Ariandel. Kind of a cool revelation, but it really would have worked better if he was a character in the base game. Gael, at this point, still works; it just lacks the resonance of, say, if it had been someone you worked with on the scale of Hawkwood or Siegward. Gael belongs to the standard twirly big armored guy boss style, with a bit too much bullshit damage to feel particularly fun; this has been a big problem with Dark Souls III design for me. They increased the speed and aggression of bosses, more in line with Bloodborne, but did not give the PCs the agility of the Good Hunter to react with it. I do like that he is the ultimate Guts reference in the series, with the big sword, swirly Berserk armor cape, and the stunning crossbow volleys.

Speaking of character revelations, Lapp's questline is fun, has a great twist that works – even if it is predictable given the voice actor and his lines- and ties up the series pretty well. It might not make sense to some people given a character present in the main game, but time is convoluted ect. Too bad it relies on a really strange bit of adventure-game logic unseen in the Dark Souls series. It was cute.

All in all, the Ringed City was a decent bit of DLC. It had multiple bosses, interesting locations, and at least felt like it was contributing something to DSIII's story – namely, the weird idea that the Dark Soul is still intact in the bottom of a Ring City ruled by “Pygmy Kings.” It's a shame that we never really get to interact with any of them other than a single crawling hollow.

However, Dark Souls III's expansions do not have the essential quality to them that all other Souls Series expansions do; Artorias of the Abyss and the Old Hunters are both key to understanding their main games, have beautiful scenery, and a disproportionate share of the interesting bosses of their titles (and, in the case of the Old Hunters, some much needed weapon options). Hell, in terms of design legacy, Artorias and Manus may be the single most influential bosses in the series. Dark Souls III's Crown Trilogy was not only staggeringly large, these entries were far better than the base game in every respect, from level design to memorable moments (falling into the Old Chaos after trudging through hours of ice and snow; the Brume Tower's eerie, whispering fragments of their Queen; the arrival of Sinh). Even thematically, the Crown's Trilogy's emphasis on lost monarchies, corrupting queens, and time travel through Drangleic's past handled the themes of DSII in a way that the main game completely botched; if I could remix the game, I'd start with the early quest to mercy killing King Vendrick before talking to his spectre and traveling into the past to collect the crowns; the only thing I would tweak is the difficulty scale. That's far more interesting than re-finding the lord souls and killing less cool versions of Nito, Gwyn, and Seathe (though I have to admit that the Lost Bastille was awesome – a prison for one repentant individual is such a cool idea, and I like that it's just one old lady with a sword).

In light of that, the Ashes of Ariandel and the Ringed City are found wanting. Their bosses probably won't linger on in memory for anything other than their frustrating difficulty; it's hard to find a justification for Friede's anime power-ups that make her surpass gods and ancient warriors in lasting power. She just kind of becomes a Lord of Cinder and an Abyss Champion because she's the final boss of the DLC. The other boss from Ashes, which I can't even remember the name of, was so uninteresting that I stopped going after him; he's just another armor and sword guy with a shitty Sif. The bosses that do work are also retreads – Ornstein & Smough Demons, Scythe Ornstein and Crough, the Old Monk II: Even Older, and Super-Artorias Gael. I don't feel like this content is essential to understanding the main game's story either; what we experience here is essentially the Tale of Gael. And it is cool; I like Gael the Slave Knight, compelled to sacrifice his sanity to help his Lady Painter recreate their world. And this would have felt like a great part of Dark Souls lore, but not its conclusion. There are a lot of mysteries and bits of lore still left unexplored, so this felt like a minor let down.