#i mean i believe a few of the rescue bots games are about rescue shit and not fighting

[transingthoseformers]

Saw that post about Transformer games and then it hit me: Animal Crossing but make it Transformers. You are a regular Transformer given an assignment by Optimus Prime to rebuild this small city. You need to build a general store, a city hall, a museum, clinic, a library, a cafe, a post office, a shrine to the 13 Primes, and a few houses to gain some new neighbors. Oh yeah, and the neighbors are from a lot of different continuities and alliances, from Maximals to Predacons to Decepticons to Autobots, etc. Sometimes you'll have to make furniture to bring in new Transformers to your town, ie maybe you make a terrarium for Botanica or a chainsaw for Pharma or a DJ turn table for Soundwave. The different buildings you create will be staffed by certain Transformers: Ratchet takes over the clinic of course, Codexa takes over the library, etc. Every week or so you get a visitor to the island selling wares, like Swindle coming over with computer parts, or Thundercracker coming over with books you can give to the library. You can add in plants and mechanimals, even get a pet and celebrate different holidays (decorate your town for Halloween and Christmas, etc). Some of the Transformers will give you errands to complete, the cafe will ask you for ingredients and energon goodie recipes, the museum will ask for specimens and art and sometimes human artefacts, and the shrine will ask for some upkeep now and again.

Just something I thought up of, I'm generally intrigued why this isn't a thing but I guess Transformer video games got to be about war and fighting. Maybe it would be nice to just set up a town and exchange recipes with a Transformer barista and raise a few sheepitron.

You

You get it

I've never played Animal Crossing, but I've seen enough on it to know what you mean

Yes

Exactly exactly on the continuity mixing and having mecha of all faction and rank.

While writing the first post I distinctly got the image of a very grumpy Megatron wandering into town. Him grumbling about how he's not so sure about all of this, but after a few quests and building his respective area he stays in your town

Yes

Exactly

Yes

You get what I mean

Just the soft and sweet addition after addition, the rebuilding and seeing so many different characters who were on opposite sides being neighbors.

[mst3kproject]

SHORT: Undersea Kingdom

My previous experiences with serials on this blog have not been good. If I watch them all in one sitting they’re boring, and if I watch them one installment at a time I forget what happened.  I was therefore kind of dreading Undersea Kingdom, and I decided that if this was my last chance to watch the edited-down ‘movie’ version, I was going to take it.  Well, guess what?  I can’t find the edited-down ‘movie’ version! So here I am, tackling the whole twelve-part series.  Again.

An opening montage introduces us to Ray ‘Crash’ Corrigan, the finest specimen of white manhood ever to enlist in the US Navy.  He is invited to join an expedition let by Professor Norton in his extremely roomy bubble-powered Rocket Submarine, to make contact with the lost city of Atlantis.  Also along for the ride are Norton’s son Billy, Briny and Salty the obnoxious comic-relief sailors, Diana the reporter, and Sinbad the parrot.  They arrive to find that all is not well at the bottom of the sea.  Sharad, who is like the Pope of Atlantis or something, is engaged in an ongoing war with the tyrant Unga Khan, who wants to take over the city and then destroy the upper world with earthquakes so he can rule that, too!  You can tell the difference between the two sides because Sharad’s guys wear white capes and Unga Khan’s wear black ones and are assisted by their old allies, the Neptune Men.

I mean, obviously a city at the bottom of the ocean has ties with the Neptune Men.  Right? Right?

So after all the time I spent dreading this short, how much of an ordeal was it?  Well… I watched it over the course of two days, and honestly?  I kind of enjoyed it.  Undersea Kingdom is pure low-budget cheese, but it somehow feels like low-budget cheese people cared about.  Somebody was truly excited to tell this story, rather than just slotting themed setpieces into a formula.  The ending lost me, but the rest really wasn’t awful.

Literally everything that happens in Undersea Kingdom is ridiculous.  As Joel and the bots pointed out, the costumes are truly epic.  Sharad wears a cross between a crown and a chef’s hat, with big fake plastic jewels on it.  Unga Khan’s troops wear miniskirts and lightning bolts on their heads – his chief honcho, Hakkor, is played by Lon Chaney Jr, unusually sober and unsure what the hell he’s doing here.  Unga Khan himself wears Genghis' pajamas, and Billy goes around in his little sailor suits with a shirt that keeps changing colour from scene to scene.

The Most Ridiculous Costume Award, however, has to go to Crash Corrigan himself.  After saving Sharad’s life he is rewarded with command of the Whitecape army, and spends the rest of the serial in a scaly golden diaper, gladiator sandals, and a helmet that looks like it belonged to a Spartan who dressed as a chicken for Hallowe’en.  I love it.

The plot, as is usual for a serial like this, is a nigh-endless series of narrow escapes, breathless chases, near-disasters, and Corrigan doing the one wrestling move he knows, which is picking a guy up over his shoulders and throwing him into a few other guys.  People keep saying things like “that’s the end of Crash Corrigan!” and “there’s no chance anyone survived that explosion!” when they really ought to know better.  In Radar Men from the Moon and The Phantom Creeps this stuff was pretty tiresome, as it felt like the plot was just wandering around without ever really escalating.  In Undersea Kingdom, however, stuff actually happens and even has long-term consequences!

There’s an early scene where it looks as if we’re just going to get more of the repetitive shit, as Crash arrives in the nick of time to save Professor Norton from Unga Khan’s brainwashing machine – in the very next episode, Norton is recaptured and brainwashed anyway.  This made me groan, because I was expecting it to go on like The Phantom Creeps’ endless game of Capture the Meteor.  Instead, though, it actually moves the plot forward – the rest of the story ended up being about trying to rescue Norton, who didn’t want to be rescued because he’d been brainwashed!  Although it did make me wonder why Unga Khan didn’t just put Corrigan in the brainwashing chamber… he had several oppotunities to do so.

While Radar Men from the Moon and The Phantom Creeps made liberal use of stock footage from both newsreels and previous serials, I think almost everything that appears in Undersea Kingdom was actually shot for it.  The only notable exceptions are some of the sports sequences in the first episode and the sea battle in the last.  Even better, it completely lacks the boring recap episode both of those felt they had to shove in before the climax!  Some of the footage, like the shots of dozens of horsemen riding forth from Unga Khan’s underground fortress, is used repeatedly, but you probably wouldn’t notice that if you were watching it week-by-week.  Oddly, the horses are the only animals we ever see in Atlantis.  I wonder what the people there eat.

I was not looking forward to the episodes being peppered with the ‘hilarious’ ‘antics’ of Briny, Salty, and Sinbad, but to my surprise, they were barely in it.  They get captured in the second episode and are completely forgotten about until something like the sixth, where we find them working in an Atlantean boulder mine and ‘comedically’ trying to escape.  They must have managed it somehow because they reappear on the submarine at the end, but I think I missed how they did it.   Maybe they were so annoying and unfunny that the majority of their scenes were cut.

None of this, of course, is to say that the serial is in any way really good.  The costumes are ridiculous, the plot is dumb, and the whole thing is full of gaping holes in the logic, especially where the Atlantean technology is concerned. Unga Khan is able to spy on both Sharad and the Upper World through some kind of Atlantean CCTV, but it only shows him what the plot requires.  The Neptune Men have ray guns but can’t hit anything.  Unga Khan has a dirigible thing that would have been really useful during the siege scenes but never appears in them.  And this applies to the low technology as much as the high kind – all the Atlanteans carry swords and nobody ever stabs anyone.

The weirdest moment is the bit where Corrigan just straight up becomes Hercules and bends prison bars to get through.  He even bends them back afterwards, and his pursuers are astonished to find themselves unable to replicate the feat.  Why is he able to do that?  Does knowing one wrestling move and being able to walk a tightrope (which he does twice to get into or out of a place) grant superhuman strength?

Having been made in the 1930’s, the whole thing is kinda racist and deeply sexist.  The racism is pretty mild as these things go – everybody’s white but Unga Khan is made up to look kind of Fu-Manchu-ish because he’s the Bad Guy.  The sexism, on the other hand, is pervasive and sometimes puzzling.  Everybody refers to Diana, played by twenty-nine-year-old Lois Wilde, as a ‘girl’, even the title cards, but at least she does get to do one useful thing by telling Sharad that Unga Khan is plotting to invade the surface world. Thing is, Diana is the only female character.  In the whole serial I think I saw one Atlantean woman and she never spoke.  How do you survive in isolation for six thousand years with no women?

I guess it doesn’t matter, since Atlantis wasn’t fated to last any longer.  In the second-last episode, Unga Khan’s tower blasts off for the surface, piercing the roof of Atlantis and letting the ocean in.  Our heroes escape to the submarine in time to avoid being drowned, but what about, like, everybody else?  I think we’re meant to believe that a substantial number of the remaining Atlanteans were killed when Unga Khan bombed the rebel stronghold, but that can’t have been the whole population, can it?  Somebody’s gotta be providing food for everybody… there must be farmers and ranchers around, even if we never met them.  What happened to them?  An entire civilization was just destroyed, and nobody seems to care except me!

The most annoying thing about this is that I think the reason it was written that way was so Crash Corrigan could have a happy ending!  When Sharad made him commander, he made Corrigan responsible for the safety of the Atlantean people.  If Atlantis hadn’t been flooded, or if anyone had survived, Corrigan would have had to stay and help them.  In particular there’s Corrigan’s Atlantean BFF Molock, who owes him a life debt and pledges to follow him until he’s repaid it.  If he lived Corrigan would be stuck with him. With the whole place destroyed, our hero is free to return to his naval career with no hitches.

Well, there’s one hitch. At the end Corrigan and Diana get married – despite having spent almost no time together over the course of the story. I guess they live happily ever after or something.  I mostly enjoyed Undersea Kingdom, but the way it offhandedly killed all the Atlanteans so there wouldn’t be any consequences pissed me off enough that I refuse to recommend it.

[ask-the-phan-site]

The Motherlode of Greed

>It’s time.

We’re off now.

I’m so lookin’ forward to this!

So am I. My first Phantom Thief heist.

And ours.

Okay, then we’re ready.

>Mona becomes our van and Blurr transforms.

>We drive off to take the heart of Madeline Pynch.

>Pynch Manor. Madeline Pynch was looking at the calling card we sent her. Her daughter, Priscilla, comes in.

You don’t seriously believe that your heart is going to be taken, do you?

Of course not. However I do not wish to end up like Masayoshi Shido. No matter, there’s no chance they can get passed the mansion security system.

Priscilla: I can get that.

>So, Priscilla goes to bed.

?????: Then you might want to get a refund on that system.

Madeline: ...

>A red wave passes over the scene. When it’s over, Madeline’s study was replaced with the vault. And Madeline’s outfit had changed to that of something out of an old Chinese femme fetale movie. And her eyes... were gold colored.

Shadow Madeline: Yes. I guess finding help is hard these days.

>We came in through the vault door.

Joker: It just depends on how you see them.

Your terrible way of controlling things end today, Madeline Pynch.

We won’t let you continue doing cruel things just for money.

Shadow Madeline: And what’s wrong with that? I’m just a mother trying to do everything for her daughter.

By turning her into a spoiled brat who only looks down on others!? That’s not very motherly, is it?

Any real parent would teach their children right from wrong. What you’re doing is just no different than brainwashing.

I know money is necessary, but it’s not everything.

... What he said!

Shadow Madeline: Heh! What do you know? In this game, if you don’t push the other players aside, you will just lose to them.

Noir: I know this game from my father...

But the fun of it leaves the moment you do treat it as a game.

Mona: Business like yours should be used for the happiness of others. Not just your own.

Skull: That’s right. And that’s why we’re here.

Blurr: To show you that you did a lot of bad things to get the Phantom Thieves’ attention.

Slice: Me and my brother can’t just sit back and let you do this. Even we have standards.

Joker: Now, no matter what you do...

We will take your heart!

Shadow Madeline: No matter, you say? Well then... I guess that means I don’t have to hold on this.

>She snaps her fingers and two giant robots come down on us.

Intruders detected. Now engaging in battle mode.

Are those...

Blurr: MorBots. Heatwave and the others told me about them. If they’re in this fight, we better not hold back.

Oracle: Right. I guess that means we may have to go Ultimate.

>Oracle goes Ultimate.

Oracle: PERSONA!

Oracle: Fuuka senpai, can you hear me!?

Fuuka’s voice: I hear you loud and clear. I’m ready to help you. Persona!

>The two Personas scan the enemies.

Oracle: I don’t see any weaknesses for Pynch. But the two MorBots are weak to Electricity and Bless Skills.

Skull: That’s our cue, Crow!

Crow: I’m with you all the way!

Queen: As will I. If they get Shocked, you’ll need my Nuclear Skills.

>Skull, Crow, and Queen go Ultimate.

Skull, Crow, and Queen: PERSONA!

>I change Personas.

Joker: Persona!

(Insert song: Nothing is Promised)

>Seiten Taisei uses Matarukaja, Loki uses Debilitate on Shadow Madeline, Anat uses Marakukaja, and I use Idaten Ofuda. MorBot 1 uses Triple Down. MorBot 2 uses Freila on me. Shadow Madeline uses Dekunda to undo Loki’s Debilitate. Seiten Taisei uses Ziodyne on MorBot 1. It knocks it down, but it recoils. Skull passes the baton to Crow and Loki uses Kougaon on MorBot 2. It knocks it down. Then, Loki uses Brave Blade on Shadow Madeline. It was a critical hit.

Crow: Let’s scatter!

>After the attack, the MorBots and Shadow Madeline were still up. Anat uses Vajra Blast. No one got Dizzy, but we’ve learned that the MorBots can resist Physical attacks. Thor uses Ziodyne on MorBot 1. But he dodges it with Dodge Elec. MorBot 1 uses Hysterical Slap on Queen. She is Enraged. MorBot 2 uses Triple Down. Shadow Madeline uses Marin Karin on Crow. He is Brainwashed.

Skull: Hey, snap outta it!

>Skull uses Harisen Recovery on Crow. He snaps back to reality.

Crow: Thanks. I let my guard down.

Skull: Think nothin’. I can happen to anyone.

>Seiten Taisei uses Charge. Loki uses Kougaon on MorBot 1. It knocks it down. He passes the baton to Skull and Seiten Taisei uses Ziodyne on MorBot 2. It knocks it down, but it recoils. Then, Seiten Taisei uses Megaton Raid on Shadow Madeline. Queen, still infected with Rage, attacks Shadow Madeline. But she just dodges it. I use Relax Gel on Queen which cures her of the Rage. MorBot 1 gets back up and just attacks Skull. MorBot 2 also gets back up and uses Freila on me. Shadow Madeline uses Psiodyne on Queen. It knocks her down. She uses Psiodyne on me as well and I am also knocked down. Then, she uses Heat Riser on herself. Seiten Taisei uses Matarukaja. Loki uses Kougaon on MorBot 1. It knocks it down. He passes the baton to Crow and Seiten Taisei uses Ziodyne on MorBot 2. It knocks it down. Seiten Taisei uses Megaton Raid on Shadow Madeline. She dodges it. Queen gets back up and Anat uses Marakukaja. I get back up and Thor uses Megaton Raid on Shadow Madeline. It was a critical hit.

Joker: We’re off!

>After the attack, the MorBots and Shadow Madeline were still up, but slightly weaker.

Shadow Madeline: I refuse to go out like this. MorBots, protect me!

>MorBot 1 uses Tetrakarn on Shadow Madeline and MorBot 2 uses Makarakarn on her as well. Then, she uses Diarahan on herself. Seiten Taisei uses Maziodyne. Both MorBots were knocked down, but the Makarakarn spell reflected the attack off of Shadow Madeline and back at Skull. He became Shocked. Crow uses a Discharge Crystal on Skull and cure him of the Shock.

Oracle: I’ll do something about this!

Fuuka: I’ll do my best, too!

>Prometheus greatly restores some of our SP and Juno uses Prayer, which is similar to Mediarahan, on us. Anat uses Mafraidyne. Now the MorBots were really weak. Thor uses Maziodyne. The MorBots were finally defeated and Shadow Madeline was Shocked. She couldn’t move on her turn. Seiten Taisei uses Charge, Loki uses Laevatein, Anat uses Atomic Flare (which is a technical hit because of the Shock), and Thor uses Megaton Raid. But the Tetrakarn spell reflects it. Luckily, Thor helped me resist it. Shadow Madeline recovers.

Shadow Madeline: I worked hard to get where I am. I had to do a lot from bottom to top. What’s wrong with getting something out of it?

Queen: It’s wrong if you hurt other people just to get it!

Shadow Madeline: No one said getting what you want would be easy. You have to make a few sacrifices along the way.

Crow: Including your own daughter!?

Shadow Madeline: That little brat means more to me than money. Almost everything I’ve done, I’ve done for her. If you can’t accept that... Then die where you stand!

>Shadow Madeline uses Mamudoon. It got Crow and it was an instant kill.

Skull: (really angrey) You’ll pay for that, you damn bitch! (begins dissociating)

Joker and Oracle: !?

Overflow: DRAWN IN WATERY GRAVE!

Oracle: Skull, no! Overflow’s taking you!

>Too late. Overflow uses his water gun. But she dodges it. Skull comes back to his senses.

Skull: (shocked) Oh shit! I let Overflow take my turn!

Overflow’s voice in Skull’s head: Me sorry. Me didn’t want to see Skull’s best friend get hurt like that.

Seiten Taisei: It is alright, Overflow. If anything... My User can be the same thing.

Skull: (offended) Hey!

Seiten Taisei: In a good way. But do not worry. Because now it is the time... The time for new power.

>Seiten Taisei glows along with Skull.

Skull: (surprised) This... This is...

Seiten Taisei: This power has been given based on something ATLUS just recently showed. Now is the time to use it.

Skull: (with newfound determination) Alright, then let’s do it, Seiten Taisei!

>To our shock and amazement, Seiten Taisei... uses Recarm to revive Crow.

Crow: H- How?

Oracle: Did Skull just revive Crow... Without an item!? I know ATLUS said that Persona 5 Royal would have a lot of changes from the original game, but I wasn’t expecting this.

Skull: Well you better get used to this... This is the new and improved Ryuji Sakamoto!

Crow: Glad to hear it. Now, let’s finish this!

Fuuka’s voice: It’s going to be hard. She can just heal herself like she did last time. If we want a true critical hit, someone is going to have to do it.

Blurr: I’ll do it. I’m the fastest. She’ll never see it coming... Get it?

Oracle: Focus here.

Fuuka’s voice: Just keep her busy while Blurr gets ready.

>Loki uses Brave Blade, Anat uses Diarahan to heal Crow, and Thor uses Megaton Raid. Shadow Madeline uses Psiodyne on me. I dodge it.

Blurr: (whisper) Here I go! Wish me luck.

>Blurr speeds his way to the back of the vault room. Seiten Taisei uses Charge. Loki uses Kougaon. Anat uses Freidyne. I change Personas.

Joker: Persona!

>Nebiros uses Eigaon. Shadow Madeline uses Marin Karin on Crow.

Blurr: (whisper) That’s right, keep it up.

>Blurr changes to vehicle mode. Seiten Taisei uses God’s Hand, Loki uses Kougaon, Anat uses Freidyne, and Nebiros uses Eigaon. Shadow Madeline uses Psiodyne on Queen. Luckily, she dodges it with Evade Psy.

Shadow Madeline: It doesn’t matter how long you attack me. I’ll just heal myself up again from the beginning... And why are you looking at me like that?

Blurr: Because they’re looking at me!

>Shadow Madeline turns to see Blurr driving up to her at high speed. Then, he transforms as he leaps up with a glowing hammer.

Blurr: POWER UP AND ENERGIZE!

>The hammer becomes charged with energy (which the Rescue Bots call Energon Tools) and strikes at Shadow Madeline. It knocks her down.

Blurr: Now’s your chance!

Skull: Alright! Let’s tear ‘em apart!

>After the attack, Shadow Madeline was still up, but now really weak.

Shadow Madeline: What... I can’t... Let this happen...

Skull: Hate to break it to ya, lady, but you’re not in change of the situation anymore. Crow, ready to do this?

Crow: I’m with you all the way, Skull!

>Skull and Crow use their Fusion Move, Holy Lightning. With that, Shadow Madeline was finished. A vault behind her opens.

Mona: The Treasure’s right there! Let’s take it!

>I go to the vault and take out a gold frame portrait of her daughter, Priscilla, and a man who I can only assume is her husband.

Noir: I see. She really does care more for her daughter than money.

Shadow Madeline: I had a hard life before moving to Griffin Rock. My father was poor inventor and my mother left us for another. I had to work many jobs just to keep us alive. In the end, it finally paid off then I met Philip Pynch. He was the son of one of Griffin Rock’s most wealthiest families. When we met, we knew we were meant to be. Not too long after, we were married. Then, we had Priscilla. Our lives were perfect. There was just one problem, though... The Pynches were far too nice and generous. Whenever there’s a charity event, they always give their money to it. Whenever there's a big project they’re starting, they do it not for the profit, but out of the goodness of their own hearts. Those fools only cared about others than they did themselves. I started to fear for myself and my dear daughter. So, after his parents retired, I decided that... Philip needed to retire, too.

So you got rid of him.

Shadow Madeline: You make it sound like I killed him... I actually hired someone to do it for me. I don’t remember the assassin's name, actually, I never bothered to learn it. But how can I forget the way he looked. That red and black costume, those swords and guns... How he kept pointing out that we are in a cartoon.

Red and black costume? Lots of weapons? Breaking the fourth wall? That sounds like...

It doesn’t matter! If you hired an assassin to kill, you might as well be doing it yourself!

Queen: You won’t get away with this. You better be ready for the consequences.

Noir: I know you just wanted what was best for your daughter. But you were going about it all wrong.

Shadow Madeline: ...

Joker: Please, Mrs. Pynch. Don’t let your daughter to grow to be put behind bars like you were...

Don’t let her become the monster everyone thinks you are and let her grow up alone.

Shadow Madeline: ... Very well. I know when I’m beaten. I’ll change... For my daughter’s sake.

>With that, the Shadow leaves for her true self.

Skull: Hey, Oracle, are they’re any leftover treasure chests or secrets here?

Oracle: No. That’s all of them. We won’t be needing Slice and Dice’s ability this time.

Slice: That’s probably for the best. I don’t think I want to come back here again.

Dice: Or me.

>So, with that in mind, we leave and wait for the change of heart.