Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: V Generation (Vita)

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: V Generation is a remake of the third game in the series, Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, for the PlayStation Vita. If you have played the previous two Re;Birth games, everything about this game feels very similar and too familiar. Thus it can be a bit boring to play through as there are no major changes. The graphics have remained the same and are still fairly decent. The story is told in a visual novel format with portraits and a lot of text with the occasional 3D cutscene. The map has been revamped with each nation having their own smaller 2D map to select destinations, with a bigger world map.

Despite the story trying to go in a different direction, it feels like a retread of the first two games at times. Time has passed since the events of the second game, and Neptune has become complacent in her role as CPU again. Nepgear does a bit of work but all of them are lazy, doing the bare minimum, if that. As a result, when they are forced to do some actual CPU related thing, Neptune ends up being sucked into an alternate dimension and kind of have to start again. She meets the alternate universe’s Noire, as well as the new character Plutia.

The villain organisation Seven Sages provides the antagonists for this game, and are the various major bosses. They sow chaos wherever they go and do not want the various nations to be on friendly terms and ally with each other. As a result, the various nations and their CPUs aren’t friends yet, and with Neptune’s appearance (and her knowledge from her own world), she sets about travelling and meeting them all.

The story is not too bad as far as the series goes, but it doesn’t feel terribly coherent. It seemed like the game leans very heavily on breaking the fourth wall now, with a lot of references and snarkiness. As a result, it can feel like an endless onslaught of those things, rather than telling an engaging story. The end result is that we have Neptunia blundering away in this alternate dimension and tackling the new threat, while meeting all the alternate version of familiar characters. Even the true ending can feel rushed and underwhelming.

The gameplay loop is not great. It is constantly broken by the abundance of cutscenes, which can be tiring when it seems never-ending. It’s made worse if you end up downloading the free DLC which adds additional playable characters and cutscenes, bloating the game even more. However, there is a massive improvement in terms of the humor with the characters constantly breaking the fourth wall. They know that they are in a game and they take this opportunity to make some hilarious commentary on typical RPG tropes.

The combat system is turn based with three types of attacks. Rush emphasizes number of hits (and SP recovery), Power emphasizes attack power (and damage), and Break emphases guard damage. All enemies have a HP bar and Guard bar, with the Guard bar acting like a defence of sort. If you deplete the Guard bar, the enemy is much more vulnerable to HP damage. While using special attacks will deplete SP, it is also tied to the EXE attacks, which are basically super moves. This can make easier or harder than previous games depending on how you approach it.

You assign different attacks to the three attack types, and you can combo together a string of attacks each turn. Positioning is also important as you can walk behind the enemy, dealing more damage when attacking from behind, or hit two enemies at once. All CPUs can also transform to their HDD forms which are stronger and faster. Later on, once you get your full party, selecting the four characters in your active party is important as you can do combination EXE moves, which deals significant damage. After having character faint in battle, you can swap them over to one they are paired up to in reserve.

Unfortunately, there are significant difficulty spikes which feels even harsher than normal. It’s probably partly due to the chapters being really short otherwise. You’ll crush normal enemies easily but then bosses can one shot you randomly, takes little damage and are generally unfair or annoying so you must grind. It’s uneven like this, which ruins the game quite a bit, especially if you are wanting to get the three endings (Normal, Good and True) in an efficient way.

Dungeons are repetitive as a lot of them reuse the same layouts and environments from previous games. These then repeat again and again within this game. The same goes for the enemy designs and the overall gameplay flow. It’s not to the point of being unforgiveable, it’s just that we have seen all of these before which does put a damper on things. There’s only so many times you can run through the same layout with the same skin five times before you think enough is enough.

The story is not too long to complete, taking only around 20 to 30 hours to get to the true ending, depending on you go about your way. You can easily rush through it in under 20 hours though, even for getting all three endings in your run. There are a number of postgame things to do, but it mostly involves grinding. Unfortunately, the difficulty spikes up even more during the postgame story content, so you are forced to grind for more levels and especially better equipment.

Overall, Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: V Generation is more of the same from the previous two Re;Birth games, but perhaps with an extra high dose of referential humor. The combat system is solid, if bland and unremarkable, although the changes to the EXE attacks makes battles slightly harder. So while this is the definitive version of the game with plenty of quality-of-life improvements, the difficulty spikes and the uneven delivery of the chunks of story text do drag down the game.

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The Flowers of Evil (2013)

The Flowers of Evil, also known as Aku no Hana, is a thirteen episode anime based on the manga. The first thing that you’d notice and this is something the anime received a lot of criticism for, is the animation. It uses a technique called rotoscoping and it is really noticeably bad. The issue is not the actual technique itself since the backgrounds are okay; it’s the lazy character animations. Not only do the characters lack detail, but their proportions and aesthetics are absolutely horrible, and this is extremely distracting even though it is tracing real life actors. You can slowly get used to it but the way the characters smile is still really uncanny.

The anime has a slow beginning, and it takes a while before the plot kind of falls into place. It follows Kasuga, a middle school student in a small town. He has a crush on Saeki, and due to his panic in a spur of the moment type of thing, he makes a terrible mistake. As a result, he needs to keep it a secret from everyone in the class but unfortunately for him, the class weirdo Nakamura witnessed it and blackmails him into spending time with her.

A lot of time is spent on Kasuga being tormented by his guilty conscience on what he has done, so the plot doesn’t seem to progress for a while. Through it all, he keeps referencing the book he is currently reading, “The Flowers of Evil”, which you can gather has a dark subject matter. The anime actually has a creepy atmosphere since in part it’s a psychological thriller. The “ending theme”, if it can be called that, can really get under your skin and is the stuff of nightmares.

Despite Kasuga trying to move on from his mistake, the key plot point is how Nakamura constantly blackmails him. The things that Nakamura does are extremely cruel and mentally damaging. We don’t know why Nakamura does this except that she has a vice grip on Kasuga, and just finds it fun to see him suffer. Until we under Nakamura more, and the reasons behind the things that she does, it is confusing and messy.

The plot is very dark and twisted, to the point of being demented. It’s like it is trying to warp Kasuga in a horrible way. Kasuga keeps finding himself in terrible situations that are forced upon him. However, you can’t help but think whether Kasuga is reacting to his predicament in the best way. This is because you might think up of several other ways he could have had approached things and maybe he wouldn’t be in the hole he dug himself in. He seems to be easily coerced by Nakamura, despite her reputation not being the best so maybe Kasuga could have had a chance to refute her if she really goes through with her threat to reveal what he did to everything.

The plot itself is slow paced, and it seems to fill in time by spending more time than expected lingering in scenes. For example, there is a static shot and the characters are slowly walking from one end to another, or it loops the same movements for a while. It tries to hide it via setting the style of the anime to be like this, but it’s still noticeable and not in a great way.

It’s not only Kasuga and Nakamura that’s weird, since Saeki is as well. It’s not apparent at first, but eventually, you’ll find her actions to be somewhat irrational at times. Despite all the red flags, she still yet seems to accept everything. Naturally, she ends up being involved in the mess. The anime centers on the trio, and this isn’t really a romance anime either, so all the characters’ actions can be twisted and foolish.

One thing you need to take into account is not to bother expecting the anime to get better. It’s pretty good at setting the tone and quality right from the beginning, so if you didn’t like it then, nothing later on will change your mind. The second half of the season has a heavy reliance on flashing back to scenes in earlier episodes. Therefore it can feel repetitive as if the anime is filling up time. The ending stops in the middle of the plot and so couldn’t wrap things up, worse is it felt as if it stopped just before some interesting events. This is unfortunately a side effect of adapting the manga before it had finished.

Overall, stripping away the controversial method of the animation, The Flowers of Evil had a dubious story in the first place. It sets out to tell a weird and perverse story, and it succeeded. However, in the process it can go too far and alienates certain viewers, leaving behind a confusing, messy and boring story. The end result is a rather bland and incomprehensible sequence of events, with characters that aren’t relatable or too likable.

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Toy Review: Jurassic Park x Transformers Collaborative JP93

Review:  #709

Name:  JP93

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Jurassic Park x Transformers Collaborative

Year of Release:  2021

Size Class:  Deluxe

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

A collaboration with Jurassic Park, JP93 transforms into the Ford Explorer from the first film and yes, it is definitely iconic and instantly recognizable.

This is an awesome vehicle mode and well painted.  It looks spot on with no corners cut.

JP93 is roughly Deluxe sized, although he is fairly hollow underneath the shell of the vehicle.  Above is a comparison with TLK Bumblebee.

The robot gun can store underneath or peg on top of the roof.

As mentioned, he has plenty of details which match his onscreen appearance, from the logos on the hood and sides, to the rear sculpting of the model name, it's quite impressive.

By himself, there's barely any play value apart from rolling him on a flat surface, but combined with Tyrannocon Rex, and that's plenty enough.

TRANSFORMATION:

Unlike previous Collaboration figures, JP93 is a unique brand new mold (or at least appears to be).  However, this is a very simple figure though.  The hood folds down to form the chest, and the doors open to form the shoulder wings.  The legs are the unfolded back half of the vehicle, while the arms fold out from the sides.

ROBOT MODE:

Despite the simple transformation, the robot mode is still passable and looks pretty good.

He wears the roof of the vehicle as a backpack though and he's quite hollow overall, JP93 definitely feels lighter and more fragile than he should.

The head sculpt is okay, hard to tell what the inspiration was though.

In terms of size, he's a tad bit taller than your standard Deluxe nowadays.

Due to the simple (or lazy) transformation, his feet is not that distinctive so his legs look like a solid block.

Articulation is decent, he has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, hips, knees and ankles.

He has a black gun for a weapon.

JP93 can hold the gun in either hand, and while it definitely does seem less effort was placed in robot mode in comparison to vehicle mode, the simple blocky aesthetics works well here.

The transformation joints doubles as a knee joint, which is just a tad bit lower than what the molding would suggest.  It's not bad enough to ruin the look but just surprising.

A decent robot mode although does feel he's lacking that distinctive character look to him.

OVERALL:

JP93 is a simple figure.  The vehicle mode is simply perfect, looking just like the onscreen appearance.  The robot mode is a bit more of a disappointment purely due to the fact that expectations were high from the vehicle mode.  It's not bad, just very average and does the bare minimum job.  However, JP93 does still feel like a good concept and execution in the end.

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White Album 2 (2013)

White Album 2 is a thirteen episode anime adaptation of the visual novel. While it is a sequel to the first White Album, it is not a direct sequel as it features different characters and takes place twenty years later. There are some references during the earlier episodes, and several key songs in this anime are from the first White Album. However, you don’t need any knowledge at all to understand this anime.

The anime follows Kitahara Haruki, who is a third year high school student. He’s a member of the light music club but that club has been suffering in numbers, with nearly all members quitting. Kitahara plays the guitar, but only seemingly at a casual / novice level so he isn’t too engrossed in it. However, once he learns about Setsuna Ogiso and Kazusa Touma, the former who has a great voice and the latter who has amazing piano talent, he sets about recruiting the two into the club and then performing at the upcoming cultural festival.

If you have watched the first White Album, then you will immediately notice the difference in tone and target demographic. White Album 2 is a lot more stereotypical, containing many tropes from your average shonen anime. That’s not a bad thing because at least the story is easy to understand, and the characters are familiar and likeable. Kitahara, Ogiso and Touma are all characters that you can relate to and the story is told in a coherent way.

Naturally this is a romantic anime, and Kitahara will develop strong bonds with both Ogiso and Touma. Ogiso is like the energetic girl of the group, with good looks and an outgoing personality, although she has several issues of her own that she has to overcome. While Touma is more reserved, like a misunderstood prodigy. This anime has strong music as well, which fits well with the music club theme.

Having the characters form the band and then learn three songs for the festivals within two weeks is a bit of a stretch, and a herculean effort. This rushed feeling extends to how the trio have their feelings form for each other. However, since everyone has a common objective that they’re aiming towards, it is a sweet bond and works really well. Since all the characters are fairly likeable, it’s hard to take sides and pick the pair that you’d want. This includes Kitahara, who is your typical overly nice protagonist, but he doesn’t cross the line of being annoyingly so.

When the cultural festival arrives and the performance happens, it was worth the wait. It perfectly captured the fun and the satisfaction of working so hard for a particular event. The happiness of the characters was infectious, and this is where watching the first White Album is beneficial as the songs will resonate with you. Since this will be the characters’ first and last performance given that they are in their final year before university, there is a bit of a bittersweet feeling once all is said and done.

With such a strong build up and culmination into the climax in the middle of the season, you might wonder what would carry the second half. This is where the romance aspect of the anime comes more heavily into play. Carrying on the themes that begun from the first half, it becomes a complex and delicate situation in which no matter what happens, either Touma or Ogiso will get hurt. Seeing how affected the trio is, you can’t help but wish that the happiness that peaked during their performance and the lead up to it could be snapshotted and held there, but alas, time marches on and it becomes painful to watch the trio try and deal with the situation in their own way.

You might have thought that the story rushed a few things, especially in the way the characters got to know each other. This is because it then rectifies that later on and completely fleshes out their encounters, adding a lot more context to the way the scenes were set up in the earlier episodes. At this point, it’s hard to pick the “true” pairing between Kitahara and Ogiso, or Kitahara and Touma. It’s also hard to put the blame on Kitahara, since he is as confused about his feelings as everyone else. It’s just a shame that he causes a lot of pain to everyone instead.

As the season gets closer and closer to the end, your suspicions turn into certainty on how it can end on a happy note: it cannot. No matter what happens, someone will lose and that’s the sad part of all this. It’s a double whammy since they have to deal with the sadness of farewells as people move on after graduation.

The final episode can be really hard to stomach. All the emotions and feelings from the characters hitting boiling point and spilling out of them. You might want to put all the blame on Kitahara, since he’s made some terrible choices as well as acted selfishly towards the end by not really being considerate of the other. At the same time, some of the other characters had made mistakes of their own, so it can be a bit of a grey area. This is what makes the anime so engrossing and layered though.

Overall White Album 2 is a really nice surprise. With the combination of the high school setting, light music club and teenage romance, it could have easily fallen into a rut of generic developments and stereotypes. Instead, it weaves together a strong, solid and complex tale of the characters growing, building and experiencing intense emotions. While the ending isn’t idealistic, or realistic, or conclusive, as it is “an” ending, it was a fitting ending with the emotions it left behind complete with the fantastic music.

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