Hi-Fi Rush (PC)

Hi-Fi Rush is a rhythm action game with a Saturday morning cartoon look. It’s oozing with style and being a rhythm game, music plays a large role in it. It stars Chai, who dreams of being a rock star. He participates in an experiment and ends up getting a robot arm. This was what was supposed to happen but what was an accident, however, and which had him branded as a defect, was the music player that got embedded into his chest. This “defect” allowed him to feel the beat of the world, giving him some cool abilities, such as magnetically attracting pieces of scrap metal to form an electric guitar as his weapon.

The combat is a big part of the game, and this is where the rhythm aspect lies. There is a light and heavy attack. Light attacks take up one beat while heavy attacks take up two beats. It’s a combo-based game and the combos will always hit on the beat. If you time your button presses with the beat, they’ll do extra damage. At the end of the combo is another prompt for additional damage if you get it right. It’s easy to get into and in addition to the basic combos, Chai has access to a special attack and the usual tricks of dodging, jumping and assist attacks.

There are different types of enemies with new ones being constantly introduced. They act as good tutorials for Chai’s abilities. Soon after the basic robots you’ll encounter ones that are stronger, while others have shields, some are flying, and some have ranged attacks. After one-on-one encounters, of course the game will then mix them up together in the same encounter and battles can become chaotic. You’re graded during each battle and that’s determined by how accurate your timing is and how long it took you to clear it. battles take place in an arena so you can always tell when a battle is coming up during your exploration.

The other big part of the game is the platforming. The game is linear, which is not a downside. This keeps up the pacing and allows the gameplay and level design to be tight. However, the jumping is not the best. Chai seems to lose height much too fast after a jump. This makes Chai feel heavy and may cause you to drop to your death multiple times as you try and get the hang of things. Luckily, the game is forgiving. If you fail to reach a platform, then you will spawn right before it with a little bit less health. If you die in a boss fight, you’ll respawn with full health at the stage of the boss that you died in, so you don’t have to repeat all the stages from the very beginning.

If you struggle with timing your attacks with the beat, there are some visual cues to assist you. A lot of the objects in the environment will move or flash with the beat. Chai gets a permanent companion that flashes in time with the beat. If worst comes to worst, you can permanently set a visual bar at the bottom of the screen to help. The music is generally solid, but it truly shines in some of the latter boss battles. When you realise that actions are in sync with the beat, it’s an amazing experience. Scattered around in the environment are gears which is the currency of the game. These are used to upgrade Chai’s health, abilities, and new combos to use.

The game revels in its silliness. This is a positive as combined with everything else, you’ll be constantly smiling and chuckling throughout the whole game, having a good time. It likes to poke fun at itself and in game development in general with its self-aware remarks. That said, it feels like that the developers put in most of their effort into the first half of the game. The second half by comparison felt lazier, where levels are shorter, the level designs not being as fleshed out, and then just dragging out certain elements so that it can feel repetitive. You can’t help but smile when a boss battle begins and a truly absurd develop happens. Then you’re let down when the boss battle is dragged out to be two or three times longer than it should so that it feels like a chore by the time you’re not even halfway through it.

The game takes around ten to twelve hours to finish the twelve levels. The game is quite easy on normal difficulty, although the final boss might give you a little bit of trouble in their later phases. After the story, you’ll unlock a few things including a harder difficulty and chapter unlock. You can run through the stages again to go through paths that were locked to you before. There’s also a battle gauntlet where you fight waves of enemies to obtain a high score. None of these things are revolutionary but it is something to continue with if you wish.

Overall, Hi-Fi Rush is a fantastic game. It’s the type of game that you would not expect from the developers or publishers since it is so different to what they have put out before. However, this experiment has been a success. It mixes the rhythm gameplay with the action combat surprisingly well. While Chai can be initially annoying with his typical gung-ho attitude, he’s still likable and fits in well with the style of the game and the tone that they were going for.

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Log Horizon: Destruction of the Round Table (2021)

After a six year gap, Log Horizon: Destruction of the Round Table is the third season in the series. It is only 12 episodes long and is set in a world where players in a MMO are suddenly transported into a world mirroring it. They are known to its population as adventurers. The first two seasons set up how they created their city, Akiba, and the creation of the Round Table Conference as the entity managing the city’s affairs. Based on the subtitle of this season, one can easily guess that it will revolve around this Round Table Conference, and most likely its destruction, or disbandment. Spoiler alert, that is only a small part of the season.

Anyway, knowing that the Round Table Conference is the main plot point, you will also know that it probably doesn’t work as well as the characters would have hoped. There are some failings to it, and it doesn’t take long before the season brings that to the forefront. If you were expecting a lot of action and fighting, then this anime is not for you. The season deals with the political side of things as the protagonist, Shiroe, known as a master tactician, delicately deals with the threats and other players in this saga.

Most of the scenes in the season having the characters speaking with each other, dwelling with their thoughts, or deciding how to proceed. It likes to cut between different concurrent viewpoints. It assumes that the viewer has a good idea of the concepts of the world, its layouts, and the ability to understand the significance of whatever it brings up. Thus, it is difficult for people whose knowledge is weaker, or had forgotten during the time gap between seasons, to fully understand what is happening. It gets to the point of being confusing and there is just so much dialogue that you end up tuning it out.

The storytelling and the structure of the season leaves too many gaps. There is too much expectation on the viewers to be able to follow what is happening despite not fully explaining the events. Shiroe and Akatsuki are both mostly out of focus during the season, so you might miss all his scheming and planning. As a result, the season doesn’t use its characters to their full potential. The events breeze by so fast that there isn’t much time for it to build up before it is resolved.

The season is jam packed with multiple arcs. Considering that this is only a small 12 episode season, this means each arc gets introduced and resolved in only two to four episodes. It’s much too rushed, causing the viewers to be constantly at a loss and soon lose interest entirely. There is a sense that even after the season there is a lack of progress. It would have been much better if the season could have fleshed out its events a lot more, focusing more on the smaller details to that at least the characters have time to shine and there is some worldbuilding happening.

As mentioned, there isn’t much action going on. The last part of the season has a bit more combat, but you can tell that there wasn’t much budget given that the fighting was little more than slideshows plus a lot of shouting and yelling. The supposedly emotional high of the finale falls short of its potential since you don’t care for the characters anymore. The characters are watered down. Where is the humor when Shiroe does his schtick of being such a great planner / schemer? Where is Akatsuki with her undying loyalty to Shiroe and her constantly misunderstandings? Where is the fun of being adventurers, or the stress of trying to skirt around the politics of runnin ga city? These are all severely lacking and what’s left is a shell of what it could have been.

Overall, Log Horizon: Destruction of the Round Table is a run of the mill season. It ends up being a generic anime. You get to the end of the season and think to yourself, what happened and what was achieved? The answer is “not much”, and this is the most disappointing part of the season. Not that the first two seasons were amazing but at least they were still entertaining and enjoyable, whereas this one was just decidedly average and bland.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy Evolution Crashbar (Deluxe)

Review:  #777

Name:  Crashbar

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Generations - Legacy: Evolution

Year of Release:  2023

Size Class:  Deluxe (Wave 2)

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Crashbar transforms into a motorcycle that takes inspiration from the Junkions.  The major issue here (and it is really more of an annoyance) is that the front section doesn't quite lock onto the front wheels, so it can move from side to side thanks to the hinge.

Surprisingly, this is a great looking bike mode and looks very cohesive, despite also being a hodgepodge of parts.

In terms of size, he is okay, although it is a disadvantage being a bike in that he feels smaller than a typical Deluxe.

The impressive thing is how all the robot accessories (being the two tailpipes and the two guns) integrate so well into the bike mode.  While you can remove them, it is not recommended as those pieces help hold the bike together, as well as covering the gaps towards the back.

Scraphook's packaging and instructions specifically calls out to his ability to interact with Scraphook.

Firstly, you can remove the front and back left side of Scraphook, and attach the front and rear parts of Crashbar instead.  To be honest, it looks kind of weird...

The other, more superior combination, is that the half of the front of Scraphook can attach onto the side of Crashbar as a sidecar, and it looks great here.  You can even have the other half on the other side so it's like at trike.

A great bike mode and makes a nice difference to the slicker sportier motorcycles that we usually get.

TRANSFORMATION:

Crashbar doesn't need to partsform, which is great.  His transformation scheme takes a lot of inspiration from Reveal the Shield Wreck-Gar.  The front and back unfolds to become the legs, while the body has the torso and arms folded up into a cube, so all you need to do is just pull them out.  It's a simple, yet elegant, transformation.

ROBOT MODE:

Crashbar looks good in robot mode too, and the asymmetry in the legs works in his favor.

A difficulty of motorcycle Transformers is how to deal with the wheels, and Crashbar has them behind his shins, mostly out of the way, although they don't really lock into place.

The head sculpt is nice, and he has a moustache too.

Size-wise, he remains fairly small and slim for a Deluxe, and this is the biggest negative against this figure.

He has great articulation, with joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

He comes with a few weapons, the tailpipes are usually attached on his back, and his main weapons are a pair of guns (which were the side bags in motorcycle mode).

He can hold the guns in both hands and they look way more awesome that they have any right to be considering what they are in motorcycle mode.

As Crashbar comes with numerous 5mm ports, there is a lot of flexibility in how you have him wield his weapons.  He can have the guns on his forearms, for instance.

He can also hold the tailpipes as handheld weapons but due to the way that they are shaped, they don't look that great.

In yet another undocumented feature in the instructions, the wheel behind his right leg (the rear wheel) can detach and you can fold out spikes, similar to Prowl's throwing stars, and you can peg it as a shield.  This is simply an awesome weapon.

Here he is next to Scraphook, and you can see that Crashbar is definitely on the smaller side of things.

The biggest annoyance with posing him is the tendency for his limbs to pop out thanks to his Evo-Fusion gimmick, which is just basically that he splits apart like a Weaponizer from previous lines.

Nevertheless, this is a fantastic robot mode, he is just so well designed.

EVO-FUSION:

Crashbar's Evo-Fusion gimmick is basically Weaponizers from previous lines.  The instructions only show him splitting up into various pieces, so it's disappointing to not really see an official "weapons pack" mode.  Guess you'll just have to use your imaginations.

OVERALL:

Crashbar is well worth getting.  Both his modes are near perfect, each with minor and forgivable flaws.  The simplicity is elegant, and he works so well.  It is an impressive feat of engineering to pack that many gimmicks into the figure, as well as allowing it split apart and have so much interaction with other figures.

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Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (Vita)

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception is a sequel to an older game (but one which has a remake released a few years later). It is a strategy RPG and is designed for newcomers to easily enjoy as it is the start of a duology. To be clear, this is predominantly a visual novel first and foremost, with some SRPG elements. The story is supposed to be the main draw and it takes up the bulk of the gameplay. There are portions of the game where the story scenes are easily over an hour long with no other gameplay in sight, which can definitely put off some people.

The SRPG mechanics are solid. As expected, they take place on a grid system where characters can move and attack once an enemy is in range. You then time your attacks with onscreen prompts. You don’t have to do this perfectly but if you do, the character will score a critical hit so it’s worthwhile to attempt. Characters will eventually learn several different types of attacks and abilities and you can mould their stats to a degree, since you spend points to increase a specific stat of theirs. The biggest negative of the game is that it has a poor tutorial, in that it doesn’t have one. By default it is skipped and you need to go through the in-game glossy in order to find the different mechanics that intertwine and interact with each other during battles.

The system can be deep with a lot of elements within it, it just does a terrible job of introducing those gameplay mechanics. The fact that you don’t get much practice doesn’t help. The story battles are mostly easy, although the game has a tendency to throw bosses at you that can hit really hard. This means the player often employs a strategy of swarming the enemy quickly in order to whittle down their HP before too many of their own characters gets knocked out. There are some nice quality of life elements with the best one being that you are able to rewind. If you made a mistake then you can go back several turns and redo.

The story starts off slow and if you haven't played the first game, then it is a bit weird. It’s still weird and mysterious even if you have played the first game but basically, a man awakens in the middle of a forest and is aided by a girl with furry ears and a tail. She’s Kuon and given that the man has no memories, she names him Haku. Haku by comparison is physically weak but there is promise in his intellect, especially his strategic abilities. With nowhere else to go, Haku follows Kuon and the pair meets up with several characters where they end up forming a ragtag team, somewhat akin to mercenaries, albeit of a more nobler variety.

The game is very slow going, as the story takes a long time to get the ball rolling. Even midway through the game, it still feels like a chilled slice of life event as Haku slowly gets surrounded with more and more allies (mainly of the female type), without revealing what the plot actually is. What makes matters worse is that the little gameplay it has in its SRPG battle system comes up haphazardly. Sometimes there will be literal hours of story cutscenes before your next battle, while other times it’s within a few minutes. This makes it much harder to get invested into. The story itself contains some good humor, especially when Haku is punished by the other characters.

It takes a while, but the story finally gets into its pace in what is probably the last third of the game. There’s an event that pretty much spells out Haku’s backstory, which was confusing to say the least with the way it was hinted. Granted, if you had played the first game, then it wouldn’t be as confusing but for newcomers, it’s a weird twist. The nicer thing that comes out of this is that after the event, there are a lot of reappearances of past characters. We finally get to see in perspective where and when this game takes place in comparison to Prelude to the Fallen.

The story’s tone becomes darker and more political towards the end, so that it is much more akin to the first game. It can be too little too late as it rushes things, and it is obvious that it’s setting up for the sequel instead. Thus this is a big time investment that doesn’t quite pay off. The final boss is the hardest part of the game, which may shock you at first given the rest of the game was so easy that you never had needed much thought on the intricacies of the battle system. It’s still not too hard as long as you play smarter rather than just blindly attacking. The ending though was disappointing in that it had events that were supposed to be sad and hopeful but was done in a way that makes some of the characters very annoying.

For a combination visual novel SRPG, both genres of which are known for their long length, this isn’t a long game at all. While it depends on your reading speed, it can takes as short as 15 to 20 hours to complete the story. There isn’t too much to do after the game, a set of harder battles become accessible, and these are the ones that finally make you think and plan. You can also repeat any of the story battles at any time, grind your characters to level up and in general, just mess around.

Overall, Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception is an average game. While the first game was too fast paced to the point of feeling rushed, this game was too slow and dwelled too much on the slice of life aspect. Granted, this was used to world build but considering that the plot only starts to get set up right at the very end of the game meant that there wasn’t much time to build it up and flesh it out. As a result, it very much feels like the first half of a story and that you need to play the sequel to get the full experience. Unfortunately, there will be players that will be put off and not get this far.

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Cells at Work! Code Black (2021)

Cells at Work! Code Black is a spin-off from Cells at Work! The season is 13 episodes long and this is a darker and more serious take on the formula. It’s still educational in how the body works, showing off the many functions of the body and how they all work in tandem with each other. However, the body in question is not healthy. From the very first episode, it shows how different its perspective is going to be by showing the effects of an unhealthy diet and the lack of exercise. Then it further entrenches that with showing off what smoking and excessive alcohol will do to you.

Similarly to the main series, the protagonist ends up being a red blood cell and a white blood cell. The red blood cell is a newbie. We see him come straight out of training, so he is naïve at first but quickly comes to realize the dire state of the body. His job is to deliver oxygen, but this is made more difficult by the fats clogging up the blood vessels. Everyone seems stressed due to being shorthanded, with tempers flaring up and not having time for anything extra. Oxygen seems to be in short supply and all in all, this is not a good environment to be in.

When compared to the mainline series, there is a big difference in how the body is portrayed. The bad state of the body is reflected in the dirty corridors, the fat clogging up important pathways, and the constant emergencies. Seeing gruffier T Cells and other vita cells gives it a nice contract and makes the anime feel more serious. This is despite the anime containing a similarly bright colorful aesthetic as the mainline. Plus, all of the scenarios are the characters trying to deal with what the body is doing to itself, rather than external threats.

If that is not enough to paint a bleak picture, then the type of emergencies, diseases, and infections that this body fights off will. There are sexually transmitted diseases, kidney stones, high stress, and even a heart attack. These are all portrayed and explained in an engaging way as it visualizes the symptoms and causes. Blood in the urine? It’s red blood cells in the urine. Inflammation of the scalp? Fire breaks out where the hair is being produced. These are clever and ingenious ways to portray the issues. Sometimes these are so well done that it gives you second thoughts on leading an unhealthy lifestyle when you realize just how much damage it could be causing your body, and how much it must do to keep up.

Instead of an idealist world where the body can fight off all its infections and diseases on its own, given the state of this body, there is constant help from external sources. The white blood cells may be overwhelmed at the bacteria’s ability to stop their attacks while being able to multiply at a higher rate than they can be killed. Just when all hope is lost, antibiotics are administered to save the day. This is just one of many examples and it is scenarios like these that add that extra layer of depth.

The darker theme shines through towards the end of the season. During the events of each episode, the characters are always in danger, but you can be sure of the fact that they will always pull through and the germs or infection or whatever it is, always gets eliminated. This ends up becoming your expectation, which is when the anime strikes, and it takes you more than just a second to process what had happened and what this means going forward. The saddest part is that even if the cells know that the body is not treating itself right, and it is on a path of self-inflicted disaster, they have no choice but to continue to work hard to keep it alive, doing such a thankless job.

The final arc for the season felt like it was a culmination of a long journey for the red blood cell. He started out as a rookie, had to work, and suffer his way through the horrible and harsh environment while having his hopes dashed again and again. Yet his spirit did not break, and he continued to do his job by overcoming so many obstacles. It felt a bit rushed at the end with how the condition of the body changed. The whole season had portrayed the body in a rapidly deteriorating state, so it felt weird with the result at the season finale, but this did help with setting up the nice stinger.

Overall, Cells at Work! Code Black is a good anime and like the main series, it is an eye opener in terms of what it teaches you about how your body works. The darker themes help separate itself from the mainline series, and this is to its benefit. It addresses the sometimes overly positive and hopeful outlook of the mainline series and shows off the consequences of bad habits. At the same time, we get to see how some external treatments work for the body, making this a much more rounded series.

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