Attack on Titan: The Final Season - Part 1 (2021)

Attack on Titan: The Final Season is based upon the manga series. Despite being advertised as the final season; it ended up being split into four parts over numerous years. Part 1 is comprised of 16 episodes. After the season 3 finale finally showed off the huge revelation that they series had built up all this time… depending on your tastes, it can be disappointing. The introduction of the world beyond, why there are titans, and just in general on what has been happening, can feel shoehorned in. It’s just not quite that type of amazing reveal that all the hype was building it up to be. It doesn’t help that in a world where it felt like it was in semi-medieval times, the sudden introduction of more modern technology feels like a spiritual clash.

The beginning of the season can be somewhat confusing too in terms of the timeframe. It takes an episode or two until you get a grasp of approximately when the events are happening. It’s also confusing since it focuses on the world beyond rather than back where most of the anime was in the previous seasons. The slow pacing of the scenes will eventually reveal the context of the current situation as well as telling the beginning of the story and how certain actions affected certain iconic events in the previous season.

Despite a slow start featuring completely new characters, there is a great entrance of familiar characters a few episodes in. It left a lasting impact. Although like most of the anime, for each question it answers, it raises several more. When the characters show up, it’s great to see them but you still don’t know the context behind things, especially when their interactions are not as friendly as you expected, or that they seem to also be out of the loop. Given the time skip from the third season, this is a deliberate choice and something the story had done from the very beginning.

There’s frequent time skipping doing on during the season when filling the gaps. It’ll go back in time, and then forward, and then back again even further to a character’s childhood. Thankfully, it isn’t done that poorly and isn’t too confusing, but flashbacks are always a lazy tool when there is an overabundance of them. The season noticeably focuses much more on the human side of things, specifically politics and human relationships. There’s constant scheming and given that various characters’ motivations are not revealed, we are frequently guessing at why they are doing the things that they are doing.

Of course, when the anime sees fit to feature the titans appearing for battle, the action is fast paced. During the time skip, the characters now have upgraded gear, so they are zipping along even more nimbly now. Their attacks and takedowns look great, but it is a shame that these are so few and far between during the season. There are unceremonious deaths, and it seems to tie itself to the theme of war and how real-life war is cruel and brutal like that. There are no heroics or honor, just a lot of despair and unfairness.

Given the war, there is hypocrisy on both sides. Both sides have their rights and wrongs, which makes the whole conflict even greyer. It can be frustrating to see certain characters act a certain way but that is also reflective of how damaging propaganda can be, especially when constantly fed it since they were born. Some scenes are naturally melodramatic, but it generally nails the atmosphere it is going for.

The season will finally reveal the backstories and motivations of the key characters. although whether they make sense or are compelling enough is another matter. It tries hard to justify their actions but based on the one episode’s worth of look into their childhood, it doesn’t really provide strong justification or sense. Everyone is a villain in this season which is a shame as it is hard to find anyone to root for. This continues right until the end of this first part and of course it finishes off with a cliffhanger. Although the plot has become somewhat convoluted and messy, this is what made the beginning so intriguing.

Overall, the first part of Attack on Titan: The Final Season is okay. The content feels very different to the first three seasons since it doesn’t focus on the characters surviving titan attacks and trying to investigate the mystery behind them. Yet in typical Attack on Titan fashion, by answering some of the questions it raises so many more and some of the answers aren’t great either. It can feel hollow and confusing at what the endgame is for the plot. There is a much higher focus on politics and human interaction, losing nearly all the titan battles and strategies.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy United Origin Wheeljack (Voyager)

Review:  #800

Name:  Origin Wheeljack

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Generations - Legacy: United

Year of Release:  2024

Size Class:  Voyager

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Origin Wheeljack transforms into a Cybertronian hovercraft based on his appearance in the first episode of the G1 cartoon.

This is a very boxy alternate mode, and that's on purpose.  It has its certain charms.

He is a good size for a Voyager figure, although you'll find out shortly that it's only his appearance, since the figure is very light and hollow.

Even though it doesn't look like a Lancia at all, the iconic colors still makes him recognizable as Wheeljack.  He doesn't have rolling wheels so he can only sit flat, but he sits a bit higher off the surface to look like he is hovering.

He comes with a robot gun and two fan accessories, the former pegs onto the roof, and the latter pegs on his bumper.

He also comes with a transparent piece of plastic, that can be used as a piece of Cybertronian road for Wheeljack to go along.

The piece is made from three pieces, which you can separate (although that can be a bit tough and it can be scary as it feels like you can break it), and then wrap it around the windshield as a blast shield, it looks really nice like that.

Opening the back you can see it is completely hollow, which is slightly disappointing.  However, this is also the final gimmick, where he can fit Origin Bumblebee in it.

Despite the unorthodox vehicle mode, it is a very good vehicle that packs in a surprising amount of gimmicks.

TRANSFORMATION:

Wheeljack has to transform from a boxy vehicle into a robot mode that looks like it has a sports car as its alternate mode.  It does this with a clever transformation.  Basically, the whole vehicle is made up of panels that fold and collapse upon each other.  While it could have been very complicated, it is done in a clever and satisfying way.  The arms are the simplest as they are the bumpers.  The back is mostly the legs, but a lot of the vehicle folds upon onto there, and the rest forms a slim-ish backpack.

ROBOT MODE:

Wheeljack's robot mode is... Wheeljack.  He even has a faux chest that looks like it's the windshield from the Lancia.

Due to the transformation and the fact that you had a big boxy vehicle, Wheeljack contains a lot of kibble.  He's very chunky but considering everything, the designer has done an impressive job of folding everything away.

The head sculpt is clearly Wheeljack, although it's a little bit more rounded than you would expect.

Wheeljack is very short in robot mode, approximately the height of a Deluxe.  He makes up for it by being chunkier than a typical Deluxe.

The backpack is two big panels and despite its size, in hand, it is not as bad as what you'd expect from looking at photos.

Despite the chunky look, Wheeljack has the full range of articulation, and his kibble doesn't get in the way at all.  He has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

As mentioned, he comes with a few accessories, he has a gun, two fans, and a large piece of transparent plastic.

The fans and gun and peg on his back for storage.

Otherwise, he can hold the gun in either hand.

While you can also peg the fan at the end of the gun to replicate dominator discs from the episode The Core.

Of course, you can also also peg the gun on his shoulder, to replicate his usual shoulder gun.

Finally, pegging the transparent blue plastic on his back will give him wings and it looks really impressive, and it works much better than you would expect.

Wheeljack feels like a high quality mode just because he compacts so much, he feels very solid, although his arms are a little bit too short.

A fantastic robot mode that looks great (despite a lack of paint except for his torso, the clean white is really nice in hand) and plays well, as he has a decent amount of accessories and options.

OVERALL:

It's a shame that Origin Wheeljack is an exclusive, as this is a wonderful figure.  While it is personal tastes, he looks the best out of Origin Jazz and Origin Bumblebee.  Both modes are fun, and the transformation is clever and fun.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider (PS4)

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the third and final game in the reboot trilogy. It was not primarily developed by Crystal Dynamics this time, who was the developer of the first two games. This is noticeable as there was a conscious decision to dial down some of the combat and so the game focuses more on exploration and puzzles instead. This means that the game is much slower paced and if you had liked the more action heavy elements of the previous two games, this is not a great change. The game still looks and mostly controls fine.

You play as Lara, who continues to explore and find ancient ruins. At the same time, she is attempting to foil Trinity’s plans who is going around pillaging the same ruins. The game starts off with a somewhat intense and crazy set piece but then sets Lara and her partner down into Peru where she will once again start from nil. You will then have to find her equipment and survive by finding materials to craft items with. It is a bit stale the third time around but at least this elongated tutorial section doesn’t last for too long.

Lara is nimble and agile. She can run and jump with the best of them. She has a pickax to climb up walls, able to shimmy ledges, and can climb nearly everything. Her rappelling skills can come in useful and using a bow and arrow to kill enemies never gets old. During combat sections, she can sneak around undetected to land stealth kills. Alternatively, you can go in guns blazing but usually this will just lead you to be overwhelmed. A neat aspect of the game is how customizable the difficulty can be, there are a lot of accessibility options.

Puzzles are generally not too hard. The game is linear, usually with one path to go forward in. You might find the odd larger area or two where you can find a few extra things, including challenge tombs. This straightforwardness goes for the puzzles too, as they are usually self-explanatory, even if some of them rely on timing a bit too much. Combat difficulty is separate from puzzle difficulty and the game can make puzzles easier on lower difficulties by having Lara spell out the solution.

That isn’t to say that all the puzzles are good. There is an overreliance on similar types of gimmicks that make it repetitive. Having to platforming based on timing sucks. While the timing isn’t particularly tight, it is tight enough to be annoying. The path not being that clear so that you end up dying because you went to where you are not supposed to go to is not great either. Coupled with the forced slow walks, crawls and shimmying, the game is too slow paced in many sections, feeling overly restrictive.

Swimming was touted to be revamped in this game. Lara can swim underwater for longer, so what do the developers do? They take many opportunities to “showcase” this. However, underwater swimming is never done in a fun way in games, and it isn’t much fun here either. It’s restrictive, it’s slow, and it’s annoying. There are air pockets that you need to continually get to in order to keep staying underwater, while there are many underwater enemies that you need to avoid.

The story has the same trappings as the first Uncharted game. After Lara finds a hidden entrance to get into a secret area that had been hidden for so long, she progresses forward only to find… Trinity already up ahead bombing the place. So why did we spend all that time solving that puzzle or Lara having made such a big deal of things? Despite Lara’s dialogue being helpful clues to solve puzzles, if you wanted to explore first… she will consistently spout the same lines again and again, which can be annoying. Similarly, you end up being overly reliant on using the Focus view to highlight all the collectables in the area. You’re just constantly clicking the R3 button so that you don’t miss anything, which results in you missing out on the enjoyment of the scenery.

The controls for Lara, including the climbing and jumping, can be sloppy at times. Much more often than you would like, Lara will die because she doesn’t quite reach with her jump, or she does something that you do not expect. It doesn’t help that the design of the game has instant deaths if you did not pull off a certain action in just the right way. It’s quite annoying when this happens as it doesn’t feel like it was your fault. It doesn’t help that it can be difficult to see at times, as the game overall is too dark in caves, of which there are many.

With combat so rare, it should be fun when it does occur but unfortunately, due to the level designs, there are many combat sections where it is not fun at all. Lara is an in-between. The abilities she possesses, and from the story elements, she favors stealth. However, in levels where is stripped of all her weapons and is forced to use her basic abilities is frustrating. Then in the levels where she is forced to run and gun, it is not great as the camera follows too closely to her and it is hard to tell where the enemies are at a glance. She also dies quickly from attacks.

The story is boring and bland. It had big potential as it is the final arc in the trilogy. She caused the disaster and must find a way to stop it. Yet somehow this manages to be a dull affair where you just watch detachedly. There is supposed to be a huge character development where she finds and understands herself, but it would have been much more powerful if she hadn’t already been exploring and killing people for three games already. The ending is as you would expect, there are little surprises in the whole thing. The story takes around 15 hours to complete but it would depend on how many of the side activities that you do. There are tombs and various side missions. Those side missions can be length, but they have boring mission designs and disengaging story.

Overall, shadow of the Tomb Raider is a disappointing finale to the trilogy. The original 2013 reboot was fantastic, and Rise of the Tomb Raider was also very fun. Somehow along the way, this third game managed to stuff enough things up to make it grow stale. From the control frustrations to the game design frustrations. The game has too many things that annoy you, accumulating to the point where you just want to get it over and done with so that you can move on. It’s not a horrible game but it is one where something is off about it, and it could have been a whole lot better.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy United Side Burn (Robots in Disguise 2001) (Deluxe)

Review:  #799

Name:  Side Burn

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Generations - Legacy: United

Year of Release:  2024

Size Class:  Deluxe (Wave 3)

Mold Status:  retool of Legacy Evolution Shadow Striker

VEHICLE MODE:

Based upon his appearance in the Robots in Disguise 2001 show, Side Burn doesn't quite transform into an accurate vehicle from it, due to being a retool of Shadow Striker.  This is quite disappointing considering how accurate a lot of the toys in the Legacy line had been.

He transforms into a blue sports car, with some subtle blue flames.  Unfortunately, this isn't a really good vehicle mode due to how weirdly proportioned it is.  The front feels too squished, and the car overall is too thin.

He's quite small for a Deluxe as well, which just adds to the disappointment.

Perhaps the biggest annoyance is the gappy back.  There should be no excuse for this as the entire roof and windshield pegs on, as well as the actual rear panel of the vehicle being a separate piece, so it could have been easily designed to sit flush to the rear of the vehicle.

There are no gimmicks in this mode, the wheels roll and that's it.

The robot weapon pegs on top of the roof.

A not so great vehicle mode.  It's barely passable but it just has too many aesthetics issues.

TRANSFORMATION:

Side Burn is easy to get into robot mode.  You unpeg the roof and you can completely detach it if you wish.  Detach the rear panel.  Open up the doors so you can flip the robot legs from underneath the car.  Then fold the arms out and flip out the head.

ROBOT MODE:

Side Burn makes up for the vehicle mode with an excellent robot mode.  While Shadow Striker had its own issues in robot mode, it's interesting how a different coat of paint and change of character can make you change your mind.

He has the doors and front wheels on his back, and the doors are on a hinge so that can hinge a bit away from the body if required.

The head sculpt is perfect, and captures the character extremely well.  Side Burn's plastics have metallic chips in them so it looks really nice.

He is on the smaller side for a Deluxe though, exacerbated by his slimness.

There are some need details, such as the small Autobot symbol on his forearm.

However, a big issue of the mold is how far the shoulders are set back.  They are actually part of the rear backpack, and so his head juts forward and it looks weird.

He comes with a bunch of weapons, although two of them are pieces of the car.

The roof of the vehicle can peg on either arm to form a shield, although the RiD character has it usually on his left arm.

The small blue piece is from the rear of the vehicle, and one of the options is to peg it on the other arm as a smaller shield.

Despite being the roof of the vehicle, it actually looks really decent as a shield, and the colors and mold captures the character well too.  This looks instantly like Side Burn from RiD 2001.

Articulation is fantastic as well, with joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

He can hold the gun in either hand.

And when not in use, you can store it behind one of the doors on his back.

The gun has another handle so that it can be held more like a blade weapon, which is inspired by the original toy.  Although this version is a bit too fat to pull it off.

Finally, the rear vehicle piece can also peg onto the end of the gun for a crossbow-like weapon, again, inspired by the original, although again, it cannot pull this off in a believable manner.

Despite his flaws, the robot mode is still fun and looks good.

OVERALL:

Side Burn is one to get if you like the character.  The vehicle mode is not great, and the robot mode has a lot of issues too, the biggest of which are the shoulders that are set too far back.  However, despite that, it captures the essence of the character so well, and the shades of white and blue used looks so good in person.

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