Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS)

Bravely Second:  End Layer is the sequel to Bravely Default.  Like the first game, it is exclusive to the 3DS.  The story is set 2.5 years after Bravely Default.  It follows a party comprised of two new characters, Yew and Magnolia, along with two from the first game, Edea and Tiz.  Agnes is the Pope but she is kidnapped and Yew sets out with his companions to save her.  The new villain, the Kaiser, who had kidnapped Agnes, is on top a floating base.  Yew and the party travels all over the world in the hopes of catching up.  As expected, the party's objectives become sidetracked in no time, and this feels really weird since their missions is supposed to be of the utmost urgency.

Unfortunately, the story lacks the seriousness of the original and it suffers greatly because of it.  The story is disappointing with no real twists or drive, it feels pointless and dull as a result.  The attempts at humor don't work much of the time and what are supposed to be endearing traits of each character just falls flat.  Yew and Magnolia are simply boring protagonists, and even Tiz and Edea just isn't up to the same level as they were.  Due to this, you'll more than likely become bored before the prologue even ends, and despite hoping that it'll pick up, chapter after chapter will pass without any uplift in quality.  Just like the first game, there are excellent graphics and great 3D effects.  The background art of the cities, world map and dungeons are so pretty, especially when it zooms out.  The dungeons can be a bit more monotonous though with limited color palette and being fairly small.  They have their own gimmicks such as switches and environmental hazards.

As this is a sequel, the world map and most of the cities remain the same as the first game.  This can be boring and disappointing as you are returning to areas that are exactly as they were.  There is a mixture of old dungeons as well as new ones.  Bravely Second has turn-based battles with a twist.  On your turns, you can store extra turns using Default, or spend extra turns using Brave.  You can even spend turns you don't have stored up yet, however, this means your character cannot act until they gain them back.  This adds a significant layer of strategy as you weigh the risks and rewards of going all out and attack up to four times in one go in the hopes of defeating your enemy quickly, or be more conservative and Default a few times, saving up turns and minimizing damage in the process.

There is a Bravely Second feature where you can freeze time and allows all your hits to be critical.  You can store up to three uses and to restore the uses, you need to let the game sleep or run for 8 hours (or spend actual money to buy).  The game provides enough options to never need to buy extra uses or even use it in the first place.  The freedom to tweak the game's parameters returns.  Here, you you get the ability during the Prologue to change the random encounter rate (from no encounters to twice the amount of encounters), change the difficulty at any time and set auto-battle.  You can save up to three sets of auto-battle commands, which is perfect for grinding.

There is a Chain-Battle feature where if you defeat an encounter within one turn, you can opt to battle another set of enemies with bonuses if you win.  The catch is that you don't get any BP you've spent back at the beginning of the next battle, so if you spent four BP to defeat enemies, you're more likely to not opt for the Chain-Battle as you'll start withe negative BP.  Finally, characters can freely swap between the 30 available jobs.  Defeating enemies earns you Job Points, which allows the character to gain job-specific abilities.  You can set up to five passive abilities from any job onto your character, as well as utilize specialized abilities specific to the currently equipped job.  It's fun and provides heaps of versatility.  You slowly gain access to new jobs as you progress through the game and defeat the bosses.  The jobs in this game are a mixture of returning ones (which are gained via sidequests) and brand new ones.

Bravely Second can be a challenging game especially if you play on Normal or Hard.  If you don't want to level grind or strategically select your abilities, the bosses can easily wipe you out.  As you are short on MP and money early on, completing a dungeon may leave you on the verge of death.  There is also a tendency for various bosses to heal themselves, which is really annoying.  In typical JRPG fashion, the dungeons rely on gimmicks which make them a lot more annoying to traverse.  It is supposed to spice things up but it just makes them painful such as invisible paths and walls, various levers requiring backtracking if you so happen to not go the right way the first time, and all the while contending with the encounter rate.  In later dungeons, you'll be tempted to just turn off random encounters to focus on powering through.

Unfortunately, dungeons will either fall into boring repetitive corridors or confusing messes of puzzles.  Even worse are the ones with multiple levels using the same map in the bottom screen, making it really confusing to plot out your path as the higher levels block the view of the lower ones.  The story has a twist around two-thirds of the game in, similar to the one from Bravely Default.  However, it isn't executed as elegantly although the hidden message is still a nice surprise but you kind of expect it by this point.  Perhaps it is because the game is living in the shadow of the original that it never feels like it manages to top it.  Unfortunately, the developers have not learnt from the lessons of Bravely Default and ends up making a portion of the game very repetitive, especially if you want to complete the majority of the sidequests.

However, also like Bravely Default, the ending of Bravely Second exceeds your expectations and cleverly integrates the player into the game.  It gives a deeper meaning to the subtitle and gives you a sense of satisfaction from reaching an emotional height.  The final boss can be tough especially since it uses powerful (and cheaty) moves.  It gives a teaser for what could be a Bravely Third but unfortunately that game has not surfaced as yet.  The game is much shorter than the original, only taking around 30-50 hours.  Of course, this depends on whether you change the encounter rate, the difficulty and how long it takes to find your way after you get lost.

Overall, Bravely Second has a weak beginning and middle.  The pacing is slow, the story is bland and the reuse of so many assets dampens the enjoyment.  The twist in the story however, coupled with the ending, helps redeem the game somewhat and manages to make the game still worth playing.  Nonetheless, it has the enviable combination of a unique battle system and an addictive job system that perfectly complements each other.

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Black Panther (2018)

Being different compared to the other Marvel superheroes, Black Panther was introduced in Captain America:  Civil War before getting his own film.  This didn't detract from the quality at all and Black Panther is one of the best Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, as well as one of the best superhero movies.  Following the aftermath of Civil War, T'Challa ascends the throne to become the King of Wakanda.  However, we see that it is not an easy or given ascension.  The film smoothly introduces us the elements of Wakanda's culture in the early parts in order to bring them back later on with the viewer understanding the significant impacts.  Black Panther plays a lot on the political side of things as well as the ideals of each character.  It is a touchy subject but it handles it quite well.  As a result, while the villain was truly evil, there are times where you understand where they were coming from.  However, it felt a bit weak that T'Challa's position was so easily challenged when he had grown up in Wakanda all his life.  Nevertheless, the film builds up to an epic climax with one of the best fight scenes in the MCU.  It felt truly breathtaking and a visual spectacle with its acrobatics and flashy moves.  Overall, Black Panther will surprise you with its direction, quality and iconic Marvel humour.

Book Review: 5 Centimeters per Second

Review:  #815
Title:  5 Centimeters per Second
Series:  N/A
Author:  Makoto Shinkai & Yukiko Seike
Comments:  This is the manga adaptation of the film of the same name.  It is about love and longing, and what happens when the very real reality of people just drifting apart.  The main character is Takaki and the story is split into three parts, each covering a section of his life:  primary school, high school and after university.  In the first section, Takaki falls in love with Akari but in a heart wrenching moment, Akari has to move away.  As it shifts to middle school, we see Takaki trying to keep in contact with Akari, his feelings had never diminished, but they have drifted apart.  This is having an effect on Takaki himself as well as the people surrounding him (with new character Kanae).  This persists all the way until he graduates from university and gets a job.  This adaptation expands upon the film, heavily fleshing out the events as well as providing a better ending to each of the three main characters that leaves you much more satisfied than the hollow empty feeling of the film.  The art is beautiful and the way the story is told here, nothing is lost in the transition.  You still feel the bittersweet feeling of lost love, the pain and the longing, as well as accepting these feelings in order to move on.  The length is enough for two standard manga volumes and thus it doesn’t feel rushed at all.  This is a beautiful and meaningful story that’s every bit as good, if not better, than the film.
Rating:  7/10

Log Horizon - Season 1 (2013-2014)

Log Horizon is based upon the light novel series and the first season has 25 episodes.  Upon the release of the twelfth expansion pack of the globally popular MMORPG Elder Tale, a group of players find themselves suddenly transported to this virtual game world.  They are unable to log out, wearing their in-game avatars and have no idea of what has happened.  Before too long, they come to realize that this is their new home and order is slowly established.

The series follows Shiroe, a player of the Enchanter class.  Even during the game, he was famous for being a brilliant strategist.  Having already reached the level cap of 90 beforehand, he is one of the more powerful characters in this world.  However, he is socially awkward and through what little retelling of his backstory early on reveals that he had encountered issues with guilds.  Nevertheless, he forms a party with other players he had met before.  Naotsugu is of the Guardian class, specializing in drawing enemy aggro and tanking attacks.  He's introduced as the guy with the perverted personality and is the comedic relief of the group.

Akatsuki is of the Assassin class, having high attack and specializing in stealth and detecting abilities.  She has the appearance of a young girl and has a funny relationship with Naotsugu in which she always knees him before he gets a chance to say something perverted.  Log Horizon has a solid start as the rules of the world they're in are established through deductions and experimentation by Shiroe.  In the new world, if players are killed, they just revive like in the game, which leads to players taking on bigger risks.  It is also this lack of consequences that we start to see the lawless nature of this world.  It is an interesting take as the social order is determined, with naturally the stronger players taking advantage to rule and overpower others.

While PvP is not allowed in towns, it is completely possible outside.  Towns start to become depressing places as players are scared and oppressed by the larger builds.  It is this atmosphere that eventually urges Shiroe, who until now was passive and tried to keep out of everything, to start taking action.  He meets players he had formerly met (whether they were once part of the same build in Elder Tale or had partied up some time ago), gathering a significant amount of power himself.  It takes around half the season before we finally get to see one of Shiroe's more complex plans come to the forefront.  Up until that point, you could feel the plot building up as the series teases through Shiroe's vague orders.  Once his plan is executed, it does bring a sense of satisfaction since it wasn't just some cheap excuse.

Shiroe's aim to make their new home a better place not just for him and his party but for everyone is a noble effort.  As expected, he faces some struggles an a big part of the season is how he deals with these problems.  For example, he needs to get other guilds to cooperate with him but with no laws in this world and the threat of dying being out of the question, how can Shiroe find a way to force them to agree to his terms?  The answer might surprise you and there's a reason why characters in the series view Shiroe as more evil than good at times since he an be manipulative.

With the NPCs gaining sentience and having their own government and way of living, it is inevitable that they would clash with the players.  Log Horizon explores this aspect such as when the NPCs, known as the People of the Land, try to find out more information about the players, known as Adventurers.  It is also interesting to see their perspective such as why suddenly Adventurers aren't as easy to pay money to do random tasks (aka quests).

As the players' understanding of the mechanics of this world grows, so does their technology.  They start to introduce machinery from their own world that gives them a superior advantage to everything else.  It's no wonder that the People of the Land see them as such high threats due to their quick advancement in technology.  This also makes it hard for them to reveal too many of their own secrets and worries, and start to become manipulative to retain their advantage.

As the season goes on, the focus starts to shift away from Shiroe and more towards Akihabara as a whole and how they progress.  Two important characters are introduced and then take center stage being Krusty, the leader of a raid guild, and Lenessia.  It's refreshing for a series to not have all girls fall for the hero.  Shiroe ends up being the hero behind the scenes.  As his role is a strategist, he doesn't take the spotlight much at all and it is a shame that he doesn't get much of the credit.  Rather, as his plans succeed, rumors start swirling and twisting the truth, giving him more of an evil reputation among population which is a shame and something you feel might bite him eventually.

After a few tense episodes, the final part of the first season feels like a breather arc.  No major conflict happens and the atmosphere was a lot more lighthearted, with plenty of gags and relationship building.  It's not a bad change of events, just a bit underwhelming for a season finale.

Overall, While Log Horizon has a familiar premise of the characters being trapped in a game world, the way it approaches the subject is different.  It explores some interesting mechanics and strays towards more of a political dynamic at times.  However, it does often fall back to overused gags and some characters feel like they were quickly regulated to the background, never realizing their potential.

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Book Review: Voices of a Distant Star

Review:  #814
Title:  Voices of a Distant Star
Series:  N/A
Author:  Makoto Shinkai & Mizu Sahara
Comments:  This is a manga adaptation of the short film Voices of a Distant Star by Makoto Shinkai.  Unlike the film, the manga takes a while before it explains the premise, being that Nagamine is separated from her love Noboru through time and space.  Each message they send to each other takes longer and longer, to the point of years as Nagamine moves out to the edge of the solar system and beyond it.  However, it does gives a stronger backstory and also the reason why Nagamine was sent to outer space and the nature of the alien Tharsians.  On the other hand, due to not having any music or just by not being animated, it loses some of the surreal quality that the film had.  The author has taken the effort to flesh out some more plot points including a more substantial ending that gives closure, something that the original left vague.  Overall, the manga adaptation still manages to evoke some of the melancholy emotions that the main characters must be feeling in their predicament and is a memorable bittersweet story.
Rating:  6.5/10

Toy Review: Transformers Generations Power of the Primes Abominus

Review:  #484
Name:  Abominus
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Decepticon
Line:  Generations - Power of the Primes
Year of Release:  2018
Size Class:  N/A
Mold Status:  new

TERRORCONS:

Abominus is formed by the five Terrorcons, a group which is comprised of Hun-Gurrr, Rippersnapper, Blot, Sinnertwin and Cutthroat.

In beast mode, the group looks good together even if they don't share a color scheme.

Robot modes are pretty neat too but Hun-Gurrr is noticeably blockier than the other team members.

Each of the individual figures are solid toys by themselves, so being able to form Abominus is a great bonus.

ABOMINUS:

The normal configuration of Abominus has Cutthroat and Sinnertwin for legs, and Rippersnapper and Blot for arms.

The torso is kibble-less (and shares a lot of engineering with Combiner Wars Silverbolt).  The limbs are another story but they aren't too bad in the end.

The headsculpt is great and learning from Superion, the antennae are cast from harder plastic.

The chest is normally closed but you can open it to reveal the Enigma, or you can attach a Prime Master instead if you so wish.

Comprised of four Deluxes and a Voyager, Abominus towers over both Voyagers and Leaders.

Abominus has all the standard joints including shoulders, hips, knees, elbows, ankles and wrists.

All the important joints are tight ratchets so he'll be able to hold poses really well... if you can get him to balance.  Abominus himself is very hefty as you'd expect of something formed by five toys.

One of the neat improvements in Power of the Primes is that as each Deluxe gets a fist, the two spare ones peg onto the back of the feet pieces to give the combined mode bigger heelspurs.

The feet also have ankle ratchets, allowing Abominus to stand flat on the table.

As the figure retains the scramble-city style of play, you can swap the limbs around and have them form a different limb.

This other configuration isn't too bad.  One of the slight annoyances is the mismatch of hand color, no matter what, Abominus will have different colored hands.

Most of the detail here are from each individual figure's robot modes.  There isn't much that is dedicated to Abominus himself.

Nevertheless, this is a great combined mode, even if it does nothing truly revolutionary.

OVERALL:

Abominus is well worth purchasing the five Terrorcons for.  The combined mode looks great, is impressive and a lot of fun to play with.

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Hidden Agenda (PS4)

Hidden Agenda is developed by Supermassive Games, the ones behind Until Dawn.  However, this is not a horror game; rather it is a crime thriller and part of the PlayLink range on the PS4.  Therefore, the game is not played using the DualShock 4 but with a smartphone or tablet.  In order to play the game, you must download the app onto your smart device and connected to the same wifi that the PS4 is.  It is easy enough to set up but latency is a slight issue.  Hidden Agenda doesn't require quick reflexes so the input lag isn't too much of a problem.

The game is pretty much a glorified cutscene movie where at certain points, you make choices that would affect the flow of the story.  Certain choices are important as it will dictate what events will occur next (such as whether the suspect attempts to run away or not) and ultimately the ending.  There are a variety of endings from ones where characters die to others where they solve the murder mystery.

Hidden Agenda can be played solo or locally with up to six players.  Playing with others means that when it comes time to make decisions, the game takes the choice decided by a majority vote.  Other gameplay elements to keep your attention include timed segments where you need to find clues on the screen and quick time events.  These are done by using the touchscreen on your smart device to move the pointer on the TV.  It works well enough with the imprecision of such controls.

The other major gameplay element is its namesake.  In every section, there will come a time where one player, or no players, will get a "Hidden Agenda".  This is a secret objective to that specific player.  The aim is to get them to secretly manipulate the story to go down a specific route.  To incentivize this, each player has a score.  If you succeed in completing the "Hidden Agenda", you gain 100 points.  For players that didn't get the objective, they are not left out because if they can pick the player that did get the objective, they get 50 points.  The whole aim is to get the players to start suspecting each other and add some tension.

Unfortunately, while the "Hidden Agenda" gimmick is pretty cool the first time it comes around, it gets tedious really quick.  The other issue is that you're in the middle of a cutscene, engrossed in the story when suddenly it cuts out to hand out a "Hidden Agenda", then a few minutes later it cuts out again to vote for the player that got a "Hidden Agenda", and then the decision happens before cutting out again to display the results.  These breaks in the storytelling are really jarring and does more harm than good.  This isn't a problem when playing solo and you get to enjoy the story without interruptions.

The story follows detective Becky and district attorney Felicity as they investigate the case of the serial killer known as The Trapper.  The game begins with the suspect caught and sentenced to death.  As the final days of the suspect comes to a close, he reveals and casts a seed of doubt by saying that the real killer is still out there.  The graphics are pretty good but the game mainly takes place in dark areas or rainy weather, severely subduing the colors.  Perhaps most noticeable is the facial animations.  The detailing is there right down to the movement of the muscles.  Unfortunately, their awkward and stiff walking animations break the immersion.

While the game boasts replayability via choosing different decisions to get different scenes and ultimately a different ending, it can feel tedious and repetitive.  This is because you are still forced to view large swathes of the same scenes with no option to skip any of them.  Furthermore, some of the endings feel abrupt and rushed.  The scene transitions in the later part of the game are poorly handled, and oftentimes suddenly without warning.  As the story is only around 1-2 hours long, it never builds up enough suspect and mystery to develop the impact is wanted to during the reveal of the culprit.  You never truly got to understand the characters' personalities and telltales so that the culprit can seem like it came out of nowhere.

Overall, Hidden Agenda is not a bad game but it is very average.  The usage of smartphones as the controller is handy for multiplayer but is much less responsive and fun to use than a traditional controller.  There's no reason why traditional controller support could not have been added for single player.  Due to its low pricepoint though, Hidden Agenda is still worth a playthrough if you're interested in the story.

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