Courtesy of Chad Bonin of the GaijInside Blog:
The Versus Series
expands into new territory, pitting some of Capcom’s greatest
characters agains the heroes and villains of Japanese animation. Years
ago, the Street Fighters clashed against the X-Men, the Marvel Super
Heroes, the entire Marvel Universe, and the SNK fighting characters,
and now the Capcom legends face off against some of the Tatsunoko’s
titans. Ryu and Chun-Li face off against Ken the Eagle and Jun the
Swan from Gatchaman, the henshin hero of Viewtiful Joe faces off
against his heroes of Tekkaman, Casshan, Polmar, and more, and even
succubus Morrigan and zombie photographer Frank West (he’s covered
wars, you know) throws on his Megaman armor alongside Zero, Megaman
Volnutt, and Roll to tackle Doronjo, Karas, Gold Lightan, and more!

Capcom’s exploits are legendary across all consoles, genres, and
medium. Tatsunoko, on the other hand, is nameless in America. Only
known for a few of their properties making their way to America
(Gatchaman, Casshan, Karas, and Tekkaman), Tatsunoko has created
classic characters in Japan. This game, once titled Cross
Generation Of Heroes, showed the clash between legends and lesser
knowns. Tatsunoko VS. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars comes after
extensive speculation. Once expected to never reach America, due to
the prevalence of copyright law and mixed properties prevalent on the
Tatsunoko side of things, the game has finally hit American shelves
minus one character and adds tons more.

The fighting engine continues
the VS. series mindset of a five-level Super bar, with
characters having both single level Supers, triple level Supers, and
can combine to perform Partner Supers. Added to the mix are Baroque
and Mega Crash, with the former allowing the player to continue
chaining combos while sacrificing life, and the latter saving them
from crushing attacks.

The only real way to play this game, outside of a arcade stick (Which
were made specifically for the game, which is a nice touch), is with a
Classic Controller (or a Classic Controller PRO, coming soon). Three
buttons are dedicated to light, medium, and hard attacks, with one
button dedicated to partner actions (press it to call out your partner
for an attack, or hold back and press it to swap out with your
partner). Any other control scheme, and you’re limiting your accuracy;
given that this reviewer was raised on SNES pads with Street
Fighter II Turbo, the Classic Controller just tends to be the
best way to tackle the game.

Multiple modes are expected with a fighter, and while Ultimate
All-Stars doesn’t break any new ground, the roads traveled are no
less fun. Arcade, Time Attack, and Survival are fighting game
standards, with arcade going through eight matches, time attack going
through seven (omitting the final battle with Okami’s boss, Yami), and
Survival lasts as long as you do. Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection allows for
both ranked and player matches, but it seemed to take an inordinate
amount of time to make connections. Once made, the fight seems laggy.
It’s hard to quantify this as an erroneous code or just a bad
connection; the sheer inclusion of a Online mode puts the game a step
ahead of it’s Japanese half-predecessor, but Nintendo’s third place
weakness in the online department shows.

One of the most frustrating
unlocks in the game (with art, character colors, videos, and more
available for purchase with Zenny earned from playing naturally) is
the Extra Game, Tatsunoko VS. Capcom: Ultimate All-Shooters.
Unlocked by beating the game AND collecting all highlighted letters
(spelling THANK YOU FOR PLAYING) during the ending credits… it took 26
runs through the game to unlock this mode. Once unlocked, Ultimate
All-Shooters is a four-player shooter starring Ryu, Ken The
Eagle, PTX-40A, and Tekkaman Blade. While not worth a game purchase on
itself, Ultimate All-Shooters is a fun little bonus game
that’s worth a few play throughs, but not worth completely going out
of the way to unlock.

Much of Ultimate All-Stars fun comes from the style and
reverence held throughout the game. Past the point that the combo
counters showing how much damage ranks up in the billions, Capcom (and
UDON, the artists behind the new endings, which replace the animated
endings of Cross Generation Of Heroes) show how much fun can
be had when combining two relatively dissimilar brands. While the plot
is pared down to “the worlds are combining, we have to fight to save
them”, character moments make it beyond the generic setup. Viewtiful
Joe gets to hang out with the heroes he only could buy toys of in the
past, the roster of the Space Knights is enhanced by Roll, Zero, Gold
Lightan, the PTX-40A, and more, and a certain picture on Frank’s
camera during the Willamette Mall incident is revealed. The multiple
openings feature such text quotes, including Ken’s suggestion that Ryu
should join G-Force, but show a problem that will come from the
American players: all voice acting is Japanese, outside of characters
that are uniquely English-speaking. While it’s better than having an
offensively-poor dub, when you can’t understand the dialogue thrown in
the middle of matches, it loses some of the fun. After-battle quotes
are tailored for many of the matches, and levels pulled straight from
the franchises enrich much of the feel of the game.

If you own a Wii and enjoy the franchises involved, definitely check
out the game. If you just want a good fighting game that isn’t
party-designed like Super Smash Bros., this is your best bet.
If you love both factors, this game will go high on your list of
instant classics. While parts of the game are just incredibly obscure,
the fans of them will get their money’s worth.–

S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Kabuto

S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Gatack

Vangelus kicks off a week of S.H. Figuart Reviews that I think will end in a review of the highly anticipated, Kamen Rider IXA. Click on, enjoy and remember to IXA-cise!

I got mine ordered along with a Double Driver and it should be here by February. Checkout this review from forum’s member Soundout and click here to hook him up with some feedback.

Next purchase for me… TRIGGAAAH!!!!

Well, that’s it. Power Rangers just aired its last new episodes for the foreseeable future.

These episodes were not only the conclusion to a year-long arc, which many fans had felt was one of the better seasons we’ve ever had, but it also brings the entire franchise to a close, effectively ending a 17-year saga. That’s more than half my life!

Expectations were understandably high for the series finale, but how much did it live up to the hype that was generated in the gulf between the show’s recent hiatus and now? Ultimately, the finale remains true to what made the show what it was this season, though the execution of its major story elements may have fallen short in some areas.

“Danger and Destiny” begins immediately after the events of the previous episode. Dillon looks as though the virus has overtaken him, but he quickly remarks that he can feel the virus running inside him as he resists it. I found this a cool idea- that he might be dealing with the internal struggle for the duration of the finale. Little did I know how quickly he was going to defeat the virus altogether and move on to something else. I can’t say I loved this choice. After he found Doctor K’s antidote and injected himself, I kept thinking the virus would come back somehow and they would have to deal with Evil Dillon until he finally managed to do the rest of the antidote’s work on his own. At least he kept getting knocked around so it wasn’t just amazingly easy for him, I guess.  

Speaking of knocking things around, Venjix gets proactive in this finale, and drains the memory banks of the lab before “destroying” it. I hesitate to use that word because I know the Rangers spend an awful lot of time in the garage long after Venjix seemed to blast part of it to kingdom come. I do, however, enjoy the fact that Venjix was smart enough to download everything about the Rangers’ bio-fields (aka the Morphin Grid) so he could pretty much whip their asses without even trying.

Meanwhile, Ziggy and K are captured and they get to do what they do best, which is banter and give each other bashful smiles as they try to get out of this latest catastrophe. Ziggy’s ability to slip through his shackles and unlock K’s was nice. Though I had to laugh later on when Scott literally just karate-chopped his father’s shackles in half. Maybe Colonel Truman’s shackles were purchased at the 99-cent store.

I gotta say, the confrontation between Kilobyte and Tenaya felt like it came a bit out of nowhere. Though I will never get tired of seeing Tenaya get hit with a sword and thrown across the room. That sort of attack always feels so much more brutal when they’re not wearing costumes that cover their entire body from head to toe. I just never expect them to go all-out on someone whose face we can see (albeit through a giant, flowing wig to obscure the stuntperson’s identity).

What I loved about this scene was that it was another example of Dillon and Ziggy complimenting each other perfectly. They both had moments to be heroic toward the people they cared for most- Dillon defending his sister, and Ziggy pulling K out of the path of Kilobyte’s gun blast. And Ziggy is the one to grab the antidote vial and toss it to Dillon so he can cure his sister. My only issue with the sequence is that Kilobyte was despensed with far sooner in the finale than I would have liked. Personally, I felt it should have been him in the control tower fighting Tenaya towards the end of the last episode, and the other robot getting blasted to pieces in this moment instead.

So, once the Rangers regroup, and Dillon is down for the count after his valiant efforts to save his sister, Tenaya has once again switched sides. It’s only now that Doctor K comes up with the plan to upload a virus into Venjix and eradicate him completely. Yeah… I seem to recall complaining that the hybrid antidote wasn’t properly set up long before it was imminently needed in order to resolve the plot. I feel twice as strongly about the virus solution here. My sensibilities would have had K working on a virus for several weeks now. All it would take is just showing her busy with something on a monitor and being annoyed when she’s interrupted to deal with the crisis of the week. Anything, as long as she’s able to earnestly say “I’ve been working on a virus for over a month” so it doesn’t feel like she just crapped out a master plan in two seconds. Ah well…

Tenaya, for some reason, has reservations about using herself as a means of uploading the virus. And Flynn gets his last big moment to be awesome, as he tells her to get over herself and start helping them correct the mess she had helped create. I loved it. In a perfect world, Flynn would have gotten many more scenes like this, in many episodes. But at least he wasn’t denied a real moment where the show gets to focus pretty much just on him and what he means to the team. If no one else is going to speak up and tell it like it is, then he will. Awesome.

So, Tenaya gets her rear in gear, but not before Gem and Gemma have been “deleted” by Venjix and his newfound manipulation of the Rangers’ bio-fields. Now, unfortunately, someone thought it was a good idea to tell us exactly what happens to them in a summary of the episode’s premise, so there was no real shock value there for me. And this is not the first, or second, or third time a Ranger has supposedly been killed and brought back five minutes later. But as far as fake deaths go, I’d say this one was fairly effective for me. Of all the people to become casualties, it had to be the ones whose faces were the most innocent (despite all their actions that made them far less innocent than they appeared).

When Gem says “We would have kept fighting” I believed him. I genuinely felt bad that he wasn’t going to be there for them the way he wanted. Gemma’s “Never give up” immediately reminds me of the Wild Force season, as that was the catchphrase of some of their characters (and I suspect this was done intentionally) but it obviously applies here, and felt like an earnest plea from a dying hero. Forgetting, for a moment, that I wasn’t convinced that they were really dead. The fact is the other characters had no idea. And the cast’s performances were all fantastic as the grim reality of their situation set in. Kudos. I also loved Dillon’s straight-forward attitude about the loss, as he knows there’s work left to be done and wants to prevent more “deaths.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Tristan of HeroPower

Well, here we are, at the end of the year-long season of “Kamen Rider Dragon Knight.” We got here a lot faster than I was expecting to, considering the show was basically cancelled only weeks before the finale would have aired. In an unanticipated move, 4Kids released the final four episodes of the series all in one shot. Which is how I chose to watch them. And as I try to separate the feeling of loss associated with ending another American toku show, from my overall critical sense of how well the episodes were made, the strongest thoughts the show has left me with are a desire for more.  

When spoilers from the spanish-language dub of the show came rolling into the fandom, I avoided all of it, but could not help but notice complaints about the show’s ending. It was assumed long before this that the series would end with a clip show chronicling the key plot points of the story while wrapping it up in an epilogue. I can’t say I was excited by the idea, but since there were so many plot elements left unresolved, I remained hopeful that they would find a way to make it work.   

And so, the true climax of the series would take place within the two-part episode just before the epilogue, titled “For Ventara and Earth.” And what a climax it was. For the first time, there were more than just a few Kamen Riders gathered in one area for a fight sequence. By the time we reached the end of the mission to storm Xaviax’s base, all thirteen of them had reappeared.

KRDK has had no shortage of quality action, but they definitely saved their best material for last, as Xaviax took on Eubulon and his Riders. Meanwhile, I thought it was clever how they used the anti-Rider shield as a means of making Trent and Maya essential to the final battle, sneaking in to give the Riders a portal through the shield.     

And just as I suspected all along, Pryce comes to Maya’s rescue, and whatever beef Maya was having with him because of his Mirror Twin JTC was squashed. I assume they’ll have a few Kamen Rider babies running around in ten years or so.

But speaking of the Mirror Twins, there was one element about the climax that I would have done quite differently, and that’s how the remaining Ventaran Riders were handled. Some of these actors had not been seen at all since their Earth counterparts were vented months earlier. A couple of these characters should have provoked a fairly major reaction from the main characters. In particular, the Ventaran Kamen Rider Sting, counterpart to Chris Ramirez, who had become good friends with Kit and Len before his eventual venting. The man doesn’t even get so much as a close-up.

And I was so excited to see these actors return. When the time came for Eubulon’s portal to open, and all the armored Riders stepped forth, it was a triumphant moment. But when it was all over, the “new guys” were treated as though they were hardly anything special. In the end, what should have been an emotional sequence of events was reduced to cameo appearances. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss the black dude. Whatever his name is. I honestly have no idea.

That’s not to say that I wasn’t appropriately psyched about the final confrontation. Ultimately, seeing all thirteen Riders standing together in one room, with Xaviax pretty much laughing in their faces, is an awesome moment whether you know all the extra characters or not. I know Xaviax, and his final speech to all the Riders was so well performed it almost makes me regret that this will likely be the last chance we have to ever see him. William O’Leary has spent this entire season elevating every scene written for him with his performance, and I’m going to miss having a dose of his threatening, sarcastic personality every week.

What I will not miss are the clip shows.

Seriously, who makes three different recap episodes out of a single block of forty episodes? Especially considering the length of the recaps that appear at the start of every episode, including the epilogue which is meant to wrap up the whole story anyway. And the thing is, I could have found a way to still be satisfied by an epilogue story. But in order for it to really work, it would have needed to accomplish a number of things.

First and foremost, the Earth Riders. The real epilogue took about five seconds out the twenty-two in order to tell us that all the vented Earth guys were brought home and had their memories erased so they could live their lives like nothing happened………. Wait.

THAT’S IT?!

What about Chris? For pete’s sake, he was the first real good guy to get vented, and his loss was one of the huge turning points for the series. His friendship with Kit and Len was strong enough that I expected him to return much earlier, and for it to be a fairly emotional moment. Instead, we don’t even SEE Chris meet up with his friends again. The closest we get is a brief glimpse of his nameless Ventaran twin, and a quick voiceover by Maya about how he went on to be in the military. I felt like I had just lost a contest and was being handed a consolation prize. Lifetime supply of toilet paper, anyone?

There’s also the fact that Wrath was written as Len’s mentor. The man who “taught him everything he knows.” There’s no interaction between them. Not even a throwaway line about Wrath being proud of him, or one of those “meaningful wordless nods” these shows are so fond of using.

How about showing JTC getting arrested for all his crimes (before his Rider days, I mean)? Particularly if Pryce and Maya are there to watch him get dragged off. And then there’s the Cho Brothers, whose reunion might have been nice to see, even if they were basically criminals with very little substance until one of them was vented. And I really would have liked to see a fleshed-out scene where Kit gets his father back, for real this time. I mean, the list of possible final moments between the twenty-something characters just goes on and on.

And maybe there were a few scheduling issues with some of the actors. If they were being paid as recurring characters, then I’m sure money might have also been a factor. But if you got them to do those appearances in the base set, would it really have been too expensive to at LEAST have one genuine scene with Chris instead of shunting him off into obscurity with all the others? 

I think the best parts of the epilogue were the ones taking place in present time. Obviously, Aunt Grace was never going to come back into the story, but it was amusing to find that the store had now become enormous, and that Maya was there signing books. I really enjoyed her lines about the value of telling the story, whether it be fictional or not. One of the few times where I felt like the writers were trying to get out a specific message about the show and what it might stand for. 

It was nice to see Lacey again, though I honestly don’t understand why she wasn’t involved in the last several episodes, without so much as an explanation as to what she was doing this whole time. And no, “getting some air” doesn’t count. At least it was nice to hear that Trent was now working with the No-Men, accomplishing what had been his goal the entire time. Trent got a lot of flack from certain fans who questioned his role in the series, but I enjoyed his presence, especially when he became an agent. If there was ever a sequel to KRDK (which I know isn’t likely) I’d be happy to see him return.

And the idea of returning might have been on the writers’ minds when they crafted the final scene. While I had my reservations about how quickly they did it, I did like the idea that they would discover new worlds beyond Earth or Ventara, paving the way for new adventures. Whether or not the story continues, the season ends on a good final note. With Kit, Len, and Kase all transforming for what may be the last time we see them. 

I find myself saddened that this truly may be the end, not just for those characters, but for American Kamen Rider in general. Regardless of its flaws, I was among the show’s loyal fans that would not miss an episode, and wanted it to succeed and make way for future projects. I found myself loving the action, and having a sense of wonder about the possibilities with the alternate universe and the greater mythology behind the story. 

“Kamen Rider Dragon Knight” was by no means perfect. But for a year of my life, I had an American toku show that acted as a companion piece to Power Rangers, the only other show of its kind that I could watch on my own television. It was there for me to love, or to hate. To geek out over one week, and be infuriated by the next. To speculate about, and to be surprised by. Regardless of the criticisms I’ve offered for the show, I know that as we step into the next year, I’m going to miss having the show around. Hell, I miss it already.

Let’s Ride.   

Image courtesy of MegaRed of Rangerboard.

 That’s right, kids. “Kamen Rider Dragon Knight” may be over, but the Riders are crossing over into the world of “Power Rangers RPM!!!” … Well, not really. But hey, I can pretend.

“If Venjix Won” marks the triumphant return of what I would call one of the best seasons of Power Rangers ever. Sadly, it was the first of only four episodes that remained before the end of the entire franchise (remastered reruns aside). But putting all bitterness about the show’s demise behind, I was delighted to see the show again. In many ways, I had forgotten how to watch this thing. It may sound like an odd comment to make, but it had been so long since the last time I had seen it, I found myself struggling to remember different plot points and character dynamics. 

Which, in a way, made it even better that ”If Venjix Won” was actually a clip show. So, instead of immediately tossing me back into the complexities of the major story arcs, I could ease my way back into this universe with the help of flashbacks that reaquainted me with the series. And luckily, this wasn’t one of the lazy clip shows, where they just load us up with an endless number of old scenes and give us nothing else to hold onto. “If Venjix Won” actually weaves a legitimate story between all the obvious money-saving clip segments.        

I laughed aloud when the episode began with Summer sitting in Flynn’s car, instructing the mechanic on how to fix his own personal vehicle. And the Mary Sue comments just keep on coming.  

Ziggy’s looking for someone to hang out with, and of course, nobody’s interested… except Doctor K, who uncharacteristically wants to go outside. And here comes the awesome.

I still find it mildly surprising whenever I encounter a fan who actually couldn’t see that these two characters were always meant to have some kind of love connection. I mean, it seemed so blatantly obvious. The playful banter, the emotional deflection on the part of Doctor K, and the amazingly persistent ribbings from Ziggy. All of it was leading us to this point, and I was so glad not to be dissapointed when we got here. The finale may give us a bit more, but this is when their connection is finally solidified beyond any possible doubt. I defy any fan to say they’re not into each other at this point.

And hey, we got some Ziggy/K battle action out of the whole deal. Even better! 

I have to say, I thought it was hilarious when Ziggy sliced through the pipe in K’s hands with his axe. Not because he broke her only weapon. But because, for a split-second, it looked like he was going to accidentally chop K in half. Clumsy Ziggy is clumsy! So clumsy, in fact, that his teleportation trick sends them into a random cave of randomness, where they are trapped for most of the episode.

This is the sort of scenario that I have always loved. Two characters are forced into a situation where they have no choice but to interact with each other, unable to help themselves until the others rescue them. This sort of thing is a dramatic gold mine, and this episode used the plot device very effectively. Although I thought their excuse as to why they couldn’t teleport out to be a bit weak. They don’t seriously expect us to believe that K recharges their morphers after every single miniscule little fight, do they? I’m sure, if we looked back at all the episodes, there would be some inconsistencies with that somewhere. I would have preferred if they had contrived up some reason for the morpher to need recharging, like she had been making alterations to it earlier in the day or something.

In any case, the Rangers try to access K’s computer, only to find that it requires a password. And these guys input some of the most ridiculous passwords you could ever possibly imagine. Seriously, they could have just closed their eyes and smashed the keyboard and still probably would have had better luck than with those crazy guesses. But as they fail time and time again, a recording of K tells them about the history of the team, and thus we have our clips.

I think some fans were bothered by the lack of important information for survival by whoever might find the recording “if venjix won.” I prefer to think that the part of the recording they watched was there more as a time capsule than as an actual explanation of anything imminently relevant. And honestly, I appreciated that the clips they showed us had some kind of dramatic value to them. It told us a story, rather than just tossing a bunch of random fight scenes at us with no sense of progression or subtance, as so many other clip shows are shamelessly guilty of.

Meanwhile, Doctor K reveals the “real” reason she wanted to go outside: It was her birthday. Which, by the way, was an awesome excuse to show clips of her past at Alphabet Soup, since she had most of her birthdays there, and was always being told she couldn’t go outside. It’s rare that old clips can cause me to feel something, but those memories just took me back to the emotion of the original scenes. I felt bad for K all over again.

Ziggy’s attempt to cheer her up was fantastic. Nice callback with his ridiculously complicated shadow puppets making her smile. And awesome moment when she passes out from lack of oxygen right after.
 
And I laughed yet again when Summer figured out what the password must be. This was the funniest usage of clips, because it looks as though Summer was remembering events that she wasn’t even there to witness. For my own sanity, I choose to believe that the clips just represent her thinking process from an abstract point of view, and not that she magically saw into the past because she’s Summer, and she can do whatever the plot needs her to do. Though honestly, I would have loved it if it was Flynn that figured it out. Poor Scottish bastard. He never gets any love. 

The password, amazingly, is Ziggy’s exact name. No extra letters or numbers. Just plain “Ziggy.” K must really love this guy to place the fate of the human race on a computer with the most easily crackable code known to man. 

Of course, Summer has to keep the code to herself after she types it in and Ziggy is able to return with K. How cute. They kinda sorta maybe bonded there for a second. 

The episode was not perfect, but I found the Ziggy/K interactions to be extremely entertaining and worth the wait. The way they used the clips, for the most part, was clever and engaging enough that I didn’t find myself wondering what I was going to have for lunch in the middle of the episode, as I often do during clip shows. In fact, it’s easily one of the better clip shows the franchise has ever had. As it should be. It’s perhaps the last one we’ll ever see. 

“If Venjix Won” gets a B+. 

Bring on the finale!  

-Dr. Tristan of HeroPower.

Vangelus comes through again with a kickass HLJ.Com toy review. This toy selling for a very generous 13 bucks! Click on and enjoy the review of the YF-19, one of my all time favorite mechs. See why in the below dog fight.

http://hlj.com/product/YMT00069

If you’ve been enjoying the latest Kuuga fansubs that’ve been dropping or maybe are a fan of Kamen Rider Decade’s partner in crime, maaaaybe you wanna pick yourself up an kickass action figure to go with it.
http://hlj.com/product/BAN955908
This bad boy is a mere 13 bucks to boot! Click and enjoy.

Hobby Link Japan is at it again and hooking YOU up with some badass free shipping deals! Like before, I HIGHLY recommend the IXA Caliber as a great first purchase. 10 bucks for a great gun as you can see below by TJ. The Motion Revive’s are a good pick too, but like before… you get what you pay for and need not fear any shipping and handling charges.

Snag stuff while you can!

Motion Revive TELOS by Vangelus

IXA Caliber and Tatsulato Brace by TJ Omega

Motion Revive KOS-MOS

Revoltech Fraulein Yoko

Two more reviews from the beloved Vangelus. One which has a special place in my heart as KOS-MOS from my favorite DS RPG, Super Robot Wars Saga: Endless Frontier that you can pick up for a song and 3 pennies over at HLJ.Com. Juuuust in case the countdown ends with free shipping, this is one I think you’re gonna want to keep an eye out for so YOU TOO can have a harem of Spreem Women.

Enjoy!