I’m surprised that I enjoyed this kid-friendly platformer as much as I did. It leans in heavy into its cuteness factor but manages to tell a story that isn’t insulting with some genuine moments of wit. It’s not really a pure platformer either. About half the levels have you swimming in all directions rather than jumping. It’s a mechanic that seems overly simple at first but eventually builds up to a moderate level of challenge. Throw in a bit of exploration/secret hunting and you have a pretty decent little game here.
This is the first Castlevania sequel I have ever completed. I’ve played the first five minutes of Symphony of the Night half-a-dozen times. For whatever reason it never really grabbed me. Today there are about twenty games in the franchise and they all seem to be about the same: Run around a big castle with a whip, kill enemies that endlessly respawn, and defeat bosses to gain new skills which open up other sections of the castle.
I have to say I still find the whip attack and the platforming to be clunky but I managed to stay somewhat engaged in the exploration aspects of the game. This one has a big collect-em-all mechanic where various randomly dropped tarot cards give your character magic abilities. I only managed to find about a third of the cards as they are mostly random drops. This must drive completists mad.
The post-boss power-ups are also kinda boring. Sure they let you get through barriers and locked areas, but, with the exception of a high jump, they never made your character feel more powerful the way similar items would in Metroid or Guacamelee!
I did manage still to have some fun with Circle of the Moon. My goal is to eventually play one of the NDS games which seemed to have mush smoother controls and slicker graphics. This was an adequate introduction to the Vania side of the Metroidvania genre.
Several years ago I tried watching this when a YouTube user posted it on their channel. I came to find out that the last 10 minutes were missing and I never learned the identity of the killer. You get what you pay for. This time round film was intact all the way to the Poirot-style “and the killer is one of you” ending. Aside from one gruesome killing and the dissonant Morricone score, this leans more towards a standard police detective mystery than a stylish giallo.
Lately I have become obsessed with bullet-hell shmups like this. I’d see these images of these impossible patterns of projectiles and wonder how anyone could maneuver a ship around them for more than a few seconds. Most of my experience with them has been through Mame arcade emulation with a special interest in ones with detailed pixel art. No matter the title, I could always manage to get to the end of the maybe the first level and would then be absolutely destroyed after that.
Mushihimesama is a classic Cave arcade shmup, but here, in the Steam PC port of the game, there are several modes of play including a forgiving novice mode. This reduced difficulty level is still painfully hard on my Gen-X reflexes but I managed, over the course of many hours of play, to just about master the entire game through to the end.
This is where the appeal of these games ultimately lies: the gradual mastery of the mechanics, levels and patterns of bullets. It’s not easy but it always feels like you’re getting a little bit farther after every punishing defeat, Plus, the skills I have lean on the baby mode have helped me get a little further on the more aggressive difficulties. I will never master the hardest levels but it’s within the realm of possibility.
A teenage girl is obsessed with a new wave pop star. She writes him letters, follows him to Munich, finally meets him, and hilarity ensues. I’m leaving out a few details, but that’s basically the whole plot. Seems stupid but it somehow managed to keep me engaged through most of it. There is a Kraftwerk style vibe to R’s sound and look that make this film a bit more watchable than it had any right to be.
What a mouthful of a title. Anyhow, this book is a case against post-modernism and its application within the academy and modern political discourse. Post-modernism is confusing by design and I agree its a pretty awful ideology. Reading about post-modernism isn’t much easier than reading post-modernist writing itself. As with all these vaguely political non-fiction books I have read recently, they wait until the last chapter to lay out their solutions and say anything interesting.
The most notable thing from this 1964 Japanese sci-fi movie is silly the starfish alien designs. The point of the story is for the aliens to warn Earth of an impending disaster, but they go about it in the most roundabout way possible. The, at the eleventh hour, they just save everyone completely negating the entirety of the movie’s narrative. The scenes of the aliens on their ship must be inspired by German expressionist films. The rest of the movie is pretty dull.
I came across this movie when it was featured in a list of pre-Romero zombie movies. The only thing it has going for it is Barbara Steele looking emaciated as per usual. The effects are limited to decomposed hand reaching out from around corners and few seconds of a mauled eye in the first three minutes of the picture. The rest is mostly boring, poorly dubbed dialogue about a scientist who died.
Are all ancient religions actually based on alien encounters? Of course not, but that’s not going to stop these film makers! The case made here is paper thin and devoid of any evidence. Most of the proof comes in the form of looking at ancient artwork and then saying stuff like, “The drawing’s head is very round… could it be… a space helmet!!” or “Those ground markings seem to go nowhere… or could they be… landing strips for spacecraft!!” Their biggest piece of evidence isn’t even an actual cave drawing. It’s a reproduction drawn by the one scientist who actually believes this garbage. At the very least, I did like appreciate the just seeing ancient monuments like the pyramids and moai statues.
