Pokemon Conquest – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Pokemon is a franchise that has taken the world by storm since its inception, becoming such a global juggernaut that it’s hard to see these tiny monsters ever going away. Over the years the series has continued too produce games that don’t really stray too far from their proven winning formula of travelling around, capturing monsters, and battling other trainers to achieve glory.

There have been a number of spin-off games that have tried to do different things, such as Pokemon Trading Card Game, which turned the popular card game into video game, Pokemon Snap which put playing in an on-rails photography game, and Pokemon Go, which for one brief moment united phone gamers in a sense of peace and community we’ve not seen since. But the most unusual of these spin-off games would have to be Pokemon Conquest, which has just turned 10-years-old.

Pokemon Conquest is a tactical role-playing game that moves away from the traditional turn-based battles and instead puts the player in command of an army out to conquer a nation. The game isn’t just a Pokemon title, however, as it’s also a cross-over with the obscure but popular game series Nobunaga’s Ambition.

Originally announced at the Jump Festa anime and manga event in December 2011, Nintendo and Tecmo Koei revealed the game to stunned audiences. More details would be slowly released over the coming six months before the game’s release, with the promotion making use of live-streaming events to build excitement. It was revealed that the game would break away from the regular series game-play, and even art style, as it aimed to give fans something that they’d never played before.

The game puts you in control of a warrior in the Ransei Region, a nation divided by war as the 17 kingdoms battle for supremacy. The region is also home to Pokemon, and the warriors that make up the armies form links with certain Pokemon, taking them into battle with them. It has been foretold in ancient legend that a warrior who can unite all 17 kingdoms of Ransei will be able to encounter the legendary Pokemon that created the region. If that warrior proves to be good and pure it will lead to great prosperity for Ransei and its people, but if the warrior is evil it could lead to death and destruction. Partnered with your Eevee, you set out to find a way to bring together all of the kingdoms before the cruel warlord Nobunaga is able to meet the legendary Pokemon.

The traditional Pokemon battles that made up the bulk of previous games are gone, with turn-based strategy battles taking their place. Rather than commanding a single Pokemon, players are put in charge of several, and direct them around a small battle-field to engage with opposing creatures. Each of the Pokemon featured in the game have different abilities, letting them move differently, attack differently, and affect the battle-field in different ways. Some abilities would allow you to do things such as increase the attack power of your Pokemon, or to heal your team; but could only be used once per battle, meaning that you’d have to think carefully about what abilities you used, and when.

The game made use of the Nintendo DS’s dual screens in battle, allowing the player to direct their troops on the bottom screen by using touch commands, whilst keeping an eye on the battle as a whole on the top screen with tactical information displays. Over the course of the game players are able to recruit up to 200 warriors to join their conquering force. Each of the warriors can assemble their own team of Pokemon, allowing players to choose which they use in battle, though they do each have specific Pokemon they bond best with, leaving you to seek out their perfect partners so as to assemble the strongest army possible.

The game had a pretty in-depth main campaign that would take you tens of hours to complete. There is also additional ‘special episodes’ that the player can take on after finishing the main story-line that expand upon the game and give you additional missions. In total, the game can easily take near a hundred hours to complete everything, and the more complex battle system means that more time and thought had to be taken to battles, leading to one of the bigger and more complex Pokemon games at the time of release.

Despite how different the game was it was received well by fans and critics, receiving strong review scores and praise for daring to try something different. The game was celebrated for its complex, yet easy to learn, game-play mechanics, as well as its art style and setting. Pokemon Conquest would go on to sell more than 350,000 copies in Japan alone, and even featured on the IGN ‘Top 25 Nintendo DS Games‘ list.

Pokemon Conquest might not be the first thing folks think of when they think of the franchise, and probably aren’t even on the list of stuff you think of on your second thought. But it’s proved to be a popular game that tried to do something different and really did succeed in combining Pokemon with a completely different type of game-play experience.

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DV vs Vampires #7 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

I've really been enjoying the DC vs Vampires series, and found the first six issues to be one of the best, most tense and frightening, six issue runs that DC have done in a long while. This alternate world they'd created where anyone could die at any moment, and our beloved heroes had become monsters was so good.

And whilst the series is still very entertaining, this latest issue felt quite different. I think part of this is because now we've entered the territory of the tie-in one shots and mini-series needing to be relevant for the main story. For example, we see that after the events of DC vs Vampires : Killers that Harley Quinn is being experimented on by the humans to try and work out how her blood kills vampires; which is all good in itself, but the book gives no explanation for this and requires you to know some of this already. Again, not necessarily a bad thing; but the part that did feel bad for me was that the events of this book take place following DC vs Vampires: All Out War, which isn't out yet. The fact that this issue references the events of that book, which it is impossible to read before this at this point in time, made this issue feel off to me. But perhaps that's a me problem.

Outside of that issue, this particular part of the story was still very good. We get a brief catch-up at the beginning, showing the fight between the heroes and their vampire friends, and how badly the good-guys lost that fight. There are some pretty brutal moments, and some panels that are quite shocking.

Outside of this, we catch up with Director Bones and his convoy of survivors, who are trying to make their way to the last human city where they can find safety. Unfortunately, they get ambushed by a gang of super powered vampires, and things don't go well for them. Thankfully, the arrival of Jayna swings things, and several of the vampires are killed; though she is the only survivor alongside Bones' dying skull. Bones directs Jayna to take one of their cars to the rendezvous, where she meets the survivors, and learns that the car had some special cargo, Super Girl.

The rest of the issue sees our surviving heroes and villains working out a plan to get Kara to some sunlight to power her back up, hoping that a full powered Kryptonian on their side will be enough to give them a slim chance of beating the vampires.

This was a decent issue for setting the stage for things to come, and it was interesting to see how far things had come since issue six. It seems like we've had a big time jump, and that this is no longer simply the vampires building their strength and numbers from the shadows, but an all out vampire empire across the entire globe.

Whilst not quite as good as the six issues that came before it, there's still a lot here to like, and I'm eager to find out what comes next in this story.

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Goosebumps: Stay Out of the Basement by R.L. Stine – Throwback 30

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The first entry in the Goosebumps horror series, Goosebumps: Welcome To Dead House, was a huge success for Scholastic, and it seemed like Goosebumps fever was going to sweep through schools across the world. Luckily, the next few entries in the series were already written and ready to go, and just a few weeks after the first volume hit the shelves it was followed by Goosebumps: Stay Out of the Basement.

The plot of the book follows Margaret and Casey Brewer, who live with their mother and father in a quiet small town in the US. Their father, Dr. Brewer, is a specialist botanist, but was recently fired from his  job. As such, he’s become obsessed with the work that he’s carrying out in the house’s basement, hoping that when he completes his experiments it will prove those who fired him wrong, and redeem his reputation. He warns Margaret and Casey to stay out of the basement no matter what.

When their mother has to travel to see her sister the kids are left alone with their father; who continues to concentrate on his work in the basement, and pays little attention to the children. When their father drives their mother to the airport, the kids sneak into the basement to check out what’s got their father so obsessed, and find strange, large plants that make breathing and groaning noises. When they try to check it out one of the plants grabs Casey with its tendrils. They manage to break free, but are caught by their father as they exit the basement.

As time moves on their father begins to act even stranger. He starts wearing a hat at all times but has leaves sticking out of it, secretly eats plant food, sleeps in a bed full of soil and worms, and bleeds green when cut. The kids begin to suspect that their father has turned himself into some kind of plant hybrid with his experiments. But the truth waiting for them in the basement is much more shocking than that – if only they can survive long enough to find out.

Goosebumps: Stay Out of the Basement is similar to Goosebumps: Welcome to Dead House in the fact that you can see that Stine is still trying to find the style and tone that will eventually become a big part of the series. This is one of the few Goosebumps books that isn’t written in the first-person by one of the child characters, and instead takes a third-person perspective. This make the book stand out straight away, as it’s a style that the series never normally uses, and the character-driven narrative of the rest of the series is something that many who read the books when they were first released will remember.

There’s also a lack of much humour or weirdness in the book. Many of the Goosebumps books will have peaks in tension, where Stine builds something up to end a chapter on a cliff-hanger scare that is quickly resolved at the start of the next chapter, often as an ‘I was scared of nothing’ reveal. This doesn’t really happen in this book, and instead there’s a pretty constant tension throughout that builds as the book progresses. This comes from the fact that the entire book is centred around the Brewer house, and we never get away from the horrors lurking there. But it’s also because there’s no one for the kids to confide in or ask for help from. Their mother is gone, and the only adult left in their life is the figure of which they’re afraid. It makes for a pretty dark and oppressive read from a series that’s known for being a bit fun and silly at times.

Despite this, the book was as much a success as the first, and helped to cement that Stine wasn’t a one-hit-wonder, and that the Goosebumps brand was one to keep an eye on. The book ended up becoming one of the more iconic entries in the series, and inspired a plethora of merchandise. The creepy, plant-like hand from the front cover of the book became one of the most recognised images in the series, and was seen everywhere. There were t-shirts with it on, and door hangers warning parent to ‘stay out’; you could get big plastic plant hands to go over door handles, and there were even really odd pieces of merch like tape dispensers, scissors, and protractors all designed to look like they were made of plant matter. Some of the items that got the Stay Out of the Basement treatment were a bit odd to say the least; but boy did they sell.

The story was also one of the books that was adapted as part of the much popular Goosebumps television series, and was one of the few stories to get a two-part adaptation. The TV version stuck close to the events of the book, though some of the smaller details are changed to deliver a less bloody and violent finale.

It’s hard to think of a time where Goosebumps would have been seen as a gamble, where it would have been a risk to take a chance on a writer who would go on to be the biggest selling horror writer alive today, and that’s in part down to Goosebumps: Stay Out of the Basement helping to show that it wasn’t a one-off, that this was a series that had a lot of promise, and one that kids would happily return to time and time again.

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Dark Crisis #2 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

Dark Crisis might only be two issues into the main title, but it's become a series that I'm super excited for each month. This is the best DC event since Flashpoint, and the start of the New 52.

Whilst the first issue gave us a bit of a broad spread as to what was going on in the DC universe, showing us a world without the Justice League, and how things have quickly descended into chaos as criminals push boundaries everywhere; this issue focuses the majority of its action on one place, and one group of people. The siege of Titans Tower.

The way the last issue ended, with Deathstroke apparently shooting Beast Boy in the head and killing him, I was desperate to find out what happened next; and I was so gad that this issue went back to these events as soon as it did. Thankfully, it seems that Beast Boy's shape shifting abilities mean that a bullet to the brain isn't instantly deadly, but he's not safe yet by any means.

For the majority of the issue we follow Nightwing as his school comes under attack from a host of villains, and he has a one on one fight with Deathstroke. The fight between the two of them is absolutely phenomenal, and you can feel the years of tension, hate, and history coming to the forefront here. Deathstroke respecting Dick as a fighter. Dick pushing himself further than any other fight. The fact that Deathroke calls him by his name. This isn't just two costumed people going up against each other, but two people with a lot of history.

And I honestly held my breath for a moment when it looked like Deathstroke was going to deliver a killing blow to Dick, and my goodness, I've never been so happy to see John as in that moment. His arrival was absolutely perfect. The timing was great, and the fact that he and Dick have become so close in their own titles absolutely fits with this. They're the legacy Batman and Superman. They're friends. So of course John would be there the split second Dick needs him to be to save his life.

This issue also clears up a little of what happened to Slade at the end of Shadow War, when he was put in the Lazarus Pit and the waters turned black. It looks like whatever this stuff is has somehow connected him to Pariah and the big bad, and that they're trying to influence him from beyond that universe. And he's not the only one. Cyborg Superman makes an appearance here, and gets to throw down with John in a fight that is only overshadowed by the Dick/Slade one because of how epic that was.

Outside of the Titans Tower drama we also learn that the Green Lanterns are gathering in order to take the fight back to Earth. They've even stopped by to pick up a ring-less Kyle Rayner and offer him his job with the corps back. You know a crisis is about to kick into high gear whenever the Corps has to show up, so it definitely feels like this issue is just the prelude even more to come.

I loved the first issue of this series as it set things up really well, had a lot of great moments, and teased some cool things to come; but this issue was so much better for the fantastic action, the heartbreak, the tension, and the wow factor. I rated the first issue as a five out of five, so on that metric I guess this one would have to be six out of five!

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Prey - Film Review

 

Since it was announced I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Prey, the latest movie in the Predator franchise. As a life-long fan of the series (having first watched the original when I was way too young thanks to uncles that would let me watch any VHS they had) I've always likes the creature, and whilst I find enjoyment in all of its movie, game, comic, and novel outings, I have to admit that the films have been declining somewhat in quality over the years. The series needed something bold and new in order to make them decent again; and luckily, Prey is just that.

The concept is one that the comics and the books have tackled before; what if the Predator came to Earth in a different era. It's an idea that's so obvious, that allows for incredible creative freedom and for the franchise to try some bold new things; but i'ts never been put to screen. Instead, the films have tried to build on the same formula as the first film, and despite having next to no real connections to each other, have followed on in a loose continuity.

Prey bucks the trend of the other films in the series by going backwards in time some three hundred years, taking audiences to the Comanche Nation. The film starts slow, giving us the chance to get to learn about the characters and the life they live, and you hardly notice the absence of the big bad monster as director Dan Trachtenberg delivers a visually beautiful introduction that puts the human characters in the spotlight. 

And compared to the other films in this series, Prey really does have characters as the focus. Whilst we all love the first film and it's group of muscled 80's action heroes, they're not really characters. Yes, they have big personalities and they're great fun, but they're broad caricatures at best. And this is something that continues on over the other films, with perhaps the closest the series comes to a well defined character being the second film's Lieutenant Harrigan. But here we get not just a well defined, enjoyable character, but a film that is actually dictated by them. 

Amber Midthunder plays Naru, a young woman who wants more from life than the traditional role of caring for the young, harvesting plants, and caring for the men. She wants to hunt, like her brother Taabe, and has the skills to do so, if not the opportunity to prove it. And it's her desire to prove herself, and her ability to see what the other hunters miss, that drives the plot forward. It's likely that her tribe would come into contact with the alien hunter without Naru's intervention, but they wouldn't beat it, they wouldn't pursue it through the forest, and they wouldn't begin to understand it in the same way. 

This is one of the things that makes Naru such a compelling character, that she thinks, she analyses what she sees and uses that to grow. Naru is being called a Mary Sue already, by people who don't even understand what the term means and just thinks it means a strong female character, but she's easily one of the more human and realistic action heroes in a long while. Naru beings the films with skills, yes, but she isn't on par with the Predator at all; not even close. Naru fails across the course of the film. She makes mistakes, she takes losses. But she also learns. We get to see the small pieces of information she learns that all builds towards her being able to finally take on this monster.

Speaking of monsters, the Feral Predator might be my favourite one to appear on screen. Personality wise, he's pretty nasty. The scenes where he's actually killing his prey are some of the most brutal kills in the series. He doesn't always quickly dispatch his opponents, and seems to revel in the brutality of what he can do. He doesn't just hit them once and kill them, he beats them with his weapons again and again, long past the point of them being dead. And his weapons are great; I love the fact that this Yautja has equipped himself to his prey, that he isn't just using a plasma caster, and has more simplistic weapons such as his blades and spear. That being said, the film does give us some new weapons, such as a harpoon gun and a razor shield, which are extremely cool.

I've seen some criticism about the design of the creature, but have to say that for the most part I really liked it. The bio-mask is fantastic, and makes for one of the most unique looking Yautja designs we've ever had on screen. His body is slimmer than some of the others, and he has an almost sleek quality to him that works really well. Part of that might also come from his much thinner dreadlocks, which are more numerous than in previous creature designs. I think the biggest issue that some people have is with the face, and whilst it is definitely a different look to the classic it's not bad. People seem to want the same design over and over, with the differences being only in colouration, but we know the species has some big differences in them, and also, just look at people. Humans can have a huge range of different looking faces, so why not the Yautja? It's face isn't my favourite look for sure, but I'm not going to say it's bad by any means.

Another way that this film really stood out for me was in the visuals. Prey is easily the best looking film in the series. The environments that we get to see are absolutely stunning, with some amazing vistas and landscape shots that had me with my jaw dropped. And the stunning visuals aren't just for the big shots either, as the film seems to take the time to make every scene look impressive in some way. None of the scenes felt like they just turned up in a location with a camera and started shooting. It always felt like thought and attention was given to how to make it look its best at all times; and the results speak for themselves.

The music is also another area that impressed me. The first film is the only one in the series that really felt like it had much of a distinct audio identity. It had some strong music and an audio feel that would go on to be emulated and copied across the rest of the series, with the other films trying to sound similar at times, or just outright copying the score. Prey sounds different, it has music that feels grander in scope, that has emotion to it, and that compliments what's happening on screen, rather than just going 'this is a Predator movie, you can tell because it sounds like a Predator movie'. The film also has come cool audio tricks up its sleeve, like the entire feel of the sound in the scene changing when the characters extinguish their flaming torches and they plunge themselves into darkness. The entire soundscape alters, and you suddenly realise that the flickering, crackling of the flames had infected everything you were hearing, and only noticed when it was removed.

Prey also takes the time to make sure that it's being respectful of the Comanche people, and does a particularly good job at representing them well on screen thanks to the heavy involvement of native people both in front and behind the camera. The fact that you can also watch the film with a Comanche dub, where some of the scenes were even re-shot in Comanche, is amazing, and gives a great excuse to re-watch the movie. Not that much of an excuse is needed.

A lot of people are saying that this is the best film in the Predator series since the first one, and I cannot disagree with that. From a storytelling stance, from a visual perspective, to the acting, the editing, the visual effects, the music, everything here is better than any of the other sequels. This film is receiving high praise, and it very much deserves it. However, my spanner in the works for those sentiments is this, are we only saying it's the best since the original because nostalgia won't let us say anything is better than the first film? I love the first movie, it's one of my favourite films ever, and whilst Prey is not yet beating it for sheer love and favouritism (yet), I think that it is a better movie. It's objectively a better film, and I think people's blind love to the original is preventing a lot of people from saying the same.

Prey is an astonishingly good film. It's the best entry in the franchise, and my favourite film of the year. It's a shame that it wasn't released in cinemas, as I'd have loved to have seen it on the big screen; but perhaps if the critical reception and viewing figures are high enough Disney may choose to release it in cinemas later on. I hope they do, and I also hope that they look at the success of this and give us the sequel that's teased at the end, as well as other films set in different time periods that can take big chances like this did.

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Black Adam - The Justice Society Files: Hawkman #1 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

With Black Adam coming out soon it's time to start the build-up towards the new movie. DC are pretty good at doing tie-in comics for their films, and I've always found that they've been good ways to not only build excitement, but to add further depth to the stories that unfold on the big screen.

This new series is set to take a look at the four members of the Justice Society that will be appearing in the film, Hawkman, Atom Smasher, Cyclone, and Doctor Fate.

This issue examines this version of Hawkman, and begins with him patrolling the skies as he's been invited to attend a special event at St Roch museum. Arriving at the event, and meeting up with his friend and ally, he discovers that there are some unusual objects on display, including kryptonite, Nth metal, and an object called 'the champion', which is a powerful mineral in the shape of a very familiar lightning bolt.

When a criminal, Jim Craddock, steals the artefact, Hawkman manages to retrieve it; but Craddock dies in the chase. However, when his spirit begins to pass over into the afterlife he's approach by powerful beings, who offer him a new chance at life if he returns to earth and kills Hawkman. And thus we get to see the first interaction between Hawkman and Gentleman Ghost, as shadowy forces move behind the scenes in order to prevent him from being able to interfere in their future plans.

Whilst this issue isn't perfect, it's quite a good introduction to this new version of this character, and one that I enjoyed. But there's something about it that just feels a little flat in some places. I think because this isn't part of the main DC universe, so it's having to set up a lot of things all its own, it has to slow down at times to explain things, and to establish its own versions of stuff.

This isn't a slight on the writing at all, as Bryan Q. Miller and Cavan Scott do a good job, but it's a part of the process of recreating stuff we already know. Such as when we get to see the creation of Gentleman Ghost. I wouldn't have minded if Craddock had simply shown up as Gentleman Ghost after dying; but because this is a new version we had to show how that happens, what his powers are, and what his motivations are going to be.

Overall, I had a pretty good time with this book, and it was nice to see what kind of person this version of Hawkman is going to be like. He seems different from the main DC version, but that's not a bad thing. As a fan of all of the characters that are going to be featured in this series I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they're all going to be like.

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Batman #125 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

Batman #125 has been touted as the start of a new era for the character, and it does feel like things have changed quite a bit since the last issue. This latest issue sees the new writer Chip Zdarsky taking over the reigns of the series, and he begins his tenure on the book by taking Batman in a bold direction.

The issue begins with Batman trying to stop a series of killings around Gotham that are targeting the rich and powerful. Unfortunately, Batman arrives too late to save the latest victims, and two of his friends are killed. It turns out that the killings have been orchestrated by the Penguin, who is targeting anyone in the city with a fortune of $5 million or more unless they give their money away.

With a swanky gala still going on despite the danger to those attending, Bruce decides to infiltrate the ball, whilst Tim sneaks in as Robin. Working together, the two of them manage to stop the Penguin's plan of killing everyone there; but Tim is shot in the process and almost killed.

Batman eventually manages to track down Penguin, and finds him dying in a hospital room. Penguin hits the call nurse button as he swallows a poison capsule, leading to the staff entering the room to find Batman trying to get the pill out of the dead Penguin's mouth. So now it looks to the world like Batman has murdered one of his foes.

Meanwhile, something activates deep inside the Batcave, and a strange robot rises out of the ground.

Whilst I enjoyed the previous issues of this series, this new start really does feel like a good breath of fresh air. The title feels like its got a lot of nuance, and a lot of heart to it, as we get some lovely quiet moments between Bruce and Tim, and see how great their relationship is. Yet there's also a lot of action and grit here too, and in a lot of ways it feels like one of the more grounded and realistic Batman stories in a while too; even if it does feature Clayface.

And I think this is what I liked about this issue, it felt more real. This isn't dealing with a floating fortress and hordes of robots taking over Gotham, it's not got cyborgs and virtual reality gangs, and it's not seeing Batman jet around the world to take down super powered killers. It seems a more basic, back to formula approach. And whilst Zdarsky isn't the first writer to make Batman feel more realistic, but after a few years of the series taking a more sci-fi approach this street level style story is a much welcome change.

The issue comes with a nice back-up feature too, where we get to follow Catwoman in the fallout of Penguin's death. With the crime-lord gone there's a power vacuum that needs filling, and everyone is after the Iceberg Lounge. Luckily, Catwoman is there and is able to stop a gang fight from breaking out. Catwoman is approached by the people who are looking to make sure that Penguin's will is fulfilled, and is offered $500,000 if she can find his beneficiaries; his ten children.

This is a really fun back-up, with some good characters introduced too. Sometimes with DC the back-up features can feel quite disconnected from the main story, and it can sometimes seem like they've been included to bulk up the book and charge more. But this Catwoman story feels like a part of the main story, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it tie into the main events in upcoming issues.

This issue feels like a good new start to the series, and makes for a great jumping on point for new readers looking for a place to start reading.

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Godzilla vs Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #4 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Certain stories sound great on paper, the concept seems absolutely perfect; but sometimes the idea fails to make the transition to being entertaining enough to actually stand up on its own. Godzilla vs Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has, sadly, become one of these stories for me.

The first three issues of the story started strong, with a decent set-up to the story seeing the evil moon witch Rita Repulsa discovering an ancient magical artefact that allows her to travel from one parallel dimension to another. Hoping to find a world where there are no Power Rangers to stand against her, she instead discovered a world where giant monsters, Kaiju, rule supreme, and a race of aliens have invaded the earth to claim it as their own.

With the Rangers having followed Rita, a fight has ensued between them and the Kaiju, and it’s not stopped in four entire issues. And this might be the main issue I’ve been having with this series. If I were to sum up the events of this issue it would be the Rangers and Godzilla fight some giant monsters, then another giant monster arrives, then five more turn up. It’s simply escalation after escalation, and after a while it begins to feel pretty dull.

This series doesn’t give you time to breathe, it doesn’t have any moments where the characters get to feel like people. Frankly, I’ve come to the point where I’m finding little within the book to care about anymore. And this is coming from someone who loves both of these franchises. Yes, a big draw to both franchises is big monsters fighting, but that tends to be very little of both. Episodes of Power Rangers do have the Rangers fight big monsters in their Zords, but that’s two to three minutes of the episode. The franchise hasn’t lasted for thirty years because of those fights, but because of the stories, the characters, and the ridiculous antics. The Godzilla films also tend to come with some pretty good stories that surround the monster fights, and my favourites of the franchise are the ones with good stories and fun moments. These are the parts of those franchises that keep them fresh and entertaining after decades, and these are the things that are missing from this comic series.

Perhaps I’m judging this too harshly, and I suspect that if you read the series in one sitting once its done, and available in graphic novel form, it might read well. It might even be the perfect way to read this story. But waiting month to month for a book where it’s slight variations of the same thing, just with different monsters is starting to wear thin, and starting to lessen my enjoyment. There’s only so many times a new monster can turn up before it starts to feel too much.

As with previous issues, the art, provided by Freddie E. Williams II and Andrew Dalhouse, is decent enough. All of the characters stand out in some busy looking panels, and the monsters are all instantly recognisable, even when it’s some obscure Kaiju that only appeared in one film, or a monster of the week from some 900 episodes ago in Power Rangers history. The fighting looks good, and is filled with dynamic shots and good energy, and that’s about all you can ask for in a book where the fighting is taking centre stage.

Overall, the series is continuing on in about the same manner, with very little story and a lot of repetitive action. I’m hoping that perhaps something happens soon to change this slightly in the last few issues just to keep my interest going.

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Task Force Z #9 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

Task Force Z is one of those titles that's kind of ridiculous. Suicide Squad, but with zombies. I mean, it sounds wild as a concept, so the fact that Matthew Rosenberg has managed to make it not only entertaining, but really engaging, is a pleasant surprise. 

I thought that Task Force Z was going to be one of those books that ends up as a bit of fluff, some good entertainment that does its job but not much else. But this series has been great for exploring the character of Jason Todd, and even Harvey Dent. 

This issue opens with Jason and Steph, picking up on some of the events of the previous issue, where Jason got into a scrap with the Bat Family. I love Steph here, and her way of approaching Jason like a regular human being rather than a vigilante hero. She knows how Jason works, and knows how to approach him without it turning into a huge fight. And it's one of the reasons why she's such a great character.

The rest of the issue explores Jason continuing to work with his team, trying to get things back up and running the way they were to begin with; and Doctor Bloom continuing his strange machinations at his secret lab. Both stories move forward, and we get some good developments from both of them.

I've been enjoying the pacing of this series, and the fact that it's not afraid to slow down at times and let the characters breathe (those who can). The interaction between Bloom and Langstrom was a fun little moment, and the meeting between Jason, Dent, and Black Mask was a stand out for the issue. The wild zombie action might be fun, but the real enjoyment of this story comes from the characters getting to do stuff outside of a fight.

I love how this series has taken a wild, ridiculous premise and made it work as well as it has. We've got zombies running around the DC universe, and it's not breaking anything. This could have easily been a big, bombastic story set in its own little continuity like DC Vs Vampires or Marvel Zombies, but setting it in the regular continuity makes it so much more interesting because it has to be really careful abut what it does and who it kills. It makes it such an interesting book.

This series is continuing to improve each issue, and is one of the ones that I'm always happy to see each month. I'm excited to see what comes next.

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Assassin's Creed: The Magus Conspiracy by Kate Heartfield - Book Review

 

'The war between Assassins and Templars wreaks havoc in the Victorian era, in this breakneck thriller which opens up a whole new chapter of the Assassin’s Creed universe

'London, 1851 – When Pierrette, a daring acrobat performing at the Great Exhibition, rescues the mathematician Ada Lovelace from a gang of thugs, she becomes immersed in an ancient feud between Assassins and Templars. But Lovelace is gravely ill, and shares her secrets with Pierrette, sending the acrobat in search of a terrible weapon which she’d been developing for a shadowy figure known as “the Magus”. Pierrette’s only ally is Simeon Price, Lovelace’s childhood friend, who belongs to a Brotherhood devoted to free will. With Simeon’s aid, they uncover a startling web of political assassinations destabilising Europe. As they race to foil the Templars’ deadly plot, murders and bombs are everywhere they look, but hope is nowhere in sight.'

Whilst I haven't played every game in the Assassin's Creed series, there seems to be too many games and not enough time anymore, I did play and complete Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, a game set in Victorian Era London. I have a soft spot for stories set in that time period, perhaps coming from my love for Sherlock Holmes, and getting to play a game set around that time where you can do all of the fun things you come to expect from this series was just delightful for me. As such, when I saw that Aconyte Books were bringing out a new, original Assassin's Creed novel set in a similar era (beginning less than two decades before the game), I knew it was one that I wanted to check out.

Assassin's Creed: The Magus Conspiracy introduces readers to two new characters, Pierette and Simeon Price. When we meet Simeon he's a soldier on board a British ship off the coast of Africa. When disaster strikes and the ship begins to sink Simeon meets a mysterious, hooded figure on board, whom he helps to rescue trapped soldiers from below decks. The mystery man tells Simeon about a secret brotherhood, one that may offer him a better life than the army, if he only has the will to discover it. The ship sinks, and Simeon is counted amongst the dead and missing.

Simeon spends the next few months making his way across the world to Vienna, where he manages to find a man who's part of this secret brotherhood of assassins. Simeon learns about the deadly conflict that has been raging in secret for centuries, and begins his training to become an assassin.

In England, we are introduced to Pierette, a talented young circus performer. During one of her performances Pierette notices a woman being perused by a group of dangerous looking men, and steps in to help the lady. Escaping from the men, the woman introduces herself as Ada Lovelace, and invited Pierette to come and see her at her home. The two of them soon strike up a friendship, and Pierette and Ada become incredibly close. Unfortunately, Ada's heath deteriorates, and she eventually passes away. 

However, on her deathbed she tells Pierette of a mysterious man called the Magus, who had Ada develop a new form of technology for him. Realising that the Magus would turn her invention into a weapon, Ada hid her notebook from him. With the Magus and his men after her work, and knowing it could lead to terrible things, she makes Pierette promise her that she will take her notes and deliver them to her long lost friend Simeon Price, who will know of a way of stopping the Magus.

The set-up for The Magus Conspiracy is a pretty basic kind of plot, the villain wants the secret plans. It's nicely succinct, and simple, with everyone's motivations easy to see. But where this book really shines is how it takes this simple set-up and turns it into a layered and complex mystery that spans multiple countries and years as our two heroes find their lives being drawn inexorably closer and closer to this shadowy figure.

There are sections of this book that don't really deal much with the main plot, and it takes a while for Pierette and Simeon to even meet for the first time. During these sections of the book we get to spend time getting to know them, watching as they're set on this important path. Pierette's story here is the more basic of the two, as she realises that she needs to deliver these documents to a missing man, and develops a pretty interesting way of contacting him as she and her circus travels across Europe. Simeon's story is much more eventful, however, as we get to watch him being inducted into the Assassin order, learning the skills that most of the characters in this franchise take for granted, and we get to explore Vienna and this part of history with him.

These moments are quite nice, and make for enjoyable character and world building. By the time the two characters do actually meet you've almost forgotten that their stories were due to connect, and you'd fallen into reading about these two people and their lives rather than the big story.

However, this isn't just a story of two people and their journeys around Europe, as there's something important that they need to stop. The central plot, the Magus and his plans, is one of the more enjoyable Assassin's Creed stories for sure, and like all good tales set in this universe it touches upon real world events, and features some appearances from notable figures. I won't go into who the Magus is or what they want, because I don't want to give any clues away to the big mystery, but I really enjoyed them as a character. They made for an interesting opponent for Pierette and Simeon, always being one step ahead, always knowing what moves their enemies were going to make. The Magus uses their intelligence more than physical violence in order to achieve their goals, and this makes them incredibly dangerous.

As you'd expect from an Assassin's Creed book, there's ample action and moments of adventure spread throughout the story too, and there are some interesting moments where you're not sure if your heroes are going to make it out alive or not.

Assassin's Creed: The Magus Conspiracy was a wonderful read. It had some great characters who we are given enough time to get to know and to like, the story takes you across the world, interacting with events and people that you don't expect, and it's set in one of my favourite literary periods. How could I not come away from this book not loving it?

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