Tag: Raggle Fraggle Reviews

Sonic Generations (2011) Review

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Released in 2011 in celebration of Sonics 20th anniversary this celebration of the series developed Hiroshi Miyamoto has been recognised with acclaim by fans of the series.

Sonic Generations was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows , a specially designed handheld game was made for Nintendo 3DS. I played the PS3 version of the game so today we will be looking more directly at that release.

Its sonics birthday and all of his friends have set up a surprise party to celebrate, after his arrival all seems to be going well until a vortex between time and space is torn open and both Sonic from the past and present are able to collide.

Both Sonics team up together re visiting areas from their past adventures and work together to try and solve the mystery of what has caused a shift in time.

Near the end of the game we do get answers which I wont spoil here but I will say that it is connected to the ending of Sonic Colours and that this game takes place not long after that.

The game is split into three sections each has three stages with two acts, both Classic and Modern Sonic can be switched to play the levels from different perspectives, there are 9 main stages along with a handful of boss fights and rival battles to boot.

The classic stages are by far the more difficult of the two and while a little more kinder than the original games these levels are far from easy and offer a fair challenge while still remaining fun for younger gamers who didn’t grow up with the original Mega Drive games. Going for the S Rank was particularly fun for me as I am used to the classic style so it was nice to have something extra to aim for in my playthrough.

The Modern stages while much easier are still really fun and some really great choices were made for levels here, people who are new to series would be able to experience some of the best Sonic levels including but not limited to City Escape from Adventure 2, Sea Side Hill from Heroes and Planet Wisp from Colours.

One Issue I found with the modern stages was the control, I feel like Sonic went a little too fast at times and became slippery which affected the general flow and overall satisfaction of the stages however compared to past games this issue was nothing in comparison and some of these stages did see improvements when it came to gameplay and level design which helped prevent any deaths of fails due to bugs, I did once need to restart as in one level as I clipped inside of a wall and couldn’t get back out but this did only happen once so please keep that in mind.

Rival Battles were fine but didn’t feel like they needed to be in the game, they each lacked little challenge and were pretty basic, it was nice to see characters such as Shadow, Silver and Metal Sonic get a more important role than others but the game would have been fine without them.

The boss fights were great and based on popular battles in the series, it was cool to see the final boss from Sonic 2 get some love and another stand out for me was the fight against the Egg Dragon from Sonic Unleashed.

The Final battle was really cool too and of course we got to see both Super Sonic in Classic and Modern forms which is always a bonus and of course it was nice to see something truly original in the game since the majority of this package is a celebration of Sonics past adventures.

The main game is pretty short so having plenty of extra content is a must, thankfully this game delivers with collectible red star rings in every stage, challenge modes, an in game shop and even the ability to playthrough the very first Sonic game for the Sega Mega Drive.

Games hidden within games is a thing of the past now but it is always such a treat to find secrets like Sonic 1 here without it being set up as a pricy DLC

https://images.app.goo.gl/cDM4oY9UUDimzA7Z6

The Red Rings were fun to collect and added more abilities to the store, you could purchase these with points to help make the levels a little easier by offering additional shields, having rings last longer after taking a hit, being able to breath longer underwater and so on, there was so many abilities to purchase which is a great incentive for new players of the series, I never used these as I didn’t feel it necessary but I can appreciate its inclusion.

The Challenge modes brought so much more fun and “challenge” to the game by having the levels made more difficult, enemies moving faster, 1 ring challenges and so on. Some stages even had level redesigns to suit the nature of certain goals, I don’t normally commit to these things in games but here I finished each and every one as I enjoyed them so much.

Visually the game is beautiful with smooth and impressive visuals for the time, the modern stages don’t differ too much from the originals with exceptions given to the the Adventure stages and Sonic Heroes due to those games originally being on previous hardware’s but its the classic stages that really take the cake here. Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant and Sky Sanctuary have all been given complete graphical re designs and they look and feel amazing while still remaining respectful to the source material.

The music has been taken from the past games so needless to say it is of course outstanding, here you can enjoy the ochestral sounds of the past along with vocal favourites from Crush 40 and others, for me escape from the city is my favourite track in the game originating from Sonic Adventure 2.

I had an absolute blast with Sonic Generations, even to this day I feel this game can still hold faithful as celebratory package and homage to the series. It was nice to see a story intertwined in this and I like how they kept it simple so as not to distract from people simply playing to enjoy the nostalgia.

If I had any criticisms I would say that in some modern stages I still found some issue with speed and control that I feel could have been ironed out here but if we try and look past that this is basically a flawless package that anyone new to the series or big fans of past Sonic should pick up and play, its a shame that its never seen a re-release for more modern platforms, the closest we’ve got is its successor Sonic Forces a game we will get around too at some point.

9.6/10

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Destroy All Humans (2020) Review

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Destroy all Humans! Is an action adventure game from developers Black Forest Games and it was published by THQ Nordic. This is a remake of the original game from 2005 a game I never played so this is purely a review of the remake.

It is 1950’s America and Crypto 137 has been sent to Earth to harvest Human DNA in order for the furons to reproduce as they have been rendered sterile. While on Earth 137 will also need to solve the mystery of his brothers disappearance Crypto 136.

In the game players control Crypto in a series of missions and challenges set in various open world levels.

Various weapons and abilities are available in your arsenal with simple to use upgrade system for enhancements and additional firing power, offensive weapons such as Zap o Matic and disintegrator are great for killing humans but you want to focus mostly on using the extract ability or the anal probe in order to collect Human DNA which acts as XP allowing you to gain more power and upgrades.

Psycho kenosis is encouraged throughout the game and once fully powered up you can lift and throw almost anything including tanks and vehicles, missions have bonus objectives to complete which often require the Psycho Kenosis ability in order to achieve all necessary goals.

Crypto has his own mode of transportation with his very own flying saucer, the flying saucer is a very powerful machine which is used to completely demolish areas, destroying buildings and killing everyone in your path, the saucer can also be fully upgraded making it a machine of slaughter and chaos.

The main campaign is fairly short coming in at under 10 hours but luckily there is a fair bit of side content you can do, each map has a set number of hidden collectibles to find, these are called probes and to my knowledge don’t really offer anything but bragging rights for finding them all.

there are four additional challenges race, Armageddon, rampage and adbuction

Race is a mode which has Crypto chasing down a drone which is dropping packets of data and it’s your goal to collect them all without letting the drone get too far away.

Armageddon sees your taking over the flying saucer and destroying the level it takes place in, definitely the most satisfying mode in the game especially when you have fully enhanced your weapons allowing you to wipe out buildings with ease.

Rampage is all about killing humans, fully power up your guns and slaughter everyone who gets in your way.

Finally abduction requires you to throw requested NPC models into the saucers abduction beam, for me this was the most challenging part of the game, most of the time if you did succeed it was with little time left, the path was very linear and how you succeeded had very little wiggle room leaving players to figure out the required strategy.

Visually the remake enhanced the graphics and there is no denying that, I’ve seen gameplay of the original and the models and graphics are smoother here but on the PS4 and in HD this don’t look great. This is an issue with many “remakes” where much gameplay may be changed and bugs ironed out but to save on finances valuable time, visuals and audio simply get enhancements and in modern times this really shows.

Now while graphics are the least important part of what makes a game great, you cannot deny how much appreciation can be given to gorgeous visuals and even though we didn’t get it here I do hope one day we get a destroy all humans 3 (as a reboot) which pushes the series to its full potential.

The music didn’t change in this remake and for good reason, the original soundtrack is perfectly crafted with a slower style and the use of the pheromone to give the music vibes similar to those of old Sci-Fi movies from the 50’s, I wouldn’t say the soundtrack is particularly memorable but it truly is made for a game like this and helps to bring much of the personality to the setting.

Destroy all Humans 2020 is a lot of fun but definitely has its issues, while the majority of my playthrough was positive I would definitely point out the games biggest flaw…age. Its pretty obvious from the get go that this is a remaster of a much older video game, the game can get fairly repetitive it follows a formula and repeats throughout which works well enough but I found it difficult to sink longer play sessions into this because of that.

Overall my experience here was pretty damn good and I highly recommend checking the game out, its an easy platinum on PlayStation and is included as part of the premium tier of PS Plus so check it out and let me know what you think and if you played the original game back in the day does this remake hold up? I would love to know your thoughts

6.7/10

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Night of the Living Dead (1968) Review

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Welcome to the first of our Halloween reviews, we are kick starting 2023 with George.A.Romero’s cult classic Night of the Living Dead.

Filmed on a tiny budget of $100,000 this film is often credited for creating the modern flesh eating zombie.

In the film 7 people hiding in an abandoned farm house have to work together in order to survive the night with very little hope of escaping the carnivorous corpses.

Due to the tight budget Romero and his crew needed to create their own film company Image Ten in order to have a studio to release the movie. Many of the cast members on the film were known for primarily performing in television commercials and hadn’t yet had a big break in the industry.

I think the best way to review this film is to discuss what it did to change cinema, the casting is pretty mediocre in my opinion no one really stood out but never did a bad a job I think a lot of the corny or over the top acting was down to the main experiences before this being TV and advertising.

A huge and at the time controversial casting choice was to have a man of dark skin to play the lead role, the United States while much more accepting of coloured persons had not began to understand its past misunderstandings. In fact it was only just over 10 years prior this films release that Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus. Night of the Living Dead stands out in history as the first horror film ever to give its lead role to a person of colour, when asked about this choice Romero simply states “Jones was the best actor we met to play Ben”. A big win not only for Duane Jones (Actor) but the African American community.

The biggest controversy at the time was how scary this film actually was, back in 1968 we still didn’t have a rating system so  you could watch any film now matter what your age was.

This meant that a lot of children went to see the movie and it had some backlash from critics due to the amount of gore, of course these days calling this film graphic is laughable but back in 1968 this was rather disturbing to say the least.

The film holds its legacy not only for its influence on the film industry but the horror genre in general.

Zombies had been in media long before this but they were more controlled by Voodoo and black magic.

Romero created the flesh eating walking dead zombies to that we see today, while this film definitely is unique as we don’t see rotting corpses and the undead show signs of intelligence by being able to pick up and use weapons, some major tropes were born from this including eating flesh, being killed by destroying the brain and bitten persons coming back as zombies.

Night of the Living Dead is one of the most influential films ever made and it is well worth watching just to appreciate everything it managed to achieve on such a tight budget but if is far from perfect, I find a lot of the acting is over done and almost comedic with how over the top it can be, Barbara is the best example of this she is so annoying and generally a bad directors decision making her a damsel in distress and completely useless when we could have had a much more respectfully represented female lead.

The ending is tragic and definitely leaves a depressing tone on who ever sees it but I think it works well enough and is pretty shocking I remember the first time I seen it and I honestly could not believe what I had just witnessed, I left with so many emotions and I didn’t know how to feel about it but I’ll tell you one thing to this day it has always stuck with me and is such a important part of this film and something that really makes it stand out.

Night of the Living Dead may not be the perfect movie and perhaps it hasn’t aged all too well compared to other higher budget movies of the time but it has definitely made such a massive impact on the horror genre that it holds a legendary status and is well worth watching at least once to get a true appreciation for what it has given us.

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Book Review: The Stand by Stephen King

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Published in 1978 and rewritten and republished in 1990

The stand is a post apocalyptic novel written by American Author Stephen King. The rewritten version added an additional 400 pages , moved the setting 10 years forward and changed some significant plot details allowing it to be the version of the story King always wanted to tell.

The stand is the fourth novel written by King and is often considered his best work.

This is a very long book coming in at a total of 1’153 pages and is not recommended for fans of shorter novels.

I’m will be putting spoilers in this as it will be a review and a comparison with the two mini series so be wary if you haven’t read it yet.

The opening scene of this book follows a father who escapes a controlled facility under quarantine due to a deadly virus called “captain kicks”

It is written in a way that we learn a lot about this family and are instantly emphasising with them so when they all drop dead it is a shock and a great hook into the rest of the story.

This is also where we are introduced to Stu Redman the first of our main characters and arguably the main protagonist of this story.

I think what makes this tale so compelling and memorable isn’t particularly it’s setting as a end of the world pandemic wasn’t anything new in the world of story telling, but in fact the characters along with the relationships and connections they build with each other.

Each character is flawed in one way or another, Harold and Larry both feel like the world owes them something but ultimately end up going in different directions before the finale.

Then you have Nick and Tom two disabled characters that each show strengths in their disabilities. King has an uncanny ability to write character weaknesses in a way that can show immense strengths. Nick a deaf mute is easily the best communicator of the group and partially becomes the leader before his death at the hands of Harold and Nadine.

Tom is extremely loyal and has a lot of insight considering his mental disability, he is the chosen member of the group to infiltrate the Las Vegas sight ran by Randall Flagg because Tom is the only member that wouldnt crack no matter how much physical or mental torture.

I feel the saddest and most sympathetic character may be Nadine Cross at least up until the point she helps Harold Lauder turn against Mother Abigail and her followers.

Nadine was a school teacher who always wanted a child of her own but unfortunately couldn’t conceive. She finds a little boy and takes him under her wing before joining then heroes, she hooks up with Larry only to be replaced as soon as another woman comes into town.

The little boy she took under her wing also rejects her and begins warming up to Larry instead, she even gets rejected by Harold Lauder a typical overweight creepy loser, this was the final blow for Nadine who is tricked into joining the Dark Man after he gives her attention and uses his powers to give her what she’s always wanted a baby of her own.

With such great characters which the reader can resonate with it only adds a whole new layer to what is considerably a very well written story about how humanity can band together in times of crisis.

Good and evil both play a very important role in this story and there is obviously a lot of religions values in the book. Thankfully King has always had a way with handling these subjects, in a book like Carrie he is very good at showing the negative extremes of religion and really for the first time here we get to a see a much more humble and positive extreme.

Mother Abigail is written to be a messenger of god to guide our band of heroes to Stand together and defeat Randall Flagg. In her design she is quite a simple character but she uses her religious values with so much love and embrace it’s hard not to fall in love with her character whether you are religious or not.

On the other hand Flagg is the embodiment of evil, a dark shadow with an over empowering presence and a poisonous tongue, like a siren he is able to convince people to his cause even those following Mother Abigail.

Tom Cullen shows some magical powers with his ability to have visions, later on we even see him communicating with the dead after Nicks passing.

As you can imagine there is a lot to unpack in this book and I think having such in-depth characters and a such a compelling plot this makes a lot of sense.

I loved the Stand from start to finish however there is just one thing I would change and that is the final confrontation with Randall Flagg, in the book and the original mini series the literal hand of God comes down and sets off a nuclear blast wiping out las Vegas and all of flags followers. I found this to be really over the top and I think this moment would have been more impactful if Lloyd Henry; flags right hand man had pressed the nuke after the people of las Vegas saw Flagg for who he really was and joined the stand taking away his power with everyone sacrificing themselves to destroy his presence.

Of course just like in the remake series Flagg appears right at the end of the book on a remote island becoming a god to a cannibalistic tribe making the stand feel ultimately pointless however King superfans know that this is just a set up for Flags return in the Eyes of the Dragon and the Dark Tower series.

The Stand is easily one of my favourite Stephen King Novels to date falling slightly short to my love of the Shining. It is extremely relevant to this day and age especially with the most recent COVID 19 pandemic.

It is a novel that shows humanity at its lowest and the struggle they have to go through to band together and ultimately become the strongest humanity has ever seen, it may not be my favourite story by King so far but the characters here are easily the most memorable for me and are in my opinion the selling point of the story. It’s a long read but highly recommended picking it up or listening to the excellent Audible reading by Grover Gardner.

To tie things up both mini series of this book are very good in their own rights, while the original clearly had better casting choices and in my opinion better story telling, the remake is simply put the most accurate on screen adaptation to date and while I prefer the original the remake is a worthy second choice and is genuinely easier to stream as it’s on Lionsgate +.

Our next venture into the world of Stephen King takes us straight into The Dead Zone a much shorter book (thank god lol) and number 5 in our deep dive series.

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Thank You for all of your support.

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The Stand (2020) Review

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The Stand is a remake of the original 1997 mini series and is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, it was released on CBS in 2020 and was also available for streaming on Paramount Plus and later on Starz.

The plot is very similar to the 1997 series but does have some differences which I will cover later on, check out my review of the 1997 version here as that will cover most of the plot points, here I’m going to mostly be covering new casing choices and the biggest differences before giving my overall opinion of which series I preferred.

The Stand (1994) Review

Lets with our two main characters the guiding light which is Mother Abigail and the bringer of Darkness Randall Flagg.

Whoopi Goldberg plays Mother Abigail in this version and does a great job of portraying the kind and gentle old woman who leads our heroes to bring an end to Flagg and his master plan. This version of the character while still religious plays much more on her personality and mothering presence instead of focusing more on her Christianity background and connection with God. Whoopi was great in this and she such a legacy actress and is extremely talented but I just don’t like her as much as Ruby Dee. I loved her guitar singing and her high religious values that showed that she was always connecting with god, she came across as an angel sent from heaven to guide our heroes and this is something I personally do not feel with Whoopi’s version of the character.

Randall Flagg is now played by Alexander Skarsgård who is amazing in this role, he makes this character extremely threatening and most importantly scary. This guy means serious business and he is not afraid to slaughter anyone who crosses him or gets in his way, he is powerful and considered to be Satan himself, there is very few goofy scenes with his version and I think this portrayal works better for Flaggs character compared to the 1997 version.

Stu Redman a very important character in both the mini series and the book is this time played by James Marsden and to be honest not a big fan of his performance, its fine but its not as memorable as Gary Sinisi in the original.

Another disappointing portrayal is Harold Lauder this time played by Owen Teague in the 1997 series this character was a love struck teenager who finally snaps after Frannie sleeps with Stu, in the new version from the get go he is a stalker and a creep, he is still a loser but because he doesn’t start off as a nice kid its hard to have any sympathy for him and his eventual betrayal of the heroes is much less of a shock because of this.

The rest of cast didn’t stand out to me but were ok, some major differences worth mentioning though would be Nick now sporting an eye patch, Tom is now less dim minded and a little less controversial and the character of Ralph has been replaced with with a female character named Ray.

Where the original series was corny and had elaborate sets they never did much in regards to the virus, this version takes a more realistic route by adding more special effects and make up to the victims of the virus, bloating the necks and having this really gross pus like substance leaking from every orifice.

Pictured (l-r): Jovan Adepo as Larry Underwood and Heather Graham as Rita Blakemoor of the the CBS All Access series THE STAND. Photo Cr: Best Possible Screengrab/CBS ©2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Realism was also brought to the sets which now are fairly standard apocalyptic towns and deserted streets, while I appreciate the direction they were going with this I much prefer how the originals series had much more creative and memorable cinematography with the more fantasy driven designs and back drops.

Music was taken to a whole level in this version using various artists songs to help emphasise how barren and secluded this new world is, these tracks were best used during the closing credits with each of the 9 episodes having a unique track chosen which tied into the events that had transpired.

The soundtrack in its entirety can be listened too on Spotify, I will leave a link at the bottom of this article.

Overall my views on The Stand 2020 is that the series as a whole is very good, it took what the 1994 version did but extended on character back stories and made the cast more diverse by adding African Americans, foreign actors and making the character of Tom less controversial by todays standards, while I still prefer the original series this one is more easily accessible to find on streaming services and is well worth a watch.

If you would like to help support the website please use the donation button at the top of the page, your donations will help to improve the website by allowing me to afford products to review and to be able to execute any costly updates and changes, any amount in donations are welcome.

Thank You for all of your support.

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Bayonetta 3 (2022) Review

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The Witch returns once again for her third videogame instalment. Bayonetta 3 was released in 2022 as an exclusive game for the Nintendo Switch, it was developed by Platinum Games and Published by Nintendo.

The game takes place in the realm of reality and begins with a new protagonist called Viola witnessing Bayonetta being killed by a very powerful being known as Singularity, thankfully this takes place in an alternate dimension so Viola is able to travel to the Gates of Hell and ask the real Bayonetta for help in collecting Chaos Gears, these Gears are necessary in order to enter the Alphaverse and stop Singularity causing all the universes to collide and taking over the multiverse.

The plot of the game gets very deep and is taking a much more serious approach than the last two games, this is definitely a turning point in the series and the later story definitely reflects that, I cant go into much detail as there would major spoilers and it would take away from your overall experience.

The game still has silly moments which are hilarious such as Rodin running a New York Pizza shop, dance numbers and even at one point a battle using operatic vocals but overall the majority is much more serious and will leave you in shock especially if you have played both Bayonetta 1 and 2.

Similar to the previous two games Bayonetta 3 is a hack and slash action game where you fight and kill angels, you can defeat enemies in hand to hand combat and with guns that can be fired from both hand and foot. In a series first we now have three playable characters which have there own levels and gameplay styles.

During Bayonetta’s stages you now have the ability to fully summon and control your internal demons, these animalistic creatures appeared in previous titles for use during awesome finishing moves but now we can call upon these demons and take temporary control during combat giving us access to all of their unique abilities.

I really enjoyed the use of the spider and flying demons as they had the most basic attack patterns that were easy enough to quickly get a grasp of.

We do get some more complex demons including a train that I found genuinely difficult to control and a giant clock tower which reminded me of Big Ben the clock in London.

There are a lot of demons to choose from in the game and if your like me you wont find yourself using most of them as I found that the game actually gave me a few too many options considering that each of these creatures comes with different controls and feels vastly different to play as.

Viola the new Punk protagonist has very similar gameplay to Bayonetta but uses a Katana as well as her guns, she can only control one internal demon named Cheshire who is based on the Alice in Wonderland character the Cheshire Cat, he hides his soul in a Doll that a much younger Cereza (Bayonetta’s real name) once owned.

Apparently there is more lore involving Cheshire explained in the Cereza and the Lost Demon videogame but since we haven’t gotten around to that one yet we will discuss this at a later date.

Finally we can take control of Jeanne who is going on her own adventure sneaking through a secret facility where she will find a man named Doctor Sigurd who can help Bayonetta open the Alphaverse with the Chaos Gears she has collected.

These levels are 2D and take on an arcade style where players must traverse across platforms and backtracking using elevators in order to press switches and beat puzzles unlocking further areas in the facility.

These were really fun stages and were a nice little break in between the more hack and slash style from the other characters, after finishing Jeanne’s campaign you actually unlock a full on arcade minigame based on these levels and it is a really cool addition to the game and a first in this series.

The game is of course very difficult, these games are not known for being too kind if you let your guard down but it is easily beatable with enough patience and strategic attacks but like previous games if you really are struggling but are enjoying the story switch over to casual and enjoy a much easier experience where you can still fully enjoy this games plot without much stress.

Visually this is the best looking game in the series but only by a smidge these games really do not focus graphical output and to be honest this still looks like a mid Switch game, I have a feeling that the reason they chose this is because of the of the new and much more impressive combat and the high number of onscreen enemies, I’m not sure if the switch would be able to handle it if they pushed the system to its graphical limits.

Audio Quality is once again at an all time high with the epic orchestral and instrumental music this series is known for, mixed in are some excellent vocal tracks that really give the game something extra to make it stand out, this is definitely best played with headphones to get the full experience.

Bayonetta 3 delivers in all categories giving us an epic story intertwined with tight and stylish combat, this is easily the best game in the series offering new gameplay styles, multiple playable characters and a really fun unlockable arcade game, hidden within the game is also a demo of Cereza and the Lost Demon this was a very fun discovery considering hidden demos in games have long since become something of the past so it was really cool to see this tradition being carried on in 2022. I think if I was to change anything about the game I would definitely add some sort of recap for newcomers, this game is as far as we know the end of Cereza’s story so coming straight into this one will have new players lacking the emotional impact of in game events and most likely questioning who characters are and why they play such important roles in the series.

9.7/10

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Thank You for all of your support.

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Mickey Mouse: Castle of Illusion (1990) Review

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Castle of Illusion was the first game released in the Mickey Mouse Illusion video game series, it first released in 1990 for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis with an 8 bit version for Master System and Game Gear coming in 1991. The Game was developed and published by Sega and in 2013 it was remade for PSN Xbox Live Arcade and PC.

In this Review I will be looking at the original 1990 release and discussing the Master System and most modern release in smaller details afterwards.

Minnie Mouse has been kidnapped by the evil witch Mizarabel with the intention of stealing her beauty, Mickey chases her to the Castle of Illusion and needs to explore the enchanted rooms filled with fantasy worlds in order to find and rescue Minnie before it is too late!

The game is a 2D platformer and runs extremely well considering how much the small 4mb cartridge is rendering, it uses a traditional playstyle with the main goal being to reach the end of a stage but with a lot of varying obstacles to deal with including under water segments, puzzle solving, maze like levels with lots of dead ends and secret passageways and timed segments which involve avoiding giant rolling apples.

Each door hides a different themed world each with unique enemies and stage layouts. Mickey first explores an enchanted forest, then a kingdom of toys, a Stoney kingdom with waterfalls and terrifying storms…….. and so on

The goal of the game is to collect 7 gems in order to build a rainbow bridge and rescue Minnie from Mizarabel, in order to survive the many enemies and bosses in the game Mickey is given three ways to defeat the bad guys, the most commonly used move would be the butt bounce performed by pressing the jump key after jumping in the air, you can throw apples and other smaller items as ammunition and occasionally you will find blocks you can pick up and throw.

For me personally the best part of the game was the memorable and challenging boss fights, almost every world would end with a giant monster to battle but they aren’t anything scary in order to fit in with the cartoony exterior. The fights themselves are each very challenging with unique patterns that must be learned in order to defeat them, the bosses were what always ended up giving me a game over.

funnily enough the final boss battle is one of the easiest in the game, there are spots where you can stand still easily avoiding Mizarabels attacks.

The game is absolutely stunning and visually impressive for an early Genesis game, not only does each world have a unique visual style and colour palette but the game is packed with background details to help give these worlds character and personality.

The game also runs very smoothly and is highly animated with lots of details given to character sprites and Mickeys facial expressions.

The music is very good, the tracks are simple and pack the game with plenty of whimsy, there isn’t anything here that could be considered amazing or anything that would make it into the history books for being recognisable but what we did get worked well and suited this game perfectly.

Castle of illusion is a game that had been on my radar for a very long time, I have owned the sequel Land of Illusion for a long time now and have reviewed that game.

My overall take away from Castle of illusion is that it is a game packed with personality, creativity and love, it is a fairly simple adventure you will get game overs but after only a few resets you should be good for reaching the end credits.

I do think the lack of a password system can be an issue especially if you haven’t got time to do this in one sitting, the sequel also had this problem but handled it substantially better by having unlimited continues so even if you did die you were never forced to reset the game.

Looking past this what we do have here is a substantially excellent Genesis title which holds its own by being a pleasant surprise for gamers, Genesis was well known for being marketed towards older gamers by having more sports and shooters compared to competitor Nintendo.

Castle of Illusion managed to blow away expectations in almost every category visually it is beautifully stunning with its art style and animations, the simple music works well for the game and each world has its own personality by changing the art style, enemies and ammunition, the only real downside is the 2 continues and lack of a password system but the game isn’t really that difficult so I think I can look past this.

9.3/10

Master System/Game Gear versions

I will be honest its a little hard to review this version because I’ve never played it, however from what I’ve seen from a full gameplay video that it is a completely different game with unique level layouts and boss fights, it is more par with the games sequel Land of Illusion a game I have given high praises too.

The plot remains the same and the only main difference is the boss battles and unfortunately the lack of graphical details, this was much more difficult to pull off on 8 bit hardware and Land of Illusion had the same issue with looking a little dull.

The boss fights are a bit lackluster as well compared to the far superior Genesis game, they are a lot simpler here and simply don’t bring across the same amount of personality.

Some of the Bosses are completely different to the Genesis version they are not particularly memorable here but do a fine enough job to fit in with each worlds theme .

Like I said I cant rank this one or really give it a full analysis as I do not own it nor have I played it, maybe I will one day if I get the chance but for now I am eager to see how the Genesis HD remake held up.

Remake (2013)

2013 saw the release of the Castle of Illusion Remake, it was developed by Sega Australia and was released for the PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and mobile.

The game is a direct remake of the original Sega Genesis version and was very faithful to the source material.

The two biggest changes here are visuals and gameplay, graphically for 2.5D the game looks very impressive for its era not using the traditional realism seen in other games but focusing more on cartoon visuals and smooth, colourful objects and visually artistic background set pieces.

The game now takes place in an open hub world allowing you to re-visit stages as you please.

Levels now have multiple collectibles which will give you special unlockable such as new costumes, character statues and concept art.

While levels now added more paths and new secrets to discover the game had become much easier offering little to no challenge until facing the final boss

Our favourite composer Grant Kirkhope was brought on board to do the soundtrack for this remake and while I can always appreciate his work and this is very excellent and full of charm I prefer the the original soundtrack just a little bit more if only for its more retro sounds and style.

After playing the remake I can definitely recommend it as a way of experiencing this game, it is a little easier than the original game but adds a save feature and a fair bit of replay value that gamers will appreciate.

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Check the link below for my review of this games sequel !

Land of Illusion (1992) (Master System/Game Gear) Review

The Stand (1994) Review

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Welcome to our fourth Stephen King deep dive this time we will looking at his Novel The Stand and its two mini series adaptations, the goal in this series is to see which adaptation has the closest ties to the original book, we always discuss the novel last so we will begin with the 1994 mini series directed by Mick Garris.

The series was given a large budget and consists of 4 episodes coming in at a total of 6 hours long and this did not include commercial breaks.

The show starts with a police officer and his family escaping a secure facility which is housing people who are sick with a new and top secret deadly virus.

After this we begin to slowly meet our main cast of immune persons but not before one of the best opening credits I have seen in a TV show.

It pans across the facility showing all the dead of scientists with (Don’t Fear) The Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult playing in the background, the lyrics to this hit song are actually very important and have a lot meaning when tying it to this story.

All our times have come
Here but now they’re gone
Seasons don’t fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain
We can be like they are

The Reaper in the lyrics could be referring to the virus but personally I think its a warning of Randall Flag the evil entity of the series with the song being a message to our heroes not to fear him as they will have the power of God behind them.

In fact the show its self doesn’t go too deep into this new pandemic and does have a lot of religious morals, especially when you consider the portrayal of Mother Abigail by the late Ruby Dee, I strongly believe that coming up with a overly positive and serious religious character can be extremely difficult to pull off but Ruby does a phenomenal job here.

Mother Abigail is definitely considered an embodiment of Christianity in her character that initially only appears in dreams to our band of heroes who each share an immunity to the virus.

Speaking of the remaining cast I will say that I was thoroughly impressed with how well casted the series was, I haven’t read the book yet so it’s difficult for me to pinpoint whether these portrayals are accurate to the original novel but everyone here did a phenomenal job.

Some were big names were tied to this production including Gary Sinisi, Molly Ringwald, Jamie Sheridan, Rob Lowe and Bill Faberbakke to name a few.

Jamie Sheridan plays main Villain Randall Flagg, the demonic character who starts splitting up our surviving heroes turning them against each other,  he is a little goofy in this although still maintains his serious side, he is definitely a threatening villain but I really struggled to understand his motives other than taking over the City of Las Vegas.

There are two roles in this production which represent persons with disabilities, one of these characters Tom Cullen is portrayed by Bill Fagerbakke who is best known as the voice of Patrick Star on Spongebob Squarepants, Bill was fine in this but its hard to look at his portrayal as Mentally Handicapped more than simply dim witted. I think when you look at other portrayals in films such as Whats Eating Gilbert Grape, Rain Man or Riding the Bus with my Sister that tackle the mentally challenged in much more realistic portrayals they became much more impactful and memorable due to the realism behind them.

Rob Lowe is here 10 years prior to his work in the 2004 Salems Lot mini series, here Rob plays Nick Andros a deaf-mute and one of the main heroes of the series. Rob is amazing in this and he gives a very respectful portrayal to his character and never tries to over play the disability. He has very few speaking lines during dream sequences but without his voice it gives the character much more personality and in many ways helps to show Lowe’s talents and range as an actor, I look forward to seeing Rob in more productions in the future.

I have only spoken here about my personal choices for the most discussable performances of the production but as a whole everyone does a great job and I don’t think I could pin point a single performance that I thought was badly casted.

I think if I had to say anything about the performances here I would say that there are definitely some sillier characters that I feel were somewhat unnecessary but none of them are massively important roles so I don’t feel it particularly matters.

The show deserves a lot of recognition for its variety of memorable sets, this production might have more locations than any other production of a King book (at least from what we have seen so far). There are so many to choose from but my 3 favourites are Mother Abigails Farm, Las Vegas and the abandoned town where Nick and Tom get shot at by Julie Lawry.

I think if this production struggled with anything I would say pacing, you see while this still comes in at 6 hours the book is huge, in fact its one of kings longest. I haven’t read it yet but I do feel that this production skipped over a lot of plot in order to cut down the production times, for example one of the episodes starts with Stu trying to perform surgery on another survivor, there was no mention of this in any prior episode so it comes out of nowhere.

Another example would be Christina’s relationship with Randall Flagg, a relationship which comes out of nowhere and very quickly falls apart due to certain circumstances.

Tom Cullen being sent away from the other members is another random moment without much background, I never really understood why this was done or why he got hypnotised other than maybe to find the members who turned evil?

I had a really good time watching this series, it had a great cast of likable characters and a story that was almost perfectly told if not for its pacing issues and a couple of sillier performances that I feel slightly took away from the realism that the rest of the show was portraying. Looking past its few issues what we have here is a fairly fantastic television series that makes efforts to respectfully portray more sensitive subjects, beliefs and needs.

If you ever get the chance check this one out, so far during this massive Stephen King Project it is the best TV series and will be hard pressed to get beaten anytime soon.

Up next is the 2020 series will this one offer anything new or will it not compare to the 1994 version?

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Book Review: The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Callodi

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Originally starting as a series of newspaper serials in 1881 the stories of a mischievous puppet were very popular and after originally ending on a dark note with Pinocchio being hanged as a warning to children to always listen to their parent, popular demand encouraged Callodi to continue the story in 1882 before finally combining the best parts to create a featured novel titled The Adventures of Pinocchio releasing the following year.

The book is extremely dark for a children’s novel and really takes the whole consequences of our actions to a whole new level.

The character of Pinocchio in the novel is in my opinion a complete scumbag, he is a very unlikable character who doesn’t seem to have a very good nature about him especially in the earlier chapters of the book.

Some examples of the puppets bad choices includes false accusations of abuse resulting in Geppetto getting jail time.

Killing the talking cricket with a mallet

Gepetto sells his only coat to buy Pinocchio an ABC book, Pinocchio sells the book to enter a marionette show.

The consequences of Pinocchio’s actions are often very dark as well, in one chapter Pinocchio is strung up in a tree and left to suffocate to death, other forms of punishments include the character turned into donkey, being burned alive, imprisoned, being eaten and much more.

Unlike in the Disney adaptation we do actually get more insight into the fate of Candlewick, Pinocchios closest friend, in the book after turning into a Donkey, Pinocchio is sold to the circus and Candlewick a farm, later in the book Pinnochio finds him dying from being starved and overworked and yes he actually dies!

Callodi does a really great job of portraying Pinnochios conscience and understanding of right and wrong throughout the story, it begins with the puppet being extremely selfish and not even considering other persons than himself and while it takes a long time before he has proven himself enough to become human.

A great example and a rather frustrating moment is when Pinocchio meets the coachman, he knows not to go to the Island of Toys there isn’t even any room in the carriage but even after thinking it over he rides one the Donkeys, leaving his father again and this time the day before he was to become human!.

With how dark this story actually is, it is surprising that the novel is written in a more simplified text and layout, it is clear that the story is intended to be read by very young children or to be read to them by an adult. I respect the book for not holding back on its morals, I have stood by that with children it is always better to be upfront with things even though they might not listen.

I had a bit of a Pinocchio moment when I was younger, I remember me and a friend were playing in neighbourhood park and a stranger pulled up in his car and offered £2 each to dump bags of innards from animals he had gutted, stupidly we got in the car and did the job, we were lucky to be dropped back at the park. I remember I went home and got a proper telling off, I never got to keep that money and while at the time I resented my mother for it looking back now I’m really lucky to be alive.

what about you guys any “Pinocchio” moments from your past you want to share?

I really enjoyed this book and was genuinely shocked with how dark and scary it could be at times, if I read this as a child I would have been terrified but considering my previously mentioned stupidity perhaps that wouldn’t be a bad thing!.

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Hogwarts Legacy (2023) Review

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Hogwarts Legacy is an open world action-adventure-role playing game developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros Games.

The game had initial sales concerns due to some people choosing to pirate the game in order to not support J.K Rowling and her Antisemitic and transphobic views but even after these concerns the game went on to make an astonishing $850’000’000 in global sales in its first two weeks.

The game takes place in the late 1800’s and follows a new 5th year Hogwarts Student who gets wrapped into a wizarding battle revolving around an ancient dark magic which had been trapped inside of an secret repository, throughout the game the player will learn through pensives the dangers of the magic and at the end of the game can decide weather they want to free it or not.

There are three additional major side game plots that have the player deciding outcomes and how relationships will develop, these each tie into three in game houses Gryffindor, HufflePuff and Slytherin.

It is a bit lame that Ravenclaw never got one of these relationship quests but we did get astronomy tables as a unique collectible in the game just kinda wish my house had a much more thought through side story.

The three remaining stories each tie into the in game playing styles, HufflePuff focuses on Poppy Sweeting capturing magical beasts and taking out the poachers that are capturing them.

Gryffindor focuses on Natti Onai an African student who wants to seek justice against dark wizards due to her fathers murder in Uganda.

Slytherin definitely the best side side story focuses on Sebastian Sallow and how he desperately wants to access Dark Magic to save his sister Anne, this side story is the only way to learn the three dark magic curses including the Killing Curse.

Throughout the game you can attend classes to learn spells and you will also need to finish assignments these are normally just challenges to help you get used to how everything works, making potions from collected materials is necessary to keep yourself alive and can give you extra spell damage or defence against tricky enemies and bosses. Learning and developing new spell rotations is also highly recommended to learn how to use different combos to make sure you can get through the games thorough combat system.

Quests and lessons are not the only thing to do in the game, the wizarding world is massive and while you only remain in the Scottish Highlands surrounding Hogwarts Castle there is a plethora of areas to explore, collectibles to find and larger enemies to exterminate.

One issue I had with the game was definitely the crafting system, you can use herbology to grow plants and can brew potions providing that you have the correct number of items requested. It is impossible to do this anywhere but also there are real world time limits to crafting, the herbology I managed to work around by turning the room of requirement into a greenhouse, I rarely used plants so having them constantly replant themselves was useful, potions however were a real pain.

Wiggenweld potion will heal you when drink it and you can only store 25 at a time, when you run low you must go to the potions class and wait 15 seconds per potion to get them back, lets say you had completely ran out, if you wanted a full set of 25 you would need to wait around 6 minutes to brew a new set, in a mobile game this is acceptable because its free but when I have just spent £70 on a videogame having to wait around sucks!.

This could be fixed if you could simply brew as many as you want at once or you have no time limit and you allow players to craft anywhere from in game menu providing they have the necessary materials.

The only other issue I had with the game was the beast system, you can capture magical creatures in the game and release them into sanctuary’s via the Room of Requirement, here you can pet them, play with them, breed them and feed them to get new materials for upgrading your gear and adding special upgrades such as additional fire damage or better defence against Goblins etc. To be honest I hardly ever did this because you change gear so often by simply picking up better stuff that it just got annoying and I realised that I was doing fine enough without this feature.

I think it would be better if the beasts could assist you in combat or another way could be that if you did certain beasts missions you could unlock permanent upgrades that are attached you character and not specific items of clothing.

Apart from my small complaints general gameplay and exploration is fantastic, the world has had a lot of love went into its development, I love that you can freely explore Hogwarts Castle and all that surrounds it.

If you only focus on the main story the game is pretty short but if like me you focused on doing all the side quests and a fair bit of general exploration you will realise that there is so much to do and a ridiculous amount of content in this game. The majority of tasks will see you battling enemies and thankfully the game has really good combat system which can seem a little overwhelming but once you get a feel for it and start to create your own spell rotations and fighting styles it truly is one of the most satisfying combat systems I have ever used.

I found an offensive approach worked best for me using yellow magic to temporarily hinder my enemies before blasting them with my red attack magic to go in for the final blow worked best, when I was dealing with a lot of enemies the chomping cabbages I grew were seriously helpful for taking care of those health bars.

You can block in the game but I actually found it a lot easier to switch between attacks and dodge to quickly take down enemies while keeping myself alive.

I wont go over all of the side content but I do want to highlight the ones that I particularly enjoyed doing, I never went for 100 percent in this as I didn’t really feel a need to and only did the things I had the most fun with.

Merlin Trials are special puzzles hidden throughout the world by the Wizard Merlin, completing these will increase your gear slots, there are a lot of these but they generally come in certain varieties, set fire to all of the columns, move the boulder into the hole, find and return the missing fireflies, blast the items and traverse across the obstacles.

The big troll battles were really fun an could get challenging at times, these were really satisfyingly to beat and also gave you troll bogies one of the more rare crafting items.

I also did the general collection missions including finding the flying keys to retrieve house coins and the demiguise statues. The house coins will eventually allow you to open a chest unique to each common room and the demiguise statues will allow you to upgrade alohomora so you can open level 2 and 3 locks.

Visually from afar the game is beautiful and has some realistic visuals and uses colours extremely well to emphasize the atmospheric values of each in game area, it has some really great fog effects and even though there can be a lot happening on screen in one moment the game always remains well animated and I didnt experience any lag or other gameplay related problems.

Once you approach objects and characters up close there is some distinct drop in graphical quality, facial features become flatter and most things become more pixelated but it never really takes away from the experience the game offers.

The games soundtrack took direct influence from the John Williams score of Harry Potter and Philosophers Stone, even going as far as basing some of the tracks here on those original compositions. The music really is magical and makes you feel like you are the world of Hogwarts.

There is a fantastic video from Youtuber Charles Cornell a Jazz Pianist who discusses the influences in much better detail

I am so happy that this game was successful especially after it’s initial sales concerns because it really is a wonderful videogame and it offers so many details and secrets that you will want to keep coming back to it time and time again.

It isn’t perfect I feel like some changes to the crafting systems definitely need to be made in order to better experience a potential sequel but also we need consequences. The game allows you to make good and bad choices but none of them effect the outcome of the story enough to warrant taking different paths.

No matter what you choose you will always be heading towards that light hearted ending, you cannot become fully evil in this and while I normally go down the good path I think a consequence system similar to the Fable series would have been a great choice here and is something I really want to see in future games.

8.5/10

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