Welcome to an unusual Christmas series, this year I have decided to discuss the Studio Ghibli feature films collection, some of these films I have already discussed on this website many years ago but I feel its time to update those older reviews. The reason I have decided on this series is because while they don’t have anything to with the holidays I find myself watching them every Christmas and I think they will be more interesting than regular Christmas movies so without further ado lets begin with Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
Based on a Manga of the same name Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is a fantasy-science fiction movie based in a post apocalyptic world. The film was directed by Hayao Miyazaki a true legend of film making and animation. This was Miyazaki’s second film after The Castle of Cagliostro in 1979
A thousand years after an apocalyptic war the land has been turned into a toxic jungle with giant and deadly bugs roaming around and causing trouble for the humans that remain.
Nausicca the Princess of the Valley of the Wind has the ability to befriend various animals and creatures, she is able to calm the angry bugs that are causing trouble for the humans and her main goal is to find a way for the humans and the bugs to exist side by side in peace.
The Vallley of the Wind is one of most peaceful places left on earth, the rest of the planet are at war with eachother and fighting to gain power and resources after the effects of the war, unfortunately one of these of these other lands decides to attack the Valley of the Wind and kills Nausicca’s father leaving Nausicca to try and keep peace and prevent any other person or bug from being needlessly killed.
I really enjoyed Nausicca’s character, she is a great warrior who also has a plan of action when she needs too, shes emotional and cares a lot about the people and creatures around her but she wasn’t my favourite character in the film that would have to be Lord Yupa a swordsman and secondary father figure to Nausicca, he’s voiced by Patrick Stewart in the English dub and that might be why I like him so much, other noticeable names are Shia LeBouf, Uma Thurman, Frank Welker, Jodi Benson and Mark Hamill.
I love the art style and colouring used in this film, its dark and gritty with a style of animation that looks like a mixture of anime and a comic book, the rough design of the bugs are my absolute favourite part of the film but I enjoy the beauty of the world in which this film takes place especially the jungle with its plants and trees that are imaginative and full of creativity and are one of the films most standout features.
Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind is an excellent film that takes a world of wonder and throws into land of a chaos, its a tragic movie that shows the effects of humankind and its greed and selfishness that ultimately causes nothing but heartache, corruption and pain to the world that we often take for granted and Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind shows this in ways that will be remembered forever making it a very important part of the history of animation.
I hope you enjoyed this review of Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind
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Thank You for all of your support.
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Very loosely based on the popular children’s book by Dr Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham is a 2019 Netflix original show that was animated by Warner Bros Animation.
In a very similar manner to the book the character Sam I Am does try to get Guy am I (un-named in the book) to eat green eggs and ham but the plot go’s a lot deeper than this and character development was very important in this version of the story.
The biggest difference to the story here is the introduction of the character Mr Jenkins, Mr Jenkins is a Chickeraffe an exotic and rare bird that brings our two lead characters together.
Mr Jenkins is my favourite part of the show, he communicates only in sounds and his goofy nature causes many issues for Sam and Guy.
Michelle an over protective mother is terrified of letting her daughter E.B have fun as she wants to keep her safe and close by at all times, these two characters meet Sam and Guy on their adventure and help them protect Mr Jenkins while also learning to find ways to compromise with each-other, helping to strengthen their relationship.
The only other characters that I will mention here are the Bad Guys, these two characters appear to be trying to catch Mr Jenkins to sell him to a greedy business man and collector of exotic animals, both are very funny but one of the most memorable parts of the show is Mc-Wrinkles fur slowly becoming more grey due to stress over the course of the show.
I wont spoil anything else as the show is still new and well worth watching yourself
The voice cast was very impressive in the show, for me the most memorable and best performances were Adam Devine as Sam, Michael Douglas as Guy. Eddie Izzard as the villain Snerz, Llana Glazer as E.B and Keegan-Michael Key as the Narrator.
Green Eggs and Ham really surprised me, I expected a show for very young children but this was not the case, the show is very well animated and is really charming and funny, I would recommend watching the show if you have Netflix, its a show you can enjoy as a family with content made for all ages it genuinely is an excellent cartoon.
I hope you enjoyed this review of Green Eggs and Ham 2019
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.
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was the first book in a series of stories by L.Frank Baum, later reprints of the book took the name the Wizard of Oz instead which was the title of a highly beloved Broadway musical adaptation of the story.
In the story a young girl called Dorothy who lives a grey and boring life in Kansas gets transported to the colourful world of Oz when she and her dog Toto are picked up in a cyclone.
The house they were in lands on the Wicked Witch of the East and kills her, an event which attracts the Good Witch of the North, Dorothy explains how she wants to go home and is encouraged to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald city and seek the help of the Wizard of Oz.
This all sound very similar to those who are familiar with the 1939 film starring Judy Garland, however I was surprised with how different the book was to this film adaptation.
I don’t want to give away too many of differences but I would like to talk about some of them with as few spoilers as possible.
The biggest surprise is the lack of a Wicked Witch of the West, she is in the book but only appears in one chapter half-way through the story so after her demise the groups journey is still not over.
There are various different lands and species in this book that do not appear in the film, one area that stands out is a land that is completely made out of porcelain china.
A pre-warning that the book carries quite a heavy body count of various creatures that are slain by the four heroes of the story (Scarecrow, Lion, Tin-Man and Dorothy), these are not too graphic but younger readers may find them a little bit disturbing.
I love the 1939 film but I think I prefer this version as I felt that this adventure was so much more interesting and intense. I loved the character developments and the conversations they would have, one of my favourite moments in the book was when the Tin-Man and the Scarecrow were debating whether its better to have a brain or a heart, the characters have back stories in this too explaining how they became the way that they are, the Tin-Man’s backstory is particularly quite tragic.
This is a wonderful book and to be honest I was expecting to read a story I already knew and was pleasantly surprised when I read this and it was almost completely different and that reason alone is a great reason to pick up a copy and check it out for yourself.
I hope you enjoyed this review of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L.Frank Baum
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.
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Its one of the goriest fighting game series of all time and its a game series that I grew up with, lets take a look at the evolution of the Mortal Kombat video games.
Before we begin here is a brief explanation of the series, you battle your many opponents in one on one battles and the victor of the fight can perform a finishing move which can be either comical, brutal or fatal, these games are not shy on blood and gore and for a lot of people its the gory finishing moves that make the games as enjoyable as they are.
Mortal Kombat takes place on the island of Shang Tsung, the Island has hosted the Mortal Kombat tournament for hundred of generations, in the tournament warriors battle for the chance to take on the warrior Goro who has never been defeated. You are one of the latest challengers to take on the tournament.
Mortal Kombat introduced players to seven characters.
Johnny Cage – A martial artist and famous movie star
Kano – A mercenary who is devoted to a life of crime
Liu Kang – A Shaolin Monk who hopes to bring peace to the realm.
Raiden – A god of thunder
Scorpion – A ninja that dresses in yellow colours and uses fire as an element of attack
Sonia Blade – A member of the special forces
and Sub Zero – A ninja that dresses in blue colours and uses ice as an element of attack
Apart from fighting, players are able to try their luck at the extremely hard and blister enducing test your might game, in this mini-game you have to raise the might bar and destroy various strong materials.
The Original Mortal Kombat was quite basic but it was good enough for a first entry in the series.
A memorable moment from the game for me is the pit where you can throw an opponent onto a bed of spikes after defeating them in one of the levels. The Pit is also where players are able to trigger a secret fight with the green ninja called Reptile and major points are available if he is defeated.
The game was released on various home consoles after its debut in the arcades, I owned the game on the Sega Mega-drive which is the superior home console version as blood could be turned on using a special code however in the Super Nintendo release blood was completely removed.
As a side note I thought it might be fun to talk about the original arcade machines for some of these games starting with Mortal Kombat 1. I think the art is really cool on this machine, it has Johnny on the side and it looks like he is kicking a dragon in the head. Good art but not sure if it really shows that its a fighting game I feel like it would be more appropriate to a beat em up such as double dragon.
There is a lot more information about this cabinet on arcade-museum, I will put a link below.
After being defeated by Liu Kang in the first game , Shang Tsung begs ruler of Outworld Shao Khan to spare his life and also host the next Mortal Kombat Tournament in Outworld, Shao Khan agrees and restores both life and youth to Shang Tsung.
It should be noted that because of the plot of this game Liu Kang winning the tournament in Mortal Kombat 1 was the canon ending.
Seven new playable characters were introduced in Mortal Kombat 2
Baraka – A mutant that works for Shao Khan
Jax – A special forces officer
Kitana – A female ninja and assassin
Kung Lao – A Shaolin monk and friend of Liu Kang
Mileena – Kitana’s sister and who is an assassin working for Shao Khan.
Reptile – The mysterious ninja from the first game
and Shang Tsung – The sorcerer and final boss from the first game although much younger
It should be noted Sonia Blade and Kano did not make a comeback as a playable characters in Mortal Kombat 2.
The game had three hidden fights that you could access if you hit certain criteria during your play-through.
Jade – A strange female ninja who fights with a fan
Smoke – A Ninja dressed in grey that uses smoke to help him fight
and Noob Saibot – A very mysterious character that who’s features are completely hidden by its dark colour palette, this fight is the hardest of the secret battles in my personal opinion.
As well as fatalities there were two more finishing moves you could do in this game, the first was babalities where you could turn your opponent into a baby and the other was friendship which had you do something kind for an opponent after defeating them, hilariously this was made as a mocking response to critics who deemed the first Mortal Kombat too violent.
Mortal Kombat 2 was a massive improvement over the first game, it added loads of new characters, new stages that were better animated, it gave players babalaties and new fatalities along side three brand new stage fatalities, overall a fantastic game.
I much prefer the arcade machine design here, I love Raiden being on the side of the cabinet, to me he is a much more recognisable character than Johnny Cage is and to be honest in my opinion he is a lot cooler as well.
For more information on this arcade cabinet follow the link below
After being defeated by Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat 2, Shao Khan uses Shang Tsung to revive his long lost love Sindel, he does this as part of a plan to combine both Earthrealm and Outworld causing billions to lose their lives because of this Raiden sends warriors out to fight Shao Khan and put a stop to him once and for all.
Mortal Kombat 3 is my least favourite out of the original arcade games, as a child I really did not like a lot of the changes they made and I still do not to this day. Biggest change was removing scorpion from the game which makes no sense because he is the most popular character in the series and nothing happened to him in the last game to explain his absence here. Sub Zero has a new character design and it sucks, I prefer the iconic blue mask and he just does not look right.
The game introduced a good number of new playable characters
Cyrax – A cyber assassin that dresses in yellow
Kabal – A former black dragon warrior
Nightwolf – A native american shaman
Sektor – A cyber assassin that dresses in red
Sindel – Shao Khan’s resurrected queen
Sheeva – A female shoken who is also the protector of Sindel
Stryker – A riot control officer
and Smoke – A cyber assassin that uses smoke as a means of attack
Both Kano and Sonia Blade return as playable characters in Mortal Kombat 3 however Baraka, Mileena, Reptile, Scorpion, Raiden and Kitana did not make a return as playable characters.
The stages here take place in world settings that are more familiar to players such as subways, cities and streets which to be honest I much prefer to the stages in the first two games.
A new finishing move called an aqnimality was added which allows character to turn into animals before killing their defeated opponent.
Other things that should be noted are the new stage fatalities which take advantage of the new settings, the ability to change stages during a battle if you manage knock your opponent to higher level, secret fights with a robotic version of smoke as well as returning fighter Noob Saibot and a new sub boss Montaro who is a centaur that is ridiculously hard to beat.
Overall Mortal Kombat 3 is a really good game, and the reason I dont like it is because of the character selection which may seem a little unfair for me to judge it on that but with the changes they made to some of the characters it just didnt feel right and took away from the experience for me.
Really great artwork on this arcade cabinet, the character choices make sense due to the games plot and the amount of detail is fantastic, I still prefer the artwork for the Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet but this one is a close second for me.
For more information on this arcade cabinet please use the link below
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was released the same year as the original game it made a few updates that improved the overall experience the first was returning characters Scorpion, Kitana, Jade and Reptile, it added two new modes and added new hidden fighters Human Smoke, Classic Sub Zero, Mileena, Ermac, Noob Saibot and Rain.
The art here is a little dissapointing as they copied the Mortal Kombat 2 art work instead of Mortal Kombat 3 which does not make a lot more sense as Raiden is not a playable character in this game.
Mortal Kombat trilogy was compilation of the original Kombat trilogy crammed into one game, every playable character was back along side Goro, Kintaro, Motaro and Shao Khan.
The game introduced another finishing move called a brutality where players will beat the utter crap out of their defeated opponents before making them explode.
A new secret fighter called chameleon can be taken on, he uses the combined abilities of all ninja characters and is really tough
Mortal Kombat Trilogy was the first game to not be introduced in arcades.
Mortal Kombat Mythologies – Sub Zero was the first spin off game in the series
Taking place before the events of the original Mortal Kombat, Sub-Zero has been tasked by Quan Chi to steal a map of elements from the Shaolin temple.
The game was very disappointing, not only was it not like the other Mortal Kombat games but it was also really badly designed and extremely un-fair.
It was a 2D platforming action-adventure game where players needed to gain experience points and unlock special moves by defeating enemies.
The problem was that the game had confusing controls and was very cryptic on how you need to survive, a lot of the time you would not be able to see below the character so if you had to jump onto a platform below you would not know how to time or position your jump, a lot of enemy sprites were very similar to each other so the game lacked in variety.
If you play the Play-station 1 version of the game it has full FMV cut scenes and they are actually really cool and worth checking out on Youtube.
Overall a bad game and I am pleased that they never made a sequel
With the help of Quan Chi an elder god named Shinnok has escaped from the Netherealm after being defeated by the thunder god Raiden thousands of years ago. Shinnok seeks revenge on Raiden and the other gods who helped to trap him in the Netherealm, Raiden requests help from Mortal Kombat warriors to help defeat the elder god once again.
Five new playable characters were introduced to Mortal Kombat 4
Fujjin – A wind god and an ally of Raiden
Jarek – The final member of the black dragon
Kai – A Shaolin monk and a friend of Liu Kang
Meat – A gory skeleton and one of the hidden characters in the game.
Reiko – The general to Shinnok
Tanya – A traitor to Edenia
Noob Saibot – Finally playable as a hidden character in the game.
Scorpion and Raiden have been re-added to the game after being absent in Mortal Kombat 3
The game came with 3D graphics, full CGI cut-scenes, hilariously bad voice acting and a kick ass soundtrack.
Silly finishing moves such as babalaties and friendships were removed to make the game focus more on violence and to be taken more seriously however a new move that allows you to break your opponents bones during a fight was added which was really awesome.
Players can now also use weapons and stage hazards to hurt their opponents, adding a lot of new ways to fight which is really great.
Mortal Kombat 4 is a fantastic game and while its not my favourite 3D Mortal Kombat game it was a great first attempt.
Mortal Kombat 4 was the last game to be released in Arcades and its art does not disappoint, I love Quan Chi being next to a wall of flames, it reminds me of the art from the Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet which had Raiden using a thunder attack.
For more information on this arcade cabinet follow the link below
Mortal Kombat Gold was a dreamcast exclusive release of Mortal Kombat 4, it added Mileena, Cyrax, Kung Lao, Baraka and a secret character called Sektor to the game. It even added a few new cut-scenes for me personally this is the definitive version of Mortal Kombat 4 but a lot of people would disagree as the game was hit with mediocre reviews when it first hit store shelves.
I could not find a commercial for this game so we will make due with the opening sequence.
Taking place before Mortal Kombat Mythologies Sub-Zero, Special forces follows the character Jax who seeks revenge after his comrades were murdered by the Black Dragon Clan, Jax takes on a mission to obtain a mystical artifact called the Eye of Chitian which can open portals.
The game is a third person beat-em up and shooter, I found it to be quite simple to get used too and at first it was really fun but it became boring very quickly. The game is repetitive, the levels are all very similar and it lacks challenge in both its combat and its boss fights, overall its not great.
I couldn’t find any commercials or videos for this one so I am afraid we will have to make due with the box art.
The game was a bad port of Ulitmate Mortal Kombat 3, the limitations of the gameboy advance button layout made it very difficult to play and took a lot away from the experience. At times the game was also really unfair on its difficulties making it near impossible to finish on any difficulty above normal. This is one port you will want to skip.
In the canon ending of Mortal Kombat 4 (Scorpions Ending) Scorpion gets sent back to the Netherrealm by Quan Chi but Quan Chi is grabbed by Scorpion taking him to the Netherealm with him. Quan Chi escapes the Netherealm using a magical amulet which sent him to a tomb of dead bodies, he learns that the dead can be brought back to life and plans to build an army so he teams up with Shang Tsung who then murder Shao Khan and Liu Kang. This causes Raiden to give up his status as a god after realising that if the alliance is victorious Earthrealm will be doomed leading into the events of the game.
New characters in this game include
Blaze – A secret character and a fire elemental
Bo Rai Cho – Former trainer for Liu Kang
Drahmin – An Oni who seeks revenge against Quan Chi
Frost – Sub-Zero’s Trainee
Hsu Hao – A red dragon operative
Kenshi -A blind swordsman who was stranded in Outworld
Li Mei – An outworld native who wants to win the freedom of her native people.
Mavado – A red dragon mastermind
Mokap – A Joke character added in by the developers
Nitara – A vampire who wants to separate her home from Outworld
Liu Kang and Shao Khan are absent from the game due to their deaths.
The game looks great and its visuals are a huge improvement over Mortal Kombat 4, the combat remains practically the same although stage fatalities have been completely removed which really sucks.
Mini games came back in Deadly alliance in the form of Test your Might and Test your Sight, both of these games are very difficult but both are rewarding.
The crypt made its first appearance here, it was an area that allowed players to spend coins to purchase unlock-able content in the game.
A new mode was added called konquest, this was essentially a long tutorial mode for the fighters but it gave insight to their back stories.
Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance was an outstanding game and one of my personal favourites.
Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition was a GBA port of Deadly Alliance
While controlling a lot better than the previous GBA game in the series nothing about this really stands out enough for me to say its a good game, if anything its a lacking version of Deadly Alliance and overall it can be skipped.
After the events of Deadly Alliance Raiden attempts to fight Shang Tsung and and Quan Chi but is quickly defeated. Not long after this the dragon king Onaga comes to gain the power of the amulet, Raiden sends a powerful blast to try and stop the monster, this blast kills Raiden, Shang Tsung and Quan Chi but hardly touches the dragon king leaving only a few warriors feeling brave enough to try and stop the new threat.
The game came with a new konquest mode and I recommend playing this off the bat because it helps explain more information on the games antagonist.
The game is a full RPG with side-quests, rewards and really fun combat, this is what I wish the Mortal Kombat spin off games were like.
Two additional side games were added the first was Puzzle Kombat which was a tetris clone with a mortal Kombat spin to it and the other was Chess Kombat which was a game of chess in the style of Mortal Kombat, I recommend checking both of these modes out.
New characters this time are
Ashrah – A Netherrealm demon
Dairou – A Seidan guardman
Darrius – A Seidan leader
Havik – Archrival of Hotaru
Kira – A former weapons dealer
and Kobra – A deadly martial artist
Surprisingly Liu Kang and Raiden are playable but with re-designs, Liu Kang is now a zombie and Raiden seems to have a new colour palette.
The Crypt returns but this time is much smaller and easier to collect everything.
A new finisher called Hara – Kiri was added, its a controversial move which causes the other player to die by suicide.
Stage hazards and fatalities were brought back in this instalment making the experience even better.
Overall an excellent Mortal Kombat game.
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks was the third attempt at a spin off for the series and this time it was actually good.
The game takes place during the events between Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2, In this game Shang Tsung plans to take over Earthrealm after his defeat by Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat.
The game is an action packed beat-em up which stars Liu Kang a Lao Kung, players need to slaughter hundreds of enemies and occasional bosses to reach victory, players could perform fatalities in succession as well as a new finishing move called mutuality which kills multiple enemies at once.
The game is a lot of fun but for the best experience I recommend playing the campaign with another player, I feel not enough games these days allow co-op game-play on story mode so its inclusion here is a blessing.
The game is packed with secrets including a hidden battle with the ninja Ermac as a well as other characters such as Kano and Mileena. A full working version of Mortal Kombat 2 could be unlocked if you helped the Ninja Smoke on your quest. A hidden mode called survival could be discovered as well unlocking the ability to play the campaign as Scorpion and Sub-Zero after finishing story mode.
The game even had a traditional versus mode available with unlock-able characters hidden throughout the campaign.
Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks is a fantastic game and one the best Mortal Kombat games, it shows good spin offs are possible with the correct team behind them and I really hope that one day we either get re-release or a sequel.
Following the events of Mortal Kombat: Deception, fighters from all realms battle to survive in the battle of Armageddon, this battle sets everyone out to survive by doing anything necessary. The deadly warrior Blaze is awoken and must be defeated in order to save the realms from certain death and destruction.
The character roster in Armageddon is absolutely massive, for the first time ever in a Mortal Kombat game every character was back and playable including previous boss characters and characters who were deceased.
Fatalities were completely changed in this game and not many people liked this, instead of each character having set finishing moves, players had to brutishly destroy their opponents by combining multiple gory attacks together creating their own finishing moves, this was really cool but it took away a lot of character personality and the fun of learning to pull off tricky fatalities
Another disappointment was that the game had no end cut-scenes or art for players, its still had narration explaining each characters ending but the lack of the imagery to go with this made it really boring and not as interesting as it was in previous games.
On the bright side the game did have an excellent Konquest mode which introduced two new characters Taven and Daegon who have just been released from suspended animation to defeat the warrior Blaze.
The game-mode is really fun and takes a lot of inspiration from Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks making it one of the best parts of Mortal Kombat Armageddon.
Another new mode allows you create a fighter using a lot of fun tools and designs, more stuff for this mode could be bought in the krypt.
My favourite mode in the game is Motor Kombat which is a really silly Mario Kart knock off with Mortal Kombat characters, themed tracks and items as well as plenty of blood and guts.
Mortal Kombat Armageddon brought a lot of new ideas and modes to the table making up for the elements that were lost but overall the game for me a was a little disappointing due to its losses however it was still fin and better than some of its predecessors.
A PSP version of Mortal Kombat Armageddon was released titled Mortal Kombat Unchained, the game was very similar to the console versions however unchained did have an exclusive endurance mode which allowed players to fight constant waves of fighters until they fall in battle.
A port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was brought to the Nintendo DS titled Ultimate Mortal Kombat, the game was an exact copy of the arcade game.
This version came with a Puzzle Kombat Mode as a bonus that was not available in the original game.
Mortal Kombat vs the DC Universe was an odd choice for the next Mortal Kombat game as it would include regular Mortal Kombat characters battling characters from another universe.
The story has players choosing which side to fight for but both campaigns show that Shao Khan and DC villain Darkside both get sent into new realms however due to both of these event happening at once both worlds collide and a new villain named Dark Khan is born.
I always found the character roster for this game very lacking, yes both sides have the obvious choices but I feel that a few fan favourites such as Smoke, Harley Quinn, Reptile, Killer Croc as well as many others could have made the cut or at least came later on as DLC.
A new ability was added to stages allowing players to throw characters down to lower platforms beating the snot out them while they are doing this, this could also be done in a similar new feature called close kombat.
Test your might returns here although its now implemented into ground based stages, this means that in some stages you can trigger test your might by ramming your opponents through walls and other obstacles.
Due to an agreement with DC and its use of characters, violence had to be toned down in this game meaning that a lot of gore was removed from Fatalities and DC Heroes could only perform Brutalities that did not kill the opponent.
Over all not the best Mortal Kombat game but its one of my favourite crossovers, I wish they kept the gore but I understand why DC did not want Super Man brutally murdering someone or having Batman be sliced in half.
2011 brought us Mortal Kombat 9 (AKA Mortal Kombat) a retelling of the plot from the first three games however this one has a twist, it begins at the end of Mortal Kombat Armageddon with Raiden sending a message to his past self “He must Win” referring to Liu Kang needing to win the Mortal Kombat tournament.
While this does technically continue from the end of Armageddon in reality it was the beginning of a reboot of the series while keeping the events of the previous on going story canon. Throughout the campaign Raiden receives visions from the future encouraging him to make drastic changes to past events but with these changes came some serious consequences.
Playable Characters in the game included
Baraka
Cyrax
Cyber Sub-Zero – a robotic-ally altered version of the popular blue ninja
Ermac
Jade
Jax
Johnny Cage
Kabal
Kano
Kitana
Kratos from the God of War Series (PlayStation Version Only)
Kung Lao
Liu Kang
Mileena
Nightwolf
Noob Saibot
Quan Chi
Raiden
Reptile
Scorpion
Sektor
Shang Tsung
Sheeva
Sindel
Smoke
Sonya Blade
Stryker
and Regular Sub Zero
DLC character were added to the game in the form of
Freddy Kruger – From the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise
Kenshi – From Mortal Kombat Deadly Allaince
Rain – A Purple Ninja who was first playable in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
and Skarlet – A red female ninja
These characters were free in the the Komplete Edition of Mortal Kombat that was released in 2012
This game is gory and the fatalities were finally fatal again, DC universe left a lot of people disappointed that the series would never go back to being R rated and Mortal Kombat 9 proved us all wrong.
Stage fatalaties such as the pit returned as well, which was very nostalgic for fans of the series.
A major new addition to the series introduced in Mortal Kombat 9 was the X-ray moves, these are specifically timed grab moves that break the bones of your opponent causing serious damage to the health bar, broken bones or not the damage you take does not affect how you fight in the game after you are hit with an X-Ray.
Apart from the amazing story mode of the game, new modes included a training mode which allowed you to practice pulling off moves and fatalities
.
Challenge tower was a new mode to the series it offered 300 challenges for players to tackle and if they are successful they would earn currency to spend in the games Krypt Mode.
Other modes included Test your Might, Test your Sight, Test your Strike, Test your Luck, Tag Team and online play.
A great reboot of the series, it held the Nostalgia of the original games while also bringing a new feel and new ideas to the table, Mortal Kombat 9 is one of the best Mortal Kombat Games yet.
A re-release of Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Ulitmate Mortal Kombat 3 for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
This version added online multiplayer and achievements.
Two years after the events of Mortal Kombat 9 Johnny Cage and Sonia Blade are fighting to imprison the Elder God Shinnok and Quan Chi. They are successful and Raiden traps Shinnok in an Amulet but unfortunately Quan Chi escapes, the main meat of the campaign then takes place 20 years later and shows Johnny Cage with a group of warriors that he wants to use to retrieve the amulet from Mileena who wants to release Shinnok. The campaign of this game helps to give a lot of sympathy to the characters we all know, the problems that they deal with in the game help to make them feel more like real people than video game characters, I wont spoil the whole campaign story as it gets really good and you should really check it out for yourselves.
New comers to the roster included
Cassie Cage – The daughter of Johnny Cage and Sonia Blade
D’vorah – A member of a race of insects called the Kytinn
Erron Black – A gunslinger from Earthrealm
Ferra and Torr – A young girl who rides a giant masked monster
Jacqui Briggs – The Daughter of Jax and his wife
Kotal Kahn – An Aztec Warrior from the realm of Osh Tekk
Kung Jin – A master thief and the cousin of Kung Lao
and Takeda Takahashi – The son of Kenshi
Paid DLC characters were
Tremor – A bronze ninja and a member of the Black Dragon Clan
Jason Voorhees – From the Friday the 13th franchise
The Predator – From the Predator franchise
Tanya – A woman from Edenia and a worshipper of Shinnok
Xenomorph – From the Alien franchise
BO’Rai Cho – Former trainer of Liu Kang
Goro – A tough four armed warrior who debuted in the original game
Leather Face – From the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise
and Triborg a ninja that is a combination of Smoke, Cyrax and Sector
All DLC was included with Mortal Kombat XL which was released in 2016
Apart from characters there really was not much new content in this one but the two main differences really affected the game-play negatively in my opinion. Instead of just choosing a fighter in quick matches now we had to also choose a fighting, style and all of these needed to be learned separately and it just made the whole thing much more confusing than it needed to be, I hated this I just wanted to play normal Mortal Kombat not this new diverse version of Mortal Kombat.
Anyone who has been reading this website for a while knows that I hate quick time events in cut-scenes. In my opinion they make the story less enjoyable and are lazy attempts to advance a game, they don’t take much skill and are usually boring, these are no exception in Mortal Kombat X they don’t fit well into this series and it distracts players from what was originally a fantastic story mode plot.
With these complaints aside, I actually really like this entry to the series, it still is a lot of fun to play and minus the quick time events had the best plot in a Mortal Kombat game yet.
After Shinnoks defeat in Mortal Kombat X Raiden is left corrupted and dark, he wants to protect Earthrealm by destroying its enemies immediately. Shinnoks mother Kronika rewrites history to remove Raidens interfere by bringing the past and the present together which causes new Mortal Kombat characters to meet the original versions of themselves.
New comers here are
Cetrion – An Elder Goddess and Shinnoks Sister
Geras -Kronikas main underling
and Kollector – A debt collector for Shao Kahn
The games DLC characters are
The Joker from Batman
Nightwolf
Shang Tsung
Sindel
Spawn
The Terminator
Rambo
Rain
Mileena
Robocop
Sheeva
And Fujin
Fatal Blows are a new move that can deal serious damage to your opponent they are very similar to the X-Ray and do not show the bones breaking making them slightly less cool.
X-Ray has been replaced with Krushing Blows a shorter X-Ray move that does less damage but is executed much faster.
Mercy is a move that allows you to revive an opponent by giving them a small amount of health.
Character customisation was added to the game, this allows players to add new skins, weapons, abilities and more to the characters in the game.
There really was not many new modes or ideas added to Mortal Kombat 11 but that has not stopped the game from being an excellent entry into the series, I still prefer Mortal Komat 9 overall but this is a close second for me.
In 2020 Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate version released with all of the DLC from the original version included in this new package.
That leaves us up to date with the Mortal Kombat video game franchise so far, I grew up playing the original games and I have fallen in love with its reboots, this series has had a lot of good moments and bad moments but all of it is nostalgic and brings back a lot of gaming memories for me.
I learned a lot of history and information about the series from a very well put together YouTube documentary series, this series is much more in-depth than the information I have provided and I recommend checking it out if you want to learn more about Mortal Kombat and the impact it has had on gamers for over 20 years.
Join me when the next game is released as we continue to explore this ever expanding game series.
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
Make sure to subscribe to 616Entertaiment on Youtube who made the excellent Mortal Kombat history documentary series.
Metroid Fusion is the fourth entry in the Metroid Series and is the second game to be released on a handheld console. The game was developed and produced by Nintendo.
It takes place after the events of Metroid Other M and as of this review it is at the end of the chronological timeline of events.
While flying over the planet SR388 Samus is attacked by an Alien Organism called X, she crashes her ship but is thankfully rescued by the Galactic Federation, the organism affects her nervous system and almost kills her before she is cured by having Metroid DNA pumped into her body, with her new DNA she is now able to absorb the X parasites and gain energy and ammunition from them however she is now damaged by cold due to cold being a Metroid’s weakness.
An explosion on the space station that Samus is being recovered on gets damaged by an explosion, Samus is commanded to investigate, its here that she is introduced to a new computer system she names ADAM after her ex-commanding officer, the computer informs her that the X parasite is able to clone its prey and that SA-X (That’s Samus Aran X) have been made and are highly dangerous, and its from here that Samus and ADAM work together to find a way to destroy the parasite and save humanity.
Metroid Fusion is a unique game in the series because for the first time the game-play changed drastically, the main idea is the same you do explore various locations and find many secrets such as Energy Tanks, Missiles and Power Bombs but this time the parasites make enemies a lot more difficult to kill, the reason for this is because when you destroy an enemy it releases the an X parasite and if you don’t collect it fast enough it will either re-spawn the enemy or will attach itself to another enemy making it more powerful.
The game is a lot less cryptic than its predecessors this is due to ADAM telling the player where they need to go to reach their objectives, the game actually pin points almost everything on the map making the adventure feel a lot less immersive and much easier than you might expect, the only thing that really bothers me about this is that a lot of free exploration was not available here and it sucks because you could explore freely in all of this games predecessors, security doors no longer require weapons to open either as you can find security rooms that can unlock all of them, I actually prefer this idea as it allows Samus to save on ammunition.
Even though the game does hold your hand a little bit by guiding the player throughout the majority of the adventure, the locations are just as beautiful and fantastic in art design as they were in Super Metroid.
Throughout the game Samus can upgrade her suit and with each upgrade she will gain new abilities and sometimes a new colour, however none of these colours are the traditional orange, this is because orange is the colour of the Samus Clone SA-X that at some points in the game will hunt you down and try its best to kill you, this creature is extremely powerful and does major damage to the player if they are hit, its actually quite scary and reminds me of the film invasion of the body snatchers.
There are many bosses to fight in the game and all of them are creepy and have amazing features and I absolutely love the design of all of them, my favourite is the nightmare a big robot with a goopy face that melts the more damage that you do it, its honestly quite tragic watching its face melt off but in a Nintendo game its also really cool, the issue that I really had with boss fights is that they all get killed the same way and apart from the final boss I remember killing all of them with just missiles and compared to Super Metroid where the bosses were killed in more creative ways this was little disappointing.
What is new about the boss fights here though is the core that they leave behind after blasting a boss with missiles they will die and release a core, the core will also need to be blasted with missiles in order to release an X parasite that will give Samus one of her past abilities and weapons.
A few changes were made to some weapons here, the high jump and jump ball are now combined, the missile upgrades all act as one weapon instead of separate weapons, the X-ray scope is gone however the Super Bombs can now show secret passages instead and the grappling lazer is not in the game at all.
One other thing to note is that the spin jump is now much easier to pull off, in Super Metroid it is quite difficult to master but here players should get the hang of it after a few uses.
The soundtrack is fantastic due to the Gameboy Advances sound capabilities, just like in Super Metroid the music is creepy and dark, Samus is trying to survive and the new threatening parasite has made enemies more powerful and she is afraid but feeling hopeful, the music really gives this impression through the way its orchestrated and is generally really good, but its not all creepy as a good number of action packed tracks are used to compliment the slower ones, this is best shown when Samus runs into the SA-X and is running away trying to escape from the terrifying clone of herself.
With all of its flaws I actually really like Metroid Fusion, it is linear in its gameplay but the environments are fantastic, it has great boss designs and its plot makes the game a lot scarier than its predecessors. What I think this game did really well was that it showed the player from the beginning that the hero Samus Aran who has survived many missions can die, she is only human like the rest of us and that makes the adventure feel much scarier and more important that players try to survive, the game is full of great details and even has voice acting which is actually really good for what you would expect from a gameboy advance game.
I only wish that you were able to explore more freely and that the game was not as easy as it is, however on the flip side this is a great game for people who want to be introduced to the Metroid series as compared to the previous games this is the least frustrating.
7/10
hope you enjoyed this review of Metroid Fusion for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance.
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Castlevania 2 Simons Quest is a 1987 NES action plat-former created by Konami, it takes place many years after the first game. During the final boss battle of the first Castlevania Dracula’s body parts are spread across the land and Simon is cursed, this curse does not affect Simon for a very long time and its during the events of Castlevania 2 that Simon Belmont must find the various body parts of Dracula and burn them in an attempt to remove the curse.
The game is very different to its predecessor, while it is an adventure plat-former it executes this completely differently, this game is much slower due to players having to grind enemies to earn heart currency, a lot of very cryptic puzzle solving and back tracking is also required for players to progress through the game. The puzzles in this game are really unfair and too cryptic for players to figure out without using a guide, a prime example is having to kneel down next to a lake, after a few seconds stairs and a platform appear that allow you to walk into the lake that would normally kill you instantly, another really frustrating part of the game are fake blocks that appear everywhere and most of the time they kill you, you can see through these by throwing holy water but this becomes very boring when you are throwing holy water every step in the castles to avoid a fall to your death.
There are many objects you can acquire in the game by either killing bosses or buying them from NPC’s, for me the most useful item was the holy water as it helped to destroy fake blocks and made killing enemies that were below me very easy. The sacred flame is another very useful item that makes a wall of fire that can do serious damage to enemies however it costs currency to use it. You can find use in some of Dracula’s body parts for example you can use his rib as a shield to deflect fire balls and his heart can be shown to the ferryman to find a path to one of the castles.
There are not many bosses in the game and all of them are really easy including the final boss, the two other bosses you encounter can just be ignored unless you want to fight them for new weapons.
What many people dislike about this game is the day to night cycle and vice versa, it happens on a time loop and really has no point to it other than the illusion of days passing, it really sucks because you cant use towns during night time and you may need to heal or buy a new whip or sub-weapon and a lot of the time you will find your self just waiting around for time to pass.
The soundtrack is great I prefer this to the music in the original game because I feel its a lot more immersive and each track has a great beat to it, my favourite song in the game is bloody tears, this is the song that I associate with the Castlevania series, its a fun and adventurous track that suits the game-play style perfectly.
Castlevania 2: Simons Quest is one of the most hated games in the series for a lot of the reasons I covered in this review, however while it may seem that I have complained a lot about the game, I really do not think that its as bad as its made out to be, yeah its slow and cryptic and the day to night cycle will make you want to tear your hair out but it is a much more immersive game as you will be talking to a lot of town folk and finding religious churches to recover health, the majority of it takes place outside of Dracula’s castle and provides a lot of really memorable areas and enemies, its has a very creepy feeling to it which is perfect for this series and the platforming while at times frustrating for the most part works quite well. I wouldn’t say it a good game but I wouldn’t say its a bad game either.
5/10
I hope you enjoyed this review of Castlevania 2: Simons Quest (1987)
Happy Halloween 2019
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In a forest on Halloween Sheldon Snail and Wiltshire Pig are testing out a new carnival ride on their friend Vince, the caring Sheldon is worried for his friends safety while Wiltshire Pig is more interested in making a large profit from those who ride it.
After an accident with the ride causes a crater to be made in the ground, the two friends discover Frakenswines Diary which tells the story of the mad scientist and the monster he created, Wiltshire Pig is overly excited about this as directions to the doctors castle and lab are left in the diary encouraging both Sheldon and Wiltshire to seek them out in hopes of finding the monster.
The entire movie is made using Claymation and is very impressive to look at and admire for how creative the project is, we don’t see much claymation work these days so this was very nostalgic to someone like me that grew up in an age where this style of animation was regularly used in movies and television.
The short is very funny and charming, the funniest parts are when Wiltshire Pig is trying to convince the monsters in the castle that he’s not alive so that they wont harm him or throw him out, the most hilarious encounter is with his dead grandmother, Wiltshire never attended her funeral and begins to panic trying to give an excuse as to why.
My favourite clay model in the short was a fat green monster that Sheldon and Wiltshire meet when they first enter the castle, the Frankenswine Monster was also a really fun design and its personality was unexpected and hilarious after all of the effort the duo went through to find it.
I had never heard of this special until today and after watching it I think its going to end up being an annual occurrence to me, the whole special was really funny and the animation style was fantastically made and a joy to watch, I would highly recommend checking this short animation out, as of this review the film is available on YouTube and I assure you it is excellent. I only wish it was a little bit longer as I enjoyed it so much.
9.5/10
I hope you enjoyed this review of Will Vinton’s Claymation Comedy of Horrors (1991)
Happy Halloween 2019
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Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is the follow up to the highly successful Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. It has Wario as the main playable character which was a first for the Mario Universe.
After being booted out of Mario’s castle in Mario Land 2, Wario travels to kitchen Island hoping to steal a golden statue of Princess Peach from the notorious Sugar Pirates, he will then sell the statue back to Mario for the cost of a new castle.
In a similar fashion to Mario Land 1 and 2 Wario Land is a 2D platformer but this game is not as simple as getting from point A to point B because it has a new style of gameplay that helps it to stand out compared to its predecessors.
Your main goal in Wario Land is to collect coins, you can find many coins in the 40 levels of the game and you can also use keys to open doors to hidden treasures that will add value to your final money count.
Wario can also collect hearts and once enough are collected he will earn a new life.
In the game Wario can also find items to help him traverse the stages. these items come in the form of hats allowing him to ram, fly and and breathe fire onto his enemies and certain terrain.
The boss fights in this game are the best in the Super Mario Land series, there is boss for every world and they are all very unique and they cannot all be defeated in the same manner, some can be jumped on but others need to be attacked with certain items or by having items thrown at them.
After every level Wario can play one of two minigames, one allows him to throw items at enemies to earn more heart points and the other is a gambling game where he can earn more coins, I really struggled with the heart game so I stuck with the coin game throughout my playthrough.
The best part of collecting money in the game is that how much you collect will determine your final reward, I was lucky enough to get my own planet which is the highest reward, I recommend finding all of the treasures because it is a lot of fun and they are quite easy to find once you get the hang of the game.
The soundtrack is ok for the game but its really not anything special, I had the same issue with the Super Mario Land 2 soundtrack so hopefully the music is better in the later Wario Land games.
A lot of the levels look very similar in design which is fine but I would of preferred the developers to take more inspiration from the different worlds of the game and maybe tried to theme the levels to suit the foods they are based on.
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is the best game in the Super Mario Land trilogy, it is a lot of fun and gave the series a new spin in its gameplay and platforming, I love the idea of getting different rewards based on how well you did in the game as it added a lot of replay value. The game is very easy but is a lot of fun, my only complaints are the similar stage designs and the medicore soundtrack but putting these two things aside this is possibly one of the best games for the original Gameboy and was a great debut for Wario as a playable character.
9/10
hope you enjoyed this review of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Nintendo Game Boy.
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The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening was released in 1993 for the Nintendo Gameboy, it was the first handheld game in the series and is by far the strangest. The game was re-released in 1998 for the Gameboy colour which is the version I am going to be focusing on in this review. I will be discussing the 2019 remake for the Nintendo Switch as well in order to see if it is better than the original.
After the events of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Link travels by boat to various islands to train his skills however during one of his voyages a storm destroys the boat and causes him to be washed up on Koholint Island.
He is rescued by a young girl called Marin who takes him to her house, after Link recovers his sword a mysterious owl tells him that he must wake up the wind fish to go home, the wind fish is inside of a giant egg on top of a mountain and Link must recover eight instruments from dungeons to wake him up.
Links awakening mostly follows a very similar pattern to the games before it as you will need to travel across Koholint Island solving puzzles, meeting new characters, discovering dungeons and defeating bosses, two new items are introduced in this game, one of them is rocs feather which allows Link to jump over small gaps and attack flying enemies and the other is the Ocarina which Link can learn to play music on to trigger events in the game such as teleportation, raising the dead and eventually opening the final dungeon.
2D side scrolling sections return in this game but they are executed much better than they were in Zelda 2, these are short and sweet and are a lot of fun, they are also the best places to find enemies from the Super Mario series. Mario enemies are all over this game its really cool and fits the sillier nature of the title, when you play the game you will realise that it is quite silly and comedic, this a Zelda game that does not need to be taken seriously and that is something I would like to see more of in the future.
There are a few things that I feel really hold back this game from being one of the better games in the series. The map is really confusing as nothing is easy to find, almost all of the buildings look the same and are labelled as shops, I really wanted to collect all of the photographer pictures but when I tried to find the the building before I took on the final boss I could not find it and eventually gave up.
I also think that a lot of secrets or dungeons are too cryptic and hard to figure out in this title, some things are more obvious than others but a lot of the time because the dungeons all look so similar you will find your self pulling out your hair trying to get through them.
I think all of these issues could have been fixed with some labels added to the map and I can only hope that the 2019 version of the game fixes this.
Visually the game looks really good, for the gameboy’s limitations the developers pushed the system to put out lots of colours and great animations.
I love this soundtrack, its really charming and fits the games setting really well, there are some classic Zelda tracks thrown in so you cant really go wrong, my favourite music is from Mabe village.
The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening is an odd game to say the least, its very charming and to a lot of people its one of the best in the series, I personally enjoy the game but I don’t think it doesn’t have its faults. The confusing map added a lot of stress to my play-through but apart from that this is a good title and I would like to see a sillier game in the series again.
Recently the game has been remade for the Nintendo Switch
On September 20th 2019 a new HD remake of Links Awakening was released on the Nintendo Switch, the game came with a beautiful graphical upgrade and new and impressive renditions of the music, the new soundtrack is fantastic and is just as enjoyable as the originals soundtrack.
Here is the soundtrack if you would like the compare the two
Unfortunately due to the game only releasing in the last 24 hours I could only find the soundtrack as one video however the up-loader has added time marks to skip tracks.
This game is filled with bug fixes and small improvements to the original game but I am only going to focus on the changes that I feel will have the biggest impact on returning players.
I love the new visuals, the game is extremely colourful and is a joy to look at, the designers took a very child friendly and almost toy inspired design for the game and it suits the silly nature of the adventure perfectly. the game is packed with wonderful visuals and smooth animations including a fully animated opening cut scene.
Some other important changes are new ways to play some of the minigames which are now much more challenging in my opinion, a much easier to read map that allows the player to place markers, the option to choose where to land after using warp pads and key items being assigned to buttons meaning that players do not have to go the inventory all of the time.
For me the worst part of the remake is its dungeon creator mode which replaces the photography in the game, players can use areas from dungeons they have finished to build new dungeons that they and their friends can play through. I generally do not enjoy creative game experiences like this so the loss of the photography which was my favourite part of the original game was a little upsetting for me.
Lack of photography or not it would be unfair to say that this is not the superior version of the game, it looks and sounds better and makes the experience a little less tedious than it used to be and that is exactly what you should expect from a remake, the developers put their hearts and souls into this and the outcome was a very good Zelda remaster.
Links Awakening DX – 8.4/10
Links Awakening 2019 – 9.3/10
I hope you enjoyed this review of The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening
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Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is a set of Mega Man games that was released in 2017, the set contains Mega Man 7 through 10
I really enjoyed the original Mega Man Legacy Collection so I was eager to dive into this one when I got the chance.
Mega Man 7 (1995)
Wow Capcom really stepped up their box art game for this one, its really awesome and has loads of detail, the past games had some interesting box art but most of them were quite odd choices for the games they represented.
Six months after finally imprisoning Dr Wily, Dr Wily’s Laboratory reactivates releasing four robot masters who have been programmed to find their master, these Robots attack Dr Light and bring chaos to the city, all of this was a ruse to cover his escape from prison leaving Mega Man to once again set out to defeat Wily and save the day.
The start really puts a lot players off at first is because it begins with an introduction stage that has a lot of unskippable dialogue the second reason is that at first due to the plot of the game you can only choose to fight four robot masters which is a step down compared to the previous games which allowed you to pick from all eight.
Apart from these two things the rest of the game is really great, it adds so much to franchise that really brought a lot to the table. The game looks fantastic thanks to its 16 bit upgrade, it has a lot of fluent animations and very innovative stage and enemy designs.
The game is packed to the brim with secrets and hidden upgrades to add to your arsenal, stages have multiple paths that can be found in order to obtain these secrets adding a lot of replay value to the game.
A shop has finally been introduced to the series making it much easier to obtain Energy Tanks. Lives and Weapon Energy, you can purchase these with currency you can find in the game.
The robot masters in this game are really cool, they all have very well themed stages and all their attacks patterns match their personalities perfectly my favourite stage and fight in the game is against Shade Man.
I really like this game but many people do not and while I understand why that is, I had a lot of fun with this one, it added a lot to the series and the secrets are really fun to find especially Proto man and if you find him enough times in the game you can fight him to obtain his shield. I will say that this game is really hard and it is not very forgiving the final boss almost made me rage quit which does not often happen for me.
Mega Man 8 (1997)
I think this might be the worst box art we have come across so far, its really boring and has almost no detail to it apart from Mega Man himself who to be fair looks great.
Two Robots fall from space after fighting each other, at this time Mega Man and Rush are also in an intense battle against rival Bass however the fight is interrupted by Roll who brings a message from Dr Light asking Mega Man to investigate strange energy readings he picked up on an Island that is close by. On the Island Dr Wily is spotted flying away with a purple orb. Mega Man chases down Dr Wily soon to discover new robot masters and the fallen robots.
There was a lot of changes to this game and for the most part they work well enough, the first is the new graphics, due to the game taking place on a disc based system it was able to push extremely smooth animations and the visuals were the best we had seen in a Mega Man game so far, they even had voices for characters during game-play which helped to add a lot of personality.
Another addition thanks to Disc technology was fully animated cut-scenes and even though the voice acting was abysmal the animations were amazing.
You can still only choose from four robot masters at first but again it makes sense due to the way the plot develops in the game, I do miss being able to choose out of all eight though. The shop also returns here but its for upgrades to Mega Man and his Mega Buster as energy, weapon and super tanks are not in the game.
The game really mixes up its game play by adding new maze platforming sections and terrible on rails sections that will have you tearing your hair out. These on rails sections are the hardest part of the game and while they are extremely annoying the rest of the game is a breeze, I found no trouble in surviving and beating bosses, even the final boss was really easy. The secret upgrades were handed to you for beating mini bosses in some levels so their wasn’t even difficulty in exploration making this the easiest Mega Man game I have ever played.
Mega Man 8 is a really interesting game in the series, it changed the balance of the game play style that the series was known for which was a nice change of pace although some of the new ideas were really frustrating. I was really disappointed with the robot masters in this game because to me none of them really stood out and they were quite forgetful. The game is really easy for the most part which makes this a nice game to start with if you are new to the series and are not wanting to be too invested with the ongoing plot of the past games.
Mega Man 9 (2008)
As Mega Man 9 was never released on physical media, we will instead be looking at its virtual art work.
This is much better looking than the Mega Man 8 box art however Mega Man has got some weird design choices and while the Dr Wily in the background is really cool he is absolutely terrifying and looks nothing like he does in any of the games.
Once again not long after Wily’s last defeat Robots across the world begin to malfunction and attack the city. These robots actually belong to Dr Light and due to this he is arrested. Dr Wily asks civilians for donations to build new peace keeping robots to fix all of the damages, Mega Man knows that Wily cannot be trusted so he heads out to defeat him once again while finding evidence to help clear Dr Lights good name.
First thing to note is that this game takes a lot of inspiration from the original NES games, and the first addition brought over is that you can choose from all eight robot masters from the get go.
The game uses a very similar colour palette and design to the NES games and I dont mind this, its very nostalgic and does not take away from the experience.
The robot masters are really fun, my favourite stage and fight is Galaxy man, this game was also the first Mega Man to have a female robot master (Splash Woman). The game even has a great soundtrack and is in my opinion the best soundtrack in any of the main series Mega Man games up to this point so for the most part this game is practically flawless.
I do have one complaint though, they removed the slide ability and charging up the Mega Buster which does not make a lot of sense as they have been a part of the series since they were first introduced but apart from this Mega Man 9 is a great game and one of my favourites.
Mega Man 10 (2010)
Once again this game only ever released digitally so we will have to look at the digital art, and this artwork is absolutely amazing, it is my favourite out of all of the main series Mega Man box art, there so are so many details and fantastic illustrations to admire making this a very solid piece of art.
An outbreak of a rare robot disease call robenza has spread across the world and has infected thousands of robots leaving them very sick and close to a complete shutdown. A month after the outbreak Dr Wily crashes into Dr Lights lab claiming that he was attacked by Robenza affected robots who were trying to steal a Medicine machine he was building to create a cure, Mega Man agrees to defeat the robots and get the parts needed for Wily to build the machine, he heads off to find the robot masters feeling unsure as to whether he should trust Wily.
The game allows the player to play as either Mega Man, Proto Man and eventually Bass, I played as Mega Man but all of characters have unique dialogue and some difference in how they attack although apart from this the base game remains the same.
Mega Man 10 follows the same inspirations as Mega Man 9 so all of the robot masters are available from the beginning and the game play remains very much the same with some differences if playing as Proto Man or Bass adding some replay value.
The stage designs are much harder and in some way more creative and fun, I really like strike mans stage and nitro mans stage, the robot master fights are also much more tricky in this game so players will have to use patience and clever thinking to avoid damage and win the battles. The levels are really short which I believe is because of the increase of difficulty.
I wouldn’t normally talk about a final boss however I feel I need to at this point, this form of Dr Wily is called Wily Capsule and it has appeared in so many times that I am honestly a little sick of seeing it and wish that they would come up with some new ideas for a final form, it is slightly different in this game as there is a fake Wily as well but I would like to a see a different Wily form when I eventually get around to Mega Man 11
Mega Man 10 is a really fun Mega Man game that I really enjoyed, its not one of my favourites however I do appreciate that it added the ability to play as different characters which is something that was new to the main series.
With the games of the collection finished I want to briefly discuss the bonus features in this collection.
Each game has 10 challenges that players can attempt, the requirements for each challenge do vary, it might be a boss rush, beating a stage without taking damage or beating challenges in set time limits and more.
You can play music from all four games to your hearts content in the music player mode and you can look at game art for all of the games in the museum mode.
This is a really good collection and I really enjoyed it however there are two things from the first legacy collection that never carried over to here and it really sucks, the first is the ability to play the Japanese versions of the games and secondly is you can no longer use save states, the game does add save states as checkpoints but its not the same as saving whenever you want too, this did not really affect me as I have been playing Mega Man games for a long time now but its absence was still noted.
Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 gets a 9.2/10
Its was fun to return to this series and I cannot wait to get around to Mega Man 11 and the other Legacy Collections that have been released
A quick update as of august 2020 I have discovered that you can play the Japanese versions of the games if you change the games text language to Japanese. It is great that the Japanese versions are here but having to change the language of the in game menu’s is a pain.
I hope you enjoyed this review of Mega Man Legacy Collection 2
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The start really puts a lot players off at first is because it begins with an introduction stage that has a lot of unskippable dialogue the second reason is that at first due to the plot of the game you can only choose to fight four robot masters which is a step down compared to the previous games which allowed you to pick from all eight.
Apart from these two things the rest of the game is really great, it adds so much to franchise that really brought a lot to the table. The game looks fantastic thanks to its 16 bit upgrade, it has a lot of fluent animations and very innovative stage and enemy designs.
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