A Plague Tale: Requiem is a survival horror/stealth game developed by Asobo Studios and is a sequel to 2019’s excellent Plague Tale: Innocence, the game released in 2022 for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and a cloud based version for Nintendo Switch.
6 months after the events of Innocence the De Rune family and Lucas are still on the road living in a house provided by the Order, Hugo has had his macula under control but due to stress brought on by a recent conflict he loses control and the rats come back. This time the power of the macula is much worse than before, it is slowly taking over Hugo and becoming a major threat to not only France but could easily spread world wide if not destroyed. The family are sent on a boat to Marseille but soon split up when conflicting opinions on whether Hugo needs to die or not cause a rift between Amicia and her mother, in a desperate bid to find a cure for her brothers illness her and Hugo head to the Island of La Cuna looking for a cure to the Macula, this island had only ever been seen before in Hugo’s dreams but does it really hold all of the answers?
The gameplay here is very similar to the previous entry, Amecia and co will be needing to sneak their way through most of this journey, the most common enemies are soldiers and with her trusty sling shot Amecia is able to easily kill those without helmets, unlike the first game this entry actually encourages different styles of play including violence, opportunism and remaining unseen, opportunism was my favourite because I like to collect anything I see and did find myself using found materials in crafts and alchemy.
In the game you can craft various secondary abilities including fire, extinguisher, flammable tar, and odor to attract rats. I used extinquish the most to easily take out enemies with the rats while still remaining out of ear shot. Speaking of rats now that Hugo’s power is revealed we can control the creatures in the majority of times they appear, the rats will eat Amecia alive but Hugo can take control to send them to the enemy soldiers instead.
A new whipping mechanic was added, it only appears every now and again as a way to get Amecia out of a pile of rats and has very limited use, it helped me more than once but ultimately it took away from the games difficulty when compared to innocence.
The chapters are still on set linear paths but there is more room for trying different strategies with larger and more open areas that hide more than their fair share of herbarium collectibles (now including feathers) and the larger areas giving players the chance to build up the three different playing styles.
A new collectible here is the souvenirs, these are hidden secrets in chapters that will trigger special dialogue and cutscenes between characters.
Visually the game is gorgeous on PS5 and is a vast improvement when compared to Innocence, with the success of the previous game it seems a higher budget was used here to give us a more more visually inspiring experience and while the differences between the two games are only small Requiems small adjustments such as more realistic skin tones, clothing textures and giving the rats more believable fur really does make a massive difference.
Olivier Deriviere returns to commit to the composition once again, the soundtrack really is fantastic and remains dark and eerie and giving off a vibe of loss, in the first game loneliness was a key element to the story and the soundtrack helped to emphasise those feelings and here while this part of Amecia and Hugo’s journey sees a lot more allies and new friends a new type of loss is clear, being lost on what to do and losing loved ones is definitely key to the story telling, while the soundtrack barely differs in style to innocence its adaptability works well for the emotional story telling of the narrative and in many ways it has a bigger impact on this story because as players we have had enough time throughout the two games to get attached to these characters.
After finishing Innocence I could not wait to get my hands on Requiem to see the next part of Amecia and Hugo’s journey, the game did not disappoint but also gave me something I never expected, one part of this game made me emotional and even got me to shed tears, I wont spoil which part but I rarely cry at games so this was unexpected, I think its mostly due to the games writing and how they get the players to connect with these characters and only want to see the best outcome for them.
Requiem is a fantastic game and I recommend playing it providing you finish Innocence first due to this being the second part to that already very story driven game.
9/10
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Welcome the second edition of Movie Games a series where we look at a film and then its video game counterparts to not only discuss a games quality but how accurate of an adaptation it is.
In this Christmas episode I will be deep diving into the the 2003 comedy film ELF starring Will Ferrell, this movie only had one videogame adaptation releasing on the Nintendo Gameboy Advance the same year as the film.
First a Recap of the movie and I wont be shy on spoilers so be wary!
On Christmas Eve a baby from an orphanage crawls into Santa’s Sack and is taken to the North Pole, an older Elf agrees to raise the baby and 30 years later the now adult and much taller Buddy is struggling to fit in with the elves, he finds out he is a human and decides to travel to New York City to find his real father Walter Hobbs.
Buddy passed through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then walked through the Lincoln Tunnel.
Upon arrival in New York Buddy is searching everywhere for his Father, causing havoc along the way, eating discarded gum, running around evolving doors and jumping across zebra crossings.
He finds his father in the Empire state building but is soon thrown out after Security is called by Walter Hobbs himself, the security sarcastically suggests Buddy goes back to Gimbels.
Taking the request literally Buddy goes into the department store and is mistaken for an employee of Santa’s Village here he meets the friendly but unenthusiastic Jovie, Buddy is so excited for Santa coming to visit the store that he stays behind over night to decorate the store. The next morning Santa comes to the store but its an imposter, Buddy rips off his beard and a fight ensues, Buddy is arrested but bailed out by Walter Hobbs who takes him to a doctor for a DNA test which proves a positive match!
Walter reluctantly takes his Son home to meet his wife Emily and his other son Michael, Walter doesn’t warm up to Buddy as quickly as Emily does and wants to throw him out onto the streets but Emily insists that Buddy stays with them until he recovers from his fantasies.
Buddy soon becomes a friend of Michael after he defeats his school bullies in an epic snowball fight, the two mess around the Gimbles department store and bump into Jovie, Michael encourages Buddy to ask her out and she says yes, after the date goes really well Buddy runs to his dads works to tell him that he is in love not knowing that world renowned author Miles Finch is there.
Finch who is short in stature is mistaken for an Elf by Buddy and his extremely offended walking out on his deal with Walter, Walter in a rage tells buddy to stay out of his life, buddy leaves and writes a goodbye letter to his family, while making his way back through New York City he spots Santa’s Sleigh crashed at Central Park, the Sleigh runs on Christmas Spirit but it had finally ran out and Santa asks Buddy to help him get it back.
Meanwhile Walter is now in another meeting with the CEO of the company after he finds Miles Finches notebook which is full of ideas, Michael bursts in and emotionally convinces Walter to choose family over work losing his job in the process, Walter and Michael find buddy in Central Park, the two makeup and help Buddy with his mission, Walter dresses as Santa to try and divert the Park Rangers while Michael takes Santa’s list and reads it on live TV convincing viewers of Santa’s existence.
Jovie remembers when Buddy told her “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear” and begins singing Santa Claus is coming to town, the New Yorkers all join in and even Walter gets in on the action finally giving the sleigh enough power to fly again. In the finale we see Buddy spending Christmas with his family and the following year visiting his Papa Elf in the North Pole along with his Wife Jovie and their baby Susie, a truly happy ending.
The GBA videogame is a 2D platformer and for the most part it controls fine but the game is really bare bones when it comes to its gameplay, this is as generic as 2D platformers can get.
I will give some props to the game for adding various goals into some stages such as collecting all of Christmas Lights and the letters to spell NEWYORK.
Other stages are designed as either top down platformers or minigames, the worst of these stages is easily jumping across the Icebergs, this stage had really bad issues with landing, in most cases you would hit the water when you had definitely landed on the iceberg but because it wasn’t centred the game took that as a miss, the stage is very long and at some points the platforms you need land on are moving which makes it even worse.
Jumping is very floaty in the game in all platforming levels, the iceberg was definitely the worst offender but some other simple platforming such as jumping over the polar bears also proved to be needlessly difficult at times.
The minigame stages are all fine but very generic and extremely easy, examples of what to expect are the usual repeat the button presses, link up the pipes and hit the targets, minigame staples that we see in almost any game.
I’m not going to criticise the game on being generic as that’s almost expected from this, what I will criticise however is how lazy this adaptation actually is they use screenshots from the movie with no dialogue text to give players any idea on what is going on and to top this off the levels are not even accurate to movie.
Small errors such as the snowball fight including elves instead of school bullies,a lack of Walter Hobbs and his family (minus one screenshot at the end of the game) levels with plots including collecting Christmas lights, helping Santa deliver presents and a very small number of movie screenshots which no context make me wonder if this was released either before the movie or developed by a team who had no idea of the plot, needless to say its a pretty lame game and an even worse movie adaptation.
The soundtrack is awful we are only given some very simple audio loops or really bad chiptunes of Christmas songs just another another way to rush development and give the game even less originality.
This Christmas watch the movie but do yourself a favour and skip the GBA game!
2.7/10
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The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien was first released in 1937 and was the first story in the Middle Earth series and acts as a prequel to the Lord of the Rings, it tells the story of Bilbo Baggins a hobbit who enjoys the simple things in life, sitting by the fire, reading books and smoking his pipe, one day Bilbo is visited by Gandalf the Wizard and a band of Dwarves who wants his help to steal a vast treasure from the Dragon Smaug who lives inside of the Lonely Mountain.
I think this book does a fantastic job at displaying character growth and change, this is especially prevalent with Bilbo Baggins who begins his journey as a hermit and a recluse, hiding away in his Hobbit hole and living a boring life ending the story as a Hero, someone who has experienced the outside world and now understands a greater value of themselves while still enjoying the simpler things in life.
The Dwarves minus the leader Thorin Oakenshield are mostly forgettable and struggled to maintain my interest, Thorin definitely has the most character development due to his tough nature and general grumpiness towards Mr Baggins, he is also a Dwarven King who is desperately trying to reclaim the Dwarven home in the Lonely Mountain.
Gandalf plays a small role in this story as a means to bring our band of heroes together, he comes and goes as goes offering small bits of advice to Thorin and company but overall does not stick around and takes a step back in comparison to his role in the later Lord of the Rings story. I think Gandalf’s absence here is actually to the books benefit for a few reasons, first of all he is far too powerful and while the orcs and goblins are a threat in this they would be no match for the more powerfully superior Gandalf the Grey.
The other reason is because his absence gives Bilbo more of a chance to become a hero by using his wits and quick thinking to solve problems in ways that are unique to his character. Gandalf is not only a very powerful magic caster but is also incredibly wise and intelligent so would already know the best ways to defeat enemies. Bilbo uses his quick thinking to trick the creature Gollum during his game of riddles not only saving his life but allowing him to keep the magic ring he found.
The main purpose of this story was too expand into the Lord of the Rings so Bilbo discovering the ruling ring is the most important and prevalent part of the book, here the ring does turn the wearer invisible but Middle Earth was still not fully imagined so Mount Doom, Sauron and the Nazgul were still very much absent at this point.
For as short as this book is coming in at only 304 pages Tolkien’s writing style allows for some decent world building without taking away from the main story, the descriptions are subtle but do the job in allowing readers to fully imagine how Tolkein had drafted the different areas such as Rivendell and the Mountain to be.
Some major differences worth noting between this book and the three motion picture adaptations are as follows
During the scene with the trolls in the movie Bilbo keeps them talking about how to cook the Dwarves before the sun turns them to stone but in the book it is actually Gandalf who tricks them by throwing his voice to sound like one of the other trolls.
In the book Bilbo gets his Elven blade sting from the Trolls cave where as in the movie it is first discovered by Gandalf.
Saruman and Galandriel are not mentioned in the book but do make appearances in the motion pictures.
Radagast the Brown is one of my favourite characters in the book but his role is vastly increased during the movies,
In the movies we get to see fan favourite character Legolas make a return, he is not mentioned in the book
Finally Azog the white Orc leader is not in the book but is part of Middle Earth lore being killed years before Bilbo’s Journey.
Other major differences are in connection with character deaths that I do not want to spoil here.
I have read the Hobbit three times and it I cannot wait to read it again, it is one of my favourite stories and holds a very important place in literary history, if your not a fan of reading I recommend listening to the story read by Andy Serkis (Voice and character actor for Gollum) he does a fantastic job and even commits to his iconic Gollum Voice!
This is one adventure you surely do not want to miss out on
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From the minds of Aardman animations comes Arthur Christmas a computer animated film about the Christmas family who have forgotten the meaning of Santa.
When one childs gift from Santa is forgotten the youngest family member Arthur takes it upon himself to try and deliver it before sunrise against the wishes of his father Santa Claus and his older brother and head of operations Steve.
He is joined on his journey to Cornwall with his Grand Santa, an old reindeer and wrapping Elf Briony.
The story is very well written with each character having different ideas on what Santa should be and how the story is written does eventually bring them all together in the end, in a perfect moment concluding the mission they realise that only Arthur embodies the true spirit of Santa, its a really beautiful moment and the highlight of the movie.
The characters truly drive this movie and without such an iconic British voice cast I don’t think the film would have been able to portray such realism and emotion in the Claus family.
Steve voiced by Hugh Laurie is next in line to become Santa, he has taken a more modern approach to the holiday by creating the S1 a present delivering Spaceship with GPS and hyper speed, Steve is serious about order and making sure that everything goes to plan, he is somewhat of an antagonist in the film as he is clearly seen as superior to the rest of the family even by Santa himself, Steve wants to be Santa but he doesn’t understand the magic and sees it more as a job. Steve doesn’t want to bring back the missing present because he thinks it isn’t possible or important since all of the other presents got delivered anyway.
Santa Claus is played by Veteran actor Jim Broadbent who was perfect for this role he has a very naturally jolly and gentle voice so just playing himself was the best option and that’s what they went with and it works really well. Santa in this doesn’t want to retire event though his old age is beginning to affect his ability to do the job properly, he is getting forgetful and lets Steve make decisions for him even though technically he is the boss, even agreeing that Steve always knows best when Arthur tells him about the forgotten child.
The best character in the entire movie is definitely Grand Santa he is played by Bill Nighy who won an Annie award for his performance. Grand Santa is the last of the Santa’s to use the traditional method of sleigh and reindeer to deliver presents, he dislikes Steve’s new modern tech and goes along with Arthur only to prove that the old method still works and that he is capable of being Santa after he was put in early retirement for nearly triggering World War 3 .
Arthur voiced by James Mc avoy is the glue that holds the family together, he works in the letters department replying to all of the letters written to Santa, Arthur was the first person to communicate with Gwen who asks for a bicycle, Gwen soon becomes the forgotten child and Arthur knows that if the present isn’t delivered she will no longer believe and will lose out on the magic of Christmas. Arthurs selfless act to deliver the present eventually does bring all of the characters together and fixes the holes in the Claus Family.
Other characters worth mentioning are Mrs Claus (Imelda Staunton) and Bryony Shelfley (Ashley Jenson) Mrs Claus is desperate for Santa to retire so they can spend their last years together and Bryony Shelfey is the Elf who originally finds the forgotten gift, she tags along with Arthur and Grand Santa to make sure it is delivered in time for Christmas morning.
For only their second attempt at a CGI film following on from Flushed Away visually the film still manages to capture all of the charm and simplicity of the character and set designs.
I think what makes the film so special is its portrayal of a family who has lost its connection due to work, in this movie Christmas has become a dividing point for the Claus family, there are arguments for how the job should be done that has managed to cause a massive drift apart between the family members and this is something that isn’t repaired until the finale thanks to Arthur.
In the real world work can take over many peoples lives and can cause neglect, stress and general anxiety and depressions for a lot of families, while this element is very light in this film it was still nice to see this being portrayed in a family film.
Arthur Christmas is one of my absolute favourite Christmas movies of all time it is tons of fun to watch and filled to the brim with classic Aardman British Humour, it has charming animations, an iconic cast and is overall a film to put on every year.
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A Christmas Story is far from a classic that I grew up with but over seas in the USA this is considered by many one of the most important and special holiday films by many people, the film is often played on a loop during Christmas Eve Television hours and to this day is still one of the most commercialised holiday films in the United States.
The film was based on an extract of the book “In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash” by radio comedian Jean Shepard, Shepard became well known for telling slightly fictionalised story’s from his childhood during 1960’s radio programmes.
One of these programmes discussed a boy getting his tongue stuck to a flagpole this inspired Bob Clark to write and direct the film with a similar moment of a boy Flick getting his tongue stuck to a flagpole becoming one of its most memorable scenes.
The film took place during the late 1940’s and focused on a young boy named Ralphie who is desperately trying to convince his parents and even Santa to get him the brand new Red Ryder BB Gun but everyone tells him “You’ll shoot your eye out kid”.
I think the movie holds such an impact because it is really relatable and nostalgic to a lot of viewers, it can connect with kids who really want that one present and as adults we remember that childhood desperation of getting the gift we wanted, personally I remember day dreaming over the PS2, the Xbox 360 a Birdhouse Skateboard and a puppy, the Christmas day we got our first dog is one of the best memories I ever had, my parents never wanted a dog and put off the idea for years so when he turned up on Christmas Day we were all crying, years of begging paid off and I got my late Labrador Alfie and he was my Red Ryder BB Gun.
The casting for the film is really great but I think props need to be given to the cast who play Ralphie and his family they give a really heartfelt and realistic portrayal of a family which doesn’t rely on stereotypical character types but in fact feels like the average household who will be watching the film.
I think everyone can relate to Ralphie we have all wanted our dream present at one point and in ways we can relate to the parents as adults with the struggles of allowing a dangerous toy into their home and also having to balance the costs and stresses of the holidays while taking care of two young boys, the fussy eating from little brother Randy is also a very real issue for a lot of children and parents.
Some of my favourite scenes in the movie also relate back to moments in my life from being terrified of dodgy mall Santa’s and displaying crappy awards and prizes that I never really cared about but kept because its free and of course getting my tongue stuck on a pole which I recall being extremely painful btw and I do not recommend.
I’m finding it difficult to deep dive too much into this film because I never grew up with it and while it connects with me in someways it has never made it into my regular Christmas movie marathon, I suppose I have never really cared much for a Christmas Story even though I respect it for a lot of it’s qualities and its strange because there isn’t much I dislike about the film if I had to be pick something the day dream segments can be a little bit cringe worthy but again they are very memorable moments in the movie
A Christmas Story may not be one of my personals favourite holiday movies but for a lot of people this is an essential part of the holidays which shouldn’t be missed and if you get the chance why not give it a try to see if you feel the same, the film has left a cultural impact for a reason and is overall a very good film which is well worth a viewing even if it is only once.
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Developed by Japan Studio and Team ICO, this game while it now holds a cult following did not meet sales expectations upon its original release, it would later go on to inspire the vast superior Shadow of the Colossus and one of my personal favourite games. I never had a chance to check this one out until recently and I was curious to see what I missed out on.
A young boy with horns is slowly dragged into a deserted castle high on the cliffs to be sacrificed to the Shadow Queen, for centuries children who grow horns have been locked away here and left to starve to death but luckily for Ico he manages to escape from his tomb and with the help of Yorda a Princess of light and they both work together to escape the castle and its labyrinth inspired walls.
The game is unusual for its lack of conventional video game design it has very little focus on combat and player deaths are few and far between, the main aspect is puzzle solving where you need to interact with the castles mechanical engineering, blow open doors and pull levers in order to adjust areas that Yorda is able to climb and to allow her to traverse along the same paths as the much braver Ico.
Yorda is able to use her light to open otherwise inaccessible doors and pathways so keeping her safe is a must, at set moments in the story shadow creatures will grab the Princess and drag her into the darkness, if this happens Ico will turn to stone and die instantly.
These creatures can be defeated by hitting them with a stick or even better a sword, another way is to simply grab Yordas hand and run to a nearby light blocked door, this will kill all shadows in the area but the likely hood of a door even being available is rare and this can only be done in select moments during the story.
Yorda moves very slowly throughout the game which can be frustrating at times, I spent the majority of my playthrough holding her hand so she was forced to run but this can only be done on ground and near the very end of the game due to a story progression it becomes near impossible to run with her as she will keep tripping over.
In essence the best way I can describe the gameplay is that it is almost like a giant Zelda Dungeon with much easier combat and some ways easier puzzle solutions but difficulty is not what the developers had in mind while creating this game.
This is more of an interactive story than it is a action-adventure game as some may call this, the game is pretty easy including its final boss fight, without a health bar or a heads up display dying seems to be less important as Ico doesnt seem to have much of a threat, in fact to my knowledge the shadows can cant hurt him and only really go for Yorda, he can be taken out with basic platforming mistakes but thats about it.
I think this works in the games favour as it makes it stand out and to be honest I think if they did focus more on this being more than an interactive story the game would have had much less of an impact because it wouldn’t hold a candle to other Action-Adventure games of the time.
Graphically the game is very impressive for an early PS2 title and it has a great use of darkness and basic design to help emphasise the eerie sense of being lost in the castle halls, the few outside meadow areas which are safe from the shadows are much more relaxing in design and its rendering of the castle from such a height for example from the top of cliffs to the waters below would have taken a lot of development work in the PS2’s early stages.
Ico’s soundtrack is very limited which works well with the basic game play level design and narrative while traversing the castle and its many yards you will be lucky to find any music which adds to the lonely and rather empty atmosphere of Ico and Yordas journey and any music we do get is basic so it doesn’t take away from the narrative that is being told, a genius decision from composer Michiru Oshima and is something I would like to see inspiring more games in the future.
Ico is a fantastic game and for what it was aiming to achieve it did a fantastic job of giving us an all around simple game with its story, gameplay and soundtrack but while this is outstanding in many ways and I do truly love the game its simplicity also leads to its biggest downfall.
The game is very short coming in at around 6 and a half hours for a first playthrough, there isnt even any collectibles or much replay value apart from maybe aiming faster completion times which may seem like nit picking for a game that is now 22 years old but we wouldn’t take kindly to a new PS5 game selling at full price and being this short with no side content so why should a PS2 game from 2001 get the exception bearing in mind people would have paid out the nose if they pre-ordered this back then.
Overall Ico is a game well worth playing, at the moment it is included as part of Playstations Classic catalogue and if you are subscribed to the service I recommend giving it a go
8.5/10
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The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass is the first entry to be released on the Nintendo DS handheld videogame system. It is the fourteenth entry in the series and a sequel to GameCubes Wind Waker.
After the events of the Wind Waker Hyrule is flooded and Link and Tetra are crossing the ocean on their boat, they come across the Ghost Ship and climb aboard looking for treasure. On board Tetra screams as she is stolen and turned to stone, the ship vanishes leaving Link floating in the Sea before he is washed ashore on an island and rescued by a fairy called Ceila.
He finds a ghostly hourglass which holds the sands of time and speaks with an old man named Oshus who sends him on a quest with the help of Captain Linebeck to travel the new ocean, defeat the phantom Bellum and rescue Tetra so they can continue in their adventures.
The gameplay is very similar to the average top down Zelda game with hidden temples needing to be completed, each filled with a numerous amount of puzzles and a boss fight, these are each found on islands which you can sail towards on your boat.
Exploring the Sea in this is slightly lacking when compared to its predecessor due to the fact that while you can technically explore freely you can not physically move the boat but instead you draw a path which is then followed via an on rails segment, you can still jump obstacles and shoot down enemies so there is some entertainment value to these changes.
Speaking of gameplay changes I think the ambition to have the game completely controlled via the touch screen needs to be discussed because I have mixed feelings on this.
The use of touchscreen controls definitely had its advantages when it came to combat, simply tapping or swiping enemies worked really well when combined with using the screen for general movement as well.
My issues with this unfortunately came with swapping between items and drawing symbols.
Symbols are used throughout the game for various purposes, the main function is teleportation between the different areas of the Great Sea and finally for accessing certain parts of temples.
I had a lot of difficulty with getting some of these to work meaning that I had to do multiple attempts, the issue I think lies with how they are drawn, I found that I would draw the symbol perfectly and have no luck but if I drew the same symbol in a slightly different way it would work better.
This issue was so bad that at one point that I literally had to go to google to see if I had missed something but no it was just not drawing the image correctly even though it looked exactly the same as what I was meant to draw!
As for swapping items this worked fine enough but I do wish there was a way to apply some to buttons as near the end game it is necessary to swap items in a shorter space of time.
What caught me by surprise was that the game really focussed on the main story and held back on the side content. This worked so much more in its favour when compared to Wind Waker, this time around a longer campaign with a few memorable side quests was a much more enjoyable experience when compared to the repetitiveness of what we got before.
My favourite side quest involved finding a mermaid for a fisherman which would then end with us being awarded the fishing rod.
Other really interesting side content involved secret puzzles, near the end game a maze island is unlocked which gives you time limits to get through mazes which are full of puzzles and obstacles.
The puzzle on the whale shaped island was really unique having to sketch the islands layout based on clues before finally discovering how to open the doors to the Golden Frog King who teaches us about Golden Frog fast travel points.
Mini games are a staple of the series and here we get the obvious target games and bow and arrow ranges but these games now play an important role in how we explore the open sea.
Fishing allows us to catch fish which we can then take to the fisherman to be rated earning us prizes, I loved this as you needed to physically reel in the rod and pull on the touch screen to make sure you didn’t lose your catch.
The other new mechanic is how we use the salvage arm, here we can use a mechanical device to reach the bottom of the Ocean floor and can pull up lost treasure chests, this will result in either parts for your ship or treasures that you can sell for Rupees.
Customising your ship was a pretty cool new mechanic of the game, it wasn’t anything substantially amazing but allowing us to customize our ship did help me make my game unique to myself.
The use of 3D cell shading helps to maintain the cartoony and more family friendly look of the Wind Waker while also helping to enhance the graphic capabilities of the Nintendo DS considering that it was substantially more limited compared to graphically superior GameCube.
There is a large variety of different layouts and colour choices for the different temples but for me my favourite visuals were definitely the boss designs, each fight was unique and visually memorable my favourite was Gleeok the two headed Dragon followed by Bellum in the end game.
The soundtrack takes heavy inspiration from the Wind Waker it still uses the happier melodies help to maintain the less serious direction this chapter in the series was taking, a lot of the music here is somewhat cheerful but can get a little more intense during temples and boss fights but compared to other entries it always maintains its innocence and sense of wonder and even the re-used tracks from Wind Waker such as Outset Island sound fantastic even with the DS’s barriers when it came to its audio outputs.
Phantom Hourglass is a game I feel is often forgotten about by Zelda fans, Growing up I don’t ever recall anyone owning it and everyone played the Wind Waker.
This was my first ever playthrough of the game and I was left really surprised by it, when I first started playing the touch screen controls definitely took some time to get used too but ultimately worked in the games favour minus the issue with drawing symbols I mentioned earlier.
The plot focussing on the ghost ship was unexpected and introducing a new villain instead of resurrecting Ganondorf again was a really great way of making this game feel unique as an entry to the series.
I loved the introduction to touch screen interactivity with the fishing and salvage arm, it made success feel much more satisfying and rewarding
The visuals and audio are both equally as charming and both used the DS to the best of its capabilities giving us some truly fantastic and memorable musical tracks and creative lands to explore.
Overall Phantom Hourglass is to me what I wanted Wind wWker to be because this game really focussed on that main questline and took on a design approach similar to other 2D games in the series, the few side content that was there was lots of fun but didn’t take much focus away from the main goal, it definitely had its problems but for a game as ambitious as this was its really hard to not recommend it, it followed on from a beloved entry in the series that today is often considered to be a fan favourite and while this one has somewhat been lost the sea of Zelda games not only is it worth playing but I would argue that in a sense and only by a small margin I think this one may just be a little bit better. 7.6/10
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Ape Escape is the first game in one of Sony’s most memorable but somewhat forgotten franchise, the game was Developed by Japan Studios as an exclusive for the PS1, it was the first game to ever make the Dual Shock Analog controller mandatory for play. A PSP remake came out in 2005 but was criticised for not being as good as the original with less manageable controls.
Specter a popular primate in a monkey themed amusement park gets his paws on a Peak Point helmet created by a scientist at the themepark, however due to it being a prototype it not only gives Specter human intelligence but also makes him extremely evil with a plot to take over the world.
Specter soon gives all of the monkeys at the park Peak Point Helmets and releases them to take over the Professors laboratory, at the time he and his assistant Katie are testing out a new time machine when our games hero Spike and his best friend Buzz turn up at the lab and end up being sent throughout various time periods with the monkeys!
Buzz is mind controlled to Join Specter leaving Spike alone to travel to the different time zones, capture all of the monkeys, defeat Specter and prevent any damages to the worlds historical timeline.
The gameplay here is definitely unique, in a sense the game itself if a 3D platforming collectathon where players need to collect a set number of items before proceeding to the next level.
There are only two items to find in the game, one of these are the Specter Coins which will unlock minigames for multiplayer purposes and the other is the monkeys themselves.
Capturing the monkeys while simple enough can get rather tricky later on in the game, the apes helmets all have a siren which glows a different colour representing their difficulty to capture blue is calm, amber is alert and red is high alert.
Sometimes the Monkeys also carry guns and will shoot Spike taking some real damage to your health (Cookies or Biscuits).
The gadgets you unlock throughout the game really help to make the capturing process go a lot smoother, there are 9 in the game and each is unlocked at different points throughout the campaign.
The Gadgets in no particular order are:
Net – a basic net used for capturing monkeys on land
Water Net – a device which allows Spike to swim fast underwater but can also be used to capture swimming monkeys
Sky Flyer – allows Spike to reach great heights and hover temporarily
Stun Club – used for stunning monkeys and turning wheels
Slingback Shooter – a slingshot with 3 ammo types, regular, explosive and homing
Super Hoop – Spike can run really fast with this helping to get past timed obstacles and attack enemies from behind.
Magic Punch – another stunning item but his one is more powerful and can destroy some walls.
RC Car – a remote controlled car which can get in to smaller spaces to chase out monkeys and help solve puzzles.
Monkey Radar – will pin point Spike in the direction of monkeys, the sonar gets more aggressive the closer to a monkey he gets.
Catching the monkeys is really satisfying and very addictive, I found myself wanting to keep coming back to the game to try and find as many as I could, as I previously stated some monkeys are hidden behind tricky puzzles but they can also be hidden behind armoured machinery such as flying saucers and giant mechs, these are difficult to defeat without taking much damage but soon became my favourite monkeys to get as they added more additional challenge where the rest of the game was a bit easier to relax too.
The games controls are actually quite innovative for the time, there is some effort made to evoke realism in the gameplay, its nothing revolutionary but the efforts made to have players use the other analog stick to physically pull back the elastic of the sling shot or spin the propeller of the sky flyer and super hoop was a risky choice by the developers considering that this differed from traditional and more simplified controls, it definitely took a little time to get used to but after a while I grew to really enjoy these choices and hope to see them used in more games I check out in the future.
The three minigames you unlock by collecting the Specter Coins are a nice reward to players for going the extra mile the ski game was my favourite and the galaxy game was a fun homage to space shooters of the past but the boxing game I couldn’t even land a hit in, I’m not sure if it was genuinely hard to control or I just sucked but either way it didn’t effect the main campaign or my enjoyment with Ape Escape.
Visually the game is packed full of colour which really helps to enhance the visuals, it takes on a cartoony look and does not put too much emphasis on textures, it still stands out though due to its brighter colours something that a lot of family friendly games of the era would use, a great example of another game which utilizes more colours would be Croc Legend of the Gobbo’s or Spyro the Dragon.
The soundtrack is an abosolute thrill ride with non stop pumping tracks to put you in a energetic and entusiastic mood to go and catch those monkeys !, I loved all of the music in the game but my favourite was always the opening title music.
Ape Escape is an absolute blast and a game I really wish I had growing up. Child me would have loved this one and while I did have so much fun doing this one as an adult back then I found the games I did have extremely difficult and could have done with something a little milder such as this.
What is there to say apart from Ape Escape is a one of a kind game which delivers in all categories from its gameplay, replay value, graphics and soundtrack. It offers reason to collect everything with the minigames and a secret final boss even after finishing everything I just want to start it all over again. Its innovative, made with love and as just about as charming as we could ask for needless to say I would be banana’s to award it any less than a clean 10/10
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New Nightmare was a Spinoff of the original Elm Street Series, it was written and directed by Wes Craven, the film is has no ties to the original timeline and portrays Freddy Krueger much closer to how Wes Craven originally wanted him to be, here he is much scarier and less comical, he even has some new makeup to better resemble his original vision.
In the film the original cast and crews from the series reunite but as their real life selves, the movies main protagonist is of course Heather Langenkamp who played original Heroine Nancy Thompson.
Heather who now is married and has a son named Dylan is invited to a Television interview to discuss the Elm Street franchise on the 10th anniversary of the first movie. She is suffering Freddy Nightmares which are followed by Earth Quakes in the real world. During filming the Northridge Earthquake partly destroyed Los Angeles and the news footage you see in the movie is real Earth Quake aftermath and if it wasn’t for this movie that footage very well may have been lost to time if it wasn’t archived.
Tuesday Knight (Kristen in Part 4) and Jsu Garcia also known as Nick Corri (Rod in the original) are both spotted attending the funeral of Heathers husband but this is only a small cameo and other returning cast members with major roles in New Nightmare include series veterans Jon Saxon (Nancy’s father Original and Part 3) and of course Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) here Robert plays Freddy but he also plays himself .
With such an iconic cast reuniting for the film it is no surprise that everyone’s performance in on key and an immense effort was put in by everybody under the watchful eye of series creator and director Wes Craven he even plays himself in this movie and explains to Nancy that Freddy is an evil entity who he trapped by creating the original Elm Street franchise, this entity has now escaped into the real world and wants to Kill Heather as her being the first heroine of the series is the only person who can destroy him.
Freddy is the scariest he has ever been in his portrayal here and if you read my official ranking of the original timeline then you know how important having the right blend of scary and silly is what Freddy needs, while I really admire this dark and scarier Freddy I’m glad his character had some re-writes before the 1984 classic was released. Freddy is definitely scary in this but a little bit too scary for my liking he isn’t exactly that memorable and becomes fairly boring in this one due to a lack of creativity in his kills. The best moment was definitely the call back to Tina’s death in the original where she is dragged onto the ceiling and sliced open, here we actually see Freddy visibly kill the victim its a very cool call back and was much appreciated.
Englund and Saxon are played as Friends and Mentors to the younger Heather in this, its a very sweet portrayal and had me hoping that this was in reference to a real life friendship, Englund was originally going to have a Freddy nightmare of his own where he was trapped in a giant spiders web but this was cut due to it not fitting in with the films more serious script, personally I think this would have been a great addition and could have been really scary, also I think seeing Freddy go after the person who played him would have been really interesting, maybe we could have even had a fight scene between movie Freddy and entity Freddy?
The sets are very good in this but special props definitely go to the finale, Heather is sent into a fiery hell from the mouth of a giant Freddy rock scape, here this whole segment is fantastic with its call backs to Freddy being sent to hell after dying in part 6 and of course Hansel and Gretel a story read to Dylan earlier on in the film. We finally get to see some of Freddy’s powers here too with his stretchy arm and his snake like tongue.
I think this is what the franchise really needed after it failed so hard in its last few films, as a character Freddy had lost his way and become somewhat of a joke, this obviously had an impact on Craven who finally wanted to have the Freddy he originally wrote, I’m glad this wasn’t the final version of Freddy we got but it was interesting to see how he was originally intended, I really like this movie and I think it holds a very important role in the franchise due to the fact that this is what we could have gotten, it was also great to see the original cast reuniting but I think it would have been great to see the others too, Johnny Depp said he would have come back for this movie but never got asked.
This isn’t a film I will watch every Halloween but it definitely wont be skipped during my next Elm Street marathon
And in case you are curious if this was put in my official rankings I would say its better than 5 but not as good as the original
Its that time of year again and this year we will be ranking my favourite Horror franchise of all time a Nightmare on Elm Street, a series of films based around a serial killer called Freddy Krueger who hunts his victims in their dreams, the idea came from Wes Craven and at the time it was very unique and made Freddy one of the most threatening villains where he could attack people from behind the grave when they are asleep. This helped to give him very creative kills but also made him stand out compared to the competition with Jason, Chuckie, Leather Face and others.
Needless to say I am very excited to revisit this franchise, it’s what got me into the horror genre and is still my favourite to this day so without any more delay lets get ranking from worst to best
This is only my opinion and is in no way fact and may not follow the traditional opinion of this franchises qualities.
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
This movie was the biggest Fuck You to the studio, the fans and original creator Wes Craven so lets talk about it.
After Nightmare 5 released to the lowest financial gross of the series the decision was made to finally kill off Freddy Krueger and end the series.
In the film we are given a new protagonist Doctor Lisa Zane who is helping children in a foster home in Springfield Ohio, it is later revealed that this woman is Krueger’s daughter a revelation that didn’t need to exist but at least it kind of gives Freddy a reason for going after the teenagers under her care.
There is no explanation as to where Alice from Nightmare 4 and 5 had gone, we never find out why Krueger stopped hunting her but this wouldn’t be the first unexplained moment from the series.
The reason this film is so insulting to Freddy Fans is because not only do we get silly Freddy but it is turned up so high that this may as well be a parody, Freddy isn’t just goofy in this he goes completely looney Tunes!
We get fourth wall breaks, Freddy directly interacts with the audience on multiple occasions even doing the whole “shhh” thing while sneaking on one of his victims.
The one liners are awful too especially during the video game dream, this dream especially is a great example to see how much they did not care about this series anymore, Freddy can get away with being a little silly at times, but playing video games is ridiculous if you showed clips from this scene without any concept it would be more convincing as a commercial for the NES game than actually part of what should have been an epic final showdown for this character.
Overall the performances in this are pretty mediocre from everyone but unfortunately this time Robert Englund is just bad as the character, this movie sucks and never should have been approved, famously Wes Craven couldn’t finish watching this one and that should tell you everything you need to know!
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
The Dream Master was in my opinion the first movie where this franchise went off the rails, choices were made to keep the funny Freddy from Nightmare 3 but turn up the silliness and focus less on scares with more creative kills that don’t really follow any of the logic we had seen before this one.
After the events of Nightmare 3 we first see the surviving Dream Warriors who are still working together to protect the Dream Realm from the return of Freddy.
Some events later and Freddy is brought back by a dog who pees fire and our Dream Warriors are all dead leaving the new protagonist Alice a master of dreams to defeat Freddy and save her friends.
So I want to point out that at this point in the franchise there wasn’t any reason for Freddy to kill his victims because with the Dream warriors out of the picture there are no living relatives of the people who killed him while he was alive.
I don’t particularly think it matters that much but the three previous movies definitely felt more like a compelling trilogy due to Freddy having a particular need for revenge with his kills.
Chose this photo I found over an image from the movie as this is such a cool cast photo shoot!
The Acting in this is so bad from almost everyone in the new cast (Not the Dream Warriors), I don’t know why but almost all the line delivery in this comes across as monotone and not with much effort, of course Robert Englund is fantastic and I will give props to Toy Newkirk who played Sheila as she was the only supporting cast member that I thought did a good job with her acting, it was nothing special but it was one of the only performances that I can say I liked.
The kills and dream sequences in this are really good and some of the best in the franchise, stand out kills definitely go to Joey who gets trapped under his water bed and drowns and by far the best kill up to this point in the franchise goes to Debbie who slowly becomes a giant cockroach bursting from her skin before being stuck in a bug trapping fluid and crushed to death! It is flipping awesome
There are actually some really great effects in this movie and with the dream world having less rules we do get some more memorable Freddy moments, one liners and very creative dreams but I do feel that at times this movie went a little too silly like when Freddy orders Pizza and its meatballs are the heads of his victims or the stupid karate fight where Freddy is invisible because they ran out of money and had to quickly make a kill scene out of bed sheets and cheap decorations
Minus that awful scene I think the biggest problem with this movie is that Freddy is not scary at all, he is comic relief in this and has completely lost his scare factor, I like fun Freddy and I think that’s how he should be but he still needs to be scary otherwise the franchise just becomes a comedy in a similar manner to Bride of Chucky but where it works well for Chucky, for Freddy it is just really disappointing and has a big impact on what could have a great film.
Bad Acting, boring characters and a non-scary Freddy definitely affects my ranking with this one but it had some great kills and some really good effects, this is actually a fan favourite and is the highest grossing movie in the Elm Street Franchise so maybe its just me but I’m not too keen on this one.
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
Probably the most controversial movie in the original series this second film sees Freddy leaving the Dream World and possessing High Schooler Jesse Walsh and killing victims in the real world instead.
So with this having much less Dreaming than the others films the kills here are pretty lame and in a sense a lot less scary, I couldn’t take Freddy seriously in this especially during the pool party scene where he massacres plenty of victims twice his size.
One great kill though is definitely the gym teacher, they did still let Freddy keep his dream like powers so he can use telekinesis to control inanimate objects, he uses this to his full potential during this kill and its very memorable with a lot of balls flying everywhere and towel whipping.
The film is known to be a homage to gay culture and I’m all for this with the gay body language and mannerisms of the protagonist and plenty of other homoerotic hints and directorial choices, its great to see something celebrate this at a time when it wasn’t fully accepted in society.
The cast are pretty great in this from Male Scream Queen Jesse and his perfect chemistry with on screen girlfriend Lisa and no one is really that annoying in this one, the first movie Nancy was way too whiny but this was an issue clearly picked up before casting was made here.
The effects are really good considering how quickly they had to make this movie, two in particular stand out being the bird puppet that attacks the Walsh family in a homage to Alfred Hitchcocks the Birds and Freddy bursting out of Jesse’s Skin is just fantastic although the cheap rubber skin costume he leaves behind always gives me a chuckle.
Nightmare 2 is really not a bad a movie at all its a lot of fun but its really hard to look past this being anything more than a standard slasher film without the full creativity of the Dream Kills, not being in the real world is what made Freddy stand out among his competition and its just a shame they lost that vision a little bit here.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Dream Child was the least successful film in the franchise resulting in only one final movie being made in the original Freddy Series after this one. The film was a critical and financial failure but over the years has garnered a bit more love from fans.
In the film a now pregnant Alice from Nightmare 4 has just graduated from High School and is looking forward to her future with her boyfriend Dan. Unfortunately Krueger has taken over the dreams of her unborn child and Alice’s last remaining friends hoping to be reborn into the real world.
The casting performances here are so much better that in the fourth movie although that isn’t exactly a hard sell. Here the actors portrayals are again nothing too special or particularly memorable but a little more effort and love was put in by the actors and actresses giving us a little more fun and a realism which made the movie more entertaining and easier to watch.
I really like that this film had a higher focus on Amanda Kruger (Freddy’s Mother) and made her an important ally to his defeat this time around.
This was an extension to a back story we had seen in Nightmare 3 and gave us some more insight on why Freddy was so evil.
While this film only has a small handful of death scenes they are all excellent and have some pretty good effects, all of them push the dream limits to the max and are extremely memorable, my favourite involved Freddy quite literally forcing someone to eat themselves to death in a scene which was pretty gross but had all of the Freddy Comedy, creativity and horror that this franchise offers.
The Dream sequences also have some really good sets, by far the best and most creative sequence was the Comic Book, here we get a black and white set with some really cheesy costumes and one liners similar to Superhero comic books of another time, the Kill here is also really creative and one of Freddy’s best.
My only real complaints with this movie is the very low body count and some of the inconsistencies with the lore such as baby Freddy being born disfigured when we all know that he was burned alive by the original Elm Street parents hence why his face is burned and scarred (I know this is a dream but its never questioned not even by his mother Amanda)
I don’t understand why this film gets so much hate because I really don’t think its that bad, at this point the franchise was definitely hanging on by a thread from a story perspective and you could tell the studio was running out of ideas, but this is still a good watch for entertainment and you wont be bored by the casting or the kills, this film had some of Freddy’s most memorable moments but was far from being the franchises peak.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
The one that started it all and what a great start to this franchise, the movie actually opens with a brief shot of Freddy building his knife glove before he was killed by the Elm street parents a fiery death which is explained to the main character Nancy later on in the film.
With this being the first movie in the franchise the plot is fairly bare bones, Freddy is hunting down the children of the parents who murdered him as revenge, the main characters in this movie are Nancy, Glen, Tina and Rod
The performances are not too memorable especially from the main characters, Nancy played by Heather Langenkamp is really quite annoying and whiny in her portrayal, the other three do ok jobs but no one really stands out, this was Johnny Depp’s first role on screen and he hadn’t quite discovered his full acting talents at this point but with it being his first role it is definitely one of his most important.
Robert Englund plays Freddy and he’s just great in this, the first movie has a more serious Freddy with genuine disturbing imagery and scary moments. There are a lot of gross out moments with his humour in this with special effects involving bugs, maggots and plenty of green blood so it does have silly moments but nothing compared to how off the rails the franchise went later on down the line.
Freddy is creepy in this especially when you cant see him on screen, the dream sequences are all made to scare with none of them being out of wack.
The kills are all memorable but some of the most basic in the franchise compared to what would come next, Tina being dragged across the ceiling was always a great effect and of course Glen being dragged into his mattress with litres of blood being sprayed all across his bedroom is fairly iconic these days and remembered fondly by horror fans.
Nancy’s parents play a pretty important role in this movie trying to get Nancy help through sleep therapy’s and eventually with her father almost capturing Freddy near the end of the film.
Unfortunately I think both of these characters could have been written a little bit better, both are very stubborn and don’t believe Nancy when she tells them that Freddy Krueger is the killer, they don’t even believe her when she pulls his hat out of a dream in the clinic, a hat she never walked in with and that has his name written inside of it. Maybe they just didn’t want to believe in Freddy especially since they played such a big role in his original murder and are just scared to hear his name again? What do you guys think? this part of the movie has just always bugged me!
A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the most iconic horror movies of all time, it started Johnny Depps career, he next when onto Edward Scissorhands which helped to Sky Rocket the actor to fame, this was the introduction to Freddy and the movie is now protected in the American Film Institute.
A great start for this franchise and one of the better Elm Street movies, I watch this every Halloween and will continue to do so but even though this is the one I choose to re-watch the most I wouldn’t say it’s my absolute favorite in the franchise.
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (1987)
And here we are at nightmare 3 a fan favourite of the series and honestly it is my favourite too.
The film follows new lead Kristen a teenage girl who has the ability to bring people into her dreams, this is the sister power to Nancy Thompson who was able to bring people and items from her dreams into the real world.
After a Freddy Nightmare that ends with a false suicide attempt she is sent to a psychiatric hospital for suicidal children. The New Psychiatrist is none other than Nancy Thompson who knows the truth of who haunts their dreams and wants to train them to find their Dream Powers and kick Freddy’s Ass!
I think this is a good point to say that this is where the franchise really began to find its feet and become less serious and more fun while still remaining generally creepy and unnerving, the franchise would later go off the rails but this for me was its sweet spot.
The Dreams in this one really start to get creative with how they were portrayed, in previous films the dreams would mostly take place in Elm Street but here we get to see punk inspired alleyways and a Hellscape inspired take on the classic boiler room set, Dreams that can add more creativity and have a lot more lee way allowing the franchise its creative freedoms.
Other creative choices such as stop motion, puppets and clay animation was used numerous times to help really expand Freddy’s capabilities, the snake was my favourite effect but Puppet Freddy was definitely another highlight.
The kills in this one are some of the most memorable and best in the franchise, “Welcome to Prime Time Bitch” a line improvised by Freddy actor Robert Englund before he smashes Jennifer’s head into the tv screen is easily Freddy’s best known one liner and of course the gruesome death of Philip who is quite literally controlled and forced to fall from an abandoned tower block.
A hilarious moment I have to mention is the wizard master, the costume is just so awful and cringe worthy, the line he says “In the name of Lowrek, Prince of Elves, demon, begone!” doesnt help but it is hilariously goofy and I love it
Some more Freddy Lore was added into this movie thanks to the ghost of his mother Amanda Krueger explaining to secondary protagonist Dr Neil Gordon that Freddy is the bastard child of 100 psychopaths after she was accidently locked in with inmates and got raped repeatably and left bearing a child.
We also find out that Freddy absorbs the powers of his victims as there souls become trapped within his flesh.
It is really hard to see this as nothing more than a perfect Freddy movie because of what it brings to franchise but takes it down a less serious route without completely losing those scares. I love the return of Nancy Thomson and her father and of course the outlandish sets, new lore, amazing lovable characters and just brilliant effects really help this one to not only be the best in the series but also the movie that I feel really made Freddy Krueger find his place as a horror icon.
I am ashamed to say that while this is my favourite horror franchise it got painful to get through near the end, Freddy is such an iconic character and will always be my favourite but compared to other franchises this one was the shortest for films and how long he remained relevant, which a shame because it never had to be that way but too many changes and a lack of direction very quickly killed off this horror icon.
My final opinion of the 6 Elm Street movies is that you should only really go out of your way to watch the original film and Dream Warriors, both of these films tell Nancy’s story and overall would have been great finale for Freddy before his franchise lost its way.
Wes Craven would later go onto make his New Nightmare, a great spin off film where he finally got to create the Freddy Character he originally envisioned and as dark as he originally intended
October 31st we will finally be talking about that one so please look forward to that!
In the meantime check out my official Friday the 13th Rankings and my official Child’s Play Rankings
Oh and BTW the official Freddy vs Jason crossover will be added into both the Elm Street List and the Friday the 13th List but in due time as I need to re-watch the entire Jason franchise to figure out exactly where it will fit in.
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