Music Review: Time of Our Lives vs. GDFR

"Time of Our Lives" Artist: Pitbull & Ne-Yo  Album: Globalization (Pitbull) / Non-Fiction (Ne-Yo)  Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap, Dance  Label: RCA (Sony)  Release: 17 November 2014  Writers: Armando C. Pérez, Lukasz Gottwald, Henry Walter, Robin Weisse, Shaffer Smith, Vinay Rao, Stephan Taft, Michael "Freakin" Everett  Producer: Dr. Luke, Cirkut, Lifted, Michael "Freakin" Everett (melody)	"G.D.F.R" Artist: Flo Rida feat. Sage the Gemini and Lookas  Album: My House  Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap  Label: Atlantic (Warner)  Release: 21 October 2014  Writers: Tramar Dillard, Dominic Woods, Lucas Rego, Mike Caren, Andrew Cedar, Charles W. Miller, Gerald Goldstein, Harold Brown, Howard E. Scott, Justin Frank, Lee Oskar, Leroy L. Jordan, Morris Dickerson, Sylvester Allen  Producers: DJ Frank E, Andrew Cedar, Lookas, Miles Beard

2015 has been a good year for Summer songs. Heck, one of them even had the word "summer" in the title, just to drive the point home. But some of those songs were holdovers from earlier in the year which happened to have a little more staying power. For the purposes of this article, I speak of "Time of Our Lives" by Pitbull, and "G.D.F.R" by Flo Rida. Now, previously on the SDP, I did another joint review of both a Pitbull song and a Flo Rida song. Since that last review, Pitbull has become more tolerable and Flo Rida hadn't done much of anything. And now that they've had concurrent hits once again, I thought I'd challenge them to a second round, and see what's changed.

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I'll start with Pitbull's song, since he's the guy who draws in all the readers to this blog, apparently. We begin with the chorus, sung by Ne-Yo.

I knew my rent was gonna be late about a week ago
I worked my ass off, but I still can't pay it though
But I got just enough, to get off in this club
Have me a good time, before my time is up

Well this was unexpected. Our protagonist is not the usual money-spouting partying machine, but is on the verge of defaulting on his financial obligations. And sure, if you are struggling to make ends meet financially, the last thing you want to do is waste what little scratch you've managed to save up. But our protagonist has already come to terms with his destiny of not affording the month's rent, so he's going to make the most of his situation. Truly, this hook brings across the point that "Give Me Everything" or "Feel This Moment" failed to.

Surprisingly, this song does not use any samples, but non-specifically evokes the house music of the late '90s / early 2000s, such as Daft Punk's Discovery album. And while I haven't minded Pitbull's (producers') use of sampling in the past, regardless, this approach results in a slick groove. And having such relatively deep lyrics only sweetens the deal. Oh, buy you know how it is, the actual verses are just going to be the same partying and drinking routine. Might as well get this over with.

This is the last twenty dollars I got
But I'mma have a good time ballin' tonight
Tell the bartender, line up some shots
Because I'm gonna get loo-oo-oose tonight

...Eh? Pitbull actually carried the theme from the chorus into his verses? What a shocking development! Please, do go on!

She a freaky girl and I'm a freaky man
She on the rebound, broke up with her ex
And I'm like Rodman, ready on deck

And what's this now? Pitbull's hitting on a girl who isn't already in a relationship? What alternate universe have I stumbled upon where the cliches of mainstream rap do not apply? Because I'm parking myself down there and not leaving! Okay, so he does get to those cliches anyway, in pretty much all of the lyrics I haven't bothered to showcase for you readers. But it works this time around, because for once we have some context in which all his party behaviour takes place. And the clincher, the one moment which cements this song with a good impression, is the last couple of lines Pitbull adds to the end of the middle eight:

This for everybody going through tough times
Believe me, been there, done that
But everyday above ground is a great day, remember that

An inspirational statement encouraging people to stay positive? From Mr. Worldwide himself!? I guess anything's possible with the new and improved Pitbull. Now with 10% less Voli! Seriously, while the music video had a shot of that particular product placement, but the song itself is completely devoid of brand naming. And speaking of the music video, even it takes on the whole "party in the face of adversity" theme, depicting the future Mr. Worldwide holding a house party to raise rent money. All of this goes to show: if you can only write about one thing, then at least come up with a new context to wrap around that thing, and you too can become a master storyteller.

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So that was Pitbull, and I was pleasantly surprised by how good that was. I guess it's time to move on to the Flo Rida song, though. It's called "G.D.F.R.", as in "Going down for real", as in the chorus sung by Sage the Gemini:

I know what you came here to see
If you're a freak, then you're coming home with me
And I know what you came here to do
Now bust it open let me see you get low
It's going down for real [repeat x1]

Nothing special. Oh, except for the sample they used in-between the titular lines. That horn riff comes from the outro to "Low Rider", the 1975 funk-rock hit by the band War. Well, actually, the sample itself is from a remix of the song done by a DJ called Lookas, which explains his featuring credit. Flo Rida's done this sort of thing before, sampling a song which sampled another song, in hits like "Good Feeling" and "I Cry". And believe it or not, I approve. For one, Avicii got his mainstream breakthrough after being "featured" in "Good Feeling". And two, they don't use the more familiar parts of the source material, so the sample doesn't distract you with memories of the song it was taken from. So aesthetically, "G.D.F.R." has pleasantly surprised me, but will the lyrics follow suit?

Your girl just kissed a girl
I do bi (chicks)

Okay, I get the idea that girl-on-girl lovin' is hot. There's even a Trope for that. But how come someone said the word "chicks" in a different, toned-down voice? It's almost like one of those unfinished-simile "hashtag rap" dealies, which I had hoped were dead by now.

Shake for a sheikh
I'm throwing these Emirates in the sky

I see we're experimenting with a Middle Eastern theme with the lyrics. Not a bad choice; I appreciate any attempt to inject some colour into msinstream rap songs, especially local colour. And that neck of the woods has some of the richest cities in the world, so you and your baller image would fit right in. Everyone's a winner!

...Wait a minute, so in that last line when you said "I do bi", you wanted it to sound like "I Dubai", as in the city in the United Arab Emirates? I do, indeed, see what you did there, and I approve. Heck, even the "Low Rider" sample, as used in "G.D.F.R.", could pass for middle-eastern music if you stretch your imagination. Although I'm not sure what you mean by "throwing these Emirates in the sky". I know that Emirates is the name of an airline from the UAE, but does that mean you took over that company? Not the last I checked. Or do you physically launch their planes into the air? Kinda outside the realm of possibility there, too.

Spending this Assal-ama-laykum
Peace to M.O.N.E.Y

At least we're keeping the theme going, but now it's starting to make less sense. How are you supposed to spend Arabic greetings as currency? And has money become such an integral part of your life that now you have to wish peace upon it like it were some religious figure? (That last part is not outside the realm of possibility for Flo Rida.)

I love my beaches, south beaches
Surfboard and high tide

That's it, huh? Not even halfway through the verse, and you've already given up on that theme you had going? I would be disappointed in you, Flo, but I'd have had to have actual expectations in order to say that. Anything else you'd like to bring up, Flo? Let me just skim through the rest of this verse for you... Birthday cakes... Bugattis... Anna Kournikovas...? Yeah, I think we're done here. Let's move on to the other guy.

And they already know me

Probably not; let me bring you up to speed. Gemini, and his name is Sage. Sage the Gemini. He tried to have a hit a couple of years ago with something called "Gas Pedal", and it sucked. I can best describe his style of performance as a "monotone baritone".

It's going down further than femurs
Girls get wetter than Katrina

I'd just like to state for the record that I'm getting over the whole casual references Hurricane Katrina / New Orleans thing. For one, that was ten years ago, and I don't even personally know anybody who was affected by that disaster. I know I got mad when Pitbull used it, but that was a different time, a time when "Give Me Everything" was number 1 and I failed to see any potential he could have had up to his sleeve. Besides, it turns out there have been quite a few of these lines used by many other rappers over the years. So as long as no one tries something like "Blowing up like Fukushima", I think I can sleep easily for once.

Double entendre, double entendre

Uh-oh, thanks for warning us about the double entendre coming up! Also, can I address the staccato delivery he used on this line? Because it's annoying. It's been annoying for a few years now, and it's not likely to become un-annoying anytime soon. So anyway, what's this double entendre you've got cooked up for us?

While you're hating I get money
Then I double up tonkers

...I don't get it; where's the double entendre? Was it supposed to be "double up tonkers"? I have no idea what that even means, and I certainly can't think of the second meaning required to qualify that phrase as a double entendre. Were you, by any chance, referring to the lines beforehand?

Put your hands up
It's a stick up, no more makeup
Get that ass on the floor
Ladies put your lipstick up

...Nope, I've got nothing. I think we're done here. I would be lying if I said "G.D.F.R." weren't catchy, because way the "Low Rider" sample was used gives it more staying power than most other rap songs. But strip away the beat and it's just like any other of Flo Rida's songs.

"Time of Our Lives" Positives: + Slick, non-sampled beat. + The chorus sets up a theme and the verses actually follow it. Negatives: - Still deals with partying, although we finally have proper context. The Call: 5 out of 5 (A)

"G.D.F.R" Positives: + Creative sampling. + Brief attempts at a lyrical theme. Negatives: - Generic lyrics -- that is, when they aren't just awkward. The Call: 3 out of 5 (C)

Game Review: Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

• Publisher: WayForward 
• Developer: WayForward / Inti Creates 
• Release: 
• Nintendo 3DS: 23 October 2014 
• Wii U: 25 December 2014 
• PC: 23 April 2015 
• Genre: 2D Action 
• Players: 1 

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed the first two Shantae games. So naturally, me writing a review of the latest sequel was inevitable. If you'll recall my review of Risky's Revenge, the second game in the series, my greatest complaint was its short length. However, I did try to give it the benefit of the doubt, assuming that WayForward had so much trouble trying to find a publisher after the commercial failure of the first game. Well, at the risk of spoiling this review, I'm pleased to report this is no longer the case for the newest entry, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. Maybe they've gotten used to this whole digital-distribution thing now, so that they don't have to work their budgets around what a publisher will or won't give them. Or maybe it's because they collaborated on this game with Inti Creates, a Japanese development team famous for, among other things, the Mega Man Zero series, Azure Striker Gunvolt, and the upcoming Mighty No.9 (with Comcept). They even made a port of Pirate's Curse for the Wii U, thus beating the crowdfunded 1/2-Genie Hero to become the series' first console game, and later followed by a PC port, just like Risky's Revenge. So does this new influx of resources, man-hours, and/or willpower translate to a better game?

When a brand-new evil entity known as the Pirate Master threatens the safety of Sequin Land, our heroine, the half-genie Shantae, and her nemesis, the lady pirate Risky Boots, must form an uneasy alliance to take him down. Shantae's trademarked dance-powered animal transformations are unavailable this time around, due to a run-in with the plot last time around. So in lieu of those, progress is controlled by the acquiring of various pirate paraphernelia. There's a pistol to shoot switches and deal light damage, a scimitar to break blocks underfoot, a giant hat to glide with while jumping, and so on. And unlike the aforementioned transformations, which require you to stop and enter some form of dance mode to activate, each of these new moves has their own button input or inputs. It's like the developers said, "We've got six buttons to work with on this 3DS thing, and by gum, we're going to use them!"

New equipments like the Pirate Hat elevate the gameplay experience, pardon the pun. (3DS version.)

Control ergonomics aside, this decision was a good one in the interest of making the gameplay feel fresh again. They don't offer the same abilities as the animal transformations from the first two games, but nonetheless offer new possibilities for exploring the game worlds. But it's not all different: the series' traditional attack items such as Fire Balls, Pike Balls, and Storm Puffs are back again. Whereas attack items in Risky's Revenge were fueled by a magic meter, Pirate's Curse switches them back to being consumables. However, they can be dropped by defeated enemies as well as purchased from the shop, so things even out on that front. Once again, Heart Squids may be collected to extend Shantae's maximum health, although instead of instantly taking effect as you would expect to see in most video games, you have to bring them to the "squidsmith" in Scuttle Town, who will smash them four at a time to form new heart containers. Sadistic, yes, but it also clues you in to the level of comedy you'll be dealing with in Pirate's Curse.

Instead of the singular overworld map employed in the first two Shantaes, and indeed most every Metroidvania-type game, the world of Pirate's Curse is laid out across six or so islands, one of them being the main town and the others each containing one of the games dungeon levels, and connected by a hub menu. This was also a great decision, as it cuts down on travel time quite a bit. Besides, Dust: An Elysian Tail also did this sort of thing, and that was one of the few video games I gave a perfect score to! There were still a few fetch quests which had me lost the first time around, and some of the pre-dungeon events drug on just long enough to be not fun. For example, a mid-game episode on Tan Line Island forces you into a stealth section. Still, my first play-through clocked in at about 8 hours, and if I may say so, it was 8 hours well-spent. Beating the game once unlocks the Pirate Mode, where you get all the pirate acccessories from the start of the game. If nothing else, it lets us laypeople experiment with speed-running through the game.

The character portraits look neat in stereoscopic 3D. ...Take my word for it. (Wii U version.)

The pseudo-16-bit art style of Risky's Revenge has gone largely unchanged for Pirate's Curse, although I suppose it's neat to see more enemies from the first game returning with a visual upgrade. For a game whose graphics engine relies mainly on 2D sprites, the few times that stereoscopic 3D effects in (the 3DS version of) Pirate's Curse are used are all the more notable, especially on the character portraits during dialogue scenes. Obviously this doesn't apply to the Wii U and PC ports, where said portraits were re-drawn to take advantage of the higher screen resolutions, but the other art assets were not. WayForward has done HD graphics before, even on games ported from smaller-screened platforms, so this was a curious oversight. I don't know, maybe they're saving all that work for Half-Genie Hero. The soundtrack, once again composed by Jake Kaufman, is also partly recycled from the last game, but it was cool then and is still cool now. Once again it takes melodies from the first game, along with new ones, and jacking them up with Middle-Eastern and other influences. Pirate's Curse is also the first Shantae game to introduce voice acting, tastefully limited to a few sound bites in gameplay and cutscenes. In case you're interested, the leading lady is played by Christina "Vee" Valenzuela, also known for playing Cerebella in Skullgirls, and Sailor Mars from the new Sailor Moon dub.

Still, I must stress that gameplay, not graphics, is nine-tenths of the law. Apart from the new abilities and streamlined world layout, I like how the little damage point numbers that pop up like from a classic RPG, or the halfway-decent map screen, including maps for dungeons, a glaring omission in the last game. It's the little details like those which take the experience over the top, although there are other details I wish had been cleaned up. I wish that I could leave notes on the maps when I find a place to come back to later (maybe I've been spoiled by The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds). It would certainly help me keep track of the numerous, and often unintuitive, trading-game fetch quests needed to progress through the game, as it's easy to ignore places you'll need to put things later on. Then there's the smaller stuff, like how the sub-menu automatically switches pages when I find a key item or something. But smaller stuff aside, Pirate's Curse ranks up there with sequels such as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Mega Man Legends 2, or Just Cause 2, which don't reinvent too much, but fine-tune the experiences of their predecessor whilst offering far more of it. Pirate's Curse is clearly the best game in the Shantae series thus far, offering a challenging hurdle for 1/2-Genie Hero to clear. But whether or not it does, the SDP and I will be all over that like black on a Tinkerbat.  (...Don't look at me like that. Risky Boots's minions aren't African, they're literally black-skinned monster thingies.)

Positives:
+ More content than the first two games (combined).
+ The pirate tools offer up new abilities for exploration.
+ Tasteful introduction of voice acting.
+ Retains the series' sense of humour.

Negatives:
- Some of the fetch quests can leave you wandering aimlessly to solve them.
- A few sections of the game appear to drag on, if only for being less fun than the rest of the game.
- The lack of upscaled graphics in the Wii U and PC ports seem like a missed opportunity.

Controls: 5 pirate tools out of 5
Design: 4 pirate tools out of 5
Graphics: 5 pirate tools out of 5
Sound: 5 pirate tools out of 5
Value: 4 pirate tools out of 5
The Call: 90% (A-)

Top 10: Dumbest Recycled Titles

You know what really grinds my gears?  When a new entry in some serialized form of media comes out, only to use the same title as its first entry with no or negligible changes.  It causes confusion whenever you're trying to talk about one or the other, and it also betrays the lack of creativity our media producers have suffered in recent years.  But some cases stand out more than others, for better or worse... okay, just worse.  Sometimes reusing a name for something doesn't make sense in the context of itself and/or the rest of its series.  Sometimes there's another, more obvious title which for whatever reason got passed up.  And some aren't technically the same title, but are called it anyway by the general public.  In my strike against the system, I'm using those criteria to form the following top-ten list of the dumbest uses of recycled titles.

10) Punch-Out!!
What is it: A 1984 arcade video game.
Not to be confused with: Punch-Out!!, a 2009 video game for the Wii.
Why it's stupid: Another entry in this series, the 1987 NES game Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (a.k.a. Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream) is also commonly referred to as "Punch-Out!!".  It is also one of the most well-known games in the series, arguably more so than the arcade original, and the new one on the Wii.  I don't really have any other excuses, so Punch-Out!! opens this list by virtue (vice?) of having not two, but three entries competing for the same name.
What they should've called it: Punch-Out: WVBA, after the fictional World Video Boxing Association featured in the games.  ...I admit I don't have much to work with here.

9) Seal
What is it: A 1991 album by the British pop singer of the same name.
Not to be confused with: The second and fourth albums by the same person, from 1994 and 2003 respectively.
Why it's stupid: The first two Seal albums were the artist's most successful, both topping the UK's album charts.  They also gave him his biggest hits on both sides of the Atlantic, "Crazy" from the first album and "Kiss From a Rose" from the second.  So we have his only two albums that some of would care about, and they're named the same.  You see the root of the confusion here, don't you?  And if that weren't enough, he made a fourth album in 2003, also called Seal.  Except this time, it actually did get a number on the end, namely Seal IV, although this only happened in Australia.  So why didn't the rest of the world get this title, and for that matter why didn't the second album get the same treatment?  (Just so you can plan ahead, this will be a common complaint throughout this list.)
What they should've called it: Seal II and Seal IV.

8) The Fast and the Furious
What is it: A 2001 film starring Paul Walker and Vin Diesel.
Not to be confused with: Fast & Furious, a 2009 film also starring Walker and Diesel, and the fourth entry in the same series.
Why it's stupid: The Fast & Furious series just couldn't get the hang of sequel titling when it started out.  First there was 2003's 2 Fast 2 Furious, which was ridiculous, and then 2006's The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which ditched the numbering thing altogether.  Which leads us to the fourth movie.  I haven't seen it, but from what I understand, it's not a remake of the first film.  So what's the point?  Perhaps we should be lucky that they didn't use the number 4 as a letter, as in the hypothetical "F4st & Furious", but that argument doesn't hold much weight because we can always imagine things to be worse than they are.  For example, the North Korean government is deplorable, but if you told me to be thankful they don't sic velociraptors on dissident citizens, I wouldn't feel much better about it.  Thankfully the series switched to straight-up numbering from then on (Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, Furious 7).
What they should've called it: Fast & Furious 4

7) Ratchet & Clank
What is it: A 2002 video game for the PlayStation 2.
Not to be confused with: Ratchet & Clank, an upcoming PlayStation 4 game scheduled for release in 2016.
Why it's stupid: The upcoming Ratchet & Clank game is a tie-in with the Ratchet & Clank movie, also set for 2016, and both are partial re-imaginings of the first game.  So if it's a reboot, fine.  But why am I disappointed?  One of the game's trailers posted on YouTube included the following description in the title: "The game based on the movie based on the game".  When I watched it for the first time, I thought that was actually part of the title, but that seems not to be the case, which is a shamefully missed opportunity.  A ramblingly long title like that would fall right in line with the series' penchant for humourous subtitles (i.e. "Going Commando", "Up Your Arsenal", "Full Frontal Assault").  Or was it not enough of an innuendo for Insomniac Games to have seriously considered it?
What they should've called it: Ratchet & Clank: The Game Based on the Movie Based on the Game

6) Metal Gear Solid
What it is: A 1998 video game for the PSone.
Not to be confused with: Metal Gear Solid, a 2000 video game for the Game Boy Color.
Why it's stupid: Think about why the original Metal Gear Solid was named the way it was.  The word "solid", apart from referring to main character Solid Snake, referred to it being the first Metal Gear game presented in 3D graphics.  This is obviously not the case for the GBC version.  Furthermore, the Game Boy version was released as Metal Gear: Ghost Babel in Japan.  Its subtitle "Ghost Babel" even shares its initials with the Game Boy itself, a practice which would see relatively wide use once the Nintendo DS rolled onto the scene.  So you could say this game was ahead of its time, not that you'd know from the American release alone.  Again, why wasn't that title good enough for the rest of the world?
What they should've called it: Metal Gear: Ghost Babel

5) The Karate Kid
What is it: A 1984 film starring Ralph Macchio and Noriyuki "Pat" Morita.
Not to be confused with: The Karate Kid, a 2010 film starring Jayden Smith and Jackie Chan.
Why it's stupid: The new The Karate Kid film (Also not to be confused with The Next Karate Kid, a 1994 film starring Hilary Swank alongside Morita) takes place in China, with Jayden Smith's character training for a kung-fu tournament.  As in, not karate.  Of course it would make sense to focus your movie around a local martial art if you're filming in China, but why leave the obsolete title intact?  Sure, there's this one guy who nicknames the main character as "The Karate Kid", but that's pretty flimsy justification in my book.  It turns out, we have to blame for this a mister Jerry Weintraub, producer of both this and the original Karate Kid movies, who vetoed Sony Pictures' attempts to rename it.¹  Fortunately, China did not have the same problem, as the movie was titled "Kung Fu Dream" in that market.  Again, why wasn't that good enough for the rest of the world?
What they should've called it: The Kung Fu Kid

4) Dance Dance Revolution
What is it: A 1998 arcade video game.
Not to be confused with: DanceDanceRevolution, a 2010 video game for the Wii, PlayStation 3, and XBox 360, and DanceDanceRevolution, yet another arcade game from 2013.
Why it's stupid: Dance Dance Revolution may potentially hold the record for number of works sharing the same title.  If you want to get technical, as indeed I have, it may also refer to the 1999 arcade version for Asia and North America (based on 2ndMIX) and the 2001 PSone version for North America (based on 3rdMIX).  I'm a bit more forgiving about the new arcade version doing this, though; instead of rolling out brand-new products for each wave of content they deem fit to make, Konami is content with releasing new songs for the game via online updates.  They've also location-tested a version of the game for North America, also titled DanceDanceRevolution and ARGH!
What they should've called it: Dance Dance Revolution New Moves (2010 PS3/360), Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 4 (2010 Wii).

3) XBox
What is it: A 2001 video game console.
Not to be confused with: The XBox One, a 2013 video game console, and the XBox's second successor.
Why it's stupid: After Microsoft launched the XBox 360 in 2005, people started using the term "XBox one" to refer to the first member of the XBox family, similar to how the PlayStation got rebranded as the PSone later in its life.  So now that the third XBox is out and Microsoft decided to call it the XBox One, what are we going to call the first one now?  And you think (as, indeed, I would've hoped) that this confusion would have led to a drop in sales, as in Nintendo's Wii U (sadly), but this seems not to be the case.  Even I'm considering picking up a One, against my better judgement, now that Microsoft have finally laid out a backwards compatibility plan.  ...The name still sucks.
What they should've called it: XBox 3.  Again, not much to work with here.

2) Need for Speed
What is it: Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit, a 1998 video game.
Not to be confused with: Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit II, a 2002 video game, or Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, a 2010 video game.
Why it's stupid: There are other instances of recycled titles within EA's flagship racing game franchise (they've used the name Need For Speed: Most Wanted for two different games in 2005 and 2012), but the Hot Pursuit miniseries takes the dubious prize on this occasion.  Why?  This subtitle was dragged out for three different games.  The third one, 2010's Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, is the closest thing to an actual recycled title, since it lacks any numbers or other embellishments.  But perhaps the most confusing thing about it is that while these three games do feature different numbers, they count down instead of up.  Perhaps we can look forward to a Hot Pursuit Zero in the future, I said sarcastically.
What they should've called it: Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit III, which is not to be confused with the original Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit and AAAARGH!!

1) Sonic the Hedgehog
What is it: A 1991 video game originally released for the Sega Genesis.
Not to be confused with: SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, a 2006 video game for the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Why it's stupid: The newer SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (there's a reason I'm writing it in all caps) is a bad game, I think we can all agree on that.  It's loaded with problems which have gone unsolved since Sonic Adventure whilst piling on additional problems of its own.  But perhaps the most insulting of those problems is that the gave it the same title as the first game, and one of the good ones, at that.  What was the point of doing that?  If Sonic Team meant for this game to be a reboot, to bring the game back to its roots, it failed on that account.  It looks, feels, and plays like an HD rerelease of Sonic Adventure that got beaten to within an inch of its life.  Why not just call it Sonic Adventure 3, as indeed I did before?  And what does this mean for the original Sonic game?  I suppose we could call it Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis, after the game it made its first appearance on, but there are two problems with that.  First, it got ported to many other platforms since then, including consoles which hosted SONIC THE HEDGEHOG.  And second, we already have a game, an execrable remake of the first one, called Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis.  ...AAAAAARGH!!!
What they should've called it: Sonic Adventure 3.  Or better yet, they should never have released it in the first place.

In conclusion, 2006 was a bad, bad year for Sonic fans.  Oh, and can title recycling go the way of the dodo already?

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¹Horn, John. "'Karate Kid' update breaks down some Chinese walls." Los Angeles Times. May 30, 2012. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/30/entertainment/la-ca-karatekid-20100530. Retrieved on August 27, 2012.

Game Review: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

• Publisher: Konami 
• Developer: Kojima Productions 
• Release: PlayStation 3/PlayStation 4/XBox 360/XBox One/PC, 18 March 2014 
• Genre: Action (Third-person, Stealth) 
• Players: 1 (Internet ranking) 

Question: What constitutes the true play-time of a video game? Is it measured in the length of its canonical story campaign? Or should any supplementary modes be included as well? And where does multiplayer fit in to all this? Well, this conversation got a little more heated with the release of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, billed as a prequel to the upcoming MGSV: The Phantom Pain. In case you haven't heard, the main story mode and six side missions of Ground Zeroes run, on average, about fifteen minutes apiece. Oh, did I mention that Ground Zeroes is being sold at US$30? Yeah, and it was going to be $40 at first. That may not be as much as the standard price of full-budget video games these days, but for something of this length, I'd expect nothing more costly than a ten-spot, not something treated with the same fanfare and pre-release scrutiny as... well, The Phantom Pain, for example. By any reckoning, I deem this unacceptable. So much so, that my original concept for this review was just an empty page, nothing but blank lines, made purely out of protest. But then I actually played it, and... well, just read on for yourself.

Ground Zeroes takes place in 1975 at a place called Camp Omega, a clandestine American prison-camp in Cuba, which is most certainly "not" inspired by the real-life one at Guantanamo Bay. The place is being run by a villain named Skullface, so named because most of the skin had been burned off of his face in some earlier time, who is in contact with an offscreen shadowy figure known only as Cipher (a.k.a. Major Zero from MGS3). It is here that Snake, alternatively named Big Boss or, as I like to call him, "The Artist Formerly Known as Snake", must rescue Chico and Paz, two children* who tagged along for the ride during 2010's MGS: Peace Walker, and have somehow wound up in Camp Omega.  Actually, with Ground Zeroes being a direct sequel to Peace Walker, I'd advise playing that game if you want to understand even half of the plot. No seriously, it's really good. I recommend picking it up as part of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, which in addition to Peace Walker also includes the special editions of MGS2 and 3, plus the original games made for the MSX. So go do that. I'll wait.

*Actually, it turns out that Paz is actually 24 years old by the time of Ground Zeroes. You see what I mean when I said the Japanese have a [verb]ed-up understanding of age? Ah well, at least it takes the edge off of what happens to her at the end.

Everybody caught up on their Metal Gear lore now? Good, let's move on. You know how I warned you in the first paragraph that each of the game's missions lasts but a fraction of an hour? Well, that's because Camp Omega represents the entirety of the game's playable real estate. The camp's large enough; I'm no good with estimating distances, but it could comfortably fit a fair handful of maps from any given multiplayer shooter. And one of the ending cutscenes is a shootout on Mother Base (the offshore headquarters Snake and company built up during Peace Walker), and the player doesn't get so much as a quick-time event! Come on guys; I know this cutscene is in-game, so you've already rendered the area just to make that cutscene which was apparently so bloody important! Why couldn't you have used it for some additional missions to fill out the game with!?

And speaking of ending cutscenes, at some point Snake and company extract a bomb from Paz's guts -- without anesthetic -- only for her to wake up and announce there was another bomb in her body, presumably in her womb. Dramatic, yes, but what was the point of showing us the ordeal with the first bomb if she's just gonna blow up anyway and send Snake into a coma which lasts him through the start of The Phantom Pain? And Paz, darling, it's lucky you're over 18 or else this would be even more effed up than it already is, and it is already considerably effed up, if you haven't gathered. And that's not even considering the stuff that goes on in the collectible cassette tapes, if you ever bother to listen to them.

For the gameplay we do get, Ground Zeroes introduces a new mechanic to its stealth-action gameplay, and by "new", I mean "borrowed from Far Cry 3". You can tag enemies by looking at them through your binoculars, allowing you to track their movements, even through walls. I must say, it encourages more careful play, or at least tries to. And even if you do get spotted, there's another new feature (and by "new", I mean "it might actually be new in how it's used in this game") caled Reflex Mode, wherein time slows down for a few seconds and you have a last chance to kill or knock out the guy who spotted you before the alarm gets triggered. This last feature is optional, but you get bonus points at the end of your mission if you don't use this feature. Further new features (and by "new", I mean "recycled from Peace Walker") include a revamped Codec system, which eschews the traditional text-based cutscenes in favour of a few lines of context-sensitive monologue, without breaking the flow of gameplay. If you ask me, this is how the Codec should have been implemented from the start.

And of course, Ground Zeroes implements "new" features that are being picked up by every triple-A video game with a drop of shooter blood in its body. Snake's inventory is limited to a maximum of two long guns, a pistol, and four items (such as grenades, C4, and empty magazines), and he regenerates health automatically. It is possible for him to suffer more serious injuries, thus limiting his healing factor, but you can cure these with a button prompt, and there is no limit to how often you can do this, so what's the point? Snake also has a sprinting ability, but I actually liked its inclusion here. Not only does Snake run longer and faster than characters in other games employing the technique, but it's handy for getting out of undesired skirmishes. And with an open world sandbox to play about in, running away to a different portion of the map is a reliable way to hide when you get spotted. Although I couldn't help noticing that the timers indicating the duration of the various alert phases have been taken away, and have been replaced by mere captions.

If you need any proof that the eight-generation consoles are totally unnecessary, look to Ground Zeroes. Both the seventh-generation (PS3 and XBox 360) and eighth-gen (PS4 and XBox One) demonstrate impressive visual details. Any weapons and items in Snake's arsenal are shown strapped to his body at all times (their excuse for limited weapon slots?), and even jiggle about when he runs or sprints. In missions with rainy weather, the water sticks to people's clothes, including fluttering ponchos, with suitable realism. Pretty much the only difference between the two tiers is that the newer platforms run the game at 60 frames per second instead of 30, which is nice, but hardly a dealbreaker, I say. Or, you could just get the PC version, which is essentially the same as the 8th-gen ones, but for a platform you probably already own (assuming you've upgraded it in the past couple of years). Yup, it's never been a better time to join the PC Gaming Master Race (unless Origin or uPlay are involved). Also, the voice of Snake has been swapped from his longtime actor David Hayter to Kiefer Sutherland. What can I say other than, "if you liked him in 24, you'll like this."

This may sound weird given all the examples I've read of the video games industry screwing over consumers, but Ground Zeroes left a positive impression upon me. Maybe I'm just positively inclined towards the game since I borrowed it from the library (even getting all the PSN Trophies in doing so) without paying so much as a cent, but I do have other reasons. Open-world gameplay is a natural fit for the Metal Gear franchise, even if in this case the open-world is smaller than expected. And that being the case, I'm actually kind of excited for The Phantom Pain. I might even pick up that game when it comes out... okay, I'll wait for the reviews first. For now, I can't approve of what Ground Zeroes represents, but if you like it for what it is, I won't hold it against you. So I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I'm going to give it a base score of 80% (B), but you, the reader, get to subtract 5 percent from that score for every US$5 you spent on the game.

Positives:
+ The new tagging mechanic makes stealth gameplay more fun and satisfying than ever.
+ There's plenty of stuff to do if you stick around for more than one play-through.
+ Very impressive graphics quality, even on the seventh-gen (PS3/X360) versions.

Negatives:
- Excessively brief first-play length.
- Regenerating health and limited weapon slots.

Control: 4 prisoners out of 5

Design: 4 prisoners out of 5

Writing: 3 prisoners out of 5

Graphics: 5 prisoners out of 5

Sound: 4 prisoners out of 5

Value: 1 prisoner out of 5
The Call: 40% (F) to 80% (B) (80%, minus 5% for every $5 you spent on the game)

Film Review: The Interview

The Interview

• Publisher: Columbia
• Studio: Point Grey Pictures
• Genre: Comedy
• Release: 25 December 2014
• Directors: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
• Producers: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver
• Writer: Dan Sterling

Folks, I've been a North Korea watcher for quite a while now, especially since Kim Jong-eun took the reins of the Hermit Kingdom at the end of 2011.  I've got so much to say about the subject that I'd prefer to save it for a separate editorial, but I'll give you this much to start off with: I hate the North Korean regime the most out of all the geopolitical entities in this world.  More than Vladimir Putin's Russia, more than Red China, more than al-Qaeda or The Artist Formerly Known As al-Qaeda.  Possibly combined.  But you already knew that.  So when I heard that a movie, known as The Interview, was in the works which depicted James Franco and Seth Rogen on a mission to assassinate Kim Jong-eun, you can imagine I tuned in.  Sure, I wasn't expecting the movie to be any good, but it was relevant to my interests.

But then Sony Pictures got hacked, and The Interview's Christmas 2014 release was cancelled.  You can bet I was disappointed from it all, and then some.  And for me, this wasn't just about wanting to see the movie.  I am of the strong conviction that North Korea directed, if not orchestrated, the hack attack, and by capitulating to their government's demands to have the film pulled, Sony set a dangerous precedent.  The North Korean government mouthpieces, primarily their news agency and UN ambassadors, have long fallen back on boisterous bluster to the point of, or so I assumed, no one being able to take them seriously.  But for Sony to have taken them seriously, for once, means that this could happen again.  So to speak, the bar has been lowered.  Or raised.  Or... something.  Let me tell you something, if I were in the same position of power, I certainly wouldn't be inclined to take the same action.  Sure, the hackers threatened terrorist actions to theatres that would show the film, and what they already did was unprecedented, but real talk -- did you actually think they would be able to carry out something like that?  Speaking of which, hackers, you don't call yourselves "Guardians of Peace" and then threaten to re-enact 9/11, which is pretty much the opposite of peace.  That is the same kind of [noun] North Korea pulls on a regular basis, so if the shoe fits...

I happened to be out on holiday as this drama unfolded, and was prepared to write an editorial on the subject when I got back.  (Which I'm sort of already doing.)  But on the day I left for home, Christmas Eve in fact, I heard the news that Sony would be releasing the film in question after all!  Primarily to digital stores with a very small physical presence, but it was something!  So you can bet your sweet bippy I bought it when it went online the next day, and I regret nothing (other than not holding out for the special edition DVD).

But lost in the discussion is perhaps the most important question of all:

Is the movie any good?

Well, that's what I'm here to find out.  Our movie starts out with an episode of Skylark Live, a talk show hosted by a mister Dave Skylark (James Franco), and run behind the scenes by his producer Aaron Rapaport (Seth Rogen).  Dave is apparently very good at what he does, managing to get Eminem (played by himself) to admit his (assumedly fictional) homosexuality on live television, but focusing so much on soft news has driven Dave into something of a rut.  So as his thousandth episode rolls around, he makes plans to land an interview with Kim Jong-eun (Randall Park), who as it happens is also big fan of Skylark Live.  But then the CIA gets wind of their plans, and under the handling of a miss Agent Lacey (Lizzy Caplan), Dave and Aaron's interview turns into an assassination mission.  Hilarity ensues.

The Interview's wit and intelligence is somewhere along the lines of the Austin Powers sequels.  Sure, there's a lot of lowbrow stuff to dig through.  At one point, for example, Aaron has to run out into a field at night, to pick up a small, CIA drone-launched, package.  And when the guards (and a tiger) close in on his position, Aaron is forced to hide the device rectally.  However, The Interview also takes steps to intelligently portray more aspects of North Korea, contrasting the images the government tries to push upon itself and others against the reality on the ground.  The very first scene in the movie is a little girl singing a "patriotic" song about slaughtering Americans in increasingly gratuitous detail.  In another instance, when Dave and Aaron get the "red-carpet" treatment upon their arrival in Pyongyang, their limousine "happens to" stop next to a well-stocked grocery store, just as they were trying to discuss the country's state of famine.  Dave visits the store later on, only to discover the shelves were just a mural painted on an empty wall.

In this regard, the standout moment of the film, for me, was the titular interview with Dave and Jong-eun.  Both of them make valid points at first, with Dave asking why North Korea doesn't feed its 25-million population, and Jong-eun blaming it on Western sanctions.  (For the record, I consider that argument as bull[noun] on Kim's part.  The inner workings of North Korea's economy are opaque, but to my understanding, nearly all investments into the country has a habit of ending up used for the leader's personal luxuries, weapons of mass destruction, state-sponsored crimes, and perhaps even support of foreign terrorism.  Heck, even food aid gets taken by their soldiers before they let the civilians have the rest, if at all.)  And then Jong-eun soils himself because... funny.

But then, there's the nuclear programme.  I was a little disappointed when the finale involved an attempted nuke launch, for a number of reasons.  One, in terms of the plot it gets dropped upon us by surprise.  Two, I'm not convinced that their ICBM or (not "and") nuclear weapons capability, as it stands as of this writing, is any threat to speak of.  And three, for the aforementioned reason, I wish our own news/media would devote less attention to North Korea's nukes in favour of other issues, for example the concentration camp system.  Of course, the portrayals of North Korea found within this movie may not convey all the subtleties of that society, such as what their everyday citizens actually think of their own leaders or others, but the regime's strictness being what it is, I'd understand if the writers weren't able to capture those opinions in person.  If I got to write the screenplay for this movie, I'd replace the whole nuke-launch ending with some sort of grassroots revolution, where the Korean people are inspired to depose the Kim regime with minimal guidance from Uncle Sam.  But who cares, I asked in sarcasm mode, isn't it more cathartic to see real-life bad guys get blowed up?  ...What?  It is.  Don't try to act like it isn't.

You may have noticed that this review had less to say on the movie itself, and more on its context as a depiction of my most-hated nation of the post-Cold War era.  But, I honestly don't have much to say about it otherwise.  I once said that The Wind Rises had become, to me, less of an actual product and more of a personal icon, but that description could more aptly apply to The Interview.  Maybe I've just taken in so much knowledge from what the West has been able to gleam about North Korea that nothing in that department surprises me anymore.  Maybe I was expecting more to do with the concentration camp system, for example.  But, you know what?  Neither does The Interview go in the opposite direction, cartoonishly portraying the country as just one man and his missiles.  Put it next to Team America: World Police, which is pretty much just that, and it shows how our understanding of North Korea has evolved over the past decade.  At this rate, we might even be able to shift the discussion of North Korea away from the easier, more news-worthy topics to more meaningful ones.  Except that didn't happen, because the Charlie Hebdo shootings happened just weeks afterward, and the capricious news media being what it is, everyone seemed to forget all about North Korea.  But not this blogger.

This is IchigoRyu.

You are the resistance.

Positives
+ Presents a relatively nuanced view of North Korea.
+ Dave's inner struggle as an evolving artist.
+ Kim Jong-eun gets blowed up.
Negatives
- Occasional lowbrow comedy.
- A (personally) disappointing ending.

The Call: 65% (C)

Anime Review: Totally Spies!

Totally Spies!

• Studio: Marathon 
• Network: TF1 (FRA), Teletoon (CAN), Cartoon Network (USA) 
• Air Dates: 3 November 2001 - 2014* 
• Episodes: 156* 
• Creators: Vincent Chalvon-Demersay, David Michel 

*As of this writing, the 6th season has not yet aired in the United States and may or may not have aired in Canada. Concrete information on this show, including its recent airdates, is sparse.

Ladies and gentlemen, I've teased this review a number of times when I started this blog, but I've never been able to work up the material to finish it. But with the Strawberry Dragon Project's 5-year anniversary looming this month, I figure it would be a suitably symbolic time to get it out of the way. So let's do this: it's time to review Totally Spies!.

Back in the early 2000s, Western culture went through some sort of spy-fiction boom in movies, TV, and video games. I'm not completely sure why; maybe it had something to do with the James Bond franchise returning from hiatus in 1995, and it took a little more time to set in. These stories sought to copy the "exciting" surface elements of latter-day Bond, but threw the important stuff like characterisation to the wayside. This movement gave us options for both grown-up (xXx with Vin Diesel) and younger (Agent Cody Banks with Frankie Muniz) audiences, and few if any were rembered fondly in the long run. Heck, even the Bond franchise itself ended up feeling like one of those wannabes at some point. If you wanted anything with any depth of characters or plot, you'd have to turn to sleeper hits like the Bourne trilogy (i.e. The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon). Thankfully, it was those very sleeper hits which shaped the direction of Bond itself when it came back from yet another hiatus, in 2006's Casino Royale with Daniel Craig. But for the most part, we had to console ourselves with junk like Totally Spies!.

The titular spies are three high-school girls from Beverly Hills. Their numbers are Sam (EN: Jennifer Hale, FR: Claire Guyot), Clover (EN: Andrea Baker, FR: Fily Keita), and Alex (EN: Katie Leigh / Katie Griffin, FR: Céline Mauge). Sam is the smart straight-man and unofficial leader of the team, Clover is the most boy- and fashion-crazy out of the three, and Alex is the sporty tomboy who occasionally bridges the gaps during Sam and Clover's arguments. The girls' personalities do overlap from time to time, as is common among friends (I assume), but for the most part they never evolve past their archetypes, if not stereotypes. And annoying archetypes, if not stereotypes, at that. Maybe it's just my educated masculine upbringing talking, but the way these girls blow their civilian-life issues so out of proportion makes it harder for me to sympathise with them. Clover especially is the worst in this regard -- I'm pretty sure she even complains about breaking a fingernail at some point. That's the level of intelligence we're dealing with here, peoples.

The many Clover-vs-Mandy arguments are showdowns of annoying versus annoying.

As is common for this type of "Get up, go to school, save the world" show (see also: the Mystical Ninja anime I reviewed way back when I started this blog), the episodes are framed by B-plots centred around dilemmas in the girls' public lives. Most of them feature Mandy (EN: Jennifer Hale, FR: Céline Mauge), a girl much like Clover, except snobby and antagonistic. Also she looks like Rebecca Black, but without the kind personality that made her crimes against music forgivable. (Man, I really must have mellowed out on "Friday" since then...). If nothing else, she serves to make Clover and company look good by comparison. There are also the numerous anonymous hunks whom our girls attempt various degrees of shacking-up with, but a scant few show up in more than one episode. The most recurring boyfriend prospect is the long/tan/handsome David, but he never gets the chance to have any real character development, and is essentially discarded after the first few seasons. He's basically this show's answer to Sylvia Trench. (Remember her? James Bond's on-again-off-again girlfriend from the first two movies?)

But the "Save the world" part of this "Get up, go to school, save the world" setup is the meat and potatoes of this show. The girls' civilian troubles must, inevitably take a backseat to actual international crises, delivered by their handler Jerry (EN: Jess Harnell / Adrian Truss, FR: Jean-Claude Dunda) and his organisation. Said organisation is saddled with the name of World Organization Of Human Protection, commonly pronounced as WOOHP. *sigh* ...Yeah, apparently this show's writers have a propensity for painful acronyms. If you're hoping for anything of the calibre of "Every Villain Is Lemons (EVIL)" from that one SpongeBob episode, don't. It's even more painfully unfunny then how, EVERY -- SINGLE -- EPISODE, they get summonned into WOOHP headquarters by way of getting sucked into a trap door or some such hidden hole. If you didn't have the right context on hand, you could imagine that WOOHP is in fact a police state that somehow took over the Los Angeles metropolitan area. (By the way, do you think Jerry might be a fan of Excel Saga? This show would be more interesting if our girls took orders from Il Palazzo, I tell you what.)

Furthering the episode-to-episode routine, Jerry follows up just about every mission briefing with a pre-selected array of gadgets; purpose-built devices incorporated into objects which would would look normal on a normal person of their type. And yes, this also gives them opportunities for more painful acronyms, most egregiously with the dive-helmet called the "UPWATI". I warned you there'd be more. First of all, what's the matter, never heard of on-site procurement? Like they made such a big deal out of in Metal Gear Solid? I swear, these gals wouldn't last a minute on Shadow Moses Island. Seriously, I do have some constructive criticism to this setup. My biggest problem is that it's all so contrived. Jerry always picks out the gadgets for them, without any input from the spies themselves, and they all serve a coincidentally specific use in furthering their investigation or escaping from a deathtrap. And yeah, I know James Bond did the same thing too, but he never gave the impression of being helpless without them. Said impression cannot be made of the titular Totally Spies. If I had control over this show, I'd let the girls pick their own gadgets, making them think about the situations that would present themselves ahead. Or is that too dangerously close to character development for this show? Also, can we address the vivid green, red, and yellow catsuits the spies or their superiors thought would be a suitable uniform? I guess I know why they get captured so often, then.

They may come through in the end, but our girls are generally terrible spies,
in case those bright catsuits didn't tip you off already.

From then on, episodes generally follow a pattern of investigation, infiltration, discovering the villain-of-the-day, getting caught by the villain-of-the-day, escaping the deathtrap-of-the-day by way of gadgets, and finally catching the villain-of-the-day. I'm not saying they should tie every episode to one another in an ongoing arc. And I'm not saying that monster-of-the-day (or in this case, villain-of-the-day) shows can't be good, either. Neon Genesis Evangelion was at its best when it did the monster-of-the-day thing, as you may recall me saying. But Totally Spies! just doesn't have the right stuff to pull it off. Whereas some of these shows have some kind of evil organisation tying the monsters-of-the-day together and providing the promise of some kind of climax to look forward to, Totally Spies! doesn't have this, for the most part. I say "for the most part" because the later seasons introduce a team of recurring villains known as... LAMOS. Ladies and gentlemen, you have my permission to facepalm.

 Anyway, the villains at least get some sort of backstory, usually in the form of them having been shot down for a job/role/date/whatever, and them exacting excessive revenge via some form of doomsday device, and not practical ones either. Over the course of the series, the villains use (real?) stage magic, extraterrestrial aliens, and a satellite-mounted freeze ray with intent to freeze the entire Earth over, so yeah, this show plays hard and loose with the idea of reality. You'd think I shouldn't complain about realism, as I have a webcomic which incorporates magic into an otherwise realistic historical setting. But some things are beyond my limits of disbelief suspension, like how a gourmet food critic is entitled to complain when served a 200-ounce steak.

For the record, I'm still keeping the "Anime Review" tag in the title of this article despite this show not having been conceived in Japan, but rather the French and/or Canadian studio Marathon. Coincidentally, French also uses the word "animé" to refer to animated productions as does Japanese (minus the accent on the 'e'). It's furtherly funny I should mention this, because Totally Spies! does rely heavily on the Japanese anime aesthetic for its design and art style. It's "Animesque", if you will. It's a shame they did it so sloppily though, as not only does the animation lack the fluidity of motion and dynamic scene composition I've come to associate with Japanese anime at its best, but animation and continuity errors are fairly common if you look. I'm not normally the type to look out for this sort of thing, but the one scene where Clover and Mandy are arguing with their voices accidentally switched (no seriously, this is a thing that happens) is yet another of those goofs which are beyond even my tolerance. Besides, Marathon forgot the most important lesson they should've taken from Japanese anime, and that is... not to sexualise teenagers. I mean, the other most important lesson: to have actual character development.

Between the villains, heroes, and side characters, I'm only steps away from giving this show the "Eight Deadly Words": "I don't care what happens to these people". So why do I keep watching it? Because Totally Spies! is a prime example of a guilty pleasure. If nothing else, the spy girls themselves are pretty, and say what you want about them being materialistic fashionistas, at least the animators gave them more than a handful of outfits! Plus, there are occasional shake-ups to the formula, and it is those moments which make for the series' more memorable episodes. But most of the time, it sticks to its formula, to its detriment. There's nothing that shows the girls are evolving in their spycraft over the course of the show. Such may be the curse of the monster-of-the-week format, but that's no excuse for not trying. You could also brush off its shortcomings as the curse of childrens' entertainment, but that's not a good excuse either. I'd consider Kaleido Star to be kid-friendly, and it has some of the best characterisation I've ever seen in a TV show. And whilst on the business of comparing Totally Spies! to other cartoons, let me close by reminding you that when this show came out, it competed with the Disney Channel's girl-power spy-fi show, Kim Possible, which was considerably more genre-savvy, gender-inclusive, and didn't use [verb]ing acronyms for everything. I think that says all you need to know about Totally Spies!: apparently, some of the most telling critiques come not from the work itself, but from contrasting it with other works.

Positives
+ The few episodes which shake up the formula shine even brighter for it.

Negatives
- Little in the way of character development.
- Annoying main and side characters.
- The stories adhere strictly to a formula.
- The animation is barely up to par when it isn't goofing up.

Acting: 2 rainbow catsuits out of 5
Writing: 1 rainbow catsuits out of 5
Animation: 2 rainbow catsuits out of 5
Visual Design: 3 rainbow catsuits out of 5
The Call: 50% (D)

Editorial: When Marnie Was There & Silent Hills

This weekend, I took a trip down to Center City Philadelphia to see When Marnie Was There, the latest anime film by Studio Ghibli. Limited-release films like these tend to be a bit... geographically undesireable because of how far away I live, but the way I figured, it might be my last chance to see a Studio Ghibli movie on the big screen, so I took the plunge. See, as anyone with an interest in Studio Ghibli knows, this is their last movie to be released as the studio shuts down on an "indeterminate hiatus", following the retirement of its star director, Hayao Miyazaki. Even Marnie's review in the Philadelphia Inquirer discussed it in the context of those circumstances. So with the knowledge that this may be Ghibli's last impression, my sentiments toward the company might cloud me from giving an objective opinion on Marnie. Plus, I don't normally indulge in full reviews for films I only saw in theatres once, so I'll do what I did with The Wind Rises the first time around and embellish this here editorial with a mini-review.

The plot follows a pattern shared with a number of Studio Ghibli movies, with occasional variations: A girl moves out to the countryside and then (frequently supernatural) stuff happens. Off the top of my head, I recognise this framework from My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service (although the girl moves to the city), Spirited Away, The Secret World of Arietty (although the girl is instead a boy), and the film on hand. But that's not a bad thing per se, as often these movies develop an identity of their own as they move along. In this case, the girl is a blue-eyed preteen named Anna. While out one day wandering about her new neighbourhood, her eye catches on a mansion on the other side of a marsh, and on a blonde-haired girl in the upstairs window, the titular Marnie. One night she sneaks out to meet Marnie in person, and the two strike up a friendship in no time flat.

The film does a great job of establishing how completely broken Anna is on her own, and how Marnie fills in the missing pieces of her psyche. To make one of my many Evangelion allegories, Anna is like Shinji, and Marnie is like Kaworu Nagisa, the only person in her life willing to provide her with unconditional affection. And what other connection is there between Marnie and the Shinji/Kaworu episode? "Both parties are the same gender?" That's right! I don't know about you, but when I saw the trailer for this movie, I wondered if the Anna/Marnie relationship would be of a lesbian nature. And I'd have been alright with that; proud, even, because of how sensibly mature the movie treats their interactions. But in truth, the nature of their relationship is strictly platonic. Which is also nice; I mean, can't two people of the same gender have a deep friendship without other people bringing it into homosexual territory? ...Not that's a bad thing... Don't worry, I meant less offence than you probably took that as (unless it was zero to start with).

But more than anything, Marnie feels real, supernatural elements notwithstanding. It touches on a number of real-world troubles in varying capacity, such as adopted children, bullying in the family, and even xenophobia. Remember when I said Anna had blue eyes? Yeah, that's a plot point. Some plot elements are a bit out of place and fail to go anywhere, like when Marnie and one of her peers lash out at each other at the Tanabata festival. But that's about it. I even cried while watching this movie! ...Okay, not really; I don't cry that easily, more like I got misty-eyed. Yeah, I got misty-eyed. How many films can I make that boast about? On more levels than one, When Marnie Was There is one such film. And for that honour, I shall bestow upon it a tentative grade of 5 out of 5 (A) and a Dragon Award.

So now that the review is over, let's get back to the topic at hand: When Marnie Was There is potentially the final feature film to be made by Studio Ghibli. This is a worrisome situation because Ghibli has been a heretofore never-ending force of good in the animation world. (Bear in mind, I make that statement not yet having seen Tales of Earthsea.) Seriously, a great chunk of their works have been nominated for the Best Animated Feature Academy Award since that category was created. Of course, only one of them actually won, but that's a different crisis altogether. But with Studio Ghibli gone, who's going to pick up the mantle of making critically acclaimed anime films? Or does the next big thing in animation even have to be Japanese? There's this one director I've started following recently, named Tomm Moore, and I've read his output as being likened to an Irish counterpart to Studio Ghibli. Although relatively new to the scene, both of his works The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014) are distincly awesome. They were also nominated for the aforementioned Oscar; of course they didn't win either, because the jurors involve are just fff... Philistines. (I have to admit that joke works better when you hear rather than read it. Still, last-second word swaps FTW!)

But looking back on this whole affair brings to mind a certain... other event I've obsessed over lately, involving the cancellation of a certain long-hoped-for video game. "Gee Kevin", you may be thinking, "how many articles are you gonna write about Mega Man Legends 3?"

No, you idiot, the other one!

I'm talking about Silent Hills, the would-be reboot of the survival-horror franchise Silent Hill, collaborated upon with Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, film director Guillermo del Toro, and actor Norman Reedus. Actually, there are a number of similarities between the circumstances of the two games. Both were being led by a high-profile director (Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune for MML3) before they left their respective companies. Both stood to revitalise series which hadn't been relevant in years. Both had a preview or demo version which is not available anymore, if at all (Legends 3 Prototype and P.T.). And both happened to have been followed up by Kickstarter projects seeking to bring a new games based on their companies' good old days. (Okay, so Castlevania creator Koji Igarashi wasn't actually involved in Silent Hills, but shut up, I've got a good theme going.) Is this the future of the games industry? Or is this all just a coincidence? Heck if I know.

Now, I didn't have the same emotional investment for Silent Hills as I did for MML3. At the moment, I've only played a bit of the first Silent Hill game (PSone, 1999), and I've heard good things about Silent Hill 2 (PS2, 2001). (Seriously, on the rare occasions when Yahtzee recommends a game, he's never steered me wrong.) I am aware, however, of how the Silent Hill franchise, as well as the survival-horror genre in macrocosm, have lost sight of the subtleties that made it so effective way back when. And given the series' track record, maybe Silent Hills would have reversed its course back in a positive direction, or maybe it wouldn't have. But man, it would've been great if it did. It might even have brought new fans on board, including yours truly. As it stands, I may not have been on board with the whole Silent Hills thing, but y'all have my sympathies.

So what was the point of this diversionary anecdote, other than to provide my two cents on the issue? Well, the moral to draw from both those stories is that we should support independent works of media. You won't see the big American animation studios doing a hand-drawn character drama, and you won't see the big Japanese video game studios reviving the styles of games which made them famous back in the day. I mean, even though Mighty No.9 may not be the ideal replacement for Legends 3, I'd still give my money to its independent makers than to Capcom. And now that the World Wide Web and social media are things, we the people have the power to give these low-profile works the attention they deserve. I mean it when I say...

This is IchigoRyu.

You are the resistance.