Count_Zero

We get to know most of the crew of our ship. My apologies for the lack of commentary, I’m getting over a cold. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

Before Kinoko Nasu created Tsukihime or Fate/Stay Night, he put out a light novel series titled “Garden of Sinners” (or Kara no Kyokai). The books set up some concepts that would be folded into to the collection of series that is generally known as the “Nasuverse” – though the series aren’t exactly in direct continuity with each other. In the mid-to-late 2000s, they were adapted into a series of animated films by Ufotable, prior to them getting the gig for Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works. The Garden of Sinners series is much closer to a mystery series than the majority of Nasu’s other works. The films follow Shiki Ryougi and Mikiya Kokuto. Shiki is a girl who Mikiya fell for in high school. She had a case of multiple personality syndrome with two personalities – one feminine (Shiki), and one masculine (SHIKI). After an incident that lead to Shiki attempting to commit suicide (for reasons that are explained later in the series), Shiki loses the SHIKI personality, but ends up developing Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, much like Shiki Tohno did in Tsukihime after his brush with death. Mikiya and Shiki end up getting a job with a magus named Touko Aozaki (the sister of the woman who made Shiki Tohno’s glasses from Tsukihime which blocked his sight) – doing private detective work. Over the course of seven films, we see them working to investigate various supernatural related killings – along with the serial murders in Shiki and Mikiya’s home town that set off her suicide attempt. Tonally, this is probably the bleakest of Nasu’s works. Sexual assault and suicide are recurring themes in the show, and issues of drug addiction also come up in the course of the plot. Actually, that last is particularly unique, as in most works of anime, with a handful of exceptions, drug use is a thing that happens elsewhere, with only a handful of works that I’m familiar with (that are set in Japan) bringing up recreational drug use in any respect. That said, the show doesn’t exactly handle drug use well – though I don’t think Nasu had anyone in particular to consult on these points. As with the other Nasuverse series that Ufotable has done, these films are very well done, with the animation looking great, and the action scenes in particular being very fluid. The fifth film, Paradox Spiral also does some really interesting stuff with narrative structure. I’m not sure if this was present in the original novel – but if it was, I’d be interested to see how it was executed there, as if it’s done there as well as it was in the film, then I’d be surprised that Nasu didn’t catch much attention as a writer earlier. Paradox Spiral‘s plot does stuff with time loops and non-linearity that I’ve never seen done to this degree and this well before. The series is very light on humor though, which makes sense considering just how dark the covered material is. There are moments of humor every now and then, but they are few and far between. Also, the length of the films vary wildly. The first quartet of films are each about a hour long, as is the sixth film. The fifth and seventh films, on the other hand, run about 2 hours each. This also can make the pacing very variable. The series is available on Blu-Ray from RightStuf, but it will cost you over $300, so maybe you might want to wait until it goes on sale. Filed under: Anime Tagged: Anime, Garden of Sinners, nasuverse, Type-Moon

We do some more side-quests, and we get our ship. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

This time I’m taking a look at the first book in the “Books of the Raksura” series by Martha Wells – The Cloud Roads. Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/ Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/ Filed under: Books, videos Tagged: Books, Books of the Raksura, video review, vlog

We’ve gotten off of Habitat 7, and we’re now en-route to The Nexus… and things aren’t going great there either. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

We’ve arrived on our supposed “Golden World”, only it’s more like Iron Pyrite. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

We’re returning to the Star Wars novels with our first straight-up stand alone book (meaning one that isn’t part of a trilogy or other mini-series. Writer: Kathy Tyers Publication Date: January 1994 The Truce at Bakura is available from Amazon.com in Kindle and paperback editions. Plot Notes A few days after the victory at Endor, an emergency communication drone from the planet Bakura arrives at Endor, with an emergency message for the Emperor – the planet is under attack by an alien race known as the Ssi-Ruuk, an alien race from beyond the outer rim. They have the planet’s defenders out-matched, and they are in desperate need of assistance. Apparently the Emperor had a deal with these aliens, and now that he’s dead, they have determined the deal is off – they have set out to conquer the whole galaxy, leaving no race in their way. Seeing an opportunity to win some hearts and minds, Luke & Leia persuade the Alliance council that they should send a relief force. At the very least, even if they can’t get the Bakurans to join the Alliance, they need to at least prevent a potentially hostile alien race from getting a foothold that could turn their efforts against the Empire into a two-front war. Luke, Leia, and Han set out for Bakura, along with an Rebel task force that includes Wedge and Rogue Squadron. On arrival, they negotiate an uneasy truce with the local Imperial Governor and the commander, and learn the truth about the Ssi-Ruuk. The Ssi-Ruuk are reptilian aliens who seek to capture their opponents and “entech” them, by transferring their consciousness into droid fighters – finding that Humans make for better sources of souls for their droids than the other aliens they brought with them do. Luke works with the commander of the Imperial forces to prepare a defence, while Leia tries to work with the locals. During a diplomatic fete, Luke meets a local politician named Gaeriel Captison, and falls for her. While meeting with her, Luke learns that her grandmother was part of a local Rebel cell, but was captured and suffered brain damage in Imperial captivity. Using the Force, Luke is able to heal her. Luke also learns that Gaerial is part of a local religious group that worships the “Balance”, and felt that the Jedi were responsible for upsetting the balance. Luke also ends up sensing the presence of a mysterious human among the Ssi-Ruuk: Dev Sibwarra. Dev is force-sensitive, but has received no training, and has been kept alive by the Ssi-Ruuk because her force sensitivity makes him useful. They have been abusing him and subjecting him to frequent brainwashing sessions to keep him pliable. However, when Luke makes contact with Dev’s mind in the heat of battle, it inspires him to try to rebel against the Ssi-Ruuk in various small ways. Further, the Imperial governor, Wilek Nereus, is in the throes of a conundrum. He absolutely doesn’t want the Ssi-Ruuk to win. However, if the Rebel forces also win, then he’ll lose power. So, he puts plans in motion to betray the Alliance at the moment of victory, including infecting Luke with a virulent parasite and then turning him over to the Ssi-Ruuk, in the hopes that the parasite will kill them all. Ultimately, Luke is able to heal himself of the parasites while aboard the Ssi-Ruuk ship, and with the assistance of Dev, is able to do enough damage and soe enough confusion that the combined Rebel and Imperial forces can defeat the Ssi-Ruuk. Meanwhile, Han, Leia, Gaerial and her grandmother are able to overthrow Governor Nereus. The Alliance offers Imperial forces the choice to leave to return home (or, for that matter, join the Remnant), or join the Alliance. The commander of the Imperial forces chooses to defect to the Alliance in order to command Bakura’s defense. Gaerial decides to remain on Bakura to help form a new government, and the remainder of the Rebel forces return to the rest of the fleet. Worldbuilding First appearance in the novels of an “alien race from beyond the Outer Rim” – the Ssi-Ruuk. The Alliance captures a Ssi-Ruuk warship, the Sibwarra. The introduction of a religious belief outside of The Force – the Balance. Believers in the Balance (Balancers?) hold that the power of the light and dark side must be kept in check. Gaerial was a more… fundamentalist believer, and felt that the Jedi and the Republic threw the balance out of whack, and consequently she was concerned about the presence of even a single Jedi – Luke. First introduction of the Imperial HoloNet – a galactic communications network controlled by the Empire, but one which does not have instantaneous communications (like a Subspace Ansible) – the Bakuran garrison couldn’t use the Holonet to call for help from other garrisons, and the Alliance couldn’t use captured Holonet transmitters to access the entirety of Imperial Communications. Presumably this is what the Emperor used to contact Vader. On some planets, the Empire permitted local forms of government to exist as a means of controlling and pacifying the populace, provided they basically served to rubber-stamp the decrees of the Imperial Governors. First appearance of battle droids in any form, but not in the manner we’d see in the prequel trilogy – not by a long shot. Palpatine has had contact with alien races from outside of the galaxy, and has been cutting deals with them, for various reasons. Characterization Luke Skywalker: His first outing commanding a larger Rebel force in battle, not just a smaller group like a fighter squadron. This is now his first canonical attempt to try to teach someone in the force – Dev. Canonically Obi-Wan appears to Luke as a Force Ghost for the last time. Has yet to tell the Alliance of the truth of his parentage. Princess Leia Organa/Skywalker: Is still in denial over being the daughter of Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, but becomes more accepting of this over the course of the book. Anakin Skywalker’s Force Ghost appears to her and a speaks to her, in an attempt to reconcile. Leia rejects his overtures. Han Solo: Is a little over-protective of Leia. Tends to put his plans together on the fly (much like Indiana Jones, which I think is a deliberate call-out on the writer’s part). Is not quite ready to propose yet. Chewbacca: We get scenes from his actual point of view for the first time. As has been established in earlier works, he’s incredibly mechanically adept, and he really doesn’t like C-3P0, to the point of having to weigh having to repair 3P0 again, against the fact that he’d really like to smack him around. C-3P0: Is actually somewhat mechanically dextrous, and can engage in semi-hacking if necessary, though he’s not as proficient as R2-D2. Can also wear Imperial Stormtrooper armor in a just convincing enough fashion to accidentally get shot by Chewbacca. Has a linguistics package strong enough to put together an impromptu Ssi-Ruuk-to-Basic translation package based on intercepted Ssi-Ruuk battle transmissions. Other Notes This book pretty much retcons the last portion of the Marvel Star Wars run out of existence – no Nagai, no Tofs, nothing, though part of the material from there will be back. My Thoughts This book was enjoyable to read, but not exactly great. Seeing Leia in her element as a diplomat was wonderful, though considering we get to see Leia as a general in The Force Awakens, I would mind seeing her in more books as a military commander going forward as well. Tyers does a great job of capturing the transition in the status quo that we see after Return of the Jedi – the Emperor’s dead, now what? In the comics, the answer to that question is “form a more conventional government”. In here it’s “strike while the iron is hot to foment more open rebellion on fringe Imperial colony worlds, while the Empire is disorganized, power is being concentrated, and the new Imperial government tries to figure out what they’re actually going to try to hold.” The concept of the Balance as a religion is a little roughly executed. Even Tyers admits that the concept is cosmic dualism taken to an absurd degree. That said, I do kinda feel that the concept is still executed here better than it is in the prequel trilogy. Next time with these recaps we’re taking on the first book in the Jedi Academy Trilogy with Jedi Search Filed under: Star Wars Tagged: book review, science fiction, Star Wars, Star Wars Expanded Universe

Over the past few months, I’ve been doing a Let’s Play of Mass Effect 3. I felt this was the best time to do that Let’s Play, with the impending release of Mass Effect Andromeda. We also have some time and distance from the initial controversy over Mass Effect 3’s ending, and the second wave of controversy over the “Director’s Cut”, which meant that I could approach the game fresh, without any of that baggage. So, how does Shepard’s final outing fare? The final installment of the series has the Reaper invasion finally having arrived in the galaxy, after two games worth of warnings. Shepard and Liara learn of a weapon from the previous incursion of the Reapers – during the time of the Protheans – called the Crucible. Now, Commander Shepard must forge an alliance of alien races – council and non-council members alike, in order to stand against the Reapers. From the standpoint of the game’s structure, this means that all the game’s quests, both on the main thrust of the story and in terms of side-quests, is all put towards the specific goal of preparing the crucible and going for one final push against the Reapers. This provides an incentive for taking on the side quests, as you need all the resources you can get, while also providing a sense of urgency. This is heightened by the increasing presence of the Reapers in the galaxy. As you explore systems, you face an increased risk of attracting Reaper ships to that system. Once they show up, you have no choice but to run, and should you return to that system, the Reapers will return more rapidly, if not instantaneously, should you return. Further, as the game’s story goes on, the Reapers will start occupying more and more systems, meaning that there are less and less systems you can search for resources or to complete side-quests. Additionally, the consequences of the major choices from earlier games have some repercussions here. some are more dramatic than others – saving the Rachni queen in Mass Effect 1 means that you can recruit the Rachni to help the war effort here. Recruiting Legion and completing his Loyalty Mission in Mass effect 2 means that you can broker a final peace between the Quarians and the Geth here. Even having some of the DLC characters from Mass Effect 2 on your side, like Kasumi and Zaeed can make a tremendous difference with how several quests turn out, and in turn what resources you get. One of the more interesting party members you get in this game is one who is only available through DLC – Javik, a Prothean who was in cryogenic freeze. Javik has some interesting insights on how the galaxy has changed in the millions of years since his race’s demise, and as a character his story is incredibly well written, but it’s also somewhat optional. Now, what is a little less optional is two of the pieces of DLC for the game – the Citadel and Leviathan DLC. The former provides some really impressive bonding for your party members, first as the party fends off an assassination attempt against Shepard by their evil clone, and then as you unwind after this with a house party in Captain Anderson’s apartment, which he’s loaning to you while he’s stranded on Earth leading the resistance against the Reapers. There’s a lot of really strong humor in the Citadel DLC, from the party members demonstrating their snarking abilities, to the house party basically providing a wonderful opportunity for these party members to bounce off of each other in various hilarious ways. The Leviathan DLC, on the other hand, is much more serious, and enriches the story a little more – providing a clear explanation of where the hell the Reapers came from, why they have that form, and what their purpose is. It also makes the revelation in the game’s conclusion feel less like it came out of nowhere, and makes it feel earned. There are some really exciting elements in this DLC, and it makes for a really interesting mystery that ties in well with the rest of the story, which also has some really fun and creepy sequences. As far as the revised ending goes, going in without having experienced the original ending, the director’s cut ending felt tonally consistent with the rest of the work. While on the one hand, I get the argument that changing the ending of the work based on popular complaint feels like a pronounced and dramatic artistic compromise, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened with a major popular artistic work. Sherlock Holmes was resurrected after people objected to the conclusion of The Final Problem, and Holmes death therein. Even Douglas Adams was working on a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novel at the time of his death, after fans stated their reservations with the end of the final book Adams wrote in that series – and after Adams himself admitted that he was in a bad head-place when he wrote that book. So, I can’t fault Bioware rethinking the ending. So, Mass Effect 3 felt like a satisfying conclusion to the original Mass Effect trilogy, though one that changes the galaxy in such dramatic ways that I completely understand why they moved the next installment to another galaxy. I’m glad that Andromeda is taking the story where it is, and I’m interested in seeing how it goes from there, and should they choose to revisit the end-state of this galaxy, being in Andromeda provides a lot of freedom on how they can handle that. That said, Mass Effect 3 is not the best entry point to the series – either Mass Effect 2 or Andromeda would probably make for better options for where to jump in. Mass Effect 3 is available from Amazon.com. Filed under: Video games Tagged: Mass Effect 3, Reviews, Video games

We’ve arrived in the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Travel Agent lied. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

We’ve arrived in the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Travel Agent lied. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

I whip up my Ryders. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

This time we’re covering The Best of the Rest for Nintendo Power’s 5th year. Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/ Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/ Games Reviewed: Home Alone 2 (NES, SNES, GB) – THQ Super Battletank – Absolute Entertainment NHLPA Hockey ’93 – Electronic Arts Bulls vs. Blazers – Electronic Arts Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Game Boy, NES, Nintendo Power, Nintendo Power Retrospectives, Retro Gaming, SNES

We board the Citadel, make our final choice, and I give my final thoughts on the game. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect 3, Video games

Having reviewed the Duck Tales games on episodes of the Nintendo Power Retrospectives, I’ve come to really dig (no pun intended) the pogo mechanic from that game. When Shovel Knight was released back in 2014, that game caught my interest, and seeing it at various Games Done Quick events just heightened my interest. However, my finances were never quite enough for me to pick up the game, even when it was available on sale – and then the game got a physical release for the Nintendo 3DS, which was carried by GameFly, so now I had no excuse. The game has a fairly simple premise – Shovel Knight used to adventure throughout the land with Shield Knight. However, Shield Knight was lost within the Tower of Fate, which was then sealed. When the evil Enchantress forms a group of knights within which to terrorize the land, called the Order of No Quarter, and then un-seals the Tower of Fate, Shovel Knight sets out to defeat the Enchantress and find Shield Knight. The game, at least with the Shovel Knight campaign, is primarily built around the pogo mechanic as a means of attack and traversal, with new abilities being made available in each level through “relics” which the player can equip, and which allow new methods of attack and traversal. These are obtained not when you beat particular bosses (like with Mega Man), but by vendors in hidden rooms in each level. Obtaining these items will cost a certain amount of gold. If you don’t have enough gold, a vendor in the first town can sell the item to the player – assuming you can beat the level. The abilities are incidentally useful – though rather than having their own power pool, like with Mega Man power-ups, they draw from a combined magic pool. Rather than letting you take on the levels in any order, as with Mega Man or Duck Tales, the levels are presented in blocks of three, with optional bonus stages that will allow you to earn additional cash and take on additional bosses. After beating each block of three, the way is open to the next block, and so on until you reach the Tower of Fate, which is made up of two distinct chunks, like with Dr. Wily’s Castle. The game doesn’t use a life system, instead giving you a near unlimited number of lives to get through the level. When you die, you are bumped back to the last checkpoint, marked by an orb with a gemstone inside, and you lose some of your cash – but you can get that money back as you make your way back through the level. However, if you die again, you will lose additional money, and the last batch of cash you dropped will no longer be available to pick up. Additionally, if a player wants some additional cash and an additional challenge,they can destroy the checkpoints for a quick buck, but the checkpoints (naturally) do not respawn if you die, and you’re bumped back to the last checkpoint that you didn’t destroy. Shovel Knight controls incredibly well. The controls feel even more precise than the controls on Duck Tales, while the jumps are spaced well enough that they provide a little margin of error. That said, movement with the analog pad on the 3DS was very loose – on multiple occasions, I attempted to pogo jump using the analog pad, and the game completely failed to recognize the down-input, and instead of pogoing, I instead hit the enemy and took damage. I can’t say if this is an issue for the versions of the game released on other consoles, but I’d recommend taking that under advisement anyway. My main issue with the game is with how the game’s final boss rush is handled. Generally, my views on boss rushes are that they should really be their own level, ideally with some sort of checkpoint in between each re-fought boss. The game does something similar to this by giving you a full health and magic refill in-between each fight. However, it also puts the bosses in a semi-random order, which makes planning your tactics rather frustrating. Additionally, I have an issue with how Tinker Knight is implemented in the boss rush. As a character, he basically has two life bars. He first takes you on one-on-one. In this form, he’s mostly a cake-walk, but his attack patterns are set up so you will end up taking some cheap-hits, particularly through a couple RNG (Random Number Generation) based attacks. After you’ve taken down his first life bar, he runs off screen and returns in a suit of power armor, with only one weak spot at the very top of the armor, and with a whole new life bar, and no way to recharge your health mid-fight. By comparison, Mega Man and Zelda II both gave the player abilities that let them heal their health mid-fight, E-Tanks in Mega-Man, and healing spells in Zelda II. Now, this is certainly a challenge, and if the game took the tack of, say, the way the Mega Man games handle their boss-rushes, by letting the player select the order of the bosses, I wouldn’t have as much room to complain – it would create a situation where the player could rip the band-aid off early, and take on the bosses that they felt they were weak at first, before moving on to the bosses that they felt were their strong suit, or vise versa. By putting the bosses in random order, that’s not an option, so you have to just hope that you get the bosses in the order that you want. Aside from those frustrating bits, I really enjoyed the game – it’s an excellent 2D platformer, and I really wish I’d taken the time to pick up this game sooner rather than later. If you have an opportunity to play this game, I’d recommend picking it up. Shovel Knight for the 3DS (and several other platforms) is available through Amazon.com. Filed under: Video games Tagged: indy games, Reviews, Video games

Having gone through the melodramatic gravitas of Fate/Stay Night (both regular route and Unlimited Blade Works), it’s prequel Fate/Zero, and the adaptation of the visual novel that came out sooner – Tsukihime, if I was to describe the next Type-Moon anime to come out in a short phrase, it would be “And now for something completely different!” Carnival Phantasm is an adaptation of a comedic manga series that put the characters from Fate/Stay Night and Tsukihime (and with it spinoff works like Melty Blood) in a variety of comedic scenarios. The scenarios generally don’t have any sort of coherent narrative to them, at least across works, and instead take the form of a variety of comedy sketches. The sketches range to everything from a bit where three of the characters from Tsukihime and Melty Blood perform as a manzai group, to the Holy Grail war being re-done both as a Japanese game show and as a Wacky-Races style car-race in two different episodes. The jokes tend toward the absurdist with a side of the slapstick. Generally, this works, through there are a few bits where the show does jokes based around how absurdly melodramatic and dark some of the bits in the shows can be, and the jokes come across less as funny due to the absurdity, and more hateful and mean-spirited. What helps the show the most is the fact that the because both visual novels have elements of harem series to them, when the show brings in more harem comedy elements as the basis for some of the sketches (like one where Saber takes a job at a cafe to buy Shirou a birthday present), it fits in perfectly. The one issue I have with the show is a lot of jokes in the show are based on elements of the game that aren’t particularly accessible if you haven’t played all the games – major characters from the show include characters from Melty Blood (which only recently got a US release on Steam – and only with the final installment of the series) or from the expansion story from Fate/Stay Night – Fate/Hollow Ataraxia. Unfortunately, as of yet Carnival Phantasm has yet to receive a US license. This is a bummer because it’s an absolutely hilarious show, which I think would really hit it off with fans, though the inclusion of characters from those two other games could be something of a barrier. Filed under: Anime Tagged: Anime, anime review, Fate franchise, Type-Moon

We make our final push to the beam, to head to the Citadel. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect 3, Video games

This time I’m taking a look at the first of the film adaptations of Cornelius Ryan’s books, with The Longest Day. Special Guest Appearance by The Historic Nerd: https://www.youtube.com/user/HistoricNerd Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/ Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/ Filed under: film Tagged: collaboration, Cornelius Ryan, Film Review, World War II

We take the fight to the Reapers, in the streets of London Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect 3, Video games

A while back I reviewed the Log Horizon anime. Since then, I’ve also decided to start reading the Log Horizon novels as well. First off is the first volume in the series. Log Horizon, at first glance, appears to be like the standard “Trapped in the MMO” game, but as covered in my review of the show – the dynamic of removing death’s sting does a lot to change the dynamics of the genre in a lot of respects. The first book is a more conventional adventure story set immediately after The Calamity trapped everyone in the world of the game. The book almost exclusively follows Shirou as a point of view character, as the population of The World tries to adapt to the situation they’ve found themselves in, and Shirou starts collecting the first members of his group of allies – Akatsuki (aka Tiny Ninja), and Naotsugu. The perspective shifts slightly on occasion to Serara, as she sees how society in Susukino is collapsing and meets Nyanta. The novel and the anime have some very pronounced shifts aside from adjustments to the point-of-view characters. In the anime, there is a clearly accessible HUD in the game world. By comparison, characters in the anime cannot access the HUD. Further, in the show, while in some flashbacks we see the game played in a Mouse & Keyboard format, the implication from the character’s experiences with the HUD is that the game had, at least for a little bit, been playable in VR. In the books, on the game has always been played Mouse & Keyboard style. This leads to another societal wrinkle – monsters are scary. Death may have not metaphorical sting, but fighting monsters hurts, and facing down a dragon is psychologically easier when you’re looking through a computer screen, instead of when it’s big as life. Other than that, the book is fairly strong. The big Three – Shirou, Naotsugu and Tiny Ninja – are fleshed out fairly early, and with it is their character dynamic. This is the case both with their character relationships, and the idea that Naotsugu and Shirou have worked together in the past and know each other IRL, while Akatsuki has played with the two before, but isn’t friends in the same way, and thus she feels a little awed at how well they work together. The book also starts laying the groundwork for some of the concepts that will be important in the next plot – the malaise filling Akiba, the state of the food, and so on, though it doesn’t quite set up what the real narrative thrust of the series will be in subsequent works. Log Horizon volume 1 is available from Amazon.com and RightStuf. Filed under: Books Tagged: fantasy, Fantasy Literature, light novels, Log Horizon

The Cloud Roads created a very interesting and narratively distinct fantasy world – one that was very different than most of the other works of fantasy that I’d read, and which had a fairly clear sequel hook. So, I was ready almost right away to move on to the next work in the series. The book starts fairly soon after the conclusion of The Cloud Roads, with the remainder of the Indigo Cloud court heading for their new home. They reach their home – the old lair of Indigo Cloud, a giant tree. However, on their arrival, they discover that the tree’s seed has been stolen, and they have to get it back before the tree dies. The first book had an interesting exploration of Raksuran culture as Moon came into Indigo Cloud for the first time. In this book, we get our first look at inter-court interactions, as Indigo Cloud is not the only Raksuran court in the area, and they have to deal with another court in the area. We also go into some additional world building in hunting down the seed, as members of Indigo Cloud end up heading for another groundling settlement in search of the seed. The settlement in question being on a leviathan – a swimming creature. Now, this already caught the interest of my inner DM in terms of interesting adventure ideas – one set on the inside of a giant tree, and the other set around (and possibly inside) a city on the back of a monstrous creature. While the setting stays unique, the narrative is a little more conventional – in this case something that begins as a heist – stealing back the seed – and ends up turning into something dramatically more involved. If I have a complaint, it’s that the power structure of the City on the Leviathan is very important to the story, and while the narrative gets into it in parts, it’s only where the politics falls into contact with the magical and ecological side of things – that the Leviathan can be controlled and how it can be controlled. The story doesn’t get into the groups of people who disagree over what should be done with that control and why they feel that way. Now, as far as the Raksura are concerned, that part doesn’t matter, as some of them aren’t really that concerned about the City and what happens to it. However, considering one of Moon’s defining traits is that he has learned how to blend into groundling society and feel out the local politics so he can pass among the people without making waves or getting into trouble – I would have thought this would have come up more often. Though, on the other hand, with the more focused exploration of Raksuran society with Indigo Cloud’s interactions with the other court, I supposed that from a time standpoint it couldn’t be helped. Filed under: Books Tagged: Books, Books of the Raksura, fantasy, Martha Wells

Before the final battle, we tour our ship. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect 3, Video games

I saw the latest installment of the Legendary Films Godzilla Cinematic Universe! Here are my thoughts (mostly spoiler free) on Kong: Skull Island. Please refrain from spoilers until 4/15/2016, to give people at least a month to see the film. Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/ Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/ Filed under: film, videos Tagged: film, Godzilla, Legendary Pictures Monsterverse, vlog

Let’s Play Mass Effect 3: Part 63 – “…serene in their assurance of empire over matter.” At long last, we take down Kai Leng. Filed under: Let's Play, Video games Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect 3, Video games

Thus far, the three shows in the Type-Moon universe that I’ve covered: Fate/Stay Night (F/SN), Fate/Zero, and Unlimited Blade Works (UBW) have been two-cour shows – spending 24 episodes to tell their story. In the case of F/SN and UBW, they have each adapted one route from the first Fate game – with the former title dropping a few elements of UBW in to give Rider a little screen time. However, Fate was not Type-Moon’s first game. Before this came Tsukihime, which set up elements that came up later in F/SN and Fate/Zero, and it too received an anime adaptation, one that came out prior to the release of F/SN – and with only a single cour (12 episodes). The question then becomes, how well can it tell its story in half the length? The answer is… not as well. The show follows Shiki Tohno, a young man who was nearly killed in a traumatic car accident 8 years prior to the start of the series. That accident damaged his memory, and left him with the ability to see lines at which things will break when they die or are destroyed, and with it nexuses that can be struck to break things. To avoid being driven mad by these lines, he’s received special magic glasses from a mage that will repress this ability. Also following this accident, Shiki moved in with his aunt and uncle instead of living at the main house. Immediately prior to the start of the series, Shiki’s father dies, and his younger sister and the current head of the family, Akiha, has him move back into the main house. While settling in to pace of life at the main house, he ends up discovering that families as old as his have some deep, dark secrets. Further, while all of this is going on, a vampire (or someone like a vampire, called a Dead Apostle) is attacking people through the town, and Shiki ends up joining forces with an attractive female semi-vampire named Arcueid (Arc for short), to find this vampire. So, if that sounds super-cluttered, that’s because it is. The game this show is adapting has not 3 routes, like Fate, but five. There are three for the Tohno household – Akiha, and the family’s two maids Hisui and Kohaku – and two for Arc and Shiki’s classmate Ciel. The household and external routes interact some, but not entirely, with Arc not showing up in some routes entirely. The show takes the decision to basically mash most of these routes together, so the important story mysteries get covered – Arc’s hunt for the vampire, and Shiki’s investigation of the history of his family. On the one hand, this leads to most of the loose ends getting tied up. However, because the show only has 12 episodes to tell its story in, nothing is tied up satisfactorily. This also hurts characterization, which is curtailed, meaning that a lot of characters don’t get the development they need to be fleshed out for the audience. Further, while I can’t speak for the game, the need to focus so strongly on the story means that there barely any humor in this show. Even the most dark and dour of the Fate series, Fate/Zero, had some very funny moments. Here, moments of levity are few and far between. To the show’s credit, the other Fate series covered over any sense of sex or sexuality related to the characters. Here, while we don’t get any sort of involved sex scene, the romantic relationship we see in this show doesn’t feel like it has to keep it chaste, something that even fanservice-heavy romantic comedy series like To-Love-RU feel like they have to do. I really appreciate that, and it gives the story a sense that it handles sexuality in an actually mature fashion. There are rumors that the visual novel that the show is based on is due for a remake with some updated graphics and an added route. Watching the show, I get the feeling that this anime would almost merit from a re-make more. Type-Moon’s universe has established itself considerably more as a successful franchise, so hopefully a new series would get the runtime it needs to tell its story well. Tsukhime is available on DVD from Amazon.com and RightStuf. Filed under: Anime, Reviews Tagged: Anime, anime review, Type-Moon

Mushibugyo is a series that has a real issue with tonal whiplash. There are anime series that have mixed creepy elements and comedy with tremendous effect – Ghost Hunt is an anime series adapted from a light novel with some strong comedy elements, which doesn’t overlook the creepier and more horrific elements of the narrative, with a well done escalation into further horror. Mushibugyo doesn’t do that. Mushibugyo starts off with super-colorful characters, an over-enthusiastic and incredibly dense shonen protagonist, and numerous fanservice jokes, but which also contains some surprisingly horrific elements created to the show’s primary menace. The show is set in an alternate Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate, where the country is terrorized by Mushi, giant insect monsters which kill anyone in their path. To fight against them, the Shogun institutes a patrol to fight against these creatures, underneath the Insect Magistrate (the titular Mushibugyo). This leads to our protagonist, Jinbei Tsukishima, the main character, who basically shonen protagonist #3. He’s hot-blooded, he’s got a long spiky hairstyle, complete with idiot hair that sticks so far in front of his face that he could be an anglerfish. He’s more enthusiastic and energetic than Naruto, denser than Tatewaki Kuno, and more desperate to prove himself than Deku. Consequently, this makes him as annoying as hell. The rest of the team is a little better. There’s Shungiku Koikawa, a hard drinking, hard fighting, brawler of a swordsman who killed 99 people to find out who killed his mother, before joining the Office of the Insect Magistrate. There’s Tenma Ichinotani, an onmyoji with paper familiars, who is young enough to be in Middle School (at least in contemporary Japan), and who is deathly afraid of insects. There’s Mugai, the cool, calm collected samurai with stoic demeanor and a dark and mysterious past. Finally, there’s Hibachi, the only woman of the team, a ninja who specializes in explosives and bombs, who seeks to prove herself because her clan doesn’t pass these techniques on to women (due to the fact that the Japanese name for this technique is a slang term for the testes), and who is hyper-sensitive about the fact that she has a flat chest. In short, the show’s cast is a collection of very stock, rote archetypes that could have been rolled on a “Random Shonen Anime/Manga Character” table. What kept me watching through the whole show was, frankly, the bugs. The show made the bugs look and feel legitimately creepy, and that they were a real menace that the public needed the forces of the Office of the Insect Magistrate to defend against. They rip through civilians in a gruesome fashion, and while the protagonists never have a really significant failure – losing a city or a district to the monsters, the animation gets across the menace of these threats without throwing a ton of redshirt characters in their way to get massacred. This also leads to why you’ve never heard of this show, and why it hasn’t gotten a second season in spite of the ongoing manga still being in publication – or rather, the adaptation of the original manga which came out in 2009, and which got a new adaptation in 2011 which is still going. In short, the reason you haven’t heard of it is because the first episoe of this show came out literally the day before: Seriously, when dealing with giant monster rampaging monster versus overmatched human shows, most people would likely go with Attack on Titan – and most people did go with Attack on Titan. The premise was novel, the setting was inventive, the stakes were higher, and the characters got fleshed out more before being brutally murdered. In short, it hit it off better in Japan and in the us than Mushibugyo did, which also probably explains why, at present, Mushibuyo was only licensed for streaming on Crunchyroll, and has yet to receive a US home DVD release. The show got DVD and Blu-Ray releases in Japan, and the single-volume Blu-Ray releases are incredibly cheap, but I’m not sure if they have English subtitles. Keep that under consideration if you decide to pick up a copy. Filed under: Anime, Television Tagged: Anime, anime review, shonen, TV