• Tag Archives Fantasy
  • Assorted Procedurals and Dramas

    Another group of non-Anime shows recently watched on a whim:

    • House M.D.: Yeah, Sherlock Holmes in a hospital is an apt description. So it’s not surprising that, as with Sherlock, the banter ends up the best part of the show. The dramatic aspects (particularly the crime-related ones) don’t work anywhere near as well… which ends up becoming a serious problem when it begins to place a much larger focus on them. The end of the 4th season marks the turning point and I wouldn’t suggest watching beyond the 5th unless you don’t mind skipping through large swathes of melodrama to reach the intermittent good bits.
    • The Unusuals: Tries too hard to be quirky and ends up blatantly artificial. Still often amusing in its ludicrousness though, and does manage to strike a more believable balance as it progresses.
    • Once Upon a Time: A mix of fantasy and urban fantasy that would’ve been better without the kid. I like the way it interweaves the various story-worlds together, but that’s about it.
    • Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: While heavier on the fantasy aspects, it has the exact same feel as the parent series.
    • Stalker: Like a stalker Inception or something. Stalkers everywhere. It’s actually pretty interesting, albeit incredibly creepy.
    • Designated Survivor: Exciting, but it could do without the family issues angle. The spontaneous roadblocks/escalations early-on also tend to come across as forced.
    • The Good Wife: Features a solid mix of drama, thriller-like suspense, and situational comedy (both low-key and exaggerated) with a fantastic cast. The main flaws would be an unfortunate fondness for dramatic zooms and lingering close-ups along with the seemingly neverending game of law firm musical chairs.
    • Rosewood: Eh. The smugness is kinda overwhelming and the lab segments come across like performance art.
    • Castle: The first episode has a number of serious structural and personality-based issues which are thankfully nowhere near as severe in later ones. Eventually it becomes a highly entertaining mix of drama and comic interludes with a dynamic very similar to Bones‘ (with a less believable romance angle). I strongly suggest skipping the last season however, as similar to House this show suffers when that balance gets upset and later seasons lean more and more toward drama.
    • CSI: Cyber: Incredibly staged. This kind of style might work for a campy gameshow; it’s a complete failure in a crime procedural.
    • Secrets and Lies: Nice atmosphere, but a couple key characters (including the detective) simply don’t work at all.
    • Murder in the First: Gritty. In a good way for the most part. Gets over-zealous with its messaging though.
    • Cracked: I don’t like the male protagonist at all. The level of crazy is also, perhaps unsurprisingly, very high.

  • Overlord

    After an impressive 12-year run, the popular virtual reality MMORPG Yggdrasil has decided to shut its servers down. On the last day of operation, the leader of one of the game’s most powerful guilds decides to stay logged on to the very last second… only to find himself trapped in a gameworld which has taken on a life of its own. Seemingly the only remaining PC in a world full of former NPCs, he sets out with an army of minions to discover exactly what has happened.

    An abridged version of the Overlord TV series that features a few new/extended scenes.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Wikipedia


  • Mozaika

    It’s been 10 years since King Sazara began subjugating the people of Mozaika, even executing his loyal retainer U Dante when he spoke out against the sudden wave of tyranny. Now only the house of Azoron remains opposed to his conquest, while Dante’s son Taruma has set out on his own quest for vengeance.

    A fantasy-world action-drama with a moderate number of sci-fi elements.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Wikipedia


  • Sengoku Choujuu Giga ~Otsu~

    A re-imagining of events that took place during the second half of the Sengoku period, with the principal actors depicted as anthropomorphic animals.

    The same style of visuals and comedy as the first part, with an expanded cast of characters. Chronological order for the events is: 4, 11-12, 6, 10, 5, 1, 7, 13, 2, 9, 8, 3.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Crunchyroll
    Wikipedia


  • Sengoku Choujuu Giga ~Kou~

    A re-imagining of events that took place during the second half of the Sengoku period, with the principal actors depicted as anthropomorphic animals.

    A gag comedy which uses an unconventional visual style. Chronological order for the events is: 9, 7, 4, 6, 13, 1, 10, 12, 2-3, 5, 11, 8.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Crunchyroll
    Wikipedia


  • FAIRY TAIL (OVAs)

    Not every day has to be a life or death experience, and in the downtime between world-shaking events the mages of the Fairy Tail guild often find themselves doing more mundane things such as cleaning a pool, training at the beach, or relaxing at a water park.

    A collection of side-stories primarily focused on ecchi and comedy. Though most of them take place at various points during the parent series (1 & 3 are in the 69-97 range, 4 is post-123, 5 is between 170 & 171, and 7-9 are post-201), a couple (2 & 6) are stand-alone what-ifs.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Wikipedia


  • Aquarion Evol

    Far in the future a mysterious disease eliminates the planet Altair’s female population. Not wanting their race to go extinct they decide to abduct women from the planet Vega, which responds by forming a gender-segregated defense force to repel the increasingly brazen attacks. However, only by coming together can the pilots harness the true power of the Aquaria mecha.

    A relationship focused action series that’s set thousands of years after the events of Sousei no Aquarion. The connection between the two is mostly limited to the character reincarnation theme and having seen that isn’t necessary to follow along here.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Crunchyroll
    Funimation
    Wikipedia


  • Lords of Xulima – Early Game

    How refreshing. Based on all the warnings about stocking Food and limited resources I was very worried at first about this game, but as it turns out the hunger system is easily abolished through modding and only the XP is limited (which is barely worth noting since quite a few RPGs have limited XP).

    Once the needless hassle of the farmville simulator elements is removed it’s quite a lot of fun and reminds me most of, interestingly enough, the modern King’s Bounty games. You can pick up simple quests, find containers filled with loot scattered about, and encounter static enemies with listed difficulty classes which you can either temporarily avoid or fight (with exceptionally difficult/impossible groups blocking access to areas/items you’re not supposed to reach yet).

    The very beginning is tough since you won’t have many skills and your accuracy will be awful, but once you hit level 5 or so battles start getting notably easier since you have more options available (assuming you built your characters correctly and didn’t waste skill points). At the moment I’m about to enter the Tower, having cleared the beach/forest/cave/mausoleum/roads (apart from the Ogre/Mushrooms obviously) with a level 5/6 party consisting of a Paladin (Evasion-focused), Cleric, Summoner (Golot, Raznet, & Valvet), Thief (shurikens/swords), Bard, and of course the Explorer (not being forced to take the Terrain skill let me easily build him fighter-ish). Early fights were a real slog due to the anemic damage but now the defensive synergies are starting to come together and I’m finally able to upgrade some weapons.

    Of course that’s by no means an optimized party composition (their stats are though; Speed all the way) and I definitely would not suggest anyone try it on any difficulty other than Casual/Normal unless you want to do a lot of reloading. It’s nowhere near focused enough with weapon types scattered between bleeding, wounding, and stunning. Instead I suggest checking out multiple class guides to get a feel for the few absolutely necessary things to do (like always raise Speed each level, and max out Learning if you’re like me and want to decimate late-game) and then put together something that looks fun.

    Speaking of which, I’m kind of torn whether or not to keep playing with this party or start up a new one using two Arcane Soldiers and a Mage (since this one has 0 magic apart from the Cleric). By default the AS class isn’t very exciting, but I believe that can be fixed by simply tweaking a couple skill costs. I also want to modify the Explorer skill costs a bit and tweak the Nalaet summon to work as a Cleric substitute… so that you’re not effectively forced to run a Cleric in every party… but I’m not sure if the AI would still work with altered skills. We’ll see how things go.


  • Elminage: Gothic

    There are two kinds of difficulty, fake difficulty (primarily arising from having the adversaries cheat) and real difficulty. This game unfortunately includes both varieties in a particularly tedious and hassle-filled combination.

    On the one hand it features enemies that can do all the same things your characters can (including instant-death attacks) in great numbers (encounters range up to groups of 18). This is real difficulty. On the other… it also gives enemies abilities your characters can’t possess (even if you Summon Contract them; such as formation switching), gives them infinite spell casting, resets your attributes to the racial (not class) minimums if you multi-class, has equipped items reduce your free carry space, completely disallows resting outside of town, and restricts having a basic map to a specific spell/item (L1 Mage/Magic Map). That’s all fake, artificial difficulty.

    The two real deal killers are the map system, since the environmental graphics are incredibly bare-bones and floors are filled with miles of identical walls and doors which inexplicably auto-close behind you (more fake difficulty), and lack of a dungeon-based resting system which makes primary spellcasters dead weight most of the time… unless you had the fore-knowledge to make them Dragonewts for the Breath attack. It also doesn’t help that leveling is unexciting; apart from gaining new spells (which you’ll rarely use in normal encounters) the only other useful level-up abilities come from ‘mastering’ a class at level 26+.

    If all that wasn’t enough though, there’s also the technical issues. Sometimes left-clicking won’t work as a selection command (such as when transferring items between characters) and you have to use the relevant keyboard command instead (Enter by default), using the ‘repeat last round commands’ function does not repeat the character ordering if you set it, the identify/disarm traps menu is a clunky mess, and the town menus are an unintuitive labyrinth.

    So no, I don’t think I’ll be playing any more of such a highly random and deliberately antagonistic game. Some resources if you decide to attempt it:

    Useful Information and Walkthrough
    Cheat Engine Table (GoG Version)
    Age Stat Growth and Spirit Pact Information (GoG Version)


  • Risen 3: Titan Lords

    Honestly, though I know it’s not quite fair, I feel like I got ripped off by paying $6 for this game.

    Visually speaking it’s on par with Arcania (despite being released 4 years after) while the combat, though not as clunky as Risen 2‘s, brings to mind the first Witcher.

    If the above weren’t bad enough it suffers severely from a limited progression system, a general lack of combat variety, and several painfully gimmicky set-piece battles (naval combat & the Ore Titan). Consider that the very first tutorial fight is almost identical to the penultimate boss battle, and then take into account that even at 180 Slashing with the best Slashing weapon (or 180 Crystal Magic with an Elemental Attack spell) the weakest enemies in the game take 2 normal hits to kill. There is little sense of progression and you never feel truly powerful even with maxed-out stats.

    That’s not to say the game is hard… because it’s not. While your damage is fairly anemic, it’s pretty easy to become effectively invincible with high enough resistances. So all in all the game ends up being the worst of both worlds; people who want a challenge will dislike it because it’s practically impossible to die, while people who want to play powerful characters will also dislike it because the combat is awkward and enemies just never die fast enough.