Digimon Marathon: Digimon Tamers: Dark reboots before they were cool

It's not often you see the same team do a darker reimagining of their own idea. "You thought Adventure and Zero Two was to cheerful, well, time we hit you in the feels". It's a brand new world, new Digi Destined and the kid friendly version of hacking. Time for the Tamers to take the lead.

Digimon Marathon: Digimon Adventures 02: "Why can't we send in the competent ones?"

Ah Zero Two. One of the most debatable seasons of the series out there. Both praised and hated by many. But as with Adventure, how well does it hold up now? Four new Digi-destined, new Digivolution (mechanics?) and more, Time to review Digimon Adventure 02.

Digimon Marathon: Digimon Adventure: Happy Birthday my two blogs, for your present: time to delve into the Digital World

Two days early? Yes, but still... Happy one year anniversary!!! This Wednesday will mark the launch of Blaster's Projects (pop quiz, who still remembers the original name of the site?) and one day later, the launch of Blaster's Reviews. Cue the dancers:

... Note to self, work on better theme integration...

So yes, almost one year on, I thought it would be fitting to have some sort of celebration, and what better way then to review something I talked about early in the sites life and a clear contrast to what my first review was: Digimon. Ah Digimon, the tabu of my Primary School. Everyone knew about it, but you either hated it as a Pokemon clone, or never looked at it due to several reasons (me being one of that second). I remember watching a few episodes randomly, Australian TV at the time wasn't known for its speedy and consistent arrivals. It wasn't until several years later where I'd sit down to watch them properly, thanks in part to vague memories and a friend of mine randomly mentioning it (good luck conducting the band for Violet by the way). As I mentioned last year, I prefer the Digimon Anime over the Pokemon one nowadays, but I think its about time to go into detail. From today, up until near the end of March, three posts a day, will be nothing but Digimon. I also want to stress that, aside from the last review due to lack of localization to my knowledge, I'll be covering the English Dubs as I can analyze them in greater detail. Time to delve into the past that was late 90's-early 2000's children's television and the generally accepted rival to Pokemon and how it has survived almost 16 years later (in two weeks, it'll have been 16 years since the original run). Time to start the Digimon Marathon, up first: Digimon Adventure.

Rescue Heroes: Thunderbirds are... wait... you're saying there's a difference?

You know the saying "with age comes experience", with it also comes confusion. Have you ever re-watched a show that you used to love when you were a child and go "I used to watch this?" It's a weird feeling isn't it?

When I was working on the schedule for content uploads, I had a spot free to which I offered the choice to my mother as today is her birthday. After several weeks of changing her mind, she "chose" this (by that I mean she suggested it and I said "I have to start working on it, no more changing your mind"... Of course there's another one which I turned down for now so... one review at a time...), forceful padding aside, lets see how this not Thunderbirds holds up, Rescue Heroes Season 1+2 (I'm having trouble finding season 3 somewhere I can obtain it to review).

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Seasons 1-4... This is going to be a long week...

When I started this reviews site, I knew this would come up sooner or later. This is one of the reviews that I’m not sure how it’s going to be taken, not by fans of the show or by you who read this, but by people I know in real life. This is also something that I have quite a bit to say so this is one of the reviews that are going to be spread over several posts (five to be precise). I am willing to review other aspects of the franchise at a later time if I get the request for them, especially while I look to see what sticks and what doesn’t. But until then, let’s get this underway, to whatever it gets, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Seasons 1-4.

Disclaimer: No, I am not a Brony and I'm definitely not a Pegasister (though I'm hoping that last one is obvious...)

I would insert a cover here, but I couldn't find a good one so...

First Impressions: Sonic Boom

I openly admit that I'm behind the times, this song did come out in 1993 an was the theme for Sonic CD in the US and is one of the most well known Sonic vocal songs of all time...

My apologies for that, I got my documents messed up...

Sonic Boom, the upcoming Sonic game for 2014 along with the new TV show based on the two games. And as usual for Sonic games, they get unneeded hate from the fan base. Why? I'll answer that at the end of this.

I'll start with the games. As with Sonic Lost World, a 3DS version and a WiiU version will be made, but unlike Lost World, the consoles will have a different version of the game with a different plot, playable characters ect. In Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, you can play as Sonic, Tails, Amy and Knuckles, the main 4 characters for the franchise.

 And as you can see from this, all four of them have had a redesign. For a better look...

Before I get to gameplay, I'll go through the "controversial redesigns".

• Sonic: There is barely anything is different with him. I like the little bit of detail in his spines, yes the exsessive use of sports tape is a bit of a let down but the same thing applies to all the characters except the "new" character so I'm going to ignore it. I love the addition of the scarf as it adds that little bit of detail to the character that updates him properly for the first time since the Dreamcast.
• Tails: The short and sharp version of my opinions on Tails is that he actually looks like a engineer now, which I like
• Amy: Ever since the designs were revealed, I haven't had any thing to say about Amy spesifically. I like this design more so then her main design as it seems to be more functional then the main design in the main series (at this point in time, this is a spin off of the series). I like the update to the hammer, even though it will probably be as ridiculous as ever in terms of physics (Amy is the reason why "Hammer space" exists).
• Knuckles: The controversy magnet for these redesigns... Where do I begin with Knuckles... How about the fact that he's not that bad. Even when I first saw him I didn't think he was that bad. Not great, I will admit that there are flaws but its not the end of teh world that people are making him out to be. I'm not a fan of his height, I do think he could be a bit shorter. I do like the fact that he has a lot more bulk to him now as he is supposed to be the muscle of the group, something that doesn't make sense in the current series. I will admit that the lack of a neck is more of a problem with Knuckles then it is for anyone else but I can learn to live with it.
• And finally, defiantly not Marine the Racoon, original creation do not steel... aka Sticks the badger: In terms of design, when its not screaming "I SHOULD HAVE BEEN MARINE", she looks ok. I'm skeptical about her character at this point in time i'm going to hold off on my thoughts about her, until I can see her in action.

If you want a look at some more characters, look here for the concept art: http://blogs.sega.com/2014/07/23/meet-characters-in-the-sonic-boom-universe/ don't ask for impressions on these characters.

As for Gameplay of the WiiU version, it looks fun. Simple, but fun. If you've played a Crash Bandicoot game, then you'll recognize the play styles of the characters. But seeing as the founders of Big Redd Button, the developers behind the games, came from Naughty Dog and worked on the first three Crash Bandicoot games (on top of the fact that Crash was based on Sonic) its no surprise. Each of the characters have a different play style and different paths they can travel to get to the end of the level. Sonic's is based on the 3D sonic games like Adventure, Heroes and Generations, Tails is mechanical and ranged based combat, Amy is the most athletic (has the highest jump ect) and uses acrobatic motions to platform with the help of her hammer, and Knuckes plays how you would expect him to.He can climb walls, tunnel underground, mow through enemies using his fists, the usual. As for Sticks... I have no idea. The gameplay is likely to be replicated in the 3DS version except the fact that it will be 2D based so for now, assume that what I said effects both versions.

Story wise: I'm going to directly quote the Sonic Wiki because news on the plot is scarce.

The Rise of Lyric (WiiU): "Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric follows Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, Amy Rose and Sticks as they do battle against the evil Dr. Eggman. The group find themselves arriving on an island where they encounter an ancient tomb sealed deep within the island. There, they come across a powerful snake-like villain from a race called the Ancients, named Lyric, who plans to power his army of war mongering robots with the Chaos Crystals and destroy the world. To stop Lyric's evil plan, the group must put aside their differences and find the Chaos Crystals before Lyric. The stakes have never been higher, and the only chance to overcome Lyric is to band together and work as a team."

Shattered Crystal: "In Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, Amy discovers a secret ancient language and manuscript detailing the history and whereabouts of a Lost Crystal of Power. The evil and vile villain, Lyric, kidnaps Amy in his eagerness to get his claws on this long-forgotten power that has been hidden throughout the jungles and canyons of a mysterious new island. Sonic must team up with Tails, Knuckles and new friend Sticks to trace Amy’s footsteps and save her from the clutches of Lyric and his robot army. By trusting in their own abilities and working as a team, they will prove they are stronger together than they are apart."

Based on that, the plot for the WiiU version sounds interesting and I'm curious as to how it will be implemented. My only issue with the story is the 3DS version. Why is Amy being kidnapped? It doesn't make any sense based on her personality. The last time she was kidnapped was in Sonic Adventure and her kidnapper was the final boss in her part of the story so I hope something like this happens again.

Finally, the TV show. For the first time since Sonic X, we will be having another Sonic cartoon. from the two trailers we've seen, it looks like its going to have a comical side to it but I'm not sure how much humor is in the show. We've only had two trailers and they're being very vague as to what the show is about in my opinion. Only time will tell. The next impression will be Yoshi's Woolly world with Code Name S.T.E.A.M being the one after.

Transformers Marathon: Transformers: Cybertron. Why? Because "OUR WORLDS ARE IN DANGER" and we must protect them "Till all are one"

Now to a personal favourite of mine, while Armada might have been my first season of Transformers and this my last because they weren’t shown on Free to air TV here, Transformers Cybertron will always have a place in my heart. But does it still hold up when I look at it as a reviewer? This is my review of Transformers Cybertron. 

Transormers Marathon: Transformers Armada. Lets build up a army of robots that are smaller then our enemy to help take down said enemy when they could be crushed. GENIUS!!!

And now it’s time to look at the series that got me into Transformers, Transformers: Armada. This was a “return to roots” series for Transformers as the last English series was Beast Wars and its sequel. The issue it has however is that it retreads old ground with a new concept. I’ll be comparing Generation 1’s four seasons to Armada a lot in this review but not taking the movie into consideration (it’s unfair to compare a movie to a TV season, regardless of the age).

Transformers Marathon: The Transformers Seasons 3 and 4. "THE FACES OF oh wait, wrong franchise..."

Unfortunately, we’re not done yet with Generation one of Transformers as there were more episodes of the TV show based after the events of the movie, so if you haven’t seen the movie, well then you’re going to be lost as to what the hell is happening in this new episodes. Time to look at Transformers: Generation 1, wave 2. This review is going to be short as a lot of the issues I had with the first two seasons are still apparent for the most part with a few exceptions.

The plot follows on from Transformers the Movie, and like the seasons before it, it doesn’t do anything aside from that as each of the episodes are self contained. That being said though, the stories themselves are stupid a lot of the time, as if the writers ran out of ideas. In one episode, the Autobots have to deal with a Zombie Optimus Prime and then, a few episodes latter, Daniel (Spike’s Son) and Grimlock are sent to the Transformers equivalent of Ghosts and Goblins. When the Decepticons (THE MAIN VILLAINS OF TRANSFORMERS) are the villains, most of the time they come off as pathetic or (in Galvatron’s case) outright insane. The reason why I say “When the Decepticons are the villains” is because a new threat is introduced: The Quintasons, the creators of the Transformers (and scrambling the nonexistent cannon of Generation 1). Are they good villains? Well they come up with good plans, but their still not good villains. The Quintasons are the Transformers equivalent of the Terminators, calculating but don’t do much (unlike said terminators). They come up with the plans, but even when they say the odds of sucsess, you know they’re going to fail so there’s no point. On top of that, they had a 5 part intro at the start of Season 3 called “The five faces of Darkness” (hence the joke in the title) which, in terms of story, is boring to no end. I criticised Season’s 1 and 2 for having fast delivery of its story and it’s ironic now that I’m saying that the delivery in those five episodes (six technically) was to slow because of the amount of padding in it.

Another big issue I have with Season 3 and Season 4 is the cast. While the cast from Transformers the Movie was good for the movie, they can’t hold a tv show, let alone two seasons with a combined total of 34 episodes. On top of that, the issues with the cast in the movie are increased here, like Blur and Wheelie (who I didn’t mention in the movie review because he was bearable).Wheelie is almost as annoying as Blur because his voice is so annoying and he says everything in rhyme with Blur becoming almost unbearable. Galvatron on the other hand, what did they do to you? Not only are you insane, but your new voice is awful. Rodimus Prime’s personality is bland and dry (like Ultra Magnus). It’s just awful. Is it sad when Grimlock is the best character in the main cast?

Season 3 and Season 4 are set in space, as the Autobots and Decepticons travel to other planets which, while good in theory, also brings up problems. Setting the fight in space means that the designers can have alot of fun with the design for the other races of other planets. WHEN THE RACE ISN’T MACHINE, THEY LOOK UGLY. It might just be my opinion but most of the alien races in these seasons look ugly and horrible and when their machines, they look almost exactly the same as Transformers, even having similar abilities (aside from the Quintasons) so what was the point? My other issue is their definition of the term “planet”. If by today’s standards Pluto isn’t a planet, then most of these shouldn’t be anything close to the term. For examples, look Up Quintessa, Goo and Junkeon (yes, those are the names of some of the planets).

It sounds like I’m on the attack when it comes to Season 3 and 4 and there are a few reasons to it. While the most likely is because I’ve been marathon’d all of generation 1 in the space of a week when its supposed to be taken at a slower pace and I’m just sick of it. The other, big reason is because they didn’t need to exist. Transformers the Movie was a great way to close the generation as it sorted out almost everything. While Season 4 is a better way because it sorts out everything, the process of getting to it is so bland and bleak that you don’t care by the time it comes. Season 3 and 4 loves to kill off characters; my only wish is that they KILLED OFF THE BLAND CHARACTERS INSTEAD OF THE GOOD ONES. Finally, Season’s 3 and 4 fall under the same category as the seasons prior, they have not aged well and the movie only made them worse as they went back to the style of Seasons 1 and 2 , animation errors and all. They essentially took the bad aspects of the movie, and turned them into two seasons. If you’re going to watch them, you can both watch them before the movie and ruin the movie, or after and have an awful time, you can’t win with them. I will admit though, there are some great scenes in all of generation 1 including the rise of the Dinobots, Tripticon's scenes and seeing Cybertron in its golden age again are just a few that I can come up with off the top of my head. In short, Seasons 3 and 4 didn't need to exist as the movie was the best way to end Generation 1. Up next in the Transformers Marathon, it’s time to leave the 80’s and move into the new millennium with the start of the Unicron Saga, Transformers: Armada.

The Transformers Marathon. The start of the war: Transformers Generation 1, the first wave

With the release of Transformers 4: Age of Extinction coming soon, I thought it would be fitting to countdown its release (and most likely finish past its release) in cinemas with a marathon of Transformers. What is there to say about Transformers? It’s a series to which its plot has never developed past your basic Good vs. Evil. So why is it still popular to this day? Why do the toys keep selling? I want to say I was around 7-9 (I’m not exactly sure but I do remember the first Transformer I ever got) years old when I got into the series and while I haven’t seen every season of Transformers (such as the Japan exclusives) or played every game, what I’ll be reviewing is still a decent portion of the franchise. With that said, time to start things off with the first ever generation, The Transformers (more commonly referred to as Transformers G1). This review will just be covering the first two seasons (what I will be calling “first wave”) with the last two seasons reviewed latter on in this marathon.

The plot of the first half of generation 1? Well for the first season at least: the Decepticons want to steal Earth’s energy to take over the universe (insert stereo typical “OF COURSE!” scene here) and the Autobots have to stop them... Doesn’t seem like a compelling story does it? The writers do however provide interesting stories that fall under this basic, overarching concept, such as multi planet stories, shifting from Earth to Cybertron and back again. The main reason why the story kept people watching was when they introduced new Transformers. Over the course of the seasons, new transformers would join either the Autobots or the Decepticons including Skyfire, the Dinobots, Constructicons, Astrotrain and more. The other aspect of the plot is this, while the overarching plot is bland, the individual episodes were quite interesting. There are times however where the story felt rushed, with one of the worst examples being the pilot episodes. There was a argument between Optimus Prime and Spike and Sparkplug about their help fighting the Decepticons. Spike and Sparkplug say that they know more about the planet then they do and Optimus just agrees then and there, it was poorly written and could have been better.

The animation on the other hand is... dated. The animation is quite nice considering other shows at the time, but doesn’t look good compared to newer animations. The fight scenes are slow and clunky. On top of that, there are several times where the animation and the sound don’t match up and scenes that just don’t make sense to what’s happening. It might be because of the versions I watched but these could be actual issues with the show. There are times where there were animation errors, mainly lack of colour in small portions of the shot, but these are forgivable as they don’t really matter in the long term... most of the time. There are rare cases of obvious miss colours of transformers, including multiple Starscream’s in the same shot. My big complaints with the animation are some of the transformations, with Megatron, Soundwave and Reflector being some of the worst when it comes to this. The sizes of some of the transformations don’t make sense. Megatron shouldn’t be able to transform into a gun that size, Soundwave shouldn’t be able to turn into a tape recorder (did I mention that it was a 80’s cartoon) and the three transformers that make Reflector shouldn’t be able to turn into a camera. A lot of the smaller Autobots also fall into this category but not to the same scale, I’m more likely to believe that Bumblebee, who’s only slightly bigger then a human, can transform into a normal size Volkswagen bug, then I am to believe that three transformers can turn into a standard camera (for the time).

The characters themselves do have distinct personalities, even if they are rushed some times (most of the time...). Optimus and Megatron’s personalities conflict in several ways, giving a subtle reason for the war, the human characters are distinct enough however they don’t really develop during the story (or if they do, it’s so slowly that you don’t notice). I would go into more detail regarding personalities, but because of the sheer number of characters that are in the story, it would be a review in itself. I will say however, the personalities of the characters don’t change from this generation if they appeared in this generation (for the most part).

It’s understandable for something like Transformers’ first season to have these issues; it was a 16 episode season with obviously low budgets, but what about the second season? The animation quality for the second season is better, as there are fewer animation errors (and the ones that are there are far between). The budget also shows a improvement as the backdrops are much bigger in comparison to the first season and the season itself is much longer. The plot still feels a bit rushed but its better then season 1. As for the soundtrack of the two seasons, most of the tracks are really forgettable and repetitive. There wasn’t any standout background track and after a while, they become ear grading as they just become annoying (though that might be because I watched the seasons in a week, with little distractions in terms of other entertainment). I will admit though that the theme song, like a lot of 80’s cartoons, is great with my personal favourite version so far (for generation 1) being the version for season 2. There is a reason why fans wanted the theme to be in the Bay films.

The first two seasons of Transformers did their job’s well. It introduced kids to the concept and it set the stage, standards, and lore of the entire franchise. If you intend to watch it, you have to switch your mind off and acknowledge that the shows are 30-40 years old now. If you’re a fan of the Transformers series, I would recommend watching them, just to see how far the franchise has come. For people new to the franchise, Generation 1 (at least seasons 1 and 2) isn’t the best generation to start in comparison to the latter generations. It’s flawed but the concept itself is still great to this day. But there are aspects to the first generation that I haven’t covered yet so up next: Transformers the Movie.

The First Season of K-On Anime... I got nothing for this...

It's hard to put into words what I think about K-On overall, there are aspects that I like but a big issue that I have...

I should explain the plot though, the story follows four high school girls Yui Hirasawa, Mio Akiyama, Tsumugi Kotobuki and Ritsu Tainaka with Azusa Nakano joining in around half way through the series (you can thank Wikipedia for the names) as they keep the light music club alive, including song writing, a few gigs, ect. The characters themselves are ok, their personalities and the way they behave are consistent but the big issue I have with the series is one thing: THE PERSONALITIES BELONG TO THOSE OF (Middle school???) (this is a Australian talking where the educational system is literally Primary School (Prep (5 years old) to year 6 (11-12 years old) and then High school which is essentially Middle school and High school in other places combined, from there its straight to University). I guess it should make sense in that regard but because K-On loves to shove it down your throat that it's set in Japan, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The story itself is mediocre at best. The day to day episodes are ok but there are a lot of gaps in a year. When they managed to fit two years in 13 episodes and then have enough material for a second, larger season, it comes off as a bit lazy to me. I get that their High school students but a Year is a long time...

Because the plot is based around the idea of belonging to the "Light Music Club", there are a lot of singing in the show. I watched the dub and while the non singing parts were ok, I was grateful that the dub kept the Japanese songs and subbed them. The songs have a nice melody to them but shouldn't be herd or read (if you want a good example, listen to the Lucky Star theme in Japanese and then English).

You'd have to be a specific target demographic to like something like K-On, it might be because I don't watch a lot of High School anime (this being my 3rd ever), it didn't keep my interest very well. I've started watching the second season to see if they improve but my hopes are low. If you like High School anime, then by all means watch it if you haven't already, but otherwise just skip it.

Welcome

Welcome to the site that will be hosting my reviews on games, movies, anime, TV (rarely because I don't watch a lot of TV) and stuff I think I should critique. I want to turn these into videos someday but I don't want to until I have the capabilities to do so. For those who are interested, I have a second blog that talks about a concept that I designed called Super Smash Brothers: Fan Disagreement. If people would like to find out more, click on the link here -> http://fandisagreement.blogspot.com.au/. Otherwise, enjoy.

Please tell me what you think about the reviews I post as it helps me improve my skills (assuming its constructive criticism).