Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

The stuff of childhood nightmares is really there, right? I just thought about the whole idea of blood and gore for the sake of it and the MKX Kombat Pack somehow defines it. The Story Mode is weaker than the one found in Mortal Kombat (2011). Though the appearance of Freddie Kruger in MK (2011) somewhat signaled what I'd name as "unnecessary guest characters" though I love to brutalize them. The start? Well there's Aliens vs. Predator and I admit -- I've enjoyed brutalizing these frightening guys from my childhood. I remembered I used to have the fear of either Aliens or Xenomorphs invading the Earth -- even if they were just fiction! Even if I don't really find myself enjoying playing as these characters -- I still love the idea of using any of my Mortal Kombat favorites (like Liu Kang) to brutalize them? Favorite ways of killing them? Mine would be using the military stage fatality (let the army deal with them) or using Liu Kang's Hot Mess brutali...

As I was alternating between Tekken 7 and Mortal Kombat XL -- I was thinking that damn Namco why are you going backwards in some way? Sure, Tekken 7 presents better graphics, the Rage Art mechanics but I was thinking how anemic the game can be at certain levels. Treasure Hunt isn't as fun as the Ghost Mode and I think they could have also included Challenge Modes with various modifiers that can go together -- Tekken should TAKE BACK that crown from Mortal Kombat! MKX was released in 2015 and Tekken 7 was released in 2017 so WTF. Why is Tekken 7 lacking content in contrast to a game that was released two years ago? Here's what I think Tekken 7 SHOULD have added and I hope Namco is listening. Hopefully, they will release an upgrade and I don't care if I have to pay for additional digital content or get an upgraded disk for this. This is my idea called Organization Battles. This would be like Mortal Kombat X's faction wars where characters would select which side they ar...

As said, it seems that every Super Mario game is either a stage play or a TV show on its own. I mean, check out everything with Super Mario Bros. 3 (which had its 30th birthday yesterday) and you will find out several stuff that really shows it's a stage play. The curtains open, the checkered floors, casting shadows where there's supposed to be no shadows (though the SNES update corrected that) and the exit stage right where you got the cards. But I didn't mind anyway -- Super Mario's cast are what they are -- they are actors  who are set to different roles one after the other! Super Mario 3 started to establish a retelling of the Mushroom Kingdom story and may have ignored events in the first three games -- Super Mario Bros., The Lost Levels and Super Mario Bros. 2 (which was a remake of Doki Doki Panic) for an entirely new retelling of a story. The script focuses on King Bowser bringing his seven Koopa children which leaves us wondering if they were simply adop...

I admit, I once bought Tekken 6 and Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition together. I had a fun time comparing both of them. In this case, I decided to do some study on two blockbuster games that got an award and how they'd fare against each other. This made me think that even if I don't like most of what American entertainment offers yet some of them are good. I really like Japanese entertainment but I don't want to deny that Capcom has had poor management for some time! Now it's time for the showdown and I'd like to compare them in certain areas of the game. Arcade mode  The arcade mode seems to be the most important bare minimum of them all, right? Perhaps one of the biggest advantages (or not) of Mortal Kombat these days has been going straight to consoles while Tekken still goes to the arcades. Now I'd like to compare the arcade mode of both games. Mortal Kombat X still somehow sticks to the traditional arcade mode where you have ten opponents to fight such...

It's no secret that I'm a Tekken fan. Now I'm playing Tekken 7 and how does it fare for me as a single player? Was the wait worth it? I keep hearing praises for the game's new mechanics such as the Rage Art system (which can give people a chance or at least to lose gracefully in many ways) or it's beginner friendly while going to levels of deep. It has good controls but I thought about it that perhaps Angry Joe wouldn't be too pleased with Tekken 7. Is it me or is the Japanese entertainment industry declining? If so then it's pretty sad considering Japan revolutionized the world with various innovations only to decline later. I could talk about what I didn't like about Tekken 7. I remembered the 90s and what made people like Tekken -- the intuitive/instinctive gameplay where you used one button per limb (and this was later copied by Mortal Kombat's reboot), the 3D graphics which evolved overtime, the characters and not to mention the animated ...

Goro is perhaps that legendary sub-boss of Mortal Kombat -- though I personally found Kintaro in MK2 way harder than he was. What memories are there of this four-armed behemoth? I remembered how this guy took nearly a quarter of your health in ONE PUNCH and he could win the round in less than half the time there is! You can think of how this guy fires dangerous fireballs, he could stomp you, uppercut you so high and use his chest pound to do massive damage! It's no wonder why he was the undisputed champion of Outworld for nine generations of the Mortal Kombat tournament -- that was until Liu Kang took away said title from him! The four-armed behemoth went missing and was temporarily taken over by Kintaro and later by Motaro. He returned as a random sub-boss in Mortal Kombat Trilogy where he still had massive damage. He had an additional spin attack but lacked his stomp attack. He was made playable to both the PSX and the Sega Saturn. Hmmm... one could consider Mortal Kombat Tril...

Looney Tunes is already pretty old and this was a 50s cartoon. I remembered how my parents talked about this episode where a greedy dog got his just desserts. As funny as it is but it does have its morbid humor at the end. A greedy dog bullies a poor cat and mouse into doing stupid scams to help him get easy meat and money. Every time he gets meat he doesn't share it and he always asks for the gravy. Well, the big mean dog did get a lot of money and bought all the meat he wanted. He ended up getting so bloated in unrealistic proportions. In reality, he would have already died of a heart attack. The cat and mouse arrived and force fed him with gravy. The writers decided to leave the audience to decide the fate of the dog. IMHO, he would have really exploded and I wish he did considering that he had his ending coming to him after all, right? 

I was having my second thoughts on whether or not I should get Mortal Kombat XL some time ago. I've heard of how the Story Mode is disappointing -- and yes, I'm among those who think it pales to comparison to the Mortal Kombat (2011) in that area. Fortunately, there were some interesting parts that doesn't make it into Mortal Kombat Annihilated 2.0 and one of them is Scorpion's redemption and his relationship to Takahashi Takeda -- the very first student of the newly reformed Shirai Ryu. While Scorpion started out as a villain -- but his revival of his clan made him from neutral evil to good. Plus, the very first student was Kenshi Takahashi's illegitimate son he didn't know exist until he was eight years old. Plus, he resented his own father for suddenly showing up and not being there. So I was wondering did Netherrealm want a new generation Liu Kang since he does look like a cross of the franchise's two popular characters. He's got Liu Kang's h...

Super Mario Bros. 2 -- one game that has a lot of memories. It wasn't your typical Mario game. No fire flowers, no Bowser and yes if you knew it -- it was just a dream at the end of it! Though there's one theory of mine that every Super Mario game is a stage play or a TV show -- depending on how Shigeru Miyamoto wants to cast his actors in an entirely new story since almost every Super Mario game hardly has any continuity to each other. Super Mario Bros. 2 is no different since it was just a dream yet the sequence also suggests it's a play. The ending may mean that Mario is tired after the extended play. So tired he still dreams of every character involved!  What shocked me was that it was based on a Japanese game made by Nintendo called Doki Doki Panic . A game called Super Mario 2: The Lost Levels was released but the difficulty was that high. Nintendo's solution was to rehash their Japanese-only game named Doki Doki Panic for the western audiences. So, a new...

A great game is a great game and I just bought a PS4 some time ago. At first, I wanted to get one because I keep hearing how Mortal Kombat X was awarded with this and that. That would definitely make one want to buy the game, right? The game itself was described to have good, solid gameplay better than its successful predecessor Mortal Kombat (2011). I admit, I do enjoy some of its newest factors such as the return of Brutalities in a new fashion way (though you had to UNLOCK them in the Krypt presumably for replay value) and Stage Interactions are much better than it was with Mortal Kombat 4/Gold -- or how Goro doesn't fight Shinnok twice in the Arcade Ladder which was an error in the PS1 and how Shinnok himself does have some badass value.  I could rant all I want how I feel Story Mode isn't as good as the previous game. I could think of how the story pales in comparison to its previous installment four years ago. I thought of how meh it was to really WTF lock Shinnok ...