Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

The 90s have some good memories and some bad ones too. I was thinking about the PSX era when it was marred with SLOW LOADING TIMES. Then, you can also consider some Dragon Ball Z games for the PSX. I could cite these were the following... Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 I remembered owning this game in the 2000s even if the game came out in 1995. The game does sound good on paper. However, the more I got into the game - the more I realize that while it can be fun against a friend but the single player is extremely lacking. Sure, I could go ahead and skip those pre-fight dialogues on the OPTION MENU but I'd like to talk about why I hate the game now. Remember when you went to the one player game? The problem is that you had to fight ALL 22 (or 27 if you put the cheat code in) characters rather than some random characters and a final boss. It really isn't enjoyable fighting all those 22 or 27 characters. Also, I'd like to say that the slower pace of the fighting doe...

I remembered the time I saw the Filipino-English dub of Tosshou Daimos on GMA-7. I really wonder did Richard (Kazuya) die in the end? It seemed to be as Erika wept as Richard closed his eyes. Yet, he didn't spit out blood or what? then there's the narration that follows... If you've noticed - it says that "The devotion of Kazuya and Erika who risked their lives for love and peace led to a new era for the future for the people of Baam and Earth." Then the narration says that the new era is left to our imagination. The Telesuccess end narration says, "Richard and Erika, through their love for one another form a BOND not just between themselves but also to the people on earth and their cosmic neighbors, and as a new race rise its birth, the universe resounds it's welcome" So it's possible that the narration implies Kazuya was simply just tired and Erika was crying tears of joy.  So, what's the interpretation? It has an open-ended end...

It's so secret that Tekken and Mortal Kombat have the habit of mixing ideas from other games. They both have had good entries, bad entries, some notorious broken AI during the earlier days, and some similar characters. Both series have a wasted plotential (which is a term I borrowed from 4th Snake) or wasted plot potential from these two characters. Kunimitsu appeared in the first two Tekken games. Tekken was where she was Yoshimitsu's sub-boss but she never got an ending until the second game. The aim of Kunimitsu is to take over the Manji Clan. However, she was never mentioned again. Instead, Yoshimitsu gained a new and more dangerous rival in Bryan Fury. Kunimitsu's only later appearances were in the Tekken Tag Tournament games which are NOT canon. Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance wanted to be a competitor to Tekken . However, I'd say boo hoo to it and it's good that the arcade machine that's used to kill someone in Mortal Kombat 11 is the MKDA arcade machi...

Well, for a bit of nostalgia for Thursday - I wonder how many 1980s to 1990s children played this. In my case, I NEVER got the chance to finish this game not, especially after our Famicom broke, we bought a PSX for Christmas, and I never had the chance to play it again until the digital age came to restore a lot of old school stuff. This was a game that I thought was by Nintendo, I called Higgins as "Mario", and there was this badass-looking rhinoceros monster in the artwork. So, it's basically inspired by Mario (in a way) except with what I'd call a lack of diversity and lower-grade graphics. That would probably explain why Adventure Island II had given Higgins a lot of dinosaur companions while Yoshi was only introduced in Super Mario World for the Super NES. I could remember the basic mechanics of this game. You collect food along the way to charge your energy (or starvation meter) or lose a turn. The whole game is tedious especially there was NO password system,...

Okay, before we do ANYTHING - this would be NOT a topic of religion or anything. There's a never-seen character (at least, within the Midway continuity) where a character named Lucifer was mentioned in Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and you can discover his name in Mortal Kombat: Deception in the Konquest Mode. It's mentioned that Shinnok did overthrow a god named Lucifer. Lucifer is also mentioned as the god and protector of the Netherrealm. However, I think the naming is rather erroneous and he should've been named something else. However, if we go by Chinese mythologies, I believe it's a common misconception that Shinnok is based on Yanluo Wang. No, Yanluo Wang (or Yama in Indian) is NOT a bad guy. True, Yama is portrayed to be the fearsome ruler of the Netherrealm but ALL who die will report to this guy. So "Lucifer" in Mortal Kombat is actually King Yama of the Journey to the West . What's this guy's job? He's the ruler and the protect...

It's understandable if you had to pay some money to get the Aftermath pack because it's not easy developing it. It takes money to add more chapters into story mode. However, I'd like to say that after viewing the story mode - I think everything's just starting to feel like WTF why would I want to spend some of my own savings on a bad extension? I even wish Doug Walker or the Nostalgia Critic will step in AND beat this game up to pieces. Aftermath takes place where the original story mode left off. Shang Tsung (acted by Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa here) appears and proposes an alliance. Fire God Liu Kang agrees to it but is wary. They have no choice but to get Kronika's crown since it's necessary to create a new timeline. However, a lot of stuff here is either showing a lot of inconsistencies or questionable plots. Maybe, Johnny Cage and Cassie Cage beating up Shinnok was already just the start of that! At least, Liu Kang getting upgraded as a fire god gave us better...

Mortal Kombat certainly has a couple of characters. I remembered the first three entries of the game and there were two sub-bosses that seemed to compete a lot for the top spot. Goro was first introduced in Mortal Kombat and Kintaro in the second game. So, why did Goro become more popular than Kintaro? It baffles me to a certain extent. One reason is that the first game just didn't click as much as the much-improvised Mortal Kombat II which I think is just overrated. Kintaro himself appeared to be stronger, more agile and he vowed to avenge Goro for the latter's supposed death. Later, that plotline just got conveniently ignored in both Shaolin Monks and the reboot game Mortal Kombat (2011) or MK9 . Kintaro appeared as this large, intimidating sub-boss. I thought his tiger features made him even cooler than Goro! Goro himself was already difficult. Kintaro himself was able to leap higher (something that was given to Goro in later games), shoot faster fireballs, and grab you i...

As a child, I remembered the whole reason why I started disliking the second season of the G.I.Joe cartoon was the replacement of Cobra Commander. Cobra Commander was the true leader of COBRA yet one day the writers decided to install the new character of Serpentor. Destro participating in all the shenanigans of creating the new COBRA leader was anything but surprising. Destro always hated Cobra Commander like Starscream hated Megatron. It's understandable if the High Command were getting FED UP with Cobra Commander's idiocy. However, they ended up creating a bigger idiot than Cobra Commander in Serpentor. I thought Serpentor was an interesting concept as a new Cobra leader. He tends to assert that he's in charge of COBRA now. The plan of Dr. Mindbender was to use the DNA of the best candidates but he ended up in failure. Remember when he lost Sun Tzu's DNA? He was in China and he could've actually gone to Tiananmen Square to get Mao Zedong's DNA as a substi...

It's no secret that my favorite entry of the Megaman series is the Megaman X series. Sure, classic games have been fun to play - the last three entries did start to slip down. I would really want to review Megaman X5 which was supposed to end the X series but thankfully didn't. Right now, I do feel bad towards Keiji Inafune considering Mighty No. 9 doesn't get what it takes to succeed the Megaman franchise. Now, I'd like to think about how it's a pale follow-up to X4 and why I'm actually glad X6 existed. Yes, I believe my opinion will be unpopular but I'm willing to risk it. So, I thought about what I hated about X5 . I could understand if animated cutscenes were not included presumably due to memory space. However, I hate those "You just can't skip it!" cutscenes which had you press the X button A LOT and I mean A LOT. It was irritating having to pass through them AGAIN AND AGAIN. Okay, I could understand that it can't be helped dur...

While playing Super Mario World before - I was thinking about the bootleg by Hummer Team and the Nintendo official game. There was the claim that Yoshi himself couldn't be introduced due to hardware limitations. I don't know if it's even a valid claim considering that Super Mario World the bootleg edition had Yoshi after all - except that there was only ONE KIND of Yoshi.  One game worth mentioning is Adventure Island 2 and Adventure Island 3 . Consider that the protagonist Master Higgins rode four different kinds of dinosaurs each with a different function. Okay, none of them ate the enemies but still, you can't deny that he rode the dinosaur, right? The bootleg Super Mario World had Yoshi eat up enemies. So, what could be the much bigger reason behind Yoshi's non-introduction? If the claims for hardware limitation are true then here's my theory. Super Mario Bros. 3 invested too much in different suits making it impossible. If the game itself didn't ...

G.I.Joe is one cartoon adaptation from the comics that really deviates from the comics. A good example is how G.I. Joe The Movie itself gave a very different origin of Cobra Commander that made him inhuman - something that the comics NEVER intended to do. Sunbow produced two seasons and practically jumped the shark by introducing Serpentor (who was also in the comics) who was even stupider than Cobra Commander in the cartoon version. The movie came and it seemed to end everything until DIC (for some reason) got the rights to produce the third and fourth season. Hasbro dropped off Sunbow in favor of DIC. DIC also partnered with Saban and Nintendo to produce The Super Mario Bros. Super Show . The DIC series continued straight after the movie. I'd say the movie was a mess that just added more random elements like Cobra-La and Cobra Commander's origins. Rewatching it and I'm reminded of how messed up the movie was. How can the episode "Twenty Questions" now fit i...

While I don't find myself really rewatching Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z (except for selected arcs) - I wanted to make a bit of plot recycling. Gohan was actually supposed to be the "new Goku" but may have been in his father's shadow. Gohan did beat the much stronger Cell but I guess the popularity of Goku and Frieza is hard to match, right? Gohan would later get weakened in the now non-canon Dragon Ball GT. Now, one plot that was actually reused would be the two heroes marrying the ugly guy's hot daughter. Should we really Ox King as ugly? Maybe, maybe not. All that's known is that he has a beautiful wife and sired a beautiful daughter whose a xerox copy of her mother. We need to consider that most children are a combination of both parents for better or for worse. Even some ugly people are born from attractive parents and vice-versa. Brigitte Lin's children are half of her and half of her ex-husband which means they're neither as pretty nor as...