Gabriel DropOut Review (Full Show)

The Quest for Melon Bread

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          One of my biggest guilty pleasures is slice of life anime. I know they’re basically all the same thing over and over again, but I can’t help it. I love watching cutesy characters get involved in wacky shenanigans. But the sad truth is that there’s a lot more bad slice of life anime than there is good. Every once in a while you’ll find a diamond in the rough that gives us a unique take on the genre by creating fun characters or an unusual setting, but more often than not you’ll end up watching a show panhandling for cash by being little more than a K-On ripoff.

          But when you do find that one special show that makes you laugh more than it makes you cringe, it can make for a fun twelve weeks seeing what jokes it has next. Gabriel DropOut is a very fun take on the tried and true slice of life format, and it left me wanting a lot more.

          The show centers on two angels from heaven and two demons from hell as they graduate the schools from their respective divine worlds and prepare to spend some time in (what else?) a high school in Japan to study how mortals live.

          One of the angels, the titular Gabriel, graduated from heaven school with top marks, arriving on Earth wishing to turn it into a place of everlasting love where everyone will help each other. This mission lasts a grand total of one day as Gabriel discovers the joys of video games and decides to just spend her time on Earth lazing about in her apartment.

          Gabriel’s character is not dissimilar to the lead from Umaru-chan, an anime by the same studio. However, while Umaru got boring after three episodes, Gabriel uses the angel/demon angle to its advantage, creating several hilarious situations of the characters learning about what normal everyday human life is like. Also unlike Umaru, Gabriel keeps things interesting by giving the lead three friends to accompany her on her daily adventures, and they are all charming and fun to spend time with, even if they can be a bit one-note.

          Ironically for a show named after an angel, the two demons prove to be the overall highlight of the show. The first is Vigne, who acts more angelic than the angels do, always being there for her friends and keeping everything in order. She spends most of her time acting as the straight-man character reacting to all the insanity around her, but she gets several funny moments and even an entire episode dedicated to her. While they are rare, the moments where she goes full-on demon are hilarious.

          Even better is Satania, the supposed heir to hell’s throne and the most powerful arch-demon in the universe. This is quickly proven wrong after she has melon bread stolen out of her hands by a stray dog (one of many fantastic recurring jokes), but that doesn’t stop her from completely stealing the show with every scene she’s in. It’s rare you find a character where both the animation and voice actor work in perfect union with each other to create a fantastic bit of comedy, but Satania’s character excels in both physical and spoken humour. She gets her fair share of screentime, but she’s just so funny that you really want to see more.

          Over on the angel side, Gabriel’s lazy personality is a lot of fun, and she has an entertaining overarching plot of trying to hide the fact that she’s become a fallen angel from her friends and family. She’s also able to avoid what made Umaru so annoying, having more snide reactions to what Satania and others are doing instead of whining and complaining constantly.

          The last of the main characters is Raphi, who’s essentially a mirror flip of Vigne’s character, being an angel that acts more like a demon. Unfortunately, she is easily the weakest link of the bunch, as her character doesn’t really mesh with the other three. She acts more as an observer to all the chaos going on than a participant, leaving me scratching my head as to what her purpose in the show overall is. That’s not to say she’s a full-on bad character, because she isn’t. She gets a laugh here and there. But when compared to the others, she just isn’t as funny.

          The writing is absolutely the best part of the show. Unlike most high-school comedies, Gabriel exchanges the traditional over-the-top reactions and cutesy moments for a brutally dry sense of humour. While there are plenty of crazy expressions to go around, a lot of the jokes are far more subtle than your average comedy anime would have. Similar to how Non Non Biyori used more simplistic humour to compliment the countryside atmosphere the show was set in, Gabriel sees the characters snark their way through each episode, reflecting the devil-may-care attitude of the titular lead.

          The show isn’t without its weak points though, however. It does rely on fanservicey moments more than I think it should, considering how good the humour is on its own. Some of the stuff feels like just pandering to those who only watch anime for the cute girls and not for the story and writing. It never gets to a level where it really gets in the way of the show’s progression, but it’s a little disappointing the director felt the need to stuff them in. There’s also a lot of fun side characters I would’ve liked to see more of that I feel don’t quite get the screentime they deserved. There’s a fun bit where Gabriel goes to the cooking club for the first time and meets two girls who cook her loads of food just because she visited them. They were really fun characters, and I was really disappointed we only saw them once.

          Overall, if you aren’t a slice of life fan, I doubt Gabriel DropOut will do anything for you. But if you’re willing to just sit back and enjoy their craziness like me, this is one I’d highly recommend. The angels/demons spin is really entertaining, the leads are all unique and fun in their own special way, and the humour is fantastically dry. I left every episode of Gabriel with a smile on my face, and I’ll certainly miss it if it doesn’t return for Season 2.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Editorial: Deadline Despair

Deadline Despair

          There are few things we can be certain of in this universe: the sun will rise every morning, ice cream will always taste good, and video games will get delayed every now and then. This is just how the industry works: unlike with movies, the release date of a game is constantly in flux, only really releasing once it’s good and ready.

          But of course, the game industry being the game industry, sometimes a product is forced out the door way too soon, leaving fans disappointed, critics destroying it and sales plummeting. The most recent example of this is the recently released Mass Effect Andromeda, the game that was meant to be the star of EA’s Q1 releases and the latest installment in a series with a huge fanbase. The game released with numerous animation bugs and graphical errors, quickly becoming a laughingstock in the community instead of the glorious return of a dormant franchise.

          Our first warning that something was amiss with Mass Effect Andromeda came with the trailer seen at the Game Awards. The faces literally looked like they were made of Play-Doh, with the exact same consistency when they moved. But, this being a game from a well-established series, people seemed to ignore it and hope they would be fixed by release three months later.

          Cut to three months later, and the characters don’t quite look like they’re made of clay anymore, but they certainly have an alien quality to them. All the humans have a thousand-yard stare constantly, like they’re mannequins brought to life through dark magic. The only part of the face that really moves is the mouth, while the rest of it stays static. Emotions rarely cross the characters’ faces, leading some Twitter users to dub the game “Mass Effect: Androids”. It doesn’t stop at the faces either. The characters walk animations make them look more similar to a gorilla walking on its hind legs than anything human, and they sometimes leave cutscenes entirely while they’re still involved.

          So how’d this happen? If the game wasn’t ready to be released, how’d it end up in our hands in this state? How did a Mass Effect game become one of the most ridiculed releases of 2017 thus far?

          I think we can tie the answer back to our good friends over at EA. EA is continually discovering new ways to poorly release video games, as we saw last year with how they didn’t promote Mirror’s Edge Catalyst whatsoever and how they released Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1 against each other in the same week, leading the fantastic former game to receive low sales despite its excellent quality. This looks to be another case of EA messing with a release date, this time getting a game out way too early just so they can have a Q1 headliner.

          Looking at the release date chart for the last three months, you’ll notice that each of the major developers released a large title. Microsoft had Halo Wars 2, Sony had Horizon: Zero Dawn, Ubisoft had For Honor, and Nintendo of course gave us Zelda: Breath of the Wild and the Nintendo Switch. If EA didn’t give us something within this quarter of the year that would’ve left a huge gap in their release schedule and several angry investors knocking on their door.

          So how do you fill the void in the winter season and still make a profit? Well, let’s say you’re a businessman working at one of the highest positions in EA. You’ve got a new Mass Effect game in development, and BioWare is almost done working on it. All that’s left to fix are animation glitches, but other than that the game is ready to be shipped. There’s also a gaping hole in the first quarter of 2017 and you don’t have any major release lined up. What do you do?

          Considering we live in an age of bug patches and updates, to a businessman the choice is a no-brainer. Release the game before the end of the quarter, grab some cash from the Day 1 adopters, and fix the animation problems later on for those who waited. Mass Effect is such a popular IP that there’s no denying big fans will scoop it up early so they won’t be spoiled on story or gameplay details, overall quality and reviews be damned.

          And what really bothers me about this one is that from a business standpoint the decision to release the unfinished game makes perfect sense. This isn’t another Titanfall 2 situation where EA accidentally threw their best game of the year under the bus. If you’re a shareholder or investor in the company, you need them to be doing things in order for you to get your money back. There’s a reason why the major developers release at least one headliner title in each quarter of the year: because they need to make money back quarterly in order to impress their shareholders.

          And that’s why Mass Effect Andromeda is being hailed as the worst BioWare game since Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. EA needed a big release in the first quarter of the year, the developers were basically finished aside from the animations, and the game was shoved out the door so shareholders could make a profit. The only people this really benefits are those penny-pinchers working behind the scenes, since the fans are stuck with an incomplete game and the developers are forced to take the criticism. But, since Mass Effect is one of EA’s golden geese, something they know will make them a profit regardless of the final product’s quality, there’s no consequences for the CEOs who sit back and watch the money roll in.

          Is there a way to stop this? Not really. It’s common knowledge that the people running the game industry got to where they are by sacrificing quality in exchange for a little extra money. But one sentiment I’ve always held is that when a developer really takes the time to make a game good before finally releasing it, it’ll be easier to get more consumers next time when a sequel comes out. Think about Sony’s PSX conference last December. There they announced two sequels: Knack 2 and The Last of Us: Part II. There’s a reason why people are excited for Last of Us and ridiculed Knack, and it lies in the quality of the original games. Knack was a rushed PS4 launch title meant to show off the particle physics of the system, landing itself on many Worst Games of 2013 lists. Conversely, Last of Us was the insanely popular swan song for the PS3, earning nearly every Game of the Year award in existence back in 2012 as well as a PS4 remaster just a few years later. Because Naughty Dog took it’s time with Last of Us to make it a masterpiece, people were over the moon when the sequel was finally announced. If more developers could look towards what future sales could be after a huge success than what they could make off a half-finished product, this industry would be a happier place.

Song of the Week

          Introduction – Mirror’s Edge

Little Witch Academia Episode 12 Review

Freaky Monday

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Have I mentioned that I love spending my Monday mornings watching this show enough? Because Little Witch is magical enough that it can turn even the lousiest early hours into fun ones.

          This week was no exception, as we saw the introduction to the next arc, the Samhain Festival, as well as the continuation of what we first saw last week. We’re quickly approaching the halfway mark for the series, and the Festival seems like the prime opportunity to really shake things up the same was Studio Trigger’s own Kill la Kill used the School Tournament arc midway through the series to change the status quo and introduce Nui.

          While we didn’t see the Festival itself this week, we got the lead-up to it, as well as a bit more character development for both Akko and Diana. The students have all split into teams of three (convenient, considering the characters all come in trios) to perform different tasks in preparation. Diana’s in charge of the whole operation, Amanda and her gang are on cleaning duty, and Akko and friends have been given the great honour of being sacrifices to the Samhain Ghost. Since he’s a ghost they won’t die, but they’ll still get slimed with ectoplasm.

          Of course, Akko is none too happy about getting the short end of the stick, wanting to be the star of the Festival like Chariot was back in her day. She follows Diana, accidentally wandering in a room with an enchanted prankster mirror in it. Sensing her jealousy, the mirror turns her into Diana, leaving her pretending to be her while trying to turn back to normal.

          One of the best parts of the episode is Diana’s voice actress mimicking Akko’s mannerisms. I’m glad they didn’t go for the cheap “body swap but the voices stay the same” trick you see so often in animation (in my opinion that trick is only justifiable if you’re having several people be body swapped and you need to reduce confusion on who’s who), instead making it more fun to hear Diana attempt to sound like Akko. She did a fantastic job, at times even making it sound more like Akko doing a Diana impression than the reverse.

          It was also great to see what a day in Diana’s life is like from Akko’s perspective. I’ve been kind of disappointed that we haven’t seen much from Diana in the series thus far, with them playing up that she’s Akko’s polar opposite more than giving her her own character. It’s almost guaranteed we’ll be seeing her more later on, but I do wish we’d have had more time with her before now.

          Anyways, it’s fun seeing Akko deal with the benefits and disadvantages of being trapped in the form of the school’s top ranking student. She finally gives Diana’s cronies a taste of their own medicine unwittingly, but is also in high demand with the rest of the school preparing for the festival. The transformation doesn’t last long, but it works well to further both the skill and personality gap between Akko and Diana.

          The ending is, as expected from this show, the absolute best part of the episode. Ursula visits Akko while she’s reminiscing on how she isn’t as skilled as Diana, pointing her to visit the Polaris fountain again and telling her to stop trying to be Diana or Chariot and start being Akko. We end on a cliffhanger in the fountain, with Akko declaring she knows what to do.

          With next week being the halfway point, I’m expecting big things from the Samhain Festival (maybe a twist on the Enchanted Parade movie?). This episode was an excellent lead-up to next week, with lots of great character moments and even some setup for what’s coming next.

FINAL SCORE

9/10

Amazing

Bonus Content: My thoughts on the Splatoon 2 Testfire

                While I’m not a pro at the game by any means, I love Splatoon. I named it my personal Game of the Year back in 2015, I collect merch from the game, and the art design and music are some of the most unique in the industry right now.

          So when Nintendo announced Splatoon 2 was coming to the Nintendo Switch, I was both excited and admittedly nervous. While I was certainly looking forward to playing more Splatoon, I wasn’t sure how they would adapt the game to being played on only one screen. Without the Wii U GamePad there’s no map right at your convenience, and I also wondered how the classic Splatoon gyro controls would make it into the new version?

          I was able to play in only one of this week’s Testfire (although I tried to get into a second, but more on that later), and I personally really enjoyed my time with the hour I had. It’s just as fun as the original, with several new tricks to keep old players invested.

          The core of the gameplay is the same as the original: paint as much of the area in your team’s colour as you can. The team at the end with the most area covered wins. Simple as that. Nintendo seems to have taken the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach to designing Splatoon 2, choosing to improve on what was already perfect instead of changing things around too much.

          Onto the controls, they are just as responsive as they were in the original, but I do have one caveat. Since there’s no constant map screen anymore with the removal of the GamePad, the developers had to place the map in the HUD somehow. There’s now a map screen in the game, and bringing it up allows you to select which player you want to super-jump to with the D-pad. This is fine and all, but the big problem comes with the button the map is mapped to (ha ha). To bring up the map, you press the X button. Doesn’t sound like a problem? Well, it is, especially to a Splatoon veteran like myself. In the original game, the X button was what you used to jump. So now muscle memory keeps pressing the X button to try and jump but instead I’m bringing up the map screen. Jump is B now, and while I was getting used to it more towards the end of my session, it’s a big oversight and I honestly hope the developers include the ability to map buttons wherever you want in the final product.

          The only weapons available in the Testfire were the classic Splattershot, Splat Charger and Roller, as well as an all-new weapon type known as the Splat Dualies. These work essentially as two smaller Splattershots with two separate reticles to show you where each will fire. What makes these extra cool is that they give you the ability to roll. You can roll up to two times, and it comes in handy when trying to quickly position yourself to take down an enemy. Rolling is useful to tricking out players using Chargers, quickly getting behind them and eliminating them before they can ready their weapon. I do think that it’s not quite as useful as turning into a squid and slithering behind them in ink, but if there’s no ink nearby rolling is a viable option.

          All four of the weapons are each equipped with a new special weapon, with none of the old classics like Inkstrike or Kraken anywhere to be seen right now. The Splattershot has the Tenta Missiles, two large guns that target a single enemy and send down an aerial barrage of ink. Even after using these a bit I honestly wasn’t able to get a kill with them, considering how fast paced Splatoon 2 can be at times. It’s also recommended you don’t activate them until you have an enemy in your sights, because if you use them too early you’ll be stuck waddling around looking for a target like a complete sitting duck.

          The Charger is given the Sting Ray, an upgrade to their rifle that allows them to shoot a laser line of ink through walls. Full disclosure, this is the only one of the four specials I didn’t use for myself considering I’m terrible at sniping in video games. You can tell when someone is using it because their sniping line turns a glowy red, making them both a deadly enemy and a prime target.

          The Roller gets my personal favourite new special: the Splashdown. This one works similarly to Lucio’s Ultimate Ability in Overwatch, but with a reverse effect. Your Inkling jumps up, surrounds themselves with an energy field of sorts, and releases a torrential amount of ink when they hit the ground. If any enemy is caught in the field when you land they are instantly splatted. This ability is great to use in many different situations, such as when you’re cornered by a group of enemies or when you’ve snuck up on members of the opposing team. You can also activate this ability while super-jumping, so if you know that a teammate is being hassled by a group of enemies, it’s an entertaining way to take them by surprise.

          Last but not least, the Splat Dualies have what might be the coolest of the new ultimates, the Inkjet. This ability gives your Inkling a literal jetpack, lifting them off the air. You can shoot slow but large blasts of ink from your new high perch, which is great for picking off enemies wide out in the open. It’s a lot of fun to try and chase down unsuspecting foes, although it does take a little of time to get the hang of aiming while in the air.

          We got to see two of the new maps in the Testfire as well: The Reef and Musselforge Fortress. Reef is immediately familiar as a city plaza-type stage, very similar in design to Urchin Underpass from the original game. Musselforge, on the other hand, is very unique and fun, with multiple paths and hidey holes that allow you to get the jump on enemies. If I were to compare it to a stage from the previous game, I’d say it most resembles a smaller version of Walleye Warehouse.

          Speaking of which, that’s my one gripe with these two stages: they’re a little on the small side. While I wasn’t quite expecting stuff the size of Museum D’Alphonsino, I was hoping for something a little bigger. I know that Moray Towers has already been confirmed as a returning stage from the original game, and I guess that the smaller maps were easier to handle on the servers, but I really hope we have some larger maps to try out if the Testfire comes back.

          And speaking of the servers, that’s the last thing I should probably talk about. As I mentioned earlier, I was fortunate enough to play in the very first Testfire scheduled, but when I tried to get into the Saturday Testfire at the exact same time no matter what I tried I just could not get in. I tried literally everything, from resetting the Switch’s Wi-Fi connection, disconnecting and reconnecting, restarting the system, even resetting my router (ugh!), everything. I know it wasn’t my problem, because during that time I tried to access the eShop, which also refused to allow me entry. The Switch’s internet server was borked within minutes of the Testfire starting.

          I will say that on the first Testfire the gameplay ran as smooth as silk, with no slowdown or disconnects. It wasn’t a clean entry then either, as it was a lot of restarting and testing the system’s connection to the internet before I was finally allowed entry. I sincerely hope that Nintendo improves the strength of the servers by release, because this wasn’t exactly the first impression you want out of what’s going to be a paid online service by the end of the year.

          Overall, I really loved the Splatoon 2 Testfire…when I could get in, of course. I’m glad Nintendo didn’t feel the need to shake up the fantastic Splatoon formula, and the new weapons and maps are sure to help the game, in the words of the Squid Sisters, stay fresh. I really do hope that the final product will include button mapping to allow players of the first game to better adjust to the sequel, and the servers really need some fixing. I don’t want to have to fight with my Switch’s internet connection every time I feel like playing a round of Turf War.

          Honestly, considering the game isn’t due till the summer, having a Testfire this early might be hugely beneficial in the long run. This gives them plenty of time to fix what needs fixing and improve what requires improvement. I’d be surprised if we didn’t see a second Testfire before launch when the servers are more stable (and have been a little more broken in thanks to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe), and I left this experience more excited for the game than when I came in. It’s more of the same splatastic stuff you loved on the Wii U, and that’s exactly what I hoped it would be.

Star Wars Saturday: Why does everyone love Boba Fett?

Why does everyone love Boba Fett?

          The original trilogy is full of iconic characters that people recognize just as much today as they did when the movies first came out. Characters like Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Yoda, Chewbacca and R2-D2 have become so massive that even people who’ve never seen a Star Wars movie know who they are.

          But there’s one character that is regarded by many as being on the same level as these characters and others by being a massively overrated plot point. This is, of course, Boba Fett.

          Boba Fett first appeared in what everyone unanimously considers to be the absolute pinnacle of Star Wars entertainment: The Star Wars Holiday Special. Fett debuts in a cartoon midway through the Special where he first claims to want to help Luke and friends before ultimately revealing his allegiance to Vader and the Empire and…just kind of leaving. The Holiday Special never really makes much sense, to be honest.

          Fett’s first proper Star Wars appearance outside of comics and disastrous Christmas specials was, of course, his role in Empire Strikes Back. He was included as a sort of foil for Han the same way Vader is a foil for Luke. The thing about him in Empire is that he earns a grand total of six minutes and thirty-two seconds of screentime, alongside only five lines. Similarly, in Return of the Jedi he is only in the opening Jabba’s Palace scenes, gets zero lines aside from a scream, and dies in the most ridiculously over-the-top way possible.

          Honestly, Boba Fett is a little more than a glorified background character in the Original Trilogy. So how’d he become one of the most popular characters outside of the movies?

          I’ve always figured a lot of it is thanks to his character design. Just as Vader’s suit and the Stormtrooper armor have iconic designs recognizable anywhere, the Boba Fett helmet is so famous that everyone knows it. He’s also the only character in the Original Trilogy that uses an awesome jetpack, and the design of his ship, the Slave I, is one of the most original in the entire saga.

          So is that it? Do people love this guy because he has a cool armor design and ship? This doesn’t excuse non-existent character development.

          Well, actually it kind of did. Another reason why people seem to love Boba is because he didn’t really have a defining character in the originals. He’s a blank slate, a mysteriously quiet character free to build and expand on. All we know for sure about him is that he’s the best bounty hunter in the business, one that, according to Vader, is pretty adept at disintegrating his victims. Boba Fett is cool the same way Darth Maul is cool: they’re badass, but they don’t go around tooting their own horn. While characters like Vader or Kylo Ren are great villains because of their intense power and connections to the main characters, Boba Fett is cool because he manages to be intimidating when you know absolutely nothing about the guy.

          This mystery led Expanded Universe authors to come by the droves to write the next chapter in Fett’s storyline. There have been countless stories about what happened to Boba in between the Prequel and Original Trilogies, plus what happened after he inevitably escaped the Pit of Carkoon after Return of the Jedi. There are so many stories about him that his Legends Canon page on Wookieepedia makes C-3PO’s look paltry by comparison. He’s also made frequent appearances in the new canon as well, especially featuring in a major arc of the comics. While he’s not out of the sarlacc pit just yet, even Lucasfilm has admitted that it’s only a matter of time before some author writes him out of there.

          Boba Fett is such an enigma in so many ways. For a character with barely any screentime compared to other major figures in the Star Wars saga to grow to such enormous popularity is something I doubt anyone working on the films ever expected. I personally like him and his design, although I don’t prefer him to some of the more interesting villains from the series. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the Star Wars braintrust incorporates him into the new canon and whether he’ll survive to see the rise of the First Order. I personally would like to see an Anthology film about his reaction to how the galaxy changed without him while he was trapped in the sarlacc pit, as I’ve mentioned before. Whether they go with my idea or not, I’m sure we’ll see more of everyone’s favourite Mandalorian before long.

BREAKING NEWS

          As Star Wars Celebration draws ever closer, we’ve been getting tidbits of information from Disney as to what they’re planning next for their movies. This week we got a little bit of news about what we’ll be seeing in the still-unnamed Han Solo movie. According to Disney CEO Bob Iger, we’ll be seeing how Han got the Falcon, how he met Chewie, and even…how he got his name!?

          Yes, apparently we’ve all been duped for forty years, and Han Solo’s name isn’t actually Han Solo. What his real name is or why he changed it is something we’ll probably have to wait until 2018 to find out, but it’s fun to speculate on. I’m personally hoping that it turns out he was secretly Jar Jar Binks all this time.

Update Impressions: Overwatch’s Orisa

          The arrival of a new Overwatch character always brings one thing specific to the table: the fact that every team for the next few weeks will have someone running that character. Fortunately, this gives us a good chance to learn that specific hero’s strengths and weaknesses and what exactly they bring to the table.

          Since she launched on Tuesday I’ve been seeing Orisa a lot. Right now the hardest part of playing her isn’t figuring out her kit or where to put her shields. The most difficult part of playing Orisa is trying to be the first person to lock her in in Quick Play before someone beats you to it.

          But how is she really? Is she another true team anchor tank like Reinhardt or is she more akin a disruptor tank like Winston or D.Va? And the biggest question of all: is she going to be a viable Competitive pick?

          It’s still early, and since it’s currently a race to grab Orisa it’s hard to get any practice with her outside of No Limits mode (where it’s essentially six Orisas vs six Orisas right now) it’s kind of hard to find someone who really knows how to use her professionally. But what I can tell from playing several matches as Orisa and many more against her that she’s an incredibly strong character that legitimately has the potential to change the game.

          Looking at Orisa I’d have to say she works much better playing Defense, but she can be a complete powerhouse offensively as well. Her firing range isn’t quite as far as, say, Bastion’s, but it’s still impressively far for a tank and can deal hefty amounts of damage. She’s equipped with a lot of ammo as well, but with an extremely slow reload animation as an exchange. It’s definitely recommended you wait until a lull in the battle to reload just so the enemy team doesn’t catch you with your pants down.

          As her character is built around keeping the citizens of Numbani safe, Orisa has several tricks that work extremely well in keeping the enemy team off points and payloads. Her secondary fire is known as “Halt”, which is basically a miniature version of Zarya’s Graviton Surge ultimate ability. Orisa shoots a glowing orb on the first press, and on the second it drags ant enemies in the vicinity towards it. This ability is incredibly useful on maps like Ilios and Lijang Tower where there is a lot of bottomless pits to pull unwitting foes into, but I do find it doesn’t have much use otherwise. I’ll sometimes shoot one to try and slow down a Tracer or a Genji, but otherwise it doesn’t last long enough to be a really viable solution to a problem unless you can get it over a pit.

          She also has “Fortify” or as I like to call it, the Anti-Reinhardt Shield. Orisa surrounds herself in a golden shield that reduces how much damage she takes, while also preventing her from being stunned by something like McCree’s Flashbang or Reinhardt’s Earthshatter. Again, this is a good ability, but it really only comes into play under certain circumstances. If the enemy team doesn’t have someone who can stun or push heroes around, Fortify won’t be used much.

          But by far the most versatile ability Orisa has in her arsenal is her Protective Barrier. Similarly to Winston’s Barrier Projector, this ability allows Orisa to leave a large barrier anywhere on the map for the team to rally behind. Unlike Winston, however, this barrier doesn’t disappear after a few seconds, instead staying up until the enemy team destroys it. It doesn’t have quite as much health as Reinhardt’s shield, but it’s strong enough that it really gets in the way of enemy attackers. A combo I’ve been noticing a lot on Control maps is having Orisa set up a barrier in front of Bastion while Mercy is damage-boosting him. This leads to some insane protection and is a huge help when trying to control a point.

          Her ultimate is known as the Supercharger, and trust me when I say that this thing can turn entire games around. Similar to Symmetra’s Shield Generator, the Supercharger damage-boosts anyone standing within a few meters of it. This is very useful if you’re having trouble slowing down the enemy team’s payload, as an army of damage boosted heroes is hard to deal with. The Supercharger doesn’t last too long and can be destroyed, so it’s best to use it when there are about four or less enemies in your sight that need to be taken down. While it can change the flow of a match, it’s not a guaranteed win button.

          Orisa, overall, is a very strong character that I really think can be devastating once people learn how to use her. When placed correctly, her barrier can really shake up games, especially if your teammates with longer range on their weapons rally behind it. While both Halt and Fortify are incredibly situational abilities, when used right they can really slow down the progress of the other team, and the Supercharger has the potential to turn entire games on their head. I’d recommend getting a bit of experience playing as, with and against Orisa soon, because we might be seeing the beginning of a new meta here.

Beauty and the Beast Review

Tres bien

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          The live-action remakes of animated classics is the latest trend Disney’s attached themselves to. We’ve seen amazing reimaginings of Cinderella and The Jungle Book, as well as not-so-amazing versions of Alice in Wonderland and Sleeping Beauty.

          So when the Mouse House announced that they were next going to adapt a tale as old as time, I was pretty excited! They had a star-studded cast that fit the roles well, the set design looked to be on par with Kenneth Branagh’s incredible Cinderella palaces, and the CGI versions of the classic characters looked surprisingly good. But as the weeks passed and the film’s release grew closer and closer, I can’t deny that I was starting to worry. The 1991 animated version is pretty much unanimously considered to be God-tier Disney. How do you remake a basically perfect movie, one that was the first animated film to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture?

          I think the director came up with a good solution to this dilemma. Let me just get this out of the way early: is Beauty and the Beast 2017 better than Beauty and the Beast 1991? No. Not even close. The original is a masterclass in animation, character design and music, with a lot of subtle touches that this movie, being live action, misses out on.

          With that being said, I honestly don’t view Beauty and the Beast 2017 as a remake the same way a film like Jungle Book was. This movie feels more like a Broadway production of the original than anything, honestly. I think the director knew there was no way he could top the original, and with that he decided to put on an entertaining pantomime of the 1991 film instead of changing it around and trying to improve on what’s already legendary.

          Seriously, this movie at times can feel like a shot for shot redo of the animated version. But considering the quality of the source material, I didn’t find it to be much of a problem. This movie isn’t concerned with being something new and different, or even topping what was already great. Instead, it’s trying to be a fun interpretation using some fantastic actors in the familiar roles, and it does a great job of being just that.

          The story is the same one you remember: Belle is considered by her town to be an oddball because she prefers reading to gawking over men, but despite this she’s caught the eye of the local hunter Gaston. But through some confusion she’s whisked away to a mysterious castle out in the woods, where she meets the monstrous Beast and his servants cursed into the forms of household objects. There’s really nothing removed from the story, just a few new tidbits sprinkled in every once and a while for better or for worse. 

          Since we already know the story going in, the real question is how the writers and actors deliver it. Like I said before, the original had a lot of subtle cues in the animation that this version misses out on (I’ll admit I was a little disappointed to find that Belle isn’t the only person in her village that wears blue in this version), but as an interpretation it works well. The script is basically word for word the original at times, but, again, looking at this as rather a pantomime of the original instead of a full-on updating, I think there’s nothing wrong with that.

          The actors, for the most part, do a very good job. There’s really no bad performances in this film, although there are a few that seem a little lackluster compared to the others.

          Easily the highlights are Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen and Emma Thompson as Lumiere, Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts respectively. While all three performances are clearly inspired by the original characters, these legendary actors are truly able to own the roles. Thompson definitely sounds a lot like Angela Lansbury in this, and McGregor uses an exaggerated French accent not dissimilar to the one Jerry Orbach used in the original. The animation on them is surprisingly good. The characters definitely have a more realistic design compared to their anthropomorphized originals (although the original designs are definitely more memorable), they truly feel alive and they are able to carry emotional scenes.

          Luke Evans is very clearly having a blast playing Gaston, and this shines through in his performance. Yes, he’s not as enormous as his animated counterpart is, but once you spend a few minutes with him it quickly becomes clear that he was the right choice for the part. Gaston is made much nicer in the beginning of the movie, being polite towards Belle in trying to win her affection instead of stomping around in his muddy boots and demanding she marry him. I honestly think this was a change for the better. His transformation from polite but egotistical hunter to lunatic storming up to the castle is portrayed very well by Evans, making him one of the surprise highlights of the movie for me.

          Josh Gad is a fun LeFou, but I do think he was a little underwritten. In the first half of the movie he is essentially the same character from the original with a lot of Gad’s influence added, but midway through he feels like a completely different guy from the one we just spent an hour with. They don’t give him much humour after the first half either, and I was honestly kind of disappointed by that. I felt Gad could’ve made him a really entertaining character, but he was essentially dropped partway through the movie.

          This leads us to our titular Beauty and Beast. Starting with the Beast, I think that Dan Stevens did an excellent job at capturing the warm and fuzzy side of the Beast. He made him an incredibly likable character when he had to be, especially in the second half of the movie. I do think he could’ve done a little better in capturing the darker side of the Beast, though. When compared to the original, this Beast seems more inconvenienced by the curse than tortured by it. I think a few extra scenes of him hanging out in the West Wing with the enchanted rose would’ve gone much further. In the original you start to feel sympathetic for him right after Belle takes her father’s place at the castle, but here it’s not until after he saves Belle from the wolves that we see his softer side. A bit of earlier development for him would’ve made a good interpretation of the character even better.

          As for Emma Watson as Belle, she doesn’t do a bad job by any means. She’s fine for what she is, and she doesn’t give a straight-up bad performance. But for me she’s definitely the lowlight of the movie. She honestly looks bored throughout the whole thing, and this really sticks out when you look at how engaged Luke Evans or Emma Thompson are in their performances. Belle in the original is incredibly expressive in both her movements and her facial expressions, and I don’t think Watson really captured that of the character. I do like that she really captured Belle’s love of reading in her performance and how independent she is, and she still does an overall good job. But still, compared to the rest of the cast I really think she could’ve put in just a bit more effort.

          Moving onto the music, I was very excited to find that legendary Disney composer Alan Menken was making a return to write some new songs for the movie. The new songs are added into scenes like after Beast saves Belle from the wolves and when Belle leaves the castle to save her father, and they work really well in the context of the movie. Being Alan Menken all the songs are definitely up to snuff, adding a lot of emotional resonance to the scenes. I don’t think they’re really songs people will want to listen to over and over again though. They’re not as catchy as the original songs, nor are they the type of thing you’d listen to off a soundtrack.

          Speaking of the original songs, how do they fare? Well, before coming to the movie I did something I rarely do: I listened to the full soundtrack. Horrible, I know, but I just couldn’t resist. And I’ve gotta say…I wasn’t impressed. The songs off the soundtrack just didn’t sound right to me, and a few others I saw online shared that sentiment.

          I’m pleased to say that the music works extraordinarily better when listened to in context with the movie. To call the musical numbers a spectacle to behold would be a huge understatement. Everything from the choreography to the set design works in complete tandem with each other, making classic numbers like “Belle”, “Be Our Guest” and “Gaston” feel brand new. “Be Our Guest” is especially a sight to behold, and as someone who was worried about that scene more than any other I can proudly say that it was my absolute favourite in the movie. Again, none of them top the animated version, but as a live action adaption the numbers truly are the best they can possibly be.

          I did have one problem with the songs, and it was a problem that bothered me throughout the entire film: Emma Watson and Dan Stevens are blatantly auto-tuned. Stevens doesn’t sing much and when he does he’s using his Beast voice, so it’s a little more forgivable, but Watson just plain can’t sing. Again, compared to Luke Evans, Josh Gad or Ewan McGregor who all do exceptional singing performances these two stick out like a sore thumb.

          The last thing I’d like to touch on is the set design, because holy smokes, this movie is beautiful. I don’t know if I’d say it tops Cinderella (I haven’t watched that one in a while so I’d need a refresher), but whoever worked on the castle perfectly captured the dark fantasy atmosphere of the original. I loved how the entrance hall was taken directly from the animated version, and the West Wing was appropriately intimidating. The 3D version truly adds a lot of size and depth to the castle you don’t really get from the original version, and with the addition of a lot of fun classic 3D tricks this is definitely a movie that’s worth the discomfort of those awful glasses.

          Speaking of those glasses, I swear they get worse and worse every time I go to the movies. I’m starting to think they deliberately make them painful just so people won’t want to sneak them out. This isn’t a gripe against the movie, but I just needed to vent about how awful those glasses are. My ears hurt like crazy when I took them off at the end.

          Like I said at the top of my review, I really don’t see Beauty and the Beast as a “remake” of the original, but rather a spectacular pantomime of the original, with fantastic actors taking a beloved script and performing it. And when you look at it like that, I feel that this movie is a fantastic adaption of the original. The actors all gave great performances, the music was delightfully recomposed and choreographed, the new songs were great, and the set design was gorgeous. Yes, there were a few character issues and I do think Emma Watson could’ve tried a little harder, but overall these are easily forgiven when you admire the spectacle of everything. This is one movie I’ll happily be the guest of many times in the future.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Editorial: Meter Maid

Meter Maid

          Like basically everyone else in the gaming community, I’ve been playing through The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild over the past few weeks. And just like most others, I’ve been enjoyed it. It really feels like a new and unique take on the franchise, not just another installment in a thirty year old series.

          But every rose must have its thorns, and one of my biggest gripes with Breath of the Wild is that it accidentally shone a spotlight on what’s been a huge problem in gaming for years: an overdose of meter management under the guise of “realism”.

          Meters beyond the standard health, ammo and mana counters are fairly new entries to the gaming scene, becoming popular after the survival genre hit it big with the success of Minecraft. Suddenly, everybody was throwing more and more things that could slow down your quest at you, from weather to noise to hunger to stamina to the much maligned weapon durability meters. Some games feel like they have a counter for literally everything you do.

          And I really, really want this trend to come to a stop before we get any further.

          One thing I’ve always said about big open world games like Breath of the Wild is that the beauty of them is in the freedom. Players of those games want to feel like they can go do anywhere and do whatever they want, and the only thing stopping them is not being strong enough to take on whatever monster they face. While the inclusion of a million meters might add a little touch of realism to your adventures, I really want to know who ever played a video game and thought to themselves “hmm, this is great, but I really wish it was more like my boring everyday existence!”

          I get why Nintendo made Link start losing hearts if he finds himself in the snowy mountaintops without the proper equipment, but I personally just feel like it’s something that just gets in the way of enjoyment rather than enhancing the experience. When I need to turn back because I don’t have the right coat or potion to climb that peak, I don’t feel excited to come back later on with the tools I need. I honestly feel shortchanged, like there’s adventure to be had beyond the wilderness but I’m just not allowed to go there yet. In a game where freedom seems to be the defining factor behind the design of the world, having a bunch areas gated by weather doesn’t seem very free, does it?

          Still, it’s understandable. It can be rewarding to travel far and wide to finally get that tunic you need to enter the frozen wasteland or the boiling volcano. Plus, this could result in even more exploration, discovering new secrets and finding new areas, then coming back to finish the job later on. There are so many distractions in Breath of the Wild that it’s hard to stay focused on one thing at a time.

          And then there’s the infamous stamina and weapon durability meters. I feel my argument of “realism doesn’t make it more fun” works here too. When I’m playing as the Hero of Hyrule, I want him to be able to sprint longer than I can in real life. When you leave the starting area of the game, Link’s stamina lasts only a few seconds. I could sprint down my block barely breaking a sweat, and yet here’s this buff dude who’s saved his kingdom time and again breaking down after only a few seconds! The weapon durability doesn’t help either. I can understand old rusty weapons, wooden clubs and stuff that states it shatters easily having low durability, but when every single weapon in the game feels like it’s made of glass you’ve done something wrong. I always find myself saving the cool stuff I’ve found for a rainy day and mostly fighting with the weakest stuff in my pockets just because I don’t want to lose my super rare Sword of the Six Sages.

          Stuff like this can work in other genres though. I think that Breath of the Wild’s stamina and weapon durability would actually work great in, say, a survival horror game. Trying to escape terrifying monsters with very little running time would work great in a game that’s actively trying to make you scared of your surroundings would truly add to the atmosphere, and having the weapons you get be as durable as a granola bar would just be the icing on the cake. I could really see something like Silent Hill or an Alien game really make good use of these mechanics. But Zelda? I’m finished Breath of the Wild, and while I absolutely loved it, the overuse of frustratingly unbalanced meters would’ve killed many other games of lesser overall quality before their first hour ended.

           Overall, I can handle when a character can’t enter a cold or hot area every once in a while. While complete freedom is great, sometimes it can be even better through redirection and allowing the player to take their time in preparation for the next part of their quest. But there is a line where the “realism” starts to get in the way of having fun with the game. Having your character double over after jogging for a few seconds isn’t fun. Having to store favourite weapons away and never use them like they were antique cars isn’t fun. The time has come to leave the meters in genres primarily focused on survival and allow games to set the players free of these restraints once more.

Song of the Week

          Kakariko Village (Day) – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Little Witch Academia Episode 11 Review

Anime is still saved

(This review contains spoilers!)

          While Little Witch has been almost entirely episodic up till now, there have been several interesting subplots running that are surely leading to something later on in the show. The most obvious of these is the fact that witches are disappearing and magic is draining from the world, but the far more interesting storyline thus far in my opinion is Akko’s relationship with Shiny Chariot as her idol, as well as her unknowing relationship with the real Chariot in Professor Ursula.

          Despite Ursula hiding her true identity from her biggest fan, I love that the two of them have already struck up a relationship with each other. It would’ve been so easy to have Chariot be an end goal for Akko, find out what happened to her and make her start doing shows again. Here, she’s already friends with Chariot and just doesn’t know it yet. There’s no way this series is going to end without Akko finding out the truth (Ursula herself promises it at the end of the episode) and I really hope the reveal is handled well.

I can easily say without hyperbole that this is the best episode of Little Witch yet. Not only does it further the plot in a way no episode before it has done, but the animation and music were mind-blowingly good this week. Focusing the episode on Akko and her still underperforming in her magic worked incredibly well, having her leave the episode a stronger character than when she entered it.

Having failed another magical lesson with Ursula, Akko finds herself wishing to meet with Chariot herself to learn about how she became an entertainer. This leads her in search of the Blue Moon Cave, a cavern that appears only during, you guessed it, a blue moon. Inside the cave there is a spirit that can answer almost any question, so long as you can find her. Akko discovers the cave, and begins her quest.

Being a much more serious episode than any of the others, the animation and music went through an extreme tonal shift this week. The normal bright pinks and greens took the episode off, replaced by a very blue backdrop. There were some gorgeously lit and animated shots this week, really adding to the darker atmosphere. The music also took a break from the traditional European-style fanfare so closely associated with the series, giving us more atmospheric music that matched the feeling of exploring a moonlit cave. As much as I love the Little Witch Academia theme and the variations on it, having it mostly out of this episode really added to the more alien tone it had overall.

Diana had a very small subplot this week, but it definitely is one that’ll be significant in the rest of the show. She paid a visit to the Little Witch equivalent to Harry Potter’s Restricted Section, finding an ancient tome about the original nine witches who founded Luna Nova. These witches created nine magical words that could fight off any evil, and with this episode Akko has already learned two of them. In a vision towards the end of the episode we saw some red and black drawings that looked pretty darn sinister, so I assume the rest of the show will be dedicated to learning the rest of the words before Little Witch Voldemort shows up.

This episode was a huge departure from the norm for Little Witch Academia, and while I’ve been adoring the show despite its episodic nature, I love that we’re finally kickstarting the actual plot. Akko’s relationship with both the real and fantasy Chariot were explored amazingly well this week, and the storyline about vanishing witches just gets more and more interesting. Nearly every week Little Witch Academia pulls a new trick out from its sleeve, and I can’t wait to see what it’s going to do next.

FINAL SCORE

10/10

Legendary

Lego Worlds Review

Sank like a brick

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Lego games are always a mixed bag. Sometimes you’ll find a great multiplayer experience that can be enjoyed with a friend over the weekend, like last year’s Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Other times you’ll get a half-baked bug riddled experience that won’t be fun for anyone old enough to recognize poor game design, such as Lego Jurassic World.

          Not only does today’s game fall into the latter category, but it very well might become the new king of bad Lego games. While most lousy entries in this franchise usually suck because of badly designed puzzles or an overabundance of glitches, Lego Worlds one-ups all of them by being literally unfinished.

          I mean it. This game being sold for $30 on Steam as a finished product feels like an Early Access game being released in the Alpha development phase.

          Lego Worlds’ biggest claim to fame is being completely unoriginal. Sorry, what I meant to say was that this game borrows elements of several other popular recent releases, such as Minecraft and LittleBigPlanet. Unfortunately, the final product I played felt less like the fun adventure of Minecraft and more like the game-killing tedium of No Man’s Sky.

          Seriously, if someone took No Man’s Sky, slapped a brick building feature onto it and made it even worse than it already was, Lego Worlds would be the result. It’s boring, uninspired, unoriginal, and is a complete chore to play.

          The game is a collect-a-thon of sorts, but it does the absolute bare minimum to be considered one. All you have to do is complete simple puzzles to get gold bricks so you can power up your ship and fly to other worlds, where you repeat the cycle all over again.

          Hm. That sounds…familiar.

          But these worlds are just so depressing to explore. I can honestly say that I’ve seen N64 maps with more depth to them. The titular worlds in this game are no more than an 18x18 flat area with some hills, trees and maybe a house or two to make them interesting. There are no secrets, no bonus minikits or red bricks like in other Lego games, nothing. Just a boring flat area and a minimap that tells you exactly where all the gold bricks you need are.

          The presentation is equally as boring as the rest of the game. The graphics make the original Lego Indiana Jones game for the Wii look like Horizon: Zero Dawn in comparison. The music is nothing but awful fanfare looped infinitely that is uninteresting and excruciating to listen to. And the sound design, oh dear sweet god, the sound design. This game has some of the worst sound effects in any game I’ve played in recent years. You know that iconic building sound that’s become a staple in the Lego game franchise? Imagine that sound byte being played a thousand times layered on top of each other and with insanely high volume compared to the rest of the sounds.

          But honestly, I can deal with boring gameplay and bad presentation. What is it about Lego Worlds that made me really angry?

          Well, like I said at the top of this review, this game is literally unfinished. I was completely astounded at the amount of bugs and glitches I found in the incredibly short time I played this game, even encountering one that stopped my progress altogether.

          First and foremost, multiplayer breaks the game. Literally. While the game encourages couch-co-op, playing Lego Worlds with a partner is a literal impossibility. I really enjoy playing Lego games with my brother, with our playthrough of last year’s Lego Star Wars being one of my personal favourite gaming memories of 2016. But within five minutes of him joining in, the game essentially locked up. Respawns were frequent as tools and items got trapped in our characters hands, and I legitimately couldn’t progress to the next world while he was logged in. Once he quit the game allowed me to progress for whatever reason, and I continued playing on my own.

          There’s also an online multiplayer, but I couldn’t tell you how it is, because it requires someone on your friends list to also own the game to be used. While I can see why the developers did this (the target audience is definitely one that probably shouldn’t see some of the more…interesting stuff you find on online multiplayer), imagine how cool it would’ve been to find and download cool castles or dinosaurs or whatever that other people have built online and drop them into your world! As far as I can tell, this isn’t an option, but it might very well be and nobody’s uploaded anything because the publisher didn’t advertise this game whatsoever and everyone’s still rightfully playing Breath of the Wild instead of this dreck.

          Even without a second player causing the game to have a hissy fit, the game’s still riddled with issues and glitches. The camera bounces up and down and to and fro all over the place, making Lego Worlds the second game I’ve ever reviewed on this blog to make me actually feel sick while playing it. I was so dizzy when I stopped playing I had to close my eyes for a moment just to readjust. Sometimes the controls just don’t work with no explanation either. The game will require you to click on stuff multiple times before it finally gets the message that you want to use your scanner or hop to the next world, leading to lengthy times of you mashing every button on your controller trying to remember which button does which.

          Which brings me to my next point! Despite shoving dozens of different tools and abilities at you in the first fifteen minutes of game, Lego Worlds decides that you don’t need the controls to figure out what to do! Every once in a while a map of controls will pop up in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen, but it vanishes just as often. Plus, with the added trouble of the buttons often not working for whatever reason, this just compliments the struggle of figuring out what you’re supposed to be doing.

          There’s also graphical glitches, like characters going into their default T-poses every once in a while, plus loading times that are insanely long when you take into account the graphics they’re trying to load, but the absolute worst glitch I found was the one that made me put down the controller in anger and stop playing.

          So you need to find the gold bricks to power your ship, and to do that you need to complete challenges. I needed ten to move onto the next world, and I had nine. So I went off looking for the tenth one.

          It didn’t spawn.

          For whatever reason, in all three of the worlds I’d unlocked thus far, the NPC that had the gold brick I needed was nowhere to be found. And this isn’t a case of “oh, maybe it was hidden and you didn’t look hard enough” either. There was no gold brick on the minimap in any of the three worlds, at no point earlier in the game did I get a gold brick from anywhere but an NPC, and there’s honestly nowhere to hide in these barren, flat and ugly worlds. My journey with Lego Worlds ended before it even started thanks to some incompetent coder.

          But maybe I should thank the bug testers for not patching out that problem, because I don’t think I could’ve stood another second playing this game. Like how Horizon: Zero Dawn and Breath of the Wild have emerged as early contenders for the title of 2017’s Game of the Year, I think it’ll need to take a monumentally bad game to tear the Worst Game of the Year prize from Lego Worlds’ yellow clawed hands. This game somehow managed to make it to store shelves buggy, ugly and unfinished, and nobody should spend money on it. If you’re looking for a Lego game to play, please, play Lego Force Awakens instead.

FINAL SCORE

1/10

Garbage