Prey Review

I’d rather be the predator

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          Right out of the gates people were concerned about Prey. A reboot of a 2006 game, this looked nothing like the promised Prey 2 announced a few years prior to release. As I never played the original I can’t tell you how it compares to the newer version, but what I can say is that you’re probably better off saving your money.

          Prey is a game that has several really good ideas up its sleeve, but crushes all of them under lackluster gameplay and an unwillingness to let you play the game how you want, despite player freedom being one of their major selling points.

          You play as Morgan Yu, a scientist of your gender choice aboard the spacecraft Talos I. After completing an actually pretty funny opening sequence, things immediately go horribly wrong as the ship is taken control by the Typhon, an army of sinister black goo monsters with varying abilities. It’s your job to destroy them once and for all, taking back the Talos or destroying it in the process.

          Easily the best part of the game for me was the direction taken with the visual design. Unlike most similar games, Prey is inspired by 1950’s era sci-fi comic books and novels, giving everything a very fun and unique flavour. If you’ve played stuff like Bioshock, it isn’t dissimilar to that. The game also runs extremely smoothly on PS4, with no framedrops as far as I could see.

          But as soon as you start playing the game, problems begin to arise, the first of them being the frequent loading screens. Each time you boot up Prey you are greeted with not one, not two, but three lengthy loading screens, with many more following you around each time you need to enter a new area on the Talos. They’re annoyingly frequent and long, messing up immersion many times.

          The Talos I is both fun to explore and frustrating to navigate. I enjoyed being taken to new areas of the ship, especially when I was allowed to float around in zero gravity around outside. Unfortunately, backtracking to old locations is a painstaking experience. The map you’re given does little to help you figure out where you’re trying to get to, especially if you’re backtracking to find a specific place you’ve been before. You can’t place markers or anything like that. At one point in the game I got radiation poisoning, making poor Morgan stumble around constantly. I was forced to put up with it for way longer than I should have, purely because I couldn’t find a medical station anywhere and one never appeared on the map.

          Speaking of radiation poisoning, our unlucky hero/heroine can encounter a number of irritating status changes on their journey, from getting temporarily drunk after drinking too many alcoholic healing items to being so afraid of your alien adversaries that you lose the ability to aim straight. I’ve said it before but since this seems to be becoming a trend in gaming I suppose it’s worth saying again: realism does not make games fun. It slows down your progress and requires you to go out of your way to refill a meter just so you can play the game normally again. It’s more of a hindrance than a fun mechanic, and here it’s no different. I definitely didn’t enjoy spending a good chunk of my time with Prey stumbling around like I was on ice skates just because I couldn’t find a way to get rid of it.

          And now to get to the most miserable part of the entire experience for me and the ultimate reason why I literally can’t go any further into the game: the combat.

          The Typhon aren’t exactly the most inspired enemy designs. Take the Xenomorphs from Alien mixed with Venom of Spider-Man, but remove what make those two cool. You’re left with black goopy monsters that constantly get in your way while making laughable attempts at jumpscares. Prey does try an interesting tactic with the most common type of Typhon, known as Mimics, which can transform into random objects like mugs or computer consoles in an attempt to surprise you. But honestly in all my time playing I rarely saw a Mimic actually doing the ability it was named for. More often than not I walked into a room, had one run in front of me and scream before I smashed it to death with my wrench.

          You have many different tools which you can use to subdue your foes, some more entertaining than others. The most entertaining one I found was the GLOO Gun, a cannon that launches large balls of glue that you can use to freeze an enemy in place, build platforms, and all sorts of other fun stuff. It’s a very creative weapon and it got me very excited to see what other fun stuff this game had come up with.

          Imagine my disappointment when the next weapon I found was a silenced pistol. Oh well.

          You’re also equipped with a wrench for melee attacks, which you’ll honestly be using way more than your ranged weapon for one reason in particular: Prey hates giving you ammo. Literally, the developers must be allergic to it or something.

          It honestly doesn’t matter, because even the early game foes are bullet sponges that would make Friday the 13th’s Jason feel jealous. You can unload an entire pistol clip into one of the larger ones and barely make a dent in its health bar. This quickly leads to you running out of ammo in both your GLOO Gun and your standard weapons, leaving you with only two choices: either trying to melee the buggers or turning Morgan into Usain Bolt and trying to run past them to the next objective before they catch you.

          What’s really annoying about this is that despite the Typhon’s offensive and defensive capabilities not being unlike that of a monster in a survival horror game, they’re placed in the map like action game cannon fodder enemies. You’ll often be walking from point A to point B when you’re suddenly ambushed by up to six Typhon at one, depleting your resources and often dying several times as you try to figure out a way around them.

          Seriously, you die in this game way too much. At one point I got so sick of seeing the death screen that I actually changed the difficulty setting from Normal to Easy to try and get further in the game. I didn’t even notice a difference to be honest, and I dread to think what the higher levels are like.

          And this is where things started to get legitimately messy for me. Like most other modern games, Prey employs a skill tree system you can use to improve Morgan’s various abilities. The developers have even proclaimed many times that this is a game you can “play your way”. With this in mind, early on I decided to go for a more stealth oriented build (still thinking the enemies would operate like normal horror game enemies) with some points in stuff like hacking and repairs to try and get around the map easier. Imagine my surprise when my stealth turned out to be absolutely worthless because you more often than not encounter Typhon in small rooms or hallways with nowhere to hide and are spotted in seconds.

          You can get more ammo, but to do so you have to pick up various materials like wire and computer chips littered around all over the place. Trust me when I say that you’ll need to thoroughly search each room for loot, because crafting ammo doesn’t come cheap. Crafting stations are also few and far between, meaning that it’s not really something to rely on.

          Seriously, the game keeps sending flags that you shouldn’t be engaging the Typhon in combat. Why do they keep placing them in hallways where I have no option but to fight my way through?

          Anyways, this being my first time playing and not following a guide of any means, I didn’t have much in the way of ammo because I didn’t collect all the knickknacks the game didn’t tell me I needed to craft them. I eventually got to a point where I was trapped in a room with a boss I had no way of defeating, at which point I called it quits on the whole operation.

          I have no interest in ever going back and trying Prey again with a different character build. If I had to sum up my entire experience with the game in one word, it’d be “frustrating”. Everything about this game seems designed to make you feel as angry as possible, from the meatshield enemies that are necessary to fight just so you can progress to the resources so limited that Silent Hill would call them out on it to the fact that the game’s much touted “play your way” system falls completely flat once you realize that you literally can build your character wrong and will have to restart the entire adventure just so you can keep progressing.

          Literally the only things this game has going for it is the cool 1950’s-esque visual design and the creative GLOO Gun. That’s it. If for whatever reason you still really want to check Prey out, I’d say rent it first or wait for it to go on supersale. You won’t be missing much.

FINAL SCORE

3/10

Bad

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Review: “World’s End”

One last ride

(This review contains spoilers!)

(Seriously, like huge season-finale level spoilers. If you haven’t watched the episode yet don’t read this!)

          Season 4 of S.H.I.E.L.D has arguably been the best one yet, and that’s saying something when you consider how amazing Season 3 was. However, considering the season was split into three separate pods, it seemed like it was going to prove a difficult task for the showrunners to tie them all together cohesively for a finale.

          Wouldn’t you know it, the S.H.I.E.L.D writers team has worked their magic yet again, creating an excellent episode that provides a satisfying conclusion to the season as well as setting up what we’ll be seeing when they return.

          Aida is still furious about Fitz breaking up with her, and has decided that it’s time to make the S.H.I.E.L.D crew pay for what they’ve done to her. Meanwhile, Robbie Reyes has returned from who-knows-where to get rid of Aida and take the Darkhold somewhere safe. And while all that is going on, Yo-Yo has ventured into the Framework to retrieve Mack before it collapses, but he still won’t leave his daughter. There’s a lot going on this week, but the writers manage to make none of it feel superfluous.

          It was pretty obvious that Ghost Rider would be coming back at some point after he made his departure earlier this season, but I didn’t expect it to be this soon. He kind of disappointingly doesn’t contribute much to the overall plot (for the most part, but I’ll get to that), so his only purpose this episode is to look really cool while beating up bad guys. He and Daisy have an awesome scene together where they use their combined powers together to finally finish off that Russian guy once and for all.

          But the fact remains that Aida is still out there and is nigh-unstoppable, and she knows better than to get anywhere near Robbie. Knowing this, Coulson hatches a plan crazy enough that it just might work.

          Meanwhile in the Framework, Yo-Yo and Radcliffe are working together to convince Mack to come home before the entire program collapses in on itself while Daisy is building them an exit. While it’s nowhere near as interesting as what’s going on outside, it’s nice to see some relationship building between the two of them, since we haven’t really had them together since the beginning of the LMD storyline. I also love Mack’s reaction upon exiting the Framework. Instead of freaking out that he got his daughter back and then lost her, he’s grateful that he finally got to spend some time with her. It’s a fantastic little touch and I’m glad that that’s the direction the writers decided to take with him.

          I also loved Radcliffe’s last ever scene. It fit his character so perfectly: very funny, but not without a bit of tragedy to it. John Hannah’s been absolutely spectacular as Radcliffe ever since we first met him last season, and I’m honestly sad to see him go.

          With Mack and Yo-Yo back home, it was time for Coulson’s plan to stop Aida once and for all to unfold. Aida teleported into the base and attacked Fitz and Simmons, torturing the latter until Fitz told her that Coulson had the Darkhold. Of course, it wasn’t actually Simmons, but rather an LMD, and the real Simmons got a great moment shooting Aida in the chest and remarking that even though she knew it wouldn’t do anything it made her feel good anyways.

          And then it was time for the big surprise: since Aida wouldn’t go near Robbie, they had to get Ghost Rider to her some other way. This led to Coulson unleashing the Spirit of Vengeance himself, completely burning Aida to a crisp. It’s honestly one of the most satisfying ways a villain’s been defeated that I’ve seen in a long, long time.

          All season Mallory Jansen has done an incredible job of creating a character that went from lifeless servant android to one of the MCU’s best villains, leaving us as a character we loved to hate for all the right reasons. I still rank Ward up there as S.H.I.E.L.D’s best villains if only for his relationship with the main characters and what he did in the first half of Season 3, but Aida definitely is a close second.

          Of course, things immediately start going wrong as soon as they start going right. As Robbie prepares to leave once again, he discusses with Coulson the deal he made to temporarily take control of Ghost Rider. He says “I don’t envy you”, to which Coulson replies “I was gonna say the same to you”. It’s unclear what they meant by this, but I’m sure it’s going to come into play next season.

          Speaking of next season, the showrunners wasted no time in giving us a tease of what we can expect to see when S.H.I.E.L.D returns in…January. Oh boy. Because Inhumans is premiering next fall we’re going to have to wait extra to see where this goes, and it’s a doozy.

          The agents spend some time relaxing in a cozy diner, but then a shadowy group storms in and uses a mysterious device to freeze them in place and capture them. We then cut to Coulson waking up in a mysterious room. He opens the window and it turns out that he’s either gotten himself a brand new 4K TV or he’s somehow wound up lost in space. He remarks that he’s got work to do, and the season ends on that note.

          So what could this possibly mean? The common consensus online right now seems to be that this’ll lead to the introduction of S.W.O.R.D from the comics (who are basically S.H.I.E.L.D but in space if you don’t know), but this morning one of the VFX supervisors for the show confirmed that the rights to S.W.O.R.D are tied to the X-Men license over at Fox, so they’re ruled out. I personally think this is going to tie into Infinity War somehow, considering that Season 5 will still be airing when it comes out next May.

          While it’s easy to get excited about next year, it’s also important to remember just how good this season’s been. There was definitely quite a few gambles played this time around, especially as the show introduced more magical elements to tie into Doctor Strange. But as far as I’m concerned, all the risks paid off, and this episode was the perfect representation of that. It tied together the three separate pods of the season excellently, giving each character a moment in the spotlight and completing the season with a satisfying conclusion while still making us hungry for more.

FINAL SCORE

9/10

Amazing

Little Witch Academia Episode 19 Review

The beginning of the end

(This review contains spoilers!)

          As we creep ever closer to the season finale of Little Witch Academia (I refuse to believe it’s going to be the series finale), it looks like we’re heading straight into our final arc, as Diana finally gets some long deserved screentime.

          Following some undisclosed disaster, Diana decides the time has come to return home and become the leader of the Cavendish family. Akko, of course, isn’t having any of it, and decides to not rest until she stays in school, following her to her family’s estate. Along the way she meets up with Andrew, who serves his usual purpose of getting Akko into the situation she needs to be in for the plot to progress.

          This episode is mostly concerned with more worldbuilding, which is always welcome as far as I’m concerned with this show. The world and magic of Little Witch is so fascinating to me, so I love digging a little deeper into the lore of the world. We learned that the Cavendish family is tied to one of the original Nine Olde Witches, and Diana is a direct descendant of her. I also loved that Diana’s childhood was brought back in several ways, including her being a fan of Chariot just like Akko. It even looks like she has the ultra-rare card Akko said she didn’t have way back at the start of the series.

          The only problem is that Diana’s sinister aunt (who is always flanked by two girls who always do what she says, kinda like a certain someone else we know) has taken control of the family, and is selling off their priceless artifacts in order to keep herself rich. Diana believes that the family should sustain its heritage over improving its finances, and has arrived on the one night a year specified in ancient tradition that the next in line can take over the Cavendish throne.

          Akko helps keep the mood light with plenty of her always-great physical humour. The entire scene where she tries hitchhiking to get to Diana’s house is hilarious. Plus, this episode gave a much stronger insight to Akko and Diana’s relationship than we’ve had in a very long time. While it’s been made clear they appreciate each other from a distance, they’ve rarely had time to interact when they aren’t fighting.

          And this leads me to the one big problem with this episode. It’s kind of hard to believe that Akko would go chasing Diana like she does. Replace Diana with Amanda or Sucy and her reaction is way more understandable. The two of them haven’t had enough of a positive relationship for me to really believe that Akko would go out of her way to get Diana back. I kind of have to forgive this because without her reacting like this there’s no way we would’ve gotten this storyline (considering this series is so tied to Akko’s story and basically everything is told from her perspective), but it’s still a little annoying.

          The episode ends with a cliffhanger of Diana challenging her aunt for power, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to seeing where this goes. This episode was fantastic in deepening the world of Little Witch even further, as well as developing Diana’s character more, considering she’s felt more like a foil to Akko than her own character for a long period of time. I kind of wish we had a stronger reason why Akko went on this crazy mission other than “she likes having Diana around”, because we honestly haven’t seen enough development between the two to believe that. Despite this, this is an excellent episode that looks to serve as the beginning of the grand finale.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Editorial: Rush Job

Rush Job

          Prey, Bethesda’s first big game of the year, released last week to very little fanfare. There was little in the name of advertising or lead-up. The game just kind of showed up finished on Tuesday, and those who were looking forward to it bought the game.

          With the release of this game, Bethesda once again decided to employ their new review embargo policy: no review copies for anyone. Every single person, regardless of whether they’re journalists, reviewers or just normal folks, has to wait until launch day to play their games.

          First employed with the release of Doom last year, here’s why Bethesda decided to screw over reviewers: “It led to speculation about the quality of Doom. Since then it has emerged as a critical and commercial hit, and is now one of the highest-rated shooters of the past few years.”

          In normal, not-insane people terms, this basically means that Bethesda feels that everyone should put blind faith in them just because they released one game that was a big success despite having a late embargo. Normally, when a game developer decides to delay the review embargo, it’s because they have extremely little faith in the product and are trying to hold the low review scores as close to release as possible in hopes that potential customers won’t see them and will buy their game on Day 1 anyways.

Since then, Dishonored 2, Skyrim: Special Edition and now Prey have released with no reviews on Day 1, leaving the consumer with no trustworthy sources on whether they should shell out $60 of their hard earned cash on the games. Checking Metacritic on Day 1 for Prey, the only review there was an in-progress one without much content. Doesn’t exactly build consumer confidence, does it?

Regardless of the immense backlash from fans and critics alike, Bethesda continues to back this policy. They keep trying to paint themselves in a more positive light every time it comes up, most notably pulling the classic “nobody says you have to buy our games on Day 1” argument. But this falls flat when you remember one crucial detail: we live in a games industry that’s currently dominated by pre-order culture, and Bethesda is certainly not an exception to that.

          If you decided to pre-order Prey, you got the “Exclusive Cosmonaut Shotgun Pack”. This gives you a special in-game weapon I don’t believe you can get anywhere else, as well as some bonus goodies like extra medkits and crafting materials to help you on your alien squashing adventure. It should be mindboggling to see a developer can go from encouraging waiting to see reviews before buying their game to shoving all the bonus content Day 1 adopters will get down everyone’s throats, but once you spend enough time in this industry these things stop being surprising.

          This review policy isn’t just bad for consumers either. Game reviewers for major sites like IGN and Kotaku are especially taxed by these policies. Clicks are everything in online business, because the more clicks you get on your review, the more cash comes rolling in at the end of the month. Because of that, these sites are in constant competition with each other to get their reviews of the latest major releases out first.

          The biggest problem with this is that Bethesda now gives these sites little to no time to actually write reviews. Most game developers will send these sites review codes two weeks to a month in advance, giving the reviewer time to go through the game at their own pace, taking note of their various praises and criticisms along the way. At the end of the day this results in a more eloquently written review, because the writer was allowed to spend more time in the game and really get to know it better.

          This is a thing that cannot happen with Bethesda’s review policy unless the reviewer also happens to be a speedrunning god. Because sites like IGN depend on the reviewer getting their article out before everyone else, this means that they have to rush through the game, which often results in them not enjoying it as much as they would’ve had they taken their time with it.

          At the end of the day, Bethesda’s review policy only benefits to one entity: Bethesda themselves. No reviews on Day 1 mean that they’re able to avoid any potential negative criticism that might convince early adopters to skip out on the game. Their excuse that you don’t have to buy their products on Day 1 ring hollow when you look at the fact they participate in pre-order culture. And ultimately the reviews that do come out are usually rushed in an attempt to get more clicks, leaving consumers that decide to wait with lackluster criticism that doesn’t help them with their purchase whatsoever.

          Bethesda needs to get with the program. Just because they released one good game with this policy in place doesn’t mean we won’t be seeing another Elder Scrolls Online down the road. Holding back review codes due to low confidence in a product is scumbaggy in the first place, but doing it for all your games regardless of quality turns buying one of your products into a complete gamble. With no reviews to fall back on I can’t accurately predict whether a Bethesda game will be worth my $60 or if it’ll turn out to be a buggy mess. If they want to build consumer confidence, their first real step should be to go back to the drawing board and remove this plan entirely.

Song of the Week

          Streets of Whiterun – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Re:Creators Episode 6 Review

Swords, magic and now a gun

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Talk about a comeback. Re:Creators has suffered immensely over the last few weeks thanks to the writers trying to get all the exposition out of the way in the first few weeks. This led to several episodes featuring little but the characters talking about anything and everything, but with very little actually being accomplished.

          This episode was the first one since the first two that really felt like what I was hoping we’d see out of this anime. It was colorful and fun, with lots of fantastic characters and relationships between them as well as some excellently choreographed fight scenes.

          This episode finally properly introduced the last of the major Creations (or at least the ones that appear in the opening). The purple-haired girl has some sort of sinister magic powers fueled by lies, but we never really got to see her use or explain it. Despite this, she’s a very entertaining Chaotic Evil character that I want to see more of.

          She is pursued by the always-entertaining duo of Alice and Momoka. Their relationship is just as good here as it was in their first episode. Coming from two different anime with vastly contrasting themes gives them a great friendly rapport on how they view meeting new people at the opening of the episode.

          The one real problem I still have with this anime is main character guy. He has an extremely small and insignificant role at the beginning of the episode (which is literally just what he did at the end of the last episode) where he learns of the origins of the Military Uniform Princess…and then doesn’t explain what they are. It’s kind of obvious she has different origins from the rest of the cast, but I really wish he’d actually explained it or something to give him a thing to do this episode.

          The best part of the episode is easily the finale. Most of the Creations all come out to battle with each other over their clashing ideals, and it’s awesome to finally see them all showing off their abilities again after weeks of just plain nothing. The fight scene is long and awesome, with plenty of different things and characters to watch the whole time. The best part is that it isn’t done yet, meaning we’ll see more next week.

          This episode is exactly what I hoped Re:Creators would be back when I started. This episode featured awesome characters, great exchanges and banter between them, and fantastic battles. I’m so glad we’ve finally escaped the exposition, because now is the time for this anime to really show us what it can do.

FINAL SCORE

9/10

Amazing

Steven Universe Review: “I Am My Mom”

Who’s your daddy?

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Continuing directly from last time, it’s up to Steven and the Gems to rescue the captured townspeople from the clutches of Aquamarine and Topaz.

This episode takes a much more sinister tone than the one before, as seen with the reddish tint to the lighting throughout the whole thing. I’ve always loved how Steven Universe isn’t afraid to change the colour scheme they use depending on where the characters are and when the scene takes place. It really adds an extra bit of depth to the world you don’t see in many other cartoons.

          Onto the episode itself, I Am My Mom wastes no time in gathering up the Crystal Gems (sans Peridot and Lapis, but I feel that their respective powers would’ve been able to stop the big reveal at the end, so it kind of makes sense why they were absent this time) and locating the villains who are still searching for “My Dad”. Pearl and Steven quickly put together that they’re top agents sent by Blue and Yellow Diamond as new prisoners for the zoo.

          While Aquamarine was entertaining in the last episode, here she makes the jump to one of Steven Universe’s best villains so far, up there with Yellow Diamond, Jasper, and the Cartoon Network social media guy that lied about a new gem being in Rocknaldo. She’s delightfully sadistic, putting Steven’s friends in mortal danger without a care in the world.

          I also love how this episode brings back plenty of old jokes and plot points from episodes not just in the series, but dating as far back as Season 1. Connie’s ringtone is music from Alone Together, Jamie references the events of Love Letters, and the reason why Aquamarine captured those specific humans is because they’re the ones Steven listed off to Peridot back in Marble Madness. It’s very rewarding for fans who’ve stuck with the show for a long time.

          Of course, things get messy once Steven tells them that he’s “My Dad”, allowing himself to be captured and taken aboard their ship. His rescue mission doesn’t quite go as planned, leaving him no choice but to reveal himself as Rose Quartz. His friends are freed, but at the cost of him being sent to Homeworld with little to no chance of rescue.

          This would make for an awesome cliffhanger ending, but there’s one small detail that really sullied it for me. Not all the humans managed to escape the ship. One was accidentally left behind. And that human was…

          …Lars.

          I keep trying to convince myself that this is a good thing and that it’ll finally give Lars the character development the crew wants him to get, but I can’t help but be disappointed that we might finally be seeing Homeworld for the first time, and we’re stuck with Lars! It doesn’t feel like an exciting additional character being along for the ride. Instead it feels more like you’re finally going to Disney World for the first time ever but you need to bring your bratty nephew along for no real reason.

          (NOTE: I wrote this review on Thursday morning. Since then I’ve seen the leak of the next episode, Stuck Together, and I’m starting to think that having Lars playing a major role in this arc might be just what his character needs. I’m keeping this review the way it is though to preserve how I felt after watching I Am My Mom the first time.)

          Despite this frustration, I Am My Mom is a very satisfying ending to not only the arc, but the entire season. In a season full of boring town episodes and underwhelming character development across the board, this episode really felt like a return to form for the series that we haven’t seen since the last StevenBomb. While I’m sure Steven will be returning to Earth before long, the next few episode titles tell me that we’ll be spending plenty of time with Lars in space, seeing more of what Homeworld has up their sleeves.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Steven Universe Review: “Are You My Dad?”

Dad Quest

(This review contains spoilers!)

          One of the reasons why the town episodes in Steven Universe feel like a completely different show is that they’re often disjointed from what the Gems are doing, which is unfortunate, because the Gems are the main driving force of the plot. The townsfolk had nothing to do with Peridot’s redemption, they just barely had roles as supporting characters in Amethyst’s Season 3 ending arc, and none of them appeared in the Out of this World bomb.

          So it seems only fitting that a season absolutely suffocating in townie episodes involve them in the finale somehow. Following up from the last two episodes, Lars, Sadie and Onion have gone missing, and it seems that Jamie the mailman has joined them. Steven and Connie go on a quest to find them, only to stumble across a small blue gem who says she’s looking for her dad.

          As these things go, it turns out that the blue gem (Aquamarine) is behind all of this, employing large brutes called Topazes to fuse around the townies and hold them hostage. Connie is quickly scooped up as well, leaving Steven to take off home.

          This episode feels more or less like setup for tomorrow’s season finale, but there’s a lot of humour to it that the next episode, being much more serious, lacks. The scene where Connie and the Gems try to draw Aquamarine based on Steven’s description of her is especially hilarious (“Okay, Garnet, you just drew yourself.” “Uh, I like me.”).

          The new gems are fun, albeit a little uninspired. Topaz looks a little too close to Jasper, and Aquamarine definitely has a Lapis feel to her. Their personalities, on the other hand, make them out to be fantastic villains. I like that they contrast, with Topaz never saying a word and Aquamarine being incredibly chatty, while still both being very intimidating.

          Are You My Dad? is pretty obviously meant to as a “Part 1” of the season finale than a stand-alone episode, but I think that it works well for what it is. It does a good job at introducing the villains (although I wish we’d gotten to them earlier) and there’s a lot of funny moments. It’s a solid episode that feels like a satisfying beginning of the end to a lackluster season.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great