Short break to take...

Hey guys, my review of One Piece will have to wait until certain demonic things called FINALS are defeated, and even then, it'll be Christmas soon.  However, I do hope to post it in between Christmas and New Year's, so look forward to that, and we'll see what happens!  Waving out!

--Gemini $park

GSpark Reviews: Naruto/Naruto Shippuden

To those of you who are tired of listening to me talk about Megaman Battle Network, don’t worry; I’m tired of talking about Megaman Battle Network… for now.  Today, we talk about an anime that’s quite popular in America as well as Japan.  Time to tie on your headbands and ready your chakra!

Naruto

So here’s a case of baby-gets-demon-sealed-inside-of-him… Wait, that’s not a typical case unless you broaden it from “demon” to “uber power no one else is supposed to have”.  Anyway, that describes Naruto Uzumaki.  His pal, Sasuke Uchiha, follows a more typical family-gets-wiped-out-so-kid-wants-revenge story.  The catch?  His brother Itachi is the culprit, so that’s who he wants revenge on.  And he’s willing to team up with a psycho named Orochimaru, even if that psycho attacked his village and left a nasty mark on him before.  Naruto, of course, tries to stop him, but fails.  Other than that, it’s all filler until he leaves the Leaf Village to train with his godfather Jiraiya.

Naruto Shippuden

Two years after that, Naruto comes back to the Leaf Village only to find their new ally, the Sand Village, is in trouble!  They let a mysterious organization known as the Akatsuki (of whom Itachi is a member of) capture their leader, Gaara of the Desert.  Gaara also happens to be one of Naruto’s friends (albeit after he tried to kill Sasuke and Sakura), so the plot has the Leaf’s leader, Tsunade, assign Team Kakashi, consisting of Naruto, Sakura, and their mentor Kakashi, to rescue Gaara, defeat the Akatsuki, etc.  The Akatsuki turn out to be the main enemy throughout this series, while Naruto is trying everything he can to persuade his old friend Sasuke to change his ways and return to the Leaf Village.

Strengths: Naruto has a bunch of characters, good and bad, that are very likable; many of them could probably be described better by the fangirls of those characters.  There’s also a lot of interesting interaction between the characters, including some provocative banter between Sasori and Deidara of the Akatsuki.  Some of the filler arcs in Naruto Shippuden have good storylines to them, and they have some memorable characters as well.  Awesome battle sequences help out a lot also, and Shippuden is filled with them.

Weaknesses: Sometimes the series can be too predictable, especially in fillers since main characters aren’t supposed to die in them (Shippuden movie 1 could be seen as an exception… maybe).  Usually, if a villain kills one of the good guys, they avenge the fallen and take out the guy who killed their comrade (*spoiler* to my knowledge that has happened at least twice *spoiler*).  Plus they take the predictable shonen elements into the series, i.e. the hero and villain exchange higher and higher levels of attacks, good guy gets pushed to the limit, then good guy comes up with an awesome jutsu to take out the villain, despite the villain’s last ditch effort to take the hero out or defend themselves.

What really slows it down are the obligatory fillers.  The original Naruto series gets ragged on for making more filler episodes than main story episodes and for lumping them all together into a long stream of fillers right after the Sasuke Retreival arc is done.  Currently Shippuden seems to be suffering from being loaded with flashback episodes as well.  Eh, fillers are fillers.

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Up next is another anime about as popular as Naruto is, and I watch the current episodes of both anime every week.  They are a big part of my life now.  So today was Naruto, and next time will be One Piece!  Waving out now!

--Gemini $park

GSpark Reviews: Megaman Battle Network 3

And here's my third review!  This continues my review of Megaman Battle Network, but I'll wait a little before reviewing 4, 5, and 6.  I have to move on to other stuff because I don't want to cover just a video game series with this blog.  Anyway, here's Megaman Battle Network 3!

Installment #3 to the series is the first of it to have two versions, Blue and White.  The only two differences between each version are that one of them has an extra optional boss to battle, and each version has a Style Change specific to that version (Bug Style for Blue, Ground Style for White).  And yes, the Style Changes return for Battle Network 3.  WWW also returns as the crime organization for Lan and Megaman to stop, this time from having the internet eat itself. (You’ll understand as you go deeper into the plot.)  And the new feature?  The Navi Customizer allows you to install programs into Megaman that can enhance him the way you want.  You can increase the ability to rapid-fire, have a barrier at the start of every battle, whatever floats your boat.

Megaman battles the final boss, Alpha.  Sorry for the spoiler!

Strengths: They did a very good job with the animation, and I would argue that the battle animation in this game is the best in the series.  The transitions are smooth, and there are some interesting sprites in the game.  They also broke the Battle Chips up into Standard, Mega, and Giga Class chips for the first time in this game.  You now feel a sense of accomplishment by getting those rare chips (even though half of them are worthless, IMO).  Also, BASS.  That’s all I’ll say.

Weaknesses: With the return of Style Changes comes the return of the problems associated with Style Changes.  It’s hard to know what style you get until you get it, but it’s even worse now than it was back in BN2 because you only get one Style Change at a time.  Also, I haven’t been able to get the two version-specific Style Changes, which could either say something about how extremely hard it is to get them or how lazy I am to find out how to get them, take your pick.

It’s so hard to find some of the third-version bosses; even if you can understand the clues certain people give you to find them, there may be another condition to be met before you encounter that boss.  Also, BUBBLEMAN.  That’s all I’ll say.

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And with that, I will be venturing out of Megaman Battle Network for a while and pick it back up another time.  In two days time, look forward to hearing my review of an anime!  Specifically, I'll be looking at Naruto/Naruto Shippuden.  I hope to please its fans with this one, especially since I'm a fan myself!  'Til then, I'm waving out!

--Gemini $park

GSpark Reviews: Megaman Battle Network 2

See, I told you I would be posting sooner than you thought!  Now we plunge into the sequel to Megaman Battle Network, and all that changes about the name is the 2 tacked on it!

It’s a good thing I started playing the Battle Network games with this one instead of the first.  Plotwise, Lan and Megaman are spending summer vacation facing a new crime organization known as Gospel.  As for the battle system, some of the Battle Chips had a * code meaning they were essentially wild cards—a welcome addition to customizing.  Replacing the armor system were the Style Changes; they changed how Megaman looked, changed his Charge Shot depending on the element (Wood, Heat, Elec, or Aqua), and granted a beneficial effect depending on the style (Guts, Shield, Team, or Custom).

Strengths: They built sufficiently off of BN1 and provided a better variety of Battle Chips than the first one did.  I’m also very grateful for the Style Changes.  They help to provide a theme to turn to for your Battle Chips.

Weaknesses: The animation could have used a little clean up from the first one, but it was okay otherwise.  The Style Changes seem almost random, so you may have to play a while to get the one you want.  At least you got to keep two Style Changes and switch between them.  Again, certain Battle Chips are very gimmicky so you rarely use them, but fortunately a good majority of them are pretty useful.

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Megaman Battle Network 3 will be reviewed shortly.  Then I'll cover something outside of Megaman for a while.  I promise!

GSpark Reviews: Megaman Battle Network

OK, let’s get this blog officially started! (sorry about that, real life and laziness in the way) And I’ll start with a video game series that I think didn’t get enough credit just because it was a spinoff series.  The series to look at today is Megaman Battle Network for the Game Boy Advance!

There are six games to cover here and not necessarily in one day; I will not cover Battle Chip Challenge, BN4.5 (it’s only in Japan, after all), or Network Transmission for the Game Cube.  With that, here’s the first game.  Megaman Battle Network is more of a role-playing game for the Megaman series.  Battles are done with you as Megaman on one side of a 6x3 grid and the enemy(ies) on the other side, each with 9 squares of area to work with.  The enemies have their attacks for you to dodge, and you have a collection of Battle Chips with which you can use to make all sorts of attacks.  Outside of Cyber World, you play Megaman’s operator, 5^th-grade Lan Hikari, who would rather Netbattle his friends or cybercrime than do his homework (I know, he’s a unique person, isn’t he?).

For the first Battle Network game, you face the evil organization known as WWW(World Three) and try to stop them from releasing a supervirus that would basically destroy the Internet if successful.  The battle system here allows you to pick multiple Chips if they are the same type or they have the same letter (i.e. Sword S, WideSword S, LongSword S).  Also available are types of armor that help you with elemental attacks.

Strengths: It was a good way to introduce the series, and a moderate difficulty level allows you to enjoy the plot, and the bonus content is difficult enough to obtain that it is worthwhile to get when you do get it.  Also, the bosses and viruses draw their inspiration from the Classic Megaman series, and they made better-looking versions of the Classic bosses… mostly.

Weaknesses: There was hardly any way to distinguish one area of the main cyberworld from another, especially since the areas were only given numbers to distinguish themselves.  As a result, you find yourself lost in the main cyberworld all too easily.

I see no point in the armor whatsoever.  It doesn’t actually boost your chips power, it just makes you resistant to one element and weak to another.  Also, some of the Battle Chips just never get used because they require the situation to be just right to use them, and the current situation almost never calls for them.  Then again, what RPG doesn’t suffer from stuff that gets less used compared to others?

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I'll cover the other five games in seperate posts so you, the follower, can post your comments on that specific game.  And yeah, this will be generally how I review a game or show; I'll have a summary of the series, and then I'll give its strengths and weaknesses.  But yeah, Megaman Battle Network 2 will be coming.  And a lot sooner than you think!  (Think of it this way, it'll be much earlier than two months! :P)

Welcome to GSpark Reviews!

Hello to all!  I am Gemini Spark (named after the Megaman Star Force character), and this is GSpark Reviews!  This blog is created for the sole purpose of posting reviews about videogames, anime, fantasy, and science fiction.  For now, my posts will be to review a series generally, but later on I hope to do reviews for story arcs, chapters, and episodes for some of these series.  Not right now, though.  However, I will tell you that my first review will be on the Megaman Battle Network videogames!  That comes soon, but for now, I will leave you intrigued at what my opinions could possibly be.  Time to Wave Out for now!

--Gemini $park