A Trip Through Time

     The original version of Chrono Triggercame out for the Super Nintendo in 1995.  Then, thirteen years later, in 2008, Nintendo and Square Enix finally re-released it for the Nintendo DS, so that people who missed it the first time (like me) could try it.  Chrono Trigger is one of the great RPGs of the pre-Final Fantasy VII boom period.  After that game came out, RPGs became far more commonplace.  But this game was a gem from before, like Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI.  The story is of a young swordsman named Chrono, whose friend Lucca devises a teleporter for Guardia Kingdom’s Millennial Fair.  When a young woman Chrono just met, named Marle, volunteers to be the test subject, everything goes awry.  A time portal is created, and Marle is sucked in.  Chrono and Lucca chase after her, and a journey through time begins.  Along they way, the trio meet other friends, like Frog, Robo, and Ayla, enemies like Magus (who can become a friend), Queen Zeal, and Lavos, and just strange things like old sages and Nus. 

     The battle system is a nice variation on the basic turn-based RPG.  For one, it has something like the Active Time Bar of later Final Fantasies, so you have to react quickly.  Also, certain attacks depend on where enemies actually spacially are.  And characters can also use combo techniques together which are far stronger than normal attacks.  It’s all quite cool and unique, and I’m sure that it gave the Squaresoft people the idea for the ATB.  Using the game mechanic of the time portals, you can travel to multiple times on the exact same planet, including prehistoric times, antiquity, the middle ages, the present, the Day of Lavos, the Future, and the end of time.  The art is done by Dragonball and Dragon Quest artist Toriyama Akira, and although I dislike Dragonball, his art is pretty dang good.  His work has all the pluses of his style with none of the minuses.  For the time that it was created, it even has a pretty good story.  Admittedly, my favorite stories are far more complex (Final Fantasy X, Suikoden V, Tales of Symphonia), but this is one of the best from the pre-Final Fantasy VII era.  So, if you have a DS, and you love RPGs, you MUST get this game.  It’s so totally worth every penny.

Story: 9.2      Gameplay: 9.4      Presentation: 9.0      Soundtrack: 8.8      Overall: 9.2

Another Stereotypical Shonen Anime

     So, want a show that feels a lot like Dragonball Z without actually being Dragonball Z?  Try s-CRY-ed.  There was a massive geologic event that separated a small part of Japan from the mainland.  This new island became a specially administrated zone, largely because a small number of people born there suddenly developed bizarre psychic powers.  They were able to break down and rebuild matter into something that they could control, called an alter.  These alter users were a major problem, and the Japanese government created its own alter task force, called HOLY, in order to deal with the native alters.  Into this situation comes Kazuma, an alter user who doesn’t care about anything except staying true to himself and protecting those he loves, a.k.a. his adopted younger sister Kanami.  When HOLY comes in with its best agent, Ryuhou, Kazuma and Ryuhou get locked into a rivalry that ultimately causes another geologic event and leads to the destabilization of the political and military situation in the Lost Ground, the island.  Kazuma possesses an alter that modifies his fist into a super powerfulpunching machine, and Ryuhou has an alter that acts independently from him and attacks with cutting techniques, though it ultimately evolves into an armor.

     Big explosions, ridiculous powers, unclear character motivations… Yup, it’s a shonen anime.  Unfortunately, it’s so stereotypically shonen that it’s only mediocre.  For one, the motivations of the main villain, Mujo Kyouji, is never really clear.  He’s hungry… or something.  And the specific reason as to why Kazuma is so goddamn stubborn is also never really clear.  He just is.  The rivalry between him and Ryuhou is also so Goku/Vegeta-esque that it’s basically just cookie-cutter.  Sure, it can be fun at times.  There are some lesser characters that are really interesting.  The most so is Straight Cougar, who is super fast and super funny.  He’s really the most interesting character in the show.  But aside from him, most of the characters aren’t that interesting.  Ryuhou’s love interest, Kiryuu Mimori, is just snoozy.  She’s basically one-dimensional.  But for the most part, it’s a fun, high-octane show.  If you need to kill some time, and you want something with a decent plot but not much thought involved, this is your show. 

Story: 5.6      Artwork: 8.2      Soundtrack: 6.0      Acting: 6.6      Overall: 6.2

Fight the Powers

     Well, Kelley Armstrong’s six-issue run on Angel is over.  And the ending sputters out a bit.  Angel and Jamaerah meet with the Elohim, cosmic “referees” that dictate the balance between light and dark.  They explain that they imprisoned the Potentates because they went overboard.  They allow Angel and Jamaerah to free two of the Potentates, who then go off on another mission to eradicate evil.  Angel, Jamaerah, and Kate go with them, and they discover that the Potentates are killing human beings just because of some evil that they might commit in the future.  Needless to say, the gang isn’t happy with that, though Angel is unsure of what to think because the Potentates are supposed to be the good guys.  Meanwhile, Desdemona has trouble holding her form, and she spends some time cleaning up with Connor.  The Potentates come to force Desdemona to return to her jaguar form, but she refuses, and the Angel gang fights them.  In the end, the Elohim tell Angel that he now has a gang of rogue warriors that he is in charge of in the fight against the Potentates’ injustice.  And Angel is okay with that.

     Each successive issue of this arc was less interesting than the one before.  I’d still say that it was better than almost the entirety of Angel: After the Fall, but it seems that Armstrong wasn’t capable of sustaining her ideas.  Desdemona and Jamaerah are interesting additions to the cast, but I’d still like to see some of the old gang back.  I also would have liked a more interesting, possibly more conclusive fight with the Potentates rather than a one page spread that leaves the rest to the imagination.  Unfortunately, Dave Ross’ art has gotten worse along with the script, and that spread really showed it, especially with a really ugly drawing of Angel’s face.  That’s juxtaposed with one of the Potentates’ faces looking like it was drawn by Andy Kubert.  Kind of strange.  At any rate, this series needs another revitalization.  Fortunately, Armstrong is leaving the title, so it has a chance to recover.  Unfortunately, Brian Lynch is coming back for an issue to cap Angel: After the Fall, followed by a two-parter on Drusilla co-written with Juliet Landau.  I’m a bit more optimistic about the latter of those two stories, since I would imagine that Juliet Landau has a great grasp of her own character.  Still, I really hope somebody better starts writing this series after that.

Plot: 7.7      Art: 7.2      Dialogue: 7.5     Overall: 7.5

Another Person Sired

     Based on the concept of the previous miniseries, Tales of the Vampires, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight: Tales of the Vampires is actually only one tale.  A young man living in Massachusetts is bored with his life and desires something more.  He tries to get a rush from being fed upon by vampires, but that still is not enough.  One day, he refuses to be fed upon, and the vampires beat him extremely badly.  A female vampire, whom he met before, sires him in order to save his life.  Although he is initially happy with his new situation and gets revenge on the vampires who hurt him, life is still somewhat boring.  Eventually, his only friend, who turns out to be a Slayer, kills the vampire who sired him.  In anger, he decides to sire her so that they may be together.

     This issue was rather interesting, even though it was only tangentially related to the Buffy universe.  Rather, what it did show was how the world now was, with vampires out in the open thanks to Harmony’s reality TV show.  Vampires can go wherever, and so long as they harm no one and only feed upon those who consent to it in secrecy, they are not ostracized.  It’s a slightly different version of the way things are in the world of True Blood.  The juxtaposition of the two women in the boy’s life is also interesting, with one being a Slayer and the other a vampire.  I’d like to see Becky Cloonan do a bit more Buffy stuff, since she showed a fair understanding of the world. Vasilis Lolos was the perfect artist for this, as he captured the darkness of the subject matter while still keeping it grounded by reflecting the age of the characters.  In essence, it was an amusing story, if inconsequential.

Plot: 8.0      Art: 8.0      Dialogue: 8.0      Overall: 8.0

Striking Out On His Own

     With the new Batman franchise revamp, the person who’s been left behind is the former Robin, Tim Drake.  Dick Grayson, the new Batman, didn’t see fit to give him any sort of position, aside from that of “equal,” so Tim decides to go off by himself.  He is motivated by his own belief that Bruce Wayne, the original Batman, is still alive somewhere.  And he’s going to find him.  Taking up the cowl of Red Robin, he  travels through Spain and France, trying to find any trace of Bruce.  At the same time, he deals with his own inadequacies as a member of the Wayne household, specifically as they relate to Damian Wayne, the current Robin.  As he thinks about the current situation, he is spied upon by a small group of assassins, who are employed by Ra’s al Ghul to track and possibly kill him for some unspecified reason.

     I can’t help but feel bad for Tim Drake.  He’s no longer Robin, he’s left the Teen Titans, he’s lost many people important to him, including his father and foster father, and he has to put up with Damian Wayne taking his position.  That’s pretty harsh.  Now, I’m not quite sure what I think of the Red Robin identity.  It was originally invented by Mark Waid and Alex Ross as Dick Grayson’s future identity in the Kingdom Come Elseworld, but since Countdown to Final Crisis, it’s been worn by a few people in pretty silly and pointless ways.  Besides, realistically, most people would probably be able to put two and two together and realize that Red Robin is probably related to Robin and therefore Batman.  Then again, I may be overestimating the intelligence of the average citizen of the DC Universe, since they have yet to figure out that Clark Kent is Superman.  At any rate, Chris Yost does a good job capturing Tim Drake’s voice.  I wouldn’t say that he’s doing anything staggeringly new here, but he’s got a ton of experience with teen superheroes, so he knows what he’s doing.  Ramon Bachs is a decent artist for this series.  Considering the fact that the only thing I’ve seen him do previously is Civil War: The Front Line for Marvel Comics, I can’t say that I know how good an artist he is.  But he’s definitely got some of the dark noir-ish stuff needed for a Batman comic.  I stopped reading the Robin series because I found that nothing every happened.  Let’s hope that doesn’t happen to Tim Drake a second time.

Plot: 7.8      Art: 8.2      Dialogue: 8.0      Overall: 7.9