nodlimax Reviews

Stellar Blade (2024 Video Game)

Pretty and fun but flawed

[7/10 · 8 May 2024]

Stellar Blade has been the center of various discussions and drama due to the design of the ladies in the game. I like the visual design of Eve and the various other ladies met throughout the game. I enjoy looking at pretty women whether they're real or fictional and most other men will as well.

Making the main characters attractive and appealing won't carry the game on its own though. Stellar Blad however has enough other qualities that made me want to finish it even though I had to take considerable breaks from time to time as something either bored or annoyed me.

The combat is very action oriented and provides a lot of options on how you can deal with enemies. You have basic attacks and combos and then various types of special attacks and their combinations. Memorizing all of it will be tricky to put it mildly. Most players will probably pick their preferred combination of attacks and specials and stick with that. My short description of the combat in Stellar Blade would be that it's combination of Nier and soulslike games on steroids as it is very fast paced and requires a lot of active fighting as well as reactive defending with blocks and dodging.

The enemies and bosses are mostly fair fights and will require you to use your various abilities. Quite a few enemies have learning curves as well as you can easily go down if you do not pay attention to what they're doing.

Among the bosses there are a few that are extremely challenging. Especially towards the end the last few main bosses took my quite a few attempts to defeat and I only managed it by using "cheese" tactics as fighting them normally often ended up with Eve being defeated in one or two hits. This can be pretty frustrating. There are a variety of attacks the bosses have where some of them require very specific actions to avoid them and if you do not use those actions then you will end up restarting the fight.

Also there are some situation in the game that are just outright unfair und frustrating. There's one spot in the game where you have 5 automated turrets firing constantly into your direction in sequential order where your window of opportunity to do something and getting to the next cover is like 2-4 seconds. If you don't act quickly enough you will go down and have to restart the entire section again. Getting hit also doesn't make you immune. So if the first or second turret hits and stuns Eve she can eat another hit right away causing her to die. Also the cover positions may not protect your character entirely if the turret gets a lucky shot. So you can get hit while being behind the cover.

Anyway the environments overall are okay and the map design is good. There are linear and open world sections in the game. The open world sections could've used more variety though as there are only two of them and one is a rocky wasteland with sand while the other is a sandy desert with some rocks. So in the open world sections you will mostly see yellow-brownish color pallets which got boring to me by the time I entered the second open world area.

The linear sections of the game are overall better and more enjoyable. You have some side paths to explore where you're usually rewarded with equipment, general items or some kind of world building text note.

The progression of the skills and equipment are overall pretty good. You can feel Eve slowly but consistently getting stronger throughout the campaign.

The music is good but repetitive in some areas. Each area has it's own theme but if you're running around in them for a few hours you will notice that it's always that one same track and it can get on your nerves. There are also at least 1-2 memorable musical pieces during boss fights.

The cut scenes are well done and the voice actor performances are decent. The facial movements when the main characters are talking also seem to be on point for the most part. The side characters on the other hand are lacking when it comes down to their design and lip syncing. You see basic movement of the mouths (if they have normal mouths) but it is minimal effort and doesn't fit what they're saying.

My biggest gripe regarding Stellar Blade is the story. The way the story is told is pretty good. The cut scenes are not overly long and you have a lot of sections where story bits are told while you're walking/running or fighting. So the game doesn't take the control constantly away from me like some other games are doing. There is quite a bit of text telling background information as well though. Most of the documents you find in the game are pretty short reads. So it's not to bad.

What is somewhat bad is what kind of story the game is trying to tell as it's pretty bland, predictable and full of (plot) holes. The way the characters are written also doesn't really make me care about them. Although I like Eve's design she lacks a personality. If you look at the story one could see this is as intentional to make her appear somewhat naive to what is happening. But throughout the game we're lacking a lot of background information about our own character. So one can often just guess how for example Eve came to be in the first place. And even though filling in the blanks yourself can be interesting and leaves room for interpretation it still doesn't make her character more sympathetic. She just seems to be a standard "good" character going along with what most people tell her. The other characters also have problems and the game tries to keep a lot of story aspects cryptic. Also the ending is a bit "meh".

With all being said Stellar Blade was a fun game which in my opinion dragged on a bit to much towards the end. It's fine for one playthrough. I'm not sure however if or when I will ever pick it up again for another run.

Fallout (2024– )

Overrated

[5/10 · 17 April 2024]

I gave this show a chance after I saw multiple videos popping up on Youtube channels I watch occasionally claiming that the show was actually good. I didn't really watch through those videos as I didn't want to have the story spoiled and go in as unbiased as possible. My last Fallout game was Fallout 3 which was way over 10 years ago. So I have some experience with the source material but it's not recent.

I watched through the first episode and was mildly entertained. The brutality and gore somewhat reflects what you see in the games as well with heads and limbs exploding or being severely injured. There's also several slow motion scenes similar to what the games do when you do the auto-aim functionality and target specific body parts.

The world also looks like Fallout as far as I can tell. You have the post-apocalyptic wastelands with shabby settlements trying to survive. You have the raiders, brotherhood of steel and vaults. The outfits and backgrounds are accurate.

The problems start when you look at the writing and characters though. A whole lot of it doesn't really make any sense and it only works if you as the viewer (as well as the characters) aren't actually asking very relevant questions. As soon as your mind starts working though and questions pop up about certain aspects the story completely falls apart. There are multiple factions and there are conflicts among them. Why these conflicts exist though - you'll get a shrug from me because I couldn't figure it out - especially in the last episode when the big showdown starts. The problem is also that way to many character in that one faction just go along with killing random people even though they are supposed to be kind of honorable and so on. It just doesn't make any sense.

The season also has an open end leaving a lot of questions on the table for season 2. On one hand it can be good to have an overarching storyline throughout the seasons. On the other hand the ending of season 1 on its own is unsatisfying. So you either watch season 2 or you're left with a mess and that just doesn't deserve a high rating in my opinion.

Finally something that also bothered me is that the pacing of the episodes was wildly jumping around. At times it slows to a snail pace with obvious filler content and then at other times it jumps around all over the place and a rapid pace. Especially in the last episode there was one character suddenly popping up in the middle of the battle zone and I was like "wait, how did you get there unnoticed?". It just feels off in many aspects resulting in sometimes being boring and then at others slightly overwhelmed with the events happening. There definitely is a lack of consistency here.

Diablo IV (2023 Video Game)

Diablo Bore - The tedious march through checkboxes in search of fun

[5/10 · 4 April 2024]

If you don't want to read through my (probably longer) review of the game here are the various points narrowed down to numbers:

Story: 4/10 Gameplay: 6/10 User Interface: 5/10 Visuals: 7/10 Sound: 7/10 Items & Loot: 2/10 World: 5/10 Dungeons: 4/10

Diablo 4 was released less than a year ago for a premium price. I used the chance to play it in March 2023 during the open beta and was not impressed and therefore refused to buy it at that price. Now that the game was added to the Microsoft Gamepass which you can try out during the first month for 1 Euro I though I could spend that much to give it another chance and as you can see with the numbers it didn't turn out that well.

My goal was somewhat to go through the various acts and finish them one by one in order focusing on side missions first before completing the main story line and hopefully getting a somewhat complete picture of story and lore in the game.

Unfortunately most of the side missions early on already are so benign in terms of story and repetitive in nature that I grew tired of them quickly. It's just filler that doesn't really add much to the main story. Also I reached level 50 halfway through act 2 which is somewhat the barrier of what enemies will reach while you're playing through the main campaign on difficulty 1 or 2. Higher difficulties with higher enemy levels and better items only unlock once you complete the campaign (or skip it through the menu) and complete a specific dungeon. I had somewhat useful equipment to make my build work by towards the end of act 1 and afterwards for the next 20+ hours while I focused on completing the campaign barely got any upgrades for my character.

Here is already the main problem with the game. The current item system is awful. It feels like I'm digging through piles of trash to find something that is not complete garbage. Once I have a build completed with a couple of items that actually have somewhat useful stats on them (somewhere around level 30) and usable legendary bonuses I'm basically stuck with these items for ages because 99.9999% of what I find is useless and just makes it frustrating to even spend time looking at the inventory. I started collecting legendary items (usually 3-4 per full inventory from level 40 onward) and just put them into my storage after looking at them initially and rating them as useless. I stored them just in case I might need the legendary bonus to transfer it to rare items with better stats. It some point I filled my storage and required crafting items from dismantling legendary items to upgrade others or transfer legendary aspects to them. Just looking through these items to decide what should go into the shredder was giving me a headache because I basically wanted shred everything and not even look at the items with these completely goofy stats on them. It's like imagine pulling a slot machine in a casino and every wheel has hundreds of completely randomized stat types and numbers on them and out of a thousand times you pull the level you're not even winning a single cent. That's how D4 feels. You're just picking up turd after turd.

Then you have the main story which early on sets some things up where you think they could be cool. You have the father of the world, you're traveling through - the angel Inarius who hates his former lover Lilith who is the mother of that world. He's being set up as arrogant and pretty vile hidden behind an angelic facade protected by a fanatic religious cult who worships him. All that happens in the first act. What are they doing with it in the story? Nothing really. The character ends up being completely wasted and just killed off in a video sequence. It looks pretty but is completely wasting the character that could be turned into a nice boss battle. His worshippers as well are mostly ignored during the later parts of the story and are also just killed off in some video sequences and minor battles.

In terms of characters as well there are to many minor ones that are useless within the story but get unnecessary screentime to get an introduction and after they've fulfilled some minor task they just get thrown to the side never to be seen again or simply killed off. In addition the main side characters that are supposed to lead you through the narrative area also mostly either useless or are handled poorly. Donan who is a pretty important character through various sections of the story towards the end gets killed off in an absolutely hilariously bad way. It was so obvious at that point that they only did it because they didn't have any further use for him and wanted to turn his funeral into some kind of emotional moment. But it was such a stupid meaningless death that nothing afterwards related to him could be taken seriously.

The girl Neyrelle who is introduced in the first act has basically nothing to do after her initial part outside of yelling at some of the other characters about not being a child and then setting up the expansion. If she wasn't in the story nothing would be lost and her parts could've been easily replaced with other characters. Lorath is the only character that I somewhat had sympathy for but even he couldn't save the story overall. The antagonists also after getting a strong start ended on extremely weak notes. Elias turned out to be more of cockroach than a serious threat. You kill him various times (easily) but he just doesn't die and the killing blow then is being done by another character in a video sequence.

Lilith gets a single two-stage fight that also is the only remotely interesting boss I've seen throughout the campaign btw. And then just dies without having to do any extra steps. If anyone remembers there was a whole thing about prime evils not actually dying in the previous games but having to be captured into soul stones to guard them and just hope you can keep them away for a while until they break free again. This also mentioned various times here related to Diablo, Mephisto and Baal. Lilith on the other hand? Apparently she can easily be killed by a mere mortal that my character is supposed to be. That makes her a less threatening antagonist than the ones from the previous game.

Anyway the game has very lacking story.

When I look at the various features outside of that which are supposed to keep you playing it's just a bunch of check boxes to go through. The open world has similar issues compared to other open world games. It's just a large map where you're supposed to run to the "unexplored" sections to find mostly useless stuff and fill some statistics. There's a bunch of repeatable events at every corner to farm items to then farm more items which though then goes back to the initial problem with awful itemizations...

Most people will likely just look for guides to find the "hidden" collectible stuff (altars and side missions) to get enough renown and unlock skill points and potion charges. After the campaign you then have some seasonal content which is just centered around one mechanic plus some repeatable farm content and then to get to level 100 and defeat the final version of (Uber-)Lilith. For me I'm not even sure I will make it that far as I'm losing the will to even log in rapidly.

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Current Day Hollywood

[3/10 · 16 March 2024]

This movie seriously has all the current day Hollywood fingerprints all over it with all its stupid political nonsense which also makes the characters completely unlikable. After the first few minutes I was just like "let's get to the killing already" because I couldn't have cared less about any of the characters. Who is the "main" cast?

1. A single mother with three kids who got left by her boyfriend/husband and who works as a tattoo "artist" 2. Her sister who is a groupie and likely a soon to be single mother (no boyfriend was shown but she's pregnant) 3. A girl teenager with short boyish hair cut who wants to go to protests with shirts like "eat the rich" (that was literally shown) 4. A feminine looking teenager boy who wants to be some kind of DJ and who basically causes the whole mess by being the typical horror movie stupid.

5. A young girl who likes to cut heads off from dolls and who is mostly useless and just there for reaction shots and to act in a typical horror movie way when the script calls for it.

Then you have a few more people in the building where they get trapped in - all men/boys who get immediately killed once the action starts.

It's very telling when the "evil deadite woman" takes her sweet time when it comes down to attacking the main cast giving them ample time to either counter attack or flee and all the men basically get ripped apart within less than a minute.

The gore and special affects are not awful but there is no feeling of horror in this movie. I laughed through most of the supposed horror scenes. Also a lot of what happens is predictable - especially the jump scares.

Btw. The acting quality is pretty low. Overall this movie is a huge disappointment and a perfect representation of current day Hollywood...

Assassin's Creed: Origins (2017 Video Game)

It killed my interest in the AC series

[3/10 · 30 September 2023]

I've played through the AC series recently and finished the titles in the order in which they had been released. There are amazing entries (AC2, Revelations, Black Flag), decent ones (AC1, Brotherhood, Rogue, Syndicate) and some that are lackluster (AC3, Unity).

Then you have Origins which is a huge departure from the previous games. It introduced heavier RPG elements into the gameplay and changed the combat completely. Gone are counters and kill streaks with cool animations. The game has been moved closer so something like Dark Souls or Witcher in terms of fighting. The combat in Origins is more challenging compared to earlier entries in the AC series. However it is not more exciting or fun. Personally I'm not enjoying the combat in AC:Origins.

Then there is also the story which is messy and boring right from the get go. I've stopped playing Origins shortly after the prologue (about 5-6 hours in the game) and everything is so forgettable that it's even difficult to describe what kind of story the devs really wanted to tell. It's a supposed to be a revenge story but there is so little context about what is going on that I can't even pretend to care about any of the characters. The "villains" aren't standing out in any way so I'd want to kill them. They are just targets on a map.

In addition the game forces you to run long distances through the Egyptian deserts to reach and explore various locations. And due to the long distances and nothing happening in between you literally usually just call your horse, jump on it and then press a button to activate automatic walking to the target location while you go do something else.

I didn't really like this in a game like RDR and I like it even less so in AC:Origins due to the game not having an interesting story or any kind of memorable dialogue.

The game has only thing going for it and that is that it looks nice. But the art style feels strange at times and graphics alone also doesn't carry the game for me to make it to the end.

It's really unfortunate with Origins but as I know the combat and general gameplay have remained the same in Odyssey and Valhalla I have interest in this series anymore. They'd need another major shake up on the AC franchise for me to even look at it again...

Resident Evil Village (2021 Video Game)

An improvement in every way possible compared to RE7

[7/10 · 21 April 2023]

Recently I bought RE7 and RE8 (Village) with their respective DLCs when they were on sale as a package. I wanted to play through RE7 first and then continue with the second part of the Ethan Winters storyline. However I hated RE7 so much from a gameplay perspective that I abandoned it. RE7 in fact left me so angry and frustrated that I was hesitant to even install RE8. In the end I was glad to give the game a chance though as it is an improvement in every way possible for me.

• The movement of the character is faster and not as clunky and slow as it was in RE7
• The inventory management has been tossed to the side for the most part again
• I can actually use the inventory, read story content and check the map without having to worry about being chopped to pieces
• The combat is actually fun
• The characters are more interesting and "fun" than in RE7

I actually had a good time with the game even though it has flaws. Visually the game looks great. In addition the voice actors are doing an incredible job with their respective characters.

I also like the whole aspect of how you can upgrade your weapons and don't have to constantly worry what to take with you due to space limitations. There are limitations in place but they are very generous and it's more intended so you keep yourself limited to one weapon per type. The boss fights feel actually fair and not as random as they did in RE7. I like the level design even though is is very linear with the game blocking of a lot of sections and only unlocking what you're supposed to see which results in RE8 guiding you down very specific paths with very few exceptions where you can actually go and explore some hidden areas.

The game is more action oriented than RE7. However it still has very good horror sections that will at least push your pulse a little bit higher the first time you play them.

The story is entertaining but if you start asking questions it falls apart in terms of sensible logic. There is more than one scene where Ethan (the main character) is in the hands of the bad guys, completely surrounded and could be easily killed but the plot demands for him to survive (or the game would end) and so he does. The RE story still is constantly jumping the shark in various sections in terms of craziness but often it's fun to watch.

Something that is bothering me though is the fact that the game in various sections just takes control away from you to turn itself into a movie. You shoot a boss a few times and then it triggers a video sequence where something else happens. You may shoot it some more to trigger the next sequence. And during those sequences you can basically grab some popcorn or a drink and enjoy the show because your input is not required. It's like instead of replacing quick time events of older games with something more interactive they just removed the QTE and turned it into a video sequence. If you want to make a movie then make a movie...

Also there is no decision making within the story. There have been sections where I would've made different decisions than the main character and this creates a disconnect as I then don't like what my character is doing. It's not as bad as it was in RE7 though where I thought Ethan was completely brain dead from the start. In RE8 I rather think about him as someone with limited mental capabilities...

Anyway overall Resident Evil Village is a fun game and through the action and selection of different weapons as well as mercenary mode after the main game provides potentially quite a bit of replayability. It's also a good time when you just want to enjoy the story once. From what I heard it can be finished in about 10 hours. I took my time and finished it in around 15 hours on normal while I tried to explore as much as possible and get whatever item I can find.

The DLC Shadow of Rose can add another 2 1/2 hours but overall just has slightly modified versions of already existing maps while adding some twists and new parts to the story.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017 Video Game)

Worst experience I ever had with an RE game

[3/10 · 20 April 2023]

I hate this game. The gameplay in this one is so poorly designed that it just constantly p***** me off to the point where I just Alt+F4 out of it. The movement of the characters is slow and clunky. The combat is atrociously awful. I hate the return of the inventory management.

Due to the terrible combat the boss fights also are extremely bad. And it's not even mechanically challenging boss fights. It's all about figuring out some stupid puzzles in these boss fights and dying over and over until you figure out the right solution. Even then many deaths just feel completely random when a boss suddenly pulls out an FU move to kill your character in one hit or as in one case sending small super fast bugs that are almost impossible to hit but are easily hitting your character and killing you quickly while you can't do anything about it (or at least it feels like it).

In addition if you fail a boss fight you restart at the point where you enter the room. It's not even saving at the start of the fight but several minutes before that so you can repeat the steps you've already done over and over again and watch the same unskippable cut scenes multiple times.

Lots of people claim RE7 is great but let me give you a warning. Check the Steam global achievements. Over 40% of all players have quit RE7 before they even make it past the first main section of the game and only 46,5% finished the game on the easiest difficulty. So if you want to buy it then at least do it in the bargain bin...

Elden Ring (2022 Video Game)

The Emperor has no clothes

[5/10 · 3 February 2023]

Elden Ring is one of the most overrated games of all times. I want to make this very clear from the start. And if this is considered the game of the year 2022 then quite honestly it was a bad year for gaming.

It's not an awful game, but it fails HEAVILY in various areas in terms of basic design decisions.

If you just want to go in and slay some bosses, the game is fine. It looks pretty and the controls for the most part are solid (at least on a controller).

As soon as you expect more than some pretty hack'n'slash game, you're in for a rude awakening. People praise the game for the freedom it supposedly provides and that there is no hand holding. There is indeed no hand holding. You're completely abandoned as a player. "Figure this S*** out on your own" is the principle. However you're basically handed a stack of post-it notes randomly thrown together and are somehow supposed to make a coherent story out of this random mess. The npcs are mostly just talking cryptic nonsense.

The bosses exist in their own little rooms but outside of that you're not hearing or seeing anything from them. You might find a note or two saying something about how big and powerful they are and what they may have done in the past. But you're not seeing any of their actions actually happening in the game. I as a character are just thrown into this world and start murdering almost everyone along the way for no other reason than they attack me and I'm supposedly the chosen one. Why am I the chosen one or what makes me tarnished? Who cares? Go and slay Godrick! Why would I want to fight Malenia? Because "git gud scrub!".

The game is also actively hiding content from you as the player. You start the game and go to the first grace point (save spots). If you continue without going back to that first point at least once, you're already missing out on the starting point of a giant quest line that doesn't even tell you it's a questline. There is nothing indicating that you should go back. The game just expects that you know to do that. It's the same with every other quest line. Nothing tells you it's a quest line. It's always random NPCs somewhere in the world telling you something and then they might pop up again at a different location along the way. Or they expect you to bring them something without really telling you what or where to find it. If you don't do what they want or by accident progress to far to certain other points of the game, you will be locked out of these quests without warning.

If you do not play this game with quest guides at hand, you're guaranteed to miss MORE than 75% of the quest and story content.

"Souls" game fans love to brag about how difficult these games are. In the end though most of the difficulty in Elden Ring comes from not knowing what good and bad items are and how to build your character in a good way which in turn will result in many people dying a lot. If you actually use guides to get the right items and builds, the game suddenly is not nearly as tough as many people make it out to be. So the game hides information which in turn means your character is weak due to you as a player missing that information making it appear as if the game is actually difficult which it really isn't for the most part. There are definitely dangerous enemies and hilariously most of them are not the bosses in the dungeons but various enemies you find in the open world (huge bears for example).

If you have the right information to make your own character more powerful, you can defeat the main bosses in very few attempts. I myself defeated the most difficult boss of the game in 3 attempts. And this was without looking up strategies for that boss. I just used a guide to create a powerful character, used the available tools like spirit summons and this was enough to quite easily defeat that boss. Now there will be people claiming "this is not how you're supposed to play the game". The question I always ask is "why?". Why should I make myself weaker? Why should I care what anyone thinks about how I defeated a boss? Why should I not use the tools at my disposal to finish the game?

Elden Ring as a game isn't even providing me with indicators whether something is sensible or not. It just expects me to know und understand what it wants from me as the player which leaves me in a position not really caring about it at all. I went through it killing the bosses. The story is not engaging for me as a player which meant I just checked out of it not caring about any of the characters. I mean the NPCs obviously do not really care about me as a character in their world neither.

There is no way to track progress through ingame functionalities. The UI outside the inventory is extremely simplistic. It's something I can respect on one hand (being non-intrusive to keep immersion). On the other hand it creates frustration if I actually want to care about the story. Somehow the story is supposedly told at least partially through item descriptions. Yet there is not even a way to put these various puzzle pieces together into some cohesive text inside the game.

The crafting system feels tacked on and was mostly useless to me. I finished the game and used very few of the huge amount of items and crafting materials available. Not being able to actually pause the game in the middle of a fight and use an item from my inventory that I didn't have in the quick slots added to that feeling of these items being useless.

Any way if you do the full game using guides you can get around 100 hours of playtime out of Elden Ring. And you probably can have a good time with the boss fights if this is what you're into - treat Elden Ring as an action game. If you expect an intricate engaging story and a rich and deep RPG you likely might end up being disappointed.

Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)

A failure that took almost a decade to be released

[4/10 · 4 January 2023]

Here is it is - the final chapter in the Evangelion Rebuild series. It was supposed to be a series to address issues from the original NGE series. The series as a whole failed to address most of these issues and instead created more problems.

I want to address the positives first. Visually it's good. There are various scenes where it's clearly visible that it was 3D computer generated but it didn't bother me that much. Also the series in terms of the story ends in a positive way for many of the characters. However as the story itself is a mess I'm basically just happy that the chapter is closed and didn't finish it with some open ended mess. I will address some criticism regarding the ending further down.

I have a lot of issues with the movie and the rebuild series as a whole. I mentioned quite a few of them already in the reviews of the other 3 movies so I will not go through them in detail again.

Evangelion 4 is starting where movie 3 ended with Shinji being in an almost catatonic state because he made idiotic choices again. And his whole brooding/being near catatonic goes on for the first 45 minutes of this 2 1/2 hour movie. He's basically just being moved to the sidelines while we see the Rei copy learning superficial things about being human (similar to what was done in movie 1), Asuka is just running around constantly being annoyed about Shinji and we see some other unimportant characters trying to survive after the mess that was created in movie 2. The characters shown are mostly from the early movies (Shinjis classmates) but we never really knew much about them anyway. So they are not really interesting people here neither. They just exist to provide some stakes for the end fight.

After 1/3 of the movie everything turns into a psychedelic mess when the final confrontation starts. A lot of things happen but almost everything lacks context to what exactly is going on. The short version is that humanity is supposed to merge into one giant consciousness where no one supposedly will suffer but no one has their own individual existence. And this whole idea is bloated in almost an hour of weird messy footage where I was just asking myself what drugs the makers/writers had taken. It tries to be philosophical and arts but in reality is just messy and annoying.

And the whole reason for everything is that Gendo (Shinjis father) wanted to be together with his wife again and never be separated from her. Basically someone can't let go...

The movie throws in some more scenes with existing characters from the movies that are barely developed to begin with and then throws in some random information as some kind of giant reveal (The last name of Mari for example) but if you do not have historical or even religious background knowledge on the origin of these characters then it doesn't do anything for the viewer. My reaction to the name reveal was simply "So? How is this relevant to the story?"

Asuka was revealed to be a just another line of clones basically like Rei which makes her already weak character even worse.

The whole story is then finished by turning a messy broken world into our world by Shinji through this whole rebirth, re-creation or whatever process it was supposed to be. Shinji ends up with Mari and supposedly has a normal life now just like everybody else. Although we can only suspect that because not much is shown related to other characters. Misato who died earlier in the movie could just as well still be dead. Who knows? Personally I do not really care anymore because the movie obviously also didn't.

The movie as a whole feels extremely pretentious in many aspects trying to be more "artsy" than it should be written by someone who probably thinks to highly of himself even though I think part of the movie is the writer showing his own personal demons. This movie could've been a lot better in many places if it simplified things. But because it had to make things more complicated by trying to add fake "depth" it failed in the process.

Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (2012)

A middle finger to the audience

[3/10 · 3 January 2023]

It's been 10 years since I watched Evangelion 3.0 for the first time. Now that the last movie was available I started watching it and less than 5 minutes in I was just confused about what was going on (even though there was a recap at the start of the fourth movie) and went back to watch movie 1-3 again. I was able to remember various aspects of Evangelion 1.0 and 2.0. However I had no memories whatsoever of anything happening in 3.0 even though I know I watched it back when it was first released.

Now after rewatching it I understand why I couldn't remember anything from this movie. Because simply said it's a giant freaking mess.

For the first half of the 95minute movie (which is shorter than the previous ones btw.) we the audience as well as the main character Shinji are thrown into a completely new world which is 14 years after the events of the previous two movies. So basically everything has changed and outside of Shinji we're dealing with completely different characters. They may be the same characters in terms of names and voices. However they are different in personalities. So even though the writing of the characters in the previous movies was already somewhat thin instead of expanding the characters everything has been reset to zero and we have to get to know these people in a time frame of about 90 minutes.

Shinji as a character somehow feels like the audience for the first half of the movie just constantly asking "what the hell is even going on?". No one is telling him and therefore no one is telling the audience neither. Things happen that visually are good but I just have no reference on what or why. The movie constantly throws terms around (some of them German) related to humanity evolving and gods, angels and whatever but not in a way to make sense of it.

We now have a conflict between former NERV members and what currently is NERV even though the organization of NERV was never really explained in the previous movies now it has changed in various ways without really explaining how it is operating now.

Somehow NERV supposedly has massive amount of resources to produce EVA like automated bio-robots even though after the second movie the third impact happened and destroyed almost all of humanity. When we see NERV headquarters it is in ruins. However somehow producing weapons is still working fine.

We're finally seeing the character of Kowaru in action who was shown a few times in the previous two movies but again there is no context to who or what he exactly is or how he exists in the first place. Once again things just happen and as soon as you start asking questions everything falls apart. We never really know the motivations of any of the characters.

Oh and where Shinji is mostly just part of the audience in the first half of the movie he then becomes an idiot in the second half that doesn't listen to anyone or anything. He just does things (even though he gets warnings that he may be doing something wrong) and is then surprised that something bad happens.

At the end of this movie I've literally been just asking "what the hell was that?"

And the worst part is this movie was released back in 2012. You're left with this mess for 9 years before they finally released the last movie. For me apparently it was enough time to forget all about it and I just have reopened some old wounds by watching this mess.

I originally planned to write this review after finishing the fourth movie. However I've been about 60% through that one and it's not going well. So I can call a mess finally what it is without worrying about "something might redeem it in the next one".

Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (2009)

Different and enjoyable but more open questions and problems

[6/10 · 3 January 2023]

Where Evangelion 1.0 was mostly the same in terms of the story compared to what NGE did, Evangelion 2.0 goes into a different direction with the story and characters. It is still interesting to see what they are doing. However there is still way to many unanswered questions from the previous movie and this one adds more to it.

We're seeing a new original character (Mari) but the writers aren't providing a lot to work with regarding this character. She's rarely seen throughout the movie her personality can basically be narrowed down to: she likes to sniff people ("I like your smell") and she's even more of a crazy combat freak than Asuka is. But that is it. There is not much else there to work with in terms of the character. Oh and she's physically attractive. I guess it's bonus points for a nice pair of breasts...

Evangelion 2.0 changes the way Asuka is introduced into the story. It's okay the way it is handled but her personality is just as much of a pain as it was in the original series.

Certain annoying parts from the series have been cut down like Shinji's brooding phase is much shorter. In addition the time frame has been sped up considerably in terms of the events happening. Certain angels from the show have been cut or replaced with something completely different that is also more combat oriented.

The movie then ends with a "what the hell" moment that creates more questions while we still do not really have answers to questions from the first movie. One can sure hope Evangelion 3.0 will provide more context, right? RIGHT?

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007)

A four part movie series that took 14 years to finish

[7/10 · 3 January 2023]

It's been a long time since I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion a partially interesting and partially extremely disturbing and just outright weird series.

Because NGE always left the audience with open questions the writer decided to rebuild the series through a 4-part movie series which was supposed to solve a lot of problems NGE originally had. The central question is: Did he succeed? This question cannot be answered in Evangelion 1.0. However I can answer if the first movie is good or not. The answer is - it's good but has some problems.

Evangelion 1.0 is a visually upgraded more compact version of the early NGE episodes that does some minor tweaks here and there in terms of story and characters. If you know the series there won't be to many surprises in this movie outside of the upgraded angel designs which actually are pretty good.

If you liked the series you will likely enjoy the movie as well. It has similar issues to the series though as a lot of questions that already existed in the NGE series still remain here and they remain unanswered. NGE always had issues providing basic information about its own world.

1. What are the angels?

2. What is an AT-Field?

3. What's with that second impact?

4. Is that blood coming out of the angels and is it toxic?

5. How are they rebuilding destroyed parts of the city so quickly?

6. Who or what actually is "SEELE"?

7. Who are these characters?

Evangelion always showed stuff happening but context was always lacking leaving a ton of room for interpretation which can be good but often is also very bad. As the movie has not improved upon that I cannot rate it higher. It's still entertaining and you can go in hoping open questions it will be answered in the later movies. But still you will usually finish this first movie with a lot of questions.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022)

From hero to zero

[5/10 · 20 September 2022]

I went into this show completely blind. I haven't played the game (yet) and I read nothing about the contents of the anime itself. I just knew that it's based on the Cyberpunk universe and I wanted to give it a chance.

Edgerunners starts out pretty solid with a somewhat likable main character who gets into a lot of trouble partially because he's an idiot and partially due to unfortunate circumstances. He loses his mother and drops out of school to then join a bunch of criminals and do the typical "underworld" activities.

Here is the first big problem though. Outside of making a quick buck there is no real reason to join that group. David (the main character) is lacking goals of his own. This is also mentioned a few times during the show ("You're living someone else's dream"). That doesn't make it better though. It just points out an obvious flaw.

He gets together with Lucy, on member of his little gangster group but it's not really clear why they want to be together. There isn't really any chemistry between the characters. Her just saying that she doesn't want him to die without really showing any other emotional connection between these two doesn't make it a good relationship. There should've been more there.

Also we're seeing quite a bit of nudity and gore in the show throughout the 10 episodes. We even see some very short sex scene clips with random characters. This would've opened up the opportunity to actually show some passionate love between Lucy and David. But outside of indicating that they had sex there is nothing there. Instead most of the nude shots are literally just pointless to show some "tits and ass".

There are various other characters in the show which indicate that something interesting is there. Unfortunately the characters are wasted most of the time. Some of them are just killed for shock value. Especially Rebecca who should've had a more prominent role in the show was just squashed to apparently show how big and threatening Adam Smasher is. And it wasn't even a real fight. We saw her shooting guns and knew that she was loyal to David for some reason (her having a crush on David was hinted at) and seemed to be pretty capable. But the show never showed her full capabilities and then she just died.

Also I'm not really sure what the moral of the story was supposed to be. It just looks like an endless cycle of: 1. Person installs body upgrades to get stronger 2. Gets a warning that to much "chrome" will cause Psychosis as the body can't handle it 3. Character claims they can handle it even if the signs are there they can't 4. Character goes Psycho and gets killed as a result

Even the main character David who apparently had some resistance to it went down the same road and didn't stop or reverse course when he saw the first signs but instead went even further with the upgrades and ended up exactly as expected. There was no real twist there other than "i guess he isn't as different as he believed himself to be".

In the end the only thing accomplished is that Lucy was able to go to the moon. And what did it cost her? Everything!

Regarding the animation and art style I'd say it's pretty solid for the most part. There are sloppy sections though which can make some things difficult to see.

Rambo (2008)

The brutal reality about war

[9/10 · 26 June 2022]

Rambo shows the very harsh and brutal reality when it comes down to war. Even the best intentions are useless if you have nothing to protect yourself against those with bad intentions. Naivety gets people hurt and killed.

This movie is pretty short but within the time it has it tells a simple story in a very effective way. It is very good when it comes down to visuals as well as sound design.

It also has quite a bit of gory action showing the amount of damage weapons will do. So if you don't want to see blood or body parts flying around you may want to stay away.

Ya Boy Kongming! (2022)

Wholesome show

[8/10 · 16 June 2022]

"Ya Boy Kongming!" is a fun show to watch with great characters and good music. For me it's the anime of the season. The premise is a bit crazy but adds value to the story as a whole as it allows to provide historical context to various strategies that are applied to modern times.

And the funny part is that these strategies are becoming part of this idol show. I usually don't watch idol shows but this one here is actually throwing of the disguise very slowly and only makes you realize it is an idol show once you're already fully invested in the characters.

I'd love to give this show a 9/10. However the aspect that we heard the same song over and over throughout several episodes made it somewhat annoying. Still outside of this the songs that were used in the show are enjoyable to listen to.

Also the ending in my opinion is very well done and even though it leaves it open for a second season it also works as a one season show because the story that was shown is fully finished.

So give this show a chance if you have the opportunity.

My Dress-Up Darling (2022)

I enjoyed this show very much

[9/10 · 7 May 2022]

This for me was THE anime of winter season 2022. I couldn't wait for new episodes to come out each week.

You have various characters that are interesting and fun to watch. The story has drama as well as humor and a good love story. The visuals and animation are really great and the lead characters have a good chemistry.

I'd easily recommend this show if you want to have a fun time.

The Northman (2022)

Was it intended as a comedy?

[4/10 · 5 May 2022]

This was my first movie in a cinema after two years of the cov. I heard good things about the movie and went in with a simple expectation. I want an enjoyable movie - nothing more nothing less. Just entertain me and let me have a good time.

The movie kinda succeeded in making me unintentionally laugh in quite a lot of scenes simply because of how ridiculous they were. Unfortunately it wasn't the good kind of ridiculous but more the bad one.

You have a lot scenes with growling, howling and just screaming followed by some fight scenes and then more of the screaming and so on. The dialogue didn't really feel natural. It felt more like an over the top theatre play.

There are various super natural elements in the movie that seemingly may or may not be intended as dream or hallucination sequences. One thing is for sure though. These scenes are just there so the character gets a nudge to go where he is supposed to be within the story.

I don't have problems with simple stories if they are well told. The story of Northman is simple but there a lot issues with how it's being told. It's to long and there were no characters I really got invested in. Basically everybody is terrible in one way or another. You see a lot of brutality presented basically from every person. Even the love interest of the main character who is one of the less violent characters in the movie is not really a decent person. So I don't see who I'm supposed to root for.

Btw. The movie also extended its own runtime unnecessarily by dragging to story out. There are various situation where the main character could've ended the antagonist and also others where antagonist could've killed the mc it as well. But they always held back for contrived reasons. "I'm not killing you because I want to kill you but not now." This kind of stuff makes me feel like the movie is wasting my time.

Honestly it's really unfortunate because I wanted to like the movie. The sound design is pretty good and visually they've done a decent job as well. The fights and violence to some degree also will keep you watching. But still the overall package is just disappointing. What a shame.

All of Us Are Dead (2022– )

Watchable

[6/10 · 3 March 2022]

I like watching a good zombie movie or show from time to time. So I gave this show a chance after seeing the trailer. Overall I'd say it's decent but has various problems as well.

I think the acting overall is fine but I'll say that I watched it in Korean with English subtitles. As always you may want to be careful with English dubs.

Something I've noticed with Korean shows is that kids/students seem to be pretty nasty and unlikable overall. Is that a common thing in South Korea? You got bullies that actually are pretty nasty criminals and other kids that basically just go along with the bullies where no one speaks out. In addition you have a school where teachers and the principal are more focused on appearances than actually teaching the students. Well, maybe it really is reflecting real life...

In this you then have a zombie outbreak scenario where to be honest I thought a lot of those characters deserved to die. The one good thing I want to mention is that the students call these things as what they are => zombies. I always get annoyed when shows try to be fancy by inventing new names for what clearly is a zombie ("walkers" for example). The police, soldiers and other officials never call them zombies though.

The zombies overall are really inconsistent. Characters are either dying right away or will have a thick plot armor. The students in their capabilities are also very inconsistent. For the most part they will not really fight but run away. Then in some situation they seemingly suddenly mutate to combat and strategic experts just to then forget about that a few minutes later.

There is focus on some characters which makes it appear they will play a bigger role later on and then they are just killed off with no real impact. Also the way the whole situation is resolved towards the end of the first season is a bit of a letdown. I guess they were trying to create a complete story in case they will not be renewed for a second season while still keeping the door open. The result is leaving me a bit unsatisfied.

Hellbound (2021– )

You're watching two 3 hour movies

[8/10 · 2 January 2022]

Hellbound is quite an interesting show. The show might say about itself that it's about demons claiming human souls and dragging them to hell. But actually the focus is on humans and their lust for power and what dogmatic thinking and power structures will do to a society.

Yes there are these creatures that will kill humans in pretty horrific ways after they receive their death messages. Still this in the first season is more of a side aspect as there are groups and characters that try to use it to drive their own agendas.

This is also proven by the way people speak. The death messages the victims receive are called "decrees" and the killing by these creatures is always named as "demonstration" (of god's will).

Fact of the matter is though that throughout the episodes there are a lot of unanswered questions and new questions always pop up - especially at the end of episode 6.

The first season is actually split into two sections (episode 1-3 and 4-6) where you can say that both sections are basically a movie on their own. Between both "movies" there is also a shift in terms of main characters. Episodes 1-3 have different leads compared to episodes 4-6 and some characters from the first part only play a secondary role in the later episodes.

I heard some people complain that the acting is bad but I disagree. The acting is actually pretty good overall. But I've been watching the show in Korean with English subtitles. So I'm hearing the original actors voices and from what I can tell they are doing a very good job.

With some of the things happening in the story I've been thinking whether or not the writers wanted to draw some parallels to what has been happening with Covid and the vaccines ("be a good citizen and get the shot or you may get god's punishment ==> covid"). But I can't say that for sure and it may only be my own interpretation.

Anyway I'd recommend to give Hellbound a chance.

Ghostbusters (2009 Video Game)

The best game based on a movie license

[8/10 · 31 December 2021]

There have been many games in the past decades based on movies and there also have been a lot of movies based on games. Usually games based on a movie are just quickly thrown together cash grabs. For movies based on games the problem usually is that the writers either are unable to transfer the story properly to the screen or they ignore the game story completely and create something that only in name is related to a game.

Now when I look at this Ghostbusters video game though I can see a really solid game that first of all continues the story from the movies in a satisfying way with various characters from the movies.

In addition it delivers pretty good gameplay, sounds and visuals. It also is able to create the creepiness and mild horror style of the movies. There is a good variety in weapons as well as quite a bit of content for people interested in the lore of the Ghostbusters universe.

The game can be quite challenging as well btw.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

Good sequel that hits the right notes

[8/10 · 31 December 2021]

I know that there are quite a few people that didn't like that second Ghostbusters movie. Personally I really like it.

It does have the same basic structure as the first one but at the same time it also adds to what the first movie did. There are more ghosts and there is a lot more creepy and scary stuff. There are still a lot of entertaining interactions between the characters and the humor is still solid.

I just watched the first and second movie back to back and I still enjoy them both even after many years.

There is one thing that bothers me a bit though which I never noticed before. In the court scene what happened with Winston? He is there at the start of the scene and then suddenly disappears completely.

Ghostbusters (1984)

That's a big Twinkie

[9/10 · 31 December 2021]

Ghostbusters is one of my all time favorite movies. It has a good story to tell with solid characters and great humor.

There is a lot of good lines in the movie that you can quote and I like that the humor isn't really telling jokes or doing slapstick but instead having just natural interactions between the characters which then partially due to their reactions just makes you laugh.

Overall it's a great movie for the family that can even scare kids quite a bit.

Don't Look Up (2021)

Good start with a crash landing

[5/10 · 31 December 2021]

Up to about 90 minutes into the movie I actually liked the idea and execution for the most part. There are some characters like the one played by Jonah Hill that I thought were simply unnecessary but it didn't destroy the story for.

What did destroy the movie though was the last 50 minutes of the story because in my opinion it completely derailed at that point. The whole "Look Up/ Don't Look Up"- part within the story was just insane and I guess was supposed to somewhat reflect on what is going on with Covid. However for me it failed completely because of how it was approached and the whole thing was just full of conflicting messages where at the end I couldn't even tell exactly what the message of the movie was supposed to be.

The first 90 minutes though were pretty solid criticism to how stupid the media and politics approach various topics and turn it into circus without actually addressing the issue.

Btw. The humor in this movie for the most part fell flat. I think I chuckled twice throughout the whole runtime.

Scrooged (1988)

For me it's a Christmas classic that works

[8/10 · 23 December 2021]

I can understand why people might dislike the movie. Personally I really like it even though I'd admit that it has issues.

Bill Murray and the rest of the cast are delivering an overall good performance and I especially enjoyed the ghost characters as they seem to have a lot of fun with their roles.

Is the turn of Murrays character from scrooge to saint a bit quick? Sure but let's be honest here. The whole idea of scrooge is somewhat forced as it is basically a story of an old selfish guy that over night supposedly turns into an incredibly charitable person. This is the kind of story that will impress kids but when you look at it as an adult you know that things aren't always as easy as they are portrayed in books and movies.

With that said I enjoy the movie for what it is and the comedy for the majority of the movie works for me.

Cowboy Bebop: Cowboy Gospel (2021) Season 1, Episode 1

Stopped watching 2/3 into the episode

[3/10 · 21 November 2021]

The effects and sets are looking good and I don't really mind that one character was changed to black.

There are various things though in the story and related to the characters that bother me. The worst offender is Faye Valentine as her character is not even remotely comparable to what she is in the anime. And as soon as she was introduced here (the anime had her only join in episode 3 btw.) the whole show was basically dead to me. Go watch the anime and then watch the first episode here and compare Faye in both. I'm not necessarily talking about the looks. It's her whole personality and attitude.

There is other things as well though. The syndicate people for example are coming across as way to clean. Even though they were wearing suits in the anime you could see that these suits weren't in good shape and that the guys in those suits were crooks but still dangerous.

Here in the show the syndicate henchmen (and women) are wearing these very clean suits but they simply are coming across as clowns in them. I couldn't take them serious.

Btw. I'm also bothered by the background music. Jazz has to be used very careful as it can become pretty annoying when you constantly have a saxophone blaring into your ears. I watched through the first episode of the anime again to get a feeling how the background music was handled there and compared it to this show. The anime did it better as they used different instruments and less music overall.