Short Game Reviews: August 2022

 Hell Pie:

The game has the best movement system in a 3D platformer I have ever played, it's crazy the amount of stuff you can do with Nugget as a grappling hook that is not contextualized. It's up there with Tenchu and Just Cause when it comes to the implementation of the idea. The level design is decent enough and the game plays well. Some of it can be buggy but I say the game is worth checking out for the movement system alone all though the fact that there is a skill tree hurts the game since a lot of people even me to some degree will miss out on the cool movement options because I didn't try to 100% it.

The final boss can be irritating but the game overall is a solid platformer with a great movement system.

Sniper Eliter 5:

Pretty enjoyable game overall, if you enjoy the Sniper Elite 3 and 4, this is more of the same. All though playing this game reminds me just how much smoother MGS5's animations are. That and I wished the side objectives actually helped you in later missions rather than just being busywork to extend the times of the missions. There is some weird bottlenecks in the levels too like Karl not being able to nudge past a certain corner or just weird level boundaries in general. The hit detection for headshots is also really bad. There are times where I shoot an enemy in the head and the game would not register it as a kill then other times it would. I also wished for a setting change since WW2 is starting to get stale.

I know it sounds like I am complaining this game and it is a solid stealth game overall, but the series is starting to get kind of samey now. Worth checking it out if you are a fan of stealth games since it has all the stealth game checkboxes like solid level design with verticality added in now, AI that is dumb enough for the player to manipulate but not too smart, and a decent number of tools to dispatch enemies and complete objectives.

House of the Dead Remake:

Gyro aiming doesn't work that well. I spent most of the game using this and it never once felt just right. Decent enough game otherwise.

Powerslave Exhumed:

One of if not the most unique fps game I have ever played. It predates Metroid Prime when it comes to being a 3D metroidvania. The level design is solid and the guns feel very good. It even lets you glide and even fly later in the game.

My only gripes is that you don't respawn at full health on checkpoint respawn, the pots being destroyed can spawn bs like enemies and and explosion that can wipe out massive chunks of health and some annoying enemies like the Cat Ladies and Magma monsters.

It Takes Two:

Pretty solid coop adventure, the game is hard to evalutate since I had to play with someone but I say this is one of the better and more memorable coop games that I have played. The story is pretty solid too and rather unique for a game with it's whole angle of trying to rekindle a failed marriage.

The game handles multiple gameplay gimmick changes better than other 3D platformers that I have played surprisingly. If you can find someone to play it with, the game is worth checking out, all though local coop is the better way to play.

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath

It's a pretty good game. It's a pretty unique shooter. How you use live critters as ammo, and how you will be killing enemies as well as defeating them non lethally as well having lots of third person moments mixed in with the first person shooting. The health system is quite unique too and I wish was replicated in more games since I prefer this over regen health and finite health, this feels like an interesting combination of the two. The story is also pretty interesting here even though I am not super familar with the Oddworld mythos.

My only big gripes with the game is that the stealth and bounty systems feel tacked on. Stealth in that you aren't given enough awareness to avoid enemies. And taking enemies in alive is more of a weird complicated puzzle than something you actually want to do. You will be rolling in money by just sucking up enemies, all though this becomes kind of gimmicky after the twist. Those Spider like enemies are also very terribly designed and I strongly disliked fighting them.

I would really love another Oddworld game like this one.

Star Fox Assault:

This might be the Star Fox game I actually like. The R Wing sections controls much better than 64 and I actually like the 3rd person shooting and on foot combat, they do a good job at breaking up the R Wing sections. And the 3rd person shooting parts are often brief and control well enough, I have played clunkier third person shooters than this. My only gripe with them is that there is no proper evade command. That and it feels like they are multiplayer maps repurposed for single player but considering they are meant to be a support to the R Wing stuff, I get why they are like that. I also don't get the big deal with the on foot combat when there is always a Landmaster nearby to break up that. I never cared for rails shooters or flight games that much so SF Assault being the way it is something I like. The music and visuals are great too and the story and writing is more engaging than I thought it would be as well even though the game copped out at the end. Overall, I enjoyed this game more than I thought I would.

Serious Sam: the Next Encounter:

I was going to give this a 7 out of 10 because the game nails the overall Serious Sam combat, large waves and weapon feel, but the game has something about it where the game feels way too long. There's just too many levels in the campaign and while this may sound like a positive, the game starts to get monotous with how samey the shooting and overall gameplay tends to feel. By the end of the game, the game was basically Electric Gun and Chaingun city, it might be the case with previous SS games but I argue those games since they are a lot shorter don't tend to stand out as much because Croteam's SS games tend to be 3-6 hours at least for TFE and TSE but by the time I got to last quarter of Next Encounter, I wanted it to end mainly becuase taking down so many of the waves got old. I know it's a strange compliant but I argue SS games are better off being 6-7 hours than the 12 it took me to beat this game.

It's weird because if you cut out some levels maybe at least 6 or 8, you'd honestly get a pretty solid spin off game overall. I say it's worth checking out but if you feel like quitting after the 3rd boss fight, I don't blame you.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land:

Very solid 3D platformer. It was such a fun, relaxing and cute time all the way through. I also like how the game's difficulty generally felt easy enough and there was rarely ever any random jumps in difficulty adding to the relaxing and cute atmosphere the game has. Feels very Super Mario 3D World inspired and I prefer this game over that. I also feel that, out of all the linear platformers that makes you do some degree of secret hunting in order to progress, Kirby and the Forgotten Land does it the best mainly in that a lot of the Waddle Dees are generally on the beaten path and the requirements to unlock bosses isn't too steep.

Honestly, as a 3D platforming fan, I had a good time with this game, stuff to complain about is that the RPG elements feels out of place in a game that already feels easy in general but still, this is far from ruining the game for me. That and the controls can throw me off from time to time, but overall, it's a very good game.

Trek to Yomi:

Game is okay, I did like how they tried to make a Kurasawa style samurai video game. I always felt the way his movies were made would make for an interesting game and that composition carried much of it. The combat is okay, I like how it tried to be a bit like Jedi Knight in how the sword felt lethal but at the same time, I felt the combo system kind of got in the way of that in that feels like a typical melee brawler at times too. It felt like the game had a bit of an identity crisis. Still, decent enough game mainly for the idea of playing a samurai movie in game form.

Star Wars the Clone Wars(2002):

This review is going to be weird, I played the game on easy with the infinite health and ammo cheats so this review may be a bit of the "off" side. But the game already has a lot of protect missions and throws lots of enemies at you so I say, the game has it's challenge even with all that stuff I previously mentioned. I will admit that for the tanks I didn't know you could strafe left and right due to the above mentioned cheats so that could skewer some of my thoughts on the combat for the game.

The game is overall pretty decent for a movie licensed game. The combat and moment to moment gameplay are satisfying enough, destroying vehicles to SW Prequels music is always a good time, and the story is surprisingly solid for a movie tie in game. It feels like it would be right at home on an episode of the Clone Wars 2003 show, the only weak link being Obi Wan's VA but I got used to him. It feels like a good proof of concept for what would later be the Star Wars Battlefront games.

Super Punch Out:

Pretty fun and it can be very challenging even with rewinds and save states.

Super Mario Kart:

Fun at first but the slippery controls and the repetitive tracks start to get boring after a couple of races. I really got tired of the game after I did the 50cc races.

F-Zero:

Hard even on easy but the satisfying sense of speed can still be felt here too. F Zero games are hard but the feel of them are incredible.

Dragon Ball Super: Superhero Review

It was alright. It was exactly what I anticipated it would be. Lots of over the top fights, energy beams and retcons here and there. I was expecting that and I got just that. The Broly movie might have more consistent writing than this movie does but this movie is decent enough. I did like how it involved Piccolo and Gohan. Cell Max was so removed from the other character of the same name that he might as well be a different character altogether. Gohan learning the Special Beam Canon was weird. However, I did like the fact that Red Pharmaceuticals did indeed survive the original Dragon Ball and it felt clever for modern Dragon Ball in terms of writing. They did feel kind of wasted in this movie to have the Red Ribbon Army come back and then have them lose in the same movie, I get that it's a movie, but it felt like they went out of their way to bring them back just for them to get beaten, maybe a TV show arc could've worked better. Piccolo getting his new transformation was weird and it feels like the Dragon Balls are just really getting out of hand in how abused they are considering Shenron is a glorified plastic surgeon for Bulma.

All though the story is just getting sillier and sillier now even with Piccolo and Gohan getting their own "stand alone" movie of sorts, there are just way too many characters. Now there is Gamma 1 and Dr. Heda to add in DB's ever growing long cast of characters. I give the MCU and to some degree superhero comics a lot of crap for this and it seems Dragon Ball has headed in that direction for some time now. Toriyama has nasty and well known habbit to forget about certain characters and it shows here, like why wasn't Mr. Popo with Dende? Where was Tien? Where was Android 17 who was the winner of the Tournament of Power? It's truly hard to tell where on earth the story of "Toriyama forgetting about the last episode of Z but not really" is going to go.

Overall, movie is decent enough if you are a Dragon Ball fan and if you like modern DB thus far, if you don't and if you want to see someone besides Goku and Vegeta beat up a main villain then this movie might provide decent amounts of enjoyment but if you never like the series at all, this movie won't do much to change your mind.

Spy x Family Part 1 Review

This could be my expectations being out of whack but I thought Spy x Family was going to be spy operative group doing various assignments as a family but the whole show thus far is basically an espionage slice of show.

Thought this was going to be something along the lines of Lupin the 3rd and Cowboy Bebop with a whiff of Case Closed and it wasn't really that. After watching this and Arjuna, I prefer slice of life anime when the stakes are low and are more grounded. It's hard to take this kind of stuff seriously when the world could end and it has overarching threat. That and the characters aren't that great especially Yuri Briar, haven't seen an anime character that aggrevating in a while. The guy just screams, "LOOK AT ME, I SO OBVIOUSLY HAVE A SISTER COMPLEX" and the fact that he works for a villain organization that is supposed to be worth their marbles like the Secret Police and acts so moronic is enough to make me dislike him. Llyod is interesting but not enough to make me want to watch more.

Also, Yor seems pretty inept all around for an assassin too. She keeps providing Anya with advice that is sound on paper yet Anya always screw things up and the former acts super insecure as well. I was expecting her to be more level headed. Anya is pretty useless and she keeps squandering any potential she could have by downplaying her telepathy. Plus she feels out of place considering how grounded the setting is.

The pacing also seems off, I knew something felt kind of weird when they spent half of this season doing slice of life stuff and then around episode 7, they start doing the actual infiltration of the school. It also just feels strange to me why on earth Llyod would go so much out of his way to motivate Anya when that girl hasn't shown much promise, I get the idea behind but spending that much money? I just don't get.

Not terrible but not enough to make me want to watch more or read the manga.

Secret Agent Clank Review

It's a decent enough game, I might actually prefer this over Size Matters. The camera controls for shooting is much better and this game has a more unique identity of being a more stealth oriented Ratchet game rather than a heavy emphasis on shooting. It certainly has more going for it than Ratchet on a smaller screen.

The stealth while not too bad and can be decent has an issue that a lot of stealth game without detection arrows have is that you can bump into or enemies can see without giving a player a better sense of when you can be alerted where you could retreat or push forward moving from cover to cover. The QTEs to do takedowns can be kind of cool but at the same time it can be boring seeing the same takedown and makes the stealth sequences longer since you got to do the QTE and watch the takedown animation play out. I also wish there was more ways to incapictate guards without takedowns, lasers and the occasional enviromental hazard are decent but the game can go further with it. As a result, I often got alerted and just killed every enemy when the game gave me the chance, I did like the disguise sections and it handles them better than the earlier Hitmans and would even include the certain guards can see you system before the 2016 Hitman game. The shooting is decent but lacks the feedback that other Ratchets have.

The negatives would be that buying weapons for Ratchet feels redundant if you just follow the beaten story path. Ratchet and Qwark's gameplay don't add much to the plot but I do think they do a decent enough job at breaking up the pace. This is s a big one but those rhythmn games are fucking terrible and saps out all the enjoyment I get from the game, it feels like the devs included them because they needed to include some gameplay, and this was their way to do it without spending too many resources. These sequences are bad due to how long they are and how much content you got to do just watching Clank play out the same sequences. The Casino one being the worst in how fast your reactions need to be and how long and dragged out it is in general. But the funny thing, get past the Casino rhythmn game and the game gets pretty enjoyable. So if you can bear with those awful rthymn mini games, there is a decently enjoyable game here, but if those mini games aggrevate you, I get it. The other mini games are decent distractions with that said.

Dragon Ball Review

The original Dragon Ball, an anime that I never really liked all that much as a kid mainly because I was so crazed with Z and I played the DBZ games so much as a child, so when I watched the original DB at the time, I find it very off putting, it was "first installment weirdness" in the purest sense. I do enjoy the show much more now and while I think some of it's fans overhype to an insane degree, I do think original DB is a solid enough show. This is going to a weird one to review since shonen anime are basically divided up into arcs and I will give my thoughts on each arc as I go through the show.

Pilaf Saga - 7 out of 10. Pretty solid comedy adventure story. I like Goku's fish out of the water character shitck here and it's contextualized well enough with him being mountain boy who lost his only guardian at a young age, the humor is also handled well, and the fan service humor with Goku and Bulma works well too. The characters are all charming and Pilaf and his crew I like since they remind of those 80s cartoon villains like Skeletor who fail a lot and always insult his minions afterwards. My only big issue is that Goku's Great Ape form kind of comes out of nowhere. This is going to be a reocurring theme about this show. But other than, it's a solid adventure story with a hilarious ending.

21st World Marital Arts Tournament - 7 out of 10. Solid tournament arc. It has some really good fights along especially Goku vs. Jackie Chun. I quite liked Nam and his plight as a character and the conflicts were built up well enough. My only issues are that Krillin has to be reminded he has no nose and the full moon popping up was kind of convienent.

Red Ribbon Army - 6 out of 10. This is the biggest stumping point of the show for me. I disliked this stuff even as a kid and it greatly lowers my score of the series overall espeically due to how long this part of the show is. This section was really dull, really dull for me. There are memorable parts like General Blue, Mecenery Tao, Korrin's Tower, Penguin Village, Muscle Tower, but that's the thing, this whole arc was sub plot city. Every time Goku beats the Red Ribbon's army's generals that is just yet another sub plot wrapped up. There is hardly ever any satisfying plot progression because every sub plot is very disconnected from the last. It feels like Toriyama added these dumb antics because he didn't want to have in universe politics with the Red Ribbon Army like their origins, where they get the money from, how they recruit people, and if they are their own country or a mecenary group. I felt like stuff like this was intentionally left vague due to how much Toriyama didn't want to get into hassles with that stuff. And the funny part of it all is, the arc even ends with the Red Ribbon getting beaten and with Goku's friends on standby, AND it's still not over. You still got to the fights with Fortune Teller Baba, by that point, I just started to get so sick of the sub plots and decided to play video games while the episodes played in the background. I was just so sick of the lack of a geniune overarching threatning villain. The show does pick up greatly after this.

22nd World Martial Arts Tournament - 8 out of 10. Another very good tournament arc. The stakes are high and Toriyama uses the worf effect with Yamcha losing to Tien as a great way to establish Tien as a threat. Tien is a very compelling character and even goes through an interesting arc of realizing whether or not he really wants to be a killer and if he really has it in him to be like Mercenary Tao and learning the honor of being a martial artist. The rivlary between the Turtle and the Crane school was also interesting if brought out of nowhere. The final fight between Goku and Tien is great too. While I do think this arc is very good, outside of Tien, I feel like this arc in many ways feels very by the numbers overall.

Piccolo Saga - 8 out of 10. This is where Dragon Ball gets dark and where DBZ starts to settle in. This part of the show has high stakes, large scale action and fights and everything Z was known for began here. It started with Mercenary Tao but it comes full force here. Piccolo is a solid threat and the arc does a great job at showing off how big of a threat Piccolo is by having his minion Tamborine kill Krillin, and kill all the martial artists Goku and friends met up with until that point. The stakes are high and there is a lot more tension here than there were in previous arcs due to the much darker tone. Piccolo himself feels like a great threat considering he beat up Goku, and killed Roshi and Choitzu while also nearly taking over the entire world. My only issues with this arc is that Piccolo as a character comes out of nowhere. He is the biggest threat the DB universe has faced up until that point and we are just now hearing about him? Where the hell did Pilaf find the jar sealing Piccolo? Since when did bodies need to be preserved in order for the Dragon to bring people back? Other than those issues, solid arc.

23rd Martial Arts Tournament - 9 out of 10. This arc was great all around. Every fight had it's own story to tell. From Tien and Cyborg Tao all the way to the final fight with Goku and Piccolo Jr. Everything felt like it had high stakes. I also liked that underlying sub plot of everyone doubting he can even beat Piccolo Jr and Kami wanting to take matters into his own hands and making sure Goku won't have to take on Piccolo Jr himself. The fight with Piccolo Jr is also one of the most creative in the series too. I also liked the ending of the fight with Piccolo Jr and it sums up an aspect of Goku's character I have greatly come to appreciate over time where he only spares people who the audience never actually sees kills innocent people or important characters actively. Honestly, not a lot of issues I have with this arc, it's the best in the show. I guess my only issue is that the ending felt sort of anti climatic but it's a minor gripe.

Overall Dragon Ball is a good show if you can get past it's boring middle half and remember to skip the filler parts as well. This series sure did remind me why I dislike filler so much especially when canon and filler get interwined so remember to skip them and a filler guide ready. That and the show has a bad habbit of Goku's friends standing around and on stand by while Goku does all the work. I don't mind this once or twice, but the show does it at least 3 times. Z was at least more creative in that the characters jobbed and the villains squashing them in order to establish how powerful the villains were. Now, I might as well get to the underlying issue with all the arcs, while as a standalone stories minus Red Ribbon are solid, it's clear Toriyama made this stuff up as he went along and there wasn't really a plan of any kind. It's a well known fact, but I feel watching the series now, it can be pretty obvious. It's not enough to ruin the show for me, but it can stick out like a tore thumb for people who like to look out for that stuff. Good show, and like I said, it's fans can overhype it, but it's a solid show that is worth watching all the same.

Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex Solid State Society Review

This has always been the point for me where Ghost in the Shell as a franchise started to go downhill. I enjoy the 1995 movie, I enjoy Innocence and both seasons of Stand Alone Complex, but every time I come to this movie, I always sturggle to make it through to the end. 

There's a number of issues I have with this movie but let's start with the first. Solid State Society is basically a Ghost in the Shell "greatest hits" of sorts. The movie combines aspects of the 1995 movie, Innocence, and the first season of SAC. The 1995 movie in that the antagonist is called the "Puppeteer"(not Pupper Master) who seems to be an all knowing AI. Innocence with the kidnapped children and Motoko Kusanagi leaving Section 9. The first season of SAC in that the "Puppeteer" is a also a hacker along with sort of being an AI. It also has the visuals and music of SAC. My problem with this is that this movie doesn't really have any original ideas of it's own, and as a result feels like someone got a collection of past GITS concepts and rolled them into one movie. The live action movie would funnily enough make the same mistakes to a much greater degree but that is besides the point. I just find it strange that Kamiyama would even do something like this considering the fact that SAC S1 and 2nd Gig do a great job at breathing new life into GITS. Now it feels like he is apping off Oshii and himself. 

Now the second issue, the fact that the movie timeskips two years after 2nd Gig and as a result, characters are changed in ways that don't feel natural or just feel like...and I hate using this term, "character rewrites". To name examples, Motoko becomes disillusioned with Section 9 and conducts her own investigations, Togusa is the leader of Section 9, the Fujikomas are incompetent, Aramaki is worried about Section 9's future, Togusa becomes cyberized, Batou only getting involved in cases that he finds interesting, Section 9 is greatly expanded on and Saito taking overseas ops. What do all these have in common? There is no smooth transition to any of these things, the only thing that links all these events together is nothing. By the end of 2nd Gig, it felt like Section 9 was still normal and nothing too bad has happened but get to this movie, and so much has happened inbetween the ending of 2nd Gig and this movie that I almost want an anime series or movie taking place during the timskip just to see how all this stuff managed to take place. This is why I strongly dislike timeskips in fiction and especially timeskips that gloss over major character development, and this movie did very little to change my mind on the idea. The scene where Aramaki and Batou might be one of the better scenes in the movie but the problem is that it's hard for me to care because I am not even what where all the events leading up to the conversation. 

The third issue is that the villlains are completely underwhelming. Mune and the Puppeteer are both the main villains of the story and while both their motivations involving the kidnapped children, Japan's decling birth rate, frail old people, killing important people in Japan's political landscape and rewriting children's memories are interesting on paper, they are presented in a dry way where the characters only reveal any kind of character before they are about to die or a big dramatic moment. Before that, they don't do a whole lot of anything, and just feel like the only actions they did that mattered was right before they died or the major dramatic part. That and the "Puppeteer" might as well be an AI if the movie was going to resort to the resolution that it did regarding the identity of that character. 

There are some things about the movie that do prevent it from being completely unwatchable. Yoko Kanno's music is great and hearing Run Rabbit Junk was great. The action is also pretty good and the final action sequence with the cyborg tanks is pretty good due to the music and action working in tandem together. The ending with Motoko and Batou with the slowed down version of "take a little hand" playing in the background along with the conversation the two characters have was a touching way to close off the series, it provides more closure than 2nd Gig's ending does, despite 2nd Gig being way better overall. 

Overall, I enjoyed Ghost in the Shell SAC and the first two movies a lot but this movie I found to be really boring. Every time I watch it, I always struggle to finish it due to badly presented the villians are, the timeskip, and how the movie rarely has good ideas of it's own. If you are a SAC fan, I say watch it for the score and action but prepare to be underwhelmed, if you just watch this as just a movie, skip it because you are getting very little entertainment value out of watching this. 

Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex 2nd Gig Review

I always considered this season of the show superior to the first season while I still do, I also feel in some ways the first season is more consistent, this season is far more memorable and interesting.

The good stuff about 2nd Gig are all carry overs from the 1st season and more, the great music, directing, stand alone episodes, theming, characters, action, visuals, and just how much it requires it the viewer to pay attention and rewards them afterwards are all still here.

However what makes this season more interesting to me are two reasons the first being I find the change of from corporate terrorism to international issues to be more interesting because the stakes are raised and is a natural evolution from the stakes in the first season. I mainly find it more interesting in that and this now leads to my 2nd reasons is as to why I think this season is better is due to the fact that there is an actual antagonist. In fact, there are 2. Hideo Kuze and Kazundo Gohda, where the 1st season didn't really have an antagonist at all and the Laughing Man was a persona that was created by Yakushima so he can blackmail other micro machine companies and Aoi was more of a cyber hacker that was on the side good, this meant that the 1st season didn't really have a true antagonist. I am the kind of guy who tends to gravitate more towards stories that have an interesting antogonists and the before mentioned characters I mentioned are both very interesting. Gohda is fascinating in that he runs everything from the shadows, and only shows up when he has to. What also makes him interesting is that he feels like an interesting subversion of the "ugly villain" trope where he actually has his disfigured face because he will be recalled by other people more and he chose to keep it rather than have no option at all. That and he often drives Section 9 up against a wall at multiple points in the show and pushes them to their limits like many great villains do. 3 examples of this is when he he botched a live firing of the automated helicoptors to stir up the refugees, used Section 9 as a decoy to get the nuclear weapons out of the refugee area, and question Togusa's meaning of justice when he put the character in an unjust trial. Gohda is an example of a villain who pushes the heroes very hard and makes the resinstated Section 9's job a nightmare.

Hideo Kuze is another interesting antagonist in that he is more of a anti villain before they such a dime a dozen like they are these days. Kuze is an intriguing character in that despite being a character who becomes a pacifist idealist later in the series, everything he does is him staying true to what he stands for. Everything Kuze does often revolves around solving matters peacefully like when that one kid who got angry at him for being part of the Individual Eleven, he talks it out with him and on top of that finds a way to buy the plutonium without ever resorting to physical force. When he fights Batou later in the show, it's out of self defense and he never kills the latter either, and only one because the former got lucky. And now what really makes Kuze such a great villain is how much she makes the Major doubt herself and makes her question if she is doing the right thing, which is what a great antagonist should always do. The Major in a lot GITS media tends to be stoic, confident and always sure of herself, basically the leader character in a lot of fiction but with the later parts of 2nd Gig, the Major is a lot more vunerable and not so sure of herself than she is in previous parts of the series and other GITS media in general. This is another big reason why I deem 2nd Gig to be better than the 1st season and to be my favorite GITS related media ever. It was so refreshing to see Motoko make mistakes and ever having members like Batou and Aramaki doubt her leadership which is all tied to how great of a villain Hideo Kuze is due to the personal connection she had with Motoko. If this wasn't here, Kuze would be another generic terroriost for Section 9 to stop but this personal connection adds more of a personal touch to the story, and gives the story towards the end much higher stakes on top of the plot related stuff.

So after all this praise, why don't I give this show a 10? I think it's due to 3 issues, 2 of them not being too big and 1 of them big quite a big one. The 1st issue being that some of the stand alone episodes are kind of weak mainly just 3, those being Night Cruise, Cash Eye, and Red Data. Night Cruise especially being the weakest of the bunch and the whole series for that matter. It's an episode I don't expect GITS SAC to have where it's just visual imagery and theming doing the heavy lifting, as well as the episode being pretty pointless in the grand scheme of things, and stuff like Motoko pretending to be an expensive hooker not really being in her character. That and it feels like Kenji Kamiyama is just refrencing Taxi Driver yet again, I know he loves that movie but I feel this is just homaging Taxi Driver for the sake of it rather than benefiting the story.

The 2nd issue is and I am not sure if this counts as a big issue but I always did wonder how Kuze actually got in contact with Individual Eleven virus, it might be intentionally kept vague but I do kind of wish the story showed how he got infected with it, but this isn't too big of a problem.

This 3rd problem however is a big one and that is the ending of 2nd Gig, I have never really liked the ending all that much to it and it feels especially sub par compared to the 1st season's ending, and the big issue with 2nd Gig's ending is that after Kuze's death, the show abruptly just flashes forward and the refugee crisis is back to square one and the Major goes back to being the reliable confident woman she always was. It's not those 2 things on their own that makes it such an underwhelming ending, it's the fact that it all happens so quickly. I know 2nd Gig throws much more at the viewer compared to the 1st season but I felt 2nd Gig really could've benefitted from one more episode or a longer last episode to really make all this stuff transition more smoothly. The 1st season's ending was better in that after the penultimate episode, the viewer gets to see aftermath of the incident that happened with Section 9 from Togusa's point of view and when Section 9 reunites at the end and also with Inner Universe triumphantly playing in the background, it felt like an ending that felt powerful and earned. 2nd Gig's ending? Kuze dies and then it abruptly flashes forward without even seeing the overall aftermath of the incident unfold or how the Major got over Kuze's death or if it even affected her at all. This to me is what makes 2nd Gig's ending so underwhelming.

Overall, I still love GITS SAC 2nd Gig all these years later. Rewatching the SAC series has been a complete and utter joy for me.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence Review

Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence is a movie I have a huge soft spot for from the get go. This is because my favorite GITS character Batou gets his own story centered around him. It almost feels like a Batou spin off in a lot of ways. This movie is probably the closest thing to a Batou and Togusa buddy cop spin off that I always wanted. That alone is enough to make me a big fan of it.

On paper, this movie already sounds like a winner to me, and luckily, in terms of execution, the movie also delivers. Oshii's visuals and Kawaii's music are both just as great as ever, I love how dark and gritty the movie's visual style is. It feels like a dystopia very much far removed from human civilzation as we know it. The music while a lot more subdued compared to the first movie but is still fantastic when it does play.

I feel like overall, and this may be considered an "unpopular opinion" but I prefer this movie over the first one. When it comes to moment to moment dialogue and character interactions, it feels like in many ways the writers of GITS SAC got involved in this movie. The characters here have much more chemistry between each other. It's not just Batou and Togusa but Ishikawa have some good interactions with the two leads as well. I really enjoyed Ishikawa's interactions between Batou involving dogs the most because it feels like Ishikawa shows how concerned he is Batou to the point where he even questions the way the latter takes care of his dog and why he even has one to begin with. While Aramaki doesn't pop up that much in this movie, I do feel his scenes when he does show up are memorable in that he is like a stoic leader who will try to help but does pamper them too much. Of course Togusa and Batou's interactions are great and the scene where they barge into the yakuza hq is fantastic.

Speaking of the yakuza hq shootout, there are many great scenes in this movie, there is the opening sequence where Batou hunts down the rogue doll, the scene where Togusa talks to Harrowaway, the scene where they investigate the inspector's death, the scene with Batou relaxing at his house feeding his dog, the before mentioned yakuza shootout, the convience store Kim hacking, the seqence where Batou and Togusa enters the Northern Frontier, the 2nd Kim hacking and the final action sequence.

The whole movie feels much more like a stand alone narrative to me than the first movie does. The whole film feels like an interesting film noir narrative cyberpunk narrative. With the before mentioned character interactions, it feels like the characters have a lot of history together because of the way they talk to each other. The story feels much more small scale compared to the first movie and I feel it benefits this film as a result. The fact that Batou tries to handle Locus Solus' investigation himself after getting targetting by them and Togusa chooses to help him just helps makes the stakes of the movie more personal as a result.

The movie also does the existential philosophy better too. With stuff like how far removed human civilization has gotten with how hi tech everything looks. Also stuff like how it talks about machines and humans and with the mind screwing Kim hacking scene in the Norther Frontier, the movie tends to make you question about how far humanity will go when technology gets so advanced.

And this leads to a rather infamous aspect of the movie, the excessive philsophical quoting, while I get it being there because it's the characters trying so hard to cling on as to what even makes them human and what humanity they have left, but it can get a bit overbearing at times. I feel like they can go a bit overboard at times. Not enough to ruin the movie but it feels like at points, the characters try too hard to sound smart. It's not a super big deal but if I have to mention a negative, this would be it.

Overall, GITS 2: Innocence might be one of my favorite anime movies ever and one of if not my favorite movie Oshii has directed. I loved this movie back when I watched it and I still love it now.