The reason that I haven’t done any of these dungeons is not an accident – I’ve purposefully avoided doing any raiding.  I believe I’ve mentioned here before that I suck at old games because they are hard, but I don’t really think that the games are really any harder to complete, I’m just not willing to put in the required effort anymore.  This parallels my attitude about instances in WOW.  Instances and raids require paying attention and actually playing the game, something which is at odds with the intended effect of my time in game.

The end result of this attitude toward a specific section of the game means that I miss out on personally experiencing a lot of the story and progression until long after it is no longer relevant.  I’m not really worried about it, however; I can live vicariously through others.  Even my brother tends to spend more time in that side of the game.  I will be content right now to continue trying to find rare mobs and grinding rep to get cool stuff and money.

COMPONENTS

One of the most interesting features of the core game is its simplicity.  I don’t mean that it’s too easy to play, or that it poses no mental challenge, but that the game materials themselves are not unnecessarily complex.  The edition that I purchased comes with two sets of cards (Doors and Treasures), an instruction book, and a single die.  That’s all that it takes to form one of the most enthralling game experiences of my board game history.  The die is just a standard d6, but the cards and the instruction manual are really what stand out.

RULES

Wait – the instruction manual?  That’s right, the manual is terrific.  It is written very much tongue-in-cheek, with lines like “Any other disputes should be settled by loud arguments among the players, with the owner of the game having the last word” (Munchkin official rules).

The cards are the gem of this board game.  Kovalic did (and does) an amazing job illustrating the cards in a way that makes them informative while hilarious.  Each card is unique because even similar cards (such as class cards) are differentiated by gender or some other marker.  Some of the curses and such have had my group laughing hysterically.

DIFFICULTY

Munchkin was designed specifically to bring the RPG style gameplay to an audience not necessarily familiar or comfortable with that style.  Because of this, the game strives to make all situations in game fathomable and straightforward.  It took my group only a couple of complete rounds to grasp it enough for gameplay actions to be second nature and strategy to become a factor.

FUN FACTOR

A large amount of the enjoyment we pull out of playing Munchkin is derived from how crazy and excited we can get while playing.  As far as my group is concerned, this is not a game to be played quietly.  One of my cousins was a thief and was constantly yelling out ‘”BACKSTAB!” to everyone (even if he wasn’t capable of doing it at that time), and on another round a different player tried to play two Warrior class cards on himself, prompting a stream of double class jokes for a few nights afterward.

OVERALL

Especially considering the low cost of the core game, Munchkin is an overwhelming winner in my book.  The expansions are not needed to have fun playing this game, but I intend to at least pick up some of them.  Even with just the original set, the game varies enough through turn order, luck of the draw, and crazy item swiping and trading that the replay value is huge.

Though the decision to pick up this series was made rather flippantly, I’ve been pleased with the purchase.  Aquarion isn’t a masterpiece by any means, but it stands up well as part of my collection.  If you aren’t interested in dropping the cash on the show, it’s really worth watching – as of the time of this review, the entire first season of the series is available on Netflix.

PLOT

Aquarion is pretty straightforward: good guys plus big robot versus bad guys who want to kill everyone.  As long as you ignore the weird past lives undertones of everything, that is.  The series is set in a world under siege by a group of creatures known as the Shadow Angels, who have returned after being defeated 12,000 years in the past.  It’s a pretty standard plot setup, but it’s not as important to this show as the visuals and action sequences.

Aquarion, the giant robot of this giant robot series, is an intriguing use of the combined vehicle trope.  The mecha consists of three separate ships, or Vectors, each piloted by an Element User.  Each of the vectors takes on characteristics related to its pilot (in typical giant robot linked fashion), and when the Vectors merge Aquarion gains different abilities depending on which pilot supplies the head of the robot.  Since there are several Element Users capable of piloting Aquarion and only three spots available, this allows for many different permutations of abilities that the robot can become.

For the first half of the series, most of the episodes throw the protagonists into battle with the Shadow Angels, forcing the pilots to learn how to control their abilities and the powers of Aquarion.  During these battles, the links that each of the characters has to the battle of 12,000 years past are also explored.  The main thread of these deals with the main protagonists of the ancient war: Solar Wing (Appolonius) and his lover, Celiane.  In the current time, Apollo is believed to be the reincarnation of Solar Wing and Sylvia the reincarnation of his lover.  This undertone colors most of the battles, while an ancient former friend and foe fights alongside the Shadow Angels.

CAST OF NOTE

The voice actors that Funimation has on the dub of Aquarion seem to be a little bit lesser known than some other shows – at least, they’re lesser known to me.  From what I can tell, they did a decent job of matching up the dub actors with the original seiy?.  Beyond that, the English dub works pretty well when allowance is given for the shallowness of the characters – any of the faults I found with the performances were due to the character as written and not the actor.

• Apollo: Takuma Terashima/Christopher Bevins
• Silvia de Alisia: Yumi Kakazu/Brina Palencia
• Sirius de Alisia: Tomokazu Sugita/Eric Vale
• Hong Lihua/Reika: Sanae Kobayashi/Colleen Clinkenbeard
• Pierre Vieira: Masaya Onosaka/Travis Willingham
• Gen Fudou: Unshou Ishizuka/Brandon Potter
• Toma: Toshiyuki Morikawa/J. Michael Tatum

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH

Big robots, nicely scaling techniques, powers, and bad guys to fight.  There is also quite a bit of story that hangs around and doesn’t quite get in the way of the action.  The characters can be rather one-dimensional, but the show manages to work around that somewhat by having many different characters, each with his or her own problems and skills.  The animation is excellent, with a mix of traditional animation for the people and computer graphics for the mecha effects.  And boy, are the mecha effects good.  In fact, it seems like most of the work putting this series together went into designing the robot and its various combinations.

For those with an interest in anime music, Yoko Kanno was responsible for the music in Aquarion, and it shows.  The music is definitely well done, and I certainly can’t get the closing theme out of my head.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T WATCH

If you don’t like giant robots, than this one isn’t for you.  It’s not a powerhouse like Gurren Lagann or anything like that, and there isn’t anything that would bring a non-mecha fan into the show.  The characters are pretty one-dimensional as well, and their dialogue is not very inspired.  Each episode can be a little formulaic as well: Gen Fudou presents them with a challenge at the beginning of the episode, and they encounter an enemy that can only be defeated by realizing the truth of the lesson.  This begins to get better toward the end of the first set of DVDs, but that’s certainly a long time to wait if you aren’t interested in the first place.

CONCLUSION

Aquarion is an enjoyable series.  Definitely worth viewing, if maybe not buying.  If you want to add this show to your collection, Funimation did an excellent job of releasing Aquarion in box sets right from the beginning, and as of now there is a full series box set available.  As I mentioned at the beginning of the review, both set one and two are also available on Netflix, though not for instant viewing.  The bottom line is that this is a series with excellent production values and a great giant robot – if the outside trappings don’t really measure up to the mecha, the action can certainly stand on its own.

Dual specs are what interest me the most, however.  When I started playing I rolled a priest, but I was a shadow priest.  When we began to do battlegrounds, I got very frustrated with playing a DPS priest and respecced to holy and haven’t looked back.  It helps a lot when my brother are trying to do things with just the two of us.  But when I try to do things by myself, such as the Sons of Hodir dailies, I have a much harder time of things and it takes me much longer to do the quests.  Once I’m able to switch between specs at will I am going to pick up shadow as my second spec so that I can stop compromising.  I’m really looking forward to being able to cause some havoc on my own.

Speaking of the Storm Peaks, my brother and I finally finished what we’re able to accomplish by ourselves, and so we’re ready to move on to Icecrown.  It was pretty cool the way the quests ended, though the Thorim quests were much more interesting.  I’m anticipating some Lich King shenanigans in Icecrown to rival the Sons of Hodir stuff.

The premise of Betrayal at House on the Hill is that the players are a group of adventurers exploring an old haunted house.  The house is gradually revealed, tile by tile, as the players move throughout.  Traps, monsters and mayhem await in nearly every room of the mysterious mansion.  Eventually, one or more of the adventurers will succumb to the terror of the surroundings and turn on the other players.  After that point, the objective of the game is to defeat the traitor and flee the house!

COMPONENTS

Betrayal at House on the Hill contains a lot of pieces and parts.  There is no traditional board, as the playing area appears and expands as the players wander through the house.  In order to give that impression, the house is made out of tiles that get added to the house when a player passes through an unexplored door.  The room tiles are detailed and relatively easy to understand; a couple of the doors and windows are hard to pick out.  Each player chooses one of six pentagonal cardboard pieces that have a characters abilities and stats.  These numbers provide for dice mechanics during play.  The cards also correspond to one of the plastic miniature characters

As with many games in Avalon Hill’s catalog, this game comes with a stack of cards that are divided into events that occur when rooms are explored, items that players can use or carry, or omen cards that can be items, events or curses.  Events can be beneficial or harmful to the player who triggers them, causing various effects such as moving the player around the house, damaging or boosting the player’s stats, or affecting the other explorers.  Items can be weapons or accessories that change the stats for the owner, and they can also be used to affect gameplay. Omen cards are a combination of event cards and item cards.  Some of the omens will immediately affect either the explorer who drew the card or everyone playing.  Other omen cards are held as items and used in the same manner.  There is a also a twist on the omen cards – they are the catalyst for the traitor.  Every time an omen card is drawn, the dice are rolled to determine if the “haunt” starts.

The game also includes a large amount of punch-out cardboard tokens.  These represent everything from monsters to effects and secret passageways.  The monster tokens are used to represent the monsters or henchmen involved in the haunt, while the effects are usually placed in a room to show that special rules apply.  Event cards usually call for those tokens.

The quality of the game pieces is decent.  High quality cardboard is still cardboard, however, and the edges and corners of the pieces can be damaged.  The character cards and the turn counter have plastic sliders that are attached that can damage the edges.  The cards are laminated and are the same weight and quality as standard playing cards.  The floor tiles are uniform (other than the special three-square long entry tile) and lay flat, though the entry tile can get warped.  I recommend getting a small tackle box or something similar to hold the tokens.  Early on I realized that the built in box dividers were inadequate to hold everything, and the dividers in the tackle box help to sort the different types of tokens to make it easier to find specific pieces.

RULES

The rules of this game are somewhat complicated, as there are a large number of situations to cover.  There are three rule books included: the main rule book, a scenario book for the explorers and a scenario book for the traitor.  The scenario books apply to when the haunt begins, which is when the traitor is revealed and the game object changes.  In each scenario book the conditions for the haunt to begin are listed, dictating which player is the traitor based on who started the haunt, which room it was started in, and what card was drawn.  The main rule book covers the basic rules for the game, as well as the different card types.

Unfortunately, the rules that were shipped at the time of printing were incomplete, contradictory, and unbalanced.  Hasbro supplied new rules and haunt scenarios, along with corrections to existing rules on the game’s website.  The game can be a little frustrating and slightly unfair, so players shouldn’t try to play without the supplemental materials.  This is the largest problem with the game in my mind, but since the company supplied corrections it isn’t a deal breaker.

DIFFICULTY

There are dice involved, but this should not give the impression that the game is random or easy.  The dice act more like they would in Dungeons & Dragons, used in combat or to tell if an event or condition applies to the player in question.  The first half of the game is very straightforward, exploring the house and following the instructions on the cards that are drawn.  However, after the haunt begins the rules become quite a bit more complicated, because after that there are combat rules and more creatures involved.  Each haunt scenario calls for different things; some require strategy, others require luck, and sometimes the traitor or explorers just need to hold on for a certain amount of time.  Betrayal at House on the Hill is definitely a game that requires time and thought, and isn’t something to be undertaken just to pass the time.

FUN FACTOR

The game stays pretty fresh in each play through, even after a lot of games, because of the haunt mechanism.  Selection of a scenario is sufficiently random and keeps the second half of the game different from the last time through.  There is a small chance to get the same scenario twice in a row, but it is a rare occurrence.  Every game really requires a group of people who are willing to play together, but it is especially important in this case.  Even though the traitor is chosen based on the luck of the draw, that player is then pitted against the rest of the players.  It is both a strength of the game and a weakness.  The haunt scenarios aren’t all perfectly balanced (purposefully) and sometimes the traitor can feel that the odds are stacked against him, just because the other players can work together.  However, it usually works out all right and the next scenario could be unbalanced in the other direction.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is one of my favorite board games.  It’s also the most played out of the newer games in my collection.  I don’t really own any other games that are like it – it is pretty unique.  Unfortunately, Hasbro only printed it for a short time, and it is out of print.  Apparently the game is popular, as there aren’t even very many used copies available.  Probably the only way to get it is to pay for the overpriced copies out there, watch for a good deal, or hope that Hasbro reprints the game.

PLOT SUMMARY

The focus of the movie falls squarely on the shoulders of Shizuku Tsukishima, a girl in junior high school just about to take the exams necessary to get into high school.  Of course, instead of spending her time preparing for the exams, she works on a song for graduation, hangs out with her friends, and voraciously reads books that she borrows from the library.  She finds another outlet for her imagination when she notices that someone named Seiji Amasawa borrowed all the books right before she did.  Shizuku becomes obsessed with discovering the real person behind the name in the books.  While trying to track him down, she meets a boy who drives her crazy with his teasing, and she stumbles into a strange antique shop.  The people that she meets during these adventures lead her to new realizations about her abilities and purpose in life, as well as love.

CAST OF NOTE

Shizuku Tsukishima: Yoko Honna, Brittany Snow
Seiji Amasawa: Issei Takahashi, David Gallagher
The Baron: Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, Cary Elwes
Y?ko Harada: Maiko Kayama, Ashley Tisdale
Sugimora: Yoshimi Nakajima, Martin Spanjers

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH

The characters in Whisper of the Heart are real.  It’s not particularly set in a very modern setting – though as unfamiliar as I am with real Japanese culture I am not a very good judge.  My point is that the emotions that the kids in this movie feel are legitimate and their motivations are believable.  After a long string of fantasy and science fiction stories that can require a certain suspension of disbelief it is refreshing to find something so straightforward.  Whisper of the Heart also plays on my oft-denied obsession with good love stories.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T WATCH

If you’re looking for a supernatural action adventure story, or some sort of intellectual exercise, you should probably look elsewhere.  Whisper of the Heart doesn’t have a deeper meaning or anything – it’s a simple love story viewed from a teenage Japanese girl’s perspective.  There is no apparent antagonist or external conflict to resolve, and all of the growth is internal.  Steer clear if you’re looking for another Castle in the Sky or Spirited Away – even though this film stands right up there with the other Ghibli films in terms of quality, it is a completely different genre.

As I said, this movie is one of my favorites.  Of course, all of the Ghibli films rank in my favorites list, but this is one I can watch over and over again without any problem.  I purchased the DVD the day after I first saw the movie.  I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who isn’t already an anime fan, as there are stronger gateway series and movies, but it’s definitely a purchase I would recommend to fans – especially those familiar with Studio Ghibli’s other works.

Faster mounts have helped to do the various dailies that I’ve been doing instead of progressing through the rest of Storm Peaks and Icecrown.  I did the Frenzyheart dailies in Sholazar Basin until I got the achievement for doing all eight of them at least once – there are only three of them each day, with two of them picking from seven different quests.  Once I got that achievement, I switched over to the Oracles by killing Artruis the Heartless again.  Now I’m doing the dailies for the Oracles in hopes of getting a Green Proto Drake from the Mysterious Egg.

As for the other dailies that I’m doing, I do the Sons of Hodir dailies (I’m almost to Revered with them), the daily for K3 with the land mines, and the Hyldnir daily.  Speaking of the Hyldnir daily, Sunday I managed to pick up the Reins of the White Polar Bear from that, which is a pretty rare drop.  Even though that’s really the only item benefit from that daily, it’s easy enough that I’ll continue to do it for the gold reward.

If I find any free time this weekend I’ll probably try to do some actual questing – I’d like to advance in the story.

When I hit 70 in Outland, I didn’t really feel like I had accomplished anything, as the Burning Crusade had been out long enough that everyone and their brother had reached 70.  Now, even though we took our time to get to 80, I feel like I’m doing it right along with everyone else.

My goal while we finish the Storm Peaks and Icecrown is to make as much money as I possibly can, since I never managed to get enough for my Expert Riding and an epic flying mount.  Since all the quests reward gold instead of experience now, it makes it a little easier.  Also, there are quite a few new dailies in Northrend – I think I’m going to start doing the Frenzyheart and Oracle quests in Sholazar Basin.

I’m really excited about finishing the questlines in the Storm Peaks because of some lore characters.  It will honestly have a hard road topping how epic the Sons of Hodir quests were.

The players are participants in a bet to see which person can cross the United States by rail the fastest – sort of an Around the World in 80 Days kind of thing.

COMPONENTS

The game includes a large game board with a map of the United States, with cities connected by a number of colored train routes.  There are five wooden circle score markers, one for each player, which are used to mark the number of points the players earn on a number track on the outside of the board.  Each player gets 45 plastic train cars in the color of his score marker.  The game also comes with a handful of extra train cars, three for each color, in case any get lost.  Along with the rule book, there are 144 colored cards that correspond to the train routes and various other game mechanics.

RULES

The rules are clear & concise (which I’ve come to expect from Days of Wonder games).  The play rules begin with an overview of all the phases in each turn, then goes into detail of each phase.  One of the interesting things about Ticket to Ride is that the players can only choose to do one of three things each turn.  It leads to a bit of strategy, as the players need to plan ahead to build a route, and sometimes even to have a backup plan in place, since playing a route is a little like gin rummy and has to be done all at once.  This can lead to another player jumping on a route before the first player has all the cards necessary.  The game designers/publishers (whoever is responsible for the rule book) have also done a good job of detailing possible situations to avoid rule disputes.

DIFFICULTY

Ticket to Ride doesn’t require much deep thought to play.  As I mentioned above, a little strategy comes into play, and players need to think a few turns ahead in order to win.  Planning past the next turn isn’t necessary to enjoy the game, however, just to play hard for a win.  It’s possible to win without much strategy, especially if the other players don’t strategize much.  The individual phases of each turn aren’t difficult to figure out at all.  The most difficult concept for my group to grasp initially was the difference between the plastic train colors and the colors on the cards.  For the record, the colors on the cards correspond to the route colors, and the colors of the plastic trains only serve to identify which player owns the route.  Scoring isn’t difficult at all, as the scoring tokens just slide around the numbers on the edge of the board.

FUN FACTOR

The game takes a little while to play.  The box claims it takes 30-60 minutes, but as always that depends on the group playing.  My group contains a couple of people who agonize over every decision like it’s the most important thing in the world, which can drag out a game a bit.  I don’t think we’ve ever played for more than an hour.  The simplicity of the rules lets players focus on the game and stay out of arguments over details – especially since there isn’t a ton of direct competition in the game.  The background story supplied by the game isn’t important in gameplay, but applied well it can add a fun theme.

OVERALL

Ticket to Ride is absolutely a game to pick up for both a collection and a regular game night selection.  It instantly worked its way into our rotation and at least one of my cousins asks for it every time.  At around fifty dollars retail price, it can be a little steep for an impulse buy, but as a planned purchase it’s a good price.  I would recommend the game to anyone who asks – especially since it doesn’t fall into a specific niche genre that would turn players off.

However, the Lunar Festival has been a bit different.  It reminds me more of the Midsummer Fire Festival, with quests and tasks that I didn’t mind repeating.  It also has driven me to travel to places in-game that I haven’t visited before.  You see, there are a large number of Elders in various scattered locations around the world.  The main objective of the Lunar Festival is to visit each one and honor him.  It provides a neat little bit of insight into some of the history of those locations, as well as some faction rep and a Coin of Ancestry (used to purchase some of the holiday items).

The whole objective for me is to try and get the meta-achievement for the holiday, but it looks like I won’t be able to pull it off at the moment.  My main is only level 77 at the moment, and the rest of the Elders that I need are in the Northrend dungeons – at least one is in a heroic version.  That means I won’t be able to get to those until I’m level 80, and I don’t feel like rushing there in these couple of weeks just for this.  It goes against my achievement addiction, though.

For an interesting side effect of this event, I’ve had to visit some of the old instances that I never had the chance to experience.  I then decided to go through all of the dungeons that I didn’t have the achievement for, whether or not I had finished them prior to the launch of the achievement system.  It’s pretty interesting soloing all of those dungeons as a holy priest.  I haven’t tried much over level 50 yet.  This has led to a lot of farming of enchanting materials, since I can disenchant everything I come across.  I’ve been throwing all of those on the auction house and I’ve almost recouped all the cash I spent getting cold weather flying.  I’ve also created a bank alt, and it’s helped out a ton with organizing my auction stuff.  The only things I’ve had trouble selling is the Bolts of Imbued Netherweave and Primal Mooncloth from before the expansion.  Nobody seems to want it, and they are relatively expensive items.