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.

What started this whole renaissance of internet television for me was stumbling upon Babylon 5 in the show list.  I have been meaning to actually watch it from start to finish.  While the show was actually running I didn’t have cable, so I only got to catch flashes of it when I was at other people’s houses.  So now that I can go about it the lazy way, I finally decided it was time.

Hulu only has the first two seasons up so far, so that’s what this review will focus on.  I know some people will question the point of writing about such an old show, but maybe I’ll get someone to watch it for the first time or an old fan to go back and revisit.  It’s definitely a show worth watching, and I’m still hungry for the rest of it.

One of the most interesting things about the show is the lengths that it went to in order to keep the overall plot arc going.  Of course, each episode definitely stands alone, but each advances the storyline in some way.  The viewers are introduced to all of the characters – mostly the ship’s officers and the various ambassadors – and they are the central focus of the series.  Since so much attention is paid to character development, a greater attachment is formed.

One of the things I noticed early on was the similarity of Commander Sinclair to Captain Archer from Star Trek Enterprise.  Maybe it was just something I made up in my head, but their character backgrounds and their motivations seemed very close.  I’m not suggesting that there was any specific connection, but more that it’s a very good science fiction staple.

Season 1 was pretty much an introduction to the world, its history, and the major players.  There was a lot of character building and exposition, but all of it was done rather well.  Running through the background of all of this was a definite foreshadowing of something darker and more important to come.

At the beginning of Season 2, John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner, otherwise always known as TRON) takes over for Commander Sinclair as chief of the Babylon 5 station, with almost no explanation.  I haven’t looked up if this was done on purpose or if it was another ‘this actor didn’t want to do it anymore’ things.  Either way, it was a little bit of a shock.  I had grown attached to the way the station/show worked with Sinclair, so I had to get used to a different feel to the show.  It all worked out, and Season 2 ramps up the tension as well as the storyline.

The computer graphics are a bit dated, but they are a good look back to the state of computer animation in the years when the show was created.  I also learned that the technology was also used in a short-lived series that I watched on TV when it aired called Hypernauts.  I’m still trying to track down the rest of that show – it was rather interesting for a ‘kid’s show.’

Bottom line: go watch Babylon 5 on Hulu right now, or if you are an obsessive compulsive collector of TV shows on DVD, I’m pretty sure it’s all available – but I don’t guarantee it.

Fast forward to when I finally bought a Nintendo DS, and the newest Phoenix Wright was one of the games I purchased with it.  However, upon playing through the first case, I realized that the games followed a storyline.  Of course, that meant that I needed to purchase both of the previous games.  I was able to purchase the first game at a Gamestop, but I had a really hard time find the second game.  I finally decided to order it from Half.com, and it took forever but I got it.  And let me tell you, even though I find myself crammed between Warcraft, books, other video games, movies, and TV – I still find as much time as possible to play the DS.  And what game do I play?  Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, of course.

I’m just about finished with the first game, and it took me longer than most people in overall time.  However, I haven’t timed my actual in-game hours, which probably end up being around the average.

Don’t let me fool you, it’s not a perfect game.  Some of the characters are barely written with any…character.  Some of the witness quirks are a little annoying, such as the latest guy that I’m dealing with who makes me wait for him to wake up every time that I try to talk to him.  It gets a little old sometimes.

The game is by no means realistic in it’s portrayal of a trial system – trials are limited to three days, sometimes I’ve been limited to only using one item of evidence to prove my point (most of the time), and Phoenix seems a little altruistic to exist in law of modern times.  Maybe that’s the draw of it for me – perhaps it exploits the idealistic ‘fighter of justice’ lawyer image that seems like it will never exist.

The stories are excellent, and every case ties in with the ones before it, lending itself to have an overall story arc; this might not be expected with a game based on episodic trials.

All in all, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is what I would term a ‘must buy’ for the Nintendo DS – especially if you are interested in puzzle games or mysteries.