The Mysterious Cities of Gold S3E4 - La colère du Naï No Kam

It's again airborne

Been a while, but now we're back with more episodes of the Mysterious Cities of Gold. As I stated last time, 5 seconds later and they saved Estaban from the water, but one of the guards at the temple entrance notices something and begins tracking them while they are in the temple. Hiding from the guard they are trying to wait for the parade of the mirror shield and listen in to some local story about putting a rock on a piece of paper and if it connects you will marry the one. Of course Zia puts it in thirst and Estaban and Tao try their best to get their own piece of paper in the pond. Nothing happened in this episode with that so I won't know if it will come back. The ceremony starts, but as they try to keep up Zia feels something and believes that another earthquake are coming. Now, usually in these type of shows one would have seen signs like animals acting weird or running away, but out of the blue it seemed like she felt it, making me wonder if they are hinting that she also possess some (as of yet) unexplained powers? If Estaban is connected with the sun and sky, is she connected to the earth? Well, she warns the people moments before the earthquake erupts, they are caught by the guard, but break free and after saving Tao from falling into a crack created by the earthquake they follow one of the guards that have taken the Shield and hidden it in its safe place. They hide while the guard closes the room and approaches the shield and the episode ends on them finding it.

Meanwhile Ambrosius and Gaspard joins forces to stop Mendoza and get the airship working again. Mendoza and Co are hiding in the village and waiting for the right moment to board the portuguese ship that is guarded by the daiymo's men. The earthquake happens and the guards scatters, but as they are about to board the ship a mother cries out about her two children trapped in their burning house. Mendoza tells Sancho and Pedro to board the ship and he will join them later, but they follow him instead. He position himself in the doorway and holds it up with his own body while Sancho and Pedro grabs the children and run out. The daimyo's second-in-command that have patrolled the town for Mendoza arrives and witness the scene just as the house gives way and buried Mendoza in the rubble. And I like this scene as it just shows the faces of the people standing there in shock and then a close up on Mendozas cape that flickers in the rubble, and then, like freaking Hercules emerging from the Hydra in Disney's Hercules Mendoza stands up, pushing the rubble away from him. And then they get captured and the daimyo himself appears wondering why they didn't just leave, but risked their lives saving some strangers they didn't even know. Sadly I didn't catch what Mendoza answered due to the language barrier. They are arrested again, but treated better this time around.

So no cliffhanger this time around. Nice. The mini-documentary was about the temple and the customs we observed during the episode. I even think it's the same temple that Soma Cruz entered in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow to enter Dracula's Castle. Mostly it was the stairs that looked the same. I really wish there was an official english version (or I even take a proper english subtitled french version).

Wild Guns Reloaded

Västerns hjälte Lucky Luke, kommer på sin häst,

Rider genom staden, vad ska ske här näst?

So I got the remake of Wild Guns for the switch. I played the original on the Wii U (although never finished it since I suck at it). Pretty much a normal shooter avoiding enemy fire while mowing down hordes of enemies all across the screen. Story is that Annie is seeking revenge on the man who killed her family together with the bounty hunter Clint (who looks a bit like a buffer Clint Eastwood who I assume he is named after) so you battle your way through 6 different stages fighting cowboys and mechs. Yeah, it's another anachronistic steam punk game. Cool.

Tuffast utav alla, drar och skjuter snabbt!

It's not much to the game really. I played through it in one hour on the simplest difficulty just to get past the bullet hell. It's strenght would be the multiplayer action that allows up to 4 player to play locally (2 players in the original) and control the constant barage of enemies and bullets better. I assume that is since me moving out of my parents house I don't have the docking station for the switch with me while meeting my sisters so I can't just hook it up. But maybe I make the effort to bring it with me for Christmas.

Skjuter skott på skott, träffar alltid nåt

Hans namn är Lucky Luke

It has great graphics and the music is really good, but the difficulty is hard. Still waiting for the Sunset Rider remaster with 4-player co-op.

Swedish Election 2018

Boy oh boy, a four year chaotic period is finally over and the Swedish people have elected... yet another "no winner" set of parliament. And now even the Sweden Democrats (SD) can't be that happy with the result since they were well and above 20+ % and the spot as the largest or second largest party and instead they ended up third with just at 17% and the Moderat (M) party at 19% (close to 20). You could tell that all the fear and anxiety that have been building in all the parties pretty much died around 22:00 on election day. The Green Party (MP) didn't leave parliament, the Left (V) and Centre (C) parties had some really good results, but compared to the above 10% they were polling with 7-8% as the result are a bit disappointing. Contrast that with the Social Democrats (S) that expected under 25% and falling from 31% to 28% was kinda good. The only one genuinely happy would be the Christian Democrats (KD) that not only made their best result in 20 years, but also showed that even though they polled 2% in the beginning of the year you couldn't count them out. And us Liberals (L), well we gained 0,1 so we went from 5,4 to 5,5%. First time we got a better result than last election for 12 years. Gotta be happy for those small things.

So what happens now? It's to close to call (red-greens 144 seats (V+S+MP), alliance 142 (L+C+M+KD) and the Sweden Democrats 63 seats) so everyone awaits the recount at the County Administrative Boards of Sweden were all pre-votes, foreign votes and at first glance disqualified votes are counted together with every other vote and it might or might not change some swing seats. For example one seat I saw was only given to the Sweden Democrats from the Centre party with a margin of 7 votes. Usually the ca 50 000 foreign votes are leaning more heavily to the bourgeois parties so that could be beneficial. Not enough for a majority, but if the Alliance get more than the red greens and maybe snatch 2-3 seats to be the biggest block there is more likely that they can dethrone the Social Democrats. Which I would prefer anyway, but what are you gonna do?

So how will the future government look like? The alliance can't create a majority without leening on either the Social Democrats or the Sweden Democrats. The Social Democrats won't since they will not get the prime minister post and the Liberals and Centre parties have trouble getting support from the Sweden Democrats. So I think that the Moderats will create a minority government with the Christian Democrats and get the Liberals and Centre to support the budget and get passive support from the Sweden Democrats while making a deal with the Social Democrats on "fixing" the migration issue and get supported by the Sweden Democrats, and with it expelling the question and hopefully bring it back to economical reforms of the Swedish economy, workers rights and housing issues. Why do I believe this? Because if all the promises each party have done, that is the logical conclusion. L and C can't sit in government supported by SD, and they won't support a red-green government (S+MP), SD have also said they can't support a government with MP or C (and I would assume V and L, but that haven't come up). S won't support any other than themselves, MP is to small to support the Alliance and the Alliance don't want support from V and KD and M have said they will bring down S no matter the cost. And that is the reality. If no one breaks their promises we will have a M+KD government in a couple weeks. And I'm OK with that. 

And now to some trivia. I have yet again been able to be caught on camera by the Swedish Television as they filmed the local election night watch parties. So you can spot me on the Alliance Watch party around 23 seconds in, but I wont tell where I am so for those that doesn't know me have to guess:

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/val2018/inget-block-far-egen-majoritet-i-nykoping

Happy Post-Election Day and see you on the other side!

Paper Mario: The Thousand YearDoor (GCN)

A fun adventure albeit a bit "thin"... hehe

So not finishing my cravings for the Gamecube I put in a more lighthearted RPG, Paper Mario. The first Paper Mario game I ever played since we skipped the one for the N64 for some reason. So it starts out with Princess Peach being on holiday (?) in Rougeport, a place of scum and villainy built upon the ruins of an old city that was destroyed 1000-years ago. There she gets a box that only she can open which reveals a treasure map she sends to Mario so he can help her find the treasure. So when he arrives the Princess have been kidnapped so together with new friends he must find the seven crystal stars and find Princess Peach.

All the worlds a stage and all the men and women merely players

It's basically go to a new place, find some upgrade and/or a new companion, defeat the boss, get the crystal star. Then it shifts to Princess Peach in the villains lair, the so called X-Nauts, befriending the AI computer TEC that for some reason falls in love with Peach so he helps her as well as uncovering a lot of the plot. And then it shifts to Bowser trying to find Peach and Mario and trying to get the crystal stars before everyone else. All in all it turns out the old city was destroyed by a demon and it was locked up  behind the door by the crystals star by four heroes (which is hinted at being trapped in the black chest that gives you powers like turning at the side, becoming a roll and turning into boat and a plane) and the X-Nauts are going to use Princess Peach as a vessel for the demon. So with your friends, the seven crystal stars and the prayers from the people all around the world you defeat the Shadow Queen and everything works out fine. 

Let's go Bastille day on this queen

Framing story is simple, but it's the moments that are the most fun. For example the arena Glitzpit where you climb to the top in a tournament fighting the RAWK HAWK, or taking the train to Poshley Heights and it is filled with murder mystery cliches. Certain chapters are more fun than others. The Boogley Woods I recall put me to sleep the first time I played it back when I got the game. Funny enough I still got my old save so I looked through it. I finished the game 2 hours earlier (at 43 hours this time) with 3 less levels and less Hearts and Flower Points in this new run, but I also finished all the troubles and found the secret companion and every shine sprite and 99 star pieces. The only thing I actually did in the old save I would like to do is finishing the 100 pit trail and defeat Bonetail, but I guess I would need some more resources since I can't have played the game as good like this time. Looking at the badges I just used more Hearts and Flowers with are rather useless compared to the right combination of badges so I learned something this time around.

It's a fun game (Bowser getting owned by Gonzales, Mario and Luigi in finding the crystal stars gave me a chuckle), a pity it was the last of it's kind... although Super Paper Mario is inbetween the old and current style of the game, but it changed a lot compared to the first two games. I can see why though, they probably had no new ideas to take the series forward in the same direction. The companions would probably have been repeats and the goomba and koopa show sign of this since they are just the same characters once again. Replaying it was rather fun and having played the original game as well since then I noted several call backs that I missed the first time, both to characters and locations. First obvious one is Kolorado who was an archeologist in the first game that was the father to the koopa of that game and his father showed up here... as a dead body after a fight with Hooktail the dragon, but it was fun knowing who he referred to. Also it's rather fun to see all the times the developers cramed in several hundred characters in the scene to show off the power of the Gamecube compared to the N64.