Metal Slug 5 (Switch)

Back again!

Fist time playing and from the get go I felt more excited playing through it than 4. It starts off on a jungle river with new enemies all around. Apparently a disc have been stolen by an organisation called the Ptolemaic Army and its your job to hunt it down. After the first boss is destroyed you are even given a cutscene of a mask falling into the jungle and one of the natives pick it up, gets struck by lightning and takes over as the main threat. Apparently the Ptolemaic Army is specialised in archeological digs and espionage so apparently they brought it up. Marco and the gang fights them through old temples, water, air, industrial zones and in the final mission you drive a car on a destroyed highway, jumping over destroyed bridges until you reach a tower and climbing it to the top the enemies have summoned an ancient demon... and the freaking ending theme from the first games starts playing making it an epic showdown.

Really, it ups the stakes, Mordens army isn't shown anywhere and the new music is decent. The new metal slugs are fun and some old ones makes a comeback like the submarine and plane. It was a blast playing through it. Or it could just be that I played it for the first time.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom (Switch)

Finally, it's been over a year!

Finally, the latest Monster Boy game after the remake of Wonder Boy III, which I played back in 2017 as one of the early games I got for the Switch. And it was a fun ride. An action-adventure plattformer with Metroidvania elements. Works fine for me. Story is that one morning Jin's Uncle Nabu, the court jester goes on a rampage and turns everyone in Monster World into antropomorfic animals, including Jin who was turned into a pig. You got to collect 5 orbs to uncurse everyone, but each orb gives you a new animalform which lets you explore more of the world. Turns out that the kings advister, Mysticat have been planing to resurect his evil master and needs the orbs and dominates your uncles mind to instigate a hero to getting the orbs for him. It's rather satisfying looking around and such for chest and power-ups. 

The game looks like the remade version of Wonder Boy III and that looks fantastic. Still does. Music is pumping, They clearly tried to emulate that game, but knew what to do in order to make it better for the player. For example the lions sprint attack makes traversing the thundercloud areas acceptable (I remember in Wonder Boy an open field with thunderclouds was horrible since you just died all the time), you get a teleporting staff halfway through which means you can travel and buy supplies and return to the same place. All improvements. Then we have the call backs to the other games. Now, I only played the fourth game and the remake of Wonder Boy III, but it was pretty much enough for the important parts. In two parts you get the grapichs of the original games, you get to gather important items from the first three games and the heroes are displayed at the local sanctuary. Also the blue flying creature from Monster World IV is here looking for the green-haired heroine of that game. He never finds her, but the ending shows her standing in a fire... is that a hint of Monster World IV remake or so? I also belive they had some reference I didn't quite get. There is some runner and mercenary who I don't know if I've seen before and the one he protects in the beginning look like Sparkster from Rocket Knight, but older and without armor. It could be that they are the same animal. 

20 hours gameplay... but then I used some guides to figure out some of the placements of chests and puzzles. Well worth the play, wonder if there will be others, or maybe ports or remakes for the swift so I can play through the whole story. Of course, I think I got some of the games on the Wii Virtual console.

Forgotten Anne

It looks like they misspelled Forgotten

I'm a sucker for this highly stylished animated games and when I watched the trailer I just had to get it. And it was a beautiful 6-7 hours playing through it. Basically the main character Anne is the Enforcer, pretty much a police for Master Bonku who builds an Ether Bridge to get everyone back to the Ether. The Ether is our world and Anne and Bonku are trapped in the Forgotten world where forgotten items ends up and get sentient life as forgottlings. The game starts with a rebel group performing some attacks on crucial infrastructure and Anne as the Enforcer has to find the rebels and bring them into justice so they won't stop the Ether bridge.

Now, pretty much from the get-go I guessed that Master Bonku is in the wrong. Mostly since everything Bonku built to ensure the project screams 1984 to me. He installs mirrors that keep tracks on the populace for their own security. Only 100 forgottlings are promised to follow Bonku back to the Ether and only those that do their duty have a chance and as soon as an item gets to become a forgottling they are assigned a job to further the project. Pretty much a facist dictatorship. 

Pretty much a puzzle plattformer where you jumps around to get around the world and solve puzzles. What makes the game interesting is that you during the game gets the choice to roleplay Anne's character. You can play as a hard-boiled cop that only does the master's bidding and "distilling" any adversary or be a reluctant enforcer who wishes to give people second chances, doubting the very project itself. It works pretty good. I started full on mission duty (with a few hiccups like I missed distilling the first rebel you meet since I wanted to see if you just could scare them by almost draining their life force), playing fair even though I could roughen rebels up a bit, but due to the hiccup I played no kill scenario. As the story unfolds you learn Anne and Bonku's history, the reason the rebels fight their fight and learn the big twist of the game, which pretty much was the only way the story could go.

The twist is that to get energy for all machines and the Ether Bridge, Master Bonku distill all (as he sees it) worthless forgottlings and take their energy to power it all. He does this with the Arcas he and Anne possess. The Arca is two-parts from a crystal that is a cornerstone of the world. The guardian of the cornerstone, the Caretaker, tells Anne her background, an infant left by her mother in a box on the river as she couldn't care for the child and the supposed father wanted nothing with them. Also that going through the Ether Bridge would lead to the current forgotten world to be destroyed.

Phantom 2040

The Ghost Who Walks!

Been on a bit of memory trip and remembered I watched this show as a kid. I don't think I realised it was based on the Phantom comics I've read (even though the names the same). And the whole show was on youtube so I relived the memories. Or more correctly filled the gap for the two memories of the show I had. It takes place in the year 2040 in Metropolis, a futuristic New York where the world are on the brink of destruction due to natural collapse and climate change. Mankind have built satellites around the earth where humans live and are born that terrorise people for independence. Mega Corporations rule the planet and the rich and influential tries to save themselves. Worst is the Maximum Industries headed by Rebecca Madison, her son Maxwell Jr. and chief of security Graft. As they try to start the Maximum Era where the rich have taken shelter in Cyberville, a city complex cut of from the world for 10 years while the rest of the world dies and are reborn and the people of Cyberville can return as leaders of the world. 16 years earlier Maxwell Madison Sr. died in a train crash that contaminated half of Metropolis, caused by the Phantom according to stories that haven't been seen since then. And that is the setup.

The character models looks a bit weird

Kit Walker is drawn into this when Guran, a friend of his father tries to tell him about his heritage, but are attacked by Maximum who have waited for him to return. Kits great-aunt Heloise gets hurt in the fight and Kit discovers that he is the last in line of the Phantom-family, the 24 to be exact. From here he picks up the skull ring and fights injustice in search for answers like what happened that day 16 years ago that killed his father. The first season was amazing with interesting stories and characters. For example the backstory of Graft that was a soldier in the resource wars of 2015 (ha) where he become a hero for saving children, gets promoted by Maxwell Sr. and then defects to save an amazonian village, but the battle leaves him just an upper-torso for Rebecca Madison to use as an enforcer. Also it gets really dark. Maxwell Sr. mind was saved by Rebecca by being downloaded into a computer so she tries to resurect him by putting him in a robot body. One episode it succeeds, but he is confused and sees that he has lost his sons childhood and kidnapps him and take him to the central station to try to remember what happened. The Phantom interupts him, and during the fight he realises he is dead, and as his son pleads with him to stay since he misses his father, the robot rips open his torso and jumps into a water pool, electrocuting him. Real dark stuff.

Maxwell Jr., Baudelaire the cat and Graft

Second season first half was good. The last part was not as good, It was rather noticeable as well. The ending of the first half where they had build up the story for was the Phantom traveling to Africa to visit his ancestral home in Bengala while Rebecca brought Maxwell Sr to life again and prepared to start the Maximum Era, they get trapped after the Phantom tries to blow up their HQ and they escape to Cyberville. Meanwhile it is revealed that the 23rd Phantom survived the accident and was able to put himself into cryonetic sleep, but was awakened for some reason, and the episode ends with him sitting at a monitor realising he have been awakend to early as the poison drips around him. After this studio meddling forced them to speed up to get an ending that was decent, and I think forced certain characters to act out of character to just tell their story since they couldn't build them more. Also, certain characters just disappeared or was pushed to the side, Graft for example. The ending is really noticeable since they wrap up the death of the 23rd Phantom, the truth behind the accident and the termination of Maxwell Sr. and then last 30 seconds tell that the other bad guys went to prison. A bit rushed. Another reason it felt worse is that it strained a bit of reality. One episode had the bad guys injecting the kid side-kick with nano-machines and could spy on the Phantom, but they saw it in 3rd-person where the more correct way would be 1st-person. Easier to animate. And then there was a virtual reality episode where all phantom chronicles are digitised and to find out about who was given a good mark medallion Kit 24 enters a digital adventure of the 21 Phantom (the one everyone knows) and he walks around in Morocco interacting with people until the Phantom arrives and captures the bad guys, gives the mark to a kid that helped them and is on his way.. while Kit 24 watches a pickpocket steal the mark and say it will be an heirloom for his family. HOW does he know that? How is it supposed to work? Talk about a very well written chronicle for each adventure if they are able to put that in.

Since I'm Swedish, I prefer this colour scheme

A pity it ended as it did, but it at least didn't overstay its welcome. The two memories I had was the backstory for Graft and the survival of the 23rd Phantom. I gotta say the voice acting phenomenal with Mark Hamill, Margot Kidder, Ron Pearlman and the guy doing the Puingin from Batman the animated series, Grace from Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and the others do a decent job as well. The music was good and as mentioned the animation was ok, but it could look a bit freaky at times. Apparently the same guy who did Aeon Flux and worked on Fire and Ice and Transformers G1. Sad thing is, that there isn't a full release of the series. There's supposedly a season 1 box set in Australia, but for season 2 you gotta watch taped version from their original release. Apparently before Captain Planet, and besides environmental message, I have a hard time seeing why I would like that show if I like the Phantom as the presenter says.