Batman the Animated Series

 

Turn on the signal light!

Got the blu-rays for Batman the Animated Series last autumn and decided to check them all out after the Bond-marathon. Watched it originally on the Swedish channel 4 back in the 90's as it was first released. I was in a bit of a Batman phaze, watched the cartoon and my parents got a friend of there's to record Batman and Batman Returns from channel 3 (which we didn't have) on VHS. Yeah, I'm that old. Still loved watching it again. First season phenomenal, I can watch episodes like On Leather Wings and Hearts of Ice over and over again. The animation, the music and the voice acting is superb. A bit sad there isn't the Swedish voice track, but what are you gonna do? The behind the scenes commentary was also interesting with the animators pointed out that they didn't like the animation due to some of modelling and I can't see that, well, maybe how the batmobile curved itself traveling along some cliff

Compared to season 2 where I think they felt the modelling got better, but at the same time, there's fewer episodes I like to watch again. The Ra's Al-Ghoul episodes are probably the only one I can recall at the moment. Then again, I'm the weird one that really liked episodes like The Forgotten and It's Never To Late. Maybe not as a kid, but now I do since I get the symbolism. Then we have season 3 and the redesign... not a fan of it. I've seen people mentioning ScareCrow as a good redesign, but he's hardly in it and the original design scarred me a kid. The animators mentioned they really liked it, and I get since it was easier to animate and didn't get off-model whatever, but there's hardly any other episode I want to rewatch. 

There was also two movies in the collection. The Mask of the Phantasm and Sub-Zero. Never watched these as a kid. Phantasm, it looks great, and is a bit scary at times. It's a bit of a prequel to the whole series, but as someone pointed out, was it necessary to end with the Joker? Also, no commentaries or anything? A pity. Sub-Zero another Mr Freeze-story. Nothing much to say, it pretty much wraps up his story until the Batman Beyond episode. It's funny they got all Mr Freeze episodes on the blu-ray, even though 3 of them already is in this collection. Hearts of Ice is always watchable though. I'm missing one movie though, Mystery of the Batwoman. Don't know why that wasn't included. 

Update 2024-08-17: So a couple of months ago Netflix added the first season and they also had the original Swedish dub. So I watched that... well, the english original voices clearly is better. There is like 5 guys and two girls doing all the voices in Swedish and when Jim Gordon, Joker and the Pinguin have the same voice it gets kinda weird. A pity the trail episode was here with them all gathered. I gotta give them credit for the Ninja episodes where they speak Japanese and it's still the Swedish voice actors making it very coherent. No, I will probably watch the english dub forever onward, and there is something special with episodes like the Grey Ghost with Adam West just because it is Adam West and its so much better (or maybe Adam West is just a better voice actor than the Swedish dub).

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (Switch)

Meow Meow Meow!!!

Another remaster from Nintendo, this time of Super Mario 3D World. Played the original back in... 2014? 7 years ago? Good God! I feel old! Still, I for some reason liked it much more this time around. Mostly since I finished it in one day. Or at least beat Bowser in World 8... oh sorry, World Bowser. I went back and checked my old save on Wii U and I only got to World Fire Flower. This time I actually got to the final level. Mind you, I didn't finish it since it was hard so I started doing some groundwork for 100 % and for that you need to clear each stage with each character. It's not that hard after getting all stamps and green stars, but it's tedious. I basically started one character from first to last level I finished. Mario and Luigi is almost done. Then after Bowser stages done by secret character Rosalina and occasional Toad and Peach done here and there where they were needed or in Toads case used for a faster time just running through. Still, challenging all the way through. The only thing that was interesting was how they handled the few levels needing touch controls on the Wii U Pad, but was solved with use of a trigger and the controls inner gyro. Worked very well.

The interesting part was the Bowser's Fury. An all new mode in real 3D. Mario is helping Bowser Jr after Bowser went crazy and covered in oil rampages through some lake so Mario sets out collecting Cat Shines in order to awaken the Cat Bell that enlarges Mario so that he can battle Bowser's huge form. 100 shines and I 100 % it in 10 hours. So that was my Sunday. Man, I guess I really was well prepared after finishing the Super Mario 3D All-Star Collection. I really liked this mode. Hard to see it as a direct sequel to Super Mario 3D World since it could as easily have been an Odysseus sequel. Maybe that the Power Ups is more showing it. One thing I really liked was that you could collect 5 of each and use it as see fit, and I really liked that since I was getting a bit annoyed in the base game having to go to an old level to get the right upgrade since I needed it in another level. A problem in the mode is that as we get close to the end Bowser never left the Fury mode, meaning if I didn't die or found another shine it was a hurdle so it was easier just to die. Think you got more time as well before the next showing.

I really liked that game. It was a true 3D Mario game, maybe a bit short and pretty much one world, but it was a fun world. The use of Plessie to travel around was real fun and using it in the final battle, real fun. Also the boss battles with Bowser is amazing, feels great ground pound him or just stun lock him with his own created pillars. 

Hyrule Warrios: Age of Calamity

 

Hero Time!

As mentioned in the last post, I got this game and after playing through Breath of the Wild I could finish this of. I clocked 65 hours in to the game and pretty much 100 % it. It was marketed as a prequel to Breath of the Wild and it delivers on that. Begins as Link is mortally wounded before being put in the Shrine of Resurrection as Zelda's awakening of the power of light also awakens a mini-Guardian that was in the Castle. It escape through a portal and travels back in time. Link, Zelda and Impa is trying to stop Calamity Ganon from emerging and so gathers the Champions to control the Divine Beast as Zelda tries to awakens the sacred light within her while Link gets the Master Sword. At the dawn of the Calamity everything goes to hell. The castle is overrun and the Divine Beasts are corrupted by Ganon. Link and Zelda tries to rescue the Champions, but before they arrive, warriors from the future have returned to the past. Sidon, Yenobo, Tebe and Riju arrives to rescue their respectively Champion. So we enter a different timeline.

The king was also able to escape and Master Kogha of the Yiga clan switch sides after being betrayed by the seer Astor that killed his second in command. You also befriends Hestu the korok and you can find the secret characters Monk Maz Koshia and the Great Fairy. Everyone attacks Hyrule Castle, but after defeating Astor and a corrupted version of the mini-Guardian they merge, corrupt the good mini-Guardian so you have to destroy it. Afterwards you fight a humanoid beast form of Calamity Ganon, but no attacks are able to land, until the broken mini-Guardian comes to life and runs toward Zelda and kamikaze-bombs itself upon Calamity Ganon and allows the heroes to seal Ganon away, saving Hyrule. Damn, I never thought I would feel sad for the mini-Guardian.

Now, the main story is over, but you can still do missions for pieces of the mini-Guardians to unlock it as a playable character and also get Calamity Ganon. I actually 100 % it, the reward being the clothes of Link from the first Hyrule Legends. Interesting enough I felt rather disappointed by that since it was staggering with things all the time that made me continue (upgrades and the secret characters), but after that it just disappeared. Which was good since there wasn't anything else, but they could at least made some fanfare or something. Also, in the beginning I didn't like the map system since it didn't make sense, but I got used to it and some upgrades clearly improved it as it was easy to see which missions had the potential for parts to upgrade with and such.

It was fun game. Love the details, take for example that there is this only woman paegent in Gerudo desert, but the male Gorons are allowed in, like in the game since the Gerudos can't see if they are male or female. Love those small details. A bit of a cop-out with the split timeline, I was expecting to cry my eyes out watching the last stand of Link before being killed. Hope Breath of the Wild 2 arrives soon cause I got a craving for more of this world.

Update: Well, what do you know, they announce DLC just a week after me finishing it. Alright, at least Im in phase for this game compared to the first Hyrule Warriors. Pretty much expect Sooga, Robbie and Pura (or whatever her name is) as playable characters, maybe Astor too. Otherwise I don't know. A couple 100 more deku seeds as well.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Champion's Ballad

They are all dead Dave!

Took me 4 years, but I finally got round to play the DLC of this game. Mostly because I was starting up the new Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and got this real craving for playing Breath of the Wild again and since you might have guessed from the Bond-Marathon, I haven't been playing video games for some time. I actually took a whole month of in January of 2021 not playing a single game. Maybe winter depression or chaos of the world, but I just couldn't feel it so I watched movies and TV-shows instead. And now this come back and I recall why I loved the game when it first came out.

So first I began looking through all the rest of special costumes and whatnot I hadn't gathered, like N64 Ganondorf, Tingle and some royal guard costume. I tried if I could get through the Trial of the Sword in order to upgrade the Master Sword, but no luck. All goes well up to the first stone giant, so I hate the lizfalos. They wreck me and I don't know how to get past that, and that is something like level 7-9 and there's 45 of them! I just wanted to get to the first checkpoint!

So that was a dud so I began looking into the the Champion's Ballad. You get four new shrines on the Great Plateau which grants you the last heart or stamina piece in the game (heart piece in my case) which you must do with a special weapon that one-hit kills everything, but means you can only take one hit as well. Took some time, but I did it. Really satisfying destroying each camp of monsters. A new quest is given as each Divine Beast region gets 3 new shrines which you need to find from a pillar that appears near the beast. It shows like a satellite map which makes certain areas harder, but not impossible. You also get a poem for each to solve in order to open the shrines. Biggest trouble was the desert one in the Yiga clan hideout. I thought I had to guide a rolling snowball into the hole, but instead it was an orb you got from the hideout. Probably spent an hour trying again and again until I looked it up.

After finding and solving each shrine you get an emblem and a small scene as the Champions are asked to become champions. Getting all four you return to the resurrection chamber and unlocks a 5th dungeon. Solve that lets you fight Monk Maz Koshia and that gives you control of the 5th Divine Beast, a motorbike formed like a horse. Which you need to fuel with materials every so often. It was rather fun driving around afterwards. Gathered some more koroks seed that I don't how I could have missed the first time around. I went to the hidden temple with all the Guardians and thought, maybe it's time to get revenge so I killed every single one of them before finding it satisfactory for this time.

A bit bummed I couldn't finish the trial of swords, but hey, what are you gonna do? Get good at the game?