The Flash

 

Flash! Aha! Saviour of the Universe!

Of course I had to continue on the second DC-series, the Flash. Only knew Flash from the Justice League cartoon and animated movies like Flashpoint Paradox. So I got some ideas about villains like Grodd and Zoom and characters like Barry Allen, Wally West and Iris. Of course, Flash for me was always Wally West which made watching Young Justice a bit harder to follow... on more than one way with Wally being Kid Flash and what happened in that series.

So basically during a failed experiment made by Harrison Wells, Central City is showered in dark matter and as Barry Allen, a forensic scientist at the local police head quarter, is fumbling around his office as lightning strikes him, he lands on some chemicals and is in a coma for 9 months. We saw that in Green Arrow. He awakes and finds out he has super speed which he trains with an immobilized Harrison Wells and his two assistants. Meanwhile since he can reach such speeds he knows that there must be a way to save his father from prison where he is falsely accused of killing his wife, Nora Allen. 

During the first season he learns that Harrison Wells is in actuality Eobard Thawn, aka Anti-Flash that is a speedster from the future that killed Nora and took Harrisons place in order to create the accident so that the wheels be set in motion to create Flash... so that anti-Flash can exist and travel back in time I guess. Time travel is weird. The second season is about Zoom, a speedster from another universe that want to be the only speedster through out the multiverse. They beat him and as it looks alright they reenact the Flashpoint Paradox. The paradox is that Barry travels back to the point where his mother is murdered and save her, but in doing so changes the time line. Since his mother and father both survives they live a happy life and he doesn't become the Flash, instead Wally West is the Flash. New villains appears and such, but the reality is falling apart as certain enemies becomes too strong as well as more violent. So he has to put it back on its original path, but it doesn't come back the same. The relationship between the heroes have changed due to certain differences, like Cisko's brother that dies in this new reality. 

New arch-enemy appears, Savitar, the god of speed that in reality is a duplicate of Barry. I gotta be honest, the main bad guy gets harder and harder to separate and how often can they bring back the speedster bad guy again? As of writing I've seen up to season 7 and I kinda could keep up until season 5-6.. Arrow lost interest after season 2, with certain problems here and there, mostly the things that make the show look a bit like Arrow. I mean, we have the season the protagonist goes to prison and the season where the protagonist daughter from the future travels back and save her father.

But the show isn't ashamed of being superhero silly. We get a couple of episodes where Central city is under siege from sentient gorillas from an alternate universe led by Grodd. Barry's father is portrayed by the actor that played Barry Allen in the 90's live-action show, and Jay Garrick which was the first incarnation of the Flash in the comics. Mark Hamill aka Luke Skywalker is playing the Trickster which he did both in the 90's series as well as that episode in Justice League Unlimited. I mean, first episode of season 6 have a bit where they play Queen's Flash theme from Flash Gordon in universe as Barry travels into a black hole to save a person which is AWESOME! Made me want to see Flash Gordon so that may be a problem. Overall it was kinda fun watching it, losing a bit at the later seasons and certain mysteries at least me to pay attention a bit longer. Who did Zoom have imprisoned? Who was anti-flash and then who was Savitar? A bit copy of certain story elements from Arrow, but was a bit shorter or didn't overstay it's welcome with that. Overall more fun.

Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda

 

Now You're Playing With Power, SUPER POWER!

The celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda gave us another Game & Watch edition, akin to the Super Mario edition. Instead of two games, we got three. The two original Zelda-games, The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: Link's Adventure and the original game boy version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. And a modified version of the Game & Watch-game Vermin. Which I have a score over 200 on as of writing.

I've pretty much played all of the games before on different consoles and versions, latest being Link's Awakening with the remake for the Switch. Playing them again, maybe that the screen isn't the best for long play in these adventure games, a bit easier to play a couple of levels of Mario and then quit. In Zelda you get into a flow and need to be able to see small things on this tiny screen. For example, you are able to see the movement of the crawlers in Zelda II while it's dark before you get the candle, not so much in this version. The only one I can't play on any other console is actually the original Link's Awakening (although, the DX version isn't that much different than the original). I also lack a way to listen on the music through earbuds or something, maybe I don't want to disturb all around me, but the music is so good that you have to hear it while playing.

Also, maybe not for the original Zelda and Link's Awakening, but I need save states to finishing Zelda II without losing my mind with the instant death and gauntlets of enemies at certain parts. That makes the Wii U, 3DS and NES Classic Edition better choices to play through. Plus bigger screens in all of them. One wonders though if there is gonna be some other Game & Watch editions. Like, Metroid version in preparation for Prime 4 (they missed the opportunity to remind people for Dread and I would like a Prime-collection)? Kid Icarus because... well, it was some time ago. Maybe Golden Sun?.. Nah, better wait for a Switch remake collection in anticipation in the (hopefully) coming episode 4?

Also, gotta add, we decided to get a couple of copies to my dad and brother-in-law for Christmas who are big Zelda fans. It only backfired in that I had to play first half of Zelda 1 for my dad so he can go around with most of the equipments. Twice I might add since I played first on my Brother-in-laws version during the Christmas holiday and then again during the Easter holiday on his own version.

Arrow

 

More like Robin Hood.

After watching the Star Trek-series I've thought, what is next? Well, I like DC and since the movies are bit more hit and miss, why not watch the TV-series instead? And why not start with Arrow? Oliver Queen is found after being presumed dead for 5 years after he disappeared together with his father on the family yacht. After returning he begins to dress as the Hood to eliminate people on a list his father left him. Basically the list contains name of the most wealthy people in Starling City that worked in a conspiracy to destroy the city and reshape it to their liking. Together with his body guard John Duggan and Queen Consortium IT-person Felicity Smoaks they form team Arrow to fight them. John becomes Spartan and Felicity is Overwatch and later we get Roy Harper as Assault (which I know was called Speedy in the comics, but they gave that to Oliver's sister Thea), Mr Terrific, Black Canary, Black Siren and what not.

So I get most people from the animated Justice League-series or Atop the Fourth Wall. Interestingly the show goes back and forth between "present" and five years earlier to see what happened on the island, like meeting Slade Wilson (aka Deathstroke), Katana and Amanda Waller. They did that for 6 seasons and then shifted to the future and brought in time travel and that for the last seasons. Gotta be honest, got a bit lost at the end on what the hell was going on. Didn't help that here and there they had crossover episodes with the other Arrowverse shows, like the Flash and Supergirl, just like the comic books, and just like them you need to follow all the shows and watch them at the same time. I don't go for that and just let one show run to the end since I don't want to bother with switching shows all the time (especially since Supergirl isn't on Netflix in Sweden at the moment, or I can't at least find it).

The rouge gallery consist of Ra's Al-Ghoul and the monitor... and then a lot of people I don't think I know about, like Damien Dhark and the Dragon. Damien Dhark was at least some one with meta-powers, but Dragon was just some ruthless mobster. I mean, yeah he's scary, but he's clearly not trustworthy since he offs his companions when he want to climb the ladder or they "fail" him. And he's really not that interesting compared to Damien Dhark or a threat  to Arrow. Really, they should have changed order of them. 

But overall a good series. It is really enhanced if you know some lore, like names and such and then you can enjoy a bit of foreshadowing, like that Barry Allen is the Flash, Slade Wilson is Deathstroke and so on. Also fun with both Peter Stomare and Dolph Lundgren as bad guys, russians at that.

Bayonetta 2 (Switch)

 

At least I refreshed myself in wait for Bayonetta 3

Finished it once again. Pretty much the same verdict like last time. I liked that you keep all upgrades from the first game so it was kinda effortless to play them back to back. It was only 16 chapters with was 2 chapters less than Bayonetta 1. And I don't know why, but it felt the gameplay was a bit more grind heavy in fighting bosses, takes more time and you seem to do less damage, or it might be just me being bad at the game. Also, the ending isn't as bombastic as the first game, I mean, riding a bike up on a rocket into space to reach a god to pry its eyes out and then throw Jubilees into the sun is rather more epic than flying (on an airwing in my case) toward a mountain where you fight angels and demons and then Bayonetta and Balder fight the evil Aeiser and combining a big Madam Butterfly to throw him into Jeanne's dog demon. Not as epic all I'm saying. Hopefully the third game up the antes. 

Now with some more games under the belt I also get more references, like the Lumen Sage Panther-form looking like Amaretsu from Okami. It has more replay value as well with Jeanne as a playable character and the grind for 9 999 999 halos to get the Platinum ticket, which can't be that hard if you gotta play all difficulties and try to get platinum (or maybe even Perfect Platinum) trophies on each chapter. I won't do that, I've got a life... or rather I got a lot of other games to play. 

This was the special edition I got after talking with the local game store and they had an extra copy. So of course I got it. It contained some sheets with stickers, a steel book cage, the normal game card for the second game, downloadable code for the first game and a box with what is called verse cards. I think they are the cards that Loki uses in the second game. No real value other than maybe as a prop for a DnD game or so. They are nice though, but I think I can understand what they represent, but I'm not sure. I think mostly depicting events in the game.

Fun to play, wonder how the third game will fit into this especially with the time traveling shenanigans.

*Update* What do you know, when I wrote this no release date was mentioned and now it has been revealed and it's just weeks from release. Sometimes I'm actually very current with the release schedule it seems.