Author: Dr. K

Movie Night: Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn

Dr. K8 Comments

Released: 13 March 1987
Director: Sam Raimi
Distributor: Rosebud Releasing Corporation
Budget: $3.5 million
Stars: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley, Lou Hancock/Ted Raimi, and Denise Bixler

The Plot:
After discovering a recorded incantation that unleashes a demonic spirit from the nearby woods and possesses his girlfriend, Ashley “Ash” Williams (Campbell) is tormented and partially possessed by the evil force. Things escalate when locals and scientist Annie Knowby (Berry) arrive at the cabin, only to be set upon by a monstrous, zombie-like demon dwelling in the basement…

The Background:
Back in 1981, long-time friends and collaborators Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert Tapert begged and borrowed to turn a simple horror concept into the ambitious, if hazardous, The Evil Dead , a low-budget horror that established Raimi’s directorial style but failed to propel him into the mainstream despite surprisingly positive reviews and being a sleeper hit. After his follow-up projects bombed, Raimi returned to his horror roots for an Evil Dead sequel, but production was immediately upended by rights issues; since Raimi didn’t own the rights to his original film, the opening sequence of the sequel served as a partial recap/remake of The Evil Dead, though now streamlined to focus on only Ash and his girlfriend. While shooting the first film, Raimi had conceived of a sequel in which Ash would be transported back to medieval times, an idea that the studios passed on; however, despite The Evil Dead’s financial success, producer Dino De Laurentiis wouldn’t approve of Raimi’s more outlandish ideas, necessitating a return trip to the cabin. Although the script had been conceptualised for some time, Raimi brought in another long-time friend, Scott Spiegel, to make adjustments and it was Spiegel who took the franchise in a more horror/comedy direction, with him and Raimi both drawing inspiration from their love of the Three Stooges. This was especially evident in Campbell’s slapstick fights against both the evil force and his own possessed hand; Evil Dead II dramatically increased Campbell’s abuse and stunt work, and the set remained notably hazardous for the cast and crew. As before, the film’s special effects and horror were achieved in-camera using a series of dollies, animatronics, and traditional filmmaking techniques; footage was run in reverse, large and uncomfortable suits were worn, and shots often tracked the actors from the rafters and through the walls of the set. Over 880 gallons of fake blood were used during filming, a custom-built prop chainsaw was built to be attached Ash’s severed hand, and the KNB EFX Group had to use every trick in the book, from miniatures to matte paintings, to deliver the film’s far gorier and more ambitious make-up and special effects. This meant that the film again had trouble with the ratings board; when they proposed cuts that would severely cripple the film’s runtime, it went unrated upon release, a gamble which may account for its much lower box office gross of $5.9 million. However, Evil Dead II was met with largely positive reviews; critics praised the direction and performances, especially Campbell’s work, as much as the over the top gore and blend of horror, comedy, and action. Of all the Evil Dead films, Evil Dead II is the most influential; it’s regarded as a cult horror classic and its characterisation of Ash and shift towards horror/comedy was replicated in subsequent comic books, videogames, and the unfortunately short-lived television series.

The Review:
If you’ve seen The Evil Dead then you might initially be put off by Evil Dead II simply because it immediately retcons a great deal of that film; gone are Ash’s friends and sibling, reducing the cast of the initial cabin experience to a vastly different version of Ash and his doting girlfriend, Linda (Bixler). However, I do believe this is to the film’s benefit; the reshot opening sequence, which effectively retells and replaces the first movie, features all of the best parts of The Evil Dead but with higher production values across the board, meaning you can easily skip the original movie and be all the better for it since Evil Dead II establishes so much of the lore, atmosphere, and characterisations that would continue throughout the remainder of the series. The movie opens with Professor Knowby’s (John Peaks) ominous narration regarding the semi-intelligent book, now rechristened “Necronomicon Ex-Mortis” but still referred to as the “Book of the Dead” and containing the same rituals as before, but now with a far more animated face and a great deal more power and influence seeped into its gory pages. From there, the film very much mirrors the first movie; this time, it’s just Ash taking his girlfriend to a secluded, abandoned cabin for a romantic getaway and elements of Scott’s (Richard DeManincor) character are weaved into him.

Ash is far more well-rounded and made dangerously unpredictable by the evil’s influence.

Consequently, in contrast to the first movie, Ash is no longer bookish or some geek who struggles to be assertive; by borrowing Scott’s bravado, Ash is bolstered and given deeper characterisation by a snarky confidence that translates far better once he assumes the role of unlikely horror hero. He still thinks gifting an awful magnifying glass necklace to his girlfriend is a good idea and still exhibits the same likable charisma and tortured conflict seen in the first film, but he’s much more competent and less wishy-washy here, though all his sexual confidence can’t keep him from giving into curiosity and playing Professor Knowby’s tape and bringing forth the evil lying dormant in the forest. Although he doesn’t have to suffer the pain of watching his sister and friends get possessed and picked off by the evil force they unleash, he’s still tormented when Linda is overtaken by the titular evil dead and becomes a gibbering, maniacal zombie-like creature. Ash’s concern and love for a large group of friends is focused all on Linda, making her a much more prominent character in his life and she returns again and again to spitefully mock him or cause him further harm. He’s also the sole focus of the evil force itself; similar to the last film, the evil possesses Linda and even the house itself to taunt Ash, driving him to near madness in a far shorter and more brutal space of time, but it also infects him more than once. Most prominently, it enters his hand, compelling it to attack him and forcing him to sever it at the wrist with a chainsaw, but it also overtakes him completely on a couple of occasions, something that was strangely missing from the first film and works in tandem with Ash’s fractured mindset to make him a dangerous and unpredictable character this time around since you’re never sure when he’s going to suddenly become a flesh-hungry Deadite.

Ash’s love for Linda keeps him sane, while Annie is the key to banishing the evil.

Although Linda’s role is again quite small, the absence of Ash’s other friends means she takes on a more prominent role in a number of ways. First, as mentioned, all of his attention is focused on her, giving her more to do and more agency in the cabin and allowing Ash’s grief to be largely focused on her. Second, she becomes something of a secondary antagonist after being possessed; Linda proves to be Ash’s Achille’s heel time and again and the evil force doesn’t hesitate to exploit that. While he’s far faster at chopping off her possessed head to defend himself, he remains heartbroken at the loss and even when her headless corpse mocks him and attacks him with a chainsaw, he remains conflicted and reluctant to harm her until he’s pushed to breaking point. Finally, Ash is definitely a much more confident character when it comes to women in this film, but he’s absolutely portrayed as a one-woman man; Linda’s memory is one of the few things that keeps Ash sane and allows him to resist the influence of the evil force, and her necklace has very much the same impact on him as the rising sun, banishing the evil from his body and bringing him to his senses, which allows her to be far more important to the overall plot, and to Ash, than simply being another cackling demon in the corner. Ash also eventually bonds with Annie; while she initially believes that he’s murdered her father and mother, Henrietta Knowby (Hancock/Rami, respectively), her research into the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis means that she’s soon relying on Ash to help them survive until the dawn and recover the missing pages of the book to put a stop to the rampant evil. Like her father, Annie has been researching the book for some time and is excited to get to the cabin so she can bring the book’s missing pages to her father, only to find a deranged man covered in blood and wielding a shotgun. It’s only after hearing about what happened to her parents that Annie starts to realise that the real danger lurks in the cellar and the pages of the Necronomicon and that her ability to read from the book is their only hoping of stopping the evil force.

The supporting cast largely causes problems and get themselves offed in gory fashion.

While Ash’s friends might be gone, Evil Dead II still features an extended cast; Annie comes to the cabin with her research partner, Professor Ed Getley (Domeier), and they enlist the help of two locals, repairman Jake (Hicks) and his girlfriend, Bobby Joe (Wesley), easily the two most annoying characters in the entire film. Thanks to Ash having been tormented by the evil force and jumping at every shadow (not to mention being covered in blood and having a stump for a hand!), Annie and the others instantly distrust and attack him, locking him in the cellar without heeding his warnings. Much like Cheryl Williams (Ellen Sandweiss), sneering redneck Bobby Joe is driven out into the malevolent woods and attacked, though with far less disturbing methods, and Jake becomes so consumed with concern for her that he tosses the Necronomicon’s pages into the foreboding cellar and forces Ash and Annie to go into the woods at gunpoint and find her. Mean, stupid, and cynical, Jake doesn’t believe any of the supernatural mumbo-jumbo Ash and even Annie tries to convince him of, needlessly extending the film and endangering the group and ending up dead as a result. Since Ash is infused with some of Scott’s bluster this time around, it’s poor, unassuming Ed who mirrors Ash from the first film; he’s basically a blank slate there to make up the numbers and add to the body count and give Ash a heroic moment when he puts the possessed academic down with an axe. Professor Knowby takes on a far greater role here as well; not only is he responsible for bringing the Necronomicon  to the cabin and first unleashing its demons, he essentially dooms the characters by burying his possessed wife in the fruit cellar. In a desperate attempt to find redemption, his tormented spirit appears before them to provide the key to dispelling the evil and acting as something of a counter to the malevolent force.

The evil force delights in tormenting Ash and attacking through demonic possession.

Of course, the primary antagonistic force in the film is the disembodied “evil dead”. Unlike in the first movie, where it’s pretty clear that the evil force is lurking in the forest and waiting to strike at its prey, the evil is dormant and quiet until Ash plays the tape recording but no less ruthless than before. Indeed, this time around, the evil force is far more diverse; in addition to urging its victims to “Join us!” with a booming whisper (William Preston Robertson) and wrecking the main bridge back to civilisation, it creepily transforms the front of the cabin into a glaring face and delights in torturing Ash by possessing furniture, lights, and stuffed animals inside the cabin for one of the most amusing and disturbing scenes in the film. The evil force repeats many of the same tricks from the first film, sweeping around with erratic and unsettling movements, bashing through doors, wrecking the only bridge to safety, and infecting its victims through possession and bloodletting, but also has many more options for physical manifestation; it turns Linda into a cackling Deadite and even transforms Ash into a hideous demon, but derives much pleasure from possessing his hand and causing him direct physical harm. Even when it’s cut off, Ash’s hand continues to torment him, even stabbing Annie in the back by the finale, but the evil dead’s most prominent manifestation is the bloated, demonic Henrietta (Raimi) who dwells in the cellar. Both Linda and Henrietta are much more vocal than the Deadites from the last film, issuing threats and torturing their victims verbally as well as physically, with the swollen Henrietta swinging Annie around while levitating overhead. As before, there are ways to conquer the evil force; it’s banished by daylight and strong emotional ties, for example, but those possessed can only be stopped by total bodily dismemberment, something that again proves difficult for the likes of Ash given how much he loves Linda. A new wrinkle introduced here, though, is that the Necronomicon itself also holds the secret to stopping the evil force; since Annie is the only one who can read it and the pages she needs are lost in Henrietta’s cellar, this gives the characters more options and motivation for venturing deeper into the cabin, and the book, for a solution, and the book even contains some prophetic passages concerning Ash’s future adventures and greater destiny within the series.

The Nitty-Gritty:
There’s no doubt in my mind that Evil Dead II is the superior of the first two movies; the film looks so much better and benefits from a better quality of film grain and lighting, higher production values, and the seasoning of Raimi and Campbell as director and actor. It’s still full of the same sweeping, erratic camera work as the first movie but everything looks like it’s of a much higher quality; this extends to the puppets and practical effects, which shine all the brighter here thanks to the greater budget, and to Campbell’s performance. Before, he was a little quiet and understated but he’s really put through the wringer here, quickly forced to endure horrendous torture from the evil force in the first fifteen minutes of the film and spending a lot of it seemingly on the knife’s edge of insanity after flailing about with his girlfriend’s severed head chomping on his hand, being tormented by laughing furniture, being driven through the windscreen of his car, and having been forced to fight and then chop off his own hand! However, while Bruce Campbell’s performances are far better than in the first film, Evil Dead II is really let down by Jake and Bobby Joe. The former, in particular, is exceptionally grating; I get that that’s the point, he’s meant to be a sweaty, unlikeable, self-serving redneck, but damn is he a pig-headed pain in the ass and the most glaringly unwatchable aspect of the film, which is saying a lot considering all the gore involved!

Ash is put through the wringer but comes out of it as one of horror’s most iconic heroes.

Luckily, Ash is here to counterbalance this. Ash has to go from cocksure college student to horror hero in far less time than in the first film, but it’s pulled off well thanks to Campbell’s refined charisma and the early going being able to directly focus on Ash’s relationship with Linda while still piling on the madness and abuse towards the character. Ash really goes through a gauntlet in this film; not only is he forced to chop up, bury, and continuously fight against his Deadite girlfriend, he fights himself in some of the most memorable sequences in the entire franchise that really showcase Campbell’s comedic chops and physical performance. While I’m no fan of the Three Stooges, it’s hard to deny Campbell’s physical commitment to the movie, which saw him getting beaten up, repeatedly hit over the head, and almost drown in a puddle. Nowhere is this more memorable than during Ash’s battle against his severed hand, which also doubles as an external representation of the battle that rages within himself; thanks to being infected by the evil force, he’s also susceptible to it and must fight to overcome it by remembering his lost love. Ash is also far more forthright and proactive in this film; having been driven to the brink by the spiteful evil force, he openly stands up to Jake even when he’s armed and constantly tries to warn Annie and the others of the evil at the cabin, only to be met with disbelief and aggression. When Annie and Ash are forced to venture into the cellar to retrieve the pages, Ash completes his transformation into one of horror’s most memorable action icons by reconfiguring a chainsaw into an attachment for his bloody stump, arming himself with a sawn-off shotgun, and spouting his most memorable catchphrase: “Groovy!”

The film perfectly balances its cartoonish humour with copious gore and horrifying demons.

Naturally, given it’s of the same splatter-horror subgenre as its predecessor, Evil Dead II still features copious amounts of blood, violence, and gore, though things are definitely much more skewed towards comedy this time around. As unsettling as it is when Ash’s reflection comes to life, deer heads and lamps giggle at his misfortune, and when his hand is twisted into an infectious claw, it’s all much more over the top and campy, with the evil force’s spiteful demeanour now taking a more playful edge, demonstrated when his severed hand flips him the bird and Linda’s decaying corpse does a little dance for him before smashing his head into the boarded up window with skeletal hands that are clearly being moved by Bruce Campbell. Still, there’s a great deal of gore on show here; Ash spends the whole movie sporting a series of weeping cuts on his face, the cabin tries to drown him in all kinds of viscera, and Ash gets a face full of the red stuff when he first chainsaws Linda’s head in two and then lops his hand off at the wrist. Stop motion effects are still employed here, particularly when Henrietta emerges from the cellar floor and her corpse-like face transforms into a more demonic visage, as are traditional, cheap tricks like running the footage of Kassie Wesley in reverse to make it seem like Bobby Joe has swallowed the witch’s eyeball! Similar techniques are again used to bring the trees to life to attack Bobby Joe, though this time they settle for taking root in her flesh, dragging her through the woods, and smashing her against a tree trunk rather than sexually violating her. Like Cheryl, Ed is transformed into a demonic creature through which the evil speaks, becoming a monstrous ghoul that swallows a chunk of Bobby Joe’s hair and ends up chopped into bloody pieces, though his blood takes on a green hue. Easily the best Deadite effect is saved for Ash, who becomes a monstrous version of himself at a couple of points, while Henrietta fulfils the role of the principal physical manifestation of the evil, dragging Jake down into the cellar and leaving him little more than a torrent of blood.

Although Annie dispels the evil, Ash is sucked through a portal and trapped in medieval times!

After shaking off the evil’s influence, Ash tools himself up in his now iconic look and ventures into the cellar to retrieve the expanded pages of the Necronomicon, which hold the key to dispelling the evil: one passage forces it to take on a physical form and another opens a rift through which the spirit can be banished. After successfully retrieving the pages from the flooded, rat-infested cellar, Ash is attacked by Henrietta, who bursts from the cellar with a maniacal glee, transforming into a squealing, demonic mass that would make Ray Harryhausen proud! Thanks to a timely distraction from Annie, Ash is able to chop the witch up and finally finish her off with a shotgun blast to the face and a witty one-liner (“Swallow this!”) However, the evil force attacks the cabin in full force, emerging as a gigantic, terrifying tree-like demon with a face so horrifying that a plant instantly withers and it sends a white streak through Ash’s hair! Although Ash’s bastard limb delivers a mortal wound to Annie, she’s able to finish the incantation with her dying breath, banishing the evil to the void but, sadly, taking Ash and his Oldsmobile as well since she never gets to close the portal. Previously, while examining the pages of the Necronomicon, Ash was overwhelmed by a sudden energy when he saw a depiction of the “Hero from the Sky”, a prophesised saviour who defeated the evil back in ancient times. Keen-eyed viewers will note the figure’s similarity to Ash and this brief picture is no coincidence as, in the finale, Ash finds himself unceremoniously deposited back in medieval times. There, he’s initially greeted with hostility by the armour-clad natives but proves himself to be the prophesised hero when he instinctively shoots down an incoming winged Deadite. However, while he’s subsequently hailed as a hero, Ash is left distraught as he realises he’s trapped in ancient times and his long night is still far from over…

The Summary:
I mentioned in my review of the first movie that my first Evil Dead experience was Evil Dead II and, even now, I would always point a newcomer to this movie over any of the original three since it really is the most complete version of the story with the perfect blend of horror, action, and comedy. Thanks to opening with a recreation of the first film, one that reduces the cast down to simply Ash and his girlfriend, you get all the best parts of The Evil Dead with higher production values, better performances, and better effects told in a nice concise twenty-odd minutes. From there, the film expands on the original concept and then ends with Ash being trapped in medieval times for a bleak cliff-hanger ending that’s still more enjoyable than most of the third film even though it’s just a short tease at the end. While it lacks a lot of the raw grittiness of the super low-budget original, Evil Dead II more than makes up for it with higher production values and a much more enjoyable presentation; the gore and ambitious effects are much higher quality and shine so much brighter because of it. There are times when it’s a little cartoonish in its execution but, for me, Evil Dead II has always been the perfect balance of the dirty splatter-horror of the first and the ludicrously comedic action of the third film. Ash is a far more well-rounded character, one who transforms from a meek survivor into an action icon with his chainsaw for a hand and one-liners. Crucially, he remains a flawed and vulnerable character; driven half-mad by the evil and overcome by it more than once, Ash becomes as dangerous as the evil he’s fighting and is given far greater characterisation thanks to the film focusing more on him than bland supporting characters. In the end, if you’ve never seen an Evil Dead movie and don’t know where to start, don’t be intimidated by the II in the title and make sure you start here, with what is, for me, still the quintessential classic Evil Dead experience.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

What do you think to Evil Dead II? Do you prefer it to the original film and how would you rate it compared to the other films? What did you think to how Ash’s new characterisation and transformation into a more competent action hero? Were you a fan of his battle against his severed hand and chainsaw appendage? Did Jake and Bobby Joe also grate on your nerves? What did you think to the film’s presentation, gore, and the marriage of horror and comedy? Would you cut your hand off so readily if it got possessed? Whatever your thoughts on Evil Dead II and the franchise, feel free to leave a comment below or on my social media.

Movie Night [Mario Month]: Super Mario Bros.

Dr. K3 Comments

So, for no better reason than “Mar.10” resembling Mario’s name, March 10th is widely regarded as being “Mario Day”, a day to celebrate Nintendo’s portly plumber, an overalls-wearing mascot who literally changed the videogame industry forever and shaped the home console market of the nineties.

Released: 28 May 1993
Director: Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel
Distributor: Buena Vista Pictures
Budget: $42 to 48 million
Stars: Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Samantha Mathis, Fiona Shaw, Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson, and Dennis Hopper

The Plot:
Mario (Hoskins) and his younger brother, Luigi (Leguizamo), are out-of-luck plumbers who, upon meeting Daisy (Mathis), are suddenly transported to a parallel world where dinosaurs, rather than primates, evolved into the dominant lifeform and are immediately caught up in King Koopa’s (Hopper) diabolical plans to merge this “Dinohattan” with the real world.

The Background:
By 1993, Nintendo’s portly plumber Mario was well-established as a successful videogame and pop culture icon; over sixty videogames had been released that either included Mario or featured him and his brother, Luigi, in a starring role. Super Mario All-Stars (Nintendo EAD, 1993) was released that same year and the characters had featured in numerous animated and live-action productions. Mario’s popularity had captured the mainstream; a 1990 survey revealed that the character’s popularity and eclipsed that of Mickey Mouse and, perhaps inevitably, the idea of a live-action feature film began to take shape thanks to Nintendo’s then-director of advertising and public relations, Bill White. Despite bringing in Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) co-writer Barry Morrow and attracting such superstar names as Dustin Hoffman, Danny DeVito, and Tom Hanks, production of the film almost immediately ran into troubles when pages of the script were “rewritten on a daily basis” so the “actors didn’t bother reading the new pages, knowing full well that more would likely follow” (Russell, 2012: 140). Despite some reservations about the script and being typecast, Bob Hoskins eventually signed on for the lead role and ultimately came to regret the experience; reportedly, he and co-star Leguizamo were so frustrated and unhappy on set that they spent the majority of their working days drunk and Hoskins later claimed that the film was the “worst thing” he had ever done and a “nightmare” as the general onset atmosphere was “anarchic”, with Nintendo being “nowhere to be seen [and without] a representative present during the shoot” and the directors being “out of their depth, pulled between the demands of the producers, their attempts to rewrite on-the-hoof and the logistical enormity of the production” (ibid: 140). Budgeted at $42 million and grossing just over $20 million, Super Mario Bros. was met with almost universal derision; everyone from critics, to cast and crew, and even Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto distanced themselves from the film because of its troubled production and removal from the source material. I, however, loved this movie as a kid; my friends loved this movie back in the day, too, because it was a bright, goofy, fun-packed adventure that was entertaining as hell. As I grew up and moved into studying videogame adaptations for my PhD thesis, I also came to appreciate the film as a movie rather than an adaptation, which I think is where a lot of its criticism falls down as people seemed to have been expecting a one-to-one transliteration of the source material and adaptation just doesn’t (or rarely ever) works that way, resulting an a light-hearted, kid-friendly action/adventure romp rather than a 100% recreation of the game’s more obscure fantasy elements (although the later computer-animated movie absolute blew this one out of the water).

The Review:
Although Super Mario Bros. was not the only videogame adaptation to be a critical and commercial failure, by virtue of being “the first” it exists as a perpetual reminder that videogame adaptation is difficult and often disappointing. Despite its failure at the box office, movie studios quickly exploited videogame adaptations to entice videogame players into cinemas and allowed the videogame industry the opportunity to license their franchises out with little to lose (Picard: 2008: 295). As a result, Hollywood continues to attract reasonable budgets and high-profile actors and production stuff to videogame adaptations despite the genre “[failing] to receive much in the way of critical or commercial success” and Uwe Boll’s ill-received contributions (ibid). However, while it’s true that the film has many differences from its source material and isn’t much more than a fun kids adventure, that doesn’t necessarily make it “bad”; it’s like a live-action cartoon and, when your source material is a chubby plumber bouncing on the heads of malevolent mushrooms, what else do you really expect?

Though dysfunctional, both brothers have strengths and weaknesses that make them a team.

Bob Hoskins may have spoken out against the film in the years since it released but, whatever his demeanour and mindset on set, he is absolutely fantastic in the role of Mario; the plumber brothers are introduced as normal, everyday working men who are behind on their rent, drive a clapped-out van, and are constantly being scuppered by Anthony Scapelli (Gianni Russo). While Luigi is the young, lazy, overly enthusiastic and imaginative of the two, Mario is the older, more cynical and jaded brother; Luigi is a day dreamer, who is open to all possibilities and probabilities while Mario is realistic and grouchy, concerned about their lack in income and their sustainability. Due to the absence of their parents, Mario has had to fulfil the role of mother, father, and brother to Luigi, raising him since he was a kid and his priority, above all other concerns, is Luigi’s welfare; this manifests itself in a number of ways, from berating his younger brother for his reckless ways and daydreaming, encouraging him to keep his feet on the ground and be realistic and serious for a change, to literally holding Luigi in check physically and emotionally. While Luigi somewhat resents Mario’s constant over-protectiveness and influence on his life, he is also heavily reliant upon his brother; Luigi isn’t much of a plumber and is more like Mario’s apprentice and assistant (he knows the tools and the trade but lacks confidence in tackling big plumbing jobs by himself) and is far my awkward around women compared to his older, far more confident brother. Still, the chemistry between both actors is immediately believable; I totally buy that these two are brothers who wind each other up and get on each other’s nerves in other ways but, nevertheless, share a real bond, their banter is amusing and realistic and, best of all, while they argue and disagree a lot, they never have a big, cliché falling out or anything like that and Mario is always extremely supportive of his younger brother even while he despairs over Luigi’s immaturity.

Though she undergoes a bit of a transformation, Daisy is little more than a damsel in distress.

Furthermore, Mario is given a crippling fear of heights (kind of ironic, you could argue, given the amount of jumping his videogame counter parts takes part in), meaning that he relies on his fearless younger brother when it comes to taking literal leaps of faith; additionally, Mario learns to adopt many of Luigi’s more open-minded characteristics by the conclusion of the film and grows from a reluctant hero to a willing hero, immediately jumping into action to assist Daisy when she pops up for the film’s conclusion. Speaking of which, Daisy is a serviceable enough character for the most part. Like Luigi, she’s an orphan but, unlike him, she’s been driven by an insatiable enthusiasm for dinosaurs and bones and struggled with her identity after she was abandoned as a child (…well, egg, to be more precise). Luigi is instantly enamoured by her based on her beauty and, later, her commitment to this cause and she seems taken by his enthusiasm and awkwardness. While she is able to speak up for herself and is largely calm and emotionally stable, she’s little more than a damsel in distress and doesn’t transform into a proactive heroine until the film’s sequel-bait ending. She directs the brothers when they come to rescue her and sets Yoshi free from his bindings but she doesn’t really factor into the finale in a meaningful way beyond being the only one physically capable of interacting with the meteorite (why, though, is never really explained).

He doesn’t resemble his counterpart but Koopa is a zany, scenery-chewing villain.

And then there’s King Koopa himself, Dennis Hopper. Again, Hopper might have distanced himself from the film but he delivers a glorious over the top, scenery chewing performance. For all their buffoonery, the Mario Brothers play mostly as the film’s straight men and, in comparison, Koopa is a cartoon villain; he’s bombastic, melodramatic, and packed full of weird little character quirks while still being cold, ruthless, sadistic, and the more serious of his many underlings. Koopa’s plot is ridiculous in the best way (he wants to take Daisy as his own and use the meteorite piece (the “Rock”) she wears around her next to complete the meteor that split their worlds into separate dimensions and merge Dinohattan with New York, with him as the ruling dictator) and every decision he makes is equally ludicrous: when he’s told the Rock is in the hands of two plumbers, he calls for a “Plumber alert!”; when his underlings defy him (or he faces defiance of any kind), he subjects them to his De-Evolution machine and turns them into incompetent Goombas; and, when he acquires the Rock, his first course of action is the order a pizza!

While Iggy and Spike are bumbling fools, Lena conspires to rule alongside Koopa.

Koopa’s primary minions are his cousins, Iggy (Stevens) and Spike (Edson); while the Mario Brothers are bumbling at times due to their status as unlikely heroes, Iggy and Spike are bumbling full stop; incompetent in every respect, the two act as the film’s comic relief and are thematic parallels to the titular brothers, echoing the Mario’s love/hate relationship through their verbal and physical banter. In an effort to make them more competent, Koopa opts to subject them to a spell of cranial evolution; however, this does little to improve their competency and actually serves to make them smarter than Koopa in many ways, certainly smart enough to cut a deal with the Mario Brothers and, ultimately, turn against their cousin to ensure their own survival. Koopa does have at least one reliable subordinate, however, in the form of Lena (Shaw); however, Lena is intensely jealous of Daisy, since Koopa favours her, so conspires to remove Daisy from the equation while positioning herself as the only woman capable and willing enough to rule by Koopa’s side. Bat shit crazy, she is also a cartoonish villain, literally cackling like a witch when she tries to merge the Rock with the meteorite and pays the ultimate price for her pride and hubris. Before that, though, she demonstrates far more focus in her sadistic desire to off Daisy and even usurp Koopa’s ambitions as she believes that she can rule without him but is blinded by her mad desires just as Koopa is blinded by his ego and libido.

Dinohattan has a very tangible, “lived-in” feel it its dystopian dressings.

At its core, Super Mario Bros. is little more than a fun kid’s movie; an action/adventure piece that needs to be big, bright, and bombastic and, for the most part, it takes all of these boxes. Dinohattan evokes the murky, gritty, industrial aesthetic of Blade Runner, being this desolate dystopian city that (thanks to an elaborate, practical set) feels real and lived in. Covered with a disgusting fungus, the city is full of little background elements and references (the Hammer Bros, Thwomp, Bullet Bill, and Wriggler all get little cameos as brightly-coloured neon signs, advertisements, and businesses but perhaps the most accurate inclusion is that of the much-feared Bob-omb); sparks, flames, and explosions are aplenty in this gloomy dystopia and the film has a very tangible sense of kinetic energy (things are always moving and bustling and the Mario’s are constantly being herded or pushed forward). Furthermore, there are a lot of amusing scenes and moments in the film; the elevator sequence, for example, where Luigi teaches the Goombas to dance is a stand out, the Mario’s bickering in the desert is gold, and there’s an humorous little side plot later in the film regarding Koopa’s pizza and Toad (Mojo Nixon) bringing Daisy a plate of steamed vegetable amidst her dramatic escape from Koopa’s tower. Not every joke lands, obviously, largely those involving Iggy and Spike (who are a bit too cartoonish) but, again, this is a film designed to appeal to kids so, for the most part, the humour really works, in my opinion, thanks, again, largely to the banter and bickering between the titular brothers.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Super Mario Bros. is intrinsically linked with the perceived notion of the film as being a failure and being the first of many big-budget cinematic failings for videogame adaptations. It doesn’t help that the film is largely disregarded by academics (some, like Brookey (2010: 4), who exhibit a blatant misunderstanding about the film’s source material) and critics. Yet, positive reviews of the film can be found, with Thomas Leitch (2007: 263) admirably emphasising the film’s contribution to the field of adaptation by detailing how film-making techniques substitute for the layout of, and interaction with, the videogame world: “[Super Mario Bros.] not only retains but constantly emphasizes the title characters’ absurd names[,] their professional status as plumbers, their unlikely credentials as heroes, and their quest to rescue a kidnapped princess”. I know what you’re probably thinking, though; you’re thinking that the movie is trash because it’s nothing like the videogame. But you’re talking to the wrong person there because, honestly, I don’t care. The only way a Mario movie can hope to recreate the aesthetics of the videogames is to go the all CGI route, in my opinion, and we’ll be seeing that soon enough (hopefully) so, for me, the film does a pretty decent job of translating many of the source material’s more outlandish aspects to live-action.

The film incorporates dionsaurs elements from the videogames in a variety of ways.

The focus on dinosaurs is a bit odd, I guess, but remember that Super Mario World (Nintendo EAD, 1990) was still very fresh in people’s minds at the time and featured a dinosaur setting but also a little film called Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993) was due out the very next month and would go on to inspire a brief dinosaur craze so Super Mario Bros. was potentially influenced by that. It also really emphasises the Mario’s profession as plumbers; while pipes and plumber iconography was rife in the Mario videogames at the time, it was most more heavily emphasised in the various Mario cartoons (and, perhaps even more obscurely, Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen! (Hata, 1986), a Japanese-exclusive anime that exhbits a number of narrative similarities to its live-action counterpart) that released before the film (which popularised the notion of the Mario Brothers as both plumbers from Brooklyn and everyday, unlikely heroes). Additionally, there are many aspects from the videogames included in the film; the iconic Mario theme opens the movie (and even plays on the DVD menu, despite never appearing in a prominent way in the film), Daisy ends up in a purple dress reminiscent of the pink attire worn by Princess Toadstool (who was largely interchangeable with Daisy at the time), and the film has a heavy emphasis on jumping and running; the production design features “strong verticals [that] provide many reminders of its heroes’ relative freedom from gravity” (Leitch, 2007: 270) and the Mario Brothers are “constantly jumping, falling, and swinging through a series of unusually vertical sets” to reinforce “the ability of video game heroes to surmount obstacles and enemies by [simply] jumping over them” (ibid: 264). Much of this is thanks to the “Stompers”, gas-powered futuristic boots that allow characters to make superhuman leaps and hover in the air to recreate the jumping mechanics of the videogames.

Toad might have gotten a raw deal but Yoshi and the Mario’s outfits turned out pretty good…

Sure, you can cry about the film’s depiction of Toad and even Koopa as much as you want but do you really believe that early-nineties effects would have been able to render a kingdom full of anthropomorphic mushrooms and a fire-breathing dragon/turtle hybrid? Of course, the counterpoint to that is to simply produce an animated movie but they didn’t and that’s ignoring the fact that many of the film’s effects hold up extremely well. Sure, the computer effects are quite janky but they’re used sparingly; as I said, Dinohattan is this huge, bustling set, for one thing, and the film is full of elaborate locations that evoke their source material in more ways than you might thing (there’s an arid desert, for one thing, and Koopa’s tower is full of ominous spikes, much like Bowser’s many castles). Add to this a pretty exciting and action-packed car chase that is full of practical effects and some nice puppetry and effects work (Yoshi, in particular, stands out but the Goomba’s aren’t half bad either) and you have an extremely visually interesting and exciting movie for my money. Also, while their outfits aren’t overalls and it makes little sense for them to wear them (Mario seems to think wearing them will help them get up Koopa’s tower without suspicion but none of Koopa’s minions are dressed that way…), I absolutely love the Mario’s brightly-coloured outfits and there’s a real sense of thematic significance given to the scene where they acquire them as it represents them embracing their roles as heroes. Furthermore, there’s some fun little Easter Eggs in the film, too, such as Koopa’s portable de-evolution guns being Super Scopes and Mario using a piece of fungus to shield himself from the gun’s effects (like in the games, he uses a mushroom allows him to take a free hit).

The Summary:
Even now, there is a lot to like about Super Mario Bros.; it’s a fun, bombastic live-action cartoon that is geared towards being adventurous and whimsical. What few elements it does take from its source material are incorporated subtly and slavish devotion to fidelity is secondary to telling a quirky story that will appeal, primarily, to kids and be amusing enough for their parents to sit through. In many respects, the film isn’t really geared towards fans of the videogames at all, at least not those who expect an exact recreation of the source material (something no adaptation, live-action or otherwise, has ever done; no matter how accurate an adaptation may be, it will never be 100% faithful as films are a completely different medium to videogames, being passive entertainment over which the viewer has no control). Sadly, though, Super Mario Bros. is perhaps destined to go down in infamy not just for differing so wildly from its source material but also for being the most often-cited example of why videogame adaptations are doomed to fail again and again. It was the first of its kind, however; no one knew how to translate a videogame into a live-action film and, it can be argued, few have really learned how to refine this process since then. Regardless, however, I think it’s best to view Super Mario Bros. in terms of its genre rather than as an adaptation; it’s so far removed from its source material that you kind of have to and, as a result, you’re left with a pretty decent kids movie that isn’t designed to appeal to everybody but is nowhere near as bad a movie as the majority of people like to make it out to be.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

How do you feel about Super Mario Bros.? Did you see it as a kid? If so, what are your memories of it and how do you feel it holds up today? What did you think to the casting and the performances in the film? Do you agree with the majority consensus that it’s a terrible film because it’s nothing like the videogames or do you, perhaps, enjoy it as an entertaining adventure film and nothing more? Do you think a live-action Mario movie could work with today’s technology? Which Nintendo franchise would you most like to see get a live-action adaptation? Whatever you think, leave a comment below and come back next Thursday for more Mario content.

Movie Night: The Evil Dead

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Released: 15 April 1981
Director: Sam Raimi
Distributor: New Line Cinema
Budget: $375,000
Stars: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker, and Theresa Tilly

The Plot:
Ashley “Ash” Williams (Campbell) and his friends, including his girlfriend Linda (Baker) and sister Cheryl (Sandweiss), drive to a remote cabin in the woods for a vacation. There, they find an audio tape that, when played, unleashes a legion of demonic spirits that possess and torment the group, leaving Ash to defend himself from his zombified friends.

The Background:
The Evil Dead was the brainchild of now-legendary horror director Sam Raimi, who had collaborated with his long-time friend Bruce Campbell on several low-budget Super 8mm film projects in the past. When they hit upon the idea of venturing into horror, Raimi produced a proof of concept on a measly $1,600 that served as the prototype for The Evil Dead and sought financing for a larger project by begging friends and family alike to amass the funds he required. With a cast and crew made up of locals, friends, and family, the film was shot entirely on Kodak 16mm film stock and fraught with mishaps: there were many minor injuries, including Betsy Baker accidentally getting her eyelashes ripped off, the contact lenses used to give the cast demonic eyes were extremely uncomfortable to wear, arguments frequently broke out because of the cramped conditions, and Raimi delighted in tormenting his cast, especially Campbell, to capture more realistic emotions on set. The Evil Dead popularised Raimi’s penchant for unsettling gore and sweeping camera movements; Dutch angles, camera dollies, and use of a cobbled together shaky cam all added to the unique visual presentation of the film. The film was also bolstered by some ambitious low-budget gore; Raimi relied entirely on make-up, prosthetics, and painstaking stop motion to create his gory effects, which included copious amounts of animal meat and live cockroaches. Perhaps the most controversial scene in the film saw Cheryl sexually assaulted by a demonic tree, a sequence with Raimi himself later admitted was unnecessarily gratuitous. Raimi went all in for the film’s theatrical premiere by hiring ambulances to wait outside Detroit’s Redford Theatre to build a sense of atmosphere around the film, which was beloved by legendary horror writer Stephen King and became one of the genre’s most infamous splatter-horror movies. Despite being slapped with a dreaded NC-17 rating or outright banned in some countries, The Evil Dead was surprisingly well-received for a horror film; the film was a sleeper hit, making between $2.7 and $29.4 million at the box office, and critics have praised The Evil Dead’s unnerving atmosphere and camera work and its unique twist on the genre, though its low-budget and obvious flaws were highlighted as failings. Despite its praise and financial success, The Evil Dead failed to launch Raimi’s directing career; he was forced to begin work on a follow-up that was part-remake, part-sequel due to rights issues, and this low-budget splatter-horror soon became a cult franchise that made a horror icon out of Bruce Campbell, allowed Sam Raimi to experiment with other genres before achieving mainstream success, and came to encompass comedy/horror sequels, videogames, and even a stage show!

The Review:
As a big horror fan, I became aware of the Evil Dead films largely through reputation; Ash was as much a recognisable horror icon as any of the top slashers when I was a kid, though my first real exposure to the series came with a completely out of context viewing of the second movie back in my youth that obviously impressed me enough to keep an eye on the franchise. When I finally switched from VHS to DVD, either the first or the second boxset I bought was the Evil Dead trilogy; back then, I would religiously watch all the special features and commentaries and it was amazing seeing this low-budget horror franchise being brought to life and becoming a cult phenomenon. I think it’s only fair to say, though, that it’s always been easy for me to rank the original trilogy; the second is clearly the best for me, with the first and third kind of tied at the bottom for different reasons. Still, it’s a horror staple and has been a part of my home movie collection for decades now and it’s always enjoyable to throw on one of these outrageous splatter-horrors and remember a time when the genre had some serious balls.

Ash and his friends are tormented by an evil force that first claims his sister, Cheryl.

The film centres on five college friends – Ash, his girlfriend Linda and sister Cheryl, Scott (DeManincor) and his girlfriend, Shelly (Lilly) – who decide to vacation at an old cabin in the woods that they rented on the cheap because it’s so secluded, rundown, and preceeded by a dilapidated bridge. It’s always weird rewatching the original Evil Dead and seeing Ash portrayed as a decidedly uncool and dorky college student; compared to Scott, who’s aggressively assertive and cynical at times, Ash is contemplative and bookish, far more likely to fumble his way through Latin than he is to spout one-liners. Indeed, it’s Scott who first investigates the basement and is more inclined towards being brash and outspoken, even pointing a loaded gun in Ash’s face just for a laugh and willing to take his chances out in the haunted woods than wait around in the cabin. In comparison, Ash is more empathetic; while he enjoys a gag, he knows when to stop, unlike Scott, and is more concerned with the welfare of others and figuring a way out of their predicament, though his curiosity concerning the Naturom Demonto directly leads to the evil force being unleashed when he plays Raymond Knowby’s (Bob Dorian) tape. Of all the characters, it’s Cheryl who senses the unsettling nature of the cabin and the surrounding woods right from the start; she’s clearly uncomfortable in the cabin, with its creepy decorations and atmosphere, compelled to draw a picture of the Naturom Demonto, and so creeped out by the haunting voice (Sam Raimi) whispering from the woods that she stupidly goes out to investigate and gets disturbingly abused for her curiosity.

While the romance between Ash and Linda is barebones, the tension and horror are palpable.

The attack leaves Cheryl understandably traumatised, so much so that she demands to leave the area right away, despite the disbelief of her friends and brother. Still, Ash agrees to take her to safety, only to discover that the bridge has been destroyed and they are now trapped in the cabin, much to Cheryl’s dismay as she fully gives in to despair following the shock and horror of her attack. Of course, Cheryl isn’t the only one who shares Ash’s affections; The Evil Dead makes an attempt to explore the romance between Ash and Linda when he gifts her probably the ugliest magnifying glass necklace-thing in a fun romantic gesture, but they don’t get many chances to interact with each other. Linda and Shelly are so bland and interchangeable that I often get the two mixed up or forget about whichever one isn’t wearing the necklace and they only really become interesting to the plot after being infected by the evil. The possessed Cheryl essentially becomes the primary antagonist, growling and watching from the basement, while Shelly violently attacks Scott after being claimed by the evil force and Linda becomes a spiteful, child-like demon who delights in mocking and tormenting her former friends. The entire experience rattles Ash and Scott in different ways; Ash refuses to leave behind his injured girlfriend, and later cannot bring himself to dismember her after she becomes possessed, whereas Scott its perfectly happy to save his own skin, only to end up cut to ribbons offscreen, thus leaving Ash as the sole survivor forced to step into a more proactive role to try and save his friends and destroy the evil force torturing them.

The spiteful, evil force lurking is the woods is unleashed with violent and bloody results.

Contrary to later films and entries in the franchise, the titular “evil dead” is somewhat vaguely defined here. Represented as a disembodied, malevolent force that lurks in the woods, the evil is already present even before Raymond Knowby’s tape is played but is fully unleashed upon the recitation of passages from the fabled Naturom Demonto. A Sumerian text containing ancient burial rituals and incantations, this book of the dead is inked in human blood and bound in human flesh and brings forth an intangible evil that possesses not only the main characters, but the surrounding area. It briefly jerks the wheel of Ash’s prized (if unreliable) Oldsmobile, almost causing a head-on collision, and an ominous voice calls for the characters to “Join us!” all before the book is even discovered, so strong is its influence. Of course, perhaps the most memorable incarnation of the evil force is when it possesses the surrounding trees to attack Cheryl. Cheryl then becomes the principal embodiment of the evil force, levitating and barking threats and being hideously transformed into a demonic, zombie-like being. From there, the horror only escalates; Cheryl attacks her friends, demonstrating incredible physical strength by manhandling them and the evil force is easily able to possess anyone injured while in the cabin following her transformation. Cheryl further degenerates into an ashen, cackling, crone-like monstrosity while trapped in the basement, leaving Shelly to attack Scott, her skin cracked and boiling, clawing at him even as her face splits and melts away.

The Nitty-Gritty:
While far from the first horror film to employ the “cabin in the woods” cliché, The Evil Dead may very well be the most mainstream and infamous example of it. Personally, I’ve always been a little ambivalent and ignorant towards it; I’m not very outdoorsy and spending a weekend in a secluded, creepy cabin isn’t really something we do here in the UK, so it can be a bit of a hit and miss premise since, much like the idea of summer camp, I can’t readily imagine ever being in such a position. Still, despite the questionable performances of the main actors (it’s clear that this is new territory for them, resulting in some clunky and awkward line deliveries), The Evil Dead does a really good job of making the cabin itself as much a character as the actors. Rusty tools, creaking floorboards, an aggravating ticking clock, and unsettling stuffed animals adorn the interior, creating an ominous atmosphere even before the evil force sweeps through the group. I’m a big fan of Sam Raimi’s unique camera work in this film; the evil force is represented through a series of sweeping first-person shots that fly through the woods, barge through the cabin, and is completely unbound by its surroundings, creating a menacing, unseen force that cannot be fought or escaped no matter how hard the characters try.

The film leaves an impression thanks to its gore and controversial content.

The Evil Dead deserves a lot of credit for doing as much as it can with a shoestring budget; yes, the effects haven’t aged too well and are questionable these days, easily being the worst of the franchise, but its commitment to violent gore is commendable. Still, the make-up effects are a bit hit and miss at times; those possessed resemble a combination of the possessed Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair/Mercedes McCambridge) and a zombie, featuring creamy-white eyes, slashes and gouges, a pale complexion, and an abundance of viscera and veins, and they jerk around like puppets with bone-crunching rigidity. The real meat of the horror is in the sickening depiction of gore; pencils are stabbed into ankles and the possessed Shelly is not only half melting but chews her own hand off at the wrist and ends up chopped into quivering, bloody limbs! Later, when Ash is attacked by his possessed friends in full force, he gouges out Scott’s eyes with nauseating brutality and the remains of his friends bubble and melt away as only the finest and most gruesome stop motion can depict. Of course, easily the most outrageous an unsettling part of the film comes within the first thirty minutes when, beckoned by the evil force, Cheryl wanders into the pitch-black woods where the force barrels through the trees and then possesses them, tangling her up in their branches and stripping her naked. The branches then thrash her, choke her, and force her down to be sexually assaulted by them through a combination of reverse footage and in-camera wire work which, while impressive, is maybe taking things a little too far just for the sake of shock value.

After enduring horrendous torture, Ash appears to win the day but the evil seemingly never dies…

If you’re more familiar with Ash as a chainsaw-wielding, shotgun-toting bad-ass then The Evil Dead will be a bit of a shock to you. Ash does use a shotgun in the film, though sporadically and with little effect, and he only fires up a chainsaw one time, though he’s unable to bring himself to chop up his beloved Linda’s body. Instead, he simply tries to bury her alive, resulting in her reanimating and attacking him out in the woods. Although Bruce Campbell would suffer far worse abuse in the later films, he certainly gets a hard time of it here; he’s tossed about by his possessed friends, crashing through furniture each time, beaten with a poker, and ends up caked in blood when Linda’s headless corpse tries to rape him and when he ventures into the basement for more ammo! Still, while he’s more an exhausted survivor than a wisecracking action hero, further study of Knowby’s recording reveals to Ash that the only way to stop the possessed is by bodily dismemberment; though they can fight off their possessed friends and even cause them pain, even causing violent, gory seizures with the Sumerian dagger, they will continue to reanimate unless they’re chopped up. Although Ash is initially hesitant compared to Scott, he’s soon decapitating and beating Linda’s possessed corpse with a shovel and fending off the cackling, mocking games of the evil force. Somehow, he’s even able to remain himself after his leg is gouged by Linda and later chewed on by Scott, potentially because the evil force delights in torturing him, and is forced to find new reserves of resolve to endure the torment. The cabin itself comes to life as the force stalks him, driving him to near madness through fear and exhaustion, and his demonic friends attack in a frenzy for the gore-drenched finale. In the chaos, Ash is able to use the ugly necklace to toss the Naturom Demonto into the fireplace, which causes the possessed to freeze, be torn to bloody ribbons by demonic claws, and then rapidly, sickeningly decompose before his eyes. However, as the blood-soaked and dishevelled Ash stumbles out into the light of dawn, the unseen force charges through the house and seemingly swallows him for one last jump scare!

The Summary:
As suggested earlier, The Evil Dead is far from my favourite entry in the splatter-horror franchise; as a horror movie, it’s pretty by the numbers in a lot of ways and more of a standard, low-budget gorefest that seeks to shock through its violent, bloody, and questionable content rather than provide something with real substance. The characters are all very bland and forgettable, even Ash, who exhibits none of his later bravado and impresses only because he’s the most good looking and he happens to be lucky enough to survive. I suppose you can argue that he balances the traits of the other characters – he’s not as brash as Scott or anxious as Cheryl or as forgettable as Linda or Shelly – and there is a tragedy and charisma to him, but I much prefer the tweaks made to his character from the second film onwards. That basically just leaves the gore, horror, and effects which, while ambitious and impressive, pale in comparison to other horror films and even the Evil Dead sequels. The Evil Dead feels like an extended proof of concept; the ideas are there, there’s some potential here, and it certainly shocks in its outrageous gore and content, but it’s definitely inferior compared to its sequel. I would still recommend it as a cult horror film and an example of how to stretch a limited budget and produce shocking content, and I commend the effort that went into it, but it’s hard to rate it much higher when there are better horror films from this era and the second movie so massively outpaces this one and set the standard for the rest of the franchise.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Are you a fan of The Evil Dead? Where would you rate it compared to other entries in the franchise? Which of the characters was your favourite and what did you think to how Ash was portrayed here? What did you think to the evil force and its spiteful, playful nature? Were you impressed by the film’s gore and effects or is it a little too low-budget for you? What did you think to the performances and Sam Raimi’s directorial style? Would you read from a book bound in human flesh and inked in human blood? Whatever your thoughts on The Evil Dead and its franchise, feel free to leave a comment below or on my social media.

Back Issues [Stark Sunday]: The Invincible Iron Man #1

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Anthony “Tony” Stark/Iron Man first lived, walked, and conquered in the pages of Tales of Suspense #39, published in March 1963 and brought to life by Marvel mastermind Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Don Heck. Since then, ol’ shellhead has gone through numerous different armours, served on Marvel’s premier super team, the Avengers, struggled with alcoholism, swapped places with his teenaged younger self, fought against and imprisoned his fellow heroes, featured in numerous videogames and cartoons, and shot into mainstream superstardom thanks to am iconic, career-defining portrayal by Robert Downey Jr.  

Story Title: “Alone Against A.I.M.!”
Published: May 1968
Writers: Archie Goodwin
Artist: Gene Colon

The Background:
Long before Robert Downey Jr. uttered that unforgettable line, “I am Iron Man”, Stan Lee’s original Iron Man was to take a concept his readers would hate (a rich military industrialist), throw in a little Howard Hughes and personal tragedy, and make him a character to root for. Mounting deadlines saw Lee’s younger brother, Larry Lieber team with legendary Jack Kirby for the character’s debut in the pages of Tales of Suspense as an anti-communist. After Tales of Suspense was rebranded as a Captain America title in 1968, Iron Man was upgraded to his own solo series, The Invincible Iron Man, which has run pretty much uninterrupted from 1968 all the way up to the present day and has been home to some of the character’s most memorable and influential storylines.

The Review:
Oddly for the first issue of ol’ shellhead’s solo magazine, “Alone Against A.I.M.!” is actually the continuation of a story that began in the pages of Iron Man and Sub-Mariner and finds the Armoured Avenger being captured by a “vortex suction beam” courtesy of Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) after rescuing Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage and Law-Enforcement Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.) agent Jasper Sitwell. The story takes place out in the vastness of the ocean, with Sitwell onboard a ship controlled by the Maggia crime syndicate hat is scuppered by A.I.M. Sitwell desperately attempts to maintain calm and get out into the open to summon help with his pocket communicator; despite briefly losing his glasses in the fracas, the eloquent agent is able to rescue one of Tony Stark’s admirers, Whitney Frost, and get the two picked up but a hovercraft commanded by none other than Colonel Nick Fury himself. Frost sells herself as a forthright socialite who deceives men with her charm and looks, but she’s actually looking to steal the secrets of Stark Industries and reclaim herself as the “Big M” of the Maggia.

Mordius has A.I.M. capture Iron Man so he can duplicate his armour.

This is merely a side-plot to the main story, however, which sees the bee-suit-wearing A.I.M. grunts entrap Iron Man in a magnetically sealed chamber on the orders of Mordius. Iron Mans fight with Mark Scarlotti/Whiplash in the previous story has drained his Repulsor Rays and the chamber is too tough for him to expend the energy trying to batter through, but he doesn’t have too long to worry about any kind of escape plan as A.I.M. promptly render him unconscious with a knockout gas and transport his helpless form to Mordius’s castle out on a small island off the New England coast. The A.I.M. minions are absolutely devoted to their master’s cause and the sanctity of A.I.M.s…well, aims, but Mordius himself is quite the abusive blowhard: garbed in a blue helmet and white outfit, he doesn’t tolerate tardiness, claims A.I.M.’s greater glory is his for the taking, and makes aggressive demands of his underlings without gratitude or concern for their welfare, but they’re only to happy to bow to his every whim and place the unconscious Avenger in the “X-Ray Photo-Chamber”. Mordius’s goal is less about the main within the armour and more with uncovering the secrets of the technology that powers Iron Man’s superhuman feats and is so confident in his machine that he removes his protective headgear, thus shedding the usual anonymity afforded to A.I.M.’s representatives, which also serves the dual purpose of clearly setting him above and beyond the usual A.I.M. grunts. Mordius delivers a lengthy soliloquy on the advanced capabilities of his machine, which scans and analyses every inch of the Iron Man armour and produces near-perfect replicas that he wastes no time in outfitting to three of his underlings.

Despite Iron Man’s efforts, it’s Mordius’s hubris that destroys A.I.M.’s ambitions.

However, Iron Man proves to not be as subdued as Mordius believed thanks to the oxygen supply contained in his armour; he breaks out of the chamber, destroying the irreplaceable “Vario-Mold Matrix” that allowed Mordius to copy his armour, but Mordius’s copies wildly malfunction when they try to use the Repulsor Ray technology and jet boots, causing only further damage to the A.I.M. master’s laboratory. Incensed at the development and convinced that Iron Man somehow sabotaged the process, Mordius both opens fire and commands his minions to stop messing around with the armour’s ordinance and attack Iron Man directly. Thankfully for the Armoured Avenger, the numbers advantage of his enemies means little; his armour’s “refractory casing” distorted the x-ray enough to produce inferior replicas and the fake Iron Men are nowhere near as skilled in utilising the armour’s full potential, easily allowing him to outfight them. Now determined to obliterate his hated enemy, Mordius fires a massive rocket cannon at the armoured group, no longer caring a lick for the fates of his loyal followers. However, Iron Man is able to avoid this lethal blast and sabotages the generator room; in response, Mordius unwittingly seals his fate and the fate of his fellow A.I.M. soldiers as he causes a massive power overload when he cranks up the auxiliary power. Thus, Iron Man is able to fly to safety while seemingly the entire castle explodes behind him, presumably taking all inside it in its wake and leaving shellhead to ponder that Mordius’s inability to consider himself anything less than perfect ultimately lead to his demise.

The Summary:
Well…this was certainly a whole lot of nothing. Just about the only thing “Alone Against A.I.M.!” has going for it is Gene Colon’s stunning artwork and Johnny Craig’s vibrant colouring, which really bring Iron Man to life. I think beginning Iron Man’s first solo series with the conclusion to a previous story was a pretty poor decision; it seems to me like starting a two-story arc and ending the first issue on a cliffhanger would have been far more effective but, instead, we get this forgettable tale where Iron Man feigns being unconscious for the majority of the narrative and we’re left wasting time with the weirdly articulate Sitwell and Mordius, two characters who simply love finding the most dramatic and overblown way to fill up panels with pointless dialogue. Since he’s a far greater part of the story, Mordius obviously carries a lot of the blame for this; he monologues at length about his amazing machine, gloats nonstop about his assumed victory, and seems to be this hyper-intelligent, super-smart tyrant but descends into an enraged madman to moment his plans go awry.

The art, and the bungling Iron Man copies, are the best part of this forgettable story.

I guess the best part of the issue is seeing how flawed Mordus’s Iron Man copies are; their Repulsor Rays hit everything but Iron Man, they fly head-first into the ceiling, and they’re unable to overpowered the Armoured Avenger despite apparently having been briefed on how to utilise the armour. Rather than coming across as a threat, though, they seem little more than bungling fools for Iron Man to toss about, mock at every turn, and are nonchalantly blasted to smithereens by Mordius’s own weapon! Iron Man is then able to destroy the entire castle with minimal effort, and without even meaning too! Half of the demise of Mordius is told off-panel and through an anti-climatic explosion, Iron Man barely even gives a shit that he just killed God-knows how many people, and I’m left wondering just what the hell the point of this issue was. I wouldn’t mind but “Alone Against A.I.M.!” isn’t the only story in the issue as the rest of the pages are taken up with a truncated version of Iron Man’s origin that was completely unnecessary and I can’t help but wonder if those couple of extra pages could’ve been better served adding to this story to maybe flesh out Iron Man’s escape a bit more. Instead, he just…conveniently slips away and then just flies out of their completely unopposed with Mordius dooms himself with his hubris.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

Have you ever read “Alone Against A.I.M.!”? Were you also disappointed by its story and pacing? What did you think of Mordius and what some of your favourite A.I.M. moments? What are some of your favourite Iron Man characters or stories? Where does Iron Man rank in your hierarchy of comic book characters? Are you doing anything to commemorate Iron Man’s debut appearance and, if so, what is it? Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts on Iron Man so sign up to drop them below or leave a comment on my social media.

Game Corner [Mario Month]: Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (Nintendo 3DS)

Dr. K5 Comments

So, for no better reason than “Mar.10” resembling Mario’s name, March 10th is widely regarded as being “Mario Day”, a day to celebrate Nintendo’s portly plumber, an overalls-wearing mascot who literally changed the videogame industry forever and shaped the home console market of the nineties.

Released: 27 January 2014
Originally Released: 10 May 1999
Developer: Nintendo
Original Developer: Nintendo R&D4
Also Available For: Game Boy Color

The Background:
After his debut in Donkey Kong (Nintendo R&D2/Ikegami Tsushinki, 1983) and graduating to his own arcade title alongside his brother, Luigi, Shigeru Miyamoto’s Mario took the world by storm with Super Mario Bros. The game was extremely popular, selling over 40 million copies and was pivotal to Nintendo saving the videogames industry from destitution. The game is also no stranger to being ported to other systems; it was a 16-bit makeover for Super Mario All-Stars (Nintendo EAD, 1993) and re-released on the Nintendo Wii to commemorate its twenty-fifth anniversary but, before that, though, Super Mario Bros. was ported to the Game Boy Color in this version of the game. Although Super Mario Bros. Deluxe suffered from a smaller screen size due to its new portable format, the game featured a few new features, such as additional animated elements, challenge modes, compatibility with the Game Boy Printer, and bonus levels, all of which saw it ranked as one of the greatest Game Boy games of all time and it was highly praised for its additional features. The game later made it onto the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Library, and gamers were even able to receive a free copy by registering their Nintendo Network ID, which further bolstered the game with the 3DS save state features and finally gave me my best opportunity to play through this classic title after years of struggling with Mario’s classic 2D efforts.

The Plot:
The Mushroom Kingdom has been invaded by Bowser, King of the Koopas, and this wacky army, the Koopa Troopas. After transforming the citizens into inanimate objects and kidnapping Princess Toadstool, Mario and Luigi set out to liberate the Mushroom Kingdom and rescue the princess from his clutches!

Gameplay:
As an updated port of perhaps gaming’s most famous 2D, sidescrolling platformer,Super Mario Bros. Deluxe looks, sounds, and plays exactly the same as Super Mario Bros. except you have reduced visibility due to the screen size and the scrolling is a little janky at times. This basically means that the left side of the screen catches up to you pretty fast, which can be an issue as you can’t freely backtrack in the level (or “World”) so it can cause you to plummet to your death if you’re not careful, and it’s not always immediately clear what dangers or goodies are above or below you, meaning you need to use the directional pad to shunt the screen up and down for a better look but, otherwise, the controls and presentation are exactly what you’d expect from Nintendo’s breakout title. You’re played into the overalls or Mario (or Luigi, if you press the Select button prior to entering a World), who can run by holding B or Y and jump by pressing A. Mario will cain extra height and distance if you hold down the jump button and jump from a run, and jumping on enemies is his primary way of dispatching them. While Mario’s physics are pretty tight and responsive, he can be slippery and awkward at times, especially when bouncing off springs, but Luigi is even worse since he has far less traction and a less manageable, higher jump.

Run and hop around squashing baddies, clearing gaps, and swimming through treacherous waters.

As ever, your goal is to move from the left side of the screen to the right and reach a goal flag within a time limit; this timer is pretty generous and it’s only on later Worlds where the game throws repeating paths at you that it can get a bit tricky reaching the end in time. Mario hops about, bouncing off enemies and hitting blocks to progress, but also has to clear longer gaps with the aid of a spring or moving, weighted, or temporary platforms or smaller ones by running over them. Throughout the Mushroom Kingdom, you’ll find a number of pipes; some of these can be entered to reach secret areas, usually full of Coins, and provide you with a shortcut, but you can also go out of bounds sometimes and find a Warp Zone to skip ahead to a later World. For the most part, you’ll be exploring the block-and-gap-landed Mushroom Kingdom, with only a few different obstacles (either “stairs” or blocks, more gaps, or long stretches of land with enemies to bump off) distinguishing them, but you’ll also venture into underground areas somewhat reminiscent of caves (which tend to be a bit more claustrophobic had have more elevator platforms) and also underwater a couple of times. Here, you’re completely defenceless without a Fire Flower or Super Star and must rapidly tap A to swim ahead; you don’t need to worry about air, which is helpful, but there does seem to be sections where you’re pulled down towards the bottom of the screen (and your death). Although there’s a score counter in the game, it’s more for bragging rights than anything else and doesn’t seem to award you extra lives, though these are awarded for consecutively defeating enemies. Furthermore, while there are no mid-World checkpoints, you can save and end your game at any time from the pause menu and you’re given three save files to play with, and the game keeps track of your lives and completion progress on the new (albeit limited) overworld screen.

Graphics and Sound:  
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe appears to be an exact recreation of the original title, so it’s Super Mario Bros. as you know and love it and in all its 8-bit glory, though there are a few graphical additions to the water and lava to make them more lively. This means, of course, that animation frames are low, and the presentation is quite basic, but the game is still a colourful and pretty ambitious title, with Mario and Luigi’s sprites being the obvious standout. Sure, they have no idle animations, but they can grow and shrink and change colour from power-ups, do a little slide/turnaround pose when you quickly change direction, perform a breaststroke underwater, and have a little death animation when you stupidly run into an oncoming Koopa shell. Enemies receive even less animation but remain memorable simply because they’re so quirky and weird; mean little mushrooms, hammer tossing turtles, and pouting fish fill the screen, with all of them popping out from the backgrounds thanks to their unique colour palettes, and there’s never a question of not being able to see where you’re going or what you’re doing (as long as it’s not too high up or below you).

Some minor improvements and new additions bolster the classic 8-bit graphics.

The game also seems to pop a little more and run a little smoother, potentially because of the better hardware, and all the classic Super Mario Bros. tunes are here to settle in your ear for the rest of the day. There’s no many, granted, with only a handful of different tunes playing in the game’s different areas, but they’re all chirpy and catchy and help keep everything very whimsical. Sadly, there’s really not much variety in the Worlds; the Mushroom Kingdom stages sometimes have more pipes or blocks or platforms, or slightly different hills or even mushroom platforms at some point, but the closest they get to actually looking any different are the rare occasions when they receive a minor palette swap to simulate night or have brick castle walls in the background. The underwater levels are very visually appealing with their bubbles and seaweed, but are few and far between, same as the underground sections, but the game does impress with its end of World melody and jingle (a little flagpole raises and fireworks go off when you clear Worlds) and in the lava-filled stone castles you must conquer to clear each World. There’s no in-game story offered at all, but a Toad will tell you that the princess is in another castle at the end of every World and there’s fun little animations of the castle crumbling on the new overworld screens, so that’s a nice touch.

Enemies and Bosses:
Naturally, all the enemies you’ve come to know and love from Super Mario titles appear and made their debut in this title. The first enemy you’ll come across are the Goomas (pretty unthreatening sentient mushrooms that wander about and can be flattened with your jump) and the Koopa Troopas. These come in two colours (red and green) and a flying variant that can either catch you off-guard in mid-air or act as a temporary jump boost. When you defeat a Koopa Troopa, you can hit their shell to send it flying into other enemies for a score and life bonus but be careful as it’s just as likely to ricochet back at you. You can do the same to the Buzzy Beetles, but these guys are smaller, harder to hit, and are immune to your fireballs. Also of great annoyance are the piranha plants to pop out from pipes, usually when you least expect it, the squid-like Bloopers (who erratically swim about underwater), and Cheap Cheaps (who often dive up out of the water as you run over bridges).

You’ll dodge many enemies and fake Bowsers in you quest to take out the real Koopa King.

By far the worst regular enemies you’ll encounter, though, are Lakitu and the Hammer Bros. Lakitu hovers overhead (just out of reach) and drops Spinys across the stage , though you can take both of these out if you have a Fire Flower. The Hammer Bros usually attack in twos and from higher ground, tossing hammers in a tight arc that can be tough to jump over and even tougher to land with your jump as the window where they’re vulnerable is incredibly small. As for bosses, there’s technically only one in the entire game but you must battle him eight times and each time you have to endure a lava-filled obstacle course and/or pick the correct path to reach him, and this is, of course, Bowser. While seven of the eight Bowsers are actually his minions in disguise, each one attacks just like the real thing; perched over a bridge, Bowser moves back and forth, hops up and down, and spits fireballs at you. Some castles include a moving platform overhead for you to use to get behind him, and the fights become tougher as the amount of projectiles he spits increases, he adds a load of hammers to his arsenal, and Lava Bubbles will pop up from the magma below. However, the strategy to defeating Bowser remains the same every time: either blast at him repeatedly with a Fire Flower until he’s done in, or hop over him (or pass through him after taking a hit) and jump on the axe to remove the bridge beneath him and send him to the lava below.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Coins are scattered all throughout the Mushroom Kingdom. Collecting these adds to your score tally and will net you an extra life once you get one-hundred of them, after which the counter resets to zero. Your Coin counter carries over between Worlds and you’ll often find bunches of them hidden away beneath pipes or along higher paths. You can also grab a 1-Up Mushroom for an extra life as well, or a Super Mushroom to grow bigger and become Super Mario/Luigi. This lets you take a hit without dying and allows you to smash certain blocks by hitting them from beneath, which can uncover secret routes. A Fire Flower lets you throw bouncing fireballs with the B button, which is great for taking out most enemies (and Bowser) from a safe distance, but you’ll revert to you basic, smaller form if you take a hit in either of these states. Finally, there’s the Super Star, which grants you a brief period of invincibility from all onscreen hazards except bottomless pits and lava pools; consecutively defeating enemies in this state will net you extra points and, eventually, an extra life.

Additional Features:
One of the primary reasons I was actually able to finish the game this time around was due to the additional features offered by the Nintendo 3DS, most notably the save state feature, which lets you create a save point wherever you want so you can recover from mistakes much faster and easier, though the base game includes a number of additional features, too. Although you initially can’t backtrack to previous Worlds, you’ll be able to select which World to revisit on your save file after clearing the game. This also unlocks a new, far more challenging adventure, which you can play by selecting the star option when loading your save file. This replaces all Goombas with Buzzy Beetles, speeds up the enemy’s walking speed, reduces the size of elevator lifts, adds more fire bars, and removes the power-ups from the game. New Super Mario Bros. Deluxe also includes a ‘Challenge’ mode that sees you exploring the game’s Worlds once again, this time in search of Red Coins and Yoshi Eggs to unlock content in the game’s Toy Box.

The game’s additional modes and unlockables add a great deal of challenge and replay value.

Once you accumulate 100,000 points in the main game, you unlock ‘You VS. Boo’, a race against a Boo across rejigged Worlds hitting new blocks to clear the way so you can get ahead of the ghost, which can naturally pass through walls. Once you beat the Boo, it’ll get replaced by faster and faster different coloured variants to test your high score. When you earn 300,000 points in the main game, you’ll unlock Super Mario Bros. for Super Players (indicated by the Luigi face now on the main title screen), which is a remake of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (Nintendo EAD, 1986). This game gives you only one save slot and provides thirteen new, much tougher Worlds, a new item in the injury- (or death-) dealing Poison Mushroom, alongside palette swaps of enemies and a wind that makes jumping even trickier. You can also partake in a ‘VS Game’, which is a two-player challenge mode that’s exactly the same as ‘You VS Boo’ but pits you against another human player, a Toy Box that offers a variety of toys for you to unlock and use, and a Fortune Teller mini game that awards you extra lives on a new save file. Every time you defeat each of the eight castles, a Toad will be added to the Mystery Room which will show you animations or artwork to print out on the Game Boy Printer, you’ll receive medals for clearing the different game modes, and there’s even a calendar included if you want to keep track of the days of the week.

The Summary:
I’ve carried the shame of never having beaten Super Mario Bros. for most of my life; to be fair, I didn’t own any of Nintendo’s home consoles until the Nintendo 64 so I didn’t really play any Super Mario titles that weren’t on the Game Boy or played through emulators, and my attempt to play it on the Nintendo Wii was largely just me messing about rather than actually sitting down and trying to finish it. Knowing that the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console wasn’t long for this world, I jumped at the chance to get Super Mario Bros. Deluxe while I could can give it a go and finally achieved that long-elusive goal of finishing this classic platformer, and I was mostly happy with the results. The game is fun, bright, and full of a steady challenge; while it can be too simple at some times and a little frustrating at others with its obstacle placement, it’s fun hopping about and using the skills you’ve mastered over the course of the game to dash past and jump around the later Worlds. While there’s not a lot of variety to the Worlds and the graphics are very basic, I can excuse that since it was an 8-bit title from the mid-eighties and it still holds up as an entertaining little adventure to keep you busy for a long afternoon. While it’s a shame that a version of Mario Bros. (Nintendo R&D1, 1983) included as well, I won’t hold that against it as the additional features added to this game, including mini games, The Lost Levels, and extra challenges, really make Super Mario Bros. Deluxe the definitive 8-bit version of Nintendo’s classic platformer.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy Super Mario Bros. Deluxe? What did you think to the additions made to the game and how do you feel it compares to the original videogame? Did you play Super Mario Bros. as a child and, if so, what are some of your memories of the game? Did you ever find all the Warp Zones and complete the new challenges introduced in this version of the game? Which of the classic Super Mario titles is your favourite? Are there any retro videogames you didn’t complete until later in like? Whatever your thoughts on Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, feel free to leave a comment below by signing up or drop your thoughts on my social media, and be sure to check back for more Mario content this March!

Stitchface

Dr. K3 Comments

Stitchface, Stitchface, comin’ to get’cha!
Stitchface, Stitchface, comin’ t’kill yah!
Mind your manners,
Mind your elders,
Say your prayers and leave on a light
‘Lest Mr. Stitchface come-a-callin’ on Halloween night!

For thirty years, Jenny Carpenter has lived in fear of “Mr. Stitchface”, the local bogeyman who attacked her on Halloween night when she was just a teenager. She’s so traumatised by these memories that she refuses to celebrate the season, much less let her own daughter, Dottie, go trick-or-treating. However, just as Jenny is prepared to relent, her worst nightmare threatens to come to life when Mr. Stitchface grabs his trusty pickaxe and comes calling once more…

Reviews and Features:

– Mysteries and Mayhem’s Review
– Nat Whiston’s Review

Movie Night [PokéMonth]: Pokémon 3: The Movie: Spell of the Unown

Dr. K2 Comments

Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version (Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. An entire generation grew up either playing Pokémon, watching the anime, playing the trading card game, and watching the feature-length movies as clever marketing and a co-ordinated release and multimedia strategy saw Nintendo’s newest franchise become not just a successful videogame franchise but a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse that endures to this day. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I expanded to an entire month of Pokémon this February.

Released: 8 July 2000
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama
Distributor: Toho
Budget: $3 to 16 million
Stars: Veronica Taylor, Eric Stuart, Rachael Lillis, Amy Birnbaum, Dan Green, and Ikue Ōtani

The Plot:
Professor Spencer Hale (Green) is transported to a chaotic dimension by the mysterious Unown (Various), leaving his young daughter, Molly (Birnbaum), devastated and alone. Her grief causes the Unown’s power to rage out of control, manifesting an illusionary Entei (Green) and transforming her home into a crystal-like palace. When Entei kidnaps Ash Ketchum’s (Taylor) mother, Delia (ibid) to appease Molly’s wish for a mother, Ash and friends must brave the danger to break the Unown’s unruly spell.

The Background:
Pokémon (Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak, 1995 to present) was an absolute phenomenon when it came over from Japan: it swept through playgrounds as kids played the videogames, collected the trading cards, and were mesmerised by the still-ongoing anime series (1997 to present). This fantastic marketing strategy was all it took for the aptly-titled Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (Yuyama, 1998) to become a box office success and kick-started a whole series of feature films designed to expand upon the anime and promote both the newest Pokémon videogames and showcase the franchise’s most powerful and elusive beasts. Although it earned less than the blockbuster first movie, Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One (Yuyama, 1999) still made over $130 million against a $30 million budget and Pokémon was arguably at its peak thanks to the anticipation around the newest games in the series. The third feature-film was afforded a much smaller budget than its predecessors and was the first Pokémon movie to premier in IMAX cinemas. Unfortunately, the film’s $68.5 million box office meant that it was the least successful of the first three Pokémon movies and it was met with largely negative critical reviews; however, it has amassed something of a cult following and is regarded by some to be one of the best Pokémon movies.

The Review:
Pokémon 3: The Movie opens in the beautiful town of Greenfield, a lush and verdant town in the Johto region that is knowing for is sweeping hills, windmills, and fields of flowers. It’s also home to the Spencer Hale and his daughter, Molly, who live in a luxurious mansion that overlooks the entire town. Every evening, Spencer reads to his inquisitive and loving young daughter from a picture book that imagines what some Legendary Pokémon look like; although she’s particularly taken with Entei, she also highlights the mysterious Unown, a group of interdimensional, Psychic-type Pokémon who have long been the subject of Spencer’s extensive research. However, while Spencer and Molly have a very close, loving relationship, it’s clear that there’s a void in the lives and their household due to the disappearance of the Spencer matriarch, who mysteriously vanished one day while helping Spencer with his research, leaving Molly without a mother and Spencer to carry the burden of guilt.

Molly is devastated when her father disappears, and overjoyed when he “returns” as Entei.

Spencer has doubled down on his research; aided by his assistant, Schuyler (Ted Lewis), Spencer has been conducting an in-depth investigation into a site of ruins where the stone walls are covered in carvings that resemble the Unown. Unfortunately, after discovering a chest full of small stone tablets engraved with the different alphabetical shapes of the Unown, Spencer is also whisked away to the cosmic void of the Unown Dimension, a swirling place of mystery while the Unown constantly rotate around and sing their names. Schuyler is left dumbfounded at Spencer’s sudden disappearance, and Molly is left absolutely heart-broken and alone; with both of her parents gone, she’s left only with the Unown puzzle pieces and the heartfelt wish to have her father returned to her. Her tearful plea summons the Unown and, while she is delighted that they’ve come to “play with [her]”, their true intention is slightly more malicious as they apparently feed off of her grief-stricken wishes in order to become stronger. Fuelled by her dreams of a crystalline home, the Unown transform the mansion a piece at a time until it represents pictures from Spencer’s book, and their power is so great that they’re able to answer her desire for the return of her father by conjuring an illusion of Entei, whom Molly believes is her father’s spirit returned to her.

Ash risks everything to rescue his mother, who is captured and brainwashed to be Molly’s “Mama”.

Quite coincidentally, Ash, Pikachu (Ōtani), and former gym leaders Misty (Lillis) and Brock (Stuart) just happen to be passing by and run across a trainer native to the area, Lisa (Lisa Ortiz). After Brock strikes out with her (with one of the film’s most amusing lines, “I’m Brock, from Pewter City! And I want to be your boyfriend!”) and Ash is able to beat her in a surprisingly evenly matched Pokémon battle during the film’s opening credits, Lisa guides them to Greenfield so that they can rest up at the Pokémon Center and take in the town’s much-lauded beauty. Suffice it to say that Ash is unimpressed, and the group is horrified, to find that the once stunning landscape has been almost completely overtaken with the Unown’s bizarre crystalline wasteland. Even perennial bothers Jessie (Lillis), James (Stuart), and wise-cracking Meowth (Maddie Blaustein) of Team Rocket are stunned to find Greenfield in such a state, and it’s not long before a news crew (Kathy Pilon and Roger Kay) arrive to try and restore order and report on the strange events. Back in Pallet Town, Delia Ketchum, Ash’s mother, sees the news report and is distraught at the continued suffering of her old friend, Spencer Hale, and she and Professor Samuel Oak (Stuart Zagnit) resolve to travel to Greenfield to get to the bottom of the what’s happening, and to check on Molly. While others are alarmed by the startling transformation of Greenfield, Molly revels in her crystal palace; she delights in playing with her “Papa” and seeing her wishes literally spring to life before her eyes, but her longing for her mother remains. Seeing Delia on the news broadcast reminds her not only of her own mother, but also of the times when Delia and Ash would visit her and her family in years past, and she wishes for Entei to bring her a “Mama” to complete their little family. This adds an interesting personal wrinkle to the film’s plot that has been absent from the previous two films as Entei boldly introduces itself to our heroes by subduing and kidnapping Delia right before Ash’s eyes and holding her captive in Molly’s crystalline palace. Ash is horrified when his mother is kidnapped, and immediately leads his friends on a rescue mission to get her back, literally putting his life at risk to brave the crystal wasteland and scale the tower and reach her.

Entei is the Unown’s avatar and determined to protect Molly, regardless of the morality.

Although Entei’s powers are formidable enough to render Delia a mindless drone who fully believes that she’s Molly’s “Mama”, its spell is broken when Delia sees Ash in danger, but she’s smart enough to quickly realise what’s been going on and to play along with the deception in order to try and reach Molly. Delia recognises that Molly has been very alone for a long time, even before Spencer went missing, and sympathises with her pain, but cannot condone Entei’s enabling and the disruptive influence of the Unown. It’s important to note for Poké-enthusiasts out there that the Entei seen is this film is not the Legendary Pokémon whom it resembles. Rather than being a reincarnated Pokémon known for its blazing Fire-type attacks, Entei is a creation of the Unown and more akin to a Psychic-type Pokémon. At the time, I considered this an odd decision as it kind of wastes the natural characterisation of this creature as one of a trio of Legendary Pokémon, but it actually goes a long way to supporting the deeper themes of the film surrounding grief and a child’s desire for love and affection. Born from Molly’s memories of her father, her love for him, and her idolisation of his strength and loyalty, Entei is granted incredibly powers by the Unown that are contrary to those it has in the games; it can teleport, control the minds of others, create crystalline structures at will, and spit out a powerful aura blast in addition to its durability and strength being theoretically inexhaustible. It is as strong and as capable as Molly wishes it to be, and as long as she believes in it, it can accomplish almost any feat, regardless of whether that action is morally right or wrong. A constant companion and guardian to Molly, Entei fully accepts her belief that it is her beloved “Papa” and goes to any lengths to keep her happy and to protect her, even battling against its out of control masters.

The Unown’s power is virtually limitless, and directly fuelled by Molly’s innermost desires.

So devoted is Entei to Molly that it not only bows to her every wish, but also encourages her to wish for more and to believe that she can anything she desires. When the authorities try to breach the crystal formation, Molly throws a temper tantrum and demands that they be kept out but, when she spots that Ash and the others are Pokémon trainers, she quickly wishes to engage them in Pokémon battles. Thanks to the Unown’s near-limitless power, the interior and environment of the palace constantly changes, and also allows Molly to conjure unbeatable illusionary Pokémon and even age herself up to be a more competent Pokémon trainer. Of course, thanks to the Unown’s power, she’s easily able to best her more experienced opponents with the likes of Teddiursa (Erica Schroeder) and Phanpy (Megumi Hayashibara) even when she should be hopelessly outmatched. She’s even able to flood the area with water, and allow her and Misty to breath underwater, so great are her powers, are she becomes so lost in her fantasy that Entei is empowered enough to battle even Ash’s stubborn and formidable Charizard (Shin-ichiro Miki), which arrives not only to help its former trainer but also to pit its strength against an opponent such as Entei. However, the battle proves destructive, wrecking much of Molly’s new home and leaving the heroes’ Pokémon hurt, and Charizard in danger of being killed by the furious Entei; the only hope for the heroes is for Delia, Ash, and the others to help remind Molly of her real family, both those who are gone and the family she could have by forming a bond with real Pokémon, which causes her to finally snap free from her fantasy and demand an end to the fighting.

The Nitty-Gritty:
One of issues I had with Pokémon the Movie 2000 was that it tried a little too hard to raise the stakes in comparison to the first film; while Pokémon: The First Movie was reconfigured into more of a worldwide threat in the English dub, the second film explicitly put the entire world at risk, so it’s a nice change of pace to see the third film tell a far more grounded, more personal story. This is most obvious in Delia’s larger role; up until now, she’s merely been a cameo or a bit-player in the films, but she’s a pivotal inclusion in this film and the driving force behind Ash’s excursion into the crystallised Greenfield. Indeed, he is driven to an uncharacteristic anger at her abduction, which is focused entirely on Entei and transforms into a battle of wills as Ash regards the beast as a mere illusion and Entei adamantly seeks to prove its reality and defend Molly by any means necessary.

Molly’s desire to have her family back means she dreams up her own fantasy world free from sadness.

Of course, it’s Molly’s sadness and grief that is at the heart of the movie’s story; already struggling after the loss of her mother, she was left despondent when Spencer disappeared as well and unable to properly process her anguish. When the Unown respond to her dreams and wishes, she finally feels that hole in her heart has been filled and is easily convinced that everything she is seeing is “real” and that she can be and have whatever she wants “as long as that is her wish”. It’s a powerful, emotional aspect of the film, and easy to forget that Molly isn’t some malevolent or mean-spirited antagonist. She’s just a frightened, lonely little girl who desperately wants her beloved “Papa” and “Mama” back, and is overjoyed to see her father returned in the form of Entei and her every wish brought to life by the Unown’s power. Similarly, Entei is not a necessarily vindictive entity; it’s simply acting out Molly’s wishes, whatever they may be, but bolstered by such vicious and formidable power that it transforms the once beautiful crystal tower into a hazardous landscape of spikes and battles Charizard with such an unmatched ferocity that it’s even posed to kill the helpless and outmatched creature. While Entei seems to fill the void in Molly’s life and heart, Delia and Ash and the others try to convince her that it’s merely another aspect of the Unown’s illusionary power; a false reality she’s conjured to shield her from facing the real world. Through them, she sees that real relationships can be forged through friends, partners, and make-shift families that can be just as fulfilling as having her every wish granted.

Probably the darkest and most personal Pokémon movie despite the odd changes to the source material.

I have to say that, given the trajectory of the Pokémon movies, I was surprised that a Pokémon as unremarkable and weak as Unown be such a focal point of this film, especially considering the next most obvious choice would have been to focus on Ho-Oh and the Legendary Beasts. Instead, though, Entei, Raikou (Katsuyuki Konishi), and Suicune (Masahiko Tanaka) were split up across specials and movies and it would take quite some time for Ho-Oh to actually make a real movie appearance. I guess this helped to make the movies a bit more unpredictable, and it certainly helped to make the Unown a surprising threat in this film, but I can’t help but feel like it was a missed opportunity. Still, the Unown are given an unexpectedly malicious edge in this film; while ostensibly appearing to be somewhat mischievous and aloof, their ability to read people’s minds and alter reality based on their wishes and dreams quickly makes them a threat to all of Greenfield. Not only do they transform the landscape, but they but many lives in danger through their quasi-avatar, Entei, and the strength of Molly’s tumultuous emotions soon sends their Psychic powers into overdrive. By the time she’s ready to leave behind her dreamworld and return to reality, the Unown have exerted so much power and thrown into such chaos by Molly’s emotional state that they’ve lost control of the illusion and the crystalline formations threaten to trap, or kill, everyone within. Their only hope is Entei, whom Molly pours all of her hopes and dreams and belief into to break through the Unown’s protective barrier and undo their magic, dispelling itself in the process. Although distraught to see her father-figure unmade, Molly has learned the value of friendship, co-operation, and family from Ash’s example and her story ends on a happy not when the Unown return not only Spencer but also his wife from their dimension. Thus, Greenfield is restored, Molly regains her true family, Delia is rescued, and Ash and the others continue on their Pokémon journey.

The Summary:
As much as the first two Pokémon films were a spectacle that released right as the franchise was at its peak, Pokémon 3: The Movie opts to tell a far more personal and emotionally-charged story by focusing on a little girl’s loneliness and despair and having Ash’s mother be caught up in a chaotic situation. This is easily the best part of the movie’s appeal, beyond the brutal and unrelenting battle between Entei and Charizard, and definitely makes it a worthwhile watch and worthy follow-up to its predecessors. It’s a very different movie from the last two, which placed the most powerful, mysterious, and elusive Pokémon at the centre of their stories and kind of slapped action set pieces around them, such was the allure of the Legendary Pokémon they featured, whereas Pokémon 3: The Movie fundamentally alters the characterisation, abilities, and role of Entei and the Unown in service of its story. As much as I appreciate the effort put into crafting a more poignant story that tackles the grief felt be the loss of a loved one and reinforces Pokémon’s overall themes of friendship and partnership, I still can’t help be disappointed by the depiction of Entei in this film. For me, splitting the Legendary Beasts up for so long as a major misstep and deprived us of seeing them make a proper, big screen impact. Still, this doesn’t dilute the story we’re given here and Pokémon 3: The Movie remains a unique entry in the Pokémon movie series since it keeps the stakes grounded and personal; while the literal world isn’t at risk, Molly’s dreamworld is and so is Ash and Delia’s (since they mean the world to each other), which really helps to make for a much more relatable and focused narrative. The Unown’s limitless and unpredictable powers, coupled with Entei’s mounting ferocity, make for a surprising threat against the heroes, who are constantly outmatched at every turn and only triumph by appealing to a frightened and hurt little girl’s heart, which definitely helps the film to make an impact even if I would have preferred more focus on the actual Legendary Pokémon.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Are you a fan of Pokémon 3: The Movie? What did you think to the more personal grounded focus? Did you like the depiction of Entei and the Unown or would you have preferred to see them portrayed closer to the source material? What did you think to Delia’s larger role and the focus on Molly’s grief? Which Pokémon game, generation, and creature is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating National Pokémon Day today? Whatever your thoughts, sign up to drop them in the comments below or feel free to leave a reply on my social media.

Movie Night: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Dr. K5 Comments

Released: 17 February 2023
Director: Peyton Reed
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Budget: $200 million
Stars: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Michael Douglas

The Plot:
After aiding the Avengers in saving the world, Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Rudd) has become a beloved celebrity now focused on making up for lost time with his daughter, Cassie (Newton). However, when Cassie inadvertently sucks Scott and his family into the mysterious Quantum Realm, Ant-Man faces his greatest challenge when he comes face-to-face with the maniacal Kang the Conqueror (Majors), a tyrannical despot from beyond time!

The Background:
In his first comic book appearance, Doctor Hank Pym/Ant-Man wasn’t the unstable, garishly-costumed hero who would form the Avengers, nor was he the only character to take up the Ant-Man mantle. Perhaps his most notable successor was Scott Lang, a reformed criminal created by David Michelinie, Bob Layton, and John Byrne, who assumed the role in 1979, and both characters eventually featured in the first live-action Ant-Man (Reed, 2015) film. Ant-Man’s impressive $519.3 million gross and largely positive reviews led to a sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp (ibid, 2018), which outperformed the first at the box office but was met with more mixed reviews. Although the core cast returned to the film, Emma Fuhrmann was disappointed to learn she’d been recast; Kathryn Newton replaced her as Cassie in a decision apparently motivated to better highlight Cassie’s coming-of-age story. Having been established as one a pivotal hero of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in Avengers: Endgame (Russo and Russo, 2019), the third film sought to further explore the Quantum Realm and the complexities of time travel through the inclusion of Kang the Conqueror. Returning director Peyton Reed was excited to pit Ant-Man against such a villain as part of his wish to produce a pivotal entry in the MCU rather than a simple palette cleanser, and Majors was equally excited about exploring the multiple facets and iterations of Kang in this film and beyond after previously portraying an alternative version of the character in Loki (Various, 2021 to present). Following numerous delays, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania finally released to a nearly $450 million worldwide box office and mixed reviews; critics expressed disappointment with the pacing and content of the film, though Jonathan Majors’ performance was met with unanimous praise and that there were some visually impressive sequences to be found amidst the jumbled plot.

The Review:
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Ant-Man; I’ve never been the biggest fan of the character, especially as his characterisation and relationships can be a bit dated, hokey, and inconsistent, but framing it as a superhero heist film and focusing on Scott Lang as this flawed, but loveable, reluctant hero, a dad just trying to make amends, was a really refreshing idea and helped contrast the MCU’s cosmic scope with a nice grounded adventure. I remember not really being too impressed by Ant-Man and the Wasp; I really should revisit it sometime, especially as it laid a lot of the foundation not just for a major plot point in Avengers: Endgame but also for this film, which takes Ant-Man so far away from a quirky, sci-fi action comedy and into the absolutely batshit realm of other dimensions and timelines. Scott is a great character to thrust into these situations; despite all of the abilities the Pym Particles give him, he’s still just a regular guy, someone who reacts realistically to the crazy events happening around him, so he makes for a charismatic and relatable character to help focus these mind-bending concepts through.

While there’s surprisingly little for Hope to do, Scott and Cassie’s relationship is a focal point of the film.

This is immediately emphasised in the opening scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania; Scott is now a recognised and celebrated personality who remains awestruck at the fantastical things he’s seen in his adventures. However, as much as he enjoys the limelight, the abilities afforded to him by the Pym Particles, and the experiences he’s had alongside his fellow Avengers, Scott is now content to focus on promoting his inspirational memoirs and making up for lost time with his family. Hope van Dyne/The Wasp (Lilly) has now taken control of her father’s company, renaming and restructuring it in her image and to help displaced families following the Blip. She and Scott are seen to have a loving relationship and are no longer at odds with each other like in the previous film, but the two spend a surprising amount of time apart considering both of their names are in the title of the movie, so Quantumania is less a story about these two pint-sized heroes/lovers saving the Quantum Realm and more focused on developing the relationship between Scott and his daughter, Cassie. Cassie is now a somewhat rebellious teenager; she’s getting arresting and causing Scott headaches because she wants to follow in his example, “look out for the little guy”, and help others, and is disappointed in him giving up his superhero duties when there are still people that need help. Her arc throughout the film is both learning the value of patience and how to control her own shrinking/growing abilities, and understanding that the life she is so enamoured by is dangerous. While Scott is proud of her moral compass, her ingenuity, and her moxie, he also wants to protect her first and foremost; thankfully, while this is a point of contention between the two, the film doesn’t portray her as a cliché sulky teenager who acts without thinking or unreasonably lashes out at her father and they still have an adorable bond, she just wants his respect.

Janet’s stubbornness and fear cost the characters valuable time.

As part of this, Cassie has secretly been spending her time working with Hank (Douglas) to research and map the mysterious Quantum Realm. Despite Hope’s repeated efforts to find out more about the time her mother spent trapped there, Janet (Pfeiffer) remains stubbornly tight-lipped and this was a real issue for me in the early going of the film. Because Janet refused to talk about the Quantum Realm, the characters had no idea of the dangers that lurked there; her warnings came too late to prevent them all being sucked down there and, once they are stranded in the Quantum Realm, she continues to refuse to tell them anything for no real reason at all when that knowledge really would have helped them be better prepared once the source of her fears, Kang, inevitably showed up. Instead, Janet leads Hank and Hope on a merry tour of the Quantum Realm, now expanded into a strange alien environment full of colourful beings and bizarre creatures, most of whom, like the enigmatic Lord Krylar (Bill Murray), know Janet from her time as a freedom fighter. Hank, who has spent his entire life researching the Quantum Realm, is understandably fascinated by the ecosystem and society that dwells there, and equally stunned to get a glimpse of his wife’s tumultuous life amongst these beings. Both characters receive more screen time this time around and are certainly more of a focal point to the plot than Hope, and Hank’s demeanour is now noticeably far more relaxed; he’s lost a lot of his edge and is now portrayed as a quirky scientist with an unhealthy obsession with ants, whereas Janet is shown to be unreasonably cagey and to have fought against the all-powerful Kang during her time trapped in the Quantum Realm

With his nuance performance and incredible power, Kang was the undeniable highlight of the movie.

Although we get a glimpse of his arrival in the Quantum Realm in the film’s opening moments, Kang is a mystery throughout most of the film; he’s talked about with a mixture of awe and fear by the colourful freedom fighters Scott and Cassie hook up with and Janet is so terrified of him that she goes out of her way to keep her family in the dark just to try and avoid catching his attention. This is a shame as, once Kang arrives onscreen, he is unquestionably the most interesting and charismatic character, eclipsing even Scott with his nuanced performance. A cold, calculating, driven individual, Kang is a man from beyond time who was betrayed by his own alternate selves (or “variants”) and banished to the Quantum Realm because of his destructive nature. I know a little bit about Kang from the comics but am by no means a Kang expert, and Quantumania decides to keep his exact backstory and motivations a bit vague, presumably to explain them in further productions. It’s not really explained how or why he has the powers he exhibits or what his limits are; at first, he’s weak and helpless and needs Janet’s help to repair his ship, then he regains his fantastically comic accurate suit and shows an ability to stop characters in their tracks with a thought and swat his pint-sized adversaries out of the air. Yet, though he appears unstoppable and has built an empire comprised of (literal) faceless stormtroopers and advanced technology, Kang can still get down and dirty in a fist fight. Yet, for all his imposing menace and the captivating allure of his unhinged psyche, Kang is very much a desperate man; he’s clearly been broken by some unknown tragedy and is fuelled not just be a need to conquer and avenge himself, but a desperate desire to bring a twisted order to the multiverse, regardless of who he has to torture, enslave, or kill along the way. He’s not just some maniacal villain, though; he seems to genuinely value Janet’s friendship and is driven to violence only as a means to facilitate his escape and seems to regard himself as a necessary evil n the face of some unknown future threat.

The Nitty-Gritty:
There are a few themes at work in Quantumania; you might think that it’s a movie about Scott and Hope as surrogate parents and the dynamic of the Pyms and van Dynes co-existing as this superhero family, but it’s sadly not. You might also think that it’s geared towards showcasing Cassie’s journey into her own superhero persona and, while that certainly is a development in the movie, the focus is more on Scott learning to accept that her daughter wants in the life (which he’s happy to do, he just worries about her) and her learning to walk before she runs (perfectly exampled when Scott has to teach her how to properly make use of the Pym Particles in a fight). The film does shed a bit more light on Janet, a largely mysterious character who clearly has been through some stuff and seen some things down in the Quantum Realm, but it, like her, is unnecessarily coy about the specifics and we’re left with only the briefest, vaguest mentions of her as an inspirational fighter in the war against Kang. Like the other Ant-Man movies, Quantumania leans heavily on the comedy; mostly, this is demonstrated through character’s being awestruck by their surroundings, struggling to adapt to the Quantum Realm’s bizarre society and characters, and riffing off each other. For the most part it works, though the absence of Scott’s more comedic supporting cast is felt in the movie and there’s one scene in particular where the dramatic tension is completely undercut by unnecessary forced comedy.

While the visuals generally impress, others are a bit cartoonish and disappointingly realised.

This would be the death of Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who’s revealed to have survived the ending of Ant-Man but been left a misshapen and embittered troll of a man; rebuilt by Kang’s technology into the ultimate cybernetic killing machine, he chases down Scott and his family with a vengeance as the MCU version of George Tarleton/ Mechanised Organism Designed Only for Killing (M.O.D.O.K.) M.O.D.O.K. is one of the most bizarre villains of Marvel Comics and one I never thought we’d ever see translated to screen, so it’s pretty amazing to see him flying about shooting lasers and missiles and sprouting buzzsaws, but then the face plate lifts up and we’re forced to look at this really unsettling, cheap-looking CGI face and listen to Darren spouting pithy declarations and the character loses a lot of his menace. It’s a shame but, for the most part, Quantumania looks really good; it’s naturally a very CGI-heavy film and as far removed from its more grounded predecessors as you could get and goes to great lengths to expand upon the Quantum realm, while also handwaving a lot of the specifics. Humanoid characters like Jentorra (Katy O’Brian) and telepath Quaz (William Jackson Harper) exist alongside anthropomorphic houses and surreal alien creatures like the protoplasmic Veb (David Dastmalchian) and a robot with a laser for a head! These characters, while visually interesting, aren’t very well developed, though; I barely caught most of their names and their single characteristic is wanting to oppose and dethrone Kang, but they do help to show how versatile the Quantum Realm is. Before, characters couldn’t survive in the Quantum realm without special suits or suffering severe time dilation; that is now no longer a problem as they’ve conveniently travelled to a part of the dimension where they don’t need their helmets to breath and suffer no consequences of lost time once they return. The world is colourful and alive, but also feels strangely restricted; I also can’t help but feel like exploring the Quantum realm should’ve been a sub-plot in Ant-Man and the Wasp and that maybe it would’ve been better if Quantumania had take place entirely in Kang’s city, Chronopolis, to avoid the slow start to this movie. Everything also just feels a bit too cartoonish and intangible, and it’s again far too obvious that many actors aren’t actually in the same shots in some scenes, which really took me out of it.

There’s an intriguing conflict and looming menace lurking amidst the bombardment of spotty CGI.

Yet, there are still some exciting and bonkers action scenes on offer here; any time M.O.D.O.K. shows up the screen I filled with explosions and frantic action, and seeing Scott, Hope, and Cassie come together in their small and giant forms for the finale was exhilarating, though it was difficult to appreciate Giant-Man’s scale from the framing. One really inventive scene in the film sees Scott shrink further down to reach the core of Kang’s ship; there, he splits into an infinite number of variants and they must work together to get him closer to the core, literally evoking the image of an ant colony working together. Cassie later has a cool coming-of-age moment where she inspires the people of the Quantum Realm to rise up against Kang, and even Hank gets to have a moment to shine by leading his army of technologically advanced ants into battle, though the same unfortunately can’t be said for Hope, who spends most of the film sporting a ridiculous haircut and being understandably annoyed at her mother’s stubbornness before swooping in to aid Ant-Man in reaching the core and in defeating Kang. After Scott retrieves his ship’s core, Kang sets about escaping his confinement using an elaborate set of spinning rings, which will bring him and his army out of the Quantum Realm and allow him to get back to conquering the multiverse. Giant-Man storms his citadel and, despite all of Kang’s vaulted and incomprehensible time powers, a fist fight breaks out between Scott and the conqueror that sees Ant-Man absolutely decimated. Scott frantically gets his family to safety and chooses to stay behind and sacrifice his freedom to prevent Kang’s escape, only for Hope to show up and help fend Kang off, presumably killing him or banishing him to a further sub-sub-atomic dimension. The film then teases that Scott and Hope will be trapped in the Quantum Realm but the Cassie just immediately saves them and everything’s fine…save for Kang’s troubling warning of an oncoming danger and an entire legion of his variants turning their attentions towards the MCU following Kang’s defeat. Personally, I think it would’ve made more sense for someone in the core cast to die or even have it be Hank and Janet who make the last-minute save and end up trapped in the Quantum Realm. That would’ve been quite fitting given Hank’s obsession with it and small things and Janet’s past there but, instead, things wrap up in a nice little bow despite Kang’s Variants still posing a threat.

The Summary:
I had high expectations for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania; knowing full well that Kang was set to be an Avengers-level threat in the future and having had some knowledge of the character, I expected this to be a little darker, a little more high stakes, and to have serious repercussions for the MCU going forward. Hell, there was the suggestion that Ant-Man might not live through the tale, let alone be victorious, and it seemed like this could be the shake-up the MCU needed to start seriously working towards their next big team-up movie. Instead, it was just lacking in a lot of ways; I get the idea of exploring and expanding upon the Quantum Realm, but it felt like it took way too much time and I just wasn’t that interested in what was happening there as it felt somewhat inconsequential. It tied in nicely to Cassie’s arc of wanting to help people no matter where or who they are, but a lot of the new characters were forgettable, despite being visually interesting. There was next to no onscreen chemistry or development for Scott and Hope; she could’ve been entirely absent and it wouldn’t have mattered all that much as Cassie could’ve easily done everything she did. Paul Rudd continues to shine as Ant-Man but he’s bogged down by all this CGI mess and protracted world-building, and the environment really didn’t give his unique powers a chance to stand out. The sole saving grace was Kang; Jonathan Majors did an excellent job of portraying a nuanced villain, one who is filled with regret for the evils he must do, and he stole every scene he was in. sadly, though, we really don’t learn anything about him; I have no idea where he’s from or why he’s compelled to be the way he is, meaning a lot of the connection I felt to him came from inference, which is fine but I would’ve liked to see some of the early runtime focused more on him so we get a better sense of his motivations. I think Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will land better on repeat viewings, especially once Kang returns to the MCU in future productions but, for now, it was a bit of a let-down for me and definitely a case of style over substance.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Did you enjoy Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania? How did you think it compared to the other Ant-Man films? What did you think to the exploration and expansion of the Quantum Realm? Did you enjoy seeing Cassie develop into her own heroic role and the relationship between her and Scott? Were you disappointed by M.O.D.O.K.’s portrayal and the effects used to bring him to life? What did you think to Kang and his motivations, and are you excited to see him return in the MCU? Whatever you think about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, drop your thoughts below and be sure to check out my other Ant-Man content.

Game Corner [Zelda Day]: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD (Nintendo Switch)

Dr. K3 Comments

On 21 February 1986, The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo EAD, 1986) was first released in Japan. The creation of legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, The Legend of Zelda launched one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises, with its silent protagonist, Link, and his vast fantasy world of sword and sorcery not only enduring over time but constantly evolving and improving as the series progressed.

Released: 16 July 2021
Originally Released: 18 November 2018
Developer: Tantalus Media
Original Developer: Nintendo EAD
Also Available For: Nintendo Wii

The Background:
I’d like to think that even Nintendo couldn’t have predicted just how impactful the Legend of Zelda series’ (Nintendo EAD/Various, 1986) first foray into 3D was going to be; their attempts to follow up on the unprecedented success of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo EAD, 1998) resulted in one of the franchise’s darkest and most underappreciated entries, and Nintendo were keen to appeal to a wider audience with Ocarina of Time’s spiritual successor, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (ibid, 2006), which proved to be an the incredible success for Nintendo’s fledgling GameCube. Having turned the videogame industry on its head with the Nintendo Wii, producer Eiji Aonuma aimed to build upon the expansive nature of Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess to present the biggest and most detailed Zelda gameworld to date by offering something new through the Wii’s unique motion controls, more elaborate sword combat, a greater focus on exploration, and providing an origin story for the Master Sword. Since I struggle a bit with the Wii’s ridiculous motion controls, I missed out on Skyward Sword when it first released, but it was a massive critical success; considering how widely praised the game was, it was perhaps inevitable that Nintendo would produce a high definition remake for the Nintendo Switch as part of the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series. The long-rumoured upgrade of the lauded title was developed by Tantalus Media and the gameplay mechanics were redesigned so players could use either the Joy-Cons or a more traditional control scheme, alongside numerous other quality of life improvements to the graphics, frame rate, and save feature. Preorders for Skyward Sword HD sold out on Amazon, and the game sold over 3.6 million units worldwide; however, while it was met with largely positive reviews, it did score less than the original version. Still, reviews praised the more focused gameplay mechanics compared to other, larger Zelda games, and its technical achievements, though faced some criticism for the dated motion controls.

The Plot:
Positioned as the first adventure in the Legend of Zelda timeline, Skyward Sword details the origins of the powerful Master Sword as Link, resident of the floating island of Skyloft, embarks on a quest to rescue Zelda, his childhood friend, after she is kidnapped and taken to the Surface, an abandoned land below the clouds, by the malevolent Ghirahim as part of a plot to awaken an ages-old darkness upon the world.

Gameplay:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is a partially open world action/adventure in which players once again assume the role of an incarnation of Link, here a knight-in-training on an island above the clouds. Right away, players have two control options available to them that allows them to utilise motion controls much like the original Nintendo Wii release or to use a more traditional control scheme; however, while this latter option is more comfortable for me, it’s very different from how a Zelda game traditionally plays. A is now an action button that allows you to open doors and chests, talk to non-playable characters (NPCs), and pick up items; B is used to put your weapons away or can be help down while running or otherwise moving for a burst of speed (though you can’t hold it down indefinitely or you’ll drain your stamina wheel and be left defenceless as Link tries to catch his breath), X is mainly used to charge ahead when on your Loftwing, and Y isn’t really used at all. Consequently, sword combat is mapped to the right analogue stick; you can hold ZL to target enemies or interactable objects and flick the stick to unleash a sword attack (perhaps because of this, Link is now right-handed, as opposed to the traditional left). This actually took me a bit of time to adapt to as Link seems to swing his sword in the opposite direction you flick (swinging left with you flick to the right, for example), which can make activating certain switches and attacking some enemies tricky as you need to swing where there’s an opening.

Use motion controls, or the analogue stick, to attack and deflect and consult Fi for advice.

If you knock an enemy down, they’ll sometimes be left open for a “Fatal Blow” that allows you to leap at them for an instant kill, and Link and both perform is signature spin attack, jump swing, and also stab at enemies with his sword. Eventually, you’ll also learn the “Skyward Strike” which sees Link hold his sword aloft to charge it and then sending out an energy wave to damage enemies from a distance, which is a handy feature. Link can also defend himself with his shield by holding ZL and perform a shield bash, which doubles as a parry, by pressing in the left analogue stick. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the game’s shields can be burnt or broken, meaning you’ll either need to upgrade them to toughen them up, buy now ones, or complete a side quest to get a more durable shield. Like many 3D Zelda games, Link automatically jumps from ledges; he can also hang down, shimmy along, and climb vines, all of which will drain your stamina meter. Link can also swing from ropes to reach new areas, which can be a bit tricky to perform as you need to aim yourself with the left stick and flick the right stick up and down in just the right motion to get the momentum you need. Chatting with some NPCs will also offer you a few dialogue options, which don’t really factor into the plot or change their perception of you, but they do help to give Link a little bit more characterisation this time around. Once Link acquires the Master Sword, he also gains one of the most annoying travelling companions I’ve ever had the misfortune of being lumbered with as Fi, the spirit of the sword, acts as a guide, navigator, and tutorial to the player very much in the same way as Navi did back in the day. You can call upon Fi at anytime using the directional pad (D-pad) to gain insight into targeted enemies, remind yourself of your current objective, or get some advice, but she also pops up uninvited at various points to hold your hand or point out the obvious. She also helps you to search for objectives, treasure, and other items by using the sword’s “Dowsing” ability, which puts you into a first-person mode and guides you towards your set target.

Link can sour through the clouds, burrow underground, and must brave trials without the aid of his gear.

You can bring up the map using the – menu and set markers to also help guide you in the right direction, which is very useful as it can be easy to get turned around a bit. One thing to keep in mind here is that there are no manual saves; you need to find a Bird Statue to manually save your progress to one of three save files, though there is an autosave feature that effectively adds as a checkpoint system. Similar to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo EAD, 2002), the game’s overworld is a series of islands and set areas connected by a large void, in this case the open sky; Link can fly to new destinations using his Loftwing, which replaces the traditional horse, by tapping A to ascend and B to slow down or charge into enemies using X. You’ll be utilising the Loftwing a lot to travel back and forth between the three main areas of the game, as well as Skyloft and the smaller items as the story demands, but you can five down to any Bird Statue in any area and exit dungeons (or teleport to the Sky) from these same statues, though you can’t fast travel between destinations using this system. Though Link takes fall damage, you’ll soon acquire a Sailcloth that lets you glide to the ground from high falls by holding ZR (though you can’t actually manoeuvre him while he’s descending). This also allows you to ride air currents upwards and you’ll eventually gain the ability to swim and even twirl through and jump out of the water very much like Zora Link in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (ibid, 2000). Link also later acquires the Digging Mitts, which allow him to burrow underground and crawl through narrow caves, smashing boulders and activating switches to progress further, and also gets his hands on the Goddess’s Harp that lets him open up new areas by strumming the stings with well-timed movements of the right stick, which is a far cry from the ocarina playing or wind conducting from previous games. Link will also have to complete four trials in the “Silent Realm”; here, he loses all of his equipment and items and must race around collecting fifteen Sacred Tears across the map while avoiding the ghost-like Watchers and making sure you don’t touch the Waking Water or your Spirit Vessel doesn’t deplete as this will awakens the Guardians, who will hunt you down and eject you from the dimension upon impact, forcing you to begin all over again.

You’ll constantly be travelling back and forth between three areas in search of key items.

Although Skyward Sword looks like the biggest Zelda experience ever seen at the time, it really doesn’t actually feel that way; I’d argue that Twilight Princess felt much bigger and more connected thanks to actually having a large overworld with different routes and areas all linked together. In Skyward Sword, you’ll be spending most of your time travelling back and forth between the three main regions on the Surface (Faron Woods, Eldin Volcano, and the Lanayru Desert), Skyloft, and the Thundercloud up in the Sky. Each area is an isolated environment; you won’t find any routes or means to travelling from Faron Woods to Eldin Volcano beyond flying there on your Loftwing, but each of those regions does have a few other areas that you’ll explore as the game progresses. The Lanayru Desert, for example, is home to a treacherous desert, the Temple of Time, and a mine, all of which you’ll need to explore at various points. The main quest of the game asks Link to travel to each area thee times and acquire one of three different key items or meet three different objectives each time. At first, you’ll need to find three stone fragments form each region to access the Thundercloud; then, you need to find three Sacred Flames to power up the Master Sword. Then, you need to travel back again and find three pieces of the Song of the Hero and access the game’s final dungeon, all of which can get a bit repetitive even though the enemies and the environments do change which each revisit. Faron Woods becomes flooded, for example, and Eldin Volcano erupts, and you’ll find new regions opening up with your new gear and completing story-based tasks, such as Lake Floria just off Faron Woods, the ghostly Sandship and Rickety Coaster in Lanayru Desert’s Sand Sea (both of which are accessed by piloting a boat armed with a cannon), and at one point you’ll find yourself relieved of your weapons and gear and having to escape (and retrieve them) from Eldin Volcano without being spotting in an expansion of the Gerudo Fortress section of Ocarina of Time.

There are many puzzles here, from hitting switches, to crossing lava, and rearranging the environment.

Naturally, you’ll visit a number of dungeons in your quest, which (as is tradition) are realised as elemental-themed temples. Inside, you’ll find small keys to opens doors and a Dungeon Map (which now reveals Bird Statues, chests, and points of interest by default to replace the Compass) to help you progress, and you’ll need to clear rooms of enemies, activate switches and pressure pads, and take on sub-bosses to acquire the temple’s new weapon, which will allow you to progress further and tackle the boss. Sometimes you’ll need to move a weighted block onto a switch or out of the way to climb a ladder; other times, you’ll need to hit switches to raise or lower water and lava, cut through cobwebs, send eyeballs spinning, and shoot or hit faraway switches to open doors. Link will also need to hit plant bulbs (or carry them on the tip of his sword) to create temporary platforms in lava, grapple to floating plants or specific targets with the Clawshots, toss or guide bombs into baskets to create platforms over quicksand, and sever ropes to lower drawbridges. In Lanayru Desert, the majority of the puzzles are based around the “Timeshift Stones” which, when struck, will turn part of the immediate area from a desolate desert into a vibrant landscape, causing enemies, switches, equipment, and even land formations to form so you can progress. Many puzzles require you to carry a Timeshift Stone around or placing it in a specific area to lower one barrier while activating another, which is quite a unique and creative mechanic that really makes you think about how to tackle puzzles. All of these puzzle gimmicks and mechanics are revisited in the game’s final area, Sky Keep, which also features a unique and annoying gimmick that sees you rearranging the different rooms of the temple to open up new paths and acquire the three pieces of the Triforce.

Graphics and Sound:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword certainly looks impressive; this HD version of the game has potentially upscaled the graphics to make everything very vibrant and moody, when necessary, and the game employs an aesthetic style that merges the fantastical realism of Twilight Princess with the cartoony presentation of The Wind Waker. In addition to having dialogue options during some conversations, Link continues to showcase a variety of facial expressions to help flesh out his otherwise silent character, and you’ll be hearing a lot of gibberish (mainly from Fi) when talking to others. Otherwise, there is no voice acting here, as is to be expected from a Zelda title; some dialogue can be sped up by pressing B and you can skip some cutscenes entirely by pressing the – button, but it can mean you’re left a bit clueless afterwards. Although each region is populated by unique NPCs, many of which are new to the series (such as the Ancient Robots but, while Parellas replace Zoras, Gorons are still present in the game), you’ll find the vast majority in Skyloft. Here, you can chat to Headmaster Gaepora, buy, sell, and upgrade items in the market, and will come across Link’s obnoxious rival, Groose, whose pratfalls and antagonism eventually turns into heroism as he helps aid Link’s quest to rescue Zelda.

Areas have a lot of see and do, and even change as the story progresses.

The game also features an appropriately operatic score that includes new renditions of the iconic Legend of Zelda main theme and versions of memorable tunes such as “Zelda’s Lullaby”; when you engage with enemies, successive strikes also speeds up the tempo of the battle music to help keep the adrenaline pumping and each area is nicely punctuated by both ambiant sounds and a fitting soundtrack. Skyloft is an impressive starting area and a pretty large central hub; you’ll find rooms to sleep in to pass the time and replenish your health, the market, a graveyard, and a practice hall to work on your sword techniques. While the Sky is basically just a barren void, there are small islands and rocks floating around that you can visit to find chests, mini games, and a prominent side quest centred around the Lumpy Pumpkin establishment. Shafts of red, yellow, green, and blue light will point you towards the three main regions and wherever you’ve placed a marker, and you’ll need to dodge Octoroks spitting rocks at you and tornados that will blow you off your Loftwing. The inside of the Thundercloud is initially best by storms and lightning and home to both one of the more annoying push puzzles in the game and the decidedly Wind Fish-like Levias, a gigantic whale that flies through the sky and clears the air after you free him from the parasite that has infected him. Although it’s possible to advance and alter the time of day by sleeping in beds, this rarely factors into the main plot, but it does turn Skyloft from a safe, vibrant location to a dangerous area as enemies spawn in under the cover of darkness. Similarly, when taking on the four Trial Gates, the immediate area takes on a darker, more ethereal quality as shadows become more prominent and glowing magical barriers bar your progress.

Areas are quite large and varied, but not as connected as in other Zelda videogames.

The game’s three main regions are based around classic Zelda tropes such as the forest, volcano, and desert, while also incorporating themes like water, wind, and time into their later areas. You can create shortcuts in each but pushing logs and mine carts, blowing up rocks, or grabbing levers to open gates (and also using your new weapons), but the areas will fundamentally change as the story progresses. Faron Woods start off as a kind of confusing wooded area that leads onto a cliffside leading to the Skyview Temple, a water and bug-infested cave or sorts, is home to a great tree, and also leads to a flowing river that takes you to Lake Florina (which later floods the woods) and the Ancient Cistern, a kind of steampunk-like Temple whose golden Oriental aesthetic hides a scary underground area. Eldin Volcano is full of lava and steep hills for you to run up while avoiding boulders tossed by enemies; enemies also wait atop wooden columns that you can knock over with bombs, and you’ll run around on a spherical rock, lobbing bombs are walls and trying to not burn your ass in the Earth Temple. Later, the whole area is covered in ash as the volcano erupts and you need to sneak around and recover your gear, avoiding spotlights, and douse face statues with water to gain access to the Fire Sanctuary, where you’ll be digging through the dirt with the Mogma Mitts. Lanayru Desert sees you racing across quicksand, using the map and markers to avoid sinking, activating three power generators to raise the Mining Facility, an area which springs to life with the Timeshift Stones to reveal conveyer belts, wind-powered platforms, and all manner of mechanical obstacles. You’ll also use one of these Timeshift Stones to safely cross the Sand Sea and ride the Rickety Coaster’s insane mine cart, and awaken the long-dead dragon that resides in the Lanayru Gorge.

Enemies and Bosses:
Longtime fans of the franchise will recognise many of the enemies that crop up in Skyward Sword, most of which are tailored to the game’s new combat system; Deku Babas and Bokoblins, for example, need specific horizontal or vertical swipes of your sword to dispatch, and this is carried through to tougher enemies like the Lizalfos and Stalfos. While you can easily mow down the bat-like Keese and Chuchus with reckless abandon, you’ll have to factor in elemental variants that will electrocute or burn you, you generally can’t just swipe away at enemies; you’ll need to either cut down Beamos columns and stab them in the “eye” or shoot an arrow at them from afar to destroy them, reflect back Sentrobe missiles with well-timed swings of your sword, run up and over Moblin shields to attack them from behind, drag Furnix to the ground with your Whip, blow the spinning magnets atop the Armos’ heads with the Gust Bellows to expose their weak spot, and toss water on Magmanos to turn it to stone and chip away with your sword. Enemies become tougher and more prevalent as the game progresses, causing less dangerous areas to become more hazardous as shield-carrying Moblins wander about and archer Bokoblins take shots at you from above; these latter can also call in reinforcements with horns, carry bombs, and even take on a zombie-like appearance to cause even more bother.

While you’ll fight some of the sub-bosses ore than once, nothing’s more persistent than the Imprisoned.

Naturally, each of the game’s Temples is home to a sub-boss as well as the main boss. These are often newer, tougher enemies that soon become part of the regular ensemble you encounter, such as the Lizalfos, Moblins, and Moldorms. Lizalfos can be tricky to defeat as they swipe at you with their tails, guard against your attacks with their armoured arms, and breath fire, but you can parry their attacks to leave them open to your attacks, which is a system that serves you well for other sub-bosses like the Stalfos and its four-armed cousin, the Stalmaster. You can use a similar tactic against the two skeletal pirates, LD-0016 Scervo and LD-003D Dreadfuse, who swipe at you with a sword and hook hand and try to force you back into a spiked wall as you try to sever their limbs and force them off a narrow walkway. Easily the most recurring (and frustrating) sub-boss is “The Imprisoned”, a gigantic beast who you must defeat three times, with each battle getting harder and adding new wrinkles. The Imprisoned can only be hurt by attacking its toes; slice off all eight and you then have to frantically run around it to attack the sealing spike in its head, but it causes shockwaves with each step, crawls around in an invulnerable state, tries to climb upwards, and even flies in later encounters. Groose is on hand to help you in the latter two battles; you can switch to him to catapult bombs at the creature to stun it, and will need to perfectly fire Link at the creature’s head to finish it off for good before it can reach the Sealed Temple, which will cause a game over and force you to begin the fight all over again.

You’ll fight Ghirahim three times, with the final battle somehow easier than the first.

Another boss you’ll encounter numerous times throughout the main story is the game’s primary antagonist, Ghirahim the Demon Lord, who serves as the boss of the Skyview Temple, Fire Sanctuary, and the penultimate boss of the game. Ghirahim is perhaps one of the most frustrating boss characters I’ve ever fought as all of your weapons and tactics are useless and must be set aside for patience and well-timed strikes; Ghirahim can easily block, avoid, parry, and even steal your sword while tossing hard-to-avoid daggers at you, charging in for big damage, and teleporting all over the place. However, you’ll notice that he mirrors the position of your sword; so, if his hand is on the left, lure him in and strike from any direction other than left. When he teleports, roll or dash away and hell get stuck in the ground, leaving him open for a flurry, and you can utilise the same tactics as with Stalfos and the Stalmaster and strike at him wherever his swords aren’t positioned when he brings out his own blade. You can also interrupt his charging attack with a well-timed strike, but these can be pretty tough battles though, ironically, I actually found the final encounter with him to be the easiest of the three (potentially because I had actually figured out how to fight him by this point). This is a three-stage encounter against Ghirahim’s true form that you must wade through a hoard of enemies to even get to; you start off on a magical platform and must perform shield parries to expose the glowing jewel in his chest that can only be damaged with stabs. Hit a few to knock him down to the next platform and perform a Fatal Blow to deal damage and trigger the next phase, which sees him busting out his daggers, and his final phase where he shields himself with a gigantic sword. However, you can chop away at this with repeated swipes of the Master Sword to leave him defenceless and finally put him down for good soon after, which actually makes for a pretty exhilarating final battle against the so-called Demon Lord.

Bosses are large and quiet inventive, requiring interesting uses of your weapons to stun and defeat.

Outside of these fights with Ghirahim, you’ll also have to contend with some pretty inventive, if a bit aggravating, boss battles. The insectoid Scaldera awaits at the end of the Earth Temple and sees you rolling bombs into is rocky hide, and gaping mouth, while avoiding fireballs (and getting blown up yourself), to crack its outer shell and swipe at its exposed eye. Moldarch awaits in the Lanayru Mining Facility and Lanayru Shipyard; this giant scorpion clamps you in its pincers and swipes at you with its tail, but can be hurt by swiping at the eyes in its appendages. When it burrows under the sand, you’ll need to blow the sand away with the Gust Bellows to get it to emerge so you can stab it in the face. Koloktos guards the Ancient Cistern and is probably the first most visually interesting and mechanically engaging boss battle; you basically need to avoid the blades it tosses at you and dodge out of the way when it swings its swords at you, and then use your Whip to detach the arms and use one of the dropped swords to slash at its legs and main body. Eventually, it starts to attack more aggressively, meaning you’ll need to use the nearby columns for cover, and you’ll need to slash at its repeatedly with its own weapon to cut it down to size and finish it off. The Cthulu-like Tentalus attacks the Sandship, smashing its squid-like tentacles through the hull, flooding, and capsizing the boat and leading to a dramatic confrontation in the storm swept deck of the ship. You’ll need to run about avoiding the tentacles as they burst through the deck, or slice them in half with a Skyward Strike, then avoid being swatted by them to shoot an arrow into the beast’s eye to down it and slash at it with your sword. When Tentalus switches to the upper deck, it lashes at you with its Medusa-like hair, which you must wade through with sword slashes to get the final blow on the massive sea creature. After enticing out Levias with a massive cauldron of Pumpkin Soup, Link must chase after the gigantic whale on his Loftwing, charging into the eye-ball tentacles that sprout from its hide, before landing on its back and battling Bilocyte. This is easily the easiest boss battle in the entire game and simple requires you to reflect Bilocyte’s projectiles with swipes of your sword, then attack its head when it gets stunned.

Demise, a precursor to Ganon, challenges you to a relatively simple sword fight in the finale.

After defeating all of the game’s bosses, travelling back and forth, and collecting everything the plot requires you to get, Ghirahim kidnaps Zelda and flees through the Fate of Time to the past, where he sets a whole hoard of enemies against you that you must wade through before battling the Demon Lord for the last time. Even if you’re victorious though, the Imprisoned rises one last time and begins absorbing Zelda’s essence, allowing the demonic Demise to be reborn. After dispatching Ghirahim and reverting him to his natural form of a sword, the malevolent demon transports away to another dimension to await your final challenge. I recommend preparing yourself for this final battle, and saving your game, before following Demise and engaging with him in a one-on-one sword battle with two phase; first, you need to keep your guard up and parry Demise’s attacks to leave him momentarily vulnerable to a sword swipe. Demise will occasionally charge at you, but also keeps you on your toes with fake-out attacks, but the main issue you’ll have here is timing your parries properly and not letting your shield break. In the second phase, lightning strikes all around, charging both Demise’s sword and yours; holding the Master Sword aloft will let you charge it for a Skyward Strike, which will both counteract Demise’s own energy beam and stun him long enough for you to strike. Ultimately, it’s not a particularly difficult battle, but the atmosphere and music definitely help to make it quite engaging, it’s just a shame that it involves so much waiting and strategy. While there is no boss battle in the Sky Keep (beyond rematches with some of the sub-bosses), you can unlock a boss rush, of sorts, after resurrecting and restoring Lanayru the dragon. Lanayru allows you to battle every boss in the game (aside from Levias and Bilocyte) in succession, with only the items he held when he first fought them, or playthrough the Silent Realm challenges again in order to earn rewards such as Rupees, treasures, a Heart Piece, or the indestructible Hylian Shield.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As you embark on your epic quest, a wide variety of recognisable pick-ups and power-ups are at your disposal; slashing bushes, pots, rolling into trees, and defeating enemies will yield hearts to refill your health and Rupees, which can be spent buying new gear, potions, and upgrades for your gear. You’ll also find Stamina Fruit scattered all over the place, which will refill your stamina meter, and Goddess Cubes, which can be dispelled with a Skyward Strike and allow you to open special chests all over the place and gain more Rupees or treasures. I recommend scooping a fairy up in your bottle so you can restore six hearts upon defeat and you can buy potions for your empty bottles, which will replenish your health or stamina meter, but you can’t permanently upgrade the stamina meter, acquire new tunics, or learn any magic. Defeating bosses will yield a Heart Container, and you’ll occasionally find Heart Pieces all over the place, four of which will also increase your maximum health by one heart.

In addition to additional weapons and gear, you can also purchase upgrades for your items.

Each of the games dungeons includes a new weapon for you to add to your inventory: the Beetle allows you to pilot a little mechanical beetle to hit switches, defeat or stun enemies, and drop bombs; the Clawshots let you grapple to vines and specific targets (and even disarm enemies); the Whip lets you pull switches and swing from certain hooks; you can roll or toss bombs to blow upon certain rocks; the Digging and Mogma Mitts let you dig up collectibles or burrow underground; the Slingshot and Bow let you shoot at enemies and targets from a distance; and the Gust Bellows disorientates enemies and lets you move platforms or blow away sand. You can also buy new gear from the market, such as extra bomb bags and quivers to increase your maximum capacity, shields to defend yourself, and a Bug Net to capture bugs that can be sold in Skyloft. As you explore, you’ll find a variety of treasures that can be used to upgrade your gear in Skyloft to increase their damage or range. Furthermore, key items like the Water Dragon Scale and Fireshield Earrings allow you to swim and withstand extreme heat and you can also purchase expensive extras from Beedle to increase your adventure pouch, expand your wallet, and spawn additional health among other things.

Additional Features:
There are sixteen different treasures and twelve bugs to find throughout Skyward Sword, in addition to twenty-seven Goddess Cubes to activate, thus awarding yourself additional Rupees and gear. There are also twenty-four Heart Pieces to find, which will extend your maximum health to twenty hearts, and a number of side quests available to keep you busy. The owner of the Lumpy Pumpkin will have you ferrying hot soup, collecting pumpkins, and playing the harp with his daughter (both extremely tricky mini games) in order to make up for damaging his property, the Thrill Digger has you digging in specific spots for Rupees, and you can dive for Rupees after fixing up Fun Fun Island. You can also rapidly slice bamboo sticks with your upgraded sword and shoot arrows at pumpkins for additional awards, but the most prominent side quest is the pursuit of “Gratitude Crystals”. After finding a lost girl in Skyloft, the cursed   Batreaux asks you to help others to earn these crystals and bring them to him to receive big Rupee rewards, a Heart Piece, the biggest wallet available, and also restore him (as in Batreaux) to human. These crystals are earned from helping NPCs in various ways, such as bringing a scrap of paper to a mysterious man in a toilet, bringing medicine for a wounded Loftwing, and repairing the fortune teller’s crystal ball. After completing the game for the first time, you can create a new save file that allows you to play through in “Hero Mode” where the enemies are tougher and shuffled about and neither enemies or pots will drop hearts, making the game much more challenging (although the Skyward Strike does instantly charge).

The Summary:
After struggling to get to grips with, and properly enjoy, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo EPD, 2017), I was somewhat excited to finally get the chance to play Skyward Sword, a title I had long avoided as I have no desire to play any game, much less a Zelda game, using purely motion controls. Although it took me a little while to adjust to the analogue-based combat and camera controls, both of which are a little clunky due to the control mapping, I found a lot to enjoy in this game. The focus on using specific sword swipes to defeat enemies and bosses made this a very unique Zelda experience, but did make the combat a bit awkward at times, especially with the reversed controls. The visual presentation was very good, but I do feel like many of the areas are much too empty and restricted; since the game’s set in a world of disparate islands above the clouds and a surface accessible only from specific points, it didn’t really feel like a large, interconnected world and reminded me a little too much of the wide, largely empty ocean from The Wind Waker. Flying on the Loftwing was fun, and the boss battles were very engaging and inventive; even the battles against Ghirahim, despite being frustrating at times, were interesting as it required more than just slashing at them mindlessly but the game really lets itself down with the constant back and forth. I feel like it might’ve been better to have areas like Lake Floria as separate as the other regions, just so that the world felt a little bigger and had a bit more variety, but continuously having to revisit the three main regions again and again find something else in each area quickly became repetitive and disappointing, even when the areas visually changed. The lack of tunics and customisation options for Link was a shame, though I felt the game had a better balance between the stamina meter and destructible items compared to Breath of the Wild, which went way overboard in those aspects. Ultimately, there’s a lot to like here and it’s a perfectly enjoyable Zelda title, but, despite being visually superior, I think I still prefer Twilight Princess as it did a much better job of crafting a large, interconnected fantasy world with a lot of variety and a better mixture of new and old gameplay elements.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Have you played this HD version of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword? How do you feel it compares to the original Wii release and were would you rank it amongst all the other Zelda titles? Were you a fan of the motion controls and the switch to a vast world above the clouds? Which of the dungeons and bosses was your most, or least, favourite? What did you think to the constant back and forth between the same areas? Which of the Silent Realm trials was the hardest for you? Were you able to find all of the bugs and treasures? Which Zelda game is your favourite and how are you celebrating the franchise today? Whatever your thoughts on Skyward Sword, sign up to leave a comment below, or let me know on my social media.

Game Corner [PokéMonth]: Pokémon: Crystal Version (Nintendo 3DS)

Dr. K7 Comments

Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version (Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. An entire generation grew up either playing Pokémon, watching the anime, playing the trading card game, and watching the feature-length movies as clever marketing and a co-ordinated release and multimedia strategy saw Nintendo’s newest franchise become not just a successful videogame franchise but a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse that endures to this day. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I’m expanding to an entire month of Pokémon every Tuesday in February.

Released: 26 January 2018
Originally Released: 14 December 2000
Developer: Nintendo
Original Developer: Game Freak
Also Available For: GameBoy Color

The Background:
I’ve talked before not just about Pokémon but also about how Pokémon: Gold Version and Pokémon: Silver Version (Game Freak, 1999) are my favourite games in the franchise. Thanks to the success of not just the first Generation of Pokémon videogames but also an aggressive multimedia strategy, Pokémon became an instant cultural phenomenon across the world, and yet the developers originally intended for Pokémon: Gold and Silver to be the final entries in the series. The sequels immediately sought to improve upon the gameplay, graphics, and mechanics of the first games; developed exclusively for the GameBoy Color, the game would feature a greater colour palette, backwards compatibility with the previous games, a real-time internal clock, and one-hundred new Pokémon to collect and battle (in addition to two new Types, Dark and Steel). Although many of these Pokémon were dropped, or significantly redesigned, during the game’s development, Nintendo offered the otherwise-inaccessible Celebi as a promotional extra and Pokémon: Gold and Silver were highly anticipated by me, personally, thanks to the new Pokémon cropping up in the anime and movies.

Anticipation was high for all-new Pokémon videogames thanks to the anime and the franchise’s popularity.

This Generation stands out for me for including things like a day/night cycle, breeding, and including the entire region of Kanto as post-game content and, like Pokémon: Blue and Red, Pokémon: Gold and Silver were not only highly praised at the time but also soon followed by a third entry, Pokémon: Crystal. While essentially the same game, Pokémon: Crystal was a trend-setter for the franchise, allowing players to choose the gender of their avatar, including partially animated battle sprites, featuring a whole additional side-story revolving around Suicune and the Unown, and debuting the ever-popular Battle Tower for players to further test their mettle. Again, thanks to Pokémon’s popularity and including additional elements as an incentive for a further purchase, Pokémon: Crystal was well received upon release and has been noted as one of the best Pokémon games. Many elements from Pokémon: Crystal became series staples in subsequent releases, and featured prominently in the Gold and Silver remakes, and the game was later released on the 3DS Virtual Console with the Celebi event included as standard.

The Plot:
The time has come to receive your first Pokémon from Professor Elm and challenge the Gym Leaders and Pokémon of the Johto region. However, your journey is disrupted by your mysterious rival, who stole one of Professor Elm’s Pokémon, and the villainous Team Rocket, who seek to return the group to their former glory. Things are further complicated when you cross paths with Eusine, who has made it his life gal to earn the respect of the legendary beast Suicune.

Gameplay:
As I said, I regard the second generation of Pokémon games as my favourite in the franchise; I remember going out of my way to get Pokémon: Blue when it first came out, and then snapping up Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition (ibid, 1998) simply because of how popular the franchise was, and me and my friends were so eager for new Pokémon games that we readily downloaded barely-translated ROMs of Gold and Silver just to experience them. I had Pokémon: Silver back in the day, but always wanted Pokémon: Gold and never had the chance to play Pokémon: Crystal as I was firmly into collecting for the Game Boy Advance by then, so I jumped at the chance to get it before the 3DS Virtual Console shut down for good simply because of how much I enjoyed Pokémon: Silver and Pokémon: HeartGold (ibid, 2009). Essentially, Pokémon: Crystal is the same Pokémon you know and love: the game is a top-down role-playing game (RPG) in which players get to first pick their gender, name their avatar, select from three starter Pokémon, and embark on a journey to raise a well-balanced team, challenge the Johto Gym Leaders, and take on the Pokémon League. As was the style at the time, Pokémon: Crystal isn’t prone to holding your hand; you can talk to non-playable characters (NPCs) for clues, tips, lore, and some instructions but you’re mostly left to your own devices, though the game often bars your progress behind impassable objects like trees, bodies of water, or battling trainers that can only be bypassed by defeating Gym Leaders or acquiring Hidden Machines (HMs). As before, Pokémon: Crystal utilises an extremely simple control scheme that lets you organise your party, equip and use items, and save your progress or alter settings quickly and easily, and the user interface is vastly improved over the last games, with your pack now divided into pockets for key items PokéBalls, and healing items and even lets you set an item to the ‘Select’ button for quick use.

Pick your Pokémon and head out into Johto to tackle a whole new crop of Trainers and challenges.

As ever, gameplay is divided into exploring the overworld and one-on-one battles against wild or trainer-owned Pokémon. On the overworld, you’ll chat to NPCs with A, activate switches and pressure pads, and pick up items; if you walk into grass, caves, or surf on water, you’ll soon encounter a wild Pokémon, which switches the game to a battle screen where you and your opponent take turns to inflict damage or status effects on each other, or use in-battle items to heal or relieve status effects or try and capture the Pokémon. You can also run from wild Pokémon (as long as you’re a higher level), but not from a Trainer battle, and many wild Pokémon can also now flee from battle, which can make capturing them trickier. Pokémon battles are dictated by a “Type” system that’s basically a version of Rock/Paper/Scissors; Water-Type Pokémon inflict greater damage against Fire-Type Pokémon, for example, while Grass-Types trump Water and are weak to Fire. There are now seventeen different Types of Pokémon in the game, with Dark- and Steel-Types adding an extra dimension to battle as the previously all-powerful Psychic-Type Pokémon now have a formidable weakness in Dark-Type Pokémon and moves. While some moves, like Bite, have changed Type to align with this new system, it’s all pretty simple to figure out thanks to battle text informing you when moves are “Super effective” or “Not very effective” and external factors like your location, wild Pokémon names, and their colouring and appearance cluing you in on the best attack strategy. If you’re fishing in the sea, for example, and hook a Qwilfish (which is blue, clearly identified as a fish), it’s pretty obvious that you need to use a Grass- and Electric-Type to inflict maximum damage. At the beginning, you can pick between three different Pokémon, a Fire-, Grass-, or Water-Type, and I recommend keeping them in your party and five to ten levels higher than the rest of your team simply because they are your first Pokémon. You can choose to give this Pokémon, and any others you catch (but not ones you acquire via trading) a nickname to personalise them, and you’ll you can swap around your Pokémon’s moves at any time either in-battle or from the pause menu, or swap or release them from the PCs found in Pokémon Centers.

Level-up to become stronger, and make use of the game’s new evolution methods to discover new Pokémon.

To ease you into the game, early wild Pokémon and Pokémon Trainers are all at low-levels and you’re usually always at an advantage because your Pokémon have higher stats. Winning Pokémon battles will award your Pokémon with experience points (EXP); earn enough, and your Pokémon will level-up, which will increase their Hit Points (HP), Attack, Defence, Speed, and Special stats (now split into Special Attack and Special Defense) and thus make them more powerful. One of the best quality of life improvements in Pokémon: Crystal is the addition of an in-battle EXP progress bar so you can easily keep track of your Pokémon’s progress, and you can swap out Pokémon in battles to share EXP and level them up faster, which you’ll want to do as it’s helpful (though not necessarily necessary by any means) to have a diverse team with decent Type coverage. Don’t level-up too fast, though, as your Pokémon will disobey you if they’re too high a level and you don’t have the appropriate Gym Badge. I like to circumvent this by grinding between Gym battles; by keeping my main Pokémon five to ten levels stronger, but a few levels below the level cap, it can ensure that I’m always stronger enough for the next battle, though I did notice that I was spending more time grinding between Gyms than in my Pokémon: Yellow playthrough. Pokémon will learn new moves from levelling-up, or from Technical Machines (TMs), and it’s recommended to give your Pokémon moves that play to their strengths (if they have a high Attack stat, for example, you don’t really want to have moves that are all Special Attacks) and go against their Type (teaching Poison-Type moves to Grass-Type Pokémon, for example) so they have greater Type coverage in battle. In addition to the untrackable Effort Value (EV) points (earned by consecutively battling certain Pokémon, so defeating a bunch of Hoothoot in a row will boost your HP stat by one point), Pokémon: Crystal also introduces a hidden “Happiness” stat. the more you travel with, use, and care for your Pokémon, the happier it will become; you can boost this stat by grooming them and feeding them Vitamins (which also boost individual stats) or equipping them with certain items in order to max out their Happiness and trigger their evolution.

You can shrug off status effects with Berries, and new HMs offer more exploration options.

As before, battles and gameplay are as hard as you make them; if you don’t bother levelling-up a diverse team, then battles will eventually become harder to win. You can avoid a Trainer battle by staying out of the sight line of Trainers, but I recommend battling every Trainer you come up against to strengthen your team and earn PokéDollars, and some Trainers will even give you their phone number and call you with tips or for a rematch. Trainers are much more capable this time around; not only do they have all the same options as you when it comes to swapping and healing their Pokémon, but they also don’t have to worry about running out of Power Points (PP). Pokémon can still only know four moves at a time, so you’ll have to either replace an existing move to learn a new one or visit the Move Deleter to do this outside of levelling-up or to forget HM moves, and each move has a certain number of PP. When you’re all out, you can’t use that move anymore and will eventually either have to use “struggle” (which inflicts recoil damage to you), replenish PP with a Berry or Elixir, or restore your Pokémon at a Pokémon Center. If you’re not careful in battle, your Pokémon will end up “fainting” when their HP is drained and, if all your Pokémon faint, you’ll “white out”, lose some money, and respawn at the last Pokémon Center you visited. As before, you also need to be wary of status effects, which can cause Pokémon to flinch (basically miss a turn), become confused (often resulting in them hurting themselves), miss their attacks, fall sleep or become paralysed or poisoned (which also drains HP when on the overworld), burned, or frozen. While some attacks and items will also boost your stats and your chance at inflicting greater damage with a “Critical Hit”, Pokémon: Crystal features far more moves that power up and negate certain Types, like Sunny Day and Rain Dance buffing Fire- and Water-Types, respectively. You can undo these status effects using certain items, and can have your Pokémon hold Berries that they’ll automatically eat when inflicted with a status effect or at low HP or PP to help them shake off these debilitating effects.

New mechanics and quality of life improvements make the game much more fun to play.

Victory in Trainer battles earns you PokéDollars to spend in PokéMarts and at vending machines on healing items, hold items, Vitamins, single-use power-ups, and other useful gear to help you in battle or with raising your Pokémon. Items and Pokémon can be stored in PCs when required (you can still only have six Pokémon at a time, so any additional Pokémon are automatically transferred to your PC) but you can choose to have your mother save some money for you, which will award you with extra items and toys to furnish your bedroom with. Although you still only get one save file, you can manually save your progress at any time on the overworld and I recommend saving frequently, and especially before Gym Leader battles or encounters with Legendary Pokémon so you can reset if you make a mistake. Just like before, you need to defeat eight Gym Leaders to earn their badges and challenge the Pokémon League while also working on completing Professor Oak’s PokéDex by capturing Pokémon. The PokéDex has also received an upgrade, making searching for and viewing Pokémon much easier, but you’ll still only be able to fully complete it by trading with Gold, Silver, and even the Generation One games using the “Time Machine” function and by evolving Pokémon through battle, raising their Happiness, using special stones, or by trading (often now with them holding a special item). You can manually cancel some evolutions, and even have Pokémon hold an Everstone to suppress their evolution, which is sometimes recommended as Pokémon learn moves faster in their weaker forms and some moves can only be learned prior to evolution. Another new feature in this game is breeding; each Pokémon is either male, female, or gender neutral and you can leave two Pokémon at the Day Care to be raised outside of battle or, if they’re compatible, breed either a pre-evolution like Pichu and Igglybuff or a slightly stronger version of an existing Pokémon with moves they wouldn’t normally learn. When Pokémon breed, you’re given an egg; these eggs will hatch after you’ve taken a certain number of steps or cycled a certain distance, and breeding can be a great way or filling up the PokéDex quickly alongside regular battling, though you won’t be able to breed Legendary Pokémon and some take longer to produce an egg than others.

Of all the side quests, the one involving Suicune is the most prominent.

A Pokémon’s gender is clearly visible next to their name in battle, and a further quality of life feature is that you’ll see a little PokéBall next to a wild Pokémon’s name to indicate that you’ve caught it, and the game is littered with similar helpful additions mainly tied to your PokéGear. This device houses your map, phone, and a radio which lets you listen to shows offering tips or music that will either wake up Pokémon or put them to sleep and allow you to track the mysterious goings-on at the Runs of Alph. Here, you’ll investigate strange symbols and encounter the useless Unown, though there are slide puzzles to play here and twenty-four different variations of this Pokémon to find and record for a nearby scientist. Your progress is again restricted by trees, water, and dark caves, but now you also have to content with waterfalls and whirlpools. You can again get past these obstacles with HMs, which again double as faster ways of traversing the map: Fly, for example, lets you fly to any Pokémon Center on the map, but you can also use Dig to quickly exit caves (especially useful when you’re out of Escape Ropes), Teleport to warp to exits, and acquire a bicycle (but, sadly, not a skateboard) to dramatically increase up your movement speed. Many of the same minor puzzles return from the last game, meaning you’ll be pressing switches or pushing boulders or using teleport pads to get around, though you’ll also encounter slippery ice, a strange plant that can only be moved using a special water bottle, and numerous instances where the local Gym Leader is either busy with another task or won’t battle you until you’ve complete a side quest. These primarily involve the returning Team Rocket, who have been cutting the tails off Slowpoke, take over the radio tower, and steal vital components from the Kanto power plant. When team Rocket is in town, you’ll need to clear them all out to make the Gym and other areas accessible, but you’re also hounded by your rival, a red-haired boy who stole a Pokémon from Professor Elm and is obsessed with power. Other side quests include searching for a Farfetch’d in Ilex Forest, competing in a bug-catching contest, fetching medicine for a sick Ampharos, feeding Berries to a poorly Miltank, exploring Dragon’s Den, and capturing a strange Gyarados at the Lake of Rage. This will most likely by your introduction to “Shiny” Pokémon, extremely rare palette swaps of Pokémon that occasionally appear in battle. Perhaps the most prominent side quest here involves the Legendary Beasts, specifically Suicune; the three beasts are released into the wild early into the game but, while you’ll randomly encounter Entei and Raikou while wandering around and be left tearing your hair out as they constantly flee from battle, you’ll come across Eusine in his search for Suicune as you journey around Johto and eventually be able to tackle the elusive beats one-on-one to add it to your collection.

Graphics and Sound:
Obviously, Pokémon: Crystal is still going to be noticeably limited compared to later games in the series, but the improvements between this game and not just the first generation but even Gold and Silver are pretty impressive. I never thought of the Game Boy Color as being an especially powerful device compared to the original Game Boy, but this game is huge compared to the first games, with a vibrant colour palette that is far more detailed than what we saw in the first games. Towns and routes are much more visually interesting, with grass and trees and plants swaying and bobbing as you explore, the town and route names popping up onscreen, and a distinctly Japanese aesthetic to the far more impressive interiors of buildings. All of the sprites have been given a complete makeover, meaning overworld sprites and battle sprites are far more diverse and detailed; there are new Trainer classes available in the game, new animations for the PokéBalls, and not only a bunch of new moves added to the game but much more interesting and visually exciting attack animations, with more frames and colours being utilised to really make the most of the Game Boy Color’s capabilities. Although you can’t have a Pokémon follow you around like in Pokémon: Yellow, Pokémon now have little animation frames when they appear onscreen, sparkle when they’re Shiny, and even their menu and HM sprites have been overhauled to make them more distinctive.

It’s amazing how much better Pokémon looks, sounds, and plays on the Game Boy Color hardware.

While Johto’s towns and areas aren’t really all that different from Kanto’s, and are probably a little less visually diverse than I’d like, there’s still some fun locations to explore here. Goldenrod City has a Game Corner and a large PokéMart like Celedon City, but also an underground passage, a radio tower, an ice cave, and the Magnet Train which can allow swift access to and from Johto to Kanto; structures like Bellsprout Tower, Burnt Tower, and Tin Tower are not only great places to train ut also key to catching the game’s Legendary Pokémon; and you can even explore a lighthouse (which is full of holes to fall down) and the entirety of Kanto! Perhaps the biggest new feature in this generation was the inclusion of a day/night cycle; at the start of the game, you set the date and time and, as day turns to night, the palette changes accordingly and this even affects the evolution and appearance of some Pokémon. Different NPCs and events will also happen on certain days, and noting the date and time is essential for completing the PokéDex and acquiring certain items. Although the game is bolstered by some jaunty, memorable little chip tunes and Pokémon cries are much improved, the sound is still a bit of a weak spot here; you can tune into different radio channels to change the music though, which is fun. While your pack is far easier to navigate, its capacity is still limited, but storing and retrieving items is much easier this time around, as is rearranging the order of items in your pack, and you can interact with far more on the overworld: Berry plants, Pokémon blocking your path, and even certain trees can all be interacted with to pick-up items or trigger a battle, and you can again use the Itemfinder to seek out hidden items. Like in Pokémon: Yellow, Pokémon: Crystal features an all-new intro sequence, this one focusing on Suicune and the Unown, and you can even choose to play as a girl if you like (though this has no impact on the gameplay other than changing your sprite).

Enemies and Bosses:
In your quest to conquer the Pokémon League, you’ll battle a wide variety of Pokémon both in the field and in use by various Pokémon Trainers. Wild and Trainer Pokémon begin at low levels, generally between three and six, but get progressively stronger as you advance to new areas and when you’re called for a rematch, which will help you to grow stronger on a rising curve. Your ability to weaken these Pokémon for capture or defeat them is directly tied to your Pokémon’s current level and moves; if your Pokémon is weak and only knows moves like Bubble and Leer or bring an Electric-Type into a forest or a Bug-Type into a cave you’ll struggle to advance. The same applies to Pokémon Trainers; they start off using one or two weak Pokémon like Sentret and Spinarak but eventually use more formidable and evolved Pokémon. They’ll also withdraw them, heal them, or buff them with items and, while you can exploit the enemy A.I. at times, Pokémon Trainers tend to use moves that have a Type advantage over your current Pokémon. Pokémon: Crystal introduces new moves that can prolong or frustrate battles as well; Protect will render your next attack useless, Spikes will damage any Pokémon you send into battle, and some moves, like Dynamic Punch, not only hit hard but also inflict confusion on their victim. Still, with enough grinding and a diverse team, you can easily overcome every opponent you face; simply take some time between Gym battles to level-up, develop specific stats if that’s your jam, and bringing your team as close to the level cap as possible, utilising moves that are super effective and sharing EXP wherever possible, and you can easily trample over the opposition once you’ve gotten past the uphill battle at the start of the game.

Team Rocket are back and you’re hounded by an arrogant rival with a superiority complex.

After being absent for a few years, Team Rocket has come back but they’re far less of a threat than in the first generation; these nefarious individuals are easily identified by their black attire and caps and will impede your progress until you’ve cleared them out of towns, towers, and buildings. When exploring their hidden base in Mahogany Town, you’ll be constantly beset by the gang when you walk in front of security cameras, though Pokémon League Champion Lance is on hand to help you out by healing your team. When you encounter them in the radio tower, you’ll have to battle a Rocket Executive posing as the tower’s director, and they’ve been cutting off Slowpoke tails to sell them earlier in the game, but Team Rocket’s grunts really aren’t much of a threat and tend to stick to common Pokémon like Rattata, Muk, and Zubat. In comparison, your rival is much more malicious than Blue from the last game; this guy (often dubbed “Silver”) is not just rude, arrogant, and obsessed with training only the most powerful Pokémon, but also a conceited bully, pushing you away and past you and refusing to help fend off Team Rocket since it doesn’t suit his goals. Unfortunately, the rivalry between you isn’t as big of a factor as in the last game; the rival pops up at various points throughout the game, but it’s easy to forget he even exists and he doesn’t even end up being the Pokémon League Champion, which is a shame as it would’ve been easy to have him be the mastermind behind Team Rocket’s return and maybe tie him into the Ruins of Alph and Suicune sub-plots. Your rival will steal whatever starter Pokémon has a Type advantage against yours (in my case, he took Chikorita) but eventually expands his team to include Sneasel, Golbat, Magneton, Alakazam, and Gengar to give him good Type coverage across the board. However, a diverse and high-levelled team can easily send him packing in every encounter; in my playthrough, I barely even needed to swap my Pokémon out between each round thanks to teaching my Feraligatr Bite, Ice Punch, Surf, and Dynamic Punch and going into every encounter at least ten levels higher than him, making him a visually interesting but hardly challenging successor to Blue.

You’ll occasionally need to complete some side quests or solve a puzzle to battle the Gym Leaders.

A whole new world to live in means eight all-new towns and eight new Gym Leaders to battle, each specialising in a specific Pokémon Type and often (but, oddly, not always) protected by a number of protégés and some light puzzles, such as a maze, obscured path, or the pushing of boulders. Other times, Gyms will be empty, locked, or otherwise barred and you’ll need to complete a side quest to gain entry. While you don’t have  to fight the Gym Leader’s minions, I recommend it so you don’t miss out on some EXP and cash, and it’s again recommended to have a diverse team on hand (though you can often helpfully find wild Pokémon nearby that can counteract the Gym’s specialty). Your first challenge is Falkner, who uses Flying-Type Pokémon; as long as you don’t have a Grass-Type on hand and, honestly, why would you?) this isn’t anything to worry about and you can improve your chances by taking a slight detour and catching a Ground-Type Phanpy. Bugsy is a walk in the park if you have a Fire-Type, though I felt the pinch against his Scyther’s Fury Cutter since I opted for Totodile instead of my usual Cyndaquil. Most players run into a brick wall when faced with Whitney and her Miltank, which can deal increasingly more devastating damage with its Rollout attack, but I honestly had no trouble besting it was a Level 28 Croconaw using Bite and Ice Punch (though a Fighting-Type Pokémon or moves are your best bet against her). Neither Morty or Chuck are much of a challenge either since you can take both out with Psychic-, Dark-, and Electric-Type moves, while Fire- and Water-Types are your best bet at taking out Jamsine’s Steelix. Electric- and Fire-Types will also allow you to make short work of Pryce’s Ice-Type Pokémon (indeed, the hardest thing about him is skidding about on the icy floor of his Gym) and, while Clair’s Dragon-Types can be intimidating and easily paralyse you, they’ll also fall pretty quickly if you have Ice-Type Pokémon or moves on hand. Defeating each Gym Leader awards you a badge that increases the game’s level cap, powers up certain stats, and allows you to use HMs outside of battle to reach new areas, and also awards you some useful TMs, like Dynamic Punch and Shadow Ball, but take care after defeating Whitney as you won’t immediately earn her badge and must talk to one of her underlings to convince her to hand it over.

The best of the best await at the Pokémon League…unless you’re levels ahead of them…

Once all of the Gym Leaders are defeated, you’re ready to take on the Pokémon League. To reach the League, you need to use your HMs to navigate through Tohjo Falls and the cavernous Victory Road, where you’ll battle your rival once more and encounter some high-level Pokémon to help push your levels higher. You’ll want to make use of the makeshift Pokémon Center and PokéMart right before the Elite Four to heal up and maybe stock up on restorative items since you again need to battle all four Trainers, and the champion, consecutively to become the champ. Each of the Elite Four has a full team of Pokémon, with a general speciality in mind but also Type coverage to keep you on your toes; your first challenge is Will, who uses Psychic-Type Pokémon but, thankfully, these are dual-Types so you can use Dark-, Ghost-, Electric-, and Fire-Type moves to easily cut through his Pokémon, though you could be caught off-guard by confusion or freezing if you’re not careful. Next up is Koga, upgraded from a Gym Leader to one of the Elite Four and still rocking the Poison-Types, making him easy pickings for your Ground- and Flying-Type attacks. The only member of Elite Four to return from the first generation is, ironically, one of the weakest of that game, Bruno. Though he’s got a bigger, more diverse team, he’s still a Fighting-Type specialist so you can easily best him with Psychic-Type moves. These are slightly negated against Karen, however, since she has Dark-Types on hand but, again, her Pokémon are dual-Types so you can balance things out with Fire- and Water-Type Pokémon. Your final challenge is against Lance, the Dragon-Type expert who’s now the Pokémon League Champion. Lance is easily the toughest Trainer battle so far…on paper, at least…since he has three Dragonites and even fan favourite Charizard on his team. However, but this point my Feraligatr was way overpowered and I managed to sweep his whole team using Bite, Surf, and Ice Punch without any issue. Toppling the Elite Four sees you and your team again entered into the Hall of Fame and declared Pokémon League Champion; you can battle the Elite Four again and again to earn more cash and level-up your team, but you’ll find challenge enough awaiting you in the post-League content.

Some of Kanto’s Gyms have undergone a bit of a reshuffle, with Blue installed as your final opponent.

Becoming the Pokémon League Champion earns you a ticket to board the S.S. Aqua and travel to Kanto, where you can not only explore the entirety of the region from the first game, battling new Pokémon Trainers with higher-level Pokémon, but also take on the eight Kanto Gym Leaders once more! Because you start in Vermillion City, the order you battle the Gym Leaders is mixed up; some are missing their puzzles and protégés as well, and all have bigger, more diverse teams and, though you’ll earn their Badges and they’ll be added to your total, you can’t view these on your Trainer Card and only two of them will award you TMs after you beat them. First up is Lieutenant Surge, now rocking two Electrode and an Electabuzz alongside his signature Raichu, but he was nothing compared to my overpowered Donphan. I got a bit mixed up and fought Misty next, which you can only do after fighting past the Nugget Trainers and interrupting her date; while her Water-Type Pokémon don’t stand much of a chance against a good Electric-Type Pokémon, this won’t help you against her Quagsire so maybe switch to a Grass-Type instead. I battled Erika next, who can be frustrating with her tendency to use Full restore, cast Sunny Day, and her ability to drain HP from your Pokémon, but at this point my Feraligatr’s Ice Punch and Suicune’s Aurora Beam were more than enough to topple her. Koga’s daughter, Janine, now resides in Fuschia City’s Gym but she uses Poison-Types just like her dad so you can get past her in much the same way you did him, and Brock and Sabrina are similarly easily taken out using Water- and Dark-Types, respectively. Since Cinnabar Island was wrecked by a volcanic eruption, you won’t find much of anything there except a Pokémon Center and Blue, the Viridian City Gym Leader, who directs you to the similarly barren Seafoam Islands to battle Blaine. Neither Blaine nor Blue have any underlings to worry about and, while Blue’s team is as diverse and powerful as ever, yours should be more than up to the task of matching him blow for blow and recapturing the Kanto Gym Badges.

As if Red wasn’t tough enough, the Legendary Beasts will flee from battle and the new Birds take a lot of Balls to snag!

With these in your possession, Professor Oak allows you access to Mount Silver and the game’s most taxing challenge of all: a battle against Red, the protagonist from the first game, who’s well-rounded team not only has great Type coverage but is also in the high-seventies (with his Pikachu being the highest-level Pokémon you’ll face in the game at a whopping Level 81). While battling Red is tough in and of itself, it’s made all the more difficult by the fact that you need all the GMs to even reach him, meaning you’re at a severe disadvantage since you’re either down a couple of Pokémon to make room for a HM slave or have had to substitute better moves for HMs. Aside from red, there are some one of a kind Pokémon to find in the wild, too: Sudowoodo block your paths and need triggering with the Squirtbottle, you’ll need to tune into Kanto’s radio stations to awaken the Snorlax blocking your path, a Shiny Gyarados waits in the Lake of Rage, and you’ll encounter a wild Lapras in Union Cave’s basement every Friday. Although Kanto’s Legendary Pokémon are entirely absent (the power plant is now up and running, Seafoam Islands is a simple cave, Victory Road has been rearranged, and Cerulean Cave is inaccessible), Johto’s are literally out and about to find. Entei and Raikou will randomly appear in different areas of Johto, fleeing immediately (or using Roar to scare your Pokémon off) and forcing you to use the PokéDex to track them down and use moves like Spider Web and Mean Look just to have a chance at catching them, damage and status attacks you inflict will carry over even if they flee, however, but these two are still a massive headache to get a hold of and Pokémon: Crystal makes things unnecessarily difficult by forcing you to have caught all three Legendary Beasts to even spawn an encounter with Legendary Bird, Ho-Oh, atop Tin Tower. Conversely, one of my favourite Pokémon, Lugia, can only be fought at Whirl Islands after reaching Pewter City and acquiring the Silver Wing, and all of these Legendary Pokémon (and some wild Pokémon) can be a chore to catch unless you inflict sleep or paralyse and whittle them down to a slither of health as they just love to break out of PokéBalls and, unlike the last games, where you obviously used the instant-catch Master Ball on Mewtwo, it can be tough to decide which Pokémon to use your Master Ball on here (though I’d recommend Ho-Oh).

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Both Johto and Kanto are littered with pick-ups to be found, gifted from NPCs, or bought from PokéMarts. All the same healing and restorative items from the last games return, such was Potions, Revives, Awakenings, and Antidotes, though you can now find various Berries that have the same function and can be held and automatically used by Pokémon in battle. As you progress, PokéMarts will start to sell more advanced items, like Hyper Potions, Max Revive, Escape Ropes, PokéDolls to help you flee battles, and likes of X-Attack for a one-time stat boost. Vitamins and evolutionary stones a far harder to find on the overworld, but can be bought from Goldenrod and Celadon City’s Department Stores and are great for raising individual stats and quickly evolving Pokémon, and you’ll also find Nuggets to sell for cash (and sell most items you find) and key items like the Itemfinder, EXP All, and various rods. Another new addition to the game are held items that give your Pokémon certain boosts and buffs; Quick Claw can make them move faster, fr example, while Amulet Coin will double the cash you earn and Leftovers will see them restore a little bit of health between every move. Many of these will increase the power of certain Types, such as Charcoal powering-up Fire-Types, and some are even needed to be held for Pokémon to evolve.

There are more items than ever before, and even your radio can help you out in a pinch.

As ever, you’ll need a steady supply of PokéBalls if you want to catch ‘em all; these again come in three purchasable types (regular PokéBalls, slightly better Great Balls, and even better Ultra Balls), with the Master Ball being a one-of-a-kind, never-fail PokéBall that is best saved for a Legendary Pokémon. You can also find Acorns in trees and, when you give these to Kurt in Azalea Town, he’ll turn them into one of seven new PokéBalls after a day of waiting: Level Balls make catching lower level Pokémon easier, Friend Balls increase a Pokémon’s Happiness stat faster, Lure Balls make it easier to catch Pokémon encounter while fishing, Moon Balls make it easier to catch Pokémon that evolve using a Moon Stone, Heavy Balls are best used against heavier Pokémon, Fast Balls can be useful against Pokémon like Entei and Raikou who like to flee from battle, and Love Balls increase your chances of catching Pokémon of the opposite gender to your own. Like last time, TMs can only be used once, while HMs can only be unlearned using the Move Deleter, and different Pokémon level-up, breed, and hatch at different speeds and at different times of the day; some don’t learn useful moves for some time, others don’t learn any decent moves at all (I’m looking at you, Unown!) or moves that boost their stats, which is useless to me as I prefer to fill my move slots with offensive moves. Some Pokémon also don’t evolve at all, which can lower the incentive on using them as you don’t see as much progression when battling with them, while other Pokémon have abilities like Sweet Scent that can attract wild Pokémon, and you can also have Pokémon hold various mails to send messages to other Trainers you trade with.

Additional Features:
Although Generation two added one-hundred extra Pokémon to the original 151, “only” 223 are actually obtainable within the base Pokémon: Crystal game so you’ll need to trade with Gold, Silver, Red, Blue, and/or Yellow in order to complete the PokéDex and fulfil Professor Oak’s life dream and earn yourself a nifty little certificate for you efforts. A lot of your post-game time and energy will be spent catching, raising, trading, and breeding Pokémon to fulfil this objective, and the day/night cycle and new additions to the gameplay mean you are given far more options to evolve and acquire Pokémon. As mentioned, you can store a limited number of phone numbers on your PokéGear and battle Trainers again when they call you, or travel to Viridian City and make use of the Trainer House to battle either a random challenger or the last human player you fought against, which remains a fun addition, and battles and trades such as this are a great way to extend the life of the game and motivate you to getting your team up to the maximum level. Also, you’ll be spending a lot of time in the Game Corners trying to buy or earn the coins necessary to get those elusive Pokémon and traipsing around Johto trying to lure out the Legendary Beasts, but this generation of Pokémon remains my favourite for its unmatched post-Elite Four content.

Travel to Kanto in the post-game, tackle the Battle Tower, and spawn in a Celebi to catch!

As mentioned, you get to travel to Kanto after becoming the Pokémon League Champion! This, effectively, doubles the timespan of the game but, while Kanto is now populated with much tougher Trainers than before, your team should be more than capable of winning the day. Still, I’ve always loved this feature, and Kanto is notably different, too; towns, caves, and routes have been switched about, new Pokémon are included, and certain areas are either inaccessible or altered, which really shows the flow of time since the last games. You can talk to Red’s mother in Pallet Town, where you find out he took off and hasn’t been seen in years, get the power plant back up and running so you can hop on the Magnet Train, and pay a visit to the new radio tower in Lavender Town, which replaces the haunted Pokémon Tower. Viridian Forest is now gone, as is Cerulean Cave, and Mount Moon is much shorter than before, but I loved seeing Blue installed as the Viridian Gym Leader and just being able to explore this region again and really wish that subsequent Pokémon games had done something similar. Pokémon: Crystal is also notable for being the first game to include the Battle Tower; located just off the coast off Olivine City, this facility lets you battle other Trainers and awards you Vitamins for consecutive victories. Though never really something I’ve enjoyed, the Battle Tower is a fun extra inclusion, and even offers level and Pokémon restrictions to keep you from using Legendary Pokémon. Best of all, though, is that the 3DS version of the game includes the GS Ball event, meaning you can place the GS Ball in a shrine at Ilex Forest to spawn the elusive Celebi and finally, legitimately, catch the little blighter!

The Summary:
I’ll be the first to admit that, when it comes to the second generation of Pokémon games, I’m extremely biased when it comes to these games. For me, this was when Pokémon was at its peak of popularity; we were so desperate to play these new games and so captivated by the new Pokémon and mechanics, and while I’ve enjoyed Pokémon games since these, none of them have quite been able to recapture the magic of Johto. Consequently, it was an absolutely joy to finally play through Pokémon: Crystal; the game is such a massive step up from its predecessors, improving and refining basically everything from the first game and adding much-needed quality of life mechanics like the EXP bar, better item and Pokémon management, and vivid, impressively detailed graphics for such a basic handheld system. The new features offered in this generation were also fantastic; the day/night cycle was a fun little inclusion, one I missed from the Game Boy Advance titles, and adding breeding really helped to speed up PokéDex completion as you could raising Pokémon traditionally whilst also getting in the steps to hatch and egg and get Pokémon to breed all at the same time. Adding the ability to rebattle previous Trainers was great too, though the constant interruptions from phone calls does get annoying; while I love the aesthetic, detail, and colour of the game, I have to admit that Johto doesn’t really stand out all that much and is basically like a reskin of Kanto for the most part, but Pokémon: Crystal adds a few extra bells and whistles to compensate for that. Animating the Pokémon, for starters, really helps to make the game feel much more alive, as do all the additional attacks and battle animations that help the game feel faster, more action-packed, and less like a Tiger Electronics LCD game like in the first generation. Being able to play as a girl was a nice inclusion, as was the attempt to expand on the Legendary Beasts by giving Suicune a larger role, but ultimately these aspects and the rival system weren’t as prominent as they could’ve been. Thankfully, the new Pokémon more than make up for this, with some of my all-time favourites being found in Johto (Ampahros, Lugia, Houndoom, Typhlosion, and Marill, to name a handful), and I loved seeing how the world has changed since the last game. Of course, this is best seen in the still-unmatched post-game content; letting you travel to, explore, and challenge Kanto once more was an ingenious idea and makes the game feel so much bigger than even some of the Nintendo DS titles, which generally settled for the Battle Frontier and little else. Add to that the tough-as-nails battle against Red, the ability to trade to the previous generation, and the addition of Celebi to the game and you have what very well may be the definitive version of classic Pokémon for me.

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

Are you a fan of Pokémon: Crystal Version:? How do you think it compares to the original games and which of the second generation titles was your favourite? What did you think to the new mechanics introduced here, like breeding, genders, and the day/night cycle? Did you struggle against Whitney and her Miltank? What did you think to the rival? Did you enjoy getting to revisit Kanto and did you ever capture Entei and Raikou? Which of the Pokémon games, and titular monsters, is your favourite? How are you planning to celebrate National Pokémon Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Pokémon, sign up to leave them below or drop your comments on my social media and be sure to check in next week for more Pokémon content!