“A release date for Final Fantasy 13 Versus has been set”, said no one ever; Evangelion launches two ‘cash cow’ campaigns; And finally, details are being revealed for a certain famous RPG series coming to the U.S. Ladies and Gents, this is the Beckett Show.
More Final Fantasy Shenanigans
“You’ll have to wait a little bit longer for information on Final Fantasy Versus XIII.”-Tetsuya Nomura
If we had a dollar for every time we heard that we would have enough money to fund our own Kickstarter campaign to get that game released. There’s been speculation that Versus is going to turn into FFXV but everyone’s ‘hush-hush’ about the topic. For awhile people didn’t think the game existed anymore because Square Enix went almost bankrupt and all.
In my honest opinion though, Square Enix started falling apart the second they gave Nomura the gold key to the special VIP restroom of Square Enix headquarters. He gave the Kingdom Hearts justice and after the success of Advent Children, the acclamation he received went straight to his head and he probably thought of himself as Superman. So you can make a two hour CGI movie, but can you make a videogame that doesn’t involve simple character designs and Disney characters?
I think not.
So my questions are the following; will we see any information at E3? Or will we see another fancy video and no announcement? Do we even care at all? Is Versus going to be the next Duke Nukem Forever and be a total bomb? I’m going with that last question.
Evangelion wants you to spend money on their newest campaigns
The Schick Razor’s Japanese site streamed a video recently promoting the re-launch of its Evangelion campaign. In the video Gendo Ikari and Kozo Fuyutsuki vow to maintain the course of the campaign that was set last year whenever Schick first collaborated with Evangelion. And as always, there are prizes and drawings if you buy said Evangelion merchandise. Schick is holding drawings for a special clock that has Rei, Asuka and Mari on it. The relaunch of the campaign begins April 25th, just in time for the BD/DVD release of Evangelion 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo.
And if that’s not enough hype Lotteria, a fast food chain in Japan, is announcing that it will offer the ‘Q-Dan Cheeseburger’. The cheeseburger comes with nine layers of patties with cheese. And it also comes with a ‘Spear of Longinus’ fork. The whole package costs 1,280 yen.
Lotteria is also holding a drawing for 158 centimeter life size articulated Rei.
Shin Megami Tensei IV Special Edition Box Set details outlined.
Atlus recently announced that they will be releasing a Special Edition of Shin Megami Tensei IV to the states. Gamestop states the box set will include the game and the following:
- A 176-page Strategy & Design Book produced by Prima Games, longtime publishers of video game strategy content. It includes the official starter strategy guide and full-color artwork ranging from concept art to in-game pieces to never-used designs from the new Shin Megami Tensei series character designer, Masayuki Doi.
- The Shin Megami Tensei Music Collection CD that offers a collection of tracks specially selected from across the 20-plus-year history of the SMT series.
- A deluxe-sized Collectible Slipcase featuring key art designed by Masayuki Doi.
- Shin Megami Tensei IV is set to release on 7/16/2013
Spoiler alert: After watching No. 6, I have to say I am still without words. I mean, there isn’t anything that can describe what I just witnessed. Was it a train wreck? When exactly did this train get derailed? What...happened? Bees? All these questions get answered (hopefully) in this review of No. 6.
I had some high hopes for No. 6 because Bones was manning it and Bones has a pretty good track record when it comes to quality anime series. Although as of lately…the quality has plundered quite a bit. No. 6 is one of those series that I watched right when it came out and stopped after about episode 3 because life and work invaded the rest of my summer, etc.
No. 6 is set in a dystopian future. War has ravaged the earth and some people get together and split the world into 6 colonies (you know where this is going). This series specifically follows the sixth colony…or No. 6. No.6 is paradise, people get what they want, when they want it. There’s no poverty, everyone has a job and they like it…or else.
The government in No. 6 was very reminiscent to the book “1984“, because things got ugly for people once they started questioning the motives of their government. Here in No. 6, you question them, you will most likely die. Except for Shion, our lead character. In the beginning he had it all, highest grades in the class, a full ride scholarship to wherever he chose, intelligence to boot and he had the girl. But he decided to harbor a fugitive (Rat/Nezumi) and it all went downhill.
Skip to the present day, and Shion has become a lackey of the government. He sees a scandal going on, one of his buddies gets killed by the killer bees, the government is not too happy so they try to apprehend Shion, out pops Rat to save the day…and we have the introduction to the plot.
Oh yeah, and there’s a love interest thing thrown in (Shion and Safu), and that’s all we get.
The plot of the story was good, for the most part. Shion survives an illness that plagues the No.6 colony, and he’s bent on saving them, while Rat wants No.6 to be destroyed. Shion wants to save his mother and the girl, Rat wants Shion all to himself.
Now we have conflict.
Rat had to be the most memorable character of the series. In the first episode Shion saves him from getting killed and from them on he has massive feelings of bromance towards Shion. And it’s not the ‘teehee’ I’ve got a crush on you kind of bromance. It’s the ‘tough love’ “you saved my ass and now you’re a pansy? I looked up to you!” kind of bromance. I found it very amusing at times, and it was very sweet.
What brought the series down though was the pacing. The pacing wasn’t awful, but yet it was not the greatest either. The first two episodes gave us a brief introduction to Shion and Rat. Episode 1 dealt with the past while Episode 2 did a time skip to the present day. And then the next 6 episodes we are given views on life away from No. 6, living in the slums and whatnot. We are introduced to the wacky zany characters, who are forgettable at best. The ‘Dogkeeper’ was memorable only because they were the most annoying character of the series.
After episode 8 though, the series goes into overdrive (especially Rat’s exposition), and it started to become a complete mess. And it all ends with a cluster of explosions, cheap psuedo-character deaths, and the random rainbow bees that, honestly, sent me into a fury of hysterics. If No.6 was longer, maybe a 24 episode series, then it probably would have done a lot better. But for now, I will always remember this series for the rainbow bees.
Granted, the series did actually end instead of giving the audience the cheap open-ended garbage that plagues so many anime series…but it was a mess.
I would recommend this series to anyone who wants something of decent quality, and that has an actual story with a legit ending. Don’t expect anything more than that though.
+Side: Truly genuine story with quality lead characters. Solid introduction.
-Side: All the build up gets mar’d by shoddy writing and a rushed ending. Too much attention on ‘The Dogkeeper’ really brought the series down.
If they would have upped the episode count to 13 episodes instead of 11 we might have had something special going on.
Overall Rating B-
That's it for this week. Thanks for reading!
References
I want the that fork. I could care less about the burger.
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