Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Part 5 - Grand Est Strasbourg

 

Cataluna gets PEARL HARBORED by a vicious Beedrill. At least one of these Rogue Mega boss fights is finally using an actual appealing Pokémon.

I'll say it again, the main character's outfit is completely carrying the game. This game is...not great. And it's a shame because they could have really done so much with the France setting and re-creating some of the rain-drenched, mossy locales therein. Instead we got this one town where basically everything looks the same, everywhere you go.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Part 4 - Canari's Coal Mine

 

Today on Pokemon: Cataluna lures Lida up onto a rooftop. How much do any of these people actually know about Cataluna? She never speaks, and everyone knows redheads are coo-coo. I wouldn't follow her onto a rooftop.

Highlander 5x11 - Comes a Horseman

This is the beginning of what I consider the best seven-episode run in the entire show. While they've had a couple of really solid episode groups before (S1's "Band of Brothers" and a few episodes after it, S3's "Song of the Executioner" and a few episodes after it), this is the longest and most consistent run of quality they ever had. Everything from "Comes a Horseman" to "The Modern Prometheus" are A+ episodes, and knocking out those seven episodes is a big goal of mine for the near future. Then after that I've just got the final 14 episodes and one movie and then I can pretty much put the site in an antique store (have a couple other series' to finish first, too).

"Forgive Us Our Trespasses", if placed last in those seven, could even be a good place to end the series outright and have it be an introspective ending. "Duende" would also be a great finale, if you want to go out with a big battle (but it's a pretty average episode, carried entirely by the final battle). Considering that S5 is so abbreviated and ends four episodes sooner than previous seasons, they sure upped the quality level to compensate. In my view, anyway. I'm sure more than a few people would disagree with my assessment of "The Ransom of Richard Redstone" being included in this "incredible seven-episode run" but just work with me here. A Richie comedy episode is some needed levity at this point.

Aired on February 3rd 1997, this coincided with the beginning of the Sting vs NWO storyline in rasslin', and AOL chat rooms were going nuts around that time talking about both. Would Methos turn on the Four Horsemen? Who would join Ric Flair's Four Horsemen to fight the NWO?

Kronos is the biggest bad guy in this entire show; while Kalas has a longer duration of being a threat (a five-episode arc rather than two - though Kronos does pop up again several times later... sort of), Kronos is the bigger threat by a lot, and feels more like he belongs in a Highlander movie. Both of them have the distinction of having prior wins over Duncan, as well.

This season's theme of running from your past and the unavoidable consequences of not facing it...really comes to a head here.

Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams (Arcade, 1995)

 

I have a theory that this game was intended to be a replacement for Street Fighter 1. Every generation of this series has gotten a distinct "era" with multiple revisions...except the first one, which is a bit of a lost game and lost era. The project head for Street Fighter 1 left the company soon after to work on SNK's Fatal Fury, and the new showrunners made Street Fighter 2. I think that said showrunners wanted to make their own "origin gen" to replace SF1, and thus Street Fighter Alpha (or Street Fighter Zero in Japan) was born.

As a result, this game is pretty interesting to me, as a re-creation of the genesis of the series. Much like SF1, Ryu's story mode in this game is his journey to defeat Sagat (and along the way, his understudy Adon). We also get SF1 characters like Birdie. It's basically them going back and making a "Street Fighter Generation 1" that actually meets its potential.

Street Fighter II (Game Boy, 1995)

 

I'm reading that this version only contains six of the original eight fighters. Much like the portable versions of Mortal Kombat, someone had to get the axe. Who would they pick? Normally I'd guess Blanka and Dhalsim; The latter would probably be harder to program than the other characters due to his long reach, while the former never struck me as a particularly popular character. I've never heard anyone talk about how much they love Blanka, or seen anyone playing as Blanka. ...he's on the box, though, so it was probably E-Honda and Dhalsim that got dropped due to their unconventional proportions. Well, let's find out.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Part 3 - Club Vandermon

 

Today on Pokémon Legends Z-A, Cataluna gets dragged into more of this Poké-battling nonsense, as I begin to wonder if anyone actually goes to college in this universe. Is she never going to start the European Sex Tour with her new best friend Lida? It was supposed to be their journey of self-discovery, ending in Barcelona.

Dragon Quest VII? There is no Dragon Quest VII.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Part 2 - The Quest For Shoes

 

Previously on Pokémon Legends: Z-A...our protagonist Cataluna had to cancel her planned European Sex Tour to instead be a looker for the Looker Bureau. Apparently you gotta look pretty good to be a looker and solve detective cases. All of that said, the main mystery for me to solve in this game is finding some damn decent shoes.

Dragon Quest VII is on my desk, we're reviewing it right now, it's pretty shocking stuff.

Romancing SaGa 2 Remake (Multiple, 2024), Part 1 - The Lion and the Sun

 

This is a really, really good remake. Wow. I think it flew under the radar to an extent. I really enjoyed playing the original version of this game and it's obscure enough that I'm surprised to see it remade. This is a bit of a hidden gem in the Squaresoft library, and the original RS2 is probably the best out of all the SaGa games outside of maybe SaGa Frontier. This series is very spotty, very hit-or-miss. Looking forward to seeing if this remake surges out ahead of Frontier to become the new SaGa best-in-series.

Rather than being HD-2D, they gave this one a full 3D makeover. It's different from most 3D remakes though, with a very distinct visual style that prioritizes light effects and really nice environments over framerate. On Switch you're stuck at 30 FPS or so, but damn, the visuals in this game sure do have a lot of personality regardless. I tried the PS5 version and that's at 60 FPS, presumably Switch 2 is also pulling that off. The visuals are so distinctive and classy that I didn't even particularly mind when it was 30. Anyway, I'm not going to cover this game for real until/unless I wrap up the SaGa series, but I'm down to check out the demo now and I might as well post it rather than leaving it for later.