Game Review: Kingdom Hearts

So last week I wanted to make a blog post, but I got lazy and I used the blog post that I did during Fall Break. Also, so far the games that I've written about are fairly new and have come out with in the last few years, but now I wanted to go back in time a little and make a blog post about a game that I really enjoy and that I still play from time to time. It's called Kingdom Hearts and it was released way back in September 17 of 2002.

So this games was developed by Disney and Square Enix and they basically took characters from both of their worlds and combined them into one. So through out the game we see famous characters from the Final Fantasy series like: Cloud, Sephiroth, and many more. Then we also see characters from famous Disney animations like: Simba from the Lion King, or Maleficent from Snow White (she's an enemy). And you even get to partner up with Donald and Goofy as your sidekicks. On top of that, you can also learn how to summon different characters to help you in battle like: Mushu from Mullan, the Genie from Aladin, and many more for a total of 6 summons.

Sora

The story begins that there is this group of kids that live by themselves on Destiny Island. They don't really tell you how they got there, just that they live there and that they can do anything that they want because as far as we can tell, there is no adults on the island with them. In particular, there is this group of 3 kids that are the main characters of the story. First is Sora, he is the main character and you will play as him. 

Heartless

At the beginning of the game, Sora gets separated from his other 2 friends: Riku and Kairi. Then suddenly a bunch of little back monsters called the Heartless start to show up. They don't tell you why they are there, all Sora knows is that they want to kill him. So from out of nowhere, Sora gets a weapon called the Keyblade. 

After Sora defeats all the Heartless that invaded the island, Sora find himself in a place that he has never seen before. Thats when Donald and Goofy find Sora in a place called Transverse Town. They explain to him that they are emissaries of Disney Castle sent by King Mickey to find the wielder of the Keyblade. They form a team and together they travel to different Disney themed worlds to seal the hearts of those worlds so that the Heartless can't invade them as well.

Throughout the game, they find different Disney villans that have come together to destroy the different worlds and attain great power. But at the same time, Sora is concerned about both Riku and Kairi.

Riku

Kairi

Riku gets brainwashed by Maleficent and becomes your enemy. Kairi is a very special girl, and I won't talk about her because then it ruins the end of the game. One thing that I do want to point out is about the names of the three main characters. There is a special meaning to each of their names and the creator said that he named them like that because he wanted them to have sort of a special bond even before the game. Sora means sky, Riku is means land, and Kairi is suppose to represent light.

I really liked this game, because the art style is just amazing. They managed to combine the goofy (I'm not talking about the character here) Disney look with the Japanese Anime feel with the main characters. What I mean is that in Disney animation we usually see characters running around with big shoes that look almost like a clown's. And then we have the Japanese look that usually means having big eyes (look at Kairi's picture) and almost like an image that is too perfect to be real.

Then the music was great, I love the Japanese singer that they picked to make the theme song for the game. She is one of my favorite Japanese singer, her name is Utada Hikaru. She is great, and she sings with such passion that its just awesome. I posted a link to the ending of Kingdom Hearts that has the theme song. Remember that it is the ending, so don't watch it if you want to play the game.

Well, thats all I have on Kingdom Hearts. There is more games in the series, so I will make a blog post about Kingdom Hearts II in two weeks. In the meantime, thanks for reading.

Anime Review: Code Geass

I keep falling behind on my blog post, I have to try and get it done earlier. :( Anyways, this week's post is about an anime that I really like called Code Geass. So as usual, I have to write a bit about the background story of Code Geass.

So the story takes place in the future and the Holy Britannian Empire controls most of the world. This is thanks to some technology known as the Knighmare Frame (picture below), which is basically a huge robot that is controlled by a soldier. These robots were then massed produced and soldiers put inside them to go off and conquer rival nations. 

A few years before the start of the anime, Britannia waged war against Japan in the efforts of controlling a powerful substance called Sakuradite. Japan was the main exporter of this substance (about 70% of the substance came from Japan) and this eventually led to the country being targeted for this resource necessary to operate Knighmare Frames and other heavy machinery.

We have a few important character in this series, and I wish I had enough time to over each one. But I'll talk about the most important ones. This is Lelouch vi Britannia AKA Lelouch Lamperouge:

He is a prince from Britannia, and before the war his mother was assassinated. In the process, his younger sister, Nunnally, was left blind because of the trauma of seeing her mother shot to death in front of her. After this tragedy, Lelouch confronted his father, the king of Britannia, Charles zi Britannia for not protecting his mother and allowing her to get murdered. Lelouch was so angry with his father that he renouncing his entitlement to the throne as the 17th heir to the throne. In response, Charles banished him to Japan to be used as a political tool in the Sakuradite conflict. After the war, they couldn't let the Britannian government know that they were still alive in case they tried to assassinate them as well. So Lelouch and his sister went into hiding with some friends of his mother and took up the Lamperouge last name in an effort to hide who they really are.

Next is Suzaku Kururugi, I can't say that he's my favorite character out of all them, but we'll get to that later.

Suzaku is the son of the last Japanese Prime Minister. Suzaku meet Lelouch and Nunnally when they were banished to Japan. Both of them stayed in the home of Suzaku before the war and became great childhood friends. After the war, they lost track of Suzaku and just assumed that he had been killed. But Suzaku actually hides a dark secret with in his heart; you can say that he is the "pure knight" of the story (always doing the right thing and all), but he is probably the biggest hypocrite of them all (in my opinion). Because of his guilty, Suzaku joined the Britannian Army at a young age in an effort to try and get rid of his own guilt. At the beginning of the series, Lelouch and Suzaku run into each other and they eventually end up going to the same high school.

This next character is probably one of my favorite ones, while we don't ever know her true name, she goes by the name of C.C.

CC is probably the one with the most complicated history out off the characters, which is what makes her the most interesting. When Lelouch first meets CC is by pure coincidence. The media had given a warning to the city that a group of terrorist had stolen a pod containing poisonous gas from the Britannian government. This led to Lelouch trying to figure out what was going on. When Lelouch found the pod, he decided to open in and inside the pod was this girl. Suzaku and Lelouch tried to protect this girl, but just as Lelouch was about to get killed, CC gets in the way and is shot in the head. Lelouch touches the hand of now belief to be dead girl and is given a gift: the Geass (a bit more on this later). Later in the story, we find out that CC is actually immortal and has lived for a really long time going back to the 100 Years War, but is believed to have lived way before that. She becomes Lelouch's partner in crime and helps him throughout the series.

Now on to the main thing that the show revolves around, the Geass.

Lelouch using his Geass.

The Geass is a power that certain people can use, but most importantly its a power that is given by someone else. In this case, its usually given by CC. The power that the Geass gives people varies from person to person, probably depending on the person's desires and personality. In the case of Lelouch, he gets the power of "absolute obedience." This means that he can use it on any person (except CC) and that person has to follow his orders, no matter what. Other powers in the series include: mind reading, stoping time, rewriting memories, and even looking into the future.

Its the power of Geass that sets the whole story in motion. Once Lelouch is saved by CC, he gains the Geass and uses it to save himself. Then he uses it to get himself into the Rebellion and make the Britannian empire pay for all the stuff that he and Nunnally had to go through. But he can't do this with his true identity, or even that of the Lamperogue name. So he decides to create an alter ego simply known as Zero.

Zero manages to out witt the empire on several occasions. Zero becomes the hope that the oppressed people (especially the Japanese people) by the Britannian empire. Lelouch relies on the power of his Geass and the small army of the Rebellion to fight against the empire.

I don't want to write more about the series because I don't want to ruin the ending. But this is also a really good series. There is actually two seasons, the official name of the series is Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion and the second one is Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2. Let me tell you right now that if you do decide to see it, don't get confussed once you get to the second season. I know I was confussed because the first season ends sudenly and they don't really tell you anything at the begging of the second one until your almost at the end of the first episode. You'll think that it's like déjá vu, but it will eventually make sense. :P

The art of the first season is kind of iffy, but you can certainly tell that their budget was increased for the second season because everything looks much better. The sound was great and it looks like they actually put effort into the story. The ending is one of the saddest I've ever seen, but it's one of those sad endings that feels "right." I don't know if that makes sense or not, but that's the way I feel about it.

Anyways, thanks for reading!

Game Review: Assassin's Creed 2

So first let me start off by saying that I’m sorry about not posting this sooner. I’ve been falling behind on some homework, and this would be one of them. I usually try to have my post for the week by Wednesday of the week before (since its due Monday by midnight). But I kind of forgot about the blog post until today.

Anyways, like I posted two weeks ago, this week’s blog post is about a game called Assassin’s Creed 2. This game is a sequel to Assassin’s Creed, the game that I made a blog post about. So since you already know the background story of the first game, I won’t have to explain as much on this one, assuming you’ve read my first post. Be aware that some of the stuff on this post will have spoilers if you haven’t played/finished the first game.

So when we finish the first game, Desmond has finished reliving the memories of one his ancestors called Altair. At the end, he is still a prisoner of the Templar group known as Abstergo. The only thing that is different is that thanks to something know as the “bleeding effect,” Desmond has learned a few of the skills that Altair knew. But they aren’t really that helpful because he is still trapped.

So when we start out the second game, there is an alarm going off in the building. The Assassin Brotherhood has decided that Desmond has to get out of the building before something happens to him. That’s when Lucy, one of the characters that took care of you during the last game, reveals that she is also an Assassin and she has been working undercover this whole time. She puts you back into the Animus and you are introduced to a mysterious character known as “Subject 16,” but you never know who he is even at the end of the game.

After that, Lucy and Desmond manage to escape the Templar building and go to a safe house where Desmond will learn how to be an Assassin. But since they don’t have time to train him, he will be put back into the Animus to learn how to be an Assassin from another one of his ancestors thanks to the bleeding effect and to find out more about the Pieces of Eden that they learned about at the end of the first game.

This time the Animus takes him to Italy during the Renaissance in the late 15^th century. And we are introduced to a man named Ezio Auditore da Firenze that lives in Florence. At first he has no idea of the history of his family, since he’s just a regular guy living the good life. His family gets caught in the middle of a political plot and his father and two brothers are hanged. The final instruction from his father was to look for a chest containing Assassin garments and tools used for killing. Ezio seeks out one of his uncles and escapes with his mother and sister to his uncle’s villa. There, his uncle teaches him the history of his family and how they all come from a long line of Assassins. Little by little, Ezio learns how to be an Assassin and how to use the tools that his father left behind. And thanks to the bleeding effect, Desmond is also learning how to be an Assassin along the way.

That is the basic intro to the second game, and I won’t say anything more because I don’t want to give too much of the story away. In my opinion, they did a better job in this game with everything. While you still have to go and kill different people and do similar stuff like in the first game, it no longer feels repetitive like the first game does. The story line is awesome, very complex and the ending is mind blowing (no joke). Through out the game, you also have the opportunity to find and solve puzzles that reveal some information about Subject 16 and about what he knows. 

You are also able to eventually upgrade your tools into a variety of different weapons like a mini pistol or poison needles. Your armor (the Assassin garments) is also upgradable and you can also change the way you look (to a certain extend). Other features include: finding 100 feathers to unlock a cape and a hidden weapon, renovating your uncle’s villa to make money for you, side quests, and even unlock Altair’s armor.

The graphics and CG cut scenes are amazing in an HDTV. The game play is feels a little bit more smooth. And the character design is wonderfully done to make the game look like the Renaissance. The game will take you through: Florence, San Gimignano, Forli, Venice and eventually Rome (even if its just for a brief time). I recommend this game to everyone; I assure you that you won’t be disappointed.

Thanks for reading.