Anime Review: Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works

So back in September I wrote about the anime series Fate/Stay Night, so if you aren't familiar with the series please read my first blog so that you get a better idea of what Fate/Stay Night is about.

Anyways, they released a movie focusing on another part of the story from Fate/Stay Night. Remember that Fate/Stay Night is originally a visual novel that changes according to the decisions that the reader makes along the way. A visual novel is set in a way so that the reader is not bound to one ending, the reader can make certain decisions that can affect the outcome of the story and in the case of Fate/Stay Night has three main endings.

The three story lines are: Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel. The first anime series was centered around the Fate story line with some parts from the other story lines mixed in. But overall, it's considered the Fate story line. This time around, they wanted to make a movie about Fate/Stay Night but instead decided to focus on the Unlimited Blade Works story line.

The same characters appear in the movie, the only thing that chances are the main set of events that move the story forward. I'm going to go into some detail right now, so this might have some spoilers in the next section, but I'll still try to keep it to a minimum.

Poster for the movie.

Last time the main characters were Shiro and Saber for the most part, even if other characters did help them along the way. In the Unlimited Blade Works story line focus on Rin and Archer (and Shiro, but you don't really get that up until the end). I don't know if you remember watching the anime series, but Archer was trying to kill Shiro through out the series. They never really tell you why, but Rin uses a command seal to stop him from attacking Shiro permanently.

Well,  this time Archer is also trying to kill Shiro but he puts much more effort into it. In the first battle between Saber and Berserker, Archer tries to kill Berserker and Shiro at the same time. Nothing happens to Shiro, but it still doesn't change the fact that Shiro almost died.

Archer

Archer doesn't do much fighting in the series, mostly because he is injured pretty much from the beginning. This time he is able to fight and we see how good archer is in action and we get to see the full power of his Nobel Phantasm called: Unlimited Blade Works.

Basically, Archer creates an alternate reality which basically represents the soul of Archer and is like the ideal battle field for the caster. In this alternate reality, Archer is able to replicate any weapon just by seeing them and becomes automatically proficient at that weapon even if he hasn't used it before.

But in order to be able to use this power, Archer has to cast a spell while he is fighting. Here is the incantation.

I am the bone of my sword.

体は剣で出来ている。

Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.

血潮は鉄で　心は硝子。

I have created over a thousand blades.

幾たびの戦場を越えて腐敗。

Unknown to death.

ただの一度も敗走はなく、

Nor known to life.

ただの一度も理解されない。

Have withstood pain to create many weapons.

彼の者は常に独り　剣の丘で勝利に酔う。

Yet, these hands will never hold anything.

故に、生涯に意味はなく。

So as I pray, Unlimited Blade Works.

その体は、きっと剣で出来ていた。

The Japanese version of the chant is a little different than the english version, FYI.

Archer also has the power to use a shield called: Rho Aias. This shield is able to block almost any attack. When it comes out, it projects kind of like a flower petals and each has the protective strength of a fortress.

We learn a great more deal about Archer in this movie, and I actually feel bad about Archer once you find out his true identity and why is trying to kill Shiro. But the ending did catch me a little by surprise, so if any of you have seen the movie, please explain how Archer saves the day.

The animation on the movie was really good, way better than the series. There is a fight seen with in 10 minutes of the start of the movie that really keeps you entertained. The only thing is that this movie expects that you have read the visual novel and that you know the story really well because they don't pause to explain things and skip a lot of stuff in the story line. They basically only show you the main and coolest parts of the movie.

Rin

So if you decide to watch this movie, I recommend that you watch it with someone that knows the story and is able to explain things really well. That's what I did, and for a bit of the movie, we had to pause every few minutes because I didn't really get what was going on.

Or you can also read wikipedia article about Fate/Stay Night because it explains things really well. Just know that if you do decided to read wikipedia, then be prepared for a lot of spoilers in the movie. Or you can read the visual novel. You can only get it in Japanse, but then you can download a patch from Mirror-Moon that translates the story into English. I've never actually read the visual novel, but I hear that some of the translations are a little weird but you should be able to understand.

Also, be aware that the visual novel has adult content. This is because visual novels are usually geared towards older audiences. The series and the movie don't show any of that stuff, so don't worry about it.

I really enjoyed this movie, and I want to watch this movie again because I usually understand things better on a second viewing. If your looking to watch the movie before it gets released in the US, you can get it from Unlimited Translation Works fansubs.

Here is the trailer for the movie, but it's in Japanse.

That's all, thanks for reading.

Game Review: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Ok, so  a while ago I wrote a review about Assassin's Creed 1 & 2, and I totally loved those two games. One more than the other  because the first game had an issue where it was just too much repetition, but they were still both really good games. Well, the third game in the series was released this last Tuesday on November 16th.

I had reserved my copy of the game months ago, and I even went to the Midnight release for this game. I've never done that for any other game before, but I felt like I needed to have my copy as soon as possible. I didn't really do any good because by the time I got home I was soo tired that I went to sleep right away and I didn't get to actually play the game until late in the afternoon.

I had great anticipation for this game because I absolutely love the series, but I felt like they were kind of milking the series just for money. I had a feeling that they weren't going to put that much effort into the game and it was going to be half-asses. But thank God that I was completely wrong!

This game picks up right were the last game ended, so don't read this review if you havent passed the second game and you don't want to read spoilers.

At the end of the second game, you defeat the Pope and Ezio spared his life. He found a secret chamber below the Vatican and a lady named Minerva made of light appeared before Ezio. She told him a cryptic message and then even mentioned Desmond Miles by name. If you remember, the game is set in the year 2012 and the a Brotherhood of assassin's are using a machine called the Animus that allows the user to relive the life's of his or her ancestors.

In the first game, Desmond found out about the life of his ancestor Altair back in the Crusades. Altair had to steal an artifact known as a Piece of Eden which his Master and the Templars wanted to use to control the world. Altair created a new group of assassins to protect the Piece of Eden and to combat the Templars that want nothing else than to control the world.

During the second game, Desmond finds out about another of his ancestors named Ezio during the renaissance. This the brotherhood had survived and spread from the original group that Altair started after the first game. But the Templars had also managed to survive and they hadn't forgotten their original goal. They conspired against Ezio's family and killed his father and his older and younger brothers. Only his mother and sister survived besides Ezio. He had to learn how to become an assassin since his father never passed down the teaching to him while at the same time he tried to avenge his families death.

The game ends with the player finding out about the emanate destruction of the world, unless several shrines can be activated to save the world. But before the assassins can find these hidden locations, they have to find the Piece of Eden that Ezio had. But to do that, Desmond has to go into the Animus and go further in the memory of Ezio.

When this new game starts, we see that Ezio goes home thinking that all is finished and all the Brotherhood has to do is figure out what the lady Minerva meant by her cryptic message of doom. But just as Ezio is getting comfortable being at home, they attack again destroying his uncles villa and even killing his uncle. Ezio gets injured during the attack and manages to get away only after making sure that he had saved as many people as possible, including his mother and his sister which is now the only family he has left.

Ezio manages to get to Rome and with the support of Niccolo Machiavelli tries to rebuild the now extinct brotherhood all over again. Ezio is now fighting the new forces that have taken over Rome and is trying to renovate the city that has been laid to waste by those same troops. It's up to Ezio to save troubled citizens and recruit them into the new brotherhood in hopes of taking down Cesare and his men.

Ezio

I like this game because it really shows the passage of time, Ezio is no longer the young warrior of the first game. He spend years trying to avenge his family and now has to endure the passage of time. He is still agile and able to take care of himself, but has trouble doing somethings that before he could do without a problem. You can also see this with his friends, I'll show you the pictures of Leonardo da Vinci who appears in both games.

AC 2

AC B

There is also introduction to new weapons that Leonardo has access to. In the last game, Ezio was able to use the poisoned blade, but thanks to Leonardo he can now use poison darts to kill his enemies from afar. He also get access to a crossbow and after you recruit your first assassin Ezio gets whats called the BAM, which is short for Brotherhood Assist Move.

When you need to kill someone far away or you just simply need help in battle, you can call your assassins and they will help you until you are no longer in danger. You are able to level up your assassins by sending them on missions around the country. But while they are away on their own missions, they can't help you so you need to plan accordingly to make sure you aren't left without help. As they level up, you can increase their defense and attack power as well as the weapons that they have access to.

But you need to be careful, because if they die while on a mission or while they help you in combat, you can't get them back. You have access to more people you can recruit, but if one of your high level assassins, it's a pain in the butt to level up another one. Make sure that you don't send them on missions that are to hard and help them fight. You have access to up to three summons, and if you use up all of them you have to wait for the cool down. You also have the option of using all three summons at once and use what's called the Arrow Storm which instead of assassin's showing up, arrows rain upon your enemies killing everyone around you.

One more feature that is new to this game is the ability to have online play. You can't play campaign online (which would've been cool in my opinion), but you are able to play against other players in several different competitions. For example, you are able to play on Wanted mode which is basically a free-for-all competition where you have to hunt down a player and kill him with out being noticed. This sounds easy, but its actually very challenging when there is many NPCs that look just like the players. You have some abilities that can help you in either killing your target or getting away from your pursuers. This is because as you kill your targets you go up in rank, but the higher your rank that more people are after you.

Some of the characters that you are able to play as online.

You are also able to level up while you play online, and once you hit certain level you unlock new abilities and weapons that can help you in battle.

The graphics are stunning in this game, the only regret that I have is that I don't have a HD TV to fully appreciate all the hard work that the game creators put into making the game. Other than that, I absolutely love the game. I haven't had that much time to play, but I was able to beat the game today (11-21). The ending confused me and it leave us hanging, which makes sense because it sets it up for the next game.

I can't wait for the next game to come out, maybe in a year we'll finally see the end of this series. I still have a lot of stuff that I need to finish in order to unlock all the trophies and a lot of side missions to complete. I won't be as eager to play the game as I was before, but I think it still has a lot of replay value. If you are a fan of the series, I recommend that you pickup this game as soon as possible if you haven't already done so.

Thanks for reading.

Anime Review: Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance

So I don't actually have to do a blog post this week, but I decided that I should do one anyways because there is still a few things that I want to review before the end of the semester. If I skip another week like back in Fall Break, then that would make it two things that I wouldn't be able to review. I could always just keep this blog going even after my writing class is over, but I'm still debating that since it would consume some of my time.


Anyways, this week's post is a continuation of the blog that I did two weeks ago. This week I'm picking up where I left of with the second film in the series. This one is called Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance and its name in Japanese is ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版: 破 (Evangerion Shin Gekijōban: Ha) which literary means: Evangelion New Theatrical Edition: Break.


This film picks up right where the first one left off, and they don't even give you a break in the action. The movie starts right off by introducing you to a new girl that is piloting Provisional Eva Unit 05 and is going to fight the skeleton of resurrected Angel number three. They have a brief but action packed fight and the new pilot wins by self-destructing her Unit.

New Character

The next thing that happens is very interesting to me because it reveals something peculiar about the new character. At this point we still don't know her name, but after self-destructing her Unit, she uses the emergency escape system and survives the blast. One of the guys overlooking the fight says: "I just don't like using children as pawns for the convenience of adults." So this guy is obviously not happy about sending in a teenage girl to fight a monster and almost getting killed.


But what's interesting is the response from the girl. Once she gets out of the escape pod she says: "I just don't like using adults as pawns for the convenience of children." That is something that really shocked me when I read it (I'm was watching a fan-sub version of the film). Even while she was fighting the Angel, she was saying something to the effect that even if it was dangerous, she didn't care because it was fun for her.


I don't know what to make of that. On one hand I think that she is very cool and strong (I've mentioned before that I really like strong female characters). But then I have the feeling that she's kind of nuts. Also keep in mind that I'm not able to fully analyze her because they don't really give that much background information about her. Although we do find out that her real name is Mari Illustrious Makinami later in the movie.

Mari with Eva Unit 05

Her Eva Unit is also unique because it's way different than the other three that we have seen so far. While Asuka's Eva Unit is the first production model and is the first one built for actual combat (Unit 00 was a prototype and Unit 01 was the test type), Unit 05 has no legs or arms. Instead, its arms have been replaced with jousts and claws, while it has four legs attached to wheels for movement.


They introduce a few more characters in this film, but they aren't that important. Plus, they are introduced somewhat later in the film and I don't want to talk about something that might give away some of the story. 


Basically for this film, it's pretty much like the last one. This film is meant to introduce new characters and move the story forward just like the last film. They do this while introducing you to new Angels that the children have to defeat and personal issues that they have to resolve if they wish to get better. Because while Asuka is probably one of the best pilots among all, she has no sense of teamwork and this often leads to trouble while fighting angels.


If you've watched the first film, I totally recommend that you watch this one as well. This one is not out in the US yet, and I couldn't even find a possible release date for the US. They have to dub and sub it, so this usually takes a while for companies like FUNimation to do. While I do find this somewhat ironic that small fan sub groups are able to do faster and better translations of the animations. I won't go off topic too much, but I do like point-out that some of the translations done by big animation companies don't make sense sometimes.


Anyways, that's all I have to say on this film. I hope that I didn't confuse you with what I said. Trust me, it's a really good film and you'll be glad when you finish watching it. I tried looking to see if they had a date for the next film, but I couldn't find anything. I read in some forum boards that they probably think that 3.0 will be released sometime in late 2011 or early 2012. Lets hope that they try to do it a little earlier than that.


Thanks for reading.

Game Review: Kingdom Hearts 2

So this week's blog post will be on Kingdom Hearts 2. I made a blog post about KH two weeks ago, make sure you read it if you don't know anything about Kingdom Hearts. Also, there might be some spoilers in this blog post because I asume that you've played the first game, you have been warned.

Kingdom Hearts 2 picks up a year after Kingdom Hearts, the gap in time is covered by the game Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for the Game Boy Advance. During this time they same group from the last game was busy protecting the many different worlds. I've never played Chain of Memories, so I don't really know what happens in full detail. But from what I've read, they are introduced to new characters and a new set of enemies that also show up in KH2.

Roxas

The game starts out with you playing as a new character that you've never seen before, his name is Roxas. You aren't really given any history about this new character, you just appear in a new place called Twilight Town. Roxas is in his summer vacation and all he wants to do it have fun with this friends. It seems that they are all pretty normal, but then strange things start to happen in the town.

Strange creatures start to apear in the town, but it seems that they are only interested in Roxas. He tries to fight them and then suddenly a Keyblade appears in Roxas' hand. Roxas is able to get rid of them, but he still doesn't know why they are there to begin with. Roxas and his friends decide that they want to do fun things for the summer, like going to beach among other things. So they start to take-up odd jobs to get the money. But there is always someone that stops them from getting to their destination. All we see is a man in a black suit that steals Roxas' belongings when they are about to do important things.

Along the way, Roxas meets another man in a black suit called Axel. Axel seems to know Roxas, but he can't remember anything about Axel. Axel tries to make Roxas remember, but he just can't. Roxas often has dreams of the adventures of Sora, but he doesn't remember ever meeting Sora or why he is having the dreams of someone else.

Finally, Roxas goes to an abandoned mansion that is near Twilight Town and he encounters more Nobodies. He meets a girl that lives inside the mansion named Naminé. Naminé tells Roxas that he is also a Nobody, while he doesn't quite understand what a Nobody is. He finds Sora, Donald and Goofy sleeping at the bottom of the mansion. At this time Roxas merges with Sora and all three of them wakeup from their suspended animation.

Sora

Sora looks way older than when he was in the first game, and to emphasis this they show that his clothes form the first game don't fit him properly anymore. He find the Three Fairies from Sleeping Beauty and they make him a new suit. The new clothes are far better than his original, and not just because they look cooler. The new clothes have new powers.

We are introduced to a new fighting system that include the Drive Gauge. While most of the fighting is the same as in the first game, the Drive Gauge gives Sora the ability to use party members to become stronger for a set period of time. If Sora merges with Donald, Sora gains the ability of using two Keyblades at once and his magical abilities are heighten. If he merges with Goofy, his physical abilities are heighten and he can also use two Keyblades at once. In the magical form, Sora glides thru the air and shoots out magical bursts from the tips of the Keyblades. When he is in the other form, he deals more damage from the strikes that he lands on his enemies. Eventually you are able to unlock a stronger combination that allows you yo use FOUR Keyblades at once.

The Drive Gauge can also let you summon someone from the Disney worlds just like in the last game. Just that this time around, they are a little more helpful than they were last time. This time the summoned partner fights along side you and is able to do independent attacks or is able to tagteam with Sora to land more powerful attacks.

Kairi

Sora isn't the only one that grew up, we are also introduced to Kairi and she looks WAY different than in the last game. At first she can't remember Sora, so she decides to go in a journey of her own to find Sora.

Riku

Riku also did some growing up of his own. I can't really talk about him, because it would reveal the ending fo the game. 

The new enemies of the game are the people from a group called Organization XIII. This is a very mysterious group, you don't really know that much about it until much later in the game. 

I like that picture because it shows who they are, but it doesn't give away a key part of the story. If you count them, they are only 12 so one person is missing from the group shot. You find out who that last person is later on, but in the meantime you'll have wait and see.

I like this game way more than the original, because I feel that the story is more complicated and maybe not as childish as the first. We see that they characters have grownup, and while they are not adults yet, they certainly behave a little more mature than in the first game. You can see this the most in Riku (once you actually meet him) and how he has changed into a more serious character.

The game engine is mostly the same as in the last game, so this means that players don't have to learn a whole new system so they are able to just start playing with out the need for many tutorials. But they also have new things added that it doesn't feel like the old game allover again. The characters seem much more developed in this game, maybe because we start to see that this game is more complicated filled with twists and turns.

Several of the Disney and Final Fantasy characters make a comeback as well as some new ones. For example, Cloud, Sephiroth, and Tifa from Final Fantasy 7 appear this game as again, but they now have the clothes that they wore in the movie Final Fantasy Advent Children.

Utada Hikaru makes a comeback as the singer for KH2's theme song. Like I mentioned in the first post, I absolutely love her and I'm glad that she was able to do it. I just hope that they stick with her for all the games that are still to come for this series.

Here is the a link to the theme song in English, but I personally prefer the one in Japanese.

This one is in Japanese, but it's the ending to the game. So don't watch it unless you want to know the ending. Then again, the text is in Japanese so unless you know how to read it you probably won't know what's going on. It's up to you.

That is all I have to say for Kingdom Hearts 2. I know that it might look like a little kids game, but it's actually a really good series. I won't be writing a blog on any more KH games, unless I get my hands on Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep for the PSP, but chances of that happening are really low. Thanks for reading.

Anime Review: Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone

So this week's Anime review is on a series that is actually quite old, but the creators of the original series decided to remake the series in a total of 4 movies. So far, only the first 2 movies have come out in Japan and 1 in the US. So this post will focus on the first movie and in two weeks I'll write about the second one.

So let me start by talking about the history of the movie since some part of the movie assume that you know what they are talking about. The original series is called Neon Genesis Evangelion and it was originally aired back in 1995. The original series is set in the future in 2015 and the world has changed dramatically. This was due to an event called Second Impact.

Second Impact happened in the year 2000 when there was contact and experimentation with the first of a group of being that are referred to as Angels in the series. This first being is referred to as Adam and he was initially found underneath the icecaps of Antarctica. Adam awakened and set off an explosion that was so strong that it melted most of the ice and it even tilted the axis of the planet, changing the global climate dramatically. The explosion cause Tsunamis that killed most of the people in the Southern Hemisphere were drowned and the rest of the world was in chaos with because of the lack of supplies and food. Wars quickly broke out allover the world and this didn't end until the year 2001 when a ceasefire was signed, by then the population of the world had been halved.

After Second Impact, Angels don't show up and humanity is left alone to rebuild and get accustomed to the new world. Like I said, the climate had changed so there was a lot of things that had changed with it. For example, Japan is described to be mostly underwater after Second Impact. Japan had to do the most that it could with the little dry land that it had left. This meant that they started to build houses and tall building to make up for the lack of space.

Going back to the year 2015, we are introduced to a war going on between humanity and the Angels. This is the first time that they showed up, but Japan isn't totally defenseless. During the time that Angels didn't show up, a secret agency set up a department called NERV that it's sole job is to research the Angels and find a way to destroy them if they ever show up. They managed to create huge creatures refereed to individually as Eva and differentiated by their unit number. The only thing is that adult can't control these new beings, the best people to control them are children that were born after Second Impact.

Shinji & Unit 01

This is where we are introduced to our main character, his name is Shinji Ikari and he is the son of the head researcher at NERV. But him and his father don't that the best relationship, this has caused Shinji to live most of his life alone and is afraid of human contact because he is afraid to get hurt. He thinks that it's better to be alone then to be hurt by someone you love or trust. Shinji is summoned to NERV to see if he is able to control one of the Eva. At first he didn't want to have anything to do with the project, but he changed his mind once he saw that if he didn't want to do it another girl that was very injured would have to take his place as the pilot for unit 1.

He struggles to control the Eva since he didn't have any prior experience and they were under attack by Angel number 3 named Sachiel. At first it looks like Shinji is going to lose, but then his Eva goes into berserk mode and is able to completely destroy Sachiel.

That is the basic background story of Evangelion. There is more characters in the series, and I would love to be able to cover all of them, but I can't. So I'll just quickly talk about the other 2 main pilots.

Rei & Unit 00

The injured girl that I mentioned above is called Rei Ayanami and she is the pilot for unit 0. She is a very odd girl, she is very shy and doesn't really talk to anyone other than Shinji's father. No one really knows where she came from, but she has a very mysterious aura around her. She is also a very polite girl, but isn't afraid to let others know how she feels. This sometimes comes across as being really rude, but in reality she is just expressing her feelings. This can be seen at the beginning when Shinji says something mean about his father (I can't recall exactly what he said) and it upset her, so she turned around and slapped him for disrespecting his father.

Asuka & Unit 02

Last is Asuka Langley Soryu and she is the pilot of unit 2. As you can tell by the name, she isn't a full blooded Japanese girl. The Eva project wasn't being worked on Japan alone, Asuka comes form the German branch of the Eva project. She is a very proud of herself and is very vocal about it. She shows off every time she can, and has a grudge against Rei because she says that Rei never shows any emotion, kid of like a doll. She has issues of her own, that I won't go into detail because then it gives away some of the story.

So those are the 3 children that pilot the Eva units. So now that you know what the story is about, let me move to the movie that this blog post is about.

So they decided to recreate the series into 4 films, like I mentioned above. The official title of the project is Rebuild of Evangelion and they are separated it into 4 films. They have basically condensed the story because they don't have time to go into detail like they would in a series. They do a really good job at sticking with the original story, changing only a few detail here and there. For example, some of the color of the original characters or Eva units were changed as well as on some of the Angels. This first movie, pretty much covers most of the stuff in this post. I know that it sounds all weird and maybe it doesn't make much sense, but it gets better.

The basic idea for this project is to explain the series, introduce new characters, and advance the story line in the first 3 films and then eventually change the ending on the fourth. We still have no idea of what they are going to do for the new ending, but I'm sure that it won't disappoint.

I still don't know when Evangelion 2.0 will be released, so I'll be doing the next review of a fansub version of the second movie. In the meantime, thanks for reading.