Reviewing Monsters - Resident Evil 6 Bosses

Resident Evil 6 (Bosses)

We talked about Resident Evil 6's common enemies and minibosses a while back, so let's jump in to the bosses! 

Lepotica

This is one of the complete J'avo mutations that shows up early on (again, depending on the order of the campaigns you play) as a boss, and I believe you fight her a couple of times in other campaigns, too. And... I'm not sure how I feel about this one? The Lepotica (pronounced and sometimes spelled as 'Lepotitsa', a Serbian word that describes feminine beauty) is... uh... it sure is something? I'm not sure how to feel about it other than 'grossed out', which I think is the intended reaction. It's body is just a mass of breast-like warts running down its body, and its creepy skull-face (the eyes are like fleshy warty tumours, too) splits apart like a flower. Very nasty look within that, huh? Pretty nasty looking monster all around, and this is the sort of 'hey, at least make it over the top' sort of fat, waddling zombie that I was talking about when I panned the Whopper in the previous review. Also, the revelatoin that the Lepotica are apparently failed attempts at creating a clone Ada Wong adds an extra layer of disturbing quality to it. 

Lepotica's "breasts" aren't actually breasts, though, but more like little gas bags that the creature uses to walk around and spread the C-virus, literally being a walking vector for the C-virus. It's a bit odd since Neo-Umbrella clearly has C-virus missiles that they can deploy, but I guess the Lepotica just got spontaneously created during the random chrysalid mutations and Neo-Umbrella just weaponized them? Sure. One particularly interesting showcases of the Lepotica's usage is when one is snuck on board a plane. Not my favourite boss, but one that's certainly effective in what it is. 

Brzak

I never noticed it, but between Neptune, the Raccoon City alligator, Del Lago and Ricardo Irving, a giant underwater boss is as much a trope that recurs each game as 'zombie dog' or 'obligatory bug mutant', huh? Brzak (Serbian for 'rapids') here is another one identified as a 'C-virus B.O.W.' similar to the Ogroman or Rasklapanje, and it's... it's a shark with some bony hand-fins. I do like that the fins look a lot more like a bony amphibian hand, this thing was human before the over-the-top C-Virus mutation, after all. 

I could talk about how its gills seem to be on its head, how it's got this bizarre weak point that's this random chameleon tongue with claw-like fingers... but the most hilarious bit is that the Brzak was used as waste disposal. Not for corpses like Del Lago was (the Brzak hates corpses), though, but for computer equipment. Somehow. That's like, the one detail that made me can't take this thing seriously, because for whatever reason my brain can accept that the bizarre flower-based virus causing zombification and bug-based mutation can also be created to transform some random human into a shark-monster but not that it causes the Brzak to develop a taste for computers. 

Mutant Deborah Harper

Deborah Harper is the sister of Helena Harper, who is Leon Kennedy's sidekick in his part of the campaign. She is taken hostage by the bad guys as blackmail material for Helena, but then injects Deborah with the C-virus just for shits and giggles. In an attempt to rescue her Deborah's C-virus activates, and she mutates into a Chrysalid before emerging like this. And... eh? It's a naked woman with five giant vaguely crustacean or insectoid claw-tentacles from her back. It's not terrible but very underwhelming compared to all the other Complete Mutations. The cracked skin is neat, and at least it's got some buggy features, but I dunno, she's kind of just there. 

Iluzija

Okay, yet another very, very animalistic creature, but the Iluzija (Serbian for 'illusion', natch) is yet another human-based B.O.W., just like the Brzak. Okay, sure? Kind of a homage to one of the franchise's very first bosses, Yawn the giant snake, Iluzija one-ups Yawn by being able to turn invisible, because why not. In addition to the nicer graphics allowing them to animate dead rotting flesh better, the Iluzija is one where the boss fight has to be pretty neurotic because you fight him in a labyrinthine apartment complex. And in addition to being able to become invisible, the Iluzija's weak point? Its teeth, which aren't actually teeth, but bug-like symbiotic creatures. Nasty! And the Iluzija's teeth and jaws already look unnaturally wide for a snake!

Perhaps interestingly, the Iluzija was conceptualized not as a snake, but a bizarre blob with tentacles that can stretch its main body like a spitting cobra. Huh!

Ubistvo

This is another boss that's created from a complete C-virus chrysalid mutation, and Ubistvo (Serbian for 'murder') is actually one of the few only C-virus complete mutants that looks like it's still in the style of the body-parts-puzzle J'avo mutations. It still has a vaguely humanoid look to it, but it's got three maggot heads poking out of the remaining half of his face, which is far more disgusting than Glava-Begunac (a.k.a. Triple Cicada Head Man); half its flesh is flayed; its legs is covered with organic armour like the Noga-Oklop J'avo, and, of course, its most terrifying (and simultaneously ridiculous) part of its anatomy is that its arm has transformed into a giant mass of flesh, bones and gore that somehow works as an organic chainsaw. There's an entire ribcage in there; ribcages don't move that way. Because of Resident Evil logic, the Ubistvo's heart and other vitals are located in this secondary chainsaw ribcage. 

Somehow, the combination of the organic chainsaw and the little parasite buddies makes the Ubistvo loop back from being creepy to hilariously awesome. Just a mite too ridiculous, perhaps, but one that I like because of its ridiculousness. 

Ustanak (and Oko)

This game's answer to Nemesis and Mr. X is Ustanak (Serbian for 'revolution'), a relentless Neo-Umbrella implacable man Terminator operative that hunts down Jake Muller. I do like that they don't recycle the trenchcoat large badass again, and went for different large-strong-man trope in making him an extra from Mad Max. You fight Ustanak multiple times, and he keeps swapping around the weapon attached to his right arm, going from that hilariously over-the-top Warhammer 40K contraption of joints and claws, to a triple-barreled gatling gun, to a ball and chain, to three buzzsaws. Honestly, Ustanak reflects a lot of the over-the-top ridiculousness of this game and I can appreciate that. He's an intelligent hunter and all that (which apparently it trades in exchange for limb regeneration), and apparently views one of the main antagonists, Carla Radames, as his mother and goddess. Sure. 

In some of the boss fights, Ustanak will reveal that he's just a bit more mutated than being a big scary man with a stapled-together face, because on his back is a small nest where he unleashes little weirdo bugs called Oko (Serbian for 'eye'), which are... well, they sure look weird with their leafy wings, their very bent antennae, and being a bunch of spiky claws that are arranged around a central egg-sack-looking abdomen. The Oko, adorably, will not attack like regular insect minions, but just screech really loudly to summon big daddy Ustanak to beat the enemy up. 

Carla Radames/Carla Spore

Carla is one of Neo-Umbrella's leaders, and is one of Derek Simmons' co-conspirators (technically the 'bigger bad', except she falls earlier in the story) and surgically altered to look like one of the main characters, Ada Wong. This means that Carla, as Ada, can go around committing crimes and very nearly causing some of the other heroes to murder the real Ada. It's... trust me, something that the game could probably do without. As with most of the villains in this franchise, Carla gets a high dose of the C-virus and gets transformed into a big cement-like flesh-glob... and she stays a literal flesh-glob, while also taking over an entire facility as the goop... and this gray goop continually sprouts dripping "Carla Spore" clones to fight your character as you run around it. It's hard to describe since the entire boss is basically a segment of the game map. Click here for a playthrough. Some of them are human-sized, but  some are small and some are large. And each differing size have different powers, some with acidic blood and some with the ability to fight with three-lobed jaws or explode. And then sometimes Carla just manifests like a mass of hands or eyes or a giant fanged face the size of half a room

It's a very, very interesting way to depict a human boss transformed into a mass of tissue that actually feels fresh and new and different. And judging by the name "Carla Spore", does that mean that this particular C-virus mutant is actually a fungal-based organism? Interesting. Did I mention that at this point, Carla is so crazed by her mutation that she thinks she is the real Ada Wong, and fights to kill the real Ada Wong (your player character at the time) who she thinks is a pretender? Neat! 

Haos

Okay, this is another giant monster. One of the final boss fights depending on which campaign you select, Haos (or HAOS, based on the Serbian word for 'chaos') is a gigantic B.O.W. that... well, I'll let the video speak for itself. "Shit" is sure the right word there, huh? Haos reminds me of the last boss of Mass Effect 2 specifically, but where that is at least like some sort of half-mechanical creature, Haos is just... what is that? It's a giant zombie the size of a small building, but it looks so human, at least from the waist up, and that face! That skull face is so much creepier that it's got actual eyeballs and a nasty film of transparent goopy skin around it, and that melting mouth! Sure, there's the rest of the body with giant zombie arms and its entire lower body is like, tentacles and whatnot, but the thing that is the most memorable has to be that giant skull head. Judging by the fact that its entire lower body is just a mass of tentacles, people say that maybe this is created with a giant squid as a basis, but I've never really 'got' the fact that the C-virus mutations were like Umbrella's other work where they spliced specific DNA into the B.O.W.'s. I dunno. Maybe I need to play the game. It's long humanoid limbs are apparently very bendy like an octopus's, and like the Rasklapanje, it can split its body up into different bits to chase down different enemies. Also somehow, this is also a creature that can spread the C-virus for complete global saturation? Hmmm?

Haos, interestingly, is still under development, developed under Carla's supervision in a secret underwater base. I've seen this thing derided many times for being 'too unrealistic', and... I dunno. On one hand, it is admittedly a bit too much, but on the other hand, it's not like we haven't had giant zombie bosses before. And this is a constructed B.O.W., which explains how relatively more human it looks. I dunno. I feel like it's a bit like U-8 in the previous game, a great setpiece... just probably one that's not that sensible even in a franchise with a fuck-ton of big B.O.W.'s. I just prefer Haos a lot by how ridiculous a giant skull with eyeballs and a glossy film is. It sure is an interesting enemy, I just am not really sure about it. Part of me kind of appreciates that it's not trying to be kinda cheap and go for the "creepy undead baby" vibe, but part of me feels like maybe this would be a lot more memorable if it was? I dunno.

Derek C. Simmons
And here we go, Derek Clifford Simmons! You actually encounter him early on in any route you choose, sort of like William "G" Birkin in Resident Evil 2, and just like Birkin and a bunch of other bosses in the franchise, Simmons has a bunch of forms that he mutates through as various characters encounter and engage against him. He's also quite an over-the-top villain, apparently, in backstory if not quite in delivery, but let's not go into that. And hoo boy, Derek has a bunch of forms for sure! And we'll be quickly covering through Derek's many, many forms. He shambles around as that C-Virus infected human form for a while, and I like the texture that makes him look like he's a puzzle piece that's falling apart. 

Then he turns to what is often called a "Beast Form", which is a pretty cool mutant fleshy dog with a bunch of spider-like eyes. Nothing too special for the course of this franchise, though, flesh-beasts and especially dog-themed flesh-beasts are bread and butter for Resident Evil. I like the way the talons are attached to the legs, though. And there's half a human face stretched out on the dog's 'back'. It's kind of just a bit too much forced gore, I feel. 

Then we have this form, called the "Centaur Form", which is what the doggy creature transforms halfway through the fight. That certainly makes the anatomy feel a bit more sensible, because I certainly wasn't sure what I was looking at. For a 'centaur', though, what would be the human torso and head is instead just a mass of rib bones and a vague spine, and then we've got a big-ass bone-scythe jutting out of it. It's less of a 'centaur' and more of a quadruped body with an elaborate scorpion tail stinger jutting out of it. I respect what they're going for here, even though it's too messy for me. 

Derek's next form is another boss fight one, the "Dinosaur Form"... which, y'know what? Explains that anatomy a lot, because the screenshot doesn't make it clear that it's leaning forwards. Seeing it in motion also works a lot better. (Also, Derek apparently keeps reverting back to his zombie-human form between mutations? That's bizarre). A grody zombie dinosaur of flesh and bone is already ridiculous for a Resident Evil boss, but the T-rex head splits apart like a flower to show off the central eyeball within. Are you sure Derek doesn't have the G-virus or Plagas parasite injected in him somewhere? Y'know what, unlike Haos, I can totally get behind giant eyeball zombie t-rex. I will defend this hilarious monster to the death. 

What is called the "Scorpion Form" or "Recovery Form" is intentionally messy, Derek sort of reverts back to being a human and has a bunch of fleshy limbs and tentacles jutting out of his back and protecting him. Deborah Harper did this, too, but her zombie flesh-arms look a lot more pleasant. I think Derek basically goes back and forth between Dinosaur and Recovery forms during the second major fight, one of the huge things that makes people find this particular form to be super-duper unrealistic due to the whole conservation of mass... and y'know what? I can't believe but I kind of agree with those people. All the Resident Evil mutations have been explosive growths to become bigger and bigger. To have Derek go back and forth from dinosaur-sized to somewhat-messy-human multiple times in a row is kind of stretching the suspension of disbelief. 

Simmons's final mutation occurs after he gets devoured by a horde of zombies. But instead of a karmic death, Simmons instead absorbed the zombies and becomes his final form, which is... a fly? Probably a lot less climactic than a zombie T-rex, but thinking about it a bit more, turning into a giant monster fly works well thematically with the very insect-based C-Virus, doesn't it? More importantly, flies and maggots are so ubiquitously tied together with corpses that one of the indicators to determine how long ago a corpse has died is whether flies have laid eggs on it or not. I've never quite thought about it, never quite associated flies with death that way. 

Anyway, "Ultimate" Derek is... I'm surprised that he keeps the fly's iconic sad faec, but I suppose that's how you recognize it's a fly. He's got a pair of tattered wings, and a whole bunch of legs that look like they're bent the wrong way even for a bug. But since this isn't a real bug and just a bunch of corpses bent and forced together in the shape of one, let's not play semantics here. A very, very cool and interesting final boss, and I actually really, really like this a lot more than if Dinosaur Simmons, Goopy-goop Carla or Haos had been the final boss instead (and those three would definitely work well as final bosses).

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...holy shit, is this my favourite Resident Evil game in terms of monster selection? I honestly think it might be. Granted, my taste of monsters have always been leaning more towards the arthropods and the more ridiculous over-the-top monsters, but honestly, I feel that RE4 does have a bunch of more 'classic' zombies and enhanced zombies in its bestiary, too, and even the bosses have a lot of pretty cool regular Resident Evil tropes that are all done well. Again, it's just such a shame that RE6 is treated as this old shame due to how poorly it was received by fans and critics alike. Sure, gameplay and story-wise RE6 certainly didn't do that well, but apparently the design team for the next couple of mainline series games -- RE7 and the two remakes -- took this as a sign to dial back the ridiculous over-the-top monsters which I am really vehemently against. Oh well, at least we did get RE6 and its hilariously insane bestiary. 

Movie Review: Aliens

 

Aliens (1986)

I try to make it like a bit of a tradition to review an old-school sci-fi horror movie every Halloween -- something that admittedly isn't a tradition that I stick particularly religiously to because I skipped 2019. But hey, here we are with Aliens, the actionized sequel to the original Alien. And it's... it's really interesting how different the vibe of Aliens is compared to its predecessor while retaining so much of what is scary about the first. 

With a change in directors and a shift from tense, nerve-wracking horror to a completely different sort of tense in that it's a tense, action-packed survival horror, Aliens basically crafted a genre of its own. The genre that an audience several decades down the line would take for granted with the likes of Halo or Starcraft or Doom -- the genre of a group of 'Space Marines' going up against a bunch of inhuman, superpowered aliens with big chunky guns. And it's really hard to review a movie like this -- something that defined a genre of story all on its own. 

The thing is, though, the movie works well even as a sequel to the original Alien, putting aside the difference in the ways they make the audience feel jumpy. A lot of the original Alien's themes are retained, like, for example, what bastards the Weyland-Yutani corporation are and how they are willing to sacrifice people just for the chance to study (and honestly, weaponize) the xenomorphs. The body horror of the aliens' parasitic reproduction is also brought to the forefront, and while I don't necessarily think that this movie has an equivalent to the epic reveal of the chest-burster or the adult xeno's inner jaw, the visuals of the xenomorph uncoiling from the ridge-like walls while the marines walk past them has always stuck with me. And then, of course, there's the Alien Queen, which in addition to being the 'bigger boss' also ends up still playing into the fucked-up 'reproduction/maternity' theme that the xenomoprhs have.

And then there's also the contrast to Alien, perhaps most readily seen in the difference that Ripley's no longer just one member of the cast that happened to survive all the way to the end. She's a more traditional protagonist in a way, we root for her and we want to see her do cool things. That really does make Aliens feel like a completely different movie to Alien because... well, one of the coolest things about Alien is that it's not until the final 1/3rd of the movie that it really gives you any indication who's supposed to be the main character and the lack of one gets you so much more invested in seeing who lives and dies. In contrast... Aliens' "Ripley's probably safe, everyone else is up for grabs" idea also makes it equally as fun to watch.

There's also the contrast between the helpful android Bishop here compared to Alien's Ash. Technology's not all bad, see? In contrast, the Weyland-Yutani plant that betrays everyone else turns out to be the human Burke, which I thought was a great twist. And instead of a crew of what's essentially civilian transporters, Aliens features a group of crack-troop marines. Sorry, SPACE marines. The reason this works is similar to why its cousin-film Predator worked so well. Soldiers are an easy way for the average viewer to latch on and go 'oh, yeah, the peak of humanity, trained to physical excellence, trained in tactics, with the best weaponry'. And while we don't have a gratuitously over-the-top 'show how badass these soldiers are' scene like Predator did, Aliens does show the marines being highly competent. Sure, they're cocky, but you really do get the feeling that if they're up against... well, not xenomorphs, they wouldn't be wiped down to less than half their number within five minutes of combat. 

Speaking of which, yeah, instead of a single super-powerful stalker with increasingly terrifying abilities in Alien, we have a whole swarm. And I do actually like this little development a lot -- regardless of what an asshole everyone is to Ripley, the movie shows that she did give information about the Xenomorphs to her allies, thus making what was so 'alien' about the xenomorph behaviour in the first movie a lot less alien. It's still creepy and it will still kill you, but Ripley and company can quantify what the Facehuggers are, what the Xenomorphs are able to do, their love of sneaking around, that they bleed acid... but when there's a lot that comes at you? When there's an entire swarm that you can't just dodge forever? And hey, there's the goddamn queen, something Ripley never encountered on LV-426 before. 

Again, the movie is a lot more action-packed and faster-paced, making it... a lot more easy to watch. And sure, it does sound very plebeian to say that, but I do admit that this sort of movie is certainly up to my speed. It's not like this is a Michael Bay non-stop action-and-explosions anyway, because I really do appreciate the setup to this movie. Ellen Ripley finds herself asleep in suspended animation for fifty-seven years because no one found her escape pod, and the scene where she woke up to what's essentially a different generation, a different world, and a very soul-wrenching one when she found out that her daughter has grown old and died when she last remembered celebrating her like ninth birthday or something? That's some really great moment for actress Sigourney Weaver... and really puts you in the headspace of someone who's essentially lost everything, got ignored by the document-shuffling higher-ups, and is afraid that her last huge fight against the xenomorph in Alien is going to be all for naught. 

And, of course, within 57 years, LV-426 has been turned into the colony Hadley's Hope. The movie never says it outright, but the fact that an exploration team goes off and finds the giant ship around the same time that Ripley gave her huge report to Weyland-Yutani does probably mean that it's someone from high up that sent Newt's family off to investigate... which, of course, led to the chain reaction that wiped out the entire colony of Hadley's Hope when the xenomorphs actually successfully spread. And I think that's a very cool showcase. The cast of Alien, again, only dealt with a single egg, a single specimen. This one starts off essentially with the xenomorphs winning, having successfully reproduced and created an entire hive. 

And then we're introduced to the Space Marines of the USS Sulaco, and... they're a bunch of tropes, aren't they? A bunch of likable tropes, if nothing else. Lt. Gorman is one of those by-the-books high-ranking officer who has barely seen any combat (and one could argue that his dilly-dallying is one of the biggest factor of the first massacre); Master Sgt. Alpone is the badass-but-likable field commander; Bishop's a robot; Hicks is the nice guy; Hudson's the joker of the group; Vasquez is the tough girl. There are a bunch of others too, and we do go through that tried-and-true Alien bit of making everyone faux-important until Alpone and the rest of the group get wiped out. Because they do. In-between memetic lines like 'stay frosty' and 'it's a bug hunt' and whatnot, turns out that the marines are woefully unprepared for an entire xenomorph hive, get ambushed by many xenomorphs, and between the confusion when Lt. Gorman freezes, an alien getting into their evacuation dropship and blowing it up, and when Alpone gets taken out early, the marines are reduced to basically just Gorman, Hicks, Hudson and Vasquez. Oh yeah, Bishop-the-robot, Burke the slimy Weyland-Yutani representative and Newt, little survivor girl, are with them, too.

And Ripley ends up taking command, because she's not the protagonist... but I also do like that she's not suddenly this super-competent action heroine (yet), and her first real act of taking charge basically amounts to driving the armoured truck, and the frazzled and panicked group end up hunkering down, trying to survive. The fact that the dropship crash is triggering some sort of factory meltdown gives them a timer, too, so they can't just bunker down and wait it out. 

And that's not to talk down about the actual full showcase of the terror of the xenomorph swarm either, because while it's not my favourite action sequence in this movie, seeing the marines get absolutely trounced by the xenomorphs slowly emerging from their nooks and crannies and wipe out the soldiers is pretty awesome. 

I do like the dynamic between the characters here. Sure, most of the marines sort of get reduced to one-note faces. Gorman's beleaguered and feels guilty; Hicks is the Nice Guy(tm) Main Handsome White Dude and the romantic interest; Hudson's the funny ass; Vasquez is the badass sane one. Bishop's a robot that Ripley doesn't like due to her experience with Ash, but he also acknowledges how he's technically more disposable than the rest of the humans. And Burke is just a slimy mofo. There's some minor development for some of the marines -- Gorman's way more comfortable and happy to step down for the more competent Hicks and Hudson gets to respect Ripley a bit more, but otherwise they're kinda there. 

The addition of Newt to the cast of this movie is... it's so easy to hate on Newt, isn't it? It's so easy to hate on child characters whose actors are, well, children whose directions are probably 'repeat lines, look cute'. That's why it's so easy to hate on little Anakin on Phantom Menace or Newt on Aliens. They make the badass story not so badass... but on the other hand, while Newt's more of a plot device than anything, she's pretty charming and I really do like the fact that it gives Ripley a lot of great scenes that actually makes her feel like an actual character. Sure, part of it is Ripley having lost her own daughter in a way and Newt might be a substitute, but there's also the fact that both Ripley and Newt have shared the same trauma of surviving and witnessing first-hand the terror of the aliens. That's a nice showing, and that scene of Ripley tucking Newt to sleep while talking about nightmares and dolls is very nice. Again, there's the obvious "both Ripley and the Alien Queen are mommies protecting their young" parallel, which I do like. 

 Of course, Burke turns out to be a dickbag. And, again, the audience remembering Ash from Alien might have been meant to lead up to this. Both Bishop and Burke act in overly-friendly and helpful ways compared to the more harangued and exhausted marines, but with Bishop there's always the sense of artificial politeness that comes with, well, being a robot in a sci-fi movie. Burke, on the other hand, is just a slimy actor, and he ends up releasing the Facehuggers to kill Ripley and Newt in an intent to use their bodies as basically cocoons for the xenomorph embryonic stages when they return to Weyland-Yutani... and after the action scene where the marines rescue Ripley and Newt from the Facehuggers, the good guys piece together that Burke basically plans to kill the rest of the marines during their cryosleep and hand everyone else over to his bosses. A very cool sub-plot for sure!

And then the aliens attack again. I do like the fact that the marines aren't completely helpless, either -- one of their biggest body-counts takes place basically off-screen and done with the aid of a remote-controlled turret, and the biggest reason why the xenos get the jump on them is because they move through the ceiling and from railings and whatnot. Again, the visuals of these sleek, oblong-headed, jet-black chitin beasts moving through cramped corridors and hallways is just pretty cool. The cast gets thinned out one by one. Burke gets a karmic death. Hudson gets a game-over-man and gets swarmed. Vasquez and Gorman get a badass suicide/sacrifice moment... but just as it looks like the main heroes are home-free, Hicks gets injured and Newt is captured. 

And then, again, the final act of the movie has Ripley alone against the aliens. Nearly all the space marines are dead, and the main-action-hero type dude Hicks is injured. But so much of Ripley's character arc in the movie has been, well, around her befriending and protecting Newt, so it's really no surprise that Ripley goes back into her own personal hell to rescue this little girl she's taken as her foster daughter. The set and the shots of the Alien Queen as we pan up her ovipositor and how she's this giant termite-queen version of the regular xenomorphs, with her abdomen suspended with icky goo... that's still an amazing visual, and I really do love the Queen's crest. We get the confrontation, Ripley saves Newt, burns the Queen's eggs when a Facehugger attacks Newt, and buggers off. 

And this scene is pretty cool! Unlike the Xenomorph from the first movie, which is more of a stealthy assassin, or the swarms of this one, the Queen is a literal juggernaut when she chases Ripley here. Far larger and shown to be pretty intelligent (she knows to get into the elevator!), the Queen chasing Ripley and Newt as they try and wait for Bishop's airlift is pretty intense. And then the colony blows up and our heroes escape, right? 

Wrong! The movie's not quite done yet, because the Queen's stuck around in the ship's landing gear, because, well, she's a pretty damn smart one. In one of the more iconic scenes from the movie she stabs Bishop with her blade tail and rips him into two (robot brutality!) but then Ripley just goes off and dons a giant exo-suit (which the movie foreshadows earlier) which I thought was pretty damn badass. "Get away from her, you bitch!" indeed. Sure, the action scene might look a bit dated in today's standards... but honestly? Honestly I really do think it holds up well. Bishop (well, half of Bishop) helps out in saving Newt, while Ripley jettisons the Queen into space. Happy ending for everyone!

And... and overall, the movie's story is honestly not that complex. A lot of the twists and turns come from the tension of 'oh shit the aliens are here/the queen is alive'. And sure, throwing Newt into the story is an easy way to get a reaction out of the audience 'oh no the little girl oh no' because we're inherently more predisposed to panic when little children are being attacked by monsters. But honestly? It's the execution. It's the iconic scenes, settings and concepts that other sci-fi movies down the line would copy, and it's the fact that the characters, even the secondary ones, do feel like people. The banter between the marines, Bishop's general dorkiness, Newt's PTSD, Burke's corporate subplot... all of these go a long way in making the movie feel more than just a brainless 'survive from evil space monsters'. Unfortunately, this is arguably the last good Alien movie we'll get for a long, long while. It's one hell of a movie, for sure, though!

Random Notes:

• One thing I don't stress enough is how much I really do like the aesthetic of the Aliens world. Between the design of the colony, the ships and the weapons, I do really like that special brand of futuristic-but-frumpy style it's got going on. 
• So how did that one xenomorph get into the dropship? The marines didn't encounter the xenomorph hive until they, well, went into it. Did the aliens actually realize what's going on and was setting a trap so the bulk of the marines enter their nest where the numbers and terrain work in their favour, and sent an advance scout to blow up the escape route? 
• Newt being a survivor mumbling about how the hive-mind aliens work, and only fellow survivor (and fellow civilian) Ripley realizing this is actually a nice little way to give our heroes exposition and information. The marines being too dismissive at the shell-shocked child and too panicked later is also a believable reason of them ignoring Newt until Ripley brings her to their attention. 
• I don't say much about him in my review, but Hudson (Bill Paxton, who would go on to play the equally-fun John Garrett in Agents of SHIELD) is absolutely hilarious and is a minefield for quotable lines. "Game over, man, game over!"
• "Hey, Vasquez, ever been mistaken for a man?" "No, have you?"
• I equally don't really have much to say about Bishop, but he's extremely likable. "I'm synthetic, not stupid."
• The Alien Queen mostly alternates between either scary or badass or both... but there's that just hilarious little 'eh' tilt of her giant crested head when she sees the elevator ding. 
• I do actually like the confrontation between Ripley and the Queen. Ripley seems to be 100% willing to leave with Newt and didn't go ballistic until that one egg hatches (and it's heavily implied that the Queen's telepathically controlling them). Then again, the Queen doesn't know about the reactor overload...
• I don't think I've ever seen a Facehugger actually skitter on the ground like a giant spider outside of Aliens, and it's equally hilarious and terrifying at the same time. 
• I'm not sure if I'll do Aliens 3 or Alien Resurrection next year. I'd rather do a good movie, like Prometheus, or Predator, or, hell, even the first AvP. We'll see. 

Reviewing Monsters - Dragon Quest 1

Dragon Quest [1986]

A Slime draws near!

Command?

This is going to be a short one! I've been reading into a bunch of video game history, and came across Dragon Quest -- which is a franchise that I've always been vaguely dimly aware of. It's Final Fantasy's rival-turned-cousin, made by the same company. It's huge in Japan and often parodied in anime, manga and other Japanese material. Its earliest games had artwork dragon by Akira "Dragon Ball Z" Toriyama. And it defined turn-based J-RPG games. So yeah, I know absolutely nothing about this beyond that it's a pretty simple 'kill the evil bad guys, save the kingdom' style of game like the first Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy.

EDIT: This was written a while back, in early 2019 when I was just experimenting with 'reviewing monsters'. I took it down and fixed it up!

Slime, Red Slime, Metal Slime

So yeah, here's the iconic Slime! Even if you don't know the series, I guarantee you that if you hang around the geek scene long enough you'll have seen this dude, or characters based on this dude. The ur-example of the 'weak slime blob enemy' from Dragon Quest, this guy's absolutely cute, simple enough with a happy smiling face, weak enough while also being fantastical enough instead of being 'oh, my character is fighting a town guard or a wolf'. I feel like that adds a lot into the feel of playing through a fantasy game, y'know? That your first enemy is like, a Slime monster? 

Also, it's cute and very marketable and quickly rose into mascot status. Since this is a pretty old game, resources have to be recycled, and the Slime shows up later on in the game as "Red Slime" (or She-Slime in some translations; Dragon Quest has a lot of different inconsistent English translations) and "Metal Slime". The Metal Slime is apparently very popular in the franchise and inspired a TV Trope, setting up a JRPG trope of super-rare but weak monsters with super-rare loot. 

Dracky, Drackolye, Drackyma

Otherwise translated as "Drakee, Magidrakee, Drakeema" in some translations, we've got these cute little fat bats with cartoon faces. It's pretty neat, huh? You could almost see this guy fight Anpanman or something. A very simple face on a simple body -- it's just an angry devil-bat with antennae and wings and an adorable grinning face just to make it look pretty obviously a monster. Another one that's instant mascot material, I feel. 

Scorpion, Iron Scorpion, Death Scorpion

Giant Scorpions! Not much to say here, Toriyama's art does make it look a bit more cartoony with no mouth parts, angry googly eyes and a 'helmet' of sorts, but it's a giant scorpion. Got to have giant bugs in your fantasy game!

Prestidigitator, Legerdeman, Vis Mager

Originally translated as "Magician, Warlock, Wizard", these guys are... dudes in hoods and robes, and they cast spells at you. A pretty simple and neat little enemy trope, even if I think Final Fantasy's Black Mages and Zelda's Wizzrobes certainly have a far more stylish 'robed, unseen evil wizard' enemy. 

Lunatick/Raving Lunatick

Known as "Meda" and "Meda Lord" (Eye/Eye Lord) in the original Japanese and briefly translated as "Druin" in some of the early versions of Dragon Quest, this is an interesting one! It's not just an eyeball monster, but some sort of... octopus? An octopus with a single giant eyeball, two longer tentacles trailing behind, and massive antennae? A very neat looking creature that definitely looks a lot creepier and a fair bit more unnatural than some of the other monsters here. Neat!

Drohl, Drohl Mage

Okay, what? This is an absolute weirdo! The Wiki describes this guy as a 'snail like creature', but I'm not even sure what I'm looking at. It's like a face that's stretched-out, and I love everything about this one! Lunatick up above is pretty cool, but I can handwave it as a stylized version of an octopus the way the Dracky is a stylized bat. Drohl here is... it's got like little feet, penguin flippers, a durrr looking mouth right near its feet, nostrils on its scalloped body, and two eyes jutting out like stalks out of a shelled helmet. What is this guy? It sure is a bizarre weirdo, and that's probably what it's meant to be. 

Ghost, Fightgeist, Spite Geist

Alternatively, some of them have been called 'Poltergeist', 'Specter', 'Metro Ghost' and 'Hell Ghost' but I'm too tired today to talk about localizations and different names. A pretty adorable cartoon ghost, this isn't a game that's trying to be scary or realistic or spooky. You just have some ghost enemies, and I feel like the tongue and witch hat combo really works in making this guy look cute. 

Chimera, Hocus Chimera, Cosmic Chimera

The stronger ones are otherwise called "Magichimera" and "Star Chimera", and depending on the localizations they are either called 'chimaera' or 'wyvern'. They're pretty neat, though, you think of wyverns as two-legged dragons and chimaeras as those lion/goat/snake hybrids. These are more like... weird angry vultures with the body of a fat snake. That kind of counts as a chimera, I suppose, and works somewhat for the definition of a wyvern. Not quite as exciting as any of the other monsters since this is kind of a 'basic' looking fantasy monster, but on the other hand this is also one of the first RPG games. I suppose it's neat to have a weaker dragon-esque enemy show up a bit early on, huh?

Bewarewolf, Scarewolf, Tearwolf

These fake-werewolves are called Lycant, Lycant Mammal and Killer Lycant in the original Japanese. They sure look like Dragon Ball characters, for sure. Specifically, the specific werewolf character that showed up before Dragon Ball became all about screaming and alien warlords. These guys don't quite have a wolf-head, though, and look more like angry dog-men. Pretty neat. 

Knight Errant, Knight Aberrant, Knight Abhorrent

You've got humanoid enemies, and humanoid knights with or without weapons ("Knight Errant" there will probably just bop you ion the face) are pretty standard enemies in a fantasy game. Again, I will forever find myself with not much to say in these sort of enemies. They're important to make a fantasy world feel more complete, but these are just kinda there. I like the exaggerated proportions of the artwork. 

Skeleton, Skeleton Scrapper, Skeleton Soldier, Dark Skeleton

You've got four palette swaps of this guy, and I love the goofy grin on the Skeleton art! I'm not sure why the skull is so elongated, though. Just an art choice, or is this creature created from the skeleton of a non-human? Either way, yay for skeleton warriors! I like skeleton warriors in video games, and these are appropriately goofy-looking ones. 

Gold Golem, Golem, Stone Golem

In the original Japanese, "Golem" is only the middle creature here and is a mini-boss, while the other two common enemies are "Gold Man" and "Stone Man". Whether these are meant to be an adaptation of golems or elementals or whatever, it's still a pretty fun trope to put in a fantasy game of a giant made entirely out of bricks with two glowing eyes. Again, looking at these guys now after seeing so much weird monsters in other fantasy games it's a bit underwhelming, but, y'know, this is very early on in the history of video games, and these golem dudes do feel pretty different from the other enemies here. 

Green Dragon, Blue Dragon, Red Dragon

You got dragons! You can't have 'Dragon Quest' without dragons! The weakling dragons here are all wingless and four-legged, and basically look like generic Western dragons. Again, they sure are dragons, there's really not much to say here. 

Dragonlord

And then you have the Dragonlord. Yeah, he definitely looks like he could be buddies with Pilaf and Piccolo, huh? Dragonlord is fought in two stages, first as his humanoid wizard stage, and the second as a giant winged dragon. So that's why all the other dragons are wingless, it's to make the Dragonlord's final fight feel extra special. A pretty standard villain, and I reckon might be one of the genre-definers for the many, many multi-phase video game bosses. The dragon form is kind of a basic-looking cartoon dragon, but I do like just how much more kaiju-esque the proportions are. And then you've got the glorious horned hair of the human-form Dragonlord. A pretty all right final boss for a fantasy game.