One Piece 1154 Review: The History of Elbaph

One Piece, Chapter 1154: Can't Even Die

We get a bit of a speed-run through Elbaph's history, and I do like that we finally get some nods to events we've seen happen prior in the story. 63 years ago, which is around the time of Loki's birth, is also when Big Mom killed Jorl and laid waste to the village. We don't actually see Linlin beyond a single shot, so I do like that the focus is still on Loki and Harald's stories. 

But turns out that around that time -- around the time that Big Mom rampaged and Loki was born -- Elbaph was struck by a particularly terrible winter and famine. Estrid is still yelling that the child is cursed and yells at her guards to kill baby Loki... who at this point is still goo-goo-ga-ga ing around but being of Ancient Giant heritage, baby Loki is the size of a large animal, like a boar or something, compared to the guards. 

This famine led to a lot of infighting amongst the giant tribes, and as tribes raided each other and they questioned the rules preventing them from pillaging humans, one of the starvation-struck giants even attacked Ida and little boy Hajrudin, under the very flimsy excuse that Hajrudin's brother (who he has never met) was the source of the curse and that he'd be a sacrifice to appease the gods. That hungry giant also attacks Ida for being an outsider... and of course, it's at this point that King Harald finally returns, having been away from the country since partway through chapter 1153. 

In a very badass shot, Harald shows off that in the time that he's been away, he's forged bonds with the other nations of the world... and upon hearing the starvation that has besieged Elbaph, a giant fleet of different ships arrived to bring relief and food for the giantkind. As the crisis is averted, Harald made a promise that he will help the smaller races if they ever need help... and, of course, apparently nowadays Elbaph is a bit more isolated than it was before so clearly things didn't go the way Harald wanted it to. 

Estrid then dies. Ding, dong, the witch is dead! No one apparently explained to King Harald about the circumstances between Estrid and Loki's relationship, though, because Harald still mourned Estrid and the guards gave Loki with his eyes bandaged up to Harald... and Harald apparently just took them at their word that Loki 'has an eye condition'. Not sure about the reasons why they did it (were the guards afraid that Harald would also discard Loki?) but at this point, baby Loki had 'abandoned any chance for love', which is absolutely tragic since while Harald is a bit distant and prone to leaving Elbaph, he seems like an all right dad? 

We also see a bit more of a time-skip, with Harald ordering the construction of the bridges we see in modern-day Elbaph, something that was lacking in all these flashback scenes. Loki is raised, however, by the regent -- Estrid's brother, who we don't see much of but seems to be as terrible as the queen-bitch herself. We learn that the bar we see in the present day and learn that it's founded by Ida, deliberately as a way to be closer to any humans that arrive in Elbaph. 

More interestingly, however, is a conversation between Harald and Jarl. Harald apparently snuck into a Reverie, not being invited, and would've even found himself imprisoned if not for a 'murder' which we'll learn about at the end of the chapter. Jarl explains to Harald that the World Government's denial of communication and aid to Elbaph is probably due to a much longer grudge, which as readers we can sort of surmise. Jarl identifies this as the giants having some sort of great enemy in the past... but the history is 'sunk under the sea'. Ominous, and has a lot of conclusions you could make about ancient kingdoms and whatnot. 

Jarl also mentions a 'Galleila Band', with the kanji reading 'Warhammer Band'... which Harald remembers as giant hammer-wielding shipwrights that even had ancient giants among their ranks. Jarl notes that the entire Galleila Band isn't a myth, but they've all been taken prisoner... and it disturbs Jarl to think what force on the world could capture a hundred giants, with rumours about them being frozen.

Except we, the readers, have seen them. So have half the Straw Hats. In Punk Hazard, actually, there was a frozen room of giants that went completely unexplained beyond some vague ties to Caesar Clown's giantification experiments. And people who have compared the two chapters very quickly identified that the silhouettes of the Galleila Band matches almost one-to-one with the frozen giants. And even before Punk Hazard was devastated by Akainu and Aokiji, it has always been a giant laboratory. So... yeah, a bunch more completely random questions. Who had 'Punk Hazard frozen giants' and 'tie-in to the Galley-La company' on their Elbaph bingo card? 

Meanwhile, Loki grows up. The regent, Estrid's dipshit brother, continues to verbally abuse baby Loki, and he grew up... and as he grew up, things around him die. First the horse, and then the regent himself. I... I don't think Loki is responsible for either of those, but honestly I also wouldn't be particularly surprised if he did push the dipshit regent off the tree. 

Meanwhile, Harald continues to be a great king, connecting branches and bridges all over Elbaph. Throughout this scene, while everyone is cheering at Harald, two asshole guards tell Hajrudin off for being a bastard, and this is the first time we've ever seen Loki smile chronologically, with a huge shit-eating grin that's a lot more distinct since the rest of his body is shaded. 

And later on, as Loki gets a bit older, he raids villages with his little army of Underworld creatures, under the mentality of 'Elbaph is the land of warriors, we don't need weaklings'. We've glimpsed some of these rampages, so Loki isn't innocent at all from it. Young Hajrudin stands up against Loki, however, and Loki just utterly beats the crap out of the much smaller Hajrudin. Even while young, Hajrudin was already talking a lot of the same values that Harald and Ida spout about human/giant equality, while Loki scoffs at them. 

Young Gerd and young Goldberg are there and they (and other nameless villagers) crowd around the beaten Hajrudin and help him. Notably, this is after Gerd has lost a friend in Linlin, so her being so deathly loyal to Hajrudin (despite Goldberg's warning) is a nice little character arc. Loki continues to mock and bully and beat up the guards who talk back, and we get another great small panel as Loki bites his lower lip after his victory... right after seeing Hajrudin surrounded by people, and seeing a mother protecting her child while glaring at Loki with hateful eyes. 

And then the next scene is a huge 'kabammm!' as Loki falls down to the underworld... and he's crying. His bandages are off, and he cries that he "can't even die". So yeah, after Robin in her flashback a couple of chapters back, we actually just saw a child trying to commit suicide! Hell, he did it, he just failed at it. It's quite depressing, and seeing this right off the bat of the cocky attitude that Loki had moments earlier is even more jarring. 

The narration sums it best -- "no matter how much he harmed or destroyed, Loki could never fill the hole at the center of his being". 

And at this darkest hour in poor Loki's life? Four figures show up, having also sliced a random Elbaph mountain in their way. Three familiar ones, and one not-so-familiar one. We've got Whitebeard, Shiki and (original) Stussy, who crowd around the fallen Loki. And leading them is Rocks D. Xebec, finally in the flesh... and he's a cocky shit who refuses to accept no for an answer, wanting to know if this is Elbaph and if Harald is around. 

But more striking is Rocks's design, whose face in particular is a dead ringer for Blackbeard. He's got wilder streaked hair, a nicely-cropped set of facial hair and a far better dental plan and workout regime than his son, but his image bears a striking resemblance to Blackbeard! And the narration confirms it -- "Father of Future Emperor Blackbeard". 

So yeah. It's nice to see it somewhat confirmed after it was a common pet theory among the fandom for years now. Blackbeard named his ship the Sabre of Xebec since forever, so everyone suspected he was Xebec's son or at least some inherited-will connection. This one just confirms it. But Rocks is also identified by the narration as being the cause of all the chaos in the Reverie eight years earlier (which was the source of his discussion with Jarl)... and the 'murder' that happened? Xebec apparently murdered a Marine Admiral. Interesting! Again, seeing Xebec a fair bit more is definitely interesting to me -- more of what he represents than who he is. Rocks is connected to so many characters in the story now that I'm really curious to see just what he's all about, and how he's connected to so many of our characters... and to Loki in particular!

Random Notes:

• The Yamato Cover Story: Kiku and Boss Cho bring Yamato and the dino-siblings to a shrine of a hero of Wano... who's "born in the West Blue and laid to rest in Wano". As far as we know, I don't think any character actually matches this description, but a case could be made for good ol' Ryouma? It's a bit of an oddball to be throwing at us, for sure. 
• What I can see from this chapter is that the random guards and soldiers in Elbaph are quite stand-up people, aren't they? The guards trying to stop Estrid from yeeting baby Loki off the tree, the ones trying to calm Loki and trying to talk down Estrid's bullshit, or even the guards trying to stop Hajrudin and Loki from fighting (one of which even calls Hajrudin a prince!).
• The exception, of course, is the two guards present when Harald was giving his speech about bridges, who tells Hajrudin off for being a bastard. 
• I was looking around (admittedly half-heartedly) for Nordic stories of babies being thrown off the Yggdrasil and can't find one, but in Greek mythology Hera did throw Hephaestus due to being disgusted by his deformity. 
• 'Asura' the horse from last chapter have been officially translated as 'Asla', making him somewhat similar in spelling to Nordic mythological figure Aslaug, mother of Sigurd 'Snake-in-the-Eye' Ragnarsson -- who is significant here because he was born with the image of a snake in his eye and was doing heroic things even as a child, making him a potential inspiration for One Piece's Loki. 
• In her rambling, Ida yells that Hajrudin is the 'smartest cutest boy in the world who will grow up to be the oldest man in the world', which is gloriously highly specific and sounds like something out of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure or something! I love it. 
• The bar isn't run by Ida in the present day, but she might just be retired, right?
• Ida's bar has a tap made up of a fucking battleaxe. She may be a giant civilian, but she's still a giant! 
• Shiki interestingly wears a very wano-esque kimono. He's always worn kimonos even in his original movie design, but with that one Kurozumi being able to copy his face, I wonder if he's actually born there?
• A nice little detail to their personalities is that Shiki sees big giant baby Loki and marvels at the 'monster', showing how his character has always seen strength above all; while Whitebeard is more concerned that a child is crying. 
• Galleila (ガレイラ) and Galley-La (ガレーラ) actually are spelled slightly differently in the original Japanese, so it is meant to be homonyms instead of a name being repeated. Galley-La is explicitly founded by Iceberg less than a decade prior to the story, so they're clearly named after the giant shipwrights, but there's clearly some connection, isn't there? 

Reviewing Monsters: Genshin Impact, Part 14: Natlan 3

It's been a bit since we've talked about Genshin Impact, have we not? Well, I've still been playing it on and off, although I still have quite a bit of story to catch up on. A lot of the newer Archon Quests are at least following up on a lot of storylines seeded since way back in the earliest patches, which I really do like. 

But as usual, we're mostly concerned about monsters in this blog and this review series. With the 5.4 to 5.7 patches of Genshin, we get introduced to our last tribe in Natlan, the Electro-element, wrestler-themed Collective of Plenty who hang out in their own little island away from the mainland of Natlan, thus completing our six Natlan tribes. Without further ado, we're going with the monsters!

[This covers 5.4 to 5.7]

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Regular Enemies:

Tatankasaurus

Our new tribe's Saurian companion are the Tatankasaurus, or (Rhino-ryuu/rhinosaurus in Japanese), who are based on Ceratopsian dinosaurs from real life. As with the other five tribes we've seen, they come in baby and adult forms, and the games very freely have them be adorable and valued pets and companions for all the Teteocan tribe members we meet... and we also are expected to slaughter them for materials. Just like all the other Saurians, you can 'indwell' adult Tatankasaurus to solve the environmental puzzles. The gimmick with the Tatantaksaurus is that they can get into a jog and then a battering run, allowing them to smash through volcanic rock and run up certain ramps.

I do like the design of the Tatankasaurus, with the legs and head having a somewhat furry (or maybe downy feather?) consistency. They do still have a beak, but not the nose-horns that the common Triceratops would have. Their head crests splay out into two nice growths that look rather impressive as an adult, with the in-game descriptions noting that they have multiple layers of horn-crests. There's also some green growths, and I wonder if those are meant to be moss growing on the creature? Not the biggest fan of the weird purple-gemstone growths it has as an adult, though. 

I think this is one of my favourite ones where it's not just a slightly more anime-ified version of a real-life animal like the Qucusaur or Iktomisaur, but also not feel like a bit over-the-top 'Pokemon/Digimon mascot' the way the Yumkasaur and Tepetlisaur feel like. I like this one a fair bit. 

Collective of Plenty Warriors

Our tribe, the Collective of Plenty (or Teteocan) are purple and wield Electro. The tribe is themed around farming and... bodybuilding, for some reason? Some of the main characters and unique NPCs are specifically themed around wrestlers, which is certainly a strange choice to make, but not an unwelcome one. This leads to all the Teteocan warriors posing like they're flexing, are given names like 'Wrestler' and 'Grappler' although sadly they don't actually have wrestling moves in their animations. I get it, all the human enemies are just reskins of each other, but I did feel like it's a bit of a wasted opportunity. 

Otherwise, I don't have much to say about them. As usual, the more powerful versions wear masks fashioned after their tribal dinosaur. 

Thundering Wayob Manifestation

Another new Natlan tribe, and we get another new Wayob Manifestation. All of these are honestly quite similar to each other... I like the general 'weird angel' vibe of the Wayobs, but other than acknowledging the coolness of the wing-eyes, I don't think I have much to say here. The lore does note that the Thundering Wayob used to wrestle with the Collective of Plenty's tribal warriors, but sadlty that doesn't actually translate to them having any wrestling themed moves. 

Furnace Shell Mountain Weasel

Another brand-new enemy is a fire-themed enemy called a 'Furnace Shell Mountain Weasel'. Whew, that's a bit of a mouthful! Weasels have been showing up in Genshin since the very first version of the game, running around as little critters that drop meat. Well, this guy is a full-blown monster, looking more like a demonic fox monster more than an actual weasel. Apparently the energies of the volcano that the Teteocan tribe live around has mutated the local weasels... but they also have attached to them parts of the Source Mechanisms -- the ancient ceramic-looking robots that are unique to Natlan. All Furnace Shell Weasels have one of these rings around their necks, so I think that's not so much a hypothesis as an explanation. 

More interesting than the ring is that all of these Furnace Shell Weasels have tails that expand into a massive demonic claw holding one of the robotic cores of these Source Mechanisms. The archive notes that the weasel goes around consuming other creatures rich in Phlogiston (the local magic energy) and accumulates power in that 'shell'. This allows it to unleash powerful fire attacks, and even burrow underground and become a mechanical turret as part of its attack. Honestly, a relatively refreshing new enemy model. 

Except it's not a happy situation for the weasel, however, and one of the adventure book descriptions make it very clear that it's not a symbiosis, and the Source Mechanism is using the energies to control the weasel as a host. That's so interesting, but there's not a single quest or NPC in the entire game that mentions this. But this little tidbit that goes against the other explanation for the creature makes it so much more infinitely interesting to me. 

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Bosses:

Lava Dragon Statue

Each new patch comes with a new overworld boss, and we've got a rather expected enemy in the Lava Dragon Statue. Essentially the 'boss' version of the lava elementals we saw at the release of Natlan, the Lava Dragon Statue was first shown to us in trailers and promotional material as the picture on the right. It's a giant serpentine dragon head made up of molten lava and rock. Pretty standard stuff, isn't it? Impressive, but it's not exactly anything to write home about. We've seen fire elementals in other fantasy media before. 

But then you walk up to the arena where it is, and instead of a giant lava dragon, you see a pudgy little rock-golem guy with stubby arms and legs. It almost looks like a goofier version of Breath of the Wild's Talus monsters. And when you fight the Lava Dragon Statue, it actually runs around in its awkward stubby-leg rock golem mode for a majority of the fight, even getting stuck in the ground and flailing its legs uselessly. That giant serpent-lava-mode is its super mode that it doesn't access until it takes a certain amount of specific elemental damage, and it constantly pops in and out of its shell. That makes it a fair bit more charming than just being a big angry lava demon. 

There is some lore about how the Lava Dragon Statue is actually the result of a failed experiment by the ancient dragon civilization that ruled Natlan, the same civilization that made all these Source Mechanism robots. The dragons had been trying to use magical flame to create a new race of humans... but all that was created were 'hollow shells whose nominal lifeforce granted them no more consciousness than a stone'. So these aren't exactly lava elementals or sentient magma, but empty dolls that were originally meant to be a new human race! ...and you'd think that they would have a quest around this, but nope, we don't get that, either. Come on, Natlan!

Secret Source Automaton: Overseer Device

This one actually debuted in an earlier patch as a quest-exclusive boss. One of the first bosses in Natlan is the Configuration Device, which goes from being a weird mass of ancient-punk mechanical pieces into a giant dragon claw. This Overseer Device, meanwhile, takes the rough form of a dragon head, although it mostly just spins around shooting lasers. 

It's mostly an annoying gimmick boss, where you need to use Cryo attacks to cool down its overheating reactor to stun it. The lore notes that this is apparently the overseer of the many other Secret Source mechas we've been seeing all throughout Natlan with artificial, phlogiston-engineered intelligence. Which, surprisingly enough, did not go full Skynet on their creators.

Instead, they just hang out in their ruins and guard ancient dragon technology. As mentioned above,  we actually get to see the full form of the Overseer and Configuration Device bosses in a quest-exclusive boss fight, called the Primeval Source Dragon Mech where the dragon head and dragon arms make like the rough shape of a disconnected mass of dragon pieces. That's actually quite cool, and even though it appears only for the quest I do like that they made the head into a 'proper' boss later on. 

The Game Before the Gate

One of the patches brings us back to Mondstadt, where through one thing or other, we get into a bit of a test with the local mysterious witch guild, the Hexenzirkel. To prove our worth in that quest, one of the members tosses us into a chessboard, Alice in Wonderland style, and have us fight a giant, ornate chess king piece. And that's the first phase of the fight. 'The Game Before the Gate' (a mouthful name) initially has us just wailing on the king piece while it summons its minions all around it, many of whom attack similarly to chess patterns... and some that don't, leading to comical  scenes like the King standing on a rook and using it as a little roller-blade throughout the board. As a fan of chess, I do appreciate this boss. 

As you beat down the King piece's HP, the Queen shows up and it becomes a dual boss, with the Queen of course having a whole bag of tricks and missiles, like detonating all the chess pieces that a Queen could legally step on; or summoning blades and storms of fiery daggers. It's typical video-game-boss stuff, but the chess motif is fun enough for me. 

This is a weekly boss, though,  which means we get a second phase. At which point we're thrown off the chess board and into a generic boss fight chamber. Like something from Persona 3 or something, the two King and Queen pieces transform into quite neat-looking mecha-knights. And they speak and ham things up quite a bit, too, which I do appreciate. There are still some chess motifs here and there, although not exactly as much or as faithful to the chess game as the original. 

In this fight, the King is characterized as a Pyro-wielding warrior with a giant greatblade, while the Queen is like a wizard that summons Electro and Hydro attacks... and even does a one-hit-kill gimmick where she summons giant tidal waves from all sides around you. Which has nothing to do with chess, but it's neat. They both have different health bars, and depending on the amount of health the other piece has, they will either resurrect their spouse or go into a berserk state. 

Anyway, it's a bit of an unexpected boss fight. I do like chess motifs, there's a story reason for them (even if that story reason is 'witches having fun') and they put in a fair amount of effort for their animations. I like them! 

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man S01E02 Review: Oscorp Rising

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Season 1, Episode 2: Parker Luck

Another aspect of this show that doesn't come off particularly well how much it vomits out multiple characters at once. After the first episode introduces us to Peter's school friends, this episode has Norman Osborn offer Peter an internship, at which point we are introduced to a smattering of new, quirky characters -- fellow interns Amadeus Cho (a Hulk), Jeanne Foucault (Finesse), Asha (a Wakandan superheroine), as well as Peter's handlers in Oscorp, Dr. Bentley Wittman (The Wizard) and Dr. Carla Connors (a gender and race-flipped Lizard). Hindsight being 20-20, I now know that the entire Oscorp interns gang are just almost entirely fluff and foreshadowing for the next season, since none of them really ended up mattering in this season, but it still feels like an unnecessary overloading of characters... which honestly feels like it's just banking on some audience familiarity with 'oh, these guys are going to be superheores/supervillains'. It is admittedly a bit unnecessarily exhausting.  

One thing this episode does well is, at least, to explore the initial dynamics between Peter and Norman, which is perhaps the biggest draw for this alternate universe quasi-reboot. The point of comparison is the main MCU having the more benevolent Iron Man as Peter's mentor, and we all know what a villainous control freak Norman can be. YFNSM's Norman Osborn is shown to be friendly and stern, a more professional version of Tony, and I do feel like this dynamic is one thing that goes all the way to the end of the season well.

The majority of the episode is... it's something that is almost obligatory in a show formatted like this, but I just don't find it particularly interesting. Peter is juggling his internship work with his school social life (He's got a project with Lonnie! He's got a party with Nico!) and, oh, his superheroing as Spider-Man. I'm not going to be mean and say it's badly done, because I feel like the show does a great job at portraying the panicking teenage anxiety, but it's also the focus of the entire episode and I just felt like it could've been done better. At the very least, Peter should've been able to use his Oscorp internship as a way to dodge Nico, surely? But this time management thing is pretty baked into Spider-Man's DNA, so whether it's school/internship/superhero or Mary Jane/Daily Bugle/superhero, I feel I shouldn't be too harsh on it. 

The episode also gives us a villain of the week, Scorcher Butane, a dumbass arsonist who was tasked to burn down an empty building for insurance purposes, but ends up attacking the wrong building. It's mostly just a fluffy fight, given some extra flair because Peter needs to rescue some animals in the midst of fighting Butane, but it does give us some nice superheroing action. It's all ultimately a catalyst to the fact that Peter's amateurishness causes Norman Osborn to catch him in action as Spider-Man, which happens quite early into the show and is quite an interesting development. 

It's still a bit of a slower episode, which I think is going to be a common criticism for this show. Overall, though, I do find this show quite enjoyable and I feel like the series is interesting at least in terms of the Peter/Norman dynamic. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• New characters:
• Amadeus Cho, also known as the 'Totally Awesome' Hulk, is a child prodigy and one of the smartest people in the world, who found his Hulk powers to be a gift and is able to retain his regular persona even in Hulk form. He has been a Hulk supporting character since his debut. 
• Jeanne Foucault in the comics is the daughter of the supervillain Taskmaster, inheriting her father's ability to copy any physical skills he has observed. Jeanne would become a superhero under the codename Finesse. 
• Asha in the comics is a superpowered Wakandan with the ability to absorb and reflect light energy. 
• Dr. Bentley Wittman is better known as the supervillain Wizard, a genius who uses superpowered tools like anti-gravity discs to lead the team called the Frightful Four. 
• Butane in the comics is a minor Excalibur supporting character with the power to control fire. The appearance of the show's version of Butane, a mechanically-augmented pyromaniac with twin flamethrowers, recalls traditional Spider-Man villain Scorcher much more closely. 
• Dr. Carla Connors is a gender-flipped and race-flipped version of Dr. Curt Connors, better known as the Lizard. She still is missing an arm, though!
• The security guard in Oscorps has the name "J. Gallo", seemingly identifying him as John Gallo/Ricochet, a mutant with heightened senses and an ability to sense danger.
• Coach Phil Grayfield is a very unexpected Marvel comics character, the indestructible football player called "NFL SuperPro", who headlined a series of comics as a tie-in with the sports association NFL.
• Nico name-drops Roxxon Oil as an even worse corporation than Oscorp. Roxxon is a notoriously corrupt and unethical megacorp in the Marvel universe, having had appearances in the MCU in all three Iron Man movies, Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, Daredevil, and most notably as antagonists in Cloak and Dagger. 
• Peter Parker's phone is cracked and broken, matching its appearance with his sacred timeline counterpart in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
• While Amadeus was flipping through the channels, it briefly shows a wrestling competition with "Crusher" Hogan. In the original comics, Peter Parker initially utilizes his Spider-Man powers to get money from a wrestling competition, fighting against Crusher Hogan. 
• A picture in Norman's corridors show him posing with Captain America. 

Let's Play Pokemon Shining Pearl, Part 4 - Underground Secrets

Again, there's just a long gauntlet of trainers and exploration to do at this point, which is something that I admit to have missed in a lot of the more recent games with its mentality of 'map space is a valuable asset'. Admittedly, the walk down from Veilstone down to Pastoria is hampered a bit by the fact that there's really not a lot of variety in either wild or trainer Pokemon, something that I think is a bit more pronounced in Diamond & Pearl due to its smaller Pokemon pool compared to how I experienced Sinnoh the first time around, Platinum. 

There are a couple of other stuff on the way which makes this a bit less boring. The Ruin Maniac's Cave is here, and good ol' Ruin Maniac is going on digging through the cave. Turns out last time I was in Solaceon, I was just... completely goofing up and missed the little pathway that led to the eastern side of Solaceon and down into the Unown caves. The Ruin Maniac's Cave expands the more Unown variants I catch, which I thought was a nice way to incorporate the Unown into a sidequest. I've always thought that having all these Pokemon variations -- Unown and Vivillon being the major ones, but there are a lot of others in recent memory -- and not having anyone in-game really acknowledge them in any way is kind of a missed opportunity, so this is nice. Not quite as cool as Legends Arceus and its Unown hunt in the overworld, but this is nice. 

There's technically a fork in the road several times, but Generation IV is quite blatant in its roadblocks. A bunch of scientists associated with Team Galactic (or duped by them, as later dialogue implies) blocks the way to Lake Valor; and there's a blackout in Sunyshore and guards stop me from going there. M'kay. 

I reach the resort area on the southern part of the map, which is a nice bit -- the restaurant with repeatable battles is still here, although I honestly don't think I need to grind with my hideously overleveled team. I've actually been rotating out two members that are overleveled throughout this gauntlet just so I don't overshot the game's original level curve. 

At this point, I decide to explore the Grand Underground a bit more, and it's honestly a nice thing to do mindlessly running around as I listen to a podcast or something. The original Underground is itself kind of a more passive, more 'brainless' gameplay, just running around and excavating things on walls. It's nice, but not the most engaging. So having rooms with overworld Pokemon walking around is really nice. And there are some rooms at the ends, with one having a giant carved Bastiodon statue... I feel a fair chunk of effort went into the environmental backgrounds of these underground chambers, with the lava one looking particularly spiffy. I really just wished they had put this kind of effort in updating and be a bit bolder in changing the overworld. 

They've added a bunch of little mechanics, with NPCs underground that I can talk to -- they don't say anything important, but they count towards the infamously frustrating way of triggering Spiritomb to activate, which was not easy to do in the days of old-school Nintendo DS. I had to talk with the same guy like 40 times or something stupid, disconnecting and reconnecting our DS-es! It's nice. There's also a bunch of Digletts that randomly pop up, filling up a 0/40 meter. Initially I thought the Digletts were the ones that would count towards Spiritomb, but the Digletts are part of a Ultra Space style shiny encounter increase mechanic. Okay! That's neat.

More interestingly, they also use the Grand Underground as a way to make it so much easier to encounter more frustrating Pokemon to encounter. Hippopotas, who IIRC would only spawn in the Ruin Maniac's Cave after a certain amount of Unown has been caught, show up in the Grand Underground. Glameow and Purugly are also here; I remembered them locked off in a post-game area? More importantly, though, Munchlax shows up! Anyone that's tried to catch a Munchlax in the original Nintendo DS games knows what's up, these bastards that only show up on specific honey trees with a 1% chance or something? Yeah. I do like putting some effort into catching my rare Pokemon, but I can admit Munchlax was stupid to get back in the day. 

Anyway, I manage to fill up several more pages of my Pokedex throughout this little sojourn through the Grand Underground as well as the Hearthome-Solaceon-Veilstone-Pastoria run. But out of the dozen or so Pokemon I've captured, I've figured out who I want for my team member, finally rounding up my party to six... Skorupi! I've always loved the little scorpion bugger. Drapion's never been my favourite designs, but it's a cool bug and one that I feel works nicely -- and is a fair bit more of a one-trick pony than my go-to Generation IV bugs Vespiquen and the poor, underpowered Kricketune. 

I enter Pastoria City, which is fine and as laid-back as I remembered it to be. I didn't realize the epic Croagunk photo panel was a Platinum addition, though that's fine. The city itself doesn't really have a whole ton to it, since it's mainly revolving around the Great Marsh. I feel the Grand Marsh itself is mostly the same, and... again, not a whole lot of surprises there. The icky mud traps are still there, the four areas and the telescopes are still there...

I just feel that, again, I sound a bit like a broken record, the Great Marsh kind of sucks in Diamond and Pearl. There are so many Pokemon that repeated from the previous areas, and even super-early-route Pokemon like Starly and Bidoof still show up here. Platinum's Great Marsh introduced a lot of new faces like Yanma and Tangela straight out of the get-go, and right now it's just basically a way for me to go in, catch like a Wooper and a Marill, and get out. With the much longer loading time for a Pokemon encounter in the remakes, it is kind of a miserable experience. 

What I did get, though, was another partner, which means that I can put Jirachi into semi-retirement since I did say I wanted to play with an entirely Generation-IV team... Croagunk! I love the vibe of this frog punk, and I've never actually used a Toxicroak in my team ever. It does mean that once Skorupi evolves into Drapion I'm doubling up on Dark-types, but that's okay. The game honestly does feel really easy.

Which means that my current party is: Torterra, Drifblim, Gastrodon, Croagunk, Skorupi and Crobat; with Jirachi on reserve. Crobat might also join Jirachi in semi-retirement, but I haven't really thought of a Pokemon to swap him out with. 

Pastoria City is also home to the move relearner. The modern games have been great at having the 'level 0' moves be instantly learnt as a Pokemon evolves, like Crobat's Cross Poison, but one thing that remains a delightful move relearner thing? Torterra's Wood Hammer. STAB Double-Edge, baby! 

With that done, I go into Crasher Wake's gym, which has a water-level puzzle. I don't have much to say about the puzzle, I think it's perfectly nicely done, even if it does feel a bit samey with some gyms that rotate around with buttons from the GBA/DS era. It's nice, though. Of course, having a grass starter (and being, y'know, kind of overleveled), Torterra single-handedly swept the gym trainers in the gym. And at least unlike Maylene, Crasher Wake does have a fair amount of trainers!

Crasher Wake himself is.... is okay. Again, I do have an advantage with a grass-type starter, but as the fourth gym leader that comes off a long grinding road, he's only got a Quagsire, Gyarados and a Floatzel, and the only real surprise was an Ice Fang from the Gyarados... but there's really not much to mention here. Wake himself is nowhere as bombastic as his anime or manga counterparts, other than the design being 'surprise, a wrestler!' I feel like I'm nitpicking, though. Pastoria's a perfectly fine gym. 

After that, though, the very suspicious Team Galactic member standing outside the Great Marsh starts acting shifty and suspicious, before he runs off, and this leads us to a rather lame duck-chase as he runs to the entrance of Pastoria, across the beach, and all the way to Lake Valor. He refuses to fight us, which would've been a cute subversion of the Pokemon formula... except he eventually does. So, eh? I felt this could've been a bit more interesting with him having grunt friends to help us out. But he passed off his package, which is totally a fuck-ton of dynamites, to his commander. And the scientists who think Team Galactic is a legit company is still closing off Lake Valor under the name of nebulous research. Honestly, kind of a bit of a letdown of a sequence. 

Oh, right, a Barry rival fight happens at this point. I actually had to look through my notes to realize this, but honestly, while the Monferno is understandable due to remake level scaling issues, his Starly isn't. No, seriously, Blue at least had a Pidgeotto at this point! May had a Pelipper! This is the fourth gym, the mid-point of the game technically, and his party has a Buizel and a Starly, completely unevolved. Yep, Barry, you suck. 

Anyway, in front of the scientists, Cynthia gives me the Secret Potion to solve the Psyduck blockade, which would've felt random if I didn't find Psyducks having a headache so charming. I just really wished that there was more that I did to solve this blockade beyond the pretty champion showing up and tossing the plot device to me. 

Anyway, after I cleared out the Psyduck, Cynthia shows up and immediately gives me another plot coupon, the Old Charm, to take to Celestic Town. The route to get there is foggy, but the HMs are now stored on the Poketch and the fog just... it does end up feeling like a relic of a past game now. It's just a button press to get rid of the annoyance, and Defog is one of those things that you don't actually experience until after you've had the solution, so it isn't even a proper roadblock like Rock Smash or Strength are in this game. Anyway, we get another gauntlet, and I did actually like this part of the game having a bit more variety in its trainers and Pokemon. Some Ninja Boys, a bunch more new Pokemon like Croagunks and Kadabras show up...

(My own Croagunk evolved into Toxicroak at this point, which I've always found to be cool with the wrist-spikes). 

Anyway, I arrive in Celestic Town. It's much smaller and a lot less grandiose than the incarnation we saw in Legends: Arceus, but that game honestly does such a great job at expanding the Sinnoh mythos to actually feel like the epic storyline crafted by these background NPCs. And there always a lot of great bits strewn around even this original Diamond/Pearl script, with the talk about Azelf, Uxie and Mesprit... I just don't necessarily think the original game was that good in spotlighting the three fairy guardians in general. Both the anime and manga, with their respective three main characters, were a lot better in this regard. 

Anyway, an 'angry spaceman' is ranting in front of the Celestic Town Shrine, which is made up of murals of Dialga and Palkia; and a drawing of the three Lake Guardians around a red stone in its middle. I come down and beat up the Galactic Grunt, who buggers off and mutters about the 'Galactic Bomb'. Cynthia's Grandmother gives some background about the Lake Guardian origins, before Cyrus finally shows up and gives a whole spiel about us having to look at the world from a much wider scale, and that for a new world to be born, some destruction must happen. Yep, yep, obvious villain right here!

Anyway, I beat up the trainers West of Celestic Town, but the part of Mt. Coronet that it connects to is blocked by Strength. Meanwhile, Cynthia's Grandmother advises me to go to Canalave Town, but I need to get Surf to go there... which is an excuse to go back to Hearthome and fight Fantina! ...and it is a detour that feels rather arbitrary, since there's absolutely no story at all in Hearthome at this point. Nothing about Team Galactic, nothing about Cynthia, nothing even about Barry. It's no wonder that Platinum, again, just ripped off the band-aid and had Fantina be the third gym instead the moment you enter Hearthome. It really does feel like they wanted a 'the Viridian/Petalburg Gym is here, but it's not open yet!' moment but there's no real satisfying reason for Fantina to delay our gym battle other than a shrug. She is a diva enough to do it, yeah, but the Fantina we see at the gym has so little dialogue it doesn't really matter.

It's also the first time I've seen the Diamond/Pearl version of the Hearthome Gym. And... I know I'm a huge proponent of Platinum, but while Platinum's Hearthome revamp isn't the best (it's a bit of a cat-and-mouse game with flashlights, I think), the original one is just straight-up bad. It's a Cinnabar Island style 'quiz room' gauntlet, except with mathematics instead of something actually on-brand for Pokemon... or even for Fantina! She's a dancing ghost-lady whose whole point is that she's a diva that loves Pokemon Contests. You're telling me that her idea of a gym is... a maths quiz? Hello? 

Fantina herself is a bit more formidable than the pushover Maylene and Wake, though I also think that's because I burned the PP on some of my Pokemon through her trainers, and all the Drifloons have Aftermath. Fantina has a Drifblim, Gengar and Mismagius, and the first two do aim to cripple my party with Confuse Rays and Will-o-the-Wisps. I did lose my own Drifblim due to stubbornness in trying to fight ghosts with ghosts, but that's okay. 

With Fantina done and five badges under the belt, time to go to the Western side of Sinnoh next in Canalave, which we'll get to... next time! 

Random Notes:

• Tinkering around with the different walking Pokemon, I find out that good ol' Torterra, very naturally, is... extremely slow. As befits a giant tortoise that's carrying a bonsai garden on his back. 
  
• Diglett being part of the Grand Underground makes absolute sense, although I find it funny since Diglett was never part of the Diamond/Pearl dex. Not even the Platinum one! 
• Crasher Wake's outfit is based on Swampert. Those fins on his head, the colours, and most importantly the black 'muscle' things on his pants. Swampert does not appear in Diamond and Pearl, but Swampert is also one of my favourite Pokemon, like, ever. Have I never realized this about Crasher Wake? Huh! 
• I also hatched the egg from Hearthome, which is a Happiny. Did I remember the identity of the egg? I think I wasn't sure if it was a Togepi or not. 
• I did have some fun with my Gastrodon's Storm Drain ability in the Pastoria gym, tossing Gastrodon into battle to absorb Water-type moves and then annihilating the enemy with Ancient Power. 
• Defog and Fly are done by a Straraptor, but everything else is done by good ol' Bidoof and Bibarel, everyone's favourite HM Slaves. 
• I do appreciate basically every single one of the trainers under Fantina's employ lampshading how easy the questions are and how I'm definitely going into the wrong rooms to fight them. Not that I need the extra experience points, but the money is nice. 

One Piece 1053 Review: Feng Shui

One Piece, Chapter 1153: The Birth of Loki

So this chapter is an interesting one, taking place entirely via flashbacks-within-flashbacks. We get some backstory on King Harald, establishing him as a contemporary of Dorry and Brogy, and he grew up kind of spoiled -- a lot of people pointed out the similarities that Harald has to Oden in being a man-child who didn't discover more noble qualities until later in both their lives, except Harald was a lot worse as a child. 

And as a teenager, he goes around raiding with pirates. Things come to a head on Bunt Kingdom, where Harald shows that he at least has some values -- seeing a female giant stuck in a cage and seemingly forced to act as a sideshow, Harald and his warriors go in and absolutely raid the village. Except turns out that it's a huge misunderstanding. I... I can understand Harald overreacting at what he thought was slavery on his people, though! But while he's clearly there for somewhat good reasons, the female giant Ida slaps the shit out of King Harald, giving us an epic reaction shot. This is clearly the first time Harald's ever been slapped by someone, least of all someone who thinks would be thanking him for a rescue. 

Turns out Ida was rescued by the villagers, and she's just acting as a circus employee to repay them. We also get a really great facial expression of a crying Ida as she gives a speech to Harald about how arrogant he's being just because he happened to be born big and strong. She also drops a line about how all other giants are given the unfair, terrifying reputation of the Elbaph pirates because of the behaviour of people like him. What leads after this is another great expression from Harald as he semi-pouts and semi-reflects, and eventually yells at his minions to help Ida rebuild the 'little town'. 

Throughout this process, even the unnamed giant minions began to understand and do a bit of a trade of knowledge in regards to cloth and construction, while we get Harald slowly learning to appreciate humans -- even doing what appears to be the Nika dance with a bunch of little humans. It is a bit of a fast heel-face-turn, but I appreciate this -- Harald isn't the only main character we need a flashback for, after all. It's Loki's story, damn it! And Harald is young and impressionable enough that I kind of believe that meeting a giant who upends his way of thinking multiple times over is kind of... believable enough, I suppose.

We learn some more giant culture from the subsequent conversations. Ida comes from Sawamanai (literally 'not cold') in South Blue, and Harald notes that she has passed the 'serpent of blood' -- which seems to be Brogy and Dorry's term for the Red Line, printed more than a decade ago in the Little Garden arc. Ida's even getting her own preconceptions changed, realizing that Elbaph aren't just simple barbarians like she thought they all were. 

We cut slightly a bit into the future, where Harald starts to yell out a lot of his attempts to turn Elbaph around from a raiding nation to something that's more suited to the global stage. We also get a nice, clever bit of nod to Brogy and Dorry being active Giant Pirates throughout this period, but Harald also handwaves this aside by saying that Brogy and Dorry were always weirdly respectful of humans even since they were young. Which, honestly, seeing how they reacted to the Straw Hats in Little Garden? I totally buy this explanation. Harald wants to send diplomats, establish relations, and whatnot with a bunch of other countries. 

And then, 81 years before the present day, Ida gives birth to baby Hajrudin. However, a bunch of shady old giants -- presumably the leaders of the villages -- prevent Harald and Ida from marrying. Which we knew happened. It is kind of weird that Harald would actually listen to this, admittedly, considering how headstrong he's shown to be as a youth and how he's in the process of upending giant culture, but perhaps it's precisely because he's trying to upend Elbaph culture that he can't afford to be selfish? It's a bit odd. But Ida stays in the Fishermen Village, and seems content that she and Hajrudin would at least be close to Harald. 

The wife that the shadowy elder council picks for Harald is a super-hot lady called Estrid, with a 'pure and ancient' blood, and she introduces herself as a practitioner of what's translated as 'Geomancy' in the official translation, but is the art of 'Wind-Earth' in the original Japanese. It's an obvious nod to feng shui, which literally translates to wind-water in Mandarin. Feng shui is a Chinese art meant to harmonize the flow of chi in a house and environment based on sources of energy and balance. 

It's tradition and inherently harmless, but Estrid shows off an utter lack of compromise to Harald. It's a nice contrast to how Ida and Harald were both willing to learn and understand each other's perspectives, but Estrid just goes around and throws around her geomancy superstition immediately, giving out orders about mirrors and furniture and how they have to dine on silver and a lot of other stuff... while the second words out of her mouth is to tell Harald to forget about that 'woman and her bastard child'. She also gifts Harald the eight-legged horse Sleipnir Asla, which we know from previous chapters would die and his death be blamed on one of the bad lucks caused by the Cursed Child Loki. 

While King Harald is out meeting other people and being frustrated at being blocked at all turns by the World Government, 63 years ago we get to see the birth of Loki... and what's under those bandages. Baby Loki is positively demonic, with the little horn nubs being there since birth, but also horrifying, serpentine, demonic eyes. And he does look demonic... but that doesn't excuse what Estrid decides to do next. She immediately goes to hysterics, calling it a monster and yelling at everyone to say that it's a stillbirth. Even the midwives and guards are horrified. The narrator notes with a very sad line -- "The Prince of Elbaph grasped for the empty air, but no hands reached out to envelop his own. The most unfortunate of all living creatures is the one whose very existence is denied by its mother in the moment of its birth."

Because despite the protest of everyone else, Queen Estrid just picks Loki up and yeets him off Yggdrassil. A little dot that gets chucked all the way down into the Underworld. 

And as Estrid yells and tries to get back home, and screams about the prophecy of King Harald being killed by his own son (the wording makes it ambiguous whether the prophecy existed before, or if Estrid "remembered", a.k.a. made it up on the spot). But what immediately grabs everyone's attention is the shot of Baby Loki, still a baby, climbing up the World Tree while encrusted in frost and crying, driven by instinct. Holy fuck, he's still a baby, how is he doing this? A haunting image, an utterly wretched, sad image. 

And as Estrid continues to be a piece of filth and screams around about prophecies, we get a nice shot of Ida and young Hajrudin. Ida doesn't even seem to mind that Harald fathered a son with another woman, while Hajrudin acts a bit bratty. Yeah, Ida's a really, really nice person. Estrid isn't, but at least we know that she dies very quickly into Loki's childhood. But just like a lot of other themes in One Piece, we get to see how Loki's reputation was essentially decided the moment he was born -- all out of unfairness and prejudice over his eyes. Brings to mind a parallel to Ida's line earlier in the chapter -- "just because you're born big". I am definitely excited to see what little young Loki is going to get up to. 

Random Notes:

• Yamato Cover Story: Yamato's still continuing with the pilgrimage, this time meeting Kiku, who's become the Daimyo of Ringo. Okay! Yamato gets to be the Treasure Cruise art for this chapter, I suppose!
  
• Dang, baby Brogy looks like a Minion. 
• One of the establishing shots of teenaged Harald has him pick a booger and flick it so hard it causes an explosion in an ocean that tosses around a poor shark. Surprisingly, this isn't the first time a character in One Piece has weaponized boogers.
• A lot of people have pointed out how different Ida's design looks compared to Oda's traditional way of drawing a young woman, the way he'd draw Nami or Robin or Vivi or Hancock or Ginny or Lilith. Which makes it even more jarring when a traditionally hourglass-figure lady like Estrid shows up and acts super-vile. 
• Estrid (or Astrid) is a pretty common Nordic name, but Ida is presumably a reference to Norse goddess Idunn. 
• We get some nice cameos of Wano, Fishman Island and what appears to be Shandora throughout the montage. In one of the conversations, Harald notes the birth of the royal fishman Neptune, and how the Sea Kings were celebrating. 
• Asla is, of course, a reference to mythological Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir. The katakana used can also be read as 'Asura', which might just be a coincidence with Zoro's Asura... or maybe not. Sleipnir/Asla does have extra limbs, after all. 
• Also noted briefly is that the giants do also have their own knowledge to trade, with Harald teaching sailors about the 'Pole Star'. While most people navigate with Log Poses in the One Piece world, navigating with stars have been mentioned a couple of times in the early arcs. 
• I missed it during my first readthrough, but baby Loki just very casually beheaded a bear. Even chad-baby Oden had to wait until he was a single-digit child of four before he killed a bear!
• Yeah, I can see why Loki grew such a prickly exterior when everyone in his life from Estrid to the Elbaph villagers to Hajrudin to even Lola rejected him. 

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man S01E01 Review: School's In

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Season 1, Episode 1: Amazing Fantasy

Released earlier this year, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is an... interesting show. Part of the push towards having more animated material in the vein of What If, this show was originally promised to the fandom as a 'high school' semi-prequel of MCU's Tom Holland Spider-Man. Which would be a nice, if throwaway, little show that fills in a gap about an MCU character most people care about. 

At some point, it got changed and revised to still be an MCU show, but one that's... in another part of the multiverse, and depicts an 'almost-MCU' Spider-Man. But with almost none of the cast members that makes MCU Spider-Man who he is. A lot of the cast is shuffled around (with only young Aunt May remaining), with a version of Harry Osborn and Norman Osborn being brought in from the parts of the Spider-Man mythos the MCU is unable to tackle; and a grab-bag of more obscure characters like Nico Minoru and Pearl Pangan to fill out Peter's side cast... which, I actually am big enough of a geek to know who these characters are, also feels like there a forced diversity checklist being done by replacing Peter's regular cast with characters that he's never interacted with. 

And, to add into the pile, it really is quite strange just what they could do here, other than the novelty of having another Spider-Man cartoon on the air right now. And... we get to see the origin story of Peter Parker, Spider-Man, in this new continuity, because as he's about to go to orientation on Midtown High, a portal opens and Dr. Strange (MCU cameos, wow!) and a monstrous Symbiote (Venom, wow!) show up and fight and tear the school apart. While all of this is going on, Peter shows off his innate sense of responsibility pre-powers and saves Nico.

Oh, and the entire backstory is revised as well, with the spider that bites Peter Parker coming from the portal (hi, Into The Spider-Verse) and biting Peter during the big fight. Oh, and Uncle Ben has already died off-screen, robbing this Peter of what should've been a major moment of learning the price of not using great power for great responsibility. 

And then we cut to a few months later, where Peter Parker is Spider-Man, swinging around with a rather unflattering homemade suit. This episode sets up Peter's brand-new side-cast. He saves Harry Osborn from a bunch of muggers, and we get to see the rest of the cast in a very infodump-y segment of the school. Fellow geek Nico Minoru is now his best friend; ex-babysitter Pearl Pangan is the girl Peter likes; and Lonnie Lincoln is the jock that gets the girl. Except Lonnie turns out to be a swell guy -- breaking the 'jock bully' stereotype in a slightly better way than MCU's geeky-Flash-Thompson. 

There is... a lot to be said about them changing the traditionally albino African-American Lonnie Lincoln into not being an albino. There are many race and gender swapping done in this cartoon that I'm ambivalent towards, but in this case in particular, I felt like it robs Lonnie of one of his defining character traits. People more qualified than me have commented about this, so I'll move on. 

The episode ends with Peter being scouted for greatness in an almost shot-to-shot copy of the scene where Peter meets Tony Stark in Captain America: Civil War, only the rich tech guy mentor in this continuity is, instead... Norman Osborn. 

And that's the end of the first episode. To be honest, part of the bigger criticism about Spider-Man is that his origin story has been told over and over again, and seeing it swapped around so much is definitely an odd choice to make. The giant dump of more obscure characters who are promoted to main characters isn't done in the best manner (and this will continue across at least the show's first two or three episodes) and I'm not the biggest fan of the quasi-3D art style. Some of them work well, and a nice nod to older comics. And some of the action scenes are certainly smooth. But just like What If before it, I'm not the biggest fan of this art style. 

But this episode was... all right. Again, the concept of the show is a bit strange to most of the fandom, and it does admittedly feel like a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' dilemma. Having an overly faithful adaptation of Peter Parker's origin story is something that most superhero fans have seen a dozen times, but changing too much would also lead to a lot of complaints. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man's attempts are... respectable. I'm not the biggest fan of this episode, though, mostly because of its structure. It meanders around a fair bit, introduces a lot of characters at once, and takes quite a while to find its footing. Nice cliffhanger as we're introduced to Norman Osborn, though. 

_______________________

Notes: I know Ironheart is out right now, but I really don't have the time to watch it right now! YFNSM reviews, meanwhile, have been sitting on my drafts list for quite a while since it initially was released. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• 'New' characters that aren't part of the traditional Spider-Man supporting cast. 
• Nico Minoru is better known as Sister Grimm, a member of the Runaways, a group of teenaged superheroes with powers from different corners of the Marvel universe, battling against their parents after discovering their evil plans. Nico's powers stem from the Staff of One, allowing her to utilize magical powers. The Runaways TV show and its incarnation of Nico is technically part of the MCU, but hasn't been really referenced elsewhere.
• Pearl Pangan, better known as the Filipino superheroine Wave, is a swimmer who was exposed to chemical substances during a supervillain attack, granting her the power to control water, and she is primarily associated with the Agents of Atlas team.
• Lonnie Lincoln, better known as the Spider-Man villain Tombstone, is typically an old-school mob boss in New York City well-known for his albino complexion and the teeth he filed down to look like a vampire. He has menaced both Spider-Man and Daredevil over the years.
• The monster that Doctor Strange and Peter Parker are fighting is a Symbiote monster with Venom's colours, though the physical silhouette does not match Venom's. Notably, after the messy dividing of the sub-aspects of Spider-Man's villains among Marvel and Sony; this is the first time that a Symbiote character has a major role in an MCU project. (Tom Hardy's Venom had a cameo in No Way Home's post-credits scene). 
• The title of the episode, 'Amazing Fantasy', is the the title of the comic run where Spider-Man debuted all the way back in 1962, Amazing Fantasy #15. The comic itself makes a visual cameo in Peter's room. 
• The Daily Bugle's photograph of Spider-Man is a homage to the cover of that comic as well.
• As I mentioned in the body of the review itself, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is set in a universe in the MCU Multiverse. At the very least, MCU staples like a younger Aunt May, Midtown High and Iron Man's presence is present here; and Doctor Strange from another universe (who wields the Time Stone, an MCU signifier; though his outfit is coloured like his comic-book counterpart) appears through a portal.
• No one recognizes Dr. Strange, which is keeping in line with the MCU where Dr. Strange's activities have been secret from the public prior to Infinity War. 
• While not named in the movie it debuted in, 'Shield of the Seraphim' takes its visual animation cues from the shield spell that Dr. Strange and Wong both use in Infinity War.
• This isn't the first Spider-Man who's been bitten by a spider that appeared from another universe -- it was a major plot point for Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. 
• Spider-Man being associated with pizza (and the 'Pizza Time' sign in general) is a running gag in the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man trilogy and became a bit of a meme due to the tie-in PlayStation 2 games. 
• The opening shot of Queens homages the establishing shot from Captain America: Civil War. One of the earliest Spider-Man exploits in that universe (which is shown via a video Tony Stark is watching) is stopping a van that's about to run into a bus. Peter's later return to his and May's apartment is also recreated almost shot-for-shot from Civil War, albeit with Norman in place of Tony. 
• Klev, the 'do a flip' guy from Spider-Man: Homecoming (and the 'bus guy' in Shang-Chi), makes a cameo when Spider-Man goes to try and catch the van. 
• One of the muggers is called 'Stevie Sherman', named after Jack Kirby's assistant. 
• One of the guys on the stream mocks the muggers for being beaten up by 'a guy in hockey pads', a surprising reference to the DC Batman movie The Dark Knight, where Batman makes fun of a fake Batman for doing the same thing. 

Let's Play Pokemon Shining Pearl, Part 3 - Shining Changes!

 So yeah, after clearing out most of the post-Eterna City stuff, I go around trying to build up my team. I ended up training up a pink Shellos and... you know what? I'm getting attached to the little guy. I don't mind if he's a bit lumpier and pinkier than my normally preferred blue variant. But most importantly, I had to wait for a Friday for a Drifloon to spawn on Valley Windworks! Look at him. He's here to kidnap little children but he's too weak to carry them away! I've always had a bit of an affinity to Drifloon. I've never disliked the balloon ghosts, but I've never really loved them. Not before I did this blog, and one of my very first Pokemon articles was a 'Pokemon of the Week' where I rolled on a random number generator and talked about Drifblim. Since then, I've grown to see Drifblim as a bit of a mascot for this little slice of my life that I spend talking about video game monsters -- one of my first shinies in Sword and Shield was also a beautiful neon-yellow Drifblim. Having a Drifloon in a full playthrough is awesome, though!

Anyway, I enter Hearthome City, which... is a bit different than what I remember! Back in Platinum, Fantina is just able to be challenged as the third gym leader. Here, she shows up in front of the contest hall, acts a bit extra, and for no real reason other than Fantina being eccentric she just buggers off and refuses to do her job as a gym leader. Now, I don't mind having gyms that we meet and can't engage with immediately -- the very first gym you encounter in the very first Pokemon game did that! But this just feels rather bizarrely done and narratively not the most satisfying... maybe a couple of extra dialogue lines here would've given us a better reason, y'know? That was why I really liked HeartGold/SoulSilver and OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire. They added some extra lines of dialogue to a lot of the NPCs that don't exactly change the story or how you progress, but really does help to tighten up the script a lot. 

(That also applies to the artificial roadblocks. One of the roadblocks in Hearthome City is just a pair of reporters that happen to stand in front of a door. Couldn't it have hurt them to give us something less lazy? Like the sick Psyducks, or have the reporters talking about how they're going to cover a concert, thereby making it a sensible plot progression for them to move after I did the plot-mandated concert? Boo.)

Anyway, Hearthome is big. I get a Shell Bell, which is very cool. There is also a church in Hearthome City, which I completely forgot about. It's a really nice church! It's a bit random since it has no significant NPCs there or any kind of item given, but it also feels like a nice, authentic bit of world-building. I like it! My character's mom, Johanna, turns out to be a contest extraordinaire and gives my character some additional show clothes to wear on stage. Regrettably, it's not something I can use in the overworld. Boo, I say. Boo! 

The concert is a bit different, and unlike the annoyingly and terribly slavish replication of the Poketch, the concert is probably the first non-graphical change they did to the game. Which is just as well, I don't think they could really replicate the whole 'put 2D image decorations around the 2D sprite of your Pokemon' with the 3D models. It's way too much effort for a part of the game that... really isn't all that fun.

I don't remember the Generation IV concerts all that much (Gen III is where I engaged with this minigame a lot) but they've basically simplified almost everything to just two 'instant' judging moments with the poffin appearance, then the Pokeball stickers... and then you get a rhythm game. Which could have been fun, but it's so bland and the animations are so genuinely uninteresting that I don't think it's quite a substitute to the 'each attack has a weird effect on the crowd and the judges' old-school Gen III concerts. 

Poffin-making is also still utterly miserable. That's the most that I have to say about that. 

Anyway, I'm not going to knock on this game for trying its best to adapt a minigame that was originally designed for a completely different interface. 

Much more interesting is how they did Amity Square! It's still the same old 'you can walk with your Pokemon out in this area... but there's not much you can do but have the Pokemon do a variation of Pickup'. It tickles me that in addition to my starter, Grotle, good ol' Drifloon is counted among the handful of non-starters to be able to walk around! It's just the Pikachu-esque mascot Pokemon... and the balloon! God, I love it. Instead of the contest accessories, your Pokemon now picks up pokeball stickers. Either way I don't really care...

Until I walk out of Amity Square, and the staff member tells me that I can have my Pokemon out of the ball anytime. And with any Pokemon, too, not just the dozen or so that is legal in Amity Square. Woo! BD/SP finally did a cool change for once! So yeah, I walk around a bit, and I think that is it for Hearthome. I go down, and I meet Barry for another speedy rival battle, and... it honestly barely registered in my head. Barry's just a ball of hyperactive energy, sugar and caffeine, isn't he? 

With that long detour in the huge city, it's time to set off to... Veilstone. And... and I wish I had something more interesting to say, but it's just basically a long gauntlet of trainers, roads and grassy terrain from Hearthome to the little sleepy town of Solcaeon and then to Veilstone. I did remember this as being one of the weaker parts of Sinnoh, with a lot of trainers and wild Pokemon with very samey rosters and honestly, right after a long stretch of more interesting 'grassy corridor' terrain on pre-Hearthome. 

The little gaggle of Psyducks are still there, being the most adorable, headache-having roadblock in Pokemon history. There is also the rather bland Lost Tower, which I remembered used to be a little bit more interesting in Platinum with a foggy upper level.

At this point, some evolutions did happen. My Grotle evolved into Torterra, my Drifloon into Drifblim, and my Golbat evolved into Crobat. I decided to bring a Crobat along for old times' sake, though I'll try to keep the rest of my party different from my original Sinnoh playthrough. Right now, in addition to those three, I've also got a little pink Shellos, Jirachi and a sixth slot I'm rotating. The rapid rate of evolutions does make me realize just how much the Experience Share is making this game way too easy, although I suppose it will help me play through this game a bit quicker. 

Veilstone City is mostly the same with the old games... with one critical change! As with many other remakes, the gambling den has been gutted. Let me gamble, Nintendo! Let me play slots! But instead of a bad handwave like what they did with some of the other remakes, they just changed it to... a Uniqlo? Well, the 'Metronome Style Shop', allowing me to change into predetermined clothes. Which is nice! I like my character customization, and giving it in a somewhat limited manner is a nice, cheeky way to keep Dawn/Lucas's appearance 'default' for a chunk of the game before opening the selection. I'll be changing the looks as I run around the game -- the designs aren't super spectacular but it's always nice to see it back, especially after Scarlet/Violet did such a non-optimal job with character customization.

And afterwards, I just... fought Maylene. There really wasn't much to her to be honest. I found the design of the gym and pushing the wooden frames to be quite banal -- and I could see why they revamped it to a more interesting (and martial arts inspired) puzzle in Platinum with the punching bags. With a Crobat and a Drifblim leading the charge, I demolished the small horde of Meditites, Machops and Machokes to reach Maylene, whose only real threat was her ace, the Lucario. Which might be a bit of a problem if I don't have a fully-evolved starter Pokemon on the third gym that can Earthquake the heck out of the hadoken doggy.

Maylene really also doesn't care that her city's been apparently taken over by the gangster-like Team Galactic, who has the 'Galactic Building' masquerading as a cosmic energy company. Which honestly is something that I thought that the fourth-generation games did rather poorly -- Team Galactic's goons are so incompetent at even trying to sell the illusion that I didn't even realize that the big spiky HQ was supposed to be a cover story until I talked specifically to the NPC receptionist. I don't think it's until Aether Foundation or even arguably Team Flare that an evil Pokemon team gave a somewhat convincing cover story. 

Anyway, Lucas has his Pokedex stolen by two Galactic grunts guarding a warehouse. We whup the grunts into shape, which is such a short little detour that I don't remember this at all from the original game. This is just a short, random roadblock to getting the HM for Fly (or rather, it's a TM now), which I really felt could've been a lot more interesting on either the enemy or on Lucas's side. 

Oh well. With that done, I'm free to explore what's south of Veilstone, which I believe is going to be Pastoria! I think I've yapped on enough for this to be a full article. I have been having a fair bit of fun playing through Shining Pearl than I thought I would, which is nice. 

Random Notes:

• Jirachi doesn't really learn a lot of moves at this point in time, meaning he has to rely on Confusion and Swift which aren't the best moves out there. I thought that was a nice little balance for using a mythical in my party, though it's also likely that Jirachi will keep getting swapped out as well. 
• One of my favourite fun facts is that Fantina adds random French words in the English localization... but she actually peppers her original Japanese dialogue with random English terms instead. 
• I particularly like how the Hearthome church just has... almost no music. It's a stark contrast to the bright, bubbly music of essentially the rest of the game, making it surprisingly memorable for such a one-note, otherwise throwaway area. 
  
• No, seriously, looking at the original Amity Square list of Pokemon, it's just a bunch of starters, and a bunch of cute Pikachu-esque Pokemon. Jigglypuff, Buneary, Pachirisu, Clefairy... Torchic because of the anime makes sense... and then we've got Shroomish and Drifloon. I absolutely love it. I absolutely love that someone in the Gamefreak team has a wider definition of 'cute Pokemon'. 
• Other nice loot in Hearthome City: I got an Amulet Coin, and some hiker gave me an egg. Oh, and the Pokemon Fan Club is in this city, too. 
• The roughneck with a Cleffa mourning a dead Pokemon killed by Team Galactic -- the one bit of random violence in Diamond/Pearl where Team Galactic is portrayed to be menacing -- is retained here. 
• I am quite disappointed that the 'Winter Style' isn't a continuity nod to the Platinum designs.