Reviewing Monsters - The Legend of Zelda, Oracle of Ages

I never played the two Oracle games in Zelda, which were released for the Game Boy Color and released after the successful duology that's Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. The two games are heavily based on the previous 2D Zelda game, Link's Awakening, and that's why this review is going to be very short -- almost 90% of the bestiary is borrowed from Link's Awakening, with only most of the bosses and maybe a handful of new enemies in both. 

And I tried to play a little bit of each game, but I just... I just kind of lost steam, and the opening of both just felt a bit more generic compared to Link's Awakening, A Link to the Past, Minish Cap and a bunch of other 2D Zelda games. In both games, Link gets drawn to a brand-new land, with Labrynna in Oracle of Ages, where he has to fight the singer Nayru from the evil sorceress Veran. Combined with the plotline and the villain in Oracle of Seasons, Link can access the final chapter of both games (through the power of a password) by swapping certain game-exclusive plot devices, fighting against the true mastermind. Anyway, I am honestly rather indifferent about the bestiaries or the games for both, and I think it's because they're so samey to Link's Awakening? About time I talked about them, though. 

Returning LA Enemies:

I'm not going to talk about every single one of these, but we'll just quickly cover the returning enemies just to appreciate these old-school sprites. I talked about all of them in my review of Link's Awakening. And discounting a couple of 'traps' like the Beamoses, Podoboos and Anti-Fairies, these are all the enemies that reappear in Oracle of Ages...

We've got your typical early-game weirdo animals and plants like the Octorok, Leever, Peahat, Rope, Tektite, Keese and the Biri/Bari combo. these guys have been such mainstays in the 2D games! Most of them come in different colours, but I'm not going to put in every single one of them.

We've also got the more 'mundane' enemy animals like the Sand Crab, Crow, Cheep Cheep, Beetle and Water Tektite which I mostly just associate with Link's Awakening!

Particularly memorable 'walking hazards' like the Spiked Beetle, two variations of Spiny Beetle and Hardhat Beetle also make their return. 

A bunch of slime enemies -- Buzz Blob, Cukeman, Zol and Gel also return. 

And a bunch of classic humanoids. Darknut, Wizzrobe, River Zora, Moblin, Pig Warrior and Ball and Chain Warrior make a reappearance. 

And a bunch of undeads. Four different Stalfos, Sword Stalfos, Shrouded Stalfos, Gibdo and Ghini. 

Another set of 'classic' enemies that I feel I associate more with the later parts of any Zelda game, we've got the Pol's Voice, Like Like, Lynel, Floormaster, Wallmaster, Armos and Mini-Moldorm.

Leaving us with a handful of final enemies that I associate more with Link's Awakening and in that extent the Oracle games, Arm Mimic, Iron Mask, Goponga Flower and Pincer. 

In addition, two minibosses from Link's Awakening, Rover (called Smasher here) and Vire also make a reappearance. 

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Now on to the new enemies!

New Enemies:

Fire Keese

These enemies are 'new' in the sense of the 2D Link's Awakening game, but the Fire Keese technically debuted in Ocarina of Time, and I'm sure this is a '2Dfication' adaptation of it. Not much to say, it sure is the regular Keese model on fire!

Color-Changing Gel

Remember that even colour in a video game used to be such a massive innovation! The Colour-Changing Gel makes use of the Game Boy Color's, well, colour in order for their gimmick. They can camouflage into the backgrounds of the rooms that they spawn in, and Link needs to use the room's gimmick to change the colours to 'bring them out' and make them vulnerable. Cute!

Guard

Coming in various armour colours, the Guards are the guards in Labyrnna's past, guarding the palace that mostly serve to bother you. As is consistent with most Zelda games, Link isn't allowed to kill explicitly human enemies and these guards will run away instead of disappearing in a dying poof like the Moblins or whatever. 

Kyandokyan/Candlehead

Good thing that the Wiki offers a name, otherwise I'd be confused what this thing is! Some kind of sentient fruit creature with legs? A totem? But it's actually a candle enemy. I don't think we've had this in Zelda before! These things walk around in diagonal patterns and hit Link, but are weak to fire and when est on fire, they will run around wildly before exploding. 

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Mini-Bosses:

Giant Ghini

Despite his name, the Giant Ghini actually has not much in common with the iconic one-eyed, tongue-lolling Giant Ghinis we see in other games. No, this Giant Ghini has a more unique face and two tiny nubs on its head. It's accompanied by three Mini-Ghini that fly around and stick onto Link and slow him down, while the big one slams onto Link. Pretty simple, but it is always neat to see an "elite" version of an enemy we've grown to be familiar with in the game.

Swoop

He kinda looks like a Vire, huh? Swoop here is basically another goblin or demon-looking creature, but with massive wing-ears. I really don't have a whole ton to say here, because it's honestly not the most exciting thing on this page. It's just a... flying demon-guy with ear-wings! Swoop here does remind me of a more devilish version of something like Terriermon from Digimon Tamers, but otherwise he's kind of just there. I'm not going to talk about the fight mechanics of bosses in a game I've never played, but Swoop here doesn't seem to do anything interesting from the description in the wikis.

Subterror

Speaking of Digimon, Subterror here is just straight-up Drimogemon, being a mole with a gigantic nose-drill. It's a pretty simple design, replacing a mole's regular digging claws with the fun image of a giant drill. The fight, obviously, involves Subterror burrowing around the battle arena, and Link needs to use a shovel item to dig Subterror out. 

Armos Warrior

This guy barely got shuffled into the same list as Smasher and Vire up above, because he's basically the Armos Knight from A Link to the Past. It's just that he's actually got a different name and model, and... he's got a sword that he controls telekinetically, which is kind of an interesting way to allow this bulky-looking man to actually fight with a sword. I also like that his massive shield has a sword with a cross on it, saying that 'no sword!'... which is a hint for Link to cause the Armos Warrior's own telekinetic sword to smash onto his shield many times. Kinda cute, thanks to the psychic sword. 

Great Moblin

I am frankly surprised we don't get more 'big Moblin' bosses in the older games! I don't think it's until King Bulblin from Twilight Princess that we actually get another 'big blin boss' enemy, and you'd think that it'd be obvious to have Moblin generals and Moblin chieftains. The Great Moblin is a big green pig-man with a kingly crown, cape and a necklace. Is that crown supposed to be upside-down? Cute.

While he's kind of an 'expected' depiction of a Moblin boss, I do like that the Great Moblin appears in both Oracle games, and based on whether you do the 'linked game' thing or not, the Great Moblin would disappear in the second game you clear and allow exploration of his territory. 

Angler Fish

Huh! This guy has the same name and clearly is a reference to the Link's Awakening boss, but where LA's Angler Fish is a big, dumpy ugly warty anglerfish, Oracle of Ages's Angler Fish is a big, fat and honestly uncomfortable-looking fish with a comical little lure on his forehead. The Angler Fish is apparently fought inside the belly of Jabu-Jabu, in a reference to the iconic dungeon in Ocarina of Time, and he fights more with bubbles instead of charging around like LA's Angler Fish. I prefer LA's more monstrous version, but this one is kinda cute as well, it's like the big brother of the Cheep Cheep enemies or something.

Blue Stalfos

Known by the far more threatening moniker of "Death Stalfos" in the Japanese version, the Blue Stalfos is a straight-up Grim Reaper! It's a Stalfos in a proper, defined hood with a massive scythe, and he's not hunched-over like those silly Shrouded Stalfos minions! Blue Stalfos isn't our first or last 'creepy grim reaper' enemy in the franchise, but it's still cool to see something like him rendered in 2D. The fight is an interesting one, where the Blue Stalfos will shoot around balls of light that transform either Link or the Blue Stalfos into a helpless form. For Link, he gets turned into a baby, which implies some kind of time reversal magic... but the Blue Stalfos gets turned into a Stalfos skull with Keese wings! Huh! 

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Bosses:

Pumpkin Head

And we're going into the bosses now, and our first one is... a jack-o-lantern man? Huh. That feels a bit off for Zelda? Is it just me? He's a pretty cute looking pumpkin man, though, and the fight is kind of interesting. The design makes him look like a humanoid or a spirit (like a Poe or something) that dances around and summons fireballs, as you do. But when Link deals enough damage to the Pumpkin Head, his body will disappear and leave behind just the jack-o-lantern head. Pretty expected for one of these things, right? then Link needs to pick up the pumpkin and reveal the true form of the creature, which is a tiny little ghostly spirit not too reminiscent to the Mini-Ghinis we see above! So it's a puppeteer spirit that manipulates the larger pumpkin head body! That's cool!

Head Thwomp

Huh. The Thwomps are from Mario, right? Well, we have a four-sided Head Thwomp, who spins around like they're a Quintesson from Transformers or something, and you fight him in a side-scrolling section. Each of the heads have a different effect and summons different kinds of attack patterns, with the exception of the red face -- which is shocked and will spit out a healing heart. The Head Thwomp also shoots out Podoboo, another Mario-based hazard. Not too much to say here, it's neat to get a stronger version of an enemy that you encounter earlier in the game, even one that I personally think of more as a 'hazard' than an 'enemy'. 

Shadow Hag

She looks like a more monstrous version of the Ocarina of Time version of the Poe, huh? She's a pretty neat-looking sorcerer enemy, and while the design isn't the most exciting-looking one visually, I do like that the 'Shadow Hag' actually does split into shadows and rush around the room, and at some point she summons little moths that attack Link. The Moths are exactly like the bastard fire-seeking moths from Majora's Mask which give me PTSD so! Anyway, this wouldn't be quite as exciting without the shadow-diving gimmick. 

Eyesoar

Ah, that's more like it! There's a lack of eyeball monsters in a 2D Zelda game. Eyesoar here has a fun English name, but its original Japanese name is 'Patra', referencing the exact same creature from the very first Legend of Zelda game. Actually, a lot of first-game Zelda bosses make a return, just in the other Oracle game. Eyesoar here is a big eyeball with wings, with four smaller eyes that kind of orbit around it.

Unlike the Arrghus, the Eyesoar's orbiting buddies can't actually be killed and Link has to go straight for the central eye, making use of the gaps between the Eyesoar's little buddies and hitting the central eyeball. Interestingly, when this central eyeball is hit the smaller orbiting bodies fly away, leaving the central one vulnerable. Is the Eyesoar actually a symbiotic creature of sorts, then, and the little yellow things just opportunistic or something? 

Smog

It sure is a giant, sneering face made out of smog and gas. Smog actually challenges Link to a series of puzzle rooms, making him a rather unique rarity in that it's not entirely a boss that Link defeats in combat but in puzzle-solving. Has there actually been another Zelda boss that does that? Huh. 

You still have to beat Smog in combat after completing all of his trials or whatever, but he just shoots lightning and hovers around the room before you stab it to death. 

Octogon

Oh, like an Octorok, but octagonal! Kind of! We only really see five or six spikes! Octogon kind of reminds me of Big Octo, particularly the miniboss variant fought in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. The design is much more angrier-looking, and the tentacles actually make me think of something like a hermit crab. He's also got the four-part beak of Omastar from Pokemon. After some back-and-forth where the Octogon's vulnerable part is its head, Link has to actually chase the Octogon underwater for the second phase. A pretty fun creature, and I'm a big fan of, again, adding more powerful variants to existing enemies. 

Plasmarine

The boss of this game's version of Jabu-Jabu's Belly, Plasmarine is a big jellyfish with cartoon eyes on it. It's a bit more amorphous and actually jellyfish-looking than the rigid Bari... though the Plasmarine is also able to shoot lightning balls at him. There's a colour-swapping gimmick going on where the Plasmarine goes from red to blue based on how Link hits him. Really don't have much to say about this one, it sure is a jellyfish!

Ramrock

Ramrock is kinda cool! Some kind of rock elemental, Ramrock floats up with its head and two disembodied hands. He fights in four phases, swapping his floating hands for weapons (spiked gloves, shields and ball-and-chain combos on the subsequent phases). It's a simple gimmick, but one that does give Ramrock a bit more oomph as he uses bombs and seeds to take down Ramrock. 

Veran

And our primary antagonist for this leg of the game is the sorceress Veran, who's... a lady with a fun hairdo that looks like an upside-down version of the modern Breath of the Wild Zoras. She sure is an anime witch, is all I'm saying. Her boss fight and her role in the story has her possessing a bunch of characters, like Possessed Nayru (the titular Oracle of Ages) and Possessed Queen Ambi. They sure are blue humans! Cool from a story perspective, I'm sure, but kind of yawn, y'know? Until...

Yeah, Veran reveals her true form, and it's actually a bug-winged demon fairy thing! And she also summons Dark Links, which is always a welcome if slightly-tired addition. 

And after beating Veran's green form, Veran starts going into wild metamorphosis. Part of her first couple of phases involves her summoning bug minions, but it turns out she herself is a bug! And... there's some rather nasty artwork that looks rather horrific even (or perhaps because) though it's in pretty simple sprites. Veran's Beetle form looks more comical than anything, with Veran's head stuck on one of those Hardhat Beetles or something. 

But her Bee and Spider forms has Veran's diabolical cackling face fused unnaturally on either the forehead of the bee or under the mandibles of the spider! Pretty cool little series of final forms! 

Of course, Veran is the final boss if you're not playing the linked game -- once you beat the main boss of Oracle of Seasons, it unlocks a 'true ending' on whichever game you play second, but we'll talk about him (it's Ganon, hijacked by Ganon) when we cover Oracle of Seasons!

One Piece 1122 Review: Impact Dial

One Piece, Chapter 1122: The Time is At Hand

So yeah, I'm... not the biggest fan of this chapter? I don't dislike it, and I appreciate the subversion in a way, but I don't know if it's just me being grouchy from my illness or still kind of 'reeling' from the Nika-form Bonney thing (which after seeing how much relatively weaker it is, makes me feel a bit more mollified). 

Apparently Vegapunk's message is still kinda going, but he's not really saying anything much. Some random generic citizens all over the world get inspired by Vegapunk's message to go after the One Piece.... yeah, Office Worker Ossan With Bad Pharaoh Cosplay; Skullhat and Budget Jeet are totally going to be the new Supernovas. We also get the explanation how the prisoners in Impel Down can hear what's going on, since apparently Vegapunk's technology just hacks into all the snails, and they can't shut down all of the snails in Impel Down. 

We get some reactions from some major players, like Koby... who's in a bed and growls about how he's going to stop Luffy from stopping his dream. I mean, sure. Maybe, like, save Garp first, and do that later? Just a thought, maybe you need some priorities. Buggy plays to the crowd and makes his Cross Guild goons swoon over a "it's not my world, it's our world" speech before Crocodile and Mihawk tells him to get his ass down. Blackbeard also reacts to this, kind of, with Devon and Augur in the process of bringing Caribou to him. 

We have the Iron Giant being tackled by Topman, and we see two panels of a Den Den Mushi falling down and seemingly being caught by an explosion. It's still One Piece so some death-defying shenanigans may occur, but I don't think a fucking snail should be able to pull a Pound. 

Emet talks to Luffy a bit, and keeps saying about 'Joy Boy', and Luffy finally realizes that Emet mistook him for someone else. Emet notes that he kind of figured it out that Luffy and Joy Boy isn't the same person, but he's nostalgic and he just woke up from a hundreds-year nap and they just feel so similar. He apologizes to Joy Boy, noting that he "could not make Joy Boy king", which... is interesting? Luffy yells about his identity, and the Iron Giant responds to 'D'.

We get a pretty cool shot of the four Gorosei assembled as the Sunny flies through the air and Emet looms to fight them, and I think the sheer scale of how much bigger Ju-Peter and Topman are compared to Emet, Ethan, Saturn and the giants.

Iron Giant unties a knot, which... I'm honestly not sure whether that knot is inside of the gianat's body or somewhere outside? It's a reference to a random minor scene forever ago, with Haredas, the weather wizard that trained Nami, showing off some wind-sealing knots. And it's honestly just something that comes out of nowhere as Emet unlocking that knot just unleashes a fuck-ton of Conqueror's Haki. It blasts a bunch of Marines out, and we see the black lightning emerging out from a long-shot of the island. 

The blast hits the four Gorosei point-blank, and Topman, Saturn, Ethan and Peter get knocked out of their Zoan Beast (?) modes. And then we get to see Topman, Ethan and Peter get teleported into the Big Room of Authority, where Marcus Mars is just sitting on his chair with the most displeased expression on his face. And... I guess when Luffy, Bonney, Sanji and Franky did their combo attack thing, they actually did send Team Rocket blasting off again? It does explain why Marcus never flew back to Egghead to menace our heroes. 

And... notably, Saturn is not back yet. It is notable, again, that so much attention was put into Saturn being physically on a boat sailing to Egghead, and he summoned the other four Gorosei there with magic kuchiyose-no-jutsu style summoning circles. So something Emet did undid the summoning technique, and that something is also similar to whatever Luffy did that knocked Mars back. I'm going to guess it's the Conqueror's Haki more than anything, but I... honestly feel like this really came out of nowhere. It wouldn't be as bad if we had any kind of foreshadowing -- even Luffy (and Bonney) being able to wound or disrupt the Gorosei with Gear Fifth had some logic due to the whole established idea of the Gorosei being afraid of Nika. But this random Haki-storing rope being in the Iron Giant all along feels like a completely random development. 

Oh, and Imu is keeling over in his room, thinking about Joy Boy, but who knows if he's keeling over from pain because he's connected to the Gorosei, or because he feels the Haki... at this point the mystery's honestly kind of annoying. 

The Thousand Sunny lands on the Giant Pirate ship, and we get some reunion scenes with the rest of the crew and some (mostly offscreen) catchup happens. While all of this is going on, we get to see Saturn look at the now-hopefully-destroyed Emet going "...". 

And then we get a flashback to Emet -- still sparkling new -- talking with Joy Boy, who is completely silhouetted. He sure has a straw hat! Emet also has an 'X' on his arms, which presumably is going to tie to Alabasta somehow? Joy Boy is also sitting on what appears to be a Poneglyph, though no idea which island this is. There's some exposition about Joy Boy storing his Haki into the knot for the future, but I'm mostly more interested in Emet having enough of a personality and sentience to be happy that Joy Boy will stay with him, in a sort, all the way to the future. 

Anyway... hopefully Egghead Island wraps up soon. I can't say I find the Joy Boy and Emet stuff a particularly good payoff for just how long the giant robot has been going around going "Joy... boy..." over and over again, and I'm someone who's mostly been okay with a lot of the revelations in Egghead Island. It can't all be bangers, I guess, but I really wasn't the biggest fan of this one. 

Random Notes:

• The cover page is Smoker with the truncated "Hero Academia" in the smoke. This is actually a replication of the fan-art that Horikoshi sent in to One Piece all the way back in the Dressrosa arc, before he became an established mangaka! That's honestly quite amazing -- that Horikoshi managed to start a manga and conclude his manga (I'll have to get caught up in the last 10-20 chapters) but also that One Piece, this behemoth, has been running long enough to inspire a high school kid, have him grow up to an age where he can start publishing a manga, and even conclude it... and One Piece is still running strong! 
• One thing that really does make me wish Oda does more is to give some recurring characters as mooks in Buggy and Blackberad's organization. It's not much to ask for that, isn't it? Like knowing random names of all the captains in Whitebeard's divisions or having names for all the Kid Pirates, Law Pirates, Oniwabanshu, et cetera? 
• We notably don't get to see if Saturn is weakened by water. We only ever see him tossed around in the air, or back on the land. 
• Some people mention that the idea of 'storing energy' is kind of similar to Impact Dials... which, again, if the Weather Knots or the Impact Dials are meant to be relevant, it'd be nice to just see them be mentioned in... not even in Egghead Island, but even a brief mention here and there in the post-timeskip era would've been nice. 
• I love that while Topman, Saturn and Ethan are posing as if they're badass warriors that are trying to endure a hit, Ju Peter is posing like he's about to dive into a fucking pool thanks to how the worm mode was posing before it's taken out. 

Let's Play New Pokemon Snap, Part 2: Accidental Fungicide

We're back again with some of my playthrough of New Pokemon Snap. I did a couple of extra runs of the Florio Natural Park just to kind of familiarize myself with the controls and try to get some extra experience points. I do really like that the Bidoof dam has actually been completed as the area progresses, damming up the river and causing one particularly unfortunate Magikarp to get stranded on a piece of rock.

Also, more importantly, I found the part of the settings that allows me to actually adjust the speed of turning the cursors and the camera, which was a huge problem for me in trying to properly catch up with some of the Pokemon. Particularly in the next region, which is the Founja Jungle of the Belusylva island. 

I actually really like how the Belusylva Island is introduced to us. The way that the world map was initially displayed made it look like we're just going to explore all over the Florio Island, with the different biomes and beaches and stuff located there, when this much larger landmass appears on the map! I mean, it ultimately isn't going to matter since it's not an open-world game and these are just levels that I enter through a menu... but it's the presentation that really matters. 

Anyway, Founja Jungle! It's a bit more of a deeper forest compared to the Florio Natural Park, with denser trees and abandoned ruins dotting the location. 

It's filled with a bunch of new Pokemon. We've got Bounsweet and Aipom running around the branches, a Slaking sleeping with its ass pointed towards me, a bunch of Beautiflys flying around... there's a spiderweb that clearly belongs to an Ariados that I really can't do anything about. After passing a bunch of ruins, I end up going to a beautiful-looking waterfall and lake filled with Magikarps and Quagsires. 

Oh, and there's a lot of Liepards, and I think it's perhaps a function of it being an early-route Pokemon, but I've never quite realized just how cool Liepard is in motion. Really like that giant whip-scythe tail! I mean, it's just a slender, deadly-looking leopard, but those are cool, and I think Liepard kind of gets lost in the shuffle of the Unovan dex. I have a new appreciation of Liepard now, honestly, which isn't a sentence I expected to write. 

I actually thought that the Founja Jungle was a bit of a letdown... at least in the day. I didn't get to see much that isn't just more jungle, and there's a lot of repeating Pokemon throughout the trek, I feel.

I almost immediately unlock the night time version of the jungle, which has a lot of Liepards lurking around... but also Yanmega just buzzing around menacingly like tiny helicopter dragonflies of doom. But the coolest thing is the fact that the jungle comes alive at night, with so many Morelulls just pitter-pattering about in their tiny little mycellium legs, lighting up the forest and making it look so surreal. It's not quite the creepy Fairy-type forest from Galar, but it's still so beautiful! There was this one grove with like 15 Morelulls hanging on top of branches in rows, and that looks pretty. 

There are also a bunch of Pokemon that are sleeping, which is interesting. An Arbok just sleeps like a lazy man on a hammock and I can knock it out of the branches it's coiled on. Clusters of sleeping Ledian hug trees, and I wonder how to get them up. 

Ariadoses scuttle around and patrol their territory. Toucannons and Pikipeks sleep in the night, where they fill the trees in the day. 

And... as the title of this sequence might clue you in, my most memorable encounter of the game revolves around a trio of Morelulls near the end of the track. I was just chucking apples and spamming the photograph button, trying to see if I could trigger some of the specific behaviours that the Pokemon would do. 

So I chuck the apple towards the Morelull. 

The apple, which is as big as the main body of these tiny sentient fungus friends. 

Which, according to Rita and Professor Mirror, apples that should weigh less and not injure a Pokemon.

The Morelull just keels over and drops to the ground with its eyes closed, expelling a bunch of spores. And it's just... still. Its friend stands next to it, just looking with those blank eyes, those blank dot eyes, so emotionless yet so full of sorrow. 

Yeah, did I just accidentally kill a Morelull? Or severely injure it enough to give the fungus-monster equivalent of a severe brain concussion. 

Oh well, at least I got some points?

Anyway, I had to repeat this night course like three times because I completely missed the fact that Professor Mirror was constantly telling me to take a photograph of the Crystalbloom flower from the Founja Jungle... but it has to be glowing. I kept getting ones that are not glowing, and I wasn't sure why it wasn't working. 

It did let me see a bunch of brand-new interactions, though, like Yanmega asleep perching on a tree, the Ariados above the web finally dropping down and standing on its web menacingly, and I get to finally realize that there are Metapods and Leafeons around. Or maybe they spawned after enough level-ups. 

At this point, Professor Mirror gives me another tutorial of the Illumina Orbs, giving me two kinds of these to fill in my Y-button. These things can make the Crystalblooms or specific Pokemon glow. It's definitely not as intuitive a mechanic as getting a Pokemon to look at me, or chucking an apple to either disturb them or get them to it. I apparently have to unlock them by scanning a glowing Crystalbloom in every new area that I enter into. 

Which means... new areas! The giant deathworld-looking long island of volcanic doom on the top right is revealed to me as Voluca, while the small batch of islands on the bottom right is called Maricopia. 

Also, the NPC's -- and I genuinely don't remember which -- give me another item that now fits on the R-button. The Poke-Flute... or rather, a melody to wake up sleeping Pokemon, or to make them dance if they're already awake. I refuse to call it a poke-flute because the jingle that this thing makes is actually kind of annoying instead of soothing like the flute. What's wrong with using the classic jingle? It's a bit annoying. 

Phil also yaks about yet another brand-new feature, because apparently the Neo-One pod has the capability to... shrink? Ant-Man style? He tries to get me to go and test it out. Rita overhears us, and basically threatens to tattle unless she joins in... and... uh... I apparently have to scan a specific spot in the Nature Park. 

So I repeat the nature park a couple of times and... I can't find the specific spot. Maybe I'm just blind. But the Combees have summoned their big queen, Vespiquen, to hang out with them. I also complete a quest showing Tangrowth jumping like 50 feet into the air before landing on a cliff, which is fucking ridiculous but also glorious. I also chuck enough apples at a Hoothoot to force it to show off its second foot.

Not... not the most ecologically friendly methods of getting pictures, I must say. 

I try out the beach area of Maricopa first, which is... just very pleasant! Again, the animation of the clear seawater and the coral reefs is just absolutely sublime and beautiful, and I can just say that unless the game pulls out the stops, the watery areas are going to be my favourites without any question. 

We start off in a beach with Crabrawlers scuttling around, Wingulls cawing in the sky and Exeggutor -- Kantonian, not Alolan, surprisingly -- just lumbering around. The Crabrawlers have a hilarious reaction where they will try to box every single apple you throw near them. 

I got really distracted by the sea, to be honest, that I forgot to take pictures for a bit. There are a bunch of marine-pattern Vivillons and I thought it was quite clever to have different Vivillon forms in different parts of the map. There's a moment where a sleeping Exeggutor needs to be lobbed with apples before he stands his fat ass up and lumbers away. 

Then there's a bunch of Stunfisk and Pyukumuku just hanging out on the beach, there's an Octillery just lurking beneath the (very clear, very beautiful) ocean surface, and on the beach there's a Machamp that will do a little bit of a flexing motion as I pass by. And as I am about to close off the beach, there's a Sandygast shovel randomly on the edge of the water, but there's nothing I could do about it. 

And... you know what? I just feel happy. That beach level really did make me have fun. And while not as impressive as the beach, the Morelulls in the jungle also were pretty impressive. I'm having fun with this game, guys!

 

Random Notes:

• Oh, there are Woopers with the Quagsires too in the Founja Jungle! I thought I should mention that. Wooper and Quagsire are the sources of some of the most fun expressions in the game. God bless these two dorky axolotls. 
• I didn't realize Bounsweets can fly and helicopter around on their little leaf hats. I thought they could only hop-hop bounce around. 
  
• There's also a Swampert half-submerged in the Founja Swamp which I'm not sure how to get out of the swamp. 
• On the same token, it's a bit surprising that there are a lot of sleeping Ledians when none of them actually show up in the day version of this track. 
• For being the previous main character... man, Todd Snap really doesn't have a personality, huh? Him and Mirror really do blend together as just talking heads of exposition. As poorly written as they are, Rita and Phil at least embody two common anime archetypes, making them at least something. 
• Okay, shrinking really feels like a gimmick that you think Pokemon would've done at least once? Like, I'm surprised we don't have like a quasi-microscopic bacteria or plankton or tiny bug Pokemon that we can interact with by shrinking down to an almost-microscopic level. 
• In the "beach or mountain" debate, I am team beach, all day, every day. You get the sun, the sea, a nice coconut or beer to drink, and the sea water will lull you to sleep. Why people find getting sweat-drenched, mud-caked as they walk through mosquito-infested hiking trails likely to conceal snakes and rabid monkeys is beyond me. 
• The Wingull sounds they recorded for this game really does resemble real seagulls. It's both annoying and immersive at the same time, because seagulls are one of the few things that might make a beach experience less enjoyable. 
• I am seriously surprised that they resisted using the long-necked, coconut-tree-themed Alolan Exeggutor instead of the Kantonian versions... and the Alolan ones would be more in-brand. I guess the long neck would make having their pictures taken a bit difficult? 
• The beach randomly has a bunch of Pikachu. I'm going to assume that just like the original Snap, there's going to be a way to get a Surfing Pikachu on a photo. 
• I mean, I don't think any of the games ever showcased Unovan Stunfisk hang out in the beaches or the sea, and it's more of a marshlands type of creature, but I guess just like Tynamo in Scarlet/Violet, we're just assuming that since they're all based on fishies, they can also survive in the sea? 

Let's Play New Pokemon Snap, Part 1: Say Cheese

You know, sometimes you get really tired and exhausted and then you realized you bought a game released three years ago and never even touched it... and that's basically my experience with New Pokemon Snap.

It's really nice to actually just sit and go to a game with no real expectations and no real pressure. The past couple of months have been quite intense for me, and I haven't really had much time to do... a lot of anything that's just me sitting down and relaxing with no expectations.

I was rather burned out with Final Fantasy XII -- not because of anything of the game's fault, but I was just not really enjoying it. The story was okay, the gameplay design was okay... but it wasn't super intuitive to me. I felt like I wasn't enjoying the gameplay or the monster review experience thanks to both factors, and I didn't want to force myself into doing it. 

So I thought I would do some Metroid Prime and Elden Ring, which I did enjoy; or a series of TV show reviews... and then I got sick and hospitalized. And there was just zero energy to post anything. Which, by the way, explains the week-plus drought of posts. Not sharing too much details other than the fact that I'm okay now.

A some point I think I just needed to really relax, and Snap provides that very, very nice outlet. It's just a nice, chill game that I don't really have to think too much about, the gameplay is repetitive enough that I don't have to devote a huge chunk of my brainpower, but there's enough little changes and little things to do for me to keep coming back to it. This makes me a lot more eager to pick it up than engaging in a far more intensive experience like the Dishonoured and Persona 3 and Elden Ring games that just beg for much longer sessions to play. 

And I was wondering whether I should even do a writeup on this, because this is a three-year-old game at this point, but I also figured what the heck, why not? It makes me happy, it's what's occupying me spare time, why not? I do enough talking about Pokemon on this blog as it is, another short playthrough won't hurt. 

_______________________________

Anyway! New Pokemon Snap is a 2021 remake of the original Pokemon Snap on... the Nintendo 64, I think? I'm not too arsed to look up the specifics. But I am aware of the original Pokemon Snap, and while I've never played through it myself, I remembered it being advertised quite a bit on TV and on those old guidebooks and fan-magazines that people used to have before everything got turned into digital. 

And... well, the game doesn't really waste too much time in tossing you into things. After the requisite language, gender and appearance choices, I'm introduced immediately to the Laboratory of Ecology and Natural Sciences, or L.E.N.S. for short, ran by Professor Mirror and his very energetic sidekick Rita. There is actually some plot in this game, and while it's not quite as intensive as some of the other Pokemon spinoffs like Ranger or Mystery Dungeon, it's still at least some narrative. 

After the quick introduction to the Professor and Rita, we're thrown straight into a quick tutorial on how to use the camera, before most of the concept about the setting is given to us. We're in Florio Island, which is part of the Lental region, and we're going to go around with a camera to photograph Pokemon and put them into a 'Photodex'. 

The Professor has his own unique way of rating and giving grades to my photographs, which includes the pose of the Pokemon, the position of the Pokemon in the shot, other Pokemon in the shot, the behaviour, etc, etc. Oh, and I'm going to have to take the photos while sitting on a mechanical expedition pod called NEO-ONE that goes on a predefined route through these natural environments. And the original Snap predated Jurassic World by literal decades, but the comparison to the similar globes in that movie isn't unfair, I think.

Oh, there's also voice-acting in this game, in either English or Japanese. It's very simple dialogue, and for most of the game it's just Persona 5 non-main-story-quest "I see!" or "Hmm!" type of vocalizations, but we celebrate the little wins whenever we can get them. 

Anyway, with all the tutorial out of the way, I take my first route through the Florio Natural Park and... wow, the game gave Sword and Shield, and even Scarlet and Violet, a gigantic run for its money in terms of how good the surroundings look, huh? I know it's an unfair comparison considering how much you can do in the mainline games, but still, I was just blown away by how good the environment and the Pokemon character models look. 

And... I'm not going to describe the whole trail for you, but it's a short trek that is supposed to overwhelm you with how many Pokemon there are running around and doing their stuff. Vivillons are flying around and Dodrios are jumping around. In the background a herd of Bouffalant is grazing while a Pichu and a Grookey run around and chase each other and my character's pod throughout the track. Emolgas fly down the branches, Wurmples hang out in the tree trunks while Taillows hop in and out of the forest floor. 

Swannas are swimming in the lake, there is a bunch of Bidoof walking around trying to build a dam, a Magikarp is hop-hop-splish-splashing up and down the river, there's a random sleeping Hoothoot's ass hanging out from a hole in the tree... and ultimately the track ends in a majestic flower field with Comfeys, Vivillons and a Florges hanging around. 

It's so much fun, so much to see, there's a bit of a sensory overload but in a good way. And these tracks are part of the game's replayability, where I need to go back and try and get the best pose for each individual Pokemon species as you go through the tracks. And, of course, you'll get different items as you progress through the game, and the items interact with the Pokemon and cause them to behave differently. 

And in a nice little twist to the original formula where you just repeat the same tracks over and over again, in New Pokemon Snap you gain experience points for each type of track and as you level up, there are changes that happen in the actual environment. That's such a nice, interesting concept to emphasize the fact that the game's technically saving resources by having you repeat the course over and over again, but there's also an aspect of replayability due to the fact that there are small, minute changes over the time. 

Anyway, after my first trek, Professor Mirror goes through a rather exhaustingly long sequence of critiquing one photo per Pokemon, one at a time, and... obviously because I'm starting out, I didn't really get any really good points?

The Professor and Rita then teach me about the X-button, or 'Scan', which is like a Detective Mode way to see the Pokemon around me, as well as items of interest nearby. Pressing X will also attract the attention of some Pokemon, causing them to turn my way. That's the first of the various buttons that will change Pokemon behaviour, I'm still waiting for the apples that I can chuck at Pokemon. 

It is worth noting that the entirety of the tutorials are voice-acted, which I found to be weird. You'd think the story (as thin as it is) would be the priority of having voice-acting? I don't particularly care all that much, though. Neither do I care about the Professor going into a full-on talk about the Photodex, how I can keep certain photos, and how I can post them on the internet for other Snap players to look at. Cute features, I like that they exist, but I don't care about them. 

With my newfound 'Scan' and the Natural Park itself being upgraded to level two, the Professor tosses me back into Florio Park, and things actually have changed! Where the Bouffalant herd was far in the distance of the starting point in the first iteration of the Natural Park, I now spawn right in the middle of the herd. The Grookey and Pichu duo are also a lot easier to look at as they run around more vividly in the beginning of the trek.

There's notably a bunch of Ducklett hanging out with their Swanna parents; did their eggs hatch in-between the level-up? That's adorable. I'm not sure if I missed it in the first level, but there's also a Tangrowth just lurking next to a fruit tree, this giant mass of vines just sitting there, menacingly. Oh, and the Florges at the end of the trek also changes colours from red to orange. 

After I return from this one, the Professor gives me some backstory about the Illumina Phenomenon happening in this region, which was documented by the ancient photographer Captain Vince. Okay, ancient photographers have cameras too, I guess? Though in real life cameras were invented in the early 1800's, so I suppose it does count as 'ancient' technology by today's standards. 

Anyway, the Professor tells me that it's time for a night exploration... which is another ingenious usage of the exact same map for a completely different setting... nighttime! Which, by the way, looks gorgeous with the glowing plants and stuff, but it's also very reminiscent of actual night safaris and the population of the Pokemon, of course, changes at night.

And it's pretty fun to see how the Bouffalant herd is sleeping.  The role of the little starter in the beginning of the route is replaced by a Scorbunny that's leaving little flames all over the place. Stop that, you pyromaniac bunny, you're gonna burn down the whole forest and turn the Bouffalant herd into the world's biggest beef bourguignon dish!

We've got some nighttime creatures like Pidgeots flying around. There's a lot of Murkrow, a herd of Torterra that's wandered in from somewhere and filled up most of the road. There's a random lone Caterpie hanging out next to a tree. The Pichu and the Grookey is snuggling next to each other and taking a good nap on one of the Torterras, that's pretty dang adorable. The Comfey and Vivillon in the flower field have been replaced with a swarm of Combees, and it does make sense that they would collect nectar from the flowers at different times.

And there's a mound of dirt that I can scan, and it turns out to be an underground PINSIR! It never occurred to me that being a very grubby beetle monster that Pinsir would also exhibit some of the subterranean behaviours that beetle grubs do; I've always imagined them latching on to the sides of the trees like how Heracross is often depicted doing in the anime. 

Anyway, I've kind of resigned to not really caring about saving any of the photographs (I use the Switch's actual screenshot button to save any I deem cool enough to save), and just yolo-pick for completion's sake. 

It is interesting that each Pokemon has four different 'star' photos that's independent on the quality of the photograph as per the Professor's criterion; it's apparently based on the specific pose that the Pokemon itself is doing. But you can only submit a single photograph per Pokemon per treck, so I found out that I had multiple 1-star and 3-star photographs for the Pinsir but only a single one gets registered. Since I registered the 3-star pose Pinsir, I have to at some point repeat this track to get a 1-star, 2-star and 4-star photograph for Pinsir if I'm so inclined. I guess this is a way to make me feel like I'm doing something even when I'm re-encountering a Pokemon I've met before, but I'm not really playing for completion in this game.

Right after I return from this night trek, Professor Mirror tells me that some kind of Illumina energy spike has been detected, and apparently one of these elusive Illumina Pokemon has just appeared... and it seems that my main character syndrome is overpowering because it coincides with the moment that I entered the Florio Natural Park. Okay, sure. 

The Professor sends me to a unique map where I meet the titular Illumina Pokemon, and... it's a big and shiny Meganium, that glows with some kind of sparkly energy and I just kind of follow the Meganium around on a track that ran for just a bit too long while the Meganium stops to eat some of the Crystalbloom flower and glows even brighter. 

So this is the unique sub-species of Pokemon in this game, the game's version of things like, oh, Alpha Pokemon or Shadow Pokemon or Delta Pokemon or Terastral Pokemon or whatever fancy new variation of "it's basically the same thing, but different" that we've been getting a lot in the post-3DS era games... which... yeah, y'know what? Being glowing after eating some kind of magical flower isn't anywhere ridiculous as the Terastral nonsense from Paldea. It fits the photography theme, and I do admit that the first appearance of the giant Meganium was actually quite surprising. 

And... yeah, the Professor then gives me a bunch of stuff. I get a badge because I'm finally out of tutorial island, and the all-important APPLE! Or, well, "Fluff-Fruit", which look exactly like apples and is noted by Rita that they look like apples, but they are much lighter and much softer. The original Snap had a variation of the Kanto games' "throw rock" and "throw bait" to interact with Pokemon, but I guess they realized that an apple thrown to your face hurts like hell. I'm still going to call them apples, though. 

I also unlock a ton of random sidequests on the 'LensTalk' menu, and I think each Pokemon species is going to have its own sidequest. Some look straightforward, like trying to figure out certain area secrets or interactables. Some look positively irritating, which... is to be expected, honestly. I'm not going to 100% this game, so I'm not going to beat myself up over it. 

Then the batch of cutscenes ends with the appearance of Todd Snap, the protagonist of the first Pokemon Snap game (he also had a cameo in the anime, and a major supporting role in the Adventures manga), all grown up. He... he doesn't really have much of a personality beyond 'cool guy', but that's what you do when you bring in a previously entirely-silent protagonist for a photography game. But coming in with Todd is a little brat with bad Dragon Ball hair called Phil, who's your requisite little bratty kid friend. I dislike him already. 

But... this has been a very fun ride. I didn't expect this game to be anywhere as therapeutic and calming as it is. I don't really think that there's anything super special beyond the very pretty graphics and the Pokemon's interactions with each other, since even the Snap gameplay is recycled/remade, but... it's pretty fun. It really is. I'm not sure how often I'll be updating this, since I basically scribble down some notes and unlike the mainline Pokemon games I'll be doing a lot of quiet 'grinding', but do expect me to talk about at least the next two or three areas in the near future!

Random Notes:

• It took me a bit longer than I should to realize that Grookey, Scorbunny, Pichu and Meganium are all featured very prominently on the game cover. 
  
• One thing that I didn't mention is that the game really likes giving me random rewards for doing stuff, things like titles and frame borders and photo effects that's only ever going to be used to edit photos. I'm honestly not interested in ever engaging in any of these features, and I feel the 'titles' are kinda dumb, but they do act as a nice bit of mini-dopamine hits like Steam achievements or something. 
  
• Rita at least has a memorable colour scheme and has a personality of being an energetic young child... but boy, Professor Mirror has the personality of dried paint. 
• Another thing I also didn't like is the design of the actual Poke-Camera or whatever it's called. I know it's a small thing and we don't even see the camera, but it looks so over-the-top sci-fi. I would've much rather had a traditional camera like what Todd Snap has, or even a straight-up Nintendo Switch like Breath of the Wild's Sheikah Slate. 
• One thing that kind of bamboozles me is that the NEO-ONE teleports in and out of these locations, creating giant glowing sci-fi rings that creates a pillar that sucks it into sci-fi-transwarp-lightspeed-hyperspace and sends the NEO-ONE to and from the Professor's base. I really am not sure why I'm so bothered by this since Pokemon has been utilizing teleportation pads since Pokemon Red & Blue, but I did find the teleportation just a bit jarring. 
• I will neither confirm nor deny that one of the biggest motivators for me doing this playthrough is for the joy of inserting colourful Pokemon TCG artwork into articles again. 
• Way to make Meganium relevant again after kind of being forgotten by Nintendo for a while!

One Piece 1121 Review: Ora Ora Ora

One Piece, Chapter 1121: The Upheaval of the Era

Apologies for the slightly late review --  I was hospitalized and pretty sick, and so I didn't really have much of a chance to do blog posts. I'll probably be taking things easy for the next couple of weeks/months. 

We are wrapping up Egghead, though. I reread this chapter and I don't think there's a whole ton in Vegapunk's speech that's particularly significant? To us, at least. It reveals a bunch of stuff to the main populace, and there's a nice shot with the whole 'decks of the world' when Vegapunk talks about prosecuted, rare races like the buccaneers, three-eyed tribe or the lunarians; and another segment where he talks about Ancient Weapons and it flashes to Shirahoshi and Vivi. It's then a bunch of more or less generic stuff until he talks about how the person who claims the One Piece might not be the person Joy Boy envisions, leading to the epic final two-page spread of presumably the major final players in One Piece.

Saturn is just continuing to barrage the lesser Giant Pirates with his noodle-poison spider legs. Saturn keeps trying to get Bonney, who goes Nika-mode and jumps into the air. She's still struggling a lot more than Luffy did, and I guess this is going to be common for both of them (presuming the two of them are the only Gear Fifth users, and please god let just the two of them be it) where they can keep going in and out of Gear Fifth. 

Vegapunk's message plays out at this point, which I covered above, but then we get back to the action scene. Saturn notes that Bonney's form is a 'pale mimicry', which, again, is fair -- I'm not in the camp of having Bonney anywhere as powerful as Luffy's final form -- and we get to see Luffy kicking away Saturn's giant spider legs while Bonney flashes back to Kuma's memories. "Your only options are slavery and death". This feels like a nod to how Luffy wants a lot of his friends to try and fight for themselves -- which is a running theme in post-timeskip Luffy, where he prominently tries to get Shirahoshi and Momonosuke to stand up and stop being crybabies and fight. They can't beat the enemy, but I do appreciate this idea a lot more. 

Bonney gives a speech about gods and heroes; and about her dad, yells that she's going to live because she's alive. We get to see brief bits of Kizaru and Sentomaru, and a shot of a 'what if' scenario that will never happen with Kuma and Ginny being parents to baby Bonney... and she unleashes a single giant Gear-Third-esque punch to Saturn.... while Luffy unleashes a barrage of punches all around him. "Liberating Nika Punch", Bonney calls it.

And Saturn gets fucked. He gets riddled with holes, he gets tossed overboard (and into the ocean, which will, I guess, finally confirm the true nature of Gorosei and their Devil Fruit user status). This is the big 'takedown of the arc villain' moment, and I appreciate that Bonney gets to join in this moment. Power-scaling wise I genuinely don't think Bonney did much damage to Saturn, but it's the principle of the matter -- that this child of two decent human beings that just wanted to survive in this world and got royally, Berserk-level fucked-up by Saturn and his cronies, ends up not just being a scared person to rescue, but gains a power-up that defies everything Saturn stands for and even participates in the ora-ora-ora barrage that beats Saturn down. 

And we see a panel of Kuma maybe-kinda-sorta smiling. That's nice. 

And let me use this time to talk about Saturn... I really do think that, rather disappointingly, we don't get much out of him. He's a rather generic 'mwahaha I'm evil, humans are worms, I am a noble so I'm better than you' villain. I kept looking for anything beyond that. Not necessarily redeeming qualities, but honestly, anything (like Hody Jones' blind racism or Caesar Clown's inferiority complex) to give his brand of evil more depth. Anything at all, or at least some kind of personality trait. The Gorosei might just be mindless 'heavies' for the rest of our crew to fight in whatever final battle is going to happen and that's fine, I suppose, but I really wished they had something more, y'know? 

All of this takes place in the time that the Thousand Sunny is falling down, but we don't quite get much of an update on that. Vegapunk's message continues, and he brings up Gol D. Roger's speech that set off this series in the first place. We cut to the other Yonko and the Marines... Blackbeard is still not back at Hachinosu; Shanks is piss-off drunk; Crocodile and Mihawk can only watch as Buggy's legend continues to grow; and the Marines are actually discussing about finding the One Piece first.

And then we get this epic two-page spread of portraits of all the major players for the One Piece. Which, ah, hell, let's go through it one by one: 

• The YONKO! Starting with Red-Haired Shanks, one of the strongest beings in the world, finally doing something other than stand and look cool after 27 years, the golden boy successor to Roger's ambitions and knows way too much. Whatever his ambitions are with the One Piece, context clues tell us that it's likely different enough from what Luffy wants. 
• "Straw-Hat" Monkey D. Luffy, our main character, owner of a Grand Fleet he doesn't want, the bearer of a destiny he doesn't give a shit about, and just hunting for the One Piece because he's the man who's going to be the King of Pirates.
• "Blackbeard" Marshall D. Teach. The man with two Devil Fruits, the anti-Luffy, the Whitebeard-killer, Commodore of Pirate Island, probably one of the worst people who can get the One Piece because he's going to plunge the world into anarchy and violence. 
• Buggy the Clown, the man who keeps falling upwards, former contemporary to Shanks to became a washed-out bum clown in the boondocks of the One Piece world, who somehow rose up to become a saviour, a warlord, and an Emperor.
• Admiral "Akainu" Sakazuki, current leader of the Marines and master at making deep-fried donuts. A hardcase and a fanatic for justice even among Marines, likely to want the One Piece to deliver his idea of justice to the world. Has the potential to fight against the World Government. 
• Monkey D. Dragon, the leader of the Revolutionaries, father of our main character, master of ellipses, and... conceptually very significant, but honestly he could die next chapter and Sabo or Ivankov could take his role and I wouldn't care less. I really do want the story to make me care for him, though. 
• SOME SHADOWY GUY WITH A SWORD!!!! Put your bets on who this is, ladies and gentlemen. That sword maybe looks like Roger's sword? Is this a God's Knight? Shanks' twin brother/sister? Scopper Gaban? Man Marked By Flames? Someone from Elbaf? Rocks? Joy Boy? Shiki after a shave? Canon Uta? Who the fuck knows? 
• Imu, Shadow Ruler of the Entire World, still in silhouette, still shaped like a blob, still full of mystery, and the world is waiting with bated breath to hear his voice in the anime so we can assign a gender, at least, to him or her. Built up to be the final villain of the story, the biggest big bad, and the person or entity that is the cause of so much of the world's bullshit right now. 
• Koby, future of the Marines, rising star of SWORD, formerly with a head shaped like a literal potato. Very significant that he has honestly grown to have such an ambition that contrasts heavily with the likes of Akainu, and it's a shoo-in that a clash of ideals between Koby and Akainu is in the works. 
• "Aokiji" Kuzan. Former Admiral, defector from the Marines, moral-conflicted ice man now currently serving Blackbeard. Rather interesting that he actually makes his appearance here, but considering that Aokiji is clearly having his own agenda even among the Blackbeard Pirates, it's not hard to tell that he's going to do something against Blackbeard in the future. Whether that 'something' is going to benefit the Marines or the rest of the world, or where Aokiji's lazy justice will lead him, who knows? 
• Sir Figarland Garling, likely father of Shanks, presumed leader of the God's Knights, and responsible for 90% of Mariegeoise's hair gel consumption. Probably will be relevant in the future when Shanks and/or Imu becomes relevant. 
• Sabo... second-in-command of the Revolutionaries, Brother of Luffy, Hero of the Revolutionaries, and frankly the Revolutionary that I, as a reader, am more invested about. Interestingly, Sabo and Dragon aren't... opposed to each other? The other organizations with two members shown here (Blackbeard/Kuzan and Akainu/Koby) have clear ideological differences or independent agendas going on that make the second-in-commands showing up a bit more understandable. But I am interested just how much more relevant Sabo is going to be and whether there will be any conflict between the Flame Emperor and Dragon.

Pretty neat chapter. All in all I really would've liked something more significant with Saturn, character wise... but with how hectic Egghead has been I do think that it's not strictly a bad decision for us to cut away at this point. 

Random Notes:

• There's a nice reminder that Luffy's just an airhead, not a complete idiot, when he was the first to remind the other giants that, hey, Saturn's got poison tipped spider legs.
• No robot this week? Huh. Apparently this chapter came out at some anniversary or other, so having Bonney and Luffy beat up the main arc villain; as well as ending on a mugshot of all the major players for the final arc, is much more appropriate than Emet. Sorry, Emet. 
• According to official translations, it's "Emet" and "Clou D. Clover". Okay, like Cloud, I get the joke. 
• Interestingly, when Vegapunk brings up ancient weapons, we cut to Shirahoshi (who is an ancient weapon) and... Vivi. And ever since we discovered that people can be ancient weapons, there has been a theory that Vivi might be Pluton. Which... I would find to be an insane retcon considering how much the Alabasta and Water Seven/Enies Lobby arcs have hammered home so much about Pluton being a battleship. Her or her bloodline being somehow relevant to the activation or usage of Pluton, though? That, I can believe. 
• Less seriously, there are some conspiracy theories on whether Marco is a member of a rare tribe since he shows up right before King and Pudding when Vegapunk is giving his speech, but unless Pineapple-Head Tribe is going to be something relevant in the future, I highly doubt that it's anything more than a flashback to how Marco was the only other person in Wano who knows what a 'Lunarian' is. 
• We also finally see Skypiea, with Wyper and his generals, Aisha, Conis and the big snake hanging out. I know I say it each chapter, but I think that's the one big missing thing gone? Of course we haven't seen certain major characters... most notable and understandable MIA characters include Gekko Moriah and Perona. 
• Shanks drunk is... interesting, since that's what Rayleigh is also doing. Just what happened in Laughtale that just kinda induces alcoholism among all of the Pirate King's crew whenever it's mentioned? 
• It goes without saying... Big Mom, Kaido, Law and especially Kid are just out of the running now. I see Law and the remnants of his crew eventually joining the Straw Hat Grand Fleet or something, allowing him to be relevant and to have a tie-off to his story, but honestly, the more I think about it, I don't mind Kid's story ending like this. I just wished that Oda spend a bit more highlighting why Kid's way is the wrong way for a 'real' Pirate. 

One Piece 1120 Review: Those Who Live In Death

One Piece, Chapter 1120: Atlas

So this one has a couple of interesting revelations and some action scenes. And... depending on how the arc will end, this chapter will I think come off as slightly better or worse. 

We start off with Punk Hazard 26 years ago, where Clover is asking Vegapunk to join in his research. This is way pre-Ohara, and when Vegapunk was still a massive asshole. Vegapunk rightly calls Clover out for basically falling into the government's plans of letting Clover go multiple times to basically lead him to his co-conspirators of Void Century research. Vegapunk has a bit of an arrogant moment, basically being a strawman in a past-vs-future argument with Clover and basically buying a lot into being a government lapdog. 

Clover reveals to Vegapunk something about the name of "D", revealing that someone close to him was killed for having the initial... and that man was Clover's own brother! Clover reveals his full name as Claiomh D. Clover, and lives in shame for denying that he was related to his brother -- drawing a nice contrast with how Bellemere acted in Nami's backstory. 

Again, it's a nice showcase of Vegapunk and how he's grown over the years. It is interesting that we flash a bit to the time of Ohara's destruction, where he and his then-assistant Caesar Clown heard news of Ohara's destruction with the Buster Call. Vegapunk was very brusque when we saw him in the flashback as he meets Dragon in that island... but it's clear that the wheels and the seeds of doubt are starting to be planted in his mind as he looks at Nico Robin's bounty poster, and later on to the books saved by the researchers of Ohara in his lake. 

Caesar's very heartless comments, as well as Vegapunk's own biases, notes about how 'people won't follow in (Clover)'s footsteps' after this. Except while Vegapunk is a pessimist, people did do so after Clover's death. Hell, Clover himself probably was willing to stay behind and brave the literal and proverbial bullet of death after refusing to stand up for what he believes in when his brother was killed all the way back. I've never really thought too much about Clover as a character, but this chapter really did do a great way really highlighting the impact that Clover had not just on Robin, but also on even an initially skeptical character like Vegapunk...

...who, now in the present day, has also essentially willingly died in order to get his message out. We cut out to Vegapunk's recording giving an extended version of Donquixote Doflamingo's epic quote from the Marineford arc. "History is written by the victors, and the words of the vanquished are usually cast into the deep, dark ocean. That being said, the truth can still come to light if the oppressed carry it on their backs and endure!"

We get a couple of brief shots of some of the last locations we haven't checked in with -- we really are just missing Skypiea now, right? -- which are Zeff and the chefs at Baratie, and Tequila Wolf. We also get Robin crying as she's apparently listening to this part of Vegapunk's message. It's a nice character moment for Robin, but also a very nice confirmation that at the end of the day, the Straw Hats are going to get the gist of Vegapunk's message. 

We are still kinda stuck with the Sunny being unable to blast off, with there not being enough distance or thrust power or whatever. It is kinda silly that Ethan is just lurking there while Zoro and Lilith have a full-on conversation, but then Atlas swoops in and full-on decks Lilith onto the ground. She then seems to 'snap' something from Lilith's head, before she tells the other Straw Hats to take care of Lilith, and that she's going to lend a hand. 

This signal-severing is basically Atlas's way to fool York into thinking that Lilith is also killed, or at least disconnected from Punk Records, while Atlas himself zips out and charges in to intercept Ethanbaron. Intrestingly, it's Jinbe who's pretty gung-ho about going, though it's clear that he doesn't like it. Having been in a position where he had to make a difficult decision on whether to join or leave a retreating party, I do like that Jinbe has this moment of resolution, or at least understanding Atlas's resolution. 

Ethanbaron slices off Atlas's arm, but she just grabs on to Ethan's body and activates her rocket boosts, keeping Ethan away long enough before she blows herself up, giving the Thousand Sunny enough of an extra boost to get through whatever calculations Lilith was talking about. Atlas basically dies with a smile, denying that she's making a 'grand sacrifice of herself', but that she's just helping out. This, nicely, is shown in the context that it's helping the Straw Hats escape but not really damaging Ethanbaron, since he's reforming the chunk of his face that's been blown off. 

Luffy's reaction to the Iron Giant is... just what is expected. Despite what the world might insist, Monkey D. Luffy is Monkey D. Luffy, the Man Who Will Become the Pirate King. He does not consider himself to be Nika or Joy Boy, and when the Iron Giant addresses him as Joy Boy, he's just confused and looking behind himself for whoever this 'Joy Boy' is. but the Iron Giant just wades into war to fight against the two giant forms of Ju Peter and Topman Warcury, talking about how he's going to fight "Joy Boy's enemies" like before. 

Rather interestingly, Luffy doesn't consider the Iron Giant a friend just yet, mostly being confused about the whole Joy Boy thing. We also get a confirmation of the Voice of All Things communication, where none of the giants are able to hear the conversation. 

The Iron Giant is about to fight Ju Peter and his disturbingly toothy sandworm mouth, and his pose is even similar to Franky's Weapons Left pose. The Straw Hats are shocked when they see that the weapons of the Iron Giant misfire, though, and Ju Peter just slams his maw shut on the left side of the Iron Giant, seemingly devouring or at least crushing the entire left arm and chunks of his left shoulder.

We get Saturn scuttling through the beach, yelling at Ju Peter to crush the Iron Giant, before he jumps and lands on the  Giants' ship, looming over Luffy and the Giants and growling about how they will not escape. (It's at this point that Atlas's sacrifice and the Thousand Sunny falling from the sky happens). I definitely wouldn't mind a proper knockdown between Luffy and Saturn, because if any Gorosei is going to get a sound defeat in this arc, it has to be Saturn. I don't mind if the other four actually get a good showing. 

York cackles about being the final Vegapunk, while the four Gorosei prepare to fight. Ethanbaron reforms, Saturn prepares to fight the people on the Giant Pirates' ship, Peter and Topmana are about to destroy the giant robot... and Emet's last thoughts at the chapter is thinking about whether this is "this time" and whether he can use it, which probably means some kind of self-destruct weapon. 

Oh, and one last thing -- while all of this is going on, Vegapunk goes on about his message still. He doesn't say anything particularly important, but he does reveal to the world about "Gol D. Roger". It's... it's neat, I guess,  and it's going not make the people of the world in general as aware about the existence of the Will of D... but probably as confused as the fandom is right now. 

And... we'll see. I do think that the Vegapunk message has ran its course. I really would be lying if I said Atlas's death affected me at all. It's shocking because Oda actually killed someone, but I don't think we've spent any time with Atlas at all to make me really care about her supposed death. Now I am just waiting to see how the arc will be wrapped up, in terms of the Iron Giant, of the Vegapunks' situation, and how our heroes actually escape from Egghead. 

Random Notes:

• Yamato Cover Story: Yamato meets Denjiro, who's the Daimyo of Kibi and has rounded up the bullying kids. Sure. At least we're starting to meet other characters. 
• During the 26-year-ago part of the Punk Hazard flashback, Vegapunk is sitting with a baby dragon, probably the young version of the dragon that Zoro slices to death. In the background, a horned head is peeking over the walls, though we don't exactly see the features. This is, I guess, either a captured giant (ancient giant?) or maybe a previous dragon cloning attempt. 
• Claiomh Solais is the name of a legendary sword of light in Irish mythology. I became aware of this thanks to a weapon name in Final Fantasy XIII. 
• Dragon and his Revolutionaries seemed to have liberated Tequila Wolf in the timeskip when they rescued Robin, but I guess they simply didn't have the ability to hold that location because the slavery has started back up again, probably with a fresh batch of slaves. 
• Presumably, Atlas ripped off whatever is the equivalent of Stella Vegapunk's apple-antenna that's in Lilith's head. Is this permanent? Or is this just the equivalent of being disconnected from Wi-Fi? This does bring up the idea that Edison might be doing something similar, though I really don't think he's really going to be relevant enough to make survive. 
• It's a short scene, but we also get another scene of the Marines being confused about the giant demons rampaging in the island and getting both horrified and confused. 
• Luffy normally has a very good grasp of who is a good guy or not, so the fact that he doesn't readily call the Iron Giant his friend does raise some alarm bells on whether Joy Boy is a good guy or not. 
• Speaking of Luffy's refusal to be associated with Joy Boy, I do like that Dorry and Brogy, the two giants that are actually friends with him, aren't referring to Luffy as "Nika". 
• Chopper's helm design really confused me as to what's going on in that panel, until I realized it goes over his mouth like a rugby headgear.