ROYAL ADVENTURE ‘REIGNS’ GETS UPDATE FIT FOR A KING
– The King is Dead, Long Live the King –
The Throne Room – Benevolent developer Nerial and the constitutional monarchy Devolver Digital have released a magnificent new update for the mobile hit Reigns. The update is live now on the App Store, Google Play, and Steam and includes 100 new unique cards with new characters, new ways to meet your demise and even a fake elephant [reignsgame.com].
Aspiring monarchs will need to survive the seemingly never-ending gauntlet of requests from their advisers, peasants, allies, and enemies while maintaining balance between the influential factions of your kingdom. Swipe left or right to cast your decision from your throne but beware; each decision you make might have implications and unfortunate consequences down the road that could put your reign and family’s dynasty at risk. More than 850 unique cards, interconnected story paths, and surprise events assure that no two reigns are ever the same.
Heirs to the throne can learn more about Reigns by visiting reignsgame.com and following @ReignsGame on Twitter.
Game Links
http://nerial.co.uk/reigns/#buy
With most attractions either too lame, extreme, or fallen into complete disrepair and many of their employees appearing to have completely checked out of reality Kanie ends up furious by the time his strange visit to the park comes to an end. With only a delightful snack appearing to be the selling point, he manages to meet with the manager of the park, a young girl by the name of Latifah. While this may seem like your average park fallen on hard times, things begin to take a unique twist when it is revealed that this young girl is actually a real princess and that the Amagi Brilliant Park is in fact home to magical creatures who have left their homeland.
One of the most interesting aspects of Amagi Brilliant Park is that it manages to combine fantasy elements and slice of life development together in a nearly flawless manner. While many series may lose time trying to introduce various characters or solve small problems while sacrificing development of the core storyline, this series manages to do both at the same time as nearly every action that the characters make ends up helping the park in some form. Whether it is introducing us to new characters that end up pulling their weight more in the park or developing new ideas for ways to attract customers, both of these work together to create an interesting series to watch.
The main characters that tend to interact with Kanie though tend to be the blunt Isuzu who rarely speaks her mind outside of one development where she’s afraid to share too much and three mascot characters that are almost always able to make you smile simply due to how out of character they are with their appearances. Whether it is the pink cat with a perverted nature who likes explosives, a lazy sheep with a temper, or the most stand out character who hates being called a knock-off, a mouse who will appear quite familiar to fans of the Full Metal Panic series.
The other aspect comes in the form of the character designs. With bright and colorful designs that are nicely detailed with quite a number of unique looking characters, especially in the forms of the park mascots, you’ll always be eager to see what will happen next thanks to these designs. It is interesting to note that there is a bit of fan-service in this series but it is kept fairly tame or is poked fun at by the more lascivious characters being punished.
The soundtrack throughout the series is fairly standard in nature outside of the aforementioned insert songs that are performed by the characters. The opening theme “Extra Magic Hour” by Akino with bless4 is a great opening track for the series and is a delightful song to listen to and as for the ending theme we have “Elementario de Aimasho” performed by the Japanese voice actors for the four Elemental fairies and this theme song serves the series well with a satisfying light-rock closing that touches upon each of the elements of the girls.
While this does little to earn him many friends, his first real case comes at him fast and immediately exposes the risks of falling back on old ways. After a terrible train crash leaves many patients injured, a young boy with severed limbs is immediately discarded by an older doctor who prescribes amputation as the only method. Knowing that there is a better way, Hazama steps beyond his position as a student to take on the patient and reattach his limbs. Despite his eventual success, he is shocked by the poor nature of almost everyone around him thanks to his superior writing the child off as someone who could barely be saved and the fact that the parents of the child eventually resort to blackmail to pass off the majority of the surgery fees.
This includes follow Hazama as he travels to Vietnam only to be captured and have to deal with the issues of both being a prisoner of war as well as soldiers who are struggling to not only survive the war, but determine just what is right and wrong. A brief trip to Chicago where racial divide continues to play a major role in society after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. that not only touches upon those issues but also the dark side of science and humanity, before bringing itself to another three episode arc only to end on a rather bland note in yet another one-off episode that does little to really establish Hazama as Black Jack other than simply saying that he would eventually go on to take a different path than most doctors.
Rarely are we given a look beneath his calm exterior to see that things are actually deeply affecting his outlook on the course of medicine. In fact on more than a few occasions he reacts completely emotionless, something that doesn’t really pan out when compared to the Black Jack that fans eventually know him to be. This combined with the lackluster finish for this anime season, leads to a bit of a divide between what fans of the classic series expect and how things are left off.
It is also worth noting that despite being a series that features a large number of surgeries and scenes that take place during the Vietnam war, there is very little blood or gore involved and while surgery is shown quite often, viewers are presented with a side-view of the action or simple highlights of Hazama’s sewing and surgery techniques against a simple background, making for an appealing but overly simplistic artistic choice.
The soundtrack for the series is fairly standard fair for a series such as this with a mix of dramatic and heavier tunes used during operations and darker scenes. As for the opening theme for the series, it is titled “I am Just Feeling Alive” by Umi Kuun and is rather upbeat and catchy to listen to, albeit not exactly the type of song that one would expect from the series. The ending theme is “All Categorize” by Takuto and is more toned down to the point of being too simplistic in nature.
