“Night is drawing a dark cloak over the Sunken Forest. You shiver with anticipation; with the darkness will come danger…”. The Kai Lord ‘s adventure continues in Act 2 of Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf: Forest Hunt, available now from Bulkypixon iOS and Android for $4.99.
In this second chapter of the Lone Wolf’s epic saga, players will explore the frontier between the Kingdom of Sommerlund and the dreaded Darklands, face off against new and more powerful enemies including the fearsome Gourgaz, and uncover the truth behind the attack on the village of Rockstarn from Act 1 of Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf: Blood on the Snow, which, in celebration of Act 2’s release, is free on iOS until midnight of April 10. The Android version will be priced at $0.99 until that date, and the Season Pass is also on sale for the same period of time at $9.99.
Keep an eye on Capsule Computers as we look to review Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf: Forest Hunt.
Get your guns ready! Post-apocalyptic FPS Nether received a major content update this week with the long awaited territorial conflicts. Phosphor Games has added a new section to the map, doubling it in size, while breaking areas down into smaller territories that can be controlled by capturing a special building. Controlling territory will bring the player’s tribe extra resources.
Territorial conflict is not the only addition in Nether’s April update. Female character skins are now available for play, the loot system has been expanded, golden chests have now been spread around the city, riot shields have been introduced, custom taunts are available for use, and the underwear uniform can now be equipped. Some gameplay mechanics have also been tweaked to improve the player experience. An optional tutorial will help smooth the learning curve for new players. On death, players can now opt to spawn in a random Safe Zone, or stick to the old random spawn system. Finally, HUD waypoints have been added to the game.
Nether is available for $14.99 on Steam. The game is currently in Early Access and runs only on 64-bit Windows.
Don’t call me a “Jackass” if I’m wrong, I can’t be right about everything, I’m not some sort of all-knowing “Monk”. I actually feel terrible for stringing together that sentence…anyway, moving on!
Apparently there have been some casting changes for the upcoming “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, “Jackass” star Johnny Knoxville and Tony Shalhoub who you may know from the series “Monk” have both been cast as the voices of Leonardo and Master Splinter respectively for the new movie.
Originally the voices of Leo and Splinter were supposed to be provided by Pete Ploszek (Leo) and Danny Woodburn (Splinter) but changes like this get made all the time during the production stage.
The good thing is that you wont notice the difference seeing as the trailer really only had one turtle saying any fully audible lines and that was Michelangelo, with Donatello and Leonardo only speaking three words between the two, not necessarily enough to fully pin down and get used to a voice actor.
I’m personally very excited for the movie but I’ve heard whispers of TMNT fans not necessarily onboard. Hopefully the film turns out great and hopefully some more information regarding the cast gets released soon. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” is set for a release on the 8th of August this year.
Reign Of Bullets, the upcoming title from indie developers Critical Bit, is planned for a PC release soon, with the Mac and Linux versions being under development.
Fight your way through the hordes of drones as you pilot through the different levels, gaining epic loots to alter and modify your ride. The more you play and progress, the better your ship becomes. The weapon choices in this game are large, and with that allows a lot of customization for each unique player. Do you want heat seeking missiles? Targeting lasers? High single-shot damage or large bullet spreads? This 2D shoot-em-up title features a Campaign mode and an Endless mode, where you’ll be taking in non-stop action.
The game will be available for the PC first, and the Mac and Linux versions are in development. The title is currently on the Steam Greenlight program. For more information, check out their Steam page here and their official site here. Also, check out their trailer for Reign Of Bullets.
Jaco the Galactic Patrolman is the latest manga by Akira Toriyama, the mastermind behind Dragon Ball and the following Z franchise. His newest manga features a few special links between the two worlds and with the full collection being released, Dragon Ball Minus has been included as a bonus manga. What’s special about Dragon Ball Minus is that it predates anything seen in the Dragon Ball universe thus far including the Bardock TV special, revealing Goku’s mother’s origins (pictured above next to Bardock and below) and a bit about the families life on Planet Vegeta before it was destroyed by Frieza and Goku was sent away.
From what we know so far, Gine (whose name translates to Spring Onion in English, a common theme in the DBZ universe) is the mother of Goku and Raditz both born to Bardock. She was not much of a fighter but was part of Bardock’s crew for a while where he saved her many times and the two developed feelings for one another, which is rare for the Saiyans. As Gine wasn’t a great fighter, she became a meat distribution worker on Planet Vegeta. It is said she was killed in the explosion of Planet Vegeta caused by Frieza.
The manga is out today in Japan but will be available in English from April 7th as seen in the above image. Interestingly Goku is shown in Saiyan Armour inside his space pod and appears to be slightly older than a baby. He has previously always been depicted as being found by Grandpa Goku naked in his saiyan space pod as an infant. Perhaps the manga will bring some changes to the official series canon ? You can watch a trailer for Dragon Ball Minus below.
Bang & Olufsen is introducing a new black BeoPlay A9 sound system to provide a more masculine look to contrast the white BeoPlay A9 released over a year ago. The black BeoPlay a9 features black side coating and a black anodized aluminum speaker ring while maintaining the same elegant A9 design that was well received by critics and buyers alike. Additionally, the A9 wooden legs are being changed to keep up with changes in interior design trends. The teak and beech wood legs will now be replaced by walnut and maple, respectively.
The BeoPlay A9 is a sound system designed by Danish designer Øivind Alexander Slaatto. It plays music from AirPlay, DLNA ready devices, and 3.5mm analog cables. The system features five speakers and a controlled bass port powered by a 480 watt Class D amplifier. The BeoPlay A9 can be mounted on wooden legs or the wall. Users can control the volume by swiping the A9 from side to side. The BeoPlay A9 Black Edition is available at Bang & Olufsen stores and selected design and department stores for AUD $2690 or NZ $3650. More information can be found on the official BeoPlay A9 product page.
“Crunchyroll” – one of the biggest digital anime, manga and drama distributors – has just announced that they have acquired the rights to stream the upcoming MMO/RPG-based anime series “Blade And Soul” as part of their Spring anime 2014 lineup alongside series’ like “Majin Bone” and “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders“.
The new series – which follows the journey of a young and beautiful swordswoman who has decided to travel the land in search for her teacher’s killer to exact revenge – will begin its air today (April 3rd – North America/April 4th – Australia) at 9:00pm but will air every Thursday after this one at 12:46pm. “Blade And Soul” will be available for audiences in the United States, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, France, Latin America, Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Turkey.
Like usual, premiere members will be able to access the stream instantly after it is released but non-premier watchers will get a chance to watch it for free a week later. Interested? Check out the “Blade And Soul” promotional video in our featured video section just below this article.
“FUNimation Entertainment” – one of the leading American anime publishers/distributors known for series’ like “Dragon Ball Z”, “Attack On Titan” and “Space Dandy” – has just announced that they have acquired the rights to stream the brand-new “Fairy Tail” anime which will be streamed as part of the Spring anime season lineup.
The first of the new set of “Fairy Tail” anime episodes is set to air in Japan on the 5th of April but “FUNimation” are yet to give any details on when exactly they plan to stream the series. It IS being referred to as a “simulcast” so we’ll probably be getting it within 24 hours of the Japanese release.
This series, which is a follow up to the original “Fairy Tail” anime – which began its run all the way back in 2009 and finished up in 2013 – continues to follow the story of Natsu, Lucy and the rest of the gang as they take on other magician guilds, thwart evil where it stands and have a damn good time doing it! The Spring season has already begun so keep an eye on the site to catch all the news as it breaks.
Hozuki No Reitetsu Episode 13 – Hell’s Bon Festival Of Lights/Idle Chat With The Great King Enma
Another week, another episode and I’m so glad because I cannot get enough of Hozuki No Reitetsu. Welcome back to another installment of Hozuki No Reitetsu Anime Impressions, I hope you’ve all been as excited about this new episode as I have! This week marks the release of Hozuki No Reitetsu episode thirteen: The final episode of the series and one that shows us Hell, much like the living world, enjoys a bit of rest, relaxation and a chance to party down. It’s been thirteen long weeks and Hozuki No Reitetsu has been there the whole way. Now, as we step out of the Winter season and into the Spring we leave behind the old series’ in anticipation for the next and the last one for me just so happens to be Hozuki No Reitetsu. It’s been fun, old friend.
Hell’s Bon Festival Of Lights:
What a great way to kick off the final episode of a series! Hell is having its annual “Bon Festival Of Lights” celebration wherein which the residents of hell take part in a heavy few days of solid festivities while the tortured souls of hell get some time off to go and haunt their family back in the mundane world or whatever it is that the dead do when they have some “free time”. This half of the episode is honestly just pure fun and celebration, there’s no real story so there’s no point taking you all through it scene by scene, it is just an episode that you have to watch and enjoy because it’s incredibly light-hearted and leads into a nice series end. Hozuki and the gang (Shiro, Nasubi, Karauri, etc) meet up to partake in the festivities as a group and, as you can imagine, “tomfoolery” ensues. What absolutely made “Hell’s Bon Festival Of Lights” for me was that every character in the series was shown to be somewhere enjoying the festivities and it was, somewhat, heartwarming especially for someone like myself who has been following the series the entire time, writing about it each and every week as it is released.
The series in general wasn’t that of a heavy one, characters weren’t constantly going up against real adversity, everything the audience saw was super silly and super fun, for the festival to be even more “chill”, so to speak, than the entire series itself was a good move by the showrunners. This festival had all the demons letting off a little steam, taking things slow and enjoying a well-deserved break, all of which came across perfectly as a positive vibe that I definitely picked up on. Hopefully the rest of the audience felt the same way. The half-episode ended with a huge “manhunt”, for lack of a better term, where Hell’s workers set off to find and capture all of the wayward sould who’ve yet to return to hell even after they’ve been told to. While “manhunt” sounds like such a harsh term to use, it really isn’t that harsh. It ends with the same playful vibe that was present throughout the episode so far and really rounded out the the festival storyline. Going out with a bang!
Idle Chat With The Great King Enma:
Now here’s something that people may not have entirely picked up on with the last half of this final episode; the series has, essentially, come full circle. Hozuki and King Enma finished off the very first episode of the series with a nice little chat, what I found to be fantastic was that they also did the same for the very last episode. Full circle. The second half of the episode takes place right after the ending of the “Bon Festival”, Hell has to return to its natural, serious state and so do the workers. The audience joins Hozuki and Enma as he judges the souls of the recently deceased. The episode basically takes place in Enma’s office as he condemns souls and Hozuki has a little fun with the old man before dropping a very sweet line that I hope everybody picked up the way King Enma did. Through talks, pranks and hilarity, the two are constantly in conversation much like that of the first episode, as I mentioned above. It was truly the cooldown the series needed.
This episode, the final episode, really did a good job at properly portraying something like a New Years Eve party; there’s the celebration, the drinking, the fun and the connection with the people around you but every party has a “next day” which is usually made up of cleaning, resting, recuperating and complaining. Episode thirteen did that perfectly. The festival ended and Hell’s minions were back to work for another year. The episode was full of Hozuki pulling one long prank on King Enma to which, by the end of the episode, he comments that Hozuki is constantly tricking him and looking down on him, that he would make a better king of hell. This is where the episode gets a little more serious and infinitely more sincere. Hozuki then explains that he enjoys his spot as the right hand man to Enma, he enjoys not having a fair bit of responsibility and he enjoys being able to orchestrate things “behind the curtains” but it’s his final lines for the series that really hit me: “We have been acquainted for quite a long time. I hope we will be acquainted for much longer.“…those were the final words for the series and, in my opinion, the perfect way to end it. Well done, Hozuki No Reitetsu, you proved yourself to be a brilliant series with great visuals, great characters and an even greater overall feeling. It has been a pleasure writing about you.
Check out more Hozuki No Reitetsu impressions HERE.
Originally released as a light novel series written by Takaya Kagami and illustrated by Saori Toyota back in 2002, “The Legend Of Legendary Heroes” proved popular enough to earn itself an anime adaptation which hit the small screen in July 2010 on the “TV Tokyo” network. This series happens to be one that piques the interest of many fantasy fans seeing as the original release spawned countless more releases across many different mediums including anime, manga and light novel. The series even got itself a video game which was released on the Sony PlayStation Portable across Japan in 2010. From the information Now, in the year 2014, we’ve been met with a Western release of “The Legend Of Legendary Heroes” thanks to “FUNimation” and “Madman Entertainment”. Let’s go on a journey to see whether or not “The Legend Of Legendary Heroes” can truly stand against time.
Story
“The Legend Of Legendary Heroes” follows the story of a young man named Ryner Lute – one of the most powerful magicians of the time – as he journeys the land with his gorgeous companion Ferris. The two have been ordered by their king to search for a certain destructive weapons called “Heroic Relics” which, if brought back to their homeland of Roland, can essentially mean the end to an almost lifelong struggle between all the kingdoms of the world. The story almost works like a double helix; crossing at certain paths but mostly separate. Audiences follow Ryners quest as he searches for the relics but we also follow Sion, the best friend of Ryner and the current king of Roland, who is constantly fighting off political assassinations and doing all in his power to unite the country peacefully. I did enjoy that style of storytelling where, for the most part, the two men were separate from each other, both doing the things they need to do while also both learning more and more about themselves with each day that goes by.
They often come together at critical moments in the story to work things out and I feel as though not many anime series’ do this and it’s a great way of a telling a story of its kind. Unfortunately…the series has major pacing issues which makes watching it incredibly monotonous. Had the story and the overall pacing been refined I probably would have enjoyed my viewing experience but instead I almost detested it. The two main characters, Ryner and Ferris, had two incredibly infuriating quirks that came up at least five or six times each episode and it got to the point where hearing the words “Dongo” (a Japanese sweet) and “Nap” made me physically angry.
In my opinion, the quirks did nothing for the characters and actually didn’t very much suit them so I’m not sure as to why exactly those were the ones chosen. The simple fact that the series was based in an obviously European-inspired world yet Ferris continued to speak about a Japanese treat is something I find incredibly stupid. “The Legend Of Legendary Heroes” has a comic style about it that doesn’t exactly land all of the time. Most of the jokes are visual, slap-stick ones that don’t make the characters seem cool, quirky or real, instead it makes them seem…odd…and ridiculous. By the end of the series the story actually gets quite interesting, moreso than when it started, but it also gets oddly convoluted. It’s tough to say something this harsh but, had the series been in the hands of a more capable studio/team, It would have actually been a good one.
Visuals
I feel as though using the excuse that an anime is dated has lost all of its power. “The Legend Of Legendary Heroes” WAS developed and released four years ago back in 2010 and anime, much like video games, does not age that well. Unfortunately this series is nothing like wine, instead it aged more like milk; four years later and the taste left in your mouth is not that of a good one. My original excuse for why “The Legend Of Legendary Heroes” had quite low visual quality was simply because it was old but after researching the year in which it was made I soon realized that, even back then, it would have still been considered fairly bad animation-wise. With series’ like “Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings”, “Highschool Of The Dead”, “Panty And Stocking With Garterbelt” and “Durarara!!” – all of which host high-quality animation – it is clear that the technology to create high-caliber animation was available.
Saying the entire artist style of the anime was “bad” would be an untrue statement, for the most part the anime is visually nice but my appreciation for it mostly lies within both the costume and environment design, as for colouring and facial design…well that’s another story entirely. Every character looks a great deal younger and a great deal “softer” than I believe they should have, it was hard to believe the typical “manly man” character was so because he looked to be a young, girlish, teen instead of the muscular, gritty, man he was made out to be. It almost looks like, and I apologize for stereotyping, the characters were deigned for young girls but the scenes of bloody murder and horrible death showed otherwise which makes me thing the series wasn’t targeting young, female, teens. As mentioned; I did enjoy the way costumes were designed, they were realistic enough to give off the proper vibe but also extravagant enough to allow for audiences to get a sense of wonder and fantasy.
Audio
The anime was localized by “FUNimation” – a Western anime publisher/distributor that is known for its brilliant choices in English voice actors for Japanese anime – and, once again, they did a great job at choosing an English voice cast. While there were a few characters that had incredibly annoying voices, the majority of them were voice acted impressively…it was not the casts fault that the script was written so, let’s say, unattractively. With industry greats like Ian Sinclair (Dandy “Space Dandy“, Brook “One Piece” and Toriko “Toriko”), Luci Christian (Nami “One Piece”, Ringo “Air Gear” and Medusa “Soul Eater”) and Christopher Sabat (Zoro “One Piece”, Armstrong “Fullmetal Alchemist” and Elfman “Fairy Tale”) on the series’ side, it’s a hard to go wrong.
Characters often say a great deal of useless and silly things that not only seem unnecessary but childish, unfortunately this made the voice cast seem less talented than they really are but there are certain scenes where they really get to shine and they do so like gargantuan diamonds. Musically the series is real basic, there aren’t a great deal of tracks and the ones that are present aren’t usually that great. That fit the series well, that’s for sure, but I feel like a lot more work could have been put into making the soundtrack more memorable. It’s fantastic that the decision to add ageless instruments like piano and harp was made but, as mentioned, it could have been done so much better. The way I see it; if the soundtrack isn’t memorable after 24 episodes…it’s not a great soundtrack.
Extras
Apart from about a handful of episodes with commentary tracks, the “Legend Of Legendary Heroes – Complete Collection” release is fairly lacking in extras. It’s only understandable seeing as most anime releases come with little or no extras but it’s always nice to get a little more for your money, especially when you’re paying big bucks for anime. Luckily the voice cast have a pretty good sense of humour because they really lighten up the mood of the episode commentary and makes it entrely worth watching but if you’re looking for a release with plenty of extras, this isn’t the one for you.
Overall
It’s tough to say something this harsh but, had the series been in the hands of a more capable studio/team, It would have actually been a good one. “The Legend Of Legendary Heroes” does a great deal right, it definitely fits into the saying of “a jack of all trades but a master of none”; it does as much as it can right but it also does each of those things wrong. It would have benefited the series to have put more focus on certain aspects above others or to have just put more time into the development in total just to iron out the creases and to make it much more clean and crisp.
I’ll say this much though; fans of fantasy and odd humour will greatly enjoy “The Legend Of Legendary Heroes” but I don’t believe overall anime fans will find much to enjoy about this series. It’s a typical thing that happens with series’ that get a release long after they first aired; more series’ are developed in the time between that outdo everything that came before them so by the time it reaches the shelves it is no longer wanted by fans. It’s unfortunate but, evidently…it’s true.
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Don’t call me a “Jackass” if I’m wrong, I can’t be right about everything, I’m not some sort of all-knowing “Monk”. I actually feel terrible for stringing together that sentence…anyway, moving on!
