Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Correction

Next week's Adventure Time episode is not "Bad Little Boy."  It is actually "All the Little People."

Monday, November 26, 2012

Adventure Time "Up a Tree" Review

     Adventure Time this week revisited their true form with the random episodes with little bearing on the series.  This week's episode "Up a Tree" was a prime example of this.  Here, Finn and Jake's game of catch goes awry when their Frisbee goes into a Tree and Finn has to go get it.  Hi-jinks ensue as Finn eats a cursed apple and is  shrunk down and the animals that live in the tree try to get him to stay there forever.  He escapes with the help of a delusional squirrel.
     The episode as a whole was a strong one, complete with the iconic one episode characters that have better stage presence than most live action actors.  The factor of the cult that lived in the tree was a cute way to introduce a Monster of the Week antagonist.  The full circle ending came back when Finn escapes on the perfect throw, something him and Jake aspired for in the beginning.  Finally, in terms the story, this episode confirms that the waving snail is no longer possessed by the Lich.

The episode gets a 9 out of 10 for living up to expectations.

As of right now, the next air date is not confirmed to be December 3rd, but when episodes come back, "Bad Little Boy" is next.

Also, for those of you who care, "Fionna and Cake" DVD set comes out this February.

Rating 9/10

Monday, November 19, 2012

"Five More Short Graybles" Review

     Last season, we saw the first "Graybles" episode and it was very well received.  The third episode of this season "Five More Short Graybles" once again features Cuber doing his thing and showing five stories each with a common theme.  Where last time it was the five senses with Finn and Jake being touch, Princess Bubblegum being taste, the Ice King being smell, LSP being sound, and Beemo was sight.  In this one, the theme was the five tastes with Gunther being salty, Finn and Jake being sweet, Marceline being savory, Beemo being bitter and Tree Trunks being sour.  In the end, Cuber makes a joke saying that the audience could have thought that it was the five fingers (Beemo being the pinky, Finn and Jake being thumbs, the Ice King being the ring finger, Marceline being the index finger, and Tree Trunks being the middle) but Cuber says that people haven't had five fingers in a long time.
     If we are going to get this and another "grayble" episode later this season, Cuber and where he is better become significant, especially with "Another Five Short Graybles" being so close to the finale.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.  Nice lighthearted nonsequitor after the heavy hitting episodes "I Remember You", "The Lich", "Finn the Human", and "Jake the Dog".

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Adventure Time "Finn the Human" and "Jake the Dog" Reviews

     Three weeks ago, Adventure Time wowed us with a stunning display of plot development over a four episode arc that finally came to a satisfying ending this week.
     The story picks up when Finn and Jake go through the portal after the Lich and follow him to the Time Room.  They meet Prismo who tells them that the Lich used his one wish to wish for the extinction of all life.  Finn wishes that the Lich never existed.  It then cuts to Farm Finn who is being told by his mother that he has to sell the family mule, Bartram.  Finn argues and is overruled.  He goes outside and starts talking to Bartram who wanders off.  Finn finds him in a tree and, while trying to retrieve him, falls into a hole.  In the hole is the Mushroom Bomb frozen with the skeleton of Simon Petrikov crushed under it.  A 1000 year old woman jumps out of the bush next to the body when Finn goes to retrieve the Ice King's crown.  The woman explains that Simon sacrificed himself to stop the bomb and the world was frozen over for 400 years.  She has guarded the crown ever since.  Finn goes to retrieve it and the woman fires on him with a laser gun. The laser passes through him and Finn retrieves the crown.  Simon, from beyond the grave, tells the woman, who is revealed to be Marceline, to get the crown.  Meanwhile, in town Finn goes to Choose Bruce (Choose Goose's equivalent) to try and sell the crown.  The Destiny Gang (sort of the rogue entity that calls the shots in Farmworld) steals the crown.  There is a moment of tension as the leader of the gang (hilariously self-dubbed "Big D") is given the crown to wear.  He puts it in his belt and retreats on a ski-lift type apparatus to a large house.  Finn attacks one of the members of the Destiny Gang and the rest retreat.  Finn decides to go after them because they kidnapped both the Crown and Bartram and Choose Bruce gives Finn an add-on for his arm that turns it into a blade.  Finn gives chase and Big D just hands the crown back.  Meanwhile the Destiny Gang torched the entire town where Choose Bruce lives.  Finn goes down and is informed that his house is being attacked next.  He, Jake, Bartram, and Marceline rush home and they find his family trapped in the house.  Finn, in an effort to save his family puts on the crown.
     At that point, the episode switches to "Jake the Dog" and picks up with Finn's transformation into the Ice King.  He starts putting out the fires and shooting the Ice Lightning that is the Ice King's primary weapon at the Destiny Gang.  Marceline and Jake rush down to the hole where we first found her and they watch the bomb go off.  Finn saves his family and Bartram.  Back at the Time Room, Ooo Jake is looking to Finn.  Prismo tells him that Finn is in his own timeline created by his wish.  Jake is told he gets a wish too.  He tries to wish for a sandwich and Prismo tells him to hold off.  Jake decides to watch it as it plays out.  Back in Farmworld, Finn breaks his family free and tells them what happened.  He hears his sibling crying and snaps out of it long enough to send his family away with Bartram.  He starts freeing the Destiny Gang and he hears Jake howling.  In the Time Room, Jake and Prismo are in a hot tub discussing relationships when the Cosmic Owl shows up and joins them.  In Farmworld, Finn goes to the epicenter of the bomb and finds Jake in the green goop that was seen in "Mortal Folly.  Marceline's skeleton comes out and says I told you so.  Finn kills it.  Jake starts gnawing on Finn's cyborg arm and his eyes have the possessed color that the snail and Princess Bubblegum had.  Finn drops Jake.  In the Time Room, Prismo, Jake, and the Cosmic Owl are doing a rap about sitting in the hot tub.  The Cosmic Owl accidentally unmutes the screen where the Farmworld is visible and Jake sees the possessed Farmworld version of himself attacking Finn.  Jake grows and his face is ripped off and replaced with the Lich's.  The screen goes fuzzy and Jake starts pleading to Prismo to wish for Finn to be safe.  Prismo informs him that his wish needs to be very specific because all the wishes have an ironic twist.  Jake vomits under pressure and Prismo tells him to wish for the Lich's wish to be that Finn and Jake were back home. Jake does it and it cuts to the beginning of the episode and instead of the Lich wishing for the extinction of all life he wishes for Finn and Jake to go home.  They do and the gems go back to the crowns.
     This episode taught us many things about the world.  First, Marceline is half-demon and the Vampire-ism was inflicted later in life.  Second, the Mushroom War actually was a nuclear war.  Third, the Lich's creation comes out of the radiation from the nuke.  Fourth, the creation of Ooo is inevitable, just the players are different.

Rating: 10/10.  Great Job

Sunday, November 11, 2012

"The Lich" Storyboards

    A lot of information was cut out of the season 4 finale of Adventure Time.  First of all, the Lich is inside Billy from the dream on.  Second, when Lich/Billy says "I'm going to push the Lich in there" he isn't referring to just the void he is referring to a prison dimension.  That's not all either, Finn's dad was a great hero of Ooo that was unjustly locked up in the Prison Dimension.  The Lich also says to Finn when he is bargaining for the book that he can bring his parents back.  I assume that any similarities to Harry Potter are purely coincidental.

Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 Reviews with Spoilers

     Very few other things compare to the feeling of satisfaction when a person finally wrecks the Champion in any Pokemon game.  Pokemon Black 2 and Pokemon White 2 make it all the more satisfying because of the context of the journey to get to that point.
     While the game may continue two years after the events of Pokemon Black and Pokemon White, there are immediate and noticeable changes.  You start off in a new city in a portion of the Unova region that was previously a forest.  Cheren, your rival from the first game, is the first gym leader while Bianca, your other rival from the first game, is an assistant to the resident Pokemon expert for the region, Professor Juniper.  Alder, the previous game's champion, makes a return appearance early.
     After playing through for a while, you get the opportunity to return to old locales.  There are differences in the appearance and subtle changes in the layout but majorly, they have new areas to explore.  The game progresses linearly, get to town, fight Team Plasma, fight gym leader, rinse and repeat which helps to ensure that players stay on track with the game.  It should also be noted that the role of the HM has been minimized more by removing badge requirements to use them.
     After beating the eighth gym, you confront Team Plasma.  The final scene makes excellent use of the processing power that the DS possesses in terms of usage of the 3D graphics and leaves the game open with the cliffhanger.  You then go on to fight the champion and beat the game.
     You may be wondering to yourself, where are the spoilers?  Here they are.  This game features many references back to Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald.  One includes the Colress Machine which moves Pokemon that are blocking routes.  This functions similarly to the Devon Scope to remove Kecleon from in front of the Fortree gym.  Also, unlike in past games, one of the gym leaders is very important in terms of plot development.  In R/S/E Wallace was important to stop Groudon/Kyogre while here Drayden has the DNA Splicers to fuse Kyurem with Reshiram/Zekrom.  The eighth gym is water, sharing this trait only with R/S/E and the town where the eighth gym is located is designed similarly to Pacifidlog Town where the wood houses floated on the water.  Finally, the eighth gym leader from the previous game becomes the champion with the previous game's champion still able to be battled.
     I give this game a 9.5/10 and I am looking forward to the R/S/E remakes.

Final Rating: 9.5/10

Friday, November 9, 2012

Adventure Time Seasom 5 News **Massive Spoilers**

     According to an animatic clip that I have watched, we will see Finn's dad in the season premier of Season 5.  We will also see Finn's little sibling.  Finn will meet Simon in the episode and he will wear the Ice King's Crown. 

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Power Rangers Super Samurai "Stroke of Fate" Review

   Having finally been able to seen the episode that should have aired last week, the Serrator story arc came to a close.  Picking up immediately after the last episode the Rangers find themselves in the ruins of where the ground exploded.  As they recover Antonio notices Deker (you may remember him as Cole Evans, the Red Wild Force Ranger) lying unconscious.  Rather than just killing him there to completely destroy Serrator's plot (and save Jayden a ton of trouble down the road) he lets him go.  Conflicted with this decision, he brings it up in the post-defeat meeting.  Antonio decides to go after Deker himself leaving behind Lightzord and a note.  Just as Mike and Kevin discover the note, the gap sensor sounds and Serrator reappears.  Jayden takes Mia and Emily (ladies man) and goes to Serrator while Mike and Kevin go after Antonio.  Needless to say, Mia, Emily, and Jayden have to deal with Moogers and defeat them handily while Antonio attempts to reason with Deker.  Deker attacks and Mike, Kevin, and Antonio are all beaten and Deker escapes.  Serrator not only defeats the other three but makes them de-morph.  Deker arrives and Serrator starts monologue-ing (yes monologue-ing) when Antonio, Kevin and Mike arrive.  They are also knocked out of commission.  Deker, instead of slicing the world open, decides to strike Serrator.  The Rangers morph and defeat Serrator's smaller version.  Then the drawn out Megazord battle ensues starting out with Claw Armor, Bull, Light, and Samurai Zords fighting against Serrator and two Papyrox.  Then they combine to the Samurai Gigazord.  That fails and they have to beat Serrator with the Samurai Gigazord, Shark Attack Mode, with Red Shogun Mode.

     It was one of the better episodes of the series and it exemplified the acting abilities of Mike and Antonio (in perspective of course).  The best part of the episode was the MMPR reference by Bulk.  Megazord sequences should have been cut down and I swear to god if Deker says "My Sword Uramasa" one more time, I will save Jayden the trouble of killing him.

This episode gets a 8.5 out of 10 purely because it is clearing the train wreck that is Power Rangers Samurai off the air.  Also, if you were to make a drinking game where you take a shot every time Deker references his sword, the rangers morph, the rangers use a more powerful weapon, and every different Zord combination, just on this episode you would be D.O.A.

8.5 out of 10.  Please no Megaforce drinking games.

Catch Power Rangers Samurai every Saturday at 1 P.M. Eastern Time on Nickelodeon, Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Jungle Fury, Time Force, and Ninja Storm on at assorted times on Nicktoons Network and Power Rangers SPD starting Sunday November 11th at 10 A.M. for Morphenomenon on Nicktoons Network.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Adventure Time Season 5 Episode Titles

Here is the list of tentative episode names as put out by Pendleton Ward:


1014-105 Finn the Human
1014-106 Jake the Dog
1014-107 Five More Short Graybles
1014-108 Up a Tree
1014-109 All the Little People
1014-110 Bad Little Boy
1014-111 Jake the Dad
1014-112 Davey
1014-113 Mystery Dungeon
1014-114 Little Dude
1014-115 All Your Fault
1014-116 Vault of Bones
1014-117 The Great Bird Man
1014-118 Simon and Marcy
1014-119 Puhoy
1014-120 A Glitch Is a Glitch
1014-121 One Last Job
1014-122 Princess Potluck
1014-123 BMO Lost
1014-124 James Baxter the Horse
1014-129 Shhh
1014-130 The Suitor
1014-131 The Party’s Over, Isla de Senora
1014-132 Another Five Short Graybles
1014-133 LSP Gets Robbed
1014-134 Only Wizards Allowed
As you can see, we get two more Grayble episodes, Jake's puppies are born, Finn the Human and Jake the Dog are the first two episodes on the 12th, the finale takes place in Wizard City, BMO has at least one episode (maybe two depending on the glitch episode) and most important: an episode about Simon and Marceline.  Bad Little Boy is the genderswap with Fionna and Cake.