Animated Reflections: Robo Story (1985)

I really don't know what to say for this one? For years I sought this one out, but not for the reasons you might think. See, the thing is, my memories of this show was that I seemed somehow disturbed by it. Thing is, after finding and watching a  bunch of episodes online, I really don't know what to think. So let's take a look at Robo Story and see if I can figure out what it was that disturbed me (I've only seen the English one so I'll be using the names in that, but the original French version had different names for a number of characters).

Robo Story

Robo Story is the tale of why you should never let kids and their pets run free in a space program. All jokes aside, the story is of a small girl named Blueberry and her dog Fluffy who by accident, end up being shot off into space and crash land on another planet. This world is strange, full of bizarre plant and wildlife. However, the planet is also home to two robot forces. The first are the Robos, who are essentially the good guys. They are a variety of different designed and coloured robots, each with their own personality and style, which only gets simplified by some of their names (such as Robot Scientist, who was a scientist.....you get the idea).

The villains are themselves very much inspired by Star Wars. Known as the Wrigglers (I beginning to feel the English version is very kid friendly compared to the French one when it comes to naming), they serve the powerful force known as the Revered Reverence, who is defined mostly due to his powerful voice and constant berating of White Wriggler. Speaking of which, the colour pattern for the Wrigglers is somewhat different compared to Star Wars, with the basic troops being black and their leader being white. The Black Wrigglers have basic intelligence and are the cannon fodder for the show, their dome like heads lifting up to reveal the weapon in their can like body when shooting. White Wriggler is a simpleton who really just wants to have fun and be liked, but is constantly abused by Revered Reverence, often being called 'the lowest of the low' and threatened to be turned into a Black Wriggler. You really do feel for White Wriggler because of it, which may be one of the reasons I felt so disturbed by this show when I was younger.

The introduction sequence gives a brief story of the spacecraft incident without narration and then goes into the theme song with images trying to make it look like a space opera I think? I don't know, it just doesn't feel right to me, but then again I feel the White Wriggler in it comes off more menacing then he is in the show. The stories are a continuation type, but tend to be sometimes simple in it's presentation (which isn't a bad thing for shows like this) with jokes thrown in here and there. The animation itself is a bit mixed, feeling cheaper compared to the Mysterious Cities of Gold I reviewed last time, but then the animation of the 80's was a variety of styles, so I won't count it as a negative. The characters feel a little basic as they don't have shades to them to make them stand out more, but their colour does tend to keep them from blending into the backgrounds. Heck, some backgrounds tend to look more detailed then the characters, but that's probably due to them not needing to be animated. Despite this, the animation does have that cartoon over-exaggerated feel to it, so that even the robots all stand out quite well in many scenes.

The soundtrack has been described as being 'industrial' and I do agree with that. The music tends to suite the scenes well and the voice acting is rather nice. This is obviously before many shows decided to 'enhance' voices with effects to make them sound more robotic and frankly, I do like this shows style more. I do admit that they do sound odd and off at times, but then this was also an 80's dubbed cartoon, so I tend to give some leniency for such things.

Overall

I honestly didn't know what to expect from this. From all my childhood memories of this, I had felt feelings off being unsettled, sad and disturbed. Looking at it now, that seem mostly ridiculous. Certainly the imagery of the Wrigglers and the booming voice of Revered Reverence could put off a young child, but having watched most of the episodes I could find (seriously, it's difficult to locate every episode), I found the show to be quite amusing and somewhat enjoyable, though I can't tell if the final episode left me feeling sad or confused. That's just my opinion, for I am the lowest of the low.

Thoughts On: Crash Bandicoot's Return

Before I start off, I will admit that I have never played a Crash game beyond a few minutes of the original when I was younger. Beyond that, all I know about Crash is from Youtube videos.

But yeah, Crash got the ultimate remastering in the form of the N Sane Trilogy and from what I've seen and heard, it's amazing. I guess my only complaint is that I don't own a PS4 so I can't play it. However, it's return has shown that the Bandicoot has not been forgotten, but that people really want to see these style of games return. The problem with the Crash franchise is that no one really knew how to keep to the Crash formula while creating an exciting new experience. The stories were a bit all over the place and few actually liked the re-design from the last two games (that said the changes to Dr Nitrus Brio, his personality which really shines in Mind over Mutants, were kept for this game and I like that).

The point is, this is just what Crash needed to get back in the game and I do hope they can craft a whole new series that stays loyal to the original trilogy, because these types of games need to make a comeback. There certainly is a market for it and the fact that sales are good means people do want games like this. It's certainly games like this one that I'd love to play.

Now if I could just get my hands on it.....

Animated Reflections: The Mysterious Cities of Gold (80's Version)

So the first in my series where I look at an animated show/movie and just give my opinions on it. Honestly, it's more to look at shows I've seen over the years and my view on them. If your looking for a history on them or an in-depth analyst on themes and stuff, this ain't it. So let's kicked it off with a classic that has recently returned for me. Side note, I would have added more video and screen shots, but finding anything of quality is kinda rare, but will try to have more for my next one.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold

So here's one that came out of the blue recently. I was flicking through channels on my T.V when suddenly I stumbled on an animated show. Curious, I continued to watch it and it wasn't long that I realised that I remembered watching it a long time ago. As the episode came to an end and I learned it's name, I immediately started searching the internet for more information on it. Over the next few weeks I continued to watch the episodes and when I missed a bunch, the channel did a rerun. The channel was NITV, Australia's channel focusing more on indigenous programming, but they do get access to shows from other countries that may deal with indigenous stories from other countries (given it's an 80's cartoon set in the America's with educational segments at the end, it counts). Having seen most of the episodes, I can honestly say that I love this show (so much so that the series is able to be viewed on the SBS website, so I get to go back and watch it again and again).

Based on what appears to be the time of the Spanish conquest of the new world, we follow our heroes in their quest to find the legendary Cities of Gold. What starts off as a simple adventure tends to follow some strange twists as it turns out that the builders of these cities were far more advance then the Europeans at that time, but it's citizens are long gone. The final part of the series get really weird when it starts to become more science-fiction like (which I must admit, sorta put me off a bit). Still, I still find the writing and story quite enjoyable and engaging.

Our main three heroes consist of Esteban who is our main character in this story, Zia who is the daughter of a High-Priest and Tao who is the descendant of a now long gone empire. Together, these three are the focus of the adventure, with each tending to serve some essential purpose to the main plot. Along with them is the great Spanish navigator Mendoza and the two comedic duo of Sancho and Pedro. While the comedic duo are mostly use for jokes based on their stupid and cowardly actions, who are all in it for the gold, Mendoza is more complicated. He comes off greedy for gold like most of the name Spanish characters, but at times tends to be torn as he also wants to protect the children. It's clear he's and intelligent and powerful character, so at times you can't tell if you should hate him or cheer for him. I do enjoy characters that have a bit more too them.

The animation is much like what you expect from an early 80's cartoon. It's very anime in style, which I guess is expected from a joint French-Japanese production (it certainly reminds me of a few anime movies I saw from around that time period). I honestly don't have any problems with it. Sure it hasn't aged the best and the sound isn't the greatest, but I didn't notice many problems with it, more due to the fact I was enjoying watching it over looking for errors. It's a good sign when your too busy enjoying the show to spend time looking for animation flaws.

Speaking of sound, this is an English dubbed show, so as you would imagine from a dubbed show in the early 80's, it isn't perfect. There are times when the voices seem rushed or have a little lack in acting (people crying always seem to have trouble pulling off that effect), but there are times that it works well. I am willing to let this slide as I do find the voices to match the characters well and hell, I've seen much worse voice acting and syncing in modern animated shows and movies. Then there is the music. Oh boy, do I love the music. I can't quite explain it, but there are musical moments in the show that I somehow find strange, but very much to my liking. Then there is the theme song.

 Many who talk about the series will usually mention the theme song, which plays both in the intro and the end credits. I absolutely love it. To me, this just feels like a song of adventure and I constantly find myself singing along to it.

The show itself is broken up into a few parts. The first is the story, which takes up the majority of the time, followed by a 'next time on' segment showing parts of the next episode. This is then followed up by an educational piece talking about either known facts and stories about the South American native people (I assume most of them are still accurate). The stories themselves are in continuation, meaning they are all connected to tell the whole story of the adventure. This has it's good and bad points, though for me the bad part is that by the end of the episode I'm so engrossed in the story that I get annoyed that I have to wait for the next episode. Then the theme song comes on and after a sing-a-long I'm much happier.

Overall

I do highly recommend people watch this one. For me, I enjoyed it when I was little, as an adult I still enjoy it. Going to have to see if there is a DVD collection of it that was released in Australia (we tend to get ripped off with DVD series releases, usually only getting half of a shows episodes released with the other half not getting released).

However....

Now I did say the 80's version. Turns out that when looking for information, the Wiki article mentioned that the French company got the right to continue the series and in 2012 (around 30 years later), started working on Season 2 and then a few years later Season 3 was worked on. Now I haven't seen any of the episodes yet, but I did find the intro song.

So my quick opinions of this. The animation is more up to date, but whether that is a good thing or not is purely up to the fan base. It would probably be more expensive to try and capture the classic look and as far as I'm concern the visuals do look very nice, though I'm not too sure on Sancho and Pedro's designs. I do not like the theme song however. It just doesn't capture the same feel as the original did and feels more like one of those cover songs a band does of a theme song at the end of a movie (it's not bad, it's just not for me). If I watch it and that was my only complaint, then it would still be good. That said, I have seen mixed opinions on the net about it, with some saying it's good, while more devoted fans saying that many of the cast seem to be acting out of character from their personality and actions from the original series. Perhaps some day I'll get to watch it and finally give my opinion on it.

All I know is that there is a game on Steam based on the series, so I'll probably get to play that before I ever get a chance to watch this.

Nice One Simba

Opinionated View on Video Game Scoring

So I recently saw a few gamer reviews for games in which they either complained about a game, but gave it a positive score or praised the game before rating it poorly. What I found funny about it was that some people who read the reviews complained about why did they give it that score if they did/didn't like the game.

For me, this was a rather nice way at looking at my view of the scoring system. A lot of complaints about when people score a game is that it is either poorly scored, such as when a really bad game gets a great score by a major game reviewing company (and thus, people wonder if the reviewer was 'influenced' by the game company to give a positive review) or when someone gives a great review, but the score isn't a 9 or 10 and thus the fan base blows up and the reviewer is accused of hating the game when the review states otherwise. For me, adding a score (be it number or percentage) means people tend to skip over the review and base their decision on the score. Heck, the industry now has a problem that if a 9 or 10 isn't scored then the game is considered to be terrible and in the case like above and if a popular game doesn't get that score, the fan base for that game goes into a meltdown. As a result, we now see troll reviews where they will find terrible games and explain how bad the game is in detail, but give it a positive score.

I would love to have the whole scoring system scrapped as I prefer a review to go through the positives and negatives of a game, with commentary on the personal preferences of the reviewer (so if they say, don't like fantasy settings much, that they inform their viewers so at certain points they can explain why that hated that point). If they want to throw in a score gag then go ahead, just so long as it's sort of a running gag (so perhaps use items from the game instead of numbers as an example). I guess this is why I prefer some reviewers who do online videos as they tend not to use scores, but also tend to explain in details some aspects that they felt they did/didn't like, but others may have an opposite view on (so say, they felt one aspect they didn't like, but others might actually enjoy). Because of that, you can tend to get a better feel if a game is right for you.

I doubt it'll happen though, people enjoy the rage too much.

An idea for another article series

So I've been going over the idea of a 'Quick Look At' series, looking at things like games, shows, animation etc. I knew that I did want to look at a bunch of animated (traditional, 3D, stop motion etc) shows, but I don't know what to call it. Given they are more 'quick look at' as oppose to any sort of in depth analyst of everything, I thought of calling it Animated Reflections. The reason is that I'm more just giving an opinionated view as oppose to a detailed view and critical analyst. I'll give it a shot and see how it goes from there.

I had a quick look at Infinity

So been feeling bad lately and the delay in my long awaited Banjonistas is only made worse with my frustration in not getting more work done. I need a change of pace, something different to distract so I can refocus and come back into it. That came this week when, while getting an update on the Banjonistas, I was looking over the model ranges there and decided to look at the Infinity range. The name PanOceania caught my eye and so decided to look it up. The name Australia came up and I decided to go deeper in.

I must admit, having had a brief glance over the full rules, the game looks overly complicated. I must admit, I play games to have fun and there rules look like I'd spend more time having to go back and re-read them in a game then actually playing the game. Trust me, Warhammer Fantasy 8th Ed had the same issues for me as I constantly kept forgetting the cannon rules (much to my opponents dismay). Lucky there are quick rules that help reduce the problems and help give a more simple over view of the game and if I ever do play, mastering them will be a must before I get into the finer details such as hacking. From battle report videos I've seen, it sounds mixed to me. Even Ash from Guerrilla Miniature Games made a smaller game mode called Recon, citing that a number of those who played the game didn't last long and felt that perhaps a smaller game type would be better suited. In my case, I agree as that would suite me better.

It's a rather large game, with 300 points being the norm. I must admit that I'm not sure if I'm ready to start focusing on building an army, focusing on points and army building again. At the moment I am just wanting to paint up a small collection of miniatures that could be used as a legal force, though it may be around the 200 point mark for the most part. Hell, the whole PanOceania force is actually based around the Corporate Executive model, which is just a objective marker for certain games. The idea of a guy with a briefcase who's hired his own personal military force for missions just seems something I'd like to do.

That's not to say I'm not looking at other miniatures in the range. The mercenaries have some cool looking ones, were as the cat Daktari and the Chimera and the Pupniks are somewhat strange, but given I haven't painted a lot of animal patterns, it would be a good chance to try some schemes out (accuracy to the painted examples not needed for them). I will probably do a number of PanOceania and then do a few pick and paint ones here and there over time.

As for that game, the lore seems alright and the game does look interesting enough. Perhaps I'll look more into it later.

Update: Outcasts Coming Soon

Again, sorry for the lack of updates, it seems my health and situation is worse then I had originally hoped. That said, I do have some miniatures finished, I just need to get around to getting photos, editing and uploading them. As such, I do have all my current Outcast models done, along with two Mouslings. I should have them out this week sometime.

Update: First set of photos came out badly. Going to adjust lighting and retry tomorrow.

Update: Hobbies Section

So I haven't had much luck getting things up, but have finally gotten around to at least attempting to update the Hobbies page. I admit, that whole page could be summed up with the link to my DeviantArt page, but that wouldn't be fun now would it?

Also, have disable the Characters section until I figure out what to do with it.

Arcanist Bases Complete

So the bases for the Arcanists are done (the Colette crew version).

You'll notice that one of those wood bases is different in colour and that's because it's one of the original ones I did about a year ago. I'm not sure which one looks better, but as far as I'm concerned, the lot are now done (I may try to alter some colours through drybrushing and wash lines to better blend both styles). The two bases are for the characters of the Arcane Effigy and Miss Fire, which I wanted to still be connected to the crew, but still different so they stand out.

All I know is that I'm glad there done and over with, trying to cut and pin them was very annoying.

Update Problems

I must apologise for the lack of updates. It's not for a lack of them, but rather my mental health has not been the best as of late. I do have some things I want to write about and I had hoped to get some up this weekend, but it looks like it hasn't worked out. I really want to avoid negative topics here, but I also feel the need to explain when the gap between updates gets too big. I will attempt to get more up over the next few weeks to make up for it (with at least one coming tomorrow). Beyond that I won't try and promise much more as that always seems to bite me in the rear thanks to my blasted health. Still, stay tuned as I will have more soon (looking at more positive topics to talk about, which is always a good thing).

Update:
Well, things got worse, but I would rather not talk about it. Instead, as I've been going through some of the pages on this blog, it occurred to me that I've done nothing with the whole '5/10 Favourite' lists section (only the Skaven Clans one was done and since the old world is gone, I suspect a number of those clans are gone too, making it a little out of date). As such, I am considering doing a few lists on things like movies, games, shows and animations that I have enjoyed or inspired me. Sure every one does it, so why can't I. They will be short and I will avoid doing lists involving things I don't like (though things I like and everyone else hates could be done). 

I'm also trying to figure out how to word a number of articles I want to post, like those of my Thoughts on Character Creation series and of my own Character Profiles. I feel that the ones I've made in the past are not the most intellectual of articles (though I admit, I'm no good with words, but I do at least try to improve that) and I may make them hidden for the time being (the character ones more so as I am at odds as for what to write and getting some poor sketches up as placements so I can commission someone to do a more professional character art of them). I plan to make them able to be viewed once I am satisfied with the final piece, but as always I am open to suggestions. Probably should re-work the miniatures section too, perhaps rename it to hobbies as well.