Spider-Verse
Across the Spider-Verse hit digital, so i could finally watch it. The first Spider-verse is one of my favorite movies, period. It’s definitely my favorite non-tokusatsu superhero movie. This movie’s right up there behind it.
This movie is such a good time from start to finish. It looks amazing, the music’s great, and it gives us a lot of characters to love. We get to learn a lot more about Gwen and her family troubles in this movie. We see Peter come back as a happy father. Miguel, despite being the other antagonistic force in this movie, is still a pretty cool character and we can at least understand where his extreme paranoia is coming from.
Obviously, this is Miles’ movie, and he doesn’t disappoint. He’s dealign with a lot of the usual high-school superhero stuff we’re used to seeing, but he’s mostly taking it to the chin and trying to do better. Miles is a trooper, and that’s on full display here. My man has a whole dimension of superpowered spider people on his ass and he still proves that he’s that guy. I love him to death.
Still, though, my personal favorite coming from this movie was Hobie Brown, Spider-Punk. My man barely has any lines. He’s barely in this movie, it feels like, but he was the realest motherfucker in the whole movie. He was goddamn bro. Salute to this man.
End of Geats
Kamen Rider Geats has finally come to an end, so it’s time for me talk about the good and the bad. I usually avoid talking about spoilers on this blog, but this’ll be an exception since I wanna get my thoughts out a bit.
Geats’ last arc was a mess, mostly because it was making use of some bad left over from the previous arcs. The setup of Keiwa finally snapping from Kekera’s plotting is by itself good, but it falls flat in actual execution. I mostly have problems with character logic. While we can say that it’s obviously a bit much to expect Keiwa to be perfectly reasonable in the face of overwhelming grief, I find it extremely dumb that he agress to go along with the plans of the guy who just all but said out loud that he fucked over his wish. I also don’t like how he just accepts being on the same side as Beroba with little no problem considering how much he viewed Neon as a friend.
Also, I am not a fan of Takahashi’s strange boner for redeeming characters that don’t need to be redeemed. I don’t like that Michinaga got to be a straight up good guy in the end after he spent all of the show being an asshole and half of the show outright being on the bad guys’ side. He could’ve just stayed an antagonistic or netrual character. He has a valid reason to be the way he is, and he’s not totally unheroic, but there was no need to try to make him an actual good guy in the end. And then there’s Daichi, who gets an even lazier switch to the light. Michinaga becoming a good guy in the end annoys me a lot, but Daichi’s execution is just as bad if not worse. When this same thing happened with Gai back in Zero-One, it was also very bad, but the thing that seperates that and this is that at least Gai’s switch-up was funny. It was so ridiculous and obviously rushed that I could at least laugh about it. Here, the show, however lazily, tried to put Michinaga and Daichi in good light for their switch-ups, so I can’t even laugh at how ridiculous the whole thing is.
I will say that the actual last episode is great. The final action sequence is top-tier and the epilogue, sans Michinaga and Daichi, was great and brought a legitimate smile to my face.
Geats is a great show. It would probably be my new default recommendation for someone wanting to get into modern Kamen Rider. it’s last arc is ass, but that doesn’t take away from how good the rest of the show is.
This last arc really made me roll my eyes a lot, but I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that I didn’t look forward to every episode of Geats for a whole year. I’m not gonna do that. This show is great. Give it a watch yourselves sometime. Just know that while it sticks the landing, those last couple feet before the drop are rough.
Genshin
We did it bois. I got Yelan , no 50/50 loss required. Aside from having one of my favorite designs in the whole game, she is a godlike Hydro unit who does the vast majority of her damage without having to be the active character. Really valuable addition to my account.
I also managed to snag Beidou from the Starglitter shop. Again, another character with one of my favorite designs that does a massive amount of damage without having to be the active character. I have spent most of my recent resources investing into Yelan, so building Beidou is a bit harder. I have farmed enough Emblem that I can give her some good pieces without really trying, but she has taken my Razor’s weapon for the time being.
Rounding my new additions is up is Bennett , a contender for the most valuable unit in the game. Bennet generates a lot of Pyro particles, so he can battery himself and/or another Pyro character easily. His burst gives a large amount of healing over time alongside a massive attack buff. He’s soooooo good, man. I got him for free from the event, and then I got 2 of his constellations while pulling for Yelan.
As far as the general update goes, 4.0 is pretty fun. I had a lot of fun with the Archon quest. It introduces the Hydro Archon, Furina. She’s kind of endearingly pathetic. She constantly puts her foot in her mouth and is clearly playing things up all the time for the sake of adoration from her people. The quest itself is basically Ace Attorney, and I’m all for that. Not a lot of combat, but a lot of courtroom shenanigans and budding camaraderie.
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Fighting Games
Evo
The fighting game equivalent of the Super Bowl has come and gone, leaving us with hype sets, a bunch of announcements, and a newfound hatred of ads. I spent most of Evo weekend watching side tourney stuff and the top 6s. Of the top 6s, Marvel is the one that stuck with me the most not because it was the best, but just because I have a lot of fun watching that game. Marvel 3 is one of the most fun fgs to watch at high level no matter the level of investment.
The real show-stopper at Evo wasn’t even a finished game, though. Under Night is finally getting a sequel with rollback.
I have a lot of love for Under Night. It’s the first game I traveled out of state for, and it might be the game I bonded with the most people over. It’s a special game, even in this genre filled, and I mean filled, to the brim with awesome titles that give so many of us memories. This is going to be an awesome game. I know it.
DNF
This news came right at the end of this month. Brawler’s next in line for DNF Duel’s season pass. I’m hype for any character coming to DNF, but I do feel like the missed the mark by using his 2nd Awakening design over his first.
Marvel Snap
Deadpool
X-23 made her debut in Snap this month, bringing a bunch of new deck-building possibilties with her. I’m still trying to find a way to put her in a sort of good cards midrange deck, but she slots perfectly into a Deadpool Destroy deck. That extra energy she gives on destruction is so good for Deadpool variations of Destroy because that 1 energy is all you need to fit in Deadpool and make him even bigger. I don’t have Knull , which lowers the ceiling a bit and just auto-loses me mirrors, but it does let me run America Chavez , increasing my consistency. And even without Knull, a bigass Deadpool, a Taskmaster that copies that Deadpool’s power, and a free Death is nothing to sneeze at.
I’ve always been kinda iffy on Destroy, even back when I was abusing the DeathWave deck for dailies. The 3 OG Snap archetypes, Move, Discard, & Destroy, all have this big problem where if they don’t do incredibly specific play lines, the decks just aren’t threatening at all. If Destroy doesn’t specifcally go Bucky into Deathlock/Carnage or if Discard doesn’t go Morbius on 2, Dracula on 4, MODOk on 5, etc, they just feel very middling. This deck has a bit more flexibility in its turns. You just blow stuff up with the only caveat being you want Deadpool and/or X-23 early, which is why we run Chavez.
Deck’s really fun. I am glad I can finally play a bunch of Deadpool.
Destroyer Control
I got Nebula while pulling on X-23’s banner, and she slots right into my Destroyer Control deck. This deck isn’t too different from classic Ongoing Destroyer - It wants to win a lane with Armor/Prof X + some cards in one lane and Destroyer in another. The difference is that it’s replaced the Spectrum/Ongoing package with more control and tempo cards. Gamora serves as an alternate turn 5 play with Daredevil and an alternate turn 6 play alongside a 1 drop.
This deck is a bunch of fun. I loved the Ongoing Destroyer list, so having another Destroyer deck is really nice.
TMNT
This awesome game got DLC. Go buy it. You won’t regret it.