Movie Review - Monster Island

With Halloween having just gone by, monster movies were all the rage. From blockbuster horror movies to small screen fun flicks, monsters are always in when October comes around. Along with the bigger names though, there are also some lesser known projects that work their way in. One of those lower-profile projects I happened across was a 3D animated film called Monster Island. It looked interesting when I happened across it, but will others find it so?

Let’s look at Monster Island.

STORY

The movie focuses on a boy named Lucas and his father Nicolas (no last name given). They live a normal life in a regular city (also no name given), until a Halloween party where Lucas turns into a monster in front of everybody. Nicolas then reveals that he is secretly a monster too and they both come from an island of monsters called Caldera. Angry at having been kept in the dark for so long, Lucas runs away from home to find Caldera and discover his true heritage, with Nicolas following soon after to make sure his son is safe.

That’s about as much as I can explain before diving into spoilers.

The story raises a lot of questions. Why did they leave the island in the first place? What happened to Lucas’s mother? While some of the questions raised get answered, others, particularly minor ones, don’t, but they’re mostly just side details that don’t have a direct impact on the main plot. Speaking of the main plot though, once the setting shifts from the human city to Caldera, the plot takes a few different twists and turns, especially as certain characters get introduced, and this creepy comedy gets a few more action sequences thrown in. 

Looking at this story, it draws a few comparisons to some other movies, particularly Firebreather, a story about a half-human/half-kaiju (don’t think too hard on that) who has a mostly normal life as a high schooler until stuff happens and he is forced to embrace his monster side. While comparisons to other movies do show up, Monster Island isn’t as blatant or egregious about it as other movies and while a movie like Firebreather establishes quickly that it wants to be more action-focused, Monster Island gets to it later in the story, but hints at it earlier on. It wants to try more to build up the events to the main climax at the end.

CHARACTERS

At the beginning of the movie, when Lucas is still going to high school, before the ill-fated Halloween party, you see a lot of typical high school archetypes. There’s the jerk jock, the bullied nerd, the stuck-up hot girl, and Lucas is basically the everyman. As the plot continues, we see more of Lucas’s personality as he is an adventurous person who’s not afraid to take risks and doesn’t want to wait to do what he thinks he needs to do. His father Nicolas is the same way. While a lot of his motivation may have to with keeping his son safe, he also shows a bit of his own adventurous side as well over the course of the story. The other important characters in this movie, who I won’t elaborate on for spoiler reasons, fit their roles relatively well, but apart from two, none of them stand out from the roles they play.

VISUALS & AUDIO

The visuals in this movie are a bit odd. Comparing the city at the start of the movie with the island of Caldera, there are a lot of clear differences and I’m not sure if all of them are intentional. In the city, some of the buildings stand at weird angles and have weird colorations. Granted, these are buildings in the background, but it stands out when compared to a town in Caldera, where all the buildings are standing up straight. In fact, in one shot at the start of the movie, there are several buildings that seem to lean in strange angles and only two small buildings don’t, one of them being the one Lucas and Nicolas live in. I’m not sure if this was just rushed animation or a design choice to subtly show how Lucas really belongs in Caldera and not in the human city.

Speaking of Caldera, this is clearly a monster island. All the monsters on the island have a variety of different looks and attributes, with some looking like classic mythology creatures and some looking like they were inspired by movies like Monsters Inc. or The Nightmare Before Christmas. Even some of the plant life looks monstrous with some of the tropical plants looking like they have eyes, or tentacles, or mouths full of fangs. Compare this to the regular looking human characters and the city they live in at the start of the movie and you can clearly see what part of this movie the animators were really looking forward to.

As far as the audio goes, it does its job, but doesn’t really stand out. For the most part, the music isn’t that memorable, but it doesn’t pull you out of the film either. The exceptions here are when the film decides to insert a couple of pop songs into a couple of different scenes. They’re okay songs on their own, but here, they feel out of place. For the voice work, again, it does its job, but they aren’t standout performances.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Monster Island is an okay film to watch, especially around Halloween if you have young kids and you’re looking for something both monstrous and obscure. The story could definitely use some work in a few places, it could stand to fill a few plot holes, and this kind of story was done better in other movies, but the visuals and the designs on the monsters and the titular monster island are trick-or-treat eye-candy, especially if you like different kinds of creatures. It’s not the best thing out there, but it’s not the worst either.

 

FINAL SCORE: 3/5

REPLAY VALUE: MODERATELY LOW

More Media Reviews Coming Soon

 

Starting soon, I will be posting more reviews to this blog. There will still be plenty of feature articles to come down the pipeline, but more of an effort will be put towards reviews of different media, from games to movies to TV shows to comics and more, and from major releases to more obscure titles. The following will be detailing how these reviews will go, so you, the readers, will have an idea of what I will be looking at.

CRITERIA

These are the different aspects I will be looking at when giving a review. Keep in mind this list is not all-encompassing.

Story – How does the story play out? Is the pacing good? Do the questions that need answering get answered?

Characters – How are the characters structured? How do they fit into the story? Do they develop well?

Visuals – How does the art style look? Do the motions run smoothly?

Audio (Excludes Comic Books) – Are the sounds/voices convincing? Can everything be heard clearly?

Gameplay (Video Games Only) – Is the game responsive? Are the controls easy to understand?

Extras – Is there extra content worth noting?

REVIEW SCORES

Since everyone uses review scores as a quick “yes or no” answer as to whether something is good, at the end of my reviews, I will give it a ranking out of five. These rankings are inspired by X-Play, a video game review show that aired on the now-defunct geek and gamer TV network, G4.

Gone, but not forgotten.

Why out of five instead of 10 or 100? Because as the X-Play hosts explained (before the show folded to pressure from sites like Metacritic), scores like these are used more like broad generalizations for people to use as guides, since all the score can tell you is if something is good or bad and there’s no real difference in 1 or 2 points out of 100.

Here is what the different scores here mean, with some examples of what would receive those scores.

1/5: A completely broken mess with no redeeming factors. Not even worth the bargain bin, this would probably even make someone mad if you just gave it to them. Just stay away.

Poor story, poor casting, poor writing, poor acting, poor development. It’s so poor, it would fit right in at a homeless shelter.

2/5: This is a feature that fails on almost every level. Keyword though: almost, because it has some significant redeeming factor in it that would make it impossible for it to receive a 1/5.

Thank goodness for Will Smith and Margot Robbie for keeping this from being a complete trainwreck.

3/5: This could mean one of three different things. It is either a just about equal mix of good and bad elements, 

 Literally half the game is what Sonic fans have been begging for. The other half, not so much.

...it has a great concept that’s poorly executed,

 It gets a bit repetitive after a while, but the comic book storytelling style is interesting and the characters and monsters have a lot of personality.

or it works functionally but is otherwise completely uninteresting or unoriginal.

Copypasta? More like COD-pypasta. Am I right, guys? *bricked

4/5: These are excellent works that either have significant problems... 

The plot can drag at times, but the drama is engaging, and you really fear for the characters’ lives.

...or would only really appeal to certain niche audiences.

Three guesses who the biggest fans of this show are. (Your first two will probably be wrong.)

5/5: A perfect or near-perfect gem of entertainment. Outstanding and genre-defining, if you’re a fan of a certain genre, something with this score is a must-buy.

Fun, action packed gameplay with colorful environments and interesting characters each with their own unique abilities and gameplay challenges. If only the fandom was just as nice.

In addition, I'll also include a small verdict on the work's replay value, which is basically how likely someone would be to watch/play/read this again. There are five levels to this, inspired by how the video game magazine GameInformer ranks replay value, but these can apply to just about any form of media. Instead of with the rest of the

-Low: You’ll quit before you even finish it.
-Moderately Low: After finishing it once, there’s not much reason to give it a second go.
-Moderate: Good for a few months or a few times through.
-Moderately High: Great for a long while, but the thrills won’t last forever.
-High: You’ll still be pulling this off the shelf five years from now.

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Thanks for coming to this preview. Look forward to more articles in the future!

Assemble! - Fighting Game Archetype Roster - The Aerial

This is Assemble, where we look at several different characters across multiple series to form a perfect team-up. Whatever the case may be, whether it’s a fighting game roster or an RPG adventuring party, we’ll find the best team for the job. In a change of style from the more long-form articles featured here, these articles will be shorter entries, focusing on one or two characters each, and spread out over time until the complete roster is formed.

What would a fighting game be without a roster of several different, powerful, and engaging characters? In this batch of articles for Assemble, we will be assembling a fighting game roster using characters from several different fighting games based on different character archetypes.



The picks will be based on where the characters fit in terms of game mechanics and their place in the story and world of the game. Only characters that originated in fighting games will be observed here. That means no guest characters, no licensed fighting games (unless their roster includes original characters), and no crossover titles. Finally, I’ll only be discussing games or characters that I am at least somewhat familiar with. While this means I won’t discuss all the fighting games out there, there should be at least some variety from just the major titles.

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THE AERIAL

While most of the action in fighting games happens on the ground, this character prefers the air.

Sadly, Falco didn’t make this slot.

The Aerial is a character who can fly or glide in the air, whether they use magic, technology, or their own supernatural abilities, while most of the other fighters are stuck walking and jumping. This advantage is most noticeable in platform fighters where characters have more room to fly around and be mobile. Some of this character’s strongest attacks may involve being in the air to use effectively, or at all in some cases. If double jumps are a mechanic in the game, this character may get several and if they have wings, the jumps may be shown as them flapping their wings.

Our choice for the Aerial is…

Wrastor from Rivals of Aether.

In a fighting game where all the characters exemplify an element of some kind, Wrastor’s element is clearly air. Starting with his look, he is a bird creature wearing pilot goggles and a scarf and his multi-jump animation, as stated before, involves him flapping his wings. His special attacks involve wind or tornado attacks and they even aid in his movement and some of his strongest attacks only work if he is in the air.

Sky’s the limit.

For being the best embodiment of a character who fights in the air and with the air, we now add Wrastor to the roster.

ADDED!

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What did you think about this article? Want to see what other characters get picked for our roster? Do you think someone would fit this role better besides whoever got picked? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thanks for coming.

The Arsenal - Ness and His Friends (EarthBound)

Welcome to The Arsenal, where we highlight the best weapons and items a character can carry. In this entry, we’re taking a trip to Eagleland as we analyze the best weapons and items used in the SNES role-playing game EarthBound by the game’s main characters, Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Kai. (I refuse to call him Poo, so since “Kai” is one of the other default naming choices for the character, I will use that instead for the duration of this article.) Since most of the items in the game don’t have pictures attached to them, some generic pictures from Google Images will stand in for most of them.

So, what does Ness carry in that backpack of his? Let’s find out.

Here is The Arsenal of Ness and His Friends from EarthBound.

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Best Weapon for Ness – Gutsy Bat

Obviously a big fan of baseball, Ness utilizes baseball bats as his weapon of choice and the best of these is the Gutsy Bat. While the Legendary Bat is technically stronger, with 10 extra bonus attack points than the Gutsy Bat, this bat also drastically increases the Guts stat for Ness, increasing the chance for critical hits. The Casey Bat is also way stronger than the Gutsy Bat, but it also misses most of its attacks. Having the strongest weapon in the world won’t do any good if you can’t hit anything with it. Sometimes, reliability beats out raw power.

Best Weapon for Paula – Holy Fry Pan

By far the strongest weapon for Paula, this piece of clobbering cookware also increases Paula's chance for critical hits by increasing her Guts stat by a few points. Aside from that, frying pans just seem to be a common choice for a good improvised weapon, as zombie games like Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising can attest to.

Just don't try actually cooking with them afterwards.

Best Weapon for Jeff – Gaia Beam

As the group scientist, Jeff has more of a preference for guns and high-tech weapons and this (presumed) laser gun is the strongest among them. After some work with a broken antenna and probably some other materials, Jeff can create the most powerful weapon in his arsenal. While it doesn't give him any additional stat boosts, it never misses. Whether that is because this is such a good weapon or because Jeff is such a good shot isn't that clear, but what is clear is that arming Jeff with the Gaia Beam will add some power to your party.

Best Weapon for Kai – Sword of Kings

Kai doesn't always use weapons. Having trained his body and mind in his distant homeland of Dalaam, he feels more comfortable using his own fists or his PSI powers during a battle. When he does wield a weapon however, the Sword of Kings is his weapon of choice. Though it's mostly because it's his only weapon, it does give him a little extra power during a fight.

(This next item is represented by the PK Yomega, an actual EarthBound yo-yo on sale on Fangamer. #NotSponsored)

Best Weapon for Any of Them – Combat Yo-Yo

While the previous entries talked about weapons that were exclusive to their specific characters, this entry talks about weapons that any of them can use. All four playable characters in EarthBound can equip a small variety of yo-yos or slingshots, but the best of them is the Combat Yo-Yo, having the highest stats of any of the other non-exclusive weapons. However, Kai's attack power decreases whenever he equips this or any other yo-yo, so, best to just focus on the other three with this one.

Best Attack Item – Bag of Dragonite

Known as Dragon Powder in the Japanese version, this item can transform the user into a dragon to unleash a powerful attack. This attack is so powerful in fact that it can even inflict damage on one of your allies if they're standing too close and the only enemy this doesn't work on is the game's end boss, Giygas. Dragons are well-known to be powerful creatures, so being able to become one and plow through enemies makes this a definite ace-in-the-hole for these adventurers.

Best Worn Defense Item – Franklin Badge

Found before Ness's battle with the Happy Happyist Cult to save Paula, the Franklin Badge is able to reflect lightning based attacks back towards their sender, which is good not just for Ness's fight against the cult's leader, but against any other character that uses lightning attacks. Over the years, it has become such a well-known part of the Mother universe, it was even made into an item in the Super Smash Bros. fighting games, now able to reflect any energy-based attacks, lightning or otherwise. That is one powerful shield.

Best Carried Defense Item – Super Plush Bear

Speaking of shields, this pumped-up teddy bear works better as one than you would otherwise think. In EarthBound, this plush toy is able to absorb damage from enemy attacks in place of the characters. It works a bit like the Substitute move in Pokemon, where a generic Poke Doll stands in for the actual Pokemon and just takes all the damage for a short time until it breaks.

Best Key Item – Sound Stone

Given to Ness close to the beginning of the game, the Sound Stone is one of the most important items in the game. Over the course of the game, the Sound Stone will collect melodies from the My Sanctuary locations that Ness and company will find throughout their adventure. After collecting all of them, he will be transported to the land of Magicant and come back with his inner potential unlocked. This item's purpose is basically to be a huge power-up for Ness in preparation for his fight with Giygas.

Best Jeff-Exclusive Item – Multi Bottle Rocket

Jeff is the only member of the main group with no psychic powers, but he makes up for it by being a mechanical genius able to use things that the other group members have no idea how to work. He has several items in the game that can only be used by him and the most offensively powerful of these is the Multi Bottle Rocket. Displayed in Super Smash Bros., where Jeff appears as an assist character, after Jeff activates this item, multiple fireworks rockets shoot up into the sky before flying down into an enemy and exploding, like small heat-seeking missiles.

Best Status Effect Item – Cup of Lifenoodles

An item that can revive dead or fainted characters is perhaps one of the best status effect items you can find in a video game. For EarthBound, that comes in the form of the Cup of Lifenoodles. Not only does this instant noodle dish bring back unconscious characters, it also cures any other status effects that characters could have. From poison to paralysis and even unconsciousness, this meal can cure it all.

(Believe it or not, this is an image from the EarthBound game guide. Yes, I have a copy.)

Best Enemy-Specific Item – Jar of Fly Honey

For this entry, we have an item that is used to help defeat a specific enemy. Found in Threed, the Jar of Fly Honey is used to help defeat the boss Master Belch. It happens to be his favorite food and if the heroes carry a jar into battle and toss it to him, he'll be too distracted eating it to fight back, so they are just free to beat the blob down and the fight will be an easy win.

Best Food for Ness, Paula, and Jeff – Kraken Soup

As expensive as this stuff is, it better be good.

This food item can be found at the restaurant at the beach-side resort town of Summers. It is the most expensive item on the restaurant's menu, but it's worth the price as eating it will fully restore all the HP for whoever of these three eats it, making it a very nice item to have as they're going on with their adventure. Hope they have some good thermoses to pack it in.

(Pictured: My best guess as to what this item looks like.)

Best Food for Kai – Brain Food Lunch

Another quirk between Kai and the rest of the EarthBound kids is that as he is not used to Western culture, any food he eats only recovers a standard amount of his health when eaten regardless of how much health anyone else recovers. The same does not apply when it comes to Eastern food such as this filling meal. Known as the Satori Lunchbox in the Japanese version, if Ness, Paula, or Jeff eat this meal they do recover a large amount of health, but for Kai, he recovers twice that. Make sure to pack plenty of these along with that Kraken Soup when facing a big boss.

Best Condiment – Jar of Delisauce

In EarthBound, condiments can be added to certain food items to increase their nutritional value, and with that, how much HP or PP they can recover. They include items like ketchup, salt, cream, sugar, and this special Eastern sauce. Found in a restaurant in Dalaam, this sauce can be added to any food and boost its effectiveness, where as the other condiments can only be added to certain foods. Versatility is the key here and it probably says something about how good this sauce is.

Best Medicine – Secret Herb

Remember how the Cup of Lifenoodles is able to cure any status effect, even waking up unconscious party members? This item is exactly like that except it's medicine instead of food. Not to dip into the realm of theories, but the Cup of Lifenoodles might even have some of these secret herbs mixed in with it. There is another medicine item called the Horn of Life that can do the same thing, but the Secret Herb is a little easier to get a hold of, so this item wins the slot.

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What did you think of this article?  What EarthBound items did you think deserved a highlight? What characters do you think have an arsenal worth showing off? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thanks for coming!

Super Roster Maker - Mario Kart 9

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the latest game in the Mario Kart series, is one of the most popular games on the Nintendo Switch, with a wide variety of tracks to choose from and intuitive and fun gameplay. But if there’s one thing fans can complain about with this game, it’s the character roster. Seemingly choosing quality over quantity, Nintendo chose to fill the game’s roster of playable racers with minor enemy characters and palette swaps of characters already in the roster.

If Nintendo chooses to make a completely new game in the series, which characters could Nintendo afford to cut from their next entry and what possible characters could they be replaced with? That’s what we’ll take a look at today in Super Roster Maker.

As both a way to help select certain characters and a way to add more variety to the racers within the game, we’ll be matching characters as pairs to give each racer companion characters that complement each other, like Mario and Luigi or Peach and Daisy.

Without further ado, here is the custom roster for Mario Kart 9.

RETURNING CHARACTERS

Staying: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Toadette, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Wario, Waluigi, Bowser, Bowser Jr., Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Dry Bowser, King Boo, Rosalina

Before seeing which old characters are out and which new ones are in, it seemed notable to also point out which characters from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s roster are staying for Mario Kart 9. Many of these characters are staple Mario characters that would make sense to see in this new game. A couple of notable characters here are Dry Bowser, who would be in as a companion character to King Boo for two undead boss characters, and Rosalina, who is the most recent addition to the group of staple characters, but aside from them, no one really unexpected.

CUT CHARACTERS

Leaving: Toad, Koopa Troopa, Shy Guy, Dry Bones, Lakitu, Tanooki Mario, Cat Peach, Baby Peach, Baby Daisy, Baby Rosalina, Gold Mario, Pink Gold Peach, Lemmy, Larry, Wendy, Ludwig, Iggy, Roy, Morton

Most of these characters are either generic Mario species characters that can be replaced with someone more specific (you’ll see who later) or character palette swaps or baby versions, characters that a lot of people think were just added to pad out the roster. While a case could be made for the Koopalings, with Bowser Jr. already in the roster and the Koopalings as of late pushed into a more minor status in favor of Jr., fans in general seem a bit less enthusiastic about them as they were in the past. They could be included as alternate skins for Bowser Jr., but as their own slots in the character select screen, perhaps not here.

NEW CHARACTERS

 

Entering: Captain Toad, Birdo, Diddy Kong, Kamek, Wart, King K. Rool, Koops, Lakilester, Fawful, General Guy, Jimmy T., Mona

Finally, here are the new characters. For this section, we’ll focus on characters from Mario or Mario-related series. Any guest characters from other series will be shown in a later section.

Replacing a generic Toad, Lakitu, Shy Guy, and Koopa Troopa are Captain Toad from the recent Mario games and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Lakilester and General Guy from Paper Mario, and Koops from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Also joining the race are Kamek from the main Mario series and Yoshi’s Island, Fawful from Mario & Luigi, Birdo and Wart from Super Mario Bros. 2, Diddy Kong and King K. Rool from Donkey Kong Country, and Jimmy T. and Mona from WarioWare. A lot of these new characters represent different, popular branches of the Mario franchise that haven’t yet been represented in Mario Kart. With a roster like this, Mario Kart has the potential to be a celebration of the entire Mario franchise, just like Super Smash Bros. is a celebration of all of Nintendo.

GUEST CHARACTERS

Continuing from the above section, this section will cover the guest characters for this roster, all from non-Mario Nintendo series. For this roster, we have given it ten slots (2 characters each for 4 non-Mario series and two characters representing Nintendo as a whole) for a good even number.

From The Legend of Zelda: Link and Zelda

From Animal Crossing: Villager and Isabelle

From Splatoon: Pearl and Marina

From Kirby: Kirby and King Dedede

From Nintendo (in general): R.O.B. and Mii Racers

The Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing, and Splatoon were all already involved with Mario Kart with Mario Kart 8, so it would make sense to bring back guest characters from those series. Link, Villager, and Isabelle would all be returning characters, but there are a few newcomers here too. Behind Link, Zelda is the most well-known from their series, and the series is no stranger to racing princesses, and Pearl and Marina from Splatoon 2 replace the two regular Inklings as more defined characters from the most recent game in the series who aren’t afraid to get into the action. As for Kirby, the tone of the series fits well with Mario and he and Dedede are two of the biggest characters from the series that wouldn’t out of place in an arcade racer. The Kirby series has even had its own racing game already.

Anyone remember this?

Finally, R.O.B. and the Mii avatars are there to represent Nintendo as a whole. R.O.B. was previously playable as a racer in Mario Kart DS and Miis have been available in previous Mario Kart games with them even getting special racing outfits when Amiibos are scanned into the game.

FINAL RESULTS

The Roster: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Captain Toad, Toadette, Yoshi, Birdo, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Wario, Waluigi, Bowser, Bowser Jr., Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Dry Bowser, King Boo, Rosalina, Kamek, Wart, King K. Rool, Koops, Lakilester, Fawful, General Guy, Jimmy T., Mona, Link, Zelda, Villager, Isabelle, Pearl, Marina, Kirby, King Dedede, R.O.B., Mii Racer

This roster gives us a grand total of 38 playable characters, a large number, but still smaller than the lineup for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, while still providing a variety of interesting characters to play as.

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In this article, we looked at the racers from a potential Mario Kart 9, but what courses or items could we possibly see in this game? That is something we will discuss in a future article.

But in the meantime, what did you think of this roster? What characters would you want to see in the next Mario Kart game? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thanks for coming!