Virtuamehameha #5 - GT was a Charming Mistake

Dragon Ball Z ended on a very divisive note. Depending on who you asked, Buu was the biggest pile of slop or it was the most action packed blaze of awesomeness. It's widely known that the Buu Saga was the arc that Toriyama did not want to make. He was perfectly fine with ending the entire series after the Cell Games. He was obviously ready to move onto other projects and make other stories. The studio was not so ready to let go of such a popular series. With how it became more and more marketable across the globe, they were ready to carry this series to however far. 

And however far is where they took it. Even when Toriyama bowed out after the Buu Saga, they inacted Plan B: Dragon Ball GT. Once Toriyama left Dragon Ball, the animation studio Toei took the entire series into a direction that no one could have imagined... seriously, there was so little imagination at work that Dragon Ball GT is a chore to get through from start to finish. 

They seriously thought that turning Goku into a child and sending him off onto a clone story of Dragon Ball was a fantastic idea. You know what? It WAS a fantastic idea, because you could literally do anything with that premise. The problem was that the execution was comparable to a 14 year old's fanfiction and that is not an exaggeration. With such an awesome premise, this could have been a slam dunk. What it turned out to be, was a slog! 

These writers pulled out every single cliche and every single random thing they could possibly put on the screen. The Black Star Dragon Ball Saga was a fever dream in the worst way. Every single bad guy that comes out of nowhere is soon cast aside for a bigger, badder guy that looks completely different and/or possesses the most random power ever thought up in crayon. There is so much filler and so many instances where Pan is absolutely annoying and almost every moment she is on the screen, life is made that much worse. The Black Star Dragon Ball's plotline has such a directionless, confusing mess and it just introduces new characters that do next to nothing before dropping out of the story forever! It tries the large creature badguy with the weird whisker monster who they thought caused earthquakes. It turned out he could just sense the quakes with no control over them. He's trouble for maybe five minutes and then another second, they're off to another planet. 

It is understood why they made this decision. As stated before, the Black Star Dragon Ball Saga wanted to emulate the original Dragon Ball series. They wanted to bring the series back to its roots and see how it went, but they did not have the heart and the pacing that Akira Toriyama did. His stories had better set up with better defined characters, even if they were only on screen every once in a while. Boss Rabbit and the giant monsters that appeared in the original series did not out stay their welcome, but they were still comedic and their defeat wasn't really taken so seriously. The difference here is that they are also not annoying and make you roll your eyes at how they dance or get creepy with Pan while she was turned into a doll. Seriously, that was just a moment this series did not need. 

Trunks and Goku are fun, and sometimes Pan can be slightly charming at times. Sometimes they have decent scenes with a bit of comedic banter between them. Most of the time? They go through contrived, boring plotlines with derivative villains. Dr. Miyu is a copy of Dr. Gero from the Android series, then he joins forces with Dr. Gero in order to create the Hellfire #17 Android who fuses with the real #17 to create Super #17. 

These cookie-cutter story bits with Goku, Pan and Trunks offers us nothing but random battles that can barely be considered for the top 100 in the series. Sometimes, the battles do some very interesting things, especially when Goku turns Super Saiyan 4. Some love SSJ4, some will live and die by this form remaining canon. I am not one of those fans, I absolutely despise this form's look. It looks nothing like any of the other super saiyan transformations and I prefer the Super Saiyan God and even Super Saiyan Blue over the fourth super saiyan. Still, it was one of the better things to come out of this series and causes an interesting comparison between all of the other saiyan forms. 

Super #17 and even the Baby Saga bring some interesting battles to the series. The problem with these battles is the story around them is paper thin. These huge villains or scientists who create huge villains just come out of nowhere and boom, we're in a new battle. It's interesting to see how Gohan, Goten and Vegeta would fare against one another in some high powered fights. Not all of the battles are good, or even slightly decent, though. There's still random battles with either weak opponents or stupid robot creations with broken powers and the fights come and go in the blink of an eye. By contrast, some of these boss battles last for entire episodes, like Baby. Sometimes, you just get tired of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers plot. After a while, the battles grew very stale. 

With the #17 saga, there is an interesting stint where old villains come back to life and Goku goes into the afterlife to fight both Cell and Freeza. The problem is that Goku has grown ridiculously powerful and is able to kill them without trouble. They're in Hell, though, and they can't die anymore than they already are. These battles, along with Vegeta vs Nappa, are underwhelming. They are only interesting on the surface, but really don't delve into them in any interesting way. Super 17 is just another case of the big badguy is strong, we can't defeat him and so the final battle needs to take forever. 

The character designs were also terrible, both in new and old characters. Yes, Vegeta's mustache was a mistake. Goten turned out to be a little generic as more of an alternate Gohan design. Pan has a good design. They even gave her some interesting wardrobe choices with the bandana and khakis. Gohan wears a bland business suit that looks like he is more like a college professor. The character design of the Golden Oozaru was an interesting contrast, though it's not really clear how looking at the Earth and "blutz" waves makes them transform, there's really not much else to call endearing with these characters. 

Once we reach the Evil Eternal Dragons, this series just falls off the deepend. Yes, there are some cool battles but no, that doesn't save this arc as a whole. The series doesn't seem to know what it wants to do in terms of theme and tone. Some of the Dark Eternal Dragons were just flat out horrific to watch. Their battles were not fun to watch and honestly the earlier ones were blatant wastes of time. The ice and fire dragons were decent battles and honestly rank as some of the better episodes in GT as a whole. 

Once the story reaches Ii Shenlong or Omega Shenlong, it gets a bit more entertaining to see when he becomes fully powered and able to beat Goku and Vegeta. Now, the real problem with this fight is that Gogeta is not on screen for nearly long enough. It doesn't even register on the top Dragon Ball storylines, but for GT, it's top of the tier. The battle, much like the other boss battles, takes entirely too long. Then, just to push the time limit even further, Goku had to put together a galactic Spirit Bomb. 

There are good things about GT, of course, some of them were already listed. The best thing it brought about was the GT Special starring Goku Jr. It's a good, heartfelt tale that actually has that familiar Dragon Ball spirit. Beyond that, the best thing about this entire series was the ending. That might sound like I'm joking but they actually put together a very tear jerking ending where Goku fuses with Shenlong and is whisked away into legend. It wasn't a perfect ending, but it was a good ending for Dragon Ball as a whole, even it weren't attached to this very messy series. 

There are those who will swear by GT and more power to you. If you like this series, that's your little red wagon. On the whole, though, it is just not fun to watch and it didn't know where it was going most of the time. The tons of filler and wasted episodes on terrible subplots was just too much. There are some good battles here and there, but even they out stay their welcome with how overly long some of them are. If you wanted to be a Dragon Ball completionist, you're more than welcome to give it a try. Just be ready for some very boring storylines and annoying characters filling most of the runtime. Dragon Ball and Z were enough, we should have stopped when the sensei said to do so. Thankfully, he's gone on to have his rest. Virtua Sleep. 

Warcraft III - The Beautiful Shades of Blood

While it didn't seem quite as good as Warcraft II, its follow-up has grown to be a gem in the collection throughout its many years. WC3 turned those graphics on top of their heads and brought about a beautiful shade of technology and massive, bloody combat between two main factions. Many have seen the wars of the Alliance and the Horde, but the strategy games are in their purest form. The first three games grow faster and faster pace, and became bigger and bigger in scope. The third entry is a game you can beat over and over again as you get better and better at your strategy. What's better, the expansion didn't destroy it! Well, so long as you keep it offline... Yeah, this is a long story. 

Warcraft 3 became a sensation with the fanbase because it became more and more easily customized, and it helped that the story mode was actually quite a good story to follow. Though, as you got better at the game in the multiplayer back in the day, the story became something of a staple of the franchise. Just wait until I cover the first and only entry of its failed franchise. Here, though, inside the game, was when the story really florished, especially when you feel like you are leading the battle yourself. 

Building a town and sending massive ogres and evil death knights toward the Alliance forces is just part of the experience, but you'll be quick to note that the gameplay becomes massively different between all factions and races in the gameplay. Now, you need to choose between orcs and the undead in order to get them, unlike Warcraft II, where the horde is much more lumped together. Now, though, they also have Night Elves to add to the mix, so it feels like there is much more of a neutral party that ends up joining forces with the humans, but don't have the most stable relationship. 

The method of getting gold is still the same for human and orcs with the gold mines, but now the elves send their wisps to stick to the gold mine, and have a bit of a smaller unit intake. Many prefer the Acolytes of the undead for gold mining the fastest, especially when you get multiple ones sufficiently in place while saving for a few builders. 

When it comes to units of different strategies, there is more or less finding the best timed unit that you can give the most damage the biggest variety. Orcs have the strategy of going shamen and choose a melee unit like wolf riders to buff. Not only does Bloodlust amplify their damage, but shamen also have a strong air defense. Choosing a diverse but dense number of units that serve multiple purposes is key, while also choosing the best hero.

That's right, you now have a champion unit in the form of a different array of heroes. Arthas has a hard amount of damage when he becomes the Death Knight, which also acts as a healer to undead units. Arthas as a Paladin had a holy light ability that healed allied units while doing crushing damage to the undead. If that wasn't interesting enough, the orcs have an awesome samurai hero that does ridiculous amounts of damage through critical hits with his sword, but then there's Thrall. Thrall is mostly looked after for his earthquake ability, that does ridiclous amounts of damage to multiple units and buildings.

The great thing about the game is how many ways you can win, and a lot of people have had a great time testing their abilities against each other. Keep the games local, find someone in a LAN server, because if you go fully online, you have the possibility of getting the unwanted version of the game. Sadly, through Blizzard's utter stupidity, they created a Reforged edition of the game, and I have been able to dodge this update myself. It looks like a terrible version, and I never wanted the update and I don't intend on downloading it. 

The graphics of Warcraft 3 may not be the deepest and most complex, but it was peaked when it got the Frozen Throne expansion. This added new hero classes, new units and an all new story following a more RPG type genre. This is where you play as one to four heroes in a new grinder and mission style roleplaying game, much in the vain of World of Warcraft. Thankfully, though, it also has a strategy element to it, as you also have some support from other factions along the way. It was a bold move and pulled off rather well, as I ended up loving the panda hero and his drunken abilities, which are awesome! 

Warcraft makes a great fantasy MMORPG, but my heart will always truly lie with the strategy games, and Warcraft III is among the games I play to this day. I still remember playing the first Warcraft over at a neighbor's house. Once we got a newer computer, Warcraft was among the first games we got for it. It was back in the CD-ROM days, as it was also one of the best when it came to game evolution. Warcraft II will get a PC review as well, but this was a title that really stood out when you wanted a massive number of awesome fighters piling and stabbing each other! For the defense of Virtua!!! 

The Superman Video Game Conundrum

Superman is a double-edged sword, no matter how you look at him. One edge, he is kind, uses his strength to save the innocent civilians and does as little damage to the city as possible when he has very large fights. On the other edge, Superman is overpowered, his storyline has been booted and rebooted to the point where a "true canon" is nearly non-existant, and he is just a very hard character to write for. No matter how you look at it, being the first superhero comic book ever made Superman the equivalent to unmolded clay. He didn't even fly at first, he just jumped long distances. It was a later comic book writer who finally just said that he could fly. Then he got every single power known to man. He is powered by the yellow sun, almost completely indestructible, with super speed, super strength, X-ray vision and laser eyes. Some of his powers were brought from even more obscure places, like being able to hear from across the entire world, materializing brick from his "Brick Vision" on top of having a photographic memory, the ability to slow his pulse to make it look like he was dead while he healed and the list goes on and on and on. 

From a writer's standpoint, Superman was a ticking timebomb. It is nearly impossible to stay loyal to such a wide and expanding source material when not even the original company can't seem to get such a laundry list of powers right. It got to the point where they were pulling any power out of thin air in order to give Superman the edge, then his powers get rebooted and he either gains a new power or loses one of his powers he once had. 

With all of that in mind, try thinking up game mechanics around such a broad spectrum. Think about what would be considered thugs that could bring him down. The NES Superman game made him vulnerable to bullets. Maybe they were kryptonite bullets? There really needed to be some nonsensicle terms in order to get Superman on board without him flying into space and laserbeaming his opponent from orbit. Here was a superhero that can literally take down armies within seconds and you are now tasked to make a game that would be considered challenging with such a character. 

Superman for the Nintendo 64 came up with the very stupid idea of having Superman sent into a virtual world that looked like Metropolis (?) and the air is filled with kryptonite so you can't... do... powers.... Look, no one bought it when they devs said it. The real problem with this whole scenario is that Superman for the 64 is considered the worst game on the system, but there is a game of similar quality for the XBox/PS2, Superman Shadow of Apokolips. 

You fight robots but you can't use any attacks except for the attacks that hurt certain minions. They can't be bothered to come up with any reason to explain why Superman can't scrap this entire army of bots, it just gives you the jankiest controls with which to make the attempt. This game is a meaningless waste of time with the worst game mechanics and 3D cut scenes known to the Playstation 2. It really seems like one of the worst problems with Superman games is his flight. Where Nights Into Dreams and Mario 64 who seemed to get the flying mechanics down to a science years before, Superman games just can't seem to get them right. 

While there haven't been any stand-alone Superman games to reach critical or commercial success, the Justice League games involving him usually turn out pretty decent. Nether Realm Studio's Injustice games actually use him to much more of his potential. They just come up with the plot device of people taking super pills and being able to actually hurt him with their bare fists. Yes, this is the lengths they need to go to to sidestep that little problem of him being able to liquify them with a backhand. 

What needs to be done to create a Superman game that actually works, obviously there needs to be a good story, but there also needs to be an enemy that can hurt him while also being able to keep up with his speed and universally overpowered strength. Pulling off such dangerous opponents would be very tricky to write around without getting too violent. The whole idea is not to nerf Superman's powers to an inconsiderate rate. Using his powers that make sense while also having the power to demolish entire structures with a punch is what every Superman fan has dreamed about. Giving him short distant super speed and ice breath would also be a great bonus in this mechanic.

Bringing on Doomsday as a final opponent, or even Darkseid would be preferable after a long storyline, using them as a climax. Batman v Superman the movie could have worked as a video game if you added in some more main line DC villains. Brainiac has been a little over used as of late, but he could also be executed brilliantly in terms for a Superman adventure game. Without a very deep understanding of video games or a deeper understanding of the comic book super hero character, you're not going to go far with the fans. Mixing and matching storylines for a video game is acceptable, so long as you keep it fun. 

That's the key detail, whether the game is fun or not. If we don't feel like Superman, then the game takes a terrible hit. Perfecting Superman's power level in comparison to the villains is paramount but perfecting his character is equally as important. It's these huge, mounting details that befuddles video game developers to no end. This would require an entire team with a solid gameplan and a considerable budget to accomplish. It's this reason that makes it seem like you just can't get Superman right in a game while Batman has ever growing potential, given his brilliant and strong mortal status. It's Superman's own power that destroys him, ultimately, and the free wielding way comic book writers treated him like a literal god in terms of his infinite number of powers. Come up with a solid formula for him and you might be able to release something that will surprise everyone who said it couldn't happen. Until then, he still has an awesome animated series and a good number of comic book storylines. There's a ton of things that make Superman great already, I guess video games are just too magical a concept.

Street Fighter the Movie (1994) - Video Game Cheese

We don't really need to go into how terrible video game movies were and how bad of a reputation they accumulated back in the late 80's and early 90's. While they weren't all the worst movies to come out, some of them very much earned this terrible reception. Street Fighter was one of those movies that brought this about, but many will tell you, it is not the worst of the bunch. It's bad, don't make any mistake on that, but it still had a campy charm that people still look upon fondly. This was in an age when video games were pulling anything and everything out of thin air in order to promote their properties. This included making movies, TV series, soundtracks and toys of all sorts. 

Street Fighter was written in a very short amount of time and that shows. In this movie, there are a very select few fights that people actually want to see. There are a ton of side plots and wasted characters all over this entire film. T. Hawk does next to absolutely nothing and he looks nothing like his video game counterpart. Dee Jay is equally as useless, but at least he had some amusing lines. Fei Long is in the movie for maybe five seconds. Why were they in the film? So they could say that they were there. On top of that, the all American Guile is played by Belgian superstar, Jean-Claude Van Damme. He looks the part but really, his accent is so thick, it's hard to even know what he's saying some of the time. 

There is no Street Fighter tournament. Instead, it's all about wartime hostages and America coming to help a country fight against Shadaloo, led by M. Bison. He is asking for ridiculous amounts of money or he is going to kill them. Instead, Guile leads an army to go and fight him, even though he has an army of his own and huge amounts of security surrounding his country. Then, there's Sagat trying to get in on M. Bison's plan so that he can get large amounts of money in the weapon trade. Then there's Chun Li going undercover as a news reporter to get revenge on Bison for killing her father. Then there's a sideplot Ryu and Ken are trying to go undercover to help Guile fight against Bison. Then there's Charlie getting turned into Blanca, even though it's not part of the actual lore of Street Fighter. There are so many of these little plots that go absolutely nowhere and it's just dizzying. It leaves so little room for actual, meaningful plots or combat scenes. 

Now, for the good things about this movie. M. Bison's portrayal by Raul Julia is seen as a highlight. He is having so much fun with the role, even though he was sadly suffering from horrible pain thanks to his terminal cancer. This was his final role and that is a legendary way to go out. Not only is this movie terrible, but he is seen as an element that sends this movie into a cult classic masterpiece. It really shows how amazing that man was all the way to the very end. His scenes are just fun to watch because he understood the assignment the entire way through. This is especially true for the final fight with Guile. Even if he could not exert himself because of his illness, he still pulled it off and that's partly due to the director doing the best he could with the scene itself. 

Balrog and E. Honda were fun because the actors obviously had good chemistry as chums. Their scenes are few but they are decent. Then Zangief is seen as another highlight, as he is just plain dumb, but he looked the part so well. He had some good lines here and there, but he is, once again, just not featured enough. Chun Li should have also been featured more, but with such a bloated cast, you get the idea, it was just too much for one movie to handle. 

This movie was pretty popular for its time, but it isn't exactly looked upon fondly. This film is the text book example of a "turn your brain off and enjoy" movie. If you don't think about it and just take it scene by scene, it's actually a good time. Take it for its good parts and maybe put it on as a bit of background noise. It didn't do the video game movie genre any favors, but at least it wasn't Double Dragon. No, seriously, screw Double Dragon.

Top 160+ Favorite Games of all time! (Pt 3)

We continue with the list and WOW has it been a little more difficult than I thought. Writing twenty paragraphs isn't so bad, but trying to remember things about this game to comment on was more challenging than expected. All of these games have gotten tons of play time, but there were some that I haven't played in years. While I was able to replay a good number of them, not all of them are readily available for everyone to re-experience. It's sad, but that's the game industry. Anyway, on with the last of the games before we enter the top 100! Onward!

#119 Virtua Fighter 4

When you want a great fighter on the PS2 and are tired of Mortal Kombat Deception, Virtua Fighter released a fantastic title just for you! You want to fight on a single player ranking system and fight in arcades? Then get ready to revisit one of Sega's most awesome franchises. They're all here, from Jeffry to Pai-chan! Its graphics only got better from title to title, and the controls never faltered. Virtua Fighter stood tall from console to console and PS2 is no different. You still get the fast pace punch, kick and throw action you want and that's how it's always going to be

#118 Mortal Kombat X

While it is not as good as Mortal Kombat 9, this title still delivered on a lot of fronts. The storyline isn't anything to write home about and the idea of death in the series has become something of a joke, but the fatalities and a lot of the new characters added bring a lot to the table. The character designs on the women can be seen as a bit of a downgrade, thanks to some public outcry, but the graphics and the gameplay are still very solid. It's good to see a lot of these returning characters they brought back and a lot of the different gameplay keeps it fresh. A lot of good jokes came from this title and even some of the DLC characters are greatly appreciated, including Leatherface and even the playable Goro!

#117 Doom 64

Doom has gone through several different versions, moderations, and iterations, but none of them are quite as unique as Doom 64. This Doom does focus on killing monsters and demons, but it also has a strange quality to its puzzles and map quirks. The entire game was far different than people thought it would be, thinking it was just another port to another system, but it was different in so many ways. The monsters and tone were so unique, it's basically considered its own separate entity. Some people consider it the true Doom 3, but there are others who wouldn't consider it that, thinking it was far too different. Still, we here at Planet Virtua consider it a strong entry to the Classic Doom franchise. That should be good enough.

#116 Dragon Quest XI

Although the story is a bit taxing to keep up with, Dragon Quest 11 is a lot of fun, and the characters make up for a lot of its shortcomings. The graphics are quite strong and the setting is absolutely beautiful. It has that beautiful character design we know Toriyama for and that is enough to put it on this list as a strong entry. While it is quite linear, it's still a very dynamic and long run from beginning to end. It goes through many different places and you meet many different characters that decide to join you on your journey.

#115 Mega Man X

Perhaps the greatest followup to a thriving series. Mega Man 2 is the greatest of the original series, Mega Man X is unmatched in its own series of games. This game has an introduction that's actually fun, and the gameplay can be so wonderfully challenging. I had a lot of problems getting through some of these levels before I finally got better with the controls, which are easy to learn but hard to master. X is a character design marvel, who joins the Mega Man team as something of an upgrade, and the two of them take on the likes of Dr. Wily and Sigma. If you are a fan of the franchise, this title is obligated to be played. 

#114 Doom 3

This was a divisive title, but it has many charms of its own. Not only does the BFG edition for consoles include Doom and Doom 2, but once you accept this as a survival horror, it's a lot more attractive as a game. This was the first game in the franchise to be fully rendered with all new 3D graphics compliments of John Carmack and what little remained of the original ID team. The look of this game was so advanced that it made PC's of the time cry constantly and the darkness that you explore has some very stylized horror elements that you just can't help but love. As a Doom game, it's lacking a bit. As a stand-alone offshoot of the series, it's more entertaining as a thriller along with being a slower shooter. 

#113 Luigi's Mansion

So few consoles ever have such an amazing initial title. Luigi's Mansion is iconic of the Gamecube. While in the Mario Franchise, Luigi's Mansion is darker with completely different but equally enthralling gameplay. You need to use evolving and complicated techniques to defeat high level ghosts as well as ghost bosses. Seeing all of the different types of ghosts and boos is a lot of fun and Luigi became something of a great character on his own merit thanks to this series of games. Even after three whole games, this little spinoff series still retains its outward charm.

#112 Duke Nukem 3D

Both the Sega Saturn and PC version of this game are more than worthy of being your first ports to play. Even on the N64, this game keeps its great charm of being a "Doom Clone" done correctly. Duke Nukem is trying to save the women of the world from a bunch of different aliens invading the Earth. You can use both rocket and alien technology to take on these pigs and squids, and you steal one-liners while doing it. This is required playing for anyone who wants a good "Boomer Shooter" showing off the game engine's true capabilities. 

#111 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Love the 80's? Love stealing digital cars from NPC's? Can't get enough crime from game crime bosses? Head down to Vice City and play a plethora of minigames and shootouts while you take it over! When it comes to the GTA series, this is one of the great titles. Playstation 2 was graced with this awesome title to great effect. The city is expansive and plays among the greats when it comes to a sandbox game. It's more of a great thing in the series and don't forget to take in those retro vibes of a bygone era. Rad.

#110 Batman: Arkham City

The peak of the Arkham series. Going through this entire cityscape of Gotham is an absolute joy as you ram your fists into the faces of criminals along the way. Two-Face, Catwoman, Clayface, Harley Quinn and an ever deminishing Joker. Thanks to taking too much Titan Venom in the first game, Joker finds himself trying to find a cure and he's going to have Batman help him whether he likes it or not. The twist in the final act is awesome and the gameplay is just Arkham Asylum with a wider scope. You are Batman, now go boot faces!

#109 Hrot

There are few games where I have poored so many hours into nothing but the Endless Mode. Hrot is one of those games because it just has a very addictive style to its gameplay. You're equipped with a lot of DOOM like weapons and amplifying damage/speed powerups to take down some very strange soldiers and creatures. All of the humans have gasmasks because it's a post-nuclear apocalypse. Everything is a shade of brown or dull gray and everything is also powered by PASCAL, which is a very difficult programming language. It still looks so old-school and Quake-like, but it also has such an interesting level design to each episode. If you're up for a great modern Boomer Shooter, this is your game. 

#108 Mortal Kombat 11

This game fixes just as much as it destroys in the MK Lore. Mortal Kombat 11 takes everything from both MK9 and MKX while also adding a very disjointed multiverse/time travel plotline. Though there are some great playable characters, there's also some not-so-great new characters. Either way, the game mechanics are improved with a new way to do x-ray moves plus an awesome array of new backgrounds. The story mechanic of bringing back dead characters, though, is still unfortunately still here. It's a mixed bag, but what edges it onto this list is the great gameplay and controls in its fighting classical towers.  

#107 Hogwarts Legacy

There are a lot of great things about bringing your own created character into the world of Harry Potter and being able to achieve a great deal of power along with all of the unforgiveable curses. This game's story is not great and its characters are more miss than hit, but the way you can explore the country side and take down dark magic users along with dark creatures is just a fantastic time waster. The ending when you achieve the OWLs is underwhelming, but the fact that you can play with dark magic and explosions in the arena mechanic is just beautiful. Creating your own Room of Requirement and customizing your own outfit is a lot of fun. This may be the Harry Potter fan talking here, but I will say this game is not for everyone. There's still a lot to explore and do in this beautiful world the devs created. 

#106 Resident Evil 4

When you want to kill infected people who not only attack you but also put hoods on in order to do so with chainsaws, RE4 is your game! Fighting the different creatures, playing through the story and using your own weapons in order to survive this dangerous world will get you to clench against your seat. You go up against huge monsters and whole barrages of deadly, mindless villagers to the point where it is downright exhausting at times. Save the girl and bring her out of the danger zone, but do not expect to get out unscathed. This is definitely one of the best Resident Evil titles, period.

#105 Saints Row: The Third

Many will argue this point, but I consider this one of my absolute favorite Saints Row titles. This was when they really started to lean into the craziness of the entire franchise, which it was already getting into in the second installment. In here, you fight titans of other gangs as well as some extra powerful arsenals which include, but are not limited to grenade launchers, armored vehicles and high tech guns. While it still has the annoying obligated mini games and some annoying tasks here and there, it's still a fun game overall. The story is crazier and the Saints are hilarious sellouts, but they still come off as bad ass, as they should.

#104 Jet Set Radio

When the gameplay shines brighter than everything else, but everything else is still great, you've got an awesome game. Jet Set Radio (or Jet Grind Radio in the states) was one of the earliest games on the Dreamcast, and it brought the system out in a state of greateness. The mechanics are challenging but also a lot of fun, and the characters are just the 90's coming forth to show you how awesome it truly can be. The graphics are cell shaded and stylized in an anime form that is simple but still really cool. You can customize your own graffiti and you can make a name for your character as you spread the name all across the city. 

#103 Resident Evil

Sometimes, you just need to go with the original. This title is great while also being flawed. The tank controls need a lot of getting used to and the voice acting was hysterically bad. The graphics did not age well, but that has never concerned us here at Planet Virtua. This is still a dark toned, crazy rendition of the survival horror genre, which was nearing infancy at the time. It set the bar high right off the bat. It wiped Alone in the Dark off the map and drilled its own name into the hearts of gamers all over the world. It also brought us zombie tropes and monsters that are still used and referenced heavily to this day. If you're brave enough and are sure you know what you're getting into, this game is highly recommended.

#102 X-men Origins: Wolverine

One of the very few examples of a game that not only was a great movie tie-in game, but even out shined its own film in every way. This game throws its source material out the window, as it should and showed its greatness in its own way. You are Wolverine and you are cutting through the baddies in gloriously gory combat segments while also figuring out your way through forests and rough turrains. The abilities you use make you feel like the killer himself and you do great feats of violence that are nothing less than therapeutic. If you doubted this game because of the movie it's based on, perish the thought. Give this game a try if you're willing and able.

#101 The Orange Box

Half-life 2 has had a very interesting history in its long, fabled release. For some reason, they packaged it along with Team Fortress 2 and Portal, which kind of makes this title a shining example of a compilation. Portal, even when it was basically a throw-away title that they just slapped on as an extra, became a fan favorite and still has a cult following to this day. As a Team Fortress Classic fan, TF2 was a lot of fun to come into contact with, because it was everything you loved about the original game with a new paint job and some very colorful characters on top of that. Half-Life 2 is everything you loved about the first game with a tweaked physics engine and a whole new slew of levels to power through. It all culminated into an amazing collection of titles that is still beloved to this day. 

#100 Sonic Adventure

Sonic is one of the few success stories when it came to his debut in glorious 3D! This awesome title took Sonic and threw him into a completely new adventure with brand new villains. While it is far from perfect, it's just great to see how dynamic your control over the blue hedgehog is. This game is long and a lot of it can be rather challenging, but there is just that nostalgic luster all over the graphics and it can go so far as to make you fall in love with Sega's favorite mascot all over again. This game is just flat out fun and while it's obviously not perfect, the overall experience is more than worth it.

Virtuamehameha #4 - Dragon Ball - Neptune Origins

 If you look back at the history of Dragon Ball, you'll see it goes all the way back to the 80's. Our sensei, Akira Toriyama taught us a lot of things. He created characters, villains, and an entire world to go along with unforgettable stories of fighters and friendship. Even in America, Dragon Ball has had a very interesting history. It began with the original series when Funimation and Saban got the rights to Dragon Ball's broadcast in the states. Funimation did not originally use their voice acting studio, instead they outsourced to Ocean in Canada. This started with the first movie and 10 or so episodes of Dragon Ball, but that proved to not become so popular at the time. 

Instead, they started again with Dragon Ball Z on small television stations in America, and I just so happened to catch this entire series in its first run. The first image I ever saw was when Gohan headbutted Raditz with overwhelming power for a five year old. This started with a terrible schedule every Sunday at around 7 am. Still, the first season when the Saiyans came to Earth was one of the greatest in the entire series. When we first meet Vegeta, we had no idea he would be one of the most prominent Z Warriors, as well as a fan favorite. With Brian Drummond as his voice actor, he came up with one of the largest memes on the internet. "It's Over 9000" became another fan favorite after DBZ hit Toonami with his original English VA. 

Overall what we consider the "Rock the Dragon" collection of episodes is up to each individual fan. Here at Planet Virtua, we consider these episodes superior in the ways of voice acting. However, it was far too censored to be considered objectively better in every way. If Saban is known for anything, it's the editing and censoring it did to the original Ocean Dub episodes. Hell was now known as HFIL (Home for the Infinite Losers) and being killed was changed to being "Sent to the Next Dimension"! Blood was covered up with effects paint, some of it being very obvious, and there was to be absolutely no nudity, cigarettes or alcohol of any kind. 

Once again, these episodes are amazing, but they are also a very funny meme in many different ways. The censoring is comical in so many ways and have been parodied by old school DBZ fans for years. Once Cartoon Network added Dragon Ball Z to its Toonami run, the series exploded! It very quickly took over the internet with literal millions of websites. The Dragon Ball fan community was such a wide sensation that once it started to hit the USA in the ways of VHS and merchandise, needless to say it was sold out very quickly. Kids came home from school to watch it in its first three seasons before it started to rerun. 

The reruns seemed to go on forever, but soon it was clear that they were working diligently to bring us the conclusion to the Freeza Saga, along with Cell Games and Buu. However, the biggest change to the series, along with the nixing of much censoring, was that now there was a whole new voice actor cast list. Chris Sabat was selected to take over the voice of Vegeta... along with half of the character cast. Needless to say, it took a while for these voice actors to come into their characters and it took even longer for Ocean Dub fans to get used to the new English cast. 

To say that it was a much longer story would be an understatement, but it was such a fun ride. There were theories on how the series would end, but by the time we got much of Dragon Ball Z in the states, but in Japan, Dragon Ball GT had already ended in 1997. GT was a huge disappointment, but we'll get to that in another article. Still, from the beginning of Dragon Ball all the way to the end of the Cell Saga, there was a great masterclass in how to make an action series. Even with the excess in yelling, even with the recap episodes, and filler episodes, this whole enormous section was worth revisiting over and over again. 

Goku has become an icon of Japan and anime fans everywhere, and for good reason. His journey to become the greatest still has not ended because fans just keep wanting more Dragon Ball. Should it probably have ended by now? Yeah, the series has become a shadow of its former self. It was a lot better when it as a martial arts comedy adventure. With the passing of the Sensei himself, it's a comfort to know that his masterpiece was immortalized in the hearts of millions. Just remember to give it a watch and bring a Dino Cap of water.

Mortal Kombat (1995) - In the Beginning

When everyone said that video game movies could never be good and they'll never make a good video game in a feature film, Mortal Kombat was the argument. This was a movie that actually did its homework and made a decent Mortal Kombat movie, though it was still stocked with issues. While they did do a good production with a good cast of characters, the film was still almost wholly bloodless and not even remotely as graphic as its video game counterpart. 

Anyone will tell you that this game gets the practical effects down very well, but when it comes to CGI, this movie fell very short. Reptile looks like a pixelated Dreamcast game character, and there were maybe three or four special moves involving a tiny bit of special effects. Goro, on the other hand, was a very well produced effect through costume and animatronics. They make him look like he is in the scene, aside from his final scene. 

Another stark point in this movie's favor is the cast. Robin Shou was in some very low budget action movies before this, and he would turn out to be one of its better actors. Beyond that, many will tell you that this movie features the best Shang Tsung. Apart from that, Raiden is also among his best performances with Christopher Lambert. He brought a silly light hearted bit of character into the scene, while also offering guidance and wisdom. 

The fighting scenes are hit and miss, while thankfully being mostly hits. It's worth it to see Scorpion and Sub-Zero, but it would have been nice to see them fight like their video game lore states rather than being "servants" under Shang Tsung. Scorpion has some of the best scenes, especially in his fight with Johnny Cage. While some of the fight scenes start off well, many of them do not have the most fulfilling ending. Many will cite the Liu Kang fight with Sub-Zero when it comes to disappointing endings. 

This Mortal Kombat movie has several problems, but they can be chocked up to a simple writing problem or lack of budget. This was not given a great amount of money, but they obviously did a lot with what they had. The sets look very good and otherworldly like they should. The costume designs were also convincing on a level you didn't often see because no one took video game movies seriously. Paul W.S. Anderson did a great job with this movie, but it's obvious that he wouldn't have done much better with it, given what he did to the Resident Evil movie series. 

It's hard to say what W.S. Anderson would have done with the sequel movie, but many will tell you that it would probably be better than the movie we got. When this movie came out, Mortal Kombat II was on its way out the door to make way for Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. The first movie's plot focuses on the first Mortal Kombat game, but differs a great deal on a few details. While it does have teasings of going with Mortal Kombat II next, but instead, the sequel skipped onto Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Did it do this well? Well no, but check out Mortal Kombat Annihilation in the next review to see how bad it can get.