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!!!