Virtuamehameha #6 - Dragon Ball Super: The No Star Dragon Ball

 Let's get one thing straight off the bat, this is where my journey ended with Dragon Ball as a whole. After starting with Dragon Ball Z on its first run through America back in 92, it has been a very long and arduous journey through years of changed studios, long waits for the series after cancellation, and rises to heights that will never be seen again. Dragon Ball had its hayday all the way through the late 90's to the mid 2000's. It had one of the highest numbers of websites on the internet and has become something of a staple of both Japanese and American culture. There is nary a soul that has not at least heard about this series or at least knows its primary character, Son Goku. 

After the extremely long hiatus after GT ended, Dragon Ball Super was a welcome continuation of the series as if GT did not exist. At first, with the release of Battle of the God's it really seemed like they were off on the right foot. There were some animation glitches, but it was still a charming movie. Then, however, the cracks began to show early, because it turned out that there was an even worse version of this movie, and it was coming out in the actual series. They would do so yet again with the new and "improved" Freeza Saga. 

This series decided it not only needed to borrow nearly everything from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, but it needed to redo or revamp every single one of its previous arcs. The Black Goku Saga was just a "continuation" of the Future Trunks story, which should have ended with Z. If it's not stealing from the previous series, it is doing a tournament. Every single time they come up with new and improved idiotic characters like Hit or Female Broly knockoff. They kept saying that Akira Toriyama, God rest him, signed off on all of these ideas, but the thought of bringing Broly back in any capacity didn't seem like something he'd do. Anytime he was asked anything about Broly, he outright stated that he did not create him, nor owns up to the character in any way. 

The series had gotten to the point where a new form had to be reached in order to defeat the big bad guy and Goku was as strong or as weak as the plot needed him to be. Dragon Ball Super had become all about spectacle with good moments and cool fight scenes. Sometimes, they would show character growth with Vegeta or Goku but it would quickly be washed away with yet another obnoxious new character. Powerlevels and statuses got so abstract and meant nothing, so the powerscale went out the window. Any idea that there could be a number to any of them is now officially absurd. Soon, it all became about how many levels of Super Saiyan could be reached and the idea that it was hard or at all straining to turn your hair bright yellow was laughable. A brand new saiyan character who had barely even begun to fight could just turn Super Saiyan without problems.

Then comes the first female Super Saiyan, which was, again, reached without consequence. This was a very large deal for the community, as the idea of a female SSJ turning up in the series was long awaited. Now that it's come to fruition, it happened... Yeah, it just happened, party popper. Dragon Ball fans' dreams came true over and over again as we saw fanservice come at no cost to the series as a whole. We would get answers and retcons out the wazoo as if it was discounted and sold in bulk. It got to the point where there was almost at least three or four callbacks to the original series per episode. From Captain Ginyu having a brief and meaningless cameo, to Yamcha performing his death pose on a baseball field, this series had no shame.

The worst part about all of it, was the filler episodes. I love Dr. Slump as much as the next guy who knows that it exists, but Arales's return to the series was dipped into one of these. Yes, this may be where she belongs in the series, but the return was as lackluster as the rest of the content that was being put into Dragon Ball Super. There are some good gags here and there, but it's ultimately forgettable. Everything was being done for the purpose of hype and climbing the ladder in power with more and more new forms coming in seemingly every arc. Their hair turned from red to blue with Black Goku going pink, finishing the entire spectrum of Power Ranger colors for all of the memers. 

Harkening back to the filler, it got so bad that there was an entire episode dedicated to King Kai finally asking Goku to wish him back with the Dragon Balls. This is a concept so old, it could drink, but they're just now bringing it up after King Kai has been dead since the Cell Games. The entire episode is Goku having all seven dragon balls and trying to make the wish, but then getting interrupted because other people want things. This was the episode that made me officially stop taking this series seriously. Goku is about to do something selfless and something he probably should have done ages ago, but Master Roshi needs to get off. You know, because he's a dirty old man who likes ladies. Get the joke? Me neither. They brush this off with Bulma calling someone and having everything immediately delivered because money. The episode ends with Goku having taken too long and the dragon disappearing because haha funny. Dragon Ball has never reached this type of low and now it is the bar that keeps lowering. 

It's become trendy to keep latching new continuations onto the series. Even the concept of revamping Gohan back into a fighter or turning Broly into a new anti-hero has become mundane and tapped out. The only good thing to come out of this whole thing is the cool merch and occasional awesome game, but the anime has become another cash-grab that takes the soul from the series. Toriyama-san deserves a lot better. It should have ended like he wanted back in the Cell Saga. The Buu Saga was bad enough and it only spiraled downward. It is a bit of a shame but at least we have the original series and that will not be going away anytime soon.   

Batman or Spider-man? - Saturday Morning Beatings! (Pt. 3)

Very few characters have ever had so many iterations of animated TV shows. Both of them had their own live action and animated series back from Batman's start in the 1930 serials to super hip 60's and 70's shows for both of them with horrific special effects. To Batman's credit, his flew on for entire seasons while Spider-man's poorly received series not even going past 13 episodes. Adam West's TV series went on to be respected as the shark-spraying piece of cheese that it is, but it was hardly the peak of the Caped Crusader's most popular outing. Both of these superheroes have an entire plethora of TV history, but their true renaissance wouldn't come until their Saturday morning animated series in the 90's. 

Batman The Animated Series

Bruce Timm and Paul Dini are the two men credited with making this show the great entity that it was. After Tim Burton's 1989 movie took the fanbase by storm, they wanted to follow it up with a shadowy, more young adult oriented animated series that was also safe(ish) for kids. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill brought about a Batman and Joker that would live on for generations as two of the greatest versions of each character. Each episode was so amazingly crafted with developing stories for both the Batman rogue's gallery and the batfamily, even going so far as to create its own ever-spanning characters like Harley Quinn. Joker's jester-like partner and underling came about with this series in the episode "Joker's Favor". 

Even Mr. Freeze, a character that was never taken seriously before this cartoon, was expanded in his lore and treated as one of Batman's most dangerous opponents. With a wife in a coma with which he is finding a cure, he needs to resort to crime in order to gain the funding. This version of Freeze would become the real version that everyone turned to for reference. Killer Croc, The Mad Hatter, Clay Face, Catwoman, all of them were so done with astonishing quality in both writing and character progression throughout. 

The scripts were written with intelligence and even the worst episode, "I've got Batman in my Basement!", is still good enough to hold its own against scrutiny. Villains were given understanding motivations and some of them are genuinely heartfelt in their dispositions. Sometimes, they don't want to be this way and just succumb to mental illnesses. Most of them are just greedy, though, and with Batman's no-kill rule, it's not as if he's over punishing them. H.A.R.D.A.C. Batman was just confused as to who was the real Batman and actually thought he was the Dark Knight himself. He was a robot clone that was just trying to be Batman. These stories really can go to some dark places and make you think.

The animation and artwork became iconic for Bruce Timm's style and all the way to the Superman crossover and art change, they were very aesthetically pleasing. Once the art change happened, though, Joker, Scarecrow, Bane, Mad Hatter and some others took a bit of a nosedive in character design. It wasn't a dealbreaker and it didn't outright destroy the show, but it didn't do it any favors. The last season is seen as a bit of a weak point but the show was still great. Even when it added the Robins and Batwoman, this series never faltered in its quality. The series in its entirety is still seen as a milestone for the character and comic series of Batman.

Spider-man The Animate Series

Once Spider-man threw his hat into the ring, it took a lot of fans by surprise. You would think it would just copy off of Batman's homework, but it took the series in a whole other direction. The idea for a series was, in fact, directly connected to Batman's, but beyond that, it exists in its own style of art and storytelling. It is far more into progressive storytelling, where the Dark Knight was more episodic. This was a good and bad thing for both series for two different reasons. Sometimes, Spider-man just carried on its stories for a little too long. Sometimes, though, Spider-man pulled off a real banger of a season. 

The early episodes are far superior to the later, though. By season 3, the stories began running on for far too long and this came to a head in season 4 where it ends on a cliffhanger that would never be resolved. It went from episodic and 2 to 3 parters to just going on and on and on with the same story that just ends up getting old. To try and spice it up, they even bring in the X-men 92 characters, but it didn't have exactly the hyped effect that they were hoping for. 

When Spider-man started with fighting Vulture, Scorpion, Rhino and Doc Ock, many agree that the series was at its peak. When Venom and Kingpin had plots, they tended to last longer but kept up the quality writing. There were some fantastic stories being told with pacing that was willing to take its time and build up to the bigger battles. This was when the series was hitting them out of the park! Peter Parker struggled with his home life and his hero life while trying to get with Mary Jane and this had its ups and downs while only really getting annoying by the last season. Then there was the more complicated relationship Spidey had with Black Cat. With villains like the Green Goblin or Lizard being people he looked up to professionally, it held real weight because these were characters we've been introduced to before they went to the baddies. 

There were limitations, though. This was a time when bullet guns were seen as bad, so they switched to lasers. They also wanted to keep a hard Y7 rating for the younger audiences and Fox was on a no violence kick, so there could be no on-screen punches. So, you get more jump cuts away from hits and a whole lot of web shooting to debilitate villains. Spider-man had to use his brain and out smart a lot of his opponents and a lot of kids never even noticed the nonviolence. It didn't really suffer as a result. It was more the graphical aspect and the framerates that hurt the series. Sometimes the slow-motion would just make the screen bug out and the animation would get jumpy and it was weird, even for the younger audience. 

The voice work and the overall execution of the series had its very high points, but also had a few flops. A lot of people will point to the Black Spider-man calling after Shocker, and yeah that's when it was most noticeable. While Kingpin's voice became iconic for the character, there's more stock villain voices for a lot of the rogues. After a while, they started making up villains and pulling some of the more not great versions of well known characters. Blade was done pretty well, but Morbius wasn't. Instead of being a blood-sucking vampire, he absorbed plasma through weird growths on his palms. If they weren't going to go full on with him, then they shouldn't have brought him up in the first place. The did the same with Punisher. Obviously, he wasn't going to go on his normal blood baths like in the more adult themed comics, but the laser blasters just took something away from the more tough-guy persona. 

So, obviously, Batman wins this one by a longshot. Spider-man was not a bad series, it just didn't age as well and took a much deeper dive in the later seasons. It had its place in the vast amount of superhero cartoons, but Batman was seen as the prime example to follow. Many could make the case that Spectacular Spider-man was a better choice to face this challenge, but it was made in a different era, whether it was better than the 1994 series or not. The two of them did well in their own right, but this is definitely 5 points to the Caped Crusader himself! Give them a try and next time we'll examine some of the lesser animated series tries. So, be warned that we may be viewing Beware the Batman. That's right, a warning. You're Bat Warned. 

Pryde of the X-men - The Franchise that Almost Was

There aren't many that have ever even heard of the X-men animated series before the 1992 iteration. As awesome as that series was, there was, indeed, another series right before it. It all began with, surprisingly enough, Robocop the animated series. They gave that series 12 episodes and the reason it didn't have the full 13 is because the final episode's funding was transfered over to what is now known as Pryde of the X-men. This series failed to take root, mostly because it wasn't all that great. The voice acting was a little off, especially with Wolverine's weird Australian accent and Magneto's cliche ridden villain voice. There was a lot wrong with this pilot episode, but it also grew a cult following because of everything it did right. 

We get a fairly decent, albeit long, introduction to each of the X-men. The roster is actually different from the one in 1992, but not really in a good way. Yes, Rogue was one of the greatest characters, but the exclusion of Colossus and Dazzler is a bit of a downer. I like Nightcrawler too and he was barely in the 92 series. Aside from that, we still get Wolverine and Storm, so even with his weird voice, he's still the character we know and love. 

The movie is based around Shadow Cat, who has a very annoying baby voice of Kath Soucie. They call her Kitty Pryde (hence the title) and honestly, she should have been the character they did rather than Jubilee. Her powers aren't exactly comparable or quite as useful in combat, but that gave her a bit more charm than what we ended up with. Professor X still remains basically the same, though his 92 voice is far better without sounding like Charlie from Charlie's Angels. He also gets an upgrade from his normal looking wheel chair. 

The animation is actually far better than what we normally get from old 80's cartoons of the time. They actually stepped up their game, probably because it was the pilot and/or finale of Robocop amount of effort. What could have come from the series may have been a massive downgrade, but I guess we'll never know. The best thing you can say about this show is that it is better than the average animated series. The real problem is that the story/plot is extremely basic and seemed to want to cram anything and everything in its runtime. 

For some reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to literally plop this into a story EXTREMELY similar to its videogame counterpart. All of the Brotherhood of Mutants in this show are treated like boss character underlings while Magneto literally stays in the back and gives commands. Then all of the time, Kitty Pryde is whimpering and whining like a little tiny baby with a rattler. Her dialogue is so cringeworthy, a bit more realism in her demeanor would have been nice, but we got what we got. 

The cool thing about treating every villain character like a VG mini-boss is that we got some pretty awesome dream battles. Juggernaut vs Colossus may have lasted 5 seconds, but it was still cool with the face off with "Me, Juggernaut!" Still, seeing the White Queen relegated to a minor obstacle was a big downer. With so many characters in the toy box, not all of them could get the needed attention, but really, why Kitty? 

Despite its flaws, though, it is still a nostalgic piece of art that many saw in their childhood and loved when they were kids. It may not have aged well with people, but it did become a staple in many collections. I saw this when I finished the 92 X-men's first season and was hungry for some more. This was weird, I'm not going to lie. It was a big difference between this and the far more serious show of the 90's. I had no idea that this was produced by the same lady, Margaret Loesch, who literally put her career on the line to create this entire franchise because she loved the idea so much. This was a fun show and it had all kinds of charm, including that wondrous 80's cartoon charm that so many love and will almost cry from such gorgeous nostalgia. It brought one of the best beat'em ups out of Konami and it was the precursor to one of the greatest cartoons ever made. We owe this random cartoon pilot a lot and it's fun to revisit from time to time. It may be a little hard to watch without crying, but that's just life. Comfort works in strange ways. Virtua Comfort.

Sonic Christmas Blast - The Sonic Stink in your Stocking (Virtua Sonic #9)

One of the worst facts about Sonic's TV series is that the one that lasted the longest with the most episodes was Adventures of Sonic. Yes, we have covered this show in a previous article, but now we're here at the Yule tide season and we're going to be talking about the final installment of the entire series, Sonic Christmas Blast. It has been made no mystery that this show is awful. The Christmas special in question today is no different. 

What was different about this special is that, beyond being the ultimate installment, was also the first installment to do a lot of things. First off, this is the first time it has really been made clear that there is a humanoid civilization on... I'm guessing this is Mobius, I really don't remember... and this is the first time we get a real huge city. All of the other places have been much more shallow while this one actually has a population and some sort of eco system. 

Not that they're very smart, as they immediately get pulled into a Robotnik (yes, he is called Robotnik in this) scheme that really shouldn't have worked in the first place. Sonic catches onto Robotnik having a robot Santa relinquish the name to Mr. Roboto so that he is now Robotnik Claus. It's as dumb as it sounds. Obviously, this shouldn't have worked, but it does. Instead of giving presents to the children and people, they are to all give him presents. They must also do so under pain of imprisonment and/or financial destitution and seizure of all owned assets--MY GOD! Why am I saying any of this? 

It does not take a genius to understand why this is dumb, and that is proven because I watched this at the age of 10 and I still knew it was dumb. At that age, I understood VERY well that SAT AM was the best show and that this was just a filler to watch when nothing was on Nickelodean or WB. So, we're forced to shift to the belief that Santa had the authority to give to the people, but also take from the people with no consequences. Where is the government of this so-called "civilization"?! 

Okay, overthinking it. So Sonic obviously finds Santa Claus and... the story gets even dumber, if you really need to know. He tells Sonic that if he wants to become the next Santa, he needs to pass the... Impossible Tasks? For real, he calls them Impossible Tasks and all of them are seriously so easy that Sonic is able to gain the power of Santa's world traveling ability and he rushes out against Robotnik. 

So, obviously Robotnik's plan is Deus Ex Machina'd BOOM BAM! The little rebellious kid who always believed in Sonic would save them sees that he's now Sonic Claus when he brings the gifts back to his home. It's not a bad moment, really. It's cheesy and heart warming and Christmas is saved. Now, believe it or not, despite its flaws, it does end the entire series on a very fascinating high note. Santa decides it is, indeed, time for him to retire. He officially passes the mantle over to Sonic and that is, actually, it. There is no episode after this. Making Sonic the new Santa and seriously just halting everything there was probably the most genius move they ever made. 

So, yes, this entire series is overall garbage, but it is something to say that there was care put into this last Christmas special. For one thing, the name, Sonic Christmas Blast, was from the game Sonic 3D Blast, but it was supposed to be Sonic Christmas X-treme that was going to come out for the Sega Saturn. It never did and they changed the name before it aired. Thanks to Phelous on Youtube for a lot of this extra information and reminding me that this Christmas Special existed in the first place. Watching it again, it didn't take multiple viewings and that says something about the quality. That means it's better than one episode of Sonic Underground OOOOOHHHHHH VIRTUA SONIC BLAST!!!!!! 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Planet Virtua! 

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. 

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.

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.

Iron Man The Animated Series (1994) - Iron Garbage

 There are few things that live up to our childhood experiences. When you watch an old cartoon that you perceived as your favorite or high entertainment of its age, very few times does it replicate the same experience. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 1987 is still beloved to this day because of how nonsensical but fun the show was, even when it was at its lowest in logic. The same cannot be said for Iron Man, a series that was created 7 years later. 

This show has a lot wrong with it beyond its illogic. This show suffers from absolute stupidity as well as some of the worst performances. This is coupled with the absolutely terrible exposition it feels that it needs to tell. When you had the turtles, you had Donatello to deliver some science mumbo jumbo and get it out quick. Iron Man is constantly talking out this stupid science BS as well as the plot, telling us the storyline over and over again. Sometimes, the fighting is just too fast, as the Avengers West Coast just beat maybe one of them and then the rest of them immediately leave. 

This is coupled with a cast of cardboard characters with some of the worst melodramatic dialogue and Deus Ex Machinas that are just so contrived, it makes the TMNT Donny inventions look like subtle plot genius. The Mandarin is a terribly overdramatic moron that comes up with some of the worst hairbrained schemes every single week. The real insult to the audience is that it always works exactly how he wants it to. Like when War Machine comments that they are destroying Stark property and "breaking their bank", the Mandarin immediately catches onto this and starts just doing things that try to make Tony Stark go bankrupt. Nowhere else in this entire series is this ever referenced again, because it's pretty obvious that he has unlimited funds. 

Somehow, almost every single episode, Iron Man is always the one to solve all of the problems because Spider Woman and all of the other team are only useful for one thing or less. Sometimes, they're just in the background watching the scene play out, wishing Tony Stark luck. The voice acting is just so stilted, and you can tell when the writers are running out of time, because they just explain a problem away and beat the badguy quickly. The epilogue ends with some of the most cliche "Oh, now everything's alright!" This gives the Mandarin the queue to give his defeated line like "You've won this round, Iron Man!" Or even the old chestnut "I'll be back!" It's just sad that this is the best version of the Mandarin I've ever seen. And no, I've never seen the Shang Chi movie. I'm merely pointing out the MCU's gross misuse of Ben Kingsley. 

Some of the worst scenes in the show are when they switch to a very jarring and ugly scene of Iron Man transforming. They felt the need to make it into an Iron Man action figure with how bad the CGI effects are. Seriously, if you can't beat Sega Saturn technology, you shouldn't be putting that into your show. Even the Spider-man CGI show was better looking, even with its own probems. That can be considered outdated for its time as well, but the story and the characters are very likeable. In Iron Man, they rely on idiotic comedy between Mandarin and MODOK. Tony barely ever cracks a joke, he just blurts out one-liners like "It's time to get things ironed out.".... Get it?!?!

It's clear that they did not have as much budget as they wanted, and what little money they did have was used on effects that were already dated in 94. Now, is there a "So bad it's good" quality to this? Yes, actually, the cheesy dialogue is ironically golden. Every single time the badguys make a stupid decision or just give up immediately is honestly hysterical when you don't take it too seriously. If you're in the mood for cheap, campy 90's animated goofups, this series delivers in a big way. Don't expect high storylines or quality characterization, just expect everyone to make all of the wrong decisions until it's conveniant to clear the plot. Jim Cummings can be a little funny with MODOK on occasion, and sometimes they give some decent gags and jokes, but they are rare. 

Iron Man has its moments on occasion. Sometimes it makes you laugh, sometimes you cringe, but it's never to be looked at with any sort of expectations. The only thing you should expect is pure 90's Cheese Whizz. That's what this show is good at. If you want to finish all of Iron Man's franchise in movies and TV shows, then I wish you luck. The Marvel properties were treated with grace and stupidity all across the spectrum.You can expect some gems, but don't expect a short dig through some trash. 

Virtuamehameha #3 - When Should Dragon Ball have Ended?

Dragon Ball has been going on since the manga was released in 1984, and it has garnered a fanbase that is still alive today. Whether it is alive and well or not is up to interpretation. The thing is, Dragon Ball ruled the internet for a brief period in the later 90's and early 2000's. Despite a luke warm reception at first, where Dragon Ball was cancelled in the United States, Dragon Ball Z was much better received. Once it came onto Cartoon Network's new Toonami time slot, it exploded into a mainstream phenomenon. Dragon Ball Z merchantdise became a staple to so many children and so many of them needed to run home from school to make sure their VCR recorded the episode at the proper time. 

Since its hayday, and once the Dragon Ball community found itself all over the information super highway, something happened to the fans. There came a period of Dragon Ball Z where a lot of fans began to splinter into smaller groups. Once the dust actually settled and the hype died down, there came a clear segregation of fans and what they considered true Dragon Ball lore. This was not helped at all by the revival of the series as Dragon Ball Super. Many considered it far better than GT, some considered it worse. Some people even considered it Z, even when it was so clearly derivative of it. 

Dragon Ball was, sadly, not made with a complete creative freedom of its creator, the late great Akira Toriyama. Many fans did not see it as it was happening, but soon we began to notice the cracks in the preverbial mirror. When it was initially created, Akira Toriyama was not going to go nearly as far with the series. After the Cell Games, he was planning to end the series, but once the studio caught wind of this, they told him no, the show must go on. 

Enter Buu. Many will cite Cell as the greatest villain and highest peak of the series, and Buu is often seen as a very low point. There are many, many reasons for this. For one thing, the Buu Saga is entirely too long, Buu is entirely too powerful and the storyline for the entire Saga sees the death of major characters, the Earth itself, and Buu himself is just flat as a character. This was only the beginning, though, as Dragon Ball GT was flat out of decanonized by fans.

After GT ended, the series went radio silent, so of course, after nearly 20 years of nothing but a couple specials, the fans were more than ready! Of course it was going to be better than GT, how could it possibly be any worse? Was it worse? Yes and no. The real problem with Dragon Ball Super was that it borrowed so heavily from Dragon Ball/Z that it may as well have been wearing its skin. Not only did it keep stealing scenes and ideas, but it kept making more and more transformations for Goku to reach so he could defeat enemies. It kept reaching milestones like the first female Super Saiyan, Vegeta reaching forms he never had before and on and on. There was even an episode that teased bringing Kaiosama back to life, which never happened that I'm aware. 

Meta jokes, bringing in characters from Dr. Slump, it really seemed like nothing was off the table for Super. It descended into the same problems of late Dragon Ball Z and GT, too many ideas while feeling the need to bring back old ideas. Much like Hollywood, it really seems like the studio has no intentions of letting this cash cow die. It has grown to ridiculous levels and what was once Dragon Ball lore has become confused and lopsided. 

A huge example of the lore becoming muddled and convoluted is the Black Goku Saga bouncing back and forth between the Trunks future and the present. In the name of making a horribly contrived arc in this new show, they destroyed everything that they fixed in the Cell Saga. Everything that Future Trunks did was undone and the future continued to be garbage. 

With continued repeated arcs, like tournaments, new gods descending on Earth to destroy it for more and more contrived reasons, someone should really start to look at the forest for the trees to see how far we've fallen off the rails. Son Goku was once a child prodigy fighter who travelled across the world to search for the Dragon Balls and do good in the world along the way. It was comedic, it delved into themes like friends, family, loyalty and learning to be part of new worlds. It became more popular with the fighting, but it never lost its comedic element, though it was not seen as often in Dragon Ball Z. 

Now, it doesn't seem like the show knows anything about where it's going and if it does, it doesn't seem to know how to execute these ideas. Bringing back Freeza, making Freeza an ally, bringing back Captain Ginyu only to kill him off almost immediately after, nothing really seems to be off the table anymore and that sort of chaos is not very good for a show while the real brains is no longer at the helm. Toriyama had very little to do with Dragon Ball Super, other than a consultant. 

The answer to this question is fairly clear. Dragon Ball Z stopped being fun and imaginative when Akira Toriyama started to lose his gusto for the series. He was very happy with how popular it became, but he was still a mangaka with other ideas. When he was forced to make the Buu Saga, he did his best, but it was clear that he was lacking focus or any good ideas for things to do. 

Now with the passing of the master himself, Dragon Ball should be laid to rest as well. It's obvious that whoever they have holding the reigns or the people at the writing table just can't come up with anything real or concrete. The show is nowhere near as popular as it was during its hayday and that has to do with many things, but the quality has to be one of them. Dragon Ball Super may be better than GT, but only just so. Toriyama didn't have all of the best ideas, but he obviously had better things planned for his characters than dragging them through endless amounts of mud and making them get higher power levels with new forms. They're not going to end it officially anytime soon, but I really hope they at least give it another long rest at some point.

Now, ending this on a high note, I will say that Dragon Ball Daima looks pretty good. It at least looks like a fresher start than Dragon Ball Super and Dragon Ball GT combined. I'll more than likely give it a look at some point and present my findings in the future. Until then, keep classic Dragon Ball alive and keep drinking water.   

South Park: The Fractured but Whole - Gaseous Timeloops

 The South Park series is one of the landmark series that has somehow stood the test of time for much longer than your normal affair. There are very few TV shows that can boast such a long runtime while also holding onto some level of standards in its content. The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, and many other adult animated series have run for almost as long, if not longer, and have fallen off the rails of comedy with different writing teams and people who have just stopped paying attention to their jokes as a whole. South Park has remained relevant through satirical mayhem, basically taking whatever is happening in the world, making it ten times worse and putting it through their filters of humor. This series has been going for a long time by parodying the world as we know it. 

This game is their take on the superhero genre, using their own superhero personas that they created for the TV show and creating new ones so that they can be put on this game to fight against one another. Using the basic premise of Captain America: Civil War, the MCU, the DCEU and many other facets of comedy, putting them all in a blender and trying to get the kids into making their own superhero franchises. Cartman, also known as The Coon, is going at this wholeheartedly while trying to hold everyone down to his standards and playing underhanded tricks to get you to do all of the work. 

You play the same character you did in the Stick of Truth, only now you can choose your own gender in the center of the game and the game slaps post-modernism in the face with this little gem of an in-joke. You're able to choose from different types of heroes, later being able to choose from any and all of the powers that is teased in the beginning once you reach far enough into the story mode. Cartman has had a terrible falling out with several of the other kids, Kenny and Stan included, and now they're fighting against one another in a hero vs hero story. 

The joke of the entire game is that it starts off with you trying to find a missing cat in what Cartman conceives as a way to get a hundred bucks to go toward their own superhero movie franchise. It starts off that way, but then goes down into a rabbithole of conspiracy that goes ridiculously deep to the point of absurdity, which is par for the course for this series. I won't spoil the ending, but what comes are a good bunch of twists and turns that fade off into a very stale joke at the very end. 

It's still a very fun ride, as the gameplay is actually more of a strategic roleplaying game that has moves like Chess on top of a self aware turnbase gameplay style that I actually liked better than the normal RPG elements of Stick of Truth. The fact that it's partially self aware while also slapping itself in the face with every single terribly wretched joke along the way is a buffet of comedy. 

Not every joke is very well crafted and there are some very repugnant jokes that go a little too far involving children and the main protagonist's parents. It all ends terribly but it at least makes up for it with some of the time traveling elements that they thankfully don't take too far. It's an interesting story while also being hilarious with how grown people just play along with some of the super hero elements that are make-believe while also having real world consequences. So long as you don't think too far into it, it works really well for some tongue-in-cheek gags that get a good bunch of laughs. I am told that some of these jokes were rehashed from later in the series, but my knowledge of the show in its later seasons is patchy and I didn't really catch any of that, so it was all essentially new to me.

This was made for the fans of the show, plain and simple. If you don't like the show, you are probably not going to like the story elements of this game. It still tells a good story and has some good gameplay, but the story does drag on, and as I said before, ends on a very sour note. It's worth a look if you're curious and are a diligent fan, though and I highly recommend it, even if you haven't watched it for a while. There are plenty of great callbacks and it's more or less just a really long episode of the show, almost a South Park Superhero movie of sorts. Take that for what you will. Virtua Ass Fire!