Cycomatix

Capcom is gamefaqs polls most hated gaming company in a matter of days

2011-07-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

Although Blizzard is just barely behind, Capcom has pretty much gone from one of the most well loved gaming publishers to the most hated virtually overnight.

When Mega Man Universe was canceled, I was disappointed. It was okay though, Capcom's word was that the game wasn't shipping up too well, and the few that did play the game said the controls needed more polish. All well, better to not release a Mega Man game than to feed us a cruddy one (I'm looking at YOU X7!).

Then Legends was canceled. Incredibly irritating, and many fans were understandably frustrated. The backlash was predictable, because saying the game doesn't meet your criteria, when the complete wave of arbitrary bullshit that does is beyond comprehension doesn't exactly fly well. But THEN the European Cacpom twitter has the gall to tell fans it's their fault the game didn't get made.

Capcom, you just FUCKED UP. I have never seen a bit of worse PR in my life, than actively provoking and taunting long time fans like Capcom has done over this week. You realize these people want to, and do, actively shower your company with money right?

Then you lie, and say the character who was voted highest in both the North American and Japanese polls (Mega Man X) didn't receive enough fan support to be put into Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, a game which you also lied about saying it had to be on disk because of the tsunami affecting development. I'm a cautious guy, and I don't accuse people of lying often, but the fucking proof in on your OWN WEBSITE.

The response to this whole thing has been pretty amazing if you ask me, and trust me when I say that I'm usually the last guy to jump on fan bandwagons. Just because I often think fans don't know what they want too much doesn't mean I think a company should treat them with disdain or shit on them like this. This publisher vs consumer mentality HAS to end! Capcom, people hate you about four times as much as Sony, and Sony lost millions of peoples personal information! What does it say, when SONY comes up smelling more like roses than your PR machine Capcom?

So how do you fix this?

Selling the Mega Man franchise isn't going to happen. Despite worries that Mega Man is dead, I can assure you his name will live on in hundreds of shitty cell phone games in japan for decades to come.

First thing you need to do is get someone up on the executive level the fans can see as "their guy." The one who is going to bat for them. For the longest time, it was Inafune, and look how you ran him out of the company! Shift things around, kill off a few execs, and promote someone the fans will trust. I recommend Eguchi, the currently strongest voice for the Mega Man franchise.

Secondly, you've killed all trust with making Legends 3. Licenses it out. The CEO of the developer of Asura's Wrath, your next new IP, has expressed interest in it. He's one avenue. The second is Inafune and Comcept. While I think Inafune is well within his rights to tell you to fuck off after he ALREADY had offered to continue working on Legends 3, if you give the guy everything he wants and needs (creative control, resources, etc), I think Inafune will be willing to negotiate on the fans behalf.

If those two options don't pan out, you better go to Inti Creates with a truckload of cash and developers. Let's face it, you can't just up and restart this project in house anymore.

It's true that you could just ignore this whole thing. Eventually Legends 3 will die down to its pre-announced levels. Just don't expect those burned fans to come back.

I don't normally do this myself, but I'm been really impressed with the support the game has given, so on the left I've put up a link to the 100,000 Strong for Bringing Back Mega Man Legends 3 facebook page. I don't even care much for Legends, but let Capcom know how angry you are!

UPDATE: Capcom has managed to fall under to second place by less than a percent. However, at the time of this writing, it was indeed the most hated company according to the gamefaqs poll.

Death of a Legend(s3?)

2011-07-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

So despite my earlier snarkyness, I am pretty disappointed that Mega Man Legends 3 is not getting released. I had my problems with this game from the beginning. The fan participation seemed, at the time, like either a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, or a dumb marketing gimmick. I was pleasantly surprised the former was handled with much care to prevent that from happening, and obviously the latter was ineffective or nonexistent. I also have problems with the series in general being basically Mega Man in name, and having very little to do with it's predecessors. I'm all for innovation, but Legends always felt like the apple that fell just a bit too far from the tree with me.

That said, I did enjoy Legends. The controls were terrible, the camera could be a pain, but overall these games were fun. Perhaps it was that intangible good feeling that's hard to get with a game, or perhaps it's how 1up.com's Jeremy Parish put it, that Legends was a game with heart. While I'm not taking the news as hard as some people, I do feel like this string of cancellations is a bitter pill to swallow, and Legends 3 was the closest thing to the series ever moving forward that there has been in a long time.

Speculation of what is going on at Capcom is all over the place. One theory is that Legends 3 was a scam from the start to sell the Nintendo 3DS. This rumor flies in the face of all logic. Games are EXTREMELY costly to develop, and the Legends Dev team didn't work for free. This theory equates to the Capcom board of directors (or perhaps an approval committee) agreeing to commit funds to a development team as a favor to Nintendo, then taking an eventual and predictable huge PR and funds hit when the game is canceled at the expense of its shareholders. That's active sabotage, with the only goal of losing tons of money and hoping it boosts Nintendo sales. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm saying it's extremely counter-intuitive, and a screenshot from 4chan is flimsy as all hell as proof.

The other rumor is that the game was turning out pretty bad and was canceled because the worry was that the final product would suck. The 3DS hasn't met expectations in sales, so the install base is already low, and low review scores would kill the game even further, hitting capcom for further losses than they've already had with the development. I think this rumor has some truth to it, particularly the idea of the 3DS making the game unprofitable (admittedly this is playing into my own biases though) but the other point about the game being bad seems an attempt to me to lay too much blame with the developers.

It's certainly possible Eguchi dropped the ball and the game was turning out terribly, but as early in development as Legends 3 was, it's hard to say for sure. The prototype being released would give us a sure sign if something was wrong, and Capcom's criteria for what makes a good game seems to be all over the place these days. If Inafune's words are any insight to the situation, a good game is a game attached to a great one, and Capcom is big on sticking to low risk sequels. Aren't you pumped for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3?

I really don't think the developers are to blame here. I think some of the asinine decisions by the executives held this game back from the start. The point of releasing for the 3DS was to cash in on early console sales, but so far the majority of the public hasn't been fooled by this stupid nintendo gimmick. Pushing to an imaginary install base was the first mistake.

The second mistake was relying on the tired and true method of retail releases. This is one of the key points Inafune was talking about with the insane unwillingness to digitally distribute certain games, and an absolute cornerstone in his point about the death of the Japanese gaming market. Fire up Steam, XBLA, or PSN, and you will find a disappointing lack of major Japanese releases. This reliance on the old system of retail distribution is absolutely killing them. Retailers sell a lot more games used than new, which sees no profit to the developer. Meanwhile, gamers are showing to be perfectly willing buy these games online when they are available, Mega Man 9 was absolutely proof of that.

If they wanted to make Legends 3 profitable, they'd have designed it that way from the start. Develop it for a digital release on PSN and Xbox Arcade. Hell, split it into episodes and charge for each individually, then you'd see a return on your development quicker as the cycle continued. This isn't rocket science, but it seems like Inafune is the only man in Japan willing to cast away the old traditions to meet the new market.

What we have now is Capcom burning its fans really hard with nothing to show for it. I didn't invest myself too heavily into Legends 3, but those long time supporters that did are rightfully pissed off about it. Some have been careful to not say that Capcom owes us anything, but frankly they're wrong. Capcom does owe it to their fans to work with due diligence and not string them along. Video games as art are constantly downplayed by naysayers, but Mega Man has given many fans as much, if not more, as any other art form. And in return, the fans showered Capcom in support for just as long.

Unfortunately, gaming companies, especially the Japanese ones as of late, treat their clients as adversaries, rather than partners. And this attitude, more than anything, is what is killing the market.

I'm not advocating a boycott, and I will continue to buy Capcom products that I feel will meet my gaming needs (albeit with the rate they are canceling games that hold my interest, nothing is on the horizon). As a consumer though, you should feel absolutely entitled to handle this situation in any non-violent, non-criminal ways as you see fit. You are well within your rights to completely stop supporting the company and take your money elsewhere, and if you want to bombard Capcom with your dissatisfaction through emails, web postings, organized petitions or what have you, more power to you. Do not let yourself be silenced, and do not convince yourself it's futile. The fans got Legends 3 on the radar in the first place, they can get it finished.

I assure you the developers will not publicly say it, but you can be sure that your outrage with the executives is a show of support for them. Even if they are silent, they are not happy with this outcome. Stand behind Eguchi, Kinako, Greg, and all the others who worked hard to get this far, and speak up for where they can't.

Oh man!

2011-07-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

Am I ever so glad I don't have to drop $300 on another Nintendo gimmick system!

What Makes it a Mega Man?

2011-06-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

Rockman Day Wallpaper showing most incarnations of the series.

Pardon me for the abstract thinking of today's post, but after seeing the latest wallpaper released by Capcom on the fan holiday of Rockman Day (June 9th, see this post by Protodude), I got to thinking about this series in its roots, and in its saturation.

In a recent presentation, series creator, and former Capcom Keiji Inafune, stated that Capcom had a policy in place setup to reject new Intellectual Properties. Here's a snippet from Joystiq:

In one anecdote, former Capcom exec Keiji Inafune illustrates how he got so high up in the company and the kind of behavior that likely led to his hasty exit. During a presentation at Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University, the Neptunia Mk-II weapon dished on the corporate culture at Capcom, and how he gamed it to get Lost Planet and Dead Rising made.

Before those games, he said, Capcom had a rule requiring 70-80 percent of the games produced at the company to be sequels, and the management rejected pitches for new titles even beyond that proportion. Inafune started up two new projects, Lost Planet and Dead Rising, and just kept them going even after the prototypes were rejected. Source Joystiq

Keeping that in mind and seeing all the incarnations of Mega Man as he is today, one has to ask themselves how many of these games would even exists if they did not bare the Mega Man label? Beyond profit motivations, and references to past games, what ties these games to the Mega Man property?

Classic Mega Man

We'll ignore the main series for now of the 10 classic series games. Of the franchise, these are quite clearly the most relevant to the Mega Man series. Each game has you playing as Mega Man in 2D-side scrolling environments, of which you choose the order in which you conquer, and hands you a vast array of weaponry after defeating the stage boss - weapons which you can use against other bosses in a weakness chain. These features are very distinct to the Mega Man franchise - or are they?

We get some minute changes in the X series. X arrives as the new protagonist, wall kicking and dashing are new game mechanics introduced, and new power-ups arrive in the form of armor upgrades. This series feels like the classic series, and the formula is mostly unchanged. Pick your boss, take their weapon, and use it on the next boss. While the cast is different, the core of the game is the same.

After this series though, things get more complicated. Legends would come out next, and was much more loosely tied to the original blue bomber. Our protagonist here, Mega Man Volnutt, merely shares his name coincidentally with the franchise starter, as does his foster sister, Roll, share her name with the Roll from the classic series. No solid ties are made to our original cast of mad scientists and out of control robots, and the gameplay is vastly different as well. Volnutt explores 3D dig sites (underground temples of past society) in a linear order, while looking for parts to build sidearms (of which he is only allowed to carry one at a time) and fights giant robots, which take a pretty baseline amount of damage from just about everything.

Legends really has little to do with the Mega Man franchise in terms of gameplay, but the action roots are still strong with in it, and for what it's worth, if you didn't know the franchise all that well, Volnutt looks as much like Mega Man as any Mega Man character does, albeit a bit older. If the character design was changed though, the names changed, the art different, did it still need to be a Mega Man game?

Even one of Capcom's community managers Greg Moore (GregaMan), an intermediate between the Japanese and American Capcom communities, brought up this topic.

Topic: Mega Man Legends dispensed with many of the conventions, characters, and basic elements of previous Mega Man games and gave birth to myriad new ones; So, does it really even need to be a "Mega Man" game? What do you suppose the Mega Man license contributes to this series? Would it have been the same game if instead of Mega Man and Roll, it had been "Adventurer X" and "Random Mechanic Girl Y"? Source: Capcom-Unity

The Zero and ZX series follow. The gameplay is closer related to the original series with the 2D action platforming, but the actual Mega Man character is sidelined for new protagonists, and in ZXA almost entirely absent. Bear in mind I'm talking about X here instead of classic Mega Man, who makes no appearance in the series. While there are changes to the basic formula for gameplay; more open world exploration, selecting weapons in styles instead of straight up weapons - the feel is definitely more Mega Man than Legends.

In Battle Network, the formula is completely different. The setting is less action oriented, more strategic, and heavy in story of unrelated characters. Everything is a reference to the original games to some degree, but this game, as much as Legends, could easily have been a brand new IP. Finding and collecting battle chips, fighting bosses on a grid, strictly linear gameplay, these elements are quite different from the series roots. The games did try to hark back a bit with the introduction of Double-Soul and Soul-Crosses, a method of allowing MegaMan.exe to copy the powers of his friends and foes, but the majority of the game was very different, and the audiences don't necessarily overlap between these styles of games.

MegaMan.exe definitely looks like Mega Man though, and is instantly recognizable as the character to those who have only played the original classics. When we get to Star Force however, the similarities start ending. In short, Star Force has nothing to do with the roots of the series except for the names. Geo Stelar is an 11 year old human child fighting aliens from space, he's not even a robot! Star Force takes its roots more from comic book heroes than Mega Man. The gameplay breaks even from Battle Network, and there are very few characters who could arguably be drawn from inspirations of past games.

Geo Stelar and Omega-Xis from Mega Man Star Force

Don't get me wrong, none of these are necessarily bad games. I loved Star Force, but it demonstrates a problem when a company will not push a title unless it has an established brand slapped on it. I'm not one to argue that all sequels are bad, but refusing to push forward innovation stagnates the classic series as they're raided for tie-ins to the new games, and great games like Dead Rising or Lost Planet almost didn't make it because of corporate thinking by Capcom. That's not even taking into account the hundreds of one-offs like Mega Man Soccer, Mega Man Battle and Chase, or the cell phone games. It's certainly hurt Mega Man as a franchise to have these loosely connected titles, which one only needs to see the decline of popularity of the Star Force series as proof.

In this regard, Mega Man needs some time to be shelved, allowing fans to get pumped for the next incarnation as the developers work tirelessly to perfect it. Examine all the hype around a new Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda or Mario game. The major titles in these series are released generally a few years apart, and when they're announced, the hype is huge. Mega Man is a classic gaming icon, and I think he deserves this treatment as well.

With regards to new properties in the Mega Man franchise, they have to go to the roots. Legends 3 is starting to shape up to be pretty good looking (despite my earlier fears), but I'd like to see a push towards taking this game more to its Classic roots than Legends roots. Simple things like allowing Volnutt to change between all his weapons, acquiring weapons from bosses, allowing a big choice of stages to pick from. Heck, even just changing Volnutt's armor color with his weapons would be a nice throwback. These things would be a way to push towards formulas that have worked, while adding in the Legends exploration and RPGish elements to keep it all fresh. What Mega Man doesn't need, is another host of new redesigns that could easily go into making brand new series.

The Mega Man Fan Film

2011-01-04T11:47:00.000-08:00

I figured what better way to start off the new year on my blog with a review, and this time I've finally gotten around to watching the Mega Man Fan Film by Eddie Lebron. Is it everything we could have hoped for in a Mega Man Movie or nothing more than a glorified Live Action Fan Fic? Well don't just take my opinion below, see it for yourself on Screwattack!

Plot Synopsis
The story of Mega Man is far from a complex tale, after all it fit into about a paragraph or so in the original game's instruction manual. Dr. Thomas Light, genius in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence, constructs 8 new powerfully advanced robots with the assistance of his long time confidant and lab technician, Dr. Wily. After introducing his robots to the world, and being adored by the media, Dr. Light decides the next robot he'd like to create without Dr. Wily's assistance, due to a complication relating to their first prototype. This of course infuriates Dr. Wily, who hatches a nefarious plot for revenge and world domination!

The new Robot turns out to be Rock, programed and designed to be the most human like in both body and mind of all Dr. Light's robots. After only a day of being built, Rock goes through a mid life crisis, unable to find purpose with his existence. This goes on FOREVER until Dr. Wily finally kidnaps Dr. Light's robots and sends them loose on the city.

Knowing he is the only one who can stop Dr. Wily, Rock convinces Dr. Light to upgrade him into a super fighting robot, now known as Mega Man. Mega Man initially struggles to defeat each robot master but then is aided by the mysterious prototype robot who had fled from Dr. Light's lab. This robot, Blues, through a mistake in his core design, somehow managed to have free will, and for now, has decided to aid Mega Man in his quest against Dr. Wily.

Eventually Mega Man defeats all of Dr. Wily's robot masters, but is then trounced by Wily's war machine, The Yellow Devil. Blues destroys the monster and takes Mega Man back to Dr. Light where, broken and battered, he tries to recover.

Meanwhile, Dr. Wily has stolen Mega Man's schematics, and sent in a Copy Machine to kidnap Roll to use as a hostage. Roll is easily deceived by the Copy Machine and captured just as Mega Man recovers. Dr. Wily threatens to kill Roll if Mega Man doesn't come and surrender at his floating skull fortress of doom! Mega Man eventually beats the Copy Machine, defeats Wily, and saves Roll. Dr. Wily surrenders and begs Mega Man to not hurt him just as the police arrive.

Mega Man and Roll are then seen looking at the city from a park bench, with Mega Man stating that he now feels fulfilled. The two then spot Blues from a distance as they are leaving, while Mega Man gives an approving nod.

Critique
From the off-set this movie has many things going against it. First, being an independent film, it has some horrendous acting in it! Truly the most robotic performance here is that of Dr. Light. Edward X. Young has a great voice, but is so deadpan and emotionless that his character is so hard to care about. Most of the acting is stiff as it is, with Mega Man and Roll being particularly bad as well.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Dr. Wily gives a hilarious, if a bit hammy, performance that I think single-handedly saves the film! It's insane, it's over dramatic, but damn if I couldn't wait to see what the guy would say next!

The second problem with the film is that it is based on a franchise of which the auteur is, if anything, fellating, rather than adding to. There is a lot of tongue n' cheek references, humor, and camp added to this movie that not only feels unnecessary, but I think ultimately hurts the film. Much of the film has representations of Mega Man using his 8-bit sprite, and there is a particularly groan inducing sight gag (which you would only get if you had played the games) where Dr. Light suggests tracking the robots using the select screen from the first game. Of course this never comes up again, so it only serves as a pointless reference.

The robot masters themselves are also ripped straight out of Mega Man Powered Up, exhibiting the exact same personality traits, such as Ice Man's split personality, and Fire Man's BURNING JUSTICE! The characterization here though isn't done for the purposes of the story, but to nod and wink to all those fans that "got it."

That said, I love the direction they went with Proto Man, and the orchestral remix that was done with his theme is a huge highlight to the film. It really fits the mood, and Proto Man's dilemma between death and free will easily makes him the most interesting of all the characters. If the cast was as interesting as Proto Man, this could have been a much better film.

Next, working on a low budget means cruddy special effects, and bad fight choreography. While there isn't a lot an independent director can do about some of this stuff, the cheese factor is off the charts with the badly rendered 3D models of some of the robot masters. Perhaps if all the robot masters were 3D rendered, this wouldn't have looked as bad, but Mega Man vs. Guts Man for example, looks just so silly.

On top of this, the fights are extremely quick, incredibly anti-climatic, and lack creativity in the weapon usage. I grant the games don't give much wiggle room in say doing something like, using the Rolling Cutter to cut a tree down so it falls on somebody for instance, but this movie had every opportunity to keep the fights from being "Mega Man blasts robot, robot blasts Mega Man." Unfortunately for the majority of the fights, they decided the back and forth shooting was the route to go.

There was one really good use of the special effects, and that would be Ice Man's surfing freeze move, which was done quick and not focused on heavily enough to detract from the effect. Good movies disguise their faults, but this one seems to take no issue with it.

Finally there's the writing. There's a story in here about the humanity of man and what it really means to be alive... except it's really hamfisted in here and painfully delivered. So blatant are the characters emotions, the dialogue may as well be "Beep boop, I am sad." "Boop Beep, I am sad too."

There's a lot of milling around in this movie, especially at the beginning as the director tries to establish these characters for the audience, and they really eat up a portion of the movie. The characterization doesn't come off very well, as the cast redundantly goes over the same issues, from the same perspective, the same way. Scenes not dedicated to Mega Man's post-activation depression feel like the characters are quizzing each other on plot holes. A typical scene plays out like this:

Mega Man: Dr. Light! Why doesn't Dr. Wily do this?
Dr. Light: Oh Mega Man! Because of this technology thingie!
Mega Man: Well how bout I do this?
Dr. Light: Sorry Mega, you're stuck with this other technology babble thing!

By contrast, the actions sequences are incredibly brief, as if the director was feeling the need to rush through them to get back to the character scenes.

At the end of the day, this movie doesn't stand on it's own legs. It's made for Mega Man fans, and that's it. So absorbed is this movie in it's own franchise that it's really impossible to enjoy knowing nothing about Mega Man. Take that away and you've got a badly acted drama about robots with some fight scenes glossed over. The movie celebrates the franchise but brings nothing to it. This movie isn't going to bring new fans to the table, or bring back fans of the classics. While it's not the worst movie I've ever seen, at best, the enjoyment of the film comes at it's own expense (in the so bad it's good way) and at worst, it's a hero-worship title without any ambition to do the series any favors. Maybe worth watching if you're insatiability curios, but you won't miss anything by skipping it either.

Mega Man Turns 23!

2010-12-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

It's December 17th, and 23 years ago today, a buggy, quirky, and excruciatingly hard game came out that started a franchise so overwhelmingly popular, that now even Capcom doesn't know how many damn games there are.

This year was pretty good for Mega Man. Mega Man 10 and Zero Collection came out, and Mega Man Universe, Mega Man Legends 3, and Rockman Online were all announced. This will be the first anniversary without Keiji Inafune, but his company is starting up, and I don't think the franchise is in any trouble without him either.

As for me, well I'm looking to establish some free time before I start another series of reviews. Believe it or not, working in the game industry is a REAL time sink. Sitting on my plate is Rockman.exe Beast, and the Mega Man movie, but there's no way I'm getting to any of that till next year.

Alright, I'm Excited

2010-11-22T17:35:00.000-08:00

While I'm having nagging doubts and worrisome thoughts about Legends 3, and I've yet to see anything from Universe that looks to satiate me, I gotta say, I'm god damned excited about Rockman Online.

I'm glad to see some company actually put some effort into the Mega Man Franchise. Inafune basically admitted he was sick of working at Capcom, Capcom themselves have half-assed the series for quite a while, and even when the good games do come out, they're usually just good instead of exceptional.

I ask you where is Mega Man's push to the next generation? It's starting in Korea.

Granted, it's another cutscene trailer, but it has a hell of a lot more imagination and effort in it then what we've seen in a long time. But hey, the game itself is shaping up pretty awesomely too! TOO BAD THERE'S NO PLANS FOR IT IN THE US YET! ARRG!

Even so, Capcom Unit, the official Capcom blog site, is hyped up for it, so who knows what the future may hold. Here's a hint though, the authors at Capcom Unity's pull around the company is JACK SHIT.

Didn't See That One Coming

2010-10-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

Kotaku is reporting that Inafune is out. At this point that takes the Mega Man franchise out of his hands for good at the end of the month. I gotta say I'm a bit surprised that he's calling it quits just as the one game he's been pushing to get made for years and years finally gets green-lighted.

Although the creator is being removed from the project, this may be a good thing in the end. If any franchise needs new blood in it, it's this one. This could be a chance for a young gun developer to take hold of the franchise and breath some new life into it.

I had my misgivings about Legends 3 ever since it was announced for a hand held. While that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be bad, or even not amazing, it seemed to me that Capcom was playing it safe trying to be the big game at the system launch amid the sea of crap that always hits at release date. It was as if they didn't trust that it was going to do well enough on its own.

Furthermore, this co-development by the fans thing is looking like a huge gimmick to me. I've always hated the "design by committee" approach to just about everything, because you either get an incredibly bland product, or a completely directionless product.

I guess it's okay so far, with just a series of contests between the developers with fans voting on the best works, but the more interaction the fans get, the more chances we could end up with Portal references or just flat out weird fan-fictiony interactions between the characters, particularly Mega Man, Roll and Tron.

With Inafune washing his hands of the franchise, and the reasons above, we could be up for a rocky start in the new era of Mega Man games. Something different and awesome could come out of this after a while though. Games are only good when the creator has a hold of them right?

Legends 3 In Developement

2010-09-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

So I gotta say, I'm incredibly disappointed Capcom is continuing this series on another hand-held. The 3DS to me, looks pretty much like a big gimmick in the making, with more games coming out that focus on the graphics than the gameplay. It also sounds like limiting yourself so much when you've got to design a game for this little tiny screen instead of something out there for the consoles. I find it so frustrating that the only damn Mega Man games that come out on the consoles are essentially Mega Man 2 remakes, while the franchise continues to advance slowly on the hand-helds.

That said, the announcement finally got me to look at the 3DS, and at least from the screenshots I've seen, it looks like we've got the power of a gamecube coming to our hands in the least, which should be more than enough for this game. Sure, I just complained about games based on graphics, but I'd at least like to see the game advance past the Playstation 1 days. I don't need to see the individual hairs on the monkey's ass here, but the 3DS should make Legends 3 a pretty game.

With all my complaints about the game being on a hand held, it's hard to watch Inafune come out like this and not get excited.

You can feel the enthusiasm in his voice. You can see the excitement in his eyes as he stumbles over his words. And you can see that the man has been humbled by an audience that has basically given him the mandate, support, and opportunity, to create this game that's been ten years in the making.

Right now I'm not worried that Legends 3 will be a bad game. Inafune looks to be really fired up over this. I mean, he decided to break the news over Youtube and through Capcom's website. This is a relatively big news story in the games industry. Capcom could have easily sold this story to a magazine like Nintendo Power, or a website like IGN or GameSpot, but I don't think he could have waited any longer to get out there and say, "Hey guys, it's finally happening!"

Legends isn't particularly one of my favorite series in the franchise, but it has always been a fun series to play through. Having never seen a 3DS in action, and seeing Inafune as fired up as he is, I think it's very possible that Inafune decided to release this game on the 3DS as soon as it was given the green light.

Let's keep in mind that the series was far from incredible though when it came out, so lets not hype the game out to its grave. If Inafune wants to make his Magum Opus here, he has to surpass everything he's done so far and pour it all into this. He's been green-lighted by the fans, and now finally Capcom itself is on board, so lets wish him luck, and hope Legends 3 will be the pinnacle of the entire Mega Man franchise.

The Universe is a Bit Calmer

2010-09-10T11:00:00.001-07:00

As more details come out about Mega Man Universe, my fears are being eased, slowly. While I still think the trailer is incredibly disappointing to look at, just knowing that custom characters, levels, and the like are going to feature different styles of play has slightly picked my interests back up into the title.

I really hope Capcom pumps as much juice into this game as possible though, because they really have a chance to get lazy and rely on user generated content, which would be a huge mistake if you ask me. Aside from the fact that millions of fan made levels are pure shit (just try Little Big Planet, or even Mega Man Powered Up), they're usually limited to the tools the developers give us to play with.

I personally, also don't feel like making my own levels. I'm not looking at a set of Legos, I'm looking at playing a Mega Man game. So please Capcom, don't skimp out on the professional content here.

As more news for this game comes out, I have a feeling I'll personally be more pleased and interested in playing it. I really want to see some other Mega Man protagonists make the cut here, at the very least X. If Capcom is smart though, they're going to play this slow and make the fans anticipate whats coming next.

Belated Zero Collections Review

2010-09-08T04:46:00.000-07:00

There isn't a hell of a lot to add about this game that I haven't already said in my Zero 1, Zero 2, Zero 3, and Zero 4 reviews. The games for the most part are exactly the same, so I'm going to approach this review from a different angle. The question is, if you already own the entire Zero series, should you pick up Zero collections anyway?

If you look at the few things that are exclusive to Zero Collection, you won't really find much. The gameplay is exactly the same, the story is exactly the same (barring a few script alterations), and the games are for the most part the same. So what Zero collections has in its corner is Easy Mode, slightly customizable controls, and a gallery of new and old art. Inti Creates has also built in the E-Cards that were associated with Zero 3, but more on that in a moment.

Easy mode allows the player to venture through the series, one title after the other, playing with full upgrades for Zero. You get all the cyber elves, all the forms, and you take no penalties to your score for using them. This mode takes the challenge down from the Zero games to a very casual level, and it's not a bad way to spend an afternoon if you're not looking for too much of a challenge. Annoyingly, you can only have a single saved game of easy mode going on at a time, and you can't choose which title to start with. If you want to play Zero 3 on easy mode, but you haven't finished Zero 1 and 2, you're out of luck.

Aside from easy mode, the main games are all selectable from the start with very minor, if at all noticeable tweaks. The developers went out of their way to take any instance of the word "death" out of the script, and a few parts of the game have arranged music. I think there was a mini game or two removed (one of the multiplayer minigames unlocked after finishing one of the titles) and of course, you don't get the Z-Saber card for Battle Network 4.

In addition, the extra X and Y buttons are mappable to whatever other button on the controller you want them to emulate. This makes the game a bit more widely, compared to playing it on a Gameboy Advance, or through the GBA slot on a DS.

Lastly are the mod cards. In Japan for Rockman Zero 3, Capcom released cards for the e-reader peripheral. These cards add mostly aesthetic changes to Zero 3, with the occasional power up and new character, but they don't change anything too important. In Zero Collections, you can unlock a deck of these cards after you finish one of the four titles. You can apply these cards straight from the main menu.

There is also a gallery showing off various artwork on the bottom screen. You unlock these pictures through normal gameplay. A majority of them are old concept pictures that have been floating around forever, but it's still a nice touch.

With all the new features out of the way, I'll return to my original question. Should you buy this game if you already own the GBA series. It really depends on if any of the above additions appeal to you, or if you just want quick access to the whole series through your DS. However, if you don't own any single game of the series, collections is a must have for the Mega Man fan, and you should give it a shot if you thought the series was too hard to get into as well.

There really isn't any reason to hunt down the GBA copies over the collection either. Aside from maybe some idiotic puritanical devotion to seeing Harpuia say "kill me" instead of "finish me." But remember that what you see with Zero collections is what you get. Don't expect to unlock Misadventures of Tron Bonne or something if you finish all the games. Luckily in this collection's case, that's certainly more than enough.

My Mega Man Universe

2010-09-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

For all we know, Mega Man Universe could still turn up awesome. It's a possibility anyway, but I can't say my hopes are up for the moment. Right now we know the biggest draw Capcom is pushing for this game is the ability to play as other characters, with enough footage of three different re-skinned Mega Mans, all sharing the same moves and abilities. But we've also got to assume some characters will play different at least, being as touted as Ryu is in all over the trailers. If we ignore the characters who are simply reskins, we could be possibly sitting on something here.

I'd like to share with you for a moment my vision of Mega Man Universe. You turn on the game and are presented with a few scenarios at the screen select. Story Mode, Custom Mode, Challenge Mode, and maybe a few others after some thought put into it.

I'll get to the others in a minute, but for now, lets go with custom mode. A character selection screen pops up, but instead of being robot masters, this time it's for characters the player can choose. In it exists a huge cast of Mega Man characters spanning nearly 25 years of games. We can choose a character, and then we're given the option to choose a game. One of the games from over the years, of any of the series.

Well it'd be ludicrous to have Capcom to recreate each game with new characters and jam pack it all into this game, so instead, this mode choose from some of the best moments of a given series. We set ourselves to a randomly assigned game and suddenly we end up with something like this...
Or how about we fiddle with the options a bit more, and get something like this?
Suddenly we've opened up a whole new world of possibilities! How would you like to relive some of the best Mega Man moments, with the character cards shuffled a bit? Wouldn't be awesome to go back to say... X5, and for the X versus Zero showdown, instead we're playing as say... Bass?

How about running a digger scenario from Legends with Geo and Sonia? Let's get real ridiculous and face the final boss of Zero 4 with a servbot! How about taking 8-bit classic Mega Man, and putting him in his level 7 and 8 games? How about we can walk into this thing, and have it randomly choose the characters and setup for us, so we can be surprised by the constant different gameplay.
Why stop there even? Why not celebrate all of Capcom with us? Have Dante show up in Mega Man Star Force, play as the bionic commando Mega Man 2, and since Frank West already has the X-Buster, why not let us play a level of Dead Rising as X?

Going through story mode should be something akin to the story mode of Super Smash Brothers Brawl. A big, nonsensical epic tale of Dr. Wily working with Sigma and Dr. Wiel to really screw up the space time continuum. All of our Mega characters work together, and the player unlocks new characters as we go along!

Challenge mode sets us up in preplanned unusual scenarios, like using Tron's Gustav to beat up Chill Penguin or something, or buster dueling Mega Man Juno with Mega Man classic. Completing these, and in fact, completing a large list of scenarios, unlocks more characters, more levels, and more modes.

Imagine a Wario-Ware style mode, where the player quickly shuffles through random setups and goals. I really see potential in celebrating the blue bomber this way, and I think going this route would encourage new fans to seek out some of the other games! Mega Man Powered Up proved to me that Mega Man can be fun as hell with new characters, so lets see Mega Man Universe really push the envelope with this, instead of being another rehashed Mega Man 2!

The Mega Man Universe Trailer

2010-09-02T21:14:00.000-07:00

Alright, so we got our first look at the new Mega Man Universe trailer. I think it's fair to be disappointed by the footage, and even skeptical of the upcoming title, and that's because what's in the trailer isn't innovation, it's just homage.

Let's get a few things straight. There's no way I could possibly argue that I'm not an over-interested fan in the series, to put it lightly. When the game comes out, I won't hesitate to buy it and play it no matter how bad it is. I've got a Mega Man collection that nearly includes every US released game, and at this point, what difference is $10-$50 going to make for a new one? I don't believe there's any special kind of integrity or wholesomeness that comes with sticking to the series, any more than being some sort of intellectual connoisseur that avoids mediocre to bad games. It's a stupid hobby, and I feel like continuing it because I get a satisfaction out of it, and more power to the people who skip this game if it turns out to be a big pile of rehashed shit that it's leading us to believe so far.

So Mega Man stars in another 2D platformer, but this time with modern ugly graphics, and extra playable characters that nobody really asked for. The trailer hovers around Mega Man 2 styled enemies and levels, and I get the impression this is the game Inafune wants to live up to Mega Man 2. To put it bluntly, I believe Inafune is jerking off to a fan fest of his Magum Opus.

I'd like to quote Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation, who I believe sums up my thoughts exactly.

Fans create sequels that hold up the predecessors as something to live up to, rather than something to improve upon. And that's not the right mindset to take. If you're not going to try to be better, what's the point? To give something to all the other fans? They won't appreciate it. The more fan-oriented an installment becomes, the more holes they find to pick in it. Some kind of Un-fan-ny Valley effect, perhaps. But give it to someone who isn't a fan and they'll force it to change, and evolve. The fans will like it even less, but frankly, fuck 'em.

Inafune is looking more and more like a fan of his own work everyday, and while there's still a chance something special is going to come out of this, the trailer doesn't get me excited. So the game looks like Mega Man 2... so what? I have Mega Man 2 and have played it already. So the game lets you play as Ryu and Arthur. So what? I didn't buy Street Fighter IV or Super Ghouls n Ghost because I didn't give two shits about playing either of those games, give me some better reasons to play these characters besides a big Capcom circle jerk.

We're reaching another stagnating point of Mega Man's career, and that frankly just sucks. Why can't we have a real new innovative Mega Man game? Why can't we have brand new graphics, an amazing new innovative gameplay, and maybe even an interesting story? Why isn't Mega Man coming out with new games like Mario Galaxy, or Metroid Prime, or other games that try to push the series forward? Even Sonic the Hedgehog, with his terrible array of shitty games is at least trying different things!

The biggest step towards anything different this series ever took was with Battle Network and Star Force, and now we've been reduced to re-releasing those games while we go re-hash a 22 year old formula to play it safe. Is this game going to suck? It's still to early to say, but which trailer excites you more?

This gameplay trailer of the same old shit

More Mega Man Universe Info

or this fully animated cutscene trailer of somewhere the series has never been?

I know next to nothing about either of these games, but I know my interest is at least sparked with Rockman Online.

Battle Network 5: Double Team DS Addendum

2010-08-16T23:37:00.001-07:00

A little more than half a year ago, I reviewed Battle Network 5 for the Gameboy Advance. I had finished both Team Protoman and Team Colonel, but I pretty much phoned in Double Team DS. I had assumed the game was largely unchanged with a few graphical additions and some new music. While this is mostly true, the game does feature a few new gameplay additions as well, which I neglected to mention. There isn't enough there to review the entire game over again, as the story, graphics, and level design is mostly unchanged, but I felt like pointing out some of the changes and how they affect my impressions of the game.

The biggest change to Battle Network 5 is the addition of Team Navi's and the Party Customizer. Early on in the game, ProtoMan and Chaud (or Baryl and Colonel) hand you a new device hooked on to Lan's homepage that allows him to add another Navi to his PET. This allows you to call upon other navi's aid during combat, or switch to them altogether. Navis come in all shapes and sizes, and you'll unlock them as you progress normally. Your team members have special abilities, such as ProtoMan jumping in to attack with a wide sword every now and again, and Gyro man using the Fan chip during combat.

Most of the abilities are pretty useless, but you'll find something you want out of the available choices, and being able to switch to another navi with full HP when MegaMan's in a jam is really helpful, especially when fighting somebody like Bass. Occasionally they'll get in your way and screw up combos and what not, but you can turn them off at any time. This whole ability certainly pulls back some of the tedium of wandering around, but it doesn't work in dungeons or liberation missions.

In addition to this, you can also obtain an item from the NumberMan trader that allows you to switch two team navi's from the different versions in the middle of a liberation mission. That means if you'd rather have ShadowMan over GyroMan, or KnightMan over MagnetMan, it's as easy as selecting a menu option.

Other changes include a few extra character portraits, some shoe horned DS minigames, bonuses for slotting into the gameboy advance other Battle Network games, and a tie in with Boktai. None of these things are very interesting, though the extra portraits were appreciated.

All and all though, it does little to alleviate the major problem with Battle Network 5, the limited folder options. You're just plain stuck with a pretty bad folder the whole way through the game, without a hell of a lot you can do without sacrificing power or versatility. You really have to play any Battle Network game except 4 to understand how precious having a wide range of chips is to one of these games.

In addition to this, you can't even trade chips between versions on the same DS! Talk about killing a selling point! Double Team DS is certainly more enjoyable than the gameboy advance versions, but the game overall is still a big turd on the whole series.

Mega Man NT Warrior vs. Rockman.exe

2010-07-31T05:15:00.000-07:00

In various circles of "anime purists" I have consistently seen a meme spread among fans of Rockman.exe that the American Dub butchered the series. Is this what happened? Only by watching both shows can anyone really determine that, and having done just that myself, I'm going to have to remind folks that Rockman.exe wasn't that fine of a cut of beef to begin with.

Now to be fair, there are plenty of scenes in the show, and some other distinct changes that the dub made in strange ways, but a good portion of it comes down to nit-picking in my opinion. Far too many people have put the original show on a pedestal, when it just isn't that great a show in the original audio or the dub. So let's knock the original show down a few pegs, and maybe prop the dub up a little with a point by point comparison!

The Story

For what it's worth, each episode is nearly identical plot wise, with nearly no deviation. It does happen often enough to be noticeable if you've seen both shows though, in the form of a few cut scenes, changed dialog, or just different effects used. The biggest deviation I can think of that actually changes how the plot looks would be from the episode, "Don't Mess With Mama Zap!"
The episode in the original show has Count Zap in a drunken stupor, literally drinking out of the bottle, and ends with the possibility that either something magical happened, or Zap was hallucinating, as he confirms his mother has been dead for quite some time. This can be inferred in the dub version as well, but only if you're catching the subtle hints left in from the original. Either way it's still a weird episode.

Another change goes into Gauss's character, particularly in the episode, "Working for Grave." In the dub, Gauss is shown to highly respect Dr. Wily, but in the original show, he's flat out obsessed with him, and a cross dresser.
As I said, most story changes to the show are pretty minor, and very few of them give different or new context to the situation at hand. In most cases when something is different, the dub will add tons of lines of dialog from characters speaking off screen. I've pointed out continuously that characters in the dub speak ridiculously fast about certain things, and this problem is absent in the original. In fact, sometimes the original doesn't have the characters speaking enough, leaving the situation more confusing than mysterious.

A good number of cases I find the dub pulls off individual scenes better than the original, and other times, the original is just better. The shows are mostly identical, but the changes really do go scene to scene. I personally don't see a distinct winner here.

The Characters
The biggest change is not what the characters say, but how they say it, and Mega Man and Lan are quite different from Rockman and Netto. Well, actually, Lan is mostly the same, Brad Swailey's voice just isn't as convincing at being a young kid as Higa Kumiko, the Japanese voice actress. Netto's voice carries more innocence to it, and in a lot of ways makes the character more believable in some of the childish shit he pulls. If there was anything I wish the dub had done, it would be that it should have made an effort to make Lan sound his age.
When it comes to Rockman vs Mega Man, this call is a bit tougher. Frankly, Andrew Francis is a great Mega Man. His voice gives Mega Man a mature sound, without being too old. It feels right. Character wise, Mega Man's dialog has been altered to give him a bit of a bite to him, with a few cocky lines and a trash talking attitude, this Mega Man harks back to the Ruby-Spears character, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Akiko Kimura's portrayal is a lot more traditional. Rockman is much more serious, earnest, and good natured. This is the Mega Man character you know from the Battle Network games, and if there is any reason to watch both versions of the show, this is it. This is the most significant change, the attitude of the titular character. I think it works both ways if you ask me, though Rockman's portrayal may be only significant to me because of the games I've played. Someone who is just watching the show could take either character as a preference I suppose.

Most of the characters are exactly the same, but the voice actors decided to add a little something to them in the dub. Masa's Texan behavior, and Mr. Match's Scottish accent come to mind, and while not everyone likes these traits, I always found them endearing. Masa's dub voice actor in particular adds so much great dialog to an already well written character, that I just have to prefer him over the original, and the same goes for Mr. Match. I have to say, there maybe some English speaking bias here, because I simply don't know enough Japanese to pick up the nuances and dialects like a native speaker. Perhaps those characters are just as endearing over there if you know what to listen for.

Although Count Zap in the original speaks a lot of really badly broken English, with his catchphrase being "GOAD DAM MIT!" I'm guessing he's supposed to be an American or British character, but he sounds to ridiculous for me in a bad way in the original. If you'll recall, Count Zap is one of my favorites in the dub.

The rest of the cast has such minor changes it's hardly worth bringing up, although Ice Man sounds like a little kid instead of a 40 year old chain smoker, and I prefer Chaud's dub voice actor to the original. This maybe influenced heavily by my speaking English, but I have to say on average, I enjoy the character from the dub a bit better.

The Music

Japan is huge on creating a certain type of theme songs for their shows, and Rockman.exe opens up with a big ballade about fighting with your friendly net navi to solve mysteries and stuff. It's a pretty catchy tune, and if you've played Network Transmission, you've heard it before.

NT Warrior goes with a techno beat as the main theme, and while not as lyrical, it fits the world of all these computer age situations. When either of the main themes start up, Mega Man is generally turning the battle around, and it's time to start cheering!

As for the rest of the tracks, neither show uses more than about 10 total, and many times I felt the original show's selection seemed off in a number of places. Music in editing is as much timing as it is the music, and I simply feel that the dub's timing is much better.

The Cut Content

I speculated a long time ago that many of the episodes that were cut for the dub were done so for the sake of censorship. Just watching the original show, there are lots of language censorship in just about every episode, at least according to the fan translation I watched.

However, I am comfortable in saying that my speculation was mostly wrong, and these episodes were cut because they are by far the most boring pieces of trash I've ever seen involving Mega Man. Every cut episode is awful, absolutely awful. The only thing you miss from any of the cut episodes is a line about how glad Lan is the have Mega Man back after he is resurrected. That's IT! These episodes are on the lowest rungs of the totem pole for quality, especially the episode involving the introduction to that abomination to 3D animation, Aki.
In a show that's already rimming with continuity errors, stilted animation, and absolutely retarded dialog, that was in the script long before they headed overseas, making episodes as bad as "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," must of took an excruciating amount of effort. It's so awful. I find it hard to fault the dub for cutting some of the stuff they do, considering they didn't want the show to end up canceled.

Final Thoughts

I've never been particularly kind to XEBEC for this show, but I think Rockman.exe gave them the experience they needed to make Star Force as good as it was. When the show was shipped to the US, I think only the most retarded of Japanophile fanboys could seriously make an argument about how the dub ruined the show. The dub isn't perfect, but the main show isn't all that special either. Just cause Mega Man is in it, doesn't mean it's as worthy of the admiration it has.

If you enjoyed the dub, check out the original show for a slightly different take on Mega Man himself. If you didn't enjoy it, Rockman.exe isn't going to convert you by any means.

Catching Up

2010-07-31T04:38:00.000-07:00

We'll I've been uncharacteristically swamped with work as of late, and unfortunately it just hasn't left me much time for Mega Man games and posts on this blog. Trust me, I have my eye on Mega Man Universe, whatever Inafune promised is coming around the corner, the Battle Network and Star Force books, and even the now fully translated Rockman.EXE Beast.

My time has just been swallowed up, but I'm pretty comfortable in allowing a decent time frame to pass before reviewing a new game like Mega Man Zero Collections anyway. My reviews are far from "The Last Word," on the subject before anyone makes a purchase, so I'll take my time with the game and enjoy it and give it time to find its place in my collection. A review is forthcoming, but since I haven't had much time to play the game, I'm not satisfied that I have enough knowledge of the game to review it just yet.

Over the past few weeks though, I did manage to catch some of the translated Rockman.exe every so often, and I now feel I have enough knowledge of the series to make a comparison to the dub, Mega Man NT Warrior. The review is on its way in just a few minutes.

On the chopping block

2010-06-10T01:57:00.000-07:00

There's been a fair amount of Mega Man news lately and I think it's worth sharing my thoughts on some things.

First, Capcom community leader, Seth Killian leaks that there are some cool ideas heading our way in the Mega Man department. Speculation doesn't go on for very long before a patent hits the US Patent Office for Mega Man Universe.

The fans reactions vary all over the place with even more speculation, ranging from "I'll never buy this crap again," to, "I'm so excited I can't breathe anymore!" Without anything to go on, everyone begins digging hard to find out what's up with Mega Man Universe. Is it a new series? Is it a new type of game? Does it take place somewhere else? How does it tie into the rest of the franchise?

While this is going on, a Korean game surfaces, Mega Man Online. The details aren't very laid out just yet, but it appears to be a 2D Side Scrolling MMO, starring X and Zero. This game so far is only slated for Asian markets, excluding Japan. Is this Mega Man Universe? The words "Universe" and "MMO" certainly go together, but would Capcom file a US Patent for a game that currently has no plans to be released states side?

Capcom is asking about potential US interest in the title right now, but there aren't any plans yet. It has me wondering... could Mega Man Universe be something else? I guess they could be going with an early plan B and it could be, but you'd think if that was the case, they'd put "X" in the title at least. Interesting note, a few weeks before Mega Man Online surfaced, Inafune said X9 would not be the next X game. Was this cause he already knew this game was on the way.

While this rolls around, the Mega Man fan movie is finally completed, to mixed, but generally positive reviews among the fans. I haven't seen it yet, but it's on my todo list.

Udon meanwhile announces they'll be translating a Battle Network art book, similar to the Mega Man Complete Works, slated for November, which has me pretty excited!
And finally, released Tuesday was the Zero Collection for DS, which I have always considered the strongest series in the franchise.
What a hell of a lot of news huh?

We should get a lot of answers in a few days at the Japanese Summer World Hobby Fair, which has been a decent send off for new Mega Man games the past few years. My initial thoughts were that Mega Man Universe might be the name of the US release for Operation Shooting Star, but this idea isn't a new "rad concept" but more of the same, if anything. I'm also skeptical that Mega Man Online is Universe, for the reasons listed above, plus the fact that the game is being done by a team outside of Capcom, meaning that the Star Force/Battle Network team should be free to be working on something. But of course, that means if Mega Man Universe isn't Mega Man Online, then just what the hell is it? I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but I suspect we'll know in a week or two.
As for me, I've been doing a few things here and there. First off, I've been watching a Fan Sub of Rockman.exe, and have seen some notable difference of which I have a small post planned for in the future. In addition to this, I'm thinking about reviewing Battle Network 5 Double Team, as I recently played it a bit more extensively, and think it is different enough from the initial release of the game to cover more than I originally thought. Zero Collections is on my list of things to buy this week as well, so expect a review on that in the future, and possibly a review on the Mega Man fan movie.

And I'm on break

2010-04-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

While I will never tire of Mega Man, I am getting some pretty heavy fatigue with this whole writing thing. The last few reviews have taken forever to do, because I'm dividing my time up differently. It's just as well, because I don't really have much more to say about Mega Man for the time being.

I'm not a big fan of comic books or mangas (and they're expensive enough as it is to get a hold of them) so I won't be heading that direction with Mega Man reviews. I don't really collect toys either, and while I wouldn't mind having some cool Mega Man figures, what would I really say about them?

This isn't a news site, and I have no interest in tracking down every piece of merchandise with Mega Man's face on it. Fan content and games don't hold my interest either (although a few choice items stand out), so for now, I'm out of Mega Man stuff to review. We've got Zero collection slated for summer, and I'll be on that one for sure, but I don't have anything in the que, so to speak.

I've thought about some other projects, such as the Sonic series, Castlevania, or Maximum Doom, but I'm not quite ready to get back into the mood of daily posts, so for now, I'm on hiatus. I'll probably work on fixing up the posts so they look less retarded (no promises!), but I'll be doing that at my own leisurely pace.

I've been doing these reviews for myself, but I've always written as if an audience was reading. While I don't have many readers, checking my stats lately shows I've been getting more and more returning hits as of late that are actually looking at something other than my cache of screenshots, or my poor use of vulgar language stringed together with certain characters names (Christ, why is everyone so obsessed with what's under Mayl's skirt!? SHE'S 11 and a CARTOON!).

Anyway, if you're perusing the posts, feel free to leave a comment. I won't always respond if there isn't much content in your post, but I do read them all. Don't hesitate to post corrections, errors, or general feedback. And if you think the quality of any of the articles is poor, which you'd be right, don't hesitate to let me know.

Mega Man's been a whole hell of a lot of fun to me these past 22 years, and here's hoping he's still fun 50 more years from now!

Mega Man 10: Threat From Outer Space!!

2010-04-12T05:14:00.000-07:00

When I started reviewing Mega Man games several months back, it was a leisurely way to escape my own problems for a little bit, and articulate just why I love this whole franchise, starting from the original Blue Bomber, all the way to Mega Man Star Force, and hitting all points in between. After running out of games, I hit up the several cartoon series until I had nothing left to review. With all the sequels, spin-offs, and remakes in this franchise, I find it fitting that my last review (for now) comes back to the roots of the series.

I initially expressed my fears with the series continuing on in 8-bit, stating that I felt the series would become stagnant again. I've always felt that Mega Man has fallen behind the other gaming icons of his day, such as Mario, Link, and Sonic, and, while I don't think Mega Man has anything to prove, I find it sad that he has yet to have a real Next-Gen console game that utilizes the capabilities of any of the systems.

That is a complaint with the series as a whole though, more than anything, and doesn't affect my review so much of the individual game. The game itself is good, higher quality than most Mega Man titles, and it could be the start of something great for the franchise.

New Features

Play as Mega Man, Proto Man, or Bass (DLC), in three (slightly) separate stories.
A difficulty select which changes the game quite significantly for all three options.
Returning from Mega Man Powered Up, Challenge Mode.
Save and watch replays of your best times, or check out the ranked leader boards videos.

Story
Okay, now I know Inafune knows these stories are just a load of junk. I'm serious, when asked about Mega Man 10's story in that online broadcast a while back, he basically said, "what story?" So yes, Mega Man 10's story is pretty silly, and it honestly could be the plot of one of the Ruby-Spears episodes.

One day, Roll gets sick with flu like symptoms. She's been infected with a virus that makes robots sick, and they've dubbed the virus, Roboenza. The virus soon spreads, and starts causing robots to go out of control and wreak havoc.

Dr. Wily shows up at Dr. Light's lab after having been attacked by one of the robots. Wily's been working on a cure, and has created a machine to help him, but it was stolen by the robots. Mega Man runs off to get back the machine, and Proto Man offers to help him along the way.

From here, you can choose who you want to play as, Mega Man, Proto Man, or Bass (if you've downloaded him), and the story changes slightly depending who you pick. I'm talking like a few sentences at most, hardly anything to get excited about. Even Mega Man and Bass had more variety in the story.

Anyway, surprise surprise, it turns out Dr. Wily was behind everything! After defeating Wily, he's rushed to the hospital with a fever. He escapes from there, but leaves behind the cure to Roboenza.

Aesthetics
Inafune is the type of artist that likes to do more with less. Like a painter who's canvass is a business card, Inafune has restricted Mega Man 10's color pallet back down to 8-bit. Of course, Mega Man 10's graphical prowess is a joke, hardly utilizes any of the consoles to their full potential, but Mega Man just looks at home in his limited color values.

I'd gauge this game aesthetically superior to Mega Man 9, as most of the environments have a lot more detail. By comparison, Mega Man 9's environments were a bit empty. Mega Man 10 transports the player to an icy plain, to a psychotic highway, to a sports arena. Every inch of space is used up appropriately, and there is a great deal to look at. The game is big on some small details too, like the met hat sitting on top of a building in the credits, the addition of Tango and Reggae sprites, and just the overall feel of the game in general.

The bosses are pretty ridiculous looking, and I get the feeling creating these robot masters is getting harder and harder. As stupid as Sheep Man is, you can almost hear the developers snickering to themselves with each bolt of electricity he sends at you. If anything, it's Pump Man that wins the award for stupidest looking robot master, as he literally jiggles the back of his head to attack you.

However, some robot masters made a reappearance in this title, a couple with brand new 8-bit sprites! Wily's first stage is by far the highlight of the game for this reason. I was a bit disappointed with Bass's new sprites however, as I think the Neo Geo sprites of Bass just look better, but this is a minor complaint. Overall, Mega Man 10 surprises you at every turn and gives you something to look at on every screen.

Sound
Mega Man 10 hits the batting average in the music department this time around, which is always good, but far from the home runs of Mega Man 2, X, ZX, or Star Force. The title screen music is pretty good, and the majority of the games tracks are pretty mellow for a Mega Man title. I really wish they were more memorable and kick ass like some of the other games, and I'm not a big fan of the introduction music, but otherwise it's a decent soundtrack. As far as sound effects go, nothing you haven't heard a million times before.

Design
At first, I wasn't too impressed with Mega Man 10. It was better than a good chunk of Mega Man games, but it didn't hit all the right spots in terms of fun that Mega Man 9 did. For example, in Mega Man 9, you're hit with a great deal of new platforming gimmicks and enemies, from the rotating platforms in Tornado Man's stage, to the swinging pendulums in Jewel Man's stage.

Mega Man 10 starts out pretty standard in my mind, sticking with the tired and true type of level design, rather than laying on the gimmicks. However, Mega Man 10 is easily much harder than Mega Man 9, because it doesn't rely on those cheap tricks. More often then not, the stages are designed around wearing you down, while the instant death spots are pretty obvious to avoid with some timing.

Mega Man 10 makes you think about how to beat each screen based on the enemy layout, where as Mega Man 9, you could pretty much just blow through everything with the right weapon. This time around, the weapons are a little more balanced, and require the player to think on the proper application of the weapon to make use of it. Interestingly, most of the weapons are actually pretty weak with a head on direct shot, but quite powerful when you use them right.

Figuring this out can be tough, so it helps that a lot that players are able to upload videos of their best times through a stage directly through the game. Take note of these players techniques, and you'll discover some very cool things, like riding Wheel Cutter up walls, or the weapon switch trick with solar blaze. It's at this point, I began to see the depth of the design of the game start to break the surface.

This game really functions more methodically than other Mega Man games, and each screen presents a sort of puzzle to get through it. Running and gunning won't work this time around, and even after you've beaten the game a few times around, it'll require you to make choices about how you'd like to proceed. For instance, Triple Blade is easily the best weapon in the game, especially against minibosses, but it has the most difficult pitfall sections. You could wait until after you've gotten Rush Jet to get past it, but by then, the utility of Triple Blade might be gone.

Enemy setup aside, I found most of the stages pretty bland, but a few kick ass. Commando Man and Nitro Man's stages are fun, and Wily 1 is probably the best stage ever made in a Mega Man game! (You fight 1 robot from each of the previous nine games!) The levels that I thought were bland, however, instantly became much more memorable in Hard Mode, which is damn near impossible to beat. It's easily harder than Mega Man and Bass, and it adds so much to the game in terms of replayability. The first time a boss hit me with a new attack in hard mode, my reaction was "HOLY SHIT!"

Rounding out hard mode is easy mode, good for beginner and younger players, like my 7 year old cousin. It's a joke to anyone whose experienced in Mega Man games, but hopefully this mode will bring in a new generation of players. Proto Man and Bass also offer their own unique styles of play, giving you quite a chunk of game to see.

Mega Man 10 pumps out some extras as well, as challenges and achievements have returned. The standard "Beat the game in such and such time," and "don't get hit," achievements are there, but now the game has added a multitude of little scenarios to complete, ala Mega Man Powered Up. The scenarios are fun and give you a chance to practice on some of those pain in the ass bosses.

Also returning is time attack, but with a twist. The DLC for the game lets you download new stages with the Mega Man Killers, Enker, Ballade, and Punk, and beating these stages grants you the robot master's weapon as well, even for the main game! How cool is that? Unfortunately, you can't run the time attack with Proto Man or Bass as of yet, which sucks pretty heavily. What's the deal here Capcom?

Between Mega Man 9 and 10, I'd say 9 is the better game, because I enjoyed the platforming much more, but 10 is just barely behind it in terms of quality, and I won't at all be surprised to see people prefer this one over all the others.

Playability
I played my copy on the Nintendo Wii, and had a major problem with accidentally pushing the weapon switch buttons during normal game play. Maybe I just have fat fingers though. I doubt this is a problem for 360 and PS3 owners, and if you own one of the classic controller add ons for the Wii, this would probably eliminate that problem.

The characters all control smoothly, though I found Proto Man's ability to block shots with his shield cumbersome, as it only works when he jumps, and it isn't very reliable. The other playability issue comes from the weapons, which take some time to learn to use properly, particularly Thunder Wool, which is almost entirely useless if pulled off wrong, and difficult to use at that. Frankly, I've resorted to just forgetting about the damn thing against Pump Man.

Extras

My personal boss order so far is: Chill Man, Nitro Man, Commando Man, Blade Man, Strike Man, Sheep Man, Pump Man, Solar Man.
Wheel Cutter goes up walls, and is just too fun to use EVERYWHERE!
It is possible to Rush Jet across the pits in Blade Man's stage, although it can be a perilous journey.
If you have trouble, check out the replays posted in the ranking charts of other player's attempts, or post some yourself!
Defeating a Mega Man Killer in time attack will net you his weapon for the main game as well!

Mega Man 10 didn't disappoint, and I keep finding new things to like about it. I'm really liking the community aspect that's starting to come together around Mega Man with the leaderboards and rankings. Mega Man 10 has a lot of polish and features Mega Man 9 didn't have, and while I still think Mega Man 9 was better, I'm liking the direction 10 is taking the series. Yeah, I still wish we had a real Next-Gen title, but at least Inafune is finding new ways to play with the old style.

Rockman.exe Program of Light and Dark

2010-04-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

While I'd like to review Stream, Beast and Beast+, unfortunately those series lack complete subtitled translations as of yet. However, there is one last Mega Man cartoon which did get translated, a movie rather. This 50 minute movie from the Mega Man NT Warrior universe puts a final cap on the Dr. Regal saga, and retells the events of Battle Network 5... with quite a liberal use of creative license. For now, this will be my final Mega Man cartoon review.

A bit of background, Program of Light and Dark takes place sometime during the Stream series. Stream followed a story where cross-fusion became a bit more prevalent amongst the cast, and Lan and MegaMan ended up having to deal with a being from outer space named Duo, with the help of a new mysterious Navi named Colonel, whose mysterious operator hides his identity from Lan. Anyway, Bass decides he wants to take MegaMan's ultimate program (the junk from the end of the second season of NT Warrior) to make him self the ultimate navi. He attacks MegaMan a bit, then gets banished to the undernet by Duo's helper, Slur. Fast forward to the movie...

Plot Synopsis
We open up with some sort of cross-over between Rockman.Exe and some other anime series about card battling or some shit. Maybe this was part of a double feature or something. Anyway, once the movie begins proper, Bass is floating around the undernet when suddenly a giant monster thing appears. Then huge laser things start moving around the Earth and absorbing building and people and stuff, and forming strange glyphs in the landscape.

Lan and his friends are at an amusement park while this is going on, NetBattling to the Stream opening theme of "Be Somewhere," and he suddenly gets a call from his dad to go put a stop to it by blowing up some huge server or something at a building called TRINITY. As MegaMan arrives in the server to destroy it, Bass shows up and starts fighting him. Colonel also shows up in the nick of time to help out MegaMan, and distracts Bass while MegaMan blasts at the server.
It's not good enough though, because the strange entity of energy sucks up the data anyway and the monster Bass ran into shows up, who Bass identifies as Nebula Grey. The big laser beams show up again and start sucking up the city, along with all of Lan's friends. Lan is momentarily depressed when his dad picks him up, and tells him he has a plan how to get everyone back.

So basically these lasers aren't killing people, but actually the remains of a program called Spectrum, which is the combination of two programs by Tadashi Hikari (Lan's Grandfather) and Dr. Wily. Essentially, it makes it so people can materialize in the cyberworld, but the project got canceled when Dr. Wily went to work for the Netopian Army.

Anyway, apparently Nebula Grey was hidden in the program, and is trying to suck up the real world into the cyber world. MegaMan wonders if he's strong enough to stop it, and asks Lan if maybe they should give Bass MegaMan's ultimate program to stop it.
Just then, Dr. Regal appears out of nowhere, apparently having survived getting blown the fuck up in Axess. When LaserMan was taken out, his data was sent to the cyberworld, and Regal went with him. Then, Dr. Regal had enough time to find out about Nebula Grey, and grow a pretty wicked goatee. Anyway, he's fused with Nebula Grey and plans to take over the world, but in order to do that, he needs to kidnap Lan's father for some sort of access code with Tadashi Hikari's program. They teleport away, so Lan meets up with Chaud and Raika to form a plan.
Using Chaud's connections with the Netopian army, Chaud learns the location of base where Dr. Wily's program is stored, and presumably where Dr. Regal has taken Lan's father. Raika, Chaud, and Lan all Cross-Fuse with a SciLab dimensional area around the island and attack. They're surrounded by laser shooting mechs, which Raika and Chaud hold off, while Lan looks for his father.

Then Regal activates Spectrum, using the codes found in Dr. Hikari's fucking iris, and this somehow causes a temporal rift in time, which sends Baryl (Colonel's operator) to the future, and he rescues Lan from certain doom. They find the capsule where spectrum is functioning, and Jack MegaMan and Colonel in to stop it. Colonel holds off security while MegaMan goes to deal with Regal, who is jacked inside the machine.
Nebula Grey is starting to materialize in the real world, but luckily, Bass shows up to help fight him off, apparently pissed that Regal manipulated him somehow... I guess? MegaMan and Bass are strong, but not enough to stop Regal, who starts absorbing them in Nebula Grey. MegaMan figures his only hope is to give Bass his Ultimate Program to stop Nebula Grey, even if it means MegaMan's deletion.
Bass is all too happy to oblige MegaMan's request and begins absorbing his ultimate program... but wait a second, it looks like MegaMan is actually taking over Bass's ultimate program! MegaMan fuses with Bass into a Bass DoubleSoul, and then uses his new power to destroy Nebula Grey, and Dr. Regal once and for all.

The process of the Earth turning into the cyberworld stops, and the world is saved. But uh-oh! Regal was a load-bearing villain, and the whole island is blowing up! Also, MegaMan is too weak to escape and Lan can't jack him out. Bass breaks the DoubleSoul Cross-Fusion, and MegaMan is able to jack out while Bass is absorbed in the blast and presumed dead (he's not). Baryl returns to the past, and Lan and his team are picked up by the Net Police as the credits roll.

Critique
If you understood any of that, please explain it to me, because this whole fucking story is beyond comprehension, and is so convoluted and confusing, I can't really say if it's good or bad. This story makes no fucking sense, and I'm speaking as someone who actually is up on the Mega Man canon. Imagine if you were someone that didn't know Mega Man too well, this would be complete drivel to you! Stream isn't necessary to watch before seeing this movie, because it won't make it any less confusing. The plot is just a broken mess.

That aside, the animation, artwork, and music are all top notch. This is what you would expect from a bigger budget movie, and MegaMan has never looked better in this high quality. We also got to see a lot more of Bass in a role much less retarded than his previous ones, which is always a plus, and he actually fought MegaMan this time. This is definitely an eye candy event.

I did like that they cleverly threw away Lan's friends for most of the movie to keep the plot more action focused, because if you had any time to think about the plot, you wouldn't be looking at all the pretty animation. There's a lot of clever effects here, and I especially like the mosaic ending effect.

It's been a while since I've watched a subtitled episode of Rockman.exe, but there's quite a noticeable change of tone between the two shows. MegaMan and Lan both sound much younger, which I think works to their advantage some what, and the musical choices are completely different. The cross-fusion music in particular, which became sort of the theme of the Japanese show feels off when it's used, but it is catchy.

For as stupid as the plot is, I'm glad I watched the movie at the end of it. It looks nice, and as a Mega Man fan, I enjoyed it. I can't say I'd recommend this to anyone besides Mega Man fans, as I was lost enough knowing what was going on. I'd probably hate this movie any other way, but you can't deny the animation is good. I think Star Force carries on this level of quality with its animation in a lot of episodes though, with less of the retarded plot nonsense. As a Mega Man fan, I rate the movie a thumbs up.

Rating: Thumbs up!

And that's it for the Mega Man cartoons. I'd love to do Stream, Beast, and Beast + some day, but I won't touch them until an English subtitled release comes out. Beast is almost done, but that group updates slower than the continental drift, and Stream has been on indefinite hold by so many groups so many times. Right now there is a group working on subtitling the original audio for Axess, and they plan to do Stream and the others, but they just started and I wouldn't count on seeing that done to completion anytime soon, even within five years. Face it, fan projects suck with time tables, and there is surprizingly a lot of drama amongst self important subbers, so with that little egotistical trait they all seem to share, I wouldn't count on ever seeing me review any of the next few series. All well, at least I mostly enjoyed what time I had with Lan and MegaMan.
Next up, the last review (for a while) for Mega Man. The new game, Mega Man 10!

Axess: Dr. Regal's Rampage

2010-03-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

This is it folks, the final episode of the American Dub of Rockman.Exe, Mega Man NT Warrior. It's the season finale to Axess, a season the departed from jumping into networks, and instead went for merging characters together to make super heroes. Whether you thought the show was better or worse for it, Time-Warner killed it. So how did the show go out?

Plot Synopsis
Of course, things are pretty bad. Dimensional area covering the whole world, millions of NetNavi's trapped and being messed up, and ShadeMan running amok! Oh hey, Dr. Regal just cross-fused and instantly killed ShadeMan! Well at least the darkloids are out of the picture.

Except now, Dr. Regal has decided to have his master plan come to fruition. Cross-Fused with LaserMan using a lot of Dark Synchro chips, Regal increases his size to tower over sky-scrapers, and being destroying DenTech city! Not only that, but apparently there are other giant LaserMan's all over the world doing the same thing!

Everyone retreats back to SciLab for the time being. The goal is to take out Regal's tower, which is powering up the dimensional area across the Earth. If that goes down, Regal's cross-fusion should break. The power source is in the center of the tower, and using a series of deus ex machina information, fake techno-babble, and some just straight up bullshit, Dr. Hikari knows that there's some ultra firewall thing blocking their NetNavis from attacking, but he also knows what to do to get around it, maybe.

In any case, Regal is heading to SciLab, so Lan tries to stall for time by Cross-Fusing with MegaMan. He loads up five DoubleSouls, giving him Cross-Fused DoubleSoul Ultra Power Extraordinaire Super Duper! (Yeah, I made up most of that...) Even with this extra power, Lan can only really annoy Dr. Regal. Chaud awakens ProtoMan and runs to help out Lan, whose been exhausted so much, he can't even move.

Chaud continues to stall for time while Lan struggles about, unable to get to his feet. Raika meanwhile has arrived at the scene to deal with the power source and firewall. He's enlisted the help of the rest of the cast (Mayl, Tory, Dex, Yai, Shuko, Higsby) to deal with the viruses guarding it. Everyone jacks in, and then we roll the stock attack animations, oh yay? Also joining the fight are JunkMan, ThunderMan, and BubbleMan (looking for revenge for ShadeMan).

While this happens, Chaud is thrown down hard by Regal, and taken out of the fight. Regal continues advancing on SciLab, which futilely tries to protect itself with it's own dimensional area. Regal breaks through, and it looks like everyone is done for!

But wait! All the millions of NetNavis who have been captured begin cheering for Lan and MegaMan. In an act of true anime cliched fashion, they transfer all of their power to Lan's cross-fusion, and he goes super saiyan. His power levels (whatever the hell those are), are so high, they blow up Mr. Famous's computer. Lan gets up, and then puts the beat down on Dr. Regal, all without Battlechips or his Mega Buster. He just straight up beats the shit out of him with his hands and feet!

With Regal on the ropes, Lan fires a charged shot, just as SearchMan destroys the dimensional area generator. Regal gets blasted and lets out a villainous "Nooooooo!" and blows up. The dimensional area collapses, and everyone enjoys a party under the meteor shower. Regal is missing, but ah, who cares right? Just look at the size of that meteor! Oh yeah, and BubbleMan gives back Rush.

Then Ms. Yuri turns out to be alive looking at it, and says some ominous words while looking at the meteor. NOT THAT IT MATTERS! The show is dead, sorry folks!

Critique
As far as ridiculous goes, this episode pretty much tops the entire series. Like a finale, it's big big big, and if you've ever seen any anime, this is about as standard anime as you can get. There's a lot of things wrong with this episode, particularly with every scene involving Dr. Hikari, but the whole package is wrapped up nice enough to keep you from dwelling on it.

You've got all the major players of the season showing up, the big bad guys plan starting up, and all hope being lost until the main character fucks the villains up. The music is in the right spots, the animation is mostly well done, and the ending is satisfactory, if a little hamfisted. It's about what you'd want, and the setup for stream is too minor to really bring it into a lot of focus. There's really no reason to miss this episode.

Rating: Thumbs up!

And that's the end of Axess, and the entire dub. The show was never picked up after that, and later Mega Man dubs would also be completed mishandled by Time-Warner (see Mega Man Star Force). Time-Warner must have felt this series was such a disaster, it never even came out on dvd... ouch.

Axess has it's moments, but I feel it's inferior to the original series due to the complete tonal shift of the show. The break away from the Battle Network style, while still trying to keep a semblance of the original source story, disconnected the show for me. As a whole, I'd still say Axess is worth watching if you're a Mega Man fan, or even if you enjoyed NT Warrior, but I don't know how to gauge it against the other shows that were running at the time.

In Japan however, Rockman.Exe would continue for quite awhile, and transition into Star Force after that, without a break between seasons mind you. The show would continue with Stream, Beast, and Beast +, but after Stream, the show took some noticeable hits. The seasons were shorter, and then the time slot was cut in half. Last I heard though, the show is still airing in syndication over there.

As far as the US is concerned though, I wouldn't count on ever seeing the other seasons continued. In all likely hood, Time-Warner still owns the rights to airing Mega Man related media on television, and they have a history of not working with it. Viz Media did comment as recently as last year that something might happen with the NT Warrior series, but as to what is only speculation. In all likely hood, it'll be the dvd release of Axess, or if we're lucky, subtitles of the original shows, continued on to the episodes we didn't see.

Rebooting the show just isn't going to happen. Aside from the cast having moved on, the only people who care about the show are few and far between. First, you need to be a Mega Man fan, then you need to be a Battle Network fan, then you need to be a fan of the show. That's quite a niche audience if you ask me.

Even the idea of the dvd release is skeptical if Battle Network doesn't have some sort of renewed interest. Capcom is pushing for this with Operation Shooting Star, but if that doesn't hit the states, we're pretty much in the position we're at now. Without renewed interest from a new generation of fans, we're just not going to see more MegaMan.exe in the states.

Is there hope for those of us who don't speak Japanese but still want to see the rest of the show? Yes, and I'll detail that in my very last Mega Man cartoon post, coming up next!

Axess: Dark Vs. Dark

2010-03-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

Plot Synopsis
Chaud and ProtoMan are in need of a rest, but a band-aid is good enough for Lan. He'll need his strength, cause shit is about to hit the fan.

Dr. Regal and LaserMan have started to gather millions of NetNavi's with those UFO things from the second episode, and are powering up something big: a dimensional area generator large enough to cover the entire world!

In the meantime, ShadeMan has decided to capture Rush and convert him into his own synchro chip so he can enter the human world without a dimensional area. He goes off in search of Regal, after blowing up a few bits of SciLab. Since ShadeMan isn't exactly using discretion in what he destroys, Lan and MegaMan try to stop him with some dimensional areas of their own.

Lan is still no match for ShadeMan, as ShadeMan breaks his Cross-Fusion. Just as Lan is about ot meet his maker, Regal challenges ShadeMan at the top of his tower. The two have a stand off as the episode comes to a close.

Critique
About what you would expect for the second to last episode of Axess. Lots of buildup for the finale, though it feels like the dubbers cut out a few things, mostly with regards to Lan's injuries. That does little to affect the overall feel of the episode though.

I'm a bit miffed about the whole Rush Synchro chip thing. Rush gets introduced to do something no one else can, but we go along with it for a joke, and they never take it seriously. Well jokes on us, because now it's a major plot element. All well, whatever.

This is a satisfactory episode, but the real question is, are you ready for not only the season finale, but the series finale of Mega Man NT Warrior?

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: ProtoMan Returns

2010-03-17T12:11:00.000-07:00

Plot Synopsis
SciLab finally has completed their own dimensional area generator, which presumably doesn't run off the souls of NetNavis, and they've also managed to complete the vaccine chip, a battlechip designed to reverse the effects of Dark Chips. With everything in place, it's time to get ProtoMan back.

The cast lay a trap for ProtoMan, knowing he'll show up to destroy SciLab's dimensional area generator for Nebula to retain their advantage. They lure ProtoMan out there, then trap him inside with Lan, who will use his Cross-Fusion to plant the vaccine chip on ProtoMan. Chaud also manages to sneak into the dimensional area before it goes up.

The plan works, almost, but the Dark Chip is regenerated in ProtoMan, and apparently much stronger than a normal chip. ProtoMan blasts Lan, but Lan and MegaMan take the shot dead on, trying to absorb ProtoMan's dark aura. Lan continually suffers the beating, draining off as much energy as he can. Chaud joins the frey, as he jumps straight into ProtoMan and Cross-Fuses with him. Now Lan has to deal with a dark chip corrupted Chaud, as Chaud and ProtoMan duke it out in their combined mind.

Memories have been sealed away in ProtoMan, from earlier times of Chaud and his past. ProtoMan tries to fight back against it, but Chaud is persistent. Chaud even takes direct blasts from ProtoMan, which phase him, but don't keep him down. Chaud gets close enough to ProtoMan, and hugs him, telling ProtoMan that, "no matter how dark your heart has become, you'll always be my NetNavi." This, combined with Lan draining more of ProtoMan's dark aura destroys the dark chip, and ProtoMan becomes free of it's grasp.

ProtoMan is back, although completely exhausted, along with everyone else, especially Lan, who is pretty fucked up from the ordeal. ProtoMan musters some strength to apologize and thank Chaud for saving him. Chaud thinks it's time for a vacation.

Critique
Some episodes in an anime are more anime than others. This episode is definitely a 10 on the anime scale. If you're not exactly sure what I mean, you might consider cutting down your anime intake just a bit. But lets not hold that against the episode. Let's also not hold the title, which is the fucking 5th episode to be titled "Soandso Returns," because at least this time it makes some contextual sense.

This episode doesn't really go out of it's way to make a hell of a lot of sense, but it doesn't dwell on anything like the last train wreck of an episode, and for once, the dimensional area doesn't look like ass. This is one of the key episodes of the season, so you would expect a bit of a higher quality for it than normal, and I think it delivers what it promises. Yeah, it goes off on the power of friendship trope a lot, but that's pretty standard for Battle Network in general. This is a good episode to watch though, and it brings resolution to the biggest story arc of Axess.

Let us bow our heads in a moment of silence though, for the loss of Evil ProtoMan. I've prepared a eulogy..., Ahem...

I knew Proto Man as that asshole in Mega Man 3, who would annoyingly get in my way between Shadow Man, Hard Man, and Magnet Man. I would forgive him though, for he had sunglasses and a scarf, which made him look at least three times cooler than Mega Man, and style matters quite a bit.

In Mega Man 5, Proto Man would stand with his trade mark smirk among eight new worthless robot masters. This Proto Man would turn out to be a phony, but the sentiment remained the same. In Mega Man 7, Proto Man thought it necessary to attack us in Shade Man's stage for the hell of it, but at least he gave us a present.

Proto Man then took his evilness to the next level in the Ruby-Spears production of Mega Man. Proto Man cast away his moral ambiguity for a more conspicuous stance, "being the bad guy is awesome." From his creation of just randomly smashing shit for the hell of it, to attempting to blast Abraham Lincoln, Proto Man reveled in his new found love for doing the wrong thing.

He had a soft spot though, he always tried to convince Mega Man to, "join the bad side bro." And Mega Man would one day reveal, that even Proto Man's awesomeness would not go unnoticed by him. "The truth is, I've always really wanted a brother relationship with you, Proto Man."

And who wouldn't? How many of us can say we've had a brother half as cool as Proto Man, even if he was evil? ProtoMan.Exe would then take stints in the Battle Network series, acting more like an asshole than straight up evil, but the corruption of the Dark Chip would bring back that smugness we all know and love to the role, delivering such memorable lines as, "Chaud, you mean nothing to me!"

Eventually, ProtoMan would cast aside his evil ways, and even actively help Mega Man as recently as Mega Man 10, and that's a damn shame. Evil Proto Man, we hardly knew ye, but at least we still got Bass... for now...

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Ms. Yuri's Mission

2010-03-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

Plot Synopsis
Ms. Yuri is out shopping one day when she runs into...umm... whats his face... cross-fusion guy? Oh, it's right on the tip of my tongue... oh yeah, Misaki. Mr. Unforgettable himself tries to arrest her, but she manages to elude him. In doing so, she runs into Ms. Mari, who is confused, and scared, and possibly grouchy, and wants to know if Ms. Yuri is her long lost sister. Misaki catches up, and Ms. Yuri then gets hit by a bus. Well, so far the episode is going fantastic!

Good thing we've got 15 minutes of exposition coming up to ruin it! Here's the gist, Ms. Mari had a sister, Ms. Yuri, who was in a plane crash with their father when a meteorite hit the plane. They never found there bodies. Ms. Yuri continues the story, by infecting the plot with the cancer that is growing on the Mega Man franchise, Duo. Sigh...

Duo is some extra terrestrial being, who turned Ms. Yuri into Wolverine for some reason, and also did something to Dr. Regal or whatever, and then they were raised by Dr. Wily. I really can't believe this is some how stupider than the actual plot of Battle Network 4, which is abysmally stupid to begin with.

Anyway, Ms. Yuri escapes for a bit, and Dr. Regal gives her a dark synchro-chip and tells her to assassinate Ms. Mari to prove her loyalty. She agrees, then hijacks Misaki's car with him in it, and tracks down Ms. Mari. She gets Ms. Mari at gunpoi... excuse me, "Neural Disruptor Point", but hesitates to fire. Misaki tries to grab her, but she throws him off, and cross-fuses with SpikeMan. Lan cross-fuses with MegaMan to try and stop her.

Impatient, ProtoMan shows up and demands Ms. Yuri finish her mission. Ms. Yuri can't do it, so ProtoMan goes to strike Ms. Mari. Ms. Yuri blocks the attack, so ProtoMan strikes her, breaking her cross-fusion. He hits a sonic-boom onto the bridge, causing both Misaki and Ms. Yuri to fall off into the drink. Ms. Mari screams "Nooooooo!" as we hear a news report announce that the two people who fell off the bridge have yet to be found.

Critique
You almost have a good episode here. Really you do. In fact, cut out about 15 minutes of this episode, and it's a winner. But Duo tends to kill everything he touches, and this episode just happens to be one of those things. I hope you like characters talking on and on and on about nonsense, then reiterating all of those points, because that's the majority of this episode.

Oh, and it had such a good build up too. Yuri tasked with killing her sister, her escape from police custody, the cross-fusion thing. Oh it could have been great! Instead, it's YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP!

There are elements that make this episode worth watching, that I won't deny, but most of this episode's baggage is a setup for Stream more than a finale for Axess, so these retarded plot points won't ever come to fruition in the dub anyway. You're almost better off not watching this episode to save yourself the frustration of how dumb the show gets. Sigh, and it was such a good idea too...

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: Get Dr. Regal

2010-03-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

Plot Synopsis
The NetPolice now have a lock on Regal's position, and they try and blast him out of the atmosphere, but Regal has some of his own defenses, and takes out all their satellites. Lan goes against orders, and decides to handle Regal personally, through the use of Yai's rocketship.

Yai, Dex, Chisao, Mayl and Lan depart to space, but almost get caught up in a cluster of debris left over from JunkMan. To help out the problem, JunkMan and MegaMan DoubleSoul, and MegaMan is able to use JunkSoul to move the debris out of the way. This is also helpful, because MegaMan is also able to use JunkSoul to deflect the shots being fired at his NetOp by Dr. Regal's space station.

Regal says, "fuck it," and launches a dimensional area and fills the void with a bunch of viruses. He then invites Lan onto the station. Lan goes alone in Cross-Fusion (using Battle Chips for Oxygen) and meets up with Regal. Regal summons ProtoMan to fight him, and Lan tries to convince ProtoMan that there is still good within him. ProtoMan has none of it and continues the attack, but Lan grabs a hold of him, and MegaMan tries to siphon the dark aura out of ProtoMan. ProtoMan realizes what is going on, and breaks the hold. He goes to strike again, but Regal breaks the dimensional area.

Regal tells Lan that he'd rather, "see you crash into the Earth along with this station!" Regal ejects, and the air slowly drains out of the room. Luckily, Lan's friends have come along with a space suit to keep Lan from suffocating. Unluckily, Regal takes out their space ship, and sends the station that they're all on, plummeting towards Earth.

JunkMan sees this, and uses his debris to cover the ship, to protect it from the heat of reentry. Lan and company are saved (I wonder if Yai's maids are alright? Ah, they're extras, fuck em), but Regal's whereabouts are unknown. The episode ends like just about half of these episodes end, with Ms. Yuri driving off cackling like a hyena.

Critique
The last space episode was more silly than anything, and I'm willing to go along with episodes that are just crazy, but when we get an episode that tries to take the more insane aspects of the previous episodes seriously, it just doesn't sit well with me. Imagine if the next episode, they had Lan run to Netopia non-stop, just because he ran so far in the MistMan episode. That's what I'm getting at here, and sending the characters into space again just doesn't sit well with me.

That said, Yai actually has some funny lines outside her normal rich kid crap, and I still like JunkMan, and I like getting to see JunkSoul (I think we have only one more Soul left for the show, the most powerful one!!!).

Overall, I think this episode is pretty bland. What was the point really? We had the buildup of finding the space station for a while now, and after one episode, we're pretty much back to where we were before we went to look for it. Regal is missing again. The plot running around in circles like this is just irritating, and there isn't enough excitement in this episode to hold it together. Plus, Dr. Regal talks faster than a damn cassette recorder on fast forward.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: The Great NetPolice Battle

2010-03-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

Plot Synopsis
Are you ready to head towards the finale? Woo boy, does a lot of shit happen here.

So getting some data from Raoul, Chaud discovers Regal's secret base is a satellite orbiting the Earth. The damn thing is cloaked though, so they can't find it. Dr. Hikari suggest using the remaining Control X System (from about a million episodes ago) to track the satellite's orbit by noticing gravity disturbances among the satellites they can see.

The process is going to take some time though, and the NetPolice are sure Nebula will strike against them once they begin their tracking. Raika and Lan are called in as the first line of defense against Nebula, while Chaud and Anetta track the satellite. Nebula has gone all out in this attack though, and has rebuilt every single deleted darkloid since the season began for the attack! I guess the rest of the darkloids got deleted in episodes we didn't get to see.

What happens next is almost like the season in review, as Lan goes through just about every DoubleSoul in his inventory, and MegaMan and SearchMan start deleting darkloids left and right. Maybe the rebuilding process made the Darkloids weaker, maybe Lan and MegaMan have gotten stronger, or maybe Lan and MegaMan were just going easier on the darkloids last time, because they seriously go down in only a few shots.

Chaud and Anetta have nearly found the satellite, but a dimensional area forms around the Control X building, and ProtoMan shows up to destroy it. Meanwhile, Bass is watching from afar, and decides for the hell of it to go free ShadeMan.

Lan bolts for Control X to save Chaud and Anetta with Cross-Fusion, and gives them just enough time to track the satellite's orbit. It doesn't matter though, because as soon as they find it, ProtoMan smashes the system, deleting the data, and then takes off. But that doesn't matter doesn't matter, because Anetta remembers the orbital path from having seen it for all of two seconds. After that bit of Deus Ex Machina, ShadeMan vows revenge against Dr. Regal as the episode closes.

Critique
They squeeze quite a bit of plot amongst a really action oriented episode. It seems silly that MegaMan can fight off all these enemies at once and take them out so fast this way, but then again, have you ever played a Mega Man game? This is what we call a boss rush yo!

It's nice to see a lot of use of DoubleSoul, and even the couple of forms we missed, such as WoodSoul and WindSoul, which I've posted here for completion sake. The episode is pretty frantic, but it has that build up that makes you pumped up for the following episodes. I wouldn't call this a great episode, but it works well enough for what it's trying to do, without dwelling on the uninteresting details.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Cut Episodes Part 7

2010-03-14T01:45:00.000-08:00

Finally, the last cut episode post I'll ever have to write about NT Warrior.

Rush Runs Away
Plot Synopsis Here
Some misunderstandings at home cause Rush to run off, then befriend a sheep virus. Also, BubbleMan stirs some shit up.

An episode featuring Rush could be a good episode, but I doubt it was very dialog heavy. Maybe Viz was looking out for their voice actors? Considering all the next six episodes are pretty essential, this one really looks out of place to me in the line up.

After this episode, Viz Media did not cut anymore NT Warrior episodes! That's because the show was canceled soon after! Ouch!

Axess: MistMan's Tower

2010-03-14T01:19:00.001-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Lan is out with Mayl trying to catch bugs for a school project that he's waaaaaay behind on. He ends up spotting one and chasing after it for miles and miles until he and Mayl end up in the desert (they might be exaggerating Lan's ability to run this episode...). When a sand storm picks up, Mayl and Lan duck into a nearby tower for safety, where Lan, again, goes chasing bugs. One of the bugs is a golden scarab pushing around a gigantic diamond!

But the tower isn't safe, as deadly, or perhaps mildly annoying, traps litter the area. To make matters worse, Ms. Yuri and a couple of Darkloids are also scouting the tower, looking for the Net Navi in charge of the place, MistMan. MistMan is a strange, but powerful Navi, resembling a Djinn, and he'll only work for the person who holds his relic, in this case, an Aladdin inspired magic lamp.

As Lan and Mayl stumble upon this lamp, Ms. Yuri becomes frustrated with the traps in the tower, and activates a dimensional area. This causes FridgeMan and SwordMan to pop up to ambush Lan. One cross-fusion later, and the battle is on. MistMan also joins the frey, assisting MegaMan, because Mayl holds the magic lamp... for a few minutes anyway until Ms. Yuri grabs it and orders MistMan to fight MegaMan.

Ms. Yuri and Mayl fight over the magic Lamp, while Lan dodges MistMan and the darkloids attacks. MistMan continually switches sides until finally, Ms. Yuri falls in a pit, and Mayl keeps control of the lamp. MistMan assists Lan, and the darkloids log out. MistMan thanks Lan and Mayl, as apparently they've freed him from a life of imprisonment some how or something, and then the tower disappears, and Lan and Mayl walk home... until Lan spots that scarab and gives chase again!

Critique
This is a pretty good episode, showing NT Warrior at it's finest when the show doesn't take itself so seriously. We've got a little Aladdin homage, some good scenes for Lan and Mayl, and even Ms. Yuri doesn't irritate the shit out of me this episode. For once, she takes the pathetic villain role that the World Three members played so well, and it honestly helps me tolerate her so much more.

The story is pretty predictable, and the setup is cliched, but there isn't any glaring flaws besides some reeeeeally cheesy animations. But the episode is humorous, and besides The Mysterious Masked Navi, is the best of the lot of ten episodes that were chosen, and probably the best of the episodes that were skipped.

It does seem to me that MegaMan's lines were either edited or delivered incorrectly though, as it looks like his fear of ghosts and monsters is supposed to crop up again. It's hard to tell, but the animation and his expressions just seem to indicate different context to his words to me. I could be wrong though. In any case, good episode.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Cut Episodes Part 6

2010-03-13T09:52:00.001-08:00

Following up from my last post about cut episodes, we have two more coming up that were skipped. My reasoning for them being cut remains the same, though I have some speculation as to why they weren't chosen compared to the episodes that were chosen.

Mayl's First Date
Plot Synopsis Here
Lan talks Mayl into trying to Cross-Fuse with Roll, but she just isn't in sync enough to pull it off. After the experiment at SciLab, Lan's dad gives them tickets to a theme park, which then comes under attack from darkloids.

As the title implies, this is an episode exploring Lan and Mayl's more romantic relationship. Young romance can, and has been done tastefully in childrens' cartoons before, but when we're dealing with foreign concepts of "taste," it's not surprising Viz Media decided to err on the side of caution by dancing around, and changing certain lines to tone it down some for US viewers. While I doubt there is anything in this episode really disturbing, the subject of 11 year olds dating each other is not a very comfortable subject for many US parents, and I think this episode was skipped over in favor of an episode that did make it to air, MistMan's Tower, which also explores Lan and Mayl's relationship in a more friendship oriented manner. Had the season been allowed to air in full, this episode might have made it in still.

Top and Grandchild
Plot Synopsis Here
Basically a retelling of a scenario featuring TopMan from Battle Network 4. Old guy Net Battles and builds tops. Wow, these episodes are really reaching for anything to kill time till the finale aren't they? Probably skipped over because of it's irrelevance to the main plot.

Axess: Allegro

2010-03-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Something is kidnapping Net Navis one by one, and unfortunately, Lan is still stuck in Sharo at the moment. Chaud and Mayl are on the case however, and discover that all the missing Navi's had completed an arcade game before being taken.

They decide to have Roll play the game, and plant a tracking device on her. When she's captured, Roll ends up among the missing Navi's, all recuperating from wounds gained in delete battles, essentially battles to the death for Net Navis. Roll activates the tracking device, but is immediately called into battle, and her opponent isn't too keen on letting her walk away.

Just as Roll is about to become a Zeus Hammer Pancake, Mayl jacks her out just in time. Chaud swings open the door to the cause of all the problems, a little robot thing. Chaud is confused about the presence of robots in the Mega Man universe...

Anyway, the little robot panics, and unleashes a dimensional area and some viruses. Chaud takes them out with the battle chip gate, and he and Mayl make a run for it. The robot corners them, but finally Lan shows up cross-fused as Mega Lan, and holds the robot at sword point. Lan must have started taking interrogations from Jack Bauer, because after only a couple of questions, the robot bursts into tears.

Then, reminding us he's still in the show, Bass shows up in the Kid Grave body. He says he created the robot, Allegro, so he could learn how to make his own dimensional area, but then Allegro started kidnapping Navi's for fun. Bass's reaction is basically, "yeah, sorry bout that guys, mah bad," then he crushes Allegro into dust. Everyone seems to think that's a bit of a mild over-reaction, then ProtoMan shows up and asks Bass to join Nebula, but Bass tells ProtoMan to get lost, and collapses the dimensional area.

Also, Bass leaves, telling everyone that humans suck. Then the episode ends, with the audience extremely disappointed.

Critique
I said that this episode was some fan service to those of us who recognized Bass, and that is pretty much all this episode is. So if you like seeing Bass do nothing but babble for 1/10th an episode, there you go. The rest of us who'd like to enjoy the show miss out though.

The setup is okay, and Roll's fight sequence is alright, but the ending...ugh, it blows. It makes the whole episode feel pointless, and Bass's appearance feels like someone pulled it out of their ass, because we hadn't seen Bass in a while.

Bass is one of the best characters in the Battle Network games, and I always look forward to taking him down, even putting myself through the annoying lengths of Battle Network 4 to get that chance. In the show, however, Bass is easily the most underutilized and weakest character. All build up, no delivery. This is Bass's last appearance is the dub, warning us that he hates humans, and has a dimensional area.

Spoiler alert for those of you who can't watch the rest of the series, this doesn't go anywhere. In the first episode of Stream, Bass gets sucked away to another cyber space or something by Duo, and then he shows up in the animated movie for a bit. I think that's his last appearance, though I haven't seen all of Stream or all of Beast+, so don't quote me on that. In any case, Bass's storylines just run in circles and don't go anywhere, and that's a damn shame.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: Underground Hero

2010-03-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
On a typical snowy day in Sharo, some miners are caught off guard when a dimensional area swallows up the mine, and their little dog too! There's only one person in the world that can get in there, and he's gorging himself on free samples at the local supermarket. After being escorted by Net Police out of there, Lan finds himself on a plane trip to Sharo to help out with the problem. There, Lan meets up with Raika, and Raika's Commanding Officer, Milenkoff, who informs him of the problem.

Nebula has setup a dimensional area around the rare metal mine, which Nebula needs to produce Dark Chips, and Sharo needs to support its economy. Raika is to escort Lan to the mines, and when Raika asks Milenkoff to ask Lan about another mission, Milenkoff cuts him off and dismisses the other assignment. He tells Raika that his orders are to only escort Lan to the mines.

At the dimensional area, Raika hitches a ride with Lan past the force field, disobeying Raika's orders. Lan wants to know what's going on, but Raika refuses to tell him. They are attacked by FridgeMan, but manage to escape with the aid of a mine cart. SearchMan goes after FridgeMan, but due to FridgeMan jumping between the cyberworld and real world, SearchMan can't get a lock on him.

Lan is freezing, having never been to a country so cold before, but Raika refuses to stop and help him. This pisses Lan off, who berates Raika for treating him so badly, especially when Lan has come out to help Raika's country of his own good will, and all he wants is for Raika to tell him what's going on. Finally, Raika shows some humanity, and builds a fire for Lan and himself.

Raika informs Lan that he's looking for a missing hero of Sharo, the one who discovered the mines and brought about the prosperity Sharo is now in. It was not Raika's mission to find the missing hero, and he disobeyed orders to find him, which is why he wouldn't talk to Lan; he was embarrassed. They don't have time to sit around though, as a wave of viruses attack them. They make a run for it and hear barking down a corridor.

The barking is coming from Morisov, the hero of Sharo, and Raika's target for rescue. The dog turned out to be the one who discovered the mines, and is who Raika considers his best friend. Raika's personal mission completed, it's time to take out FridgeMan, which is lucky, because FridgeMan is right there, ready to ambush them.

Lan Cross-Fuses in a, thankfully shortened, fusion animation and does battle with FridgeMan. He manages to wound him, so FridgeMan escapes to the cyberworld to heal up and begin fighting again. Instead of healing up, however, he finds SearchMan waiting for him, a bit miffed at all the running around he's been doing searching for FridgeMan. SearchMan blasts FridgeMan with his cannon, causing FridgeMan to log out, and collapsing the dimensional area.

Back at base, Raika is punished for disobeying orders, and is sent to be tortured at the Russian POW camp... er wait, no... Raika doesn't get desert for a month and a half. Sorry, forgot what show I was watching. As the episode ends, Raika and Lan finally appear to have some mutual admiration for each other.

Critique
This episode adds the much needed depth to Raika's character, and finally brings him down to Lan on an emotional level. There's actually a fair deal of cleverness in this episode, like the mine cart sequence, and while the action isn't very climatic, the pacing is satisfactory. There isn't a lot of humor in this episode, but it keeps things interesting. It's not the best episode, but it's a decent entry.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Cut Episodes Part 5

2010-03-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

After the episode of The New PET, somebody wasn't happy with NT Warrior Axess. Maybe someone at Time-Warner didn't like the show's ratings, or maybe Viz Media was difficult to work with, or just maybe someone likes the blue hedgehog a bit more. In either case, NT Warrior's dubbing days were coming to an end as the show would soon be replaced by... I dunno, Pokemon Part 17, or Yu-gi-oh-Mc-Do-gi-no, or whatever the hell is on kids WB.

Previous to this point, Axess had been doing relatively well in it's airing schedule, not missing a beat for quite a while, and airing each episode mostly in order, except for a couple. They would air BubbleMan's Plan as their last new episode, before a small break where the show would get a final run. When the show would return with The New PET, it would air as one of ten new episodes of Axess, airing once daily for the next ten days, until the season was finished. This (complete speculation by the way) was more than likely the result of a contract dispute between Time-Warner and Viz Media, with Viz Media wanting to be compensated for their hard work, and Time-Warner just wanting the show off the air as soon as possible.

It was because they would only get to air ten more episodes, that Viz Media would have to cut a few shows. Previous to this point, episodes may have been cut due to content or scheduling issues, but I can safely say, that these episodes were cut because of Time-Warner getting rid of the show, and Viz Media decided to select the more vital of the episodes to air, or at least, I think that was their intention. There is rumor (and take it with a grain of salt) that Viz Media did actually dub all the remaining episodes, but unless we ever get an Axess DVD release, we'll never know.

The next two episodes have very little to do with the over arching plot with Nebula, which is probably why they were chosen not to air, even though we miss out on a couple of DoubleSouls.

Flying to Shiisaa Island
Plot Summary Here
Basically, MegaMan and Lan meet a couple new characters, one of whom is WindMan, and I don't think we ever see them again. WindMan.exe gets into trouble, and MegaMan ends up using DoubleSoul with him.

Go To Hell By Train!?
Plot Summary Here
It's likely that title would have changed, had the episode actually came out in English. Anyway, a train goes out of control that just happens to have Lan, Chisao and Sal on it. The culprit is a darkloid, and MegaMan and WoodMan form a DoubleSoul.

In order of importance, the last six episodes are pretty much needed to finish the season. Besides that, you've got an episode featuring Bass, which is some important fan service I guess, the hilarious episode with Chaud and Raoul in disco clothes, an episode finally showing some respect between Lan and Raika (probably the pay off episode to that mini-arc), and then MistMan's Tower, which is a good Lan and Mayl episode, but lacking the more romantic overtones that Viz Media has been careful to cover up most of the show's run.

Taking those things into account, I suppose it makes sense why these episodes were singled out to not air. Ideally we would have got to see them all, but there isn't much a production company can do without a distributor, especially one as big as Time-Warner.

Mega Man 10 Out Today!

2010-03-01T10:06:00.001-08:00

About an hour ago, Mega Man 10 hit the Wii Virtual console in the US. Since the game was announced, I've done my best to avoid seeing too much content about the game beforehand, which is pretty damn hard when you visit a good amount of Mega Man websites. I've only played a couple of levels so far, as I've got a lot of things to do today, but I plan to fully digest this title during the week.

Expect my review for this title to come after I've finished reviewing the Mega Man cartoons, which should be sometime this week (I'm not doing Stream, Beast, or Beast + as of yet). First impressions are decent so far, although I found Sheep Man's stage and boss fight pretty easy, but the game feels comfortable right now. It feels different than Mega Man 9 though. Mega Man 9 was a return to the old school classics, but Mega Man 10 feels like a blending of the old school with some new age polish, if that makes any sense. I hope to get more time with this game soon.

Axess: The Mysterious Masked Navi

2010-03-01T09:02:00.001-08:00

Plot Synopsis
With the new PET, Lan is more powerful than ever, but a little too powerful, as he's become so arrogant about it he's stopped using any sort of strategy. When he starts showboating during a battle with SwordMan in front of Chaud, Chaud decides drastic measures to teach Lan a lesson.

With Raoul's help, Chaud concocts a plan to use a disguised ThunderMan to battle MegaMan. ThunderMan will pretend to be a darkloid, with Chaud and Raoul disguised as his NetOps. Chaud lures Lan out into an abandoned warehouse for the trap, and their disguise easily fools Lan and MegaMan.

Chaud and Raoul match Lan, move for move and keep MegaMan at bay. They try to leave, figuring they've taught Lan his lesson, but Lan refuses to give up, figuring he and MegaMan are battling for their lives, which is bad news for Chaud and Raoul. Lan pulls out all the stops, rare chips, Program Advances, DoubleSouls, and Chaud and Raoul start struggling to keep going. They're getting really worn out countering Lan, but Lan and MegaMan refuse to quit.

Just then, Mr. Famous contacts Lan and Chaud. SwordMan is back attacking another research facility, but Lan thinks his hands are full with this fight as it is. Realizing they're in deep shit with both ThunderMan and MegaMan totally worn out, Chaud and Raoul hightail it to the research facility, with Lan behind them.

When Lan arrives, MegaMan is confused why two darkloids are fighting each other. When SwordMan strikes, ThunderMan's disguise falls off, and MegaMan realizes who it is. MegaMan and ThunderMan fuse together for a DoubleSoul, ThunderSoul, and MegaMan is able to defeat SwordMan who logs out. Lan is initially horrified at the thought of having an evil darkloid soul, but MegaMan wises Lan up to whats going on.

Chaud and Raoul reveal themselves in shame, and let Lan know what they were trying to do. Lan apologizes for acting like a jerk, and promises to not let it happen again. Later, Lan and Chaud see Raoul off back to Netopia.

Critique
Easily the best episode of Axess, and in the top 5 for best episode of NT Warrior period. This episode delivers a perfect way to do off the wall situations, and combines it with a lot of clever dialog. This is the episode that sold me on Raoul, because he's pretty damn funny here, and it adds a new element to his character that fits so well with his already good nature.

Chaud is out of his element here, but he acts in a way that you would believe his character would grudgingly go along with something like this. Chaud and Raoul's voice actors deliver thier lines perfectly, accenting the phrases and emphasizing the words in such a way to emphasize their hilarious attire. Lan is also spot on, and there are so many great exchanges this episode.

ThunderMan: My Name is Masked Thunder, and I'm clearly a darkloid!
MegaMan: Okay... I believe you?
ThunderMan: That's good, because theirs no reason to doubt me! Now words been goin' round that you think you're too good to be defeated!
MegaMan: What are you talking about? I never said anything like that!

Lan: Who are you guys? What do you want?
Raoul: We're here to take you dooooown, and as for who we are, we're Masked Thunder's NetOps!
Lan: Are you serious?! Since when do darkloids have NetOps?!
Chaud and Raoul: Uhhhhh..
Lan: Well!?
Raoul: It just happened!
Lan: I can't believe this!

There's a lot of good stuff in here that you need some established characters to work with to pull off, and the costumes and accents just really sell the episode.

There is a part in the middle where SwordMan is delivering monologue to himself that is just god awful, but other than this scene, the entire episode is great!

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: The New PET

2010-03-01T04:49:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Hey kids! Are you ready to throw your old official merchandised NT Warrior PET? You better be, because now it's time to buy the whole new officially merchandised NT Warrior Axess PET! Let's find out why Lan needs a new PET, outside of hawking toys that is...

So MegaMan's been rebooted and thrown into a new PET, which has been upgraded to take better advantage of cross-fusion. It's going to take some time to initialize though (damn Windows 200X), so they can't use it right away.

Nebula isn't too happy about this, so they have FridgeMan and SwordMan distract the Net Police, while they send ProtoMan in to destroy the new PET. A dimensional area seals up the lab, so Anetta grabs the PET and takes off with it before ProtoMan can destroy it. Everyone gets separated, and they can't use the PET to communicate with each other or ProtoMan will trace it.

Chaud meets up with Anetta and continues to elude ProtoMan until they reach the lab. Chaud then uses the PET to lure ProtoMan into it, where they trap ProtoMan inside a smaller dimensional area. Before they can breath a sigh of relief however, Chaud and Anetta are suddenly under attack from NovaMan. Just in time, Lan shows up through the ceiling and uses his, now formatted, PET to Cross-Fuse with MegaMan.

Lan's abilities have gone into overdrive with the new PET, and even without battlechips, he's ridiculously faster and stronger, and he even has some regenerative healing. The battlechips themselves load even faster than Lan can pronounce them, and NovaMan can hardly put up a fight before being deleted.

ProtoMan then breaks his sword off to escape the dimensional area he's trapped behind, and he swears vengeance before logging out. Lan smirks saying, "Nothin's gonna stop us now!" Well Lan must have never met the Time-Warner network execs, because NT Warrior Axess is about to go on hiatus before being thrown off the air for the last time.

Critique
This is a pretty simple episode over all, which I think is actually to its benefit. The whole scenario is built on suspense, since none of the characters can really fight against their adversaries. It had been nicer if some of the narrow escapes were a bit more clever though, as the episode goes through a cycle of "run in a room, escape through a vent" more than just a few times.

There's a sequence towards the end, where Chaud lures ProtoMan into the dimensional area that has a real nice touch. Chaud ends up ducking under ProtoMan's sword, and has a few hairs shaved off in the process. It's really too hard to see on any single screenshot, but it is a really nice detail in full motion.

Where this episode falls short is pretty much on Anetta, who for some reason, is animated much more poorly than the other characters. Her lines are pretty bad, her character is pretty lame (a shift in personality so much you could call her bipolar), and I don't care for her voice either. The animation in the rest of the episode is pretty substandard as well, but Anetta's movements really stand out.

This isn't an all out bad episode, but it could have been much better than it was, given the scenario, and the whole thing leaves a lot to be desired. This episode is sadly really mediocre.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: Nebula's Great Invasion!

2010-02-26T15:45:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
MegaMan's down and out, and it looks like the Net Police are screwed. The greatest father in the world, Dr. Hikari, decides to rebuild MegaMan using an untested, painful, possibly dangerous procedure, on his only child, Lan. Lan of course has no problem jumping into a giant test tube for his buddy of course, but it'd be nice if his dad at least maybe struggled with the idea...

Anyway, they're going to rebuild MegaMan by enabling a cross-fusion between Lan and MegaMan, which will hopefully fill in the missing data for MegaMan. With both Lan and MegaMan recovering, and Chaud without ProtoMan, the Net Police are in trouble. Luckily, Lan's friend Raoul shows up, chasing down a darkloid named BrightMan. Raika has also been called in, and Chief Keifer orders them to work together, despite Raika's protests.

BrightMan isn't the only one causing trouble though, as more new darkloids show up. There's SwordMan, StarMa... god damn it! Why is his name NovaMan now? Fucking retarded ass translations. Anyway, they also have ColdMa... wait? He's FridgeMan now?! I... well... no I'll give them that one, ColdMan is a damn fridge... (I hope you can detect the irony in this paragraph, I really couldn't care less about the names...)

Raika feels Raoul is unqualified to help out as a civilian, but eventually Raoul and ThunderMan prove themselves (somewhat) to Raika by, not only saving Raika's life, but also correcting a mistake of SearchMan that saved the day. Raika grudgingly admits that Raoul was helpful.

At the end of the day, the procedure with MegaMan was successful, but MegaMan still needs more time to recover. Things are looking positive though.

Critique
Despite the train wreck of the last few episodes, this one is actually pretty good. I always thought Raoul's voice actor was pretty good, and it helps put up with the character's weird look and demeanor. He's one tall lanky black dude ain't he? Raika still comes off as an ass of course, but Raoul handles Raika pretty maturely, as you would expect an adult would handle a punk kid.

There's some really cruddy animation this episode, especially the running animation for Raoul about the middle of the episode. It just looks awful. The writers also go a bit overboard on the "anime man got hops" thing, when Raoul is leaping across pillars like a damn grasshopper.

Even though the story is decent this episode, I would still give it a thumbs up even if it was horrible. Why? Just look at BrightMan! HA HA HA HA HA! Holy fuck, that guys character design cracks me the fuck up! Look how hilarious he is! You couldn't ask for a better looking character for this show! Too bad BrightMan bites the dust at the end of the episode though, but for every moment he was on screen, I was in stitches!

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Wanted - PrisMan!

2010-02-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
We open with the last two minutes of the last episode, then see Misaki using PrisMan to rob a bank. The police try to stop him, but he uses Cross-Fusion with a Dark Synchro Chip and takes off. He continues his crime spree into the night, while Ms. Yuri looks on grinning at her guinea pig.

The Net Police finally find out Misaki is causing all these heists, and Lan is left cleaning up after Misaki until Misaki finally collapses from exhaustion. Chaud takes Misaki to the hospital. Misaki wakes up, barely remembering the events that had just unfolded. Apparently, cross-fusing with a dark chip turns a person psychotic just like a NetNavi.

They keep Misaki under watch, but Ms. Yuri sends PrisMan in with a dark chip to screw up Misaki some more. PrisMan sends his dark aura from the dark chip to Misaki... somehow (what!?), and Misaki becomes Mr. Hyde, as he tears through the hospital.

He runs into Ms. Mari, mistaking her for Ms. Yuri, but Ms. Yuri is like ten feet away, so this scene is basically only there to keep drilling that mistaken identity cliche this show has run into the ground. Misaki takes off, prancing like a mad man when Lan finally confronts him. Misaki summons a bunch of dimensional area generators from the ground by yelling (this show is just getting worse and worse), and he Dark Cross-Fuses, while Lan answers back with his own Cross-Fusion.

Since Misaki is a human, Lan is hesitant to full out attack him, so Dr. Hikari tells his son to strike the Emblem on Cross-Fused PrisMan to break the fusion. Lan is about to do so when Dark ProtoMan shows up and interferes. Luckily, Chaud uses his magical power of teleportation yet again, and shows up just in time to deal with ProtoMan.

Lan and Misaki strike each others emblems at the same time, breaking both their cross-fusions and saving Misaki, but seriously fucking up MegaMan, and slightly injuring Lan as well. MegaMan is in critical condition and needs some serious repair. Lan puts it best at the end, "if MegaMan's damaged, and ProtoMan's a darkloid, how can we ever stop Nebula?!"

Critique
This episode seriously sucks ass until the very last few minutes, and even then, you've had to swallow a lot of tripe to enjoy it. It's kind of like having a nice dessert at the end of a really big serving of shit sandwiches, you're already too full of shit to enjoy dessert.

A good half of this episode is reused footage from the last episode, and a quarter of the new content is either recap, or just harping on old points of the series. Yes, I know Chaud doesn't want to fight ProtoMan. Yes, I know Ms. Mari and Ms. Yuri are sisters. Yes, I did watch the last fucking episode, I don't need to be reminded of every detail of it!

Of course Cross-Fusion vs. Cross-Fusion was coming from day one, hence why ShadeMan stole the Synchro Chips in the first place, and I'm not against the ideas of this scenario, beyond my usual stance on Cross-Fusion. Actually, Lan's hesitation in fighting Misaki is a good character position to put him in, and they do something similar with Geo in the Star Force series that also plays out nice. So this whole setup could have worked out fine, if they didn't cram the whole god damned plot into the last few minutes.

Then you end with some poor NetNavi in critical condition and... oh wait, that's MegaMan. He's still in this show? He basically uses one of about three of his lines in the episode to tell us he'll be out of commission the next episode. At least the writers are still aware that most of the fans of this show care mostly about this character... right?

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: The Battlechip Gate

2010-02-23T05:47:00.000-08:00

I'm amazed they didn't call this episode Misaki returns...

Plot Synopsis
So yeah, Misaki comes back, and it's a big deal. Who the fuck is Misaki? Oh, you don't remember that extra character that had a total of two minutes screen time in the first episode of Axess? Of course you don't, Lan doesn't even remember that episode. That'd be like keeping track of every single battlechip Lan owns since the show started, Jesus!

Anyway, Misaki has come to join the Net Police along with Lan and Chaud, but he's all upset that he can't cross-fuse like they can. He still has some skill though, as he comes to Lan's rescue during a fight with GravityMan, which so so nonsensical it damn near crosses the line, even for this show. Anyway, Misaki uses his NetNavi PrismMan to trap GravityMan in a prism-prison (say that five times fast) and I guess they just leave him in the traffic lights network or something.

Anyway, as if MegaMan wasn't being phased enough out of this show, we're introduced to a new problem about Cross-Fusion which hasn't ever come up until this episode. No, it's not the cancerous growth on Lan's pancreas, it's the inability to use battle chips during Cross-Fusion. Apparently, they can only use five at a time since they have to preload them (even though Lan switched them out not more than a few episodes ago), and now suddenly this is a problem, despite the fact that Lan and Chaud have never struggled in choosing their chips beforehand. Should I point out that more than once Lan and Chaud have used Program Advances while in Cross-Fusion with a handful more chips?

Inconsistencies aside, SciLab has created an extension for the PET called "The Battlechip Gate," which is like sliding a game genie onto your NES, and functionally the same thing. The testing fails when Mr. Famous tries to load battlechips into Lan's Cross-Fusion, but Chaud seems to notice something Mr. Famous doesn't that basically only makes sense if you consider Chaud the god like figure the writers do apparently.

GravityMan breaks out of his prison pretty easily and starts wreaking havoc in a dimensional area, so Lan heads down there to stop him. Oh but guess what? Lan's five Battlechips don't work at all against GravityMan, so now Lan is screwed. Boy, good thing he was lucky in selecting his chips the entire season up until this point.

Chaud runs the repaired battlechip gate to Lan and uses some ultra rare, super effective chips, like Area Steal, Rock Cube, and M-Cannons for a Program Advance. With Chaud operating Lan (do not read any more into that, god my site comes up from some pretty sick people's search results...), NetNavi's can be phased out of the show entirely. Bye bye MegaMan, we'll miss you!

GravityMan gets deleted, and Misaki gets lured away by Manwella (the NetPolice Chief's secretary girl) when she tells him she knows where he can go cross-fuse. But wait a second! Manwella is standing with Chief Kiefer at SciLab!? Buhwhaaaaa?

In a merciful attempt to salvage something worthwhile out of this episode, ProtoMan shows up to taunt Chaud for a minute or so to make him cry a bit. There is seriously nothing better in Mega Man cartoons than an evil ProtoMan. If only Bass had made it to the Ruby-Spears show! Anyway, since this was the only thing interesting to happen this entire show, that's what the screenshot is of. Hell, I don't recall if they even use that stupid Battlechip Gate again.

So the episode ends with Misaki riding with the impostor Manwella (two guesses who she really is!) and she thinks to herself some ominous dialog... ooooh scary...

Critique
It's episodes like this that make this season a pain in the ass to enjoy. It's bad enough we have plots centering around so many disappeared characters returning, but now we're practically introducing new characters to come back?! Aren't we getting carried away with this shit a little bit XEBEC?

I feel sorry for the dubbers here, just what the hell are they going to do with this tripe? Is this what passes for children entertainment in Japan? Mega Man's name must hold a lot more regard there than I thought to have lasted the series as long as it did over there, but while American Audiences love Mega Man, we really need better shows than this to compete with what's out there. Admittedly, I quit watching Saturday morning cartoons when this show was running, but who am I to argue with what ten year olds like? I can hardly believe how dumb some of the shows I loved were (I don't love you any less though Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!).

In any case, what we have here is a manufactured crisis coming into the show, that apparently was a problem we never noticed until now. Lan's failure to choose proper battlechips against GravityMan is so predictable, cause all the characters basically tell you that's going to happen this episode.

With Misaki, you've got the coming of another plot line that this character was made specifically for, which we'll get into next episode, but you can really notice a difference between characters created by Capcom, and the show's original characters. Misaki is about as generic anime dude as you can get, and there's a good chance after his storyline is finished, you'll forget about him forever like I tend to do. They spend a good amount of time building Misaki up a bit for the audience, and all the characters act like they've known him a good long time, like he just belongs on the show. He's the big elephant in the room that nobody is talking about, but if you really have to remind the audience of where the character is from, he's not that important to them. We got rid of almost an entire cast of good supporting characters for bland personality-less jokers like this?

That's not to say everything in this episode is bad, just like 98% of it, with the last 2% being 1 part ProtoMan, and another part some of the silly dialog from GravityMan, and that's assuming you enjoy that kind of thing. What hurts this episode, is the lack of anything particularly interesting, and a conflict that seems conjured up out of nowhere, complete with new characters who have been conjured up as well. NT Warrior has plenty of good resources for material, why don't the writers ever use them?

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: Commander Beef Returns

2010-02-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

Guess what? Another long lost character returns, marking the 4th episode to have this stupid title this season!

Plot Synopsis
Commander Beef is returning from a mission over seas to track down Mr. Gauss who's looking to score some Dark Chips from Nebula. Before he arrives, Mysteriyu and Black Rose get in contact with Lan and drop a bombshell on him; Commander Beef's identity is Masa! Lan is shocked at the news, but apparently everyone else already figured that out a long time ago, even MegaMan, further pushing the idiot NetBattler Savant theory. Also, everyone has already figured out that Black Rose and Mysteriyu are Sal and Miyu.

They're not supposed to know Commander Beef's identity though (making you wonder why the hell Sal and Miyu would reveal it to Lan) so Lan tries extra hard to keep Masa from knowing, that Lan knows, that Masa is Commander Beef.

Higsby on the other hand is frustrated at the news, because Ms. Mari has a crush on Commander Beef, and he blurts out Masa's identity right in front of her. This causes her to track him down and confront him about this, but Lan covers for him.

Masa and Ms. Mari go out for a walk down the fish market, and Lan is afraid he's going to reveal his identity to her, so Lan goes and keeps Masa away from her. While distracted, Mr. Gauss mistakes Ms. Mari for Ms. Yuri and takes her away to a secret warehouse. Lan and Masa spot her, and Lan gives chase while Masa runs off to change into his Commander Beef costume.

Higsby meanwhile, is pretty pissed that Masa is back, so he and the others spend some time sewing Commander Beef costumes. Back at the warehouse, Lan and Commander Beef jump to Ms. Mari's rescue, but are thrown off guard when Gauss shouts Commander Beef's identity in front of Ms. Mari. Ms. Mari is shocked again, but before it sinks in, Higsby, Mayl, Tory, Shuko, Miyu, Sal and Rush all show up dressed as Commander Beef. They claim it's Commander Beef day, which is why Masa is dressed up like him, fooling Ms. Mari.

Everyone jacks in their navis and then proceed to beat the shit out of MagnetMan. MagnetMan defeated, Gauss is arrested and put in cuffs. As the day comes to an end, Masa is about to reveal his identity again, but Lan stops him and says something along the lines of "a little Commander Beef is in all of us."

Critique
Okay, so the synopsis really makes this episode sound stupid as hell, but lets look over the upsides to this episode. You've got a Masa centric episode, with both Higsby and Mr. Gauss playing key roles, so already you've got a recipe for quality.

While the plot itself is kind of a mess, there's a great deal of humor thrown in, and it doesn't at all come off as repetitive watching the show, versus reading this synopsis. The whole episode is played up as ridiculous as possible, and it is a nice change from the melodrama that is generally associated with Axess. Lan plays off of Masa especially well this episode, and pretty much delivers one great line after line.

The only problem with this episode has little to do with the episode itself. Why has Masa been taken out of the main cast, and why is this the last time we'll see him this series? I'm not 100% on this, but I don't think Masa is ever seen again until the Beast series, and even then it's a parallel dimension Masa.

That doesn't take away what this episode has going for it though, and it's one of the strongest episodes as far as humor goes this season. Just look at this ridiculous couple of shots of Lan and Masa trying to hold back their secrets.
Rating: Thumbs up.

Axess: Space Junk

2010-02-18T06:36:00.001-08:00

Plot Synopsis
A NetNavi without a NetOp named JunkDataMan (why are they adding words to the original characters names?) is floating around in space collecting space debris. Well he just happens to come across a AyanoTech space station, which prompts Yai to kidnap Lan and everyone to fix the problem.

In a series of jokes to remind the audience that Yai is rich, Lan and Co. blast off to the space station, where they battle JunkDataMan. JunkDataMan apologizes for taking the stuff, and just says that he was lonely. They all get together and teach JunkDataMan what is okay for him to take, and what isn't. He sees them off, waving his new friends goodbye as MegaMan gives Lan a sappy message about picking up after yourself.

Critique
Well, at least JunkMan got out of this show a lot better than the games, but we the viewer sure didn't. This is really an episode where nothing interesting happens, nor does anything funny happen either. I like the voice they gave JunkDataMan, but the rest of the episode is really mediocre. It seems like that shouldn't happen considering it takes place in outer space... actually, what the hell is Lan doing in outer space? Sigh, I know the show is going to get worse in that regard soon anyway, what's the point of complaining?

What keeps this episode down the most are just the lame jokes. It's a real snore fest this episode.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: Cut Episodes Part 4

2010-02-17T21:40:00.000-08:00

Oh we were doing so well too. All the episodes were aired in order, and we hadn't skipped anything. What happened?

Well actually, this episode did air in English, but only in Canada, and unlike the first series of NT Warrior, Axess never made it to DVD. Unfortunately for us, that keeps this episode off the internet for viewing. Maybe it'll surface one day if a DVD release ever comes out (there was talks of this last year), but for now it's as good as gone.

SpoutMan's New Hero
Plot Synopsis Here
The key elements of this episode are SpoutMan getting saved by MegaMan, annoying the piss out of him, then both of them using DoubleSoul against BurnerMan.

I haven't seen this one, and I did try to hunt it down, but couldn't find it. I could go get the subtitled episode, but it's not on my list of priorities. My guess as to why this episode wasn't aired in the US was perhaps they felt SpoutMan's new affection for MegaMan cross the boundaries into homo-eroticism. That's a complete guess on my part, and what I get from reading the plot synopsis at the site I linked, but then again, that guy is a bit of a creep, and he might be reading too much into it...

Axess: Chaud vs ProtoMan

2010-02-17T17:47:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Dr. Hikari is working with BlazeQuest to come up with a new PET that is resistant against Dark Chip influence. When Dr. Hikari misplaces the data cd at his home, Chaud heads over there to pick it up. As he's leaving, Lan goes out and talks to him in the park.

It doesn't go well and they get into a fight. Chaud tells Lan his plan was great to use the Dark Chip, but Chaud should have let Lan infect MegaMan, because ProtoMan is the superior NetNavi and the two of them would have been better Net Saviors. Lan throws Chaud to the ground and Chaud finally breaks down into tears. Lan tells Chaud not to give up, and that they'll get ProtoMan back somehow, and that Lan will do everything he can to help Chaud. This seems to help Chaud a bit, and he picks himself back up and thanks Lan.

Later, Nebula isn't too happy about this new PET, and they send ProtoMan and GravityMan to BlazeQuest to retrieve the data cd. GravityMan wreaks havoc in the lobby with a dimensional area, while ProtoMan breaks through the network security. Lan shows up Cross-Fused to help out Chaud, while Chaud uses the network security and his own battle chips to try and stop ProtoMan. Chaud says he'll keep ProtoMan from the Data CD even if he has to delete ProtoMan himself.

Chaud backs up the Data CD and removes it from the system while Lan finally takes down GravityMan. The plan a failure, ProtoMan returns to LaserMan to report in. LaserMan decides to use another dark chip to further corrupt ProtoMan, rewriting his data to make him more menacing. The episode ends as Chaud promises to bring ProtoMan back.

Critique
See, now this episode would have been a perfect follow up to the episode previous to last where Chaud infected ProtoMan. Instead, we got the super model hijinks of whatever the fuck that last episode was.

This episode really develops Lan and Chaud's relationship, and shows how different Chaud has been since the show started. We really see Chaud's snide and arrogant personality from before seep through, but it's a defensive tactic to get Lan to leave him alone, and it really puts all of Chaud's character into perspective since the early episodes. Without ProtoMan, Chaud thinks he is nothing, and it takes Lan to show Chaud that Chaud is strong enough to fight for ProtoMan.

I've always said that Battle Network had weaker characters than Star Force, and that's mostly true, but Battle Network always had the potential for strong characters. Geo developed really well from his own personal suffering and overcoming his weaknesses. The characters in Battle Network don't really suffer aside from a few blips in the series, so none of them really grow into something better.

NT Warrior has managed to work a few choice stories around the characters suffering real traumatic experiences, although they do tend to fall into the status quo after a while, but occasionally, we do see that Battle Network has all the tools to make compelling narrative. The fact that Chaud's dilemma is sympathetic now, shows how well they've worked with the character... at least recently. I mean, I could probably complain hours on end about how certain episodes suck balls thanks to Chaud alone, but at least this new arc works well for him.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Wavering Heart

2010-02-17T13:23:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
What's the best way to follow up a great episode of Axess? With an incredibly stupid one of course! Chaud is understandably having a bad day after losing ProtoMan, whose now the 2nd Lieutenant of Nebula. Lan and MegaMan both take turns talking to Chaud, but he's pretty distant. Even when Chaud visits Anetta in the hospital (I know, I'm shocked someone actually went to the hospital instead of SciLab too) she can't get him to talk about it. Chaud doesn't know how he can be a Net Savior without ProtoMan, but he vows to stop Dr. Regal and Nebula. Enough about Chaud though, we have a stupid plot to get through!

Lan's been assigned to protect a super model whose showing off a new line of fashion called the "wearable computer." She doesn't seem to mind having an 11 year old body guard, and the Net Police are afraid Nebula will try to steal the Wearable Computer because, like all good fashion, it's a dangerous weapon. Somewhere in developing a personal computer you wear as clothing, the super model thought it was safe to put on a cloaking device and disguise maker. Yep, no potential for espionage there...

Mayl tries to get into the show, but accidentally wanders into the next door building, which is an Aerospace company working on secret satellite technology. "Here Mayl," says the guard, "let me tell you about everything we do around here and all of our secret weak points in security!" He seriously goes on and on about this shit, answering questions Mayl never asked. It's no wonder the place gets stormed later by super models.

Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. Um yeah, Nebula uses some sort of mind control sound wave to control the Super Models, who break into the next door building. Lan gets a call from Mr. Famous as he's being attacked by the models, saying the VIP he was protecting was found tied up outside of the airport. The person Lan was protecting was actually Ms. Yuri in disguise, and she's stealing the satellite data! To make matters worse, SparkMan is causing hell for MegaMan.

Luckily Roll counters the sound wave with her own sound wave, which some how reaches the super models attacking the security of the next door building from the top floor, all the way from the parking lot at the bottom of the fashion show floor. The models taken care of, Lan hits ProtoSoul on MegaMan and takes out SparkMan.

Ms. Yuri is about to steal the codes, when Chaud, using his psychic powers somehow, stops her. He knew Nebula was going to use the wearable computer and sound waves to control super models into stealing satellite data from a nearby aerospace company. I mean, come on, it's so obvious. Despite stopping her, Ms. Yuri still escapes as Lan arrives at the scene.

Suddenly, to remind the viewers that this show isn't always terrible, ProtoMan projects a hologram to Chaud, taunting him and telling Chaud that he means nothing to ProtoMan. Chaud screams out that he'll stop Nebula, pretty pissed that they are screwing with him.

Critique
Since this episode sucks balls, lets talk about the best thing about it. ProtoMan went back to the evil team! Hooray! It's been too long since ProtoMan was evil for the hell of it! All the way back to Ruby-Spears show! Ah, I really missed evil ProtoMan!

Sandwiching the episode are decent scenes to remind us of the overall story arc going on, even though a lot of it is through flash backs of an episode that we just watched. Then after we get into the meat of the episode, it just gets dumb. It's not that I'm against mind control shenanigans, hell, I think the episode where everyone was turned into animals by Yahoot was kind of funny, but this episode takes it so god damned serious.

Since the last episode was such a downer, taking the wacky route would be out of place the very next episode, but let's be serious, this isn't the sort of plot you deliver with a straight face. Chaud's deus ex machina at the end doesn't help the episode any either, showing up without any lead into how he figured it out.

Lastly, you have Nebula, who didn't even need an episode to recover from the loss of their oil tanker base. What's with villains in this show? Every loss is like a minor victory. Grave was especially bad about celebrating their defeat, and Nebula does the same shit. Why don't you assholes recognize a loss, and go for a revenge plot or something? Sometimes I hate this stupid show.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: Nebula's Secret Base

2010-02-17T01:21:00.000-08:00

Five seconds ago on MegaMan NT Warrior Axess:

Anetta reveals the leader of Nebula as Dr. Regal, then she is kidnapped by Ms. Yuri and flown off in a helicopter. Now back to MegaMan NT Warrior Axess.

Plot Synopsis
After re-watching the last scene of the last episode, Chaud and Lan head to Dr. Regal's hotel room to look for clues. On his laptop they find a giant ship off the coast and figure that's where Anetta is being held. Lan tells Chaud to not even think about keeping Lan out of this one, and Chaud tells Lan that he actually needs Lan's help. What the hell is this? Character development on Axess?!

They take a helicopter to the ship and a dimensional area pops up. They land just before it locks them out, and Cross-Fuse on board. They fight a few dozen viruses, who are also attacking the ship. The viruses have been sent by ShadeMan, and he's coming after Regal as well. Ms. Yuri leads Lan and Chaud to Dr. Regal who has Anetta lying unconscious before him. Lan and Chaud want to know why he betrayed the human race, and Chaud demands Regal let Anetta go, then Dr. Regal gives the most silly sounding line in the show.

"Ha ha, you're not in a position to make any demands now to answer your questions," and then he goes on talking for like five minutes. He doesn't say anything that we as the audience don't already know, but the characters get to hear all of it to recap it. Anyway, then ShadeMan shows up pissed off and ready to attack Regal, but Chaud stops him, afraid the battle will injure Anetta.

Him and Lan must really care about her safety, because when ShadeMan starts kicking their ass, they both unleash a program advance (Life Sword and Zeta Cannon) which nearly blow up the god damned ship, and knock out Lan and Chaud's cross-fusion. It only manages to amputate ShadeMan's arm, who seems more annoyed than hurt by this, but before he can take his next attack to Regal, Regal escapes and leaves his own NetNavi, LaserMan there to stop ShadeMan.

LaserMan blasts the fuck out of ShadeMan, and they both log out and drop the dimensional area. Lan and Chaud go wake up Anetta, and she's okay. They aren't out of danger yet though, as ShadeMan, miffed about losing an arm, decides to blow the whole fucking ship up from the reactor. With no way to escape, Lan and Chaud jack MegaMan and ProtoMan in to stop ShadeMan.

The fight doesn't go well, and ShadeMan single-handedly (rimshot) thrashes them around. Desperately, Lan contemplates using the Dark Chip Anetta gave them to stop ShadeMan, but if he does so, MegaMan would join the darkloids. MegaMan sees what Lan is doing, and yells for him to use the Dark Chip. "Do it Lan! It's the only way, we're out of time! If I do this, at least you guys can escape..." Lan grits his teeth and goes to download the Dark Chip, but Chaud snatches it out of Lan's hands.

"Forgive me ProtoMan," says Chaud, and he downloads the Dark Chip into his PET. ProtoMan is powered up by the Dark Chip, and takes a shot at ShadeMan, seemingly incapacitating him. ProtoMan begs MegaMan to delete him before he becomes his enemy, but MegaMan can't do it. ProtoMan tells Chaud it was an honor to be his navi, but before they have time to grieve, ShadeMan grabs MegaMan. In their last act of desperation, MegaMan and ProtoMan DoubleSoul, and MegaMan receives ProtoSoul. With ProtoSoul, MegaMan is able to finally strike at ShadeMan hard enough to cause him to log out.

Chaud tries jacking ProtoMan out, but to no avail, and ProtoMan teleports away screaming in pain. The Net Police finally arrive with helicopters, and a very grief stricken Chaud boards the plane with his head hung low.

ShadeMan hobbles back to his fortress, only to discover LaserMan there at his throne. Unfortunately for ShadeMan, all the darkloids have betrayed him and now obey Nebula. They also stand with a new darkloid, ProtoMan, who shoves ShadeMan into a pit where he's sealed away.

Seeing Chaud in such pain, Lan vows to himself to stop the dark chips at any costs.

Critique
The music in this episode is actually pretty catchy in the beginning, and trust me, I'm one of the last people to notice this sort of thing. Plot wise, there isn't a lull in the episode. This is the mid-season finale, and we're starting a new major arc with Dark ProtoMan. There's a ton of action this episode, some major character moments for the main cast, and some real game changers in the plot twists. You definitely leave this episode wanting to see what happens next, which is about as good as it gets for any show.

The only things I would complain about are the dimensional area generators sliding up out of the ship, because they look shitty as usual, and the other thing would be Dr. Regal himself. His villainous speech is silly, and the whole Dark Chip sequence is completely ruined by them overlapping Regal's face saying things like "DO IT! USE THE DARK CHIP! BWAHAHAHAHA!" Totally unnecessary and dumb looking.
It also seems weird to have MegaMan solve the conflict with DoubleSoul instead of the Dark Chip saving them, as it looks as if ProtoMan's sacrifice was a bit premature, but I guess the characters can't predict when DoubleSoul will go off. Really though, this episode only has nit picking complaints from me, and is otherwise a good episode.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Anetta's Revenge

2010-02-15T15:48:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Nebula has decided to assist a girl named Anetta in obtaining her revenge against Chaud and ProtoMan by giving her a Dark Chip that's been powered up to ten times the normal level, guaranteeing the corruption of a NetNavi in seconds. Anetta plays possum for the Net Police and pretends to be rescued by them.

While being shown around the Net Police HQ, we learn a bit about her past. Anetta was a patient at a hospital hit by a wave of virus attacks that caused a fire. Anetta's NetNavi Silk jacked in to try and open the doors for Anetta to escape, but Silk was consumed in the fire when Chaud and ProtoMan failed to rescue her. Desiring to avenge her fallen NetNavi, Anetta waits for the perfect opportunity to plant the disguised Dark Chip on Chaud's possession.

Anetta invites Chaud to hang out with her, and when Chaud accepts, he gains Lan's attention who decides to follow them. They go up into the observation deck of a tower, when a sudden fire alarm causes the doors to seal, and the oxygen to drain out of the room with Chaud and Anetta in it. Chaud jacks ProtoMan into the door to face a Dark Chip powered up SpikeMan. ProtoMan struggles, but Chaud never does use the Dark Chip, as he can tell which Battle Chips are his by feel (this ultra training bullshit is starting to get into nonsense here...).

While this is going on, Lan jacks MegaMan in to the network to open the doors. During the fight, Chaud apologizes for not being able to save Silk, but he promises to not let anything happen to Anetta, which causes her to question if she's doing the right thing or not. Lan gets the door open and has MegaMan join ProtoMan to stop SpikeMan. SpikeMan defeated, Lan tells Anetta what really happened when Silk was deleted.

Silk was interfaced with the hospital doors network, and if she had stopped, the doors would close, sealing Anetta inside. ProtoMan tried to get her out, but Silk refused, saying there wasn't enough time, and told ProtoMan to escape. With no other choice, Silk sacrificed herself to save Anetta. Anetta cries and apologizes to Chaud, who asks her where she got her Dark Chip, who she explains she got it from DR. REGAL! DUN DUN DUN!

At that moment, Ms. Yuri grabs Anetta and runs to a helicopter on the roof. Chaud and Lan give chase, but are too late to follow her. BubbleMan gleefully returns to ShadeMan to announce that he's figured out that Dr. Regal is the leader of Nebula. ShadeMan praises BubbleMan, and gets his dimensional area generator ready to strike at Dr. Regal's hidden base.

Critique
There's so much wrong with this stupid episode. First off, why would a paranoid group like Nebula, who blows up factories they use after a couple of weeks, trust a girl like Anetta to work for them, even though she's a complete unknown? If they just wanted to plant the dark chip on Chaud, why not have Dr. Regal do it himself? I mean, he's right there! Or even Ms. Yuri could do it, she seems to be a master of improbable stealth.

Anetta has taken a huge redesign of her character, right down to her artwork. In Battle Network 3, she's the operator of PlantMan, and an eco-terrorist working for World Three, marking her only appearance in the series. It seems weird to me to give a character like her such a redesign.

Her motivations are also pretty stupid, and inconsistent with her own character for the entire episode she's in. She's upset her rescuers couldn't save everyone? Are you serious? What a petty excuse for revenge, which is immediately countered when Anetta forgives Chaud after learning the truth, which was apparent from the start. Even if it wasn't, who seriously holds people responsible for not saving everyone? Yeah, it sucks she lost her navi, and people do weird things in grief, but this would be like saying the fireman who rescued people in the World Trade Center attacks are monsters because they missed a few people. It's just stupid.

And Navi death doesn't seem to mean much on this show anyway, just ask MegaMan, or TorchMan, or ElecMan. ElecMan especially, who just showed up again one day, he didn't even have the courtesy to give us all some sort of convoluted resurrection.

There's another problem with planting the dark chip. She places it with Chaud's other chips right next to his PET. Was ProtoMan asleep or something? Why didn't he notice? Then she's going to wait for Chaud to use the chip, but hell, why not just insert it herself? It's not like ProtoMan could have stopped her if she picked up the PET and threw in the dark chip, and nobody else was around.

Finally, you've got the final conflict of the episode with the draining of oxygen from the building. Chaud and Anetta are at the only entrance to that room? Why aren't there any fire escapes? Why don't the doors have a manual over ride to open them? Why the hell are they rehashing the conflict from the season premier, which is already standing on a shaky foundation?

And then Chaud can stop from using the battle chip by feel? Give me a fucking break. Like a huge nerd, I actually own some Battle Chips my sister got me in Japan, and there isn't any way to tell them apart with feel, even if you had ultra sensitive touch. I get Chaud is supposed to be really good at NetBattling, but we're really stretching the imagination here.

Then we've got the reveal of Dr. Regal being the leader of Nebula, which isn't surprising in the least, but the characters are justifiably shocked. This I have no problem with, but then Ms. Yuri shows up and kidnaps Anetta out of no where! Um, aren't Lan and Chaud standing at the only entrance to the room? Not only that, but Ms. Yuri also runs Anetta a different direction to the roof top, so if Chaud missed at least three exits out of the room, how do you expect me to buy the boy genius thing?

Anetta's not an interesting character, and you spend most of the episode wondering why this whole setup is so pathetically held together. The last few seconds of the episode are a little exciting, ignoring the inconsistencies in it, but that's about it.

Oh, but Lan does a good job getting some laughs by being creepy.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: VideoMan Returns!

2010-02-15T01:41:00.000-08:00

For god's sake! Another episode titled "Character Returns!" and also a character who has been gone for maybe ten episodes at the most? Geeze! Despite that, I kind of like this episode though.

Plot Synopsis
Nebula's leader convinces VideoMan to join his cause for Dark Chips, and enlists him to delete MegaMan once and for all. VideoMan sets up a virus attack, which lures MegaMan and Lan out, and then he records MegaMan from afar. Using his recorded footage, he creates copies of MegaMan and sends them throughout the city to cause havoc, hidden within a new popular movie.

That movie (which is never named) just happens to be the one movie Lan is just dying to see, as there is the sequel coming out in a couple of weeks, and he wants to be caught up. He manages to find a copy of it, but gets interrupted when a copy of MegaMan starts attacking a local store. Naturally this confuses the hell out of Lan and MegaMan, and MegaMan is nearly deleted by himself, but ProtoMan jumps in for the rescue.

Chaud and Lan split up and try to take out all the copies, and Chaud notices that all the attacks in common happened after the proprietors of the property played the movie Lan wanted to see on their VCRs. Lan pops the movie in while at SciLab with Chaud, and the whole tape is ruined, which Chaud thinks might have been caused by the magnetic waves the two of them faced earlier. Dr. Regal, Mr. Famous, and Dr. Hikari determine that the copies of MegaMan are spreading through the tapes, and direct Lan and Chaud to check out where the tapes are produced.

The copies are getting grainy, so VideoMan gets BubbleMan to help clean his lens. He tests it again, and makes a perfect copy of BubbleMan. That's when Lan and Chaud shows up, so VideoMan unleashes a dimensional area (once again with generators sliding out of walls and the ground and shit), and attacks Lan and Chaud in cross-fusion. He manages to make copies of Lan in Cross-Fusion and uses them to attack Lan and Chaud.

Chaud uses a battle chip (I have no idea what he uses, or what he says, it sounded like Shake, but that doesn't sound right...) and he pulls out a, uh, thing, then Lan hits it with an electrosword, which causes a magnetic wave to burst outward for some reason and delete all the copies. Lan and Chaud then blast VideoMan with Lava Cannon's and delete him for good. Chaud tells Lan he figured out that the magnets would delete the copies from when Lan's video tape got messed up.

Lan tries to get another copy of the movie, but it's sold out. Chaud pulls up in a limo and takes Lan to meet the actors at Lan's own private screening!

Critique
This episode isn't perfect, but it's pretty good. Just about every piece of footage used in the dub opening of this show comes from this episode, with good reason. This episode is one of the finest animated in the series! There's a lot of good action sequences with MegaMan, and plenty of good poses and shots.

Something I hadn't thought of earlier had occurred to me this episode as well. XEBEC, the animators of this show, made a much better effort to give the characters more unique animations than the last series. Everyone has a unique "Jack-In" sequence, and even Lan and Chaud's "Cross-Fusion" animations look different, and in general, Lan tends to use different Jack-In animations more often than not. It's good to see that, even if the writing suffered in the new series mostly, the animation's quality did go up.

There's a few clever lines here and there, and you can see some attempts at foreshadowing the magnet plot device, even if it isn't exactly clear what tools they're using to accomplish it, but that could just be me being dumb.

Not that this episode is perfect. VideoMan spends five minutes talking to himself explaining his plan, which is pretty obvious to figure out from just watching the episode, and then explains it again to Lan and Chaud. We get it VideoMan, you made copies of MegaMan, get going already!

VideoMan's dialog fluctuates between clever and stupid, but I generally like his way of talking more often than not. Lan and Chaud's one liners I could have done without though.

As far as this episode goes, everything holds together well enough, but the animation is among the best in the series. Worth checking out for sure.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Magma Battle

2010-02-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
All of the Darkloids have decided to ditch ShadeMan and go work for Nebula to get their Dark Chips directly, leaving BubbleMan as ShadeMan's only minion. They hatch a plan to strike at Nebula's mysterious leader.

Meanwhile, Lan, Mayl, Chisao, Tory, and Ms. Mari are on a trip to another hot spring location, but all the instruments in the town are causing everything to break down, from way too hot hot springs, to hay wire pinball machines, to even the town geyser being late. It's being caused by BurnerMan and BubbleMan, working for Nebula (BubbleMan secretly undercover for ShadeMan), and they've broken into the geothermal plant and are raising the magma temperature.... what??? The Geothermal plant has machines regulating magma temperatures??? That sounds uh, implausible...

Chaud has been called to the scene by the Net Saviors, but Lan meets up with him after seeing an explosion. They chase down BurnerMan, and then MegaMan finally shows up for about 20 seconds before they open up a dimensional area. He seriously has about three lines this episode. Anyway, the dimensional area generators slide out of the walls and ground again in all the shitty ways they've done for a long time, and BurnerMan heads straight down to the Magma.

Lan and Chaud go after him cross-fused, because they figure the cross-fusion will protect them from a lavaey burning death. Chaud has a history of knowing shit without any evidence, he's a sharp fella. At one point, Lan takes his Cross-fuse off to switch battle chips... and doesn't immediately burst into flames. I think I'm on to something about Lan being a retarded NetBattle savant.

Anyway, using the Salamander battlechip, Lan catches BurnerMan off guard, and gives Chaud a chance to cut him in half. BurnerMan logs out, and the two Net Saviors haul ass to get out of the magma before the dimensional area collapses. Chaud and Lan have noticed how good a team they have become, and they even decide to be friendly and hang out the rest of the day! Good for them!

The episode ends with ShadeMan building his own dimensional area generator to strike at Nebula! Dun dun dun!

Critique
Oh this episode is so boring and bad! MegaMan is just a prop this episode, he really has only a handful of lines and scenes, and you don't even see him till halfway through. This is how cross-fusion is abused blatantly on this show.

Then you've got the conflict, which is a bit shaky looking in heating up magma and stuff, but I'll admit I don't know shit about this. I doubt it could cause the trouble the bad guys are looking to stir though, and Lan breaking cross-fusion and later jumping into lava nearly crosses the border on what is allowed for stupid for this show.

Finally, the jokes are just horrible, and the writing is only interested in the ShadeMan segments that bookend the episode. It makes you interested in the coming conflict, but this episode on it's own needs more of NT Warrior sticking to its roots.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: A Scary Power Source

2010-02-08T22:09:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
So we're halfway through the season, Dr. Hikari still hasn't figured out how to make portable dimensional areas, and they only now think to examine one of the generators the Darkloids and Nebula have been using... fantastic. Because apparently there aren't billions of these things lying around, sitting in buses and rock formations and junk, Lan and Chaud are tasked to protect one in SciLab's possession while they study it. And what a pain in the ass it turns out to be, as Lan and Chaud fight wave after wave of Dominerds and Shadow viruses (the two most annoying viruses in all the games).

They protect the generator for about a week while SciLab calls in an expert in the area of energy fields, Dr. Regal, who happens to have a really familiar voice to anyone who pays attention to this show. Upon Dr. Regal's arrival, they take him to the real dimensional area generator (the one Lan and Chaud were protecting was a fake to distract Nebula, except Lan was the last to know this), but Ms. Yuri plants some viruses in the limo the Net Agents are driving.

Dr. Regal has MegaMan examine the dimensional area, where he comes across ghost Net Navis, and freaks the fuck out of course. They play MegaMan's fear of ghosts a bit more straight this time, going from comical fear, to crippling phobia... poor Mega...

They're not sure what the hell is up with the ghost navi's, but Dr. Regal manages to repair the dimensional area. At that moment, Ms. Yuri sends a darkloid in, SparkMan, and he jacks in to the generator. ProtoMan and MegaMan follow, but their energy is being sapped away mysteriously. SparkMan activates the generator, and jacks in to the real world, where Lan and Chaud cross-fuse to stop him. Dr. Hikari, being the brave father that he is, upon seeing his son in danger, runs away with Dr. Regal to safe haven... father of the year folks!

Even in Cross-Fusion, Lan and Chaud have their power sapped away as well, and then about this point things start getting more ridiculous than usual. SparkMan uses his new ability to clone MegaMan and ProtoMan. What? You didn't know SparkMan could do that? Of course he can! What, did you think with a name like SparkMan he would shoot out electricity or something? Pfft, moron.

Anyway, Chaud figures out that the copies can put up a fight against their clone, so Lan and Chaud switch places and take on the other's copy. I'm not saying this doesn't make sense, I mean it does, and it's probably the first thing you would think of in a video game or something, but is there really any precedent or real clue that this would work besides Chaud just making up bullshit? After this, Chaud uses Muramasa on SparkMan, but it does nothing because Chaud is at full health you dolt! Oh, and SparkMan blocks it. Lan lines up a shot on SparkMan, who is told to turn around by a mysterious super deep voice that sounds just like Dr. Regal and the Nebula leader, but I'm sure that's just an eerie coincidence. Not that it matters, because Lan won't shoot since Chaud is in the way, despite Chaud practically begging to get a face full of lava.

SparkMan destroys the area generator and takes off. It's okay though, because Dr. Hikari has learned that Nebula powers their dimensional area generators with... THE SOULS OF NETNAVIS! Muhahahahahahahahahahaha! Anyway, that's why they were kidnapping so many of them back in the second episode, and this was also why it drained ProtoMan and MegaMan's energy. This revelation sends a chill down everyone's spine. Man, morality and artificial intelligence are fucked up...

Anyway, the episode ends with Ms. Yuri cackling like the shrill hyena that she is, and Chaud wondering who's voice he heard speaking to SparkMan.

Critique
Interesting concepts, a little weak on the execution. At the outset, studying a Nebula dimensional area seems like the first thing they should of done, and the fact that Nebula uses so damn many of them, you'd think they'd be in no short supply.

Then you've got Dr. Regal, who, even if you haven't played the games, has a secret identity that's painfully obvious. Although maybe they knew that going in, and didn't really try and hide it from the audience, so much as the characters.

Then there's SparkMan's clone attack, which makes no sense, but I guess I'm complaining about diverting from source material more than anything, which is a pretty weak complaint here.

This episode is pretty serious the whole way through, and even MegaMan's fear of ghosts is shown more sympathetically than normal. What I did like from this episode, was Chaud managed to do a few arrogant digs at Lan like he normally does, but he managed to be more playful about it than he's ever been. It's only a couple of lines, but at least the character is warming up to Lan just a little bit.

Overall, a relatively mediocre episode, but a must see for the major plot points for the series. It has ideas, but lacks any real strong scenes to give it a lot of quality, although no individual part of it is outright terrible. Thumbs down, but just barely.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: BubbleMan's Plan

2010-02-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
BubbleMan has been trying to figure out how to exact his revenge on MegaMan, and he's determined he'll need to counter DoubleSoul with his own DoubleSoul to beat him. He determines the source behind DoubleSoul's power is friendship, and if he can only trick someone into being his friend, maybe he'll be able to use it.

At first, things don't go so well. BubbleMan tries handing out free water in NetCity, but most navis avoid him. Just as he's about to give up, SpoutMan just so happens to be interested in BubbleMan. BubbleMan convinces SpoutMan to hang out with him, causing Shuko to lose track of him for a while. Shuko asks Lan, Tory, Mayl, and Higsby to help find SpoutMan, and the four of them jack in to begin their search.

IceMan runs across BubbleMan and SpoutMan, and ends up getting wrapped up in this whole friendship business, and ends up getting lost from Tory as well. Lan tells MegaMan, Roll, and NumberMan to stick together so they don't get lost, and BubbleMan runs off with IceMan and SpoutMan to build an ice fort.

They build a bunch of slides and play and have fun, and BubbleMan figures they buy his friendship enough to get DoubleSoul working... except he can't figure out what to do exactly. Just then, MegaMan and the others show up, so BubbleMan convinces SpoutMan and IceMan to attack them, by saying they'll have a friendly NetBattle. MegaMan, Roll, and NumberMan are hesitant to fight back, figuring SpoutMan and IceMan have been tricked, and they actually manage to get in some serious trouble really fast. Just then, Tory and Shuko finally establish contact with SpoutMan and IceMan, and make them come home immediately.

IceMan and SpoutMan thank BubbleMan for the real fun day and leave, with BubbleMan cursing for not figuring out DoubleSoul. MegaMan and the others decide to jack out as well, seeing as BubbleMan has given up. Shuko and Tory chastise IceMan and SpoutMan for being tricked by a Darkloid, but the two of them seem optimistic that BubbleMan is actually a good guy, which disheartens Shuko and Tory that their Navis are such idiots.

BubbleMan is afraid of going back to ShadeMan to be ridiculed, but to his surprise, ShadeMan actually thinks it was clever of BubbleMan to use MegaMan's friends against him. BubbleMan is renewed with a new zeal, and vows to take care of MegaMan once and for all!

Critique
I've always liked the pathetic villains of the entire Mega Man universe, and BubbleMan is just great this episode, as are IceMan and SpoutMan. I laughed really hard when SpoutMan starts crying, "Oh it's not fair! Having to pick between two things I really really want! WAAAAAAAH!" Oh these navis are pathetic, and pretty funny.

BubbleMan completely misunderstanding friendship, and ShadeMan getting pretty weirded out by him at the end, make this a great episode. Sorry BubbleMan, but you're only half right about friendship with DoubleSoul. In the show, DoubleSoul was caused from some data changes after Cross-Fusion took effect, probably rewriting the style change data within MegaMan. In the game, it has something to do with MegaMan's resurrection and full synchro after Battle Network 3. It might be possible for another Navi to DoubleSoul, but you've got a lot more work to do besides making friends BubbleMan. Although, knowing this show, a contradiction could happen at any time, so take all that with a grain of salt. Good episode though.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: ShadeMan's Ambition

2010-02-07T03:09:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
ShadeMan's a bit pissed about being tricked by Nebula, but rather than kicking the habit, he's decided to come up with a plan to steal all the dark chips. Oh what you junkies will do to get your fix.

Some time later, the Net Police get an anonymous tip about a warehouse storing dark chips, and Keifer sends Manwella to investigate. When she arrives at the warehouse, a dimensional area forms around it to keep her out. She calls for Lan and Chaud to assist her.

Lan and Chaud stop what they're doing (rounding up dark chip corrupted NetNavis), and head to the dimensional area. ShadeMan appears before Nebula's leader and offers to help protect the dark chips with himself and another Darkloid, GravityMan, to which Nebula's leader accepts. Lan and Chaud come up with their own plans to break through the dimensional area barrier, completely ignoring the last episode where Chaud managed to do it through magic or something. I guess he forgot how to do it since last week?

They break through the barrier, with Chaud amazingly doing so by somehow jumping away from it, and eventually get down to where they think the dark chips are. Unfortunately, the path is blocked by GravityMan, who just gives them absolute hell fighting them. They eventually team up and form a strategy against him, taking GravityMan down.

Inside the dark chip vault, ShadeMan stands, ready to steal the dark chips, for it was him that gave the Net Police the anonymous tip. He only finds a single chip there, his reward, explains Ms. Yuri, for protecting the warehouse, of which they had already abandoned weeks ago. Um, didn't we already do this exact same plot?

ShadeMan is pissed, and on his way out, pretty much blasts Chaud and Lan with one shot that breaks both of their Cross-Fusions. He's too irritated to kill them I guess, and he logs out nonchalantly, leaving the two of them fearful of his power.

Critique
So yeah, this episode really feels like it moves in slow motion, because the characters talk waaaaaay to god damned much again. Add to this that the voice actress for Ms. Yuri is the same voice actress for Manwella, and she ends up speaking about 90% of the dialog this episode. I have nothing against the voice actress, but I wasn't expecting a damn soliloquy from her.

MegaMan is also sidelined this episode, again. He's barely in it at all, and things were going so well too. Add to this that the ending is pretty much the same thing from every episode of Axess, that is, Nebula being one step ahead of everyone, but also wasting everyone's time, and you have an episode that's nearly frustrating to watch.

Although a lot of the action in this episode is really slow with the characters never shutting up, the GravityMan fight doesn't feel as bad, and this is one of the rare episodes we get to see Lan and Chaud working together while Cross-Fused, something that isn't really standard until Stream and beyond. For the dub especially, this is a pretty rare occurrence, and I did like that Lan is actually shown to have some quick thinking when he saves himself and Chaud from the elevator shaft, which even slightly impresses Chaud. I just think it's odd how Lan is allowed to do all these dangerous activities so young because he's a child prodigy of Net Battling, yet, they always make him out to be so dumb. You would think by the way the show goes, that Lan is actually some sort of genius in regards to this stuff. Or maybe he's just a Savant, which explains why they make him out to be so retarded.

Anyway, GravityMan is a pretty stupid character too, and has another really annoying voice. They decided to give him a stereotypical robot personality you might see off a show like Lost In Space or something, which seems odd for a cartoon based on a spin off of a video game about robots... That said, GravityMan is probably the only use of 3D on this show that actually looks good, although his animations aren't very complicated. He looks like the 3D you might see on the show Futurama, and that should be taken as a compliment.

If this episode didn't move so slow, rely on one voice actress, and stayed away from NT Warrior's typical contrived story writing conventions, it could have worked out decently. The Darkloid and Nebula's growing tensions make for interesting narrative, but it really feels like only ShadeMan's character is putting any effort into making that narrative interesting, which in turn, hurts this overtly mediocre episode.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: Dark Secret

2010-02-07T01:50:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
DesertMan has been weakened from his use of Dark Chips, and has become dependent upon them for survival. Needing to restore missing data, he breaks into the NetPolice vault, where the confiscated Dark Chips are being held, and tries to steal some. Luckily, Chaud is at the station, and quickly apprehends the weakened DesertMan and takes him to SciLab for testing.

Running some tests, Dr. Hikari confirms that the Dark Chips slowly destroy NetNavi data, including the Darkloids, and that their dependence on them will eventually lead to their own deletion. He also puts forth a new theory that the Darkloids were not man made, but evolved out of chunks of data floating around the cyber network. There's a scary thought for you, 4chan memes becoming sentient and trying to take over the world... god help us all...

FlashMan tries to break DesertMan out, but SciLab's defenses combined with MegaMan and ProtoMan are too much for a Darkloid to handle, so they come up with a new scheme. They jack in to NetPolice Chief Keifer's limo, with him and his assistant Manwella inside it, taking them to a car crusher, and of course, since there is no security any where in the world, this puts them in grave danger... oh man, if this was last season I could have made a pun...

SpikeMan contacts SciLab and demands DesertMan's return for the lives of Chief Keifer and Manwella. With their backs against the wall, Lan and company agree, and take DesertMan to the car crusher to make the exchange. Mr. Famous jacks DesertMan into the terminal, but SpikeMan double crosses them and activates the car crusher anyway. Lan has merely precious seconds to get MegaMan to open the lock on the car doors before the passengers get smooshed.

FlashMan then meets with DesertMan and attacks him. He's going to delete DesertMan for his failures, and DesertMan just laughs, knowing that FlashMan will soon share his fate from the Dark Chips. FlashMan deletes DesertMan as a SearchSoul charged up MegaMan gets rid of SpikeMan to free Keifer and Manwella.

They aren't out of danger yet, as a dimensional area forms around them, with the generators sliding up out of the fucking ground again like the Earth pushing a turd out its ass. Why can't they just stick to the satellite animations? Lan has MegaMan try and blast one of the generators with his SearchSoul gun, but it merely bounces off, making Raika's super intelligent plan fucking worthless. Too bad Lan didn't cross-fuse, because FlashMan causes Lan to drop his PET, knocking it away from him.

Just as everyone is about to meet certain doom, Chaud shows up and Cross-Fuses with ProtoMan to save the day... uh... how exactly did Chaud break through dimensional area barrier? I mean, ignore the speed thing for a second, because how the fuck did he do it without Cross-Fusing first? NT Warrior doesn't ask any questions, and neither should you, as Chaud takes out FlashMan with a new program advance, Elemental Sword. See, the writers are asking you to look the other way for Program Advances kids!

FlashMan escapes and stumbles to ShadeMan, begging for Dark Chips. ShadeMan is horrified at FlashMan, who's data has deteriorated and decayed. ShadeMan wonders if the Dark Chips hold this fate for him too. Nebula's leader laughs to himself, knowing the Dark Chips will destroy the Darkloids after he's used them to his own ends.

Critique
This episode adds a bit of intrigue, and is perhaps a bit dark for the standard NT Warrior fare. I've always thought the way Dark Chips were used in this show, and the games, were pretty clever in their own, super contrived way. I mean, eventually you have to forget about putting out Cyber-Fires, and NetNavi's drowning in Cyber-Water, and just roll with it right?

I like ShadeMan's reaction at the end of the episode, and I really think the voice actor did a good job with his voice. ShadeMan I feel is the way to do a more serious villain right, by adding some personality to him, as opposed to the leader of Nebula, who is boring as shit.

As a whole, this episode is pretty bland, sprinkling tiny bits of more interesting plot points that serve for the whole arc of the series, rather than the plot of the individual episode. On that front, it's certainly worth watching, and it isn't boring, but its not even close to the level of entertainment of the last episode.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: SearchSoul!

2010-02-06T20:29:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Strange ghosts viruses have been robbing data-banks across DenTech, and Raika and Lan have been assigned the case. Unfortunately Raika is too much of an intolerable ass for Lan to work with, and MegaMan is deathly afraid of ghosts. (MegaMan.EXE's fear of ghosts originates from the Mystery of the Ghost Ship episode, which was never dubbed in English, and this continued to be a running joke for the rest of the series.) Chief Kiefer tells them to get over it and work together, so the two of them decide to split up and figure out their own ways to track down where the data was taken.

SearchMan's excellent tracking skills locate the viruses in no time, but Lan is stuck following Rush around to every Pizzeria and Deli in the city. So much for relying on the nose of a cyber-dog. Everyone is called back to SciLab after Raika encountered the ghost viruses (which turned out to be invisible Mettaurs), and painted them with a tracking signal. Raika waits around to see where the viruses go, while Lan throws a temper tantrum in the street about how much he hates Raika.

Lucky for Lan, the viruses happen to stop by his location, and he arrives first to the scene to find DesertMan in the network ordering the viruses around. MegaMan is jacked in to stop him, but using the Dark Chips, DesertMan turns invisible, making it impossible for MegaMan to fight him. DesertMan uses his advantage to grab MegaMan and begin squeezing the life out of him.

Just then, Raika shows up with SearchMan, so DesertMan holds MegaMan over a pit of lava, knowing that if SearchMan takes a shot at DesertMan, he'll delete MegaMan in the process. Raika doesn't give a shit and tells SearchMan to take the shot, but SearchMan hesitates, remembering all the good times he had with MegaMan... like that time they stopped ShadowMan... and that time MegaMan called him heartless... and that time... actually it's all from the same episode, but whatever, point is that SearchMan is a bit more amiable to MegaMan than Raika is.

Raika yells at SearchMan, continually ordering him to take the shot, but SearchMan just can't bring himself to fire. DesertMan drops MegaMan into the pit, so reacting fast, SearchMan fires an ice beam at the lava, freezing it and allowing MegaMan to land safely. That leaves him open to an attack from DesertMan, and SearchMan takes a direct hit from DesertMan's Ant-lion attack. Raika is in complete disbelief that SearchMan disobeyed him, and MegaMan rushes to SearchMan's aid. This triggers a DoubleSoul, and MegaMan fuses with SearchMan to create SearchSoul.

DesertMan turns invisible again to out maneuver MegaMan, but with his new tracking ability, MegaMan easily pinpoints him and takes the shot, which impresses even Raika. DesertMan logs out and the data is recovered. Raika is pissed about SearchMan disobeying him, and decides to return home to Sharo. Heading on the plane home, Raika grudingly admits that it was thanks to MegaMan's skill that everything worked out. Lan thanks him, then Raika adds, "Just because I think your NetNavi has skills doesn't mean I think you have any."

"ARG! YOU BETTER GET ON THAT PLANE!"

Critique
Just to be clear, I don't hate Raika as a character. Actually, the only episode I hate with him in it, is the last episode because of how the dialog continually has Raika beating the audience over the head with the only feature of his character, his so called intelligence, on top of which Lan mostly just ends up taking the whole episode. This time Raika actually uses more than ten words from the dictionary, and Lan's building pure rage over Raika's arrogance is hilarious!

This episode is just pieced together so well, a rare home run for this show. At the start of the episode, you have Raika explaining how a NetOp is useless if his NetNavi is disobedient, and this foreshadows SearchMan's inevitable decision in the climax. Lan's increasing anger and frustration are done well, gradually building to a near psychotic outburst, and even when he thinks he's finally shown Raika his ability, Raika throws it back in his face for the perfect ending!

MegaMan is fantastic in this episode as well. The running gag of MegaMan being afraid of ghosts is probably the best thing about NT Warrior ever being made, and the action sequences have some really nice dynamic shots of the blue bomber. They aren't animated as particularly nice as say, Star Force, but the poses and shots are done pretty well. The climax with SearchMan's decision between taking out DesertMan and saving MegaMan is the best the show has ever done to raise some real tension and drama in the characters. You really don't know if SearchMan will take the shot or not (although it's a safe bet MegaMan would survive either way), and I really like this final scene.

This is definitely the best episode of Axess, and one of the best episodes of NT Warrior, and it features a mostly new cast, which is what I've chastised in this series the most so far. There's no Count Zap, no Higsby, no Masa, and this episode still manages to be fantastic, proving that their is a potential for strength in this show, even if it's rarely used. It has a perfect blend of humor, such as Lan following Rush all over town, and suspense and drama. Overall I think Axess is pretty bad, and it's going to get much worse from here, but this episode I'd put in my top 5 episodes of any of the Mega Man cartoons, it's really good.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: The Man From Sharo

2010-02-06T09:14:00.001-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Some viruses have stopped a car over some train tracks, preparing an imminent collision with the train. Luckily, a mysterious Net Savior standing on top of a car (way to respect other people's property for an unnecessary dramatic stance...) is in the area, and he jacks in SearchMan to take out the virus, seconds before Lan and MegaMan arrive on the scene.

Back at SciLab, Lan meets this Net Savior from Sharo named Chau... er Raika. Raika is working with Lan a few days to see how Electopian Net Saviors handle missions with Cross-Fusion. Wanting to impress him, Lan spends the majority of the day bragging to Raika about how great he and MegaMan are, and how Cross-Fusion works.

Chaud... er Raika, complains that Lan is relying on only his brute strength and not any intelligence in stopping the Darkloids, something he repeats about twenty two thousand times this episode. When the evil VideoMan attacks a movie theater with, um... lava (what the Christ?), Raika figures this will be a good opportunity to show Lan what he's talking about.

Lan jacks in MegaMan for literally about 12 seconds before Nebula launches a satellite and makes a dimensional area around the movie theater. At least the fucking generators don't materialize out of buses. Lan cross-fuses and tells Chaud... er Raika, to beat it, but Raika goes on and on about being intelligent. Apparently being intelligent means being Batman, as Raika goes about doing flips and using grappling hooks to get around past the viruses.

Things don't go well for Lan, as VideoMan captures him within his grasps, and begins strangling Lan with his... uh tape? Just as Lan is about to meet his maker, Chaud -okay I've run this joke into the ground- Raika has SearchMan destroy the Dimensional Area Generator, dissipating the dimensional area. Lan is a bit short on breath, but otherwise okay, as Raika chastises Lan for being an idiot. Lan hopes he never has to work with that arrogant jerk, Raika, ever again!

Critique
If you didn't get it, Raika is a carbon copy of Chaud in this show, minus the psychopathic tendencies from Battle Network 4 (seriously, who the fuck shoots at an ally?). The whole episode he goes on and on about how much smarter he is than Lan, and you start to wonder when he's going to jack ProtoMan in already.

The dialog is so terrible this episode, as Raika says the word "intelligence" over and over and over. If he's so damn smart, maybe he should look up a fucking thesaurus and expand his vocabulary, I've never heard the damn phrase come across so annoying. In the Japanese version, Raika sounds a lot younger, as do all the characters, and I can only imagine the snot nosed child actor saying this repetitive tripe non stop.

This episode also follows the formula of Lan being too arrogant, and then getting slapped back into reality, except I think they're a bit too harsh on him this time. I mean, Raika sure talks a lot of shit about taking down Darkloids, despite having never been in a dimensional area his entire life. Tell me what's so smart about not doing any research about your enemy? Lan may be dumb, but he's got a hell of a lot more experience.

I think the intention of this episode is to make Raika look smarter more than annoying, but he just comes off as a stupid ass whose overly dramatic. His idea of intelligence is really agility and taking really dumb risks. Perhaps if the writers had some intelligence, Raika would be less grating this episode.

VideoMan is a positive this episode though, as he has some really great lines, but they jump the gun so fast to get into the dimensional area, MegaMan hardly has any screen time at all. This is kind of what I'm talking about with Cross-Fusion ruining the show, because MegaMan literally fires his buster once, and then it's Cross-Fusing time. This sequence really seems cut up too, as if there was more to this scene, and I'm not sure if that's the dubbers cutting something, or if the source was really like this. Either way, this sequence is really shoddy.

For an episode about intelligence, this episode is really stupid.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: SavageMan Returns!

2010-02-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

Oh joy, as if I was missing our frog throated friend...

Plot Synopsis
SavageMan is freaking out from using the Dark Chips. Apparently using them frequently causes the NetNavi to lose data, and gets them dependent on the dark chips to restore it. In other words, all of Mega Man NT Warrior Axess is an anti-drug PSA, remember kids, just say "No!" to Dark Chips! Anyway, in order to get more dark chips, SavageMan will have to work directly for Nebula, with his mission of destroying MegaMan!

The next day, Ms. Mari is taking Lan and Mayl to an international exhibit at the brand new "Sea Tower," which is a sky scraper built on a sea platform. Uberknownst to Lan and Mayl is that it's actually Ms. Yuri in disguise, leading Lan into a trap, and a very complicated one at that considering she could just disguise herself as Ms. Mari and shoot Lan in the back or something.

While at the exhibit, Lan runs into Tamako, who's sole purpose this episode is to give MegaMan a new DoubleSoul. No seriously, we'll never see her again after this. Anyway, they get into a Net Battle which is interrupted by SavageMan, seeking to assassinate MegaMan. With HeavyMetalMan's help, MegaMan gets a new DoubleSoul, MetalSoul, and is able to dispatch even a powered up SavageMan.

That's only phase one of the plan, as Ms. Yuri uses SpikeMan to take out one of the tower's support beams. The building starts to collapse, but don't worry, this is a kids show, no ones getting hurt from a silly thing like thousands of pounds of steel and rock crushing them! While trying to escape the falling building, Lan stupidly drops his PET into a precarious spot and has to spend a few minutes trying to fish MegaMan out of it.

As if matters couldn't be worse, a dimensional area forms around the building and SavageMan comes to fight Lan. Lan Cross-Fuses at the very last second and fights off SavageMan with a tiny Cyber Sword, deleting him once and for all. Well... that was easy? Lan passes out from exhaustion, but he's okay.

ShadeMan starts getting suspicious of the dark chips Nebula is giving him, but they reassure him everything is okay, and as soon as he leaves, they laugh and make fun of how stupid these Darkloid junkies are.

Critique
So this new angle on Dark Chips is actually pretty interesting, and I think it's one of the stronger points of this season, as is SavageMan dying since we won't have to ever hear his stupid voice again, too bad we have to deal with him this episode though.

What a stupid title too, SavageMan returns? What? He was gone like for six episodes maybe? Who gives a shit about SavageMan? This is also like one of five episodes with the title "Soandso Returns!" Why go out of their way to keep bringing disappearing characters to our attention? And of the characters, once again, who gives a fuck about SavageMan?

Then there's Tomako, who I also find annoying, combined with Ms. Yuri and you've completed the trifecta of shitty characters this episode. Add a sprinkle of Cross-Fusion and anti-climatic battles to give a pretty lame episode. It's not extremely boring, but even MegaMan's MetalSoul (which looks great) doesn't save this episode from mediocrity.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: It's All How You Look At It!

2010-02-05T05:08:00.000-08:00

This episode is similar to a scenario in Mega Man Battle Network 4 Blue Moon.

Plot Synopsis
Shuko is a depressed girl with a run of bad luck so bad that the entire town considers her a jinx to have around. All the shops around her close, hoping to ward off her misfortune before her presence taints them. Bad news for Higsby though, as he's having a Net Battle tournament that Shuko excitedly enters.

On the day of the tournament, there is a heavy downpour of rain and Shuko chalks it up to her bad luck. The contestants Lan, Mayl, Higsby, Tory, and Shuko, prepare for their match, a five-way brawl where leaving the battle platform disqualifies the contestant. Shuko brings out her Navi, AquaMan... scratch that, SpoutMan (this one isn't the dubbers fault this time though, there's a dispute with DC comics that resulted in the renaming), and SpoutMan is so adorable to everyone that he throws them off their game. In the fight, Lan slips up with his battle chips, and NumberMan manages to throw his doom dice so it lands on a corner. Afraid of being cursed with bad luck, all the NetNavis back away slowly from SpoutMan until they accidentally fall out of the arena, leaving Shuko the winner. Shuko is absolutely ecstatic about this sudden turn of events, and happily claims her prize, a 10 pound bag of rice.

Unfortunately, Shuko's rice cooker is broken, so Higsby lets her borrow his. It just so happens, however, that the power plant is shutting down the power for a week for routine repairs (they must have PG&E! Ha, obscure Californian power crisis reference!). Shuko starts blaming her bad luck and starts crying, so determined to make her feel better, SpoutMan sneaks off to repair the power. In doing so, he trips up a few security alarms, which make him start bawling. When SpoutMan cries, he releases tons of water from his spout, enough to flood the entire cyberworld!

Lan, Higsby and Shuko run to the power plant to try and stop SpoutMan, but the waves surrounding him are too much for MegaMan and NumberMan to break through. Shuko calls the situation hopeless and starts lamenting her bad luck, when Higsby finally tells her she caused her own misfortune by exaggerating her problems. If she had been more positive, SpoutMan wouldn't have gone off on his own. Shuko tries to think up a solution to the problem then, and determines that they can stop SpoutMan by plugging his spout.

MegaMan performs a DoubleSoul with NumberMan, raising his analytical abilities high enough to accurately pinpoint his attacks. MegaMan plugs SpoutMan's spout with an Elec Sword, bringing him under control and stopping the floods. Later, Shuko gets a job assisting Higsby with the chip shop, and has decided to have a more positive outlook on life. After all, she's luckier than Higsby.

Critique
Shuko is probably the most annoying new character to me, and the writers don't hesitate to ramp up her annoying whining as much as possible. I know Shuko is acting to get the intended effect, but damn if it isn't still annoying.

Other things work in this episode, Shuko aside. The little bits of bad luck are humorous, Lan has some decent lines, and for no particular reason, one of the extra characters has "ze outraegous French Axsent! No?" Also, Higsby has the best line in the show. "You have to have a good outlook on life, althought you don't have to be as upbeat as Lan, he's so gung-ho!" Oh man, Lan could not have been summed up any better than that.

Also, we get a new DoubleSoul, which is always a plus to see in action, and MegaMan's voice gets modified like NumberMan's which is a nice touch. The little details are what save this episode, but Shuko really comes close to killing it.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Also a side note, it looks like Ribbita showed up this episode, so I suppose I was wrong about her voice actress disappearing for a while. I don't really recall her showing up again though, so maybe this was a one time deal, or maybe I'm just talking out my ass. (Probably the latter).

Axess: The Incredible Guts!

2010-02-04T03:11:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
This episode plays tribute to possibly the greatest movie of all time, King Kong. Dex is delivering some curry on the island of Jawaii to the seedy noodle merchant from the CutMan Brothers episode. Of course, since that episode only aired in Canada, if you're watching this episode in America, you'll have no idea who the fuck that is.

Anyway, the guy trades his curry tab for a weird device called a Net Wrecker. Initially Yahoot, and World Three deride Dex for making the stupid trade, but to their surprise, the device actually powers up GutsMan an incredible amount. Since Lan and MegaMan just happen to be stopping by on their way back from Kingland, what better time then now to finally defeat them once and for all?

World Three lure Lan into a friendly matchup, and just as MegaMan starts winning, Dex pulls out his ace in the hole. He activates the Net Wrecker, which causes GutsMan to increase in power and size tremendously, but Lan is still able to work up a strategy to put up a fight. Dex goes full throttle on the Net Wrecker, blowing up the machine and sending GutsMan into an uncontrollable rage! Now much bigger, and more dangerous, GutsMan starts wreaking havoc on the cyber network... oh yeah, and Dex wins the match by the way.

Realizing they've got bigger problems (I made a pun), they run the Net Wrecker back to the noodle merchant, who says he got it from some guy named Tadashi Hikari, Lan's grandfather. Through a quick series of coincidences, deus ex, and straight up bullshit, they determine that the only way to stop GutsMan is to put him to sleep, and wait for the Net Wrecker effects to wear off. To do that, they gather up a bunch of Spicy Chips, which apparently now put NetNavis to sleep.

GutsMan gets tuckered out, day is saved, everyone hugs and goes home.

Critique
Definitely an improvement over the last episode, with a lot of great imagery (such as GutsMan climbing a tower holding Roll) and quirky moments. An episode with World Three is always a plus, even if their role has shrunk even smaller than before, and unlike Dex's last episode, his sudden being a jerk trait has been toned down as well.

The only real problem with this episode is how much crap the writers pull out of their ass to resolve the conflict at the end. Coincidences happen in shows all the time, but a crap load happening at the same time is what we called contrived. It's not an episode killer though, about what you'd expect from this show. It's a decent homage to King Kong for MegaMan, and that makes it worth watching at least.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: The Purloined Princess

2010-02-04T00:49:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Lan is pissed off about Chaud being able to Cross-Fuse, and complains to his dad about it. This wastes a good five minutes as this particular piece of continuity actually has nothing to do with today's episode!

Lan, Ms. Mari, Rush, and Mayl all get e-mails telling them to meet up at a certain point. An elevator opens up and they go inside, only to be thrust into a giant Optimus Prime style transformer mech, and thrust to Kingland, where Yai is now residing. Figuring no one would come and see her if she asked, Yai decided to kidnap them instead.

Anyway, Yai's company, AyanoTech is releasing a new video game about a princess based on Yai, however, some of the data was stolen by viruses. She needs help tracking the data down before the game is released, so everyone starts tracking it down. The viruses all end up at Yai's favorite Strawberry themed places, and since they figure the data is acting like her, they get ahead of it and track it down to one of Yai's castles.

The data is trapped inside a scuttle virus, and Lan hits an "Evil Cut" Program Advance to take it out and retrieve the data. The day saved, everyone decides to try out Yai's new game, only to discover the princess isn't the only character based on a real person.

Critique
Of all the characters that have disappeared from the show, why couldn't Yai have stayed gone? Get ready for a series of some of the most painfully bad jokes you've ever heard, and I sincerely hope some of them are the fault of the dubbers and not bad source material, but I doubt it.

I don't mind zanyness in the episodes, but every time a story focuses on Yai, the writing just gets plain lazy. Every setup goes, "something over extravagant and impractical happens," and the punchline is, "Yai is rich." It just isn't funny the millionth time you hear it, and Yai's selfish spoiled brat character is just so one dimensional that she doesn't have anything else to her character. Her onscreen presence is boring, and stories revolving around her are boring. This episode is boring.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Axess: Cross-Fusion for All!

2010-02-02T20:49:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
While out for cookies, Lan accidentally stumbles upon a hidden dimensional area in an abandoned warehouse, where mettaur viruses are shuffling around dark chips. Luckily there happens to be a ramp nearby, so Lan thrusts himself into the dimensional area cross-fusing into MegaMan. Lan busts up the dark chip operation, and the Net Agents seize the warehouse.

Everyone congratulates Lan on a job well done, and he starts to let the success go to his head a little bit. He runs into Chaud, who tells Lan that he should have followed the viruses to the Dark Chip factory... because... you know... viruses can travel outside of dimensional areas...

Anyway, Lan and Chaud split up to look for the factory. Lan gets lured into a trap, and Chaud gets lured to the factory... which also turns out to be a trap. Traps for everyone! The factory gets blown up with Chaud in it, and Lan gets stuck in a room that fills up with sand! That's only half the problem though, as a darkloid named DesertMan is thrashing MegaMan about, and is now setting up a dimensional area to take out Lan as well.

Even though Lan puts up a good fight in Cross-Fusion, DesertMan has too much of an advantage being surrounded by sand, and he hits Lan hard enough to break the Cross-Fusion. Just as Lan is about to be done in by DesertMan's attack, Chaud shows up in his own Cross-Fusion with ProtoMan and saves the day!

How did Chaud escape the collapsing building, know where Lan was, and break through the dimensional area? Well you see...

Critique
How do you take a decent show and make it more boring? Why by adding boring villains! Not boring enough for you? Let's start kicking around Chaud as a main character, who seems to have lost even more personality since the last time we saw him!

This episode isn't bad per se, but it's the tip of the iceberg that's about to crash into this show. More Cross-Fusion, more Nebula, more Chaud, and just wait till they turn up the melodrama! I get that putting Lan in danger this way adds some excitement, but it also cheapens the show to me to have him basically fighting monsters every week, and now we've got Chaud, who you can put money on is going to be a prick about being better at Cross-Fusion than Lan.

What works this episode though is Lan being an arrogant numb nuts, and getting put in his place, a formula that usually goes well for this show. While Nebula is making me beg for even Grave at this point, at least Lan is the shining beacon holding this episode together, and for that, I'll give him a thumbs up!

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Code of Conduct

2010-02-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
A new NetNavi SearchMan is trying to stop ShadowMan from destroying the Control X System, a new government device that tracks air traffic and satellites. Nebula needs Control X taken out to disguise one of their satellites, and so far, ShadowMan has taken out all but one, which just happens to be on display at an air show in DenTech City, that Lan just happens to be at.

Using Dark Chips, ShadowMan corrupts the security navi's, forcing them to try and destroy the Control X System, and MegaMan as well. MegaMan hesitates to fight the Navi's under control of the dark chips, and in doing so, is almost deleted. Just at that moment, SearchMan shows up and deletes all the security Navis. ShadowMan makes a temporary retreat, while MegaMan derides SearchMan for being so heartless.

SearchMan is a Net Savior Navi, and his only mission is to protect the Control X System, by any means necessary. When ShadowMan hijacks a nearby air plane, loaded with innocent passengers, MegaMan runs to their rescue, while SearchMan stays behind without the slightest concern for the potential loss of life.

MegaMan battles ShadowMan, but all doesn't go so well when ShadowMan powers up with a Dark Chip. From afar, SearchMan scopes in on ShadowMan with MegaMan also in his line of sight. SearchMan remembers what MegaMan said, and saves MegaMan from deletion, deleting ShadowMan in the process. MegaMan thanks SearchMan, who starts thinking compassion might be worth trying.

Meanwhile, Nebula has had enough time to cloak their satellite from Control System X... so I guess the whole plot was a waste of time???

Critique
This episode does that really annoying thing that happens in all foreign dubs, where the characters say way too many damn lines as fast as possible. It's hard to get a natural flow of dialog when you're translating every word in the same amount of time they are using to say it.

This ends up with a lot of situations where MegaMan talks like this, "Hey guys I am MegaMan oh no SearchMan you are being a jerk Lan we have a problem but this time I think we are okay oh hey there's ShadowMan and he's got a lot of hostages boy I better do something before things get out of hand uh oh I am running out of breath from all my talkin-" then the actor passes out.

There's also a lot of situations drawn where the characters mouths aren't in view, done to save time on lip syncing no doubt. I wouldn't even point this out if it weren't so blatantly obvious this episode. You would think this would give the dubbers a perfect excuse not to do that fast talking thing I pointed out above, but I guess they don't feel comfortable editing out huge chunks of pointless dialog.

Story wise this episode is alright, and I think I said it before, but I really like SearchMan's Battle Network redesign. His hardened soldier personality, combined with one less talking head, works much better in my opinion, even if in Battle Network, his character is frankly insane. This episode also stays away from a lot of the Cross-Fusion junk, and gets MegaMan more screen time, which is always good. Then of course, deleting ShadowMan is also a plus (although he also comes back to life in Stream).

Speaking of ShadowMan, why is he seen as a threat anyway? I've yet to see ShadowMan have a single battle where he's even remotely dangerous. I mean, go back and watch, MegaMan usually takes him out without breaking a sweat, and usually with only one battle chip. Watch this episode as ShadowMan stands still while MegaMan blows a fan at him for Christ's sake! Even juiced up on a dark chip, ShadowMan goes down from a regular shot from SearchMan. He's just lucky MegaMan isn't using Top Spin, the worst weapon of all time. Seriously ShadowMan, you're a pussy.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Possibly Good News for a US Operation Shooting Star Release?

2010-02-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

Kotaku has a story about soaring profits at Capcom, thanks in part to Operation Shooting Star among other high profile Capcom franchises. The stories I had read about Operation Shooting Star had the game in the bargain bins after a month, but it looks like Capcom has managed to turn a nice profit with the price drop after all.

As you might be aware, there are currently no plans to bring Operation Shooting Star to America or Europe, but I think these new sales numbers are a good sign for English speaking Mega Man fans. Being how the game is relatively inexpensive to make, it stands to reason Capcom could turn a profit in the US as well, but I think Capcom is going to wait until after Mega Man 10 comes out in March before making any new moves with the RPG section of the series.

Mega Man 10 is practically a foregone conclusion to be a block buster, and there is no doubt that the release is going to generate some buzz among all gamers, long time fans, lost nostalgic gamers, and new comers alike. A good time for OSS to hit would be right in the wake of when Mega Man 10's sales start to decline, a good month or two after release. This would be right at the height of Mega Man's popularity again, and a close follow up with Zero Collections would have the blue bomber churning out cash all year long. After that, Capcom will likely pursue Star Force 4 or Battle Network 7, or possibly OSS 2 (god help us if it's the last one).

I was right about Zero collections, and probably half right about Mega Man 10, so I'm going to make a prediction about Operation Shooting Star. Operation Shooting Star will receive a US release after Mega Man 10, and possibly after Zero Collections. In the wake of its release, we'll know what direction the RPG section of Mega Man will be going afterwords. While I'm at it, I think Zero Collections will be good news for ZX 3 as well, and I personally think this is what Inafune was talking about when he said he wanted to go a new direction with Mega Man in the live broadcast. We'll see though.

Read more at Protodude's blog.

Axess: The Unsafe Safe!

2010-02-01T18:37:00.000-08:00

After being sick as all hell for the past couple of weeks, here's a new Axess review.

Plot Synopsis
Nebula (I think this is the first time they say the organization's name) needs more rare metal to manufacture dark chips, so they setup a dimensional area around a security vault and send BubbleMan in to retrieve it. Unfortunately for BubbleMan, inside the safe is another locked safe, and when he touches it, an alarm goes off. Nebula pulls the plug on the mission and drops the dimensional area. Uberknownst to BubbleMan, a smaller, more compact safe was all that was in the other safe anyway.

The dimensional area of course did not go without notice, and the Net Saviors want Lan to check it out, after school of course, you need your priorities straight. After class, Mayl follows Lan and interjects herself into his Net Savior business again. Isn't this how MegaMan and Roll almost got deleted last time Mayl?

While they're out eating ice cream, another dimensional area forms around the security vault again, and this time BurnerMan shows up. Lan tries to run into the dimensional area, but a shocking jolt hurls Lan several feet backwards into the air, and he falls unconscious. BurnerMan steals the rare metal and gets away.

Back at the hospital... er excuse me, SciLab (because internet scientists are just as good as doctors), Lan awakens and his father asks if Lan would like to spend the rest of the afternoon running into walls some more. Lan agrees, and spends the next ten minutes hurling himself head first into a dimensional area in the lab. What he's trying to do, is cross-fuse at the point of intersection in order to break through it, but they determine Lan isn't going fast enough.

They don't have enough time to figure out how to get it working though, because BurnerMan is attacking another facility. Lan throws himself into the dimensional area again, but gets thrown back again. Lan tries with his skates, and still gets thrown off. Luckily for all of them, there just happens to be a giant machine with a conveyor belt and ramp on it. Yuchiro, father of the year, has his son Lan, climb the top of the 40 foot device, turns on the conveyor belt, and has Lan fling himself down it. This is enough speed for Lan to cross-fuse and break through the dimensional area.

Inside, Lan stops BurnerMan after a battle where, genius Net Savior that he is, Lan determines that water is bad for fire. The day is saved, but now it's really late at night and Lan hasn't studied for his quiz tomorrow! Will his dad help? Nope!

Critique
Let's recap the world's greatest dad here shall we?

Has his 11 year old son join a government crime fighting agency.
Allows him to partake in an experimental procedure in which only Lan has ever successfully completed, and the long term effects are unknown.
Encourages his son to participate in battles akin to comic book super hero fights.
Doesn't take his son to the hospital after being jolted with enough energy to, not only throw him into the air, but also knock him unconscious.
After said event, encourages his son to constantly repeat the same activity over and over, despite injuries.
Allows his son to climb a huge, dangerous vehicle with a conveyor belt, while wearing roller skates.
Refuses to help his son with his homework after making him fight a monster with fucking blow torches for arms.

Will someone please call Child Protective Services? I mean, I know they have high standards for their kids in Japan, but isn't this a bit ridiculous?

This also goes back to a point that's been bothering me about dimensional areas and cross-fusion since day one. If Darkloids can enter dimensional areas, why not Net Navis? Wouldn't it have been faster, and safer, to figure out how to jack MegaMan by himself into the dimensional area, instead of chucking Lan into it again and again? Just sayin...

All of this is really looking at the show a bit more seriously than it should be taken though, and if we ignore all of these points and look at the episode for what it is actually striving to do with its story, then it isn't that bad really. Obviously they aren't making the danger of Lan smashing his head into a wall as big a deal as I am, and the intended effect of comedy does work. I think Mayl has a few funny lines at the start of this episode too, and I love how ShadowMan just gives BubbleMan a disappointed "Go away," line. You can hear him being depressed at his incompetent minion, rather than typical bad guy sinister, and I just found that funny.

This is a nice episode because it sticks to a pretty simple premise and works with it the whole way through. The conflict of trying to get Lan through the dimensional area is easy to understand, and no where does the story get mucked up by trying to be too complicated, like the Friendship in the Mirror does towards the end.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Nerd Reads Mega Man 2 and Zero Collections

2010-01-30T14:48:00.000-08:00

I've been sick as all hell the past week, and am now just starting to feel a little better. I'm still not quite in the mood to get back the Axess reviews just yet, but for now here's a couple of interesting things.

First off, the Angry Video Game Nerd has recorded himself reading aloud Worlds of Power: Mega Man 2. As if Capcom didn't already milk the hell out of the Mega Man franchise, having a novel on the blue robot that pretty much goes off on its own tangent is really banking on Blue Bomber fandom. If you've never read this book, have it read to you by James Rolfe.

Also, something I've neglected to mention, but have been aware of the past couple of weeks or so is Mega Man Zero Collection, coming soon to the DS. I predicted this exact thing would happen a few months ago in my Zero series wrap up, and I think it's very cool to see I was right. I hope this drums up a bit more momentum for a possible new ZX game, or at least a Mega Man Game Boy Collection like Capcom was promising a long time ago!

Whatever you do though Capcom, please don't get another company that's too incompetent enough to port the damn games over for you, please!

Axess: Threat of the Dark Chips!

2010-01-25T15:45:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Lan has been tasked to track down the source of the Dark Chips and learn more about them. At the local Net Arcade, he spots Ms. Mari, although her hair and clothes are different. He also sees a Net Battler slot in a dark chip. This powers up the guy's navi, but also causes it to go insane and delete his opponent's navi. The Dark Chip then causes the PET to explode.

The next day Lan asks Ms. Mari at school if she was at the Net Arcade, but she doesn't know what he's talking about. Lan goes to the arcade again to see if he can find the Net Battler, and discovers that the person that gave him the chip is the Ms. Mari look a like. He chases her down and bumps into the real Ms. Mari. After she points him in the right direction, he runs off and finds Ms. Mari sealed inside a freezer.

Lan jacks in MegaMan into the electronic lock where MegaMan meets NeedleMa... god damn it. SpikeMan attacks MegaMan, so Lan hits the Zeta Cannon program advance, which takes out SpikeMan and opens the lock... or so they think. Just as soon as Lan has Ms. Mari clear, SpikeMan ambushes MegaMan again. Ms. Mari offers Lan a dark chip to help save MegaMan, but Lan knows that if he uses it, it will corrupt MegaMan's data and make him turn evil. Lan refuses to use the chip, and Ms. Mari says something to the effect of calling MegaMan a hunk of data.

Lan suddenly realizes this woman is the fake, and she reveals herself to be Ms. Yuri, SpikeMan's operator. Lan uses some DoubleSoul to take SpikeMan out, and Ms. Yuri runs off into a crowd. Lan thinks he tracked her down, but runs into the real Ms. Mari instead. Ms. Mari lets Lan know that she has an identical twin sister, but she hasn't seen her in years. Lan wonders if vows to track her down and stop the spread of Dark Chips.

Critique
Ms. Yuri is the worst thing to happen to this show, hands down. The level of quality of the show is an inverse proportion to the screen time of this character. She's completely bland, cliched, and lacks any interesting characteristics whatsoever. In the first Battle Network game, Ms. Yuri is barely a blip in the story, and the evil twin scenario, complete with the mistaken identity crap, never has time to wear thin, and so it's not even worth notice to take seriously.

This show on the other hand takes her waaaaaay to fucking seriously, and the more they add to her, the worse it gets, trust me. Aside from Ms. Yuri being an incredibly boring villain, all this episode does is explain the dangers of the dark chips, which is an important plot point. I find the climax of this episode, Lan's choice of using the dark chip or not, to be kind of dumb. He knows the Dark Chip will essentially fuck up MegaMan, but how does he figure he's in enough danger to use it? MegaMan's been in battle for what, twenty seconds? Since DoubleSoul pretty much instantly takes out even a dark chip infused SpikeMan, I think my point is quite clear how dumb the scenario is.

It's just a lame episode, and this is where the season really starts falling apart.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Tribes: The Duel of the Continent of Mu

2010-01-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Ra Mu is awakening, and in a desperate act, Bob Copper tries pulling the Sword of Berserk off it's pedestal before Ra Mu can fully revive, but Dark Phantom pulls him away. Harp Note and Cancer Bubble manage to rescue him, and they deal with Yeti Blizzard and Dark Phantom. Rogue pulls away Hollow, while Ra Mu begins absorbing EM-Waves in some sort of energy pool.

Omega-Xis is being caught in the pool and is being pulled in. Geo runs and jumps into the pool to rescue him, and the two of them burst out as MegaMan. Copper yells at MegaMan to get the OOPArt, and Dr. Orihime calls back Hollow to stop him. Before Hollow can attack MegaMan, Copper fires off a shot at Hollow, distracting him. MegaMan yanks out the Sword of Berserk, and the other OOPArts fuse into him. He tribes on, then double tribes, then triple tribes into the Tribe King form. Hollow tries to blast him, but MegaMan is immune to his attacks. MegaMan fires back destroying Hollow.

Copper tries to arrest Dr. Orihime, but she runs into the ruins as they begin to collapse. MegaMan, Harp Note, Cancer Bubble, and Bob Copper jump out of the gate to Mu, but Ra Mu follows behind them. Rogue tries to hold back Ra Mu and orders MegaMan to destroy the game with the OOPArts. MegaMan unleashes one final blast, the Tribe King Link Force Big Bang, and the gate is sealed, and Rogue jumps in along with it. The day is saved, and the next day, all the characters from the show, including Pat Sprigs, the FMians, the other humans, Bob Copper and of course Geo and Omega-Xis, head down to a Sonia Strumm concert, where she performs the opening credits in a very "this is the last episode ever" sort of way.

Critique
As finales go, you really couldn't ask for a better way to end the series. While it sucks that we only saw the other tribe forms for maybe a total of ten seconds, at least everything got wrapped up in a nice little package, along with some great animation, and even a couple of character moments. Bob Copper really kicks ass here, and they even managed to resolve the angle with Luna, as she wishes for Geo's safe return. That's right, not MegaMan, Geo. She knew it all along.

Rating: Thumbs up!

It was obvious they knew this episode was it when XEBEC finished making this show. The concert at the end is a pretty fitting way to go as Star Force's own legacy is still in jeopardy. While I personally love the Star Force series, neither the show, nor the games were particularly popular. Poor review scores and coming off the heels of Battle Network have been hurting this series since day one, and even if Star Force does everything right, it doesn't do anything new.

In America, the show never got a chance, being placed in a ridiculous time slot for a total of one airing, and being broadcast online to a really small audience. It's clear that someone at Time-Warner was afraid of a lack of interest that NT Warrior Axess had, and thus, this great show never got started. Personally, I can't recommend the show enough, and I highly suggest you look for the show, in both the original and dubbed forms.

Star Force is hit hard by a lot of factors that kept it from shining, and it looks like this star has burnt out. Operation Shooting Star was a flop, and there are no plans for a US release. Star Force 4 may be a pipe dream altogether, and even as much as I love Star Force, I'll throw down money for Mega Man 10 first any day of the week, or Mega Man X9, or Mega Man Legends 3, or Mega Man ZX3... but not Battle Network 7...

Still, if the adventures of Geo Stelar are truly over, it was a great ride while it lasted, and I'm satisfied that both the games and cartoon end without a lot of loose ends, the game series much more especially. If you want to see what happens next for Geo, buy Star Force 3, and maybe one day we'll get to see the more "comic book hero type" blue bomber again some day.

Now all I got left to do is the rest of Axess... great...

Axess: Dex Returns!

2010-01-21T19:38:00.001-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Dex has gone of to train with World Three in hopes that they'll teach him how to finally defeat Lan and MegaMan in a NetBattle. For some reason, World Three is now setup on Jawaii at #2 Curry...

Anyway, Dex comes back to DenTech city and starts acting like a jerk. He challenges Lan and MegaMan to a NetBattle, but it gets interrupted when Lan gets a Net Savior call. Lan has to go investigate a disturbance being caused by a darkloid named BurnerMan, but Lan gets distracted when Dex interferes, allowing BurnerMan to escape.

Mayl chews Dex out and tells him about Lan being a Net Savior, while Lan looks for BurnerMan. Dex also goes to look for BurnerMan, so he can then battle Lan proper. BurnerMan jacks into the local gas plant and sends balls of fire bursting through the sewers. Dex tracks him down to an abandoned gas storage facility, and jacks GutsMan in to stop him. Even with GutsMan's new training, he's still no match for the Darkloid, and Lan eventually catches up with MegaMan to help out.

After BurnerMan uses a Dark Chip, he sends the gas storage tanks flying into the sky, along with Lan and Dex! Seeing their NetOps in trouble, MegaMan and GutsMan merge into a DoubleSoul. Using the new GutsSoul, MegaMan takes out BurnerMan no problem. Lan thanks Dex, but Dex still acts like a jerk, and vows to defeat Lan and MegaMan some day.

Critique
So another "lost" character returns again. Why not just have the characters all stick around? What was the point of moving World Three? Isn't ElecMan supposed to be deleted? I find Dex's new obsession with beating Lan more puzzling than anything, as it sort of comes out of the blue. Also, why did he think World Three, a former terrorist organization that has never defeated MegaMan, be any help to him? On the outset, this episode is pretty stupid... but

Well Dex pulls it off decent enough. BurnerMan is a bit more entertaining than your standard darkloid, and the sewers exploding and flying gas tankers, while ridiculous, are pretty good. And of course, seeing a new DoubleSoul is always entertaining.

All in all I don't love this episode, but it stays consistently enjoyable enough for me to recommend it at least.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Tribes: The Lone Soldier, Rogue

2010-01-21T16:30:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Things are quickly going to hell as the continent of Mu is starting to fall to Earth, and is releasing thousands of materialized wave viruses. MegaMan gets sucked up into the damn thing while Hollow chases after him. At the same time, Dr. Orihime convinces Hyde and Rich Dotcom to join her, and the three of them also follow to the Mu continent, with detective Bob Copper latching on to Yeti Blizzard's leg as well.

MegaMan fights with all his might against Hollow, but Geo can barely stand. Omega-Xis tells Geo to break the Wave-Change and escape, fearing that Geo will be killed. Geo refuses but is knocked unconscious by the next shot from Hollow. To save Geo, Omega-Xis breaks the Wave-Change and leads Hollow away from Geo, knowing Hollow will chase him for the last OOPArt.

With Geo unconscious and not responding to Aaron Boreal's calls, Harp Note goes after him into Mu. She saves him just in time from a materialized virus when the two of them stumble upon a hidden lair.

Meanwhile, Hollow finally catches Omega-Xis and extracts the Sword of Berserk! He takes it to Dr. Orhime, and she instructs Yeti Blizzard and Dark Phantom to place the OOPArts to reawaken Ra Mu.

Inside the lair, Geo and Harp Note find Solo sleeping in a capsule. He awakens at the sound of their voice and explains that he is the last human from Mu, and it's his job as Mu's guardian to prevent Ra Mu from ever awakening, that's why he fought MegaMan to get the Sword of Berserk. Solo is still really injured, but has no choice but to try and stop Dr. Orihime. He wave-changes to Rogue and takes off. With Rogue injured, Omega-Xis out of reach, and all three OOPArts in Dr. Orihime's possession, things are not looking good for our heroes!

Critique
Fantastic episode, well animated, and intense. It's a pretty strong episode all around for most of the characters, especially Omega-Xis when he tries to save Geo. Bob Copper even gets some points for his out right insanity in trying to apprehend the villains.

Solo's role was completely rewritten, probably due to the time constraints of the season, but it makes enough sense within the context of the show at least to work well enough. Granted, if the show were to continue, a huge amount of the character would have been lost, and getting Rogue and MegaMan to actually fight each other in the rivalry style that is the games would be really tough, but it doesn't look like they were worried about that since the last episode is up next. I really like what they did with him here with what they had to work with, and it's a damn shame this show wasn't popular enough to continue.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: The Friendship in the Mirror!

2010-01-21T14:47:00.001-08:00

Plot Synopsis
MegaMan and Lan have invented a new game to help with their cross-fusion in which they ask each other questions about each other to build on their friendship. They're playing this game while Lan takes his friends out to a new holographic museum, although Lan is really there on a secret Net Savior mission based on an anonymous tip.

At first, nothing seems out of the ordinary until they reach the mirror exhibit, when suddenly SavageMan attacks MegaMan. SavageMan uses all kinds of mirrors to throw MegaMan off, and then creates a mirror image of Lan who gives MegaMan conflicting instructions. The phony Lan is so convincing that even DoubleSoul severely messes up MegaMan. MegaMan finally comes up with a way to beat SavageMan by asking Lan who Lan's top NetBattling rival is. The real Lan answers Chaud, while the fake answers Higsby. MegaMan blasts the fake Lan and then is able to fight back against SavageMan.

Well then ShadeMan gives SavageMan a Dark Chip, and the shadowed bad guy makes a dimensional area around the museum (and the episode was going so well too...). MegaMan is too distracted by viruses to get to Lan's PET to cross-fuse. Luckily, Chaud shows up, apparently now versed in Batman style acrobatics, and ProtoMan helps MegaMan get to Lan. Lan cross-fuses and defeats SavageMan and breaks the dimensional area.

We then find out Chaud has also become a Net Savior like Lan, and is tracking down Dark Chips. Chaud tells Lan that MegaMan and him need to work on their individual strengths instead of relying on each other so much. MegaMan agrees and suggest they start by Lan doing his homework by himself.

Critique
Everything is pretty solid up until the dimensional area hits... sigh. The whole setup was done so nicely with the foreshadowing of the question game coming in and resolving the double Lan situation. Really, the whole episode could have worked around this and been much better.

Then of course the dimensional area shows up with it's really shitty animation, and the battle gets pretty lazy from there. On top of this, you have Chaud, who is now like the fourth character to "return from disappearing for so long." Aren't we wearing this setup a little thin by now? On top of this, Chaud's acrobatic nonsense just looks ridiculous, and makes you wonder what the point of Cross-Fusion is if humans can fight like Chaud does? Also, Chaud's acting is horrible this episode, and he sounds half asleep. Could Bill Switzer try reading the script with some enthusiasm?

And Techno, boy is his voice annoying, but he doesn't have that many lines. This episode starts out pretty decent, then falls apart towards the end. There's something to watch here, but I really think the last act brings the entire episode down.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Tribes: The Hollow Empty

2010-01-20T15:27:00.000-08:00

Note: Hollow's Japanese name is Empty, so I'm unsure of a localized title for this episode.

Plot Synopsis
MegaMan's attacks against Hollow are not damaging him in the slightest. Aaron Boreal and the Sattella Police arrive at the scene, along with Luna, Bud and Zack. Because the whole area is surrounded by oil tankers, MegaMan figures it will be safer for everyone if he can get Hollow away from that area. In doing so, he finds out that Hollow won't chase after him, because he is connected by some sort of line between him and Dr. Orihime's limo.

It turns out Hollow is actually a human made out of Matter Waves, and his power source is coming from the limo itself. Bob Copper uses a jamming beam attack (from the first episode, yay continuity!) and it stuns Hollow long enough for MegaMan to finally make an attack. Dr. Orihime then imparts her two OOPArts into Hollow, which heals him, and the two OOPArts along with MegaMan's react together, breaking the seal of the continent of Mu, revealing it overhead. Dr. Orihime cackles as no one can stop her now!

Critique
Of course things were going to get worse before they got better, and with only two episodes to go, we're on the edge of our seats to see how this all turns out. They do spend a few minutes spilling out a few scientific nonsense covering Hollow's exsistence, but overall I think the episode is well put together.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: The Cyber Garden of Doom!

2010-01-20T14:35:00.001-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Some weird cyber vines are growing all across the network and taking navi's hostage. It's the work of a Darkloid named Plant... VineMan, and MegaMan and Lan are tasked with taking him down. Along the way, Mr. Match helps out, after having returned from some place else I guess. Why did every character take a vacation?

Anyway, WWW's navi's got captured by VineMan, as did Roll, and in one of the ensuing battles, VineMan damages HeatMan and retreats. Lan goes after him with MegaMan, while Mr. Famous helps recover HeatMan. In the process, Mr. Famous discovers that TorchMan's data is still inside HeatMan, and they manage to bring him back to life.

MegaMan has a lot of trouble against VineMan, who is now using the power of the dark chips, and even with the help of TorchMan, they still can't penetrate his dark barrier. In their desperation, suddenly TorchMan and MegaMan merge, giving MegaMan a new DoubleSoul, TorchSoul. MegaMan blasts away VineMan and frees up the network, and Mr. Match is grateful to have TorchMan back.

Critique
This one is kind of boring actually. I mean, there are highlights here and there, and there's no cross-fusion and some decent animation, but the characters just never stop talking! This whole episode is "Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah," even during all the action sequences! Everybody just shut the fuck up for two seconds! God damn!

That said, TorchSoul is nice to see of course, and there are certainly worse episodes than this one. I don't like that Mr. Match is suddenly a friendly hero-type character, but at least at the very end of the episode they shine a bit of that insane villain personality. This episode could have gotten really bad (MegaMan and Roll tied up in vines? God save us from fanart), but it could have been a lot better too.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Tribes: Orihime's True Colors

2010-01-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Hollow and Dr. Orihime have come to MegaMan's rescue... or have they? Hollow takes out Yeti Blizzard and Dark Phantom with trivial ease and recovers their OOPArts by literally ripping them out. Dr. Orihime laughs and uses the OOPArts to... um... change her clothes to show off her cleavage?

Anyway, she was evil all along and really wants the OOPArts to reawaken Ra Mu and bring a new world order and blah blah blah. MegaMan refuses to surrender to her, and will fight to protect his OOPArt so that he can seal away Ra Mu.

Critique
If the whole setup of Dr. Orihime being evil wasn't given away in the opening credits, this might have been a decent reveal. It's not a bad episode though, well animated, nice and tense, though some of the dialog is a bit cliche for this type of thing. There's only three episodes left, so everything is a bit rushed it feels, but I'm still left satisfied from this episode, and the final shot certainly pumps you up for the next episode.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: A Dangerous Bowling Game

2010-01-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
The new craze that's been sweeping DenTech city for the whole episode is bowling! Thanks to new bowling technology research, all new complicated mechanics can be added for something that seems really unnecessary to mess with! Higsby wins a couple of free bowling passes, so he decides to ask Ms. Mari out with him. Unfortunately for Higsby, Ms. Mari ends up accidentally inviting Lan and Mayl with them, turning it into a group activity.

Meanwhile, the Darkloids and their mysterious leader want to strike fear into the public by... attacking bowling alleys? Right... ShadeMan uses a darkchip on a custom Navi named BowlMan, which causes him to turn evil and, play the game more aggressively? I have no idea whats going on in this episode...

Since Higsby is terrible at sports, he sends NumberMan to cheat for him, but BowlMan catches him and starts attacking him. Lan sends in MegaMan, who he basically uses DoubleSoul RollSoul on for like twenty seconds, then a really cruddy looking dimensional area forms up, and Lan beats BowlMan with Cross-Fusion. Then Ms. Mari suggests that Higsby and everyone else go bowling again sometime soon.

Critique
Just look at BowlMan. He was stupid in Battle Network 3, he's stupid in Axess. Yeah, maybe it seems arbitrary as to why I think Vanishing Ganguroo is a great boss, and BowlMan and Wire Sponge are horrible ones, but seriously, BowlMan looks so stupid, and what the fuck are the darkloids hoping to accomplish this episode?

Granted, it's not like BowlMan is out of place. In the other game series, the robots are built for destructive purposes, but it would make sense that some bowling fanatic might customize their Navi towards their favorite sport, but he looks so fucking dumb! He shoots bowling pins as missiles and crap!

Let me not just fault the show for using one of Capcom's more stupid looking Net Navi's though, after all, there's plenty left to not like. The DoubleSoul and Cross-Fusion sequences are so lame, and MegaMan doesn't even attack in his DoubleSoul form. On top of that, I'd swear this episode only had like six animations total, as they reuse the same crap from this episode over and over. At one point, they even flip the image around so it looks different!

Lame story, lame characters, lame animations, everything in this episode is just lame. Higsby helps this episode a tiny bit with his antics, but it's not enough to save this episode this time.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Tribes: Hyde's Scheme

2010-01-19T09:35:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
MegaMan is trying to reach his mother, but Yeti Blizzard is holding him back... literally. To keep Mrs. Stelar there, Hyde offers to paint her. When MegaMan finally does show up, Hyde Wave-Changes and uses Geo's mom as a shield to keep MegaMan from attacking. Even the combined help of Harp Note isn't enough to best Hyde with a hostage in his hand.

Dark Phantom hits MegaMan hard, and he's down. Just before Dark Phantom can claim MegaMan's OOPArt, Yeti Blizzard shows up to take it as well. The two of them charge MegaMan, when a blast comes down saving him. It's Hollow, showing up just in time to rescue him... or is he?

Critique
The first half of this episode is done a bit comically, with MegaMan dragging Yeti Blizzard to Hyde's position, and I wish they had played it straight. However, the rest of the episode is played straight, and I don't think we've ever seen Geo with as much fear as he has in this episode, which really strengthens this episode as a whole. Yeah, even though the beginning was more comical than I would have liked, it did get a chuckle out of me.

I do think Hollow's sudden appearance at the end is a bit contrived, even if they did foreshadow it a tiny amount a few episodes ago, but we're really out of episodes to build on the story at this point, and this probably wouldn't have happened if there were more episodes to expand on. Hollows appearance certainly doesn't ruin this episode at all, and this is one of the better episodes of this season.

Rating: Thumbs up!

God Damn Renee!

2010-01-18T22:26:00.000-08:00

So yeah, I wasn't sure what angle they were going with this at first. Renee's messed up, won't return Jack's calls, maybe hates him or something, is screwing her own life up, and then BAM! Saw a guy's thumb off! I liked Renee last season, but she's quickly becoming my second favorite character this season. Oh by the way, the bomb is back, looks like I was a bit premature in my last post. Good episode, although the subplot with "Jenny" and her abusive ex is getting really boring, really fast, but I hope to see more Renee soon!

More Mega Man stuff coming up sooner or later, I just want to talk about 24 right now.

24 Season 8 Premier

2010-01-18T17:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I had a pretty shitty day. Today, I also had a pretty shitty day. Day to day I live wishing for a time a couple of years ago where I was on top of the world with someone I loved and cared about.

But at least I know, no matter how bad my day was, it was probably a hell of a better day than Jack Bauer's. 24 started off a little quieter this season than seasons past. No immediate threat of a nuclear bomb, no main characters getting offed in the first five minutes, just Jack trying to get his life back together. But it was a well paced episode, with a relatively new cast that is feeling itself out, but nobody outright annoying yet.

When it came down to it though, Jack kicked ass like normal though, and that's what 24 is all about. Click here for the kill of the night, from the Something Awful forums.

Axess: Metal Hot Spring! Ow its Hot!

2010-01-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Lan, Mayl, Tory, Chisao and Ms. Mari are heading to the YokaYoka hot springs for the day, but there's all kinds of ridiculous traditions and tests all of them must pass before they're allowed in the springs. Unable to pass the tests, Lan wanders into the nearby chip/electronics shop owned by Tamako Shiraizumi. She challenges him to a NetBattle with her own Navi, MetalMa... er, HeavyMetalMan... now here's a name change I can't even figure out.

Anyway, HeavyMetalMan isn't the only one looking for a NetBattle, as BubbleMan has followed Lan and MegaMan, planning to exact his revenge. Unfortunately for him, all his attempts go unnoticed by MegaMan, and generally backfire hurting him instead. For some reason, this causes all the sprinklers or other devices with water to go off, soaking Lan and Tamako. Throughout the day, Tamako continually challenges Lan, and their NetBattle keeps being interrupted by various water devices going off when BubbleMan's plans backfire.

Finally in the middle of the night, Lan sneaks away to finally try the hot spring, but Tamako challenges him yet again. During this battle, BubbleMan finally tries a frontal assault that flat out fails, so he summons a dimensional area around the springs. Lan and MegaMan cross-fuse, and take a full on barrage of exploding bubbles head on... which do nothing. Lan then shoots BubbleMan... well that was anti-climatic. BubbleMan runs off, and the next day as Lan is heading home, Tamako challenges him to one last NetBattle.

Critique
There are parts of this episode I like, but the majority of it is pretty mediocre. Weird stuff happens like the bubbles bouncing off the metal blades, and while BubbleMan is somewhat amusing, the entire episode is just a montage of the same joke over and over.

The dimensional area's colors are a bit tamer this time, but they still look pretty bad, and the setup for it has the generators sliding out of rocks and a bus, and it just looks horrible. There's a nice continuity error too, when Lan is fighting in a towel, and then suddenly is fully dressed, no doubt so the animators didn't have to make another cross-fusion animation. On top of this, you have the climax where BubbleMan's full on barrage is completely useless, so there isn't really even a final battle.

What I did like about this episode, is that MegaMan managed to attack HeavyMetalMan with one of his own Metal Blades, which by all accounts should have deleted HeavyMetalMan outright. Actually, MegaMan has a number of interesting moves, although most of them are pretty ridiculous in their own rights. Still, not enough to really save this episode. Also, the picture at the top is horrifying.

Rating: Thumbs down.

Tribes: An Absurd Strategy?!

2010-01-17T06:30:00.001-08:00

Plot Synopsis
MegaMan and Yeti Blizzard and duking it out above the city when tons of EM-Viruses are being released everywhere. The cause is their attraction to the OOPArts, which only MegaMan is trying to seal away.

Meanwhile, Hyde is having his art class in a graveyard, when Geo's mother Hope Stelar asks to sign up for the class, hearing from Luna how fun it was. As the battle between Yeti Blizzard and MegaMan rages on on the other side of the city, Hyde learns that none of the children there are interested in the art, but actually interested in Luna's baked goods.

Just as Hyde is about to leave to steal the OOPArts in despair, he overhears Luna and her friends talking. Luna wants to MegaMan to try one of her treats, so Bud suggests giving them to Geo Stelar since Geo is MegaMan, so Luna blurts out something along the lines of, "I refuse to believe Geo Stelar is MegaMan!"

Hyde suddenly realizes that he has MegaMan's mother within his grasps, and broadcasts a message to the city, that if MegaMan wants his mother back, he'll have to bring the OOPArt to Hyde! Oh shi...

Critique
Most of this episode is action oriented, which is always a good thing, but the setup for the cliffhanger is fantastic! Surprisingly, this show hasn't abused Geo's friends in direct danger too often, and certainly hasn't gone as far as having his mother taken hostage, and now that it has gone there, the shock and added tension is greatly increased. Imagine if this show was as crazy as something like 24 (premiering tonight!) where almost any character could die at any time, although it'd be pretty fucked up to kill off Geo's mom and make him an orphan.

Even though we know his mother will be okay, this is still a fun setup.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: DoubleSoul!

2010-01-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
All the lights in DenTech city are overloading and projecting way more light than normal. Of course a Darkloid is behind it all, FlashMan, and Lan is called to the case by Mr. Famous. Overhearing his secret Net Savior call, Mayl follows Lan, and ends up jacking in her own Navi Roll, to assist MegaMan against FlashMan.

Unfortunately Mayl and Roll get a bit too cocky, and a poorly aimed aqua tower nearly deletes MegaMan. Lan jacks MegaMan out, and Roll gets jacked out too. They head to SciLab to see if MegaMan can be repaired while FlashMan continues to wreak havoc on the city.

Dr. Hikari examines MegaMan's data and notices a lot of strange new data, perhaps caused by the Cross-Fusion. MegaMan's in bad shape though, and they need to reboot him. During the rebooting process, FlashMan's attacks are screwing up the power grid, and if the power goes out in SciLab, MegaMan could be lost forever!

Feeling guilty for nearly deleting MegaMan, Mayl and Roll jack in to distract FlashMan while they buy MegaMan some time. Roll takes quite a beating for a few solid minutes while FlashMan continually pounds her with explosives. Roll is just about deleted when MegaMan finally shows up. He attacks with a Bamboo Sword and has FlashMan on the rocks, when FlashMan pulls out his own ace in the hole, a DarkChip.

The DarkChip surges an enormous amount of power through FlashMan, and he suddenly has no problem fighting off MegaMan. MegaMan goes down, and is about to be deleted, when Roll, struggling to her feet, attempts to pull MegaMan out of harms way. Suddenly, a chain reaction goes off, and a huge surge of light engulfs MegaMan and Roll. The two of them fuse together, changing MegaMan's appearance to take on some of Roll's characteristics, and giving him full access to her powers. MegaMan is suddenly even more powerful than DarkChip infused FlashMan, and blasts him away with ease.

With the day saved, Dr. Hikari figures the process was caused by those new bits of data in MegaMan, and they call the process DoubleSoul. Rolls Data left over from DoubleSoul is put onto a chip so Lan can use it at any time, and Lan thanks Mayl and Roll for helping save the day.

Critique
I like DoubleSoul. It's almost practically useless in the games, but it looks cool, and the show doesn't have to deal the gameplay limitations of it. Admittedly RollSoul looks a bit fruity on MegaMan, but conceptually DoubleSoul brings back the classic Mega Man theme of Mega Man taking his enemies abilities for himself. Although MegaMan never merges with an evil Navi for DoubleSoul, the ideas are roughly the same.

DoubleSoul in the show is more often used better than Style Change was as well, since MegaMan is usually in trouble when it triggers, and it's better than Cross-Fusion because it restricts Lan to his primary role as an operator.

For this episode, the narrative is pretty decent with Mayl's interference screwing up MegaMan, and her and Roll's determination to save him. DoubleSoul itself is given a reasonable explanation as to why MegaMan can suddenly use it, and the introduction of DarkChips will play a significant part in the rest of this series.

On the downside, the dialog is completely awful and there are so damn many reused animations of the same explosions again and again that this episode damn near comes off as lazy. This episode is practically 1/3rd recycled animation, and it becomes a drain to watch because of it. I'm still recommending this episode, because these problems don't overwhelm the positives.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Tribes: Three Way OOPArts Struggle

2010-01-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
With Hyde, Rich Dotcom and MegaMan all having a single OOPArt, the battle is underway, as all three pieces will be needed to revive or seal Mu. Dr. Orihime tells Geo that he'll have to prepare himself as the his enemies will come after him. As he's leaving, Dr. Orihime remarks to Hollow that while MegaMan, Yeti Blizzard and Dark Phantom are fighting, that's when they'll strike... whaaa? (fake surprise)

Heading home, Geo spots Hyde and Rich destroying the city while they are fighting each other, so he pulses in to try and stop them. Rich and Hyde decide that before they fight, it would be best to team up and take out MegaMan first! Uh-oh! Luckily for MegaMan, Hyde realizes he's lost track of time, and is late for a prior engagement. Hyde leaves, giving MegaMan enough time to escape.

Hyde has become a painting teacher, in hopes that the young children he raises in his studio will grow up to appreciate his work. In reality, everyone is really there to eat Luna's treats she brings, as Luna feels the class is a great way to practice her cooking, no doubt for her beloved MegaMan, and it looks like she's improved quite a bit!

Later in the day, Geo is out and about, and Rich Dotcom's EM-Being, Yeti, senses Omega-Xis and the other OOPArt nearby. Rich accosts Geo, and brings him to a cafe, where he offers Geo several briefcases loaded with cash for Geo's OOPArt. Geo doesn't even flinch. "I won't let you revive Mu!" he says! The episode ends with the two of them preparing for battle in the wave roads.

Critique
This is almost a strategic episode in the way various bits of the plot are being placed around the time frame to build up to the climax. You've got the brief hint that Dr. Orihime is planning something sinister, the double team of Hyde and Rich versus MegaMan, and Geo's unwavering determination to protect the Earth. Even Hyde's art class is setting up some significance, and while it seems dumb that he would potentially give up the OOPArt in order to teach an art class, it does seem to match his character. We only have six episodes left, but everything is moving towards the finale now.

This episode on it's own is pretty decent, although the rich guy offering the hero a truckload of cash that the hero rejects has been done enough times to be cliched, but the imagery is good, and it's some character points for Geo of course. It's an episode that makes you look forward to watching more.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Bubble Trouble

2010-01-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Ms. Mari's class is having a field trip to the waterworks and, once again, Lan is running late. Him and MegaMan are arguing back and forth about the situation, as Lan is being whiny, and MegaMan is being a bit smug. When Lan arrives, and emergency goes off and Lan gets a call from Mr. Famous, his Net Savior handler. Mr. Famous wants Lan to investigate the water works, so Lan jacks MegaMan in as they continue their little spat between each other.

Messing up the network is BubbleMan, another Darkloid. MegaMan is too much for him, so BubbleMan gets a dimensional area setup to go after Lan. Lan goes for the Cross-Fuse but MegaMan tries to stop him. Too far into it, Lan is cross-fused, but without his battlechips! "Why didn't you tell me before hand MegaMan!?" "I tried to!" They continue to argue as Lan fights BubbleMan with his Mega-Buster, but it's not being all that effective. BubbleMan loses interest in the fight, as Lan tries to destroy the dimensional area generators. Unfortunately, Lan's punching and shooting have no effect. "Lan, you're going to have to think of something else, it's not working!" "Then I'll make it work!" "Listen to me!" "BE QUIET!"

Overcome with anger and frustration, Lan's yelling at MegaMan causes the cross-fusion to break. MegaMan falls behind some sort of firewall, and the second time they try and cross-fuse, it fails. Even after MegaMan makes it through the firewall back into the PET, they still can't cross-fuse and MegaMan tries diagnosing the problem. They're running out of time though, as BubbleMan is tearing up the water works. Needing to stall for time, Lan tries to stop BubbleMan with his bare hands, but that of course proves to be futile.

"I can't figure out whats wrong Lan, I've tried everything!" "You're going to just have to try harder, and fast!" Just then, it suddenly dawns on Lan that MegaMan is always in the position Lan is in right now in combat. So Lan decides that if MegaMan needs more time, Lan is going to stall as long as he can. MegaMan looks on Lan, amazed that he keeps fighting despite being defenseless. BubbleMan is sick of Lan's interference so he blast a bubble at him filled with an explosive!

Just as the explosive hits, MegaMan screams Lan's name, and the cross-fusion finally restores itself, saving Lan in the nick of time from the impact. With the cross-fusion intact, Lan defeats BubbleMan and saves the day. Later, they determine that their friendship is what causes the cross-fusion to stabilize, and when they don't get along it doesn't work right. Lan then promises to listen to MegaMan more often.

Critique
If there's any episode of Axess I genuinely think is really good, it's this episode. The plot is pieced together very nicely and the build up to the cross-fusion breaking feels well paced. Seeing Lan in this episode try to take on BubbleMan by himself is great, and for once it comes off as actual bravery, rather than near suicidal insanity. The role-reversal with Lan and MegaMan is what makes this episode work, and it touches greatly on the partnership angle that I wrote about a few reviews ago. It's a shame the show really drops this angle as the series progresses.

BubbleMan is probably the best new character out of Axess, a bit of a precursor to Cancer Bubble, although I personally find Cancer more endearing. But if you're looking for a pathetic villain with a speech impediment, Bubble's your man.

Not everything is fantastic this episode, and this is the episode where the dimensional area generators start sliding up out of solid concrete without so much as cracking the ground, and that just looks shitty. That's really the only small complaint of an otherwise fantastic episode though.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Tribes: OOPArts of the Ninja Mansion

2010-01-13T08:14:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Training is done for the day, and Hyde, Rich Dotcom, and Geo all begin looking for the OOPArt, but the mansion is filled with tricks and traps. Geo pulses in, and finds the OOPArt as MegaMan in a secret passage. Before he can grab it, Rogue shows up and starts a fight with him.

The Ninja Master comes across Hyde and Rich Dotcom sneaking around the mansion, and expels them. So Hyde and Rich Dotcom wave change and attack. Surprisingly, the Ninja Master is able to hold his own for a small amount of time before they finally catch him off guard, and then both Dark Phantom and Yeti Blizzard make their way to the OOPArt.

With all the OOPArts in close proximity, the continent of Mu reveals itself, and Rogue moves towards it. With the distraction going on, Dark Phantom steals the Ninja OOPArt, and once Rogue reaches the continent, it disappears again. Everyone takes off, and the master is disappointed he lost the secret treasure of the tribe, but is enthralled with the new techniques he had seen during the battles, and is excited to continue his training.

MegaMan calls up Dr. Orihime to explain the missing OOPArt, and she calls him useless and gets angry. What the hell is her problem?

Critique
Hooray! We never have to hear "de osaru" again! Aside from that grating catchphrase, nothing wrong with this episode. Geo jumps for quite a scare after seeing a skeleton drop from the ceiling though, hilarious! It would have been nice for the battle to be a bit more climatic, but what a cliffhanger the show leaves you on with both of MegaMan's enemies now possessing an OOPArt!

Also, I like the thought of a well trained Ninja like human standing a fighting chance against Wave-Changed humans, ridiculous as the techniques the ninja used though. It was nice to not see him instantly go down.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: NetCity No More!

2010-01-13T07:32:00.000-08:00

Plot Synopsis
Lan wakes up really late the next morning, still a little exhausted from the whole Cross-Fusion process. He goes downstairs to his mother barely recalling what happened. She's awfully cheerful for someone whose kid almost died yesterday. "You have to show me when you and MegaMan Cross-Fuse again Lan!" she says. God, you are the worst mother in the world!

Lan takes off to SciLab, which lies mostly in ruins, to pick up his PET and MegaMan. The whole place is a mess, and Lan's Dad thinks Dr. Wily might somehow be behind the dimensional area that happened last episode. Since the Darkloids stole all the Synchro-chips, they only have two left, and they can't make anymore due to the rare metal used in their creation.

Lan goes to pick up MegaMan, and because of the Cross-Fusion, MegaMan loses his ability to style change (damn backwards comparability!), but otherwise he's fine. Lan's father gives Lan back his PET and Lan runs off to meet his friends, but Lan's father forgets that Lan still has the Synchro-chip.

Lan, Mayl, Rush and Chisao are at some sort of exhibition that is giving a holographic tour of NetCity, when suddenly it comes under attack from a giant UFO like structure. The UFO starts sucking up NetNavi's and chunks of data from NetCity left and right, so Lan gets permission to use battlechips and Jacks MegaMan in. MegaMan boards the UFO, but is attacked by SavageMan and forced to log out. Just then, the evil shadowy figure bad guy dude launches another satellite dimensional area around the exhibition Lan is at. Finding the Synchro-chip on him still, Lan Cross-Fuses again to fight the viruses and SavageMan, but this time he loads up battlechips before fusing so he can use them in the fight.

Lan effortlessly defeats SavageMan, and the dimensional area collapses. Lan is still drained of his energy, but doesn't fall unconscious this time. Unfortunately though, he was distracted long enough to let ShadeMan take over NetCity, building a huge Cyber-Citadel over the former metropolis.

Lan heads back to SciLab and Lan's father decides to let him keep the Synchro-Chip, but he reprograms it to not drain Lan's energy. Yeah, basically there was a switch on it that Yuchiro moved from drain energy, to not drain energy, that simple right? Now the Synchro-Chip doesn't have a memory leak (lame joke)!

Dr. Hikari also introduces Lan to a man named Keifer, chief of the Net Police. He wants to make Lan and MegaMan Net Saviors, a sort of secret agent crime fighter of the internet. With Dr. Hikari's blessing, Lan enthusiastically takes the no doubt dangerous and life threatening job that government officials are giving out to children. Dr. Hikari, you are the worst father in the world.

Critique
In the setup of phase of Axess, it doesn't become apparent right away how bad things are going to get, and I don't have any particular beefs with this episode on its own to gripe about. Yeah, the scene where the Navi's are getting sucked up is so obviously motioned tweened and crummy looking, and I still think the dimensional areas look chuddy, but nothing hits too hard on the writing this time.

Personally, I love where MegaMan first meets SavageMan this episode, gets knocked to the ground, and then just starts talking shit. Ah MegaMan, never change! Maybe some of that Ruby-Spears Mega Man rubbed off on ya.

To tell you the truth, I don't think the episodes really get bad until we get a few episodes in, and we're actually working with an interesting setup at first, even though NetCity getting taken over pretty much negates the entire Grave Finale doesn't it? Things will get pretty shitty, pretty fast though, even though this episode isn't so bad. If there is one thing that I really do like about Axess, I think the new opening and musical score are pretty good, even if its chopped up footage of the original Japanese Axess opening. The Japanese score is decent as well, some sort of Rock tune that fits nicely, although I personally like the orchestral soundtrack.

Rating: Thumbs up!