Mish-mash website for reviews (all contain spoilers), opinions (thoughts) and personal notes. For the fiction I write refer to: https://crystalmountainwhaut.blogspot.com/ To multi-tag, refer to the URL and add: /search/label/label1+label2 example: /search/label/Supernatural+funny
25/6/23
While a very tidy game, since it was too focused on checking the "Deckbuilding roguelike" boxes it forgot about putting some soul in it as well.
It's super rigid, with the same mobs and the same bosses that the character will have to beat by staking whatever default "core mechanic" it has. And since it has no plot the chore-like gameplay it's all that it's left. Very disappointing 4/10
 |
| worst char btw |
Good, but very small. Devs and players both overestimate this game's replayability.
There are four factions with a single hero each, and since you have to fight pretty much the same enemies every run you can replay it four times at much. Five, maybe. If you don't ask too much, very fine. 7/10
5/3/23
The game is based on a story I didn't care about, which makes me biased.
So I judge only the gameplay, which could have been good enough if the game was way shorter and didn't feature the "how fun is to die" difficulty, but it is making every run feel the same just like most roguelike wannabes. Additionally to the lack of weaponry and skill variety the character's movement is sluggish and there are a lot of rooms with two or three enemies, some hard-to-see traps that are almost always what'll get you killed and nothing else, not to mention that you have that annoying "corruption" thing (the raging red storm) that keeps spreading and makes the necessary backtracking (due many deadends in the map) almost impossible. 3/10
5/2/23
The first hour of the game is by far the best. Interesting art cute pixel design, some degree of sarcasm, and a sassy backstory, that while not very sound or enticing it's somewhat fun. And it's also free, which is important to that queer type of people that pays to play video games. After that the gameplay starts to get repetitive, you get bored of killing the same five monsters while roaming around looking for some key skill that'll allow you to advance onto the next boss, the upgrades (vials) lack variety and need some strange inventory arrangement, which IMO does more harm than good to the game, and the last two fights (satan and god) are completely broken, very difficult to beat and also very unsatisfactory.
Overall, given that the game lasts for about three hours and the first third was very good, I'd say that's a middle board game, not too good, not memorable either, just... Avarage. 5/10
Is another of those overly complicated "oh, look I'm impossible to beat" games I find it hard to see what the "super-positive" reviews are all about.
Honestly, the best part of the game is the Team Fortress rip-off characters and I don't even know what Team Fortress is about (although I suspect it's one of the third-person multiplayer shooter games so popular in the last decade).
You hastily put together a "team" (it's just two people) that crashes into a random planet and now has to fight its way out of the facility, but at the same time, they have to protect "the crystal" from monsters that spawn in previously visited rooms each time you open a room.
These randomly spawned mobs make it so that you can't predict their pathway, which obliterates the "tower defense" part and make it into a resource-wasting mess, since the other half of your offensive/defensive power -the characters- are useless unless you move them in a cluster and given their slow-moving speed and the fact that each of the nine maps for every run is enormous make them ineffective as a mobile unit. They just don't make it in time.
And as the game progresses the sluggish, weak spider bots become increasingly powerful, they appear in larger numbers and deal more damage, some even explode on death trashing everything in the room, and your characters and defenses start to lag, leading to an inevitable and rather swift death.
In summary, I think the game is rigged against you and that the complicated controls and resource management make the little part of the game that's playable dull and unsatisfactory. 1/10
4/30
The game bluntly declares that more is ALWAYS better. Well, no. A hundred and fifty useless "relics" don't make your game better, fifteen floating eggs and weirdly shaped dolls trailing after you barely making any change to the run don't make your game better, fifty useless weapons with strangely shaped bouncy bullets don't make your game better, sixty meta-upgrades that despite taking so long to purchase barely make a difference don't make your game better.
You know what also doesn't make your game better? Not being able to see the stats of your weapon, not being able to switch weapons, being forced into the same boss fights, having to depend on random number generators for every little thing, if you get a decent weapon, a useful relic, or even if the gooddamed door opens! The electronic music was kinda cool the first couple of times, but after hearing it for the twentieth time it's annoying, about as annoying as being unable to use bombs efficiently without having them blow in your face because of the arc they make. 2/10
28/4
I say that the only saving feature of the game is the art, which is by no means original, everything else has several problems.
The plot's confusing and the little I could muster (through deductions, based on boring monologues, and some crappy notes) is terrible, the idea of using self-help grieving steps as an enemy backstory makes winning completely unrewarding.
The difficulty would be low if the weapons weren't absolute garbage. I mean, the thing doesn't even shoot straight, and the shotgun is unusable unless at point-blank range! Maybe it's because the guy isn't even holding the weapon, beats me.
 |
| Perhaps if you grabbed the weapon instead of playing Jedi, you wouldn't die so often. |
Once you've secured a half-decent weapon like the sniper the game is a piece of cake, which of course means that the game has only one (usable) weapon. The meta progress is BS, you can't even get a damage upgrade, you can't switch weapons, all upgrades cost hearts and healing takes a lot of time, and a good chunk of those upgrades aren't very useful. The blacksmith upgrades cost max HP and the difference is so insignificant it's almost insulting... A bad game, to put it simply. 3/10 (because it can be mildly entertaining for about three hours)
4/23
While the idea of playing as a lineage of characters each with their different traits is alluring it's not what the game offers.
In reality, you pick one of three randomly generated characters that do not influence the next or any relation with the former, that has a class (mage, knight) a positive trait and a negative quirk.
Those two last things are merely aesthetic and don't make any gameplay change. There are several classes but in the end, the playability is the same.
The procedually generated castle feels like you're clearing the same room over and over, there's a guy at the front gate that takes away all unexpended coins making the already slow m
eta-progress even slower, and the cherry on the cake is that there are three classes of enemies with subtle variations and buffier versions in later stages. An absolute disappointment. 1/10
4/23
The idea (or the "concept") is good, and the graphics are excellent, but the difficulty is insane and the levels are too short.
A stray shotgun shard can kill you, which means that not only the character isn't wearing a Kevlar vest but he also has some sort of blood disorder that makes him bleed out from a scratch.
Honestly, I don't know how he made it that far. The short levels make it feel that the game is a demo for some other thing they want to make but it's not available yet, and changing guns couldn't care less. A pistol does the same damage, the same way, as an SMG or an assault rifle. 2/10
 |
| See that micro-sharpen that kinda bounces off the wall's angle? Yeah, that's gonna kill the protag |
(4/23)
This game promised unique runs with different characters and Lovecraftian monsters, but it hadn't been delivered. It's another magnet AI game featuring slimy monsters with tentacles. The different characters only make runs differently by changing the sprite you move, the skillsets aren't varied enough, and at the end of the game, you'll always have the same upgrades, give or take one. And the reward mini-bosses give is fixed for each character, which contrary to the premise makes every run feel the same. 2/10
(20/4/23)
Very good art and well-balanced meta progress. The enemies have varied designs and several classes offer different types of gameplay. Enough diversity to be fun for several days, one of the best of the genre. 9/10
(15/3/23)
The game is perfect... For two levels: the collapsed mine and the coal mine. The enemies are well-balanced, the spells are variated, the atmosphere is intriguing and the art is beautiful.
The trademark promise of the game "every Pixel burns, melts, moves, transforms" is fulfilled and we're all happy... Until the game advances. The prices skyrocket, the enemies multiply and most spells barely even affect them, and those who do affect them are either too limited to use freely or too hefty on the wand, leaving openings for the enemies to kill you, there's no way to heal and traps explode all the time on and off screen, the chaos overwhelms both the players and the computer and doesn't get me started on the bosses.
And then you die unfairly because a spell backfired or you got blasted by one of the many traps, again, and again. And you start over with nothing, with no progress made. The game is no longer challengingly funny, is obnoxiously impossible. It could have been so much more... But it isn't, and it won't be fixed. 4/10
The best, and only good part of the game is the art and graphic design. The rest, especially the combat, is terrible. Not only is repetitive spamming the hit-and-dodge button, but it's extremely unrewarding.
The difficulty is unbalanced too: either too easy or too hard (too long). It reminded me a lot of soul games.
As for the plot... It's fine, but it was overly stretched. The game has fake "endings" after each you start a new route leading to a new fake ending and so on, but some hastily put together robot dystopia, two underdeveloped characters, one completely inexpensive and the other simply idiotic, villains too dumb to be interesting on the slightest, and of course the ever-present annoying combat simply isn't enough material for such a stretch. 3/10
( 3/23 )
This (Russian ?) game with terrible grammar and a vague tutorial falsely advertises player freedom to explore an open world and then gives you a base defender with very few elements, unimaginative spider monsters, and jerky animations. Probably the worst game I've seen since Let's Kill Jeff the Killer. 1/10
( 3/23)
The game would be perfect if Metaprogress was faster.
At first, the upgrades are moderately accessible and the pain to gather the gold and ore is worthwhile, but a couple of hours into the game and prices skyrocket, iron ore becomes too scarce to satisfy a demand of hundreds and hundreds and the gold gets a very frustrating "taxation" of 30-50% effectively halving the progress speed as you approach the gold needed.
This is especially absurd since in later stages you can use a higher-level character to get the gold that you've never gotten otherwise. The characters are mostly variated and fun to play, but the levels get too repeated as you have to go through them over and over, "grinding" for the meta progress.
The "ending" is disappointing, frankly not worth all the invested hours. It could have been a lot better, but it's just a 6/10
( 20/1/23 )
Or KR: Origins, or KR: Vengeance, or KR: frontiers or Kingdom Rush; now in space. Yes, that's a bunch of names for the same game. But they saw a bit of gold and went in a rush (pun intended), releasing all sorts of similar money-grabbing games. As a tower defender I'd say is OK, it keeps you on edge at all times, but I didn't enjoy it. I'll qualify KR: Vengeance because its the one with better aesthetics 4/10
Dragon Ball Z (Forced to watch by overzealous elder brother. Guy's literally been hospitalized due head injury due DUI motorcycle accident -no helmet- if that tells you anything)
If the cancer's cancer had cancer, that'd be Dragon Ball Z. This piece of garbage doesn't need an introduction, this is the ultimate shonen anime, which is like saying the ultimate piece of shit. This kind of show in which the cardboard flat characters never die or if they do they just come back to life, where the "bad guys", all alike, just wake up one day and decide to destroy everything and just as fast they decide to become good immediately after being defeated in a predictible, repetitive one-on-one blurry "fight", where the content is so nonexistent that there entire filler episodes of the idiots having car races, fishing on a pond or playing volleyball on the beach. This is like necrosis on the body of Japanese Anime, a rotten blacken limb oozing pus and crawling with maggots, pauperizing and tagging all Anime as childrish and underdeveloped. 1/10 (because this system doesn't have negatives)
 |
| Filler? Where? |
Seven Deadly Sins (When your garbage tries to appeal to sentiments... And fails miserably)
The series has two good things- battles and Daylight Escanor, the rest is pure garbage. Idiotic flat characters, especially "the captain" and the obnoxious pig-pet comic relief. I swear that at the "sad" moment in which he dies, I was so glad I was smiling, "Yes, die you annoying PoS!" And I almost drop the series when he comes back to life in that ridiculous shonen fashion. If I could I would refund every minute I spend on the series and just Google "Escanor Fights" 2/10
Attack on Titan (Overrated: the go-to example)
People kept talking about how genius this show was, how groundbreaking for all Anime, so special and great... I didn't feel any of that while watching it. I felt that the characters were distant and even if one of the many, many characters get eaten I didn't care in the slightest. So slow, so centrated on the details of political drama, showing off the world they made that they completely forget about the viewer. The only good thing about the show was the animation, although the giants need heavy re-design. 2/10
 |
| someone failed art school. |
(10-11/24 )
(Guy gets psychic powers and instead of using them for his own benefit, like we would, he uses them to save lives and the like)
PR: Johnny Smith, a run-of-the-mill high school teacher, was chilling with Sarah, his fiancée, another ordinary teacher, when he hears she's gotten pregnant. Johnny goes for a pack of smokes and never returns because he gets into a stupid traffic accident. He's stuck in a coma for six years.
Unfortunately for him, the worst type of human being, Walt, is around the hospital at the time and preys on the vulnerable woman mourning the father of her son. By the time John awakens, Sarah's moved on, and his son thinks of Walt as his "real dad." There's family drama concerning whether John will get back with Sarah or not, whether he can be a dad to his son, or if the relationship is ruined.
John gains psychic powers, having vivid visions of past, present, and future through some medium. He touches a nurse and warns her that her house will burn down, making her call 911 and save her daughter from death. While trying to understand his powers, John meets another scumbag, Tele-evangelist Sheppard Purdy, who married Johnny's mother and now handles his family's trust.
Purdy pretends to be understanding but slowly drains John's family funds, diverting them to his own church. Johnny is a good guy who protects and saves others, especially the incompetent Walt. The series' overarching plot revolves around Congressman Stillson getting to the White House and causing a nuclear disaster.
I'd like to point out that John often has access to smarter, beautiful, and kinder women than Sarah, but his nostalgic self keeps him begging.
The series follows the standard TV module format typical of the 2000s, with most episodes being independent and contributing little to the plot advancement. Johnny's character drives the series: his unique personality and combination of God complex and death wish make The Dead Zone stand out.
The authors script characters with superficial and deeper aspects, making them more complex. In many episodes, a character dies in a vision at the end, feeling like the canon ending, but the "real" version saves them. While visually outdated, the series offers consistent enjoyment. Except for that Christmas episode, ew. 8/10
Season 4 Update
Although I haven't verified this, the feeling is that The Dead Zone changed hands in terms of writers and direction. The death of the sheriff and the Mason took the audience by surprise, as these were primary characters for plot development – at least, Mason guy was.
In my opinion, Walt's death wasn't for narrative purposes but to remove him from the cast. Simultaneously, JJ was replaced by another kid who's a better actor. The episodes, except for maybe one unfortunate instance, are all pretty decent. While not completely outstanding, they're good enough, with some highlight moments. However, the ending is weak compared to what the rest of the seasons hinted at. The twist with Johnny's father being alive and used as a personal oracle feels rushed, and I wasn't impressed.
In general, I'd say it's obvious that the series' budget was cut. The show landed in the hands of some skilled newcomers but died before being able to exploit its full potential
Probably the only horror anime that effectively belonged to that categorization.
While the character depth and backgrounds are shaky at best this is very typical in animated series, same as the portrayal of mental illness, and instead, I'd like to point out that the feelings revolting around the sick "love" that Satou feels for the little girl are well treated, and that the climate that the series offer is obscure and oppressive- the question that the show treats is: how far are we willing to go for our loved one?- and it's good at it. It is short and very entertaining even if the ending it's a little bland. Major flaw? Characters other than the two protagonists are poorly executed and forgettable. 8/10
Some High school student is friends with God, only that he thinks God is only their imaginary friend (don't we all?) That is until God informs him that he's going to die and that instead of picking the wisest, kindest, or smartest person he'll just pick some random Japanese of mixed ages and gender to kill each other until the most heartless blood-thirsty sociopath is left standing. A much funnier way of picking a successor to the divine throne, I guess.
 |
| "Let the hunger games... Err. The divine contest begin!" -deus ex |
Among the contestant we got some charming people: there's the literal serial killer, Bonnie and Clyde, Psycho Nanny, Chucky, Alla Akbar, Hound of Baskerville, Stryker, Daredevil, and some others. The inconsistencies of the series are ginormous and constant, we're not talking of just the "that doesn't make any sense" scenes like the one Yuno discovers that a cherry tomato was poisoned by feeling the "weight difference" while washing them, or the fact that a five-year-old carries a bloody military-grade armory on his Ben 10 backpack, we're talking about scenes drastically changing, sudden unjustified changes in the characters ideologies among other things. There's also the problem that whoever wrote was as uncreative as talentless thinking that the only way to make a tragic backstory for the characters is to insert a rape scene
 |
| Plot hole police! Hands in the air! |
Whoever scores this anime as genius has a fetish for Yuno and fancies imagining himself in the protagonist's shoes, so starved for love that sees the idea of an obsessive relationship as balsamic, because there isn't anything else to the show than that. (edit suspiciously descriptive, me.) 4/10
The typical anime protagonist, a high school student, finds a "death note" notebook just lying around.
 |
| The fact that bro got caught even though death note is a unlimited remote killing method that leaves no traces is proof of his lack of intelligence |
With the help of a "shinigami" or god of Death (one of many, anyway) that becomes apparent after collecting the magical item the protagonist starts the heroic quest of te-establishing World Order through bloodshed and systematic executions, suspiciously similar to the XX century "socialist" tyrants.
Allegedly Light Yagami, (that's his name) is blessed with extraordinary intelligence, and so it's the other high school student that's taken the task of stopping him, L. Guess the police department was shortstaffed.
The show is competing for who had the biggest dick but with IQ. They flaunt these absurd anecdotes "Oh, yes I'm so smart that I had stock options at the age of eight while still in the orphanage, my IQ is over 300" "Oh yeah? Well, I'm so manipulative that the letters I sent to Hitler made him commit suicide!" "I can defeat Kasparov and three other chess world champions... Simultaneously", and so on.
Of course, neither of them is so bright. Except for the circumstantial ability to predict the future, they're crafty at best. At first, it was funny but this antagonism between these two gets more and more ridiculous as the series goes on this is one of those series that starts great and gets worse and worse with each episode, and the ending of the series was without a doubt one of the worst endings I've seen. If it was a regular TV show, it would have scored a four at best, but it's true that among the Anime series Death Note is an above-average exponent in terms of character development and pacing. 6/10
-The concept is the same as interactive movies in non-animated media.
-The animation is low-resolution and the development of events is painfully slow.
-tThe characters, in particular the protagonist, are all psychos.
The whole VN is riddled with murder, suicide, rape, and pedophilia. Honestly, I would have expected it to be too provocative or even too sick for my tastes, but I never expected it to be so BORING! I end up doing other things while the thing ran skipping in the background. It does haunt my mind the ending I got in Summer Days where (believe me or not) I accidentally made the character chase a ten-year-old into a shop where the clerk grabbed her by the neck and offered her to the protagonist to rape in the backroom. And in the background, there were all these screaming and moaning and the guy had crossed arms and was nodding while saying "Oh, yes... just like I was his age". WTF, dude? God has abandoned us. I closed the game feeling sick (before the sex scene started) and was like "I permitted this heresy to continue for too long". 1/10
 |
| Behind yo... You know what? Nevermind. |
The show is utterly disgusting, not only the fact that it's obviously all just an excuse to put the characters in suggestive positions or make sexual references to service a fanbase of sex-starved otakus... Wait. No, that's why it's disgusting.
 |
| what else is there to say? |
There isn't any content to it, it's just a bunch of teens rubbing each other inside a mech fighting uncreative alien-dinosaur monsters. There is no "mysterious and intriguing atmosphere", it isn't "the greatest anime of all times", it's another of those weirdly highly scored animes that's a pile of crap. 2/10 (1 point for the animation)
Based on an RPGmaker game.
 |
| Nice haircut bro. You into Skrillex now? |
Some guys decide to play the wrong creepypasta game after-school during a storm at midnight and get trapped in some sort of alternate reality or pocket dimension, only to die one by one in a rather gory fashion.
The execution is much better than the premise but's still not enough to save the show from mediocrity.
Of course, the main problem is that the series acts like a slayer movie in which the viewer doesn't know or care much about the stupid teenagers and just enjoys seeing them die, but the intention was other.
It feels that the creator wanted us to care about the characters, and then failed miserably. The result is that other than being very gory, the show doesn't have much to offer. 3/10
If one is willing to let go of certain details, such as from where the girl pulls the knife out, or why the MC feels intimidated by a cyber Monday axe that seems straight out of Skyrim...
What I don't understand and probably will never get used to about isekai manga is how quickly, with how much ease the character accepts that he's in another world, like "Oh, it's Wednesday so I must be in another world that looks a lot like if a teenager that failed History mixed his poor conceptions about medieval ages with a half-baked summary on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and some generic fantasy MMORPG"
In who's mind some girl, warrior or renowned, can just burst unannounced into the throne room and kidnap an attendant against the explicit command of the king, and the paladins, the king's escort, the royal guards (hell, anyone really!) won't do a thing because (and here's the most hilarious part) they are too scared of this girl to stop her.
 |
| The scene in question |
Now that's security you can set your watch to! Foolproof, dependable, reliable, and trustworthy!
And the website that suggested this... Thing yelled at the four winds about how creative and original the plot was. I missed that part. Perhaps, the originality relied on some aspect that escaped my narrow, skeptical eyes.
Perhaps, the magic circle that summons the characters was drawn in a different pattern than the other hundred summoning circles in other isekai manga. Perhaps the students attended different high schools than the other thousand high school students in other isekai manga. Maybe, the kingdom that summons them is more defenseless or more desperate than the other million defenseless, desperate kingdoms in other isekai mangas. It could be that the grass is shaded in a different color.
Surely, since they take this as a challenge, the demon lord has bigger boobs or a rounder ass than the other million demon lords that threaten the world in other isekai mangas. I don't know what the fuss is about. There's nothing here.
This is so bad, so very bad that I don't know where to begin describing it. It's as if the author of fifty shades of Gray had hit her head repeatedly with a brick while listening to a bad Vocaloid fan-made story from a teenage Youtuber.
With such a title at least I expected some mystery, but what I got is the following
Plot reminder-
Some hikikomori particularly obnoxious self-denominated "God of conquest" gets selected to flirt with girls due to some BS magical explanation that can be summarized as "If the chick falls for you the demon inside her heart is expelled" but the guy as you may already have guessed is nothing remotely close to the "God of Conquest" nor anything alike; it's just a mock nickname he got thanks to his obsession with dating sims. A janitor demoness is appointed to help the guy and it all turns into a crappy sitcom unworthy of mention.
A few times in my life I've seen such disappointment, but I guess you can't judge the book by its name.
Recently, it has come to my attention that several people on Royal Road have blocked me in an effort to avoid negative feedback.
As an author myself, I can understand why newly fledged writers might be overly protective of their work. However, that's no excuse to avoid constructive criticism and opportunities for improvement.
For those who have been following my reviews, it's clear that I'm not a troll. Perhaps I'm a bit harsh, but my reviews are always thorough. I believe that tens should be reserved for exceptional content. If I were to give a ten to every piece of content I mildly enjoyed, this blog would be filled with tens. Instead, I use fives or sixes for average content and seven or eight for things I really liked. Nines are essentially my tens, as I'm reluctant to give perfect scores.
I'm aware that there are people behind the content I critique, like the authors of "Luck be my Landlord," who likely spent dozens of hours creating and coding their work. However, that doesn't automatically make their content good. Anyone who has tried to submit a novel to a literary agent or publisher knows that the odds are against them in the real world. Therefore, I don't understand why people want fake positive reviews from those who haven't even read the book. Many of these five-star reviews say things like, "I'm so excited to see more of this book!" – and these reviews are often posted after only reading a few chapters, then dropped the book altogether.
I'll preface this review by saying that I really wanted to like the story. The author has gone to great lengths to create almost artistic scenes throughout the 80 pages I've read, and in almost every chapter, there are very immersive descriptions of this world. Unfortunately, a novel is not poetry, and beauty takes a back seat, well behind engagement. The first and foremost problem plaguing "Whimpers of the Light" is the absolute and harrowing lack of originality, as described below.
PR:
Some lab in China has created a TLoU-style zombie spore, and "the End" occurred. However, it's unclear how or why this happened. We know "the walls" failed to keep "the Evil" outside. What we do know from the first chapter is that an unknown character gets killed by a "pallid, bloated creature" off-camera, though the relevance of this event is doubtful. The author claims this character didn't actually die and appears later in the story, possibly referring to Alek, but I found no evidence supporting this.
Although it would've been engaging to see the "pallid, bloated creature" or zombie fungus spore in action, chapter two introduces an unnamed female character escaping an evil bandit camp. The only indication of their evil nature is a mention of "collecting women," implying rape, which I consider a lazy way to portray evil characters. Despite injuries, the outnumbered "bad men" act scared, and one gets killed in a clichéd moment when the girl suddenly teleports behind an NPC bandit, takes him hostage, and escapes. This miraculous escape hints at the promised Grimdark tone.
Before we can ask why, the third episode shifts focus to a character named Milo, who calls his dog "Dog." Not much happens in this chapter. Later, we learn the dog is mechanical, raising questions about its existence in this near-future world. The author introduces NPC bandits attacking the mecha-dog without reason, and Milo declares, "If no one else would help, he would have to be the hero," a cringe-worthy phrase.
Alek, seemingly present for plot convenience, heals the female escapee, Victoria, and explores dark tunnels, discovering the virus originated beneath a local hospital, reminiscent of Resident Evil. Four battles ensue, lacking sufficient buildup, feeling like mandatory action to quicken the pace.
The second major issue plaguing "Whimpers" is its disjointed narrative. I suspect the author decides chapter content via polls, which I recommend against. A story needs a clear beginning, middle, and end to ensure coherent scene placement. This theory is supported by the fact that chapters can be read out of order, except 7-8, without affecting the narrative.
Milo and his dog receive two chapters, but his relevance is minimal, and interest barely sparks due to the mechanical dog.
The naming convention is poor, with important plot events reduced to capitalized nouns, hurting the narrative. Non-descript titles also fail to engage.
I recommend the author focus on world-building and explore more original apocalypse scenarios beyond zombie viruses, making it challenging to appreciate the novel's positive aspects amidst dull plotlines.
3/10
The story is lighthearted, reminded me of comic "Pepper and Carrot" in the tone. It's a good project, but clearly a first approximation made by a novice author that picked probably one of the hardest genres to write.
Plot reminder:
Young Piper, age fourteen, gets time-traveled by her 'buff-bro'/genius cousin via his time machine after a very annoying, edgy, Netflix 'Wednesday' theater talent-seeker rejects her for the main role of a Hamlet parody, 'HAM-let.' You liked that joke? Good. The author's going to repeat it ten times, maybe more. His mock play gets the most character development in the novel.
After a very short interaction with some generic poor peasants and what I believe is the only surrounding description in the whole novel, we meet 'Poofy pants,' a so-called 'Inquisitor' who behaves more like a tax collector or some other manner of publican.
There's also no church or further development relating to inquisitors or witches in the remaining novel; it's just Poofy pants. Maybe he's a part-time Inquisitor, Priest, Tax-collector, Nanny, and Jester, pretty much whatever the plot requires.
He gets scared when Piper pulls out an iPhone (judging by how quickly the battery drains) and later arrests her. You like the joke about the medieval retard getting scared of an iPhone? Because you'll hear it about a dozen times. Two gagged speech jests and three indecent ankles later, we're about to see how Piper gets executed on the grounds of witchcraft, no trial, questioning, or anything. Luckily for her, the King's daughter gets kidnapped just in time for magic practitioners! How convenient.
Piper goes to the rescue, and finally, we're shown some of this 'Modern witch' premise we were told in the blurb... and it's just her using her phone. You think playing loud audio effects to scare the idiot residents of the Kingdom is a good joke? Because all the 'modern witchcraft' revolves around Piper using her phone. All except that one case where she advises a dude coughing blood to 'wash his hands,' tosses in some oil/oregano emulsion, and calls it a day. I'm sure you'll be fine, bro!
After successfully scaring off the kidnappers, the rest of the novel is pretty much more of the same, with Lord DripBussin' getting scared with dubstep, a potato seller getting robbed with a flashlight, and the DragonRoar.wav showing up about three times with a surprising amount of text for such little story.
The few moments where Piper pulls out her textbook and applies some 'science for dummies' are mostly done in a queer fashion that seems more magical than scientific, with wires that come from nowhere, crocodiles that also come from nowhere, and a flamethrower that pumps fuel magically.
In fact, the author gives up on the whole 'modern witch' concept halfway through and simply introduces 'real magic' out of the blue, with zombies popping in to deus-ex a completely unnecessary siege, and the princess, who's obviously related to Wednesday Addams back in the beginning (careful... there's a plot twist there! Unexpected!), saying, 'Yeah, I'm a necromancer; I summon zombies for a hobby. No one tried to kill me for that, though.' And then there's this ABE dude who warps time like it's a Shonen anime. 'He, he, he... I can reverse time with my right hand while forwarding it with my left. My dreams of world domination will finally come true!'
No worries, though; remember the buff genius? Not Thomas, the other buff genius. Yeah, well, he multiversed in at the critical moment and overwhelmed ABE while coming out of several portals to thwart his Shonen world domination plot.
We fast-forward to the future, and we find out that not only were Thomas and Gerald (the cousin) related... Wednesday is the princess! No... really?"
Not only does the book fails to deliver the jokes half the times, being them too easy like "yeah, I'll have the protagonist call ABE a doo-doo head", and repeats them on top of that; it fails to deliver the very premise that promised us of a modern girl using science and being deemed a witch. It's just a teenager with her phone, and 3/4s of the comedy don't revolve around that concept either.
I think that while it's clear that a lot of time and thought have been placed on this novel, the core idea is essentialy flawed: a teen can't play the role of a "Modern Witch".
Best chapters (in order): 13, 22, 4, 11, 24 (maybe)
For the author: You need to scrap the whole project and rethink how you want thinks to develop. Few things to do:
-Change the protagonist for someone more knowledgable so you can avoid deus-exxing all the time. A history teacher perhaps
-Stop making all the characters except for MC act like retards. Be subtle in your humor, don't seek the easy joke mr. "Jerkward"
-Ellie is an irrelevant character. You might as well remove it. Same with Thomas, who is literally doing you MCs job for her. Maybe Thomas should be our MC?
-Focus. Your princess is not only a completly unrealistic and frustrating character to read, her presence deviates the plot to predictable scenarios and she's plain boring. Same with the "dad want me to play mom" story, it's been told a hundred times.
-STOP with the hamlet play. We get it. You imagined a parody play. Good for you. MOVE ON.
-Either your story is science focused and the humorous part is the role of a reticent medieval community taking modern changes (check webtoon Greatest State Developer) or it's about MC getting surprised about magic being real in the medieval times and finding out the mystery of how it came to dissapear in an action-packed world as it develops later. It can't be both.
-Embrace In-medias-res or return to linearity. That thing you did with the first chapter? Just no. Worse thing? I understand that you wanted to hook your readers, and it wasn't necesary. The first few episodes, 3, 4, were good enough.
4/10
I will upload a full post with my latest illustated creation shortly so meanwhile:
 |
| Abyss Maiden, envoy from the depths |
 |
| The fearsome mirror-thing, mocking the protagonist. |
 |
| "Sega 666", hahaha. |
 |
| No. I did read a lot of things that were supposed to be scary and failed to deliver |
Let's take a moment to appreciate how the author jammed over ten cliffhangers into a mere ten-page Pasta;
"To this day, I regret ever turning around.", "I reached for the doorknob, and my heart sank to my knees. I didn't want to open that door. A feeling of dread hit me so hard I could barely think.", "Nothing in my life will ever be as unnerving as what I saw in her",
"Room six was Hell.", "I fell into what I now know was insanity.", "There was no exit. I was trapped here with it. And then it spoke again.", "Then I saw something I couldn't believe."
"I underestimated the abilities of NoEnd House. Unfortunately, things got more disturbing, more terrifying, and more unspeakable in room eight."
"I knew where I was. This was Hell. Room nine was Hell."
Wait... Wasn't room six hell? Anyways, I'd take to long to transcript all the cliffhangers, but you get the picture.
PR: A man enters the spooky NoEnd House, promising a $500 reward for reaching the end. However, the house itself is underwhelming, with one-third of the rooms being, as the author describes, "carbon copies" – simple wooden rooms with a lamp and chair.
The narrative features an inverted forest, how creative, a dark room, another dark room, and the protagonist's house, but his parents are dead. The first part concludes with the expected cliffhanger: his house is actually level ten. Wait, wasn't his house level seven?
Second Part
As the narrator describes the "Halloween music" playing in the background, accompanied by cringy horror phrases written in blood on the walls – "You can't save him, you can't save yourself" and "There's no escape" – I couldn't help but imagine "Sweet Dreams" Jeff theme song playing in the background. I also had to imagine the blood, in the story it's just plain boring SMS
I love the narrator's emotional inconsitency. First line? guilt. Second? Concern and fear. Third?
 |
| She's laughing like it's carnival |
Ah yes. "the reason the little girl terrified me. She was more than just a small child. Looking at her, I also saw what appeared to be a large man, covered in hair, with the head of a ram", peak horror right there.
Anyways, PR:
The first part prota's GF gets into NoEnd house to try and rescue him without any plans or gear, or weapons or anything. Intentions' what matters, right? She predictibly gets trapped into the house and discovers - after going thorugh extremely similar rooms than the first part but changed order - that Petey, MC's addict friend, is running the house. You can get a few hints of this by how sexist "management" is since GF gets like five managements' "you might need this" and MC just once. GF stabs the dude and becomes management herself, end of plot.
 |
| "When out of ideas just throw in some goat devils and you're good" -Brian Russell, author of NoEnd house |
Some people have said this isn't as bad as Sonic.exe or Jeff the killer, but Sonic at least has the excuse of being a game-based Pasta and Jeff is much funnier, and both are much shorter: this garbage of a plot got stretched for 7000 words of pure repeating the first part's moments, poor grammar, and redundacy. 1/10
PR: Under the pretense of journalism, MC goes to some failed disney project to loot all that isn't attached to the ground because - hey - it's abandoned
 |
| Sorry, eighty-feet pythons |
PR: When the narrator receives a letter from childhood friend Roddy, he goes to assist him through his mental illness of acute hypersensitivity and the demise of his sister shortly after his arrival.
Poe's narration and ambiance building never cease to remind us of how the Usher house is at the bend of a very long slope of decay. Even the cornerstones placed by the Usher's forefathers are moldy and cracked. The trees are dry, and the tarn, which we suppose was once a pristine mountain lake, is now a nasty bog.
Roddy decides to follow a tradition he has read in a medieval pamphlet of looking over his sister's dead body for two weeks, presumably to ensure she doesn't get trapped alive. On the third night, a huge storm comes, and while using the "tale within a tale" technique, the narrator reads aloud a medieval knight fantasy story to Roddy. The sounds, such as grating noises or the fall of a metal shield, coincide with the story. We, as readers, already suspect that Maddy is possibly alive, so we are at the edge of our seats, yelling at the characters, "Come on, it's her! Go check!" Eventually, Roderick cracks and confesses to having heard noises from the very first night, faint at first and louder now. Madeline confronts her brother as he finishes speaking by pouncing on him, covered in blood. The narrator flees the scene and watches as the already brittle mansion collapses with both siblings inside, and the tarn swallows the remnants of the Usher lineage.
It's interesting how Poe manages to create multiple possible interpretations of what happened in this short story. These range from "It's a disease that causes near-dead homeostasis, and Roderick is just crazy" to "Demons and curses plague the lineage, and Madeline has come back from the dead to kill her brother" to "Roderick was crazy, and his belief that the family was cursed prompted him to kill his sister, but failed to do the job properly." Regardless of interpretation, the story is enjoyable, despite a strange beginning and long intro. 9/10
How often have we accused others or been accused of hypocrisy?
How many times have we heard, "Dad/Mom is such a hypocrite, telling me I shouldn't smoke while puffing on menthols, or that drinking is bad for me while cracking open a Lone Star"? Or, "Grandma is calling out her granddaughter for having a boyfriend so young, while she had her first kid at fifteen." We've all encountered similar examples. They're such hypocrites, right? Wrong.
Let's break it down example by example. The first thing we notice is how people try to pass off an action as having the same value regardless of surrounding conditions.
Take Papa, for instance. He told his son he's a dork for watching Let's Play videos, then sat on the couch and turned on an NBA or soccer game. He even started telling the screen what the players should do, as if they could hear him.
Papa came home tired from his nine-to-five job or was enjoying his leisure day. He sat down, turned on the TV, and switched channels. He saw Marvel's new "Marvel Universe" fiction and got lost in the superhero references, thinking it's silly. He switched to another channel and saw classics he used to like as a youngster, now altered beyond recognition, such as the Mad Max saga. He saw game-based movies and series like Fallout and Borderlands, and grew tired of seeing the same two old movies on the "Classic" channel. Eventually, he stopped at a football or soccer game. It didn't require much plot focus, no subtitles, and had the push-and-shove tension of a sport he probably played.
A game stream, on the other hand, lasts about twice as long as a match. People watch game streams for two reasons: either they enjoy the game's plot but don't like the gameplay or can't run it, making it like a TV series with very long episodes, or they enjoy watching a personality suffer through an excruciatingly bad or boring game while making fun of it, which has almost nothing to do with sports.
Was Dad a jerk for calling his son stupid? Yes. Was he wrong because he watches sports? No.
What about drinking and smoking? Chances are, parents who consume these substances are addicts, preferring not to have started in the first place because quitting is now so hard. Their concern is legitimate; they think they're done for, and their child is the future, who shouldn't indulge in vices that could compromise that future.
Grandma lived in a different era, where having a boyfriend wasn't a concept; instead, she had a fiancé, probably chosen or approved by her family. In those times, conceiving at a younger age was common. Perhaps Grandma suggests being more discerning when engaging in a first sexual encounter, considering the changing times.
Notorious cases of political hypocrisy denounce racism in other countries while ignoring deeply rooted issues at home. Instead of pointing fingers, perhaps we should question why other countries have a say in our domestic affairs.
It's better to address the root problem behind these situations and assess surrounding circumstances rather than point fingers to feel better. What if Republicans are vehemently celebrating Trump's return? Shouldn't Democrats question what went wrong with their candidate instead of focusing on the other party's flaws? The lesser evil is still evil; just because someone else does something bad doesn't make it okay for us to do it too.
 |
| Neverending greed is one of the MC's defining traits |
Constantly making both the reader and Javier, the ever-loyal Frontera's Knight, wonder whether being evil resides solely in the outcome of one's action or the reason, often unseen, that lays behind, Greatest Estate Developer keeps us hooked in entwining plots and difficulties that plague the Frontera's land, never shying away from certain absurdness and, of course, explosive action.
Through all these 100 episodes, this has proven to be an original piece in a genre that's composed almost solely of tropes, which is an achievement all on itself. I felt that while the story continues onwards after, the best was this first 100 episodes and that unfortunately the authors won't be able to keep this level for much longer. I thought it only fair to stop here and give the rating this deserves at least until this point. 9/10
 |
| "They're the same picture" |
The plot is a little fuzzy in my mind but it went something like this: two kids were abandoned by their father and grew up with their mother who died while they were still young, so they do what any son would do given the chance; try and go resurrect her.
Of course, it didn't quite as planned as the big bro becoming Winter soldier and the little bro turning into a Fallout Brotherhood member.
With the help of the government, they'll try to go back to their normal meat suits although their current state is much better than what they were before.
Against them, a very cartoonized version of the Catholic church (the punching bag of the century for TV shows) and even the seven deadly sins, not exactly sure why.
No, not those seven deadly sins, other guys with the same concept and the same strange half-baked philosophical issue of not liking their bodies. "Oh, no! Who am I? Why do I look like someone who has died if I'm not that someone?" They waine the whole show.
 |
| There's a ton of 'em but only two are actually important |
I would be much more grateful had I had a body impervious to bullets and immune to all manners of illness, but they wanna be real boys.
Anyway, as in many shows, the missing Father turns out to be behind it all which is pretty standard. In the end, it leaves us with a bunch of pseudo-philosophical questions and a pretty bland accept yourself for who you are... But considering that it was meant to be a kid's show the result is outstanding. It has a darkish atmosphere at moments and it outshines the other Shonen anime. Recommended for individuals between the age of 10 to 14, but otherwise... 4/10
 |
| Nice haircut chump. How much gel is in that thing? |
Sis dies in the périple but the main character is miraculously saved by a band of insurgents called "Night Raid" which kind of makes it easy to confuse them with regular burglars. Later on the anime they get surprised that they're being targeted by propaganda.
Anyway, after the ploy is revealed and he finds out that the local politicians are as crook as they come, he decides to join the cause. Of course, this motley crew has no clue of how exactly to overthrow the government so they just randomly kill nobles hoping that eventually, that'll destabilize the dominating power or something. A very complex, solid, and fool-proof plan, as you can see.
 |
| Maybe they are just common burglars? |
Like many of these kinds of anime, all characters have different powers that come from something that works like a magical relic, stuff like a sword that kills by just grazing people, a small dog that turns into a really big dog, or an armor that's impossible to penetrate.
There are certain balance issues with the power of those relics, here you have these very unwieldy pair of scissors that can cut anything if you manage to get close enough, and there you have the demon extract that allows you to freeze anything including time itself, but's supposedly compensated by low-survival rates at more powerful relics.
At that point, we got good fights, cool powers, and a very clichè dystopian setting but functional to the story. It's a four, maybe a five, nothing too special- but the ending (as anticipated by the hint) gives the show an emotional boost. Since the characters were more-or-less developed, mainly through flashbacks, it hits the viewer when they die and are not defended by the usual plot armor that the main characters have. Worthy of an 8/10
 |
| What we were advertized |
The best part of the anime is the devil's design (except for the katana devil where the studio practically plagiarized itself, since the design is the same as chainsaw man) and the fights if you ignore their outcome. Now, the main character s a joke, so when they try to make him sound serious after nine episodes of the guy saying "Touching boobs is my dream" or "I'm putting my life on the line every day killing demons so I can bone my boss" it's really hard to believe him.
 |
| What we were given. Funny thing nothing ever happens, it's all tease |
To speak truly, I'd say that Aki, the generic broody character with a revenge quest, would make a better main character and that Chainsaw should be the comic relief. As for the outcome of the fights, the second part of the season makes it clear that relevant characters have plot armor thicker than China's wall. They can get shot in the head, split in half, stabbed through the skull, choked to death, etc, just give them a couple of minutes and they're peachy back again so that practically settles that they'll win every fight to come since they can't die.
There are other plot holes, such as if they want to find the gun devil, which is a gun dealer, they can just follow the money trail just like they would do with any normal dealer. Or, don't send your squads to a gunfight with a suit and a knife, send them with armor and assault rifles, and provide them with backup and snipers. No wonder they all go private. I think that the "ecchi" component is unnecessary and that it ruins the mood. Not to mention that the ending is weak, completely lacking thrill, reducing the impression the anime causes. 4/10
The conventional five-star and ten-out-of-ten rating systems have become stale, visually uninspired, and inadequate for capturing the nuance...
