Yeah, you didn't read the title wrong. I am doing an anime review.

Why?

Well, although I've been watching anime since Ghost in the Shell became popular (admittedly I was like five then anyway), until about two years ago I didn't really consider myself a full fledged anime/manga fan. I watched the oldies,like Kimba and, well, Ghost in the Shell, and some of the newer anime like One Piece and Naruto. I enjoyed them but I didn't really take them seriously, and by that I mean that I didn't really watch them as deep, philisophical pieces of art, which none of them, except for the first two, were. But ever since reading/watching Phoenix, I have seriously thought about the significance of manga and anime; can they they be works of pure art and genius if you anaylze them past their above the surface meanings?

The answer is a resounding yes.

So from here on along with all the other things I do here on Gamespot, I'm gonna do the occasional manga/anime review. I've seen A LOT, and my challenge is to review everything I've seen. Probably too much, but it's worth a shot.

Okay, then...let's see how this goes.

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Remember how I said that an anime can be a work of art if you can analyze the substance behind it?

Well, Final Fantasy Unlimited has no such substance.

You see, Final Fantasy Unlimited, or FFU, is supposedly based on the Final Fantasy games. An anime with Terra, Sabin, Cecil, Bartz and Cloud? Kick ass, right? Well, not a SINGLE recognizable character from those games appears in FFU, unless you count a single chocobo as a character.

Okay, so the anime is not completely devoid of reference to the Final Fantasy games, but they only exist to fill in the gaping holes left by the plot, which, by the way,is basically this: two scientists, who are husband and wife, find the portal to a fantasy world, called Wonderland (great name for the sake of this anime, right?) and explore it, leaving their children, Ai and Yu (nice parenting, you leave your kids for scientific research and give them ridiculously bad names) behind so that they can follow them through the portal a decade later.

Ai and Yu do not venture to find their parents alone, however. They are accompanied by a chi-harnessing marital arts person...I guess...named Lisa Pacifist (nice subtlety) who does not like to fight. A Vincent Valentine lookalike named Kaze (or at least that's what Yu calls him, with no context to anything) also accompanies them...sorta. He's an amnesiac that, for no reason, protects Ai, Yu and Lisa in each episode with no explanation as to why. Oh yeah, and a chocobo joins them to, also for no reason.

Each episode is insultingly formulaic: A monster pops up, Lisa can't fight it even though she has all sorts of chi-related awesome super moves (or, at least, supposedly she does), and Kaze has to save them using a summoning gun he has on his arm (yeah, a summoning gun) where he summons some random esper from the Final Fantasy games and kills the monster and they move on, although for no reason Kaze disappears at the end of each episode. This makes as much sense as why he cares about the people he protects if he's selfish and if they have no importance or connection to him.

This formula wouldn't be so bad if the characters were interesting, which they are not. At all.

I would feel more sympathy for the fact that Ai and Yu's parents are probably dead in Wonderland and that they go through Hell trying to find them, but I did not for a second care since 1. Ai and Yu are given no real background or character to feel empathy for them and 2. These kids are totally unlikeable.

Okay, that's not entirely true; Yu would actually be the saving grace of this anime if he wasn't voiced by the most atrociously bland voice actor of all time. But he is. This is no exaggeration.

To be fair, Ai and Yu are voiced by child actors, so the lack of experience is understandable. The performances they turn in though as charactersare remarkably bad; so bad that it's practically impossible to not think that they did it on purpose. Ai is extremely annoying and whiny throughout the series and Yu, while more serene and approachable, has the single worst voice pattern in anime history. I've read reviews where people say that the voices of these kids are actually the best this anime has to offer, and some even say they are great performances in general ,and to that I say WTF.

The other characters aren't that bad, but the villans are super corny. Like, Salior Moon or HeMan corny. It's supremely hard to take them seriously at all. Not to mention, the fact that the villans are immortal is just a shallow gimmick to make the anime longer (even when it only lasted 25 episodes).

The art isn't that bad in the later volumes, but the first volume is the absolute worst abomination to art in anime I have ever seen. Osamu Tezuka is probably rolling in his grave. I could honestly represent FFU's scenes and characters better that it does in Volume 1, and even onward, and let's just say I am not the most advanced artist. It's stunning. Characters are represented so plainly and at times blatantly missing arms and legs at points. Again, the later volumes are better in quality, but not so much that they escape mediocrity or even badness.

If there is any kind of saving grace in FFU, it's two things: animation and pure entertainment value. The animation in FFU is really nothing spectacular but considering how awful the art is the animation shines so brightly in comparison.

As for entertainment value, I will at least say that as bad as this show is, it at least had me watching till the end. It's odd; you have no interest whatsoever in the characters or the story or really anything else, but somehow it always grabs your interest. Not to say it's good but the fact it actually entertains you is worth something.

Regardless, Final Fantasy Unlimited is one of the most poorly made anime in the last decade. It wouldn't be as repellent if it was just a plain old anime on its own, but it's not: it's clinging to the legendary Final Fantasy name. So the fact that this show boasts it but has almost nothing pertaining to it is insulting. I'd still say however that it's worth a rental (if you can rent it at all) or a cheap buy, but only because of how awful it is. That is if you aren't so turned off by it's sheer shallowness and ugliness that you won't quit on the first volume.

The Good

Decent animation, it's sort of entertaining

The Bad

One of the worst dubs ever made, shallow characters, horrendously bad art and storytelling, and on top of it, has almost nothing that has to do with Final Fantasy in it

Grade (Yep, I'm using a letter grade system for anime): D-

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Wow. Kind of a biting first review, huh? To be fair, though, FFU is the most recent anime I've seen, so I thought that would be the most appropriate.

Next time I'm just gonna combine my blog posts with my actual reviews. Making them seperate makes it more difficult for me to compel myself to get more involved posting a blog more often than I have time for.

Anyway, here's the review. You may not like the game as much as I did, but boy, it was a great experience for me.

P.S

I got the following for under $50 (No joke):

DVDs: Full Metal Alchemist Volume 1, Ghost in the Shell Volume 1, Final Fantasy Unlimited Volumes 1 and 2

Games: Polarium, Magical Starsign, Trace Memory, Scurge: Hive (the DS version), Budokai 3 (because it was five bucks) and the John Willams Collections for the Xbox 360 (Which I barely play anymore, except for Fallout 3 and Mass Effect, and soon FF 13)

Definitely doing a review on Trace Memory eventually, since I just beat it (man, is it short).

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When you think of Pokemon, what usually comes to mind? Visiting gyms to defeat trainers and conquer their masters? Winning badges? Beating the Elite Four to become the best trainer ever? And...well...catching Pokemon?

None of these things, that have appeared in every Pokemon game in the main series, appears in this game. I admire this to an extent; it means I am not just playing Pokemon Red/Gold/Ruby/Diamond all over again, but it also means it could just be another Pokemon Dash, too. In fact, the only thing that truly compelled me to buy this was the story and challenge of the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game, and while I am not saying it was bad (in fact in my initial review I claimed it was very good) I thought that it, as a game, could have been better. But hey, the story is basically the best of Pokemon, which isn't saying that much, but it WAS pretty involving,

Now, two years later, Chunsoft has basically said, "Screw a true sequel, let's just reinvent things entirely," and has made a game that has basically nothing to do with the first game besides the core story and the actual gameplay. Is this for the better? Yes, definitely. That is the easy answer.

The long answer starts here:

The story is the most complex I have ever experienced in a Pokemon game, and the most dark, at that. Essentially you are a Pokemon was actually a human that has washed up on the ocean, and you are found by another Pokemon. Said Pokemon gets mugged, you help him/her, and he/she asks you to join a exploration team. From there on it goes into a story about how time is being sucked out of the Earth because someone is stealing items called "Time Gears", and how you and your partner go to the future and back to stop the full halt of the time flow of the planet.

I am sure as you were reading the first part, you were like, "This sounds JUST LIKE PMD 1," and at first it is. But it becomes something more than that. It becomes an involvement with the characters, their emotions, their memories, their past, their future...basically all the things that make them memorable characters. Not a single character in the entire game is boring, and pretty much all of them except for the villains are likable and possibly even relatable. Not only that, but it contains true personality and heart, something that is hard to come by in terms of a Pokemon spin off, and from games in general, and that is saying a lot. Not to mention, there are a ton of memorable moments, and while I won't mention them here, they were memorable enough to make me play the game again just to experience them again.

The plot, even when it is so great as is, cannot stand on its own. It needs music, gameplay, replayability and soul. And guess what? It's got them all.

Of course, first thing's first.

Right off the bat, the actual layout of the game is enormously improved from the first game, as options are much easier to access quickly and efficiently. Item management is not as much of a pain anymore either, as your treasure bag increases enough that you won't have to debate on what items to keep or throw away. And as for difficulty, it's still there, but it's not NEARLY as bitingly hard as its predecessor. It is more forgiving in penalty and the dungeons are not as long, either. Although, I will say it is also a bit of a disappointment, because the insane difficulty of the first game was one of its major charms, and it loses a little of it in the crossover to the sequel.

Okay, okay, I am kind of avoiding mentioning the main game here, and for a reason: there isn't much to mention. The game in of itself is the same. It's still challenging, even if it is less so, it's slightly repetitive (it has to be because, basically, the entire genre is repetitive), and its ultimately rewarding. I will say though, like in Chocobo Mystery Dungeon 2, there is that cheap instant-death move like Fury Swipes that will kick your ass and either make you waste a Reviver Seed (or multiple ones, depending on how strong the attack is) or will wipe you out entirely. But at least now it isn't as frustrating. Plus recruiting members isn't as needlessly complicated as PMD 1, where you had to first buy expensive areas for the recruits to live in. Now you can just recruit them normally, which doesn't really make the game that easier since if your recruits die they use your Reviver Seed if you have one on you.

Of course, all this gameplay needs graphics to showcase it, and while the environments outside of the dungeons are gorgeous and inspired, the dungeons are not. Usually, the only thing setting one dungeon apart from another is the objects adorning it and color of them. I won't call them ugly, because they aren't, but they could look so much better. Couldn't they be, in fact, 3-D? Without adding to much technical gimmickry, I don't imagine that would be too hard to accomplish. It could have helped ease the repetition a little.

The sprites are fine, and I don't think I could complain about them even if I wanted to because since it has (almost) all 493 Pokemon, I'd think it would be too much of an effort to make the sprites more fit for the DS hardware to just make the game prettier.

Thankfully, for the most part, most of the games flaws are from it's bland dungeon visuals. It's soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal, it's basically the best I've heard on the DS. Better, in fact, than Drawn to Life 1 or 2 and even rivals TWEWY. Tracks pertaining to the story are the most well-crafted, especially the ending theme, which is, well, one of the single greatest tracks I have ever heard in a video game. No, I am not kidding. It's that good.

Even the dungeon tracks are pretty great, especially Amp Plains, Chasm Cave, Quicksand Cave, and Temporal Tower/Spire. I will admit there are a few tracks out of the HUNDRED OR SO that are dull, but they are far in between and they aren't so bad that you will want to mute the DS.

The game offers you something of an epilogue after you finish the main story, and while the stories that happen afterwards are entertaining and worth playing through, they don't really give more meat to the main story, save one involving Darkrai. That and you have Wi-Fi options with rescuing friends from dungeons and exchanging team data and so on.

You have probably noticed that I have given this game a nine out of ten. In my mind, that is a score to be deserved, and to be honest, this game almost doesn't deserve it. The game play is still too repetitive and the dungeons are bland. But the game just pours heart and soul. It's not so much the concept that succeeds, but the execution. Everything comes together so finely, so neatly, that it becomes more than the sum of its parts. It becomes a memorable experience and, even with its flaws in mind, that is what matters, right?

The Good:
+Heartwarming characters and story
+Rewarding gameplay
+Magnificent music
+Improved Interface and neat Wi-Fi options
+Lasts 25 hours, 30 if you delve into the epilogue
+Has a nice artistic touch outside of the dungeons
+Is full of personality and heart

The Bad:
-At times Repetitive
-Not as difficult as PMD 1
-Bland dungeon visuals

Hi guys. What's going on with you? I'm doing okay, nothing new.

Anyway, here's a review for Drawn to Life 2, and wow, its long. Anyway, enjoy.

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In my mind, 5th Cell is a hardworking, diligent company that releases innovative but flawed games that are still good and well worth playing. Drawn to Life, their first full-fledged game, proved that. It had a few flaws (such as its repetition and uneven pacing) that didn't help the experience, but it still had its charming story and inspired soundtrack that helped make it a good game in the first place. I cannot speak for Lock's Quest, as I've never played it, and Scribblenauts, while again flawed, was extraordinarily ambitious and turned about to be, pretty much, the most innovative game ever made.

Now that Drawn to Life 2 is out, I can safely say that it completely destroys the original. 5th Cell is one of the few companies in the gaming industry that actually listens to the criticisms of their games and they clearly sought to make the sequel to Drawn to Life an improvement, at least. Fortunately, it's more than just an improvement; in general, it's a damn good game.

The story of Drawn to Life 2 goes something like this: Heather, a half light, half dark Raposa (a rodent-ish race) that was rescued in the first game is kidnapped by Wilfre, the main villain of the first game, who takes the color of the village along with her. With no other options, the Raposa follow Wilfre across three villages and one final giant village and eventually find him to discover the truth as to why he did what he did.

That all sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, judging from the incredible twist ending that you will never, EVER see coming, I have doubts of a sequel. The story is simple and frankly childish at first, but it evolves and grows on you each hour you play it, and it turns into a heartfelt and surprisingly emotional tale of betrayal and death.

Anyhow, let's get to the nitty gritty. DTL 2 basically functions the same as its predecessor, but with a couple major, MAJOR improvements. In DTL 1, your task in each level was to scout out for three missing Raposa that were captured by Wilfre. This was not only tedious but it made the levels go unbearably long because of all the searching around you had to do. This, in my opinion, should be done only for extras. Not for the main game.

However, this is not so in DTL 2. In fact, your only true goal is to beat each level. No strings attached. Well...not really. You have to collect color drops in order to restore the color in each village you visit, and you get a set amount of color drops when you beat each level. You will not get enough color to beat the game based on just the color you attain at the end of the level, though, so you'll have to collect the color drops like you would coins in the levels, which, thankfully, does not feel tedious and requires very little level searching.

The levels themselves are shorter too, which is also a plus considering how annoyingly long the levels were in the first game. There are about seven levels per village, and each level, without looking too hard, takes about ten minutes to finish. As you can probably tell, this makes the game pretty short. I finished it at around seven hours, but I spent a little extra time restoring color to villages.

However, the levels are still pretty fun, even if they still feel slightly repetitive. To ease this repetition, there are two extra forms a player can take: blob and spider. The blob can squeeze through narrow passageways and the spider can climb walls and shoot webs. Both make playing through the levels more engaging and interesting as you need them to progress in the game.

Speaking of things that are interesting, let's talk about the bosses: A pirate ghost, a gargantuan robot Raposa, a freakishly large spaceship in a jungle in space, and Wilfre himself. If that does not capture your attention, I honestly don't know what does. While each boss is either of easy or medium difficulty (like the game itself), they each have a twist. The pirate ghost is killed by using his henchman against him, the robot Raposa can only be killed by destroying his outer body, his two cores, and his heart, the spaceship is destroyed by bombs and is then destroyed again from its burners by gunfire, and Wilfre himself is a color-absorbing god on a thundercloud.

The graphics have been given a major artistic boost. Nothing technically impressive will jump out at you obnoxiously like a lot of games do nowadays, but the game's beautifully, detailed drawn worlds will win you over. In fact, there's even a fully animated opening that is both gorgeous and sets the right mood for the game. Not to mention, the in-level creations you can make also look great and are better than the original DTL.

The soundtrack in the first game was hard to beat, but this does it. Each track has its own 5th Cell flavor to it, and for good measure, 5th Cell remixed some of the tracks from the first game. It only does this a handful of times, though, and it doesn't make remixed/reused music the bulk of the audio experience like Explorers of the Sky does. Needless to say, the soundtrack is still just as kickass and inspired as the one from the first DTL was.

After beating the aforementioned seven-hour game, there isn't too much replay value beyond replaying the enjoyable levels, buying tracks, upgrades, and hero guides from the shop, and coloring the levels. However, I believe you can also trade hero templates on WiFi, although I never tried because no one else I know has a copy of this game besides me...

Anyways, Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter is an excellent game that stands on its own. It improves on Drawn to Life in all aspects and comes out to be 5th Cell's best game thus far. It's too bad that there might not be another Drawn to Life, as the series has enormous potential to be even better than this game is. Who knows? Maybe 5th Cell can somehow make a new story from this concept and move forward. Only time will tell.

The Good:
-Improved level design and pacing
-More variety
-Beautiful artwork and animation
-A moving and memorable story
-Awesome Soundtrack
-Great Bosses
-More WiFi and creation options

The Bad:
-Too short
-A bit repetitive
-The occasional small plot hole