Pokemon Creepypasta: Inadequate Gold

Been working on this for a week or so. Give it a watch. It's a completely true story!

Clannad Review

Before I get into this. I want to throw this note out there; this is ONLY for Season 1. After Story is going to be a completely separate review. There is a reason I'm doing this as well which I will get to when I get to it.

Key anime are usually something that I enjoy more than others. They have a unique style of storytelling, they are handled in a way that the one watching can't expect what would happen what with supernatural coming into play like time travel and magic. But like I mentioned, it's handled in a way that it's not ABOUT the supernatural... it just happens to be involved. Like for instance, a character could find a bracelet which is known for causing unusual things to happen. They find it and put it on and all of a sudden, they start hearing voices and altering stuff... but that's about it. It doesn't get involved much than that. Because the anime is more about the story of just them living their lives rather than the Supernatural occurring around them.

The way Key anime usually works is: Each character has an Arc. You'll have a few set of unique characters which are introduced in episode 1, sometimes episode 2. Each of these characters will be unique in some way and throughout the anime you'll be in suspense to figure out just what is up with these characters. They'll all act something different than usual from everyone else, give off small hints to their true nature, and in the end it all comes together. It's kind of Haruhi, where the three friends were an Esper, Alien, and Time Traveller.. You didn't find these out  until the end but it all eventually makes sense when it happens.

Now the reason I felt this one was particularly suited for a review was because this one was the odd-man out for the entire patterns these anime generally go on. And for me to figure out a way to explain what I mean might be a tad bit difficult since.... well, to be put it simply; I think Clannad was handled.... extremely poorly.
I hate to throw out my opinion of something so early in a review, kind of destroying interest of what the conclusion will ultimately be, but this is my review. Get over it.

Now when it comes to the characters, you got:

Nagisa: The female love interest to the main character. She's shy, weak, a crybaby, a very sweet girl. I like Nagisa a lot. She reminds me of the perfect girlfriend to have. She doesn't care about little things and just takes life on day by day. She's been held back a grade because she's been sick so long that she fell behind in school. All she wants to do is to have a Drama class and make plays.

Tomoya: The main character. Now let me say, Key's main characters are pretty much the same guy over and over. They're all confused, silly, amnesiac, and kind of self-centered. Tomoya takes no exception to this rule. I think of all the main characters throughout the series, Tomoya might be my 2nd favorite? It's kind of hard to put them all on a scale when they're all the same, pretty much. I like him though.

Kyou: She is kind of... Tomoya's best female friend. Pardon me if my information is wrong, but I think these two have been friends for quite a while and she kind of looks up to Tomoya. She's pretty rash and protective.  I think she's probably the second most interesting female character in the anime. If Nagisa wasn't Tomoya's obvious love-interest. I'd like her to be...

Tomoyo: Tomoyo kind of just... is there. I never understood the point of Tomoyo. She reminds me an awful lot of Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh. But only because they're both very athletic, strong, and loves animals. About that loves animals part, she tends to show up dressed as a bear... this is kind of unexplained...  I really don't think she has much point to the anime outside of kicking Tomoya's friends ass for hitting on her and challenging her.

Ichinose: She's smart and can't play the violin.

That's about the extent of her.

Ibuki: I cannot stand this little girl. She likes starfish and thinks they're the most amazing thing ever. She uses them as invitations to her sisters wedding. She's so boring and stupid and serves no purpose. She's not really even a friend to anyone outside of them pitying her for trying so desperately to get people to come to this wedding.

You see, the first problem this anime has is the characters. To compare it to previous installments, the arcs "supernaturality" are almost non-existant. They're just small little stories which even have trouble holding their water in being called stories... because they're just so rushed and uninteresting that the entire anime would be unchanged without them. But this is something rather interesting because, like I said earlier about Ibuki and her starfish, she's the ONLY PERSON in the entire anime with a hint of Supernatural surrounding her, which is a shame because she's such an annoying character in the first place. I get this hunch that she was intended to be this adorable character which I'm suppose to empathize with... but she's just not. She's not interesting.

Aside from Ibuki though, the story centers almost TOO much on Nagisa, like normally the idea is to kind of give you a bunch of options for what the main character would like as an interest. As the roots of these anime are based off of dating simulators.... and they even attempt to make it a plot element; who he will end up with. But I kind of assumed it would be the girl who 80% of the anime is based off of. How surprised I was when I found out I was right.

The second problem the anime faces is the point of it all. What was the point of the anime? You see throughout the entire season(s), there's always this story going on about this little girl whose the last person in the world who is trying to build a robot because... well, she can. And this robot is the only thing  to keep her company in this world. At first this entire story was very interesting to me, and eventually turns into the play that Nagisa wants to put on. And as for the first season, this entire subplot is rendered pretty inane.



The overall feeling I got from this entire anime was that it couldn't take itself seriously. You see, Kanon and Air both had it's fair share of goofiness which helped tell the story and keep you interested, but Clannad kind of takes it to the next level where almost entire episodes are brought to this level of goofiness that it wastes time that could have been used to develop characters or even make boring characters ( Tomoyo, Ichinose ) even more interesting than they were. Ultimately, I had a VERY hard time watching this completely, and it was pretty much the the 2nd season that motivated me to continue on, which I will get onto next.

Pokemon Cards

So lately I've been in a real pokemon mood lately. I've been working on this creepypasta, I picked up Pokemon Platinum, and I've been researching new and old glitches which were completely unknown to me. So things have been really interesting to me... so I began to reflect on my past of Pokemon and the greatest parts of them. Looking back on all the games and stuff relating to said game; I'd have to say Pokemon cards were probably the crowning moment of Pokemon... or to be specific, Generation 1 of Pokemon.

The awesome thing about Pokemon cards were actually the things that you didn't know about them. Like when I was a kid, the Japanese cards, Ancient Mew, Charizard, and Gen. 2 were probably the biggest things in Cards. Hell, I remember at one point in time, I went to a Toys-R-Us during a Pokemon convention and I traded.... something... for a Southern Island Togepi. Something that was very rare and very valuable ( back in the day ), and that to me was very exciting; you didn't run into these cards, you didn't know where they came from and it was something special to have them in your possession.

My most valuable cards I have now are probably Zapdos, Allakhazam, and Ancient Mew.... Looking back on it, I really don't have very many holofoils as this all happened when I was in 6th grade. It's a shame too because as I reflect on these things, trading and collecting these cards was probably the most fun I've had. It even got me slightly interested in Magic the Gathering.

It's kind of a shame that the fad ended so quickly. With the saturation of Gym cards, Diamond and Pearl, and whatever other decks that came along; once the original series was ousted, I officially quit caring about the trading card game. I remember going to the mall one day and Pokemon Cards were like... 1.99 a pack, and I was like "Oh shit! What a deal!", so I decided to buy a pack and sure enough I got a Holographic Nintetails; this was from the original deck... EXCEPT it had a giant "Second Edition" on the lower left. This pretty much cemented in my head that this entire game was dead to me. I could no longer collect the original decks and considering the newer decks were not that cared for; they were worthless. This was a horrible day.

I remember my very first Pokemon booster pack. I got a Hitmonchan from it... I remember back in these days, finding an actual store that sold cards was almost impossible. I had to convince my parents to drive 50 miles north to some mall for, not a Booster pack, but a Deck Starter kit ( the ones that contained a Holofoil, a bunch of cards and energy ). To my knowledge only ONE store ever sold them, and they wanted like 5 bucks a pack for them. My parents were always broke so I never had the opportunity to get them...

Sometimes I have the urge when I'm shopping around at Walmart to just pick up a pack and see what I get. I know that I'll probably end up being disappointed, I'll get some worthless holographic card vs a more rare worthless holographic card. And I'll just get some nostalgic depression afterwards, kind of like I am now. But you know what? I think it's still kind of cool that the card game is going on. Something that I enjoyed as a child can be enjoyed by other children and hopefully the game will become popular again. I know it's unlikely... but anything to revive my old childhood hobby would make me really happy once again.

My Diablo 3 Review

So Diablo 3 has been out for a while and I was crazy enough to preorder the game about.... a year in advance before any one else ( my friend worked there and confirmed this ). Now I'm gonna go out on a limb and let the lot of you know, I NEVER pre-order anything. I think it's a stupid waste of time, it's going to be there and having a piece of paper that says you're entitled to it just seems like some unneeded self-satisfying busywork. So for me to pre-order this tells you how excited I was to play this game.

Now what's funny about Diablo 3 is, considering how excited I was for it... I KNEW there was no way that it could ever compare to Diablo 2. Diablo 2 was THE perfect RPG. It was pristine upon release and just got better with version updates and expansion release. I remember the days when you could buy an inventory full of Hex Small Charms and duo Amazon and Barbarians; this was what make Diablo great. So I had to come into this game with little expectations; I already had perfect. For anyone to disagree with this, you either got into Diablo 2 VERY late or you just don't like RPGs.

So what was my reaction to finally playing this game?

Bitter.

I mean, I knew what I was getting myself into. I can get over the removal of stats, I can get over the lack of skill trees, I can even get over the lack of Rune Words.... but for how long this game was on the stove, it could not feel any less finished, like I couldn't tell you what took so long for this game to come out considering how half-assed everything seems. And what's funny was it wasn't even released complete. But let's not jump right into my opinion.

My first impression of Diablo 3 were actually pretty good. You start off in a town next to the old Tristram and investigate a meteor crashing right on top of the old Sanctuary from the first Diablo game. The graphics were pretty good, the gameplay is spectacular with its phsyics; each swing feels powerful and it never gets old when attacking monsters. And the interface of the game is far superior to the older games. So yes this game DOES have it's higher points to it.

Act 1 was probably the best act though. as it felt the most finished... but it's "finished" parts are kind of what bugs me about Act 1. Let me explain, Tristam and the Sanctuary were kind of redesigned, and by kind of I mean... completely. Like the walk to Adria's hut was, rather than a small bridge past a small river was changed to a 2 mile hike past a huge river and into this cave system which was FAR out of Tristam. Tristam no longer looks the same, the only similarities are the well and.... well that's about it. 

I mean, I can kind of understand why they would do this but it also contradicts your source material, even Diablo 2 was faithful to the source material for the most part. Now it looks like a completely different town with a completely different Sanctuary; the original had a blue tint to it... now it's dark red and looks NOTHING like the original. It's a small gripe, but I excused it.

Okay so now we have the stats and bonuses to weapons. This is something that kind of prevented me from getting attached to the game. You see in Diablo 2, I ALWAYS played as the Sorceress. She was always my favorite to play as, she teleported with little cost, did great AoE. So clearly I'd choose the Wizard in ths game.... THE PROBLEM is the Wizard's only stat is INT and damage+, which is fairly boring. Hell, in Diablo 2 I had Sorc Skill+, Faster Cast Rate, Mana regen, Resistances, Lower enemy resistances.... 

Yeah, a few of those are present in this game, but it's no where on the same level as 2. It feels like Im forced to just take the INT and HOPE that a second stat is attached to it. Which is kind of easy to find because you also have the Auction House, which in my opinion was a great addition and a huge flaw to the game. I think the Auction House actually might contradict the entire point of Diablo 3 which is to FIND loot. But anyways, I digress on that point...  Finding loot in this game was Too Easy and Too Hard all at the same time.

You see, when leveling my Wizard I notice that on bosses I was doing SEVERELY low damage and dying pretty hard and this is because of my previous point; there are next to no stats on these weapons and armor you find. And with the lack of stats to put into whatever you want, you cannot alter the damage you do on the base. So what does this mean? I can either: Kill the same few enemies and hope for something or I can pay a piddly amount of gold for something with the level capped amount of Intelligence. Yeah, this is where the Too Easy comes in, because there are PLENTY of these items available which all benefit you the same. 

The problem with this is... Diablo as a series is kind of like a casino. You kill the enemies and get a chance at getting the jackpot ( Uniques or Rares ). But in this game, I don't think I EVER found a piece of armor or anything that benefited me because I always found better at the Auction House. This lottery has become much harder to work because Blizzard made it next to impossible to find anything so their Auction House works in their favor; they WANT you to abuse it because it eventually means more REAL money Transactions later on. So stat scaling is unfair, drop rates are unfair, and even the gold is hard to come by.

The story. This is probably what turned me off the most. And this part is going to contain some spoilers. But if you're reading a review for a game and not expecting spoilers, well then you're an idiot. You see, the story is just lacking all over the place, and I'm not sure if I want to explain why it sucks or just list everything that was just poorly conceived. So instead I'll just list my three biggest complaints ( off the top of my head ):

1. Tyrael: Okay, so that meteor I was talking about? That was Tyrael. And I thought this was actually pretty badass. Tyrael's back after the Worldstone was destroyed. What happened to him? Where has he been all this time?

Well... I'm not sure if this was even answered because.... well, I was so bored with the guy I kinda stopped caring. You see, what made Tyrael so badass in Diablo 2 was just how we spoke and how looked. He LOOKED like you don't wanna fuck with him. He was an Angel with Wings bigger than Boeing 777, he glowed white and his voice echoed like he couldn't give a shit to speak to a puny mortal like you.

Now he's some black guy who doesn't really do anything but stand there and tell you what needs to be done. I don't know if this guy is suppose to replace Cain ( I kind of think Adria is actually ) but my god he just is out of place now.  His entire purpose was just to warn us. Got it. Warned. Why are you still here?

2. The Black Soulstone: So this random sorcerer like guy just so happens to have an Anti-Soulstone which just so happens to absorb evil souls, contain them, and destroy them and all evil all at once.

Is this... not just the laziest writing? I really don't have much to say about this except this is stupidest thing in Diablo history.

Image of Belial

3. Belial/Azmodean: So these two were supposed to be the biggest badasses in Hell. You see these two tricked Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal all out of hell and waged war on all of Hell to be rulers. These guys were amazing. This guy was suppose to rule this desert nation with an iron fist... people were scared of him, towns were all on fire because of these guys. They were in the heart of the storm.

I killed Belial in SECONDS. I'm not even sure this guy touched me, he was so pathetic.  And my god did he look stupid.

Jared from ScrewAttack said it the best: "Is there a way to turn this game off of Baby difficulty?"

The story is just so stupid. It feels so rushed and forced. I wish I could throw some metaphor and elaborate just how I came to this conclusion but... no, the story is just flat out stupid. I mean, it was like Blizzard worked on act 1 for the first 5 years of development and finally said "Oh shit, this game needs to come out sometime this year, we gotta do the remaining acts!"

In my opinion, all this game did was make me want to play Diablo 2 more.

Introduction

So true to my word, I decided to make my own Blogger, following Kaz's footsteps. Truly he inspred me to do good things and good things I shall provide. But what will I do? Reviews? Rants? Maybe even go in depth into my mind? I don't know but I'll figure something out.

So to start things off, I just want to say I want to try new things and I definitely want feedback from you. You know who you are. So make sure you view daily because it's definitely going to be updated as often as I can.