On David's Brain Toku Vlog #1 September 26th 2015

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My very first V-Log where I talk of Ninninger 30 and my current thoughts of Kamen Rider Drive.

Video Game Review: Persona Retrospective: Persona (PSP) Part 10: The End.....

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Yep it's high time we finished this look at Persona 1. Where we last left off the group had figured out how to stop Pandora and save Maki. To do this they need the three compacts carried by the three different aspects of Maki's personality, they already have the ones from the Ideal Maki and Mai, now they need to get the compact from the real Maki who has hidden herself away in the Alaya cavern. The team arrives when they get another vision from Zordon.

"Pardon?"

Sorry wrong exposition buddy. He explains that the Alaya cavern leads to the sea of souls from which the souls of all of mankind is born from and eventually return. He also says that Maki is planning on returning to that sea and only Naoya and her ideal self can follow. So they do and to everyone reading so far welcome to hell! Personal story time here when I first played this game back around 2012 this was the part where I gave up, in this dungeon there are only two party members, demons that can't be negotiated with, who are also around level 50 and unless you've prepared yourself with the right Personas and have memorized their weakness' will slaughter you like sheep. Oh and need I remind you of the incredibly low chances to run away, and that if you fail to run away when you try the enemies get themselves a free shot? If no then I just did; you're gonna die, a lot.

So the two make their way through this hell and when they reach level B8 (and remember this dungeon closes once you find Maki and leave so this is your only chance to do this) they find someone who looks exactly like Naoya that's playing a video game who says that he knows exactly what kind of person you are. He shows you points in your journey where a choice needed to be made. If you made the right choice you get a Fusion Totem that's used to create a character's Ultimate Persona, and luckily for you all I wrote down all of those choices as they appeared in my previous reviews; aren't I just such a nice guy?

Anyway there are Ultimate Personas for each Party member, however certain party members are only available during certain story lines, Mark, Maki and Reiji are exclusive to the SEBEC quest and Yukino is only available during the second story which I'll cover next time. So for now here are the Ultimate Personas for the current party. First is Naoya who's Ultimate Persona is Amon-Ra of the Emperor Arcana.

Self Created King of the Gods of the Egyptian Pantheon, Amon-Ra is the champion of the poor and central to personal piety.

 Maki gains the Powers of Verdandi of the Priestess Arcana.

One of the three Norns of Norse Mythology who determines the fate of all men, her name translates to "to be".

 Nanjo's Ultimate is Yamaoka of the Judgement Arcana.

The rebirth of Nanjo's faithful butler as an aspect of his master's soul.

 Mark's Ultimate Persona is Susano-o of the Chariot Arcana.

Born from the filth washed off of Izanagi after he failed to save Izanami from the Underworld, Susano-o is the storm of Summer and is the brother of Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi the gods of the Sun and Moon respectively.

 And last but not least Reiji, Mot of the Death Arcana.

The Semitic god of Death who is constantly trying to consume Baal. And was only stopped by his father threatening to overturn his throne.

However don't think you can just fuse them right away. They can only be fused once Naoya is at the level of the Persona, so if you're at that level already then fuse away, equip Naoya and Maki with their Ultimate Personas if you can fuse them and trudge onward. While the five are awesome in their own way the best is in my opinion Amon-Ra; since once it's at full power it unlocks the Hieroglyphein attack. A spell that deals incredible damage against demons of the fiend and tyrant order, which includes the final bosses. But that's a whole way away for now.

The two finally corner the real Maki; who after the ideal Maki reads her the riot act about how she just kept whining about how much her life sucked instead of actually trying to change herself gives up the compact and tells the two to stop Pandora in the Avidya world. The two make it back to the three and with all three compacts they open the door to the Avidya world which is behind the door in the school. Now be careful people the Avidya world is the largest dungeon in this story line and not only does it have super strong demons but it also has pit traps that could send you back to near the beginning. Which means that you'll have to go all the way back to where you were before fighting all the way through. But this also makes for a great place to train your party members' Ultimate Personas and there are stores, gun-shops a save room and a Velvet Room so yeah could be worse.

So after all of this you finally encounter Pandora.

Oops sorry wrong monster.

But you can tell how I'd get mixed up so easily.

Not only does Pandora look like something that crawled out of a nightmare it has an equally nightmarish goal. She's managed to steal the core of the Deva System somehow and is planning on using it like how Hellmaster Fibrizo wanted to use the Giga Slave spell and destroy all of reality. But just like with the demon brat the five aren't going to let that happen, though our group actually has a chance against this incarnation of evil. Pandora can still be quite a problem for an under leveled party, especially once she starts using her Paralyze Puncture attack, which not only hits everyone with non elemental damage but it also has a chance to paralyze your team members as well. This isn't helped by the fact that she constantly uses buffing spells to raise her attack and defense so have a Persona that can use Dekaja with one of your party members and be sure to bring a lot of Dis-Stone and Dis-Paralyze with you or be ready to become the end piece.

After she goes down she sheds the monster cocoon and comes at the group again as a giant humanoid with Butterfly wings. This form allows Pandora to switch between a Red haired version of herself and a blue haired version. The Red haired one is the offensive one and has the attack Butterfly Storm which hits all enemies with non elemental damage and can cause random status effects. The Blue haired version is the defensive form, not only can she recover some HP but she also has the skill All Guard which protects her from all damage and the Symphony of Lament skill which can hit all of your characters with Guilt and remember folks if their Guilt counters are high enough they can't attack.

So once you've taken care of Pandora Naoya, Reiji, Nanjo and Mark return back to their world where the crisis has passed and the group goes on with their life's which I won't spoil here. Mostly because we'll catch up with some of the group in Persona 2. Though we do know from this epilogue that Reiji will have a son, but take my advice Mr Kido; do not name him Shinji because trust me dude

having Shinji Kido wandering around the world of Persona would be nothing but trouble.

But we're not done yet because as alluded to earlier there is a second story in this game and I'll begin coverage of that next time.

Shin Megami Tensai Persona is owned by Atlus and Sega.
Silent Hill Homecoming is owned by Konami, and Double Helix Games.  
Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. 

Tokusatsu Review: Kamen Rider Drive & Gaim Taisen Full Trottle Part 3: Heavy Metal 2015

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 Sorry for the impromptu break folks, helping my little brother move in to college, helping my family with some personal business, working some scheduling problems at my money making job and finding out how to turn this into a money making job blah blah blah anyway time to wrap this pony up and send it to bed. We open the last arc of this movie with Megahex ZZZ returning back to the Big Reddy Star which then becomes gold and shoots out gold versions of the pods from before which release mechanical recreations of Elementary Inves and Low-Class Roidmudes.

 Gaim, Ryugen and Zangetsu-Shin fight off the forces but Megahex shows up again to essentially gloat and give its whole, individuality is meaningless resistance is futile shtick. But back up is on the way in the form of Drive. Gaim and Drive exchange some silly small talk.

Kneel before Space God fool!

 But it's cut short when Megahex notices that both of its prime threats are in the same area so it decides to pull out the big guns and creates a robot version of Kaito.

Um Takatora, Megahex didn't bring back anyone he just created robot versions of them. You do know the difference right? Jeez maybe he took some brain damage from that coma he was in.

 Mecha Kaito then transforms into Baron and says that he knows what he has to do, which is to attack Megahex. Wait what? Um Kaito you do know you're not the real Kaito right? You're a skin job created by Megahex so you shouldn't be able to turn against it like that, and for that matter Megahex, why didn't you destroy Mecha Kaito the minute it turned against you? You made it; you can just as easily unmake it. So why don't you? If not then you just gave the two guys that are trying to destroy you another ally in their efforts to do so, did absorbing that Roidmude give you a virus or something?

 Moving on, Baron after passing the Voight-Kampff test declares that Megahex's Borg collective idea is bullshit so it'll destroy it. So after some dialogue about free will and individuality that's about as subtle as a trumpet blowing in your face the two forces face off. Ryugen and Zangetsu tell Gaim to go with Drive to take out Megahex while they hold off the grunts Megahex summoned. More Mecha Inves and Roidmudes show up but the three Riders get back up from Heart, Brain and Chaser. Why are they helping; well they're not going to let some Anti Spiral Knock-off and his fake Roidmudes wipe out individuality, so Heart and Brain transform into their Evolved forms and aid the Riders.

 As for the Main Riders they're able to hold their own against Megahex, that is until its regeneration kicks in. Belt tells them that they have to damage Megahex faster then it can regenerate, Mai then shows up to help the two Riders exchange powers. So right out of absolutely nowhere Shinnosuke gets the Fruits Basket Shift car and Kouta gets the Drive Lockseed.

Becoming Drive Type Fruits and Gaim Drive Arms.

 I know that I should be harping about how those two came right the hell out of nowhere; so I will. You guys do know that the Shift Cars actually have to be built right, you can't just make one pop right out of thin air. As for the Drive Lockseed Gaim and Wizard's movie established that the creation of a Rider Lockseed requires a Rider's Power Totem to be infused into an unripened Lockseed so where did it come from, did a Shift Car give itself up to become the Fruits Shift Car? Oh, what's that? It's never explained right right, that was stupid of me asking legitimate questions, blugh.

 So the two reengage Megahex and with their synchronized speed are able to outpace its regeneration; managing to destroy it. However ZZZ's core was absorbed by the Wet Willy Star. Krim thinks that now that it has a Roidmudes core it has the same weakness' as a Roidmude and if the two destroy the core Megahex goes with it. So the two take a page from the Nostalgia Critic and drive into space with Tridoron.

I don't know what you're smoking Krim, that's the freaking Delorian! Man, Doc Brown is gonna sue somebody!

 So the two Riders pile in and fly off to destroy Megahex once and for all. However Megahex uses more of the Roidmude data to send a new creature after the two.

MUST GO FASTER, MUST GO FASTER, MUST GO FASTER!

 But even with that visage of pure evil on their tail the two Riders manage to make it inside of the Golden Freddy Star. They manage to get rid of the demon bear by... squirting Juice in its face with Tridoron's drifting. Why didn't the security guard just have some OJ when Gold Freddy showed up, now I'm just wondering what would work on the Puppet, Apple Juice, Grapefruit juice? Eh whatever, the Gold Freddy Star has had enough and just decides to crush the three. Drive and Gaim manage to eject at the last second and destroy the core of Megahex and the Megahex Planet itself with a double Rider Kick.

 With the main system destroyed the Mecha Inves and Roidmudes shut down. But sadly so does Baron, the only time it follows the rules is when it gets screwed, irony's a bitch. With the main threat down we begin the wrap up. The three Roidmude leaders head back home, Kouta shakes hands with Shinnosuke then meets up with Mai so the two can go back to planet heaven. But before the two can leave the rest of the Armored Riders show up so they can give their goodbyes. Back in the Drive Pit it turns out that Lupin is still alive.

From a certain point of view.

 Tojo managed to steal a Bat Viral Core and migrated into it after he lost and was ejected from ZZZ. He makes his leave saying that he'll be back to challenge his rival once again.

 So that was Drive & Gaim Taisen. I thought it was pretty good but each had their own problems. Like I said before I have no clue how Megahex knew about the Dragon Fruits Energy Lockseed to recreate it for Mecha-Ryoma, as well as never knowing how Megahex knew about the Roidmudes. He only learned about them after he absorbed ZZZ so how did he know enough about them to recreate them if he never encountered them before? Now for Drive's segment which I thought was the weakest of the two, mostly because of the shift from Megahex to Lupin. That part basically suffers from what I like to call Divatox syndrome, where the scale of the newest treat doesn't come close to that of the previous one.

 Going from assimilating machine planet that's able to out-power and steal the powers of Gods, to a thief, see what I'm getting at here? Though thankfully Lupin was nowhere near as bad as Divatox as we saw him kicking everyone's ass but good, but that's about all there was to the guy. The biggest problem with the ending was in Kouta's characterization in his segment what little time we had with him, he still had his mature calm godly demeanor and personality form where we left him at the end of his show. But as soon as Drive showed up he started acting like he was at the beginning of his series, it's like the writer for the end of this movie only watched the first few episodes of Gaim and stuck with that characterization for Kouta. Which really doesn't make any sense given the ordeals and what he experienced during the course of that show.

As for Megahex itself, as I pointed out in the first part of this review it's basically The Borg, Anti-Spiral, Homura and Cooler all rolled into one but I think it still worked for this movie. I mean come on when one of the heroes of this movie is a literal god a threat of that size and power is essential in my opinion, any threat of a lower scale killing Kouta would have been more then a bit ridiculous. It's design was rather simple but efficient, it's a logic driven AI why would it need to look overly bombastic, sometimes the simplest design is the best.  All in all, this movie was just okay, it didn't suck it wasn't glorious but it was more then serviceable. Speaking of unfinished business I think that next time I'll finally finish my retrospective of Persona 1.

Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
Five Nights at Freddy's is owned and created by Scott Cawthon.
Star Wars is created by George Lucas, owned by Lucas film, the Walt Disney Company and 20th Century Fox.